LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

thing that I have discovered is that in the body of Leon metabolism seems still to be going on."

      I listened to him in utter amazement, wondering toward what his argument was tending.

      "I got my first clew from an injection of fluoriscine," he resumed. "You know there are many people who have a horror of being buried alive. It is a favorite theme of the creepy-creep writers. As you know, the heart may stop beating, but that does not necessarily mean that the person is dead. There are on record innumerable cases where the use of stimulants has started again the beating of a heart that has stopped.

      "Still, burial alive is hardly likely among civilized people, for the simple reason that the practice of embalming makes death practically certain. At once, when I heard that there had been objections to the embalming of this body, I began to wonder why they had been made.

      "Then it occurred to me that one certain proof of death was the absolute cessation of circulation. You may not know, but scientists have devised this fluoriscine test to take advantage of that. I injected about ten grains. If there is any circulation, there should be an emerald green discoloration of the cornea of the eye. If not, the eye should remain perfectly white.

      "I tried the test. The green eye-ball gave me a hint. Then I decided to make sure with a respiration calorimeter that would measure whatever heat, what breath, no matter how minute they were."

      Collette gave a start as she began to realize vaguely what Craig was driving at.

      "It was not the voodoo sign, Mademoiselle," he said, turning to her. "It was a sign, however, of something that suggested at once to me the connection of voodoo practices."

      There was something so uncanny about it that my own heart almost skipped beating, while Burke, by my other side, muttered something which was not meant to be profane.

      Collette was now trembling violently and I took her arm so that if she should faint she would not fall either on my side or on that of her guardian, who seemed himself on the verge of keeling over. Castine was mumbling. Only his wife seemed to retain her defiance.

      "The skill of the voodoo priests in the concoction of strange draughts from the native herbs of Hayti is well known," Kennedy began again. "There are among them fast and slow poisons, poisons that will kill almost instantly and others that are guaged in strength to accumulate and resemble wasting away and slow death.

      "I know that in all such communities today no one will admit that there is such a thing still as the human sacrifice, 'the lamb without horns.' But there is on record a case where a servant was supposed to have died. The master ordered the burial, and it took place. But the grave was robbed. Later the victim was resuscitated and sacrificed.

      "Most uncanny of the poisons is that which will cause the victim to pass into an unconscious condition so profound that it may easily be mistaken for death. It is almost cataleptic. Such is the case here. My respiration calorimeter shows that from that body there are still coming the products of respiration, that there is still heat in it. It must have been that peculiar poison of the voodoo priests that was used."

      Racing on now, not giving any of us a chance even to think of the weird thing, except to shudder instinctively, Kennedy drew from his pocket and slapped down on a table the photographic records that had been taken by his home-made wireless recording apparatus.

      "From Mr. Burke," he said, as he did so, "I received the hint that many messages were being transmitted by wireless, secretly perhaps, from the Haytien. I wanted to read those messages that were being flashed so quietly and secretly through the air. How could it be done? I managed to install down at the dock an apparatus known as the capillary electrometer. By the use of this almost unimaginably delicate instrument I was able to drag down literally out of the air the secrets that seemed so well hidden from all except those for whom they were intended. Listen."

      He took the roll of paper from the drum and ran his finger along it hastily, translating to himself the Morse code as he passed from one point to another.

      "Here," cried Craig excitedly. "'Leon out of way for time safely. Revolution suppressed before Forsythe can make other arrangements. Conspiracy frustrated.' Just a moment. Here's another. 'Have engaged bridal suite at Hotel La Coste. Communicate with me there after tomorrow.'"

      Still holding the wireless record, Kennedy swung about to Burke and myself. "Burke, stand over by the door," he shouted. "Walter—that tank of oxygen, please."

      I dragged over the heavy tank which he had ordered as he adjusted a sort of pulmotor breathing apparatus over Leon. Then I dropped back to my place beside Collette, as the oxygen hissed out.

      Castine was now on his knees, his aged arms outstretched.

      "Before God, Mr. Kennedy—I didn't do it. I didn't give Leon the poison!"

      Kennedy, however, engrossed in what he was doing, paid no attention to the appeal.

      Suddenly I saw what might have been a faint tremor of an eyelid on the pallid body before us.

      I felt Collette spring forward from my side.

      "He lives! He lives!" she cried, falling on her knees before the still cataleptic form. "Guillaume!"

      There was just a faint movement of the lips, as though as the man came back from another world he would have called, "Collette!"

      "Seize that man—it is his name signed to the wireless messages!" shouted Kennedy, extending his accusing forefinger at Aux Cayes, who had plotted so devilishly to use his voodoo knowledge both to suppress the revolution and at the same time to win his beautiful ward for himself from her real lover.

      Chapter XXXIV

      The Evil Eye

       Table of Contents

      "You don't know the woman who is causing the trouble. You haven't seen her eyes. But—Madre de Dios!—my father is a changed man. Sometimes I think he is—what you call—mad!"

      Our visitor spoke in a hurried, nervous tone, with a marked foreign accent which was not at all unpleasing. She was a young woman, unmistakably beautiful, of the dark Spanish type and apparently a South American.

      "I am Señorita Inez de Mendoza of Lima, Peru," she introduced herself, as she leaned forward in her chair in a high state of overwrought excitement. "We have been in this country only a short time—my father and I, with his partner in a mining venture, Mr. Lockwood. Since the hot weather came we have been staying at the Beach Inn at Atlantic Beach."

      She paused a moment and hesitated, as though in this strange land of the north she had no idea of which way to turn for help.

      "Perhaps I should have gone to see a doctor about him," she considered, doubtfully; then her emotions got the better of her and she went on passionately, "but, Mr. Kennedy it is not a case for a doctor. It is a case for a detective—for someone who is more than a detective."

      She spoke pleadingly now, in a soft musical voice that was far more pleasing to the ear than that of the usual Spanish-American. I had heard that the women of Lima were famed for their beauty and melodious voices. Señorita Mendoza surely upheld their reputation.

      There was an appealing look in her soft brown eyes and her thin, delicate lips trembled as she hurried on with her strange story.

      "I never saw my father in such a state before," she murmured. "All he talks about is the 'big fish'—whatever that may mean—and the curse of Mansiche. At times his eyes are staring wide open. Sometimes I think he has a violent fever. He is excited—and seems to be wasting away. He seems to see strange visions and hear voices. Yet I think he is worse when he is quiet in a dark room alone than when he is down in the lobby of the hotel in the midst of the crowd."

      A sudden flash of fire seemed to light up her dark eyes. "There is a woman at the hotel, too," she went on, "a woman from Truxillo, Señora de Moche. Ever since she has been there my father has been growing worse and worse."

Скачать книгу