That's a declaration of war," remarked Kennedy, as Carton resumed his seat at the desk unconcernedly after the stormy ending of the interview with Murtha.
"I suppose it is," agreed the District Attorney, "and I can't say thatI am sorry."
"Nor I," added Craig. "But it settles one thing. We are now out in what I call the 'open' investigation. They have forced us from cover. We shall have to be prepared to take quick action now, whatever move they may make."
Together we were speculating on the various moves that the System might make and how we might prepare in advance for them.
Evidently, however, we were not yet through with these indirect dealings with the Boss. The System was thorough, if nothing else, and prompt. We had about decided to continue our conference over the dinner table in some uptown restaurant, when the officer stationed in the hall poked his head in the door and announced another visitor for the District Attorney.
This time the entrance was exactly the opposite to the bluster of Murtha. The man who sidled deferentially into the room, a moment after Carton had said he would see him, was a middle-sized fellow, with a high, slightly bald forehead, a shifty expression in his sharp ferret eyes, and a nervous, self-confident manner that must have been very impressive before the ignorant. "My name is Kahn," he introduced himself. "I'm a lawyer."
Carton nodded recognition.
Although I had never seen the man before, I recollected the name which Miss Kendall had mentioned. He was one of the best known lawyers of the System. He had begun his career as an "ambulance chaser," had risen later to the dignity of a police court lawyer, and now was of the type that might be called, for want of a better name, a high class "shyster"—unscrupulous, sharp, cunning.
Shyster, I believe, has been defined as a legal knave, a lawyer who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all that—and still more. If he had been less successful, he would have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals he had none. His claws reached out to grab the pittance of the poverty-stricken client as well as the fee of the wealthy. He had risen from hospitals to police courts, coroner's court, and criminal courts, at last attaining the dignity of offices opposite an entrance to the criminal courts building, from which vantage point his underlings surveyed the scene of operations like vultures hovering over bewildered cattle.
Carton knew him. Kahn was the leader among some score of men more or less well dressed, of more or less evil appearance, who are constantly prowling from one end to the other of the broad first floor of the criminal courts building during the hours of the day that justice is being administered there.
These are the shyster lawyers and their runners and agents who prey upon the men and women whom misfortune or crime have delivered into the hands of the law. Others of the same species are wandering about the galleries on other floors of the building, each with a furtive eye for those who may be in trouble themselves or those who seem to be in need of legal assistance for a relative or friend in trouble.
Perhaps the majority of lawyers practising in the courts are reputable to the highest degree, and many of the rest merely to a safe degree. Many devote themselves to philanthropic work whenever a prisoner is penniless. But the percentage of shysters is high. Kahn belonged in the latter class, although his days of doing dirty work himself were passed. He had a large force of incipient shysters for that purpose. As for himself, he handled only the big cases in which he veneered the dirty work by a sort of finesse.
Kahn bowed and smiled ingratiatingly. "Mr. Carton," he began in a conciliatory tone, "I have intruded on your valuable time in the interest of my client, Mr. Jack Rubano."
"Huh!" grunted Carton. "So they've retained you, have they, Ike?" he mused familiarly, closely regarding the visitor.
Kahn, far from resenting the familiarity, seemed rather to enjoy it and take it as his due measure of fame.
"Yes, Mr. Carton, they have retained me. I have just had a talk with the prisoner in the Tombs and have gone over his case very carefully, sir."
Carton nodded, but said nothing, willing to let Kahn do the talking for the present until he exposed his hand.
"He has told me all about his case," pursued Kahn evenly. "It is not such a bad case. I can tell you that, Mr. Carton, because I didn't have to resort to the 'friend of the judge' gag in order to show him that he had a good chance."
Kahn looked knowingly at Carton. At least he was frank about his own game before us; in fact, utterly shameless, it seemed to me. Probably it was because he knew it was no use, that Carton had no illusions about him. Still, there was an uncanny bravado about it all. Kahn was indeed very successful in making the worst appear the better reason. He knew it and knew that Carton knew it. That was his stock in trade.
He had seated himself in a chair by the District Attorney's desk and as he talked was hitching it closer and closer, for men of Kahn's stamp seem unable to talk without getting into almost personal contact with those with whom they are talking. Carton drew back and folded his hands back of his head as he listened, still silent.
"You know, Mr. Carton," he insinuated, "it is a very different thing to be sure in your own mind that a man is guilty from being able to prove it in court. There are all sorts of delays that may be granted, witnesses are hard to hold together, in fact there are many difficulties that arise in the best of cases."
"You don't need to tell me that, Kahn," replied Carton quietly.
"I know it, Mr. Carton," rejoined the other apologetically. "I was just using that as a preface to what I have to say."
He took another hitch of the chair nearer Carton and lowered his voice impressively. "The point, sir, at which I am driving is simply this. There must be some way in which we can reach an agreement, compromise this case, satisfactorily to the people with a minimum of time and expense—some way in which the indictment or the pleadings can be amended so that it can be wound up and—you understand—both of us win—instead of dragging it out and perhaps you losing the case in the end."
Carton shook his head. "No, Kahn," he said in a low tone, but firmly, "no compromise."
Kahn bent his ferret eyes on Carton's face as if to bore through into his very mind.
"No," added the District Attorney, "Murtha was just here, and I may as well repeat what I said to him—although I might fairly assume that he went from this room directly across the street to your office and that you know it already. This case has gone too far, it has too many other ramifications for me to consent to relax on it one iota."
Kahn was baffled, but he was cleverer than Murtha and did not show it.
"Surely," he urged, "you must realize that it is not worth your while at such a critical time for yourself to waste energies on a case when there are so many more profitable things that you could do. The fact is that I would be the last one to propose anything that was not open and above board and to our mutual advantage. There must be some way in which we can reach an agreement which will be satisfactory to all parties in interest, sir."
"Kahn," repeated Carton a little testily, "how often must I repeat to you and your people that I am NOT going to compromise this case in any shape, form, or manner? I am going to fight it out on the lines I have indicated if I have to disrupt this entire office to get men to do it. I have plenty to do seeking re-election, but my first duty is to act as public prosecutor in the office to which I have been already elected. Otherwise, it would be a poor recommendation to the people to return me to the same position. No, you are merely wasting your time and ours talking compromise."
Kahn had been surveying Carton keenly, now and then taking a shifty glance at Kennedy and myself.
As Carton rapped out the last words, as if in the nature of an ultimatum, Kahn gazed at him in amazement. Here was a man whom he knew he could neither bribe, bully, or bulldoze.
"You must consider this, too," he added pointedly. "There has been a good deal of mud-slinging in this campaign. We may find it necessary to go back into the antecedents and motives of those who represent the people in this case."
It was a subtle threat. Just what it implied I could not even guess, nor did Carton betray anything by look or word. Carton had voluntarily placed himself in the open and in a position from which he could not retreat. Evidently, now, he was willing to force the fight, if the other side would accept the issue. It meant much to him but he did not balk at it.
"No, Kahn," he repeated firmly, "no compromise."
Kahn drew back a bit and hastily scanned the face of the prosecutor. Evidently he saw nothing in it to encourage him. Yet he was too smooth to let his temper rise, as Murtha had. By the same token I fancied him a more dangerous opponent. There was something positively uncanny about his assurance.
Kahn rose slowly. "Then it is war—without quarter?" asked Kahn shrewdly.
"War—without quarter," repeated Carton positively.
He withdrew quietly, with an almost feline tread, quite in contrast with the bluster of Murtha. I felt for the first time a sort of sinking sensation, as I began to realize the varied character of the assault that was preparing.
Not so, Carton and Kennedy. It seemed that every event that more clearly defined our position and that of our opponents added zest to the fight for them. And I had sufficient confidence in the combination to know that their feelings were justified.
Carton silently pulled down and locked the top of his desk, then for a moment we debated where we should dine. We decided on a quiet hotel uptown and, leaving word where we could be found, hurried along for the first real relaxation and refreshment after a crowded day's work.
If, however, we thought we could escape even for a few minutes we were mightily mistaken. We had not fairly done justice to the roast when a boy in buttons came down the line of tables.
"Mr. Carton—please."
The District Attorney crooked his finger at the page.
"You're wanted at the telephone, sir."
Carton rose and excused himself.
The message must have given him food of another kind, for when he returned after a long absence, he pushed aside the now cold roast and joined us in the coffee and cigars.
"One of my men," he announced, "has been doing some shadowing for me. Evidently, both Murtha and Kahn having failed, they are resorting to other tactics. It looks as if they had in some way, probably from some corrupt official of the court or employee in charge of the jury list, obtained a copy of the panel which Justice Pomeroy has summoned for the case."
"It ought to be a simple thing to empanel another set of talesmen and let these fellows serve in some other part of the court," I suggested, considering the matter hastily.
"Much better to let it rest as it is," cut in Craig quickly, "and try to catch Kahn with the goods. It would be great to catch one of these clever fellows trying to 'fix' the jury, as well as intimidate witnesses, as he already hinted himself."
"Just the thing," exclaimed Carton, whose keen sense of proportion showed what a valuable political asset such a coup would make in addition to its effect on the case.
"We'll get Kahn right, if we have a chance," planned Craig. "You are acquainted more or less with his habits, I suppose. Where does Kahn hang out? Most fellows like him have a sort of Amen Corner where they meet their henchmen, issue orders, receive reports and carry on business that wouldn't do for an office downtown."
"Why, I believe he goes to Farrell's—has an interest in the place, I think."
Farrell's, we recognized, as a rather well-known all-night cafe which managed to survive the excise vicissitudes by dint of having no cabaret or entertainment.
We finished the dinner in silence, Kennedy turning various schemes over in his mind, and rejecting them one after another.
"There's nothing we can do immediately, I suppose," he remarked at length. "But if you and Carton care to come up to the laboratory with me, I might in time of peace prepare for war. I have a little apparatus up there which I think may fit in somehow and if it does, Mr. Kahn's days of jury fixing are numbered."
A few minutes later, we found ourselves in Kennedy's laboratory, where he had gathered together an amazing collection of paraphernalia in the warfare of science against crime which he had been waging during the years that I had known him.
Carton looked about in silent admiration. As for myself, although one might have thought it was an old story with me, I had found that no sooner had I become familiar with one piece of apparatus to perform one duty, than another situation, entirely different and unprecedented in our cases arose which called for another, entirely new. I had learned to have implicit confidence in Kennedy's ability to meet each new emergency with something fully capable of solving the problem.
From a cabinet, Kennedy took out what looked like the little black leather box of a camera, with, however, a most peculiar looking lens.
"Let's visit Farrell's," remarked Craig, after looking over the apparatus and slinging it over his shoulder.
It was early yet, and the theatres were not out, so that there were comparatively few people in the famous all-night cafe. We entered the bar cautiously and looked about. Kahn at least was not there.
In the back of this part of the cafe were several booths, open to conform to the law, yet sufficiently screened so that there was at least a little privacy.
Above the booths was a line of transoms.
"What's back there?" asked Kennedy, under his breath.
"A back room," returned Carton.
"Perhaps Kahn is there," Craig suggested. "Walter, you're the one whom he would least likely recognize. Suppose you just stick your head in the door and look about as quietly as you can."
I lounged back, glanced at the records of sporting events posted on the wall at the end of the bar, then, casually, as if looking for someone, swung the double-hinged door that led from the bar into the back room.
The room was empty except for one man, turned sidewise to the door, reading a paper, but in a position so that he could see anyone who entered. I had not opened the door widely enough to be noticed, but I now let it swing back hastily. It was Kahn, pompously sipping something he had ordered.
"He's back there," I whispered to Kennedy, as I returned, excitedly motioning toward one of the transoms over the booths back of which Kahn was seated.
"Right there?" he queried.
"Just about," I answered.
A moment later Kennedy led the way over to the booth under the transom and we sat down. A waiter hovered near us. Craig silenced him quickly with a substantial order and a good-sized tip.
From our position, if we sat well within the booth, we were effectually hidden unless someone purposely came down and looked in on us. We watched Kennedy curiously. He had unslung the little black camera-like box and to it attached a pair of fine wires and a small pocket storage battery which he carried.
Then he looked up at the transom. It was far too high for us to hear through, even if those in the back room talked fairly loud. Standing on the leather wall seats of the booth to listen or even to look over was out of the question, for it would be sure to excite suspicion among the waiters, or the customers who were continually passing in and out of the place.
Kennedy was watching his chance, and when the cafe emptied itself after being deluged between the acts from a neighbouring theatre, he jumped up quickly in the seat, stood on his toes and craned his neck through the diagonally opened transom. Before any of the waiters, who were busy clearing up the results of the last theatre raid, had a chance to notice him, Craig had slipped the little black box into the shadow of the corner.
From it dangled down the fine wires, not noticeable.
"He's sitting just back of us yet," reported Kennedy. "I don't know about that flaming arc light in the middle of the room, but I think it will be all right. Anyhow, we shall have to take a chance. It looks to me as if he were waiting for someone—didn't it to you, Walter?"
I nodded acquiescence.
"He has wasted no time in getting down to work," put in Carton, who had been a silent spectator of the preparations of Kennedy. "What's that thing you put on the ledge up there—a detectaphone?"
Kennedy smiled. "No—they're too clever to do any talking, at least in a place like this, I'm afraid," he said, carefully hiding the wires and the battery beside him in the shadow of the corner of the booth. "It may be that nothing will happen, anyhow, but if it does we can at least have the satisfaction of having tried to get something. Carton, you had better sit as far back in the booth as I am. The longer we can stay here unnoticed the better. Let Walter sit on the outside."
We changed places.
"Lawyers have been complaining to me lately," remarked Carton in a well modulated voice, "about jury fixing. Some of them say it has been going on on a large scale and I have had several of my county detectives working on it. But they haven't landed anything yet,—except rumours, like this one about the Dopey Jack jury. I've had them out posing as jurymen who could be 'approached' and would arrange terms for other bribable jurymen."
"And you mean to say that that's going on right here in this city?" I asked, scenting a possible newspaper story.
"This campaign I have started," he replied, "is only the beginning of our work in breaking up the organized business of jury bribing. I mean to put an end to the work of what I have reason to believe is a secret ring of jury fixers. Why, I understand that the prices for 'hanging' a jury range all the way from five to five hundred dollars, or even higher in an important case. The size of the jury fixer's 'cut' depends upon the amount the client is willing to pay for having his case made either a disagreement or a dismissal. Usually a bonus is demanded for a dismissal in criminal cases. But such things are very difficult to—"
"Sh!" I cautioned, for from my vantage point I saw two men approaching.
They saw me in the booth, but not the rest of us, and turned to enter the next one. Though they were talking in low tones, we could catch words and phrases now and then, which told us that we ourselves would have to be very careful about being overheard.
"We've got to be careful," one of them remarked in a scarcely audible undertone. "Carton has detectives mingling with the talesmen in every court of importance in the city."
The reply of the other was not audible, but Carton leaned over to us and whispered, "One of Kahn's runners, I think."
Apparently Kahn was taking extreme precautions and wanted everything in readiness so that whatever was to be done would go off smoothly. Kennedy glanced up at the little black leather box perched high above on the sill of the partition.
"The chief says that a thousand dollars is the highest price that he can afford for 'hanging' this jury—providing you get on it, or any of your friends."
The other man, whose voice was not of the vibrating, penetrating quality of the runner, seemed to hesitate and be inclined to argue.
"We've had 'em as low as five dollars," went on the runner, at which Carton exchanged a knowing glance with us. "But in a special case, like this, we realize that they come high."
The other man grumbled a bit and we could catch the word, "risky."
Back and forth the argument went. The runner, however, was a worthy representative of his chief, for at last he succeeded in carrying both his point and his price.
"All right," we heard him say at last, "the chief is in the back room.Wait until I see whether he is alone."
The runner rose and went around to the swinging door. From the other side of the transom we could, as we had expected, hear nothing. A moment later the runner returned.
"Go in and see him," he whispered.
The man rose and made his way through the swinging door into the back room.
None of us said a word, but Kennedy was literally on his toes with excitement. He was holding the little battery in his hand and after waiting a few moments pressed what looked like a push button.
He could not restrain his impatience longer, but had jumped up on the leather seat and for a moment looked at the black leather box, then through the half open transom, as best he could.
"Press it—press it!" he whispered to Carton, pointing at the push button, as he turned a little handle on the box, then quickly dropped down and resumed his seat.
"Craig—one of the waiters," I cried hurriedly.
The outside bar had been filling up as the evening advanced and the sight of a man standing on one of the seats had attracted the attention of a patron. A waiter had followed his curious gaze and saw Kennedy.
With a quick pull on the wire, Kennedy jerked the black leather box from its high perch and deftly caught it as it fell.
"Say—what are youse guys doin', huh?" demanded the waiter pugnaciously.
Carton and I had risen and stood between the man and Craig.
The sound of voices in high pitch was enough to attract a crowd ever ready to watch a scrap. Mindful of the famous "flying wedge" of waiters at Farrell's for the purpose of hustling objectionable and obstreperous customers with despatch to the sidewalk, I was prepared for anything.
The runner who was sitting alone in the next booth, leaned out and gazed around the corner into ours.
"Carton!" he shouted in a tone that could have been heard on the street.
The effect of the name of the District Attorney was magical. For the moment, the crowd fell back. Before the tough waiters or anyone else could make up their minds just what to do, Kennedy, who had tucked the box into his capacious side pocket, took each of us by the arm and we shoved our way through the crowd.
The head waiter followed us to the door, but offered no resistance. In fact no one seemed to know just what to do and it was all over so quickly that even Kahn himself had not time to get a glimpse of us through the swinging door.
A moment later we had piled into a taxicab at the curb and were speeding through the now deserted streets uptown to the laboratory.
Kennedy was jubilant. "I may have almost precipitated a riot," he chortled, "but I'm glad I stood up. I think it must have been at the psychological moment."
At the laboratory he threw off his coat and prepared to plunge into work with various mysterious pans of chemicals, baths, jars, and beakers.
"What is it?" asked Carton, as Kennedy carefully took out the dark leather box, shielding it from the glare of a mercury vapour light.
"A camera with a newly-invented electrically operated between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures as I wanted, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything else ever invented before, that it is possible to use it in this sort of detective work. I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It may or may not have worked, but if it has we've caught someone, right in the act."
Kennedy had a "studio" of his own which was quite equal to the emergency of developing the two pictures which he had taken with the new camera.
Late as it was, we waited for him to finish, just as we would have waited down in the Star office if one of our staff photographers had come in with something important.
At last Kennedy emerged from his workshop. As he did so, he slapped down two untoned prints.
Both were necessarily indistinct owing to the conditions under which they had had to be taken. But they were quite sufficient for the purpose.
As Carton bent over the second one, which showed Kahn in the very act of handing over a roll of bills to the rather anemic man whom his runner had brought to him, Carton addressed the photograph as if it had been Kahn himself.
"I have you at last," he cried. "This is the end of your secret ring of jury fixers. I think that will about settle the case of Kahn, if not of Dopey Jack, when we get ready to spring it. Kennedy, make another set of prints and let me lock them in a safe deposit vault. That's as precious to me as if it were the Black Book itself!"
Craig laughed. "Not such a bad evening's work, after all," he remarked, clearing things up. "Do you realize what time it is?"
Carton glanced perfunctorily at his watch. "I had forgotten time," he returned.
"Yes," agreed Craig, "but to-morrow is another day, you know. I don't object to staying up all night, or even several nights, but there doesn't seem to be anything more that we can do now, and it may be that we shall need our strength later. This is, after all, only a beginning in getting at the man higher up."
"The man highest up," corrected Carton, with elation as we parted on the campus, Kennedy and I to go to our apartment.
"See you in the morning, Carton," bade Kennedy. "By that time, no doubt, there will be some news of the Black Book."
We arrived at our apartment a few minutes later. On the floor was some mail which Kennedy quickly ran over. It did not appear to be of any importance—that is, it had no bearing on the case which was now absorbing our attention.
"Well, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed as he tore open one diminutive letter. "That was thoughtful, anyhow. She must have sent us that a few minutes after we left headquarters."
He handed me an engraved card. It was from Miss Ashton, inviting us to a non-partisan suffrage evening at her studio in her home, to be followed by a dance.
Underneath she had written a few words of special invitation, ending, "I shall try to have some people there who may be able to help us in the Betty Blackwell matter."
It was early the following morning that I missed Kennedy from our apartment. Naturally I guessed from my previous experiences with that gentleman that he would most likely be found at his laboratory, and I did not worry, but put the finishing touches on a special article for the Star which I had promised for that day and had already nearly completed.
Consequently it was not until the forenoon that I sauntered around to the Chemistry Building. Precisely as I had expected, I found Kennedy there at work.
I had been there scarcely a quarter of an hour when the door opened and Clare Kendall entered with a cheery greeting. It was evident that she had something to report.
"The letter to Betty Blackwell which you sent to the Montmartre has come back, unopened," she announced, taking from her handbag a letter stamped with the post-office form indicating that the addressee could not be found and that the letter was returned to the sender. The stamped hand of the post-office pointed to the upper left-hand corner where Clare had written in a fictitious name and used an address to which she frequently had mail sent when she wanted it secret.
"Only on the back," she pursued, turning the letter over, "there are some queer smudges. What are they? They don't look like dirt."
Kennedy glanced at it only casually, as if he had fully expected the incident to turn out as it did.
"Not unopened, Miss Kendall," he commented. "We have already had a little scientific letter-opening. This was a case of scientific letter-sealing. That was a specially prepared envelope."
He reached down into his desk and pulled out another, sealed it carefully, dried it, then held it over a steaming pan of water until the gum was softened and it could be opened again. On the back were smudges just like those on the letter that had been returned.
"On the thin line of gum on the flap of the envelope," he explained, "I have placed first a coating of tannin, over which is the gum. Then on the part of the envelope to which the flap adheres when it is sealed I placed some iron sulphate. When I sealed the envelope so carefully I brought the two together separated only by the thin film of gum. Now when steam is applied to soften the gum, the usual method of the letter-opener, the tannin and the sulphate are brought together. They run and leave these blots or dark smudges. So, you see, someone has been found at the Montmartre, even if it is not Betty Blackwell herself, who has interest enough in the case to open a letter to her before handing it back to the postman. That shows us that we are on the right trail at least, even if it does not tell us who is at the end of the trail. Here's another thing; This 'Marie' is a new one. We must find out about her."
"At the Futurist Tea Room at four this afternoon, when she meets our good friend, young Dr. Harris," reminded Clare. "Between cabarets and tea rooms I don't know whether this is work or play."
"It's work, all right," smiled Kennedy, adding, "at least it would be if it weren't lightened by your help."
It was the middle of the afternoon when Craig and I left the laboratory to keep our appointment with Miss Kendall at the Futurist Tea Room, where we hoped to find Dr. Harris's friend "Marie," who seemed to want to see him so badly.
A long line of touring and town cars as well as taxicabs bore eloquent testimony not only to the popularity of this tea room and cabaret, but to the growth of afternoon dancing. One never realizes how large a leisure class there is in the city until after a visit to anything from a baseball game to a matinee—and a dance. People seemed literally to be flocking to the Futurist. They seemed to like its congeniality, its tone, its "atmosphere."
As we left our hats to the tender mercies of the "boys" who had the checking concession we could see that the place was rapidly filling up.
"If we are to get a table that we want here, we'd better get it now," remarked Kennedy, slipping the inevitable piece of change to the head waiter. "If we sit over there in that sort of little bower we can see when Miss Kendall arrives and we shall not be so conspicuous ourselves, either."
The Futurist was not an especially ornate place, although a great deal of money had evidently been expended in fitting it up to attract a recherche clientele.
Our table, which Kennedy had indicated, was, as he had said, in a sort of little recess, where we could see without being much observed ourselves, although that seemed almost an impossibility in such a place. In fact, I noticed before we had had time to seat ourselves that we had already attracted the attention of two show girls who sat down the aisle and were amusing themselves at watching us by means of a mirror. It would not have been very difficult to persuade them to dispense with the mirror.
A moment later Clare Kendall entered and paused at the door an instant, absorbing the gay scene as only a woman and a detective could. Craig rose and advanced to meet her, and as she caught sight of us her face brightened. The show girls eyed her narrowly and with but slight approval.
"We feel more at ease with a lady in the party," remarked Craig, as they reached the table and I rose to greet her. "Two men alone here are quite as noticeable as two ladies. Walter, I know, was quite uncomfortable."
"To say nothing of the fact which you omitted," I retaliated, "that it is a pleasure to be with Miss Kendall—even if we must talk shop all the time."
Clare smiled, for her quick intuition had already taken in and dismissed as of no importance the two show girls. We ordered as a matter of course, then settled back for a long interval until the waiter out of the goodness of his heart might retrieve whatever was possible from the mob of servitors where refreshments were dispensed.
"Opposite us," whispered Clare, resting her chin on her interlocked fingers and her elbows on the tip-edge of the table, "do you see that athletic-looking young lady, who seems to be ready for anything from tea to tango? Well, the man with her is Martin Ogleby."
Ogleby was of the tall, sloping-shouldered variety, whom one can see on the Avenue and in the clubs and hotels in such numbers that it almost seems that there must be an establishment for turning them out, even down to a trademark concealed somewhere about them, "Made in England." Only Ogleby seemed a little different in the respect that one felt that if all the others were stamped by the same die, he was the die, at least. Compared to him many of the others took on the appearance of spurious counterfeits.
"Dr. Harris," Craig whispered, indicating to us the direction with his eyes.
Outside on a settee, we could see in the corridor a man waiting, restless and ill at ease. Now and then he looked covertly at his watch as if he expected someone who was late and he wondered if anything could be amiss.
Just then a superbly gowned woman alighted from a cab. The starter bowed as if she were familiar. It was evident that this was the woman for whom Harris waited, the "Marie" of the letter.
She was a carefully groomed woman, as artificial as French heels. Yet indeed it was that studied artificiality which constituted her chief attraction. As Harris greeted her I noted that Clare was amazed at the daring cut of her gown, which excited comment even at the Futurist.
Her smooth, full, well-rounded face with its dark olive skin and just a faint trace of colour on either cheek, her snappy hazel eyes whose fire was heightened by the penciling of the eyebrows, all were a marvel of the dexterity of her artificial beautifier. And yet in spite of all there was an air of unextinguishable coarseness about her which it was difficult to describe, but easy to feel. "Her lips are too thick and her mouth too large," remarked Clare, "and yet in some incomprehensible way she gives you the impression of daintiness. What is it?"
"The woman is frankly deceptive from the tip of her aigrette to the toes of her shoes," observed Craig.
"And yet," smiled Clare, watching with interest the little stir her arrival had made among the revellers, "you can see that she is the envy of every woman here who has slaved and toiled for that same effect without approaching within miles of it or attracting one quarter the notice for her pains that this woman receives."
Dr. Harris was evidently in his element at the attention which his companion attracted. They seemed to be on very good terms indeed, and one felt that Bohemianism could go no further.
They paused, fortunately, at a just vacated table around an "L" from us and sat down. For once waiters seemed to vie in serving rather than in neglecting.
By this time I had gained the impression that the Futurist was all that its name implied—not up to the minute, but decidedly ahead of it. There was an exotic flavour to the place, a peculiar fascination, that was foreign rather than American, at seeing demi-monde and decency rubbing elbows. I felt sure that a large percentage of the women there were really young married women, whose first step downward was truly nothing worse than saying they had been at their whist clubs when in reality it was tango and tea. What the end might be to one who let the fascination blind her perspective I could imagine.
Dr. Harris and "Marie" were nearer the dancing floor than we were, but seemed oblivious to it. Now and then as the music changed we could catch a word or two.
He was evidently making an effort to be gay, to counteract the feeling which she had concealed as she came in, but which had the upper hand now that they were seated.
"Won't you dance?" I heard him say.
"No, Harry. I came here to tell you about how things are going."
There was a harshness about her voice which I recognized as belonging exclusively to one class of women in the city. She lowered it as she went on talking earnestly.
"It looks as though someone has squealed, but who—" I caught in the fragmentary lulls of the revelry.
"I didn't know it was as bad as that," Dr. Harris remarked.
They talked almost in whispers for several moments while I strained my ears to catch a syllable, but without success. What were they talking about? Was it about Dopey Jack? Or did they know something about Betty Blackwell? Perhaps it was about the Black Book. Even when the music stopped they talked without dropping a word.
The music started again. There was no mistaking the appeal that the rocking whirl of the rhythmic dance made. From the side of the table where Kennedy was seated he could catch an occasional glimpse of the face of Marie. I noticed that he had torn a blank page off the back of the menu and with a stub of a pencil was half idly writing.
At the top he had placed the word, "Nose," followed by "straight, with nostrils a trifle flaring," and some other words I could not quite catch. Beneath that he had written "Ears," which in turn was followed by some words which he was setting down carefully. Eyes, chin, and mouth followed, until I began to realize that he was making a sort of scientific analysis of the woman's features.
"I shall need some more—" I caught as the music softened unexpectedly.
A singer on the little platform was varying the programme now by a solo and I shifted my chair so as to get a better view and at the same time also a look at the table around the corner from us.
As I did so I saw Dr. Harris reach into his breast pocket and take out a little package which he quickly handed to Marie. As their hands met, their eyes met also. I fancied that the doctor struggled to demagnetize, so to speak, the look which she gave him.
"You'll come to see me—afterwards?" she asked, dropping the little package into her handbag of gold mesh and rattling the various accoutrements of beautification which tinkled next to it.
Harris nodded.
"You're a life saver to some—" floated over to me from Marie.
The solo had been completed and the applause was dying away.
"… tells me he needs … badly off … don't forget to see …"
The words came in intervals. What they meant I did not know, but I strove to remember them. Evidently Marie and a host of others were depending on Harris for something. At any rate, it seemed, now that she had talked she felt easier in mind, as one does after carrying a weight a long time in secret.
"Tanguez-vous?" he asked as the orchestra struck up again.
"Yes—thank you, Harry—just one."
We watched the couple attentively as they were alternately lost and found in the dizzy swaying mass. The music became wilder and they threw themselves into the abandon of the dance.
They had been absorbed so much in each other and the unburdening of whatever it was she had wanted to tell him, that neither had noticed the other couple on the other side of the floor whose presence had divided our own attention.
Martin Ogleby and his partner were not dancing. It was warm and they were among the lucky ones who had succeeded in getting something besides a cheque from the waiters. Two tall glasses of ginger ale with a long curl of lemon peel sepentining through the cracked ice stood before them.
The dance had brought Dr. Harris and Marie squarely around to within a few feet of where Ogleby was sitting. As Harris swung around she faced Ogleby in such a way that he could not avoid her, nor could she have possibly missed seeing him.
For a moment their eyes met. Not a muscle in either face moved. It was as if they were perfect strangers. She turned and murmured something to her partner. Ogleby leaned over, without the least confusion, and made a witty remark to his partner. It was over in a minute. The acting of both could not have been better if they had deliberately practised their parts. What did it mean?
As the dance concluded I saw Ogleby glance hastily over in the direction of Marie. He gave a quick smile of recognition, as much as to say "Thank you."
It was evident now that both Dr. Harris and Marie, whoever she was, were getting ready to leave. As they rose to move to the door, Kennedy quickly paid our own cheque, leaving the change to the waiter, and without seeming to do so we followed them.
Harris was standing near the starter with his hat off, apparently making his adieux. Deftly Kennedy managed to slip in behind so as to be next in line for a cab.
"Walter and I will follow Harris if they separate," he whispered toClare Kendall. "You follow the woman."
The afternoon was verging toward dinner and people were literally bribing the taxicab starter. Our own cab stood next in line behind that which Harris had called.
"I have certainly enjoyed this little glimpse of Bohemia," commented Kennedy to Miss Kendall as we waited. "I shouldn't mind if detective work took me more often to afternoon dances. There, they are going down the steps. Here's the cab I called. Let me know how things turn out. Goodbye. Here—chauffeur, around that way—where that other cab is going—the lady will tell you where to drive."
Harris hesitated a moment as if considering whether to take a cab himself, then slowly turned and strolled down the street.
We followed, slowly also. There was something unreal about the bright afternoon sunshine after the atmosphere of the Futurist Tea Room, where everything had been done to promote the illusion of night.
Harris walked along meditatively, crossing one street after another, not as if debating where he was going, but rather in no great hurry to get there.
Instead of going down Broadway he swerved into Seventh Avenue, then after a few blocks turned into a side street, quickened his pace, and at last dived down into a basement under a saloon.
It was a wretched neighbourhood, one of those which reminds one of the life of an animal undergoing a metamorphosis. Once it had evidently been a rather nice residential section. The movement of population uptown had left it stranded to the real estate speculators, less desirable to live in, but more valuable for the future. The moving in of anyone who could be got to live there had led to rapid deterioration and a mixed population of whites and negroes against the day when the upward sweep of business should bring the final transformation into office and loft buildings. But for the present it was decaying, out of repair, a mass of cheap rooming-houses, tenements, and mixed races.
The joint into which Harris had gone was the only evidence of anything like prosperity on the block, and that evidence was confined to the two entrances on the street, one leading into the ground floor and the other down a flight of steps to the basement.
"Do you want to go in?" asked Kennedy in a tone that indicated that he himself was going.
Just then a negro, dazzling in the whiteness of his collar and the brilliancy of his checked suit, came up the stairs accompanied by a light mulatto.
"It's a black and tan joint," Craig went on, "at least downstairs—negro cabaret, and all that sort of thing."
"I'm game," I replied.
We stumbled down the worn steps, past a swinging door near which stood the proprietor with a careful eye on arrivals and departures. The place was deceiving from the outside. It really extended through two houses, and even at this early hour it was fairly crowded.
There were negroes of all degrees of shading, down to those who were almost white. Scattered about at the various tables were perhaps half a dozen white women, tawdry imitations of the faster set at the Futurist which we had just left, the leftovers of a previous generation in the Tenderloin. There was also a fair sprinkling of white men, equally degraded. White men and coloured women, white women and coloured men, chatted here and there, but for the most part the habitues were negroes. At any rate the levelling down seemed to have produced something like an equality of races in viciousness.
As we sat down at a table, Kennedy remarked: "They used to drift down to Chinatown, a good many of these relics. You used to see them in the old 'suicide halls' of the Bowery, too. But that is all passing away now. Reform and agitation have closed up those old dives. Now they try to veneer it over with electric lights and bright varnish, but I suppose it comes to the same thing. After they are cast off Broadway, the next step lower is the black and tan joint. After that it is suicide, unless it is death."
"I don't think this is any improvement over the—the bad old days," I ventured.
Kennedy shook his head in agreement. "There's Harris, down there in the back, talking to someone, a white man, alone."
A waiter came over to us grinning, for we had assumed the role of sightseers.
"Who is that, 'way back there, with his chair tipped to the wall, talking to the man with his back to us?" asked Kennedy.
"Ike the Dropper, sah," informed the waiter with obvious pride that such a celebrity should be harboured here.
I looked with a feeling akin to awe at the famous character who, in common with many others of his type, had migrated uptown from the proverbial haunts of the gunmen on the East Side in search of pastures new and untroubled.
Ike the Dropper may have once been a strong-arm man, but at present I knew that he was chiefly noted for the fact, and he and his kind were reputed to be living on the earnings of women to whom they were supposed to afford "protection." I reflected on the passing glories of brutality which had sunk so low.
There were noise and life a plenty here. At a discordant box of a piano a negro performer was playing with a keen appreciation of time if of nothing else, and two others with voices that might not have been unpopular in a decent minstrel show were rendering a popular air. They wore battered straw hats and a make-up which was intended to be grotesque.
From time to time, as the pianist was moved, he played snatches of the same music as that which we had heard at the Futurist, and between us and Harris and Ike the Dropper several couples were one-stepping, each in their own sweet way. As the music became more lively their dancing came more and more to resemble some of the almost brutal Apache dances of Paris, in that the man seemed to exert sheer force and the woman agility in avoiding him. It was an entirely new phase of afternoon dancing, an entirely new "leisure class," this strange combination of Bohemia and Senegambia.
At a table next to us, so near that we could almost rub elbows with them, sat a white man and a white woman. They had been talking in low tones, but I could catch whole sentences now and then, for they seemed to be making no extraordinary effort at concealment.
"He was framing a sucker to get away with a whole front," I heard the man say, "or with a poke or a souper, but instead he got dropped by a flatty and was canned for a sleep."
"Two dips—pickpockets," whispered Craig. "Someone was trying to take everything a victim had, or at least his pocketbook or watch, but instead he was arrested by a detective and locked up over night."
"Good work," I laughed. "You are 'some' translator."
I looked at our neighbours with a certain amount of respect. Were they framing up something themselves? At any rate I felt that I would rather see them here and know what they were than to be jostled by them in a street car. The sleek proprietor kept a careful eye on them and I knew that a sort of unwritten law would prevent them from trying on anything that would endanger their welcome in a joint none too savoury already.
Nevertheless I was quite interested in the bits of pickpocket argot that floated across to us, expressions like "crossing the mit," "nipping a slang," a "mouthpiece," "making a holler" and innumerable other choice bits as unintelligible to me as "Beowulf."
After a few minutes the woman got up and went out, leaving the man still sitting at the table. Of course it was none of my business what they were doing, I suppose, but I could not help being interested.
That diversion being ended, I joined Kennedy in his scrutiny of Harris and his choice friend. Of course at our distance it was absolutely impossible to gain any idea of what they were talking about, and indeed our chief concern was not to attract any attention. Whatever it was, they were very earnest about it and paid no attention to us.
The dancing had ceased and the two "artists" were entertaining the select audience with some choice bits of ragtime. We could see Ike the Dropper and Dr. Harris still talking.
Suddenly Kennedy nudged me. I looked up in time to see Dr. Harris reach into his inside breast pocket again and quietly slip out a package much like that which we had already seen him hand to Marie at the Futurist. Ike took it, looked at it a moment with some satisfaction, then stuffed it down carefully into the right-hand outside pocket of his coat.
"I wonder what that is that Harris seems to be passing out to them?" mused Craig.
"Drugs, perhaps," I ventured offhand.
"Maybe. I'd like to know for certain."
Just then Harris and Ike rose and walked down on the other side of the place toward the door. Kennedy turned his head so that even if they should look in our direction they would not see his face. I did the same. Fortunately neither seemed interested in the other occupants. Harris having evidently fulfilled his mission, whether of delivering the package or receiving news which Ike seemed to be pouring into his ear, had but one thought, to escape from a place which was evidently distasteful to him. At the door they paused for a moment and spoke with the proprietor. He nodded reassuringly once or twice to Dr. Harris, much to the relief, I thought, of that gentleman.
Kennedy was chafing under the restraint which kept him in the background and prevented any of his wizardry of mechanical eavesdropping. I fancied that his roving eye was considering various means of utilizing his seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity if occasion should arise.
At last Harris managed to shake hands good-bye and disappeared up the steps to the sidewalk still followed by Ike.
Kennedy leaned over and looked the "dip" sitting alone back of us squarely in the face.
"Would you like to make twenty-five dollars—just like that?" he asked with a quick gesture that accorded very well with the slang.
The man looked at him very suspiciously, as if considering what kind of new game this was.
"That was your gun moll who just went out, wasn't it?" pursued Kennedy with assurance.
"Aw, come off. Whatyer givin' us?" responded the man half angrily.
"Don't stall. I know. I'm not one of the bulls, either. It's just a plain proposition. Will you or won't you take twenty-five of easy money?"
Kennedy's manner seemed to mystify him. For a moment he looked us over, then seemed to decide that we were all right.
"How?" he asked in a harsh but not wholly ungracious whisper. "I'll tip yer off if the boss is lookin'. He don't like no frame-ups in here."
"You saw Ike the Dropper go out with that man?"
"The guy with the glasses?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"The guy with the glasses gave Ike a little package which Ike put into the right-hand outside pocket of his coat. Now it's worth twenty-five beans to me to get that package—get me?"
"I gotyer. Slip me a five now and the other twenty if I get it."
Kennedy appeared to consider.
"I'm on the level," pursued the dip. "Me and the goil is in hard luck with a mouthpiece who wants fifty bucks to beat the case for one of the best tools we ever had in our mob that they got right to-day."
"From that I take it that one of your pals needs fifty dollars for a lawyer to get him out of jail. Well, I'll take a chance. Bring the package to me at—well, the Prince Henry cafe. I'll be there at seven o'clock."
The pickpocket nodded, slid from his place and sidled out of the joint without attracting any attention.
"What's the lay?" I asked.
"Oh, I just want that package, that's all. Come on, Walter. We might as well go before any of these yellow girls speak to us and frame up something on us."
The proprietor bowed as much as to say, "Come again and bring your friends."
Ike was nowhere to be seen when we reached the street, but down the block we caught sight of Dr. Harris on the next corner. Kennedy hastened our pace until we were safely in his wake, then managed to keep just a few paces behind him.
Instead of turning into the street where the Futurist was, Harris kept on up Broadway. It was easy enough to follow him in the crowd now without being perceived.
He turned into the street where the Little Montmartre was preparing for a long evening of entertainment. We turned, and to cover ourselves got into a conversation with a hack driver who seemed suddenly to have sprung from nowhere with the cryptic whisper, "Drive you to the Ladies' Club, gents?"
Out of the tail of his eye Kennedy watched Harris. Instead of turning into the Montmartre and his office, he went past to a high-stooped brownstone house, two doors away, climbed the steps and entered.
We sauntered down the street and looked quickly at the house. A brass sign on the wall beside the door read, "Mme. Margot's Beauty Shop."
"I see," commented Kennedy. "You know women of the type who frequent the Futurist and the Montmartre are always running to the hairdressing and manicure parlours. They make themselves 'beautiful' under the expert care of the various specialists and beauty doctors. Then, too, they keep in touch that way with what is going on in the demi-monde. That is their club, so to speak. It is part of the beauty shop's trade to impart such information—at least of a beauty shop in this neighbourhood."
I regarded the place curiously.
"Come, Walter, don't stare," nudged Kennedy. "Let's take a turn down to the Prince Henry and wait. We can get a bite to eat, too."
I had hardly expected that the pickpocket would play fair, but evidently the lure of the remaining twenty dollars was too strong. We had scarcely finished our dinner when he came in.
"Here it is," he whispered. "The house man here at the Prince Henry knows me. Slip me the twenty."
Kennedy leisurely tore the wrappings from the packet.
"I suppose you have already looked at this first and found that it isn't worth anything to you compared to twenty dollars. Anyhow, you kept your word. Hello—what is it?"
He had disclosed several small packets. Inside each, sealed, was a peculiar glistening whitish powder.
"H'm," mused Kennedy, "another job for the chemist. Here's the bankroll."
"Thanks," grinned the dip as he disappeared through the revolving door.
We had returned to the laboratory that night where Kennedy was preparing to experiment on the white powder which he had secured in the packet that came from Dr. Harris. The door opened and Clare Kendall entered.
"I've been calling you up all over town," she said, "and couldn't find you. I have something that will interest you, I think. You said you wanted something written by Dr. Harris. Well, there it is."
She laid a sheet of typewriting on the laboratory table.
"How did you get it?" asked Kennedy in eager approbation.
"When I left you at the Futurist Tea Room to follow that woman Marie in the cab, I had a good deal of trouble. I guess people thought I was crazy, the way I was ordering that driver about, but he was so stupid and he would get tangled up in the traffic on Fifth Avenue. Still, I managed to hang on, principally because I had a notion already that she was going to the Montmartre. Sure enough, she turned down that block, but she didn't go into the hotel after all. She stopped and went into a place two doors down—Mme. Margot's Beauty Parlour."
"Just where we finally saw Harris go," exclaimed Kennedy. "I beg your pardon for interrupting."
"Of course I couldn't go in right after her, so I drove around the corner. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good time to stop in to see Dr. Harris—when he was out. You know my experience with the fakers has made me pretty good at faking up ailments. Then, too, I knew that it would be easy when he was not there. I said I was an old patient and had an appointment and that I'd wait, although I knew those were not his regular office hours. He has an alleged trained nurse there all the time. She let me into his waiting-room on the second floor in front—you remember the private dining-rooms are in back. I waited in momentary fear that he WOULD come back. You see, I had a scheme of my own. Well, I waited until at last the nurse had to leave the office for a short time.
"That was my chance. I tiptoed over to his desk in the next room. On it were a lot of letters. I looked over them but could find nothing that seemed to be of interest. They were all letters from other people. But they showed that he must have quite an extensive practice, and that he is not over-scrupulous. I didn't want to take anything that would excite suspicion unless I had to. Just then I heard someone coming down the corridor from the elevator. I had just time to get back to a chair in the waiting-room when the door opened and there was that Titian from the office, you remember. She saw me without recognizing me, went in and laid some papers on his desk. As soon as she was gone, I went in again and looked them over. Here was one that she had copied for him."
Kennedy had been carefully scrutinizing the sheet of paper as she told how she obtained it.
"It couldn't be better as far as our purposes are concerned," he congratulated. "It seems to consist of some notes he had made and wished to preserve about drugs."
I leaned over and read:
VERONAL.—Diethylmalonyl or diethylbarbituric acid. A hypnotic used extensively. White, crystalline, odourless, slightly bitter. Best in ten to fifteen grain cachets. Does not affect circulatory or respiratory systems or temperature. Toxicity low: 135 gr. taken with no serious result. Unreasonable use for insomnia, however, may lead to death.
HEROIN.—Constant use of heroin has been known to lead to—
I looked inquiringly at Kennedy.
"Just some fragmentary notes which he had evidently been making. Rather interesting in themselves as showing perhaps something of his practice, but not necessarily incriminating."
While we were discussing the contents of the notes, Kennedy had laid over the typewritten sheet the rules and graduated strip of glass which he had used in examining the strange letter signed "An Outcast."
A moment later he pulled the letter itself from a drawer and laid the two pieces of writing side by side, comparing them, going from one to the other successively.
"People generally, who have not investigated the subject," he remarked as he worked, "hold the opinion that the typewriter has no individuality. Fortunately that is not true. The typewriting machine does not always afford an effective protection to the criminal. On the contrary, the typewriting may be a direct means of tracing a document to its source and showing it to be what it really is. This is especially true of typewritten anonymous letters. Without careful investigation it is impossible to say what can be determined from the examination of any particular piece of typewriting, but typewriting can often be positively identified as being the work of a certain particular typewriting machine and even the date of writing can sometimes be found out."
He had been carefully counting something under the lens of a pocket glass. "Even the number of threads to the inch in the ribbon, as shown in the type impression, plainly seen and accurately measured by the microscope or in an enlarged photograph, may show something about the identity of a disputed writing."
He was pointing to a letter "r." Under the glass I noticed that there was a break in the little curl at the top.
"Now if you find such a break in the same letter in another piece of typewriting, what would you think?"
"That they were from the same machine," I replied.
"Not so fast," he cautioned. "True, it might raise a presumption that it was from the same machine. But the laws of chance would be against your enthusiasm, Walter."
"Of course," I admitted on second thought.
"It's just like the finger-print theory. There must be a sort of summation of individual characteristics. Now here's a broken 'l' and there is an 'a' that is twisted. Now, if the same defects are found in another piece of writing, that makes the presumption all the stronger, and when you have massed together a number of such characteristics it raises the presumption to a mathematical certainty, does it not?"
I nodded and he went on. "The faces of many letters inevitably become broken, worn, or battered. Not only does that tend to identify a particular machine, but it is sometimes possible, if you have certain admitted standard specimens of writing covering a long period, to tell just when a disputed writing was made. There are two steps in such an inquiry, the first the determination of the fact that a document was written on a certain particular kind of machine and the second that it was written on a certain individual machine of that make. I have here specimens of the writing of all the leading machines. It is easy to pick out the make used, say in the 'Outcast' letter. Moreover, as I said when I first saw that letter, it is in the regular pica type. So are they all, but as ninety-five per cent, use the pica style that in itself proved nothing."
"What is that bit of ruled glass?" asked Clare, bending over the letters in deep interest.
"In ordinary typewriting," replied Craig, "each letter occupies an imaginary square, ten to the inch horizontally and six to the inch vertically. Typewriting letters are in line both ways. This ruled glass plate is an alinement test plate for detecting defects in alinement. I have also here another glass plate in which the lines diverge each at a very slightly different angle—a typewriting protractor for measuring the slant of divergence of various letters that have become twisted, so to speak.
"When it is in perfect alinement the letter occupies the middle of each square and when out of alinement it may be in any of the four corners, or either side of the middle position or at the top or bottom above or below the middle. That, you see, makes nine positions in all—or eight possible divergences from normal in this particular alone."
Clare had been using the protractor herself, quickly familiarizing herself with it.
"Another possible divergence," went on Kennedy, "is the perpendicular position of the letter in relation to the line. That is of great value in individualizing a machine. It is very seldom that machines, even when they are new, are perfect in this particular. It does not seem much until you magnify it. Then anyone can see it, and it is a characteristic that is fixed, continuous, and not much changed by variations in speed or methods of writing.
"Here's another thing. Typewriter faces are not flat like printing type, but are concaved to conform to the curve of the printing surface of the roller. When they are properly adjusted all portions should print uniformly. But when they are slightly out of position in any direction the two curved surfaces of type and roller are not exactly parallel and therefore don't come together with uniform pressure. The result is a difference in intensity in different parts of the impression."
It was fascinating to see Craig at work over such minute points which we had never suspected in so common a thing as ordinary typewriting.
"Then you can identify these letters positively?" asked Clare.
"Positively," answered Craig. "If two machines of the same make were perfect to begin with and in perfect condition—which is never found to be the case when they are critically examined—the work from one would be theoretically indistinguishable from that of another until actual use had affected them differently. The work of any number of machines begins inevitably to diverge as soon as they are used. Since there are thousands of possible particulars in which differences may develop, it very soon becomes possible to identify positively the work of a particular typewriting machine."