Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 115: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MARK OF that he may have thrown himself over that banister?” No, we had not. “Have you considered the possibility that, granted he was poisoned, the drug had some peculiar effect upon him, making him crazed?” “T have not considered the possibility of Deputy Marteau being poisoned at all,” I said. “T remember he complained of a head- ache,” Cronk put in. And he had good cause to remember it. Cronk said he had been tortured all day with the most violent localized pains, “There you have it!’”’ the doctor said triumphantly. Yes, there we have it. But just what is it we have? Poison has been administered, let us say, to two different men—the judge and the deputy. But who did the poison- ing? Weren’t we back at the very begin- ning of the circle again? “Tt’s between Pythagoras Awls and Pas- qual,” I said. Cronk shook his head. so simple as all that.” “Then what have you to offer?’’ Doctor Zobel asked. “T am going to take some more photo- graphs to-night.” “ Scuff and nonsense!” And in the same breath I voiced very much the same opinion. Yet I was not averse to Cronk’s trying his game. “ If you have more light—” I suggested. “TJ shall open the lens to its widest,” said Cronk. “If there is any manifestation I believe I may get some sort of an impres- sion.” “How about lighting candles in the judge’s room, and leaving the camera where we left it last night” You see, I was in hopes that by some miraculous chance we might catch a picture of an in- truder coming into that room. “If you attached a string to your camera so that the opening of a door—that back door of the “It’s not quite ‘Stuff and nonsense!” the old doctor feos sete do. Whatever you ee . C nics aid. PR ook aoe ot Sy. S ‘ha = ee e ves ae THE MOCCASIN. 109 ing to trick the spirits, but if you want to try this stunt of a string operating the lens you'll need stronger light than candle light to get results.” | I realized this difficulty. If we wanted to catch a marauder by surprise we could not very well use brilliant lights. If we had electric lights there was, of course, the possibility of switching them on at the same time that the string operated the camera lens. But this complicated system of tricks did not appeal to either me or the doctor. “Take your pictures your own way,” I said to Cronk. “Ive no doubt your ectoplasm, as you call it, will register with- out human assistance.” “Tt has been known to do so many a time, according to the Bulletin of the So- ciety for Psychical Research,” my credu- lous friend remarked. Neither of us helped Cronk in his second experiment at spirit photography. The fact is, we considered that we had proceed- ed far enough in the case to discard all such nonsensical business. It was now distinctly a question of who did the poisoning. The doctor and I, after a long conference, decided to put the mozo through another third degree. Or, rather, we decided that the doctor question him alone. He went into the room on the third floor, and remained closeted for some time. When he came out I was surprised with the defi- niteness of his result: “ The mozo is guilty.” Dr. Zobel had not, so far as I know, learned anything that we others had not already learned. But the case seemed ab-. solutely waterproof. The ill-tasting coffee; the fact that the Mexican had been seen by the judge’s grave several times during the past two or three weeks, purportedly planting grass and flowers there; the bribing of Awls to keep his tongue, and Awls’s own words which I had heard, saying he “ would tell noth- ing’; the fact that the mozo had found the deputy’s body in the swamp so con- veniently, when any one with the most superficial care might have successfully Ss it hidden nodes: fhe pa ag the we ~ _ fna *s » tha pL J Al AA io <Eae aia SS : —— Sey ~— = > S- = c= : ne i ot COTTE BBCI COT