“They’re not Jack’s boys any more,” he rumbled after a moment. “Poor old Jack is dead. Finest, squarest cop that ever walked a beat. Real name was Jacques—French you know. We called him Jack.
“Wish you could have known him, Johnny. You’d have loved him.” He stared at the fire.
“Fine, big, strapping fellow,” he went on after a while. “Six feet two, black hair and bushy eyebrows, like Alice, you know.
“Women used to try to flirt with him. Stop their car, they would,—rich women in big cars, diamonds on their fingers. New-rich, young, fool women. No good—you know the kind? Well, maybe not. You will though. May God hasten the time when that sort get back to the dirty gutter where they belong!
“But Jack—” The Captain laughed scornfully. “No danger! Jack sent them along fast enough. Jack had eyes for one and only one—his Marie.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “He lived for her, Jack did, and for Alice and the boys—fine boys, Gluck and Lucian—” His voice trailed off.
“But what—what happened to Jack?”
Not seeming to hear, the Captain went on: “Straightest cop I ever knew—too straight you might say. When you walk a beat you look after things—naturally, that’s part of your job. You try store doors to see if they’re locked, watch for prowlers, all that. And if some good citizen drinks a bit too much and the night air gets the best of him, you escort him safely home—part of your job.
“Grateful people, will hand a cop a dollar now and then. Why not? But do you think Jack would take it? Never a cent. No end polite the way he thanked them, but he took no money but what came to him on pay day. That was Jack. Said he was afraid it would lead him to accept ‘dirty money’—you know, hush money—from real wrongdoers. And, man! How Jack hated dirty money!
“Polite, honest to a fault, kind, always looking out after the unfortunate—and brave, absolutely fearless!—‘Mountie’ blood in his veins, way back. That was Jack.” Again his voice trailed away.
From the kitchen came the faintest snatch of some French song. The delicious aroma of coffee was added to that of meat, pie and sauce. From somewhere in the back came the scuffle and scrape of boyish feet.
“All this was Jack’s,” the Captain rumbled, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the whole world. “And then—” from his pocket he drew a narrow packet. This he unfolded, then spread it down the length of his knee. It was the photographs of public enemies.
“These five—” his eyes shone with deep, abiding hate. “These five had been out riding in a costly car they had borrowed without leave. They had just kidnapped a banker and compelled him to open a safe. I told you that before. They’d got a lot of money and bonds. They were speeding west and tried to pass a stop-light. They skidded into another car. No real damage done. But that was Jack’s corner. He wanted to know—his business to know—why they’d crashed the light.
“All he said was, ‘What the—’ Then, without an instant’s warning, they let him have it from the back seat—six shots.
“And then they sped on. Jack, the squarest cop that ever breathed, was dead.
“Johnny—” The Captain’s voice was deep. “Don’t ever for a moment think crime is romantic. It is not. It is dirty, rotten, selfish, beastly!
“You might think to see one of these young crooks, dressed like ‘Boul Mich’ on parade, standing before the judge, that he was just a young adventurer. He’s not. He’s a dirty dog. He’s never worked; never will. He sticks a gun in a working man’s ribs and takes his money. Spends it for flashy clothes, furs and diamonds for his Moll—booze maybe, and gambling. And does he stop to ask, ‘was this a rich or a poor man’s money?’ You better know he don’t. What does it matter to him whose it was? It is his now. He took it.
“And they shot him!” His voice dropped to such a solemn pitch that Johnny was reminded of some words spoken in a church. “They shot him,” the Captain repeated slowly, “one of these five crooks, maybe Iggy the Snake shot poor old Jack. And by the Eternal!” He stood up, raising his hands high. “So long as God gives us breath, we’ll hunt those men until the last one of them is dead or in jail for life. For life!” His hands dropped to his side and he sank into his chair.
Then again Johnny was conscious of the low humming song, the aroma of fine food prepared by skillful hands and loving hearts—the distant scuffle of boyish feet.
“So long as God gives us breath,” he murmured low. It was like a sacred vow taken by some knight of King Arthur’s court.
It was a wonderful dinner they enjoyed in Madame LeClare’s snug little home. And not the least of the joys for the Captain on that occasion—Johnny was sure of this—were the smiling eyes of the kindly hostess. As for Johnny, he had more than one smile from another pair of dark eyes.
Dinner over, they sat about the fire while Lucian, a slender boy of twelve, entertained them with quaint French melodies played upon an ancient violin that had been his grandfather’s.
“You are to be a musician,” Johnny said to Lucian.
“But what will you be?” He turned to Gluck, a sturdy boy of ten with flashing eyes.
“Tell him, Gluck.” There was pride in the mother’s tone.
“I am going to be an officer of the law, like my father.” Gluck squared his shoulders.
“That’s the boy!” his mother applauded.
“There’s a woman for you!” the Captain murmured. His eyes glistened. “Gave her husband for our country’s good. Now she offers her son. This country needs more mothers such as this.”
It was mid-afternoon when they bade Madame LeClare and her fine family a hearty farewell.
“I wanted you to know them,” the Captain rumbled as once more they entered the great city. “You are to be one of us. You may have an opportunity to be of great service. Danger and death may threaten you. It will help you to understand the war we are waging, and why we must win.”
“Thank you,” said Johnny humbly. “I am sure it will.”
“This is a tough neighborhood,” the Captain said a moment later as they rolled down a narrow street. “‘Hell’s Half Acre,’ I guess you might call it.
“I wonder what those young hoodlums are looking at.” He slowed down his car to a crawl. At the corner of a five story apartment building a dozen or more of flashily dressed youths stood staring upward. From time to time one or the other of them might have been heard shouting something.
Stopping his car, the Captain stepped out. Johnny followed.
To their astonishment, they saw clinging to the bricks of the corner, and near to the very top of the building, a huge youth with a thick crop of hair. He was tossing his mane, laughing and roaring like a gorilla, which he resembled slightly.
“Come down from there!” the Captain thundered.
“Come and get me,” the youth roared back.
“Come down!” The Captain threw open his coat, revealing his star.
“Oh! All right, I’ll come.” The young giant’s face sobered. The crowd of flashily dressed youths vanished. At the same time a square of paper came fluttering to the pavement. Apparently it had fallen from the climber’s pocket.
Johnny picked it up and read:
“Gunderson Shotts,22 Diversey Way.Everybody’s Business.”
“Gunderson Shotts,
22 Diversey Way.
Everybody’s Business.”
“Why that,” he said with a start, “must be the young savage with a stout heart who helped us out of a jam last night. Don’t be too hard on him, Captain.” Hastily he outlined the night’s adventure with the runaway balloon, and the part this youth had played.
“I’ll not be too hard on him,” the Captain promised. “In fact I think this may be the changing point in his career. Stranger things have happened.
“What’s your name?” he demanded as the young giant reached the pavement.
“Gunderson Shotts, that’s my name.” The youth grinned broadly. “But they call me Spider. I can climb, climb just anything at all.”
“Spider,” Johnny thought, “it’s a name that will stick. Looks like a giant spider, long arms, long legs, hairy head, big eyes. Spider.” He chuckled.
“Don’t you know,” the Captain demanded of the one who called himself Spider, “that you’re likely to break your neck?” He examined the lay of the bricks that had given the boy only an overlapping half inch at intervals of a foot, on which to cling and climb. “And if you fell, you’d like as not kill someone else in that fall.”
“They dared me, these—” He looked about in surprise. “Why! Where are they?”
“They’ve blown,” the Captain replied dryly. “Hawks go flapping away fast enough when a hunter comes round a corner. They’re a bad lot, and this is no place for a lad like you. Hop into the car.”
“You—you’re not going to take me to the station!” Spider’s cheeks paled.
“No,” the Captain laughed, “not the station. Just to a shack we have for a hangout. We eat there sometimes. Like to eat?”
“Do I? Try me!” The young giant grinned at his captors broadly.
“We will.”
“Have much luck minding everybody’s business?” the Captain asked as they paused for a red light.
“Not much,” the big boy chuckled, “but what’s a fellow to do? No one would let me work for him, so I went to work for everybody.”
“Did yourself a good turn once anyway,” said the Captain.
“How’s that?”
The Captain reminded him of his adventure with Beth Van Loon.
“That,” the big boy chuckled, “was funny.”
“It might not have been. That fellow might have put his knife through your heart.”
“But he didn’t.” The big boy laughed hoarsely.
They stopped at a delicatessen. Here Captain Burns purchased half a baked ham, piping hot, a huge loaf of rye bread and a gallon pot of coffee.
Arrived at the shack, he spread this crude but wholesome meal out upon the table. He and Johnny drank coffee but ate little. When they had finished, save for the dishes, the board was clear.
“Spider,” the Captain said, slapping the big boy on the back, “you’re a fighter, an eater, and a climber. That’s all it takes to make a first class cop. Stick with me and I’ll make you one.”
Spider stuck. And that, as you will see, is why certain things came out as they did in the unwinding of events that were to follow.
* * * * * * * *
It was with a guilty feeling that Grace Krowl that evening began delving into the personal letters and papers taken from the thin trunk with orange stripes.
“It is as if someone were looking over my shoulder,” she told herself, “saying, ‘See here! Those are my letters! What right have you to read them?’
“And yet,” she philosophized, “if I am to help them in any way I must know something about these people.”
So she kept on reading. There were three bundles of letters and a diary. The more she read, the more deeply disgusted she became.
“I did not dream there could be such a person as that girl is!” she exclaimed, throwing the letters back into the box and sliding it into a corner out of her sight. “That girl deserves nothing. False to her friends who try to help her, a flirt and a cheat. How—how terrible!”
For some time she sat and stared into space. “I suppose,” she murmured dejectedly, “that very few of them are worthy of any aid. And yet, theremustbe some.”
She took up the box from the big family trunk. In this she read a beautiful sad story of a father, mother and two little girls. Their pictures were all there. So too were the girls’ baby books and the father’s sharp-shooter’s badge.
The letters told the story of a brave but futile fight against poverty that had advanced upon them like a storm in the night.
“They lost their home,” she whispered. “Next they lost their furniture, all those things that had become dear to them. And now, here, last of all, is their trunk. The wreck of the grandest thing God’s eyes ever rested upon—a home.
“But at least—” She clenched her hands fiercely. “At least they shall have these trophies back. I shall write to the mother and offer them to her without charge.
“Why not in every deserving case?” she exclaimed, springing to her feet and hopping about the room. Here was a big idea. This should be a beginning. Perhaps in time she could arrange to hold the entire contents of a trunk until the real owner could redeem it.
She fancied her uncle frowning upon this. “But let him frown!” she exclaimed belligerently.
The thought was a comforting one. With it, after a trying day, she soon fell fast asleep.
She was awakened, as on the previous day, by a whisper at dawn. There was no “Good morning,” no “Cheerio!” this time. Words came short and quick.
“I have just a moment.” Thus the whisper began. “There is a girl,” it went on. “Her name is Nida McFay. She works in the bookstore around the corner on Peoria Street.”
Grace started. “Why! That’s the girl I know!” She spoke aloud, then ended abruptly.
“Ah! I see you know her! Fine!” The whisper rose. “No, I didn’t hear you. Had to read your lips. For the moment I am deaf. I am a mile away but I have eyes that see you and lips that speak to you down a beam of light. You cannot see me.”
“But perhaps Ihaveseen you.” The thought popped unbidden into the girl’s mind.
“Listen carefully!” The whisperer’s tone was insistent. “You are to become very well acquainted with this girl, Nida; so well that she will tell you her story. And let me assure you—she has a story to tell.
“You must invite her to your room, seat her by your table, then induce her to tell the story.”
“But that would be spying!” the girl burst out.
“Nothing dishonorable. Remember, I promise this. You like to help people. This is your chance. You may help many. Good morning.”
The whisper was gone, leaving the girl in a daze.
“I must think,” she told herself. “Think clearly.”
Then of a sudden her eyes fell upon the little horsehair trunk. “I forgot to open it! And uncle said I should have it only for a day. Just for a day!” She was filled with consternation.
“He will have to give me one more day,” she decided at last. “He just must! I can’t turn it over to—to vandals.”
For one full moment after that she stood in sober thought. Nida McFay. So that was the girl’s name. She was to win her confidence. Get her story. Would she do it? Something told her that she would. But why? Because the whisper requested. Who was the whisperer? At that she shook herself free from these thoughts and went off to breakfast.
Johnny Thompson had always supposed he loved mysteries. But in the “House of Magic,” the old professor’s house, they came so thick and fast, and apparently without reason, that at times he felt dizzy in his head and ready enough to run away from it all.
On the day following the visit to Madame LeClare’s house, he was given a strange commission. It was Felix who said to him, “You will do us a great favor if you will sit and watch a certain picture on the wall.”
“Watch a picture?” Johnny exclaimed. “Is it worth a million dollars? And do you expect it to be stolen?”
“It is worth,” Felix said without breaking into a smile, “very little. I even doubt if you could sell it at all.
“And yet,” he added, “if you watch it long enough, something may come of it after all!”
Something did come of it, you may be sure. But to Johnny, ever keen for action, this at first seemed a dull occupation.
The picture was in his own room, the tall room that during his first night had shown an inclination to become a short one.
“Nothing could be more stupid!” he told himself after a half hour of watching. “Picture isn’t even halfway interesting.”
This was true. Though quite evidently an oil painting, this canvas within a narrow gilt frame was very dark. An old Dutch master, one would say; a suggestion of some cabin in the foreground, clumps of trees behind. There might have been a sunset in the beginning. If there were, time had taken care of the sunset. It had put out the sun.
“Just to sit in this chair and look at that picture!” he grumbled to himself. “Nothing could be worse!”
His eyes strayed to the far side of the room where the strange round reflector rested.
“Whispers,” he murmured. “Those whispers that wakened me at dawn. Wonder if they come from that thing? I feel sure they do. Person can tell what direction sound comes from. But who whispers? How? Why? That’s what I’m going to find out.” That the whisperer would speak again, that he would at last deliver some important message, perhaps many important messages, he did not doubt.
But now— It was with great reluctance that he dragged his eyes from this mysterious instrument to fix them once more upon the dull and quite commonplace Dutch master.
When at last he accomplished the feat, he fairly bounced from his chair. The Dutch master was gone! In its stead was a square of glass. Out from that square, well down toward the left-hand corner, shone a yellow spot of light.
“Like a moon in the midst of a black sky,” he told himself. “What—”
The spot of light began revolving. It broke itself up into a hundred yellow moons. It became a golden circle, a hundred golden circles. Then, to Johnny’s utter astonishment, a face, a living face appeared in that frame.
It was a wavering sort of face. Had Johnny been superstitious he might have said it was a ghost, for now the lips and eyes were distinct, and now they were irregular and all but lost.
Then with a sharp cry Johnny sprang to his feet.
“Where is he?” he cried. “I must find him!”
He had recognized that face. It was the man who sat beside him at the auction, who had all but forced him to bid in that package containing the bronze lamp, who had later more than likely struck him over the head in that dark alley.
“Iggy the Snake!” He fairly shouted the name aloud.
That this was the living image of Iggy he could not doubt. He was blinking his eyes. He was talking to someone; that is, his lips moved, though no sound reached Johnny.
That this was no mere moving picture Johnny knew well enough. That Iggy was not in the next room, looking in at him, he knew quite as well. Iggy could never have held the expression of quiet unconcern registered on his face had he known that any honest person, let alone Johnny, was looking upon him.
“It’s magic!” Johnny exclaimed. At the same instant he knew this was not true.
“Where is he?” he exclaimed once again.
He leaped for the door. It was locked. It was a massive door. He could not hope to break it down, even should he desire to do so.
He raced to the window and threw up the sash. It was a quiet, sunshiny day. There were people passing in the street. To attract their attention would be an easy matter. But did he wish to do this? Had he a right to do so?
“You will promise to betray none of our secrets?” the professor had said. He had promised. The outer air cooled his heated brow. Slowly he turned about, retraced his steps, then sank down in his chair. He would watch. That, after all, was what he had been told to do. Perhaps in the end he would learn a great deal, just watching.
The hour that followed will stand out in Johnny’s mind as a vivid memory as long as Johnny draws a breath. He was looking, he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, upon the living image of the one man he most feared and hated, Iggy the Snake. He was watching his every gesture, every movement of his lips and eyes; yet he could not touch him nor speak to him. He could not say to the policeman on the corner, “Officer, this man is a thief and a murderer! Arrest him!” He did not know even where the man was. He might, for all he knew, be in the next room or a mile away. He could only watch.
Watch he did, and that which he saw was well worth his hour of waiting.
But to wait, powerless to act, to sit there biting his lips, clenching his fists, watching that smiling, grimacing image, that was terrible.
For a long time there was only that face. Smiling, talking, bobbing his head, Iggy was beyond doubt telling a very interesting story. Once as he threw back his head his fist came swinging into view.
“As if he were showing how he struck me!” Johnny sprang from his chair. Then, reluctantly, he settled back.
Well that he did, for a moment later the man in that distorted living picture partially disappeared and a cardboard box came into view.
“That’s it,” Johnny muttered, “that’s the box I bought, the very one!” There could be no doubt about that. He could even distinguish the yellow express label.
But this was not all, not nearly all. The package disappeared. Iggy’s head bent low. Presently he held the metal lamp to view. He was laughing, was Iggy.
It was strange, sitting there looking on. That laugh was so real, so uproarious, Johnny felt that he should hear it.
“It’s as if I were deaf,” he told himself.
But wait! There was still more. Once again “the Snake” bent his head. When his hands came up this time they were filled with bundles of paper. At first, with their edges toward him, Johnny could make nothing of this. But now Iggy’s hand turned about, and Johnny saw.
His mouth flew open in astonishment. Those papers were bonds. There were hundreds of them.
“The stolen bonds!” he muttered. “The bonds that broke a bank and made paupers of thousands!” He could not believe his eyes. The bonds had been in that package! It had been his, his! He had bought it. Had he looked closely, he would have found those bonds. And now—
A sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach caused him to double over. He saw it all now, clear as day. Those were “hot” bonds. Someone had taken them away, perhaps to New York. They had been frightened, had concealed them in that package and shipped them back. The person at the other end, more afraid than his confederate, had refused to accept the shipment. The package was to be sold at auction. Afraid to bid it in, Iggy had induced Johnny to buy it. When Johnny tried to take the package to his lodging, Iggy and his men had fallen upon him, robbed him of the package, and hit him on the head in the bargain.
“That,” Johnny hissed, “is Chapter One. There will be other chapters to this little romance of the underworld.”
Again his eyes were upon that square of glass. Iggy had, beyond doubt, replaced the treasure. He was smiling and going through the motions of drinking. A moment more and he was gone. The glass went black. The spot of yellow light reappeared. And then, to Johnny’s vast amazement, he found himself looking once more at the uninteresting Dutch master.
“Never mind.” He sprang from his chair. “Felix will return. He will know where Iggy was when he put on this little show. I’ll get Drew Lane and Tom Howe. We’ll crash the door, and then perhaps—”
He did not finish. Instead he sprang for the door. He was prepared now, if such a thing were possible, to break it down. He put his hand to the knob. It turned. The door opened.It was not locked.
He was a long time finding Felix; a much longer time finding Drew Lane and Tom Howe, who were out on a hot scent. It was dark when he at last led them to the street that faces the lake where the gaunt towers of the deserted Fair grounds hung dark against the sky.
In the meantime, the girl from Kansas who had found a home on Maxwell Street had made a rather wonderful discovery and found herself well on the road to adventure.
At the moment Johnny and the two young detectives arrived at the street of the “House of Magic,” far away on Maxwell Street Grace Krowl was staring into the friendly eyes of a white-haired book seller and saying, “Do—do you think it is val—valuable?”
“Valuable!” Frank Morrow, the genial, white-haired proprietor of the little book shop on Peoria, just off Maxwell Street, stared at her over his glasses. “Valuable! My child, if that signature is genuine it is priceless.” For the second time he held a ponderous volume, an ancient Bible with hand-tooled leather cover, to the light and read aloud:
“‘As a token of gratitude for a great service done to our nation and to the crown.
Her Majesty, the Queen,
Elizabeth.’”
“If that signature is genuine,” he repeated, “and I have little doubt of it, this book is worth thousands of dollars.”
“Thing is,” Grace sighed, “to find the rightful owner.”
“Rightful owner!” Frank Morrow stared at her. Nida McFay, his assistant, joined in the stare. “Rightful owner!” Morrow repeated. “Youare the rightful owner. Your uncle bought that horsehair trunk at auction for three dollars. You purchased it from him for double that amount. This Bible was in the trunk. It is yours. The law will uphold you.”
“Yes. But is the law always right? Is there not a law higher than man’s law?” Grace’s tone was deeply serious.
“That,” said Frank Morrow, rather bluntly, “is for you to decide.”
“Decide,” she thought, “all I’ve done since I came to Chicago has been to decide, de—”
She broke off to stare at the door of the book shop. It had been quietly opened. A tall man stood there. He was well-dressed, far too well for Maxwell Street. He was neither young nor old. His features were regular. He seemed quite a gentleman. Then the girl got a look into his eyes. She shuddered. They were hard as steel.
Next instant she was staring at Nida McFay. Her face had gone ashy white. She was grasping the table as if about to fall.
When she was able to look again at the door, Grace found it closed. The man had vanished.
“It—it’s as if I had not seen him,” she told herself. One look at Nida, who was very white, told her that for the time at least it was better that the man should remain unseen.
“Whatever you do,” Frank Morrow was saying—he had not seen the stranger—“you should guard this Bible with great care. Beyond doubt, it was given by Queen Elizabeth as a token of great esteem to some Protestant bishop. Someone doubtless inherited this Bible containing the Queen’s signature and brought it to America. Where has it been since? Who knows? Enough that it is here and that many a collector of rare books would, even in these times, pay a king’s ransom to possess it. So guard it with care!”
“The Bi—Bible. Oh, yes.” The girl put her hands upon it.
That Bible had come from the little horsehair trunk she had saved from her uncle’s purchase at an express auction.
She had taken the trunk to her room, but in her excitement over other matters had failed to open it at her first opportunity.
After looking at it a long time next day, without prying off the lock and peeking inside, she had decided that she must, if possible, have it for her very own. So she asked her uncle to sell her the trunk.
“What!” he exclaimed, “you have opened that little trunk? You have found a diamond, or maybe some stocks and bonds? Now you want to buy it for a little.” His small, hard eyes gleamed.
“No.” She had held her ground. “I have not opened it. You may go and see that it is still locked. But I—I like the trunk and I—I’m sure I should have loved its owner. That—that’s why I want to buy it.”
“All right.” He had smiled broadly. “But I must have a profit. Six dollars. You may have it for that. I will take it from your pay.
“But, my child—” He had laid a hand gently on her arm. “You must not do these things. They make you soft. And soft you must not be in this business.”
Nevertheless, she had remained “soft.” She had purchased the trunk “with contents, if any.” She had picked the lock with a hairpin and had spent three happy, tearful hours poring over its contents. The person who lost the trunk was named Emily Anne Sheldon. She had two sisters. Their pictures were all there.
“The sweetest little old ladies one may ever hope to see,” Grace had assured herself. “What a shame that this trunk should have been lost!”
There were bundles of letters tied with faded ribbons. The letters were like a beautiful song, sung at sunset. “If only the whole world were like these three dear old ladies,” she had sighed.
The blankets in that trunk were of finest wool, and very old. Perhaps they had been hand-woven. She could not tell. There was a blue and white bedspread that was hand-woven, she was sure of that. “And it’s worth several times what I paid for the trunk,” she told herself. “But I won’t sell it. I’ll get in touch with Emily Anne and send it all back for a Christmas present.”
In the very bottom of the trunk she had found the ancient family Bible. For a long time she had left it there. Then she had decided to show it to Frank Morrow and his assistant, Nida McFay, and here she was. And Frank Morrow was telling her it was worth many hundreds of dollars!
“Wr—wrap it up.” She all but shuddered at thought of the wealth she was about to bear away under her arm. “Wrap it up and I’ll take it home.”
Now wondering at Nida’s sudden fear at sight of the stranger, and now puzzling over the problem of the apparently priceless book, Grace left the store to walk slowly down Maxwell Street.
At once her mind was filled with a hundred thoughts. “This,” she whispered, “is my crowded hour.” And indeed, since that strange day when she had walked into her uncle’s unusual store and had begun a fight for her few possessions, every hour had seemed crowded.
There was the mysterious “Whisperer” and his strange visits at dawn. How did his whisper come to her? She had tried in every way to trap him, but with no success. Did he indeed talk to her “down a beam of light” from the window of a skyscraper a mile away? And could he see that far too? It seemed preposterous. And yet—
Drew Lane had visited the store three times. Always he wore the jaunty clothes of a college boy. But once she had gripped his arm and found it hard as steel. He was a man, no mistaking that, and a city detective of the highest type. Was he the Whisperer? It seemed absurd to suspect him. “We all whisper alike,” she had told herself.
So, quite unconscious of her surroundings, she walked on, thinking hard. She had covered two blocks when of a sudden she felt a hand on her arm and heard in a low, chilling tone:
“Just a moment, please.”
Next instant she found herself looking into the face of the man who, a half hour before, had so frightened Nida McFay.
Never in all her life had she wanted so much to scream. The precious Bible was still under her arm. Those cold eyes were fixed upon her.
Ten seconds of thought assured her that she was in no immediate danger. The shops were still open. She was surrounded by friends. In her brief stay on the street she had made many friends. Max Schmalgemeire, the baker, stood in his door; so too did Mamma Lebed, who sold geese. Peter Rapport was turning his hot dogs. Even Madam Jakolev, the gypsy fortune-teller, whom she strongly suspected of carrying a dagger up her sleeve, was a welcome sight at that moment.
“I merely wanted to ask you a question.” The man was polite enough. “Do you know,” his words were distinct and cold, “this girl Nida McFay is a police character?”
“Po—Police?” Grace stared.
“Practically that. Frank Morrow’s is the only place she could sell books in this city. He is stubborn, foolhardy. Just thought I’d warn you. I am J. Templeton Semp, a detective.”
He tipped his hat and was gone, leaving Grace with a sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach.
“A police character!” she whispered. “How could she be?”
She was to hear more of Nida next morning, for the “Whisperer” was to be with her once more at dawn.
As we have said, it was dark when Johnny Thompson finally returned to the “Street of Mystery,” as he had come to call it. Felix’s answer to his excited questioning at an earlier hour had been strange. Yes, he knew where the men were that Johnny had seen in that animated picture—at least, he knew where they had been when Johnny looked at them; they were in the house down the street where he and Johnny had planted wires and instruments. Had Johnny really seen the men?
“Seen them!” Johnny fairly raved. “I recognized one of them as surely as if he had been my brother!”
“That’s fine!” Felix smiled blandly. “That proves the thing will work.”
“But these men!” Johnny exploded. “We must get them!”
“Oh, must we?” Felix showed surprise.
“Sure we must. They are robbers, murderers. They have bonds in their possession that broke a bank.”
“Oh!” Felix stared. “Well—that’s not in our field. We are inventors, not detectives.”
“I will get Drew Lane, Tom Howe and Captain Burns.” Johnny was poised to rush away.
“As you like. Here’s the key.” Felix extended his hand. “Be sure to lock the door. We are responsible for that.”
“Lock the door,” Johnny grumbled to himself as he hurried away “Queerest fellow I ever saw, that Felix. Smart, though. Shouldn’t wonder if his inventions would do a lot of good. Think of being able to look right in upon a pack of thieves and you half a block or half a mile away!
“Lock the door!” he repeated. “May be so riddled with bullets before we get through that it won’t even shut.”
In this last he was wrong. When the little band, Johnny, Drew, Tom and the hulking Spider, reached the place, they found it dark. There was no answer to the bell, nor to repeated rapping. When they unlocked the door and, flashlights in left hands, guns in right, made the rounds of the place, they found it deserted and still. The rooms were rented furnished. The furniture was there, but not a garment, not a scrap of paper, not a single article that told of occupation.
“They are gone for good,” was Drew’s pronouncement.
“And yet I saw them this very afternoon,” Johnny said soberly. “Saw the bonds, too. To think I once had them and I lost them so easily!”
“We all make mistakes,” Drew consoled. “We’re getting hotter and hotter on their trail. We’ll get them, you’ll see, and that very soon.”
They left the place in silence, locking the door behind them.
They made their way to the “House of Magic,” where Felix joined them.
“Find anyone?” he asked.
“Gone!” was Johnny’s reply.
“I was afraid they might be. But that thing worked—that’s the best of it. A little more work on it and we’ll be ready to turn it over to those who can make the best use of it.”
“By the way, Johnny,” Drew Lane put in, “you should have a phone in your room. You may have something to report any time.”
Johnny had not told Felix of the Whisperer’s message. Felix had many secrets, why not he?
“I’ll put a phone in at once,” Felix assured him.
“Well, goodnight, then.” Drew Lane and his companions disappeared into the dark, leaving Johnny and Felix standing on the steps of the “House of Magic.”
“Easy to put a phone in,” Felix said. “House is full of wires.”
“And of eyes,” Johnny added.
“Yes—‘House of a Thousand Eyes,’” Felix chuckled. “Want to know about ’em?”
“Do I!”
“Well, watch.” Felix rang the bell. The door opened itself. “An eye did that,” he said quietly. “An electric eye. Step inside.”
Johnny did so. As on that other occasion, the narrow space was filled with a strange light; then he saw skeletons, his own and Felix’s, wavering before him.
“Eye does that,” Felix explained again. “The electric eye and X-ray. Eye turns on the current that starts the X-ray going. Quite a convenience. If your would-be visitors carry hard things like guns or knives, you see them and need not admit them unless you want to.
“We are seeing ourselves now,” he chuckled, “as we have never been, but as we shall be. Come inside.” The skeletons vanished. The next door opened.
“In five minutes the ‘eye’ will have made us a cup of cocoa.” Felix sat down.
“It’s really very simple,” he went on after a moment. “The electric eye, or photo-electric cell, is a vacuum tube treated chemically on the inside. A peep hole admits light. When light strikes the chemicals it starts a small electric discharge. This electric discharge, when stepped up, will start any piece of mechanism you may wish it to.
“It works as well when I cut off the light as when I turn it on. So, when I pass before a light in the wall that plays on one electric eye, it causes the door to open. Another closes the door, and so forth.
“Just now an ‘eye’ turned on the current under a pan of milk. When the milk is hot and rises in the pan, a second eye slides the pan aside and adds the cocoa and sugar. So we have steaming cocoa with no trouble at all.
“Impractical?” He threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, but it’s lots of fun.
“But the eye is revolutionizing the world, for all that!” he added, handing Johnny his cocoa. “I told you we fixed up a rig for sorting a carload of beans a day. That is done by thousands of electric eyes. Pineapples are sorted the same way. In school rooms an eye watches the light. When it gets too dark the eye throws on the lighting switch. The eye umpires bowling matches and would umpire a baseball game, call a ball a ball, a strike a strike, and never be wrong. And that certainly would be something!