“In this case, as in several others that have come to my attention, vapors arising from the combustion must have emitted certain noxious products. The fumes that caused Ida Snedden’s death were not of carbon monoxide from the stove, MacLeod. They were splitting-products of gasolene, which are so new to science that they have not yet been named.
“Mrs. Snedden’s death, I may say for the benefit of the coroner, was due to the absorption of some of these unidentified gaseous poisons. They are as deadly as a knife-thrust through the heart, under certain conditions. Due to the non-oxidation of some of the elements of gasolene, they escape from the exhaust of every running gas-engine. In the open air, where only a whiff or two would be inhale now and then, they are not dangerous. But in a closed room they may kill in an incredibly short time. In fact, the condition has given rise to an entirely new phenomenon which some one has named ‘petromortis.’”
“Petromortis?” repeated Snedden, who, for the first time, began to show interest in what was going on about him. “Then it was an accident?”
“I did not say it was an accident,” corrected Craig. “There is an old adage that murder will out. And this expression of human experience is only repeated in what we modern scientific detectives are doing. No man bent on the commission of a crime can so arrange the circumstances of that crime that it will afterward appear, point by point, as an accident.”
Kennedy had us all following him breathlessly now.
“I do not consider it an accident,” he went on, rapidly piecing together the facts as we had found them. “Ida Snedden was killed because she was getting too close to some one’s secret. Even at luncheon, I could see that she had discovered Gertrude’s attachment for Garretson. How she heard that, following the excitement of the explosion this afternoon, Gertrude and Garretson had disappeared, I do not pretend to know. But it is evident that she did hear, that she went out and took Jackson’s car, probably to pursue them. If we have heard that they went by the river road, she might have heard it, too.
“In all probability she came along just in time to surprise some one working on the other side of the old merry-go-round structure. There can be no reason to conceal the fact longer. From that deserted building some one was daily launching a newly designed invisible aeroplane. As Mrs. Snedden came along, she must have been just in time to see that person at his secret hangar. What happened I do not know, except that she must have run the car off the river road and into the building. The person whom she found must have suddenly conceived a method of getting her out of the way and making it look like an accident of some kind, perhaps persuaded her to stay in the car with the engine running, while he went off and destroyed the aeroplane which was damning evidence now.”
Startling as was the revelation of an actual phantom destroyer, our minds were more aroused as to who might be the criminal who had employed such an engine of death.
Kennedy drew from his pocket the telegram which had just arrived, and spread it out flat before us on a table. It was dated Philadelphia, and read:
MRS. IDA SNEDDEN, Nitropolis:
Garretson and Gertrude were married today. Have traced them to the Wolcott. Try to reconcile Mr. Snedden.
HUNTER JACKSON.
I saw at once that part of the story. It was just a plain love-affair that had ended in an elopement at a convenient time. The fire-eating Garretson had been afraid of the Sneddens and Jackson, who was their friend. Before I could even think further, Kennedy had drawn out the films taken by the rocket-camera.
“With the aid of a magnifying-glass,” he was saying, “I can get just enough of the lone figure in this picture to identify it. These are the crimes of a crazed pacifist, one whose mind had so long dwelt on the horrors of—”
“Look out!” shouted MacLeod, leaping in front of Kennedy.
The strain of the revelation had been too much. Snedden—a raving maniac—had reeled forward, wildly and impotently, at the man who had exposed him.
CHAPTER VI
THE BEAUTY MASK
“Oh, Mr. Jameson, if they could only wake her up—find out what is the matter—do something! This suspense is killing both mother and myself.”
Scenting a good feature story, my city editor had sent me out on an assignment, my sole equipment being a clipping of two paragraphs from the morning Star.
GIRL IN COMA SIX DAYS—
SHOWS NO SIGN OF REVIVAL
Virginia Blakeley, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Mrs. Stuart Blakeley, of Riverside Drive, who has been in a state of coma for six days, still shows no sign of returning consciousness.
Ever since Monday some member of her family has been constantly beside her. Her mother and sister have both vainly tried to coax her back to consciousness, but their efforts have not met with the slightest response. Dr. Calvert Haynes, the family physician, and several specialists who have been called in consultation, are completely baffled by the strange malady.
Often I had read of cases of morbid sleep lasting for days and even for weeks. But this was the first case I had ever actually encountered and I was glad to take the assignment.
The Blakeleys, as every one knew, had inherited from Stuart Blakeley a very considerable fortune in real estate in one of the most rapidly developing sections of upper New York, and on the death of their mother the two girls, Virginia and Cynthia, would be numbered among the wealthiest heiresses of the city.
They lived in a big sandstone mansion fronting the Hudson and it was with some misgiving that I sent up my card. Both Mrs. Blakeley and her other daughter, however, met me in the reception-room, thinking, perhaps, from what I had written on the card, that I might have some assistance to offer.
Mrs. Blakeley was a well-preserved lady, past middle-age, and very nervous.
“Mercy, Cynthia!” she exclaimed, as I explained my mission, “it’s another one of those reporters. No, I cannot say anything—not a word. I don’t know anything. See Doctor Haynes. I—”
“But, mother,” interposed Cynthia, more calmly, “the thing is in the papers. It may be that some one who reads of it may know of something that can be done. Who can tell?”
“Well, I won’t say anything,” persisted the elder woman. “I don’t like all this publicity. Did the newspapers ever do anything but harm to your poor dear father? No, I won’t talk. It won’t do us a bit of good. And you, Cynthia, had better be careful.”
Mrs. Blakeley backed out of the door, but Cynthia, who was a few years older than her sister, had evidently acquired independence. At least she felt capable of coping with an ordinary reporter who looked no more formidable than myself.
“It is quite possible that some one who knows about such cases may learn of this,” I urged.
She hesitated as her mother disappeared, and looked at me a moment, then, her feelings getting the better of her, burst forth with the strange appeal I have already quoted.
It was as though I had come at just an opportune moment when she must talk to some outsider to relieve her pent-up feelings.
By an adroit question here and there, as we stood in the reception-hall, I succeeded in getting the story, which seemed to be more of human interest than of news. I even managed to secure a photograph of Virginia as she was before the strange sleep fell on her.
Briefly, as her sister told it, Virginia was engaged to Hampton Haynes, a young medical student at the college where his father was a professor of diseases of the heart. The Hayneses were of a fine Southern family which had never recovered from the war and had finally come to New York. The father, Dr. Calvert Haynes, in addition to being a well-known physician, was the family physician of the Blakeleys, as I already knew. “Twice the date of the marriage has been set, only to be postponed,” added Cynthia Blakeley. “We don’t know what to do. And Hampton is frantic.”
“Then