At last the telephone rang and Carton answered it eagerly. As he did so, he quickly motioned to us to go to the outside office where we, too, could listen on extensions.
"Yes, this is Mr. Carton," we heard him say.
"This is the editor of the Wall Street Record," came back the reply in a tone that showed no hesitation or compunction if it was lying. "I suppose you have heard the rumours that are current downtown that Hartley Langhorne and the people associated with him have gone broke in the pool they formed to get control of the public utilities that would put them in a position to capture the city betterment contracts?"
"No—I hadn't heard it," answered Carton, with difficulty restraining himself from quizzing the informant about himself. Kennedy was motioning to him that that was enough. "I'm sure I can't express any opinion at all for publication on the subject," he concluded brusquely, jamming down the receiver on the hook before his interlocutor had a chance to ask another question.
The bell continued to ring, but Craig seized the receiver off its hook again and called back, "Mr. Carton has gone for the day," hanging it up again with a bang.
"Call up the Record now," advised Craig, disconnecting the recording instrument he had brought. "See what the editor has to say."
"This is the District Attorney's office," said Carton a moment later when he got the number. "You just called me."
"I called you?" asked the editor, non-plussed.
"About a rumour current in Wall Street."
"Rumour? No, sir. It must be some mistake."
"I guess so. Sorry to have troubled you. Good-bye."
Carton looked from one to the other of us. "You see," he said in disgust, "there it is again. That's the sort of thing that has been going on all day. How do I know what that fellow is doing now—perhaps using my name?"
I had no answer to his implied query as to who was the "wolf" and what he might be up to. As for Kennedy, while he showed plainly that he had his suspicions which he expected to confirm absolutely, he did not care to say anything about them yet.
"Two can play at 'wolf,'" he said quietly, calling up the headquarters of Dorgan's organization.
I wondered what he would say, but was disappointed to find that it was a merely trivial conversation about some inconsequential thing, as though Kennedy had merely wished to get in touch with the "Silent Boss." Next he called up the sanitarium to which Murtha had been committed, and after posing as Murtha's personal physician managed to have the rules relaxed to the extent of exchanging a few sentences with him.
"How did he seem—irrational?" asked Carton with interest, for I don't think the District Attorney had complete confidence in the commonly announced cause of Murtha's enforced retirement.
Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "Sounded pretty far gone," was all he said, turning over the pages of the telephone book as he looked for another number.
This time it was Kahn whom he called up, and he had some difficulty locating him, for Kahn had two offices and was busily engaged in preparing a defence to the charges preferred against him for the jury fixing episode.
Among others whom he called up was Langhorne, and the conversation with him was as perfunctory as possible, consisting merely in repeating his name, followed by an apology from Kennedy for "calling the wrong number."
In each case, Craig was careful to have his little recording instrument working, taking down every word that was uttered and when he had finished he detached it, looking at the cylinder with unconcealed satisfaction.
"I'm going up to the laboratory again," he announced, as Carton looked at him inquiringly. "The investigation that I have in mind will take time, but I shall hurry it along as fast as I possibly can. I don't want any question about the accuracy of my conclusions."
We left Carton, who promised to meet us late in the afternoon at the laboratory, and started uptown. Instead, however, of going up directly, Craig telephoned first to Clare Kendall to shadow Mrs. Ogleby.
The rest of the day he spent in making microphotographs of the phonograph cylinder and studying them very attentively under his high-powered lens.
Toward the close of the afternoon the first report of Miss Kendall, who had been "trailing" Mrs. Ogleby, came in. We were not surprised to learn that she had met Langhorne in the Futurist Tea Room in the middle of the afternoon and that they had talked long and earnestly. What did surprise us, though, was her suspicion that she had crossed the trail of someone else who was shadowing Mrs. Ogleby.
Kennedy made no comment, though I could see that he was vitally interested. What was the significance of the added mystery? Someone else had an interest in watching her movements. At once I thought of Dorgan. Could he have known of the intimacy of his guest at the Gastron dinner with Langhorne, rather than with Murtha, with whom she had gone? Suddenly another explanation occurred to me. What was more likely than that Martin Ogleby should have heard of his wife's escapade? He would certainly learn now to his surprise of her meeting with Langhorne. What would happen then?
Kennedy had about finished with his microphotographic work and was checking it over to satisfy himself of the results, when Carton, as he had promised, dropped in on us.
"What are you doing now?" he asked curiously, looking at the prints and paraphernalia scattered about. "By the way, I've been inquiring into the commitment of Murtha to that sanitarium for the insane. On the surface it all seems perfectly regular. It appears that, unknown even to many of his most intimate friends, he has been suffering from a complication of diseases, the result of his high life, and they have at last affected his brain, as they were bound to do in time. Still, I don't like his 'next friends' in the case. One is his personal physician—I don't know much about him. But Dorgan is one of the others."
"We'll have to look into it," agreed Kennedy. "Meanwhile, would you like to know who your 'wolf' is that has been spreading rumours about broadcast?"
"I would indeed," exclaimed Carton eagerly. "You were right about the statement I issued. It had no more effect than so many unspoken words. The fellow has kept right on. He even had the nerve to call up Miss Ashton in my name and try to find out whether she had any trace of the missing Betty Blackwell. How do you suppose they found out that she was interested?"
"Not a very difficult thing," replied Kennedy. "Miss Ashton must have told several organizations, and the grafters always watch such societies pretty closely. What did she say?"
"Nothing," answered Carton. "I had thought that they might try something of the sort and fortunately I warned her to disregard any telephone messages unless they came certainly from me. We agreed on a little secret formula, a sort of password, to be used, and I flatter myself that the 'wolf' won't be able to accomplish much in that direction. You say you have discovered a clue? How did you get it?"
Kennedy picked up one of the microphotographs which showed an enlargement of the marks on the phonograph cylinder. He showed it to us and we gazed curiously at the enigmatic markings, greatly magnified. To me, it looked like a collection of series of lines. By close scrutiny I was able to make out that the lines were wavy and more or less continuous, being made up of collections of finer lines,—lines within lines, as it were.
An analysis of their composition showed that the centre of larger lines was composed of three continuous series of markings which looked, under the lens, for all the world like the impressions of an endless straight series of molar teeth. Flanking these three tooth-like impressions were other lines—varying in width and in number—I should say, about four, both above and below the tooth-like impressions. When highly magnified one could distinguish roughly parallel parts of what at even a low magnification looked like a single line.
"I have been studying voice analysis lately," explained Kennedy, "particularly with reference to the singing voice. Mr. Edison has made thousands and thousands of studies of voices to determine which are scientifically perfect for singing. That side of it did not interest me particularly. I have been seeking to use the discovery rather for detective purposes."
He paused and with a fine needle traced out some of the lines on the photographs before us.
"That," he went on, "is a highly magnified photograph of a minute section of the phonographic record of the voice that called you up, Carton, as editor of the Wall Street Record. The upper and lower lines, with long regular waves, are formed by a voice with no overtones. Those three broader lines in the middle, with rhythmic ripples, show the overtones."
Carton and I followed, fascinated by the minuteness of his investigation and knowledge.
"You see," he explained, "when a voice or a passage of music sounds or is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received upon the diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the surface of the cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig-zag lines of infinitely varying depth and breadth.
"Close familiarity with such records for about forty years has taught Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation in the lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By examining them under the microscope one can analyze each tone with mathematical accuracy and can almost hear it—just as a musician reading the score of a song can almost hear the notes."
"Wonderful," ejaculated Carton. "And you mean to say that in that way you can actually identify a voice?"
Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking them over under a microscope—yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice—mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger-print, the portrait parle of the human voice!"
Incredible as it seemed, we were forced to believe, for there on the table lay the graphic evidence which he had just so painstakingly interpreted.
"Who was it?" asked Carton breathlessly.
Kennedy picked up another microphotograph. "That is the record I took of one of the calls I made—merely for the purpose of obtaining samples of voices to compare with this of the impersonator. The two agree in every essential detail and none of the others could be confounded by an expert who studied them. Your 'wolf' was your old friend Kahn!"
"Fighting back at me by his usual underhand methods," exclaimed Carton in profound disgust.
"Or else trying himself to get control of the Black Book," added Kennedy. "If you will stop to think a moment, his shafts have been levelled quite as much at discrediting Langhorne as yourself. He might hope to kill two birds with one stone—and incidentally save himself."
"You mean that he wants to lay a foundation now for questioning the accuracy of the Black Book if it ever comes to light?"
"Perhaps," assented Kennedy carefully.
"Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his impostures," hastened Carton.
"I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that we know what he is up to and can trace it to him—provided you don't tell him how we did it—yet."
Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every place in which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his offices, nor at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton left a message which told the story and which he could hardly fail to receive soon.
As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown study.He rose slowly and put on his hat.
"Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked, "particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with it. I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I heard about his condition. I want to see him myself."
Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to speak to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more important to look to the foundations than to the building just now."
A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced that Murtha had been taken.
I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty either in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We arrived at the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high brick wall, and evidently once a fine country estate, at just about dusk. To my surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had no difficulty in being admitted.
For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room, I listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the building. Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state of disorder. I had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for the care and treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of excitement which palpably pervaded the air was not what one would have expected. I began to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and wonder whether there might not have been a revolution in the place and the patients have taken charge of their keepers.
At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going to pass us without notice.
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, who had heard his footsteps approaching and had placed himself in the hallway so that the attendant could not pass, "but we have called to see Mr. Murtha."
The attendant eyed us curiously. I expected him to say that it was against the rules, or to question our right to see the patient.
"I'm afraid you're too late," he said briefly, instead.
"Too late?" queried Kennedy sharply. "What do you mean?"
The man answered promptly as if that were the quickest way to get back to his own errand.
"Mr. Murtha escaped from his keepers this evening, just after dinner, and there is no trace of him."
Murtha's escape from the sanitarium had again thrown our calculations into chaos. We rode back to the city in silence, and even Kennedy had no explanation to offer.
Even at a late hour that night, although a widespread alarm had been sent out for him, no trace of the missing man could be found. The next morning's papers, of course, were full of the strange disappearance, but gave no hint of his discovery. In fact, all day the search was continued by the authorities, but without result.
On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the official and political life of the city, could remain at large unrecognized. Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men had disappeared. The facts in Murtha's case spoke for themselves.
Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the final spurt to the finish.
With Kennedy's unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn, that worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our sight. Mrs. Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect that the shadow that had been placed on her could not have been engaged by Martin Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take reports of the sort complaisantly. Someone else must be interested.
As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that no one made use of it. Even though we gained no hint from Langhorne after the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was impossible to tell whether or not he still retained the detectaphone record. On the other hand, if Dorgan had obtained it by using the services of someone in the criminal hierarchy that Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that we would have heard anything about it. We were in the position of men fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly whom we fought.
We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as had been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous twenty-four, had been speculating on the possible solution of the mysterious dropping out of sight of Murtha. The evening papers had contained nothing that the morning papers had not already published and Kennedy had tossed the last of an armful into the scrap basket when the buzzer on the door of our apartment sounded.
A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a note, as he touched his hat. "A message for Professor Kennedy from Mr. Carton, sir," he announced.
I recognized him as Carton's valet as he stood impatiently waiting forCraig to read the letter.
"It's all right—there's no answer—I'll see him immediately," noddedKennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet disappeared.
"My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves," read the note. "Would you like to look it over? I can't find anything missing except a bundle of old and valueless photographs. Carton."
"Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book from Langhorne," I commented, following the line on which I had been thinking at the time.
"And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not finding it?" Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my theory.
"Perhaps," I acquiesced weakly, as we went out.
Instead of turning in the direction of Carton's immediately, Kennedy walked across the campus toward the Chemistry Building. At the laboratory we loaded ourselves with a large and heavy oblong case containing a camera and a tripod.
The Cartons lived in an old section of the city which still retained something of its aristocratic air, having been passed by, as it were, like an eddy in the stream of business that swirled uptown, engulfing everything.
It was an old four-story brownstone house which had been occupied by his father and grandfather before him, and now was the home of Carton, his mother, and his sister.
"I'm glad to see you," Carton met us at the door. "This isn't quite as classy a robbery as Langhorne's—but it's just as mysterious. Must have happened while the family were at dinner. That's why I said it was a robbery by a sneak thief."
He was leading the way to his study, which was in an extension of the house, in the rear.
"I hope you've left things as they were," ventured Craig.
"I did," assured Carton. "I know your penchant for such things and almost the first thought I had was that you'd prefer it that way. So I shut the door and sent William after you. By the way, what have you done with him?"
"Nothing," returned Craig. "Isn't he back yet?"
"No—oh, well I don't need him right away."
"And nothing was taken except some old photographs?" asked Craig, looking intently at Carton's face.
"That is all I can find missing," he returned frankly.
Kennedy's examination of the looted study was minute, taking in the window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally he set up his camera with most particular care and took several flashlight pictures of the window, the cabinet, the doors—including the study—from every angle. Outside he examined the extension and back of the house carefully, noting possible ways of getting from the side street across the fences into the Carton yard.
With Carton we returned to Craig's splendidly equipped photographic studio and while Carton and I made the best of our time by discussing various phases of the case, Kennedy employed the interval in developing his plates.
He 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 margins. Carton and I puzzled over them.
"Those are metric photographs, such as Bertillon of Paris used to take," Craig 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 ourselves. Bertillon 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 other devices in the study of crime."
He was going over the photographs carefully.
"For instance," he continued, "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 at your house, Carton, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime. Preserved in this way, it cannot be questioned. You are sure that the only thing missing is the photographs?"
Carton nodded, "I never keep anything valuable lying around."
"Well," resumed Kennedy, "the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets, but none of them seems to have 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."
Carton glanced at me, and I smiled, for it always did seem so easy, when Craig did it, and so impossible when we tried to go it alone.
"Now, how did the robber get in?" he continued, thoroughly engrossed in his study. "All the windows were supposedly locked. I saw that a pane had been partly cut from this window at the side—and the pieces were there to show it. But consider the outside, a moment. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There were no marks of a ladder or even of any person in the soft soil of the garden 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 someone in the house or at least familiar with it?" I exclaimed.
Kennedy shook his head affirmatively.
I had been wondering who it could be. Certainly this was not the work of Dopey Jack, even if the far cleverer attempt on Langhorne's safe had been. But it might have been one of his gang. I had not got as far as trying to reason out the why of the crime.
"Call up your house, Carton," asked Craig. "See if William, your valet, has returned."
Carton did so, and a moment later turned to us with a look of perplexity on his face. "No," he reported, "he hasn't come back yet. I can't imagine where he is."
"He won't come back," asserted Kennedy positively. "It was an inside job—and he did it."
Carton gasped astonishment.
"At any rate," pursued Kennedy, "one thing we have which the police greatly neglect—a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon used to call it."
"Strange that he should take only photographs," I mused.
"What were they?" asked Kennedy, and again I saw that he was looking intently at Carton's face.
"Nothing much," returned Carton unhesitatingly, "just some personal photographs—of no real value except to me. Most of them were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different times and places that I kept for the associations."
"Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?" suggestedKennedy.
Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied frankly.
Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. I frankly had not believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of the same type and I felt that his open face would surely have disclosed to us any real loss that he suffered or apprehension that he felt over the robbery.
I was forced to give it up, and I think Kennedy, too, had decided not to worry over the crossing of any bridges until at least we knew that there were bridges to be crossed.
Carton was worried more by the discovery that one he had trusted even as a valet had proved unfaithful. He knew, however, as well as we did that one of the commonest methods of the underworld when they wished to pull off a robbery was to corrupt one of the servants of a house. Still, it looked strange, for the laying of such an elaborate plan usually preceded only big robberies, such as jewelery or silver. For myself, I was forced back on my first theory that someone had concluded that Carton had the Black Book, had concocted this elaborate scheme to get what was really of more value than much jewelry, and had found out that Carton did not have the precious detectaphone record, after all. I knew that there were those who would have gone to any length to get it.
A general alarm was given, through the police, for the apprehension of William, but we had small hope that anything would result from it, for at that time Carton's enemies controlled the police and I am not sure but that they would have been just a little more dilatory in apprehending one who had done Carton an injury than if it had been someone else. It was too soon, that night, of course, to expect to learn anything, anyhow.
It was quite late, but it had been a confining day for Kennedy who had spent the hours while not working on Carton's case in some of the ceaseless and recondite investigations of his own to which he was always turning his restless mind.
"Suppose we walk a little way downtown with Carton?" he suggested.
I was not averse, and by the time we arrived in the white light belt ofBroadway the theatres were letting out.
Above the gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"—the only superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose every issue was an "Extra."
Kennedy bought one, with the laughing remark, "Perhaps it's about your robbery, Carton."
It was only a second before the smile on his face changed to a look of extreme gravity. We crowded about him. In red ink across the head of the paper were the words:
Down in a lower corner, in a little box into which late news could be dropped, also in red ink, was the brief account:
This morning the body of an unknown man was found in The Bronx near theWestchester Railroad tracks. He had been run over and badly mutilated.After lying all day in the local morgue, it was transferred, stillunidentified, to the city Morgue downtown.
Early this evening one of the night attendants recognized the unidentified body as that of Murtha, "the Smiling Boss," whose escape day before yesterday from an asylum in Westchester has remained a mystery until now.
"Well—what do you—think of that!" ejaculated Carton. "Murtha—dead—and I thought the whole thing was a job they were putting up on me!"
Kennedy crooked his finger at a cabby who was alertly violating the new ordinance and soliciting fares away from a public cab stand.
"The Morgue—quick!" he ordered, not even noticing the flabbergasted look on the jehu's face, who was not accustomed to carrying people thither from the primrose path of Broadway quite so rapidly.
There had come a lull in the activities which never entirely cease, night or day, in the dingy building at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. Across the street in the municipal lodging-house the city's homeless were housed for the night. Even ever wakeful Bellevue Hospital nearby was comparatively quiet.
The last "dead boat" which carries the city's unclaimed corpses away for burial had long ago left, when we arrived. The anxious callers who pass all day through the portals of the mortuary chamber seeking lost friends and relatives had disappeared. Except for the night keeper and one or two assistants, the Morgue was empty save of the overcrowded dead.
Years before, as a cub reporter on the Star, I had had the gruesome assignment once of the Morgue. It was the same old place after all these years and it gave me the same creepy sensations now as it did then. Even the taxicab driver seemed glad to set down his fares and speed away.
It was ghoulish. I felt then and I did still that instead of contributing to the amelioration of conditions that could not be otherwise than harrowing, everything about the old Morgue lent itself to the increase of the horror of the surroundings.
As Kennedy, Carton, and I entered, we found that the principal chamber in the place was circular. Its walls were lined with the ends of caskets, which, fitting close into drawer-like apertures were constantly enveloped in the refrigerated air.
It seemed, even at that hour, that if these receptacles were even adequate to contain all of the daily tenants of the Morgue, much of the anguish and distress inseparable from such a place might be spared those who of necessity must visit the place seeking their dead. As it was, even for those bound by no blood ties to the unfortunates who found their way to the city Morgue, the room was a veritable chamber of horror.
We stood in horrified amazement at what we saw. On the floor, which should be kept clear, lay the overflow of the day's intake. Bodies for which there was no room in the cooling boxes, others which were yet awaiting claimants, and still more awaiting transfer to the public burying ground, lay about in their rough coffins, many of them brutally exposed.
It seemed, too, that if ever there was a time when conditions might have been expected to have halfway adjusted themselves to the pressure which by day brought out all too clearly the hopeless inadequacy of the facilities provided by the city to perform one of its most important and inevitable functions, it was at that early morning hour of our visit. Presumably preparation had been completed for the busy day about to open by setting all into some semblance of respectful order. But such was not the case. It was impossible.
In one group, I recall, which an attendant said had been awaiting his removal for a couple of days, the rough board coffins, painted the uniform brown of the city's institutions, lay open, without so much as face coverings over the dead.
They lay as they had been sent in from various hospitals. Most of them were bereft of all the decencies usual with the dead, in striking contrast, however, with the bodies from Bellevue, which were all closely swathed in bandages and shrouds.
One body, that of a negro, which had been sent in to the Morgue from a Harlem hospital, lay just as it came, utterly bare, exposing to public view all the gruesome marks of the autopsy. I wondered whether anything like that might be found to be the fate of the once jovial and popular Murtha, when we found him.
I almost forgot our mission in the horror of the place, for, nearby was an even more heartrending sight. Piled in several heaps much higher than a man's head and as carelessly as cordwood were the tiny coffins holding the babies which the authorities are called on by the poor of the city to bury in large numbers—far too poor to meet the cost of the cheapest decent burial. Atop the stack of regulation coffins were the nondescript receptacles made use of by the very poor—the most pathetic a tiny box from the corner grocery. The bodies, some dozens of them, lay like so much merchandise, awaiting shipment.
"What a barbarity!" I heard Craig mutter, for even he, though now and then forced to visit the place when one of his cases took him there, especially when it was concerned with an autopsy, had never become hardened to it.
Often I had heard him denounce the primitive appointments, especially in the autopsy rooms. The archaic attempts to utilize the Morgue for scientific investigation were the occasion for practices that shocked even the initiated. For the lack of suitable depositories for the products of autopsies, these objects were plainly visible in rude profusion when a door was opened to draw out a body for inspection. About and around the slabs whereon the human bodies lay, in bottles and in plates, this material which had no place except in the cabinets of a laboratory was inhumanly displayed in profusion, close to corpses for which a morgue is expected to provide some degree of reverential care.
"You see," apologized the keeper, not averse to throwing the blame on someone else, for it indeed was not his but the city's fault, "one reason why so many bodies have to remain uncared for is that I could show you cooling box after cooling box with some subject which figured during the past few months in the police records. Why victims of murders committed long ago should be held indefinitely, and their growing numbers make it impossible to give proper places to each day's temporary bodies, I can't say. Sometimes," he added with a sly dig at Carton, "the only explanation seems to be that the District Attorney's office has requested the preservation of the grisly relics."
I could see that Carton was making a mental note that the practice would be ended as far as his office was concerned.
"So—you saw the story in the newspapers about Mr. Murtha," repeated the keeper, not displeased to see us and at the publicity it gave him. "It was I that discovered him—and yet many's the times some of the boys that must have handled the body since it was picked up beside the tracks must have seen him. It was too late to get anyone to take the body away to-night, but the arrangements have all been made, and it will be done early in the morning before anyone else sees Pat Murtha here, as he shouldn't be. We've done what we could for him ourselves—he was a fine gentleman and many's the boy that owes a boost up in life to him."
Reverentially even the hardened keeper drew out one of the best of the drawer-like boxes. On the slab before us lay the body. Carton drew back, excitedly, shocked.
"It IS Murtha!" he exclaimed.
I, too, looked at it quickly. The name as Carton pronounced it, in such a place, had, to me at least, an unpleasant likeness to "murder."
Kennedy had bent down and was examining the mutilated body minutely.
"How do you suppose such a thing is possible—that he could lie about the city, even here until the night keeper came on,—unknown?" asked Carton, aghast.
"I don't know," I said, "but I imagine that in connection with the actual inadequacy of the equipment one would find reflected the same makeshift character in the attitude and actions of those who handle the city's dead. It used to be the case, at least, that the facilities for keeping records were often almost totally neglected, and not through the fault of the Morgue keepers, entirely. But, I understand it is better now."
"This is terrible," repeated Carton, averting his face. "Really, Jameson, it makes me feel like a hound, for ever thinking that Murtha might have been putting up a game on me. Poor old Murtha—I should have preferred to remember him as the 'Smiling Boss' as everyone always called him!"
I called to mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton's office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he would compromise with the organization. What a contrast, this, with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with passion at Carton's refusal!
And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all—the fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions which had made possible such neglect of the district leader's body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many who owed their very positions to the organization.
I could not help but think that if he had served humanity with one-half the zeal which he had served graft, this could not have happened.
The more I contemplated the case, the more tragic did it seem to me. I longed for the assignment of writing the story for the Star—the chance I would have had in the old days to bring in a story that would have got me a nod of approval from my superior. I determined, as soon as possible, to get the Star on the wire and try to express some of the thoughts that were surging through my brain in the face of this awful and unexpected occurrence.
There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as those of the Morgue attendants. I could not help reflecting on the strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all distinctions between men of high and low degree. Murtha had almost literally sprung from the streets. His career had been one possible only in the social and political conditions of his times. And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a pauper's grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan to debauch.
Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed. For the moment he did not even think of how this blow to the System might affect his own chances. It was only the pitiful wreck of a human being before us that he saw.
I was not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who was examining Murtha's body with minute care, now and then muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it had received in its various transfers about the city. But there were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which added even more to the horror of the case.
One thing, I felt, was fortunate. Murtha had had no family. There had been plenty of scandal about him, but as far as I knew there was no one except his old cronies in the organization to be shocked by his loss, no living tragedy left in the wake of this.
"How do you suppose it happened?" I asked the night keeper.
He shook his head doubtfully. "No one knows, of course," he replied slowly. "But I think the big fellow got worse up there in that asylum. He wasn't used to anything but having his own way, you know. They say he must have waited his chance, after the dinner hour, when things were quiet, and then slipped out while no one was looking. He may have been crazy, but you can bet your life Pat Murtha was the smartest crazy man they ever had up there. THEY couldn't hold him."
"I see," I said, struck by the faith which the man had inspired even in those who held the lowest of city positions. "But I meant how do you suppose he was killed?"
The attendant looked at me thoughtfully a while. "Young man," he answered, "I ain't saying nothing and it may have been an accident after all. Have you ever been up in that part of town?"
I had not and said so.
"Well," he continued, "those electric trains do sneak up on a fellow fast. It may have been an accident, all right. The coroner up there said so, and I guess he ought to know. It must have been late at night—perhaps he was wandering away from the ordinary roads for fear of being recaptured. No one knows—I guess no one will know, ever. But it's a sad day for many of the boys. He helped a lot of 'em. And Mr. Dorgan—he knows what a loss it is, too. I hear that it's hit the Chief hard."
The attendant, rough though he was and hardened by the daily succession of tragedies, could not restrain an honest catch in his voice over the passing of the "big fellow," as some of them called the "Smiling Boss." It was a pretty good object lesson on the power of the system which the organization had built up, how Murtha, and even the more distant Dorgan himself, had endeared himself to his followers and henchmen. Perhaps it was corrupt, but it was at least human, and that was a great deal in a world full of inhumanities. In the face of what had happened, one felt that much might be forgiven Murtha for his shortcomings, especially as the era of the Murthas and Dorgans was plainly passing.
"Here at least," whispered Carton, as we withdrew to a corner to escape the palling atmosphere, "is one who won't worry about what happens to that Black Book any more. I wonder what he really knew about it—what secrets he carried away with him?"
"I can't say," I returned. "But, one thing it does. It must relieve Mrs. Ogleby's fears a bit. With Murtha out of the way there is one less to gossip about what went on at Gastron's that night of the dinner."
He said nothing and just then Kennedy straightened up, as though he had finished his examination. We hurried over to him. I thought the look on Craig's face was peculiar.
"What is it—what did you find?" both Carton and I asked.
Kennedy did not answer immediately.
"I—I can't say," he answered slowly at length, as we thanked the Morgue keeper for his courtesy and left the place. "In fact I'd rather not say—until I know."
I knew from previous experiences that it was of no use to try to quiz Kennedy. He was a veritable Gradgrind for facts, facts, facts. As for myself, I could not help wondering whether, after all, Murtha might not have been the victim of foul play—and, if so, by whom?
We did not have to wait long for the secret of the robbery of Carton to come out. It was not in any "extras," or in the morning papers the next day, but it came through a secret source of information to the Reform League.
"A clerk in the employ of the organization who is really a detective employed by the Reform League," groaned Carton, as he told us the story himself the next morning at his office, "has just given us the information that they have prepared a long and circumstantial story about me—about my intimacy with Mrs. Ogleby and Murtha and some others. The story of the robbery of my study is in the papers this morning. To-morrow they plan to publish some photographs—alleged to have been stolen."
"Photographs—Mrs. Ogleby," repeated Kennedy. "Real ones?"
"No," exclaimed Carton quickly, "of course not—fakes. Don't you see the scheme? First they lay a foundation in the robbery, knowing that the public is satisfied with sensations, and that they will be sure to believe that the robbery was put up by some muckrakers to obtain material for an expose. I wasn't worried last night. I knew I had nothing to conceal."
"Then what of it?" I asked naively.
"A good deal of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some means of putting a date on them early in the spring."
"What are they that they should take such pains with them?" persistedKennedy, looking fixedly at Carton.
Carton met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be photographs of myself," he repeated. "One purports to represent me in a group composed of Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, another woman whom I do not even know, and myself. I am standing between Murtha and Mrs. Ogleby and we look very familiar. Another is a picture of the same four riding in a car, owned by Murtha. Oh, there are several of them, of that sort."
He paused as a dozen unspoken questions framed themselves in my mind. "I don't hesitate to admit," he added, "that a few months ago I knew Mrs. Ogleby—socially. But there was nothing to it. I never knew Murtha well, and the other woman I never saw. At various times I have been present at affairs where she was, but I know that no pictures were ever taken, and even if there had been, I would not care, provided they told the truth about them. What I do care about is the sworn allegation that, I understand, is to accompany these—these fakes."
His voice broke. "It's a lie from start to finish, but just think of it, Kennedy," he went on. "Here is the story, and here, too, are the pictures—at least they will be, in print, to-morrow. Now, you know nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have a scandal like this raised at this time. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for the suspicion to turn the tide against me. If it were earlier in the campaign, I might accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn of events I should have really the best sort of campaign material. But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick on the Saturday before election."
"Can't we buy them off?" I ventured, perplexed beyond measure at this new and unexpected turn of events.
"No, I won't," persisted Carton, shutting his square jaw doggedly. "I won't be held up—even if that is possible."
"Miss Ashton on the wire," announced a boy from the outer office.
The look on Carton's face was a study. I saw directly what was the trouble—far more important to him than a mere election.
"Tell her—I'm out—will be back soon," he muttered, for the first time hesitating to speak to her.
"You see," he continued blackly, "I'll fight if it takes my last dollar, but I won't allow myself to be blackmailed out of a cent—no, not a cent," he thundered, a heightened look of determination fixing the lines on his face as he brought his fist down with a rattling bang on the desk.
Kennedy was saying nothing. He was letting Carton ease his mind of the load which had been suddenly thrust upon it. Carton was now excitedly pacing the floor.
"They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect."
"That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off."
"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat—they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan 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."
He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to-day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an asset instead of a liability. And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign. That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway."
Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?"
"No—but I've been promised them this morning."
"H'm," mused Craig, 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, Carton,—nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I agree with you, Carton—it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method."
"Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury.
"I haven't said I can do that—yet," measured Craig with provoking slowness.
"Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton.
Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.
"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been—er—foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "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. I—I don't know that I'd desert you—if the pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation."
"I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that, Kennedy. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and—get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up—Langhorne—anybody. And, for God's sake get it in time—there's more than an election that hangs on it!"
Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby.
That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might artfully heap up? As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight—the two fights.
"I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were outside.
Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt thatKennedy must know best.
When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and girls had already set to work, 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 scrapbooks, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal.
Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cashier and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports received of meetings already held.
On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active force, in charge of Miss Ashton.
As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we could see that something was the matter.
Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr. Carton."
She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what the true state of her feelings was.
"I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to slanderMr. Carton," went on Kennedy.
Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was thinking much.
"I suppose in a large force like this that 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 the "literature."
"I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in THIS office, though."
Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word "this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now pale and agitated.
"I—I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy—I would almost rather not have known it at all,—only I suppose I must have known it sooner or later."
"Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you know already? I didn't think—it was known."
She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the organization brought the pictures up here—one of the girls opened them by mistake—it got about the office—I couldn't help but know."
"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be calm.I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please.Remember pictures can lie—just like words."
"I—I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with the League. 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 in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait until—"
"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for—for even knowing—" she paused just in time to substitute Mr. Murtha for Mrs. Ogleby—"such men as Mr. Murtha—secretly."
She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay.
"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."
Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the photographs," he asked at length.
"They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would not soil her hands by touching the filthy things.
We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office.
There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake."
Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the photographs—as plain as they could be, the group including Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the porch of a gabled building in the sunshine, again the four speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read faintly, and other less interesting snapshots.
As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind in connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story. Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note instead.
He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act toward me in the same old way—and that after I know what I know. I—I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing something from me."
What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had much effect.
"That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole affair," he sighed as we left. "She believes it."
I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If people believed it generally, Carton was ruined.