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Murder in haste by John bhar one
of the thousands of dentists in the city.

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Detective Car chose to visit doctor Raymond
K. Perry on East forty eighth

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Street. A friend had recommended doctor
Perry. That was the only reason for

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the detective's choice. The doctor was
a small, bald, roundish, amiable

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gentleman with a pleasing personality. Harmless
was the word which immediately occurred to you

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the first time you saw him.
Nevertheless, the detective's eyes contracted rather sharply

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when he shook hands with the doctor, and a momentary expression of mingled doubt

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and surprise clouded his face, but
he resumed his nonchalance immediately. The detective's

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teeth were in very bad condition.
He had several cavities and a mild case

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of pyorrhea. The doctor made an
examination and took an X ray photograph.

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An appointment for two days later was
made. The intervening day was an extraordinarily

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busy one for Detective Car. He
spent the time running down the history and

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official record of the Curved murder case, a crime which had been committed some

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ten months previously. The details of
this case with which he renewed his acquaintance

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may be summed up briefly as follows. At about ten thirty in the morning,

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mister Curvin was found dead in his
room, with his throat cut from

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ear to ear. A blood stained
razor was lying beside him. The body

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was discovered by his housekeeper, who
had come to his house to do the

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cleaning. That it was murder was
plain, for there were signs of a

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furious struggle, nor did the identity
of the murderer remain long a mystery.

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William Lesser, the business partner of
min disappeared and for apparent reasons. The

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books of the firm Curvin and Lesser
Brokers appeared to be at first in good

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order, but an investigation revealed that
several transactions involving large amounts had not been

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recorded. Bonds and securities which had
been entrusted to Lesser by the firm's clients

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never reached the bookkeepers for entry.
It was estimated that Lester had absconded with

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some two hundred thousand dollars. The
direct cause of the murder was not known,

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but it was assumed that Kervin had
discovered his partner's treachery had accused or

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perhaps threatened him, and had thus
brought on the quarrel. The police,

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in tracing Lesser's history, discovered that
three years previous to the crime, he

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had entered Kervin's office as a clerk. He made good so quickly that mister

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Kervin took him into partnership. No
clue to any fact of Lesser's life before

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he entered the employ of mister Kervin
could be found. The heirs of mister

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Kervin, a sister and a nephew, offered a reward of five hundred thousand

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dollars for the capture of Lesser,
but months of zealous searching bore no results.

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The police had only an old photograph
found among mister Kervin's effects, and

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the description given by employees and clients
to guide them. After several months,

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official interest in the case smoldered and
finally elapsed altogether. Detective car was one

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of the department's famous camera eyed men. No disguise had as yet fooled him.

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He was able to penetrate almost immediately
any artificial changes of appearance. He

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had never met the missing Lesser personally, but he had of course seen the

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pictures which had been published in the
papers. His first glance had convinced him

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that the man who was running a
dental office on forty eighth Street under the

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name of doctor Perry was the man
who had disappeared under the name of Lesser,

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and this in spite of the fact
that doctor Perry's appearance differed from Lessers

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in several important respects. Lesser,
to judge by his picture and the descriptions

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of him, was a man about
five feet six in height, normal weight,

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clean shaven, light complected, with
a thick crop of blonde hair.

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This description corresponded with doctor Perry's in
only one respect. The height. Doctor

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Perry was stout and at least thirty
pounds above normal weight. He had a

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black mustache and a goatee, and
was dark complexed. Further, the hair

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on his head consisted only of a
black fringe which ran around his temples and

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the back of his neck. Under
the circumstances, it was not strange that

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Detective Carr's conviction was a bit shaken, and that he decided to keep his

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suspicions to himself until he made a
thorough investigation on his own account. Neither

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of mister Kervin's heirs had ever seen
the missing Lesser. However, the detective

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dug up two Curvin and Lesser employees
and two of the firm's clients who had

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met Lesser personally a number of times. One of these men agreed to go

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up to doctor Perry's office and have
his teeth cleaned. The other three were

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posted by the detective at different times
in a restaurant where the doctor took his

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lunch. Three of the men were
positive that mister Lesser and doctor Perry were

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not the same person. The fourth
said, well, the shape of his

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head is a little like Lesser's,
but you couldn't get me to swear in

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court that they were the same person, No, sir, not me.

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Detective Carr then tried to get at
the mystery from a different angle. He

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looked into doctor Perry's past history.
He discovered that doctor Raymond K. Perry

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had graduated from the Horn Dental College
in New York in nineteen fourteen. The

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doctor, in accordance with state law, had renewed his license every year,

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all of which was perfectly regular.
But the doctor had rented his office on

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forty eighth Street ten months ago,
or at just about the time that mister

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Lesser disappeared, and Detective Carr could
find no record of his having practiced his

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profession any time before that. Further, the records in the city Bureau of

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Taxes disclosed that doctor Raymond K.
Perry owned real estate to the value of

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one hundred and forty one thousand dollars
on East one hundred and fifty seventh Street,

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and that the property had been purchased
at about the same time the doctor

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opened his dental office. Doctor Perry
lived on Claremont Avenue. No one at

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his address could shed the faintest light
on his past career. He had rented

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the apartment ten months ago and had
always been prompt in the payment of his

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rent. He never had visitors when
he rented the apartment. He had remarked

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that he was living in Yonkers,
but desired to live in the city in

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order to be closer to his office. The detective consulted the city directories and

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the phone books for the last seven
years. He examined membership lists of all

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the city and state dental societies.
He telegraphed the national organization. He visited

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all the dental supply houses and manufactures
of dental instruments. The investigation yielded the

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name Raymond L. Perry, but
twice, and these Perrys proved to be

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senior and junior with an office in
Brooklyn. The Raymond k on forty eighth

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Street was not related to them all. This would not have been unusual if

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there had been evidence that doctor Perry
had lived in another state before opening his

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office on forty eighth Street, but
the doctor had said he moved down from

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Yonkers. That a man practicing the
profession of dentistry and worth upward of one

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hundred and forty thousand dollars could leave
an absolutely recordless existence did not seem probable.

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And yet the most painstaking search had
revealed but one fact in the career

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of doctor Perry previous his opening the
forty eighth Street office. That fact,

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as has been stated, was his
graduation from the dental college in nineteen fourteen.

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Detective Carr's weakness did not include the
lack of persistence. He had great

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faith in his camera eye quality,
and doctor Perry's past or seeming absence of

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past only stimulated his activities. The
detective began the tiresome task of canvassing those

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dental offices of New York City,
which were large enough to employ additional dentists.

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Carr spent eight hours each day for
seven weeks at this work, but

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finally his quest bore fruit. The
payrolls in doctor Kirkbush's office showed that,

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in January nineteen eighteen, a doctor
Raymond K. Perry had been discharged for

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drunkenness. Nobody in the Kirkbush office
recalled the appearance of doctor Perry. Detective

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Car, however, considered it significant
that only one month later, February nineteen

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eighteen, mister William Lester had entered
the employ of mister Kervin. The chain

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of evidence, though circumstantial, removed
all doubt from the detective's mind. Still,

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although Detective Carr was perfectly convinced of
doctor Perry's guilt, he knew that

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his evidence was not conclusive enough to
persuade a jury. The fact that he

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could offer no direct identification was the
weakness of his case. He felt that

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he had two lines of attack open
to him. There was a chance that

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he could find some person or persons
whose memory for faces was good enough to

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enable them to identify doctor Perry as
mister Lester. His other hope lay in

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a direct attack upon the doctor himself. This attack, of course, would

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have to be subtle. The doctor
would have to be squeezed, prodded,

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and annoyed by a series of seemingly
innocuous questions and insinuations into betraying himself by

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some word or act. The work
on the detective's teeth was to be finished

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in three weeks. There were two
appointments, each of an hour's duration.

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Each week, Detective Car was to
have six hours more of personal contact with

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the suspect. Two. Detective Car
was keeping his last appointment with doctor Perry.

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The doctor was putting a root canal
filling into the first molar on the

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upper left hand side. The nerve
or dental pulp had been removed, and

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it remained only to seal the cavity
with guttapercha and insert the amalgam filling.

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The detective was seated comfortably in the
dentist's chair. Doctor Perry was standing nearby,

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preparing his instruments. Not at all, doctor, said Carr, in

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answer to a question by the dentist. Detective work is not nearly as exciting

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as it is commonly supposed to be. Its mostly dull, routine labor of

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course, there are exceptions. I
was working on a case not so long

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ago, quite an ordinary affair.
A murder had been committed and the suspect

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had disappeared. My job was simply
to tramp the streets and keep my eyes

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open. Hard work, doctor,
and not exactly exciting. I met the

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fellow by accident and arrested him.
But when at headquarters the man removed his

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hat, I received the shock of
my life. The prisoner was almost completely

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bald, and yet it had been
definitely proved that five days previous, when

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the crime had been committed, he
had a crop of long, thick brown

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hair. But this circumstances, which
at first seemed to ruin our case.

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The prisoner, of course denied he
was the wanted man eventually proved his undoing.

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Men don't usually lose a thick crop
of hair in five days. We

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were sure of that. We consequently
deduced that the prisoner had made himself bald

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by some artificial method. Rather unique. Eh. You frequently hear of men

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disguising themselves by putting on wigs,
but they seldom affected disguise by pulling out

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their natural hair. Well, while
the entire department was trying to puzzle out

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a way of proving that the suspect
had removed his own hair. Nature herself

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solved the mystery for us. The
man was held in jail without bail.

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After three weeks, the entire top
of his head blossomed out like grass in

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the spring that clinched it. Of
course, he confessed that he had first

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cut his hair short and then move
the hairs with an electric needle. This

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process required a couple of days,
but his trick would have worked if he

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could have applied the needle again on
his hair as soon as it grew.

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The doctor, keeping his back turned
to the detective, replied, a unique

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case, mister Carr. You might
call it a bald murder. The detective

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laughed, then, after a pause, we were talking last time of the

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murder of mister Kervin. Have you
changed your mind and accepted my theory that

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the missing mister Lester he, in
all probability, remained in the city and

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made the bold stroke of adopting some
mode of life which brings him into contact

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with many persons daily. The doctor
stiffened perceptibly. An ingenious theory, mister

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Carr, But to judge from the
newspaper accounts of mister Lester, he was

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probably not clever enough to work out
so subtle a scheme. There was little

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conversation after that. Doctor Perry worked
in almost complete silence on the tooth until

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the task was completed. The detective
noticed that the dentist's hands were a trifle

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unsteady. Detective Carr left the office
determined to proceed quickly and openly against doctor

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Perry. He had reached the conclusion
that he had succeeded in tormenting the doctor

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into such a state of nerves that
he would be unable to stand up under

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a grilling at headquarters. It was
Carr's intention to consult the district attorney about

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the advisability of obtaining a warrant for
doctor Perry's arrest. While Carr was on

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his way to the District Attorney's office, both of his shoelaces became loosened.

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He bent over to tie them.
He held his head down for several minutes.

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Then, just as Detective Car entered
the District Attorney's office, a strange

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phenomenon occurred. The detective was suddenly
seized with a convulsion. He fell to

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the floor and his body became rigid. A doctor was immediately summoned, but

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although Karr lived for almost an hour
and a half, he could not be

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again brought to consciousness. The symptoms, the rigid muscles, the stiffness in

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the back of the neck, the
asphyxia, the wide open and fixed eyes,

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the rhesus sardonicus drawn aside mouth convinced
the doctor that Detective Car had been

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poisoned with strychnine. The post mortem
investigation, however, only added another element

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of mystery to the tragedy. A
chemical analysis of the stomach contents showed positively

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that no strychnine was present. If
the doctor's diagnosis proved to be correct,

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it followed that strychnine must have been
injected by a hypodermic syringe, but no

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needle was found on the dead man. It was also not clear why Car,

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assuming it was suicide, had gone
about it in this queer fashion.

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Symptoms of strychnine poisoning usually appear within
twenty minutes or less after the poison is

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taken. Where had Detective Car been
before he came to the District Attorney's office.

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Before the mystery could be solved,
that question had to be answered Three

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doctor Raymond K. Perry experienced a
queer feeling even during the first visit of

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Detective Car. He had a premonition
that the detective had penetrated his disguise.

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When a few days later the denis
was visited by a former client of Lesser

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and Curvin, who came ostensively to
have his teeth cleaned, Perry's fears increased.

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A short time after three of the
former our clients of Lesser and Curvin

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were in the restaurant in which the
detective took his lunch. Doctor Perry was

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then certain Detective car had identified him
as the missing William Lesser. Doctor Perry

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knew that his arrest was eminent.
Had any doubts remained, the actions of

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the detective himself would have cleared them
away. The detective began referring casually to

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the curving case. He somehow managed
to bring up this matter during every consultation,

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and he spoke of artificially induced boldness
as an effective means of disguise.

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The doctor was aware that in the
beginning the detective was a trifle uncertain,

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but with each visit the uncertainty gradually
resolved itself into conviction. Doctor Perry was

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in a continuous state of suspense.
It became obvious finally that the detective would

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arrest him. The dentist knew that
an arrest would be his ruin. He

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would be unable to account for any
of his actions previous to the last ten

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months. And if they held him
in jail without bail as his customary and

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murder indictments, his hair would start
growing and that would expose him. The

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dentist, of course, could have
fled, but that would be equivalent to

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a confession of guilt. He would
invite a man hunt. Also, he

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would have to sacrifice all the money
he had gained by the murder of Curvin.

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This money was tied up in real
estate. If he attempted to make

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a sale, he would be merely
inviting immediate arrest. There seemed to be

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but one other alternative from the fact
that he was never shadowed. The dentist

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reasoned that Detective Car had not mentioned
his suspicions to any other police officials.

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There was every indication that only the
detective Car was privy to the secret.

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If therefore a way could be found
to dispose of Detective Car, the status

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quo would be maintained and doctor Perry
could keep living in comfort the rest of

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his life. As the dentist figured
it, nothing could be lost by a

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second murder. They can't do more
than electrocute a man. During the detective's

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last visit, the dentist made him
an amalgam filling for the first moller on

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the upper left hand side. The
dental pulp or nerve had been killed with

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arsenic and removed previously. It remained
only to put in a guttapercha point,

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seal it with liquid gutapercha, and
close the top of the cavity with amalgam.

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But the dentist did not use gutapercha. Instead, he inserted a paste

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made of strychnine and rammed it into
the root canal. Strychnine acts rather rapidly,

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especially when it may be absorbed easily
into the blood. The dentist was

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consequently in somewhat of a hurry when
he put in the amalgam. He was

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a trifle nervous and anxious. Cold
blooded murderers exist for the most part only

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in fiction. He managed, however, to get the detective out of the

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office alive, and when that was
accomplished, most of his worries were over,

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for there seemed to be not the
slightest chance that the murder could be

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proved against him. There would indeed
be no way of proving that it was

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murder, and not even the most
careful autopsy would be likely to probe into

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the cavities of Detective Car's teeth.
The X ray pictures which doctor Perry had

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taken of Detective Car's mouth showed that
the apex of the root of the mueller

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in question extended into the antrum,
which is a pocket extending from the nasal

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cavity into the bone. This was
not at all unusual condition. Doctor Perry

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knew that the strychnine would be absorbed
into the blood by way of the intrum.

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Death would then be a matter of
minutes. Under normal conditions, it

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would take several hours for the action
to start. By then, the detective

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would no longer be near the dental
office, and the chances were that,

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even if he lived long enough to
give information, he would not associate the

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tooth filling with the poison. The
next morning's paper perhaps would have the news

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of the detective's death. It looked
safe, absolutely safe. Four As doctor

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Perry expected, the next morning's paper
contained the news of Detective Carr's strange death,

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and, according to accounts, headquarters
was at a loss to explain the

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mystery. It was difficult to reconcile
the known facts with either a murder or

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a sad suicide theory. The doctor
smiled as he read the reports. They

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were very satisfying to him. He
had been in his office about an hour

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when three men who introduced themselves as
Detective Sergeant Elm, Detective Mosure, and

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medical examiner Richard called upon him.
From one of Detective Carr's friends, we

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learned that you have been treating Car's
teeth, said Detective Sergeant Elm. Was

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Car in here yesterday for an appointment. Doctor Perry, afraid that a trap

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was being laid for him and that
he would betray himself by lying, was

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slow to reply why. I'm not
sure that is he may have been.

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I'll have to consult my records.
Never mind. The point is you have

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been treating Detective Car, and in
that case it is extremely unlikely that Carr

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was receiving treatment from another dentist.
Also, then, after a pause,

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do you know the detective Car died
yesterday from strychnine poisoning. No, well,

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I did read something in the papers. It was very mystifying at first,

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he interrupted, Detective Sergeant Elm.
A most careful chemical analysis discovered no

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strychnine in the stomach. However,
we found the strychnine. Does that interest

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you? The dentist flushed. It
evidently does, said Elm. You're a

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mighty clever man, doctor Perry.
However you overlook the fact that strychnine poisoning

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causes convulsions. You made a mighty
sloppy job of filling car's upper molar murder

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in haste and repent at leisure.
That will be a good proverb for you

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too. During cars fit of convulsions, the amalgam filling was jarred, loose,

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and fell out of his mouth.
Detective Moser found it this morning under

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the desk in the District Attorney's office. Detective Sergeant eld took a small glass

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vial out of his pocket and held
it out toward doctor Perry. Your amalgam

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filling is in this bottle, doctor, and there are traces of strychnine on

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it. Also, the medical examiner
here afterwards found traces of the poison in

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the root canal of the tooth.
That makes it pretty conclusive, doesn't it.

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Five. Detective Carr's story of the
man who had disguised himself by artificially

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inducing boldness was a myth. However, the official records now include the case

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of one doctor Raymond K. Perry
alias William Lesser, who grew a beautiful

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crop of hair while awaiting his execution. Furthermore, the doctor's dark complexion paled

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noticeably under the regular prison baths.
As for his stoutness, he had been

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one of those not altogether uncommon men
who can put on or take off an

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appreciable amount of weight by change of
diet. It was thus that Perry,

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after murdering mister Kervin, was able
to effect a great change in his appearance

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within a week. He had then
made the bold stroke of opening a dental

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office and practicing the profession right under
the eyes of the police. Perry,

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it must be explained, was actually
a dentist. After graduating from a dental

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college. He failed to make good
with Docker Kitbush and was discharged. He

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then applied for a position as clerk
in the office of mister Kervin and assumed

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the name Lesser. Because he intended
to re enter the dental profession again and

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did not want it to be known
that he was an ex clerk. Detective

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car it transpired had not mentioned his
suspicions concerning doctor Perry at headquarters, but

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after the doctor had been convicted for
murdering the detective, he confessed his former

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crime the end of murder in haste