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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Whispering Wires, by Henry Leverage
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Whispering Wires
+
+
+Author: Henry Leverage
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2010  [eBook #34046]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHISPERING WIRES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.fadedpage.net)
+
+
+
+WHISPERING WIRES
+
+Adapted from the _Saturday Evening Post_ Story of the Same Title
+
+by
+
+HENRY LEVERAGE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers
+
+Copyright, 1918,
+by
+Moffat, Yard & Company
+
+First printing . . . . September, 1918
+Second printing . . . . September, 1918
+Third printing . . . . October, 1918
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATED
+
+TO
+
+ONE WHO HELPED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+    I   "The Whispering Voice"           1
+   II   "The Magpie"                    15
+  III   "The Man in Olive-Drab"         31
+   IV   "The Murder"                    46
+    V   "The First Clews"               59
+   VI   "Harry Nichols"                 74
+  VII   "The Spot of Black"             89
+ VIII   "Tangled Wires"                107
+   IX   "Men and Motives"              124
+    X   "A Woman Calls"                144
+   XI   "The Closing Net"              181
+  XII   "Suspicion Fastens"            202
+ XIII   "A Silent Prisoner"            222
+  XIV   "The Prisoner Speaks"          239
+   XV   "The Voice on the Wire"        260
+  XVI   "The End"                      277
+
+
+
+
+WHISPERING WIRES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+"THE WHISPERING VOICE"
+
+
+In the greatest city of the modern world, in the Metropolis of Guilt
+and Guile--where Alias and Alibi ride in gum-shod limousines while Mary
+Smith of the pure heart walks the pavements with broken shoes--there is
+a mansion so rich and so rare that it stands alone.
+
+Turret and tower, green-bronze roof, Cararra-marbled portico and
+iron-grilled gates brought from Hyderabad, have made this mansion the
+show place and the Peri's paradise for those who parade the Avenue
+called Fifth, in an unending sash of fashion.
+
+Out from this palace at the close of a winter's day, there flashed the
+tiny pulsations of voice-induced currents of electricity which reached
+the telephone-central, were plugged upon the proper underground
+paper-insulated wires and entered, even as the voice was speaking, the
+cloud-hung office of Detective Drew.
+
+Triggy Drew, as he was called, was dark, stout and forty-one years of
+age to a month. He crooked his elbow, removed his cigar and pressed the
+telephone-receiver to his ear.
+
+The voice that came over the whispering wires was as clear as a bell
+within a bell. It said:
+
+"Montgomery Stockbridge wants you."
+
+Drew hung up the telephone-receiver. He replaced the cigar in his
+mouth. He wheeled in his chair and pressed a buzzer. To the operative
+who entered he said:
+
+"Delaney, watch things while I'm gone. I'm called up-town!"
+
+The operative reached and handed Drew his coat. He took the
+swivel-chair before the desk, as his chief clapped on a hat, turned his
+eyes toward the ground-glass door, and passed out with a brisk stride.
+
+"It's a big case," said Delaney leaning back. "Triggy is on somebody's
+trail. Maybe German--maybe not!"
+
+Drew nodded to the waiting operatives in the outer room of the suite.
+He swung into the hallway with his brown eyes glowing like a man who
+walked out of realism into romance.
+
+The elevator plumbed eighteen stories. The corridor was clear. A taxi
+stood at the curb. Into this Drew stepped, gave the address and was
+gently seated as the driver released his brake, set the meter, and
+dropped through first, second and into third speed.
+
+Past Wall Street the taxi flashed. It rounded toward the Bowery, which
+showed that the driver knew his map. It struck up through the car
+tracks, across to Washington Park and there took the long longitude of
+Fifth Avenue as the shortest and quickest way up-town.
+
+Drew had no eye for the passers-by. He was repeating two words over and
+over like a novice counting the same beads. Montgomery Stockbridge was
+a name to conjure with in the Bagdad of Seven Million. He had made many
+enemies and much money. His wealth ran well above seven figures.
+
+The taxi came to a gliding halt. Drew stepped out in front of a church.
+He tossed the driver two one-dollar bills and some silver. He waited as
+the taxi merged in the traffic. He turned and glanced keenly up and
+down the Avenue. Then he hurried north for one square, paused before
+the mansion of turrets and towers, and pressed a button which was set
+in the doorway.
+
+The door opened to a crack, then wide. A butler barred the way. To him
+Drew said, "Mr. Stockbridge sent for me."
+
+The butler bowed with old world civility. He took the detective's hat
+and coat. He waited until Drew removed his gloves. He bowed for a
+second time and led the way over rugs whose pile was as thick as some
+Persian temple's. They came finally, after an aisle of old masters, to
+the inner circle of latter-day finance and money-wizardry--the
+celebrated library of Montgomery Stockbridge.
+
+The Munition Magnate sat there. He turned as the butler announced the
+detective. He shot a gray-thatched pair of eyes up and over a mahogany
+table upon which a white envelope lay. He smiled coldly. His thumb
+jerked toward a leather chair into which Drew sank and leaned his
+elbows upon the table.
+
+Stockbridge coughed dryly. He blinked and studied the detective's face
+for a long minute. He glanced from the envelope up at a cone of rose
+light which hung from a cluster of electric-globes. His expression,
+seen in this light, was like an aged lion brought to bay. His wrinkled
+skin was tawny. His hands coiled and uncoiled like claws. They moved
+prehensilely, as though cobwebs were in that perfumed air of wealth and
+security. They poised over the envelope as if to snatch the secret or
+delusion hidden there.
+
+"See that letter!" declared the Munition Magnate, closing his fist and
+banging the table. "See it? D'ye see it?"
+
+Drew widened his eyes at the outburst. He crossed his legs and nodded.
+
+"It's blackmail!" Stockbridge snarled. "Rank-scented blackmail of the
+cheapest order."
+
+"A threat of some kind?"
+
+"Threat? Yes--a threat, in a way. It's clever, but it won't _work_ with
+me!"
+
+Drew recrossed his legs. He touched his short-cropped mustache with the
+fingers of his right hand. He coughed as in suggestion. His brows
+lifted as he studied the envelope from a distance.
+
+Stockbridge snatched it up suddenly. He slapped it against the edge of
+the polished table. He turned and found a cigar to his liking out of
+many in a humidor beneath a smaller table at the right of his chair. He
+bit on this cigar, struck a match, and dragged in the smoke with deep
+inhalings before he turned and opened the envelope, exposing a letter
+which he rapped with the knuckles of his left hand.
+
+"I'll beg to be excused," he said half-apologetically. "I'm not myself.
+This letter, you know. I want you to ferret it out. I want you to find
+out who sent it, and make him or her pay. Make them pay in full!"
+
+"May I see it?"
+
+Stockbridge hesitated. His eyes ran across the paper. His lips curled
+in an ugly, thin-visaged smile which wrinkled his yellow face. "See it?
+Yes!" he snapped, volplaning the sheet across the table with a vicious
+jerk of his wrist.
+
+"Ridgewood Cemetery," said Drew lifting the letter. "Heading, Ridgewood
+Cemetery," he repeated softly. "Dated yesterday," he added with a sly
+glance at Stockbridge. "Signed by the superintendent, I suppose. Yes,
+by the superintendent. He scrawls worse than I do. Well, it looks
+official and smells--ah!"
+
+Stockbridge worked his brows up and down like a gorilla. He chewed on
+his cigar with savage grinding of gold-filled teeth.
+
+"Smells graveyardy," continued Drew. "I get flowers and urns and
+new-turned earth. This seems to be the bare announcement that the grave
+you ordered dug in the family plot--is ready and waiting." Drew glanced
+up.
+
+"Quite so," sneered the Magnate.
+
+Drew stroked his upper lip. He turned the letter over. He held it to
+the rose-light and studied the water-mark. He raised his black brows
+and said sepulchrally:
+
+"Who is dead?"
+
+Stockbridge stiffened. "Dead?" he exclaimed. "Why, nobody is dead! Damn
+it, Drew, there's nobody dead at all!"
+
+The detective frowned. "Somebody in the immediate family?" he
+questioned. "Somebody you are expecting to pass away soon? Some one on
+their sick-bed, for instance?"
+
+Stockbridge snatched the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the rug.
+"That letter's a stab, Drew!" he exclaimed. "It's a damn insult to me
+and mine, if you want to know. I'll have the author of it, or know the
+reason why. I'll spend fifty thousand to catch the miscreants. They'll
+not monkey with me!"
+
+"The writer of this seems to be the superintendent."
+
+"Yes--that part's all right. He knows nothing save what you see there.
+This threat concerns Loris and I. We are the only two who will ever be
+buried in our family plot."
+
+"What does she know? Has she seen this letter?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Knows nothing about it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Has no enemies?"
+
+"Certainly not! She's just a girl!" The Magnate's eyes softened
+slightly. He glanced around for a cigar.
+
+Drew laid the letter on the table. "It seems to me," he said, "that you
+have not explained everything. When did you get this letter, Mr.
+Stockbridge? What time did it arrive?"
+
+"It came in the late mail last night. I showed it to Loris at supper.
+Then I called up the cemetery people this morning. Got the
+superintendent. He said that 'Dr. Conroy'--our family physician--'had
+phoned him and ordered the grave dug.' Said, 'A death was about to
+occur in the Stockbridge family.' Conroy never sent any such message!"
+
+"Umph!" broke in Drew.
+
+"Yes! He assured me of it. Was terribly put out!"
+
+"It seems to me," said Drew, "that the entire matter is a practical
+joke of the low order. I see nothing else to it--so far. It isn't even
+clever."
+
+"I'm not so sure," Stockbridge said huskily. "It may be _very_ clever.
+It may mean that death is coming--to me or to Loris. There's men in
+this city who are capable of anything!"
+
+The break in the Magnate's voice brought Drew to the edge of his chair.
+
+"Whom do you suspect?" he asked professionally. "Motive goes before
+crime--you know. Sometimes a warning is sent--more often there is none.
+Clever men do not telegraph a blow."
+
+"I suspect the whole city!" declared Stockbridge.
+
+Drew smiled sincerely. It was plainly evident that the Magnate was
+suffering from the thrust about Loris and the graveyard. The detective
+had never seen him so unsettled.
+
+"How about Germans?" he asked. "You've made a lot of
+ammunition--haven't you?"
+
+"Ye--s. I've still holdings in Standard Shell, Preferred, and
+Amalgamated Powder. Also, there is my interest in Flying Boat."
+
+"Could the Germans be after you for any reason at all?"
+
+The Magnate weighed the question from a score of angles. He reached and
+secured a second cigar. "I don't think so," he said with a dark frown.
+"I don't think they would bother with me. I'm more or less retired.
+I've drawn out of a lot of things. Younger men are turning out the
+ammunition now."
+
+"Then which of your friends might be responsible for this letter?"
+
+"Well put!" exclaimed Stockbridge. _"Friends_ may be right. Friends
+now, or former friends who have rounded on me."
+
+"Name some!"
+
+"There's Morphy!"
+
+"We settled him. We should never hear from him again."
+
+"I'm not so sure! You don't know him like I know him. He's a vindictive
+devil! He got ten to twenty years in state prison. You remember the
+case. He lost his appeal to the Governor, only last week. I blocked it
+through Tammany affiliations. You know what that fiend in stripes is
+capable of doing. He would sell his soul to get me!"
+
+Drew grew serious. "Yes, I know," he said.
+
+"Then there is--well, there are others. Ten, at least! What man can
+rise in this slippery city without pushing a few down the ladder? Wall
+Street and Broad Street and New Street are full of curb-stone
+blackmailers who knew me when I was struggling with my companies. They
+saw me take chances they themselves feared to take. They hounded me,
+then. Thank God, I got above them!"
+
+Drew leaned over the table. "A few names," he said. "Something
+specific. Who of all of them would be capable of phoning the cemetery,
+representing himself to be your family physician and ordering the grave
+dug? Who might think of a thing like that?"
+
+"Well, there's Harry Nichols, for instance. He's an ass with a
+champagne thirst and a shoestring salary. I threw him out of the house
+the other day. He was calling on Loris. Think of that! He's probably
+sworn to get me."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"About twenty-three--or four! Smokes, drinks and plays golf!"
+
+"Name some others," suggested Drew artfully.
+
+"Morphy!"
+
+"I got him."
+
+"Morphy's brother who escaped when we had Morphy indicted. I don't know
+where he is. Then there's Vogel and Vogel's friends. Oh, there's a
+pirate crew of them. Some were mixed up in the first Flying Boat
+failure. They would all like to see me in Ridgewood Cemetery. I'll fool
+them!"
+
+"You've given me Harry Nichols, Morphy, Morphy's brother, Vogel and
+Vogel's friends. That's four and a few outsiders. Can you think of any
+more?"
+
+"Not at present! One of them is responsible for this letter. I want you
+to get busy. If you won't take the case, I'll get an agency that will.
+There's plenty!"
+
+"I'll handle it," said Drew, "when it gets to be a case. As it is now,
+Mr. Stockbridge----"
+
+"Buuurrruuurrr! Buuurrruuurrr! Buuurrruuurrr!"
+
+The Magnate started. He lowered his cigar, balanced it on the edge of
+the table, and turned slowly in his chair. He leaned over a smaller
+table which was littered with bronze ash-trays and inlaid match-boxes.
+He lifted the receiver of the insistent telephone. He pressed this to
+his ear.
+
+Drew watched him narrowly. The terseness of a static charge of high
+voltage was in the great library. The face of the Munition Magnate grew
+cold with hauteur. It changed over the seconds to venom and red anger.
+His neck purpled. The diaphragm of the telephone instrument hissed its
+message. His hand clutched the hard-rubber receiver with white
+strength. A click followed as the connection was broken. Stockbridge
+dropped the receiver upon the hook. He turned slowly and stared at Drew
+with eyes that had aged over the moments. Wrinkles shot from their
+corners. Sullen light gleamed in their yellow depths.
+
+"What happened?" questioned Drew half rising from his chair and leaning
+over. "Who phoned?"
+
+The Magnate's chin described an upward arc. His lips grew firm. Bulges
+showed at the sides of his jaw.
+
+"What--who was it?" asked the detective.
+
+Stockbridge stared at the letter upon the table. His neck changed from
+purple to a pasty ochre. A green sheen, like of death, overspread his
+crafty features. He was stricken with the clutch of fear.
+
+Drew waited and thought rapidly. "What happened?" he asked with
+persuasion. "Nothing serious--I hope?"
+
+"Serious," said Stockbridge absently. "Serious!" he snarled. "Yes, it
+was serious! It was a death threat! It was what I had expected. It
+follows the letter. They--he will get me! He--he----"
+
+"Who?" asked the detective.
+
+Drew heard the table creaking as Stockbridge's muscles stiffened--as
+the Magnate's hands clutched the edge of the polished surface.
+
+"Who?" he repeated on the alert for possible clews.
+
+"Who! I don't know! But they will--he will!"
+
+"Easy," said Drew. "Take it easy, sir. This is a modern age. We are in
+the heart of civilization. Nobody is going to _get_ you! I'll see to
+that!"
+
+"You can't see! This man knows everything. He said that I would be dead
+within twelve hours. That I would be in my grave in seventy-two hours.
+He mentioned the grave at Green--Ridgewood Cemetery. He gave secret
+details of my life which few alone know. Early follies of mine. An
+actress. A deal in War Babies and an electrical stock which was hushed
+up. I was the silent partner in that. How should this man know all of
+these things about me?"
+
+"Just what did he say?"
+
+"I've told you! He said enough! He threatened to kill me despite all
+the precautions I would take. He said I was marked for a death which
+all the police in the world couldn't solve. That I would be killed in
+spite of every effort to save me. What is it--poison? Have I already
+been given poison?"
+
+Drew reached across the table and clutched the magnate's left wrist. He
+pulled out a flat watch and timed the pulse. "Normal, almost," he said
+softly. "You're normal, despite the shock. Your temperature is fair. I
+don't think it was a toxin he meant. That deadens a man and brings slow
+coma."
+
+"Well, what did he mean?" The magnate had found his voice and his
+old-time nerve. "What would you do in my case?" he said cunningly.
+
+Drew glanced at the telephone. He raised his brows and swung,
+full-staring, upon Stockbridge. His finger pointed between the
+money-king's eyes. It was as steady as an automatic revolver.
+
+"Did you recognize that voice?" he asked sharply. "Tell me the facts. I
+can't go ahead unless you do. I must work from facts!"
+
+"No!" declared Stockbridge. "No, I did not! I never heard it before.
+I----"
+
+"What was it like?"
+
+"Hollow-whispering--almost feminine in tone. I thought it was a woman
+at first. It wasn't, though! It was a man or boy."
+
+"Have you told me everything?"
+
+"Yes--except this man or boy--this whispering voice, wound up by
+threatening to get my daughter, Loris, as soon as he finished with me.
+Said he'd clean up with her!"
+
+"I'll take the case!" snapped Drew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+"THE MAGPIE"
+
+
+The Munition Magnate thrust a shaking hand toward the detective. "I'm
+glad!" he declared raising his voice. "You did well in the Morphy case.
+That's the reason I called upon you. Now find the miscreant or
+miscreants, who telephoned the cemetery superintendent, and you'll not
+be forgotten."
+
+Drew glanced shrewdly at the 'phone. "May I use it?" he asked briskly.
+"I'll try to trace that call."
+
+Stockbridge moved his chair away from the little table. Drew glided
+across the room, pressed the ash-trays and match-boxes to one side, and
+picked up the receiver. He worked the hook up and down with his broad
+thumb.
+
+"Hello! Hello!" he repeated clicking the hook. "Hello, central! Hello!"
+
+He glanced at Stockbridge as he waited. He frowned as he stooped and
+spoke more directly into the transmitter. "Hello! Hello!"
+
+"Something the matter?" asked the Magnate with quick suspicion. "Don't
+they answer?"
+
+"Hello! Hello! I Hello, there!" Drew glared at the transmitter, then
+tapped the receiver against the silver-plated cover. "Hello!" he
+shouted. "Damn it, Hello!"
+
+He turned. "No go," he said thoughtfully. "Connection seems to be
+broken. I'm talking right out into thin air. Wonder who cut your
+wires?"
+
+Stockbridge bristled. He slid forward in his great chair and stared at
+the detective. "They're cut, eh?" he asked.
+
+Drew set the 'phone on the table and turned. "Looks mighty like it," he
+said. His eyes swung over the walls of the splendid room. They rested
+upon a high, ebony stand with a belfry from which dangled a gilt spring
+suspending an ornate bird cage. Out of this cage, a magpie peered with
+beaded eyes. Its tail extended up through the bars like a feather from
+a hat.
+
+"My bird," said Stockbridge. "A tame magpie I brought from Spain. It
+talks."
+
+Drew raised his brows. He continued his search of the library. Its
+wealth of books and paintings and antiques almost stunned him. "I'm
+looking for another 'phone," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
+"Have you another 'phone in this house?"
+
+"Yes. Two more. This is Gramercy Hill 9763. The one in Loris' room is
+Gramercy Hill 9764. Another in the butler's pantry, downstairs, is
+9765. Perhaps the others are disconnected."
+
+"We'll see. I want that call traced before it gets cold. I know a wire
+chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange. He'll help if I can get him. Have your
+butler show me his 'phone. Also, we better get a trouble-hunter, or
+report the cut wires. Somebody will pay for this! It's an outrage and a
+felony!"
+
+Stockbridge moved his slippered foot and pressed a button under the
+larger table. He waited, then pressed again. His eyes wavered about the
+room. They fastened upon the portieres which draped from the pole
+across the doorway leading into the hall. His tongue moistened dry lips
+as he watched for the butler.
+
+"I'll 'phone my office," said Drew hurriedly as steps were heard in the
+hall. "I'll get up five operatives--no, six--right away. This all may
+be a hoax, but I've lived forty-one years too long to overlook a threat
+of this kind. Particularly when it concerns a man who has made as many
+enemies as you have."
+
+The butler parted the portieres as Drew ceased speaking. Stockbridge
+nodded and indicated that the detective wanted to go downstairs. The
+butler led the way to the lower telephone. Into this, Drew spoke
+hurriedly and very much to the point. He secured three numbers in rapid
+succession. He snapped his orders in a manner to set the cut-glass
+tinkling on the pantry shelves. He hung up the receiver, glanced
+shrewdly at the servants about, then climbed the stairs like a boy of
+twelve.
+
+"All is set!" he announced to Stockbridge as he entered the library and
+crossed to the table. "All moving, now! My wire-chief had gone home. I
+got the chief operator. She's going to send the first trouble-man
+handy. Delaney will be up from the office with his flying squad. I left
+it to him to arrange about tracing the call through a telephone
+official. No use telling the chief operator too much. The official will
+go right over her head and into the heart of the thing. Now,"--Drew
+pulled down the lapels of his black coat and leaned over the Magnate.
+"Now," he said with vigor, "now, what about your servants? I had a good
+look at some of them. How about that English butler? How long have you
+had him?"
+
+"Ten years! Brought him over, myself. Wife picked the other servants.
+They're all old, tried and trusted. I'll answer for them. She died
+telling me to take care of them. I don't think her equal lived in
+choosing help. It was uncanny!"
+
+Drew stroked his cropped mustache. "Good!" he said. "That's fine! We'll
+start with the supposition that they're _not_ guilty. Are any of them
+of German birth?"
+
+"My valet is part German, but he ran away to avoid their army. He hates
+the Junker party. Says 'It is responsible for the War.'"
+
+"How long have you had him?"
+
+"Nine years."
+
+"That should let him out. Well," Drew added with a sweeping glance
+about the library, "well, these big windows--how about them?"
+
+The detective advanced to the front of the room as he asked the
+question. "Two," he mused. "Two bay-windows of the superior order.
+Curtains very heavy and rich. There's a good catch on this one," he
+added springing upon the radiator-box. "And a good catch on this one.
+Both catches are closed. Seem to have been closed for some time. Here's
+dust. High-class housekeeper, but I've got her here."
+
+Drew smiled as he ran his fingers over the upper sash. He peered out
+into the Avenue with its flowing tide of vehicles. He turned and said
+to Stockbridge:
+
+"Suppose you order your butler or doorman to shut the outside blinds.
+It's getting dark and cold. I want to be sure that no one can get
+through this way."
+
+"Good," said Stockbridge reaching for the button with his toe. "Good!
+We'll take every precaution. Twelve hours will show the thing one way
+or the other. Twelve hours should do it."
+
+The butler entered bearing a silver tray. He set this on a mahogany
+tea-wagon and rolled it to the Magnate's chair. Drew frowned at the
+sight of a black bottle and one glass. A signal of understanding had
+been sent to the perfect servant.
+
+Stockbridge moistened his thin lips thirstily. He whispered the
+instructions concerning the blinds. The butler withdrew like a shadow
+merging into a shadow. Drew shrugged his shoulders and went the round
+of the library with the keen, trained scrutiny of a man-hunter and a
+modern operative. He paused before a case of morocco-bound books.
+"These cases?" he asked. "How about them? What's behind?"
+
+"Books! Books!" shrilled the magpie.
+
+Drew raised his brows and swung upon the bird.
+
+"Books! Books!" repeated the pet. "Books, books, books!"
+
+"Fine bird," said Drew with thought. "But what is behind the cases, Mr.
+Stockbridge? I don't want to move them if the walls are all right."
+
+A glass clicked against the silver tray as the Magnate answered
+hastily:
+
+"All right! They're all right. I was here when they were filled. I just
+ordered so many feet of books. Six hundred feet, I think it was. I
+never look at them. All that I ever read is the magazines and the
+financial items in the newspapers."
+
+"The pictures--paintings," Drew said.
+
+"Pictures! Pictures!" repeated the magpie.
+
+"Shut up!" snarled Stockbridge. "Keep quiet, Don!"
+
+The bird ruffled its feathers and leaped to a top perch. It peered from
+there at Drew, with its head cocked sideways.
+
+"How about them?" repeated the detective.
+
+"I had them hung by my orders," Stockbridge said. "They're all right.
+Nothing but a strong wall behind. No need to bother about them."
+
+"Everything is important," Drew suggested with a slight reproof in his
+voice. "Trifles may make for the answer to the riddle."
+
+"That Corot over there is no trifle. It cost me thirty-five thousand
+dollars in France!"
+
+Drew lifted the lower edge of the painting from the wall. Dust fell. He
+pressed his face against the paper and looked behind the canvas.
+Letting the frame back he tried the same operation with the other
+paintings of size.
+
+"No secret panel, or anything queer," he said finally as he dusted his
+hands. "All's well with the walls. Now the floor. How about trapdoors?"
+
+"Impossible!" Stockbridge exclaimed. "I'm sure these rugs have been
+taken out and cleaned every time I go to my country-place. A trapdoor
+would be noticed!"
+
+"I'm trying to find out," suggested Drew glancing from the bottle to
+the purple face of the Magnate. "Please answer me if you want to get
+results. I've got to see that no one comes into this library for the
+next twelve hours. After that period of time--we can breathe easier."
+
+"Go on," said Stockbridge feeling the thrust.
+
+"This door," Drew said. "The door to the hall. Can it be locked
+securely?"
+
+"Yes! It can be locked and bolted from the inside. I often lock myself
+in--in----"
+
+Stockbridge stiffened in his chair. He glanced toward the portieres. He
+leaned forward and attempted to shield the view of the quarter-emptied
+Bourbon-bottle and the used glass, as a girl in lavender and Irish-lace
+swept into the room.
+
+Drew recognized Loris Stockbridge from newspaper photos. He held his
+breath as she glided by him, unseeingly. He touched his mustache and
+waited. Her face, framed in close-drawn hair the color of midnight sky,
+softened perceptibly as she swished round the great table in the center
+of the library and laid an unjeweled hand upon her father's shoulder.
+
+She turned with a start as she realized that Stockbridge was not alone.
+Drew bowed with swift courtesy.
+
+"Mr. Drew," said the Magnate. "Mr. Drew, my daughter, Loris."
+
+Again the detective bowed. He met her level glance with a smile in his
+brown eyes. She answered it and leaned over her father's shoulder. Drew
+wheeled and fell to studying the titles on the books. He moved to the
+magpie's cage. He extended one finger. The bird fluttered and sprang
+from perch to perch.
+
+Drew thrust his hands into his pockets. He heard Loris speaking in
+terse, throaty tones to her father. He could not well avoid catching
+the tenor of their conversation. It concerned the letter from the
+cemetery and the threat of death within twelve hours, which the Magnate
+repeated to her with a softness in his aged voice.
+
+A gushing torrent of unbridled emotion poured down upon his gray head.
+The girl paced the floor between the chair and the table. She fell to
+her knees with swift grace.
+
+"Be careful, father," she sobbed. "You must be so careful. Remember
+you're all that I have, now. That letter and that telephone call means
+that somebody is planning to destroy you. Oh, father, be careful. What
+would happen if you were taken away from me?"
+
+"You'd marry that cad--Nichols!" blurted Stockbridge. "I'm the one
+thing that stands in his way. You'd marry him--wouldn't you?"
+
+The girl rose proudly. Drew, from the shadow outside the rose-light,
+studied the slender figure crowned with a close-drawn turban of
+blue-black hair. His eyes ranged down to her slipper heels. They lifted
+again. He stroked his chin as he waited for her answer. It came
+truthfully enough and with high spirit.
+
+"Yes, I'll marry him some day. I want your permission, but with it or
+without it, father, I am going to marry him. He's a captain in the
+Army. Doesn't that prove he is not all the things you said he was?"
+
+"Good girl," said Drew in whispered admiration.
+
+"It proves nothing!" exclaimed Stockbridge stiffening in his chair and
+half rising. "He's a cad and an ass under all his uniform. He's too
+poor to be considered for one moment. I want my daughter to marry----"
+
+"Whom she pleases," said Loris. "Harry may be poor, but he's not too
+proud to fight!"
+
+"Bah! They get those uniforms so the girls will notice them. What does
+he know about war?"
+
+"He's been at Plattsburg for three months. He's in town on furlough.
+He's helping us with Red Cross work. Isn't that noble!"
+
+"That part's all right," said the Magnate. "I want you to keep him from
+me, that's all. I believe he's half German!"
+
+"He's not! Harry is all-American. His mother was born of German parents
+in this country. His father was Canadian. You've heard of the Nichols
+who built part of the Grand Trunk Railroad. Was he German?"
+
+Stockbridge paled under the torrent which gushed from the girl's lips.
+
+"Well, all right," he said resignedly. "Don't bring him here or allow
+him to call. I've too much to think about to worry over Harry Nichols.
+You better go to your room and think things over."
+
+Loris glanced at her wrist-watch. She leaned with quick motion and
+kissed her father on the forehead. She turned at the portieres and
+threw back her head.
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Drew," she said prettily. "I hope that you have not been
+annoyed."
+
+The detective, naturally quick at answering, found his tongue tied in
+his mouth. He stammered a reply, which was too late. Loris swished
+through the curtains, leaving the room empty for her passing.
+
+"A mighty fine girl," was Drew's whispered comment. "They don't often
+come like that. She's very high class. She's got spirit. I'd hate to
+snatch a delusion from that young lady--Harry Nichols, for instance."
+
+"Come here!" broke in Stockbridge.
+
+Drew crossed the rugs. He stood by the magnate's side. He watched him
+pour out a half-glass of Bourbon and take the whisky neat. He frowned.
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Not a word from your men or the telephone company?" asked Stockbridge,
+wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That's queer, isn't it?"
+
+Drew took out his watch. He replaced it after a glance at the dial. His
+eyes wandered to a little Sevres clock on a book-case. "It's time for
+both," he said. "It's----"
+
+"There's somebody now--go see," Stockbridge whispered tersely.
+"Somebody is in the hallway."
+
+The portieres parted and revealed the beef-red face of the English
+butler. He advanced a step.
+
+"The trouble-man from the telephone company is 'ere, sir," he said.
+"'E's 'ere! 'E's been hover the junctions in the halley, sir. 'E's
+looked at the junction-box. 'E says, sir, there's no trouble there. 'E
+says 'it must be in 'ere, sir.'"
+
+"In 'ere, sir," repeated the magpie with a loud squawking and rustle of
+wings. "Junction-box! Junction-box!" it cried with its head through the
+gilded bars.
+
+"Shut up, Don!" ordered Stockbridge. "Be a good bird," he added
+sharply. "Now, Straker, you may show the trouble-hunter up."
+
+"Trouble-hunter! Trouble-hunter!" echoed the magpie.
+
+Drew, somewhat amused, thrust his hands in the pockets of his coat and
+eyed the opening between the curtains. A click of tools sounded
+metallically. A shambling step was in the hallway.
+
+"This woiy," said the butler in a superior tone. "Right this woiy,
+you!"
+
+The portieres parted. A slouching figure, with a greasy cap drawn far
+down over the eyes, entered the library with a lineman's satchel on his
+hip. He swung the strap from his shoulder, glanced at Stockbridge and
+then at the detective. He dropped the satchel to the floor and
+scratched his head.
+
+"Take a look at this 'phone," said Drew. "Go over the wires. Look for
+any cuts. The trouble ought not to be in here."
+
+Stockbridge rose and made room for the lineman, who lifted the satchel
+and strode to the 'phone. He dropped to one knee by the little table.
+He fished forth a testing-set from his shirt. It was bound with two
+leads of cotton-insulated wire.
+
+"I'll test here," he suggested, clamping a set of claws into the wires
+which came through the molding and entered the ringing-box.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "Hello, this you, Saidee? Say, Saidee, give me
+Franklin Official, seventeen. Yes ... all right! Hello! This you,
+Tupper? Say, Tupper, I went over the junction-box in the alley back of
+the house. Everything O. K. there. I'll go over the leads in the house.
+Loose connection somewhere, I guess."
+
+A clicking of tools followed as the lineman selected a pair of pliers.
+They rattled over the binding-posts at the receiver. They tightened the
+connections. He went over the transmitter, and then every inch of the
+exposed wiring. He removed the cover of the ringing-box and examined
+the connections. Replacing this cover, he rose with a puzzled
+expression.
+
+"All right," he said to Stockbridge, who was standing with his back
+turned. "It's all right here, sir. I don't find a thing. See--it's all
+right."
+
+The trouble-hunter lifted the receiver from the hook. "Hello," he said
+in a low voice. "Hello, Saidee. Say, Saidee, what number is this on
+your board?"
+
+The lineman glanced around the room. His eyes widened. He whistled with
+naive admiration. "Hello," he said softly. "Yes ... Gramercy Hill 9763.
+That's right. O.K. Tell Franklin Official--tell Tupper that I took
+forty minutes on the job. Forty minutes at time and a half. Don't
+forget that. Yes ... bridle--everything, all right, Saidee. See you
+later."
+
+The trouble-hunter reached for his satchel. He hitched it over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Hold on!" said Drew. "What _was_ the trouble? Why couldn't we get
+Central?"
+
+"You can search me--sir. It wasn't in this room, mister. That's a
+Western-Union cinch!"
+
+"Where was it?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"How about the junction-box in the alley? Could it have been there?"
+
+"Well it could--come to think of it. I scraped an' cleaned th'
+connections to make sure. They're all right now."
+
+"Did you see anybody about?"
+
+The lineman hitched up the satchel and scratched his ear. "Seems to me,
+I did. A fellow climbed over the fence from the back yard of this house
+just as I swings in from the side street. It was snowin' a bit an' I
+couldn't see very well."
+
+"What kind of looking fellow?" snapped Drew with awakened interest.
+"German?"
+
+"You took th' very words right out of my mouth," said the
+trouble-hunter. "He looked like a German."
+
+"Describe him! Tall, fat or small?"
+
+"I wasn't near enough to notice for sure. Tall, I think. He went out
+the alley and turned toward Fifth Avenue."
+
+"Could he have called us up from that junction-box?"
+
+"Sure--if he had a set of testers like this." The lineman tapped his
+shirt with his left hand. "He could have talked with you, but he
+couldn't ring your bell without a magneto or an alternating current of
+some kind."
+
+"Could he have cut the wires and connected them again without Central
+noticing anything out of the ordinary?"
+
+"He might. But who would do that, sir?"
+
+"That's all!" said Drew in dismissal. "Here's a dollar. Keep still
+about your visit here. We may want you later."
+
+"Want you later," repeated the magpie.
+
+Drew turned toward Stockbridge as the lineman shuffled through the
+portieres. "Queer," he said. "Tall fellow, eh! That's the man who cut
+in and threatened you. We'll get him! I'll go out and see if Delaney
+has arrived. Two hours of the twelve have passed. Ten more should see
+you safely out of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+"THE MAN IN OLIVE-DRAB"
+
+
+Triggy Drew stood on the marble steps of the Stockbridge mansion. The
+butler had just helped him on with his coat. The door had closed
+softly. The outer air gripped with cold that crackled. A soft snow was
+falling upon the city. It blurred the view of the Avenue, as seen to
+north and south. It wound the opposite buildings with a shroud of
+winter.
+
+The detective squared his shoulders, thrust his hands in his pockets
+for warmth, and hurried out between the iron-grilled gates, which stood
+slightly ajar. He hesitated a moment on the sidewalk. Again he glanced
+up and down the Avenue. The soft purring of a motor sounded. A taxi
+churned through the snow. It came to a slow stop at the opposite curb.
+The glow from an overhead arc showed that this taxi was crammed black
+with men.
+
+"That's Delaney and his squad," said the detective turning up his
+collar. "He's late."
+
+Drew crossed the Avenue on a long diagonal. He eyed the alert
+chauffeur. He rounded the taxi and jerked open its door. The orders he
+whispered to the squad of operatives were terse and to the point.
+
+"Keep Stockbridge's block covered," he said. "Watch all four corners.
+Two of you get into the alley, back of the house, and climb the fence.
+Keep your eyes on the junction-box and the telephone wires. Don't let
+anybody touch them. All out, now. It's a big job with double-pay, men!"
+
+The cramped operatives climbed out and stood on the sidewalk. They
+glanced from Drew to the towering spires of the Stockbridge mansion.
+Their eyes grew hard with calculation.
+
+"She's big," repeated Drew. "You know who lives there? He's been
+threatened twice. Somebody gave him twelve hours to live. Two of the
+twelve are gone. It's up to us to see that nothing happens in the next
+ten."
+
+Delaney touched his hat. "All right, Chief," he said. "We'll see. I'll
+answer for the boys I brought. I'll get rid of this taxi." The
+operative turned toward the driver.
+
+"Keep it around the corner on the side street," Drew ordered. "Have him
+turn and head this way. We can't tell what minute we will need him."
+
+Delaney gave the order. He paired off the operatives and sent them
+hurrying through the snow. Drew noticed that he had brought six men for
+the assignment.
+
+"Good," he said as the last operative disappeared. "Six is better than
+five. This thing is widening out. I wouldn't wonder if we needed more,
+before the night passes."
+
+"What's coming off?" asked Delaney with an Irish grin. "Another stock
+scandal like the Flying Boat one?"
+
+"An echo of it--perhaps," said Drew. "It's dog eat dog, I guess.
+Stockbridge is no saint. Some man with a whispering--consumptive voice
+has 'phoned him the news that he was going to die before daylight. I
+don't think he is. Not if I can help it."
+
+"Who did he rob this time--the old devil!"
+
+"He's retired. It's a case, perhaps, of thieves falling out in high
+places. Remember how Stockbridge beat Morphy to the District Attorney
+and told all he knew, and went before the Grand Jury? Morphy may be
+behind this threat-by-wire."
+
+"Morphy's behind bars, Chief!"
+
+"I know that. He's always dangerous, though."
+
+"Another old devil," said Delaney thrashing his arms. "I can see him
+now, Chief, in his big automobile. A husky man with a leather coat and
+cap. And always a woman by his side, Chief. A different woman, every
+time!"
+
+"He fell a long way, Delaney. Come on. We'll forget Morphy for a while.
+Stockbridge is alone. He is in danger."
+
+Drew clutched the operative's arm and motioned across the street. They
+plunged through the snow with heads down. They entered the iron-grilled
+gate. Drew touched a button set in the stone of the doorway. He
+repeated the signal.
+
+The door opened to a crack. A chain rattled. A face blotted out the
+inner light of the mansion.
+
+"All right," said Drew. "All right, butler. This is one of my
+operatives. Let us in."
+
+The butler led the way through the hall of old masters, after taking
+the detectives' coats and hats. He parted the curtains and announced
+the operatives. Drew pressed Delaney into the library.
+
+Stockbridge sat in the same position between the tables. The rose-light
+from the ornate lamp brought out deep lines which transversed his
+yellow face. Fear gave way to a mumbling satisfaction as he stared at
+the two resolute detectives who had come to guard him. He rested his
+eyes upon Delaney. His brows raised in inquiry.
+
+"This is Delaney," said Drew. "He's the man who brought back Morphy
+from Hartford. He's true blue. Delaney, this is your case as well as
+mine. Your old prisoner may be involved."
+
+"Morphy ain't in it, Chief. He's locked up tighter than the
+Sub-Treasury's strong-box. It's some one else."
+
+"What did you get on the telephone call? The call I had you trace
+through Spencer Ott, the Chief Electrician?"
+
+"Nothing, as yet! I waited. That's what kept me so long." Delaney
+glanced at his watch.
+
+"He'll 'phone later, I guess," said Drew. "Now," he added turning
+toward Stockbridge. "Now, let's cover everything in this house. What
+time was it, Delaney?"
+
+"Nine forty-eight, when I looked, Chief."
+
+"That's early. Suppose you allow a half hour for a search of the upper
+house. Take that time and go over everything. Pay particular attention
+to Mr. Stockbridge's rooms. Look at the windows. See that they are
+locked. See that there are no places where a man could be hidden.
+You'll permit Delaney to do this, Mr. Stockbridge?"
+
+The Munition Magnate nodded. He kept his eyes on Drew, who still faced
+him. "Do you think it is necessary?" he asked. "I'll answer for my
+servants."
+
+"We must suspect everybody," Drew said. "Go on, Delaney. Find the
+butler and let him show you around. I've searched in here."
+
+Delaney started toward the portieres as Stockbridge reached down and
+pressed the floor-button with his finger.
+
+"Just a moment," said Drew with afterthought. "You better knock on Miss
+Stockbridge's door and ask permission to go through her suite. There's
+just a chance that you might see something."
+
+"Might see something!" shrilled the magpie.
+
+Delaney turned with a startled half-oath. "Wot's that?" he asked,
+aggressively clenching his huge fists.
+
+"Might be something!" chortled the magpie.
+
+"Go on," Drew laughed. "That's only a magpie."
+
+"Looks like a crow, Chief. It sure startled me. I thought we had the
+villain right here."
+
+Drew waited. Delaney--with a last glance toward the bird-cage--followed
+the butler to the upper floors of the mansion. Drew opened the letter
+and studied it. He examined the postmark. He heard, as he was replacing
+the paper in the envelope, the click of the glass against the bottle at
+Stockbridge's side. There followed a dry chuckle of inner satisfaction.
+A match was struck. Cigar smoke wreathed under the rose-light and
+floated toward a high radiator which was over the book-cases. Drew went
+over to these and glanced upward. The gilt-grilled ventilator, through
+which the smoke passed, was narrow and set within the wallplaster. It
+showed no sign of marks at its edge. It was the only opening, save the
+door and the two great windows at the front, which led from or into the
+library.
+
+He returned to the center of the library. A swishing sounded. Loris,
+with eyes aflame, glided into the room. The curtains dropped behind her
+with soft rustling. She glanced from Drew to her father. She stamped
+her slippered foot upon the thick pile of the rug before the doorway.
+
+"By what right?" she said to Drew. "By whose orders have you sent that
+awful man to my rooms?"
+
+Drew flushed beneath the olive of his skin.
+
+"_I_ sent him," he admitted guiltily. "I never thought you would be
+offended, Miss Stockbridge."
+
+"I am--greatly so! Do you mistrust me?"
+
+"Miss Stockbridge," Drew hastened to say with soft apology. "Miss
+Loris--that thought never entered my mind. It never did! I'll have Mr.
+Delaney out, right away. He should not have gone in without your
+permission. I told him to knock and ask you."
+
+"My maid let him in. I--I----"
+
+Drew studied her gown. It had been changed. The Irish lace and the
+lavender one had been replaced by an Oxford-gray tailor-made suit which
+fitted her slender, elegant form like a close glove. Her slippers were
+topped with fawn-hued spats. One ring was on her finger. It was a
+solitaire of price. It gleamed and flashed in the rose-light as she
+raised her hand to her hair.
+
+"I'll have Delaney right out," repeated Drew, bowing and starting for
+the doorway.
+
+"No!"
+
+Drew paused. He turned. The magnate towered over the table. His eyes
+were blood-shot and glazed with resolve.
+
+"No!" he declared. "No, you'll not have him out! Let him do his duty!
+Loris, go upstairs!"
+
+"But, father----"
+
+"Go--up--stairs!"
+
+The girl flushed. Scarlet ripples rose from her young breast. Her
+cheeks crimsoned into two burning spots. She wheeled, gathered up her
+skirt, and glided swiftly through the portieres which dropped behind
+her like a curtain of a stage.
+
+"Go--up--stairs," quoted the magpie greatly excited.
+
+Drew retained the vision of Loris long after her footsteps had ceased
+to sound in the hallway. He grew thoughtful as he waited. There were
+details to the case which already caused him concern. It was evident
+that the girl was tremendously high-spirited and willful. Her obedience
+to her father's demand had only been after a struggle with her
+turbulent nature. She had given in to him, but friction was there which
+might cause trouble at a future hour.
+
+Delaney parted the portieres, finally. He strode into the library with
+a flushed face. He lifted one brow as he jerked his head upward in a
+mute signal to Drew.
+
+"I guess it's all O. K.," he blurted swinging toward Stockbridge and
+eyeing the bottle beside the telephone. "O. K. upstairs. I searched
+most everything--posted a valet at the master's suite and took a look
+into Miss Stockbridge's rooms. They seem all right. I guess they're all
+right," he added with candor, which Drew understood referred to the
+girl and her outburst in her boudoir.
+
+"Good," Drew said closing his lips. "That's good. Now, Mr.
+Stockbridge," he added, "there will be eight of us on the outside of
+this house. You have your trusted servants inside. There's three
+telephones in good order, thanks to the trouble-man. There's the entire
+New York Police and Detective Departments to back us up. There should
+be no trouble."
+
+The Magnate blinked beneath the cone of rose-light. He wet his dry
+lips. He rubbed his scaly hands. "Any orders to me?" he asked
+determinedly. "What shall I do?"
+
+"You lock this library door when Delaney and I go out. Lock it and bolt
+it securely. Don't take a particle of food. Don't drink any water. Try
+to get along to-night without sampling anything."
+
+Stockbridge reached for the bottle of Bourbon. He held it up to the
+light. It was half full. "All right," said he. "I might finish part of
+this--that's all."
+
+Drew glanced at Delaney. "That'll be all right," he said turning. "That
+bottle's been tested. You might let this officer try a little of it.
+Nothing like being sure, you know."
+
+Delaney was willing. The drink he poured, after the butler brought a
+clean glass, would have cost him considerable money in war time. He
+upended it neat. He smiled as one hand rested upon his chest. "Fine!"
+he said with sincerity. "There's nothin' th' matter with that!"
+
+Drew turned toward the portieres, where, between, the butler waited.
+"We'll go now," he said. "Remember--lock and bolt this door. Instruct
+your man to stay outside and not to leave it under any circumstances.
+When you go up to your bedroom, have him go with you. Then lock the
+upstairs door and let your valet sleep across the threshold. You can
+have a mattress moved for that purpose. I'll come in--first thing in
+the morning. Good night, sir!"
+
+"Good night," repeated Stockbridge rising from his chair and leaning
+his hands upon the polished surface of the table. "Good night to both
+of you!"
+
+Drew glanced back as the butler pressed in the curtains and started
+closing the hardwood door. The Magnate still stood erect under the rich
+glow from the overhead cone. His eyes were slit-lidded and defiant. He
+glared about the room like an aged lion in a jungle-glade. He started
+around the table.
+
+The door closed. Drew waited in the hallway. He heard the lock snap.
+The bolt shot home. Stockbridge was alone in a sealed room.
+
+"Watch this door!" ordered Drew clutching the butler's purple sleeve.
+"Watch it like a cat. Stay right near it under any and all
+circumstances. Don't go away from it. It may mean life or death to your
+master."
+
+"I'll stoiy right 'ere, sir."
+
+"See that you do," cautioned the Detective. "See that you do."
+
+Delaney found the hats and coats in the foyer. These they donned,
+opened the outer door, and stepped into the night with jaws squared and
+hands thrust deep in their pockets.
+
+They crossed the snow-mantled Avenue upon a long diagonal which brought
+them to the up-town corner and the waiting taxi, whose engine was
+softly purring beneath its hooded bonnet.
+
+The driver was asleep. He woke as Drew laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Seen anything?" asked the Detective.
+
+"Nothin', boss, but snow. Nothin' at all," he yawned.
+
+Delaney glanced about. He opened the taxi door on the street side and
+lunged inward with a sigh of relief. Drew followed and pulled the door
+shut.
+
+"Where's the bunch?" he asked. "Just how did you post them?"
+
+"Flood's with the fixed-post cop on the Avenue. He's down a block.
+Flynn and Cassady are in the alley--in the yard, I mean. They're
+watching the junction-box and the wires. Joe and O'Toole went east.
+Harrigan is planted across the street. That's him between the two
+buildings. See him?"
+
+Drew rubbed the rear glass of the taxi. He pressed his nose against
+this. A blurred form, almost obliterated by falling snow, showed where
+the operative was guarding the mansion.
+
+Delaney, who was watching out through another window, suddenly clutched
+Drew by the arm. "Look!" he exclaimed. "Look, Chief! Over toward the
+big house!"
+
+The Detective drew back from his study of Harrigan. He turned on the
+seat and followed Delaney's pointing finger. He clamped his jaw shut
+with a click of strong teeth.
+
+"Somebody's coming out of Stockbridge's," said the operative.
+
+"Quek!" signaled Drew. "Watch, closely," he added in a whisper.
+
+A girl came through the doorway and opened the iron-grilled gates. She
+paused and glanced north and south through the curtain of down-falling
+snow. She turned with resolution and hurried along the east side of the
+Avenue. She was at the corner opposite the taxi, when Drew reached and
+opened the door with sly fingers.
+
+"Tail her," he ordered. "Right after her, Delaney. I'd know that little
+lady in a million."
+
+"Who is she, Chief?"
+
+"Loris Stockbridge!"
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Yes! Right after her! There--she turned east. See her white spats? See
+her furs? Some queen to be out a night like this. Don't let her get too
+far ahead of you. That's right, Delaney!"
+
+The operative sprang to the curb. He rounded the hood of the taxi. He
+slouched along the pavement to the corner, waited for the fraction of a
+minute until a limousine passed, then hurried over the Avenue. He
+disappeared into the canyon whose walls were towering apartments and
+whose end was marked by a row of soft arcs across which, snow falling
+from housetops, sparkled in the night like diamonds beyond price.
+
+The Avenue churned with returning theater-parties and night-hawk cabs.
+The roar of the city came to the waiting Detective's ears like a giant
+turning in his first sleep. The sifting snow sanded against the windows
+of the taxi. The purring motor missed sparking now and then. It shook
+the cab as it resumed its revolving with a sputter and a cough in the
+muffler. The driver huddled deeper in his sheep-skin coat collar. He
+snored in synchronism with the engine.
+
+Drew rubbed the glass before him and studied the aspect with
+close-lidded intentness. He marked the shut gates of the Mansion down
+the Avenue. He saw that the lights from the inner globes had been
+extinguished. He counted the staring windows. His eyes lowered to the
+soft rose-glow which streamed out through the shut blinds of the
+library. Snow was on the slats and sills.
+
+A swift crunch of heavy shoes at the side of the taxi--the turning of
+the door-lock--the burly form in black that climbed in, announced
+Delaney.
+
+"All right, Chief!" he said somewhat out of breath. "All right--move
+over. Here she comes back!"
+
+Drew rubbed a frosted pane with his elbow. A blurred form--close to the
+sheltering wall of the side street--revealed itself into Loris
+Stockbridge. She turned the corner. She glanced back over her sabled
+shoulder. She pressed her gloved hands deep within her muff and almost
+ran for the iron-grilled gates of the mansion.
+
+"She connected with a blonde lad in olive-drab uniform!" said Delaney.
+"He gave her something that looked to me like a revolver. Wot d'ye make
+out-a that, Chief?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+"THE MURDER"
+
+
+Triggy Drew had no good answer for Delaney's question concerning the
+revolver. The matter was important in view of the threat aimed toward
+Stockbridge. Why Loris should obtain a gun from a rendezvous in a
+drug-store was more than the Detective could fathom. He turned to
+Delaney.
+
+"Explain yourself!" he snapped, gripping the operative by the sleeve.
+"Make yourself clear! We have no time to waste in this matter!"
+
+Delaney gulped and whispered. "It's this way. I follows the girl until
+she turns around the corner where there is an all-night drug-store. She
+was in a telephone-booth when I came up and looked through the window.
+She was trying to get a number. While she's trying, a taxi rushes up
+and out jumps a lad in a long benny. He pays the driver with a bill and
+hurries past me and into the drug-store. I gets a good look at him.
+He's about twenty-three years old, blonde hair and tall----"
+
+"Tall?"
+
+"He was five feet eleven, Chief. I'd say that to be safe. The uniform
+he wore under the benny was olive-drab with bars on his shoulder. He
+took the overcoat off--afterwards."
+
+"How many bars?"
+
+"Two, Chief."
+
+"That's good!" exclaimed Drew with sudden vigor. "Good!"
+
+"The girl," went on Delaney, "was 'phoning for him. She dropped the
+receiver when she heard him come in. She had the party she
+wanted--right there. Good deduction--that is!"
+
+The Detective snorted. "Go on," he said with a faint frown.
+
+"Sure it was! Well, I moves over and starts puttin' a penny in the
+slot-machine outside the drug-store. The machine didn't work very well
+on account of the snow. I'm a long time gettin' my piece of
+chewin'-gum. I sees them talking in the drug-store. His coat is off
+'cause it's warm inside. He had an officer's uniform on."
+
+"One bar or two?"
+
+"Two bars on his shoulder, Chief."
+
+"Captain, then. Go on."
+
+"He's a tall lad with thick lips and wide-blue eyes. He's straight as a
+pike-staff and good lookin'--for a blonde."
+
+"Looks German?"
+
+"Not so I could notice! Seemed to be a bit of a swell. Had gloves and a
+high-class wrist watch. I hate them things."
+
+Drew smiled. "Hurry," he said. "Don't take too long. What happened?
+What about the smoke-wagon?"
+
+"I'm comin' to it, Chief. They moves over to the drug-case. They chins
+some more. Then he blows her to a soda--a cherry sundae."
+
+Drew rubbed the glass at his side and started out. He swept the mansion
+with swift-running eyes. He turned.
+
+"They were sweet--them two," went on Delaney with thought. "I deducts
+they'd known each other a long while."
+
+"Quit your deducting. Get to facts!"
+
+"Well, Chief, he ups and gives the drug-store the once over with sharp
+looks. Then he handed her a little, flat box which she pops into her
+muff--quick as any shop-hister. It was as quick as that!"
+
+"How do you know it was a revolver?"
+
+"By what followed, Chief."
+
+"What followed?"
+
+"Her hand creeps into the muff. It works around while the clerk is
+mixin' the sundae. When the clerk's back is turned, out comes the hilt
+of a nice, little gat with ivory trimmin's. It's one of them lovely
+watch-charm affairs--all polished up without a knock-out punch."
+
+"A twenty-two?"
+
+"About that. It's the caliber them actresses carry in their stockings.
+It might kill, though, at short range."
+
+"Go on, Delaney. Tell me what happened then?"
+
+"I gets my chewin'-gum, Chief. I backs to the curb. They finish their
+sundae. I'm across the street when the lad goose-steps out of the
+drug-store--alone. O'Toole was talking with the fixed-post cop and a
+Central Office man half-way down the block. They gets my office when I
+pulls out my handkerchief. The C. O. dick covers the corner. O'Toole
+falls in behind the lad in the fur benny as he passes him, with collar
+turned up and leggins working at a double-time through the snow."
+
+"That's good! O'Toole will put him to bed."
+
+"Sure, Chief. Leave it to O'Toole. He never lost a tail yet. He'll
+follow that lad to France--unless you call him off."
+
+Drew polished the glass and strained his eyes in the direction of
+Stockbridge's mansion. The Avenue had quieted over the hour after
+midnight. A few belated pedestrians, muffled to the brows, glanced at
+the waiting taxi with curiosity. They did not stop, however.
+
+Delaney drew out his watch and studied its dial by aid of the light
+which streamed from a corner arc. He replaced the watch.
+
+"Twelve-forty-five," he announced. "Wish I'd brought a pint along. I
+would have, if the dame hadn't come out of the drug-store so quick."
+
+"Did she buy anything--or do anything, after the officer left her?"
+
+"No! Just waited a second, then came sailin' out without a smile. Had
+her hands crammed in her muff. That's where the revolver was. Bet it
+was loaded."
+
+"More deduction," said Drew. "Don't jump at conclusions, Delaney. Get
+facts and work from them. Get----"
+
+The Detective's voice trailed into silence. He reached swiftly and
+wiped his hand over the frosted pane. He pressed his nose against the
+glass until it became white with cold. He jerked back his head.
+
+"Quek!" he signaled from deep down in his throat. "Quek, Delaney! Open
+the door. Somebody is coming out of the house!"
+
+Delaney twisted the handle. A breath of stinging air swept into the
+taxi's heated space. Snow followed and drifted across the detectives'
+knees. Both men strained in one position. Their eyes burned as they
+waited with grim-set lips.
+
+A light shone from the lower entrance of the mansion. Its oblong
+brought out in bold-relief the details of the iron-grilled gates.
+Across this fine snow sifted. A man emerged. He closed the door. He
+opened the gates and staggered toward the Avenue's curb. He stood,
+bare-headed in the night. His chin swung north and south with helpless
+motion. He fixed his eyes upon the waiting taxi, with a start of
+recognition. He came over the surface of the Avenue with faltering,
+bewildered steps.
+
+"The butler!" snapped Drew. "That's Stockbridge's butler! What's
+happened?"
+
+"God only knows!" exclaimed Delaney.
+
+Drew climbed over the operative and sprang to the curb. He charged
+around the rear of the taxi and brought up with a jerk before the
+startled servant.
+
+"What is it?" he asked sharply.
+
+The butler stammered an incoherent answer. His eyes wavered from the
+taxi to the mansion--then back again. They gripped to a dead-lock with
+the detective's own.
+
+"What happened?" exclaimed Drew.
+
+"I don't know, sir. I don't know----"
+
+"Keep cool! Answer me!" The Detective clutched the butler's shoulder
+with a vise-grip.
+
+"Answer me," he repeated. "What happened? What is the matter--over
+there?"
+
+"I don't----"
+
+"None of that! Answer! Answer!"
+
+"The telephone company, sir. The telephone people rang me ... they rang
+me hup hon the downstairs 'phone, sir. They said ... she said ... the
+chief-loidy said for me to 'ang the receiver hup hon the Gramercy 'ill
+'ook, sir. The 9763 one, sir."
+
+"Which one is that--the library?"
+
+"It his, sir!"
+
+"Go on! Go on! Go on!"
+
+"I goes back where I 'ad left the second-man, sir, by the door, sir, as
+you'd ordered, sir. I knocks 'ard on the door."
+
+"Yes! Yes!" said Drew, feeling Delaney's hot breath over his shoulder.
+"Yes! Go on!"
+
+"I knocks, sir. I pounds 'ard. I 'ammers and 'ammers hon the wood, sir.
+'E don't answer--'e don't."
+
+Drew's face grew stern. "Well?" he asked still holding the butler's
+eyes. "Well--what then?"
+
+"I knocks some 'arder. Then the second-man, 'e knocks. 'E 'its the door
+with 'is 'eel, sir!"
+
+"Come on!" said Drew, turning and clasping Delaney's sleeve. "Come
+on--something _is_ wrong!"
+
+The detective swept the Avenue with a sharp glance as he hurried across
+the wheel-churned ice and snow. He signaled to Harrigan by drawing a
+handkerchief. That operative detached himself from the shadow between
+the two houses and moved toward the corner. He stood there on guard as
+Drew hurried through the iron-grilled gates and thrust his knee against
+the door. It opened. Delaney and the butler crowded in. They mounted
+the inner stairs on tiptoes. Drew's hand went behind him in warning. He
+turned at the top of the landing. The second-man was standing before
+the library door with folded arms and a watchdog expression on his
+cockney face. He remained in that position as Drew glided to his side.
+
+"Hear anything?" asked the detective.
+
+"Never a word, sir. Hit's blym quiet hin there. Hi think 'e's 'ad
+something 'appen, sir. 'E never acted like that--before, sir. Sometimes
+'e sleeps, but 'e always wakes hup when the walley comes after 'im,
+sir."
+
+"'E does," echoed the butler with chattering teeth.
+
+"Are you sure you tried to unlock this door?" queried Drew, twisting
+the knob. "Have you tried the outer lock? You might have shot the bolt
+in your excitement."
+
+"The key to the houter lock, sir, is hinside!"
+
+"It is!" snapped Drew, pressing against the panel as he listened close
+up to the chamfering. "It is, eh? That's funny."
+
+"'E put hit there, sir. The master did, sir!"
+
+Drew did not dwell further on this. He stared at Delaney, with unseeing
+eyes. He bent and listened for a second time. He stiffened suddenly. He
+jerked back.
+
+"Listen," he whispered tersely. "Everybody listen. What's that noise
+inside? Hear it? Hear it, Delaney?"
+
+The operative dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to a faint line
+of light below the door. He rose, dusting his knees. He swore audibly.
+
+"What is it?" asked Drew.
+
+"Sounds like the crow, Chief."
+
+"Stockbridge's magpie?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+The Detective laid his ear flat against the key-hole. His face hardened
+as he waited. He lifted his head and pointed with a steady finger.
+"Listen!" he commanded. "There--listen. That's no magpie!"
+
+_A low whine like the howl of a wild thing rose to a reed note of
+moribund terror. It died; then resumed its shrieking. It leaped the
+octaves from no note to a blare of a soul in agony. Suddenly it struck
+down the tone scale with descending steps of mocking laughter._
+
+"Look out!" shouted Drew, bending his knees and gliding back to the
+wall of the hallway. "Look out!" he repeated.
+
+"What are you goin' to do?" asked Delaney huskily.
+
+"Do? I'm going to break the door down! Look out!"
+
+The detective braced himself against the wall. He lunged forward and
+crashed against the dark panel near the lock and bolt, with the energy
+of a college fullback. He backed away and repeated the smashing blow.
+
+"Hold on, Chief," Delaney said. "That's no use. The door is two inches
+thick. I had a good look at it. Wait!"
+
+Drew rubbed his right shoulder as Delaney turned toward the white-faced
+butler.
+
+"You get an ax!" he ordered. "Beat it, and get a big ax, quick!"
+
+"The axes are in the furnace room, sir."
+
+"Get one! Bring it right up, you. Hurry now!"
+
+The operative turned toward Drew. "The only way, Chief," he explained.
+"I've been in too many of Big Bill Devery's raids not to know how to
+break down a strong door. I'm the man who took Honest John Kelsey's
+house apart for him. It was built like a British tank."
+
+The puffing butler appeared with a fire ax. He handed it to Delaney,
+who eyed the edge with concern.
+
+"Not sharp," he said, "but it'll do, at a pinch. Look out--everybody!"
+
+Delaney waved the servants away. He moistened his broad palms. He swung
+the ax and crashed its weight into the panel nearest the lock. He
+followed this blow with another. He panted as he rained swinging
+slashes at the dark wood. It splintered. An opening was made. This
+opening was enlarged by short-arm jabs until Drew laid a hand on
+Delaney's shoulder and called a halt. "Let me see," he said bending
+down.
+
+He straightened. He enlarged the chopped place with his fingers. He
+ripped off the splinters until there was room for a palm to be
+inserted. Delaney, dropping the ax upon the hall-rug, thrust through
+his arm to the elbow. He bent his knee as he strained. His face screwed
+into a knot.
+
+"Is the key there?" asked Drew.
+
+"Ye--s. I turned it. All the way, Chief. Here's the bolt. Both were
+locked tight. Both locked, on the inside of the library."
+
+"Remember that!" snapped Drew, squaring his shoulders. "Everybody
+remember that. It may be important!"
+
+Drew pressed Delaney aside. He seized the gold knob and turned it
+slowly. He waited for a moment. Nothing sounded save the loud breathing
+of the butler and the other servants who were crowded in the hall.
+
+The detective jerked open the splintered door. He hesitated and
+listened. He pressed aside the portieres with his left hand as his
+right fingers coiled over the ugly hilt of a police regulation .44. He
+advanced into the library, foot by foot. His fingers still coiled the
+gun's butt. He stood rigid as he reached the fringe of the splendid rug
+which was under the great table. His sweeping, close-lidded eyes took
+in the details of the room. He saw the magpie in its cage. The bird's
+feathers were ruffled. Its head darted in and out the bars with great
+excitement.
+
+Drew frowned as he noticed a wreath of pale-blue smoke curling under
+the dome of the rose-light. He sniffed the air with a shrewd intake. A
+powder explosion of some kind had left a trace. The air, so close and
+warm, was filled with acrid menace.
+
+The detective removed his hand from the revolver's butt and waved it
+behind him as a signal to Delaney and the servants to stay where they
+were. He took one step forward. The white writing paper and envelope
+from the cemetery company were upon the table. The stump of a
+half-smoked cigar draped over this table's edge like a gun on a
+parapet. It was cold and without ash.
+
+The smaller of the two tables was overturned. The whisky bottle and
+glass lay at the edge of the rug nearest the wall. The telephone
+transmitter and receiver were upon the hardwood floor, where they had
+fallen with the butts of two Havana cigars and the ash trays and match
+boxes.
+
+Stockbridge was crumpled into a twisted knot against the rich
+wainscoting. His head was half under his left shoulder. His iron-gray
+hair was singed black over the left ear.
+
+Drew leaned with one hand on the corner of the table and peered
+downward. He called the magnate's name. He repeated it. He turned
+toward the doorway. His hand raised. His finger pressed against his
+lips.
+
+"Stockbridge is dead," he told Delaney, who glided to his side. "He is
+dead. He was shot to death in this sealed room. I wonder who did it?"
+
+"Ah, Sing!" shrieked the magpie. "Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+"THE FIRST CLEWS"
+
+
+The magpie's words, repeated over and over as Drew and Delaney stood in
+the room of death, struck both men as a possible clew. It was more than
+likely that the murderer or the murdered man had shouted something, the
+moment the shot was fired. This exclamation might have been, "Ah,
+Sing!" The bird had repeated something it had memorized, or retained in
+its shallow brain.
+
+"Ah, Sing!" suggested Drew, keenly on the alert. "Ah, Sing, eh? Never
+forget that! We may need it--later."
+
+"Sounds like a Chinaman," said the operative. "Stockbridge was shot by
+a Chink!"
+
+"Get busy! Go over the room and look for a possible hiding place. You,
+butler, stand across that doorway! Don't move from there!" Drew wheeled
+and stared at the white faces of the servants which were framed in the
+somber curtains of the opening to the hall.
+
+The detective swung back. He rounded the large table with slow steps.
+He bent down. One knee touched the rug. He reached and grasped the
+magnate's stiff arm. He worked it like a hinge. He felt of the muscles.
+They were rigid.
+
+Rising, Drew again tested the air of the library. He glanced at
+Delaney, who was opening the book-case doors.
+
+"What do you smell?" he asked sharply.
+
+The operative turned and sniffed with widening nostrils.
+
+"It's powder!" he said. "Gunpowder, Chief."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"It's kind-a peculiar--at that."
+
+"Explain yourself--be clear!"
+
+Delaney scratched his head. "I'd say, Chief, it was smokeless powder.
+It don't smell like the ordinary kind."
+
+"I saw smoke when I came in!"
+
+"That smokeless stuff smokes. It ain't altogether what they call it.
+Remember the shootin'-gallery at Headquarters? There's smoke there when
+the police are practicing with them steel-jacketed bullets."
+
+"You're right," said Drew. "Keep on looking about. I'm getting on.
+Stockbridge was shot at very close range behind and under the left ear.
+The weapon used was a small-caliber revolver. The bullet is undoubtedly
+lodged in the lower brain. Powder stains are in his hair. The opening
+is clotted shut. He fell forward. In falling he knocked over the little
+table with its load of ash-trays, match-boxes, telephone, cigar butts
+and the whisky bottle and the glass. He's been dead some time."
+
+"I 'e'rd no shot!" cried the butler from the doorway.
+
+Drew wheeled. "You wouldn't," he said sharply. "Delaney," he added,
+"say, Delaney, get out your note book and pencil. I want to put down
+everything we can think of before I send for the coroner. We'll take a
+complete record. This thing is diabolical. You see nothing?"
+
+"Nothing," echoed Delaney as he slammed a book-case door shut, dusted
+his fingers and reached in his pocket. "There's nobody planted in this
+room--that's a fact, Chief. That's what gets me. How was the murder
+done?"
+
+"Speculation is useless--now! Get ready for notes."
+
+"I'm ready, Chief."
+
+The detective strode across the library rugs and snapped on the wall
+switch by jabbing at a mother-of-pearl button. Each time he jabbed,
+more lights came on. The room flooded with soft glowing from concealed
+globes. This glow brought out the full details of the palatial
+interior. Drew chewed at his mustache thoughtfully. He measured the
+walls with his eyes. He glided swiftly toward the windows. He thrust
+aside the heavy curtains of one and glanced upward.
+
+"Closed and locked," he said to Delaney. "Put that down. There's snow
+on the sill which has drifted through the outer slats. Put that down.
+No sign of footprints. Put that down. Now, the upper part!"
+
+He climbed up on the ornate radiator box. His fingers went over the
+catch. "Locked here!" he said, glancing down. "Locked and the same as
+it was. Make a note of that!"
+
+He sprang down and examined the other window. He went over the sill and
+the catch with absorbed intentness. His teeth bit against his upper
+lip. He shook his head as he turned.
+
+"No chance for a bullet to have been fired through these windows!" he
+declared positively. "No chance at all. This end of the library is
+sealed as far as we are concerned. Now, we'll consider the only other
+opening--the door!"
+
+"Double locks, Delaney," he called over his shoulder as he crossed the
+room and pressed the butler back into the hall. "Double locks of the
+superior order. Gold knobs and key-holes. The holes are not in line.
+The chamfering is clean, except where you struck it once or twice with
+the ax. No sign of outside tampering or jimmy work. I'd say we've
+covered this door. Any suggestions?"
+
+Delaney tried both the inner lock and the bolt which was actuated with
+a gold butterfly-wing of heavy construction. He studied the flat key.
+It was gold-plated. He dropped to his knees and went over the entire
+lower chamfering with his broad finger.
+
+He said, "No suggestions, Chief. This was locked twice, until we broke
+a hole through with an ax. I don't see----"
+
+"Make a note of everything!" ordered Drew with a sharp glance at the
+waiting servants. "Make a full record of what we have found--including
+your exact interpretation of the magpie's words. What were they?"
+
+"Ah, Sing!"
+
+"I think the same. Let's look the bird over. Perhaps it will repeat."
+
+The two detectives strode to the bird-cage. "I'm going to send for
+Fosdick and the coroner," said Drew hastily. "We've got to hurry. What
+do you make of this bird? Could it have had anything to do with the
+murder?"
+
+The magpie protested against this accusation. Its feathers ruffled. Its
+claws clamped over the perch. Its tail extended upward and seemed to
+dart with indignation.
+
+"Ah, Sid!" exclaimed Drew close up to the gilded bars. "Ah, Sid. Ah,
+Sid!" he repeated as the bird sprang to the bottom of the cage and set
+this jumping up and down at the end of the spring.
+
+"No go," said Delaney. "This black parrot don't like our looks."
+
+Drew fingered the cage. He tested the spring. He stooped and glanced
+underneath. He tapped the belfry. It was of inlaid wood. It rang solid.
+"No use," he said. "This is all, all right. Let's get to the other
+matters before the clews get cold. Look everywhere for a possible
+trapdoor or a secret panel. Test the walls. Move the book-cases. Turn
+the pictures. Lift up the rugs. Then put everything back like you found
+it. Fosdick will be on the job with both feet and the Homicide Squad,
+before we know it. We haven't much time." Drew glanced at his watch as
+Delaney started by moving out one of the book-cases.
+
+The detective ignored the body which lay upon the floor near the little
+table. He was holding his investigation down to outside facts, and
+bringing them to bear upon the crux of the matter. In this way, he
+believed, he would secure better results. He did not want to be blinded
+by an impossibility at the beginning. His first glance at Stockbridge
+sufficed to assure him that the lethal instrument which had felled the
+magnate was not in evidence. The bright light from a score of globes
+would reveal any such object as a revolver or rifle. No one of the
+servants had seen anything. They still were peering into the room like
+men and women who had lost all they owned. Stockbridge, despite his
+temper and sins, had been a good master to those who served him without
+questioning.
+
+Drew glared at his watch for a second time, in preoccupation. He strode
+to the library door and beckoned a hooked finger toward the butler who
+towered over the other servants.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed. "You didn't obey orders. You didn't stay where you
+were told to stay! Why did you leave this door at all?"
+
+"S' 'elp me, sir, I didn't, Mr. Drew. If I did it wasn't farther than
+the foyer or the downstairs steps. I took very careful pains to call
+the second-man, sir, when I went after you."
+
+Drew's eyes smoldered with inner fire. "I told you," he repeated, "I
+told you to stay by this door and not leave it--even for a minute. You
+went after the second-man, by your own admission. You went to the foyer
+hall. You went to the staircase leading down to the lower part of the
+house. In other words, you didn't watch the door, and you lost your
+master through your own foolishness!"
+
+"But, sir, nobody could 'ave gotten through the door. Hit was locked
+and bolted on the hinside, sir! I 'e'rd Mr. Stockbridge do that when
+you left 'im! I did, sir!"
+
+"We may have been mistaken when we thought we heard that! Perhaps he
+just fumbled with the locks, and left it unlocked." Drew eyed the
+servant's red face with a keen-lidded glance. He waited.
+
+"That cawn't be right, sir," said the butler, after thought and a wild
+glance about. "'Ow can that be right? I tried the door when the
+telephone loidy called me hup! I tried hit twice. James tried hit! 'E
+fixes hall the locks in the 'ouse, sir. 'E says it was most excellently
+secured, sir."
+
+"How about that?" asked Drew, turning to the second-man. "What of that,
+James?"
+
+"'E's right. I'm a little of everythin' about the 'ouse. I tends the
+door and I watches the lights and locks, sir. I was born in Brixton,
+sir, where the old man kept a lock-shop, sir. That's twenty years, and
+more ago, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir."
+
+Drew swung upon the butler. The second-man was the living picture of
+truth. His dereliction, if any, might consist in sly tapping of the
+wine-cellar. His nose attested to this habit, in a brilliant rosette.
+
+"You're partly to blame!" Drew told the butler. "There's nobody in this
+room who could have committed the murder. There was nobody here when we
+left Mr. Stockbridge. There is no way for anybody to get in, save
+through this door. The same applies in getting out--escaping. If you
+were awake and always here, and if you were honest," he added, "I could
+presume that the master was slain by--well, let us say, unnatural
+causes. Such things do not exist. This is a material age. Nothing as
+much as a pin-head or point was ever moved save through a natural
+cause. No bullet could be fired into a man's brain without a hand which
+planned or pulled the trigger."
+
+The butler stared at Drew with blank expression. He gulped. His eyes
+dropped. "I'm thinking," he said, "that the whole blym occurrence his
+unnatural. I never left that door until they told me the telephone
+company's loidy wanted me on the wire. It was then I left it."
+
+"Ah!" said Drew. "We're getting there. Then, if you are speaking truth,
+and I won't help you if you are not, we have reached a point in the
+case which will bear considerable thought. It is evident that
+Stockbridge was murdered by a pistol shot, at or about the time the
+table and contents were spilled over. In other words, the shot which
+bowled him over brought down with it the telephone transmitter and
+receiver. That is the thing which fixes, within minutes--perhaps
+seconds--the time of the murder. The telephone girl will have a record
+which will help us considerable. Many criminals have been caught--and
+convicted by the time element. There is no alibi against truth! A man
+can't be in two places at the same time!"
+
+Drew turned toward the door. He hesitated and wheeled.
+
+"You heard nothing fall in this room?" he asked sharply.
+
+"I did not, sir."
+
+"No shot?"
+
+"I cawn't say that I did, sir."
+
+"No telephone bell ringing? Ringing at any time after I left the
+house?"
+
+"Not downstairs, sir."
+
+"You did!"
+
+"'Ow, sir?"
+
+"Didn't you tell me the telephone company rang up and wanted you to put
+the receiver on the hook in the library?"
+
+"I didn't 'ear it ring. James brought the word, sir."
+
+"Then, what happened upstairs?"
+
+"'Ow do you know, sir? 'Ow'd you know it rang up there!"
+
+"By elimination! It rang then, in Loris' room? You said 'nothing
+downstairs' in such a way I presume it rang upstairs."
+
+The butler stroked his chin. It was blue and close-shaved. The purple
+of his cheeks and neck had deepened. He glanced about the hallway. His
+eyes wandered toward the grand stairway which, coiled upward to the
+second story. "I'm 'iding nothing, sir," he said. "Miss Loris often is
+called up at night. She's very popular, sir. I 'e'rd 'er telephone
+ringing once or twice while I was standing by this door, waiting for
+the master to come out--which 'e never did."
+
+Drew hesitated. He plucked out his watch and glanced at the dial. He
+turned swiftly. "Stay right there," he said as he parted the portieres
+and faced Delaney who wore the puzzled expression of a man baffled and
+entirely at sea.
+
+"What did you find?" he snapped to the operative.
+
+"Not a thing, Chief." Delaney mopped his brow with his sleeve. "Nothing
+at all!" he added. "Everything regular. Modern--very modern house!
+Thick, new, fireproof, soundproof, million-dollar building. No
+trapdoors or panels. No loose boards. No hole in the ceiling. No
+nothing to hang a ghost on. The gunman who shot Stockbridge went right
+up in blue smoke, Chief. I quit!"
+
+Drew glided around the table and kneeled by the magnate's body. His
+swift, light-fingered touch went through the trousers and vest. The
+pockets he turned inside out. The watch attracted his attention. Its
+dial had been cracked by the fall. A splinter of glass pressed against
+the minute hand. He rose with a low cry. He pressed the repeater and
+listened to the time chimes. He counted the strokes. He had a test in a
+million. Had the watch been tampered with by the murderer, the chimes
+would have proved a lie. It was possible to set the hands to any
+position. It would be difficult to change both the hands and the
+repeater.
+
+"Delaney!" he said with his dark eyes glowing, "we've got the exact
+time of the murder. As I told the butler--it is very important. Both,
+chimes and hands, show that Stockbridge was shot at four minutes and
+eighteen seconds past midnight--this morning! This is a fine watch. It
+cost several thousand dollars. Robbery was not the motive. An ordinary
+crook, and they're all ordinary--with few exceptions--would have taken
+this timepiece."
+
+"That's all right," said Delaney with a quick frown. "That's fine,
+Chief, but--but how did that exceptional--crook get into this room? How
+did he get out? That's what I want to know!"
+
+Drew combed his fingers through his black hair. He described a complete
+circle about the library, with his eyes taking in everything, before he
+faced Delaney.
+
+"I don't know!" he said frankly. "I don't want to think of it, either.
+We'll turn the case over to other men for the time. Let them do some
+thinking. I believe we have secured everything we want."
+
+The detective dropped his glance to the telephone receiver upon the
+floor at Stockbridge's elbow. He stooped, grasped the silk-insulated
+cord, and fished it up.
+
+"I'll try to get Central," he said. "This has been off a long while.
+She may have sent the trouble-man again."
+
+Drew worked the hook of the 'phone up and down. He was answered after a
+short wait. The girl's surprised voice at hearing life at the end of a
+dead set of wires was drowned in the detective's request to get him,
+"Spring 3100--quickly!"
+
+"Hello! Hello!" said Drew as he got the connection. "Hello! Is this
+Spring 3100? It is? Who's talking? ... Jones? This you, Jones? ... Say,
+Jones, plug me in on the Fifth Deputy Commissioner's private house
+wire!... Sir? ... I don't care! ... This is Drew talking.... Drew! ...
+D--r--e--w! ... That's right ... Drew, of Drew's Agency!"
+
+The Detective turned. He eyed Delaney who was searching the floor about
+the millionaire's upturned shoes. He tapped the receiver against the
+transmitter's silver-plated edge. His eyes lifted. His lips hardened as
+the diaphragm of the receiver vibrated harshly.
+
+"Hello!" he answered tersely. "Hello! This you, Commissioner? Is this
+Fosdick? ... This is Drew talking. Yes! ... Drew.... Yes! I say,
+Fosdick, there's been a murder committed at Stockbridge's.... You
+know--the munitions magnate! ... The millionaire! ... Morphy's old
+partner."
+
+Drew waited a moment. He dropped his eyes upon the body below him.
+
+"Yes!" he continued into the transmitter. "Yes, Fosdick. I hear better,
+now. Yes--Stockbridge is dead! ... He's stone dead! He was shot down in
+cold blood! ... Yes! ... Shot in the brain.... Yes! Send your best
+operatives.... Yes! ... Send a fingerprint man and photographer. You'll
+need 'em! ... Yes! ... Yes! ... Shot with a small-bore revolver, I
+guess! ... Wound behind ear looks like it! What? ... No! ... Room was
+bolted.... He was inside.... Butler on guard.... Windows closed and
+locked! ... No! ... No! ... No! ... It wasn't suicide. He was
+threatened twice, this time!... By letter and telephone call....
+What? ... What? ... No! ... He didn't shoot himself! ... There's no gun.
+It's on the left side--close up! ... Hair is singed ... flesh is powder
+spotted.... Burned? ... Yes.... You'll be right up?... Yes! ... I'll be
+waiting! ... Come! ... come----"
+
+Drew lowered the receiver and clicked it upon the hook of the telephone
+which stood on the hardwood floor. He slowly turned toward the open
+doorway of the library. The servants had drawn back and out of sight.
+Delaney leaned forward with both hands on his bent knees. A girl's
+voice had sounded in the mansion. It came closer. The portieres parted
+with a silken sweep. Drew braced himself against the larger table. His
+hand went back to his hip. It dropped to his side. He stared across the
+flood of light with line-drawn eyelids.
+
+Loris Stockbridge, gowned in lace chiffon and cloaked with ermine and
+sable, glided across the rugs and stood framed beneath the soft,
+rose-light of the central dome. Her dusk-black eyes burned and blazed
+like flame through tinder smoke as she confronted the detective.
+
+Clasped in the fingers of her jewelless right hand was a tiny,
+ivory-handled revolver.
+
+"What are all these people doing here?" she asked hysterically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+"HARRY NICHOLS"
+
+
+Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. He
+bowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolver
+clutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge's right hand. He bowed for a
+second time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he said
+distinctly:
+
+"Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father.
+It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won't you please
+go back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am in
+charge of matters."
+
+"Matters? What do you mean?"
+
+The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if she
+were unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in her
+direction. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in the
+world. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination.
+
+"Something happened," he repeated. "I'm very sorry for you, Miss
+Stockbridge."
+
+"Happened!" she exclaimed. "Happened to him? You don't mean that
+letter--that telephone call--do you?"
+
+Loris' splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lights
+shone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon the
+envelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter lay
+with one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. They
+swung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between her
+and the body of her father. She divined this movement with quick
+intuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a graceful
+movement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, which
+wavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side of
+her head. She started sobbing--short, throaty sobs of poignant
+distress.
+
+"Please don't," whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. "Please
+don't, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You should
+not have come down here."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+The word came from the depths of a soul. "Dead?" she repeated with her
+taper fingers spreading across her face.
+
+"Yes, Miss," said Drew with a catch in his voice. "Yes, he is quite
+dead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behind
+and under his left ear. No one was in the library when he locked
+himself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down.
+And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was----"
+
+"Murdered!" Loris' voice had lifted to one wild shriek of final
+conviction and grief. She swayed. Her knees bent beneath her skirt and
+bulged outwardly. She sank into a slow faint at the detective's feet.
+She pillowed her head upon the rug. A silence followed.
+
+Drew stooped, after a glance at the servants in the doorway, thrust his
+body as a barrier, and reached along Loris' white arm until his hand
+closed over the barrel of the little revolver. He untwisted her cold
+fingers, and palmed the weapon under a shielding cuff. He rose, saying
+to Delaney, who had hurried forward:
+
+"I'll take charge of this."
+
+"Sure, Chief. Plant it. She didn't have it."
+
+"She had it all right, but--we'll suspend judgment. You and the butler
+carry her upstairs. Go easy. Her bedroom is on the third floor, I
+think. That's the reason she didn't come down sooner. Perhaps, well, I
+say, she didn't hear us breaking down the door. We are her agents in
+this matter, now. Remember that, and say nothing to anybody. I'll do
+the talking."
+
+Drew dropped his hand into his side pocket. It came out without the
+revolver but with a handkerchief between his fingers. He mopped his
+brow gracefully, then replaced the handkerchief. The motion was a
+natural one.
+
+He followed Delaney and the butler with their soft burden as far as the
+first steps of the stairway. He turned and strode back to the doorway
+leading into the library. He faced about in this. He eyed the servants,
+who lowered their heads beneath his accusing scrutiny. Focusing his
+gaze to a searching squint he tried to single out a culprit from their
+midst. There seemed to be none. Each face was terror-lined and drawn.
+Each seemed to want to avoid his direct glance. None of all of them
+faced him with boldness or assurance. It was as he expected things to
+be. There was no evidence shown in the case that the servants of the
+Stockbridge regime had ever threatened the master. They were old, tried
+and trusted. They had the faults of their kind. These faults only
+served to strengthen Drew's opinion that the murderer of the magnate
+had struck from the outside, without benefit of inside information. The
+letter and the telephone call were foreign. A note, pinned upon the
+millionaire's pillow, would have been more effective. Nothing had been
+tried like that. This proved to Drew that he could eliminate the
+servants, for the time being.
+
+"Which one of you is the valet?" he asked with final resolve.
+
+"I am, sir!"
+
+Drew ran his eyes over an aged man in white vest and tight-fitting
+clothes which were studded here and there with gold-plated buttons. The
+fit of the stockings--the neatness of the low patent-leather shoes--the
+smartness and aloofness of the individual, caused the detective to
+smile slightly. The man was better dressed than his master.
+
+"Your native country is Germany?" said Drew.
+
+"It was, sir."
+
+"No, it is yet. You can't change that part of it. When did you come to
+the United States?"
+
+"Fourteen--fifteen years ago, sir. The master brought me from England
+where I was employed by the Right Honorable Arthur Sandhurst, sir."
+
+"You are now a naturalized American?"
+
+"Going on thirteen years, sir."
+
+"Come down to my office about noon to-morrow. I want to speak to you
+then. I haven't time now. Be sure you bring that magpie with you." Drew
+turned and jerked his thumb toward the front of the library. "Do you
+understand?"
+
+"I do, sir!"
+
+"That's all!" exclaimed the detective. "One of you may stand by the
+door until Mr. Delaney returns. The rest may go downstairs. Remember,
+no talking to anybody but accredited police officers, who will soon be
+here."
+
+"I'll stand guard!" announced the second-man with a pompous voice.
+"Nobody'll get by me, sir. I'll 'ave them know I'm right 'ere, sir."
+
+Drew backed through the curtains as the second-man was speaking. He
+dropped them behind him and started another search, which was done in
+solitude and in silence. He went over everything in the library with
+the trained eyes of an operative who had learned his profession in many
+schools. He left deduction and surmise for a later hour. He was after
+cold facts which might lead to an answer to the riddle. He held, with
+some slight scorn, the theory of the armchair detective and the puzzle
+worked out by retrospection. His experience had been, that only through
+hard work could he expect to find his answer. He had been credited with
+visiting six hundred laundries in search of a certain mark. He had a
+note book filled with his failures to find the man he was after. The
+men he had found caused him no concern whatsoever. They had gone to
+prison and closed their accounts with him.
+
+He applied hard work over the minutes to the case at hand. He went over
+the body of the aged millionaire. He took scrapings of the blood stains
+on the floor. He scratched up some few atoms of dried whisky. He
+examined the bottle. He searched each square inch under and about the
+body. He went through Stockbridge's pockets and beneath his vest. He
+tried everything in the way of getting facts which might bear on the
+case. A tape measure furnished certain distances which were recorded
+upon the back of an envelope. His data was complete, insofar as he had
+time to go. He desired to spend at least twelve hours in the library.
+This could not be. The case would be taken from his hands within
+minutes. Already there was a stir in the front part of the house. The
+bell had been ringing for some time. Delaney and the butler had
+hastened forward to answer it.
+
+"The Central Office bunch!" announced the operative, parting the
+curtains and staring in at Drew. "Here they are, Chief!"
+
+The detective stepped briskly out of the room and glided through the
+foyer hall to the front door. Here Delaney joined him, as steps were
+heard coming up from the servants' quarters as well as outside. It was
+as if a raid were in progress.
+
+"Brass band methods!" said Drew. "You get out, Delaney, and go to our
+taxi. Stay there! I want to speak to Fosdick."
+
+The door opened. A burly form blotted out the light from the Avenue and
+stamped in, shaking the snow from his overcoat. It was Fosdick--Chief
+of Detectives.
+
+"Hello," he said cuttingly. "Hello, Drew! What's this you've been
+giving me over the 'phone?"
+
+The detective drew Fosdick aside and allowed five Central Office men to
+stream into the hallway.
+
+"Go and see," he suggested into the detective's ear. "Go and see. I've
+left everything just as I found it. The body is still there. The
+servants have been kept in the house. Question them. I'm off, now.
+'Phone me not later than eight this morning. I'll be at my office. I'm
+acting in a private capacity. I'm protecting Loris Stockbridge--the
+sole heir!"
+
+"Protecting!" exclaimed Fosdick. "What d'ye mean?"
+
+Drew dropped his hand to his pocket and crammed down the little
+ivory-handled revolver. "Well," he smiled broadly. "You know what I
+mean. She's alone in this world--save for her friends. The old man
+called me in the case. I'm still in the case--remember that!"
+
+Fosdick gulped hard. "All right," he said, turning and peeling off his
+coat. "I'll soon get to the bottom of this! Case looks easy to me. It's
+suicide! That's all it ever could be!"
+
+Drew found his hat and coat where the butler had hung them. He went out
+through the front door without answering Fosdick. He crossed the Avenue
+on a diagonal which brought him to the waiting taxi where Delaney stood
+muffled to the chin. The two men climbed upon the running-board. The
+driver started up with a jerk, from his frozen position in the snow.
+They rounded the block and stopped in front of the drug-store where
+Loris had met the officer.
+
+The Central Office man who had taken O'Toole's place had little to
+report. O'Toole had vanished toward the south. When last seen he was
+close on the heels of the man in olive-drab.
+
+"Come on, Delaney," said Drew at this information. "We'll walk over to
+Fifth Avenue and then downtown. The driver can pick up our men in the
+alley. I want to clear my head of this muddle. A walk will do it!"
+
+Delaney fell in behind his chief. They turned the corner. They struck
+through a side street and westward. They saw ahead of them the white
+expanse of untrodden snow, and beyond this the faint blue barricade of
+the Palisades.
+
+The hour was after three. The crisp underfooting brought wine to their
+cheeks. The grip of winter air cleared both men's heads like a draught
+of ether. They stepped out. Their shoulders went back. Their thoughts
+passed from the case at the mansion to other things. The night had been
+filled with a thousand disappointments. Greatest of these was the
+stabbing memory that they both had been picked by the multimillionaire
+to protect him and save him from his enemies. They had failed in this
+trust. Their patron lay dead, and somewhere a whispering voice chuckled
+over a victory.
+
+"Fifth Avenue!" announced Drew as they reached the corner. "Now,
+downtown, Delaney," he added cheerily. "Old Kris Kringle has nothing on
+us to-night. I believe we're the only ones out."
+
+The operative caught his chief's humor, and glanced into his face with
+a smile. "Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!" he repeated from the depths of
+his lungs. "I'm glad, Triggy, to get from that damn house and that damn
+magpie and that----"
+
+"So am I!" said Drew, thrusting out his hand and linking his elbow into
+the cove of Delaney's arm. "So am I. Fine night for the poor firm of
+Drew and Company."
+
+Delaney glanced around and over his left shoulder. He blinked with
+frosty lids as he saw the towering facades of Stockbridge's mansion;
+its turrets and towers spiraled in the winter sky. He drew in his lips
+and compressed them. He puffed them out as he turned.
+
+"I'm deducting," he said, "that there's more at the bottom of this
+thing than we think. Put it down for me that the Germans are mixed up
+in it."
+
+Drew walked on for a block before he answered. He gripped the
+operative's arm by closing his own as he said:
+
+"Quit deducting! It's fatal! Get your facts! Get all of them. The
+answer will come then, without an effort. It will be the right answer
+or none at all."
+
+"Just the same, Chief----"
+
+"The trouble with you," broke in Drew severely, "the trouble is, that
+you are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans,
+with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in this
+country at the present time. In other words, the most of them are good
+Americans and sane."
+
+"That walley-sham?"
+
+"He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?"
+
+"Sure, Chief!"
+
+"Anything strike you as peculiar?"
+
+"N--o."
+
+"There were tears in his eyes--the only ones shed in that house for
+Stockbridge--outside of the daughter."
+
+Delaney gulped. "I didn't see them," he said frankly.
+
+"No! Well, I did--and when he wasn't expecting me to see them. A woman
+is never wholly lost who can blush, or a man who can shed tears."
+
+"Sounds like good deduction," admitted the operative. "But then, Chief,
+there are a lot of fine actors in this world. I think there has been
+some in this case."
+
+"This case, Delaney," Drew said, "is like many others which appear at
+first impossible of solving. All things can be solved by first
+principles. Give me all the facts and I'll give you the answer to any
+riddle. The answer will come! Don't try to write your plot until you
+have words to form your story. Don't make the mistake of forcing an
+answer to father a wish. In other words, Delaney, best of friends, we
+haven't all the facts we are going to get in this case and therefore it
+is idle to attempt to deduce who shot Stockbridge!"
+
+"Or how he was shot, Chief?"
+
+"It's almost the same thing. Both answers will come with hard work and
+plenty of it. We must keep along the main stem. Truth is a tree with
+many branches. It rises from the roots named cause, and reaches the top
+called effect. It springs from motive up to crime in one straight stem.
+We must trim away the branches and the false-work, and then we can see
+the trunk."
+
+"There's one I'd like to trim right now," said Delaney, pausing in his
+snow-caked stride.
+
+"Which one?" asked Drew.
+
+"That noise in the library like a cat getting its tail twisted."
+
+"I can explain that!"
+
+"It's been driving me to drink, Chief."
+
+"The telephone company, Delaney, have a device they call a howler. They
+cut this device in on the wire when a receiver is left off the hook. It
+is simply a high-frequency current generated for the purpose of
+vibrating the receiver's diaphragm until somebody hears the noise and
+puts the receiver back on the hook."
+
+"It's a howler, all right, Chief!"
+
+"Oftentimes a book or magazine gets under a receiver and lifts it up an
+inch or more. This attracts the attention of the central operator who
+thinks somebody is trying to get a number. When the situation is clear
+to her that the receiver is off the hook, or that the circuit is closed
+without anybody being at the receiver end, she notifies the
+wire-captain or chief-operator. It was either one or the other who put
+the howler on after Stockbridge was shot and the 'phone had fallen to
+the floor. Is that satisfactory? Does that explain the noise we heard
+in the library before we broke down the door?"
+
+"I see now, Chief. I thought all along it was spirits like the rest of
+the job. Outside of spirits, what is the answer to the things that
+happened in that house? I know it. I deduct it, Chief. The old man was
+expecting somebody all of the time. He let this somebody into the
+library when the butler wasn't looking. Maybe it was a woman, for all
+we know. Maybe a German spy. Maybe anybody. This somebody got in an
+argument with him over spoils on some deal, and shot him dead. That's
+my idea, Chief!"
+
+"You've missed your profession, Delaney. You've disgraced the firm! How
+did the library door get locked on the inside? How did that happen? Did
+Stockbridge, shot through the brain, rise and do it? It was mighty well
+locked--you remember!"
+
+"I never thought of that," admitted the operative. "Then it looks,
+Chief, as if it was a case of suicide."
+
+"Fosdick said the same thing without having many facts. How could a
+right-handed man shoot himself behind the left ear? How could he do a
+thing like that and then get rid of the weapon without leaving a trace
+of it? How--oh, well, get facts and you won't ask such questions!"
+
+"Then it was done by an outsider?" blurted Delaney, staring through the
+wind-blown snow which came off the housetops. "It was done by the
+fellow who 'phoned and wrote that letter, or had the letter written? I
+don't see how he could do it!"
+
+Drew smiled at Delaney's candor. "Neither do I," he said simply. "But
+we've crossed Forty-second Street and we're on the trail by everyday,
+up-to-date methods which never fail if they are continued long enough
+and men work hard enough. We'll start with Harry Nichols--the man in
+olive-drab! I've his address!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+"THE SPOT OF BLACK"
+
+
+Delaney stepped behind his chief and followed in single file as the
+detective swung from the Avenue at Thirty-ninth Street and turned
+toward the east on the up-town side of the thoroughfare.
+
+The snow had ceased falling from out the leaden sky. A roar came to
+them of the awakening city which was stirring in its last sleep. A tug
+whistled hoarsely somewhere on the East River. Its blare and signal
+echoed down the towering canyon. An answering rattle sounded from the
+Elevated. A milk wagon churned by. A deep-seagoing hansom-cab, of the
+vintage of ten years before, struggled along Madison Avenue as the two
+detectives paused on the corner and sought a pathway through the snow
+to the opposite side.
+
+"Some night," said the operative, pulling down his derby hat and facing
+Drew. "A hell of a night to be out. Good thing we walked, though. My
+head is clearing."
+
+"It needed clearing," said the detective. "Some of your deductions were
+impossible. Whom do you suppose we're going to meet here?"
+
+"How should I know, Chief?"
+
+"Guess!"
+
+"Harry Nichols."
+
+"Who else?"
+
+"Search me, Chief."
+
+"Who's that over across the street in the shelter of the stoop? See! He
+sees us! You ought to know who that is!"
+
+"He looks familiar," admitted Delaney.
+
+"It's O'Toole!"
+
+"That's right, Chief. It is! He tailed the lad in the fur benny from
+the drug-store and came here. The lad in the drug-store was Harry
+Nichols. The thing works out all right."
+
+"Get over to the other side of the street and tell O'Toole that he can
+go home and get some sleep. Tell him to be at the office not later than
+eight o'clock--this morning. Get what information you can from him.
+This brownstone house with the sign out is our address. I'll wait on
+the stoop."
+
+Delaney was over in three minutes. "All right," he said cheerfully.
+"O'Toole says that Nichols left the drug-store and walked south. Trail
+led to Fred's Old English Chop House where Nichols drank a split of
+mineral water and had a chop with a potato. He 'phoned twice before
+leaving. O'Toole don't know where to. The booth was soundproof and all
+the lad did was to drop coins. He left a piece of paper in the booth.
+O'Toole got it. Here it is, Chief."
+
+Drew slanted a torn portion of envelope and studied its surface. He
+deciphered a scrawling handwriting into the words, "Loris, Loris,
+Gramercy Hill, Attorney Denman of Cedar Street, will consult with him
+in morning.... Drew's Detective Agency ... look out."
+
+"Umph!" said Drew, pocketing the scrap of paper with a thoughtful
+frown. "That last may be a warning. Again it could be a mere notation.
+What else did O'Toole find, Delaney?"
+
+"That's all, except that he put the boy to bed here at about one
+o'clock. There's a 'phone in Nichols' apartment. O'Toole sneaked up the
+stairs and heard it ringing. He had to come down for fear of queering
+things. He said that's all, chief."
+
+The detective turned and entered the storm-door. He struck a match and,
+shielding it with his hands, searched the names over the mailboxes. A
+neat card, set in well-polished bronze, indicated, "Harry E. Nichols,
+Apartment Three."
+
+"He keeps this place all of the time," said Drew, jabbing at the
+button. "He's down on furlough or Government business. Nice place,
+this," he added as the inner door-lock clicked and he thrust his foot
+forward. "Looks like about two hundred a month. This is exclusively
+bachelor!"
+
+"Them bachelor apartments," said Delaney with candor as he glided into
+the hallway. "Them places like this ain't what they seem. There's some
+big parties pulled off in them. I remembers----"
+
+"Sisst!" warned Drew, clutching the operative's arm. "Easy," he
+whispered. "Come on. Somebody is waiting upstairs for us. See his head
+in the light by the banister. Same chap, ain't it?"
+
+"Can't see, Chief. Might be!"
+
+"Nice house," commented Drew as his feet sank in a deep-blue hall
+carpet. "Good ornaments and fixtures throughout the place. Nice house!
+Just about what I'd expected. Here we are. I'll do the talking."
+
+A blond pompadour, under which was a pair of wide gray eyes that
+blinked at them, greeted the two detectives as they turned the last
+landing. A thick-lipped mouth, in which was considerable strength and
+determination, opened and revealed a double row of strong, young teeth
+that would have delighted an Army recruiting sergeant.
+
+"Well, what do you gentlemen want at this hour of the morning?"
+
+Drew squared his shoulders and pressed Delaney back a foot or more.
+
+"Harry Nichols?" he asked brusquely.
+
+"Yes, I'm Harry Nichols."
+
+"Miss Stockbridge's friend?"
+
+The gray eyes widened perceptibly. The lids dropped in heavy
+calculation. "Who are you?" the young man asked point-blankly. "I don't
+believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting either of you gentlemen."
+Nichols glanced into Delaney's leaning face which was just over his
+chief's shoulder.
+
+"No, you haven't," said Drew softening his tone. "We've never met, but
+we may see considerable of each other. Here's my card!"
+
+Nichols took the card, tilted it to the light from the open door, then
+dropped it into the right-hand side pocket of his lounging robe beneath
+which blue pajamas showed.
+
+"Come in!" he said without committing himself. "Come in, and take off
+your hats. I've only two rooms and a bath, here."
+
+Drew stepped upon heavy rugs and crossed the chamber to a chair. He
+turned this, removed his hat, and sat down with his legs thrust
+outward. His eyes roamed the place in slow calculation. Dark, old
+masters, which were probably good in their day, stared down at him. A
+little globe, petticoated in soft silk, gave a yellow light to the
+walls and floor. It brought out Nichols' features in sharp, actinic
+shadows. Drew continued his searching glance. A bed, with tossed
+coverlet and sheets, loomed from an inner room. A table, upon which was
+an officer's cap and gloves, stood between two doors that were closed.
+One of these doors, Drew concluded, was the bathroom entrance, the
+other might have been a closet. His eyes fastened finally upon a
+telephone upon a dark-wood stand. He lifted his chin.
+
+"Montgomery Stockbridge is dead!" he snapped, darting at Harry Nichols
+the keen scrutiny of a man salvoing a surprise.
+
+Nichols glanced at the 'phone. "I know that!" he said with rising
+color. "I'm aware of that fact, Mr. Drew."
+
+"When did you first learn of it?"
+
+"See here! I have your card. I know who you are. I was almost expecting
+you, or another detective. But,"--Nichols' voice raised to a determined
+key--"but, sir, I am not talking to anybody about what you just told
+me. How do I know who you represent--the police or the law or the----"
+
+"You have talked with Miss Stockbridge. She told you in the drug-store
+that I was in the house. She has told you that I was called in by her
+father. She undoubtedly 'phoned you, after she recovered from her
+faint. You have the details of the dastardly murder--if ever there was
+one! I represent her. I represent her friends. I have no other interest
+in this case!"
+
+Harry Nichols drew out the card and studied it. He glanced at Delaney.
+"Who is this man?" he asked.
+
+"My right bower. He's with me--and you and Miss Loris. We're together
+in this. The police now have the case. What I want is to protect you
+and her from the police. What will they do when they learn from the
+servants--which they will--that Miss Stockbridge had _this_ gun in her
+hand when she entered the library?"
+
+Drew extended his palm. In the hollow of it lay the little
+ivory-handled revolver which he had taken from Loris.
+
+"What are they going to do when they learn about this?" he asked with
+shrewd reasoning. "Particularly, Mr. Nichols, when the caliber of this
+revolver is probably the same caliber of the bullet which entered, and
+is still in, Mr. Stockbridge's brain."
+
+The gray eyes narrowed. The lips compressed until they were white. They
+seemed drawn with pain. A faint hiss of surprise sounded in the room.
+Harry Nichols turned and strode to an ornate mantel-piece upon which
+was a single cabinet photo. He lifted it impulsively. He stared at the
+picture of Loris Stockbridge as if in it lay inspiration, and resolve.
+He set the photo down and wheeled upon Drew. His eyes blazed.
+
+"If you have no connection in this case, save as an adviser," he said
+clearly and from his heart, "why are you trying to trap me or her? Are
+all detectives alike? Would they rather see a man in jail than free?"
+
+Drew closed his fingers over the little revolver. He glanced upward at
+Delaney's towering bulk which was near the doorway leading to the outer
+hall. This door was the only way out of the apartment. The detective
+gave no signal to the operative. His fingers uncoiled and revealed a
+thumb pressing upon the silver-plated barrel from which the leaden
+noses of six bullets showed as he turned it.
+
+"You are wrong," he said with simple naivete. "You wrong me in this
+matter. The affair at Stockbridge's will sooner or later bring you in
+contact with the Police Department's Detective Bureau. Fosdick, the
+district attorney, the coroner, may want to interview you. The
+servants, the newspapers, idle tongues will connect your name with that
+of Loris Stockbridge. This connection, taking in the fact that she had
+a revolver of the same caliber as was used to slay her father, may
+cause trouble. I want----"
+
+"How do you know it's the same revolver--the same caliber?"
+
+There was a stubborn defense in the young man's tones which somewhat
+pleased the detective. It promised loyalty.
+
+"It may not be the same revolver," Drew said softly. "It may be that
+the murder was not committed with a revolver. A rifle, held close to a
+man's brain, would make the same kind of mark and burns. I do know
+this, however, that the opening in Mr. Stockbridge's head is the same
+size as my lead pencil--which I have measured and found to be under a
+quarter-inch. It would seem then that twenty-two caliber might fit the
+wound. I know of no other caliber very close to it."
+
+"An army rifle," suggested Delaney from the doorway.
+
+"It is larger," said Nichols with a quick frown. "The modified
+Lee-Enfields, which we are now using, have a greater bore than the
+British or German rifles. They are about .30 caliber."
+
+"Whatever the case," Drew said, "we must get to our first question. I'm
+trying to find the truth and protect Miss Stockbridge from the police
+in case she is suspected. Whose revolver is this? Who does it belong
+to? How came she to have it so soon after meeting you in the corner
+drug-store? Did she request it? Perhaps you will clear these points and
+allow me to go ahead."
+
+"Before I answer your questions, Mr. Drew, before I say anything at
+all, I would rather have a talk with Miss Loris. You see, we are too
+good friends to act apart. I'll answer for her. She is innocent! She is
+too good, too pure to have anything to do with it. She never shot the
+old--Mr. Stockbridge."
+
+"He threw you out of the house on one occasion."
+
+Harry Nichols clenched his fists. "I'll do the same to you!" he
+exclaimed. "This is my apartment. What right have you got coming here
+and accusing Loris? I don't care who you are!"
+
+"Good!" said the detective, rising and stepping forward. "You said just
+what I wanted you to say. And you said it like a man who can wear an
+American uniform. Shake hands!"
+
+Harry Nichols did not exactly brighten under the professional flattery.
+He held out his fingers, however. Drew clasped his hand after
+transferring the revolver to his left palm. He twirled it as he stepped
+backward. "Clean," he said. "It don't seem to have been used for some
+time. But then, who knows? A gun can be wiped and polished,--even in
+the barrel,--in a very few minutes."
+
+Drew glanced at Nichols with a silent question in his eyes. Delaney had
+already sized Nichols up as a very clever young man. He was not far
+wrong, as he learned when the detective's spoken question was shot
+through determined lips.
+
+"Nichols," said Drew, "did you lend Miss Stockbridge this revolver? Is
+it yours? I shall have to turn it over to the police sooner or later.
+They will trace it by the number."
+
+"Is it fully loaded?"
+
+Drew turned the barrel with his broad thumb. He clicked the mechanism.
+He broke it and held it out.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's fully loaded. This is still a merry whirl
+for six!"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Positive, Nichols!"
+
+The soldier's face cleared like a lake from a storm. He beamed upon
+Drew. He smiled for a second time. He pointed toward the chair which
+the detective had quitted. "Sit down," he said, "and make yourself at
+home. This is a temperance dugout, but I've got some real good soft
+stuff--grape juice or club soda. Which will you have?"
+
+"I'll take a cigar," said Delaney.
+
+Drew allowed a smile to creep over his lips. He waited as Harry Nichols
+dipped into a kitchenette, then came back with three glasses of soda
+and a huge black Havana.
+
+"Smoke up," he said good-naturedly to Delaney. "Light up and take a
+chair. It's daybreak, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, time we're going," said Drew, setting his empty glass upon the
+offered tray. "We'll go in a minute. Now, as I told you and as you can
+see, this revolver is fully loaded. It looks clean. I suppose you lent
+it to Miss Stockbridge without any empty cartridges. These are the
+ordinary lead kind which can be secured at any hardware store. You've
+got some here, perhaps."
+
+"None here. They're all up at Plattsburg. We do some target shooting at
+times. These little revolvers don't make much noise. You can use them
+most anywhere."
+
+"That's satisfactory," said Drew, watching the glow of Delaney's cigar.
+"That's all right. Now, when she 'phoned for the gun or you suggested
+that she better have one with her, what did she say about the cemetery
+letter or the threat over the wire? Did she fear anything else? Was
+that her sole reason for having a revolver with her?"
+
+"You cannot expect me to answer for Miss Stockbridge, Mr. Drew. She is
+available. You can talk to her. You represent her. I shall not say
+anything concerning her. She is sacred. The revolver was not
+discharged. It is the same as when I gave it to her in the drug-store.
+Therefore, I'll trouble you for it. It's mine. I admit that."
+
+Drew rose from the chair. His left hand went out. His fingers clasped
+Harry Nichols' shoulder with a fatherly pressure.
+
+"I'm going now," he said. "I'll leave the gun with you. If the police
+want it, give it to them. Perhaps they will never hear of it. I doubt
+if more than one or two servants saw it in Miss Loris' hand when she
+came into the library. They may not tell Fosdick. He'll try to
+rough-shod over them. He may arrest the entire household--including
+Loris. That's his way. It's effective, but it's not my way. Now is
+there anything that you want to say to me which will clear your mind of
+this affair?"
+
+Nichols glanced from Drew's clean-cut face. His eyes rested upon the
+telephone. "I'm going to call her up presently," he said. "I'll talk
+with her. I'll tell her that you were here--that you left the little
+revolver--that you stand ready to swear it was clean and fully loaded.
+Then, when I hear what she has to say about everything, I shall call
+you up. Is that satisfactory, Mr. Drew?"
+
+The detective turned the revolver in his palm and pressed it forward.
+"Take it," said he, "and keep it under cover. I'm off with Mr. Delaney.
+Thanks for the club soda."
+
+"And the cigar," added the big operative as he opened the door.
+
+Drew hesitated on the landing. He turned and went back. Nichols stood
+by the banisters. The soft light from inside clear-cut the officer's
+figure like a statue.
+
+"You can do me a favor," said the detective in a whisper. "A damn nice
+little favor."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Have you an extra photo of the girl-in-the-case. One that's laying
+around somewhere. I don't mean the one on the mantel."
+
+"What do you want it for?"
+
+"For myself. I admire that young lady."
+
+Harry Nichols disappeared through the doorway. He returned within a
+minute with a cabinet-size photo upon the front of which was written,
+"From Loris, January '18," in the vertical chirography much practiced
+by social buds.
+
+"Thanks," said Drew unbuttoning his overcoat and thrusting the photo
+within his breast. "I shall keep and cherish this, as one of my most
+sacred possessions. Congratulations, young man!"
+
+The detective's words rang sincere. Nichols flushed. He stammered an
+answer as Drew hurried down the carpeted steps and joined Delaney at
+the storm-door.
+
+"Chief," said the operative as they reached the sidewalk and turned
+toward Madison Avenue. "Chief, why didn't you pump that lad about
+Stockbridge. You didn't ask him a thing about the old man."
+
+"Unethical to a client," reproved Drew linking arm with the operative.
+"Come on! We must hurry! I've an idea--which is a very strange thing
+for a New York detective to have--that Harry Nichols, if he stays in
+town on furlough, will represent Loris in all matters. I don't know
+where she could find a better counselor. He's a clam! He told us
+nothing!"
+
+"Wise boy, Chief! Only fools and women talk to detectives."
+
+"Umph!" said Drew at this sally. "Umph! Well, come on. It's quit
+snowing. It's daybreak over there in the east and I think the clouds
+will clear before it gets much later. You----"
+
+"Say, Chief!" exclaimed Delaney clutching the detective's shoulder and
+wheeling him around. "Say, stand right there a minute. Right in that
+light. What's that on your chin? Right under the tip of your left ear.
+Turn around a little more!"
+
+Drew raised his left hand and rubbed it across his face. He pinched the
+lobe of his ear between his thumb and index finger. He whistled with
+frosty amazement as he eyed his nail and thumb.
+
+"What to blazes!" he said. "What's that?"
+
+"Turn around! Right under this arc light. Say, Chief, how did you get
+that spot of black on your neck? You've smeared it all over your
+collar."
+
+"I don't know. What's it look like?"
+
+"Soot!"
+
+"Soot?"
+
+"Sure, Chief. Lampblack or soot!"
+
+Drew arched his dark brows as he rubbed his finger-tips together. He
+held them up to the stronger light. He turned and glanced back through
+the silent walls of the street down which they had walked. He took one
+step toward the east.
+
+"Hold on!" said Delaney. "Where are you going?"
+
+"Going back!"
+
+"Why, Chief!"
+
+"Smell that stuff! Smell it!" Drew thrust his fingers under Delaney's
+wrinkled nose. "Smell it, good and strong!" he snapped bitterly. "What
+is it?"
+
+"By God, Chief, it's powder, I smell! Gunpowder, it is!"
+
+"Umph! I must have gotten it from that gat!"
+
+"You couldn't, Chief. That gun was polished up like a whistle. Besides,
+how would the spot come to be under your left ear?"
+
+Drew furrowed his brow. He swung in the snow with new decision. "Come
+on!" he said. "We'll think this over! I didn't see any soot on that
+gat. I don't know where I got it either. Could it have been there for
+some time?"
+
+"Sure, Chief. I just happened to notice it. Light's bright." Delaney
+nodded toward the arc.
+
+"Did you get a good look at my face in Stockbridge's?"
+
+"Can't say that I did, Chief. I was too busy with that howler thing and
+that magpie and that murder, to see anything. You might of got it there
+without me noticing it. It wasn't there in the taxicab. I'll swear to
+that."
+
+Drew passed his fingers across his nostrils like a man sampling
+perfume. He repeated the motion. He scraped some of the powder from his
+nails with a pocket knife and dropped the sample into the crease of an
+envelope which he carefully folded and crammed into his pocket.
+
+"I'll have that analyzed," he said, as they turned toward Fifth Avenue.
+"Another trifle in a chain of circumstance. Think it over, Delaney. It
+resembles and smells like powder which has been burnt. You hurry along
+home. Be at the office no later than nine. I'll keep on down Fifth
+Avenue to the Flatiron Building. I want to walk and clear my head. I'll
+get some coffee, pie and rolls, at an all-night restaurant. I'll take
+time for a shave, shine and shampoo. Perhaps I'll jump into a Turkish
+bath to finish up and get ready for work."
+
+"You're not going to bed at all?"
+
+"Not until I find out who murdered Stockbridge!"
+
+"Or how he was murdered?" said Delaney, with a puzzled frown as he
+turned to go.
+
+"If I get the murderer, I'll find out how he did it!" snapped Drew,
+with a parting glance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+"TANGLED WIRES"
+
+
+It was five minutes before nine when Delaney reached the ornate
+entrance to the skyscraper wherein were the offices of Drew's Agency.
+
+He wandered into the express elevator, yawned a "eighteen, out" signal
+to the elevator pilot and stepped from the cage with the general air of
+a man who had spent a hard night without getting anywhere in
+particular.
+
+Stopping in the operatives' room for a few minutes, he picked up scraps
+of news concerning the case at Stockbridge's. There was a report,
+moreover, that an extra was expected by ten o'clock. The air of
+desertion about the suite told Delaney plainer than words that most of
+the operatives were upon the case. The entire corps, with few
+exceptions, had been working hard while he slept. The telephone-girl
+and the assistant-manager, Harrigan, wound up each of his questions by
+a nod or a jerk of the thumb toward the inner office where Drew was
+sitting like a spider in a web which was being spun about the case at
+hand.
+
+Delaney yawned, braced himself with a drink of ice water drawn from an
+inverted-bottle, and stepped toward Drew's door. He knocked with tired
+knuckles. He pressed forward as he heard a hearty: "Come in!"
+
+The operative eyed his Chief with sovereign amazement. Drew looked as
+fresh as a daisy. There was a pink tinge upon his olive cheeks. These
+cheeks had been close shaven. Oil glistened from the detective's black
+hair. His mustache was trimmed and level with his upper lip. His eyes,
+as he swung and fastened a clear glance upon Delaney, were almost too
+bright. They were like the hectic fires of an inner furnace.
+
+Delaney searched about the room. He lifted one foot and then the other
+with a tired motion. He leaned against a filing-case like a heavy dray
+horse which had come to a final stop. He yawned behind his big, red
+hand.
+
+"How d'ye do it, Chief?" he asked with a second yawn. "I'm dead on my
+feet. All the sleep I got was about thirty minutes. I haven't woke up
+yet. I met myself going to work this morning."
+
+Drew laughed quickly and motioned toward a leather chair. "Sit down!"
+he suggested. "Sit right down, Delaney. Take it easy for a few minutes.
+You seem tired."
+
+"It beats me how you can do it!" declared the operative, sprawling
+across the chair and crossing his weary legs.
+
+"One or two hours' sleep is never any good. Better keep awake. You
+remind me of the last rose of Sharon!"
+
+"I feel like a house-man in an all-night poker game. What's the use!
+I'm going over to some bank and get a job as a night watchman, if this
+keeps up. I can sleep my head off, there."
+
+Drew swung in his chair and eyed the papers on his desk. He swiveled as
+Delaney inquired:
+
+"What's the news in the Stockbridge case? I've been asking Marie and
+Harrigan. They don't seem to know anything except that everybody is
+out--already." Delaney extended his huge mouth to a cavernous yawn. He
+fished up his great, silver watch. "What's the news, Chief? Any
+assignments for me?"
+
+"News? There's very little news, Delaney. No good news, yet! I've been
+busy as a Chinaman on a contract, though. I can't let that matter get
+cold. It's now or never in this case!"
+
+"What does our friend Fosdick say?"
+
+"He's all at sea! I've talked with him twice." Drew glanced at the
+'phone. "He says the murder was a second Rue Morgue. He can't see any
+light at all!"
+
+"He's come around to our deduction?"
+
+"There's no deduction in it!"
+
+"He says it's murder?"
+
+"Cold, curdling, cunning, crafty murder, Delaney. The coroner said it
+would have been impossible for a man to shoot himself in the manner
+Stockbridge was shot. They're right--both of them--and we're right.
+I'll stake my badge on it! Particularly in view of the two threats.
+Why, I was there when he was called up and given twelve hours on this
+earth."
+
+Delaney glanced out the window. "Snowing again," he said, "I wonder if
+there are any footprints in that back yard or alley. Wouldn't that be a
+clue, Chief?"
+
+"To what?"
+
+"Well, you told me that the trouble-man said a tall lad climbed the
+fence near the junction-box and beat it for Fifth Avenue. Maybe that
+lad left footprints behind."
+
+"They're snowed over now!"
+
+"But if he made them, couldn't we find them underneath?"
+
+Drew's eyes narrowed. He leaned in his chair with a searching glance at
+Delaney. "How long did you sleep?" he asked sharply.
+
+"About thirty minutes, Chief. Mary and the kids woke me up and I
+couldn't get settled again. I did some thinking."
+
+"You must 'ave! That idea about the footprints is a mighty good one.
+There was first a thaw, then a freeze, then a snow fall which preserved
+everything. If we wait till spring there might be a set of prints
+underneath the other sets. Two of our operatives were there. The
+trouble-man was there. He scraped the connections. If we find a fourth
+set of prints, that's our man!"
+
+"The tall lad?"
+
+"Yes, Delaney. We can build a box about the fence and start a thaw of
+our own. I'll think it over!"
+
+"I'll go up and do it, Chief. I can make plaster-casts of all the
+prints. There's a French system I heard of once. I can find out from
+Farot over at Headquarters."
+
+"Keep it under cover for a while," decided Drew, sitting down and
+drawing a sheath of papers to the edge of the desk. "Keep it quiet," he
+added. "I'll think it over."
+
+Delaney rubbed his chin. He watched Drew rapidly thumb over the data.
+"Say, Chief," he yawned. "I see another light."
+
+"What?" shot Drew over his shoulder. "S--o? Wait a moment before you
+give it to me--you reminded me of something. Where was the spot of
+powder on my face? The rubber in the Turkish bath said it was right
+here." The detective turned and touched his forefinger below the lobe
+of his left ear. "Right there," he added.
+
+"That's where it was, Chief. Just where you got your finger. It was on
+the cord. Seems to me that it was circular in shape. Like a half-moon."
+
+Drew raised his black brows in reflective thought. He opened a small
+drawer with a sudden dart of his arm. He poised a mirror so that the
+light from the window brought out his left ear and neck. He dropped the
+mirror to the desk. "Delaney," he said, "that's exactly the spot where
+Stockbridge was shot!"
+
+The operative felt a cold chill dart up and down his tired spine. He
+came to life with an oath, and a slap of his huge palm upon his knee.
+
+"Chief, you're right!" he exclaimed, leaning forward. "You're right!
+That spot of black was just where the old man was hit. Now, what d'ye
+make of that?"
+
+Drew drummed his fingers on the edge of the polished desk. He tapped
+his toes on the floor. He coughed and picked up the mirror for a second
+and longer glance at his face and neck. He tossed the mirror to the
+desk and swiveled slowly.
+
+"What do I think of it?" he repeated, with flashing eyes. "I think
+there are features to this case I don't like!"
+
+"Could it have been an accident, Chief? You might of got a bit of soot
+from the gun and then scratched your neck. Maybe that Harry Nichols put
+one over on us. The gun might have been fired, reloaded, and we never
+noticed it. Looks bad for Nichols and the girl."
+
+Drew closed his eyelids tightly. His brow furrowed in deep thought.
+"No," he said finally. "I don't think the soot or powder came from the
+pearl-handled revolver. I don't think so! It would seem to me, Delaney,
+that intuition is stronger than evidence. That girl and that boy rang
+true. That valet is above suspicion. The servants are to be trusted.
+Stockbridge trusted them and he was noted for his shrewdness in picking
+men. The only mistake he ever made was Morphy. That individual was out
+to do the old man. He was a biter, bitten! I think we'll eliminate, for
+the time, Loris, Harry, the servants and German influences in the
+matter at hand. What was your idea?" Drew rubbed his neck beneath his
+ear, as he turned to his papers.
+
+"I've forgotten it, Chief. That spot drove it all out. No, wait--say!
+I've been thinking--this morning laying there and listening to the kids
+getting ready for school--that the powder we smelled in the library
+wasn't ordinary powder. I know a firecracker, or a regular Chinese
+smell when I get near one. That wasn't the kind I got. It was like
+something else. It was powder--all right--but----"
+
+Drew lifted a sheet of paper. "I covered that," he said. "Analysis made
+by Higgens, this morning, shows traces of smokeless-powder in
+Stockbridge's hair and about the bullet hole. There's a difference.
+Now, I'm going further than that. I'm going to have those scrapings I
+got from my neck looked at. If they are the same as the powder that was
+used to slay Stockbridge, we are getting on."
+
+"There's lots of smokeless, Chief."
+
+"That's the trouble--that's what we are right up against. Let's leave
+the footprints and the powder for a few minutes. Both are important.
+They'll wait. See here!"
+
+Drew raised a sheath of papers from his desk, turned with the chair,
+and started thumbing over the data he had accumulated.
+
+"See here," he repeated absently. "First branch of the tree of Truth in
+this case is a stubborn one. It requires considerable work on our part
+to get to the end of it. I've sent out six operatives to scout the
+telephone calls and get me some light on them. I've kept some notes on
+what they have 'phoned in to me. The telephone company, the wire-chief
+at Gramercy Hill, and an official I know, have been enlisted in getting
+to the bottom of these calls. They have made progress. But, Delaney, of
+all the devilish inventions of man, a telephone is the most subtle.
+It's a wonder to me we have found anything. It's the crook's one best
+tool. With it he can play safe, and we can't catch him!"
+
+"What have you found, Chief?"
+
+Drew held up a paper. "The first call, Delaney," he said, "was the one
+to the cemetery company's superintendent, notifying him to excavate a
+grave in the Stockbridges' family plot. Subtle suggestion, that, in the
+light of what followed."
+
+"It was," said Delaney.
+
+"This call has received all of the attention it deserved. It's the
+first of the series, and was perhaps made before the crook had time to
+cover himself completely. It has been traced to a slot booth in the
+Pennsylvania Railroad Station in the Woman's Waiting Room."
+
+"Woman's?"
+
+"Yes, Delaney. That is no criterion that a woman did the calling-up.
+The girl there in charge of the pay-booths states that more men than
+women use the 'phones in that part of the station."
+
+"Just our luck!"
+
+"The toll collected on this call must have been thirty-five cents,
+including the war-tax. The superintendent says that the voice over the
+wire was thin and tired. He says he thought it was Dr. Conroy. He never
+gave the matter second consideration. Conroy, however, has a voice like
+a bull. We checked that up."
+
+"Does the superintendent know Conroy?"
+
+"No! Except by name!"
+
+"Then, Chief, I don't see any use trying that lead. It begins and ends
+in air."
+
+"It most certainly does! We'll cross it out. The next call for our
+investigation----"
+
+"Which was?" asked Delaney, waking up.
+
+"Which was the one notifying Stockbridge that he had about reached his
+span of life on this earth. I was there in that library when the call
+came in. Again, from the millionaire's description, this time, we have
+the thin, whispering voice on the wire. The man was probably the same.
+He mentioned the cemetery letter which would establish that fact."
+
+"I'm following you, Chief. Go on!"
+
+Drew picked out a second sheet of paper from his pile. "We went after
+this call at the time, or soon after the time it was sent in," he said,
+tapping the sheet with his fingers. "I called the office here and had
+Harrigan get in touch with George Westlake, third vice-president of the
+telephone company. Westlake got busy."
+
+Delaney eyed his unpolished shoes with a sage wink.
+
+"Westlake turned things over," continued the detective. "He made a most
+thorough investigation. We have his word that there is no record of
+this call! The wire-chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange declares that it
+never went through the switchboard. That the connection had been made
+on the outside."
+
+"From the air?"
+
+"Looks that way. They tried everything and questioned everybody. No one
+talked with Stockbridge through the switchboard at Gramercy Hill, at or
+near that hour. Therefore, we must conclude, that, insomuch as I know
+somebody _did_ talk with him at that hour, the connection was made,
+either in the junction-box in the alley or behind the switchboard at
+Gramercy Hill Exchange."
+
+"How about underground, Chief?"
+
+"Impossible! That is--almost impossible. The cables are in conduit and
+sheathed with lead. It would be a poor place to tap in on a line. I'm
+going to presume that the man who tapped in knew his business. The
+junction-box in the alley is under suspicion. I think it was done
+there, in this manner." Drew paused and picked up a third sheet of
+hurriedly-written notes.
+
+"A junction-box," he said, "is merely a small switchboard where the
+conduit ends and the house connections begin. It would have been easy
+for an expert to disconnect the two leads which led into Stockbridge's
+library, ring up with a low tension magneto, and then cut in with a
+testing set and a battery current and do the talking. That is what the
+trouble-man told us might have been done. He found no signs of
+tampering. He saw a tall man escaping down the alley. It would seem,
+Delaney, that this tall man is the one we're after. Perhaps, as you
+said, he left footprints. But footprints, like fingerprints, are not
+much use until you get the man who made them."
+
+"What d'ye deduct in this second call--Chief?"
+
+"That we've run squarely up against a blind wall. We'll drop it for a
+time and go to the third call."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Stockbridge was murdered at four minutes and eighteen seconds past
+twelve, by his own watch, Delaney. It was a very good watch! Now
+allowing for a movement of the hands on account of the fall, how are we
+to account for a telephone call sent into Gramercy Hill 9763--the
+library 'phone--at exactly five minutes past twelve from a
+slot-telephone booth at the east end of the Grand Central Railroad
+Station on Forty-second Street?"
+
+"How did you get that, Chief?"
+
+Drew chuckled and wheeled in his chair. "I got it," he said, "by simple
+arithmetic plus the vice-president's pull. Here's how it was found,
+Delaney. Easy as two and two. You remember the howler?"
+
+"I'll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!"
+
+"The howler established considerable in this case. The chief operator
+remembers putting it on. She remembers the time. She looked back, after
+being jogged by George Westlake, and found that some one had called up
+Stockbridge a few minutes after twelve. It was probably this call to
+the old man that caused him to be near enough to the telephone to knock
+it over when he was shot. The operator did not hear the shot, but she
+remembers a thin, piping voice asking for Gramercy Hill 9763."
+
+"The same guy, every time!" declared the operative, mopping his brow
+with his sleeve. "I'd like to have that fellow for five minutes,
+Chief!"
+
+"We'll get him! We've got the time established twice. Stockbridge's
+watch fixes the murder at twelve-four-eighteen. The telephone call at
+five minutes past twelve, and the howler put on soon afterward, checks
+up. The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand
+Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you
+see that?"
+
+Delaney frowned. "I see it and I don't," he said. "I'm all balled up,
+Chief. What with the magpie and the howler and a man shot in a locked
+room and the spot of soot on your neck--I'm all twisted into a knot. I
+think I'll go out and get a drink!"
+
+"No, Delaney, don't," said Drew. "You'll need your head in this case.
+We're squarely up against class of the highest order. Since Sheeney
+Mike and the gas-tube over the transom in Chinatown, I don't know of a
+more baffling set of clews. All these calls--which seem so important in
+the case--lead to a whispering voice of low pitch and timber. Perhaps
+the police records will show such a man who is at large--very much at
+large."
+
+Delaney furrowed his brows and screwed his face into a painful knot.
+"I'm trying to go back, Chief, to the Morphy case and them crooked
+witnesses he had. They all had loud voices--like wolves!"
+
+"Yes--I remember them. But then, Delaney, a man can change his voice.
+That whole pack will bear watching."
+
+"You've eliminated some things that were worrying, Chief. But there's
+some I don't see yet. It's impossible for a man to get shot like that
+old millionaire was. We went over that room and that house. We frisked
+good and plenty. There was nothing suspicious. The walls were thick.
+The floor was hardwood. The ceiling was some kind of patent plaster,
+that's like stone. I got two looks at the door, and you tried the
+windows. Now what's the answer, chief? I'll say you are never going to
+clear this case up. I don't think you can. It's going to be one of them
+unsolved mysteries. If you do figure something out it ain't going to be
+proved to my satisfaction. The thing couldn't be done the way it was
+done!"
+
+"That's definite," smiled Drew, tapping the desk with the tips of his
+well-polished finger nails. "You're talking in a circle. I'll solve the
+case, or I won't sleep!"
+
+"It's impossible!"
+
+Drew sorted his papers and bent over them. He turned the swivel chair
+by a pressure of his knee. His eyes narrowed as he studied Delaney's
+lugubrious face which was sadly in need of a shave.
+
+"Impossible," he repeated softly. "There's no such word, Delaney. It's
+a fool's excuse. Now I don't want you to be a fool. Don't make the
+mistake of allowing a seeming impossibility to dull your efforts.
+There's always a way around everything which looks high and impassable.
+They used to go round the Horn. Now they cut through the Isthmus. They
+used to think men were supernatural. Now they know that nothing works
+without a law. I admit that I don't know how Stockbridge came to his
+end. I don't want to dwell upon it, either. But this we do know, by
+these papers, that he was well-hated, threatened and marked for death
+by an individual or clique of individuals. That is all we know, and all
+we ever need to know, in order to proceed on the basis that a material
+agency struck out his life with a material substance--such as lead
+propelled by smokeless powder."
+
+"Whew!" exclaimed Delaney, rising.
+
+"As for the library wherein he was slain," continued Drew. "As for it,
+we must revert to simple geometry. Matter occupies space. A material
+act was committed by a material body which got past all our precautions
+and struck the magnate down. What is there in this world, which is at
+one and the same time, material and yet capable of penetrating through
+a door or wall without a trace? Give me that answer, and we'll get
+results. What is it?"
+
+"Damned if I know! I'm all balled up! You talk like a college
+professor. You mean something that is and something that isn't. Good
+morning!"
+
+Delaney reached for the door knob with a gesture of disdain. Drew
+wheeled and stared at him. "Wait a minute," he said softly.
+
+The operative turned and dropped his hands to his side.
+
+"You remember the magpie?" asked Drew.
+
+Delaney nodded.
+
+"Well, sit down and wait. It'll be here within five minutes. The valet
+'phoned he was bringing it in a taxi. That was just before you came in."
+
+"Taxi!" snorted the big operative, stretching himself on the leather
+chair. "Them valets have got it soft. Last night was the first ride
+I've had in one for months, and----"
+
+Delaney's voice trailed to an end. He turned in the chair and saw
+Harrigan's red face and auburn hair come slowly through the aperture
+made by opening the door.
+
+"Well?" snapped Drew.
+
+"There's a funny lookin' guy out here, chief," said the
+assistant-manager. "He wants to see you in person. He's got
+knee-britches and a bunch of brass-buttons on his monkey-jacket. Says
+he's a valet."
+
+"Has he got anything with him?" asked Drew.
+
+"He has, Chief! He's got a gilded cage with the damnedest looking bird
+in it I ever saw. It ain't a parrot and it ain't a crow. It's a
+blue-jay or something like that!"
+
+"Show him in!" Drew said. "Show him in. You can wait, Delaney!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+"MEN AND MOTIVES"
+
+
+The two detectives leaned back in their respective chairs and eyed each
+other. Both swung and stared out of the window at the swirling snow
+which salted across the window in an unending curtain of white. Both
+returned to the locked stare so common to men who have worked together
+in danger and know each other's merits.
+
+Delaney's eyes dropped first. He studied the rug beneath Drew's
+polished shoes. He coughed behind his hand, and turned with a shrug of
+his shoulders. He fastened upon the closed door a glance of expectancy
+which brought a smile to the chief's lips.
+
+"Things are picking up," said Drew, with a short laugh. "Your
+friend--the bird--has arrived."
+
+"My friend?" blurted the big operative. "It's no friend of mine! I'd
+wring its neck, gladly."
+
+"It may be the key to the whole thing. Smarter men than the ones we are
+fighting have fallen through less. You remember Eddy, The Brute, who
+left his umbrella after him in the Homesdale Murder Mystery. Funny,
+wasn't it? Took three months to plan the murder and left his rain-stick
+behind. His initials were on it."
+
+"They can't get away----" started Delaney.
+
+"Here's your bird!" announced Drew, as a knock sounded on the door.
+"Move over and let that valet stand there. I want the light in his eyes
+when we're talking to him. Always get the light in the other fellow's
+eye. Sisst!"
+
+The door opened to a crack--then wide. The valet came in with an
+important strut. He turned and deposited a cage at Delaney's big feet.
+The operative moved back with a grunt of disgust. He eyed the cage and
+contents with a homicidal expression. His eyes raised and fastened upon
+the valet. He hooked his broad thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest and
+took a deep breath.
+
+"I hope you're satisfied," he said to Drew, who was smiling. "I hope
+this black sparrow don't start anything. I'll finish it, sure."
+
+"What's your name?" asked the chief, turning and consulting a paper.
+
+"Otto Braun," said the valet. "Otto Braun, sir."
+
+"Born in Cologne ... year, sixty-three ... worked as valet and major
+domo for British families ... came to America with Mr. Stockbridge, and
+have been with him since?"
+
+"That's correct, sir," the valet said, with a start of amazement.
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+"Twice--sir."
+
+"Wife living?"
+
+"Both, sir. I'm paying a small alimony to both."
+
+Delaney grunted. His foot went out toward the magpie which had finished
+hopping about the perches of the cage, and was listening with head
+cocked sideways.
+
+"You--you have charge of this bird?" asked Drew, turning fully around
+and facing the valet with heavy-lidded intentness.
+
+"I'm its keeper, sir!"
+
+Delaney coughed explosively. He leaned down to cover his confusion. He
+jabbed a thumb at the bird.
+
+"It's savage," he rumbled. "It pecked at me!"
+
+"Easy," warned Drew, with a quick frown. "Easy, Delaney. I want to get
+to the facts of this case. We're wasting time."
+
+"Go ahead, Chief."
+
+"I've had you come down here," said Drew, turning to the valet, "in
+order to find out about that magpie. You had charge of it when Mr.
+Stockbridge was alive?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I fed it and kept it clean, for the--master." The valet
+sniffled slightly. Drew watched him with keen eyes.
+
+"Did it repeat much of Mr. Stockbridge's conversation?" he asked.
+
+"Repeat, sir?"
+
+"What I'm trying to get at is, whether or not the bird was in the habit
+of repeating words that seemed to strike its fancy. Did it act like a
+parrot?"
+
+"It's very much like a parrot, sir. Sometimes it was sulky and wouldn't
+say anything for days. Other times, sir, we had trouble keeping it
+quiet."
+
+Drew turned in his chair and fingered a paper. "I looked up everything
+I can find in my library here, in regard to magpies," he said. "Is
+there any difference between an ordinary magpie and a Spanish one?" he
+added, turning.
+
+"I don't think so, sir. They can all be taught to talk--the same as a
+parrot, sir."
+
+"Then if this bird should repeat a word, or two words, over and over
+again it would be plausible to assume that some one had used the word
+or two words. I want to make myself clear," Drew added with engaging
+candor. "What I'm getting at is important in view of the fact that this
+magpie used two words after we broke down the door to the library and
+found Mr. Stockbridge murdered."
+
+Delaney leaned forward.
+
+"The words this bird used were 'Ah Sing,' as near as we can arrive at
+them. Did you ever hear it repeat that couplet?"
+
+"I can't say that I have, sir."
+
+The detective lifted his brows and stared at the cage. "Repeat that,"
+he said to Delaney. "Repeat what we heard in the library."
+
+"Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!" boomed the operative.
+
+The magpie ruffled its feathers and darted about the cage like a
+sparrow in a barrel. "Keep it up," said Drew.
+
+"Ah, Sin! Ah, Sing! Ah, Singing!" roared Delaney.
+
+"That'll do! You've frightened it. Let it alone for a while. We'll keep
+it here, Otto. I'll send it back in a few days. How's Miss Stockbridge
+bearing the strain, up at the house?"
+
+"She hasn't left her room, sir. Mr. Nichols called. The Red Cross
+people called. There's been lots of callers, sir, but she hasn't
+appeared, sir. It's early, though."
+
+Drew glanced at his watch. "That's all," he said. "You may go."
+
+The door closed softly as the valet bowed, replaced his hat and passed
+out without glancing back.
+
+"A good servant," said Drew, rising and kneeling down beside the cage.
+"Now, Delaney," he added tersely. "Now, old sleepy head, we have the
+key to the case locked here. I don't doubt but that you unconsciously
+struck the right clew when you bawled your little hymn. You said, 'Ah,
+Singing.' Now couldn't that be Ossining?"
+
+"By God, Chief, it could!"
+
+"Or, more likely, Ah! Sing Sing!"
+
+"Who said that?"
+
+"The bird!"
+
+"But who taught the bird?"
+
+"Nobody taught it! It might have been the last thing said by
+Stockbridge--just before he was shot."
+
+"And the bird repeated it--to us?"
+
+"Certainly! A parrot or a magpie is a living phonograph. They reproduce
+a sound, at times, without any idea of knowing what they are saying.
+This bird may have been so frightened by the shot which was fired in
+the library, that it recalled the words used by Stockbridge before the
+shot was fired. These words, in my opinion, tell us that the
+millionaire was 'phoning to some individual, probably the
+whispering-voiced man. This individual and Ah, Sing! or Ah, Sing Sing!
+or Ah, Singing! or Ossining! are closely allied. Now who of
+Stockbridge's enemies does that fit?"
+
+Drew rose to his feet and dusted his knees. "Is that clear?" he asked.
+
+"Clear as mud, Chief! I don't get it yet!"
+
+"You will," said the detective, dropping down in his chair and reaching
+for his papers. "See these," he added, swiveling and darting a quick
+glance at the bird-cage. "These, Delaney, are a list of the old man's
+known enemies. I have compiled this list from the secretary's
+statements, my own newspaper reading, the facts we gained at Morphy's
+trial, and from what Stockbridge told me in the library before he was
+slain." Drew counted the list with a steady finger. "There's seven," he
+said.
+
+"Is that all! I thought there was more 'an that!"
+
+"No! Seven is the number! He was well hated as you will see. First and
+foremost we have Mortimer Morphy, who is serving from ten to twenty
+years in state prison, with other indictments hanging over his
+iron-gray head. He's the captain of them all. He lacks soul, conscience
+and heart. 'The Wolf of the Ticker' they used to call him. I had the
+warden on the wire this morning. He's ready to aid justice to the
+limit. He says that Morphy, or rather Convict 87313, I think they call
+them inmates up there, is well and working. He's in charge of the books
+in the front office."
+
+"He'd never keep any books for me!" declared Delaney.
+
+Drew nodded. "Me, either," he said. "I have heard too much about his
+past to trust his future. Stockbridge always feared him."
+
+"Does he fit what the black crow said?"
+
+"He does, most certainly! Sing Sing and Morphy are linked together in
+every way. Morphy must have been mentioned on the wire and Stockbridge
+shouted, 'What, in Sing Sing?' or words to the same meaning."
+
+"Go on," said Delaney, glancing at the magpie with round eyes.
+
+"Then comes Vogel, who was at state's prison, but whom they transferred
+to the hospital at Glendale, where he is said to be dying of
+tuberculosis."
+
+"I remember him. A little runt with a big nose. That might be the
+whispering voice, Chief, if he's got T. B."
+
+"Hardly! I also had Glendale on the 'phone, or Harrigan did. They say
+Vogel is right there and is going to stay there, if fifty guards will
+keep him."
+
+"Next, Chief?"
+
+"The next is Vogel's partner, Ross. You remember him? A good-natured,
+fat fellow with a bald head. He was always smiling. He's making little
+rocks out of big ones in a convict camp near Lake George. He was at
+Sing Sing, or Ossining, for a time. Most of the New York prisoners are
+taken there first. It's a sort of clearing house for the other prisons
+of the state."
+
+"Would he fit in with what this bird said, Chief?"
+
+"He might!"
+
+"Go on, I'm getting interested."
+
+"Then," said Drew, "we have the two brokers who handled Morphy's Blue
+Sky, preferred; Flying Boat, and other swindles. They are at Sing
+Sing."
+
+"What's their names, Chief? I've forgotten."
+
+"Greene and Goldberg! One confessed and one turned state's evidence.
+They got off with from two to four years. A nice bunch of squealers!"
+
+"They'll be out pretty soon, Chief!"
+
+"Yes--but they're harmless. I don't think they had anything to do with
+the murder of Stockbridge. The other fellow might."
+
+"Who's that, Chief?"
+
+"Finklestein--the banker. The one who went before the Grand Jury and
+claimed exemption. He's somewhere on the outside. I think Flynn is
+covering him. I sent him over to Jersey, where Finklestein has a place
+near Morristown. We'll hear of him later."
+
+Delaney shifted his big feet and started counting on his fingers. He
+widened his eyes. "There's one more," he said, as Drew leaned back.
+
+"Yes, there's one more. I kept him for the last. He's out of sight,
+reach and hearing. You know who I mean?"
+
+"That guy who invented wireless boat, or flying boat, or them
+movie-picture things in seventeen colors. I know who you mean. He beat
+it, slick as any porch-climber. What's his name, Chief?"
+
+"Morphy's brother, Cuthbert Morphy! He's an electrical-engineer and the
+inventor of all their shady promotions. He's the real brains of the
+mob. You never saw him?"
+
+"No--did you?"
+
+"Can't say that I have!" declared Drew with a snap. "I call him one of
+my failures. I've made enough. Remember how Flood and Cassady searched
+for him after the others were arrested? He's cost us thousands of
+dollars--without result. I charged it to Stockbridge."
+
+"Which way did he go, Chief?"
+
+"He beat it for Argentine. From there he went across South America to
+Antofagasta. From there he disappeared like a rocket in No Man's Land.
+No trace was found. For all we know, he might be right here in little
+old New York--the best hiding place in the known world. I hate to think
+of the places a man could plant in this town!"
+
+"Sure! But they always come around the old corner. Remember Dutch Gus,
+the boxman. Five years, Chief, in every town on the map, and then he
+was picked up at Forty-second Street and Broadway. Maybe your friend,
+Cutbert, will show up some day?"
+
+"Cuthbert!" corrected Drew. "He's no friend of mine, Delaney. The
+trouble is, we haven't got a single photograph of him. That shows he
+was figuring on crime all his life. A man who don't get his picture
+taken, is generally a man to watch."
+
+"He's slick, Chief. What does he look like?"
+
+Drew pressed a buzzer-button. "Look like?" he said, turning toward the
+door. "Oh, he is a little fellow, quick-tempered and probably handy
+with a gat. He's dangerous. I think Cuthbert Morphy is a good lead if
+we can find him."
+
+"I never did like that first name!" Delaney blurted as Harrigan opened
+the door to a crack.
+
+"What have you found out about Harry Nichols?" asked Drew, as the
+assistant-manager stepped in softly.
+
+"Got Plattsburg, Chief," said Harrigan briefly. "Harry is O. K. up
+there. Captain's commission. Three months intensive training. Going to
+France soon. On fourteen-days' furlough in New York. Was floor manager
+for Harris, Post and Browning. Quit good job to go in the Army. Harris,
+of the brokerage firm, says Harry can come back and hang up his hat any
+time. That's about all!"
+
+"Umph!" said Drew. "That's fine, in a way. He couldn't have a better
+record. Now we'll lay him aside. What did Frick learn at Ossining?"
+
+"Frick 'phoned once. I was going to connect you with him but that
+fellow with the bird-cage came in. Frick says the warden is O. K. and
+will lend every aid. He saw Morphy in the Auditor's Department. Looks
+worried, he says. Getting old! The visitor's list shows that he's had
+an average of three visits a month. No sign of his brother. There's a
+fellow calls, though, who might be Cuthbert Morphy. Answers general
+description. They'll pinch him next time he comes. We never thought of
+looking for him there!"
+
+"No! We were going to _send_ him there! It's like a crook, though, to
+play with fire. What else did Frick say?"
+
+"Nothing more, Chief. He's looking around. He says he'll report as soon
+as there is anything. He says----"
+
+"Buurr! Burrr! Burrrr!"
+
+Drew turned and snatched up the telephone receiver. He pressed the
+diaphragm to his ear. "All right," he said tersely. "Connect me. Yes!"
+
+Delaney breathed deeply and watched his chief's face.
+
+"Hello! Hello!" whispered Drew. "Yes," he added guardedly. "Yes,
+Commissioner.... What? You say that ... that the autopsy on
+Stockbridge's body--head--shows what? Repeat it! I can't quite hear
+what you are saying. Louder, Commissioner! That's better. Yes--all
+right now, Fosdick. It shows.... It shows that the typo cupronickel
+bullet found in--in, ... repeat that.... In Stockbridge's brain was not
+scored or ... or what? ... Marked? ... Wait! I don't get your
+meaning.... It was lodged in the soft tissues of the.... Yes! ... I
+see! Go on.... There were no rifling marks on it.... What?"
+
+Drew turned and motioned toward the open door. Harrigan closed it
+softly as the detective resumed his position at the 'phone. "Yes," he
+said tersely. "Yes, Fosdick. That's important. I should say it was
+important! ... New wrinkle, what? ... Why, I'd think at a quick jump
+that the bullet which killed the old man wasn't fired from a regulation
+revolver.... Yes, it couldn't of! ... It must have been fired from a
+smooth-bore rifle or pistol!... What? ... Yes.... It seems that way to
+me.... Are you dead sure?"
+
+Drew waited. He tapped the desk with a pencil. He reached with his
+right hand and pulled a sheet of paper to him. "Go on," he said slowly.
+"Yes, go on, Commissioner. Oh, I've been busy! Yes. You have! Well....
+I wouldn't of. No, I don't think that's the right lead at all. They're
+all right. All right.... Go to it! ... Good-by, Fosdick."
+
+The detective flipped the receiver on the hook and slowly swung the
+chair. His eyes darted first at Harrigan and then rested upon Delaney's
+broad face.
+
+"That damn fool!" he exclaimed. "He's pinched the whole bunch of
+servants. He's looking for the valet. The butler is under lock and key.
+All that's left up there is the housekeeper and some housemaids and
+Miss Loris. He better not touch her! Brass Band Fosdick! He's a mile
+off the case!"
+
+"What about that bullet, Chief?" asked Delaney.
+
+"Oh! That's new! It's different and important. The coroner's inquest
+shows--the autopsy, I mean--that the bullet found in the millionaire's
+brain was a cupronickel affair of twenty-two caliber projected by
+smokeless powder from a smooth-bore weapon held not more than three
+inches from the old man's head."
+
+"Whew!" whistled Delaney. "That's going some, Chief," he added, rising.
+"But what does it mean? I ain't got that at-tall!"
+
+"Nor I!" snapped Drew. "We're only getting deeper and deeper into
+facts. After a while we'll have enough of them to solve the case. The
+smooth bullet is important. It suggests many things--a home-made gun,
+for instance."
+
+"Might have been an old Civil War gun, Chief."
+
+"I don't believe there was anything like that in Stockbridge's house.
+You might inquire when you go up. He was very modern with his Flying
+Boat stock and his improved munitions for the Allies. He has no old
+collection of arms."
+
+Delaney stared at Harrigan. Drew swung to his desk and tapped the
+blotter for a moment. "We'll get busy," he said briskly, as he swung
+back again and faced the two operatives. "I've almost got my man. That
+bird there," Drew pointed toward the magpie, "is our one best bet and
+lead. I may be wrong, but I'll wager a good cigar there's a convict or
+ex-convict at the back of this case. How else can we explain 'Ossining'
+or 'Ah, Sing' repeated through the magpie to us. It's not an impossible
+clue. It might happen. Let's move with both feet!"
+
+Delaney rose lankily and stood by the door. He braced his shoulders,
+then shelved them forward as he reached a finger toward the bird-cage.
+"Pretty Poll!" he said.
+
+The magpie darted about the cage like a shaft of blue light. It came to
+rest with its tail feathers thrust through the bars. It peered with
+beaded eyes at Drew who had snatched up a bundle of papers and was
+sorting them.
+
+"Get busy, Delaney, on this assignment!" he said sharply. "Waste no
+time. Run up to Stockbridge's and get me plaster-paris casts of all the
+footprints you can find around that junction box. It's stopped
+snowing," he added, glancing out the window.
+
+"All right, Chief."
+
+"Wait a minute. Stop somewhere on your way up-town and find out the
+exact temperature changes last night. What I want you to get is a
+record of every quarter-hour, so as to show when the early, packed snow
+in Stockbridge's yard froze solid. The under crust!"
+
+"I got that in my head, Chief! That's my idea, exactly. If a tall lad
+tapped in on the junction box early in the night his footprints will be
+frozen close to the ground. The whole surface is level now, but there
+ought to be ice-posts sticking up when I get done thawing."
+
+"That's right! You'll probably find the trouble-hunter's and one other
+set of prints. The other set is our man's!"
+
+"What size feet did the trouble-hunter have?"
+
+"Small--about six!"
+
+"All right, Chief, I'm off."
+
+"Walt a minute." Drew studied a sheet of paper. "After you get the
+temperature data, Delaney," he said. "After you get that and the
+plaster casts of the footprints, go into the house and stay there.
+Watch Miss Loris. Don't talk to Fosdick's men. Tell her to be careful.
+Tell her that she is in grave danger. Remember that the same man who
+threatened Stockbridge over the wire, also said he was going to get
+her. Remember that, Delaney!"
+
+"Good-by!"
+
+"Get a shave!" shot Drew out through the closing doorway.
+
+"I'll do that little thing," came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.
+
+"Now, Harrigan," Drew said, shuffling the slips of paper like a deck of
+cards. "Now, we're closing in on our man or men. See if you can find
+Frick at the prison. 'Phone from the booth!"
+
+Harrigan was back within three minutes. He leaned over Drew.
+
+"Frick was with the warden," he whispered tersely. "He was easy to get.
+He says that Morphy has been trying to telephone----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Tryin' to telephone, Chief----"
+
+"What has he got to do with the telephone? What right has an inmate of
+a prison got to phone? Unless--unless the warden thought the case was
+justified--like in sickness or important business."
+
+"Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn't ask Frick!"
+
+"Get out there and ask him! Quick!"
+
+Drew waited with every muscle taut. He drummed the table with impatient
+fingers. He thumbed the sheath of papers he had collected on the
+Stockbridge case. He wheeled in his chair and stared out through the
+frosted window with unseeing eyes. The vision came to him of a pompous
+old man in prison gray, strutting about the front office with silk
+socks and a Havana cigar. Drew had no sympathy with a certain kind of
+convict. The misguided safeblower or house prowler might be excused for
+a great many things. The pickpocket was a professional, who took his
+chances as they ran. The gentleman bank-wrecker, with his overextended
+tale of woe and his bid for the world's sympathies, was the one the
+detective detested with all his soul. Such men, he believed, were
+beyond the pale. They knew better. Morphy, for instance, had not only
+gotten away with much of widow's and orphan's money, but he had wrecked
+a score of homes and dragged down many with him at the final assizes.
+
+"So he uses the phone!" Drew repeated like an indictment. "Well! Well!
+Well!"
+
+Harrigan stepped in through the door. Drew turned away from the window
+and stared at the assistant-manager. "What did you find?" he snapped.
+
+"I found enough, Chief! Frick says that Morphy is the whole thing up
+there. They call him the 'Assistant-Warden,' in jest. The Welfare
+League won't have anything to do with him. They got him down for a
+squealing 'rat.'"
+
+"You can't fool the Gray Brotherhood," said Drew. "Their rooms are too
+close together. What about this telephoning? Who was it to?"
+
+"A telephone booth in the Subway Station at Times Square!"
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"Frick says it was! He tried to listen but Morphy came out and looked
+around twice."
+
+The detective rose from his chair and grasped Harrigan's narrow
+shoulders with fingers of steel.
+
+"Get out there!" he ordered through line-drawn lips. "Get out there and
+phone from the soundproof booth. Ask my friend--the vice-president of
+the telephone company--to find out for us whether Morphy or anybody
+else in the prison telephoned at four minutes past twelve this morning.
+Get that?"
+
+"That was when Stockbridge was shot, wasn't it, Chief?"
+
+"It was!" exclaimed Triggy Drew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+"A WOMAN CALLS"
+
+
+The business of a modern detective agency is managed in much the same
+manner as a corporation or a large firm of corporation lawyers. Its
+tentacles, or operatives, are spread over the globe. Its news and
+assignments come in via wire. Its telephone and telegraph bills amount
+to thousands of dollars every year. In no other way can satisfactory
+results be secured.
+
+Drew had started his agency on a shoestring and ran it into a
+"tannery," in the parlance of the street. He had made many mistakes. He
+had once, to his knowledge, sent the wrong man to prison. This mistake
+had been so costly, he never spoke of it. It was soon after the
+conviction of the innocent man, that Drew gave up circumstantial
+evidence and got down to hard work, wherein the evidence accumulated
+was tempered with some degree of fact and common sense.
+
+The first Stockbridge case had been in connection with an absconder.
+This man, Drew brought back in person from Adelaide. The work so
+pleased the millionaire that when Morphy broke under the financial
+strain and robbed everybody, right and left, Drew was called in to
+bring the promoter to the bar of justice. It was a long fight, fraught
+with danger and disappointment. The courts dragged. War broke over the
+civilized world. Morphy fought fiercely--like a cornered hyena. He was
+sent away, after dragging down his confederates. He had sworn at the
+time of conviction that he would get Stockbridge if it took to the
+longest day of his life. Drew remembered this oath and promise as he
+waited for Harrigan to appear from the booth.
+
+He turned to the magpie and the cage. He studied both with keen eyes
+which had been trained in the school of hard facts piled upon each
+other until they pointed a way. Stockbridge had owned the pet for many
+years. It was the one domestic trait in his make-up, save Loris. It
+would be a strange thing, Drew concluded, swinging toward the window,
+if Morphy and Morphy's confederates were to fall through a remembered
+couplet dropped by the magpie. It was in the order of events, however.
+It was the bright, particular finger which pointed toward the prisoner
+at Sing Sing. Nothing would be more logical than for the bird to
+remember the millionaire's last words--or dying words. They would be
+shrieked aloud and unforgetable.
+
+"More snow," said Drew to himself. "This is a white day if ever there
+was one. I wonder if Delaney got to the house in time?"
+
+He turned as a "Buurrrr! Burrrr!" sounded at the ringing-box below the
+desk.
+
+"Hello!" he said sharply into the transmitter. "Hello! Who's this?"
+
+He waited as some out-of-town connection was made. A thin voice broke
+in from the silence. The voice rose in timber. "Oh, Hello!" exclaimed
+the detective, recognizing Flynn, one of his operatives. "Hello,
+Flynn," he said. "What's the weather like out at Morristown? Yes! ...
+Yes! ... Oh, is that so.... What? ... Too bad! ... Well, you better
+come in.... Take the first train and jump on the job.... He's in
+Florida, eh? ... Well, that lets him out.... Good-by, Flynn!"
+
+Drew reached for a pencil and scratched a name off his list before he
+hung up the receiver. "That leaves six," he said, running his eyes down
+the names of the suspects. "Six to go. We'll round them up--or out. It
+looks bad for one or two of them!"
+
+He dropped the pencil to the desk with a flip of his fingers. He
+replaced the telephone receiver on the hook. He twirled the chair and
+leaned forward with his hands on his knees.
+
+"Nice bird, you," he said, addressing the magpie. "We're alone, you and
+I. Why don't you tell me what you know--what you heard in that library,
+when the millionaire talked over the phone and then received the
+cupronickel bullet in the base of his brain? He said, 'Ah, Sing!' eh?
+He said it, or we are jumping at conclusions. Have Delaney and I
+erred--as once or twice before?"
+
+The bird strutted about the cage. It pecked at a hard, white fish-bone,
+thrust between two bars. It dipped its bill into the water-holder, then
+held high its head as it gulped. It switched its tail and hopped onto
+the first perch. There it sat, with coiled claws, as Drew leaned
+closer.
+
+"Ah, Sing!" he repeated confidentially. "Ah, Singing! Ossining! Sing
+Sing! Let me hear you do your prettiest, birdie. Don!"
+
+The magpie lowered its head and peered outwardly. It lifted a wing with
+ruffled dignity. Drew narrowed his eyes. "You were there," he
+whispered. "You were in that sealed room--that double-locked and
+triple-watched library. How did the murderer shoot down the old man?
+How could he do it, Don? I think I know _why_ it was done. I'm fairly
+sure who is directing matters. What I want to know is, what devilish
+ingenuity of the criminal tribe projected that bullet into the old
+man's brain? Answer that, Don!"
+
+The bird was as stately as a raven. It seemed to Drew that he heard an
+echoed "Nevermore." He sat upright and took his hands from his knees.
+"Answer that, Don?" he repeated.
+
+"Gone batty, Chief?" asked Harrigan, thrusting his shoulders through
+the open door.
+
+Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping
+motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. "Guess I am," he
+admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant's
+hand. "Well!" he snapped, recovering himself. "Well, what luck? I see
+that you got something!"
+
+"Yep! I got him, all right. He's hanging around the front office of the
+prison seeing what he can find out. He says," Harrigan consulted the
+paper. "He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like
+a man in a daze. Always----"
+
+"I don't want that, now! Didn't I send you out to call up the
+vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us
+early this morning. Westlake!"
+
+"I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought
+I'd get Frick again. That's all Frick had to say, except a----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Except he'll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the
+contrary. Says he'll report if anything turns up."
+
+"Go on with Westlake!" The detective's voice hardened.
+
+"Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers
+in his office. He's in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says
+that their records show----"
+
+"Show what?" Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. "It took some
+time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the
+Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison
+between six o'clock last night and this morning. The first one was at
+seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central
+Railroad Station."
+
+"Good!" snapped Drew. "Good! Go on! We're getting there!"
+
+"This call was for seventeen minutes. It was charged to the prison."
+
+"What was the booth number?"
+
+Harrigan consulted his sheet. "I didn't get that," he said, scratching
+his head. "Westlake didn't give it to me."
+
+"Go on--we'll get it! Go on! What was the next call?"
+
+"The second call, Chief, was to the State Capitol Building at Albany.
+It was for three minutes. No more! I guess that was the warden talking
+to the Pardon Clerk, or something like that. We'll forget it, eh?"
+
+"Chop it out!"
+
+"The third and last call, Chief," said Harrigan with haste, "was to the
+same telephone-booth at the Grand Central Station. Ah, here's the
+number! That's why Westlake didn't give it to me on the first call to
+the booth. Number, Gramercy Hill 9845, Chief. That's over near the east
+end of the building--on the lower level."
+
+"A quiet place!" mused Drew.
+
+"Yes! Well, Chief, here is the time. The call was for twenty-two
+minutes, extending from a quarter to twelve--midnight--to seven minutes
+after twelve. It was charged to the Auditing Department of the prison."
+
+Drew rose from his chair. "That covers the hour in which Stockbridge
+was murdered!" he declared, reaching for the roll-top of his desk
+"That's nice work on your part."
+
+Harrigan flushed slightly. He leaned over and laid the paper upon the
+desk. Drew took it, folded it with two fingers forming the creases,
+then crammed it into his breast pocket The roll-top came down with a
+bang. Harrigan lifted an overcoat from a tree, helped Drew on with it,
+and found the detective's hat.
+
+"When will you be back, Chief?" he inquired.
+
+"Hard to say! Get me some French-gray powder. A little will do. I'm
+going to see if I can get any fingerprints in that booth. They might
+help!"
+
+"Will you be back by night!" Harrigan asked, leading the way through
+the door.
+
+"Don't know! Get that powder! Tell Delaney, if he calls up, that I'm
+hot after my man. Tell him to stick up where he is, till he hears from
+me. Tell Flynn, when he comes in from Morristown, that he can relieve
+O'Toole who is trailing Harry Nichols. I don't think there is much in
+that. I'm covering every one--that's all."
+
+Harrigan opened the drawer of a cabinet and fingered about till he
+found a small, round box of gray powder used for preserving
+fingerprints. He turned with this and saw that Drew had crammed into
+his side coat-pocket, a flat camera which the telephone girl brought to
+him. "Got flash lights?" asked Harrigan.
+
+"Yes. There's some in the back of this camera." Drew slapped his
+overcoat. "I got everything, I guess. Remember about Delaney and
+Flynn."
+
+The detective moved toward the door which led to the hallway where the
+elevators were. He turned as Harrigan laid a hand on his shoulder.
+"What's that sticking out of your other pocket, Chief?" asked the
+assistant-manager. "A paper, ain't it?"
+
+Drew flushed beneath his olive skin. He pressed the object down with
+soft fingers. He turned and said simply:
+
+"That's a picture of the girl in the case. Forgot I had it. Good-by!"
+
+The door slammed as he strode over the white tiling and jabbed at an
+elevator button with his right thumb.
+
+Swirled in wind-blown snow from the office buildings and wrapped to the
+chin with the collar of his overcoat, Drew plunged, with head downward,
+for the nearest subway station.
+
+He caught an up-town express, and, after three grinding station-stops,
+he reached the Grand Central Station wherein was the telephone-booth to
+which the calls had been sent from the prison.
+
+He made swift work of the matter at hand. Time was pressing. The
+booths, to the number of three in that portion of the station, were
+fortunately empty.
+
+Going over the slot-box and the tiny shelf in the center booth, which
+bore the number "Gramercy Hill 9845" on the transmitter, Drew pulled
+the door shut and dusted all the nickel work and the polished surface
+of the receiver, with French-gray powder of superior make.
+
+He took three exposures by aid of small flashes. He opened the door and
+allowed the smoke to escape. Pocketing the camera, after winding on a
+fresh film, he entered the booth for a second time and inspected its
+lower paneling for possible clews.
+
+An oath, close-bitten and expressive, escaped his lips as he discovered
+a small hole drilled through the woodwork. He stooped and peered
+through this opening. It led to the next booth. It had been made with a
+long auger of quarter-inch diameter. Shavings lay upon the floor of the
+booth.
+
+He emerged and investigated the second booth. The hole came through,
+underneath the slot-box. It had been drilled in order to make a
+connection between the two telephones. He found splinters and sawdust
+at his feet. He backed out and stood perplexed. There was no way of
+finding out just what sort of connection had been made between the two
+booths. All evidence of wires had been taken down. Only an expert could
+give an answer to the new riddle. Drew recalled Westlake as he rushed
+to the subway-platform.
+
+He found the vice-president busy, with a score of men waiting in the
+outer room of the telephone company's office. The secretary-in-charge
+hurried in with his card and his urgent request for three minutes'
+important matter which could not well wait.
+
+Drew, however, was forced to wait seven minutes by his watch. He chafed
+at the delay. He crossed his legs at least once each leaden minute. He
+feared that the trail was getting cold. Twice he rose, as if to go.
+Each time the secretary had indicated patience by an arching of her
+brows and a jerk of her thumb toward the ground-glass door.
+
+"Send in Drew!" boomed as the door opened and let out the caller. Drew
+strode in with his notes in his hand.
+
+"Just a minute, Westlake," he said, dropping into a chair and leaning
+over the desk behind which sat a good-natured official of the superior
+order. "A minute! I'm in a jam! What d'ye make of this?"
+
+Drew related his discovery in the booths of the Grand Central. He went
+right to the point. He explained the auger-hole, the shavings, and the
+fact that it was the same set of booths to which the call had been sent
+from the prison, over the time Stockbridge had been slain.
+
+Westlake listened with dawning light. He leaned back as Drew finished
+talking. He smiled. He thrust his thumbs under his vest. "You're a
+hardworking man, Drew," he said, "but you didn't get it all. Do you
+remember the third call that I gave you this morning?--the one when the
+chief-operator at Gramercy Hill put the howler on? It was from the same
+booths you just mentioned!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"It certainly was. There's no use looking at the record. The number was
+9844 Gramercy Hill. In other words we have the evidence to show that a
+thin, whispering voice called up Stockbridge from one booth in the
+Grand Central at the same time the prison was connected to the adjacent
+booth."
+
+"For the love of Mike!" said Drew.
+
+"Yes--your case grows interesting, Chief. You've got a lot of tangled
+leads and all that, but a little more work should untangle them. A
+telephone engineer ought to make a crackerjack detective. He's trained
+to unsnarl the worst snarls in the world. You ought to see some of our
+wiring diagrams. It takes study to trace them out. You're learning!"
+
+"I don't know if I am, Westlake. I think that Morphy, up at the prison,
+has been 'phoning New York. I believe he has a confederate in this
+town. This confederate, we will say, received his instructions about
+midnight last night. He bored a hole through the booths and called up
+Stockbridge. But what was it all for?"
+
+"That I can't answer!"
+
+Drew rose from the chair and crammed his notes in his inner, overcoat
+pocket. "What the devil did they do that for?" he asked with flashing
+eyes. "Morphy calls up Gramercy Hill 9843 at, or about, midnight.
+Gramercy Hill 9844 calls up Stockbridge. Stockbridge was killed by a
+bullet in the neck as he's talking over the 'phone. Was the call to
+warn him? Was it to threaten him? Was it to occupy his attention so
+that the murderer could get in the room and fire the shot?"
+
+"Did you find out how he got into the room?" asked Westlake, leaning
+forward.
+
+"I have not! The whole thing gets weird. I can't sleep! I'm not going
+to sleep till I get some light on this!"
+
+"You look healthy," said Westlake, as he pressed the buzzer for the
+next caller.
+
+Drew emerged from the elevator and hurried to the street with short,
+quick strides. He crossed the snow and pressed open the door to a cigar
+store. He fished out a nickel and called up his office.
+
+To Harrigan who answered, he said tersely, "Get Flynn up to the Grand
+Central! Get him to the east-end telephone-booth, on the lower level.
+Tell him I'll be there. He's back from Morristown, isn't he? He phoned,
+eh? Get him to me! I need him!"
+
+Drew hung up with a swift flip of the receiver. He hurried to the
+subway station and caught a local up-town. He had time to flash a
+fourth and fifth set of photos before Flynn came puffing across the
+lower level.
+
+"See here!" snapped Drew, drawing the operative into the middle booth.
+"Bend down there where that hole is, and tell me what you see on the
+varnish."
+
+"It's fingerprints, Chief. Two, three of them. Looks like somebody
+pressed hard when they drilled that hole. The outer print is a good one
+of a thumb. Left thumb, I should say."
+
+"That's right! I'm going to find out who made that impression, within
+one hour. You stay here and grab anybody who tries to talk with the
+prison. Frick is up there!"
+
+"How about O'Toole, who's watching Nichols?" asked Flynn.
+
+"Leave him stay on that assignment. I need you here. Stick now! Watch
+everybody who talks over these three phones. Arrest anybody who
+receives or sends a call to the prison. There's plenty of Central
+Office men handy for a pinch. Fosdick will back them up!"
+
+Drew rushed for the subway. He realized that he had wasted valuable
+time by not taking the complete set of fingerprint photos on his first
+inspection of the booths. It was a detail he had overlooked. But then,
+he could afford to make mistakes. The men or man he was after, dared
+not make any. This was a thing he had often recalled in dealing with
+super-criminals.
+
+Fosdick's rooms at Detective Headquarters, on Center Street, were
+luckily deserted as he rushed down through the hallway. The
+Commissioner widened his eyes as Drew handed over the camera, with a
+request that the films be developed and prints made within twenty
+minutes.
+
+"Can't be done that soon," said the detective. "Give us fifty minutes."
+
+"I'll make it twenty-five!" shot Drew. "I got lots to tell you, but
+it'll keep. Get those prints and we'll land our man. The last two films
+have perfect samples of finger-work. Our man slipped there! He signed
+his own death warrant!"
+
+The Commissioner pressed a button. To the young man who came, he
+explained the necessity of rushing the developing and printing of the
+films. He turned as the messenger hurried out with the camera.
+
+"What about that bullet?" he asked.
+
+"Just as I said, Commissioner. It was fired from a smooth-bore pistol
+or gun. What do you think?"
+
+"Oh, maybe not! Sometimes there isn't much rifling on an old revolver.
+Those little twenty-two affairs are made out of cast-iron."
+
+"But the cupronickel bullet shows smokeless powder and high-class
+criminal activity. I doubt if one of those little rods would take a
+modern steel-jacketed bullet. They're used in automatics."
+
+"But automatics have good rifling. That bullet was as smooth as before
+it was shot. Here it is!"
+
+Fosdick opened a drawer and pulled out a later-day projectile of the
+lesser-caliber.
+
+"This is smooth!" he repeated with heat. "It was cut from the old
+millionaire's brain. It ain't scratched. It never took the rifling it
+was intended for. My theory is, that it was fired from a gun of larger
+caliber. That is to say, it didn't fit the bore. A thirty-thirty rifle
+might be used to hold a twenty-two caliber bullet. It would not take
+the rifling of this."
+
+Drew shook his head. "That's hardly possible," he declared. "It's too
+vague and doesn't suit me. We're going to find that the deeper we get
+in this thing, the simpler will be the explanation. I remember any
+number of cases which have been solved in this city where the mystery
+was so wrapped up in speculation and the improbable that our minds
+failed to grasp the simple thing which was the solution."
+
+"Then you think the lack of rifling on the bullet might be the opening
+wedge to catching the man who shot Stockbridge?"
+
+"It could well be, Fosdick. The lack of a thing sometimes is just as
+important as the visible clue. Do you remember the Rajah case at
+Gramercy Park?"
+
+Fosdick leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. "Seems
+to me that I do," he said, thrusting out his lower lip. "There was a
+big jewel missing. Sort of an Idol's Eye case--wasn't it?"
+
+"Exactly! A white diamond was missing at a dinner. Lights went out as
+they were passing the stone around the table. Lights came on again and
+the diamond was gone. Everybody accused. A strange print was found on
+the sideboard. Servants knew nothing about it. The print didn't
+correspond to any which we took there. Seemed impossible and all that.
+Well, the very fact that the print didn't correspond was the means of
+finding the stone and the culprit. You remember it?"
+
+"Vaguely."
+
+"Simple! A Lascar who waited on the table slipped off his shoes, crept
+into the room, secured the diamond and climbed to the sideboard where
+he hid it on top of a picture. The thumbprint which we puzzled our
+heads over was a toe-print! We got the fellow!"
+
+"I recall it now," said Fosdick. "I think one of our men thought out
+the matter."
+
+"He didn't!" declared the detective. "We worked it out! The city
+department had given up the case. This may be the same. I'll venture to
+say that as soon as you get a good operative some private agency
+secures his services. Now, Commissioner, confess up. What manner of gun
+could fire a bullet, such as a cupronickel one, without leaving
+markings?"
+
+"Smooth bore. An old flint-lock--for instance."
+
+"We'll grant that! They're clumsy, however. The shot which killed the
+millionaire was fired at very close range through a smooth tube of a
+greater caliber than the diameter of the bullet found in his head. If
+it were fired through a gun which was rifled, then there was a collar
+or collars on the bullet, which we didn't find. The same thing was
+discovered by examination of the shells which the Germans fired at
+Paris. There was no rifling on those long-range projectiles. The bands
+dropped off after the shell left the gun."
+
+"Then this bullet was fired at long range?" Fosdick was openly
+incredulous.
+
+"No! Again we have the impossibility or seeming impossibility. I
+examined that library, both before and after the murder. No shot could
+have been fired from the outside so that a bullet would reach the old
+man. If that were the case there would have been an opening in the
+walls or at the windows or the ventilators. Besides, we have the powder
+burns on the millionaire's head. We are squarely confronted with a
+paradox. Riddle me that paradox and we will go a long ways toward
+finding the man who murdered Stockbridge."
+
+Fosdick frowned. "I can't see it at all," he confessed. "I still hold
+to the theory that we should third degree all of the servants. I've got
+some of them. If they don't squeal, I'll get the others!"
+
+Drew glanced at his watch. "Personally," he said, "I'm of the opinion
+that you will not get anything out of them. I think it was a mistake to
+arrest them. It would have been far better to trail the butler and the
+doorman and see if they connected with anybody."
+
+"I'm doing this!" exclaimed Fosdick with asperity. "I've got charge of
+this case, Drew. I got charge and I don't want any meddling. I've my
+own methods."
+
+"All right," said the detective. "All right! I want a check-up on the
+finger prints and then I'll be going. I had to come to you for this.
+You have such an interesting collection."
+
+"Here's your answer!" said the commissioner, rising and striding around
+the desk. "Take this bullet and look it over. Put it in your pocket.
+And----"
+
+Drew turned swiftly. The messenger stood in the doorway. He came
+forward as Fosdick nodded. He passed over the hastily developed prints
+which Drew had taken. The commissioner glanced at them, frowned, held
+them to the light, then said:
+
+"We'll try these on the Man Who Can't Be Beat! He's the best in the
+world. He'll know in three minutes who made these prints if the fellow
+is on our records."
+
+The fingerprint expert nodded to Drew as they entered a huge room which
+was lined with mahogany cabinets in the manner of a filing system in a
+mail-order house. Fosdick passed the five photos into this man's hand.
+He smiled as the expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket
+magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.
+
+"We're infallible!" exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. "Watch
+Pope get your man. He'll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?"
+
+The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued
+as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then
+laid them down on a table and shook his head.
+
+"We have no record of this fellow," he said coldly. "It looks like a
+man's print. Here's the thumb and here is the middle finger of the
+right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I'd say, as a pretty sure
+thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?"
+
+"Yes! Look!" said Fosdick.
+
+Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from
+cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still
+others.
+
+"No go?" he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet
+and turned with shaking head. "No go? Try again."
+
+"Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints," said Pope, holding
+out the photos. "He hasn't registered with us yet. Whoever made these
+prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony."
+
+"How about a misdemeanor?" asked Drew.
+
+"No! They're all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion
+or for auto speeding or beating his wife,--if he has one,--he would be
+here. I'm sorry, inspector."
+
+Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward
+Fosdick.
+
+"Have you got a print of Finklestein?" he asked. "You remember the
+fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released
+for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I've forgotten how
+he got off. He's supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I
+had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you'd
+compare these prints with Finklestein's."
+
+"Go ahead," said the commissioner. "Go as far as you like. I don't
+think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong
+ones--that's all."
+
+"What's Finkle--Finklestein's initials?" asked the expert.
+
+"J. B.," said Drew quickly. "Julius B.!"
+
+A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two
+drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard,
+and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had
+started from before taking the prints in the booth.
+
+"No record could be more different," Pope said. "Finklestein has a big
+hand and very broad fingers. The fellow who made these prints has a
+little hand with thin fingers. The whorls and loops are entirely
+dissimilar. He comes under classification 2-4-X. Finklestein is in
+cabinet 2-9-0. They couldn't be further away."
+
+Drew started out through the doorway with Fosdick following him. They
+stood on the landing leading to the downstairs steps, where the
+detective was about to leave the commissioner with a curt good-by. His
+hand was out when he drew it back, dropped it to his side and wheeled
+with sudden intuition.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "Are you and I detectives or children? Come
+back to the fingerprint room. Hurry now. I want to see Pope. I forgot
+something!"
+
+The expert rose as they entered. "Well?" he asked with arching brows
+and a slight frown on his face. "Well, what is it?"
+
+Drew pointed a finger as steady as a rifle. He bared his eyes into
+Pope's own. "Were you up to Stockbridge's house?" he asked swiftly.
+
+"Yes! Why?"
+
+"Did you take prints and photos of everything in the library? I
+understand that this was done after I turned the case over to
+Commissioner Fosdick."
+
+"It was done!" rasped Fosdick. "Of course it was done. It's always done
+when a case looks like a homicide!"
+
+"This case looked worse than that!" said Drew. "It was slaughter!"
+
+The commissioner turned to the fingerprint man. "Where are the prints
+and photos you took up at the house?" he asked.
+
+"Still in the developing room."
+
+"Do you think they are developed?"
+
+"I'll soon know, sir," he answered, pressing a button.
+
+The messenger entered who had attended to Drew's prints which the
+detective took in the telephone-booth.
+
+"Get down to the developing room," ordered Pope. "Get me all the prints
+and positives of Exhibit 12 of the Stockbridge case. Bring what is
+already developed. Tell them to rush the others."
+
+The three men waited in silence for the return of the messenger. Drew
+paced the floor thoughtfully. He clasped and unclasped his hands behind
+his back. He had almost slipped in an important matter. It was a chance
+he was taking, but a vital one in the case. The fingerprints taken by
+the expert in the library might and might not jibe with those taken in
+the slot-booth. If they were the same, or any one was the same, the
+case would offer a new line for investigation.
+
+A sliding footstep at the door announced the messenger. He held a
+sheath of curling papers in his hand. Pope reached and snatched the
+photos. He ran over them with widening eyes. He sorted them into two
+piles upon the table.
+
+"Five prints!" he announced, glancing at Drew with a sly smile. "Five
+of these prints are the same as your set. In other words, the man who
+made the impressions in the telephone-booth was also in the library at
+or about the time of the murder!"
+
+"Impossible!" snorted Fosdick.
+
+"Ah!" said Drew. "Photos don't lie. Now we're getting there! That's the
+first light I've seen in some time. It clears the case of the
+supernatural. It puts it where it belongs--in the material world of
+flesh and blood and hate and revenge."
+
+"It does that!" corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. "Now," he
+added good-naturedly, "I'll help out some more. I've got a book of
+notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I
+flashed every print I could see. There's some of the butler on the
+bottle and the tray. There's a number on the polished table. There are
+at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I
+suppose yours is among them, inspector?"
+
+Drew held out his right hand. "Look and see," he suggested with a short
+laugh. "I've never been printed in my life."
+
+"That won't be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the
+ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There's no record of
+this fellow in our cabinet. But--he was in that library!"
+
+"Where did he leave his prints?" asked Drew.
+
+Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page,
+thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. "What's
+the number on the back of that one?" he asked, nodding toward the
+topmost photograph.
+
+"Ten," said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.
+
+"Ten," repeated the expert. "That is a print which was flashed on the
+corner of the little table which was overturned when Stockbridge fell
+to the floor after being shot."
+
+"And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?"
+
+"The same!" declared the expert dryly.
+
+"I don't see where you two are getting," said Fosdick. "How could a man
+get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go
+over to a slot-booth?"
+
+"He might have been in the slot-booth first," suggested Drew with slow
+smiling. "From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge."
+
+"The fact is established," exclaimed Pope, "that the man you are after
+was in the library and in the booth. That's all you can say. There's no
+way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made."
+
+Drew lifted a second print. "No. sixteen," he said, turning to the
+expert. "Where was that made?"
+
+Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease
+over the development in the case. "That," he said, swinging his eyes
+till they met Drew's, "that was made on the hardwood floor directly
+under Stockbridge's body. We found the print, with others of the little
+finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!"
+
+The detective stared at Pope. "You mean," he said shrewdly, "that the
+man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was
+down on his knees arranging Stockbridge's body, or doing something like
+that?"
+
+"He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the
+body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this
+impression. I venture to say that it is there yet."
+
+"Good!" said Drew. "I may have a look at it. I never went after prints
+in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business--like
+yourself."
+
+Pope smiled. He glanced at his book for a third time. "What's the
+number of that last print?" he asked.
+
+"Forty-four!"
+
+"Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by
+Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work."
+
+"I had a hand in that," admitted Drew.
+
+"This print was close to the knob. There's none like it on the knob
+itself."
+
+"Umph!" declared Fosdick.
+
+Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on
+Fosdick's shoulder. "I've got you to thank," he said, "for letting me
+use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it
+clears the case in a remarkable manner."
+
+"How?" asked the commissioner.
+
+"Well for one thing," Drew said, lifting the third photo. "For one
+thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after
+the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half
+mile or more away from the mansion."
+
+"I'll grant you that, but what does it prove?"
+
+Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. "It
+proves," he said, "that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never
+arrested in New York."
+
+"That's a large order!" chuckled the commissioner. "There are a few
+good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven't got--yet!"
+
+"I'm satisfied," said the detective, pulling his hat down over his
+head. "I'm going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good.
+He's stayed out of your clutches. He's forgotten more about telephones
+than most men know. He's as slippery as an eel and as clever as the
+very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase."
+
+"What's that?" asked the commissioner.
+
+"He didn't wear gloves on the job. That's where we may trip him up."
+
+"They all forget something," said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through
+the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.
+
+The detective hurried down the steps,--passed the sergeant at the
+entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building
+and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter
+was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!
+
+Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a
+towering canyon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the
+one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the
+feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.
+
+The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit
+who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages.
+He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself
+in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective
+realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the
+city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.
+
+Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker.
+He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great
+operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.
+
+Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little
+position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers. He
+had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was a big
+factor in the criminal game. The members of the criminal tribe worked
+through luck and sheer audacity. Many escaped from the net and moved in
+the underworld until they made their final mistake which was probably
+so glaring it couldn't be overlooked.
+
+Despite the fact that the finger prints were not of record, Drew held
+to the swirling conviction that the man he was after was of the
+criminal horde. There was much to lead him to this belief. The
+cleverness in connecting up the two telephone booths--the warning
+through the mail to Stockbridge--the manner in which the murder had
+been covered up in a score of details, all pointed to a criminal mind
+of the cunningest order. It savored of practice in crime and study of
+natural conditions. Its bizarre features placed it out from other
+crimes and raised it to a class of its own.
+
+The snow which impeded the detective's steps, in some manner cleared
+his brain. He began to review the series of events. He boxed the case
+with returning shrewdness. He went over the points like a sailor
+repeating the compass-chart. He even saw a light.
+
+This light was a star that guided him around a corner and then along
+the long reach of a white-mantled street where children shrilled and
+played. Snow-balls flew past his head. Sleighs and muffled taxis
+churned by. Women in furs and heavy cloaks glanced up at his olive face
+from which peered sanguine eyes bent upon a known destination.
+
+He paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading to a library. In
+this building he knew there would be on file certain data concerning
+three links of the chain which he was trying to forge about the
+criminal or criminals who had slain Stockbridge.
+
+He entered the storm-door, shook the snow from his coat, and removed
+his hat with a swinging bow as he drew erect in front of a prim lady at
+a desk.
+
+"I want all the books you have on modern telephony," he said with a
+winning smile. "I'm sure that you have one or two."
+
+The prim lady who knew a gentleman when she saw one, raised her brows
+and rapidly thumbed over a filing-card system.
+
+"One or two," she repeated. "Why, we have over twenty. Now just what
+branch of Telephony do you want? There are a number of divisions in the
+subject. We have Smith on Central Office practice. We have Steinward on
+Induced Currents in Relation to Magnetism. We have Oswerlander on
+Switchboards and Carbon Transmitters. We have Burke on Circuits and
+Batteries. We have----"
+
+"Hold on, please," said Drew, catching his breath. "I better try
+something easy. One of those Juvenile books with simple diagrams and
+switchboards or junction-boxes."
+
+Drew carried the book to an alcove which was deserted. He took off his
+coat, hung it on the back of a chair, upended his hat and sat down with
+a tired smile. Soon he was busy in the mystery of electricity in
+relation to the telephone. He conned over the pages. He browsed along
+like a novice trying to understand trigonometry. He frowned over such
+terms as micro-ampere and micro-volt. He grew dizzy following wiring
+diagrams which were far worse than any clue he had ever attempted.
+
+"A telephone engineer," he said half aloud. "A man who could trace out
+this stuff ought to make a mighty fine detective. I never saw such a
+snarl. Now what does hysteresis and laminations mean? What's the idea
+of having an alternating current of low voltage on the same line with a
+talking current of three volts? I don't see how they can get two
+currents on one set of wires. Maybe they don't."
+
+He tossed the book to the table in front of him and rose with a frown.
+This frown changed to a wrinkled furrow of half amusement as he hurried
+back to the little prim lady.
+
+"Too deep for me," he said, referring to the book she had given him.
+"That may be a beginner's treatise, but I'm in the kindergarten class
+in electricity. What's a micro-volt?"
+
+"I'll look it up, sir," she said.
+
+"Never mind. I wouldn't know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book
+on magpies."
+
+The librarian fingered her files. "Try Birds of England," she
+suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow
+over to a book-case. "Try this. It's complete. You'll find magpies and
+starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this
+splendid volume."
+
+"The one that interested me was black as a crow," he said, as he turned
+toward his alcove. "Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white
+crows. I never saw one, though. My bird's a deep one."
+
+The little librarian stared after Drew's vanishing form with a slight
+pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the
+series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he
+was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and
+telephones.
+
+Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the
+lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles.
+These she had in plenty. A great many war books had been purchased
+during the period which followed America's declaration.
+
+The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He
+conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and
+trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact
+upon fact. He had the formulae of smokeless powder and the analysis of
+cupronickel bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire.
+He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his
+overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing
+back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.
+
+The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust
+out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he
+had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the
+north and plowed along the sidewalk.
+
+Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had
+forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge
+which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost
+six o'clock.
+
+"Lord," he said in surprise. "I'm going crazy. Two hours in a trance.
+Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They
+ought to have something. I wonder," he added, peering under the fine
+drizzle of snow, "I wonder where the nearest telephone is located?
+Another block, I guess."
+
+His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along.
+Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a
+raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt
+longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library.
+The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections
+which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.
+
+The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew
+discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters,
+was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be
+traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a
+whirling dervish across the detective's vision.
+
+He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the
+white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He
+found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he
+asked Central for his office phone.
+
+The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. "What's new in
+the Stockbridge case?" asked Drew in a whisper.
+
+He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the
+entire series of reports. There were six of them. The last was from
+Delaney.
+
+"Hang up!" the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. "Hang up,
+Harrigan, and let me get him."
+
+Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large
+slot and jiggled the receiver's hook until Central answered.
+
+"Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!" he exclaimed. "Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!"
+
+"That's her number," he said aloud. "Loris Stockbridge's number. It
+must be her number. I haven't forgotten that, have I?"
+
+The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted
+one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The
+receiver's diaphragm clicked finally. "Hello!" he snapped. "Hello,
+who's this?"
+
+He waited a full second. "This Delaney?" he asked. "Who?" he added.
+"Oh! you're the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes,
+Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!"
+
+"This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? Hello,
+Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?"
+
+The big operative's voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. "What's the
+news?" asked Drew. "What's that you've been telling Harrigan? Something
+about a coffin? A coffin? What--a casket? A hardwood casket. I'll be
+right up! I'm coming!"
+
+The detective's olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped
+the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged
+out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat
+collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk
+leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.
+
+The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and
+along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew
+westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He
+crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this,
+sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver's muffled ear.
+
+"Drive like sin--full speed and more--up Fifth Avenue! I'll tell you
+when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I
+can help it," he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the
+taxi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+"THE CLOSING NET"
+
+
+Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night
+would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway
+signs--the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow
+worms--the muffled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their
+well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters
+more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.
+
+Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew's taxi turned and
+ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no
+definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two
+blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a
+familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his
+chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at
+the curb.
+
+"Stay around the corner!" he ordered. "Stay, till I send word. Here's a
+dollar for supper. Get that and wait!"
+
+The driver touched his cap and reached for the bill. Drew swung
+northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden
+sidewalk. Delaney's statement over the telephone had stirred every drop
+of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He
+clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He
+crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white
+line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets
+and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in
+defiance to the powers of darkness which encompassed the dwelling.
+
+A snow-crusted form stepped out from a basement shelter. Drew raised
+his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.
+
+"Hello, O'Toole!" he blurted, recognizing the operative. "What are
+_you_ doing here?"
+
+O'Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. "Our
+lad's in there," he said, thrashing his arms and flipping his finger
+for a second time. "Harry Nichols!" he explained.
+
+"S--o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads
+this way now. What did you learn to-day?"
+
+O'Toole yawned. "I got on the job early," he said with frosty breath.
+"I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I'm right after him.
+First he went to the Quartermaster's Offices at the Battery. Then he
+went to Governor's Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross
+Headquarters. He 'phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times."
+
+"To the girl in the case?"
+
+"Yep, Chief! He's gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters
+connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers--three dozen lilies of
+the valley--then came on up here. I've been waiting a long time."
+
+"Seen anybody about?"
+
+"Delaney and some Central Office men--that's all! Shall I stay here?"
+
+"Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think
+Delaney has been there. You'll find the snow melted in spots. Plant
+somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with
+the wires to the house. I'm looking for trouble to-night. They
+threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon."
+
+Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O'Toole, turned at
+the iron-grilled gate, passed through and pressed the button.
+
+A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open
+and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.
+
+"All right!" said Drew. "Let me in!"
+
+The door swung wider. Drew lunged through and turned. "What's new?" he
+asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Are those servants still
+under arrest?"
+
+"Some of them, Inspector," grunted the Central Office man. "I can't
+talk much. Fosdick gave me hell for talking to a newspaper man. He left
+word, though, that you could come in."
+
+"Thanks!" Drew said dryly. "Thanks! That's kind of him. You are holding
+down this door?"
+
+"Sure, Inspector! The butler and the second-man are down at
+Headquarters. I don't like the job, but orders is orders."
+
+Drew loosened his overcoat, removed his kid-gloves, stamped his
+snow-covered shoes on the rug, and hurried past the library, where
+stood a burly Central Office man on guard. He mounted the steps with
+the running motion of a boy of fifteen. He glanced upward to where
+velvet-soft light glowed at the entrance to Loris Stockbridge's suite
+of rooms. Delaney stood framed in the opening. His huge bulk blotted
+out the inner rooms. His face, seen in the high shadows, was long and
+grim.
+
+"She's in there," said the operative, raising his chin over his lifted
+arm. "Miss Stockbridge is in there. She's with her maid--one Fosdick
+tried to pinch--and Harry Nichols. She's got a notice by special
+delivery, that the coffin she ordered from the Hardwood Casket Company,
+of Jersey City, will be delivered to-morrow. She never ordered any
+coffin, Chief. Ain't that dirt--to a girl like that? What d'ye think of
+it?"
+
+Drew's answer to Delaney's question was a grinding of teeth and a sharp
+oath of defiance. He clutched the operative's arm in a nipping grip. He
+led him into the tiny reception-hall of the suite.
+
+The detective paused on the threshold of a larger room. He dropped his
+hand from Delaney's arm. He stabbed sharp glances here and there about
+the interior. He widened his eyes as they came to rest upon a further
+doorway, which was hung with soft tapestries gathered to the side-walls
+by cords of silk. Beyond this doorway, like the vista of some rare
+painting, shone an inner light of a woman's shrine.
+
+Silver and pearl and old rose blended into a bower such as is found in
+palaces. Tiny medallions and plaques and miniatures--narrow framed
+studies in oil--fans, vases, statuettes of ivory and rare china, a
+hundred choice and dainty objects of haute-art were in that splendid
+room.
+
+Drew advanced over a rug so soft and deep he felt like a peri entering
+Paradise. He brushed aside the tapestries and strode swiftly forward.
+His hat came off as Loris advanced to meet him from a large chamber,
+wherein the color scheme had been worked out in black and white with a
+suggestion of green-in-gold.
+
+He forgot the material things of that apartment as he bowed gallantly.
+He thrust his hand forward and clasped strong fingers over her own. The
+grief of her father's death had widened her eyes and set them in
+circles of dark brows and tear-stained features. Her voice clutched in
+her throat as she tried to speak. Her hand was drawn from his slowly.
+It raised to her broad forehead beneath her blue-black hair, with a
+passing motion that dispelled some of the doubt within her. She smiled
+wanly. Her round, young breast rose and fell with the rustle of
+perfumed laces. She swished her lavender gown behind her with a turn of
+a white, supple wrist upon which was a tiny, diamond-studded watch of
+superior make.
+
+"Courage!" said Drew. "Have courage! They won't get you!"
+
+"They--they," she breathed. "They have threatened me like they
+threatened poor father. They sent a letter. Oh, I wish I were a man!"
+
+Drew flushed beneath his olive cheeks. He reached upward and turned
+down his overcoat collar. He laid his hat on a chair, braced his
+shoulders, and stared around the room. His eyes wandered from the walls
+to the inner opening. "Who's in there?" he asked.
+
+"Harry--Harry Nichols. I telephoned for him. I was afraid. I admit I'm
+afraid, Mr. Drew. You know what they did to father?"
+
+"Yes, I know. It was an error on my part. We did not take the proper
+precautions. But this time--we will!"
+
+"I hope you do. I don't feel like myself, after last night. It came so
+suddenly. I heard you people talking in the lower hallway. I went to
+the bannisters and saw all the servants at the library door. And
+then--and then, I went down without a particle of warning. It was a
+shock, Mr. Drew."
+
+"One I could have spared you," admitted the detective. "It was
+preventable," he added, turning toward Delaney.
+
+The operative stepped forward. He struck a chair with his foot and
+tumbled it over. Picking it up and setting it down on its legs, he
+flushed guiltily.
+
+"Be careful!" snapped Drew. "Get me that letter this young lady
+received from Jersey. Get it! We'll look it over right now!"
+
+Delaney glanced at Loris. "She's got it," he said. "I gave it back to
+her."
+
+Loris shuddered and pressed her hands to her breast. "I tore it up,"
+she whispered. "I was so excited and angry I tore it up. It's in the
+waste-basket."
+
+"Fetch the basket!" said Drew to Delaney. "Go get it. We'll make this
+room our headquarters," he added, swinging about on one heel. "We'll
+stay right here and watch things, Miss Loris."
+
+The girl nodded prettily. Her courage came back with flushed cheeks.
+She glanced up at Drew's strong jaw and face. The detective squared his
+shoulder with a final shrug. "We'll stay here!" he said masterly.
+"Though all the demons in hell are closing in on you, we'll stick.
+We'll get them this time! I've almost got my man. If he moves his pawns
+to-night, we'll round up the whole bunch and send them to the chair!"
+
+"Are there more than one?"
+
+"Yes! One is directing--another or others are doing his will. Your
+father was slain in some mysterious manner which we have not, as yet,
+determined. The man, or men, who caused him to meet with death, left
+their marks behind them--fingerprints--footprints, voices over wires,
+and other evidences of material deviltry. They blundered a score of
+times! They should have killed that magpie. They did not wear gloves
+when they should have worn gloves. They forgot, or overlooked, that
+telephone calls can be traced. We've traced them. We've almost
+succeeded. The trouble is, that time is short. What was in that
+letter?"
+
+Loris turned toward the inner room. Delaney, followed by Harry Nichols
+in full uniform, appeared. The operative held out a handful of scrapped
+paper.
+
+"Ain't much to learn here, Chief. It's pretty well torn up. I remember
+what it said, though."
+
+"Repeat it!"
+
+"It was from the Hardwood Casket Company of Jersey City. It was dated
+this morning. It said that the coffin Miss Stockbridge ordered for the
+lady who was about to die in her family, would be delivered to-morrow
+afternoon by express at her town house, as ordered."
+
+"The curs!" exclaimed Drew.
+
+"Sure they are, Chief. The letter was signed by the manager. I think it
+was the manager. I couldn't read his writing!"
+
+"Let me see the scraps."
+
+Delaney sorted them into a small stack and passed them to Drew. The
+detective lifted each fragment, held it to the light, and placed it
+into his right overcoat-pocket. "I get it," he said. "It looks genuine.
+Did you telephone them?"
+
+"Nope! I was a-waiting for you to come up here. There's a phone here.
+It's over there!"
+
+Drew nodded. "I saw it," he said thoughtfully. "We better be careful
+how we use the phones of this house. They tapped the wires before, and
+they can do it again. We're fighting very high-class devils."
+
+"It doesn't seem real!" blurted Harry Nichols. "I thought that death
+only stalked in No Man's Land. It's right here, gentlemen!"
+
+Drew frowned and shook his head. He glanced at Miss Stockbridge. He
+rubbed his hands softly. "No more danger," he warned in a confident
+voice. "We've got twenty Central Office men in the house or about the
+place. No bank was ever better protected. There will be no real trouble
+to-night."
+
+"That's what you said the other time, to father," Loris suggested
+without thought. "You did--you remember? You were in the library and he
+felt so confident nothing would happen. Something did happen!"
+
+"I admit it!" Drew said with candor, "I admit everything, Miss Loris.
+I'm partly to blame. The trouble was, I underestimated my adversary. A
+man should never do that. This time, though," he added with glazed eyes
+that roamed the walls. "This time is going to be different. Now, how
+about all your rooms? We must be sure that there is no slip. We must be
+sure----"
+
+"Sure, we must be sure!" interrupted Delaney. "I've looked everywhere,
+Chief. Leave that to me!"
+
+Drew glanced at Loris, who had stepped toward Harry Nichols. He studied
+the picture the two made, with their heads close together. The captain
+held himself defiantly, but with that certain polish which goes with a
+fondness for the things of life worth having. He had chosen a rather
+pretty girl, and upon her he had lavished his attentions. He had defied
+Stockbridge! This was motive enough for a crime. He was not the
+criminal, decided Drew. There was that to the captain's resolute,
+though thick lips, and his wide eyes, which assured the detective he
+would not stoop to low things to gain his ends. He had enlisted
+voluntarily. He had worked hard at Plattsburg. He had served, and was
+upon the eve of going to Pershing. No man with such a record would slay
+a girl's father to gain the girl.
+
+The detective erased Harry Nichols from his mind. "You two," he said
+commandingly, "had better go into the library! I mean Miss
+Stockbridge's writing-room. Stay there, please, till Mr. Delaney and I
+notify you. Who else, beside we four, are in this part of the house?"
+
+"Only the maid," said Loris.
+
+"Go in, please, and wait. I'm going to lock everything up. We're going
+to take every precaution this time. Frankly, I don't see how any agency
+can do more than we have already. Were we dealing with ordinary crooks
+or blackmailers, I would have you take a taxi and move to some Fifth
+Avenue hotel. But it seems an unnecessary risk. This is the safest
+place in the world, despite the letter from the casket company and the
+former warning. What man can enter this place to-night--without our
+permission?"
+
+"I'd like to see one!" blurted Delaney.
+
+Harry Nichols offered his arm to Loris. They passed from the view of
+the two detectives with the locked, gliding stride of two dancers who
+moved to slow time. Drew heard the portieres which led to the
+writing-room rustle downward and settle into place. He passed his hand
+over his forehead and breathed deeply.
+
+"We'll get busy," he whispered tersely. "We'll search these rooms
+again. Let's start with a definite foundation!"
+
+Delaney grunted at the uselessness of this as he reached and took the
+detective's overcoat which was peeled off and extended to him.
+
+"Hang it on a chair," said Drew sharply. "Over there with my hat. Now,"
+he snapped, "what about the windows of this room, the little reception
+hall and the bedroom over there? That's a bedroom, isn't it?"
+
+"Sure, Chief! I frisked it good. The Central Office men were up here
+early in the morning. They went through everything. Fosdick, they say,
+was like a bull. He said the thing couldn't be done."
+
+"It _was_ done!"
+
+"Did you get any clue, Chief, as to how it was done?"
+
+"It's as much a mystery as ever. But we're trimming the tree called
+Truth with a broad ax. I'm going around this case to get the man or men
+who did it. Then we'll find out how it was done!"
+
+"Oh!" Delaney's expression was thought-laden. "Just thought of it,
+Chief. I got them plaster-of-paris casts. I got 'em down stairs. It was
+some job, believe me. I took everything about that junction-box, after
+I'd thawed the snow with hot blankets which a good-looking cook brought
+to me."
+
+"Go down and get them!"
+
+Delaney hurried out through the tapestries of the room. Drew started
+his search of the apartment by a study of the windows and the catches.
+He opened one and glanced outside. Snow had drifted to the depth of
+three inches on the sill. This snow was unmarked. He examined all of
+the sills extending from the three rooms. He closed and locked the
+windows. He backed off into the center of the reception room and
+studied the situation from every angle. The furniture was fragile and
+in sets of such splendid periods his eyes closed over them. The rugs
+and tapestries--curtains and portieres--sheathings of yellow
+hand-painted silk from Nippon--rare ceramics and cloisonnes--a huge
+peach-blow vase of the Ming dynasty and a hundred little jade and
+jasper knick-knacks were the outward evidence of wealth.
+
+He opened the plate-glass cases and peered inside. He crawled under a
+couch and backed out dusting his hands. He tapped with slow knuckles a
+long cheval-glass by the side of which was a tiny gold-bracket and a
+silver-plated telephone. He went the rounds of the walls, lifting
+pictures, portraits and little military oils by French painters of the
+Franco-Prussian period. He found nothing to excite his suspicion!
+
+Entering a simple bedroom, with its tiled flooring and its single white
+bed, he spared this as he passed to the bath beyond, which had no
+outlet save a ventilating shaft securely barred by a bronze grating of
+close, fantastic-scrolled mesh.
+
+Delaney's heavy steps were heard in the reception hall as Drew
+finished. Striding out into the larger room he frowned as the operative
+deposited a blanket upon a Persian rug and began to untie its corners.
+
+"I got 'em here, Chief," explained the assistant with upturned face.
+"There's five or six prints--all alike."
+
+"What? Repeat that!" Drew dropped to one knee.
+
+"Sure, Chief. There's only been one guy at that junction-box before the
+freezing started. He made plenty of tracks. He came and went from the
+fence to the box. It's a small foot. There was plenty of prints made
+after the snow piled on top of these little prints."
+
+"The operatives?"
+
+"Sure, and the Central Office bunch! But these prints I got here are
+the only ones under the snow. They stuck up when I melted away the
+surface."
+
+Delaney offered a plaster-cast of the top of a footprint. It was
+roughly done. It had been made, like the others in the blanket, by
+pouring cold plaster within a retaining bulge of soap. The plaster had
+hardened and brought out each detail. Drew traced his finger over the
+toe. "Right foot," he said. "Now let's see the others!"
+
+"Here's a left foot, Delaney," added the detective slowly. "Only one
+left and four right. That might happen. You didn't take them all. Well,
+bundle them up and plant them somewhere. Put them under that couch, out
+of sight. I've got an idea!"
+
+"What is it, Chief?" asked the operative as he drew on the knots until
+he had gathered the corners together. "What's new? I can't see anything
+in sight, at-tall, at-tall. One man--that's all I see."
+
+"And that's _all_ I see--the trouble-hunter--Delaney!"
+
+"But what about the tall guy who looked like a German? The fellow the
+trouble-man saw getting over the fence and beating it for Fifth
+Avenue?"
+
+"He didn't leave any tracks!"
+
+"Ah, Chief, get out! That ain't human!"
+
+Drew paced the floor with his hands clasped behind him. He wheeled with
+sudden energy. "Go, you!" he exclaimed with a pointing finger. "Hurry
+out of this house and telephone Gramercy Hill Exchange. Tell the
+superintendent to send over that trouble-man. I want to compare these
+prints with his shoes. He couldn't have been lying. There's no object
+in that! But, Delaney, how could a man tap in on that junction-box and
+never leave prints in the snow? That's my question!"
+
+"How could one shoot a man in a sealed room, Chief? There ain't much
+difference!"
+
+Drew snatched out his watch. "Hurry," he said. "Get over to Gramercy
+Hill Exchange--it's only three blocks from here. Ask Jack Nefe, or
+whoever is in charge, for the trouble-man who fixed the phone last
+night. He'll be able to tell us what part of the fence the tall fellow,
+who looked like a German, got over. Perhaps he wasn't at the
+junction-box at all!"
+
+"Who, Chief?"
+
+"The tall fellow! Perhaps he was skulking about the windows at the
+back."
+
+"Perhaps he was a ghost," said Delaney to himself as he lunged through
+the tapestries toward the staircase which led down from the third floor
+of the mansion.
+
+Drew crossed the room and rapped softly on a panel by the portieres
+which covered the opening to the reading-room and library. He heard a
+muffled word of warning. Loris Stockbridge glided across the rugs and
+peered out. Her face was set and tear-stained. She had been sobbing
+upon an olive-drab shoulder.
+
+"Pardon," said Drew with a slight sigh. "I beg pardon, Miss
+Stockbridge. I want to look over the sitting-room and examine the
+windows. Where is the maid?"
+
+Loris touched her eyes with a handkerchief drawn from her breast. She
+replaced this and nodded over her shoulder. She parted the portieres
+with her unjeweled right hand. "The maid," she said softly, "is in her
+room. That's back of this reading-room. Shall I call her?"
+
+"You and Mr. Nichols come in here, please," said Drew. "I'll knock on
+the maid's door and look her over. We can't be too careful--remember
+that. It's getting late," he added with candor.
+
+Drew allowed Harry Nichols and Loris to pass him as he held the
+portieres for them with a thoughtful bow. He crossed the reading-room,
+examined the books and cases, glanced under a low divan, and saw to it
+that each window was latched before he knocked lightly upon a further
+door which was hidden by curtains.
+
+A maid appeared, in smart white apron and pursed lips of inquiry. Drew
+regarded her not unkindly. He ran his eyes up and down her trim figure
+from the black bow in her brown hair to the wide ribbons which laced
+her trim French shoes.
+
+"How long have you been with Miss Stockbridge?" he asked.
+
+_"Merci, Monsieur!"_ she courtesied. "It has been for zee longest time.
+_Cinq--sept, annees, monsieur,"_ she counted mentally.
+
+"Good!" said Drew closing the door lightly. "Good little girl. We won't
+bother you the rest of the night," he added as he turned a good key in
+a perfectly good lock and dropped the curtains.
+
+"Now!" he said with a final glance about the reading-room, with its
+morocco-bound tomes and glowing lights. "Now, let the worst come! Let
+that come what may!"
+
+He strode through to the reception room, glanced slit-lidded at Loris
+and Nichols, who had seated themselves in the deeper recess of a
+splendid alcove, and hurried to the hall where Delaney was hastily
+removing his coat, and showing other evidences of some answer to his
+quest at the telephone exchange.
+
+"Well?" asked Drew as the bulk of the big operative loomed through the
+tapestries. "Well, what did you find out over there?"
+
+"Enough, Chief!" Delaney's voice was hard. He glanced at Loris and
+Nichols. His right eye closed in a warning wink of caution.
+
+"Come into this other room," said Drew. "Come right in, Delaney. This
+way!" Drew lifted the portieres, then dropped them after the operative
+had stumbled forward.
+
+"What did you find?" he asked into Delaney's ear. "Out with it!"
+
+The operative glanced about the reading-room. He blinked at the glowing
+electrics. He recovered his voice as he drew in a deep breath which
+bulged his chest to barrel proportions.
+
+"I went," he said huskily. "I went to Gramercy Hill Exchange. Found the
+superintendent.... Fellow, you told me to find, Chief ... I draws him
+to one side.... I asked about this trouble-hunter.... He ups like I'd
+hit him.... He says fellow quit to-day.... Says fellow.... Says he was
+no good.... Says he was tapping joints instead of soldering them. Says
+he only hired him on account of the shortage of electricians and
+helpers ... because of the last Army draft."
+
+"Did you get his address?"
+
+"I got it, Chief.... It is over on Fifty-third Street near the
+River.... I didn't go.... I wanted to see you first.... There's more."
+
+"Out with it!"
+
+"The superintendent says he never sent that trouble-hunter over here
+last night.... There's a record of sending another man named Frisby."
+
+"Did you see--Frisby?"
+
+"I did, Chief."
+
+"What did he say?" Drew's fingers had clutched the operative's arm.
+"What did he say?" he repeated grimly.
+
+"Said, that Albert--that's the trouble-hunter--had stopped him on the
+way over here and took his place.... Said, he was satisfied.... Albert
+could have _all_ the jobs on a night like last night. That's just what
+Frisby said, Chief!"
+
+Drew loosened his fingers from Delaney's arm and turned slowly. The
+portieres swayed slightly. They shook anew. They parted at the center
+and revealed Loris Stockbridge. Her eyes burned the soft gloom with
+glazed interrogation. She raised her white hand and pressed back her
+hair from her forehead. She stepped forward with her knees striking
+against the stiff satin of her skirt. She swung from Delaney toward
+Drew.
+
+"What were you saying?" she asked imperiously. "What did you say about
+a trouble-man? What was it, please?"
+
+"I'm lookin' for one, Miss!" declared Delaney. "I was over at the
+telephone company's exchange lookin' for the lad that was here last
+night and fixed the junction-box in the yard back of the house. Mr.
+Drew wants him."
+
+Loris turned toward the detective. "You want him?" she asked softly.
+"What do you want him for? Please tell me. I don't like him, at all."
+
+It was Drew's turn to draw in his breath. He eyed the girl. He tried to
+fathom the reason for her simple question and her objection. "Miss
+Loris," he said, shrugging his square shoulders. "Why, it's a slight
+matter. The man has disappeared. We can't find him. He's
+flown--perhaps."
+
+"Is he a little chap with a satchel and a testing set?" she asked. "A
+nice-mannered, soft-voiced little man who was so obliging, and yet
+so--oh! I don't know what I have against him. He's so sly--don't you
+think so, Mr. Dr--e--w?"
+
+"When did you ever see him?" asked Drew, feeling the blood rising to
+his cheeks at a thought which surged through his brain.
+
+"Meet him? Why! he was here early this afternoon. He was all over the
+house!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+"SUSPICION FASTENS"
+
+
+Triggy Drew had been trained in the hardest school in the world. Loris
+Stockbridge's statement, delivered with such sincerity and so naively,
+completely upset him. It was like a gentle reminder that, as a hunter
+of men, he had failed. He took the blow with flaming cheeks and an
+almost stopped heart.
+
+Delaney realized that something of moment in the case had happened. He
+stared at his chief, then turned his eyes upon Harry Nichols, who
+stepped through the portieres and stood by Loris' side.
+
+"What is it, Chief?" asked the operative. "Was there anything in what
+she said?"
+
+"Anything!" exclaimed Drew, recovering himself with a tossing shrug of
+his shoulders. "Anything? Everything! The man we want is----"
+
+"Found?" breathed Loris clutching Nichols' arm.
+
+"Not yet--but _very_ soon!" said the detective with sanguine eyes. "We
+want that trouble-hunter, Delaney," he added gathering in the details
+for action as he spoke. "You'll have to hurry right over to the address
+and see if you can round him up. If he isn't there--get him! I want him
+brought here at once. He's got much to explain!"
+
+"I'll go right now," said Delaney, starting toward the reception room.
+
+"Wait," said Drew.
+
+Delaney turned at the portieres.
+
+"Don't phone me here," the detective warned. "Don't do anything by
+telephone. We're on the trail of a man or men who can tap wires. He or
+they may have a confederate in this house. Be careful--get your suspect
+and bring him here. We'll try him with the footprints. We'll check up
+with the fingerprints. Then, if he don't cave in, we'll turn him over
+to Fosdick and the Third Degree. I firmly believe that Albert, whom I
+saw in the library and who was in this house in the early afternoon of
+this day, is implicated in the murder. Strange that I never suspected
+him."
+
+"I'm going!" growled Delaney, tearing his eyes away from Loris and
+glancing through the curtains. "I'm right after him, Chief. I won't
+stop till I get him, either."
+
+"If you don't make it in thirty minutes," said Drew glancing sharply at
+his watch, "if you don't make it by then--come back here. Perhaps
+something will have turned up in the meantime. Get that?"
+
+"Sure, Chief! Good-by!"
+
+Delaney had passed through the portieres, crossed the reception room
+and pressed aside the tapestries leading to the hallways, before Drew
+stepped to the broad doorway and motioned for Loris and Nichols to take
+their former positions. He waited until they were seated with their
+faces in the shadow cast by the overhead silken hangings. He spoke
+then, and to the point.
+
+"This case," he said, thrusting his hands in his coat pockets and
+striding back and forth. "This case is clearing clue by clue. The
+trouble-man, whom some one let into the house this afternoon, is the
+missing link in the chain of circumstance and applied deduction. Who
+let him in?"
+
+"I did!"
+
+Drew stopped in his stride. "You, Nichols?" he questioned sharply. "Why
+did you let him in?"
+
+"Because I asked Harry to," defended Loris with heat. "I heard the bell
+ring. I sent the maid downstairs. She came back and told me that a man
+from the telephone company was waiting to look over the connections.
+She said that he said that there was trouble with the wires."
+
+"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Drew; "that is," he added hastily, "I
+don't believe there was anything the matter at all. In the light of
+what Delaney has told me, that fellow came here last night, when some
+one else named Frosby or Frisby was sent. Now why would he want to take
+another's place? For one reason only--the same reason that he came here
+this afternoon. This reason concerns your future health and security.
+We had one death in this house which followed his first visit. We don't
+want anything to happen after his second visit."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Drew," said Nichols. "I was careless. I went down
+stairs and talked with the fellow. It was just a few minutes after I
+arrived from downtown. He seemed so plausible that I asked the Central
+Office Detective at the door, who gave the permission. It was all my
+fault, I guess."
+
+"Where did this fellow go? What did he do in the house?"
+
+"He went into the library and tested the phone there. The connection
+seemed to be all right. Then he went down stairs and tested the
+butler's 'phone. The butler had been taken as a material witness by
+Fosdick. I followed the man. He didn't do anything but test and then
+talk with Franklin Official--I think it was."
+
+"Are you sure he talked over the phone? It's ridiculously easy for a
+person to hold down the hook and make believe they are talking to most
+anybody."
+
+"I don't know about that, Mr. Drew," said the captain, turning toward
+Loris. "Did he talk to anybody when he used this 'phone, Miss
+Stockbridge?"
+
+"I believe so, Harry. I really thought he did."
+
+Drew furrowed his brows in perplexity. There was no evidence shown that
+the trouble-man had ever talked with anybody, via wire, from the
+mansion. He recalled the first appearance of the lineman in the
+library. That time both calls, to Central, might have been feigned by
+holding down the hook and speaking into a disconnected transmitter. The
+man was clever. He knew all there was to be known concerning telephony.
+
+"I'm a child," the detective concluded, swinging about the room in
+perplexity. "One thing," he added aloud to Loris and Nichols. "One
+thing! We are absolutely alone in this part of the house. I have locked
+the maid in her room. No one can get through the door to the hall.
+There's a spring lock on it. Delaney closed it when he went out."
+
+"And there's a score of detectives scattered about," said the captain
+reassuringly, as he leaned toward Loris. "Why should we fear anything
+at all?"
+
+"I wouldn't, Harry," said Loris, "if it wasn't for what happened to
+poor father. Mr. Drew took the same precautions and had everything
+locked and watched. It doesn't seem as if we were in New York at all.
+It seems like some mediaeval time and place."
+
+Drew reached for a fragile-looking chair, turned it, sat down and
+thrust his custom-made shoes out across the rug in the direction of
+Loris and Nichols, whose faces shone white and drawn in the soft light
+of the alcove where they were seated.
+
+Swirling thought surged through the detective's brain. He went over the
+case with dulled understanding. Briefly, he had eliminated the former
+suspects and compressed the matter into a small compass. His conclusion
+brought him to his feet with slow swaying from side to side. Some one
+in state prison was probably directing matters. Some one in New York
+was carrying out the arch-fiend's orders. This free agent had the nerve
+of the damned and the cunning of Cagliostro. He had succeeded in
+planting a confederate in the mansion, or entering himself, and slaying
+Stockbridge. The entire case, concluded Drew, rested in capturing the
+free agent before he could do further murder. Loris was marked and had
+been from the first.
+
+"What servants remain?" he asked, dropping his hand on his right hip
+pocket and feeling the bulge of an automatic there. "Which of the
+servants, Miss Stockbridge, have Fosdick and his men left for you?"
+
+"The French maid," said Loris softly.
+
+"I saw her! She looks all right. She says she has been with you five or
+six years."
+
+"Six--almost. It's been over six years, Mr. Drew!"
+
+"That ought to let her out of the case. Now, the next one?"
+
+"The housekeeper, Mrs. Seeley. She has been with us ten or twelve
+years--ever since I can remember. Mother thought the world of Mrs.
+Seeley."
+
+"Who else?"
+
+"Father's valet. They didn't arrest him."
+
+"He was down to my office. He looks all right. I'll cross him off the
+list of suspects. Now, are there any more servants in the house?"
+
+"There's a French chef and a pantry man, I think. Also there's a poor
+old darkey who tends to the furnace. I don't believe he leaves the
+basement. I never see him, only on holidays."
+
+"The butler, then, and the doorman and the second man and the rest of
+the servants have been taken down to Center Street for interrogation
+and as suspects. That leaves us with very few to handle, Miss
+Stockbridge. I'm going to start by securing the door which leads into
+the hallway. Then we'll wait here."
+
+Drew hurried through the tapestries, stopped, and examined the lock of
+the door before he shot home a second bolt which was functioned by a
+butterfly of heavy gold alloy. He stood erect with both hands pressing
+at his temples. It came to him with double force that the same
+precautions had been taken when Stockbridge was alone in the library
+downstairs. There was the lock of superior make and the winged-latch.
+There was the two-inch, or more, door of dark wood. There were the
+servants and detectives both within and outside the mansion. Yet the
+millionaire had been reached in a secret manner through all the
+precautions.
+
+"Things repeat, sometimes," mused Drew, fingering the catch and the
+flat key. "The same conditions bring the same results. I----"
+
+The detective's voice trailed into a whisper as he heard footsteps
+outside the door. He reached back to his pocket and waited. His heart
+thumped like a prisoned bird within his breast. It was a case of
+strained nerves. He felt the responsibility of guarding Loris.
+
+"Bah!" he exclaimed, recovering himself and squaring his jaw. "Bah," he
+repeated. "It's somebody for me."
+
+He opened the door after twisting the butterfly and turning the flat
+key in the lock. A blurred figure pressed forward. A gruff voice boomed
+from a muffling collar.
+
+"Hello, Chief! I'm back in a half-hour! No luck, either!"
+
+Drew waited until Delaney had removed his overcoat and overshoes, which
+he placed in one corner by a hall-tree. "What did you find?" he asked
+glancing toward the tapestries.
+
+"The fellow's beat it for good. Landlady says he owes her one week's
+rent. He cleaned out with a suit-case and left this." The operative
+reached in his pocket and brought forth a single drill of quarter-inch
+diameter. He held it out. "All I could find, Chief, after a quick
+frisk. This was in the mattress."
+
+"Regulation lineman's wood-bit," said Drew as he examined the size
+number on the shank. "This might have been the one used in boring the
+hole between the slot-booths at Grand Central Station."
+
+"Then Albert is the lad, Chief?"
+
+"We don't know, yet. There's lots of bits like this one. Did you try it
+for fingerprints?"
+
+"They're all rubbed off! I had to pull it from the mattress. It was
+stuck in a hole near the foot of the bed."
+
+"Hold it!" said Drew. "Hold it for evidence. Put it with your plaster
+casts. Now----"
+
+"Well, Chief?"
+
+Drew glanced at his watch. "I'm going out to that drug-store," he said.
+"I want to phone. I can't use the phones of this house. The wires may
+be tapped. You stay right by this door and wait till I get back. It
+won't be more than ten minutes. Go get my hat when you're putting the
+bit away. It's in the corner by Loris and Nichols. Tell them I'm
+stepping out and that you will stand guard. They might hold me. She is
+very nervous."
+
+Delaney was back at the detective's side, after a clumsy stride through
+the tapestries. "Cute couple," he said, jerking his thumb over-shoulder
+toward the inner room. "They're sittin' there so close you couldn't get
+a sheet of paper between them. I like that colleen, Chief! She's the
+kind you see on them magazine covers--only prettier."
+
+"A cat can look at a queen," quoted Drew, pulling down his hat and
+opening the door wide. "Be sure and lock this after me," he warned.
+"Lock and bolt it. Stand guard and don't let anybody in at all. I'm
+only going round the block."
+
+Delaney shut the door and turned the key. He followed this action by
+twisting the butterfly. Then he drew his gun and waited, grimly alert.
+
+Drew reached the drug-store after a brisk, lung-cleansing walk through
+the down-driving snow. He dropped a coin in the slot and first called
+up his office. Harrigan, who had remained at his post, answered for
+most of the operatives who were out on the case and who had 'phoned in
+at every opportunity.
+
+"Get Frick at the prison," Drew shot back, after making a few notes.
+"Get him and tell him to call up this 'phone," Drew glanced at the
+number over the transmitter. "Tell him to call up Gramercy Hill 9749
+and let whoever I station here, know to whom and to what number Morphy
+is talking in New York. Get that?"
+
+"Sure," came back over the wires. "Sure, Chief. You want to pinch the
+fellow he's connecting with?"
+
+"I certainly do," said Drew. "We can work it this way. As soon as I
+find out from Frick where Morphy or anybody else is 'phoning from the
+prison, I can get a man over there in time to make the arrest. The
+superintendent at Gramercy Hill will help us out if the call comes
+through his exchange. He can get the girl to stall for a minute or two.
+I'll send Delaney here to hold this end of the wire. You keep him
+posted as to developments. O'Toole, yes! He's planted in the alley back
+of the house. He can't report. All the others are all right?"
+
+Drew hung up with a flip of the receiver. He backed out of the booth
+and hurried around the corner. He reached the iron-grilled gate of the
+mansion with his head down and the snow seeping between his collar and
+his neck.
+
+"Rotten night!" said the Central Office man at the door. "I don't think
+we'll hear anything from anybody. Them gunmen like the backrooms of
+saloons too well to pull off a gun-play in this storm, Inspector."
+
+"You never can tell," said Drew, shaking his coat and hurrying toward
+the stairway which led to Loris Stockbridge's apartment.
+
+Delaney opened the door after a repeated knock in Morse code. He eyed
+his chief. He motioned toward the inner rooms. "All quiet," he said
+with a broad smile. "Them turtle doves sure like to be left alone."
+
+"And you would too! Especially if you lost your only relative the night
+before--lost him in the way she lost hers."
+
+The big operative gulped down the thrust. "What did you find out?" he
+asked in a husky whisper.
+
+"Get your coat on. Get over to that drug-store and plant near that
+booth--Gramercy Hill 9749. Frick, at the prison, is going to call that
+booth up as soon as Morphy or anybody else there tries to get New York.
+If Frick gives you a number, call up the superintendent at Gramercy
+Hill and tell him who you are. He's on duty all night. He'll give you
+the address of the number, and stall the call. That'll give you time to
+rush to the address and grab your man."
+
+"I'll grab him, Chief!" rumbled Delaney, reaching for his storm coat
+which was supposed to be fur-lined. "Leave that to me!" he added. "Jus'
+leave it tu me!"
+
+Drew eyed the operative's huge hands. "I'll do that," he said with a
+short laugh. "Now hurry! No, wait."
+
+"What is it, Chief?" asked Delaney in the doorway.
+
+"If the address is downtown, or in Brooklyn, what would you do then?"
+
+"I'd get the office, Chief, and have Harrigan rush over a man. This
+super at Gramercy Hill ought to be able to stall that call long enough
+for us to connect--with both hands and both feet."
+
+"Go to it!" said Drew, pressing Delaney out through the door. "Good
+luck," he added as he twisted the key and shot the bolt. "Now we are
+getting there," he said softly. "Unfortunately for that devil
+up-the-river, he has to phone from _one_ place. That's the thing which
+will beat him. I hate to think what would happen if he was outside
+giving orders. He could get away with it, nicely."
+
+Drew never felt surer of himself in a case. He tested the lock and bolt
+for a second time. He draped the tapestries and strode into the sitting
+room with his shoulders held back--a sanguine light in his olive eyes.
+
+"Well, Miss Stockbridge," he said, pausing in the center of the room
+and smiling. "I think we are on the verge of big things. The attempt
+cannot be made to-night without we have plenty of warning."
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Loris, standing upright and arranging her lavender
+gown about her slipper-tops. "That's the best news I've heard in a long
+time, Mr. Drew," she added, glancing archly at the detective, beneath
+her dark lashes. "Has that Mr. Delaney found any one?"
+
+Drew raised his brows. Loris' question was not exactly a compliment to
+the big operative, who meant so well.
+
+"He hasn't found anything," said Drew, with soft, pleasing voice. "He
+hasn't done that, but I'm venturing my future reputation that he will
+find our man--the trouble-man perhaps."
+
+Harry Nichols stepped to Loris' side. "We were children there," he
+admitted frankly. "At least I was. I never suspected him at all. His
+manners were so pleasant. He seemed so weak and intent about his
+business."
+
+"Ah!" said Drew, raising his finger. "That's it! He was intent about
+_his_ business. Only, this particular business concerned the taking of
+a human life in cold blood. Mr. Stockbridge was murdered by this fiend,
+in the guise of a harmless trouble-hunter. How the murder was
+accomplished and by what lethal method we do not know. I'm acting on
+the theory that if we catch the man we will find out how it was done.
+If I can't make him--Fosdick, Commissioner of Detectives, will. May God
+help him if he doesn't talk to Fosdick!"
+
+"But can't we find out how father was killed?" asked Loris, with tears
+glazing over her eyes. "It don't seem--it don't----"
+
+The captain caught Loris about the waist and led her to the divan in
+the alcove. She sank down with her face covered with her hands. Soft
+sobs, brought to her throat by the memory of the murder, caused Drew to
+pace the rugs with alert, nervous strides like a man who would guard
+her from some menacing shadow. He went to the ventilators and closed
+them slightly. He crossed the room to the radiator-boxes and set them
+in an open position. He adjusted a thermostat on the wall, to seventy
+degrees. He stood back then and listened with both ears strained for
+outside sounds.
+
+Snow sifted across the curtain-drawn panes with a cutting of fine
+diamonds against diamonds. A wind whistled and moaned and swirled over
+the turrets and towers of the mansion. An echo lifted from the driving
+traffic of the Avenue. Below this echo, so faint it seemed like a
+murmur of a distant sea, the city throbbed with the shifting of the
+whimpering wind. Once it roared. Then afterward there was silence, save
+for the sifting snow, and Loris' low, throat choke from welling sorrow.
+
+She sat up finally and dried her eyes. "I should be ashamed of myself,"
+she said, brokenly. "I must be brave. I fear something, though. It
+seems to be in the room or the air. What is it I fear, Mr. Drew?" Her
+question was vague. Her eyes shone hectically bright and strangely
+alluring to the detective.
+
+"There's nothing to fear!" he declared with a direct glance. "I'm
+armed! Then," he added as an additional encouragement. "Then, Mr.
+Nichols is a soldier! You are in safe hands, believe me!"
+
+Harry Nichols bowed politely. "I've got a gun, myself," he admitted
+candidly. "It's not that little one, either. It's army regulation. It,
+or the ones like it, have been stopping the Huns. I guess we'll take
+care of anything that comes up to-night, Mr. Drew. It's getting late,
+isn't it?"
+
+The detective glanced at his watch. "I ought to hear from Delaney," he
+said, replacing the watch and reaching for a chair. "Delaney is like
+old Dobbin--faithful and slow."
+
+Drew sat down, pulled at the knees of his black trousers and rested his
+heels on the thick soft pile of a Persian rug. Behind him was the
+cheval glass and the telephone stand. Before him, and in the shade of
+the silk draperies, Loris' eyes glowed alongside the captain's resolute
+face.
+
+The minutes passed with the trio in the same position. The snow sifted
+across the cold panes. The wind whined. Suddenly between gusts, Loris
+asked point-blankly:
+
+"Do you suspect that man, Morphy?"
+
+"Yes; I do!" said Drew with a snap. "I believe that every single lead
+we have points to him. I believe he planned to destroy your father ever
+since the day of conviction. I believe----"
+
+"But he is in prison."
+
+"Ah!" said the detective, with bright eyes. "So is his master, Lucifer,
+in the lower regions. He's there, but he has a long arm. Morphy's tool
+in this affair is probably the telephone repair-man. You saw him. Mr.
+Nichols saw him. I saw him. We all agree that he does not look the part
+of a scoundrel and a scoundrel's tool. But," Drew paused and spread out
+his hands; "but," he continued, "that's the reason he was chosen for
+Morphy's murderous work. You can't send a thug into a drawing room--or
+a library. You can't cut a sharp slice with a dull tool. This
+trouble-hunter is all that the name implies--a hunter of trouble. I
+don't doubt that we have the case rounded up, save for bringing him in.
+Morphy, we can get at any time. He's in prison and he's getting very
+close to the little green door that leads to the electric-chair. One
+slip to-night, and we have him!"
+
+"Miss Stockbridge must go south after the funeral," said Nichols. "She
+can't be jeopardized! She is nervous and has suffered acutely. I for
+one am sorry we let her stay here. It is the place she should not be.
+They know where to look for her!"
+
+"They're beat to-night," assured Drew, rising and stretching his arms.
+"My! my!" he added, "this is slow, sleepy work. I'd ask for tea, but I
+think it's best we stay locked in here. Don't you, Miss Stockbridge?"
+
+"Marie can get some. There's a service-waiter running up to her room.
+Suppose I order tea, or coffee, and cakes. It might cheer us up?"
+
+Drew held out a warding arm as Loris rose and started toward the
+writing room. "I'll tend to it," he said. "You stay right here close up
+to Mr. Nichols. We're taking no chances at all."
+
+The detective parted the portieres and knocked upon the maid's door as
+he turned the key with his left hand. He waited as she gave the order
+through a silver-plated speaking tube. He heard the service-waiter
+rising. He leaned forward and took the tray with a sharp glance about
+the maid's room. It was as clean and as neat as a work basket. A French
+novel, with a vivid portrait of a poilu carrying a very sharp bayonet
+on its cover, lay in the center of a white counterpane on the bed.
+
+"Good-night!" he said as he closed and carefully locked the door. He
+reached downward and caught up the tray. He started across the
+writing-room. He paused in its center as he heard:
+
+"Burrrr! Burrrr! Burrrrr!"
+
+Shrillingly the perfumed air of the suite vibrated with the silver
+notes of the telephone. Drew hesitated, with the tray balanced in his
+hand. He took one step forward as Loris swished across the
+sitting-room, lifted the hard-rubber receiver and voiced a soft,
+"Hello!"
+
+Drew let go of the tray and sprang forward. He parted the portieres and
+watched Loris' face. It changed between seconds to a flushed mask of
+crimson-fear. She staggered back, dropped the receiver, and cried
+"Harry!" as she sank to the floor.
+
+Drew darted across the rugs and snatched up the instrument. He heard a
+low, chuckling laugh that died to a whisper and then to nothingness. He
+flipped the receiver back on the hook. He turned with a savage twist.
+He stared across the room toward Loris, who had risen to her knees and
+whose head was against Nichols' olive-drab breast.
+
+"What was said?" he questioned sharply.
+
+A mass of turbaned, midnight-hued hair uncoiled and fell about the
+girl's white face. Glorious eyes dulled, then glowed, with the fire
+which was pulsing within her. Her lips trembled and went blanched as
+she throated brokenly:
+
+"The man--the man at the other end said.... He said that his master had
+ordered my coffin.... He said that I had only a few hours to live....
+He said that he would call me up again.... For me to be ready then, to
+meet my Master and my--doom."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+"A SILENT PRISONER"
+
+
+Loris Stockbridge finished speaking with a low sob which went straight
+to the detective's heart. He advanced across the room and ran his arm
+about her supple waist. "We'll help her to the divan," he told Nichols.
+"That's it! Right over here and in the corner. She's all right. I'll
+tend to that threat which came over the wires."
+
+Drew backed away and turned toward the telephone. He eyed it with cold
+calculation. He took one step further, then wheeled and glanced at
+Nichols.
+
+"I want to trace that call if it is humanly possible," he said with
+decision. "We can find out, at least, from where it came. Suppose you
+leave me here with Miss Stockbridge, and you go down stairs and around
+to the drug-store?"
+
+Loris rested her weight on one elbow. She sat erect, with slowly
+widening eyes. Her hands strayed to her hair and pressed it back from
+her ears. She gained command of herself after a shudder had passed
+through her slender body. She half rose.
+
+"I've heard that voice before!" she exclaimed, pointing toward the
+'phone. "It was familiar, Mr. Drew. Now where have I heard it?"
+
+"Some friend of your father's?"
+
+"No, I don't think it was. But I've heard it in this house."
+
+"A servant--the valet?"
+
+"No! No, Mr. Drew, it wasn't the valet's voice. It was whispering and
+consumptive. It squeaked. It sounded like a little boy's voice."
+
+"How about that trouble-man?" Drew advanced with keen steps. He felt
+that he was very close to the truth.
+
+"It might have been. Only--only, Mr. Drew, it was
+younger--thinner--squeakier. It was a terrible voice. It rings and
+rings in my ears. It was so sure!"
+
+"Ump!" declared Drew with clenched fists. "It won't be so sure," he
+said, squaring his jaw. "It won't be near so sure, next time. I think
+it was that trouble-man you heard. Don't you remember anything he said
+when he was in the house, for comparison?"
+
+"I just heard him say--I heard him say that the connections, I think he
+called them, were all right. Then he went away, Mr. Drew."
+
+"Did his voice squeak then?"
+
+"It was rather low--like a boy's or a girl's. He seemed too polite. He
+had his cap in his hand." Loris stopped speaking and stood erect. She
+arranged her gown and glanced down at Nichols. "I feel stronger," she
+said bravely. "I wonder what became of that tea?"
+
+Drew stepped into the writing-room and found the tea-pot upon its side.
+He poured from this a cup of tea which he carried to Nichols. "Just
+taste it," he ordered. "I want to be sure it isn't doped or anything
+like that. That's it. Just a small swallow. It's all right, isn't it?
+It isn't bitter?"
+
+Nichols handed the cup to Loris. "Drink it," he said with confidence.
+"That's good tea--only a little cold."
+
+Drew took the empty cup and set it down on a small table. "You'll go
+for me?" he asked Nichols. "I want it traced without using the wires of
+this house. They might be tapped."
+
+"Be back in ten minutes!" said the captain at the tapestries, after
+Loris had nodded. "Whom shall I ask for at Gramercy Hill?"
+
+"The superintendent--Jack Nefe! If he isn't there, get the chief
+operator. Delaney will attend to that. Find out from what number the
+call came. We might get that whispering devil right away."
+
+"I believe it was the trouble-man," said Loris, as Drew returned after
+locking the door to the hallway. "Now that I think of it--I'm almost
+sure it was. He just tried to change and lower his voice--that was
+all."
+
+"Lower it?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Drew. It was so faint that I hardly heard it at first. He
+seemed afraid of something. Perhaps somebody was in the room where he
+was telephoning."
+
+"That might have been. Well--he can't hurt or harm you that way. The
+thing is for you to keep up your courage. Fear is a terrible thing if
+you would let yourself be mastered by it. It might be their game to
+break you down by a series of threats."
+
+"I won't do that. I've Harry and you to stand by me!"
+
+Drew pulled out his watch. "It's getting toward midnight," he said. "No
+word yet from Delaney or any of the others on watch. I think that the
+storm will clear soon. You can go to bed. Harry--Mr. Nichols and I'll
+get a deck of cards and keep watch out here. We'll do sentry duty. He's
+used to that!"
+
+Loris glided about the room. She stopped at the cheval glass and
+arranged her hair with a series of twists that formed a turban secured
+by loops. She swished around and glanced archly toward Drew. Their eyes
+met bravely. Hers dropped under shading lashes.
+
+"I'm all right," she whispered with a half laugh. "I did look awful. It
+was the shock of hearing that terrible man. How childish to call me up
+and say what he did. He didn't mean it!"
+
+"Ah," said Drew, reaching in his pocket and bringing out a key. "Ah, he
+did mean it, I think. He has overreached himself by telephoning.
+Gramercy Hill Exchange is on the alert. There's Mr. Nichols with good
+news, at the door. Now for his report."
+
+The captain came in, brushing snow from his olive-drab uniform. He
+glanced at Loris as he strode across the room and took her hand with a
+firm grip. "Delaney," he said confidentially, "was right at the booth.
+He was sitting on a chair, propped up and talking with the prescription
+clerk. He did the telephoning to Gramercy Hill. I don't know who he got
+there, but they already knew about the call."
+
+Nichols turned toward Drew for confirmation.
+
+"That's right!" the detective exclaimed. "They should know! The
+vice-president, Westlake, has left orders to record all calls to this
+house. Where was that whispering voice from, Mr. Nichols?"
+
+"From Forty-second Street and Broadway."
+
+"Close!" exclaimed Drew, rubbing his hands. "The fellow took chances."
+
+"It came from a slot-booth in a cigar store in a big building. It only
+lasted two minutes. The operator at Gramercy Hill says the first voice
+she heard, asking for Gramercy Hill 9764, was harsh and loud. I don't
+understand that."
+
+"Harsh and loud," repeated Drew, toying with his watch chain. "That's
+odd. Was it the same man that Miss Stockbridge heard?"
+
+"The operator don't know. Delaney says maybe there were two of them.
+One, who called up, and one who talked to this room." Nichols turned
+and nodded toward the silver-plated telephone.
+
+"Hardly possible," mused Drew. "I think he changed his voice after he
+got the connection. He didn't want Miss Stockbridge to recognize him."
+
+Loris glanced at the two men. "What will they do?" she asked anxiously.
+"Will Mr. Delaney and the other detectives catch him by that call?"
+
+"Hardly," said Drew. "He was in and out within three minutes. The bird
+has flown from there!"
+
+"But where will he go?"
+
+"I don't know, Miss Stockbridge. I wish that I did know. There are over
+a hundred thousand telephones in New York he could use. It's impossible
+to guess which one. The booths at the Grand Central are covered by one
+of my operatives. The telephone company is on the alert for all calls
+to this house. All they can do is to record them and tell us what
+happens after it happens. We are trying now to get this whispering dog
+when he is compelled to wait at a booth. If Morphy 'phones him from the
+prison to-night we have him. The telephone company is going to delay
+the call after getting the number. It would look natural. Then, we can
+strike at the booth or place where the call is directed in time to
+catch the man Morphy is telephoning to. Up to now, Morphy has not
+'phoned or Delaney would have said something about it."
+
+"But can't you stop these calls?" asked Loris.
+
+"Very easy. We could order the wires disconnected. But then we wouldn't
+catch our man. He would be suspicious and wait for another time."
+
+"The whole thing seems so strange, Mr. Drew. We're locked in here. The
+house is so well guarded. All they can do is 'phone and yet we--at
+least I am nervous. Why have I got that strange feeling?"
+
+"From experience!" declared Drew. "If we knew how your poor father was
+killed there wouldn't be cause for worry. We don't know. It was so
+subtle that we are confronted with the unknown in terrible form. You
+feel a shadow and so do I. A reaching shadow about this splendid house
+of yours. It isn't anything we can grasp and say, 'Come here! You're
+under arrest.' It's the uncanny mystery of the entire case that holds
+us three on the ragged-edge. I confess I have not been myself since
+last night. The powers of darkness and Lucifer, himself, have nothing
+on the people we are fighting."
+
+"How about running Morphy in the guard house, or whatever they have up
+there?" asked Nichols. "Why not lay the case before the warden and have
+him put out of harm's way? That's what they'd do in the Army!"
+
+"We can't prove a single thing on him!" declared Drew. "He used the
+'phone--once or twice. Perhaps he has permission from the
+superintendent of state prisons to do so. He has business interests
+which require his telephoning, we'll say."
+
+"Then we're just going to wait right here?" asked Loris, stamping her
+slipper. "Wait right here and let them do their worst?"
+
+"The city detectives would do the same thing I'm doing," said Drew on
+the defensive. "They'd trap their men. Do you want to see the man or
+men who slayed your father, escape? He will, or they will, unless we
+give them enough rope to hang themselves."
+
+"Or wire!" said Nichols cheerfully. "No, Loris, Mr. Drew is right. He's
+done everything. All we have got to do, is wait. Let's sit down for a
+little while. Delaney said he might have word soon."
+
+Drew waited until Loris had pressed herself into a small compass at the
+back of the divan, with Harry Nichols leaning over her in a shielding
+position which was thoughtful and at the same time affectionate. He
+strode toward the writing room and parted the heavy, silk portieres. He
+studied every detail. He dropped the portieres and crossed the sitting
+room to the doorway leading into Loris' chamber. This, too, he searched
+with his eyes. Backing to the center of the room he dropped his chin in
+thought. A sound outside the mansion caused him to turn and hurry to a
+window. He brushed the curtain aside and tried to peer out. He rubbed
+the frosted glass vigorously. His nose pressed to a white button as he
+searched the side street. A taxi had come to a grinding halt directly
+below the window. Its wheels spun upon the slippery surface. A man
+leaned out of an open doorway and urged the driver on with a brandished
+fist of ham-like proportions. The driver backed into the snow, dropped
+into first speed and stepped on his throttle. The taxi leaped forward,
+gripped the surface, and plowed toward Fifth Avenue in a welter of
+flying ice and flakes.
+
+Drew sprang back and faced Loris and Nichols who had risen and were
+standing together in the glow from the cluster over their heads.
+
+"What happened?" they asked in unison. "What was outside?"
+
+"Delaney!" snapped Drew, dragging out his watch and glancing at it.
+"Delaney's got word where to find his man. He's on the trail at last!
+It's twelve-two. We ought to have that fellow in a half hour."
+
+"The trouble-man?" asked Loris, with rising hopes. "Do you think it is
+the trouble-man, Mr. Drew?"
+
+"Nine chances in ten, it is! I'm venturing a guess it is. If we get
+him--if Delaney gets him--he'll know it. Delaney used to work under the
+old-time police chiefs. They showed scant consideration."
+
+"But, he won't hurt him!" said Loris, with a tremulous exclamation.
+
+"That murderer! Why, Miss Stockbridge, isn't he plotting to slay you?
+Didn't he kill your father? I wish I were in Delaney's place."
+
+"Me too!" declared Nichols, drawing closer to the detective. "Say,
+Inspector, I want to congratulate you. I do."
+
+"Wait, Harry. Just wait! You two sit down and be quiet. This affair is
+a personal one with me. I don't doubt that Morphy or perhaps some one
+else in state prison 'phoned to the same party who phoned Miss Loris.
+That was all we needed. Delaney jumped into a taxi and hurried downtown
+as fast as the storm permitted. Perhaps the call came from the same
+booth. I don't think so, though."
+
+"The one at Forty-second Street and Broadway?"
+
+"I don't think so, Nichols. This fellow seems to pick a new one every
+time. He's very crafty. That alone shows a criminal mind."
+
+Drew paced the floor with soft gliding. He turned at the portieres and
+crossed to the tapestries. He returned and stood before Loris and
+Nichols.
+
+"Captain," he said, "we can now begin to reconstruct this case. We can
+get some of the dead-wood from our minds. It is apparent to me that one
+of Mr. Stockbridge's sworn enemies--Morphy, for instance--confined in
+state's prison, set about to slay both members of the family. He
+secured a confederate whom he knew. This confederate has never been
+arrested in the state. We have that from the finger prints in the booth
+at Grand Central. We will presume that this confederate is the
+trouble-man. He is probably an expert electrician. He either tapped in
+on the wires the night Mr. Stockbridge was murdered or got behind the
+switchboard and called up the library 'phone."
+
+"The switchboard?" asked Loris. "You mean the big place where the girls
+are?"
+
+"Not exactly there. The wires run down and are tagged. It would be
+possible for him to cut in somewhere between the switchboard and the
+conduits. Now I don't know how it was done. There's several ways. But
+wherever he tapped in, he must have used a magneto to ring Mr.
+Stockbridge up, and afterwards a battery-set to do the talking. All
+this Westlake says it would be necessary to do, so that the operator
+would not notice a permanent signal on the board."
+
+"What was his object?" asked Nichols.
+
+"To cover himself. He first disconnected the wires and waited till I
+sent for a trouble-man. Frosby, or Frisby, was sent. The trouble-man
+took his place. He came here and looked the place over. He lied to Mr.
+Stockbridge and I when he told us about that tall German in the alley.
+If there was such a man there before the snow froze we would have his
+footprints."
+
+"You haven't them?" asked Loris.
+
+"No. Delaney has a set made by this trouble-hunter when he was at the
+junction-box. This must have been the time he either cut the
+connections so that I would send for him, or it was the time when he
+called up and threatened Mr. Stockbridge with death within twelve
+hours. You remember that the telephone company have no record of the
+call. Now the next call----"
+
+"Was there another?" the girl asked.
+
+"Yes--to your father at or about the moment he died. That was from the
+Grand Central Station at Forty-second Street. There's a good record of
+that. Your father knocked the telephone down when he dropped dead. The
+operator noticed that the connection was open and put on the howler.
+The record is clear on that."
+
+"But what is all this twisting and turning for?"
+
+"To throw us off, Miss Stockbridge. We're dealing with a crafty,
+cunning mind. This mind took the extreme precaution of connecting two
+booths at Grand Central so that a man in Sing Sing could talk to your
+father without leaving a record at the Westchester Exchange or at
+Gramercy Hill Exchange. How this was done I don't know. It could be
+done with auxiliary batteries and looping so that the Gramercy Hill
+operator thought the Westchester call was to a slot booth, while
+another call from the next booth to this house was really the same
+connection shunted or looped through. Westlake, vice-president of the
+telephone company, says that there would be several ways of doing this.
+He added it would take an expert in telephony."
+
+"I'm all twisted up, Mr. Drew. I suppose you understand it. But what
+about that call to-night--the one that frightened me?"
+
+"The man was sure of himself!" said Drew without thinking. "He has his
+plans made. He figures they will not fail!"
+
+"Oh, you mean----"
+
+"I mean, Miss Stockbridge, that he expects to slay you in the same
+manner your father was slain. We have this advantage. You are not alone
+in this room or these rooms. Your father was alone. The murderer will
+have Mr. Nichols and myself to deal with this time! Be calm."
+
+"But--I don't see how he could--get in here?"
+
+"Nor do I. The point is that he got into the library and out again
+without trace. He had an hour to do his work in. Here, he is running
+every risk."
+
+"But he has already been here, Mr. Drew."
+
+The detective glanced keenly at Nichols, who had shot the statement
+straight through clean white teeth.
+
+"I know it," Drew said with a trace of anxiety in his voice. "That is
+disquieting. But we have searched these rooms and found absolutely no
+trace of tampering with locks or ventilators or window-catches."
+
+"Could he climb up here? He might have climbing irons," added Nichols
+glancing toward the windows.
+
+"A good porch-climber could do it," Drew mused, with his eyes sweeping
+the curtains. "A very good one could. There are only three or four good
+ones out of prisons. They never go in for murder."
+
+"Wouldn't money buy them?" asked Loris. "Mr. Morphy may have retained
+one--with some of the gold he stole from poor father."
+
+"Retained," repeated Drew, turning with sudden intentness. "Retained,
+is hardly the word, Miss Loris. Hired, is more to the point. Hired
+assassins are not uncommon. We have the Becker case and the Hope
+murder. We have----"
+
+Drew allowed his voice to trail to a whisper. "We have," he declared,
+"our man! There's the front door bell! It's Delaney!"
+
+"You have splendid ears, Mr. Drew."
+
+"I have to have, Miss Stockbridge. Now," he added sharply, "you and Mr.
+Nichols go into the library--the writing room. I think the case is
+closing. There may be a little excitement if Delaney's got that fellow.
+I, for one, am not going to stand much from him. Please go into the
+other room. That's right. Stand there, Harry, in case we need a
+soldier!"
+
+Drew advanced step by step toward the tapestries. He lifted his gun
+from his hip pocket, examined it with narrowed eyes, then replaced it
+loosely. He brushed the curtains aside and had the key out, as heavy
+steps shook the upper stairway and a knock sounded on the panels of the
+door.
+
+"Who's there?" asked Drew.
+
+"Delaney, Chief!"
+
+"All right! Just a moment."
+
+The detective glanced through the slit in the tapestries, saw
+that Nichols and Loris were across the room, then twisted the
+butterfly-latch, at the same time he thrust in the flat key and turned
+the lock.
+
+The door swung open. Delaney's huge bulk blocked the way. He half
+turned, cursed savagely, and clutched a pipe-stem neck with rude
+fingers. "Come along, you!" he boomed. "Get in there!"
+
+The form of a man hurtled by Drew, fell and rose, then fell again
+beyond the tapestries in the center of the sitting room. Drew, like
+some lithe cat, was over him with a drawn gun. Delaney puffed across
+the rugs and tried to speak as the detective leaned and studied the
+chalk-pale face below shielding cuffed hands which were raised
+impotently.
+
+"The trouble-man!" exclaimed Loris fearsomely.
+
+A Central Office detective slouched through the door, deposited a kit
+of lineman's tools on the floor near the tapestries, then retired
+discreetly.
+
+"It's him!" said Drew. "Please get back, Miss Stockbridge. We're going
+to fix this fellow."
+
+"Oh, please don't strike him."
+
+"Please--Miss Stockbridge. I'll promise nothing in this connection.
+This is the man who foully murdered your father."
+
+Loris shrank back and against Nichols' extended arm. Drew glanced at
+her with swift concern. He dropped his eyes to the man at his feet.
+"What happened?" he asked Delaney. "Has this fellow said anything? Done
+any talking?"
+
+Delaney glared at the trouble-man. "Never a word has he said, Chief.
+He's a clam. But----"
+
+"What's that? Go on, Delaney!"
+
+"Why, Chief, I wouldn't have brought him here if he hadn't said to
+Morphy over the 'phone that _'it'_ was fixed in her room. Now what does
+he mean by that _'it'?"_
+
+"We'll find out!" declared Drew, dropping to the prisoner's side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+"THE PRISONER SPEAKS"
+
+
+The detective wasted no time searching the trouble-hunter's pockets.
+His skilled fingers drew forth two envelopes, a note book and a small
+roll of money, the least of which was ten-dollar bills and the
+greatest, on the inside, spread out to three staring noughts and a one
+in front of these.
+
+"One thousand and sixty dollars!" said Drew dryly, handing the roll to
+Delaney. "This fellow's well heeled. Perhaps for a get-a-way. Take
+that. Now here----"
+
+Drew tapped the envelopes with his fingers, spread them open and
+removed their sheets of closely-written paper.
+
+"First letter," he announced with raising brows, "is from Standard
+Electrical Co., of Chicago, recommending Albert Jones as a capable
+electrician. I don't doubt it. He's capable of most anything."
+
+Delaney took the letter and waited with his eyes fastened upon the
+silent figure who had not revealed his identity from the time of the
+arrest.
+
+"Second letter," continued Drew, "is addressed to Albert Jones, General
+Delivery, New York Post Office. It is from Ossining. It is signed
+Mortimer Morphy. How careless," said the detective, rising in his
+excitement. "How _very_ careless! It goes on to say that everything is
+all right. That the appeal is pending with the governor. That uncle
+Monty was expected to die and that aunt Lou was very low."
+
+Drew paused and glanced toward Loris and Nichols. "You know what that
+means?" he asked. "Uncle Monty was Mr. Montgomery Stockbridge and aunt
+Lou would figure out for you, Miss Stockbridge. Keep this, Delaney.
+We're going to convict this man right here--whether he talks or not.
+This letter was written to him two months ago. It shows premeditation."
+
+"He looks ill," said Loris. "His face is so white."
+
+"Dope!" snapped Drew, pressing down the prisoner's right eyelid and
+glancing at the pupil. "A narcotic of some kind shows in the small
+iris. It's like a pin head. Yen she, eh, Delaney?"
+
+"Guess it is, Chief. Frisk his cap and belt. They carry it there,
+sometimes."
+
+Drew started at the prisoner's hair and went over his entire body with
+careful fingers. A bulge, at the waist, resolved itself into a chamois
+money-belt which contained five cartridges, a small handful of electric
+fuses and a spool of fine wire.
+
+Drew eyed this last with furrowed brow. He pocketed it finally and
+studied the cartridges.
+
+"Twenty-two, cupronickel, center-fire," he announced with a hard smile.
+"That forges another chain. We're getting there. He was loaded for
+something, Delaney."
+
+"Sure and he was. Look at those handcuffs, Chief. I made them tight as
+I could."
+
+Drew handed up the cartridges and fuses and rattled the cuffs. The
+prisoner protested by turning partly over. His eyelids fluttered and
+opened full upon Loris. She shrank back between the curtains. Her hands
+went up to her face in voiceless fear. "Please keep away," said Drew.
+"This man is always dangerous. I want to trim his claws before I take
+any chances with him. Delaney," he added, "get my overcoat and bring me
+those plaster-casts. This case grows interesting. I wonder who the
+fellow is? 'Albert Jones' doesn't convey much. He is a friend and tool
+of Morphy. Poor Morphy! I wonder what he'll say when the governor gets
+this evidence? He's buried now for twenty long years of penal service.
+He picked a good tool, though. A smart man!"
+
+The prisoner did not brighten to any extent under the professional
+flattery. His eyes closed. The cuffed wrists dropped down upon his
+chest. He breathed slowly as Drew took the overcoat Delaney brought,
+and found the photos of the finger prints which Fosdick and the expert
+at headquarters had both declared were not on record.
+
+"A little ink," Drew said to the operative. "We'll smear this fellow's
+thumb and see if his print answers to the print I found in the booth at
+Grand Central. I'll venture that it does."
+
+Nichols extended a fountain pen which the detective opened, sponged on
+the corner of a handkerchief, and returned with a chuckle of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Ah," he said, gripping the prisoner's hand and smearing a thumb with a
+rolling motion across the back of the print. "Ah, Delaney, see here.
+The same whorls and loops. The same tiny V-shaped scar. One, two,
+three--center right. This is the man. We have him deeper in toward the
+place with the little, green door. He knows what I mean!"
+
+The prisoner's lips closed to a thin, hard line. A tiny spot of hectic
+fire burned in the center of each cheek as Drew completed the searching
+and rose.
+
+"Footprints, now!" he said with a snappy order. "Compare those plaster
+casts you took at the junction-box back of this house. Are they the
+same? There's a series of four screw holes in his rubber-heels,
+Delaney. Do they compare with the casts. Measure them!"
+
+"Sure and they do," said the big operative, rising and pointing to the
+small projections. "This lad, Chief, was the only one around that
+junction-box till after the snow froze and drifted over. That's my
+idea, Chief. It caught him, didn't it, Chief?"
+
+"Every little helps to forge the chain," Drew said. "He's in bad now.
+His only chance is to tell us what he knows about Morphy? What was said
+over the telephone wire? What did Frick say?"
+
+"It was this way, Chief," Delaney said. "I'm waiting talking with the
+drug-clerk when there's a ring on the slot-booth 'phone. It's Jack Nefe
+at Gramercy Hill. He says to me that Frick had just 'phoned and said
+that Morphy had come out of the guard room, looked around, then, after
+chinning with a keeper at the front gate, he had started going over a
+telephone book for a number. Nefe said for me to hold the wire. Then I
+gets a number, Chief. It's Gramercy Hill 11,678. Nefe said that was a
+booth in the new Broadway Subway at Forty-first Street. I piles into a
+cab and arrives there just as this fellow had finished boring a hole
+between the two booths--11,678 and 11,679. I waits behind a
+slot-machine. Some one rang up when he coupled the wires, listens, then
+asks Gramercy Hill central for this 'phone here in Miss Stockbridge's
+room. You see the game, Chief?"
+
+"Go on!" said Drew. "Be very clear!"
+
+"This fellow was connecting Morphy at state prison with this house
+through the two slot booths. I sneaked up and waited for him to finish.
+He's busy with a pair of pliers. I falls on him like a ton of bricks.
+Then after I get the cuffs on, I listens in. It's Morphy roaring there,
+with that big bull voice of his. He's mad 'cause he gets no answer. He
+shouts over and over, Chief--'Bert! Bert! Bert! Is it planted in her
+room? Her room. Is it there?'" Delaney paused and stared about the
+sitting room.
+
+"What does he mean, Chief?" he asked huskily. "What is that _'it'?"_
+
+"Go on!" said Drew tersely.
+
+"I got Morphy off the wire, Chief. I got Frick and then Frick got the
+warden. He's a good fellow. He listened to me, then he calls some
+guards and they drag Morphy through the prison and down to the coolers.
+I guess they're down in the ground, somewhere. Anyway, Chief, he's gone
+for good--unless they send him to the chair for his part in the murder
+of Stockbridge."
+
+"He'll go! What I want to know now, Delaney, is this fellow's right
+name. Morphy said 'Bert,' eh?"
+
+"Sure he did, Chief. 'Bert! Bert! Bert!' That's close to Albert. Albert
+Jones, like's in the letter."
+
+"No! That would be a throw-off. He's some other kind of a Bert. Let me
+see his cap."
+
+Delaney picked the prisoner's cap from the rug and passed it over to
+Drew. The detective examined it, ripped the silk, and looked under the
+lining. He straightened and handed it to Harry Nichols.
+
+"Can you make that name out?" he asked. "Your eyes are younger than
+mine. Perhaps Miss Stockbridge can read it. It's Spanish, I think.
+'Gusta' or 'Gasta.' The rest is obliterated with grease."
+
+"Antofagasta!" declared Loris suddenly. "It's Antofagasta, Chile."
+
+"Fetch the lineman's kit, the Central Office man brought," said Drew to
+the operative. "Put it right here by this fellow's side. I--we are
+getting close to the truth in this case."
+
+Delaney hurried back with the satchel. It was the same one that Drew
+had seen in the library on the evening Stockbridge was murdered. It had
+excited no suspicion then.
+
+"A magneto," said the detective. "First comes a ringing magneto which
+has seen much service. Put that over there, Delaney. Spread a paper or
+something. Ah," Drew added, "here's a set of small dry batteries
+arranged in series. Three or four of them. I don't know just what
+they're for, but Bert does."
+
+The prisoner's pale eyes blinked and were closed again as the lids
+compressed in wrinkled determination. He moved slightly when Drew
+pressed a knee against his chest. He coughed with dry catching deep
+down in his throat. The detective felt of his pulse. It was faint but
+steady--like a tired sleeper's.
+
+"He's coming out of it," Drew said. "He'll talk after awhile. Let's
+see, what is this?"
+
+Delaney leaned over the satchel. "Another link," said Drew, drawing out
+a telephone receiver without wires attached to it. "And here," he
+added, "is the testing set with the sharp clamps. That's for listening
+in or talking with other people's connections. I don't doubt that this
+fellow knows his business. Here's a micro-volt meter that registers
+fractions of volts. Here's an ammeter of the pocket size. I've seen
+this kind on automobiles for testing dry-cells. Now, what is this?"
+
+"Looks like a full set of jimmies!" blurted Delaney. "That's a
+sectional jimmy!"
+
+"He's got everything," said the detective, turning and glancing at
+Loris. "Here, Miss Stockbridge," he said, holding up an empty cartridge
+shell. "Here is the most important link in the chain against him. It's
+a twenty-two shell which has been fired. See--wait--what's this,
+Delaney? The cap on the end hasn't been struck. The cartridge was
+discharged--the cap is intact. How could that be?"
+
+Loris and Harry Nichols leaned over the detective. He turned the tiny
+shell around in his fingers. He sniffed it. He held it out so they
+could see the end. "Discharged," he exclaimed, "without touching the
+detonating cap on the end! That's odd! Very suggestive!"
+
+"Let me see it," said Nichols. "I'll tell. We have exams on these
+things. This seems to have been fired," he continued with thought.
+"It's been fired without concussion. I'd say it was heat that did it. A
+match touched to the base here would fire the cap, which would, in
+turn, set off the powder. There's a different color to the brass at the
+cap end. It looks to me like a shell which has been clamped down by
+three--no, four screws. There's marks on the rim. See them, Loris--Miss
+Stockbridge? Right there. Right at my nail."
+
+"That's about right, Harry!" declared Drew, reaching for the cartridge.
+"It was clamped down with small screws. It was ignited or set off by
+heat. It forms part of a home-made pistol which conforms, to a hair,
+with Fosdick's statement that the bullet never went through a barrel
+that was rifled."
+
+"That's your own statement!" blurted Delaney. "Fosdick never had brains
+enough to figure a thing out like that. All he knows is pinch everybody
+two or three times. I've seen him do it."
+
+Drew eyed the prisoner. "So you see," he said softly, cuttingly, "crime
+does not pay. The net has closed over your head. You erred a score of
+times. You couldn't afford to make one little mistake. I could--I did!
+I've made a hundred in this case already! It's the hound and the hare.
+The hound loses the scent and brays on blunderingly till he picks it up
+again. You lost me time and again. You fooled me in that lineman's
+guise when you came into the library. Your make-up was perfect. You
+said just the right things."
+
+The prisoner's lips curled in a thin cruel line. He rattled the cuffs
+defiantly. His shoulders lifted then fell back upon the rug.
+
+"Bert!" snapped Drew. "Bert!" he repeated with awakening thought.
+"Delaney," he said, turning and glancing up at the operative's broad,
+flushed face. "I got this fellow located. What was the name of the man
+we tried to find in the Morphy failure? The one we had a bench-warrant
+for? He was indicted. The indictment was sealed. You know! It's a name
+you didn't like. The fellow who escaped to Rio or South America? Who
+afterwards went to Antofagasta. Ah, Cuthbert!"
+
+"That's it, Chief! Cutbert! Cutbert Morphy--the old devil's brother.
+This is him!"
+
+Drew rubbed his hands vigorously. "It is!" he exclaimed, with his eyes
+swinging over the prisoner's drawn features. "Cuthbert Morphy--a
+brother's tool and confederate. We're getting on!"
+
+The detective rose and faced Loris and Nichols. "Captain," he said, "a
+firing squad at sunrise would be the Army's answer to this man's
+deviltry. Consider what he has done. He's worked back to New York after
+a year as a fugitive. He connected in some manner with Morphy at Sing
+Sing. Perhaps he went there as a visitor under the pretext of business
+connected with Morphy's affairs. This scheme was hatched there in the
+prison. It was financed by Morphy. It succeeded in so far as Mr.
+Stockbridge was concerned. First the telephone call to the cemetery
+superintendent. Then followed his visit to this house for the purpose
+of fixing some fiendish device. Or----"
+
+"He might have fixed the windows, Chief," suggested Delaney. "He might
+have opened a catch and climbed in afterwards."
+
+"He wasn't near the windows," said Drew. "He had something else in the
+back of his crafty, twisted brain. He came and went out, with Mr.
+Stockbridge and I watching him. He called up, then, and threatened the
+death. He probably looped the library 'phone up with Sing Sing at or
+about midnight. We have a record of both calls."
+
+"Why," asked Loris, as Drew paused in thought. "Why did he have Morphy
+connected with father? I can't see, Mr. Drew, that part of it. The
+rest, you have told is, is very clear."
+
+"Nor I yet," admitted the detective. "But that is a detail. It is
+probably the criminal's ego, which is in every one of them, to notify
+their prey that the hour has come. Morphy was an artist in crime. He
+was a master mind in finance and chicanery. What better revenge could
+he think of than to notify Mr. Stockbridge that death was about to
+strike? It savors of Machiavelli and Borgia. Whom the gods destroy they
+first make mad. He tried it on you."
+
+"Gods!" blurted Delaney with ire. "Devils, you mean, Chief!"
+
+"Yes, or worse!" said Drew, glancing sternly at the prisoner. "This
+fellow," he added, "is the agent for the destroyer. Now how was it
+done?"
+
+Delaney glanced about the walls of the room in apprehension. "I'll take
+another look around," he suggested heavily. "Maybe with them new ideas
+we can locate something that might be planted for the killing."
+
+Drew glanced sharply at the prisoner's face. A faint sneer was on the
+thin lips. The wrists twisted and turned in the handcuffs. The steel
+chain rattled metallically. Loris backed step after step toward the
+shielding curtain and Harry Nichols. "Oh!" she said suddenly, as she
+dropped her head against his breast. "Oh, Harry! there can't be
+anything like _that."_
+
+"Certainly not!" Drew hastened to ejaculate. "That's nonsense. If there
+was anything planted in either of these three rooms, there's no one to
+get in and operate it. I've searched! Mr. Delaney has searched. Do you
+want us to search again?" Drew's lips were drawn with doubt as he
+stared anxiously from Loris to Nichols. "I'll do it, captain, if you
+say so. I think we've done enough work, however. The thing is to get
+this fellow to talk. I don't want to give him over to Fosdick and the
+third degree till we see if he is going to treat us right. He can turn
+state's evidence on Morphy, who blundered. Then he'll get off lightly.
+Morphy is the master mind."
+
+"He only smiles," said Nichols, tapping his breast suggestively. "I've
+a gun here and I've a mind to use it. Do you think I want Miss
+Stockbridge murdered like her father was murdered? I'll shoot that cur!
+He's a whispering snake! A Hun!"
+
+"Don't!" sobbed Loris, as Nichols thrust his hand in his coat and drew
+out a flat automatic of .44 caliber. "Don't, Harry! Perhaps this man is
+innocent."
+
+"Innocent!" declared Nichols. "Why, Loris--why, Miss Stockbridge, you
+don't think _that_, after all the things Mr. Drew has discovered. I'll
+wager my commission he's guilty as Hell, and I mean it, Loris."
+
+"He's that!" Delaney declared. "He and his brother the devil are one in
+sin. They're lost spirits."
+
+"Now everybody," said Drew, gathering in the group with his eyes, which
+were strangely bright. "Everybody keep very quiet for a minute. Let me
+think."
+
+"Sure and I will, Chief. I'm thinking I want to think, myself."
+
+Drew frowned at Delaney. He dropped his eyes and studied the prisoner's
+hands. They were strangely white and remarkably small for a man who had
+labored at telephone-repairing. The detective's glance rested on the
+ink-stained thumb. His mind swung with this thought to the footprints.
+Following the train he arrived at the first conclusion that an expert
+in telephony could devise most any kind of a practical method for
+opening a window or a ventilator. He dismissed this theory with a
+glance about the room. The ventilator was well-hidden and inaccessible
+to any one without a step-ladder. Considerable time devoted in climbing
+upon a chair and a case of jade ornaments might reach it, but the
+trouble-man had not been alone in the room when he inspected the
+telephone.
+
+Drew went over the salient details of the Stockbridge tragedy. One fact
+stood out. The windows had been well locked. The sashes were covered
+with snow. A climber, even on the face of the house, would have
+difficulty in springing a catch by a secret method, raising the window
+and entering without leaving a track of some kind. He dismissed this
+supposition as untenable. He turned to Delaney, fully puzzled.
+
+"Was there a climber's set in that bag?" he asked sharply.
+
+"I didn't see any, Chief. I don't think this fellow's a climber. He
+ain't built like one. His shoes are smooth on the bottom and his hands
+are all polished up around the nails. Looks to me, Chief, as if he
+might be able to pick most any kind of a lock."
+
+"The locks are out of the question!" snapped Drew. "I examined them.
+They're not in line. Has anybody here any suggestions?"
+
+Drew stared at the prisoner's drawn, white face as he asked this
+question. "He wasn't long in this part of the house," said the captain.
+"The maid watched him. She thought perhaps he might take something."
+
+"Fosdick is to blame!" said Drew almost losing his temper. "He should
+have given strict orders at the door not to let anybody in till the
+case was settled. It's all mixed up now. This man had ample opportunity
+to cover himself. A clever sneak could do most anything under your eyes
+without you seeing him operate. I suppose the only thing to do is to
+turn him over to Headquarters. He'll get his!"
+
+Loris frowned slightly at Drew's manner. The detective did not act like
+his former self. She watched him pace the floor between the prisoner
+and the tapestries. He came back with a square set to his jaw and a
+hard glint in his olive eyes which gleamed like steel behind velvet.
+
+"Stand him up!"
+
+Delaney stared at his chief. He opened his mouth, then closed it
+firmly. "All right," he said, reaching down. "I'll stand him up if you
+let me give him an upper-cut. I don't like these silent crooks. They're
+snaky, Chief."
+
+"No unnecessary violence, gentlemen," suggested Nichols as Loris laid
+her hand on his arm. "I'd like to have him alone for a few minutes--but
+outside. Go easy. Perhaps he'll talk."
+
+"It may be your life or this man's!" gritted Drew, stepping up to the
+prisoner after a sharp glance at Loris. "I pity him when Fosdick gets
+hold of him. He'll talk then!"
+
+The prisoner swayed with Delaney's fingers gripping his collar in a
+vice-strong clutch. His white-pale face, his narrow-set eyes, his
+furtive glance to left and right like a cornered rat, brought Drew to
+mind of a man who was slowly breaking down. He lowered his brows and
+clutched the prisoner's elbow with strong fingers that pressed deep
+through the coat sleeve.
+
+"Out with it!" he demanded harshly. "It's your last chance to save your
+miserable skin. You're not going to get any mercy from the
+Commissioner. You know what he'll do to you!"
+
+The prisoner twisted loose from Drew's clutch. His eyes wavered as he
+stared at Loris for a long second, then dropped to the floor. They
+closed in painful thought. Suddenly he blanched with passion.
+
+"I've no use for you coppers!" he screamed shrillingly. "I hate the
+sight of you and your kind. Let me go! Let me go!"
+
+"Fine chance," whispered Delaney, tightening his grip on the prisoner's
+collar. "You got a fine chance, you murderin', thievin', second-story
+man! I'd paste you if the lady wasn't here! Sure I would, right between
+the eyes!"
+
+"Easy," said Drew. "Leave him to me. He's thinking the thing over. I
+don't mind telling him that the magpie beat him. That and the
+carelessness of Morphy in calling up when he must have known that Frick
+was in the front office of the prison. It's always the way, Bert. He
+travels the fastest, up or down, who travels alone. It's the lone star
+that gives us the trouble. There's nobody to peach on him!"
+
+The prisoner bit his upper lip. A slight sign of blood showed. He
+tasted this with the tip of his tongue. His eyes narrowed in
+calculation. He turned and faced Drew with slit-lidded intentness.
+
+"I haven't done a thing," he whispered. "You ain't got a thing on me."
+
+"Oh, no!" blurted Drew with heat. "I ain't got a thing. I've been
+asleep since the time you murdered this girl's father. I've had ten men
+on your trail since the beginning. I don't hold the first murder so
+much against you as I do the projected one--which missed fire by a
+scant margin. You slayed a man with your devilish ingenuity, but you're
+not going to put it over on his daughter. I've seen to that! I notice
+nobody has called up and said this was the Master talking. There's a
+good reason."
+
+The prisoner fluttered his pale lashes and glanced at the telephone. He
+closed his eyes with a smile shadowing his lips.
+
+"There's a good reason," repeated Drew. "You are not in some booth at
+Forty-first Street to make the connection. Morphy is in the strongest
+cooler. He's booked for twenty years. After that he'll get more. He
+can't help you!"
+
+"Oh, you coppers," said the trouble-man. "Just give me five minutes and
+I'd show you. I don't hold anything against the girl. I never saw her
+before."
+
+"You lie!"
+
+"Why don't you take these cuffs off-a-me? I can't hit back."
+
+"I'd sooner take the chance outside," said Drew, glancing at Loris.
+"I'd do it there!"
+
+Delaney tightened his grip and half held the trouble-hunter in the air.
+He raised on his toes with the strain.
+
+"Oh, don't!" exclaimed Loris. "I'll have to ask you to stop this. I
+can't let it occur in my house!"
+
+"Miss Stockbridge," said Drew with soft rebuke. "Miss Stockbridge, I've
+been in the detective business for twenty years. I never saw in that
+time a more dangerous man. He is the super-type who usually falls
+through the errors of other men. This fellow has brains. He's an expert
+in telephony and in wireless. There are a number of patents in the
+patent office under his name."
+
+"Then he may be innocent, Mr. Drew."
+
+"He's as guilty as the Kaiser!" exclaimed Delaney, twisting the
+prisoner around. "Look at him. He's been trying to murder the finest
+little lady in the country. She never harmed anybody. She's devoting
+most of her time to Red Cross work and the--Army," added the big
+operative with a touch of brogue as he glanced at Nichols.
+
+"But he has not said that he murdered father," said Loris.
+
+"Sure an' he won't say it. I know the breed of this snake. He wants
+nothing used against him in the trial. He'll have the evidence of us
+four to show that he didn't say anything. I never saw an innocent man
+who wouldn't talk!"
+
+"We're getting nowhere," objected Drew, taking command of the
+situation. "Take him out, Delaney, and turn him over to the Central
+Office bunch. They'll take him down to Fosdick!"
+
+The prisoner lifted his manacled hands. He dropped them after a slow
+glance at Drew's square jaw.
+
+"Come on!" said Delaney with a jerk backward.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+Drew and Nichols leaned forward. "Well?" asked the detective, as the
+prisoner bowed his head. "Well? Well?"
+
+"Is that true about my brother--Morphy?"
+
+"It is!" Drew said with ringing conviction. "It's true! He's out of
+this world. He's buried alive and the key has been thrown away."
+
+"The jig is up, then," said the trouble-man, turning toward the
+telephone. "Let me telephone," he said in a whisper. "I want to use
+it," he repeated faintly. "I'll show you how that--that Stockbridge
+died."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+"THE VOICE ON THE WIRE"
+
+
+The prisoner lifted his manacled hands and held them toward Drew. "Let
+me loose," he said, "and I'll explain everything that I've done! I want
+it off my mind. I won't sleep until you people are satisfied. I know
+you--you copper! I know Fosdick--the third degree artist."
+
+Drew frowned as he glanced at the cuffs. He scratched his dark hair and
+combed his fingers back toward his ears. He turned and glanced at Loris
+and Nichols in the opening between the two splendid rooms.
+
+"I don't like to take a chance with this fellow," he admitted. "Do you
+want me to, Miss Stockbridge? It's your life he was after, and he may
+be shamming now. You never can trust an opium addict. They have no
+soul."
+
+"I've as much as a copper's!"
+
+"Shut up, you!" boomed Delaney, threateningly. "Shut up! There's a lady
+in this room!"
+
+The prisoner clicked his cuffs together. He stared at the cheval glass
+and the telephone. "A lady?" he repeated through the corner of his
+lips. "A limb of the Stockbridge tree," he said bitterly. "I hold
+nothing against her. I told you that before. But we promised the old
+man we'll take care of her after we killed him, and she came near
+going--let me tell you that. I could have killed her with twenty
+words."
+
+"He's rambling," said Delaney, reaching for the prisoner. "The dope has
+gone to his head. I don't believe there's any----"
+
+"Easy, Delaney," warned Drew thoroughly on the alert. "Don't make the
+mistake of underestimating this fellow. He acts like a man who has
+repented--who wants to right some of the wrong he has done. I don't
+think we are taking chances in letting this fellow loose. He is
+unarmed. I tended to that. If he wants to 'phone--let's let him."
+
+"Your case, Chief!"
+
+Drew reached in his pocket and brought around a police regulation
+revolver. "I'll have this right here!" he snapped as he slowly raised
+it. "You, Delaney, unlock one cuff and pass it to me. I'll wrap the
+chain around my left wrist. If this fellow tries anything I'll tend to
+his case--forever. These .44's are made for stopping purposes, eh, Mr.
+Nichols?"
+
+"They certainly are, Mr. Drew. I think we can handle that little man
+without trouble. What does he want to telephone for?"
+
+"What for, Bert?" asked Drew, swinging and confronting the prisoner.
+"Do you want to say good-by to somebody?"
+
+"Good-by is right," whispered the trouble-man, extending his hands
+toward Delaney, who fished out a small key. "Yes, it's good-by to
+somebody. Unlock them!"
+
+"Hold on!" exclaimed Drew. "I don't like that tone. You'll have to act
+better than that, Bert. What do you want to get loose for? What number
+do you want? I'll call up."
+
+"No, I got to do it. I want one hand free--that's all."
+
+Loris stepped to Drew's side. "Can there be anything about the room,"
+she asked, "that he wants to use? Perhaps he'll pick something up and
+use it too quickly for you to stop him."
+
+"I don't think so," said Drew grimly. "This gun, Miss Stockbridge,
+happens to have a hair trigger. We'll chance it--with your permission."
+
+"I'm not afraid for myself--but don't you think the poor fellow should
+be prevented from harming himself. He acts just like a man who wanted
+to do something terrible. He seems to have given up hope."
+
+"A woman's intuition," mused Drew. "Perhaps a close one," he said
+aloud. "You get back into the other room, Miss Stockbridge. Let Mr.
+Nichols stand in front of you for protection. I'm going to grant this
+fellow's request. Delaney, unlock the left cuff!"
+
+The key rattled in the tiny key-hole as Drew poised his revolver and
+drew a sight between the prisoner's fluttering eyelids. "Stand right
+there," whispered the detective tersely. "Right there," he added,
+reaching with his left hand and taking the cuff and chain from the
+operative. "Now, Bert, you're half free. What do you want with the
+telephone?"
+
+The prisoner pinched his wrist and worked his hand like a hinge. A
+white mark, which slowly changed to red, showed where Delaney had
+clamped the handcuff down to its last notch. The trouble-man eyed this
+mark. His lips hardened. He strained on the chain as he lifted his
+fingers to his brow with a tired gesture.
+
+"Hurry!" said Drew. "Hurry, Bert, or we'll cuff you up again. Do you
+want to telephone?"
+
+"Y--e--s!" The voice was tremulous and dry. "Yes! I'll use it. I'll
+show you how that pirate--Stockbridge--was killed. The yellow
+squealer!"
+
+Loris raised her chin proudly. She leaned against Nichols in the
+doorway. "I won't stand for that!" declared the soldier. "You are being
+insulted in your own house!"
+
+"Wait, Harry! Something is going to happen! I know it is!"
+
+"You're right, lady," whispered the prisoner. "It's going to happen
+to--well, I don't care. I'm done. The jig is up!"
+
+Cuthbert Morphy shrugged his shoulders and turned toward Drew. He
+stared at the menacing revolver with a cryptic smile. "Get your man
+downstairs," he said, in hollow tones. "Get him to go in the library
+and call up this number. Tell Central to connect the two 'phones in
+this house. Shout into the library transmitter when the connection is
+made."
+
+Drew frowned. "What's all that for?" he asked.
+
+"Do as I say."
+
+"I don't know about that. I give orders here. What do you want that
+done for? I thought you wanted a number on the 'phone. I thought you
+would get somebody on the wire who would explain everything."
+
+"Everything will be explained, Inspector. Everything! I told you the
+jig was up with me. I mean it, too. There's nothing left but the
+truth."
+
+Drew wound the handcuff chain tighter about his left wrist. He braced
+his feet and turned to Delaney. "Go downstairs," he said, "and call up
+this number. Do what this fellow says. The number is Gramercy Hill
+9764."
+
+Loris and Nichols lifted their brows as they turned toward each other.
+"I'm afraid," said the girl. "Something is not right, Harry."
+
+"It's the only way we'll ever find out what this man means. If they
+take him away without letting him talk over the 'phone we'll never
+know. Leave things to Mr. Drew. He's armed! I'm armed! There's no
+danger!"
+
+"Get downstairs to the library!" Drew ordered. "Do what this man wants.
+Shout into the transmitter. Go now!"
+
+Delaney lunged through the tapestries and unlocked the door to the
+hall. He paused there in thought. He turned and glanced back.
+
+"Hurry!" exclaimed Drew. "Hurry now!"
+
+The big operative cursed audibly as he descended the two flights of
+carpeted steps. He nodded to the Central Office man at the library
+door. He passed inside, rounded the table and stood by the 'phone. He
+picked up the receiver. His eyes wandered along the floor as he waited.
+A dark spot showed on the hardwood. It was where the millionaire's
+blood had gushed forth from the bullet hole in the base of his brain.
+
+"Gramercy Hill 9-7-6-4!" said Delaney with a bull's voice.
+
+"B-r-r-r-r-! B-r-r-r-r-! B-r-r-r-r-r!" sounded from the ringing-box of
+the silver plated telephone in the sitting-room of Loris Stockbridge's
+suite.
+
+The prisoner pulled at the chain as he leaned toward the telephone.
+"It's ringing," he said in a thin whisper. "Let me--let me listen in."
+
+Drew studied the entire situation before he granted permission. Loris
+and Nichols were framed between the silken portieres. The captain held
+his army regulation revolver at his hip. Loris leaned forward with her
+dark eyes smoldering and intent. The blood had left her cheeks. They
+were white and tersely set. She seemed older to Drew. He smiled
+reassuringly, dropped his gun to his hip, pressed it against the
+prisoner and shoved him toward the 'phone as a "B-r-r-r-r-" sounded
+above the lifting roar of Delaney's voice in the depths of the great
+mansion.
+
+The room became charged and surcharged with electricity. A crackling
+sounded as Drew's feet glided inch by inch over the silk rug. The storm
+outside whined and synchronized with the rise and fall of the great
+voice shouting "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello, you!"
+
+The trouble-man turned. His hand reached upward and lifted the
+hard-rubber receiver from the hook. His lids fluttered toward Loris.
+His eyes softened with memories. "I'm glad I didn't do it!" he hissed
+across the room. "Good-by, lady--good-by!"
+
+"Be careful!" snapped Drew, pressing the revolver firmly against the
+prisoner's right side. "Be careful! This is a hair trigger!"
+
+The trouble-man smiled a twisted, wan smile as he turned his head
+toward the transmitter and said huskily:
+
+"Hello! Hello! You big copper! Shout on! See how loud you can curse me!
+That's it. That--is--it!"
+
+Drew heard Delaney's voice rise in indignation. The taunt had spurned
+him to greater effort. The metallic diaphragm of the receiver roared
+and clicked. It echoed the voice. It stopped. It vibrated again. It
+reached a reed-like tune of high-pitched anger. The prisoner closed his
+eyes and stiffened. He pressed the receiver directly over his ear. He
+drew back on the chain and to one side. Drew's face darkened with
+suspicion. It was too late. The detective had time to spring away as a
+cone of lurid light and flame shot out from the telephone diaphragm and
+splashed across the prisoner's set face. A sharp detonation racked the
+perfumed air of the room. Smoke wreathed about the astonished
+Inspector's head, and floated upward toward the ventilator.
+
+Cuthbert Morphy's muscles relaxed. He spun, sank to his knees, then
+pitched forward across the rug with a bullet in his brain. Drew
+untwisted the chain with a wrist flip, sprang forward toward the
+cheval-glass, and stamped his foot down upon the smoking telephone
+receiver as if it were the head of a rattlesnake.
+
+He turned with clear light striking out from his eyes. He nodded toward
+the leaning form of the girl and the erect one of the captain. He
+divined in seconds how the murder of Montgomery Stockbridge had been
+accomplished. The full series of events and clues flashed through his
+brain. It was like an orderly array seen at a picture show.
+
+Cuthbert Morphy, guised as a trouble-hunter in the employ of the
+telephone company, had devised a single-shot pistol out of a telephone
+receiver and had caused it to be actuated by the human voice so that it
+would always strike in the most vulnerable part of man's anatomy--the
+ear.
+
+With this lethal instrument he had slain the millionaire, and, when
+trapped and in danger of execution, he had employed the same method to
+bring about his own death. It was a fitting end to a life of crime and
+drug-brought imageries.
+
+Delaney, with drawn gun and wild of eyes, burst through the tapestries
+and brought up with a dizzy lurch before the body of Cuthbert Morphy.
+He stammered and glared downward. He swung his heavy chin and stared at
+Loris and Nichols in the gloom of the further curtains. He clapped Drew
+on the shoulder with a heavy hand.
+
+"Had to shoot him, eh, Chief? What'd he try? What--you got your foot on?"
+
+"An electric pistol," said Drew, with a grim smile distending his
+olive-hued lips. "An infernal machine, Delaney. I hope it isn't a
+repeater. Cut that wire! Both wires! Get your knife out and cut through
+them, quick! I won't take any chances."
+
+The big operative pocketed his revolver with a back swing of his right
+hand, brought it forward empty and ran it down his trouser pocket. He
+brought out a buck-horn jack-knife, pried it open, stooped and slashed
+through the two silk cords holding the receiver to the bottom of the
+transmitter which had fallen from the bracket.
+
+Loris swayed with supple limbs. She raised her hands and pressed her
+unjeweled fingers against her face. She sobbed once, then turned and
+threw herself upon Nichols' drab shoulder. "Harry," she cried. "Oh,
+Harry--what happened? I didn't see what happened!"
+
+The captain glided an arm about her waist and half-carried, half-led
+her to a couch in the reading-room. "Rest here a minute," he said,
+leaning down. "Be cool and as brave as you can. The trouble-man won't
+trouble you any longer. He took his own medicine!"
+
+Nichols returned to the sitting room in time to hear Drew exclaim,
+after Delaney had reached down and lifted the receiver, "The case is
+closed! This closes it with a bang! Give me that electric pistol,
+Delaney!"
+
+The operative handed it over. "Get a big rug," ordered Drew with sudden
+thought. "Cover that fellow over till we call the Central Office men
+and the coroner. I want to examine this receiver."
+
+"Right here on this little table would be a good place," suggested
+Nichols, lifting off a handful of ivory ornaments and depositing them
+on top of a glass case. "I'll spread a paper here. I'd like to see
+what's inside that thing myself."
+
+"Do you know anything about electricity or telephony?" asked Drew, as
+he turned the hard-rubber receiver in his hand and stared at the
+listening end.
+
+"Very little, Inspector. But fire-arms are in my line and that seems to
+be one."
+
+The detective nodded. "It's one, all right," he said, holding it out
+with a steady hand. "Looks harmless, don't it? Two binding-posts on one
+end. A rubber cap on the other. Notice that diaphragm."
+
+Nichols took the receiver and squinted at the rubber cap. "By George!"
+he said. "This is odd. There's a tiny hole drilled or punched in the
+center. It's about the same size as the bore of a twenty-two caliber
+revolver."
+
+"Look at your hands!" said Drew. "What the devil," he added with
+dawning conviction. "Say, Delaney, do you remember that spot of black
+under my left ear. The one you noticed after we left yesterday morning?
+The----"
+
+"Sure, Chief. That's where you got the smut--from that receiver!"
+
+"I got it when I picked up the telephone in the library downstairs and
+tried to get Central. Do you remember how long she took? This is the
+same receiver in all probability. The trouble-hunter removed it from
+the library connections, loaded it, and brought it up here. It looks
+like any ordinary receiver. The telephone company have some with
+binding posts and some without. This is an earlier model."
+
+"The spot of black was from the first discharge when Stockbridge was
+killed!" exclaimed Delaney.
+
+Drew ran his fingers around the inner rim of the rubber cap. He held
+them up. "See!" he exclaimed. "No wonder my neck was marked. That
+settles that mystery, Delaney. If we had any brains at all we would
+have connected the soot and the telephone. If we had done that we'd
+have solved the case early this morning, or yesterday morning. It's
+after one, now!"
+
+"This hole," said Nichols, "was the only thing in the whole dastardly
+scheme that could have been seen. It's the size of the end of a lead
+pencil. Funny you didn't notice it?"
+
+"I looked everywhere but there," admitted Drew. "The receiver hangs
+with the diaphragm end down. That's the reason I didn't see it.
+Well--there's always a reason," he added. "Now, Delaney, fetch me that
+trouble-hunter's satchel. We'll see what this pistol is made of and how
+it is made. I venture to say that it is simple."
+
+Delaney awoke from his stupor and lifted a rug which he tossed over the
+body of Cuthbert Morphy. He wiped his hands with a finite motion. He
+wheeled and slouched lankily across the polished floor. He returned
+with the lineman's kit.
+
+"Pliers," said Drew, as the big operative removed the straps and
+reached his hand inside. "I saw a pair there when we had it open
+before," the detective added, unscrewing the rubber cap of the receiver
+and lifting the thin metal diaphragm from the face of two tiny magnets
+which were wound with fine silk wire.
+
+"Regulation magnets," whispered Nichols, leaning over the detective's
+shoulder. "They're regulation except there's a hole drilled down
+between them. There must be a barrel all the way through the receiver."
+
+"We'll see. Got those pliers, Delaney?"
+
+The operative passed up a pair. "Ah," chuckled the detective,
+unscrewing the binding-posts and lifting off a hard rubber cap. "Ah,
+see here!"
+
+Delaney rose and peered over the captain's shoulder straps. The two men
+watched Drew's nimble fingers trace out the mechanism of the electric
+pistol.
+
+"It's simple!" declared the detective. "It's very simple and ingenious
+in construction. It's a crowning wonder to me that some one hasn't used
+this sort of device to carry out a wholesale slaughtering. Suppose they
+never thought of it."
+
+Drew glanced at the silent mound under the Persian rug. "The wrong
+road," he whispered tersely. "He took the wrong road. He was a
+mechanical and electrical genius. He was a patent expert."
+
+Delaney worked his brows up and down. "Shall I call Miss Stockbridge?"
+he asked.
+
+"I'll do it," Nichols said, turning and hurrying through the portieres.
+He returned with Loris leaning upon his arm. Her eyes were glazed and
+tear-laden. She held a tiny, limp lace handkerchief between her
+trembling fingers.
+
+"There's no danger," said Drew. "Come here, Miss Stockbridge," he
+added. "I want to show you what was all ready for you."
+
+The detective raised the hard-rubber receiver. "Here we have the
+diaphragm," he said, pointing. "It's a round plate of soft iron. It's
+secured to the rubber by an insulated ring. It is the part you press up
+to your ear when you listen at a telephone. There's a small hole
+punched in this one. The same sized hole extends down through the
+center core, or magnet. This hole isn't rifled. It couldn't well be
+rifled save with special machinery. That's why the bullet found in Mr.
+Stockbridge's brain was without longitudinal scorings. It was fired
+from a smooth-bored pistol."
+
+"That's what you thought!" blurted Delaney with loyalty.
+
+"I was at sea," said Drew. "Now," he continued, "we have a live
+cartridge at the opposite end of this core from the diaphragm. See it?"
+Loris leaned over the little table.
+
+"Right here!" The detective pointed. "That is a twenty-two cartridge
+with a cupronickel bullet. See the cap? See how it is held from coming
+back by those tiny screws about the rim?"
+
+Loris nodded and gathered up her straying hair.
+
+"Now," continued Drew. "Now, this cartridge was exploded by the action
+of the human voice. Here's a tiny spiral of very slender platinum wire.
+It must be number forty, at least. That's very fine! This spiral is in
+series with the winding about the magnets. The same current pulsated by
+the human voice which actuates the receiver diaphragm, also passed
+through this spiral. Now," Drew paused. "Now," he added with rising
+voice, "here is a tiny charred piece of match-head, I guess. It was set
+in the coil. It flared when the wire became hot. The heat was
+sufficient to ignite the cap. See it!"
+
+"I see it!" exclaimed Nichols.
+
+"The action is simple," continued Drew. "A pulsation of the current
+which was formed by the action of the vibrating, transmitter diaphragm,
+also pulsated the fine wire before it went to the receiver magnets. The
+louder the voice into the transmitter the more current--measured in
+fractions of amperes--passed through the spiral. It became sufficiently
+hot to flare the piece of match-head or whatever Cuthbert placed there.
+This flare was communicated to the percussion cap, or fulminate of
+mercury, at the base of the cartridge. This exploded the powder charge,
+which in turn projected the cupronickel bullet forward through the tube
+or the bore of the receiver and out through the thin, metal diaphragm,
+and----"
+
+"What's that?" asked the operative.
+
+"Out through the hole in the diaphragm," continued Drew, "and right
+into your ear or my ear, Delaney!"
+
+"Not into mine!" exclaimed the operative. "I'll never telephone as long
+as I live, Chief!"
+
+"We'll all be careful," said Nichols, turning toward Loris.
+
+Drew gathered together the different parts of the telephone receiver.
+"Evidence against Morphy," he said dryly, as he dropped them into the
+side pocket of his coat. "They are our Exhibit A if he ever finishes
+that twenty years in the cooler."
+
+Loris reached out her hand. "You saved my life," she said. "You saved
+it, Mr. Drew."
+
+"I blundered and blundered and blundered on this case," admitted the
+detective frankly. "Now I'm going to request you to wait a few minutes
+before I call the coroner. Delaney has some questions. I feel sure he
+wants to ask me one or two."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+"THE END"
+
+
+Triggy Drew's eyes shone with triumphant fire as he turned and faced
+the group gathered in the sitting room.
+
+He adjusted his coat lapels, clicked his heels and smiled politely. His
+hand strayed up to his short-cropped mustache which was still neat and
+well-trimmed despite the labors of the day.
+
+"Although the case is practically closed," he said with concern, "there
+are features which are not entirely cleared up--even in my mind.
+Perhaps we have a little time," he added, glancing at his watch. "Let's
+go into the other room--away from these memories--and have a cup of
+tea, if Miss Stockbridge will be so kind as to order some."
+
+Loris glanced at Nichols. She nodded as she turned toward Drew. He
+moved over to the rug which covered Cuthbert Morphy's body. He stooped
+and adjusted this. He rose and dimmed the lights by snapping off two of
+the switches and turning a bulb in its socket. He hesitated as he
+glanced at the telephone wires which Delaney had cut.
+
+"Central will wonder what has happened," he said half aloud. "The
+connections leading to this house have given them a lot of trouble in
+the last few hours. I suppose they haven't another trouble-man like
+this one, though?" Drew pointed toward the shadowed rug which gleamed
+with silk and rare woven designs.
+
+Loris raised her hand and grasped the portieres. She shuddered
+slightly. She allowed her eyes to wander over the room as if for a last
+fleeting glance. They locked with the detective's own. She smiled with
+a plaintive droop to her mouth.
+
+"I'll order the tea," she said invitingly. "Will you come in?"
+
+Drew bowed and followed her through the portieres. Delaney already
+stood by the door which led to the maid's room. Harry Nichols had
+picked up a small book and was impatiently examining its pages. The
+soldier turned and eyed the detective.
+
+"We'll sit down?" he asked, laying the book on a cushion. "I'm a bit
+curious to know how you worked out a number of things. I think that
+Miss Stockbridge is, too."
+
+"I'd like to be a detective!" exclaimed Loris, gliding across the room
+and tapping with her knuckles on the door. "Wouldn't you, Mr. Delaney?"
+she added naively.
+
+Delaney chuckled. "I would, Miss," he said with candor. "I'm not a
+regular. I'm only a volunteer. Mr. Drew has me along to do the heavy
+work. He says what I can't lift I can drag."
+
+Loris smiled as the maid answered by opening the door to a crack. "Tea
+for four," she said. "Pekoe and tea biscuits--unless----"
+
+She turned and widened her eyes prettily. "Would you have anything
+else?" she asked Drew.
+
+"Strong tea!" exclaimed the detective. "I'll take 'hops,' as we call
+it. Make it very strong and then we'll settle some of these questions.
+My head is none too clear. I've been under a strain. I'm frank to admit
+that!"
+
+The tea arrived within ten minutes. Drew had prevented Delaney from
+'phoning for the coroner or to Fosdick. "Some matters to clear up," he
+whispered suggestively. "We'll leave this place with the case entirely
+completed."
+
+Nichols arranged two chairs about a tiny teak-wood table. He had set
+this table within the bay of an alcove. The space was small, with
+Delaney's big feet very much in the way.
+
+Drew poised his cup and glanced from Loris to Nichols. Their heads were
+very close together. The blue-black luster of the girl's hair was a
+perfect contrast to the officer's blond pompadour which was slightly
+disarranged. The light from above haloed with the soft fire of frosted
+glass and cut prisms.
+
+The detective upended the cup, drank deeply, then passed it over to
+Delaney. "Another, please," he said, watching the operative struggling
+with a saucer which was far too fragile for his thick fingers. "One
+more cup," he added. "No sugar."
+
+Loris leaned from the cushion at the small of her back and glanced
+toward the portieres with thought-laden eyes. "Poor misguided fellow,"
+she said softly. "I feel uneasy, Mr. Drew. Somehow or other I feel that
+we were partly responsible for his death. I wish it hadn't happened."
+
+"I'll agree with you. We must forget more than we remember in this
+world. Our time is short. The coroner and the Central Office squad will
+have to be notified. I don't doubt that Fosdick will be surprised at
+the turn in the case. He has some of your servants locked up, you
+know!"
+
+Loris pressed closer to Nichols. "I wish that body wasn't in there,"
+she whispered. "Suppose he had other confederates who would break in?"
+
+"He worked alone," assured Drew, finishing the second cup and setting
+it down. "I found no evidence of another crook. He worked single-handed
+and single-minded. He made one mistake. Morphy was a bungler. A bungler
+is a man who lets his artistic temperament get the better of him. Had
+he allowed Cuthbert to slay both the--Mr. Stockbridge and yourself over
+the 'phone, he would never have solved the case. It was the telephoning
+from Sing Sing that opened up the entire matter."
+
+"The inevitable slip!" exclaimed Nichols.
+
+"Yes," said Drew. "They all make it. I could tell you of a thousand
+instances. But back of the inevitable slip, as you call it, is
+something deeper. It has not often been mentioned in dealing with
+criminals."
+
+"What is it?" asked Loris.
+
+"Ego! Criminal ego! Most transgressors would go to the electric chair
+if the newspapers would write enough about them."
+
+Loris raised her brows. "Is that the reason," she asked, "why Morphy
+telephoned before he killed poor father?"
+
+"Exactly!" declared the detective. "Ego explains much that we call
+revenge. Now," he added, glancing about and at a tiny clock on a
+cabinet. "Now the questions from everybody! Make them short. Mr.
+Delaney and I will leave in ten minutes."
+
+Nichols glanced at Loris. "You first," he said.
+
+"I've just one or two, Mr. Drew," she said.
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Why did that poor dead man spare my life when he called me up the
+first time? He could have killed me then."
+
+"I explained that. It wasn't _his_ vendetta."
+
+"Vendetta?"
+
+"That is what this case is. An almost successful attempt to wipe out,
+or I should say obliterate, the Stockbridge Family--root and branch.
+Morphy had nursed the thing for over a year. He had soured up there in
+prison. His mind became abnormal. He conceived an abnormal revenge.
+Also a personal one. He had every reason to believe that he would never
+be discovered."
+
+"Then, Mr. Drew, he would have called me up on the phone later and done
+what he did--to father? He would have told me who he was over the
+telephone, and--and----"
+
+"Yes, Miss Stockbridge. Yes, be calm, though. He is beyond the pale
+now. You will never hear from him again. Be assured of that!"
+
+Drew leaned in his chair and glanced at Delaney. The big operative
+fidgeted in his seat, squirmed, reached for the tea-pot, then drew back
+his hand and started drumming the table with his fingers.
+
+Nichols disengaged his arm from behind Loris and squared his shoulders.
+He moved forward. "I'm going to ask a question for Miss Stockbridge,"
+he said. "Did you ever suspect her?"
+
+"Never!" declared Drew.
+
+"Or me?"
+
+The detective hesitated before he answered. His smile cleared the air
+as he said. "Once--for about an hour. That was when I found out that
+you were partly German. I got over it, though."
+
+"So did I," declared Nichols. "I got over the German part in no time. I
+enlisted!"
+
+"That's a good answer! The best one I know!"
+
+Delaney turned to his chief. He drew in his legs. "There's a question
+I'd like to ask," he said.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That magpie?"
+
+Drew eyed Loris. "It's her bird now," he said. "She may not want it
+dragged back here again. I shouldn't think she would."
+
+"I don't!" exclaimed Loris. "I wish that you would explain how you
+followed the clew, though. It talks so seldom, and then when it does
+talk it says such nonsense it's a perfect enigma."
+
+"That bird," said Drew, "was the fine turning point of the case. Before
+it was brought into the office, downtown, I had no clew to start from.
+There was no indication to show from whence the blow had fallen. Your
+father was slain for a motive. He was talking to Morphy when he died.
+Cuthbert had connected the two men."
+
+"Through the two booths?" asked Loris.
+
+"Yes. Through the booths at Grand Central. Their conversation was
+probably a brief one. Morphy undoubtedly gloated a minute or two, then
+told Mr. Stockbridge that his time had come on this earth. Naturally
+Mr. Stockbridge asked who was talking. Morphy answered by stating who
+he was, and also that he was at Sing Sing. Mr. Stockbridge repeated
+this statement aloud. He probably said, 'What, Sing Sing?' or 'Ah,
+Ossining!' or words to that effect. The bird heard it and remembered it."
+
+"How strange!" exclaimed Nichols.
+
+"Not at all," said Drew, leaning forward. "It was just like a magpie to
+pick out the one salient part of a conversation and repeat it. The
+couplet 'Sing Sing' was one it had never heard. It is so striking to
+even a bird. It probably came with such emphasis, there was no
+forgetting it!"
+
+The group facing the detective was silent for a long minute. Delaney
+moved uneasily as Nichols toyed with his cup. Loris breathed in
+suppressed wonder at the tiny clew which had overthrown the best laid
+plans on the part of Morphy and his confederate. It was like an echo of
+a dead voice coming back to confront a murderer. She shivered as she
+widened her eyes and stared at Drew.
+
+"There's another question," she said. "How did the trouble-man get into
+this house in the first place, Mr. Drew?"
+
+"I was responsible. He forced my hand!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"By a clever subterfuge. He disconnected the library telephone wires at
+the junction-box in the alley. He knew that sooner or later Mr.
+Stockbridge would try to use the 'phone. He couldn't get a connection,
+or I couldn't. It was the time I tried to 'phone and then notified
+Gramercy Hill Exchange through another 'phone. He was listening in and
+consequently caught the gist of my orders to Harrigan. He hurried to
+Gramercy Hill Exchange and there met Frisby, another trouble-man,
+starting out to investigate my complaint. He took Frisby's place,
+hurried over and closed the library connection and then came into the
+house, stating that we had sent for him."
+
+"Clever," said Nichols. "That was clever, wasn't it?"
+
+"Remarkably so!" exclaimed Drew. "It was a case of making the detective
+on the premises act as a tool. It was like a safeblower asking a night
+watchman to move a safe out on a truck. I never suspected that fellow
+at all. I hardly looked at him when he was testing the connections in
+the library. I even heard him rattling a pair of pliers over the
+binding posts on the receiver. That was the time he took the old one
+off and put on the loaded pistol. It was done very quickly."
+
+The detective paused and glanced at his watch. "We must go," he said,
+staring at Loris with soft interest. "I'm afraid we're keeping you from
+your sleep."
+
+"No. I want to ask you another question," she said eagerly. "I'm still
+in doubt about the slot booths at Grand Central. Why were they used?"
+
+"As a throw off! That is what the English would call shunting.
+Electricians use the same word. It means diverting a current or a
+connection. Cuthbert did this so that his trail would be harder to
+check up. He thought of almost everything."
+
+"He missed his vocation!" interjected Nichols.
+
+"And misused his talents," added Loris. "Think of being clever enough
+to do all of those things, and stoop to murder. He paid ten times over.
+He must have been under that man Morphy's power. So many men were. I
+heard father say that when Morphy was arrested. He said Morphy was the
+most dangerous man in the world. That he would cause trouble sooner or
+later."
+
+Drew rose and nodded. "He did that!" he exclaimed with conviction. "He
+came very close to getting away with it. But for the magpie and the
+fact that he 'phoned from the prison at the same time your father was
+murdered, there would have been no clew. Cuthbert would have entered
+this house after you were slain, and removed the receiver. That would
+have thrown the case into one of the unsolved mysteries. Electricity is
+a dangerous tool in the hands of clever crooks."
+
+"It leaves no trace!" said Delaney, rising and standing by his chief.
+"It isn't made out of anything except little shakes in the wire or
+something like that."
+
+Drew smiled good-naturedly. "It's a mystery to most people," he said,
+turning toward the windows and listening. "It's a bigger mystery to a
+woman than to a man," he added. "It's a good agent if properly used and
+kept within bounds. It brings back life as well as takes it. It creates
+and also destroys. No one knows what it is. All that we do know about
+it is its action on material substances--the power to transform
+mechanical energy into vibrations and then back again into mechanical
+energy."
+
+"Like a voice on a wire?" asked Loris.
+
+"Yes, Miss Stockbridge. The mechanical vibration of a diaphragm in a
+telephone transmitter is changed to electrical vibrations, passes along
+a wire and changes back to the same thing we had at the beginning.
+Cuthbert took advantage of this fact. All that was sent into the
+library was Morphy's voice on the wire. The wire left no trace. The
+voice actuated the diaphragm and at the same time the fine heating coil
+at the cap on the cartridge. The energy of the voice was sufficient to
+raise the temperature of the coil. This raise in temperature flashed
+some compound set in the wire. The flash started the fulminate of
+mercury in the cap. The cap exploded the smokeless powder. It was a
+series of steps each a little higher than the one below it."
+
+"Was there any other way of doing the same thing?" Nichols inquired, as
+he rose lankily and stood over Loris.
+
+"Yes!" declared Drew. "I can look back over what I found in the
+technical books about electricity and telephony and see several other
+ways for Cuthbert to accomplish the same result. The electrical pistol
+did not necessarily have to be actuated by the human voice."
+
+"How terrible!" Loris whispered, with her brow puckering. "Perhaps
+others will use the same idea to slay their enemies."
+
+"We'll keep it a close secret," the detective said. "It rests with us
+four, now. Outside of us, there is only Morphy who knows."
+
+"How else could the pistol be discharged?"
+
+"Two other ways that I see, Miss Stockbridge. It would be rather easy
+to arrange a little magnetic trigger in the receiver. This trigger
+could be actuated by an excess of current--say the connecting of a
+hundred and ten volt lighting circuit on the line. It might burn out
+the magnet wiring, but it would also release the trigger and fire the
+cartridge."
+
+"That's like a door-catch?"
+
+"Yes," said Drew. "Like a door-catch operated by a magnet or like the
+firing pin of a large cannon. They're not all operated by lanyards.
+Some work with push-buttons."
+
+Nichols passed his hand over his brow. "I know another way," he said,
+glancing down at Loris. "There is a way which is far cleverer than
+Cuthbert thought of. It could be done by a tuning-fork or reed."
+
+"Certainly!" exclaimed Drew. "I never thought of that. A reed attuned
+to a certain voice could be adapted to trip a trigger. Then the loaded
+receiver could be set so that one of your friends who had a peculiar
+voice, either high or low, would slay you. Rather terrifying revenge,
+that!"
+
+"Beyond the pale!" said Nichols. "It's too bad this man Cuthbert didn't
+exercise one-tenth of his genius in perfecting war inventions. He'd
+have helped us a lot."
+
+Drew nodded and strode to the curtains at a side window. He peered out,
+rubbed the frosted panes, and pressed his nose against the glass.
+
+"Stopped snowing!" he exclaimed, coming back and clasping Delaney's
+arm. "You hurry downstairs and telephone Fosdick that we are waiting
+for him. Tell him to notify the coroner that there's a subject here
+which will interest him. We'll not explain everything to either the
+coroner or Fosdick. No one save us shall know the secret of the
+receiver."
+
+"Delaney," said Nichols, as the big operative started through the
+portieres. "Mr. Delaney."
+
+"Yes!" boomed back through the room.
+
+"Ask the Commissioner if he will release Miss Stockbridge's servants.
+It was an outrage."
+
+"That's right!" exclaimed Drew, striding to the portieres. "Tell him I
+said so, Delaney. Tell him just what you think. Give it to him strong!
+He bungled and he don't deserve a bit of sympathy."
+
+"Mr. Drew?"
+
+The detective wheeled on one heel and glanced back at Loris, who had
+risen and was standing with her arm linked within Nichols'. "Mr. Drew,"
+she repeated with slow insistence, "won't you have another cup of tea
+before you go?"
+
+"That I will, Miss Stockbridge. We three shall drink to the end of the
+case. Have you asked all the questions you want to? I want to forget
+this night as soon as possible. You were too close to death to suit me."
+
+"I don't think of any more questions," said Loris, disengaging her arm
+and gliding across the room. "We'll get the tea. There is one matter. I
+want to pay you for your splendid services."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Drew. "Ah, Miss Stockbridge, they were far from being
+splendid. I lost my reputation in the first instance. I should never
+have allowed your father to remain alone in the library. That was very
+short-sighted on my part."
+
+"You couldn't think of everything."
+
+"I underestimated the gravity of the situation."
+
+"Perhaps father didn't explain how dangerous his enemies really were."
+
+"No, I don't think it was that, exactly. I had been reading so many
+accounts of German spies that I connected this case with one of them. I
+took precautions against anything that a German might think of. I
+didn't figure on super-brains of the criminal order. Cuthbert Morphy
+had them!"
+
+The maid appeared with the tray and hot water. Drew took the cup from
+Loris with a bow. He allowed the tea to cool as he glanced at the two
+lovers. They had grown closer together over the time of the
+investigation. Nichols had that poise which is given to well-trained
+army men. He never said too much. This was a trait which pleased the
+detective immensely. It spoke volumes for Loris and her judgment in
+placing her trust in him.
+
+"I actually hate to leave you people," Drew said, finishing the cup.
+"But I must be on my way."
+
+Loris arched her dark brows. Her mouth parted into a soft smile. Her
+eyes glistened with moisture. "Harry is going, too," she said, glancing
+from Drew to Nichols. "He has to go! I'll sleep upstairs in mother's
+old room to-night. The maid can watch. Perhaps the butler will be
+back."
+
+"He'll be back!" ejaculated the detective, adjusting his coat collar
+and stroking his mustache. "I'll see to that if I have to go over
+Fosdick's thick head. You can expect all of your servants within an
+hour."
+
+Heavy footfalls on the rugs outside the suite announced Delaney. He
+came through the portieres rubbing his hands in the manner of a man who
+was well-satisfied with his errand.
+
+"I got them!" he boomed, glancing from Drew to Nichols and then letting
+his eyes shine on Loris. "I got Fosdick, first. I told him what I
+thought of him, too. I don't like him. Never did! He said he'd be right
+up and see about things. He can see!" The big operative swung toward
+his chief.
+
+"How about the coroner?" asked Drew.
+
+"He's coming as fast as his hurry-up wagon will let him. I told him
+there was another--well, you know what I told him, Chief?"
+
+The detective lifted his lowered brows. "Yes! Yes!" he said hastily,
+after a keen glance at Loris. "Yes. You did right. Now, get into the
+other room and gather up all of the tools and plaster-casts and every
+scrap of our own evidence. Put them in the trouble-man's satchel. Set
+the satchel outside the door to the hall. Then wait for me. I'll be but
+a minute."
+
+Delaney paused. "There's one thing," he said in a half stammer----"One
+thing, Chief, that's been troubling me while I was 'phoning to the
+coroner and to Fosdick."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If I can have that magpie? I'm going to give it to my wife--Mary--if I
+can. There's no bird in the house."
+
+Drew turned toward Loris who had drawn Nichols to a window.
+
+"Can he have it, Miss Stockbridge?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"Thanks," throated the operative, passing through the portieres with
+renewed energy. "Thanks," he added under his breath as he started
+picking up the plaster casts and tools. "That's how we caught
+'Cutbert,' and I'll nurse the bird like a Grand Opera singer."
+
+Loris glided from out the curtains and crossed the room. She stood a
+moment under a cone of soft light which reflected downward and brought
+out every detail of her gown and girlish figure. She turned and smiled
+widely at Drew who stood by the portieres.
+
+"I've almost forgotten something," she said, drawing out a chair and
+sitting down with a graceful sweep of her skirt. "I've forgotten that
+you are tired and that you have worked hard."
+
+"Not at all," said Drew.
+
+"Yes, you are tired and you have worked very hard. Harry will bear me
+out in that. He was just saying that you would make a good major of
+overseas forces. Why don't you join the army?"
+
+Drew reached into his right hand trouser pocket. He brought his hand
+out with a small gold badge between his fingers. "I've already joined
+the army," he said. "This is a Secret Service badge. Don't you know
+that much work can be done over on this side? A burnt warehouse, for
+instance, is equal to a victory for the Kaiser. My agency is almost
+exclusively devoted to Government work. We never mention it, though."
+
+"I see," said Loris, reaching into a pigeonhole and drawing out a small
+yellow check-book. "I'm glad," she added, picking up a mother-of-pearl
+penholder and inspecting the pen-point. "I rather thought you would do
+your share. I think everybody should to the limit of their pocketbook
+and ability. Harry is."
+
+Drew bowed slightly. "That's right, stick by Harry," he said to
+himself. "She's a sticker and then some," he added, frowning toward the
+check-book and the poised pen.
+
+"Mr. Drew?"
+
+The detective took one step in her direction. He waited then.
+
+"Mr. Drew, how much money do I owe you? I'll pay you out of my account
+until the estate is settled."
+
+The detective smiled broadly. "Nothing," he said, toying with his watch
+chain. "I don't think you owe me anything in this case."
+
+"Oh, but I do!"
+
+"I don't think so. Your father retained me. He was--was slain through
+my own carelessness. I think I owe you something."
+
+"I can't let it remain that way." Loris turned and widened her eyes. A
+tiny pout sweetened her mouth. Nichols came across the rugs and stood
+by her side. He turned to Drew.
+
+"That wouldn't be fair," he said. "You certainly earned your fee in
+this case. Why, you look five years older than when you came up into my
+rooms with that little pistol!"
+
+Drew touched his mustache. He closed his lips. Fatigue swept over him
+as he said huskily:
+
+"I've aged, yes. Well, I guess I have. The responsibility was more than
+I expected."
+
+"How much?" asked Loris, opening the check-book.
+
+Drew raised his eyes to the ceiling. A faint smile brightened his olive
+skin and brought out the fullness of his cheeks.
+
+"Five thousand dollars," he said, without glancing at Loris.
+
+She dipped the pen into the ink well, leaned her elbow on the leaf of
+the writing desk and hastily scratched a check with angular writing
+which had certainly been cultivated in a select boarding school. She
+turned, waved the check in the air, then rose and advanced toward the
+detective, who had not lowered his eyes.
+
+"Thank you," she said, holding out the oblong of tinted paper. "I want
+to thank you."
+
+Nichols stared at the detective. The soldier's eyes were like bayonets
+beneath a parapet. He had thought the figure rather high. Loris had no
+one to advise her save himself and the presence of Drew had tied his
+tongue.
+
+"I want to thank you," repeated Loris.
+
+Drew lowered his eyes and reached for the check. He glanced at it,
+started folding two edges, then smiled brightly as he crossed the room,
+picked up the mother-of-pearl penholder and dipped it into the ink.
+
+"I'll endorse it," he said, flattening out the check with his palm.
+"I'll endorse it so that it can be transferred."
+
+"To whom?" asked Loris.
+
+"Why, to where it belongs. Do you think that I could take it? It's too
+much in the first place. In the second place I'm going to do my full
+bit from now on. What do you say, if we endorse this over to the
+American Red Cross? It'll buy beds and bandages and it'll help out all
+around!"
+
+Loris lifted her eyes beneath her down dropping lashes. She smiled with
+tiny puckerings at the corners of her mouth. The glance was so archly
+sweet that Drew felt it was more than a reward. He caught her mood and
+hastily dashed off his signature across the back of the check.
+
+"You present it to them," he said. "Take it with my compliments to the
+treasurer of your own division. I'll venture they will not question the
+signature."
+
+Nichols' hand crept out. It clasped over Drew's fingers in a soldier's
+grip. The two men faced each other. Drew reached up his left arm and
+patted the captain on the shoulder. "Two bars," he said. "I hope to see
+stars there," he added sincerely. "Stars, when you come back from the
+conquest of Berlin."
+
+"They'll be there!" declared Loris with flashing eyes. "Harry will get
+them!"
+
+Delaney peered through the portieres despite his instructions to the
+contrary.
+
+"All set, Chief," he said. "I hear Fosdick downstairs."
+
+"Coming," said Drew, as he turned away from Loris and Nichols.
+
+The two detectives paused in the center of the room. The mound under
+the splendid rug held their eyes for a fleeting moment. The ends of the
+telephone wires lay across the hardwood floor. They glanced at these.
+
+"No trace!" said Drew. "We needn't tell Fosdick much. Come on!"
+
+Delaney held out the detective's coat and hat. Drew thrust his arms
+into his silk-lined sleeves, pulled the hat down over his eyes and
+swung as the big operative turned his shoulder.
+
+"Look," whispered Delaney.
+
+Loris Stockbridge and her lover stood under the glow from the soft
+clusters of the inner room of the suite. The captain held his peaked
+cap in his right hand. He also was departing.
+
+"Turtle-doves," Delaney breathed with almost pride.
+
+"Ah!" said Drew. "Ah, my friend, you must remember that we were once
+that way ourselves. But now--but now, Delaney--there is a thing which
+is sweeter than love's young dream. It is a tired man's sleep. I think
+I have earned mine to-night!"
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+ZANE GREY'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS
+
+A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of
+frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is
+captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a
+delightful close.
+
+THE RAINBOW TRAIL
+
+The story of a young clergyman who becomes a wanderer in the great
+western uplands--until at last love and faith awake.
+
+DESERT GOLD
+
+The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with
+the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl
+who is the story's heroine.
+
+RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
+
+A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon
+authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of
+the story.
+
+THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN
+
+This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones,
+known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert
+and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canons and giant
+pines."
+
+THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT
+
+A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a
+young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the
+girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons--Well, that's
+the problem of this great story.
+
+THE SHORT STOP
+
+The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and
+fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are
+followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty
+ought to win.
+
+BETTY ZANE
+
+This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful
+young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers.
+
+THE LONE STAR RANGER
+
+After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along
+the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds
+a young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings
+down upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on
+one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.
+
+THE BORDER LEGION
+
+Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless
+Western mining camp, to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved
+him--she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit
+band, and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader--and nurses
+him to health again. Here enters another romance--when Joan, disguised
+as an outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of dissipation. A gold
+strike, a thrilling robbery--gambling and gun play carry you along
+breathlessly.
+
+THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS, By Helen Cody Wetmore and Zane Grey
+
+The life story of Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," as told by
+his sister and Zane Grey. It begins with his boyhood in Iowa and his
+first encounter with an Indian. We see "Bill" as a pony express rider,
+then near Fort Sumter as Chief of the Scouts, and later engaged in the
+most dangerous Indian campaigns. There is also a very interesting
+account of the travels of "The Wild West" Show. No character in public
+life makes a stronger appeal to the imagination of America than
+"Buffalo Bill," whose daring and bravery made him famous.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+MOTHER. Illustrated by F. G. Yohn.
+
+This book has a fairy-story touch counterbalanced by the sturdy reality
+of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a mother's
+experiences.
+
+SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.
+
+Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a
+quest for happiness. She passes through three stages--poverty, wealth
+and service--and works out a creditable salvation.
+
+THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE. Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock.
+
+The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be
+swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied
+interests, and has her own romance.
+
+THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert.
+
+How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted
+herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life.
+
+THE HEART OF RACHAEL. Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.
+
+Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out
+these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of
+fiction's most appealing characters.
+
+Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+"K." Illustrated.
+
+K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, drops out of the world that has known him,
+and goes to live in a little town where beautiful Sidney Page lives.
+She is in training to become a nurse. The joys and troubles of their
+young love are told with that keen and sympathetic appreciation which
+has made the author famous.
+
+THE MAN IN LOWER TEN. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+An absorbing detective story woven around the mysterious death of the
+"Man in Lower Ten." The strongest elements of Mrs. Rinehart's success
+are found in this book.
+
+WHEN A MAN MARRIES. Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker.
+
+A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that his
+aunt is soon to visit him. The aunt, who contributes to the family
+income and who has never seen the wife, knows nothing of the domestic
+upheaval. How the young man met the situation is humorously and most
+entertainingly told.
+
+THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE. Illus. by Lester Ralph.
+
+The summer occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead body of Arnold
+Armstrong, the son of the owner, on the circular staircase. Following
+the murder a bank failure is announced. Around these two events is
+woven a plot of absorbing interest.
+
+THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS. Illustrated (Photo Play Edition.)
+
+Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist, suddenly
+realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious
+doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with
+world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and
+slender means.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+R. M. BOWER'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+CHIP OF THE FLYING U. Wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della
+Whitman are charmingly and humorously told.
+
+THE HAPPY FAMILY. A lively and amusing story, dealing with the
+adventures of eighteen jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys.
+
+HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT. Describing a gay party of Easterners who exchange a
+cottage at Newport for a Montana ranch-house.
+
+THE RANGE DWELLERS. Spirited action, a range feud beween two families,
+and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly story.
+
+THE LURE OF THE DIM TRAILS. A vivid portrayal of the experience of an
+Eastern author among the cowboys.
+
+THE LONESOME TRAIL. A little branch of sage brush and the recollection
+of a pair of large brown eyes upset "Weary" Davidson's plans.
+
+THE LONG SHADOW. A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free
+outdoor life of a mountain ranch. It is a fine love story.
+
+GOOD INDIAN. A stirring romance of life on an Idaho ranch.
+
+FLYING U RANCH. Another delightful story about Chip and his pals.
+
+THE FLYING U'S LAST STAND. An amusing account of Chip and the other
+boys opposing a party of school teachers.
+
+THE UPHILL CLIMB. A story of a mountain ranch and of a man's hard fight
+on the uphill road to manliness.
+
+THE PHANTOM HERD. The title of a moving-picture staged in New Mexico by
+the "Flying U" boys.
+
+THE HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX. The "Flying U" boys stage a fake bank
+robbery for film purposes which precedes a real one for lust of gold.
+
+THE GRINGOS. A story of love and adventure on a ranch in California.
+
+STARR OF THE DESERT. A New Mexico ranch story of mystery and adventure.
+
+THE LOOKOUT MAN. A Northern California story full of action, excitement
+and love.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
+
+THE INSIDE OF THE CUP. Illustrated by Howard Giles.
+
+The Reverend John Hodder is called to a fashionable church in a
+middle-western city. He knows little of modern problems and in his
+theology is as orthodox as the rich men who control his church could
+desire. But the facts of modern life are thrust upon him; an awakening
+follows and in the end he works out a solution.
+
+A FAR COUNTRY. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+
+This novel is concerned with big problems of the day. As _The Inside of
+the Cup_ gets down to the essentials in its discussion of religion, so
+_A Far Country_ deals in a story that is intense and dramatic, with
+other vital issues confronting the twentieth century.
+
+A MODERN CHRONICLE. Illustrated by J. H. Gardner Soper.
+
+This, Mr. Churchill's first great presentation of the Eternal Feminine,
+is throughout a profound study of a fascinating young American woman.
+It is frankly a modern love story.
+
+MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys.
+
+A new England state is under the political domination of a railway and
+Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes a moment when the cause of the people
+is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, to further his own
+interest in a political way. The daughter of the railway president
+plays no small part in the situation.
+
+THE CROSSING. Illustrated by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.
+
+Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie, the blazing of the Kentucky
+wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of followers in
+Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi,
+and the treasonable schemes against Washington.
+
+CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+A deft blending of love and politics. A New Englander is the hero, a
+crude man who rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then
+surrendered all for the love of a woman.
+
+THE CELEBRITY. An episode.
+
+An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities
+between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman. It is the purest,
+keenest fun--and is American to the core.
+
+THE CRISIS. Illustrated with scenes from the Photo-Play.
+
+A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with
+splendid power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that
+are inspiring.
+
+RICHARD CARVEL. Illustrated by Malcolm Frazer.
+
+An historical novel which gives a real and vivid picture of Colonial
+times, and is good, clean, spirited reading in all its phases and
+interesting throughout.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+GRAUSTARK. Illustrated with Scenes from the Play.
+
+With the appearance of this novel, the author introduced a new type of
+story and won for himself a perpetual reading public. It is the story
+of love behind a throne in a new and strange country.
+
+BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. Illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
+
+This is a sequel to "Graustark." A bewitching American girl visits the
+little principality and there has a romantic love affair.
+
+PRINCE OF GRAUSTARK. Illustrations by A. I. Keller.
+
+The Prince of Graustark is none other than the son of the heroine of
+"Graustark." Beverly's daughter, and an American multimillionaire with
+a brilliant and lovely daughter also figure in the story.
+
+BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. Illustrated with Scenes from the Photo-Play.
+
+A young man, required to spend one million dollars in one year, in
+order to inherit _seven_, accomplishes the task in this lively story.
+
+COWARDICE COURT. Illus. by Harrison Fisher and decorations by Theodore
+Hapgood.
+
+A romance of love and adventure, the plot forming around a social feud
+in the Adirondacks in which an English girl is tempted into being a
+traitor by a romantic young American.
+
+THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND. Illustrated by A. I. Keller.
+
+A story of modern New York, built around an ancient enmity, born of the
+scorn of the aristocrat for one of inferior birth.
+
+WHAT'S-HIS-NAME. Illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
+
+"What's-His-Name" is the husband of a beautiful and popular actress who
+is billboarded on Broadway under an assumed name. The very opposite
+manner in which these two live their lives brings a dramatic climax to
+the story.
+
+Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+SEWELL FORD'S STORIES
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+SHORTY McCABE. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
+
+A very humorous story. The hero, an independent and vigorous thinker,
+sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way.
+
+SIDE-STEPPING WITH SHORTY. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
+
+Twenty skits, presenting people with their foibles. Sympathy with human
+nature and an abounding sense of humor are the requisites for
+"side-stepping with Shorty."
+
+SHORTY McCABE ON THE JOB. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
+
+Shorty McCabe reappears with his figures of speech revamped right up to
+the minute. He aids in the right distribution of a "conscience fund,"
+and gives joy to all concerned.
+
+SHORTY McCABE'S ODD NUMBERS. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
+
+These further chronicles of Shorty McCabe tell of his studio for
+physical culture, and of his experiences both on the East side and at
+swell yachting parties.
+
+TORCHY. Illus. by Geo. Biehm and Jas. Montgomery Flagg.
+
+A red-headed office boy, overflowing with wit and wisdom peculiar to
+the youths reared on the sidewalks of New York, tells the story of his
+experiences.
+
+TRYING OUT TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
+
+Torchy is just as deliriously funny in these stories as he was in the
+previous book.
+
+ON WITH TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
+
+Torchy falls desperately in love with "the only girl that ever was,"
+but that young society woman's aunt tries to keep the young people
+apart, which brings about many hilariously funny situations.
+
+TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
+
+Torchy rises from the position of office boy to that of secretary for
+the Corrugated Iron Company. The story is full of humor and infectious
+American slang.
+
+WILT THOU TORCHY. Illus. by F. Snapp and A. W. Brown.
+
+Torchy goes on a treasure search expedition to the Florida West Coast,
+in company with a group of friends of the Corrugated Trust and with his
+friend's aunt, on which trip Torchy wins the aunt's permission to place
+an engagement ring on Vee's finger.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.
+
+No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal
+young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent
+of the time when the reader was Seventeen.
+
+PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.
+
+This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous,
+tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a
+finished, exquisite work.
+
+PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.
+
+Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable
+phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile
+prankishness that have ever been written.
+
+THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
+
+Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his
+father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a
+fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.
+
+THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.
+
+A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country
+editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love
+interest.
+
+THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement,
+drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another
+to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising
+suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.
+
+Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF STEWART EDWARD WHITE
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+THE BLAZED TRAIL. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
+
+A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who
+blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.
+
+THE CALL OF THE NORTH. Ills. with Scenes from the Play.
+
+The story centers about a Hudson Bay trading post, known as "The
+Conjuror's House" (the original title of the book.)
+
+THE RIVER MAN. Ills. by N. C. Wyeth and C. F. Underwood.
+
+The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between
+honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the
+other.
+
+RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lejaren A. Hiller.
+
+The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes
+into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft," and comes into the
+romance of his life.
+
+GOLD. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
+
+The gold fever of '49 is pictured with vividness. A part of the story
+is laid in Panama, the route taken by the gold-seekers.
+
+THE FOREST. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
+
+The book tells of the canoe trip of the author and his companion into
+the great woods. Much information about camping and outdoor life. A
+splendid treatise on woodcraft.
+
+THE MOUNTAINS. Illustrated by Fernand Lungren.
+
+An account of the adventures of a five months' camping trip in the
+Sierras of California. The author has followed a true sequence of
+events.
+
+THE CABIN. Illustrated with photographs by the author.
+
+A chronicle of the building of a cabin home in a forest-girdled meadow
+of the Sierras. Full of nature and woodcraft, and the shrewd philosophy
+of "California John."
+
+THE GRAY DAWN. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
+
+This book tells of the period shortly after the first mad rush for gold
+in California. A young lawyer and his wife, initiated into the gay life
+of San Francisco, find their ways parted through his downward course,
+but succeeding events bring the "gray dawn of better things" for both
+of them.
+
+Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+
+This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The
+story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family,
+but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love
+affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of
+Laddie, the older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess,
+an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about
+whose family there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the
+book and a double wedding at the close.
+
+THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
+
+"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who
+draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If
+the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would
+be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the
+Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of life
+which has come to him--there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic
+quality.
+
+FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
+
+Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which
+he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
+Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs
+to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
+Angel" are full of real sentiment.
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.
+
+The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
+the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
+towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty
+of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
+unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp.
+
+The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The
+story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.
+The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and
+its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+JOHN FOX, JR'S. STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree
+that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine
+lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he
+finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the
+_footprints of a girl._ And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and
+the trail of these girlish footprints led the young engineer a madder
+chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."
+
+THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come."
+It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which
+often springs the flower of civilization.
+
+"Chad." the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he
+came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood,
+seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and
+mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming
+waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in
+the mountains.
+
+A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of
+moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the
+heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two
+impetuous young Southerners fall under the spell of "The Blight's"
+charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in
+the love making of the mountaineers.
+
+Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some
+of Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.
+
+Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
+
+HANDSOMELY BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED.
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+MAVERICKS.
+
+A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler," whose depredations
+are so keenly resented by the early settlers of the range, abounds. One
+of the sweetest love stories ever told.
+
+A TEXAS RANGER.
+
+How a member of the most dauntless border police force carried law into
+the mesquit, saved the life of an innocent man after a series of
+thrilling adventures, followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed
+through deadly peril to ultimate happiness.
+
+WYOMING.
+
+In this vivid story of the outdoor West the author has captured the
+breezy charm of "cattleland," and brings out the turbid life of the
+frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor.
+
+RIDGWAY OF MONTANA.
+
+The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and
+mining industries are the religion of the country. The political
+contest, the love scene, and the fine character drawing give this story
+great strength and charm.
+
+BUCKY O'CONNOR.
+
+Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with
+the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing
+fascination of style and plot.
+
+CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT.
+
+A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter
+feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders. The heroine is a most
+unusual woman and her love story reaches a culmination that is
+fittingly characteristic of the great free West.
+
+BRAND BLOTTERS.
+
+A story of the Cattle Range. This story brings out the turbid life of
+the frontier, with all its engaging dash and vigor, with a charming
+love interest running through its 320 pages.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHISPERING WIRES***
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