Arthur B. Reeve Crime & Mystery Boxed Set - Arthur B. Reeve

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quality that recalled it. I fancied that there was in both the living and the painted face a jealousy that would brook no rivalry, that would dare all for the object of its love.

      Faber saw that we had caught the spirit of the portrait, and seemed highly gratified.

      "What crimes a man might commit under the spell of a woman like that!" exclaimed Craig, noticing his gratification. "By the way, do you know that Miss Fleming was said to have had the original—and that it is gone?"

      Faber looked from one to the other of us without moving a muscle of his face.

      "Why, yes," he replied steadily. I could not make out whether he had expected and been prepared for the question or not. At any rate he added, half serious, half smiling, "Even for her portrait someone was ready to risk even life and honor to kidnap her!"

      Evidently in his ardor he personified the picture, felt that the thief must have been moved by what the psychologists call "an imperative idea" for the mere possession of such a treasure.

      "Still," Craig remarked dryly, "the wanderings of the lost Duchess by Gainsborough for a quarter of a century stuffed into a tin tube, to say nothing of the final sordid ending of the capture of Mona Lisa, might argue a devotion among art thieves a bit short of infatuation. I think we'll find this lady, too, to be held for ransom, not for love."

      Faber said nothing. He was evidently waiting for Kennedy to proceed.

      "I may photograph your copy of the Fête?" queried Craig finally, "so as to use it in identifying the real one?"

      "Surely," replied the collector. "I have no objection. If I should happen to be out when you came, I'll leave word with my man to let you go ahead."

      Just then the telephone rang and Faber reached for it before we could thank him and say good-night.

      "Hello—oh, Miss Tourville, how do you do? Why—er—yes—yes, I'm listening."

      They chatted for several minutes, Faber answering mostly in monosyllables. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought the conversation, at least at his end of the line, constrained. As he hung up the receiver, I fancied, too, that Faber seemed to look on us with a sort of suspicion. What was his connection with Rita, I wondered? What had Rita told him?

      A moment later we had said good-by and had gained the street, Kennedy still making no comment on the case.

      "There's nothing more that we can do tonight," remarked Craig, looking at his watch finally as we walked along. "Let us go over to the City Laboratory and see Dr. Leslie, as I promised Blythe."

      Chapter XX

      The Mechanical Connoisseur

       Table of Contents

      Dr. Leslie, the Coroner, was an old friend of ours with whom we had co-operated in several cases. When we reached his office we found Dr. Blythe there already, waiting for us.

      "Have you found anything yet?" asked Dr. Blythe with what I felt was just a trace of professional pique at the fact that neither physician had been able to shed any light on the case so far.

      "I can't say—yet," responded Craig, not noticing Blythe's manner, as from the piece of tissue paper in which he had wrapped them he produced the broken bits of bottle.

      Carefully he washed off the jagged pieces, as though perhaps some of the liquid the bottle had contained might have adhered to the glass.

      "I suppose you have animals here for experiment?" he asked of Leslie.

      The Coroner nodded.

      "Chickens?" asked Craig with a broad smile at the double meaning.

      "A Leghorn rooster," returned Dr. Leslie with a laugh.

      "Good—bring him on," replied Craig briskly.

      Quickly Kennedy shot a small quantity of the liquid he had obtained by washing the bits of glass into the veins of the white Leghorn. Then he released the rooster, flapping about.

      In a corner chanticleer stood, preening his feathers and restoring his ruffled dignity, while we compared opinions.

      "Look!" exclaimed Kennedy a few minutes later, when we had almost forgotten the rooster.

      His bright red comb was now whitish. As we watched, a moment later it turned dark blue. Otherwise, however, he seemed unaffected.

      "What is it?" I asked in amazement, turning to Craig.

      "Ergot, I think," he replied tersely. "At least that is one test for its presence."

      "Ergot!" repeated Dr. Leslie, reaching for a book on a shelf above him. Turning the pages hurriedly, he read, "There has been no experience in the separation of the constituents of ergot from the organs of the body. An attempt might be made by the Dragendorff process, but success is doubtful."

      "Dragendorff found it so, at any rate," put in Dr. Blythe positively.

      Running his fingers over the backs of the other books, Dr. Leslie selected another. "It is practically impossible," he read, "to separate ergot from the tissues so as to identify it."

      "Absolutely," asserted Dr. Blythe quickly.

      I looked from one physician to the other. Was this the "safe" poison at last?

      Kennedy said nothing and I fell to wondering why, too, Dr. Blythe was so positive. Was it merely to vindicate his professional pride at the failure he and the Coroner had had so far with the case?

      "I suppose you have no objection to my taking some of this sample of the contents of the organs of her body, have you?" asked Craig at length of Dr. Leslie.

      "None in the world," replied the Coroner.

      Kennedy poured out some of the liquid into a bottle, corked it carefully, and we stood for a few moments longer chatting over the developments, or rather lack of developments of the case.

      It was late when we returned to our apartment, but the following morning Kennedy was up long before I was. I knew enough of him, however, to know that I would find him at his laboratory breakfastless, and my deduction was correct.

      It was not until the forenoon that Craig had completed the work he had set himself to do as he puzzled over something in the interminable litter of tubes and jars, bottles and beakers, reagents, solutions, and precipitates.

      "I'm going to drop in at Jacot's," he announced finally, laying off his threadbare and acid-stained coat and pulling on the clothes more fitted for civilization.

      Having no objection, but quite the contrary, I hastened to accompany him. Jacot's was a well-known shop. It opened on Fifth Avenue, just a few feet below the sidewalk, and Jacot himself was a slim Frenchman, well preserved, faultlessly dressed.

      "I am the agent of Mr. Morehouse, the Western mine-owner and connoisseur," introduced Kennedy, as we entered the shop. "May I look around?"

      "Certainement,—avec plaisir, M'sieur," welcomed the suave dealer, with both hands interlocked. "In what is Mr. Morehouse most interested? In pictures? In furniture? In—"

      "In almost anything that is rare and beautiful," confided Craig, looking Jacot squarely in the eye and adding, "and not particular about the price if he wants a thing, either. But I—I am particular—about one thing."

      Jacot looked up inquiringly.

      "A rebate," Kennedy went on insinuatingly, "a commission on the bill—you understand? The price is immaterial, but not my—er—commission. Comprenez-vous?"

      "Parfaitement," smiled the little Frenchman. "I can arrange all that. Trust me."

      We spent an hour, perhaps, wandering up and down the long aisles of the store, admiring, half purchasing, absorbing facts about this, that and the other thing that might captivate the fictitious Mr. Morehouse.

      Not

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