done. You can call this murder if you like, but I can not feel that it is."
"Your explanation is very clear," Bryan replied. "There is just one thing I cannot understand. How could you, who are not at all muscular or strong, do as you have said?"
Explanation from Dr. Carter—Why He Wore the Head-Light
"That requires an explanation," said Carter, "that will be rather hard to believe. In fact, if it weren't for that episode at the hospital, I think you would put me down for the most monumental liar living. I don't think anyone could blame you either. I must go back to my earlier student days to give you a fair idea.
"I was not always a student of medicine. In fact I started out to be an electrical engineer, but changed to medicine at the request of my father. Electricity has always been a fascinating study to me. It has so many and varied manifestations. In the ultimate I feel that we are going to find that the controlling principle of the universe is some form of electrical manifestation. Your great surgeon, Crile, has practically demonstrated that the body cell is in the final analysis, an electrical element.
"I have been especially interested in high frequency currents, their effects are so totally unlike the currents of lower voltage and lesser frequency. You know how we make use of them in electrical treatments. Well, I experimented along this line, and finally I was able to produce a current with a frequency rate far beyond any known. Also its effects were totally unlike any therapeutic current that is used. I found that I was able to focus the effect of this current on a definite area in the tissues. The apparatus was small and noiseless, and could easily be carried in one's pocket. It was only by chance that I discovered some of its properties. During the war I was injured in the back of the head by a shell fragment. The surgeon removed part of the fractured bone and left a small area of bony defect which did not heal over. This scar at times caused me pain, and it was in trying to relieve this pain that I made a startling discovery. You know, Doctor, that the human brain and body have capacities far in excess of what we daily use. Physiologists have determined that muscle tissue has capacities enormously in excess of what a man’s nerve force is able to utilize. For instance, why is it that a baboon who weighs less than a man has over eight times the strength of a strong man? His muscles are of no better substance than the man's. The baboon is able to make them work to better advantage, that is all.
"Well, I found that when this high frequency current of mine was concentrated on a certain area of my brain, I not only had a greatly increased mental capacity, but I could also make use of the inherent power in my muscles. There were drawbacks, however, that I was unable to overcome. I found that the heating effect which raised my body-temperature to around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, also caused a mental irritation, which you have noticed, and which has made me heartily disliked by all who came in contact with me. I couldn’t help it. It was impossible not to be impatient at the apparent slowness of their mentalities.
"Again, it was a serious problem to get sufficient nutrition into my body to make up for the tremendous tissue waste that ensued from driving the engine at excessive speed. I could never eat enough, nor could my digestive organs handle what I did eat. It was only by injecting nutriment solutions intravenously that I was able to hold even. At that I have come to the end. The human body seems made to undergo a slow evolution, and I have stepped centuries ahead of my time. I am going away to try to rebuild my shattered health. Needless to say, my invention goes with me.
"I climbed the side of that building as easily as a baboon could because I was stronger than any baboon. Shall I give you a final demonstration?"
The End of Dr. Carter
Too dazed to reply Bryan only stared at Carter while he produced from a drawer the head lamp that he was in the habit of wearing. He opened the small case which he carried in his pocket and showed a peculiar coil made of wire of hair-like fineness. Attached to this was apparently a minute condenser of innumerable plates.
"I can't go into a technical explanation," he said, as he adjusted the lamp to his head. "The light is merely a blind, and derives its current from a small battery of the usual flashlight type. Now," he said, as he adjusted the lamp. "Do you want a demonstration? Ask me to give you the cube root of some number of six figures. Or read me a page from that book. I will repeat it word for word. Or would a feat of strength be better?" He reached into his pocket, drew out a silver dollar, and with a twist of his fingers, bent it double.
As Carter straightened to his feet and tossed the crumpled dollar upon the table, his arm struck the reading-lamp and knocked it over. The globe caught in the trailing wire of his apparatus and burst. There was a flash of bluish flame, and Carter sank limply to the floor. Springing to his feet, Bryan rushed to his side; but the deadly current had done its work. In some unexplainable way it was carried deep into the brain, and death was instantaneous.
When Bryan later examined the coil and condenser, he found them burned beyond any hope of discovering their construction.
The coroner's verdict was "death from accidental electrocution." Bryan still keeps the mutilated dollar and occasionally looks at it to assure himself that he is still sane.
And the chief of detectives is still looking for the murderer.
The End
