In a private ward room at Bellevue Hospital, Captain Cronin was just returning to memory of himself and things that had been. Shirley arrived at his cot-side as he was being propped up more comfortably. The older man's face broke into game smiles, as the criminologist took the chair provided by the pretty nurse.
“Thanks, I'll have a little chat with my friend, if you don't think it will do him any harm.”
“He is better now, sir. We feared he was fatally injured when they brought him in. I'll be outside in the corridor if you need anything.”
She left not without an admiring look at the big chap, wondering why he wore such disreputable superstructure with patent leather pumps and silk hose showing below the ragged overcoat. Strange sights come to hospitals, curiosity frequently leading to unprofitable knowledge: so she was silently discreet. Shirley's garb was not unobserved by the detective chief. Monty laughed reminiscently at the questioning glance.
“These are my working clothes—a fine combination. I nabbed two of the gang. But what became of you?”
“Outside that club door, I wanted to save time for us both. I took the first taxi in sight. Before I could even call out to you, the door slammed on me, the shades flopped down, the car started up—the next thing I knew this here nurse was sticking a spoon in my mouth, a-saying: 'Take this—it's fine for what ails you!'”
“I wonder if it could have been the same machine they left at Van Cleft's? I will tell you how things progressed.” So he did, leaving out only the confidence of Professor MacDonald. The Captain became feverishly excited, until Shirley abjured him to beware of a relapse. “You must be calm, for the next twenty-four hours: there will be much for you to do, even then. Meanwhile, let me call up your agency; then you give them instructions over this table telephone to let Howard Van Cleft interview the little chorus girl, with his friend. I'll be the friend.”
“I'm afraid I'm going to be snowed under in this case, Monty. The finest job I've had these dozen years. But you're square, and will do all you can.”
“Old friend, I'll do what I can to make Van Cleft and the newspapers sure that you are the most wonderful sleuth inside or outside the public library. Here's your office—speak up. Let me lift you.”
“Hello Pat!” called Cronin, as his superintendent came to the 'phone. “I am detained at Bellevue, so that I can't be there when Van Cleft comes down. Let him Third Degree that little Jane from the garage. Keep them two men apart, too—oh, that's all right, the fellow is a friend of mine on the 'Frisco police force. He won't butt in.” Silence for a moment, then: “Oh, shucks, let 'em yowl! They've got more than kidnapping to worry about for the next twenty-five years.”
He hung up the receiver, sinking back on his pillows wan from the strain. Monty handed him a glass of water, and adjusted the bandages with a hand as tender as a woman's. He lifted the instrument again.
“You are sterling, twenty-two carat and a yard wide, Captain! Now, get to sleep while I find out who the ring-master is. I've sworn to keep awake until I do. I think it well to telephone Van Cleft, and arrange for a better get-a-way for us both.”
He was soon talking with the son of the murdered man. “Meet me down at the Vanderbilt Hotel—ask for Mr. Hepburn's room, and send up the name of Williams. See you in an hour. Good-bye.”
Hanging up the receiver, he turned toward the door, after a friendly pat on Cronin's shoulder. The bell rang, and the Captain reached for it, to sink back exhausted upon the bed. Shirley answered, to be greeted by a pleasant feminine voice.
“Is this Captain Cronin?”
Instantly the criminologist replied affirmatively, suiting his tones as best he could to the gruff voice of the detective chief, with a wink at that worthy.
“I just called up, Captain, to ask about you—Oh, you don't recognize my voice. I'm Miss Wilberforce, private secretary to Mr. Van Cleft. Has any one been to see you yet? I understand that you are very busy, and have already missed two other good cases, this one being the THIRD! Well, don't hurry, Captain. You may get the rest to come—if you live long enough. Good-bye!”
Shirley looked at Cronin, startled. Another mention of the mystic number. He called for information about the origin of the call.
“Lordee, son! Are they at it again?” asked Cronin in disgust.
“Yes—overdoing it. One thing is clear, that whoever is behind this telephone trickery is very clever, and very conceited over that cleverness. It may be a costly vanity. Yes, information?”
“The call was from Rector 2190-D. The American Sunday School Organization, sir—It doesn't answer now; the office must be closed.”
Shirley put the instrument down, with a smile on his pursed lips. He waved a good natured farewell to his friend, as he drew the cap down over his eyes.
“Look a little happier, Captain. I'll send down some fruit and a special vintage from our club which has bottled up in it the sunlight of a dozen years in Southern France. I hope they keep the telephone wires busy—they may tangle themselves up in their own spider-web!”
Leaving the hospital, he hurried to the hotel. One of his secret idiosyncracies was a custom of “living around” at a number of hotels, under aliases. Maintaining pleasant suites in each, he kept full supplies of linen and garments, while effectively blotting out his own identity for “doubling” work.
He was known as “Mr. Hepburn” here, and entering the side door he was subjected to the curious gaze of only one servant, the operator of the small elevator. Once in the shelter of his quarters he rummaged through some scrap-books for data—he found it in a Sunday feature story published a month before in a semi-theatrical paper. It described with rollicking sarcasm, a gay “millionaire” party which had been given in Rector's private dining rooms. Among the ridiculed hosts were Van Cleft, Wellington Serral and Herbert De Cleyster! Here, in some elusive manner, ran the skein of truth which if followed would lead to the solution of mystery. He must carve out of this mass of pregnant clues the essentials upon which to act, as the sculptor chisels the marble of a huge block to expose the figure of his inspiration, encased there all the time!
“To find out the source of their golden-haired nymphs for this merry-merry, that is the question! Some stage doorkeeper might be persuaded to unburden what soul he has left!”
He jotted in his memorandum book the names of the other eight wealthy men who were pilloried by the journalist. The younger men, Shirley felt sure, were of that peculiarly Manhattanse type of hanger-on—well-groomed, happy-go-hellward youths who danced, laughed and drank well,—so essential to the philanderings of these rich old Harlequins and their gilded Columbines. As he scribbled, the telephone of the room tinkled its summons.
He started toward it: then his invaluable intuition prompted him to walk into the adjoining room, where another instrument stood on a small table, handy to the bed. Only two people could possibly know he was there. Van Cleft could not have arrived, as yet. The other bell jingled impatiently, but Shirley finally heard the voice of the switch-board girl.
“I'm trying to get you on the other wire, sir. There's a call.”
“Don't connect me,” he hurriedly ordered, “except to open the switch, so I may listen. If I hang up without a word, tell the party I will be back in twenty minutes.”
With a hotel telephone girl tact is more important than even the knowledge of wire-knitting. It was the woman's voice which he had heard at the hospital. Captain Cronin was anxious to speak to Mr. Williams, who was calling on Mr. Hepburn! With the biggest jolt of this day of surprises Shirley disconnected and whistled. Again he laughed—with that grim chuckle which was so characteristic of his supreme battling mood! They had found the trail even quicker than he had expected. Fortunate it was that he had not mentioned his own name in telephoning from the hospital to Howard. Not a wire was safe from these mysterious eaves-droppers now. He hurried into a business suit, and left the hotel, to walk over Thirty-fourth Street to the studio of his friend, Hammond Bell. Here he was admitted, to find the portrait-painter finishing a solitary chafing-dish supper.
“Delighted, Monty! Join me in the encore on this creamed chicken and mushrooms!”
“Too rich for my primitive blood, Hammond. I'm in a hurry to get a favor.”
“I've received enough at your hands—say the word.”
“Simply this: I want to experiment with sound waves. I remembered that once in a while some of these wild Bohemian friends of yours warbled post-impressionist love-songs into your phonograph. It stood the strain, and so must be a good one. It is too late now to get one in a shop; will you lend me the whole outfit, with the recording attachment as well, for to-night and to-morrow?”
“The easiest thing you know. Let's slide it into this grip—you can carry the horn.”
Three minutes later Shirley made his exit, and soon was shaking hands with Van Cleft in his own room at the hotel. He sketched his idea hurriedly, as he adjusted the instrument on the dressing-table near the telephone.
“When the call comes, be sure to say: 'Get closer, I can't hear you.' That's the method, and it's so simple it is almost silly.” They were barely ready when the bell warned them. At Van Cleft's reply, when the call for “Mr. Williams” Shirley pushed the horn close to the telephone receiver. Van Cleft twisted it, so as to give the best advantage, and demanded that the speaker come closer to the 'phone.
“Can you hear me now?” asked the feminine voice. “Do you hear me now?”
“No, speak louder. This is Mr. Williams. Speak up. I can't understand you.” The voice was petulant and so distinct that even Shirley could hear it, as he knelt by the side of the phonograph. Again Van Cleft insisted on his deafness. There was the suggestion of a break in the voice which brought to Shirley's eyes the sparkle of a presentiment of success. At last Van Cleft admitted that he could hear.
“Well, you fool, I've a message for your friend Mr. Van Cleft.”
“Which one?” was the innocent inquiry, as he forgot for an instant that now he was the sole bearer of that name.
“The one that's left. Tell him there will be none left if he continues this gum-shoe work. He had better let well enough alone, and let that little girl get out of town as soon as possible. The papers will go crazy over a scandal like this, and some one is apt to grab Van Cleft. That's all. Good-bye!”
Silently Shirley shut off the lever of the machine, to catch up the receiver. As before his endeavor to locate the call resulted in a new address: this time in the Bronx!
“Ah, the lady leaps from the business district to the Bronx in half an hour. That is what I call some traveling.”
Van Cleft studied him with open mouth, as he withdrew the phonograph record, coating it with the preservative to make the tiny lines permanent.
“In the name of common sense, who was that? And what's this phonograph game?” he demanded.
“The second question may answer the first before sunrise, unless I am badly mistaken. I have heard an old adage which declares that if you give a man long enough rope he will hang himself. My new application is that you let him talk enough he is apt to sing his own swan song, for a farewell perch on the electric chair at Sing Sing!”
Then he lit a cigarette and packed up the phonograph.
Still befuddled by the unusual events of the day, Howard Van Cleft was unable to delight in a theoretical discovery. Personal fear began to manifest itself.
“Mr. Shirley, you're going at this too strong. We know the guilty party—this miserable girl in the machine. We want to hush it up and let things go at that.”
“We're hushing it, aren't we?” demanded Shirley, as he placed the record in the grip. “Don't you see the wisdom of knowing who may systematically blackmail you after secrecy is obtained. This is a matter of the future, as well as the present.”
“But I don't want to lose my own life—I am young, with life before me, and I want to let well enough alone, after these threats.”
“I am afraid that you have a yellow streak.” His lip curled as he studied the pallid features of the heir to the Van Cleft millions. Fearless himself, he could still understand the tremors of this care-free butterfly: yet he knew he must crush the dangerous thoughts which were developing. “If you mistrust me, hustle for yourself. You have the death-certificate, the services will be over in a few days, and then you will have enough money to live on your father's yacht or terra firma for the rest of your life, in the China Sea, or India, as far away from Broadway chorus girls as you want. That might be safe.”
He gazed out of the window, toward the twinkling lights far away across the East River. His sarcasm made Van Cleft wince as though from a whip lash. The latter mopped his forehead and tried to steady his voice, as he replied with all humility.
“You're a brick, and I don't mean to offend you. Today has been terrible, you know: this tornado has swept me from my moorings. I don't know where to turn.”
“I am thoughtless,” and Shirley's warm hand grasped the flaccid fingers of the young man. “Forgive me for letting my interest run away with my sympathies. I'm thinking of the future, more than mere protection from newspaper scandal. This crime is so ingenious that I believe it has a more powerful motive than mere robbery. You are now at the head of a great house of finance and society. You must guard your mother and your sister, and those yet to come. A deadly snake is writhing its slimy trail somewhere: here—there—'round about us! Who knows where it will strike next? Who knows how far that blow may reach—even unto China, or wherever you run?”
He hesitated, studying the effect upon Van Cleft, who dropped limply into a chair, his eyes dark with terror. The psychological ruse had won. Selfish cowardice, which temporarily threatened to ruin his campaign, now gave way to the instinct of a fighting defense.
“There, Van Cleft, it is ghastly. You have the significance now: we must scotch the snake. That girl is over at the Holland Agency, and we should see her at once, to learn what she knows. Cronin has arranged for my coming with you, so introduce me under my real name.
“Wait here fifteen minutes after I leave, so that I may get the phonograph in readiness, for you will undoubtedly be shadowed, and that may mean another telephone call. You were not a coward in college—I do not believe you are one now!”
Van Cleft straightened up proudly.
“No, I will fight them with all I have. But why these phonograph records: isn't one enough?”
“No, I want autographs of all the voices. I will go now. Don't hurry in following me. Do not fear to let any shadowers see you—it will help us along.”
Before many minutes he had been admitted to the corridor of the Holland Agency by a sharp-nosed individual who regarded him with suspicion. The operatives were undoubtedly expecting trouble from all quarters, for three other large men of the “bull” type, heavy-jowled, ponderous men, surrounded him as he presented his card.
“I am the friend of Howard Van Cleft, about whom Captain Cronin telephoned you from Bellevue. I am to help him interview the girl: may I wait until he arrives?”
“Oh, you're wise to the case? Sure then, come into the reception room on the right. What's that in your grip?” asked the apparent leader of the men.
“Just an idea of Van Cleft's,” said Shirley, as he followed into the adjoining compartment. “It's a phonograph. Have you received any phoney 'phone calls to-night? Queer ones that you didn't expect and couldn't explain? Van Cleft has, and he decided to take records of them on this machine.”
The superintendent nodded. Shirley opened the grip and drew out the instrument, and made ready on the small table, near which was the desk telephone.
“Let's get this in readiness then, and if you get any calls have them switched up to this instrument, so that when you talk, you can hold the receiver handy to the horn.”
“Young feller, I think you must know more about this business than you've a right to. Just keep your hands above the table—I think I'll frisk you!”
“No need,” snapped Shirley with a smile in his eyes, and the automatic revolver was drawn and covering the detective before he could reach forward. “But I have no designs on you. You will have to work quicker than that with some people in this case.”
He slid the weapon across the table to the other who snatched it anxiously.
“If a call comes and you don't recognize the voice at once, please ask the party to come closer to the 'phone, to speak louder—listen, there is the bell now! Get it connected here at once!”
The surprised superintendent, fearing that after all he might miss some good lead, yielded to his professional curiosity against his professional prejudices. He bawled down the hall.
“Switch on up here, Mike. I'll talk.” He caught up the instrument, as Shirley dropped to his knees beside him, to swing the horn into place.
“What's that?” he shouted over the wire. “Yes, shure it is—What's that you say?—I don't get you, cull—You want to speak to the girl?—What girl?—Talk louder. Hire a hall!—Say, I ain't no mind reader! Speak up.”
Over the instrument came the phrase once more: “Can you hear me now?”
It was the man's voice! Shirley was exultant.
“Yes, I hear you. What do you want?”
“I want to call for my sister, if you're going to let her go. I want—”
An inspiration prompted Shirley to press down the prongs of the receiver. The connection was stopped, and the superintendent turned upon him angrily.
“You spoiled that, you nut! We was just about to find out who her brother was—say, who are you, anyway?”
“There, don't you worry. That makes another call certain. Don't you see? That's what I'm playing for. But here comes Van Cleft, who will tell you I am all right.”
The millionaire entered the hallway before any serious altercation could arise. He greeted Shirley warmly and introduced him to Pat Cleary. The man was mollified.
“Well, I'm Captain Cronin's right bower, and I thinks as how this guy is the joker of the deck trying to make a dirty deuce out of me. But, if you want to see the girl, she's right upstairs. His work was a little speedy on first acquaintance. Nick, keep your eyes on this machine, for we may get another call on this floor—This way gentlemen. Watch your step, for the hallway's dark.”
The girl was imprisoned in a windowless room on the second floor. As the door opened, Shirley beheld a pitiful sight. Attired in the finery of the Rialto, she lay prone upon a couch in the center of the dingy room, sobbing hysterically. Her blonde hair was disheveled, her features wan and distorted from her paroxysms of fear and grief. Like a frightened animal, she sprang to her feet as they entered the room, retreating to the wall, her trembling hands spread as though to brace her from falling.
“I didn't do it! I swear! The old fool was soused and I don't know what was the matter with me. But I didn't kill any one in the world!”
“There, sit down, little girl, and don't get frightened. This gentleman and I have come to learn the truth—not to punish you for something you didn't do. Start with the beginning and tell all you remember.”
Shirley's gentle manner was so unexpected, his voice so inspiring that she relaxed, sinking to the floor, as Shirley caught her limp girlish form in his arms. He placed her on the couch again, and she regained her composure under his calm urging. Little by little she visualized the details of the gruesome evening and narrated them under the magnetic cross-questions of the criminologist.
She had met the elder Van Cleft in the tea-room of a Broadway hostelry, by appointment made the evening before at Pinkie Taylor's birthday party. After several drinks together they took a taxicab to ride uptown to a little chop house. Did she see any one she knew in the tea-room? Of course, several of the fellows and girls whom she couldn't remember just now, buzzed about, for Van Cleft was a liberal entertainer around the youngsters. She had five varieties of cocktails in succession, and she became dizzy. In the taxicab she became dizzier and when next she remembered anything definite she was sitting on the stool in the garage where she had been arrested. That was all. As she reached this point there came a knock on the door with a call for Van Cleft.
“You Van's son!” she screamed. Then she fainted, while Shirley caught her, calling an assistant to care for her, as he followed Van Cleft downstairs to answer the telephone. “You know your cues?”
The millionaire nodded, as with trembling fingers he caught up the instrument and knelt on the bare floor to hold it close to the phonograph, which Shirley was engineering, with a fresh record in place.
“Hello! Hello, there, I say. Hello!”
Shirley strained his ears, to hear this time a rough, wheezy voice which caused the two men to exchange startled glances, as it proceeded: “Is this you, Howard, my boy?”
“What do you want? I can't hear you. The telephone is buzzing. Louder please!”
Shirley nodded approbation, as the machine ran along merrily.
“Now, can you hear me. Ahem! Can you hear me now? Is this Howard Van Cleft?”
“Yes, go ahead, but louder still.”
“Now, can you hear me? This is your father's dearest friend, Howard,—this is William Grimsby speaking. I am fearfully distressed and shocked to learn of his death, my poor boy. And Howard, I am grieved to learn that there is some little scandal about it. As your father's confidential adviser, I urge you to hush it up at all cost. I was told at your home just now by one of the servants that you had gone to this vulgar detective agency.”
Here Shirley shut off the phonograph, addressing Van Cleft with his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone for the minute.
“Keep on talking until I return. Get his advice about flowers and everything else you can think of.”
Then he ran from the room, into the hallway, out of the door, and down the stoop to Fortieth Street. He looked about uncertainly, then espied across the way a tailor shop, where the light of the late workman still burned. Monty hurried thither and asked the use of the telephone upon the wall.
“Shuair, mister, but it will cost you a dime, for I have to pay the gas and the rent.”
From the telephone directory he obtained the address and number of William Grimsby, the banker. He received an answer promptly. The servant, after learning his name promised to call the master. A gruff voice answered soon. Mr. Grimsby declared that he had been reading in his library for the last two hours, undisturbed by any telephone calls. Shirley expressed a doubt.
“How dare you doubt my word, sir. The telephone is in my reception room where I heard it ring just now, for the first time. What do you want?”
“An interview with you to-morrow morning at nine on a life and death matter. I can merely remind you, sir, that two of your friends, Wellington Serral and Herbert de Cleyster have met mysterious deaths during the past week. Mr. Van Cleft died of heart failure to-night. I will be there at nine. As you value your own life do not leave your residence or even answer any telephone messages again until I see you.”
“Well, I'll be—” Shirley disconnected, before the verb was reached. He tossed the coin to the tailor, and speedily returned to the waiting room where he signaled Van Cleft to end the conversation.
“Quick now, find out what wire called you up.” The answer was “William Grimsby, 97 Fifth Avenue.”
“You had the wrong tip that time, Mr. Shirley,” said Van Cleft. “But how could he have found out where I was, for none of the servants know about Captain Cronin, or even my family that I was coming down here. He gave me some good advice however. I want to pay the hush money and end it all forever.”
Shirley had preserved the record and put it away with the others in the grip. Now he lit a cigarette and puffed several rings of smoke before answering.
“Van, it must be wonderful to be twins.”
“This is no night for joking,” petulantly, observed the nervous young man. “I want the girl silenced—”
“She won't open her mouth after I tell her some things. It may entertain you to know, Van, that while you were getting such good advice from Mr. Grimsby on this wire, I was talking to the real Mr. Grimsby on his own wire: he said I was his first caller in more than an hour. So, I gave him some good advice, which wouldn't interest you. After this don't believe what the telephone tells.”
“Who was I speaking with?”
“The most brilliant criminal it has ever been my pleasure to run across,” and his eyes snapped with joy, the huntsman instinct rising to the surface at last, “I will call him the voice until I know his better name. He is the most scientific crook of the age.”
“What do you know about criminals?” was the incredulous question.
“I'll know a hundred times as much as I do now, when I know all about this one, Van. You'd better have Cleary send an armed guard along with you, and get home for a good rest. Get a man who can drive a car, and bring back the empty auto three houses away from your residence: it will bear looking into! I'm going up to have a revival meeting with that girl now, for I am convinced that she is not a whit more implicated in the conception or execution of this crime than you are. Good-night.”
Van Cleft left the house, with a pitying shake of the head. He was not quite certain that he had done wisely, after all, in bringing his eccentric friend into the affair. He little reckoned how much more peculiarly Montague Shirley was to act for the remainder of the night.
The cross-examination of Polly Marion resulted in little advantage. She had known of the sudden departure of two other songbirds, well equipped with funds for the land of Somewhere Else. Their absence had been the subject of some quiet jesting among the dragon flies who flitted over the pond of pleasure. A suggestion, from some unrecalled source, that their disappearance had been connected with the deaths of the two aged suitors was revitalized in her memory by the words of the elderly detective. Familiar with the strange life of this jeweled half-world Shirley's keenness brought forth nothing to convince him that the girl had been more culpable than in the following of her class, known to the initiate as the “gentle art of gold digging.”
“Polly, go home now, and stay away from these parties: that's my honest advice, if you want to be on the 'outside looking in,' when some one is sent to prison for this. I am in favor of hushing up this affair, and want to ease it up for you. Are you wise?”
Polly was wise, beyond her years. Her equipoise was regained, and with a coquettish interest in this handsome interviewer—such girls always have an eye for future business—he returned to her theatrical lodging house, in which at least dwelt her wardrobe and makeup box when she was “trouping” in some spangled chorus. Of recent months she had not been subjected to the Hurculean rigors of bearing the spear, thanks to the gratuities of the open-handed Van Cleft, Senior. She pleaded to remain out of the white lights, meaning it as she spoke. But Shirley wisely felt that the butterfly would emerge from the chrysalis, shortly, to flutter into certain gardens where he would fain cull rare blossoms! Pat Cleary deputized a “shadow” to diarize her exits and entrances.
“The hooks are cleaned, with fresh bait upon them,” soliloquized Shirley, as he went down the dark stoop. “Now for a little laboratory work on the wherefore of the why!”
Although long after midnight, he numbered among his acquaintanceship, many whom he could find far from Slumber-land. His steps led to the apartment of a certain theatrical manager, whom he found engaged in a lively tournament of the chips, jousting with two leading men, one playwright, a composer and a merchant prince. The latter, of course, was winning. The host, contributing both chips and bottled cheer, was far from optimistic until the arrival of the club man.
“A live one abaft the mizzen!” exclaimed Dick Holloway, “Here's Shirley sent by Heaven to join us. After all I hope to pay my next month's rent.”
Noisily welcomed by the victims of mercantile prowess, he apologetically declined to flirt with Dame Fortune, pleading a business purpose.
“Business, Monty! By the shade of Shakspeare! I never knew you to look at business, except to prevent it running you down like a Fourth Avenue mail bus.”
“It is in the interest of science,” said Shirley, drawing the manager aside, “an experiment—”
“Fudge on science. You interrupt a game at this time of night!”
“But it means money. I am willing to pay.”
“Ah, Monty, money should never come between friends, and so I retract: with three failures this season, because the public doesn't appreciate art.”
“It's about moving pictures. I know that you have floated a syndicate for big productions. Do you work night and day?”
“An investment? Heaven bless you! Come into my bedroom and we'll arrange things of course, we work at night. Just this minute they are producing the 'Bartered Bride' in six reels and eighteen thrills a foot. A magnificently equipped studio, the public yelling for more how much have you?”
“Not so fast, Dick. It's merely some special work tonight, what you would call trick photography. I need a photographer, some lights, a little space, a microscopic lens and the complete developing during the night. And, I'll pay cash, as I have done with some suspicious poker losses in this temple of the muses on bygone evenings. Which, I may urge with gentle sarcasm is more than I have frequently received at your hands.”
“Touche!” laughed Holloway. “I'll write a note to the studio manager—he's there now, and will do what you want. You could have your picture completed by morning with a little financial coaxing applied in the right place. Come to the library table. Go on with the game, boys, it will save me a little.”
The potentate of dry goods was drawing in his winnings, as Shirley leaned over Holloway's shoulder to dictate the missive. Suddenly a revolver shot rang out from the window, and a bullet crashed into the wall behind Shirley's head.
His hand, idly dropped into his overcoat pocket, intuitively closed around his automatic revolver. A dark silhouette was outlined against the gray luminosity cast up by the lights of Broadway, half a block from the window. Through the opening another belching flame shot forth, to be answered by the criminologist's weapon, barking like a miltraileuse. They heard a stifled cry, and as Shirley ran forward, he exclaimed with disappointment.
“He's escaped down the fire-escape and through that skylight.”
He faced about to smile grimly at the curious scene within. The playwright had taken refuge among the brass andirons of the big empty fireplace. The matinee heroes were under chairs, and Holloway behind the mahogany buffet. From the direction of the stairway came shrill cries from the speeding merchant, softening in intensity as he neared the street level.
“The battle's over!” exclaimed Holloway. “I don't know whether it was my chorus men wishing the gipsy curse on me, or the stage-carpenters going on a strike. But look! See the swag that Jerry left behind! What shall we do with it?”
“Loot!” suggested the playwright, with rare discrimination, as he dusted off the wood ashes, and approached the table with glistening eyes. “We'll divide share and share alike. It's the only way to win from Jerry.”
Temperament was asserting its gameness. Shirley put back into position a shattered portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, and his eyes twinkled as the apostles of the muses hastened to divide the chips of the departed one into five generous piles. Holloway completed the letter, albeit with a nervous chirography, and handed him the envelope.
“Go now, before a submarine war zone is declared. I'm going to close up shop before the police come visiting. Good luck, Monty, in the cause of science.”
Although his conscience was clear about the game having created five surprised winners by his interruption, he was disturbed over the certainty that the voice was aware of his personal work in the case. The difficulties were now trebled! Before any policemen appeared Shirley had passed Broadway on his way to the motion picture studio, on the West side of Tenth Avenue. Whatever secret observers may have been on his tracks, nothing untoward occurred: still, his senses were quickened into caution by the attempt on his life.
A parley with a grumpy gateman, the presentation of his letter and he was admitted to the presence of the manager, a man exhausted with the strenuosity of night and day work. Shirley understood the antidote for his sullenness.
“Here, old man, send out for a little luncheon for the two of us. I have some unusual experimental work, and need the assistance of a well-known expert like yourself.” The flattery, embellished by a ten-dollar bill, opened a flood-gate of optimism.
A camera man was summoned, and the apparatus prepared for some “close-up” motion pictures. Under the weird green lights of the mercury vapor lamps, a director and company of players were busily enacting a dramatic scene, before a studio set. They gave little heed to the newcomer: boredom is a prime requisite of poise in the motion picture art.
“I have here three phonograph records, which I want photographed.”
“But they don't move—you want a still camera,” exclaimed the dumfounded manager.
“Yes, they do move as the picture is taken. I want a microscopic lens used in the camera in such a way that we take a motion picture of the twinings and twistings of one little thread on the wax cylinder, as it records the sound waves around the cylinder.”
The photographer sniffed with scorn, being familiar with eccentric uplifters of the “movies,” but responded to the command of the manager to adjust his delicate camera mechanism for the task.
“There is a certain phrase of words on each cylinder which I want recorded this way. Can all three be taken parallel with each other on the same film?”
“Sure, easiest thing to do—just a triple exposure. We take it on one edge of the film, through a little slit just a bit wider than the space of the thread, cut in a screen. Then we rewind that film, and slide the slit to the middle of the lens, take your second wax record, and do the same on the right edge of the film for the third. But what's the idea?”
The camera man began to show interest: he was a skilled mechanician and he caught the drift of a sensible purpose, at last.
Shirley did not answer. He placed the first record in the phonograph, running it until the feminine voice could be distinguished asking: “Can you hear me now?” He marked the beginning and end of this phrase with his pocket knife. So with the merry masculine and the aged, disagreeable voice, he located the same order of words: “Can you hear me now?” The operation seems easy, in the telling, or again perhaps it appears intensely involved and hardly worth the trouble. A motto of Shirley's was: “Nothing is too much trouble if it's worth while.” So, with this. To the cynical camera man its general nature was expressed in his whispered phrase to the manager:
“You better not leave them property butcher knives on that there table, Mr. Harrison. This gink is nuts: he thinks's he's Mike Angelo or some other sculpture. He'll start sculpin' the crowd in a minute!”
“You take the picture and keep your opinions to yourself,” snapped Shirley whose hearing was highly trained.
The man lapsed into silence. For two hours they fumed and perspired and swore, under the intense heat of the low-hung mercury lamps, until at last a test proved they had the right combination. Shirley greased the skill of the camera man with a well-directed gratuity, and ordered speedy development of the film. Before this was done, however, he took six other records of voices from the folk in the studio, using the same words: “Can you hear me now?”
The three strips of triple exposures were taken to the dark room and developed by the camera man. They were dried on the revolving electric drums, near a battery of fans. Shirley studied every step of the work, with this and that question—this had been his method of acquiring a curiously catholic knowledge of scientific methods since leaving the university, where sporting proclivities had prompted him to slide through courses with as little toil as possible.
A print upon “positive” film was made from each: every strip was duplicated twenty-five times, at Shirley's suggestion. Then after two hours of effort the material was ready to be run through the projecting machine, for viewing upon the screen.
The manager led Shirley to the small exhibition theatre in which every film was studied, changed and cut from twenty to fifty times before being released for the theatres. The camera man went into the little fire-proof booth, to operate the machine.
“Which one first, chief?”
“Take one by chance,” said Shirley, “and I will guess its number. Start away.”
There was a flare of light upon the screen, as the operator fussed with the lamp for better lumination. He slowly began to turn the crank, and the criminologist watched the screen with no little excitement. The picture thrown up resembled nothing so much as three endless snakes twisting in the same general rhythm from top to bottom of the frame. The twenty-five duplicates were all joined to the original, so that there was ample opportunity to compare the movements.
“Well, gov'nor, which film was that?” asked the operator.
“Not A—it was B or C!”
“Correct. How'd you guess it? Which is this one?”
As he adjusted another roll of film in the projector, Shirley turned to the manager sitting at his side. “Mr. Harrison, were those snakes all exactly alike?”
“No. They all wriggled in the same direction, at the same time. But little rough angles in some movements and queer curves in others made each individually different.”
“Just what I thought. There goes another.—That is not film A, either!”
“Righto!” confirmed the camera man. As the detailed divergence between the lines became more evident in the repetitions, Shirley slapped his knee.
“Now for the finish. Try reel A.”
This time the three snakey lines moved along in almost identical synchronism. The only difference was that the first was thin, the second heavier, the third the darkest and most ragged of all. The relationship was unmistakable!
“I got you gov'nor,” cried the operator. “Some dope, all right, all right.”
“Why, what is all this?” asked the manager, nonplussed. “The last three are alike, but what good does it do?”
“It is known that the human voice in its inflections is like handwriting—with a distinct personality. Certain words, when pronounced naturally, without the alterations of dialect, are always in the same rhythm. The records taken in the studio of those five words, 'Can you hear me now?' are in the same general rhythm, but only the last three snakes show exact similarity, to each little quaver and turn. There was only the difference in shading: one was the voice of a women. The second of a man of perhaps forty, the third of an old man—all three taken at different times, and I thought from different people. But they all came from one throat, and my work is completed along this line—Will you please lock up the films, the phonograph, and my records in your film vault, until I send for them; through Mr. Holloway?”
The criminologist arose and walked into the deserted studio, from whence the company had long since departed for belated slumbers. He picked up three bricks which lay in a corner of the big studio, and placed them gently into his grip. The manager and the camera man observed this with blank amazement, as he locked it and put the key into his pocket. Then he handed each of them a large-sized bill.
“I'm very grateful, gentlemen, for your assistance. Pleasant dreams.”
Shirley abstractedly walked out of the studio, one hand comfortably in his overcoat pocket, swinging the grip in the other.
“Say, Lou,” confided the manager, “he's the craziest guy I've ever seen in the movies. And that's going some, after ten years of it.”
Lou treated himself to a generous bite of plug tobacco, and spat philosophically, before replying.
“Sure, he's crazy. Crazy, like the grandfather of all foxes!”