Chapter XIII: Wanted: a Motive

The case against Grantley and his confederates had furnished one of the greatest newspaper sensations of recent years, and the attitude of the public toward the vivisectionists was bitter in the extreme.

Their trials were delayed for some months, during which time Nick and his assistants collected all the evidence they could obtain. The girl recovered, and, as there had been no law at the time to forbid such unnecessary operations, the detective was compelled to furnish another basis for prosecution.

It was that or nothing.

After a great deal of probing, Nick had brought to light an instance of actual death as a result of a previous experiment in vivisection, which had been carried out by Doctor Grantley and the same set of assistants.

It was that of a little boy, also from the East Side, and the son of poor parents. He had been lame, and Grantley had carried him to the private hospital in the Bronx, after promising a cure by means of an operation on his hip.

The operation that had actually been performed, however, had borne absolutely no relation to the child’s lameness, and he had died from the effects of it.

It seemed a clear case of manslaughter, and the prosecution put all its strength into it. But Grantley still had means, despite the fact that his practice had fallen off to an alarming extent in recent years. Moreover, he was exceptionally clever and had retained a number of powerful friends among the more radical and unscrupulous surgeons in the State.

As a consequence, his defense was an unexpectedly strong one. He and his lawyers brought forward expert witness after witness to testify in his behalf, all of whom insisted that there was, or might have been, abundant justification for the operation performed.

The experts for the prosecution denied this, of course, and between them they managed to bewilder the jury to such an extent that the long trial resulted finally in a disagreement.

To cap the climax, the district attorney had decided to release the prisoners, rather than hold them for a new trial. He did not believe it possible to convict them, and desired to save the county needless expense.

This decision was a great disappointment to Nick and his assistants, as well as to the public generally.

Nevertheless, the agitation had resulted in placing on the statute books a new law, which made it a crime for any surgeon to perform an operation of any kind without the consent of the patient or some relative or responsible friend. Furthermore, any unnecessary operation, or any surgical or other experiment having no bearing on the patient’s ailment, was at last prohibited, under penalty of a heavy fine and imprisonment.

Therefore, if Grantley should return to his old practices, it would be a comparatively easy matter to convict him.

Nick and his assistants made it their business to keep a close but unobtrusive watch over the liberated surgeons. Grantley and his lieutenant, young Doctor Siebold, accompanied by the nurse, Miss Rawlinson, returned to the former’s house immediately after their release. Most of the others scattered, some of them going so far as to change their names.

The detectives kept track of them all, but did not attempt to interfere with them in any way. Nick was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they had learned their lesson they did not need to fear any further action. If, on the other hand, they should attempt to resume their questionable or criminal methods, it would then be time enough to act.

For some weeks nothing had developed to indicate that Grantley was doing anything at all. He seemed to have no patients, and to be seeking none.

At the end of that interval, Nick Carter had been surprised by the visit of Doctor Vanderpool. After the eminent physician’s departure, the detective remained buried in thought for half an hour or more.

The situation was unique.

Grantley’s action in approaching such a commanding figure as J. Hackley Baldwin, at such a time and under such circumstances, was little short of staggering, and Nick could easily understand Doctor Vanderpool’s anxiety.

The Fifth Avenue practitioner had hit upon what seemed to be the two alternative explanations, at least the two most likely ones. Either one was quite possible.

There was no doubt about Hiram Grantley’s daring or his confidence in himself. His great ability was unquestioned, and his release had probably convinced him that he was safe enough in going to almost any lengths.

Therefore, the truth seemed to lie close to either one of two suppositions--one of them harmless, the other freighted with direful possibilities.

The harmless one, as Doctor Vanderpool had pointed out, had to do with a possible and very natural desire on Grantley’s part to regain the confidence and prestige which he had forfeited.

It was not difficult to understand that he might really believe himself capable of restoring the blind financier’s sight, and if he could get a chance to do that it would mean a great deal of money in his pocket, an immense amount of free advertising, and a resultant modification of public opinion.

So far, all was plain sailing. Baldwin had been blind for many years, to be sure, without previously receiving any such offer from Grantley; but the fact could be explained away without much difficulty. The surgeon had never been in such a predicament before, had never been so badly in need of such a boost as this would give him if he could make good.

On the other hand, there loomed the sinister possibility that Grantley had something worse up his sleeve. In other words, his intentions might be criminal, and he might be plotting harm to the multimillionaire.

But in what way, and for what reason?

Surely, if he intended to go back to the methods which had been so unsparingly exposed and condemned, he did not need to choose so shining a mark for his unlawful experiments. On the contrary, it would seem to be to his interest to aim low, and to continue to pick out victims who were comparatively unimportant to the world at large.

Besides, he must have known that a man of Baldwin’s wealth and standing would not place himself in the hands of any one without instituting the most rigid inquiries. His offer could not fail to be discussed by those close to the great financier, and it would be sure to cause a sensation.

Why had he braved all the dangers involved and defied all of the many obstacles which lay between a notorious and discredited surgeon and one of the most carefully guarded of Wall Street’s money kings?

Was it merely because he longed to “come back,” to reëstablish himself by means of one brilliant coup, or did his motive lie far deeper than that, in some dark corner of his cruel nature?

And if the latter was the case, what could that motive possibly be? Was it financial or personal in character?

It was difficult to see how Grantley could hope to benefit, in a financial way, by harming Baldwin. The crooked surgeon might have larger interests in the money world than any one knew of, but to strike at one of the big magnates was to precipitate widespread shrinkage in values, perhaps a panic on the floor of the Stock Exchange.

On the whole, therefore, if Grantley’s motive was an evil one, the chances were that it involved revenge of one kind or another.

It might be private revenge, a desire on Grantley’s part to retaliate for some real or fancied wrong done to him; or it was conceivable that one or more of Baldwin’s rivals in the game of high finance had hired the rascally surgeon to put him out of commission.

As a matter of fact, though, Nick was not inclined to put much faith in the latter theory. If Grantley’s object had to do with revenge of some kind, the chances were that strictly private reasons were involved.

A painstaking examination of Grantley’s record might reveal those reasons, but the detective was not hopeful on that score. The time at his disposal was too short, for one thing. For another, since it was obvious that Baldwin did not know of any particular reason for distrusting the surgeon--aside from his tendency to cut up his East Side patients--the cause of any enmity which might exist seemed to be an obscure one, the whys and wherefores of which were locked in Grantley’s own breast.

If that was the case, an investigation would only result in a waste of precious time. Consequently, Nick decided to take the bull by the horns.

First, he would call on Grantley himself and put him through a rigid cross-examination, in an effort to worm his secret out of him, if possible.

Second, no matter whether he was successful in this first interview or not, he intended to see the financier and add his influence to Doctor Vanderpool’s, in a final attempt to dissuade Baldwin from submitting to the proposed operation.