The Ear in the Wall

aign and setting in motion various forces, official and unofficial, which mig

wever, did anything new develop in

t at the door of our apartment and was hastily running his

hat do you think of that-a robbery below t

glanced at the papers, also

D IN WALL

nghorne & Westlake, Br

bb

t in the office of Langhorne & Westlake, the brokers, at---Wall Street,

ers. When he arrived, about eight o'clock, he found that the door had been forced. The office was in

but it is understood to have been very peculiar. So far no details have bee

y that nothing of great value had been taken and that the f

cretary to Mr. Langhorne, is missing and the case has already attracted wide attentio

ented Kennedy; "that is, if it had anything to do with

st peculiar affair if

of finding that out. I

ckw

e out into the open just yet, but it would be interesting to know what happened down there at L

tever," I

y as I can describe, consisted of a steel frame, which could be attached by screws to any wooden table. It contained a lower plate which could move forward and back, two lat

ages so that between us we could carry it easily, and at about the ti

him to read his character or his occupation. Every line of his faultlessly fitting clothes and every expression of his keen and

y Monsieur Bertillon just before he died, for the purpose of furnishing exact measurements of the muscular efforts exerted in the violent entry of a door or desk by making it possible to reproduce the traces of the work that a burglar has left on doors

hough it was plainly evident that he did not want to talk and did no

le as he spoke and was assembling the parts

sume?" he continued, examining some ind

rne as

n when you return

e lock, I turned the knob, as I have a habit of doing. Instead of

stantially as we had alre

facing the safe. It was not a large safe, but was one of the

t practically nothin

ortance," reite

his manner. Indeed, one might easily have thought that it was not his safe at all that had been robbed. I wondered

Langhorne's reluctance, his assurance had taken Kennedy even

There was not a mark on it. Nor, as we learned later from the police, w

had one of the most modern of small strong-boxes, built up of the latest chro

n possible to rob the safe, when Kennedy, standing on a

y neck to

ed a huge hole large enough to thrust on

at had been only a short time ago a safe worthy of th

more than two hours between closing and the arrival of Langhorne after dinner, I could not even guess. As far as I knew it would have tak

look on Langhorne's face. It plainly showed that he would like to have known what had taken place durin

was even more amazed at the cool man

importance that someone should have in such an incredibly short time made a hole through which one mi

dy's matter of fact passing by of what wa

ing, I want to make sure whether the marks show a genuine breaking and entering or whether they were pla

ply that, after all, the missing Betty Blackwell had had something

y eighteen inches long, even an anemic burglar can exert a pressure sufficient to lift two tons. Not one door-lock in ten thousand can stand this strain. It's like using a hammer to k

hich he had brought. Langhorne watch

gned for the measurement of vertical efforts. The other measures horizontal efforts. The test is made by inserting the end of a jimmy or other burglar's tool and endeavouring to produce impressions similar to those which

What I wanted to get at was whether this could have been done by a man, woman, or child, or perhaps by several persons. In this case, it was clearly no mere fake to cover up the ope

e. Was it because the Bertillon dynamometer appeared at first sight to exonerate Betty

th the breaking of the door I could not but feel that Kennedy had some purpose in deferring and mini

office telephone rang and Langhorne was summoned to answer it. Instead of taking the call in his own office

u, too, read the papers. No, I haven't lost anything of importance, thank you. Nothing serious, you know. The papers like to get hold of such things and play them up. I have a couple of reporters here now. Heaven knows what they are doing, but I can fo

a mingled air of gratificatio

yet?" he asked finally, coming

and pack up the dynamometer, determined to take advantage of every minute bot

orning," he observed, for the moment forgettin

t others besides ourselves were

t, Mr. Langhorne, you have the satisfaction of knowing that it was in all probability a man, a strong man, an

relieved and he could not conceal his interest in what Kennedy was doing, even though h

deposit vaults," ventured Kennedy, finishing up the wrapping of t

l manner, but Langhorne was t

ality, "I must decline to be intervi

utside the office. "By the way, evidently Mrs. Ogleby is leaving no sto

he had lost the detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff of still having it, in much the same manne

if he really enjoyed matching his wit against the subtlety of a man li

" he remarked, changing the subject for the moment, as he turned into a public p

cited, perspiring from the cl

's all he would say," he exclaimed.

esumed our u

t is?" I asked. "Abo

ives watching Dorgan and Murtha in that Black Book case, I know. They are worried. It doesn

an and Murtha might indicate that they knew more about the robbery than appeared yet on the surface. Had they failed in it?

mplicate the case even further. While we had before been reasona