The Poisoned Pen
HE Y
GERM O
HE F
ONFIDEN
E SAN
E WHIT
THE F
UNOFFIC
E SM
INVIS
CAMPAIGN
OISON
OISON
wing things into it from his chiffonier, as I entered after a hurried tr
ut taking off the wrapping-paper, "I've got your suit-case out. Pack up whatev
wn was sufficient. For Danbridge was on everybody's lips at that time. It was the scene of the now famous D
ung Dr. Dixon is the victim of a conspiracy-or at least Alma Willard does, which comes to the same thing, and-well, the senator called me up on
for some reason or other we had to ourselves, Kennedy spoke again for t
al about this case in the papers. Let's try to get our knowled
in Danbridg
ied. "What sort
rs and factories, of wealth and poverty, and above all it is interesting for its colony
A very talented girl, too-you remember her in 'The Taming of the New Woma
ar of ammonia on her dressing-table. Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore Miss Lytton, bu
iss Lytton was dead when he arrived
and then he has two patients, one of them himself. We must see him, for his experience must have been appalling. How he ever did it I can't imagine, but he saved both himself and Mrs. Boncour from p
opinion of the newspapers, I hastily turned the conversatio
he became acquainted with Vera Lytton, after her divorce from that artist Thurston. Then comes his removal to Danbridge and his meeting and later his engagement with Miss Willard. On the whole, Walter, judging from the newspaper pictures, Alma Willard is
s. It is the main occupation of a certain set, and the per-capita output of gossip is a record that would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from
ound it crumpled up in the jar of ammonia. Oh, there are lots of problems the ne
the station on the main street. Craig had wired him, and he had kindly waited to see us, f
to see that note that was found in
t-case a crumpled note which had been pressed flat again. On it
cure you
DI
handwriting?"
aid with reluctance, as if down in his heart he hated to prosecute Dixon. "We have lots
g Kennedy get a hint as to their contents
examination, of course always at such times
illegal to accommodate the senator," he said. "But, on the other
very gate, terrible as an army, with cameras. It was with some difficulty that we got in, even though we were expected, for
door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at
de the very human pallor of her face after the sleepless nights and nervous days since this trouble had broken on her placid existence. Yet there was a mark of strength and determination on her face that was fascinating. The man who would trifle with this girl, I felt, was
of wealth and family and tradition, he laid bare everything to us, for the sake of Alma Will
ng man was announced, Mr. Halsey Post. He bowed politely to us, but it
e the large factory in town, which you perhaps noticed," explained the s
ort toward securing Halsey Post as a son-in-law, but
lmost a whisper, lest she should still be listening, he said, "There is a story about town
ting to hear Dixon immediately acquitted.
ays he has suffered from Dixon. I don't know anything more about it, and I tell yo
dropped in at the little bungalow to see Mrs. Boncour. She was much better, though she had s
ink of, people who were jealous of her p
aid Dr. Dixon was an enem
ly. "One is not usually visited in perfect fr
parated. By chance he happened to drop in the day Mr. Thurston was here, and later in the day I gave him a letter to forward to Mr. Thurston, which had come after the artist left. I'm su
we made our adieus. "Just now I want to get the facts in hand.
had little to correct in the facts of the story which had been published so far. But t
the jar of ammoni
her dressing-table with the note crump
no idea why
umes of ammonia are one of the ant
d hardly have known t
have experienced after taking the powder. Perhaps she thought of sal volatile, I don't know. But most people know
cyanide?" int
. I pried open her jaws and smelled the sweetish odour of the cyanogen gas. I knew then what she had taken, and at the moment she was dead. In the next room I heard some one moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour, and that she was deathly sick. I ran into her room, and though she was b
But more than that, the metallic taste and the horrible burning sensation told of the presence of some form of mercury, too. In that terrible moment my brain worked with the incredible swiftness of light. In a flash I k
made it right there in nature's own laboratory. But there was no time to stop. I had to act just as quickly to neutralise that cyanide, too. Remembering the ammonia, I rushed back with Mrs. Boncour, and we inhaled the fumes. Then I found a bottle
e, a wreck. Since then I have not left this bed. With my le
again to discover the nature of
ught of self. He is there to do things, and he does them, according to the best that is in him. In spite of
r to science. Could anything be more dramatic than
d of condemnation of Dixon, though the note was before his eyes? Sure
ession in his favour due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that
em. Meanwhile, in turning over the gossip of the town, one of the newspapermen ran across the fact that the Boncour bungalow was owned by the Posts, and that Halsey Post, as the executor of the estate, was a more frequent visitor th
field Hotel. Leland entered. His face was positively white. Without a word he took us by the arm
matter?" a
I feel that you should know about what I have just found. As I told you, we secured nearly all of Dr. Dixon's letters. I had not read them all
as written in a curious greyish-bl
HAR
your new love, so soon after the old. I suppose Alma Willard is far better suited to be your wife than is a poor little actress-ra
over from New York, tells me that there is some doubt about the validity of our divorce. You recall he was in the South at the time I sued him, and the papers were served o
ings stand. If we had married, I suppose I would be guilty of bigamy
t desert me, or the very earth will cry out against you. I am frantic and hardly know what I am writing. My head aches, but it is my heart that is breaking. Harris,
r little
E
and exclaimed, "That never
how it was folded. It was written on the wrong side of the sheet, or ra
part of the time this aftern
nnedy. "There was no way to slip this letter
nd there is no evidence of any one h
letters as if looking to see whether t
ne." Nervously he fumbled through them again. "On
t about?" a
about it. He explained it by saying that he did not have a copy of his reply, but as near as he could recall, he wrote that the compound would not cure a headache except at the expense of reducing heart action dangerously. He says he sent no pre
each other
ss Lytton, should he preserve this letter from
you suppose some one has broken in and substitu
ndertook to obtain some specimens of the writing of Vera Lytton. With these and the letter Kennedy was working far into the n
apartments. Thurston himself had not been there for several days and was reported to have gone to Maine to sketch. He had had a number of debts, but before he left they had all
wer, care of Mrs. Boncour, as requested. He insisted that the engagement between Miss Lytton and himself had been broken before the announcement of his engagement with Miss Willard. As for Thurston, he said the man was
d entered it quickly with her father, and the journey had been made in the car, while Halsey Post had quietly dropped off on the outskirts of the town, where another car was waiting to take him back. It was evident that the Willard family relied implicitly on Halsey, an
left Danbridge, he seemed to have dropped out of sight completely. Howeve
ion that Halsey was shielding the artist, perhaps through a sense of friendship when he found that Kennedy was interested in Thurston's movement. I must say I rather
was received that he was in Bar Harbour; the next it was a report from Nova Scotia. At last, however, cam
district attorney to be present with the note and the jar of ammonia properly safeguarded. Leland of course came, although his client could not. Halsey Post seemed only too glad to be with Miss Willard, though he seemed to have lost interest in the case as soon as the Willards re
egin this momentous exposition that was to establish the guilt or innocence of the calm young physician w
gan Kennedy. "Never before have I felt so keenly my sense of responsibility. Therefore, though
, two years ago, Mrs. Burgess Thurston. The Thurstons had temperament, and temperament is quite often the highway to the divorce court. It was so in this case. Mrs. Thurston discovered that her husb
e. Before a notary Thurston made an affidavit that he had never been served by the lawyer for Miss Lytton, as she was now known. Her lawyer is dead, but
ersation with one of his own clerks when the lawyer was due to appear. Kimmel appeared to act confused, as if he had been caught napping. The Southern lawyer, who had seen Thurston only once, fell squar
rs not that the engagement was later broken. The fact remains that if the divorce were set aside an action would lie against Dr. Dixon for alienating Mrs.
s he laid it down, Leland, who was sittin
he prosecutor know about tha
read Vera's letter. It was damning to Dixon, a
d was pale and staring wildly at Kennedy. Halsey Post, ever solicitous for her, handed her a glass of water from the table. Dr. Waterworth had f
o that presently. My next point is that Dr. Dixon says he received a letter from Thurston on the day the artist visited the Boncour bungalow. It asked about a certain headache
ate beside her. You are all familiar with the circumstances and with the note discovered in the jar of ammonia. Now, if the prosecutor will be so kind as to let me see that note-thank you, sir. This is the identical not
ennedy, who had been engaged by her father
gravely, "there are one or two points I wish to elabora
rston, but changed almost beyond recognition. His clothes were wor
nedy had said and intended he should hear, for as he entered he al
ly, "I am as innocent as you are
ed Kennedy, his eyes blazing, "that you were never
. As he met Craig's fixed glare he knew there was no hope. Slowly, as if the w
self. I was served
before Kimmel that yo
nn
e murmur
now to make another af
e replie
edy sarcastically. "What did you make
science in such a wretch, and the word itself seemed to stick in his throat as he went on and saw how feeble an impression he was making on us-"my conscience began to trouble me. I determined to see Vera, tell her all, and find out whether it was she who wanted this statement. I saw her.
dly down in a chair and cov
y," muttered L
h he had placed on the table. The colour had now appeared in Alma's cheeks, as if hope had again spru
Kennedy. "Take the letter which I read from Miss Lytton, which was f
little bottle, and wr
ure? Would you recommend it for a nervous hea
n wrote in the note that had disappeared. Then he dipped another pen into a second bottle, and for
e. Here in the open sunshine by this window I am going to place these two sheets of paper side by side. It w
beckoned us over to the window. As we approached he said, "On sheet number one I have wr
perceptible, but on paper number two, in black letters, appeared what Kennedy had wr
ed letter, and the other is like the m
ry, you took them out of the safe and left them in the sunlight all day. The process that had been started earlier in ordinary light, slowly, was now quickly com
nvisible when used for writing. But the original colour reappears as the oxygen of the air acts upon the pigment. I haven't a doubt but that my analyses of the inks are correct and on one side quinoline was used and on the other nitrate of silver. This explains the inexplicable disappearance of evidence incriminating one person, Thurston, and the sudden appearance of evidence incriminating
opening and shutting his lips and moistening them as if
ed so queerly crumpled up in the jar of ammonia on Vera Lytton's dressing-table. I have here a cylindrical glass jar in wh
the jar-and in a few seconds withdraw it. Here is a very quick way of producing something like the slow result of sunlight with silver nitrate. The fumes of ammonia have forme
had written. It was the same
cure you
DI
ely stopping in his exposure, Kennedy tore it open, re
t of paper-so. It leaves no mark. But it has the remarkable property of becoming red in vapour of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on p
ashed it into the jar of ammonia. When he withdrew it, it was just a plain sheet of white paper again. The red marks whi
n it must have had the doctor's reply to the Thurston letter containing the words, 'This will not cure your headache.' He carefully traced the words, holding t
literating the writing, while at the same time the invisible writing in the mercurous nitrate involving Dr. Dixon's name would be brought out by the ammonia indelibly on the other side of t
e found in the ammonia-jar beside the dying girl and had jammed the
s prosecutor, "it will do nothing to the Dixon writing
g on both sides, the black of the original
raig read it with as muc
sure to place the contents of this pa
tten on the outside wrapper of a paper folded ab
faintness from the medicine the ammonia will quickly restore you.
but they were plainly written, and "
one corresponds to the writing on this red death-warrant by an almost inhuman fiend. I shall, however, leave that part of it to the handwri
-control, but with trembling forefinge
secret lover of Vera Lytton till threatened by scandal in Danbridge-Halsey Post, graduate in technology, student of sympathetic inks, forger of the Vera Lytton letter and the other notes, and dealer in cyanides in the silver-smi
YE
e Standard Burglary Insurance Company. What-really? The Branford pearls-stolen? Maid chlorofo
r the telephone that Kennedy became involved in what proved
into Craig's affairs, but because I simply couldn't help it. This was news that had not yet been given out to t
emember, when the Branford pearls were bought in Paris last year th
dded Kennedy. "Blake, I understand, is the head of the Burglary Insurance Underwrit
aiting for Blake to arrive. When he did come, it w
keenness about his manner that showed clearly how important he regarded the case. So anxious was he to get down to
noon ourselves, and we haven't given it out to the papers yet, though the local police in Jersey are now on the scene. The New York police must be not
ge of the up-to-date man of efficien
t for a short stay at Palm Beach. Of course they ought to have put their valuables in a safe deposit vault. But they didn't. They relied on a safe that was really one of the best in the market-a splendid safe, I may say. Well, it seems that while the master and mistress were both away the servants decided on having a good
there had been a struggle. A towel had been wrapped up in a sort of cone, saturated with chloroform, and forcibly held over the girl's nose. The next thing they discov
e thief or thieves, whoever they were, apparently gained access by breaking a ba
d fallen outside in such a way as it could not have fallen if the window had been broken from the outside. The thing
NOT go to Palm Beach. She did NOT engage rooms in any hotel there. And furthermore she never had any intention of going there. By a fortunate circumstance Maloney picked up a hint from one of the servants, and he has located her at th
k back in his chair a
ted Kennedy slo
. That was done by a yeggman of experience. He must have been above the average, but everything point
Mrs. Branford. By the way," he added, as we all rose to go down to Blake's car, "I once handled a life insurance case for the Great Eastern. I made t
make a signal example if it is as we have every reason to believe. There has been altogether too much of this sort of fake
s chief. "Never fear," he murmured. "The truth is wh
t, although it took longer to go by automobile than by train, the car made u
maid had been removed to a local morgue, and a police officer was patrolling
lled "burglar-proof" variety, spherical in shape, and looking f
Craig as he concluded a cursory examination of it. "It shows great resistance to high explosives, chiefly,
his fellow must have stripped the safe of all the outer trimmings. His next move was to make a dent in the manganese surface across the joint where the door fits the body.
y. "She was in the house. She wou
ast night. No, she probably did scream. Either at this point, or at the very start, the burglar must have chloroformed her. I don't see any other way to explain it. I doubt if he expected such a tough proposition as he found in this sa
nt he made a sort of little cup of red clay and poured in the 'soup'-the nitroglycerin-so that it would run into the depression. Then he exploded it in the regular way with a battery and a fulminate cap. I doubt if it did much more than dge. It must have been more like target-practice than safe-blowing. But the chance doesn't often come-an empty house and plenty of time. Finally the door must have bulged a fraction of an inch or so, and then a good big charge and the outer portion was ripped off and the safe turned ov
aloney gasped, "If I was in the safe-cracking
s go back to New York and see
t limited to any one class. Indeed, it is easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit in the midst of finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring halo of moral rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances. Too o
cted her. Resentment was no name for her feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by what must have been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power that she restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having us thr
o have him place the whole matter in the hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I have the full amount of the insurance, but I will have damages a
ord," put in Kennedy, a
ppo
What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house in the suburbs and co
dded Kennedy, nettled a
t to Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on
maton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your absence to rob your sa
that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were in New York?" pur
not know that you have been appointed my guardian, sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and with that she swept out of the room,
slowly filed down the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so readily and successfully puts one in the
r to me and whispered. "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have to shak
n it badly at the very start. Only, be decent about it
"Maloney is right. The case is simple enough, after all. But we must find out some way to fasten t
ck into the Grattan Inn again. It was quite late. People were coming in from the theatres, laughing and chatt
e sat down and cast our eyes over the dizzy array of inedibles on the
ed about until my eye rested on a large pie
s in the writing-room-I can see her in tha
tly as you can, Walter," he said quickly.
e changing places-a fine-looking chap. By Jove, I've seen him before somewhere. His face and his manner are familiar to me. But I simply
s we reached the door we caught a fle
lady?" asked Craig of the negro who turned
e doorman. "Yes, sah, he stays here once in a while. Thank
we walked slowly down to the subway station. "Jack D
ost of creditors, no doubt. By the way, Craig," I exclaimed, "don't you think it would be a good plan to drop down a
-store which had a telephone booth. "I'll just call O'Co
rusting to the first deputy's honour, which had stood many a test, Craig began to unfold the story. He had scarcely got as far as des
culated, "tha
e asked i
n watching for a long time. It's full of crooks, and to-day they've all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a haul and be
y, "I told you so," but he was eng
any other man in the city. From him crooks can obtain anything from a jimmy to a safe-cracking outfit. I know that this man has been trying to dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among jewellers in M
will you go with me to
s some one in that gang
Cat is his name-to go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to r
We were out in Montclair again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that in spite of t
om cellar to attic in daylight. What he expected to find,
se, "there remains just one place. Here is this littl
tle thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have opened it in short order. The perspiration stood out on
he had brought and disclosed a camera. He placed it on a writing-desk opposite the
r has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before that it is possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an alarm I
said nothing, for it was part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise. He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs. Branford. St
reet these days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake burglaries. Then there is another possibility," he continued triumphantly. "I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports to me that Mrs. Stanford was seen with the actor
d afford to patronise a good amateur-but after all an ama
s was a pretty good one. Meanwhile, of course, the po
ontinued: "What do you suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd hardly trust them in his hands. But she might have been foolish enough for that. Of course it
d as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some evidence, even part of the jew
ght that he had started Maloney off on another trail, leaving us to follow ours unhamper
he said. "I think we can do better
er attitude toward us was very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney, s
possession of some facts that are very important. I have heard that several loose pearls which may or ma
f them. My first desire is to collect the insurance. If anything is recovered I am quite willing to deduct that amount from the total. But
e will be here in four days," she said, tearing the telegram petulantly, and not at
us to conclude the interview. Kennedy leaned fo
ower,'" he said slowly, "where Jack Delarue m
ined her composure. "Vaguely," she murmur
e meant it to have a personal application, "husbands do not forgiv
ot have affinities as often as some news
night," went on Kennedy inexorably. "I w
ust my every act be watched and misrepresented? I suppose a distorted version of the facts will be given
he truth about the pearls. If it involves some other person, it is still my duty to get at the truth
haggard. "I have told,
any more-I know
down in my heart I knew that the woman was hiding something behind that fo
his stay had been protracted because Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought b
nically. "We are going to visit a haunt of yeggmen, Walter, that few outsiders have
ut what excuse are you going to have
ing over my shoulder. You are the reporter, remember, and I'm the newspaper photographer. They won't pose for us, of course, but that will be all right. Speaking about photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is
tinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street, except that the other houses were cluttered with children and baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed,
. The house itself was the dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery. The iron han
triking. What had once been a drawing-room was now the general assembly room of the resort. Broken-down chairs lined the walls, and the floor was generously
tel, now stained by age, standing above the unused grate. Double folding-doors led to what, I imagine, was once a library. Dirt and grime indescribable were everywhere. There was the smell of old clothes and old cooking, the race odours of every nationality known to
ily fixed on us, sizing us up. What should I say? Craig came to the rescue
he suggested. "That mak
of the slang I already knew by hearsay, such as "bulls" for policemen, a "mouthpiece" for a lawyer to defend one when he is "ditch
ried. "You have so
man. "Now here's the
e finder, who enters a
hat means he's from Ch
from Pitts
Slim'll be here to-night. He'll give you the devi
ipe for making "soup." "It's here in this cipher," said the man, drawing out a dirty piece of paper. "It's we
anslated the cu
ng careful to break all the lumps. Leave it set for a few minutes. Then get a few yards of cheesecloth and tear it up in pieces and strain the mixture through the cloth into another vessel. Wring
n one lesson by correspondence school. The rest of
ollar up and his hat down over his eyes. There was something indefinably familiar about him
beckoning to the proprietor, who joined him outside the door. I thought I heard
leaving us alone with the Gay Cat. Kennedy reached over to get a
I think," he whis
with a large section of my bank-account to be up on
eyes swam; I felt a stinging sensation on my head and a weak feeling about the stomach; I sank ha
e. When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back on a very dirty sofa in another room. Kennedy was bending over me with blood
staggered to my feet. "Then they dragged us through
ut, only half comprehending. Then my recollection flooded back with a rush. We had been locked in another room after the attack, and left to be dealt with la
slung over his shoulder, wher
nor, waiting in a room as we had agreed. There was only one window in our room, and it opened on a miserable little dumbwaiter air-shaft. It would
picture. His very deliberation set me fretting and fuming, and I swore at him under my breath. Still, he worked calmly ahead. I saw him take the black box and set it on the tripod. It was
over against the door. There, now the table and that bureau, and wedge th
d tinkered with the bo
that you, O'Con
ed his brain? Here he was, trying to talk into a camera. A little
utside the door. "By God, they've barricaded t
several hundred feet-through walls and everything. The inventor placed it in a box easily carried by a man, including a battery, and mounted on an ordinary camera tripod so that the user might well
ntral freightyards at midnight. Start your plain-clothes men out and send some one here, quick, to release us. We are locked in a room in the fourth or fifth house from the corne
nd my relief when I saw the square-set, honest face of O'Connor and half a dozen plainclothes men holding the yeggs who would certainly have murdered us this time to protect their pal in his getaway. The fact is I d
he high embankment that separated the yards with their interminable lines of full and empty cars on one side and the San Juan Hill district of New York up o
ee to one. O'Connor himself snapped a pair of steel bracel
Slim," he ground out
l's-eye on the three prisoners
as Maloney,
d on the three yeggs checked off from the list of the Branford pearls, leaving a few thousand dollars' wort
ake rushed over and grasped Kennedy's hand, asking eagerly: "H
pe, which contained an untoned print of a photograph. He la
k-shutter camera, the wire connected with the wall safe, Craig's hint to Maloney that if some of the jewels were found hidden in a likely place in the house, it would fu
rets of your clients, at the same time engineering all the robberies that you thought were fakes, and then working up the evidence incriminating the victims themselves. He got into the Branford house with a skeleton k
understand my awkward position? My apologies cannot be too humble. It will give me great p
y. The return of the pearls did no
ou and-and-depend on me, it is already forgotten," said Kenned
hen dropping her eyes she added in a lower tone which no one heard except Craig: "Mr. Kennedy,
I
ERM O
ty of not knowing just what to expect from them next. Still, I was hardly prepared one evening to see a tall, nervou
orgotten to latch the door. Well, Dr. Kharkoff, what ca
think I eluded him this time," he exclaimed, as he nervously took a seat. "Professor Kennedy, I am being followed. Every step that I take somebody shadows me, from the moment I leave my offi
ery, so that I did not withdraw. Somehow, apparently, h
nd even attended a meeting of our central committee the other night. But in the meantime Olga Samarova, the little Russian dancer, whom yon have perhaps seen, fell ill in the same way. Samarova is an ardent revolutionist, you know. This morning the servant at my own home on East Broadway was also stricken,
and looked over the transom to be s
nuine interest that he never feigned over a particularly knotty problem in science and crime. "I had th
hoped you would see him to-nig
s urgent
estly. "We can call a taxicab-it will not take long, sir. C
will go," cons
arkoff stopped short
t in the shadow. There
appear; he is very cle
nd has been waiting
bs waiting at the sta
e first, and Jameson an
can't fo
grin of the figure, which glided impotently out of the shadow
" commented Kennedy, as
alt. "Have you eve
ill you guarantee that he wil
Why, Walter, he is the most gen
roat or scuttled a
an produce a man such as Saratovsky deserves and some day will win political freedom. I have heard of this Dr. Kharkoff before, too. His life would be a short one if he were in Russia. A remarkable man, who fled after those unfortunate upris
the past generation. As we passed through the wide hall, I noted the high ceilings, the old-fashioned marble mantels stai
orehead and deep-set, glowing coals of eyes which gave a hint at the things which had made his life one of the strangest among all the revolutionists of Russia and the works he had done among the most d
nd we remained standing. Kennedy said nothing for the mo
ltry afoot. The Russian autocracy would stop at nothin
ercome by a chill that seeme
, Doctor. I am too weak to talk, even at this cri
isclosed a man in a Russian peasant's blouse, bending laboriously over a writing-desk. So absorbed was he that not
a dream. I fancied I was on the old mir with
vitch. I had not at first connected the name with that of the author of those gloo
ing," he explained. "It is then that
it was unmistakable. At last my eye rested on a careless heap of dainty wearing apparel on a chair in
nd betrayal by Rosenberg. She will stay with friends on East Broadway to-night. She has d
ant woman is Mademoiselle Nevsky-devoted to the cause. I know only one who
azanovitch. Kharkoff said nothing for a time, thoug
, the beasts-burned her body with their cigarettes. It was unspeakable. But she would not confess, and finally they had to let her go. Nevsky, who was a student of biology at the University of St. Petersb
ere not a woman, or if your universities were less prejudiced, she would be welcome anywhere as a professor. See, here is her laboratory. It is the
, Metchnikoff, and a number of other scientists adorned the walls. T
e writer of the doctor, aside
He was too weak to talk, but he asked that you tell Mr. Kennedy a
eads, gentlemen," cried Kazanovitch passionately, turning toward us. "You will excu
e doctor away also at the same
involuntarily at the heap of feminine finery on t
ir. Everything was littered with books, and papers, and at last he leaned over and lifted the dress from
ck them up, and I saw a strange look of surprise on his face. Without a moment's hesitati
d, sir," he said to Kennedy, sweeping a mass of books and papers off a large divan. "
ight smoke we waited for Kaza
is subservient, it does not mean that all is over. Not at all. We are not asleep. Revolution is smouldering, ready to break forth at any moment. The agents of
prejudiced by a puritanical disapproval of the things that pass current in Old World morality? Or was it m
ispense with the rhetoric and to get down to facts. "Surely,
completely baffled. Your American doctors-two were called in to see Saratovsky-say it is the typhus fever. But Kharkoff knows better. There is n
. An idea had occurred to him, and only polite
you could get some perfectly clean test-tubes and sterile bouillon from
answered
at I am going to have a hard day to-morrow and-by the way, would you be so kind a
aside for a moment, and they talked e
ke a microscopic examination of the blood of Saratovsky, Samarova, and later of his servant. The tubes will be read
e passed a door on the second floor, a woma
plied the doctor. "It is Samarov
now? Before they left Paris, Kazanovitch showed some partiality for Olga, but now Nevsky has captured him. She is indeed a fascinating woman, but as for me, if Olga would consent to become Madame Kharkoff, it should be done tomorrow, and she need wo
on our journey uptown, for it was
pparently in deep thought. As I stood by the table to fill my pipe for a last smoke, I saw that he was carefully reg
leaving any trace," he remarked in answer to my u
. Alexander Alexandrov
, Fra
of steaming a letter open is followed by reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument, and no trace is left. I can't do that, for this letter is sealed with
e edges projected about a thirty-second of an inch. He flattened the proj
y a hair line of strong white gum, and unite the edges of
t flat on the table before us. Apparently it was a scientific paper on a rather
on the artificial fertilization of the eggs of frogs. I consider
is unnecessary, and, in fact, I merely set down part of its contents here b
n a strong solution of sea water, then in a bath where they were subjected to the action of butyric acid. Finally they were placed in ordinary sea water agai
rri pernitratis to one ounce of distilled water. The other was composed of the same amount of the silicate with six drops of dilute phosphoric acid and six grains of ammonium phosphat
e opened Dr. Bastian found organisms in them which differed in no way from real bacteria. They gre
ans of radium emanations. Daniel Berthelot in France last year announced that he had used the ultra-violet rays to duplicate nature's own process of
e crystals show all the apparent vital phenomena without being actually alive. His work is interest
Kennedy, noting the puzzled look
. "There are a good many chemicals mentioned here-I wonder if any of them is poisonous? But I a
illery. "What I wanted to know was how you
ut of it. Meanwhile Craig was busily fig
late. Perhaps we had better both turn in, an
n the paper. With a reluctant good-night I shut my door, determined to be
to go out when he hurried in, showing plainly the effects of having spent
"I tried to reach Kharko
s a well-known physician on the East Side, states that he has been constantly shadowed by some one unknown for the past week or two. He attributes his escape with his life to the fact that since he was shadowed he has observed extreme caution. Yesterday
ate it?" I asked of Kenned
script,"
ript? How?
ly left the tubes there, and I got them. Here they are. As for the manuscript in the letter, I was going to ask you to slip upstairs by some strategy
to see you to
too. Come, let us breakfast and go over to the laboratory. They may arri
arance. There was a slightly sensuous curve to her mouth, but on the whole her face was striking and intellectual. I felt that if she chose she could fascinate a man so that he wou
things that are happening to us. Oh, Professor Kennedy, it is awful! Last night I was staying with some friends on East Broadway. Suddenly we heard a terrific explosio
ted. There stood another bomb just inside. If I had moved the door a fraction of an inch it would have exploded. I screamed, and Olga, sick as she was, ran to my assistance-or perhaps she thought something had happened to Boris. It is standing there yet. None of us d
mbling before
s plan. I take it that it was a chemical bomb and not one with a fuse, or you would
utomobile. "I will drive it myself," he ordere
k our lives. But strangers must not. Think, Professor Kennedy. Suppose the bomb should explode at a tou
sky, I am quite willing to take the ris
"Kazanovitch himself could do no
culiar oblong box, swung on two concentric rings
mly. It was a tense moment. Suppose his hand should unnecessarily tremble, or he should tip it just a bit-it might explode and blow h
water?" I suggested, having read somewhere that th
. It is known as the Cardan suspension. It was invented by Professor Cardono, an Italian. You see, it is always held in a perfectly horizontal position, no matter how you jar
that bomb at the door. If Mr. Jameson can only find out what has become of Mr. Kazanovit
find Kazanovitch. I shall be back again shortly before noon to examin
mber of places where he was known. I consumed practically the whole morning going from one place to another on the East Side. Some of the picturesque haunts of the revolutionists would have furnished material for a story in themselves. But nowhere had they any word of Kazanovitch, unti
ce, furiously smoking cigarettes and showing evident signs of having something v
atory, but I called up Nevsky, and she said he would be here at noon." Then he put hi
g nothing of my long
to Kharkoff's assistance, I did the same. He saw me following him and ran, and I ran, too, and overtook him. Mr. Jameson, when I looked into his face I could not believe it. Revalenko-he is one of the most ardent members of our organisation. He would not tell me why he had followed Kharkoff. I could make him confess nothing. But I am
pression the story made on me, but I did not let my looks bet
spy system in the city. In fact, even that morning I had had pointed out to me some spies at work in the public libraries, watchin
an elaboration of a particularly dramatic point, Kennedy quickly examined the walls and floor of the
he could trust you, that it would be safe for him to visit you to-ni
him, will make him think I have misunderstood him, that I have not lo
night at eight I shal
e novelist and
alenko story?" I asked of Cra
in this case," he an
eaders of the world to-day. There is only one person that I have any real confidence i
reply. There was no getting anything out of Craig until he w
sky, in spite of his high fever, ordered that the door to his room be left open and his bed moved so that he could hear and see what passed in the room down the hall. Nevsky was there and Kazanovitch, and even brave Olga Samarova, her pretty face burning with the fever, would not be content
ed on the table a small wire basket containing some test-tubes, each tube corked with a small wadding of cotton. There was also a receptacle holding a dozen glass-hand
some clue. The slightest trace, even a drop of blood no larger than a pin-head, may suffice to convict a murderer. The impression made o
y become gaseous. You can't collect and investigate the gases. Still, the bomb-thrower is sadly deceived if he believes the bomb leaves
hem, and find them to be a peculiar species of blasting-gelatine. It is made at only one factory in this country, and I have a list of purchasers for some time back. One name, or rather the description of an
stared fixedly at the fragments of
long cord saturated in sulphur, was merely a blind. The real method of explosion was by means of a chemical contained in a glass tube which was inserted after the bomb was put in place. The least jar, such as o
their own number was playing false? In at least this instance in the
the bombs. Bombs are common enough weapons, after all. It is the evidence of almost diabolical cunning
es sufficient to cause thousands and thousands of deaths without giving any adequate explanation for what purpose he requires them. More than that, any person claiming to be a scientist or having some acquaintance with science and scientists can usually obtain germs without difficulty. Every pathological laborator
hese germs of death, whatever they were? Yet that was precisely what some
a little pin-point of a culture made from the blood of Saratovsky. I will stain the culture. Now-er-
erms like dancing points of coloured light," I said. "T
o on. "They are of the species known as Spirilla. Here
there, too,"
ding about for a glimp
" asked a hollow vo
ghost than a living being. Kennedy sprang forward and cau
psing fever, but of the most virulent Asiatic strain. Obermeyer, who
rth from Samarova. The rest of us
be unnecessarily alarmed. I have something
e-print and place
ay to the Russian minister to France in Paris. Some one in this room besides Mr. Jameson and m
blue-print and searchingly scanning the faces. No one betrayed by
" he cried, his eyes half starting f
o means of deciphering it unless you chance to know its secret. I happened to have heard of it a long time ago abroad, yet my recollection was vague, and I
ts face, may be used to carry a secret, hidden message. The letters which compose the words, instead of being written continuously along,
the end of the letter 'n,' between it and the 'y.' There are
is up, it means a break. The stroke at the end of the 'y' is plainly down. Therefore there is no break until after th
-2; 1-1; 1-5; 5-1. By consulting this tab
g the following arrangement o
F G H IJ K 3 L M N O P
and second line. That is 'H.' Then 1-1 is 'A '; 1-
at was the terrible secret in that scientific essay I
dded to the real numbers over and over again. Or the order of the alphabet
?" asked Saratovsky, leaning forward, forg
paper on which he had writte
th should appear natural. Samarova infected also. Cook unfortunately took dose in food intended Kharkoff.
uilty, for the plot had centred about him. Nor was little Samarova, nor Dr. Kharkoff. I noted Revale
ink bomb perhaps all right. K. case d
thought. Or was "K." Kazanovitch? I regarded Re
n consul-general. Will advise you plot against Czar as details
tents of the test-tubes, the effect could not have been more startl
lding the paper up de
vs
Revalenko sprang up and grasped Kazanovitch by the hand.
u," replied Kazanovitch, "but how
w Kharkoff secretly and
ato
y stood coldly, defiantly. If ever there was a consummate actress it was she, who ha
om me by your false beauty-yet all the time you would have killed him like a dog for the Czar's gold. At
ains. Bah! I will not stay with those who are so ready to suspect an old comrade on the mere word
nt ago and crossed the room. "Olga," he pleaded, "I have been a fool. Some
ng her arms about Boris, as he imprin
sky with curling lips.
which cause what we call, euphemistically, the 'black plague.' It is the same species as that of the African sleeping sickness and the Philippine yaws. Last year a famous doctor whose photograph I see in the next ro
so quickly and completely undone, Nevsky flung herself
temptuous smile, as Kennedy gently wit
this way, after al
FI
was such a machine as one frequently sees threading its reckless course in and out among the trucks and street-cars, breaking all rules and regulations, stopping
about it as I was whisked up in the elevator, only to have it recalled sharply by the sight of a strongly built, griz
him say as he brought his large fist down
-one that interested him greatly. "Walter," he cried, "this is Fire Marshal McCormick. It's all r
nce, for the newspapers had lately been making much of the strange and appalling succes
s?" asked Kennedy, leaning back in his morrischair with his finger-tips together and his eyes half closed as
suring his words, "but this time I think there is some method in his madness. You kno
tion, a few months ago, especially as it included among its organisers one very clever business woman, Miss Rebecca Wend. There h
oint, replied slowly, "Practically every one of these fires has been di
n Kennedy, "surely the regular police ough
n made up their minds whether it is a single firebug or a gang. And in the meant
fires?" I asked, hoping that perhaps the marshal might talk more freely of his suspici
ue-except such as ar
wisting his
were waiting for
es, Green leaders have been arrested, but I can't say we have anything against any of them. Still, Max Bloom, the manager of this company, insists that the fire was set for
puted to be earning a good return on the investment, and I was at a loss to account for the fire. I have made no arrests for it-just set it down as the work of a pure pyromaniac, a man who burns buildings for fun, a man with an inordinate desire to hear the fire-engines s
y, "I see no evidence of
in a silk-house near Spring Street. But after a controversy the adjusters have reached an agreement on that case. I mention these fires because they show practically all the types of work of the various
own hastily, intending to use the list some time in a box head with an article in the Star. When he had finished his list I hastily
I go they talk about nothing else. If I drop into the restaurant for lunch, my waiter talks of it. If I meet a newspaper man, he talks of it. My barber
fires as due to one firebug. I admit there is an epidemic of fires.
or they use gasoline, benzine, or something of that sort. This fellow apparently scorns such crude methods. I can't say how he starts his fires, but in every case I have mentioned
ut of his pocket and laid it on
g talks with you almost every day about catching the firebug. That's me. I am the real firebug, that is writing this letter. I am going to tell you why I am starting t
ennedy, "he has a sen
ar
d McCormick, gritting his teeth
artment-store next. How does that suit Your Majesty? Wait til
myself, 'There's only one thing to do-see this man Kennedy.' So here I am. You see what I am driving at? I believe that firebug is an artist at the thing, doe
nd the Stacey interests control several. Mac, I'll tell you what I'll do. Let me sit up with you
nedy was seated. With one hand on Craig's shoulder and the other
eputation in the department is at stake, my pro
sympathetically. "To-night at eight I will go on watch
as if ten years had been lifted off his shoulders. A moment later he stuck his head in t
scowling to himself as if they presented a particularly perplexing problem. I said nothing, though my mind was t
t must
he list of incendiary fires against the moment when the case shoul
ng up the first one and speaking
air quickly. "Get out!"
ver used su
y a woman-I said written
id, rather
phologists. I found that our results were slightly different, but I averaged the thing up to four cases out of five correct. The so-called sex signs are found to be largely influenced by the amount of writing done, by age, and to a certain extent by practice and professional requirements, as in the conventi
d she wrote the first note for the fi
premeditation and, as De Quincey said, in a spirit of pure artistry. The lust of fire propels him, and he uses his art to secure wealth. The man may be a tool in the hands of others, however.
the case during our stroll or even on
ich the fire game is played in New York. In great glass cases were glistening brass and nickel machines with discs and levers and bells, tickers, shee
the auxiliary systems, come here first over the network of three thousand miles or m
zer h
now," he exclaime
he office moved as if they were part of the mechanism. Twice the alarm was repeat
articular district where that fire is have received the alarm instantly. Four engines, two hook-and-ladde
. "One," "four," "five"
dly speeding uptown, the bell on the front of the automobile clanging like a fire-engine, the siren horn g
o his chauffeur, as we rounded into a br
last were on Sixth Avenue. With a jerk and a skid we stopped. There were the engines, the hose-carts, the
s. Firemen and policemen were entering the huge buildin
" he asked as we mounted
ing. "Saw a light in the office on the third floor
erted, yet with the lanterns we could see the floor of
oose wire on the floor. He followed it. It led t
lights?" shouted McCo
nstairs, and they're off for the nigh
where you are until I follow
main room. Kennedy carefully opened the door. One whiff of t
those lanterns, b
ad, a peculiar, sweetish odour pervaded the air. For
d back farther with those lights
open the door and let this highly inflammable gas out or should he wait pa
glance out of the window and catch si
ss there and get all the saltpeter a
saltpeter and two-fifths sulphur, I should say. Then he lighted it. The mass burned with a bright flame but without explosi
ulphur dioxide. Now-before it gets any worse-I guess it's safe to open the door and let the ether out. You see this is as good a way a
made a rush for the little cubby-hole of an office at the other end. On the floor was a little can of e
in a room for a while and then causes an explosion from a safe distance with this little electric spark. T
the lights I exclaimed, "He failed this t
Walter," ass
the night watchman saw
ly mystified. "He mus
the lights
destruction first-and, judging by the charred papers about, he did it well. See, he tore leaves from the ledgers and lighte
and examined
this burnt paper and look it over later. D
of the firebug, and at last we left. Kennedy carr
l watch with you every night until we get this incendiary. Meanwhi
us again. This time he had another
. Watch me get another
this
SPA
d note," was all he said. "McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike, don't
ght saw us watching at the fire-hous
hand under elbow, from the dormitory on the second floor. They showed us how to jump into the "turn-outs"-a pair of trousers opened out over the high top boots. We were given helmets which we placed i
'll 'roll' to every fire, just like the regulars. We won't take
at around trying to draw the men out about their thrilling experiences at fires. But if there is one thing the fireman doesn't
in our strange surroundings when the gon
ll was stir, and motion, and shouts. Craig and I had bounded awkwardly into our paraphernalia at the first sound. We slid ungracefully down the pole and were pushed and
river urging his plunging horses onward like a charioteer in a modern Ben Hur race. The tender with Craig and McCormick was lost in the clouds of smoke
lunged up the avenue and stopped at the allotted hydrant. It was like a war game. Every move had been pla
out in long streamers. The hose was coupled up in an instant, the water turned on, and the limp rubber and canvas became as rigid as a post with the high p
ad been swallowed up, as it were. For that is the way with the New York firemen. They go straight to the heart of the fire. Now and then a stream of a hose spat out of a window, showing that the men were still alive and working. About the ground floors the red-helm
h an explosion-it's the firebug, all right." I looked up. It was McCormi
engine that I had not taken time to watch the fire itself. It was now under control. The sharp
go inside?" I hea
ly nodded. As for me, w
team, while the water hissed and spattered and slopped. The smoke was still suffocating, and every once in a while we w
l manner of cunningly devised instruments were hacking and tearing at the walls and woodwork, putting out the last smouldering
gnisable mass. What was that gruesome odour in the room? Burned h
re with the insulation burned off. He had picked it up from the wreckage of t
lurted out the words before I could for
overed the remains with a rubber sheet, he stooped down and withdrew fro
nce. The whole adventure, though still fresh and vivid in my mind, seemed unreal, like a dream. The choking air, the hissing ste
me in and dropped wearily into a chair. "Do you know who
d her?" asked
both of whom had had more or less to do with her in connection with settling up for other fires, recognised her. She was a very clever wom
it?" asked Ke
ires and juggling the accounts. Failing in that she tried to destroy Stacey's store itself, twice. She was one of the few that could get into the office unobserved. Oh, it's a clear case now. To my mind, the heavy vapours of ether-they are heavier than air, you know-
ble. "Nothing. Only I found this embedded
urdered?" excla
od clue. No, McCormick, your theory will not hold water. The real point is to find this missing bookkeeper at any cost.
grabbed up his hat and started off to put the final mach
e left us, "but first I want to start something towar
en a line. But I telephoned in a story of personal experiences at the Stacey fi
n, looking as fresh as if nothing
glas is," he anno
can you produce him at any
se his accountants to audit the reports of the adjusters, Hartstein and Lazard, as well as to make a cursory examination of what Sta
ove to get away without being arrested. The trouble is that if I arrest him, the people higher up will know it and will escape before I can get his confession and the warrants. I'd much rather have the whole thing done
out the warrants. All that you'll need to do is to let me talk a few minutes this afternoon with the judge who will sit in the night court to-night. I shall install a little machine on his desk in the court, and we'll catch the real crimi
ments composed of many levers and discs and magnets, each instrument with a roll of paper about five inches wide. On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords at
atched him curiously, and I asked nothing. Two sets of wires were attached to each of the instruments, and these he c
e desk from me. Don't let them move their chairs around to the right or left. And, above all, leave the doors open. I don't want any o
Bloom and Warren came together in the latter's car. Lazard came in a taxicab which he dismissed, a
me at such a critical moment. As near as I could make out, he had quietly pulled out the top drawer of his desk on the right, the drawer in which I had seen him place the
h of the writing on burned manuscripts which are unreadable by any other known means. As long as the sheet has not been entirely disintegrated positive results can be obtained every time. The
ken, although there may be no marks on the charred remains that are visible to the eye. This is the only known method in many
As for Craig, he did not mince mat
sent a large sum of money in the aggregate. Others were memoranda of Miss Wend's, and still others were aut
the fire marshal at various times. Curiously enough, I find that the handwriting of the first one bears a peculiar resemblance to t
d been a part of the conspiracy, after
arson trusts are not the ordinary kind of firebugs whom the firemen plentifully damn in the fixed belief that one-fourth of all fires are kindled by incendiaries. Such 'trusts' exist all over the country. They have operated in Chicago, where they are said to have made seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in one year. Another group is said to have its headquarters in Kansas City. O
e in bad in this case, but that others are in worse. Miss Wend was originally a party to the scheme. Only the trouble with Miss Wend was that she was too shrewd to be fooled. She insisted that s
companies to Miss Wend as well as the incriminating evidence which she held of the 'firebug trust,' of which she was a member up
ime get rid of the dangerous enemy of the conspirators? I believe that Miss Wend was lured under some pretext or other to the Stacey store on the night of the big fire. The person who wrote the second and third 'A. Spark' letters d
and others. This talk of an arson trust is bosh-yellow journalism. More than that, we have been systematically robbed by a trusted head of a department,
he said, "have been suffering from the depression that exists in the trade at present. They are insolvent. Glance over that, Stacey
port was not to be ready until nine o'cloc
ge in Miss Wend's department, that you were losing money, that you were in debt to Miss Wend, and that she would
fiction," said Stacey, angrily turning t
nry Douglas, being duly sworn, deposes and says that one'-we'll call him 'Blank' for the present-'with force and arms di
rupted Stacey. "Let
signature showed. The name was signed
e I saw Henry Douglas. He had signed no such paper then. He could not have signed
on the right of his desk. From it he lifted the two m
utograph-the long-distance writer. In this new form it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the knowledge of a caller. It mak
ich controls a pencil at the other end of the line. The receiving pencil moves simultaneously with my pencil. It is the principle of t
aced before Magistrate Brenner in the night court. At the same time, on this other, the receiving, instrument the figures of the accountants written in court have been reproduced here. You have seen them. Meanwhile, Dougla
rators see
t the pencil of the receiving instrument
County of New York. In the name of t
reading. He tore the writing from the
end and six other persons in fires which you have set. You are the real firebug, the tool of Joseph Stacey, perhaps, but that w
was no
y's waiting car. The chauffeur took off the brake and pulled the lever. Suddenly Craig'
lapped the irons on Stacey and Lazard in Stacey's own magnificently upholstered car, I remarked reproac
nly rock-salt bullets. They didn't penetrate far. They'll sting for some
NFIDEN
urke of the secret serv
is bluff way introduced a well-groomed and prosperous-loo
together when we can, and very often the city department can give the government service a lift, and the
w-backed hundred-dollar bill. He laid it flat on the table before us. Diagonally across its face f
of "shoving the queer," otherwise known as passing coun
they do with bills when they wish to preserve them as rec
anded Kennedy a pocket
ed the bill. He was abo
ous wallet again and la
which had been s
itten on his face, but before he could say anything, Burke laid
ting down the glass, "stop! How
all," he replied, "b
the government is counterfeiting its own notes! How much o
e more. "Of course I can't say exactly, but from hints I have received here and there I should th
salted away in some portable form. What an inventory it must be-good b
rought his fist down hard on the table with a resounding Irish oath, "the finger-print system, the infallible finger-print system, has gone to pieces. We've just imported this new 'portrait parle' fresh from Paris and London,
t," said Kennedy. "I can't diagnose yo
have some English bank-notes exchanged for American money. After he had gone away, the cashier began to get suspicious. He thought there was something phoney in the feel of the notes. Under the glass he noti
g on the wheel. He didn't seem to care about winning, and he cashed in each time with a new one-hundred-dollar bill. Of course he didn't care about winning. He cared about the change-that
bique Hotel-he had been stung with the fake Internation
race of him?" aske
ood loser and always paid with hundred-dollar bills. Now, you know women are NOT good losers. Besides, the hundred-dollar-bill story had got around among the gambling-houses. This joint thought it worth taking a chance, so they called me up on the 'phone, extracted a promise that I'd play fair and keep O'
Riverwood along the Hudson, and to a swell country house overlooking the river, private drive, stone gate, hedges, old trees, and all
o you think he owned up? Not a bit of it. He swore he had picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the pier as he left the steamer. I laughed. But when he was arraigned in court he told the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised his find at the time. Sure enough, in the files of the papers we discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad., just as he claimed. We couldn't even
ntal note of finding out more a
nnor prompted, "Tell t
o
to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they understood, had sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there. They were glad to l
shadowed them ever s
It was said he was cranking the engine and that it kicked back and splintered
d t
t was said by the neighbours that Williams and Mrs. Williams-as they called themselves-had gone to visit a specialist in Philadelphia. Still, as they had a year's lease
ls to an Englishwoman who paid for it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar bills. The bank had returned them to him that very afternoon-counterfeits. I didn't lose any time ma
o help Burke. It was the same man, all right-I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So will Burke. I'll never forget that snub nose-the concave nose, the nose being the first point of identification in the 'portrait parle.' And the ears
t that he was stumped, and he said so. "There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but more p
dowing the house now and have been ever since then. But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New York, who looked like a doctor, made a visit. The secr
alked we could gather that something tragic must have happened
ust above Riverwood. It SEEMS Williams's car got stalled on the track just as the Buffalo express was due. No one saw it, but a man in a buggy around the bend in the road heard a woman scream. He hurried down. The train had smashed the car to bits. How the woman escaped was a miracle, but they found the ma
eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with evid
the little local hospi
ock and a f
s as he waited he said: "We must hold the woman. Hello, 297? The hospital? This is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell my man,
s dead, but we must get the rest. Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry to have bothered you, but I guess we can handle this alone, after all. It was the finger-
t beginning to be interested. Does it occur t
oed Burke and O
bes be so foolish as to go about with a watch marked 'W. F.' if he knew, as he must have kno
is watch found on Williams. I suppose there is
et Wollstone goes away so willingly?" put in O'Connor.
here's a servant who goes in now and then, but the car h
that house myself for
ave no objection
ke. "I will go along with you if yo
I'll watch alone to-night and will see you in the morning
ked when they had gone. "How are you fi
engagement at the College C
cut
I intend to d
n old football sweaters under our overcoats. Half
ore those fellows. They'd think I was a dub. But I don't mind as
ow, noses are all concave, straight, or convex. This Forbes had a nose that was concave, Burke says. Suppose you were sent out to find him. Of all the people you met, we'll say, roughly, two-thirds wouldn't interest you. You'd pass up all with straight or convex noses. Now the next point to observe is the ear. There are four general kinds of ears-triangular, square, oval, and round, besides a number of other
" I asked rath
crime, and in the present instance I've just pride enough to stick to this thing until-until they begin
owing us. He pushed on, following the directions Burke had given him. The house in question was a large, newly built affair of concrete, surrounded by trees and a
parent, I thought, and I said so. Hardly had I said it when I heard the baying of a dog. It di
ardly think they would go away and leave a dog lo
pulled me along. We had seen not a sign of life in the house, yet he observed all the caution he would have if it had been well guarded.
uction-cup, which he fastened to the window-pane. Then with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large section. It soon fell and
Apparently the h
of library, handsomely furnished. At last the beam of light rested on a huge desk at the opposite end. It seemed to interest
o not realise the disruptive force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until I saw the solid drawer with
n and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol strongly; several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some paraffin, bandages, antisept
to ask questions, and I did not. Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets. One bottle he opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish immediately the volatile s
d a tin box, one of those so-called strong-boxes which are so handy in that they save a burglar much time and trouble
nued to scrutinise the walls and corners of the room
room across the h
eam of a woman rang out
ne in the hous
t in the nefarious work of breaking and entering a dwelling-house at night. But it
ds that adjoined the estate on one side. Lights flashed in all the windows of the house at once. There must have been some
n carried from the house to the garage. As the door was unlocked I could see
s making for the station by a direct route across country instead of the c
once in his life thoroughly alarmed, "it
rd as we might, we could ne
d Kennedy, "but they are a
d in his pocket, and dre
foot, Walter
hen his with the ether. Then we doubled
our trail," panted Kennedy; "that is, if he is any g
if it had been open I am sure the station agent would have felt more like locking the door against two such tramps as we were, carrying a tin box and pursued by a dog, t
el near the station. Somehow we succeeded in getting a room without exciting suspicion. Hardly had the bellboy's footsteps ceased echoing
A few hundred dollars and a rope of pearls lay in it. It was a good "haul," but where was the va
snatch a couple of hour
stifling h
ff, still thinking about it and thinking that, even should they be captured, they might have sto
oused me by talking over the telephone in the
g had happened during the night at Riverwood, but he couldn't give a very clear
he descriptions of these people. I'm sure they will have to come into town to-day, and they wi
gured out that the counterfeiters would have to come into town for some reason or other. The incoming passengers were passing
' ought to come in, if ever," comm
after train emptied its human freight, yet the pale man with the concave
as long past the time when the counterfeiters should ha
one up to Montreal,
get it and leave New York after last night's events. We have failed-they have got by us. Neither the 'portrait parle' nor the ordinary photography nor any other system will suffice alone against the arch-criminal back of this, I'm afraid. Walter, I am sore and disgusted. What I should have
and I followed. In a secluded part of the waiting-room he sat down, his face drawn up in a scowl such as I had never seen. Plainly he was disgus
oat, he absently pulled out the little pieces of sponge an
tle knives in their case. I said nothing, for Kennedy was in a deep study. At last he put the things back into his po
himself. "I had forgotten that. What was the use of a pie
. "If you would tell me what the other th
of paraffin? Why, of course-I think I can guess what they have been doing-of course. Why, man alive, he walked right pas
ins to-morrow," he read. "Yes, I'll bet that's it. We don't have to know the safe deposit va
edy, what's all this lightning calculation? What possible connection is there between a
go next to work off some of the bills? The banks are on, the jewellery-houses are on, the gambling-joints are on. Why, to the racetracks, of course. That's it. Counterfeiters all use the bookmakers, only since racing has been killed in New York they hav
ready in fifteen
d abruptly, and started for th
e," he exclaimed as we ran plump
was a Western rancher; his broad-brimmed hat, long moustache, frock coat, and flowing tie proclaime
one side of his jaws to the other. "Now, tell me how your man escap
b-nosed peculiar-eared friend has. What do you think of the possibility of his goin
harply. "Say, do you add telepat
ing independently have arrived at the same conclusion. Come,
he train-announcer made his last call. Just then a taxicab pulled up at the street-end of the platform, not far from Tr
and I exclaimed disgustedly to Burke: "Well, if they are going to Lexingto
n saw that he was being watched and faced us defiantly, "Such imp
how us what's in that grip," said Kennedy
asted impudence? Get out of my way, sir,
Burke. "Surely you are getting in
arrest or not, Burke, as you choose. If not, I a
The man protested; the woma
in jail for this. Come on now to the nearest magistrate's court. I'll have my rights as an American citizen. You have carried your little joke too far. Knight is
ity that would follow such a mistake by the secret service than at anything els
chair as he could find in the judge's chambers, "what is the occasion
the way up from headquarters. Kennedy laid the Scotland Yard finger-prints on
ritain. Beside them are those of a man who succeeded in passing counterfeits of several kinds recently in New
As he came to the third, he raised his head as if abo
fingerprints of people taken fifty years ago that are exactly the same as their finger-prints of to-day. They don't change-they are pe
in grafting skin and in keeping muscles artificially alive for days under proper conditions. Could it be that a man had deliberately amputated his fingers and grafted on new ones? Was the stake sufficient
g and by injuries. Now, is there any method by which lost finger-tips can be restored? I know of one case where the end of a finger was taken off and only one-sixteenth inch of the nail w
he finger and flaps of skin are sliced off and turned up for the new end of the finger to develop in-a sort of shell of living skin. Inside this, the sponge is placed, not a large piece, but a very thin piece sliced off and cut
ot let it heal. In three days he pulls the sponge off gently. The end of the finger has grown up just a fraction of an inch. Then a new thin layer of sponge is added. Day after day this process is repeated, each
seemed to realise the thought in our min
to support the new finger-tissue that is developed. The meshes are filled in by growing tissue, and as it grows the tissue absorbs part of the sponge, which is itself an animal tissue and acts like catgut. Part of
, he decided to educate the tissue to grow out to cover it and appear like a normal finger. In these cases the doctors succeeded admirably in giving the patients entire ne
s man was playing a game in which there was indeed a heavy stake at issue. He was a counterfeiter sought by two governments with the net closing about him. What are the tips of a few fingers compared with life, liberty, wealth, and a beautiful woman? The first two
stranger, "but what has that to do with detaining my wif
by laying your fingers on this inking-pad and then lightly
mply. Kennedy glanced at the fourth set of prints, then at the third set taken a week ago, and
liams, the counterfeiter?
ed Kennedy. "You
glected to furnish you with photograp
t and laid it on the table. It bore the front face and profi
actually demanding this last piece of evidence. I had heard, however, that the Bertillon system of measurements often depende
arle" of Forbes, as it had first been described to us. Without looking further I involuntarily glanced a
of Forbes, of London. My nose is almost Jewish-my complexion is dark as an Arab's. Still, I suppose I am the sallow, snub-
Paris eluded the police very successfully until Dr. Charcot exposed him and showed how he changed the arch of his eyebrows a
have read in one of the papers this morning that a Mr. Williams was found dead in an automobile
ar to Riverwood, dressed in Williams's clothes with a watch that would show he was Forbes, placed on the track in front of the auto, whil
e and those from the London police card side by side. O
s fake detective should make fools out of us all and keep my wife longer in this court? I'm not disposed to let the matter drop. I wish to enter a charge again
wrath. He advanced menacingly toward Kennedy, who stood with his shoulders thr
inch of your life. 'Portrait parle,' indeed! It's a fine scientific system that has to d
, however. I had seen Craig do it dozens of times with the best boxers in the "gym." He simply jerked his head to one si
ce, and as he fell for
deliberately slap
's nose was quite out of joint, even from such a slight blow. It was
laid it on the table with the other exhibits, "don't forget that a concave nose built out to hook-nose convexit
his attention to the larger of Forbes's grips, which the Wollstone
ondike, and the Bureau of Engraving, all in one. Craig dumped the wealth out on the table-stacks of genuine bills, gold coins of two realms, diamonds, pearls
ly. "Gentlemen, you have here a master counterfeiter, surely-a ma
SAND
he Inter-River Transit," I remarked to Kennedy as I sketched
e, throwing a letter down on my desk. He ha
brief, as Jack's letters always were. "I have a case here at the tunnel that I am sure will appeal to you, my own case, too," it read. "You can go as far as you like with it, but get to the bot
does interest me. Whe
ho had not taken off his
rouble? Did you see in the society news this morning the announcement of Jack's
rouble, whatever it was, at the tunnel, though I d
and a strapping Irishman met us. "Is thi
e is Mr. Ort
r. The doctor have just took him out of the medical lock, an' he said if you was to
happened?" exclaimed Kenned
ylinder, lying horizontally, in which was a floor with a cot and some strange paraphernalia. On the cot lay Jack Orton, drawn and contorted, so c
e groaned. "No, I don't want to go back into t
but hearing us he op
of me? I'm a pretty sight. How are you? And how are you, Walter? Not too vigorou
asked, glancing blankly
touch of the 'bends' from working
say nothing. I, at least, wa
, fellows. Look at me! Do you think such a wreck as I am now
r friends in the hospital to-night, but for a few hours I think you had better rest. Gentlemen, if yo
iry chap, of just the build for tunnel work, where fat is fatal, he added: "This i
re we can get to him something has happened. The plot thickens before we are well into it. I t
nto his mood, and we walked block after block scarcely exchanging a word. His only remark, I recall, was, "Walter
as leaving. Evidently she had been visiting some one of whom she thought a great deal. Her long fur coat was flying carelessl
an with her say soothingly, "and you must k
and bowed. He returned our bows and handed h
uced us," muttered Kennedy, as
rse kept arranging and rearranging to ease his pain. The Irishman whom we
s. I sent her home with Capps. She oughtn't to be out alone at this hour, and Capps is a good fellow. She's known him a long time. No, Paddy, put down your hat. I want you to stay. Paddy, by the way, fellows, is my right-hand ma
we will show Taylor, my prospective father-in-law and the president of the railroad company from which I too
t the faintest touch of undue familiarity. "Look what
aig, do you know how I found him? Crawling over the f
e'll finish that tunnel an' beggin' yer pardon, Mr. Orton, marry that gurl, too. Didn't I see her with tears in her eyes right in this room when he wasn't lookin', and a smile when he was? Sure, ye'll be all right," continued Paddy, slapping his side and thigh. "We all get the bends more or less-all us sand
e, nothing to do with the bends?" asked Kennedy,
men, and lots of the poor fellows have died, too. You know, of course, how the newspapers are roasting us. We are being called inhuman; the
pounds. You see, we have struck the very worst part of the job, a stretch of quicksand in the river-bed, a
e were wurkin' at low pressure, in the rock, before we sthruck this sand. There's somethin' wrong, sir, or ye wouldn't be here yer
time. You may or may not know it, but there is some doubt about the validity of their franchise after a certain date, provided the tunnel is not ready for operation. Well, to make a long story short, you know there are rival
dences of rival influences hind
ing the time-limit of the franchise another year. Of course, if it had gone through it would have been fine for us. But some unseen influence blocked the company at every turn. It was subtle; it
of it, for it was in the article wh
the river so that we could work from each shore to it, as well as from the island to each shore, really from four points at once. And then, when everything was going ahead
ysm of the bends seized hi
to go down into the tun
ne," replied Orton, alm
so int
ddy will be glad to do the hono
onded the faithful Paddy, "an' it's a s
ng we shall be on hand. Jack, depend on us. We wil
s exploits. You're a pair of bricks, you are. Good-bye, fellows," and his han
ind reverting through the whirl of events to the glimpse of pain I had caught on the delic
uld see the old restless fever for work which came into his eyes whenever he had a case which interested him more than usual. I knew ther
I'm going to the laboratory and the university library. Be ready
leep. I think he had been dreaming out his course of action. At any rate, breakfast was a mere i
whispered conversation, Craig stowed the box away behind the switchboard of the telephone central, after attaching it to the various wire
e. If it had not been for Paddy, I fear we should have seen very little, for Shelton was not only secretive, but his explanations were such that even the editor of a technical journal would have had to blue pencil them considerably. However, we gained a pretty good idea of the tunnel work
and the tunnel doctor examined us and extracted a written statement that we went down a
," called Paddy, opening an
but could not catch the message, and in a minute he joined us. By this time I had formed the
the waves playing in the glad sunlight, we entered a rude construction elevator and dropped from the surface to the bottom of a deep shaft
hiss as of escaping steam. Pound after pound to the square inch the pressure slowly rose until I felt sure the drums of my ears would burst. Then the hissing noise began to dwindle down to a wheeze, and
breath of the tunnel. Every few feet an incandescent light gleamed in the misty darkness. After perhaps
at Paddy, the nasal ring o
urtain," he
unnel start to flood, the other half of the emergency cur
the "shield"-which is the head by which this mechanical mole advances under
ht and telephone wires were strung all about. These and the tools and other things strewn along the
ter overhead. At some points in the sand we could feel the air escaping, which appeared at the surface of the river overhead in bubbles, indicating to those passing in the river boats just how far each tunnel heading below had proceeded. When the los
rate, while Kennedy and Paddy were still crawling about the shield, he stoo
e waiting for Kennedy, I absently reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. It burned amazingly fast, as if it were made of tinde
d as he ground the cig
s dangerous to smoke
ing my anger at his manner. "
nd Orton's a fool to let
a voice inquire over my shoulder. It was
s reckless, and that he would hurt himself more by one s
tude for my own health. I could just barely catch his words over the tunnel telephone some feet away. I thought he said that everything was
constant level necessary. I saw Kennedy give a hurried glance about, as if to note whether any one were looking at us. No one was. With a quick motion he reached down. In his hand was a stout littck, our curiosity satisfied by this glimpse of one of
ennedy, stopping suddenl
suppose," said I. "Let's whis
t if I had been whistli
't have
, you are indeed learn
istle in com
ennedy chaffing me for my ignorance. I was glad to see Paddy's huge form loom
nough of the air? It seems very smelly to me this mornin'-I don't blame ye. I
needn't stay down any
ll that is necessary-a
d of us. I think you ca
ave you do it than to
bends. Roughly, half a minute should be consumed in coming out from each pound of pressure, though for such high pressures as we had
he tunnel. The second half he did slowly, and it was indeed tedious, but it was safe. There was at first a hissing sound when he opened the valve, and it grew colder in the lock, since ai
s air again. We gazed out across the river with its waves dancing in the sunlight. There, out in the middle, was a wreath of bubbles on the water. That marked the end of t
, near the medical lock, as it is called-that big steel cylinder over there, where we found Orton. The best cure for the bends is to go back under the air-recompression they call it. The renewed pressure causes the gas in the blood to contract again, and thus it i
ouple of hours we dropped in on Orton at th
k of the case?" h
ertain things in motion which will give us a prett
t his lip nervously and looked out of the sun
ght to increase your anxiety, Ja
drew a letter from his pocket. Laying it flat on t
hat," h
opper, but they talked so low that I could hear nothing, though I know they were talking about you and the tunnel. When they came out, I had no time to escape, so I slipped behind a portiere. I heard father say: 'Yes, I guess you are right, Morris. The thing has gone on long enough. If there is one more big accident we shall have to compromise with the Inter-River and carry on the wor
ed by the envelope, and Orton wo
is afternoon, be over at your office at four. Be sure to have Shelton and Capps there, and you can tell Mr. Taylor that you have something very important to set before hi
s working nervously, and as we parted he merely said: "Of course, you'll be
l. Kennedy was there, too, grim and silent. We sat watching the two indicators beside Orton's desk, which showed the air pressure in the two tubes. The needles were vibrating ever so little and
glancing at Orton's desk clock. "Taylor will be here pretty soon, and I wan
t as a large town car pulled up outside the tunnel works. A tall, distingu
had seen him often at investigations
these blueprints, Walter. There, that's a little better. If I had known she was coming I would at least have had the place swept out. P
quickly crossing to his chair to lay a restraining hand on
oming?" he asked eagerly. "I would
ously around at the samples of tunnel parapher
and when I tried to excuse myself for a business appointment, demanded which
d direct means of being there, but he said nothing, and
e have been and are having altogether too many accidents in the tunnel, too many cases of the bends, too ma
r-compressors and an occasional shout of a work
erfectly clear, I will say that there are five things that must, above all others, be looked after in tunnel work: the air pressure, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the length of the shifts which th
made, and the amount in the air is not excessive. The shifts are not even as long as those prescribed by the law. The
k, followed by a puzzled expression that plainly indicated that he would l
under the pressure. In coming out of the 'air' if the nitrogen is not all eliminated, it stays in the blood and, as the pressure is reduced, it expands. It is just as if you take a bottle of charged water and pull the cork suddenly. The gas rises in big bubbles. Cork it again and the gas bubbles cease to rise and finally disappear. If you make a pin-hole in the cork the gas will e
table. The others regarded it curiously, b
have since analysed it. The quantity of carbon dioxide is approximately what it should be-not high enough of itself to
in Orton quickly
stituent of air. But th
sake, what did you
d Kennedy, "a very peculiar m
e mixture?"
t the end of the tunnel were not blow-outs at
st at this
all back all the men from the tunnel until the cause for the p
hand on his arm. "One moment, Orton," he said. "Let's hear Professor Kennedy out.
hat sort of flash oil is use
xty-degree Fahrenheit flash
ng air down into the tun
rai
o pockets where oil, moistu
dy," he said with a sort
er up. Like a skilful lawyer, Kennedy dropped that
s call up on the telephone and let some one know when you
Capps, quickly reco
tchboard you will find a small box which you saw me carry in there this morning and conne
d a large disc of thin steel, like those used by some mechanical music-boxes, only without any perfora
gaphone horn, sticki
a voice: "Number ple
all you. Try them again
tra
y, is an instrument known as the telegraphone, invented by a Dane named Poulsen. It records converthe entire day's conversations over the telephone, preserved on this disc. I could wipe out the
e south tube with those men Orton has sent nosing around here. I'll let you know when I
ntly at Kennedy, as he
ing used in the machinery-not really three-hundred-and-sixty-degree oil. The water-jacket had been tampered with, too. More than that, there is a joint in the pipe leading down
rade oil-and they are ignited. What takes place is the same thing that occurs in the cylinder of an automobile where the air is compressed with gasoline vapour. Only here we have compressed air charged with vapour of oil. The flame proceeds down the pipe-exploding through the pipe, if it happens to be not str
ility of the men for the bends. Capps knew about it. He was careful while he was there to see that the air was made as pure as possible under the circumstances. He was so careful th
suddenly seizing his telephone. "Operator, give
had been only a few bubbles on the surface of the water, I could see what looke
only to be met by a group of blanched-faced workers who
l we come back. Orton, while we are gone, go over the entire day's record on the telegr
. In front of the closed door of the lock, an excited group of men was gathere
s beatin' 'em back with the stick. Now, he's got the door clear and has dragged one poor fellow in. It's Jimmy Rourke, him with the eig
l out safely without the loss of a life he'll save
ncy curtain to work, the frantic efforts of the men, in panic, all to crowd through the narrow little door at once; the rapidly rising water-and above al
ait for the air in the lock to be exhausted. When, at last, the door at our end of the lock swung open, the men with a cheer seized Paddy and, in spite
Vivian Taylor was standing defiantly, with burning eyes, facing Capps, w
o rise, "listen. Have you still that pl
aphone, while we all crowded a
I have argued Taylor and Morris into the right frame of mind for it, if we have one more big accident. What's that? How is my love affair? Well, Orton's in the way yet, but you know why I went into this deal. When you put me into his place after the compromise, I think I will pull strong with her. Saw her last ni
rom one or two of the
d pulled me with him qu
apps out quick before the rest of the men wake up to what it'
in the rear move quickly aside, and off came their muddy, frayed hats.
nd turning to Taylor, who followed her closely,
I
HITE
he mellow spring night air and the opera had won, but we had scarcely begun to argue the vital point
face the lines of sorrow were almost visibly deepening. Her nervous manner interested me greatly, though I took pains to conceal the fact that I noticed it. It
disappearance of their daughter, Georgette. I am sure I need say nothin
ONN
ge for the Missing Persons Squad to
. Gilbert, eagerly scanning Kennedy's face and using a euphemism
t of what the papers have said. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson. Yo
tar which had occasioned the discussion. The article had been headed, "When Personalities Are Lost," and with the Gilbert case as a te
d baffled the police before this, disappearances that in their suddenness, apparent lack
reason and have left behind them untarnished reputations. Of these a small percentage are found to have met with violence; others have been victims of a suicidal mania; and sooner or later a clue has come to light, for the
tudious efforts are being made to understand and to explain the strange type of mental phenomena exhibited in these cases, but no one has as yet given a final, clear, and comprehensive explanation of them. Such cases are by no means always connected with d
ly and had, some several days and some even years later, suddenly "awakened" to their first
his bushy eyebrows, quickly shifting from my face to Kennedy's, and asked, "And what was your conclusion-what do you think of the case? Is it
opinion," Craig replied with precisely that shade of hesitancy that mig
nces, the purport of which was tha
we have heard of Georgette." His voice faltered a bit, but he proceeded: "As you know, she was last seen walking on Fifth Avenue. The police have traced her since she left home that morning. It is known that she went first to t
er face in a lace handkerchief as
k I need hardly impress upon you the advantage of complete frankness, the fact that anything you may tell me is of a much more confidential natur
reassure both the father and the mo
d have leaked out, for I should have said that that old affair had long since been forgotten even by the society gossips. The fact is that shortly after Georgette 'came out,' Dudley Lawton, who is quite on the road to becoming one of the rather notorious members of the younger set, began to pay her marked attentions. He is a fascinating, romantic s
ather exceptional beauty of Miss Georgette Gilbert. If it had, all the shortcomings of the newspaper photographic art would have been quickly glossed over by the almost ardent descriptions by those ladi
o respect and, I hoped, understand our wishes in the matter. I believe so yet. Mr. Gilbert in a roundabout way came to an understanding with old Mr. Dudley Lawton, who possesses a great influence over his son, and-well, Dudley Lawton seemed to have passed out of Georgette's life. I beli
ugh she was concealing nothing she was measuring her w
ewspapers bringing his name into the cas
e. And yet I cannot quite believe that Lawton is as uninterested as he seems. I know that he has often spoken about her to m
et communication between them? Miss Georgette left no letters or a
very carefully, and I can't say they furnish a clue. In fact, there were very few letters. S
no other things in her life that would cause a desire for freedom?" asked Kenn
h her mother and I did not altogether
u nor the police have received even a hint as
ut as completely as if the
no stone unturned until I have probed to the bottom of this mystery. I have seldom had a case that hung on more slender threads, yet if I can wea
arking: "We'll at least get our walk, if not the show. Let's st
enough in New York and is very fascinating to many girls. In fact, he was one of those fellows whose sins are readil
tory. For my part, I could not determine whether he was merely anxious to avoid any notoriety i
g under the lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be of any assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaint
marked Kennedy, carefully concealing under his nonchalance what I knew was working in his mind
ed Lawton quickly, as if desirous of getting rid of us as soon as possible. Then perhaps as if regretting the brusqueness with which he had tried to end the interview, he added, "Don't misunderstand me. The mo
we walked up the avenue after this baffling interview. "Could he have cast her of
Kennedy, "for the simple reason that he himself doesn't know until he has
reach the end of my imagination and give up the case, but Kennedy continued to revolve the matter in his mind, looking at it from every angle and calling up
out of the crowded city into nowhere is something that is much harder to explain. And it isn't so difficult to disappear as some people imagine, either. You remember the case of the
say that disappearances are not mysterious. Disappearances except for money troubles are all mysterious. The first thing in such a case is to disco
ted down something on a piece of pape
family
antic di
insanity, sel
minal
Aph
idna
d those who have financial difficulties. Dream on that and see if you
t started with a visit to the public library, where he carefully went over the ground already gone over by the police. Finding nothing, he concl
ppearance; but Craig was proceeding on the assumption that this purchase indicated nothing except that there had been a sale of handkerchiefs which had caught her eye. Having stopped at the library
display in the window, but only for a moment, for Craig quickly pulled
HT, OCCULTISM, CLA
quickly down the record, he picked out a work on clairvoyance and asked to see the young woman who had made the sale. The clerk was, however, unable to recall to whom she had sold the book, though she finally admitted that she thought it might have been a young woman who had some difficulty in
positive that it was NOT Miss Gilbert to whom she sold the book. Since we are down in this neighbour
en his place of business. As we entered, we could see groups of clerks, evidently discussing the case. It was no wonder, I felt, for the head of the firm was a
scovered the body of his daughter in a lonely spot in the Croton Aqueduct. The report came in from the polic
the extras would be out, and the news would be spread broadcast. The affair would be in the h
s head and bolted for the door. "Hurry, Walter. We mu
cene of the tragedy not very long after the coroner. Mr. Gilbert was there, silent, and looking as if
they could tell nothing beyond the fact that one of them had discovered the body in a thicket where it could not possibly have lain longer than overnight. There was no reason, as yet, to suspect any of them, and indeed, as a much travelled
great physical agony or after a terrific struggle. Indeed, marks of violence o
adventures, the death of a human being, especially of a girl like Miss Gilbert, filled me with horror and revulsion. I could see, however, that he had noted something unusual. He pulled out a little pocket magnifying
it. It was a large clipping from the section of one of the metropolitan journals which carries a host of such advertisements as "spirit medium," "psychic palmist," "yogi mediator," "magnetic influences," "crystal gazer," "astrologer," "trance medium
on with the coroner's physician. The physician was of the opinion that Miss Gilbert had been drugged as well as strangled, and for many hours, down in his laboratory, his chemist
s the different tests failed, he had become more and more k
that sample?" he asked of the physician
nd the many reagents standing before him. He picked up one and poured a little liquid into the test tube. Then, removing the precipit
as he held the tube up
e to make further tests before I can be positive just what it is. If I may retain this sample I th
ted, and Craig quickly dispatched the t
d this morning. I suppose you have concluded, Walter, that we can be reasonably sure that the trail leads back through the fortune-tellers and soothsayers of New York,-which o
ent I was endeavouring to formulate a theory in which Du
from the advertisements in the clipping described himself as "Hata, the Veiled Prophet, born with a double veil, educated i
you power to attract and control those whom you may desire, tells you of living or dead, your secret troubles, the cause and remedy. Advice on all affairs of life, love, courtship, marriage, business
lished himself on a street near Times Square, just off Broadway, and there we found several automobile
front parlour and asked if we had come to se
nt. "We ask all visitors to do that simply as a guarantee of good faith. Then if you will write under it what you wish to find out
two sheets. The second is chemically prepared, with paraffin, I think. By dusting it over with powdered charcoal you can bring out what was written on the first sheet
He also took a small fee of two dollars. A few minutes later we were ushered into the awful presence of the "Veiled Pr
emnly by name and proceeded dire
dimly lighted. Then Hata, the crystal-gazer, solemnly seated himself in a chair. Before him, in his hands, reposing on a bag of satin, lay a huge oval piece
young girl. She is trying to avoid him. Ah-he seizes her by both ar
undoubtedly read, but Kennedy was leaning forward over the crystal-gazer,
ding from her mouth,
urged Kenn
rikes her. He fle
ightly on the arm of the clairv
rk, dark. You will have to come back
ennedy, however, seemed elated by ou
o vapourings like that? Why, there wasn't a thing the fellow couldn't have
ped under a light to read the address of the n
to gratify the idle curious, but to direct, advise, and help men and women"-at the usual low fee. He said in print that he gave ins
at is sweeter, better, or more to be desired than perfect harmony and happiness? If you want to win the esteem
t soothsayers in the next column (and almost next door) it seemed
e seated about as if waiting for some one. The pad and writing process was repeated with little variation. Since we were the la
was an altar on which burned several candles which gave out an incense. The atmospher
onograph buried in the depths of the altar, answered in an unknown language which sounded much like "Al-ya wa-aa haal-ya waa-ha." Across the dim room flashed a pale blue light with a crackling noise, the visible rays from a
it up, saying that the spirits had no revelation to make to-night in the matter in which we had called. Inasmuch as we had not written on the pad just what that matter was, I was not surprised. Nor wa
xious to get rid of us, moved toward the door. Kennedy sidled o
ngs to look over in the meantime
harge all my students," answered the Pandit with just a trace o
xamined the collar and neck very carefully under the least dim of the lights in the room. He seemed to find what he wished, yet he continued to examine the robe until the sound of retu
just the faintest shade of trepidation. "My servant
inancial activities of the fortune tellers, who worked in close harmony with certain bucket-shop operators in fleecing the credulous of their money by inspired investment advice.
t into an alley. There is the street not twenty
on our list, so that with this unceremonious dismissal
of police protection, or persecution, one could not say which. I was wondering what sort of vagary would come next. It proved to be
ke an open book; he overcomes evil influences, reunites the separated, causes speedy and happy marriage with the one of your choice, tells how to influence any one you desire, tells whether wife or sweetheart is true or false. Love, friendship, and influence
wonderful Swami and, falling into the spirit of his advertisement, posed as "come-ons" and pleaded to obtain this wonderful magnetism and a knowledge of the Karmic law-at a ridiculously low figure, considering its inestimable advantages to one en
ther as he motioned us
ircular divan with pil
flowers in vases about
e renewed vital
h was of a vile, muddy, Turkish variety. Then from the jar he took a box of rock crystal containing a sort of greenish compound which he kneaded into a little gum-gum tragacanth, I afte
, legs, and arms. Then came a subtle warmth. The whole thing seemed droll; the noise of the Swami's voice was most harmonious. His and Kennedy's faces seemed transformed. They were human face
r me caught my eye. The countenance really smiled and laughed and varied from moment to moment. Her figure became rounded and living and seemed
in. Thoughts came to me like fury, bewildering, sometimes as points of light in the most exquisite fireworks. Objects were clothed in most fantastic garbs. I looked at my two animal companions. I seemed to r
I could see Craig getting, whereas I was lost in a maze of dreams that I would not have stopped if I could. Seconds seemed to be years; minutes ages. Things at only a short distance looked much as they do
und salaam. In an instant Kennedy had seized with both hands the long flowing hair at the back of the
e and the pressure of my grasp, Craig sullenly and slowly relaxed his grip. A vacant look seemed to steal i
street, but out of the corner of my eye I could see that K
t somewhat vexed and feeling a sort of lassitude and h
of disgust on your face," he said as he opened his hand and showed me three or four of the gum lozenges that he had p
thoughts like sky rockets through my brain I gave it up and a
nd by his "magnetic monochrome," whatever that might be, he would "impart to you an a
d cross, the winged circle, and the winged orb. The Guru himself was a swarthy individual with a purple turban wound around his head. In his inner room were many statuettes, photographs of other Gurus
ake represents eternity, the star involution and evolution of the soul, while the wing
ot," the "bunny hug," and the "grizzly bear." The book, as we turned over its pages, gave directions for preparing everything from food to love-philtres and the elixir of life. One very interesting chapter was devoted to "electric marriage," which seemed to come to those only who, after searching patiently, at last found perfect mates. Another
ic influence over his disciples or those who came to seek his advice. Besides this indefinabl
ars." I think he hesitated, to see how much the traffic would bear, from one to one hundred, and compromised with only one
sted in the table and was examining it when the Guru returned. Just as the door opened he managed
good English, "let me know, and you must try one of my
ry in New York, and in fact in every large city of the world-love-philtres, love-pills, and all the rest of it. And it is no
e fakirs are not so gullible, af
omething interesting to say to-night
I put in the time speculating which of the fakirs had been in some mysterious way connected with the case and in what manner. Many were the theories which I had forme
othsayers, assembled a curiously cosmopolitan crowd in his laboratory. Besides the Gilberts were Dudley Lawton and his father, Hata, t
ly. "Human hair," he resumed, "has recently been the study of that untiring criminal scientist, M. Bertillon. He has drawn up a full, classified, and graduated table of all the known colours of the human hair, a complete palette, so to speak, of samples gathered in every quarter of the globe. Henceforth burglars, who already wear gloves or paint their fi
e it is practically always possible to distinguish human hair from animal. I shall not go into the distinctions, but I may add that it is also possible to determine very quickly
of glass, that was all. But on the glass was what appeared to be merely a faint line. "This slide," he said, holding it up, "has what must prove an unescapable clue to the identity of the man responsible for the disappea
re clenched, as if she had struggled with all her power against a force that had been too much for her. I examined her hands, expecting to find some evidence of a w
lier in the case-that it hung on slender thread
e visited several of the fortune-tellers and practitioners of the occult sciences in which we had reason to believe Miss Gilbert was interested. They all, by the way, make a specialty of giving advice in money matters and solving the problems of lovers. I suspect that at times Mr. Jameson has thought that I was demented, but I had to resort to many and various expedients to collect th
of astonishment from our little audience. Still
numbered envelopes the names of the persons who furnished them. But before I open the envelope numbered the same as the slide which contains the hair which corresponds precisely with that hair found in Miss Gilbert's hand-and it is slide No. 2--" said Kenned
which I sometimes thought he enjoyed more keenly than
his power. What was that force? At first I thought it might have been the hackneyed knockout drops, but tests by the coroner's physician eliminated that. Then I thought it might be one of the alkaloids, such as morphine, cocaine, and others. But it was n
sensibilities to distraction, producing what is really hysteria. If the weather is clear, this drug will make life gorgeous; if it rains, tragic. Slight vexation becomes deadly revenge; courage becomes rashness; fear, abject terror; and gentle affection or even a passing liking is transformed into passionate love. It is the drug derived from the Indian hemp, scientifically named Cannabis Indica, better known as hashish, or bhang, or a dozen other names in the East. Its chief characteristic is that it has a pr
ts, she was frantic. This place offered hope, and to it she went in all innocence, not knowing that it was only the open door to a life such as the most lurid disorderly resorts of the metropolis could scarcely match. There her credulity was preyed upon, and she was tricked into taking this drug, which itself has such marked and perverti
I could see that his fists were doubled up and that he was holding himself in leash as if waiting for something, eyei
t as I did so, he leaped behind me, and before I could
hair was the Swami's. Georgette Gilbert was one victim who fought and rescued herself from a slavery worse tha
I
FO
at the Insurance Club, one of the many new downtown luncheon club
enough to warrant a tentative reference to the obvious fact that he had had a purpose in inviting us to the club
doing a ripping business-putting up the premium rate about every day i
iled somewhat wearily, I thought. "We are," he replied d
remiums or t
it is variously estimated that the forgers of the country are getting away with from ten to fifteen million dollars a year. It is just one case that I was th
ion dollars?" gasped Ke
e found it diffi
at one fell swoop, of course, but gradually, covering a period of some
g no
me to figure in the case, by having insured their bank against forgery. Of course our liability runs up only to $50,000. But the loss to the company as well as to its bank through this affair will re
s, some clues. You must have taken some action i
we have found that Bolton Brown has been leading a rather fast life, quite unknown to his fellow-officials. We know that he has been speculating secretly in the wheat corner that went to pieces, but the most significant thing is that he has been altogether too intimate with an adventuress, Adele De-Mott, who has had some success as a woman of hig
cter of the forgeri
s to five thousand. They have been so well executed that some of them have been certified by the bank, all of them have been accepted when they came back from other banks, and even the officers of the company don't seem to be able to pic
almost any office boy who comes in with it. The common method of forgers lately has been to take such a certified forged check, deposit it in another bank, then gradually withdraw it in a few days before there is
er of the company?"
e else besides Brown in it, it might be Michael Dawson, the nominal assistant but really the active treasurer. There you have another man
Why?" asked Kennedy,
ary of their honeymoon secret, more as a joke on their friends than anything else, they said, for Miss Sanderson was a well-known beauty and the newspapers bot
forgeries consists not so much in the checks, which interest my company, but in fraudulently issued stock certifi
oman, for women seem to rope in the suckers best in these get-rich-quick schemes. And, well, if it was Dawson the honeymoon has given him a splendid chance to make his get-away, though it a
Kennedy and it would not have taken a clairvoyant t
ially as there seems to be a doubt a
stock certificates were kept in the company's vault in the bank to which, of course, Brown had access. But then, as Carroll argues, Dawson had access to them, too, which is very true-more so for Dawson than for Brown, who was in the bank an
made his headquarters when he was in New York. The whole thing was done with such despatch that I could not help feeling that Carroll had been waiting to hear from his friend in the insurance company. The look of relief on Williams's face when Kennedy said he would go immediately
ter opportunity for speculation, and the banks, as many authorities will agree, have not made enough use of the machinery available to put a stop to embezzlement. This case is evidently one of the results. The careless fellows at the top, like this man Carroll whom we are going to see, generally put forward as excuse the statement that the science of banking and of business is
d until they had become a veritable obsession. It was literally true that they were all that he could talk about
, as he fixed his unnaturally bright eyes on us anxiously. "I've simply got to find the man who has so nearly wrecked the By
ntly out of the window as if he were
ier, Bolton Brown, has been
o have disappeared. Now let me tell you about what I think of that, Kennedy. I know it looks bad for B
deposited in other banks by people whom we can't identify but who must have opened accounts for the purpose of finally putting through a few bad checks. Then they came back to our bank in the regular channels and were accepted. By various kinds of juggling they were covered
y the thing will come back to Dawson and even if he is guilty, it will make me the-er-the ultimate goat. The upshot of it all will be that I shall have to stand the blame, if not the guil
t makes you think that you will find your
the company. This clerk told me that a long time ago Dawson said he had always wanted to go to South America and that perhaps on his honeymoon he might get a chance. This is t
one of them with his wife. What mak
rectly from her folks, who profess to know no better than we do where the couple are. That was an additional reason w
have
come in to-day from Atlantic City and New York. They seem to be in payment of bills, as they are for odd amounts. One is
25th. If he's clever he won't board that ship except in a disguise, for he will know that by that time some one must be watching. Now I want you to help me penetrate that disguise. Of course we can't arrest the who
th excitement as he unfolded his sch
I suppose Dawson was a
No speculating or fast
ow
ret drug fiend. I found that out after he left. In his desk at the By-Products office we discovered hypodermic needle
case unrolled it was assuming one ne
indicate that he had
antic City," re
g under his own name nor, I believe as far as I can find out, even under his own face. I think the fell
o do it, too. You will pardon me if I excuse myself now? There are certain aspects of
e. Of course that sort of game couldn't last forever. Some one was going to demand dividends on his stock, or transfer it, or ask to have it recorded on the books, or something that would give the whole scheme away. From each person to whom he sold stock I believe he demanded some kind of promise not to sell it within a certain period, and in that way we figure that he gave himself plenty of time to realise several hundre
. "And the girl?" he broke in. "She must be in the game or her letters to so
my opinion. Oh, you can be sure that if a proposition like this were put up to her she'd take a chance to get away with it. She runs no risks. She didn't do it an
of the forged certi
ry has been told in print they have
ly engraved certificat
utinised th
to study at my l
rroll, "and if you want
o for
nk you," said Craig. "I shall keep in touch with y
r I could see that Kennedy was thinking out a course of action. The quick pace at which
a bunch of special envelopes which he seemed to be saving for some purpose. He sealed it with som
with him more or less in the past about handwriting I did not have to be told that he was using a microsco
ce they look as good as the real article. Even if they are tracings they are remarkably fine work. It certainly is a fact, h
value in studying abrasions and alterations since it gives depth, in this case tells me that there has been nothing of that sort practised. My colour comparison microscope, which permits the comparison of the ink on two different documents or two places on one document at the same time, tells me something. This instrument with new and accurately coloured glasses enables
a and the microscopic enlarger, as well as this specially constructed document camera with lenses certified by the government. If it com
always some slight room for doubt in these special cases where a man sits down and is in the habit of writing his signature over and over again on one stock or bond after another. He may get so used to it that he does it automatically and his signatures may come pretty close to superimposing. If I had time, though, I think I could demonstrate that there are altog
recommended. The description of the woman with him who seemed to be his wife might have fitted either Mrs. Dawson or Adele DeMott. The only person who had called had been a man who said he represented the By-Products Company and was the treasurer. He had questioned the hotel people rather closely about the whereabouts o
ised and returned by an
em that I represented the By-Products Company in New York and was authorised to investigate the bad check which they had received. They couldn't describe Dawson very well-at least their description would have fitted almost
beards are common enough." Then I re
of making his identification sure, and a peculiar coincidence it is, too. It seems that one night this man and a lady who may have been the former Miss Sanderson, though the description of her like most amateur descr
r not wishing to appear in print in Atlantic City, as many have. The man seemed to notice that the photographer was a little suspicious and he hastened to make some kind of excuse about 'wanting the home folks to see how swell he and his wife were dining in evening dress.' It was a rat
ess on the package which the photographer did not see, and as there was a box for mailing packages right at the door on the boardwalk there was no excuse for not mailing it directly. Now if I could get hold of that plate or a print from it I
y's idea being that if Dawson was a habitual morphine fiend he must have replenished his supply of the dr
What did interest us was that again we crossed the trail of a man with a Van Dyke beard. He had been accompanied by a woman whom the druggist described as rather flashily dressed
ogists have said enough about it, but you don't realise it until you are up against it. Why, that might have been the DeMott woman just as well as the former Miss Sanderson, and
letter which he had addressed to Michael Dawson. On
over slowly and looked a
ack to the postman after he had opened it and found that it was just a note of no importance which I
now he opened
ickly with gum. On the envelope itself was some iron sulphate under more gum. I carefully sealed the letter, using very little moisture. The gum then separated the two p
d he was booked to sail under an assumed name and with an assumed face was to sail the following noon. And still we had no word from Chicago as to the destination of the pho
e he had been released on bail, but that he would be produced when wanted. Adele DeMott had not been seen for several days in Chicago and the police there were of the opinion that s
day had left and the photograph, even though it were found, could not possibly reach us in time to be of use before the
cer of the Telegraph and Telephone Company to whom Williams had given him a card of introduction. The upshot had been that he had called up Chicago and talked for a long time with Professor Clark, a former classmate of
I remarked as we walked slowly over
ent-mindedly, more from pol
n Dyke beard who goes on th
he said simply, "especially as the victim would feel pretty hot if we ca
res under the electric lights of the campus from the str
other contrivances which did not suggest to my mind anything he had ever used before in our adventures. I killed time as best I could watching him adjust the thing with the most minu
apparatus. "In case I do not see you then, get in touch with Williams and Carroll and have them come here about ten o'clock with an automobile. If I am not
before I could see him again. I made a hurried trip downtown to catch Carroll and Williams and then return
tion, though frequent talks over long-distance with Chicago seemed to reassure him. Thanks to the influence
sold the forged certificates of stock. Somewhere in that great city was a photograph of the promoter and of the woman who was aiding him to escape, taken in Atlantic City and sent by mail to Chicago. Who had received it? Would it be found in time to be of use? What would it reveal? It was
et?" appealed an anxious
for our man. It was Carroll who spoke. The strain of the suspense was telling on him and I could readily imagine that he, like
sy about his apparatus on the table.
ur detectives still insist that Bolton Brown is the man to watch, and th
"What's all this stuff on the table?" he asked
reply, for the telephone be
I'll try to repeat as much of the conversation as I can so that you can follow it. Hello-yes-this is Kennedy. Is that you, Clark? It's all arranged at t
an slowly to revolve and the stylus or needle pressed down on the sensitised paper with which the drum was cov
Clark and I have been intending to try it out for a long time. It at last makes possible the electric transmission
band yet, but gradually it was widening, though we could not guess what it wa
ities at various times for some years. Korn's apparatus depends on the ability of the element selenium to vary the strength of an electric current passing through it in proportion to the
been treated with a single-line screen. You know a halftone consists of a photograph through a screen composed of lines running perpendicular to each other-a coarse screen for newspaper work, and a fine screen for better work, such as in magazines. Well, in this case the screen
laimed, thoroughl
t right angles, like the other lines of a regular halftone. Whenever the point of the stylus passes over one of the lighter spots on the photographic print it sends on a longer electrical vibration, over the darker spots a shorter vib
sion which each stroke of the receiving stylus makes on the paper is black or light, according to the length of the very quickly changing vibrations of the electric current. White spots on the photographic print come out as black spots here on the
thing was doing. It was reproducing faithfully in New Y
still half incredulous in spit
ch I think may aid us i
s responsible for the
help us to penetrate
South America or wher
oking at his watch. "She sails in an hour and a half and
get in it and he bribed the photographer to give him the plate and take another picture for the booklet which would leave him out. The plate was sent to a little office in Chicago, discovered by the post-office inspec
klyn waited. "Morphine fiends," said Kennedy as he fanned the print to dry it, "are the most unreliable sort of people. They cover their tracks with almost diabolical cunning. In fact they seem to enjoy it. For instance, t
of the drug have less power to resist physical and mental impressions and they easily succumb to temptations and suggestions from others. Morphine stands unequalled as a perverter of the moral sense. It creates a person whom the father of lies must recognise as kindre
want to go down the bay on a tug you've got to catch Dawson now or never. The morphine business explains,
peculiar case. You have forged the name of the president of your company, but you have also traced your own name very cleverly to look like a forg
as hesitating, nonplussed, until Kennedy reached over unexpectedly and grasped Carroll by the arm. As he shoved u
safely in the custody of his counsel, ready to appear and clear himself as soon as the public opinion which has been falsely inflamed against him subsides. Your plan to give us the slip at the last moment at the wharf and board the steamer for South America has miscarried. It is now too late to catch it,
eard, it was the face of John Carroll, forger and morphine fiend. Next him in the picture in the brilliant and fashionable
OFFICI
he new Hotel Vanderveer one evening after reclaiming our hats from the plutocrat who had acquired the checking privilege. We ha
ed Kennedy,
inner given to the President not long ago and he told me a great yarn about how the secret service, the police, and the hotel co
nd had caught my eye. Much to my
y name, though he had seen me only once and then fo
d, wondering wh
the house a little-er-favour?" he ask
led attempt to secure a little free advertising for the Vanderveer
spered aside, turning q
e house man deferentially,
that you knew some interesting yarns about hotel detective life. I sho
ead?" interrupted the house detect
se me more. What is it-a 'c
d. "It's either a suicide or a murder. Come upstairs with me. There isn't a man in
the floor clerk, the house detective led the way down the thickly carpeted hall, stopping at a room which, we could
gh all the lights were turned on, the room was empty. McBride crossed the room quickly, opened a doo
e had been, too, though not with the freshness which makes American women so attractive. There was someth
It was enough for me that here lay this cold, stony, rigid beauty, robed in the latest creations of Paris, alone in an elegantly furnished room of an excl
estruck for
paper men to keep this thing off the front pages? Of course something has to be printed about it. But we don't want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a suicide the other day who left an apologetic note that was played up by some of the papers. Now comes this affair. The management are just as
Kennedy. "At least, under w
r with foreign labels, not an American label among them. I haven't the slightest doubt that her name was fictitious, for as far as I can see all the ordinary marks of identification have
the hotel offered any clue, no m
them. But she was evidently expecting some one, for her maid had left word at the desk that if a Mr. Gonzales called, she was at home; if any one else, she was out. For the first day or two she kept herself closely confined, except that at the end of the second day she took a short spin through the park in a taxicab-closed, even in this hot weather. Where she went I cannot say, but when they returned the maid
Did this Mr. Gonzales call
" answered McBride. "That was what the clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you.
" asked Craig. "Did she leave any card
for a time as if he hesitated to ret
society news and the illustrated papers he is sure that he recognised h
aimed Kennedy. "Why, the pap
heiress who is rumoured to be en
had heard a few days before from our society reporter on the Star, "I b
er there may be in it, the fact remains that Madame de Nevers, supposing that to be her real name, has been dead for at least a day or two. The first thing to be dete
of the hotel clerk. He had been making a casual examination of the body on the bed, and finding nothi
have been done in a crowded hotel in which the rooms on every side had been occupied and people had been passing thr
es of glass. He was regarding them with an interest that was oblivious to everything else. As he turned them over and over and tried to fit them t
overed?" asked Craig a
de qu
had asked her to say to him that she was going away for a few days and that under no circumstances was her room to be disturbed in her absence. The maid was commissioned to pay
y or two longer, if the chambermaid hadn't been a bit curious. She hunted till she found another key that fitted, and opened the closet door, apparently to see what Madame had been so pa
aid? What has become of h
"From the moment when the bill was pai
on of her, one that you could send ou
uld give a pretty
o be a most unusual case," he remarked in answer to the implied inquiry
his head in
se the most potent, quickest-acting stupefying drugs. Some of their exploits surpass anything hitherto even imagined by the European police. The American police ha
'etyle, bromoform, nitrite d'amyle, and amyline are known to be utilised by the endormeurs to put their victims to sleep, and the skill which they have acquired in the use of these powerful drugs establis
efy, rob, and then leave his victim. There is something more to this case than a mere suicide or murder, McBride. Of course she may have committed suicide with the drugs of the endormeurs; then again she may merely have been rendered unconscious by those drugs and some other po
brought his right fist down with a resoun
cafe, where I saw a face that looked familiar to me. It was that of a dark-haired, olive-skinned man, a fascinating face, but a face to be afraid of. I remembered him, I thought, from my
ystem in the hotel by which I can turn all the help into amateur sleuths. I told him to be very careful about the dark-faced man
t three times during his chat with his companion Charley had wiped off his table with lingering hand. Twice he had put fresh seltzer in his drink. Like a good waiter always working for a big tip he had hovered
ch he did not name but which the younger man seemed to understand. They talked of wharves and tracts of land, of sovereignty and blue prints, the Monroe Doctrine, value in case of war, and a lot of other things. Then they talked of money, and though Charley was most assiduous at the time all he overheard was something about 'ten thousand francs' and 'buying her off,' and finally a whispered
care much what it was, at the time. It might have been an attempt of the dark-visaged fellow to sell the Canal to a come-on. What I wanted was to
uriously at not getting any apology. 'Sacre,' he exclaimed, 'what the-' But before he could finish I moved still closer and pinched his elbow. A dull red glow of suppressed anger spread over his face, but he cut his words short. He knew and I knew he knew. That is the sign in the continental hotels when they find a crook and quietly ask him to move on. The man turned on his heel and stalked
ct that incident with
d Kennedy, a
a man bidding good-bye to a woman at the rear carriage entrance of the hotel. The w
od description of the maid or could writ
"You know we have recently formed a sort of clearing house, we hotel detectives, and we are working together now very well, though se
tectives on the trail as well as the police of the city, and of other cities, will make the inquiries at the steamships and railroads, and all that sort of t
," agreed McBri
he door and McBride open
n we had already obtained so concisely from the house man. The coroner was, of course, angry at the removal of the body from the closet to the bed because he wanted to view
ouldn't have been illuminating gas, then. No, it must have been a poison of some kind. Then as to the motive," he added, trying to look confident but really shooting a tentative remark at Craig and the house detective, who said nothing. "It looks a good deal like that other suicide-at least a suicide which some one has en
ave the maid to be found by your organisation, McBride. Let me see, the theatres and roof gardens must be letting ou
ly moderate as American fortunes go nowadays, lived in an apartment facing the park, with her mother,
was late, Kennedy sent up his card with an urgent message to see them. They received us in a large drawing-
gan Mrs. Lovelace in a tone which was intended t
t of course he did not even hint as much in his repl
nderveer?" asked Craig, turning quickly to the daughter so as to catch the ful
er breath for an instant, but she kept her composure admirably in
d with forced calmness as he continued to l
evers has committed suicide at the Vanderveer and
again, from which I argued that whatever knowledge she h
ver saw her. I simply know
showed more plainly than in mere words that she
rcilessly. "One moment, please," he added, anticipating the blank look of amazement on h
merely raised her should
k or in Washington
ough that some of the newspapers have said so? If you
int. Whether or not the duke was in New York or Washington or Spitzbergen, he now felt sure that Miss Lovelace knew of, and perhaps something about, Madame de Nevers. In some way the
g decided to sleep soundly over the case, his infallible met
oner himself, who in a few words explained that he was far from s
iological investigations in cases of homicide and suicide. We are often forced to resort to private laboratories, as you know in the past when I have had to appeal to you. Now, Professor Kennedy, if we
y, though he did not allow the
cessary organs for a thorough test as to the cause of the death
aig's scientific workshop before that official appeared, accompanied by a man who carr
ade him a leading factor in its solution. Whatever suspicions he may have ent
talking half to us and half to himself as he worked. The next step was to place the matter in a glass flask in a water bath where it was heated. From
ennedy took a piece of paper which had been treated with iodised starch, as he later
hed for a bottle on the shelves before him, and I could see from the label on the brown glass that it was ni
hloroform," he exclaimed simply i
us chloroform case for which a man is now serving a life term in Sing Sing which I have understood there was grave doubt in the minds of the experts. Mind, I am not trying to question the results of your work except as they might naturally be questioned in court. It seems to me that the volatility of chloroform might very possibly preclude it
ut his confidence
practical working range of say twelve days, while in winter it may be found even after several months-by the right method. Certainly this case comes within the average length of time. More than that, no substance is generated by the process of decomposition which will vitiate
s if the turn of events was necessitating a co
dy in a tone that left nothing
t that it was done without a struggle? There were no marks of violence and I, for one, do not believe that
some bonbons and lozenges, a small hypodermic syringe, and a few cigars and
denly she must have found a pocket handkerchief under her nose. The criminal crushed a globe of liquid in the handkerchief, the victim lost consciousness, the chloroform was administered without a struggle, all marks of identi
loath to abandon his own suicide theory and had held it to the last possible moment. At any rate, so far he had said l
the note as he glanced doubtfully from it to us, "that you have heard that among the
ing up the apparatus he had just used. There was nothing in his manner even to hin
mind telling you that I believe it was more than a rumour. I have had a man w
he now handed to us. It
hurriedly for Wash
ramifications grew wider than anything we had yet expected. Why had Miss L
came from McBride saying that he had some important news for us if we would meet hi
of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at the cartridge
nst before we get back to the laboratory,"
n the cafe and a woman who might very possibly have been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and Mme. Duval. Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to impress upon the hotel that they were persons of som
trange couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour and they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not
a few minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case
said. "I'm afraid they would discover it, that is, if they are at all the clever people I think them. Besides, I would have to send up to the la
the side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy
nstruments?" he asked at length, turning to
later he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them I
y, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The detective despatched
them placed the capsules on the table carefully. Then he lifted down the etching from th
per and the glass on the picture he mounted them so that the paper and
se interest at what he was doing, "will produce a strikingly sensitive micropho
couple in whose room we were had very nearly finished
ng from the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the top of the moulding and out through the transom it was easy eno
developments from our hastily improvi
it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face that some one had ente
ought I wasn't reckoning without reason. The couple, whoever they are, are talking in unde
down as he listened to the conversation I shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some anxious moments until at last they had satisfied themse
cular, Henri?" a woma
hotels. You remember I told you what happened at the Vanderveer the night you and M
ould not tell me just now at luncheon?" asked the wom
m Washington. Wait u
at does it say?" asked
suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind of some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I must g
iscovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't the
rk, I am convinced. You are sure that all her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her wit
the coaling station on the Pacific ne
the man. "Louise, sha
ou ke
w I can,
et. We know that they are a fake. But we are going to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly and how vexatious it is that
does Miss Lo
and had let any of de Nevers's letters slip through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate for that act of treachery. The affair would have been so simple, otherwise. Luck was with us until her insane jealousy led her to
n will you retur
r Department and in exchange he is to give us something else-the secret of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high cir
time slip by. There must be no mistake this time as there was when we were working for Japan and
for a man named Gonzales. I shall use the name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package-that thing I have told you about-then I am to return here by one of the midnight trains. At any cost we must allow nothing to happen which
ree-thirty; the next, leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in our friend down th
vised dictograph. "Come, Walter, we must catch the limited for Washington immediately. McBride, I leav
We took up our post so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes later Craig spotted ou
ting him know that we were watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking myself what good it did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if the affair was so important as it appeare
g rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand. Suddenly
we came to a turn in the shadow of t
match-box. Instantly Kennedy's po
nd out Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes
if we had not caught him between us.
l. Drive us around a bit. It will sober him up. Com
t the time as to the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the departments were all away, the Pres
the year. There was treachery of some kind and some trusted employee was involved, I felt instinctively. As for Craig he merely glanced at the insensible figure between us and remarked sententiously that to hi
did he show signs of recovery from his profound stupor. Kennedy stopped the cab in a s
the house when a man walking in the opposite direction e
!" he ex
ot have been more startled. Here, in spite of all our h
he man by the arm. "Come," he said quickly,
was the first to speak
ecret Service,
faces." He was evidently referring to our experiences together some months before with the
pers. Under the dim light from the street I could s
ea when I took up this case that I should be doing my country a service also. We must succeed at any hazard. The moment you hear a pistol shot, Burke, we
s of the house and a ne
ales in?" as
ing-room, where a dim light was burning behind the thick portieres. Withou
z is here," added C
in a few minutes returned with the m
r. There was no sound. He took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it. Turning it upside down he pla
xt I knew was a muffled step on the lan
French followed as the man pitched hea
rostrate figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing o
or. A sickening odour seemed to pervade the air.
t of commission without killing him. A pull of the trigger, the cap explodes, the gunpowder and the force of the explosion unite some capsicum and lycopodium, producing the blinding, suffocating vapour whose terrible effect you see. Here, you upstairs," h
my eyes off the stairs I opened it. Burke s
ped. "I heard a sho
d we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of manacles on the wrists of the man on the floo
et of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after another. From among them he unfolde
hington, U. S. A., has secured some important information which will interest t
o to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few days, as soon as a certain exchange can be made, either our friend in Washington or myself will call on you, us
ed of money I have secured the work for you. You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel with distinction in this case. If, however, you accept this commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender your claim upon my name for which I
EAUR
pose. Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the part of v
me. This blackmailing must stop. Miss Lovelace knows something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all-never-never. You-you-ugh!-Stop.
he delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the terrible
real swindler of five continents. Marie de Nevers alive stood in the way of
o the War Department and tell them they can turn out their lights and stop their telegrams. This seems to be a copy of our government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal, heights of guns, location of searchl
rvice to find the leak
is not the man who pla
hem. To me this adven
ely the murderer of
SMUG
o had calculated by the calendar rather than by the weather were r
ough on this particular day there was a lull in the succession o
till half deserted, though the few pedestrians who had returned or remained in town like ourselves were, as usual, to be found
ic man's whistle to halt the crush of automobil
had recently been appointed to a position in the customs house of New York. Herndon, I may add, represented the yo
urb, and Jack tore down the
ok hands, "and wondering whether you and Walter were in town
s?" laughed Kennedy. "Or perhaps you hav
nt. "We're having a big shake-up down at the office, none of yo
coming?" inquired Craig
e force as a special deputy surveyor to rout out some smuggling that we know is going on. If I make good
asked Kennedy observantly.
m and walked us over to a stone bench
e peculiar death of Mademoiselle Violette, the little Fre
y. "What has that to d
thering us all summer. It's the first really big thing I've been up against and
smuggle gowns and jewellery from Paris. Smuggling jewellery is pretty common because jewels take up little space and are very valuable. Perhaps it doesn't sound to you like a big thing to smuggle dresses, but when you realise that one of those filmy lacy creations may often be worth several hundred, if not thousand, dollars, and that it needs only a few of them on each ship that comes in to run up i
incriminating herself-or himself. Strange to say, this new clue came from the wife of one of the customs men. She happened to be in a Broadway manicure shop one day when she heard a woman talking with the manicurist about fall styles, and she was all attention when she heard the customer say, 'Yo
, indeed. But then, I guess she meant that she had to pay the duty now. You know they ar
lied the customer
shrug of the shoulders and a
case was progressing favourably and he had become acquainted with one of the girls who worked in the shop. We might have got some evidence, but suddenly this morning he walked up to my desk and handed me an early edition of an afternoon paper. Mademoiselle
nection between her death an
lery this season. For one thing, we believe he has acquired from a syndicate a rather famous diamond necklace which it has taken years to assemble and match up, worth about three hundred thousand. You know the duty on made-up jewellery is sixty per cent., and even if he brought the stones in loose it would be ten per cent., which on a valuation of, say, two hundred thousand, means twenty thousand dollars duty alone. Then he has a sple
en from the bench and
en
the basement and first floor had been remodelled for business purposes. Mademoiselle's place, which was on
n the same street, while almost directly across was a sign which proclaimed that on September
there, and the former was expecting Herndon. Kennedy
f, the second as a workroom for the girls whom she employed, while she lived on the top floor, which had been fitted for light housekeepin
o take in the situation. "I suppose they told nearly all the story, but wha
his pocket. It had four round holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed his haking hastily at the body, which showed n
ed under his little finger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen little blade of the brightest and toughest steel. He was holding, instead of a meaninglessthe underworld of Paris," broke out Ke
by expert medical testimony that we can determine whether it was placed on her fingers be
profuse flow of blood which we had expected to see, there was a single round spot. And in the wh
he weapon to the dead woman and back again. "Internal hemorrhage. I suppose you
from Pierre, the jeweller. They seem to have been engaged, and yet the letters stopped abruptl
The same notepaper and the same handwri
edy might he could find nothing further than
demoiselle's and were riding downtown to the customs house with Herndon. "What do
ps abroad, mostly Pierre. Pierre, as you see, was very intimate with Mademoiselle, and the letters simply confirm what the girls told my detective. He was believed to be engaged to h
r? What role does he p
seem always to be plentifully supplied with money and to have a good trade. Lang lives most of the time up on the west shore of the Hudson, and seems to be more interested in
Kennedy, "what about
ere they-ah
to go motor-boating with Lang, but only when her fiance, Pierre, was along. No, I don't think she ever had anything to do with Lang, if that's what you are driving at. He may h
d with his stenographer to get the very latest reports fr
lved a death. Really, I've come to look on smuggling as one of the fine arts among crimes. Once the smuggler, like the pirate and the highwayman, was a sort of gentleman-rogue. But now it has become a very ladylike art. The extent of it is almost beyond belief, too. It begins with the steerage and runs right up to the
er they call it? Well, here's another cable from our Paris Secret Service with a belated tip. They tell us to look out for a Mademoiselle Gabrielle-on La Montaigne, too. That's another interesting thing. You know the various lines are all ranked, at
ographer, who had entered while he was speaking, "and she is three
and 'bring in the ship,' as our men call it when the deputy surveyor and his acting deputies go down to meet it at Quarantine. I can't tell you how
oked more blue as they danced in the early sunlight, flecked here and there by a foaming whitecap as the conflicting tides eddied about. The shores of Staten Island were
t was not a revenue cutter, however, on which we were ploughing down the bay. The cutter lay, white and gleaming in the morning sun, at anchor off Stapleton, li
, where she had been waiting since early morning for the tide and the customs officials. The tug steamed alongside, and quickly up the high ladders swarmed the boarding officer and the deputy collectors. We followed Herndon straight
number at the bottom and handed the number back, to be presented at the in
we want to watch," I
tall dark fel
iled his declaration and was chatting vivaciously with a lady who was just about to file hers. S
do that, but now you simply sign your name-and take a cha
ector detached the stub and handed it t
out to the deck, s
ular," I heard him say, "I always used to get the courtes
of approaching autumn. We had passed up the lower bay and the Narrows, and the pass
g a sharp watch on the tall, thin man. Incidentally he sought out the wireless operator and from him
ponds with any of the goods mentioned in the first cable from Paris," a collector
e," was his laconic reply. "Tha
deposited on the wharf and slowly the passengers filed down the plank to meet the line of white-capped un
seen. In the semi-light of the little windows in the enclosed sides of the pier, under the steel
n inspector was quickly assigned to him. It was all done neatly in the regular course of business apparently. He did not know that
xposed to the gaze of that part of the public which was not too much concerned over the same thing as to its own goods and chattels. Reticules and purses were being inspected. Every trunk was pre
nied by us, posing as visitors, was sauntering about. At last we came within
. "Call the appraiser," he said at last, with the air of a man standing on his rights. "I object to this frisking of passeng
sure he knew he was being watched, but as the dispute proceeded he assumed the look of a man keenly amused. The matter, involving only a few
hat he must be so expert, that, if he really were a smuggler, he had all the poise
hispered. "She says she is just comin
guileless ingenue, M
rying to bring in as personal effects of a foreign resident gowns w
had got rid of us temporarily, but we knew the inspector would be,
shabby, and cheap. She denied everything, raged and threatened. But when, instead of ordering the stamp "Passed" to be placed on her half dozen trunks and bags which contained in reality onl
nd, "generally even for a first offence the goods are confiscated and the court or district attorney is content to let the person of
ppose if I must, I must," she said, and the only result of the diversion was that she
n rejoined us and we casually returned to the vicinity of our tall friend, Number 140, for whom I felt even less respect than ever after his apparently un
ess jewels, not a suspicious bulging of any garment or of the lining of a trunk or grip. Some of the goods might have been on his person, but not much, and certainly there was no excuse for ordering a personal examinat
d savagely as the stamp "Passed" was at last affixed and he paid in cash at the little window with its sign, "Pay Duty He
sengers as well, to prevent any of them from being in league with the smugglers, t
o, when Craig's attention was called
ked as he lifted one. It
Miss Gabrielle," answered an inspector. "Bonded for Tro
uld it be that the real seat of trouble was not here but at some other place,
a thing of value in them. Most of the contents consisted of clothes that had plainly been made in America and were being brought back here. It was anoth
the goods in Paris,
any doubts about his opinion on that score. "I thought perhaps we had a case of-what do you call it, Herndo
. No expressman would dare try it now. I m
en at every turn in the game. Herndon seemed to feel that there was a bitter sting in the defeat, particularly because the smuggler or sm
se," he remarked, "Mademoiselle Gabrielle wasn't an actress. But we can't deny that she had v
imate with her at first," I venture
blind, to divert attention from himself. I suspect th
ur backs were turned and whisked the goods invisibly into the country? I could find no explanation for the little drama on the pier.
essage came in from one of his shadows. The men trailing Pierre and Mademoiselle Gabrielle had crossed trails and run together at a little French restaurant on the lower West S
f the death of Mademoiselle Violette, they had paid no attention. It seemed evident that whatever the fate of the modiste, Mademoisel
The party had left the restaurant hurriedly, and though they had taken the only taxicab in sight he had been able to follow them in time to find out that they
front near La Montaigne's pier, after dinner. The change in Kennedy's spirits was obvious, though it did not in the least enlighten my curiosity. Even after a dinner which was lengthened out c
hbourhood did not appeal to me at night, and even though there were two of us I w
eet and turned down the next pier, where a couple of freighters were lying. The odour of salt water, sewage, rotting
ingerly across the dirty deck of the freight ship. Below we could hear the water lapping the piles of the pier. Across a dark abyss
taken from me. It proved to be a huge reflector in front of which was placed a little arrangement w
a couple of dry cells and a cylinder with a broadened end, made of vulcanised rubb
otion on the opposite side of the pier distracted my attention. A ship was coming in and was being c
as he rejoined us. To my look of in
hed and had pointed t
spered hasty word of
e along with him d
ed. The customs service night watchman-there is always a watchman of some kind aboard every ship, passenger
tric lights the longshoremen were working feverishly, for the unloading and loading of a giant trans-Atlantic vessel in the rush seas
by one of the many entrances and then proceeded down to a deck where apparently no one was working. It was more like a great house than a ship, I felt
nd chests, stacked up and marked as belonging to the ship. Kennedy's attention was attracted to them imme
to verify his suspicions, a sudden approach of footsteps startled us
eak into the boxes, if you think the stuf
e while their tools take all t
compartment looked about as
wn," a gruff voice s
men, and from the ease with which they shifted the cases
re polished but unfa
alised it. With a taunting laugh, some one turned a key in the lock and before we
ndon and our friends. We had run up against professional smugglers, of whom I
t, but it was impossible for a man to squeeze out. There was one of the lower decks directly before us while a bright arc light gleam
at the next wharf and speculated as to the location where we had left Herndon with the huge reflector. There was no moon and
the river front, with lights extinguished, and had pushed a cautious nose into the slip where our ship lay at the quay. None of your romantic low-lying, rakish cra
I grumbled as I understood now what was a
e followed. It was one of the boxes which we had seen outside
etectives locked in a cabin here. We can't stay no
gs into a little bundle. We'll take that, but you'll have to ge
ide, and from the sound we could infer that t
ellows in there. We're going up the dock. Sorry to leave you
nder the rays of the arc light overhead. He was holding something in his hand. It seemed like a little silver-backed piece of thin glass wi
ried, beating on the door, to which only a
ps after the code wireless message was received. But we have been overpowered and locked in a cabin with a port too small to crawl through. The cases have been lowered over the side of the ship to a motor-boat that was waiting below. The li
who might have chanced on the deck outside. There was no one. The only t
s the use of repeating it now? The thing to do is to get out of th
er, but kept his eyes glued on the Cim
aving back and forth as it was lowered to the dark waters of the river. It was a searchlight. At once I thought of the huge reflecto
sked eagerly. "Wh
r had been answered
tai
this side of La Montaigne, I knew, would serve. What I did, Walter, was merely to talk into the mouthpiece back of this little silvered mirror which reflects light. The vibrations of the voice caused a diaph
ries over there-and there you are. It is very simple. In the ordinary carbon telephone transmitter a variable electrical resistance is produced by pressure, since carbon is not so good a conductor under pressure. Then these variations are transmitted along two wires. This photophone is wireless. Selenium even emits notes under a vibratory beam of light, the pitch depending on the frequency. Changes in the intensity of
head in quickly recalled my attention. "Look out on the river, Walter," he c
ess motor-boat bobbing up and down, crowding on all speed, yet followed rele
was an unequal race. Nor would it have made much difference if it had been otherwise, for a shot rang out fro
shoved aside and a key in the door of our compartment turned
nquired anxiously. "We've got that st
ed Craig. "The cutter
eaded toward us. She came alongside, and Herndon quickly seized a rope, fastened it
ce that must have been Lang's protesting. "By wha
e capes of the Delaware, demand an inspection of any vessel's manifest and papers, board anything from La Montai
sides, you were violating
en another. Inside he disclosed thousands of dollars' worth of finery, while f
crushed, all his
It wasn't as easy as you thought to throw her over for a new soul mate, this Mademoiselle Gabrielle whom you were going to set up as a r
him by the wrist and ground his knuckles into the back of Pierre's clenched fist until he winced with pain. An Apache dagger similar to that which the little modis
ng him. "You can't cheat the government out of
NVISI
ad some expectations f
ce, with some emotion, so low that I had entered the room without b
remembered in his will. But, Professor Kennedy, I can't put it too strongly when I say that there
in an instant that the speaker was a practitioner of a type
on," introduced Craig. "You can talk as freely before
nds with t
ome unique features," Kennedy explained. "It has to do with Stephen Haswe
le had not yet taken flight, a house of mystery, yet not more mysterious than its owner in his secretive comings and goings in the affairs of men of a generation beyond his time. Further than the facts
ailing fast, that is, he appeared so the last time I saw him, a few days ago, after I had been superseded by a younger man. It is a curious case and I have thought about it a great deal. But I didn't like to speak to the authorities; there wasn't enough to warrant that, and I should have been laughed out of court for my pains. The mo
which Burnham stood in the case. Before the doctor could proceed further, Kennedy handed me a letter which had be
mall town in Ohio and a dat
tly with me in that respect, if not in money matters. I do not say this in the hope of reconciling you to me. I know that is impossible after all these cruel years. But I do wish that I could see you again. Remember,
ving da
ASWELL
from a photograph. It was the first time that Grace Haswell had ever been able to find expression for the artistic yearning which had always been repressed by the cold, practical sense of her father. She remembered her mother p
r and an easy living. Art was as foreign to his nature as possible. Nevertheless they went ahead and married, and, well, it resulted in the old man disinheriting the girl. The young couple disappeared bravely to make their way by their chosen professi
is Mrs. Martin or her h
to intercede for her. I did so. I took the letter to him as diplomatically as I could. The old man flew into a towering rage, refused even to look at the letter, to
rious curious speculations, or rather in loaning money to many curious speculators. It is not necessary to go into the different schemes which he has helped
to persuade Mr. Haswell to back him in his scheme, but he was never disposed to talk to me, for I had no money to invest. So far as I know about it the thing sounds scientific and plausible enough. I leave you to judge of that. It is only an incident in my story and I will pass over it quickly. Prescott, then, believes that the elements are merely progressive variations of an original substance or ba
in," commented Craig, turning from the doctor to me to c
very naturally does not have to go far before he also claims a control over telepathy and even a communication with the dead. He even calls the messages which he receives b
tly, as far as I am able to piece together the story, Prescott was demonstrating
ee it by means of my wonderful invention? If it is the truth, will you believe in me
w, with Haswell placed directly before it. He gave a cry. 'Mr. Haswell,' he exclaimed, 'I regret to tell you what I see. Yo
erly, 'and more than that I don't care.
ou bear something further? I think you ought to k
t is it? I
midnight or perhaps a little later,' repeated Prescott solemn
ye. You told me you were able to make gold. Instead, you make foolish prophecies. I'll put no m
er, Jane, whom he had hired after he banished his daughter from his life, heard a wild shout o
rdered, 'a li
the gas, Mr. Ha
a match, had struck it, had even burnt
which Prescott, by means of his weird telepa
gasped. 'Send f
except prescribe perfect rest for his eyes and keeping in a dark room in the hope tha
mbling and scrawling in his blindness, he
out the present whereabouts of Mrs. Grace
L,--Pierrepont
a changed man after his experience. He spoke bitterly of Prescott, yet his attitude toward his daughter was completely reversed. Whether
ame to the old man from a little town in Indiana. It read si
ing was changed. Jane grumbled a great deal, but there was no doubt a great improvement. Meals were served regularly. The old man was taken care of as never before. Nothing was too good for him. Everywhere the touch of a woman was evident in the house. The change was complete. It even extended to me. Some friend had told her of a
arouse suspicion?" asked Kennedy
pened to meet Jane on the street. The faithful old soul poured forth a long story about his growing dependence on others and ended by mentioning a curious red discoloration that see
tt and Mrs. Martin are in some way
voice earnestly-"practically every misfortune that has overtaken Mr. Haswell has been since the advent of this new Dr. Scott. Mind, I do not wish even to breathe that Mrs. Martin has done anything except what a daughter should do. I think s
rnham had come to a full stop after pouring forth his suspicions. "I should like to see thi
ery much interested in electrical inventions. He made his money by speculation in telegraphs and telephones in the early days when they were more or less dreams. I should think a wireless system of
yway. It is still early. Suppose we ride over to Brooklyn with
y showed the change. The furniture and ornaments were of a period long past, but everything was scrupulously neat. Hanging over the old marble mantel was a painting which quite evidently was that of the long since deceased Mrs. Haswell, the mother of Grac
-evident from the start that Mrs. Martin would throw cold water on anything requiring an outlay of money Craig accomplished his full purpose of securing an i
called it on the spur of the moment, when Jane, the aged caretaker, announced Dr. Scott. The new doctor was a youthfully dressed man, clean-shaven, but with an undefina
a social as well as a professional nature. Although they talked low we could catch now and then a word or phrase. Dr. Scott bent down
o Mrs. Martin than to the old man. "Perfect rest, and then when his
rheard. Kennedy was sitting in a chair near the head of the bed, some feet away, as the doctor leaned down. Haswell, still holding his wrist, pulled him closer. I could not hear what
d was apparently engaged in jotting down some notes, glancing now
e same time he smiled on Mrs. Martin. "Your father has a good deal of strength yet, Mrs. Martin," he remarked. "He
description of the supposed wireless picture apparatus which was to revolutionise the newspaper, the theatre
sted in is a way in which to recover his sight without an operation. He has just had a rather unpleasant exp
sappointment. From his preoccupied manner it was impossible fo
over here," he said when we had reached th
the house we had just left. He appeared a little surprised t
we were seated in the comfortable leather
uiries and I can find out nothing except that he is supposed to be a graduate of some Western medical school and came to this city only a short time ago. He has hired a small office i
ts me, too," remarked Kennedy
o at Mr. Haswell's. I should think it would be worth while to see him. Although he has no use for me because I have neither money nor influence, still you might take this card. Tell
nedy. "After I have seen him I shall drop in
ised, and we to
d warehouses clustered thickly. It was with a great deal of anticipation of seeing something happen that we threaded our way through the maze of streets with the cobweb structure of the bridge c
careful not to excite suspicion. Perhaps a disguise might have been better, but I think this will do. There-they add at least a decade to your age. If you
Prescott, surrounded by his retorts, crucibles, burettes, and condensers, received us much more graciously than I had had any reason to anticipate. He was a m
though he accepted us at our face value, and began to talk of his strange discoveries there was none of the old familiar prating about matrix and flux, elixir, magisterium, magnum opus, the mastery and the quintessence, those
tury. But I may say that it is no longer so regarded. I do not ask you to believe anything until you have seen; all I ask
piece or rather collection of apparatus over which Presc
it, but they refuse to consider the application or even to give me a chance to demonstrate my process to them. On the other hand, suppose I try this thing secretly. How can I prevent any one from learning my trade secret, leaving me, and making gold on his own account? Men will desert as fast as I educate them. Think of the economic result of that; it would turn the world topsy-tur
part of the collection of
ain, you know that we have found that all the elements fall into groups. Each group has certain related atomic weights and properties which can be and have been predicted in advance of the discovery of missing elements in the group. I started with the reasonable assumption that the atom of
em in the scale, so to speak. I have found it. I am not going to tell you or any other man whom you may interest the secret of how it is done until I fin
eality a manifestation of force or ether in motion, it is necessary to change and control that forc
ing note. In other words, a succession of blows or wave vibrations of a certain kind affects the ear and we call it sound, just as a succession of other wave vibrations aff
of the seven colours as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. After that are what are known as the ultra-violet rays, which lie beyond the violet of white light. We also have electric waves, the waves of the alternating current, and shorter still we
ly charged ions, or electrons, moving units of negative electricity about one one-thousandth part of the hydrogen atom. Matter is ma
ps or octaves and twelve series. Selecting one, he placed his finger on the letters "Au," und
down the second vertical column on the chart, "that gold belongs to the hydrogen group-hydrogen, lithium, sodium, potassium, copper, rubid
m, lead, bismuth, and other elements known only to myself. For the known elements, however, these groups and series are now perfectl
s helium, quite another element. Thus the transmutation of matter is well known within certain bounds to all scientists to-day like yourself, Professor Kennedy. It has even been rumoured but never proved that copper has been transformed into lithium-both members of the hydrogen-gold group, you will o
id, and as it mounted in intensity I could smell a pungent odour of ozone which told of an electric discharge. On went the machine until we coul
ny substance in the group would do, even hydrogen if there was any way I could handle the gas. I place it in the machine-so. Now if you could watch inside you would see it change; it
d there glowed in it a little
ride. "And I can put this gold back and bring it out copper or hydrogen, or better yet, can advance it instead of cause it to decay, and can get a radioactive element which I ha
as if perfectly satisfi
at to think. It was all
too, that I turned to
ed? His face w
in the palm of his hand a bit of what might be a mineral. From my po
"what that curious greenish or bluis
his gaze from the bit of mineral in his own hand, but was not looking at the light. H
ion of energy, sir, that may run changes not only through the whole gamut of the elements, but is capable of transformin
he curious telepagrams I have he
ge from a livid white to an apoplectic red, although it may have been only the pla
ut for some reason or other I failed to consult the forces I control as to the wisdom of doing so. Had I, I should have known better. But I went ahead in self-confidence and enthusiasm. I told him of a long banished daughter with whom, in his heart, he was really wishing to become reconciled but was too proud to say the
something distasteful. The daughter hates me and I hate her. I have learned that she never ceases advising the old man against all schemes for investment except those bearing moderate interest and readily realised on. Dr. Burnham-I see you know him-has
opened it, and a messenger boy stood there
boy, signed for the me
m," he exclaimed, hand
like asphyxiation by gas or some other poi
dead, and Dr. Burnham wishes to see me immediately. It was only yesterday that I saw Mr. Haswell and he seemed in pretty good health and spirits. Prescott, though there wa
hone to his own laboratory, describing a certain suitcase to one of his students and giving his directions. It was only a moment later that we were panting up
rn what had happened. The faithful Jane had noticed an odour of gas in the hall, had traced it to Mr. Haswell's room, had found him unconscious, and instinctively, forgetting the new Dr. Scott, had
dead, all right," he whispered, aside. "I have tried eve
f illuminating gas in the room, alt
ent, turned from and ignored Dr. Burnham. "Have
surprised. "Shoul
Mr. Prescott, will you kindly
hem up until they were extended straight. Then he brought them down, folded upward at the elbow at the side. Again and again he tried this Sylvester method of inducing respira
"but they are trying to locate him from his office,
ut it proved to be the student to whom Kennedy had telephoned at hi
forceps, and other paraphernalia. The student quickly attached one tube to the little tank, while Kennedy grasped the tongue
to resuscitate persons who have died of electric shock, but actually
ordion bellows from the tank through one of the tubes into the lungs. Then it fell as the oxygen and the poisonous g
pe. The man was dead, medically dead, as dead as ever was any gas victim at this
alf-hour of unremitting effort, when the oxygen had long since been exhausted and only fresh air was being pumped into the lungs and out of them, there was a
," he moaned, rolling
e letter? Se
t was like a voice from the grave. What did it a
here I am-Grace.
embling hand to his forehead as if trying to collect his tho
acked up, and as he did so he remarked quietly, "I could wish that Dr. Sc
e apparent even to me that she did not share the desire to see Dr. Scott, at least not just then. She w
, even if you have saved my father, are no friends of either his or mine. You have merely come here in response to D
t have been found in ti
with evide
ark and continued t
, you, Mr. Prescott, you, Professor Kennedy, an
an's apparent lack of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair come to a contest between various parties fighting by fair means or foul for the old man's money-
and over my shoulder I could hear him gas
to obey her orders and leave the house. Burnham moved toward the door, but Prescott stood his ground wit
mebody behind us, "en
bending down, listening to
Mr. Haswell," he said.
d. They
iarly limpid blue. No couple with blue eyes ever had a black-eyed child. At least, if this is such a case, the Carnegie Institution investigators would be glad to hear of it, for it is contr
rantically past us. "I AM his daughter.
oved feebly a
in," she demanded. "See
. You are all en
but included the whole
nedy remorselessly. "Ye
y is he n
rm and the other on Dr. Burnham
take the trouble even to find out how you obtained that little globule of molten gold from the crucible of alleged copper. There are so many tricks by which the gold coul
ineral I had already seen in his
e clever than your real story. Let us piece it together. I had already heard from Dr. Burnham how Mr. Haswell was induced by his desire for gain to visit you and how you had most mysteriously predicted his blindness. Now, there is no su
reful not to pause long enough to give
when he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them-particularly the shorter of the rays-enter the eye is to invite trouble. There is no warning sense of discomfort, but from six to eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences violentNow, for one thing, ultra-violet light passes readily through quartz, but is cut off by ordinary glass, especially if it is coated with chromium. Old Mr. Haswell did not wear glass
e are also in your machine induction coils for the purpose of making an impressive noise, and a small electric furnace to heat the salted gold. I don't know what other ingenious fakes you have added. The visible bluish light from the tube is
ophecy. You succeeded better than you hoped in that part of your scheme. You had already prepared the way by means of a letter sent to Mr. Haswell through Dr. Burnham. But Mr. Haswell's credulity and fear wo
s if in some way I knew you for what you were, as if I knew you had seen Mr. Haswell before you came to me. You, too, would have robbe
ned in his mocking laugh. Were we doomed to blindness,
h spectacles of Euphos glass, precisely like those you wear. No, Prescott, we are safe, t
ly wheeling, and startling us by the abruptness of his next exposure, "it is you and your wife here-Mrs. Prescott, not Mrs. Martin-who must
t and held him tightly in a grasp of steel that caused the
part was to destroy the eyesight of the old man, to make it necessary for him to call on his daughter. Your wife's part was to play the role of Mrs. Martin, whom he had not seen for
of the death of her father. It was an excellent scheme. But Haswell's plain, material newspaper advertisement was not so effective for your purposes, Prescott, as the more arti
you, Mrs. Prescott, read, destroyed, and acted upon. It hurried your plans, but you were equal to the emergency. Besides, possession is nine points in the law. You tried the gas, making it look like
lled a paper from his pocket. It was the old envelope on which he had written upon the occasion of ou
swell was telling Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it. But the old man grasped the doctor by the wri
It is a system invented and developed by Professor Tamassia of the University of Padua, Italy. A superficial observer would say that all vein patterns were essentially similar, and many have said so, but Tamassia has foun
ut on that hand. I noted the same thing just now on the hand that manipulated the fake appa
can rest assured, Prescott, that the very cleverness of your scheme will penetrate the eyes of the blindfolded goddess of justice
I
MPAIGN
he newspapers print news again," I growled as I turned the
ing mail. "This is the bitterest campaign in years. Now, do you suppose that they are a
o pass an opinion on it, I picked it up. It was only a few lines, requesting him to call during the morning, if convenient, on Wesley Travis, the candi
ust be some scandal in the campaign
tead of politics it has at least this merit-it is current
tlemen in frock coats and silk hats. It would have taken no great astuteness, even without seeing the surroundings, to deduce instantly that they were engage
ed politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with tobacco. Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency which was decidedly prepossessing. Maps of the state were hanging on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins denoting the condition of the canvass. A map of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of distri
een astute enough to shake off the thraldom of the bosses before the popular uprising against them. N
nd Billy McLoughlin, of the regular party to which both Travis and Bennett might naturally have been supposed to belong in the old d
t such a big 'barrel' as our opponents, for we are not frying the fat out of the corporations. But the people have supported us nobly, and I think the opposition of the v
they were sure that the thing was put up by some muckrakers and that there would be an expose of some kind. For the thief, whoever he was, seems to have taken nothing from my library but a sort of scrap-book or album of photogra
ntial. He hinted that they had been evidently among those stolen from Mr. Travis and that in a roundabout way they had come into the possession of a friend of his without his knowing who the thief was. He said that he had not made the photographs himself, but had an idea by whom
a price on them?" asked Kennedy, keenly
there are several of them, all in the same vein. Now," he added, and his voice rose with emotion as if he were addressing a cart-tail meeting which must be convinced that there was nothing criminal in riding in a motor-car, "I don't hesitate to admit that a year or so ago I was not on terms of intimacy with these men, but at least acquainted with them. At various times, even as late as last spring, I was present at conferences over the presidential outlook in this state, and once I think I did ride back to the city with them. But I know that there were no pictures taken, and even if there had be
r suppressed, according as we act. Now, you know that nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have an issue like this raised at this time. We were supposed at least to be on the level, with nothing to explain away. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for this suspicion to turn the tide against us. If it were earlier in the campaign I'd say accept the issue, f
is, shutting his square jaw d
a huge hat and a tantalising veil, stood in it for a moment, hesitated, a
I won't be blackmailed out of a cent. Good-morning, Miss Ashton.
When she had disappeared he returned and remarked, "I suppose you have heard of Miss Margaret Ashton, the suffragette leader, Mr. Kennedy? She is the head of ou
course be accepted as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, he is right. The public will swallow it. When Bennett told him I would prosecute he laughed and said, 'Go ahead. I didn't steal the pictures. That would be a great joke for Travis to seek redress from the courts he is criticising. I guess he'd want to recall the decision if it went against him-hey?' Hanford says t
etter. Pictures appeal to the eye and mind much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Billy McLoughlin knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an
ols of ourselves until they are published Monday as the last big thing of the campaign. The rest of Monday and the Tuesday morning papers do NOT give us time to reply. Even if they were published to-day we should hardly have time to expose the plot, hammer it in, and make the issue an asset instead of a liability. No, you must admit it yourself. There
nterested spectators, had not presumed to interrupt.
t he was too astute to leave them. I saw them for an instan
tolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new.
d his campaign manners, and leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words o
litics is a new game to me, Mr. Travis. If I go into this thing I want to go into it and stay in it-well, y
cried Travi
er-foundation, it is not reasonable to suppose that I should desert you and go over to the other side. Neither is it to be supposed that I will continue and carry such a thing through for you regardless of tru
r sceptically. "You are willing to risk it? You don't think
my conditions,"
. If we get in wrong by dickering with them at the start it
ad dubiously. "I'm a
ust as well. Photograp
the people who make th
accomplish with eit
?" reproached Travis. "You're not offende
d grasped his other. "Wesley," he said earnestly, "I
ee what he can do. Then if we make no progress we'll take your advice, Dean. We
roviso," pu
more to me than any of them. Call on us, either Bennett or myself, the moment you need aid. Spare no reasonable expense, and-and get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up,
and clerical force as well as the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were g
ss Ashton was a clever girl, a graduate of a famous woman's college, and had had several years of newspaper experience before she became a leader in the suffrage cause. I recalled having read and heard a great deal about her, though I had never met he
se the work or the ability of the head of the press bureau, but it struck me, both then and later, that the candidate had an extraordinary interest in the newspaper campaign, much
ical leaders, and changes of sentiment, were very full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular pigeon-hole mind for facts, was visibly impressed by this huge mechani
d been eyeing Miss Ashton with marked approval, leaned over and said in a low voice. "
f her feelings was, although I fancied that the readiness of her assent had
at an attempt is being
dded Kenne
s had told her before even we were called in. I felt that not unlikely Travis's set det
litical enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing abou
pretty careful. Some one is always over here by my desk or looking over here. There isn't much secrec
dy. "What time doe
t about nine, I think. T
-past nine, Could you be here? I need hardly say that you
ight arm shake and looking him frankly in the face with those eyes wh
but a host of small sums ranging from ten and twenty-five dollars down to dimes and nickels. Truly it showed the depth of the popular uprising. Kennedy also glanced hastily over the items
gning in these days costs money even when done honestly. The miscellaneous account showed some large indefinite items, and after a hasty calc
ately or put his fund in hopeless shape. Or does it mean that he foresees de
picions, though I could see that in his mi
n old building on one of the side streets in the thirties which business had captured. His was a little place on
or at least posed as representing a third party in the affair, and ab
o be published in the newspapers. We have found out all about them; we are satisfied, although the negatives have been destroyed. As for their having been stolen from Travis, you can put two and two together. They are out and copies have been made of them, good copies. If Mr
ne the library at Travis's from which the pictures were said to have been stolen. At the laborato
hotographs of the window, the cabinet, the doors, including the room from every angle. Outside he snapped the two sides of the corner of the house in which the library was situated. Partly by trolley and partly by carriage we crossed the island to the
the interval in developing his plates, for he now had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size, m
ine from those pictures distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the spot itself. Bertillon has cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the m
oot rule on a table and taking that in the picture, but a more scientific and accurate method has been devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In the w
ust have known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock were not those of a jimmy but of a screwdriver. No a
to show it. But take a glance at this outside photograph. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There are no marks of a ladder or of any p
in the house or at least some o
ed, "a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the crime, as Bert
een a put-up job? Was Travis himself faking, and was the robbery a "plant" by which he might forestall exposure of what had become
ing convention. He admitted having done so before the Reform League came into existence. Besides it seemed tacitly understood that both the Boss and Cadwalader Brown acquiesced in the sworn statement of the man who said he had made the pictures. Added to that the mere existence of
the middle of one end of the room in which, if she could keep an eye
ll. With a mallet he quickly knocked a hole in the rough plaster, just above the baseboard about the room. The hole did not penetrate quite through to the other side. In it he placed a round disc of
e carpet and a rug, eighteen or twenty huge coils several feet in diameter disposed in s
ext move. "I shall want to see you early to-morrow, and,-mi
t was not his taste in inverted basket millinery that prompted the requ
anxiously at his hotel after a big political mass meeting on the East Side, at w
?" inquired T
m, for the present. The time limit will expire to-morrow, and I understand Hanford is coming up for a final ans
actually pale. "You-you don't mean to say that there is no other way,
t way," said Kennedy m
, we could have done that anyhow. No, no,-I don't mean
ord when he comes up to-morrow. Have him arrange the details of
seemed
ennedy handed her a package, and in a few words, which I did no
were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrap-books, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal. The room
at her desk with her h
remarked enigmat
on, I wish you would let me know immediately. I must not be seen up here, but I shall be waiting do
ngle in which we could see without being readily seen, and our im
a case in which her personal feelings were not involved as they were here. She wa
I won't believe it,
ppened?" urged Ke
o do this?" she reproached. "I would a
ou ought to know. It is on you that I depen
ooked about the room curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a time. Then he locked the door leading f
pted Kennedy. "H
carcely giving one a chance to in
down here, and he tried to act toward me in the same old way-and that after all I know now about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting for Mr. Travis, and this Mr. Hanford.
nedy, a light breaking on his fa
e compact. They-they haven't asked me openly yet to be the means
ould take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Walter, you will excuse us if
hope you're right. I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't expose Wesley Travis for his sake. It cuts me to have to admit it, but Cadwalader used al
ton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of
vis for giving in-more than I hate Cadwalader Bro
cted her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay. Nevertheless i
urged Kennedy. "They w
h. Suspend judgment.
doing some rapid thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did not venture to question him on
than words that he saw his way more and more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire the va
the wall, only this time he did it much more carefully, and it was evident that if he intended putting anything into this cavity it must be pretty large. The hole was square, and as I bent over I could see that he had cut through the plaster and laths all the wa
something entirely different that he had in mind now, however, and he was working quickly for fear of discovery. By his measurements I guessed that he was calculating as nearly as possible the centre of the box which he had placed in the hole
ts effect, for when we saw her a few moments after thes
udio," she said quietly, "and without letting them know
ennedy, greatly relie
g faintly, "I'm just femi
ard the next vacant office. To the left of the big calendar you will see a light pencil mark, a cross. Somehow you must contrive to get near it, but don't stand in front of it. Then if anything happens stick this little number 10 n
ext office. We could hear nothing of what was said, but when a door shut and it was evident that s
which were to be carried by her from the studio, while he remained to see who came out. I thought a change had
e past two days came the following evening, when Craig remarked casually that he would like to have me call on Bi
when the purse strings were loosed and a flood of potent argument poured for
ene, or action. Indeed a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an important case may rest should be subjected to critical examination for it is an established fact that a photograph may be made as untruthful as it may be reliable. Combination photographs change
o the changes that may be wrought in form and feature. It is possible to represent a person crossing Broadway or walking on Riverside Drive, places he
convince all, except the expert and the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will insist that
ing on the steps of your house with yourself and Mr. Cadwalader Brown. He and Mr. Brown are in poses that show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate to say that that was or
uously. "How about the affidavits? There's no negative. You've got to prove tha
e bundle of metric photographs and the alleged photographs of Travis. He was pointing t
n from a study of the shadows. It is possible in principle and practice and can be trusted. Almost any scientist may be called on to bear testimony
gable casting the shadow is easy. To be exact it is 19.62 feet high. The shadow is 14.23 feet down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see I am exact. I have to be. In one minu
mb line, level, compass, and tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole and sun, dec
26, and there can therefore be no appreciable error except for a few seconds. For that date must have been one of two days, either May 22 or July 22. Between these two dates we must decide on evidence other than the shadow. It must have been in May, as the immature condition of the foliage shows. But even if it had been in July, that is far from being September. The matter of the
t. McLoughlin and Hanford were s
w that the general public has come to recognise the distortion of a photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a car in a race that doesn't le
curtain. The slit travels from the top to the bottom and the image on the plate being projected upside down, the bottom of the object appears on the top of the plate. For instance, the wheels are taken before the head of the driver.
you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture. True, everything else in, the picture, even if motionless, is distorted, and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will pass. In this case, however, the faker was so sure of that that he was careless. Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right he did so on
allow all that stuff, do you?" asked Ha
rding him surlily. "Well," he said at length, "what of all this? I had not
asked Kenne
ully. We could not see it, but as he l
you get that
itive plate would have made photographs. A box, thoroughly light-tight, slotted inside to receive plates, covered with black, and glued tight, a needle hole made by a number 10 needle in a thin sheet of paper-and you have the apparatus for lensless photography. It has a co
s picture shows what happened before. At a critical moment Miss Ashton stuck a needle in the wall of the studio
ion on his face which I could not fathom. Not a word could I extract from him ei
ess. Everybody was involved. What had Miss Ashton overheard and what had Kennedy said to McLoughlin? Above all, what w
ed her to accompany me. The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance before this. Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans, hisses, and catcalls, or all together with cheers as the returns swung in another direc
orps of clerks was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports. As first the state swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and fell. Miss Ashton seemed col
arge enough to overcome the hostile city vote? I was amaz
edy as district after district showed that the
you mean?" we ask
g whom or where or when it hit if he did not let up on Travis. I advised him to read his Revised Statutes again about money in elections, and I ended up wi
comprehending. "The faked photograph
ckly. I saw that Kennedy had not told her or any one yet, until the
dding, "Before I complete my part of the
emulously, but with a look of happiness that
cLoughlin was shoving them away from him toward Bennett. A man who was facing forward in the picture was talking earnestly to some one who did not appear.
edy, "bring the account
ellaneous accou
seemed to me to show a shortage of nearly twenty thousand dollar
aign for money to replace it. With the aid of the crook, Hanford, McLoughlin's tool, you worked out the scheme to extort money from Travis by forged photographs. You knew enough about Travis's house and library to frame
val for Miss Ashton's hand. Perhaps into the bargain it would disgust her with politics, disillusion her, and shake her faith in what he believed to be some of her 'radical' notions. All cou
ve it yet. "How did you get
t it was a dictograph, though I could not tell how it was used or who used it. There it was, set squarely in the plaster. There also were
cket. Over my head I had an arrangement such as the telephone girls wear with a receiver at one ear connected with the battery. No one saw it, for I wore a large hat which completely hid it. If any one had known, and there
se coils of wire concealed under the carpet. They were wirelessly duplicated by induction in the coil abou
e thousand given to Hanford for his photographic work, and of the way Mr. Travis was to be defeated whether he paid or not. I heard them say that one condition was that I should carry the purchase money. I heard much that must have confirmed Mr. Kennedy's suspicio
lotted report. Kennedy seized it and read: "McLoughlin concedes the city by a small majority to T
ng no attention except to the p
Ashton to Travis," he said, adding gaily, "by induction of