The Social Gangster Part 23

"Now look," he said.

We did. Something had evidently happened. The chains were broken and smaller units were moving.

"If anthrax germs are exposed for a few seconds, even, to ultra-violet light, they change more or less," Kennedy proceeded. "These new forms are not stable. They quickly change back again into their original form."

For about ten minutes we sat in silence while the weird light played as if with ghostly fingers on the deadly invisible peril on the little gla.s.s microscope slide.

"But if the action of the ultra-violet rays is continued," went on Craig, "the microbe changes into a coccus, and then into a filiform bacillus. This form is stable. And the germ is changed in other respects than mere shape. It has entirely new characteristics. It is a true mutation. It produces a disease entirely different from that of the anthrax bacillus from which it is derived. I have tried it on a guinea pig--and it has died in forty-eight hours."

Startled as I was by this remarkable discovery, I yet had time to watch Haynes. He had not taken his eyes off Kennedy once since he began to speak.

"In anthrax," continued Craig, "an autopsy reveals an enormous serous swelling, about the point of inoculation, with a large gathering of microbes which are formed in the blood and spleen. Death seems to be due to septic poisoning. But this new microbe--super-toxicus, I think it might well be named--produces no swelling and scarcely any microbes are to be found in the blood.

"The lungs are inflamed, with innumerable small abscesses. That is the internal form of the disease from breathing in the spores of these microbes. It has an external form, also, but that is by no means so deadly. One would say that death from the internal form of the disease was due to poisoning. The toxin of this microbe produces a sort of asphyxiation, cutting off and eating up the supply of oxygen.

"Such a condition is called cyanosis. That is why in Delaney it had the appearance of cyanogen poisoning. The effect was the same. But the trace of cyanogen in the air was merely a coincidence, Haynes. It wasn't cyanogen that killed. But it was something quite as deadly--and far harder to trace--a new germ!"

We listened, fascinated.

"A French scientist, a woman, Madame Victor Henri, a student at the Pasteur Inst.i.tute in Paris, has shown that a new microbe can actually be created from anthrax germs by the use of ultra-violet rays. It is not like anthrax, but may be quite as deadly, perhaps more so.

"This discovery," he added earnestly, "proves for the first time that a living organism can be changed suddenly and artificially into an organism of a new and entirely different species. One can scarcely appreciate the importance of it. If the germs of different diseases can be transformed, the germ of one being changed into the germ of another, it will be a first step toward finding a way to change deadly germs into others that will be quite innocuous."

Kennedy paused impressively to let the horror of the thing impress itself on our minds. "But this criminal has been working for evil purposes in the wrong direction--creating a disease in order to cover up his tracks!"

One could almost feel the net closing.

"Delaney has fallen a victim to a new germ of which someone learned in Paris," Craig raced on, inexorably, "a germ that would never, in all probability, be discovered by American doctors, a germ that poisoned safely, surely, and swiftly by its deadly super-toxin."

A few moments before there had been a noise of a car outside the laboratory window, but in the excitement of Craig's startling revelation we had paid no attention.

A hasty tap at the door interrupted him. Before he could open it a very beautiful woman burst in, followed by a thick-set Irishman.

It was the Baroness Von Dorf and our friend Burke.

For a moment the two women fairly glared at each other.

"I've heard what Professor Kennedy just said," cried the Baroness, her eyes snapping fire. "Fortunately, I had to go to Was.h.i.+ngton and was able to protect myself by seeming to disappear. If I had stayed in New York another day, there is no telling what might have happened to me.

Probably I should have got this disease internally instead of externally. As it was, I thought it would come near ruining my beauty."

Burke tossed a yellow slip of paper on the table near Kennedy. "That is something one of our special agents found and brought me today," he exclaimed.

Kennedy picked it up and read it, while Burke faced us.

The Secret Service man fixed his eyes on Madame Dupres. "As for you, my dear lady," he challenged, "how do you happen to be in New York with one of the greatest international crooks that ever troubled the police of five continents?"

"I--in New York?" she shrugged coolly. "Monte Carlo, Paris, Vienna, London--all were dead. I had to come here to make a living."

The Baroness drew herself up as if to speak.

"You scoundrel--you will give my apartment a bad name with your dirty cattle plague--will you!" ground out a voice harshly at my side.

I turned quickly. Ames had clutched Haynes by the throat. We were all on our feet in a moment, but there was no need of separating them. The veterinary was more than a match for the hot-headed little lawyer.

"Someone," shot out Kennedy, wheeling quickly, "figured that the cattle deal could be brought about quite naturally if Delaney were dead and the Baroness out of the way. Later he could reap the profit and carry off Madame Dupres into the bargain. And if anything were ever discovered, what more natural than to throw the suspicion on a veterinary who was supposed to know all about anthrax?"

Just then a half circle of nickled steel gleamed momentarily in Kennedy's hands. I recognized it as a pair of the new handcuffs that uncoiled automatically, gripping at a mere touch.

I saw it all in a flash, as I picked up the paper that Burke had tossed to Kennedy.

It was a telegram, and read:

A. A., The New Stratfield, Was.h.i.+ngton.

Return immediately. Coroner has Craig Kennedy on case.

D. D.

"It was a devilish scheme," snapped Kennedy, as the handcuffs circled the fake lawyer's wrists, "but it didn't work, Ames."

CHAPTER XVI

THE SLEEPMAKER

"Perhaps race-horses may be a little out of your line, Mr. Kennedy, but I think you will find the case sufficiently interesting to warrant you in taking it up."

Our visitor was a young man, one of the most carefully groomed and correctly dressed I have ever met. His card told us that we were honored by a visit from Montague Broadhurst, a noted society whip, who had lavished many thousands of dollars on his racing-stable out on Long Island.

"You see," he went on hurriedly, "there have been a good many strange things that have happened to my horses lately." He paused a moment, then continued: "They have been losing consistently. Take my favorite, Lady Lee, for instance."

"Do you think they have been doped?" asked Kennedy quickly, eager to get down to the point at issue, for I had never known Craig to be interested in racing.

"I don't know," replied the young millionaire, drawing his eyelids together reflectively. "I've had the best veterinary in the country to look my stable over, and even he can't seem to find a thing that's wrong."

"Perhaps a visit out there might show us something," cut in Kennedy, as though he were rather favorably impressed, after all, by the novelty of the case.

Broadhurst's face brightened.

"Then you will take it up--you are interested?" he queried, adding, "My car is outside."

"I'm interested in anything that promises a new experience," returned Craig, "and I think this affair may be of that sort."

Broadhurst's stable was out on central Long Island, not far from the pretty and fas.h.i.+onable town of Northbury. As we pa.s.sed down the main street, I could see that Broadhurst was easily the most popular of the wealthy residents of the neighborhood. In fact, the Broadhurst racing stables were a sort of local industry, one of the show-places of Northbury.

As we swung out again into the country, we could see ahead of us some stable-boys working out several fine thoroughbreds on Broadhurst's private track, while a group of grooms and rubbers watched them.