“I can’t tell you how worried I am,” he murmured, almost to himself. “What can this thing be?”
He turned to us, and, although he had just been introduced, I am sure that our presence seemed to surprise him, for he went on talking to himself, “Oh yes—let me see—oh yes, friends of Doctor—er—Leslie.”
I had been studying him and trying to recall what I had just read of beriberi and polyneuritis. There flashed over my mind the recollection of what had been called Korsakoff’s syndrome, in which one of the mental disturbances was the memory of recent events. Did not this, I asked myself, indicate plainly enough that Leslie might be right in his suspicions of beriberi? It was all the more apparent a moment later when, turning to Miss Langdale, Wardlaw seemed almost instantly to forget our presence again. At any rate, his anxiety was easy to see.
After a few minutes’ chat during which Craig observed Wardlaw’s symptoms, too, we excused ourselves, and the Health Commissioner undertook to conduct us to his office to show us what he had done so far. As for me, I could not get Miss Langdale out of my mind, and especially the mysterious letter to Kennedy. What of it and what of its secret sender?
None of us said much until, half an hour later, in the department laboratory, Leslie began to recapitulate what he had already done in the case.
“You asked whether I had examined the food,” he remarked, pausing in a corner before several cages in which were a number of pigeons, separated and carefully tagged. With a wave of his hand at one group of cages he continued: “These fellows I have been feeding exclusively on samples of the various foods which I took from the Wardlaw family when I first went up there. Here, too, are charts showing what I have observed up to date. Over there are the ‘controls’—pigeons from the same group which have been fed regularly on the usual diet so that I can check my tests.”
Kennedy fell to examining the pigeons carefully as well as the charts and records of feeding and results. None of the birds fed on what had been taken from the apartment looked well, though some were worse than others.
“I want you to observe this fellow,” pointed out Leslie at last, singling out one cage. The pigeon in it was a pathetic figure. His eyes seemed dull and glazed. He paid little or no attention to us; even his food and water did not seem to interest him. Instead of strutting about, he seemed to be positively wabbly on his feet. Kennedy examined this one longer and more carefully than any of the rest.
“There are certainly all the symptoms of beriberi, or rather, polyneuritis, in pigeons, with that bird,” admitted Craig, finally, looking up at Leslie.
The commissioner seemed to be gratified. “You know,” he remarked, “beriberi itself is a common disease in the Orient. There has been a good deal of study of it and the cause is now known to be the lack of something in the food, which in the Orient is mostly rice. Polishing the rice, which removes part of the outer coat, also takes away something that is necessary for life, which scientists now call ‘vitamines.’”
“I may take some of these samples to study myself?” interrupted Kennedy, as though the story of vitamines was an old one to him.
“By all means,” agreed Leslie.
Craig selected what he wanted, keeping each separate and marked, and excused himself, saying that he had some investigations of his own that he wished to make and would let Leslie know the result as soon as he discovered anything.
Kennedy did not go back directly to the laboratory, however. Instead, he went up-town and, to my surprise, stopped at one of the large breweries. What it was that he was after I could not imagine, but, after a conference with the manager, he obtained several quarts of brewer’s yeast, which he had sent directly down to the laboratory.
Impatient though I was at this seeming neglect of the principal figures in the case, I knew, nevertheless, that Kennedy had already schemed out his campaign and that whatever it was he had in mind was of first importance.
Back at last in his own laboratory, Craig set to work on the brewer’s yeast, deriving something from it by the plentiful use of a liquid labeled “Lloyd’s reagent,” a solution of hydrous aluminum silicate.
After working for some time, I saw that he had obtained a solid which he pressed into the form of little whitish tablets. He had by no means finished, but, noticing my impatience, he placed the three or four tablets in a little box and handed them to me.
“You might take these over to Leslie in the department laboratory, Walter,” he directed. “Tell him to feed them to that wabbly-looking pigeon over there—and let me know the moment he observes any effect.”
Glad of the chance to occupy myself, I hastened on the errand, and even presided over the first feeding of the bird.
When I returned I found that Kennedy had finished his work with the brewer’s yeast and was now devoting himself to the study of the various samples of food which he had obtained from Leslie.
He was just finishing a test of the baking-powder when I entered, and his face showed plainly that he was puzzled by something that he had discovered.
“What is it?” I asked. “Have you found out anything?”
“This seems to be almost plain sodium carbonate,” he replied, mechanically.
“And that indicates?” I prompted.
“Perhaps nothing, in itself,” he went on, less abstractedly. “But the use of sodium carbonate and other things which I have discovered in other samples disengages carbon dioxide at the temperature of baking and cooking. If you’ll look in that public-health report on my desk you’ll see how the latest investigations have shown that bicarbonate of soda and a whole list of other things which liberate carbon dioxide destroy the vitamines Leslie was talking about. In other words, taken altogether I should almost say there was evidence that a concerted effort was being made to affect the food—a result analogous to that of using polished rice as a staple diet—and producing beriberi, or, perhaps more accurately, polyneuritis. I can be sure of nothing yet, but—it’s worth following up.”
“Then you think Kato—”
“Not too fast,” cautioned Craig. “Remember, others had access to the kitchen, too.”
In spite of his hesitancy, I could think only of the two paragraphs we had read in Mrs. Wardlaw’s will, and especially of the last. Might not Kato have been forced or enticed into a scheme that promised a safe return and practically no chance of discovery? What gruesome mystery had been unveiled by the anonymous letter which had first excited our curiosity?
It was late in the afternoon that Commissioner Leslie called us up, much excited, to inform us that the drooping pigeon was already pecking at food and beginning to show some interest in life. Kennedy seemed greatly gratified as he hung up the receiver.
“Almost dinner-time,” he commented, with a glance at his watch. “I think we’ll make another hurried visit to the Wardlaw apartment.”
We had no trouble getting in, although as outsiders we were more tolerated than welcome. Our excuse was that Kennedy had some more questions which we wished to ask Miss Langdale.
While we waited for her we sat, not in the study, but in the parlor. The folding-doors into the dining-room were closed, but across the hall we could tell by the sound when Kato was in the kitchen and when he crossed the hall.
Once I heard him in the dining-room. Before I knew it Kennedy had hastily tiptoed across the hall and into the kitchen. He was gone only a couple of minutes, but it was long enough to place in the food that was being prepared, and in some unprepared, either the tablets he had made or a powder he had derived from them crushed up. When he returned I saw from his manner that the real purpose of the visit had been accomplished, although when Miss Langdale appeared he went through the form of questioning