Evening star., 1922-06-24

come
questions Mrs. Pitts. Kennedy makes expert
ments with the idea that some poison was
put in the food prepared In his. his oTn e,5 diet
brings him the fragments of the note to Mrs.
Pitts. which he puts together. 1t reads y
have succeeded In having Thornton declared
then some words were missing) and confined
in an institution where he can do no further
harm Kennedy finds In a private sanita rum
that there Is Mr. Thornton. a drug hend.
who keeps calling for '.Ninna" He goes to
Mrs. Pitts and tells her that Re knows what
she il conceallng. She begs him for mercy.
/" HE note of appeal In her tone
was powerful, but I could not
SO readily shake of my first
suspicious of the woman.
Whether or not she convinced Ken
nedy, he did not show.
Il was only a young girl when I
met Mr.. Thornton" she raced on,
II was not yet eighteen when we
were married. Too late. I found out
the curse of his life-and of mine.
He was a drug flend. From the
very first life with him was insup-
portable. I stood it as long as l
could, but when he beat me, because
he had no money to buy drugs, l left
him. gave myself up to my career
on the stage. Later 1 heard that he
was dead-a suicide. 1 worked. day
and night, slaved and rose in the pro-
fession-until. at last, I met Mr..
Pitts"
She paused. and it was evident that
1t was with struggle that she could
talk SO.
Three months after I was mar
ried to him. Tornton suddenly re-
appeared. from the dead it seemed to
me. He did not want me back. No.
indeed. All he wanted was money.
I gave him money. my own money,
days. But his demands increased.
To silence him I have paid him thou
sands. He squandered them faster
than ever. And finally. when it be-
friend. That friend has now sue
ceeded in placing this man quietly
In a sanitarium for the insane"
And the murder Of the chef?' shot
out Kennedy.
She looked from one to the other
no more of that than does Mr.. Pitts"
Was she telling the truth. Would
she stop at anything to avoid the
scandal and disgrace of the charge
thing still that she was concealing?
p She took refuge in the last resort
tears.
Encouraging as it was to have
made such progress, it did not seem
to me that we were much nearer,
after all. to the solution Of the mys-
terry. Kennedy. as usual. had moth
Ing to say until he was absolutely
sure OF his ground. He spent the
greater part of the next day hard at
OF his laboratory. leaving me to ar
range the details of meeting he
planned for that night.
There were present Mr.. and Mrs.
Pitts, the former in charge of DR.. Lord.
The valet, Edward, was also there, and
in neighboring room was Thornton in
charge Of two nurses from the sani-
tarium. Thornton was a sad wreck Of
a man now. whatever he might have
been when his blackmail furnished him
with an unlimited supply Of his favorite
drugs.
Let US 60 back to tho very start Of
the case" began Kennedy. when we had
en- assembled. the murder of the chef.
II seemed that the mere sound Of his
voice electrified his little audience.
fancied shudder passed over the slight
form of Mrs. Pitts, as she must have
realized that this was the point where
Kennedy had left of in his questioning
her the night before.
There is.' he went on slowly. "a
blood test so delicate that one might
almost say that he could identify
criminal by his very blood crystals
the finger-prints, so to speak, of his
blood. 1t was by means Of these hemo-
globin clues II l may call them so.
that I was able to get on the right
trail For the fact is that mans blood
is not like that Of any other living
creature. Blood of different men. Of
men and women, differ. / believe in
time We shall be able to refine this test
to tell the exact individual. too.
What is this principal? 1t Is that
the hemoglobin or red coloring matter
Of the blood forms crystals. That has
long been known. but working on this
fact DIR. Reichert and Prof. Brown
of the University Of Pennsylvania have
made some wonderful discoveries.
I'VE could distinguish human from
animal blood before. It is true. But the
US much further. BY means Of blood
crystals we can distinguish the blood of
man from that of animals and in addi-
tion that Of white men from that Of
negroes and other races. 1t is often
the only way of dinerentiating between
various kinds of blood.
THE variations in crystals in the
blood are in part Of form and in part
the molecular structure. the latter be-
ing discovered only by means Of the
is only one two-thousand o-hundred-
and-f -fiftieth Of an inch in length and
ore rine-thorsandths of an inch in
breadth. And yet. minute as these
crystals are. this discovery is Of I'M
rnense medico-legal Importance. Crime
NAV now be traced by blnod-crystals."
He displayed on his table number
Of enlarged Acknowledgements. Some
were labeled. Characteristic CRYSTALS
of white mans blood: others Crystal
lization OF negro blood: still others.
"Rlood crystals Of the cat"
IT have here" he resumed, after we
had all examined the photographs and
had seen that there was indeed q vast
amount OF difference, "three character
istic kinds Of crystals. all Of which
found in the various spots in the Kitchen
of Mr.. Pitts. There were three kinds
Of blood, by the infalliable Reichert
test"
had been prepared for his dis
covery Of two kinds but three height
ened the mystery still more.
There was only a very little Of the
blood which was that Of the faithful.
Kennedy went on. "a little more. found
far from his body. is that of white
person. But most of 1t Is not human
blood at all. 1t was the blood Of
cat
The revelation was startling Before
any of US could ask, he hastened to
explain.
TT was placed there by some one
who wished to exaggerate the strug-
gle in order to divert suspicion. That
person had. indeed. been wounded
slightly. but wished 1t to appear that the
wounds were very serious. The fact
OF the matter is that the carving knife
not human blood. 1t Is the blood of
cat few years ago even a scientific
detective would have concluded that a
fierce hand-to-hand struggle had been