We were next ushered into a little room on the same floor, at the door of which was posted an official from the coroner.
“First of all,” remarked Craig, as he drew back the sheet and began, a minute examination of the earthly remains of the great lawyer, “there are to be considered the safeguards of the human body against the passage through it of a fatal electric current—the high electric resistance of the body itself. It is particularly high when the current must pass through joints such as wrists, knees, elbows, and quite high when the bones of the head are concerned. Still, there might have been an incautious application of the current to the head, especially when the subject is a person of advanced age or latent cerebral disease, though I don’t know that that fits Mr. Minturn. That’s strange,” he muttered, looking up, puzzled. “I can find no mark of a burn on the body—absolutely no mark of anything.”
“That’s what I say,” put in Josephson, much pleased by what Kennedy said, for he had been waiting anxiously to see what Craig discovered on his own examination. “It’s impossible.”
“It’s all the more remarkable,” went on Craig, half to himself and ignoring Josephson, “because burns due to electric currents are totally unlike those produced in other ways. They occur at the point of contact, usually about the arms and hands, or the head. Electricity is much to be feared when it involves the cranial cavity.” He completed his examination of the head which once had carried secrets which themselves must have been incandescent.
“Then, too, such burns are most often something more than superficial, for considerable heat is developed which leads to massive destruction and carbonization of the tissues to a considerable depth. I have seen actual losses of substance—a lump of killed flesh surrounded by healthy tissues. Besides, such burns show an unexpected indolence when compared to the violent pains of ordinary burns. Perhaps that is due to the destruction of the nerve endings. How did Minturn die? Was he alone? Was he dead when he was discovered?”
“He was alone,” replied Josephson, slowly endeavoring to tell it exactly as he had seen it, “but that’s the strange part of it. He seemed to be suffering from a convulsion. I think he complained at first of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a twitching of the muscles of his hands and feet. Anyhow, he called for help. I was up here and we rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and then had gone away, after introducing him, and showing him the bath.”
Josephson proceeded slowly, evidently having been warned that anything he said might be used against him. “We carried him, when he was this way, into this very room. But it was only for a short time. Then came a violent convulsion. It seemed to extend rapidly all over his body. His legs were rigid, his feet bent, his head back. Why, he was resting only on his heels and the back of his head. You see, Mr. Kennedy, that simply could not be the electric shock.”
“Hardly,” commented Kennedy, looking again at the body. “It looks more like a tetanus convulsion. Yet there does not seem to be any trace of a recent wound that might have caused lockjaw. How did he look?”
“Oh, his face finally became livid,” replied Josephson. “He had a ghastly, grinning expression, his eyes were wide, there was foam on his mouth, and his breathing was difficult.”
“Not like tetanus, either,” revised Craig. “There the convulsion usually begins with the face and progresses to the other muscles. Here it seems to have gone the other way.”