Psychological Foundation
The task of the psychology of architecture is to describe and explain the emotions that the art of building is able, with its resources, to arouse.
We call the effects of those emotions on us impressions. And we consider these impressions to be expressionsof objects. Accordingly, we can formulate the problem as: HowcanarchitecturalFormsbeexpressions?
(Under “architectural Forms” we must also consider the lesser arts of decoration and handicrafts, for they are affected by the same conditions of expression.)
We can try to answer this question from two sides – from the subjective side and from the objective side. Both have been done.
I will mention first the well-known theory that explains the emotional tone of a form by the muscle sense (Muskelgefühl) of the eye as it follows a line. Our feelings for a wavy line are substantially different from those for a zigzag.
In what way are they different?
It is said that the movement of the eye as it traces a line is easier in the one case than it is in the other. “When the eye moves freely its physiological structure enables it to move in an exactly straight line in both vertical and horizontal directions, but when it moves in any oblique direction it does so in an arc.” (Wundt, Vorlesungen,II:80)
This explains our pleasure in the wavy line and our dislike of the zigzag. The beauty of a form is a function of its suitability for our eye. We can express the same idea by pointing out that the purpose of a column’s capital is to lead the eye gradually from the vertical to the horizontal, or that the contour of a mountain is beautiful because the eye is able to glide smoothly and without hesitation over it.
The theory sounds reasonable enough, perhaps, when presented in these terms, but it fails the necessary test of experience. One asks oneself how much of a form’s actual impression is explained by the muscle sense of the eye. Is the greater or lesser ease with which the eye moves really the essential determinant of the multiplicity of effects it perceives? Even the most superficial psychological analysis must show how little reality is to be found in this idea. In fact, one cannot even grant it a secondary role. Noting very correctly that equal pleasure can be had from a wavy line as from a right-angled meander, Lotze points out that no physical effort is involved in making aesthetic judgments, and that aesthetic pleasure is not determined by the ease with which we make those judgments. (GeschichtederAesthetikinDeutschland,p.310 f.)
The quite obvious error here seems to be the assumption that because the eyeperceives physical forms it is their visible features that determine what their characteristics are. But the eye seems to react with pleasure or lack of pleasure only to the intensity of light. It is indifferent to forms, or at least is absolutely unable to identify their expressive qualities. We must therefore look for another principle. We will find it in the comparison with music. There we have the same relationship. The ear is the perceiving organ, but we could never experience the emotional content of sounds by analyzing auditory processes. In order to understand the theory of musical expression we need to observeone’sowncreationofsounds, the meaning and use of our ownvocalinstrument.
Had we lacked the ability to express our own feelings with sounds we would never ever understand the meaning of others’ sounds. One understands only what one can do oneself. So here too we must say: Physicalformsonlyhavecharacteristics becauseweourselveshavephysicalform.If we were beings who only perceived things visually, an aesthetic judgement of the physical world would always be denied us. However, as human beings with bodies that teach us to know what gravity, contraction, strength and so on are, we acquire the experiences that first enable us to empathize with the conditions of external forms. Why does no one
marvel at the fact that the stone falls to the ground: why does that strike us as so very natural? We have no trace of a rational understanding of such an occurrence, the explanation lies solely in our own experience. We have carried loads and have experienced what pressures and counter-pressures are, and we have sunk to the ground when we no longer have the strength to counter the downward-pulling weight of our own bodies, and that is why we know how to value the proud fortune of a column and understand the tendency of all Matter to spread out formlessly on the ground. One could say that this has no bearing on the understanding of linearand planimetricrelationships, but that objection is based on faulty observation. As soon as one pays attention, one finds that one attributes a mechanical meaning to such relationships too, that there is no oblique line that we do not perceive as rising and no irregular triangle that we do not perceive as deprived of balance. It hardly needs to be said that architectural structures are not merely geometric but have the effect of massiveforms(Massenformen). But that is a premise that is put forward repeatedly by proponents of an extreme formal aesthetics.
We can go further. Musical sounds would have no meaning if we did not regard them as the expression of some kind of sensitive being. This relationship, which was natural to the original musical form, namely song, has been obscured but not abolished by instrumental music. We always associate sounds we hear to a subject whose expression they are.
And so it is in the physical world. Forms acquire meaning for us only because we recognize in them the expression of a sentient (fühlend) soul. Spontaneously, we animate (beseelen) every object. That is a basic instinct in man. It is the origin of mythological imagination and, even today, does it not require a prolonged educational process to free ourselves of the impression that a figure whose balance is disturbed cannot have a sense of wellbeing? Will this instinct ever die out? I believe not. It would be the death of art. We project the image of our selves onto everything we see. What we know to be the conditions of our own well-being we expect everything else to possess. It is not that we demand to see a human
shape in the forms of inorganic nature, but that we perceive the material world through the categories (if I may put it this way) that we have in common with it. The expressive potential of these alien forms, too, becomes apparent in this way. Theycanonly communicatetouswhatweourselvesexpresswiththeirtraits. Here, some will become skeptical and will doubt whether there are similarities or any expressive feelings that we share with dead stone. I will say it briefly: there are varying quantities of heaviness, of balance, of hardness, etc., that all have expressive value for us. All that pertains to humanity, naturally, can only be expressed through that which is human, and so architecture cannot express specific emotions that are manifested in particular organs. Nor should it try to do so. Its object remains thegreatexistentialfeelings,the emotions that posit the stable and constant condition of the body. I could finish this section now and at most point out how language too provides an abundance of examples showing that unconquerable propensity of our imagination for perceiving everything in the physical world in the form of living beings. We can remind ourselves of architectural terminology. Wherever a circumscribed entity puts in an appearance, we give it a head and foot, look for its front and rear, and so on.
Yet there still remains the question of how the vivifying (beseelung) of these alien forms should be conceptualized. There is not likely to be a satisfactory answer to this, but I do not want to ignore it because it is a goal that has been approached from other angles. The anthropomorphic conception of threedimensional structures is not unheard-of. In modern aesthetics this is the process that has come to be known as symbolizing.
Johann Volkelt5 has written the history of the term “symbol”, which brought him much merit by its more exact version of what had originally been suggested by Herder6 and Lotze.7
In Volkelt’s view the symbolization of threedimensional structures is carried out in the following ways (Symbolbegriff, 51-70): 1.nThe three-dimensional structure is construed in terms of movement and the effect of forces, a process that should not be
called symbolic: in tracing the contours of things we see, we enliven the lines so that they flow and run.
2.nTo understand the three-dimensional structure aesthetically we must experience this movement with our senses by accompanying it with our bodily organization.
3. A feeling of pleasure and pain is bound up with the stretching and movement of our bodies; we understand it as characteristic of the natural form itself.
4. To be called aesthetic, however, this feeling of pleasure must have a mental significance: the bodily movement and the physical sensation must be the expression of a sentiment.
5. The fact that our entire being participates in aesthetic pleasure indicates that all such pleasure must contain something of human nature in general, something of the idea that constitutes a human being.
So much for Volkelt’s analysis.
I am essentially in complete agreement with it. The objections that could be raised against Point 1 and against the separation of Points 3 and 4 can be disregarded here. I want to focus all the attention on the core of the thing, to the second point: the empathic experiencing of the external form. How might we “enter the object with our bodily feeling”? Volkelt intentionally keeps us in the dark on this point, and later finds (along with Fr.Vischer) the only solution in a pantheistic conception of the world. He does not want to approach this process, filled as it is with arcana, too closely: “With my vital feeling I lay myself darkly into the object”, he says (p.61), and elsewhere he speaks of “transporting oneself”, and so on. To be sure, one cannot uncover the entire course of this psychic act, yet I want to ask, “Is this experience a sensoryone, or does it only take place in the imagination?” In other words, do we experience outside physical forms with our own bodies? Or: is our empathy with those forms only a function of our imagination?
Volkelt wavers here. Sometimes he says that we must experience the object sensuallywith our physical organization (p. 57), but on other occasions that it is only the imagination that carries out the
movement (pp. 61-62).
Lotz and Rob. Vischer8, who were the first to assert the relevance of bodily experience, were clearly only thinking of processes that take place in the imagination. In this sense, according to Rob. Vischer: “We possess the wonderful ability to project and merge our own physical form into an objective form”. Similarly, Lotze: “No form is so impermeable that our imagination is unable to mix its living self into it”.
If I understand correctly, Volkelt has gone further here than his predecessors, without however understanding the problem more exactly.
There can be no doubt about the legitimacy of the question. For the physical affect that we experience when we observe an architectural work is undeniable. I can well believe that someone could make the claim that the impression of a mood conveyed by architecture consists alone of this, that we involuntarily seek to simulate alien forms through our physical organization: in other words, we judge the existential feeling of architectural forms by the physical responses we make to them. Powerful columns arouse us with nervous energy, our breathing responds to the width or the narrowness of a threedimensional space. We are energized as if we were the supporting columns, and breathe as deeply and fully as if our chest were as broad as this hall. Asymmetry often induces in us a feeling of physical pain, as if one of our limbs were missing, or injured, and in the same way we feel discomfort at the sight of a disturbed equilibrium– and so on. Everyone will recall similar instances in his own experience. And when Goethe sometimes says that one should be able to sense the effect of a beautiful room even if led through it blindfolded, he was expressing nothing other than the same thought: that the impression made by architecture, far from being something like a “visual tallying”, essentially consists of an unmediated bodily feeling. Instead of some incomprehensible “projection of the self” we could perhaps imagine that impulses from the optic nerve directly stimulate the motor nerves and cause the contraction of specific
muscles. We could offer as a helpful analogy the fact that a musical note will make all related notes resonate, too. What might the proponent of such an opinion say? He might well cite the human transmission of expressiveness, or the theory which has recently been proposed that the understanding of human expression is mediated by empathy. From which the following axioms can be formulated;
5 Volkelt, SymbolbegriffinherneuerenÄsthetik, Jena 1876.
6 “Kalligone”, as well as the essay “Plastik”, contain notable comments.
7 Lotze, GeschichtederÄsthetikinDeutchland;andMicrocosmos,v.II, 198ff.
8 Rob. Vischer, DasoptischeFormengefühl.Leipzig, 1872.
1. Every mood has its specific expression that regularly accompanies it; for an expression is not only a banner, as it were, hung out to show what is going on inside, nor is it something that might just as well not be there. Expression, rather, is the physical manifestation of a mental process. It is not only found in the tension of facial muscles or in the movements of the extremities, but extends itself to the entire organism.
2. aNo sooner does one imitate the expression of an emotion than one immediately experiences the emotion itself. Suppressing the expression is to suppress the emotion. On the other hand, giving in to it by expressing it causes it to grow all the more. The fearful person becomes more fearful if he expresses his anxiety in gestures.
3. aOne can often see someone unconsciously imitating another person’s expressions and, in doing so, transferring emotions. One knows how children abandon them-selves unrestrainedly to any strong impression: they cannot see someone cry, for example, without their own tears starting to fall, and so on. Only in instances when they energetically express their own feelings are they blocked from such responses, for empathy like this implies a certain degree of lack of will. Later on, education and rational reflection lead one not to give in to every impression. But at certain moments one
“forgets oneself” and acts in a way that would make sense only if one were the other person.
………Instances in which people project themselves include the following:
Someone with a hoarse throat tries to talk. We clear our own throat. Why? Because in that instant we believe that we ourselves are hoarse and want to free ourselves from that (or at least, to reassure ourselves of the clarity of our own voice.)
……… Moreover, it often happens during a painful operation that we exactly mimic the features of the sufferer, even to the extent of experiencing acute pain in the affected area.
These are unusual cases, to be sure, and one cannot deny that in the fleeting moments of daily life physical empathy has vanished almost without trace and that we accept the forms in which our fellow men express themselves as we do copper tokens whose valu we know from experience. Yet a stimulus remains, even if the impressed expression – if I may put it that way– does not rise to the surface (making itself apparent in face and posture). For the inner organsabove all will be sympathetically aroused, and it is my observation that it is the breathingthat is most easily altered. The rhythm of breathing that we observe in others is most readily transferred to ourselves. It is horrifying to see someone suffocate, for we can feel the torment of it, while we remain unmoved by the sight of a person’s physical pain. This is an important fact, for it is precisely the breath that is the most direct organ of expression.
This is how an advocate of the idea of physical empathy might introduce his evidence, also hoping thereby perhaps to find support in the fact that conformity to the rule is experienced unconsciously by the intellect, or, on the contrary, that a breach of normality strikes the “eye” or the “feelings” (as we are accustomed to say) before the intellect detects wherethe error lies.
If someone wants to interject that empathy is irrelevant to aesthetic perception, because the imitation of human physiognomic expression only takes place involuntarily, in moments in which one forgetsoneselfand sinks oneself entirely in the object, this objection can be refuted by the absolutely correct observation that it is precisely this absence of will, this surrender of selfawareness, that is demanded for aesthetic perception.
Whoever is unable to stop thinking about himself for a while will never enjoy a work of art, let alone be able to create one.9
Even proponents of this thesis must acknowledge that the sublime evokes no such imitative response. While a well-lit colonnade with its buoyant strength infuses us with a direct sense of wellbeing, the sublime, by contrast, brings out the symptoms of fear. We feel the impossibility of relating to its immensity (Ungeheuren), the limbs weaken, andsoon.But the sublime is exceptional and is by no means rebuttal of the main point.
9 Note. It is on this psychological fact that the relationship between moral and intellectual states of mind is based. The “compassion” that the one presupposes is psychologically the same process as aesthetic empathy. That is why great artists are well known to be always “good people”, that is, subject in a high degree to feelings of compassion.
No one can contest our right to liken the perception of human expression to the perception of architectural forms. Where is the point at which this experience of empathy ceases? It will occur wherever we find existential conditions similar to our own, that is, where bodiesconfront us.
This inquiry, if pursued further, would return us to the mysteries of the history of psychological evolution. And even if we could eventually confirm a universal experience, if we could prove that our bodies undergo exactly the changes that correspond to the expression of a sentiment that the object communicates to us– what would that accomplish?
Who can tell us which has priority? Is the bodily affect a prerequisite for the impression of a mood? Or are the sensory feelings merely the product of a vivid imagination? Or finally, a third possibility, do the psychological and the bodily run parallel to each other?
Since we have driven the question to this point, it is high time to break it off: for we now face problems that mark the limits of all science.
We pull back. In what follow we will pay no attention to these difficulties, but will use the convenient traditional expressions that are at hand.
The foundation that has been laid is this: Ourbodilyorganizationis themediumthroughwhichweexperienceeverythingphysical.I will now show that the basic elements of architecture – material and form, gravity and force, are defined by the experiences that we have had of ourselves; that the laws of formal aesthetics are none other than the conditions under which alone organic well - being seems possible; and last, that the expression inherent structuring (Gliederung) in horizontal and vertical is constituted according to human (organic) principles.
This is the content of the ensuing sections.
I am far indeed from claiming that the architectural impression is completely analyzed in this way, for many other factors are certainly involved: color, associations that grow out of the history and the function of a building, the nature of the material, etc. Yet I do not think I am mistaken in seeing the essence of that impression in the outline presented here.
Disregarding these other factors, allow me to point to what one might call analogiesoflinearawareness. By analogies of awareness Wundt (phys.Psych1: 486ff) understands the connections that we tend to perceive between sensations of the different senses: for example, those between low notes and dark colors which, when considered purely as sensations have nothing in common, but seem related to each other by their
identical somber emotional tone. Such analogies are also present in lines. It would be desirable, for once, to hear something coherent about this completely overlooked subject.10 I will make a few observations that were derived from numerous experiments.
The abrupt thrusts of the zigzag immediately bring to mind a burning red, while a soft blue suggests a gentle, wavy line; a paler shade suggests a long drawn-out wave, a stronger shade a more sprightly one. And indeed the word “faint” is used both for colors lacking in intensity and for physical fatigue.11
Similarly, we speak of warm and cold lines,12 of the warm lines of a woodcut, for instance, and the cold ones of the steel engraving: opposites that correspond to sensations of hard and soft pressures. This is clearest in the analogy with musical sounds, where perhaps the experience of creating sounds with our own voices plays a part. Everyone regards a line with short, small waves as a vibrato on a high register, and wide, shallow undulations as a muffled buzz. The zigzag “rattles and clatters like gunfire” (Jakob Burckhardt); a very pointy line has the effect of a piercing whistle. The straight line is altogether silent.
It therefore makes good sense, with regard to architecture, to speak of the quietsimplicity of antiquity and the unpleasant clamor of, for example, English Gothic. Or perhaps in the gently receding lines of a mountain we experience a softly fading sound.
10 Naturally, linguistic research must support the experimental psychologist in this regard.
2. The Subject of Architecture
……… Matter is heavy, its thrusts downwards, and wants to spread itself formlessly on the ground. We know the force of gravity from our own bodies. What keeps us upright, and averts a formless collapse? It is the opposing force that we can identify as will, life, or whatever. I call it Form Force [Formkraft]. TheoppositionofMatter andFormForce, which moves the entire organic world, is the basic
theme of architecture. Aesthetic perception even infuses this most intimate experience of our bodies into lifeless nature. We suppose that in everything there is a will that attempts to become form and must overcome the opposition of formless Matter.
11 [HW marginal note:] “Colors. Dull colors. See the muted colors of Roman Baroque and the strong Venetian coloring and their correspondingly different architecture. Gothic: harsh colors. Rococo: light, muted,bleumourant.”
12[HW marginal note:] “This is nonsense”.
With this recognition we have taken the decisive step, both to augment formal aesthetics with propositions that are more vital, and to ensure that the architectural impression has richer content than is accorded to it in, for example, Schopenhauer’scelebrated theory. Fortunately, no one allows philosophy to dampen their pleasure, and Schopenhauer himself had too much artistic sensitivity to believe his own proposition that gravity and rigidity are the only subject-matter of architecture.
Because he analyzed neither the impression nor the psychological impact of architecture, but only its material substance, he let himself be led to the conclusion that:
1. Art expresses the ideas of Nature.
2. The main ideas of architectural Matter are gravity and rigidity.
3. Accordingly, the task of Art is to present these ideas clearly in their contradiction of one another.
……….The load wishes to fall to the ground; the supports, by virtue of their rigidity, oppose this wish.
Aside from the intellectual weakness of this juxtaposition, it is hard to understand how Schopenhauer could have been blind to the fact that our aesthetic perception completely sets aside the rigidity of the stone of a Greek column and converts it into a vital reaching up to the heights.
Enough. I repeat: just as the character of gravity is inferred from our physical experiences, without which it would be inconceivable to us, so too do we apprehend that which opposes gravity with a human, which is to say an organic, analog. And so I hold that all the axioms of formal aesthetics concerning beautifulformsare nothing other than theprerequisitesoforganiclife.Form Force, accordingly is not only the antithesis of gravity, a force that works vertically, but that which brings forth life, a visplastica, to use an expression disdained in the Natural Sciences. In the next section I will state the individual laws of form. Here, it will be sufficient to suggest the basic idea, which is the relation of Matter and Form.
After all that has been said there should be no doubt that Form is not an external thing that is thrown over Matter, but that it is, rather, something that works its way out of Matter, as immanent Will; Matter and Form are inseparable. In all Matter there lives a Will that seeks Form, but cannot always attain it. One should also not imagine that Matter is the unconditional enemy, for Matter-less Form is inconceivable; every- where, the image of our physical existence presents itself as the type by which we gauge all visual phenomena. Matter is the evil principle only insofar as we encounter it as lifethreatening gravity. The effects of gravity are always bound up with lessening of vital energy. Blood flows more slowly, breathing becomes irregular and gasping; the body loses its support and collapses. These are the moments of loss of balance, and gravity seems to overpower us. Language has expressions for this: gloom, depressedmoods, etc. I will not try to determine further what disturbances of a physical nature are present here: enough to say that this is the condition of Formlessness.
Everything living seeks to escape its grasp, and to attain a natural bearing of regularity and balance. In this attempt by organic Will to penetrate the body, the relationship of Form to Matter is made apparent.
To some degree Matter itself yearns for Form. And so one can describe this process with the same words that Aristotle used for the relationship of his Forms to Matter, or with Goethe’s marvelous expression, “the image must work its way out”. The completed Form however presents itself as an entelechy, as the consummation of what was potential in Matter.
All these resemblances, basically, rest on the deeply human experience of forming that which is unformed. In descibing architecture as frozen music, one is only expressing the idea that both arts have the same effect on us. While the rhythmic waves penetrate us, grip us, and draw us into the beautiful movement, everything formless dissipates and we have the good fortune to be free for a moment from the down-thrusting gravity of Matter.
We feel a similar formative force in all architectural creations, except that it does not come from outside but from within as formative Will that generates its own body. The objective is not the destruction of Matter but only the organic construction of it, a condition that we perceive is self-willed, not the result of external force; selfdeterminationis the prerequisite of all beauty. That the weight of Matter has been overcome, that in the most powerful masses a Will that is intelligibletoushas been able to fulfill itself: this is the fundamental essence of the architectural impression.
Realizing the potential, fulfilling the Will, liberation from material gravity– these expressions all mean the same thing.
The greater the resistance that is overcome, the greater the delight. Now, what matters is not merely that a Will is fulfilled, but what kind of Will it is. A cube completely satisfies the first condition, but its content is very meager.
In formally-correct, that is, viable, architecture a development is possible that one would not be unjustified in likening to the development of organic entities. Both progress similarly from vague, slightly-differentiated parts to the most finely formed system of
differentiated parts.
Architecture reaches its apogee at the point where, from the undifferentiated mass, individual organs detach themselves and each part appears to function in accordance with its own purpose alone, and without affecting the entire body or being obstructed by it. The same objective is pursued by Nature in its organic structures. The lowest beings form an unarticulated whole; necessary functions are either performed by “pseudo-organs” that occasionally emerge from the mass and then disappear into it again, or that possess one organ alone to serve all functions but that does so in a very cumbersome way. The highest beings, on the other hand, display a system of differentiated parts that are able to function independently of one another. To fully develop this independence requires practice. The fresh recruit, at first, cannot march without involving his whole body, the piano student cannot raise one finger alone. The discomfort that such conditions give rise to, when the Will is unable to prevail, when it it is stuck in Matter, is the same feeling that we get from insufficiently differentiated buildings. (The Romanesque style has abundant examples of this kind.)
Because the greater autonomy of the parts indicates the greater perfection of the organism, a creature becomes more meaningful to us the more dissimilar its parts are to one another (within the limits, of course, laid down by the general laws of Form: see the next section). The Gothic, in whose parts the same pattern is always repeated: tower = pinnacle,gabel = hood, an unending multiplicity of identical and similar parts, is inferior to antiquity, which repeats nothing: oneorder, oneentablature, onepediment. I shall break off these observations. They can be productive only when the architectural organism is already known in all its parts. What I had wanted to show is only that we assess the perfection of an architectural creation by the same criterion that we use for living creatures.
We turn now to the general laws of Form.
3. Form and its Aspects
……….
In order to have a strong foundation I will take as the determinants of Form those that Fr. Vischer gives in his self-critique of his work on aesthetics (Krit.GӓngeV).
He differentiates two external and four internal aspects. The first are:
1.Demarcation of space 2.Measure, relative to the vigor of our
mmmm visual perception (not essential to mmmmus here).
It is conditiosinequanonthat each thing, in order to be individual, must create a boundary between itself and its surroundings. This type of demarcation will be discussed presently.
The inner aspects are:
1.Regularity
2.Symmetry
3.Proportion
4.Harmony
Asdasd To develop these concepts, I will begin by taking for a motto, as it were, the basic principle that has already been laid down: The aspects of Form are nothing other than the conditions of organic existence and as such have no meaning for expressions. They present only a model of that which is alive (SchemadesLebendigen).
Regularityis defined as “the uniform repetition of different but similar parts”. Vischer names as examples: an order of columns, the sequence of a decorative pattern, the straight line, the circle, the square, etc.
Here I think I must first criticize an inaccuracy.
The regularityof an array must clearly be distinguished from the “lawfulness”of a line such as a straight line, of a figure such as a square or a circle, or– according to linguistic usage – also a 90-degree angle as opposed to one of 80 degrees.
It is not clear how one definition can embrace all
these things.
The difference between regularity and what I have for the time being referred to as lawfulness is based on a very profound difference: Herewe have before us a pure intellectualrelationship; there,a physicalone. The lawfulness that expresses itself in an angle of 90 degrees or in a square has no connection to our organism, it does not please us as an attractive vital form, it is no universal organic condition of life, but only something that is favored by our intellect. The regularity of a sequence, on the other hand, is to us something that we find valuable, because our organism’s structure demands regularity in its functions. We breathe regularly, we walk regularly, and every ongoing activity is performed in a periodic sequence. Another example: a pyramid ascends at exactly 45 degrees, offering us merely intellectual pleasure, our organism is indifferent to it, for it reckons merely with the relationship of force and gravity and passes its judgment on that basis. It is important to make the principal difference between these two factors as clear as possible. They can almost never be observed in total isolation, for every intellectual relationship also has some physical meaning, and vice versa.Yet it is usually not difficult to detect each in the combination of parts. The intellectual factor has almost no meaning at all for the character, that is to say, for the expression, of a work of art. After all, an easily recognizable order will increase the appeal of its serenity, while by contrast a very complex and intellectually impenetrable arrangement seems to take on a character of dull annoyance in which we become displeased as the result of the failure of our effort. Where the intention is all too readily discerned the result is usually a dull, boring impression. The intellectual factor is important only in the formal sense, because it guarantees the self-determinationof an object. Where we find strict rules and understandable quantities, there we know that chance has not triumphed, that this form is willed, and this object is selfdetermined (naturally, this can only occur within the limits of physical possibility). It is an interesting point that the earliest art,
which aimed above all to replace the haphazard forms of nature with intentional shapes, believed that this goal could only be attained by crude rules. It was reserved for a later age to convey an impression of inevitability specifically through freer forms. Symmetry. Vischer defines it as a “juxtaposition of identical parts around a separate and dissimilar middle point”. One can perhaps accept this so long as one is clear that nothing further need be said other than that the sides to the right and left of the givencenter must be the same. As it stands, the definition leads one to the belief that this concept also includes the establishmentof a center, which is altogether incorrect, for where it is not present, for example in ordinarily regular forms, one does not talk of asymmetry. The demand for symmetry is derived from the arrangement of our bodies. Because we are built symmetrically, we believe that we are entitled to demand this form for all architectural bodies, too. And this, not because we regard our species as the most beautiful, as people often think, but because it alone seems right to us. The effect of asymmetry, as has already been noted, makes the relationship clear: we feel physical discomfort. Because we have identified ourselves in a symbolic way with the object, it is for us as if the symmetry of our own body has been disturbed, or as if a limb were mangled.
The unchallengeable value of the demand for symmetry stems from its origins. One often encounters the opinion that it (symmetry) must at once yield to utility without its appeal suffering any loss. Fechner (VorschulederAesthetik)gives the example of a cup that has only one handle. It is just here, however, that we can best validate our principle. Even without thinking about it we make the side with the handle be the rearof the cup, so that the symmetry is preserved. But if there are two handles, the relationship changes again and we regard it as analogous to our arms.
All this, however, suffices to show that expressiveness is not inherent in symmetry as such, any more than the similarity of a person’s arms arouses one’s emotions.
Proportioncauses greater difficulties. It is an entirely undeveloped concept. Vischer’sdefinition proportion posits inequality and
prescribes an order that dominates it - does not say much, as he himself acknowledges. Adding that it holds true of the vertical direction contributes nothing, for it then no longer applies to surfaces (the relationship of height to width) where one also speaks of proportion. And just as with height and width one can also say: beams must be proportional to their load.
From all these instances one sees only one thing: it is about the relationship of different parts to one another. If they are called force and loadthen only function can decide: and the beam must be measured for its load - that is obvious, a physical principle. Further, height and width must stand in a “relationship” to one another, 1:1, 1:2, the Golden Section are such relationships, but I will first address them in the section on the expressive value of proportion. The question does not belong here because it lacks any consistent, necessary and thus expression-less form. Finally, to take a numerical order as the main principle of vertical composition is entirely inappropriate, for there is a qualitativeaspect here: the modeling of the load-bearing [widerstrebenden] material from bottom to top. With symmetry the parts were qualitatively the same. Here, the lower parts are the heavy and compressed; the upper, the light and more finely fashioned. Numerical ratios, such as the Golden Section (over-valued by Zeising), come in here as somewhat secondary, but above all we demand to see this qualitative progression expressed from bottom to top. The laws of this progression defy mathematical definition. A rusticated ground floor of the same height as the second floor above it with a smoothwall does not function as 1:1, for with dissimilar materials the visual surfaces no longer decide the matter. Here too the principle is borrowed from organic structures. We find this evolution from the raw to the refined most completely in human beings. Wundt (Phys.Psych.II, 186) notes that a repetition of homologous parts takes place, “in the arms and hands the legs and feet are repeated in finer and more complete form. Similarly, the chest repeats the form of the stomach. But where all the other parts are repeated just twice in the vertical structuring of the form, on top of them in the section on the expressive value of proportion. The
question does not belong here because it lacks any consistent, necessary and thus expression-less form.
Finally, to take a numerical order as the main principle of vertical composition is entirely inappropriate, for there is a qualitativeaspect here: the modeling of the load-bearing [widerstrebenden] material from bottom to top. With symmetry the parts were qualitatively the same. Here, the lower parts are the heavy and compressed; the upper, the light and more finely fashioned. Numerical ratios, such as the Golden Section (over-valued by Zeising), come in here as somewhat secondary, but above all we demand to see this qualitative progression expressed from bottom to top.
The laws of this progression defy mathematical definition. A rusticated ground floor of the same height as the second floor above it with a smoothwall does not function as 1:1, for with dissimilar materials the visual surfaces no longer decide the matter. Here too the principle is borrowed from organic structures. We find this evolution from the raw to the refined most completely in human beings. Wundt (Phys.Psych.II, 186) notes that a repetition of homologous parts takes place, “in the arms and hands the legs and feet are repeated in finer and more complete form. Similarly, the chest repeats the form of the stomach. But where all the other parts are repeated just twice in the vertical structuring of the form, on top of the trunk we find the head, so that the whole terminates in the most developed part, and the only one that is not homologous to any other”. In this principle of vertical development, architecture has a rich opportunity to express character, but this does not come from proportion, nor formal quality, but from internal determinants. For that reason more about this not until later.
The final aspect of Form and the one that is the most mysterious is harmony, “the vital dynamic unity of a clearly differentiated multiplicity”. “It arises out of the unity of the inner Life Force. It brings unity to the parts, because it is the parts” (Vischer). Harmony is a concept best defined, in morphology, as an organism. The individual is a unitary collective in which all the parts work together toward the same purpose (unity). This purpose is an inner one (self-determination). And the inner purpose is at the same time
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“Rack your brain,” Nick insisted. “Has Doctor Thorpe been in the habit of calling here in the evening?”
“No, he has not. I don’t remember that he has ever done so before.”
“It is quite significant that he called this evening, then, when Mrs. Clayton was alone here and when even the servants were absent from the house. Don’t you think so?”
“Well, yes,” Garside slowly admitted.
“Rack your brain,” Nick repeated. “Can’t you recall any little circumstances, however trivial, denoting that they were particularly friendly, or even secretly so?”
Garside’s brows knit perceptibly and a subtle gleam appeared in his dark eyes, now fixed with searching scrutiny on the face of the detective.
“Why, since you press me so insistently, Mr. Carter, I confess that I have seen them talking together in the hall at times,” he replied.
“When others were not present?”
“Yes.”
“Anything more?”
“I have noticed covert glances, also significant smiles, but I really attached no importance to them.”
“What do you now think, Mr. Garside, in view of what has occurred?” questioned Nick. “Be perfectly frank with me.”
“Why, I see at what you are driving, of course, and you may be right.”
“It looks very much to me as if something occurred which led this woman to kill the physician,” Nick quietly explained. “I found the telephone stand overturned, as if she had attempted to call for aid. She may have shot the physician when he tried to prevent her from using the instrument. This seems to be confirmed by the position of the body between the table and the telephone stand.”
“I agree with you,” Garside nodded. “It certainly does.”
“Obviously, too, here is the weapon with which the crime was committed,” Nick continued, picking up a revolver from the floor near the telephone stand. “Notice where it is lying, as if she dropped it immediately after the shooting.”
“By Jove, I begin to think you are right,” Garside agreed, with a display of increasing interest. “The revolver would have been found nearer the body,
Mr. Carter, if the physician had it and this were a case of suicide.”
“Exactly,” Nick nodded. “That’s the very point.”
“Besides, a suicide theory seems utterly improbable.”
“So it does.”
“Mrs. Clayton would not have lost her head in that case, nor have touched the body. She would have called for help, and would have stated what had occurred,” Garside forcibly argued.
“Certainly,” Nick coincided. “Any sane woman would have done so.”
“Instead, as her bloodstained hands denote, she felt of the body to learn whether the physician was dead. Upon finding that she had killed him, the shock evidently threw her into her present deranged condition.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Nick. “There is no getting around it. You are stating my own views, Garside, to the letter.”
“There seems to be nothing else to it,” Garside now declared. “Notice, too, Mr. Carter, that the drawer of the library table is partly open. The revolver was taken from the drawer.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Positively. It belongs to Mr. Clayton. I have seen it there many times. You will find its leather case in the drawer, also a box of cartridges. See for yourself.”
Nick hastened to verify these statements. He found the articles mentioned in the back part of the table drawer. They appeared to clinch in his mind the theory already expressed by the private secretary. For Nick turned abruptly to him and said:
“There is, indeed, nothing else to it. Doctor Thorpe and this woman disagreed over something. There may have been an altercation, during which she stealthily took the weapon from the drawer. Obviously, of course, the physician would not have known it was there.”
“Surely not,” Garside declared.
“Mrs. Clayton, then, must have been the one who had the weapon, and it appears evident that she had some serious cause to fear the physician,” Nick forcibly reasoned. “She evidently attempted to use the telephone, moreover, probably intending to call for help, and when Doctor Thorpe tried to prevent her, possibly in a fit of passion, she became so alarmed that she shot and killed him. As you say, Mr. Garside, there seems to be nothing else to it.”
Mr. Rollo Garside smoothed his neatly plastered hair with his palms and looked as if he thoroughly agreed with the famous detective.
“Nevertheless, it seems incredible, Mr. Carter, utterly incredible,” he said tentatively. “What earthly cause can Madame Clayton have had, as she is called, to distinguish her from Mr. Chester Clayton, for standing in fear of Doctor Thorpe, even to the extreme extent of taking his life?”
“That may appear later,” said Nick.
“Possibly.”
“Physicians sometimes discover secrets, you know, from which they try to derive pecuniary advantage. I refer to those unprincipled practitioners who are not above blackmail. Doctor Thorpe may have been one of that class.”
“Possibly,” Garside repeated.
“Be that as it may,” Nick added, “we know the Claytons were not expecting him this evening, or they would have remained at home. If they ——”
He cut short his remark upon hearing the front door hurriedly opened, immediately followed by the familiar voices of Clayton and his wife, addressing Chick Carter in terms of hearty greeting.
Nick quietly closed the library door, then turned quickly to Garside, saying impressively:
“They have returned. Not one word to them, Garside, about our suspicions. Leave me to handle this matter and state what seems proper.”
Garside complied without a moment’s hesitation.
“What you say goes, Mr. Carter,” he replied. “You are better able than I to determine what will be for the best.”
Nick laid his hand on the secretary’s arm.
“Let me explain,” he said, even more earnestly. “I must look deeper into this matter before I can decide what will be for the best. In the meantime, Garside, I am averse to arresting Madame Clayton. If she was justified in killing this man, or was mentally irresponsible, as now appears quite possible, I wish to shield the Claytons from needless publicity. Until I have ferreted out the true facts, therefore, I will not arrest this woman.”
“I am glad to hear you say so,” Garside quickly asserted. “I have admired her, Carter, and feel a very deep sympathy for her. There may be, as you say,
a justification for the crime. It seems both needless and cruel, moreover, to arrest her while in her present condition.”
“It will be necessary, nevertheless, to temporarily hide our true suspicions and attribute this crime to some unknown assassin,” Nick pointed out impressively. “Otherwise, Garside, her arrest would become imperative. I will take all the responsibility for deferring it, pending further investigations, but you must agree to coöperate with me.”
“Coöperate with you?” questioned Garside. “What do you mean? I don’t quite get you.”
“I mean that, having confided in you and informed you of my suspicions, you must agree not to disclose them,” Nick explained. “Otherwise, if I defer doing so, you would put me in wrong.”
“Ah, I see,” Garside exclaimed, eyes lighting. “In other words, Carter, you want me to keep my trap closed, or else agree with whatever views you see fit to explain.”
“Exactly,” Nick nodded.
“Enough said. You may depend on my doing so,” Garside hastened to assure him.
“Very good. Leave me to hand out statements consistent with the superficial circumstances, then, and to dig out the true facts from under the surface. That may take time, several days, possibly several weeks. In the meantime——”
“Mum’s the word, Carter, in so far as I am concerned,” Garside earnestly interrupted. “I understand you perfectly. I will be as dumb as an oyster. Take it from me, Carter, you can rely upon my secrecy and discretion.”
“Good enough,” Nick declared, extending his hand. “Shake. Sooner or later, Garside, I will repay you in some way for all this.”
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW BUTLER.
Nick Carter did not often confide in a stranger to the extent that he had confided in Mr. Chester Clayton’s private secretary.
One familiar with the habits and methods of the famous detective might reasonably infer that he had some covert motive in doing so, some ulterior object to be attained by secrecy and coöperation with Mr. Rollo Garside, though what it was would by no means appear obvious. Nor, if such was the case, did it immediately appear on the surface.
For, after three days, the mystery involving the killing of Doctor Joseph Thorpe seemed to be deeper and darker than ever, with the utmost efforts of the detectives failing to shed a ray of light on the case.
Nick Carter had, in fact, found no additional evidence beyond that discovered within an hour after the crime. A careful search later that evening and early the following morning proved utterly futile. None of the windows or doors appeared to have been tampered with, nor was there any evidence that the house had been stealthily entered.
Acting upon Nick’s advice, nevertheless, pending further investigations, the coroner found that Doctor Thorpe had been killed by an unknown assailant, under circumstances of which only Mrs. Julia Clayton was informed, and which she then was mentally unable to disclose.
Nick thus set the legal machine in operation, and the fact that he was at work on the case satisfied the authorities, the police, and the public that no stone would be left unturned to solve the mystery.
Three days, however, brought no observable results.
Madame Clayton remained in much the same condition as when the detectives had found her. Memory appeared to have deserted her. Her mind seemed to be a blank, and she was bereft of speech, not once having spoken since Nick first questioned her, despite the persuasive endeavors of her griefstricken family and professional efforts of the physicians who had been summoned.
In the care of a trained nurse, one Martha Dryden, who had had charge of the Clayton infant since its birth, she remained day after day in the same
strange condition.
Doctor Thorpe was buried on the third day following the murder, the true motive for which none could conjecture, not even Nick Carter himself.
On the previous day a new butler, one John Peterson, was employed in the Clayton residence to fill the position of the one who had been married. It was this new butler who answered the bell and admitted Nick Carter about seven o’clock in the evening of the third day after the crime. It was not the first time that he had seen and admitted the detective in charge of the case.
“Good evening, Peterson,” said Nick, pausing in the hall to remove his gloves and overcoat. “Mr. Clayton is at home, I infer.”
“Yes, sir; he is, sir,” bowed Peterson. “He is alone in the library, sir.”
“I would prefer to see him alone, Peterson,” said Nick, a bit dryly.
“Very well, sir.”
“Is there any change in Madame Clayton’s condition?”
“I think not, sir. She is just the same, sir. This way, sir.”
He was a sedate, punctilious fellow, this Peterson, with a very florid face and mutton-chop whiskers, a man apparently of middle age and with an exalted appreciation of the functions of his position. One would have said with a glance, in fact, that Peterson had spent the best years of his life in the service of people of quality.
Nick followed him to the library, where Mr. Chester Clayton was awaiting him.
“Mr. Carter, sir,” said Peterson, on the threshold.
“You may close the door, Peterson,” said Clayton, waving the detective to a chair.
Peterson withdrew and the door closed upon his red face and rigid figure.
“Don’t rise, Clayton,” said Nick, while he shook hands with him. “You look pale this evening, more pale than when I saw you on the night of the crime. I venture to say you have lost thirty pounds since I lunched with you something like four months ago.”
“All of that, Nick,” said Clayton, smiling a bit wearily. “I have lost all I took on during the six months following my marriage. I seem to be slipping downhill on greased rollers. What more have you learned about this terrible business?”
“Nothing worthy of mention,” Nick replied. “I still am much in the dark. Peterson tells me there is no improvement in your mother’s condition.”
“No, none whatever,” Clayton said sadly. “She lies hour after hour like a woman in a trance. We have tried in vain to arouse her, or to evoke some sign of recognition. She——”
“We will talk of her a little later,” Nick interposed. “Tell me, instead, Clayton, how long you have been on the down grade. When did you first detect this change in your health?”
“About three months ago, Nick, as near as I can tell.”
“Did you consult a physician at that time?”
“Yes. I have tried several since then, moreover, but without deriving any benefit. I have been running down and losing flesh in spite of all they can do.”
“Mr. Garside, your private secretary, tells me that you have not been going to your office for some little time.”
“Only occasionally. I have not felt able to do so. That is why I made Mr. Garside one of my household, or, rather, his predecessor, who resigned his position several weeks ago. I found it necessary to transact much of my business at home, and the aid of a private secretary was imperative.”
“I see,” Nick nodded. “Who, by the way, was Mr. Garside’s predecessor?”
“His name is John Dunbar. He was formerly a clerk in our office.”
“Previous to becoming your private secretary?”
“Yes.”
“Has he resumed his former position?”
“No. I don’t know what has become of him.”
“Why did he resign from your employ?”
“He said he intended to go West,” Clayton explained. “I think he may have done so, having seen him only once since he ended our relations.”
“When was that?”
“A day or two later. He called here to introduce Mr. Garside, whom he recommended very highly, and whom I had consented to employ on trial.”
“Just so,” Nick remarked. “I infer that Mr. Garside has proved satisfactory.”
“Yes. His position is not a difficult one, as far as that goes, and he has filled it capably. I rather like him, moreover, for he appears to be very much of a gentleman.”
“Did he have other recommendations except that of Dunbar, your former secretary?”
“No, he did not, nor did I require any.”
“As a matter of fact, then, all that you really know about Garside is what Dunbar told you,” Nick observed.
Clayton eyed him more sharply. Not only the remark, but also the detective’s voice, were tinged with a subtle, sinister significance that could not be overlooked.
“What do you mean, Nick?” he demanded. “What do you imply by that?”
“Oh, nothing of consequence, perhaps,” Nick now said carelessly.
“But you must have some reason for making that remark.”
“It merely occurred to me, Clayton, that you first noticed symptoms of illness about the time that Dunbar left and Garside came here to live,” Nick explained. “That may, of course, have been only a coincidence.”
“What else could it be?” Clayton quickly questioned. “Surely, Nick, you don’t suspect Mr. Garside of anything wrong?”
“No, no; certainly not,” Nick assured him. “He appears to be, as you say, very much of a gentleman.”
“He has my confidence, at least.”
“Of which he no doubt is entirely worthy,” Nick allowed. “Now, Clayton, a few words concerning your mother and her abnormal condition. It has, I think, completely mystified the physicians who have been attending her.”
“Both mystified and baffled them,” bowed Clayton. “They seem to be all at sea.”
“No wonder. For, ordinarily, such a shock as Madame Clayton evidently suffered, while it might deprive one of speech and memory at the outset, soon seeks directly opposite avenues of relief. Memory returns full force, and speech really becomes the safety valve for the overwrought and disordered mind. There must, in my opinion, be some unsuspected cause for Madame Clayton’s remaining in this apathetic condition.”
“But what cause?” Clayton doubtfully questioned. “Surely, if you are right, the physicians ought to discover it.”
“Those who have been attending her may not have diagnosed her case from the standpoint I have in mind,” Nick replied, quite enigmatically. “I know of one thing, at least, that might have such an effect upon Madame Clayton.”
“You mean?”
“Scopolamine.”
“Scopolamine?”
“Yes.”
“I never heard of it. What is it?”
“A drug.”
“A drug?” Clayton echoed again, brows knitting. “But that’s out of the question, Nick? My mother never was addicted to the use of drugs of any kind.”
“Add something to that,” Nick suggested.
“Add something to it? What do you mean?”
“So far as you know,” said Nick, with a more curious expression on his strong, clean-cut face.
Clayton stared at him perplexedly for a moment.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “I cannot agree with you. I know positively, Carter, that my mother never used drugs of any kind.”
“Don’t be too positive,” Nick replied. “The drug may have been administered without her knowledge.”
“By whom?”
“That’s the question. Possibly by Doctor Thorpe himself. Possibly by some one else, whose identity is not even suspected. There may be in connection with this affair, Clayton, various circumstances that we have not even dreamed of.”
“That is possible, of course,” Clayton nervously admitted. “But I cannot imagine any circumstances consistent with such a theory.”
“Don’t try to do so,” Nick replied. “Before undertaking to unearth the circumstances, Clayton, it will be better to find out positively whether I am right.”
“Can that be done?”
“I think so.”
“How? By what means?”
“Let me inform you,” Nick said, more gravely. “Scopolamine is a drug with which the majority of physicians are not very familiar. That may be why those attending her have not suspected that it figures in this case. It first came into modern scientific use within the present generation.”
“How did you learn about it?” questioned Clayton.
“That is not material,” smiled Nick. “I make it a point to learn all about everything that can be applied to criminal uses. That’s part of my business.”
“I suppose so, after all.”
“It is not necessary for me to enlarge upon the qualities of scopolamine, however, and its peculiar effects upon human organisms, particularly when used in combination with morphium,” Nick continued. “It is known to produce, when persisted in, a very complete state of amnesia, frequently causing absolute loss of memory during the period it is administered, together with other effects such as are observable in Madame Clayton’s condition. All this leads me to suspect the use of scopolamine in her case, possibly in combination with other ingredients, the subtle qualities of which are not generally known.”
“How administered?” inquired Clayton.
“By hypodermic injection.”
“But who on earth, Carter, could have drugged my mother in that way? Surely no inmate of this house is guilty of such infernal deviltry.”
“That’s an open question,” said Nick. “We will not undertake to answer it, Clayton until I am convinced that I am right. In the meantime, however, you must conduct yourself precisely as if no such suspicion existed. You must not betray it by word, look, or sign. You must not confide in your wife, even, until after I have taken the steps I have in view. In other words, Clayton, absolute secrecy is imperative.”
“I see that point, of course, and will govern myself accordingly.”
“Very good.”
“But what are your plans? What steps have you in view?”
“I have been talking by telephone to-day with a Philadelphia physician and chemist, an intimate personal friend, whom I know to be an expert in the use of all kinds of drugs, and thoroughly informed as to the peculiar qualities and effects of scopolamine. If there is any man who can determine positively
whether it figures in this case, that man is Doctor Grost. I have described Madame Clayton’s condition to him and he is inclined to my opinion. He has consented to come to New York and see her, and he will be here to-morrow morning. I will call here with him, Clayton, at precisely ten o’clock.”
“By Jove, I am glad to know this,” Clayton earnestly declared. “It gives me a ray of hope, at least.”
“You must be careful not to betray it, nevertheless,” Nick again cautioned him. “Conduct yourself precisely as if we had not discussed this matter, and as if my visit with Doctor Grost was not anticipated.”
“I will do so, Carter, take my word for it,” Clayton again assured him. “I will be constantly on my guard.”
“Very good,” Nick replied, rising to go. “That is all I can say to you this evening. Expect me at ten o’clock to-morrow morning in company with the Philadelphia physician. We can bank positively on one fact, Clayton, that he will speedily determine whether or not I am right.”
Clayton arose, looking vastly relieved, and accompanied the detective to the door.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RESULT OF A RUSE.
It was eight o’clock when Nick Carter left the Clayton residence. He departed without so much as a backward glance, as if he had no further interest in the house and its surroundings. He walked briskly out to his touring car, in which Danny Maloney had been waiting, and was driven rapidly away.
One would have supposed that his visit was all aboveboard, that he was actuated with no covert designs, that he entertained no secret suspicions, aside from those he had expressed during his interview with Mr. Chester Clayton.
Earlier that evening, nevertheless, while discussing the case with his junior partner, Patsy Garvan, it was very obvious that Nick Carter had from the first been working under the surface. Their interview occurred immediately after dinner, while Nick was making ready for his call upon Clayton.
“Nothing is more effective, Patsy, than a shot from behind a masked battery,” he remarked, while knotting his cravat. “When fired at a concealed adversary, even, whose position and designs are only suspected, it is almost sure to drive him from cover.”
“There is something in that, chief, for fair,” Patsy agreed. “But why do you feel so sure you are right in suspecting Clayton’s private secretary?”
“For several reasons,” said Nick. “First, Patsy, because we can find no one else to distrust. I have spent three days in a vain search for another suspect and a reasonable motive for this murder.”
“That’s true, chief. It sure has been a vain hunt.”
“Doctor Thorpe, I have learned, was a man of strong and sterling character. Suicide is out of the question. He is absolutely above suspicion, moreover, in so far as having given Madame Clayton any cause for shooting him. The evidence, also, shows that that theory is utterly improbable, in spite of the fact that I told Garside I suspected it, and then took the precaution to bind him to secrecy.”
“But why did you suspect him so quickly, chief?”
“Because he entered so quickly after Chick and I arrived there,” Nick explained. “Scarce three minutes had passed. If not a coincidence, which I could not easily swallow, it must have been premeditated. That smacked of something wrong, of a knowledge of what had occurred, if not having had a hand in it, even.”
“I see the point,” said Patsy.
“I at once suspected, therefore, that Garside had been watching outside, that he had seen us entering the house, and that he followed us as quickly as he dared, bent upon learning how we regarded the crime, and also lest Madame Clayton might say something of definite significance, in spite of her mental derangement.”
“You decided, then, that he was responsible for that, also.”
“Certainly. That was a perfectly natural deduction, Patsy, if I was justified in suspecting him at all.”
“Sure thing, chief; so it was.”
“I immediately shaped a course, therefore, which I thought would enable me to confirm my suspicions.”
“I see.”
“I soon succeeded in doing so,” Nick continued. “I sent Chick from the room and pretended to make Garside my confidant. I soon found that he was very willing to fix the crime upon Madame Clayton. For he not only agreed with all I said to that effect, but he no sooner found that I was forming that opinion, or supposed that I was, than he began to point out evidence and circumstances in support of it. All this, mind you, regardless of the woman’s lofty character and exemplary past.”
“I get you, chief,” nodded Patsy. “He evidently was afraid you might overlook something.”
“He appeared to be, certainly,” Nick replied. “He then informed me that the revolver found there belonged to Clayton, also that it had been taken from the table drawer. He did so before having examined it, Patsy, when he could not possibly have been positive of the fact.”
“He overleaped his mount, eh?”
“That is precisely what he did,” said Nick. “I then felt reasonably sure that I was justified in suspecting him.”
“He left himself open, all right.”
“I saw plainly, however, that he was a rat of more than ordinary craft and cunning. Otherwise he could not have committed the crime and planted the evidence we found there, and then got out of the house and returned in so confident and self-assured a way, all within the half hour since I had heard Madame Clayton’s voice by telephone.”
“It sure was quick work, chief,” declared Patsy.
“I at once decided, therefore, to meet the scamp with his own weapons,” Nick added. “I felt sure I could fool him and finally clinch my suspicions, providing I could throw him off his guard for a time. I have given him three days’ grace, so to speak, in which to get rid of any misgivings he may have felt. He ought to be well rid of them by this time. Now, by Jove, I propose to get after him and drive him from cover.”
“That’s the stuff, chief.”
“We must discover his game, how and why he committed the crime, and whether he had confederates,” Nick said, more forcibly. “We must make dead sure, in fact, that I am justified in suspecting him.”
“That is why you have established a new butler in the Clayton house,” observed Patsy, with an expressive grin.
“Exactly.”
“Does Clayton suspect his identity?”
“Not yet. I told him merely that I knew a man admirably qualified for the position. I had no difficulty in persuading Clayton to employ him on trial.”
“On trial, eh?” laughed Patsy. “Gee whiz! he’ll make good, chief, all right. My money goes on that.”
“If he fails, Patsy, it will be the first time,” Nick replied, smiling. “Slip into a disguise, now, and get ready to go with me. I shall leave in about five minutes.”
“I’ll be ready, chief, all right. Danny has just arrived with the touring car.”
“We will drop you about a block from the Clayton place,” Nick added. “You already know why I am going there and what I require of you. If you get a line on this suspect—well, that should open the way. You must be governed by circumstances.”
“You leave him to me, chief,” said Patsy confidently, as he hastened from the chamber in which Nick had been dressing. “I’ll get all that’s coming to
me. Trust me for that.”
In the foregoing may be found not only the occasion for Nick Carter’s call upon Clayton, with a hint at the subterfuge involved, but also why he departed without a backward glance, or the slightest sign of interest in the surrounding grounds.
For Patsy Garvan had arrived there immediately after Nick entered the house, and upon him devolved the most important part of the work laid out for that evening by the detective.
It was a fit night, moreover, for the task engaging Patsy. The sky was clouded, with not a solitary star relieving the inky gloom of the heavens. A gray fog hung like a thin veil near the earth, sufficiently dense to lend a sallow glow to the arc lights, and add to the obscurity in localities beyond the reach of their searching rays.
A gusty wind was blowing, driving the gray mist in confusing swirls over the Hudson, and sighing dismally through the dripping foliage of the trees adorning the grounds of the crime-cursed home of the Claytons.
Patsy did not approach the house from in front. Stealing into the grounds from the side street, he crept around the garage, then picked his way over the damp lawn, taking advantage of the deeper gloom under the trees, until he found shelter under a huge clump of rhododendrons a few feet from the driveway, and within easy view of the side veranda and the French window of the brightly lighted library.
Patsy arrived there just in time to see Peterson usher Nick into the room. Both were dimly discernible through the lace draperies and under the partly drawn shades.
“Gee whiz! there’s the new butler,” chuckled Patsy, when he caught sight of him. “I hardly expected to get my lamps on him. Stiff as a ramrod, eh? But he’ll limber up, all right, if there should be anything doing.”
Peterson, having withdrawn from the library, encountered Mr. Garside just at that moment descending the front stairs. He paused and bowed respectfully when the private secretary spoke to him.
“Mr. Clayton is engaged, Peterson?” he said inquiringly.
“Yes, Mr. Garside, sir.”
“With whom, Peterson?”
“With Mr. Carter, sir, the detective,” said Peterson, with becoming humility.
Garside eyed him more sharply.
The florid face of the butler was as inscrutable as that of the sphinx.
“I want Mr. Clayton’s signature to these letters,” Garside remarked, displaying two typewritten sheets. “It will do in the morning. Would you mind taking them up to my room, Peterson, and leaving them on my desk?”
“No, sir. Very willing, sir,” said Peterson obsequiously.
He received them with a bow and went upstairs.
Garside sauntered toward the side hall, into which he vanished, only to peer out cautiously and watch the butler until he disappeared. Then he seized a woolen cap from a rack on the wall and stole quickly toward the rear door of the house.
Patsy Garvan caught sight of him a moment later, a stealthy figure noiselessly picking his way around a corner of the house, against the lighter background of which his dark outlines were dimly discernible.
“Gee whiz! the chief sure has called the turn,” thought Patsy, instantly alert. “The rat is coming from his hole. It’s that private secretary, all right, or my lamps have gone mighty misty. Yes, by Jove, I’m right. Let the chief alone to drive him from cover.”
Garside was passing one of the lighted windows, when, for a moment, he could be seen more distinctly and his identity positively determined.
He paused briefly, then moved on like an evil shadow, darker than the surrounding darkness, until he came to the veranda steps. Up these he crept, crouching on his hands and knees, until he was within a yard of the broad French window, through which he cautiously peered, lingering and listening.
“Driven from cover is right,” thought Patsy, intently watching him. “He’s out to play the eavesdropper, just as the chief suspected. What will he do next, after Nick has filled his ears with that fake story about a Philadelphia physician? It’s dollars to fried rings, now, that it will drive him to a move of some kind. It will be a chilly day, by gracious, if I fail to get next.”
Nearly half an hour passed.
Garside remained crouching on the veranda.
Patsy continued to watch him from under the rhododendrons.
The interview in the library came to an end. The crouching man crept quietly from the veranda, then stole hurriedly to a front corner of the house. He saw Nick emerge, watched him stride quickly down the driveway, and enter the touring car, departing without a backward glance; and then he straightened up, lingering for a moment, and fiercely shook his fist after the receding car.
“Good enough! That shows your true colors, all right,” muttered Patsy, still watching him. “Now, you rascal, go ahead and cut loose. I’m right here to note your next move.”
Patsy had not long to wait.
Garside lingered only until the rear red light of the touring car had disappeared in the misty distance. He did not return to the house. Instead, now moving less cautiously, he hastened toward the rear grounds, passing the garage and seeking the narrow back street adjoining the Clayton residence.
Patsy stealthily followed him.
The back street was deserted. The scattered dwellings were in darkness. An incandescent lamp here and there, looking sallow and sickly in the gray fog was all that relieved the misty gloom.
Garside soon brought up at a narrow wooden door in a high brick wall flanking one side of an old estate. He opened the door with a key and disappeared into the inclosed grounds.
Patsy paused and briefly sized up the place. He could see beyond the wall the upper part of an old stone house, shrouded in darkness. An iron grille gate in front was all that broke the stretch of the grim brick wall, which was about seven feet high, and the cement capstone of which was surmounted with a threatening array of broken bottles and jagged pieces of glass, a vicious safeguard against unwelcome intruders.
“Gee whiz! that says keep out, all right,” thought Patsy, while he made a closer inspection of the side wall. “It’s up to me to get in there, all the same. This may be where the party lives whom Garside said he was visiting on the night of the murder. Professor Abner Busby was the name he gave Nick, but it don’t appear in the city directory. I’ll have a look at the back wall.”
Patsy already had tried the wooden door and found that Garside had locked it after entering. Near the rear corner of the wall, however, he found
that the branches of the tree overhung the jagged capstone, and he promptly decided that that would serve his purpose.
Quickly climbing to one of the lowest branches, Patsy worked himself out on it hand over hand, until he reached a point beyond the wall, when he dropped noiselessly upon the greensward within the inclosed grounds.
Crouching in the darkness near the wall, he then had another view of the house, this time from the rear. It looked as grim and gloomy as a country jail, or the habitation of a recluse bent upon dwelling in absolute seclusion.
Only one curtained window was lighted, that of a room on the ground floor, a window in the rear wall. The rest of the house was shrouded in darkness while most of the surrounding grounds, running to rank grass and high weeds, appeared to be deserted.
CHAPTER V.
PATSY SEES A GHOST.
Patsy Garvan had moved nearly as quickly as his quarry. It had taken him only a few moments to scale the high brick wall and assure himself that the inclosed grounds were deserted, it then being evident that Garside had entered the grim old house.
Still proceeding cautiously, nevertheless, Patsy crept from under the wall and approached the lighted window. He then saw that it was protected with vertical iron bars, like that of a jail, as were the other windows on the ground floor.
The spring roller of the curtain was set at the bottom of the window, moreover, the shade drawing upward by means of a cord running through a pulley in the top of the casing. It was drawn up to about two inches from the top, and the upper section of the window was open about the same distance, obviously for ventilation.
Patsy tried vainly to peer between the curtain and the casing. The iron bars precluded his getting his head near enough to the sashes to obtain any view of the interior of the room. Indistinctly, however, he could hear the sound of voices from within, but could not distinguish what was said.
“Gee, there’s nothing to it!” he murmured, drawing back and gazing up at the narrow opening through which the faint sounds evidently came. “I must get up there and have one look, at least. I then could hear, too, all that may be said. I’ll take a chance with these bars, by thunder, let come what may.”
Grasping two of them, Patsy found that they were firmly fixed in the stonework. Drawing himself up until he could place his feet on the stone sill, which was about four feet from the ground, he then stood erect and found that his eyes came directly opposite the opening at the top of the window.
Pressing nearer, still clutching the bars in order to maintain his position, with his sturdy figure outlined like a black silhouette against the lighted curtain, Patsy gazed cautiously into the room, with ears alert to catch every word that was uttered.
The room, like the exterior of the house, presented an appearance of remarkable solidarity. Huge timbers supported the dark oak ceiling, smoke-
begrimed and defaced with age.
Two of the wainscoted walls were flanked with deep shelves, filled with bottles, vials, jugs, carboys, and no end of paraphernalia required in a chemist’s laboratory.
A zinc-covered table occupied one side of the room. It was littered with like articles. A Bunsen burner was in operation under a retort held in a tripod, and in which a dark fluid was bubbling furiously, while drops of distillation fell slowly from the end of a metal coil into a vial placed to receive them.
All this was visible in the white light from several electric lamps, as were the faces and figures of the three occupants of the spacious room, which obviously was a chemist’s laboratory.
One was a gaunt, angular man of nearly sixty, with a wrinkled, hardfeatured face, thin lips, and a square jaw, a hooked nose and sunken eyes, that gleamed and glittered venomously in their cavernous sockets.
It was, plainly enough, the face of a man whose life had been a continuous round, not of enjoyments, but of disappointments, until his nature had soured and his soul rebelled, and early ambition died from his calloused heart.
Another was a woman of about the same age and of much the same aspect, as if she had been the partner of his vain hopes and consequent woes, as indeed she had. Both were cheaply and carelessly clad, bordering close upon slovenly. They were seated on common wooden chairs near the zinccovered table.
All this paled to utter insignificance, however, in view of Patsy Garvan’s overwhelming amazement when his gaze fell upon the third person in the room. He was utterly nonplused. He could, as he afterward said, have been knocked toes up with a feather.
There was no mistaking the man, no possibility of error. The error had been made more than twelve months before.
The man was Garside—and not Garside.
His neatly plastered hair was lying on the table, also his flowing mustache and carefully trimmed beard—as artistic and effective a disguise as ever adorned the face of a stage star, or blinded the searching scrutiny of a detective to the sinister features of a crook.
