Selected Works of Isabel Ostrander

Five men of oddly assorted types were seated about a round table drawn up closely before the fireplace at one end of the spacious dining-room with coffee and liqueurs before them. The speaker, evidently the host, was small and elderly, with bushy gray hair and a pointed Vandyke beard which waggled excitedly when he talked yet lent an air of distinction to his dapper evening garb. His eyes beamed in eager, ingenuous interest through their heavy tortoise-rimmed glasses, but the lean, ascetic individual across the table whom he had addressed smiled austerely and lifted supercilious brows as he replied:

"My dear Mr. Norwood, we do not rely only on what you designate the mechanical implements of our trade; we are fully aware of and prepared to cope with such subjective phenomena as hysteria, defective mentality, falsehood, suggestion and self-deception. That is where the human equation proves of value. The mechanical implement is supplemented by the trained, analytical mind."

Mr. Calvin Norwood nodded.

"But that brings us again to the faulty human machine," he remarked slyly. "Is the investigator himself proof against at least two forms of the subjective phenomena you mention: suggestion and self-deception? A preconceived theory——"

"We do not deal in theories," Wade Terhune interrupted with a trace of asperity. "We work on a basis of proof, not opinion; proof obtained by tapping all the resources of modern science. Toxicology, bacteriology, chemistry, mineralogy, physics, chirography, microscopy, all aid us in the solution of crime. The expert criminalist must be a profound and almost universal student before he can hope to succeed."

"And what is your method, Mr. McCarty?" The host turned to a stocky, broad-shouldered man at his left. "You achieved success in more than one intricate case while you were connected with the police force of the city to say nothing of your work last year in the Rowntree-Collins affair. The investigation of crime has been my hobby for more than twenty years and I follow the records of the department faithfully. What is your modus operandi?"

"My what, sir?" inquired ex-Roundsman Timothy McCarty carefully. "You might not think it, but I would have lit on the truth a good deal earlier in that Rowntree case if I'd known what the Coroner was getting at when he sprung that 'corpus delicti' thing on us at the inquest."

Calvin Norwood took the hint.

"I mean, what is your procedure in starting an investigation?" he hastened to explain. "How do you go about it?"

McCarty stroked the immaculate chin beneath his stubby, sandy mustache reflectively.

"I don't know, sir," he responded in all sincerity. "I've no science like Mr. Terhune, only the wits I was born with. I just take the facts that's as plain as the nose on your face and fit them together. You see, Mr. Norwood, I had my training in the old days when it meant promotion if you got the guilty party, or a quick transfer to some backwoods precinct if you didn't. When anything stumped me I'd talk it over with my old friend here, Denny Riordan, and many a pointer I've got from him, though it's little he knew it himself, half the time!"

The long-limbed, lantern-jawed gentleman beside him stirred resentfully and his host smiled.

"I know of Mr. Riordan's co-operation with you," he said. "When I read the narrative which gave the inside facts of the Rowntree case I was anxious to meet you and talk it over with you; that is why I persuaded Mr. Terhune to bring you both here to dine with me to-night. Mr. Riordan, how do you analyze a case?"

"I don't!" protested Dennis Riordan hurriedly. "I'm a city fireman, not a detective, Mr. Norwood. However, being Mac's pal I'm let in for most that he's got on his mind. Before his uncle died and left him a landed proprietor so that he quit the force, there wasn't much came up in the department that we didn't discuss and scrap over and settle to suit ourselves. When he was on a case I'd just trail along with him to see what would happen."

"Interesting, Victor, eh!" Norwood turned to the fifth man, who had made no move to join in the conversation.

He was slim and dark, with a delicate, sensitive face which bore the scars of a skillfully healed wound. Obviously in his twenties, he held himself with an erect military air, the bit of ribbon in the lapel of his dinner jacket and cross with two palms below it which he was destined never to behold attesting to the gallantry that had cost him his sight.

He bowed slightly and smiled as his soft, blind, brown eyes turned instinctively in the direction from which he had been addressed.

"Most interesting, Monsieur Norwood," he responded. "A d'Artagnan of the gendarmerie, is it not so? I have much desire to learn more of the little machines of Monsieur Terhune, however. To me it is quite incomprehensible, this recording of the emotions automatically; it would appear a miracle."

Terhune unbent and his quick smile lost all trace of patronage.

"It will be a privilege, my dear Captain Marchal, to give you a practical demonstration," he announced. "I will arrange to have you present at the next scientific experiment upon which I may be engaged, that you may note the effectiveness of my method. I can promise you that you will be astounded at the reactions displayed. But our host has made a collection of souvenirs which interests me profoundly. Are we to be favored this evening by a sort of private view, Mr. Norwood?"

"I should scarcely call them 'souvenirs'!" retorted his host with a shade of injured dignity. "In my crime museum I have assembled relics which have formed important data on many strange cases, solved and unsolved, as well as objects that have played significant parts in moments when history was made. I have been a mere dabbler, a dilettante in criminal investigation, but occasionally a real find has come my way which at the time when inquiry was rife would have been of inestimable value to the authorities but which they themselves failed to unearth. For instance, within the last few days a worn black wallet has come into my possession which contains the only tangible clue to a mystery which aroused and baffled the city ten years ago. I tell you this in confidence, gentlemen, for I mean to work upon its evidence myself before turning it over to the police; they have resented my suggestions in the past and refused my offers of co-operation on more than one occasion. I feel perfectly justified in withholding this from them for the present in view of the length of time that has elapsed since their investigation of the case was dropped."

"What mystery was that, sir?" asked McCarty, his embarrassment at the unaccustomed grandeur of his surroundings wholly forgotten in his interest. "I don't call to mind any case that wasn't finished about that time, and I was on the force then."