The Psychological Solution Read Online Free PDF Page A

reddish-fawn, and that stains upon them, having been miscroscopically examined, prove to be dried human blood, perhaps from the abrasions upon the human hand from which, the note appended to the specimen states, the hairs were obtained."
    Dr. Thane looked as if he was about to explode.
    The other grinned. "Possibly, as a theory," he continued, "I might suggest that the deceased came to a violent end in a fight over the possession of a dog. Or again," he went on, not in the least perturbed by the other's contemptuous glare, "the deceased may have been a kindly disposed person who, in trying to protect a dumb animal from a brutal master, was struck down by the owner of the beast. That, Doctor, would account for the dead man bending or stooping forward. Why!" he cried, as though carried away with his idea, "perhaps the other fellow held some object—a stick, iron rod or something, in his hand. Perhaps he had been beating the pup with it, and your dead man, in his impetuosity, ran against it and punctured himself."
    "Humph!" blurted Dr. Thane, thoroughly out of patience. "I suppose your rattle-brains will next suggest that the dog carried the body to Eighty-fifth. Street and dumped it into a rubbish can."
    "One's as likely as the other," chortled the younger man, as Dr. Thane strode from the room.
    But despite the scientist's chagrin, and the fact that he found his carefully worked-out theories tumbling about his ears, he was not one to abandon an idea or an effort easily. He still felt convinced that he was right, that even if the actualities did not dovetail with his theories in details, still he would triumph eventually. His next step, therefore, or I might better say, his procedure coincident with the other expert examinations, was to secure specimens of blood, hair and skin from the dead man.
    In these, he felt, lay indisputable proofs of the murdered man's race. A very small proportion of African blood would, he knew, lend a peculiar form to the hair sections, this being brought about by the oval-shaped negro wool. Also, Dr. Anderson had recently startled the medical and scientific worlds by claiming that, by means of a newly discovered method, he could determine the race, the approximate age, the sex, and even the maladies of a subject from a specimen of blood. Even if these tests failed, or gave negative or contradictory results, the pigmentation of the skin should, Dr. Thane felt sure, determine whether the deceased were of white, negro and white, Indian and white, or any other distinctive racial blood.
    So, having duly sent the specimens to the greatest authorities and experts in their respective lines, Dr. Thane impatiently awaited the reports.
    The first to reach him was from the expert who had conducted the examination of the dead man's hair. As Dr. Thane perused the rather lengthy report, he became more and more puzzled and more and more incredulous. The hair, so the expert declared, showed a section distinctly unique. In fact, it was unlike anything described or figured in any work on the subject. The sections showed an irregular, somewhat pentagonal form, and to prove that he had made no mistake, he had forwarded a microscopic slide of the mounted specimens. Hence, he concluded, he was utterly unable to place the subject's race.
    Following close on this, came the report from the great man who had devoted much of his valuable time to a most searching examination of blood specimens. But the report on these was just as negative as that of the hair specialist. The blood, he stated, showed that the subject was a male, between thirty and forty-five years of age, a strong man physically, in perfect health at the time of his death, although he had suffered from pernicious malaria in the past. There were, he continued, certain features of the specimens which he should say indicated a strain of Indian, and there were somewhat doubtful signs of both negro and Mongolian blood; but the most prominent characteristics were