Edwin Balmer

“ Young Winton Edwards, watching as curiously as the others, saw Trant fasten the sphygmograph on the mechanic’s arm. and the pencil point commence to trace on the sooty surface a wavy line, the normal record of the mechanic’s pulse.
“You see it!” Trant pointed out to the others the record, as it unwound slowly from the drum. “Every thought you have, every feeling, every sensation—taste, touch, smell—changes the beating of your heart and shows upon this little record. ”

“ There’s a red-headed man,” one of the crowd cried suddenly, pointing. “Try it on him.”
Two enthusiasts at once broke from the group and rushed eagerly to Meyan. He had continued, inattentive through all, to read his newspaper, but now he laid it down. Trant and young Edwards, as he rose and slouched half curiously toward them, could see plainly for the first time his strongly boned, coarsely powerful face, and heavy-lidded eyes, and the grossly muscular strength of his big-framed body. ”

“ Every emotion reacts upon the pulse, which strengthens in joy and weakens in sorrow, changes with anger and with despair; and as every slightest variation it undergoes can be detected and registered by the sphygmograph—I felt certain that if I could test the three men together by having Miss Silber tell her father’s story aloud, I could determine conclusively by comparison of the records of the two true revolutionists with that of Meyan, whether his sympathies were really with the revolutionist party. ”

“ The loud rat-tat-tat of a cane had shaken Trant’s door and cracked its ground glass from corner to corner, and the door was flung open to admit a determined little man, whose carefully groomed pink-and-whiteness was accentuated by his anger.
“Winton, go home!” The elder Edwards glared sternly at his son, and then about the office. “Mr. Trant—you are Mr. Trant, I suppose—I want you to have nothing to do with this matter. I prefer to let the whole affair drop where it is.”
“I reserve the right, Mr. Edwards,” the psychologist said, rising, “to take up or drop cases only as I myself see fit. ”

“ Obviously, it must have been Herman Silber who did the hammering at Eva’s home and here in this house. It was obvious, too, that Herman Silber was the ‘your own’ of the advertisement.
“To test Meyan, whom we found in the saloon, was not difficult,” said Trant. “I arranged to have him overhear some one speaking of an arrest at Warsaw, which would at once suggest itself as a hotbed of Russian revolutionists to either a revolutionist or a police agent; but the idea would certainly give positive and very opposite reactions if the man were a true revolutionist or if he were a spy. ”

“ Then, as Edwards nodded his comprehension, the psychologist turned easily to the man nearest him at the bar—a pallid Lithuanian sweatshop worker.
“I suppose you can stand a lot of that?” Trant nodded at the glass of pungent whisky. “Still—it has its effect on you. Sends your heart action up—quickens your pulse.” ”

“ He tossed off the liquor, rolling it upon his tongue, and all saw the record regain its first appearance; then, as the stimulant began to take effect, the pencil point lifted higher at each rise and the elevations became farther apart. They stared and laughed.
“Whisky effects you about normally, I should say.” Trant began to unfasten the sphygmograph from the man’s wrist. “I have heard it said that black-haired men, like you, feel its effect least of all; light-haired men more; men with red hair like mine feel the greatest effect, it’s said. We red-haired men have to be careful with whisky.” ”

“ I arranged with Munikov and Vasili to come here with me tonight, and, after Meyan had arrived, they left us here and went to him as representatives of the revolutionary movement to ask his credentials.
“When he could furnish none,” Trant went on, “they proposed, and in fact forced him, into this test. It is a dangerous thing to endeavor to pass oneself off as a revolutionist, and it was safer for him to submit to a test than to have his mission frustrated by incurring not only suspicion, but possibly death. ”

“ The psychologist took an envelope from his pocket and wrote rapidly upon the back of it. “I am going to try something,” he whispered, as he flicked the envelope along the bar to Edwards. “It may not succeed, but if I am able to get Meyan into a test, then go into that back room and speak aloud what I have written on the envelope, as if you had just come in with somebody.” ”

“ Is it because you are looking for Meyan that you have made all this disturbance?” the woman broke in. “Then why didn’t you ask? For now he is at the saloon, I think, only across the street.”
“Then we will go there at once,” said Trant. “But I will ask you”—he turned to the elder Edwards—“to wait for us at the motor, for two of us will be enough for my purpose, and more than two may defeat it by alarming Meyan.” ”

“ At the bottom of each screen was a circular hole just large enough for a man’s arm to go through; and at Trant’s command the men put their arms through them. Stooping again swiftly over the instrument cases, Trant took out three sphygmographs.
He rapidly adjusted these on the arms of the three men, and set in motion the revolving drums, against which the pencil points traced their wavy lines on smoked paper. His clients, leaning forward in their interest, could then understand the purpose of the screens, which were designed to hide the pitilessly exact records from the three men. ”

“ He introduced me to Munikov, who had been a friend of Silber before his imprisonment and between them I got the history of Herman Silber and his daughter.
“I explained to Munikov and Vasili that the methods of the psychological laboratory would be as efficacious in picking out a spy among true men as I have many times proved them to be in convicting the criminal. ”

“ In Zurich, before he went to Moscow, he had been trained for a doctor. And seeing how powerless the protest of the students had been, he determined to go among the people. So he made himself a medical missionary to the poorest, the most oppressed, the most miserable ”

“ Trant?” cried young Edwards, in surprise.
“Yes; and, as speed is certainly essential, I hope you still have your motor below.”
As young Edwards nodded, the psychologist seized his hat and gloves and his instrument case, and preceded the others from the office. Half an hour later he descended from the library to rejoin the Edwardses waiting in the motor.
“The man who inserted that advertisement—the hammering man, I believe, of whom we are in search,” he announced briefly, “is named N. Meyan, and he is lodging, or at least can be addressed at No. 7 Coy Court. ”

“ Trant descended the stairs, took his instrument case from the motor, and with young Edwards crossed the street quickly to the saloon.
CHAPTER III. THE CLEVER PENCIL.
A dozen idlers leaned against the bar or sat in chairs tilted against the wall. Trant examined these idlers one after another closely. The only man at whom he did not seem to look was one who, as the only red-headed man in the place, must plainly be Meyan. “Red-headed” was the only description they had of him, but meager as it was, with the landlady’s statement that he was in the saloon, Trant resolved to test him. ”