think Mr. Waldon will be glad to take you out in his tender,” suggested Kennedy. “Besides, I feel that I’d like a little fresh air as a bracer, too, after such a shock.”
“What were those little cuts?” I asked as Waldon and Dr. Jermyn preceded us through the crowd outside to the pier.
“Some one,” he answered in a low tone, “has severed the pneumogastric nerves.”
“The pneumogastric nerves?” I repeated.
“Yes, the vagus or wandering nerve, the so-called tenth cranial nerve. Unlike the other cranial nerves, which are concerned with the special senses or distributed to the skin and muscles of the head and neck, the vagus, as its name implies, strays downward into the chest and abdomen supplying branches to the throat, lungs, heart and stomach and forms an important connecting link between the brain and the sympathetic nervous system.”
We had reached the pier, and a nod from Kennedy discouraged further conversation on the subject.
A few minutes later we had reached the Lucie and gone up over her side. Kennedy waited until Jermyn had disappeared into the room of Mrs. Edwards to get what the undertaker had desired. A moment and he had passed quietly into Dr. Jermyn’s own room, followed by me. Several quick glances about told him what not to waste time over, and at last his eye fell on a little portable case of medicines and surgical instruments. He opened it quickly and took out a bottle of golden yellow liquid.
Kennedy smelled it, then quickly painted some on the back of his hand. It dried quickly, like an artificial skin. He had found a bottle of skin varnish in Dr. Jermyn’s own medicine chest!
We hurried back to the deck, and a few minutes later the doctor appeared with a large package.
“Did you ever hear of coating the skin by a substance which is impervious to water, smooth and elastic?” asked Kennedy quietly as Waldon’s tender sped along back to Seaville.
“Why—er, yes,” he said frankly, raising his eyes and looking at Craig in surprise. “There have been a dozen or more such substances. The best is one which I use, made of pyroxylin, the soluble cotton of commerce, dissolved in amyl acetate and acetone with some other substances that make it perfectly sterile. Why do you ask?”
“Because some one has used a little bit of it to cover a few slight cuts on the back of the neck of Mrs. Edwards.”
“Indeed?” he said simply, in a tone of mild surprise.
“Yes,” pursued Kennedy. “They seem to me to be subcutaneous incisions of the neck with a very fine scalpel dividing the two great pneumogastric nerves. Of course you know what that would mean—the victim would pass away naturally by slow and easy stages in three or four days, and all that would appear might be congestion of the lungs. They are delicate little punctures and elusive nerves to locate, but after all it might be done as painlessly, as simply and as safely as a barber might remove some dead hairs. A country coroner might easily pass over such evidence at an autopsy—especially if it was concealed by skin varnish.”
I was surprised at the frankness with which Kennedy spoke, but absolutely amazed at the coolness of Jermyn. At first he said absolutely nothing. He seemed to be as set in his reticence as he had been when we first met.
I watched him narrowly. Waldon, who was driving the boat, had not heard what was said, but I had, and I could not conceive how anyone could take it so calmly.
Finally Jermyn turned to Kennedy and looked him squarely in the eye. “Kennedy,” he said slowly, “this is extraordinary—most extraordinary,” then, pausing, added, “if true.”
“There can be no doubt of the truth,” replied Kennedy, eyeing Dr. Jermyn just as squarely.
“What do you propose to do about it?” asked the doctor.
“Investigate,” replied Kennedy simply. “While Waldon takes these things up to the undertaker’s, we may as well wait here in the boat. I want him to stop on the way back for Mr. Edwards. Then we shall go out to the Lucie. He must go, whether he likes it or not.”
It was indeed a most peculiar situation as Kennedy and I sat in the tender with Dr. Jermyn waiting for Waldon to return with Edwards. Not a word was spoken.
The tenseness of the situation was not relieved by the return of Waldon with Edwards. Waldon seemed to realize without knowing just what it was, that something was about to happen. He drove his boat back to the Lucie again in record time. This was Kennedy’s turn to be reticent. Whatever it was he was revolving in his mind, he answered in scarcely more than monosyllables whatever questions were put to him.
“You are not coming aboard?” inquired Edwards in surprise as he and Jermyn mounted the steps of the houseboat ladder, and Kennedy remained seated in the tender.
“Not yet,” replied Craig coolly.
“But I thought you had something to show me. Waldon told me you had.”
“I think I shall have in a short time,” returned Kennedy. “We shall be back immediately. I’m just going to ask Waldon to run over to the Nautilus for a few minutes. We’ll tow back your launch, too, in case you need it.”
Waldon had cast off obediently.
“There’s one thing sure,” I remarked. “Jermyn can’t get away from the Lucie until we return—unless he swims.”
Kennedy did not seem to pay much attention to the remark, for his only reply was: “I’m taking a chance by this maneuvering, but I think it will work out that I am correct. By the way, Waldon, you needn’t put on so much speed. I’m in no great hurry to get back. Half an hour will be time enough.”
“Jermyn? What did you mean by Jermyn?” asked Waldon, as we climbed to the deck of the Nautilus.
He had evidently learned, as I had, that it was little use to try to quiz Kennedy until he was ready to be questioned and had decided to try it on me.
I had nothing to conceal and I told him quite fully all that I knew. Actually, I believe if Jermyn had been there, it would have taken both Kennedy and myself to prevent violence. As it was I had a veritable madman to deal with while Kennedy gathered up leisurely the wireless outfit he had installed on the deck of Waldon’s yacht. It was only by telling him that I would certainly demand that Kennedy leave him behind if he did not control his feelings that I could calm him before Craig had finished his work on the yacht.
Waldon relieved himself by driving the tender back at top speed to the Lucie, and now it seemed that Kennedy had no objection to traveling as fast as the many-cylindered engine was capable of going.
As we entered the saloon of the houseboat, I kept close watch over Waldon.
Kennedy began by slipping a record on the phonograph in the corner of the saloon, then facing us and addressing Edwards particularly.
“You may be interested to know, Mr. Edwards,” he said, “that your wireless outfit here has been put to a use for which you never intended it.”
No one said anything, but I am sure that some one in the room then for the first time began to suspect what was coming.
“As you know, by the use of an aerial pole, messages may be easily received from any number of stations,” continued Craig. “Laws, rules and regulations may be adopted to shut out interlopers and plug busybody ears, but the greater part of whatever is transmitted by the Hertzian waves can be snatched down by other wireless apparatus.
“Down below, in that little room of yours,” went on Craig, “might sit an operator with his ear-phone clamped to his head, drinking in the news conveyed surely and swiftly to him through the wireless signals—plucking from the sky secrets of finance and,” he added, leaning forward, “love.”
In his usual dramatic manner Kennedy had swung his little audience completely with him.
“In other words,” he resumed, “it might be used for eavesdropping by a wireless wiretapper. Now,”