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Page 38
"I made a very careful examination of that little alcove with the
idea that some artifice might have been used. It occurred to me
that a poisoned point could have been inserted in her belongings
in some way so that she would have brought about her own death,
directly. To have caught herself on a needle point in her bag,
for instance, would not have impressed her to the point of making
a disturbance. She might have checked her exclamation, in that
case, because she would be blaming herself.
"But I found nothing in her things, nor did I discover anything
in the library. It seems to me, therefore, that we must look for
a direct human agency."
A thought struck me and I hastened to suggest it. "Could some
device have been arranged in her clothes, Craig; something like
the poison rings of the Middle Ages, a tiny metal thing to spring
open and expose its point when pressed against her in the action
of the scenes?"
"That occurred to me at the time. That's why I asked Mackay to
send all her clothes down here, every stitch and rag of them.
I've gone over everything already this morning. Not only have I
examined the various materials for stains, but I've tested each
hook and eye and button and pin. I've been very careful to cover
that possibility."
"You think, then, she was scratched deliberately by some one
during the taking of the scenes?"
"If you've followed my line of reasoning you will see that we are
driven to that assumption. Perhaps later I will make tests on a
given number of girls of Stella's general age and type and
temperament to show that they will cry out at the unexpected
prick of a fine needle. It's illogical to expect that a cry from
Miss Lamar, even an exclamation, would have passed unnoticed
except during the excitement of actual picture taking."
Another inspiration came to me, but I was almost afraid to voice
it. It seemed a daring theory. "Could death have resulted from
poison administered in some other fashion, by something she had
eaten, for instance?" I ventured. "Couldn't the scratch be
coincidental?"
Kennedy shook his head. "There's the value of our chemical
analysis and scientific tests. Her stomach contents showed
nothing except as they might have been affected by her weakened
condition. From Doctor Blake's report--and he found no ordinary
symptoms, remember--and from my own observation, too, I can
easily prove in court that she was killed by the mark which was
so small that it escaped the physician altogether."
I turned away. Once more Kennedy's reasoning seemed to be leading
into a maze of considerations beyond me. How could the deductive
method produce results in a case as mysterious as this?
"Having determined that Miss Lamar received the inoculation
during the making of one of the scenes, as nearly as we can do
so," Kennedy went on, "suppose we take the scenes in order, one
at a time, from the last photographed to the first, analyzing
each in turn. Remember that we seek a situation where there is
not only an opportunity to jab her with a needle, but one in
which an outcry would be muffled or inaudible."
I now saw that Kennedy had brought in the bound script of the
story, "The Black Terror," and I wondered again, as I had often
before, at his marvelous capacity for attention to detail.
"'The spotlight on the floor reveals the girl sobbing over the
body of the millionaire,'" he read, aloud, musingly. "H'mm! 'She
screams and cries out.' Then the others rush in."
For several moments Kennedy paced the floor of the laboratory,
the manuscript open in his hands.
"We rehearsed that, with Werner; and we questioned everyone, too.
And remember! Miss Lamar, instead of crying out as she was
supposed to do, just crumpled up silently. So"--thumbing over a
page--"we work back to scene twelve. She--she was not in that at
all. Scene eleven--"
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