XIXTHE WIRELESS WIRETAPPER
Afewmoments later we went down-stairs again and Burke drove us in his car up to the town, where, in the main street, was a little chapel whose bell was now tolling slowly and mournfully.
As his car drew up at the end of the long line down the street, I saw why Kennedy had decided to break into the time so sorely needed in our own investigation of the case. It seemed as though every one must be at the funeral, even the reporters from New York. Kennedy and I managed to avoid them, but their presence testified to the wide interest that the case had aroused throughout the country.
“Rather a telling object-lesson in the business that the Maddoxes are in,” commented Kennedy as we walked the rest of the way to the shrubbery-surrounded chapel. “If there is such a thing as retributive justice, this is the result of the business of making a profit out of mere instruments to kill.”
I fancied that there was more than coincidence behind the reasoning. The Maddoxes had been so long engaged in making munitions, devoid of any feeling of patriotism, had amassed such an immense fortune out of which the curse had been taken by no philanthropy, that it must undoubtedly be a true philosophy which traced from their very business and consequent character the evils and tragedies that followed in the wake of the Maddox millions. I reflected that even over the telautomaton, the destroyer itself, there had been no thought of public service in the family, but merely the chance to extort more gain from the frailties and sufferings of humanity. And now this was the end of one arch-extortioner.
There seemed to be something hollow in the funeral of Marshall Maddox. It took me some time to explain it to myself. It was not because we were there, outsiders, and in our capacity of observers, in fact almost spies, although that may have had something to do with the impression it made on me.
The little chapel was crowded, but with the curious who had heard vague rumors about the death. As I looked at the real mourners I fancied that my impression must be due to them, that somehow this was a mockery of mourning.
I could not imagine that Irene Maddox wasoverwhelmed by grief after what had occurred to her. As for the gay little Paquita, she was, of course, not there at all, and her presence would only have sounded a new note of hollowness. I had not seen her manifest any deep sign of grief. At present, I supposed, she was still in New York, going about her own or some unknown business as unconcerned as if nothing had happened.
Shelby Maddox had come up from whatever business he was engaged in in New York just in time for the service. Once or twice I thought he showed real grief, as though the death of his brother brought back to his recollection other and better days. Yet I could not help wondering whether even his emotions might not be affectation for our benefit, for the tragedy seemed not to have deterred him from doing pretty much as he might have done anyhow.
I looked about for Winifred Walcott. Evidently the strain of events had been too much for her. She was not there, but her brother was there with his wife, who was next to her own brother, Shelby.
The service was short and formal, and I shall not dwell on it, for, after all, nothing occurred during it which changed our attitude toward any of those present.
For a brief moment at the close the family weretogether, and I felt that Shelby was the most human of them all, at least. Mrs. Walcott and her husband were the first to leave, and I could not help comparing it with a previous occasion, when they had taken Irene Maddox in their car. A little later Shelby appeared with his sister-in-law, leaving her only when some of her own family, who had come to Westport evidently to be with her, appeared.
Instead of going to the Lodge he walked slowly down to the pier and jumped into one of his tenders that was waiting to take him out to theSybarite, alone. Now and then I had seen him glance sharply about, but it was not at us that he was looking. He seemed rather to be hoping that he might chance to meet Winifred Walcott. I think she was much more on his mind at present than even his brother.
Johnson Walcott and his wife passed us in their car and we could see them stop at the Harbor House porte-cochère. Frances Walcott alighted and, after a moment talking together, Johnson drove away alone, swinging around into the road to the city.
Our friends of the Secret Service seemed to be about everywhere, but unobtrusively, observing. There was much that was interesting to observe, but nothing that pointed the way to the solutionof the mystery. The funeral over; it was again the old Maddox house of hate, each member going his own way. It was as though an armistice had been declared, and now the truce was over. I felt that we might now expect war again, to the last dollar. It was not to be expected that any of them would allow the other to control without a fight, nor relinquish any claim that was not fully compensated.
One bright spot only shone out in the drab of the situation. So far the dead hand of the Maddox millions had not stretched out and fallen on the lovely and pure personality of Winifred Walcott. The more I thought of it the more I had come to fear that these hates and jealousies and bitter rivalries might engulf her as they had many others.
Had that been the trouble with Irene Maddox? Had she been once even as Winifred now was? Had she been drawn into this maelstrom of money? I dreaded the thought of the possible outcome of the romance of Shelby Maddox and Winifred. Would it, too, blast another life—or might it be that by some miracle Winifred might take out the curse that hung over the blood-money of the Maddoxes? Never before had our responsibility in the case, far beyond the mere unraveling of the mystery, presented itself to meso forcibly as it did now, after the solemn and sobering influence of the last rites of the murdered head of the house.
We came along past the carriage entrance to the Lodge again. Beside the door were piled several large packages, and the uniformed boy who presided over that entrance of the Lodge was evidently much worried over them. Burke had left us on the way up, and as we turned the boy at the door caught sight of Kennedy and hurried over to us.
“The young man said these were for you, sir,” he announced, indicating the packages, undecided whether to play for a tip or to ask to have them taken away.
“Oh yes,” recognized Kennedy, as Watkins, who had brought them down, appeared. “Some stuff I had brought from the city. Will you help me down to the dock with them?”
The boy was more than willing. Not only were the packages to be taken away from his door, but Kennedy had crossed his palm with a coin. With Watkins he carried the things down.
Kennedy had no intention at present, evidently, of using the material which had come from New York, but left it in the little summer-house in charge of the student.
We were about to turn back to the Casino andthe Lodge, when Craig caught my eye and nodded in the direction of the beach. There I could see the solitary figure of a girl coming slowly along. It was Winifred Walcott. I watched her. Evidently she had been out for a walk alone.
Now and then she gave a quick glance across the water and I soon realized that it was at theSybariteshe looked. Shelby had long since reached the yacht, but apparently she had seen his tender dashing out there. I could not help but think of the stroll that Shelby had taken with Paquita the night before down the beach in the same direction. Was Winifred thinking of it, too, and was she sorry that she had dismissed him without accepting his explanation at its face value?
“That shows what a great part chance plays in our lives,” mused Kennedy to me, as we watched her. “They’re thinking of each other. If Shelby had been a few minutes later, or she had been a few minutes earlier, they would have met. I suppose they are both too proud to go to each other now.”
“You’re not contemplating being a matchmaker?” I hazarded.
“On the contrary,” he smiled, “I think we shall gain more by letting events take their naturalcourse. No, chance must bring them together again.”
Miss Walcott had seen us by this time, and seemed to realize that we were talking about her, for she quickened her pace and, instead of coming up to the summer-house, left the beach by another flight of steps, though not so far away that we could not see a faint flush on her cheeks as she purposely avoided us.
We, too, went toward the Lodge, but did not overtake her.
On the veranda of the Lodge, waiting for us, was Riley, just returned from the city.
“Where is Paquita?” inquired Kennedy. “Tell me what has happened?”
“Nothing much,” returned Riley, chagrined. “I stuck to her pretty closely. She’s back, you know.”
“I think I have an idea of what it was all about,” ventured Kennedy.
Riley nodded. “Mr. Burke has told me something of the cipher message to her, sir. I think you are right. She must have tried to divert our attention.”
“How does she seem?” inquired Kennedy.
Riley chuckled. “I think she’s terribly miffed,” he replied. “She acts to me as though she was disappointed in us—in you particularly. Youdon’t follow her about New York. I don’t think she quite understands what happened. You don’t play according to Hoyle.”
“What did she do after that last telephone call?”
“Nothing—absolutely nothing. Oh, it was a plant, all right. She came back in the car, after awhile. We passed the church while the funeral was going on. She never even looked. Say, what has become of Sanchez?”
Kennedy retailed what Winifred had said about the sallow-faced man and his solicitude.
“I’ll wager he’ll be along soon, now,” asserted Riley, with professional assurance. “I just saw Irene Maddox, after she came back from the funeral. She seems to be rather out of it, doesn’t she? Since her own folks arrived the Maddoxes and the Walcotts seem to feel that they have no further responsibility.”
Kennedy smiled at the garrulity of the detective. “What made you connect Sanchez and Irene Maddox?” he asked. “Don’t you think she is really through with him?”
“I guess she is,” returned Riley. “But I can’t say the same of him. If I could only get at the true relation of that fellow with Paquita I’d be a good deal happier. Mrs. Maddox may have hired him to shadow her, but, if you want to knowwhat I think, it is that that Mex, or whatever he is, has actually fallen in love with the girl.”
“Another love affair?” I queried, sarcastically. “Then all I’ve got to say is that they’re well matched.”
“All right,” defended Riley, rather hotly. “But we know that he double-crossed Mrs. Maddox, don’t we? Well, then, if he’s working for anybody else now, what reason have you to suppose that he won’t double cross them too? Mr. Burke thinks there may be a gang of them. All right. What’s to prevent this Sanchez from being stuck on her in that case? There are all sorts in the underworld, and there’s no telling what a woman or a man may do.”
“But look at the way she acts toward Shelby Maddox,” I urged. “If ever there was a woman who threw herself at a man, that’s a case of it.”
“Part of the game, part of the game,” returned Riley.
“What game?” interrupted Kennedy, who had been listening to us in amused silence.
Riley was not ready with an answer on the spur of the moment, and, as it was not my contention, I did not attempt it.
“Well,” finished the Secret Service man as he left us, “I’m going to look about, just the same,and you can take it from me this thing will never be cleared up until we explain that fellow Sanchez.”
Kennedy said nothing as Riley walked away, but I fancied that underneath he concurred largely with the operative.
We were about to leave the veranda when Burke rejoined us, his face indicating that some new problem had come up.
“I wonder what Shelby Maddox can be up to,” he began, as though appealing for aid. “I was using the telephone, and while I waited for my number I got to talking with the little girl at the switchboard. She tells me that in the last day or two, while Shelby has been out here, he has been talking a great deal over the wire with New York and has placed some large orders through different brokers for Maddox Munitions stock.”
It was an important piece of news. I recalled Hastings’s wonder at Shelby’s trips in to the city and our own discovery that he had been visiting a broker, coupled with the presence of Paquita down-town in the same building.
“Maddox Munitions isn’t so low that it’s a good buy,” considered Burke, “unless there’s some scheme to manipulate it up. It had a little slump when Marshall Maddox died, but recovered. What its future will be without himno one can say. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t decline—but it hasn’t done so.”
“Perhaps that’s the game,” I suggested. “Maybe Shelby is holding the market up. Some one must be supporting it. Why, if it weren’t for some support, I’ll wager the stock would have broken worse than it did, and it wouldn’t have recovered.”
Kennedy nodded, not so much in approval of the explanation as at the line of thought that the idea suggested.
“Do you suppose,” speculated Burke, “that there can be some manipulation of Maddox Munitions going on under cover? What can be Shelby’s purpose in all this? Perhaps we’re mistaken in that young man, and he’s a great deal deeper than any of us give him credit for being. Would it be impossible that he might be planning to get the control from the others?”
It was an explanation that could not be easily put aside. Only death had wrested the control from the elder brother. Who was there to take his place? Had Shelby undergone a transformation almost overnight? Or—more horrible thought—had the whole affair been preconceived from the conference on the yacht and the murder to the manipulation of the market?
What with both Riley and Burke theorizing onthe case, I could see that Kennedy was growing a bit impatient. Though he formed many of them, theories never appealed to Kennedy as long as one little fact might knock out the prettiest deduction.
“We’ve been away from our room a long time,” he interjected, as though remembering what we had originally started to do. “Something must have happened by this time or we’ll never get anything. Let’s go up there and see whether our wireless wiretapper has caught anything yet.”
Scarcely past the door Kennedy nudged me, a signal to be on guard. I looked cautiously about. Sitting in the lobby where she could see everybody who came and went was Paquita. She saw us approaching, but made no effort to avoid us. In fact, I felt sure that it was we for whom she was looking. If it was, Kennedy did not give her any satisfaction by letting her know that we even noticed it. We passed by, still chatting, though careful to say nothing that could not safely be overheard, and entered the elevator. As the door clanged shut Paquita flashed a chagrined glance at us. It said as plainly as words that she wanted to focus our attention on herself instead of something else.
Up in the room Kennedy fairly ripped the wax cylinder from his wireless machine andjammed it into what looked like a miniature phonograph.
“A recording device invented by Marconi,” he explained, as a succession of strange sounds issued from the reproducer.
I could make nothing out of it, but Kennedy seemed quite excited and elated.
“It’s not a wireless message at all,” he exclaimed.
“Then what is it?” I inquired.
He listened a moment more, then burst out, “No, not a message. That’s just wireless power itself. And it seems to come from the water side, too.”
He relapsed into silence, leaving us only to speculate.
What possible object could there be in the use of wireless power solely? Why did it come from the water? Was there a boat hanging about, perhaps flying the burgee of some well-known club, yet in reality to be used for some criminal purpose?