THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE
Wade Terhune had designated half-past eight as the time for his scientific experiment that evening, but McCarty put in an appearance a little before the hour.
He found the detective and his assistants engaged with a complicated arrangement of coils and batteries behind a screen in the corner of a great, bare room. Across the opposite wall a sheet was extended and before it, at a distance of some ten feet, was a long, narrow table, like a school form.
A row of chairs was placed along one side of it facing the sheet, and on the table before each chair was a thick, square pad of writing paper and a tray of pencils. The room was dimly lighted by a huge frosted dome high up in the center of the ceiling, and McCarty entered gingerly, avoiding a network of thread-like wires which ran along the floor from the table to the screen.
“Don’t mind them, Mac. You won’t get a shock if you step on them,” called Terhune. “Come here behind the screen, and I’ll show you something.”
McCarty complied, without undue eagerness, holding himself stiffly from contact with the instrument which met his gaze. Above the coils of wire on the stand was an elongated horizontal cylinder marked off into regularly spaced sections and covered with a white, vellum-like substance checked with tiny squares. Before each section of the cylinder hung a steel needle pointed pen of the self-feeding variety, the holders of which were slender, transparent tubes, filled with red ink.
“There are ten chairs before that table out there, and ten sections on this cylinder,” explained Terhune. “The pens will record on the individual charts the emotions of each occupant of those chairs when a different picture is thrown on the sheet. Between each picture the pens lift automatically for a fraction of a second, to register the break. No one can escape; they may resort to every possible subterfuge in the test, school themselves to the utmost impassivity, but their feelings, their most secret thoughts will be bared as though their hearts and brains were under a psychic microscope!
McCarty nodded judicially.
“I see,” he prevaricated. “It’s amazing! Is it your own invention, Mr. Terhune?”
“I have contrived several modifications,” the detective admitted modestly, as he emerged from behind the screen. “The original is in use in the criminal investigation departments of all the larger cities in Europe. One of these chairs, by the way, will be vacant; Miss Beckwith has been in a state of collapse since the inquest yesterday, and is under the care of a physician.”
“Miss Beckwith?” McCarty glanced up. “Are you sure of that, sir?”
“Well, I didn’t have subpoenas issued,” Terhune temporized, smilingly. “This is purely an invitation affair. Have you made this connection, Bassett?
“Yes, sir,” the assistant replied, as he, too, left the screened enclosure.
“Well, lay the rugs to cover the wires, and everything will be ready. It is nearly time.”
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, Mr. Terhune.” McCarty drew him to one side. “Will you let me have a look at the impressions you made of those finger-prints on Mrs. Doremus’s glass cabinet?”
“Indeed I will, Mac, but not now. You’ll see them before you leave, I promise you.”
“However did you get them, sir? You couldn’t trace them.”
“Photographed them,” returned the detective briefly. “I brought them out clearly by sprinkling them with a chemically prepared powder, subjecting the glass itself to a certain degree of heat from the under side, and then blowing the loose particles of powder away with a small bellows. The heat caused the powder, which is green, to adhere to each line of the original markings, and they showed more distinctly in the photograph even than to the eye. But my guests are coming.”
The bell rang as he spoke, and Bassett ushered in a tall, bronzed man who walked with a free, swinging stride and whose eyes were youthfully bright in spite of his gray hair.
“Good evening, Mr. Allen. You are prompt, I see. Please sit here.” Terhune indicated a chair at the end of the line, and McCarty turned away to hide his surprise.
Allen! It must be Mrs. Doremus’s former husband, the man whom she claimed had dined with her on the night of the tragedy. How had Terhune located him so quickly?
Further conjecture on that score was prevented by the arrival of the others who were to form this strangely assorted gathering. Mr. Charles Sturtevant entered, with the aviator, Luke Edwards, at his heels. Then came Grafton Foxe and his wife, followed shortly by Stephen Quimby.
Mr. Terhune greeted each in a brisk professional manner, and indicated the seats which he desired them to occupy at the table. They had scarcely taken their places when the door opened once more and Mrs. Doremus made her appearance, accompanied by her maid, Mary.
As the former advanced to the table she paused abruptly, her eyes dark with terror fastened upon the averted face of the first comer, but Terhune ushered her reassuringly to her seat, then turned and beckoned to McCarty, motioning to the vacant chair between Mrs. Doremus and Stephen Quimby.
“I think we are ready now,” he began. “I have you all here to-night to put before you a simple test, one primarily of observation. It is a variation of those used in the lower grade schools, and in certain institutions for determining the degree of intelligence, and perceptive and retentive powers of the subjects under examination.
“The room will be darkened, and on the sheet before you will be thrown a disconnected series of pictures, after the manner of the old lantern slides. Before each of you there are pencils and paper, and I will ask you to write down what different pictures suggest to your mind when they pass before you.
“The spaces on the paper are numbered to correspond with the order of sequence in which the pictures are presented. You will note that along the edge of the table runs a narrow pneumatic cushion for the wrist. It is bulky, but very soft, and you need have no hesitation in pressing down upon it.”
McCarty noticed then a band of what appeared to be inflated black rubber about four inches wide, extending on the extreme edge of the table for its entire length. He rested his hand and wrist upon it experimentally, and found that it gave readily beneath the pressure, but swelled on either side and seemed to cling to his hands as if by some process of suction. The pads of paper were clamped immovably to the table, and the pencils were sharp, and of very hard lead.
“Understand, I do not wish a description of the pictures themselves, but merely a word indicating what they each suggest to you. There will be no titles thrown on the sheet to guide you, nor do I propose to lecture about them beyond this brief foreword. I must ask those who are still wearing gloves to remove them, that the writing may be unhampered. All ready? Lights down, Bassett!”
The glow of the dome in the ceiling dwindled to a blurred, hazy glimmer, in which the white square of the sheet seemed to stand out glaringly. No further sound of a voice broke the stillness and a long minute passed as they sat in motionless expectancy. The gloom and suspense worked on McCarty’s nerves, and he could feel his scalp tingle, while an unaccountable desire to move or shout, anything to break the tension, obsessed him.
Then, from the obscurity came Terhune’s voice.
“Steady! Write, please!”
A face suddenly flashed upon the sheet; the face of a young girl with a soft, wistful mouth, straight, delicate brows and thoughtful eyes.
McCarty gasped as he recognized the picture of Marion Rowntree, which had been published in the newspaper a few days before, and mechanically he wrote two words. All thought of his errand there vanished in his absorbed interest in the game itself.
He forgot the shadowy figures seated on either side of him in the darkened room, forgot that he himself was under a mysterious and ruthlessly betraying test. His breathing became audible, his eyes protruded, and with leaping pulse and mounting excitement he watched as picture succeeded picture on the screen.
After the portrait, there appeared a stand containing a miscellaneous collection of objects; books, flowers, candy-boxes, a Persian kitten, and a solitaire ring. Number three was a bridal party ascending the steps of a church, and with scarcely a break it was succeeded by a funeral cortège.
McCarty was oblivious to the stirring near him, and his own muttered ejaculations drowned any others which might have reached his ears.
The fifth picture almost brought him to his feet. It was that of a young with streaming hair and woman, distorted face, struggling in the grasp of two nurses; obviously a maniac. What could it have meant? What connection with—
It vanished before his thought could complete itself, and its place was taken by a scroll with pendent seals, labeled “Last Will and Testament.” This time he was subconsciously aware of a movement beside him, but he gave it no heed.
The seventh picture was a photograph of a corner of Mrs. Doremus’s living-room, showing a window opened wide upon the darkness; the eighth was a window in the same position on the screen, but viewed from the outside, and barred with the iron of a prison.
Then came in regular sequence a view of the Manhattan Bridge; a little cottage with boards across door and windows; a railroad train; an open box of roses, and a card with the word “Jack” plainly written upon it; a photograph of the glass cabinet in the corner of Mrs. Doremus’s dining-room; a printed copy of the oath administered to the witnesses at the coroner’s inquest, and finally an enlarged photograph of finger prints on glass.
This drew from McCarty a loud and unconscious ejaculation of satisfaction as he realized it must be the impression he had asked for, but his exclamation was lost in a wild, hysterical outburst from the woman on his right.
“Let me go! Let me leave his horrible place! I am fainting, I cannot endure any more—”
“Lights, Bassett!” It was Terhune’s authoritative tone. “The experiment is over.”
The room burst into brightness once more and the detective went rapidly down the line, releasing the spring which held each tablet of paper in place and tucking them under his arm.
“You are all at liberty to go now, but I need not request you to hold yourselves in readiness to return again if you are notified. You may be interested in knowing that you have each irrefutably recorded your emotions by the pulse beats in your wrists, in pressing upon the pneumatic cushion.”
“What ridiculous child’s play is this?” exclaimed Grafton Foxe angrily. “I for one shall pander no further to your absurd chicanery. There’s nothing in the law which holds me amenable to such preposterous, so called tests, and you can count my wife and me out, in future!”
“Come, oh, come!” Mrs. Foxe dragged at his arm. “I am afraid—!”
Stephen Quimby bowed and departed with an ironic smile. Mrs. Doremus, still trembling with hysteria, had already gone with her maid, and Mr. Sturtevant and the aviator followed.
George Allen, who had ignored the presence of his former wife, lingered for a moment at the door.
“That was mighty interesting, Mr. Terhune,” he remarked. “I suppose you’ve no use for me here any longer, but I’d like to know what you get out of the experiment. Will you try to find time to look me up at the hotel later?”
“I’ll make the time, Mr. Allen,” the detective responded heartily. “Thanks for your coöperation.”
His voice and the slight flush upon his ascetic face denoted an unwonted excitement and elation, and when they were alone with the assistant he beckoned to McCarty.
“Come and have a look at the papers,” he invited. “Here is a list of the pictures in the order in which they appeared. Now let us see what suggestions they gave our friends.”
McCarty glanced at the list the other had placed in his hands. It read:
1. Photograph of Marion Rowntree. 2. Collection of gifts. 3. A wedding. 4. A funeral. 5. Scene in asylum. 6. A will. 7. An open window. 8. A barred window. 9. Manhattan Bridge. 10. Closed cottage. II. Railroad train. 12. Roses and card “Jack.” 13. Glass cabinet. 14. Witness’s oath. 15. Finger-prints.
Terhune was rapidly sorting the papers in his hands, which trembled exultantly.
“Ah! Here are some highly significant indications!” he cried. “There were cool heads here to-night, with alert, cautious minds inside of them, but we’ve broken them down, Mac! In spite of their efforts at concealment, we’ve dragged their secrets from them! I told you science could not fail! The mind of man may become confused, may be side-tracked by conflicting evidence and false clues, but science places its finger upon the truth invariably.
“It is the greatest, the only flawless detector! Each of these records bears interesting testimony and reveals very curious admissions, but in this one, Mac, we have the crux of the whole matter. It is an absolute betrayal of guilt, a veritable confession!
“How unconsciously yet irretrievably he has revealed his crime—for it is a man’s handwriting, of course. Listen: Number one: The girl. Two: Cat, books, ring. Three: Bride she might have been. Four: Her corpse. Five: Crazy. Six: Her mother’s will. Seven: The window. Eight: Prison. Nine: The bridge. Ten: The house in Steinway. Eleven: The girl that away went Twelve: Blank. Thirteen: The hiding place. Fourteen: The oath. Fifteen: My marks.”
McCarty’s lips parted, but no words came, and Terhune shook the incriminating paper aloft in triumph.
“What did I tell you? Science is omnipotent! See how he gives himself away!”
“‘The bride she might have been’—but for him! Her corpse ‘—for which he was responsible! Her mother’s will—how well he knew! The window!’ He could not bring himself to be more explicit. Twelve is blank because he knew nothing of the roses or card. The glass cabinet was instantly recognized, and then in the end, his self-control shattered, he damned himself by an unequivocal confession. My marks!’ The record is numbered six, and the hand that penned it is the hand that sent Marion Rowntree to her death! Bassett, what is registered on the cylinder?”
The voice of the assistant came from behind the screen:
“Every section shows agitation and excitement, but nothing above normal in the circumstances, except number six. That jumped spasmodically all over the chart, and finally touched the maximum point the cylinder records!”
McCarty’s face was a study.
“Number six is my own,” he announced meekly. “I only put down what the pictures meant to me, like you told us. Twelve is blank, for I’m not any too handy with a pencil, and the whole business was going so fast for me, and I wrote my marks because they were the very finger-prints on my mind, that I’d asked you to let me see. Science had better take another guess, Mr. Terhune.”