The Ear in the Wall

d Carton half an hour later as he m

was written, or rather typewritten, on plain paper. The envelope was plain and

etter

R S

l not consider it such, since it will be plain to you th

recently at a little hotel in the West Fifties. No dou

nker and broker, also well known, and a third is a lawyer. I might also mention an intimate friend of theirs, though not of their position in society-a doctor who has som

ill repay you to look into the hint I have given. I don't think it is necessary to say any more. Indeed it may be dangerous to me, and I beg that you

that some of those whose wild orgies have scandalize

s tr

OUT

ly at Carton as he fini

ess severity upon the conduct or character of someone. They usually receive little attention, but sometimes they are of t

r writer is a woman, who may write what it does not seem possible she could write. Such letters often by their writing, materials used, composition and general

he or she does not possess. Then, too, women are more apt to assume the characteristics of men than men of women. There are many things to be considered. Too

re is one of the swellest of such resorts in the city, the legitimate successor to the scores and hundreds of places which the authorities and the vice investigators have closed recently.

y investigated the Little Montmartre?" he queried, drawing from his poc

nsavoury reputation. And yet I have been able to get nothing on it. They are so confounded clever. There

he letter in his interest in the text itself. He held the paper up to the light and seemed to study its texture and thickness. Then he examined the typed characters more closely with a little pocket magnifying glass, his lips moving as if he were

e time to identify the make, but after I have done that, I think I could identify the particular machine itself the moment I saw it. You see, it is only a clue that would serve to fix

tain

silent. Then it seemed

to mind what he had re

peculiar thing, wasn't it?" he meditated. "

er and secretary, of co

detectives found out only last night." Kennedy paused in his rummaging among some bottl

ice: "She was the operator who took down the detectaphone conversations at t

ey think. I believe she often executed little confidential commissions for Langhorne, sometimes things that took her on short trips out

ily remembering his manner. "He may not be responsible-but fr

ecomes a person of importance in the case and the fact must be known to others who are interested. Why," he pursued, "don't you see what it means? If she is out

record," ruminated Kennedy, accepting for the moment at least Carton's explanation of t

led a model life, at home with her mother and sister. Except for the few commissions for Langhorne and lately when she was out rat

receivers of the detectaphone were loc

uptown, left. It must have been he who installed the detectaphone-perhaps with the aid of a waiter in Gastron's. At any rate, she seems to have been alone in the boarding-house-that is, I mean, not acquainted with any of the other guests-during the time when she was taking down

t of the way so that no one can tamp

f the papers hinted that she might have known something of that. I had a man down there watching, afterwards, but I had cautioned him to be c

telling the story of how the dynamometer ha

mystery which I found absolutely inexplicable. How it was possible in such a short time to make a hole in a safe by any kn

t from the rest a couple of little glass bottles with ground glass stoppers. Then he took a thick

poured some of the contents on the upper plate of steel. There it lay, a little mound

and ignited the sec

the wall-shield your

red powder and in two or three leaps

med to sizzle and crackle. With bated breath we waited and,

ng right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could see the

hich it burnt itself out-fell through as the burning roof

Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to regard him as if he were some uncanny mortal. For, there in the steel plate, was a hole. As I lo

aculated Carton

as just a trace of a smile of s

Carton, still as m

that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidizing agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface. You see how it ate its way directly through this plate. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, an

here was nothing to say except

ust have done that job at Langhorne's," added Craig. "Have you any idea

his wonderful exhibition of what thermit can do, I'm almost ashamed to menti

other methods of attack. No indeed, your modern scientific cracksman keeps abreast of the times in his field better than you imagine. Our only protection is that fortunately science always keeps several laps ahead of him in the race-a

is a possible suspect-a fellow known in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack-Jack Rubano. He's a clever fellow-

uspect him?" aske

to locate him in connection with primary frauds in Murtha's own district. Dopey Jack is the leader of a gang of gunmen over there and

I suppose?" p

t for the influence of

h he was known to the police and his enemies as well as to his devoted followers. A few years before,

n his ruin. Working decently for wages, he had been told by other petty gang leaders that he was a "sucker," when he could get many times as

wasn't long before he learned that he could often get more by hitting a man with a blackjack than by using his fists in the roped ring. Then, too, there were various ways of blackmail and e

own incipient "gang," his own "lobbygows." His following increased as he rose in gangland, and finally he came to be closely associated with Murtha himself on o

history and he was the pattern now of practically every gang leader of consequence in the city. The fight club had been his testing ground. There he had learned the code, which can be summarized in two words, "Don't squeal." For gangland hates nothing so much as a

can find him, we can hold him on that for a time. I thought perhaps he migh

leaders. Against them Dopey Jack led a band of his own followers and in the ensuing pistol battle a passer-by was killed. Of cou

may know something about the disappeara

re is absolutely no clue as far as I can figure out. She

aig. "We must get someone interested in her case who kno

ly, "I think I know just the person to take up that case for us-it's quite in her

important, just at the

nswered it, a moment later ha

ne of the assistant district at

ver he turned to us with a

t up like an oyster, but we think we can at least hold him for