Arthur B. Reeve

“ The commissioner seemed to be gratified. "You know," he remarked, "beriberi itself is a common disease in the Orient. There has been a good deal of study of it and the cause is now known to be the lack of something in the food, which in the Orient is mostly rice. Polishing the rice, which removes part of the outer coat, also takes away something that is necessary for life, which scientists now call 'vitamines.'"
"I may take some of these samples to study myself?" interrupted Kennedy, as though the story of vitamines was an old one to him.
"By all means," agreed Leslie. ”

“ Marbury, the mother of Doctor Wardlaw's wife, who died about a week ago—Doctor Aitken."
"Then Wardlaw didn't attend her himself?" asked Kennedy.
"Oh no. He couldn't, under the circumstances, as I'll show you presently, aside from the medical ethics of the case. Aitken was the family physician of the Marburys."
Kennedy glanced at the note. "One is dead. Others are dying," he read. "Who are the others? Who else is stricken?"
"Why," continued Leslie, eager to unburden his story, "Wardlaw himself has the marks of a nervous affection as plainly as the eye can see it. ”

“ Aitken fidgeted uneasily, glancing from Kennedy to Leslie, then to Miss Langdale, and back to Kennedy, without reading any explanation in the faces. I knew that Craig was secretly taking his time both for its effect on those present and to give Chase a chance.
"Our poisons and our drugs," he began, leisurely, at length, "are in many instances the close relatives of harmless compounds that represent the intermediate steps in the daily process of metabolism. There is much that I might say about protein poisons. ”

“ I managed to ask, finally.
"Yes, indeed," he nodded, thoughtfully. "I shadowed Kato from the Forum. It must have been before Miss Langdale came out that he left. He lives down-town in a tenement-house. There's something queer about that Jap."
"I think there is," I agreed. "I don't like his looks."
"But it wasn't he who interested me so much to-night," Craig went on, ignoring my remark, "as a woman."
"A woman?" I queried, in surprise. "A Jap, too?"
"No, a white woman, rather good-looking, too, with dark hair and eyes. She seemed to be waiting for him. ”

“ He has found a woman, a nurse, more than a nurse, a secret lover, cast off in favor of another. Miss Hackstaff—you wrote that letter—it is your hand—for revenge—on Miss Langdale and—"
"You shan't have him!" almost hissed Helen Hackstaff. "If I cannot—no one shall!"
Natalie Langdale faced her, defiant. "You are a jealous, suspicious person," she cried. "Doctor Aitken knows—"
"One moment," interrupted Craig. "Mrs. Marbury is gone. Mrs. Wardlaw is weakened. Yet all who are affected with nerve troubles are not necessarily suffering from polyneuritis. Some one here has been dilettanting with death. ”

“ A woman had been moved by one of the primal passions to betray—some one.
I looked up from the note on the table at Craig. He was still studying the handwriting.
"It's that peculiar vertical, angular hand affected by many women," he commented, half to himself. "Even at a glance you can see that it's written hastily, as if under the stress of excitement and sudden resolution. You'll notice how those capitals—" The laboratory door opened, interrupting him.
"Hello, Kennedy," greeted Doctor Leslie, our friend, the coroner's physician, who had recently been appointed Health Commissioner of the city. ”

“ The nerves seems to be the preferred creditors, so to speak. They are affected only after the muscles begin to waste. It is an abstruse subject and it is not necessary for me to go deeper into it now."
I controlled my own interest in order to watch those about me. Kato, for one, was listening attentively, I saw.
"In my studies of the diet of this household," continued Kennedy, "I have found that substances have been used in preparing food which kill vitamines. In short, the food has been denatured. Valuable elements, necessary elements, have been taken away." ”

“ Fifty thousand dollars was given to endow the New York Japanese Mission.
Immediately the thought of Kato and what Miss Langdale had just told us flashed through my mind.
A second time we heard the nurse's footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hall. Craig closed the desk softly.
"Doctor Aitken is ready to go," she announced. "Is there anything more you wish to ask?"
Kennedy spoke a moment with the doctor as he passed out, but, aside from the information that Mrs. Wardlaw was, in his opinion, growing worse, the conversation added nothing to our meager store of information. ”

“ Both Kato and she will bear watching, and I have made arrangements to have it done. I've called on that young detective, Chase, whom I've often used for the routine work of shadowing. There's nothing more that we can do now until to-morrow, so we might as well turn in."
Early the next day Kennedy was again at work, both in his own laboratory and in that of the Health Department, making further studies of the food and the effect it had on the pigeons, as well as observing what changes were produced by the white tablets he had extracted from the yeast. ”

“ She's a wreck now. And, of course, the old lady must have been the most seriously affected of them all."
"Who else is there in the household?" inquired Kennedy, growing more and more interested.
"Well," answered Leslie, slowly, "they've had a nurse for some time, Natalie Langdale. Apparently she has escaped."
"Any servants?"
"Some by the day; only one regularly—a Japanese, Kato. He goes home at night, too. There's no evidence of the disease having affected him." ”

“ It was Miss Langdale who had made her patient comfortable in bed and now returned to us.
"Who is this Kato?" inquired Craig, voicing what was in my own mind. "What do you know about him?"
"Just a young Japanese from the Mission downtown," replied the nurse, directly. "I don't suppose you know, but Mrs. Wardlaw used to be greatly interested in religious and social work among the Japanese and Chinese; would be yet, but," she added, significantly, "she is not strong enough. ”

“ He was gone only a couple of minutes, but it was long enough to place in the food that was being prepared, and in some unprepared, either the tablets he had made or a powder he had derived from them crushed up. When he returned I saw from his manner that the real purpose of the visit had been accomplished, although when Miss Langdale appeared he went through the form of questioning her, mostly on Mrs. Marbury's sickness and death. He did not learn anything that appeared to be important, but at least he covered up the reason for his visit.
Outside the apartment, Kennedy paused a moment. ”

“ I did not stop to study the writing, for the contents of the letter were more fascinating than even Kennedy's new science of graphology.
You don't know me [the note read] , but I know of your work of scientific investigation.
Let me inform you of something that ought to interest you.
In the Forum Apartments you will find that there is some strange disease affecting the Wardlaw family. It is a queer disease of the nerves. One is dead. Others are dying. ”

“ With a peremptory wave of his hand Kennedy silenced the Jap.
"It has long been a question," he hurried on, "whether these vitamines are tangible bodies or just special arrangements of molecules. Recently government investigators have discovered that they are bodies that can be isolated by a special process from the filtrate of brewer's yeast by Lloyd's reagent. ”

“ Five grams of this"—he held up some of the tablets he had made—"for a sixty-kilogram person each day are sufficient. Unknown to you, I have introduced some of this substance into the food already deficient in vitamines. I fancy that even now I can detect a change," he nodded toward Mrs. Wardlaw.
There was a murmur of surprise in the room, but before Craig could continue further the door opened and Mrs. Wardlaw uttered a nervous exclamation. There stood Chase with a woman. I recognized her immediately from Kennedy's description as Miss Hackstaff. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 86 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”