Speaker 1: Murder in haste by John bhar one of the thousands
of dentists in the city. Detective Car chose to visit
doctor Raymond K. Perry on East forty eighth Street. A
friend had recommended doctor Perry. That was the only reason
for the detective's choice. The doctor was a small, bald, roundish,
amiable gentleman with a pleasing personality. Harmless was the word
which immediately occurred to you the first time you saw him. Nevertheless,
the detective's eyes contracted rather sharply when he shook hands
with the doctor, and a momentary expression of mingled doubt
and surprise clouded his face, but he resumed his nonchalance immediately.
The detective's teeth were in very bad condition. He had
several cavities and a mild case of pyorrhea. The doctor
made an examination and took an X ray photograph. An
appointment for two days later was made. The intervening day
was an extraordinarily busy one for Detective Car. He spent
the time running down the history and official record of
the Curved murder case, a crime which had been committed
some ten months previously. The details of this case with
which he renewed his acquaintance may be summed up briefly
as follows. At about ten thirty in the morning, mister
Curvin was found dead in his room, with his throat
cut from ear to ear. A blood stained razor was
lying beside him. The body was discovered by his housekeeper,
who had come to his house to do the cleaning.
That it was murder was plain, for there were signs
of a furious struggle, nor did the identity of the
murderer remain long a mystery. William Lesser, the business partner
of min disappeared and for apparent reasons. The books of
the firm Curvin and Lesser Brokers appeared to be at
first in good order, but an investigation revealed that several
transactions involving large amounts had not been recorded. Bonds and
securities which had been entrusted to Lesser by the firm's
clients never reached the bookkeepers for entry. It was estimated
that Lester had absconded with some two hundred thousand dollars.
The direct cause of the murder was not known, but
it was assumed that Kervin had discovered his partner's treachery
had accused or perhaps threatened him, and had thus brought
on the quarrel. The police, in tracing Lesser's history, discovered
that three years previous to the crime, he had entered
Kervin's office as a clerk. He made good so quickly
that mister Kervin took him into partnership. No clue to
any fact of Lesser's life before he entered the employ
of mister Kervin could be found. The heirs of mister Kervin,
a sister and a nephew, offered a reward of five
hundred thousand dollars for the capture of Lesser, but months
of zealous searching bore no results. The police had only
an old photograph found among mister Kervin's effects, and the
description given by employees and clients to guide them. After
several months, official interest in the case smoldered and finally
elapsed altogether. Detective car was one of the department's famous
camera eyed men. No disguise had as yet fooled him.
He was able to penetrate almost immediately any artificial changes
of appearance. He had never met the missing Lesser personally,
but he had of course seen the pictures which had
been published in the papers. His first glance had convinced
him that the man who was running a dental office
on forty eighth Street under the name of doctor Perry
was the man who had disappeared under the name of Lesser,
and this in spite of the fact that doctor Perry's
appearance differed from Lessers in several important respects. Lesser, to
judge by his picture and the descriptions of him, was
a man about five feet six in height, normal weight,
clean shaven, light complected, with a thick crop of blonde hair.
This description corresponded with doctor Perry's in only one respect.
The height. Doctor Perry was stout and at least thirty
pounds above normal weight. He had a black mustache and
a goatee, and was dark complexed. Further, the hair on
his head consisted only of a black fringe which ran
around his temples and the back of his neck. Under
the circumstances, it was not strange that Detective Carr's conviction
was a bit shaken, and that he decided to keep
his suspicions to himself until he made a thorough investigation
on his own account. Neither of mister Kervin's heirs had
ever seen the missing Lesser. However, the detective dug up
two Curvin and Lesser employees and two of the firm's
clients who had met Lesser personally a number of times.
One of these men agreed to go up to doctor
Perry's office and have his teeth cleaned. The other three
were posted by the detective at different times in a
restaurant where the doctor took his lunch. Three of the
men were positive that mister Lesser and doctor Perry were
not the same person. The fourth said, well, the shape
of his head is a little like Lesser's, but you
couldn't get me to swear in court that they were
the same person, No, sir, not me. Detective Carr then
tried to get at the mystery from a different angle.
He looked into doctor Perry's past history. He discovered that
doctor Raymond K. Perry had graduated from the Horn Dental
College in New York in nineteen fourteen. The doctor, in
accordance with state law, had renewed his license every year,
all of which was perfectly regular. But the doctor had
rented his office on forty eighth Street ten months ago,
or at just about the time that mister Lesser disappeared,
and Detective Carr could find no record of his having
practiced his profession any time before that. Further, the records
in the city Bureau of Taxes disclosed that doctor Raymond K.
Perry owned real estate to the value of one hundred
and forty one thousand dollars on East one hundred and
fifty seventh Street, and that the property had been purchased
at about the same time the doctor opened his dental office.
Doctor Perry lived on Claremont Avenue. No one at his
address could shed the faintest light on his past career.
He had rented the apartment ten months ago and had
always been prompt in the payment of his rent. He
never had visitors when he rented the apartment. He had
remarked that he was living in Yonkers, but desired to
live in the city in order to be closer to
his office. The detective consulted the city directories and the
phone books for the last seven years. He examined membership
lists of all the city and state dental societies. He
telegraphed the national organization. He visited all the dental supply
houses and manufactures of dental instruments. The investigation yielded the
name Raymond L. Perry, but twice, and these Perrys proved
to be senior and junior with an office in Brooklyn.
The Raymond k on forty eighth Street was not related
to them all. This would not have been unusual if
there had been evidence that doctor Perry had lived in
another state before opening his office on forty eighth Street,
but the doctor had said he moved down from Yonkers.
That a man practicing the profession of dentistry and worth
upward of one hundred and forty thousand dollars could leave
an absolutely recordless existence did not seem probable. And yet
the most painstaking search had revealed but one fact in
the career of doctor Perry previous his opening the forty
eighth Street office. That fact, as has been stated, was
his graduation from the dental college in nineteen fourteen. Detective
Carr's weakness did not include the lack of persistence. He
had great faith in his camera eye quality, and doctor
Perry's past or seeming absence of past only stimulated his activities.
The detective began the tiresome task of canvassing those dental
offices of New York City, which were large enough to
employ additional dentists. Carr spent eight hours each day for
seven weeks at this work, but finally his quest bore fruit.
The payrolls in doctor Kirkbush's office showed that, in January
nineteen eighteen, a doctor Raymond K. Perry had been discharged
for drunkenness. Nobody in the Kirkbush office recalled the appearance
of doctor Perry. Detective Car, however, considered it significant that
only one month later, February nineteen eighteen, mister William Lester
had entered the employ of mister Kervin. The chain of evidence,
though circumstantial, removed all doubt from the detective's mind. Still,
although Detective Carr was perfectly convinced of doctor Perry's guilt,
he knew that his evidence was not conclusive enough to
persuade a jury. The fact that he could offer no
direct identification was the weakness of his case. He felt
that he had two lines of attack open to him.
There was a chance that he could find some person
or persons whose memory for faces was good enough to
enable them to identify doctor Perry as mister Lester. His
other hope lay in a direct attack upon the doctor himself.
This attack, of course, would have to be subtle. The
doctor would have to be squeezed, prodded, and annoyed by
a series of seemingly innocuous questions and insinuations into betraying
himself by some word or act. The work on the
detective's teeth was to be finished in three weeks. There
were two appointments, each of an hour's duration. Each week,
Detective Car was to have six hours more of personal
contact with the suspect. Two. Detective Car was keeping his
last appointment with doctor Perry. The doctor was putting a
root canal filling into the first molar on the upper
left hand side. The nerve or dental pulp had been removed,
and it remained only to seal the cavity with guttapercha
and insert the amalgam filling. The detective was seated comfortably
in the dentist's chair. Doctor Perry was standing nearby, preparing
his instruments. Not at all, doctor, said Carr, in answer
to a question by the dentist. Detective work is not
nearly as exciting as it is commonly supposed to be.
Its mostly dull, routine labor of course, there are exceptions.
I was working on a case not so long ago,
quite an ordinary affair. A murder had been committed and
the suspect had disappeared. My job was simply to tramp
the streets and keep my eyes open. Hard work, doctor,
and not exactly exciting. I met the fellow by accident
and arrested him. But when at headquarters the man removed
his hat, I received the shock of my life. The
prisoner was almost completely bald, and yet it had been
definitely proved that five days previous, when the crime had
been committed, he had a crop of long, thick brown hair.
But this circumstances, which at first seemed to ruin our case.
The prisoner, of course denied he was the wanted man
eventually proved his undoing. Men don't usually lose a thick
crop of hair in five days. We were sure of that.
We consequently deduced that the prisoner had made himself bald
by some artificial method. Rather unique. Eh. You frequently hear
of men disguising themselves by putting on wigs, but they
seldom affected disguise by pulling out their natural hair. Well,
while the entire department was trying to puzzle out a
way of proving that the suspect had removed his own hair.
Nature herself solved the mystery for us. The man was
held in jail without bail. After three weeks, the entire
top of his head blossomed out like grass in the
spring that clinched it. Of course, he confessed that he
had first cut his hair short and then move the
hairs with an electric needle. This process required a couple
of days, but his trick would have worked if he
could have applied the needle again on his hair as
soon as it grew. The doctor, keeping his back turned
to the detective, replied, a unique case, mister Carr. You
might call it a bald murder. The detective laughed, then,
after a pause, we were talking last time of the
murder of mister Kervin. Have you changed your mind and
accepted my theory that the missing mister Lester he, in
all probability, remained in the city and made the bold
stroke of adopting some mode of life which brings him
into contact with many persons daily. The doctor stiffened perceptibly.
An ingenious theory, mister Carr, But to judge from the
newspaper accounts of mister Lester, he was probably not clever
enough to work out so subtle a scheme. There was
little conversation after that. Doctor Perry worked in almost complete
silence on the tooth until the task was completed. The
detective noticed that the dentist's hands were a trifle unsteady.
Detective Carr left the office determined to proceed quickly and
openly against doctor Perry. He had reached the conclusion that
he had succeeded in tormenting the doctor into such a
state of nerves that he would be unable to stand
up under a grilling at headquarters. It was Carr's intention
to consult the district attorney about the advisability of obtaining
a warrant for doctor Perry's arrest. While Carr was on
his way to the District Attorney's office, both of his
shoelaces became loosened. He bent over to tie them. He
held his head down for several minutes. Then, just as
Detective Car entered the District Attorney's office, a strange phenomenon occurred.
The detective was suddenly seized with a convulsion. He fell
to the floor and his body became rigid. A doctor
was immediately summoned, but although Karr lived for almost an
hour and a half, he could not be again brought
to consciousness. The symptoms, the rigid muscles, the stiffness in
the back of the neck, the asphyxia, the wide open
and fixed eyes, the rhesus sardonicus drawn aside mouth convinced
the doctor that Detective Car had been poisoned with strychnine.
The post mortem investigation, however, only added another element of
mystery to the tragedy. A chemical analysis of the stomach
contents showed positively that no strychnine was present. If the
doctor's diagnosis proved to be correct, it followed that strychnine
must have been injected by a hypodermic syringe, but no
needle was found on the dead man. It was also
not clear why Car, assuming it was suicide, had gone
about it in this queer fashion. Symptoms of strychnine poisoning
usually appear within twenty minutes or less after the poison
is taken. Where had Detective Car been before he came
to the District Attorney's office. Before the mystery could be solved,
that question had to be answered Three doctor Raymond K.
Perry experienced a queer feeling even during the first visit
of Detective Car. He had a premonition that the detective
had penetrated his disguise. When a few days later the
denis was visited by a former client of Lesser and Curvin,
who came ostensively to have his teeth cleaned, Perry's fears increased.
A short time after three of the former our clients
of Lesser and Curvin were in the restaurant in which
the detective took his lunch. Doctor Perry was then certain
Detective car had identified him as the missing William Lesser.
Doctor Perry knew that his arrest was eminent. Had any
doubts remained, the actions of the detective himself would have
cleared them away. The detective began referring casually to the
curving case. He somehow managed to bring up this matter
during every consultation, and he spoke of artificially induced boldness
as an effective means of disguise. The doctor was aware
that in the beginning the detective was a trifle uncertain,
but with each visit the uncertainty gradually resolved itself into conviction.
Doctor Perry was in a continuous state of suspense. It
became obvious finally that the detective would arrest him. The
dentist knew that an arrest would be his ruin. He
would be unable to account for any of his actions
previous to the last ten months. And if they held
him in jail without bail as his customary and murder indictments,
his hair would start growing and that would expose him.
The dentist, of course, could have fled, but that would
be equivalent to a confession of guilt. He would invite
a man hunt. Also, he would have to sacrifice all
the money he had gained by the murder of Curvin.
This money was tied up in real estate. If he
attempted to make a sale, he would be merely inviting
immediate arrest. There seemed to be but one other alternative
from the fact that he was never shadowed. The dentist
reasoned that Detective Car had not mentioned his suspicions to
any other police officials. There was every indication that only
the detective Car was privy to the secret. If therefore
a way could be found to dispose of Detective Car,
the status quo would be maintained and doctor Perry could
keep living in comfort the rest of his life. As
the dentist figured it, nothing could be lost by a
second murder. They can't do more than electrocute a man.
During the detective's last visit, the dentist made him an
amalgam filling for the first moller on the upper left
hand side. The dental pulp or nerve had been killed
with arsenic and removed previously. It remained only to put
in a guttapercha point, seal it with liquid gutapercha, and
close the top of the cavity with amalgam. But the
dentist did not use gutapercha. Instead, he inserted a paste
made of strychnine and rammed it into the root canal.
Strychnine acts rather rapidly, especially when it may be absorbed
easily into the blood. The dentist was consequently in somewhat
of a hurry when he put in the amalgam. He
was a trifle nervous and anxious. Cold blooded murderers exist
for the most part only in fiction. He managed, however,
to get the detective out of the office alive, and
when that was accomplished, most of his worries were over,
for there seemed to be not the slightest chance that
the murder could be proved against him. There would indeed
be no way of proving that it was murder, and
not even the most careful autopsy would be likely to
probe into the cavities of Detective Car's teeth. The X
ray pictures which doctor Perry had taken of Detective Car's
mouth showed that the apex of the root of the
mueller in question extended into the antrum, which is a
pocket extending from the nasal cavity into the bone. This
was not at all unusual condition. Doctor Perry knew that
the strychnine would be absorbed into the blood by way
of the intrum. Death would then be a matter of minutes.
Under normal conditions, it would take several hours for the
action to start. By then, the detective would no longer
be near the dental office, and the chances were that,
even if he lived long enough to give information, he
would not associate the tooth filling with the poison. The
next morning's paper perhaps would have the news of the
detective's death. It looked safe, absolutely safe. Four As doctor
Perry expected, the next morning's paper contained the news of
Detective Carr's strange death, and, according to accounts, headquarters was
at a loss to explain the mystery. It was difficult
to reconcile the known facts with either a murder or
a sad suicide theory. The doctor smiled as he read
the reports. They were very satisfying to him. He had
been in his office about an hour when three men
who introduced themselves as Detective Sergeant Elm, Detective Mosure, and
medical examiner Richard called upon him. From one of Detective
Carr's friends, we learned that you have been treating Car's teeth,
said Detective Sergeant Elm. Was Car in here yesterday for
an appointment. Doctor Perry, afraid that a trap was being
laid for him and that he would betray himself by lying,
was slow to reply why. I'm not sure that is
he may have been. I'll have to consult my records.
Never mind. The point is you have been treating Detective Car,
and in that case it is extremely unlikely that Carr
was receiving treatment from another dentist. Also, then, after a pause,
do you know the detective Car died yesterday from strychnine poisoning. No, well,
I did read something in the papers. It was very
mystifying at first, he interrupted, Detective Sergeant Elm. A most
careful chemical analysis discovered no strychnine in the stomach. However,
we found the strychnine. Does that interest you? The dentist flushed.
It evidently does, said Elm. You're a mighty clever man,
doctor Perry. However you overlook the fact that strychnine poisoning
causes convulsions. You made a mighty sloppy job of filling
car's upper molar murder in haste and repent at leisure.
That will be a good proverb for you too. During
cars fit of convulsions, the amalgam filling was jarred, loose,
and fell out of his mouth. Detective Moser found it
this morning under the desk in the District Attorney's office.
Detective Sergeant eld took a small glass vial out of
his pocket and held it out toward doctor Perry. Your
amalgam filling is in this bottle, doctor, and there are
traces of strychnine on it. Also, the medical examiner here
afterwards found traces of the poison in the root canal
of the tooth. That makes it pretty conclusive, doesn't it. Five.
Detective Carr's story of the man who had disguised himself
by artificially inducing boldness was a myth. However, the official
records now include the case of one doctor Raymond K.
Perry alias William Lesser, who grew a beautiful crop of
hair while awaiting his execution. Furthermore, the doctor's dark complexion
paled noticeably under the regular prison baths. As for his stoutness,
he had been one of those not altogether uncommon men
who can put on or take off an appreciable amount
of weight by change of diet. It was thus that Perry,
after murdering mister Kervin, was able to effect a great
change in his appearance within a week. He had then
made the bold stroke of opening a dental office and
practicing the profession right under the eyes of the police. Perry,
it must be explained, was actually a dentist. After graduating
from a dental college. He failed to make good with
Docker Kitbush and was discharged. He then applied for a
position as clerk in the office of mister Kervin and
assumed the name Lesser. Because he intended to re enter
the dental profession again and did not want it to
be known that he was an ex clerk. Detective car
it transpired had not mentioned his suspicions concerning doctor Perry
at headquarters, but after the doctor had been convicted for
murdering the detective, he confessed his former crime the end
of murder in haste