# The Radio Wraith

Extracted from Everybody's magazine, Nov 1923, pp. 84-94. Accompanying illustrations by Harold Anderson omitted. A Craig Kennedy detective story.
Another Craig Kennedy Story
The Radio Wraith
The Scientific Detective Turns the Wonders of Wireless Against One Who Seeks to Use Them to Base Ends
By Arthur B. Reeve
“SHE'S dead! She's dead!”
The frantic scream of a girl rang out wildly in the darkness of the picture show at the American Roof. It thrilled the theater at one of those psychological moments when the emotions of the audience, intensified by an exciting climax of the new spirit melodrama, “The Wireless Phantom,” had reached the thin line that divides pleasurable excitement from hysteria.
There was consternation about us. The pretty little gray-clad usher was intermittently pulling at the shoulder of a beautiful girl, bending over another even more beautiful, and turning to look about helplessly in the darkness. All about people were calling for information, aid. Some few were even heartlessly getting up to leave.
“Come, Walter, those girls need help!”
Kennedy shouldered down the aisle and a moment later was murmuring in the ear of the girl now trying to awake some recognition in the lovely form beside her.
“Let me help you get your friend out of this crowd. Right through that door is the Lounge. …”
In the pencil of light of the usher's little electric flash, she raised a pair of gloriously beautiful eyes gratefully to him. But no sound escaped her lips now. Her fright was too intense at the continued silence of her companion.
Craig and I were now carrying the inert girl to the Lounge, past craning necks and curious glances, followed by much advice from those who before had not known what to do. By this time there was panic in the audience, a scramble to get to the aisles. The ushers were utterly unable to keep back the jamming crowd. All over the house came cries, “Lights!” As we entered the door to the Lounge, the picture suddenly stopped and the lights flashed up. In the glow was illumined the pale face of our burden.
The other girl bent forward to get a better look at the limp figure. The pallor, ghastly in its completeness, was too much for her. With a low cry, a slight wavering of her slender body, she sank to the floor in a faint before any one could catch her.
It was at a big afternoon trade showing of an independent picture, “The Wireless Phantom.” Several hundred exhibitors, exchange men and their guests, including ourselves, were there. First there had been a luncheon for the stars, the cast, director, producer, and those financially interested. We had not been present at the luncheon, but had dropped into the theater afterward.
Craig motioned me toward a gaily painted wooden settee and we laid the girl on it.
I turned hastily to help an attendant with the girl who had just fainted. We placed her gently on another settee along the other wall. Then, as the ushers seemed to know just how to take care of the one who had only fainted, I turned again to Craig. His face was grave. He had just straightened up from listening for the heartbeats, his fingers were still feeling the pulse. Slowly he laid the beautiful little hand down by the side of the girl.
“Will she be all right, soon?”
Chin on his hand, head bent forward thoughtfully, Craig studied that beautiful girl lying so quietly before us.
“She has gone—passed out—and I have an idea that all is not just right!” he whispered to me.
I looked again. It did not seem possible. Except for the pallor, there was no sign of death. Just a bloodless silence and a look on the face of utter weariness. Her golden hair was in ringlets. Lashes, black and long, now swept her cheeks in a delightful curve, augmented by the thin arch of the eyebrows above. It was a perfectly oval face, with delicate, regular features; the body was slender and lithe.
Back of us we could hear the excited audience as ushers vainly strove to keep it quiet. Every time the door opened, the crowd surged toward the entrance.
“Who is she?”
Craig opened her hand-bag. There were no visiting cards, just a few trinkets and feminine things, a little money—and a bottle of bichloride tablets—half empty!
“My God, Craig, she's done it herself!” I gasped. “Why?”
Kennedy merely shrugged.
“Who is she?” came the question again.
“Nothing about her to show,” replied Craig. “Not a clue in the bag, even to her name, so far as I can see.”
For some reason, now, her face seemed familiar to me. I couldn't understand it. I had never met her in any of my newspaper work, I felt sure. I felt a nudge at my elbow, I turned and there, awe in every feature, was the little usher, whispering, “I know.”
“Who?”
“Don't you see? She's in the picture! That other girl”—jerking her head toward the second—“was in it, too. This is Maude Murray. The one who screamed and fainted is Evelyn Murray, her sister.”
Now I realized why she had seemed so familiar. I had been watching her with interest for almost three reels, in make-up. Evelyn Murray was the dashing, brilliant beauty of the two, a distinctive type, with curly, henna hair, snapping blue eyes, a fair skin with vivid coloring and rosy lips.
AS WE watched the nervous twitchings that indicated her coming return to consciousness, she seemed to be mumbling as if she were asleep. Craig moistened her lips and she tried to speak.
“Let me up! Please don't hold me!” she gasped.
Craig laid a restraining hand on the girl's arm. “Just a moment, Miss Murray. Rest a little longer.”
“But—Maude—how is she?”
“Tell me. When was your sister taken ill?” equivocated Craig.
Weakly Evelyn replied. “I noticed it first about the second reel. … She turned to me. 'Evelyn,' she said, 'I wish we were home! I feel so tired—so exhausted!' Then I saw her gasp. She seemed to choke. Her hand reached for mine. Her other hand was on her heart. … Suddenly she collapsed … on me. I touched her gently … whispered to her. … But she didn't answer me. I was terrified. … I screamed!”
By this time the name of Maude Murray had been whispered around everywhere in the audience. The people were stunned. It was so impossible that she should be dead.
“Have you friends here?” Craig asked Evelyn.
“Please find Mr. Creedon. … Mr. Wiley ought to know. … Have you seen Mr. Winslow?”
I raised my eyebrows at the name of Creedon. Old Enoch Creedon was the millionaire owner of the Creedon Manufacturing Company. Wiley's name was not so reassuring. Nor was Winslow's. The Star had been running an exposure of some of the bucket-shop practises of Wiley, Winslow & Co.
A rather dapper elderly man and a ponderous young one were pushing their way past the man at the door.
“Evelyn! … I'm sorry. I came just as soon as I heard. I'll help you make the arrangements. … Whatever possessed you girls to sit out alone among strangers instead of with the rest of us?”
It was the elderly man. The younger had made his way quietly to the group about the settee where Maude was lying. He did not try to hide how greatly he was shocked.
Evelyn tried to smile. “Mr. Creedon, Maude and I thought if we sat out in the audience we might get the real verdict on the picture. That was all. … But … what arrangements do you have to make?”
The girl hesitated. Creedon looked at Kennedy in a blundering, confused way. Before any one could answer, Evelyn's active mind had seized upon the truth. Before Craig could stop her she was at Maude's side. One glance was enough. Clasping Wiley's arm, she broke into violent sobbing. She seemed to stumble blindly toward Craig. “Mr.—Mr.——”
“Mr. Kennedy,” he soothed.
“Did she die—while I was ill?”
“No,” he answered gently. “She died on your arm, before we came to you.” He put his own arm out to support her, then turned to the others. “We must get her away—home. Where are her father and mother?”
Creedon was nearest. “Her mother is dead. And her father—is away.”
“Can you get news to him immediately?”
“No one knows where he is.” This was from Wiley, under his hand, drawing Craig aside. “Her father is James Murray—former treasurer of the Creedon Company. … Some trouble. … He disappeared.”
CRAIG was about to ask another question when a regally handsome woman came pushing forward. The crowd parted, almost automatically, to let her through. They were afraid of Madame Alpha, the medium. For every one recognized Madame Alpha from the picture. “The Wireless Phantom” had been financed by old Enoch Creedon to exploit spiritism and to please Madame Alpha, who appeared in it with the Murray sisters.
“Where are those two blessed girls? Evelyn, you poor child, I am so sorry!” She turned to Craig. “I am Madame Alpha. I have worked with these poor girls for weeks at the studio. Now I must help them. Let me go home with Evelyn. She needs a woman at this time. I knew their father, too. They had all been to stances at my place, often, to communicate with the lost mother. …”
“Sure, come on, Mark. … The dear girl will want you, most of all. Evelyn, dear, we have come to you. Mark and I will take you to my home.” A voice radiant with youth, Irish enthusiasm and good nature, had interrupted, as the woman squeezed through the crowd. “You poor kid! I could carry you all the way!”
The greeting of eyes between the young man, Mark, and Evelyn left no doubt of their close understanding.
“And who are you?” asked Craig.
A little laugh and the woman tossed her black bobbed head. “It's easy to see you don't get to see much big-time vaudeville! I'm Kate Heffron. Everybody knows Kate! That's my line.”
Kennedy liked her face, her big-hearted manner. “And the gentleman, Mark?” he asked.
Kate nodded toward Wiley. “Mark Winslow. They had a team once. But they got divorced.” I recalled a statement to the financial editor from Winslow, now, that he had severed his connection with the firm shortly after it started in business.
Madame Alpha accepted the situation with a philosophical smile and I lost her in the milling crowd. I came upon Craig questioning Evelyn, apart, as Kate and Winslow were making arrangements to take her away.
Craig had been quietly asking her about her missing father and Evelyn was telling what she knew. I fancied there was a certain fear, a dread in her voice, however, as she spoke of the tragedy in the lives of her sister and herself.
It seemed that James Murray had speculated with funds of the Creedon Company in an oil development that had been recommended by Wiley, Winslow & Co. They had withdrawn their endorsement of the oil promotion just before it collapsed. But Murray had not been able to get out in time. It had crashed and he had fled. After that, the shortage was discovered.
Finally under Kennedy's questions, Evelyn whispered something of a mysterious, sinister message that had come to Maude that morning; finally repeated it:
   Maude Murray 654 W. 48th Street.
   I warn you to stop looking for me before it is too late. Nothing but evil can come to you if you keep up the search. No one will find me in this world.
   James Murray
Kennedy learned that the girl had been seeking to clear their father of the charge made against him after his disappearance. Then this sinister message had been picked up by an amateur radio enthusiast.
Craig was all sympathy and encouragement as Kate Heffron put her arm about Evelyn and with Mark Winslow managed to induce her to leave things to Craig and Creedon
IT WAS such a situation as enabled Craig to use his influence. The dead girl, of course, could not be moved without the permission of the authorities. Kennedy called our friend. Dr. Leslie, the medical examiner, to hasten these formalities and also to help in clearing up the mysterious death. I was, of course, eager to take up the case for the Star. Therefore I accompanied them down to Leslie's autopsy room at the Morgue.
Kennedy and Leslie were busy there a long time. At the theater I had picked up the girl's coat, left in the seat she had occupied. Now, as I examined it, I found some strands of henna hair caught on a button. Craig nodded as I told him. But he was interested in something else.
“That girl was not killed by bichloride,” exclaimed the doctor, abruptly.
“I suspected that at once,” returned Craig quietly.
“Not a suicide?” I said. “Then what did kill her?”
Leslie shook his head. “Not a mark on the body. … Not a trace of poison in her stomach.”
“How, then?”
“It's very mysterious,” remarked Kennedy, now taking and folding up carefully in a sheet of white paper the two or three hairs I had discovered. He glanced at his watch and found it far past the dinner hour.
“You will send that other stuff up to my laboratory, Leslie? I want to see Evelyn Murray again.”
At Kate Heffron's apartment we found no one. Kate had gone to her evening performance. Evelyn had left a note telling Kate that she couldn't stand it any longer, that she had gone to see a friend of hers who worked in a broadcasting studio.
It made me think of the wireless message. At once we began a search of the various stations for her. Just before eight o'clock when its program opened, we found Evelyn at WBS.
“Mr. Kennedy, I am trying to get Dad,” she explained. “It may be useless, but I am hoping for some answer. That note to Maude was a wireless message. Dad might be afraid to go out very much. It may be that he passes his time somewhere listening in.”
Craig nodded as Evelyn told of broadcasting the appeal to her father, a sort of “spirit message,” to locate him wherever he might be. “When did you see him last?”
“About two weeks ago. He excused himself after dinner, said he would be right back. Neither Maude nor I have seen him since then.”
“What did you think of that?”
“Not so much, at first. Ever since mother died. Dad has been queer, restless, excitable. Nothing held his attention long at a time. Mother and Dad were such pals.” With a far-away look she added: “I'm alone. … If Dad would only come to me!”
“What happened at Madame Alpha's when your father was with you last?” asked Craig.
“Nothing to make Dad go away. Mr. Wiley called Maude up late that night, told her about the shortage in father's books. Maybe he was trying to square himself. He thought a great deal of Maude—at least as much as that type of man can think of a woman. I remember I heard Maude cry sharply to him, 'But you told him to buy that!' She was very angry, hung up, then said to me: 'Evelyn, Dad has gone away. There's some trouble with his accounts at Creedon's.' That was all she said. But there's been a good deal of rivalry between Mr. Creedon and Hamilton Wiley since then. I think Maude was trying to get information from both. We had determined to clear Dad, in some way.” She was feverishly excited.
“Tell me. Was your father satisfied at the séances?”
“Very much at the last one. Madame Alpha's guide was strong that day and mother's message seemed to comfort him. 'Don't worry, Jim. Stick to the girl. They need you. But above all, keep well. Take a trip if you feel you need it, dear boy … dear boy.' The repetition was fainter and Madame Alpha stopped and looked at us. Those words brought my mother to me forcibly. How often I have seen her leaning over Dad's shoulder when he was discouraged, trying to comfort him, inspire him! Many times it was only 'Dear boy!' she said, but it was enough for Dad. It always made him want to go on. That day was the first time the medium used those words and Dad was happier then than he had been for a long time.”
“HOW did you happen to get in that picture?” I asked.
“Mr. Creedon insisted. He fell in love with Maude's face the first time he saw her with Dad. You know, Mr. Creedon advised Dad to visit Alpha. That is how Maude and I met Mr. Creedon. He liked her ways from the first. After that they were together often.”
“Were they engaged?”
“I think so. But she didn't tell me.”
“Did you meet any one else at these séances?”
“Oh, many prominent people. I really couldn't tell you all of them.”
“Did you meet Mr. Winslow there?”
She colored a bit. “Mercy, no! He hates all that scatterbrain claptrap, as he calls it. I met him through Mr. Wiley, after Mr. Creedon introduced Dad to Ham Wiley. I used to feel that he was sorry for it for Ham Wiley fell in love with Maude, too. It made Mr. Creedon furious to have a rival. He gave no quarter in business and I think he thought love was the same kind of game.”
“What did your father think of you girls and——”
“Oh, he used to laugh at the way Ham Wiley and Mr. Creedon behaved about Maude. But he didn't like Mark Winslow. I think Mr. Wiley said something that caused that.” The recollections were getting too much for her. “I think Maude must have found out something and was going to tell Mr. Creedon, something about Wiley, Winslow & Co.”
“You'll go back now to Kate Heffron?” urged Kennedy.
“Y-yes. The program's started. I guess there won't be any word from him—to-night.”
Up at the laboratory where Kennedy was at work over some flasks that Dr. Leslie had sent up, I thought a good deal about Evelyn's pathetic story of going to the medium, of James Murray at Madame Alpha's, of the girls and the messages from their dead mother. Evelyn had told us a good deal between the lines about Maude and the medium, about Maude and old Creedon. I pondered on Wiley, the bucket-shop operator of Wiley, Winslow & Co.; on Wiley as Maude's suitor, and the rivalry between Creedon and Wiley that she had inspired. It was complicated by Mark Winslow, the silent partner, and the romance of Evelyn and Mark.
It was verging on midnight when Kennedy neared the end of his research.
“Maude Murray's blood was full of kenatoxin, the toxin of fatigue,” he remarked, “so full of it that it overwhelmed her, killed her.”
“But I thought there was no mark on her and no poison in the stomach?”
“Ah!” he smiled. “But the contents of the intestines showed poison. One would not ordinarily look there. I find minute intestinal capsules, as it were, capsules not digested by the stomach juices. You know they make casings which only the intestinal fluids dissolve. Here there are orange seeds, little orange pips that she must have swallowed, coated with the material of intestinal capsules—filled with this deadly toxin of fatigue.”
The telephone rang and I answered it. “There's no one on it, Craig,” I said. “Yet we're connected with some one!”
He took the instrument, jiggled at the hook, finally got central, who said, “They don't answer!”
“But who are they? What number?”
“It's 4321 Main.”
“What address?”
“I'll look it up. … 654 West 48th.”
It was the address of Evelyn Murray calling. And no answer now.
AS WE came to the door of the little one-room apartment, Craig paused. He could turn the knob and it was unlocked. Yet the door did not budge. He saw that the door opened outward and leaned down to examine it. Under it had been placed a thin little wedge. The more pressure, the tighter it jammed.
He kicked out the wedge and the door flung open. A stifling, overpowering blast of air came, dead air.
The electric light was on, revealing Evelyn, on the floor, near the telephone, unconscious, almost dead. Craig lifted her to the bed.
I was gasping. What was the matter with the air? Craig strode to the window. It was stuffed with something, closed, locked. The other window was the same. He tugged at them until he had them open. “This was a hermetically sealed room!” he panted.
“Why didn't she open the window, though?”
Craig was working over the girl. He did not answer. My eye caught a book open on the table under the light. Near it was the manila paper wrapping in which it had come. I looked. “Dracula”!
All the passages about the Vampire, down in that weird Balkan castle, were marked. Evelyn had evidently been reading them, as had been intended. The book was now open at that part where the Vampire had appeared, sucking the life blood, night by night, as it flew in at the window of the young wife in London.
“No wonder she left the windows alone!” I exclaimed.
By that time Craig had got a hospital, called an ambulance, explained what was needed. Soon the ambulance surgeon and another man appeared, with a bolt-studded, long, cylindrical tank of oxygen. It was the better part of half an hour before Evelyn was revived.
“No, I didn't go back to Kate,” she faltered in reply to Kennedy. “I wanted to come here. That book—I don't know who left it. It was here on my table when I came in. I read it—it frightened me. I had to read those marked parts—I had to—I couldn't stop! Then I felt overcome. I don't know—I thought I heard a noise at the door—the bat! I had just enough strength to get to the telephone—then all went black.”
She was feeling her throat and neck as she talked. Evidently the terror of “Dracula” was very vivid in her mind.
Kennedy now insisted on accompanying Evelyn back to Kate Heffron's apartment. It was nearly two in the morning when we reached it but we found Kate awake.
“Sure, the sight of you is good to me! I was afraid something had happened to you.” Kate put her arms about Evelyn and kissed her warmly and sincerely, as she got disjointed bits of the story. “I'm going to get you right to bed, honey. Sleep will help. We two-a-day people know that.” She nodded good-naturedly as she led Evelyn to a dainty bedroom.
When she reentered the room her face was grave. “Do you know who Maude Murray was with, just before she died—alone, too?”
Kennedy shook his head.
“You know they can't serve cocktails in the public dining-room at that hotel. So they had a private dining-room for the party. It had a little coat room. That's where you keep the stuff. You have to bring it yourself. Well, I saw old Creedon in there, alone, with Maude, and I'm thinking it was the cocktails!”
“Did she have one?”
“Yes. I saw it.”
“What about the table? It was a private dining-room.”
“There was one at each place. Of course.”
NEXT morning Craig wanted to see Creedon. We found him at the Works, where he seldom went, now. He seemed overwhelmed by the death of Maude, trying to get his mind off it.
“Sometimes, gentlemen,” he said, “I think I have more sympathy for Murray than for others in this case. If Wiley, Winslow & Co., succeeded in putting anything over on an old hand like me, Murray must have been easy picking in the frame of mind he was in. I told Maude that many times. She had no confidence in any of them, even though Wiley called to see her often enough. She merely tolerated him for the sake of her father.”
Creedon hastened to say that he had been roped in and trimmed by the bucket-shop gang of Wiley, Winslow & Co. He launched into a denunciation of Wall Street sharks interspersed with a tirade against spiritualists. He wound up by being vengeful and bitter now even toward the medium and the rest of the circle. As we left I wondered whether it was a pose.
At Kate Heffron's Craig was pleased to find Mark Winslow. Evelyn was greatly excited. She had had a message, apparently from her father, picked up by her friend at WBS. Craig read it carefully. It closed with these cryptic sentences: “You see, I warned poor Maude. Please stop all efforts to find me before it is too late.”
Kate seemed bursting to tell something.
“You know, Mr. Kennedy, what I told you when you brought Evelyn here this morning? Well, Mark has something to say, haven't you, Mark?”
I could not make out whether Winslow told it with alacrity or not. “Why,” he said, with at least a show of frankness, “when Kate was talking this morning, I happened to mention that I once heard Creedon say, 'Well, Wiley, if I can't have her—you shan't!' I don't know what he meant, of course, but whatever it was his manner showed that he felt it.”
“Did you resign before or after Murray made these unfortunate investments?” asked Craig.
“I resigned at the time. It was one of the things I would not stand for.”
Mark Winslow grew vehement as he asserted that he had been inveigled into partnership in Wiley, Winslow & Co., that he had resigned, but that he had found he could not immediately prevent the use of the name Winslow by the corporation.
As we went, Craig outlined a long day's work for himself. For one thing he was determined to hold a séance with the circle at Madame Alpha's, with trumpet, cabinet and everything. Also during the morning he wanted to use a new wireless direction finder he had invented.
Kennedy had laid out enough to keep him busy for some hours alone and I decided to drop in at the Star office. I had been wondering if Madame Alpha was a tool of Wiley, also. I had read of such cases. Accordingly I spent the morning learning the gossip of Wall Street about financiers and stock gamblers who used mediums. At least it would make a good Sunday story.
I found a lot of cases, but nothing much about this one that was new. When I saw Craig again late in the afternoon, I suggested a visit to Wiley's office. To our surprise we found Winslow in the office. He wore his hat, it was true. But it aroused my suspicion. Had he always been a silent partner after banking hours?
We must have shown our surprise. Winslow had the grace to flush. But Wiley was arrogant and inclined to be critical. He resented our visit and plainly showed it. As Craig put his questions, his answers were brief and sarcastic.
NOR did Winslow's explanation allay my suspicion. He said that he had a scheme to persuade Wiley to secure the reorganization of the oil company so that he himself could arrange the discount of notes of Murray's, endorsed by Winslow himself and secured by the new stock issued. Thus Murray might make restitution to Creedon. It would relieve Evelyn. Then by the sale of the stock, Murray might rehabilitate himself. That sounded well. Almost too well.
Kennedy had been considering the scheme. “Sort of having Murray lift himself by Winslow's boot-straps,” he commented.
Wiley was sour, threatening. “Say, Kennedy,” he drawled, “you mind your business, and I'll mind mine!”
Craig kept his temper. But I felt we were getting nowhere. Winslow scowled but said nothing to Wiley. I felt it looked rather dark for Winslow, there with Wiley.
In the laboratory early that evening, Kennedy was treating and washing the hairs I had found on Maude's coat, examining them under the lens. The telephone rang. It was Evelyn Murray.
“Then you are not up in Connecticut?” she asked, greatly surprised, it seemed.
“No. Why?” answered Craig.
“Oh, I just had a message from a radio fan in Stamford. He said you were at his amateur station, that it was the station used by my father, that you wanted me to go up there and were waiting for me!”
“On the contrary—I am here at the laboratory. I want you to be available this evening, too. Besides, I think I have located the station your father used. It is somewhere in New Jersey.”
“Oh, I'm so glad I called up, first! Then this was some new danger for me! Oh. Mr. Kennedy, can't you do something?”
He thought a moment. The peril to Evelyn was evidently growing more acute. He decided on action. “Yes,” he called back. “Be ready to go with Mark Winslow when he calls for you!”
Over his laboratory wireless Kennedy sent a message in dots and dashes which I did not understand. He got an answer. From that moment he was all action, as he arranged for the assembling after dinner of the little circle at Madame Alpha's. When I entered the room at Madame Alpha's, I felt almost like a boy playing truant to go to the circus. My eyes were popping. I saw Craig smile at my excited enthusiasm. On one side of the room were two pillars standing several feet out from the wall. The curtains were so arranged that the space between them and the wall might be shut for use as a cabinet.
Getting down on my knees I felt about the floor within the enclosure.
“You should have asked Houdini and the magicians and scientists,” said Craig.
“Never mind. I'm looking for buttons and wires.”
“You won't find any.”
“I'd like to believe that,” I nodded.
My curiosity was insatiable. All about me I continued to look. If there was to be trickery here in a few minutes, the necessary paraphernalia would have to be installed quickly and under my eyes. I wanted to be sure. Already some members of the circle were beginning to arrive.
Evelyn betrayed nervousness as she and Winslow entered and bowed to us. Her thoughts were probably on that last meeting when Maude had been with her. She sat down quietly and was very still. Winslow was ill at ease. Never had I seen a man whose hands bothered him so much. He was uncomfortable. He didn't like it and his usual easy manner had forsaken him.
Old Creedon came in by himself. He had had enough of these things. He was through. Compulsory attendance, as, in a way, this was, made him irritable, belligerent. He scarcely noticed Craig or me. For Evelyn there was a genuine gleam of sympathy.
I gasped when Madame Alpha entered the room. Of heroic build, her dignity and calmness seemed as if they must soar into the ether itself to impress those struggling to commune with loved ones here. Her robes of white enhanced the pallor of her skin and the sheen of her hair. She acknowledged our greetings graciously.
Wiley came in, ponderously affable. “Good evening!” With a sweeping bow that included everybody, he stood.
THERE was a hush. “Friends,” said Madame Alpha, “you will observe the chairs in the circle. Each has a name on it. I have been asked to seat you in that order.”
The sitters included Madame Alpha, as Number One, at the head of the circle. Next was myself, with Evelyn, Winslow, Creedon, Wiley, and Kennedy, the seventh, on the other side of Madame Alpha.
The séance began. Alpha was now in the middle of the room, out of reach of the curtains. The visible properties were solely a table and a long tin horn. There was a central chandelier with a cluster of four white electric-light bulbs surrounding one covered with red cheesecloth, on another circuit. These lamps were controlled from a switch in the corner by the door. Opposite the cabinet was a fireplace with a low fire. Against one wall was a small organ. Opposite that were two windows with heavy dark shades and black curtains. It was on the second floor of an old house that had been changed into apartments.
All of us to our assigned seats in the circle. Alpha then went to the organ. She asked for suggestions regarding hymns. “Lead, Kindly Light” was chosen. It was not an emotion rendering; in fact, I thought the singing rather perfunctory. It seemed more for the medium than for us. So far there had been no emotion, no mystery, no hocus-pocus.
I locked about as the white lights were switched and only the single light, shaded dull red, remained. I have become accustomed to meeting some regular fellows among the men at séances. But I fight shy of the vast majority of the women. They are too often mere dabblers around the fringe of intellectual pursuits, carrying the burden of the cultural development of the world on their shoulders. Or they are old ladies of the emotional sort. There are some neurotics, both men and women.
After the third hymn Madame Alpha became restless. Beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. She rose again and again, only to resume her seat at the organ immediately. She passed her hand over her forehead, rubbed her hands, then passed one over her forehead again. Her breathing seemed to be difficult, short and noisy. She emitted a series of weird sounds, as if she were in pain.
The organ sounded, but tunelessly. She began circulating about the room, eyes apparently unseeing, in the darkness of the covered light. Finally she returned to her seat in the circle.
Her control had taken possession: “Two-Ax,” former chief of the Crow tribe.
Two-Ax complained that his medium was not working well to-night. He ordered the red light out. Then the fireplace had to be screened. It was done in a shrill, whining voice, quite frankly from the medium who now reclined in the chair, arms tense, eyes closed.
“I want to tell a young lady, one who comes often with her father, that some one from the other world is here—some one who is happy—a recent arrival!”
POOR Evelyn was startled. She seized Winslow's arm, as he sat on the other side of her. I could imagine the tears that must be creeping down her face. Maude's death had been too recent for even Madame Alpha to discuss it without a sad effect on Evelyn.
Now other would-be speakers from beyond seemed to be crowding him and Two-Ax spoke sharply to them about it. In effect, the séance was developing into simply an informal gathering of a number of people, some of whom happened to be dead. I had been accustomed to think of a séance as an event where people sat waiting in the dark with bated breath. Here we chatted, not exactly gaily, but cheerfully enough.
The only thing that could have induced levity as far as I could see was the mothering tone of Alpha to the communicating spirits. It was she who seemed to possess the spirit of admonition. I had heard of “guiding controls.” With a voice soft, low, persuasive, much as you would use with turbulent-minded children. Alpha communed with these earth-hungry souls. To me it seemed almost inconsistent. To these mature souls, with the wisdom of two worlds and the encompassing knowledge of all things to be, she spoke as to children, to be chided for pushing and shoving.
While Alpha was moving about, inside the circle, I got my first impression of lights. Phosphorescent lights seemed to appear here, there—all over the room. The light appeared in the immediate vicinity of the person to whom the message was addressed, but not always near the medium. It had no illuminating power; I just saw soft floating splashes of phosphorescence in the darkness.
I made out that Craig had taken occasion to move the trumpet on the floor to the exact center of the room.
Alpha was striving with a message that was not clear.
Suddenly another voice, this time from the trumpet, heavier, more metallic, muffled, drowned out the complaining Chief Two-Ax. Madame Alpha herself was startled. She moved restlessly in her seemingly unnatural sleep.
I bent forward. The voice certainly came from the horn. Both of Alpha's hands were held now, one by Kennedy, the other by myself.
There came a complete sentence at last—a message to Creedon. Alpha was trembling now in her trance-like state.
“Maude sends her love and asks you not to be unhappy. Don't grieve for her!”
Creedon did not know precisely how to take it. It shook his new scepticism to its shallow foundation. As for me, I wondered. It was not ventriloquism. The ventriloquist is not so successful in the dark. It is not the ear he deceives. It is the eye. He directs your attention to a place from which he wants you to think the voice comes. With no light, the eye can not fool you.
Alpha stiffened. “There are malicious spirits—as well as good, beneficent spirits!” she muttered.
Nevertheless the new voice rang out just as clearly, though rather muffled. “I have a message from the mother of the Murray girls!
“I know where your father is. I have found him. He is ready to make restitution for his fault, if he is taken back, free of punishment. He is ready to tell the story of the fraud on old Mr. Creedon. He fell into it and lost, too. That was what Maude had to tell Enoch Creedon!”
Creedon's emotions had got the better of him. “For her sake,” he cried, “I agree! I wish she could have the joy of seeing it!”
The voice went on. It told in sharp accents how the message from Murray to his daughters had not been meant as a threat. It was really a warning.
“He knew the desperate nature of some one in the circle. He feared that there would be danger to his girls if it became known that they were trying to bring him back. For he has enough knowledge now to convict somebody!”
The voice paused. “Evelyn!” There was a startled cry. “Mark Winslow has told the truth. Trust him!”
I thought she had fainted. But she had merely flung herself into Mark's arms, sobbing. It was probably the first time Mark had ever had any use for a séance.
“WILEY—is a crook—but not a murderer!” The voice paused. “No—the wiser they are—the harder they fall. The sucker in this game—was Wiley! He may have been one end of the pipe line of fool oil money—from this room to the bucket shop—but this woman was the Alpha. Alpha to Omega!”
The circle was more tense now than at any communication from Two-Ax. One could hear the breathing; it was so quiet.
“At the luncheon yesterday,” went on the voice in measured, deliberate accents, “some one was near Maude's coat and put a half-filled bottle of bichloride tablets in her hand-bag. But the real murder was not done then nor in that way. It was done by slyly dropping into her cocktail some minute, almost microscopic, faked orange pips—orange pips that contained a deadly poison, kenatoxin, coated with a substance that the stomach could not digest but which would be digested in the intestines—where few autopsies would ever have been likely to show the poison!”
Kennedy had noiselessly switched on the dim red light. I could see that Madame Alpha's face was terror-stricken.
Evelyn was on her feet quickly. “You dreadful woman! Did you kill my sister?”
Alpha had slumped forward, her face covered.
“Did you do it?” Evelyn insisted.
“Sh!”
It was the voice again. “It was the one who dyed with henna some strands of hair to throw off suspicion!”
“Did you?” reiterated Evelyn. “Why?”
The voice went on relentlessly. “She did it! She wanted the old man with the fortune for herself. Maude stood in the way. There was only one thing to do—get rid of Maude. Maude had found out something she intended to tell Enoch Creedon. It was Madame Alpha's part in the fraud on him—on my husband, James Murray!”
Madame Alpha had collapsed. Kennedy fumbled with the switches until he found the one that flooded the room with what seemed a blinding white light. Alpha's hand, which had sought to cover her eyes, now was busy in the folds of her gown.
“Hold that other tight, Walter!” exclaimed Kennedy as he sprang back, seized the fumbling hand and twisted it until the clenched fingers slowly opened, scattering a half dozen peculiar-shaped tablets of bichloride on the floor.
“The strands of henna hair were not Evelyn's, but Alpha's,” he exclaimed. “They had been dyed. But underneath they were silvery. They gave me my first clue. They were not enough to convict, but enough to go ahead so that the real criminal might convict herself!”
Kennedy paused. “Creedon, lift back this rug, half across the floor.”
There, exposed in a little hole through the ceiling below, was Kennedy's scientifically manufactured séance—the little round diaphragm of a wireless loud speaker, placed in the room just underneath, with the mouthpiece of a loud speaking-horn turned upward toward the little aperture just under the spot where the séance trumpet lay on the floor in the middle of the circle.
“I found Murray,” Kennedy went on. “He agreed to tell his story over the wireless. But not otherwise. He feared to make a public appearance unless he received a promise of immunity for restitution. The radio solved the manner of his appearing without putting himself In danger. In return for immunity, he promised to play 'ghost.' If it had not succeeded, he would still not have been in jeopardy!”
Creedon looked from the little hole in the floor to the wretched woman slumped in the chair where Craig and I held her wrists.
“Spirits?” was the one word he uttered.
Kennedy nodded a reply. “A wave of superstition is sweeping over the world to-day. To her, conscience has meted out punishment—to confess. It is as one who slays the conscience-stricken with a child's toy rubber dagger!”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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