The Psychological Solution (3 page)

“Ah ha!" he thought. "Now we are getting at matters, There was a struggle."

But the next moment he shook his head. The scratches had evidently been made by the contact of deceased's hands with the earth. Not until the scientist had once more gone over both hands with the utmost care did he discover anything of interest. Then, adhering to the edge of one of the scratches, he discovered several small hairs, and preserving these, he rose, a little more satisfied.

"Evidently he attempted to grasp his assailant and clutched at his head," he decided.

Next, he began an exhaustive search for possible clues to the man's identity. The outer garments bore the name of a tailoring firm—"Goldberg and Sons," but no address. The shirt and collar, as well as the tie, socks and undergarments, were all of well known makes and exact duplicates of countless thousands of others sold at department stores and haberdasheries throughout the world. The shoes were manufactured by an enormous company which maintained a chain of retail shoe stores, and there was not an initial, a laundry mark or any other distinguishing mark on any article of the dead man's apparel.

In the pockets, the only objects found by the police had been a plain handkerchief, a package of cigarettes, some loose change, a bill-fold containing a little over one hundred dollars in small bills, and a silver watch of Swiss make.

Very evidently, robbery had not been the motive for the crime, and Dr. Thane felt a little more content, he had not expected robbery. In his theoretical case robbery had had no place, and he began to think that the case might prove to confirm his theories after all, even though it presented unexpected aspects and unusual and puzzling details.

The police had already made a systematic, and very thorough attempt to establish the man's identity through the slender clues they possessed. They had tried every means of tracing the various garments, but without success. It was hopeless to attempt to trace the underwear, socks, shirt, tie or collar. With the exception of the shoes, the wearing apparel bore no numbers or marks which would enable the manufacturers to identify them or throw any light upon the purchaser.

The shoes, although bearing the makers' lot numbers, and the retailer's price and lot marks, could only be traced as far as the store where they had been bought, and not a store in New York had sold them. Throughout the country, in every town or city of any size, as well as in many foreign countries, the same make of shoes was on sale, and the manufacturers had supplied the police with a list of several hundred cities to which shoes of the same lot had been consigned. To follow up all of these would take weeks, and the police felt sure such an investigation would amount to nothing. There was not one chance in a million that the clerk who had sold the particular pair of shoes would remember to whom he had sold them, and still less chance that he would have known the purchaser's name.

The watch bore the mark of a jeweler who had repaired it; but so far the police had been unable to locate the man or firm who had done the work. The handkerchief was one of the sealpackerchief type, and was impossible to trace. There were no means of tracing currency, cigarettes or matches, of course, so only the bill-fold and pocket knife, and the tweed suit remained to furnish possible clues. The bill-fold bore the words: "Casa Leda," but no address. The knife might have been bought anywhere at any time, and there were hundreds of "Goldberg & Sons" in New York and elsewhere. Nevertheless, as this name seemed to be the most promising lead and only hope, a canvass was made of every "Goldberg & Sons" in New York. But each and every one of them disclaimed having made or sold the garments found on the dead man. Each and every "Goldberg & Sons" also informed the police, with many expostulations—as though anxious to avoid even a remote connection with the bloodstained garments—that there were "Goldberg & Sons" in every city in the United States; that tailors of that name were located in London, Paris, Havana, Porto Rico, Panama, and no doubt in every city of the universe. Hence further enquiries along that line were abandoned.

Meanwhile, of course, many people had visited the morgue to view the corpse in an attempt to identify it. Some were no doubt actuated merely by morbid curiosity, but many came with sad faces and tear-dimmed eyes, expecting and fearing they would find the body of some missing relative. Most of them brightened as they failed to recognize the dead man, and left the dismal place vastly relieved. A few were uncertain, not sure whether or not the deceased was someone they had known in life, and at least twenty individuals declared positively it was so-and-so, each naming a different person. It was soon proved, however, that they were all mistaken. In several instances the supposed victims were located, alive and well; but mostly some certain mark, scar or other peculiarity that would make identity certain, was missing.

Indeed, one of the most unusual and puzzling features of the case was that the dead man was absolutely free from any marks or peculiarities which might establish his identity. There was not a mole, wart, scar or birthmark on his entire body.

And the more Dr. Thane studied the case, the more he applied his theories and hypotheses, the more puzzled he became, for no matter at what angle he attacked the problem, he found himself checkmated and all his preconceived assumptions absolutely worthless.

Science Falters

Hardly had the scientist commenced his investigations when he discovered that he could not hope to solve the mystery by psychological means alone.

For the first time since he had become interested in crime, he would be forced to resort to more conventional methods in order to gain some tangible starting point from which to reach what was to him, the utmost phase of the crime.

He had expected that the body would prove to be that of a Latin-American, probably with an admixture of Indian, and very likely some negro blood; that the murder would have been committed by a knife thrust; that the corpse would have been disposed of in some novel, rather conspicuous manner; that great cleverness would be exhibited by the murderer in covering his tracks; and that all means of identifying the victim would be destroyed. He had expected that the assassin, having enjoyed the notoriety of the crime and the fact that he had mystified the police and public, would, true to the Latin-American mixture of Indian and Spanish psychology, become theatrical and would send anonymous letters, or insert notices in the papers, dramatically challenging the authorities to find him, and, in the end, would betray himself by his own irresistible fondness for occupying the center of the stage.

All this, and many more minute details were embodied in Dr. Thane's imaginary case, which had been worked out theoretically from the scientist's knowledge of the Indian-Spanish mental characteristics, the conflict of the romance, dramatic egotism, quick temper and deadly fury of the Spaniard combined with the cunning, stealth, stoicism and fatalism of the Indian, plus the highly imaginative natures of both. And Dr. Thane's premises, the fact that he had selected such a crime with men of such a race, was due largely to the fact that no Latin-American crimes of a serious nature had come under his observation, despite the fact that the Latin-American population of New York was increasing at an amazing rate and that, inevitably, such a crime was bound to occur some day.

The disposal of the body was in exact accordance with what he had expected The fact that the victim had been stabbed also agreed with his theories; but there, figuratively speaking, he came against a stone wall.

In the first place, he was not at all sure that the dead man was a Latin-American or even of Spanish blood. He might have been of almost any European race or of almost any mixture of races. Aside from the bill-fold bearing the words "Casa Leda", there was not a shred of evidence to lend color to the assumption that the deceased was Latin. Even this evidence was negative and wholly circumstantial. The bill-fold might have been a gift; it might have been purchased at any one of the scores of little stationery shops conducted by men of Spanish blood in New York, or in some other American city, or the owner might have purchased it while traveling in Spanish America.

To be sure, the man had been stabbed; but no assassin, accustomed to using a knife or a dagger, would have used such a dull weapon, whereas no expert at stabbing would have dealt a blow in such a place and position.

Possibly, thought the scientist, an examination of the grit from the dead man's hands might throw light on the matter, for the material might, to a geologist's eyes, reveal peculiarities which would locate the scene of the crime. Then there were the hairs which had been found adhering to the abrasions on the man's hands.

These were, in fact, Dr. Thane's greatest hope. But he was doomed to disappointment when a microscopic examination of both hairs and grit had been made.

The hairs were fine, light reddish in color, and the zoologist to whom they were submitted declared they were the hairs of a dog and not of a human being.

An equally eminent geologist informed Dr. Thane that the minute bits of gravel were not from any spot within hundreds of miles from New York, and consisted of auriferous chromite sand.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Dr. Thane, losing all his accustomed calmness and equanimity. "You mean to say—why according to that, the body must have been carried, er—hundreds of miles from the spot where the crime was committed."

"The nearest locality where such auriferous chromite sand occurs is, as far as my knowledge goes, in Central America." replied the geologist. "Though, to be more exact, northern Colombia is a few hundred miles nearer New York."

"Fiddlesticks!" cried Dr. Thane impatiently. "Either one is impossible. The body had not been embalmed or frozen. It would have been an utter impossibility to have transported it otherwise for such a distance. Besides, the coroner assures me the man had not been dead longer than twenty-four hours."

"I do not pretend to be either a detective or a criminologist," replied the geologist with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. "I might, however, suggest an airplane. Perhaps the machine flew low over the street and dropped the body into the ashcan. Why don't you search for some aviator who was a skilled bomber during the war?"

"And I would suggest that you devote your misplaced brain powers to studying the gravels in the vicinity of New York more carefully," retorted Dr. Thane, who always resented being jollied by his fellow scientists. "I'll wager there are chromitic gravels near here.”

"If so, and you can locate them, then you will have made a more useful discovery than solving the mystery of a murder," declared the other.

And Dr. Thane was almost as amazed and as indignant at the knowledge that the hairs he had counted upon were merely those of a dog.

"Impossible!" he snorted. "The man was not attacked by a dog. Why should he have grasped or clutched at the beast?"

The young biologist who had examined the hairs, and who dearly loved to tease the doctor, smiled. "That is not in my province to determine," he replied. "All that I can swear to is that the specimen, No. 23,657, submitted for examination and identification by Doctor Edmund Curtis Thane, consist of six fragments of hirsute growths from some undetermined variety of Canis familiaris; that the color is reddish-fawn, and that stains upon them, having been miscroscopically examined, prove to be dried human blood, perhaps from the abrasions upon the human hand from which, the note appended to the specimen states, the hairs were obtained."

Dr. Thane looked as if he was about to explode.

The other grinned. "Possibly, as a theory," he continued, "I might suggest that the deceased came to a violent end in a fight over the possession of a dog. Or again," he went on, not in the least perturbed by the other's contemptuous glare, "the deceased may have been a kindly disposed person who, in trying to protect a dumb animal from a brutal master, was struck down by the owner of the beast. That, Doctor, would account for the dead man bending or stooping forward. Why!" he cried, as though carried away with his idea, "perhaps the other fellow held some object—a stick, iron rod or something, in his hand. Perhaps he had been beating the pup with it, and your dead man, in his impetuosity, ran against it and punctured himself."

"Humph!" blurted Dr. Thane, thoroughly out of patience. "I suppose your rattle-brains will next suggest that the dog carried the body to Eighty-fifth. Street and dumped it into a rubbish can."

"One's as likely as the other," chortled the younger man, as Dr. Thane strode from the room.

But despite the scientist's chagrin, and the fact that he found his carefully worked-out theories tumbling about his ears, he was not one to abandon an idea or an effort easily. He still felt convinced that he was right, that even if the actualities did not dovetail with his theories in details, still he would triumph eventually. His next step, therefore, or I might better say, his procedure coincident with the other expert examinations, was to secure specimens of blood, hair and skin from the dead man.

In these, he felt, lay indisputable proofs of the murdered man's race. A very small proportion of African blood would, he knew, lend a peculiar form to the hair sections, this being brought about by the oval-shaped negro wool. Also, Dr. Anderson had recently startled the medical and scientific worlds by claiming that, by means of a newly discovered method, he could determine the race, the approximate age, the sex, and even the maladies of a subject from a specimen of blood. Even if these tests failed, or gave negative or contradictory results, the pigmentation of the skin should, Dr. Thane felt sure, determine whether the deceased were of white, negro and white, Indian and white, or any other distinctive racial blood.

So, having duly sent the specimens to the greatest authorities and experts in their respective lines, Dr. Thane impatiently awaited the reports.

The first to reach him was from the expert who had conducted the examination of the dead man's hair. As Dr. Thane perused the rather lengthy report, he became more and more puzzled and more and more incredulous. The hair, so the expert declared, showed a section distinctly unique. In fact, it was unlike anything described or figured in any work on the subject. The sections showed an irregular, somewhat pentagonal form, and to prove that he had made no mistake, he had forwarded a microscopic slide of the mounted specimens. Hence, he concluded, he was utterly unable to place the subject's race.