Part 1

[Illustration: ... As the doctor, seeing the blood on Inspector Craven’s coat, began to examine him to learn the extent of his injury, the hunchback, with a quick movement, grasped a bundle of papers spiked on a file and threw them into the stove.]

THE SHADOW ON THE SPARK

By Edward S. Sears

Here is a murder detective story of a different type, which we warmly recommend to you. It again shows that circumstantial evidence may not always be 100 per cent right, and that one should not always jump to conclusions. The science part of this story is extremely ingenious and can be duplicated at any time for use in similar cases.

When Dr. Milton Jarvis descended the plank of the liner Homeric, on his return from the International Medical Congress at Vienna, in the year 1926, he expected to find his most intimate friend, Jim Craighead, at the pier to meet him. He looked about him, somewhat disappointed, then disconsolately walked over to Broadway, where he stopped to buy a paper before hailing a taxi.

For more than two weeks he had not seen a paper. He was busy with the notes he had made at the Congress, which he was pledged to read shortly after his return, to the American Medical Association. Hence, it was with more than ordinary interest that he looked at the glaring headlines of the New York journals, so much more blatant than those employed by the European press.

One glance at the first page of the newspaper informed him why Jim Craighead had not met him. He shut his eyes for a moment to assure himself that he was not dreaming--that he really was home and not with the medical celebrities who had gathered at Vienna. Dismay, horror and unbelief strove alternately for mastery. It was impossible--Heaven would not permit such a crime. “Craighead inquest perfunctory” read the streamer. “Well-known banker dies of shock following operation.” Craighead, it appeared, had slipped while dashing for a train. The platform was wet--the train was already in motion--he missed his footing, one leg going under the wheels. Amputation became necessary, fatal blood poisoning having set in.

The inquest had begun that very day. Very little testimony had been taken when the edition Dr. Jarvis was reading went to press. It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when he got into the taxi, and the doctor immediately resolved to hear what he might of the remainder of the testimony.

Leaning out the window of the taxi, he called: “Drive me to the Coroner’s Court, please.”

In a few minutes he stood in the court room just before the Coroner adjourned the Court for the day. The attending physician was on the witness stand completing his recital of the patient’s treatment.

“Now, Dr. Lawson,” asked Mr. Bailey, a lawyer representing an insurance company in which Craighead held a large policy, “how did you treat your patient? I understand that amputation was necessary as soon as Mr. Craighead reached the hospital.”

“That is correct,” replied the doctor.

“Were all the usual precautions taken?”

“Oh, yes,” said Doctor Lawson, “I attended to that myself. The wound was perfectly sterilized. Then I attached the haemostats.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Mr. Bailey.

“Little clips are used to fasten the ends of the severed blood vessels. Afterward, they are replaced by gut which is tied around the blood vessel, gradually being absorbed as healing progresses,” replied the doctor.

“And with all these precautions, the shock of the operation killed Mr. Craighead?”

“That is true,” assented Dr. Lawson.

“That will be all for today,” said Mr. Bailey. “Tomorrow, I will want to ask you a few questions.”

The lawyers folded up their papers preparatory to leaving the court room, while the large crowd which had gathered out of curiosity to hear how one of the wealthiest bankers of the city had met his destiny, slowly filed out. Dr. Jarvis, seeing the physician of the insurance company, whom he knew well, at the table, joined him as he packed a sheaf of papers into a wallet.

“What do you make of it, Fulton?” he questioned the doctor.

“So far, we have learned nothing, Jarvis,” said Dr. Fulton, slowly. “I know how close you and Craighead were. You must feel terribly shocked. It seems clear that the operation killed him. There is no ground for suspicion, but we must make some kind of fight, before we pay a $300,000 policy which has been in force only six months. He left a large estate too, as you probably know.”

Dr. Jarvis went home in a deep, brown study. He was shocked and horrified by the loss of his dearest friend. He could not reconcile the thought that this big, hearty person was the victim of blood poison or shock. Why, the man had always been immune. He had been proverbially tough, bubbling over with vitality. “How had he lost that immunity?” he asked himself. He recalled their last day together--the day before he had sailed for Europe. They were playing tennis at the country club.

Dr. Jarvis, trying desperately to prevent his rival from scoring the last point in a hard-fought game, swung down viciously on a high bounding ball, sending it back low over the net in what looked like a volley, impossible to handle. But Jim Craighead whipped his racquet up in a swift lawford and the ball, like a shot from a gun, sped down the side line far from the doctor’s reach.

“Damn,” he cried, “trimmed 8 to 6 by a man of fifty and I’m your junior by ten years. But you sure do keep in condition.”

“Doc,” answered Craighead, “just three months ago, when I took out life insurance policies for $300,000, the examiner said he would like to have a dozen risks in my condition. I can run a mile at a good pace and do any stunts in the gym that a kid can do.”

“That’s right, Doctor Jarvis,” chimed in a young man of twenty-two, who, with a beautiful girl about the same age, had just run up to the clubhouse in Craighead’s sedan, “he made me go some to keep ahead of him in a long swim, though he didn’t even know the crawl.”

* * * * *

Doctor Jarvis recalled that picture now--the great, tawny-haired Craighead towering above his adopted son’s head, his arm fondly on his shoulder and the youth’s arm about the girl’s waist. The girl, the jewel in the setting, had light hair, neither golden nor yellow, although with a touch of autumn wheat; she was delicately featured, with an expressive mouth, inclined to be serious. Now, with these two men, apparently happy and smiling, she revealed very regular, white teeth. Ross Craighead was almost as tall as his adopted father but slender; Jim was wide shouldered and robust. The girl, although tall, seemed diminutive beside these two.

If the beautiful girl and the handsome youth seemed well and full of vitality, Jim Craighead was almost insolent in his defiant heartiness. Ross was the orphaned son of Craighead’s sister who had died when he was a few years old. The bond between these two was very strong--Ross was a sensitive soul, of the artistic type, against which characteristic the buoyant Craighead had waged a losing fight. The boy could not be hardened.

At college he was all for humanities, classics, science, logic, but close calculation in business seemed to have been left out of his nature. Sports had attracted him--he was good material for the teams, especially in baseball and swimming. Just as Craighead had determined that he would be hopeless in the banking and brokerage operations which he controlled, Ross had met Tessie Prettyman, who was secretary to Craighead’s manager. Her efficiency was due to the fact that she took every instruction seriously and obeyed implicitly. She believed anything she was told, which was inconvenient when she was listening to a rival of the firm.

Craighead was inclined to discourage the intimacy he saw growing between the pair but when Ross began to grind earnestly at tasks Jim knew the boy loathed, he began to consider the girl less a liability than an asset. She was an orphan, that was all they knew of her history. But she was well educated, a lady in all her actions, so that Jim soon grew as fond of her as Ross. This, then, was the circle which had been broken up by a tragedy so unnecessary in Dr. Jarvis’s mind as to be heartbreaking.

Like all healthy men--men who have never felt an ache or a pain, Jim was virtually a baby when some slight cut or other wound came in a tennis or other game. Once Doctor Jarvis had found him taking morphine. Jim had said, rather shamefacedly:

“It’s not a habit, Milt, but I just can’t stand pain. I’ve never had much, I guess that’s the reason.”

This last day he had seen Craighead, the recollection of which came to the doctor’s mind over and over again, the young man had taken the front seat with Tessie, while Jim and Doctor Jarvis sat in the rear.

“Jim, old man, I’ll be missing you,” said the doctor, as they left him at his apartment.

“We’ll be waiting at the pier when you come back, Milt, twice as famous as you are now,” was Jim’s reply.

That was like him. He had helped Doctor Jarvis through his early difficulties and setbacks, encouraging him and rejoicing in his successes. He was foster father and pal in one. So Doctor Jarvis was very impatient as his brain refused to accept the fact that Jim Craighead was dead.

In no way could he reconcile his sturdy friend’s death with a theory that the shock of an operation would kill him. His analysis was searching. Nothing in his experience was overlooked. He was skilled in X-ray therapy as well as X-ray photography. His science was modern--the latest researches were commonplaces to him. But facts were what he needed, after all. No conclusions could be drawn from surmises. This thought drove him to the room of Inspector Craven at headquarters. They were good friends, for the doctor had often given expert testimony in trials in which the inspector was interested.

“Inspector,” began Dr. Jarvis, “what do you know of this Craighead inquest?”

“Well, Doc,” replied the inspector, settling his huge frame back in a capacious chair, as he wrinkled his thick brows and blew the smoke from a vile smelling pipe through his walrus moustache, “inquests are not much in our line unless there is some crime involved. This is such a clear case of a man dying from the shock of an operation that the police have no more interest in it than the public. Of course Craighead was a big man. I knew him well myself. He used to stop here to pick me up sometimes, so I got to know what an impatient chap he was. He told me that he’d sprint for a car, whenever he had to ride on a street car, like any kid of seventeen. The insurance company would grab at anything suspicious but nothing has come up. We all know the story. Craighead got too cocky in his sprinting ability, and was run over. It was mucky and rainy, so what followed was almost inevitable. Tough on the insurance companies, though. Doc Lawson seems positive that it was the shock of the operation.”

“That is just why I don’t feel satisfied,” said Dr. Jarvis. “Lawson is an old practitioner, a good surgeon, but very apt to make up his mind what killed his patient. The more you might show him the probability of some other cause, the more stubbornly he would believe in his own theory.”

“There are quite a few of us like that, Doc,” smiled the inspector. “But, you knew the whole family. Is there anyone who could profit by Craighead’s death?”

“Well, there is Ross, Jim’s adopted son and his nephew. But he had all the money he needed--he was in the business with Jim. Then, too, Jim made no secret of the fact that his fortune was to go to Ross. So I think that Ross is out of the question, for they were devoted to each other. Ross is the idealistic type--he would be more apt to give money away than try to get it by murder.”

“Who else is there?” queried the inspector, indifferently, for he could see no mystery in Craighead’s death.

“Then,” continued the doctor, “there is the girl to whom Ross is engaged, a perfectly innocent creature who simply adored Jim--he treated her as if she were already his daughter-in-law. She is an orphan, Tessie Prettyman.”

“Tessie Prettyman!” exploded Inspector Craven, “Good Lord, Doctor Jarvis, do you know who Tessie Prettyman is?”

“No, she has no family that we know of, but she seems to be a very refined and charming little lady.”

* * * * *

“Well,” said the inspector, bouncing from his chair, “Tessie Prettyman is a girl who has been visiting Piggy Bill Hovey down in the Tombs. Piggy Bill is held on a narcotic charge, without bail, because he was caught with a large supply of morphine, opium and heroin; the Federal boys want to find out where he gets that stuff because he can’t be connected with any smuggling operations. Our men have watched the girl and she seems to know Piggy Bill very well. Some of them think she is his sweetie. But if Piggy Bill is anywhere on the horizon, I am willing to be suspicious about Craighead’s death.”

This revelation grated on Dr. Jarvis. He did not believe for a moment that this sweet-looking girl had any criminal tendencies or was capable of playing such a dual rôle as the affianced of Ross Craighead and the “sweetie” of a notorious criminal.

“Inspector,” he said finally, “have you time to go up to the hospital with me? The records or the head nurse might tell us something.”

“Time, time,” roared Craven, “this is official business now. What we have to learn is how Piggy Bill’s sweetie happens to be engaged to marry Jim Craighead’s son. First thing, we’ll go to the hospital, then we’ll talk with this young man who seems to be infatuated with Tessie.”

In the inspector’s big car it was a short trip to the hospital. The records told them nothing new. It was Dr. Lawson’s case, so that whatever he might have to say would be developed at the inquest. But for the fact, suddenly unveiled, that Piggy Bill was somewhere in this series of events, the inspector would have remained seated in his big chair, serenely puffing on his pipe.

“Doc,” said the inspector, suddenly, “let’s talk to the head nurse first, then we can look up the young man and Tessie.”

“Miss Cornhill,” asked the Doctor, when the head nurse appeared, “did you see Mr. Craighead when he was brought into the hospital a few days ago?”

“Of course,” replied the nurse.

“How did Mr. Craighead seem to you?” he queried further.

“Doctor Jarvis,” the nurse said, “Mr. Craighead was very badly hurt. He was not a patient sufferer--he stood the pain irritably and was relieved when it became necessary to etherize him. He asked the doctor to give him a hypodermic a couple of times, but the doctor refused.”

“That was like Jim,” murmured Doctor Jarvis.

“But,” continued the nurse, “he should not have died from the operation under normal conditions. Of course his mental condition was very bad. He was a very handsome man, in fine physical condition and he moaned, time after time, “I had as lief been killed as lose my foot.”

“When Mr. Craighead was taken home, Miss Cornhill,” asked the doctor, “did one of your nurses accompany him?”

“No, sir,” was the reply, “Mr. Craighead insisted that his son and the young man’s lady friend be with him--anyone else, he was sure, would irritate him more than help.”

“Thank you, very kindly, Miss Cornhill,” said the Doctor, and they left the hospital.

“Well, inspector,” began Doctor Jarvis, when they were seated in the car, “we didn’t get very far at the hospital. If it lies between Ross and Tessie, I guess it may as well end where it is.”

“See here, Doc,” said the inspector, gripping Doctor Jarvis by the arm, “you’ve started me looking for a murder or some crime and by the eternal, you are not going to let any sentimentality about a pretty girl check our investigation until we know that there is or is not a crime.”

“Inspector,” replied the Doctor, with a hard glint in his eye, “as long as there is any doubt as to how Jim died, I am with you to the end. I simply meant to express my opinion that neither of those two could be involved. Let us look the situation in the face. Dr. Lawson has certified that Jim Craighead died of natural causes. That prevents any kind of action until the inquest reveals something of a suspicious nature. In fact, there would have been no inquest but for the insistence of the insurance company. Now, we must develop something that points to some unnatural factor in Jim’s death before the inquest is over.”

“That’s true enough,” replied Craven, “and we don’t want to alarm anyone until we have the goods on him. You be at the inquest bright and early and keep your eyes and ears wide open. I will find out when Tessie went to see Piggy Bill last and join you later.”

The inspector left Doctor Jarvis at his door, a prey to many conflicting emotions. He had started machinery going which he knew could no longer be stopped. But he did not want to leave Ross open to an insidious attack. His efforts to communicate with him, however, were unavailing. After a sleepless night the doctor refreshed himself with a plunge, a shave, and then having dressed himself in a sombre garb which fitted well with his present emotions, went to the Coroner’s court. It had just opened with Dr. Lawson on the stand.

“Now Doctor,” began Mr. Bailey, representing the insurance company, “you were describing, yesterday, the nature of Mr. Craighead’s injuries. You mentioned fastening the haemostats yourself. Will you tell the coroner and the jury what you mean by that?”

“Why, yes,” answered Dr. Lawson, “to use layman language, haemostats are little clips which are applied to the ends of all the severed blood vessels when we amputate, thus closing them so tightly that no foreign or toxic substances can find their way in.”

Dr. Jarvis leaned over to the physician of the insurance company whispering, “Fulton, why doesn’t your lawyer ask him how the shock of the operation or blood poison could kill him, if the haemostats were properly applied?”

Dr. Fulton communicated this message to the lawyer who immediately shot this question at Dr. Lawson.

“Dr. Lawson, if the haemostats were properly applied, how do you suppose the poisonous substances got into the wound, if the wound was sterile, as we must assume it to have been after the operation at the hospital?”

“Well, one way, which I assume to have been the true way, is that the poisons made their way through the wall cells of the blood vessels--the arteries, veins and capillaries,” replied Dr. Lawson.

At this reply, Dr. Jarvis shut his lips very grimly. He was making progress at last. Very opportunely, at this moment, Inspector Craven slipped into the chair next to him.

“Doc,” he murmured, in a low tone, “we are on the track of something--Tessie visited Piggy Bill twice, the day before Craighead died. He’s a bad egg, but we never have caught him in anything red handed except this narcotic deal. He’s bad, though, bad enough for anything. Now, here’s another funny thing about Piggy. He’s an educated rogue, talks French and is a great student of toxicology. How does that fit in with your story now?”

“Inspector,” said the doctor, “I don’t know yet where we are heading, but that last remark of Doctor Lawson’s shows me that Jim did not die of the causes ascribed. Now we must find out what did cause his death. With a few more facts, I think I can clear this mystery. I’m half tempted to take a hand right now.”

“Wait until you have the whole story,” advised the inspector. “If we have to make any arrests, we don’t want to warn them in advance.”

“Doctor Lawson has just made a bad break,” said Dr. Jarvis, “which makes it easy to show him up, although I hate to discredit him. He really is a good surgeon, but he’s not modern enough. We must get all the information we can from him before he suspects we are after anything.”

He then scribbled on a piece of paper, “Ask who nursed Craighead.”

In a few seconds the lawyer asked:

“Dr. Lawson, Mr. Craighead was in charge of a nurse, of course?”

“He was in good hands, Mr. Bailey,” said Dr. Lawson; “it was his own wish that his son Ross and Miss Tessie Prettyman, of whom he seemed to be very fond, should be with him and administer his medicine.”

“Is Miss Prettyman here?” queried the lawyer.

“She is sitting just back of you.”

“That will be all for the present, thank you, doctor,” concluded Mr. Bailey.

* * * * *

“Miss Prettyman, will you take the stand?” asked the coroner.

Both Dr. Jarvis and the inspector looked keenly at the girlish figure which mounted to the witness box. She was tall, well formed, with a wealth of blond hair which surrounded a very beautiful, expressive face, now drawn with worry and late vigils.

“You nursed Mr. Craighead during his last illness, did you not, Miss Prettyman?” asked the lawyer, after the usual preliminaries were over.

“Ross and I took turns, and sometimes both of us sat with him together,” said the girl. “He grew fretful when one or the other of us was away for even a minute.”

“Did you give him his medicines?” continued the lawyer.

“Sometimes I did and sometimes it was Ross,” said the girl in a low voice, in which a slight catch of emotion was discernible.

“Gad, Doc,” snapped the inspector, “where is this young chap? If he knows anything we can sweat both him and Tessie.”

“There he is, three seats over,” replied Dr. Jarvis. “One look at him ought to satisfy you.”

They looked at the tall, well dressed youth--about twenty-two he was--a sincere, dreamy looking chap, yet now with his lips tightly compressed, evidently resentful of the way the girl he loved was being prodded.

“Miss Prettyman,” queried the lawyer, who as yet had not caught the drift of Dr. Jarvis’s prompting, “how did Mr. Craighead die? Describe his symptoms.”

“I can hardly tell you that,” answered the girl without hesitation. “Ross would lie down for awhile in the adjoining room, with the door open, whenever Mr. Craighead dozed off late at night. Mr. Craighead died very suddenly, for I ran in a very few seconds after Ross had cried that he was in danger. Ross, of course, saw him die but would tell me nothing about it. He said it was too awful.”

“Now is the time, Doc,” said the inspector, all his detective instincts aroused. “We’ll see what the boy says and then, if it throws suspicion on him, we can see how deep is the affection of Piggy Bill’s sweetie.”

In the girl, the inspector, looking for important revelations, saw now, not a pretty girl, but the possible accomplice of Piggy Bill Hovey in some foul deed.