The Almost Perfect Murder, Hulbert Footner [digital e reader .TXT] 📗

>“I found cocaine in liquid form in Liptrott’s room,” said the

Inspector, “but no needle. He’s evidently an addict too. He’s been

whining for it all day. I don’t know what’s coming to the world!”

 

“Oh, the world is much as it always was,” returned Mme. Storey. “These

people belong to a special class, moral invalids; it’s natural they

should turn to drugs to buoy them up…. I suggest you give him a

needle to steady him,” she went on. “Bring him up here with his

machine before lunch, and let him give you and me a demonstration.”

 

Rumsey agreed.

 

“What have you learned about Ram Lal?” she asked.

 

“A month ago he rented a house on West Seventy-Ninth Street near

Columbus Avenue. No one there when I entered it yesterday. Had been

lavishly furnished in Oriental style. According to the neighbours he

employed several servants, but they had vanished. I found nothing that

threw any light on the manner of his murder.”

 

Promptly at eleven the buzzer sounded in the outer office announcing

the coming of Dr. Chisholm. He was the most famous toxicologist in New

York and a good all-round man. We had had dealings with him before.

 

I led him into Mme. Storey’s room. His face was giving nothing away.

The Inspector jumped up eagerly. He could scarcely wait for polite

greetings to be exchanged.

 

“Well, doctor?”

 

Dr. Chisholm spread out his hands deprecatingly. “The result of the

autopsy is nil,” he said. “I cannot tell you what killed Ram Lal.”

 

It was a bitter disappointment. Inspector Rumsey dropped back into his

chair with a grunt. My employer carefully knocked the ash off her

cigarette.

 

I pushed forward a chair for the doctor. For a moment there was

silence in the room. Finally Mme. Storey said incredulously:

 

“A man dies, and with all the resources of science at your command you

cannot say why!”

 

“He died because his heart stopped beating,” he replied. “I don’t know

why it stopped.”

 

“No trace of poison in his blood?”

 

“None whatever.”

 

“Or in his stomach?”

 

“None.”

 

“How could he have been poisoned through the stomach?” put in Rumsey.

 

“To be sure,” said Mme. Storey; “but I didn’t want to overlook

anything…. But do men die like that?” she went on to the doctor.

“Without any apparent reason for it?”

 

“Oh, yes, Madame.”

 

“Healthy men?”

 

“Few men over forty can be said to be perfectly healthy. His lungs

showed some infiltration due to old tubercular lesions. His heart was

a little enlarged, but without any pericarditis. There were also some

suspicious spots in the pelvis. All common conditions.”

 

“But none of them sufficient to have caused death?”

 

“Not ordinarily.”

 

“Then if this was just an ordinary case the report would be that the

man died of…?”

 

“Heart failure, Madame.”

 

Mme. Storey and the Inspector looked at each other. Rumsey was very

glum.

 

“But there are poisons, doctor,” my employer insisted, “that may kill

without leaving any trace of themselves in the body?”

 

“There are such poisons,” he answered cautiously, “but naturally they

are not known outside the laboratory. We never meet them in practice.”

 

“There is a possibility this crime may be the work of a chemist.”

 

“I am aware of it.”

 

“Would you be kind enough to prepare me a list of such poisons together

with their properties and effects so far as known?” she asked.

 

“Certainly, Madame.”

 

“What’s the use?” said Rumsey. “Even though there are such poisons,

how can we go beyond the body?”

 

“Every precedent has to be created in the first place,” she answered

smiling.

 

“I say we’re stalled,” he said with his harassed air. “Aren’t we

justified now in assuming that it was only a coincidence?”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“Well, a practical joker calls up and tells you there is going to be a

murder at Mrs. Julian’s. You go there, and a man happens to die from

natural causes.”

 

Mme. Storey slowly shook her head. “That would be stretching the arm

of coincidence too far. I don’t believe he died a natural death, and

you don’t believe it. The public would never believe it, and if we

tried to put it over it would only react to the damage of our own

reputations.”

 

“But what can we do?” he said helplessly. “There is no case!”

 

“We must build up a case.”

 

“Have you a theory?” he asked eagerly.

 

“I have a theory,” she answered dryly, “but the evidence is

insufficient.”

 

They agreed among themselves to withhold the result of the autopsy for

a few hours, or at least until Dr. Chisholm had time to read up on the

rare poisons that might have been administered to Ram Lal. However, as

he was in the act of taking his leave, the telephone rang and a man’s

voice inquired for him.

 

I handed the instrument over to him. He presently clapped a hand over

the transmitter and lifted a dismayed face.

 

“It’s the city editor of the Morning Press,” he said. “He tells me

somebody has just called him up to say that the autopsy on the body of

Ram Lal revealed no trace of poison. He wants me to confirm it. At my

office they told him I was here.”

 

Inspector Rumsey jumped up, swearing roundly. My employer used no

expletives, but her face turned grim.

 

“This is the fine Italian hand of the murderer again,” she said

quietly. “He is vain of his crime.”

 

“But the suspects are all locked up!” cried the perplexed Inspector.

“How could they reach a telephone?”

 

She did not answer. “If the truth is out we would only make ourselves

ridiculous by denying it,” she said to Dr. Chisholm. “Tell the city

editor his information is correct.”

 

He did so, and hung up. Both men looked to my employer for

inspiration. She arose and paced the long room, thinking hard. At

last she said:

 

“When you find yourself up against it, unexpected measures are called

for. Jim Shryock dares you to produce the suspects for a hearing two

days hence. Why wait until he is ready? Shryock is famous for his

success in making away with evidence. I suggest you produce them

before a magistrate this afternoon.”

 

“They’ll be set free!” cried Rumsey.

 

“It doesn’t matter much,” she said impatiently; “none of those three is

the actual murderer…. Have them up this afternoon. Summon your

witnesses to court. But do not let the suspects be arraigned until

just before court adjourns. If the case goes over until the next day

so much the better. I take it you can arrange that?”

 

“Sure!” said the puzzled Rumsey. “Anything you say. But what’s the

idea. Just give me a hint of what you’re up to so I won’t make any

mistake.”

 

“It’s simply this,” she answered. “I want to collect the whole

dramatis person� in court this afternoon, and keep them there, so

that I can do some intensive work on the case without interference.”

 

“How about Liptrott?”

 

“I’ll attend to him while I’m eating my lunch.”

VI

In order to save time I had a light lunch sent in for Mme. Storey. She

was eating it when Liptrott was brought up from Headquarters carrying

his precious box. His guards were invited to wait in the hall.

Inspector Rumsey who had been away on some errand returned about the

same time.

 

I have already described the old man with his decent black clothes and

old-fashioned Yankee manner. There was no look of the potential

murderer about him. On all subjects but one he seemed perfectly sane

and shrewd, but when that blessed machine came up, his tongue went

wild. Such borderline cases, of course, may be extremely dangerous.

 

“He’s happy again,” the Inspector whispered to Mme. Storey. “They gave

him another needle.”

 

And indeed the old man seemed as pleased as a child at a party. My

employer had me order in some good cigars for him. He bit the end off

one, and lighted it with gusto.

 

“The real Havana, mem. Once I smoked none but the best myself.”

 

We grouped ourselves around the big writing-table.

 

“Mr. Liptrott,” said Mme. Storey, “I didn’t have them bring you up here

to be worried with questions about that terrible affair yesterday. I

am just curious about that wonderful machine of yours, and I’m hoping

you’ll give me a demonstration.”

 

He sprang up with alacrity. “Happy to oblige, ‘m.”

 

I was sitting on Mme. Storey’s right with my notebook on the table.

The Inspector was opposite her with his chair turned half around so he

could watch Liptrott. The old man carried his apparatus to the nearest

outlet in the baseboard, and lifted out the smaller box with the cords

dangling from it, and switches and dials on top. Plugging it in, he

turned a switch and I heard the familiar buzzing and crackling. The

sound brought back the whole horrible scene in Mrs. Julian’s boudoir.

 

Satisfied that it was working all right, he switched it off and gave us

a little lecture. I shall not try to repeat it all. A crazy mixture

of electrical and physiological terms, it sounded like utter nonsense

to me. For instance:

 

“… And so, mem, just as a man-made generator gathers the vital

principle out of the air and sends it to us in a current that we can

use for light and power, so nature’s generator which is the body,

absorbs life through its organs. But as the body machine wears out it

becomes less able to transmute raw life to its own uses, and so our

vitality fails.

 

“My machine replaces the organs and glands of the body. It takes raw

electricity from the power station and digests it into a form that the

body can use. I am no quack doctor. I make no claim that it can cure

disease. I only say that it will furnish you with the vitality

necessary to resist disease and to keep you young.”

 

The obvious question was, why didn’t he renew his own visibly failing

vitality? However, nobody put it to him.

 

“How wonderful!” said Mme. Storey. “Can you give us all a sample now?”

 

“Not all of you at once,” he said. “One at a time. I must first find

out the measure of a person’s vitality, and set the machine

accordingly. No two persons are the same.”

 

“I see,” said Mme. Storey. “We are all like radio receiving sets that

only pick up the wave lengths for which we are set.”

 

“Same principle, mem.”

 

You see there was a crazy plausibility about his spiel. I could

understand how a woman like Mrs. Julian might be deceived by it for a

while.

 

Liptrott held out a small zinc cylinder that was connected to the

machine by a cord. “If you’ll grasp this a minute the dial will

register.”

 

Mme. Storey obeyed, and he read off the dial: “Seven four seven, point

two five. Your vitality is very high, mem. You would not need my

machine for many a year to come.”

 

“That’s nice. I suppose it won’t hurt me.”

 

“Oh, no. Nobody feels so good but what they couldn’t feel better.”

 

He took the cylinder from her. “What must I do now?” she asked.

 

“Nothing, mem. You may sit and eat. The best of my machine is, the

user don’t have to devote any time to it. You