Chapter VII: Part 7

While they were gone Kennedy stole into James Langley's room and after a few minutes returned to our room with the hunting-jacket. He carefully examined it with his pocket lens. Then he filled a drinking-glass with warm boiled water and added a few pinches of table salt. With a piece of sterilised gauze from Doctor Putnam's medicine-chest, he carefully washed off a few portions of the coat and set the glass and the gauze soaking in it aside. Then he returned the coat to the closet where he had found it. Next, as silently, he stole into Junior's room and repeated the process with his hunting-jacket, using another glass and piece of gauze.

“While I am out of the room, Walter,” he said, “I want you to take these two glasses, cover them, and number them and on a slip of paper which you must retain, place the names of the owners of the respective coats. I don't like this part of it--I hate to play spy and would much rather come out in the open, but there is nothing else to do, and it is much better for all concerned that I should play the game secretly just now. There may be no cause for suspicion at all. In that case I'd never forgive myself for starting a family row. And then again but we shall see.”

After I had numbered and recorded the glasses Kennedy returned, and we went down-stairs again.

“Curious about the will, isn't it?” I remarked as we stood on the wide verandah a moment.

“Yes,” he replied. “It may be necessary to go back to New York to delve into that part of it before we get through, but I hope not. We'll wait.”

At this point the groom interrupted us to say that he had caught the rabbits. Kennedy at once hurried to the stable. There he rolled up his sleeves, pricked a vein in his arm, and injected a small quantity of his own blood into one of the rabbits. The other he did not touch.

It was late in the afternoon when Tom returned from town with his uncle and cousin. He seemed even more agitated than usual. Without a word he hurried up from the landing and sought us out.

“What do you think of that?” he cried, opening a copy of the Record, and laying it flat on the library table.

There on the front page was Lewis Langley's picture with a huge scare-head:

MYSTERIOUS CASE OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

“It's all out,” groaned Tom, as we bent over to read the account. “And such a story!”

Under the date of the day previous, a Saranac despatch ran:

Lewis Langley, well known as sporting man and club member in New York, and eldest son of the late Lewis Langley, the banker, was discovered dead under the most mysterious circumstances this morning at Camp Hangout, twelve miles from this town.

The Death of “Old Krook” in Dickens's “Bleak House” or of the victim in one of Marryat's most thrilling tales was not more gruesome than this actual fact. It is without doubt a case of spontaneous human combustion, such as is recorded beyond dispute in medical and medico-legal text-books of the past two centuries. Scientists in this city consulted for the Record agree that, while rare, spontaneous human combustion is an established fact and that everything in this curious case goes to show that another has been added to the already well-authenticated list of cases recorded in America and Europe. The family refuse to be interviewed, which seems to indicate that the rumours in medical circles in Saranac have a solid basis of fact.

Then followed a circumstantial account of the life of Langley and the events leading up to the discovery of the body--fairly accurate in itself, but highly coloured.

“The Record man must have made good use of his time here,” I commented, as I finished reading the despatch. “And--well, they must have done some hard work in New York to get this story up so completely--see, after the despatch follow a lot of interviews, and here is a short article on spontaneous combustion itself.”

Harrington and the rest of the family had just come in.

“What's this we hear about the Record having an article?” Harrington asked. “Read it aloud, Professor, so we can all hear it.”

“'Spontaneous human combustion, or catacausis ebriosus,'” began Craig, “'is one of the baffling human scientific mysteries. Indeed, there can be no doubt but that individuals have in some strange and inexplicable manner caught fire and been partially or almost wholly consumed.

“'Some have attributed it to gases in the body, such as carbureted hydrogen. Once it was noted at the Hotel Dieu in Paris that a body on being dissected gave forth a gas which was inflammable and burned with a bluish flame. Others have attributed the combustion to alcohol. A toper several years ago in Brooklyn and New York used to make money by blowing his breath through a wire gauze and lighting it. Whatever the cause, medical literature records seventy-six cases of catacausis in two hundred years.

“'The combustion seems to be sudden and is apparently confined to the cavities, the abdomen, chest, and head. Victims of ordinary fire accidents rush hither and thither frantically, succumb from exhaustion, their limbs are burned, and their clothing is all destroyed. But in catacausis they are stricken down without warning, the limbs are rarely burned, and only the clothing in contact with the head and chest is consumed. The residue is like a distillation of animal tissue, grey and dark, with an overpoweringly fetid odour. They are said to burn with a flickering stifled blue flame, and water, far from arresting the combustion, seems to add to it. Gin is particularly rich in inflammable, empyreumatic oils, as they are called, and in most cases it is recorded that the catacausis took place among gin-drinkers, old and obese.

“'Within the past few years cases are on record which seem to establish catacausis beyond doubt. In one case the heat was so great as to explode a pistol in the pocket of the victim. In another, a woman, the victim's husband was asphyxiated by the smoke. The woman weighed, one hundred and eighty pounds in life, but the ashes weighed only twelve pounds: In all these cases the proof of spontaneous combustion seems conclusive.'”

As Craig finished reading, we looked blankly, horrified, at one another. It was too dreadful to realise.

“What do you think of it, Professor” asked James Langley, at length. “I've read somewhere of such cases, but to think of its actually happening--and to my own brother. Do you really think Lewis could have met his death in this terrible manner?”

Kennedy made no reply. Harrington seemed absorbed in thought. A shudder passed over us as we thought about it. But, gruesome as it was, it was evident that the publication of the story in the Record had relieved the feelings of the family group in one respect--it at least seemed to offer an explanation. It was noticeable that the suspicious air with which everyone had regarded everyone else was considerably dispelled.

Tom said nothing until the others had withdrawn. “Kennedy,” he burst out, then, “do you believe that such combustion is absolutely spontaneous? Don't you believe that something else is necessary to start it?”

“I'd rather not express an opinion just yet, Tom,” answered Craig carefully. “Now, if you can get Harrington and Doctor Putnam away from the house for a short time, as you did with your uncle and cousin this morning, I may be able to tell you something about this case soon.”

Again Kennedy stole into another bedroom, and returned to our room with a hunting-jacket. Just as he had done before, he carefully washed it off with the gauze soaked in the salt solution and quickly returned the coat, repeating the process with Doctor Putnam's coat and, last, that of Tom himself. Finally he turned his back while I sealed the glasses and marked and recorded them on my slip.

The next day was spent mainly in preparations for the journey to New York with the body of Lewis Langley. Kennedy was very busy on what seemed to me to be preparations for some mysterious chemical experiments. I found myself fully occupied in keeping special correspondents from all over the country at bay.

That evening after dinner we were all sitting in the open summer house over the boat-house. Smudges of green pine were burning and smoking on little artificial islands of stone near the lake shore, lighting up the trees on every side with a red glare. Tom and his sister were seated with Kennedy and myself on one side, while some distance from us Harrington was engaged in earnest conversation with Isabelle. The other members of the family were further removed. That seemed typical to me of the way the family group split up.

“Mr. Kennedy,” remarked Grace in a thoughtful, low tone, “what do you make of that Record article?”

“Very clever, no doubt,” replied Craig.

“But don't you think it strange about the will?”

“Hush,” whispered Tom, for Isabelle and Harrington had ceased talking and might perhaps be listening.

Just then one of the servants came up with a telegram.

Tom hastily opened it and read the message eagerly in the corner of the summer house nearest one of the glowing smudges. I felt instinctively that it was from his lawyer. He turned and beckoned to Kennedy and myself.

“What do you think of that?” he whispered hoarsely.

We bent over and in the flickering light read the message:

New York papers full of spontaneous combustion story. Record had exclusive story yesterday, but all papers to-day feature even more. Is it true? Please wire additional details at once. Also immediate instructions regarding loss of will. Has been abstracted from safe. Could Lewis Langley have taken it himself? Unless new facts soon must make loss public or issue statement Lewis Langley intestate.

DANIEL CLARK

Tom looked blankly at Kennedy, and then at his sister, who was sitting alone. I thought I could read what was passing in his mind. With all his faults Lewis Langley had been a good foster-parent to his adopted children. But it was all over now if the will was lost.

“What can I do?” asked Tom hopelessly. “I have nothing to reply to him.”

“But I have,” quietly returned Kennedy, deliberately folding up the message and handing it back. “Tell them all to be in the library in fifteen minutes. This message hurries me a bit, but I am prepared. You will have something to wire Mr. Clark after that.” Then he strode off toward the house, leaving us to gather the group together in considerable bewilderment.

A quarter of an hour later we had all assembled in the library, across the hall from the room in which Lewis Langley had been found. As usual Kennedy began by leaping straight into the middle of his subject.

“Early in the eighteenth century;” he commenced slowly, “a woman was found burned to death. There were no clues, and the scientists of that time suggested spontaneous combustion. This explanation was accepted. The theory always has been that the process of respiration by which the tissues of the body are used up and got rid of gives the body a temperature, and it has seemed that it may be possible, by preventing the escape of this heat, to set fire to the body.”

We were leaning forward expectantly, horrified by the thought that perhaps, after all, the Record was correct.

“Now,” resumed Kennedy, his tone changing, “suppose we try a little experiment--one that was tried very convincingly by the immortal Liebig. Here is a sponge. I am going to soak it in gin from this bottle, the same that Mr. Langley was drinking from on the night of the--er--the tragedy.”

Kennedy took the saturated sponge and placed it in an agate-iron pan from the kitchen. Then he lighted it. The bluish flame shot upward, and in tense silence we watched it burn lower and lower, till all the alcohol was consumed. Then he picked up the sponge and passed it around. It was dry, but the sponge itself had not been singed.

“We now know,” he continued, “that from the nature of combustion it is impossible for the human body to undergo spontaneous ignition or combustion in the way the scientific experts of the past century believed. Swathe the body in the thickest of non-conductors of heat, and what happens? A profuse perspiration exudes, and before such an ignition could possibly take place all the moisture of the body would have to be evaporated. As seventy-five per cent or more of the body is water, it is evident that enormous heat would be necessary--moisture is the great safeguard. The experiment which I have shown you could be duplicated with specimens of human organs preserved for years in alcohol in museums. They would burn just as this sponge--the specimen itself would be very nearly uninjured by the burning of the alcohol.”

“Then, Professor Kennedy, you maintain that my brother did not meet his death by such an accident” asked James Langley.

“Exactly that, sir,” replied Craig. “One of the most important aspects of the historic faith in this phenomenon is that of its skilful employment in explaining away what would otherwise appear to be convincing circumstantial evidence in cases of accusations of murder.”

“Then how do you explain Mr. Langley's death?” demanded Harrington. “My theory of a spark from a cigar may be true, after all.”

“I am coming to that in a moment,” answered Kennedy quietly. “My first suspicion was aroused by what not even Doctor Putnam seems to have noticed. The skull of Mr. Langley, charred and consumed as it was, seemed to show marks of violence. It might have been from a fracture of the skull or it might have been an accident to his remains as they were being removed to the anteroom. Again, his tongue seemed as though it was protruding. That might have been natural suffocation, or it might have been from forcible strangulation. So far I had nothing but conjecture to work on. But in looking over the living-room I found near the table, on the hardwood floor, a spot--just one little round spot. Now, deductions from spots, even if we know them to be blood, must be made very carefully. I did not know this to be a blood-spot, and so was very careful at first.

“Let us assume it was a blood-spot, however. What did it show? It was just a little regular round spot, quite thick. Now, drops of blood falling only a few inches usually make a round spot with a smooth border. Still the surface on which the drop falls is quite as much a factor as the height from which it falls. If the surface is rough the border may be irregular. But this was a smooth surface and not absorbent. The thickness of a dried blood-spot on a non-absorbent surface is less the greater the height from which it has fallen. This was a thick spot. Now if it had fallen, say, six feet, the height of Mr. Langley, the spot would have been thin--some secondary spatters might have been seen, or at least an irregular edge around the spot. Therefore, if it was a blood-spot, it had fallen only one or two feet. I ascertained next that the lower part of the body showed no wounds or bruises whatever.

“Tracks of blood such as are left by dragging a bleeding body differ very greatly from tracks of arterial blood which are left when the victim has strength to move himself. Continuing my speculations, supposing it to be a blood-spot, what did it indicate? Clearly that Mr. Langley was struck by somebody on the head with a heavy instrument, perhaps in another part of the room, that he was choked, that as the drops of blood oozed from the wound on his head, he was dragged across the floor, in the direction of the fireplace--”

“But, Professor Kennedy,” interrupted Doctor Putnam, “have you proved that the spot was a blood-spot? Might it not have been a paint-spot or something of that sort?”

Kennedy had apparently been waiting for just such a question.

“Ordinarily, water has no effect on paint,” he answered. “I found that the spot could be washed off with water. That is not all. I have a test for blood that is so delicately sensitive that the blood of an Egyptian mummy thousands of years old will respond to it. It was discovered by a German scientist, Doctor Uhlenhuth, and was no longer ago than last winter applied in England in connection with the Clapham murder. The suspected murderer declared that stains on his clothes were only spatters of paint, but the test proved them to be spatters of blood. Walter, bring in the cage with the rabbits.”

I opened the door and took the cage from the groom, who had brought it up from the stable and stood waiting with it some distance away.

“This test is very simple, Doctor Putnam,” continued Craig, as I placed the cage on the table and Kennedy unwrapped the sterilised test-tubes. “A rabbit is inoculated with human blood, and after a time the serum that is taken from the rabbit supplies the material for the test.

“I will insert this needle in one of these rabbits which has been so inoculated and will draw off some of the serum, which I place in this test-tube to the right. The other rabbit has not been inoculated. I draw off some of its serum and place that tube here on the left--we will call that our 'control tube.' It will check the results of our tests.

“Wrapped up in this paper I have the scrapings of the spot which I found on the floor--just a few grains of dark, dried powder. To show how sensitive the test is, I will take only one of the smallest of these minute scrapings. I dissolve it in this third tube with distilled water. I will even divide it in half, and place the other half in this fourth tube.

“Next I add some of the serum of the uninoculated rabbit to the half in this tube. You observe, nothing happens. I add a little of the serum of the inoculated rabbit to the other half in this other tube. Observe how delicate the test is--”

Kennedy was leaning forward, almost oblivious of the rest of us in the room, talking almost as if to himself. We, too, had riveted our eyes on the tubes.

As he added the serum from the inoculated rabbit, a cloudy milky ring formed almost immediately in the hitherto colourless, very dilute blood-solution.

“That,” concluded Craig, triumphantly holding the tube aloft, “that conclusively proves that the little round spot on the hardwood floor was not paint, was not anything in this wide world but blood.”

No one in the room said a word, but I knew there must have been someone there who thought volumes in the few minutes that elapsed.

“Having found one blood-spot, I began to look about for more, but was able to find only two or three traces where spots seemed to have been. The fact is that the blood spots had been apparently carefully wiped up. That is an easy matter. Hot water and salt, or hot water alone, or even cold water, will make quite short work of fresh blood-spots--at least to all outward appearances. But nothing but a most thorough cleaning can conceal them from the Uhlenhuth test, even when they are apparently wiped out. It is a case of Lady Macbeth over again, crying in the face of modern science, 'Out, out, damned spot.'

“I was able with sufficient definiteness to trace roughly a course of blood-spots from the fireplace to a point near the door of the living-room. But beyond the door, in the hall, nothing.”

“Still,” interrupted Harrington, “to get back to the facts in the case. They are perfectly in accord either with my theory of the cigar or the Record's of spontaneous combustion. How do you account for the facts?”

“I suppose you refer to the charred head, the burned neck, the upper chest cavity, while the arms and legs were untouched?”

“Yes, and then the body was found in the midst of combustible furniture that was not touched. It seems to me that even the spontaneous-combustion theory has considerable support in spite of this very interesting circumstantial evidence about blood-spots. Next to my own theory, the combustion theory seems most in harmony with the facts.”

“If you will go over in your mind all the points proved to have been discovered--not the added points in the Record story--I think you will agree with me that mine is a more logical interpretation than spontaneous combustion,” reasoned Craig. “Hear me out and you will see that the facts are more in harmony with my less fanciful explanation. No, someone struck Lewis Langley down either in passion or in cold blood, and then, seeing what he had done, made a desperate effort to destroy the evidence of violence. Consider my next discovery.”

Kennedy placed the five glasses which I had carefully sealed and labelled on the table before us.

“The next step,” he said, “was to find out whether any articles of clothing in the house showed marks that might be suspected of being blood-spots. And here I must beg the pardon of all in the room for intruding in their private wardrobes. But in this crisis it was absolutely necessary, and under such circumstances I never let ceremony stand before justice.

“In these five glasses on the table I have the washings of spots from the clothing worn by Tom, Mr. James Langley, Junior, Harrington Brown, and Doctor Putnam. I am not going to tell you which is which--indeed I merely have them marked, and I do not know them myself. But Mr. Jameson has the marks with the names opposite on a piece of paper in his pocket. I am simply going to proceed with the tests to see if any of the stains on the coats were of blood.”

Just then Doctor Putnam interposed. “One question, Professor Kennedy. It is a comparatively easy thing to recognise a blood-stain, but it is difficult, usually impossible, to tell whether the blood is that of a man or of an animal. I recall that we were all in our hunting-jackets that day, had been all day. Now, in the morning there had been an operation on one of the horses at the stable, and I assisted the veterinary from town. I may have got a spot or two of blood on my coat from that operation. Do I understand that this test would show that?”

“No,” replied Craig, “this test would not show that. Other tests would, but not this. But if the spot of human blood were less than the size of a pin-head, it would show--it would show if the spot contained even so little as one twenty-thousandth of a gram of albumin. Blood from a horse, a deer, a sheep, a pig, a dog, could be obtained, but when the test was applied the liquid in which they were diluted would remain clear. No white precipitin, as it is called, would form. But let human blood, ever so diluted, be added to the serum of the inoculated rabbit, and the test is absolute.”

A death-like silence seemed to pervade the room. Kennedy slowly and deliberately began to test the contents of the glasses. Dropping into each, as he broke the seal, some of the serum of the rabbit, he waited a moment to see if any change occurred.

It was thrilling. I think no one could have gone through that fifteen minutes without having it indelibly impressed on his memory. I recall thinking as Kennedy took each glass, “Which is it to be, guilt or innocence, life or death?” Could it be possible that a man's life might hang on such a slender thread? I knew Kennedy was too accurate and serious to deceive us. It was not only possible, it was actually a fact.

The first glass showed no reaction. Someone had been vindicated.

The second was neutral likewise--another person in the room had been proved innocent.

The third--no change. Science had released a third.

The fourth--

Almost it seemed as if the record in my pocket burned--spontaneously--so intense was my feeling. There in the glass was that fatal, telltale white precipitate.

“My God, it's the milk ring!” whispered Tom close to my ear.

Hastily Kennedy dropped the serum into the fifth. It remained as clear as crystal.

My hand trembled as it touched the envelope containing my record of the names.

“The person who wore the coat with that blood-stain on it,” declared Kennedy solemnly, “was the person who struck Lewis Langley down, who choked him and then dragged his scarcely dead body across the floor and obliterated the marks of violence in the blazing log fire. Jameson, whose name is opposite the sign on this glass?”

I could scarcely tear the seal to look at the paper in the envelope. At last I unfolded it, and my eye fell on the name opposite the fatal sign. But my mouth was dry, and my tongue refused to move. It was too much like reading a death-sentence. With my finger on the name I faltered an instant.

Tom leaned over my shoulder and read it to himself. “For Heaven's sake, Jameson,” he cried, “let the ladies retire before you read the name.”

“It's not necessary,” said a thick voice. “We quarrelled over the estate. My share's mortgaged up to the limit, and Lewis refused to lend me more even until I could get Isabelle happily married. Now Lewis's goes to an outsider--Harrington, boy, take care of Isabelle, fortune or no fortune. Good--”

Someone seized James Langley's arm as he pressed an automatic revolver to his temple. He reeled like a drunken man and dropped the gun on the floor with an oath.

“Beaten again,” he muttered. “Forgot to move the ratchet from 'safety' to 'fire.'”

Like a madman he wrenched himself loose from us, sprang through the door, and darted upstairs. “I'll show you some combustion!” he shouted back fiercely.

Kennedy was after him like a flash. “The will!” he cried.

We literally tore the door off its hinges and burst into James Langley's room. He was bending eagerly over the fireplace. Kennedy made a flying leap at him. Just enough of the will was left unburned to be admitted to probate.

IX. The Terror In The Air

“There's something queer about these aeroplane accidents at Belmore Park,” mused Kennedy, one evening, as his eye caught a big headline in the last edition of the Star, which I had brought uptown with me.

“Queer?” I echoed. “Unfortunate, terrible, but hardly queer. Why, it is a common saying among the aeronauts that if they keep at it long enough they will all lose their lives.”

“Yes, I know that,” rejoined Kennedy; “but, Walter, have you noticed that all these accidents have happened to Norton's new gyroscope machines?”

“Well, what of that” I replied. “Isn't it just barely possible that Norton is on the wrong track in applying the gyroscope to an aeroplane? I can't say I know much about either the gyroscope or the aeroplane, but from what I hear the fellows at the office say it would seem to me that the gyroscope is a pretty good thing to keep off an aeroplane, not to put on it.”

“Why?” asked Kennedy blandly.

“Well, it seems to me, from what the experts say, that anything which tends to keep your machine in one position is just what you don't want in an aeroplane. What surprises them, they say, is that the thing seems to work so well up to a certain point--that the accidents don't happen sooner. Why, our man on the aviation field tells me that when that poor fellow Browne was killed he had all but succeeded in bringing his machine to a dead stop in the air. In other words, he would have won the Brooks Prize for perfect motionlessness in one place. And then Herrick, the day before, was going about seventy miles an hour when he collapsed. They said it was heart failure. But to-night another expert says in the Star--here, I'll read it: 'The real cause was carbonic-acid-gas poisoning due to the pressure on the mouth from driving fast through the air, and the consequent inability to expel the poisoned air which had been breathed. Air once breathed is practically carbonic-acid-gas. When one is passing rapidly through the air this carbonic-acid-gas is pushed back into the lungs, and only a little can get away because of the rush of air pressure into the mouth. So it is rebreathed, and the result is gradual carbonic-acid-gas poisoning, which produces a kind of narcotic sleep.'”

“Then it wasn't the gyroscope in that case?” said Kennedy with a rising inflection.

“No,” I admitted reluctantly, “perhaps not.”

I could see that I had been rash in talking so long. Kennedy had only been sounding me to see what the newspapers thought of it. His next remark was characteristic.

“Norton has asked me to look into the thing,” he said quietly. “If his invention is a failure, he is a ruined man. All his money is in it, he is suing a man for infringing on his patent, and he is liable for damages to the heirs, according to his agreement with Browne and Herrick. I have known Norton some time; in fact, he worked out his ideas at the university physical laboratory. I have flown in his machine, and it is the most marvellous biplane I ever saw. Walter, I want you to get a Belmore Park assignment from the Star and go out to the aviation meet with me to-morrow. I'll take you on the field, around the machines--you can get enough local colour to do a dozen Star specials later on. I may add that devising a flying-machine capable of remaining stationary in the air means a revolution that will relegate all other machines to the scrap-heap. From a military point of view it is the one thing necessary to make the aeroplane the superior in every respect to the dirigible.”

The regular contests did not begin until the afternoon, but Kennedy and I decided to make a day of it, and early the next morning we were speeding out to the park where the flights were being held.

We found Charles Norton, the inventor, anxiously at work with his mechanicians in the big temporary shed that had been accorded him, and was dignified with the name of hangar.

“I knew you would come, Professor,” he exclaimed, running forward to meet us.

“Of course,” echoed Kennedy. “I'm too much interested in this invention of yours not to help you, Norton. You know what I've always thought of it--I've told you often that it is the most important advance since the original discovery by the Wrights that the aeroplane could be balanced by warping the planes.”

“I'm just fixing up my third machine,” said Norton. “If anything happens to it, I shall lose the prize, at least as far as this meet is concerned, for I don't believe I shall get my fourth and newest model from the makers in time. Anyhow, if I did I couldn't pay for it--I am ruined, if I don't win that twenty-five-thousand-dollar Brooks Prize. And, besides, a couple of army men are coming to inspect my aeroplane and report to the War Department on it. I'd have stood a good chance of selling it, I think, if my flights here had been like the trials you saw. But, Kennedy,” he added, and his face was drawn and tragic, “I'd drop the whole thing if I didn't know I was right. Two men dead--think of it. Why, even the newspapers are beginning to call me a cold, heartless, scientific crank, to keep on. But I'll show them--this afternoon I'm going to fly myself. I'm not afraid to go anywhere I send my men. I'll die before I'll admit I'm beaten.”

It was easy to see why Kennedy was fascinated by a man of Norton's type. Anyone would have been. It was not foolhardiness. It was dogged determination, faith in himself and in his own ability to triumph over every obstacle.

We now slowly entered the shed where two men were working over Norton's biplane. One of the men was a Frenchman, Jaurette, who had worked with Farman, a silent, dark-browed, weatherbeaten fellow with a sort of sullen politeness. The other man was an American, Roy Sinclair, a tall, lithe, wiry chap with a seamed and furrowed face and a loose-jointed but very deft manner which marked him a born bird-man. Norton's third aviator, Humphreys, who was not to fly that day, much to his relief, was reading a paper in the back of the shed.

We were introduced to him, and be seemed to be a very companionable sort of fellow, though not given to talking.

“Mr. Norton,” he said, after the introduction, “there's quite an account of your injunction against Delanne in this paper. It doesn't seem to be very friendly,” he added, indicating the article.

Norton read it and frowned. “Humph! I'll show them yet that my application of the gyroscope is patentable. Delanne will put me into 'interference' in the patent office, as the lawyers call it, will he? Well, I filed a 'caveat' over a year and a half ago. If I'm wrong, he's wrong, and all gyroscope patents are wrong, and if I'm right, by George, I'm first in the field. That's so, isn't it?” he appealed to Kennedy.

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders non-committally, as if he had never heard of the patent office or the gyroscope in his life. The men were listening, whether or not from loyalty I could not tell.

“Let us see your gyroplane, I mean aeroscope--whatever it is you call it,” asked Kennedy.

Norton took the cue. “Now you newspaper men are the first that I've allowed in here,” he said. “Can I trust your word of honour not to publish a line except such as I O.K. after you write it?”

We promised.

As Norton directed, the mechanicians wheeled the aeroplane out on the field in front of the shed. No one was about.

“Now this is the gyroscope,” began Norton, pointing out a thing encased in an aluminum sheath, which weighed, all told, perhaps fourteen or fifteen pounds. “You see, the gyroscope is really a flywheel mounted on gimbals and can turn on any of its angles so that it can assume any angle in space. When it's at rest like this you can turn it easily. But when set revolving it tends to persist always in the plane in which it was started rotating.”

I took hold of it, and it did turn readily in any direction. I could feel the heavy little flywheel inside.

“There is a pretty high vacuum in that aluminum case,” went on Norton. “There's very little friction on that account. The power to rotate the flywheel is obtained from this little dynamo here, run by the gas-engine which also turns the propellers of the aeroplane.”

“But suppose the engine stops, how about the gyroscope?” I asked sceptically.

“It will go right on for several minutes. You know, the Brennan monorail car will stand up some time after the power is shut off. And I carry a small storage-battery that will run it for some time, too. That's all been guarded against.”

Jaurette cranked the engine, a seven-cylindered affair, with the cylinders sticking out like the spokes of a wheel without a rim. The propellers turned so fast that I could not see the blades--turned with that strong, steady, fierce droning buzz that can be heard a long distance and which is a thrilling sound to hear. Norton reached over and attached the little dynamo, at the same time setting the gyroscope at its proper angle and starting it.

“This is the mechanical brain of my new flier,” he remarked, patting the aluminum case lovingly. “You can look in through this little window in the case and see the flywheel inside revolving--ten thousand revolutions a minute. Press down on the gyroscope,” he shouted to me.

As I placed both hands on the case of the apparently frail little instrument, he added, “You remember how easily you moved it just a moment ago.”

I pressed down with all my might. Then I literally raised myself off my feet, and my whole weight was on the gyroscope. That uncanny little instrument seemed to resent--yes, that's the word, resent--my touch. It was almost human in the resentment, too. Far from yielding to me, it actually rose on the side I was pressing down!

The men who were watching me laughed at the puzzled look on my face.

I took my hands off, and the gyroscope leisurely and nonchalantly went back to its original position.

“That's the property we use, applied to the rudder and the ailerons--those flat planes between the large main planes. That gives automatic stability to the machine,” continued Norton. “I'm not going to explain how it is done--it is in the combination of the various parts that I have discovered the basic principle, and I'm not going to talk about it till the thing is settled by the courts. But it is there, and the court will see it, and I'll prove that Delanne is a fraud--a fraud when he says that my combination isn't patentable and isn't practicable even at that. The truth is that his device as it stands isn't practicable, and, besides, if he makes it so it infringes on mine. Would you like to take a flight with me?”

I looked at Kennedy, and a vision of the wreckage of the two previous accidents, as the Star photographer had snapped them, flashed across my mind. But Kennedy was too quick for me.

“Yes,” he answered. “A short flight. No stunts.”

We took our seats by Norton, I, at least, with some misgiving. Gently the machine rose into the air. The sensation was delightful. The fresh air of the morning came with a stinging rush to my face. Below I could see the earth sweeping past as if it were a moving-picture film. Above the continuous roar of the engine and propeller Norton indicated to Kennedy the automatic balancing of the gyroscope as it bent the ailerons.

“Could you fly in this machine without the gyroscope at all?” yelled Kennedy. The noise was deafening, conversation almost impossible. Though sitting side by side he had to repeat his remark twice to Norton.

“Yes,” called back Norton. Reaching back of him, he pointed out the way to detach the gyroscope and put a sort of brake on it that stopped its revolutions almost instantly. “It's a ticklish job to change in the air,” he shouted. “It can be done, but it's safer to land and do it.”

The flight was soon over, and we stood admiring the machine while Norton expatiated on the compactness of his little dynamo.

“What have you done with the wrecks of the other machines?” inquired Kennedy at length.

“They are stored in a shed down near the railroad station. They are just a mass of junk, though there are some parts that I can use, so I'll ship them back to the factory.”

“Might I have a look at them?”

“Surely. I'll give you the key. Sorry I can't go myself, but I want to be sure everything is all right for my flight this afternoon.”

It was a long walk over to the shed near the station, and, together with our examination of the wrecked machines, it took us the rest of the morning. Craig carefully turned over the wreckage. It seemed a hopeless quest to me, but I fancied that to him it merely presented new problems for his deductive and scientific mind.

“These gyroscopes are out of business for good,” he remarked as he glanced at the dented and battered aluminum cases. “But there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them except what would naturally happen in such accidents.”

For my part I felt a sort of awe at the mass of wreckage in which Browne and Herrick had been killed. It was to me more than a tangled mass of wires and splinters. Two human lives had been snuffed out in it.

“The engines are a mass of scrap; see how the cylinders are bent and twisted,” remarked Kennedy with great interest. “The gasoline-tank is intact, but dented out of shape. No explosion there. And look at this dynamo. Why, the wires in it are actually fused together. The insulation has been completely burned off. I wonder what could have caused that?”

Kennedy continued to regard the tangled mass thoughtfully for some time, then locked the door, and we strolled back to the grand stand on our side of the field. Already the crowd had begun to collect. Across the field we could see the various machines in front of their hangars with the men working on them. The buzz of the engines was wafted across by the light summer breeze as if a thousand cicadas had broken loose to predict warm weather.

Two machines were already in flight, a little yellow Demoiselle, scurrying around close to the earth like a frightened hen, and a Bleriot, high overhead, making slow and graceful turns like a huge bird.

Kennedy and I stopped before the little wireless telegraph station of the signal corps in front of the grand stand and watched the operator working over his instruments.

“There it is again,” muttered the operator angrily.

“What's the matter?” asked Kennedy. “Amateurs interfering with you?”

The man nodded a reply, shaking his head with the telephone-like receiver, viciously. He continued to adjust his apparatus.

“Confound it!” he exclaimed. “Yes, that fellow has been jamming me for the past two days off and on, every time I get ready to send or receive a message. Williams is going up with a Wright machine equipped with wireless apparatus in a minute, and this fellow won't get out of the way. By Jove, though, those are powerful impulses of his. Hear that crackling? I've never been interfered with so in my experience. Touch that screen door with your knife.”

Kennedy did so, and elicited large sparks with quite a tingle of a shock.

“Yesterday and the day before it was so bad we had to give up attempting to communicate with Williams,” continued the operator. “It was worse than trying to work in a thunder-shower. That's the time we get our troubles, when the air is overcharged with electricity, as it is now.”

“That's interesting,” remarked Kennedy.

“Interesting?” flashed back the operator, angrily noting the condition in his “log book.”

“Maybe it is, but I call it darned mean. It's almost like trying to work in a power station.”

“Indeed?” queried Kennedy. “I beg your pardon--I was only looking at it from the purely scientific point of view. Who is it, do you suppose?”

“How do I know? Some amateur, I guess. No professional would butt in this way.”

Kennedy took a leaf out of his note-book and wrote a short message which he gave to a boy to deliver to Norton.

“Detach your gyroscope and dynamo,” it read. “Leave them in the hangar. Fly without them this afternoon, and see what happens. No use to try for the prize to-day. Kennedy.”

We sauntered out on the open part of the field, back of the fence and to the side of the stands, and watched the fliers for a few moments. Three were in the air now, and I could see Norton and his men getting ready.

The boy with the message was going rapidly across the field. Kennedy was impatiently watching him. It was too far off to see just what they were doing, but as Norton seemed to get down out of his seat in the aeroplane when the boy arrived, and it was wheeled back into the shed, I gathered that he was detaching the gyroscope and was going to make the flight without it, as Kennedy had requested.

In a few minutes it was again wheeled out.

The crowd, which had been waiting especially to see Norton, applauded.

“Come, Walter,” exclaimed Kennedy, “let's go up there on the roof of the stand where we can see better. There's a platform and railing, I see.”

His pass allowed him to go anywhere on the field, so in a few moments we were up on the roof.

It was a fascinating vantage-point, and I was so deeply engrossed between watching the crowd below, the bird-men in the air, and the machines waiting across the field that I totally neglected to notice what Kennedy was doing. When I did, I saw that he had deliberately turned his back on the aviation field, and was anxiously, scanning the country back of us.

“What are you looking for?” I asked. “Turn around. I think Norton is just about to fly.”

“Watch him then,” answered Craig. “Tell me when he gets in the air.”

Just then Norton's aeroplane rose gently from the field. A wild shout of applause came from the people below us, at the heroism of the man who dared to fly this new and apparently fated machine. It was succeeded by a breathless, deathly calm, as if after the first burst of enthusiasm the crowd had suddenly realised the danger of the intrepid aviator. Would Norton add a third to the fatalities of the meet?

Suddenly Kennedy jerked my arm. “Walter, look over there across the road back of us--at the old weatherbeaten barn. I mean the one next to that yellow house. What do you see?”

“Nothing, except that on the peak of the roof there is a pole that looks like the short stub of a small wireless mast. I should say there was a boy connected with that barn, a boy who has read a book on wireless for beginners.”

“Maybe,” said Kennedy. “But is that all you see? Look up in the little window of the gable, the one with the closed shutter.”

I looked carefully. “It seems to me that I saw a gleam of something bright at the top of the shutter, Craig,” I ventured. “A spark or a flash.”

“It must be a bright spark, for the sun is shining brightly,” mused Craig.

“Oh, maybe it's the small boy with a looking-glass. I can remember when I used to get behind such a window and shine a glass into the darkened room of my neighbours across the street.”

I had really said that half in raillery, for I was at a loss to account in any other way for the light, but I was surprised to see how eagerly Craig accepted it.

“Perhaps you are right, in a way,” he assented. “I guess it isn't a spark, after all. Yes, it must be the reflection of the sun on a piece of glass--the angles are just about right for it. Anyhow it caught my eye. Still, I believe that barn will bear watching.”

Whatever his suspicions, Craig kept them to himself, and descended. At the same time Norton gently dropped back to earth in front of his hangar, not ten feet from the spot where he started. The applause was deafening, as the machine was again wheeled into the shed safely.

Kennedy and I pushed through the crowd to the wireless operator.

“How's she working?” inquired Craig.

“Rotten,” replied the operator sullenly. “It was worse than ever about five minutes ago. It's much better now, almost normal again.”

Just then the messenger-boy, who had been hunting through the crowd for us, handed Kennedy a note. It was merely a scrawl from Norton:

“Everything seems fine. Am going to try her next with the
gyroscope. NORTON.”

“Boy,” exclaimed Craig, “has Cdr. Norton a telephone?”

“No, sir, only that hangar at the end has a telephone.”

“Well, you run across that field as fast as your legs can carry you and tell him if he values his life not to do it.”

“Not to do what, sir?”

“Don't stand there, youngster. Run! Tell him not to fly with that gyroscope. There's a five-spot in it if you get over there before he starts.”

Even as he spoke the Norton aeroplane was wheeled out again. In a minute Norton had climbed up into his seat and was testing the levers.

Would the boy reach him in time? He was half across the field, waving his arms like mad. But apparently Norton and his men were too engrossed in their machine to pay attention.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Craig. “He's going to try it. Run, boy, run!” he cried, although the boy was now far out of hearing.

Across the field we could hear now the quick staccato chug-chug of the engine. Slowly Norton's aeroplane, this time really equipped with the gyroscope, rose from the field and circled over toward us. Craig frantically signalled to him to come down, but of course Norton could not have seen him in the crowd. As for the crowd, they looked askance at Kennedy, as if he had taken leave of his senses.

I heard the wireless operator cursing the way his receiver was acting.

Higher and higher Norton went in one spiral after another, those spirals which his gyroscope had already made famous.

The man with the megaphone in front of the judge's stand announced in hollow tones that Mr. Norton had given notice that he would try for the Brooks Prize for stationary equilibrium.

Kennedy and I stood speechless, helpless, appalled.

Slower and slower went the aeroplane. It seemed to hover just like the big mechanical bird that it was.

Kennedy was anxiously watching the judges with one eye and Norton with the other. A few in the crowd could no longer restrain their applause. I remember that the wireless back of us was spluttering and crackling like mad.

All of a sudden a groan swept over the crowd. Something was wrong with Norton. His aeroplane was swooping downward at a terrific rate. Would he be able to control it? I held my breath and gripped Kennedy by the arm. Down, down came Norton, frantically fighting by main strength, it seemed to me, to warp the planes so that their surface might catch the air and check his descent.

“He's trying to detach the gyroscope,” whispered Craig hoarsely.

The football helmet which Norton wore blew off and fell more rapidly than the plane. I shut my eyes. But Kennedy's next exclamation caused me quickly to open them again.

“He'll make it, after all!”

Somehow Norton had regained partial control of his machine, but it was still swooping down at a tremendous pace toward the level centre of the field.

There was a crash as it struck the ground in a cloud of dust.

With a leap Kennedy had cleared the fence and was running toward Norton. Two men from the judge's stand were ahead of us, but except for them we were the first to reach him. The men were tearing frantically at the tangled framework, trying to lift it off Norton, who lay pale and motionless, pinned under it. The machine was not so badly damaged, after all, but that together we could lift it bodily off him.

A doctor ran out from the crowd and hastily put his ear to Norton's chest. No one spoke, but we all scanned the doctor's face anxiously.

“Just stunned--he'll be all right in a moment. Get some water,” he said.

Kennedy pulled my arm. “Look at the gyroscope dynamo,” he whispered.

I looked. Like the other two which we had seen, it also was a wreck. The insulation was burned off the wires, the wires were fused together, and the storage-battery looked as if it had been burned out.

A flicker of the eyelid and Norton seemed to regain some degree of consciousness. He was living over again the ages that had passed during the seconds of his terrible fall.

“Will they never stop? Oh, those sparks, those sparks! I can't disconnect it. Sparks, more sparks--will they never--” So he rambled on. It was fearsome to hear him.

But Kennedy was now sure that Norton was safe and in good hands, and he hurried back in the direction of the grand stand. I followed. Flying was over for that day, and the people were filing slowly out toward the railroad station where the special trains were waiting. We stopped at the wireless station for a moment.

“Is it true that Norton will recover?” inquired the operator.

“Yes. He was only stunned, thank Heaven! Did you keep a record of the antics of your receiver since I saw you last?”

“Yes, sir. And I made a copy for you. By the way, it's working all right now when I don't want it. If Williams was only in the air now I'd give you a good demonstration of communicating with an aeroplane,” continued the operator as he prepared to leave.

Kennedy thanked him for the record and carefully folded it. Joining the crowd, we pushed our way out, but instead of going down to the station with them, Kennedy turned toward the barn and the yellow house.