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

Скачать книгу

off to the sea. Then others didn't even want to have it touched, said that it ought to be embalmed. And others didn't want that, either."

      "What do you mean? Who were they?"

      "Oh, there was one man,—Castine," she replied, hesitating over the name, as though afraid even to mention it.

      "He wanted it thrown overboard?" prompted Craig.

      "N—no, he didn't want that, either," she replied. "He urged them not to touch it—just to leave it alone."

      She was very much frightened, evidently at her own temerity in coming to Craig and saying so much. Yet something seemed to impel her to go on.

      "Oh, Professor Kennedy," she exclaimed in a sudden burst of renewed feeling, "don't you understand? I—I loved him—even after I found out about the money and what he intended to do with it. I could not see his dear body thrown in the ocean."

      She shivered all over at the thought, and it was some time before she said anything more. But Kennedy let her do as she pleased, as he often did when deep emotion was wringing the secrets from people's hearts.

      "He is dead!" she sobbed wildly. "Was he poisoned? Oh, can't you find out? Can't you help me?"

      Suddenly her voice in wild appeal sank almost to a hoarse whisper. "You must not let anybody know that I came to you," she implored.

      "Why not?"

      "Oh—I—I am just afraid—that's all."

      There was real fear in her tone and face now, fear for herself.

      "Where is the body?" asked Kennedy, to get her mind off whatever hung like an incubus over it.

      "Down on the Haytien, at the pier, over in Brooklyn, still," she replied. "They kept us all interned there. But my guardian had enough influence to get off for a time and while he is arranging for quarters for our stay after we are released, I slipped away to see you."

      "You must go back to the boat?"

      "Oh, yes. We agreed to go back."

      "Then I shall be down immediately," Craig promised. "If you will go ahead, I will see you there. Perhaps, at first you had better not recognize me. I will contrive some way to meet you. Then they will not know."

      "Thank you," she murmured, as she rose to go, now in doubt whether she had done the best thing to come to Craig, now glad that she had some outside assistance in which she could trust.

      He accompanied her to the door, bidding her keep up her courage, then closed it, waiting until her footsteps down the hall had died away.

      Then he opened our door and caught sight of Burke's face.

      "That's strange, Burke," he began, before he realized what the expression on his face meant. "There's a woman—what? You don't mean to tell me that you knew her?"

      "Why, yes," hastened Burke. "There was a rich old planter, Henri Aux Cayes, aboard, too. She's his ward, Mademoiselle Collette."

      "That's right," nodded Craig in surprise.

      "She's the woman I was telling you about. She may be a little dark, but she's a beauty, all right. I heard what she said. No wonder she was so frantic, then."

      "What do you know of the bankers, Forsythe & Co.?" asked Craig.

      "Forsythe & Co.?" considered Burke. "Well, not much, perhaps. But for a long time, I believe, they've been the bankers and promoters of defunct Caribbean islands, reaping a rich harvest out of the troubles of those decrepit governments, playing one against the other."

      "H-m," mused Kennedy. "Can you go over to Brooklyn with me now?"

      "Of course," agreed Burke, brightening up. "That was what I hoped you'd do."

      Kennedy and I were just about to leave the laboratory with Burke when an idea seemed to occur to Craig. He excused himself and went back to a cabinet where I saw him place a little vial and a hypodermic needle in his vest pocket.

      Chapter XXXII

      The Fluoriscine Test

       Table of Contents

      Our trip over to the other borough was uneventful except for the toilsome time we had to get to the docks where South and Central American ships were moored. We boarded the Haytien at last and Burke led us along the deck toward a cabin. I looked about curiously. There seemed to be the greatest air of suppressed excitement. Everyone was talking, in French, too, which seemed strange to me in people of their color. Yet everything seemed to be in whispers as if they were in fear.

      We entered the cabin after our guide. There in the dim light lay the body of Leon in a bunk. There were several people in the room, already, among them the beautiful Mademoiselle Collette. She pretended not to recognize Kennedy until we were introduced, but I fancied I saw her start at finding him in company with Burke. Yet she did not exhibit anything more than surprise, which was quite natural.

      Burke turned the sheet down from the face of the figure in the bunk. Leon had been a fine-looking specimen of his race, with good features, strong, and well groomed. Kennedy bent over and examined the body carefully.

      "A very strange case," remarked the ship's surgeon, whom Burke beckoned over a moment later.

      "Quite," agreed Craig absently, as he drew the vial and the hypodermic from his pocket, dipped the needle in and shot a dose of the stuff into the side of the body.

      "I can't find out that there is any definite cause of death," resumed the surgeon.

      Before Craig could reply someone else entered the darkened cabin. We turned and saw Collette run over to him and take his hand.

      "My guardian, Monsieur Aux Cayes," she introduced, then turned to him with a voluble explanation of something in French.

      Aux Cayes was a rather distinguished looking Haytian, darker than Collette, but evidently of the better class and one who commanded respect among the natives.

      "It is quite extraordinary," he said with a marked accent, taking up the surgeon's remark. "As for these people—" he threw out his hands in a deprecating gesture—"one cannot blame them for being perplexed when your doctors disagree."

      Kennedy had covered up Leon's face again and Collette was crying softly.

      "Don't, my dear child," soothed Aux Cayes, patting her shoulder gently. "Please, try to calm thyself."

      It was evident that he adored his beautiful ward and would have done anything to relieve her grief. Kennedy evidently thought it best to leave the two together, as Aux Cayes continued to talk to her in diminutives and familiar phrases from the French.

      "Were there any other people on the boat who might be worth watching?" he asked as we rejoined Burke, who was looking about at the gaping crowd.

      Burke indicated a group. "Well, there was an old man, Castine, and the woman he calls his wife," he replied. "They were the ones who really kept the rest from throwing the body overboard."

      "Oh, yes," assented Kennedy. "She told me about them. Are they here now?"

      Burke moved over to the group and beckoned someone aside toward us. Castine was an old man with gray hair, and a beard which gave him quite an appearance of wisdom, besides being a matter of distinction among those who were beardless. With him was Madame Castine, much younger and not unattractive for a negress.

      "You knew Monsieur Leon well?" asked Kennedy.

      "We knew him in Port au Prince, like everybody," replied Castine, without committing himself to undue familiarity.

      "Do you know of any enemies of his on the boat?" cut in Burke. "You were present when they were demanding that his body be thrown over, were you not? Who was foremost in that?"

      Castine shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory

Скачать книгу