The commissioner paused, then went on, quickly, “It looks as if it were nothing less than an epidemic of beriberi—­not on a ship coming into port as so often happens, but actually in the heart of the city.”

“Beriberi—­in New York?” queried Craig, incredulously.

“It looks like it,” reiterated Leslie, “in the family of a Doctor Wardlaw, up-town here, in the Forum—­”

Kennedy had already shoved over the letter he had just received.  Leslie did not finish the sentence, but read the note in amazement.

“What are the symptoms?” inquired Craig.

“What makes you think it is beriberi, of all things?”

“Because they show the symptoms of beriberi,” persisted Leslie, doggedly.  “You know what they are like.  If you care to go into the matter I think I can convince you.”

The commissioner was still holding the letter and gazing, puzzled, from it to us.  It seemed as if he regarded it merely as confirming his own suspicions that something was wrong, even though it shed no real light on the matter.

“How did you first hear of it?” prompted Kennedy.

Leslie answered frankly.  “It came to the attention of the department as the result of a reform I have inaugurated.  When I went in office I found that many of the death certificates were faulty, and in the course of our investigations we ran across one that seemed to be most vaguely worded.  I don’t know yet whether it was ignorance—­or something worse.  But it started an inquiry.  I can’t say that I’m thoroughly satisfied with the amended certificate of the physician who attended Mrs. Marbury, the mother of Doctor Wardlaw’s wife, who died about a week ago—­Doctor Aitken.”

“Then Wardlaw didn’t attend her himself?” asked Kennedy.

“Oh no.  He couldn’t, under the circumstances, as I’ll show you presently, aside from the medical ethics of the case.  Aitken was the family physician of the Marburys.”

Kennedy glanced at the note.  “One is dead.  Others are dying,” he read.  “Who are the others?  Who else is stricken?”

“Why,” continued Leslie, eager to unburden his story, “Wardlaw himself has the marks of a nervous affection as plainly as the eye can see it.  You know what it is in this disease, as though the nerves were wasting away.  But he doesn’t seem half as badly affected as his wife.  They tell me Maude Marbury was quite a beauty once, and photographs I have seen prove it.  She’s a wreck now.  And, of course, the old lady must have been the most seriously affected of them all.”

“Who else is there in the household?” inquired Kennedy, growing more and more interested.

“Well,” answered Leslie, slowly, “they’ve had a nurse for some time, Natalie Langdale.  Apparently she has escaped.”

“Any servants?”

“Some by the day; only one regularly—­a Japanese, Kato.  He goes home at night, too.  There’s no evidence of the disease having affected him.”