Arthur B. Reeve

“ Rae Melzer could restrain herself no longer. She was looking at the file and brush, as if with a hideous fascination. "They are mine—you took them," she cried, impulsively. "It was she—always having her nails manicured—she who had been there just before—she—Alma Hillman!" ”

“ If one gang got ahead of the other, they must stop and let the second catch up.
"Zip—zip—zip," came the shrill singing tone of the saws.
Was everything all right? Kennedy and Sprague were still circling overhead, at various altitudes. I redoubled my attention at the glass.
Suddenly I saw Craig's flag waving frantically. A muffled exclamation came from my lips involuntarily. Marlowe, who had been watching me, leaned closer.
"What is it—for God's sake?" he whispered, hoarsely.
"Stop them!" I shouted as I caught Kennedy's signal. At a hurried order from Marlowe the gangs quit. ”

“ Without a word, Kennedy drew Marlowe aside into a little deserted alcove. Marlowe followed, puzzled at the air of mystery.
Alone, Craig leaned over toward him. "It's no crank," he whispered, in a low tone. "Marlowe, I am convinced that there is a concerted effort to destroy your plans for American commerce building. There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that it is more serious than you think—perhaps a powerful group of European steamship men opposed to you. It is economic war! ”

“ Everything has to be calculated to a nicety. It's a matter of mathematics—the moment of weight, the moment of buoyancy, and all that. This launching apparatus is strong, but compared to the weight it has to carry it is really delicate. Why, even a stray bolt in the ways would be a serious matter. That's why we have to have this eternal vigilance."
As he spoke with a significant look at Kennedy, I felt that it was no wonder that Marlowe was alarmed for the safety of the ship. Millions were at stake for just that minute of launching. ”

“ Some one must have got into my office, where I was studying them." Doctor Gavira had pressed forward earnestly, but Craig did not pause again.
"Who were these agents sent over to wage this secret war at any cost?" he repeated. "One of them, I know now, fell in love with the daughter of the man against whom he was to plot." Marjorie cast a furtive glance at Fitzhugh.
"Love has saved him. But the other? To whom do these deadly germs point? Who dum-dummed and poisoned the bullet? Whose own fingers, in spite of antiseptics and manicures, point inexorably to a guilty self?" ”

“ Quickly Craig dropped the pieces into one of the hotel envelopes that stood in a rack on the desk, then, changing his mind about asking more now about the little manicure, strode out of the side entrance where Marlowe's car was waiting for us.
Hurriedly we drove across town to the City Hospital, where we had no difficulty in being admitted and finding, in a ward, on a white cot, the wounded guard. Though his wound was one that should not have bothered him much, it had, as Marlowe said, puffed up angrily and in a most peculiar manner. He was in great pain with it and was plainly in a bad way. ”

“ What I want you to do, Professor Kennedy, is to catch the crank who fired it."
Capt. Lansing Marlowe, head of the new American Shipbuilding Trust, had summoned us in haste to the Belleclaire and had met us in his suite with his daughter Marjorie. Only a glance was needed to see that it was she, far more than her father, who was worried.
"You must catch him," she appealed. "Father's life is in danger. Oh, you simply must."
I knew Captain Marlowe to be a proverbial fire-eater, but in this case, at least, he was no alarmist. For, on the table, as he spoke, he laid a real bullet. ”

“ Gavira shot a sidelong glance at me. "The Belleclaire's a dangerous place for a wealthy widower," he returned. "I had some hopes in that direction myself—in spite of Fitzhugh—but the captain seems to leave us all at the post. Still, I suppose I may still be a brother to her—and physician. So, I should worry."
The impression I got of Gavira was that he enjoyed his freedom too much ever to fall in love, though an intimacy now and then with a clever girl like Alma Hillman was a welcome diversion. ”

“ Had it been done for the purpose of inflicting a more frightful wound if it struck the captain?
"There've been other shots, too," went on Marlowe. "One of my watchmen was wounded the night before. It didn't took like a serious wound, in the leg. Yet the poor fellow seems to be in a bad way, they tell me."
"How is that?" asked Craig, glancing up quickly from studying the bullet.
"The wound seems to be all puffed up, and very painful. It won't heal, and he seems to be weak and feverish. Why, I'm afraid the man will die."
"I'd like to see that case," remarked Kennedy, thoughtfully. ”

“ High overhead now floated the hydro-aeroplane, on which I kept my eye fixed almost hypnotically. There was still no signal from Kennedy, however. What was it he was after? Did he expect to see the fast express cruiser, lurking like a corsair about the islands of the river? If so, he gave no sign.
Men were quitting now the work of giving the last touches to the preparations. Some were placing immense jack-screws which were to give an initial impulse if it were needed to start the ship down the ways. ”

“ It was all very interesting and we talked with men whom it was a pleasure to see handling great problems so capably. But none could shed any light on the problem which it was Kennedy's to solve. And yet I felt sure, as I watched Craig, that unsatisfactory as it appeared to Marlowe and to myself, he was slowly forming some kind of theory, or at least plan of action, in his head.
"You'll find me either here or at the hotel—I imagine," returned Marlowe to Kennedy's inquiry as we parted from him. "I've instructed all the men to keep their eyes open. ”

“ Some one had tried to murder Marlowe in this most hideous way. No need to be an accurate marksman when a mere scratch from such a bullet meant ultimate death anyhow.
Why had it been done and where had the cultures come from? I asked myself. I realized fully the difficulty of trying to trace them. Any one could purchase germs, I knew. There was no law governing the sale.
Craig was at work again over his microscope. Again he looked up at me. ”

“ It was only a mask to hide the fighting spirit underneath.
"We've had nothing but trouble ever since we laid the keel of that ship," he continued, pugnaciously, "strikes, a fire in the yard, delays, about everything that could happen. Lately we've noticed a motor-boat hanging about the river-front of the yards. So I've had a boat of my own patrolling the river."
"What sort of craft is this other?" inquired Kennedy, interested at once.
"A very fast one—like those express cruisers that we hear so much about now." ”

“ The launching was only eighteen hours off, too, and ten of them were darkness. What could be done?
Kennedy's mind was working rapidly in the crisis as Marlowe appealed to him, almost helplessly.
"May I have your car to-night?" asked Craig, pausing.
"Have it? I'll give it to you if it'll do any good."
"I'll need it only a few hours. I think I have a scheme that will work perfectly—if you are sure you can guard the inside of the yard to-morrow."
"I'm sure of that. We spent hours to-day selecting picked men for the launching, going over everything." ”

“ These rods you saw are only from five to fifteen thousandths of a millimeter long and not more than one-thousandth of a millimeter broad.
"You can't see them move here, because the air has paralyzed them. But these vibrios move among the corpuscles of the blood just as a snake moves through the grass, to quote Pasteur. If I colored them you would see that each is covered with fine vibrating hairs three or four times as long as itself. At certain times an oval mass forms in them. That is the spore which lives so long and is so hard to kill. It was the spores that were on the bullet. ”

“ Marlowe shook his head doubtfully. "No idea. I don't know who owns the boat or who runs it. My men tell me they think they've seen a woman in it sometimes, though. I've been trying to figure it out. Why should it be hanging about? It can't be spying. There isn't any secrecy about the Usona. Why is it? It's a mystery."
"And the shot?" prompted Craig, tapping the bullet.
"Oh yes, let me tell you. Last night, Marjorie and I arrived from Bar Harbor on my yacht, for the launching. It's anchored off the yard now. ”

“ Prom where we were we could see Marlowe, though his back was turned, and neither he nor the manicure could see us.
For a moment the captain paused and spoke, then sat down. Quite evidently he had a keen eye for a pretty face and trim figure. Nor was there any mistaking the pains which the manicure took to please her rich and elderly customer. After watching them a moment Kennedy lounged over to the desk in the lobby.
"Who is the little manicure girl?" he asked.
The clerk smiled. "Seems as if she was a good drawing-card for the house, doesn't it?" he returned. "All the men notice her. ”

“ Sir Almroth Wright of the British army medical corps."
"And that is what was on the bullet?" I queried.
"The spores or seeds," he replied. "In the tubes, by excluding the air, I have developed the bacilli. Why, Walter," he went on, seriously, "those are among the microbes most dreaded in the infection of wounds. The spores live in the earth, it has been discovered, especially in cultivated soil, and they are extraordinarily long-lived, lying dormant for years, waiting for a chance to develop. ”

“ All along the stationary, or ground, ways and those which were to glide into the water with the cradle and the ship, trusted men were making the final examination to be as sure as human care can be that all was well. ”

“ Was that a clever attempt at confession and avoidance on his part? I wondered. But, then, I reflected he could not possibly know that we knew he had anaërobic microbes and spores in his possession. I had cleared up nothing and I hastened to call up the shipyard, sure that the line could not be busy still.
Whatever it was that was the matter, central seemed unable to get me my number. Instead, I found myself cut right into a conversation that did not concern me, evidently the fault of the hotel switchboard operator. I was about to protest when the words I heard stopped me in surprise. ”

“ The liquid ascended the tubes by capillary attraction and siphoned over the curve, running as he turned the tubes up to the finely pointed ends.
Next in a watch glass he placed some caustic soda and in another some pyrogallic acid, from each of which he took just a drop, as he had done before, inclining the tubes to let the fluid gravitate to the throttle end. Finally in the flame he sealed both the tip and butt of the tubes.
"There's a bubble of air in there," he remarked. "The acid and the soda will absorb the oxygen from it. Then I can tell whether I'm right. ”

“ They resist any temperature except comparatively high and prolonged, and even resist antiseptics for a long time. On the surface of a wound they aren't so bad; but deep in they distil minute gas bubbles, puff up the surrounding tissues, and are almost impossible to combat. ”

“ I suppose the microscopic examination of finger-nail deposits is too minute a thing to appeal to most people. But it has been practically applied in a number of criminal cases in Europe. Ordinary washing and even cleaning doesn't alter microscope findings. In this case this trifling clue is all that leads to the real brain of this plot, literally to the hand that directed it." He paused a moment.
"Yesterday I found that anaërobe cultures were being received by some one in the Belleclaire, and—"
"They were stolen from me. ”