The Matilda Hunter Murder, page 43
Jerry did so. The huge old magnet must indeed have been a thing of tremendous thousands, if not tens of thousands of convolutions and countless combinations of circuits, for the dammed-up magnetic energy trying desperately to transmute back instantly into a flow of electrical energy, as Trotter had foretold, manifested itself in a hissing yellowish-purple arc where the small carbon blocks of the spring switch were slowly parting, and as it died helplessly away, the surfaces of the carbon blocks were left glowing incandescently red for an instant. The lamp above the corpse burned brilliantly, dazzlingly bright for a few seconds—then came slowly back to normal. With which Jerry, for safety sake, stepped to the wall and pulled out the plug entirely from it.
When, after all this, he returned to where Trotter was, the old man was now erect, and Smith was peering over the other’s shoulder with his own head thrust forward queerly, and his more or less inscrutable face now markedly questioning. But the old man, by means of two toothpicks recovered from some subterranean vest pocket and held in his right hand like a pair of tweezers, had removed some tiny, almost infinitesimal object from the face of the electro-magnet at his feet, and with spectacles again on forehead and jeweler’s eyepiece in his eye, was peering at it. And finally he removed the eyepiece and handed it significantly to Jerry, thrusting forward the hand which gripped the two toothpicks.
“Take a look, youngster. Yes, through this high-power eyepiece. Hold it to your left eye, and disregard the vision in your right eye entirely. Move your face till you get the focus. Do you know what this is?”
Peering through the eyepiece, and trying to disregard his view of the far corners of the room in his remaining eye, Jerry moved his face closer to the two toothpicks. And of a sudden, brilliantly lighted as they were by the overhanging tungsten bulb, they came into focus, and the magnifying power was so great that he was startled for an instant, the toothpicks seeming to be almost as large as Chinese chopsticks. But, held securely between their ends, was a curious and tiny cylindrical fragment of metal which, as Trotter turned it slowly, proved to contain a hollow round channel running from one of its ends to the other. In fact, enlarged, as it was, it resembled nothing so much as a miniature reproduction of a short piece of iron pipe, one of whose ends was jagged, showing that it had broken off from a longer section of the same, and the other of which ends had been sheared mechanically off at a slightly oblique angle so that the opposite side, still carrying a part of the rounded channel within, came to a sharp point. And as he studied it, wondering what it was—it was strangely reminiscent to him of something he had seen somewhere in his past work—he heard Trotter’s voice in his ear.
“It certainly shouldn’t surprise you much by this time, youngster, though perhaps it will—but our glorious chance for conducting that great scientific cause célèbre in the law courts is over. So, too, is all chance gone now for your collecting $2500 or any part of it from the North American Mutual Life Insurance Company. For Mrs. Hunter did, after all, die as the direct result of an extraneous agency. Which means that now we’ve got to know who was in the Devonshire last night when you left your room to go to the basement. In other words, youngster, your aunt, Mrs. Matilda Hunter, never met her death from any such thing as a Z-ray. She was deliberately murdered—by person or persons unknown!”
CHAPTER XXXIJ
The Seventh Vertebra
It was Smith himself, his fishlike eyes narrowed almost to slits, who broke the silence following Trotter’s statement.
“Murder?” He shook his head with a sort of peculiar despair which suggested strongly that this discovery, for some obscure reason known only to an undertaker, was not one that enhanced the dignity of Gordon Smith, Mortuarian. “So—so, Trotter, this case is—”
“Murder, Smith. Plain, everyday unvarnished murder. It—” But the old man shook his head in its knitted cap. “No, not plain, everyday murder either. A murder that’s just a picture puzzle so far, from which a goodly number of segments are assuredly missing; but from the segments which are here I predict that the complete picture, if I piece it together, won’t be just—well—another prosaic chromo in the art-gallery of crime!”
As for Jerry, during this colloquy, he gazed in stunned silence at the old man who had just asked a dumfounding question, only to drop it in order to answer the bewildered query of Gordon Smith. The rubber eyepiece he had removed from his eye; he held it now unconsciously clutched in his mittened fist, even as his brain clutched the true significance of Trotter’s question. And from the muffled figure with its steel-bowed spectacles, his own two eyes, now free from any encumbrances whatsoever, came to rest with a helpless blank look on the corpse at Trotter’s elbow—that corpse of his aunt, with the upper part of her white back exposed, its whiteness still marred only by the single tiny foramen from which this huge super-magnet had literally sucked the tiny bit of damning metal he had just viewed. For now, indeed, he recognized exactly what that tiny hollow sliver of shining metal was—recognized it completely and in spite of Trotter’s words—for pictures were flooding into him from those days when he had worked for Berkely, Galvin and Company, Makers of Medical and Surgical Instruments and Devices. Tremendously enlarged as it had been by Trotter’s bewildering ocular adjunct, to where it practically resembled a broken-off piece of iron pipe, it had come quickly to him what it really comprised. And it was Trotter himself, explaining the thing to Smith, as Jerry at the old man’s gesture silently extended the eyepiece to the undertaker, and the latter, with it glued clumsily over his own left orb, surveyed the two toothpicks and their clenched possession which Trotter again held under the bright light, who named the thing in concrete words.
“Yes, Smith, it’s the end of a hypodermic needle—or intramuscular needle, to be exactly precise—of the thousands and thousands of such types made with all their infinite variations. The business end, in other words, Smith, of an ordinary hypodermic syringe with its shining barrel to hold a solution of any drug and its little plunger, operated by the operator’s thumb, to send that drug through the needle itself. Note the distinctive shearing off of the end, Smith, at the slightly oblique angle, too, as is done invariably with these sort of instruments, to give them the ‘needle sharpness’ that lends them their somewhat erroneous classification among instruments. See how the hollow channel comes through? From the calibre of its tip, as I view it Smith—not as you view it—I will venture that it was a particularly stout ‘needle’ too—one that could stand a direct thrust deep into muscular tissue, as well as being merely inserted laterally just underneath skin alone. It’s just about a quarter-inch long, but its calibre suggests that its total length from the end of the syringe-barrel to the end of the needle could have been anywhere up to two inches, more or less.” Smith was looking up now, eyepiece ludicrously still in eye, shaking his head helplessly. “But what you’ve just both seen,” Trotter rumbled on, “wasn’t used merely hypodermically here on this poor woman—it was thrust right directly and deeply into the muscular tissue of her back. The wielder of the needle must assuredly have pushed the plunger of it even as its point went through the skin of her back, and I’ll warrant it was less than 60 seconds before she was dead. Yes, poison! Poison—shot into her while she gazed out of the window—at what?—her attention called to what?—by whom?—who innocently pointed with one hand, yet behind her back sent death unerringly with the other. Poison which, if it killed her in 60 seconds, probably paralyzed her within 30 seconds alone, paralyzed her not long after she had resumed her rocking chair, to hear the explanation of someone who endeavored to explain—Gad, I don’t think she ever heard the full explanation—she died while she was still pondering over what had been done to her. Did she call for a glass of water? Did he smilingly—I don’t know. On what pretext did he ever get in there—and engage her in conversation? None of us know—now. But, granting him entrance somehow, it all happened swiftly, incredibly swiftly after he stabbed her with the hand he kept in back of her. Indeed, in view of the obvious swiftness with which things happened, I think I might in four guesses tell the exact name of the poison that was shot through that tiny channel by the pressure of somebody’s devilish thumb, into her tissues and picked up almost instantly by her circulation. Aye—it’s a picture puzzle all right—and there’s lots, lots missing.”
Smith had removed the eyepiece, but was still shaking his head as though he did not wish at all to believe that human beings ever brought grief to other human beings in this Vale of Perfection. But at length he sighed reluctantly as though he must perforce accept such phenomena as part of the scheme of earthly existence. He spoke:
“Trotter, I don’t know what you’re trying to detail with such fantastic accuracy any more than the man in the moon could know, because you see I don’t even know the circumstances underlying this—this cadaver. MacPherson was in somewhat of a hurry when he talked to me on the phone late last night and he didn’t explain any of the details surrounding her death. And as I detailed to you, I wasn’t home yet from amusing all the Jersey cows around Glencoe with vertical landings and takeoffs when the boys picked her up from—” He turned to Jerry. “—Scott Street, wasn’t it?” Jerry nodded, and Smith went on talking. “In fact, all I’ve got to follow you with is a certificate of natural death. But I can gather part of what you’re trying to convey—or suggest. And do you honestly want us to believe that this woman deliberately and calmly submitted to being stabbed with a hypodermic needle, made no outcries or attempts to get out of wherever she was, failed utterly to suspect whoever was with her at the time, sat down calmly and continued conversing with him? Trotter, this is a husky woman in spite of her age—looks like she’d been a farm woman at one time of her life. Self-preservation would have made her grapple with anybody she thought was trying to murder her—even harm her. Trotter, isn’t this all—pretty strange?”
“Not at all—if we had the whole picture of the crime by fitting together certain bizarre segments with the irregular sections we absolutely and unequivocally have in our fingers here. Otherwise, yes, mighty strange—not apparently motived, motivated, nor acceptable in the mode of its apparent execution.”
“Who but a medical man,” expostulated Smith, “could—” His cold eyes narrowed. “Trotter, is it possible that you’re barking up some crazy tree, and that this dream of yours has sprung from the fact that some physician’s been treating this—er—lady hypodermically, and made a—”
“A clumsy injection?” laughed Trotter grimly. “No, Smith, unfortunately no. That hollow sliver of metal, even if it had been sterile as it would have been had a medical man used it, hadn’t lain within this woman’s muscular tissue very long before her death, because it has caused no swelling nor disturbance that always sets in after trauma of that sort, following the ineffectual attempt of the body to expel any foreign matter within its fibres. The last known visit of this woman to a medical man was a visit she made Friday morning to the examiner of a life insurance company, a Doctor Wimmer, official examiner for the North American Mutual Life. I have had a Miss Carwarn, head nurse at the Nurse Cavell Memorial Hospital, check up on this feature for me. The examination of Mrs. Hunter here was ordinary ‘routine’—held in the office. That fragment of metal would never have stayed in situ there from Friday to Sunday without manifesting a profound tissue disturbance that would be obvious to us all. Moreover I am certain this youngster here would have mentioned anything she might have told him concerning—” Trotter turned his spectacled gaze on the youngest man in the room. “Youngster, did your aunt mention any such outlandish thing taking place in her life insurance examination as an injection in the region of her spine?”
“Absolutely no,” averred Jerry, shaking his head. “And she was—well—a type of soul who would have dilated considerably on any queer feature like that.”
“Of course,” affirmed Trotter irritably. “However, aside from all this, show me a medical man in America, Smith, who would ever inject a drug or take a single drop of blood at that particular point of the patient’s spinal region, and so clumsily as to break off the tip of his needle, and I’ll show you a fool or a crazy man. Why—if he did make a misplay like that, he wouldn’t let the patient get out of his office until he had recovered the needle end somehow.” Trotter wagged his head conclusively. “No, Smith, this all happened in the few minutes—the sixty seconds or so—before she died. Luckily, it’s not up to you to have to worry about any events other than from her death—and on!”
And now Jerry spoke up. “Well, I’m sunk as you say, Mr. Trotter, from collecting that insurance money now. Sunk to the bottom of the deep blue sea. But so far as I could see, I’d already sunk myself last night when I put the police in on what was apparently a Z-ray accident. So I’m not so knocked out by this discovery of yours as I might have been otherwise. But I still can’t grasp the how of things. When I got back from downstairs there wasn’t the slightest sign of a struggle, a grappling match. Aunt Matilda’s look was a puzzled one—yes—but she was sitting as quietly in her rocker as though waiting for—”
“Waiting for death, eh, youngster? Yes, waiting for it—only not knowing it was beyond the very corner, that the delicate cells of her nervous system, let us say in particular the nerves which controlled her heart action, were wilting by the thousands like morning glories under a hot sun, as the molecules of that powerful poison, whatever we may find it to be, was being carried to every branch and fibre by thousands of little shuttles known as corpuscles! Aye, youngster, that’s why she was quiet and composed—yet puzzled. She suspected vaguely that something had been done to her by that suave visitor—but unaware that whatever had been done was to kill her. The question you’ve enunciated can be answered only by the name of the person who came in the room while you were downstairs at the basement phone. Only the murderer will ever be able to name the pretext he used. But pretext? Ah, there’s a million possible such. Did he claim to be an electric light inspector, a janitor to test the steam radiator valve? To leave a package for Mr. J. Evans that some department store or express company in turn had presumably left there previously for the said J. Evans? Or—what? Did he walk in first—and then apologize? Or did he courteously knock? Which?”
“By the Gods, Mr. Trotter, it doesn’t mean much to me whether they walked in with an apology, or whether they knocked and she got up and let ’em in. For I agree with Mr. Smith here that it’s incomprehensible how Aunt Matilda ever permitted anybody to jam a hypodermic needle clear into her spine—and calmly inject poison into her tissues—into her bloodstream, as it were—and then bow themselves out.”
“Aye, youngster, there’s lots we don’t see here,” said Trotter a bit gloomily, “but—” He brightened up. “But that just doesn’t happen to be one of such things. First, let me correct your terminology, youngster. The needle was jammed not into her spine at all, but into the muscles surrounding that. The spinal region, not the spine. And those particular muscles—but here’s a salient question I must first ask of you. Have you ever heard your aunt complain of any neuritic pains—twinges—anything like that?”
Jerry pondered. “Yes, I have. She has complained of mild lightning-like pains in different parts of her body. In her back—yes. Sort of darting pains, if I remember her complaints. Her old physician said it was neuritic in origin, and that she was of an age to be bothered by such things. But she emphatically didn’t describe them as being agonizing—like pushing this needle into her back.” He shook his head. “She never—”
“That’s what offends my sense of credibility, Trotter,’” interrupted Smith.
“Indeed?” mused Trotter. “Well, as I implied somewhat audibly while I was reasoning certain things out a few minutes ago, there is no sensation in the muscular tissue surrounding the spine and close to it and above it. For the spinal nerves haven’t emerged far enough from the vertebrae to give off their sensory branches yet. Once a needle is through the actual skin, the underlying tissue is painless. Now about that presumed agonizing skin pain. If, for instance, when Mrs. Hunter arose from her chair while somebody busied himself in that room on some spurious errand which he had explained, and stood by the window looking down in the darkness, if, as I say, the murderer poised that needle and thrust it unerringly with great force into that muscular tissue, it wouldn’t produce any more than a single puzzling shaft of pain exceedingly like a neuritic twinge. The greater the velocity, the less the pain because velocity is itself an instantaneous anaesthetic agent. If she turned quickly—and he palmed the instrument and went on talking—then just what would the mental reactions of this simple minded soul be? Anyway, that’s exactly why I called for dissecting tools which you, Smith, wouldn’t give me—and Big Olaf, which you did bring me.”
“You mean, Trotter,” put in Smith puzzledly, “that—”
“That this youngster’s story of the utter absence of signs of any struggle, any distinct fright or distinct fear in his aunt’s general appearance, indicated plainly to me that the stabbing was so swift and sure that its accompanying sensory phenomena were not interpreted by her as an attack on her life. His mention of neuritic attacks in her back clinches the picture perfectly. But my theory as you have noted involves swiftness, extreme swiftness, of stroke. If the stroke were as swift as is required to concur with the conditions we know, then at that particular site of the spine—and particularly with the apparent direction of the slant of the puncture if you care to view it through the magnifying eyepiece—then the needle must have at least struck the vertebra where it flares considerably out sidewise beneath the surface of the body. A murderer might be accurate enough to gauge the exact place to strike—but he could never gauge the depth to which the needle of his syringe might plunge—nor could he even hold his blow without destroying the very velocity which gave him accuracy. So there you are! No needle of any length, and tempered as are all hypodermic and intramuscular needles, could ever strike bone with such swiftness without snapping off the end. Quod erat—oh, you know the rest of the old Latin phrase. Or, in simpler language, and presuming I knew when I came here that Mrs. Hunter met death from a human agency, my reasoning was completely demonstrated because I found the very end of the needle itself—and the coroner in due course will find the nick in the bone where the point hit and broke off. I shall of course, Smith, wish to take along this steel point so that—”
