Black Cat Weekly #1

AUROVIA’S FAMOUS LODGE CASE, by Frank Lowell Nelson-2

Clarke’s good humor seemed partially to mollify the angry officer, but I could see that the shot rankled.

“I guess I was pretty easy,” said Darling, “but I’ll take it as a favor if you won’t say anything. Of course, it will all come out at the inquest, but I don’t know what passed between them, and in the meantime I’m saying nothing about it.”

“We may see Dr. Smith, I suppose?”

“I’ll see it he will receive you,” answered the chief.

* * * *

In a few minutes, he returned with the information that the doctor would grant us an audience.

When we entered his cell, Dr. Smith was seated upon the board which did duty as a bed. He was quite my ideal type of a typical physician.

I waited a few seconds, expecting Clarke to take the lead in the conversation, as he had seemed inclined to do with the chief. He, however, seemed to prefer the study of Dr. Smith’s eyes. The pause was becoming awkward, so I broke it.

“I assure you, Doctor,” I said, “that our duty is a painful one, but you are aware that the newspapers tomorrow will print all the information which the ingenuity of their reporters can acquire. I believe it will be to your advantage to give me your story and let our paper, at least, put you before the public in the very best light. Dogged silence on your part will, I believe, tend to change the popular verdict upon your admission of ‘technically guilty’ from involuntary manslaughter to that of willful murder.”

“I care little for the verdict of the public. Let them call it ‘willful murder’ if they wish.”

“Then that is the inference which you wish me to give your silence in my story of the case?”

“Give it whatever inference you will. This is a matter solely between me and the law, and I cannot see that either the public or the newspapers have any rights to my confidence.”

During this conversation, I could see the eyes of the doctor constantly reverting to those of Clarke as if he found there some irresistible fascination. Then Clarke suddenly broke in.

“Whom are you shielding?” he cried.

“No one,” fairly shouted the doctor. “Who are you that you should come here to catechise me?”

Clarke ignored the question.

“Are you going to carry this farce to the end, even though it be an ignominious death?” he asked quietly.

At first the doctor seemed to lose control of himself, and then he gathered himself together and cried:

“Leave this room instantly, both of you! I have answered all the impertinent and frivolous questions I am going to.”

“We have all the information that we shall get here,” said Clarke as he took my arm and beckoned to the chief, who had watched the interview through a small glass-covered aperture in the door.

I did not know whether to be angry with Clarke or with myself, but I felt that one of us had blundered. Clarke, on his part, was taciturn.

“We had better see the drug clerk who mixed the fake powder before we interview the widow,” was all he would vouchsafe.

* * * *

The drug clerk, Wilbur Paget, corroborated all the chief had said regarding the fake powder, but by far the most important piece of information which he told us was that on the afternoon he handed the package to Dr. Smith, he had also given the doctor a small purchase which Mrs. Williams had ordered by telephone, asking him to leave it at Dr. Williams’ home, which he must pass on the way to his own.

When we had all the information we wanted from Paget, we turned into the shady residence street in which was situated the cozy home of the late Dr. Williams. In our efforts to gain an audience with the widow, however, we met our first serious obstacle. After sending messages in repeatedly, we at last got the doubtful assurance that Mrs. Williams might possibly see us for a few minutes about 9 o’clock the next morning.

It was getting along toward 6 o’clock, and I decided to go to the hotel and get my story turned in. Just as I was turning off the last pages of copy with the messenger at my elbow to rush it to the wire, Clarke entered with a steaming cup of coffee and a generous plate of toast.

“I knew you’d missed your supper,” he explained.

While I was munching the toast and sipping the coffee, Clarke sat on the edge of the bed idly blowing rings of smoke from his cigarette.

“Well, Mr. Clarke, what do you think by this time?” I ventured.

“I think that if I had told you what I think before you wrote your story, you might have written a better one, but no one would have believed it. Which I consider is enigmatical if not grammatical.”

“Read me the riddle, then,” I said. “I confess my brain is too blank to solve it. What is your theory?”

“If what I have to tell you was merely theory, I would offer no apology for it, but as I claim it is fact, I only ask you to reserve your judgment and trust to the future to corroborate me.

“Here is the case. Dr. Smith did not commit that murder. There was no more surprised person in the lodge room when the pistol went off. He gave himself up for two reasons. First, to shield the woman he loves and whom he believes to be guilty. Second, he feels that he is technically guilty because his hand did the act, and his mind has exulted over it. This latter motive would not, however, have been sufficient to cause him to place his neck in jeopardy were it not coupled with the stronger one of love. This is Dr. Smith’s entire connection with the case morally. Circumstantially, he is more closely connected, as I will show later.

“Wilbur Paget, the drug clerk, might have committed the murder. He has for several years been desperately and hopelessly in love with Mrs. Williams and has cherished a secret hatred for her husband. Thus the motive was there. The only reason he is not guilty is that the idea did not occur to him. This eliminates the drug clerk.”

“And now for the woman,” I said.

“And now for the woman. She has two strong points against her at the start—motive and opportunity.”

“Motive perhaps, but the evidence has not shown opportunity,” I objected.

“Do not interrupt, my dear Sexton. I will show you the opportunity later. Her motive was a double one. She suffered in silence the constant abuse of a drunken husband. Also, she loves another. Thus she had the strongest motive which can actuate a woman to murder, the desire to rid herself of a man who was ruining her life and to be free to marry a man she loves.

“Now for the opportunity, which you doubt. When Dr. Smith stopped at the Williams home to deliver the package from the drug store, Dr. Williams was out. Common courtesy demanded that his wife ask Dr. Smith into the house, even had her heart not prompted her to snatch every moment with him that she could. When he entered the house, he handed one package to Mrs. Williams. It was his excuse for calling. The other, the powder, he laid down with his hat on the hall tree.

“I cannot conjecture the nature of their conversation. That is a point on which I will be able to tell you more tomorrow. But here is one of the main points of the chain. Mrs. Williams knew the nature of the ordeal which her husband was to go through that night. I would stake my reputation that Dr. Smith told her, for he is just the type of man who is unable to keep anything from a woman. So we will set it down as reasonable that Mrs. Williams knew.

“Now for the opportunity. When Dr. Smith left the house, he did not take the powder with him. Whether it was connivance, intent, or merely absent-mlndedness, I cannot say. But I incline toward the latter. At any rate, the imitation powder was in the possession of Mrs. Williams for some little time. She knew its purpose. What is there to prevent her from making the substitution? It is her great temptation. A moment and it is done. Now the man who has merited her concentrated hatred and scorn for a year of wedded life will pass out and she will be free. Who will be the wiser? Who will attribute it to anything but accident?”

“Or to her lover?” I objected.

“That, my dear Sexton, would be a fatal conjection were woman a reasoning creature. It is doubtful if she thought of that possibility.”

“No, no, you are all wrong,” I exclaimed. “I would have to lose all my faith in womankind before I could credit it. I would rather believe it of the doctor.”

“But I know he is innocent. I may be mistaken about the woman,” answered Clarke.

“But how do you know?”

“I would hesitate to tell you,” said Clarke, turning his eyes full upon me, “were it not for the fact that I foresee that we are destined to work together in the future. It is only fair that you should know something of my methods. To insure against your skepticism of what I am going to tell you, I wish first to give you a little demonstration of what those who know me are pleased to term my powers.

“In the first place, you are considering giving up active newspaper work and devoting your entire time to work that is more congenial. Since coming to Aurovia, you have fully decided to take the step, give up your position, withdraw from the club on Huron Street where you are living and where quiet work is out of the question, and take a little flat which you have in mind, with possibly one congenial companion. This will be your best plan, my dear Sexton, and I am sure you will make a success of the great work which you have outlined.”

I was literally stumped. Here was a man relating to me ideas which had formed in my brain within the time I had been talking to him and of which there could be no possible external evidence.

“I am ready to believe anything,” I said. “Now, what is your system?”

“Of course, you are familiar with telepathy,” replied Clarke, “and are sufficiently liberal-minded to admit the possibility of a thing which even cold-blooded modern science scarcely credits.”

“Then you are a mind-reader and have seen the workings of my brain pictured in your own, just as you have seen the thoughts of the chief, Dr. Smith, and the drug clerk.”

“Not exactly. I see, my dear Sexton, that you know very little about telepathy. Mind-reading is too strong a term. I have met telepathists who claimed to be developed psychically to the extent that they could see a picture of the thoughts of others. I have seen them perform some wonderful feats. But telepathy, as given to me, is not an exact science by any means. It merely amounts to this: When I am listening to you, my mind is following your words. Suddenly there may flash across my brain an entirely different sequence of ideas. Many persons experience this sensation but fail to recognize the thoughts which spring into being as emanating from the exterior.”

“But you don’t mean to say that you can secure evidence in a case of this kind which will be valid in a court of law?” I asked, returning to the more practical side of the question.

“Certainly not, but telepathy will indicate the lines on which to search for more tangible evidence. When my system is developed in its entirety, crime will become an exact science. You remember Blackstone’s rule that not the severity but the certainty of the punishment is a deterrent of crime.”