Читать книгу Murder of a Startled Lady - Charles Fulton Oursler - Страница 7

Through the telephone from Colt's private office on the second floor north end, I questioned Lieutenant Summers of the West Thirtieth Street Police Station:

"What happened to Eva Allen Lynn?"

"Oh, she's all right, now. Nervous and scared—she tried to choke herself with her stocking! But the matron was watching okay."

"Did you get her a sedative?"

"A doctor's coming to take a look at her."

"Is Professor Gilman still there?"

"That meddling son of a sea-cook—no. He's cleared out of here and to hell with him, Mr. Abbot. The professor ain't used to a police station and he don't know how to behave in one. Good-night, Mr. Abbot."

By the time I had made my brief report to Thatcher Colt, a knock came at the door, it opened, and the stern silver-crowned face of Captain Israel Henry, guardian of the Commissioner's suite, and working late to-night, looked in on us.

"Professor Gilman to see you, Mr. Colt."

"Quick work—he must have come down in one of our detective radio cars. Send him right in."

None of us was prepared for the state of excitement in which Professor Leslie Gilman entered the room. It had been a quiet and sedate place a moment before; only the green lamp was lighted on Colt's broad desk; a splash of white light pooled around the Commissioner's folded hands. I stood against one of the panelled walls, half-hidden in shadow. Dougherty, too, was in shadow, his great paunch almost invisible as he lolled in an arm-chair. The shadows reached up to the high ceiling and down to the over-sized mulberry-coloured rug. All this placidity was shattered by the scientist. He rushed straight up to Colt's desk, leaned forward, flattening his palms on the glass; the back of his large strong hands turned pale under the pressure.

"Colt!" he exclaimed, his voice low and quivering, "this Lynn business is a damnable and sacrilegious outrage. It's persecution! It's the Inquisition! It's an indefensible, high-handed, unconstitutional, tyrannical piece of intolerance and by God——"

"By God, you're losing your temper!" barked Thatcher Colt, standing up and leaning forward so that their faces were close together. A strange contrast those faces. Thatcher Colt was thin, tanned, elegant, with aristocratic features, but with a slight discoloration under his left eye from a boxing bout at the Police Academy. Professor Leslie Gilman was Colt's opposite—short, heavy, with the clear red skin of an English soldier, the blue eyes of a Norwegian sailor, and the almost bald head, the nose-glasses, and the bow tie that belong only to married and middle-aged Americans.

"I am losing my temper," agreed Professor Gilman with an imprecatory glance around the room. "I thank you for reminding me. May I sit down?"

"I was on the point of suggesting it," murmured Colt, indicating the comfortable chair before his desk. Both men sat down, and Gilman, with an angry gesture, snatched off his brown slouch hat, and dropped it on the rug.

"I am not any the less angry because I am now in control of my temper," the Professor resumed warningly. "I have come here to right a great wrong. My business is private. Who are these gentlemen?"

Colt introduced us, with the assurance that we were all concerned in his protest.

"Tell me straight out what the trouble is," urged the Commissioner. "The police are not like scientists, you know, Gilman—we do make mistakes sometimes."

The Professor's blue eyes flashed.

"I make mistakes all right—but not this time! I am here as a friend of two unfortunate people. I ask you to believe me when I say, as a scientist, an intelligent man, that these two people are great souls. And they should be treated like great souls. They are more wonderful than Kreisler or Heifetz or Paderewski. These people are like prophets! This horrible raid to-night—and then poor Eva trying to take her own life——"

"Far be it from me to scoff at your faith in them, Gilman—but what about the forty yards of cheese-cloth painted with luminous paint which the detectives seized as their Exhibit A."

"Planted! Planted evidence! Not with your knowledge, of course——"

"I'm not shocked! I have heard suspicions of the police once or twice before. But are you sure the evidence was planted?"

"I can't prove that it was."

"Don't you believe mediums are sometimes fakes—and that even a smart man like you can be fooled?"

"Well—perhaps. It is true that even absolutely genuine mediums may deceive now and then, when they cannot get in touch with their real powers. I would hate to believe that of the Lynns. But even if they did deceive—I know they are still great people, good people, and it is horrible to humiliate them like this. Let them go, Colt—turn them over to me, back to science—I will provide for them——"

The Professor's earnestness was impressive. He was pleading from his heart. Yet it seemed an extraordinary position for a scientist, appealing for a woman who was caught with a bogus ghost in her brassière.

Colt's right hand was dawdling with an ivory head of Homer, the only ornament on his desk. His thumb rubbed the snub nose of the image.

"Where do the Lynns come from?"

"Ohio—I think it is Zanesville—somewhere in the steel and iron region——"

"Been in New York long?"

"About two years."

"Doing what?"

"Submitting to my experiments and preaching."

"They gave private readings and séances for which they charged, didn't they?"

"That is one way of preaching."

"And of collecting fees?"

"The labourer is worthy of his hire."

"What are their miraculous powers that have so impressed you?"

"They can communicate with departed spirits."

"How?"

"In many ways."

Colt sighed a little wearily and thrust aside the ivory head of Homer.

"Just what is it you want me to do about it?"

"Release them. Withdraw the charge."

Colt smiled sadly.

"It isn't in my power to do that, now. The facts are plain. The evidence of fraud is clear. It's up to the magistrate——"

"And you won't interfere?"

"Impossible."

"And you don't believe a word of what I have said, either, now do you, Colt?"

"We need not go into that, old fellow. I sympathise——"

"Sympathise!" repeated Gilman in a great shout. "You are blind. What blindness! What self-satisfied folly! You say you want to stop crime in this city. But do you? You say you want to solve all the mysteries, catch all the criminals—so what do you do? You take measurements, you count up the ridges in fingerprints, the ballistic riflings on bullets, you analyse the very dirt under the fingernails of corpses—bah! Rot! No good at all! Those childish little tricks and dodges take up your time when all the while there is a short cut, a straight way to the truth—and you will not take it!"

Professor Gilman stood up in defiant silence, twisting his reclaimed hat into a shapeless bundle, now that he had scolded Thatcher Colt.

"You propose," mused the Commissioner, "that through your mediums I should get in touch with the spirits of murdered persons and these shades, or astral bodies, or whatever they are called, would accuse the guilty killer?"

"Yes, that's just what I do mean!" cried Gilman passionately. "I mean even more than that. Murder not even discovered yet by your practical, brain-trust police can be brought to light by this simple and natural means."

Colt's smile was friendly.

"I'm sorry, Gilman. If we could adopt your plan, it would greatly simplify police work, but I'm afraid that we will have to stick to ballistics and the rest of the technique you deplore."

"Excuse me, Thatch," cut in Dougherty placatingly. "I'm a good Catholic and I don't go for any of this business in any way at all. But let me ask you one question, Professor—didn't you say there was some kind of message about a particular murder?"

Professor Gilman turned and looked appealingly at Dougherty as if he had just discovered a friend.

"I did, sir. I did. I sent a message by that flatfoot. But it is evident it is quite useless for me to refer to it again. In spite of the fact that I believe it would be a perfect test—establish our theories to the world, I do not expect to be taken seriously by those in authority. Of course, even if we were, we might fail. Unlike the police, Mr. Colt, our mediums are sometimes mistaken."

Colt chuckled at this melancholy ripost.

"Tell us about this perfect test," he invited.

"That's just what it amounts to—a perfect test. We have—or at least the Lynns have—been trying to get more information on this matter for months. But it was impossible. We told no one because we knew no one would listen—the newspapers and the detectives would all think it was a vulgar publicity stunt."

"Well, what information have you got so far?"

Professor Gilman sat down in his chair again; began to smooth out his battered hat. His eyes were lowered, his forehead covered with perspiration.

"For several months," he began deliberately, "the spirit of a young girl has been coming through to us. She speaks through Eva Allan Lynn while the medium is in a trance—using her lips, her tongue, her vocal cords—but the voice is very, very different. This young girl spirit says she was murdered—cut up into pieces—put in a box and buried in the water."

There was a moment's silence. We did not believe it, of course; not one of us, except Gilman. But the way he told it gave one shivers.

"Does the spirit of the murdered girl tell her name?" asked Colt.

"Yes. Madeline!"

"She gives only the first name?"

"So far, yes. Whenever we ask for the last name, she begins to cry and goes away!"

"Did Madeline say where the body was buried—in what body of water?"

"She was to tell us that to-night."

"To-night?"

"Yes—after the church meeting she was coming to my apartment and we were to go on with our experiments. But the damned police raided our service——"

"Never mind that again," snapped Colt.

"But I say you have prevented a great revelation."

"Of what?"

"Of murder! Go along with me for a little minute, will you, Colt? Suppose a girl named Madeline was murdered. Suppose her body was cut up and the pieces put in a box and dropped into the sea. Then what would you say?"

"Thatch!" Dougherty's husky voice was warm with interest. "Listen, Thatch. The police don't want to interfere with science when it isn't necessary—ever! Why not let the Professor have his séance with the mediums to-night, anyway?"

"Where?"

"Well—I was thinking—why not right here and let us all take a look at it."

"A séance in my private office?" groaned Colt. His face lighted up with a brief grin.

"That would be a hell of a thing to happen at Headquarters," I burst out.

"It might be a heavenly thing, young man," crackled the Professor, his blue eyes reproving me.

"But the Lynn woman is ill—neurotic," demurred Colt. "It's out of the question."

"That's why she's ill—that dead spirit of a murdered woman seeking earthly justice is tormenting her, trying to break through for the final revelation of her murderer. Colt, try this for me on my sacred word just this once, will you?"

Colt hesitated a moment, then looked up at me.

"All right, Tony—call the Sixty-eighth and West Thirtieth Street Station houses and tell them to send the Lynns down here."

As I picked up the receiver, I happened to glance at Professor Gilman. His hat had fallen to the floor; his great, hairy hands were palm to palm, and Professor Leslie Gilman was praying.