The Case of the Unseen Lady
“Well Doc, what do you think?”
He glared at me with all his professional pride and I decided to never call him “Doc” again.
Martin Morand had been studying Professor Gibbs journal for over a week and had started his own extensive collection of notes. While I found the journal to be as tangled as a fishing line in the dark, Morand had found it fascinating.
“Better reading than H.G. Wells, hey?” I said.
He looked up at me. “H.G. Wells? My friend, there’s no such thing as an invisible man.” He looked back down at the notes and finished. “Only invisible women.”
“Come again?” I asked.
He sat back in his chair and said one word. “Hormones.”
I sat down and reminded him that I was neither scientist nor doctor.
He excitedly continued. “The substance bonds with certain hormones in a woman’s metabolism. So, of course, it wouldn’t work on a man. That’s why Gibbs demonstration failed and the War Department decided not to fund him. You see, he tried to demonstrate the formula on some volunteers. Soldiers. All men, of course.”
“But Missus Russell said her child…”
He waved me off in that mildly irritating way of his. “A residual effect. Gibbs himself dismissed it as a peculiar fluke requiring the right balance of hormones. And, of course, she must have conceived while invisible.”
“Conceived while invisible?”
“Yes, as improbable as that sounds. I suppose it was a very, very dark night. Eh?”
She conceived while invisible. I closed my eyes tightly, shook my head and said, “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“So,” Morand concluded his original line of thinking, “invisibility is definitely a condition for women only. And mature women at that. The hormone levels have to be right and, even so, there are still other variables.”
The Doctor then looked at me and said, “Mister Drake, I recall that several of your suspects are women. This narrows that field now, doesn’t it?
I thought about this glad to keep my mind busy. The roommate and the rival fashion model were women and although each was visible when I met them, that didn’t rule out the possibility that they possessed the formula. Either one of them could have been the gloved intruder.
Then I considered Bradley Ambridge. It was clearly apparent now that he couldn’t be transparent. Yet, I still had to consider the possibility that he could easily hire someone else to be invisible. I decided to check the police records for female cat burglars not presently in the slammer.
“What about the long lasting effect that Miss Taylor is experiencing?” I asked the doctor. “It’s been weeks.”
Sighing he said, “That is still a mystery. When Miss Taylor came in recently I took another blood sample and found the levels unchanged. But Gibbs himself never achieved anything more than a few days under the most ideal conditions. I am forced then to assume that she is receiving the formula on a daily basis.”
I had gotten to know Natalie well enough to dismiss the possibility of deception.
“Perhaps”, I suggested, “someone is putting something in her breakfast.”
I recalled Natalie saying that Greta always woke earlier and always made breakfast for both of them.
“If that is true,” he said, “then she may want to consider changing her diet.”
“That should be easy to arrange.” I suggested. “If she missed a daily dose of the formula how long should it take for her to rematerialize?”
“Based on everything we know now, I would guess a little over 24 hours after the previous dose.”
“But it could be longer?”
“A few hours more, perhaps.”
I wanted to arrange a scenario around certain activities that Natalie and I had planned. While restoring her appearance was a main concern, it would be nice if the patient didn’t die from acute embarrassment.
And, I reminded myself that my goal was twofold. Not only must I aid Natalie’s restoration, I also had to solve the mystery of who had caused her condition in the first place.
“This ordeal has been very stressful on Miss Taylor.” Morand continued, “However, I was pleased to see her much less distressed and more composed during her last visit.”
“I’ve been trying to build up her confidence.” I said.
“Then” he said like a doctor prescribing a medicine, “I urge you to continue whatever it is you are doing.”
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