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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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It is not often that Craig Kennedy has an opportunity to interest himself in a matter of such vital social importance as that in which he eagerly undertakes to help, upon Mrs. Sutphen's anxious appeal. Cosmopolitan readers are doubtless alive to the gravity of the situation here described, and will be grateful for enlightenment upon a topic at present very prominent in the minds of all who are solicitous for the preservation of the mental and physical vigor of the race. Also, they will learn something of the wonderful new psychological methods which are replacing the crude and clumsy ways of the old-time detectives in fastening crimes upon the perpetrators.
"WE'VE called on you, Professor Kennedy, to see if I can
interest you in the campaign I am planning against drugs."
Mrs. Clayton Sutphen, social leader and suffragist, had scarcely more than introduced herself than she launched earnestly into the reason for her visit to us.
"You don't realize it, perhaps," she continued, "but very often a little silver bottle of tablets is as much a necessity to some women of the smart set as cosmetics."
"I've heard of such cases," nodded Craig encouragingly.
"Well, you see, I became interested in the subject," she added, "when I saw some of my own friends going to pieces. That's how I came to plan this campaign."
She paused, evidently nervous. "I've been threatened, too," she went on, "but I'm not going to give up the fight. People think that drugs are a curse only to the underworld, but they have no idea what inroads the habit has made in the upper world, too. Oh, it is awful!"
Suddenly she leaned over and whispered: "Why, there's my own sister, Mrs. Garrett! She began taking drugs after an operation, and now they have a terrible hold on her. I needn't try to conceal anything. It's all been published in the papers—everybody knows it. Think of it: divorced, disgraced—all through these cursed drugs! Doctor Coleman, our family physician, has done everything known to break up the habit, but he hasn't succeeded."
Doctor Coleman, I knew, was a famous society physician. If he had failed, I wondered why Mrs. Sutphen thought a detective might succeed. But it was evidently another purpose she had in mind in introducing the subject.
"So you can understand what it all means to me personally," she resumed, with a sigh. "I've studied the thing—I've been forced to study it. Why, now the exploiters are even making drug fiends of mere children!"
Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of note-paper before us, on which was written something in a trembling scrawl. "For instance, here's a letter I received only yesterday."
Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of note-paper before us.
Kennedy glanced over it carefully. It was signed "A Friend," and read:
I have heard of your drug war in the newspapers and wish to help you, only I don't dare to do so openly. But I can assure you that if you will investigate what I am about to tell you, you will soon be on the trail of those higher up in this terrible drug business. There is a little center of the traffic on West Sixty-sixth Street, just off Broadway. I cannot tell you more; but if you can investigate it, you will be doing more good than you can possibly realize now. There is one girl there, whom they call Snowbird. If you could only get hold of her quietly and place her in a sanatorium, you might save her yet.
Craig was more than ordinarily interested. "And the children—what did you mean by that?"
"Why, it's literally true!" asserted Mrs. Sutphen, in a horrified tone. "Some of the victims are actually school-children. Up there in Sixty-sixth Street we have found a man named Armstrong who seems to be very friendly with this young girl whom they call Snowbird. Her real name, by the way, is Sawtelle, I believe. She can't be over eighteen—a mere child—yet she's a slave to the stuff."
"Oh, then you have actually already acted on the hint in the letter?" asked Craig.
"Yes," she replied; "I've had one of the agents of our Anti-Drug Society, a social worker, investigating the neighborhood."
Kennedy nodded for her to go on.
"I've even investigated myself a little, and now I want to employ some one to break the thing up. My husband had heard of you. Can you help me?"
There was a note of appeal in her voice that was irresistible to a man who had the heart of Kennedy.
"Tell me just what you have discovered so far," he asked simply.
"Well," she replied slowly, "after my agent verified the contents of the letter, I watched until I saw this girl—she's a mere child, as I said—going to a cabaret in the neighborhood. What struck me was that I saw her go in looking like a wreck and come out a beautiful creature, with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, almost youthful again. A most remarkable girl she is, too," mused Mrs. Sutphen, "who always wears a white gown, white hat, white shoes, and white stockings. It must be a mania with her."
Mrs. Sutphen seemed to have exhausted her small store of information, and as she rose to go, Kennedy rose also.
"I shall be glad to look into the case, Mrs. Sutphen," he promised. "I'm sure there is something that can be done."
"Thank you, ever so much!" she murmured, as she paused at the door, something still on her mind. "And perhaps, too," she added, "you may run across my sister, Mrs. Garrett."
"Indeed," he assured her, "if there is anything I can possibly do that will assist you personally, I shall be only too happy."
"Thank you again, ever so much!" she repeated, with just a little choke in her voice.
For several moments Kennedy sat contemplating the anonymous letter which she had left with him, studying both its contents and the handwriting.
"We must go over the ground up there again," he remarked finally. "Perhaps we can do better than Mrs. Sutphen and her drug-investigator have done."
HALF an hour later we had arrived, and were sauntering along
the street in question, walking slowly up and down in the now
fast gathering dusk. It was a typical cheap apartment-block of
variegated character, with people sitting idly on the narrow
front steps and children spilling out into the roadway in
imminent danger of their young lives from every passing
automobile.
On the crowded sidewalk a creation in white hurried past us. One glance at the tense face in the flickering arc-light was enough for Kennedy. He pulled my arm, and we turned and followed at a safe distance. It was a girl who could not have been more than eighteen, if she were as old as that. She was pretty, too, but already her face was beginning to look old and worn from the use of drugs. It was unmistakable.
In spite of the fact that she was hurrying, it was not difficult to follow her in the crowd, as she picked her way in and out, and finally turned into Broadway where the white lights were welcoming the night.
Under the glare of a huge electric sign she stopped a moment, then entered one of the most notorious of the cabarets.
We entered, also, at a discreet distance, and sat down at a table.
"Don't look around, Walter," whispered Craig, as the waiter took our order, "but to your right is Mrs. Sutphen."
If he had mentioned any other name in the world, I could not have been more surprised. I waited impatiently until I could pick her out from the corner of my eye. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Sutphen and another woman. What they were doing here, I could not imagine, for neither had the look of habitues of such a place.
I followed Kennedy's eye and found that he was gazing furtively at a flashily dressed young man who was sitting alone at the far end, in a sort of booth upholstered in leather.
The girl in white, whom I was now sure was Miss Sawtelle, went over and greeted him. It was too far to see just what happened, but the young woman, after sitting down, rose and left almost immediately. As nearly as I could make out, she had got something from him which she had dropped into her hand-bag, and was now hugging the hand-bag close to herself, almost as if it were gold.
We sat for a few minutes debating just what to do, when Mrs. Sutphen and her friend rose. As they passed out, a quick, covert glance told us to follow. We did so, and the two turned into Broadway.
Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of note-paper before us.
"Let me present you to Miss McCann," introduced Mrs. Sutphen, as we caught up with them. "Miss McCann is the social worker and trained investigator whom I'm employing."
We bowed, but before we could ask a question, Mrs. Sutphen cried excitedly: "I think I have a clue. We've traced the source of the drugs—as far as that young fellow, Whitecap, whom you saw in there."
I had not recognized his face, although I had undoubtedly seen pictures of him before. But no sooner had I heard the name than I recognized it as that of one of the most notorious gang-leaders on the West Side.
Not only that, but Whitecap's gang played an important part in local politics. There was scarcely a form of crime or vice to which Whitecap and his followers could not turn a skilled hand, whether it was swinging an election, running a gambling club, or dispensing "dope."
"You see," Mrs. Sutphen explained, "even before I saw you, my suspicions were aroused, and I determined to obtain some of the stuff they are using up here, if possible. I realized it would be useless for me to try to get it myself, so I got Miss McCann from Neighborhood House to try it. She got it, and I have the bottle." "May I see it?" asked Craig eagerly. Mrs. Sutphen reached hastily into her hand-bag, drew forth a small brown-glass bottle, and handed it to him. Craig retreated into one of the less dark side streets. There he pulled out the para-fined cork from the bottle, picked out a piece of cotton stuffed in the neck of the bottle, and poured out some flat tablets that showed a glistening white in the palm of his hand.
"I may keep these?" he asked.
"Certainly," replied Mrs. Sutphen; "that's what I had Miss McCann get them for."
Kennedy dropped the bottle into his pocket. "So that was the gang-leader, Whitecap," he remarked, as we turned again to Broadway.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Sutphen. "At certain hours, I believe, he can be found at that cabaret selling this stuff, whatever it is, to anyone who comes properly introduced. The thing seems to be so open and notorious that it amounts to a scandal."
We parted a moment later, Mrs. Sutphen and Miss McCann to go to the settlement-house, Craig and I to continue our investigations.
"First of all, Walter," he said, as we swung aboard an up-town car, "I want to stop at the laboratory."
IN his den, which had been the scene of so many triumphs,
Kennedy began a hasty examination of the tablets, powdering one
and testing it with chemicals.
"What are they?" I asked, at length, when he seemed to have found the right reaction which gave him the clue.
"Happy dust," he answered briefly.
"Happy dust?" I repeated, looking at him a moment, in doubt whether he was joking or serious. "What is that?"
"The Tenderloin name for heroin—a comparatively new derivative of morphine. It is really morphine treated with acetic acid, which renders it more powerful than morphine alone."
"How do they take it? What's the effect?" I asked.
"The person who uses heroin usually powders the tablets and snuffs the powder up his nose," he answered. "In a short time, perhaps only two or three weeks, one can become a confirmed victim of happy dust. And while one is under its influence, he is morally, physically, and mentally irresponsible."
Kennedy was putting away the paraphernalia he had used, meanwhile talking about the drug. "One of the worst aspects of it, too," he continued, "is the desire of the user to share his experience with some one else. This passing-on of the habit, which seems to be one of the strongest desires of the drug fiend, makes him even more dangerous to society than he would otherwise be. It makes it harder for anyone once addicted to a drug to shake it off, for his friends will give him no chance. The only thing to do is to get the victim into an entirely new environment."
The laboratory table cleared again, Kennedy had dropped into a deep study.
"Now, why was Mrs. Sutphen there?" he asked aloud. "I can't think it was solely through her interest for that girl they call Snowbird. She was interested in her, but she made no attempt, to interfere or to follow her. No; there must have been another reason."
"You don't think she's a dope fiend herself, do you?" I asked hurriedly.
Kennedy smiled. "Hardly, Walter. If she has any obsession on the subject, it is more likely to lead her to actual fanaticism against all stimulants and narcotics and everything connected with them. No; you might possibly persuade me that two and two equal five—but not seventeen. It's not very late. I think we might make another visit to that cabaret and see whether the same thing is going on yet."
WE rode down-town again and sauntered in, this time with the
theater crowd. Our first visit had been so quiet and
unostentatious that the second attracted no attention or comment
from the waiters or anyone else. As we sat down, we glanced over
and there, in his corner still, was Whitecap. Apparently his
supply of the dope was inexhaustible, for he was still dispensing
it. As we watched the Tenderloin habitues come and go, I came
soon to recognize the dope fiend by the mere look on his
face—the pasty skin, the vacant eye, the nervous quiver of
the muscles, as though every organ and every nerve were crying
out for more of the favorite nepenthe. Time and again I noticed
the victims as they sat at the tables, growing more and more
haggard and worn, until they could stand it no longer. Then they
would retire, sometimes after a visit across the floor to
Whitecap, more often directly, for they had stocked themselves up
with the drug, evidently after the first visit to him. But always
they would come back, changed in appearance, with what seemed to
be a new lease of life but still recognizable as drug
victims.
It was not long, as we waited, before another woman, older than Miss Sawtelle but dressed in an extreme fashion, hurried into the cabaret and, with scarcely a look to right or left, went directly to Whitecap's corner. She, too, had the look.
There was a surreptitious passing of a bottle in exchange for a Treasury note, and she dropped into the seat beside Whitecap.
Before he could interfere, she had opened the bottle, crushed a tablet or two in a napkin, and was holding it to her face as though breathing the most exquisite perfume. With one quick inspiration of her breath after another, she was snuffing the powder up her nose.
Whitecap, with an angry gesture, pulled the napkin from her face, and one could fancy his snarl under his breath, "Say—do you want to get me in wrong here?"
But it was too late. Some of the happy dust had taken effect, at least enough to relieve the terrible pangs she must have been suffering.
As she rose and retired, with a hasty apology to Whitecap for her indiscretion, Kennedy turned to me and exclaimed:
"Think of it! The deadliest of all habits is the simplest—no hypodermic, no pipe, no paraphernalia of any kind. It's terrible!"
The woman returned, to sit down and enjoy herself, careful not to obtrude herself on Whitecap lest he might become angry at the mere sight of her, and treasure his anger up against the next time when she might need the drug.
Already there was the most marvelous change in her. She seemed captivated by the music, the dancing, the life which a few moments before she had totally disregarded.
She was seated alone, not far from us, and as she glanced about, Kennedy caught her eye. She allowed her gaze to rest on us for a moment, the signal for a mild flirtation which ended in our exchange of tables, and we found ourselves opposite the drug fiend who was following up the taking of the dope by a thin-stemmed glass of some liqueur.
I DO not recall the conversation, but it was one of those
inconsequential talks that bohemians consider so brilliant and
everybody else so vapid. As we skimmed from one subject to
another, treating the big facts of life as if they were mere
incidents, and the little as if they overshadowed all else, I
could see that Craig, who had a faculty of probing into the very
soul of anyone when he chose, was gradually leading around to the
subject he wanted to discuss.
It was not long before, as the most natural remark in the world following something he had made her say, just as a clever prestidigitator forces a card, he asked, "What was it I saw you snuffing over in the booth—happy dust?"
She did not even take the trouble to deny it but nodded a brazen "yes."
"How did you come to use it first?" he asked, careful not to give offense.
"The usual way, I suppose," she replied, with a laugh that sounded harsh and grating. "I was ill, and I found out what it was the doctor was giving me."
"And then?"
"Oh, I thought I would use it only as long as it served my purpose, and, when that was over, give it up."
"But—" prompted Craig hypnotically.
"Instead, I was soon using six, eight, ten tablets of heroin a day. I found that I needed that amount in order to live. Then it went up by leaps to twenty, thirty, forty."
"Suppose you couldn't get it?"
"Couldn't get it?" she repeated, with an unspeakable horror. "Once I thought I'd try to stop. But my heart skipped beats; then it seemed to pound away, as if trying to break through my ribs. I don't think heroin is like other drugs. When one has her 'coke'—that's cocaine—taken away, she feels like a rag. Fill her up, and she can do anything again. But heroin—I think one might murder to get it!"
The expression on the woman's face was almost tragic. I verily believe that she meant it.
"Why," she cried, "if anyone had told me a year ago that the time would ever come when I would value some tiny white tablets above anything else in the world, yes, and even above my immortal soul, I would have thought him a lunatic."
It was getting late, and as the woman showed no disposition to leave, Kennedy and I excused ourselves.
Outside Craig looked at me keenly.
"Can you guess who that was?"
"Although she didn't tell us her name," I replied, "I am morally certain that it was Mrs. Garrett."
"Precisely," he answered, "and what a shame, too, for she must evidently once have been a woman of great refinement." He shook his head sadly. "Walter, there isn't likely to be anything that we can do for some hours, now. I have a little experiment I'd like to try. Suppose we publish a story in the Star about the campaign against drugs. Tell about what we have seen tonight, mention the cabaret by indirection, and Whitecap directly. Then we can sit back and see what happens. We've got to throw a scare into them, somehow, if we are going to smoke out anyone higher up than Whitecap. But you'll have to be careful, for if they suspect us, our usefulness in the case will be over."
Together, Kennedy and I worked over our story far into the night, down at the Star office, and the following day waited to see whether anything came of it.
IT was with a great deal of interest tempered by fear that we
dropped into the cabaret the following evening. Fortunately, no
one suspected us. In fact, having been there the night before, we
had established ourselves, as it were, and were welcomed as old
patrons and good spenders.
I noticed, however, that Whitecap was not there. The story had been read by such of the dope fiends as had not fallen too far to keep abreast of the times, and these and the waiters were busy quietly warning off a line of haggard-eyed, disappointed patrons who came around as usual.
Some of them were so obviously dependent on Whitecap that I almost regretted having written the story, for they must have been suffering the tortures of the damned.
It was in the midst of a reverie of this sort that a low exclamation from Kennedy recalled my attention. There was Snowbird, with a man considerably older than herself: They had just come in and were looking about frantically for Whitecap.
The pair, nerve-racked and exhausted, sat down mournfully in a seat near us, and, as they talked earnestly in low tones, we had an excellent opportunity for studying Armstrong for the first time.
He was not a bad-looking man, or even a weak one. Back of the dissipation of the drugs, one fancied he could read the story of the wreck of a brilliant life. But there was little left to admire or respect. As the couple talked earnestly, the one so old, the other so young in vice, I had to keep a tight rein on myself to prevent my sympathy for the girl getting the better of common sense and kicking the man out of doors.
Finally Armstrong rose to go, after a final imploring glance from the girl. Obviously she had persuaded him to forage about to secure the heroin by hook or crook.
It was also really our first chance to study the girl carefully under the light, for her entrance and exit the night before had been so hurried that we had seen comparatively little of her. Craig was watching her narrowly. Not only were the effects of the drug plainly evident on her face but it was apparent that snuffing the powdered tablets was destroying the bones in her nose, through shrinkage of the blood-vessels, as well as undermining her nervous system and causing her brain to totter.
I was wondering whether Armstrong knew of any depot for the secret distribution of the drug. I could not believe that Whitecap was either the chief distributor or the financial head of the illegal traffic. I wondered who, indeed, was the man higher up. Was he an importer of the drug, or was he the representative of some chemical company not averse to making an illegal dollar now and then by dragging down his fellow man?
Kennedy and I were trying to act as if we were enjoying the cabaret show and not too much interested in the little drama that was being acted before us. I think little Miss Sawtelle noticed, however, that we were looking often her way. I was amazed, too, on studying her more closely, to find that there was something indefinably queer about her, aside from the marked effect of the drugs she had been taking. What it was I was at a loss to determine, but I felt sure from the expression on Kennedy's face that he had noticed it, also.
I was on the point of asking him if he, too, observed anything queer in the girl, when Armstrong hurried in and handed her a small package, then almost without a word stalked out again, evidently as much to Snowbird's surprise as to our own.
She had literally seized the package, as though she were drowning and grasping at a life-buoy. Even the surprise at his hasty departure could not prevent her, however, from tearing the wrapper off, and, in the sheltering shadow of the table-cloth, pouring forth the little white pellets in her lap, counting them as a miser counts his gold.
"The old thief!" she exclaimed aloud. "He's held out twenty-five!"
I don't know which it was that amazed me more—the almost childish petulance and ungovernable temper of the girl, which made her cry out in spite of her surroundings and the attendant circumstances, or the petty rapacity of the man who could stoop to such a low level as to rob her in this seemingly underhand manner.
But there was no time for useless repining, now. She dumped the pellets back into the bottle hastily and disappeared.
When she came back, it was with that expression I had come to know so well. At least for a few hours, there was a respite for her from the terrific pangs she had been suffering. She was almost happy, smiling. Even that false happiness, I felt, was superior to Armstrong's moral sense blunted by drugs. I had begun to realize how lying, stealing, crimes of all sorts might be laid at the door of this great evil.
In her haste to get where she could snuff the heroin, she had forgotten a light wrap lying on her chair. As she returned for it, it fell to the floor. Instantly Kennedy was on his feet, bending over to pick it up.
She thanked him, and the smile lingered a moment on her face. It was enough. It gave Kennedy the chance to pursue a conversation, and in the free and easy atmosphere of the cabaret to invite her to sit over at our table.
At least all her nervousness was gone, and she chatted vivaciously. Kennedy said little. He was too busy watching her. It was quite the opposite of the case of Mrs. Garrett.
Still the minutes sped past and we seemed to be getting on famously. Unlike his action in the case of the older woman, where he had been sounding the depths of her heart and mind, in this case, his idea seemed to be to allow the childish prattle to come out and perhaps explain itself.
However, at the end of half an hour, when we seemed to be getting no further along, Kennedy did not protest at her desire to leave us, "to keep a date," as she expressed it.
"Waiter, the check, please," ordered Kennedy leisurely.
When he received it, he seemed to be in no great hurry to pay it, but went over one item after another, then added up the footing again.
"Strange how some of these waiters grow rich," Craig remarked finally, with a gay smile.
The idea of waiters and money quickly brought some petty reminiscences to her mind. While she was still talking, Craig casually pulled a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled on the back of the waiter's check.
From where I was sitting beside him, I could see that he had written some figures similar to the following:
5183
47395
654726
2964375
47293815
924738651
2146073859
"Here's a stunt," he remarked, breaking into the conversation at a convenient point. "Can you repeat these numbers after me?"
Without waiting for her to make excuse, he said quickly, "5183."
"5183," she repeated mechanically.
"47395," came in rapid succession, to which she replied, perhaps a little slower than before, "47395."
"Now, 654726," he said.
"654726," she repeated, I thought with some hesitation.
"Again, 2964375," he shot out.
"269," she hesitated, "73—" she stopped.
It was evident that she had reached the limit.
Kennedy smiled, paid the check, and we parted at the door.
"What was all that rigmarole?" I inquired, as her white figure disappeared down the street.
"Part of the Binet test—seeing how many digits one can remember. An adult ought to remember from eight to ten, in any order. But she has the mentality of a child. That is the queer thing about her. Chronologically, she may be eighteen years or so old; mentally, she is scarcely more than eight. Mrs. Sutphen was right. They have made a fiend out of a mere child, a defective who never had a chance against them."
As the horror of it all dawned on me, I hated Armstrong worse than ever, hated Whitecap, hated the man higher up, whoever he might be, who was enriching himself out of the defective, as well as the weakling and the vicious—all three typified by Snowbird, Armstrong, and Whitecap.
HAVING no other place to go, pending further developments of
the publicity we had given the drug war in the Star,
Kennedy and I decided on a walk home.
We had scarcely entered the apartment when the hall-boy called to us frantically.
"Some one's been tryin' to get you all over town, Professor Kennedy. Here's the message. I wrote it down. An attempt has been made to poison Mrs. Sutphen. They said at the other end of the line that you'd know."
We faced each other aghast.
"My God!" exclaimed Kennedy. "Has that been the effect of our story, Walter? Instead of smoking out anyone—we've almost killed some one."
As fast as a cab could whisk us, around to Mrs. Sutphen's we hurried.
"I warned her that if she mixed up in any such fight as this, she might expect almost anything," remarked Mr. Sutphen nervously, as he met us in the reception-room. "She's all right, now, I guess, but if it hadn't been for the prompt work of the ambulance surgeon I sent for, Doctor Coleman says she would have died in fifteen minutes."
"How did it happen?" asked Craig.
"Why, she usually drinks a glass of vichy and milk before retiring," replied Mr. Sutphen. "We don't know yet whether it was the vichy or the milk that was poisoned, but Doctor Coleman thinks it was chloral in one or the other, and so did the ambulance surgeon. I tell you I was scared. I tried to get Coleman, but he was out on a case, and I happened to think of the hospitals as probably the quickest. Doctor Coleman came in just as the young surgeon was bringing her around. He—oh here he is, now!"
The famous doctor was just coming down-stairs. He saw us, but, I suppose, inasmuch as we did not belong to the Sutphen and Cole man set, ignored us.
"Mrs. Sutphen will be all right now," he said reassuringly, as he drew on his gloves. "The nurse has arrived, and I have given her instructions what to do. And by the way, my dear Sutphen, I should advise you to deal firmly with her in that matter about which her name is appearing in the papers. Women, nowadays, don't seem to realize the dangers they run in mixing in all these reforms. I have ordered an analysis of both the milk and vichy, but that will do little good unless we can find out who poisoned it. And there are so many chances for things like that; life is so complex nowadays..."
He passed out with scarcely a nod at us. Kennedy did not attempt to question him. He was thinking rapidly.
"Walter, we have no time to lose," he exclaimed, seizing a telephone that stood on a stand near-by. "This is the time for action. Hello—Police Headquarters? First Deputy O'Connor, please."
As Kennedy waited, I tried to figure out how it could have happened. I wondered whether it might not have been Mrs. Garrett. Would she stop at anything if she feared the loss of her favorite drug? But then there were so many others and so many ways of "getting" anybody who interfered with the drug traffic, that it seemed impossible to figure it out by pure deduction.
"Hello, O'Connor!" I heard Kennedy say. "You read that story in the Star this morning about the drug fiends at that Broadway cabaret? Yes? Well, Jameson and I wrote it. It's part of the drug war that Mrs. Sutphen has been waging. O'Connor, she's been poisoned—oh, no—she's all right now. But I want you to send out and arrest Whitecap and that fellow Armstrong immediately. I'm going to put them through a scientific third degree up in the laboratory to-night. Thank you. No—no matter how late it is, bring them up."
DOCTOR COLEMAN had gone long since. Mr. Sutphen had absolutely
no interest further than the recovery of Mrs. Sutphen, just now,
and Mrs. Sutphen was resting quietly and could not be seen.
Accordingly, Kennedy and I hastened up to the laboratory to wait
until O'Connor could "deliver the goods."
It was not long before one of O'Connor's men came in with Whitecap.
"While we're waiting," said Craig, "I wish you'd just try this little cut-out puzzle."
I don't know what Whitecap thought, but I know I looked at Craig's invitation to "play blocks" as a joke, scarcely higher in order than the number-repetition of Snowbird. Whitecap did it, however, sullenly and under compulsion, in, I should say, about two minutes.
"I have Armstrong here myself," called out the hearty voice of our old friend O'Connor, as he burst into the room.
"Good!" exclaimed Kennedy. "I shall be ready for him in just a second. Have Whitecap held here in the anteroom while you bring Armstrong into the laboratory. By the way, Walter, that was another of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles. It involves reflective judgment, one of the factors in executive ability. If Whitecap had been a defective, it would have taken him five minutes to do that puzzle, if at all. So, you see, he is not in the class with Miss Sawtelle. The test shows him to be shrewd. He doesn't even touch his own dope. Now for Armstrong."
I knew enough of the underworld to set Whitecap down, however, as a "lobbygow"—an agent for some one higher up, recruiting both the gangs and the ranks of street-women.
Before us, as O'Connor led in Armstrong, was a little machine with a big black cylinder. By means of wires and electrodes, Kennedy attached it to Armstrong's chest.
"Now, Armstrong," he began, in an even tone, "I want you to tell the truth—the whole truth. You have been getting heroin tablets from Whitecap."
"Yes, sir," replied the dope fiend defiantly.
"To-day you had to get them elsewhere." No answer.
"Never mind," persisted Kennedy, still calm. "I know. Why, Armstrong, you even robbed that girl of twenty-five tablets!"
"I did not," shot out the answer.
"There were twenty-five short," accused Kennedy. The two faced each other. Craig repeated his remark.
"Yes," replied Armstrong; "I held out the tablets, but it was not for myself. I can get all I want. I did it because I didn't want her to get above seventy-five a day. I have tried every way to break her of the habit that has got me—and failed. But seventy-five—is the limit."
"A pretty story!" exclaimed O'Connor.
Craig laid his hand on his arm to check him, as he examined a record registered on the cylinder of the machine.
"By the way, Armstrong, I want you to write me out a note that I can use to get a hundred heroin tablets. You can write it— all but the name of the place where I can get them."
Armstrong was on the point of demurring, but the last sentence reassured him. He would reveal nothing by it—yet.
Still the man was trembling like a leaf. He wrote:
Give Whitecap one hundred shocks. A Victim.
For a moment Kennedy studied the note carefully. "Oh—Dr—I forgot, Armstrong, but a few days ago an anonymous letter was sent to Mrs. Sutphen, signed 'A Friend.' Do you know anything about it?"
"A note?" the man repeated. "Mrs. Sutphen? I don't know anything about any note, or Mrs. Sutphen, either."
Kennedy was still studying his record. "This," he remarked slowly, "is what I call my psychophysical test for falsehood. O'Connor, you know that lying, when it is practised by an expert, is not easily detected by the most careful scrutiny of the liar's appearance and manner.
"However, successful means have been developed for the detection of falsehood by the study of experimental psychology. Walter, I think you will recall the test I used once, the psychophysical factor of the character and rapidity of the mental process known as the association of ideas?"
I nodded acquiescence.
"Well," he resumed, "in criminal jurisprudence, I find an even more simple and more subjective test which has been recently devised. Professor Stoerring, of Bonn, has found out that feelings of pleasure and pain produce well-defined changes in respiration. Similar effects are produced by lying, according to the famous Professor Benussi, of Graz.
"These effects are unerring, unequivocal. The utterance of a false statement increases respiration, of a true statement decreases it. The importance and scope of these discoveries are obvious."
Craig was figuring rapidly on a piece of paper. "This is a certain and objective criterion," he continued, as he figured, "between truth and falsehood. Even when a clever liar endeavors to escape detection by breathing irregularly, it is likely to fail; for Benussi has investigated and found that voluntary changes in respiration don't alter the result. You see, the quotient obtained by dividing the time of inspiration by the time of expiration gives me the result."
He looked up suddenly. "Armstrong, you are telling the truth about some things—downright lies about others. You are a drug fiend—but I will be lenient with you, for one reason. Contrary to everything that I would have expected, you are really trying to save that poor half-witted girl, whom you love, from the terrible habit that has gripped you. That is why you held out a quarter of the one hundred tablets. That is why you wrote the note to Mrs. Sutphen, hoping that she might be treated in some institution."
Kennedy paused as a look of incredulity passed over Armstrong's face.
"Another thing you said was true," added Kennedy. "You can get all the heroin you want. Armstrong, you will put the address of that place on the outside of the note, or both you and Whitecap go to jail. Snowbird will be left to her own devices—she can get all the 'snow,' as some you fiends call it, that she wants from those who might exploit her."
"Please, Mr. Kennedy—" pleaded Armstrong.
"No," interrupted Craig, before the drug fiend could finish; "that is final. I must have the name of that place."
In a shaky hand Armstrong wrote again. Hastily Craig stuffed the note in his pocket, and ten minutes later we were mounting the steps of a big brownstone house on a fashionable side street just around the corner from Fifth Avenue. As the door was opened by an obsequious colored servant, Craig handed him the scrap of paper signed with the password, "A Victim."
Imitating the cough of a confirmed dope-user, Craig was led into a large waiting-room.
"You're in pretty bad shape, sah," commented the servant.
Kennedy nudged me, and, taking the cue, I coughed myself red in the face. "Yes," he said; "hurry—please!" The servant knocked at a door, and as it was opened we caught a glimpse of Mrs. Garrett. "What is it, Sam?" she asked. "Two gentlemen for some heroin tablets, ma'am."
"Tell them to go to the chemical works—not to come to my office, Sam," growled a man's voice inside.
With a quick motion, Kennedy had Mrs. Garrett by the wrist.
"I knew it!" he ground out. "It was all a fake about how you got the habit. You wanted to get it, so you could get and hold him. And neither one of you would stop at anything, not even murder of your own sister, to prevent the ruin of the devilish business you have built up in manufacturing and marketing the stuff." He pulled the note from the hand of the surprised negro. "I had the right address, the place where you sell hundreds of ounces of the stuff a week—but I preferred to come to the doctor's office where I could find you both."
"I knew it!" he ground out.
Kennedy had firmly twisted her wrist until, with a little scream of pain, she let go the door-handle. Then he gently pushed her aside, and the next instant Craig had his hand inside the collar of Doctor Coleman, society physician, proprietor of the Coleman Chemical Works down-town, the real leader of the drug-gang that was debauching whole sections of the metropolis.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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