“A telephone engineer,” he said half aloud. “A man who could trace out this stuff ought to make a mighty fine detective. I never saw such a snarl. Now what does hysteresis and laminations mean? What’s the idea of having an alternating current of low voltage on the same line with a talking current of three volts? I don’t see how they can get two currents on one set of wires. Maybe they don’t.”
He tossed the book to the table in front of him and rose with a frown. This frown changed to a wrinkled furrow of half amusement as he hurried back to the little prim lady.
“Too deep for me,” he said, referring to thebook she had given him. “That may be a beginner’s treatise, but I’m in the kindergarten class in electricity. What’s a micro-volt?”
“I’ll look it up, sir,” she said.
“Never mind. I wouldn’t know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book on magpies.”
The librarian fingered her files. “Try Birds of England,” she suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow over to a book-case. “Try this. It’s complete. You’ll find magpies and starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this splendid volume.”
“The one that interested me was black as a crow,” he said, as he turned toward his alcove. “Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white crows. I never saw one, though. My bird’s a deep one.”
The little librarian stared after Drew’s vanishing form with a slight pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and telephones.
Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles. These she had in plenty. A great manywar books had been purchased during the period which followed America’s declaration.
The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact upon fact. He had the formulæ of smokeless powder and the analysis of cupronickle bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire. He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.
The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the north and plowed along the sidewalk.
Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost six o’clock.
“Lord,” he said in surprise. “I’m going crazy. Two hours in a trance. Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They ought to have something. I wonder,” he added, peering under the fine drizzleof snow, “I wonder where the nearest telephone is located? Another block, I guess.”
His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along. Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library. The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.
The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters, was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a whirling dervish across the detective’s vision.
He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he asked Central for his office phone.
The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. “What’s new in the Stockbridge case?” asked Drew in a whisper.
He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the entire series of reports.There were six of them. The last was from Delaney.
“Hang up!” the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. “Hang up, Harrigan, and let me get him.”
Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large slot and jiggled the receiver’s hook until Central answered.
“Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!” he exclaimed. “Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!”
“That’s her number,” he said aloud. “Loris Stockbridge’s number. It must be her number. I haven’t forgotten that, have I?”
The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The receiver’s diaphragm clicked finally. “Hello!” he snapped. “Hello, who’s this?”
He waited a full second. “This Delaney?” he asked. “Who?” he added. “Oh! you’re the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes, Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!”
“This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? Hello, Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?”
The big operative’s voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. “What’s the news?” asked Drew. “What’s that you’ve been telling Harrigan? Something about a coffin? A coffin? What—acasket? A hardwood casket. I’ll be right up! I’m coming!”
The detective’s olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.
The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this, sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver’s muffled ear.
“Drive like sin—full speed and more—up Fifth Avenue! I’ll tell you when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I can help it,” he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the taxi.
CHAPTER ELEVEN“THE CLOSING NET”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“THE CLOSING NET”
Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway signs—the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow worms—the muffled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.
Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew’s taxi turned and ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at the curb.
“Stay around the corner!” he ordered. “Stay, till I send word. Here’s a dollar for supper. Get that and wait!”
The driver touched his cap and reached forthe bill. Drew swung northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden sidewalk. Delaney’s statement over the telephone had stirred every drop of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in defiance to the powers of darkness which encompassed the dwelling.
A snow-crusted form stepped out from a basement shelter. Drew raised his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.
“Hello, O’Toole!” he blurted, recognizing the operative. “What areyoudoing here?”
O’Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. “Our lad’s in there,” he said, thrashing his arms and flipping his finger for a second time. “Harry Nichols!” he explained.
“S—o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads this way now. What did you learn to-day?”
O’Toole yawned. “I got on the job early,” he said with frosty breath. “I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I’m right after him. First he went to the Quartermaster’sOffices at the Battery. Then he went to Governor’s Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross Headquarters. He ’phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times.”
“To the girl in the case?”
“Yep, Chief! He’s gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers—three dozen lilies of the valley—then came on up here. I’ve been waiting a long time.”
“Seen anybody about?”
“Delaney and some Central Office men—that’s all! Shall I stay here?”
“Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think Delaney has been there. You’ll find the snow melted in spots. Plant somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with the wires to the house. I’m looking for trouble to-night. They threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon.”
Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O’Toole, turned at the iron-grilled gate, passed through and pressed the button.
A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.
“All right!” said Drew. “Let me in!”
The door swung wider. Drew lunged through and turned. “What’s new?” he asked, pointinga thumb over his shoulder. “Are those servants still under arrest?”
“Some of them, Inspector,” grunted the Central Office man. “I can’t talk much. Fosdick gave me hell for talking to a newspaper man. He left word, though, that you could come in.”
“Thanks!” Drew said dryly. “Thanks! That’s kind of him. You are holding down this door?”
“Sure, Inspector! The butler and the second-man are down at Headquarters. I don’t like the job, but orders is orders.”
Drew loosened his overcoat, removed his kid-gloves, stamped his snow-covered shoes on the rug, and hurried past the library, where stood a burly Central Office man on guard. He mounted the steps with the running motion of a boy of fifteen. He glanced upward to where velvet-soft light glowed at the entrance to Loris Stockbridge’s suite of rooms. Delaney stood framed in the opening. His huge bulk blotted out the inner rooms. His face, seen in the high shadows, was long and grim.
“She’s in there,” said the operative, raising his chin over his lifted arm. “Miss Stockbridge is in there. She’s with her maid—one Fosdick tried to pinch—and Harry Nichols. She’s got a notice by special delivery, that the coffin she ordered from the Hardwood Casket Company, of Jersey City, will be delivered to-morrow.She never ordered any coffin, Chief. Ain’t that dirt—to a girl like that? What d’ye think of it?”
Drew’s answer to Delaney’s question was a grinding of teeth and a sharp oath of defiance. He clutched the operative’s arm in a nipping grip. He led him into the tiny reception-hall of the suite.
The detective paused on the threshold of a larger room. He dropped his hand from Delaney’s arm. He stabbed sharp glances here and there about the interior. He widened his eyes as they came to rest upon a further doorway, which was hung with soft tapestries gathered to the side-walls by cords of silk. Beyond this doorway, like the vista of some rare painting, shone an inner light of a woman’s shrine.
Silver and pearl and old rose blended into a bower such as is found in palaces. Tiny medallions and plaques and miniatures—narrow framed studies in oil—fans, vases, statuettes of ivory and rare china, a hundred choice and dainty objects of haute-art were in that splendid room.
Drew advanced over a rug so soft and deep he felt like a peri entering Paradise. He brushed aside the tapestries and strode swiftly forward. His hat came off as Loris advanced to meet him from a large chamber, wherein the color schemehad been worked out in black and white with a suggestion of green-in-gold.
He forgot the material things of that apartment as he bowed gallantly. He thrust his hand forward and clasped strong fingers over her own. The grief of her father’s death had widened her eyes and set them in circles of dark brows and tear-stained features. Her voice clutched in her throat as she tried to speak. Her hand was drawn from his slowly. It raised to her broad forehead beneath her blue-black hair, with a passing motion that dispelled some of the doubt within her. She smiled wanly. Her round, young breast rose and fell with the rustle of perfumed laces. She swished her lavender gown behind her with a turn of a white, supple wrist upon which was a tiny, diamond-studded watch of superior make.
“Courage!” said Drew. “Have courage! They won’t get you!”
“They—they,” she breathed. “They have threatened me like they threatened poor father. They sent a letter. Oh, I wish I were a man!”
Drew flushed beneath his olive cheeks. He reached upward and turned down his overcoat collar. He laid his hat on a chair, braced his shoulders, and stared around the room. His eyes wandered from the walls to the inner opening. “Who’s in there?” he asked.
“Harry—Harry Nichols. I telephoned forhim. I was afraid. I admit I’m afraid, Mr. Drew. You know what they did to father?”
“Yes, I know. It was an error on my part. We did not take the proper precautions. But this time—we will!”
“I hope you do. I don’t feel like myself, after last night. It came so suddenly. I heard you people talking in the lower hallway. I went to the bannisters and saw all the servants at the library door. And then—and then, I went down without a particle of warning. It was a shock, Mr. Drew.”
“One I could have spared you,” admitted the detective. “It was preventable,” he added, turning toward Delaney.
The operative stepped forward. He struck a chair with his foot and tumbled it over. Picking it up and setting it down on its legs, he flushed guiltily.
“Be careful!” snapped Drew. “Get me that letter this young lady received from Jersey. Get it! We’ll look it over right now!”
Delaney glanced at Loris. “She’s got it,” he said. “I gave it back to her.”
Loris shuddered and pressed her hands to her breast. “I tore it up,” she whispered. “I was so excited and angry I tore it up. It’s in the waste-basket.”
“Fetch the basket!” said Drew to Delaney. “Go get it. We’ll make this room our headquarters,”he added, swinging about on one heel. “We’ll stay right here and watch things, Miss Loris.”
The girl nodded prettily. Her courage came back with flushed cheeks. She glanced up at Drew’s strong jaw and face. The detective squared his shoulder with a final shrug. “We’ll stay here!” he said masterly. “Though all the demons in hell are closing in on you, we’ll stick. We’ll get them this time! I’ve almost got my man. If he moves his pawns to-night, we’ll round up the whole bunch and send them to the chair!”
“Are there more than one?”
“Yes! One is directing—another or others are doing his will. Your father was slain in some mysterious manner which we have not, as yet, determined. The man, or men, who caused him to meet with death, left their marks behind them—fingerprints—footprints, voices over wires, and other evidences of material deviltry. They blundered a score of times! They should have killed that magpie. They did not wear gloves when they should have worn gloves. They forgot, or overlooked, that telephone calls can be traced. We’ve traced them. We’ve almost succeeded. The trouble is, that time is short. What was in that letter?”
Loris turned toward the inner room. Delaney, followed by Harry Nichols in full uniform,appeared. The operative held out a handful of scrapped paper.
“Ain’t much to learn here, Chief. It’s pretty well torn up. I remember what it said, though.”
“Repeat it!”
“It was from the Hardwood Casket Company of Jersey City. It was dated this morning. It said that the coffin Miss Stockbridge ordered for the lady who was about to die in her family, would be delivered to-morrow afternoon by express at her town house, as ordered.”
“The curs!” exclaimed Drew.
“Sure they are, Chief. The letter was signed by the manager. I think it was the manager. I couldn’t read his writing!”
“Let me see the scraps.”
Delaney sorted them into a small stack and passed them to Drew. The detective lifted each fragment, held it to the light, and placed it into his right overcoat-pocket. “I get it,” he said. “It looks genuine. Did you telephone them?”
“Nope! I was a-waiting for you to come up here. There’s a phone here. It’s over there!”
Drew nodded. “I saw it,” he said thoughtfully. “We better be careful how we use the phones of this house. They tapped the wires before, and they can do it again. We’re fighting very high-class devils.”
“It doesn’t seem real!” blurted Harry Nichols.“I thought that death only stalked in No Man’s Land. It’s right here, gentlemen!”
Drew frowned and shook his head. He glanced at Miss Stockbridge. He rubbed his hands softly. “No more danger,” he warned in a confident voice. “We’ve got twenty Central Office men in the house or about the place. No bank was ever better protected. There will be no real trouble to-night.”
“That’s what you said the other time, to father,” Loris suggested without thought. “You did—you remember? You were in the library and he felt so confident nothing would happen. Something did happen!”
“I admit it!” Drew said with candor, “I admit everything, Miss Loris. I’m partly to blame. The trouble was, I underestimated my adversary. A man should never do that. This time, though,” he added with glazed eyes that roamed the walls. “This time is going to be different. Now, how about all your rooms? We must be sure that there is no slip. We must be sure––”
“Sure, we must be sure!” interrupted Delaney. “I’ve looked everywhere, Chief. Leave that to me!”
Drew glanced at Loris, who had stepped toward Harry Nichols. He studied the picture the two made, with their heads close together. The captain held himself defiantly, but with that certainpolish which goes with a fondness for the things of life worth having. He had chosen a rather pretty girl, and upon her he had lavished his attentions. He had defied Stockbridge! This was motive enough for a crime. He was not the criminal, decided Drew. There was that to the captain’s resolute, though thick lips, and his wide eyes, which assured the detective he would not stoop to low things to gain his ends. He had enlisted voluntarily. He had worked hard at Plattsburg. He had served, and was upon the eve of going to Pershing. No man with such a record would slay a girl’s father to gain the girl.
The detective erased Harry Nichols from his mind. “You two,” he said commandingly, “had better go into the library! I mean Miss Stockbridge’s writing-room. Stay there, please, till Mr. Delaney and I notify you. Who else, beside we four, are in this part of the house?”
“Only the maid,” said Loris.
“Go in, please, and wait. I’m going to lock everything up. We’re going to take every precaution this time. Frankly, I don’t see how any agency can do more than we have already. Were we dealing with ordinary crooks or blackmailers, I would have you take a taxi and move to some Fifth Avenue hotel. But it seems an unnecessary risk. This is the safest place in the world, despite the letter from the casket companyand the former warning. What man can enter this place to-night—without our permission?”
“I’d like to see one!” blurted Delaney.
Harry Nichols offered his arm to Loris. They passed from the view of the two detectives with the locked, gliding stride of two dancers who moved to slow time. Drew heard the portières which led to the writing-room rustle downward and settle into place. He passed his hand over his forehead and breathed deeply.
“We’ll get busy,” he whispered tersely. “We’ll search these rooms again. Let’s start with a definite foundation!”
Delaney grunted at the uselessness of this as he reached and took the detective’s overcoat which was peeled off and extended to him.
“Hang it on a chair,” said Drew sharply. “Over there with my hat. Now,” he snapped, “what about the windows of this room, the little reception hall and the bedroom over there? That’s a bedroom, isn’t it?”
“Sure, Chief! I frisked it good. The Central Office men were up here early in the morning. They went through everything. Fosdick, they say, was like a bull. He said the thing couldn’t be done.”
“Itwasdone!”
“Did you get any clue, Chief, as to how it was done?”
“It’s as much a mystery as ever. But we’re trimming the tree called Truth with a broad ax. I’m going around this case to get the man or men who did it. Then we’ll find out how it was done!”
“Oh!” Delaney’s expression was thought-laden. “Just thought of it, Chief. I got them plaster-of-paris casts. I got ’em down stairs. It was some job, believe me. I took everything about that junction-box, after I’d thawed the snow with hot blankets which a good-looking cook brought to me.”
“Go down and get them!”
Delaney hurried out through the tapestries of the room. Drew started his search of the apartment by a study of the windows and the catches. He opened one and glanced outside. Snow had drifted to the depth of three inches on the sill. This snow was unmarked. He examined all of the sills extending from the three rooms. He closed and locked the windows. He backed off into the center of the reception room and studied the situation from every angle. The furniture was fragile and in sets of such splendid periods his eyes closed over them. The rugs and tapestries—curtains and portières—sheathings of yellow hand-painted silk from Nippon—rare ceramics and cloisonnés—a huge peach-blow vase of the Ming dynasty and a hundred littlejade and jasper knick-knacks were the outward evidence of wealth.
He opened the plate-glass cases and peered inside. He crawled under a couch and backed out dusting his hands. He tapped with slow knuckles a long cheval-glass by the side of which was a tiny gold-bracket and a silver-plated telephone. He went the rounds of the walls, lifting pictures, portraits and little military oils by French painters of the Franco-Prussian period. He found nothing to excite his suspicion!
Entering a simple bedroom, with its tiled flooring and its single white bed, he spared this as he passed to the bath beyond, which had no outlet save a ventilating shaft securely barred by a bronze grating of close, fantastic-scrolled mesh.
Delaney’s heavy steps were heard in the reception hall as Drew finished. Striding out into the larger room he frowned as the operative deposited a blanket upon a Persian rug and began to untie its corners.
“I got ’em here, Chief,” explained the assistant with upturned face. “There’s five or six prints—all alike.”
“What? Repeat that!” Drew dropped to one knee.
“Sure, Chief. There’s only been one guy at that junction-box before the freezing started.He made plenty of tracks. He came and went from the fence to the box. It’s a small foot. There was plenty of prints made after the snow piled on top of these little prints.”
“The operatives?”
“Sure, and the Central Office bunch! But these prints I got here are the only ones under the snow. They stuck up when I melted away the surface.”
Delaney offered a plaster-cast of the top of a footprint. It was roughly done. It had been made, like the others in the blanket, by pouring cold plaster within a retaining bulge of soap. The plaster had hardened and brought out each detail. Drew traced his finger over the toe. “Right foot,” he said. “Now let’s see the others!”
“Here’s a left foot, Delaney,” added the detective slowly. “Only one left and four right. That might happen. You didn’t take them all. Well, bundle them up and plant them somewhere. Put them under that couch, out of sight. I’ve got an idea!”
“What is it, Chief?” asked the operative as he drew on the knots until he had gathered the corners together. “What’s new? I can’t see anything in sight, at-tall, at-tall. One man—that’s all I see.”
“And that’sallI see—the trouble-hunter—Delaney!”
“But what about the tall guy who looked like a German? The fellow the trouble-man saw getting over the fence and beating it for Fifth Avenue?”
“He didn’t leave any tracks!”
“Ah, Chief, get out! That ain’t human!”
Drew paced the floor with his hands clasped behind him. He wheeled with sudden energy. “Go, you!” he exclaimed with a pointing finger. “Hurry out of this house and telephone Gramercy Hill Exchange. Tell the superintendent to send over that trouble-man. I want to compare these prints with his shoes. He couldn’t have been lying. There’s no object in that! But, Delaney, how could a man tap in on that junction-box and never leave prints in the snow? That’s my question!”
“How could one shoot a man in a sealed room, Chief? There ain’t much difference!”
Drew snatched out his watch. “Hurry,” he said. “Get over to Gramercy Hill Exchange—it’s only three blocks from here. Ask Jack Nefe, or whoever is in charge, for the trouble-man who fixed the phone last night. He’ll be able to tell us what part of the fence the tall fellow, who looked like a German, got over. Perhaps he wasn’t at the junction-box at all!”
“Who, Chief?”
“The tall fellow! Perhaps he was skulking about the windows at the back.”
“Perhaps he was a ghost,” said Delaney to himself as he lunged through the tapestries toward the staircase which led down from the third floor of the mansion.
Drew crossed the room and rapped softly on a panel by the portières which covered the opening to the reading-room and library. He heard a muffled word of warning. Loris Stockbridge glided across the rugs and peered out. Her face was set and tear-stained. She had been sobbing upon an olive-drab shoulder.
“Pardon,” said Drew with a slight sigh. “I beg pardon, Miss Stockbridge. I want to look over the sitting-room and examine the windows. Where is the maid?”
Loris touched her eyes with a handkerchief drawn from her breast. She replaced this and nodded over her shoulder. She parted the portières with her unjeweled right hand. “The maid,” she said softly, “is in her room. That’s back of this reading-room. Shall I call her?”
“You and Mr. Nichols come in here, please,” said Drew. “I’ll knock on the maid’s door and look her over. We can’t be too careful—remember that. It’s getting late,” he added with candor.
Drew allowed Harry Nichols and Loris to pass him as he held the portières for them with a thoughtful bow. He crossed the reading-room, examined the books and cases, glancedunder a low divan, and saw to it that each window was latched before he knocked lightly upon a further door which was hidden by curtains.
A maid appeared, in smart white apron and pursed lips of inquiry. Drew regarded her not unkindly. He ran his eyes up and down her trim figure from the black bow in her brown hair to the wide ribbons which laced her trim French shoes.
“How long have you been with Miss Stockbridge?” he asked.
“Merci, Monsieur!”she courtesied. “It has been for zee longest time.Cinq—sept, années, monsieur,”she counted mentally.
“Good!” said Drew closing the door lightly. “Good little girl. We won’t bother you the rest of the night,” he added as he turned a good key in a perfectly good lock and dropped the curtains.
“Now!” he said with a final glance about the reading-room, with its morocco-bound tomes and glowing lights. “Now, let the worst come! Let that come what may!”
He strode through to the reception room, glanced slit-lidded at Loris and Nichols, who had seated themselves in the deeper recess of a splendid alcove, and hurried to the hall where Delaney was hastily removing his coat, and showing other evidences of some answer to his quest at the telephone exchange.
“Well?” asked Drew as the bulk of the big operative loomed through the tapestries. “Well, what did you find out over there?”
“Enough, Chief!” Delaney’s voice was hard. He glanced at Loris and Nichols. His right eye closed in a warning wink of caution.
“Come into this other room,” said Drew. “Come right in, Delaney. This way!” Drew lifted the portières, then dropped them after the operative had stumbled forward.
“What did you find?” he asked into Delaney’s ear. “Out with it!”
The operative glanced about the reading-room. He blinked at the glowing electrics. He recovered his voice as he drew in a deep breath which bulged his chest to barrel proportions.
“I went,” he said huskily. “I went to Gramercy Hill Exchange. Found the superintendent.... Fellow, you told me to find, Chief ... I draws him to one side.... I asked about this trouble-hunter.... He ups like I’d hit him.... He says fellow quit to-day.... Says fellow.... Says he was no good.... Says he was tapping joints instead of soldering them. Says he only hired him on account of the shortage of electricians and helpers ... because of the last Army draft.”
“Did you get his address?”
“I got it, Chief.... It is over on Fifty-third Street near the River.... I didn’t go.... Iwanted to see you first.... There’s more.”
“Out with it!”
“The superintendent says he never sent that trouble-hunter over here last night.... There’s a record of sending another man named Frisby.”
“Did you see—Frisby?”
“I did, Chief.”
“What did he say?” Drew’s fingers had clutched the operative’s arm. “What did he say?” he repeated grimly.
“Said, that Albert—that’s the trouble-hunter—had stopped him on the way over here and took his place.... Said, he was satisfied.... Albert could haveallthe jobs on a night like last night. That’s just what Frisby said, Chief!”
Drew loosened his fingers from Delaney’s arm and turned slowly. The portières swayed slightly. They shook anew. They parted at the center and revealed Loris Stockbridge. Her eyes burned the soft gloom with glazed interrogation. She raised her white hand and pressed back her hair from her forehead. She stepped forward with her knees striking against the stiff satin of her skirt. She swung from Delaney toward Drew.
“What were you saying?” she asked imperiously. “What did you say about a trouble-man? What was it, please?”
“I’m lookin’ for one, Miss!” declared Delaney. “I was over at the telephone company’s exchange lookin’ for the lad that was here last night and fixed the junction-box in the yard back of the house. Mr. Drew wants him.”
Loris turned toward the detective. “You want him?” she asked softly. “What do you want him for? Please tell me. I don’t like him, at all.”
It was Drew’s turn to draw in his breath. He eyed the girl. He tried to fathom the reason for her simple question and her objection. “Miss Loris,” he said, shrugging his square shoulders. “Why, it’s a slight matter. The man has disappeared. We can’t find him. He’s flown—perhaps.”
“Is he a little chap with a satchel and a testing set?” she asked. “A nice-mannered, soft-voiced little man who was so obliging, and yet so—oh! I don’t know what I have against him. He’s so sly—don’t you think so, Mr. Dr—e—w?”
“When did you ever see him?” asked Drew, feeling the blood rising to his cheeks at a thought which surged through his brain.
“Meet him? Why! he was here early this afternoon. He was all over the house!”
CHAPTER TWELVE“SUSPICION FASTENS”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SUSPICION FASTENS”
Triggy Drew had been trained in the hardest school in the world. Loris Stockbridge’s statement, delivered with such sincerity and so naïvely, completely upset him. It was like a gentle reminder that, as a hunter of men, he had failed. He took the blow with flaming cheeks and an almost stopped heart.
Delaney realized that something of moment in the case had happened. He stared at his chief, then turned his eyes upon Harry Nichols, who stepped through the portières and stood by Loris’ side.
“What is it, Chief?” asked the operative. “Was there anything in what she said?”
“Anything!” exclaimed Drew, recovering himself with a tossing shrug of his shoulders. “Anything? Everything! The man we want is––”
“Found?” breathed Loris clutching Nichols’ arm.
“Not yet—butverysoon!” said the detectivewith sanguine eyes. “We want that trouble-hunter, Delaney,” he added gathering in the details for action as he spoke. “You’ll have to hurry right over to the address and see if you can round him up. If he isn’t there—get him! I want him brought here at once. He’s got much to explain!”
“I’ll go right now,” said Delaney, starting toward the reception room.
“Wait,” said Drew.
Delaney turned at the portières.
“Don’t phone me here,” the detective warned. “Don’t do anything by telephone. We’re on the trail of a man or men who can tap wires. He or they may have a confederate in this house. Be careful—get your suspect and bring him here. We’ll try him with the footprints. We’ll check up with the fingerprints. Then, if he don’t cave in, we’ll turn him over to Fosdick and the Third Degree. I firmly believe that Albert, whom I saw in the library and who was in this house in the early afternoon of this day, is implicated in the murder. Strange that I never suspected him.”
“I’m going!” growled Delaney, tearing his eyes away from Loris and glancing through the curtains. “I’m right after him, Chief. I won’t stop till I get him, either.”
“If you don’t make it in thirty minutes,” said Drew glancing sharply at his watch, “if youdon’t make it by then—come back here. Perhaps something will have turned up in the meantime. Get that?”
“Sure, Chief! Good-by!”
Delaney had passed through the portières, crossed the reception room and pressed aside the tapestries leading to the hallways, before Drew stepped to the broad doorway and motioned for Loris and Nichols to take their former positions. He waited until they were seated with their faces in the shadow cast by the overhead silken hangings. He spoke then, and to the point.
“This case,” he said, thrusting his hands in his coat pockets and striding back and forth. “This case is clearing clue by clue. The trouble-man, whom some one let into the house this afternoon, is the missing link in the chain of circumstance and applied deduction. Who let him in?”
“I did!”
Drew stopped in his stride. “You, Nichols?” he questioned sharply. “Why did you let him in?”
“Because I asked Harry to,” defended Loris with heat. “I heard the bell ring. I sent the maid downstairs. She came back and told me that a man from the telephone company was waiting to look over the connections. She saidthat he said that there was trouble with the wires.”
“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Drew; “that is,” he added hastily, “I don’t believe there was anything the matter at all. In the light of what Delaney has told me, that fellow came here last night, when some one else named Frosby or Frisby was sent. Now why would he want to take another’s place? For one reason only—the same reason that he came here this afternoon. This reason concerns your future health and security. We had one death in this house which followed his first visit. We don’t want anything to happen after his second visit.”
“You are right, Mr. Drew,” said Nichols. “I was careless. I went down stairs and talked with the fellow. It was just a few minutes after I arrived from downtown. He seemed so plausible that I asked the Central Office Detective at the door, who gave the permission. It was all my fault, I guess.”
“Where did this fellow go? What did he do in the house?”
“He went into the library and tested the phone there. The connection seemed to be all right. Then he went down stairs and tested the butler’s ’phone. The butler had been taken as a material witness by Fosdick. I followed the man. He didn’t do anything but test andthen talk with Franklin Official—I think it was.”
“Are you sure he talked over the phone? It’s ridiculously easy for a person to hold down the hook and make believe they are talking to most anybody.”
“I don’t know about that, Mr. Drew,” said the captain, turning toward Loris. “Did he talk to anybody when he used this ’phone, Miss Stockbridge?”
“I believe so, Harry. I really thought he did.”
Drew furrowed his brows in perplexity. There was no evidence shown that the trouble-man had ever talked with anybody, via wire, from the mansion. He recalled the first appearance of the lineman in the library. That time both calls, to Central, might have been feigned by holding down the hook and speaking into a disconnected transmitter. The man was clever. He knew all there was to be known concerning telephony.
“I’m a child,” the detective concluded, swinging about the room in perplexity. “One thing,” he added aloud to Loris and Nichols. “One thing! We are absolutely alone in this part of the house. I have locked the maid in her room. No one can get through the door to the hall. There’s a spring lock on it. Delaney closed it when he went out.”
“And there’s a score of detectives scattered about,” said the captain reassuringly, as he leaned toward Loris. “Why should we fear anything at all?”
“I wouldn’t, Harry,” said Loris, “if it wasn’t for what happened to poor father. Mr. Drew took the same precautions and had everything locked and watched. It doesn’t seem as if we were in New York at all. It seems like some mediæval time and place.”
Drew reached for a fragile-looking chair, turned it, sat down and thrust his custom-made shoes out across the rug in the direction of Loris and Nichols, whose faces shone white and drawn in the soft light of the alcove where they were seated.
Swirling thought surged through the detective’s brain. He went over the case with dulled understanding. Briefly, he had eliminated the former suspects and compressed the matter into a small compass. His conclusion brought him to his feet with slow swaying from side to side. Some one in state prison was probably directing matters. Some one in New York was carrying out the arch-fiend’s orders. This free agent had the nerve of the damned and the cunning of Cagliostro. He had succeeded in planting a confederate in the mansion, or entering himself, and slaying Stockbridge. The entire case, concluded Drew, rested in capturing the free agentbefore he could do further murder. Loris was marked and had been from the first.
“What servants remain?” he asked, dropping his hand on his right hip pocket and feeling the bulge of an automatic there. “Which of the servants, Miss Stockbridge, have Fosdick and his men left for you?”
“The French maid,” said Loris softly.
“I saw her! She looks all right. She says she has been with you five or six years.”
“Six—almost. It’s been over six years, Mr. Drew!”
“That ought to let her out of the case. Now, the next one?”
“The housekeeper, Mrs. Seeley. She has been with us ten or twelve years—ever since I can remember. Mother thought the world of Mrs. Seeley.”
“Who else?”
“Father’s valet. They didn’t arrest him.”
“He was down to my office. He looks all right. I’ll cross him off the list of suspects. Now, are there any more servants in the house?”
“There’s a French chef and a pantry man, I think. Also there’s a poor old darkey who tends to the furnace. I don’t believe he leaves the basement. I never see him, only on holidays.”
“The butler, then, and the doorman and the second man and the rest of the servants havebeen taken down to Center Street for interrogation and as suspects. That leaves us with very few to handle, Miss Stockbridge. I’m going to start by securing the door which leads into the hallway. Then we’ll wait here.”
Drew hurried through the tapestries, stopped, and examined the lock of the door before he shot home a second bolt which was functioned by a butterfly of heavy gold alloy. He stood erect with both hands pressing at his temples. It came to him with double force that the same precautions had been taken when Stockbridge was alone in the library downstairs. There was the lock of superior make and the winged-latch. There was the two-inch, or more, door of dark wood. There were the servants and detectives both within and outside the mansion. Yet the millionaire had been reached in a secret manner through all the precautions.
“Things repeat, sometimes,” mused Drew, fingering the catch and the flat key. “The same conditions bring the same results. I––”
The detective’s voice trailed into a whisper as he heard footsteps outside the door. He reached back to his pocket and waited. His heart thumped like a prisoned bird within his breast. It was a case of strained nerves. He felt the responsibility of guarding Loris.
“Bah!” he exclaimed, recovering himself andsquaring his jaw. “Bah,” he repeated. “It’s somebody for me.”
He opened the door after twisting the butterfly and turning the flat key in the lock. A blurred figure pressed forward. A gruff voice boomed from a muffling collar.
“Hello, Chief! I’m back in a half-hour! No luck, either!”
Drew waited until Delaney had removed his overcoat and overshoes, which he placed in one corner by a hall-tree. “What did you find?” he asked glancing toward the tapestries.
“The fellow’s beat it for good. Landlady says he owes her one week’s rent. He cleaned out with a suit-case and left this.” The operative reached in his pocket and brought forth a single drill of quarter-inch diameter. He held it out. “All I could find, Chief, after a quick frisk. This was in the mattress.”
“Regulation lineman’s wood-bit,” said Drew as he examined the size number on the shank. “This might have been the one used in boring the hole between the slot-booths at Grand Central Station.”
“Then Albert is the lad, Chief?”
“We don’t know, yet. There’s lots of bits like this one. Did you try it for fingerprints?”
“They’re all rubbed off! I had to pull it from the mattress. It was stuck in a hole near the foot of the bed.”
“Hold it!” said Drew. “Hold it for evidence. Put it with your plaster casts. Now––”
“Well, Chief?”
Drew glanced at his watch. “I’m going out to that drug-store,” he said. “I want to phone. I can’t use the phones of this house. The wires may be tapped. You stay right by this door and wait till I get back. It won’t be more than ten minutes. Go get my hat when you’re putting the bit away. It’s in the corner by Loris and Nichols. Tell them I’m stepping out and that you will stand guard. They might hold me. She is very nervous.”
Delaney was back at the detective’s side, after a clumsy stride through the tapestries. “Cute couple,” he said, jerking his thumb over-shoulder toward the inner room. “They’re sittin’ there so close you couldn’t get a sheet of paper between them. I like that colleen, Chief! She’s the kind you see on them magazine covers—only prettier.”
“A cat can look at a queen,” quoted Drew, pulling down his hat and opening the door wide. “Be sure and lock this after me,” he warned. “Lock and bolt it. Stand guard and don’t let anybody in at all. I’m only going round the block.”
Delaney shut the door and turned the key. He followed this action by twisting the butterfly.Then he drew his gun and waited, grimly alert.
Drew reached the drug-store after a brisk, lung-cleansing walk through the down-driving snow. He dropped a coin in the slot and first called up his office. Harrigan, who had remained at his post, answered for most of the operatives who were out on the case and who had ’phoned in at every opportunity.
“Get Frick at the prison,” Drew shot back, after making a few notes. “Get him and tell him to call up this ’phone,” Drew glanced at the number over the transmitter. “Tell him to call up Gramercy Hill 9749 and let whoever I station here, know to whom and to what number Morphy is talking in New York. Get that?”
“Sure,” came back over the wires. “Sure, Chief. You want to pinch the fellow he’s connecting with?”
“I certainly do,” said Drew. “We can work it this way. As soon as I find out from Frick where Morphy or anybody else is ’phoning from the prison, I can get a man over there in time to make the arrest. The superintendent at Gramercy Hill will help us out if the call comes through his exchange. He can get the girl to stall for a minute or two. I’ll send Delaney here to hold this end of the wire. You keep him posted as to developments. O’Toole, yes!He’s planted in the alley back of the house. He can’t report. All the others are all right?”
Drew hung up with a flip of the receiver. He backed out of the booth and hurried around the corner. He reached the iron-grilled gate of the mansion with his head down and the snow seeping between his collar and his neck.
“Rotten night!” said the Central Office man at the door. “I don’t think we’ll hear anything from anybody. Them gunmen like the backrooms of saloons too well to pull off a gun-play in this storm, Inspector.”
“You never can tell,” said Drew, shaking his coat and hurrying toward the stairway which led to Loris Stockbridge’s apartment.
Delaney opened the door after a repeated knock in Morse code. He eyed his chief. He motioned toward the inner rooms. “All quiet,” he said with a broad smile. “Them turtle doves sure like to be left alone.”
“And you would too! Especially if you lost your only relative the night before—lost him in the way she lost hers.”
The big operative gulped down the thrust. “What did you find out?” he asked in a husky whisper.
“Get your coat on. Get over to that drug-store and plant near that booth—Gramercy Hill 9749. Frick, at the prison, is going to call that booth up as soon as Morphy or anybody elsethere tries to get New York. If Frick gives you a number, call up the superintendent at Gramercy Hill and tell him who you are. He’s on duty all night. He’ll give you the address of the number, and stall the call. That’ll give you time to rush to the address and grab your man.”
“I’ll grab him, Chief!” rumbled Delaney, reaching for his storm coat which was supposed to be fur-lined. “Leave that to me!” he added. “Jus’ leave it tu me!”
Drew eyed the operative’s huge hands. “I’ll do that,” he said with a short laugh. “Now hurry! No, wait.”
“What is it, Chief?” asked Delaney in the doorway.
“If the address is downtown, or in Brooklyn, what would you do then?”
“I’d get the office, Chief, and have Harrigan rush over a man. This super at Gramercy Hill ought to be able to stall that call long enough for us to connect—with both hands and both feet.”
“Go to it!” said Drew, pressing Delaney out through the door. “Good luck,” he added as he twisted the key and shot the bolt. “Now we are getting there,” he said softly. “Unfortunately for that devil up-the-river, he has to phone fromoneplace. That’s the thing which will beat him. I hate to think what would happenif he was outside giving orders. He could get away with it, nicely.”
Drew never felt surer of himself in a case. He tested the lock and bolt for a second time. He draped the tapestries and strode into the sitting room with his shoulders held back—a sanguine light in his olive eyes.
“Well, Miss Stockbridge,” he said, pausing in the center of the room and smiling. “I think we are on the verge of big things. The attempt cannot be made to-night without we have plenty of warning.”
“Good!” exclaimed Loris, standing upright and arranging her lavender gown about her slipper-tops. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Mr. Drew,” she added, glancing archly at the detective, beneath her dark lashes. “Has that Mr. Delaney found any one?”
Drew raised his brows. Loris’ question was not exactly a compliment to the big operative, who meant so well.
“He hasn’t found anything,” said Drew, with soft, pleasing voice. “He hasn’t done that, but I’m venturing my future reputation that he will find our man—the trouble-man perhaps.”
Harry Nichols stepped to Loris’ side. “We were children there,” he admitted frankly. “At least I was. I never suspected him at all. His manners were so pleasant. He seemed so weak and intent about his business.”
“Ah!” said Drew, raising his finger. “That’s it! He was intent abouthisbusiness. Only, this particular business concerned the taking of a human life in cold blood. Mr. Stockbridge was murdered by this fiend, in the guise of a harmless trouble-hunter. How the murder was accomplished and by what lethal method we do not know. I’m acting on the theory that if we catch the man we will find out how it was done. If I can’t make him—Fosdick, Commissioner of Detectives, will. May God help him if he doesn’t talk to Fosdick!”
“But can’t we find out how father was killed?” asked Loris, with tears glazing over her eyes. “It don’t seem—it don’t––”
The captain caught Loris about the waist and led her to the divan in the alcove. She sank down with her face covered with her hands. Soft sobs, brought to her throat by the memory of the murder, caused Drew to pace the rugs with alert, nervous strides like a man who would guard her from some menacing shadow. He went to the ventilators and closed them slightly. He crossed the room to the radiator-boxes and set them in an open position. He adjusted a thermostat on the wall, to seventy degrees. He stood back then and listened with both ears strained for outside sounds.
Snow sifted across the curtain-drawn panes with a cutting of fine diamonds against diamonds.A wind whistled and moaned and swirled over the turrets and towers of the mansion. An echo lifted from the driving traffic of the Avenue. Below this echo, so faint it seemed like a murmur of a distant sea, the city throbbed with the shifting of the whimpering wind. Once it roared. Then afterward there was silence, save for the sifting snow, and Loris’ low, throat choke from welling sorrow.
She sat up finally and dried her eyes. “I should be ashamed of myself,” she said, brokenly. “I must be brave. I fear something, though. It seems to be in the room or the air. What is it I fear, Mr. Drew?” Her question was vague. Her eyes shone hectically bright and strangely alluring to the detective.
“There’s nothing to fear!” he declared with a direct glance. “I’m armed! Then,” he added as an additional encouragement. “Then, Mr. Nichols is a soldier! You are in safe hands, believe me!”
Harry Nichols bowed politely. “I’ve got a gun, myself,” he admitted candidly. “It’s not that little one, either. It’s army regulation. It, or the ones like it, have been stopping the Huns. I guess we’ll take care of anything that comes up to-night, Mr. Drew. It’s getting late, isn’t it?”
The detective glanced at his watch. “I ought to hear from Delaney,” he said, replacing thewatch and reaching for a chair. “Delaney is like old Dobbin—faithful and slow.”
Drew sat down, pulled at the knees of his black trousers and rested his heels on the thick soft pile of a Persian rug. Behind him was the cheval glass and the telephone stand. Before him, and in the shade of the silk draperies, Loris’ eyes glowed alongside the captain’s resolute face.
The minutes passed with the trio in the same position. The snow sifted across the cold panes. The wind whined. Suddenly between gusts, Loris asked point-blankly:
“Do you suspect that man, Morphy?”
“Yes; I do!” said Drew with a snap. “I believe that every single lead we have points to him. I believe he planned to destroy your father ever since the day of conviction. I believe––”
“But he is in prison.”
“Ah!” said the detective, with bright eyes. “So is his master, Lucifer, in the lower regions. He’s there, but he has a long arm. Morphy’s tool in this affair is probably the telephone repair-man. You saw him. Mr. Nichols saw him. I saw him. We all agree that he does not look the part of a scoundrel and a scoundrel’s tool. But,” Drew paused and spread out his hands; “but,” he continued, “that’s the reason he was chosen for Morphy’s murderous work. Youcan’t send a thug into a drawing room—or a library. You can’t cut a sharp slice with a dull tool. This trouble-hunter is all that the name implies—a hunter of trouble. I don’t doubt that we have the case rounded up, save for bringing him in. Morphy, we can get at any time. He’s in prison and he’s getting very close to the little green door that leads to the electric-chair. One slip to-night, and we have him!”
“Miss Stockbridge must go south after the funeral,” said Nichols. “She can’t be jeopardized! She is nervous and has suffered acutely. I for one am sorry we let her stay here. It is the place she should not be. They know where to look for her!”
“They’re beat to-night,” assured Drew, rising and stretching his arms. “My! my!” he added, “this is slow, sleepy work. I’d ask for tea, but I think it’s best we stay locked in here. Don’t you, Miss Stockbridge?”
“Marie can get some. There’s a service-waiter running up to her room. Suppose I order tea, or coffee, and cakes. It might cheer us up?”
Drew held out a warding arm as Loris rose and started toward the writing room. “I’ll tend to it,” he said. “You stay right here close up to Mr. Nichols. We’re taking no chances at all.”
The detective parted the portières and knocked upon the maid’s door as he turned the key with his left hand. He waited as she gave the order through a silver-plated speaking tube. He heard the service-waiter rising. He leaned forward and took the tray with a sharp glance about the maid’s room. It was as clean and as neat as a work basket. A French novel, with a vivid portrait of a poilu carrying a very sharp bayonet on its cover, lay in the center of a white counterpane on the bed.
“Good-night!” he said as he closed and carefully locked the door. He reached downward and caught up the tray. He started across the writing-room. He paused in its center as he heard:
“Burrrr! Burrrr! Burrrrr!”
Shrillingly the perfumed air of the suite vibrated with the silver notes of the telephone. Drew hesitated, with the tray balanced in his hand. He took one step forward as Loris swished across the sitting-room, lifted the hard-rubber receiver and voiced a soft, “Hello!”
Drew let go of the tray and sprang forward. He parted the portières and watched Loris’ face. It changed between seconds to a flushed mask of crimson-fear. She staggered back, dropped the receiver, and cried “Harry!” as she sank to the floor.
Drew darted across the rugs and snatched upthe instrument. He heard a low, chuckling laugh that died to a whisper and then to nothingness. He flipped the receiver back on the hook. He turned with a savage twist. He stared across the room toward Loris, who had risen to her knees and whose head was against Nichols’ olive-drab breast.
“What was said?” he questioned sharply.
A mass of turbaned, midnight-hued hair uncoiled and fell about the girl’s white face. Glorious eyes dulled, then glowed, with the fire which was pulsing within her. Her lips trembled and went blanched as she throated brokenly:
“The man—the man at the other end said.... He said that his master had ordered my coffin.... He said that I had only a few hours to live.... He said that he would call me up again.... For me to be ready then, to meet my Master and my—doom.”