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The Poisoned Pen
by Arthur B. Reeve
October, 1999 [Etext #1923]
The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poisoned Pen by, Arthur B. Reeve
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This Etext prepared by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
The Poisoned Pen by, Arthur B. Reeve
(transcriber's note: these stories were first published in 1911-13)
CONTENTS
I THE POISONED PEN
II THE YEGGMAN
III THE GERM OF DEATH
IV THE FIREBUG
V THE CONFIDENCE KING
VI THE SAND-HOG
VII THE WHITE SLAVE
VIII THE FORGER
IX THE UNOFFICIAL SPY
X THE SMUGGLER
XI THE INVISIBLE RAY
XII THE CAMPAIGN GRAFTER
I
THE POISONED PEN
Kennedy's suit-case was lying open on the bed, and he was literally
throwing things into it from his chiffonier, as I entered after a
hurried trip up-town from the Star office in response to an urgent
message from him.
"Come, Walter," he cried, hastily stuffing in a package of clean
laundry without taking off the wrapping-paper, "I've got your
suit-case out. Pack up whatever you can in five minutes. We must
take the six o'clock train for Danbridge."
I did not wait to hear any more. The mere mention of the name of
the quaint and quiet little Connecticut town was sufficient. For
Danbridge was on everybody's lips at that time. It was the scene
of the now famous Danbridge poisoning case - a brutal case in which
the pretty little actress, Vera Lytton, had been the victim.
"I've been retained by Senator Adrian Willard," he called from his
room, as I was busy packing in mine. The Willard family believe
that that young Dr. Dixon is the victim of a conspiracy - or at
least Alma Willard does, which comes to the same thing, and - well,
the senator called me up on long-distance and offered me anything
I would name in reason to take the case. Are you ready? Come on,
then. We've simply got to make that train."
As we settled ourselves in the smoking-compartment of the Pullman,
which for some reason or other we had to ourselves, Kennedy spoke
again for the first time since our frantic dash across the city to
catch the train.
"Now let us see, Walter," he began. "We've both read a good deal
about this case in the papers. Let's try to get our knowledge in
an orderly shape before we tackle the actual case itself."
"Ever been in Danbridge?" I asked.
"Never," he replied. "What sort of place is it?"
"Mighty interesting," I answered; "a combination of old New England
and new, of ancestors and factories, of wealth and poverty, and
above all it is interesting for its colony of New-Yorkers - what
shall I call it? - a literary-artistic-musical combination, I guess."
"Yes," he resumed, "I thought as much. Vera Lytton belonged to the
colony. A very talented girl, too - you remember her in 'The Taming
of the New Woman' last season? Well, to get back to the facts as
we know them at present.
"Here is a girl with a brilliant future on the stage discovered by
her friend, Mrs. Boncour, in convulsions - practically insensible
- with a bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her
dressing-table. Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor,
who happens to be a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore
Miss Lytton, but with no result. She smells the ammonia and then
just tastes the headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by
the time Dr. Waterworth arrives he has two patients."
"No," I corrected, "only one, for Miss Lytton was dead when he
arrived, according to his latest statement."
"Very well, then - one. He arrives, Mrs. Boncour is ill, the maid
knows nothing at all about it, and Vera Lytton is dead. He, too,
smells the ammonia, tastes the headache-powder - just the merest
trace - and then he has two patients, one of them himself. We must
see him, for his experience must have been appalling. How he ever
did it I can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour
from poisoning - cyanide, the papers say, but of course we can't
accept that until we see. It seems to me, Walter, that lately the
papers have made the rule in murder cases: When in doubt, call it
cyanide."
Not relishing Kennedy in the humour of expressing his real opinion
of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversation back again by
asking, "How about the note from Dr. Dixon?"
"Ah, there is the crux of the whole case - that note from Dixon.
Let us see. Dr. Dixon is, if I am informed correctly, of a fine
and aristocratic family, though not wealthy. I believe it has
been established that while he was an interne in a city hospital
he became acquainted with Vera Lytton, after her divorce from that
artist Thurston. Then comes his removal to Danbridge and his
meeting and later his engagement with Miss Willard. On the whole,
Walter, judging from the newspaper pictures, Alma Willard is
quite the equal of Vera Lytton for looks, only of a different
style of beauty. Oh, well, we shall see. Vera decided to spend
the spring and summer at Danbridge in the bungalow of her friend,
Mrs. Boncour, the novelist. That's when things began to happen."
"Yes," I put in, "when you come to know Danbridge as I did after
that summer when you were abroad, you'll understand, too. Everybody
knows everybody else's business. It is the main occupation of a
certain set, and the per-capita output of gossip is a record that
would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from the
note, Craig. There it is, in Dixon's own handwriting, even if he
does deny it: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.' That's a
damning piece of evidence."
"Quite right," he agreed hastily; "the note was queer, though,
wasn't it? They found it crumpled up in the jar of ammonia. Oh,
there are lots of problems the newspapers have failed to see the
significance of, let alone trying to follow up."
Our first visit in Danbridge was to the prosecuting attorney, whose
office was not far from the station on the main street. Craig had
wired him, and he had kindly waited to see us, for it was evident
that Danbridge respected Senator Willard and every one connected
with him.
"Would it be too much to ask just to see that note that was found
in the Boncour bungalow?" asked Craig.
The prosecutor, an energetic young man, pulled out of a document-case
a crumpled note which had been pressed flat again. On it in clear,
deep black letters were the words, just as reported:
This will cure your headache.
DR. Dixon.
"How about the handwriting?" asked Kennedy.
The lawyer pulled out a number of letters. "I'm afraid they will
have to admit it," he said with reluctance, as if down in his heart
he hated to prosecute Dixon. "We have lots of these, and no
handwriting expert could successfully deny the identity of the
writing."
He stowed away the letters without letting Kennedy get a hint as to
their contents. Kennedy was examining the note carefully.
"May I count on having this note for further examination, of course
always at such times and under such conditions as you agree to?"
The attorney nodded. "I am perfectly willing to do anything not
illegal to accommodate the senator," he said. "But, on the other
hand, I am here to do my duty for the state, cost whom it may."
The Willard house was in a virtual state of siege. Newspaper
reporters from Boston and New York were actually encamped at every
gate, terrible as an army, with cameras. It was with some difficulty
that we got in, even though we were expected, for some of the more
enterprising had already fooled the family by posing as officers of
the law and messengers from Dr. Dixon.
The house was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars,
a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely
at you as you approached through a hedge of faultlessly trimmed
boxwoods.
Senator, or rather former Senator, Willard met us in the library,
and a moment later his daughter Alma joined him. She was tall, like
her father, a girl of poise and self-control. Yet even the schooling
of twenty-two years in rigorous New England self-restraint could not
hide the very human pallor of her face after the sleepless nights and
nervous days since this trouble had broken on her placid existence.
Yet there was a mark of strength and determination on her face that
was fascinating. The man who would trifle with this girl, I felt,
was playing fast and loose with her very life. I thought then, and
I said to Kennedy afterward: "If this Dr. Dixon is guilty, you have
no right to hide it from that girl. Anything less than the truth
will only blacken the hideousness of the crime that has already been
committed."
The senator greeted I us gravely, and I could not but take it as a
good omen when, in his pride of wealth and family and tradition, he
laid bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Willard. It was
clear that in this family there was one word that stood above all
others, "Duty."
As we were about to leave after an interview barren of new facts,
a young man was announced, Mr. Halsey Post. He bowed politely to
us, but it was evident why he had called, as his eye followed Alma
about the room.
"The son of the late Halsey Post, of Post & Vance, silversmiths, who
have the large factory in town, which you perhaps noticed," explained
the senator. "My daughter has known him all her life. A very fine
young man."
Later, we learned that the senator had bent every effort toward
securing Halsey Post as a son-in-law, but his daughter had had views
of her own on the subject.
Post waited until Alma had withdrawn before he disclosed the real
object of his visit. In almost a whisper, lest she should still be
listening, he said, "There is a story about town that Vera Lytton's
former husband - an artist named Thurston - was here just before her
death."
Senator Willard leaned forward as if expecting to hear Dixon
immediately acquitted. None of us was prepared for the next remark.
"And the story goes on to say that he threatened to make a scene over
a wrong he says he has suffered from Dixon. I don't know anything
more about it, and I tell you only because I think you ought to know
what Danbridge is saying under its breath."
We shook off the last of the reporters who affixed themselves to us,
and for a moment Kennedy dropped in at the little bungalow to see
Mrs. Boncour. She was much better, though she had suffered much.
She had taken only a pinhead of the poison, but it had proved very
nearly fatal.
"Had Miss Lytton any enemies whom you think of, people who were
jealous of her professionally or personally?" asked Craig.
"I should not even have said Dr. Dixon was an enemy," she replied
evasively.
"But this Mr. Thurston," put in Kennedy quickly. "One is not usually
visited in perfect friendship by a husband who has been divorced."
She regarded him keenly for a moment. "Halsey Post told you that,"
she said. "No one else knew he was here. But Halsey Post was an
old friend of both Vera and Mr. Thurston before they separated. By
chance he happened to drop in the day Mr. Thurston was here, and
later in the day I gave him a letter to forward to Mr. Thurston,
which had come after the artist left. I'm sure no one else knew
the artist. He was here the morning of the day she died, and - and
- that's every bit I'm going to tell you about him, so there. I
don't know why he came or where he went."
"That's a thing we must follow up later," remarked Kennedy as we
made our adieus. "Just now I want to get the facts in hand. The
next thing on my programme is to see this Dr. Waterworth."
We found the doctor still in bed; in fact, a wreck as the result of
his adventure. He had little to correct in the facts of the story
which had been published so far. But there were many other details
of the poisoning he was quite willing to discuss frankly.
"It was true about the jar of ammonia?" asked Kennedy.
"Yes," he answered. "It was standing on her dressing-table with
the note crumpled up in it, just as the papers said."
"And you have no idea why it was there?"
"I didn't say that. I can guess. Fumes of ammonia are one of the
antidotes for poisoning of this kind."
"But Vera Lytton could hardly have known that," objected Kennedy.
"No, of course not. But she probably did know that ammonia is good
for just that sort of faintness which she must have experienced
after taking the powder. Perhaps she thought of sal volatile, I
don't know. But most people know that ammonia in some form is good
for faintness of this sort, even if they don't know anything about
cyanides and - "
"Then it was cyanide?" interrupted Craig.
"Yes," he replied slowly. It was evident that he was suffering
great physical and nervous anguish as the result of his too intimate
acquaintance with the poisons in question. " I will tell you
precisely how it was, Professor Kennedy. When I was called in to
see Miss Lytton I found her on the bed. I pried open her jaws and
smelled the sweetish odour of the cyanogen gas. I knew then what
she had taken, and at the moment she was dead. In the next room I
heard some one moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour,
and that she was deathly sick. I ran into her room, and though she
was beside herself with pain I managed to control her, though she
struggled desperately against me. I was rushing her to the bathroom,
passing through Miss Lytton's room. 'What's wrong?' I asked as I
carried her along. 'I took some of that,' she replied, pointing to
the bottle on the dressing-table.
"I put a small quantity of its crystal contents on my tongue. Then
I realised the most tragic truth of my life. I had taken one of the
deadliest poisons in the world. The odour of the released gas of
cyanogen was strong. But more than that, the metallic taste and the
horrible burning sensation told of the presence of some form of
mercury, too. In that terrible moment my brain worked with the
incredible swiftness of light. In a flash I knew that if I added
malic acid to the mercury - per chloride of mercury or corrosive
sublimate - I would have calomel or subchloride of mercury, the
only thing that would switch the poison out of my system and Mrs.
Boncour's.
"Seizing her about the waist, I hurried into the dining-room. On a
sideboard was a dish of fruit. I took two apples. I made her eat
one, core and all. I ate the other. The fruit contained the malic
acid I needed to manufacture the calomel, and I made it right there
in nature's own laboratory. But there was no time to stop. I had
to act just as quickly to neutralise that cyanide, too. Remembering
the ammonia, I rushed back with Mrs. Boncour, and we inhaled the
fumes. Then I found a bottle of peroxide of hydrogen. I washed out
her stomach with it, and then my own. Then I injected some of the
peroxide into various parts of her body. The peroxide of hydrogen
and hydrocyanic acid, you know, make oxamide, which is a harmless
compound.
"The maid put Mrs. Boncour to bed, saved. I went to my house, a
wreck. Since then I have not left this bed. With my legs paralysed
I lie here, expecting each hour to be my last."
"Would you taste an unknown drug again to discover the nature of a
probable poison?" asked Craig.
"I don't know," he answered slowly, "but I suppose I would. In such
a case a conscientious doctor has no thought of self. He is there
to do things, and he does them, according to the best that is in him.
In spite of the fact that I haven't had one hour of unbroken sleep
since that fatal day, I suppose I would do it again."
When we were leaving, I remarked: "That is a martyr to science.
Could anything be more dramatic than his willing penalty for his
devotion to medicine?"
We walked along in silence. "Walter, did you notice he said not a
word of condemnation of Dixon, though the note was before his eyes?
Surely Dixon has some strong supporters in Danbridge, as well as
enemies.
The next morning we continued our investigation. We found Dixon's
lawyer, Leland, in consultation with his client in the bare cell of
the county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young
man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the
prepossession in his favour due to the faith of Alma Willard, was
the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent
man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence
against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the
support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, had been very
active. By prompt work at the time of the young doctor's arrest he
had managed to secure the greater part of Dr. Dixon's personal
letters, though the prosecutor secured some, the contents of which
had not been disclosed.
Kennedy spent most of the day in tracing out the movements of
Thurston. Nothing that proved important was turned up, and even
visits to near-by towns failed to show any sales of cyanide or
sublimate to any one not entitled to buy them. Meanwhile, in
turning over the gossip of the town, one of the newspapermen ran
across the fact that the Boncour bungalow was owned by the Posts,
and that Halsey Post, as the executor of the estate, was a more
frequent visitor than the mere collection of the rent would warrant.
Mrs. Boncour maintained a stolid silence that covered a seething
internal fury when the newspaperman in question hinted that the
landlord and tenant were on exceptionally good terms.
It was after a fruitless day of such search that we were sitting
in the reading-room of the Fairfield Hotel. Leland entered. His
face was positively white. Without a word he took us by the arm
and led us across Main Street and up a flight of stairs to his
office. Then he locked the door.
"What's the matter?" asked Kennedy.
"When I took this case," he said, "I believed down in my heart that
Dixon was innocent. I still believe it, but my faith has been
rudely shaken. I feel that you should know about what I have just
found. As I told you, we secured nearly all of Dr. Dixon's letters.
I had not read them all then. But I have been going through them
to-night. Here is a letter from Vera Lytton herself. You will
notice it is dated the day of her death."
He laid the letter before us. It was written in a curious
greyish-black ink in a woman's hand, and read:
DEAR HARRIS:
Since we agreed to disagree we have at least been good friends, if
no longer lovers. I am not writing in anger to reproach you with
your new love, so soon after the old. I suppose Alma Willard is
far better suited to be your wife than is a poor little actress
- rather looked down on in this Puritan society here. But there
is something I wish to warn you about, for it concerns us all
intimately.
We are in danger of an awful mix-up if we don't look out. Mr.
Thurston - I had almost said my husband, though I don't know whether
that is the truth or not - who has just come over from New York,
tells me that there is some doubt about the validity of our divorce.
You recall he was in the South at the time I sued him, and the
papers were served on him in Georgia. He now says the proof of
service was fraudulent and that he can set aside the divorce. In
that case you might figure in a suit for alienating my affections.
I do not write this with ill will, but simply to let you know how
things stand. If we had married, I suppose I would be guilty of
bigamy. At any rate, if he were disposed he could make a terrible
scandal.
Oh, Harris, can't you settle with him if he asks anything? Don't
forget so soon that we once thought we were going to be the happiest
of mortals - at least I did. Don't desert me, or the very earth
will cry out against you. I am frantic and hardly know what I am
writing. My head aches, but it is my heart that is breaking.
Harris, I am yours still, down in my heart, but not to be cast off
like an old suit for a new one. You know the old saying about a
woman scorned. I beg you not to go back on
Your poor little deserted
VERA.
As we finished reading, Leland exclaimed, "That never must come
before the jury."
Kennedy was examining the letter carefully. "Strange," he muttered.
"See how it was folded. It was written on the wrong side of the
sheet, or rather folded up with the writing outside. Where have
these letters been?"
"Part of the time in my safe, part of the time this afternoon on my
desk by the window."
"The office was locked, I suppose?" asked Kennedy. "There was no
way to slip this letter in among the others since you obtained them?"
"None. The office has been locked, and there is no evidence of any
one having entered or disturbed a thing."
He was hastily running over the pile of letters as if looking to see
whether they were all there. Suddenly he stopped.
"Yes," he exclaimed excitedly, "one of them is gone." Nervously he
fumbled through them again. "One is gone," he repeated, looking at
us, startled.
"What was it about?" asked Craig.
"It was a note from an artist, Thurston, who gave the address of Mrs.
Boncour's bungalow - ah, I see you have heard of him. He asked
Dixon's recommendation of a certain patent headache medicine. I
thought it possibly evidential, and I asked Dixon about it. He
explained it by saying that he did not have a copy of his reply, but
as near as he could recall, he wrote that the compound would not
cure a headache except at the expense of reducing heart action
dangerously. He says he sent no prescription. Indeed, he thought
it a scheme to extract advice without incurring the charge for an
office call and answered it only because he thought Vera had become
reconciled to Thurston again. I can't find that letter of Thurston's.
It is gone."
We looked at each other in amazement.
"Why, if Dixon contemplated anything against Miss Lytton, should he
preserve this letter from her?" mused Kennedy. "Why didn't he
destroy it?"
"That's what puzzles me," remarked Leland. "Do you suppose some
one has broken in and substituted this Lytton letter for the
Thurston letter?
Kennedy was scrutinising the letter, saying nothing. "I may keep
it?" he asked at length. Leland was quite willing and even undertook
to obtain some specimens of the writing of Vera Lytton. With these
and the letter Kennedy was working far into the night and long after
I had passed into a land troubled with many wild dreams of deadly
poisons and secret intrigues of artists.
The next morning a message from our old friend First Deputy O'Connor
in New York told briefly of locating the rooms of an artist named
Thurston in one of the co-operative studio apartments. Thurston
himself had not been there for several days and was reported to have
gone to Maine to sketch. He had had a number of debts, but before
he left they had all been paid - strange to say, by a notorious firm
of Shyster lawyers, Kerr & Kimmel. Kennedy wired back to find out
the facts from Kerr & Kimmel and to locate Thurston at any cost.
Even the discovery of the new letter did not shake the wonderful
self-possession of Dr. Dixon. He denied ever having received it
and repeated his story of a letter from Thurston to which he had
replied by sending an answer, care of Mrs. Boncour, as requested.
He insisted that the engagement between Miss Lytton and himself had
been broken before the announcement of his engagement with Miss
Willard. As for Thurston, he said the man was little more than a
name to him. He had known perfectly all the circumstances of the
divorce, but had had no dealings with Thurston and no fear of him.
Again and again he denied ever receiving the letter from Vera
Lytton.
Kennedy did not tell the Willards of the new letter. The strain
had begun to tell on Alma, and her father had had her quietly
taken to a farm of his up in the country. To escape the curious
eyes of reporters, Halsey Post had driven up one night in his
closed car. She had entered it quickly with her father, and the
journey had been made in the car, while Halsey Post had quietly
dropped off on the outskirts of the town, where another car was
waiting to take him back. It was evident that the Willard family
relied implicitly on Halsey, and his assistance to them was most
considerate. While he never forced himself forward, he kept in
close touch with the progress of the case, and now that Alma was
away his watchfulness increased proportionately, and twice a day
he wrote a long report which was sent to her.
Kennedy was now bending every effort to locate the missing artist.
When he left Danbridge, he seemed to have dropped out of sight
completely. However, with O'Connor's aid, the police of all
New England were on the lookout.
The Thurstons had been friends of Halsey's before Vera Lytton had
ever met Dr. Dixon, we discovered from the Danbridge gossips, and I,
at least, jumped to the conclusion that Halsey was shielding the
artist, perhaps through a sense of friendship when he found that
Kennedy was interested in Thurston's movement. I must say I rather
liked Halsey, for he seemed very thoughtful of the Willards, and
was never too busy to give an hour or so to any commission they
wished carried out without publicity..
Two days passed with not a word from Thurston. Kennedy was obviously
getting impatient. One day a rumour was received that he was in Bar
Harbour; the next it was a report from Nova Scotia. At last, however,
came the welcome news that he had been located in New Hampshire,
arrested, and might be expected the next day.
At once Kennedy became all energy. He arranged for a secret
conference in Senator Willard's house, the moment the artist was to
arrive. The senator and his daughter made a flying trip back to
town. Nothing was said to any one about Thurston, but Kennedy
quietly arranged with the district attorney to be present with the
note and the jar of ammonia properly safeguarded. Leland of course
came, although his client could not. Halsey Post seemed only too
glad to be with Miss Willard, though he seemed to have lost interest
in the case as soon as the Willards returned to look after it
themselves. Mrs. Boncour was well enough to attend, and even Dr.
Waterworth insisted on coming in a private ambulance which drove
over from a near-by city especially for him. The time was fixed
just before the arrival of the train that was to bring Thurston.
It was an anxious gathering of friends and foes of Dr. Dixon who
sat impatiently waiting for Kennedy to begin this momentous
exposition that was to establish the guilt or innocence of the calm
young physician who sat impassively in the jail not half a mile
from the room where his life and death were being debated.
"In many respects this is the most remarkable case that it has ever
been my lot to handle," began Kennedy. "Never before have I felt
so keenly my sense of responsibility. Therefore, though this is a
somewhat irregular proceeding, let me begin by setting forth the
facts as I see them.
"First, let us consider the dead woman. The question that arises
here is, Was she murdered or did she commit suicide? I think you
will discover the answer as I proceed. Miss Lytton, as you know,
was, two years ago, Mrs. Burgess Thurston. The Thurstons had
temperament, and temperament is quite often the highway to the
divorce court. It was so in this case. Mrs. Thurston discovered
that her husband was paying much attention to other women. She
sued for divorce in New York, and he accepted service in the South,
where he happened to be. At least it was so testified by Mrs.
Thurston's lawyer.
"Now here comes the remarkable feature of the case. The law firm
of Kerr & Kimmel, I find, not long ago began to investigate the=20
legality of this divorce. Before a notary Thurston made an affidavit
that he had never been served by the lawyer for Miss Lytton, as she
was now known. Her lawyer is dead, but his representative in the
South who served the papers is alive. He was brought to New York
and asserted squarely that he had served the papers properly.
"Here is where the shrewdness of Mose Kimmel, the shyster lawyer,
came in. He arranged to have the Southern attorney identify the
man he had served the papers on. For this purpose he was engaged
in conversation with one of his own clerks when the lawyer was due
to appear. Kimmel appeared to act confused, as if he had been
caught napping. The Southern lawyer, who had seen Thurston only
once, fell squarely into the trap and identified the clerk as
Thurston. There were plenty of witnesses to it, and it was point
number two for the great Mose Kimmel. Papers were drawn up to set
aside the divorce decree.
"In the meantime, Miss Lytton, or Mrs. Thurston, had become
acquainted with a young doctor in a New York hospital, and had
become engaged to him. It matters not that the engagement was
later broken. The fact remains that if the divorce were set aside
an action would lie against Dr. Dixon for alienating Mrs. Thurston's
affections, and a grave scandal would result. I need not add that
in this quiet little town of Danbridge the most could be made of
such a suit."
Kennedy was unfolding a piece=20of paper. As he laid it down, Leland,
who was sitting next to me, exclaimed under his breath:
"My God, he's going to let the prosecutor know about that letter.
Can't you stop him?"
It was too late. Kennedy had already begun to read Vera's letter.
It was damning to Dixon, added to the other note found in the
ammonia-jar.
When he had finished reading, you could almost hear the hearts
throbbing in the room. A scowl overspread Senator Willard's features.
Alma Willard was pale and staring wildly at Kennedy. Halsey Post,
ever solicitous for her, handed her a glass of water from the table.
Dr. Waterworth had forgotten his pain in his intense attention, and
Mrs. Boncour seemed stunned with astonishment. The prosecuting
attorney was eagerly taking notes.
"In some way," pursued Kennedy in an even voice, "this letter was
either overlooked in the original correspondence of Dr. Dixon or it
was added to it later. I shall come back to that presently. My
next point is that Dr. Dixon says he received a letter from Thurston
on the day the artist visited the Boncour bungalow. It asked about
a certain headache compound, and his reply was brief and, as nearly
as I can find out, read, 'This compound will not cure your headache
except at the expense of reducing heart action dangerously.'
"Next comes the tragedy. On the evening of the day that Thurston=20
eft, after presumably telling Miss Lytton about what Kerr & Kimmel
had discovered, Miss Lytton is found dying with a bottle containing
cyanide and sublimate beside her. You are all familiar with the
circumstances and with the note discovered in the jar of ammonia.
Now, if the prosecutor will be so kind as to let me see that note
- thank you, sir. This is the identical note. You have all heard
the various theories of the jar and have read the note. Here it is
in plain, cold black and white - in Dr. Dixon's own handwriting,
as you know, and reads: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.'"
Alma Willard seemed as one paralysed. Was Kennedy, who had been
engaged by her father to defend her fianc=82, about to convict him?
Before we draw the final conclusion," continued Kennedy gravely,
"there are one or two points I wish to elaborate. Walter, will you
open that door into the main hall?"
I did so, and two policemen stepped in with a prisoner. It was
Thurston, but changed almost beyond recognition. His clothes were
worn, his beard shaved off, and he had a generally hunted appearance.
Thurston was visibly nervous. Apparently he had heard all that
Kennedy had said and intended he should hear, for as he entered he
almost broke away from the police officers in his eagerness to speak.
"Before God," he cried dramatically, "I am as innocent as you are of
this crime, Professor Kennedy."
"Are you prepared to swear before me," almost shouted Kennedy, his
eyes blazing, "that you were never served properly by your wife's
lawyers in that suit?"
The man cringed back as if a stinging blow had been delivered
between his eyes. As he met Craig's fixed glare he knew there was
no hope. Slowly, as if the words were being wrung from him syllable
by syllable, he said in a muffled voice:
"No, I perjured myself. I was served in that suit. But - "
"And you swore falsely before Kimmel that you were not?" persisted
Kennedy.
"Yes," he murmured. "But - "
"And you are prepared now to make another affidavit to that effect?"
"Yes," he replied. "If - "
"No buts or ifs, Thurston," cried Kennedy sarcastically. "What did
you make that affidavit for? What is your story?"
"Kimmel sent for me. I did not go to him. He offered to pay my
debts if I would swear to such a statement. I did not ask why or
for whom. I swore to it and gave him a list of my creditors. I
waited until they were paid. Then my conscience - " I could not
help revolting at the thought of conscience in such a wretch, and
the word itself seemed to stick in his throat as he went on and
saw how feeble an impression he was making on us - " my conscience
began to trouble me. I determined to see Vera, tell her all, and
find out whether it was she who wanted this statement. I saw her.
When at last I told her, she scorned me. I can confirm that, for
as I left a man entered. I now knew how grossly I had sinned, in
listening to Mose Kimmel. I fled. I disappeared in Maine. I
travelled. Every day my money grew less. At last I was overtaken,
captured, and brought back here."
He stopped and sank wretchedly down in a chair and covered his face
with his hands.
"A likely story," muttered Leland in my ear.
Kennedy was working quickly. Motioning the officers to be seated
by Thurston, he uncovered a jar which he had placed on the table.
The colour had now appeared in Alma's cheeks, as if hope had again
sprung in her heart, and I fancied that Halsey Post saw his claim
on her favour declining correspondingly.
"I want you to examine the letters in this case with me," continued
Kennedy. "Take the letter which I read from Miss Lytton, which was
found following the strange disappearance of the note from Thurston."
He dipped a pen into a little bottle, and wrote on a piece of paper:
What is your opinion about Cross's Headache Cure? Would you
recommend it for a nervous headache?
BURGESS THURSTON,
c/o Mrs. S. BONCOUR.
Craig held up the writing so that we could all see that he had
written what Dixon declared Thurston wrote in the note that had
disappeared. Then he dipped another pen into a second bottle, and
for some time he scrawled on another sheet of paper. He held it up,
but it was still perfectly blank.
"Now," he added, "I am going to give a little demonstration which
I expect to be successful only in a measure. Here in the open
sunshine by this window I am going to place these two sheets of
paper side by side. It will take longer than I care to wait to make
my demonstration complete, but I can do enough to convince you."
For a quarter of an hour we sat in silence, wondering what he would
do next. At last he beckoned us over to the window. As we
approached he said, "On sheet number one I have written with
quinoline; on sheet number two I wrote with a solution of nitrate of
silver."
We bent over. The writing signed "Thurston" on sheet number one
was faint, almost imperceptible, but on paper number two, in black
letters, appeared what Kennedy had written: " Dear Harris: Since
we agreed to disagree we have at least been good friends."
"It is like the start of the substituted letter, and the other is
like the missing note," gasped Leland in a daze.
"Yes," said Kennedy quickly. "Leland, no one entered your office.
No one stole the Thurston note. No one substituted the Lytton
letter. According to your own story, you took them out of the
safe and left them in the sunlight all day. The process that had
been started earlier in ordinary light, slowly, was now quickly
completed. In other words, there was writing which would soon fade
away on one side of the paper and writing which was invisible but
would soon appear on the other.
"For instance, quinoline rapidly disappears in sunlight. Starch
with a slight trace of iodine writes a light blue, which disappears
in air. It was something like that used in the Thurston letter.
Then, too, silver nitrate dissolved in ammonia gradually turns black
as it is acted on by light and air. Or magenta treated with a
bleaching-agent in just sufficient quantity to decolourise it is
invisible when used for writing. But the original colour reappears
as the oxygen of the air acts upon the pigment. I haven't a doubt
but that my analyses of the inks are correct and on one side
quinoline was used and on the other nitrate of silver. This explains
the inexplicable disappearance of evidence incriminating one person,
Thurston, and the sudden appearance of evidence incriminating
another, Dr. Dixon. Sympathetic ink also accounts for the curious
circumstance that the Lytton letter was folded up with the writing
apparently outside. It was outside and unseen until the sunlight
brought it out and destroyed the other, inside, writing - a change,
I suspect, that was intended for the police to see after it was
completed, not for the defence to witness as it was taking place."
We looked at each other aghast. Thurston was nervously opening
and shutting his lips and moistening them as if he wanted to say
something but could not find the words.
"Lastly," went on Craig, utterly regardless of Thurston's frantic
efforts to speak, "we come to the note that was discovered so
queerly crumpled up in the jar of ammonia on Vera Lytton's
dressing-table. I have here a cylindrical glass jar in which
I place some sal-ammoniac and quicklime. I will wet it and heat
it a little. That produces the pungent gas of ammonia.
"On one side of this third piece of paper I myself write with this
mercurous nitrate solution. You see, I leave no mark on the paper
as I write. I fold it up and drop it into the jar - and in a few
seconds withdraw it. Here is a very quick way of producing something
like the slow result of sunlight with silver nitrate. The fumes of
ammonia have formed the precipitate of black mercurous nitrate, a
very distinct black writing which is almost indelible. That is what
is technically called invisible rather than sympathetic ink."
We leaned over to read what he had written. It was the same as the
note incriminating Dixon:
This will cure your headache.
Dr. DIXON.
A servant entered with a telegram from New York. Scarcely stopping
in his exposure, Kennedy tore it open, read it hastily, stuffed it
into his pocket, and went on.
"Here in this fourth bottle I have an acid solution of iron chloride,
diluted until the writing is invisible when dry," he hurried on. "I
will just make a few scratches on this fourth sheet of paper - so.
It leaves no mark. But it has the remarkable property of becoming
red in vapour of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the
gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulphocyanide. Keep
back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get
even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See - the scratches
I made on the paper are red."
Then hardly giving us more than a moment to let the fact impress
itself on our minds, he seized the piece of paper and dashed it
into the jar of ammonia. When he withdrew it, it was just a plain
sheet of white paper again. The red marks which the gas in the
flask had brought out of nothingness had been effaced by the ammonia.
They had gone and left no trace.
"In this way I can alternately make the marks appear and disappear
by using the sulpho-cyanide and the ammonia. Whoever wrote this
note with Dr. Dixon's name on it must have had the doctor's reply
to the Thurston letter containing the words, 'This will not cure
your headache.' He carefully traced the words, holding the genuine
note up to the light with a piece of paper over it, leaving out the
word 'not' and using only such words as he needed. This note was
then destroyed.
"But he forgot that after he had brought out the red writing by the
use of the sulpho-cyanide, and though he could count on Vera Lytton's
placing the note in the jar of ammonia and hence obliterating the
writing, while at the same time the invisible writing in the mercurous
nitrate involving Dr. Dixon's name would be brought out by the ammonia
indelibly on the other side of the note - he forgot" - Kennedy was
now speaking eagerly and loudly - "that the sulpho-cyanide vapours
could always be made to bring back to accuse him the words that the
ammonia had blotted out."
Before the prosecutor could interfere, Kennedy had picked up the
note found in the ammonia-jar beside the dying girl and had jammed
the state's evidence into the long-necked flask of sulpho-cyanide
vapour.
"Don't fear," he said, trying to pacify the now furious prosecutor,
"it will do nothing to the Dixon writing. That is permanent now,
even if it is only a tracing."
When he withdrew the note, there was writing on both sides, the
black of the original note and something in red on the other side.
We crowded around, and Craig read it with as much interest as any
of us:
"Before taking the headache-powder, be sure to place the contents
of this paper in a jar with a little warm water."
"Hum," commented Craig, "this was apparently on the outside wrapper
of a paper folded about some sal-ammoniac and quicklime. It goes on:
"'Just drop the whole thing in, paper and all. Then if you feel a
faintness from the medicine the ammonia will quickly restore you.
One spoonful of the headache-powder swallowed quickly is enough.'"
No name was signed to the directions, but they were plainly written,
and "paper and all" was underscored heavily.
Craig pulled out some letters. "I have here specimens of writing
of many persons connected with this case, but I can see at a glance
which one corresponds to the writing on this red death-warrant by
an almost inhuman fiend. I shall, however, leave that part of it
to the handwriting experts to determine at the trial. Thurston, who
was the man whom you saw enter the Boncour bungalow as you left
- the constant visitor?"
Thurston had not yet regained his self-control, but with trembling
forefinger he turned and pointed to Halsey Post.
"Yes, ladies and gentlemen," cried Kennedy as he slapped the telegram
that had just come from New York down on the table decisively, "yes,
the real client of Kerr & Kimmel, who bent Thurston to his purposes,
was Halsey Post, once secret lover of Vera Lytton till threatened by
scandal in Danbridge - Halsey Post, graduate in technology, student
of sympathetic inks, forger of the Vera Lytton letter and the other
notes, and dealer in cyanides in the silver-smithing business,
fortune-hunter for the Willard millions with which to recoup the Post
& Vance losses, and hence rival of Dr. Dixon for the love of Alma
Willard. That is the man who wielded the poisoned pen. Dr. Dixon
is innocent.
II
"THE YEGGMAN
"Hello! Yes, this is Professor Kennedy. I didn't catch the name
- oh, yes - President Blake of the Standard Burglary Insurance
Company. What - really? The Branford pearls - stolen? Maid
chloroformed? Yes, I'll take the case. You'll be up in half an
hour? All right, I'll be here. Goodbye."
It was through this brief and businesslike conversation over the
telephone that Kennedy became involved in what proved to be one of
the most dangerous cases he had ever handled.
At the mention of the Branford pearls I involuntarily stopped
reading, and listened, not because I wanted to pry into Craig's
affairs, but because I simply couldn't help it. This was news that
had not yet been given out to the papers, and my instinct told me
that there must be something more to it than the bare statement of
the robbery.
"Some one has made a rich haul," I commented. "It was reported, I
remember, when the Branford pearls were bought in Paris last year
that Mrs. Branford paid upward of a million francs for the
collection."
"Blake is bringing up his shrewdest detective to co-operate with me
in the case," added Kennedy. "Blake, I understand, is the head of
the Burglary Insurance Underwriters' Association, too. This will
be a big thing, Walter, if we can carry it through."
It was the longest half-hour that I ever put in, waiting for Blake
to arrive. When he did come, it was quite evident that my surmise
had been correct.
Blake was one of those young old men who are increasingly common in
business to-day. There was an air of dignity and keenness about his
manner that showed clearly how important he regarded the case. So
anxious was he to get down to business that he barely introduced
himself and his companion, Special Officer Maloney, a typical private
detective.
"Of course you haven't heard anything except what I have told you
over the wire," he began, going right to the point. "We were
notified of it only this noon ourselves, and we haven't given it
out to the papers yet, though the local police in Jersey are now
on the scene. The New York police must be notified to-night, so
that whatever we do must be done before they muss things up. We've
got a clue that we want to follow up secretly. These are the facts.
In the terse, straightforward language of the up-to-date man of
efficiency, he sketched the situation for us.
"The Branford estate, you know, consists of several acres on the
mountain back of Montclair, overlooking the valley, and surrounded
by even larger estates. Branford, I understand, is in the West with
a party of capitalists, inspecting a reported find of potash salts.
Mrs. Branford closed up the house a few days ago and left for a
short stay at Palm Beach. Of course they ought to have put their
valuables in a safe deposit vault. But they didn't. They relied
on a safe that was really one of the best in the market - a splendid
safe, I may say. Well, it seems that while the master and mistress
were both away the servants decided on having a good time in New
York. They locked up the house securely - there's no doubt of that
- and just went. That is, they all went except Mrs. Branford's
maid, who refused to go for some reason or other. We've got all
the servants, but there's not a clue to be had from any of them.
They just went off on a bust, that's clear. They admit it.
"Now, when they got back early this morning they found the maid in
bed - dead. There was still a strong odour of chloroform about the
room. The bed was disarranged as if there had been a struggle. A
towel had been wrapped up in a sort: of cone, saturated with
chloroform, and forcibly held over the girl's nose. The next thing
they discovered was the safe - blown open in a most peculiar manner.
I won't dwell on that. We're going to take you out there and show
it to you after I've told you the whole story.
"Here's the real point. It looks all right, so far. The local
police say that the thief or thieves, whoever they were, apparently
gained access by breaking a back window. That's mistake number one.
Tell Mr. Kennedy about the window, Maloney."
"It's just simply this," responded the detective. "When I came to
look at the broken window I found that the glass had fallen outside
in such a way as it could not have fallen if the window had been
broken from the outside. The thing was a blind. Whoever did it
got into the house in some other way and then broke the glass later
to give a false clue.
"And," concluded Blake, taking his cigar between his thumb and
forefinger and shaking it to give all possible emphasis to his words,
"we have had our agent at Palm Beach on long-distance 'phone twice
this afternoon. Mrs. Branford did no: go to Palm Beach. She did
not engage rooms in any hotel there. And furthermore she never had
any intention of going there. By a fortunate circumstance Maloney
picked up a hint from one of the servants, and he has located her
at the Grattan Inn in this city. In other words, Mrs. Branford has
stolen her own jewels from herself in order to collect the burglary
insurance - a common-enough thing in itself, but never to my
knowledge done on such a large scale before."
The insurance man sank back in his chair and surveyed us sharply.
"But," interrupted Kennedy slowly, "how about -"
"I know - the maid," continued Blake. "I do not mean that Mrs.
Branford did the actual stealing. Oh, no. That was done by a
yeggman of experience. He must have been above the average,
but everything points to the work of a yeggman. She hired him.
But he overstepped the mark when he chloroformed the maid."
For a moment Kennedy said nothing. Then he remarked: "Let us go
out and see the safe. There must be some clue. After that I want
to have a talk with Mrs. Branford. By the way," he added, as we
all rose to go down to Blake's car, "I once handled a life insurance
case for the Great Eastern. I made the condition that I was to
handle it in my own way, whether it went for or against the company.
That's understood, is it, before I undertake the case?"
"Yes, yes," agreed Blake. "Get at the truth. We're not seeking to
squirm out of meeting an honest liability. Only we want to make a
signal example if it is as we have every reason to believe. There
has been altogether too much of this sort of fake burglary to collect
insurance, and as president of the underwriters it is my duty and
intention to put a stop to it. Come on."
Maloney nodded his head vigorously in assent with his chief. "Never
fear," he murmured. "The truth is what will benefit the company,
all right. She did it."
The Branford estate lay some distance back from the railroad station,
so that, although it took longer to go by automobile than by train,
the car made us independent of the rather fitful night train service
and the local cabmen.
We found the house not deserted by the servants, but subdued. The
body of the maid had been removed to a local morgue, and a police
officer was patrolling the grounds, though of what use that could be
I was at a loss to understand.
Kennedy was chiefly interested in the safe. It was of the so-called
"burglar-proof" variety, spherical in shape, and looking for all
the world like a miniature piece of electrical machinery.
"I doubt if anything could have withstood such savage treatment as
has been given to this safe," remarked Craig as he concluded a
cursory examination of it. "It shows great resistance to high
explosives, chiefly, I believe, as a result of its rounded shape.
But nothing could stand up against such continued assaults."
He continued to examine the safe while we stood idly by. "I like
to reconstruct my cases in my own mind," explained Kennedy, as he
took his time in the examination. "Now, this fellow must have
stripped the safe of all the outer trimmings. His next move was
to make a dent in the manganese surface across the joint where the
door fits the body. That must have taken a good many minutes
of husky work. In fact, I don't see how he could have done it
without a sledge-hammer and a hot chisel. Still, he did it and
then -"
"But the maid," interposed Maloney. "She was in the house. She
would have heard and given an alarm."
For answer, Craig simply went to a bay-window and raised the curtain.
Pointing to the lights of the next house, far down the road, he said,
"I'll buy the best cigars in the state if you can make them hear you
on a blustery night like last night. No, she probably did scream.
Either at this point, or at the very start, the burglar must have
chloroformed her. I don't see any other way to explain it. I doubt
if he expected such a tough proposition as he found in this safe, but
he was evidently prepared to carry it through, now that he was here
and had such an unexpectedly clear field, except for the maid. He
simply got her out of the way, or his confederates did - in the
easiest possible way, poor girl."
Returning to the safe, he continued: "Well, anyhow, he made a furrow
perhaps an inch and a half long and a quarter of an inch wide and, I
should say, not over an eighth of an inch deep. Then he commenced
to burgle in earnest. Under the dent he made a sort of little cup
of red clay and poured in the 'soup' - the nitroglycerin - so that
it would run into the depression. Then he exploded it in the regular
way with a battery and a fulminate cap. I doubt if it did much more
than discolour the metal at first. Still, with the true persistency
of his kind, he probably repeated the dose, using more and more of
the 'soup' until the joint was stretched a little, and more of an
opening made so that the 'soup' could run in.
"Again and again he must have repeated and increased the charges.
Perhaps he used two or three cups at a time. By this time the
outer door must have been stretched so as to make it easy to
introduce the explosive. No doubt he was able to use ten or twelve
ounces of the stuff at a charge. It must have been more like
target-practice than safe-blowing. But the chance doesn't often
come - an empty house and plenty of time. Finally the door must
have bulged a fraction of an inch or so, and then a good big charge
and the outer portion was ripped off and the safe turned over.
There was still two or three inches of manganese steel protecting
the contents, wedged in so tight that it must have seemed that
nothing could budge it. But he must have kept at it until we have
the wreck that we see here," and Kennedy kicked the safe with his
foot as he finished.
Blake was all attention by this time, while Maloney gasped, "If I
was in the safe-cracking business, I'd make you the head of the
firm."
"And now," said Craig, "let us go back to New York and see if we
can find Mrs. Branford."
"Of course you understand," explained Blake as we were speeding
back, "that most of these cases of fake robberies are among small
people, many of them on the East Side among little jewellers or
other tradesmen. Still, they are not limited to any one class.
Indeed, it is easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit
in the midst of finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring
halo of moral rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances.
Too often, I'm afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved
burglary and paid the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's
a case where we considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are
mistaken. It's the last straw."
Our interview with Mrs. Branford was about as awkward an undertaking
as I have ever been concerned with. Imagine yourself forced to
question a perfectly stunning woman, who was suspected of plotting
so daring a deed and knew that you suspected her. Resentment was no
name for her feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by
what must have been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power
that she restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having
us thrown out bodily. That would have put a bad face on it, so she
tolerated our presence. Then, of course, the insurance company had
reserved the right to examine everybody in the household, under oath
if necessary, before passing on the claim.
"This is an outrage," she exclaimed, her eyes flashing and her
breast rising and falling with suppressed emotion, "an outrage.
When my husband returns I intend to have him place the whole matter
in the hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I
have the full amount of the insurance, but I will have damages and
costs and everything the law allows. Spying on my every movement
in this way - it is an outrage! One would think we were in St.
Petersburg instead of New York."
"One moment, Mrs. Branford," put in Kennedy, as politely as he could.
"Suppose - "
"Suppose nothing," she cried angrily. "I shall explain nothing,
say nothing. What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house
in the suburbs and come to the city to live for a few days - is it
anybody's business except mine?"
"And your husband's?" added Kennedy, nettled at her treatment of him.
She shot him a scornful glance. "I suppose Mr. Branford went out to
Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on my jewels,"
she added sarcastically with eyes that snapped fire.
"I was about to say," remarked Kennedy as imperturbably as if he
were an automaton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your
absence to rob your safe, don't you think the wisest course would be
to be perfectly frank about it?"
"And give just one plausible reason why you wished so much to have
it known that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were
in New York?" pursued Maloney, while Kennedy frowned at his tactless
attempt at a third degree.
If she had resented Kennedy, she positively flew up in the air and
commenced to aviate at Maloney's questioning. Tossing her head, she
said icily: "I do not know that you have been appointed my guardian,
sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and
with that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing
one biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish
did he have for this ticklish part of the proceedings.
I think we all felt like schoolboys who had been detected robbing a
melon-patch or in some other heinous offence, as we slowly filed
down the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so
readily and successfully puts one in the wrong that I could easily
comprehend why Blake wanted to call on Kennedy for help in what
otherwise seemed a plain case.
Blake and Maloney were some distance ahead of us, as Craig leaned
over to me and whispered: "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have
to shake him loose in some way. Either we handle this case alone
or we quit."
Right-o," I agreed emphatically. "He's put his foot in it badly at
the very start. Only, be decent about it, Craig. The case is too
big for you to let it slip by."
"Trust me, Walter. I'll do it tactfully," he whispered, then to
Blake he added as we overtook them: "Maloney is right. The case is
simple enough, after all. But we must find out some way to fasten
the thing more closely on Mrs. Branford. Let me think out a scheme
to-night. I'll see you to-morrow."
As Blake and Maloney disappeared down the street in the car, Kennedy
wheeled about and walked deliberately back into the Grattan Inn again.
It was quite late. People were coming in from the theatres, laughing
and chatting gaily. Kennedy selected a table that commanded a view
of the parlour as well as of the dining-room itself.
"She was dressed to receive some one - did you notice?" he remarked
as we sat down and cast our eyes over the dizzy array of inedibles
on the card before us. "I think it is worth waiting a while to see
who it is."
Having ordered what I did not want, I glanced about until my eye
rested on a large pier-glass at the other end of the dining-room.
"Craig," I whispered excitedly, "Mrs. B. is in the writing-room - I
can see her in that glass at the end of the room, behind you."
"Get up and change places with me as quietly as you can, Walter,"
he said quickly. "I want to see her when she can't see me."
Kennedy was staring in rapt attention at the mirror. "There's a
man with her, Walter," he said under his breath. "He came in while
we were changing places - a fine-looking chap. By Jove, I've seen
him before somewhere. His face and his manner are familiar to me.
But I simply can't place him. Did you see her wraps in the chair?
No? Well, he's helping her on with them. They're going out. Garcon,
l'addition - vite."
We were too late, however, for just as we reached the door we caught
a fleeting glimpse of a huge new limousine.
"Who was that man who just went out with the lady?" asked Craig of
the negro who turned the revolving-door at the carriage entrance.
"Jack Delarue, sah - in 'The Grass Widower,' sah," replied the
doorman. "Yes, sah, he stays here once in a while. Thank you, sah,"
as Kennedy dropped a quarter into the man's hand.
"That complicates things considerably," he mused as we walked slowly
down to the subway station. "Jack Delarue - I wonder if he is mixed
up in this thing also."
"I've heard that 'The Grass Widower' isn't such a howling success
as a money-maker," I volunteered. "Delarue has a host of creditors,
no doubt. By the way, Craig," I exclaimed, "don't you think it
would be a good plan to drop down and see O'Connor? The police will
have to be informed in a few hours now, anyhow. Maybe Delarue has
a criminal record."
"A good idea, Walter," agreed Craig, turning into a drug-store which
had a telephone booth. "I'll just call O'Connor up, and we'll see
if he does know anything about it.
O'Connor was not at headquarters, but we finally found him at his
home, and it was well into the small hours when we arrived there.
Trusting to the first deputy's honour, which had stood many a test,
Craig began to unfold the story. He had scarcely got as far as
describing the work of the suspected hired yeggman, when O'Connor
raised both hands and brought them down hard on the arms of his
chair.
"Say," he ejaculated, "that explains it!"
"What?" we asked in chorus.
"Why, one of my best stool-pigeons told me to-day that there was
something doing at a house in the Chatham Square district that we
have been watching for a long time. It's full of crooks, and to-day
they've all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a
haul and been generous with the rest. And one or two of the
professional 'fences' have been acting suspiciously, too. Oh, that
explains it all right."
I looked at Craig as much as to say, "I told you so," but he was
engrossed in what O'Connor was saying.
"You know," continued the police officer, "there is one particular
'fence' who runs his business under the guise of a loan-shark's
office. He probably has a wider acquaintance among the big criminals
than any other man in the city. From him crooks can obtain anything
from a jimmy to a safe-cracking outfit. I know that this man has
been trying to dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among
jewellers in Maiden Lane. I'll bet he has been disposing of some
of the Branford pearls, one by one. I'll follow that up. I'll
arrest this 'fence' and hold him till he tells me what yeggman came
to him with the pearls."
"And if you find out, will you go with me to that house near Chatham
Square, providing it was some one in that gang?" asked Craig eagerly.
O'Connor shook his head. "I'd better keep out of it. They know me
too well. Go alone. I'll get that stool-pigeon - the Gay Cat is
his name - to go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have
any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the
moment you get the evidence. But you'll never get any evidence if
they know I'm in the neighbourhood."
The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made
me bolt my food most unceremoniously. We were out in Montclair
again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that
in spite of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the
way and had got a package which he carried carefully.
Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar
to attic in daylight. What he expected to find, I did not know,
but I am quite sure nothing escaped him.
"Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there
remains just one place. Here is this little wall safe in Mrs.
Branford's room. We must open it."
For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening
to the fall of the tumblers in the lock. It was a simple little
thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have
opened it in short order. The perspiration stood out on his
forehead, so intent was he in working the thing. At last it yielded.
Except for some of the family silver, the safe was empty.
Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig
unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He
placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it
was not at all conspicuous, and focused it on the safe.
"This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of
great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always
been practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new
shutter has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before
that it is possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run
these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an
alarm I'll attach them to the camera so that we can get a picture.
I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It
may or it may not work. If it does we'll catch somebody, right in
the act."
About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary
insurance. I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy
insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was
part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise.
He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs.
Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the
detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable
ability in the first place in locating Mrs. Branford.
"I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have
needed money for some reason or other," said Maloney. " So I went
to the commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford. I can't
say he has been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these
days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake
burglaries. Then there is another possibility," he continued
triumphantly. "I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports
to me that Mrs. Branford was seen with the actor Jack Delarue last
night. I imagine they quarrelled, for she returned alone, much
agitated, in a taxi-cab. Any way you look at it, the clues are
promising - whether she needed money for Branford's speculations or
for the financing of that rake Delarue."
Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford
to patronise a good amateur - but after all an amateur. Kennedy
said nothing, and of course I took the cue.
"Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty
good one. Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around
in a bog of false scents."
"It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy
quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden
somewhere by Mrs. Branford herself." He said nothing of his own
unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you
suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them
somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd
hardly trust them in his hands. But she might have been foolish
enough for that. Of course it's another possibility that he really
got away with them. I doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or
even if she would personally put them in a safe deposit vault.
Perhaps Delarue figures in that end of it. We must let no stone
go unturned."
"That's right," meditated Maloney, apparently turning something
over in his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some
evidence, even part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would
clinch the case. That's a good idea, Kennedy."
Craig said nothing, but I could see, or fancied I saw, that he was
gratified at the thought that he had started Maloney off on another
trail, leaving us to follow ours unhampered. The interview with
Blake was soon over, and as we left I looked inquiringly at Craig.
"I want to see Mrs. Branford again," he said. "I think we can do
better alone to-day than we did last night."
I must say I half expected that she would refuse to see us and was
quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go
up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was
very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was
ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence
of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it
that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about
her and that things began to look unmistakably black?
Kennedy was quick to see his advantage. "Mrs. Branford," he began,
"since last night I have come into the possession of some facts
that are very important. I have heard that several loose pearls
which may or may not be yours have been offered for sale by a man
on the Bowery who is what the yeggmen call a 'fence.'"
"Yeggmen - 'fence'?" she repeated. "Mr. Kennedy, really I do not
care to discuss the pearls any longer. It is immaterial to me what
becomes of them. My first desire is to collect the insurance. If
anything is recovered I am quite willing to deduct that amount from
the total. But I must insist on the full insurance or the return
of the pearls. As soon as Mr. Branford arrives I shall take other
steps to secure redress."
A boy rapped at the door and brought in a telegram which she tore
open nervously. "He will be here in four days," she said, tearing
the telegram petulantly, and not at all as if she were glad to
receive it. "Is there anything else that you wish to say?"
She was tapping her foot on the rug as if anxious to conclude the
interview. Kennedy leaned forward earnestly and played his trump
card boldly.
"Do you remember that scene in 'The Grass Widower,'" he said slowly,
"where Jack Delarue meets his runaway wife at the masquerade ball?"
She coloured slightly, but instantly regained her composure.
"Vaguely," she murmured, toying with the flowers in her dress.
"In real life," said Kennedy, his voice purposely betraying that he
meant it to have a personal application, "husbands do not forgive
even rumours of - ah - shall we say affinities? - much less the fact."
"In real life," she replied, "wives do not have affinities as often
as some newspapers and plays would have us believe."
"I saw Delarue after the performance last night," went on Kennedy
inexorably. "I was not seen, but I saw, and he was with - "
She was pacing the room now in unsuppressed excitement. "Will you
never stop spying on me?" she cried. "Must my every act be watched
and misrepresented? I suppose a distorted version of the facts
will be given to my husband. Have you no chivalry, or justice, or
- or mercy?" she pleaded, stopping in front of Kennedy.
"Mrs. Branford," he replied coldly, "I cannot promise what I shall
do. My duty is simply to get at the truth about the pearls. If it
involves some other person, it is still my duty to get at the truth.
Why not tell me all that you really know about the pearls and trust
me to bring it out all right?"
She faced him, pale and haggard. "I have told," she repeated
steadily. "I cannot tell any more - I know nothing more."
Was she lying? I was not expert enough in feminine psychology to
judge, but down in my heart I knew that the woman was hiding
something behind that forced steadiness. What was it she was
battling for? We had reached an impasse.
It was after dinner when I met Craig at the laboratory. He had made
a trip to Montclair again, where his stay had been protracted because
Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought back
the camera, and had had another talk with O'Connor, at which he had
mapped out a plan of battle.
"We are to meet the Gay Cat at the City Hall at nine o'clock,"
explained Craig laconically. "We are going to visit a haunt of
yeggmen, Walter, that few outsiders have ever seen. Are you game?
O'Connor and his men will be close by - hiding, of course."
"I suppose so, I replied slowly. But what excuse are you going to
have for getting into this yegg-resort?"
"Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article,
without names, dates, or places - just a good story of yeggmen and
tramps. I've got a little - well, we'll call it a little camera
outfit that I'm going to sling over my shoulder. You are the
reporter, remember, and I'm the newspaper photographer. They won't
pose for us, of course, but that will be all right. Speaking about
photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is interesting. I'll
show it to you later in the evening - and in case anything should
happen to me, Walter, you'll find the original plate locked here
in the top drawer of my desk. I guess we'd better be getting
downtown."
The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross
street within a block or two of Chatham Square. If we had passed
it casually in the daytime there would have been nothing to
distinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street,
except that the other houses were cluttered with children and
baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed,
and the blinds tightly drawn. As we approached, a furtive figure
shambled from the basement areaway and slunk off into the crowd
for the night's business of pocket-picking or second-story work.
I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all - I
might almost say hopes - but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a
ready response at the basement door. The house itself was the
dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in
the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery. The iron
handrail on the steps was still graceful, though rusted and
insecure. The stones of the steps were decayed and eaten away by
time, and the front door was never opened.
As we entered the low basement door, I felt that those who entered
here did indeed abandon hope. Inside, the evidences of the past
grandeur were still more striking. What had once been a
drawing-room was now the general assembly room of the resort.
Broken-down chairs lined the walls, and the floor was generously
sprinkled with sawdust. A huge pot-bellied stove occupied the
centre of the room, and by it stood a box of sawdust plentifully
discoloured with tobacco-juice.
Three or four of the "guests " - there was no "register" in this
yeggman's hotel - were seated about the stove discussing something
in a language that was English, to be sure, but of a variation
that only a yegg could understand. I noted the once handsome white
marble mantel, now stained by age, standing above the unused grate.
Double folding-doors led to what, I imagine, was once a library.
Dirt and grime indescribable were everywhere. There was the smell
of old clothes and old cooking, the race odours of every nationality
known to the metropolis. I recalled a night I once spent in a
Bowery lodging-house for "local colour." Only this was infinitely
worse. No law regulated this house. There was an atmosphere of
cheerlessness that a half-thickened Welsbach mantle turned into
positive ghastliness.
Our guide introduced us. There was a dead silence as eight eyes
were craftily fixed on us, sizing us up. What should I say? Craig
came to the rescue. To him the adventure was a lark. It was novel,
and that was merit enough.
"Ask about the slang," he suggested. "That makes a picturesque
story."
It seemed to me innocuous enough, so I engaged in conversation with
a man whom the Gay Cat had introduced as the proprietor. Much of
the slang I already knew by hearsay, such as "bulls" for policemen,
a "mouthpiece" for a lawyer to defend one when he is "ditched" or
arrested; in fact, as I busily scribbled away I must have collected
a lexicon of a hundred words or so for future reference.
"And names?" I queried. "You have some queer nicknames."
"Oh, yes," replied the man. "Now here's the Gay Cat - that's what
we call a fellow who is the finder, who enters a town ahead of the
gang. Then there's Chi Fat - that means he's from Chicago and fat.
And Pitts Slim - he's from Pittsburgh and - "
"Aw, cut it," broke in one of the others. "Pitts Slim'll be here
to-night. He'll give you the devil if he hears you talking to
reporters about him."
The proprietor began to talk of less dangerous subjects. Craig
succeeded in drawing out from him the yegg recipe for making "soup."
"It's here in this cipher," said the man, drawing out a dirty piece
of paper. "It's well known, and you can have this. Here's the key.
It was written by 'Deafy' Smith, and the police pinched it."
Craig busily translated the curious document:
Take ten or a dozen sticks of dynamite, crumble it up fine,
and put it in a pan or washbowl, then pour over it enough
alcohol, wood or pure, to cover it well. Stir it up well with
your hands, being careful to break all the lumps. Leave it
set for a few minutes. Then get a few yards of cheesecloth
and tear it up in pieces and strain the mixture through the
cloth into another Vessel. Wring the sawdust dry and throw
it away. The remains will be the soup and alcohol mixed.
Next take the same amount of water as you used of alcohol
and pour it in. Leave the whole set for a few minutes.
"Very interesting," commented Craig. "Safe-blowing in one lesson
by correspondence school. The rest of this tells how to attack
various makes, doesn't it?"
Just then a thin man in a huge, worn ulster came stamping upstairs
from the basement, his collar up and his hat down over his eyes.
There was something indefinably familiar about him, but as his face
and figure were so well concealed, I could not tell just why I
thought so.
Catching a glimpse of us, he beat a retreat across the opposite end
of the room, beckoning to the proprietor, who joined him outside the
door. I thought I heard him ask: "Who are those men? Who let them
in?" but I could not catch the reply.
One by one the other occupants of the room rose and sidled out,
leaving us alone with the Gay Cat. Kennedy reached over to get a
cigarette from my case and light it from one that I was smoking.
"That's=20our man, I think," he whispered - "Pitts Slim."
I said nothing, but I would have been willing to part with a large
section of my bank-account to be up on the Chatham Square station
of the Elevated just then.
There was a rush from the half-open door behind us. Suddenly
everything turned black before me; my eyes swam; I felt a stinging
sensation on my head and a weak feeling about the stomach; I sank
half-conscious to the floor. All was blank, but, dimly, I seemed
to be dragged and dropped down hard.
How long I lay there I don't know. Kennedy says it was not over
five minutes. It may have been so, but to me it seemed an age.
When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back on a very dirty sofa
in another room. Kennedy was bending over me with blood streaming
from a long deep gash on his head. Another figure was groaning in
the semi-darkness opposite; it was the Gay Cat.
"They blackjacked us," whispered Kennedy to me as I staggered to my
feet. "Then they dragged us through a secret passage into another
house. How do you feel?"
"All right," I answered, bracing myself against a chair, for I was
weak from the loss of blood, and dizzy. I was sore in every joint
and muscle. I looked about, only half comprehending. Then my
recollection flooded back with a rush. We had been locked in another
room after the attack, and left to be dealt with later. I felt in
my pocket. I had left my watch at the laboratory, but even the
dollar watch I had taken and the small sum of money in my pocketbook
were gone.
Kennedy still had his camera slung over his shoulder, where he had
fastened it securely.
Here we were, imprisoned, while Pitts Slim, the man we had come
after, whoever he was, was making his escape. Somewhere across the
street was O'Connor, waiting in a room as we had agreed. There was
only one window in our room, and it opened on a miserable little
dumbwaiter air-shaft. It would be hours yet before his suspicions
would be aroused and he would discover which of the houses we were
held in. Meanwhile what might not happen to us?
Kennedy calmly set up his tripod. One leg had been broken in the
rough-house, but he tied it together with his handkerchief, now wet
with blood. I wondered how he could think of taking a picture. His
very deliberation set me fretting and fuming, and I swore at him
under my breath. Still, he worked calmly ahead. I saw him take the
black box and set it on the tripod. It was indistinct in the
darkness. It looked like a camera, and yet it had some attachment
at the side that was queer, including a little lamp. Craig bent and
attached some wires about the box.
At last he seemed ready. "Walter," he whispered, "roll that sofa
quietly over against the door. There, now the table and that bureau,
and wedge the chairs in. Keep that door shut at any cost. It's now
or never - here goes."
He stopped a moment and tinkered with the box on the tripod. "Hello!
Hello! Hello! Is that you, O'Connor?" he shouted.
I watched him in amazement. Was the man crazy? Had the blow
affected his brain? Here he was, trying to talk into a camera. A
little signalling-bell in the box commenced to ring, as if by spirit
hands.
"Shut up in that room," growled a voice from outside the door. "By
God, they've barricaded the door. Come on, pals, we'll kill the
spies."
A smile of triumph lighted up Kennedy's pale face. "It works, it
works," he cried as the little bell continued to buzz. " This is
a wireless telephone you perhaps have seen announced recently -=20
good for several hundred feet - through walls and everything. The
inventor placed it in a box easily carried by a man, including a
battery, and mounted on an ordinary camera tripod so that the user
might well be taken for a travelling photographer. It is good in
one direction only, but I have a signalling-bell here that can be
rung from the other end by Hertzian waves. Thank Heaven, it's
compact and simple.
"O'Connor," he went on, "it is as I told you. It was Pitts Slim.
He left here ten or fifteen minutes ago - I don't know by what exit,
but I heard them say they would meet at the Central freightyards at
midnight. Start your plain-clothes men out and send some one here,
quick, to release us. We are locked in a room in the fourth or fifth
house from the corner. There's a secret passage to the yegg-house.
The Gay Cat is still unconscious, Jameson is groggy, and I have a
bad scalp wound. They are trying to beat in our barricade. Hurry."
I think I shall never get straight in my mind the fearful five
minutes that followed, the battering at the door, the oaths, the
scuffle outside, the crash as the sofa, bureau, table, and chairs
all yielded at once - and my relief when I saw the square-set,
honest face of O'Connor and half a dozen plain-clothes men holding
the yeggs who would certainly have murdered us this time to protect
their pal in his getaway. The fact is I didn't think straight until
we were halfway uptown, speeding toward the railroad freight-yards
in O'Connor's car. The fresh air at last revived me, and I began
to forget my cuts and bruises in the renewed excitement.
We entered the yards carefully, accompanied by several of the
railroad's detectives, who met us with a couple of police dogs.
Skulking in the shadow under the high embankment that separated the
yards with their interminable lines of full and empty cars on one
side and the San Juan Hill district of New York up on the bluff on
the other side, we came upon a party of three men who were waiting
to catch the midnight" side-door Pullman " - the fast freight out
of New York.
The fight was brief, for we outnumbered them more than three to one.
O'Connor himself snapped a pair of steel bracelets on the thin man,
who seemed to be leader of the party.
"It's all up, Pitts Slim," he ground out from his set teeth.
One of our men flashed his bull's-eye on the three prisoners. I
caught myself as in a dream.
Pitts Slim was Maloney, the detective.
An hour later, at headquarters, after the pedigrees had been taken,
the "mugging" done, and the jewels found on the three yeggs checked
off from the list of the Branford pearls, leaving a few thousand
dollars' worth unaccounted for, O'Connor led the way into his private
office. There were Mrs. Branford and Blake, waiting.
Maloney sullenly refused to look at his former employer, as Blake
rushed over and grasped Kennedy's hand, asking eagerly: "How did you
do it, Kennedy? This is the last thing I expected."
Craig said nothing, but slowly opened a now crumpled envelope, which
contained an untoned print of a photograph. He laid it on the desk.
"There is your yeggman - at work," he said.
We bent over to look. It was a photograph of Maloney in the act of
putting something in the little wall safe in Mrs. Branford's room.
In a flash it dawned on me - the quick-shutter camera, the wire
connected with the wall safe, Craig's hint to Maloney that if some
of the jewels were found hidden in a likely place in the house, it
would furnish the last link in the chain against her, Maloney's
eager acceptance of the suggestion, and his visit to Montclair
during which Craig had had hard work to avoid him.
"Pitts Slim, alias Maloney," added Kennedy, turning to Blake, "your
shrewdest private detective, was posing in two characters at once
very successfully. He was your trusted agent in possession of the
most valuable secrets of your clients, at the same time engineering
all the robberies that you thought were fakes, and then working up
the evidence incriminating the victims themselves. He got into
the Branford house with a skeleton key, and killed the maid. The
picture shows him putting this shield-shaped brooch in the safe this
afternoon - here's the brooch. And all this time he was the leader
of the most dangerous band of yeggmen in the country."
"Mrs. Branford," exclaimed Blake, advancing and bowing most
profoundly, "I trust that you understand my awkward position? My
apologies cannot be too humble. It will give me great pleasure to
hand you a certified check for the missing gems the first thing in
the morning."
Mrs. Branford bit her lip nervously. The return of the pearls did
not seem to interest her in the least.
"And I, too, must apologise for the false suspicion I had of you
and - and - depend on me, it is already forgotten," said Kennedy,
emphasising the "false" and looking her straight in the eyes.
She read his meaning and a look of relief crossed her face. "Thank
you," she murmured simply, then dropping her eyes she added in a
lower tone which no one heard except Craig: "Mr. Kennedy, how can I
ever thank you? Another night, and it would have been too late to
save me from myself."
III
THE GERM OF DEATH
By this time I was becoming used to Kennedy's strange visitors and,
in fact, had begun to enjoy keenly the uncertainty of not knowing
just what to expect from them next. Still, I was hardly prepared
one evening to see a tall, nervous foreigner stalk noiselessly and
unannounced into our apartment and hand his card to Kennedy without
saying a word.
"Dr. Nicholas Kharkoff - hum - er, Jameson, you must have forgotten
to latch the door. Well, Dr. Kharkoff, what can I do for you? It
is evident something has upset you."
The tall Russian put his forefinger to his lips and, taking one of
our good chairs, placed it by the door. Then he stood on it and
peered cautiously through the transom into the hallway. "I think I
eluded him this time," he exclaimed, as he nervously took a seat.
"Professor Kennedy, I am being followed. Every step that I take
somebody shadows me, from the moment I leave my office until I
return. It is enough to drive me mad. But that is only one reason
why I have come here to-night. I believe that I can trust you as
a friend of justice - a friend of Russian freedom?"
He had included me in his earnest but somewhat vague query, so that
I did not withdraw. Somehow, apparently, he had heard of Kennedy's
rather liberal political views.
"It is about Vassili Saratovsky, the father of the Russian
revolution, as we call him, that I have come to consult you," he
continued quickly. "Just two weeks ago he was taken ill. It came
on suddenly, a violent fever which continued for a week. Then
he seemed to grow better, after the crisis had passed, and even
attended a meeting of our central committee the other night. But
in the meantime Olga Samarova, the little Russian dancer, whom you
have perhaps seen, fell ill in the same way. Samarova is an ardent
revolutionist, you know. This morning the servant at my own home
on East Broadway was also stricken, and - who knows? - perhaps it
will be my turn next. For to-night Saratovsky had an even more
violent return of the fever, with intense shivering, excruciating
pains in the limbs, and delirious headache. It is not like anything
I ever saw before. Can you look into the case before it grows any
worse, Professor?"
Again the Russian got on the chair and looked over the transom to
be sure that he was not being overheard.
"I shall be only too glad to help you in any way I can," returned
Kennedy, his manner expressing the genuine interest that he never
feigned over a particularly knotty problem in science and crime.
"I had the pleasure of meeting Saratovsky once in London. I shall
try to see him the first thing in the morning."
Dr. Kharkoff's face fell. "I had hoped you would see him to-night.
If anything should happen -"
"Is it as urgent as that?"
"I believe it is," whispered Kharkoff, leaning forward earnestly.
"We can call a taxicab - it will not take long, sir. Consider,
there are many lives possibly at stake," he pleaded.
"Very well, I will go," consented Kennedy.
At the street door Kharkoff stopped short and drew Kennedy back.
"Look - across the street in the shadow. There is the man. If I
start toward him he will disappear; he is very clever. He followed
me from Saratovsky's here, and has been waiting for me to come out."
"There are two taxicabs waiting at the stand," suggested Kennedy.
"Doctor, you jump in the first, and Jameson and I will take the
second. Then he can't follow us."
It was done in a moment, and we were whisked away, to the chagrin
of the figure, which glided impotently out of the shadow in vain
pursuit, too late even to catch the number of the cab.
"A promising adventure," commented Kennedy, as we bumped along over
New York's uneven asphalt. "Have you ever met Saratovsky?"
"No," I replied dubiously. "Will you guarantee that he will not
blow us up with a bomb?"
"Grandmother!" replied Craig. "Why, Walter, he is the most gentle,
engaging old philosopher - "
"That ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship?" I interrupted.
"On the contrary," insisted Kennedy, somewhat nettled, "he is a
patriarch, respected by every faction of the revolutionists, from
the fighting organisation to the believers in non-resistance and
Tolstoy. I tell you, Walter, the nation that can produce a man
such as Saratovsky deserves and some day will win political freedom.
I have heard of this Dr. Kharkoff before, too. His life would be
a short one if he were in Russia. A remarkable man, who fled after
those unfortunate uprisings in 1905. Ah, we are on Fifth Avenue.
I suspect that he is taking us to a club on the lower part of the
avenue, where a number of the Russian reformers live, patiently
waiting and planning for the great 'awakening' in their native land."
Kharkoff's cab had stopped. Our quest had indeed brought us almost
to Washington Square. Here we entered an old house of the past
generation. As we passed through the wide hall, I noted the high
ceilings, the old-fashioned marble mantels stained by time, the
long, narrow rooms and dirty-white woodwork, and the threadbare
furniture of black walnut and horsehair.
Upstairs in a small back room we found the venerable Saratovsky,
tossing, half-delirious with the fever, on a disordered bed. His
was a striking figure in this sordid setting, with a high
intellectual forehead and deep-set, glowing coals of eyes which
gave a hint at the things which had made his life one of the
strangest among all the revolutionists of Russia and the works he
had done among the most daring. The brown dye was scarcely yet
out of his flowing white beard - a relic of his last trip back to
his fatherland, where he had eluded the secret police in the
disguise of a German gymnasium professor.
Saratovsky extended a thin, hot, emaciated hand to us, and we
remained standing. Kennedy said nothing for the moment. The sick
man motioned feebly to us to come closer.
"Professor Kennedy," he whispered, "there is some deviltry afoot.
The Russian autocracy would stop at nothing. Kharkoff has probably
told you of it. I am so weak - "
He groaned and sank back, overcome by a chill that seemed to rack
his poor gaunt form.
"Kazanovitch can tell Professor Kennedy something, Doctor. I am
too weak to talk, even at this critical time. Take him to see
Boris and Ekaterina."
Almost reverently we withdrew, and Kharkoff led us down the hall
to another room. The door was ajar, and a light disclosed a man
in a Russian peasant's blouse, bending laboriously over a
writing-desk. So absorbed was he that not until Kharkoff spoke
did he look up. His figure was somewhat slight and his face pointed
and of an ascetic mould.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "You have recalled me from a dream. I fancied
I was on the old mir with Ivan, one of my characters. Welcome,
comrades."
It flashed over me at once that this was the famous Russian novelist,
Boris Kazanovitch. I had not at first connected the name with that
of the author of those gloomy tales of peasant life. Kazanovitch
stood with his hands tucked under his blouse.
"Night is my favourite time for writing," he explained. "It is then
that the imagination works at its best."
I gazed curiously about the room. There seemed to be a marked touch
of a woman's hand here and there; it was unmistakable. At last my
eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair
in the corner.
"Where is Nevsky?" asked Dr. Kharkoff, apparently missing the person
who owned the garments.
"Ekaterina has gone to a rehearsal of the little play of Gershuni's
escape from Siberia and betrayal by Rosenberg. She will stay with
friends on East Broadway to-night. She has deserted me, and here
I am all alone, finishing a story for one of the American magazines."
"Ah, Professor Kennedy, that is unfortunate," commented Kharkoff.
"A brilliant woman is Mademoiselle Nevsky - devoted to the cause. I
know only one who equals her, and that is my patient downstairs, the
little dancer, Samarova."
"Samarova is faithful - Nevsky is a genius," put in Kazanovitch.
Kharkoff said nothing for a time, though it was easy to see he
regarded the actress highly.
"Samarova," he said at length to us, "was arrested for her part in
the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius and thrown into solitary
confinement in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. They
tortured her, the beasts - burned her body with their cigarettes.
It was unspeakable. But she would not confess, and finally they
had to let her go. Nevsky, who was a student of biology at the
University of St. Petersburg when Von Plehve was assassinated, was
arrested, but her relatives had sufficient influence to secure her
release. They met in Paris, and Nevsky persuaded Olga to go on
the stage and come to New York."
"Next to Ekaterina's devotion to the cause is her devotion to
science," said Kazanovitch, opening a door to a little room. Then
he added: "If she were not a woman, or if your universities were
less prejudiced, she would be welcome anywhere as a professor. See,
here is her laboratory. It is the best we - she can afford. Organic
chemistry, as you call it in English, interests me too, but of course
I am not a trained scientist - I am a novelist."
The laboratory was simple, almost bare. Photographs of Koch,
Ehrlich, Metchnikoff, and a number of other scientists adorned the
walls. The deeply stained deal table was littered with beakers and
test-tubes.
"How is Saratovsky?" asked the writer of the doctor, aside, as we
gazed curiously about.
Kharkoff shook his head gravely. "We have just come from his room.
He was too weak to talk, but he asked that you tell Mr. Kennedy
anything that it is necessary he should know about our suspicions."
"It is that we are living with the sword of Damocles constantly
dangling over our heads, gentlemen," cried Kazanovitch passionately,
turning toward us. "You will excuse me if I get some cigarettes
downstairs? Over them I will tell you what we fear."
A call from Saratovsky took the doctor away also at the same moment,
and we were left alone.
"A queer situation, Craig," I remarked, glancing involuntarily at
the heap of feminine finery on the chair, as I sat down before
Kazanovitch's desk.
"Queer for New York; not for St. Petersburg, was his laconic reply,
as he looked around for another chair. Everything was littered
with books and papers, and at last he leaned over and lifted the
dress from the chair to place it on the bed, as the easiest way of
securing a seat in the scantily furnished room.
A pocketbook and a letter fell to the floor from the folds of the
dress. He stooped to pick them up, and I saw a strange look of
surprise on his face. Without a moment's hesitation he shoved the
letter into his pocket and replaced the other things as he had
found them.
A moment later Kazanovitch returned with a large box of Russian
cigarettes. "Be seated, sir," he said to Kennedy, sweeping a mass
of books and papers off a large divan. "When Nevsky is not here
the room gets sadly disarranged. I have no genius for order."
Amid the clouds of fragrant light smoke we waited for Kazanovitch
to break the silence.
"Perhaps you think that the iron hand of the Russian prime minister
has broken the backbone of revolution in Russia," he began at length.
"But because the Duma is subservient, it does not mean that all is
over. Not at all. We are not asleep. Revolution is smouldering,
ready to break forth at any moment. The agents of the government
know it. They are desperate. There is no means they would not use
to crush us. Their long arm reaches even to New York, in this land
of freedom."
He rose and excitedly paced the room. Somehow or other, this man
did not prepossess me. Was it that I was prejudiced by a puritanical
disapproval of the things that pass current in Old World morality?
Or was it merely that I found the great writer of fiction seeking
the dramatic effect always at the cost of sincerity?
"Just what is it that you suspect?" asked Craig, anxious to dispense
with the rhetoric and to get down to facts. " Surely, when three
persons are stricken, you must suspect something."
"Poison," replied Kazanovitch quickly. "Poison, and of a kind that
even the poison doctors of St. Petersburg have never employed. Dr.
Kharkoff is completely baffled. Your American doctors - two were
called in to see Saratovsky - say it is the typhus fever. But
Kharkoff knows better. There is no typhus rash. Besides" - and he
leaned forward to emphasise his words - " one does not get over
typhus in a week and have it again as Saratovsky has." I could see
that Kennedy was growing impatient. An idea had occurred to him,
and only politeness kept him listening to Kazanovitch longer.
"Doctor," he said, as Kharkoff entered the room again, "do you
suppose you could get some perfectly clean test-tubes and sterile
bouillon from Miss Nevsky's laboratory? I think I saw a rack of
tubes on the table."
"Surely," answered Kharkoff.
"You will excuse us, Mr. Kazanovitch," apologised Kennedy briskly,
"but I feel that I am going to have a hard day to-morrow and - by
the way, would you be so kind as to come up to my laboratory some
time during the day, and continue your story."
On the way out Craig took the doctor aside for a moment, and they
talked earnestly. At last Craig motioned to me.
"Walter," he explained, "Dr. Kharkoff is going to prepare some
cultures in the test-tubes to-night so that I can make a microscopic
examination of the blood of Saratovsky, Samarova, and later of his
servant. The tubes will be ready early in the morning, and I have
arranged with the doctor for you to call and get them if you have
no objection."
I assented, and we started downstairs. As we passed a door on the
second floor, a woman's voice called out, "Is that you, Boris?"
"No, Olga, this is Nicholas," replied the doctor. "It is Samarova,"
he said to us as he entered.
In a few moments he rejoined us. "She is no better," he continued,
as we again started away. "I may as well tell you, Professor
Kennedy, just how matters stand here. Samarova is head over heels
in love with Kazanovitch - you heard her call for him just now?
Before they left Paris, Kazanovitch showed some partiality for Olga,
but now Nevsky has captured him. She is indeed a fascinating woman,
but as for me, if Olga would consent to become Madame Kharkoff, it
should be done to-morrow, and she need worry no longer over her
broken contract with the American theatre managers. But women are
not that way. She prefers the hopeless love. Ah, well, I shall
let you know if anything new happens. Good-night, and a thousand
thanks for your help, gentlemen."
Nothing was said by either of us on our journey uptown, for it was
late and I, at least, was tired.
But Kennedy had no intention of going to bed, I found. Instead,
he sat down in his easy chair and shaded his eyes, apparently in
deep thought. As I stood by the table to fill my pipe for a last
smoke, I saw that he was carefully regarding the letter he had
picked up, turning it over and over, and apparently debating with
himself what to do with it.
"Some kinds of paper can be steamed open without leaving any trace,"
he remarked in answer to my unspoken question, laying the letter
down before me.
I read the address: "M. Alexander Alexandrovitch Orloff, - Rue
de - , Paris, France."
"Letter-opening has been raised to a fine art by the secret service
agents of foreign countries," he continued. "Why not take a chance?
The simple operation of steaming a letter open is followed by
reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument, and no trace is left.
I can't do that, for this letter is sealed with wax. One way would
be to take a matrix of the seal before breaking the wax and then
replace a duplicate of it. No, I won't risk it. I'll try a
scientific way."
Between two pieces of smooth wood, Craig laid the letter flat, so
that the edges projected about a thirty-second of an inch. He
flattened the projecting edge of the envelope, then roughened it,
and finally slit it open.
"You see, Walter, later I will place the letter back, apply a hair
line of strong white gum, and unite the edges of the envelope under
pressure. Let us see what we have here."
He drew out what seemed to be a manuscript on very thin paper, and
spread it out flat on the table before us. Apparently it was a
scientific paper on a rather unusual subject, "Spontaneous Generation
of Life." It was in longhand and read:
*Many thanks for the copy of the paper by Prof. Betallion of Dijon
on the artificial fertilization of the eggs of frogs. I consider
it a most important advance in the artificial generation of life.
__________________________________________________________________
*In the printed book this is shown as handwritten
__________________________________________________________________
=20
I will not attempt to reproduce in facsimile the entire manuscript,
for it is unnecessary, and, in fact, I merely set down part of its
contents here because it seemed so utterly valueless to me at the
time. It went on to say:
While Betallion punctured the eggs with a platinum needle and
developed them by means of electric discharges, Loeb in America
placed eggs of the sea-urchin in a strong solution of sea water,
then in a bath where they were subjected to the action of butyric
acid. Finally they were placed in ordinary sea water again, where
they developed in the natural manner. Delage at Roscorf used a
liquid containing salts of magnesia and tannate of ammonia to produce
the same result.
In his latest book on the Origin of Life Dr. Charlton Bastian tells
of using two solutions. One consisted of two or three drops of
dilute sodium silicate with eight drops of liquor fern pernitratis
to one ounce of distilled water. The other was composed of the same
amount of the silicate with six drops of dilute phosphoric acid and
six grains of ammonium phosphate. He filled sterilised tubes, sealed
them hermetically, and heated them to 125 or 145 degrees, Centigrade,
although 60 or 70 degrees would have killed any bacteria remaining
in them.
Next he exposed them to sunlight in a south window for from two to
four months. When the tubes were opened Dr. Bastian found organisms
in them which differed in no way from real bacteria. They grew and
multiplied. He contends that he has proved the possibility of
spontaneous generation of life.
Then there were the experiments of John Butler Burke of Cambridge,
who claimed that he had developed "radiobes" in tubes of sterilised
bouillon by means of radium emanations. Daniel Berthelot in France
last year announced that he had used the ultra-violet rays to
duplicate nature's own process of chlorophyll assimilation. He has
broken up carbon dioxide and water-vapour in the air in precisely
the same way that the green cells of plants do it.
Leduc at Nantes has made crystals grow from an artificial egg
composed of certain chemicals. These crystals show all the apparent
vital phenomena without being actually alive. His work is
interesting, for it shows the physical forces that probably control
minute life cells, once they are created.
"What do you make of it?" asked Kennedy, noting the puzzled look on
my face as I finished reading.
"Well, recent research in the problem of the origin of life may be
very interesting," I replied. "There are a good many chemicals
mentioned here - I wonder if any of them is poisonous? But I am
of the opinion that there is something more to this manuscript than
a mere scientific paper."
"Exactly, Walter," said Kennedy in half raillery. "What I wanted
to know was how you would suggest getting at that something."
Study as I might, I could make nothing out of it. Meanwhile Craig
was busily figuring with a piece of paper and a pencil.
"I give it up, Craig," I said at last. "It is late. Perhaps we had
better both turn in, and we may have some ideas on it in the morning."
For answer he merely shook his head and continued to scribble and
figure on the paper. With a reluctant good-night I shut my door,
determined to be up early in the morning and go for the tubes that
Kharkoff was to prepare.
But in the morning Kennedy was gone. I dressed hastily, and was
just about to go out when he hurried in, showing plainly the effects
of having spent a sleepless night. He flung an early edition of a
newspaper on the table.
"Too late," he exclaimed. "I tried to reach Kharkoff, but it was
too late."
"Another East Side Bomb Outrage," I read. "While returning at a
late hour last night from a patient, Dr. Nicholas Kharkoff, of
- East Broadway, was severely injured by a bomb which had been
placed in his hallway earlier in the evening. Dr. Kharkoff, who is
a well-known physician on the East Side, states that he has been
constantly shadowed by some one unknown for the past week or two.
He attributes his escape with his life to the fact that since he
was shadowed he has observed extreme caution. Yesterday his cook
was poisoned and is now dangerously ill. Dr. Kharkoff stands high
in the Russian community, and it is thought by the police that the
bomb was placed by a Russian political agent, as Kharkoff has been
active in the ranks of the revolutionists."
"But what made you anticipate it?" I asked of Kennedy, considerably
mystified.
"The manuscript," he replied.
"The manuscript? How? Where is it?"
"After I found that it was too late to save Kharkoff and that he
was well cared for at the hospital, I hurried to Saratovsky's.
Kharkoff had fortunately left the tubes there, and I got them. Here
they are. As for the manuscript in the letter, I was going to ask
you to slip upstairs by some strategy and return it where I found it,
when you went for the tubes this morning. Kazanovitch was out, and
I have returned it myself, so you need not go, now."
"He's coming to see you to-day, isn't he?"
"I hope so. I left a note asking him to bring Miss Nevsky, if
possible, too. Come, let us breakfast and go over to the laboratory.
They may arrive at any moment. Besides, I'm interested to see what
the tubes disclose."
Instead of Kazanovitch awaiting us at the laboratory, however, we
found Miss Nevsky, haggard and worn. She was a tall, striking girl
with more of the Gaul than the Slav in her appearance. There was a
slightly sensuous curve to her mouth, but on the whole her face was
striking and intellectual. I felt that if she chose she could
fascinate a man so that he would dare anything. I never before
understood why the Russian police feared the women revolutionists
so much. It was because they were themselves, plus every man they
could influence.
Nevsky appeared very excited. She talked rapidly, and fire flashed
from her grey eyes. "They tell me at the club," she began, " that
you are investigating the terrible things that are happening to us.
Oh, Professor Kennedy, it is awful! Last night I was staying with
some friends on East Broadway. Suddenly we heard a terrific
explosion up the street. It was in front of Dr. Kharkoff's house.
Thank Heaven, he is still alive! But I was so unnerved I could not
sleep. I fancied I might be the next to go.
"Early this morning I hastened to return to Fifth Avenue. As I
entered the door of my room I could not help thinking of the
horrible fate of Dr. Kharkoff. For some unknown reason, just as
I was about to push the door farther open, I hesitated and looked
- I almost fainted. There stood another bomb just inside. If I
had moved the door a fraction of an inch it would have exploded.
I screamed, and Olga, sick as she was, ran to my assistance - or
perhaps she thought something had happened to Boris. It is
standing there yet. None of us dares touch it. Oh, Professor
Kennedy, it is dreadful, dreadful. And I cannot find Boris - Mr.
Kazanovitch, I mean. Saratovsky, who is like a father to us all,
is scarcely able to speak. Dr. Kharkoff is helpless in the
hospital. Oh, what are we to do, what are we to do?"
She stood trembling before us, imploring.
"Calm yourself, Miss Nevsky," said Kennedy in a reassuring tone.
"Sit down and let us plan. I take it that it was a chemical bomb
and not one with a fuse, or you would have a different story to
tell. First of all, we must remove it. That is easily done."
He called up a near-by garage and ordered an automobile. "I will
drive it myself," he ordered, "only send a man around with it
immediately."
"No, no, no," she cried, running toward him, you must not risk it.
It is bad enough that we should risk our lives. But strangers must
not. Think, Professor Kennedy. Suppose the bomb should explode at
a touch! Had we not better call the police and let them take the
risk, even if it does get into the papers?"
"No," replied Kennedy firmly. "Miss Nevsky, I am quite willing to
take the risk. Besides, here comes the automobile."
"You are too kind," she exclaimed. "Kazanovitch himself could do
no more. How am I ever to thank you?"
On the back of the automobile Kennedy placed a peculiar oblong box,
swung on two concentric rings balanced on pivots, like a most
delicate compass.
We rode quickly downtown, and Kennedy hurried into the house,
bidding us stand back. With a long pair of tongs he seized the
bomb firmly. It was a tense moment. Suppose his hand should
unnecessarily tremble, or he should tip it just a bit - it might
explode and blow him to atoms. Keeping it perfectly horizontal
he carried it carefully out to the waiting automobile and placed
it gingerly in the box.
"Wouldn't it be a good thing to fill the box with water?" I
suggested, having read somewhere that that was the usual way of
opening a bomb, under water.
"No," he replied, as he closed the lid, "that wouldn't do any good
with a bomb of this sort. It would explode under water just as
well as in air. This is a safety bomb-carrier. It is known as the
Cardon suspension. It was invented by Professor Cardono, an Italian.
You see, it is always held in a perfectly horizontal position, no
matter how you jar it. I am now going to take the bomb to some
safe and convenient place where I can examine it at my leisure.
Meanwhile, Miss Nevsky, I will leave you in charge of Mr. Jameson."
"Thank you so much," she said. "I feel better now. I didn't dare
go into my own room with that bomb at the door. If Mr. Jameson can
only find out what has become of Mr. Kazanovitch, that is all I
want. What do you suppose has happened to him? Is he, too, hurt
or ill?"
"Very well, then," Craig replied. " I will commission you, Walter,
to find Kazanovitch. I shall be back again shortly before noon to
examine the wreck of Kharkoff's office. Meet me there. Goodbye,
Miss Nevsky."
It was not the first time that I had had a roving commission to
find some one who had disappeared in New York. I started by
inquiring for every possible place that he might be found. No
one at the Fifth Avenue house could tell me anything definite,
though they were able to give me a number of places where he was
known. I consumed practically the whole morning going from one
place to another on the East Side. Some of the picturesque
haunts of the revolutionists would have furnished material for
a story in themselves. But nowhere had they any word of
Kazanovitch, until I visited a Polish artist who was illustrating
his stories. He had been there, looking very worn and tired, and
had talked vacantly about the sketches which the artist had
showed him. After that I lost all trace of him again. It was
nearly noon as I hurried to meet Craig at Kharkoff's.
Imagine my surprise to see Kazanovitch already there, seated in
the wrecked office, furiously smoking cigarettes and showing
evident signs of having something very disturbing on his mind. The
moment he caught sight of me, he hurried forward.
"Is Professor Kennedy coming soon?" he inquired eagerly. "I was
going up to his laboratory, but I called up Nevsky, and she said
he would be here at noon." Then he put his hand up to my ear and
whispered, "I have found out who it was who shadowed Kharkoff."
"Who?" I asked, saying nothing of my long search of the morning.
"His name is Revalenko - Feodor Revalenko. I saw him standing
across the street in front of the house last night after you had
gone. When Kharkoff left, he followed him. I hurried out quietly
and followed both of them. Then the explosion came. This man
slipped down a narrow street as soon as he saw Kharkoff fall. As
people were running to Kharkoff's assistance, I did the same. He
saw me following him and ran, and I ran, too, and overtook him.
Mr. Jameson, when I looked into his face I could not believe it.
Revalenko - he is one of the most ardent members of our organisation.
He would not tell me why he had followed Kharkoff. I could make him
confess nothing. But I am sure he is an agent provocateur of the
Russian government, that he is secretly giving away the plans that
we are making, everything. We have a plot on now - perhaps he has
informed them of that. Of course he denied setting the bomb or
trying to poison any of us, but he was very frightened. I shall
denounce him at the first opportunity."
I said nothing. Kazanovitch regarded me keenly to see what
impression the story made on me, but I did not let my looks betray
anything, except proper surprise, and he seemed satisfied.
It might be true, after all, I reasoned, the more I thought of it.
I had heard that the Russian consul-general had a very extensive
spy system in the city. In fact, even that morning I had had
pointed out to me some spies at work in the public libraries,
watching what young Russians were reading. I did not doubt that
there were spies in the very inner circle of the revolutionists
themselves.
At last Kennedy appeared. While Kazanovitch poured forth his story,
with here and there, I fancied, an elaboration of a particularly
dramatic point, Kennedy quickly examined the walls and floor of the
wrecked office with his magnifying-glass. When he had concluded his
search, he turned to Kazanovitch.
"Would it be possible," he asked, "to let this Revalenko believe
that he could trust you, that it would be safe for him to visit you
to-night at Saratovsky's? Surely you can find some way of reassuring
him."
"Yes, I think that can be arranged," said Kazanovitch. "I will go
to him, will make him think I have misunderstood him, that I have
not lost faith in him, provided he can explain all. He will come.
Trust me."
"Very well, then. To-night at eight I shall be there," promised
Kennedy, as the novelist and he shook hands.
"What do you think of the Revalenko story?" I asked of Craig, as we
started uptown again.
"Anything is possible in this case," he answered sententiously.
"Well," I exclaimed, "this all is truly Russian. For intrigue they
are certainly the leaders of the world to-day. There is only one
person that I have any real confidence in, and that is old Saratovsky
himself. Somebody is playing traitor, Craig. Who is it?"
"That is what science will tell us to-night," was his brief reply.
There was no getting anything out of Craig until he was absolutely
sure that his proofs had piled up irresistibly.
Promptly at eight we met at the old house on Fifth Avenue. Kharkoff's
wounds had proved less severe than had at first been suspected, and,
having recovered from the shock, he insisted on being transferred
from the hospital in a private ambulance so that he could be near
his friends. Saratovsky, in spite of his high fever, ordered that
the door to his room be left open and his bed moved so that he
could hear and see what passed in the room down the hall. Nevsky
was there and Kazanovitch, and even brave Olga Samarova, her pretty
face burning with the fever, would not be content until she was
carried upstairs, although Dr. Kharkoff protested vigorously that
it might have fatal consequences. Revalenko, an enigma of a man,
sat stolidly. The only thing I noticed about him was an occasional
look of malignity at Nevsky and Kazanovitch when he thought he was
unobserved.
It was indeed a strange gathering, the like of which the old house
had never before harboured in all its varied history. Every one
was on the qui vive, as Kennedy placed on the table a small wire
basket containing some test-tubes, each tube corked with a small
wadding of cotton. There was also a receptacle holding a dozen
glass-handled platinum wires, a microscope, and a number of slides.
The bomb, now rendered innocuous by having been crushed in a huge
hydraulic press, lay in fragments in the box.
"First, I want you to consider the evidence of the bomb," began
Kennedy. "No crime, I firmly believe, is ever perpetrated without
leaving some clue. The slightest trace, even a drop of blood no
larger than a pin-head, may suffice to convict a murderer. The
impression made on a cartridge by the hammer of a pistol, or a
single hair found on the clothing of a suspected person, may serve
as valid proof of crime.
"Until lately, however, science was powerless against the
bomb-thrower. A bomb explodes into a thousand parts, and its
contents suddenly become gaseous. You can't collect and investigate
the gases. Still, the bomb-thrower is sadly deceived if he believes
the bomb leaves no trace for the scientific detective. It is
difficult for the chemist to find out the secrets of a shattered
bomb. But it can be done.
"I examined the walls of Dr. Kharkoff's house, and fortunately
was able to pick out a few small fragments of the contents of the
bomb which had been thrown out before the flame ignited them. I
have analysed them, and find them to be a peculiar species of
blasting-gelatine. It is made at only one factory in this country,
and I have a list of purchasers for some time back. One name, or
rather the description of an assumed name, in the list agrees with
other evidence I have been able to collect. Moreover, the explosive
was placed in a lead tube. Lead tubes are common enough. However,
there is no need of further evidence."
He paused, and the revolutionists stared fixedly at the fragments
of the now harmless bomb before them.
"The exploded bomb," concluded Craig, "was composed of the same
materials as this, which I found unexploded at the door of Miss
Nevsky's room - the same sort of lead tube, the same
blasting-gelatine. The fuse, a long cord saturated in sulphur,
was merely a blind. The real method of explosion was by means of
a chemical contained in a glass tube which was inserted after the
bomb was put in place. The least jar, such as opening a door, which
would tip the bomb ever so little out of the horizontal, was all
that was necessary to explode it. The exploded bomb and the
unexploded were in all respects identical - the same hand set both."
A gasp of astonishment ran through the circle. Could it be that
one of their own number was playing false? In at least this instance
in the warfare of the chemist and the dynamiter the chemist had come
out ahead.
"But," Kennedy hurried along, "the thing that interests me most
about this case is not the evidence of the bombs. Bombs are common
enough weapons, after all. It is the evidence of almost diabolical
cunning that has been shown in the effort to get rid of the father
of the revolution, as you like to call him."
Craig cleared his throat and played with our feelings as a cat does
with a mouse. "Strange to say, the most deadly, the most insidious,
the most elusive agency for committing murder is one that can be
obtained and distributed with practically no legal restrictions.
Any doctor can purchase disease germs in quantities sufficient to
cause thousands and thousands of deaths without giving any adequate
explanation for what purpose he requires them. More than that, any
person claiming to be a scientist or having some acquaintance with
science and scientists can usually obtain germs without difficulty.
Every pathological laboratory contains stores of disease germs,
neatly sealed up in test-tubes, sufficient to depopulate whole
cities and even nations. With almost no effort, I myself have
actually cultivated enough germs to kill every person within a radius
of a mile of the Washington Arch down the street. They are here in
these test-tubes."
We scarcely breathed. Suppose Kennedy should let loose this deadly
foe, these germs of death, whatever they were? Yet that was
precisely what some fiend incarnate had done, and that fiend was
sitting in the room with us.
"Here I have one of the most modern dark-field microscopes," he
resumed. "On this slide I have placed a little pin-point of a
culture made from the blood of Saratovsky. I will stain the culture.
Now - er - Walter, look through the microscope under this powerful
light and tell us what you see on the slide."
I bent over. "In the darkened field I see a number of germs like
dancing points of coloured light," I said. "They are wriggling
about with a peculiar twisting motion."
"Like a corkscrew," interrupted Kennedy, impatient to go on. "They
are of the species known as Spirilla. Here is another slide, a
culture from the blood of Samarova."
"I see them there, too," I exclaimed.
Every one was now crowding about for a glimpse, as I raised my head.
"What is this germ?" asked a hollow voice from the doorway.
We looked, startled. There stood Saratovsky, more like a ghost than
a living being. Kennedy sprang forward and caught him as he swayed,
and I moved up an armchair for him.
It is the spirillum Obermeieri," said Kennedy, "the germ of the
relapsing fever, but of the most virulent Asiatic strain. Obermeyer,
who discovered it, caught the disease and died of it, a martyr to
science."
A shriek of consternation rang forth from Samarova. The rest of us
paled, but repressed our feelings.
One moment," added Kennedy hastily. "Don't be unnecessarily alarmed.
I have something more to say. Be calm for a moment longer."
He unrolled a blue-print and placed it on the table.
"This," he continued, "is the photographic copy of a message which,
I suppose, is now on its way to the Russian minister to France in
Paris. Some one in this room besides Mr. Jameson and myself has
seen this letter before. I will hold it up as I pass around and
let each one see it.
In intense silence Kennedy passed before each of us, holding up the
blue-print and searchingly scanning the faces. No one betrayed by
any sign that he recognised it. At last it came to Revalenko
himself.
"The checkerboard, the checkerboard!" he cried, his eyes half
starting from their sockets as he gazed at it.
"Yes," said Kennedy in a low tone, "the checkerboard. It took me
some time to figure it out. It is a cipher that would have baffled
Poe. In fact, there is no means of deciphering it unless you chance
to know its secret. I happened to have heard of it a long time ago
abroad, yet my recollection was vague, and I had to reconstruct it
with much difficulty. It took me all night to do it. It is a cipher,
however, that is well known among the official classes of Russia.
"Fortunately I remember the crucial point, without which I should
still be puzzling over it. It is that a perfectly innocent message,
on its face, may be used to carry a secret, hidden message. The
letters which compose the words, instead of being written
continuously along, as we ordinarily write, have, as you will
observe if you look twice, breaks, here and there. These breaks in
the letters stand for numbers.
"Thus the first words are 'Many thanks.' The first break is at the
end of the letter 'n,' between it and the 'y.' There are three
letters before this break. That stands for the number 3.
"When you come to the end of a word, if the stroke is down at the
end of the last letter, that means no break; if it is up, it means
a break. The stroke at the end of the 'y' is plainly down. Therefore
there is no break until after the 't.' That gives us the number 2.
So we get 1 next, and again 1, and still again 1; then 5; then 5;
then 1; and so on.
"Now, take these numbers in pairs, thus 3 - 2; 1 - 1; 1 - 5; 5 - 1.
By consulting this table you can arrive at the hidden message.
He held up a cardboard bearing the following arrangement of the
letters of the alphabet:
_____________________________________
|_________1_____2_____3_____4_____5___|
|___1_____A_____B_____C_____D_____E___|
|___2_____F_____G_____H_____IJ____K___|
|___3_____L_____M_____N_____O_____P___|
|___4_____Q_____R_____S_____T_____U___|
|___5_____V_____W_____X_____Y_____Z___|
"Thus," he continued, "3 - 2 means the third column and second line.
That is 'H.' Then 1 - 1 is 'A'; 1 - 5 is 'V'; 5 - 1 is 'E' - and
we get the word 'Have.'"
Not a soul stirred as Kennedy unfolded the cipher. What was the
terrible secret in that scientific essay I had puzzled so
unsuccessfully over, the night before?
"Even this can be complicated by choosing a series of fixed numbers
to be added to the real numbers over and over again, Or the order of
the alphabet can be changed. However, we have the straight cipher
only to deal with here."
"And what for Heaven's sake does it reveal?" asked Saratovsky,
leaning forward, forgetful of the fever that was consuming him.
Kennedy pulled out a piece of paper on which he had written the
hidden message and read:
"Have successfully inoculated S. with fever. Public opinion America
would condemn violence. Think best death should appear natural.
Samarova infected also. Cook unfortunately took dose in food
intended Kharkoff. Now have three cases. Shall stop there at
present. Dangerous excite further suspicion health authorities."
Rapidly I eliminated in my mind the persons mentioned, as Craig read.
Saratovsky of course was not guilty, for the plot had centred about
him. Nor was little Samarova, nor Dr. Kharkoff. I noted Revalenko
and Kazanovitch glaring at each other and hastily tried to decide
which I more strongly suspected.
"Will get K.," continued Kennedy. "Think bomb perhaps all right.
K. case different from S. No public sentiment."
"So Kharkoff had been marked for slaughter," I thought. Or was "K."
Kazanovitch? I regarded Revalenko more closely. He was suspiciously
sullen.
"Must have more money. Cable ten thousand rubles at once Russian
consul-general. Will advise you plot against Czar as details
perfected here. Expect break up New York band with death of S."
If Kennedy himself had thrown a bomb or scattered broadcast the
contents of the test-tubes, the effect could not have been more
startling than his last quiet sentence - and sentence it was in two
senses.
"Signed," he said, folding the paper up deliberately, "Ekaterina
Nevsky."
It was as if a cable had snapped and a weight had fallen. Revalenko
sprang up and grasped Kazanovitch by the hand. "Forgive me, comrade,
for ever suspecting you," he cried.
"And forgive me for suspecting you," replied Kazanovitch, "but how
did you come to shadow Kharkoff?"
"I ordered him to follow Kharkoff secretly and protect him,"
explained Saratovsky.
Olga and Ekaterina faced each other fiercely. Olga was trembling
with emotion. Nevsky stood coldly, defiantly. If ever there was
a consummate actress it was she, who had put the bomb at her own
door and had rushed off to start Kennedy on a blind trail.
"You traitress," cried Olga passionately, forgetting all in her
outraged love. "You won his affections from me by your false beauty
- yet all the time you would have killed him like a dog for the
Czar's gold. At last you are unmasked - you Azeff in skirts. False
friend - you would have killed us all - Saratovsky, Kharkoff
"Be still, little fool," exclaimed Nevsky contemptuously. "The
spirilla fever has affected your brains. Bah! I will not stay with
those who are so ready to suspect an old comrade on the mere word
of a charlatan. Boris Kazanovitch, do you stand there silent and
let this insult be heaped upon
me?"
For answer, Kazanovitch deliberately turned his back on his lover
of a moment ago and crossed the room. "Olga," he pleaded, "I have
been a fool. Some day I may be worthy of your love. Fever or not,
I must beg your forgiveness."
With a cry of delight the actress flung her arms about Boris, as he
imprinted a penitent kiss on her warm lips.
"Simpleton," hissed Nevsky with curling lips. "Now you, too, will
die."
"One moment, Ekaterina Nevsky," interposed Kennedy, as he picked
up some vacuum tubes full of a golden-yellow powder, that lay on the
table. "The spirilla, as scientists now know, belong to the same
family as those which cause what we call, euphemistically, the
'black plague.' It is the same species as that of the African
sleeping sickness and the Philippine yaws. Last year a famous
doctor whose photograph I see in the next room, Dr. Ehrlich of
Frankfort, discovered a cure for all these diseases. It will rid
the blood of your victims of the Asiatic relapsing fever germs in
forty-eight hours. In these tubes I have the now famous salvarsan."
With a piercing shriek of rage at seeing her deadly work so quickly
and completely undone, Nevsky flung herself into the little
laboratory behind her and bolted the door.
Her face still wore the same cold, contemptuous smile, as Kennedy
gently withdrew a sharp scalpel from her breast.
"Perhaps it is best this way, after all," he said simply.
IV
THE FIREBUG
A big, powerful, red touring-car, with a shining brass bell on the
front of it, was standing at the curb before our apartment late one
afternoon as I entered. It was such a machine as one frequently
sees threading its reckless course in and out among the trucks and
street-cars, breaking all rules and regulations, stopping at nothing,
the bell clanging with excitement, policemen holding back traffic
instead of trying to arrest the driver - in other words, a Fire
Department automobile.
I regarded it curiously for a moment, for everything connected with
modern fire-fighting is interesting. Then I forgot about it as I
was whisked up in the elevator, only to have it recalled sharply by
the sight of a strongly built, grizzled man in a blue uniform with
red lining. He was leaning forward, earnestly pouring forth a story
into Kennedy's ear.
"And back of the whole thing, sir," I heard him say as he brought
his large fist down on the table, "is a firebug - mark my words."
Before I could close the door, Craig caught my eye, and I read in
his look that he had a new case - one that interested him greatly.
"Walter," he cried, "this is Fire Marshal McCormick. It's all
right, McCormick. Mr. Jameson is an accessory both before and after
the fact in my detective cases."
A firebug! - one of the most dangerous of criminals. The word
excited my imagination at once, for the newspapers had lately been
making much of the strange and appalling succession of apparently
incendiary fires that had terrorised the business section of the
city.
"Just what makes you think that there is a firebug - one firebug,
I mean - back of this curious epidemic of fires?" asked Kennedy,
leaning back in his morris-chair with his finger-tips together and
his eyes half closed as if expecting a revelation from some
subconscious train of thought while the fire marshal presented
his case.
"Well, usually there is no rhyme or reason about the firebug,"
replied McCormick, measuring his words, "but this time I think there
is some method in his madness. You know the Stacey department-stores
and their allied dry-goods and garment-trade interests?
Craig nodded. Of course we knew of the gigantic dry-goods
combination. It had been the talk of the press at the time of its
formation, a few months ago, especially as it included among its
organisers one very clever business woman, Miss Rebecca Wend. There
had been considerable opposition to the combination in the trade, but Stacey
had shattered it by the sheer force of his personality. McCormick
leaned forward and, shaking his forefinger to emphasise his point,
replied slowly, "Practically every one of these fires has been
directed against a Stacey subsidiary or a corporation controlled
by them."
"But if it has gone as far as that," put in Kennedy, "surely the
regular police ought to be of more assistance to you than I."
"I have called in the police," answered McCormick wearily, "but they
haven't even made up their minds whether it is a single firebug or
a gang. And in the meantime, my God, Kennedy, the firebug may start
a fire that will get beyond control!"
"You say the police haven't a single clue to any one who might be
responsible for the fires?" I asked, hoping that perhaps the
marshal might talk more freely of his suspicions to us than he had
already expressed himself in the newspaper interviews I had read.
"Absolutely not a clue - except such as are ridiculous," replied
McCormick, twisting his cap viciously.
No one spoke. We were waiting for McCormick to go on.
"The first fire," he began, repeating his story for my benefit,
although Craig listened quite as attentively as if he had not heard
it already, "was at the big store of Jones, Green & Co., the
clothiers. The place was heavily insured. Warren, the manager and
real head of the firm, was out of town at the time."
The marshal paused as if to check off the strange facts in his mind
as he went along.
"The next day another puzzling fire occurred. It was at the
Quadrangle Cloak and Suit Co., on Fifth Avenue. There had been some
trouble, I believe, with the employees, and the company had
discharged a number of them. Several of the leaders have been
arrested, but I can't say we have anything against any of them.
Still, Max Bloom, the manager of this company, insists that the fire
was set for revenge, and indeed it looks as much like a fire for
revenge as the Jones-Green fire does" - here he lowered his voice
confidentially - "for the purpose of collecting insurance.
"Then came the fire in the Slawson Building, a new loft-building
that had been erected just off Fourth Avenue. Other than the fact
that the Stacey interests put up the money for financing this
building there seemed to be no reason for that fire at all. The
building was reputed to be earning a good return on the investment,
and I was at a loss to account for the fire. I have made no
arrests for it - just set it down as the work of a pure pyromaniac,
a man who burns buildings for fun, a man with an inordinate desire
to hear the fire-engines screech through the streets and perhaps
get a chance to show a little heroism in 'rescuing' tenants.
However, the adjuster for the insurance company, Lazard, and the
adjuster for the insured, Hartstein, have reached an agreement,
and I believe the insurance is to be paid."
"But," interposed Kennedy, "I see no evidence of organised arson
so far."
"Wait," replied the fire marshal. "That was only the beginning,
you understand. A little later came a fire that looked quite like
an attempt to mask a robbery by burning the building afterward.
That was in a silk-house near Spring Street. But after a
controversy the adjusters have reached an agreement on that case.
I mention these fires because they show practically all the types
of work of the various kinds of firebug - insurance, revenge,
robbery, and plain insanity. But since the Spring Street fire, the
character of the fires has been more uniform. They have all been
in business places, or nearly all."
Here the fire marshal launched forth into a catalogue of fires of
suspected incendiary origin, at least eight in all. I took them
down hastily, intending to use the list some time in a box head
with an article in the Star. When he had finished his list I
hastily counted up the number of killed. There were six, two of
them firemen, and four employees. The money loss ranged into the
millions.
McCormick passed his hand over his forehead to brush off the
perspiration. "I guess this thing has got on my nerves," he
muttered hoarsely. " Everywhere I go they talk about nothing else.
If I drop into the restaurant for lunch, my waiter talks of it.
If I meet a newspaper man, he talks of it. My barber talks of it
- everybody. Sometimes I dream of it; other times I lie awake
thinking about it. I tell you, gentlemen, I've sweated blood over
this problem."
"But," insisted Kennedy, "I still can't see why you link all these
fires as due to one firebug. I admit there is an epidemic of fires.
But what makes you so positive that it is all the work of one man?"
"I was coming to that. For one thing, he isn't like the usual
firebug at all. Ordinarily they start their fires with excelsior
and petroleum, or they smear the wood with paraffin or they use
gasoline, benzine, or something of that sort. This fellow
apparently scorns such crude methods. I can't say how he starts
his fires, but in every case I have mentioned we have found the
remains of a wire. It has something to do with electricity - but
what, I don't know. That's one reason why I think these fires are
all connected. Here's another."
McCormick pulled a dirty note out of his pocket and laid it on the
table. We read it eagerly:
Hello, Chief! Haven't found the firebug yet, have you? You
will know who he is only when I am dead and the fires stop.
I don't suppose you even realise that the firebug talks with
you almost every day about catching the firebug. That's me.
I am the real firebug, that is writing this letter. I am
going to tell you why I am starting these fires. There's
money in it - an easy living. They never caught me in or
anywhere, so you might as well quit looking for me and take
your medicine.
A. SPARK.
"Humph!" ejaculated Kennedy, "he has a sense of humour, anyhow - A.
Spark!"
"Queer sense of humour," growled McCormick, gritting his teeth.
"Here's another I got to-day:
Say, Chief: We are going to get busy again and fire a big
department-store next. How does that suit Your Majesty?
till the fun begins when the firebug gets to work again.
A. SPARK.
"Well, sir, when I got that letter," cried McCormick, "I was almost
ready to ring in a double-nine alarm at once - they have me that
bluffed out. But I said to myself, 'There's only one thing to do
- see this man Kennedy.' So here I am. You see what I am driving
at? I believe that firebug is an artist at the thing, does it for
the mere fun of it and the ready money in it. But more than that,
there must be some one back of him. Who is the man higher up - we
must catch him. See?"
"A big department-store," mused Kennedy.
"That's definite - there are only a score or so of them, and the
Stacey interests control several. Mac, I'll tell you what I'll do.
Let me sit up with you to-night at headquarters until we get an
alarm. By George, I'll see this case through to a finish!
The fire marshal leaped to his feet and bounded over to where
Kennedy was seated. With one hand on Craig's shoulder and the other
grasping Craig's hand, he started to speak, but his voice choked.
"Thanks," he blurted out huskily at last. "My reputation in the
department is at stake, my promotion, my position itself, my - my
family - er - er - "
"Not a word, sir," said Kennedy, his features working sympathetically.
"To-night at eight I will go on watch with you. By the way, leave me
those A. Spark notes."
McCormick had so far regained his composure as to say a hearty
farewell. He left the room as if ten years had been lifted off his
shoulders. A moment later he stuck his head in the door again.
"I'll have one of the Department machines call for you, gentlemen,"
he said.
After the marshal had gone, we sat for several minutes in silence.
Kennedy was reading and rereading the notes, scowling to himself as
if they presented a particularly perplexing problem. I said nothing,
though my mind was teeming with speculations. At length he placed
the notes very decisively on the table and snapped out the remark,
"Yes, it must be so."
"What?" I queried, still drumming away at my typewriter, copying the
list of incendiary fires against the moment when the case should be
complete and the story released for publication, as it were.
"This note," he explained, picking up the first one and speaking
slowly, "was written by a woman."
I swung around in my chair quickly. "Get out!" I exclaimed
sceptically. "No woman ever used such phrases.
"I didn't say composed by a woman - I said written by a woman," he
replied.
"Oh," I said, rather chagrined.
"It is possible to determine sex from handwriting in perhaps eighty
cases out of a hundred," Kennedy went on, enjoying my discomfiture.
"Once I examined several hundred specimens of writing to decide that
point to my satisfaction. Just to test my conclusions I submitted
the specimens to two professional graphologists. I found that our
results were slightly different, but I averaged the thing up to four
cases out of five correct. The so-called sex signs are found to be
largely influenced by the amount of writing done, by age, and to a
certain extent by practice and professional requirements, as in the
conventional writing of teachers and the rapid hand of bookkeepers.
Now in this case the person who wrote the first note was only an
indifferent writer. Therefore the sex signs are pretty likely to be
accurate. Yes, I'm ready to go on the stand and swear that this
note was written by a woman and the second by a man."
"Then there's a woman in the case, and she wrote the first note for
the firebug - is that what you mean?" I asked.
"Exactly. There nearly always is a woman in the case, somehow or
other. This woman is closely connected with the firebug. As for
the firebug, whoever it may be, he performs his crimes with cold
premeditation and, as De Quincey said, in a spirit of pure artistry.
The lust of fire propels him, and he uses his art to secure wealth.
The man may be a tool in the hands of others, however. It's unsafe
to generalise on the meagre facts we now have. Oh, well, there is
nothing we can do just yet. Let's take a walk, get an early dinner,
and be back here before the automobile arrives."
Not a word more did Kennedy say about the case during our stroll or
even on the way downtown to fire headquarters.
We found McCormick anxiously waiting for us. High up in the
sandstone tower at headquarters, we sat with him in the maze of
delicate machinery with which the fire game is played in New York.
In great glass cases were glistening brass and nickel machines with
discs and levers and bells, tickers, sheets of paper, and
annunciators without number. This was the fire-alarm telegraph, the
"roulette-wheel of the fire demon," as some one has aptly called it.
"All the alarms for fire from all the boroughs, both from the regular
alarm-boxes and the auxiliary systems, come here first over the
network of three thousand miles or more of wire nerves that stretch
out through the city," McCormick was explaining to us.
A buzzer hissed.
"Here's an alarm now," he exclaimed, all attention.
"Three," "six," "seven," the numbers appeared on the annunciator.
The clerks in the office moved as if they were part of the mechanism.
Twice the alarm was repeated, being sent out all over the city.
McCormick relapsed from his air of attention.
"That alarm was not in the shopping district," he explained, much
relieved. "Now the fire-houses in the particular district where
that fire is=20have received the alarm instantly. Four engines, two
hook-and-ladders, a water-tower, the battalion chief, and a deputy
are hurrying to that fire. Hello, here comes another."
Again the buzzer sounded. "One," "four," "five" showed in the
annunciator.
Even before the clerks could respond, McCormick had dragged us to
the door. In another instant we were wildly speeding uptown, the
bell on the front of the automobile clanging like a fire-engine,
the siren horn going continuously, the engine of the machine
throbbing with energy until the water boiled in the radiator.
"Let her out, Frank," called McCormick to his chauffeur, as we
rounded into a broad and now almost deserted thoroughfare.
Like a red streak in the night we flew up that avenue, turned into
Fourteenth Street on two wheels, and at last were on Sixth Avenue.
With a jerk and a skid we stopped. There were the engines, the
hose-carts, the hook-and-ladders, the salvage corps, the police
establishing fire lines-everything. But where was the fire?
The crowd indicated where it ought to be - it was Stacey's. Firemen
and policemen were entering the huge building. McCormick shouldered
in after them, and we followed.
"Who turned in the alarm?" he asked as we mounted the stairs with
the others.
"I did," replied a night watchman on the third landing. "Saw a
light in the office on the third floor back - something blazing.
But it seems to be out now."
We had at last come to the office. It was dark and deserted, yet
with the lanterns we could see the floor of the largest room littered
with torn books and ledgers.
Kennedy caught his foot in something. It was a loose wire on the
floor. He followed it. It led to an electric-light socket, where
it was attached.
"Can't you turn on the lights?" shouted McCormick to the watchman.
"Not here. They're turned on from downstairs, and they're off for
the night. I'll go down if you want me to and -"
"No," roared Kennedy. "Stay where you are until I follow the wire
to the other end."
At last we came to a little office partitioned off from the main
room. Kennedy carefully opened the door. One whiff of the air from
it was sufficient. He banged the door shut again.
"Stand back with those lanterns, boys," he ordered.
I sniffed, expecting to smell illuminating-gas. Instead, a peculiar,
sweetish odour pervaded the air. For a moment it made me think of
a hospital operating-room.
"Ether," exclaimed Kennedy. "Stand back farther with those lights
and hold them up from the floor."
For a moment he seemed to hesitate as if at loss what to do next.
Should he open the door and let this highly inflammable gas out or
should he wait patiently until the natural ventilation of the little
office had dispelled it?
While he was debating he happened to glance out of the window and
catch sight of a drug-store across the street.
"Walter," he said to me, "hurry across there and get all the
saltpeter and sulphur the man has in the shop.
I lost no time in doing so. Kennedy dumped the two chemicals into
a pan in the middle of the main office, about three-fifths saltpeter
and two-fifths sulphur, I should say. Then he lighted it. The
mass burned with a bright flame but without explosion. We could
smell the suffocating fumes from it, and we retreated. For a moment
or two we watched it curiously at a distance.
"That's very good extinguishing-powder," explained Craig as we
sniffed at the odour. "It yields a large amount of carbon dioxide
and sulphur dioxide. Now - before it gets any worse - I guess
it's safe to open the door and let the ether out. You see this is
as good a way as any to render safe a room full of inflammable
vapour. Come, we'll wait outside the main office for a few minutes
until the gases mix.
It seemed hours before Kennedy deemed it safe to enter the office
again with a light. When we did so, we made a rush for the little
cubby-hole of an office at the other end. On the floor was a little
can of ether, evaporated of course, and beside it a small apparatus
apparently used for producing electric sparks.
"So, that's how he does it," mused Kennedy, fingering the can
contemplatively. "He lets the ether evaporate in a room for a while
and then causes an explosion from a safe distance with this little
electric spark. There's where your wire comes in, McCormick. Say,
my man, you can switch on the lights from downstairs, now."
As we waited for the watchman to turn on the lights I exclaimed,
"He failed this time because the electricity was shut off."
Precisely, Walter," assented Kennedy.
"But the flames which the night watchman saw, what of them?" put in
McCormick, considerably mystified. "He must have seen something."
Just then the lights winked up.
"Oh, that was before the fellow tried to touch off the ether vapour,"
explained Kennedy. "He had to make sure of his work of destruction
first - and, judging by the charred papers about, he did it well.
See, he tore leaves from the ledgers and lighted them on the floor.
There was an object in all that. What was it? Hello! Look at this
mass of charred paper in the corner."
He bent down and examined it carefully. "Memoranda of some kind, I
guess. I'll save this burnt paper and look it over later. Don't
disturb it. I'll take it away myself."
Search as we might, we could find no other trace of the firebug, and
at last we left. Kennedy carried the charred paper carefully in a
large hat-box.
"There'll be no more fires to-night, McCormick," he said. "But I'll
watch with you every night until we get this incendiary. Meanwhile
I'll see what I can decipher, if anything, in this burnt paper."
Next day McCormick dropped in to see us again. This time he had
another note, a disguised scrawl which read:
Chief I'm not through. Watch me get another store yet.
I won't fall down this time.
Craig scowled as he read the note and handed it to me. "The man's
A. SPARK.
writing this time - like the second note," was all he said.
"McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike,
don't you think it would be wiser to make our headquarters in one
of the engine-houses in that district?"
The fire marshal agreed, and that night saw us watching at the
fire-house nearest the department-store region.
Kennedy and I were assigned to places on the hose-cart and engine,
respectively, Kennedy being in the hose-cart so that he could be
with McCormick. We were taught to descend one of the four brass
poles hand under elbow, from the dormitory on the second floor.
They showed us how to jump into the "turn-outs" - a pair of trousers
opened out over the high top boots. We were given helmets which
we placed in regulation fashion on our rubber coats, turned inside
out with the right armhole up. Thus it came about that Craig and I
joined the Fire Department temporarily. It was a novel experience
for us both.
"Now, Walter," said Kennedy, "as long as we have gone so far, we'll
'roll' to every fire, just like the regulars. We won't take any
chances of missing the firebug at any time of night or day."
It proved to be a remarkably quiet evening with only one little
blaze in a candy-shop on Seventh Avenue. Most of the time we sat
around trying to draw the men out about their thrilling experiences
at fires. But if there is one thing the fireman doesn't know it is
the English language when talking about himself. It was quite late
when we turned into the neat white cots upstairs.
We had scarcely fallen into a half doze in our strange surroundings
when the gong downstairs sounded. It was our signal.
We could hear the rapid clatter of the horses' hoofs as they were
automatically released from their stalls and the collars and
harness mechanically locked about them. All was stir, and motion,
and shouts. Craig and I had bounded awkwardly into our
paraphernalia at the first sound. We slid ungracefully down the
pole and were pushed and shoved into our places, for scientific
management in a New York fire-house has reached one hundred per
cent efficiency, and we were not to be allowed to delay the game.
The oil-torch had been applied to the engine, and it rolled forth,
belching flames. I was hanging on for dear life, now and then
catching sight of the driver urging his plunging horses onward like
a charioteer in a modern Ben Hur race. The tender with Craig and
McCormick was lost in the clouds of smoke and sparks that trailed
behind us. On we dashed until we turned into Sixth Avenue. The
glare of the sky told us that this time the firebug had made good.
"I'll be hanged if it isn't the Stacey store again, shouted the man
next me on the engine as the horses lunged up the avenue and
stopped at the allotted hydrant. It was like a war game. Every
move had been planned out by the fire-strategists, even down to the
hydrants that the engines should take at a given fire.
Already several floors were aflame, the windows glowing like
open-hearth furnaces, the glass bulging and cracking and the flames
licking upward and shooting out in long streamers. The hose was
coupled up in an instant, the water turned on, and the limp rubber
and canvas became as rigid as a post with the high pressure of the
water being forced through it. Company after company dashed into
the blazing "fireproof" building, urged by the hoarse profanity of
the chief.
Twenty or thirty men must have disappeared into the stifle from
which the police retreated. There was no haste, no hesitation.
Everything moved as smoothly as if by clockwork. Yet we could not
see one of the men who had disappeared into the burning building.
They had been swallowed up, as it were. For that is the way with
the New York firemen. They go straight to the heart of the fire.
Now and then a stream of a hose spat out of a window, showing that
the men were still alive and working. About the ground floors the
red-helmeted salvage corps were busy covering up what they could
of the goods with rubber sheets to protect them from water.
Doctors with black bags and white trousers were working over the
injured. Kennedy and I were busy about the engine, and there was
plenty for us to do.
Above the shrill whistle for more coal I heard a voice shout,
"Began with an explosion - it's the fire- bug, all right." I
looked up. It was McCormick, dripping and grimy, in a high state
of excitement, talking to Kennedy.
I had been so busy trying to make myself believe that I was really
of some assistance about the engine that I had not taken time to
watch the fire itself. It was now under control. The sharp and
scientific attack had nipped what might have been one of New York's
historic conflagrations.
"Are you game to go inside?" I heard McCormick ask.
For answer Kennedy simply nodded. As for me, where Craig went I
went.
The three of us drove through the scorching door, past twisted
masses of iron still glowing dull red in the smoke and steam, while
the water hissed and spattered and slopped. The smoke was still
suffocating, and every once in a while we were forced to find air
close to the floor and near the wall. My hands and arms and legs
felt like lead, yet on we drove.
Coughing and choking, we followed McCormick to what had been the
heart of the fire, the office. Men with picks and axes and all
manner of cunningly devised instruments were hacking and tearing
at the walls and woodwork, putting out the last smouldering sparks
while a thousand gallons of water were pouring in at various parts
of the building where the fire still showed spirit.
There on the floor of the office lay a charred, shapeless,
unrecognisable mass. What was that gruesome odour in the room?
Burned human flesh? I recoiled from what had once been the form of
a woman.
McCormick uttered a cry, and as I turned my eyes away, I saw him
holding a wire with the insulation burned off. He had picked it
up from the wreckage of the floor. It led to a bent and blackened
can - that had once been a can of ether.
My mind worked rapidly, but McCormick blurted out the words before
I could form them, "Caught in her own trap at last!"
Kennedy said nothing, but as one of the firemen roughly but
reverently covered the remains with a rubber sheet, he stooped down
and withdrew from the breast of the woman a long letter-file.
"Come, let us go," he said.
Back in our apartment again we bathed our racking heads, gargled our
parched throats, and washed out our bloodshot eyes, in silence. The
whole adventure, though still fresh and vivid in my mind, seemed
unreal, like a dream. The choking air, the hissing steam, the
ghastly object under the tarpaulin - what did it all mean? Who was
she? I strove to reason it out, but could find no answer.
It was nearly dawn when the door opened and McCormick came in and
dropped wearily into a chair. "Do you know who that woman was?" he
gasped. " It was Miss Wend herself."
"Who identified her?" asked Kennedy calmly.
"Oh, several people. Stacey recognised her at once. Then Hartstein,
the adjuster for the insured, and Lazard, the adjuster for the
company, both of whom had had more or less to do with her in
connection with settling up for other fires, recognised her. She
was a very clever woman, was Miss Wend, and a very important cog in
the Stacey enterprises. And to think she was the firebug, after
all. I can hardly believe it."
"Why believe it?" asked Kennedy quietly.
"Why believe it?" echoed McCormick. "Stacey has found shortages in
his books due to the operation of her departments. The bookkeeper
who had charge of the accounts in her department, a man named
Douglas, is missing. She must have tried to cover up her operations
by fires and juggling the accounts. Failing in that she tried to
destroy Stacey's store itself, twice. She was one of the few that
could get into the office unobserved. Oh, it's a clear case now.
To my mind, the heavy vapours of ether - they are heavier than air,
you know - must have escaped along the surface of the floor last
night and become ignited at a considerable distance from where she
expected. She was caught in a back-draught, or something of the
sort. Well, thank God, we've seen the last of this firebug business.
What's that?"
Kennedy had laid the letter-file on the table. "Nothing. Only I
found this embedded in Miss Wend's breast right over her heart."
"Then she was murdered?" exclaimed McCormick.
"We haven't come to the end of this case yet," replied Craig
evasively. "On the contrary, we have just got our first good clue.
No, McCormick, your theory will not hold water. The real point is
to find this missing bookkeeper at any cost. You must persuade
him to confess what he knows. Offer him immunity - he was only a
pawn in the hands of those higher up."
McCormick was not hard to convince. Tired as he was, he grabbed
up his hat and started off to put the final machinery in motion to
wind up the long chase for the firebug.
"I must get a couple of hours' sleep," he yawned as he left us,"
but first I want to start something toward finding Douglas. I
shall try to see you about noon."
I was too exhausted to go to the office. In fact, I doubt if I
could have written a line. But I telephoned in a story of personal
experiences at the Stacey fire and told them they could fix it up
as they chose and even sign my name to it.
About noon McCormick came in again, looking as fresh as if nothing
had happened. He was used to it.
"I know where Douglas is," he announced breathlessly.
"Fine," said Kennedy, "and can you produce him at any time when it
is necessary?"
"Let me tell you what I have done. I went down to the district
attorney from here - routed him out of bed. He has promised to turn
loose his accountants to audit the reports of the adjusters,
Hartstein and Lazard, as well as to make a cursory examination of
what Stacey books there are left. He says he will have a preliminary
report ready to-night, but the detailed report will take days, of
course.
"It's the Douglas problem that is difficult, though. I haven't seen
him, but one of the central-office men, by shadowing his wife, has
found that he is in hiding down on the East Side. He's safe there;
he can't make a move to get away without being arrested. The trouble
is that if I arrest him, the people higher up will know it and will
escape before I can get his confession and the warrants. I'd much
rather have the whole thing done at once. Isn't there some way we
can get the whole Stacey crowd together, make the arrest of Douglas
and nab the guilty ones in the case, all together without giving
them a chance to escape or to shield the real firebug?"
Kennedy thought a moment. "Yes," he answered slowly. "There is.
If you can get them all together at my laboratory to-night at, say,
eight o'clock, I'll give you two clear hours to make the arrest of
Douglas, get the confession, and swear out the warrants. All that
you'll need to do is to let me talk a few minutes this afternoon
with the judge who will sit in the night court to-night. I shall
install a little machine on his desk in the court, and we'll catch
the real criminal - he'll never get a chance to cross the state
line or disappear in any way. You see, my laboratory will be neutral
ground. I think you can get them to come, inasmuch as they know the
bookkeeper is safe and that dead women tell no tales."
When next I saw Kennedy it was late in the afternoon, in the
laboratory. He was arranging something in the top drawer of a
flat-top desk. It seemed to be two instruments composed of many
levers and discs and magnets, each instrument with a roll of paper
about five inches wide. On one was a sort of stylus with two
silk cords attached at right angles to each other near the point.
On the other was a capillary glass tube at the junction of two
aluminum arms, also at right angles to each other.
It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his laboratory
preparing for a "seance." He said nothing as I watched him
curiously, and I asked nothing. Two sets of wires were attached
to each of the instruments, and these he carefully concealed and
led out the window. Then he arranged the chairs on the opposite
side of the desk from his own.
"Walter," he said, "when our guests begin to arrive I want you to
be master of ceremonies. Simply keep them on the opposite side of
the desk from me. Don't let them move their chairs around to the
right or left. And, above all, leave the doors open. I don't want
any one to be suspicious or to feel that he is shut in in any way.
Create the impression that they are free to go and come when they
please."
Stacey arrived first in a limousine which he left standing at the
door of the Chemistry Building. Bloom and Warren came together in
the latter's car. Lazard came in a taxicab which he dismissed, and
Hartstein came up by the subway, being the last to arrive. Every
one seemed to be in good humour.
I seated them as Kennedy had directed. Kennedy pulled out the
extension on the left of his desk and leaned his elbow on it as he
began to apologise for taking up their time at such a critical
moment. As near as I could make out, he had quietly pulled out the
top drawer of his desk on the right, the drawer in which I had seen
him place the complicated apparatus. But as nothing further happened
I almost forgot about it in listening to him. He began by referring
to the burned papers he had found in the office.
"It is sometimes possible," he continued, "to decipher writing on
burned papers if one is careful. The processes of colour photography
have recently been applied to obtain a legible photograph of the
writing on burned manuscripts which are unreadable by any other
known means. As long as the sheet has not been entirely
disintegrated positive results can be obtained every time. The
charred manuscript is carefully arranged in as near its original
shape as possible, on a sheet of glass and covered with a drying
varnish, after which it is backed by another sheet of glass.
"By using carefully selected colour screens and orthochromatic
plates a perfectly legible photograph of the writing may be taken,
although there may be no marks on the charred remains that are
visible to the eye. This is the only known method in many cases.
I have here some burned fragments of paper which I gathered up
after the first attempt to fire your store, Mr. Stacey."
Stacey coughed in acknowledgment. As for Craig, he did not mince
matters in telling what he had found.
"Some were notes given in favour of Rebecca Wend and signed by
Joseph Stacey," he said quietly. "They represent a large sum of
money in the aggregate. Others were memoranda of Miss Wend's, and
still others were autograph letters to Miss Wend of a very
incriminating nature in connection with the fires by another person."
Here he laid the "A. Spark" letters on the desk before him. "Now,"
he added "some one, in a spirit of bravado, sent these notes to the
fire marshal at various times. Curiously enough, I find that the
handwriting of the first one bears a peculiar resemblance to that of
Miss Wend, while the second and third, though disguised also, greatly
suggest the handwriting of Miss Wend's correspondent."
No one moved. But I sat aghast. She had been a part of the
conspiracy, after all, not a pawn. Had they played fair?
"Taking up next the remarkable succession of fires," resumed Kennedy,
"this case presents some unique features. In short, it is a clear
case of what is known as a 'firebug trust.' Now just what is a
firebug trust? Well, it is, as near as I can make out, a combination
of dishonest merchants and insurance adjusters engaged in the business
of deliberately setting fires for profit. These arson trusts are not
the ordinary kind of firebugs whom the firemen plentifully damn in
the fixed belief that one-fourth of all fires are kindled by
incendiaries. Such 'trusts' exist all over the country. They have
operated in Chicago, where they are said to have made seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars in one year. Another group is said to
have its headquarters in Kansas City. Others have worked in St.
Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo. The fire marshals of
Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio have investigated their work.
But until recently New York has been singularly free from the
organised work of this sort. Of course we have plenty of firebugs
and pyromaniacs in a small way, but the big conspiracy has never
come to my personal attention before.
"Now, the Jones-Green fire, the Quadrangle fire, the Slawson Building
fire, and the rest, have all been set for one purpose - to collect
insurance. I may as well say right here that some people are in bad
in this case, but that others are in worse. Miss Wend was originally
a party to the scheme. Only the trouble with Miss Wend was that she
was too shrewd to be fooled. She insisted that she have her full
share of the pickings. In that case it seems to have been the whole
field against Miss Wend, not a very gallant thing, nor yet according
to the adage about honour among thieves.
"A certain person whose name I am frank to say I do not know - yet
- conceived the idea of destroying the obligations of the Stacey
companies to Miss Wend as well as the incriminating evidence
which she held of the 'firebug trust,' of which she was a member up
to this time. The plan only partly succeeded. The chief coup,
which was to destroy he Stacey store into the bargain, miscarried.
"What was the result? Miss Wend, who had been hand in glove with
the 'trust,' was now a bitter enemy, perhaps would turn state's
evidence. What more natural than to complete the conspiracy by
carrying out the coup and at the same time get rid of the dangerous
enemy of the conspirators? I believe that Miss Wend was lured
under some pretext or other to the Stacey store on the night of the
big fire. The person who wrote the second and third 'A. Spark'
letters did it. She was murdered with this deadly instrument"
- Craig laid the letter-file on the table - "and it was planned to
throw the entire burden of suspicion on her by asserting that there
was a shortage in the books of her department."
"Pooh!" exclaimed Stacey, smoking complacently at his cigar. "We
have been victimised in those fires by people who have grudges
against us, labour unions and others. This talk of an arson trust
is bosh - yellow journalism. More than that, we have been
systematically robbed by a trusted head of a department, and the
fire at Stacey's was the way the thief took to cover - er - her
stealings. At the proper time we shall produce the bookkeeper
Douglas and prove it.
Kennedy fumbled in the drawer of the desk, then drew forth a long
strip of paper covered with figures. "All the Stacey companies,"
he said, "have been suffering from the depression that exists in
the trade at present. They are insolvent. Glance over that,
Stacey. It is a summary of the preliminary report of the accountants
of the district attorney who have been going over your books to-day."
Stacey gasped. "How did you get it? The report was not to be ready
until nine o'clock, and it is scarcely a quarter past now."
"Never mind how I got it. Go over it with the adjusters, anybody.
I think you will find that there was no shortage in Miss Wend's
department, that you were losing money, that you were in debt to
Miss Wend, and that she would have received the lion's share of
the proceeds of the insurance if the firebug scheme had turned out
as planned."
"We absolutely repudiate these figures as fiction," said Stacey,
angrily turning toward Kennedy after a hurried consultation.
Perhaps, then, you'll appreciate this," replied Craig, pulling
another piece of paper from the desk. "I'll read it. 'Henry
Douglas, being duly sworn, deposes and says that one' - we'll call
him 'Blank' for the present - 'with force and arms did feloniously,
wilfully, and intentionally kill Rebecca Wend whilst said Blank
was wilfully burning and setting on fire - "
"One moment," interrupted Stacey. "Let me see that paper."
Kennedy laid it down so that only the signature showed. The name
was signed in a full round hand, "Henry Douglas."
"It's a forgery," cried Stacey in rage. "Not an hour before I came
into this place I saw Henry Douglas. He had signed no such paper
then. He could not have signed it since, and you could not have
received it. I brand that document as a forgery."
Kennedy stood up and reached down into the open drawer on the right
of his desk. From it he lifted the two machines I had seen him place
there early in the evening.
Gentlemen," he said, " this is the last scene of the play you are
enacting. You see here on the desk an instrument that was invented
many years ago, but has only recently become really practical. It
is the telautograph - the long-distance writer. In this new form
it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any
one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the
knowledge of a caller. It makes it possible to write a message
under these conditions and receive an answer concerning the
personality or business of the individual seated at one's elbow
without leaving the desk or seeming to make inquiries.
"With an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of the
transmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the
current which controls a pencil at the other end of the line. The
receiving pencil moves simultaneously with my pencil. It is the
principle of the pantograph cut in half, one half here, the other
half at the end of the line, two telephone wires in this case
connecting the halves.
"While we have been sitting here I have had my right hand in the
half-open drawer of my desk writing with this pencil notes of what
has transpired in this room. These notes, with other evidence, have
been simultaneously placed before Magistrate Brenner in the night
court. At the same time, on this other, the receiving, instrument
the figures of the accountants written in court have been reproduced
here. You have seen them. Meanwhile. Douglas was arrested, taken
before the magistrate, and the information for a charge of murder
in the first degree perpetrated in committing arson has been
obtained. You have seen it. It came in while you were reading the
figures."
The conspirators seemed dazed.
"And now," continued Kennedy, "I see that the pencil of the receiving
instrument is writing again. Let us see what it is."
We bent over. The writing started: "County of New York. In the
name of the People of the State of New York - "
Kennedy did not wait for us to finish reading. He tore the writing
from the telautograph and waved it over his head.
"It is a warrant. You are all under arrest for arson. But you,
Samuel Lazard, are also under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Wend
and six other persons in fires which you have set. You are the real
firebug, the tool of Joseph Stacey, perhaps, but that will all come
out in the trial. McCormick, McCormick," called Craig, "it's all
right. I have the warrant. Are the police there?"
There was no answer.
Lazard and Stacey made a sudden dash for the door, and in an instant
they were in Stacey's waiting car. The chauffeur took off the brake
and pulled the lever. Suddenly Craig's pistol flashed, and the
chauffeur's arms hung limp and useless on the steering-wheel.
As McCormick with the police loomed up, a moment late, out of the
darkness and after a short struggle clapped the irons on Stacey and
Lazard in Stacey's own magnificently upholstered car, I remarked
reproachfully to Kennedy: "But, Craig, you have shot the innocent
chauffeur. Aren't you going to attend to him?"
"Oh," replied Kennedy nonchalantly, "don't worry about that. They
were only rock-salt bullets. They didn't penetrate far. They'll
sting for some time, but they're antiseptic, and they'll dissolve
and absorb quickly."
V
THE CONFIDENCE KING
"Shake hands with Mr. Burke of the secret service, Professor
Kennedy."
It was our old friend First Deputy O'Connor who thus in his bluff
way introduced a well-groomed and prosperous-looking man whom he
brought up to our apartment one evening.
The formalities were quickly over. "Mr. Burke and I are old
friends," explained O'Connor. "We try to work together when we can,
and very often the city department can give the government service
a lift, and then again it's the other way - as it was in the
trunk-murder mystery. Show Professor Kennedy the 'queer,' Tom."
Burke drew a wallet out of his pocket, and from it slowly and
deliberately selected a crisp, yellow-backed hundred-dollar bill.
He laid it flat on the table before us. Diagonally across its face
from the upper left- to the lower right-hand corner extended two
parallel scorings in indelible ink.
Not being initiated into the secrets of the gentle art of "shoving
the queer," otherwise known as passing counterfeit money, I suppose
my questioning look betrayed me.
"A counterfeit, Walter," explained Kennedy. "That's what they do
with bills when they wish to preserve them as records in the secret
service and yet render them valueless."
Without a word Burke handed Kennedy a pocket magnifying-glass, and
Kennedy carefully studied the bill. He was about to say something
when Burke opened his capacious wallet again and laid down a Bank
of England five-pound note which had been similarly treated.
Again Kennedy looked through the glass with growing amazement
written on his face, but before he could say anything, Burke laid
down an express money-order on the International Express Company.
"I say," exclaimed Kennedy, putting down the glass, "stop! How
many more of these are there?"
Burke smiled. "That's all," he replied, "but it's not the worst."
"Not the worst? Good heavens, man, next you'll tell me that the
government is counterfeiting its own notes! How much of this stuff
do you suppose has been put into circulation?"
Burke chewed a pencil thoughtfully, jotted down some figures on a
piece of paper, and thought some more. "Of course I can't say
exactly, but from hints I have received here and there I should
think that a safe bet would be that some one has cashed in upward
of half a million dollars already."
"Whew," whistled Kennedy, "that's going some. And I suppose it is
all salted away in some portable form. What an inventory if must
be - good bills, gold, diamonds, and jewellery. This is a stake
worth playing for."
"Yes," broke in O'Connor, "but from my standpoint, professionally,
I mean, the case is even worse than that. It's not the counterfeits
that bother us. We understand that, all right. But," and he leaned
forward earnestly and brought his fist down hard on the table with
a resounding Irish oath, "the finger-print system, the infallible
finger-print system, has gone to pieces. We've just imported this
new 'portrait parle' fresh from Paris and London, invented by
Bertillon and all that sort of thing - it has gone to pieces, too.
It's a fine case, this is, with nothing left of either scientific
or unscientific criminal-catching to rely on. There - what do you
know about that?"
"You'll have to tell me the facts first," said Kennedy. "I can't
diagnose your disease until I know the symptoms."
"It's like this," explained Burke, the detective in him showing now
with no effort at concealment. "A man, an Englishman, apparently,
went into a downtown banker's office about three months ago and
asked to have some English bank-notes exchanged for American money.
After he had gone away, the cashier began to get suspicious. He
thought there was something phoney in the feel of the notes. Under
the glass he noticed that the little curl on the 'e' of the 'Five'
was missing. It's the protective mark. The water-mark was quite
equal to that of the genuine - maybe better. Hold that note up to
the light and see for yourself.
"Well, the next day, down to the Custom House, where my office is,
a man came who runs a swell gambling-house uptown. He laid ten
brand-new bills on my desk. An Englishman had been betting on the
wheel. He didn't seem to care about winning, and he cashed in each
time with a new one-hundred-dollar bill. Of course he didn't care
about winning. He cared about the change - that was his winning.
The bill on the table is one of the original ten, though since then
scores have been put into circulation. I made up my mind that it
was the same Englishman in both cases.
"Then within a week, in walked the manager of the Mozambique Hotel
- he had been stung with the fake International Express money-order
- same Englishman, too, I believe."
"And you have no trace of him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.
"We had him under arrest once - we thought. A general alarm was sent
out, of course, to all the banks and banking-houses. But the man
was too clever to turn up in that way again. In one gambling-joint
which women frequent a good deal, a classy dame who might have been
a duchess or a - well, she was a pretty good loser and always paid
with hundred-dollar bills. Now, you know women are not good losers.
Besides, the hundred-dollar-bill story had got around among the
gambling-houses. This joint thought it worth taking a chance, so
they called me up on the 'phone, extracted a promise that I'd play
fair and keep O'Connor from raiding them, but wouldn't I please
come up and look over the dame of the yellow bills? Of course I
made a jump at it. Sure enough, they were the same counterfeits.
I could tell because the silk threads were drawn in with coloured
ink. But instead of making an arrest I decided to trail the lady.
"Now, here comes the strange part of it. Let me see, this must
have been over two months ago. I followed her out to a suburban
town, Riverwood along the Hudson, and to a swell country house
overlooking the river, private drive, stone gate, hedges, old trees,
and all that sort of thing. A sporty-looking Englishman met her
at the gate with one of those big imported touring-cars, and they
took a spin.
"I waited a day or so, but nothing more happened, and I began to
get anxious. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. Anyhow I watched my chance
and made an arrest of both of them when they came to New York on a
shopping expedition. You should have heard that Englishman swear.
I didn't know such language was possible. But in his pocket we
found twenty more of those hundred-dollar bills - that was all.
Do you think he owned up? Not a bit of it. He swore he had
picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the pier as he left the
steamer. I laughed. But when he was arraigned in court he told
the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised his find
at the time. Sure enough, in the files of the papers we
discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad, just as he claimed.
We couldn't even prove that he had passed the bills. So the
magistrate refused to hold them, and they were both released. But
we had had them in our power long enough to take their finger-prints
and get descriptions and measurements of them, particularly by this
new 'portrait parle ' system. We felt we could send out a strange
detective and have him pick them out of a crowd - you know the
system, I presume?
Kennedy nodded, and I made a mental note of finding out more about
the "portrait parle" later.
Burke paused, and O'Connor prompted, "Tell them about Scotland Yard,
Tom."
"Oh, yes," resumed Burke. "Of course I sent copies of the
finger-prints to Scotland Yard. Within two weeks they replied that
one set belonged to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they
understood, had sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there.
They were glad to learn that he was in America, and advised me to
look after him sharply. The woman was also a noted character - Harriet
Wollstone, an adventuress."
"I suppose you have shadowed them ever since?" Kennedy asked.
"Yes, a few days after they were arrested the man had an accident
with his car. It was said he was cranking the engine and that it
kicked back and splintered the bone in his forearm. Anyhow, he went
about with his hand and arm in a sling."
"And then?"
"They gave my man the slip that night in their fast touring-car.
You know automobiles have about made shadowing impossible in these
days. The house was closed up, and it was said by the neighbours
that Williams and Mrs. Williams - as they called themselves - had
gone to visit a specialist in Philadelphia. Still, as they had a
year's lease on the house, I detailed a man to watch it more or less
all the time. They went to Philadelphia all right; some of the
bills turned up there. But we saw nothing of them.
"A short time ago, word came to me that the house was open again.
It wasn't two hours later that the telephone rang like mad. A
Fifth Avenue jeweller had just sold a rope of pearls to an
Englishwoman who paid for it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar
bills. The bank had returned them to him that very afternoon
- counterfeits. I didn't lose any time making a second arrest up
at the house of mystery at Riverwood. I had the county authorities
hold them - and, now, O'Connor, tell the rest of it. You took the
finger-prints up there."
O'Connor cleared his throat as if something stuck in it, in the
telling. "The Riverwood authorities refused to hold them," he said
with evident chagrin. "As soon as I heard of the arrest I started
up myself with the finger-print records to help Burke. It was the
same man, all right - I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So
will Burke. I'll never forget that snub nose - the concave nose,
the nose being the first point of identification in the 'portrait
park.' And the ears, too - oh, it was the same man, all right.
But when we produced the London finger-prints which tallied with
the New York finger-prints which we had made - believe it or not,
but it is a fact, the Riverwood finger-prints did not tally at all."
He laid the prints on the table. Kennedy examined them closely.
His face clouded. It was quite evident that he was stumped, and he
said so. "There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but
more points of difference. Any points of difference are usually
considered fatal to the finger-print theory.
"We had to let the man go," concluded Burke. "We could have held
the woman, but we let her go, too, because she was not the principal
in the case. My men are shadowing the house now and have been ever
since then. But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New
York, who looked like a doctor, made a visit. The secret-service
man on the job didn't dare leave the house to follow him, but as he
never came again perhaps it doesn't matter. Since then the house
has been closed."
The telephone rang. It was Burke's office calling him. As he
talked we could gather that something tragic must have happened at
Riverwood, and we could hardly wait until he had finished.
"There has been an accident up there," he remarked as he hung up
the receiver rather petulantly. "They returned in the car this
afternoon with a large package in the back of the tonneau. But
they didn't stay long. After dark they started out again in the
car. The accident was at the bad railroad crossing just above
Riverwood. It seems Williams's car got stalled on the track just
as the Buffalo express was due. No one saw it, but a man in a buggy
around the bend in the road heard a woman scream. He hurried down.
The train had smashed the car to bits. How the woman escaped was
a miracle, but they found the man's body up the tracks, horribly
mangled. It was Williams, they say. They identified him by the
clothes and by letters in his pockets. But my man tells me he found
a watch on him with 'W. F.' engraved on it. His hands and arms and
head must have been right under the locomotive when it struck him,
I judge."
"I guess that winds the case up, eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with
evident chagrin. "Where's the woman?"
"They said she was in the little local hospital, but not much hurt.
Just the shock and a few bruises."
O'Connor's question seemed to suggest an idea to Burke, and he
reached for the telephone again. "Riverwood 297," he ordered; then
to us as he waited he said: "We must hold the woman. Hello, 297?
The hospital? This is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell
my man, who must be somewhere about, that I would like to have him
hold that woman who was in the auto smash until I can - what? Gone?
The deuce!"
He hung up the receiver angrily. "She left with a man who called
for her about half an hour ago," he said. "There must be a gang of
them. Forbes is dead, but we must get the rest. Mr. Kennedy, I'm
sorry to have bothered you, but I guess we can handle this alone,
after all. It was the finger-prints that fooled us, but now that
Forbes is out of the way it's just a straight case of detective work
of the old style which won't interest you."
"On the contrary," answered Kennedy, "I'm just beginning to be
interested. Does it occur to you that, after all, Forbes may not
be dead?"
"Not dead?" echoed Burke and O'Connor together.
"Exactly; that's just what I said - not dead. Now stop and think a
moment. Would the great Forbes be so foolish as to go about with
a watch marked 'W. F.' if he knew, as he must have known, that you
would communicate with London and by means of the prints find out
all about him?"
"Yes," agreed Burke, "all we have to go by is his watch found on
Williams. I suppose there is some possibility that Forbes may still
be alive."
"Who is this third man who comes in and with whom Harriet Wollstone
goes away so willingly?" put in O'Connor. "You said the house had
been closed - absolutely closed?"
Burke nodded. "Been closed ever since the last arrest. There's a
servant who goes in now and then, but the car hasn't been there
before to-night, wherever it has been."
"I should like to watch that house myself for a while," mused
Kennedy. "I suppose you have no objections to my doing so?"
"Of course not. Go ahead," said Burke. "I will go along with you
if you wish, or my man can go with you."
"No," said Kennedy, "too many of us might spoil the broth. I'll
watch alone to-night and will see you in the morning. You needn't
even say anything to your man there about us."
"Walter, what's on for to-night?"he asked when they had gone. "How
are you fixed for a little trip out to Riverwood?"
"To tell the truth, I had an engagement at the College Club with
some of the fellows."
"Oh, cut it."
"That's what I intend to do," I replied.
It was a raw night, and we bundled ourselves up in old football
sweaters under our overcoats. Half an hour later we were on our
way up to Riverwood.
"By the way, Craig," I asked, "I didn't like to say anything before
those fellows. They'd think I was a dub. But I don't mind asking
you. What is this 'portrait parle' they talk about, anyway?"
"Why, it's a word-picture - a 'spoken picture,' to be literal. I
took some lessons in it at Bertillon's school when I was in Paris.
It's a method of scientific apprehension of criminals, a sort of
necessary addition and completion to the methods of scientific
identification of them after they are arrested. For instance, in
trying to pick out a given criminal from his mere description you
begin with the nose. Now, noses are all concave, straight, or
convex. This Forbes had a nose that was concave, Burke says.
Suppose you were sent out to find him. Of all the people you met,
we'll say, roughly, two-thirds wouldn't interest you. You'd pass
up all with straight or convex noses. Now the next point to observe
is the ear. There are four general kinds of ears-triangular, square,
oval, and round, besides a number of other differences which are
clear enough after you study ears. This fellow is a pale man with
square ears and a peculiar lobe to his ear. So you wouldn't give
a second glance to, say, three-fourths of the square-eared people.
So by a process of elimination of various features, the eyes, the
mouth, the hair, wrinkles, and so forth, you would be able to pick
your man out of a thousand - that is, if you were trained."
"And it works?" I asked rather doubtfully.
"Oh, yes. That's why I'm taking up this case. I believe science
can really be used to detect crime, any crime, and in the present
instance I've just pride enough to stick to this thing until - until
they begin to cut ice on the Styx. Whew, but it will be cold out
in the country to-night, Walter - speaking about ice.
It was quite late when we reached Riverwood, and Kennedy hurried
along the dimly lighted streets, avoiding the main street lest some
one might be watching or following us. He pushed on, following the
directions Burke had given him. The house in question was a large,
newly built affair of concrete, surrounded by trees and a hedge,
directly overlooking the river. A bitter wind swept in from the
west, but in the shadow of an evergreen tree and of the hedge Kennedy
established our watch.
Of all fruitless errands this seemed to me to be the acme. The
house was deserted; that was apparent, I thought, and I said so.
Hardly had I said it when I heard the baying of a dog. It did not
come from the house, however, and I concluded that it must have
come from the next estate.
"It's in the garage," whispered Kennedy. "I can hardly think they
would go away and leave a dog locked up in it. They would at least
turn him loose."
Hour after hour we waited. Midnight passed, and still nothing
happened. At last when the moon had disappeared under the clouds,
Kennedy pulled me along. We had seen not a sign of life in the
house, yet he observed all the caution he would have if it had been
well guarded. Quickly we advanced over the open space to the house,
approaching in the shadow as much as possible, on the side farthest
from the river.
Tiptoeing over the porch, Kennedy tried a window. It was fastened.
Without hesitation he pulled out some instruments. One of them was
a rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the windowpane. Then
with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large
section. It soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor
by the string and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and
unlatched the window, and we stepped in.
All was silent. Apparently the house was deserted.
Cautiously Kennedy pressed the button of his pocket storage-battery
lamp and flashed it slowly about the room. It was a sort of library,
handsomely furnished. At last the beam of light rested on a huge
desk at the opposite end. It seemed to interest Kennedy, and we
tiptoed over to it. One after another he opened the drawers. One
was locked, and he saved that until the last.
Quietly as he could, he jimmied it open, muffling the jimmy in a
felt cloth that was on a table. Most people do not realise the
disruptive force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until
I saw the solid drawer with its heavy lock yield with just the trace
of a noise. Kennedy waited an instant and listened. Nothing
happened.
Inside the drawer was a most nondescript collection of useless
articles. There were a number of pieces of fine sponge, some of
them very thin and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol
strongly; several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some
paraffin, bandages, antiseptic gauze, cotton - in fact, it looked
like a first-aid kit. As soon as he saw it Kennedy seemed
astonished but not at a loss to account for it.
"I thought he left that sort of thing to the doctors, but I guess
he took a hand in it himself," he muttered, continuing to fumble
with the knives in the drawer. It was no time to ask questions, and
I did not. Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets.
One bottle he opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish
immediately the volatile smell of ether. He closed it quickly, and
it, too, went into his pocket with the remark, "Somebody must have
known how to administer an anaesthetic - probably the Wollstone
woman."
A suppressed exclamation from Kennedy caused me to look. The drawer
had a false back. Safely tucked away in it reposed a tin box, one
of those so-called strong-boxes which are so handy in that they save
a burglar much time and trouble in hunting all over for the valuables
he has come after. Kennedy drew it forth and laid it on the desk.
It was locked.
Even that did not seem to satisfy Kennedy, who continued to
scrutinise the walls and corners of the room as if looking for a
safe or something of that sort.
"Let's look in the room across the hall," he whispered.
Suddenly a piercing scream of a woman rang out upstairs. "Help!
Help! There's some one in the house! Billy, help!"
I felt an arm grasp me tightly, and for a moment a chill ran over
me at being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering
a dwelling-house at night. But it was only Kennedy, who had already
tucked the precious little tin box under his arm.
With a leap he dragged me to the open window, cleared it, vaulted
over the porch, and we were running for the clump of woods that
adjoined the estate on one side. Lights flashed in all the windows
of the house at once. There must have been some sort of
electric-light system that could be lighted instantly as a
"burglar-expeller." Anyhow, we had made good our escape.
As we lost ourselves in the woods I gave a last glance back and saw
a lantern carried from the house to the garage. As the door was
unlocked I could see, in the moonlight, a huge dog leap out and lick
the hands and face of a man.
Quickly we now crashed through the frozen underbrush. Evidently
Kennedy was making for the station by a direct route across country
instead of the circuitous way by the road and town. Behind us we
could hear a deep baying.
"By the Lord, Walter," cried Kennedy, for once in his life
thoroughly alarmed, "it's a bloodhound, and our trail is fresh."
Closer it came. Press forward as we might, we could never expect
to beat that dog.
"Oh, for a stream," groaned Kennedy, "but they are all frozen - even
the river.
He stopped short, fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the bottle
of ether.
"Raise your foot, Walter," he ordered.
I did so and he smeared first mine and then his with the ether.
Then we doubled on our trail once or twice and ran again.
"The dog will never be able to pick up the ether as our trail,"
panted Kennedy; "that is, if he is any good and trained not to go
off on wild-goose chases."
On we hurried from the woods to the now dark and silent town. It
was indeed fortunate that the dog had been thrown off our scent,
for the station was closed, and, indeed, if it had been open I am
sure the station agent would have felt more like locking the door
against two such tramps as we were, carrying a tin box and pursued
by a dog, than opening it for us. The best we could do was to
huddle into a corner until we succeeded in jumping a milk-train
that luckily slowed down as it passed Riverwood station.
Neither of us could wait to open the tin box in our apartment, and
instead of going uptown Kennedy decided it would be best to go to
a hotel near the station. Somehow we succeeded in getting a room
without exciting suspicion. Hardly had the bellboy's footsteps
ceased echoing in the corridor than Kennedy was at work wrenching
off the lid of the box with such leverage as the scanty furnishings
of the room afforded.
At last it yielded, and we looked in curiously, expecting to find
fabulous wealth in some form. A few hundred dollars and a rope of
pearls lay in it. It was a good "haul," but where was the vast
spoil the counterfeiters had accumulated? We had missed it. So
far we were completely baffled.
"Perhaps we had better snatch a couple of hours' sleep," was all
that Craig said, stifling his chagrin.
Over and over in my mind I was turning the problem of where they
had hidden the spoil. I dozed off, still thinking about it and
thinking that, even should they be captured, they might have stowed
away perhaps a million dollars to which they could go back after
their sentences were served.
It was still early for New York when Kennedy roused me by talking
over the telephone in the room. In fact, I doubt if he had slept
at all.
Burke was at the other end of the wire. His man had just reported
that something had happened during the night at Riverwood, but he
couldn't give a very clear account. Craig seemed to enjoy the
joke immensely as he told his story to Burke.
The last words I heard were: "All right. Send a man up here to the
station - one who knows all the descriptions of these people. I'm
sure they will have to come into town to-day, and they will have to
come by train, for their car is wrecked. Better watch at the uptown
stations, also."
After a hasty breakfast we met Burke's man and took our places at
the exit from the train platforms. Evidently Kennedy had figured
out that the counterfeiters would have to come into town for some
reason or other. The incoming passengers were passing us in a
steady stream, for a new station was then being built, and there
was only a temporary structure with one large exit.
"Here is where the 'portrait parle' ought to come in, if ever,"
commented Kennedy as he watched eagerly.
And yet neither man nor woman passed us who fitted the description.
Train after train emptied its human freight, yet the pale man with
the concave nose and the peculiar ear, accompanied perhaps by a
lady, did not pass us.
At last the incoming stream began to dwindle down. It was long past
the time when the counterfeiters should have arrived if they had
started on any reasonable train.
"Perhaps they have gone up to Montreal, instead," I ventured.
Kennedy shook his head. "No," he answered. "I have an idea that
I was mistaken about the money being kept at Riverwood. It would
have been too risky. I thought it out on the way back this morning.
They probably kept it in a safe deposit vault here. I had figured
that they would come down and get it and leave New York after last
night's events. We have failed - they have got by us. Neither
the 'portrait parle' nor the ordinary photography nor any other
system will suffice alone against the arch-criminal back of this,
I'm afraid. Walter, I am sore and disgusted. What I should have
done was to accept Burke's offer - surround the house with a posse
if necessary, last night, and catch the counterfeiters by sheer
force. I was too confident. I thought I could do it with
finesse, and I have failed. I'd give anything to know what safe
deposit vault they kept the fake money in."
I said nothing as we strolled away, leaving Burke's man still to
watch, hoping against hope. Kennedy walked disconsolately through
the station, and I followed. In a secluded part of the waiting-room
he sat down, his face drawn up in a scowl such as I had never seen.
Plainly he was disgusted with himself - with only himself. This
was no bungling of Burke or any one else. Again the counterfeiters
had escaped from the hand of the law.
As he moved his fingers restlessly in the pockets of his coat, he
absently pulled out the little pieces of sponge and the ether bottle.
He regarded them without much interest.
"I know what they were for," he said, diving back into his pocket
for the other things and bringing out the sharp little knives in
their case. I said nothing, for Kennedy was in a deep study. At
last he put the things back into his pocket. As he did so his hand
encountered something which he drew forth with a puzzled air. It
was the piece of paraffin.
"Now, what do you suppose that was for?" he asked, half to himself.
"I had forgotten that. What was the use of a piece of paraffin?
Phew, smell the antiseptic worked into it."
"I don't know," I replied, rather testily. "If you would tell me
what the other things were for I might enlighten you, but - "
"By George, Walter, what a chump I am!" cried Kennedy, leaping to
his feet, all energy again. "Why did I forget that lump of paraffin?
Why, of course - I think I can guess what they have been doing - of
course. Why, man alive, he walked right past us, and we never knew
it. Boy, boy," he shouted to a newsboy who passed, "what's the latest
sporting edition you have?"
Eagerly he almost tore a paper open and scanned the sporting pages.
"Racing at Lexington begins to-morrow," he read. "Yes, I'll bet
that's it. We don't have to know the safe deposit vault, after all.
It would be too late, anyhow. Quick, let us look up the train to
Lexington."
As we hurried over to the information booth, I gasped, in a whirl:
"Now, look here, Kennedy, what's all this lightning calculation?
What possible connection is there between a lump of paraffin and
one of the few places in the country where they still race horses?"
"None," he replied, not stopping an instant. "None. The paraffin
suggested to me the possible way in which our man managed to elude
us under our very eyes. That set my mind at work again. Like a
flash it occurred to me: Where would they be most likely to go next
to work off some of the bills? The banks are on, the
jewellery-houses are on, the gambling-joints are on. Why, to the
racetracks, of course. That's it. Counterfeiters all use the
bookmakers, only since racing has been killed in New York they have
had to resort to other means here. If New York has suddenly become
too hot, what more natural than to leave it? Here, let me see -
there's a train that gets there early to-morrow, the best train,
too. Say, is No. 144 made up yet?" he inquired at the desk.
"No. 144 will be ready in fifteen minutes. Track 8."
Kennedy thanked the man, turned abruptly, and started for the
still closed gate at Track 8.
"Beg pardon - why, hulloa - it's Burke," he exclaimed as we ran
plump into a man staring vacantly about.
It was not the gentleman farmer of the night before, nor yet the
supposed college graduate. This man was a Western rancher; his
broad-brimmed hat, long moustache, frock coat, and flowing tie
proclaimed it. Yet there was something indefinably familiar about
him, too. It was Burke in another disguise.
"Pretty good work, Kennedy," nodded Burke, shifting his tobacco
from one side of his jaws to the other. "Now, tell me how your man
escaped you this morning, when you can recognise me instantly in
this rig."
"You haven't altered your features," explained Kennedy simply.
"Our pale-faced, snub-nosed, peculiar-eared friend has. What do
you think of the possibility of his going to the Lexington track,
now that he finds it too dangerous to remain in New York?"
Burke looked at Kennedy rather sharply. "Say, do you add telepathy
to your other accomplishments?
"No," laughed Craig, "but I'm glad to see that two of us working
independently have arrived at the same conclusion. Come, let us
saunter over to Track 8 - I guess the train is made up."
The gate was just opened, and the crowd filed through. No one who
seemed to satisfy either Burke or Kennedy appeared. The train
announcer made his last call. Just then a taxicab pulled up at
the street-end of the platform, not far from Track 8. A man jumped
out and assisted a heavily veiled lady, paid the driver, picked up
the grips, and turned toward us.
We waited expectantly. As he turned I saw a dark-skinned,
hook-nosed man, and I exclaimed disgustedly to Burke: "Well, if
they are going to Lexington they can't make this train. Those are
the last people who have a chance."
Kennedy, however, continued to regard the couple steadily. The
man saw that he was being watched and faced us defiantly, "Such
impertinence!" Then to his wife, "Come, my dear, we'll just make it."
"I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to show us what's in that grip,"
said Kennedy, calmly laying his hand on the man's arm.
"Well, now, did you ever hear of such blasted impudence? Get out of
my way, sir, this instant, or I'll have you arrested."
"Come, come, Kennedy," interrupted Burke. "Surely you are getting
in wrong here. This can't be the man."
Craig shook his head decidedly. "You can make the arrest or not,
Burke, as you choose. If not, I am through. If so - I'll take all
the responsibility."
Reluctantly Burke yielded. The man protested; the woman cried; a
crowd collected.
The train-gate shut with a bang. As it did so the man's demeanour
changed instantly. " There," he shouted angrily, "'you have made
us miss our train. I'll have you in jail for this. Come on now to
the nearest magistrate's court. I'll have my rights as an American
citizen. You have carried your little joke too far. Knight is my
name - John Knight, of Omaha, pork-packer. Come on now. I'll see
that somebody suffers for this if I have to stay in New York a year.
It's an outrage - an outrage."
Burke was now apparently alarmed - more at the possibility of the
humorous publicity that would follow such a mistake by the secret
service than at anything else. However, Kennedy did not weaken,
and on general principles I stuck to Kennedy.
"Now," said the man surlily while he placed "Mrs. Knight" in as
easy a chair as he could find in the judge's chambers, "what is the
occasion of all this row? Tell the judge what a bad man from
Bloody Gulch I am."
O'Connor had arrived, having broken all speed laws and perhaps some
records on the way up from headquarters. Kennedy laid the Scotland
Yard finger-prints on the table. Beside them he placed those taken
by O'Connor and Burke in New York.
"Here," he began, "we have the finger-prints of a man who was one
of the most noted counterfeiters in Great Britain. Beside them are
those of a man who succeeded in passing counterfeits of several
kinds recently in New York. Some weeks later this third set of
prints was taken from a man who was believed to be the same person."
The magistrate was examining the three sets of prints. As he came
to the third, he raised his head as if about to make a remark, when
Kennedy quickly interrupted.
"One moment, sir. You were about to say that finger-prints never
change, never show such variations as these. That is true. There
are fingerprints of people taken fifty years ago that are exactly
the same as their finger-prints of to-day. They don't change - they
are permanent. The fingerprints of mummies can be deciphered even
after thousands of years. But," he added slowly, "you can change
fingers."
The idea was so startling that I could scarcely realise what he
meant at first. I had read of the wonderful work of the surgeons
of the Rockefeller Institute in transplanting tissues and even whole
organs, in grafting skin and in keeping muscles artificially alive
for days under proper conditions. Could it be that a man had
deliberately amputated his fingers and grafted on new ones? Was the
stake sufficient for such a game? Surely there must be some scars
left after such grafting. I picked up the various sets of prints.
It was true that the third set was not very clear, but there
certainly were no scars there.
"Though there is no natural changeability of finger-prints," pursued
Kennedy, "such changes can be induced, as Dr. Paul Prager of Vienna
has shown, by acids and other reagents, by grafting and by injuries.
Now, is there any method by which lost finger-tips can be restored?
I know of one case where the end of a finger was taken off and only
one-sixteenth inch of the nail was left. The doctor incised the
edges of the granulating surface and then led the granulations on
by what is known in the medical profession as the 'sponge graft.'
He grew a new finger-tip.
"The sponge graft consists in using portions of a fine Turkish
surgical sponge, such I have here. I found these pieces in a desk
at Riverwood. The patient is anaesthetised. An incision is made
from side to side in the stump of the finger and flaps of skin are
sliced off and turned up for the new end of the finger to develop
in - a sort of shell of living skin. Inside this, the sponge is
placed, not a large piece, but a very thin piece sliced off and
cut to the shape of the finger-stump. It is perfectly sterilised
in water and washed in green soap after all the stony particles
are removed by hydrochloric acid. Then the finger is bound up
and kept moist with normal salt solution.
"The result is that the end of the finger, instead of healing over,
grows into the fine meshes of the pieces of sponge, by capillary
attraction. Of course even this would heal in a few days, but the
doctor does not let it heal. In three days he pulls the sponge off
gently. The end of the finger has grown up just a fraction of an
inch. Then a new thin layer of sponge is added. Day after day this
process is repeated, each time the finger growing a little more. A
new nail develops if any of the matrix is left, and I suppose a
clever surgeon by grafting up pieces of epidermis could produce on
such a stump very passable finger-prints."
No one of us said anything, but Kennedy seemed to realise the
thought in our minds and proceeded to elaborate the method.
"It is known as the 'education sponge method,' and was first
described by Dr. D. J. Hamilton, of Edinburgh, in 1881. It has
frequently been used in America since then. The sponge really acts
in a mechanical manner to support the new finger-tissue that is
developed. The meshes are filled in by growing tissue, and as it
grows the tissue absorbs part of the sponge, which is itself an
animal tissue and acts like catgut. Part of it is also thrown
off. In fact, the sponge imitates what happens naturally in the
porous network of a regular blood-clot. It educates the tissue to
grow, stimulates it - new blood-vessels and nerves as well as flesh.
"In another case I know of, almost the whole of the first joint of
a finger was crushed off, and the doctor was asked to amputate the
stump of bone that protruded. Instead, he decided to educate the
tissue to grow out to cover it and appear like a normal finger. In
these cases the doctors succeeded admirably in giving the patients
entire new fingertips, without scars, and, except for the initial
injury and operation, with comparatively little inconvenience except
that absolute rest of the hands was required..
"That is what happened, gentlemen," concluded Kennedy. "That is
why Mr. Forbes, alias Williams, made a trip to Philadelphia to be
treated-for crushed finger-tips, not for the kick of an automobile
engine. He may have paid the doctors in counterfeits. In reality
this man was playing a game in which there was indeed a heavy stake
at issue. He was a counterfeiter sought by two governments with
the net closing about him. What are the tips of a few fingers
compared with life, liberty, wealth, and a beautiful woman? The
first two sets of prints are different from the third because they
are made by different finger-tips-on the same man. The very core
of the prints was changed. But the finger-print system is
vindicated by the very ingenuity of the man who so cleverly has
contrivred to beat it."
"Very interesting - to one who is interested," remarked the stranger,
"but what has that to do with detaining my wife and myself, making
us miss our train, and insulting us?"
"Just this," replied Craig. "If you will kindly oblige us by laying
your fingers on this inking-pad and then lightly on this sheet of
paper, I think I can show you an answer."
Knight demurred, and his wife grew hysterical at the idea, but there
was nothing to do but comply. Kennedy glanced at the fourth set of
prints, then at the third set taken a week ago, and smiled. No one
said a word. Knight or Williams, which was it? He nonchalantly lit
a cigarette.
"So you say I am this Williams, the counterfeiter?" he asked
superciliously.
"I do," reiterated Kennedy. "You are also Forbes."
"I don't suppose Scotland Yard has neglected to furnish you with
photographs and a description of this Forbes?"
Burke reluctantly pulled out a Bertillon card from his pocket and
laid it on the table. It bore the front face and profile of the
famous counterfeiter, as well as his measurements.
The man picked it up as if indeed it was a curious thing. His
coolness nearly convinced me. Surely he should have hesitated in
actually demanding this last piece of evidence. I had heard,
however, that the Bertillon system of measurements often depended
on the personal equation of the measurer as well as on the measured.
Was he relying on that, or on his difference in features?
I looked over Kennedy's shoulder at the card on the table. There
was the concave nose of the "portrait parle" " of Forbes, as it had
first been described to us. Without looking further I involuntarily
glanced at the man, although I had no need to do so. I knew that
his nose was the exact opposite of that of Forbes.
"Ingenious at argument as you are, he remarked quietly, "you will
hardly deny that Knight, of Omaha, is the exact opposite of Forbes,
of London. My nose is almost Jewish - my complexion is dark as an
Arab's. Still, I suppose I am the sallow, snub-nosed Forbes
described here, inasmuch as I have stolen Forbes's fingers and
lost them again by a most preposterous method."
"The colour of the face is easily altered," said Kennedy. "A little
picric acid will do that. The ingenious rogue Sarcey in Paris
eluded the police very successfully until Dr. Charcot exposed him
and showed how he changed the arch of his eyebrows and the wrinkles
of his face. Much is possible to-day that would make Frankenstein
and Dr. Moreau look clumsy and antiquated."
A sharp feminine voice interrupted. It was the woman, who had kept
silent up to this time. "But I have read in one of the papers this
morning that a Mr. Williams was found dead in an automobile accident
up the Hudson yesterday. I remember reading it, because I am afraid
of accidents myself."
All eyes were now fixed on Kennedy. "That body," he answered quickly,
"was a body purchased by you at a medical school, brought in your
car to Riverwood, dressed in Williams's clothes with a watch that
would show he was Forbes, placed on the track in front of the auto,
while you two watched the Buffalo express run it down, and screamed.
It was a clever scheme that you concocted, but these facts do not
agree."
He laid the measurements of the corpse obtained by Burke and those
from the London police card side by side. Only in the roughest way
did they approximate each other.
"Your honour, I appeal to your sense of justice," cried our prisoner
impatiently. "Hasn't this farce been allowed to go far enough? Is
there any reason why this fake detective should make fools out of
us all and keep my wife longer in this court? I'm not disposed to
let the matter drop. I wish to enter a charge against him of false
arrest and malicious prosecution. I shall turn the whole thing over
to my attorney this afternoon. The deuce with the races - I'll
have justice."
The man had by this time raised himself to a high pitch of
apparently righteous wrath. He advanced menacingly toward Kennedy,
who stood with his shoulders thrown back, and his hands deep in
his pockets, and a half amused look on his face.
"As for you, Mr. Detective," added the man, "for eleven cents I'd
lick you to within an inch of your life. 'Portrait parle,' indeed!
It's a fine scientific system that has to deny its own main
principles in order to vindicate itself. Bah! Take that, you
scoundrel!
Harriet Wollstone threw her arms about him, but he broke away. His
fist shot out straight. Kennedy was too quick for him, however. I
had seen Craig do it dozens of times with the best boxers in the
"gym." He simply jerked his head to one side, and the blow passed
just a fraction of an inch from his jaw, but passed it as cleanly
as if it had been a yard away.
The man lost his balance, and as he fell forward and caught himself,
Kennedy calmly and deliberately slapped him on the nose.
It was an intensely serious instant, yet I actually laughed. The
man's nose was quite out of joint, even from such a slight blow. It
was twisted over on his face in the most ludicrous position imaginable.
"The next time you try that, Forbes," remarked Kennedy, as he pulled
the piece of paraffin from his pocket and laid it on the table with
the other exhibits, "don't forget that a concave nose built out to
hook-nose convexity by injections of paraffin, such as the
beauty-doctors everywhere advertise, is a poor thing for a White
Hope.
Both Burke and O'Connor had seized Forbes, but Kennedy had turned
his attention to the larger of Forbes's grips, which the Wollstone
woman vociferously claimed as her own. Quickly he wrenched it
open.
As he turned it up on the table my eyes fairly bulged at the sight.
Forbes' suit-case might have been that of a travelling salesman
for the Kimberley, the Klondike, and the Bureau of Engraving, all
in one. Craig dumped the wealth out on the table - stacks of
genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls,
everything portable and tangible all heaped up and topped off with
piles of counterfeits awaiting the magic touch of this Midas to
turn them into real gold.
"Forbes, you have failed in your get-away," said Craig triumphantly.
"Gentlemen, you have here a master counterfeiter, surely - a master
counterfeiter of features and fingers as well as of currency."
VI
THE SAND-HOG
"Interesting story, this fight between the Five-Borough and the
Inter-River Transit," I remarked to Kennedy as I sketched out the
draft of an expose of high finance for the Sunday Star.
"Then that will interest you, also," said he, throwing a letter down
on my desk. He had just come in and was looking over his mail.
The letterhead bore the name of the Five-Borough Company. It was
from Jack Orton, one of our intimates at college, who was in charge
of the construction of a new tunnel under the river. It was brief,
as Jack's letters always were. "I have a case here at the tunnel
that I am sure will appeal to you, my own case, too," it read. "You
can go as far as you like with it, but get to the bottom of the
thing, no matter whom it hits. There is some deviltry afoot, and
apparently no one is safe. Don't say a word to anybody about it,
but drop over to see me as soon as you possibly can."
"Yes," I agreed, "that does interest me. When are you going over?"
"Now," replied Kennedy, who had not taken off his hat. "Can you
come along?"
As we sped across the city in a taxicab, Craig remarked: "I wonder
what is the trouble? Did you see in the society news this morning
the announcement of Jack's engagement to Vivian Taylor, the daughter
of the president of the Five-Borough?"
I had seen it, but could not connect it with the trouble, whatever
it was, at the tunnel, though I did try to connect the tunnel
mystery with my expose.
We pulled up at the construction works, and a strapping Irishman met
us. "Is this Professor Kennedy?" he asked of Craig.
"It is. Where is Mr. Orton's office?"
"I'm afraid, sir, it will be a long time before Mr. Orton is in his
office again, sir. The doctor have just took him out of the medical
lock, an' he said if you was to come before they took him to the
'orspital I was to bring you right up to the lock."
"Good heavens, man, what has happened?" exclaimed Kennedy. "Take
us up to him quick."
Without waiting to answer, the Irishman led the way up and across
a rough board platform until at last we came to what looked like a
huge steel cylinder, lying horizontally, in which was a floor with
a cot and some strange paraphernalia. On the cot lay Jack Orton,
drawn and contorted, so changed that even his own mother would
scarcely have recognised him. A doctor was bending over him,
massaging the joints of his legs and his side.
"Thank you, Doctor, I feel a little better," he groaned. "No, I
don't want to go back into the lock again, not unless the pain gets
worse."
His eyes were closed, but hearing us he opened them and nodded.
"Yes, Craig," he murmured with difficulty, "this is Jack Orton.
What do you think of me? I'm a pretty sight. How are you? And
how are you, Walter? Not too vigorous with the hand-shakes, fellows.
Sorry you couldn't get over before this happened."
"What's the matter?" we asked, glancing blankly from Orton to the
doctor.
Orton forced a half smile. "Just a touch of the 'bends' from
working in compressed air," he explained.
We looked at him, but could say nothing. I, at least, was thinking
of his engagement.
"Yes," he added bitterly, "I know what you are thinking about,
fellows. Look at me! Do you think such a wreck as I am now has
any right to be engaged to the dearest girl in the world?"
"Mr. Orton," interposed the doctor, "I think you'll feel better if
you'll keep quiet. You can see your friends in the hospital
to-night, but for a few hours I think you had better rest.
Gentlemen, if you will be so good as to postpone your conversation
with Mr. Orton until later it would be much better."
"Then I'll see you to-night," said Orton to us feebly. Turning to
a tall, spare, wiry chap, of just the build for tunnel work, where
fat is fatal, he added: "This is Mr. Capps, my first assistant. He
will show you the way down to the street again."
"Confound it!" exclaimed Craig, after we had left Capps. "What do
you think of this? Even before we can get to him something has
happened. The plot thickens before we are well into it. I think
I'll not take a cab, or a car either. How are you for a walk until
we can see Orton again?"
I could see that Craig was very much affected by the sudden accident
that had happened to our friend, so I fell into his mood, and we
walked block after block scarcely exchanging a word. His only
remark, I recall, was, "Walter, I can't think it was an accident,
coming so close after that letter." As for me, I scarcely knew what
to think.
At last our walk brought us around to the private hospital where
Orton was. As we were about to enter, a very handsome girl was
leaving. Evidently she had been visiting some one of whom she
thought a great deal. Her long fur coat was flying carelessly,
unfastened in the cold night air; her features were pale, and her
eyes had the fixed look of one who saw nothing but grief.
"It's terrible, Miss Taylor," I heard the man with her say
soothingly, "and you must know that I sympathise with you a great
deal."
Looking up quickly, I caught sight of Capps and bowed. He returned
our bows and handed her gently into an automobile that was waiting.
"He might at least have introduced us," muttered Kennedy, as we
went on into the hospital.
Orton was lying in bed, white and worn, propped up by pillows which
the nurse kept arranging and rearranging to ease his pain. The
Irishman whom we had seen at the tunnel was standing deferentially
near the foot of the bed.
"Quite a number of visitors, nurse, for a new patient," said Orton,
as he welcomed us. "First Capps and Paddy from the tunnel, then
Vivian" - he was fingering some beautiful roses in a vase on a table
near him - "and now, you fellows. I sent her home with Capps. She
oughtn't to be out alone at this hour, and Capps is a good fellow.
She's known him a long time. No, Paddy, put down your hat. I want
you to stay. Paddy, by the way, fellows, is my right-hand man in
managing the 'sandhogs' as we call the tunnel-workers. He has been
a sand-hog on every tunnel job about the city since the first
successful tunnel was completed. His real name is Flanagan, but we
all know him best as Paddy."
Paddy nodded. "If I ever get over this and back to the tunnel,"
Orton went on, "Paddy will stick to me, and we will show Taylor,
my prospective father-in-law and the president of the railroad
company from which I took this contract, that I am not to blame
for all the troubles we are having on the tunnel. Heaven knows
that - "
"Oh, Mr. Orton, you ain't so bad," put in Paddy without the faintest
touch of undue familiarity. "Look what I was when ye come to see
me when I had the bends, sir."
"You old rascal," returned Orton, brightening up. "Craig, do you
know how I found him? Crawling over the floor to the sink to pour
the doctor's medicine down."
"Think I'd take that medicine," explained Paddy, hastily. "Not much.
Don't I know that the only cure for the bends is bein' put back in
the 'air' in the medical lock, same as they did with you, and bein'
brought out slowly? That's the cure, that, an' grit, an' patience,
an' time. Mark me wurds, gintlemen, he'll finish that tunnel an'
beggin' yer pardon, Mr. Orton, marry that gurl, too. Didn't I see
her with tears in her eyes right in this room when he wasn't lookin',
and a smile when he was? Sure, ye'll be all right," continued Paddy,
slapping his side and thigh. "We all get the bends more or less
- all us sand-hogs. I was that doubled up meself that I felt like
a big jack-knife. Had it in the arm, the side, and the leg all at
once, that time he was just speakin' of. He'll be all right in a
couple more weeks, sure, an' down in the air again, too, with the
rest of his men. It's somethin' else he has on his moind."
"Then the case has nothing to do with your trouble, nothing to do
with the bends?" asked Kennedy, keenly showing his anxiety to help
our old friend.
"Well, it may and it may not," replied Orton thoughtfully. "I begin
to think it has. We have had a great many cases of the bends among
the men, and lots of the poor fellows have died, too. You know, of
course, how the newspapers are roasting us. We are being called
inhuman; they are going to investigate us; perhaps indict me. Oh,
it's an awful mess; and now some one is trying to make Taylor believe
it is my fault.
"Of course," he continued, "we are working under a high air-pressure
just now, some days as high as forty pounds. You see, we have
struck the very worst part of the job, a stretch of quicksand in the
river-bed, and if we can get through this we'll strike pebbles and
rock pretty soon, and then we'll be all right again."
He paused. Paddy quietly put in: "Beggin' yer pardon again, Mr.
Orton, but we had entirely too many cases of the bends even when we
were wurkin' at low pressure, in the rock, before we sthruck this
sand. There's somethin' wrong, sir, or ye wouldn't be here yerself
like this. The bends don't sthrike the ingineers, them as don't do
the hard work, sir, and is careful, as ye know - not often."
"It's this way, Craig," resumed Orton. "When I took this contract
for the Five-Borough Transit Company, they agreed to pay me liberally
for it, with a big bonus if I finished ahead of time, and a big
penalty if I exceeded the time. You may or may not know it, but
there is some doubt about the validity of their franchise after a
certain date, provided the tunnel is not ready for operation. Well,
to make a long story short, you know there are rival companies that
would like to see the work fail and the franchise revert to the
city, or at least get tied up in the courts. I took it with the
understanding that it was every man for himself and the devil take
the hindmost."
"Have you yourself seen any evidences of rival influences hindering
the work?" asked Kennedy.
Orton carefully weighed his reply. "To begin with," he answered at
length, "while I was pushing the construction end, the Five-Borough
was working with the state legislature to get a bill extending the
time-limit of the franchise another year. Of course, if it had gone
through it would have been fine for us. But some unseen influence
blocked the company at every turn. It was subtle; it never came
into the open. They played on public opinion as only demagogues of
high finance can, very plausibly of course, but from the most
selfish and ulterior motives. The bill was defeated."
I nodded. I knew all about that part of it, for it was in the
article which I had been writing for the Star.
"But I had not counted on the extra year, anyhow," continued Orton,
"so I wasn't disappointed. My plans were laid for the shorter time
from the start. I built an island in the river so that we could
work from each shore to it, as well as from the island to each shore,
really from four points at once. And then, when everything was going
ahead fine, and we were actually doubling the speed in this way,
these confounded accidents" - he was leaning excitedly forward - "
and lawsuits and delays and deaths began to happen."
Orton sank back as a paroxysm of the bends seized him, following
his excitement.
"I should like very much to go down into the tunnel," said Kennedy
simply.
"No sooner said than done," replied Orton, almost cheerfully, at
seeing Kennedy so interested. "We can arrange that easily. Paddy
will be glad to do the honours of the place in my absence."
"Indade I will do that same, sor," responded the faithful Paddy,
"an' it's a shmall return for all ye've done for me."
"Very well, then," agreed Kennedy. "To-morrow morning we shall be
on hand. Jack, depend on us. We will do our level best to get you
out of this scrape."
"I knew you would, Craig," he replied. "I've read of some of your
and Walter's exploits. You're a pair of bricks, you are. Good-bye,
fellows," and his hands mechanically sought the vase of flowers
which reminded him of their giver.
At home we sat for a long time in silence. "By George, Craig," I
exclaimed at length, my mind reverting through the whirl of events
to the glimpse of pain I had caught on the delicate face of the girl
having the hospital, "Vivian Taylor is a beauty, though, isn't she?"
"And Capps thinks so, too," he returned, sinking again into his
shell of silence. Then he suddenly rose and put on his hat and
coat. I could see the old restless fever for work which came into
his eyes whenever he had a case which interested him more than usual.
I knew there would be no rest for Kennedy until he had finished it.
Moreover, I knew it was useless for me to remonstrate with him, so
I kept silent.
Don't wait up for me," he said. "I don't know when I'll be back.
I'm going to the laboratory and the university library. Be ready
early in the morning to help me delve into this tunnel mystery."
I awoke to find Kennedy dozing in a chair, partly dressed, but just
as fresh as I was after my sleep. I think he had been dreaming out
his course of action. At any rate, breakfast was a mere incident
in his scheme, and we were over at the tunnel works when the night
shift were going off.
Kennedy carried with him a moderate-sized box of the contents of
which he seemed very careful. Paddy was waiting for us, and after
a hasty whispered conversation, Craig stowed the box away behind
the switchboard of the telephone central, after attaching it to
the various wires. Paddy stood guard while this was going on so
that no one would know about it, not even the telephone girl, whom
he sent off on an errand.
Our first inspection was of that part of the works which was above
ground. Paddy, who conducted us, introduced us first to the
engineer in charge of this part of the work, a man named Shelton,
who had knocked about the world a great deal, but had acquired a
taciturnity that was Sphinxlike. If it had not been for Paddy, I
fear we should have seen very little, for Shelton was not only
secretive, but his explanations were such that even the editor
of a technical journal would have had to blue pencil them
considerably. However, we gained a pretty good idea of the tunnel
works above ground - at least Kennedy did. He seemed very much
interested in how the air was conveyed below ground, the tank for
storing compressed air for emergencies, and other features. It
quite won Paddy, although Shelton seemed to resent his interest
even more than he despised my ignorance.
Next Paddy conducted us to the dressing-rooms. There we put on
old clothes and oilskins, and the tunnel doctor examined us and
extracted a written statement that we went down at our own risk and
released the company from all liability - much to the disgust of
Paddy.
"We're ready now, Mr. Capps," called Paddy, opening an office door
on the way out.
"Very well, Flanagan," answered Capps, barely nodding to us. We
heard him telephone some one, but could not catch the message, and
in a minute he joined us. By this time I had formed the opinion,
which I have since found to be correct, that tunnel men are not as
a rule loquacious.
It was a new kind of thrill to me to go under the "air," as the men
called it. With an instinctive last look at the skyline of New
York and the waves playing in the glad sunlight, we entered a rude
construction elevator and dropped from the surface to the bottom of
a deep shaft. It was like going down into a mine. There was the
air-lock, studded with bolts, and looking just like a huge boiler,
turned horizontally.
The heavy iron door swung shut with a bang as Paddy and Capps,
followed by Kennedy and myself, crept into the air-lock. Paddy
turned on a valve, and compressed air from the tunnel began to rush
in with a hiss as of escaping steam. Pound after pound to the
square inch the pressure slowly rose until I felt sure the drums
of my ears would burst. Then the hissing noise began to dwindle
down to a wheeze, and then it stopped all of a sudden. That meant
that the air-pressure in the lock was the same as that in the
tunnel. Paddy pushed open the door in the other end of the lock
from that by which we had entered.
Along the bottom of the completed tube we followed Paddy and Capps.
On we trudged, fanned by the moist breath of the tunnel. Every
few feet an incandescent light gleamed in the misty darkness.
After perhaps a hundred paces we had to duck down under a
semicircular partition covering the upper half of the tube.
"What is that?" I shouted at Paddy, the nasal ring of my own voice
startling me.
"Emergency curtain," he shouted back.
Words were economised. Later, I learned that should the tunnel
start to flood, the other half of the emergency curtain could be
dropped so as to cut off the inrushing water.
Men passed, pushing little cars full of "muck" or sand taken out
from before the "shield" - which is the head by which this mechanical
mole advances under the river-bed. These men and others who do the
shovelling are the "muckers."
Pipes laid along the side of the tunnel conducted compressed air
and fresh water, while electric light and telephone wires were
strung all about. These and the tools and other things strewn
along the tunnel obstructed the narrow passage to such an extent
that we had to be careful in picking our way.
At last we reached the shield, and on hands and knees we crawled
out into one of its compartments. Here we experienced for the
first time the weird realisation that only the "air" stood between
us and destruction from the tons and tons of sand and water overhead.
At some points in the sand we could feel the air escaping, which
appeared at the surface of the river overhead in bubbles, indicating
to those passing in the river boats just how far each tunnel heading
below had proceeded. When the loss of air became too great, I
learned, scows would dump hundreds of tons of clay overhead to make
an artificial river bed for the shield to stick its nose safely
through, for if the river bed became too thin overhead the "air"
would blow a hole in it.
Capps, it seemed to me, was unusually anxious to have the visit
over. At any rate, while Kennedy and Paddy were still crawling
about the shield, he stood aside, now and then giving the men an
order and apparently forgetful of us.
My own curiosity was quickly satisfied, and I sat down on a pile of
the segments out of which the successive rings of the tunnel were
made. As I sat there waiting for Kennedy, I absently reached into
my pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. It burned
amazingly fast, as if it were made of tinder, the reason being the
excess of oxygen in the compressed air. I was looking at it in
astonishment, when suddenly I felt a blow on my hand. It was Capps.
"You chump!" he shouted as he ground the cigarette under his boot.
"Don't you know it is dangerous to smoke in compressed air?"
"Why, no," I replied, smothering my anger at his manner. "No one
said anything about it."
"Well, it is dangerous, and Orton's a fool to let greenhorns come
in here."
"And to whom may it be dangerous?" I heard a voice inquire over
my shoulder. It was Kennedy. "To Mr. Jameson or the rest of us?"
"Well," answered Capps, "I supposed everybody knew it was reckless,
and that he would hurt himself more by one smoke in the air than by
a hundred up above. That's all."
He turned on Kennedy sullenly, and started to walk back up the
tunnel. But I could not help thinking that his manner was anything
but solicitude for my own health. I could just barely catch his
words over the tunnel telephone some feet away. I thought he said
that everything was going along all right and that he was about to
start back again. Then he disappeared in the mist of the tube
without even nodding a farewell.
Kennedy and I remained standing, not far from the outlet of the pipe
by which the compressed air was being supplied in the tunnel from
the compressors above, in order to keep the pressure up to the
constant level necessary. I saw Kennedy give a hurried glance about,
as if to note whether any one were looking at us. No one was. With
a quick motion he reached down. In his hand was a stout little
glass flask with a tight-fitting metal top. For a second he held
it near the outlet of the pipe; then he snapped the top shut and
slipped it back into his pocket as quickly as he had produced it.
Slowly we commenced to retrace our steps to the air-lock, our
curiosity satisfied by this glimpse of one of the most remarkable
developments of modern engineering.
"Where's Paddy?" asked Kennedy, stopping suddenly. "We've forgotten
him."
"Back there at the shield, I suppose," said I. "Let's whistle and
attract his attention.
I pursed up my lips, but if I had been whistling for a million
dollars I couldn't have done it.
Craig laughed. "Walter, you are indeed learning many strange things.
You can't whistle in compressed air.
I was too chagrined to answer. First it was Capps; now it was my
own friend Kennedy chaffing me for my ignorance. I was glad to see
Paddy's huge form looming in the semi-darkness. He had seen that
we were gone and hurried after us.
"Won't ye stay down an' see some more, gintlemen?" he asked. "Or
have ye had enough of the air? It seems very smelly to me this
mornin' - I don't blame ye. I guess them as doesn't have to stay
here is satisfied with a few minutes of it."
"No, thanks, I guess we needn't stay down any longer," replied
Craig. "I think I have seen all that is necessary - at least for
the present. Capps has gone out ahead of us. I think you can
take us out now, Paddy. I would much rather have you do it than
to go with anybody else."
Coming out, I found, was really more dangerous than going in, for
it is while coming out of the that men are liable to get the bends.
Roughly, half a minute should be consumed in coming out from each
pound of pressure, though for such high pressures as we had been
under, considerably more time was required in order to do it safely.
We spent about half an hour in the air-lock, I should judge.
Paddy let the air out of the lock by turning on a valve leading to
the outside, normal atmosphere. Thus he let the air out rapidly at
first until we had got down to half the pressure of the tunnel. The
second half he did slowly, and it was indeed tedious, but it was
safe. There was at=20first a hissing sound when he opened the valve,
and it grew colder in the lock, since air absorbs heat from
surrounding objects when it expands. We were glad to draw sweaters
on over our heads. It also grew as misty as a London fog as the
water-vapour in the air was condensed.
At last the hiss of escaping air ceased. The door to the modern
dungeon of science grated open. We walked out of the lock to the
elevator shaft and were hoisted up to God's air again. We gazed
out across the river with its waves dancing in the sunlight. There,
out in the middle, was a wreath of bubbles on the water. That
marked the end of the tunnel, over the shield. Down beneath those
bubbles the sand-hogs were rooting. But what was the mystery that
the tunnel held in its dark, dank bosom? Had Kennedy a clue?
"I think we had better wait around a bit," remarked Kennedy, as we
sipped our hot coffee in the dressing-room and warmed ourselves
from the chill of coming out of the lock. "In case anything should
happen to us and we should get the bends this is the place for us,
near the medical lock, as it is called - that big steel cylinder over
there, where we found Orton. The best cure for the bends is to go
back under the air-recompression they call it. The renewed pressure
causes the gas in the blood to contract again, and thus it is
eliminated - sometimes. At any rate, it is the best-known cure and
considerably reduces the pain in the worst cases. When you have a
bad case like Orton's it means that the damage is done; the gas has
ruptured some veins. Paddy was right. Only time will cure that."
Nothing happened to us, however, and in a couple of hours we dropped
in on Orton at the hospital where he was slowly convalescing.
"What do you think of the case?" he asked anxiously.
"Nothing as yet," replied Craig, "but I have set certain things in
motion which will give us a pretty good line on what is taking place
in a day or so."
Orton's face fell, but he said nothing. He bit his lip nervously
and looked out of the sun-parlour at the roofs of New York around
him.
"What has happened since last night to increase your anxiety,
Jack?" asked Craig sympathetically. Orton wheeled his chair about
slowly, faced us, and drew a letter from his pocket. Laying it
flat on the table he covered the lower part with the envelope.
"Read that," he said.
"Dear Jack," it began. I saw at once that it was from Miss Taylor.
"Just a line," she wrote, "to let you know that I am thinking about
you always and hoping that you are better than when I saw you this
evening. Papa had the chairman of the board of directors of the
Five-Borough here late to-night, and they were in the library for
over an hour. For your sake, Jack, I played the eavesdropper, but
they talked so low that I could hear nothing, though I know they
were talking about you and the tunnel. When they came out, I had
no time to escape, so I slipped behind a portiere. I heard father
say: 'Yes, I guess you are right, Morris. The thing has gone on
long enough. If there is one more big accident we shall have to
compromise with the Inter-River and carry on the work jointly. We
have given Orton his chance, and if they demand that this other
fellow shall be put in, I suppose we shall have to concede it.'
Mr. Morris seemed pleased that father agreed with him and said so.
Oh, Jack, can't you do something to show them they are wrong, and
do it quickly? I never miss an opportunity of telling papa it is
not your fault that all these delays take place."
The rest of the letter was covered by the envelope, and Orton would
not have shown it for worlds.
"Orton," said Kennedy, after a few moments' reflection, "I will
take a chance for your sake - a long chance, but I think a good one.
If you can pull yourself together by this afternoon, be over at
your office at four. Be sure to have Shelton and Capps there, and
you can tell Mr. Taylor that you have something very important to
set before him. Now, I must hurry if I am to fulfil my part of the
contract. Good-bye, Jack. Keep a stiff upper lip, old man. I'll
have something that will surprise you this afternoon."
Outside, as he hurried uptown, Craig was silent, but I could see
his features working nervously, and as we parted he merely said:
"Of course, you'll be there, Walter. I'll put the finishing touches
on your story of high finance."
Slowly enough the few hours passed before I found myself again in
Orton's office. He was there already, despite the orders of his
physician, who was disgusted at this excursion from the hospital.
Kennedy was there, too, grim and silent. We sat watching the two
indicators beside Orton's desk, which showed the air pressure in
the two tubes. The needles were vibrating ever so little and
tracing a red-ink line on the ruled paper that unwound from the
drum. From the moment the tunnels were started, here was preserved
a faithful record of every slightest variation of air pressure.
"Telephone down into the tube and have Capps come up," said Craig
at length, glancing at Orton's desk clock. "Taylor will be here
pretty soon, and I want Capps to be out of the tunnel by the time
he comes. Then get Shelton, too."
In response to Orton's summons Capps and Shelton came into the
office, just as a large town car pulled up outside the tunnel works.
A tall, distinguished-looking man stepped out and turned again
toward the door of the car.
"There's Taylor," I remarked, for I had seen him often at
investigations before the Public Service Commission.
"And Vivian, too," exclaimed Orton excitedly. "Say, fellows, clear
off these desks. Quick, before she gets up here. In the closet
with these blueprints, Walter. There, that's a little better. If I
had known she was coming I would at least have had the place swept
out. Puff! look at the dust on this desk of mine. Well, there's
no help for it. There they are at the door now. Why, Vivian, what
a surprise.
"Jack!" she exclaimed, almost ignoring the rest of us and quickly
crossing to his chair to lay a restraining hand on his shoulder as
he vainly tried to stand up to welcome her.
"Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked eagerly. "I
would have had the place fixed up a bit."
I prefer it this way," she said, looking curiously around at the
samples of tunnel paraphernalia and the charts and diagrams on the
walls.
"Yes, Orton," said President Taylor, "she would come - dropped in
at the office and when I tried to excuse myself for a business
appointment, demanded which way I was going. When I said I was
coming here, she insisted on coming, too."
Orton smiled. He knew that she had taken this simple and direct
means of being there, but he said nothing, and merely introduced
us to the president and Miss Taylor.
An awkward silence followed. Orton cleared his throat. "I think
you all know why we are here," he began. "We have been and are
having altogether too many accidents in the tunnel, too many cases
of the bends, too many deaths, too many delays to the work. Well
- er - I - er - Mr. Kennedy has something to say about them, I
believe."
No sound was heard save the vibration of the air-compressors and an
occasional shout of a workman at the shaft leading down to the
air-locks.
"There is no need for me to say anything about caisson disease to
you, gentlemen, or to you, Miss Taylor," began Kennedy. "I think
you all know how it is caused and a good deal about it already.
But, to be perfectly clear, I will say that there are live things
that must, above all others, be looked after in tunnel work: the
air pressure, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the length
of the shifts which the men work, the state of health of the men
as near as physical examination can determine it, and the rapidity
with which the men come out of the air, so as to prevent
carelessness which may cause the bends.
"I find," he continued, "that the air pressure is not too high for
safety. Proper examinations for carbon dioxide are made, and the
amount in the air is not excessive. The shifts are not even as long
as those prescribed by the law. The medical inspection is quite
adequate and as for the time taken in coming out through the locks
the rules are stringent."
A look of relief crossed the face of Orton at this commendation of
his work, followed by a puzzled expression that plainly indicated
that he would like to know what was the matter, if all the crucial
things were all right.
"But," resumed Kennedy, "the bends are still hitting the men, and
there is no telling when a fire or a blow-out may occur in any of
the eight headings that are now being pushed under the river. Quite
often the work has been delayed and the tunnel partly or wholly
flooded. Now, you know the theory of the bends. It is that air
- mostly the nitrogen in the air - is absorbed by the blood under
the pressure. In coming out of the 'air' if the nitrogen is not
all eliminated, it stays in the blood and, as the pressure is
reduced, it expands. It is just as if you take a bottle of charged
water and pull the cork suddenly. The gas rises in big bubbles.
Cork it again and the gas bubbles cease to rise and finally
disappear. If you make a pin-hole in the cork the gas will escape
slowly, without a bubble. You must decompress the human body slowly,
by stages, to let the super-saturated blood give up its nitrogen to
the lungs, which can eliminate it. Otherwise these bubbles catch
in the veins, and the result is severe pains, paralysis, and even
death. Gentlemen, I see that I am just wasting time telling you
this, for you know it all well. But consider."
Kennedy placed an empty corked flask on the table. The others
regarded it curiously, but I recalled having seen it in the tunnel.
"In this bottle," explained Kennedy, "I collected some of the air
from the tunnel when I was down there this morning. I have since
analysed it. The quantity of carbon dioxide is approximately what
it should be - not high enough of itself to cause trouble. But,"
he spoke slowly to emphasise his words, " I found something else in
that air beside carbon dioxide."
"Nitrogen?" broke in Orton quickly, leaning forward.
"Of course; it is a constituent of air. But that is not what I mean."
"Then, for Heaven's sake, what did you find?" asked Orton.
"I found in this air," replied Kennedy, "a very peculiar mixture - an
explosive mixture."
"An explosive mixture?" echoed Orton.
"Yes, Jack, the blow-outs that you have had at the end of the tunnel
were not blow-outs at all, properly speaking. They were explosions."
We sat aghast at this revelation.
"And, furthermore," added Kennedy, "I should, if I were you, call
back all the men from the tunnel until the cause for the presence
of this explosive mixture is discovered and remedied."
Orton reached mechanically for the telephone to give the order, but
Taylor laid his hand on his arm. "One moment, Orton," he said.
"Let's hear Professor Kennedy out. He may be mistaken, and there
is no use frightening the men, until we are certain.
"Shelton," asked Kennedy, "what sort of flash oil is used to
lubricate the machinery?"
"It is three-hundred-and-sixty-degree Fahrenheit flash test," he
answered tersely.
"And are the pipes leading air down into the tunnel perfectly
straight?"
"Straight?
"Yes, straight - no joints, no pockets where oil, moisture, and
gases can collect."
"Straight as lines, Kennedy," he said with a sort of contemptuous
defiance.
They were facing each other coldly, sizing each other up. Like a
skilful lawyer, Kennedy dropped that point for a moment, to take
up a new line of attack.
"Capps," he demanded, turning suddenly, "why do you always call up
on the telephone and let some one know when you are going down in
the tunnel and when you are coming out?"
"I don't," replied Capps, quickly recovering his composure.
"Walter," said Craig to me quietly, "go out in the outer office.
Behind the telephone switchboard you will find a small box which
you saw me carry in there this morning and connect with the
switchboard. Detach the wires, as you saw me attach them, and
bring it here."
No one moved, as I placed the box on a drafting-table before them.
Craig opened it. Inside he disclosed a large disc of thin steel,
like those used by some mechanical music-boxes, only without any
perforations. He connected the wires from the box to a sort of
megaphone. Then he started the disc revolving.
Out of the little megaphone horn, sticking up like a miniature
talking-machine, came a voice: Number please. Four four three o,
Yorkville. Busy, I'll call you. Try them again, Central. Hello,
hello, Central - "
Kennedy stopped the machine. "It must be further along on the
disc," he remarked. "This, by the way, is an instrument known as
the telegraphone, invented by a Dane named Poulsen. It records
conversations over a telephone on this plain metal disc by means
of localised, minute electric charges."
Having adjusted the needle to another place on the disc he tried
again. "We have here a record of the entire day's conversations
over the telephone, preserved on this disc. I could wipe out the
whole thing by pulling a magnet across it, but, needless to say,
I wouldn't do that - yet. Listen."
This time it was Capps speaking. "Give me Mr. Shelton. Oh, Shelton,
I'm going down in the south tube with those men Orton has sent nosing
around here. I'll let you know when I start up again. Meanwhile
- you know - don't let anything happen while I am there. Good-bye."
Capps sat looking defiantly at Kennedy, as he stopped the
telegraphone.
"Now," continued Kennedy suavely, "what could happen? I'll answer
my own question by telling what actually did happen. Oil that was
smoky at a lower point than its flash was being used in the
machinery - not really three-hundred-and-sixty-degree oil. The
water-jacket had been tampered with, too. More than that, there is
a joint in the pipe leading down into the tunnel, where explosive
gases can collect. It is a well-known fact in the use of compressed
air that such a condition is the best possible way to secure an
explosion.
"It would all seem so natural, even if discovered," explained Kennedy
rapidly. "The smoking oil - smoking just as an automobile often does
- is passed into the compressed-air pipe. Condensed oil, moisture,
and gases collect in the joint, and perhaps they line the whole
distance of the pipe. A spark from the low-grade oil-and they are
ignited. What takes place is the same thing that occurs in the
cylinder of an automobile where the air is compressed with gasoline
vapour. Only here we have compressed air charged with vapour of oil.
The flame proceeds down the pipe - exploding through the pipe, if it
happens to be not strong enough. This pipe, however, is strong.
Therefore, the flame in this case shoots out at the open end of the
pipe, down near the shield, and if the air in the tunnel happens
also to be surcharged with oil-vapour, an explosion takes place in
the tunnel - the river bottom is blown out - then God help the
sand-hogs!
"That's how your accidents took place, Orton," concluded Kennedy in
triumph, "and that impure air - not impure from carbon dioxide, but
from this oil-vapour mixture - increased the liability of the men
for the bends. Capps knew about it. He was careful while he was
there to see that the air was made as pure as possible under the
circumstances. He was so careful that he wouldn't even let Mr.
Jameson smoke in the tunnel. But as soon as he went to the surface,
the same deadly mixture was pumped down again - I caught some of
it in this flask, and - "
"My God, Paddy's down there now," cried Orton, suddenly seizing his
telephone. "Operator, give me the south tube - quick - what - they
don't answer?"
Out in the river above the end of the heading, where a short time
before there had been only a few bubbles on the surface of the water,
I could see what looked like a huge geyser of water spouting up. I
pulled Craig over to me and pointed.
A blow-out," cried Kennedy, as he rushed to the door, only to be met
by a group of blanched-faced workers who had come breathless to the
office to deliver the news.
Craig acted quickly. "Hold these men," he ordered, pointing to
Capps and Shelton, "until we come back. Orton, while we are gone,
go over the entire day's record on the telegraphone. I suspect
you and Miss Taylor will find something there that will interest
you."
He sprang down the ladder to the tunnel air-lock, not waiting for
the elevator. In front of the closed door of the lock, an excited
group of men was gathered. One of them was peering through the
dim, thick, glass porthole in the door.
"There he is, standin' by the door with a club, an' the men's
crowdin' so fast that they're all wedged so's none can get in at
all. He's beatin' 'em back with the stick. Now, he's got the
door clear and has dragged one poor fellow in. It's Jimmy Rourke,
him with the eight childer. Now he's dragged in a Polack. Now he's
fightin' back a big Jamaica nigger who's tryin' to shove ahead of a
little Italian."
"It's Paddy," cried Craig. "If he can bring them all out safely
without the loss of a life he'll save the day yet for Orton. And
he'll do it, too, Walter."
Instantly I reconstructed in my mind the scene in the tunnel - the
explosion of the oil-vapour, the mad race up the tube, perhaps the
failure of the emergency curtain to work, the frantic efforts of the
men, in panic, all to crowd through the narrow little door at once;
the rapidly rising water - and above all the heroic Paddy, cool to
the last, standing at the door and single-handed beating the men
back with a club, so that they could go through one at a time.
Only when the water had reached the level of the door of the lock,
did Paddy bang it shut as he dragged the last man in. Then followed
an interminable wait for the air in the lock to be exhausted. When,
at last, the door at our end of the lock swung open, the men with
a cheer seized Paddy and, in spite of his struggles, hoisted him on
to their shoulders, and carried him off, still struggling, in
triumph up the construction elevator to the open air above.
The scene in Orton's office was dramatic as the men entered with
Paddy. Vivian Taylor was standing defiantly, with burning eyes,
facing Capps, who stared sullenly at the floor before him. Shelton
was plainly abashed.
"Kennedy," cried Orton, vainly trying to rise, "listen. Have you
still that place on the telegraphone record, Vivian?"
Miss Taylor started the telegraphone, while we all crowded around
leaning forward eagerly.
"Hello. Inter-River? Is this the president's office? Oh, hello.
This is Capps talking. How are you? Oh, you've heard about Orton,
have you? Not so bad, eh? Well, I'm arranging with my man Shelton
here for the final act this afternoon. After that you can compromise
with the Five-Borough on your own terms. I think I have argued
Taylor and Morris into the right frame of mind for it, if we have
one more big accident. What's that? How is my love affair? Well,
Orton's in the way yet, but you know why I went into this deal.
When you put me into his place after the compromise, I think I will
pull strong with her. Saw her last night. She feels pretty bad
about Orton, but she'll get over it. Besides, the pater will never
let her marry a man who's down and out. By the way, you've got to
do something handsome for Shelton. All right. I'll see you
to-night and tell you some more. Watch the papers in the meantime
for the grand finale. Good-bye."
An angry growl rose from one or two of the more quick-witted men.
Kennedy reached over and pulled me with him quickly through the
crowd.
"Hurry, Walter," he whispered hoarsely, "hustle Shelton and Capps
out quick before the rest of the men wake up to what it's all about,
or we shall have a lynching instead of an arrest."
As we shoved and pushed them out, I saw the rough and grimy
sand-hogs in the rear move quickly aside, and off came their muddy,
frayed hats. A dainty figure flitted among them toward Orton. It
was Vivian Taylor.
"Papa," she cried, grasping Jack by both hands and turning to Taylor,
who followed her closely, "Papa, I told you not to be too hasty
with Jack."
VII
THE WHITE SLAVE
Kennedy and I had just tossed a coin to decide whether it should be
a comic opera or a good walk in the mellow spring night air and the
opera had won, but we had scarcely begun to argue the vital point
as to where to go, when the door buzzer sounded - a sure sign that
some box-office had lost four dollars.
It was a much agitated middle-aged couple who entered as Craig threw
open the door. Of our two visitors, the woman attracted my attention
first, for on her pale face the lines of sorrow were almost visibly
deepening. Her nervous manner interested me greatly, though I took
pains to conceal the fact that I noticed it. It was quickly
accounted for, however, by the card which the man presented, bearing
the name "Mr. George Gilbert" and a short scribble from First Deputy
O'Connor:
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert desire to consult you with regard to the
mysterious disappearance of their daughter, Georgette. I am sure
I need say nothing further to interest you than that the M.P.
Squad is completely baffled.
O'CONNOR.
"H-m," remarked Kennedy; "not strange for the Missing Persons Squad
to be baffled - at least, at this case."
"Then you know of our daughter's strange - er - departure?" asked Mr.
Gilbert, eagerly scanning Kennedy's face and using a euphemism that
would fall less harshly on his wife's ears than the truth.
"Indeed, yes," nodded Craig with marked sympathy: "that is, I have
read most of what the papers have said. Let me introduce my friend,
Mr. Jameson. You recall we were discussing the Georgette Gilbert
case this morning, Walter?"
I did, and perhaps before I proceed further with the story I should
quote at least the important parts of the article in the morning
Star which had occasioned the discussion. The article had been
headed, "When Personalities Are Lost," and with the Gilbert case as
a text many instances had been cited which had later been solved by
the return of the memory of the sufferer. In part the article had
said:
Mysterious disappearances, such as that of Georgette Gilbert,
have alarmed the public and baffled the police before this,
disappearances that in their suddenness, apparent lack of
purpose, and inexplicability, have had much in common with
the case of Miss Gilbert.
Leaving out of account the class of disappearances such as
embezzlers, blackmailers, and other criminals, there is still
a large number of recorded cases where the subjects have
dropped out of sight without apparent cause or reason and
have left behind them untarnished reputations. Of these a
small percentage are found to have met with violence;
others have been victims of a suicidal mania ; and sooner or
later a clue has come to light, for the dead are often easier
to find than the living, Of the remaining small proportion
there are on record a number of carefully authenticated cases
where the subjects have been the victims of a sudden and
complete loss of memory.
This dislocation of memory is a variety of aphasia known
as amnesia, and when the memory is recurrently lost and
restored it is an "alternating personality." The psychical
researchers and psychologists have reported many cases of
alternating personality. Studious efforts are being made
to understand and to explain the strange type of mental
phenomena exhibited in these cases, but no one has as yet
given a final, clear, and comprehensive explanation of them.
Such cases are by no means always connected with disappearances,
but the variety known as the ambulatory type, where the
patient suddenly loses all knowledge of his own identity
and of his past and takes himself off, leaving no trace or
clue, is the variety which the present case calls to popular
attention.
Then followed a list of a dozen or so interesting cases of persons
who had vanished completely and had, some several days and some
even years later, suddenly "awakened" to their first personality,
returned, and taken up the thread of that personality where it had
been broken.
To Kennedy's inquiry I was about to reply that I recalled the
conversation distinctly, when Mr. Gilbert shot an inquiring glance
from beneath his bushy eyebrows, quickly shifting from my face to
Kennedy's, and asked, "And what was your conclusion - what do you
think of the case? Is it aphasia or amnesia, or whatever the
doctors call it, and do you think she is wandering about somewhere
unable to recover her real personality?"
"I should like to have all the facts at first hand before venturing
an opinion," Craig replied with precisely that shade of hesitancy
that might reassure the anxious father and mother, without raising
a false hope.
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert exchanged glances, the purport of which was
that she desired him to tell the story.
"It was day before yesterday," began Mr. Gilbert, gently touching
his wife's trembling hand that sought his arm as he began rehearsing
the tragedy that had cast its shadow across their lives, "Thursday,
that Georgette - er - since we have heard of Georgette." His voice
faltered a bit, but he proceeded: "As you know, she was last seen
walking on Fifth Avenue. The police have traced her since she left
home that morning. It is known that she went first to the public
library, then that she stopped at a department store on the avenue,
where she made a small purchase which she had charged to our family
account, and finally that she went to a large book-store. Then
- that is the last."
Mrs. Gilbert sighed, and buried her face in a lace handkerchief as
her shoulders shook convulsively.
"Yes, I have read that," repeated Kennedy gently, though with
manifest eagerness to get down to facts that might prove more
illuminating. "I think I need hardly impress upon you the advantage
of complete frankness, the fact that anything you may tell me is of
a much more confidential nature than if it were told to the police.
Er-r, had Miss Gilbert any - love affair, any trouble of such a
nature that it might have preyed on her mind?"
Kennedy's tactful manner seemed to reassure both the father and the
mother, who exchanged another glance.
"Although we have said no to the reporters," Mrs. Gilbert replied
bravely in answer to the nod of approval from her husband, and much
as if she herself were making a confession for them both, "I fear
that Georgette had had a love affair. No doubt you have heard hints
of Dudley Lawton's name in connection with the case? I can't imagine
how they could have leaked out, for I should have said that that old
affair had long since been forgotten even by the society gossips.
The fact is that shortly after Georgette 'came out,' Dudley Lawton,
who is quite on the road to becoming one of the rather notorious
members of the younger set, began to pay her marked attentions. He
is a fascinating, romantic sort of fellow, one that, I imagine,
possesses much attraction for a girl who has been brought up as
simply as Georgette was, and who has absorbed a surreptitious diet
of modern literature such as we now know Georgette did. I suppose
you have seen portraits of Georgette in the newspapers and know
what a dreamy and artistic nature her face indicates?"
Kennedy nodded. It is, of course, one of the cardinal tenets of
journalism that all women are beautiful, but even the coarse
screen of the ordinary newspaper half-tone had not been able to
conceal the rather exceptional beauty of Miss Georgette Gilbert.
If it had, all the shortcomings of the newspaper photographic art
would have been quickly glossed over by the almost ardent
descriptions by those ladies of the press who come along about the
second day after an event of this kind with signed articles
analysing the character and motives, the life and gowns of the
latest actors in the front-page stories.
"Naturally both my husband and myself opposed his attentions from
the first. It was a hard struggle, for Georgette, of course,
assumed the much-injured air of some of the heroines of her
favourite novels. But I, at least, believed that we had won and
that Georgette finally was brought to respect and, I hoped,
understand our wishes in the matter. I believe so yet. Mr. Gilbert
in a roundabout way came to an understanding with old Mr. Dudley
Lawton, who possesses a great influence over his son, and - well,
Dudley Lawton seemed to have passed out of Georgette's life. I
believed so then, at least, and I see no reason for not believing
so yet. I feel that you ought to know this, but really I don't
think it is right to say that Georgette had a love affair. I should
rather say that she had had a love affair, but that it had been
forgotten, perhaps a year ago."
Mrs. Gilbert paused again, and it was evident that though she was
concealing nothing she was measuring her words carefully in order
not to give a false impression.
"What does Dudley Lawton say about the newspapers bringing his name
into the case?" asked Kennedy, addressing Mr. Gilbert.
"Nothing," replied he. "He denies that he has even spoken to her
for nearly a year. Apparently he has no interest in the case. And
yet I cannot quite believe that Lawton is as uninterested as he
seems. I know that he has often spoken about her to members of the
Cosmos Club where he lives, and that he reads practically everything
that the newspapers print about the case."
"But you have no reason to think that there has ever been any secret
communication between them? Miss Georgette left no letters or
anything that would indicate that her former infatuation survived?"
"None whatever," repeated Mr. Gilbert emphatically. "We have gone
over her personal effects very carefully, and I can't say they
furnish a clue. In fact, there were very few letters. She rarely
kept a letter. Whether it was merely from habit or for some purpose,
I can't say."
"Besides her liking for Dudley Lawton and her rather romantic nature,
there are no other things in her life that would cause a desire for
freedom?" asked Kennedy, much as a doctor might test the nerves of
a patient. "She had no hobbies?"
"Beyond the reading of some books which her mother and I did not
altogether approve of, I should say no - no hobbies."
"So far, I suppose, it is true that neither you nor the police have
received even a hint as to where she went after leaving the
book-store?"
"Not a hint. She dropped out as completely as if the earth had
swallowed her."
"Mrs. Gilbert," said Kennedy, as our visitors rose to go, "you may
rest assured that if it is humanly possible to find your daughter I
shall leave no stone unturned until I have probed to the bottom of
this mystery. I have seldom had a case that hung on more slender
threads, yet if I can weave other threads to support it I feel that
we shall soon find that the mystery is not so baffling as the
Missing Persons Squad has found it so far."
Scarcely had the Gilberts left when Kennedy put on his hat,
remarking: "We'll at least get our walk, if not the show. Let's
stroll around to the Cosmos Club. Perhaps we may catch Lawton in."
Luckily we chanced to find him there in the reading-room. Lawton
was, as Mrs. Gilbert had said, a type that is common enough in New
York and is very fascinating to many girls. In fact, he was one
of those fellows whose sins are readily forgiven because they are
always interesting. Not a few men secretly admire though publicly
execrate the Lawton type.
I say we chanced to find him in. That was about all we found. Our
interview was most unsatisfactory. For my part, I could not
determine whether he was merely anxious to avoid any notoriety in
connection with the case or whether he was concealing something that
might compromise himself.
"Really, gentlemen," he drawled, puffing languidly on a cigarette
and turning slowly toward the window to watch the passing throng
under the lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be
of any assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaintance
Miss Gilbert and I had drifted entirely apart - entirely apart
- owing to circumstances over which I, at least, had no control."
"I thought perhaps you might have heard from her or about her,
through some mutual friend," remarked Kennedy, carefully concealing
under his nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind - a belief
that, after all, the old attachment had not been so dead as the
Gilberts had fancied.
"No, not a breath, either before this sad occurrence or, of course,
after. Believe me, if I could add one fact that would simplify the
search for Georgette - ah, Miss Gilbert - ah - I would do so in a
moment," replied Lawton quickly, as if desirous of getting rid of
us as soon as possible. Then perhaps as if regretting the
brusqueness with which he had tried to end the interview, he added,
"Don't misunderstand me. The moment you have discovered anything
that points to her whereabouts, let me know immediately. You can
count on me - provided you don't get me into the papers. Good-night,
gentlemen. I wish you the best of success."
"Do you think he could have kept up the acquaintance secretly?" I
asked Craig as we walked up the avenue after this baffling interview.
"Could he have cast her off when he found that in spite of her
parents' protests she was still in his power?"
"It's impossible to say what a man of Dudley Lawton's type could do,"
mused Kennedy, "for the simple reason that he himself doesn't know
until he has to do it. Until we have more facts, anything is both
possible and probable."
There was nothing more that could be done that night, though after
our walk we sat up for an hour or two discussing probabilities. It
did not take me long to reach the end of my imagination and give up
the case, but Kennedy continued to revolve the matter in his mind,
looking at it from every angle and calling upon all the vast store
of information that he had treasured up in that marvellous brain of
his, ready to be called on almost as if his mind were card-indexed.
Murders, suicides, robberies, and burglaries are, after all, pretty
easily explained," he remarked, after a long period of silence on
my part, "but the sudden disappearance of people out of the crowded
city into nowhere is something that is much harder to explain. And
it isn't so difficult to disappear as some people imagine, either.
You remember the case of the celebrated Arctic explorer whose picture
had been published scores of times in every illustrated paper. He
had no trouble in disappearing and then reappearing later, when he
got ready.
"Yet experience has taught me that there is always a reason for
disappearances. It is our next duty to discover that reason.
Still, it won't do to say that disappearances are not mysterious.
Disappearances except for money troubles are all mysterious. The
first thing in such a case is to discover whether the person has
any hobbies or habits or fads. That is what I tried to find out
from the Gilberts. I can't tell yet whether I succeeded."
Kennedy took a pencil and hastily jotted down something on a piece
of paper which he tossed over to me. It read:
1.Love, family trouble.
2.A romantic disposition.
3.Temporary insanity, self-destruction.
4.Criminal assault.
5.Aphasia.
6.Kidnapping.
"Those are the reasons why people disappear, eliminating criminals
and those who have financial difficulties. Dream on that and see
if you can work out the answer in your subliminal consciousness.
Good-night."
Needless to say, I was no further advanced in the morning than at
midnight, but Kennedy seemed to have evolved at least a tentative
programme. It started with a visit to the public library, where he
carefully went over the ground already gone over by the police.
Finding nothing, he concluded that Miss Gilbert had not found what
she wanted at the library and had continued the quest, even as he
was continuing the quest of herself.
His next step was to visit the department-store. The purchase had
been an inconsequential affair of half a dozen handkerchiefs, to be
sent home. This certainly did not look like a premeditated
disappearance; but Craig was proceeding on the assumption that this
purchase indicated nothing except that there had been a sale of
handkerchiefs which had caught her eye. Having stopped at the
library first and a book-shop afterward, he assumed that she had
also visited the book-department of the store. But here again
nobody seemed to recall her or that she had asked for anything in
particular.
Our last hope was the book-shop. We paused for a moment to look at
the display in the window, but only for a moment, for Craig quickly
pulled me along inside. In the window was a display of books
bearing the sign:
BOOKS ON NEW THOUGHT, OCCULTISM,
CLAIRVOYANCE, MESMERISM
Instead of attempting to go over the ground already traversed by the
police, who had interrogated the numerous clerks without discovering
which one, if any, had waited on Miss Gilbert, Kennedy asked at once
to see the record of sales of the morning on which she had
disappeared. Running his eye quickly down the record, he picked out
a work on clairvoyance and asked to see the young woman who had made
the sale. The clerk was, however, unable to recall to whom she had
sold the book, though she finally admitted that she thought it might
have been a young woman who had some difficulty in making up her
mind just which one of the numerous volumes she wanted. She could
not say whether the picture Kennedy showed her of Miss Gilbert was
that of her customer, nor was she sure that the customer was not
escorted by some one. Altogether it was nearly as hazy as our
interview with Lawton.
"Still," remarked Kennedy cheerfully, "it may furnish a clue, after
all. The clerk at least was not positive that it was not Miss
Gilbert to whom she sold the book. Since we are down in this
neighbourhood, let us drop in and see Mr. Gilbert again. Perhaps
something may have happened since last night."
Mr. Gilbert was in the dry-goods business in a loft building in the
new dry-goods section on Fourth Avenue. One could almost feel that
a tragedy had invaded even his place of business. As we entered,
we could see groups of clerks, evidently discussing the case. It
was no wonder, I felt, for the head of the firm was almost frantic,
and beside the loss of his only daughter the loss of his business
would count as nothing, at least until the keen edge of his grief
was worn off.
"Mr. Gilbert is out," replied his secretary, in answer to our
inquiry. "Haven't you heard? They have just discovered the body
of his daughter in a lonely spot in the Croton Aqueduct. The
report came in from the police just a few minutes ago. It is
thought that she was murdered in the city and carried there in an
automobile."
The news came with a stinging shock. I felt that, after all, we
were too late. In another hour the extras would be out, and the
news would be spread broadcast. The affair would be in the hands
of the amateur detectives, and there was no telling how many
promising clues might be lost.
"Dead!" exclaimed Kennedy, as he jammed his hat on his head and
bolted for the door. "Hurry, Walter. We must get there before
the coroner makes his examination."
I don't know how we managed to do it, but by dint of subway,
elevated, and taxicab we arrived on the scene of the tragedy not
very long after the coroner. Mr. Gilbert was there, silent, and
looking as if he had aged many years since the night before; his
hand shook and he could merely nod recognition to us.
Already the body had been carried to a rough shanty in the
neighbourhood, and the coroner was questioning those who had made
the discovery, a party of Italian labourers on the water improvement
near by. They were a vicious looking crew, but they could tell
nothing beyond the fact that one of them had discovered the body
in a thicket where it could not possibly have lain longer than
overnight. There was no reason, as yet, to suspect any of them,
and indeed, as a much travelled automobile road ran within a few
feet of the thicket, there was every reason to believe that the
murder, if murder it was, had been committed elsewhere and that
the perpetrator had taken this means of getting rid of his
unfortunate victim.
Drawn and contorted were the features of the poor girl, as if she
had died in great physical agony or after a terrific struggle.
Indeed, marks of violence on her delicate throat and neck showed
only too plainly that she had been choked.
As Kennedy bent over the form of the once lovely Georgette, he
noted the clenched hands. Then he looked at them more closely.
I was standing a little behind him, for though Craig and I had been
through many thrilling adventures, the death of a human being,
especially of a girl like Miss Gilbert, filled me with horror and
revulsion. I could see, however, that he had noted something
unusual. He pulled out a little pocket magnifying glass and made
an even more minute examination of the hands. At last he rose and
faced us, almost as if in triumph. I could not see what he had
discovered - at least it did not seem to be anything tangible, like
a weapon.
Quickly he opened the pocketbook which she had carried. It seemed
to be empty, and he was about to shut it when something white,
sticking in one corner, caught his eye. Craig pulled out a clipping
from a newspaper, and we crowded about him to look at it. It was a
large clipping from the section of one of the metropolitan journals
which carries a host of such advertisements as "spirit medium,"
"psychic palmist," "yogi mediator," "magnetic influences," "crystal
gazer," "astrologer," "trance medium," and the like. At once I
thought of the sallow, somewhat mystic countenance of Dudley, and
the idea flashed, half-formed, in my mind that somehow this clue,
together with the purchase of the book on clairvoyance, might prove
the final link necessary.
But the first problem in Kennedy's mind was to keep in touch with
what the authorities were doing. That kept us busy for several
hours, during which Craig was in close consultation with the
coroner's physician. The physician was of the opinion that Miss
Gilbert had been drugged as well as strangled, and for many hours,
down in his laboratory, his chemists were engaged in trying to
discover from tests of her blood whether the theory was true. One
after another the ordinary poisons were eliminated, until it began
to look hopeless.
So far Kennedy had been only an interested spectator, but as the
different tests failed, he had become more and more keenly alive.
At last it seemed as if he could wait no longer.
"Might I try one or two reactions with that sample?" he asked of
the physician who handed him the test tube in silence.
For a moment or two Craig thoughtfully regarded it, while with one
hand he fingered the bottles of ether, alcohol, distilled water,
and the many reagents standing before him. He picked up one and
poured a little liquid into the test tube. Then, removing the
precipitate that was formed, he tried to dissolve it in water. Not
succeeding, he tried the ether and then the alcohol. Both were
successful.
"What is it?" we asked as he held the tube up critically to the light.
"I can't be sure yet," he answered slowly. "I thought at first that
it was some alkaloid. I'll have to make further tests before I can
be positive just what it is. If I may retain this sample I think
that with other clues that I have discovered I may be able to tell
you something definite soon."
The coroner's physician willingly assented, and Craig quickly
dispatched the tube, carefully sealed, to his laboratory.
"That part of our investigation will keep," he remarked as we left
the coroner's office. "To-night I think we had better resume the
search which was so unexpectedly interrupted this morning. I
suppose you have concluded, Walter, that we can be reasonably sure
that the trail leads back through the fortune-tellers and
soothsayers of New York, - which one, it would be difficult to say.
The obvious thing, therefore, is to consult them all. I think you
will enjoy that part of it, with your newspaperman's liking for the
bizarre."
The fact was that it did appeal to me, though at the moment I was
endeavouring to formulate a theory in which Dudley Lawton and an
accomplice would account for the facts.
It was early in the evening as we started out on our tour of the
clairvoyants of New York. The first whom Kennedy selected from the
advertisements in the clipping described himself as "Hata, the
Veiled Prophet, born with a double veil, educated in occult mysteries
and Hindu philosophy in Egypt and India." Like all of them his
advertisement dwelt much on love and money:
The great questions of life are quickly solved, failure turned to
success, sorrow to joy, the separated are brought together, foes
made friends. Truths are laid bare to his mysterious mind. He
gives you power to attract and control those whom you may desire,
tells you of living or dead, your secret troubles, the cause and
remedy. Advice on all affairs of life, love, courtship, marriage,
business, speculations, investments. Overcomes rivals, enemies,
and all evil influences. Will tell you how to attract, control,
and change the thought, intentions, actions, or character of any
one you desire.
Hata was a modest adept who professed to be able to explain the
whole ten stages of Yoga. He had established himself on a street
near Times Square, just off Broadway, and there we found several
automobiles and taxicabs standing at the curb, a mute testimony to
the wealth of at least some of his clientele.
A solemn-faced coloured man ushered us into a front parlour and
asked if we had come to see the professor. Kennedy answered that
we had.
"Will you please write your names and addresses on the outside
sheet of this pad, then tear it off and keep it?" asked the
attendant. "We ask all visitors to do that simply as a guarantee
of good faith. Then if you will write under it what you wish to
find out from the professor I think it will help you concentrate.
But don't write while I am in the room, and don't let me see the
writing."
"A pretty cheap trick," exclaimed Craig when the attendant had gone.
"That's how he tells the gullible their names before they tell him.
I've a good notion to tear off two sheets. The second is chemically
prepared, with paraffin, I think. By dusting it over with powdered
charcoal you can bring out what was written on the first sheet over
it. Oh, well, let's let him get something across, anyway. Here
goes, our names and addresses, and underneath I'll write, 'What has
become of Georgette Gilbert?'"
Perhaps five minutes later the negro took the pad, the top sheet
having been torn off and placed in Kennedy's pocket. He also took
a small fee of two dollars. A few minutes later we were ushered
into the awful presence of the "Veiled Prophet," a tall, ferret-eyed
man in a robe that looked suspiciously like a brocaded dressing-gown
much too large for him.
Sure enough, he addressed us solemnly by name and proceeded directly
to tell us why we had come.
"Let us look into the crystal of the past, present, and future and
read what it has to reveal," he added solemnly, darkening the room,
which was already only dimly lighted. Then Hata, the crystal-gazer,
solemnly seated himself in a chair. Before him, in his hands,
reposing on a bag of satin, lay a huge oval piece of glass. He
threw forward his head and riveted his eyes on the milky depths of
the crystal. In a moment he began to talk, first ramblingly, then
coherently.
"I see a man, a dark man," he began. "He is talking earnestly to a
young girl. She is trying to avoid him. Ah - he seizes her by both
arms. They struggle. He has his hand at her throat. He is choking
her."
I was thinking of the newspaper descriptions of Lawton, which the
fakir had undoubtedly read, but Kennedy was leaning forward over the
crystal-gazer, not watching the crystal at all, nor with his eyes
on the clairvoyant's face.
"Her tongue is protruding from her mouth, her eyes are bulging - "
"Yes, yes," urged Kennedy. "Go on."
"She falls. He strikes her. He flees. He goes to - "
Kennedy laid his hand ever so lightly on the arm of the clairvoyant,
then quickly withdrew it.
"I cannot see where he goes. It is dark, dark. You will have to
come back to-morrow when the vision is stronger."
The thing stung me by its crudity. Kennedy, however, seemed elated
by our experience as we gained the street.
"Craig," I remonstrated, "you don't mean to say you attach any
importance to vapourings like that? Why, there wasn't a thing the
fellow couldn't have imagined from the newspapers, even the clumsy
description of Dudley Lawton."
"We'll see," he replied cheerfully, as we stopped under a light to
read the address of the next seer, who happened to be in the same
block.
It proved to be the psychic palmist who called himself "the Pandit."
He also was "born with a strange and remarkable power - not meant to
gratify the idle curious, but to direct, advise, and help men and
women" - at the usual low fee. He said in print that he gave instant
relief to those who had trouble in love, and also positively
guaranteed to tell your name and the object of your visit. He added:
Love, courtship, marriage. What is more beautiful than the true
unblemished love of one person for another? What is sweeter, better,
or more to be desired than perfect harmony and happiness? If you
want to win the esteem, love, and everlasting affection of another,
see the Pandit, the greatest living master of the occult science.
Inasmuch as this seer fell into a passion at the other incompetent
soothsayers in the next column (and almost next door) it seemed as
if we must surely get something for our money from the Pandit.
Like Hata, the Pandit lived in a large brownstone house. The man
who admitted us led us into a parlour where several people were
seated about as if waiting for some one. The pad and writing
process was repeated with little variation. Since we were the
latest comers we had to wait some time before we were ushered into
the presence of the Pandit, who was clad in a green silk robe.
The room was large and had very small windows of stained glass. At
one end of the room was an altar on which burned several candles
which gave out an incense. The atmosphere of the room was heavy
with a fragrance that seemed to combine cologne with chloroform.
The Pandit waved a wand, muttering strange sounds as he did so, for
in addition to his palmistry, which he seemed not disposed to
exhibit that night, he dealt in mysteries beyond human ken. A voice,
quite evidently from a phonograph buried in the depths of the altar,
answered in an unknown language which sounded much like "Al-ya wa-aa
haal-ya waa-ha." Across the dim room flashed a pale blue light with
a crackling noise, the visible rays from a Crookes tube, I verily
believe. The Pandit, however, said it was the soul of a saint
passing through. Then he produced two silken robes, one red, which
he placed on Kennedy's shoulders, and one violet, which he threw
over me.
>From the air proceeded strange sounds of weird music and words.
The Pandit seemed to fall asleep, muttering. Apparently, however,
Kennedy and I were bad subjects, for after some minutes of this
he gave it up, saying that the spirits had no revelation to make
to-night in the matter in which we had called. Inasmuch as we had
not written on the pad just what that matter was, I was not
surprised. Nor was I surprised when the Pandit laid off his robe
and said unctuously, "But if you will call to-morrow and concentrate,
I am sure that I can secure a message that will be helpful about
your little matter."
Kennedy promised to call, but still he lingered. The Pandit,
anxious to get rid of us, moved toward the door. Kennedy sidled
over toward the green robe which the Pandit had laid on a chair.
"Might I have some of your writings to look over in the meantime?"
asked Craig as if to gain time.
"Yes, but they will cost you three dollars a copy - the price I
charge all my students," answered the Pandit with just a trace of
a gleam of satisfaction at having at last made an impression.
He turned and entered a cabinet to secure the mystic literature.
The moment he had disappeared Kennedy seized the opportunity he
had been waiting for. He picked up the green robe and examined
the collar and neck very carefully under the least dim of the
lights in the room. He seemed to find what he wished, yet he
continued to examine the robe until the sound of returning
footsteps warned him to lay it down again. He had not been quite
quick enough. The Pandit eyed us suspiciously, then he rang a
bell. The attendant appeared instantly, noiselessly.
"Show these men into the library," he commanded with just the
faintest shade of trepidation. "My servant will give you the book,"
he said to Craig. "Pay him."
It seemed that we had suddenly been looked upon with disfavour, and
I half suspected he thought we were spies of the police, who had
recently received numerous complaints of the financial activities
of the fortune tellers, who worked in close harmony with certain
bucket-shop operators in fleecing the credulous of their money by
inspired investment advice. At any rate, the attendant quickly
opened a door into the darkness. Treading cautiously I followed
Craig. The door closed behind us. I clenched my fists, not knowing
what to expect.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Kennedy. "He passed us out into an alley.
There is the street not twenty feet away. The Pandit is a clever
one, all right."
It was now too late to see any of the other clairvoyants on our
list, so that with this unceremonious dismissal we decided to
conclude our investigations for the night.
The next morning we wended our way up into the Bronx, where one of
the mystics had ensconced himself rather out of the beaten track of
police protection, or persecution, one could not say which. I was
wondering what sort of vagary would come next. It proved to be
"Swami, the greatest clairvoyant, psychic palmist, and Yogi mediator
of them all." He also stood alone in his power, for he asserted:
Names friends, enemies, rivals, tells whom and when you will
marry, advises you upon love, courtship, marriage, business,
speculation, transactions of every nature. If you are worried,
perplexed, or in trouble come to this wonderful man. He reads
your life like an open book; he overcomes evil influences,
reunites the separated, causes speedy and happy marriage with
the one of your choice, tells how to influence any one you
desire, tells whether wife or sweetheart is true or false.
Love, friendship, and influence of others obtained and a
greater share of happiness in life secured. The key to success
is that marvellous, subtle, unseen power that opens to your
vision the greatest secrets of life. It gives you power which
enables you to control the minds of men and women.
The Swami engaged to explain the "wonderful Karmic law," and by his
method one could develop a wonderful magnetic personality by which
he could win anything the human heart desired. It was therefore
with great anticipation that we sought out the wonderful Swami and,
falling into the spirit of his advertisement, posed as "come-ons"
and pleaded to obtain this wonderful magnetism and a knowledge of
the Karmic law - at a ridiculously low figure, considering its
inestimable advantages to one engaged in the pursuit of criminal
science. Naturally the Swami was pleased at two such early callers,
and his narrow, half-bald head, long slim nose, sharp grey eyes,
and sallow, unwholesome complexion showed his pleasure in every
line and feature.
Rubbing his hands together as he motioned us into the next room,
the Swami seated us on a circular divan with piles of cushions upon
it. There were clusters of flowers in vases about the room, which
gave it the odour of the renewed vitality of the year.
A lackey entered with a silver tray of cups of coffee and a silver
jar in the centre. Talking slowly and earnestly about the "great
Karmic law," the Swami bade us drink the coffee, which was of a
vile, muddy, Turkish variety. Then from the jar he took a box of
rock crystal containing a sort of greenish compound which he kneaded
into a little gum - gum tragacanth, I afterward learned, - and
bade us taste. It was not at all unpleasant to the taste, and as
nothing happened, except the suave droning of the mystic before us,
we ate several of the gum pellets.
I am at a loss to describe adequately just the sensations that I
soon experienced. It was as if puffs of hot and cold air were
alternately blown on my spine, and I felt a twitching of my neck,
legs, and arms. Then came a subtle warmth. The whole thing seemed
droll; the noise of the Swami's voice was most harmonious. His
and Kennedy's faces seemed transformed. They were human faces,
but each had a sort of animal likeness back of it, as Lavater has
said. The Swami seemed to me to be the fox, Kennedy the owl. I
looked in the glass, and I was the eagle. I laughed outright.
It was sensuous in the extreme. The beautiful paintings on the
walls at once became clothed in flesh and blood. A picture of a
lady hanging near me caught my eye. The countenance really smiled
and laughed and varied from moment to moment. Her figure became
rounded and living and seemed to stir in the frame. The face was
beautiful but ghastly. I seemed to be borne along on a sea of
pleasure by currents of voluptuous happiness.
The Swami was affected by a profound politeness. As he rose and
walked about the room, still talking, he salaamed and bowed. When=20
I spoke it sounded like a gun, with an echo long afterward
rumbling in my brain. Thoughts came to me like fury, bewildering,
sometimes as points of light in the most exquisite fireworks.
Objects were clothed in most fantastic garbs. I looked at my two
animal companions. I seemed to read their thoughts. I felt
strange affinities with them, even with the Swami. Yet it was all
by the psychological law of the association of ideas, though I was
no longer master but the servant of those ideas.
As for Kennedy, the stuff seemed to affect him much differently
than it did myself. Indeed, it seemed to rouse in him something
vicious. The more I smiled and the more the Swami salaamed,
the more violent I could see Craig getting, whereas I was lost in
a maze of dreams that I would not have stopped if I could. Seconds
seemed to be years; minutes ages. Things at only a short distance
looked much as they do when looked at through the inverted end of
a telescope. Yet it all carried with it an agreeable exhilaration
which I can only describe as the heightened sense one feels on the
first spring day of the year.
At last the continued plying of the drug seemed to be too much for
Kennedy. The Swami had made a profound salaam. In an instant
Kennedy had seized with both hands the long flowing hair at the
back of the Swami's bald forehead, and he tugged until the mystic
yelled with pain and the tears stood in his eyes.
With a leap I roused myself from the train of dreams and flung
myself between them. At the sound of my voice and the pressure
of my grasp, Craig sullenly and slowly relaxed his grip. A
vacant look seemed to steal into his face, and seizing his hat,
which lay on a near-by stool, he stalked out in silence, and I
followed.
Neither of us spoke for a moment after we had reached the street,
but out of the corner of my eye I could see that Kennedy's body was
convulsed as if with suppressed emotion.
"Do you feel better in the air?" I asked anxiously, yet somewhat
vexed and feeling a sort of lassitude and half regret at the
reality of life and not of the dreams.
It seemed as if he could restrain himself no longer. He burst out
into a hearty laugh. "I was just watching the look of disgust on
your face," he said as he opened his hand and showed me three or
four of the gum lozenges that he had palmed instead of swallowing.
"Ha, ha! I wonder what the Swami thinks of his earnest effort to
expound the Karmic law."
It was beyond me. With the Swami's concoction still shooting
thoughts like sky rockets through my brain I gave it up and allowed
Kennedy to engineer our next excursion into the occult.
One more seer remained to be visited. This one professed to "hold
your life mirror" and by his "magnetic monochrome," whatever that
might be, he would "impart to you an attractive personality, mastery
of being, for creation and control of life conditions."
He described himself as the "Guru," and, among other things, he
professed to be a sun-worshipper. At any rate, the room into which
we were admitted was decorated with the four-spoked wheel, or wheel
and cross, the winged circle, and the winged orb. The Guru himself
was a swarthy individual with a purple turban wound around his head.
In his inner room were many statuettes, photographs of other Gurus
of the faith, and on each of the four walls were mysterious symbols
in plaster representing a snake curved in a circle, swallowing his
tail, a five-pointed star, and in the centre another winged sphere.
Craig asked the Guru to explain the symbols, to which he replied
with a smile: "The snake represents eternity, the star involution
and evolution of the soul, while the winged sphere - eh, well, that
represents something else. Do you come to learn of the faith?"
At this gentle hint Craig replied that he did, and the utmost
amicability was restored by the purchase of the Green Book of the
Guru, which seemed to deal with everything under the sun, and
particularly the revival of ancient Asiatic fire-worship with many
forms and ceremonies, together with posturing and breathing that
rivalled the "turkey trot," the "bunny hug," and the "grizzly bear."
The book, as we turned, over its pages, gave directions for preparing
everything from food to love-philtres and the elixir of life. One
very interesting chapter was devoted to " electric marriage," which
seemed to come to those only who, after searching patiently, at last
found perfect mates. Another of the Guru's tenets seemed to be
purification by eliminating all false modesty, bathing in the sun,
and while bathing engaging in any occupation which kept the mind
agreeably occupied. On the first page was the satisfying legend,
"There is nothing in the world that a disciple can give to pay the
debt to the Guru who has taught him one truth."
As we talked, it seemed quite possible to me that the Guru might
exert a very powerful hypnotic influence over his disciples or those
who came to seek his advice. Besides this indefinable hypnotic
influence, I also noted the more material lock on the door to the
inner sanctuary.
"Yes," the Guru was saying to Kennedy, "I can secure you one of
the love-pills from India, but it will cost you - er - ten dollars."
I think he hesitated, to see how much the traffic would bear, from
one to one hundred, and compromised with only one zero after the
unit. Kennedy appeared satisfied, and the Guru departed with
alacrity to secure the specially imported pellet.
In a corner was a sort of dressing-table on which lay a comb and
brush. Kennedy seemed much interested in the table and was examining
it when the Guru returned. Just as the door opened he managed to
slip the brush into his pocket and appear interested in the mystic
symbols on the wall opposite.
"If that doesn't work," remarked the Guru in remarkably good English,
"let me know, and you must try one of my charm bottles. But the
love-pills are fine. Good-day."
Outside Craig looked at me quizzically "You wouldn't believe it,
Walter, would you?" he said. "Here in this twentieth century in New
York, and in fact in every large city of the world - love-philtres,
love-pills, and all the rest of it. And it is not among the
ignorant that these things are found, either. You remember we saw
automobiles waiting before some of the places."
"I suspect that all who visit the fakirs are not so gullible, after
all," I replied sententiously.
"Perhaps not. I think I shall have something interesting to say
to-night as a result of our visits, at least."
During the remainder of the day Kennedy was closely confined in his
laboratory with his microscopes, slides, chemicals, test-tubes, and
other apparatus. As for myself, I put in the time speculating
which of the fakirs had been in some mysterious way connected with
the case and in what manner. Many were the theories which I had
formed and the situations I conjured up, and in nearly all I had
one central figure, the young man whose escapades had been the talk
of even the fast set of a fast society.
That night Kennedy, with the assistance of First Deputy O'Connor,
who was not averse to taking any action within the law toward the
soothsayers, assembled a curiously cosmopolitan crowd in his
laboratory. Besides the Gilberts were Dudley Lawton and his father,
Hata, the Pandit, the Swami, and the Guru - the latter four persons
in high dudgeon at being deprived of the lucrative profits of a
Sunday night.
Kennedy began slowly) leading gradually up to his point: "A new
means of bringing criminals to justice has been lately studied by
one of the greatest scientific detectives of crime in the world,
the man to whom we are indebted for our most complete systems of
identification and apprehension." Craig paused and fingered the
microscope before him thoughtfully. "Human hair," he resumed,
"has recently been the study of that untiring criminal scientist,
M. Bertillon. He has drawn up a full, classified, and graduated
table of all the known colours of the human hair, a complete
palette, so to speak, of samples gathered in every quarter of
the globe. Henceforth burglars, who already wear gloves or paint
their fingers with a rubber composition for fear of leaving
finger-prints, will have to wear close-fitting caps or keep their
heads shaved. Thus he has hit upon a new method of identification
of those sought by the police. For instance, from time to time
the question arises whether hair is human or animal. In such
cases the microscope tells the answer truthfully.
"For a long time I have been studying hair, taking advantage of
those excellent researches by M. Bertillon. Human hair is fairly
uniform, tapering gradually. Under the microscope it is practically
always possible to distinguish human hair from animal. I shall not
go into the distinctions, but I may add that it is also possible
to determine very quickly the difference between all hair, human or
animal, and cotton with its corkscrew-like twists, linen with its
jointed structure, and silk, which is long, smooth, and cylindrical."
Again Kennedy paused as if to emphasise this preface. "I have
here," he continued, "a sample of hair." He had picked up a
microscope slide that was lying on the table. It certainly did
not look very thrilling - a mere piece of glass, that was all. But
on the glass was what appeared to be merely a faint line. "This
slide," he said, holding it up, "has what must prove an unescapable
clue to the identity of the man responsible for the disappearance
of Miss Gilbert. I shall not tell you yet who he is, for the
simple reason that, though I could make a shrewd guess, I do not
yet know what the verdict of science is, and in science we do not
guess where we can prove.
"You will undoubtedly remember that when Miss Gilbert's body was
discovered, it bore no evidence of suicide, but on the contrary the
marks of violence. Her fists were clenched, as if she had struggled
with all her power against a force that had been too much for her.
I examined her hands, expecting to find some evidence of a weapon
she had used to defend herself. Instead, I found what was more
valuable. Here on this slide are several hairs that I found tightly
grasped in her rigid hands."
I could not help recalling Kennedy's remark earlier in the case
- that=20it hung on slender threads. Yet how strong might not those
threads prove!
"There was also in her pocketbook a newspaper clipping bearing the
advertisements of several clairvoyants," he went on. "Mr. Jameson
and myself had already discovered what the police had failed to
find, that on the morning of the day on which she disappeared Miss
Gilbert had made three distinct efforts, probably, to secure books
on clairvoyance. Accordingly, Mr. Jameson and myself have visited
several of the fortune-tellers and practitioners of the occult
sciences in which we had reason to believe Miss Gilbert was
interested. They all, by the way, make a specialty of giving advice
in money matters and solving the problems of lovers. I suspect that
at times Mr. Jameson has thought that I was demented, but I had to
resort to many and various expedients to collect the specimens of
hair which I wanted. From the police, who used Mr. Lawton's valet,
I received some hair from his head. Here is another specimen from
each of the advertisers, Hata, the Swami, the Pandit, and the Guru.
There is just one of these specimens which corresponds in every
particular of colour, thickness, and texture with the hair found
so tightly grasped in Miss Gilbert's hand."
As Craig said this I could feel a sort of gasp of astonishment from
our little audience. Still he was not quite ready to make his
disclosure.
"Lest I should be prejudiced," he pursued evenly, "by my own rather
strong convictions, and in order that I might examine the samples
without fear or favour, I had one of my students at the laboratory
take the marked hairs, mount them, number them, and put in numbered
envelopes the names of the persons who furnished them. But before
I open the envelope numbered the same as the slide which contains
the hair which corresponds precisely with that hair found in Miss
Gilbert's hand - and it is slide No. 2 - " said Kennedy, picking
out the slide with his finger and moving it on the table with as
much coolness as if he were moving a chessman on a board instead of
playing in the terrible game of human life, "before I read the name
I have still one more damning fact to disclose."
Craig now had us on edge with excitement, a situation which I
sometimes thought he enjoyed more keenly than any other in his
relentless tracing down of a criminal.
"What was it that caused Miss Gilbert's death?" asked Kennedy. "The
coroner's physician did not seem to be thoroughly satisfied with the
theory of physical violence alone. Nor did I. Some one, I believe,
exerted a peculiar force in order to get her into his power. What
was that force? At first I thought it might have been the hackneyed
knock-out drops, but tests by the coroner's physician eliminated
that. Then I thought it might be one of the alkaloids, such as
morphine, cocaine, and others. But it was not any of the usual
things that was used to entice her away from her family and friends.
>From tests that I have, made I have discovered the one fact necessary
to complete my case, the drug used to lure her and against which she
fought in deadly struggle."
He placed a test tube in a rack before us. "This tube," he
continued, "contains one of the most singular and, among us, least
known of the five common narcotics of the world - tobacco, opium,
coca, betel nut, and hemp. It can be smoked, chewed, used as a
drink, or taken as a confection. In the form of a powder it is
used by the narghile smoker. As a liquid it can be taken as an
oily fluid or in alcohol. Taken in any of these forms, it literally
makes the nerves walk, dance, and run. It heightens the feelings
and sensibilities to distraction, producing what is really hysteria.
If the weather is clear, this drug will make life gorgeous; if it
rains, tragic. Slight vexation becomes deadly revenge; courage
becomes rashness; fear, abject terror; and gentle affection or even
a passing liking is transformed into passionate love. It is the
drug derived from the Indian hemp, scientifically named Cannabis
Indica, better known as hashish, or bhang, or a dozen other names
in the East. Its chief characteristic is that it has a profound
effect on the passions. Thus, under its influence, natives of the
East become greatly exhilarated, then debased, and finally violent,
rushing forth on the streets with the cry, 'Amok, amok,' - ' Kill,
kill ' - as we say, 'running amuck.' An overdose of this drug often
causes insanity, while in small quantities our doctors use it as a
medicine. Any one who has read the brilliant Theophile Gautier's
'Club des Hachichens' or Bayard Taylor's experience at Damascus
knows something of the effect of hashish, however.
"In reconstructing the story of Georgette Gilbert, as best I can,
I believe that she was lured to the den of one of the numerous
cults practised in New York, lured by advertisements offering advice
in hidden love affairs. Led on by her love for a man whom she could
not and would not put out of her life, and by her affection for her
parents, she was frantic. This place offered hope, and to it she
went in all innocence, not knowing that it was only the open door
to a life such as the most lurid disorderly resorts of the
metropolis could scarcely match. There her credulity was preyed
upon, and she was tricked into taking this drug, which itself has
such marked and perverting effect. But, though she must have been
given a great deal of the drug, she did not yield, as many of the
sophisticated do. She struggled frantically, futilely. Will and
reason were not conquered, though they sat unsteadily on their
thrones. The wisp of hair so tightly clasped in her dead hand shows
that she fought bitterly to the end."
Kennedy was leaning forward earnestly, glaring at each of us in turn.
Lawton was twisting uneasily in his chair, and I could see that his
fists were doubled up and that he was holding himself in leash as if
waiting for something, eyeing us all keenly. The Swami was seized
with a violent fit of trembling, and the other fakirs were staring
in amazement.
Quickly I stepped between Dudley Lawton and Kennedy, but as I did
so, he leaped behind me, and before I could turn he was grappling
wildly with some one on the floor.
"It's all right, Walter," cried Kennedy, tearing open the envelope
on the table. "Lawton has guessed right. The hair was the Swami's.
Georgette Gilbert was one victim who fought and rescued herself from
a slavery worse than death. And there is one mystic who could not
foresee arrest and the death house at Sing Sing in his horoscope."
VIII
THE FORGER
We were lunching with Stevenson Williams, a friend of Kennedy's, at
the Insurance Club, one of the many new downtown luncheon clubs,
where the noon hour is so conveniently combined with business.
"There isn't much that you can't insure against nowadays," remarked
Williams when the luncheon had progressed far enough to warrant a
tentative reference to the obvious fact that he had had a purpose
in inviting us to the club. "Take my own company, for example, the
Continental Surety. We have lately undertaken to write forgery
insurance."
"Forgery insurance?" repeated Kennedy. "Well, I should think you'd
be doing a ripping business - putting up the premium rate about
every day in this epidemic of forgery that seems to be sweeping over
the country."
Williams, who was one of the officers of the company, smiled somewhat
wearily, I thought. "We are," he replied drily. "That was precisely
what I wanted to see you about."
"What? The premiums or the epidemic?"
"Well - er - both, perhaps. I needn't say much about the epidemic,
as you call it. To you I can admit it; to the newspapers, never.
Still, I suppose you know that it is variously estimated that the
forgers of the country are getting away with from ten to fifteen
million dollars a year. It is just one case that I was thinking
about - one on which the regular detective agencies we employ seem
to have failed utterly so far. It involves pretty nearly one of
those fifteen millions."
"What? One case? A million dollars?" gasped Kennedy, gazing
fixedly at Williams as if he found it difficult to believe.
"Exactly," replied Williams imperturbably, "though it was not done
all at one fell swoop, of course, but gradually, covering a period
of some months. You have doubtless heard of the By-Products
Company of Chicago?"
Craig nodded.
"Well, it is their case," pursued Williams, losing his quiet manner
and now hurrying ahead almost breathlessly. "You know they own a
bank out there also, called the By-Products Bank. That's how we
come to figure in the case, by having insured their bank against
forgery. Of course our liability runs up only to $50,000. But the
loss to the company as well as to its bank through this affair will
reach the figure I have named. They will have to stand the balance
beyond our liability and, well, fifty thousand is not a small sum
for us to lose, either. We can't afford to lose it without a fight."
"Of course not. But you must have some suspicions, some clues. You
must have taken some action in tracing the thing out, whatever is
back of it."
"Surely. For instance, only the other day we had the cashier of the
bank, Bolton Brown, arrested, though he is out on bail now. We
haven't anything directly against him, but he is suspected of
complicity on the inside, and I may say that the thing is so gigantic
that there must have been some one on the inside concerned with it.
Among other things we have found that Bolton Brown has been leading
a rather fast life, quite unknown to his fellow-officials. We know
that he has been speculating secretly in the wheat corner that went
to pieces, but the most significant thing is that he has been
altogether too intimate with an adventuress, Adele DeMott, who has
had some success as a woman of high finance in various cities here
and in Europe and even in South America. It looks bad for him
from the commonsense standpoint, though of course I'm not competent
to speak of the legal side of the matter. But, at any rate, we know
that the insider must have been some one pretty close to the head
of the By-Products Company or the By-Products Bank."
"What was the character of the forgeries?" asked Kennedy.
"They seem to have been of two kinds. As far as we are concerned
it is the check forgeries only that interest the Surety Company.
For some time, apparently, checks have been coming into the bank
for sums all the way from a hundred dollars to five thousand.
They have been so well executed that some of them have been
certified by the bank, all of them have been accepted when they came
back from other banks, and even the officers of the company don't
seem to be able to pick any flaws in them except as to the payee
and the amounts for which they were drawn. They have the correct
safety tint on the paper and are stamped with rubber stamps that
are almost precisely like those used by the By-Products Company.
"You know that banking customs often make some kinds of fraud
comparatively easy. For instance no bank will pay out a hundred
dollars or often even a dollar without identification, but they
will certify a check for almost any office boy who comes in with it.
The common method of forgers lately has been to take such a certified
forged check, deposit it in another bank, then gradually withdraw it
in a few days before there is time to discover the forgery. In this
case they must have had the additional advantage that the insider in
the company or bank could give information and tip the forger off if
the forgery happened to be discovered."
"Who is the treasurer of the company?" asked Craig quickly.
"John Carroll - merely a figurehead, I understand. He's in New York
now, working with us, as I shall tell you presently. If there is any
one else besides Brown in it, it might be Michael Dawson, the nominal
assistant but really the active treasurer. There you have another
man whom we suspect, and, strangely enough, can't find. Dawson was
the assistant treasurer of the company, you understand, not of the
bank."
"You can't find him? Why?" asked Kennedy, considerably puzzled.
"No, we can't find him. He was married a few days ago, married a
pretty prominent society girl in the city, Miss Sibyl Sanderson. It
seems they kept the itinerary of their honeymoon secret, more as a
joke on their friends than anything else, they said, for Miss
Sanderson was a well-known beauty and the newspapers bothered the
couple a good deal with publicity that was distasteful. At least
that was his story. No one knows where they are or whether they'll
ever turn up again.
"You see, this getting married had something to do with the exposure
in the first place. For the major part of the forgeries consists
not so much in the checks, which interest my company, but in
fraudulently issued stock certificates of the By-Products Company.
About a million of the common stock was held as treasury stock - was
never issued.
"Some one has issued a large amount of it, all properly signed and
sealed. Whoever it was had a little office in Chicago from which
the stock was sold quietly by a confederate, probably a woman, for
women seem to rope in the suckers best in these get-rich-quick
schemes. And, well, if it was Dawson the honeymoon has given him
a splendid chance to make his get-away, though it also resulted in
the exposure of the forgeries. Carroll had to take up more or less
active duty, with the result that a new man unearthed the - but,
say, are you really interested in this case?"
Williams was leaning forward, looking anxiously at Kennedy and it
would not have taken a clairvoyant to guess what answer he wanted
to his abrupt question.
"Indeed I am," replied Craig, "especially as there seems to be a
doubt about the guilty person on the inside."
"There is doubt enough, all right," rejoined Williams, "at least I
think so, though our detectives in Chicago who have gone over the
thing pretty thoroughly have been sure of fixing something on Bolton
Brown, the cashier. You see the blank stock certificates were kept
in the company's vault in the bank to which, of course, Brown had
access. But then, as Carroll argues, Dawson had access to them,
too, which is very true - more so for Dawson than for Brown, who
was in the bank and not in the company. I'm all at sea. Perhaps
if you're interested you'd better see Carroll. He's here in the
city and I'm sure I could get you a good fee out of the case if
you cared to take it up. Shall I see if I can get him on the wire?"
We had finished luncheon and, as Craig nodded, Williams dived into
a telephone booth outside the dining-room and in a few moments
emerged, perspiring from the closeness. He announced that Carroll
requested that we call on him at an office in Wall Street, a few
blocks away, where he made his headquarters when he was in New York.
The whole thing was done with such despatch that I could not help
feeling that Carroll had been waiting to hear from his friend in
the insurance company. The look of relief on Williams's face when
Kennedy said he would go immediately showed plainly that the
insurance man considered the cost of the luncheon, which had been
no slight affair, in the light of a good investment in the interest
of his company, which was "in bad" for the largest forgery insurance
loss since they had begun to write that sort of business.
As we hurried down to Wall Street, Kennedy took occasion to remark,
"Science seems to have safe-guarded banks and other institutions
pretty well against outside robbery. But protection against
employees who can manipulate books and records does not seem to
have advanced as rapidly. Sometimes I think it may have lessened.
Greater temptations assail the cashier or clerk with greater
opportunity for speculation, and the banks, as many authorities will
agree, have not made enough use of the machinery available to put a
stop to embezzlement. This case is evidently one of the results.
The careless fellows at the top, like this man Carroll whom we are
going to see, generally put forward as excuse the statement that the
science of banking and of business is so complex that a rascal with
ingenuity enough to falsify the books is almost impossible of
detection. Yet when the cat is out of the bag as in several recent
cases the methods used are often of the baldest and most transparent
sort, fictitious names, dummies, and all sorts of juggling and kiting
of checks. But I hardly think this is going to prove one of those
simple cases."
John Carroll Was a haggard and unkempt sort of man. He looked to
me as if the defalcations had preyed on his mind until they had
become a veritable obsession. It was literally true that they were
all that he could talk about, all that he was thinking about. He
was paying now a heavy penalty for having been a dummy and honorary
officer.
"This thing has become a matter of life and death with me," he
began eagerly, scarcely waiting for us to introduce ourselves, as
he fixed his unnaturally bright eyes on us anxiously. "I've simply
got to find the man who has so nearly wrecked the By-Products Bank
and Company. Find him or not, I suppose I am a ruined man, myself,
but I hope I may still prove myself honest."
He sighed and his eyes wandered vacantly out of the window as if he
were seeking rest and could not find it.
"I understand that the cashier, Bolton Brown, has been arrested,"
prompted Kennedy.
"Yes, Bolton Brown, arrested," he repeated slowly, "and since he
has been out on bail he, too, seems to have disappeared. Now let me
tell you about what I think of that, Kennedy. I know it looks bad
for Brown. Perhaps he's the man. The Surety Company says so,
anyway. But we must look at this thing calmly."
He was himself quite excited, as he went on, "You understand, I
suppose, just how much Brown must have been reasonably responsible
for passing the checks through the bank? He saw personally about
as many of them as - as I did, which was none until the exposure
came. They were deposited in other banks by people whom we can't
identify but who must have opened accounts for the purpose of
finally putting through a few bad checks. Then they came back to
our bank in the regular channels and were accepted. By various
kinds of juggling they were covered up. Why, some of them looked
so good that they were even certified by our bank before they were
deposited in the other banks. Now, as Brown claims, he never saw
checks unless there was something special about them and there
seemed at the time to be nothing wrong about these.
"But in the public mind I know there is prejudice against any bank
official who speculates or leads a fast life, and of course it is
warranted. Still, if Brown should clear himself finally the thing
will come back to Dawson and even if he is guilty, it will make me
the - er - the ultimate goat. The upshot of it all will be that I
shall have to stand the blame, if not the guilt, and the only way
I can atone for my laxity in the past is by activity in catching
the real offender and perhaps by restoring to the company and the
bank whatever can yet be recovered."
"But," asked Kennedy sympathetically, "what makes you think that
you will find your man, whoever he proves to be, in New York?"
I admit that it is only a very slight clue that I have," he replied
confidentially. "It is just a hint Dawson dropped once to one of
the men with whom he was confidential in the company. This clerk
told me that a long=20time ago Dawson said he had always wanted to go
to South America and that perhaps on his honeymoon he might get a
chance. This is the way I figured it out. You see, he is clever
and some of these South American countries have no extradition
treaties with us by which we could reach him, once he got there."
"Perhaps he has already arrived in one of them with his wife. What
makes you think he hasn't sailed yet?
"No, I don't think he has. You see, she wanted to spend a part of
the honeymoon at Atlantic City. I learned that indirectly from her
folks, who profess to know no better than we do where the couple are.
That was an additional reason why I wanted to see if by coming to
New York I might not pick up some trace of them, either here or in
Atlantic City."
"And have you?
"Yes, I think I have." He handed us a lettergram which he had just
received from Chicago. It read: "Two more checks have come in
to-day from Atlantic City and New York. They seem to be in payment
of bills, as they are for odd amounts. One is from the Lorraine at
Atlantic City and the other from the Hotel Amsterdam of New York.
They were dated the 19th and 20th."
"You see," he resumed as we finished reading, "it is now the 23rd,
so that there is a difference of three days. He was here on the 20th.
Now the next ship that he could take after the 20th sails from
Brooklyn on the 25th. If he's clever he won't board that ship except
in a disguise, for he will know that by that time some one must be
watching. Now I want you to help me penetrate that disguise. Of
course we can't arrest the whole shipload of passengers, but if you,
with your scientific knowledge, could pick him out, then we could
hold him and have breathing space to find out whether he is guilty
alone or has been working with Bolton Brown."
Carroll was now pacing the office with excitement as he unfolded
his scheme which meant so much for himself.
"H-m," mused Kennedy. "I suppose Dawson was a man of exemplary
habits? They almost always are. No speculating or fast living with
him as with Brown?"
Carroll paused in his nervous tread. "That's another thing I've
discovered. On the contrary, I think Dawson was a secret drug
fiend. I found that out after he left. In his desk at the
By-Products office we discovered hypodermic needles and a whole
outfit - morphine, I think it was. You know how cunningly a real
morphine fiend can cover up his tracks."
Kennedy was now all attention. As the case unrolled it was assuming
one new and surprising aspect after another.
"The lettergram would indicate that he had been stopping at the
Lorraine in Atlantic City," remarked Kennedy.
"So I would infer, and at the Amsterdam in New York. But you can
depend on it that he has not been going under his own name nor, I
believe as far as I can find out, even under his own face. I think
the fellow has already assumed a disguise, for nowhere can I find
any description that even I could recognise."
"Strange," murmured Kennedy. "I'll have to look into it. And only
two days in which to do it, too. You will pardon me if I excuse
myself now? There are certain aspects of the case that I hope I
shall be able to shed some light on by going at them at once."
"You'll find Dawson clever, clever as he can be," said Carroll, not
anxious to have Kennedy go as long as he would listen to the story
which was bursting from his overwrought mind. "He was able to cover
up the checks by juggling the accounts. But that didn't satisfy
him. He was after something big. So he started in to issue the
treasury stock, forging the signatures of the president and the
treasurer, that is, my signature. Of course that sort of game
couldn't last forever. Some one was going to demand dividends on
his stock, or transfer it, or ask to have it recorded on the books,
or something that would give the whole scheme away. From each
person to whom he sold stock I believe he demanded some kind of
promise not to sell it within a certain period, and in that way
we figure that he gave himself plenty of time to realise several
hundred thousand dollars quietly. It may be that some of the forged
checks represented fake interest payments. Anyhow, he's at the end
of his rope now. We've had an exciting chase. I had followed down
several false clues before the real significance of the hint about
South America dawned on me. Now I have gone as far as I dare with
it without calling in outside assistance. I think now we are up
with him at last - with your help."
Kennedy was anxious to go, but he paused long enough to ask another
question. "And the girl?" he broke in. "She must be in the game
or her letters to some of her friends would have betrayed their
whereabouts. What was she like?"
"Miss Sanderson was very popular in a certain rather flashy set in
Chicago. But her folks were bounders. They lived right up to the
limit, just as Dawson did, in my opinion. Oh, you can be sure that
if a proposition like this were put up to her she'd take a chance
to get away with it. She runs no risks. She didn't do it anyhow,
and as for her part, after the fact, why, a woman is always pretty
safe - more sinned against than sinning, and all that. It's a queer
sort of honeymoon, hey?"
"Have you any copies of the forged certificates?" asked Craig.
"Yes, plenty of them. Since the story has been told in print they
have been pouring in. Here are several."
He pulled several finely engraved certificates from his pocket and
Kennedy scrutinised them minutely.
"I may keep these to study at my leisure?" he asked.
Certainly," replied Carroll, "and if you want any more I can wire
to Chicago for them."
"No, these will be sufficient for the present, thank you," said
Craig. "I shall keep in touch with you and let you know the moment
anything develops.
Our ride uptown to the laboratory was completed in silence which I
did not interrupt, for I could see that Kennedy was thinking out a
course of action. The quick pace at which he crossed the campus to
the Chemistry Building told me that he had decided on something.
In the laboratory Craig hastily wrote a note, opened a drawer of
his desk, and selected one from a bunch of special envelopes which
he seemed to be saving for some purpose. He sealed it with some
care, and gave it to me to post immediately. It was addressed to
Dawson at the Hotel Amsterdam. On my return I found him deeply
engrossed in the examination of the forged shares of stock. Having
talked with him more or less in the past about handwriting I did
not have to be told that he was using a microscope to discover any
erasures and that photography both direct and by transmitted light
might show something.
"I can't see anything wrong with these documents," he remarked at
length. "They show no erasures or alterations. On their face they
look as good as the real article. Even if they are tracings they
are remarkably line work. It certainly is a fact, however, that
they superimpose. They might all have been made from the same pair
of signatures of the president and treasurer.
"I need hardly to say to you, Walter, that the microscope in its
various forms and with its various attachments is of great assistance
to the document examiner. Even a low magnification frequently
reveals a drawing, hesitating method of production, or patched and
reinforced strokes as well as erasures by chemicals or by abrasion.
The stereoscopic microscope, which is of value in studying abrasions
and alterations since it gives depth, in this case tells me that
there has been nothing of that sort practised. My colour comparison
microscope, which permits the comparison of the ink on two different
documents or two places on one document at the same time, tells me
something. This instrument with new and accurately coloured glasses
enables me to measure the tints of the ink of these signatures with
the greatest accuracy and I can do what was hitherto impossible -=20
determine how long the writing has been on the paper. I should say
it was all very recent, approximately within the last two months
or six weeks, and I believe that whenever the stock may have been
issued it at least was all forged at the same time.
"There isn't time now to go into the thing more deeply, but if it
becomes necessary I can go back to it with the aid of the camera
lucida and the microscopic enlarger, as well as this specially
constructed document camera with lenses certified by the government.
If it comes to a show-down I suppose I shall have to prove my point
with the micrometer measurements down to the fifty-thousandth part
of an inch.
"There is certainly something very curious about these signatures,"
he concluded. "I don't know what measurements would show, but they
are really too good. You know a forged signature may be of two kinds
- too bad or too good. These are, I believe, tracings. If they
were your signature and mine, Walter, I shouldn't hesitate to
pronounce them tracings. But there is always some slight room for
doubt in these special cases where a man sits down and is in the
habit of writing his signature over and over again on one stock or
bond after another. He may get so used to it that he does it
automatically and his signatures may come pretty close to
superimposing. If I had time, though, I think I could demonstrate
that there are altogether too many points of similarity for these
to be genuine signatures. But we've got to act quickly in this
case or not at all, and I see that if I am to get to Atlantic City
to-night I can't waste much more time here. I wish you would keep
an eye on the Hotel Amsterdam while I am gone, Walter, and meet me
here, to-morrow. I'll wire when I'll be back. Good-bye."
It was well along in the afternoon when Kennedy took a train for
the famous seaside resort, leaving me in New York with a roving
commission to do nothing. All that I was able to learn at the
Hotel Amsterdam was that a man with a Van Dyke beard had stung the
office with a bogus check, although he had seemed to come well
recommended. The description of the woman with him who seemed to
be his wife might have fitted either Mrs. Dawson or Adele DeMott.
The only person who had called had been a man who said he
represented the By-Products Company and was the treasurer. He had
questioned the hotel people rather closely about the whereabouts
of the couple who had paid their expenses with the worthless slip
of paper. It was not difficult to infer that this man was Carroll
who had been hot on the trail, especially as he said that he
personally would see the check paid if the hotel people would keep
a sharp watch for the return of the man who had swindled them.
Kennedy wired as he promised and returned by an early train the
next day.
He seemed bursting with news. "I think I'm on the trail," he
cried, throwing his grip into a corner and not waiting for me to
ask him what success he had had. "I went directly to the Lorraine
and began frankly by telling them that I represented the By-Products
Company in New York and was authorised to investigate the bad check
which they had received. They couldn't describe Dawson very well
- at least their description would have fitted almost any one.
One thing I think I did learn and that was that his disguise must
include a Van Dyke beard. He would scarcely have had time to grow
one of his own and I believe when he was last seen in Chicago he
was clean-shaven."
"But," I objected, "men with Van Dyke beards are common enough."
Then I related my experience at the Amsterdam.
"The same fellow," ejaculated Kennedy. "The beard seems to have
covered a multitude of sins, for while every one could recall
that, no one had a word to say about his features. However,
Walter, there's just one chance of making his identification sure,
and a peculiar coincidence it is, too. It seems that one night
this man and a lady who may have been the former Miss Sanderson,
though the description of her like most amateur descriptions
wasn't very accurate, were dining at the Lorraine. The Lorraine
is getting up a new booklet about its accommodations and a
photographer had been engaged to take a flashlight of the
dining-room for the booklet.
"No sooner had the flash been lighted and the picture taken than
a man with a Van Dyke beard - your friend of the Amsterdam, no
doubt, Walter, - rushed up to the photographer and offered him
fifty dollars for the plate. The photographer thought at first it
was some sport who had reasons for not wishing to appear in print
in Atlantic City, as many have. The man seemed to notice that the
photographer was a little suspicious and he hastened to make some
kind of excuse about wanting the home folks to see how swell he
and his wife were dining in evening dress. It was a rather lame
excuse, but the fifty dollars looked good to the photographer and
he agreed to develop the plate and turn it over with some prints
all ready for mailing the next day. The man seemed satisfied and
the photographer took another flashlight, this time with one of
the tables vacant.
"Sure enough, the next day the man with a beard turned up for the
plate. The photographer tells me that he had it all wrapped up
ready to mail, just to call the fellow's bluff. The man was equal
to the occasion, paid the money, wrote an address on the package
which the photographer did not see, and as there was a box for
mailing packages right at the door on the boardwalk there was no
excuse for not mailing it directly. Now if I could get hold of
that plate or a print from it I could identify Dawson in his
disguise in a moment. I've started the post-office trying to
trace that package both at Atlantic City and in Chicago, where I
think it must have been mailed. I may hear from them at any
moment - at least, I hope."
The rest of the afternoon we spent in canvassing the drug stores
in the vicinity of the Amsterdam, Kennedy's idea being that if
Dawson was a habitual morphine fiend he must have replenished his
supply of the drug in New York, particularly if he was contemplating
a long journey where it might be difficult to obtain.
After many disappointments we finally succeeded in finding a shop
where a man posing as a doctor had made a rather large purchase.
The name he gave was of course of no importance. What did interest
us was that again we crossed the trail of a man with a Van Dyke
beard. He had been accompanied by a woman whom the druggist
described as rather flashily dressed, though her face was hidden
under a huge hat and a veil. "Looked very attractive," as the
druggist put it, "but she might have been a negress for all I could
tell you of her face."
"Humph," grunted Kennedy, as we were leaving the store. "You
wouldn't believe it, but it is the hardest thing in the world to
get an accurate description of any one. The psychologists have
said enough about it, but you don't realise it until you are up
against it. Why, that might have been the DeMott woman just as
well as the former Miss Sanderson, and the man might have been
Bolton Brown as well as Dawson, for all we know. They've both
disappeared now. I wish we could get some word about that
photograph. That would settle it."
In the last mail that night Kennedy received back the letter which
he had addressed to Michael Dawson. On it was stamped "Returned
to sender. Owner not found."
Kennedy turned the letter over slowly and looked at the back of
it carefully.
"On the contrary," he remarked, half to himself, "the owner was
found. Only he returned the letter back to the postman after he had
opened it and found that it was just a note of no importance which
I scribbled just to see if he was keeping in touch with things from
his hiding-place, wherever it is.
"How do you know he opened it?" I asked.
"Do you see those blots on the back? I had several of these
envelopes prepared ready for use when I needed them. I had some
tannin placed on the flap and then covered thickly with gum. On
the envelope itself was some iron sulphate under more gum. I
carefully sealed the letter, using very little moisture. The gum
then separated the two prepared parts. Now if that letter were
steamed open the tannin and the sulphate would come together, run,
and leave a smudge. You see the blots? The inference is obvious."
Clearly, then, our chase was getting warmer. Dawson had been in
Atlantic City at least within a few days. The fruit company steamer
to South America on which Carroll believed he was booked to sail
under an assumed name and with an assumed face was to sail the
following noon. And still we had no word from Chicago as to the
destination of the photograph, or the identity of the man in the
Van Dyke beard who had been so particular to disarm suspicion in
the purchase of the plate from the photographer a few days before.
The mail also contained a message from Williams of the Surety
Company with the interesting information that Bolton Brown's
attorney had refused to say where his client had gone since he had
been released on bail, but that he would be produced when wanted.
Adele DeMott had not been seen for several days in Chicago and
the police there were of the opinion that she had gone to New York,
where it would be pretty easy for her to pass unnoticed. These
facts further complicated the case and made the finding of the
photograph even more imperative.
If we were going to do anything it must be done quickly. There
was no time to lose. The last of the fast trains for the day had
left and the photograph, even though it were found, could not
possibly reach us in time to be of use before the steamer sailed
from Brooklyn. It was an emergency such as Kennedy had never yet
faced, apparently physically insuperable.
But, as usual, Craig was not without some resource, though it looked
impossible to me to do anything but make a hit or miss arrest at the
boat. It was late in the evening when he returned from a conference
with an officer of the Telegraph and Telephone Company to whom
Williams had given him a card of introduction. The upshot had been
that he had called up Chicago and talked for a long time with
Professor Clark, a former classmate of ours who was now in the
technology school of the university out there. Kennedy and Clark
had been in correspondence for some time, I knew, about some
technical matters, though I had no idea what it was they concerned.
"There's one thing we can always do," I remarked as we walked slowly
over to the laboratory from our apartment.
"What's that?" he asked absent-mindedly, more from politeness than
anything else.
"Arrest every one with a Van Dyke beard who goes on the boat
to-morrow," I replied.
Kennedy smiled. "I don't feel prepared to stand a suit for false
arrest," he said simply, " especially as the victim would feel
pretty hot if we caused him to miss his boat. Men with beards are
not so uncommon, after all."
We had reached the laboratory. Linemen were stringing wires under
the electric lights of the campus from the street to the Chemistry
Building and into Kennedy's sanctum.
That night and far into the morning Kennedy was working in the
laboratory on a peculiarly complicated piece of mechanism consisting
of electro-magnets, rolls, and a stylus and numerous other
contrivances which did not suggest to my mind anything he had ever
used before in our adventures. I killed time as best I could
watching him adjust the thing with the most minute care and precision.
Finally I came to the conclusion that as I was not likely to be of
the least assistance, even if I had been initiated into what was
afoot, I had as well retire.
"There is one thing you can do for me in the morning, Walter," said
Kennedy, continuing to work over a delicate piece of clockwork which
formed a part of the apparatus. "In case I do not see you then, get
in touch with Williams and Carroll and have them come here about
ten o'clock with an automobile. If I am not ready for them then I'm
afraid I never shall be, and we shall have to finish the job with
the lack of finesse you suggested by arresting all the bearded men."
Kennedy could not have slept much during the night, for though his
bed had been slept in he was up and away before I could see him
again. I made a hurried trip downtown to catch Carroll and Williams
and then returned to the laboratory, where Craig had evidently just
finished a satisfactory preliminary test of his machine.
"Still no message," he began in reply to my unspoken question. He
was plainly growing restless with the inaction, though frequent
talks over long-distance with Chicago seemed to reassure him. Thanks
to the influence of Williams he had at least a direct wire from his
laboratory to the city which was now the scene of action.
As nearly as I could gather from the one-sided conversations I heard
and the remarks which Kennedy dropped, the Chicago post-office
inspectors were still searching for a trace of the package from
Atlantic City which was to reveal the identity of the man who had
passed the bogus checks and sold the forged certificates of stock.
Somewhere in that great city was a photograph of the promoter and
of the woman who was aiding him to escape, taken in Atlantic City
and sent by mail to Chicago. Who had received it? Would it be
found in time to be of use? What would it reveal? It was like
hunting for a needle in a haystack, and yet the latest reports
seemed to encourage Kennedy with the hope that the authorities
were at last on the trail of the secret office from which the stock
had been sold. He was fuming and wishing that he could be at both
ends of the line at once.
"Any word from Chicago yet?" appealed an anxious voice from the
doorway.
We turned. There were Carroll and Williams who had come for us
with an automobile to go over to watch at the wharf in Brooklyn for
our man. It was Carroll who spoke. The strain of the suspense
was telling on him and I could readily imagine that he, like so
many others who had never seen Kennedy in action, had not the faith
in Craig's ability which I had seen tested so many times.
"Not yet," replied Kennedy, still busy about his apparatus on the
table. "I suppose you have heard nothing?"
"Nothing since my note of last night," returned Williams impatiently.
"Our detectives still insist that Bolton Brown is the man to watch,
and the disappearance of Adele DeMott at this time certainly looks
bad for him."
"It does, I admit," said Carroll reluctantly. "What's all this
stuff on the table?" he asked, indicating the magnets, rolls, and
clockwork.
Kennedy did not have time to reply, for the telephone bell was
tinkling insistently.
"I've got Chicago on the wire," Craig informed us, placing his hand
over the transmitter as he waited for long-distance to make the
final connection. "I'll try to repeat as much of the conversation
as I can so that you can follow it. Hello - yes - this is Kennedy.
Is that you, Clark? It's all arranged at this end. How's your end
of the line? Have you a good connection? Yes? My synchroniser
is working fine here, too. All right. Suppose we try it. Go
ahead."
As Kennedy gave a few final touches to the peculiar apparatus on
the table, the cylindrical drum before us began slowly to revolve
and the stylus or needle pressed down on the sensitised paper with
which the drum was covered, apparently with varying intensity as it
turned. Round and round the cylinder revolved like a graphophone.
"This," exclaimed Kennedy proudly, "is the 'electric eye,' the
telelectrograph invented by Thorne Baker in England. Clark and I
have been intending to try it out for a long time. It at last
makes possible the electric transmission of photographs, using the
telephone wires because they are much better for such a purpose
than the telegraph wires.
Slowly the needle was tracing out a picture on the paper. It was
only a thin band yet, but gradually it was widening, though we
could not guess what it was about to reveal as the ceaseless
revolutions widened the photographic print.
"I may say," explained Kennedy as we waited breathlessly, "that
another system known as the Korn system of telegraphing pictures
has also been in use in London, Paris, Berlin, and other cities
at various times for some years. Korn's apparatus depends on the
ability of the element selenium to vary the strength of an electric
current passing through it in proportion to the brightness with
which the selenium is illuminated. A new field has been opened by
these inventions which are now becoming more and more numerous,
since the Korn system did the pioneering.
"The various steps in sending a photograph by the Baker
telelectrograph are not so difficult to understand, after all.
First an ordinary photograph is taken and a negative made. Then
a print is made and a wet plate negative is printed on a sheet
of sensitised tinfoil which has been treated with a single-line
screen. You know a halftone consists of a photograph through a
screen composed of lines running perpendicular to each other - a
coarse screen for newspaper work, and a fine screen for better
work, such as in magazines. Well, in this case the screen is
composed of lines running parallel in one direction only, not
crossing at right angles. A halftone is composed of minute points,
some light, some dark. This print is composed of long shaded lines,
some parts light, others dark, giving the effect of a picture, you
understand?"
"Yes, yes," I exclaimed, thoroughly excited.
"Well, he resumed as the print widened visibly, this tinfoil negative
is wrapped around a cylinder at the other end of the line and a
stylus with a very delicate, sensitive point begins passing over it,
crossing the parallel lines at right angles, like the other lines
of a regular halftone. Whenever the point of the stylus passes over
one of the lighter spots on the photographic print it sends on a
longer electrical vibration, over the darker spots a shorter
vibration. The ever changing electrical current passes up through
the stylus, vibrates with ever varying degrees of intensity over
the thousand miles of telephone wire between Chicago and this
instrument here at the other end of the line.
"In this receiving apparatus the current causes another stylus to
pass over a sheet of sensitised chemical paper such as we have here.
The receiving stylus passes over the paper here synchronously with
the transmitting stylus in Chicago. The impression which each
stroke of the receiving stylus makes on the paper is black or light,
according to the length of the very quickly changing vibrations of
the electric current. White spots on the photographic print come
out as black spots here on the sensitised paper over which this
stylus is passing, and vice versa. In that way you can see the
positive print growing here before your very eyes as the picture
is transmitted from the negative which Clark has prepared and is
sending from Chicago."
As we bent over eagerly we could indeed now see what the thing was
doing. It was reproducing faithfully in New York what could be
seen by the mortal eye only in Chicago.
"What is it?" asked Williams, still half incredulous in spite of
the testimony of his eyes.
"It is a photograph which I think may aid us in deciding whether it
is Dawson or Brown who is responsible for the forgeries," answered
Kennedy, "and it may help us to penetrate the man's disguise yet,
before he escapes to South America or wherever he plans to go."
"You'll have to hurry," interposed Carroll, nervously looking at
his watch. "She sails in an hour and a half and it is a long ride
over to the pier even with a fast car."
"The print is almost ready," repeated Kennedy calmly. "By the
way, it is a photograph which was taken at Atlantic City a few days
ago for a booklet which the Lorraine was getting out. The
By-Products forger happened to get in it and he bribed the
photographer to give him the plate and take another picture for
the booklet which would leave him out. The plate was sent to a
little office in Chicago, discovered by the post-office inspectors,
where the forged stock certificates were sold. I understood from
what Clark told me over the telephone before he started to transmit
the picture that the woman in it looked very much like Adel DeMott.
Let us see."=20
The machine had ceased to revolve. Craig stripped a still wet
photograph off the telelectrograph instrument and stood regarding
it with intense satisfaction. Outside, the car which had been
engaged to hurry us over to Brooklyn waited. "Morphine fiends,"
said Kennedy as he fanned the print to dry it, " are the most
unreliable sort of people. They cover their tracks with almost
diabolical cunning. In fact they seem to enjoy it. For instance,
the crimes committed by morphinists are usually against property
and character and based upon selfishness, not brutal crimes such
as alcohol and other drugs induce. Kleptomania, forgery, swindling,
are among the most common.
"Then, too, one of the most marked phases of morphinism is the
pleasure its victims take in concealing their motives and conduct.
They have a mania for leading a double life, and enjoy the
deception and mask which they draw about themselves. Persons under
the influence of the drug have less power to resist physical and
mental impressions and they easily succumb to temptations and
suggestions from others. Morphine stands unequalled as a perverter
of the moral sense. It creates a person whom the father of lies
must recognise as kindred to himself. I know of a case where a
judge charged a jury that the prisoner, a morphine addict, was
mentally irresponsible for that reason. The judge knew what he
was talking about. It subsequently developed that he had been a
secret morphine fiend himself for years."
Come, come," broke in Carroll impatiently, we're wasting time. The
ship sails in an hour and unless you want to go down the bay on a
tug you've got to catch Dawson now or never. The morphine business
explains, but it does not excuse. Come on, the car is waiting. How
long do you think it will take us to get over to - "
"Police headquarters?" interrupted Craig. "About fifteen minutes.
This photograph shows, as I had hoped, the real forger. John Carroll,
this is a peculiar case. You have forged the name of the president
of your company, but you have also traced your own name very cleverly
to look like a forgery. It is what is technically known as
auto-forgery, forging one's own handwriting. At your convenience
we'll ride down to Centre Street directly."
Carroll was sputtering and almost frothing at the mouth with rage
which he made no effort to suppress. Williams was hesitating,
nonplussed, until Kennedy reached over unexpectedly and grasped
Carroll by the arm. As he shoved up Carroll's sleeve he disclosed
the forearm literally covered with little punctures made by the
hypodermic needle.
"It may interest you," remarked Kennedy, still holding Carroll in
his vise-like grip, while the drug fiend's shattered nerves caused
him to cower and tremble, "to know that a special detective working
for me has located Mr. and Mrs. Dawson at Bar Harbor, where they
are enjoying a quiet honeymoon. Brown is safely in the custody of
his counsel, ready to appear and clear himself as soon as the public
opinion which has been falsely inflamed against him subsides. Your
plan to give us the slip at the last moment at the wharf and board
the steamer for South America has miscarried. It is now too late
to catch it, but I shall send a wireless that will cause the arrest
of Miss DeMott the moment the ship touches an American port at
Colon, even if she succeeds in eluding the British authorities at
Kingston. The fact is, I don't much care about her, anyway. Thanks
to the telelectrograph here we have the real criminal."
Kennedy slapped down the now dry print that had come in over his
"seeing over a wire machine." Barring the false Van Dyke beard, it
was the face of John Carroll, forger and morphine fiend. Next to him
in the picture in the brilliant and fashionable dining-room of the
Lorraine was sitting Adele DeMott who had used her victim, Bolton
Brown, to shield her employer, Carroll.
IX
THE UNOFFICIAL SPY
"Craig, do you see that fellow over by the desk, talking to the
night clerk?" I asked Kennedy as we lounged into the lobby of the
new Hotel Vanderveer one evening after reclaiming our hats from
the plutocrat who had acquired the checking privilege. We had
dined on the roof garden of the Vanderveer apropos of nothing at
all except our desire to become acquainted with a new hotel.
"Yes," replied Kennedy, "what of him?"
"He's the house detective, McBride. Would you like to meet him?
He's full of good stories, an interesting chap. I met him at a
dinner given to the President not long ago and he told me a great
yarn about how the secret service, the police, and the hotel
combined to guard the President during the dinner. You know, a
big hotel is the stamping ground for all sorts of cranks and crooks."
The house detective had turned and had caught my eye. Much to my
surprise, he advanced to
meet me.
"Say, - er - er - Jameson," he began, at last recalling my name,
though he had seen me only once and then for only a short time.
"You're on the Star, I believe?"
"Yes," I replied, wondering what he could want.
"Well - er - do you suppose you could do the house a little - er -=20
favour?" he asked, hesitating and dropping his voice.
"What is it?" I queried, not feeling certain but that it was a
veiled attempt to secure a little free advertising for the
Vanderveer. "By the way, let me introduce you to my friend Kennedy,
McBride."
"Craig Kennedy?" he whispered aside, turning quickly to me. I
nodded.
"Mr. Kennedy," exclaimed the house man deferentially, "are you very
busy just now?"
"Not especially so," replied Craig. "My friend Jameson was telling
me that you knew some interesting yarns about hotel detective life.
I should like to hear you tell some of them, if you are not yourself
too - "
"Perhaps you'd rather see one instead?" interrupted the house
detective, eagerly scanning Craig's face.
"Indeed, nothing could please me more. What is it - a 'con' man or
a hotel 'beat'?"
McBride looked about to make sure that no one was listening.
"Neither," he whispered. "It's either a suicide or a murder. Come
upstairs with me. There isn't a man in the world I would rather
have met at this very instant, Mr. Kennedy, than yourself."
We followed McBride into an elevator which he stopped at the fifteenth
floor. With a nod to the young woman who was the floor clerk, the house
detective led the way down the thickly carpeted hall, stopping at a
room which, we could see through the transom, was lighted. He drew a
bunch of keys from his pocket and inserted a pass key into the lock.
The door swung open into a sumptuously fitted sitting-room. I
looked in, half fearfully, but, although all the lights were turned
on, the room was empty. McBride crossed the room quickly, opened
a door to a bedroom, and jerked his head back with a quick motion,
signifying his desire for us to follow.
Stretched lifeless on the white linen of the immaculate bed lay the
form of a woman, a beautiful woman she had been, too, though not
with the freshness which makes American women so attractive. There
was something artificial about her beauty, the artificiality which
hinted at a hidden story of a woman with a past.
She was a foreigner, apparently of one of the Latin races, although
at the moment in the horror of the tragedy before us I could not
guess her nationality. It was enough for me that here lay this cold,
stony, rigid beauty, robed in the latest creations of Paris, alone
in an elegantly furnished room of an exclusive hotel where hundreds
of gay guests were dining and chatting and laughing without a
suspicion of the terrible secret only a few feet distant from them.
We stood awestruck for the moment.
"The coroner ought to be here any moment," remarked McBride and even
the callousness of the regular detective was not sufficient to hide
the real feelings of the man. His practical sense soon returned,
however, and he continued, "Now, Jameson, don't you think you could
use a little influence with the newspaper men to keep this thing off
the front pages? Of course something has to be printed about it.
But we don't want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a
suicide the other day who left an apologetic note that was played up
by some of the papers. Now comes this affair. The management are
just as anxious to have the crime cleared up as any one - if it is
a crime. But can't it be done with the soft pedal? We will stop
at nothing in the way of expense - just so long as the name of the
Vanderveer is kept in the background. Only, I'm afraid the coroner
will try to rub it in and make the thing sensational."
"What was her name?" asked Kennedy. "At least, under what name was
she registered?
"She was registered as Madame de Nevers. It is not quite a week
now since she came here, came directly from the steamer Tripolitania.
See, there are her trunks and things, all pasted over with foreign
labels, not an American label among them. I haven't the slightest
doubt that her name was fictitious, for as far as I can see all the
ordinary marks of identification have been obliterated. It will
take time to identify her at the best, and in the meantime, if a
crime has been committed, the guilty person may escape. What I want
now, right away, is action."
"Has nothing in her actions about the hotel offered any clue, no
matter how slight?" asked Kennedy.
"Plenty of things," replied McBride quickly. "For one thing, she
didn't speak very much English and her maid seemed to do all the
talking for her, even to ordering her meals, which were always
served here. I did notice Madame a few times about the hotel,
though she spent most of her time in her rooms. She was attractive
as the deuce, and the men all looked at her whenever she stirred out.
She never even noticed them. But she was evidently expecting some
one, for her maid had left word at the desk that if a Mr. Gonzales
called, she was at home; if any one else, she was out. For the
first day or two she kept herself closely confined, except that at
the end of the second day she took a short spin through the park in
a taxicab - closed, even in this hot weather. Where she went I
cannot say, but when they returned the maid seemed rather agitated.
At least she was a few minutes later when she came all the way
downstairs to telephone from a booth, instead of using the room
telephone. At various times the maid was sent out to execute certain
errands, but always returned promptly. Madame de Nevers was a
genuine woman of mystery, but as long as she was a quiet mystery, I
thought it no business of ours to pry into the affairs of Madame."
"Did she have any visitors? Did this Mr. Gonzales call?" asked
Kennedy at length.
"She had one visitor, a woman who called and asked if a Madame de
Nevers was stopping at the=20hotel," answered McBride. "That was what
the clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you. He
says that, obedient to the orders from the maid, he told the visitor
that Madame was not at home."
"Who was this visitor, do you suppose?" asked Craig. "Did she leave
any card or message? Is there any clue to her?"
The detective looked at him earnestly for a time as if he hesitated
to retail what might be merely pure gossip.
"The clerk does not know this absolutely, but from his acquaintance
with society news and the illustrated papers he is sure that he
recognised her. He says that he feels positive that it was Miss
Catharine Lovelace."
"The Southern heiress," exclaimed Kennedy. "Why, the papers say
that she is engaged "
"Exactly," cut in McBride, "the heiress who is rumoured to be engaged
to the Duc de Chateaurouge.
Kennedy and I exchanged, glances. "Yes," I added, recollecting a
remark I had heard a few days before from our society reporter on
the Star, "I believe it has been said that Chateaurouge is in this
country, incognito."
"A pretty slender thread on which to hang an identification," McBride
hastened to remark. "Newspaper photographs are not the best means
of recognising anybody. Whatever there may be in it, the fact
remains that Madame de Nevers, supposing that to be her real name,
has been dead for at least a day or two. The first thing to be
determined is whether this is a death from natural causes, a suicide,
or a murder. After we have determined that we shall be in a position
to run down this Lovelace clue."
Kennedy said nothing and I could not gather whether he placed greater
or less value on the suspicion of the hotel clerk. He had been
making a casual examination of the body on the bed, and finding
nothing he looked intently about the room as if seeking some evidence
of how the crime had been committed.
To me the thing seemed incomprehensible, that without an outcry
being overheard by any of the guests a murder could have been done
in a crowded hotel in which the rooms on every side had been
occupied and people had been passing through the halls at all hours.
Had it indeed been a suicide, in spite of McBride's evident
conviction to the contrary?
A low exclamation from Kennedy attracted our attention. Caught in
the filmy lace folds of the woman's dress he had found a few small
and thin pieces of glass. He was regarding them with an interest
that was oblivious to everything else. As he turned them over and
over and tried to fit them together they seemed to form at least a
part of what had once been a hollow globe of very thin glass, perhaps
a quarter of an inch or so in diameter.
"How was the body discovered?" asked Craig at length, looking up at
McBride quickly.
"Day before yesterday Madame's maid went to the cashier," repeated
the detective slowly as if rehearsing the case as much for his own
information as ours, "and said that Madame had asked her to say to
him that she was going away for a few days and that under no
circumstances was her room to be disturbed in her absence. The maid
was commissioned to pay the bill, not only for the time they had
been here, but also for the remainder of the week, when Madame would
most likely return, if not earlier. The bill was made out and paid.
"Since then only the chambermaid has entered this suite. The key
to that closet over in the corner was gone, and it might have hidden
its secret until the end of the week or perhaps a day or two longer,
if the chambermaid hadn't been a bit curious. She hunted till she
found another key that fitted, and opened the closet door, apparently
to see what Madame had been so particular to lock up in her absence.
There lay the body of Madame, fully dressed, wedged into the narrow
space and huddled up in a corner. The chambermaid screamed and the
secret was out."
"And Madame de Nevers's maid? What has become of her?" asked
Kennedy eagerly.
"She has disappeared," replied McBride. "From the moment when the
bill was paid no one about the hotel has seen her."
"But you have a pretty good description of her, one that you could
send out in order to find her if necessary?"
"Yes, I think I could give a pretty good description."
Kennedy's eye encountered the curious gaze of McBride. "This may
prove to be a most unusual case," he remarked in answer to the
implied inquiry of the detective. "I suppose you have heard of
the 'endormeurs' of Paris?"
McBride shook his head in the negative.
"It is a French word signifying a person who puts another to sleep,
the sleep makers," explained Kennedy. "They are the latest scientific
school of criminals who use the most potent, quickest-acting
stupefying drugs. Some of their exploits surpass anything hitherto
even imagined by the European police. The American police have been
officially warned of the existence of the endormeurs and full
descriptions of their methods and photographs of their paraphernalia
have been sent over here.
"There is nothing in their repertoire so crude as chloral or
knock-out drops. All the derivatives of opium such as morphine,
codeine, heroine, dionine, narceine, and narcotine, to say nothing
of bromure d'etyle, bromoform, nitrite d'amyle, and amyline are
known to be utilised by the endormeurs to put their victims to
sleep, and the skill which they have acquired in the use of these
powerful drugs establishes them as one of the most dangerous groups
of criminals in existence. The men are all of superior intelligence
and daring; the chief requisite of the women is extreme beauty as
well as unscrupulousness.
"They will take a little thin glass ball of one of these liquids,
for instance, hold it in a pocket handkerchief, crush it, shove it
under the nose of their victim, and - whiff ! - the victim is
unconscious. But ordinarily the endormeur does not kill. He is
usually satisfied to stupefy, rob, and then leave his victim. There
is something more to this case than a mere suicide or murder,
McBride. Of course she may have committed suicide with the drugs of
the endormeurs; then again she may merely have been rendered
unconscious by those drugs and some other poison may have been
administered. Depend on it, there is something more back of this
affair than appears on the surface. Even as far as I have gone I
do not hesitate to say that we have run across the work of one or
perhaps a band of the most up-to-date and scientific criminals."
Kennedy had scarcely finished when McBride brought his right fist
down with a resounding smack into the palm of his left hand.
" Say," he cried in great excitement, "here's another thing which
may or may not have some connection with the case. The evening
after Madame arrived, I happened to be walking through the caf=82,
where I saw a face that looked familiar to me. It was that of a
dark-haired, olive-skinned man, a fascinating face, but a face to
be afraid of. I remembered him, I thought, from my police experience,
as a notorious crook who had not been seen in New York for years,
a man who in the old days used to gamble with death in South American
revolutions, a soldier of fortune.
"Well, I gave the waiter, Charley, the wink and he met me in the
rear of the caf=82, around a corner. You know we have a regular system
in the hotel by which I can turn all the help into amateur sleuths.
I told him to be very careful about the dark-faced man and the
younger man who was with him, to be particular to wait on them well,
and to pick up any scraps of conversation he could.
"Charley knows his business, and the barest perceptible sign from me
makes him an obsequious waiter. Of course the dark man didn't notice
it at the time, but if he had been more observant he would have seen
that three times during his chat with his companion Charley had wiped
off his table with lingering hand. Twice he had put fresh seltzer
in his drink. Like a good waiter always working for a big tip he had
hovered near, his face blank and his eyes unobservant. But that
waiter was an important link in my chain of protection of the hotel
against crooks. He was there to listen and to tip me off, which he
did between orders.
"There wasn't much that he overheard, but what there was of it was
so suspicious that I did not hesitate to conclude that the fellow
was an undesirable guest. It was something about the Panama Canal,
and a coaling station of a steamship and fruit concern on the shore
of one of the Latin American countries. It was, he said, in reality
to be the coaling station of a certain European power which he did
not name but which the younger man seemed to understand. They talked
of wharves and tracts of land, of sovereignty and blue prints, the
Monroe Doctrine, value in case of war, and a lot of other things.
Then they talked of money, and though Charley was most assiduous at
the time all he overheard was something about 'ten thousand francs'
and 'buying her off,' and finally a whispered confidence of which
he caught the words, 'just a blind to get her over here, away from
Paris.' Finally the dark man in an apparent burst of confidence
said something about 'the other plans being the real thing after
all,' and that the whole affair would bring him in fifty thousand
francs, with which he could afford to be liberal. Charley could
get no inkling about what that other thing was.
"But I felt sure that he had heard enough to warrant the belief
that some kind of confidence game was being discussed. To tell the
truth I didn't care much what it was, at the time. It might have
been an attempt of the dark-visaged fellow to sell the Canal to a
come-on. What I wanted was to have it known that the Vanderveer
was not to be a resort of such gentry as this. But I'm afraid it
was much more serious than I thought at the time.
"Well, the dark man finally excused himself and sauntered into the
lobby and up to the desk, with me after him around the opposite
way. He was looking over the day's arrivals on the register when
I concluded that it was about time to do something. I was standing
directly beside him lighting a cigar. I turned quickly on him and
deliberately trod on the man's patent leather shoe. He faced me
furiously at not getting any apology. 'Sacre,' he exclaimed, 'what
the - ' But before he could finish I moved still closer and pinched
his elbow. A dull red glow of suppressed anger spread over his face,
but he cut his words short. He knew and I knew he knew. That is
the sign in the continental hotels when they find a crook and
quietly ask him to move on. The man turned on his heel and stalked
out of the hotel. By and by the young man in the caf=82, considerably
annoyed at the sudden inattention of the waiter who acted as if he
wasn't satisfied with his tip, strolled through the lobby and not
seeing his dark-skinned friend, also disappeared. I wish to heaven
I had had them shadowed. The young fellow wasn't a come-on at all.
There was something afoot between these two, mark my words."
"But why do you connect that incident with this case of Madame de
Nevers?" asked Kennedy, a little puzzled.
"Because the next day, and the day that Madame's maid disappeared,
I happened to see a man bidding good-bye to a woman at the rear
carriage entrance of the hotel. The woman was Madame's maid and
the man was the dark man who had been seated in the caf=82."
"You said a moment ago that you had a good description of the maid
or could write one. Do you think you could locate her?"
The hotel detective thought a minute or two. "If she has gone to
any of the other hotels in this city, I could," he answered slowly.
"You know we have recently formed a sort of clearing house, we hotel
detectives, and we are working together now very well, though
secretly. It is barely possible that she has gone to another hotel.
The very brazenness of that would be its safeguard, she might think."
"Then I can leave that part of it to you, McBride?" asked Kennedy
thoughtfully as if laying out a programme of action in his mind.
"You will set the hotel detectives on the trail as well as the
police of the city, and of other cities, will make the inquiries
at the steamships and railroads, and all that sort of thing? Try
to find some trace of the two men whom you saw in the caf=82 at the
same time. But for the present I should say spare no effort to
locate that girl."
"Trust it to me," agreed McBride confidently. A heavy tap sounded
at the door and McBride opened it. It was the coroner.
I shall not go into the lengthy investigation which the coroner
conducted, questioning one servant and employee after another
without eliciting any more real information than we had already
obtained so concisely from the house man. The coroner was, of
course, angry at the removal of the body from the closet to the
bed because he wanted to view it in the position in which it had
been found, but as that had been done by the servants before
McBride could stop them, there was nothing to do about it but
accept the facts.
"A very peculiar case," remarked the coroner at the conclusion of
his examination, with the air of a man who could shed much light
on it from his wide experience if he chose. "There is just one
point that we shall have to clear up, however. What was the cause
of the death of the deceased? There is no gas in the room. It
couldn't have been illuminating gas, then. No, it must have been
a poison of some kind. Then as to the motive," he added, trying to
look confident but really shooting a tentative remark at Craig and
the house detective, who said nothing. "It looks a good deal like
that other suicide - at least a suicide which some one has
endeavoured to conceal," he added, hastily recollecting the manner
in which the body had been found and his criticisms of the removal
from the closet.
"Didn't I tell you?" rejoined McBride dolefully after we had left
the coroner downstairs a few minutes later. "I knew he would think
the hotel was hiding something from him."
"We can't help what he thinks - yet," remarked Craig. "All we can
do is to run down the clues which we have. I will leave the maid
to be found by your organisation, McBride. Let me see, the theatres
and roof gardens must be letting out by this time. I will see if
I can get any information from Miss Lovelace. Find her address,
Walter, and call a cab."
The Southern heiress, who had attracted more attention by her
beauty than by her fortune which was only moderate as American
fortunes go nowadays, lived in an apartment facing the park, with
her mother, a woman whose social ambitions it was commonly known
had no bounds and were often sadly imposed upon.
Fortunately we arrived at the apartment not very many minutes after
the mother and daughter, and although it was late, Kennedy sent up
his card with an urgent message to see them. They received us in a
large drawing-room and were plainly annoyed by our visit, though
that of course was susceptible of a natural interpretation.
"What is it that you wished to see me about?" began Mrs. Lovelace
in a tone which was intended to close the interview almost before
it was begun. Kennedy had not wished to see her about anything, but
of course he did not even hint as much in his reply which was made
to her but directed at Miss Lovelace.
"Could you tell me anything about a Madame de Nevers who was
staying at the Vanderveer?" asked Craig, turning quickly to the
daughter so as to catch the full effect of his question, and then
waiting as if expecting the answer from her.
The young lady's face blanched slightly and she seemed to catch her
breath for an instant, but she kept her composure admirably in spite
of the evident shock of Craig's purposely abrupt question.
"I have heard of her," Miss Lovelace replied with forced calmness
as he continued to look to her for an answer. "Why do you ask?"
"Because a woman who is supposed to be Madame de Nevers has committed
suicide at the Vanderveer and it was thought that perhaps you could
identify her."
By this time she had become perfect mistress of herself again, from
which I argued that whatever knowledge she had of Madame was limited
to the time before the tragedy.
"I, identify her? Why, I never saw her. I simply know that such
a creature exists.
She said it defiantly and with an iciness which showed more plainly
than in mere words that she scorned even an acquaintance with a
demi-mondaine.
"Do you suppose the Duc de Chateaurouge would be able to identify
her?" asked Kennedy mercilessly. "One moment, please," he added,
anticipating the blank look of amazement on her face. "I have
reason to believe that the duke is in this country incognito - is
he not?"
Instead of speaking she merely raised her shoulders a fraction of
an inch.
"Either in New York or in Washington," pursued Kennedy.
"Why do you ask me?" she said at length. "Isn't it enough that
some of the newspapers have said so? If you see it in the newspapers,
it's so - perhaps - isn't it?"
We were getting nowhere in this interview, at least so I thought.
Kennedy cut it short, especially as he noted the evident restlessness
of Mrs. Lovelace. However, he had gained his point. Whether or not
the duke was in New York or Washington or Spitzbergen, he now felt
sure that Miss Lovelace knew of, and perhaps something about, Madame
de Nevers. In some way the dead woman had communicated with her and
Miss Lovelace had been the woman whom the hotel clerk had seen at the
Vanderveer. We withdrew as gracefully as our awkward position
permitted.
As there was nothing else to be done at that late hour, Craig
decided to sleep soundly over the case, his infallible method of
taking a fresh start after he had run up a cul-de-sac.
Imagine our surprise in the morning at being waited on by the coroner
himself, who in a few words explained that he was far from satisfied
with the progress his own office was making with the case.
"You understand," he concluded after a lengthy statement of
confession and avoidance, "we have no very good laboratory facilities
of our own to carry out the necessary chemical, pathological, and
bacteriological investigations in cases of homicide and suicide. We
are often forced to resort to private laboratories, as you know in
the past when I have had to appeal to you. Now, Professor Kennedy,
if we might turn over that research part of the case to you, sir, I
will engage to see that a reasonable bill for your professional
services goes through the office of my friend the city comptroller
promptly."
Craig snapped at the opportunity, though he did not allow the coroner
to gain that impression.
"Very well," agreed that official, " I shall see that all the
necessary organs for a thorough test as to the cause of the death
of this woman are sent up to the Chemistry Building right away."
The coroner was as good as his word, and we had scarcely breakfasted
and arrived at Craig's scientific workshop before that official
appeared, accompanied by a man who carried in uncanny jars the
necessary materials for an investigation following an autopsy.
Kennedy was now in his element. The case had taken an unexpected
turn which made him a leading factor in its solution. Whatever
suspicions he may have entertained unofficially the night before
he could now openly and quickly verify.
He took a little piece of lung tissue and with sharp sterilised
knife cut it up. Then he made it slightly alkaline with a little
sodium carbonate, talking half to us and half to himself as he
worked. The next step was to place the matter in a glass flask
in a water bath where it was heated. From the flask a Bohemian
glass tube led into a cool jar and on a part of the tube a flame
was playing which heated it to redness for two or three inches.
Several minutes we waited in silence. Finally when the process
had gone far enough, Kennedy took a piece of paper which had been
treated with iodised starch, as he later explained. He plunged
the paper into the cool jar. Slowly it turned a strong blue tint.
Craig said nothing, but it was evident that he was more than
gratified by what had happened. He quickly reached for a bottle
on the shelves before him, and I could see from the label on the
brown glass that it was nitrate of silver. As he plunged a little
in a test-tube into the jar a strong precipitate was gradually
formed.
"It is the decided reaction for chloroform," he exclaimed simply
in reply to our unspoken questions.
"Chloroform," repeated the coroner, rather doubtfully, and it was
evident that he had expected a poison and had not anticipated any
result whatever from an examination of the lungs instead of the
stomach to which he had confined his own work so far. "Could
chloroform be discovered in the lungs or viscera after so many
days? There was one famous chloroform case for which a man is now
serving a life term in Sing Sing which I have understood there was
grave doubt in the minds of the experts. Mind, I am not trying to
question the results of your work except as they might naturally be
questioned in court. It seems to me that the volatility of
chloroform might very possibly preclude its discovery after a short
time. Then again, might not other substances be generated in a dead
body which would give a reaction very much like chloroform? We must
consider all these questions before we abandon the poison theory,
sir. Remember, this is the summer time too, and chloroform would
evaporate very much more rapidly now than in winter.
Kennedy smiled, but his confidence remained unshaken.
"I am in a position to meet all of your objections," he explained
simply. "I think I could lay it down as a rule that by proper
methods chloroform may be discovered in the viscera much longer
after death than is commonly supposed - in summer from six days to
three weeks, with a practical working range of say twelve days,
while in winter it may be found even after several months - by the
right method. Certainly this case comes within the average length
of time. More than that, no substance is generated by the process
of decomposition which will vitiate the test for chloroform which
I have just made. Chloroform has an affinity for water and is also
a preservative, and hence from all these facts I think it safe to
conclude that sometimes traces of it may be found for two weeks
after its administration, certainly for a few days."
"And Madame de Nevers? "queried the coroner, as if the turn of
events was necessitating a complete reconstruction of his theory of
the case.
"Was murdered," completed Kennedy in a tone that left nothing more
to be said on the subject.
"But," persisted the coroner, "if she was murdered by the use of
chloroform, how do you account for the fact that it was done without
a struggle? There were no marks of violence and I, for one, do not
believe that under ordinary circumstances any one will passively
submit to such an administration without a hard fight."
>From his pocket Kennedy drew a small pasteboard box filled with tiny
globes, some bonbons and lozenges, a small hypodermic syringe, and
a few cigars and cigarettes. He held it out in the palm of his hand
so that we could see it.
"This," he remarked, "is the standard equipment of the endormeur.
Whoever obtained admittance to Madame's rooms, either as a matter of
course or secretly, must have engaged her in conversation, disarmed
suspicion, and then suddenly she must have found a pocket
handkerchief under her nose. The criminal crushed a globe of liquid
in the handkerchief, the victim lost consciousness, the chloroform
was administered without a struggle, all marks of identification were
obliterated, the body was placed in the closet, and the maid - either
as principal or accessory - took the most likely means of postponing
discovery by paying the bill in advance at the office, and then
disappeared."
Kennedy slipped the box back into his pocket. The coroner had, I
think, been expecting Craig's verdict, although he was loath to
abandon his own suicide theory and had held it to the last possible
moment. At any rate, so far he had said little, apparently
preferring to keep his own counsel as to his course of action and
to set his own machinery in motion.
He drew a note from his pocket, however. "I suppose," he began
tentatively, shaking the note as he glanced doubtfully from it to
us, "that you have heard that among the callers on this unfortunate
woman was a lady of high social position in this city?"
"I have heard a rumour to that effect," replied Kennedy as he busied
himself cleaning up the apparatus he had just used. There was
nothing in his manner even to hint at the fact that we had gone
further and interviewed the young lady in question.
"Well," resumed the coroner, "in view of what you have just
discovered I don't mind telling you that I believe it was more than
a rumour. I have had a man watching the woman and this is a report
I received just before I came up here."
We read the note which he now handed to us. It was just a hasty
line: "Miss Lovelace left hurriedly for Washington this morning."
What was the meaning of it? Clearly, as we probed deeper into the
case, its ramifications grew wider than anything we had yet expected.
Why had Miss Lovelace gone to Washington, of all places, at this
torrid season of the year?
The coroner had scarcely left us, more mystified than ever, when a
telephone message came from McBride saying that he had some important
news for us if we would meet him at the St. Cenis Hotel within an
hour. He would say nothing about it over the wire.
As Kennedy hung up the receiver he quietly took a pistol from a
drawer of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at
the cartridges in the cylinder. Then he snapped it shut and stuck
it into his pocket.
"There's no telling what we may run up against before we get back
to the laboratory," he remarked and we rode down to meet McBride.
The description which the house man had sent out to the other hotel
detectives the night before had already produced a result. Within
the past two days a man answering the description of the younger man
whom McBride had seen in the caf=82 and a woman who might very
possibly have been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and
Mme. Duval. Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to
impress upon the hotel that they were persons of some position and
that it was going direct from the railroad to the steamer, after
their tour of America. They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing
to excite suspicion until the general request for information had
been received.
The house man of the St. Cenis welcomed us cordially upon McBride's
introduction and agreed to take us up to the rooms of the strange
couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour
and they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not be too
particular in his search of their effects, for he did not wish to
arouse suspicion upon their return, at least not yet.
"It seems to me, Craig," I suggested after we had nosed about for
a few minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case
in which to use the dictograph as you did in that Black Hand case."
He shook his head doubtfully, although I could see that the idea
appealed to him. "The dictograph has been getting too much
publicity lately," he said. "I'm afraid they would discover it,
that is, if they are at all the clever people I think them. Besides,
I would have to send up to the laboratory to get one and by the time
the messenger returned they might be back from lunch. No, we've got
to do something else, and do it quickly."
He was looking about the room in an apparently aimless manner. On
the side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy
seemed engrossed in it while the rest of us fidgeted at the delay.
"Can you get me a couple of old telephone instruments?" he asked at
length, turning to us and addressing the St. Cenis detective.
The detective nodded and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes
later he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them
I do not know, but I suspect he simply lifted them from vacant rooms.
"Now some Number 30 copper wire and a couple of dry cells," ordered
Kennedy, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The
detective despatched a bellboy down to the basement to get the
wire from the house electrician.
Kennedy removed the transmitters of the telephones, and taking the
carbon capsules from them placed the capsules on the table carefully.
Then he lifted down the etching from the wall and laid it flat on
its face before us. Quickly he removed the back of the picture.
Pressing the transmitter fronts with the carbon capsules against
the paper and the glass on the picture he mounted them so that the
paper and glass acted as a large diaphragm to collect all the sounds
in the room.
"The size of this glass diaphragm," he explained as we gathered
around in intense interest at what he was doing, "will produce a
strikingly sensitive microphone action and the merest whisper will
be reproduced with startling distinctness."
The boy brought the wire up and also the news that the couple in
whose room we were had very nearly finished luncheon and might be
expected back in a few minutes.
Kennedy took the tiny wires, and after connecting them hung up the
picture again and ran them up alongside the picture wires leading
from the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the
top of the moulding and out through the transom it was easy enough
to run the wires and so down the hall to a vacant room, where Craig
attached them quickly to one of the old telephone receivers.
Then we sat down in this room to await developments from our hastily
improvised picture frame microphone detective.
At last we could hear the elevator door close on our floor. A
moment later it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face
that some one had entered the room which we had just left. He had
finished not a moment too soon.
"It's a good thing that I didn't wait to put a dictograph there,"
he remarked to us. "I thought I wasn't reckoning without reason.
The couple, whoever they are, are talking in undertones and
looking about the room to see if anything has been disturbed in
their absence."
Kennedy alone, of course, could follow over his end of the telephone
what they said. The rest of us could do nothing but wait, but from
notes which Craig jotted down as he listened to the conversation
I shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some
anxious moments until at last they had satisfied themselves that no
one was listening and that no dictograph or other mechanical
eavesdropper, such as they had heard of, was concealed in the
furniture or back of it.
"Why are you so particular, Henri?" a woman's voice was saying.
"Louise, I've been thinking for a long time that we are surrounded
by spies in these hotels. You remember I told you what happened at
the Vanderveer the night you and Madame arrived? I'm sure that
waiter overheard what Gonzales and I were talking about."
"Well, we are safe now anyhow. What was it that you would not tell
me just now at luncheon?" asked the woman, whom Kennedy recognised
as Madame de Nevers's maid.
"I have a cipher from Washington. Wait until I translate it."
There was a pause. "What does it say?" asked the woman impatiently.
"It says," repeated the man slowly, "that Miss Lovelace has gone to
Washington. She insists on knowing whether the death of Marie was
a suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind
of some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I
must go down there or the whole affair may be exposed and fall
through. Things could hardly be worse, especially this sudden
move on her part."
"Who was that detective who forced his way to see her the night they
discovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't
the Secret Service also. Do you think they could have suspected
anything?"
"I hardly think so," the man replied. "Beyond the death of Madame
they suspect nothing here in New York, I am convinced. You are sure
that all her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her
with the business in hand were destroyed, and particularly that the
package she was to deliver is safe?"
"The package? You mean the plans for the coaling station on the
Pacific near the Canal? You see, Henri, I know."
"Ha, ha, - yes," replied the man. "Louise, shall I tell you a
secret? Can you keep it?"
"You know I can, Henri."
"Well, Louise, the scheme is deeper than even you think. We are
playing one country against another, America against - you know the
government our friend Schmidt works for in Paris. Now, listen.
Those plans of the coaling station are a fake - a fake. It is just
a commercial venture. No nation would be foolish enough to attempt
such a thing, yet. We know that they are a fake. But we are going
to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War
Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will
give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the
future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly
and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle is overcome
a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By using
those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which
when we all return to Paris we can convert into thousands of francs.
There, I can say no more. But I have told you so much to impress
upon you the extreme need of caution."
"And how much does Miss Lovelace know?"
"Very little - I hope. That is why I must go to Washington myself.
She must know nothing of this coup nor of the real de Nevers, or
the whole scheme may fall through. It would have fallen through
before, Louise, if you had failed us and had let any of de Nevers's
letters slip through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate
for that act of treachery. The affair would have been so simple,
otherwise. Luck was with us until her insane jealousy led her to
visit Miss Lovelace. It was fortunate the young lady was out when
Madame called on her or all would have been lost. Ah, we owe you
a great deal, Louise, and we shall not forget it, never. You will
be very careful while I am gone?"
"Absolutely. When will you return to me, Henri?"
"To-morrow morning at the latest. This afternoon the false coaling
station plans are to be turned over to our accomplice in the War
Department and in exchange he is to give us something else - the
secret of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high
circles. It is very much more important than you suppose and
discovery might lead to a dangerous international complication just
now."
"Then you are to meet your friend in Washington to-night? When do
you start, Henri? Don't let the time slip by. There must be no
mistake this time as there was when we were working for Japan and
almost had the blue prints of Corregidor at Manila only to lose
them on the streets of Calcutta."
"Trust me. We are to meet about nine o'clock and therefore I leave
on the limited at three-thirty, in about an hour. From the station
I am going straight to the house on Z Street - let me see, the
cipher says the number is 101 - and ask for a man named Gonzales.
I shall use the name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package
- that thing I have told you about - then I am to return here by
one of the midnight trains. At any cost we must allow nothing to
happen which will reach the ears of Miss Lovelace. I'll see you
early to-morrow morning, ma cherie, and remember, be ready, for the
Aquitania sails at ten. The division of the money is to be made in
Paris. Then we shall all go our separate ways."
Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel
service to find out how the trains ran for Washington. The only one
that would get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next,
leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had
evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in
our friend down the hall missing the limited, but abandoned it. Any
such scheme would simply result in a message to the gang in
Washington putting them on their guard and defeating his purpose.
"At all costs we must beat this fellow to it," exclaimed Craig,
waiting to hear no more over his improvised dictograph. "Come,
Walter, we must catch the limited for Washington immediately.
McBride, I leave you and the regular house man to shadow this
woman. Don't let her get out of your sight for a moment."
As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig
hastily informed me of what he had overheard. We took up our post
so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes
later Craig spotted our man from McBride's description, and
succeeded in securing chairs in the same car in which he was to ride.
Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey. For five mortal
hours we sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car,
never letting the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know
that we were watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking
myself what good it did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if
the affair was so important as it appeared? How were we to get
ahead of him in Washington better than in New York? I knew that
some plan lurked behind the calm and inscrutable face of Kennedy
as I tried to read and could not.
The train had come to a stop in the Union Station. Our man was
walking rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand.
Suddenly Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking
abreast of him.
"I beg your pardon," began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow
of the arc lights, "but have you a match?"
The man halted and fumbled for his match-box. Instantly Kennedy's
pocket handkerchief was at his nose.
"Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs," ground out
Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes under his
handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect.
The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him
between us. Up the platform we led him in a daze.
"Here," shouted Craig to a cabman, "my friend is ill. Drive us
around a bit. It will sober him up. Come on, Walter, jump in,
the air will do us all good."
Those who were in Washington during that summer will remember the
suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a
certain very humid night. Nothing leaked out at the time as to
the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly
averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the
departments were all away, the President was at his summer home in
the North, and even some of the under-secretaries were out of town.
Hasty messages had been sizzling over the wires in cipher and code
for hours.
I recall that as we rode a little out of our way past the Army
Building, merely to see if there was any excitement, we found it
a blaze of lights. Something was plainly afoot even at this
usually dull period of the year. There=20was treachery of some
kind and some trusted employee was involved, I felt instinctively.
As for Craig he merely glanced at the insensible figure between
us and remarked sententiously that to his knowledge there was only
one nation that made a practice of carrying out its diplomatic and
other coups in the hot weather, a remark which I understood to
mean that our mission was more than commonly important.
The man had not recovered when we arrived within several blocks of
our destination, nor did he show signs of recovery from his
profound stupor. Kennedy stopped the cab in a side street, pressed
a bill into the cabman's hand, and bade him wait until we returned.
We had turned the corner of Z Street and were approaching the house
when a man walking in the opposite direction eyed us suspiciously,
turned, and followed us a step or two.
"Kennedy!" he exclaimed.
If a fourteen-inch gun had exploded behind us I could not have been
more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy we were
followed, watched, and beaten.
Craig wheeled about suddenly. Then he took the man by the arm.
"Come," he said quickly, and we three dove into the shadow of an alley.
As we paused, Kennedy was the first to speak. "By Jove, Walter, it's
Burke of the Secret Service," he exclaimed.
"Good," repeated the man with some satisfaction. "I see that you
still have that memory for faces." He was evidently referring to
our experiences together some months before with the portrait parle
and identification in the counterfeiting case which Craig cleared
up for him.
For a moment or two Burke and Kennedy spoke in whispers. Under the
dim light from the street I could see Kennedy's face intent and
working with excitement.
"No wonder the War Department is a blaze of lights," he exclaimed
as we moved out of the shadow again, leaving the Secret Service man.
"Burke, I had no idea when I took up this case that I should be
doing my country a service also. We must succeed at any hazard.
The moment you hear a pistol shot, Burke, we shall need you. Force
the door if it is not already open. You were right as to the
street but not the number. It is that house over there. Come on,
Walter."
We mounted the low steps of the house and a negress answered the
bell. "Is Mr. Gonzales in?" asked Kennedy.
The hallway into which we were admitted was dark but it opened into
a sitting-room, where a dim light was burning behind the thick
portieres. Without a word the negress ushered us into this room,
which was otherwise empty.
"Tell him Mr. Montez is here," added Craig as we sat down.
The negress disappeared upstairs, and in a few minutes returned
with the message that he would be down directly.
No sooner had the shuffle of her footsteps died away than Kennedy
was on his feet, listening intently at the door. There was no
sound. He took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it.
Turning it upside down he placed it at the foot of the stairs with
the four legs pointing obliquely up. Then he drew me into a corner
with him.
How long we waited I cannot say. The next I knew was a muffled step
on the landing above, then the tread on the stairs.
A crash and a deep volley of oaths in French followed as the man
pitched headlong over the chair on the dark steps.
Kennedy whipped out his revolver and fired point-blank at the
prostrate figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing on
a man when he is down, nor did I have time to stop to think.
Craig grasped my arm and pulled me toward the door. A sickening
odour seemed to pervade the air. Upstairs there was shouting and
banging of doors.
"Closer, Walter," he muttered, "closer to the door, and open it a
little, or we shall both be suffocated. It was the Secret Service
gun I shot off - the pistol that shoots stupefying gas from its
vapour-filled cartridges and enables you to put a criminal out of
commission without killing him. A pull of the trigger, the cap
explodes, the gunpowder and the force of the explosion unite some
capsicum and lycopodium, producing the blinding, suffocating
vapour whose terrible effect you see. Here, you upstairs," he
shouted, "advance an inch or so much as show your heads over the
rail and I pump a shot at you, too. Walter, take the gun yourself.
Fire at a move from them. I think the gases have cleared away
enough now. I must get him before he recovers consciousness.
A tap at the door came, and without taking my eyes off the stairs
I opened it. Burke slid in and gulped at the nauseous atmosphere.
"What's up?" he gasped. "I heard a shot. Where's Kennedy?"
I motioned in the darkness. Kennedy's electric bull's-eye flashed
up at that instant and we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of
manacles on the wrists of the man on the floor, who was breathing
heavily, while blood flowed from a few slight cuts due to his fall.
Dexterously as a pickpocket Craig reached into the man's coat,
pulled out a packet of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after
another. From among them he unfolded one written in French to Madame
Marie de Nevers some weeks before. I translate:
DEAR MARIE: Herr Schmidt informs me that his agent in the War
Department at Washington, U.S.A., has secured some important
information which will interest the Government for which Herr
Schmidt is the agent - of course you know who that is.
It is necessary that you should carry the packet which will be
handed to you (if you agree to my proposal) to New York by the
steamer Tripolitania. Go to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few
days, as soon as a certain exchange can be made, either our
friend in Washington or myself will call on you, using the name
Gonzales. In return for the package which you carry he will hand
you another. Lose no time in bringing the second package back
to Paris.
I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and
your expenses for your services in this matter. Under no
conditions betray your connection with Herr Schmidt. I was to
have carried the packet to America myself and make the exchange
but knowing your need of money I have secured the work for you.
You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel
with distinction in this case. If, however, you accept this
commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender
your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty
thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of
whom you know. Please let me know immediately through our
mutual friend Henri Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory.
Henri will tell you that fifty thousand is my ultimatum.
"The scoundrel," ground out Kennedy. "He lured his wife from
Paris to New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him,
I suppose. Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise
and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the
part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has
succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an
American fortune."
"Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and
choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too
clever for me. This blackmailing must stop. Miss Lovelace knows
something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all - never -=20
never. You - you - ugh! - Stop. Do you think you can hold me
back now with those little white hands on my wrists? I wrench them
loose - so - and - ugh! - What's this? Where am I?"
The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead
of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the
terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in
the Vanderveer.
"Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake
nobleman, real swindler of five continents. Marie de Nevers alive
stood in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace.
Dead, she prevents it absolutely."
Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke.
At last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk. As he broke the
seal he glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, "There,
Burke. Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn
out their lights and stop their telegrams. This seems to be a copy
of our government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal,
heights of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations,
everything from painstaking search of official and confidential
records. That is what this fellow obtained in exchange for his
false blue prints of the supposed coaling station on the Pacific.
"I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department.
What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations
and betrayed one of them. To me this adventurer who calls himself
Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers."
X
The SMUGGLER
It was a rather sultry afternoon in the late summer when people who
had calculated by the calendar rather than by the weather were
returning to the city from the seashore, the mountains, and abroad.
Except for the week-ends, Kennedy and I had been pretty busy, though
on this particular day there was a lull in the succession of cases
which had demanded our urgent attention during the summer.
We had met at the Public Library, where Craig was doing some special
research at odd moments in criminology. Fifth Avenue was still half
deserted, though the few pedestrians who had returned or remained in
town like ourselves were, as usual, to be found mostly on the west
side of the street. Nearly everybody, I have noticed, walks on the
one side of Fifth Avenue, winter or summer.
As we stood on the corner waiting for the traffic man's whistle to
halt the crush of automobiles, a man on the top of a 'bus waved to
Kennedy.
I looked up and caught a glimpse of Jack Herndon, an old college
mate, who had had some political aspirations and had recently been
appointed to a position in the customs house of New York. Herndon,
I may add, represented the younger and clean-cut generation which
is entering official life with great advantage to both themselves
and politics.
The 'bus pulled up to the curb, and Jack tore down the breakneck
steps hurriedly.
"I was just thinking of you, Craig," he beamed as we all shook
hands, "and wondering whether you and Walter were in town. I think
I should have come up to see you to-night, anyhow."
"Why, what's the matter - more, sugar frauds?" laughed Kennedy.
"Or perhaps you have caught another art dealer red-handed?"
"No, not exactly," replied Herndon, growing graver for the moment.
"We're having a big shake-up down at the office, none of your 'new
broom' business, either. Real reform it is, this time."
"And you - are you going or coming?" inquired Craig with an
interested twinkle.
"Coming, Craig, coming," answered Jack enthusiastically. "They've
put me in charge of a sort of detective force as a special deputy
surveyor to rout out some smuggling that we know is going on. If
I make good it will go a long way for me - with all this talk of
efficiency and economy down in Washington these days."
"What's on your mind now?" asked Kennedy observantly. "Can I help
you in any way?" Herndon had taken each of us by an arm and walked
us over to a stone bench in the shade of the library building.
"You have read the accounts in the afternoon papers of the peculiar
death of Mademoiselle Violette, the little French modiste, up here
on Forty-sixth Street?" he inquired.
"Yes," answered Kennedy. "What has that to do with customs reform?"
"A good deal, I fear," Herndon continued. "It's part of a case that
has been bothering us all summer. It's the first really big thing
I've been up against and it's as ticklish a bit of business as even
a veteran treasury agent could wish."
Herndon looked thoughtfully at the passing crowd on the other side
of the balustrade and continued. "It started, like many of our
cases, with the anonymous letter writer. Early in the summer the
letters began to come in to the deputy surveyor's office, all
unsigned, though quite evidently written in a woman's hand,
disguised of course, and on rather dainty notepaper. They warned
us of a big plot to smuggle gowns and jewellery from Paris.
Smuggling jewellery is pretty common because jewels take up little
space and are very valuable. Perhaps it doesn't sound to you like
a big thing to smuggle dresses, but when you realise that one of
those filmy lacy creations may often be worth several hundred, if
not thousand, dollars, and that it needs only a few of them on
each ship that comes in to run up into the thousands, perhaps
hundreds of thousands in a season, you will see how essential it is
to break up that sort of thing. We've been getting after the
individual private smugglers pretty sharply this summer and we've
had lots of criticism. If we could land a big fellow and make an
object-lesson of the extent of the thing I believe it would leave
our critics of the press without a leg to stand on.
"At least that was why I was interested in the letters. But it was
not until a few days ago that we got a tip that gave us a real
working clue, for the anonymous letters had been very vague as to
names, dates, and places, though bold enough as to general charges,
as if the writer were fearful of incriminating herself - or himself.
Strange to say, this new clue came from the wife of one of the
customs men. She happened to be in a Broadway manicure shop one
day when she heard a woman talking with the manicurist about fall
styles, and she was all attention when she heard the customer say,
'You remember Mademoiselle Violette's - that place that had the
exquisite things straight from Paris, and so cheaply, too? Well,
Violette says she'll have to raise her prices so that they will be
nearly as high as the regular stores. She says the tariff has gone
up, or something, but it hasn't, has it?"
"The manicurist laughed knowingly, and the next remark caught the
woman's attention. 'No, indeed. But then, I guess she meant that
she had to pay the duty now. You know they are getting much
stricter. To tell the truth, I imagine most of Violette's goods
were - well - '
"'Smuggled?' supplied the customer in an undertone.
"The manicurist gave a slight shrug of the shoulders and a bright
little yes of a laugh.
"That was all. But it was enough. I set a special customs officer
to watch Mademoiselle, a clever fellow. He didn't have time to
find out much, but on the other hand I am sure he didn't do anything
to alarm Mademoiselle. That would have been a bad game. His case
was progressing favourably and he had become acquainted with one of
the girls who worked in the shop. We might have got some evidence,
but suddenly this morning he walked up to my desk and handed me an
early edition of an afternoon paper. Mademoiselle Violette had been
discovered dead in her shop by the girls when they came to work
this morning. Apparently she had been there all night, but the
report was quite indefinite and I am on my way up there now to meet
the coroner, who has agreed to wait for me."
"You think there is some connection between her death and the
letters?" put in Craig.
"Of course I can't say, yet," answered Herndon dubiously. "The
papers seem to think it was a suicide. But then why should she
commit suicide? My man found out that among the girls it was common
gossip that she was to marry Jean Pierre, the Fifth Avenue jeweller,
of the firm of Lang & Pierre down on the next block. Pierre is due
in New York on La Montaigne to-night or to-morrow morning.
"Why, if my suspicions are correct, it is this Pierre who is the
brains of the whole affair. And here's another thing. You know we
have a sort of secret service in Paris and other European cities
which is constantly keeping an eye on purchases of goods by Americans
abroad. Well, the chief of our men in Paris cables me that Pierre
is known to have made extraordinarily heavy purchases of made-up
jewellery this season. For one thing, we believe he has acquired
from a syndicate a rather famous diamond necklace which it has
taken years to assemble and match up, worth about three hundred
thousand. You know the duty on made-up jewellery is sixty per cent.,
and even if he brought the stones in loose it would be ten per cent.,
which on a valuation of, say, two hundred thousand, means twenty
thousand dollars duty alone. Then he has a splendid 'dog collar' of
pearls, and, oh, a lot of other stuff. I know because we get our
tips from all sorts of sources and they are usually pretty straight.
Some come from dealers who are sore about not making sales
themselves. So you see there is a good deal at stake in this case
and it may be that in following it out we shall kill more than one
bird. I wish you'd come along with me up to Mademoiselle Violette's
and give me an opinion."
Craig had already risen from the bench and we were walking up the
Avenue.
The establishment of Mademoiselle Violette consisted of a three-story
and basement brownstone house in which the basement and first floor
had been remodelled for business purposes. Mademoiselle's place,
which was on the first floor, was announced to the world by a neat
little oval gilt sign on the hand railing of the steps.
We ascended and rang the bell. As we waited I noticed that there
were several other modistes on the same street, while almost directly
across was a sign which proclaimed that on September 15 Mademoiselle
Gabrielle would open with a high class exhibition of imported gowns
from Paris.
We entered. The coroner and an undertaker were already there, and
the former was expecting Herndon. Kennedy and I had already met him
and he shook hands cordially.
Mademoiselle Violette, it seemed, had rented the entire house and
then had sublet the basement to a milliner, using the first floor
herself, the second as a workroom for the girls whom she employed,
while she lived on the top floor, which had been fitted for light
housekeeping with a kitchenette. It was in the back room of the
shop itself on the first floor that her body had been discovered,
lying on a davenport.
"The newspaper reports were very indefinite," began Herndon,
endeavouring to take in the situation. "I suppose they told nearly
all the story, but what caused her death? Have you found that out
yet? Was it poison or violence?
The coroner said nothing, but with a significant glance at Kennedy
he drew a peculiar contrivance from his pocket. It had four round
holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed
his hand, and exhibited his clenched fist. It looked as if he wore
a series of four metal rings on his fingers.
"Brass knuckles?" suggested Herndon, looking hastily at the body,
which showed not a sign of violence on the stony face.
The coroner shook his head knowingly. Suddenly he raised his fist.
I saw him press hard with his thumb on the upper end of the metal
contrivance. From the other end, just concealed under his little
linger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen
little blade of the brightest and toughest steel. He was holding,
instead of a meaningless contrivance of four rings, a most dangerous
kind of stiletto or dagger upraised. He lifted his thumb and the
blade sprang back into its sheath like an extinguished spark of light.
"An Apache dagger, such as is used in the underworld of Paris," broke
out Kennedy, his eyes gleaming with interest.
The coroner nodded. "We found it," he said, "clasped loosely in her
hand. But it is only by expert medical testimony that we can
determine whether it was placed on her fingers before or after this
happened. We have photographed it, and the prints are being
developed."
He had now uncovered the slight figure of the little French modiste.
On the dress, instead of the profuse flow of blood which we had
expected to see, there was a single round spot. And in the white
marble skin of her breast was a little, nearly microscopic puncture,
directly over the heart.
"She must have died almost instantly," commented Kennedy, glancing
from the Apache weapon to the dead woman and back again. "Internal
hemorrhage. I suppose you have searched her effects. Have you
found anything that gives a hint among them?"
"No," replied the coroner doubtfully, "I can't say we have - unless
it is the bundle of letters from Pierre, the jeweller. They seem
to have been engaged, and yet the letters stopped abruptly, and,
well, from the tone of the last one from him I should say there was
a quarrel brewing."
An exclamation from Herndon followed. "The same notepaper and the
same handwriting as the anonymous letters," he cried.
But that was all. Go over the ground as Kennedy might he could find
nothing further than the coroner and Herndon had already revealed.
"About these people, Lang & Pierre," asked Craig thoughtfully when
we had left Mademoiselle's and were riding downtown to the customs
house with Herndon. "What do you know about them? I presume that
Lang is in America, if his partner is abroad."
"Yes, he is here in New York. I believe the firm has a rather
unsavoury reputation; they have to be watched, I am told. Then,
too, one or the other of the partners makes frequent trips abroad,
mostly Pierre. Pierre, as you see, was very intimate with
Mademoiselle, and the letters simply confirm what the girls told
my detective. He was believed to be engaged to her and I see no
reason now to doubt that. The fact is, Kennedy, it wouldn't
surprise me in the least to learn that it was he who engineered
the smuggling for her as well as himself."
"What about the partner? What role does he play in your suspicions?"
"That's another curious feature. Lang doesn't seem to bother much
with the business. He is a sort of silent partner, although
nominally the head of the firm. Still, they both seem always to be
plentifully supplied with money and to have a good trade. Lang
lives most of the time up on the west shore of the Hudson, and seems
to be more interested in his position as commodore of the Riverledge
Yacht Club than in his business down here. He is quite a sport, a
great motor-boat enthusiast, and has lately taken to hydroplanes."
"I meant," repeated Kennedy, "what about Lang and Mademoiselle
Violette. Were they - ah - friendly?"
"Oh," replied Herndon, seeming to catch the idea. "I see. Of course
- Pierre abroad and Lang here. I see what you mean. Why, the girl
told my man that Mademoiselle Violette used to go motor-boating with
Lang, but only when her fianc=82, Pierre, was along. No, I don't think
she ever had anything to do with Lang, if that's what you are driving
at. He may have paid attentions to her, but Pierre was her lover, and
I haven't a doubt but that if Lang made any advances she repelled them.
She seems to have thought everything of Pierre."
We had reached Herndon's office by this time. Leaving word with his
stenographer to get the very latest reports from La Montaigne, he
continued talking to us about his work.
Dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers are our worst offenders now,"
he remarked as we stood gazing out of the window at the panorama of
the bay off the sea-wall of the Battery. "Why, time and again we
unearth what looks for all the world like a 'dressmakers' syndicate,'
though this case is the first I've had that involved a death.
Really, I've come to look on smuggling as one of the fine arts among
crimes. Once the smuggler, like the pirate and the highwayman, was
a sort of gentleman-rogue. But now it has become a very ladylike
art. The extent of it is almost beyond belief, too. It begins with
the steerage and runs right up to the absolute unblushing cynicism
of the first cabin. I suppose you know that women, particularly a
certain brand of society women, are the worst and most persistent
offenders. Why, they even boast of it. Smuggling isn't merely
popular, it's aristocratic. But we're going to take some of the
flavour out of it before we finish."
He tore open a cable message which a boy had brought in. "Now,
take this, for instance," he continued. "You remember the sign
across the street from Mademoiselle Violette's, announcing that a
Mademoiselle Gabrielle was going to open a salon or whatever they
call it? Well, here's another cable from our Paris Secret Service
with a belated tip. They tell us to look out for a Mademoiselle
Gabrielle on La Montaigne, too. That's another interesting thing.
You know the various lines are all ranked, at least in our estimation,
according to the likelihood of such offences being perpetrated by
their passengers. We watch ships from London, Liverpool, and Paris
most carefully. Scandinavian ships are the least likely to need
watching. Well, Miss Roberts?"
"We have just had a wireless about La Montaigne," reported his
stenographer, who had entered while he was speaking, " and she is
three hundred miles east of Sandy Hook. She won't dock until
tomorrow."
"Thank you. Well, fellows, it is getting late and that means nothing
more doing to-night. Can you be here early in the morning? We'll go
down the bay and 'bring in the ship,' as our men call it when the
deputy surveyor and his acting deputies go down to meet it at
Quarantine. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your kindness in
helping me. If my men get anything connecting Lang with Mademoiselle
Violette's case I'll let you know immediately."
It was a bright clear snappy morning, in contrast with the heat of
the day before, when we boarded the revenue tug at the Barge Office.
The waters of the harbour never looked more blue as they danced in
the early sunlight, flecked here and there by a foaming whitecap as
the conflicting tides eddied about. The shores of Staten Island
were almost as green as in the spring, and even the haze over the
Brooklyn factories had lifted. It looked almost like a stage scene,
clear and sharp, new and brightly coloured.
Perhaps the least known and certainly one of the least recognised
of the government services is that which includes the vigilant
ships of the revenue service. It was not a revenue cutter, however,
on which we were ploughing down the bay. The cutter lay, white
and gleaming in the morning sun, at anchor off Stapleton, like a
miniature warship, saluting as we passed. The revenue boats which
steam down to Quarantine and make fast to the incoming ocean
greyhounds are revenue tugs.
Down the bay we puffed and buffeted for about forty minutes before
we arrived at the little speck of an island that is Quarantine.
Long before we were there we sighted the great La Montaigne
near the group of buildings on the island, where she had been
waiting since early morning for the tide and the customs officials.
The tug steamed alongside, and quickly up the high ladders swarmed
the boarding officer and the deputy collectors. We followed
Herndon straight to the main saloon, where the collectors began to
receive the declarations which had been made out on blanks furnished
to the passengers on the voyage over. They had had several days to
write them out - the less excuse for omissions.
Glancing at each hastily the collector detached from it the slip
with the number at the bottom and handed the number back, to be
presented at the inspector's desk at the pier, where customs
inspectors were assigned in turn.
"Number 140 is the one we want to watch," I heard Herndon whisper
to Kennedy. "That tall dark fellow over there."
I followed his direction cautiously and saw a sparely built, striking
looking man who had just filed his declaration and was chatting
vivaciously with a lady who was just about to file hers. She was a
clinging looking little thing with that sort of doll-like innocence
that deceives nobody.
"No, you don't have to swear to it," he said. "You used to do that,
but now you simply sign your name and take a chance," he added,
smiling and showing a row of perfect teeth.
"Number 156," Herndon noted as the collector detached the stub and
handed it to her. "That was Mademoiselle Gabrielle."
The couple passed out to the deck, still chatting gaily.
"In the old days, before they got to be so beastly particular," I
heard him say, "I always used to get the courtesy of the port, an
official expedite. But that is over now."
The ship was now under way, her flags snapping in the brisk coolish
breeze that told of approaching autumn. We had passed up the lower
bay and the Narrows, and the passengers were crowded forward to
catch the first glimpse of the skyscrapers of New York.
On up the bay we ploughed, throwing the spray proudly as we went.
Herndon employed the time in keeping a sharp watch on the tall,
thin man. Incidentally he sought out the wireless operator and
from him learned that a code wireless message had been received for
Pierre, apparently from his partner, Lang.
"There is no mention of anything dutiable in this declaration by
140 which corresponds with any of the goods mentioned in the first
cable from Paris," a collector remarked unobtrusively to Herndon,
"nor in 156 corresponding to the second cable."
"I didn't suppose there would be," was his laconic reply. "That's
our job - to=20find the stuff."
At last La Montaigne was warped into the dock. The piles of
first-class baggage on the ship were raucously deposited on the
wharf and slowly the passengers filed down the plank to meet the
line of white-capped uniformed inspectors and plain-clothes
appraisers. The comedy and tragedy of the customs inspection had
begun.
We were among the first to land. Herndon took up a position from
which he could see without being seen. In the semi-light of the
little windows in the enclosed sides of the pier, under the steel
girders of the arched roof like a vast hall, there was a panorama
of a huge mass of open luggage.
At last Number 140 came down, alone, to the roped-off dock. He
walked nonchalantly over to the little deputy surveyor's desk, and
an inspector was quickly assigned to him. It was all done neatly
in the regular course of business apparently. He did not know that
in the orderly rush the sharpest of Herndon's men had been picked
out, much as a trick card player will force a card on his victim.
Already the customs inspection was well along. One inspector had
been assigned to about each five passengers, and big piles of finery
were being remorselessly tumbled out in shapeless heaps and exposed
to the gaze of that part of the public which was not too much
concerned over the same thing as to its own goods and chattels.
Reticules and purses were being inspected. Every trunk was presumed
to have a false bottom, and things wrapped up in paper were viewed
suspiciously and unrolled. Clothes were being shaken and pawed.
There did not seem to be much opportunity for concealment.
Herndon now had donned the regulation straw hat of the appraiser,
and accompanied by us, posing as visitors, was sauntering about.
At last we came within earshot of the spot where the inspector was
going through the effects of 140.
Out of the corner of my eyes I could see that a dispute was in
progress over some trifling matter. The man was cool and calm.
"Call the appraiser, he said at last, with the air of a man standing
on his rights. "I object to this frisking of passengers. Uncle Sam
is little better than a pickpocket. Besides, I cans I wait here all
day. My partner is waiting for me uptown."
Herndon immediately took notice. But it was quite evidently, after
all, only an altercation for the benefit of those who were watching.
I am sure he knew he was being watched, but as the dispute proceeded
he assumed the look of a man keenly amused. The matter, involving
only a few dollars, was finally adjusted by his yielding gracefully
and with an air of resignation. Still Herndon did not go and I am
sure it annoyed him.
Suddenly he turned and faced Herndon. I could not help thinking,
in spite of all that he must be so expert, that, if he really were
a smuggler, he had all the poise and skill at evasion that would
entitle him to be called a past master of the art.
"You see that woman over there? "he whispered. "She says she is
just coming home after studying music in Paris."
We looked. It was the guileless ingenue, Mademoiselle Gabrielle.
"She has dutiable goods, all right. I saw her declaration. She
is trying to bring in as personal effects of a foreign resident
gowns which, I believe, she intends to wear on the stage. She's an
actress."
There was nothing for Herndon to do but to act on the tip. The man
had got rid of us temporarily, but we knew the inspector would be,
if anything, more vigilant. I think he took even longer than usual.
Mademoiselle Gabrielle and her maid pouted and fussed over the
renewed examination which Herndon ordered. According to the inspector
everything was new and expensive; according to her, old, shabby, and
cheap. She denied everything, raged and threatened. But when,
instead of ordering the stamp "Passed" to be placed on her half dozen
trunks and bags which contained in reality only a few dutiable
articles, Herndon threatened to order them to the appraiser's stores
and herself to go to the Law Division if she did not admit the points
in dispute, there was a real scene.
"Generally, madame," he remonstrated, though I could see he was
baffled at finding nothing of the goods he had really expected to
find, "generally even for a first offence the goods are confiscated
and the court or district attorney is content to let the person off
with a fine. If this happens again we'll be more severe. So you
had better pay the duty on these few little matters, without that."
If he had been expecting to "throw a scare "into her, it did not
succeed. "Well, I suppose if I must, I must," she said, and the
only result of the diversion was that she paid a few dollars more
than had been expected and went off in a high state of mind.
Herndon had disappeared for a moment, after a whisper from Kennedy,
to instruct two of his men to shadow Mademoiselle Gabrielle and,
later, Pierre. He soon rejoined us and we casually returned to
the vicinity of our tall friend, Number 140, for whom I felt even
less respect than ever after his apparently ungallant action toward
the lady he had been talking with. He seemed to notice my attitude
and he remarked defensively for my benefit, "Only a patriotic act."
His inspector by this time had finished a most minute examination.
There was nothing that could be discovered, not a false book with
a secret spring that might disclose instead of reading matter a
heap of almost priceless jewels, not a suspicious bulging of any
garment or of the lining of a trunk or grip. Some of the goods
might have been on his person, but not much, and certainly there
was no excuse for ordering a personal examination, for he could not
have hidden a tenth part of what we knew he had, even under the
proverbial porous plaster. He was impeccable. Accordingly there
was nothing for the inspector to do but to declare a polite
armistice.
"So you didn't find 'Mona Lisa' in a false bottom, and my trunks
were not lined with smuggled cigars after all," he rasped savagely
as the stamp "Passed" was at last affixed and he paid in cash at
the little window with its sign, "Pay Duty Here: U.S. Custom House,"
some hundred dollars instead of the thousands Herndon had been
hoping to collect, if not to seize.
All through the inspection, an extra close scrutiny had been kept
on the other passengers as well, to prevent any of them from being
in league with the smugglers, though there was no direct or indirect
evidence to show that any of the others were.
We were about to leave the wharf, also, when Craig's attention was
called to a stack of trunks still remaining.
"Whose are those?" he asked as he lifted one. It felt suspiciously
light.
"Some of them belong to a Mr. Pierre and the rest to a Miss
Gabrielle," answered an inspector. "Bonded for Troy and waiting to
be transferred by the express company."
Here, perhaps, at last was an explanation, and Craig took advantage
of it. Could it be that the real seat of trouble was not here but
at some other place, that some exchange was to be made en route or
perhaps an attempt at bribery?
Herndon, too, was willing to run a risk. He ordered the trunks
opened immediately. But to our disappointment they were almost
empty. There was scarcely a thing of value in them. Most of
the contents consisted of clothes that had plainly been made in
America and were being brought back here. It was another false
scent. We had been played with and baffled at every turn. Perhaps
this had been the method originally agreed on. At any rate it had
been changed.
"Could they have left the goods in Paris, after all?" I queried.
"With the fall and winter trade just coming on?" Kennedy replied,
with an air of finality that set at rest any doubts about his
opinion on that score. "I thought perhaps we had a case of what do
you call it, Herndon, when they leave trunks that are to be secretly
removed by dishonest expressmen from the wharf at night?
"Sleepers. Oh, we've broken that up, too. No expressman would
dare try it now. I must confess this thing is beyond me, Craig."
Kennedy made no answer. Evidently there was nothing to do but to
await developments and see what Herndon's men reported. We had
been beaten at every turn in the game. Herndon seemed to feel that
there was a bitter sting in the defeat, particularly because the
smuggler or smugglers had actually been in our grasp so long to do
with as we pleased, and had so cleverly slipped out again, leaving
us holding the bag.
Kennedy was especially thoughtful as he told over the facts of the
case in his mind. "Of course," he remarked, " Mademoiselle
Gabrielle wasn't an actress. But we can't deny that she had very
little that would justify Herndon in holding her, unless he simply
wants a newspaper row."
"But I thought Pierre was quite intimate with her at first," I
ventured. "That was a dirty trick of his."
Craig laughed. "You mean an old one. That was simply a blind, to
divert attention from himself. I suspect they talked that over
between themselves for days before."
It was plainly more perplexing than ever. What had happened? Had
Pierre been a prestidigitator and had he merely said presto when
our backs were turned and whisked the goods invisibly into the
country? I could find no explanation for the little drama on the
pier. If Herndon's men had any genius in detecting smuggling,
their professional opponent certainly had greater genius in
perpetrating it.
We did not see Herndon again until after a hasty luncheon. He was
in his office and inclined to take a pessimistic view of the whole
affair. He brightened up when a telephone message came in from one
of his shadows. The men trailing Pierre and Mademoiselle Gabrielle
had crossed trails and run together at a little French restaurant
on the lower West Side, where Pierre, Lang, and Mademoiselle
Gabrielle had met and were dining in a most friendly spirit.
Kennedy was right. She had been merely a cog in the machinery of
the plot.
The man reported that even when a newsboy had been sent in by him
with the afternoon papers displaying in big headlines the mystery
of the death of Mademoiselle Violette, they had paid no attention.
It seemed evident that whatever the fate of the little modiste,
Mademoiselle Gabrielle had quite replaced her in the affections of
Pierre. There was nothing for us to do but to separate and await
developments.
It was late in the afternoon when Craig and I received a hurried
message from Herndon. One of his men had just called him up over
long distance from Riverledge. The party had left the restaurant
hurriedly, and though they had taken the only taxicab in sight he
had been able to follow them in time to find out that they were
going up to Riverledge. They were now preparing to go out for a
sail in one of Lang's motor-boats and he would be unable, of course,
to follow them further.
For the remainder of the afternoon Kennedy remained pondering the
case. At last an idea seemed to dawn on him. He found Herndon
still at his office and made an appointment to meet on the
waterfront near La Montaigne's pier, after dinner. The change in
Kennedy's spirits was obvious, though it did not in the least
enlighten my curiosity. Even after a dinner which was lengthened
out considerably, I thought, I did not get appreciably nearer a
solution, for we strolled over to the laboratory, where Craig
loaded me down with a huge package which was wrapped up in heavy
paper.
We arrived on the corner opposite the wharf just as it was growing
dusk. The neighbourhood did not appeal to me at night, and even
though there were two of us I was rather glad when we met Herndon,
who was waiting in the shadow of a fruit stall.
But instead of proceeding across to the pier by the side of which
La Montaigne was moored, we cut across the wide street and turned
down the next pier, where a couple of freighters were lying. The
odour of salt water, sewage, rotting wood, and the night air was
not inspiring. Nevertheless I was now carried away with the
strangeness of our adventure.
Halfway down the pier Kennedy paused before one of the gangways that
was shrouded in darkness. The door was opened and we followed
gingerly across the dirty deck of the freight ship. Below we could
hear the water lapping the piles of the pier. Across a dark abyss
lay the grim monster La Montaigne with here and there a light
gleaming on one of her decks. The sounds of the city seemed
miles away.
"What a fine place for a murder," laughed Kennedy coolly. He was
unwrapping the package which he had taken from me. It proved to
be a huge reflector in front of which was placed a little arrangement
which, under the light of a shaded lantern carried by Herndon, looked
like a coil of wire of some kind.
To the back of the reflector Craig attached two other flexible wires
which led to a couple of dry cells and a cylinder with a broadened
end, made of vulcanised rubber. It might have been a telephone
receiver, for all I could tell in the darkness.
While I was still speculating on the possible use of the enormous
parabolic reflector, a slight commotion on the opposite side of the
pier distracted my attention. A ship was coming in and was being
carefully and quietly berthed alongside the other big iron freighter
on that side. Herndon had left us.
"The Mohican is here," he remarked as he rejoined us. To my look
of inquiry he added, "The revenue cutter."
Kennedy had now finished and had pointed the reflector full at La
Montaigne. With a whispered hasty word of caution and advice to
Herndon, he drew me along with him down the wharf again.
At the little door which was cut in the barrier guarding the shore
end of La Montaigne's wharf Kennedy stopped. The customs service
night watchman - there is always a watchman of some kind aboard
every ship, passenger or freighter, all the time she is in port -
seemed to understand, for he admitted us after a word with Kennedy.
Threading our way carefully among the boxes, and bales, and crates
which were piled high, we proceeded down the wharf. Under the
electric lights the longshoremen were working feverishly, for the
unloading and loading of a giant transAtlantic vessel in the rush
season is a long and tedious process at best, requiring night work
and overtime, for every moment, like every cubic foot of space,
counts.
Once within the door, however, no one paid much attention to us.
They seemed to take it for granted that we had some right there.
We boarded the ship by one of the many entrances and then proceeded
down to a deck where apparently no one was working. It was more
like a great house than a ship, I felt, and I wondered whether
Kennedy's search was not more of a hunt for a needle in a haystack
than anything else. Yet he seemed to know what he was after.
We had descended to what I imagined must be the quarters of the
steward. About us were many large cases and chests, stacked up
and marked as belonging to the ship. Kennedy's attention was
attracted to them immediately. All at once it flashed on me what
his purpose was. In some of those cases were the smuggled goods!
Before I could say a word and before Kennedy had a chance even to
try to verify his suspicions, a sudden approach of footsteps
startled us. He drew me into a cabin or room full of shelves with
ship's stores.
"Why didn't you bring Herndon over and break into the boxes, if you
think the stuff is hidden in one of them?" I whispered.
"And let those higher up escape while their tools take all the
blame?" he answered. "Sh-h."
The men who had come into the compartment looked about as if
expecting to see some one.
"Two of them came down," a gruff voice said. "Where are they?"
>From the noise I inferred that there must be four or five men, and
from the ease with which they shifted the cases about some of them
must have been pretty husky stevedores.
"I don't know," a more polished but unfamiliar voice answered.
The door to our hiding-place was opened roughly and then banged
shut before we realised it. With a taunting laugh, some one turned
a key in the lock and before we could move a quick shift of packing
cases against the door made escape impossible.
Here we were marooned, shanghaied, as it were, within sight if not
call of Herndon and our friends. We had run up against professional
smugglers, of whom I had vaguely read, disguised as stewards,
deckhands, stokers, and other workers.
The only other opening to the cabin was a sort of porthole, more
for ventilation than anything else. Kennedy stuck his head through
it, but it was impossible for a man to squeeze out. There was one
of the lower decks directly before us while a bright arc light
gleamed tantalisingly over it, throwing a round circle of light
into our prison. I reflected bitterly on our shipwreck within
sight of port.
Kennedy remained silent, and I did not know what was working in his
mind. Together we made out the outline of the freighter at the next
wharf and speculated as to the location where we had left Herndon
with the huge reflector. There was no moon and it was as black as
ink in that direction, but if we could have got out I would have
trusted to luck to reach it by swimming.
Below us, from the restless water lapping on the sides of the hulk
of La Montaigne, we could now hear muffled sounds. It was a
motor-boat which had come crawling up the river front, with lights
extinguished, and had pushed a cautious nose into the slip where
our ship lay at the quay. None of your romantic low-lying, rakish
craft of the old smuggling yarns was this, ready for deeds of
desperation in the dark hours of midnight. It was just a modern
little motor-boat, up-to-date, and swift.
"Perhaps we'll get out of this finally," I grumbled as I understood
now what was afoot, "but not in time to be of any use."
A smothered sound as of something going over the vessel's side
followed. It was one of the boxes which we had seen outside in
the storeroom. Another followed, and a third and a fourth.
Then came a subdued parley. "We have two customs detectives locked
in a cabin here. We can't stay now. You'll have to take us and
our things off, too."
"Can't do it," called up another muffled voice. "Make your things
into a little bundle. We'll take that, but you'll have to get past
the night-watchman yourselves and meet us at Riverledge."
A moment later something else went over the side, and from the
sound we could infer that the engine of the motor-boat was being
started.
A Voice sounded mockingly outside our door. "Bon soir, you fellows
in there. We're going up the dock. Sorry to leave you here till
morning, but they'll let you out then. Au revoir."
Below I could hear just the faintest well-muffled chug-chug. Kennedy
in the meantime had been coolly craning his neck out of our porthole
under the rays of the arc light overhead. He was holding something
in his hand. It seemed like a little silver-backed piece of thin
glass with a flaring funnel-like thing back of it, which he held most
particularly. Though he heard the parting taunt outside he paid no
attention.
"You go to the deuce, whoever you are," I cried, beating on the door,
to which only a coarse laugh echoed back down the passageway.
"Be quiet, Walter," ordered Kennedy. "We have located the smuggled
goods in the storeroom of the steward, four wooden cases of them.
I think the stuff must have been brought on the ship in the trunks
and then transferred to the cases, perhaps after the code wireless
message was received. But we have been overpowered and locked in
a cabin with a port too small to crawl through. The cases have
been lowered over the side of the ship to a motor-boat that was
waiting below. The lights on the boat are out, but if you hurry
you can get it. The accomplices who locked us in are going to
disappear up the wharf. If you could only get the night watchman
quickly enough you could catch them, too, before they reach the
street."
I had turned, half expecting to see Kennedy talking to a ship's
officer who might have chanced on the deck outside. There was no
one. The only thing of life was the still sputtering arc light.
Had the man gone crazy?
"What of it?" I growled. "Don't you suppose I know all that?
What's the use of repeating it now? The thing to do is to get
out of this hole. Come, help me at this door. Maybe we can
batter it down."
Kennedy paid no attention to me, however, but kept his eyes
glued on the Cimmerian blackness outside the porthole.
He had done nothing apparently, yet a long finger of light seemed
to shoot out into the sky from the pier across from us and begin
waving back and forth as it was lowered to the dark waters of the
river. It was a searchlight. At once I thought of the huge
reflector which I had seen set up. But that had been on our side
of the next pier and this light came from the far side where the
Mohican lay.
"What is it?" I asked eagerly. "What has happened?"
It was as if a prayer had been answered from our dungeon on La
Montaigne.
"I knew we should need some means to communicate with Herndon,"
he explained simply, "and the wireless telephone wasn't practicable.
So I have used Dr. Alexander Graham Bell's photophone. Any of the
lights on this side of La Montaigne, I knew, would serve. What I
did, Walter, was merely to talk into the mouthpiece back of this
little silvered mirror which reflects light. The vibrations of the
voice caused a diaphragm in it to vibrate and thus the beam of
reflected light was made to pulsate. In other words, this little
thing is just a simple apparatus to transform the air vibrations
of the voice into light vibrations.
"The parabolic reflector over there catches these light vibrations
and focuses them on the cell of selenium which you perhaps noticed
in the centre of the reflector. You remember doubtless that the
element selenium varies its electrical resistance under light?
Thus there are reproduced similar variations in the cell to those
vibrations here in this transmitter. The cell is connected with
a telephone receiver and batteries over there and there you are.
It is very simple. In the ordinary carbon telephone transmitter
a variable electrical resistance is produced by pressure, since
carbon is not so good a conductor under pressure. Then these
variations are transmitted along two wires. This photophone is
wireless. Selenium even emits notes under a vibratory beam of
light, the pitch depending on the frequency. Changes in the
intensity of the light focused by the reflector on the cell alter
its electrical resistance and vary the current from the dry
batteries. Hence the telephone receiver over there is affected.
Bell used the photophone or radiophone over several hundred feet,
Ruhmer over several miles. When you thought I was talking to
myself I was really telling Herndon what had happened and what
to do - talking to him literally over a beam of light."
I could scarcely believe it, but an exclamation from Kennedy as
he drew his head in quickly recalled my attention. "Look out
on the river, Walter," he cried. "The Mohican has her searchlight
sweeping up and down. What do you see?"
The long finger of light had now come to rest. In its pathway I
saw a lightless motor-boat bobbing up and down, crowding on all
speed, yet followed relentlessly by the accusing finger. The
river front was now alive with shouting.
Suddenly the Mohican shot out from behind the pier where she
had been hidden. In spite of Lang's expertness it was an unequal
race. Nor would it have made much difference if it had been
otherwise, for a shot rang out from the Mohican which commanded
instant respect. The powerful revenue cutter rapidly overhauled
the little craft.
A hurried tread down the passageway followed. Cases were being
shoved aside and a key in the door of our compartment turned
quickly. I waited with clenched fists, prepared for an attack.
"You're all right?" Herndon's voice inquired anxiously. "We've
got that steward and the other fellows all right."
"Yes, come on," shouted Craig. "The cutter has made a capture."
We had reached the stern of the ship, and far out in the river
the Mohican was now headed toward us. She came alongside, and
Herndon quickly seized a rope, fastened it to the rail, and let
himself down to the deck of the cutter. Kennedy and I followed.
"This is a high-handed proceeding," I heard a voice that must
have been Lang's protesting. "By what right do you stop me? You
shall suffer for this."
"The Mohican," broke in Herndon, "has the right to appear anywhere
from Southshoal Lightship off Nantucket to the capes of the
Delaware, demand an inspection of any vessel's manifest and papers,
board anything from La Montaigne to your little motor-boat, inspect
it, seize it, if necessary put a crew on it." He slapped the little
cannon. "That commands respect. Besides, you were violating the
regulations - no lights."
On the deck of the cutter now lay four cases. A man broke one of
them open, then another. Inside he disclosed thousands of dollars'
worth of finery, while from a tray he drew several large chamois
bags of glittering diamonds and pearls.
Pierre looked on, crushed, all his jauntiness gone.
"So," exclaimed Kennedy, facing him, "you have your jilted fiancee,
Mademoiselle Violette, to thank for this - her letters and her
suicide. It wasn't as easy as you thought to throw her over for a
new soul mate, this Mademoiselle Gabrielle whom you were going to
set up as a rival in business to Violette. Violette has her revenge
for making a plaything of her heart, and if the dead can take any
satisfaction she"
With a quick movement Kennedy anticipated a motion of Pierre's.
The ruined smuggler had contemplated either an attack on himself
or his captor, but Craig had seized him by the wrist and ground
his knuckles into the back of Pierre's clenched fist until he
winced with pain. An Apache dagger similar to that which the
little modiste had used to end her life tragedy clattered to the
deck of the ship, a mute testimonial to the high class of society
Pierre and his associates must have cultivated.
"None of that, Pierre," Craig muttered, releasing him. "You can't
cheat the government out of its just dues even in the matter of
punishment."
XI
THE INVISIBLE RAY
"I won't deny that I had some expectations from the old man
myself."
Kennedy's client was speaking in a low, full chested, vibrating
voice, with some emotion, so low that I had entered the room without
being aware that any one was there until it was too late to retreat.
"As his physician for over twelve years," the man pursued, "I
certainly had been led to hope to be remembered in his will. But,
Professor Kennedy, I can't put it too strongly when I say that there
is no selfish motive in my coming to you about the case. There is
something wrong - depend on
that."
Craig had glanced up at me and, as I hesitated, I could see in an
instant that the speaker was a practitioner of a type that is
rapidly passing away, the old-fashioned family doctor.
"Dr. Burnham, I should like to have you know Mr. Jameson," introduced
Craig. "You can talk as freely before him as you have to me alone.
We always work together."
I shook hands with the visitor.
"The doctor has succeeded in interesting me greatly in a case which
has some unique features," Kennedy explained. "It has to do with
Stephen Haswell, the eccentric old millionaire of Brooklyn. Have
you ever heard of him?"
"Yes, indeed," I replied, recalling an occasional article which had
appeared in the newspapers regarding a dusty and dirty old house in
that part of the Heights in Brooklyn whence all that is fashionable
had not yet taken flight, a house of mystery, yet not more mysterious
than its owner in his secretive comings and goings in the affairs
of men of a generation beyond his time. Further than the facts that
he was reputed to be very wealthy and led, in the heart of a great
city, what was as nearly like the life of a hermit as possible, I
knew little or nothing. "What has he been doing now?" I asked.
"About a week ago," repeated the doctor, in answer to a nod of
encouragement from Kennedy, "I was summoned in the middle of the
night to attend Mr. Haswell, who, as I have been telling Professor
Kennedy, had been a patient of mine for over twelve years. He had
been suddenly stricken with total blindness. Since then he appears
to be failing fast, that is, he appeared so the last time I saw him,
a few days ago, after I had been superseded by a younger man. It
is a curious case and I have thought about it a great deal. But I
didn't like to speak to the authorities; there wasn't enough to
warrant that, and I should have been laughed out of court for my
pains. The more I have thought about it, however, the more I have
felt it my duty to say something to somebody, and so, having heard
of Professor Kennedy, I decided to consult him. The fact of the
matter is, I very much fear that there are circumstances which will
bear sharp looking into, perhaps a scheme to get control of the old
man's fortune."
The doctor paused, and Craig inclined his head, as much as to
signify his appreciation of the delicate position in which Burnham
stood in the case. Before the doctor could proceed further, Kennedy
handed me a letter which had been lying before him on the table.
It had evidently been torn into small pieces and then carefully
pasted together.
The superscription gave a small town in Ohio and a date about a
fortnight previous.
Dear Father [it read]: I hope you will pardon me for writing,=20
but I cannot let the occasion of your seventy-fifth birthday=20
pass without a word of affection and congratulation. I am alive=20
and well. Time has dealt leniently with me in that respect, if=20
not in money matters. I do not say this in the hope of
reconciling you to me. I know that is impossible after all these
cruel years. But I do wish that I could see you again. Remember,
I am your only child and even if you still think I have been a
foolish one, please let me come to see you once before it is too
late. We are constantly travelling from place to place, but shall
be here for a few days.
Your loving daughter,
GRACE HASWELL MARTIN.
"Some fourteen or fifteen years ago," explained the doctor as I
looked up from reading the note, "Mr. Haswell's only daughter eloped
with an artist named Martin. He had been engaged to paint a portrait
of the late Mrs. Haswell from a photograph. It was the first time
that Grace Haswell had ever been able to find expression for the
artistic yearning which had always been repressed by the cold,
practical sense of her father. She remembered her mother perfectly
since the sad bereavement of her girlhood and naturally she watched
and helped the artist eagerly. The result was a portrait which might
well have been painted from the subject herself rather than from a
cold photograph.
"Haswell saw the growing intimacy of his daughter and the artist.
His bent of mind was solely toward money and material things, and
he at once conceived a bitter and unreasoning hatred for Martin,
who, he believed, had 'schemed' to capture his daughter and an
easy living. Art was as foreign to his nature as possible.=20
Nevertheless they went ahead and married, and, well, it resulted
in the old man disinheriting the girl. The young couple disappeared
bravely to make their way by their chosen profession and, as far as
I know, have never been heard from since until now. Haswell made a
new will, and I have always understood that practically all of his
fortune is to be devoted to founding the technology department in
a projected university of Brooklyn."
"You have never seen this Mrs. Martin or her husband?" asked Kennedy.
"No, never. But in some way she must have learned that I had some
influence with her father, for she wrote to me not long ago,
enclosing a note for him and asking me to intercede for her. I did
so. I took the letter to him as diplomatically as I could. The old
man flew into a towering rage, refused even to look at the letter,
tore it up into bits, and ordered me never to mention the subject
to him again. That is her note, which I saved. However, it is the
sequel about which I wish your help."
The physician folded up the patched letter carefully before he
continued. "Mr. Haswell, as you perhaps know, has for many years
been a prominent figure in various curious speculations, or rather
in loaning money to many curious speculators. It is not necessary
to go into the different schemes which he has helped to finance.
Even though most of them have been unknown to the public they have
certainly given him such a reputation that he is much sought after
by inventors.
"Not long ago Haswell became interested in the work of an obscure
chemist over in Brooklyn, Morgan Prescott. Prescott claims, as I
understand, to be able to transmute copper into gold. Whatever you
think of it offhand, you should visit his laboratory yourselves,
gentlemen. I am told it is wonderful, though I have never seen it
and can't explain it. I have met Prescott several times while he
was trying to persuade Mr. Haswell to back him in his scheme, but
he was never disposed to talk to me, for I had no money to invest.
So far as I know about it the thing sounds scientific and plausible
enough. I leave you to judge of that. It is only an incident in
my story and I will pass over it quickly. Prescott, then, believes
that the elements are merely progressive variations of an original
substance or base called 'protyle,' from which everything is derived.
But this fellow Prescott goes much further than any of the former
theorists. He does not stop with matter. He believes that he has
the secret of life also, that he can make the transition from the
inorganic to the organic, from inert matter to living protoplasm,
and thence from living protoplasm to mind and what we call soul,
whatever that may be."
"And here is where the weird and uncanny part of it comes in,"
commented Craig, turning from the doctor to me to call my attention
particularly to what was about to follow.
"Having arrived at the point where he asserts that he can create and
destroy matter, life, and mind," continued the doctor, as if himself
fascinated by the idea," Prescott very naturally does not have to go
far before he also claims a control over telepathy and even a
communication with the dead. He even calls the messages which he
receives by a word which he has coined himself, 'telepagrams.' Thus
he says he has unified the physical, the physiological, and the
psychical - a system of absolute scientific monism."
The doctor paused again, then resumed. "One afternoon, about a week
ago, apparently, as far as I am able to piece together the story,
Prescott was demonstrating his marvellous discovery of the unity
of nature. Suddenly he faced Mr. Haswell.
"'Shall I tell you a fact, sir, about yourself?' he asked quickly.
'The truth as I see it by means of my wonderful invention? If it
is the truth, will you believe in me? Will you put money into my
invention? Will you share in becoming fabulously rich?'
"Haswell made some noncommittal answer. But Prescott seemed to
look into the machine through a very thick plate-glass window, with
Haswell placed directly before it. He gave a cry. 'Mr. Haswell,'
he exclaimed, 'I regret to tell you what I see. You have
disinherited your daughter; she has passed out of your life and at
the present moment you do not know where she is.'
"'That's true,' replied the old man bitterly, 'and more than that
I don't care. Is that all you see? That's nothing new.'
"'No, unfortunately, that is not all I see. Can you bear something
further? I think you ought to know it. I have here a most
mysterious telepagram.'
"'Yes. What is it? Is she dead?'
"'No, it is not about her. It is about yourself. To-night at
midnight or perhaps a little later,' repeated Prescott solemnly,
'you will lose your sight as a punishment for your action.'
"'Pouf!' exclaimed the old man in a dudgeon, 'if that is all your
invention can tell me, good-bye. You told me you were able to make
gold. Instead, you make foolish prophecies. I'll put no money into
such tomfoolery. I'm a practical man,' and with that he stamped out
of the laboratory.
"Well, that night, about one o'clock, in the silence of the lonely
old house, the aged caretaker, Jane, whom he had hired after he
banished his daughter from his life, heard a wild shout of 'Help!
Help!' Haswell, alone in his room on the second floor, was
groping about in the dark.
"'Jane,' he ordered, 'a light - a light.'
"'I have lighted the gas, Mr. Haswell,' she cried.
"A groan followed. He had himself found a match, had struck it,
had even burnt his fingers with it, yet he saw nothing.
"The blow had fallen. At almost the very hour which Prescott, by
means of his weird telepagram had predicted, old Haswell was stricken.
I'm blind,' he gasped. 'Send for Dr. Burnham.'
"I went to him immediately when the maid roused me, but there was
nothing I could do except prescribe perfect rest for his eyes and
keeping in a dark room in the hope that his sight might be restored
as suddenly and miraculously as it had been taken away.
"The next morning, with his own hand, trembling and scrawling in his
blindness, he wrote the following on a piece of paper:
"'Mrs. GRACE MARTIN. - Information wanted about the present
whereabouts of Mrs. Grace Martin, formerly Grace Haswell of
Brooklyn.
STEPHEN HASWELL,
Pierrepont St., Brooklyn.
"This advertisement he caused to be placed in all the New York
papers and to be wired to the leading Western papers. Haswell
himself was a changed man after his experience. He spoke bitterly
of Prescott, yet his attitude toward his daughter was completely
reversed. Whether he admitted to himself a belief in the prediction
of the inventor, I do not know. Certainly he scouted such an idea
in telling me about it.
"A day or two after the advertisements appeared a telegram came to
the old man from a little town in Indiana. It read simply: 'Dear
Father: Am starting for Brooklyn to-day. Grace.'
"The upshot was that Grace Haswell, or rather Grace Martin, appeared
the next day, forgave and was forgiven with much weeping, although
the old man still refused resolutely to be reconciled with and
receive her husband. Mrs. Martin started in to clean up the old
house. A vacuum cleaner sucked a ton or two of dust from it.
Everything was changed. Jane grumbled a great deal, but there was
no doubt a great improvement. Meals were served regularly. The
old man was taken care of as never before. Nothing was too good
for him. Everywhere the touch of a woman was evident in the house.
The change was complete. It even extended to me. Some friend had
told her of an eye and ear specialist, a Dr. Scott, who was engaged.
Since then, I understand, a new will has been made, much to the
chagrin of the trustees of the projected school. Of course I am
cut out of the new will, and that with the knowledge at least of
the woman who once appealed to me, but it does not influence me in
coming to you."
"But what has happened since to arouse suspicion?" asked Kennedy,
watching the doctor furtively.
"Why, the fact is that, in spite of all this added care, the old man
is failing more rapidly than ever. He never goes out except attended
and not much even then. The other day I happened to meet Jane on the
street. The faithful old soul poured forth a long story about his
growing dependence on others and ended by mentioning a curious red
discoloration that seems to have broken out over his face and hands.
More from the way she said it than from what she said I gained the
impression that something was going on which should be looked into.
"Then you perhaps think that Prescott and Mrs. Martin are in some
way connected in this case?" I hazarded.
I had scarcely framed the question before he replied in an emphatic
negative. "On the contrary, it seems to me that if they know each
other at all it is with hostility. With the exception of the first
stroke of blindness" here he lowered his voice earnestly "practically
every misfortune that has overtaken Mr. Haswell has been since the
advent of this new Dr. Scott. Mind, I do not wish even to breathe
that Mrs. Martin has done anything except what a daughter should do.
I think she has shown herself a model of forgiveness and devotion.
Nevertheless the turn of events under the new treatment has been so
strange that almost it makes one believe that there might be
something occult about it - or wrong with the new doctor."
"Would it be possible, do you think, for us to see Mr. Haswell?"
asked Kennedy, when Dr. Burnham had come to a full stop after
pouring forth his suspicions. "I should like to see this Dr. Scott.
But first I should like to get into the old house without exciting
hostility."
The doctor was thoughtful. "You'll have to arrange that yourself,"
he answered. "Can't you think up a scheme? For instance, go to him
with a proposal like the old schemes he used to finance. He is very
much interested in electrical inventions. He made his money by
speculation in telegraphs and telephones in the early days when they
were more or less dreams. I should think a wireless system of
television might at least interest him and furnish an excuse for
getting in, although I am told his daughter discourages all tangible
investment in the schemes that used to interest his active mind."
"An excellent idea," exclaimed Kennedy. "It is worth trying anyway.
It is still early. Suppose we ride over to Brooklyn with you. You
can direct us to the house and we'll try to see him."
It was still light when we mounted the high steps of the house of
mystery across the bridge. Mrs. Martin, who met us in the parlour,
proved to be a stunning looking woman with brown hair and beautiful
dark eyes. As far as we could see the old house plainly showed the
change. The furniture and ornaments were of a period long past, but
everything was scrupulously neat. Hanging over the old marble mantel
was a painting which quite evidently was that of the long since
deceased Mrs. Haswell, the mother of Grace. In spite of the hideous
style of dress of the period after the war, she had evidently been a
very beautiful woman with large masses of light chestnut hair and
blue eyes which the painter had succeeded in catching with almost
life-likeness for a portrait.
It took only a few minutes for Kennedy, in his most engaging and
plausible manner, to state the hypothetical reason of our call.
Though it was perfectly self-evident from the start that Mrs. Martin
would throw cold water on anything requiring an outlay of money
Craig accomplished his full purpose of securing an interview with
Mr. Haswell. The invalid lay propped up in bed, and as we entered
he heard us and turned his sightless eyes in our direction almost
as if he saw.
Kennedy had hardly begun to repeat and elaborate the story which he
had already told regarding his mythical friend who had at last a
commercial wireless "televue," as he called it on the spur of the
moment, when Jane, the aged caretaker, announced Dr. Scott. The new
doctor was a youthfully dressed man, clean-shaven, but with an
undefinable air of being much older than his smooth face led one to
suppose. As he had a large practice, he said, he would beg our
pardon for interrupting but would not take long.
It needed no great powers of observation to see that the old man
placed great reliance on his new doctor and that the visit partook
of a social as well as a professional nature. Although they talked
low we could catch now and then a word or phrase. Dr. Scott bent
down and examined the eyes of his patient casually. It was difficult
to believe that they saw nothing, so bright was the blue of the
iris.
"Perfect rest for the present," the doctor directed, talking more
to Mrs. Martin than to the old man. "Perfect rest, and then when
his health is good, we shall see what can be done with that
cataract."
He was about to leave, when the old man reached up and restrained
him, taking hold of the doctor's wrist tightly, as if to pull him
nearer in order to whisper to him without being overheard. Kennedy
was sitting in a chair near the head of the bed, some feet away, as
the doctor leaned down. Haswell, still holding his wrist, pulled
him closer. I could not hear what was said, though somehow I had
an impression that they were talking about Prescott, for it would
not have been at all strange if the old man had been greatly
impressed by the alchemist.
Kennedy, I noticed, had pulled an old envelope from his pocket and
was apparently engaged in jotting down some notes, glancing now and
then from his writing to the doctor and then to Mr. Haswell.
The doctor stood erect in a few moments and rubbed his wrist
thoughtfully with the other hand, as if it hurt. At the same time
he smiled on Mrs. Martin. "Your father has a good deal of strength
yet, Mrs. Martin," he remarked. "He has a wonderful constitution.
I feel sure that we can pull him out of this and that he has many,
many years to live."
Mr. Haswell, who caught the words eagerly, brightened visibly, and
the doctor passed out. Kennedy resumed his description of the
supposed wireless picture apparatus which was to revolutionise the
newspaper, the theatre, and daily life in general. The old man did
not seem enthusiastic and turned to his daughter with some remark.
"Just at present," commented the daughter, with an air of finality,
"the only thing my father is much interested in is a way in which
to recover his sight without an operation. He has just had a rather
unpleasant experience with one inventor. I think it will be some
time before he cares to embark in any other such schemes.
Kennedy and I excused ourselves with appropriate remarks of
disappointment. From his preoccupied manner it was impossible for
me to guess whether Craig had accomplished his purpose or not.
"Let us drop in on Dr. Burnham since we are over here," he said
when we had reached the street. "I have some questions to ask him."
The former physician of Mr. Haswell lived not very far from the
house we had just left. He appeared a little surprised to see us
so soon, but very interested in what had taken place.
"Who is this Dr. Scott?" asked Craig when we were seated in the
comfortable leather chairs of the old-fashioned consulting-room.
"Really, I know no more about him than you do," replied Burnham.
I thought I detected a little of professional jealousy in his tone,
though he went on frankly enough, "I have made inquiries and I can
find out nothing except that he is supposed to be a graduate of
some Western medical school and came to this city only a short time
ago. He has hired a small office in a new building devoted entirely
to doctors and they tell me that he is an eye and ear specialist,
though I cannot see that he has any practice. Beyond that I know
nothing about him."
"Your friend Prescott interests me, too," remarked Kennedy, changing
the subject quickly.
"Oh, he is no friend of mine," returned the doctor, fumbling in a
drawer of his desk. "But I think I have one of his cards here
which he gave me when we were introduced some time ago at Mr.
Haswell's. I should think it would be worth while to see him.
Although he has no use for me because I have neither money nor
influence, still you might take this card. Tell him you are from
the university, that I have interested you in him, that you know
a trustee with money to invest - anything you like that is plausible.
When are you going to see him?"
"The first thing in the morning," replied Kennedy. "After I have
seen him I shall drop in for another chat with you. Will you be
here?"
The doctor promised, and we took our departure.
Prescott's laboratory, which we found the next day from the address
on the card, proved to be situated in one of the streets near the
waterfront under the bridge approach, where the factories and
warehouses clustered thickly. It was with a great deal of
anticipation of seeing something happen that we threaded our way
through the maze of streets with the cobweb structure of the
bridge carrying its endless succession of cars arching high over
our heads. We had nearly reached the place when Kennedy paused
and pulled out two pairs of glasses, those huge round tortoiseshell
affairs.
"You needn't mind these, Walter," he explained. "They are only
plain glass, that is, not ground. You can see through them as well
as through air. We must be careful not to excite suspicion. Perhaps
a disguise might have been better, but I think this will=20do. There
they add at least a decade to your age. If you could see yourself
you wouldn't speak to your reflection. You look as scholarly as
a Chinese mandarin. Remember, let me do the talking and do just as
I do."
We had now entered the shop, stumbled up the dark stairs, and
presented Dr. Burnham's card with a word of explanation along the
lines which he had suggested. Prescott, surrounded by his retorts,
crucibles, burettes, and condensers, received us much more graciously
than I had had any reason to anticipate. He was a man in the late
forties, his face covered with a thick beard, and his eyes, which
seemed a little weak, were helped out with glasses almost as
scholarly as ours.
I could not help thinking that we three bespectacled figures lacked
only the flowing robes to be taken for a group of medieval alchemists
set down a few centuries out of our time in the murky light of
Prescott's sanctum. Yet, though he accepted us at our face value,
and began to talk of his strange discoveries there was none of the
old familiar prating about matrix and flux, elixir, magisterium,
magnum opus, the mastery and the quintessence, those alternate names
for the philosopher's stone which Paracelsus, Simon Forman, Jerome
Cardan, and the other medieval worthies indulged in. This experience
at least was as up-to-date as the Curies, Becquerel, Ramsay, and
the rest.
"Transmutation," remarked Prescott, "was, as you know, finally
declared to be a scientific absurdity in the eighteenth century.
But I may say that it is no longer so regarded. I do not ask you
to believe anything until you have seen; all I ask is that you
maintain the same open mind which the most progressive scientists
of to-day exhibit in regard to the subject."
Kennedy had seated himself some distance from a curious piece or
rather collection of apparatus over which Prescott was working. It
consisted of numerous coils and tubes.
"It may seem strange to you, gentlemen," Prescott proceeded, "that
a man who is able to produce gold from, say, copper should be seeking
capital from other people. My best answer to that old objection is
that I am not seeking capital, as such. The situation with me is
simply this. Twice I have applied to the patent office for a patent
on my invention. They not only refuse to grant it, but they refuse
to consider the application or even to give me a chance to demonstrate
my process to them. On the other hand, suppose I try this thing
secretly. How can I prevent any one from learning my trade secret,
leaving me, and making gold on his own account? Men will desert as
fast as I educate them. Think of the economic result of that; it
would turn the world topsy-turvy. I am looking for some one who can
be trusted to the last limit to join with me, furnish the influence
and standing while I furnish the brains and the invention. Either
we must get the government interested and sell the invention to it,
or we must get government protection and special legislation. I am
not seeking capital; I am seeking protection. First let me show
you something."
He turned a switch, and a part of the collection of apparatus began
to vibrate.
"You are undoubtedly acquainted with the modern theories of matter,"
he began, plunging into the explanation of his process. "Starting
with the atom, we believe no longer that it is indivisible. Atoms
are composed of thousands of ions, as they are called, - really
little electric charges. Again, you know that we have found that
all the elements fall into groups. Each group has certain related
atomic weights and properties which can be and have been predicted
in advance of the discovery of missing elements in the group. I
started with the reasonable assumption that the atom of one element
in a group could be modified so as to become the atom of another
element in the group, that one group could perhaps be transformed
into another, and so on, if only I knew the force that would change
the number or modify the vibrations of these ions composing the
various atoms.
"Now for years I have been seeking that force or combination of
forces that would enable me to produce this change in the elements
- raising or lowering them in the scale, so to speak. I have
found it. I am not going to tell you or any other man whom you may
interest the secret of how it is done until I find some one I can
trust as I trust myself. But I am none the less willing that you
should see the results. If they are not convincing, then nothing
can be."
He appeared to be debating whether to explain further, and finally
resumed: "Matter thus being in reality a manifestation of force or
ether in motion, it is necessary to change and control that force
and motion. This assemblage of machines here is for that purpose.
Now a few words as to my theory."
He took a pencil and struck a sharp blow on the table. "There you
have a single blow," he said, "just one isolated noise. Now if I
strike this tuning fork you have a vibrating note. In other words,
a succession of blows or wave vibrations of a certain kind affects
the ear and we call it sound, just as a succession of other wave
vibrations affects the retina and we have sight. If a moving
picture moves slower than a certain number of pictures a minute you
see the separate pictures; faster it is one moving picture.
"Now as we increase the rapidity of wave vibration and decrease the
wave length we pass from sound waves to heat waves or what are known
as the infra-red waves, those which lie below the red in the spectrum
of light. Next we come to light, which is composed of the seven
colours as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. After that
are what are known as the ultra-violet rays, which lie beyond the
violet of white light. We also have electric waves, the waves of
the alternating current, and shorter still we find the Hertzian
waves, which are used in wireless. We have only begun to know of
X-rays and the alpha, beta, and gamma rays from them, of radium,
radioactivity, and finally of this new force which I have discovered
and call 'protodyne,' the original force.
"In short, we find in the universe Matter, Force, and Ether. Matter
is simply ether in motion, is composed of corpuscles, electrically
charged ions, or electrons, moving units of negative electricity
about one one-thousandth part of the hydrogen atom. Matter is made
up of electricity and nothing but electricity. Let us see what that
leads to. You are acquainted with Mendeleeff's periodic table?"
He drew forth a huge chart on which all the eighty or so elements
were arranged in eight groups or octaves and twelve series.
Selecting one, he placed his finger on the letters "Au," under which
was written the number, 197.2. I wondered what the mystic letters
and figures meant.
"That," he explained, "is the scientific name for the element gold
and the figure is its atomic weight. You will see," he added,
pointing down the second vertical column on the chart, "that gold
belongs to the hydrogen group - hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium,
copper, rubidium, silver, caesium, then two blank spaces for elements
yet to be discovered to science, then gold, and finally another
unknown element."
Running his finger along the eleventh, horizontal series, he
continued: "The gold series - not the group - reads gold, mercury,
thallium, lead, bismuth, and other elements known only to myself.
For the known elements, however, these groups and series are now
perfectly recognised by all scientists; they are determined by the
fixed weight of the atom, and there is a close approximation to
regularity.
"This twelfth series is interesting. So far only radium, thorium,
and uranium are generally known. We know that the radioactive
elements are constantly breaking down, and one often hears uranium,
for instance, called the 'parent' of radium. Radium also gives off
an emanation, and among its products is helium, quite another
element. Thus the transmutation of matter is well known within
certain bounds to all scientists to-day like yourself, Professor
Kennedy. It has even been rumoured but never proved that copper has
been transformed into lithium - both members of the hydrogen-gold
group, you will observe. Copper to lithium is going backward, so to
speak. It has remained for me to devise this protodyne apparatus
by which I can reverse that process of decay and go forward in the
table, so to put it - can change lithium into copper and copper into
gold. I can create and destroy matter by protodyne."
He had been fingering a switch as he spoke. Now he turned it on
triumphantly. A curious snapping and crackling noise followed,
becoming more rapid, and as it mounted in intensity I could smell
a pungent odour of ozone which told of an electric discharge. On
went the machine until we could feel heat radiating from it. Then
came a piercing burst of greenish-blue light from a long tube which
looked like a curious mercury vapour lamp.
After a few minutes of this Prescott took a small crucible of black
lead. "Now we are ready to try it," he cried in great excitement.
"Here I have a crucible containing some copper. Any substance in
the group would do, even hydrogen if there was any way I could
handle the gas. I place it in the machine - so. Now if you could
watch inside you would see it change; it is now rubidium, now silver,
now caesium. Now it is a hitherto unknown element which I have
named after myself, presium, now a second unknown element, cottium
- ah! - there we have gold."
He drew forth the crucible, and there glowed in it a little bead or
globule of molten gold.
"I could have taken lead or mercury and by varying the process done
the same thing with the gold series as well as the gold group," he
said, regarding the globule with obvious pride. "And I can put this
gold back and bring it out copper or hydrogen, or better yet, can
advance it instead of cause it to decay, and can get a radioactive
element which I have named morganium - after my first name, Morgan
Prescott. Morganium is a radioactive element next in the series to
radium and much more active. Come closer and examine the gold."
Kennedy shook his head as if perfectly satisfied to accept the
result. As for me I knew not what to think. It was all so
plausible and there was the bead of gold, too, that I turned to
Craig for enlightenment. Was he convinced? His face was
inscrutable.
But as I looked I could see that Kennedy had been holding concealed
in the palm of his hand a bit of what might be a mineral. From my
position I could see the bit of mineral glowing, but Prescott
could not.
"Might I ask," interrupted Kennedy, "what that curious greenish or
bluish light from the tube is composed of?"
Prescott eyed him keenly for an instant through his thick glasses.
Craig had shifted his gaze from the bit of mineral in his own hand,
but was not looking at the light. He seemed to be indifferently
contemplating Prescott's hand as it rested on the switch.
"That, sir," replied Prescott slowly, "is an emanation due to this
new force, protodyne, which I use. It is a manifestation of energy,
sir, that may run changes not only through the whole gamut of the
elements, but is capable of transforming the ether itself into
matter, matter into life, and life into mind. It is the outward
sign of the unity of nature, the - "
"The means by which you secure the curious telepagrams I have heard
of?" inquired Kennedy eagerly.
Prescott looked at him sharply, and for a moment I thought his face
seemed to change from a livid white to an apoplectic red, although
it may have been only the play of the weird light. When he spoke
it was with no show of even suppressed surprise.
"Yes," he answered calmly. "I see that you have heard something of
them. I had a curious case a few days ago. I had hoped to interest
a certain capitalist of high standing in this city. I had showed
him just what I have showed you, and I think he was impressed by it.
Then I thought to clinch the matter by a telepagram, but for some
reason or other I failed to consult the forces I control as to the
wisdom of doing so. Had I, I should have known better. But I went
ahead in self-confidence and enthusiasm. I told him of a long
banished daughter with whom, in his heart, he was really wishing to
become reconciled but was too proud to say the word. He resented it.
He started to stamp out of this room, but not before I had another
telepagram which told of - a misfortune that was soon to overtake
the old man himself. If he had given me a chance I might have saved
him, at least have flashed a telepagram to that daughter myself, but
he gave me no chance. He was gone.
"I do not know precisely what happened after that, but in some way
this man found his daughter, and to-day she is living with him. As
for my hopes of getting assistance from him, I lost them from the
moment when I made my initial mistake of telling him something
distasteful. The daughter hates me and I hate her. I have learned
that she never ceases advising the old man against all schemes for
investment except those bearing moderate interest and readily
realised on. Dr. Burnham - I see you know him - has been superseded
by another doctor, I believe. Well, well, I am through with that
incident. I must get assistance from other sources. The old man,
I think, would have tricked me out of the fruits of my discovery
anyhow. Perhaps I am fortunate. Who knows?"
A knock at the door cut him short. Prescott opened it, and a
messenger boy stood there. "Is Professor Kennedy here?" he inquired.
Craig motioned to the boy, signed for the message, and tore it open.
"It is from Dr. Burnham," he exclaimed, handing the message to me.
"Mr. Haswell is dead," I read. "Looks to me like asphyxiation by
gas or some other poison. Come immediately to his house. Burnham."
"You will pardon me," broke in Craig to Prescott, who was regarding
us without the slightest trace of emotion, "but Mr. Haswell, the
old man to whom I know you referred, is dead, and Dr. Burnham wishes
to see me immediately. It was only yesterday that I saw Mr. Haswell
and he seemed in pretty good health and spirits. Prescott, though
there was no love lost between you and the old man, I would esteem
it a great favour if you would accompany me to the house. You need
not take any responsibility unless you desire."
His words were courteous enough, but Craig spoke in a tone of quiet
authority which Prescott found it impossible to deny. Kennedy had
already started to telephone to his own laboratory, describing a
certain suitcase to one of his students and giving his directions.
It was only a moment later that we were panting up the sloping
street that led from the river front. In the excitement I scarcely
noticed where we were going until we hurried up the steps to the
Haswell house.
The aged caretaker met us at the door. She was in tears. Upstairs
in the front room where we had first met the old man we found Dr.
Burnham working frantically over him. It took only a minute to
learn what had happened. The faithful Jane had noticed an odour of
gas in the hall, had traced it to Mr. Haswell's room, had found him
unconscious, and instinctively, forgetting the new Dr. Scott, had
rushed forth for Dr. Burnham. Near the bed stood Grace Martin,
pale but anxiously watching the efforts of the doctor to resuscitate
the blue-faced man who was stretched cold and motionless on the bed.
Dr. Burnham paused in his efforts as we entered. "He is dead, all
right," he whispered, aside. "I have tried everything I know to
bring him back, but he is beyond help."
There was still a sickening odour of illuminating gas in the room,
although the windows were now all open.
Kennedy, with provoking calmness in the excitement, turned from and
ignored Dr. Burnham.
"Have you summoned Dr. Scott?" he asked Mrs. Martin.
"No," she replied, surprised. "Should I have done so?"
"Yes. Send James immediately. Mr. Prescott, will you kindly be
seated for a few moments."
Taking off his coat, Kennedy advanced to the bed where the emaciated
figure lay, cold and motionless. Craig knelt down at Mr. Haswell's
head and took the inert arms, raising them up until they were
extended straight. Then he brought them down, folded upward at the
elbow at the side. Again and again he tried this Sylvester method of
inducing respiration, but with no more result than Dr. Burnham had
secured. He turned the body over on its face and tried the new
Schaefer method. There seemed to be not a spark of life left.
"Dr. Scott is out," reported the maid breathlessly, "but they are
trying to locate him from his office, and if they do they will send
him around immediately."
A ring at the doorbell caused us to think that he had been found,
but it proved to be the student to whom Kennedy had telephoned at
his own laboratory. He was carrying a heavy suitcase and a small
tank.
Kennedy opened the suitcase hastily and disclosed a little motor,
some long tubes of rubber fitting into a small rubber cap, forceps,
and other paraphernalia. The student quickly attached one tube to
the little tank, while Kennedy grasped the tongue of the dead man
with the forceps, pulled it up off the soft palate, and fitted the
rubber cap snugly over his mouth and nose.
"This is the Draeger pulmotor," he explained as he worked, "devised
to resuscitate persons who have died of electric shock, but actually
found to be of more value in cases of asphyxiation. Start the motor."
The pulmotor began to pump. One could see the dead man's chest rise
as it was inflated with oxygen forced by the accordion bellows from
the tank through one of the tubes into the lungs. Then it fell as
the oxygen and the poisonous gas were slowly sucked out through the
other tube. Again and again the process was repeated, about ten
times a minute.
Dr. Burnham looked on in undisguised amazement. He had long since
given up all hope. The man was dead, medically dead, as dead as
ever was any gas victim at this stage on whom all the usual methods
of resuscitation had been tried and had failed.
Still, minute after minute, Kennedy worked faithfully on, trying to
discover some spark of life and to fan it into flame. At last,
after what seemed to be a half-hour of unremitting effort, when the
oxygen had long since been exhausted and only fresh air was being
pumped into the lungs and out of them, there was a first faint
glimmer of life in the heart and a touch of colour in the cheeks.
Haswell was coming to. Another half-hour found him muttering and
rambling weakly.
"The letter - the letter," he moaned, rolling his glazed eyes about.
"Where is the letter? Send for Grace."
The moan was so audible that it was startling. It was like a voice
from the grave. What did it all mean? Mrs. Martin was at his side
in a moment.
"Father, father, - here I am - Grace. What do you want?"
The old man moved restlessly, feverishly, and pressed his trembling
hand to his forehead as if trying to collect his thoughts. He was
weak, but it was evident that he had been saved.
The pulmotor had been stopped. Craig threw the cap to his student
to be packed up, and as he did so he remarked quietly, "I could wish
that Dr. Scott had been found. There are some matters here that
might interest him."
He paused and looked slowly from the rescued man lying dazed on the
bed toward Mrs. Martin. It was quite apparent even to me that she
did not share the desire to see Dr. Scott, at least not just then.
She was flushed and trembling with emotion. Crossing the room
hurriedly she flung open the door into the hall.
"I am sure," she cried, controlling herself with difficulty and
catching at a straw, as it were, "that you gentlemen, even if you
have saved my father, are no friends of either his or mine. You
have merely come here in response to Dr. Burnham, and he came
because Jane lost her head in the excitement and forgot that Dr.
Scott is now our physician."
"But Dr. Scott could not have been found in time, madame,"
interposed Dr. Burnham with evident triumph.
She ignored the remark and continued to hold the door open.
"Now leave us," she implored, "you, Dr. Burnham, you, Mr. Prescott,
you, Professor Kennedy, and your friend Mr. Jameson, whoever you
may be."
She was now cold and calm. In the bewildering change of events we
had forgotten the wan figure on the bed still gasping for the breath
of life. I could not help wondering at the woman's apparent lack
of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair
come to a contest between various parties fighting by fair means or
foul for the old man's money - Scott and Mrs. Martin perhaps -=20
against Prescott and Dr. Burnham? No one moved. We seemed to be
waiting on Kennedy. Prescott and Mrs. Martin were now glaring at
each other implacably.
The old man moved restlessly on the bed, and over my shoulder I
could hear him gasp faintly, "Where's Grace? Send for Grace."
Mrs. Martin paid no attention, seemed not to hear, but stood facing
us imperiously as if waiting for us to obey her orders and leave
the house. Burnham moved toward the door, but Prescott stood his
ground with a peculiar air of defiance. Then he took my arm and
started rather precipitately, I thought, to leave.
"Come, come," said somebody behind us, "enough of the dramatics."
It was Kennedy, who had been bending down, listening to the
muttering of the old man.
"Look at those eyes of Mr. Haswell," he said. "What colour are they?"
We looked. They were blue.
"Down in the parlour," continued Kennedy leisurely, "you will find
a portrait of the long deceased Mrs. Haswell. If you will examine
that painting you will see that her eyes are also a peculiarly
limpid blue. o couple with blue eyes ever had a black-eyed child.
At least, if this is such a case, the Carnegie Institution
investigators would be glad to hear of it, for it is contrary to
all that they have discovered on the subject after years of study of
eugenics. Dark-eyed couples may have light-eyed children, but the
reverse, never. What do you say to that, madame?"
"You lie," screamed the woman, rushing frantically past us. "I am
his daughter. No interlopers shall separate us. Father!"
The old man moved feebly away from her.
"Send for Dr. Scott again," she demanded. "See if he cannot be
found. He must be found. You are all enemies, villains."
She addressed Kennedy, but included the whole room in her
denunciation.
"Not all," broke in Kennedy remorselessly. "Yes, madame, send for
Dr. Scott. Why is he not here?"
Prescott, with one hand on my arm and the other on Dr. Burnham's,
was moving toward the door.
"One moment, Prescott," interrupted Kennedy, detaining him with a
look. "There was something I was about to say when Dr. Burnham's
urgent message prevented it. I did not take the trouble even to
find out how you obtained that little globule of molten gold from
the crucible of alleged copper. There are so many tricks by which
the gold could have been 'salted' and brought forth at the right
moment that it was hardly worth while. Besides, I had satisfied
myself that my first suspicions were correct. See that?"
He held out the little piece of mineral I had already seen in his
hand in the alchemist's laboratory.
"That is a piece of willemite. It has the property of glowing
or fluorescing under a certain kind of rays which are themselves
invisible to the human eye. Prescott, your story of the
transmutation of elements is very clever, but not more clever
than your real story. Let us piece it together. I had already
heard from Dr. Burnham how Mr. Haswell was induced by his desire
for gain to visit you and how you had most mysteriously predicted
his blindness. Now, there is no such thing as telepathy, at least
in this case. How then was I to explain it? What could cause
such a catastrophe naturally? Why, only those rays invisible to
the human eye, but which make this piece of willemite glow - the
ultra-violet rays."
Kennedy was speaking rapidly and was careful not to pause long
enough to give Prescott an opportunity to interrupt him.
"These ultra-violet rays," he continued, "are always present in an
electric arc light though not to a great degree unless the carbons
have metal cores. They extend for two octaves above the violet of
the spectrum and are too short to affect the eye as light, although
they affect photographic plates. They are the friend of man when
he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light
treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them -=20
particularly the shorter of the rays - enter the eye is to invite
trouble. There is no warning sense of discomfort, but from six to
eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences
violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously
impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure
results in blindness, though a moderate exposure acts like a tonic.
The rays may be compared in this double effect to drugs, such as
strychnine. Too much of them may be destructive even to life itself."
Prescott had now paused and was regarding Kennedy contemptuously.
Kennedy paid no attention, but continued: "Perhaps these mysterious
rays may shed some light on our minds, however. Now, for one thing,
ultra-violet light passes readily through quartz, but is cut off by
ordinary glass, especially if it is coated with chromium. Old Mr.
Haswell did not wear glasses. Therefore he was subject to the rays
- the more so as he is a blond, and I think it has been demonstrated
by investigators that blonds are more affected by them than are
brunettes.
"You have, as a part of your machine, a peculiarly shaped quartz
mercury vapour lamp, and the mercury vapour lamp of a design such
as that I saw has been invented for the especial purpose of
producing ultra-violet rays in large quantity. There are also in
your machine induction coils for the purpose of making an impressive
noise, and a small electric furnace to heat the salted gold. I
don't know what other ingenious fakes you have added. The visible
bluish light from the tube is designed, I suppose, to hoodwink the
credulous, but the dangerous thing about it is the invisible ray
that accompanies that light. Mr. Haswell sat under those invisible
rays, Prescott, never knowing how deadly they might be to him, an
old man.
"You knew that they would not take effect for hours, and hence you
ventured the prediction that he would be stricken at about midnight.
Even if it was partial or temporary, still you would be safe in
your prophecy. You succeeded better than you hoped in that part of
your scheme. You had already prepared the way by means of a letter
sent to Mr. Haswell through Dr. Burnham. But Mr. Haswell's credulity
and fear worked the wrong way. Instead of appealing to you he hated
you. In his predicament he thought only of his banished daughter
and turned instinctively to her for help. That made necessary a
quick change of plans."
Prescott, far from losing his nerve, turned on us bitterly. "I knew
you two were spies the moment I saw you," he shouted. "It seemed as
if in some way I knew you for what you were, as if I knew you had
seen Mr. Haswell before you came to me. You, too, would have robbed
an inventor as I am sure he would. But have a care, both of you.
You may be punished also by blindness for your duplicity. Who knows?"
A shudder passed over me at the horrible thought contained in his
mocking laugh. Were we doomed to blindness, too? I looked at the
sightless man on the bed in alarm.
"I knew that you would know us," retorted Kennedy calmly. "Therefore
we came provided with spectacles of Euphos glass, precisely like
those you wear. No, Prescott, we are safe, though perhaps we may
have some burns like those red blotches on Mr. Haswell, light burns."
Prescott had fallen back a step and Mrs. Martin was making an effort
to appear stately and end the interview.
"No," continued Craig, suddenly wheeling, and startling us by the
abruptness of his next exposure, "it is you and your wife here - Mrs.
Prescott, not Mrs. Martin - who must have a care. Stop glaring at
each other. It is no use playing at enemies longer and trying to
get rid of us. You overdo it. The game is up."
Prescott made a rush at Kennedy, who seized him by the wrist and
held him tightly in a grasp of steel that caused the veins on the
back of his hands to stand out like whipcords.
"This is a deep-laid plot," he went on calmly, still holding
Prescott, while I backed up against the door and cut off his wife;
"but it is not so difficult to see it after all. Your part was to
destroy the eyesight of the old man, to make it necessary for him
to call on his daughter. Your wife's part was to play the role of
Mrs. Martin, whom he had not seen for years and could not see now.
She was to persuade him, with her filial affection, to make her the
beneficiary of his will, to see that his money was kept readily
convertible into cash.
"Then, when the old man was at last out of the way, you two could
decamp with what you could realise before the real daughter, cut
off somewhere across the continent, could hear of the death of her
father. It was an excellent scheme. But Haswell's plain, material
newspaper advertisement was not so effective for your purposes,
Prescott, as the more artistic 'telepagram,' as you call it.
Although you two got in first in answering the advertisement, it
finally reached the right person after all. You didn't get away
quickly enough.
"You were not expecting that the real daughter would see it and
turn up so soon. But she has. She lives in California. Mr.
Haswell in his delirium has just told of receiving a telegram which
I suppose you, Mrs. Prescott, read, destroyed, and acted upon. It
hurried your plans, but you were equal to the emergency. Besides,
possession is nine points in the law. You tried the gas, making it
look like a suicide. Jane, in her excitement, spoiled that, and
Dr. Burnham, knowing where I was, as it happened, was able to
summon me immediately. Circumstances have been against you from
the first, Prescott."
Craig was slowly twisting up the hand of the inventor, which he
still held. With his other hand he pulled a paper from his pocket.
It was the old envelope on which he had written upon the occasion
of our first visit to Mr. Haswell when we had been so unceremoniously
interrupted by the visit of Dr. Scott.
"I sat here yesterday by this bed," continued Craig, motioning
toward the chair he had occupied, as I remembered. "Mr. Haswell was
telling Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it.
But the old man grasped the doctor by the wrist to pull him closer
to whisper to him. The doctor's hand was toward me and I noticed
the peculiar markings of the veins.
"You perhaps are not acquainted with the fact, but the markings of
the veins in the back of the hand are peculiar to each individual
- as infallible, indestructible, and ineffaceable as finger prints or
the shape of the ear. It is a system invented and developed by
Professor Tamassia of the University of Padua, Italy. A superficial
observer would say that all vein patterns were essentially similar,
and many have said so, but Tamassia has found each to be
characteristic and all subject to almost incredible diversities.
There are six general classes in this case before us, two large
veins crossed by a few secondary veins forming a V with its base
near the wrist.
"Already my suspicions had been aroused. I sketched the arrangement
of the veins standing out on that hand. I noted the same thing just
now on the hand that manipulated the fake apparatus in the
laboratory. Despite the difference in make-up Scott and Prescott
are the same.
"The invisible rays of the ultra-violet light may have blinded Mr.
Haswell, even to the recognition of his own daughter, but you can
rest assured, Prescott, that the very cleverness of your scheme will
penetrate the eyes of the blindfolded goddess of justice. Burnham,
if you will have the kindness to summon the police, I will take all
the responsibility for the arrest of these people."
XII
THE CAMPAIGN GRAFTER
"What a relief it will be when this election is over and the
newspapers print news again," I growled as I turned the first page
of the Star with a mere glance at the headlines.
"Yes," observed Kennedy, who was puzzling over a note which he had
received in the morning mail. "This is the bitterest campaign in
years. Now, do you suppose that they are after me in a professional
way or are they trying to round me up as an independent voter?"
The letter which had called forth this remark was headed, "The
Travis Campaign Committee of the Reform League," and, as Kennedy
evidently intended me to pass an opinion on it, I picked it up.
It was only a few lines, requesting him to call during the morning,
if convenient, on Wesley Travis, the candidate for governor and
the treasurer of his campaign committee, Dean Bennett. It had
evidently been written in great haste in longhand the night before.
"Professional," I hazarded. "There must be some scandal in the
campaign for which they require your services."
"I suppose so," agreed Craig. "Well, if it is business instead of
politics it has at least this merit it is current business. I
suppose you have no objection to going with me?"
Thus it came about that not very much later in the morning we found
ourselves at the campaign headquarters, in the presence of two
nervous and high-keyed gentlemen in frock coats and silk hats. It
would have taken no great astuteness, even without seeing the
surroundings, to deduce instantly that they were engaged in the
annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for
something or other, and were nearly worn out by the arduous nature
of that process.
Their headquarters were in a tower of a skyscraper, whence poured
forth a torrent of appeal to the moral sense of the electorate,
both in printed and oral form. Yet there was a different tone to
the place from that which I had ordinarily associated with political
headquarters in previous campaigns. There was an absence of the
old-fashioned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with
tobacco. Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency
which was decidedly prepossessing. Maps of the state were hanging
on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins denoting
the condition of the canvass. A map of the city in colours, divided
into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the
stronghold of the boss, Billy McLoughlin. Huge systems of card
indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting
out a vast mass of campaign "literature" in a hurry, in short a
perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have
been proud of, were in evidence everywhere.
Wesley Travis was a comparatively young man a lawyer who had early
made a mark in politics and had been astute enough to shake off
the thraldom of the bosses before the popular uprising against them.
Now he was the candidate of the Reform League for governor and a
good stiff campaign he was putting up.
His campaign manager, Dean Bennett, was a business man whose
financial interests were opposed to those usually understood to be
behind Billy McLoughlin, of the regular party to which both Travis
and Bennett might naturally have been supposed to belong in the
old days. Indeed the Reform League owed its existence to a fortunate
conjunction of both moral and economic conditions demanding progress.
"Things have been going our way up to the present," began Travis
confidentially, when we were seated democratically with our campaign
cigars lighted. "Of course we haven't such a big 'barrel' as our
opponents, for we are not frying the fat out of the corporations.
But the people have supported us nobly, and I think the opposition
of the vested interests has been a great help. We seem to be
winning, and I say 'seem' only because one can never be certain how
anything is going in this political game nowadays.
"You recall, Mr. Kennedy, reading in the papers that my country
house out on Long Island was robbed the other day? Some of the
reporters made much of it. To tell the truth, I think they had
become so satiated with sensations that they were sure that the
thing was put up by some muckrakers and that there would be an
expose of some kind. For the thief, whoever he was, seems to have
taken nothing from my library but a sort of scrap-book or album of
photographs. It was a peculiar robbery, but as I had nothing to
conceal it didn't worry me. Well, I had all but forgotten it when
a fellow came into Bennett's office here yesterday and demanded
- tell us what it was, Bennett. You saw him."
Bennett cleared his throat. "You see, it was this way. He gave
his name as Harris Hanford and described himself as a photographer.
I think he has done work for Billy McLoughlin. At any rate, his
offer was to sell us several photographs, and his story about them
was very circumstantial. He hinted that they had been evidently
among those stolen from Mr. Travis and that in a roundabout way
they had come into the possession of a friend of his without his
knowing who the thief was. He said that he had not made the
photographs himself, but had an idea by whom they were made, that
the original plates had been destroyed, but that the person who
made them was ready to swear that the pictures were taken after
the nominating convention this fall which had named Travis. At any
rate the photographs were out and the price for them was $25,000."
"What are they that he should set such a price on them?" asked
Kennedy, keenly looking from Bennett quickly to Travis.
Travis met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be
photographs of myself," he replied slowly. "One purports to
represent me in a group on McLoughlin's porch at his farm on the
south shore of the island, about twenty miles from my place. As
Hanford described it, I am standing between McLoughlin and J.
Cadwalader Brown, the trust promoter who is backing McLoughlin to
save his investments. Brown's hand is on my shoulder and we are
talking familiarly. Another is a picture of Brown, McLoughlin,
and myself riding in Brown's car, and in it Brown and I are
evidently on the best of terms. Oh, there are several of them, all
in the same vein. Now," he added, and his voice rose with emotion
as if he were addressing a cart-tail meeting which must be convinced
that there was nothing criminal in riding in a motor-car, "I don't
hesitate to admit that a year or so ago I was not on terms of
intimacy with these men, but at least acquainted with them. At
various times, even as late as last spring, I was present at
conferences over the presidential outlook in this state, and once
I think I did ride back to the city with them. But I know that
there were no pictures taken, and even if there had been I would
not care if they told the truth about them. I have frankly admitted
in=20my speeches that I knew these men, that my knowledge of them and
breaking from them is my chief qualification for waging an effective
war on them if I am elected. They hate me cordially. You know that.
What I do care about is the sworn allegation that now accompanies
these - these fakes. They were not, could not have been taken after
the independent convention that nominated me. If the photographs
were true I would be a fine traitor. But I haven't even seen
McLoughlin or Brown since last spring. The whole thing is a - "
"Lie from start to finish," put in Bennett emphatically. "Yes,
Travis, we all know that. I'd quit right now if I didn't believe
in you. But let us face the facts. Here is this story, sworn to
as Hanford says and apparently acquiesced in by Billy McLoughlin
and Cad. Brown. What do they care anyhow as long as it is against
you? And there, too, are the pictures themselves - at least they
will be in print or suppressed, according as we act. Now, you know
that nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have an
issue like this raised at this time. We were supposed at least to
be on the level, with nothing to explain away. There may be just
enough people to believe that there is some basis for this suspicion
to turn the tide against us. If it were earlier in the campaign
I'd say accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn
of events we should really have the best campaign material. But it
is too late now to expose such a knavish trick of theirs on the
Friday before election. Frankly, I believe discretion is the better
part of valour in this case and without abating a jot of my faith
in you, Travis, well, I'd pay first and expose the fraud afterward,
after the election, at leisure."
"No, I won't," persisted Travis, shutting his square jaw doggedly.
"I won't be held up."
The door had opened and a young lady in a very stunning street
dress, with a huge hat and a tantalising veil, stood in it for a
moment, hesitated, and then was about to shut it with an apology for
intruding on a conference.
"I'll fight it if it takes my last dollar," declared Travis, "but I
won't be blackmailed out of a cent. Good-morning, Miss Ashton. I'll
be free in a moment. I'll see you in your office directly."
The girl, with a portfolio of papers in her hand, smiled, and Travis
quickly crossed the room and held the door deferentially open as he
whispered a word or two. When she had disappeared he returned and
remarked, "I suppose you have heard of Miss Margaret Ashton, the
suffragette leader, Mr. Kennedy? She is the head of our press
bureau." Then a heightened look of determination set his fine face
in hard lines, and he brought his fist down on the desk. "No, not
a cent," he thundered.
Bennett shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and looked at Kennedy in
mock resignation as if to say, "What can you do with such a fellow?"
Travis was excitedly pacing the floor and waving his arms as if he
were addressing a meeting in the enemy's country. "Hanford comes
at us in this way," he continued, growing more excited as he paced
up and down. "He says plainly that the pictures will of course be
accepted as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, he
is right. The public will swallow it. When Bennett told him I
would prosecute he laughed and said, 'Go ahead. I didn't steal the
pictures. That would be a great joke for Travis to seek redress
from the courts he is criticising. I guess he'd want to recall the
decision if it went against him hey?' Hanford says that a hundred
copies have been made of each of the photographs and that this
person, whom we do not know, has them ready to drop into the mail to
the one hundred leading papers of the state in time for them to
appear in the Monday editions just before Election Day. He says no
amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect - or at least
he went further and said 'shake their validity.'
"But I repeat. They are false. For all I know, it is a plot of
McLoughlin's, the last fight of a boss for his life, driven into a
corner. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter.
Pictures appeal to the eye and mind much more than letters. That's
what makes the thing so dangerous. Billy McLoughlin knows how to
make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election, and
even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid
the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten
see such a charge to one who sees the denial."
"Just so," persisted Bennett coolly. "You admit that we are
practically helpless. That's what I have been saying all along.
Get control of the prints first, Travis, for God's sake. Then raise
any kind of a howl you want - before election or after. As I say,
if we had a week or two it might be all right to fight. But we can
make no move without making fools of ourselves until they are
published Monday as the last big thing of the campaign. The rest
of Monday and the Tuesday morning papers do not give us time to
reply. Even if they were published to-day we should hardly have
time to expose the plot, hammer it in, and make the issue an asset
instead of a liability. No, you must admit it yourself. There
isn't time. We must carry out the work we have so carefully planned
to cap the campaign, and if we are diverted by this it means a
let-up in our final efforts, and that is as good as McLoughlin wants
anyhow. Now, Kennedy, don't you agree with me? Squelch the pictures
now at any cost, then follow the thing up and, if we can, prosecute
after election?"
Kennedy and I, who had been so far little more than interested
spectators, had not presumed to interrupt. Finally Craig asked,
"You have copies of the pictures?"
"No," replied Bennett. "This Hanford is a brazen fellow, but he was
too astute to leave them. I saw them for an instant. They look bad.
And the affidavits with them look worse."
"H'm," considered Kennedy, turning the crisis over in his mind.
"We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged
stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you
are alarmed, Bennett, nor that you want to fight, Travis."
"Then you will take up the case?" urged the latter eagerly,
forgetting both his campaign manager and his campaign manners, and
leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the
words of the foreman of the jury. "You will trace down the forger
of those pictures before it is too late?"
"I haven't said I'll do that yet," answered Craig measuredly. "I
haven't even said I'd take up the case. Politics is a new game to
me, Mr. Travis. If I go into this thing I want to go into it and
stay in it - well, you know how you lawyers put it, with clean hands.
On one condition I'll take the matter up, and on only one."
"Name it," cried Travis anxiously.
"Of course, having been retained by you," continued Craig with
provoking slowness, "it is not reasonable to suppose that if I find
- how shall I put it - bluntly, yes? - if I find that the story of
Hanford has some - er - foundation, it is not reasonable to suppose
that I should desert you and go over to the other side. Neither is
it to be supposed that I will continue and carry such a thing
through for you regardless of truth. What I ask is to have a free
hand, to be able to drop the case the moment I cannot proceed
further in justice to myself, drop it, and keep my mouth shut. You
understand? These are my conditions and no less."
"And you think you can make good?" questioned Bennett rather
sceptically. "You are willing to risk it? You don't think it would
be better to wait until after the election is won?"
"You have heard my conditions," reiterated Craig.
"Done," broke in Travis. "I'm going to fight it out, Bennett. If
we get in wrong by dickering with them at the start it may be worse
for us in the end. Paying amounts to confession."
Bennett shook his head dubiously. "I'm afraid this will suit
McLoughlin's purpose just as well. Photographs are like statistics.
They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard
to tell what a liar can accomplish with either in an election."
"Say' Dean, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Travis.
"You're not offended at my kicking over the traces, are you?"
Bennett rose, placed a hand on Travis's shoulder, and grasped his
other. "Wesley," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't desert you even if
the pictures were true."
"I knew it," responded Travis heartily. "Then let Mr. Kennedy have
one day to see what he can do. Then if we make no progress we'll
take your advice, Dean. We'll pay, I suppose, and ask Mr. Kennedy
to continue the case after next Tuesday."
"With the proviso," put in Craig.
"With the proviso, Kennedy," repeated Travis. "Your hand on that.
Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of
this state since I was nominated, but this means more to me than
any of them. Call on us, either Bennett or myself, the moment you
need aid. Spare no reasonable expense, and - and get the goods, no
matter whom it hits higher up, even if it is Cadwalader Brown
himself. Good-bye and a thousand thanks oh, by the way, wait. Let
me take you around and introduce you to Miss Ashton. She may be
able to help you."
The office of Bennett and Travis was in the centre of the suite.
On one side were the cashier and clerical force as well as the
speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting=20
instruction, tours were being laid out, and reports received from
meetings already held.
On the other side was the press bureau with a large and active force
in charge of Miss Ashton, who was supporting Travis because he had
most emphatically declared for "Votes for Women" and had insisted
that his party put this plank in its platform. Miss Ashton was a
clever girl, a graduate of a famous woman's college, and had had
several years of newspaper experience before she became a leader in
the suffrage cause. I recalled having read and heard a great deal
about her, though I had never met her. The Ashtons were well known
in New York society, and it was a sore trial to some of her
conservative friends that she should reject what they considered
the proper "sphere" for women. Among those friends, I understood,
was Cadwalader Brown himself.
Travis had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I scented
a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic conduct of a campaign press
bureau. It is far from my intention to minimise the work or the
ability of the head of the press bureau, but it struck me, both then
and later, that the candidate had an extraordinary interest in the
newspaper campaign, much more than in the speakers' bureau, and I am
sure that it was not solely accounted for by the fact that publicity
is playing a more and more important part in political campaigning.
Nevertheless such innovations as her card index system by election
districts all over the state, showing the attitude of the various
newspaper editors, of local political leaders, and changes of
sentiment, were very full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular
pigeon-hole mind for facts, was visibly impressed by this huge
mechanical memory built up by Miss Ashton. Though he said nothing
to me I knew he had also observed the state of affairs between the
reform candidate and the suffrage leader.
It was at a moment when Travis had been called back to his office
that Kennedy, who had been eyeing Miss Ashton with marked approval,
leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can
trust you. Do you want to do a great favour for Mr. Travis?"
She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her face what the
true state of her feelings was, although I fancied that the
readiness of her assent had perhaps more meaning than she would
have placed in a simple "Yes" otherwise.
"I suppose you know that an attempt is being made to blackmail Mr.
Travis?" added Kennedy quickly.
"I know something about it," she replied in a tone which left it
for granted that Travis had told her before even we were called
in. I felt that not unlikely Travis's set determination to fight
might be traceable to her advice or at least to her opinion of him.
"I suppose in a large force like this it is not impossible that
your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy,
glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting
out "literature."
"I have sometimes thought that myself," she agreed. "But of course
I don't know. Still, I have to be pretty careful. Some one is
always over here by my desk or looking over here. There isn't
much secrecy in a big room like this. I never leave important stuff
lying about where any of them could see it.
"Yes," mused Kennedy. "What time does the office close?"
"We shall finish to-night about nine, I think. To-morrow it may be
later."
"Well, then, if I should call here to-night at, say, half-past nine,
could you be here? I need hardly say that your doing so may be of
inestimable value to - to the campaign."
"I shall be here," she promised, giving her hand with a peculiar
straight arm shake and looking him frankly in the face with those
eyes which even the old guard in the legislature admitted were
vote-winners.
Kennedy was not quite ready to leave yet, but sought out Travis and
obtained permission to glance over the financial end of the campaign.
There were few large contributors to Travis's fund, but a host of
small sums ranging from ten and twenty-five dollars down to dimes
and nickels. Truly it showed the depth of the popular uprising.
Kennedy also glanced hastily over the items of expense - rent,
salaries, stenographer and office force, advertising, printing and
stationery, postage, telephone, telegraph, automobile and travelling
expenses, and miscellaneous matters.
As Kennedy expressed it afterwards, as against the small driblets
of money coming in, large sums were going out for expenses in lumps.
Campaigning in these days costs money even when done honestly. The
miscellaneous account showed some large indefinite items, and after
a hasty calculation Kennedy made out that if all the obligations had
to be met immediately the committee would be in the hole for several
thousand dollars.
"In short," I argued as we were leaving, "this will either break
Travis privately or put his fund in hopeless shape. Or does it
mean that he foresees defeat and is taking this way to recoup himself
under cover of being held up?"
Kennedy said nothing in response to my suspicions, though I could
see that in his mind he was leaving no possible clue unnoted.
It was only a few blocks to the studio of Harris Hanford, whom
Kennedy was now bent on seeing. We found him in an old building on
one of the side streets in the thirties which business had captured.
His was a little place on the top floor, up three flights of stairs,
and I noticed as we climbed up that the room next to his was vacant.
Our interview with Hanford was short and unsatisfactory. He either
was or at least posed as representing a third party in the affair,
and absolutely refused to permit us to have even a glance at the
photographs.
"My dealings," he asserted airily, "must all be with Mr. Bennett,
or with Mr. Travis, direct, not with emissaries. I don't make any
secret about it. The prints are not here. They are safe and ready
to be produced at the right time, either to be handed over for the
money or to be published in the newspapers. We have found out all
about them; we are satisfied, although the negatives have been
destroyed. As for their having been stolen from Travis, you can put
two and two together. They are out and copies have been made of
them, good copies. If Mr. Travis wishes to repudiate them, let him
start proceedings. I told Bennett all about that. To-morrow is the
last day, and I must have Bennett's answer then, without any
interlopers coming into it. If it is yes, well and good; if not,
then they know what to expect. Good-bye."
It was still early in the forenoon, and Kennedy's next move was to
go out on Long Island to examine the library at Travis's from which
the pictures were said to have been stolen. At the laboratory
Kennedy and I loaded ourselves with a large oblong black case
containing a camera and a tripod.
His examination of the looted library was minute, taking in the
window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet
he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally Craig set
up his camera with most particular care and took several photographs
of the window, the cabinet, the doors, including the room from every
angle. Outside he snapped the two sides of the corner of the house
in which the library was situated. Partly by trolley and partly by
carriage we crossed the island to the south shore, and finally found
McLoughlin's farm, where we had no trouble in getting half a dozen
photographs of the porch and house. Altogether the proceedings
seemed tame to me, yet I knew from previous experience that Kennedy
had a deep laid purpose.
We parted in the city, to meet just before it was time to visit Miss
Ashton. Kennedy had evidently employed the interval in developing
his plates, for he now had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the
same size, mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and
figures on all four sides. He saw me puzzling over them.
"Those are metric photographs such as Bertillon of Paris takes," he
explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other methods
that have been worked out we can determine from those pictures
distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the
spot itself. Bertillon has cleared up many crimes with this help,
such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and
other cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank
with the portrait parle, finger prints, and the rest.
"For instance, in order to solve the riddle of a crime the
detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans
and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each
object is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of
the camera is called into requisition. The plundered room is
photographed, as in this case. I might have done it by placing a
foot rule on a table and taking that in the picture, but a more
scientific and accurate method has been devised by Bertillon. His
camera lens is always used at a fixed height from the ground and
forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The print made
from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of definite size,
along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In the way he
has worked it out the distance between any two points in the picture
can be determined. With a topographical plan and a metric
photograph one can study a crime as a general studies the map of a
strange country. There were several peculiar things that I observed
to-day, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the
crime. Preserved in this way it cannot be questioned.
"Now the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets,
but none of them has been disturbed. Therefore the thief must have
known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock
were not those of a jimmy but of a screwdriver. No amazing command
of the resources of science is needed so far. All that is necessary
is a little scientific common sense, Walter.
"Now, how did the robber get in? All the windows and doors were
supposedly locked. It is alleged that a pane was cut from this
window at the side. It was, and the pieces were there to show it.
But take a glance at this outside photograph. To reach that window
even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There
are no marks of a ladder or of any person in the soft soil under
the window. What is more, that window was cut from the inside. The
marks of the diamond which cut it plainly show that. Scientific
common sense again."
"Then it must have been some one in the house or at least some one
familiar with it?"I exclaimed.
Kennedy nodded. "One thing we have which the police greatly
neglect," he pursued, "a record. We have made some progress in
reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon calls it. If we only had
those Hanford pictures we should be all right."
We were now on our way to see Miss Ashton at headquarters, and as
we rode downtown I tried to reason out the case. Had it really
been a put-up job? Was Travis himself faking, and was the robbery
a "plant" by which he might forestall exposure of what had become
public property in the hands of another, no longer disposed to
conceal it? Or was it after all the last desperate blow of the
Boss?
The whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind.
Although Kennedy seemed to have made little real progress, I felt
that, far from aiding Travis, it made things darker. There was
nothing but his unsupported word that he had not visited the Boss
subsequent to the nominating convention. He admitted having done
so before the Reform League came into existence. Besides it
seemed tacitly understood that both the Boss and Cadwalader Brown
acquiesced in the sworn statement of the man who said he had made
the pictures. Added to that the mere existence of the actual
pictures themselves was a graphic clincher to the story. Personally,
if I had been in Kennedy's place I think I should have taken
advantage of the proviso in the compact with Travis to back out
gracefully. Kennedy, however, now started on the case, hung to it
tenaciously.
Miss Ashton was waiting for us at the press bureau. Her desk was
at the middle of one end of the room in which, if she could keep
an eye on her office force, the office force also could keep an eye
on her.
Kennedy had apparently taken in the arrangement during our morning
visit, for he set to work immediately. The side of the room toward
the office of Travis and Bennett presented an expanse of blank wall.
With a mallet he quickly knocked a hole in the rough plaster, just
above the baseboard about the room. The hole did not penetrate
quite through to the other side. In it he placed a round disc of
vulcanised rubber, with insulated wires leading down back of the
baseboard, then out underneath it, and under the carpet. Some
plaster quickly closed up the cavity in the wall, and he left it to
dry.
Next he led the wires under the carpet to Miss Ashton's desk.
There they ended, under the carpet and a rug, eighteen or twenty
huge coils several feet in diameter disposed in such a way as to
attract no attention by a curious foot on the carpet which covered
them.
"That is all, Miss Ashton," he said as we watched for his next
move. "I shall want to see you early to-morrow, and, might I ask
you to be sure to wear that hat which you have on?"
It was a very becoming hat, but Kennedy's tone clearly indicated
that it was not his taste in inverted basket millinery that prompted
the request. She promised, smiling, for even a suffragette may like
pretty hats.
Craig had still to see Travis and report on his work. The candidate
was waiting anxiously at his hotel after a big political mass
meeting on the East Side, at which capitalism and the bosses had
been hissed to the echo, if that is possible.
"'What success?" inquired Travis eagerly.
"I'm afraid," replied Kennedy, and the candidate's face fell at
the tone, "I'm afraid you will have to meet them, for the present.
The time limit will expire to-morrow, and I understand Hanford
is coming up for a final answer. We must have copies of those
photographs, even if we have to pay for them. There seems to be
no other way."
Travis sank back in his chair and regarded Kennedy hopelessly. He
was actually pale. "you - you don't mean to say that there is no
other way, that I'll have to admit even before Bennett - and others
that I'm in bad?"
"I wouldn't put it that way," said Kennedy mercilessly, I thought.
"It is that way," Travis asserted almost fiercely. "Why, we could
have done that anyhow. No, no, - I don't mean that. Pardon me.
I'm upset by this. Go ahead," he sighed.
"You will direct Bennett to make the best terms he can with Hanford
when he comes up to-morrow. Have him arrange the details of payment
and then rush the best copies of the photographs to me."
Travis seemed crushed.
We met Miss Ashton the following morning entering her office.
Kennedy handed her a package, and in a few words, which I did not
hear, explained what he wanted, promising to call again later.
When we called, the girls and other clerks had arrived, and the
office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the
campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped
out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrap-books,
circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final
appeal. The room was indeed crowded, and I felt that there was no
doubt, as Kennedy had said, that nothing much could go on there
unobserved by any one to whose interest it was to see it.
Miss Ashton was sitting at her desk with her hat on directing the
work. "It works," she remarked enigmatically to Kennedy.
"Good," he replied. "I merely dropped in to be sure. Now if
anything of interest happens, Miss Ashton, I wish you would let
me know immediately. I must not be seen up here, but I shall be
waiting downstairs in the corridor of the building. My next move
depends entirely on what you have to report."
Downstairs Craig waited with growing impatience. We stood in an
angle in which we could see without being readily seen, and our
impatience was not diminished by seeing Hanford enter the elevator.
I think that Miss Ashton would have made an excellent woman
detective, that is, on a case in which her personal feelings were
not involved as they were here. She was pale and agitated as she
appeared in the corridor, and Kennedy hurried toward her.
"I can't believe it. I won't believe it," she managed to say.
"Tell me, what happened?" urged Kennedy soothingly.
"Oh, Mr. Kennedy, why did you ask me to do this?" she reproached.
"I would almost rather not have known it at all."
"Believe me, Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is
on you that I depend most. We saw Hanford go up. What occurred?"
She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Mr. Bennett came in
about quarter to ten. He stopped to talk to me and looked about
the room curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a
time. Then he locked the door leading from the press bureau to
his office, and left word that he was not to be disturbed. A few
minutes later a man called."
"Yes, yes," prompted Kennedy. "Hanford, no doubt."
She was racing on breathlessly, scarcely giving one a chance to
inquire how she had learned so much.
"Why," she cried with a sort of defiant ring in her tone, "Mr.
Travis is going to buy those pictures after all. And the worst of
it is that I met him in the hall coming in as I was coming down here,
and he tried to act toward me in the same old way and that after all
I know now about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting
for Mr. Travis, and this Mr. Hanford. They are even going to ask me
to carry the money in a sealed envelope to the studio of this fellow
Hanford, to be given to a third person who will be there at two
o'clock this afternoon."
"You, Miss Ashton?" inquired Kennedy, a light breaking on his face
as if at last he saw something.
"Yes, I," she repeated. "Hanford insisted that it was part of the
compact. They - they haven't asked me openly yet to be the means
of carrying out their dirty deals, but when they do, I won't - "
"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy, "I beg you to be calm. I had
no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please.
Walter, you will excuse us if we take a turn down the corridor
and out in the air. This is most extraordinary."
For five or ten minutes Kennedy and Miss Ashton appeared to be
discussing the new turn of events earnestly, while I waited
impatiently. As they approached again she seemed calmer, but I
heard her say, "I hope you're right. I'm all broken up by it. I'm
ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't
expose Wesley Travis for his sake. It cuts me to have to admit it,
but Cadwalader used always to say that every man has his price. I
am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through
it to the woman suffrage cause which cast its lot with this party.
I - I can hardly believe"
Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he
implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of
politics is loyalty. Wait until "
"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Wesley Travis for giving
in - more than I hate Cadwalader Brown for his cynical disregard of
honesty in others."
She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had
heard had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet
of her idol had turned to clay. Nevertheless it was evident that
she was coming to look on it more as she would if she were an
outsider.
"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "They won't ask you right
away. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret
it."
Craig's next problem seemed to be to transfer the scene of his
operations to Hanford's studio. He was apparently doing some rapid
thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did
not venture to question him on what had occurred when it was so
evident that everything depended on being prepared for what was
still to occur.
Hanford was out. That seemed to please Kennedy, for with a
brightening face, which told more surely than words that he saw his
way more and more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire
the vacant office next to the studio while he went uptown to
complete his arrangements for the final step.
I had completed my part and was waiting in the empty room when he
returned. He lost no time in getting to work, and it seemed to me
as I watched him curiously in silence that he was repeating what
he had already done at the Travis headquarters. He was boring into
the wall, only this time he did it much more carefully, and it was
evident that if he intended putting anything into this cavity it
must be pretty large. The hole was square, and as I bent over I
could see that he had cut through the plaster and laths all the way
to the wallpaper on the other side, though he was careful to leave
that intact. Then he set up a square black box in the cavity,
carefully poising it and making measurements that told of the exact
location of its centre with reference to the partitions and walls.
A skeleton key took us into Hanford's well-lighted but now empty
studio. For Miss Ashton's sake I wished that the photographs had
been there. I am sure Kennedy would have found slight compunction
in a larceny of them, if they had been. It was something entirely
different that he had in mind now, however, and he was working
quickly for fear of discovery. By his measurements I guessed that
he was calculating as nearly as possible the centre of the box
which he had placed in the hole in the wall on the other side of
the dark wallpaper. When he had quite satisfied himself he took a
fine pencil from his pocket and made a light cross on the paper to
indicate it. The dot fell to the left of a large calendar hanging
on the wall.
Kennedy's appeal to Margaret Ashton had evidently had its effect,
for when we saw her a few moments after these mysterious preparations
she had overcome her emotion.
"They have asked me to carry a note to Mr. Hanford's studio," she
said quietly, "and without letting them know that I know anything
about it I have agreed to do so."
"Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, greatly relieved, "you're a trump."
"No," she replied, smiling faintly, "I'm just feminine enough to
be curious."
Craig shook his head, but did not dispute the point. "After you
have handed the envelope to the person, whoever it may be, in
Hanford's studio, wait until he does something - er - suspicious.
Meanwhile look at the wall on the side toward the next vacant office.
To the left of the big calendar you will see a light pencil mark, a
cross. Somehow you must contrive to get near it, but don't stand in
front of it. Then if anything happens stick this little number 10
needle in the wall right at the intersection of the cross. Withdraw
it quickly, count fifteen, then put this little sticker over the
cross, and get out as best you can, though we shan't be far away if
you should need us. That's all."
We did not accompany her to the studio for fear of being observed,
but waited impatiently in the next office. We could hear nothing
of what was said, but when a door shut and it was evident that she
had gone, Kennedy quickly removed something from the box in the wall
covered with a black cloth.
As soon as it was safe Kennedy had sent me posting after her to
secure copies of the incriminating photographs which were to be
carried by her from the studio, while he remained to see who came
out. I thought a change had come over her as she handed me the
package with the request that I carry it to Mr. Bennett and get them
from him.
The first inkling I had that Kennedy had at last been able to trace
back something in the mysterious doings of the past two days came
the following evening, when Craig remarked casually that he would
like to have me call on Billy McLoughlin if I had no engagement.
I replied that I had none and managed to squirm out of the one I
really had.
The Boss's office was full of politicians, for it was the eve of
"dough day," when the purse strings were loosed and a flood of
potent argument poured forth to turn the tide of election. Hanford
was there with the other ward heelers.
"Mr. McLoughlin," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone
with Hanford in the little sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me
if I seem a little slow in coming to the business that has brought
me here to-night. First of all, I may say, and you, Hanford, being
a photographer will appreciate it, that ever since the days of
Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means
of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed a
photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For when
everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens
almost invariably turns the tide. However, such a picture upon
which the fate of an important case may rest should be subjected
to critical examination for it is an established fact that a
photograph may be made as untruthful as it may be reliable.
Combination photographs change entirely the character of the initial
negative and have been made for the past fifty years. The earliest,
simplest, and most harmless photographic deception is the printing
of clouds into a bare sky. But the retoucher with his pencil and
etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of ordinary skill
can introduce a person taken in a studio into an open-air scene well
blended and in complete harmony without a visible trace of falsity.
"I need say nothing of how one head can be put on another body in
a picture, nor need I say what a double exposure will do. There
is almost no limit to the changes that may be wrought in form and
feature. It is possible to represent a person crossing Broadway
or walking on Riverside Drive, places he may never have visited.
Thus a person charged with an offence may be able to prove an
alibi by the aid of a skilfully prepared combination photograph.
"Where, then, can photography be considered as irrefutable evidence?
The realism may convince all, will convince all, except the expert
and the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will insist
that in every case the negative be submitted and examined for
possible alterations by a clever manipulator."
Kennedy bent his gaze on McLoughlin. "Now, I do not accuse you,
sir, of anything. But a photograph has come into the possession of
Mr. Travis in which he is represented as standing on the steps of
your house with yourself and Mr. Cadwalader Brown. He and Mr. Brown
are in poses that show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate
to say that that was originally a photograph of yourself, Mr. Brown,
and your own candidate. It is a pretty raw deal, a fake in which
Travis has been substituted by very excellent photographic forgery."
McLoughlin motioned to Hanford to reply. "A fake?" repeated the
latter contemptuously. "How about the affidavits? There's no
negative. You've got to prove that the original print stolen from
Travis, we'll say, is a fake. You can't do it."
"September 19th was the date alleged, I believe?" asked Kennedy
quietly, laying down the bundle of metric photographs and the
alleged photographs of Travis. He was pointing to a shadow of a
gable on the house as it showed in the metric photographs and the
others.
"You see that shadow of the gable? Perhaps you never heard of it,
Hanford, but it is possible to tell the exact time at which a
photograph was taken from a study of the shadows. It is possible
in principle and practice and can be trusted. Almost any scientist
may be called on to bear testimony in court nowadays, but you would
say the astronomer is one of the least likely. Well, the shadow in
this picture will prove an alibi for some one.
"Notice. It is seen very prominently to the right, and its exact
location on the house is an easy matter. You could almost use the
metric photograph for that. The identification of the gable casting
the shadow is easy. To be exact it is 19.62 feet high. The shadow
is 14.23 feet down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see
I am exact. I have to be. In one minute it moved 0.080 feet upward,
0.053 feet to the right, and 0.096 feet in its apparent path. It
passes the width of a weatherboard, 0.37 foot, in four minutes and
thirty-seven seconds."
Kennedy was talking rapidly of data which he had derived from his
metric photograph, from plumb line, level, compass, and tape,
astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole and sun, declination,
azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a dozen
bewildering terms.
"In spherical trigonometry," he concluded, "to solve the problem
three elements must be known. I knew four. Therefore I could take
each of the known, treat it as unknown, and have four ways to check
my result. I find that the time might have been either three
o'clock, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds, in the afternoon, or
3:21 :31, or 3 :21 :29, or 3:21 :33. The average is 3 :21 :26, and
there can therefore be no appreciable error except for a few seconds.
For that date must have been one of two days, either May 22 or
July 22. Between these two dates we must decide on evidence other
than the shadow. It must have been in May, as the immature condition
of the foliage shows. But even if it had been in July, that is far
from being September. The matter of the year I have also settled.
Weather conditions, I find, were favourable on all=20these dates except
that in September. I can really answer, with an assurance and
accuracy superior to that of the photographer himself - even if he
were honest - as to the real date. The real picture, aside from
being doctored, was actually taken last May. Science is not fallible,
but exact in this matter."
Kennedy had scored a palpable hit. McLaughlin and Hanford were
speechless. Still Craig hurried on.
"But, you may ask, how about the automobile picture? That also is
an unblushing fake. Of course I must prove that. In the first
place, you know that the general public has come to recognise
the distortion of a photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a
car in a race that doesn't lean is rejected - people demand to see
speed, speed, more speed even in pictures. Distortion does indeed
show speed, but that, too, can be faked.
"Hanford knows that the image is projected upside down by the lens
on the plate, and that the bottom of the picture is taken before
the top. The camera mechanism admits light, which makes the picture,
in the manner of a roller blind curtain. The slit travels from the
top to the bottom and the image on the plate being projected upside
down, the bottom of the object appears on the top of the plate. For
instance, the wheels are taken before the head of the driver. If
the car is moving quickly the image moves on the plate and each
successive part is taken a little in advance of the last. The whole
leans forward. By widening the slit and slowing the speed of the
shutter, there is more distortion.
"Now, this is what happened. A picture was taken of Cadwalader
Brown's automobile, probably at rest, with Brown in it. The matter
of faking Travis or any one else by his side is simple. If with an
enlarging lantern the image of this faked picture is thrown on the
paper like a lantern slide, and if the right hand side is a little
further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom,
you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture. True,
everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is distorted,
and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the
shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will pass. In this case,
however, the faker was so sure of that that he was careless.
Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right
he did so on the left. It was further away on the bottom than on
the top. He got distortion all right, enough still to satisfy the
uninitiated. But it was distortion in the wrong way! The top of
the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is,
in the fake, as sharp as any other part. It is a small mistake,
but fatal. That picture is really at high speed - backwards!
It is too raw, too raw."
"You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do
you?" asked Hanford coolly, in spite of the exposures.
Kennedy paid no attention. He was looking at McLoughlin. The Boss
was regarding him surlily. "Well," he said at length, "what of all
this? I had nothing to do with it. Why do you come to me? Take
it to the proper parties."
"Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly.
He had uncovered another picture carefully. We could not see it,
but as he looked at it McLoughlin fairly staggered.
"Wh - where did you get that?" he gasped.
"I got it where I got it, and it is no fake," replied Kennedy
enigmatically. Then he appeared to think better of it. "This,"
he explained, "is what is known as a pinhole photograph. Three
hundred years ago della Porta knew the camera obscura, and but for
the lack of a sensitive plate would have made photographs. A box,
thoroughly light-tight, slotted inside to receive plates, covered
with black, and glued tight, a needle hole made by a number 10
needle in a thin sheet of paper and you have the apparatus for
lensless photography. It has a correctness such as no
image-forming means by lenses can have. It is literally
rectigraphic, rectilinear, it needs no focussing, and it takes a
wide angle with equal effect. Even pinhole snapshots are possible
where the light is abundant, with a ten to fifteen second exposure.
"That picture, McLoughlin, was taken yesterday at Hanford's. After
Miss Ashton left I saw who came out, but this picture shows what
happened before. At a critical moment Miss Ashton stuck a needle
in the wall of the studio, counted fifteen closed the needle-hole,
and there is the record Walter, Hanford, - leave us alone an instant."
When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of
quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom. Not a word
could I extract from him either that night or on the following day,
which was the last before the election. I must say that I was keenly
disappointed by the lack of developments, however. The whole thing
seemed to me to be a mess. Everybody was involved. What had Miss
Ashton overheard and what had Kennedy said to McLoughlin? Above
all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings
by allowing the election to go on without a scandal for Travis?
At last election night arrived. We were all at the Travis
headquarters, Kennedy, Travis, Bennett, and myself. Miss Ashton
was not present, but the first returns had scarcely begun to trickle
in when Craig whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her
home or club. I found her at home. She had apparently lost
interest in the election, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded
her to accompany me.
The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance
before this. Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing
horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass
of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans,
hisses, and catcalls, or all together with cheers as the returns
swung in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a
crowd as this. Lights blazed everywhere. Automobiles honked and
ground their gears. The lobster palaces were thronged. Police were
everywhere. People with horns and bells and all manner of
noise-making devices pushed up one side of the thoroughfares and
down the other. Hungrily, ravenously they were feeding or the meagre
bulletins of news.
Yet back of all the noise and human energy I could only think of the
silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news. High up in
the League headquarters, when we returned, a corps of clerks was
tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports.
As first the state swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and
fell. Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease, while Travis looked
more worried and paid less attention to the returns than would have
seemed natural. She avoided him and he seemed to hesitate to seek
her out.
Would the up-state returns, I had wondered at first, be large enough
to overcome the hostile city vote? I was amazed now to see how
strongly the city was turning to Travis.
"McLoughlin has kept his word," ejaculated Kennedy as district after
district showed that the Boss's pluralities were being seriously cut
into. "His word? What do you mean?" we asked almost together.
"I mean that he has kept his word given to me at a conference which
Mr. Jameson saw but did not hear. I told him I would publish the
whole thing, not caring whom or where or when it hit if he did
not let up on Travis. I advised him to read his Revised Statutes
again about money in elections, and I ended up with the threat,
'There will be no dough day, McLoughlin, or this will be prosecuted
to the limit.' There was no dough day. You see the effect in the
returns."
"But how did you do it?" I asked, not comprehending. "The faked
photographs did not move him, that I could see."
The words, "faked photographs," caused Miss Ashton to glance up
quickly. I saw that Kennedy had not told her or any one yet, until
the Boss had made good. He had simply arranged one of his little
dramas.
"Shall I tell, Miss Ashton?" he asked, adding, "Before I complete
my part of the compact and blot out the whole affair?"
"I have no right to say no," she answered tremulously, but with a
look of happiness that I had not seen since our first introduction.
Kennedy laid down a print on a table. It was the pinhole photograph,
a little blurry, but quite convincing. On a desk in the picture
was a pile of bills. McLoughlin was shoving them away from him
toward Bennett. A man who was facing forward in the picture was
talking earnestly to some one who did not appear. I felt
intuitively, even before Kennedy said so, that the person was Miss
Ashton herself as she stuck the needle into the wall. The man was
Cadwalader Brown.
"Travis," demanded Kennedy, "bring the account books of your
campaign. I want the miscellaneous account particularly."
The books were brought, and he continued, turning the leaves, "It
seemed to me to show a shortage of nearly twenty thousand dollars
the other day. Why, it has been made up. How was that, Bennett?"
Bennett was speechless. "I will tell you," Craig proceeded
inexorably. "Bennett, you embezzled that money for your business.
Rather than be found out, you went to Billy McLoughlin and offered
to sell out the Reform campaign for money to replace it. With the
aid of the crook, Hanford, McLoughlin's tool, you worked out the
scheme to extort money from Travis by forged photographs. You knew
enough about Travis's house and library to frame up a robbery one
night when you were staying there with him. It was inside work, I
found, at a glance. Travis, I am sorry to have to tell you that
your confidence was misplaced. It was Bennett who robbed you and worse.
"But Cadwalader Brown, always close to his creature, Billy McLoughlin,
heard of it. To him it presented another idea.=20 To him it offered a
chance to overthrow a political enemy and a hated rival for Miss
Ashton's hand. Perhaps into the bargain it would disgust her with
politics, disillusion her, and shake her faith in what he believed
to be some of her 'radical' notions. All could be gained at one
blow. They say that a check-book knows no politics, but Bennett has
learned some, I venture to say, and to save his reputation he will
pay back what he has tried to graft."
Travis could scarcely believe it yet. "How did you get your first
hint?" he gasped.
Kennedy was digging into the wall with a bill file at the place
where he had buried the little vulcanised disc. I had already
guessed that it was a dictograph, though I could not tell how it
was used or who used it. There it was, set squarely in the plaster.
There also were the wires running under the carpet. As he lifted
the rug under Miss Ashton's desk there also lay the huge circles
of wire. That was all.
At this moment Miss Ashton stepped forward. "Last Friday," she
said in a low tone, "I wore a belt which concealed a coil of wire
about my waist. From it a wire ran under my coat, connecting with
a small dry battery in a pocket. Over my head I had an arrangement
such as the telephone girls wear with a receiver at one ear
connected with the battery. No one saw it, for I wore a large hat
which completely hid it. If any one had known, and there were
plenty of eyes watching, the whole thing would have fallen through.
I could walk around; no one could suspect anything; but when I stood
or sat at my desk I could hear everything that was said in Mr.
Bennett's office."
"By induction," explained Kennedy. "The impulses set up in the
concealed dictograph set up currents in these coils of wire
concealed under the carpet. They were wirelessly duplicated by
induction in the coil about Miss Ashton's waist and so affected
the receiver under her very becoming hat. Tell the rest, Miss
Ashton."
"I heard the deal arranged with this Hanford," she added, almost
as if she were confessing something, "but not understanding it as
Mr. Kennedy did, I very hastily condemned Mr. Travis. I heard
talk of putting back twenty thousand into the campaign accounts,
of five thousand given to Hanford for his photographic work, and
of the way Mr. Travis was to be defeated whether he paid or not.
I heard them say that one condition was that I should carry the
purchase money. I heard much that must have confirmed Mr. Kennedy's
suspicion in one way, and my own in an opposite way, which I know
now was wrong. And then Cadwalader Brown in the studio taunted me
cynically and - and it cut me, for he seemed right. I hope that Mr.
Travis will forgive me for thinking that Mr. Bennett's treachery
was his"
A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office.
A boy rushed in with a still unblotted report. Kennedy seized it
and read:
"McLoughlin concedes the city by a small majority to Travis,
fifteen election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform
League victory in the state."
I turned to Travis. He was paying no attention except to the pretty
apology of Margaret Ashton.
Kennedy drew me to the door. "We might as well concede Miss Ashton
to Travis," he said, adding gaily, "by induction of an arm about
the waist. Let's go out and watch the crowd."
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poisoned Pen by, Arthur B. Reeve
