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ARTHUR B. REEVE

THE BITTER WATER

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First published in Cosmopolitan, July 1917

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2021
Version Date: 2022-09-13

Collected in The Panama Plot, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1918

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Illustration

Cosmopolitan, July 1917, with "The Bitter Water"


Illustration

"Do you wonder the city talks of nothing but the Barretos mystery?"



Craig Kennedy arrives in Buenos Aires to find the police with a murder case on their hands that contains all the elements of a cause célèbre. The great scientific detective loses no time in concentrating his wonderful faculties on the deep mystery, and probably no one is more astonished than he at the unexpected dénouement which is reached when the result of his labors leaves no loophole for the concealment of as strange and dramatic a situation as it is possible to imagine.




"BARRETOS, unconscious, dying in his room; two glasses, empty—traces of belladonna in one, in the other, nothing; in her room, Madame Barretos prostrated—do you wonder the city talks of nothing but the Barretos mystery?"

Kennedy and I were seated in the luxurious café of the famous Jockey Club at Buenos Aires the afternoon of our arrival, guests of Ramon Ramirez, editor of the Diario who had met us at the dock.

We had arrived in the southern metropolis to find it fairly alive with gossip and excitement over the sudden death, the night before, of Señor José Barretos, the famous tenor of the Teatro Colon. It was not surprising that the newspapers were full of the case, for nowhere in the world is opera more highly appreciated than in South America, and Barretos was not only a great figure in Argentina but world-famous.

"What were the circumstances?" inquired Craig. "What has Madame Barretos to say about it? I presume that she is French, since I hear everyone call her madame never señora."

"Yes—French," replied Ramirez hastily. "So far, she has been able to tell very little. She seems to know almost nothing. Apparently, Barretos came in alone, late. They had an apartment at the Hôtel Français. Some noise must have disturbed her, she says. She saw the light in the other room, and heard moaning. She called, but there was no answer. When she entered, her husband was lying on the door, almost unconscious."

"And no one was there? She saw or heard nothing else?"

"Apparently nothing."

"But where had he been between the time when the opera closed and his return?" asked Kennedy.

"Ah," gestured Ramirez, "it is just that! Where? How is that all to be—reconstructed, I believe you call it? Would you not be interested in taking up the affair?"

"Most assuredly," agreed Kennedy, who found the enforced inaction even for the few days during our flitting from place to place irksome rather than restful, as I had hoped.

Without further ado, the editor led the way to a huge French car that stood at the curb before the club. All South Americans, it seemed to me, buy the biggest and heaviest and most expensive automobiles.

We made our tortuous journey through the streets, in some of which it seemed that there was only room for two files of cars, and hence a veritable blockade when one wished to stop. Yet, I must admit that rarely have I seen such clever driving. It seemed as if handling a motor-car called forth a peculiar Argentine genius. Every few moments Señor Ramirez bowed, but was careful to avoid delay by getting into conversation with any of his friends, although it was evident that he was a marked man by all who were interested in the news.

"Is there anyone they suspect?" queried Kennedy, endeavoring to orient himself in this unfamiliar city. "What do your police think of it?"

"Yes; there is one person they have under surveillance, an American—Brannon Blake," Señor Ramirez paused, as though he had hesitated in telling us, for fear that Kennedy might be prejudiced because an American was involved. "I can assure you," he hastened apologetically, "that Mr. Blake is not one whom you would willingly choose as a representative of your countrymen abroad. He has been here some time, always desperate for money—what you would call, I believe, a man who lives by his wits—always to be found at the races or wherever money is wagered on horses or cards. I do not understand how, he used to be intimate with Madame Paulette of the opera—the coloratura soprano, you know." He shook his head, as if it were not given even to a newspaper editor to understand all he saw and knew, especially what concerned matters of the heart.

"Señor Barretos," he resumed, "had one very common weakness. Just at present, it took the form of a clandestine intimacy with Madame Paulette. You may imagine, therefore, the feelings of Blake toward Barretos—the possible motives on which the police are now working."

"And Madame Paulette?" prompted Kennedy. "What of her?"

"I have met her!" exclaimed Ramirez. "I do not think she really cared for Barretos. Yet she dared not reject or offend him. His word at the Teatro is law. You see, it is not precisely a pleasant situation."

"And Madame Barretos, did she know?" I interpolated. "Was she not insanely jealous?"

"No, she would never do such a thing," asserted the editor, jumping at the conclusion that my remark must have been intended to direct suspicion on her. "She might have left her husband; but violence—never! No; I am sure the police are justified in suspecting Mr. Blake, It looks bad for him, too. They have discovered that he is deeply involved in debt. At the Jockey Club, his reputation is none too savory. Not all his baccarat playing has been—like a gentleman. You will hear many stories about him. However, it is for you to judge. I would not wish to seem to influence you. Professor Kennedy."

But there was quite enough of innuendo to furnish Blake with at least a strong motive.


THE driver had stopped the car with a flourish before the ornate Hotel Français, at which Señor Barretos and his wife lived. Ramirez hurried us from the gaze of the curious into the lobby, and did not pause for interruption until he had us in the elevator. It was evident that he was well known about town, and did not purpose paying the penally of popularity by being diverted from his object of securing Kennedy's assistance in solving the mystery for his paper.

The authorities were, of course, in charge of the apartment, but, under the guidance of the editor, we had no difficulty in being admitted to the beautifully furnished rooms. Ramirez had telephoned that we were coming, and everything was in readiness to receive us.

"Let me present Doctor Roca," introduced the editor, greeting a distinguished and scholarly-looking gentleman who seemed to be waiting to see us. "Doctor Roca," he explained, "is one of the best known physicians in the country. It was he who was called to see Señor Barretos, and he has been aiding the police ever since."

Kennedy and Roca shook hands, and the usual formalities of compliment and counter-compliment passed.

"In one of the glasses on the table traces of belladonna were found, I understand," ventured Kennedy, at length, noticing two glasses and some other articles set out on a table as though for inspection. "What is this?" he added, indicating a cut-glass-stoppered bottle which was standing beside the glasses, empty.

"It was found on madame's dressing-table," returned Doctor Roca reluctantly. "It once contained belladonna, which she sometimes uses to brighten her eyes. So far, we have not connected it with the mystery, although the police have insisted on including it among the articles they have seized."

Although he tried to soften it, the information came with an unpleasant shock. In spite of the justifiable suspicion of Blake, it was impossible to overlook this fact. Even though Madame Barretos had used it to brighten her eyes, it might also have been used in another way by a jealous woman. The traces of belladonna in the glass made things look bad.

"Still," interrupted Ramirez quickly, "if it had any connection with the case, why did no one take the pains to hide the empty bottle?"

Kennedy said nothing, but it was evident that he regarded the new fact gravely, however repugnant its implications.

"The body has not yet been removed, I trust?" he inquired a moment later, noting a closed door to another room.

Doctor Roca signified that it had not, and led the way to the door and opened it.

Barretos was a large and handsome figure in life, and equally striking in death. One felt a sense of awe before the earthly remains of the man who had held thousands spell-bound by the magic of his voice and personality. Yet, as I looked at him, I could not escape the feeling that unusual talents had placed unusual temptations in his way—that, somehow, that very fact was basic in the solution of the mystery before us.

Kennedy moved quickly across the room and bent down over the body, examining it thoroughly, while Doctor Roca stood beside him, now and then answering a question or volunteering a remark of his own. A little way from them, Señor Ramirez and I stood. At length, Kennedy straightened up and turned to us, a peculiar look on his face.

"What is it?" I queried impatiently.

Without replying for the instant, Kennedy glanced down significantly again at the eye of Barretos, as he held back the lid with his finger.

"Belladonna—atropine, you know—would dilate the pupil," he remarked simply. We took a step closer and looked. The pupils of both eyes were contracted!

No one ventured a word, though it was apparent that Doctor Roca had observed the contraction and had been puzzled by it.

"You have examined the contents of the stomach. I suppose?" asked Kennedy, turning to the doctor.

"Naturally."

"And have you discovered any traces of atropine?"

"I must confess I have not," returned Doctor Roca, as, involuntarily, my mind reverted to the glass-stoppered bottle of belladonna.

It was surely puzzling. Both Doctor Roca and Señor Ramirez seemed to grasp at the implied absolving of Madame Barretos.

"Have you found any other substance?" pursued Kennedy.

"Nothing yet; but I have not finished,"

"I suppose I may have a sample?"

"By all means. I shall have it sent to you immediately," promised Doctor Roca, beckoning to an attendant and giving him an order. "It will be brought here and placed at your disposal."

As we retired, thanking the doctor and the police officials who were in charge, Kennedy whispered to Ramirez:

"Where is Madame Barretos? I should like to see her."

"She has been moved to another apartment in the hotel, completely prostrated," he replied, leading the way down the corridor.

A tap at the door, a hasty conference with a French maid who disappeared and came back again, and we were admitted.


NINA BARRETOS, in spite of the strain under which she had been during the tragedy, was still a remarkably beautiful woman, not at all of the Spanish type but markedly Parisian. Though she had been married some ten years before, she still was young. She had been reclining on a divan, but was now standing nervously beside a table, as though for support.


Illustration

She was now standing nervously beside a table, as though for support.


Only a glance was needed to excite sympathy for the poor woman in the ghastly death and unmasking of her husband. Yet she maintained a forced composure and reserve quite remarkable.

With profuse apologies, Ramirez introduced us, and Kennedy led tactfully up to the purpose of our visit. Repressing now and then a sob that caught her mellow voice, she repeated her story substantially as we had heard it.

Señor Barretos had come in very late, had evidently paused long enough to take a drink. She had been aroused by his groaning, had discovered him on the floor, unconscious, had called Doctor Roca, and fainted. It was, however, too late for the doctor to be of assistance. Barretos died without revealing anything.

"I suppose you know," pursued Kennedy, as delicately as he could, "that traces of belladonna were found in one glass and that an empty bottle of belladonna was in the apartment?"

"It was mine," she asserted calmly. "I think it was all used up."

"No one else visited him; there was no one else there at the time?" shot out Kennedy keenly.

"No one—that I saw or heard," she replied quickly, meeting his glance without a falter.

I had an indefinable conviction that Nina Barretos was concealing something. Had it to do with the relations of her husband with the other woman? What of Madame Paulette—and of Blake?

It was evident that our interview had taxed her strength, and, rather than antagonize her at the start, Kennedy determined to postpone further inquiry.

Inquiry for Brannon Blake developed the fact that he, too, lived at the Français, although in a less expensive suite. Ramirez found out for us that, at the moment, he was not in the hotel, but that the police were shadowing him.


MADAME PAULETTE lived not far on the same street at the Ste. Germaine, another of the city's modern hostelries much frequented by distinguished foreigners.

Luckily, she was at home. We found her to be a remarkably attractive woman, though quite the opposite of Madame Barretos. She was physically charming, though one felt the lack of fineness with which Madame Barretos impressed one. And yet, with all her worldly wisdom, I could imagine Madame Paulette being duped by some one against whom a woman less sophisticated would have been proof. Quite in contrast, also, with Madame Barretos, Madame Paulette seemed willing to talk volubly, I might almost say shamelessly, for her standards seemed to be quite different from those which we commonly accepted.


Illustration

We found her to be a remarkably attractive woman,
though quite the opposite of Madame Barretos.


To Kennedy's point-blank inquiry, she admitted that Señor Barretos had spent the time between the closing of the opera and his return to his own apartment with her at the Ste. Germaine. As to what took place at the Français afterward, she professed absolute ignorance, nor was Kennedy able to break her down, although he felt at liberty to use with her much more strenuous methods of questioning than with Madame Barretos. Paulette vehemently denied having seen Blake at any time during the evening. There the case rested for the present. There seemed to be nothing to do but to take it up at the same point again after we had discovered new evidence in some other way.


BY the time we returned to the Français, Blake also had gotten back. Quite evidently he knew that he was being watched.

He was about thirty-five years old, plainly dissipated, with a sort of cheap astuteness and cunning, entirely unprepossessing. As he caught sight of Ramirez, he bounced over bellicosely.

"My dear sir," he announced, with a flourish, "if this constant hounding by your infernal police does not cease, I shall take the matter up with my government at home. It's an outrage that a peaceable American cannot go about his business without being spied on at every turn. I wish to protest in the Diario about the treatment I am receiving."

Although he was scrupulously polite, Ramirez merely turned to us.

"Let me introduce Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," he said. "It may be that Professor Kennedy can help you. I understand that he has had wide experience in such cases as this of Señor Barretos."

For a moment, Blake seemed to gasp his astonishment. There was no doubt that he had heard of Kennedy without dreaming that he was within five thousand miles of Buenos Aires. However, it was only an instant before he regained his composure.

"Good!" he exclaimed. "Then, at least, there will be some one here who understands the limits to which I am being persecuted. I tell you, I know no more about this affair, Professor Kennedy, than you did before you arrived. I was not in the Barretos apartment last night at any time—not even in the hotel."

"And Madame Paulette's?" queried Craig.

"Not Madame Paulette's, either," he denied, with an oath.

"Where, then?" purred Ramirez. "Have you furnished the police with a complete itinerary of your movements last night?"

"I do not have to consent to this espionage," retorted Blake hotly, "Have you a schedule of everything you did last night? Has anyone else here at the hotel been required to divulge his goings and comings? Perhaps there is some one else in this great city who could explain more than I shall ever be able to do. Has it been required of him?"

"Possibly there has was no apparent reason why it should have been," retorted Ramirez calmly; then, with an unmistakable trace of fire, "And if you are hinting at Madame Barretos, let me warn you that you are on dangerous ground."

If he had intended such a hint, Blake now retreated from it hastily, realizing that it was risky to play with this element in the Latin temperament. Still, I think I was quite justified in feeling that Paulette was defending Blake, and he Paulette, regardless of any reflection it might cast upon Madame Barretos. Blake changed his tactics.

"The truth of the matter is," he remarked confidentially, "I am glad that there is another American around. You may count on me to help you all that is in my power, if it is only to get rid of this constant annoyance to myself. And I hope you will let me know when anything new develops. I have been here a long time, and can perhaps be of some assistance."

"Thank you," returned Kennedy, eying him directly; "I shall be glad to let you know whatever develops and to avail myself of your knowledge."

There was a double significance about the last remark, and I fancied it was not lost on Blake.


"SOME packages from Doctor Roca for Professor Kennedy," reported a boy, a moment after Blake had left us.

Kennedy considered a moment.

"We haven't had time to establish ourselves anywhere, yet, Walter," he remarked. "If Señor Ramirez will have a suite reserved for us here, I think we can do no better than take up our residence at the Français."

While we waited for our luggage, including Kennedy's indispensable traveling laboratory in its formidable iron-bound case, to be brought up from the dock, Ramirez seemed eager to return to his journalistic duties.

"Perhaps," he suggested, "I might introduce you to the other Americans and Englishmen at the hotel. They form a little community within the community, and they can possibly make you more at ease than I can. I see Mr. John Waring over there now. Mr. Waring is an Englishman from South Africa who has made a great fortune in the cattle industry, and has come here to see what the prospects are in Argentina. That fellow with him, Mr. Scott, is an American mining engineer. I am sure you will not find it unpleasant to know them."

Kennedy and I assented, and, after the formalities, Señor Ramirez excused himself and serpentined his way off in the huge, high-powered car, promising to send it back for us at any time we might need it.


IT was, as Ramirez had hinted, an interesting little group within a group, and hence had a gossip all its own. It did not take long to find out that, among them, there was scant sympathy for Blake. No one, of course, went so far as to make a direct accusation, yet the implication was there.

Waring seemed to be a rather attractive type of Englishman who had gone out to the colonies to seek his fortune and had found it.

"I do not know that Mr. Blake would speak as well of me as I might of him," Waring ventured, as the conversation naturally turned to the one absorbing topic. "You see, I had hardly arrived when he sought me out and succeeded in borrowing from me. He does that of all newcomers. Let me warn you."

Kennedy smiled.

"I should hardly say that that was damning him with even faint praise," remarked the mining engineer, Scott, excusing himself to keep an appointment and leaving us alone with Waring.

Once or twice, I caught Waring watching Kennedy narrowly, and although he, too, might have excused himself, he seemed to prefer to remain. Kennedy's entrance into the case evidently interested him, though the reason was not apparent.

"Perhaps the police are right in watching Blake," went on Waring, as the conversation drifted on, "but if I were a detective, I think I would devote at least an equal amount of energy to the soprano."

"Do you think Madame Barretos knew of the affair between her husband and Madame Paulette?" I asked.

"I am not in the confidence of either of them," he replied non-committally.

Somehow, I gained the impression that perhaps Waring had seen or overheard something the night before, and was impelled by a sense of chivalry to conceal it.

At any rate, our baggage arrived just then, and it became necessary to see that it was disposed properly in our rooms, as well as the sample-jars which had come from Doctor Roca. The moment the porters had been tipped and we were alone, Kennedy unlocked and began unpacking such apparatus from his traveling laboratory as might be necessary. Then he set to work, testing the contents of the jars which the doctor had sent him.

I watched him silently for a few moments, then realized that it might be some time before he discovered anything that would enlighten me. Accordingly, I excused myself, determined to roam about down-stairs to pick up such gossip as I might.


NEITHER Waring nor Blake was around, but the mining engineer, Scott, had returned and was glad to greet me.

"Have you been here long enough to find out that, when we haven't anything else to do, we talk about each other?" he asked, with a frank laugh.

"That's nothing peculiar to this group," I parried. "I find that all over the world."

"Well," added Scott, "I'm just as bad as the next one. I can't hear a new story but that I must run along and tell it to the first person I meet. However, in this case I think it's something more than gossip."

"What is it?" I asked. "I'm just as eager now to hear it as you are to tell."

"Well, you know that Englishman, Waring, is a peculiar fellow—quixotic, I might almost say. He told you, I suppose, that Blake had borrowed from him?"

"Yes; but nothing more. Is there more to it?"

"Why, yes. At least, this: I happen to know that Waring was at the opera last night. So was Blake. In one of the intermissions. Waring ran across Blake. Some of us had put him wise to Blake, and he asked Blake when he might expect the loan paid back. I think he made it pretty strong, too, for it's certainly the only way you can ever get anything out of Blake-"

"Did he get it?" I asked.

"No; of course not. Since Paulette has thrown Blake over, he hasn't had anything She used to be almost like a bank to him. Heaven knows what she ever saw in him, but he borrowed enough from her while it lasted. Well, I probably wouldn't have thought anything again of it if I hadn't just heard that the police are pretty sure that Blake was at the Ste. Germaine after the opera. I suppose Ramirez will tell you all about it. But—I thought I might tell you about Waring. He never will. It flashed over me that, perhaps as a result of Waring's demand for money, Blake might have tried to see Paulette again, might have run into Barretos, who, we know, was there, and that there might have been a little unpleasantness that started this whole mess."

"At least an interesting and plausible theory," I agreed, rather impressed by it.

We chatted for some time about the city, the country, the people, and the cause célèbre, until finally I decided that it might be possible that Kennedy by this time was on the trail of something. I left Scott and went up-stairs, making the resolution to cultivate Waring, in the hope that he might shed some more light by amplifying Scott's story.


KENNEDY listened as I retailed what I had just heard concerning Waring and Blake. He said nothing, but I knew that he had mentally ticketed and filed away another perfectly good theory.

"Have you found anything?" I inquired.

"Yes," he replied; "it was as I hinted to you in the Barretos apartment. Barretos was not killed by atropine."

"Then what was it?" I asked, mystified.

"You remember I found his pupil contracted almost to a pin-point? The process of elimination of drugs was, in this case, comparatively easy. I simply began testing for all that I could recall that had that effect. It was so marked that I started seeking the one that first occurred to me. I don't claim any uncanny intelligence. That part of it was pure luck. Barretos died of physostigmin poisoning.

"And physostigmin is—what?" I inquired, quite willing to betray my ignorance.

"A drug used by oculists just as they use atropine, but producing the precisely opposite result. It causes a contraction of the pupil more marked than that produced by any other drug. That was why I tried its test first."

Interested as I was in physostigmin, which, by this time, came tripping off my tongue like the name of an old friend, I could not forget our first report of the case.

"But what about the belladonna, the atropine, in the glass and in the bottle?" I demanded.

"I did not say I had cleared up the case," cautioned Craig. "It is still a mystery. Atropine has not only an opposite effect but it is interesting to know that it's one of the few cases where we find drugs mutually antagonistic to such a degree. It is an antidote to physostigmin. Three and a half times the quantity almost infallibly counteracts a dose of physostigmin."

"But there was no trace of physostigmin in either glass, was there?" I asked.

"While you were out, I had the glasses sent in. No; not a trace in either. The other glass is really free even from belladonna. No; we've just taken a step forward—that's all. There's a long way to go yet. What of the physostigmin? How was it given? I made a close examination. There were no marks on the body. I admit I still have no explanation."

For some moments, Kennedy worked thoughtfully over his analysis, though I know that he was merely toying now in the endeavor to determine the next most important move.

"I think I'll vary my custom," he decided finally, "and announce what I have discovered as I go along. It will be interesting to see what happens."

We started from the room, but instead of going to the elevator, he led the way to the stairs and the floor below. As he paused and knocked at a door, I recognized it as the apartment of Madame Barretos.


I CANNOT say that we were any more welcome than on our previous visit, yet she seemed not to dare refuse to see us. Perhaps, too, there was an element of curiosity to know whether anything had been discovered. She had not long to wait. Kennedy did not keep her in suspense. In fact, that seemed to be part of his plan—to discharge the information like a broadside and watch the result.

"I have discovered just what it was that caused your husband's death," he began briskly, watching her closely. "It was not belladonna. It was physostigmin, a drug much used by oculists."

For an instant, Nina Barretos gazed at Kennedy, startled. He seemed to have broken through her reserve. I knew that he was "fishing," but it was evident that she did not.

"I suppose you know that my father, Jacques Leboît, was an optician—one of the famous opticians of Paris!" she cried, searching Kennedy's face as though to see how much he did know. "As a girl, I had no desire for the profession, the business—whatever you call it—naturally. I was rather an artist, and I thought that my art was my life. I know my father wanted a son to take over the business from him when he grew old. But he loved me—and humored me. It was as a student of art in the Latin Quarter that I met two young men, José Barretos and another, Jean La Guerre, both of them studying music. They were rivals, bitter rivals. I was romantic. I enjoyed it, without troubling myself which of them I really loved."

She paused. Kennedy's face was as inscrutable as though he had known all along.

"One day," she resumed slowly, tremulously, "my father was discovered—dead. He had been poisoned by one of his own drugs—physostigmin. Jean was accused. He fled. Later, I married José. And now—José is dead—and with the same drug!"

She had become almost hysterical as she dropped on a divan, burying her face in the cushions and sobbing.


Illustration

She had become almost hysterical as she dropped on a
divan, burying her face in the cushions and sobbing.


For several minutes, no word was spoken. Finally, she looked up, her composure regained. It may have been unkind, but I could not help feeling that she had not told the whole story, that her giving way to her feelings had been an artifice, a refuge, to gain time. If it had been, it had succeeded. Try as we could, we were unable to learn a thing more from her about what had happened on the fatal night at the hotel than she had already told both to the police and to us. There was nothing to do now but to withdraw and await another opportunity to force from her what she knew, if anything.


DOWNSTAIRS, we found Señor Ramirez anxiously waiting for us. Before even Kennedy could inform him of our discovery, he whispered:

"I have hid a visit from Blake at my office. Really, the fellow has become a nuisance. I know they shadowed him there, and I am not sure but that some overzealous policeman may be shadowing me now. He seems to think that it is I who have put the police on his trail, when, heaven knows, it is I who have been shielding him. I will do so no longer. It is my duly to tell what I know, I am going to tell you to protect myself."

Ramirez had led us, as he talked, to a quiet alcove.

"One night, shortly after Señor Barretos arrived, he, Blake, and myself were playing baccarat at the Jockey Club. Blake was losing, was already heavily in debt to Barretos. Suddenly, I was startled by Barretos throwing down his cards, with a sharp exclamation to Blake. He had caught Blake cheating. It was a ticklish moment. I fully expected a duel.

"Finally, Barretos leaned over and said: 'Leave Madame Paulette to me and I cancel the debt. Otherwise, I report this incident to the Board of Governors.' You may have wondered why I have assumed the attitude I have toward Blake. It is because of what I know. To all intents and purposes, Blake bartered her, to save his credit and his honor."

It was a hideous charge to make, and I felt convinced that Ramirez would not have made it if it had not been true.

"And now," he added, "I have just learned that the police have found that Blake was secretly trying to meet Madame Paulette. He could not even keep a dishonorable bargain. Perhaps he has been meeting her all along. I am convinced that she really cares for him, that she never cared for Barretos, though she feared him and his influence at the Teatro. Now that I have told you, I am going to tell the police. I think it is my duty."

Kennedy was considering the new evidence thoughtfully, evidently piecing it together with what he had already heard and what Scott had told me. As Ramirez left us to seek the police officer in charge at the hotel, Kennedy remarked:

"I should like to check that up with what you heard about Waring and Blake. Let us see if Waring is still in his room."

Waring's room was on the floor above the Barretos suite, the same floor on which we were, although at the other end. Blake, I knew, had a small room above that. As we passed down the thickly-carpeted corridor, we came to a flight of steps which, I knew, led almost directly up to Blake's. Another flight led down to the floor on which Barretos had lived.

I was about to say something about the location of the room when my foot kicked some small object lying along the edge of a rug between the two flights of stairs. The thing flew over and hit the baseboard. Mechanically, I reached down and picked it up. It seemed to be a rough-coated, grayish-brown bean of irregular kidney shape, about an inch long and half an inch thick, with two margins, one short and concave, the other long and convex, and two flattened surfaces.

Kennedy seized it, looked at it a moment, then pressed the hard outer coat until it parted slightly, disclosing inside two creamy white cotyledons. Then he pressed it back into shape as it was before. For a moment, he glanced, first up at the flight of steps toward Blake's room, then down the hall toward Waring's.

As we stood there, Blake's door opened. As he saw us, he came slowly down the steps, while I noticed that Kennedy played ostentatiously with the bean.

"Is there anything new?" inquired Blake, and I saw that he had noted what was in Kennedy's hands.

"Only that I think Madame Paulette could help us a great deal," returned Craig. "I may have to take up your offer of help, and ask you to go with me to see her later."

Blake professed his willingness, but I knew it was only a mask. A moment after, he left us, promising to be down in the lobby, and we went on through the hall to Waring's room.

"I'm going to try a little psychology," announced Kennedy. "For one thing, I want to know just how much Madame Barretos really knew of Blake and Paulette. Señor Ramirez has just told me of some of Blake's operations. There is no use shielding him, Waring. What I want you to do is to tell Madame Barretos just what you know of that pair."

Waring started to demur, but Kennedy was obdurate. "Ramirez is already telling what he knows," he urged. "The police know that you demanded the return of a loan from him last night, that Blake went to Paulette and there met Barretos. Perhaps that was the start of the trouble between them. Who knows? Madame Barretos, of course. I have tried this method already with her once and have found out part of her story. Now, with this new evidence, I mean to try it again."

Reluctantly Waring consented. Nor could I blame him. It savored too much of baiting an already heart-broken woman. However, a moment later we were again admitted by the French maid. Our previous visit did not seem to have allayed the nervousness of Madame Barretos, and a second visit so soon seemed to have caught her off guard. For a moment, she stared at Waring, then at Kennedy, as if endeavoring to read our minds. Kennedy, however, was determined to give her no chance.

Casually Craig reached into his vest pocket and drew forth the peculiar bean, as though absent-mindedly toying with it for want of some other occupation. His back was toward Waring, but I saw that the action was not lost on Madame Barretos. I thought, for a moment, that she was going to faint.

"I hope, Madame Barretos," cut in Waring, "that you will pardon me."

"Just a moment, Waring!" interrupted Craig. "Madame Barretos," he shot out suddenly, before she had recovered her composure, "you have not been frank with the police. But you may be frank with me. Some one besides you and your husband was in that room last night!"

Remorselessly, Kennedy pressed home the inquisition. I saw Waring scowl at Kennedy. Almost I hated Craig myself for it.

"It is your duty to tell," urged Kennedy. "It is my duty to find out. I have found out much in only a few hours. Walter, will you stand by that door into the hall? Madame, some one was in that room!"

An instant she faltered and gazed wildly from one to the other of the men before her. The strain was too great. She broke under it.

"No," she cried, sobbing, "there was no one in the room! I—"

It was too much for Waring. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his glance riveted on Kennedy's hands. He took a step forward.

"Professor Kennedy," he said, in a husky voice, "it was I who visited the apartment. I am Jean La Guerre!"

I do not know whether Kennedy was as startled as I at the unexpected revelation. At any rate, his face did not betray it.

"Let me tell you," he raced on. "Before God, I say that I am innocent of the murder of Monsieur Leboît! The real murderer was José Barretos. It was his scheme. But I knew that he had directed suspicion at me. I was afraid. I fled—to Morocco—down the West Coast, changed my name from La Guerre to Waring, changed myself, became an Englishman. At last I came to South Africa. There I went to work. I have succeeded. But never have I forgotten how he murdered a man and stole a woman's love.

"Always I have awaited the day. At last it came—by pure chance. Business had brought me here; the opera had brought Barretos. I saw him, but he did not recognize me. The night after the opening at the Teatro, I followed him—to Paulette's. I saw the fight with Blake. I had been the innocent cause of it. Then I followed him here." La Guerre paused a moment, contemplating his revenge. "Before he knew it," he hurried on. "I had the gun at his head. He recognized me then, as I spoke. I faced him, and he cringed from me. It was an old crime. He might escape if I exposed him, tried to have him taken back. I could have shot him—but I did not."

He paused and pointed significantly at the bean, which Kennedy was still fingering. "Then what?" he went on. "I drew from my pocket one of those—one of the famous ordeal-beans of Calabar, something I had seen on my journey down the West Coast of Africa, fleeing from him. In the Calabar they have a form of dueling with those seeds. Two opponents divide a bean. Each eats half. Often both die. But they believe that God will decide who is guilty and who is innocent. It is primitive justice—the duel by poison!

"Often I had thought of it, thought of that verse in the Bible, 'If thou have not gone aside to uncleanness, be thou free from this water of bitterness that causeth the curse.' I would not kill him. I would give him an equal chance. I cut the bean. There were two glasses on the table. I filled them with water. At the point of the gun, I forced him to eat half. I watched him chew it. Then I ate my half. Together we drank the glasses of water. The minutes passed as I stood over him. On which would it take effect first? It was the ordeal!

"At last I saw that his lungs and heart were beginning to be affected. I waited for symptoms in myself. I was dizzy, burning with thirst, hardly able to walk as I staggered out, but alive!"

"And Madame Barretos?" recalled Kennedy suddenly.

"No—no—she was not there!"

"But the atropine—in one glass," persisted Kennedy.

"Oh—yes—yes—the atropine. In his glass also, I—" La Guerre was getting hopelessly tangled.

"It is a pretty story," remarked Kennedy coldly. "But it was not atropine that killed him. It was physostigmin. Atropine is the antidote. Did you know that when you planned your ordeal?"

La Guerre stared helplessly. Was he, after all, a murderer?

A figure in a filmy house-dress darted between the two men.

"Wait!" cried Nina Barretos. "Let me tell. I was there. I saw it all. I knew of the Calabar bean. What should I do? Scream? Monsieur La Guerre would have shot him before anyone answered. Besides—" She stopped.

As I watched La Guerre. I was convinced that her revelation was as new to him as it was to us.

"It came to me in a flash," she went on, in a low voice. "I thought of my belladonna—an antidote. I remembered that much from my father's business. Quietly I went to my dressing-table." Breathless we watched her and listened, fascinated. "There were only a few drops left in the bottle!"

She paused and clasped her hands in the agony of living over those moments.

"I tried to run between them and plead with them. They would not listen. But I manage to get between them and the glasses on the table—holding the bottle in one hand behind me—so! Whom should I save?" she asked in desperation, as she acted it all over again under the stress of her feelings. "My husband, or the man I really loved? There was not enough for both. I poured the few drops of the belladonna into the glass nearest Mr. Waring—Jean!"

She swayed as the words were wrung from her very soul. La Guerre caught her.

The door opened, and I turned quickly. It was Señor Ramirez, in his hand a crumpled piece of paper.

"I thought as much!" he burst out. "Read this! Blake has committed suicide!"

It was a note to Madame Paulette. In it Blake, ruined, hounded by his past, had settled his last debt with the world.

"They told me you were here." raced on Ramirez. "Now—does not that prove what we have all believed?" he demanded.

I know that, to this day, the editor does not understand the strange look on all our faces as we turned to Kennedy.

"The police suspect Blake," he said simply. "Blake is dead. The real murderer is dead, also. There is nothing to be gained by further exposure. The case is now beyond the law."


THE END


Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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