CHAPTER NINE“MEN AND MOTIVES”
CHAPTER NINE
“MEN AND MOTIVES”
The two detectives leaned back in their respective chairs and eyed each other. Both swung and stared out of the window at the swirling snow which salted across the window in an unending curtain of white. Both returned to the locked stare so common to men who have worked together in danger and know each other’s merits.
Delaney’s eyes dropped first. He studied the rug beneath Drew’s polished shoes. He coughed behind his hand, and turned with a shrug of his shoulders. He fastened upon the closed door a glance of expectancy which brought a smile to the chief’s lips.
“Things are picking up,” said Drew, with a short laugh. “Your friend—the bird—has arrived.”
“My friend?” blurted the big operative. “It’s no friend of mine! I’d wring its neck, gladly.”
“It may be the key to the whole thing. Smarter men than the ones we are fighting havefallen through less. You remember Eddy, The Brute, who left his umbrella after him in the Homesdale Murder Mystery. Funny, wasn’t it? Took three months to plan the murder and left his rain-stick behind. His initials were on it.”
“They can’t get away––” started Delaney.
“Here’s your bird!” announced Drew, as a knock sounded on the door. “Move over and let that valet stand there. I want the light in his eyes when we’re talking to him. Always get the light in the other fellow’s eye. Sisst!”
The door opened to a crack—then wide. The valet came in with an important strut. He turned and deposited a cage at Delaney’s big feet. The operative moved back with a grunt of disgust. He eyed the cage and contents with a homicidal expression. His eyes raised and fastened upon the valet. He hooked his broad thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest and took a deep breath.
“I hope you’re satisfied,” he said to Drew, who was smiling. “I hope this black sparrow don’t start anything. I’ll finish it, sure.”
“What’s your name?” asked the chief, turning and consulting a paper.
“Otto Braun,” said the valet. “Otto Braun, sir.”
“Born in Cologne ... year, sixty-three ... worked as valet and major domo for Britishfamilies ... came to America with Mr. Stockbridge, and have been with him since?”
“That’s correct, sir,” the valet said, with a start of amazement.
“Are you married?”
“Twice—sir.”
“Wife living?”
“Both, sir. I’m paying a small alimony to both.”
Delaney grunted. His foot went out toward the magpie which had finished hopping about the perches of the cage, and was listening with head cocked sideways.
“You—you have charge of this bird?” asked Drew, turning fully around and facing the valet with heavy-lidded intentness.
“I’m its keeper, sir!”
Delaney coughed explosively. He leaned down to cover his confusion. He jabbed a thumb at the bird.
“It’s savage,” he rumbled. “It pecked at me!”
“Easy,” warned Drew, with a quick frown. “Easy, Delaney. I want to get to the facts of this case. We’re wasting time.”
“Go ahead, Chief.”
“I’ve had you come down here,” said Drew, turning to the valet, “in order to find out about that magpie. You had charge of it when Mr. Stockbridge was alive?”
“Yes, sir. I fed it and kept it clean, for the—master.” The valet sniffled slightly. Drew watched him with keen eyes.
“Did it repeat much of Mr. Stockbridge’s conversation?” he asked.
“Repeat, sir?”
“What I’m trying to get at is, whether or not the bird was in the habit of repeating words that seemed to strike its fancy. Did it act like a parrot?”
“It’s very much like a parrot, sir. Sometimes it was sulky and wouldn’t say anything for days. Other times, sir, we had trouble keeping it quiet.”
Drew turned in his chair and fingered a paper. “I looked up everything I can find in my library here, in regard to magpies,” he said. “Is there any difference between an ordinary magpie and a Spanish one?” he added, turning.
“I don’t think so, sir. They can all be taught to talk—the same as a parrot, sir.”
“Then if this bird should repeat a word, or two words, over and over again it would be plausible to assume that some one had used the word or two words. I want to make myself clear,” Drew added with engaging candor. “What I’m getting at is important in view of the fact that this magpie used two words afterwe broke down the door to the library and found Mr. Stockbridge murdered.”
Delaney leaned forward.
“The words this bird used were ‘Ah Sing,’ as near as we can arrive at them. Did you ever hear it repeat that couplet?”
“I can’t say that I have, sir.”
The detective lifted his brows and stared at the cage. “Repeat that,” he said to Delaney. “Repeat what we heard in the library.”
“Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!” boomed the operative.
The magpie ruffled its feathers and darted about the cage like a sparrow in a barrel. “Keep it up,” said Drew.
“Ah, Sin! Ah, Sing! Ah, Singing!” roared Delaney.
“That’ll do! You’ve frightened it. Let it alone for a while. We’ll keep it here, Otto. I’ll send it back in a few days. How’s Miss Stockbridge bearing the strain, up at the house?”
“She hasn’t left her room, sir. Mr. Nichols called. The Red Cross people called. There’s been lots of callers, sir, but she hasn’t appeared, sir. It’s early, though.”
Drew glanced at his watch. “That’s all,” he said. “You may go.”
The door closed softly as the valet bowed,replaced his hat and passed out without glancing back.
“A good servant,” said Drew, rising and kneeling down beside the cage. “Now, Delaney,” he added tersely. “Now, old sleepy head, we have the key to the case locked here. I don’t doubt but that you unconsciously struck the right clew when you bawled your little hymn. You said, ‘Ah, Singing.’ Now couldn’t that be Ossining?”
“By God, Chief, it could!”
“Or, more likely, Ah! Sing Sing!”
“Who said that?”
“The bird!”
“But who taught the bird?”
“Nobody taught it! It might have been the last thing said by Stockbridge—just before he was shot.”
“And the bird repeated it—to us?”
“Certainly! A parrot or a magpie is a living phonograph. They reproduce a sound, at times, without any idea of knowing what they are saying. This bird may have been so frightened by the shot which was fired in the library, that it recalled the words used by Stockbridge before the shot was fired. These words, in my opinion, tell us that the millionaire was ’phoning to some individual, probably the whispering-voiced man. This individual and Ah, Sing! or Ah, Sing Sing! or Ah, Singing! or Ossining! areclosely allied. Now who of Stockbridge’s enemies does that fit?”
Drew rose to his feet and dusted his knees. “Is that clear?” he asked.
“Clear as mud, Chief! I don’t get it yet!”
“You will,” said the detective, dropping down in his chair and reaching for his papers. “See these,” he added, swiveling and darting a quick glance at the bird-cage. “These, Delaney, are a list of the old man’s known enemies. I have compiled this list from the secretary’s statements, my own newspaper reading, the facts we gained at Morphy’s trial, and from what Stockbridge told me in the library before he was slain.” Drew counted the list with a steady finger. “There’s seven,” he said.
“Is that all! I thought there was more ’an that!”
“No! Seven is the number! He was well hated as you will see. First and foremost we have Mortimer Morphy, who is serving from ten to twenty years in state prison, with other indictments hanging over his iron-gray head. He’s the captain of them all. He lacks soul, conscience and heart. ‘The Wolf of the Ticker’ they used to call him. I had the warden on the wire this morning. He’s ready to aid justice to the limit. He says that Morphy, or rather Convict 87313, I think they call them inmatesup there, is well and working. He’s in charge of the books in the front office.”
“He’d never keep any books for me!” declared Delaney.
Drew nodded. “Me, either,” he said. “I have heard too much about his past to trust his future. Stockbridge always feared him.”
“Does he fit what the black crow said?”
“He does, most certainly! Sing Sing and Morphy are linked together in every way. Morphy must have been mentioned on the wire and Stockbridge shouted, ‘What, in Sing Sing?’ or words to the same meaning.”
“Go on,” said Delaney, glancing at the magpie with round eyes.
“Then comes Vogel, who was at state’s prison, but whom they transferred to the hospital at Glendale, where he is said to be dying of tuberculosis.”
“I remember him. A little runt with a big nose. That might be the whispering voice, Chief, if he’s got T. B.”
“Hardly! I also had Glendale on the ’phone, or Harrigan did. They say Vogel is right there and is going to stay there, if fifty guards will keep him.”
“Next, Chief?”
“The next is Vogel’s partner, Ross. You remember him? A good-natured, fat fellow with a bald head. He was always smiling. He’smaking little rocks out of big ones in a convict camp near Lake George. He was at Sing Sing, or Ossining, for a time. Most of the New York prisoners are taken there first. It’s a sort of clearing house for the other prisons of the state.”
“Would he fit in with what this bird said, Chief?”
“He might!”
“Go on, I’m getting interested.”
“Then,” said Drew, “we have the two brokers who handled Morphy’s Blue Sky, preferred; Flying Boat, and other swindles. They are at Sing Sing.”
“What’s their names, Chief? I’ve forgotten.”
“Greene and Goldberg! One confessed and one turned state’s evidence. They got off with from two to four years. A nice bunch of squealers!”
“They’ll be out pretty soon, Chief!”
“Yes—but they’re harmless. I don’t think they had anything to do with the murder of Stockbridge. The other fellow might.”
“Who’s that, Chief?”
“Finklestein—the banker. The one who went before the Grand Jury and claimed exemption. He’s somewhere on the outside. I think Flynn is covering him. I sent him overto Jersey, where Finklestein has a place near Morristown. We’ll hear of him later.”
Delaney shifted his big feet and started counting on his fingers. He widened his eyes. “There’s one more,” he said, as Drew leaned back.
“Yes, there’s one more. I kept him for the last. He’s out of sight, reach and hearing. You know who I mean?”
“That guy who invented wireless boat, or flying boat, or them movie-picture things in seventeen colors. I know who you mean. He beat it, slick as any porch-climber. What’s his name, Chief?”
“Morphy’s brother, Cuthbert Morphy! He’s an electrical-engineer and the inventor of all their shady promotions. He’s the real brains of the mob. You never saw him?”
“No—did you?”
“Can’t say that I have!” declared Drew with a snap. “I call him one of my failures. I’ve made enough. Remember how Flood and Cassady searched for him after the others were arrested? He’s cost us thousands of dollars—without result. I charged it to Stockbridge.”
“Which way did he go, Chief?”
“He beat it for Argentine. From there he went across South America to Antofagasta. From there he disappeared like a rocket in No Man’s Land. No trace was found. For all weknow, he might be right here in little old New York—the best hiding place in the known world. I hate to think of the places a man could plant in this town!”
“Sure! But they always come around the old corner. Remember Dutch Gus, the boxman. Five years, Chief, in every town on the map, and then he was picked up at Forty-second Street and Broadway. Maybe your friend, Cutbert, will show up some day?”
“Cuthbert!” corrected Drew. “He’s no friend of mine, Delaney. The trouble is, we haven’t got a single photograph of him. That shows he was figuring on crime all his life. A man who don’t get his picture taken, is generally a man to watch.”
“He’s slick, Chief. What does he look like?”
Drew pressed a buzzer-button. “Look like?” he said, turning toward the door. “Oh, he is a little fellow, quick-tempered and probably handy with a gat. He’s dangerous. I think Cuthbert Morphy is a good lead if we can find him.”
“I never did like that first name!” Delaney blurted as Harrigan opened the door to a crack.
“What have you found out about Harry Nichols?” asked Drew, as the assistant-manager stepped in softly.
“Got Plattsburg, Chief,” said Harrigan briefly. “Harry is O. K. up there. Captain’scommission. Three months intensive training. Going to France soon. On fourteen-days’ furlough in New York. Was floor manager for Harris, Post and Browning. Quit good job to go in the Army. Harris, of the brokerage firm, says Harry can come back and hang up his hat any time. That’s about all!”
“Umph!” said Drew. “That’s fine, in a way. He couldn’t have a better record. Now we’ll lay him aside. What did Frick learn at Ossining?”
“Frick ’phoned once. I was going to connect you with him but that fellow with the bird-cage came in. Frick says the warden is O. K. and will lend every aid. He saw Morphy in the Auditor’s Department. Looks worried, he says. Getting old! The visitor’s list shows that he’s had an average of three visits a month. No sign of his brother. There’s a fellow calls, though, who might be Cuthbert Morphy. Answers general description. They’ll pinch him next time he comes. We never thought of looking for him there!”
“No! We were going tosendhim there! It’s like a crook, though, to play with fire. What else did Frick say?”
“Nothing more, Chief. He’s looking around. He says he’ll report as soon as there is anything. He says––”
“Buurr! Burrr! Burrrr!”
Drew turned and snatched up the telephone receiver. He pressed the diaphragm to his ear. “All right,” he said tersely. “Connect me. Yes!”
Delaney breathed deeply and watched his chief’s face.
“Hello! Hello!” whispered Drew. “Yes,” he added guardedly. “Yes, Commissioner.... What? You say that ... that the autopsy on Stockbridge’s body—head—shows what? Repeat it! I can’t quite hear what you are saying. Louder, Commissioner! That’s better. Yes—all right now, Fosdick. It shows.... It shows that the typo cupronickle bullet found in—in, ... repeat that.... In Stockbridge’s brain was not scored or ... or what? ... Marked? ... Wait! I don’t get your meaning.... It was lodged in the soft tissues of the.... Yes! ... I see! Go on.... There were no rifling marks on it.... What?”
Drew turned and motioned toward the open door. Harrigan closed it softly as the detective resumed his position at the ’phone. “Yes,” he said tersely. “Yes, Fosdick. That’s important. I should say it was important! ... New wrinkle, what? ... Why, I’d think at a quick jump that the bullet which killed the old man wasn’t fired from a regulation revolver.... Yes, it couldn’t of! ... It must have been fired from a smooth-bore rifle orpistol!... What? ... Yes.... It seems that way to me.... Are you dead sure?”
Drew waited. He tapped the desk with a pencil. He reached with his right hand and pulled a sheet of paper to him. “Go on,” he said slowly. “Yes, go on, Commissioner. Oh, I’ve been busy! Yes. You have! Well.... I wouldn’t of. No, I don’t think that’s the right lead at all. They’re all right. All right.... Go to it! ... Good-by, Fosdick.”
The detective flipped the receiver on the hook and slowly swung the chair. His eyes darted first at Harrigan and then rested upon Delaney’s broad face.
“That damn fool!” he exclaimed. “He’s pinched the whole bunch of servants. He’s looking for the valet. The butler is under lock and key. All that’s left up there is the housekeeper and some housemaids and Miss Loris. He better not touch her! Brass Band Fosdick! He’s a mile off the case!”
“What about that bullet, Chief?” asked Delaney.
“Oh! That’s new! It’s different and important. The coroner’s inquest shows—the autopsy, I mean—that the bullet found in the millionaire’s brain was a cupronickle affair of twenty-two caliber projected by smokeless powder from a smooth-bore weapon held not more than three inches from the old man’s head.”
“Whew!” whistled Delaney. “That’s going some, Chief,” he added, rising. “But what does it mean? I ain’t got that at-tall!”
“Nor I!” snapped Drew. “We’re only getting deeper and deeper into facts. After a while we’ll have enough of them to solve the case. The smooth bullet is important. It suggests many things—a home-made gun, for instance.”
“Might have been an old Civil War gun, Chief.”
“I don’t believe there was anything like that in Stockbridge’s house. You might inquire when you go up. He was very modern with his Flying Boat stock and his improved munitions for the Allies. He has no old collection of arms.”
Delaney stared at Harrigan. Drew swung to his desk and tapped the blotter for a moment. “We’ll get busy,” he said briskly, as he swung back again and faced the two operatives. “I’ve almost got my man. That bird there,” Drew pointed toward the magpie, “is our one best bet and lead. I may be wrong, but I’ll wager a good cigar there’s a convict or ex-convict at the back of this case. How else can we explain ‘Ossining’ or ‘Ah, Sing’ repeated through the magpie to us. It’s not an impossible clue. It might happen. Let’s move with both feet!”
Delaney rose lankily and stood by the door. He braced his shoulders, then shelved them forwardas he reached a finger toward the bird-cage. “Pretty Poll!” he said.
The magpie darted about the cage like a shaft of blue light. It came to rest with its tail feathers thrust through the bars. It peered with beaded eyes at Drew who had snatched up a bundle of papers and was sorting them.
“Get busy, Delaney, on this assignment!” he said sharply. “Waste no time. Run up to Stockbridge’s and get me plaster-paris casts of all the footprints you can find around that junction box. It’s stopped snowing,” he added, glancing out the window.
“All right, Chief.”
“Wait a minute. Stop somewhere on your way up-town and find out the exact temperature changes last night. What I want you to get is a record of every quarter-hour, so as to show when the early, packed snow in Stockbridge’s yard froze solid. The under crust!”
“I got that in my head, Chief! That’s my idea, exactly. If a tall lad tapped in on the junction box early in the night his footprints will be frozen close to the ground. The whole surface is level now, but there ought to be ice-posts sticking up when I get done thawing.”
“That’s right! You’ll probably find the trouble-hunter’s and one other set of prints. The other set is our man’s!”
“What size feet did the trouble-hunter have?”
“Small—about six!”
“All right, Chief, I’m off.”
“Walt a minute.” Drew studied a sheet of paper. “After you get the temperature data, Delaney,” he said. “After you get that and the plaster casts of the footprints, go into the house and stay there. Watch Miss Loris. Don’t talk to Fosdick’s men. Tell her to be careful. Tell her that she is in grave danger. Remember that the same man who threatened Stockbridge over the wire, also said he was going to get her. Remember that, Delaney!”
“Good-by!”
“Get a shave!” shot Drew out through the closing doorway.
“I’ll do that little thing,” came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.
“Now, Harrigan,” Drew said, shuffling the slips of paper like a deck of cards. “Now, we’re closing in on our man or men. See if you can find Frick at the prison. ’Phone from the booth!”
Harrigan was back within three minutes. He leaned over Drew.
“Frick was with the warden,” he whispered tersely. “He was easy to get. He says that Morphy has been trying to telephone––”
“What?”
“Tryin’ to telephone, Chief––”
“What has he got to do with the telephone? What right has an inmate of a prison got to phone? Unless—unless the warden thought the case was justified—like in sickness or important business.”
“Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn’t ask Frick!”
“Get out there and ask him! Quick!”
Drew waited with every muscle taut. He drummed the table with impatient fingers. He thumbed the sheath of papers he had collected on the Stockbridge case. He wheeled in his chair and stared out through the frosted window with unseeing eyes. The vision came to him of a pompous old man in prison gray, strutting about the front office with silk socks and a Havana cigar. Drew had no sympathy with a certain kind of convict. The misguided safeblower or house prowler might be excused for a great many things. The pickpocket was a professional, who took his chances as they ran. The gentleman bank-wrecker, with his overextended tale of woe and his bid for the world’s sympathies, was the one the detective detested with all his soul. Such men, he believed, were beyond the pale. They knew better. Morphy, for instance, had not only gotten away with much of widow’s and orphan’s money, but hehad wrecked a score of homes and dragged down many with him at the final assizes.
“So he uses the phone!” Drew repeated like an indictment. “Well! Well! Well!”
Harrigan stepped in through the door. Drew turned away from the window and stared at the assistant-manager. “What did you find?” he snapped.
“I found enough, Chief! Frick says that Morphy is the whole thing up there. They call him the ‘Assistant-Warden,’ in jest. The Welfare League won’t have anything to do with him. They got him down for a squealing ‘rat.’”
“You can’t fool the Gray Brotherhood,” said Drew. “Their rooms are too close together. What about this telephoning? Who was it to?”
“A telephone booth in the Subway Station at Times Square!”
“Good God!”
“Frick says it was! He tried to listen but Morphy came out and looked around twice.”
The detective rose from his chair and grasped Harrigan’s narrow shoulders with fingers of steel.
“Get out there!” he ordered through line-drawn lips. “Get out there and phone from the soundproof booth. Ask my friend—the vice-president of the telephone company—to find out for us whether Morphy or anybody else inthe prison telephoned at four minutes past twelve this morning. Get that?”
“That was when Stockbridge was shot, wasn’t it, Chief?”
“It was!” exclaimed Triggy Drew.
CHAPTER TEN“A WOMAN CALLS”
CHAPTER TEN
“A WOMAN CALLS”
The business of a modern detective agency is managed in much the same manner as a corporation or a large firm of corporation lawyers. Its tentacles, or operatives, are spread over the globe. Its news and assignments come in via wire. Its telephone and telegraph bills amount to thousands of dollars every year. In no other way can satisfactory results be secured.
Drew had started his agency on a shoestring and ran it into a “tannery,” in the parlance of the street. He had made many mistakes. He had once, to his knowledge, sent the wrong man to prison. This mistake had been so costly, he never spoke of it. It was soon after the conviction of the innocent man, that Drew gave up circumstantial evidence and got down to hard work, wherein the evidence accumulated was tempered with some degree of fact and common sense.
The first Stockbridge case had been in connection with an absconder. This man, Drewbrought back in person from Adelaide. The work so pleased the millionaire that when Morphy broke under the financial strain and robbed everybody, right and left, Drew was called in to bring the promoter to the bar of justice. It was a long fight, fraught with danger and disappointment. The courts dragged. War broke over the civilized world. Morphy fought fiercely—like a cornered hyena. He was sent away, after dragging down his confederates. He had sworn at the time of conviction that he would get Stockbridge if it took to the longest day of his life. Drew remembered this oath and promise as he waited for Harrigan to appear from the booth.
He turned to the magpie and the cage. He studied both with keen eyes which had been trained in the school of hard facts piled upon each other until they pointed a way. Stockbridge had owned the pet for many years. It was the one domestic trait in his make-up, save Loris. It would be a strange thing, Drew concluded, swinging toward the window, if Morphy and Morphy’s confederates were to fall through a remembered couplet dropped by the magpie. It was in the order of events, however. It was the bright, particular finger which pointed toward the prisoner at Sing Sing. Nothing would be more logical than for the bird to remember the millionaire’s last words—or dyingwords. They would be shrieked aloud and unforgetable.
“More snow,” said Drew to himself. “This is a white day if ever there was one. I wonder if Delaney got to the house in time?”
He turned as a “Buurrrr! Burrrr!” sounded at the ringing-box below the desk.
“Hello!” he said sharply into the transmitter. “Hello! Who’s this?”
He waited as some out-of-town connection was made. A thin voice broke in from the silence. The voice rose in timber. “Oh, Hello!” exclaimed the detective, recognizing Flynn, one of his operatives. “Hello, Flynn,” he said. “What’s the weather like out at Morristown? Yes! ... Yes! ... Oh, is that so.... What? ... Too bad! ... Well, you better come in.... Take the first train and jump on the job.... He’s in Florida, eh? ... Well, that lets him out.... Good-by, Flynn!”
Drew reached for a pencil and scratched a name off his list before he hung up the receiver. “That leaves six,” he said, running his eyes down the names of the suspects. “Six to go. We’ll round them up—or out. It looks bad for one or two of them!”
He dropped the pencil to the desk with a flip of his fingers. He replaced the telephone receiver on the hook. He twirled the chair and leaned forward with his hands on his knees.
“Nice bird, you,” he said, addressing the magpie. “We’re alone, you and I. Why don’t you tell me what you know—what you heard in that library, when the millionaire talked over the phone and then received the cupronickle bullet in the base of his brain? He said, ‘Ah, Sing!’ eh? He said it, or we are jumping at conclusions. Have Delaney and I erred—as once or twice before?”
The bird strutted about the cage. It pecked at a hard, white fish-bone, thrust between two bars. It dipped its bill into the water-holder, then held high its head as it gulped. It switched its tail and hopped onto the first perch. There it sat, with coiled claws, as Drew leaned closer.
“Ah, Sing!” he repeated confidentially. “Ah, Singing! Ossining! Sing Sing! Let me hear you do your prettiest, birdie. Don!”
The magpie lowered its head and peered outwardly. It lifted a wing with ruffled dignity. Drew narrowed his eyes. “You were there,” he whispered. “You were in that sealed room—that double-locked and triple-watched library. How did the murderer shoot down the old man? How could he do it, Don? I think I knowwhyit was done. I’m fairly sure who is directing matters. What I want to know is, what devilish ingenuity of the criminal tribe projected that bullet into the old man’s brain? Answer that, Don!”
The bird was as stately as a raven. It seemed to Drew that he heard an echoed “Nevermore.” He sat upright and took his hands from his knees. “Answer that, Don?” he repeated.
“Gone batty, Chief?” asked Harrigan, thrusting his shoulders through the open door.
Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. “Guess I am,” he admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant’s hand. “Well!” he snapped, recovering himself. “Well, what luck? I see that you got something!”
“Yep! I got him, all right. He’s hanging around the front office of the prison seeing what he can find out. He says,” Harrigan consulted the paper. “He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like a man in a daze. Always––”
“I don’t want that, now! Didn’t I send you out to call up the vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us early this morning. Westlake!”
“I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought I’d get Frick again. That’s all Frick had to say, except a––”
“Well?”
“Except he’ll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the contrary. Says he’ll report if anything turns up.”
“Go on with Westlake!” The detective’s voice hardened.
“Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers in his office. He’s in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says that their records show––”
“Show what?” Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. “It took some time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison between six o’clock last night and this morning. The first one was at seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central Railroad Station.”
“Good!” snapped Drew. “Good! Go on! We’re getting there!”
“This call was for seventeen minutes. It was charged to the prison.”
“What was the booth number?”
Harrigan consulted his sheet. “I didn’t get that,” he said, scratching his head. “Westlake didn’t give it to me.”
“Go on—we’ll get it! Go on! What was the next call?”
“The second call, Chief, was to the State Capitol Building at Albany. It was for three minutes. No more! I guess that was the warden talking to the Pardon Clerk, or something like that. We’ll forget it, eh?”
“Chop it out!”
“The third and last call, Chief,” said Harrigan with haste, “was to the same telephone-booth at the Grand Central Station. Ah, here’s the number! That’s why Westlake didn’t give it to me on the first call to the booth. Number, Gramercy Hill 9845, Chief. That’s over near the east end of the building—on the lower level.”
“A quiet place!” mused Drew.
“Yes! Well, Chief, here is the time. The call was for twenty-two minutes, extending from a quarter to twelve—midnight—to seven minutes after twelve. It was charged to the Auditing Department of the prison.”
Drew rose from his chair. “That covers the hour in which Stockbridge was murdered!” he declared, reaching for the roll-top of his desk “That’s nice work on your part.”
Harrigan flushed slightly. He leaned over and laid the paper upon the desk. Drew took it, folded it with two fingers forming the creases, then crammed it into his breast pocket The roll-top came down with a bang. Harrigan lifted an overcoat from a tree, helped Drew on with it, and found the detective’s hat.
“When will you be back, Chief?” he inquired.
“Hard to say! Get me some French-gray powder. A little will do. I’m going to see ifI can get any fingerprints in that booth. They might help!”
“Will you be back by night!” Harrigan asked, leading the way through the door.
“Don’t know! Get that powder! Tell Delaney, if he calls up, that I’m hot after my man. Tell him to stick up where he is, till he hears from me. Tell Flynn, when he comes in from Morristown, that he can relieve O’Toole who is trailing Harry Nichols. I don’t think there is much in that. I’m covering every one—that’s all.”
Harrigan opened the drawer of a cabinet and fingered about till he found a small, round box of gray powder used for preserving fingerprints. He turned with this and saw that Drew had crammed into his side coat-pocket, a flat camera which the telephone girl brought to him. “Got flash lights?” asked Harrigan.
“Yes. There’s some in the back of this camera.” Drew slapped his overcoat. “I got everything, I guess. Remember about Delaney and Flynn.”
The detective moved toward the door which led to the hallway where the elevators were. He turned as Harrigan laid a hand on his shoulder. “What’s that sticking out of your other pocket, Chief?” asked the assistant-manager. “A paper, ain’t it?”
Drew flushed beneath his olive skin. Hepressed the object down with soft fingers. He turned and said simply:
“That’s a picture of the girl in the case. Forgot I had it. Good-by!”
The door slammed as he strode over the white tiling and jabbed at an elevator button with his right thumb.
Swirled in wind-blown snow from the office buildings and wrapped to the chin with the collar of his overcoat, Drew plunged, with head downward, for the nearest subway station.
He caught an up-town express, and, after three grinding station-stops, he reached the Grand Central Station wherein was the telephone-booth to which the calls had been sent from the prison.
He made swift work of the matter at hand. Time was pressing. The booths, to the number of three in that portion of the station, were fortunately empty.
Going over the slot-box and the tiny shelf in the center booth, which bore the number “Gramercy Hill 9845” on the transmitter, Drew pulled the door shut and dusted all the nickel work and the polished surface of the receiver, with French-gray powder of superior make.
He took three exposures by aid of small flashes. He opened the door and allowed the smoke to escape. Pocketing the camera, after winding on a fresh film, he entered the boothfor a second time and inspected its lower paneling for possible clews.
An oath, close-bitten and expressive, escaped his lips as he discovered a small hole drilled through the woodwork. He stooped and peered through this opening. It led to the next booth. It had been made with a long auger of quarter-inch diameter. Shavings lay upon the floor of the booth.
He emerged and investigated the second booth. The hole came through, underneath the slot-box. It had been drilled in order to make a connection between the two telephones. He found splinters and sawdust at his feet. He backed out and stood perplexed. There was no way of finding out just what sort of connection had been made between the two booths. All evidence of wires had been taken down. Only an expert could give an answer to the new riddle. Drew recalled Westlake as he rushed to the subway-platform.
He found the vice-president busy, with a score of men waiting in the outer room of the telephone company’s office. The secretary-in-charge hurried in with his card and his urgent request for three minutes’ important matter which could not well wait.
Drew, however, was forced to wait seven minutes by his watch. He chafed at the delay. He crossed his legs at least once each leaden minute.He feared that the trail was getting cold. Twice he rose, as if to go. Each time the secretary had indicated patience by an arching of her brows and a jerk of her thumb toward the ground-glass door.
“Send in Drew!” boomed as the door opened and let out the caller. Drew strode in with his notes in his hand.
“Just a minute, Westlake,” he said, dropping into a chair and leaning over the desk behind which sat a good-natured official of the superior order. “A minute! I’m in a jam! What d’ye make of this?”
Drew related his discovery in the booths of the Grand Central. He went right to the point. He explained the auger-hole, the shavings, and the fact that it was the same set of booths to which the call had been sent from the prison, over the time Stockbridge had been slain.
Westlake listened with dawning light. He leaned back as Drew finished talking. He smiled. He thrust his thumbs under his vest. “You’re a hardworking man, Drew,” he said, “but you didn’t get it all. Do you remember the third call that I gave you this morning?—the one when the chief-operator at Gramercy Hill put the howler on? It was from the same booths you just mentioned!”
“What?”
“It certainly was. There’s no use lookingat the record. The number was 9844 Gramercy Hill. In other words we have the evidence to show that a thin, whispering voice called up Stockbridge from one booth in the Grand Central at the same time the prison was connected to the adjacent booth.”
“For the love of Mike!” said Drew.
“Yes—your case grows interesting, Chief. You’ve got a lot of tangled leads and all that, but a little more work should untangle them. A telephone engineer ought to make a crackerjack detective. He’s trained to unsnarl the worst snarls in the world. You ought to see some of our wiring diagrams. It takes study to trace them out. You’re learning!”
“I don’t know if I am, Westlake. I think that Morphy, up at the prison, has been ’phoning New York. I believe he has a confederate in this town. This confederate, we will say, received his instructions about midnight last night. He bored a hole through the booths and called up Stockbridge. But what was it all for?”
“That I can’t answer!”
Drew rose from the chair and crammed his notes in his inner, overcoat pocket. “What the devil did they do that for?” he asked with flashing eyes. “Morphy calls up Gramercy Hill 9843 at, or about, midnight. Gramercy Hill 9844 calls up Stockbridge. Stockbridge was killedby a bullet in the neck as he’s talking over the ’phone. Was the call to warn him? Was it to threaten him? Was it to occupy his attention so that the murderer could get in the room and fire the shot?”
“Did you find out how he got into the room?” asked Westlake, leaning forward.
“I have not! The whole thing gets weird. I can’t sleep! I’m not going to sleep till I get some light on this!”
“You look healthy,” said Westlake, as he pressed the buzzer for the next caller.
Drew emerged from the elevator and hurried to the street with short, quick strides. He crossed the snow and pressed open the door to a cigar store. He fished out a nickel and called up his office.
To Harrigan who answered, he said tersely, “Get Flynn up to the Grand Central! Get him to the east-end telephone-booth, on the lower level. Tell him I’ll be there. He’s back from Morristown, isn’t he? He phoned, eh? Get him to me! I need him!”
Drew hung up with a swift flip of the receiver. He hurried to the subway station and caught a local up-town. He had time to flash a fourth and fifth set of photos before Flynn came puffing across the lower level.
“See here!” snapped Drew, drawing the operative into the middle booth. “Bend downthere where that hole is, and tell me what you see on the varnish.Footprints”
“It’s fingerprints, Chief. Two, three of them. Looks like somebody pressed hard when they drilled that hole. The outer print is a good one of a thumb. Left thumb, I should say.”
“That’s right! I’m going to find out who made that impression, within one hour. You stay here and grab anybody who tries to talk with the prison. Frick is up there!”
“How about O’Toole, who’s watching Nichols?” asked Flynn.
“Leave him stay on that assignment. I need you here. Stick now! Watch everybody who talks over these three phones. Arrest anybody who receives or sends a call to the prison. There’s plenty of Central Office men handy for a pinch. Fosdick will back them up!”
Drew rushed for the subway. He realized that he had wasted valuable time by not taking the complete set of fingerprint photos on his first inspection of the booths. It was a detail he had overlooked. But then, he could afford to make mistakes. The men or man he was after, dared not make any. This was a thing he had often recalled in dealing with super-criminals.
Fosdick’s rooms at Detective Headquarters, on Center Street, were luckily deserted as herushed down through the hallway. The Commissioner widened his eyes as Drew handed over the camera, with a request that the films be developed and prints made within twenty minutes.
“Can’t be done that soon,” said the detective. “Give us fifty minutes.”
“I’ll make it twenty-five!” shot Drew. “I got lots to tell you, but it’ll keep. Get those prints and we’ll land our man. The last two films have perfect samples of finger-work. Our man slipped there! He signed his own death warrant!”
The Commissioner pressed a button. To the young man who came, he explained the necessity of rushing the developing and printing of the films. He turned as the messenger hurried out with the camera.
“What about that bullet?” he asked.
“Just as I said, Commissioner. It was fired from a smooth-bore pistol or gun. What do you think?”
“Oh, maybe not! Sometimes there isn’t much rifling on an old revolver. Those little twenty-two affairs are made out of cast-iron.”
“But the cupronickle bullet shows smokeless powder and high-class criminal activity. I doubt if one of those little rods would take a modern steel-jacketed bullet. They’re used in automatics.”
“But automatics have good rifling. That bullet was as smooth as before it was shot. Here it is!”
Fosdick opened a drawer and pulled out a later-day projectile of the lesser-caliber.
“This is smooth!” he repeated with heat. “It was cut from the old millionaire’s brain. It ain’t scratched. It never took the rifling it was intended for. My theory is, that it was fired from a gun of larger caliber. That is to say, it didn’t fit the bore. A thirty-thirty rifle might be used to hold a twenty-two caliber bullet. It would not take the rifling of this.”
Drew shook his head. “That’s hardly possible,” he declared. “It’s too vague and doesn’t suit me. We’re going to find that the deeper we get in this thing, the simpler will be the explanation. I remember any number of cases which have been solved in this city where the mystery was so wrapped up in speculation and the improbable that our minds failed to grasp the simple thing which was the solution.”
“Then you think the lack of rifling on the bullet might be the opening wedge to catching the man who shot Stockbridge?”
“It could well be, Fosdick. The lack of a thing sometimes is just as important as the visible clue. Do you remember the Rajah case at Gramercy Park?”
Fosdick leaned back in his chair and staredup at the ceiling. “Seems to me that I do,” he said, thrusting out his lower lip. “There was a big jewel missing. Sort of an Idol’s Eye case—wasn’t it?”
“Exactly! A white diamond was missing at a dinner. Lights went out as they were passing the stone around the table. Lights came on again and the diamond was gone. Everybody accused. A strange print was found on the sideboard. Servants knew nothing about it. The print didn’t correspond to any which we took there. Seemed impossible and all that. Well, the very fact that the print didn’t correspond was the means of finding the stone and the culprit. You remember it?”
“Vaguely.”
“Simple! A Lascar who waited on the table slipped off his shoes, crept into the room, secured the diamond and climbed to the sideboard where he hid it on top of a picture. The thumbprint which we puzzled our heads over was a toe-print! We got the fellow!”
“I recall it now,” said Fosdick. “I think one of our men thought out the matter.”
“He didn’t!” declared the detective. “We worked it out! The city department had given up the case. This may be the same. I’ll venture to say that as soon as you get a good operative some private agency secures his services. Now, Commissioner, confess up. What mannerof gun could fire a bullet, such as a cupronickle one, without leaving markings?”
“Smooth bore. An old flint-lock—for instance.”
“We’ll grant that! They’re clumsy, however. The shot which killed the millionaire was fired at very close range through a smooth tube of a greater caliber than the diameter of the bullet found in his head. If it were fired through a gun which was rifled, then there was a collar or collars on the bullet, which we didn’t find. The same thing was discovered by examination of the shells which the Germans fired at Paris. There was no rifling on those long-range projectiles. The bands dropped off after the shell left the gun.”
“Then this bullet was fired at long range?” Fosdick was openly incredulous.
“No! Again we have the impossibility or seeming impossibility. I examined that library, both before and after the murder. No shot could have been fired from the outside so that a bullet would reach the old man. If that were the case there would have been an opening in the walls or at the windows or the ventilators. Besides, we have the powder burns on the millionaire’s head. We are squarely confronted with a paradox. Riddle me that paradox and we will go a long ways toward finding the man who murdered Stockbridge.”
Fosdick frowned. “I can’t see it at all,” he confessed. “I still hold to the theory that we should third degree all of the servants. I’ve got some of them. If they don’t squeal, I’ll get the others!”
Drew glanced at his watch. “Personally,” he said, “I’m of the opinion that you will not get anything out of them. I think it was a mistake to arrest them. It would have been far better to trail the butler and the doorman and see if they connected with anybody.”
“I’m doing this!” exclaimed Fosdick with asperity. “I’ve got charge of this case, Drew. I got charge and I don’t want any meddling. I’ve my own methods.”
“All right,” said the detective. “All right! I want a check-up on the finger prints and then I’ll be going. I had to come to you for this. You have such an interesting collection.”
“Here’s your answer!” said the commissioner, rising and striding around the desk. “Take this bullet and look it over. Put it in your pocket. And––”
Drew turned swiftly. The messenger stood in the doorway. He came forward as Fosdick nodded. He passed over the hastily developed prints which Drew had taken. The commissioner glanced at them, frowned, held them to the light, then said:
“We’ll try these on the Man Who Can’t BeBeat! He’s the best in the world. He’ll know in three minutes who made these prints if the fellow is on our records.”
The fingerprint expert nodded to Drew as they entered a huge room which was lined with mahogany cabinets in the manner of a filing system in a mail-order house. Fosdick passed the five photos into this man’s hand. He smiled as the expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.
“We’re infallible!” exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. “Watch Pope get your man. He’ll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?”
The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then laid them down on a table and shook his head.
“We have no record of this fellow,” he said coldly. “It looks like a man’s print. Here’s the thumb and here is the middle finger of the right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I’d say, as a pretty sure thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?”
“Yes! Look!” said Fosdick.
Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still others.
“No go?” he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet and turned with shaking head. “No go? Try again.”
“Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints,” said Pope, holding out the photos. “He hasn’t registered with us yet. Whoever made these prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony.”
“How about a misdemeanor?” asked Drew.
“No! They’re all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion or for auto speeding or beating his wife,—if he has one,—he would be here. I’m sorry, inspector.”
Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward Fosdick.
“Have you got a print of Finklestein?” he asked. “You remember the fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I’ve forgotten how he got off. He’s supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you’d compare these prints with Finklestein’s.”
“Go ahead,” said the commissioner. “Go as far as you like. I don’t think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong ones—that’s all.”
“What’s Finkle—Finklestein’s initials?” asked the expert.
“J. B.,” said Drew quickly. “Julius B.!”
A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard, and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had started from before taking the prints in the booth.
“No record could be more different,” Pope said. “Finklestein has a big hand and very broad fingers. The fellow who made these prints has a little hand with thin fingers. The whorls and loops are entirely dissimilar. He comes under classification 2-4-X. Finklestein is in cabinet 2-9-0. They couldn’t be further away.”
Drew started out through the doorway with Fosdick following him. They stood on the landing leading to the downstairs steps, where the detective was about to leave the commissioner with a curt good-by. His hand was out when he drew it back, dropped it to his side and wheeled with sudden intuition.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Are you and I detectives or children? Come back to the fingerprint room. Hurry now. I want to see Pope. I forgot something!”
The expert rose as they entered. “Well?” he asked with arching brows and a slight frown on his face. “Well, what is it?”
Drew pointed a finger as steady as a rifle.He bared his eyes into Pope’s own. “Were you up to Stockbridge’s house?” he asked swiftly.
“Yes! Why?”
“Did you take prints and photos of everything in the library? I understand that this was done after I turned the case over to Commissioner Fosdick.”
“It was done!” rasped Fosdick. “Of course it was done. It’s always done when a case looks like a homicide!”
“This case looked worse than that!” said Drew. “It was slaughter!”
The commissioner turned to the fingerprint man. “Where are the prints and photos you took up at the house?” he asked.
“Still in the developing room.”
“Do you think they are developed?”
“I’ll soon know, sir,” he answered, pressing a button.
The messenger entered who had attended to Drew’s prints which the detective took in the telephone-booth.
“Get down to the developing room,” ordered Pope. “Get me all the prints and positives of Exhibit 12 of the Stockbridge case. Bring what is already developed. Tell them to rush the others.”
The three men waited in silence for the return of the messenger. Drew paced the floorthoughtfully. He clasped and unclasped his hands behind his back. He had almost slipped in an important matter. It was a chance he was taking, but a vital one in the case. The fingerprints taken by the expert in the library might and might not jibe with those taken in the slot-booth. If they were the same, or any one was the same, the case would offer a new line for investigation.
A sliding footstep at the door announced the messenger. He held a sheath of curling papers in his hand. Pope reached and snatched the photos. He ran over them with widening eyes. He sorted them into two piles upon the table.
“Five prints!” he announced, glancing at Drew with a sly smile. “Five of these prints are the same as your set. In other words, the man who made the impressions in the telephone-booth was also in the library at or about the time of the murder!”
“Impossible!” snorted Fosdick.
“Ah!” said Drew. “Photos don’t lie. Now we’re getting there! That’s the first light I’ve seen in some time. It clears the case of the supernatural. It puts it where it belongs—in the material world of flesh and blood and hate and revenge.”
“It does that!” corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. “Now,” he added good-naturedly,“I’ll help out some more. I’ve got a book of notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I flashed every print I could see. There’s some of the butler on the bottle and the tray. There’s a number on the polished table. There are at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I suppose yours is among them, inspector?”
Drew held out his right hand. “Look and see,” he suggested with a short laugh. “I’ve never been printed in my life.”
“That won’t be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There’s no record of this fellow in our cabinet. But—he was in that library!”
“Where did he leave his prints?” asked Drew.
Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page, thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. “What’s the number on the back of that one?” he asked, nodding toward the topmost photograph.
“Ten,” said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.
“Ten,” repeated the expert. “That is a print which was flashed on the corner of the littletable which was overturned when Stockbridge fell to the floor after being shot.”
“And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?”
“The same!” declared the expert dryly.
“I don’t see where you two are getting,” said Fosdick. “How could a man get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go over to a slot-booth?”
“He might have been in the slot-booth first,” suggested Drew with slow smiling. “From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge.”
“The fact is established,” exclaimed Pope, “that the man you are after was in the library and in the booth. That’s all you can say. There’s no way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made.”
Drew lifted a second print. “No. sixteen,” he said, turning to the expert. “Where was that made?”
Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease over the development in the case. “That,” he said, swinging his eyes till they met Drew’s, “that was made on the hardwood floor directly under Stockbridge’s body. We found the print, with others of the little finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!”
The detective stared at Pope. “You mean,”he said shrewdly, “that the man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was down on his knees arranging Stockbridge’s body, or doing something like that?”
“He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this impression. I venture to say that it is there yet.”
“Good!” said Drew. “I may have a look at it. I never went after prints in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business—like yourself.”
Pope smiled. He glanced at his book for a third time. “What’s the number of that last print?” he asked.
“Forty-four!”
“Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work.”
“I had a hand in that,” admitted Drew.
“This print was close to the knob. There’s none like it on the knob itself.”
“Umph!” declared Fosdick.
Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on Fosdick’s shoulder. “I’ve got you to thank,” he said, “for letting me use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it clears the case in a remarkable manner.”
“How?” asked the commissioner.
“Well for one thing,” Drew said, lifting the third photo. “For one thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half mile or more away from the mansion.”
“I’ll grant you that, but what does it prove?”
Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. “It proves,” he said, “that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never arrested in New York.”
“That’s a large order!” chuckled the commissioner. “There are a few good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven’t got—yet!”
“I’m satisfied,” said the detective, pulling his hat down over his head. “I’m going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good. He’s stayed out of your clutches. He’s forgotten more about telephones than most men know. He’s as slippery as an eel and as clever as the very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase.”
“What’s that?” asked the commissioner.
“He didn’t wear gloves on the job. That’s where we may trip him up.”
“They all forget something,” said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.
The detective hurried down the steps,—passedthe sergeant at the entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!
Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a towering cañon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.
The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages. He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.
Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker. He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.
Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers.He had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was a big factor in the criminal game. The members of the criminal tribe worked through luck and sheer audacity. Many escaped from the net and moved in the underworld until they made their final mistake which was probably so glaring it couldn’t be overlooked.
Despite the fact that the finger prints were not of record, Drew held to the swirling conviction that the man he was after was of the criminal horde. There was much to lead him to this belief. The cleverness in connecting up the two telephone booths—the warning through the mail to Stockbridge—the manner in which the murder had been covered up in a score of details, all pointed to a criminal mind of the cunningest order. It savored of practice in crime and study of natural conditions. Its bizarre features placed it out from other crimes and raised it to a class of its own.
The snow which impeded the detective’s steps, in some manner cleared his brain. He began to review the series of events. He boxed the case with returning shrewdness. He went over the points like a sailor repeating the compass-chart. He even saw a light.
This light was a star that guided him around a corner and then along the long reach of a white-mantled street where children shrilledand played. Snow-balls flew past his head. Sleighs and muffled taxis churned by. Women in furs and heavy cloaks glanced up at his olive face from which peered sanguine eyes bent upon a known destination.
He paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading to a library. In this building he knew there would be on file certain data concerning three links of the chain which he was trying to forge about the criminal or criminals who had slain Stockbridge.
He entered the storm-door, shook the snow from his coat, and removed his hat with a swinging bow as he drew erect in front of a prim lady at a desk.
“I want all the books you have on modern telephony,” he said with a winning smile. “I’m sure that you have one or two.”
The prim lady who knew a gentleman when she saw one, raised her brows and rapidly thumbed over a filing-card system.
“One or two,” she repeated. “Why, we have over twenty. Now just what branch of Telephony do you want? There are a number of divisions in the subject. We have Smith on Central Office practice. We have Steinward on Induced Currents in Relation to Magnetism. We have Oswerlander on Switchboards and Carbon Transmitters. We have Burke on Circuits and Batteries. We have––”
“Hold on, please,” said Drew, catching his breath. “I better try something easy. One of those Juvenile books with simple diagrams and switchboards or junction-boxes.”
Drew carried the book to an alcove which was deserted. He took off his coat, hung it on the back of a chair, upended his hat and sat down with a tired smile. Soon he was busy in the mystery of electricity in relation to the telephone. He conned over the pages. He browsed along like a novice trying to understand trigonometry. He frowned over such terms as micro-ampere and micro-volt. He grew dizzy following wiring diagrams which were far worse than any clue he had ever attempted.