The Dream Doctor Part 16

"How did that land there?" he mused aloud. "The table-cloth is bloodless."

Craig appeared to think a moment. Then he unlocked and opened the door.

A current of air was created and blew the cloth aside.

"Clearly," he exclaimed, "that drop of blood was wafted under the table as the door was opened. The chances are all that it came from a cut on perhaps the hand or face of the murderer himself."

It seemed to be entirely reasonable, for the bloodstains about the room were such as to indicate that he had been badly cut by the carving-knife.

"Whoever attacked the chef must have been deeply wounded," I remarked, picking up the b.l.o.o.d.y knife and looking about at the stains, comparatively few of which could have come from the one deep fatal wound in the head of the victim.

Kennedy was still engrossed in a study of the stains, evidently considering that their size, shape, and location might throw some light on what had occurred. "Walter," he said finally, "while I'm busy here, I wish you would find that valet, Edward. I want to talk to him."

I found him at last, a clean-cut young fellow of much above average intelligence.

"There are some things I have not yet got clearly, Edward," began Kennedy. "Now where was the body, exactly, when you opened the door?"

Edward pointed out the exact spot, near the side of the kitchen toward the door leading out to the breakfast room and opposite the ice-box.

"And the door to the side street?" asked Kennedy, to all appearances very favorably impressed by the young man.

"It was locked, sir," he answered positively.

Kennedy was quite apparently considering the honesty and faithfulness of the servant. At last he leaned over and asked quickly, "Can I trust you?"

The frank, "Yes," of the young fellow was convincing enough.

"What I want," pursued Kennedy, "is to have some one inside this house who can tell me as much as he can see of the visitors, the messengers that come here this morning. It will be an act of loyalty to your employer, so that you need have no fear about that."

Edward bowed, and left us. While I had been seeking him, Kennedy had telephoned hastily to his laboratory and had found one of his students there. He had ordered him to bring down an apparatus which he described, and some other material.

While we waited Kennedy sent word to Pitts that he wanted to see him alone for a few minutes.

The instrument appeared to be a rubber bulb and cuff with a rubber bag attached to the inside. From it ran a tube which ended in another graduated gla.s.s tube with a thin line of mercury in it like a thermometer.

Craig adjusted the thing over the brachial artery of Pitts, just above the elbow.

"It may be a little uncomfortable, Mr. Pitts," he apologised, "but it will be for only a few minutes."

Pressure through the rubber bulb shut off the artery so that Kennedy could no longer feel the pulse at the wrist. As he worked, I began to see what he was after. The reading on the graded scale of the height of the column of mercury indicated, I knew, blood pressure. This time, as he worked, I noted also the flabby skin of Pitts as well as the small and sluggish pupils of his eyes.

He completed his test in silence and excused himself, although as we went back to the kitchen I was burning with curiosity.

"What was it?" I asked. "What did you discover?"

"That," he replied, "was a sphygmomanometer, something like the sphygmograph which we used once in another case. Normal blood pressure is 125 millimetres. Mr. Pitts shows a high pressure, very high. The large life insurance companies are now using this instrument. They would tell you that a high pressure like that indicates apoplexy. Mr.

Pitts, young as he really is, is actually old. For, you know, the saying is that a man is as old as his arteries. Pitts has hardening of the arteries, arteriosclerosis--perhaps other heart and kidney troubles, in short pre-senility."

Craig paused: then added sententiously as if to himself: "You have heard the latest theories about old age, that it is due to microbic poisons secreted in the intestines and penetrating the intestinal walls? Well, in premature senility the symptoms are the same as in senility, only mental acuteness is not so impaired."

We had now reached the kitchen again. The student had also brought down to Kennedy a number of sterilised microscope slides and test-tubes, and from here and there in the ma.s.ses of blood spots Kennedy was taking and preserving samples. He also took samples of the various foods, which he preserved in the sterilised tubes.

While he was at work Edward joined us cautiously.

"Has anything happened?" asked Craig.

"A message came by a boy for Mrs. Pitts," whispered the valet.

"What did she do with it?"

"Tore it up."

"And the pieces?"

"She must have hidden them somewhere."

"See if you can get them."

Edward nodded and left us.

"Yes," I remarked after he had gone, "it does seem as if the thing to do was to get on the trail of a person bearing wounds of some kind. I notice, for one thing, Craig, that Edward shows no such marks, nor does any one else in the house as far as I can see. If it were an 'inside job' I fancy Edward at least could clear himself. The point is to find the person with a bandaged hand or plastered face."

Kennedy a.s.sented, but his mind was on another subject. "Before we go we must see Mrs. Pitts alone, if we can," he said simply.

In answer to his inquiry through one of the servants she sent down word that she would see us immediately in her sitting-room. The events of the morning had quite naturally upset her, and she was, if anything, even paler than when we saw her before.

"Mrs. Pitts," began Kennedy, "I suppose you are aware of the physical condition of your husband?"

It seemed a little abrupt to me at first, but he intended it to be.

"Why," she asked with real alarm, "is he so very badly?"

"Pretty badly," remarked Kennedy mercilessly, observing the effect of his words. "So badly, I fear, that it would not require much more excitement like to-day's to bring on an attack of apoplexy. I should advise you to take especial care of him, Mrs. Pitts."

Following his eyes, I tried to determine whether the agitation of the woman before us was genuine or not. It certainly looked so. But then, I knew that she had been an actress before her marriage. Was she acting a part now?

"What do you mean?" she asked tremulously.

"Mrs. Pitts," replied Kennedy quickly, observing still the play of emotion on her delicate features, "some one, I believe, either regularly in or employed in this house or who had a ready means of access to it must have entered that kitchen last night. For what purpose, I can leave you to judge. But Sam surprised the intruder there and was killed for his faithfulness."

Her startled look told plainly that though she might have suspected something of the sort she did not think that any one else suspected, much less actually perhaps knew it.

"I can't imagine who it could be, unless it might be one of the servants," she murmured hastily; adding, "and there is none of them that I have any right to suspect."

She had in a measure regained her composure, and Kennedy felt that it was no use to pursue the conversation further, perhaps expose his hand before he was ready to play it.

"That woman is concealing something," remarked Kennedy to me as we left the house a few minutes later.

"She at least bears no marks of violence herself of any kind," I commented.