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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ear in the Wall, by Arthur B. Reeve
+(#8 in our series by Arthur B. Reeve)
+
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+Title: The Ear in the Wall
+
+Author: Arthur B. Reeve
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5150]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 15, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE EAR IN THE WALL ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+THE EAR IN THE WALL
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR B. REEVE
+
+FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I  THE VANISHER
+
+   II  THE BLACK BOOK
+
+  III  THE SAFE ROBBERY
+
+   IV  THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
+
+    V  THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY
+
+   VI  THE WOMAN DETECTIVE
+
+  VII  THE GANG LEADER
+
+ VIII  THE SHYSTER LAWYER
+
+   IX  THE JURY FIXER
+
+    X  THE AFTERNOON DANCE
+
+   XI  THE TYPEWRITER CLUE
+
+  XII  THE "PORTRAIT PARLE"
+
+ XIII  THE CONVICTION
+
+  XIV  THE BEAUTY PARLOUR
+
+   XV  THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT
+
+  XVI  THE SANITARIUM
+
+ XVII  THE SOCIETY SCANDAL
+
+XVIII  THE WALL STREET WOLF
+
+  XIX  THE ESCAPE
+
+   XX  THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH
+
+  XXI  THE MORGUE
+
+ XXII  THE CANARD
+
+XXIII  THE CONFESSION
+
+ XXIV  THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN
+
+  XXV  THE BLOOD CRYSTALS
+
+ XXVI  THE WHITE SLAVE
+
+XXVII  THE ELECTION NIGHT
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE VANISHER
+
+
+"Hello, Jameson, is Kennedy in?"
+
+I glanced up from the evening papers to encounter the square-
+jawed, alert face of District Attorney Carton in the doorway of
+our apartment.
+
+"How do you do, Judge?" I exclaimed. "No, but I expect him any
+second now. Won't you sit down?"
+
+The District Attorney dropped, rather wearily I thought, into a
+chair and looked at his watch.
+
+I had made Carton's acquaintance some years before as a cub
+reporter on the Star while he was a judge of an inferior court.
+Our acquaintance had grown through several political campaigns in
+which I had had assignments that brought me into contact with him.
+More recently some special writing had led me across his trail
+again in telling the story of his clean-up of graft in the city.
+At present his weariness was easily accounted for. He was in the
+midst of the fight of his life for re-election against the so-
+called "System," headed by Boss Dorgan, in which he had gone far
+in exposing evils that ranged all the way from vice and the drug
+traffic to bald election frauds.
+
+"I expect a Mrs. Blackwell here in a few minutes," he remarked,
+glancing again at his watch. His eye caught the headline of the
+news story I had been reading and he added quickly, "What do the
+boys on the Star think of that Blackwell case, anyhow?"
+
+It was, I may say, a case deeply shrouded in mystery--the
+disappearance without warning of a beautiful young girl, Betty
+Blackwell, barely eighteen. Her family, the police, and now the
+District Attorney had sought to solve it in vain. Some had thought
+it a kidnaping, others a suicide, and others had even hinted at
+murder. All sorts of theories had been advanced without in the
+least changing the original dominant note of mystery. Photographs
+of the young woman had been published broadcast, I knew, without
+eliciting a word in reply. Young men whom she had known and girls
+with whom she had been intimate had been questioned without so
+much as a clue being obtained. Reports that she had been seen had
+come in from all over the country, as they always do in such
+cases. All had been investigated and had turned out to be based on
+nothing more than imagination. The mystery remained unsolved.
+
+"Well," I replied, "of course there's a lot of talk now in the
+papers about aphasia and amnesia and all that stuff. But, you
+know, we reporters are a sceptical lot. We have to be shown. I
+can't say we put much faith in THAT."
+
+"But what is your explanation? You fellows always have an opinion.
+Sometimes I think the newspapermen are our best detectives."
+
+"I can't say that we have any opinion in this case--yet," I
+returned frankly. "When a girl just simply disappears on Fifth
+Avenue and there isn't even the hint of a clue as to any place she
+went or how, well--oh, there's Kennedy now. Put it up to him."
+
+"We were just talking of that Betty Blackwell disappearance case,"
+resumed Carton, when the greetings were over. "What do you think
+of it?"
+
+"Think of it?" repeated Kennedy promptly with a keen glance at the
+District Attorney; "why, Judge, I think of it the same as you
+evidently do. If you didn't think it was a case that was in some
+way connected with your vice and graft investigation, you wouldn't
+be here. And if I didn't feel that it promised surprising results,
+aside from the interest I always have naturally in solving such
+mysteries, I wouldn't be ready to take up the offer which you came
+here to make."
+
+"You're a wizard, Kennedy," laughed Carton, though it was easily
+seen that he was both pleased and relieved to think that he had
+enlisted Craig's services so easily.
+
+"Not much of a wizard. In the first place, I know the fight you're
+making. Also, I know that you wouldn't go to the police in the
+present state of armed truce between your office and Headquarters.
+You want someone outside. Well, I'm more than willing to be that
+person. The whole thing, in its larger aspects, interests me.
+Betty Blackwell in particular, arouses my sympathies. That's all."
+
+"Exactly, Kennedy. This fight I'm in is going to be the fight of
+my life. Just now, in addition to everything else, people are
+looking to me to find Betty Blackwell. Her mother was in to see me
+today; there isn't much that she could add to what has already
+been said. Betty was a most attractive girl. The family is an
+excellent one, but in reduced circumstances. She had been used to
+a great deal as a child, but now, since the death of her father,
+she has had to go to work--and you know what that means to a girl
+like that."
+
+Carton laid down a new photograph which the newspapers had not
+printed yet. Betty Blackwell was slender, petite, chic. Her dark
+hair was carefully groomed, and there was an air with which she
+wore her clothes and carried herself, even in a portrait, which
+showed that she was no ordinary girl.
+
+Her soft brown eyes had that magnetic look which is dangerous to
+their owner if she does not know how to control it, eyes that
+arrested one's gaze, invited notice. Even the lens must have felt
+the spell. It had caught, also, the soft richness of the skin of
+her oval face and full throat and neck. Indeed one could not help
+remarking that she was really the girl to grace a fortune. Only a
+turn of the hand of that fickle goddess had prevented her from
+doing so.
+
+I had picked up one of the evening papers and was looking at the
+newspaper half-tone which more than failed to do justice to her.
+Just then my eye happened on an item which I had been about to
+discuss with Carton when Kennedy entered.
+
+"As a scientist, does the amnesia theory appeal to you, Craig?" I
+asked. "Now, here is an explanation by one of the special writers,
+headed, 'Personalities Lost Through Amnesia.' Listen."
+
+The article was brief:
+
+Mysterious disappearances, such as that of Betty Blackwell, have
+alarmed the public and baffled the police before this--
+disappearances that have in their suddenness, apparent lack of
+purpose, and inexplicability much in common with her case. Leaving
+out of account the class of disappearances for their own
+convenience--embezzlers, blackmailers, and so forth--there is
+still a large number of recorded cases where the subjects have
+dropped out of sight without apparent cause or reason and have
+left behind them untarnished reputations and solvent back
+accounts. Of these, a small percentage are found to have met with
+violence; others have been victims of suicidal mania, and sooner
+or later a clue has come to light which has established the fact.
+The dead are often easier to find than the living.
+
+Of the remaining small proportion, there are on record, however, a
+number of carefully authenticated cases where the subject has been
+the victim of a sudden and complete loss of memory.
+
+This dislocation of memory is a variety of aphasia known as
+amnesia, and when the memory is recurrently lost and restored, we
+have alternating personality. The Society for Psychical Research
+and many eminent psychologists, among them the late William James,
+Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Hodgson of Boston, and Dr. A. E. Osborn of
+San Francisco, have reported many cases of alternating
+personality.
+
+Studious efforts are being made to understand and to explain the
+strange type of mental phenomena exhibited in these cases, but as
+yet no one has given a clear and comprehensive explanation of
+them. Such cases are by no means always connected with
+disappearances, and exhaustive studies have been made of types of
+alternating personality that have from first to last been
+carefully watched by scientists of the first rank.
+
+The variety known as the ambulatory type, where the patient
+suddenly loses all knowledge of his own identity and of the past
+and takes himself off, leaving no trace or clue, is the variety
+which the present case of Miss Blackwell seems to suggest.
+
+There followed a number of most interesting cases and an elaborate
+argument by the writer to show that Betty Blackwell was a victim
+of this psychological aberration, that she was, in other words, "a
+vanisher."
+
+I laid down the paper with a questioning look at Kennedy.
+
+"As a scientist," he replied deliberately, "the theory, of course,
+does appeal to me, especially in the ingenious way in which that
+writer applied it. However, as a detective"--he shook his head
+slowly--"I must deal with facts--not speculations. It leaves much
+to be explained, to say the least,"
+
+Just then the door buzzer sounded and Carton himself sprang to
+answer it.
+
+"That's Mrs. Blackwell now--her mother. I told her that I was
+going to take the case to you, Kennedy, and took the liberty of
+asking her to come up here to meet you. Good-afternoon, Mrs.
+Blackwell. Let me introduce Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, of
+whom I spoke to you."
+
+She bowed and murmured a tremulous greeting. Kennedy placed a
+chair for her and she thanked him.
+
+Mrs. Blackwell was a slender little woman in black, well past
+middle age. Her face and dress spoke of years of economy, even of
+privation, but her manner was plainly that of a woman of gentle
+breeding and former luxury. She was precisely of the type of
+decayed gentlewoman that one meets often in the city, especially
+at some of the middle-class boarding-houses.
+
+Deeply as the disappearance of her daughter had affected her, Mrs.
+Blackwell was facing it bravely. That was her nature. One could
+imagine that only when Betty was actually found would this plucky
+little woman collapse. Instinctively, one felt that she claimed
+his assistance in the unequal fight she was waging against the
+complexities of modern life for which she had been so ill
+prepared.
+
+"I do hope you will be able to find my daughter," she began,
+controlling her voice with an effort. "Mr. Carton has been so
+kind, more than kind, I am sure, in getting your aid. The police
+seem to be able to do nothing. They make out reports, put me off,
+tell me they are making progress--but they don't find Betty."
+
+There was a tragic pathos in the way she said it.
+
+"Betty was such a good girl, too," she went on, her emotions
+rising. "Oh, I was so proud of her when she got her position down
+in Wall Street, with the broker, Mr. Langhorne."
+
+"Tell Mr. Kennedy just what you told me of her disappearance," put
+in Carton.
+
+Again Mrs. Blackwell controlled her feelings. "I don't know much
+about it," she faltered, "but last Saturday, when she left the
+office early, she said she was going to do some shopping on Fifth
+Avenue. I know she went there, did shop a bit, then walked on the
+Avenue several blocks. But after that there is no trace of her."
+
+"You have heard nothing, have no idea where she might have gone--
+even for a time?" queried Kennedy.
+
+He asked it with a keen look at the face of Mrs. Blackwell. I
+recalled one case where a girl had disappeared in which Kennedy
+had always asserted that if the family had been perfectly frank at
+the start much more might have been accomplished in unravelling
+the mystery.
+
+There was evident sincerity in Mrs. Blackwell as she replied
+quickly, "Absolutely none. Another girl from the office was with
+her part of the time, then left her to take the subway. We don't
+live far uptown. It wouldn't have taken Betty long to get home,
+even if she had walked, after that, through a crowded street,
+too."
+
+"Of course, she may have met a friend, may have gone somewhere
+with the friend," put in Kennedy, as if trying out the remark to
+see what effect it might have.
+
+"Where could she go?" asked Mrs. Blackwell in naive surprise,
+looking at him with a counterpart of the eyes we had seen in the
+picture. "I hope you don't think that Betty---"
+
+The little widow was on the verge of tears again at the mere hint
+that her daughter might have had friends that were not all,
+perhaps, that they should be.
+
+Carton came to the rescue. "Miss Blackwell," he interposed, "was a
+very attractive girl, very. She had hosts of admirers, as every
+attractive girl must have. Most of them, all of them, as far as
+Mrs. Blackwell knows and I have been able to find out, were young
+men at the office where she worked, or friends of that sort--not
+the ordinary clerk, but of the rising, younger, self-made
+generation. Still, they don't seem to have interested her
+particularly as far as I have been able to discover. She merely
+liked them. There is absolutely nothing known to point to the fact
+that she was any different from thousands of girls in that
+respect. She was vivacious, full of fun and life, a girl any
+fellow would have been more than proud to take to a dance. She was
+ambitious, I suppose, but nothing more."
+
+"Betty was not a bad girl," asserted Mrs. Blackwell vehemently.
+"She was a good girl. I don't believe there was much, in fact
+anything important, on which she did not make me her confidante.
+Yes, she was ambitious. So am I. I have always hoped that Betty
+would bring our family--her younger sister--back to the station
+where we were before the panic wiped out our fortune and killed my
+husband. That is all."
+
+"Yes," added Carton, "nothing at all is known that would make one
+think that she was what young men call a 'good fellow' with them."
+
+Kennedy looked up, but said nothing. I thought I could read the
+unspoken word on his lips, as he glanced from Carton to Mrs.
+Blackwell, "known."
+
+She had risen and was facing us.
+
+"Is there no one in all this great city," appealed the distracted
+little woman with outstretched arms, "who can find my daughter? Is
+it possible that a girl can disappear in broad daylight in the
+streets and never be heard of again? Oh, won't you find her? Tell
+me she is safe--that she is still the little girl I---"
+
+Her voice failed and she was crying softly in her lace
+handkerchief. It was touching and I saw that Kennedy was deeply
+moved, although at once to his practical mind the thought must
+have occurred that nothing was to be gained by further questions
+of Mrs. Blackwell.
+
+"Believe me, Mrs. Blackwell," he said in a low tone, taking her
+hand, "I will do all that is in my power to find her."
+
+"Thank you," murmured the mother, overcome.
+
+A moment later, however, she had recovered her composure to some
+degree and rose to go. There was a flattering look of relief on
+her face which in itself must have been ample reward to Craig, a
+retainer worth more to him in a case like this than money.
+
+"I'm going back to my office," remarked Carton. "If I learn
+anything, I shall let you know."
+
+The District Attorney went out with Mrs. Blackwell. Busy as he
+was, he had time to turn aside to help this bereaved woman, and I
+admired him for it.
+
+"Do you think it is one of those cases like some that Carton has
+uncovered on the East Side and among girls newly arrived in the
+city?" I asked Craig when the door was shut.
+
+"Can't say," he returned, in an abstracted study.
+
+"It's awful if it is," I pursued. "And if it is, I suppose all
+that will result from it will be a momentary thrill of the
+newspaper-readers, and then they will fall back on the old saying
+that after all it is only a result of human nature that such
+things happen--they always have happened and always will--that old
+line of talk."
+
+"That sort of thing is NOT a result of human nature," returned
+Kennedy earnestly. "It's a System. I mean to say that if it should
+turn out to be connected with the vice investigations of Carton,
+and not a case of aphasia, such a disappearance you would find to
+be due to the persistent, cunning, and unprincipled exploitation
+of young girls.
+
+"No, Walter, it is not that women are weak or that men are
+inherently vicious. That doesn't account for a case like this.
+Then, too, some mawkish people to-day are fond of putting the
+whole evil on low wages as a cause. It isn't that--alone. It isn't
+even lack of education or of moral training. Human nature is not
+so bad in the mass as some good people think. No, don't you, as a
+reporter, see it? It is big business, in its way, that Carton is
+fighting--big business in the commercialized ruin of girls, such,
+perhaps, as Betty Blackwell--a vicious system that enmeshes even
+those who are its tools. I'm glad if I can have a chance to help
+smash it.
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what I want you to do, just so that we can
+start this thing with a clear understanding of what it amounts to.
+I want you to look up just what the situation is. I know there is
+an army of 'vanishers' in New York. I want to know something about
+them in the mass. Can't you dig up something from your Star
+connections?"
+
+Kennedy had some matters concerning other cases to clear up before
+he felt free to devote his whole time to this. As there was
+nothing we could do immediately, I spent some time getting at the
+facts he wanted. Indeed, it did not take me long to discover that
+the disappearance of Betty Blackwell, in spite of the prominence
+it had been given, was by no means an isolated case. I found that
+the Star alone had chronicled scores of such disappearances during
+the past few months, cases of girls who had simply been swallowed
+up in the big city. They were the daughters of neither the rich
+nor of the poor, most of them, but girls rather in ordinary
+circumstances.
+
+Even the police records showed upward of a thousand missing young
+girls, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one years and I knew
+that the police lists scarcely approximated the total number of
+missing persons in the great city, especially in those cases where
+a hesitancy on the part of parents and relatives often concealed
+the loss from public records.
+
+I came away with the impression that there were literally hundreds
+of cases every bit as baffling as that of Betty Blackwell, of
+young girls who had left absolutely no trace behind, who had made
+no preparations for departure and of whom few had been heard from
+since they disappeared. Many from homes of refinement and even
+high financial standing had disappeared, leaving no clues behind.
+It was not alone the daughters of the poor that were affected--it
+was all society.
+
+Many reasons, I found, had been assigned for the disappearances. I
+knew that there must be many causes at work, that no one cause
+could be responsible for all or perhaps a majority of the cases.
+There were suicides and murders and elopements, family troubles,
+poverty, desire for freedom and adventure; innumerable complex
+causes, even down to kidnapping.
+
+The question was, however, which of these causes had been in
+operation in the case of Betty Blackwell? Where had she gone?
+Where had this whole army of vanishers disappeared? Were these
+disappearances merely accidents--or was there an epidemic of
+amnesia? I could bring myself to no such conclusions, but was
+forced to answer my own queries in lieu of an answer from Kennedy,
+by propounding another. Was there an organized band?
+
+And, after I had tried to reason it all out, I still found myself
+back at the original question, as I rejoined Kennedy at the
+laboratory, "Where had they all--where had Betty Blackwell gone?"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE BLACK BOOK
+
+
+I had scarcely finished pouring out my suspicions to Kennedy when
+the telephone rang.
+
+It was Carton on the wire, in a state of unsuppressed excitement.
+Kennedy answered the call himself, but the conversation was brief
+and, to me, unenlightening, until he hung up the receiver.
+
+"Dorgan--the Boss," he exclaimed, "has just found a detectaphone
+in his private dining-room at Gastron's."
+
+At once I saw the importance of the news and for the moment it
+obscured even the case of Betty Blackwell.
+
+Dorgan was the political boss of the city at that time, apparently
+entrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew
+him as a big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of
+surliness, owing his influence to his ability to "deliver the
+goods" in the shape of graft of all sorts, the archenemy of
+Carton, a type of politician who now is rapidly passing.
+
+"Carton wants to see us immediately at his office," added Craig,
+jamming his hat on his head. "Come on."
+
+Without waiting for further comment or answer from me, Kennedy,
+caught by the infectious excitement of Carton's message, dashed
+from our apartment and a few minutes later we were whirling
+downtown on the subway.
+
+"You know, I suppose," he whispered rather hoarsely above the
+rumble and roar of the train, but so as not to be overheard, "that
+Dorgan always has kept a suite of rooms at Gastron's, on Fifth
+Avenue, for dinners and conferences."
+
+I nodded. Some of the things that must have gone on in the secret
+suite in the fashionable restaurant I knew would make interesting
+reading, if the walls had ears.
+
+"Apparently he must have found out about the eavesdropping in time
+and nipped it," pursued Kennedy.
+
+"What do you mean?" I asked, for I had not been able to gather
+much from the one-sided conversation over the telephone, and the
+lightning change from the case of Betty Blackwell to this had left
+me somewhat bewildered. "What has he done?"
+
+"Smashed the transmitter of the machine," replied Kennedy tersely.
+"Cut the wires."
+
+"Where did it lead?" I asked. "How do you know?"
+
+Kennedy shook his head. Either he did not know, yet, or he felt
+that the subway was no place in which to continue the conversation
+beyond the mere skeleton that he had given me.
+
+We finished the ride in comparative silence and hurried into
+Carton's office down in the Criminal Courts Building.
+
+Carton greeted us cordially, with an air of intense relief, as if
+he were glad to have been able to turn to Kennedy in the growing
+perplexities that beset him.
+
+What surprised me most, however, was that, seated beside his desk,
+in an easy chair, was a striking looking woman, not exactly young,
+but of an age that is perhaps more interesting than youth,
+certainly more sophisticated. She, too, I noticed, had a tense,
+excited expression on her face. As Kennedy and I entered she had
+looked us over searchingly.
+
+"Let me present Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Ogleby," said
+Carton quickly. "Both of them know as much about how experts use
+those little mechanical eavesdroppers as anyone--except the
+inventor."
+
+We bowed and waited for an explanation.
+
+"You understand," continued Carton slowly to us in a tone that
+enjoined secrecy, "Mrs. Ogleby, who is a friend of Mr. Murtha,
+Dorgan's right-hand man, naturally is alarmed and doesn't want her
+name to appear in this thing."
+
+"Oh--it is terrible--terrible," Mrs. Ogleby chimed in in great
+agitation. "I don't care about anything else. But, my reputation--
+it will be ruined if they connect my name with the case. As soon
+as I heard of it--I thought of you, Mr. Carton. I came here
+immediately. There must be some way in which you can protect me--
+some way that you can get along without using--"
+
+"But, my dear Mrs. Ogleby," interrupted the District Attorney, "I
+have told you half a dozen times, I think, that I didn't put the
+detectaphone in--"
+
+"Yes, but you will get the record," she persisted excitedly.
+"Can't you do something?" she pleaded.
+
+I fancied that she said it with the air of one who almost had some
+right in the matter.
+
+"Mrs. Ogleby," reiterated Carton earnestly, "I will do all I can--
+on my word of honour--to protect your name, but--"
+
+He paused and looked at us helplessly.
+
+"What was it that was overheard?" asked Craig point-blank,
+watching Mrs. Ogleby's face carefully.
+
+"Why," she replied nervously, "there was a big dinner last night
+which Mr. Dorgan gave at Gastron's. Mr. Murtha took me and--oh--
+there were lots of others--" She stopped suddenly.
+
+"Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Who else was there?"
+
+She was on her guard, however. Evidently she had come to Carton
+for one purpose and that was solely to protect herself against the
+scandal which she thought might attach to having been present at
+one of the rather notorious little affairs of the Boss.
+
+"Really," she answered, colouring slightly, "I can't tell you. I
+mustn't say a word about who was there--or anything about it. Good
+heavens--it is bad enough as it is--to think that my name may be
+dragged into politics and all sorts of false stories set in motion
+about me. You must protect me, Mr. Carton, you must."
+
+"How did you find out about the detectaphone being there?" asked
+Kennedy.
+
+"Why," she replied evasively, "I thought it was just an ordinary
+little social dinner. That's what Mr. Murtha told me it was. I
+didn't think anyone outside was interested in it or in who was
+there or what went on. But, this morning, a--a friend--called me
+up and told me--something that made me think others besides those
+invited knew of it, knew too much."
+
+She paused, then resumed hastily to forestall questioning, "I
+began to think it over myself, and the more I thought of it, the
+stranger it seemed that anyone else, outside, should know. I began
+to wonder how it leaked out, for I understood that it was a
+strictly private affair. I asked Mr. Murtha and he told Mr.
+Dorgan. Mr. Dorgan at once guessed that there had been something
+queer. He looked about his rooms there, and, sure enough, they
+found the detectaphone concealed in the wall. I can't tell any
+more," she added, facing Carton and using her bewitching eyes to
+their best advantage. "I can't ask you to shield Mr. Dorgan and
+Mr. Murtha. They are your opponents. But I have done nothing to
+you, Mr. Carton. You must suppress--that part of it--about me.
+Why, it would ruin---"
+
+She cut her words short. But I knew what she meant, and to a
+certain extent I could understand, if not sympathize with her. Her
+husband, Martin Ogleby, club-man and man about town, had a
+reputation none too savoury. But, man-like, I knew, he would
+condone not even the appearance of anything that caused gossip in
+his wife's actions. I could understand how desperate she felt.
+
+"But, my dear lady," repeated Carton, in a manner that showed that
+he felt keenly, for some reason or other, the appeal she was
+making to him, "must I say again that I had nothing whatever to do
+with it? I have sent for Mr. Kennedy and---"
+
+"Nothing--on your honour?" she asked, facing him squarely.
+
+"Nothing--on my honour," he asserted frankly.
+
+She appeared to be dazed. Apparently all along she had assumed
+that Carton must be the person to see, that he alone could do
+anything for her, would do something.
+
+Her face paled as she met his earnest look. She had risen and now,
+half chagrined, half frightened, she stood irresolute. Her lips
+quivered and tears stood in her eyes as she realized that, instead
+of protecting herself by her confidence, she had, perhaps, made
+matters worse by telling an outsider.
+
+Carton, too, had risen and in a low voice which we could not
+overhear was trying to reassure her.
+
+In her confusion she was moving toward the door, utterly
+oblivious, now, to us. Carton tactfully took her arm and led her
+to a private entrance that opened from his office down the
+corridor and out of sight of the watchful eyes of the reporters
+and attendants in the outer hall.
+
+I did not understand just what it was all about, but I could see
+Kennedy's eye following Carton keenly.
+
+"What was that--a plant?" he asked, still trying to read Carton's
+face, as he returned to us alone a moment later. "Did she come to
+see whether you got the record?"
+
+"No--I don't think so," replied Carton quickly. "No, I think that
+was all on the level--her part of it."
+
+"But who did put in the instrument, really--did you?" asked
+Kennedy, still quizzing.
+
+"No," exclaimed Carton hastily, this time meeting Craig's eye
+frankly. "No. I wish I had. Why--the fact is, I don't know who
+did--no one seems to know, yet, evidently. But," he added, leaning
+forward and speaking rapidly, "I think I could give a shrewd
+guess."
+
+Kennedy said nothing, but nodded encouragingly.
+
+"I think," continued Carton impressively, "that it must have been
+Langhorne and the Wall Street crowd he represents."
+
+"Langhorne," repeated Kennedy, his mind working rapidly. "Why, it
+was his stenographer that Miss Blackwell was. Why do you suspect
+Langhorne?"
+
+"Because," exclaimed Carton, more excited than ever at Kennedy's
+quick deduction, bringing his fist down on the desk to emphasize
+his own suspicion, "because they aren't getting their share of the
+graft that Dorgan is passing out--probably are sore, and think
+that if they can get something on the Boss or some of those who
+are close to him, they may force him to take them into partnership
+in the deals."
+
+Carton looked from Kennedy to me, to see what impression his
+theory made. On me at least it did make an impression. Hartley
+Langhorne, I knew, was a Wall Street broker and speculator who
+dealt in real estate, securities, in fact in anything that would
+appeal to a plunger as promising a quick and easy return.
+
+Kennedy made no direct comment on the theory. "In what shape is
+the record, do you suppose?" he asked merely.
+
+"I gathered from Mrs. Ogleby," returned Carton watchfully, "that
+it had been taken down by a stenographer at the receiving end of
+the detectaphone, transcribed in typewriting, and loosely bound in
+a book of limp black leather. Oh," he concluded, "Dorgan would
+give almost anything to find out what is in that little record,
+you may be sure. Perhaps even, rather than have such a thing out,
+he would come to terms with Langhorne."
+
+Kennedy said nothing. He was merely absorbing the case as Carton
+presented it.
+
+"Don't you see?" continued the District Attorney, pacing his
+office and gazing now and then out of the window, "here's this
+record hidden away somewhere in the city. If I could only get it--
+I'd win my fight against Dorgan--and Mrs. Ogleby need not suffer
+for her mistake in coming to me, at all."
+
+He was apparently thinking aloud. Kennedy did not attempt to quiz
+him. He was considering the importance of the situation. For, as I
+have said, it was at the height of the political campaign in which
+Carton had been renominated independently by the Reform League--of
+which, more later.
+
+"You don't think that Langhorne is really in the inner ring,
+then?" questioned Craig.
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Well, then," I put in hastily, "can't you approach him or someone
+close to him, and get---"
+
+"Say," interrupted Carton, "anything that took place in that
+private dining-room at Gastron's would be just as likely to
+incriminate Langhorne and some of his crowd as not. It is a
+difference in degree of graft--that is all. They don't want an
+open fight. It was just a piece of finesse on Langhorne's part.
+You may be sure of that. No, neither of them wants a fight. That's
+the last thing. They're both afraid. What Langhorne wanted was a
+line on Dorgan. And we should never have known anything about this
+Black Book, if some of the women, I suppose, hadn't talked too
+much. Mrs. Ogleby added two and two and got five. She thought it
+must be I who put the instrument in."
+
+Carton was growing more and more excited again, "It's
+exasperating," he continued. "There's the record--somewhere--if I
+could only get it. Think of it, Kennedy--an election going on and
+never so much talk about graft and vice before!"
+
+"What was in the book--mostly, do you imagine?" asked Craig, still
+imperturbable.
+
+Carton shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, almost anything. For instance,
+you know, Dorgan has just put through a new scheme of city
+planning--with the able assistance of some theoretical reformers.
+That will be a big piece of real estate graft, unless I am
+mistaken. Langhorne and his crowd know it. They don't want to be
+frozen out."
+
+As they talked, I had been revolving the thing over in my head.
+Dorgan's little parties, as reported privately among the men on
+the Star whom I knew, were notorious. The more I considered, the
+more possible phases of the problem I thought of. It was not even
+impossible that in some way it might bear on the Betty Blackwell
+case.
+
+"Do you think Dorgan and Murtha are hunting the book as anxiously
+as--some others?" I ventured.
+
+"You have heard of the character of some of those dinners?"
+answered Carton by asking another question, then went on: "Why,
+Dorgan has had some of our leading lawyers, financiers, and
+legislators there. He usually surrounds them with brilliant,
+clever women, as unscrupulous as himself, and--well--you can
+imagine the result. Poor little Mrs. Ogleby," he added
+sympathetically. "They could twist her any way they chose for
+their purposes."
+
+My own impression had been that Mrs. Ogleby was better able to
+take care of herself than his words gave her credit for, but I
+said nothing.
+
+Carton paused before the window and gazed out at the Bridge of
+Sighs that led from his building across to the city prison.
+
+"What a record that Black Book must hold!" he exclaimed
+meditatively. "Why, if it was only that I could 'get' Murtha--I'd
+be happy," he added, turning to us.
+
+Murtha, as I have said, was Boss Dorgan's right bower, a clever
+and unscrupulous politician and leader in a district where he
+succeeded somehow or other in absolutely crushing opposition. I
+had run across him now and then in the course of my newspaper
+career and, aside from his well-known character in delivering the
+"goods" to the organization whenever it was necessary, I had found
+him a most interesting character.
+
+It was due to such men as Murtha that the organization kept its
+grip, though one wave of reform after another lashed its fury on
+it. For Murtha understood his people. He worked at politics every
+hour--whether it was patting the babies of the district on the
+head, or bailing their fathers out of jail, handing out shoes to
+the shiftless or judiciously distributing coal and ice to the
+deserving.
+
+Yet I had seen enough to know the inherent viciousness of the
+circle--of how the organization took dollars from the people with
+one concealed hand and distributed pennies from the other hand,
+held aloft and in the spotlight. Again and again, Kennedy and I in
+our excursions into scientific warfare on crime in the underworld
+had run squarely up against the refined as well as the debased
+creatures of the "System." Pyramided on what looked like open-
+handed charity and good-fellowship we had seen vice and crime of
+all degrees.
+
+And yet, somehow or other, I must confess to a sort of admiration
+for Murtha and his stamp--if for nothing else than because of the
+frankness with which he did what he sought to do. Neither Kennedy
+nor I could be accused of undue sympathy with the System, yet,
+like many who had been brought in close contact with it, it had
+earned our respect in many ways.
+
+And so, I contemplated the situation with more than ordinary
+interest. Carton wanted the Black Book to use in order to win his
+political fight for a clean city and to prosecute the grafters.
+Dorgan wanted it in order to suppress and thus protect himself and
+Murtha. Mrs. Ogleby wanted it to save her good name and prevent
+even the appearance of scandal. Langhorne wanted it in order to
+coerce Dorgan to share in the graft, yet was afraid of Carton
+also.
+
+Was ever a situation of such peculiar, mixed motives?
+
+"I would move heaven and earth for that Black Book!" exclaimed
+Carton finally, turning from the window and facing us.
+
+Kennedy, too, had risen.
+
+"You can count on me, then, Carton," he said simply, as the
+recollection of the many fights in which we had stood shoulder to
+shoulder with the young District Attorney came over him.
+
+A moment later Carton had us each by the hand.
+
+"Thank you," he cried. "I knew you fellows would be with me."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE SAFE ROBBERY
+
+
+It was late that night that Kennedy and I left Carton after laying
+out a campaign and setting in motion various forces, official and
+unofficial, which might serve to keep us in touch with what Dorgan
+and the organization were doing.
+
+Not until the following morning, however, did anything new develop
+in such a way that we could work on it.
+
+Kennedy had picked up the morning papers which had been left at
+the door of our apartment and was hastily running his eye over the
+headlines on the first page, as was his custom.
+
+"By Jove, Walter," I heard him exclaim. "What do you think of
+that--a robbery below the deadline--and in Langhorne's office,
+too."
+
+I hurried out of my room and glanced at the papers, also. Sure
+enough, there it was:
+
+SAFE ROBBED IN WALL ST. OFFICE
+
+Door Into Office of Langhorne & Westlake, Brokers, Forced and Safe
+Robbed.
+
+One of the strangest robberies ever perpetrated was pulled off
+last night in the office of Langhorne & Westlake, the brokers, at-
+----Wall Street, some time during the regular closing time of the
+office and eight o'clock.
+
+Mr. Langhorne had returned to his office after dining with some
+friends in order to work on some papers. When he arrived, about
+eight o'clock, he found that the door had been forced. The office
+was in darkness, but when he switched on the lights it was
+discovered that the office safe had been entered.
+
+Nothing was said about the manner in which the safe robbery was
+perpetrated, but it is understood to have been very peculiar. So
+far no details have been announced and the robbery was not
+reported to the police until a late hour.
+
+Mr. Langhorne, when seen by the reporters, stated positively that
+nothing of great value had been taken and that the firm would not
+suffer in any way as a result of the robbery.
+
+One of the stenographers in the office, Miss Betty Blackwell, who
+acted as private secretary to Mr. Langhorne, is missing and the
+case has already attracted wide attention. Whether or not her
+disappearance had anything to do with the robbery is not known.
+
+"Naturally he would not report it to the police," commented
+Kennedy; "that is, if it had anything to do with that Black Book,
+as I am sure that it must have had."
+
+"It was certainly a most peculiar affair if it did not," I
+remarked. "There must be some way of finding that out. It's
+strange about Betty Blackwell."
+
+Kennedy was turning something over in his mind. "Of course," he
+remarked, "we don't want to come out into the open just yet, but
+it would be interesting to know what happened down there at
+Langhorne's. Have you any objection to going down with me and
+posing as a reporter from the Star?"
+
+"None whatever," I returned.
+
+We stopped at the laboratory on the campus of the University where
+Craig still retained his professorship. Kennedy secured a rather
+bulky piece of apparatus, which, as nearly as I can describe,
+consisted of a steel frame, which could be attached by screws to
+any wooden table. It contained a lower plate which could move
+forward and back, two lateral uprights stiffened by curved braces,
+and a cross piece of steel attached by strong bolts to the tops of
+the posts. In the face of the machine was a dial with a pointer.
+
+Kennedy quickly took the apparatus apart and made it up into two
+packages so that between us we could carry it easily, and at about
+the time that Wall Street offices were opening we were on our way
+downtown.
+
+Langhorne proved to be a tall, rather slim, man of what might be
+called youngish middle age. One did not have to be introduced to
+him to read his character or his occupation. Every line of his
+faultlessly fitting clothes and every expression of his keen and
+carefully cared-for face betokened the plunger, the man who lived
+by his wits and found the process both fascinating and congenial.
+
+"Mr. Langhorne," began Kennedy, after I had taken upon myself the
+duty of introducing ourselves as reporters, "we are preparing an
+article for our paper about a new apparatus which the Star has
+imported especially from Paris. It is a machine invented by
+Monsieur Bertillon just before he died, for the purpose of
+furnishing exact measurements of the muscular efforts exerted in
+the violent entry of a door or desk by making it possible to
+reproduce the traces of the work that a burglar has left on doors
+and articles of furniture. We've been waiting for a case that the
+instrument would fit into and it seemed to us that perhaps it
+might be of some use to you in getting at the real robber of your
+office. Would you mind if we made an attempt to apply it?"
+
+Langhorne could not very well refuse to allow us to try the thing,
+though it was plainly evident that he did not want to talk and did
+not relish the publicity that the news of the morning had brought
+him.
+
+Kennedy had laid the apparatus down on a table as he spoke and was
+assembling the parts which he had separated in order to carry it.
+
+"These are the marks on the door, I presume?" he continued,
+examining some indentations of the woodwork near the lock.
+
+Langhorne assented.
+
+"The door was open when you returned?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Closed," replied Langhorne briefly. "Before I put the key into
+the lock, I turned the knob, as I have a habit of doing. Instead
+of catching, it yielded and the door swung open without any
+trouble."
+
+He repeated the story substantially as we had already read it in
+the papers.
+
+Kennedy had taken a step or two into the office, and was now
+facing the safe. It was not a large safe, but was one of the most
+modern construction and was supposed to be burglar proof.
+
+"And you say you lost practically nothing?" persisted Craig.
+
+"Nothing of importance," reiterated Langhorne.
+
+Kennedy had been watching him closely. The man was at least
+baffling. There was nothing excited or perturbed about his manner.
+Indeed, one might easily have thought that it was not his safe at
+all that had been robbed. I wondered whether, after all, he had
+had the Black Book. Certainly, I felt, if he had lost it he was
+very cool about the loss.
+
+Craig had by this time reached the safe itself. In spite of
+Langhorne's reluctance, his assurance had taken Kennedy even up to
+the point which he wished. He was examining the safe.
+
+On the front it showed no evidence of having been "souped" or
+drilled. There was not a mark on it. Nor, as we learned later from
+the police, was there any evidence of a finger-print having been
+left by the burglar.
+
+Langhorne now but ill concealed his interest. It was natural, too,
+for here he had one of the most modern of small strong-boxes,
+built up of the latest chrome steel and designed to withstand any
+reasonable assault of cracksman or fire.
+
+I was on the point of inquiring how on earth it had been possible
+to rob the safe, when Kennedy, standing on a chair, as Langhorne
+directed, uttered a low exclamation.
+
+I craned my neck to look also.
+
+There, in the very top of the safe, yawned a huge hole large
+enough to thrust one's arm through, with something to spare.
+
+As I looked at the yawning dark hole in the top of what had been
+only a short time ago a safe worthy of the latest state of the
+art, it seemed incomprehensible.
+
+Try as I could to reason it out, I could find no explanation. How
+it had been possible for a burglar to make such an opening in the
+little more than two hours between closing and the arrival of
+Langhorne after dinner, I could not even guess. As far as I knew
+it would have taken many long hours of patient labour with the
+finest bits to have made anything at all comparable to the
+destruction which we saw before us.
+
+A score of questions were on my lips, but I said nothing, although
+I could not help noticing the strange look on Langhorne's face. It
+plainly showed that he would like to have known what had taken
+place during the two or more hours when his office had been
+unguarded, yet was averse to betraying any such interest.
+
+Mystified as I was by what I saw, I was even more amazed at the
+cool manner in which Kennedy passed it all by.
+
+He seemed merely to be giving the hole in the top of the safe a
+passing glance, as though it was of no importance that someone
+should have in such an incredibly short time made a hole through
+which one might easily reach his arm and secure anything he wanted
+out of the interior of the powerful little safe.
+
+Langhorne, too, seemed surprised at Kennedy's matter of fact
+passing by of what was almost beyond the range of possibility.
+
+"After all," remarked Kennedy, "it is not the safe that we care to
+study so much as the door. For one thing, I want to make sure
+whether the marks show a genuine breaking and entering or whether
+they were placed there afterwards merely to cover the trail,
+supposing someone had used a key to get into the office."
+
+The remark suggested many things to me. Was it that he meant to
+imply that, after all, the missing Betty Blackwell had had
+something to do with it? In fact, could the thing have been done
+by a woman?
+
+"Most persons," remarked Craig, as he studied the marks on the
+door, "don't know enough about jimmies. Against them an ordinary
+door-lock or window-catch is no protection. With a jimmy eighteen
+inches long, even an anemic burglar can exert a pressure
+sufficient to lift two tons. Not one door-lock in ten thousand can
+stand this strain. It's like using a hammer to kill a fly. Really,
+the only use of locks is to keep out sneak thieves and to compel
+the modern, scientific educated burglar to make a noise. This
+fellow, however, was no sneak thief."
+
+He continued to adjust the machine which he had brought. Langhorne
+watched minutely, but did not say anything.
+
+"Bertillon used to call this his mechanical burglar detector,"
+continued Kennedy. "As you see, this frame carries two
+dynamometers of unequal power. The stronger, which has a high
+maximum capacity of several tons, is designed for the measurement
+of vertical efforts. The other measures horizontal efforts. The
+test is made by inserting the end of a jimmy or other burglar's
+tool and endeavouring to produce impressions similar to those
+which have been found on doors or windows. The index of the
+dynamometer moves in such a way as to make a permanent record of
+the pressure exerted. The horizontal or traction dynamometer
+registers the other component of pressure."
+
+He pressed down on the machine. "There was a pressure here of
+considerably over two tons," he remarked at length, "with a very
+high horizontal traction of over four hundred pounds. What I
+wanted to get at was whether this could have been done by a man,
+woman, or child, or perhaps by several persons. In this case, it
+was clearly no mere fake to cover up the opening of the door by a
+key. It was a genuine attempt. Nor could it have been done by a
+woman. No, that is the work of a man, a powerful man, too,
+accustomed to the use of the jimmy."
+
+I fancied that a shade of satisfaction crossed the otherwise
+impassive face of Langhorne. Was it because the Bertillon
+dynamometer appeared at first sight to exonerate Betty Blackwell,
+at least so far, from any connection with the crime? It was
+difficult to say.
+
+Important though it was, however, to clear up at the start just
+what sort of person was connected with the breaking of the door I
+could not but feel that Kennedy had some purpose in deferring and
+minimizing for the present what, to me at least, was the greater
+mystery, the entering of the safe itself.
+
+He was still studying and comparing the marks on the door and the
+record made on the dynamometer, when the office telephone rang and
+Langhorne was summoned to answer it. Instead of taking the call in
+his own office, he chose to answer it at the switchboard, perhaps
+because that would allow him to keep an eye also on us.
+
+Whatever his purpose, it likewise enabled us to keep an ear on
+him, and it was with surprise which both Kennedy and I had great
+difficulty in concealing, that we heard him reply, "Hello--yes--
+oh, Mrs. Ogleby, good-morning. How are you? That's good. So you,
+too, read the papers. No, I haven't lost anything of importance,
+thank you. Nothing serious, you know. The papers like to get hold
+of such things and play them up. I have a couple of reporters here
+now. Heaven knows what they are doing, but I can foresee some more
+unpaid advertising for the firm in it. Thank you again for your
+interest. You haven't forgotten the studio dance I'm giving on the
+twelfth? No--that's fine. I hope you'll come, even if Martin has
+another engagement. Fine. Well-good-bye."
+
+He hung up the receiver with a mingled air of gratification and
+exasperation, I fancied.
+
+"Haven't you fellows finished yet?" he asked finally, coming over
+to us, a little brusquely.
+
+"Just about," returned Kennedy, who had by this time begun slowly
+to dismember and pack up the dynamometer, determined to take
+advantage of every minute both to observe Langhorne and to fix in
+his mind the general lay-out of the office.
+
+"Everybody seems to be interested in me this morning," he
+observed, for the moment forgetting the embargo he had imposed on
+his own words.
+
+As for myself, I saw at once that others besides ourselves were
+keenly interested in this robbery.
+
+"There," remarked Kennedy when at last he had finished packing up
+the dynamometer into two packages. "At least, Mr. Langhorne, you
+have the satisfaction of knowing that it was in all probability a
+man, a strong man, and one experienced in forcing doors who
+succeeded in entering your office during your brief absence last
+night"
+
+Langhorne shrugged his shoulders non-committally, but it was
+evident that he was greatly relieved and he could not conceal his
+interest in what Kennedy was doing, even though he had succeeded
+in conveying the impression that it was a matter of indifference
+to him.
+
+"I suppose you keep a great many of your valuable papers in safety
+deposit vaults," ventured Kennedy, finishing up the wrapping of
+the two packages, "as well as your personal papers perhaps at
+home."
+
+He made the remark in a casual manner, but Langhorne was too keen
+to fall into the trap.
+
+"Really," he said with an air of finality, "I must decline to be
+interviewed at present. Good-day, gentlemen."
+
+"A slippery customer," was Craig's comment when we reached the
+street outside the office. "By the way, evidently Mrs. Ogleby is
+leaving no stone unturned in her effort to locate that Black Book
+and protect herself."
+
+I said nothing. Langhorne's manner, self-confident to the point of
+bravado, had baffled me. I began to feel that even if he had lost
+the detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff
+of still having it, in much the same manner that he would have
+played the market on a shoestring or made the most of an unfilled
+four-card flush in a game of poker.
+
+Kennedy was far from being discouraged, however. Indeed, it seemed
+as if he really enjoyed matching his wit against the subtlety of a
+man like Langhorne, even more than against one the type of Dorgan
+and Murtha.
+
+"I want to see Carton and I don't want to carry these bundles all
+over the city," he remarked, changing the subject for the moment,
+as he turned into a public pay station. "I'll ring him up and have
+him meet us at the laboratory, if I can."
+
+A moment later he emerged, excited, perspiring from the closeness
+of the telephone booth.
+
+"Carton has some news--a letter--that's all he would say," he
+exclaimed. "He'll meet us at the laboratory."
+
+We hastily resumed our uptown journey.
+
+"What do you think it is?" I asked. "About Betty Blackwell?"
+
+Kennedy shook his head non-committally. "I don't know. But he has
+some of his county detectives watching Dorgan and Murtha in that
+Black Book case, I know. They are worried. It doesn't look as
+though they, at least, had the record--that is, if Langhorne has
+really lost it."
+
+I wondered whether Langhorne might not, after all, as Kennedy had
+hinted, have concealed it elsewhere. The activity of Dorgan and
+Murtha might indicate that they knew more about the robbery than
+appeared yet on the surface. Had they failed in it? Had they been
+double-crossed by the man they had chosen for the work, assuming
+that they knew of and had planned the "job"?
+
+The safe-breaking and the way Langhorne took it had served to
+complicate the case even further. While we had before been
+reasonably sure that Langhorne had the book, now we were sure of
+nothing.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
+
+
+"What do you make of that?" inquired Carton half an hour later as
+he met us breathlessly at the laboratory.
+
+He unfolded a letter over which he had evidently been puzzling
+considerably. It was written, or rather typewritten, on plain
+paper. The envelope was plain and bore no marks of identification,
+except possibly that it had been mailed uptown.
+
+The letter ran:
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+Although this is an anonymous letter, I beg that you will not
+consider it such, since it will be plain to you that there is good
+reason for my wishing to remain nameless.
+
+I want to tell you of some things that have taken place recently
+at a little hotel in the West Fifties. No doubt you know of the
+place already--the Little Montmartre.
+
+There are several young and wealthy men who frequent this resort.
+I do not dare tell you their names, but one is a well-known club-
+man and man about town, another is a banker and broker, also well
+known, and a third is a lawyer. I might also mention an intimate
+friend of theirs, though not of their position in society--a
+doctor who has somewhat of a reputation among the class of people
+who frequent the Little Montmartre, ready to furnish them with
+anything from a medical certificate to drugs and treatment.
+
+I have read a great deal in the newspapers lately of the
+disappearance of Betty Blackwell, and her case interests me. I
+think you will find that it will repay you to look into the hint I
+have given. I don't think it is necessary to say any more. Indeed
+it may be dangerous to me, and I beg that you will not even show
+this letter to anyone except those associated with you and then,
+please, only with the understanding that it is to go no farther.
+
+Betty Blackwell is not at this hotel, but I am sure that some of
+those whose wild orgies have scandalized even the Little
+Montmartre know something about her.
+
+      Yours truly,
+        AN OUTCAST.
+
+Kennedy looked up quickly at Carton as he finished reading the
+letter.
+
+"Typical," he remarked. "Anonymous letters occasionally are of a
+friendly nature, but usually they reflect with more or less
+severity upon the conduct or character of someone. They usually
+receive little attention, but sometimes they are of the most
+serious character. In many instances they are most important links
+in chains of evidence pointing to grave crimes.
+
+"It is possible to draw certain conclusions from such letters at
+once. For instance, it is a surprising fact that in a large number
+of cases the anonymous letter writer is a woman, who may write
+what it does not seem possible she could write. Such letters often
+by their writing, materials used, composition and general form
+indicate at once the sex of the writer and frequently show
+nationality, age, education, and occupation. These facts may often
+point to the probable author.
+
+"Now in this case the writer evidently was well educated. Assumed
+illiteracy is a frequent disguise, but it is impossible for an
+author to assume a literacy he or she does not possess. Then, too,
+women are more apt to assume the characteristics of men than men
+of women. There are many things to be considered. Too bad it
+wasn't in ordinary handwriting. That would have shown much more.
+However, we shall try our best with what we have here. What
+impressed you about it?"
+
+"Well," remarked Carton, "the thing that impressed me was that as
+usual and as I fully expected, the trail leads right back to
+protected vice and commercialized graft. This Little Montmartre is
+one of the swellest of such resorts in the city, the legitimate
+successor to the scores and hundreds of places which the
+authorities and the vice investigators have closed recently. In
+fact, Kennedy, I consider it more dangerous, because it is run, on
+the surface at least, just like any of the first-class hotels.
+There's no violation of law there, at least not openly."
+
+Craig had continued to examine the letter closely. "So, you have
+already investigated the Little Montmartre?" he queried, drawing
+from his pocket a little strip of glass and laying it down
+carefully over the letter.
+
+"Indeed I have," returned the District Attorney, watching Kennedy
+curiously. "It is a place with a very unsavoury reputation. And
+yet I have been able to get nothing on it. They are so confounded
+clever. There is never any outward violation of law; they adhere
+strictly to the letter of the rule of outward decency."
+
+Over the typewritten characters Kennedy had placed the strip of
+glass and I could see that it was ruled into little oblongs, into
+each of which one of the type of the typewritten sheet seemed to
+fall. Apparently he had forgotten the contents of the letter in
+his interest in the text itself. He held the paper up to the light
+and seemed to study its texture and thickness. Then he examined
+the typed characters more closely with a little pocket magnifying
+glass, his lips moving as if he were counting something. Next he
+seized a mass of correspondence on his desk and began comparing
+the letter with others, apparently to determine just the shade of
+writing of the ribbon. Finally he gave it up and leaned back in
+his chair regarding us.
+
+"It is written in the regular pica type," he remarked
+thoughtfully, "and on a machine that has seen considerable rough
+usage, although it is not an old machine. It will take me a little
+time to identify the make, but after I have done that, I think I
+could identify the particular machine itself the moment I saw it.
+You see, it is only a clue that would serve to fix it once you
+found that machine. The point is, after all, to find it. But once
+found, I am sure we shall be close to the source of the letter. I
+may keep this and study it at my leisure?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+For a moment Carton was silent. Then it seemed as though the
+matter of Betty Blackwell brought to mind what he had read in the
+morning papers.
+
+"That robbery of Langhorne's safe was a most peculiar thing,
+wasn't it?" he meditated. "I suppose you know what Miss Blackwell
+was?"
+
+"Langhorne's stenographer and secretary, of course," I replied
+quickly.
+
+"Yes, I know. But I mean what she had actually done? I don't
+believe you do. My county detectives found out only last night."
+Kennedy paused in his rummaging among some bottles to which he had
+turned at the mention of the safe robbery. "No--what was it?" he
+asked.
+
+Carton bent forward as if our own walls might have ears and said
+in a low voice: "She was the operator who took down the
+detectaphone conversations at the other end of the wire in a
+furnished room in the house next to Gastron's."
+
+He drew back to see what effect the intelligence had on us, then
+resumed slowly: "Yes, I've had my men out on the case. That is
+what they think. I believe she often executed little confidential
+commissions for Langhorne, sometimes things that took her on short
+trips out of town. There is a possibility that she may be on a
+mission of that sort. But I think--it's this Black Book case that
+involves her now."
+
+"Langhorne wouldn't talk much about anything," I put in, hastily
+remembering his manner. "He may not be responsible--but from his
+actions I'd wager he knows more about her than appears."
+
+"Just so," agreed Carton. "If my men can find out that she was the
+operator who 'listened in' and got the notes and the transcript of
+the Black Book, then she becomes a person of importance in the
+case and the fact must be known to others who are interested.
+Why," he pursued, "don't you see what it means? If she is out of
+the way, there is no one to swear to the accuracy of the notes in
+the record, no one to identify the voices--even if we do manage
+finally to locate the thing."
+
+"Dorgan and the rest are certainly leaving nothing undone to shake
+the validity of the record," ruminated Kennedy, accepting for the
+moment at least Carton's explanation of the disappearance of Miss
+Blackwell. "Have you any idea what might have happened to her?"
+
+Carton shook his head negatively. "There are several
+explanations," he replied slowly. "As far as we have been able to
+find out she led a model life, at home with her mother and sister.
+Except for the few commissions for Langhorne and lately when she
+was out rather late taking the detectaphone notes, she was very
+quiet,--in fact devoted to her mother and the education of her
+younger sister."
+
+"What sort of place was it in which the receivers of the
+detectaphone were located--do you know?" asked Kennedy quickly.
+
+"Yes, it seems to be a very respectable boardinghouse," answered
+Carton. "She came there with a grip about a week ago and hired a
+room, saying she was out of town a great deal. Just about the same
+time a young man, who posed as a student in electrical engineering
+at some school uptown, left. It must have been he who installed
+the detectaphone--perhaps with the aid of a waiter in Gastron's.
+At any rate, she seems to have been alone in the boarding-house--
+that is, I mean, not acquainted with any of the other guests--
+during the time when she was taking down the record. Dorgan traced
+the wires, outside the two buildings, to her rooms, but she was
+not there. In fact there was nothing there but a grip with a few
+articles that give no clue to anything. Somehow she must have
+heard of it, for no one knows anything about her, since then."
+
+"Perhaps Langhorne is keeping her out of the way so that no one
+can tamper with her testimony," I suggested.
+
+"It's possible," said Carton in a tone that showed that he did not
+believe in that explanation. "How about that safe robbery,
+Kennedy? Some of the papers hinted that she might have known
+something of that. I had a man down there watching, afterwards,
+but I had cautioned him to be careful and keep under cover. One of
+the elevator boys told him that the robbers had made a hole in the
+safe. What did he mean? Did you see it?"
+
+Rapidly Kennedy sketched what we had done, telling the story of
+how the dynamometer had at least partly exonerated Betty
+Blackwell.
+
+When he reached the description of the hole in the safe, Carton
+was absolutely incredulous. As for myself, it presented a mystery
+which I found absolutely inexplicable. How it was possible in such
+a short time to make a hole in a safe by any known means, I could
+not understand. In fact, if I had not seen it myself, I should
+have been even more sceptical than Carton.
+
+Kennedy, however, made no reply immediately to our expressions of
+doubt. He had found and set apart from the rest a couple of little
+glass bottles with ground glass stoppers. Then he took a thick
+piece of steel and laid it across a couple of blocks of wood,
+under which was a second steel plate.
+
+Without a word of explanation, he took the glass stopper out of
+the larger bottle and poured some of the contents on the upper
+plate of steel. There it lay, a little mound of reddish powder.
+Then he took a little powder of another kind from the other
+bottle.
+
+He lighted a match and ignited the second pile of powder.
+
+"Stand back--close to the wall--shield your eyes," he called to
+us.
+
+He had dropped the burning mass on the red powder and in two or
+three leaps he joined us at the far end of the room.
+
+Almost instantly a dazzling, intense flame broke out. It seemed to
+sizzle and crackle. With bated breath we waited and, as best we
+could, shielding our eyes from the glare, watched.
+
+It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed
+literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel.
+In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could see the
+reflection of the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for
+itself in the cold steel plate.
+
+At last it fell through to the lower piece of steel, on which it
+burnt itself out--fell through as the burning roof of a frame
+building might have fallen into the building.
+
+Neither Carton nor I spoke a word, but as we now cautiously
+advanced with Kennedy and peered over the steel plate we
+instinctively turned to Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to
+regard him as if he were some uncanny mortal. For, there in the
+steel plate, was a hole. As I looked at the clean-cut edges, I saw
+that it was smaller but identical in nature with that which we had
+seen in the safe in Langhorne's office.
+
+"Wonderful!" ejaculated Carton. "What is it?"
+
+"Thermit," was all Kennedy said, as just a trace of a smile of
+satisfaction flitted over his face.
+
+"Thermit?" echoed Carton, still as mystified as before.
+
+"Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen,
+Germany. It is composed of iron oxide, such as conies off a
+blacksmith's anvil or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered
+metallic aluminum. You could thrust a red-hot bar into it without
+setting it off, but when you light a little magnesium powder and
+drop it on thermit, a combustion is started that quickly reaches
+fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar
+property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which
+it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidizing agents
+known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface. You
+see how it ate its way directly through this plate. Steel, hard or
+soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized--it all burns just
+as fast and just as easily. And it's comparatively inexpensive,
+also. This is an experiment Goldschmidt it fond of showing his
+students--burning holes in one--and two-inch steel plates. It is
+the same with a safe--only you need more of the stuff. Either
+black or red thermit will do the trick equally well, however."
+
+Neither of us said anything. There was nothing to say except to
+feel and express amazement.
+
+"Someone uncommonly clever or instructed by someone uncommonly
+clever, must have done that job at Langhorne's," added Craig.
+"Have you any idea who might pull off such a thing for Dorgan or
+Murtha?" he asked of Carton.
+
+"There's a possible suspect," answered Carton slowly, "but since
+I've seen this wonderful exhibition of what thermit can do, I'm
+almost ashamed to mention his name. He's not in the class that
+would be likely to use such things."
+
+"Oh," laughed Kennedy, "never think it. Don't you suppose the
+crooks read the scientific and technical papers? Believe me, they
+have known about thermit as long as I have. Safes are constructed
+now that are proof against even that, and other methods of attack.
+No indeed, your modern scientific cracksman keeps abreast of the
+times in his field better than you imagine. Our only protection is
+that fortunately science always keeps several laps ahead of him in
+the race--and besides, we have organized society to meet all such
+perils. It may be that the very cleverness of the fellow will be
+his own undoing. The unusual criminal is often that much the
+easier to run down. It narrows the number of suspects."
+
+"Well," rejoined Carton, not as confident now as when he had first
+met us in the laboratory, "then there is a possible suspect--a
+fellow known in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack--Jack Rubano. He's
+a clever fellow--no doubt. But I hardly think he's capable of
+that, although I should call him a rather advanced yeggman."
+
+"What makes you suspect him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.
+
+"Well," temporized Carton, "I haven't anything 'on' him in this
+connection, it's true. But we've been trying to find him and can't
+seem to locate him in connection with primary frauds in Murtha's
+own district. Dopey Jack is the leader of a gang of gunmen over
+there and is Murtha's first lieutenant whenever there is a tough
+political battle of the organization either at the primaries or on
+Election Day."
+
+"Has a record, I suppose?" prompted Kennedy.
+
+"Would have--if it wasn't for the influence of Murtha," rejoined
+Carton.
+
+I had heard, in knocking about the city, of Dopey Jack Rubano.
+That was the picturesque title by which he was known to the police
+and his enemies as well as to his devoted followers. A few years
+before, he had begun his career fighting in "preliminaries" at the
+prize fight clubs on the lower East Side.
+
+He had begun life with a better chance than most slum boys, for he
+had rugged health and an unusually sturdy body. His very strength
+had been his ruin. Working decently for wages, he had been told by
+other petty gang leaders that he was a "sucker," when he could get
+many times as much for boxing a few rounds at some "athletic"
+club. He tried out the game with many willing instructors and
+found that it was easy money.
+
+Jack began to wear better clothes and study the methods of other
+young men who never worked but always seemed to have plenty of
+money. They were his pals and showed him how it was done. It
+wasn't long before he learned that he could often get more by
+hitting a man with a blackjack than by using his fists in the
+roped ring. Then, too, there were various ways of blackmail and
+extortion that were simple, safe, and lucrative. He might be
+arrested, but he early found that by making himself useful to some
+politicians, they could fix that minor difficulty in the life.
+
+Thus because he was not only strong and brutal, but had a sort of
+ability and some education, Dopey Jack quickly rose to a position
+of minor leadership--had his own incipient "gang," his own
+"lobbygows." His following increased as he rose in gangland, and
+finally he came to be closely associated with Murtha himself on
+one hand and the "guns" and other criminals of the underworld who
+frequented the stuss games, where they gambled away the products
+of their crimes, on the other.
+
+Everyone knew Dopey Jack. He had been charged with many crimes,
+but always through the aid of "the big fellows" he avoided the
+penitentiary and every fresh and futile attempt to end his career
+increased the numbers and reverence of his followers. His had been
+the history and he was the pattern now of practically every gang
+leader of consequence in the city. The fight club had been his
+testing ground. There he had learned the code, which can be
+summarized in two words, "Don't squeal." For gangland hates
+nothing so much as a "snitch." As a beginner he could be trusted
+to commit any crime assigned to him and go to prison, perhaps the
+chair, rather than betray a leader. As a leader he had those under
+him trained in the same code. That still was his code to those
+above him in the System.
+
+"We want him for frauds at the primaries," repeated Carton, "at
+least, if we can find him, we can hold him on that for a time. I
+thought perhaps he might know something of the robbery--and about
+the disappearance of the girl, too.
+
+"Oh," he continued, "there are lots of things against him. Why,
+only last week there was a dance of a rival association of gang
+leaders. Against them Dopey Jack led a band of his own followers
+and in the ensuing pistol battle a passer-by was killed. Of course
+we can't connect Dopey Jack with his death, but--then we know as
+well as we know anything in gangland that he was responsible."
+
+"I suppose it isn't impossible that he may know something about
+the disappearance of Miss Blackwell," remarked Kennedy.
+
+"No," replied Carton, "not at all, although, so far, there is
+absolutely no clue as far as I can figure out. She may have been
+bought off or she may have been kidnapped."
+
+"In either case the missing girl must be found," said Craig. "We
+must get someone interested in her case who knows something about
+what may happen to a girl in New York."
+
+Carton had been revolving the matter in his mind. "By George," he
+exclaimed suddenly, "I think I know just the person to take up
+that case for us--it's quite in her line. Can you spare the time
+to run down to the Reform League headquarters with me?"
+
+"Nothing could be more important, just at the minute," replied
+Craig.
+
+The telephone buzzed and he answered it, a moment later handing
+the receiver to Carton.
+
+"It's your office," he said. "One of the assistant district
+attorneys wants you on the wire."
+
+As Carton hung up the receiver he turned to us with a look of
+great satisfaction.
+
+"Dopey Jack has just been arrested," he announced. "He has shut up
+like an oyster, but we think we can at least hold him for a few
+days this time until we sift down some of these clues."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY
+
+
+Carton took us directly to the campaign headquarters of the Reform
+League, where his fight for political life was being conducted.
+
+We found the offices in the tower of a skyscraper, whence was
+pouring forth a torrent of appeal to the people, in printed and
+oral form of every kind, urging them to stand shoulder to shoulder
+for good government and vote the "ring" out of power.
+
+There seemed to me to be a different tone to the place from that
+which I had ordinarily associated with political headquarters in
+previous campaigns. There was a notable absence of the old-
+fashioned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with
+tobacco.
+
+Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency, which was
+decidedly encouraging and hopeful. It seemed to speak of a new era
+in politics when things were to be done in the open instead of at
+secret meetings and scandalous dinners, as Dorgan did them at
+Gastron's.
+
+Maps of the city were hanging on the walls, some stuck full of
+various coloured pins, denoting the condition of the canvass.
+Other maps of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of
+districts, told how fared the battle in the various strongholds of
+Boss Dorgan and Sub-boss Murtha.
+
+Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving
+appliances for getting out a vast amount of campaign "literature"
+in a hurry; in short, a perfect system, such as a great, well-
+managed business might have been proud of, were in evidence
+everywhere one looked.
+
+Work was going ahead in every department under high pressure, for
+the campaign, which had been more than usually heated, was now
+drawing to a close. Indeed, it would have taken no great
+astuteness, even without one's being told, to deduce merely from
+the surroundings that the people here were engaged in the annual
+struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for reform
+and were nearly worn out by the arduous endeavour.
+
+It had been, as I have said, the bitterest campaign in years.
+Formerly the reformers had been of the "silk-stocking" type, but
+now a new and younger generation was coming upon the stage, a
+generation which had been trained to achieve results, ambitious to
+attain what in former years had been considered impossible. The
+Reform League was making a stiff campaign and the System was, by
+the same token, more frightened than ever before.
+
+Carton was fortunate in having shaken off the thralldom of the old
+bosses even before the popular uprising against them had assumed
+such proportions as to warrant anyone in taking his political life
+in his hands by defying the powers that ruled behind the scenes.
+In fact, the Reform League itself owed its existence to a
+fortunate conjunction of both moral and economic conditions which
+demanded progress.
+
+Of course, the League did not have such a big "barrel" as their
+opponents under Dorgan. But, at least they did have many willing
+workers, men and women, who were ready to sacrifice something for
+the advancement of the principles for which they stood.
+
+In one part of the suite of offices which had been leased by the
+League, Carton had had assigned to him an office of his own, and
+it was to this office that he led us, after a word with the boy
+who guarded the approach to the door, and an exchange of greetings
+with various workers and visitors in the outside office.
+
+We seated ourselves while Carton ran his eye through some letters
+that had been left on his desk for his attention.
+
+A moment later the door of his office opened and a young lady in a
+very stunning street dress, with a pretty little rakish hat and a
+tantalizing veil, stood a moment, hesitated, and then was about to
+turn back with an apology for intruding on what looked like a
+conference.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Ashton," greeted Carton, laying down the
+letters instantly. "You're just the person I want to see."
+
+The girl, with a portfolio of papers in her hand, smiled and he
+quickly crossed the room and held the door open, as he whispered a
+word or two to her.
+
+She was a handsome girl, something more than even pretty. The
+lithe gracefulness of her figure spoke of familiarity with both
+tennis and tango, and her face with its well-chiselled profile
+denoted intellectuality from which no touch of really feminine
+charm had been removed by the fearsome process of the creation of
+the modern woman. Sincerity as well as humour looked out from the
+liquid depths of her blue eyes beneath the wavy masses of blonde
+hair. She was good to look at and we looked, irresistibly.
+
+"Let me introduce Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Miss Ashton,"
+began Carton, adding: "Of course you have heard of Miss Margaret
+Ashton, the suffragist leader? She is the head of our press
+bureau, you know. She's making a great fight for us here--a
+winning fight."
+
+It seemed from the heightened look of determination which set
+Carton's face in deeper lines that Miss Ashton had that
+indispensable political quality of inspiring both confidence and
+enthusiasm in those who worked with her.
+
+"It is indeed a great pleasure to meet you," remarked Kennedy.
+"Both Mr. Jameson and myself have heard and read a great deal
+about your work, though we seem never before to have had the
+pleasure of meeting you."
+
+Miss Ashton, I recalled, was a very clever girl, a graduate of a
+famous woman's college, and had had several years of newspaper
+experience before she became a leader in the cause of equal
+suffrage.
+
+The Ashtons were well known in society and it was a sore trial to
+some of her conservative friends that she should reject what they
+considered the proper "sphere" for women and choose to go out into
+life and devote herself to doing something that was worth while,
+rather than to fritter her time and energy away on the gaiety and
+inconsequentiality of social life.
+
+Among those friends, I had understood, was Hartley Langhorne
+himself. He was older than Miss Ashton, but had belonged to the
+same social circle and had always held her in high regard. In fact
+the attentions he paid her had long been noticeable, the more so
+as she seemed politely unaffected by them.
+
+Carton had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I felt
+sure that I scented a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic
+conduct of a campaign press bureau.
+
+It is far from my intention even to hint that the ability or
+success of the head of the press bureau were not all her own or
+were in any degree overrated. But it struck me, both then and
+often later, that the candidate for District Attorney had an
+extraordinary interest in the newspaper campaign, much more, for
+instance, than in the speakers' bureau. I am sure that it was not
+wholly accounted for by the fact that publicity is playing a more
+and more important part in political campaigning.
+
+Nevertheless, as we came to know afterwards such innovations as
+her card index system by election districts all over the city,
+showing the attitude of the various newspaper editors, local
+leaders, and other influential citizens, recording changes of
+sentiment and possible openings for future work, all were very
+full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular pigeon-hole mind for
+facts himself, was visibly impressed by the huge mechanical memory
+built up by Miss Ashton.
+
+Though he said nothing to me, I knew that Craig also had observed
+the state of affairs between the reform candidate and the suffrage
+leader.
+
+"You see, Miss Ashton," explained Carton, "someone has placed a
+detectaphone in the private dining-room of Dorgan at Gastron's. I
+heard of it first through Mrs. Ogleby, who attended one of the
+dinners and was terribly afraid her name would be connected with
+them if the record should ever be published."
+
+"Mrs. Ogleby?" cried Miss Ashton quickly. "She--at a dinner--with
+Mr. Murtha? I--I can't believe it."
+
+Carton said nothing. Whether he knew more about Mrs. Ogleby than
+he cared to tell, I could not even guess.
+
+As he went on briefly summarizing the story, Miss Ashton shot a
+quick glance or two at him.
+
+Carton noticed it, but appeared not to do so. "I suppose," he
+concluded, "that she thought I was the only person capable of
+eavesdropping. As a matter of fact, I think the instrument was put
+in by Hartley Langhorne as part of the fight that is going on
+fiercely under the surface in the organization."
+
+It was Carton's turn now, I fancied, to observe Miss Ashton more
+closely. As far as I could see, the information was a matter of
+perfect indifference to her.
+
+Carton did not say it in so many words, but one could not help
+gathering that rather than seem to be pursuing a possible rival
+and using his official position in order to do it, he was not
+considering Langhorne in any other light than as a mere actor in
+the drama between himself and Dorgan and Murtha.
+
+"Now," he concluded, "the point of the whole thing is this, Miss
+Ashton. We have learned that Betty Blackwell--you know the case--
+who took the notes over the detectaphone for the Black Book, has
+suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. If she is gone, it may be
+difficult to prove anything, even if we get the book. Miss
+Blackwell happens to be a stenographer in the office of Langhorne
+& Westlake."
+
+For the first time, Miss Ashton seemed to show a sign of
+embarrassment. Evidently she would just as well have had Miss
+Blackwell in some other connection.
+
+"Perhaps you would rather have nothing to do with it," suggested
+Carton, "but I know that you were always interested in things of
+the sort that happen to girls in the city and thought perhaps you
+could advise us, even if you don't feel like personally taking up
+the case."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't--matter," she murmured. "Of course, the first
+thing for us to do is, as you say, to find what has become of
+Betty Blackwell."
+
+Carton turned suddenly at the word "us," but Miss Ashton was still
+studying the pattern of the rug.
+
+"Do you know any more about her?" she asked at length.
+
+As fully as possible the District Attorney repeated what he had
+already told us. Miss Ashton seemed to be more than interested in
+the story of the disappearance of Langhorne's stenographer.
+
+As Carton unfolded the meagre details of what we knew so far, Miss
+Ashton appeared to be torn by conflicting opinions. The more she
+thought of what might possibly have happened to the unfortunate
+girl, the more aroused about the case she seemed to become.
+
+Carton had evidently calculated on enlisting her sympathies,
+knowing how she felt toward many of the social and economic
+injustices toward women, and particularly girls.
+
+"If Mr. Murtha or Mr. Dorgan is responsible in any way for any
+harm to her," she said finally, her earnest eyes now ablaze with
+indignation, "I shall not rest until someone is punished."
+
+Kennedy had been watching her emotions keenly, I suspect, to see
+whether she connected Langhorne in any way with the disappearance.
+I could see it interested him that she did not seem even to
+consider that Langhorne might be responsible. Whether her
+intuition was correct or not, it was at least better at present
+than any guess that we three might have made.
+
+"They control so many forces for evil," she went on, "that there
+is no telling what they might command against a defenceless girl
+like her when it is a question of their political power."
+
+"Then," pursued Kennedy, pacing the floor thoughtfully, "the next
+question is, How are we to proceed? The first step naturally will
+be the investigation of this Little Montmartre. How is it to be
+done? I presume you don't want to go up there and look the place
+over yourself, do you, Carton?"
+
+"Most certainly not," said Carton emphatically. "Not if you want
+this case to go any further. Why, I can't walk around a corner now
+without a general scurry for the cyclone cellars. They all know
+me, and those who don't are watching for me. On the contrary, if
+you are going to start there I had better execute a flank movement
+in Queens or Jersey to divert attention. Really, I mean it. I had
+better keep in the background. But I'll tell you what I would like
+to do."
+
+Carton hesitated and came to a full stop.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Kennedy quickly, noticing the
+hesitation.
+
+"Why--I--er--didn't know just how you'd take a suggestion--that's
+all."
+
+"Thankfully. What is it?"
+
+"You know young Haxworth?"
+
+"You mean the son of the millionaire who is investigating vice and
+whom the newspapers are poking fun at?"
+
+"Yes. Those papers make me tired. He has been working, you know,
+with me in this matter. He is really serious about it, too. He has
+a corps of investigators of his own already. Well, there is one of
+them, a woman detective named Clare Kendall, who is the brains of
+the whole Haxworth outfit. If you would be willing to have them--
+er--to have her co-operate with you, I think I could persuade
+Haxworth---"
+
+"Oh," broke in Kennedy with a laugh. "I see. You think perhaps
+there might be some professional jealousy? On the contrary, it
+solves a problem I was already considering. Of course we shall
+need a woman in this case, one with a rare amount of discretion
+and ability. Yes, by all means let us call in Miss Kendall, and
+let us take every advantage we can of what she has already
+accomplished."
+
+Carton seized the telephone.
+
+"Tell her to meet us at my laboratory in half an hour," interposed
+Kennedy. "You will come along?"
+
+"I can't. Court opens in twenty minutes and there is a motion I
+must argue myself."
+
+Miss Ashton appeared to be greatly gratified at Craig's reception
+of the suggestion, and Carton noticed it
+
+"Oh, yes," recollected Carton, "by the way, as I was on my way
+down here, my office called up and told me that they had succeeded
+in locating and arresting Dopey Jack. That ought to please you,--
+it will mean cutting down the number of those East Side 'rackets'
+considerably if we succeed with him."
+
+"Good!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I don't think there were any worse
+affairs than the dances of that Jack Rubano Association. They have
+got hold of more young girls and caused more tragedies than any
+other gang. If you need any help in getting together evidence, Mr.
+Carton, I shall be only too glad to help you. I have several old
+scores myself to settle with that young tough."
+
+"Thank you," said Carton. "I shall need your help, if we are to do
+anything. Of course, we can hold him only for primary frauds just
+now, but I may be able to do something about that dance that he
+broke up as a shooting affray."
+
+Miss Ashton nodded encouragingly.
+
+"And," he went on, "it's barely possible that he may know
+something, or some of his followers may, about the robbery of Mr.
+Langhorne's safe,--if not about the complete and mysterious
+disappearance of Betty Blackwell."
+
+"They'd stop at nothing to save their precious skins," commented
+Miss Ashton. "Perhaps that is a good lead. At any rate I can
+suggest that to the various societies and other agencies which I
+intend to set in motion trying to trace what has happened to her.
+You can have him held until they have time to report?"
+
+"I shall make it a point to do so at any cost," he returned, "and
+I can say only this, that we are all deeply indebted to you for
+the interest you have shown in the case."
+
+"Not at all," she replied enthusiastically, evidently having
+overcome the first hesitation which had existed because Miss
+Blackwell had been Langhorne's stenographer.
+
+Miss Ashton had quickly jotted down in her notebook the best
+description we could give of the missing girl, her address, and
+other facts about her, and a list of those whom she meant to start
+at work on the case.
+
+For a moment she hesitated over one name, then with a sudden
+resolution wrote it down.
+
+"I intend to see Hartley Langhorne about it, too," she added
+frankly. "Perhaps he may tell something of importance, after all."
+
+I am sure that this final resolution cost her more than all the
+rest. Carton would never have asked it of her, yet was gratified
+that she saw it to be her duty to leave nothing undone in tracing
+the girl, not even considering the possibility of offending
+Langhorne.
+
+"Decent people don't seem to realize," she remarked as she shut
+her little notebook and slipped it back into her chatelaine, "how
+the System and the underworld really do affect them. They think it
+is all something apart from the rest of us, and never consider how
+closely we are all bound together and how easy it is for the
+lowest and most vicious stratum in the social order to pass over
+and affect the highest."
+
+"That's exactly the point," agreed Carton. "Take this very case.
+It goes from Wall Street to gangland, from Gastron's down to the
+underworld gambling joints of Dopey Jack and the rest."
+
+"Society--gambling," mused Miss Ashton, taking out her notebook
+again. "That reminds me of Martin Ogleby. I must see Mary and try
+to warn her against some of those sporty friends of her
+husband's."
+
+"Please, Miss Ashton," put in Carton quickly, "don't mention that
+I have told you of the detectaphone record. It might do more harm
+than good, just at present. For a time at least, I think we should
+try to keep under cover."
+
+Whether or not that was his real reason, he turned now to Kennedy
+for support. We had been, for the most part, silent spectators of
+what had been happening.
+
+"I think so--for the present--at least as far as our knowledge of
+the Black Book goes," acquiesced Craig. He had turned to Miss
+Ashton and made no effort to conceal the admiration which he felt
+for her, after even so brief an acquaintance. "I think Miss Ashton
+can be depended upon to play her part in the game perfectly. I,
+for one, want to thank her most heartily for the way in which she
+has joined us."
+
+"Thank you," she smiled, as she rose to go to her own office. "Oh,
+you can always depend on me," she assured us as she gathered up
+her portfolio of papers, "where there are the interests of a girl
+like Betty Blackwell involved!"
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE WOMAN DETECTIVE
+
+
+Half an hour later, a tall, striking, self-reliant young woman
+with an engaging smile opened the laboratory door and asked for
+Professor Kennedy.
+
+"Miss Kendall?" Craig inquired, coming forward to meet her.
+
+She was dark-haired, with regular features and an expression which
+showed a high degree of intelligence. Her clear grey eyes seemed
+to penetrate and tear the mask off you. It was not only her
+features and eyes that showed intelligence, but her gown showed
+that without sacrificing neatness she had deliberately toned down
+the existing fashions which so admirably fitted in with her figure
+in order that she might not appear noticeable. It was clever, for
+if there is anything a good detective must do it is to prevent
+people from looking twice.
+
+I knew something of her history already. She had begun on a rather
+difficult case for one of the large agencies and after a few years
+of experience had decided that there was a field for an
+independent woman detective who would appeal particularly to women
+themselves. Unaided she had fought her way to a position of keen
+rivalry now with the best men in the profession.
+
+Narrowly I watched Kennedy. Here, I felt instinctively, were the
+"new" woman and the "new" man, if there are such things. I
+wondered just how they would hit it off together. For the moment,
+at least, Clare Kendall was an absorbing study, as she greeted us
+with a frank, jerky straight-arm handshake.
+
+"Mr. Carton," she said directly, "has told me that he received an
+anonymous letter this morning. May I see it?"
+
+There are times when the so-called "new" woman's assumed masculine
+brusqueness is a trifle jarring, as well as often missing the
+point. But with Clare Kendall one did not feel that she was
+eternally trying to assert that she was the equal or the superior
+of someone else, although she was, as far as the majority of
+detectives I have met are concerned. It was rather that she was
+different; in fact, almost from the start I felt that she was
+indispensable. She seemed to have that ability to go straight to
+the point at issue, a sort of faculty of intuition which is often
+more valuable than anything else, the ability to feel or sense
+things for which at first there was no actual proof. No good
+detective ever lacks that sort of instinct, and Clare Kendall,
+being a woman, had it in large degree. But she had more. She had
+the ability to go further and get the facts and actual proof; for,
+as she often said during the course of a case, "Woman's intuition
+may not be good evidence in a court of law, but it is one of the
+best means to get good evidence that will convince a court of
+law."
+
+"My investigators have been watching that place for some time,"
+she remarked as she finished the letter. "Of course, having been
+closely in touch with this sort of thing for several months in my
+work, I have had all the opportunity in the world to observe and
+collect information. The letter does not surprise me."
+
+"Then you think it is a good tip?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Decidedly, although without the letter I should not have started
+there, I think. Still, as nearly as I can gather, there is a
+rather nondescript crowd connected in one way or another with the
+Montmartre. For instance, there is a pretty tough character who
+seems to be connected with the people there, my investigators tell
+me. It is a fellow named 'Ike the Dropper,' one of those strong-
+arm men who have migrated up from the East Side to the White Light
+District. At least my investigators have told me they have seen
+him there, for I have never bothered with the place myself. There
+has been plenty of work elsewhere which promised immediate
+results. I'm glad to have a chance to tackle this place, though,
+with your help."
+
+"What do you think of the rest of the letter?" asked Craig.
+
+"I think I could make a pretty shrewd guess from what I have
+heard, as to the identity of some of those hinted at. I'm not
+sure, but I think the lawyer may be a Mr. Kahn, a clever enough
+attorney who has a large theatrical clientele and none too savoury
+a reputation as a local politician. The banker may be Mr.
+Langhorne, although he is not exactly a young man. Still, I know
+he has been associated with the place. As for the club-man I
+should guess that that was Martin Ogleby."
+
+Kennedy and I exchanged glances of surprise.
+
+"As a first step," said Kennedy, at length, "I am going to write a
+letter to Betty Blackwell, care of the Little Montmartre--or
+perhaps you had better do the actual writing of it, Miss Kendall.
+A woman's hand will look less suspicious."
+
+"What shall I write?" she asked.
+
+"Just a few lines. Tell her that you are one of the girls in the
+office, that you have heard she was at the Montmartre--anything.
+The actual writing doesn't make any difference. I merely want to
+see what happens."
+
+Miss Kendall quickly wrote a little note and handed it to him.
+
+"Then direct this envelope," he said, reaching into a drawer of
+his desk and bringing out a plain white one. "And let me seal it."
+
+Carefully he sealed and stamped the letter and handed it to me to
+post.
+
+"You will dine with us, Miss Kendall?" he asked. "Then we will
+plan the next step in our campaign."
+
+"I shall be glad to do so," she replied.
+
+Fifteen minutes later I had dropped the letter in the drop of a
+branch of the general post-office to ensure its more prompt
+delivery, and it was on its way through the mails to accomplish
+the purpose Kennedy may have contemplated.
+
+"Just now it is more important for us to become acquainted with
+this Little Montmartre," he remarked. "I suppose, Miss Kendall, we
+may depend on you to join us?"
+
+"Indeed you may," she replied energetically. "There is nothing
+that we would welcome more than evidence that would lead to the
+closing of that place."
+
+Kennedy seemed to be impressed by the frankness and energy of the
+young woman.
+
+"Perhaps if we three should go there, hire a private dining-room,
+and look about without making any move against the place that
+would excite suspicion, we might at least find out what it is that
+we are fighting. Of course we must dine somewhere, and up there at
+the same time we can plan our campaign."
+
+"I think that would be ripping," she laughed, as the humour of the
+situation dawned on her. "Why, we shall be laying our plans right
+in the heart of the enemy's country and they will never realize
+it. Perhaps, too, we may get a glimpse of some of those people
+mentioned in the anonymous letter."
+
+To Clare Kendall it was simply another phase of the game which she
+had been playing against the forces of evil in the city.
+
+The Little Montmartre was, as I already knew, one of the smaller
+hotels in a side street just off Broadway, eight or ten stories in
+height, of modern construction, and for all the world exactly like
+a score of other of the smaller hostelries of the famous city of
+hotels.
+
+Clare, Craig, and myself pulled up before the entrance in a
+taxicab, that seeming to be the accepted method of entering with
+eclat. A boy opened the door. I jumped out and settled with the
+driver without a demur at the usual overcharge, while Craig
+assisted Clare.
+
+Laughing and chatting, we entered the bronze plate-glass doors and
+walked slowly down a richly carpeted corridor. It was elegantly
+furnished and decorated with large palms set at intervals, quite
+the equal in luxuriousness, though on a smaller scale, of any of
+the larger and well-known hotels. Beautifully marked marbles and
+expensive hangings greeted the eye at every turn. Faultlessly
+liveried servants solicitously waited about for tips.
+
+Craig and Clare, who were slightly ahead of me, turned quickly
+into a little alcove, or reception room and Craig placed a chair
+for her. Farther down the corridor I could see the office, and
+beyond a large main dining-room from which strains of music came
+and now and then the buzz of conversation and laughter from gay
+parties at the immaculately white tables.
+
+"Boy," called Kennedy quietly, catching the eye of a passing bell
+hop and unostentatiously slipping a quarter into his hand, which
+closed over the coin almost automatically, "the head waiter,
+please. Oh--er--by the way--what is his name?"
+
+"Julius," returned the boy, to whom the proceeding seemed to
+present nothing novel, although the whole atmosphere of the place
+was beyond his years. "I'll get him in a minute, sir. He's in the
+main dining-room. He's having some trouble with the cabaret
+singers. One of them is late--as usual."
+
+We sat in the easy chairs watching the people passing and
+repassing in the corridor. There was no effort at concealment
+here.
+
+A few minutes later Julius appeared, a young man, tall and rather
+good-looking, suave and easy. A word or two with Kennedy followed,
+during which a greenback changed hands--in fact that seemed to be
+the open sesame to everything here--and we were in the elevator
+decorously escorted by the polished Julius.
+
+The door of the elevator shut noiselessly and it shot up to the
+next floor. Julius preceded us down the thickly carpeted corridor
+leading the way to a large apartment, or rather a suite of rooms,
+as handsomely furnished as any in other hotels. He switched on the
+lights and left us, with the remark, "When you want the waiter or
+anything, just press the button."
+
+In the largest of the rooms was a dining-table and several chairs
+of Jacobean oak. A heavy sideboard and serving-table stood against
+opposite walls. Another, smaller room was furnished very
+attractively as a sitting-room. Deep, easy chairs stood in the
+corners and a wide, capacious davenport stretched across one wall.
+In another nook was a little divan or cosy corner.
+
+Electric bulbs burned pinkly in the chandeliers and on silver
+candelabra on the table, giving a half light that was very
+romantic and fascinating. From a curtained window that opened upon
+an interior court we could catch strains from the cabaret singers
+below in the main dining-room. Everything was new and bright.
+
+Kennedy pressed the button and a waiter brought a menu, imposing
+in length and breath-taking in rates.
+
+"The cost of vice seems to have gone up with the cost of living,"
+remarked Miss Kendall, as the waiter disappeared as silently as he
+had responded to the bell. It was a phrase that stuck in my head,
+so apt was it in describing the anomalous state of things we found
+as the case unrolled.
+
+Craig ordered, now and then consulting Clare about some detail.
+The care and attention devoted to us could not have been more
+punctilious if it had been an elaborate dinner party.
+
+"Well," he remarked, as the waiter at last closed the door of the
+private dining-room to give the order in downstairs in the
+kitchen, "the Little Montmartre makes a brave showing. I suppose
+it will be some time before the dinner arrives, though. There is
+certainly some piquancy to this," he added, looking about at the
+furnishings.
+
+"Yes," remarked Miss Kendall, "risque from the moment you enter
+the door."
+
+She said it with an impersonal tone as if there were complete
+detachment between herself as an observer and as a guest of the
+Montmartre.
+
+"Miss Kendall," asked Kennedy, "did you notice anything
+particularly downstairs? I'd like to check up my own impressions
+by yours."
+
+"I noticed that Titian beauty in the hotel office as we left the
+reception room and entered the elevator."
+
+Craig smiled.
+
+"So did I. I thought you would be both woman enough and detective
+enough to notice her. Well, I suppose if a man likes that sort of
+girl that's the sort of girl he likes. That's point number one.
+But did you notice anything else--as we came in, for instance?"
+
+"No--except that everything seems to be a matter of scientific
+management here to get the most out of the suckers. This is no
+place for a piker. It all seems to run so smoothly, too. Still,
+I'm sure that our investigators might get something on the place
+if they kept right after it, although on the surface it doesn't
+look as if any law was being openly violated here. What do you
+mean? What is your point number two?"
+
+"In the front window," resumed Craig, "just as you enter, I
+noticed one of those little oblong signs printed neatly in black
+on white--'Dr. Vernon Harris, M. D.' You recall that the letter
+said something about a doctor who was very friendly with that
+clique the writer mentioned? It's even money that this Harris is
+the one the writer meant. I suppose he is the 'house physician' of
+this gilded palace."
+
+Clare nodded appreciatively. "Quite right," she agreed. "Just how
+do you think he might be involved?"
+
+"Of course I can't say. But I think, without going any further,
+that a man like that in a place like this will bear watching
+anyway, without our needing more than the fact that he is here.
+Naturally we don't know anything about him as a doctor, but he
+must have some training; and in an environment like this--well, a
+little training may be a dangerous thing."
+
+"The letter said something about drugs," mused Clare.
+
+"Yes," added Kennedy. "As you know, alcohol is absolutely
+necessary to a thing like this. Girls must keep gay and
+attractive; they must meet men with a bright, unfaltering look,
+and alcohol just dulls the edge of conscience. Besides, look over
+that wine list--it fills the till of the Montmartre, judging by
+the prices. But then, alcohol palls when the pace is as swift as
+it seems to be here. Even more essential are drugs. You know,
+after all, it is no wonder so many drug fiends and drunkards are
+created by this life. Now, a doctor who is not over-scrupulous,
+and he would have to be not over-scrupulous to be here at all,
+would find a gold mine in the dispensing of drugs and the toning
+up of drug fiends and others who have been going the pace too
+rapidly."
+
+"Yes," she said. "We have found that some of these doctors are a
+great factor in the life of various sections of the city where
+they hang out. I know one who is deeply in the local politics and
+boasts that any resort that patronizes him is immune. Yes, that's
+a good point about Dr. Harris."
+
+"I suppose your investigators have had more or less to do with
+watching the progress of drug habits?" ventured Craig.
+
+"Very much," she replied, catching the drift of his remarks. "We
+have found, for instance, that there are a great many cases where
+it seems that drugs have been used in luring young and innocent
+girls. Not the old knockout drops--chloral, you know--but modern
+drugs, not so powerful, perhaps, but more insidious, and in that
+respect, I suppose, more dangerous. There are cocaine fiends,
+opium smokers; oh, lots of them. But those we find in the slums
+mostly. Still, I suppose there are all kinds of drugs up here in
+the White Light District--belladonna to keep the eyes bright,
+arsenic to whiten the complexion, and so on."
+
+"Yes," asserted Craig. "This section of the city may not be so
+brutal in its drug taking as others, but it is here--yes, and it
+is over on Fifth Avenue, too, right in society. Before we get
+through I'm sure we'll both learn much more than we even dream of
+now."
+
+The door opened after a discreet tap from the waiter and the
+lavish dinner which Craig had ordered appeared. The door stayed
+open for a moment as the bus boy carried in the dishes. A rustle
+of skirts and low musical laughter was wafted in to us and we
+caught a glimpse of another gay party passing down the hall.
+
+"How many private dining-rooms are there?" asked Craig of the
+waiter.
+
+"Just this one, sir, and the next one, which is smaller," replied
+the model waiter, with the air of one who could be blind and deaf
+and dumb if he chose.
+
+"Oh, then we were lucky to get this."
+
+"Yes, sir. It is really best to telephone first to Julius to make
+sure and have one of the rooms reserved, sir."
+
+Craig made a mental note of the information. The party in the next
+room were hilariously ordering, mostly from the wine list. None of
+us had recognized any of them, nor had they paid much attention to
+us.
+
+Craig had eaten little, although the food was very good.
+
+"It's a shame to come here and not see the whole place," he
+remarked. "I wonder if you would excuse me while I drop downstairs
+to look over things there--perhaps ingratiate myself with that
+Titian? Tell Miss Kendall about our visit to Langhorne's office
+while I am gone, Walter."
+
+There was not much that I could tell except the bare facts, but I
+thought that Miss Kendall seemed especially interested in the
+broker's reticence about his stenographer.
+
+I had scarcely finished when Craig returned. A glance at his face
+told me that even in this brief time something had happened.
+
+"Did you meet the Titian?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. She is the stenographer and sometimes works the switchboard
+of the telephone. I happened to strike the office while the clerk
+was at dinner and she was alone. While I was talking to her I was
+looking about and my eye happened to fall on one of the letter
+boxes back of the desk, marked 'Dr. Harris.' Well, at once I had
+an overwhelming desire to get a note which I saw sticking in it.
+So I called up a telephone number, just as a blind, and while she
+was at the switchboard I slipped the note into my pocket. Here it
+is."
+
+He had laid an envelope down before us. It was in a woman's hand,
+written hastily.
+
+"I'd like to know what was in it without Dr. Harris knowing it,"
+he remarked. "Now, the secret service agents abroad have raised
+letter-opening to a fine art. Some kinds of paper can be steamed
+open without leaving a trace, and then they follow that simple
+operation by reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument. But
+that won't do. It might make this ink run."
+
+Among the ornaments were several with flat wooden bases. Kennedy
+took one and placed it on the edge of the table, which was
+perfectly square. Then he placed the envelope between the table
+and the base.
+
+"When other methods fail," he went on, "they place the envelope
+between two pieces of wood with the edges projecting about a
+thirty-second of an inch."
+
+He had first flattened the edge of the envelope, then roughened
+it, and finally slit it open.
+
+"Scientific letter-opening," he remarked, as he pulled out a
+little note written on the hotel paper. It read:
+
+DEAR HARRY:
+
+Called you up twice and then dropped into the hotel, but you seem
+to be out all the time. Have something VERY IMPORTANT to tell you.
+Shall be busy to-night and in the morning, but will be at the
+dansant at the Futurist Tea Room to-morrow afternoon about four.
+Be sure to be there.
+
+        MARIE.
+
+"I shall," commented Kennedy. "Now the question is, how to seal up
+this letter so that he won't know it has been opened. I saw some
+of this very strong mucilage in the office. Ring the bell, Walter.
+I'll get that impervious waiter to borrow it for a moment."
+
+Five minutes later he had applied a hair line of the strong,
+colourless gum to the inside of the envelope and had united the
+edges under pressure between the two pieces of wood. As soon as it
+was dry he excused himself again and went back to the office,
+where he managed to secure an opportunity to stick the letter back
+in the box and chat for a few minutes longer with the Titian.
+
+"There's a wild cabaret down in the main dining-room," he reported
+on his return. "I think we might just as well have a glimpse of it
+before we go."
+
+Kennedy paid the cheque, which by this time had mounted like a
+taximeter running wild, and we drifted into the dining-room, a
+rather attractive hall, panelled in Flemish oak with artificial
+flowers and leaves about, and here and there a little bird
+concealed in a cage in the paper foliage.
+
+As cabarets go, it was not bad, although I could imagine how wild
+it might become in the evening or on special occasion.
+
+"That Dr. Harris interests me," remarked Kennedy across the table
+at us. "We must get something in writing from him in some way. And
+then there's that girl in the office, too. She seems to be right
+in with all these people here."
+
+Evidently the cabaret had little of interest to Miss Kendall, who,
+after a glance that took in the whole dining-room and disclosed
+none there in the gay crowd who, as far as we could see, had any
+relation to the case, seemed bored.
+
+Craig noticed it and at once rose to go.
+
+As we passed out and into the corridor, Miss Kendall turned and
+whispered, "Look over at the desk--Dr. Harris."
+
+Sure enough, chatting with the stenographer was a man with one of
+those black bags which doctors carry. He was a young man in
+appearance, one of those whom one sees in the White Light
+District, with unnaturally bright eyes which speak of late hours
+and a fast pace. He wore a flower in his buttonhole--a very
+fetching touch with some women. Debonair, dapper, dashing, his
+face was not one readily forgotten. As we passed hurriedly I
+observed that he had torn open the note and had thrown the
+envelope, unsuspectingly, into the basket.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE GANG LEADER
+
+
+With the arrest of Dopey Jack, it seemed as if all the forces of
+the gang world were solidified for the final battle.
+
+Carton had been engaged in a struggle with the System so long that
+he knew just how to get action, the magistrates he could depend
+on, the various pitfalls that surrounded the snaring of one high
+in gangland, the judges who would fix bail that was prohibitively
+high.
+
+As he had anticipated and prepared for, every wire was pulled to
+secure the release of Rubano. But Carton was fortunate in having
+under him a group of young and alert assistants. It took the
+combined energies of his office, however, to carry the thing
+through and Kennedy and I did not see Carton again for some time.
+
+Meanwhile we were busy gathering as much information as we could
+about those who were likely to figure in the case. It was
+remarkable, but we found that the influence of Dorgan and Murtha
+was felt in the most unexpected quarters. People who would have
+talked to us on almost any other subject, absolutely refused to
+become mixed up in this affair. It was as though the System
+practised terrorism on a large scale.
+
+Late in the afternoon we met in Carton's office, to compare notes
+on the progress made during the day.
+
+The District Attorney greeted us enthusiastically.
+
+"Well," he exclaimed as he dropped into his big office chair,
+"this has been a hard day for me--but I've succeeded."
+
+"How?" queried Kennedy.
+
+"Of course the newspapers haven't got it yet," pursued Carton,
+"but it happened that there was a Grand Jury sitting and
+considering election cases. It went hard, but I made them consider
+this case of Dopey Jack. I don't know how it happened, but I seem
+to have succeeded in forcing action in record time. They have
+found an indictment on the election charges, and if that falls
+through, we shall have time to set up other charges against him.
+In fact we are 'going to the mat,' so to speak, with this case."
+
+The office telephone rang and after a few sentences of
+congratulation, Carton turned to us, his spirits even higher than
+before. "That was one of my assistants," he explained, "one of the
+cleverest. The trial will be before Judge Pomeroy in General
+Sessions and it will be an early trial. Pomeroy is one of the best
+of them, too--about to retire, and wants to leave a good record on
+the bench behind him. Things are shaping up as well as we could
+wish for."
+
+The door opened and one of Carton's clerks started to announce the
+name of a visitor.
+
+"Mr. Carton, Mr.--"
+
+"Murtha," drawled a deep voice, as the owner of the name strode
+in, impatiently brushing aside the clerk. "Hello, Carton," greeted
+the Sub-boss aggressively.
+
+"Hello, Murtha," returned Carton, retaining his good temper and
+seeing the humour of the situation, where the practice of years
+was reversed and the mountain was coming to Mahomet. "This is a
+little--er--informal--but I'm glad to see you, nevertheless," he
+added quietly. "Won't you sit down? By the way, meet Mr. Kennedy
+and Mr. Jameson. Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+Murtha shook hands with us suspiciously, but did not sit down. He
+continued to stand, his hat tilted back over his head and his huge
+hands jammed down into his trousers pockets.
+
+"What's this I hear about Jack Rubano, Carton?" he opened fire.
+"They tell me you have arrested him and secured an indictment."
+
+"They tell the truth," returned Carton shortly. "The Grand Jury
+indicted Dopey Jack this afternoon. The trial---"
+
+"Dopey Jack," quoted Murtha in disgusted tones. "That's the way it
+is nowadays. Give a dog a bad name--why,--I suppose this bad
+name's going to stick to him all his life, now. It ain't right.
+You know, Carton, as well as I do that if they charged him with
+just plain fighting and got him before a jury, all you would have
+to say would be, 'Gentlemen, the defendant at the bar is the
+notorious gangster, Dopey Jack.' And the jurors wouldn't wait to
+hear any more, but'd say, 'Guilty!' just like that. And he'd go up
+the river for the top term. That's what a boy like that gets once
+the papers give him such an awful reputation. It's fierce!"
+
+Carton shook his head. "Oh, Murtha," he remonstrated with just a
+twinkle in his eye, "you don't think I believe that sort of soft
+stuff, do you? I've had my eye on this 'boy'--he's twenty-eight,
+by the way--too long. You needn't tell me anything about his
+respectable old father and his sorrowing mother and weeping
+sister. Murtha, I've been in this business too long for that heart
+throb stuff. Leave that to the lawyers the System will hire for
+him. Let's cut that out, between ourselves, and get down to brass
+tacks."
+
+It was a new and awkward role for Murtha as suppliant, and he
+evidently did not relish it. Aside from his own interest in Dopey
+Jack, who was one of his indispensables, it was apparent that he
+came as an emissary from Dorgan himself to spy out the land and
+perhaps reach some kind of understanding.
+
+He glanced about at us, with a look that broadly hinted that he
+would prefer to see Carton alone. Carton made no move to ask us to
+leave and Kennedy met the boss's look calmly. Murtha smothered his
+rage, although I knew he would with pleasure have had us stuck up
+or blackjacked.
+
+"See here, Carton." he blurted out at length, approaching the desk
+of the District Attorney and lowering his big voice as much as he
+was capable, "can't we reach some kind of agreement between
+ourselves? You let up on Rubano--and--well, I might be able to get
+some of my friends to let up on Carton. See?"
+
+He was conveying as guardedly as he could a proposal that if the
+District Attorney would consent to turn his back while the law
+stumbled in one of the numerous pitfalls that beset a criminal
+prosecution, the organization would deliver the goods, quietly
+pass the word along to knife its own man and allow Carton to be
+re-elected.
+
+I studied Carton's face intently. To a man of another stripe, the
+proposal might have been alluring. It meant that although the
+organization ticket won, he would, in the public eye at least,
+have the credit of beating the System, of going into office
+unhampered, of having assured beyond doubt what was at best only
+problematical with the Reform League.
+
+Carton did not hesitate a moment. I thought I saw in his face the
+same hardening of the lines of his features in grim determination
+that I had seen when he had been talking to Miss Ashton. I knew
+that, among other things, he was thinking how impossible it would
+be for him ever to face her again in the old way, if he sold out,
+even in a negative way, to the System.
+
+Murtha had shot his huge face forward and was peering keenly at
+the man before him.
+
+"You'll--think it over?" he asked.
+
+"I will not--I most certainly will not," returned Carton, for the
+first time showing exasperation, at the very assumption of Murtha.
+"Mr. Murtha," he went on, rising and leaning forward over the
+desk, "we are going to have a fair election, if I can make it. I
+may be beaten--I may win. But I will be beaten, if at all, by the
+old methods. If I win--it will be that I win--honestly."
+
+A half sneer crossed Murtha's face. He neither understood nor
+cared to understand the kind of game Carton played.
+
+"You'll never get anything on that boy," blustered Murtha. "Do you
+suppose I'm fool enough to come here and make a dishonest
+proposition--here--right in front of your own friends?" he added,
+turning to us. "--I ain't asking any favours, or anything
+dishonest. His lawyers know what they can do and what you can do.
+It ain't because I care a hang about you, Carton, that I'm here.
+If you want to know the truth, it's because you can make trouble,
+Carton,--that's all. You can't convict him, in the end, because--
+you can't. There's nothing 'on' him. But you can make trouble.
+We'll win out in the end, of course."
+
+"In other words, you think the Reform League has you beaten?"
+suggested Carton quietly.
+
+"No," ejaculated Murtha with an oath. "We don't know--but maybe
+YOU have us beaten. But not the League. We don't want you for
+District Attorney, Carton. You know it. But here's a practical
+proposition. All you have to do is just to let this Rubano case
+take its natural course. That's all I ask."
+
+He dwelt on the word "natural" as if it were in itself convincing.
+"Why," he resumed, "what foolishness it is for you to throw away
+all your chances just for the sake of hounding one poor fellow
+from the East Side. It ain't right, Carton,--you, powerful,
+holding an important office, and he a poor boy that never had a
+chance and has made the most of what little nature gave him. Why,
+I've known that boy ever since he hardly came up to my waist. I
+tell you, there ain't a judge on the bench that wouldn't listen to
+what we can show about him--hounded by police, hounded by the
+District Attorney, driven from pillar to post, and---"
+
+"You will have a chance to tell the story in court," cut in
+Carton. "Pomeroy will try the case."
+
+"Pomeroy?" repeated Murtha in a tone that quite disguised the
+anger he felt that it should come up before the one judge the
+System feared and could not control. "Now, look here, Carton.
+We're all practical men. Your friend--er--Kennedy, here, he's
+practical."
+
+Murtha had turned toward us. He was now the Murtha I had heard of
+before, the kind that can use a handshake or a playful slap on the
+back, as between man and man, to work wonders in getting action or
+carrying a point. Far from despising such men as Murtha, I think
+we all rather admired his good qualities. It was his point of
+view, his method, his aim that were wrong. As for the man himself
+he was human--in fact, I often thought far more human than some of
+the reformers.
+
+"I'll leave it to Kennedy," he resumed. "Suppose you were running
+a race. You knew you were going to win. Would you deliberately
+stop and stick your foot out, in order to trip up the man who was
+coming in second?"
+
+"I don't know that the cases are parallel," returned Kennedy with
+an amused smile.
+
+Murtha kept his good nature admirably.
+
+"Then you would stick your foot out--and perhaps lose the race
+yourself?" persisted Murtha.
+
+"I'll relieve Kennedy of answering that," interrupted Carton, "not
+because I don't think he can do it better than I can, perhaps, but
+because this is my fight--my race."
+
+"Well," asked Murtha persuasively, "you'll think it over, first,
+won't you?"
+
+Carton was looking at his opponent keenly, as if trying to take
+his measure. He had some scheme in mind and Kennedy was watching
+the faces of both men intently.
+
+"This race," began Carton slowly, in a manner that showed he
+wanted to change the subject, "is different from any other in the
+politics of the city as either of us have ever known it, Murtha."
+
+Murtha made as though he would object to the proposition, but
+Carton hurried on, giving him no chance to inject anything into
+the conversation.
+
+"It may be possible--it is possible," shot out the young District
+Attorney, "to make use of secret records--conversations--at
+conferences--dinners--records that have been taken by a new
+invention that seems to be revolutionizing politics all over the
+country."
+
+The look that crossed Murtha's face was positively apoplectic. The
+veins in his forehead stood out like whipcords.
+
+He started to speak, but choked off the words before he had
+uttered them. I could almost read his mind. Carton had said
+nothing directly about the Black Book, and Murtha had caught
+himself just in time not to betray anything about it.
+
+"So," he shouted at last, "you are going to try some of those fine
+little scientific tricks on us, are you?"
+
+He was pacing up and down the room, storming and threatening by
+turns.
+
+"I want to tell you, Carton," pursued Murtha, "that you're up
+against a crowd who were playing this game before you were born.
+You reformers think you are pretty smooth. But we know a thing or
+two about you and what you are doing. Besides," he leaned over the
+desk again, "Carton, there ain't many men that can afford to throw
+stones. I admit my life hasn't been perfect--but, then I ain't
+posing as any saint. I don't mind telling you that the
+organization, as you call it, is looking into some of the things
+that you reformers have done. It may be that some of your people--
+some of the ladies," he insinuated, "don't look on life in the
+broad-minded way that some of the rest do. Mind you--I ain't
+making any threats, but when it comes to gossip and scandal and
+mud-slinging--look out for the little old organization--that's
+all!"
+
+Carton had set his tenacious jaw. "You can go as far as you like,
+Murtha," was all he said, with a grim smile.
+
+Murtha looked at him a moment, then his manner changed.
+
+"Carton," he said in a milder tone, at length, "what's the use of
+all this bluffing? You and I understand each other. These men
+understand--life. It's a game--that's what it is--a game.
+Sometimes one move is right, sometimes another. You know what you
+want to accomplish here in this city. I show you a way to do it.
+Don't answer me," persisted Murtha, raising a hand, "just--think
+it over."
+
+Carton had taken a step forward, the tense look on his face
+unchanged. "No," he exclaimed, and we could almost hear his jaw
+snap as if it had been a trap. "No--I'll not think it over. I'll
+not yield an inch. Dopey Jack goes to trial before election."
+
+As Carton bit off the words, Murtha became almost beside himself
+with rage and chagrin. He was white and red by turns. For a moment
+I feared that he might do Carton personal violence.
+
+"Carton," he ground out, as he reached the door, "you will regret
+this."
+
+"I hope not," returned the other summoning with a mighty effort at
+least the appearance of suavity. "Good-bye."
+
+The only answer was the vicious slam which Murtha gave the door.
+
+As the echo died, the District Attorney turned to us. "Apparently,
+then, Dorgan did not secure the Black Book," was all he said,
+"even supposing Dopey Jack planned and executed that robbery of
+Langhorne."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE SHYSTER LAWYER
+
+
+That's a declaration of war," remarked Kennedy, as Carton resumed
+his seat at the desk unconcernedly after the stormy ending of the
+interview with Murtha.
+
+"I suppose it is," agreed the District Attorney, "and I can't say
+that I am sorry."
+
+"Nor I," added Craig. "But it settles one thing. We are now out in
+what I call the 'open' investigation. They have forced us from
+cover. We shall have to be prepared to take quick action now,
+whatever move they may make."
+
+Together we were speculating on the various moves that the System
+might make and how we might prepare in advance for them.
+
+Evidently, however, we were not yet through with these indirect
+dealings with the Boss. The System was thorough, if nothing else,
+and prompt. We had about decided to continue our conference over
+the dinner table in some uptown restaurant, when the officer
+stationed in the hall poked his head in the door and announced
+another visitor for the District Attorney.
+
+This time the entrance was exactly the opposite to the bluster of
+Murtha. The man who sidled deferentially into the room, a moment
+after Carton had said he would see him, was a middle-sized fellow,
+with a high, slightly bald forehead, a shifty expression in his
+sharp ferret eyes, and a nervous, self-confident manner that must
+have been very impressive before the ignorant. "My name is Kahn,"
+he introduced himself. "I'm a lawyer."
+
+Carton nodded recognition.
+
+Although I had never seen the man before, I recollected the name
+which Miss Kendall had mentioned. He was one of the best known
+lawyers of the System. He had begun his career as an "ambulance
+chaser," had risen later to the dignity of a police court lawyer,
+and now was of the type that might be called, for want of a better
+name, a high class "shyster"--unscrupulous, sharp, cunning.
+
+Shyster, I believe, has been defined as a legal knave, a lawyer
+who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all
+that--and still more. If he had been less successful, he would
+have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals
+he had none. His claws reached out to grab the pittance of the
+poverty-stricken client as well as the fee of the wealthy. He had
+risen from hospitals to police courts, coroner's court, and
+criminal courts, at last attaining the dignity of offices opposite
+an entrance to the criminal courts building, from which vantage
+point his underlings surveyed the scene of operations like
+vultures hovering over bewildered cattle.
+
+Carton knew him. Kahn was the leader among some score of men more
+or less well dressed, of more or less evil appearance, who are
+constantly prowling from one end to the other of the broad first
+floor of the criminal courts building during the hours of the day
+that justice is being administered there.
+
+These are the shyster lawyers and their runners and agents who
+prey upon the men and women whom misfortune or crime have
+delivered into the hands of the law. Others of the same species
+are wandering about the galleries on other floors of the building,
+each with a furtive eye for those who may be in trouble themselves
+or those who seem to be in need of legal assistance for a relative
+or friend in trouble.
+
+Perhaps the majority of lawyers practising in the courts are
+reputable to the highest degree, and many of the rest merely to a
+safe degree. Many devote themselves to philanthropic work whenever
+a prisoner is penniless. But the percentage of shysters is high.
+Kahn belonged in the latter class, although his days of doing
+dirty work himself were passed. He had a large force of incipient
+shysters for that purpose. As for himself, he handled only the big
+cases in which he veneered the dirty work by a sort of finesse.
+
+Kahn bowed and smiled ingratiatingly. "Mr. Carton," he began in a
+conciliatory tone, "I have intruded on your valuable time in the
+interest of my client, Mr. Jack Rubano."
+
+"Huh!" grunted Carton. "So they've retained you, have they, Ike?"
+he mused familiarly, closely regarding the visitor.
+
+Kahn, far from resenting the familiarity, seemed rather to enjoy
+it and take it as his due measure of fame.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Carton, they have retained me. I have just had a talk
+with the prisoner in the Tombs and have gone over his case very
+carefully, sir."
+
+Carton nodded, but said nothing, willing to let Kahn do the
+talking for the present until he exposed his hand.
+
+"He has told me all about his case," pursued Kahn evenly. "It is
+not such a bad case. I can tell you that, Mr. Carton, because I
+didn't have to resort to the 'friend of the judge' gag in order to
+show him that he had a good chance."
+
+Kahn looked knowingly at Carton. At least he was frank about his
+own game before us; in fact, utterly shameless, it seemed to me.
+Probably it was because he knew it was no use, that Carton had no
+illusions about him. Still, there was an uncanny bravado about it
+all. Kahn was indeed very successful in making the worst appear
+the better reason. He knew it and knew that Carton knew it. That
+was his stock in trade.
+
+He had seated himself in a chair by the District Attorney's desk
+and as he talked was hitching it closer and closer, for men of
+Kahn's stamp seem unable to talk without getting into almost
+personal contact with those with whom they are talking. Carton
+drew back and folded his hands back of his head as he listened,
+still silent.
+
+"You know, Mr. Carton," he insinuated, "it is a very different
+thing to be sure in your own mind that a man is guilty from being
+able to prove it in court. There are all sorts of delays that may
+be granted, witnesses are hard to hold together, in fact there are
+many difficulties that arise in the best of cases."
+
+"You don't need to tell me that, Kahn," replied Carton quietly.
+
+"I know it, Mr. Carton," rejoined the other apologetically. "I was
+just using that as a preface to what I have to say."
+
+He took another hitch of the chair nearer Carton and lowered his
+voice impressively. "The point, sir, at which I am driving is
+simply this. There must be some way in which we can reach an
+agreement, compromise this case, satisfactorily to the people with
+a minimum of time and expense--some way in which the indictment or
+the pleadings can be amended so that it can be wound up and--you
+understand--both of us win--instead of dragging it out and perhaps
+you losing the case in the end."
+
+Carton shook his head. "No, Kahn," he said in a low tone, but
+firmly, "no compromise."
+
+Kahn bent his ferret eyes on Carton's face as if to bore through
+into his very mind.
+
+"No," added the District Attorney, "Murtha was just here, and I
+may as well repeat what I said to him--although I might fairly
+assume that he went from this room directly across the street to
+your office and that you know it already. This case has gone too
+far, it has too many other ramifications for me to consent to
+relax on it one iota."
+
+Kahn was baffled, but he was cleverer than Murtha and did not show
+it.
+
+"Surely," he urged, "you must realize that it is not worth your
+while at such a critical time for yourself to waste energies on a
+case when there are so many more profitable things that you could
+do. The fact is that I would be the last one to propose anything
+that was not open and above board and to our mutual advantage.
+There must be some way in which we can reach an agreement which
+will be satisfactory to all parties in interest, sir."
+
+"Kahn," repeated Carton a little testily, "how often must I repeat
+to you and your people that I am NOT going to compromise this case
+in any shape, form, or manner? I am going to fight it out on the
+lines I have indicated if I have to disrupt this entire office to
+get men to do it. I have plenty to do seeking re-election, but my
+first duty is to act as public prosecutor in the office to which I
+have been already elected. Otherwise, it would be a poor
+recommendation to the people to return me to the same position.
+No, you are merely wasting your time and ours talking compromise."
+
+Kahn had been surveying Carton keenly, now and then taking a
+shifty glance at Kennedy and myself.
+
+As Carton rapped out the last words, as if in the nature of an
+ultimatum, Kahn gazed at him in amazement. Here was a man whom he
+knew he could neither bribe, bully, or bulldoze.
+
+"You must consider this, too," he added pointedly. "There has been
+a good deal of mud-slinging in this campaign. We may find it
+necessary to go back into the antecedents and motives of those who
+represent the people in this case."
+
+It was a subtle threat. Just what it implied I could not even
+guess, nor did Carton betray anything by look or word. Carton had
+voluntarily placed himself in the open and in a position from
+which he could not retreat. Evidently, now, he was willing to
+force the fight, if the other side would accept the issue. It
+meant much to him but he did not balk at it.
+
+"No, Kahn," he repeated firmly, "no compromise."
+
+Kahn drew back a bit and hastily scanned the face of the
+prosecutor. Evidently he saw nothing in it to encourage him. Yet
+he was too smooth to let his temper rise, as Murtha had. By the
+same token I fancied him a more dangerous opponent. There was
+something positively uncanny about his assurance.
+
+Kahn rose slowly. "Then it is war--without quarter?" asked Kahn
+shrewdly.
+
+"War--without quarter," repeated Carton positively.
+
+He withdrew quietly, with an almost feline tread, quite in
+contrast with the bluster of Murtha. I felt for the first time a
+sort of sinking sensation, as I began to realize the varied
+character of the assault that was preparing.
+
+Not so, Carton and Kennedy. It seemed that every event that more
+clearly defined our position and that of our opponents added zest
+to the fight for them. And I had sufficient confidence in the
+combination to know that their feelings were justified.
+
+Carton silently pulled down and locked the top of his desk, then
+for a moment we debated where we should dine. We decided on a
+quiet hotel uptown and, leaving word where we could be found,
+hurried along for the first real relaxation and refreshment after
+a crowded day's work.
+
+If, however, we thought we could escape even for a few minutes we
+were mightily mistaken. We had not fairly done justice to the
+roast when a boy in buttons came down the line of tables.
+
+"Mr. Carton--please."
+
+The District Attorney crooked his finger at the page.
+
+"You're wanted at the telephone, sir."
+
+Carton rose and excused himself.
+
+The message must have given him food of another kind, for when he
+returned after a long absence, he pushed aside the now cold roast
+and joined us in the coffee and cigars.
+
+"One of my men," he announced, "has been doing some shadowing for
+me. Evidently, both Murtha and Kahn having failed, they are
+resorting to other tactics. It looks as if they had in some way,
+probably from some corrupt official of the court or employee in
+charge of the jury list, obtained a copy of the panel which
+Justice Pomeroy has summoned for the case."
+
+"It ought to be a simple thing to empanel another set of talesmen
+and let these fellows serve in some other part of the court," I
+suggested, considering the matter hastily.
+
+"Much better to let it rest as it is," cut in Craig quickly, "and
+try to catch Kahn with the goods. It would be great to catch one
+of these clever fellows trying to 'fix' the jury, as well as
+intimidate witnesses, as he already hinted himself."
+
+"Just the thing," exclaimed Carton, whose keen sense of proportion
+showed what a valuable political asset such a coup would make in
+addition to its effect on the case.
+
+"We'll get Kahn right, if we have a chance," planned Craig. "You
+are acquainted more or less with his habits, I suppose. Where does
+Kahn hang out? Most fellows like him have a sort of Amen Corner
+where they meet their henchmen, issue orders, receive reports and
+carry on business that wouldn't do for an office downtown."
+
+"Why, I believe he goes to Farrell's--has an interest in the
+place, I think."
+
+Farrell's, we recognized, as a rather well-known all-night cafe
+which managed to survive the excise vicissitudes by dint of having
+no cabaret or entertainment.
+
+We finished the dinner in silence, Kennedy turning various schemes
+over in his mind, and rejecting them one after another.
+
+"There's nothing we can do immediately, I suppose," he remarked at
+length. "But if you and Carton care to come up to the laboratory
+with me, I might in time of peace prepare for war. I have a little
+apparatus up there which I think may fit in somehow and if it
+does, Mr. Kahn's days of jury fixing are numbered."
+
+A few minutes later, we found ourselves in Kennedy's laboratory,
+where he had gathered together an amazing collection of
+paraphernalia in the warfare of science against crime which he had
+been waging during the years that I had known him.
+
+Carton looked about in silent admiration. As for myself, although
+one might have thought it was an old story with me, I had found
+that no sooner had I become familiar with one piece of apparatus
+to perform one duty, than another situation, entirely different
+and unprecedented in our cases arose which called for another,
+entirely new. I had learned to have implicit confidence in
+Kennedy's ability to meet each new emergency with something fully
+capable of solving the problem.
+
+From a cabinet, Kennedy took out what looked like the little black
+leather box of a camera, with, however, a most peculiar looking
+lens.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE JURY FIXER
+
+
+"Let's visit Farrell's," remarked Craig, after looking over the
+apparatus and slinging it over his shoulder.
+
+It was early yet, and the theatres were not out, so that there
+were comparatively few people in the famous all-night cafe. We
+entered the bar cautiously and looked about. Kahn at least was not
+there.
+
+In the back of this part of the cafe were several booths, open to
+conform to the law, yet sufficiently screened so that there was at
+least a little privacy.
+
+Above the booths was a line of transoms.
+
+"What's back there?" asked Kennedy, under his breath.
+
+"A back room," returned Carton.
+
+"Perhaps Kahn is there," Craig suggested. "Walter, you're the one
+whom he would least likely recognize. Suppose you just stick your
+head in the door and look about as quietly as you can."
+
+I lounged back, glanced at the records of sporting events posted
+on the wall at the end of the bar, then, casually, as if looking
+for someone, swung the double-hinged door that led from the bar
+into the back room.
+
+The room was empty except for one man, turned sidewise to the
+door, reading a paper, but in a position so that he could see
+anyone who entered. I had not opened the door widely enough to be
+noticed, but I now let it swing back hastily. It was Kahn,
+pompously sipping something he had ordered.
+
+"He's back there," I whispered to Kennedy, as I returned,
+excitedly motioning toward one of the transoms over the booths
+back of which Kahn was seated.
+
+"Right there?" he queried.
+
+"Just about," I answered.
+
+A moment later Kennedy led the way over to the booth under the
+transom and we sat down. A waiter hovered near us. Craig silenced
+him quickly with a substantial order and a good-sized tip.
+
+From our position, if we sat well within the booth, we were
+effectually hidden unless someone purposely came down and looked
+in on us. We watched Kennedy curiously. He had unslung the little
+black camera-like box and to it attached a pair of fine wires and
+a small pocket storage battery which he carried.
+
+Then he looked up at the transom. It was far too high for us to
+hear through, even if those in the back room talked fairly loud.
+Standing on the leather wall seats of the booth to listen or even
+to look over was out of the question, for it would be sure to
+excite suspicion among the waiters, or the customers who were
+continually passing in and out of the place.
+
+Kennedy was watching his chance, and when the cafe emptied itself
+after being deluged between the acts from a neighbouring theatre,
+he jumped up quickly in the seat, stood on his toes and craned his
+neck through the diagonally opened transom. Before any of the
+waiters, who were busy clearing up the results of the last theatre
+raid, had a chance to notice him, Craig had slipped the little
+black box into the shadow of the corner.
+
+From it dangled down the fine wires, not noticeable.
+
+"He's sitting just back of us yet," reported Kennedy. "I don't
+know about that flaming arc light in the middle of the room, but I
+think it will be all right. Anyhow, we shall have to take a
+chance. It looks to me as if he were waiting for someone--didn't
+it to you, Walter?"
+
+I nodded acquiescence.
+
+"He has wasted no time in getting down to work," put in Carton,
+who had been a silent spectator of the preparations of Kennedy.
+"What's that thing you put on the ledge up there--a detectaphone?"
+
+Kennedy smiled. "No--they're too clever to do any talking, at
+least in a place like this, I'm afraid," he said, carefully hiding
+the wires and the battery beside him in the shadow of the corner
+of the booth. "It may be that nothing will happen, anyhow, but if
+it does we can at least have the satisfaction of having tried to
+get something. Carton, you had better sit as far back in the booth
+as I am. The longer we can stay here unnoticed the better. Let
+Walter sit on the outside."
+
+We changed places.
+
+"Lawyers have been complaining to me lately," remarked Carton in a
+well modulated voice, "about jury fixing. Some of them say it has
+been going on on a large scale and I have had several of my county
+detectives working on it. But they haven't landed anything yet,--
+except rumours, like this one about the Dopey Jack jury. I've had
+them out posing as jurymen who could be 'approached' and would
+arrange terms for other bribable jurymen."
+
+"And you mean to say that that's going on right here in this
+city?" I asked, scenting a possible newspaper story.
+
+"This campaign I have started," he replied, "is only the beginning
+of our work in breaking up the organized business of jury bribing.
+I mean to put an end to the work of what I have reason to believe
+is a secret ring of jury fixers. Why, I understand that the prices
+for 'hanging' a jury range all the way from five to five hundred
+dollars, or even higher in an important case. The size of the jury
+fixer's 'cut' depends upon the amount the client is willing to pay
+for having his case made either a disagreement or a dismissal.
+Usually a bonus is demanded for a dismissal in criminal cases. But
+such things are very difficult to--"
+
+"Sh!" I cautioned, for from my vantage point I saw two men
+approaching.
+
+They saw me in the booth, but not the rest of us, and turned to
+enter the next one. Though they were talking in low tones, we
+could catch words and phrases now and then, which told us that we
+ourselves would have to be very careful about being overheard.
+
+"We've got to be careful," one of them remarked in a scarcely
+audible undertone. "Carton has detectives mingling with the
+talesmen in every court of importance in the city."
+
+The reply of the other was not audible, but Carton leaned over to
+us and whispered, "One of Kahn's runners, I think."
+
+Apparently Kahn was taking extreme precautions and wanted
+everything in readiness so that whatever was to be done would go
+off smoothly. Kennedy glanced up at the little black leather box
+perched high above on the sill of the partition.
+
+"The chief says that a thousand dollars is the highest price that
+he can afford for 'hanging' this jury--providing you get on it, or
+any of your friends."
+
+The other man, whose voice was not of the vibrating, penetrating
+quality of the runner, seemed to hesitate and be inclined to
+argue.
+
+"We've had 'em as low as five dollars," went on the runner, at
+which Carton exchanged a knowing glance with us. "But in a special
+case, like this, we realize that they come high."
+
+The other man grumbled a bit and we could catch the word, "risky."
+
+Back and forth the argument went. The runner, however, was a
+worthy representative of his chief, for at last he succeeded in
+carrying both his point and his price.
+
+"All right," we heard him say at last, "the chief is in the back
+room. Wait until I see whether he is alone."
+
+The runner rose and went around to the swinging door. From the
+other side of the transom we could, as we had expected, hear
+nothing. A moment later the runner returned.
+
+"Go in and see him," he whispered.
+
+The man rose and made his way through the swinging door into the
+back room.
+
+None of us said a word, but Kennedy was literally on his toes with
+excitement. He was holding the little battery in his hand and
+after waiting a few moments pressed what looked like a push
+button.
+
+He could not restrain his impatience longer, but had jumped up on
+the leather seat and for a moment looked at the black leather box,
+then through the half open transom, as best he could.
+
+"Press it--press it!" he whispered to Carton, pointing at the push
+button, as he turned a little handle on the box, then quickly
+dropped down and resumed his seat.
+
+"Craig--one of the waiters," I cried hurriedly.
+
+The outside bar had been filling up as the evening advanced and
+the sight of a man standing on one of the seats had attracted the
+attention of a patron. A waiter had followed his curious gaze and
+saw Kennedy.
+
+With a quick pull on the wire, Kennedy jerked the black leather
+box from its high perch and deftly caught it as it fell.
+
+"Say--what are youse guys doin', huh?" demanded the waiter
+pugnaciously.
+
+Carton and I had risen and stood between the man and Craig.
+
+The sound of voices in high pitch was enough to attract a crowd
+ever ready to watch a scrap. Mindful of the famous "flying wedge"
+of waiters at Farrell's for the purpose of hustling objectionable
+and obstreperous customers with despatch to the sidewalk, I was
+prepared for anything.
+
+The runner who was sitting alone in the next booth, leaned out and
+gazed around the corner into ours.
+
+"Carton!" he shouted in a tone that could have been heard on the
+street.
+
+The effect of the name of the District Attorney was magical. For
+the moment, the crowd fell back. Before the tough waiters or
+anyone else could make up their minds just what to do, Kennedy,
+who had tucked the box into his capacious side pocket, took each
+of us by the arm and we shoved our way through the crowd.
+
+The head waiter followed us to the door, but offered no
+resistance. In fact no one seemed to know just what to do and it
+was all over so quickly that even Kahn himself had not time to get
+a glimpse of us through the swinging door.
+
+A moment later we had piled into a taxicab at the curb and were
+speeding through the now deserted streets uptown to the
+laboratory.
+
+Kennedy was jubilant. "I may have almost precipitated a riot," he
+chortled, "but I'm glad I stood up. I think it must have been at
+the psychological moment."
+
+At the laboratory he threw off his coat and prepared to plunge
+into work with various mysterious pans of chemicals, baths, jars,
+and beakers.
+
+"What is it?" asked Carton, as Kennedy carefully took out the dark
+leather box, shielding it from the glare of a mercury vapour
+light.
+
+"A camera with a newly-invented electrically operated between-lens
+shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It
+has always been practically impossible to get such pictures as I
+wanted, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than
+anything else ever invented before, that it is possible to use it
+in this sort of detective work. I've proved its speed up to one
+two-thousandth of a second. It may or may not have worked, but if
+it has we've caught someone, right in the act."
+
+Kennedy had a "studio" of his own which was quite equal to the
+emergency of developing the two pictures which he had taken with
+the new camera.
+
+Late as it was, we waited for him to finish, just as we would have
+waited down in the Star office if one of our staff photographers
+had come in with something important.
+
+At last Kennedy emerged from his workshop. As he did so, he
+slapped down two untoned prints.
+
+Both were necessarily indistinct owing to the conditions under
+which they had had to be taken. But they were quite sufficient for
+the purpose.
+
+As Carton bent over the second one, which showed Kahn in the very
+act of handing over a roll of bills to the rather anemic man whom
+his runner had brought to him, Carton addressed the photograph as
+if it had been Kahn himself.
+
+"I have you at last," he cried. "This is the end of your secret
+ring of jury fixers. I think that will about settle the case of
+Kahn, if not of Dopey Jack, when we get ready to spring it.
+Kennedy, make another set of prints and let me lock them in a safe
+deposit vault. That's as precious to me as if it were the Black
+Book itself!"
+
+Craig laughed. "Not such a bad evening's work, after all," he
+remarked, clearing things up. "Do you realize what time it is?"
+
+Carton glanced perfunctorily at his watch. "I had forgotten time,"
+he returned.
+
+"Yes," agreed Craig, "but to-morrow is another day, you know. I
+don't object to staying up all night, or even several nights, but
+there doesn't seem to be anything more that we can do now, and it
+may be that we shall need our strength later. This is, after all,
+only a beginning in getting at the man higher up."
+
+"The man highest up," corrected Carton, with elation as we parted
+on the campus, Kennedy and I to go to our apartment.
+
+"See you in the morning, Carton," bade Kennedy. "By that time, no
+doubt, there will be some news of the Black Book."
+
+We arrived at our apartment a few minutes later. On the floor was
+some mail which Kennedy quickly ran over. It did not appear to be
+of any importance--that is, it had no bearing on the case which
+was now absorbing our attention.
+
+"Well, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed as he tore open
+one diminutive letter. "That was thoughtful, anyhow. She must have
+sent us that a few minutes after we left headquarters."
+
+He handed me an engraved card. It was from Miss Ashton, inviting
+us to a non-partisan suffrage evening at her studio in her home,
+to be followed by a dance.
+
+Underneath she had written a few words of special invitation,
+ending, "I shall try to have some people there who may be able to
+help us in the Betty Blackwell matter."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE AFTERNOON DANCE
+
+
+It was early the following morning that I missed Kennedy from our
+apartment. Naturally I guessed from my previous experiences with
+that gentleman that he would most likely be found at his
+laboratory, and I did not worry, but put the finishing touches on
+a special article for the Star which I had promised for that day
+and had already nearly completed.
+
+Consequently it was not until the forenoon that I sauntered around
+to the Chemistry Building. Precisely as I had expected, I found
+Kennedy there at work.
+
+I had been there scarcely a quarter of an hour when the door
+opened and Clare Kendall entered with a cheery greeting. It was
+evident that she had something to report.
+
+"The letter to Betty Blackwell which you sent to the Montmartre
+has come back, unopened," she announced, taking from her handbag a
+letter stamped with the post-office form indicating that the
+addressee could not be found and that the letter was returned to
+the sender. The stamped hand of the post-office pointed to the
+upper left-hand corner where Clare had written in a fictitious
+name and used an address to which she frequently had mail sent
+when she wanted it secret.
+
+"Only on the back," she pursued, turning the letter over, "there
+are some queer smudges. What are they? They don't look like dirt."
+
+Kennedy glanced at it only casually, as if he had fully expected
+the incident to turn out as it did.
+
+"Not unopened, Miss Kendall," he commented. "We have already had a
+little scientific letter-opening. This was a case of scientific
+letter-sealing. That was a specially prepared envelope."
+
+He reached down into his desk and pulled out another, sealed it
+carefully, dried it, then held it over a steaming pan of water
+until the gum was softened and it could be opened again. On the
+back were smudges just like those on the letter that had been
+returned.
+
+"On the thin line of gum on the flap of the envelope," he
+explained, "I have placed first a coating of tannin, over which is
+the gum. Then on the part of the envelope to which the flap
+adheres when it is sealed I placed some iron sulphate. When I
+sealed the envelope so carefully I brought the two together
+separated only by the thin film of gum. Now when steam is applied
+to soften the gum, the usual method of the letter-opener, the
+tannin and the sulphate are brought together. They run and leave
+these blots or dark smudges. So, you see, someone has been found
+at the Montmartre, even if it is not Betty Blackwell herself, who
+has interest enough in the case to open a letter to her before
+handing it back to the postman. That shows us that we are on the
+right trail at least, even if it does not tell us who is at the
+end of the trail. Here's another thing; This 'Marie' is a new one.
+We must find out about her."
+
+"At the Futurist Tea Room at four this afternoon, when she meets
+our good friend, young Dr. Harris," reminded Clare. "Between
+cabarets and tea rooms I don't know whether this is work or play."
+
+"It's work, all right," smiled Kennedy, adding, "at least it would
+be if it weren't lightened by your help."
+
+It was the middle of the afternoon when Craig and I left the
+laboratory to keep our appointment with Miss Kendall at the
+Futurist Tea Room, where we hoped to find Dr. Harris's friend
+"Marie," who seemed to want to see him so badly.
+
+A long line of touring and town cars as well as taxicabs bore
+eloquent testimony not only to the popularity of this tea room and
+cabaret, but to the growth of afternoon dancing. One never
+realizes how large a leisure class there is in the city until
+after a visit to anything from a baseball game to a matinee--and a
+dance. People seemed literally to be flocking to the Futurist.
+They seemed to like its congeniality, its tone, its "atmosphere."
+
+As we left our hats to the tender mercies of the "boys" who had
+the checking concession we could see that the place was rapidly
+filling up.
+
+"If we are to get a table that we want here, we'd better get it
+now," remarked Kennedy, slipping the inevitable piece of change to
+the head waiter. "If we sit over there in that sort of little
+bower we can see when Miss Kendall arrives and we shall not be so
+conspicuous ourselves, either."
+
+The Futurist was not an especially ornate place, although a great
+deal of money had evidently been expended in fitting it up to
+attract a recherche clientele.
+
+Our table, which Kennedy had indicated, was, as he had said, in a
+sort of little recess, where we could see without being much
+observed ourselves, although that seemed almost an impossibility
+in such a place. In fact, I noticed before we had had time to seat
+ourselves that we had already attracted the attention of two show
+girls who sat down the aisle and were amusing themselves at
+watching us by means of a mirror. It would not have been very
+difficult to persuade them to dispense with the mirror.
+
+A moment later Clare Kendall entered and paused at the door an
+instant, absorbing the gay scene as only a woman and a detective
+could. Craig rose and advanced to meet her, and as she caught
+sight of us her face brightened. The show girls eyed her narrowly
+and with but slight approval.
+
+"We feel more at ease with a lady in the party," remarked Craig,
+as they reached the table and I rose to greet her. "Two men alone
+here are quite as noticeable as two ladies. Walter, I know, was
+quite uncomfortable."
+
+"To say nothing of the fact which you omitted," I retaliated,
+"that it is a pleasure to be with Miss Kendall--even if we must
+talk shop all the time."
+
+Clare smiled, for her quick intuition had already taken in and
+dismissed as of no importance the two show girls. We ordered as a
+matter of course, then settled back for a long interval until the
+waiter out of the goodness of his heart might retrieve whatever
+was possible from the mob of servitors where refreshments were
+dispensed.
+
+"Opposite us," whispered Clare, resting her chin on her
+interlocked fingers and her elbows on the tip-edge of the table,
+"do you see that athletic-looking young lady, who seems to be
+ready for anything from tea to tango? Well, the man with her is
+Martin Ogleby."
+
+Ogleby was of the tall, sloping-shouldered variety, whom one can
+see on the Avenue and in the clubs and hotels in such numbers that
+it almost seems that there must be an establishment for turning
+them out, even down to a trademark concealed somewhere about them,
+"Made in England." Only Ogleby seemed a little different in the
+respect that one felt that if all the others were stamped by the
+same die, he was the die, at least. Compared to him many of the
+others took on the appearance of spurious counterfeits.
+
+"Dr. Harris," Craig whispered, indicating to us the direction with
+his eyes.
+
+Outside on a settee, we could see in the corridor a man waiting,
+restless and ill at ease. Now and then he looked covertly at his
+watch as if he expected someone who was late and he wondered if
+anything could be amiss.
+
+Just then a superbly gowned woman alighted from a cab. The starter
+bowed as if she were familiar. It was evident that this was the
+woman for whom Harris waited, the "Marie" of the letter.
+
+She was a carefully groomed woman, as artificial as French heels.
+Yet indeed it was that studied artificiality which constituted her
+chief attraction. As Harris greeted her I noted that Clare was
+amazed at the daring cut of her gown, which excited comment even
+at the Futurist.
+
+Her smooth, full, well-rounded face with its dark olive skin and
+just a faint trace of colour on either cheek, her snappy hazel
+eyes whose fire was heightened by the penciling of the eyebrows,
+all were a marvel of the dexterity of her artificial beautifier.
+And yet in spite of all there was an air of unextinguishable
+coarseness about her which it was difficult to describe, but easy
+to feel. "Her lips are too thick and her mouth too large,"
+remarked Clare, "and yet in some incomprehensible way she gives
+you the impression of daintiness. What is it?"
+
+"The woman is frankly deceptive from the tip of her aigrette to
+the toes of her shoes," observed Craig.
+
+"And yet," smiled Clare, watching with interest the little stir
+her arrival had made among the revellers, "you can see that she is
+the envy of every woman here who has slaved and toiled for that
+same effect without approaching within miles of it or attracting
+one quarter the notice for her pains that this woman receives."
+
+Dr. Harris was evidently in his element at the attention which his
+companion attracted. They seemed to be on very good terms indeed,
+and one felt that Bohemianism could go no further.
+
+They paused, fortunately, at a just vacated table around an "L"
+from us and sat down. For once waiters seemed to vie in serving
+rather than in neglecting.
+
+By this time I had gained the impression that the Futurist was all
+that its name implied--not up to the minute, but decidedly ahead
+of it. There was an exotic flavour to the place, a peculiar
+fascination, that was foreign rather than American, at seeing
+demi-monde and decency rubbing elbows. I felt sure that a large
+percentage of the women there were really young married women,
+whose first step downward was truly nothing worse than saying they
+had been at their whist clubs when in reality it was tango and
+tea. What the end might be to one who let the fascination blind
+her perspective I could imagine.
+
+Dr. Harris and "Marie" were nearer the dancing floor than we were,
+but seemed oblivious to it. Now and then as the music changed we
+could catch a word or two.
+
+He was evidently making an effort to be gay, to counteract the
+feeling which she had concealed as she came in, but which had the
+upper hand now that they were seated.
+
+"Won't you dance?" I heard him say.
+
+"No, Harry. I came here to tell you about how things are going."
+
+There was a harshness about her voice which I recognized as
+belonging exclusively to one class of women in the city. She
+lowered it as she went on talking earnestly.
+
+"It looks as though someone has squealed, but who--" I caught in
+the fragmentary lulls of the revelry.
+
+"I didn't know it was as bad as that," Dr. Harris remarked.
+
+They talked almost in whispers for several moments while I
+strained my ears to catch a syllable, but without success. What
+were they talking about? Was it about Dopey Jack? Or did they know
+something about Betty Blackwell? Perhaps it was about the Black
+Book. Even when the music stopped they talked without dropping a
+word.
+
+The music started again. There was no mistaking the appeal that
+the rocking whirl of the rhythmic dance made. From the side of the
+table where Kennedy was seated he could catch an occasional
+glimpse of the face of Marie. I noticed that he had torn a blank
+page off the back of the menu and with a stub of a pencil was half
+idly writing.
+
+At the top he had placed the word, "Nose," followed by "straight,
+with nostrils a trifle flaring," and some other words I could not
+quite catch. Beneath that he had written "Ears," which in turn was
+followed by some words which he was setting down carefully. Eyes,
+chin, and mouth followed, until I began to realize that he was
+making a sort of scientific analysis of the woman's features.
+
+"I shall need some more--" I caught as the music softened
+unexpectedly.
+
+A singer on the little platform was varying the programme now by a
+solo and I shifted my chair so as to get a better view and at the
+same time also a look at the table around the corner from us.
+
+As I did so I saw Dr. Harris reach into his breast pocket and take
+out a little package which he quickly handed to Marie. As their
+hands met, their eyes met also. I fancied that the doctor
+struggled to demagnetize, so to speak, the look which she gave
+him.
+
+"You'll come to see me--afterwards?" she asked, dropping the
+little package into her handbag of gold mesh and rattling the
+various accoutrements of beautification which tinkled next to it.
+
+Harris nodded.
+
+"You're a life saver to some--" floated over to me from Marie.
+
+The solo had been completed and the applause was dying away.
+
+" ... tells me he needs ... badly off ... don't forget to see ..."
+
+The words came in intervals. What they meant I did not know, but I
+strove to remember them. Evidently Marie and a host of others were
+depending on Harris for something. At any rate, it seemed, now
+that she had talked she felt easier in mind, as one does after
+carrying a weight a long time in secret.
+
+"Tanguez-vous?" he asked as the orchestra struck up again.
+
+"Yes--thank you, Harry--just one."
+
+We watched the couple attentively as they were alternately lost
+and found in the dizzy swaying mass. The music became wilder and
+they threw themselves into the abandon of the dance.
+
+They had been absorbed so much in each other and the unburdening
+of whatever it was she had wanted to tell him, that neither had
+noticed the other couple on the other side of the floor whose
+presence had divided our own attention.
+
+Martin Ogleby and his partner were not dancing. It was warm and
+they were among the lucky ones who had succeeded in getting
+something besides a cheque from the waiters. Two tall glasses of
+ginger ale with a long curl of lemon peel sepentining through the
+cracked ice stood before them.
+
+The dance had brought Dr. Harris and Marie squarely around to
+within a few feet of where Ogleby was sitting. As Harris swung
+around she faced Ogleby in such a way that he could not avoid her,
+nor could she have possibly missed seeing him.
+
+For a moment their eyes met. Not a muscle in either face moved. It
+was as if they were perfect strangers. She turned and murmured
+something to her partner. Ogleby leaned over, without the least
+confusion, and made a witty remark to his partner. It was over in
+a minute. The acting of both could not have been better if they
+had deliberately practised their parts. What did it mean?
+
+As the dance concluded I saw Ogleby glance hastily over in the
+direction of Marie. He gave a quick smile of recognition, as much
+as to say "Thank you."
+
+It was evident now that both Dr. Harris and Marie, whoever she
+was, were getting ready to leave. As they rose to move to the
+door, Kennedy quickly paid our own cheque, leaving the change to
+the waiter, and without seeming to do so we followed them.
+
+Harris was standing near the starter with his hat off, apparently
+making his adieux. Deftly Kennedy managed to slip in behind so as
+to be next in line for a cab.
+
+"Walter and I will follow Harris if they separate," he whispered
+to Clare Kendall. "You follow the woman."
+
+The afternoon was verging toward dinner and people were literally
+bribing the taxicab starter. Our own cab stood next in line behind
+that which Harris had called.
+
+"I have certainly enjoyed this little glimpse of Bohemia,"
+commented Kennedy to Miss Kendall as we waited. "I shouldn't mind
+if detective work took me more often to afternoon dances. There,
+they are going down the steps. Here's the cab I called. Let me
+know how things turn out. Goodbye. Here--chauffeur, around that
+way--where that other cab is going--the lady will tell you where
+to drive."
+
+Harris hesitated a moment as if considering whether to take a cab
+himself, then slowly turned and strolled down the street.
+
+We followed, slowly also. There was something unreal about the
+bright afternoon sunshine after the atmosphere of the Futurist Tea
+Room, where everything had been done to promote the illusion of
+night.
+
+Harris walked along meditatively, crossing one street after
+another, not as if debating where he was going, but rather in no
+great hurry to get there.
+
+Instead of going down Broadway he swerved into Seventh Avenue,
+then after a few blocks turned into a side street, quickened his
+pace, and at last dived down into a basement under a saloon.
+
+It was a wretched neighbourhood, one of those which reminds one of
+the life of an animal undergoing a metamorphosis. Once it had
+evidently been a rather nice residential section. The movement of
+population uptown had left it stranded to the real estate
+speculators, less desirable to live in, but more valuable for the
+future. The moving in of anyone who could be got to live there had
+led to rapid deterioration and a mixed population of whites and
+negroes against the day when the upward sweep of business should
+bring the final transformation into office and loft buildings. But
+for the present it was decaying, out of repair, a mass of cheap
+rooming-houses, tenements, and mixed races.
+
+The joint into which Harris had gone was the only evidence of
+anything like prosperity on the block, and that evidence was
+confined to the two entrances on the street, one leading into the
+ground floor and the other down a flight of steps to the basement.
+
+"Do you want to go in?" asked Kennedy in a tone that indicated
+that he himself was going.
+
+Just then a negro, dazzling in the whiteness of his collar and the
+brilliancy of his checked suit, came up the stairs accompanied by
+a light mulatto.
+
+"It's a black and tan joint," Craig went on, "at least downstairs-
+-negro cabaret, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"I'm game," I replied.
+
+We stumbled down the worn steps, past a swinging door near which
+stood the proprietor with a careful eye on arrivals and
+departures. The place was deceiving from the outside. It really
+extended through two houses, and even at this early hour it was
+fairly crowded.
+
+There were negroes of all degrees of shading, down to those who
+were almost white. Scattered about at the various tables were
+perhaps half a dozen white women, tawdry imitations of the faster
+set at the Futurist which we had just left, the leftovers of a
+previous generation in the Tenderloin. There was also a fair
+sprinkling of white men, equally degraded. White men and coloured
+women, white women and coloured men, chatted here and there, but
+for the most part the habitues were negroes. At any rate the
+levelling down seemed to have produced something like an equality
+of races in viciousness.
+
+As we sat down at a table, Kennedy remarked: "They used to drift
+down to Chinatown, a good many of these relics. You used to see
+them in the old 'suicide halls' of the Bowery, too. But that is
+all passing away now. Reform and agitation have closed up those
+old dives. Now they try to veneer it over with electric lights and
+bright varnish, but I suppose it comes to the same thing. After
+they are cast off Broadway, the next step lower is the black and
+tan joint. After that it is suicide, unless it is death."
+
+"I don't think this is any improvement over the--the bad old
+days," I ventured.
+
+Kennedy shook his head in agreement. "There's Harris, down there
+in the back, talking to someone, a white man, alone."
+
+A waiter came over to us grinning, for we had assumed the role of
+sightseers.
+
+"Who is that, 'way back there, with his chair tipped to the wall,
+talking to the man with his back to us?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Ike the Dropper, sah," informed the waiter with obvious pride
+that such a celebrity should be harboured here.
+
+I looked with a feeling akin to awe at the famous character who,
+in common with many others of his type, had migrated uptown from
+the proverbial haunts of the gunmen on the East Side in search of
+pastures new and untroubled.
+
+Ike the Dropper may have once been a strong-arm man, but at
+present I knew that he was chiefly noted for the fact, and he and
+his kind were reputed to be living on the earnings of women to
+whom they were supposed to afford "protection." I reflected on the
+passing glories of brutality which had sunk so low.
+
+There were noise and life a plenty here. At a discordant box of a
+piano a negro performer was playing with a keen appreciation of
+time if of nothing else, and two others with voices that might not
+have been unpopular in a decent minstrel show were rendering a
+popular air. They wore battered straw hats and a make-up which was
+intended to be grotesque.
+
+From time to time, as the pianist was moved, he played snatches of
+the same music as that which we had heard at the Futurist, and
+between us and Harris and Ike the Dropper several couples were
+one-stepping, each in their own sweet way. As the music became
+more lively their dancing came more and more to resemble some of
+the almost brutal Apache dances of Paris, in that the man seemed
+to exert sheer force and the woman agility in avoiding him. It was
+an entirely new phase of afternoon dancing, an entirely new
+"leisure class," this strange combination of Bohemia and
+Senegambia.
+
+At a table next to us, so near that we could almost rub elbows
+with them, sat a white man and a white woman. They had been
+talking in low tones, but I could catch whole sentences now and
+then, for they seemed to be making no extraordinary effort at
+concealment.
+
+"He was framing a sucker to get away with a whole front," I heard
+the man say, "or with a poke or a souper, but instead he got
+dropped by a flatty and was canned for a sleep."
+
+"Two dips--pickpockets," whispered Craig. "Someone was trying to
+take everything a victim had, or at least his pocketbook or watch,
+but instead he was arrested by a detective and locked up over
+night."
+
+"Good work," I laughed. "You are 'some' translator."
+
+I looked at our neighbours with a certain amount of respect. Were
+they framing up something themselves? At any rate I felt that I
+would rather see them here and know what they were than to be
+jostled by them in a street car. The sleek proprietor kept a
+careful eye on them and I knew that a sort of unwritten law would
+prevent them from trying on anything that would endanger their
+welcome in a joint none too savoury already.
+
+Nevertheless I was quite interested in the bits of pickpocket
+argot that floated across to us, expressions like "crossing the
+mit," "nipping a slang," a "mouthpiece," "making a holler" and
+innumerable other choice bits as unintelligible to me as
+"Beowulf."
+
+After a few minutes the woman got up and went out, leaving the man
+still sitting at the table. Of course it was none of my business
+what they were doing, I suppose, but I could not help being
+interested.
+
+That diversion being ended, I joined Kennedy in his scrutiny of
+Harris and his choice friend. Of course at our distance it was
+absolutely impossible to gain any idea of what they were talking
+about, and indeed our chief concern was not to attract any
+attention. Whatever it was, they were very earnest about it and
+paid no attention to us.
+
+The dancing had ceased and the two "artists" were entertaining the
+select audience with some choice bits of ragtime. We could see Ike
+the Dropper and Dr. Harris still talking.
+
+Suddenly Kennedy nudged me. I looked up in time to see Dr. Harris
+reach into his inside breast pocket again and quietly slip out a
+package much like that which we had already seen him hand to Marie
+at the Futurist. Ike took it, looked at it a moment with some
+satisfaction, then stuffed it down carefully into the right-hand
+outside pocket of his coat.
+
+"I wonder what that is that Harris seems to be passing out to
+them?" mused Craig.
+
+"Drugs, perhaps," I ventured offhand.
+
+"Maybe. I'd like to know for certain."
+
+Just then Harris and Ike rose and walked down on the other side of
+the place toward the door. Kennedy turned his head so that even if
+they should look in our direction they would not see his face. I
+did the same. Fortunately neither seemed interested in the other
+occupants. Harris having evidently fulfilled his mission, whether
+of delivering the package or receiving news which Ike seemed to be
+pouring into his ear, had but one thought, to escape from a place
+which was evidently distasteful to him. At the door they paused
+for a moment and spoke with the proprietor. He nodded reassuringly
+once or twice to Dr. Harris, much to the relief, I thought, of
+that gentleman.
+
+Kennedy was chafing under the restraint which kept him in the
+background and prevented any of his wizardry of mechanical
+eavesdropping. I fancied that his roving eye was considering
+various means of utilizing his seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity
+if occasion should arise.
+
+At last Harris managed to shake hands good-bye and disappeared up
+the steps to the sidewalk still followed by Ike.
+
+Kennedy leaned over and looked the "dip" sitting alone back of us
+squarely in the face.
+
+"Would you like to make twenty-five dollars--just like that?" he
+asked with a quick gesture that accorded very well with the slang.
+
+The man looked at him very suspiciously, as if considering what
+kind of new game this was.
+
+"That was your gun moll who just went out, wasn't it?" pursued
+Kennedy with assurance.
+
+"Aw, come off. Whatyer givin' us?" responded the man half angrily.
+
+"Don't stall. I know. I'm not one of the bulls, either. It's just
+a plain proposition. Will you or won't you take twenty-five of
+easy money?"
+
+Kennedy's manner seemed to mystify him. For a moment he looked us
+over, then seemed to decide that we were all right.
+
+"How?" he asked in a harsh but not wholly ungracious whisper.
+"I'll tip yer off if the boss is lookin'. He don't like no frame-
+ups in here."
+
+"You saw Ike the Dropper go out with that man?"
+
+"The guy with the glasses?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The guy with the glasses gave Ike a little package which Ike put
+into the right-hand outside pocket of his coat. Now it's worth
+twenty-five beans to me to get that package--get me?"
+
+"I gotyer. Slip me a five now and the other twenty if I get it."
+
+Kennedy appeared to consider.
+
+"I'm on the level," pursued the dip. "Me and the goil is in hard
+luck with a mouthpiece who wants fifty bucks to beat the case for
+one of the best tools we ever had in our mob that they got right
+to-day."
+
+"From that I take it that one of your pals needs fifty dollars for
+a lawyer to get him out of jail. Well, I'll take a chance. Bring
+the package to me at--well, the Prince Henry cafe. I'll be there
+at seven o'clock."
+
+The pickpocket nodded, slid from his place and sidled out of the
+joint without attracting any attention.
+
+"What's the lay?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, I just want that package, that's all. Come on, Walter. We
+might as well go before any of these yellow girls speak to us and
+frame up something on us."
+
+The proprietor bowed as much as to say, "Come again and bring your
+friends."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE TYPEWRITER CLUE
+
+
+Ike was nowhere to be seen when we reached the street, but down
+the block we caught sight of Dr. Harris on the next corner.
+Kennedy hastened our pace until we were safely in his wake, then
+managed to keep just a few paces behind him.
+
+Instead of turning into the street where the Futurist was, Harris
+kept on up Broadway. It was easy enough to follow him in the crowd
+now without being perceived.
+
+He turned into the street where the Little Montmartre was
+preparing for a long evening of entertainment. We turned, and to
+cover ourselves got into a conversation with a hack driver who
+seemed suddenly to have sprung from nowhere with the cryptic
+whisper, "Drive you to the Ladies' Club, gents?"
+
+Out of the tail of his eye Kennedy watched Harris. Instead of
+turning into the Montmartre and his office, he went past to a
+high-stooped brownstone house, two doors away, climbed the steps
+and entered.
+
+We sauntered down the street and looked quickly at the house. A
+brass sign on the wall beside the door read, "Mme. Margot's Beauty
+Shop."
+
+"I see," commented Kennedy. "You know women of the type who
+frequent the Futurist and the Montmartre are always running to the
+hairdressing and manicure parlours. They make themselves
+'beautiful' under the expert care of the various specialists and
+beauty doctors. Then, too, they keep in touch that way with what
+is going on in the demi-monde. That is their club, so to speak. It
+is part of the beauty shop's trade to impart such information--at
+least of a beauty shop in this neighbourhood."
+
+I regarded the place curiously.
+
+"Come, Walter, don't stare," nudged Kennedy. "Let's take a turn
+down to the Prince Henry and wait. We can get a bite to eat, too."
+
+I had hardly expected that the pickpocket would play fair, but
+evidently the lure of the remaining twenty dollars was too strong.
+We had scarcely finished our dinner when he came in.
+
+"Here it is," he whispered. "The house man here at the Prince
+Henry knows me. Slip me the twenty."
+
+Kennedy leisurely tore the wrappings from the packet.
+
+"I suppose you have already looked at this first and found that it
+isn't worth anything to you compared to twenty dollars. Anyhow,
+you kept your word. Hello--what is it?"
+
+He had disclosed several small packets. Inside each, sealed, was a
+peculiar glistening whitish powder.
+
+"H'm," mused Kennedy, "another job for the chemist. Here's the
+bankroll."
+
+"Thanks," grinned the dip as he disappeared through the revolving
+door.
+
+We had returned to the laboratory that night where Kennedy was
+preparing to experiment on the white powder which he had secured
+in the packet that came from Dr. Harris. The door opened and Clare
+Kendall entered.
+
+"I've been calling you up all over town," she said, "and couldn't
+find you. I have something that will interest you, I think. You
+said you wanted something written by Dr. Harris. Well, there it
+is."
+
+She laid a sheet of typewriting on the laboratory table.
+
+"How did you get it?" asked Kennedy in eager approbation.
+
+"When I left you at the Futurist Tea Room to follow that woman
+Marie in the cab, I had a good deal of trouble. I guess people
+thought I was crazy, the way I was ordering that driver about, but
+he was so stupid and he would get tangled up in the traffic on
+Fifth Avenue. Still, I managed to hang on, principally because I
+had a notion already that she was going to the Montmartre. Sure
+enough, she turned down that block, but she didn't go into the
+hotel after all. She stopped and went into a place two doors down-
+-Mme. Margot's Beauty Parlour."
+
+"Just where we finally saw Harris go," exclaimed Kennedy. "I beg
+your pardon for interrupting."
+
+"Of course I couldn't go in right after her, so I drove around the
+corner. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good time to
+stop in to see Dr. Harris--when he was out. You know my experience
+with the fakers has made me pretty good at faking up ailments.
+Then, too, I knew that it would be easy when he was not there. I
+said I was an old patient and had an appointment and that I'd
+wait, although I knew those were not his regular office hours. He
+has an alleged trained nurse there all the time. She let me into
+his waiting-room on the second floor in front--you remember the
+private dining-rooms are in back. I waited in momentary fear that
+he WOULD come back. You see, I had a scheme of my own. Well, I
+waited until at last the nurse had to leave the office for a short
+time.
+
+"That was my chance. I tiptoed over to his desk in the next room.
+On it were a lot of letters. I looked over them but could find
+nothing that seemed to be of interest. They were all letters from
+other people. But they showed that he must have quite an extensive
+practice, and that he is not over-scrupulous. I didn't want to
+take anything that would excite suspicion unless I had to. Just
+then I heard someone coming down the corridor from the elevator. I
+had just time to get back to a chair in the waiting-room when the
+door opened and there was that Titian from the office, you
+remember. She saw me without recognizing me, went in and laid some
+papers on his desk. As soon as she was gone, I went in again and
+looked them over. Here was one that she had copied for him."
+
+Kennedy had been carefully scrutinizing the sheet of paper as she
+told how she obtained it.
+
+"It couldn't be better as far as our purposes are concerned," he
+congratulated. "It seems to consist of some notes he had made and
+wished to preserve about drugs."
+
+I leaned over and read:
+
+VERONAL.--Diethylmalonyl or diethylbarbituric acid. A hypnotic
+used extensively. White, crystalline, odourless, slightly bitter.
+Best in ten to fifteen grain cachets. Does not affect circulatory
+or respiratory systems or temperature. Toxicity low: 135 gr. taken
+with no serious result. Unreasonable use for insomnia, however,
+may lead to death.
+
+HEROIN.--Constant use of heroin has been known to lead to--
+
+I looked inquiringly at Kennedy.
+
+"Just some fragmentary notes which he had evidently been making.
+Rather interesting in themselves as showing perhaps something of
+his practice, but not necessarily incriminating."
+
+While we were discussing the contents of the notes, Kennedy had
+laid over the typewritten sheet the rules and graduated strip of
+glass which he had used in examining the strange letter signed "An
+Outcast."
+
+A moment later he pulled the letter itself from a drawer and laid
+the two pieces of writing side by side, comparing them, going from
+one to the other successively.
+
+"People generally, who have not investigated the subject," he
+remarked as he worked, "hold the opinion that the typewriter has
+no individuality. Fortunately that is not true. The typewriting
+machine does not always afford an effective protection to the
+criminal. On the contrary, the typewriting may be a direct means
+of tracing a document to its source and showing it to be what it
+really is. This is especially true of typewritten anonymous
+letters. Without careful investigation it is impossible to say
+what can be determined from the examination of any particular
+piece of typewriting, but typewriting can often be positively
+identified as being the work of a certain particular typewriting
+machine and even the date of writing can sometimes be found out."
+
+He had been carefully counting something under the lens of a
+pocket glass. "Even the number of threads to the inch in the
+ribbon, as shown in the type impression, plainly seen and
+accurately measured by the microscope or in an enlarged
+photograph, may show something about the identity of a disputed
+writing."
+
+He was pointing to a letter "r." Under the glass I noticed that
+there was a break in the little curl at the top.
+
+"Now if you find such a break in the same letter in another piece
+of typewriting, what would you think?"
+
+"That they were from the same machine," I replied.
+
+"Not so fast," he cautioned. "True, it might raise a presumption
+that it was from the same machine. But the laws of chance would be
+against your enthusiasm, Walter."
+
+"Of course," I admitted on second thought.
+
+"It's just like the finger-print theory. There must be a sort of
+summation of individual characteristics. Now here's a broken 'l'
+and there is an 'a' that is twisted. Now, if the same defects are
+found in another piece of writing, that makes the presumption all
+the stronger, and when you have massed together a number of such
+characteristics it raises the presumption to a mathematical
+certainty, does it not?"
+
+I nodded and he went on. "The faces of many letters inevitably
+become broken, worn, or battered. Not only does that tend to
+identify a particular machine, but it is sometimes possible, if
+you have certain admitted standard specimens of writing covering a
+long period, to tell just when a disputed writing was made. There
+are two steps in such an inquiry, the first the determination of
+the fact that a document was written on a certain particular kind
+of machine and the second that it was written on a certain
+individual machine of that make. I have here specimens of the
+writing of all the leading machines. It is easy to pick out the
+make used, say in the 'Outcast' letter. Moreover, as I said when I
+first saw that letter, it is in the regular pica type. So are they
+all, but as ninety-five per cent, use the pica style that in
+itself proved nothing."
+
+"What is that bit of ruled glass?" asked Clare, bending over the
+letters in deep interest.
+
+"In ordinary typewriting," replied Craig, "each letter occupies an
+imaginary square, ten to the inch horizontally and six to the inch
+vertically. Typewriting letters are in line both ways. This ruled
+glass plate is an alinement test plate for detecting defects in
+alinement. I have also here another glass plate in which the lines
+diverge each at a very slightly different angle--a typewriting
+protractor for measuring the slant of divergence of various
+letters that have become twisted, so to speak.
+
+"When it is in perfect alinement the letter occupies the middle of
+each square and when out of alinement it may be in any of the four
+corners, or either side of the middle position or at the top or
+bottom above or below the middle. That, you see, makes nine
+positions in all--or eight possible divergences from normal in
+this particular alone."
+
+Clare had been using the protractor herself, quickly familiarizing
+herself with it.
+
+"Another possible divergence," went on Kennedy, "is the
+perpendicular position of the letter in relation to the line. That
+is of great value in individualizing a machine. It is very seldom
+that machines, even when they are new, are perfect in this
+particular. It does not seem much until you magnify it. Then
+anyone can see it, and it is a characteristic that is fixed,
+continuous, and not much changed by variations in speed or methods
+of writing.
+
+"Here's another thing. Typewriter faces are not flat like printing
+type, but are concaved to conform to the curve of the printing
+surface of the roller. When they are properly adjusted all
+portions should print uniformly. But when they are slightly out of
+position in any direction the two curved surfaces of type and
+roller are not exactly parallel and therefore don't come together
+with uniform pressure. The result is a difference in intensity in
+different parts of the impression."
+
+It was fascinating to see Craig at work over such minute points
+which we had never suspected in so common a thing as ordinary
+typewriting.
+
+"Then you can identify these letters positively?" asked Clare.
+
+"Positively," answered Craig. "If two machines of the same make
+were perfect to begin with and in perfect condition--which is
+never found to be the case when they are critically examined--the
+work from one would be theoretically indistinguishable from that
+of another until actual use had affected them differently. The
+work of any number of machines begins inevitably to diverge as
+soon as they are used. Since there are thousands of possible
+particulars in which differences may develop, it very soon becomes
+possible to identify positively the work of a particular
+typewriting machine."
+
+"How about the operator?" I asked curiously.
+
+"Different habits of touch, spacing, speed, arrangement, and
+punctuation all may also tend to show that a particular piece of
+writing was or was not done by one operator. In other words,
+typewriting individuality in many cases is of the most positive
+and convincing character and reaches a degree of certainty which
+may almost be described as absolute proof. The identification of a
+typewritten document in many cases is exactly parallel to the
+identification of an individual who precisely answers a general
+description as to features, complexion, size, and in addition
+matches a long detailed list of scars, birthmarks, deformities,
+and individual peculiarities."
+
+Together we three began an exhaustive examination of the letters,
+and as Kennedy called off the various characteristics of each type
+on the standard keyboard we checked them up. It did not take long
+to convince us, nor would it have failed to convince the most
+sceptical, that both had come from the same source and the same
+writer.
+
+"You see," concluded Kennedy triumphantly, "we have advanced a
+long step nearer the solution of at least one of the problems of
+this case."
+
+Miss Kendall had evidently been thinking quickly and turning the
+matter over in her mind.
+
+"But," she spoke up quickly, "even that does not point to the same
+person as the author--not the writer, but the author--of the three
+pieces of writing."
+
+"No indeed," agreed Craig. "There is much left to be done. As a
+matter of fact, there might have been one author, or there might
+have been two, although all the mechanical work was done by one
+person. But we are at least sure that we have localized the source
+of the writing. We know that it is from the Montmartre that the
+letter came. We know that it is in some way that that place and
+some of the people who frequent it are connected with the
+disappearance of Betty Blackwell."
+
+"In other words," supplied Clare, "we are going to get at the
+truth through that Titian-haired stenographer."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Clare had risen to go.
+
+"It quite takes my breath away to think that we are really making
+such progress against the impregnable Montmartre. At various times
+my investigators have been piecing together little bits of
+information about that place. I shall have the whole record put
+together to-night. I shall let you know about it the first thing
+in the morning."
+
+The door had scarcely closed when Kennedy turned quickly to me and
+remarked, "That girl has something on her mind. I wonder what it
+is?"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE "PORTRAIT PARLE"
+
+
+What it was that Clare Kendall had on her mind, appeared the
+following day.
+
+"There's something I want to try," she volunteered, evidently
+unable to repress it any longer. "I have a plan--or half a plan.
+Don't you think it would be just the thing, under the
+circumstances, to ring up District Attorney Carton, tell him what
+we have accomplished and take him into our confidence? Perhaps he
+can suggest something. At any rate we have all got to work
+together, for there is going to be a great fight when they find
+out how far we have gone."
+
+"Bully idea," agreed Craig.
+
+Twenty minutes later we were seated in the District Attorney's
+office in the Criminal Courts Building, pouring into his
+sympathetic ear the story of our progress so far.
+
+Carton seemed to be delighted, as Kennedy proceeded to outline the
+case, at the fact that he and Miss Kendall had found it possible
+to co-operate. His own experience in trying to get others to work
+with the District Attorney's office, particularly the police, had
+been quite the reverse.
+
+"I wish to heaven you could get the right kind of evidence against
+the Montmartre gang," he sighed. "It is a gang, too--a high-class
+gang. In fact--well, it must be done. That place is a blot on the
+city. The police never have really tried to get anything on it.
+Miss Kendall never could, could you? I admit I never have. It
+seems to be understood that it is practically impossible to prove
+anything against it. They openly defy us. The thing can't go on.
+It demoralizes all our other work. Just one good blow at the
+Montmartre and we could drive every one of these vile crooks to
+cover." He brought his fist down with a thud on the desk, swung
+around in his chair, and emphasized his words with his forefinger.
+
+"And yet, I know as well as I know that you are all in this room
+that graft is being paid to the police and the politicians by that
+place and in fact by all those places along there. If we are to do
+anything with them, that must be proved. That is the first step
+and I'm glad the whole thing hinges on the Blackwell case. People
+always sit up and take notice when there is something personal
+involved, some human interest which even the newspapers can see.
+That Montmartre crowd, whoever they are, must be made to feel the
+strong arm of the law. That's what I am in this office to do. Now,
+Kennedy, there must be some way to catch those crooks with the
+goods."
+
+"They aren't ordinary crooks, you know," ruminated Kennedy.
+
+"I know they are not. But you and Miss Kendall and Jameson ought
+to be able to think out a scheme."
+
+"But you see, Mr. Carton," put in Clare, "this is a brand new
+situation. Your gambling and vice and graft exposures have made
+all of them so wary that they won't pass a bill from their right
+to their left pockets for fear it is marked."
+
+Carton laughed.
+
+"Well, you are a brand new combination against them. Let me see;
+you want suggestions. Why don't you use the detectaphone--get our
+own little Black Book?"
+
+Kennedy shook his head.
+
+"The detectaphone is all right, as Dorgan knows. It might work
+again. But I don't think I'll take any chances. No, these grafters
+wouldn't say 'Thank you' in an open boat in mid-ocean, for fear of
+wireless, now. They've been educated up to a lot of things lately.
+No, it must be something new. What do you know about graft up
+there?"
+
+"The people who are running those places in the fifties are making
+barrels of money," summarized Carton quickly. "No one ever
+interferes with them, either. I know from reliable sources, too,
+that the police are 'getting theirs.' But although I know it I
+can't prove it; I can't even tell who is getting it. But once a
+week a collector for the police calls around in that district and
+shakes them all down. By Jove, to-day is the day. The trouble with
+it all is that they have made the thing so underground that no one
+but the principals know anything about it--not even the agents. I
+guess you are right about the detectaphone."
+
+"To-day's the day, is it?" mused Craig.
+
+"So I understand."
+
+"I think I can get them with a new machine they never dreamed of,"
+exclaimed Kennedy, who had been turning something over in his
+mind.
+
+He reached for the telephone and called the Montmartre.
+
+"Julius, please," he said when they answered; then, placing his
+hand over the transmitter, he turned to Clare. "That was your
+friend the Titian, Miss Kendall."
+
+"No friend of mine if she happens to remember seeing me in Dr.
+Harris's office the other day. Still, I doubt if she would."
+
+"Hello--Julius? Good morning. How about a private dining-room for
+three, Julius?"
+
+We could not hear the reply, but Craig added quickly, "I thought
+there were two?"
+
+Evidently the answer was in the affirmative, for Craig asked next,
+"Well, can't we have the small one?"
+
+He hung up the receiver with a satisfied smile after closing with
+"That's the way to talk. Thank you, Julius. Good-bye."
+
+"What was the difficulty?" I asked.
+
+"Why, I thought I'd take a chance--and it took. Now figure it out
+for yourself. Carton says it's dough day, so to speak, up there.
+What is more natural than that the money for all those places
+leased to various people should be passed over in a place that is
+public and yet is not public? For instance, there is the
+Montmartre itself. Now think it out. Where would that be done in
+the Montmartre? Why, in one of the private dining-rooms, of
+course."
+
+"That seems reasonable," agreed Carton.
+
+"That was the way I doped it," pursued Craig. "I thought I'd
+confirm it if I could. You remember they told us to call up always
+if I wanted a private dining-room and it would be reserved for me.
+So it was the most natural thing in the world for me to call up.
+If they had said yes, I should have been disappointed. But they
+said no, and straightway I wanted one of those rooms the worst
+way. One seems to be engaged--the large one. He said nothing about
+the other, so I asked him. Since I knew about it, he could hardly
+say no. Well, I have engaged it for lunch--an early luncheon,
+too."
+
+"It sounds all right, as though you were on the right trail,"
+remarked Carton. "But, remember, only the best sort of evidence
+will go against those people. They can afford to hire the best
+lawyers that money can retain. And be careful not to let them get
+anything on you, for they are fearful liars, and they'll go the
+limit to discredit you."
+
+"Trust us," assured Craig. "Now, Miss Kendall, if you will give us
+the pleasure of lunching with you at the Montmartre again, I think
+we may be able to get the Judge just the sort of open and shut
+evidence he is after."
+
+"I shall be glad to do it. I'm ready now."
+
+Kennedy glanced at his watch. "It's a little early yet. If we take
+a taxicab we shall have plenty of time to stop at the laboratory
+on our way."
+
+Arriving at the laboratory, he went to a drawer, from which he
+took a little box which contained a long tube, and carefully
+placed it in the breast pocket of his coat. Then from a chest of
+tools he drew several steel sections that apparently fitted
+together, and began stuffing the parts into various pockets.
+
+"Here, Walter," he said, "these make me bulge like a yeggman with
+his outfit under his coat. Can't you help me with some of these
+parts?"
+
+I jammed several into various pockets--heavy pieces of metal--and
+we were ready.
+
+Our previous visits to the Montmartre seemed to have given us the
+entree and the precaution of telephoning made it even easier.
+Indeed, it appeared that about all that was necessary there was to
+be known and to be thought "right." We carefully avoided the
+office, where the stenographer might possibly have recognized
+Clare, and entered the elevator.
+
+"Is Dr. Harris in?" asked Craig, both by way of getting
+information and showing that he was no stranger.
+
+The black elevator boy gave an ivory grin. "No, sah. He done gone
+on one o' them things."
+
+Another question developed the fact that whenever Harris was away
+it was generally assumed that he was tinting the metropolis
+vermilion from the Battery to the Bronx.
+
+We passed down the hall to the smaller of the two dining-rooms,
+and as we went by the larger we could see the door open and that
+no one was there.
+
+We had ordered and the waiter had scarcely shut the door before
+Kennedy had divested himself of the heavy steel sections which he
+had hidden in his pockets. I did the same.
+
+With a quick glance he seemed to be observing just how the
+furniture was placed. The smaller dining-room was quite as
+elaborately furnished as the larger, though of course the
+furniture was more crowded.
+
+He moved the settee and was on his knees in a corner. "Let me
+see," he considered. "There was nothing on this side of the larger
+room except the divan in the centre."
+
+As nearly as he could judge he was measuring off just where the
+divan stood on the opposite side of the wall, and its height. Then
+he began fitting together the pieces of steel. As he added one to
+another, I saw that they made a sectional brace and bit of his own
+design, a long, vicious-looking affair such as a burglar might
+have been glad to own.
+
+Carefully he started to bore through the plaster and lath back of
+the settee and to one side of where the divan must have been. He
+was making just as small a hole as possible, now and then stopping
+to listen.
+
+There was no noise from the next room, but a tap on the door
+announced the waiter with luncheon. He shoved the settee back and
+joined us. The discreet waiter placed the food on the table and
+departed without a word or look. Kennedy resumed his work and we
+left the luncheon still untasted.
+
+The bit seemed to have gone through as Kennedy, turning it
+carefully, withdrew it now and then to make sure. At last he
+seemed to be satisfied with the opening he had made.
+
+From the package in his breast pocket he drew a long brass tube
+which looked as if it might be a putty-blower. Slowly he inserted
+it into the hole he had bored.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity longer.
+
+"I felt sure that there would be no talking done in that room,
+especially as we are in this one and anyone knows that even if you
+can't put a detectaphone in a room, it will often work if merely
+placed against a wall or door, on the other side, in the next
+room. So I thought I'd use this instead. Put your eye down here."
+
+I did so and was amazed to find that through a hole less than a
+quarter of an inch in diameter the brass tube enabled me to see
+the entire room next to us.
+
+I looked up at Kennedy in surprise. "What do you think of this,
+Miss Kendall?" I asked, moving the settee out of her way. "What do
+you call it?"
+
+"That is a detectascope," he replied, "a little contrivance which
+makes use of the fish-eye lens.
+
+"Yes. The detectascope enables you to see what is going on in
+another room. The focus may be altered in range so that the faces
+of those in the room may be recognized and the act of passing
+money or signing cheques, for instance, may be detected. The
+instrument is fashioned somewhat after the cytoscope of the
+doctors, with which the human interior may be seen."
+
+"Very remarkable," exclaimed Clare. "But I can't understand how it
+is possible to see so much through such a little tube. Why, I
+almost fancy I can see more in that room than I could with my own
+eyes if I were placed so that I could not move my head."
+
+Kennedy laughed.
+
+"That's the secret," he went on. "For instance, take a drop of
+water. Professor Wood of Johns Hopkins has demonstrated recently
+the remarkable refracting power of a drop of water, using the
+camera and the drop of water as a lens. It is especially
+interesting to scientists because it illustrates the range of
+vision of some fishes. They have eyes that see over half a circle.
+Hence the lens gets its name--'the fish-eye lens.' A globe
+refracts the light that reaches it from all directions, and if it
+is placed as the lens is in the detectascope so that one half of
+it catches the light, all this light will be refracted through it.
+Ordinary lenses, because of their flatness, have a range of only a
+few degrees, the widest in use, I believe, taking in only ninety-
+six degrees, or a little over a quarter of a circle. So you see my
+detectascope has a range almost twice as wide as that of any other
+lens."
+
+The little tube was fascinating, and although there was no one in
+the next room yet, I could not resist the desire to keep on
+looking through it.
+
+"Since you are so interested, Walter," laughed Craig, "we'll
+appoint you to take the first shift at watching. Meanwhile we may
+as well eat since we shall certainly have to pay. When you are
+tired or hungry I'll take a turn."
+
+Kennedy and I had been taking turns at watching through the
+detectascope while Miss Kendall told us more about how she had
+come to be associated with the organization to clean up New York.
+
+"We have struck some delicate situations before," she was saying,
+"times when it meant either that we must surrender and compromise
+the work of the investigation or offend an interest that might
+turn out to be more powerful than we realized. Our rule from the
+start was, 'No Compromise.' You know the moment you compromise
+with one, all the others hear it and it weakens your position.
+We've made some powerful enemies, but our idea is that as long as
+we keep perfectly straight and honest they will never be able to
+beat us. We shall win in the end, because so far it has never come
+to a show-down, when we appealed to the public itself, that the
+public had not risen and backed us strongly."
+
+I had come to have the utmost confidence in Clare Kendall and her
+frank way of handling a ticklish yet most important subject
+without fear or prudishness. There was a refreshing newness about
+her method. It was neither the holier-than-thou attitude of many
+religionists, nor the smug monopoly of all knowledge of the social
+worker, nor the brutal wantonness of the man or woman of the world
+who excuses everything "because it is human nature, always has
+been and always will be."
+
+"We have no illusions on the subject," she pursued. "We don't
+expect to change human nature until the individual standard
+changes. But we are convinced of this--and it is as far as we go
+and is what we are out to accomplish--and that is that we can, and
+are going to, smash protected, commercialized vice as one of the
+big businesses of New York."
+
+"Sh-h," cautioned Kennedy, whose turn it happened to be just then
+to watch. "Someone has just entered the room."
+
+"Who is it?" I whispered eagerly.
+
+"A man. I can't see his face. His back is toward me, but there is
+something familiar about him. There--he is turning around. For
+Heaven's sake--it's Ike the Dropper!"
+
+We had already recounted to Miss Kendall our experiences in
+following Dr. Harris to the black and tan joint and the meeting
+with Ike the Dropper.
+
+"Then Ike the Dropper is the collector for the police or the
+politicians higher up," she exclaimed under her breath. "If we
+learned nothing more, that would be enough. It would tell us whom
+to watch."
+
+Hastily we took turns at getting a good look at Ike through the
+wonderful little detectascope. Then Kennedy resumed his watch,
+whispering now and then what he saw. Apparently Ike had proceeded
+to make himself comfortable in the luxurious surroundings of the
+private dining-room, against the arrival of the graft payers.
+
+"I wonder who the man higher up is," whispered Miss Kendall.
+
+"Someone is coming in," reported Kennedy. "By George, it is that
+stenographer from the office downstairs. She is handing him an
+envelope. Good for her! He tried to kiss her and she backed away
+in disgust. The scoundrel!
+
+"Isn't it clever, though? Not a word is said by anyone. I don't
+suppose she could swear to knowing anything about what is in the
+envelope. There she goes out. He is opening the envelope and
+counting out the money--ten one-hundred-dollar bills. There they
+go into the fob pocket of his trousers. I imagined he learned
+something from my pick-pocket. That is the safest pocket a man
+has. That little contribution, I take it, was from the Montmartre
+itself."
+
+Then followed an interval in which Ike puffed away on his cigar in
+silent state.
+
+"Here's another now," announced Craig. "Another woman. I never saw
+her before."
+
+Both Miss Kendall and I looked and neither of us recognized her.
+She was slim and would have been young-looking if she had not made
+such obvious efforts to imitate the healthy colour of the cheeks
+which she probably would have had if she had lived sensibly and
+left cosmetics alone.
+
+Kennedy was hastily jotting down some notes on the back of an
+envelope.
+
+"They are going through the same proceedings again. I guess Ike
+doesn't like her. There she goes. Only two hundred this time."
+
+Another wait followed, during which Ike smoked down his cigar and
+lighted another from the stub. Then the door opened again.
+
+Kennedy motioned quickly to Clare to look through the
+detectascope. Meanwhile he pulled from his pocket the piece of
+paper he had written on and torn from the back of the menu at the
+Futurist.
+
+"Marie!" exclaimed Clare under her breath.
+
+"The same," whispered Kennedy. "Miss Kendall, you have the true
+'camera eye' of the born detective. Now--please--let me see if I
+can get what occurs."
+
+She yielded her place to him.
+
+"Three hundred more," he murmured. "Marie must be in the game,
+though. He didn't wait for her to leave before he tore open the
+envelope. Now they are burning the envelopes in the ash tray. And
+still not a word. This is clever, clever. Think of it--fifteen
+hundred dollars of easy money like that! I wonder how much of it
+sticks to Ike's hands on the way up. He must have a capacious fob
+pocket for that. Say, he's a regular fellow with the ladies, Ike
+is. Only this one doesn't seem to resent it. By George, I wonder
+if this fellow Ike isn't giving the police or the politicians the
+double-cross. He couldn't be on such intimate terms with one who
+was paying graft to him as collector otherwise; do you think so?"
+
+Craig looked up without waiting for an answer. "You will excuse
+any levity, but that was some kiss she just gave him."
+
+Kennedy resumed his position for looking through the detectascope,
+occasionally glancing down at the notes he had made the day before
+and now and then making a slight alteration.
+
+"There. She is going away now. Well, I guess the collection is all
+over. He has his hat on and a third cigar, ready to go as soon as
+somebody signals that the coast is clear. That was a good day's
+work for Ike and the man higher up, whoever he is. Ah--there he
+goes. It was a signal from the waiter he was after. Now we may as
+well finish this luncheon. It cost enough."
+
+For several minutes we ate in silence.
+
+"I wish I could have followed Ike," observed Craig. "But of course
+it would have been of no use. To go out right after him would have
+given the whole thing away."
+
+"Who is that dark-haired, dark-skinned woman, Marie, do you
+suppose?" asked Clare. "Sometimes I almost think she is part
+negro."
+
+"I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if you were right.
+If you have any investigators to spare, they might try to find out
+who she is and something of her history. I will give them a copy
+of these notes which I intend to turn over to the Department of
+Justice men who have been making the white slave investigation for
+the Federal Government."
+
+Kennedy had laid the notes which he had made on the menu before us
+and was copying them. Both Clare and I leaned over to read them.
+It was Greek to me:
+
+Nose--straight, base elevated, nostrils thick, slightly flaring.
+
+Ears--lobe descending oval, traversed by a hollow, antitragus
+concave; lobe separated from cheek.
+
+Lips--large.
+
+Mouth--large.
+
+Chin--receding.
+
+There was much more that he had jotted down and added to the
+description.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Clare, as she ran through the writing, "that is
+this new portrait parle, the spoken picture, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," replied Kennedy. "You may know that the Government has been
+using it in its white slave inquiry and has several thousands of
+such descriptions. Under the circumstances, I understand that the
+Government agents find it superior to finger-prints. Finger-prints
+are all right for identification, as we have found right here, for
+instance, in the Night Court. But Bertillon's new portrait parle
+is the thing for apprehension."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"Well, take the case before us. We have had no chance to finger-
+print that woman and what good would it do if we had? No one could
+recognize her that way until she was arrested or some means had
+been taken to get the prints again.
+
+"But the portrait parle is scientific apprehension, the step that
+comes before scientific identification by finger-prints. It means
+giving the detective an actual portrait of the person he is sent
+after without burdening him with a photograph. As descriptions are
+now given, together with a photograph, a person is described as of
+such a weight, height, general appearance, and so on. A clever
+crook knows that. He knows how to change his appearance so that
+there are few even of the best detectives who can recognize him.
+This new system describes the features so that a man can carry
+them in his mind systematically, features that cannot be changed.
+
+"Take the nose, for example," explained Kennedy. "There are only
+three kinds, as Bertillon calls them--convex, straight, and
+concave. A detective, we will say, is sent out after a man with a
+concave nose or, as in this case a woman with a straight nose.
+Thus he is freed from the necessity of taking a second glance at
+two-thirds of the women, roughly, that he meets--that is,
+theoretically. He passes by all with convex and concave noses.
+
+"There are four classes of ears--triangular, square, oval, and
+round, as they may be called. Having narrowed his search to women
+with straight noses, the detective needs to concern himself with
+only one-fourth of the women with straight noses. Having come down
+to women with straight noses and, say, oval ears, he will
+eliminate all those that do not have the mouth, lips, chin, eyes,
+forehead, and so on that have been given him. Besides that, there
+are other striking differences in noses and ears that make his
+work much easier than you would imagine, once he has been trained
+to observe such things quickly."
+
+"It sounds all right," I agreed haltingly.
+
+"It is all right, too," he argued warmly. "The proof of it is its
+use in Paris and other cities abroad and the fact that it has been
+imported here to New York in the Police Department and has been
+used by the Government. I could tell you many interesting stories
+about how it has succeeded where photographs would have failed."
+
+I had been reading over the description again and trying to apply
+it.
+
+"For instance," Craig resumed thoughtfully. "I believe that this
+woman is a mulatto, but that is a long way from proving it. Still,
+I hope that by using the portrait parle and other things we may be
+able to draw the loose threads together into a net that will catch
+her--providing, of course, that she ought to be caught."
+
+He had finished making copies of the portrait parle and had called
+for a cheque for the lunch.
+
+"So you see," he concluded, "this is without any doubt the woman
+we saw at the Futurist, whom Miss Kendall followed to Madame
+Margot's Beauty Shop, two doors down."
+
+Kennedy handed a copy to Miss Kendall.
+
+"Using that and whatever other means you may have, Miss Kendall,"
+he said, "I wish that you would try to find this woman and all you
+can about her. Walter, take this other copy and see Carton. I
+think he has a county detective who knows the system. I shall
+spend the rest of the day getting in touch with the Federal
+authorities in this city and in Washington trying to find out
+whether they know anything about her."
+
+We left the Montmartre with as much care as we had entered and
+seemingly without having yet aroused any suspicion. The rest of
+the day was spent in setting to work those whom we felt we could
+trust to use the portrait parle to locate the mysterious dark-
+haired Marie who seemed to cross our trail at every turn, yet who
+proved so elusive.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE CONVICTION
+
+
+Meanwhile, the organization was using every effort to get
+possession of the Black Book, as Kennedy had suspected.
+
+Miss Ashton had been busy on the case of the missing Betty
+Blackwell, but as yet there was no report from any of the agencies
+which she had set in motion to locate the girl. She had seen
+Langhorne, and, although she did not say much about the result of
+the interview, I felt sure that it had resulted in a further
+estrangement between them, perhaps a suspicion on the part of
+Langhorne that Carton had been responsible for it.
+
+In as tactful a way as possible, Miss Ashton had also warned Mrs.
+Ogleby of the danger she ran, but, as I had already supposed, the
+warning had been unnecessary. The rumours about the detectaphone
+record of the dinner had been quite enough. As for the dinner
+itself, what happened, and who were present, it remained still a
+mystery, perhaps only to be explained when at last we managed to
+locate the book.
+
+Since the visit of Kahn, we had had no direct or indirect
+communications with either Dorgan or Murtha. They were, however,
+far from inactive, and I felt that their very secrecy, which had
+always been the strong card of the organization, boded no good.
+Although both Carton and Kennedy were straining every nerve to
+make progress in the case, there was indeed very little to report,
+either the next day or for some time after the episode which had
+placed Kahn in our power.
+
+Carton was careful not to say anything about the graphic record we
+had taken of Kahn's attempt to throw the case. It was better so,
+he felt. The jury fixing evidence would keep and it would prove
+all the stronger trump to play when the right occasion arose. That
+time rapidly approached, now, with the day set for the trial of
+Dopey Jack.
+
+The morning of the trial found both Kennedy and myself in the part
+of General Sessions to which the case had been assigned to be
+tried under Justice Pomeroy.
+
+To one who would watch the sieve through which justice vigorously
+tries to separate the wheat from the chaff, the innocent from the
+guilty, a visit to General Sessions is the best means. For it is
+fed through the channels that lead through the police courts, the
+Grand Jury chambers, and the District Attorney's office. There one
+can study the largest assortment of criminals outside of a penal
+institution, from the Artful Dodger and Bill Sykes, Fagin and Jim
+the Penman, to the most modern of noted crooks of fact or fiction,
+all done here in real flesh and blood. It is the busiest of
+criminal courts. More serious offenders against the law are
+sentenced here than in any other court in New York. The final
+chapter in nearly every big crime is written there, sooner or
+later.
+
+As we crowded in, thanks to the courtesy of Carton, we found a
+roomy chamber, with high ceiling, and grey, impressive walls in
+the southeast corner of the second floor of the Criminal Courts
+Building. Heavy carved oaken doors afforded entrance and exit for
+the hundreds of lawyers, witnesses, friends, and relatives of
+defendants and complainants who flocked thither.
+
+Rows upon rows of dark-brown stained chairs filled the west half
+of the courtroom, facing a three-foot railing that enclosed a jury
+box and space reserved for counsel tables, the clerk and the
+District Attorney representing the people.
+
+At the extreme east rose in severe dignity the dais or bench above
+which ascended a draped canopy of rich brown plush. Here Justice
+Pomeroy presided, in his robes of silk, a striking, white-haired
+figure of a man, whose face was seamed and whose eyes were keen
+with thought and observation.
+
+Across the street, reached by the famous Bridge of Sighs, loomed
+the great grey hulk of stone and steel bars, the city prison,
+usually referred to as "The Tombs." As if there had been some
+cunning design in the juxtaposition, the massive jail reared
+itself outside the windows as an object lesson. It was a perpetual
+warning to the lawbreaker. Its towers and projections jutted out
+as so many rocks on a dangerous shore where had been wrecked
+thousands of promising careers just embarked on the troublesome
+seas of life.
+
+Skirting the line of southern windows through which The Tombs was
+visible, ran a steel wire screen, eight feet high, marking off a
+narrow chute that hugged the walls to a door at the rear of the
+courtroom leading to the detention pen. Ordinarily prisoners were
+brought over the Bridge of Sighs in small droves and herded in the
+detention pens just outside the courtroom until their cases were
+called.
+
+The line-up of prisoners at such times awaiting their turn at the
+bar of justice affords ample opportunity for study to the
+professional or the amateur criminalist.
+
+Almost daily in this court one might look upon murderers, bank
+looters, clever forgers, taxicab robbers, safe crackers,
+highwaymen, second-story men, shoplifters, pickpockets, thieves,
+big and little--all sorts and conditions of crooks come to pay the
+price.
+
+The court was crowded, for the gang leaders knew that this was a
+show-down for them. Carton himself, not one of his assistants, was
+to conduct the case. If Dopey Jack, who had violated almost every
+law in the revised statutes and had never suffered anything worse
+than a suspended sentence, could not get off, then no one could.
+And it was unthinkable that Dopey should not only be arrested and
+held in jail without bail, but even be convicted on such a trivial
+matter as slight irregularities that swung the primaries in a
+large section of the city for his superior, "higher up."
+
+Rubano's father, a decent, sorrowing old man, sat in the rear of
+the courtroom, probably wondering how it had all happened, for he
+came evidently of a clean, law-abiding family.
+
+But there was nothing in the appearance of the insolent criminal
+at the bar to show that he was of the same breed. He was no longer
+the athlete, whom "prize fighting" had inculcated with principles
+of manliness and fair play as well as a strong body. All that, as
+I had seen often before, was a pitiful lie. He was rat-eyed and
+soft-handed. His skin had the pastiness that comes of more
+exposure to the glare of vile dance halls than the sunlight of
+day. His black hair was slicked down; he was faultlessly tailored
+and his shoes had those high, bulging toes which are the extreme
+of Fourteenth Street fashion.
+
+Outside, overflowing into the corridor, were gangsters, followers
+and friends of Dopey Jack. Only an overpowering show of force
+preserved the orderliness of the court from their boasting,
+bragging, and threats.
+
+The work of selecting the jury began, and we watched it carefully.
+Kahn, cool and cunning, had evidently no idea of what Carton was
+holding out against him. In the panel I could see the anemic-
+looking fellow whom we had caught with the goods up at Farrell's.
+Carton's men had shadowed him and had learned of every man with
+whom he had spoken. As each, for some reason or other, was
+objected to by Carton, Kahn began to show exasperation.
+
+At last the anemic fellow came up for examination. Kahn accepted
+him.
+
+For a moment Carton seemed to fumble among his papers, without
+even looking at the prospective juror. Then he drew out the print
+which Kennedy had made. Quietly, without letting anyone else see
+it, he deliberately walked to Kahn's table and showed it to the
+lawyer, without a word, in fact without anyone else in the court
+knowing anything about it.
+
+Kahn's face was a study, as he realized for the first time what it
+was that Carton and Kennedy had been doing that night at
+Farrell's. He paled. His hand shook. It was with the utmost effort
+that he could control his voice. He had been cornered and the
+yellow streak in him showed through.
+
+In a husky voice he withdrew the juror, and Carton, in the same
+cold, self-possessed manner resumed his former position, not even
+a trace of a smile on his features.
+
+It was all done so quickly that scarcely a soul in the court
+besides ourselves realized that anything had happened.
+
+"Isn't he going to say anything about it?" I whispered to Craig.
+
+"That will come later," was all that Kennedy replied, his eyes
+riveted still on Carton.
+
+Though no one besides ourselves realized it, Carton had thrown a
+bombshell that had demolished the defence. Others noticed it, but
+as yet did not know the cause. Kahn, the great Kahn by whom all
+the forces of the underworld had conjured, was completely
+unnerved. Carton had fixed it so that he could not retreat and
+leave the case to someone else. He had knocked the props from
+under his defence by uncannily turning down every man whom he had
+any reason of suspecting of having been approached. Then he had
+given Kahn just a glimpse of the evidence that hinted at what was
+in store for himself personally. Kahn was never the same after
+that.
+
+Judge Pomeroy, who had been following the progress of the case
+attentively, threw another bombshell when he announced that he
+would direct that the names of the jurors be kept secret until it
+was absolutely necessary to disclose them, a most unusual
+proceeding designed to protect them from reprisals of gangmen.
+
+At last the real trial began. Carton had been careful to see that
+none of the witnesses for the people should be "stiffened" as the
+process was elegantly expressed by those of Dopey Jack's class--in
+other words, intimidated, bribed, or otherwise rendered innocuous.
+One after another, Carton rammed home the facts of the case, the
+fraudulent registration and voting, the use of the names of dead
+men to pad the polling lists, the bribery of election officials at
+the primaries--the whole sordid, debasing story of how Dopey Jack
+had intimidated and swung one entire district.
+
+It was clever, as he presented it, with scarcely a reference to
+the name of Murtha, the beneficiary of such tactics--as though,
+perhaps, Murtha's case was in his mind separate and would be
+attended to later when his turn came.
+
+Rapidly, concisely, convincingly, Carton presented the facts. Now
+and then Kahn would rise to object to something as incompetent,
+irrelevant, and immaterial. But there was lacking something in his
+method. It was not the old Kahn. In fact, one almost felt that
+Carton was disappointed in his adversary, that he would have
+preferred a stiff, straight from the shoulder, stand-up fight.
+
+Now and then we could hear a whisper circulating about among the
+spectators. What was the matter with Kahn? Was he ill? Gangdom was
+in a daze itself, little knowing the smooth stone that Carton had
+slung between the eyes of the great underworld Goliath of the law.
+
+At last Carton's case was all in, and Kahn rose to present his
+own, a forced smile on his face.
+
+There was an attempt at a demonstration, but Judge Pomeroy rapped
+sharply for order, and alert court attendants were about to nip
+effectively any such outburst. Still, it was enough to show the
+undercurrent of open defiance of the court, of law, of the people.
+
+What it was no one but ourselves knew but Kahn was not himself.
+Others saw it, but did not understand. They had waited patiently
+through the sledge-hammer pounding of Carton, waiting expectantly
+for Kahn to explode a mine that would demolish the work of the
+District Attorney as if it had been so much paper. Carton had
+figuratively dampened the fuse. It sputtered, but the mine did not
+explode.
+
+Once or twice there were flashes of the old Kahn, but for the most
+part he seemed to have crumpled up. Often I thought he was not the
+equal of even a police court lawyer. The spectators seemed to know
+that something was wrong, though they could not tell just what it
+was. Kahn's colleagues whispered among themselves. He made his
+points, but they lacked the fire and dash and audacity that once
+had caused the epigram that Kahn's appearance in court indicated
+two things--the guilt of the accused and a verdict of acquittal.
+
+Even Justice Pomeroy seemed to notice it. Kahn had tried many a
+case before him and the old judge had a wholesome respect for the
+wiley lawyer. But to-day the court found nothing so grave as the
+strange dilatoriness of the counsel.
+
+Once the judge had to interfere with the remark, "I may remind the
+learned counsel for the defence that the court intends to finish
+this case before adjournment for the day, if possible; if not,
+then we shall sit to-night."
+
+Kahn seemed not to grasp the situation, as he had of old. He
+actually hurried up the presentation of the case, oblivious to the
+now black looks that were directed at him by his own client. If he
+had expected to recover his old-time equanimity as the case
+proceeded, he failed. For no one better than he knew what that
+little photograph of Carton's meant--disgrace, disbarment, perhaps
+prison itself. What was this Dopey Jack when ruin stared himself
+so relentlessly in the face in the person of Carton, calm and
+cool?
+
+At last the summing up was concluded and both sides rested. Judge
+Pomeroy charged the jury, I thought with eminent fairness and
+impartiality, even, perhaps, glossing over some points which
+Kahn's weak presentation might have allowed him to make more of if
+Kahn had been bolder and stronger in pressing them.
+
+The jury filed out and the anxious waiting began. On all sides was
+the buzz of conversation. Kahn himself sat silent, gazing for the
+most part at the papers before him. There must have been some
+wrangling of the jury, for twice hope of the gangsters revived
+when they sent in for the record.
+
+But it was not over an hour later when the jury finally filed back
+again into their box. As Judge Pomeroy faced them and asked the
+usual question, the spectators hung, breathless, on the words of
+the foreman as the jurors stood up silently in their places. There
+was a tense hush in the courtroom, as every eye was fastened on
+the face of the foreman.
+
+The hush seemed to embarrass him. But finally he found his voice.
+Nervously, as if he were taking his own life in his hands he
+delivered the verdict.
+
+"We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment!"
+
+Instantly, before anyone could move, the dignified judge faced the
+prisoner deliberately.
+
+"You have heard the verdict," he said colourlessly. "I shall
+sentence you Friday."
+
+Three court attendants were at Dopey Jack's side in a moment, but
+none too soon. The pent-up feeling of the man idolized by
+blackmailers, and man-killers, and batteners on street-women, who
+held nothing as disgrace but a sign of respect for law or remorse
+for capture, burst forth.
+
+He cast one baleful look at Kahn as they hurried him to the wire-
+screened passageway. "It's all a frame-up--a damned frame-up!" he
+shouted.
+
+As he disappeared a murmer of amazement ran through the room. The
+unthinkable had happened. An East Side idol had fallen.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE BEAUTY PARLOUR
+
+
+"It seems strange," remarked Kennedy the following morning when we
+had met in his laboratory for our daily conference to plan our
+campaign, "that although we seem to be on the right trail we have
+not a word yet about Betty Blackwell herself. Carton has just
+telephoned that her mother, poor woman, is worrying her heart out
+and is a mere shadow of her former self."
+
+"We must get some word," asserted Miss Kendall. "This silence is
+almost like the silence of death."
+
+"I'm afraid I shall have to impose on you that task," said Kennedy
+thoughtfully to her. "There seems to be no course open to us but
+to transfer our watch from Dr. Harris to this Marie. Of course it
+is too early to hear from our search by means of the portrait
+parle. But we have both seen Dr. Harris and Marie enter the beauty
+parlour of Madame Margot. Now, I don't mean to cast aspersions on
+your own good looks, Miss Kendall. They are of the sort with which
+no beauty parlour except Nature can compete."
+
+A girl of another type than Clare would probably have read a half
+dozen meanings into his sincere compliment. But then, I reflected
+that a man of another type than Craig could not have made the
+remark without expecting her to do so. There was a frankness
+between them which, I must confess, considerably relieved me. I
+was not prepared to lose Kennedy, even to Miss Kendall.
+
+She smiled. "You want me to try a course in artificial
+beautification, don't you?"
+
+"Yes. Walter doesn't need it, and as for me, nothing could make me
+a modern Adonis. Seriously, though, a man couldn't get in there, I
+suppose. At least that is one of the many things I want you to
+find out. Under the circumstances, you are the only person in whom
+I have confidence enough to believe that she can get at the facts
+there. Find out all you can about the character of the place and
+the people who frequent it. And if you can learn anything about
+that Madame Margot who runs the place, so much the better."
+
+"I'll try," she said simply.
+
+Kennedy resumed his tests of the powder in the packets which Dr.
+Harris had been distributing, and I endeavoured to make myself as
+little in the way as possible. It was not until the close of the
+afternoon that a taxicab drove up and deposited Miss Kendall at
+the door.
+
+"What luck?" greeted Kennedy eagerly, as she entered. "Do you feel
+thoroughly beautified?"
+
+"Don't make me smile," she replied, as she swept in with an air
+that would have done credit to the star in a comic opera. "I'd
+hate to crack or even crease the enamel on my face. I've been
+steamed and frozen, beaten and painted and---"
+
+"I'm sorry to have been the cause of such cruel and unusual
+punishment," apologized Craig.
+
+"No, indeed. Why, I enjoyed it. Let me tell you about the place."
+
+She leaned against the laboratory table, certainly an incongruous
+picture in her new role as contrasted with the stained and dirty
+background of paraphernalia of medico-legal investigation. I could
+not help feeling that if Clare Kendall ever had decided to go in
+for such things, Marie herself would have had to look sharp to her
+laurels.
+
+"As you enter the place," she began, "you feel a delightful warmth
+and there is an odour of attar of roses in the air. There are
+thick half-inch carpets that make walking a pleasure and dreamy
+Sleepy Hollow rockers that make it an impossibility. It is all
+very fascinating.
+
+"There are dull-green lattices, little gateways with roses, white
+enamel with cute little diamond panes of glass for windows,
+inviting bowers of artificial flowers and dim yellow lights. It
+makes you feel like a sybarite just to see it. It's a cosmetic
+Arcadia for that fundamental feminine longing for beauty.
+
+"Well, first there are the little dressing-rooms, each with a bed,
+a dresser and mirror, and everything in such good taste. After you
+leave them you go to a white, steamy room and there they bake you.
+It's a long process of gentle showers, hot and cold, after that,
+and massage.
+
+"I thought I was through. But it seems that I had only just
+started. There was a battery of white manicure tables, and then
+the hairdressers and the artists who lay on these complexions--
+what do you think of mine? I can't begin to tell all the secrets
+of the curls and puffs, and reinforcements, hygienic rolls,
+transformations, fluffy puffers, and all that, or of the
+complexions. Why, you can choose a complexion, like wall-paper or
+upholstery. They can make you as pale as a sickly heroine or they
+can make you as yellow as a bathing girl. There is nothing they
+can't do. I asked just for fun. I could have come out as dusky as
+a gipsy.
+
+"They tried electrolysis on my eyebrows, and one attendant
+suggested a hypodermic injection of perfume. Ever hear of that?
+She thought 'new mown hay' was the best to saturate the skin with.
+Then another suggested, as long as I had chosen this moonbeam
+make-up, that perhaps I'd like a couple of dimples. They could
+make them permanent or lasting only a few hours. I declined. But
+there is nothing so wild that they haven't either thought of
+themselves or imported from Paris or somewhere else. I heard them
+discussing someone who wanted odd eyes--made by pouring in certain
+liquids. They don't seem to care how they affect sight, hearing,
+skin, or health. It is decoration run mad."
+
+"How about the people there?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"Oh, I must tell you about that. There's so much to tell, I hardly
+know where to begin--or stop. I saw some flashy people. You know
+one customer attracts her friends and so on. There is every class
+there from the demi-monde up to actresses and really truly
+society. And they have things for all prices from the
+comparatively cheap to the most extravagant. They're very
+accommodating and, in a way, democratic."
+
+"Did it seem--straight?" asked Kennedy.
+
+"On the surface, yes, as far as I could judge. But I'll have to go
+back again for that. For instance, there was one thing that seemed
+queer to me. I had finished the steaming and freezing and was
+resting. A maid brought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little
+thin ones with gilt tips. There seemed to be several kinds. I
+managed to try some of them. One at least I know was doped,
+although I only had a whiff of it. I think after they got to know
+you they'd serve anything from a cocktail in a teacup to the
+latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman taking some veronal in
+her coffee."
+
+"Veronal?" commented Craig. "Then that may be where Dr. Harris
+comes in."
+
+"Partly, I think. I've got to find out more about what is hidden
+there. Once I heard a man's voice and I know it was Dr. Harris's."
+
+"Harris! Why, the elevator boy at the Montmartre said he was
+painting the town," I observed.
+
+"I don't believe it. I think he has all he can do keeping up with
+the beauty shop. You see, it is more than a massage parlour. They
+do real decorative surgery, as it is called. They'll engage to
+give you a new skin as soft and pink as a baby's. Or they will
+straighten a nose, or turn an ear. They have light treatment for
+complexions--the ruby ray, the violet ray, the phosphorescent ray.
+
+"You would laugh at the fake science that is being handed out to
+those gullible fools. They can get rid of freckles and superfluous
+hair, of course. But they'll even tell you that they can change
+your mouth and chin, your eyes, your cheeks. I should be
+positively afraid of some of their electrical appliances there.
+They sweat down your figure or build it up--just as you please.
+
+"Oh, no one need be plain in these days, not as long as Madame
+Margot's exists. That is where I think Dr. Harris comes in. He can
+pose as a full-fledged, blown-in-the-bottle cosmetic surgeon. I'll
+bet there is no limit to the agonized beautification that they can
+put you through if they think they can play you for a sucker."
+
+"By the way, did you see Madame Margot herself?" asked Craig.
+
+"No. I made all sorts of discreet inquiries after her, but they
+seemed to know nothing. The nearest I could get was a hint from
+one of the girls that she was away. But I'll tell you whom I think
+I heard, talking to the man whose voice sounded like Dr. Harris's,
+and that was Marie. Of course I couldn't see, but in the part of
+the shop that looks like a fake hospital I heard two voices and I
+would wager that Marie is going through some of this
+beautification herself. Of course she is. You remember how
+artificial she looked?"
+
+"Did you see anyone else?"
+
+"Oh, yes. You know the place is two doors from the Montmartre.
+Well, I think they have some connection with that place between
+them and the Montmartre. Anyhow it looks as if they did, for after
+I had been there a little while a girl came in, apparently from
+nowhere. She was the girl we saw paying money to Ike the Dropper,
+you remember--the one none of us recognized? There's something in
+that next house, and she seems to have charge of it."
+
+"Well, you have done a good day's work," complimented Kennedy.
+
+"I feel that I have made a start, anyhow," she admitted. "There is
+a lot yet to be learned of Margot's. You remember it was early in
+the day that I was there. I want to go back sometime in the
+afternoon or evening."
+
+"Dr. Harris is apparently the oracle on beauty," mused Kennedy.
+
+"Yes. He must make a lot of money there."
+
+"They must have some graft, though, besides the beauty parlour,"
+went on Kennedy. "They wouldn't be giving up money to Ike the
+Dropper if that was all there was."
+
+"No, and that is where the doped cigarette comes in. That is why I
+want to go again. I imagine it's like the Montmartre. They have to
+know you and think you are all right before you get the real
+inside of the place."
+
+"I don't doubt it." "I can't go around looking like a chorus
+girl," remarked Miss Kendall finally, with a glance at a little
+mirror she carried in her bag. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse
+me until I get rid of this beautification."
+
+The telephone rang sharply.
+
+As Kennedy answered, we gathered that it was Carton. A few minutes
+of conversation, mostly on Carton's part, followed. Kennedy hung
+up the receiver with an exclamation of vexation.
+
+"I'm afraid I did wrong to start anything with the portrait parle
+yet," he said. "Why, this thing we are investigating has so many
+queer turns that you hardly know whom to trust."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know who could have given the thing away, but Carton says
+it wasn't an hour after the inquiries began about Marie that it
+became known in the underworld that she was being looked for in
+this way. Oh, they are clever, those grafters. They have all sorts
+of ways of keeping in touch. I suppose they remember they had one
+experience with the portrait parle and it has made them as wary as
+a burglar is over finger-prints. Carton tells me that Marie has
+disappeared."
+
+"I could swear I heard her or someone at Margot's," said Clare.
+
+"And Harris has disappeared. Of course you thought you overheard
+him, too. But you may have been mistaken."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"As nearly as Carton can find out," said Kennedy quickly, "Marie
+is Madame Margot herself."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT
+
+
+"I want to go to Margot's again to-day," volunteered Miss Kendall
+the following morning, adding with a smile, "You see, I've got the
+habit. Really, though, there is a mystery about that place that
+fascinates me. I want to find out more about this Marie, or
+Margot, or whoever it was that I thought I heard there. And then
+those doped cigarettes interest me. You see, I haven't forgotten
+what you said about dope the first time we talked about Dr.
+Harris. They will be more free with me, too, now that I am no
+longer a stranger."
+
+"That is a good idea," agreed Kennedy, who was now chafing under
+the enforced inaction of the case. "I hope that this time they
+will let you into some of the secrets. There is one thing, though,
+I wish you'd look out for especially."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I should like to know what ways there are of communicating with
+the outside. You realize, of course, that it is very easy for
+them, if they come to suspect you, to frame up something in a
+place like that. There are strong-arm women as well as men, and
+I'm not at all sure that there may not be some men besides Dr.
+Harris who are acquainted with that place. At any rate Dr. Harris
+is unscrupulous enough himself."
+
+"I shall make it a point to observe that," she said as she left
+us. "I hope I'll have something to tell you when I come back."
+
+"Walter," remarked Craig as the door closed, "that is one of the
+gamest girls I ever knew."
+
+I looked across at him inquiringly.
+
+"Don't worry, my boy," he added, reading my expression. "She's not
+of the marrying kind, any more than I am."
+
+The morning passed and half of the afternoon without any word from
+Miss Kendall. Kennedy was plainly becoming uneasy, when a hurried
+footstep in the hall was followed by a more hurried opening of the
+door.
+
+"Let me sit down, just a minute, to collect myself," panted Miss
+Kendall, pressing her hands to her temples where the blue veins
+stood out and literally throbbed. "I'm all in."
+
+"Why, what is the matter?" asked Kennedy, placing a chair and
+switching on an electric fan, while he quickly found a bottle of
+restorative salts which was always handy for emergencies in the
+laboratory.
+
+"Oh--such a time as I've had! Wait--let me see whether I can
+recollect it in order."
+
+A few minutes later she resumed. "I went in, as before. There
+seemed to be quite a change in the way they treated me. I must
+have made a good impression the first time. A second visit seemed
+to have opened the way for everything. Evidently they think I am
+all right.
+
+"Well, I went through much the same thing as I did before, only I
+tried to make it not quite so elaborate, down to the point where
+several of us were sitting in loose robes in the lounging-room.
+That was the part, you know, that interested me before.
+
+"The maid came in with the cigarettes and I smoked one of the
+doped ones. They watch everything that you do so closely there,
+and the moment I smoked one they offered me another. I don't know
+what was in them, but I fancy there must be just a trace of opium.
+They made me feel exhilarated, then just a bit drowsy. I managed
+to make away with the second without inhaling much of the smoke,
+for my head was in a whirl by this time. It wasn't so much that I
+was afraid I couldn't take care of myself as it was that I was
+afraid that it would blunt the keenness of my observation and I
+might miss something."
+
+"Besides the cigarettes, was there anything else?" asked Craig.
+
+"Yes, indeed. I didn't see anyone there I recognized, but I heard
+some of them talk. One was taking a little veronal; another said
+something about heroin. It was high-toned hitting the pipe, if you
+call it that--a Turkish bath, followed by massage, and then a safe
+complement of anything you wanted, taken leisurely by these
+aristocratic dope fiends.
+
+"There was one woman there who I am sure was snuffing cocaine. She
+had a little gold and enamelled box like a snuff box beside her
+from which she would take from time to time a pinch of some white
+crystals and inhale it vigorously, now and then taking a little
+sip of a liqueur that was brought in to her."
+
+"That's the way," observed Kennedy. "There are always a
+considerable number of inhuman beings who are willing to make
+capital out of the weaknesses of others. This illicit sale of
+cocaine is one example. Such conditions have existed with the
+opium products a long time. Now it seems to be the 'coke fiend.'"
+
+"I was glad I did just as I did," resumed Clare, "because it
+wasn't long before I saw that the thing to do was to feign
+drowsiness. A maid came over to me and in a most plausible and
+insinuating way hinted that perhaps I might feel like resting and
+that if the noise in the beauty parlour annoyed me, they had the
+entire next house--the one next to the Montmartre, you know--which
+had been fitted up as a dormitory."
+
+"You didn't go?" cut in Craig immediately.
+
+"I did not. I pleaded an engagement. Why, the place is a regular
+dope joint."
+
+"Exactly. I suspected as much as you went along. Everything seems
+to have moved uptown lately, to have been veneered over to meet
+the fastidious second decade of the twentieth century. But
+underneath it all are the same old vices. I'm glad you didn't
+attempt to go into the next house. Anyhow, now we are certain
+about the character of the place. Did you notice anything about
+the means of communicating with the outside--the telephones, for
+instance?"
+
+Miss Kendall was evidently feeling much better now.
+
+"Oh, yes," she answered. "I took particular care to observe that.
+They have a telephone, but there is a girl who attends to it,
+although they don't really need one. She listens to everything.
+Then, too, in the other house--You remember I spoke about the girl
+whom we saw paying Ike the Dropper? It seems that she has a
+similar position at the telephone over there."
+
+"So they have two telephones," repeated Craig.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good. There are always likely to be some desperate characters in
+places like that. If we ever have anyone go into that dope joint
+we must have some way of keeping in touch and protecting the
+person."
+
+Miss Kendall had gone home for a few hours of rest after her
+exciting experience. Craig was idly tapping with his fingers on
+the broad arm of his chair.
+
+Suddenly he jumped up. "I'm going up there to look that joint over
+from the outside," he announced.
+
+We walked past the front of it without seeing anything in
+particular, then turned the corner and were on the Avenue. Kennedy
+paused and looked at a cheap apartment house on which was a sign,
+"Flats to Let."
+
+"I think I'll get the janitor to show me one of them," he said.
+
+One was on the first floor in the rear. Kennedy did not seem to be
+very much interested in the rent. A glance out of the window
+sufficed to show him that he could see the back of the Montmartre
+and some of the houses. It took only a minute to hire it, at least
+conditionally, and a bill to the janitor gave us a key.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"We can't do anything just yet, but it will be dark by the time I
+get over to the laboratory and back and then we can do something."
+
+That night we started prowling over the back fences down the
+street. Fortunately it was a very black night and Craig was
+careful not to use even the electric bull's-eye which he had
+brought over from the laboratory together with some wire and
+telephone instruments.
+
+As we crouched in the shadow of one of the fences, he remarked:
+"Just as I expected; the telephone wires run along the tops of the
+fences. Here's where they run into 72--that's the beauty parlour.
+These run into 70--that's the dope joint. Then next comes the
+Montmartre itself, reaching all the way back as far as the lot
+extends."
+
+We had come up close to the backs of the houses by this time. The
+shades were all drawn and the blinds were closed in both of them,
+so that we had really nothing to fear provided we kept quiet.
+Besides the back yards looked unkempt, as if no one cared much
+about them.
+
+Kennedy flashed the electric bull's-eye momentarily on the wires.
+They branched off from the back fence down the party fence to the
+houses, both sets on one fence.
+
+"Good!" he exclaimed. "It is better than I hoped. The two sets go
+on up to the first floor together, then separate. One set goes
+into the beauty parlour; the other into the dope joint."
+
+Craig had quietly climbed up on a shed over the basements of both
+the houses. He was working quickly with all the dexterity of a
+lineman. To two of the four wires he had attached one other. Then
+to two others he attached another, all the connections being made
+at exactly corresponding points.
+
+The next step was to lead these two newly connected wires to a
+window on the first floor of the house next to the Montmartre. He
+fastened them lightly to the closed shutter, let himself down to
+the yard again and we beat a slow and careful retreat to our flat.
+
+In one of the yards down near the corner, however, he paused. Here
+was an iron box fastened to one of the fences, a switch box or
+something of the sort belonging to the telephone company. To it
+were led all the wires from the various houses on the block and to
+each wire was fastened a little ticket on which was scrawled in
+indelible pencil the number of the house to which the wire ran.
+
+Kennedy found the two pairs that ran to 70 and 72, cut in on them
+in the same way that he had done before and fastened two other
+wires, one to each pair. This pair he led along and into the flat.
+
+"I've fixed it," he explained, "so that anyone who can get into
+that room on the back of the first floor of the dope joint can
+communicate with the outside very easily over the telephone,
+without being overheard, either."
+
+"How?" I asked completely mystified by the apparent simplicity of
+the proceeding.
+
+"I have left two wires sticking on the outside shutter of that
+room," he replied. "All that anyone who gets into that room has to
+do is to open the window softly, reach out and secure them. With
+them fastened to a transmitter which I have, he can talk to me in
+the flat around the corner and no one will ever know it."
+
+There was nothing more that we could do that night and we waited
+impatiently until Clare Kendall came to make her daily report in
+the morning.
+
+"The question is, whom are we going to get whom we can trust to go
+to that dope joint and explore it?" remarked Kennedy, after we had
+finished telling Miss Kendall about our experiences of the night
+before.
+
+"Carton must have someone who can take a course in beauty and
+dope," I replied. "Or perhaps Miss Kendall has one of her
+investigators whom she can trust."
+
+"If the thing gets too rough," added Craig, "whoever is in there
+can telephone to us, if she will only be careful first to get that
+back room in the 'dormitory,' as they call it. Then all we'll have
+to do will be to jump in there and---"
+
+"I'll do it," interrupted Clare.
+
+"No, Miss Kendall," denied Kennedy firmly.
+
+"Let me do it. There is no one whom I can trust more than myself.
+Besides, I know the places now."
+
+She said it with an air of quiet determination, as if she had been
+thinking it over ever since she returned from her visit of the day
+before.
+
+Kennedy and Miss Kendall faced each other for a moment. It was
+evident that it was against just this that he had been trying to
+provide. On her part it was equally evident that she had made up
+her mind.
+
+"Miss Kendall," said Kennedy, meeting her calm eye, "you are the
+most nervy detective, barring none, that it has ever been my
+pleasure to meet. I yield under protest."
+
+I must say that it was with a great deal of misgiving that I saw
+Clare enter Margot's. We had gone as far as the corner with her,
+had watched her go in, and then hurried into the unfurnished
+apartment which Craig had rented on the Avenue.
+
+As we sat on the rickety chairs which we had borrowed from the
+janitor under pretence of wanting to reach something, the minutes
+that passed seemed like hours.
+
+I wondered what had happened to the plucky girl in her devotion to
+the cause in which she had enlisted, and several times I could see
+from the expression of Craig's face that he more and more
+regretted that he had given in to her and had allowed her to go,
+instead of adhering to his original plan. From what she had told
+us about the two places, I tried to imagine what she was doing,
+but each time I ended by having an increased feeling of
+apprehension.
+
+Kennedy sat grimly silent with the receiver of the telephone glued
+to his ear, straining his hearing to catch even the faintest
+sound.
+
+At last his face brightened.
+
+"She's there all right," he exclaimed to me. "Managed to make them
+think in the beauty parlour that she was a dope fiend and pretty
+far gone. Insisted that she must have the back room on the first
+floor because she was afraid of fire. She kept the door open so
+that she would not miss anything, but it was a long time before
+she got a chance to reach out of the window and get the wires and
+connect them with the instruments I gave her. But it's all right
+now.
+
+"Yes, Miss Kendall, right here, listening to everything you get a
+chance to say. Only be careful. There is no use spoiling the game
+by trying to talk to me until you have all that you think you can
+obtain in the way of evidence. Don't let them think you have any
+means of communication with the outside or they'll go to any
+length to silence you. We'll be here all the time and the moment
+you think there is any danger, call us."
+
+Kennedy seemed visibly relieved by the message.
+
+"She says that she has found out a great deal already, but didn't
+dare take the time to tell it just yet," he explained. "By the
+way, Walter, while we are waiting, I wish you would go out and see
+whether there is a policeman on fixed post anywhere around here."
+
+Five minutes later when I returned, having located the nearest peg
+post a long block away on Broadway, Kennedy raised a warning hand.
+She was telephoning again.
+
+"She says that attendants come and go in her room so often that
+it's hard to get a chance to say anything, but she is sure that
+there is someone hidden there, perhaps Marie or Madame Margot,
+whoever she is, or it may even be Betty Blackwell. They watch very
+closely."
+
+"But," I asked, almost in a whisper, as if someone over there
+might hear me, "isn't this a very dangerous proceeding, Craig? It
+seems to me you are taking long chances. Suppose one of the
+telephone girls in either house, whom she told us keep such sharp
+watch over the wires, should happen to be calling up or answering
+a call. She would hear someone else talking over the wire and it
+wouldn't be difficult for her to decide who it was. Then there'd
+be a row."
+
+"Not a chance," smiled Kennedy. "No one except ourselves, not even
+Central, can hear a word of what is said over these connections I
+have made. This is what is called a phantom circuit."
+
+"A phantom circuit?" I repeated. "What kind of a weird thing is
+that?"
+
+"It is possible to superimpose another circuit over the four
+telephone wires of two existing circuits, making a so-called
+phantom line," he explained, as we waited for the next message.
+"It seems fantastic at first, but it is really in accordance with
+the laws of electricity. You use each pair of wires as if it were
+one wire and do not interfere in the least with them, but are
+perfectly independent of both. The current for the third circuit
+enters the two wires of one of the first circuits, divides,
+reunites, so to speak, at the other end, then returns through the
+wires of the second circuit, dividing and reuniting again, thus
+just balancing the two divisions of the current and not causing
+any effect on either of the two original circuits. Rather
+wonderful, isn't it?"
+
+"I should say that it was," I marvelled. "I am glad I see it
+actually working rather than have to believe it second hand."
+
+"It's all due to a special repeating coil of high efficiency
+absolutely balanced as to resistances, number of turns of wire,
+and so on which I have used--Yes--Miss Kendall--we are here. Now
+please don't let things go on too far. At the first sign of
+danger, call. We can get in all right. You have the evidence now
+that will hold in any court as far as closing up that joint goes,
+and I'll take a chance of breaking into--well, Hades, to get to
+you. Good-bye.
+
+"I guess it is Hades there," he resumed to me. "She has just
+telephoned that one of the dope fiends upstairs--a man, so that
+you see they admit both men and women there, after all--had become
+violent and Harris had to be called to quiet him before he ran
+amuck. She said she was absolutely sure, this time at least, that
+it was Harris. As I was saying about this phantom circuit, it is
+used a good deal now. Sometimes they superimpose a telephone
+conversation over the proper arrangement of telegraph messages and
+vice versa.
+
+"What's that?" cried Craig, suddenly breaking off. "They heard you
+talking that last time, and you have locked the door against them?
+They are battering it down? Move something heavy, if you can, up
+against it--the bureau, anything to brace it. We'll be there
+directly. Come on, Walter. There isn't time to get around Broadway
+for that fixed post cop. We must do it ourselves. Hurry."
+
+Craig dashed breathlessly out on the street. I followed closely.
+
+"Hurry," he panted. "Those people haven't any use for anyone that
+they think will snitch on them."
+
+As we turned the corner, we ran squarely into a sergeant slowly
+going his rounds with eyes conveniently closed to what he was paid
+not to see.
+
+Kennedy stopped and grabbed his arm.
+
+"There's a girl up here in 72 who is being mistreated," he cried.
+"Come. You must help us get her out."
+
+"Aw, g'wan. Whatyer givin' us? 72? That's a residence."
+
+"Say--look here. I've got your number. You'll be up on the most
+serious charges of your whole career if you don't act on the
+information I have. All of Ike the Dropper's money'll go for
+attorney's fees and someone will land in Sing Sing. Now, come!"
+
+We had gained the steps of the house. Outside all was dark, blank,
+and bare. There was every evidence of the most excessive outward
+order and decency--not a sign of the conflict that was raging
+within.
+
+Before the policeman could pull the bell, which would have been a
+first warning of trouble to the inmates, Kennedy had jumped from
+the high stoop to a narrow balcony running along the front windows
+of the first story, had smashed the glass into splinters with a
+heavy object which he had carried concealed under his coat, and
+was engaged in a herculean effort to wrench apart some iron bars
+which had been carefully concealed behind the discreetly drawn
+shades.
+
+As one yielded, he panted, "No use to try the door. The grill work
+inside guards that too well. There goes another."
+
+Inside now we could hear cries that told us that the whole house
+was roused, that even the worst of the drug fiends had come at
+least partly to his senses and begun to realize his peril. From
+Margot's beauty parlour a couple of girls and a man staggered
+forth in a vain effort to seem to leave quietly.
+
+"Close that place, too, officer," cried Kennedy to the now
+astounded policeman. "We'll attend to this house."
+
+The sergeant slowly lumbered across in time to let two more
+couples escape. It was evident that he hated the job; indeed,
+would have arrested Kennedy in the old days before Carton had
+thrown such a scare into the grafters. But Kennedy's assurance had
+flabbergasted him and he obeyed.
+
+Another bar yielded, and another. Together we squeezed in and
+found ourselves in a dark front parlour. There was nothing to
+distinguish it from any ordinary reception room in the blackness.
+
+Hurried footsteps were heard as if several people were retreating
+into the next house. Down the hall we hastened to the back room.
+
+A second we listened. All was silent. Was Clare safe? It looked
+ominous. Still the door, partly battered in, was closed.
+
+"Miss Kendall!" called Craig, bending down close to the door.
+
+"Is it you, Professor Kennedy?" came back a faint voice from the
+other side.
+
+"Yes. Are you all right?"
+
+There was no answer, but she was evidently tugging at something
+which appeared to be a heavy piece of furniture braced against the
+door. At last the bolt was slipped back, and there in the doorway
+she swayed, half exhausted but safe.
+
+"Yes, all right," murmured Clare, bracing herself against the
+chiffonier which she had moved away from the door, "just a little
+shaky from the drugs--but all right. Don't bother about me, now. I
+can take care of myself. I'll feel better in a minute. Upstairs--
+that is where I think that woman is. Please, please don't--I'm all
+right--truly. Upstairs."
+
+Kennedy had taken her gently by the arm and she sank down in an
+easy chair.
+
+"Please hurry," she implored. "You may be too late."
+
+She had risen again in spite of us and was out in the lower hall.
+We could hear a footstep on the stairs.
+
+"There she goes, the woman who has been hiding up there, Madame--"
+
+Clare cut the words short.
+
+A woman had hastily descended the steps, evidently seeing her
+opportunity to escape while we were in the back of the house. She
+had reached the street door, which now was open, and the flaming
+arc light in front of the house shone brightly on her.
+
+I looked, expecting to see our dark-haired, olive-skinned Marie. I
+stared in amazement. Instead, this woman was fair, her hair was
+flaxen, her figure more slim, even her features were different.
+She was a stranger. I could not recollect ever having seen her.
+
+Again I strained my eyes, thinking it might be Betty Blackwell at
+last, but this woman bore no resemblance apparently to her. She
+looked older, more mature.
+
+In my haste I noted that she had a bandage about her face, as if
+she had been injured recently, for there seemed to be blood on it
+where it had worked itself loose in her flight. She gave one
+glance at us, and quickened her pace at seeing us so close. The
+bandage, already loose, slipped off her face and fell to the
+floor. Still she did not seem other than a stranger to me, though
+I had a half-formed notion that I had seen that face somewhere
+before. She did not stop to pick the bandage up. She had gained
+the door and was down the front step on the sidewalk before we
+could stop her.
+
+Taxicabs in droves seemed to have collected, like buzzards over a
+dead body. They were doing a thriving business carrying away those
+who sought to escape. Into one by which a man was waiting in the
+shadow the woman hurried. The man looked for all the world like
+Dr. Harris. An instant later the chauffeur was gone.
+
+The policeman had the front door of Madame Margot's covered all
+right, so efficiently that he was neglecting everything else. From
+the basement now and then a scurrying figure catapulted itself out
+and was lost in the curious crowd that always collects at any time
+of day or night on a New York street when there is any excitement.
+
+"It is of no use to expect to capture anyone now," exclaimed
+Craig, as we hurried back into the dope joint. "I hardly expected
+to do it. All I panted was to protect Miss Kendall. But we have
+the evidence against this joint that will close it for good."
+
+He stooped and picked up the bandage.
+
+"I think I'll keep that," he remarked thoughtfully. "I wonder what
+that blonde woman wore that for?"
+
+"She MUST be up there," reiterated Clare, who had followed us. "I
+heard them talking, it seemed to me only the moment before I heard
+you in the hall."
+
+The excitement seemed now to have the effect of quieting her
+unstrung nerves and carrying her through.
+
+"Let us go upstairs," said Kennedy.
+
+From room to room we hurried in the darkness, lighting the lights.
+They were all empty, yet each one gave its mute testimony to the
+character of its use and its former occupants. There were opium
+lay-outs with pipes, lamps, yen haucks, and other paraphernalia in
+some. In others had been cocaine snuffers. There seemed to be
+everything for drug users of every kind.
+
+At last in a small room in front on the top floor we came upon a
+girl, half insensible from a drug. She was vainly trying to make
+herself presentable for the street, ramblingly talking to herself
+in the meantime.
+
+Again my hopes rose that we had found either the mysterious Marie
+Margot or Betty Blackwell. A second glance caused us all to pause
+in surprise and disappointment.
+
+It was the Titian-haired girl from the Montmartre office.
+
+Miss Kendall, recovering from the effects of the drugs which she
+had been compelled to take in her heroic attempt to get at the
+dope joint, was endeavouring to quiet the girl from the
+Montmartre, who, now vaguely recollecting us, seemed to realize
+that something had gone wrong and was trembling and crying
+pitifully.
+
+"What's the matter with her?" I asked.
+
+"Chloral," replied Miss Kendall in a low voice aside. "I suppose
+she has had a wild night which she has followed by chloral to
+quiet her nerves, with little effect. Didn't you ever see them?
+They will go into a drug store in this part of the city where such
+things are sold, weak, shaky, nervous wrecks. The clerk will sell
+them the stuff and they will retire for a moment into the
+telephone booth. Sometimes they will come out looking as though
+they had never felt a moment's effect from their wild debauches.
+But there are other times when they are too weakened to get over
+it so quickly. That is her case, poor girl."
+
+The soothing hand which she laid on the girl's throbbing head was
+quite in contrast with the manner in which I recalled her to have
+spoken of the girl when first we saw her at the Montmartre. She
+must have seen the look of surprise on my face.
+
+"I can't condemn these girls too strongly when I see them
+themselves," she remarked. "It would be so easy for them to stop
+and lead a decent life, if they only would forget the white lights
+and the gay life that allures them. It is when they are so down
+and out that I long to give them a hand to help them up again and
+show them how foolish it is to make slaves of themselves."
+
+"Call a cab, Walter," said Kennedy, who had been observing the
+girl closely. "There is nothing more that we can expect to
+accomplish here. Everybody has escaped by this time. But we must
+get this poor girl in a private hospital or sanitarium where she
+can recover."
+
+Clare had disappeared. A moment later she returned from the room
+she had had downstairs with her hat on.
+
+"I'm going with her," she announced simply.
+
+"What--you, Miss Kendall?"
+
+"Yes. If a girl ever needed a friend, it is this girl now. There
+is nothing I can do for the moment. I will take care of her in my
+apartment until she is herself again."
+
+The girl seemed to half understand, and to be grateful to Clare.
+Kennedy watched her hovering over the drug victim without
+attempting to express the admiration which he felt.
+
+Just as the cab was announced, he drew Miss Kendall aside. "You're
+a trump," he said frankly. "Most people would pass by on the other
+side from such as she is."
+
+They talked for a moment as to the best place to go, then decided
+on a quiet little place uptown where convalescents were taken in.
+
+"I think you can still be working on the case, if you care to do
+so," suggested Craig as Miss Kendall and her charge were leaving.
+
+"How?" she asked.
+
+"When you get her to this sanitarium, try to be with her as much
+as you can. I think if anyone can get anything out of her, you
+can. Remember it is more than this girl's rescue that is at stake.
+If she can be got to talk she may prove an important link toward
+piecing together the solution of the mystery of Betty Blackwell.
+She must know many of the inside secrets of the Montmartre," he
+added significantly.
+
+They had gone, and Craig and I had started to go also when we came
+across a negro caretaker who seemed to have stuck by the place
+during all the excitement.
+
+"Do you know that girl who just went out?" asked Craig.
+
+"No, sah," she replied glibly.
+
+"Look here," demanded Craig, facing her. "You know better than
+that. She has been here before, and you know it. I've a good mind
+to have you held for being in charge of this place. If I do, all
+the Marie Margots and Ike the Droppers can't get you out again."
+
+The negress seemed to understand that this was no ordinary raid.
+
+"Who is she?" demanded Craig.
+
+"I dunno, sah. She come from next door."
+
+"I know she did. She's the girl in the office of the Montmartre.
+Now, you know her. What is her name?"
+
+The negress seemed to consider a moment, then quickly answered,
+"Dey always calls her Miss Sybil here, sah, Sybil Seymour, sah."
+
+"Thank you. I knew you had some name for her. Come, Walter. This
+is over for the present. A raid without arrests, too! It will be
+all over town in half an hour. If we are going to do anything it
+must be done quickly."
+
+We called on Carton and lost no time in having the men he could
+spare placed in watching the railroads and steamship lines to
+prevent if we could any of the gang from getting out of the city
+that way. It was a night of hard work with no results. I began to
+wonder whether they might not have escaped finally after all.
+There seemed to be no trace. Harris had disappeared, there was no
+clue to Marie Margot, no trace of the new blonde woman, not a
+syllable yet about Betty Blackwell.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE SANITARIUM
+
+
+"It seems as if the forces of Dorgan are demoralized," I remarked
+the afternoon after the raid on Margot's.
+
+"We have them on the run--that's true," agreed Kennedy, "but
+there's plenty of fight in them, yet. We're not through, by any
+means."
+
+Still, the lightning swiftness of Carton's attack had taken their
+breath away, temporarily, at least. Already he had started
+proceedings to disbar Kahn, as well as to prosecute him in the
+courts. According to the reports that came to us Murtha himself
+seemed dazed at the blow that had fallen. Some of our informants
+asserted that he was drinking heavily; others denied it. Whatever
+it was, however, Murtha was changed.
+
+As for Dorgan, he was never much in the limelight anyhow and was
+less so now than ever. He preferred to work through others, while
+he himself kept in the background. He had never held any but a
+minor office, and that in the beginning of his career. Interviews
+and photographs he eschewed as if forbidden by his political
+religion. Since the discovery of the detectaphone in his suite at
+Gastron's he had had his rooms thoroughly overhauled, lest by any
+chance there might be another of the magic little instruments
+concealed in the very walls, and having satisfied himself that
+there was not, he instituted a watch of private detectives to
+prevent a repetition of the unfortunate incident.
+
+Whoever it was who had obtained the Black Book was keeping very
+quiet about it, and I imagined that it was being held up as a sort
+of sword of Damocles, dangling over his head, until such time as
+its possessor chose to strike the final blow. Of course, we did
+not and could not know what was going on behind the scenes with
+the Silent Boss, what drama was being enacted between Dorgan and
+the Wall Street group, headed by Langhorne. Langhorne himself was
+inscrutable. I had heard that Dorgan had once in an unguarded
+moment expressed a derogatory opinion of the social leanings of
+Langhorne. But that was in the days before Dorgan had acquired a
+country place on Long Island and a taste for golf and expensive
+motors. Now, in his way, Dorgan was quite as fastidious as any of
+those he had once affected to despise. It amused Langhorne. But it
+had not furthered his ambitions of being taken into the inner
+circle of Dorgan's confidence. Hence, I inferred, this bitter
+internecine strife within the organization itself.
+
+Whatever was brewing inside the organization, I felt that we
+should soon know, for this was the day on which Justice Pomeroy
+had announced he would sentence Dopey Jack.
+
+It was a very different sort of crowd that overflowed the
+courtroom that morning from that which had so boldly flocked to
+the trial as if it were to make a Roman holiday of justice.
+
+The very tone was different. There was a tense look on many a
+face, as if the owner were asking himself the question, "What are
+we coming to? If this can happen to Dopey Jack, what might not
+happen to me?"
+
+Even the lawyers were changed. Kahn, as a result of the
+proceedings that Carton had instituted, had yielded the case to
+another, perhaps no better than himself, but wiser, after the
+fact. Instead of demanding anything, as a sort of prescriptive
+right, the new attorney actually adopted the unheard of measure of
+appealing to the clemency of the court. The shades of all the
+previous bosses and gangsters must have turned in disgust at the
+unwonted sight. But certain it was that no one could see the
+relaxation of a muscle on the face of Justice Pomeroy as the
+lawyer proceeded with his specious plea. He heard Carton, also, in
+the same impassive manner, as in a few brief and pointed sentences
+he ripped apart the sophistries of his opponent.
+
+The spectators fairly held their breath as the prisoner now stood
+before the tribune of justice.
+
+"Jack Rubano," he began impressively, "you have been convicted by
+twelve of your peers--so the law looks on them, although the fact
+is that any honest man is immeasurably your superior. Even before
+that, Rubano, the District Attorney having looked into all the
+facts surrounding this charge had come to the conclusion that the
+evidence was sufficiently strong to convict you. You were
+convicted in his mind. In my mind, of course, there could be no
+prejudgment. But now that a jury has found you guilty, I may say
+that you have a record that is more than enough to disgrace a man
+twice your age. True, you have never been punished. But this is
+not the time or place for me to criticise my colleagues on the
+bench for letting you off. Others of your associates have served
+terms in prison for things no whit worse than you have done
+repeatedly. I shall be glad to meet some of them at this bar in
+the near future."
+
+The justice paused, then extended a long, lean accusatory finger
+out from the rostrum at the gangster. "Rubano," he concluded,
+"your crime is particularly heinous--debauching the very
+foundations of the state--the elections. I sentence you to not
+less than three nor more than five years in State's prison, at
+hard labour."
+
+There was an audible gasp in the big courtroom, as the judge
+snapped shut his square jaw, bull-dog fashion. It was as though he
+had snapped the backbone of the System.
+
+The prisoner was hurried from the room before there was a chance
+for a demonstration. It was unnecessary, however. It seemed as if
+all the jaunty bravado of the underworld was gone out of it.
+Slowly the crowd filed out, whispering.
+
+Dopey Jack, Murtha's right-hand man, had been sentenced to State's
+prison!
+
+Outside the courtroom Carton received an ovation. As quickly as he
+could, he escaped from the newspapermen, and Kennedy was the first
+to grasp his hand.
+
+But the most pleasing congratulation came from Miss Ashton, who
+had dropped in with two or three friends from the Reform League.
+
+"I'm so glad, Mr. Carton--for your sake," she added very prettily,
+with just a trace of heightened colour in her cheeks and eyes that
+showed her sincere pleasure at the outcome of the case. "And then,
+too," she went on, "it may have some bearing on the case of that
+girl who has disappeared. So far, no one seems to have been able
+to find a trace of her. She just seems to have dropped out as if
+she had been spirited away."
+
+"We must find her," returned Carton, thanking her for her good
+wishes in a manner which he had done to none of the rest of us,
+and in fact forgetful now that any of us were about. "I shall
+start right in on Dopey Jack to see if I can get anything out of
+him, although I don't think he is one that will prove a squealer
+in any way. I hope we can have something to report soon."
+
+Others were pressing around him and Miss Ashton moved away,
+although I thought his handshakes were perhaps a little less
+cordial after she had gone.
+
+I turned once to survey the crowd and down the gallery, near a
+pillar I saw Langhorne, his eyes turned fixedly in our direction,
+and a deep scowl on his face. Evidently he had no relish for the
+proceedings, at least that part in which Carton had just figured,
+whatever his personal feelings may have been toward the culprit. A
+moment later he saw me looking at him, turned abruptly and walked
+toward the stone staircase that led down to the main floor. But I
+could not get that scowl out of my mind as I watched his tall,
+erect figure stalking away.
+
+Neither Murtha, nor, of course, Dorgan, were there, though I knew
+that they had many emissaries present who would report to them
+every detail of what had happened, down perhaps to the
+congratulations of Miss Ashton. Somehow, I could not get out of my
+head a feeling that she would afford them, in some way, a point of
+attack on Carton and that the unscrupulous organization would stop
+at nothing in order to save its own life and ruin his.
+
+Carton had not only his work at the District Attorney's office to
+direct, but some things to clear up at the Reform League
+headquarters, as well as a campaign speech to make.
+
+"I'm afraid I shan't be able to see much of you, to-day," he
+apologized to Kennedy, "but you're going to Miss Ashton's suffrage
+evening and dance, aren't you?"
+
+"I should like to go," temporized Kennedy.
+
+Carton glanced about to see whether there was anyone in earshot.
+"I think you had better go," he added. "She has secured a promise
+from Langhorne to be there, as well as several of the organization
+leaders. It is a thoroughly non-partisan affair--and she can get
+them all together. You know the organization is being educated.
+When people of the prominence of the Ashtons take up suffrage and
+make special requests to have certain persons come to a thing like
+that, they can hardly refuse. In fact, no one commits himself to
+anything by being present, whereas, absence might mean hostility,
+and there are lots of the women in the organization that believe
+in suffrage, now. Yes, we'd better go. It will be a chance to
+observe some people we want to watch."
+
+"We'll go," agreed Kennedy. "Can't we all go together?"
+
+"Surely," replied Carton, gratified, I could see, by having
+succeeded in swelling the crowd that would be present and thus
+adding to the success of Miss Ashton's affair. "Drop into the
+office here, and I'll be ready. Good-bye--and thanks for your aid,
+both of you."
+
+We left the Criminal Courts Building with the crowd that was
+slowly dispersing, still talking over the unexpected and
+unprecedented end of the trial.
+
+As we paused on the broad flight of steps that led down to the
+street on this side, Kennedy jogged my elbow, and, following his
+eyes, I saw a woman, apparently alone, just stepping into a town
+car at the curb.
+
+There was something familiar about her, but her face was turned
+from me and I could not quite place her.
+
+"Mrs. Ogleby," Kennedy remarked. "I didn't see her in the
+courtroom. She must have been there, though, or perhaps outside in
+the corridor. Evidently she felt some interest in the outcome of
+the case."
+
+He had caught just a glimpse of her face and now that he
+pronounced her name I recognized her, though I should not have
+otherwise.
+
+The car drove off with the rattle of the changing gears into high
+speed, before we had a chance to determine whether it was
+otherwise empty or not.
+
+"Why was she here?" I asked.
+
+Kennedy shook his head, but did not venture a reply to the
+question that was in his own mind. I felt that it must have
+something to do with her fears regarding the Black Book. Had she,
+too, surmised that Murtha had employed his henchman, Dopey Jack,
+to recover the book from Langhorne? Had she feared that Dopey Jack
+might in some moment of heat, for revenge, drop some hint of the
+robbery--whether it had been really successful or not?
+
+It was my turn to call Kennedy's attention to something, now, for
+standing sidewise as I was, I could see the angles of the building
+back of him.
+
+"Don't turn--yet," I cautioned, "but just around the corner back
+of you, Langhorne is standing. Evidently he has been watching Mrs.
+Ogleby, too."
+
+Kennedy drew a cigarette from his case, tried to light it, let the
+match go out, and then as if to shield himself from the wind,
+stepped back and turned.
+
+Langhorne, however, had seen us, and an instant later had
+disappeared.
+
+Without a word further Kennedy led the way around the corner to
+the subway and we started uptown, I knew this time, for the
+laboratory.
+
+He made no comment on the case, but I knew he had in mind some
+plan or other for the next move and that it would probably involve
+something at the suffrage meeting at Miss Ashton's that evening.
+
+During the rest of the day, Craig was busy testing and re-testing
+a peculiar piece of apparatus, while now and then he would
+despatch me on various errands which I knew were more as an outlet
+for my excitement than of any practical importance.
+
+The apparatus, as far as I could make it out, consisted of a
+simple little oaken box, oblong in shape, in the face of which
+were two square little holes with side walls of cedar, converging
+pyramid-like in the interior of the box and ending in what looked
+to be little round black discs.
+
+I had just returned with a hundred feet or so of the best silk-
+covered flexible wire, when he had evidently completed his work.
+Two of the boxes were already wrapped up. I started to show him
+the wire, but after a glance he accepted it as exactly what he had
+wanted and made it into a smaller package, which he handed to me.
+
+"I think we might be journeying down to Carton's office," he
+added, looking impatiently at his watch.
+
+It was still early and we did not hurry.
+
+Carton, however, was waiting for us anxiously. "I've called you at
+the laboratory and the apartment--all over," he cried. "Where have
+you been?"
+
+"Just on the way down," returned Kennedy. "Why, what has
+happened?"
+
+"Then you haven't heard it?" asked Carton excitedly, without
+waiting for Craig's answer. "Murtha has been committed to a
+sanitarium."
+
+Kennedy and I stared at him.
+
+"Pat Murtha," ejaculated Craig, "in a sanitarium?"
+
+"Exactly. Paresis--they say--absolutely irresponsible."
+
+Coming as it did as a climax to the quick and unexpected
+succession of events of the past few days, it was no wonder that
+it seemed impossible.
+
+What did it mean? Was it merely a sham? Or was it a result of his
+excesses? Or had Carton's relentless pursuit, the raid of
+Margot's, and the conviction of Dopey Jack, driven the Smiling
+Boss really insane?
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE SOCIETY SCANDAL
+
+
+Nothing else was talked about at the suffrage reception at Miss
+Ashton's that evening, not even suffrage, as much as the strange
+fate that seemed to have befallen Murtha.
+
+And, as usual with an event like that, stories of all sorts, even
+the wildest improbabilities, were current. Some even went so far
+as to insinuate that Dorgan had purposely quickened the pace of
+life for Murtha by the dinners at Gastron's in order to get him
+out of the way, fearing that with his power within the
+organization Murtha might become a serious rival to himself.
+
+Whether there was any truth in the rumour or not, it was certain
+that Dorgan was of the stamp that could brook no rivals. In fact,
+that had been at the bottom of the warfare between himself and
+Langhorne. Certain also was it that the dinners and conferences at
+the now famous suite of the Silent Boss were reputed to have been
+often verging on, if not actually crossing, the line of the
+scandalous.
+
+Miss Ashton's guests assembled in force, coming from all classes
+of society, all parties in politics, and all religions. Her object
+had been to show that, although she personally was working with
+the Reform League, suffrage itself was a broad general issue. The
+two or three hundred guests of the evening surely demonstrated it
+and testified to the popularity of Miss Ashton personally, as
+well.
+
+She had planned to hold the meeting in the big drawing-room of the
+Ashton mansion, but the audience overflowed into the library and
+other rooms. As the people assembled, it was interesting to see
+how for the moment at least they threw off the bitterness of the
+political campaign and met each other on what might be called
+neutral ground. Dorgan himself had been invited, but, in
+accordance with his custom of never appearing in public if he
+could help it, did not come. Langhorne was present, however, and I
+saw him once talking to a group of labour union leaders and later
+to Justice Pomeroy, an evidence of how successful the meeting was
+in hiding, if not burying, the hatchet.
+
+Carton, naturally, was the lion of the evening, though he tried
+hard to keep in the background. I was amused to see his efforts.
+In fleeing from the congratulations of some of his own and Miss
+Ashton's society friends, he would run into a group of newspaper
+men and women who were lying in wait for him. Shaking himself
+loose from them would result in finding himself the centre of an
+enthusiastic crowd of Reform Leaguers.
+
+Mrs. Ogleby was there, also, and both Kennedy and I watched her
+curiously. I wondered whether she might not feel just a little
+relieved to think that Murtha was seemingly out of the way for the
+present. Her knowledge of the Black Book which had first given the
+tip to Carton had always been a mystery to Kennedy and was one of
+the problems which I knew he would like to solve to-night. She was
+keenly observant of Carton, which led us to suppose that she had
+not yet got out of her mind the idea that somehow it was he who
+had been responsible for the detectaphone record which so many of
+those present were struggling to obtain. Though Langhorne
+studiously avoided her, I noticed that each kept an eye on the
+other, and I felt that there was something common to both of them.
+
+It was with an unexpressed air of relief to several members of the
+party that Miss Ashton at last rapped for order and after a short,
+pithy, pointed speech of introduction presented the several
+speakers of the evening. It was, like the audience, a well-
+balanced programme, which showed the tactfulness and political
+acumen of Miss Ashton. I shall pass over the speeches, however, as
+they had no direct bearing on the mystery which Kennedy and I
+found so engrossing.
+
+The meeting had been cleverly planned so that in spite of its
+accomplishing much for the propaganda work of the "cause," it did
+not become tiresome and the speaking was followed by the entrance
+of one of the best little orchestras for dance music in the city.
+
+Instantly, the scene transformed itself from a suffrage meeting to
+a social function that was unique. Leaders of the smart set rubbed
+elbows, and seemed to enjoy it, with working girls and agitators.
+Conservative and radical, millionaire and muckraker succumbed to
+the spell of the Ashton hospitality and the lure of the new
+dances. It was a novel experience for all, a levelling-up of
+society, as contrasted to some of the levelling-down that we had
+recently seen.
+
+Kennedy and I, having no mood as things stood for the festivities,
+drew aside and watched the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers.
+Across from us was a wide doorway that opened into a spacious
+conservatory, a nook of tropical and temperate beauty. Several
+couples had wandered in there to rest and, as the orchestra struck
+up something new that seemed to have the "punch" to its timeful
+measures, they gradually rejoined the dancers.
+
+It had evidently suggested an idea to Kennedy, for a moment later
+he led me toward the coat room and uncovered the package which he
+had brought consisting of the two oaken boxes I had seen him
+adjusting in the laboratory.
+
+We managed to reach the conservatory and found in a corner a
+veritable bower with a wide rustic seat under some palms. Quickly
+Kennedy deposited in the shadow of one of them an oaken box,
+sticking into it the plugs on the ends of the wires that I had
+brought. It was an easy matter here in the dim half light to
+conceal the wire behind the plants and a moment later he tossed
+the end through a swinging window in the glass and closed the
+window.
+
+Casually we edged our way out among the dancers and around to the
+room into which he had thrown the wire. It was a breakfast room, I
+think, but at any rate we could not remain there for it was quite
+easy to see into it through the crystal walls of the conservatory.
+There was, however, what seemed to be a little pantry at the other
+end, and to this Kennedy deftly led the wires and then plugged
+them in on the other oaken box.
+
+He turned a lever. Instantly from the wizard-like little box
+issued forth the strains of the dance music of the orchestra and
+the rhythmic shuffle of feet. Now and then a merry laugh or a
+snatch of gay conversation floated in to us. Though we were
+effectually cut off from both sight and hearing in the pantry, it
+was as though we had been sitting on the rustic bench in the
+conservatory.
+
+"What is it?" I asked in amazement, gazing at the wonderful little
+instrument before us.
+
+"A vocaphone," he explained, moving the switch and cutting off the
+sound instantly, "an improved detectaphone--something that can be
+used both in practical business, professional, and home affairs as
+a loud speaking telephone, and, as I expect to use it here, for
+special cases of detective work. You remember the detectaphone
+instruments which we have used?"
+
+Indeed I did. It had helped us out of several very tight
+situations--and seemed now to have been used to get the
+organization into a very tight political place.
+
+"Well, the vocaphone," went on Kennedy, "does even more than the
+detectaphone. You see, it talks right out. Those little apertures
+in the face act like megaphone horns increasing the volume of
+sound." He indicated the switch with his finger and then another
+point to which it could be moved. "Besides," he went on
+enthusiastically, "this machine talks both ways. I have only to
+turn the switch to that point and a voice will speak out in the
+conservatory just as if we were there instead of talking here."
+
+He turned the switch so that it carried the sounds only in our
+direction. The last strains of the dance music were being followed
+by the hearty applause of the dancers.
+
+As the encore struck up again, a voice, almost as if it were in
+the little room alongside us, said, "Why, hello, Maty, why aren't
+you dancing?"
+
+There was an unmistakable air of familiarity about it and about
+the reply, "Why aren't you, Hartley?"
+
+"Because I've been looking for a chance to have a quiet word with
+you," the man rejoined.
+
+"Langhorne and Mrs. Ogleby," cried Craig excitedly.
+
+"Sh!" I cautioned, "they might hear us."
+
+He laughed. "Not unless I turn the switch further."
+
+"I saw you down at the Criminal Courts Building this morning,"
+went on the man, "but you didn't see me. What did you think of
+Carton?"
+
+I fancied there was a trace of sarcasm or jealousy in his tone. At
+any rate, woman-like, she did not answer that question, but went
+on to the one which it implied.
+
+"I didn't go to see Carton. He is nothing to me, has not been for
+months. I was only amusing myself when I knew him--leading him on,
+playing with him, then." She paused, then turned the attack on
+him. "What did you think of Miss Ashton? You thought I didn't see
+you, but you hardly took your eyes off her while I was in the
+hallway waiting to hear the verdict."
+
+It was Langhorne's turn to defend himself. "It wasn't so much
+Margaret Ashton as that fellow Carton I was watching," he answered
+hastily.
+
+"Then you--you haven't forgotten poor little me?" she inquired
+with a sincere plaintiveness in her voice.
+
+"Mary," he said, lowering his voice, "I have tried to forget you--
+tried, because I had no right to remember you in the old way--not
+while you and Martin remained together. Margaret and I had always
+been friends--but I think Carton and this sort of thing,"--he
+waved his hand I imagined at the suffrage dancers--"have brought
+us to the parting of the ways. Perhaps it is better. I'm not so
+sure that it isn't best."
+
+"And yet," she said slowly, "you are piqued--piqued that another
+should have won where you failed--even if the prize isn't just
+what you might wish."
+
+Langhorne assented by silence. "Hartley," she went on at length,
+"you said a moment ago you had tried to forget me--"
+
+"But can't," he cut in with almost passionate fierceness. "That
+was what hurt me when I--er--heard that you had gone with Murtha
+to that dinner of Dorgan's. I couldn't help trying to warn you of
+it. I know Martin neglects you. But I was mad--mad clean through
+when I saw you playing with Carton a few months ago. I don't know
+anything about it--don't want to. Maybe he was innocent and you
+were tempting him. I don't care. It angered me--angered me worse
+than ever when I saw later that he was winning with Margaret
+Ashton. Everywhere, he seemed to be crossing my trail, to be my
+nemesis. I--I wish I was Dorgan--I wish I could fight."
+
+Langhorne checked himself before he said too much. As it was I saw
+that it had been he who had told Mrs. Ogleby that the Black Book
+existed. He had not told her that he had made it, if in fact he
+had, and she had let the thing out, never thinking Langhorne had
+been the eavesdropper, but supposing it must be Carton.
+
+"Why--why did you go to that dinner with Murtha?" he asked
+finally, with a trace of reproach in his tone.
+
+"Why? Why not?" she answered defiantly. "What do I care about
+Martin? Why should I not have my--my freedom, too? I went because
+it was wild, unconventional, perhaps wrong. I felt that way. If--
+if I had felt that you cared--perhaps--I could have been--more
+discreet."
+
+"I do care," he blurted out. "I--I only wish I had known you as
+well as I do now--before you married--that's all."
+
+"Is there no way to correct the mistake?" she asked softly. "Must
+marriage end all--all happiness?"
+
+Langhorne said nothing, but I could almost hear his breathing over
+the vocaphone, which picked up and magnified even whispers.
+
+"Mary," he said in a deep, passionate voice, "I--I will defend
+you--from this Murtha thing--if it ever gets out. I know it is
+always on your mind--that you couldn't keep away from that trial
+for fear that Carton, or Murtha, or SOMEBODY might say something
+by chance or drop some hint about it. Trust me."
+
+"Then we can be--friends?"
+
+"Lovers!" he cried fiercely.
+
+There was a half-smothered exclamation over the faithful little
+vocaphone, a little flurried rustle of silk and a long, passionate
+sigh.
+
+"Hartley," she whispered.
+
+"What is it, Mary?" he asked tensely.
+
+"We must be careful. Carton MUST be defeated. He must not have the
+power--to use that--record."
+
+"No," ground out Langhorne. "Wait--he shall not. By the way,
+aren't those orchids gorgeous?"
+
+The encore had ceased and over the vocaphone we could hear gaily
+chatting couples wandering into the conservatory. The two
+conspirators rose and parted silently, without exciting suspicion.
+
+For several minutes we listened to snatches of the usual vapid
+chatter that dancing seems to induce. Then the orchestra blared
+forth with another of the seductive popular pieces.
+
+Kennedy and I looked at each other, amazed. From the underworld up
+to the smart set, the trail of graft was the same, debauching and
+blunting all that it touched. Here we saw the making of a full-
+fledged scandal in one of the highest circles.
+
+We had scarcely recovered from our surprise at the startling
+disclosures of the vocaphone, when we heard two voices again above
+the music, two men this time.
+
+"What--you here?" inquired a voice which we recognized immediately
+as that of Langhorne.
+
+"Yes," replied the other voice, evidently of a young man. "I came
+in with the swells to keep my eye peeled on what was going on."
+
+The voice itself was unfamiliar, yet it had a tough accent which
+denoted infallibly the section of the city where it was acquired.
+It was one of the gangsters.
+
+"What's up, Ike?" demanded Langhorne suspiciously.
+
+Craig looked at me significantly. It was Ike the Dropper!
+
+The other lowered his voice. "I don't mind telling you, Mr.
+Langhorne. You're in the organization and we ain't got no grudge
+against you. It's Carton."
+
+"Carton?" repeated Langhorne, and one could feel the expectant
+catch in his breath, as he added quickly: "You mean you fellows
+are going to try to get him right?"
+
+"Bet your life," swaggered Ike, believing himself safe. "How?"
+
+The gangster hesitated, then reassured by Langhorne, said: "He's
+ordered a taxicab. We got it for him--a driver who is a right guy
+and'll drive him down where there's a bunch of the fellows. They
+ain't goner do nothing serious--but--well, he won't campaign much
+from a hospital cot," he added sagely. "Say--here he comes now
+with that girl. I better beat it."
+
+Langhorne also managed to get away apparently, or else Carton and
+Miss Ashton were too engrossed in one another to notice him, for
+we heard no word of greeting.
+
+A moment later Carton's and Miss Ashton's voices were audible.
+
+"Must you go?" she was saying.
+
+"I'm afraid so," he apologized. "I've a speech to prepare for to-
+morrow and I've had several hard days. It's been a splendid
+evening, Miss Ashton--splendid. I've enjoyed it ever so much and I
+think it has accomplished more than a hundred meetings--besides
+the publicity it will get for the cause. Shall I see you to-morrow
+at headquarters?"
+
+"I shall make it a point to drop in," she answered in a tone as
+unmistakable.
+
+"Mr. Carton--your cab is waiting, sir," announced a servant with
+an apology for intruding. "At the side entrance, sir, so that you
+can get away quietly, sir."
+
+Carton thanked him.
+
+I looked at Kennedy anxiously. If Carton slipped away in this
+fashion before we could warn him, what might not happen? We could
+hardly expect to get around and through the press of the dancers
+in time.
+
+"I hate to go, Miss Ashton," he was adding. "I'd stay--if I saw
+any prospect of the others going. But--you see--this is the first
+time to-night--that I've had a word with you--alone."
+
+It was not only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy's
+eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton's love affairs
+was quite another thing from Langhorne's.
+
+Quickly Craig turned the lever all the way over.
+
+"Carton--Miss Ashton--this is Kennedy," he called. "Back of the
+big palm you'll find a vocaphone. Don't take that cab! They are
+going to stick you up. Wait--I'll explain all in a moment!"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE WALL STREET WOLF
+
+
+It was a startled couple that we found when we reached the
+conservatory. As we made our hasty explanation, Carton overwhelmed
+us with thanks for the prompt and effective manner in which
+Kennedy had saved him from the machinations of the defeated
+gangsters.
+
+Miss Ashton, who would have kept her nerves under control
+throughout any emergency, actually turned pale as she learned of
+the danger that had been so narrowly averted. I am sure that her
+feelings, which she made no effort to conceal, must have been such
+as to reassure Carton if he had still any doubt on that score.
+
+The delay in his coming out, however, had been just enough to
+arouse suspicion, and by the time that we reached the side
+entrance to the house both Ike and the night-hawk taxicab which
+had evidently been drafted into service had disappeared, leaving
+no clue.
+
+The result of the discovery over the vocaphone was that none of us
+left Miss Ashton's until much later than we had expected.
+
+Langhorne, apparently, had gone shortly after he left the
+conservatory the last time, and Mrs. Ogleby had preceded him. When
+at last we managed to convince Miss Ashton that it was perfectly
+safe for Carton to go, nothing would suffice except that we should
+accompany him as a sort of bodyguard to his home. We did so,
+without encountering any adventure more thrilling than seeing an
+argument between a policeman and a late reveller.
+
+"I can't thank you fellows too much," complimented Carton as we
+left him. "I was hunting around for you, but I thought you had
+found a suffrage meeting too slow and had gone."
+
+"On the contrary," returned Kennedy, equivocally, "we found it far
+from slow."
+
+Carton did not appreciate the tenor of the remark and Craig was
+not disposed to enlighten him.
+
+"What do you suppose Mrs. Ogleby meant in her references to
+Carton?" mused Kennedy when we reached our own apartment.
+
+"I can't say," I replied, "unless before he came to really know
+Miss Ashton, they were intimate."
+
+Kennedy shook his head. "Why will men in a public capacity get
+mixed up with women of the adventuress type like that, even
+innocently?" he ruminated. "Mark my words, she or someone else
+will make trouble for him before we get through."
+
+It was a thought that had lately been in my own mind, for we had
+had several hints of that nature.
+
+Kennedy said no more, but he had started my mind on a train of
+speculative thought. I could not imagine that a woman of Mrs.
+Ogleby's type could ever have really appealed to Carton, but that
+did not preclude the possibility that some unscrupulous person
+might make use of the intimacy for base purposes. Then, too, there
+was the threat that I had heard agreed on by both Langhorne and
+herself over the vocaphone.
+
+What would be the next step of the organization now in its sworn
+warfare on Carton, I could not imagine. But we did not have long
+to wait. Early the following forenoon an urgent message came to
+Kennedy from Carton to meet him at his office.
+
+"Kennedy," he said, "I don't know how to thank you for the many
+times you have pulled me through, and I'm almost ashamed to keep
+on calling on you."
+
+"It's a big fight," hastened Craig. "You have opponents who know
+the game in its every crooked turn. If I can be only a small cog
+on a wheel that crushes them, I shall be only too glad. Your face
+tells me that something particularly unpleasant has happened."
+
+"It has," admitted Carton, smoothing out some of the wrinkles at
+the mere sight of Craig.
+
+He paused a moment, as if he were himself in doubt as to just what
+the trouble was.
+
+"Someone has been impersonating me over the telephone," he began.
+"All day long there have been reports coming into my office asking
+me whether it was true that I had agreed to accept the offer of
+Dorgan that Murtha made, you know,--that is, practically to let up
+on the organization if they would let up on me."
+
+"Yes," prompted Kennedy, "but, impersonation--what do you mean by
+that?"
+
+"Why, early to-day someone called me up, said he was Dorgan, and
+asked if I would have any objection to meeting him. I said I would
+meet him--only it would do no good. Then, apparently, the same
+person called up Dorgan and said he was myself, asking if he had
+any objection to meeting me. Dorgan said he'd see. Whoever it was,
+he almost succeeded in bringing about the fool thing--would have
+done it, if I hadn't got wise to the fact that there was something
+funny about it. I called up Dorgan. He said he'd meet me, as long
+as I had approached him first. I said I hadn't. We swore a little
+and called the fake meeting off. But it was too late. It got into
+the papers. Now, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference to
+either of us. It doesn't to him. People will think he tried to
+slip one over on ME. But it does make a difference to me. People
+will think I'm trying to sell out."
+
+Carton showed plainly his vexation at the affair.
+
+"The old scheme!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That's the plan that has
+been used by a man down in Wall Street that they call, 'the Wolf.'
+He is a star impersonator--will call up two sworn enemies and put
+over something on them that double-crosses both."
+
+"Wall Street," mused Carton. "That reminds me of another batch of
+rumours that have been flying around. They were that I had made a
+deal with Langhorne by which I agreed to support him in his fight
+to get something in the contracts of the new city planning scheme
+in return for his support of the part of the organization he could
+swing to me in the election,--another lie."
+
+"It might have been Langhorne himself, playing the wolf," I
+suggested.
+
+Kennedy had reached for the telephone book. "Also, it might have
+been Kahn," he added. "I see he has an office in Wall Street, too.
+He has been the legal beneficiary of several shady transactions
+down there."
+
+"Oh," put in Carton, "it might have been any of them--they're all
+capable of it from Dorgan down. If Murtha was only out, I'd be
+inclined to suspect him."
+
+He tossed over a typewritten sheet of paper. "That's the statement
+I gave out to the press," he explained.
+
+It read: "My attention has been called to the alleged activities
+of some person or persons who through telephone calls and
+underground methods are seeking to undermine confidence in my
+integrity. A more despicable method of attempting to arouse
+distrust I cannot imagine. It is criminal and if anyone can assist
+me in placing the responsibility where it belongs I shall be glad
+to prosecute to the limit."
+
+"That's all right," assented Kennedy, "but I don't think it will
+have any effect. You see, this sort of thing is too easy for
+anyone to be scared off from. All he has to do is to go to a pay
+station and call up there. You couldn't very well trace that."
+
+He stopped abruptly and his face puckered with thought.
+
+"There ought to be some way, though," I murmured, without knowing
+just what the way might be, "to tell whether it is Dorgan and the
+organization crowd, or Langhorne and his pool, or Kahn and the
+other shysters."
+
+"There IS a way," cried Kennedy at last. "You fellows wait here
+while I make a flying trip up to the laboratory. If anyone calls
+us, just put him off--tell him to call up later."
+
+Carton continued to direct the work of his office, of which there
+had been no interruptions even during the stress of the campaign.
+Now and then the telephone rang and each time Carton would motion
+to me, and say, "You take it, Jameson. If it seems perfectly
+regular then pass it over to me."
+
+Several routine calls came in, this way, followed by one from Miss
+Ashton, which Carton prolonged much beyond the mere time needed to
+discuss a phase of the Reform League campaign.
+
+He had scarcely hung up the receiver, when the bell tinkled
+insistently, as though central had had an urgent call which the
+last conversation had held up.
+
+I took down the receiver, and almost before I could answer the
+inquiry, a voice began, "This is the editor of the Wall Street
+Record, Mr. Carton. Have you heard anything of the rumours about
+Hartley Langhorne and his pool being insolvent? The Street has
+been flooded with stories--"
+
+"One moment," I managed to interrupt. "This is not Mr. Carton,
+although this is his office. No--he's out. Yes, he'll certainly be
+back in half an hour. Ring up then."
+
+I repeated the scrap of gossip that had filtered through to me,
+which Carton received in quite as much perplexity as I had.
+
+"Seems as if everybody was getting knocked," he commented.
+
+"That may be a blind, though," I suggested.
+
+He nodded. I think we both realized how helpless we were when
+Kennedy was away. In fact we made even our guesses with a sort of
+lack of confidence.
+
+It was therefore with a sense of relief that we welcomed him a few
+minutes later as he hurried into the office, almost breathless
+from his trip uptown and back.
+
+"Has anyone called up?" he inquired unceremoniously, unwrapping a
+small parcel which he carried.
+
+I told him as briefly as I could what had happened. He nodded,
+without making any audible comment, but in a manner that seemed to
+show no surprise.
+
+"I want to get this thing installed before anyone else calls," he
+explained, setting to work immediately.
+
+"What is it?" I asked, regarding the affair, which included
+something that looked like a phonograph cylinder.
+
+"An invention that has just been perfected," he replied without
+delaying his preparations, "by which it is possible for messages
+to be sent over the telephone and automatically registered, even
+in the absence of anyone at the receiving end. Up to the present
+it has been practicable to take phonograph records only by the
+direct action of the human voice upon the diaphragm of the
+instrument. Not long ago there was submitted to the French Academy
+of Sciences an apparatus by which the receiver of the telephone
+can be put into communication with a phonograph and a perfect
+record obtained of the voice of the speaker at the other end of
+the wire, his message being reproduced at will by merely pressing
+a button."
+
+"Wouldn't the telegraphone do?" I asked, remembering our use of
+that instrument in other cases.
+
+"It would record," he replied, "but I want a phonograph record.
+Nothing else will do in this case. You'll see why, before I get
+through. Besides, this apparatus isn't complicated. Between the
+diaphragm of the telephone receiver and that of the phonographic
+microphone is fitted an air chamber of adjustable size, open to
+the outer atmosphere by a small hole to prevent compression. I
+think," he added with a smile, "it will afford a pretty good means
+of collecting souvenirs of friends by preserving the sound of
+their voices through the telephone." For several minutes we
+waited.
+
+"I don't think I ever heard of such effrontery, such open, bare-
+faced chicanery," fumed Carton impatiently.
+
+"We'll catch the fellow yet," replied Kennedy confidently. "And I
+think we'll find him a bad lot."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+
+At last the telephone rang and Carton answered it eagerly. As he
+did so, he quickly motioned to us to go to the outside office
+where we, too, could listen on extensions.
+
+"Yes, this is Mr. Carton," we heard him say.
+
+"This is the editor of the Wall Street Record," came back the
+reply in a tone that showed no hesitation or compunction if it was
+lying. "I suppose you have heard the rumours that are current
+downtown that Hartley Langhorne and the people associated with him
+have gone broke in the pool they formed to get control of the
+public utilities that would put them in a position to capture the
+city betterment contracts?"
+
+"No--I hadn't heard it," answered Carton, with difficulty
+restraining himself from quizzing the informant about himself.
+Kennedy was motioning to him that that was enough. "I'm sure I
+can't express any opinion at all for publication on the subject,"
+he concluded brusquely, jamming down the receiver on the hook
+before his interlocutor had a chance to ask another question.
+
+The bell continued to ring, but Craig seized the receiver off its
+hook again and called back, "Mr. Carton has gone for the day,"
+hanging it up again with a bang.
+
+"Call up the Record now," advised Craig, disconnecting the
+recording instrument he had brought. "See what the editor has to
+say."
+
+"This is the District Attorney's office," said Carton a moment
+later when he got the number. "You just called me."
+
+"I called you?" asked the editor, non-plussed.
+
+"About a rumour current in Wall Street."
+
+"Rumour? No, sir. It must be some mistake."
+
+"I guess so. Sorry to have troubled you. Good-bye."
+
+Carton looked from one to the other of us. "You see," he said in
+disgust, "there it is again. That's the sort of thing that has
+been going on all day. How do I know what that fellow is doing
+now--perhaps using my name?"
+
+I had no answer to his implied query as to who was the "wolf" and
+what he might be up to. As for Kennedy, while he showed plainly
+that he had his suspicions which he expected to confirm
+absolutely, he did not care to say anything about them yet.
+
+"Two can play at 'wolf,'" he said quietly, calling up the
+headquarters of Dorgan's organization.
+
+I wondered what he would say, but was disappointed to find that it
+was a merely trivial conversation about some inconsequential
+thing, as though Kennedy had merely wished to get in touch with
+the "Silent Boss." Next he called up the sanitarium to which
+Murtha had been committed, and after posing as Murtha's personal
+physician managed to have the rules relaxed to the extent of
+exchanging a few sentences with him.
+
+"How did he seem--irrational?" asked Carton with interest, for I
+don't think the District Attorney had complete confidence in the
+commonly announced cause of Murtha's enforced retirement.
+
+Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "Sounded pretty far gone," was
+all he said, turning over the pages of the telephone book as he
+looked for another number.
+
+This time it was Kahn whom he called up, and he had some
+difficulty locating him, for Kahn had two offices and was busily
+engaged in preparing a defence to the charges preferred against
+him for the jury fixing episode.
+
+Among others whom he called up was Langhorne, and the conversation
+with him was as perfunctory as possible, consisting merely in
+repeating his name, followed by an apology from Kennedy for
+"calling the wrong number."
+
+In each case, Craig was careful to have his little recording
+instrument working, taking down every word that was uttered and
+when he had finished he detached it, looking at the cylinder with
+unconcealed satisfaction.
+
+"I'm going up to the laboratory again," he announced, as Carton
+looked at him inquiringly. "The investigation that I have in mind
+will take time, but I shall hurry it along as fast as I possibly
+can. I don't want any question about the accuracy of my
+conclusions."
+
+We left Carton, who promised to meet us late in the afternoon at
+the laboratory, and started uptown. Instead, however, of going up
+directly, Craig telephoned first to Clare Kendall to shadow Mrs.
+Ogleby.
+
+The rest of the day he spent in making microphotographs of the
+phonograph cylinder and studying them very attentively under his
+high-powered lens.
+
+Toward the close of the afternoon the first report of Miss
+Kendall, who had been "trailing" Mrs. Ogleby, came in. We were not
+surprised to learn that she had met Langhorne in the Futurist Tea
+Room in the middle of the afternoon and that they had talked long
+and earnestly. What did surprise us, though, was her suspicion
+that she had crossed the trail of someone else who was shadowing
+Mrs. Ogleby.
+
+Kennedy made no comment, though I could see that he was vitally
+interested. What was the significance of the added mystery?
+Someone else had an interest in watching her movements. At once I
+thought of Dorgan. Could he have known of the intimacy of his
+guest at the Gastron dinner with Langhorne, rather than with
+Murtha, with whom she had gone? Suddenly another explanation
+occurred to me. What was more likely than that Martin Ogleby
+should have heard of his wife's escapade? He would certainly learn
+now to his surprise of her meeting with Langhorne. What would
+happen then?
+
+Kennedy had about finished with his microphotographic work and was
+checking it over to satisfy himself of the results, when Carton,
+as he had promised, dropped in on us.
+
+"What are you doing now?" he asked curiously, looking at the
+prints and paraphernalia scattered about. "By the way, I've been
+inquiring into the commitment of Murtha to that sanitarium for the
+insane. On the surface it all seems perfectly regular. It appears
+that, unknown even to many of his most intimate friends, he has
+been suffering from a complication of diseases, the result of his
+high life, and they have at last affected his brain, as they were
+bound to do in time. Still, I don't like his 'next friends' in the
+case. One is his personal physician--I don't know much about him.
+But Dorgan is one of the others."
+
+"We'll have to look into it," agreed Kennedy. "Meanwhile, would
+you like to know who your 'wolf' is that has been spreading
+rumours about broadcast?"
+
+"I would indeed," exclaimed Carton eagerly. "You were right about
+the statement I issued. It had no more effect than so many
+unspoken words. The fellow has kept right on. He even had the
+nerve to call up Miss Ashton in my name and try to find out
+whether she had any trace of the missing Betty Blackwell. How do
+you suppose they found out that she was interested?"
+
+"Not a very difficult thing," replied Kennedy. "Miss Ashton must
+have told several organizations, and the grafters always watch
+such societies pretty closely. What did she say?"
+
+"Nothing," answered Carton. "I had thought that they might try
+something of the sort and fortunately I warned her to disregard
+any telephone messages unless they came certainly from me. We
+agreed on a little secret formula, a sort of password, to be used,
+and I flatter myself that the 'wolf' won't be able to accomplish
+much in that direction. You say you have discovered a clue? How
+did you get it?"
+
+Kennedy picked up one of the microphotographs which showed an
+enlargement of the marks on the phonograph cylinder. He showed it
+to us and we gazed curiously at the enigmatic markings, greatly
+magnified. To me, it looked like a collection of series of lines.
+By close scrutiny I was able to make out that the lines were wavy
+and more or less continuous, being made up of collections of finer
+lines,--lines within lines, as it were.
+
+An analysis of their composition showed that the centre of larger
+lines was composed of three continuous series of markings which
+looked, under the lens, for all the world like the impressions of
+an endless straight series of molar teeth. Flanking these three
+tooth-like impressions were other lines--varying in width and in
+number--I should say, about four, both above and below the tooth-
+like impressions. When highly magnified one could distinguish
+roughly parallel parts of what at even a low magnification looked
+like a single line.
+
+"I have been studying voice analysis lately," explained Kennedy,
+"particularly with reference to the singing voice. Mr. Edison has
+made thousands and thousands of studies of voices to determine
+which are scientifically perfect for singing. That side of it did
+not interest me particularly. I have been seeking to use the
+discovery rather for detective purposes."
+
+He paused and with a fine needle traced out some of the lines on
+the photographs before us.
+
+"That," he went on, "is a highly magnified photograph of a minute
+section of the phonographic record of the voice that called you
+up, Carton, as editor of the Wall Street Record. The upper and
+lower lines, with long regular waves, are formed by a voice with
+no overtones. Those three broader lines in the middle, with
+rhythmic ripples, show the overtones."
+
+Carton and I followed, fascinated by the minuteness of his
+investigation and knowledge.
+
+"You see," he explained, "when a voice or a passage of music
+sounds or is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received
+upon the diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the
+surface of the cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig-
+zag lines of infinitely varying depth and breadth.
+
+"Close familiarity with such records for about forty years has
+taught Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation
+in the lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By
+examining them under the microscope one can analyze each tone with
+mathematical accuracy and can almost hear it--just as a musician
+reading the score of a song can almost hear the notes."
+
+"Wonderful," ejaculated Carton. "And you mean to say that in that
+way you can actually identify a voice?"
+
+Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory,
+looking them over under a microscope--yes. I can count the
+overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones
+that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice--
+mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it
+is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger-
+print, the portrait parle of the human voice!"
+
+Incredible as it seemed, we were forced to believe, for there on
+the table lay the graphic evidence which he had just so
+painstakingly interpreted.
+
+"Who was it?" asked Carton breathlessly.
+
+Kennedy picked up another microphotograph. "That is the record I
+took of one of the calls I made--merely for the purpose of
+obtaining samples of voices to compare with this of the
+impersonator. The two agree in every essential detail and none of
+the others could be confounded by an expert who studied them. Your
+'wolf' was your old friend Kahn!"
+
+"Fighting back at me by his usual underhand methods," exclaimed
+Carton in profound disgust.
+
+"Or else trying himself to get control of the Black Book," added
+Kennedy. "If you will stop to think a moment, his shafts have been
+levelled quite as much at discrediting Langhorne as yourself. He
+might hope to kill two birds with one stone--and incidentally save
+himself."
+
+"You mean that he wants to lay a foundation now for questioning
+the accuracy of the Black Book if it ever comes to light?"
+
+"Perhaps," assented Kennedy carefully.
+
+"Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his
+impostures," hastened Carton.
+
+"I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that
+we know what he is up to and can trace it to him--provided you
+don't tell him how we did it--yet."
+
+Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every
+place in which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his
+offices, nor at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton
+left a message which told the story and which he could hardly fail
+to receive soon.
+
+As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown
+study. He rose slowly and put on his hat.
+
+"Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked,
+"particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with
+it. I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I
+heard about his condition. I want to see him myself."
+
+Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to
+speak to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more
+important to look to the foundations than to the building just
+now."
+
+A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the
+private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced
+that Murtha had been taken.
+
+I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty
+either in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We
+arrived at the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high
+brick wall, and evidently once a fine country estate, at just
+about dusk. To my surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had
+no difficulty in being admitted.
+
+For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room,
+I listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the
+building. Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state
+of disorder. I had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for
+the care and treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of
+excitement which palpably pervaded the air was not what one would
+have expected. I began to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor
+Fether, and wonder whether there might not have been a revolution
+in the place and the patients have taken charge of their keepers.
+
+At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any
+attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going
+to pass us without notice.
+
+"I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, who had heard his
+footsteps approaching and had placed himself in the hallway so
+that the attendant could not pass, "but we have called to see Mr.
+Murtha."
+
+The attendant eyed us curiously. I expected him to say that it was
+against the rules, or to question our right to see the patient.
+
+"I'm afraid you're too late," he said briefly, instead.
+
+"Too late?" queried Kennedy sharply. "What do you mean?"
+
+The man answered promptly as if that were the quickest way to get
+back to his own errand.
+
+"Mr. Murtha escaped from his keepers this evening, just after
+dinner, and there is no trace of him."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH
+
+
+Murtha's escape from the sanitarium had again thrown our
+calculations into chaos. We rode back to the city in silence, and
+even Kennedy had no explanation to offer.
+
+Even at a late hour that night, although a widespread alarm had
+been sent out for him, no trace of the missing man could be found.
+The next morning's papers, of course, were full of the strange
+disappearance, but gave no hint of his discovery. In fact, all day
+the search was continued by the authorities, but without result.
+
+On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well
+known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the
+official and political life of the city, could remain at large
+unrecognized. Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men
+had disappeared. The facts in Murtha's case spoke for themselves.
+
+Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the
+political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks
+before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were
+getting ready for the final spurt to the finish.
+
+With Kennedy's unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn,
+that worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our
+sight. Mrs. Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect
+that the shadow that had been placed on her could not have been
+engaged by Martin Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take
+reports of the sort complaisantly. Someone else must be
+interested.
+
+As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that
+no one made use of it. Even though we gained no hint from
+Langhorne after the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was
+impossible to tell whether or not he still retained the
+detectaphone record. On the other hand, if Dorgan had obtained it
+by using the services of someone in the criminal hierarchy that
+Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that we would
+have heard anything about it. We were in the position of men
+fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly
+whom we fought.
+
+We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as
+had been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous
+twenty-four, had been speculating on the possible solution of the
+mysterious dropping out of sight of Murtha. The evening papers had
+contained nothing that the morning papers had not already
+published and Kennedy had tossed the last of an armful into the
+scrap basket when the buzzer on the door of our apartment sounded.
+
+A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a
+note, as he touched his hat. "A message for Professor Kennedy from
+Mr. Carton, sir," he announced.
+
+I recognized him as Carton's valet as he stood impatiently waiting
+for Craig to read the letter.
+
+"It's all right--there's no answer--I'll see him immediately,"
+nodded Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet
+disappeared.
+
+"My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves,"
+read the note. "Would you like to look it over? I can't find
+anything missing except a bundle of old and valueless photographs.
+Carton."
+
+"Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book
+from Langhorne," I commented, following the line on which I had
+been thinking at the time.
+
+"And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not
+finding it?" Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my
+theory.
+
+"Perhaps," I acquiesced weakly, as we went out.
+
+Instead of turning in the direction of Carton's immediately,
+Kennedy walked across the campus toward the Chemistry Building. At
+the laboratory we loaded ourselves with a large and heavy oblong
+case containing a camera and a tripod.
+
+The Cartons lived in an old section of the city which still
+retained something of its aristocratic air, having been passed by,
+as it were, like an eddy in the stream of business that swirled
+uptown, engulfing everything.
+
+It was an old four-story brownstone house which had been occupied
+by his father and grandfather before him, and now was the home of
+Carton, his mother, and his sister.
+
+"I'm glad to see you," Carton met us at the door. "This isn't
+quite as classy a robbery as Langhorne's--but it's just as
+mysterious. Must have happened while the family were at dinner.
+That's why I said it was a robbery by a sneak thief."
+
+He was leading the way to his study, which was in an extension of
+the house, in the rear.
+
+"I hope you've left things as they were," ventured Craig.
+
+"I did," assured Carton. "I know your penchant for such things and
+almost the first thought I had was that you'd prefer it that way.
+So I shut the door and sent William after you. By the way, what
+have you done with him?"
+
+"Nothing," returned Craig. "Isn't he back yet?"
+
+"No--oh, well I don't need him right away."
+
+"And nothing was taken except some old photographs?" asked Craig,
+looking intently at Carton's face.
+
+"That is all I can find missing," he returned frankly.
+
+Kennedy's examination of the looted study was minute, taking in
+the window through which the thief had apparently entered, the
+cabinet he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally he
+set up his camera with most particular care and took several
+flashlight pictures of the window, the cabinet, the doors--
+including the study--from every angle. Outside he examined the
+extension and back of the house carefully, noting possible ways of
+getting from the side street across the fences into the Carton
+yard.
+
+With Carton we returned to Craig's splendidly equipped
+photographic studio and while Carton and I made the best of our
+time by discussing various phases of the case, Kennedy employed
+the interval in developing his plates.
+
+He had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size,
+mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on
+all four margins. Carton and I puzzled over them.
+
+"Those are metric photographs, such as Bertillon of Paris used to
+take," Craig explained. "By means of the scales and tables and
+other methods that have been worked out, we can determine from
+those pictures distances and many other things almost as well as
+if we were on the spot ourselves. Bertillon cleared up many crimes
+with this help, such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel
+Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The metric photograph, I believe,
+will in time rank with other devices in the study of crime."
+
+He was going over the photographs carefully.
+
+"For instance," he continued, "in order to solve the riddle of a
+crime, the detective's first task is to study the scene
+topographically. Plans and elevations of a room or house are made.
+The position of each object is painstakingly noted. In addition,
+the all-seeing eye of the camera is called into requisition. The
+plundered room is photographed, as in this case. I might have done
+it by placing a foot rule on a table and taking that in the
+picture. But a more scientific and accurate method has been
+devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed
+height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an
+exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card
+in a space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric
+scale is printed. In the way he has worked it out, the distance
+between any two points in the picture can be determined. With a
+topographical plan and a metric photograph one can study a crime,
+as a general studies the map of a strange country. There were
+several peculiar things that I observed at your house, Carton, and
+I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime.
+Preserved in this way, it cannot be questioned. You are sure that
+the only thing missing is the photographs?"
+
+Carton nodded, "I never keep anything valuable lying around."
+
+"Well," resumed Kennedy, "the photographs were in this cabinet.
+There are other cabinets, but none of them seems to have been
+disturbed. Therefore the thief must have known just what he was
+after. The marks made in breaking the lock were not those of a
+jimmy, but of a screwdriver. No amazing command of the resources
+of science is needed so far. All that is necessary is a little
+scientific common sense."
+
+Carton glanced at me, and I smiled, for it always did seem so
+easy, when Craig did it, and so impossible when we tried to go it
+alone.
+
+"Now, how did the robber get in?" he continued, thoroughly
+engrossed in his study. "All the windows were supposedly locked. I
+saw that a pane had been partly cut from this window at the side--
+and the pieces were there to show it. But consider the outside, a
+moment. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a
+ladder or something. There were no marks of a ladder or even of
+any person in the soft soil of the garden under the window. What
+is more, that window was cut from the inside. The marks of the
+diamond which cut it plainly show that. Scientific common sense
+again."
+
+"Then it must have been someone in the house or at least familiar
+with it?" I exclaimed.
+
+Kennedy shook his head affirmatively.
+
+I had been wondering who it could be. Certainly this was not the
+work of Dopey Jack, even if the far cleverer attempt on
+Langhorne's safe had been. But it might have been one of his gang.
+I had not got as far as trying to reason out the why of the crime.
+
+"Call up your house, Carton," asked Craig. "See if William, your
+valet, has returned."
+
+Carton did so, and a moment later turned to us with a look of
+perplexity on his face. "No," he reported, "he hasn't come back
+yet. I can't imagine where he is."
+
+"He won't come back," asserted Kennedy positively. "It was an
+inside job--and he did it."
+
+Carton gasped astonishment.
+
+"At any rate," pursued Kennedy, "one thing we have which the
+police greatly neglect--a record. We have made some progress in
+reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon used to call it."
+
+"Strange that he should take only photographs," I mused.
+
+"What were they?" asked Kennedy, and again I saw that he was
+looking intently at Carton's face.
+
+"Nothing much," returned Carton unhesitatingly, "just some
+personal photographs--of no real value except to me. Most of them
+were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various
+groups at different times and places that I kept for the
+associations."
+
+"Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?"
+suggested Kennedy.
+
+Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied
+frankly.
+
+Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back
+of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific
+cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been
+robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of
+value. I frankly had not believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of
+the same type and I felt that his open face would surely have
+disclosed to us any real loss that he suffered or apprehension
+that he felt over the robbery.
+
+I was forced to give it up, and I think Kennedy, too, had decided
+not to worry over the crossing of any bridges until at least we
+knew that there were bridges to be crossed.
+
+Carton was worried more by the discovery that one he had trusted
+even as a valet had proved unfaithful. He knew, however, as well
+as we did that one of the commonest methods of the underworld when
+they wished to pull off a robbery was to corrupt one of the
+servants of a house. Still, it looked strange, for the laying of
+such an elaborate plan usually preceded only big robberies, such
+as jewelery or silver. For myself, I was forced back on my first
+theory that someone had concluded that Carton had the Black Book,
+had concocted this elaborate scheme to get what was really of more
+value than much jewelry, and had found out that Carton did not
+have the precious detectaphone record, after all. I knew that
+there were those who would have gone to any length to get it.
+
+A general alarm was given, through the police, for the
+apprehension of William, but we had small hope that anything would
+result from it, for at that time Carton's enemies controlled the
+police and I am not sure but that they would have been just a
+little more dilatory in apprehending one who had done Carton an
+injury than if it had been someone else. It was too soon, that
+night, of course, to expect to learn anything, anyhow.
+
+It was quite late, but it had been a confining day for Kennedy who
+had spent the hours while not working on Carton's case in some of
+the ceaseless and recondite investigations of his own to which he
+was always turning his restless mind.
+
+"Suppose we walk a little way downtown with Carton?" he suggested.
+
+I was not averse, and by the time we arrived in the white light
+belt of Broadway the theatres were letting out.
+
+Above the gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of
+some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"--the only
+superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose
+every issue was an "Extra."
+
+Kennedy bought one, with the laughing remark, "Perhaps it's about
+your robbery, Carton."
+
+It was only a second before the smile on his face changed to a
+look of extreme gravity. We crowded about him. In red ink across
+the head of the paper were the words:
+
+"BODY OF MURTHA, MISSING, FOUND IN MORGUE"
+
+Down in a lower corner, in a little box into which late news could
+be dropped, also in red ink, was the brief account:
+
+This morning the body of an unknown man was found in The Bronx
+near the Westchester Railroad tracks. He had been run over and
+badly mutilated. After lying all day in the local morgue, it was
+transferred, still unidentified, to the city Morgue downtown.
+
+Early this evening one of the night attendants recognized the
+unidentified body as that of Murtha, "the Smiling Boss," whose
+escape day before yesterday from an asylum in Westchester has
+remained a mystery until now.
+
+"Well--what do you--think of that!" ejaculated Carton. "Murtha--
+dead--and I thought the whole thing was a job they were putting up
+on me!"
+
+Kennedy crooked his finger at a cabby who was alertly violating
+the new ordinance and soliciting fares away from a public cab
+stand.
+
+"The Morgue--quick!" he ordered, not even noticing the
+flabbergasted look on the jehu's face, who was not accustomed to
+carrying people thither from the primrose path of Broadway quite
+so rapidly.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+THE MORGUE
+
+
+There had come a lull in the activities which never entirely
+cease, night or day, in the dingy building at the foot of East
+Twenty-sixth Street. Across the street in the municipal lodging-
+house the city's homeless were housed for the night. Even ever
+wakeful Bellevue Hospital nearby was comparatively quiet.
+
+The last "dead boat" which carries the city's unclaimed corpses
+away for burial had long ago left, when we arrived. The anxious
+callers who pass all day through the portals of the mortuary
+chamber seeking lost friends and relatives had disappeared. Except
+for the night keeper and one or two assistants, the Morgue was
+empty save of the overcrowded dead.
+
+Years before, as a cub reporter on the Star, I had had the
+gruesome assignment once of the Morgue. It was the same old place
+after all these years and it gave me the same creepy sensations
+now as it did then. Even the taxicab driver seemed glad to set
+down his fares and speed away.
+
+It was ghoulish. I felt then and I did still that instead of
+contributing to the amelioration of conditions that could not be
+otherwise than harrowing, everything about the old Morgue lent
+itself to the increase of the horror of the surroundings.
+
+As Kennedy, Carton, and I entered, we found that the principal
+chamber in the place was circular. Its walls were lined with the
+ends of caskets, which, fitting close into drawer-like apertures
+were constantly enveloped in the refrigerated air.
+
+It seemed, even at that hour, that if these receptacles were even
+adequate to contain all of the daily tenants of the Morgue, much
+of the anguish and distress inseparable from such a place might be
+spared those who of necessity must visit the place seeking their
+dead. As it was, even for those bound by no blood ties to the
+unfortunates who found their way to the city Morgue, the room was
+a veritable chamber of horror.
+
+We stood in horrified amazement at what we saw. On the floor,
+which should be kept clear, lay the overflow of the day's intake.
+Bodies for which there was no room in the cooling boxes, others
+which were yet awaiting claimants, and still more awaiting
+transfer to the public burying ground, lay about in their rough
+coffins, many of them brutally exposed.
+
+It seemed, too, that if ever there was a time when conditions
+might have been expected to have halfway adjusted themselves to
+the pressure which by day brought out all too clearly the hopeless
+inadequacy of the facilities provided by the city to perform one
+of its most important and inevitable functions, it was at that
+early morning hour of our visit. Presumably preparation had been
+completed for the busy day about to open by setting all into some
+semblance of respectful order. But such was not the case. It was
+impossible.
+
+In one group, I recall, which an attendant said had been awaiting
+his removal for a couple of days, the rough board coffins, painted
+the uniform brown of the city's institutions, lay open, without so
+much as face coverings over the dead.
+
+They lay as they had been sent in from various hospitals. Most of
+them were bereft of all the decencies usual with the dead, in
+striking contrast, however, with the bodies from Bellevue, which
+were all closely swathed in bandages and shrouds.
+
+One body, that of a negro, which had been sent in to the Morgue
+from a Harlem hospital, lay just as it came, utterly bare,
+exposing to public view all the gruesome marks of the autopsy. I
+wondered whether anything like that might be found to be the fate
+of the once jovial and popular Murtha, when we found him.
+
+I almost forgot our mission in the horror of the place, for,
+nearby was an even more heartrending sight. Piled in several heaps
+much higher than a man's head and as carelessly as cordwood were
+the tiny coffins holding the babies which the authorities are
+called on by the poor of the city to bury in large numbers--far
+too poor to meet the cost of the cheapest decent burial. Atop the
+stack of regulation coffins were the nondescript receptacles made
+use of by the very poor--the most pathetic a tiny box from the
+corner grocery. The bodies, some dozens of them, lay like so much
+merchandise, awaiting shipment.
+
+"What a barbarity!" I heard Craig mutter, for even he, though now
+and then forced to visit the place when one of his cases took him
+there, especially when it was concerned with an autopsy, had never
+become hardened to it.
+
+Often I had heard him denounce the primitive appointments,
+especially in the autopsy rooms. The archaic attempts to utilize
+the Morgue for scientific investigation were the occasion for
+practices that shocked even the initiated. For the lack of
+suitable depositories for the products of autopsies, these objects
+were plainly visible in rude profusion when a door was opened to
+draw out a body for inspection. About and around the slabs whereon
+the human bodies lay, in bottles and in plates, this material
+which had no place except in the cabinets of a laboratory was
+inhumanly displayed in profusion, close to corpses for which a
+morgue is expected to provide some degree of reverential care.
+
+"You see," apologized the keeper, not averse to throwing the blame
+on someone else, for it indeed was not his but the city's fault,
+"one reason why so many bodies have to remain uncared for is that
+I could show you cooling box after cooling box with some subject
+which figured during the past few months in the police records.
+Why victims of murders committed long ago should be held
+indefinitely, and their growing numbers make it impossible to give
+proper places to each day's temporary bodies, I can't say.
+Sometimes," he added with a sly dig at Carton, "the only
+explanation seems to be that the District Attorney's office has
+requested the preservation of the grisly relics."
+
+I could see that Carton was making a mental note that the practice
+would be ended as far as his office was concerned.
+
+"So--you saw the story in the newspapers about Mr. Murtha,"
+repeated the keeper, not displeased to see us and at the publicity
+it gave him. "It was I that discovered him--and yet many's the
+times some of the boys that must have handled the body since it
+was picked up beside the tracks must have seen him. It was too
+late to get anyone to take the body away to-night, but the
+arrangements have all been made, and it will be done early in the
+morning before anyone else sees Pat Murtha here, as he shouldn't
+be. We've done what we could for him ourselves--he was a fine
+gentleman and many's the boy that owes a boost up in life to him."
+
+Reverentially even the hardened keeper drew out one of the best of
+the drawer-like boxes. On the slab before us lay the body. Carton
+drew back, excitedly, shocked.
+
+"It IS Murtha!" he exclaimed.
+
+I, too, looked at it quickly. The name as Carton pronounced it, in
+such a place, had, to me at least, an unpleasant likeness to
+"murder."
+
+Kennedy had bent down and was examining the mutilated body
+minutely.
+
+"How do you suppose such a thing is possible--that he could lie
+about the city, even here until the night keeper came on,--
+unknown?" asked Carton, aghast.
+
+"I don't know," I said, "but I imagine that in connection with the
+actual inadequacy of the equipment one would find reflected the
+same makeshift character in the attitude and actions of those who
+handle the city's dead. It used to be the case, at least, that the
+facilities for keeping records were often almost totally
+neglected, and not through the fault of the Morgue keepers,
+entirely. But, I understand it is better now."
+
+"This is terrible," repeated Carton, averting his face. "Really,
+Jameson, it makes me feel like a hound, for ever thinking that
+Murtha might have been putting up a game on me. Poor old Murtha--I
+should have preferred to remember him as the 'Smiling Boss' as
+everyone always called him!"
+
+I called to mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton's
+office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost
+beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he
+would compromise with the organization. What a contrast, this,
+with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with passion at
+Carton's refusal!
+
+And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all--the
+fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its
+neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when
+there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions
+which had made possible such neglect of the district leader's
+body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many
+who owed their very positions to the organization.
+
+I could not help but think that if he had served humanity with
+one-half the zeal which he had served graft, this could not have
+happened.
+
+The more I contemplated the case, the more tragic did it seem to
+me. I longed for the assignment of writing the story for the Star-
+-the chance I would have had in the old days to bring in a story
+that would have got me a nod of approval from my superior. I
+determined, as soon as possible, to get the Star on the wire and
+try to express some of the thoughts that were surging through my
+brain in the face of this awful and unexpected occurrence.
+
+There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as
+those of the Morgue attendants. I could not help reflecting on the
+strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all
+distinctions between men of high and low degree. Murtha had almost
+literally sprung from the streets. His career had been one
+possible only in the social and political conditions of his times.
+And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a
+pauper's grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan
+to debauch.
+
+Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed. For the moment he did
+not even think of how this blow to the System might affect his own
+chances. It was only the pitiful wreck of a human being before us
+that he saw.
+
+I was not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who
+was examining Murtha's body with minute care, now and then
+muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it
+had received in its various transfers about the city. But there
+were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which
+added even more to the horror of the case.
+
+One thing, I felt, was fortunate. Murtha had had no family. There
+had been plenty of scandal about him, but as far as I knew there
+was no one except his old cronies in the organization to be
+shocked by his loss, no living tragedy left in the wake of this.
+
+"How do you suppose it happened?" I asked the night keeper.
+
+He shook his head doubtfully. "No one knows, of course," he
+replied slowly. "But I think the big fellow got worse up there in
+that asylum. He wasn't used to anything but having his own way,
+you know. They say he must have waited his chance, after the
+dinner hour, when things were quiet, and then slipped out while no
+one was looking. He may have been crazy, but you can bet your life
+Pat Murtha was the smartest crazy man they ever had up there. THEY
+couldn't hold him."
+
+"I see," I said, struck by the faith which the man had inspired
+even in those who held the lowest of city positions. "But I meant
+how do you suppose he was killed?"
+
+The attendant looked at me thoughtfully a while. "Young man," he
+answered, "I ain't saying nothing and it may have been an accident
+after all. Have you ever been up in that part of town?"
+
+I had not and said so.
+
+"Well," he continued, "those electric trains do sneak up on a
+fellow fast. It may have been an accident, all right. The coroner
+up there said so, and I guess he ought to know. It must have been
+late at night--perhaps he was wandering away from the ordinary
+roads for fear of being recaptured. No one knows--I guess no one
+will know, ever. But it's a sad day for many of the boys. He
+helped a lot of 'em. And Mr. Dorgan--he knows what a loss it is,
+too. I hear that it's hit the Chief hard."
+
+The attendant, rough though he was and hardened by the daily
+succession of tragedies, could not restrain an honest catch in his
+voice over the passing of the "big fellow," as some of them called
+the "Smiling Boss." It was a pretty good object lesson on the
+power of the system which the organization had built up, how
+Murtha, and even the more distant Dorgan himself, had endeared
+himself to his followers and henchmen. Perhaps it was corrupt, but
+it was at least human, and that was a great deal in a world full
+of inhumanities. In the face of what had happened, one felt that
+much might be forgiven Murtha for his shortcomings, especially as
+the era of the Murthas and Dorgans was plainly passing.
+
+"Here at least," whispered Carton, as we withdrew to a corner to
+escape the palling atmosphere, "is one who won't worry about what
+happens to that Black Book any more. I wonder what he really knew
+about it--what secrets he carried away with him?"
+
+"I can't say," I returned. "But, one thing it does. It must
+relieve Mrs. Ogleby's fears a bit. With Murtha out of the way
+there is one less to gossip about what went on at Gastron's that
+night of the dinner."
+
+He said nothing and just then Kennedy straightened up, as though
+he had finished his examination. We hurried over to him. I thought
+the look on Craig's face was peculiar.
+
+"What is it--what did you find?" both Carton and I asked.
+
+Kennedy did not answer immediately.
+
+"I--I can't say," he answered slowly at length, as we thanked the
+Morgue keeper for his courtesy and left the place. "In fact I'd
+rather not say--until I know."
+
+I knew from previous experiences that it was of no use to try to
+quiz Kennedy. He was a veritable Gradgrind for facts, facts,
+facts. As for myself, I could not help wondering whether, after
+all, Murtha might not have been the victim of foul play--and, if
+so, by whom?
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE CANARD
+
+
+We did not have to wait long for the secret of the robbery of
+Carton to come out. It was not in any "extras," or in the morning
+papers the next day, but it came through a secret source of
+information to the Reform League.
+
+"A clerk in the employ of the organization who is really a
+detective employed by the Reform League," groaned Carton, as he
+told us the story himself the next morning at his office, "has
+just given us the information that they have prepared a long and
+circumstantial story about me--about my intimacy with Mrs. Ogleby
+and Murtha and some others. The story of the robbery of my study
+is in the papers this morning. To-morrow they plan to publish some
+photographs--alleged to have been stolen."
+
+"Photographs--Mrs. Ogleby," repeated Kennedy. "Real ones?"
+
+"No," exclaimed Carton quickly, "of course not--fakes. Don't you
+see the scheme? First they lay a foundation in the robbery,
+knowing that the public is satisfied with sensations, and that
+they will be sure to believe that the robbery was put up by some
+muckrakers to obtain material for an expose. I wasn't worried last
+night. I knew I had nothing to conceal."
+
+"Then what of it?" I asked naively.
+
+"A good deal of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to
+be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those
+stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the
+possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing
+who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the
+original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some
+means of putting a date on them early in the spring."
+
+"What are they that they should take such pains with them?"
+persisted Kennedy, looking fixedly at Carton.
+
+Carton met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be
+photographs of myself," he repeated. "One purports to represent me
+in a group composed of Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, another woman whom I
+do not even know, and myself. I am standing between Murtha and
+Mrs. Ogleby and we look very familiar. Another is a picture of the
+same four riding in a car, owned by Murtha. Oh, there are several
+of them, of that sort."
+
+He paused as a dozen unspoken questions framed themselves in my
+mind. "I don't hesitate to admit," he added, "that a few months
+ago I knew Mrs. Ogleby--socially. But there was nothing to it. I
+never knew Murtha well, and the other woman I never saw. At
+various times I have been present at affairs where she was, but I
+know that no pictures were ever taken, and even if there had been,
+I would not care, provided they told the truth about them. What I
+do care about is the sworn allegation that, I understand, is to
+accompany these--these fakes."
+
+His voice broke. "It's a lie from start to finish, but just think
+of it, Kennedy," he went on. "Here is the story, and here, too,
+are the pictures--at least they will be, in print, to-morrow. Now,
+you know nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have a
+scandal like this raised at this time. There may be just enough
+people to believe that there is some basis for the suspicion to
+turn the tide against me. If it were earlier in the campaign, I
+might accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn
+of events I should have really the best sort of campaign material.
+But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick on the
+Saturday before election."
+
+"Can't we buy them off?" I ventured, perplexed beyond measure at
+this new and unexpected turn of events.
+
+"No, I won't," persisted Carton, shutting his square jaw doggedly.
+"I won't be held up--even if that is possible."
+
+"Miss Ashton on the wire," announced a boy from the outer office.
+
+The look on Carton's face was a study. I saw directly what was the
+trouble--far more important to him than a mere election.
+
+"Tell her--I'm out--will be back soon," he muttered, for the first
+time hesitating to speak to her.
+
+"You see," he continued blackly, "I'll fight if it takes my last
+dollar, but I won't allow myself to be blackmailed out of a cent--
+no, not a cent," he thundered, a heightened look of determination
+fixing the lines on his face as he brought his fist down with a
+rattling bang on the desk.
+
+Kennedy was saying nothing. He was letting Carton ease his mind of
+the load which had been suddenly thrust upon it. Carton was now
+excitedly pacing the floor.
+
+"They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he
+paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted
+by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I
+suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll
+prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't
+steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies
+have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into
+the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but
+of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that
+no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect."
+
+"That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off."
+
+"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat--they are false. It is a
+plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner,
+for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a
+letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's
+what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the
+best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if
+I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the
+harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see
+such a charge to one who sees the denial."
+
+He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a
+week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to-
+day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are
+published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and
+Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and
+hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time
+to make of it an asset instead of a liability. And then, too, it
+means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final
+efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign.
+That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway."
+
+Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener,
+but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?"
+
+"No--but I've been promised them this morning."
+
+"H'm," mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've
+had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen
+and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are
+alarmed, Carton,--nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I
+agree with you, Carton--it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as
+you would imply by any other method."
+
+"Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures
+before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like
+a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the
+jury.
+
+"I haven't said I can do that--yet," measured Craig with provoking
+slowness.
+
+"Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton.
+
+Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.
+
+"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I
+began to realize that you had once been--er--foolish enough to
+become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs.
+Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to
+dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's
+purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are
+like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them
+do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either,
+in an election. I--I don't know that I'd desert you--if the
+pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation."
+
+"I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that,
+Kennedy. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male
+population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more
+than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and--get the goods,
+no matter whom it hits higher up--Langhorne--anybody. And, for
+God's sake get it in time--there's more than an election that
+hangs on it!"
+
+Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all
+understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be
+possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the
+election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss
+Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with
+the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility
+could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby.
+
+That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss
+Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for
+Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who
+had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on
+her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might
+artfully heap up? As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his
+eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight--the two
+fights.
+
+"I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were
+outside.
+
+Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt that
+Kennedy must know best.
+
+When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and
+girls had already set to work, and the office was a hive of
+industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were
+clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of
+newspapers and pasted into large scrapbooks, circulars were being
+folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal.
+
+Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one
+side were the cashier and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the
+speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting
+instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports
+received of meetings already held.
+
+On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active
+force, in charge of Miss Ashton.
+
+As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her
+back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we
+could see that something was the matter.
+
+Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had
+scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and
+said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have
+called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr.
+Carton."
+
+She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what
+the true state of her feelings was.
+
+"I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to
+slander Mr. Carton," went on Kennedy.
+
+Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was
+thinking much.
+
+"I suppose in a large force like this that it is not impossible
+that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed
+Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged
+in getting out the "literature."
+
+"I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of
+course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in
+THIS office, though."
+
+Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word
+"this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might
+have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her
+personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case.
+She was now pale and agitated.
+
+"I--I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy--I
+would almost rather not have known it at all,--only I suppose I
+must have known it sooner or later."
+
+"Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It
+is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you
+know already? I didn't think--it was known."
+
+She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the
+organization brought the pictures up here--one of the girls opened
+them by mistake--it got about the office--I couldn't help but
+know."
+
+"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be
+calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please,
+please. Remember pictures can lie--just like words."
+
+"I--I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all
+broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is
+shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But
+it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been
+right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am
+afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through
+it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with
+the League. I--I can hardly believe--"
+
+Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he
+implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of
+politics in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait
+until--"
+
+"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for--for even
+knowing--" she paused just in time to substitute Mr. Murtha for
+Mrs. Ogleby--"such men as Mr. Murtha--secretly."
+
+She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had
+seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet
+of her idol had turned to clay.
+
+"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do
+anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."
+
+Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the
+photographs," he asked at length.
+
+"They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would
+not soil her hands by touching the filthy things.
+
+We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office.
+
+There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by
+one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake."
+
+Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the
+photographs--as plain as they could be, the group including
+Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the
+porch of a gabled building in the sunshine, again the four
+speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read
+faintly, and other less interesting snapshots.
+
+As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the
+whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind in
+connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization
+men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt
+that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There
+was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such
+groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures
+themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story.
+Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no
+less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead
+of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note
+instead.
+
+He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all
+of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of
+it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act
+toward me in the same old way--and that after I know what I know.
+I--I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing
+something from me."
+
+What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had
+much effect.
+
+"That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole
+affair," he sighed as we left. "She believes it."
+
+I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If
+people believed it generally, Carton was ruined.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE CONFESSION
+
+
+Dorgan was putting up a bold fight, at any rate. Everyone, and
+most of all his opponents who had once thought they had him on the
+run, was forced to admit that. Moreover, one could not help
+wondering at his audacity, whatever might be the opinion of his
+dishonesty.
+
+But I was quite as much struck by the nerve of Carton. In the face
+of gathering misfortunes many a man of less stern mettle might
+have gone to pieces. Not so with the fighting District Attorney.
+It seemed to spur him on to greater efforts.
+
+It was a titanic struggle, this between Carton and Dorgan, and had
+reached the point where quarter was given or asked by neither.
+
+Kennedy had retired to his laboratory with the photographs and was
+studying them with an increasing interest.
+
+It was toward the close of the afternoon when the telephone rang
+and Kennedy motioned to me to answer it.
+
+"If it's Carton," he said quickly, "tell him I'm not here. I'm not
+ready for him yet and I can't be interrupted."
+
+I took down the receiver, prepared to perjure my immortal soul. It
+was indeed Carton, bursting with news and demanding to see Kennedy
+immediately.
+
+Almost before I had finished with the carefully framed, glib
+excuse that I was to make, he shouted to me over the wire, "What
+do you think, Jameson? Tell him to come down right away. The
+impossible has happened. I have got under Dopey Jack's guard--he
+has confessed. It's big. Tell Kennedy I'll wait here at my office
+until he comes."
+
+He had hung up the receiver before I could question him further. I
+think it cured Kennedy, temporarily of asking me to fib for him
+over the telephone. He was as anxious as I to see Carton, now, and
+plunged into the remaining work on the photographs eagerly.
+
+He finished much sooner than he would, otherwise, and only to
+preserve the decency of the excuse that I had made did not hasten
+down to the Criminal Courts Building before a reasonable time had
+elapsed. As we entered Carton's office we could tell from the very
+atmosphere of the halls that something was happening. The
+reporters in their little room outside were on the qui vive and I
+heard a whisper and a busy scratching of pencils as we passed in
+and the presence of someone else in the District Attorney's office
+was noted.
+
+Carton met us in a little ante-room. He was all excitement
+himself, but I could see that it was a clouded triumph. His mind
+was really elsewhere than on the confession that he was getting.
+Although he did not ask us, I knew that he was thinking only of
+Margaret Ashton and how to regain the ground that he had
+apparently lost with her. Still, he said nothing about the
+photographs. I wondered whether it was because of his confidence
+that Kennedy would pull him through.
+
+"You know," he whispered, "I have been working with my assistants
+on Dopey Jack ever since the conviction, hoping to get a
+confession from him, holding out all sorts of promises if he would
+turn state's evidence and threats if he didn't. It all had no
+effect. But Murtha's death seems to have changed all that. I don't
+know why--whether he thinks it was due to foul play or not, for he
+won't say anything about that and evidently doesn't know--but it
+seems to have changed him."
+
+Carton said it as though at last a ray of light had struck in on
+an otherwise black situation, and that was indeed the case.
+
+"I suppose," suggested Craig, "that as long as Murtha was alive he
+would rather have died than say anything that would incriminate
+him. That's the law of the gang world. But with Murtha no longer
+to be shielded, perhaps he feels released. Besides, it must begin
+to look to him as though the organization had abandoned him and
+was letting him shift pretty much for himself."
+
+"That's it," agreed Carton. "He has never got it out of his head
+that Kahn swung the case against him and I've been careful not to
+dwell on the truth of that Kahn episode."
+
+Carton led us into his main office, where Rubano was seated with
+two of Carton's assistants who were quizzing him industriously and
+obtaining an amazing amount of information about gang life and
+political corruption. In fact, like most criminals when they do
+confess, Dopey Jack was in danger of confessing too much, in sheer
+pride at his own prowess as a bad man.
+
+Outside, I knew that it was being well noised abroad, in fact I
+had nodded to an old friend on the Star who had whispered to me
+that the editor had already called him up and offered to give
+Rubano any sum for a series of articles for the Sunday supplement
+on life in the underworld. I knew, then, that the organization had
+heard of it, by this time--too late.
+
+Most of the confession was completed by the time we arrived, but
+as it had all been carefully taken down we knew we had missed
+nothing.
+
+"You see, Mr. Carton," Rubano was saying as we three entered and
+he turned from the assistant who was quizzing him, "it's like
+this. I can't tell you all about the System. No one can. You
+understand that. All any of us know is the men next to us--above
+and below. We may have opinions, hear gossip, but that's no good
+as evidence."
+
+"I understand," reassured Carton. "I don't expect that. You must
+tell me the gossip and rumours, but all I am bartering a pardon
+for is what you really know, and you've got to make good, or the
+deal is off, see?"
+
+He said it in a tone that Dopey Jack could understand and the
+gangster protested. "Well, Mr. Carton, haven't I made good?"
+
+"You have so far," grudgingly admitted Carton who was greedy for
+everything down to the uttermost scrap that might lead to other
+things. "Now, who was the man above you, to whom you reported?"
+
+"Mr. Murtha, of course," replied Jack, surprised that anyone
+should ask so simple a question.
+
+"That's all right," explained Carton. "I knew it, but I wanted you
+on record as saying it. And above Murtha?"
+
+"Why, you know it is Dorgan," replied Dopey, "only, as I say, I
+can't prove that for you any better than you can."
+
+"He has already told about his associates and those he had working
+under him," explained Carton, turning to us. "Now Langhorne--what
+do you know about him?"
+
+"Know about Langhorne--the fellow that was--that I robbed?"
+repeated Jack.
+
+"You robbed?" cut in Kennedy. "So you knew about thermit, then?"
+
+Dopey smiled with a sort of pride in his work, much as if he had
+received a splendid recommendation.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "I knew about it--got it from a peterman who
+has studied safes and all that sort of thing. I heard he had some
+secret, so one night I takes him up to Farrell's and gets him
+stewed and he tells me. Then when I wants to use it, bingo! there
+I am with the goods."
+
+"And the girl--Betty Blackwell--what did she have to do with it?"
+pursued Craig. "Did you get into the office, learn Langhorne's
+habits, and so on, from her?"
+
+Dopey Jack looked at us in disgust. "Say," he replied, "if I
+wanted a skirt to help me in such a job, believe me I know plenty
+that could put it all over that girl. Naw, I did it all myself. I
+picked the lock, burnt the safe with that powder the guy give me,
+and took out something in soft leather, a lot of typewriting."
+
+We were all on our feet in unrestrained excitement. It was the
+Black Book at last!
+
+"Yes," prompted Carton, "and what then--what did you do with it?"
+
+"Gave it to Mr. Murtha, of course," came back the matter-of-fact
+answer of the young tough.
+
+"What did he do with it?" demanded Carton.
+
+Dopey Jack shook his head dubiously. "It ain't no use trying to
+kid you, Mr. Carton. If I told you a fake you'd find it out. I'd
+tell you what he did, if I knew, but I don't--on the level. He
+just took it. Maybe he burnt it--I don't know. I did my work."
+
+Unprincipled as the young man was, I could not help the feeling
+that in this case he was telling only the truth as he knew it.
+
+We looked at each other aghast. What if Murtha had got it and had
+destroyed it before his death? That was an end of the dreams we
+had built on its capture. On the other hand, if he had hidden it
+there was small likelihood now of finding it. The only chance, as
+far as I could see, was that he had passed it along to someone
+else. And of that Dopey Jack obviously knew nothing.
+
+Still, his information was quite valuable enough. He had given us
+the first definite information we had received of it.
+
+Carton, his assistants, and Kennedy now vigorously proceeded in a
+sort of kid glove third degree, without getting any further than
+convincing themselves that Rubano genuinely did not know.
+
+"But the stenographer," reiterated Carton, returning to the line
+of attack which he had temporarily abandoned. "Something became of
+her. She disappeared and even her family haven't a trace of her,
+nor any other institutions in the city. We've got something on
+you, there, Rubano."
+
+Jack laughed. "Mr. Carton," he answered easily, "the police put me
+through the mill on that without finding anything, and I don't
+believe you have anything. But just to show you that I'm on the
+square with you, I don't mind telling you that I got her away."
+
+It was dramatic, the off-hand way in which the gangster told of
+this mystery that had perplexed us.
+
+"Got her away--how--where?" demanded Carton fiercely.
+
+"Mr Murtha gave me some money--a wad. I don't know who gave it to
+him, but it wasn't his money. It was to pay her to stay away till
+this all blew over. Oh, they made it worth her while. So I dolled
+up and saw her--and she fell for it--a pretty good sized wad," he
+repeated, as though he wished some of it had stuck to his own
+hands.
+
+We fairly gasped at the ease and simplicity with which the fellow
+bandied facts that had been beyond our discovery for days. Here
+was another link in our chain. We could not prove it, but in all
+probability it was Dorgan who furnished the money. Even if the
+Black Book were lost, it was possible that in the retentive memory
+of this girl there might be much that would take its place. She
+had seen a chance for providing for the future of herself and her
+family. All she had to do was to take it and keep quiet.
+
+"You know where she is, then?" shot out Kennedy suddenly.
+
+"No--not now," returned Dopey. "She was told to meet me at the
+Little Montmartre. She did. I don't think she knew what kind of
+place it was, or she wouldn't have come."
+
+He paused, as though he had something on his mind.
+
+"Go on," urged Kennedy. "Tell all. You must tell all."
+
+"I was just thinking," he hesitated. "I remember I saw Ike the
+Dropper and Marie Margot there that day, too, with Martin Ogleby--
+"
+
+"Martin Ogleby!" interrupted Carton in surprise.
+
+"Yes, Martin Ogleby. He hangs about the Montmartre and the
+Futurist, all those joints. Say--I've been thinking a heap since
+this case of mine came up. I wonder whether it was all on the
+level--with me. I gave the money. But was that a stall? Perhaps
+they tried to get back. Perhaps she played into their hands--I saw
+her watching the sports, there, and believe me, there are some
+swell lookers. Oh well, _I_ don't know. All I know is my part. I
+don't know anything that happened after that. I can't tell what I
+don't know, can I, Mr. Carton?"
+
+"Not very well," smiled the prosecutor. "But you can tell us
+anything you suspect."
+
+"I don't know what I suspect. I was only a part of the machine.
+Only after I read that she disappeared, I began to think there
+might have been some funny business--I don't know."
+
+Eager as we were, we could only accept this unsatisfactory
+explanation of the whereabouts of Betty.
+
+"After all, I was only a part," reiterated Jack. "You better ask
+Ike--that's all."
+
+Just then the telephone buzzed. Carton was busy and Kennedy, who
+happened to be nearest, answered it. I fancied that there was a
+puzzled expression on his face, as he placed his hand over the
+transmitter and said to Carton, "Here--it's for you. Take it. By
+the way, where's that thing I left down here for recording
+voices?"
+
+"Here in my desk. But you took the cylinder with you."
+
+"Haven't you got another? Don't you ever use them for dictating
+letters?"
+
+Carton nodded and sent his stenographer to get a new one.
+
+"Just a minute, please," cut in Kennedy. "Mr. Carton will be here
+in a few moments, now."
+
+Carton took the telephone and placed his hand over it, until, with
+a nod from Kennedy as he affixed the machine, he answered.
+
+"Yes--this is the District Attorney," we heard him answer. "What?
+Rubano? Why you can't talk to him. He's a convicted man. Here? How
+do you know he's here? No--I wouldn't let you talk to him if he
+was. Who are you, anyway? What's that--you threaten him--you
+threaten me? You'll get us both, will you? Well, I want to tell
+you, you can go plumb--the deuce! The fellow's cut himself off!"
+
+As Carton finished, a peculiar smile played about Rubano's
+features. "I expected that, but not so soon," he said quietly.
+"New York'll be no place for me, Mr. Carton, after this. You've
+got to keep your word and smuggle me out. South Africa, you know--
+you promised."
+
+"I'll keep my word, Rubano, too," assured Carton. "The nerve of
+that fellow. Where's Kennedy?"
+
+We looked about. Craig had slipped out quietly during the
+telephone conversation. Before we could start a search for him, he
+returned.
+
+"I thought there was something peculiar about the voice," he
+explained. "That was why I wanted a record of it. While you were
+talking I got your switchboard operator to connect me with central
+on another wire. The call was from a pay station on the west side.
+There wasn't a chance to get the fellow, of course--but I have the
+voice record, anyhow."
+
+Dopey Jack's confession occupied most of the evening and it was
+late when we got away. Carton was overjoyed at the result of his
+pressure, and eager to know, on the other hand, whether Kennedy
+had made any progress yet with his study of the photographs.
+
+I could have told him beforehand, however, that Craig would say
+nothing and he did not. Besides, he had the added mystery of the
+new phonograph cylinder to engross him, with the result that we
+parted from Carton, a little piqued at being left out of Craig's
+confidence, but helpless.
+
+As for me, I knew it was useless to trail after Kennedy and when
+he announced that he was going back to the laboratory, I balked
+and, in spite of my interest in the case, went home to our
+apartment to bed, while Kennedy made a night of it.
+
+What he discovered I knew no better in the morning than when I
+left him, except that he seemed highly elated.
+
+Leisurely he dressed, none the worse for his late work and after
+devouring the papers as if there were nothing else in the world so
+important, he waited until the middle of the morning before doing
+anything further.
+
+"I merely wanted to give Dorgan a chance to get to his office," he
+surprised me with, finally. "Come, Walter, I think he must be
+there now."
+
+Amazed at his temerity in bearding Dorgan in his very den, I could
+do nothing but accompany him, though I much feared it was almost
+like inviting homicide.
+
+The Boss's office was full of politicians, for it was now
+approaching "dough day," when the purse strings of the
+organization were loosed and a flood of potent argument poured
+forth to turn the tide of election by the force of the only thing
+that talks loud enough for some men to hear. Somehow, Kennedy
+managed to see the Boss.
+
+"Mr. Dorgan," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone in
+the little Sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me if I seem to
+be a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me
+here this morning. First of all I may say that you probably share
+the idea that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been
+regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any
+object, scene, or action. Indeed, a photograph is admitted in
+court as irrefutable evidence. For, when everything else fails, a
+picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns
+the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an
+important case may rest should be subjected to critical
+examination, for it is an established fact that a photograph may
+be made as untruthful as it may be reliable."
+
+He paused. Dorgan was regarding him keenly, but saying nothing.
+Kennedy did not mind, as he resumed.
+
+"Combination photographs change entirely the character of the
+initial negative and have been made for the past fifty years. The
+earliest, simplest, and most harmless photographic deception is
+the printing of clouds in a bare sky. But the retoucher with his
+pencil and etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of
+ordinary ability can introduce a person taken in a studio into an
+open-air scene well blended and in complete harmony without a
+visible trace of falsity."
+
+Dorgan was growing interested.
+
+"I need say nothing of how one head can be put on another body in
+a picture," pursued Craig, "nor need I say what a double exposure
+will do. There is almost no limit to the changes that may be
+wrought in form and feature. It is possible to represent a person
+crossing Broadway or walking on Riverside Drive, places he may
+never have visited. Thus a person charged with an offence may be
+able to prove an alibi by the aid of a skilfully prepared
+combination photograph.
+
+"Where, then," asked Kennedy, "can photography be considered as
+irrefutable evidence? The realism may convince all, except the
+expert and the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will
+be careful to insist that in every case the negative be submitted
+and examined for possible alterations by a clever manipulator."
+
+Kennedy bent his gaze on Dorgan. "Now, I do not accuse you, sir,
+of anything. But a photograph has come into my possession in which
+Mr. Carton is represented as standing in a group on a porch, with
+Mr. Murtha, Mrs. Ogleby, and an unknown woman. The first three are
+in poses that show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate to
+say that was originally a photograph of yourself, Mr. Murtha, Mrs.
+Ogleby, and a woman whom you know well. It is a pretty raw deal, a
+fake in which Carton has been substituted by very excellent
+photographic forgery."
+
+"A fake--huh!" repeated Dorgan, contemptuously. "How about the
+story of them? There's no negative. You've got to show me that the
+original print stolen from Carton, we'll say, is a fake. You can't
+do it. No, sir, those pictures were taken this summer."
+
+Kennedy quietly laid down the bundle of photographs copied from
+those alleged to have been stolen from Carton. He was pointing to
+a shadow of a gable on the house.
+
+"You see that shadow of the gable, Dorgan?" he asked. "Perhaps you
+never heard of it, but it is possible to tell the exact time at
+which a photograph was taken from a study of the shadows. It is
+possible in theory and practice, and it can be trusted absolutely.
+Almost any scientist, Dorgan, may be called in to bear testimony
+in court nowadays, but you probably think the astronomer is one of
+the least likely.
+
+"Well, the shadow in this picture can be made to prove an alibi
+for someone. Notice. It is seen prominently to the right, and its
+exact location on the house is an easy matter. The identification
+of the gable casting the shadow ought to be easy. To be exact, I
+have figured it out as 19.62 feet high. The shadow is 14.23 feet
+down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see, I am exact. I
+have to be. In one minute it moves 0.080 feet upward, 0.053 feet
+to the right, and 0.096 feet in its apparent path. It passes the
+width of a weatherboard, 0.37 foot, in four minutes and thirty-
+seven seconds."
+
+Kennedy was talking rapidly of data which he had derived from the
+study of the photograph as from plumb line, level, compass, and
+tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole, and sun,
+declination, azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction,
+and a dozen other bewildering terms.
+
+"In spherical trigonometry," he concluded, "to solve the problem
+three elements must be known. I know four. Therefore, I can take
+each of the known, treat it as unknown, and have four ways to
+check my result. I find that the time might have been either three
+o'clock, twenty-one minutes and twelve seconds in the afternoon,
+or 3:21:31 or 3:21:29, or 3:21:33. The average is 3: 21:26 and
+there can be no appreciable error except for a few seconds. I tell
+you that to show you how close I can come. The important thing,
+however, is that the date must have been one of two days, either
+May 22 or July 22. Between these two dates we must decide on
+evidence other than the shadow. It must have been in May, as the
+immature condition of the foliage shows. But even if it had been
+in July, that would be far from the date you allege. Why, I could
+even tell you the year. Then, too, I could look up the weather
+records and tell something from them. I can really answer, with an
+assurance and accuracy superior to the photographer himself, if
+you could produce him and he were honest, as to the real date. The
+original picture, aside from being doctored, was actually taken
+last May. Science is not fallible, but exact in this matter."
+
+Kennedy felt that he had scored a palpable hit. Dorgan was
+speechless. Still, Craig hurried on.
+
+"But, you may ask, how about the automobile picture? That also is
+an unblushing fake. Of course I must prove that. In the first
+place you know that the general public has come to recognize the
+distortion of a photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a car
+in a race that doesn't lean is rejected. People demand to see
+speed, speed, more speed, even in pictures. Distortion does indeed
+show speed, but that, too, can be faked.
+
+"Almost everyone knows that the image is projected upside down by
+the lens on the plate, and that the bottom of the picture is taken
+before the top. The camera mechanism admits light, which makes the
+picture, in the manner of a roller blind curtain. The slit travels
+from the top to the bottom and, the image on the plate being
+projected upside down, the bottom of the object appears on the top
+of the plate. For instance, the wheels are taken before the head
+of the driver. If the car is moving quickly, the image moves on
+the plate and each successive part is taken a little in advance of
+the last. The whole leans forward. By widening the slit and
+slowing the speed of the shutter, there is more distortion.
+
+"Now, that is just what has been done. A picture has been taken of
+a car owned once by Murtha, probably at rest, with perhaps
+yourself, Murtha, Mrs. Ogleby, and your friend in it. The matter
+of faking Carton or anyone else is simple. If, with an enlarging
+lantern, the image of this faked picture is thrown on the printing
+paper like a lantern slide, and if the right-hand side is moved a
+little further away than the left, the top further away than the
+bottom, you can in that way print a fraudulent high-speed picture
+ahead.
+
+"True, everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is
+distorted, and the difference between this faking and the
+distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will
+pass with most people. In this case, however," added Kennedy
+suddenly, "the faker was so sure of it that he was careless.
+Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right,
+he did so on the left. It was further away on the bottom than on
+the top. He got the distortion, all right, enough to satisfy
+anyone. But it is distortion in the wrong direction! The top of
+the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is,
+in the fake, as sharp as any other part. It is a small mistake
+that was made, but fatal. Your picture is not of a joy ride at
+all. It is really high speed--backwards! It is too raw, too raw."
+
+"You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do
+you?" asked Dorgan coolly, in spite of the exposures. "What of it
+all?" he asked surlily. "I have nothing to do with it, anyhow. Why
+do you come to me? Take it to the proper authorities."
+
+"Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly, leaning over and whispering a
+few words in Dorgan's ear. I could not hear what he said, but
+Dorgan appeared to be fairly staggered.
+
+When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of
+quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom. Not a
+word could I extract from him on the subject, either. I was still
+in the dark as to the result of his visit.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN
+
+
+Sunday morning came and with it the huge batch of papers which we
+always took. I looked at them eagerly, though Kennedy did not seem
+to evince much interest, to see whether the Carton photographs had
+been used. There were none.
+
+Kennedy employed the time in directing some work of his own and
+had disappeared, I knew not where, though I surmised it was on one
+of his periodic excursions into the underworld in which he often
+knocked about, collecting all sorts of valuable and interesting
+bits of information to fit together in the mosaic of a case.
+
+Monday came, also, the last day before the election, with its lull
+in the heart-breaking activities of the campaign. There were still
+no pictures published, but Kennedy was working in the laboratory
+over a peculiar piece of apparatus.
+
+"I've been helping out my own shadows," was all the explanation he
+vouchsafed of his disappearances, as he continued to work.
+
+"Watching Mrs. Ogleby?" I hinted.
+
+"No, I didn't interfere any more with Miss Kendall. This was
+someone else--in another part of the city."
+
+He said it with an air that seemed to imply that I would learn all
+about it shortly and I did not pursue the subject.
+
+Meanwhile, he was arranging something on the top of a large, flat
+table. It seemed to be an instrument in two parts, composed of
+many levers and discs and magnets, each part with a roll of paper
+about five inches wide.
+
+On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords attached at right
+angles to each other near the point. On the other was a capillary
+glass tube at the junction of two aluminum arms, also at right
+angles to each other.
+
+It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his
+laboratory again, and I watched him curiously. Two sets of wires
+were attached to each of the instruments, and they led out of the
+window to some other wires which had been strung by telephone
+linemen only a few hours before.
+
+Craig had scarcely completed his preparations when Carton arrived.
+Things were going all right in the campaign again, I knew, at
+least as far as appeared on the surface. But his face showed that
+Carton was clearly dissatisfied with what Craig had apparently
+accomplished, for, as yet, he had not told Carton about his
+discovery after studying the photographs, and matters between
+Carton and Margaret Ashton stood in the same strained condition
+that they had when last we saw her.
+
+I must say that I, too, was keenly disappointed by the lack of
+developments in this phase of the case. Aside from the fact that
+the photographs had not actually been published, the whole thing
+seemed to me to be a mess. What had Craig said to Dorgan? Above
+all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's
+feelings merely by allowing the election to go on without a
+scandal to Carton? I knew the result of the election was now the
+least of Carton's worries.
+
+Carton did not say much, but he showed that he thought it high
+time for Kennedy to do something.
+
+We were seated about the flat table, wondering when Kennedy would
+break his silence, when suddenly, as if by a spirit hand, the
+stylus before us began to move across one of the rolls of paper.
+
+We watched it uncomprehendingly.
+
+At last I saw that it was actually writing the words. "How is it
+working?"
+
+Quickly Craig seized the stylus on the lower part of the
+instrument and wrote in his characteristic scrawl, "All right, go
+ahead."
+
+"What is the thing?" asked Carton, momentarily forgetting his own
+worries at the new marvel before us.
+
+"An instrument that was invented many years ago, but has only
+recently been perfected for practical, every-day use, the
+telautograph, the long-distance writer," replied Kennedy, as we
+waited. "You see, with what amounts to an ordinary pencil I have
+written on the paper of the transmitter. The silk cord attached to
+the pencil regulates the current which controls another capillary
+glass tube-pen at the other end of the line. The receiving pen
+moves simultaneously with my stylus. It is the same principle as
+the pantagraph, cut in half as it were, one half here, the other
+half at the other end of the line, two telephone wires in this
+case connecting the halves. Ah,--that's it. The pencil of the
+receiving instrument is writing again. Just a moment. Let us see
+what it is."
+
+I almost gasped in astonishment at the words that I saw. I looked
+again, for I could not believe my eyes. Still, there it was. My
+first glance had been correct, impossible as it was.
+
+"I, Patrick Murtha," wrote the pen.
+
+"What is it?" asked Carton, awestruck. "A dead hand?"
+
+"Stop a minute," wrote Kennedy hastily.
+
+We bent over him closely. Craig had drawn from a packet several
+letters, which he had evidently secured in some way from the
+effects of Murtha. Carefully, minutely, he compared the words
+before us with the signatures at the bottom of the letters.
+
+"It is genuine!" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Genuine!" Carton and I echoed.
+
+What did he mean? Was this some kind of spiritism? Had Kennedy
+turned medium and sought a message from the other world to solve
+the inexplicable problems of this? It was weird, uncanny,
+unthinkable. We turned to him blankly for an explanation of the
+mystery.
+
+"That wasn't Murtha at all whose body we saw at the Morgue," he
+hurried to explain. "That was all a frame-up. I thought as soon as
+I saw it that there was something queer."
+
+I recalled now the peculiar look on his face which I had
+interpreted as indicating that he thought Murtha had been the
+victim of foul play.
+
+"And the other night, when we were in Carton's office and someone
+called up threatening you, Carton, and Dopey Jack, I saw at once
+that the voice was concealed. Yet there was something about it
+that was familiar, though I couldn't quite place it. I had heard
+that voice before, perhaps while we were getting the records to
+discover the 'wolf.' It occurred to me that if I had a record of
+it I might identify it by comparing it with those we had already
+taken. I got the record. I studied it. I compared it with what I
+already had, line, and wave, and overtone. You can imagine how I
+felt when I found there was only one voice with which it
+corresponded, and that man was supposed to be dead. Something more
+than intuition as I looked at the body that night had roused my
+suspicions. Now they were confirmed. Fancy how that information
+must have burned in my mind, during these days while I knew that
+Murtha was alive, but could say nothing!"
+
+Neither Carton nor I could say a word as we thought of this voice
+from the dead, as it almost seemed.
+
+"I hadn't found him," continued Craig, "but I knew he had used a
+pay station on the West Side. I began shadowing everyone who might
+have helped him, Dorgan, Kahn, Langhorne, all. I didn't find him.
+They were too clever. He was hiding somewhere in the city, a
+changed personality, waiting for the thing to blow over. He knew
+that of all places a city is the best to hide in, and of all
+cities New York is safest.
+
+"But, though I didn't actually find his hiding place, I had enough
+on some of his friends so that I could get word to him that his
+secret was known to me, at least. I made him an offer of safety.
+He need not come out of his hiding place and I would agree to let
+him go where and when he pleased without further pursuit from me,
+if he would let me install a telautograph in a neutral place which
+he could select and the other end in this laboratory. I myself do
+not know where the other place is. Only a mechanic sworn to
+secrecy knows and neither Murtha nor myself know him. If Murtha
+comes across, I have given my word of honour that before the world
+he shall remain a dead man, free to go where he pleases and enjoy
+such of his fortune as he was able to fix so that he could carry
+it with him into his new life."
+
+Carton and I were entranced by the romance of the thing.
+
+Murtha was alive!
+
+The commitment to the asylum, the escape, the search, the finding
+of a substitute body, mutilated beyond ordinary recognition, the
+mysterious transfers, and finally the identification in the
+Morgue--all had been part of an elaborately staged play!
+
+We saw it all, now. Carton had got too close to him in the
+conviction of Dopey Jack and the proceedings against Kahn. He had
+seen the handwriting on the wall for himself. In Carton's gradual
+climbing, step by step, for the man higher up, he would have been
+the next to go.
+
+Murtha had decided that it was time to get out, to save himself.
+
+Suddenly, I saw another aspect of it. By dropping out as though
+dead, he destroyed a link in the chain that would reach Dorgan.
+There was no way of repairing that link if he were dead. It was
+missing and missing for good.
+
+Dorgan had known it. Had it been a hint as to that which had
+finally clinched whatever it was that Kennedy had whispered to the
+Silent Boss that morning when we had seen him in his office?
+
+All these thoughts and more flashed through my head with
+lightning-like rapidity.
+
+The telautograph was writing again, obedient to Kennedy's signal
+that he was satisfied with the signature.
+
+"... in consideration of Craig Kennedy's agreement to destroy even
+this record, agree to give him such information as he has asked
+for, after which no further demands are to be made and the facts
+as already publicly recorded are to stand."
+
+"Just witness it," asked Kennedy of us. "It is a gentleman's
+agreement among us all."
+
+Nervously we set our names to the thing, only too eager to keep
+the secret if we could further the case on which we had been
+almost literally sweating blood so long.
+
+Prepared though we were for some startling disclosures, it was,
+nevertheless, with a feeling almost of faintness that we saw the
+stylus above moving again.
+
+"The Black Book, as you call it," it wrote, "has been sent by
+messenger to be deposited in escrow with the Gotham Trust Company
+to be delivered, Tuesday, the third of November, on the written
+order of Craig Kennedy and John Carton. An officer of the trust
+company will notify you of its receipt immediately, which will
+close the entire transaction as far as I am concerned."
+
+Kennedy could not wait. He had already seized his own telephone
+and was calling a number.
+
+"They have it," he announced a moment later, scrawling the
+information on the transmitter of the telautograph.
+
+A moment it was still, then it wrote again.
+
+"Good-bye and good luck," it traced. "Murtha!"
+
+The Smiling Boss could not resist his little joke at the end, even
+now.
+
+"Can--we--get it?" asked Carton, almost stunned at the unexpected
+turn of events.
+
+"No," cautioned Kennedy, "not yet. To-morrow. I made the same
+promise to Murtha that I made to Dorgan, when I went to him with
+Walter, although Walter did not hear it. This is to be a fair
+fight, for the election, now."
+
+"Then," said Carton earnestly, "I may as well tell you that I
+shall not sleep to-night. I can't, even if I can use the book only
+after election in the clean-up of the city!"
+
+Kennedy laughed.
+
+"Perhaps I can entertain you with some other things," he said
+gleefully, adding, "About those photographs."
+
+Carton was as good as his word. He did not sleep, and the greater
+part of the night we spent in telling him about what Craig had
+discovered by his scientific analysis of the faked pictures.
+
+At last morning came. Though Kennedy and I had slept soundly in
+our apartment, Carton had in reality only dozed in a chair, after
+we closed the laboratory.
+
+Slowly the hours slipped away until the trust company opened.
+
+We were the first to be admitted, with our order ready signed and
+personally delivered.
+
+As the officer handed over the package, Craig tore the wrapper off
+eagerly.
+
+There, at last, was the Black Book!
+
+Carton almost seized it from Kennedy, turning the pages, skimming
+over it, gloating like a veritable miser.
+
+It was the debacle of Dorgan--the end of the man highest up!
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE BLOOD CRYSTALS
+
+
+Much as we had accomplished, we had not found Betty Blackwell.
+Except for her shadowing of Mrs. Ogleby, Clare Kendall had devoted
+her time to winning the confidence of the poor girl, Sybil
+Seymour, whom we had rescued from Margot's. Meanwhile, the
+estrangement of Carton and Margaret Ashton threw a cloud over even
+our success.
+
+During the rest of the morning Craig was at work again in the
+laboratory. He was busily engaged in testing something through his
+powerful microscopes and had a large number of curious
+microphotographs spread out on the table. As I watched him,
+apparently there was nothing but the blood-stained gauze bandage
+which had been fastened to the face of the strange, light-haired
+woman, and on the stains on this bandage he was concentrating his
+attention. I could not imagine what he expected to discover from
+it.
+
+I waited for Kennedy to speak, but he was too busy more than to
+notice that I had come in. I fell to thinking of that woman. And
+the more I thought of the fair face, the more I was puzzled by it.
+I felt somehow or other that I had seen it somewhere before, yet
+could not place it.
+
+A second time I examined the unpublished photograph of Betty
+Blackwell as well as the pictures that had been published. The
+only conclusion that I could come to was that it could not be she,
+for although she was light-haired and of fair complexion, the face
+as I remembered it was that of a mature woman who was much larger
+than the slight Betty. I was sure of that.
+
+Every time I reasoned it out I came to the same contradictory
+conclusion that I had seen her, and I hadn't. I gave it up, and as
+Kennedy seemed indisposed to enlighten me, I went for a stroll
+about the campus, returning as if drawn back to him by a
+lodestone.
+
+About him was still the litter of test tubes, the photographs, the
+microscopes; and he was more absorbed in his delicate work than
+ever.
+
+He looked up from his examination of a little glass slide and I
+could see by the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes that he
+was not looking so much at me as through me at a very puzzling
+problem.
+
+"Walter," he remarked at length, "did you notice anything in
+particular about that blonde woman who dashed down the steps into
+the taxicab and escaped from the dope joint?"
+
+"I should say that I did," I returned, glad to ease my mind of
+what had been perplexing me ever since. "I don't want to appear to
+be foolish, but, frankly, I thought I had seen her before, and
+then when I tried to place her I found that I could not recognize
+her at all. She seemed to be familiar, and yet when I tried to
+place her I could think of no one with just those features. It was
+a foolish impression, I suppose."
+
+"That's exactly it," he exclaimed. "I thought at first it was just
+a foolish impression, too, an intuition which my later judgment
+rejected. But often those first impressions put you on the track
+of the truth. I reconsidered. You remember she had dropped that
+bandage from her face with the blood-stain on it. I picked it up
+and it occurred to me to try a little experiment with these blood-
+stains which might show something."
+
+He paused a moment and fingered some of the microphotographs.
+
+"What would you say," he went on, "if I should tell you that a
+pronounced blonde, with a fair complexion and thin, almost hooked,
+nose, was in reality a negress?"
+
+"If it were anyone but you, Craig," I replied frankly, "I'd be
+tempted to call him something. But you--well, what's the answer?
+How do you know?"
+
+"I wonder if you have ever heard of the Reichert blood test? Well,
+the Carnegie Institution has recently published an account of it.
+Professor Edward Reichert of the University of Pennsylvania has
+discovered that the blood crystals of all animals and men show
+characteristic differences.
+
+"It has even been suggested that before the studies are over
+photographs of blood corpuscles may be used to identify criminals,
+almost like fingerprints. There is much that can be discovered
+already by the use of these hemoglobin clues. That hemoglobin, or
+red colouring matter of the blood, forms crystals has been known
+for a long time. These crystals vary in different animals, as they
+are studied under the polarizing microscope, both in form and
+molecular structure. That is of immense importance for the
+scientific criminologist.
+
+"A man's blood is not like the blood of any other living creature,
+either fish, flesh, or fowl. Further, it is said that the blood of
+a woman or a man and of different individuals shows differences
+that will reveal themselves under certain tests. You can take
+blood from any number of animals and the scientists to-day can
+tell that it is not human blood, but the blood, say, of an animal.
+
+"The scientists now can go further. They even hope soon to be able
+to tell the difference between individuals so closely that they
+can trace parentage by these tests. Already they can actually
+distinguish among the races of men, whether a certain sample of
+blood, by its crystals, is from a Chinaman, a Caucasian, or a
+negro. Each gives its own characteristic crystal. The Caucasian
+shows that he is more closely related to one group of primates;
+the negro to another. It is scientific proof of evolution.
+
+"It is all the more wonderful, Walter, when you consider that
+these crystals are only 1-2250th of an inch in length and 1-9000th
+of an inch in width."
+
+"How do you study them?" I asked.
+
+"The method I employed was to take a little of the blood and add
+some oxalate of ammonium to it, then shake it up thoroughly with
+ether to free the hemoglobin from the corpuscles. I then separated
+the ether carefully from the rest of the blood mixture and put a
+few drops of it on a slide, covered them with a cover slip and
+sealed the edges with balsam. Gradually the crystals appear and
+they can be studied and photographed in the usual way--not only
+the shapes of the crystals, but also the relation that their
+angles bear to each other. So it is impossible to mistake the
+blood of one animal for another or of one race, like the white
+race, for that of another, like the black. In fact the physical
+characteristics by which some physicians profess to detect the
+presence of negro blood are held by other authorities to be
+valueless. But not so with this test."
+
+"And you have discovered in this case?" I asked.
+
+"That the blood on the bandage from the face of that woman who
+escaped was not the blood of a pure Caucasian. She shows traces of
+negro blood, in fact exactly what would have been expected of a
+mulatto."
+
+It dawned on me that the woman must have been Marie, after all; at
+least that that was what he meant.
+
+"But," I objected, "one look at her face was enough to show that
+she was not the dark-skinned Marie with her straight nose, her
+dark hair and other features. This woman was fair, had a nose that
+was almost hooked and hair that was almost flaxen. Remember the
+portrait parle."
+
+"Just so--the portrait parle. That is what I am remembering. You
+recall Carton discovered that in some way these people found out
+that we were using it? What would they do? Why, they have thought
+out the only possible way in which to beat it, don't you see?
+
+"Marie, Madame Margot, whatever you call her, had a beauty
+parlour. Oh, they are clever, these people. They reasoned it all
+out. What was a beauty parlour, a cosmetic surgery, for, if it
+could not be used to save them? They knew we had her scientific
+description. What was the thing to do, then? Why, change it, of
+course, change her!"
+
+Kennedy was quite excited now.
+
+"You know what Miss Kendall said of decorative surgery, there?
+They change noses, ears, foreheads, chins, even eyes. They put the
+thing up to Dr. Harris with his knives and bandages and lotions.
+He must work quickly. It would take all his time. So he
+disappeared into Margot's and stayed there. Marie also stayed
+there until such time as she might be able to walk out, another
+person entirely. Harris must have had charge of her features. The
+attendants in Margot's had charge of her complexion and hair--
+those were the things in which they specialized.
+
+"Don't you see it all now? She could retire a few days into the
+dope joint next door and she would emerge literally a new woman
+ready to face us, even with Bertillon's portrait parle against
+her."
+
+It was amazing how quickly Kennedy pieced the facts together into
+an explanation.
+
+"Yes," he concluded triumphantly, "that blonde woman was our dark-
+skinned mulatto made over--Marie. But they can't escape the power
+of science, even by using science themselves. She might change her
+identity to our eyes, but she could not before the Reichert test
+and the microscope. No, the Ethiopian could not change her skin
+before the eye of science."
+
+It was late in the afternoon that Kennedy received a hurried
+telephone call from Miss Kendall. I could tell by the scraps of
+conversation which I overheard that it was most important.
+
+"That girl, Sybil Seymour, has broken down," was all he said as he
+turned from the instrument. "She will he here to-day with Miss
+Kendall. You must see Carton immediately. Tell him not to fail to
+be here, at the laboratory, this afternoon at three, sharp."
+
+He was gone before I could question him further and there was
+nothing for me to do but to execute the commission he had laid on
+me.
+
+I met Carton at his club, relating to him all that I could about
+the progress of the case. He seemed interested but I could see
+that his mind was really not on it. The estrangement between him
+and Margaret Ashton outweighed success in this case and even in
+the election.
+
+Half an hour before the appointed time, however, we arrived at the
+laboratory in Carton's car, to find Kennedy already there, putting
+the finishing touches on the preparations he was making to receive
+his "guests."
+
+"Dorgan will be here," he answered, evading Carton's question as
+to what he had discovered.
+
+"Dorgan?" we repeated in surprise.
+
+"Yes. I have made arrangements to have Martin Ogleby, too. They
+won't dare stay away. Ike the Dropper, Dr. Harris, and Marie
+Margot have not been found yet, but Miss Kendall will bring Sybil
+Seymour. Then we shall see."
+
+The door opened. It was Ogleby. He bowed stiffly, but before he
+could say anything, a noise outside heralded the arrival of
+someone else.
+
+It proved to be Dorgan, who had come from an opposite direction.
+Dorgan seemed to treat the whole affair with contempt, which he
+took pleasure in showing. He was cool and calm, master of himself,
+in any situation no matter how hostile.
+
+As we waited, the strained silence, broken only by an occasional
+whisper between Carton and Kennedy, was relieved even by the
+arrival of Miss Kendall and Sybil Seymour in a cab. As they
+entered I fancied that a friendship had sprung up between the two,
+that Miss Kendall had won her fight for the girl. Indeed, I
+suspect that it was the first time in years that the girl had had
+a really disinterested friend of either sex.
+
+I thought Ogleby visibly winced as he caught sight of Miss
+Seymour. He evidently had not expected her, and I thought that
+perhaps he had no relish for the recollection of the Montmartre
+which her presence suggested.
+
+Miss Seymour, now like herself as she had appeared first behind
+the desk at the hotel, only subdued and serious, seemed ill at
+ease. Dorgan, on the other hand, bowed to her brazenly and
+mockingly. He was evidently preparing against any surprises which
+Craig might have in store, and maintained his usual surly silence.
+
+"Perhaps," hemmed Ogleby, clearing his throat and looking at his
+watch ostentatiously, "Professor Kennedy can inform us regarding
+the purpose of this extra-legal proceeding? Some of us, I know,
+have other engagements. I would suggest that you begin,
+Professor."
+
+He placed a sarcastic emphasis on the word "professor," as the two
+men faced each other--Craig tall, clean-cut, earnest; Ogleby
+polished, smooth, keen.
+
+"Very well," replied Craig with that steel-trap snap of his jaws
+which I knew boded ill for someone.
+
+"It is not necessary for me to repeat what has happened at the
+Montmartre and the beauty parlour adjoining it," began Kennedy
+deliberately. "One thing, however, I want to say. Twice, now, I
+have seen Dr. Harris handing out packets of drugs--once to Ike the
+Dropper, agent for the police and a corrupt politician, and once
+to a mulatto woman, almost white, who conducted the beauty parlour
+and dope joint which I have mentioned, a friend and associate of
+Ike the Dropper, a constant go-between from Ike to the corrupt
+person higher up.
+
+"This woman, whom I have just mentioned, we have been seeking by
+use of Bertillon's new system of the portrait parle. She has
+escaped, for the time, by a very clever ruse, by changing her very
+face in the beauty parlour. She is Madame Margot herself!"
+
+Not a word was breathed by any of the little audience as they hung
+on Kennedy's words.
+
+"Why was it necessary to get Betty Blackwell out of the way?" he
+asked suddenly, then without waiting for an answer, "You know and
+District Attorney Carton knows. Someone was afraid of Carton and
+his crusade. Someone wanted to destroy the value of that Black
+Book, which I now have. The only safety lay in removing the person
+whose evidence would be required in court to establish it--Betty
+Blackwell. And the manner? What more natural than to use the dope
+fiends and the degenerates of the Montmartre gang?"
+
+"That's silly," interrupted Ogleby contemptuously.
+
+"Silly? You can say that--you, the tool of that--that monster?"
+
+It was a woman's voice that interrupted. I turned. Sybil Seymour,
+her face blazing with resentment, had risen and was facing Ogleby
+squarely.
+
+"You lie!" exclaimed the Silent Boss, forgetting both his silence
+and his superciliousness.
+
+The situation was tense as the girl faced him.
+
+"Go on, Sybil," urged Clare.
+
+"Be careful, woman," cried Dorgan roughly.
+
+Sybil Seymour turned quickly to her new assailant. "You are the
+man for whom we were all coined into dollars," she scorned,
+"Dorgan--politician, man higher up! You reaped the profits through
+your dirty agent, Ike the Dropper, and those over him, even the
+police you controlled. Dr. Harris, Marie Margot, all are your
+tools--and the worst of them all is this man Martin Ogleby!"
+
+Dorgan's face was livid. For once in his life he was speechless
+rather than silent, as the girl poured out the inside gossip of
+the Montmartre which Kennedy had now stamped with the earmarks of
+legal proof.
+
+She had turned from Dorgan, as if from an unclean animal and was
+now facing Ogleby.
+
+"As for you, Martin Ogleby, they call you a club-man and society
+leader. Do you want to know what club I think you really belong
+to--you who have involved one girl after another in the meshes of
+this devilish System? You belong to the Abduction Club--that is
+what I would call it--you--you libertine!"
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE WHITE SLAVE
+
+
+Carton had sprung to his feet at the direct charge and was facing
+Ogleby.
+
+"Is that true--about the Montmartre?" he demanded.
+
+Ogleby fairly sputtered. "She lies," he almost hissed.
+
+"Just a moment," interrupted Dorgan. "What has that to do with
+Miss Blackwell, anyhow?"
+
+Sybil Seymour did not pause.
+
+"It is true," she reiterated. "This is what it has to do with
+Betty Blackwell. Listen. He is the man who led me on, who would
+have done the same to Betty Blackwell. I yielded, but she fought.
+They could not conquer her--neither by drugs nor drink, nor by
+clothes, nor a good time, nor force. I saw it all in the
+Montmartre and the beauty parlour--all."
+
+"Lies--all lies," hissed Ogleby, beside himself with anger.
+
+"No, no," cried Sybil. "I do not lie. Mr. Carton and this good
+woman, Miss Kendall, who is working for him, are the first people
+I have seen since you, Martin Ogleby, brought me to the
+Montmartre, who have ever given me a chance to become again what I
+was before you and your friends got me."
+
+"Have a care, young woman," interrupted Dorgan, recovering himself
+as she proceeded. "There are laws and--"
+
+"I don't care a rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs--that
+was what you were going to say--I'd snap my fingers in the face of
+Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I
+would tell the truth.
+
+"Let me tell you my case," she continued, turning in appeal to the
+rest of us, "the case of a poor girl in a small city near New
+York, who liked a good time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an
+automobile, theatres, excitement, bright lights, night life. I
+liked them. He knew that. He led me on, made me like him. And when
+I began to show the strain of the pace--we all show it more than
+the men--he cast me aside, like a squeezed-out lemon."
+
+Sybil Seymour was talking rapidly, but she was not hysterical.
+
+"Already you know Betty Blackwell's story--part of it," she
+hurried on. "Miss Kendall has told me--how she was bribed to
+disappear. But beyond that--what?"
+
+For a moment she paused. No one said a word. Here at last was the
+one person who held the key to the mystery.
+
+"She did disappear. She kept her word. At last she had money, the
+one thing she had longed for. At last she was able to gratify
+those desires to play the fashionable lady which her family had
+always felt. What more natural, then, than while she must keep in
+hiding to make one visit to the beauty parlour to which so many
+society women went--Margot's? It was there that she went on the
+day that she disappeared."
+
+We were hanging breathlessly now on the words of the girl as she
+untangled the sordid story.
+
+"And then?" prompted Kennedy.
+
+"Then came into play another arm of the System," she replied.
+"They tried to make sure that she would disappear. They tried the
+same arts on her that they had on me--this man and the gang about
+him. He played on her love of beauty and Madame Margot helped him.
+He used the Montmartre and the Futurist to fascinate her, but
+still she was not his. She let herself drift along, perhaps
+because she knew that her family was every bit the equal socially
+of his own. Madame Margot tried drugs; first the doped cigarette,
+then drugs that had to be forced on her. She kept her in that
+joint for days by force; and there where I went for relief day
+after day from my own bitter thoughts I saw her, in that hell
+which Miss Kendall now by her evidence will close forever. Still
+she would not yield.
+
+"I saw it all. Maybe you will say I was jealous because I had lost
+him. I was not. I hated him. You do not know how close hate can be
+to love in the heart of a woman. I could not help it. I had to
+write a letter that might save her.
+
+"Miss Kendall has told me about the typewritten letters; how you,
+Professor Kennedy, traced them to the Montmartre. I wrote them, I
+admit, for these people. I wrote that stuff about drugs for Dr.
+Harris. And I wrote the first letter of all to the District
+Attorney. I wrote it for myself and signed it as I am--God forgive
+me--'An Outcast.'"
+
+The poor girl, overwrought by the strain of the confession that
+laid bare her very soul, sank back in her chair and cried, as Miss
+Kendall gently tried to soothe her.
+
+Dorgan and Ogleby listened sullenly. Never in their lives had they
+dreamed of such a situation as this.
+
+There was no air of triumph about Kennedy now over the confession,
+which with the aid of Miss Kendall, he had staged so effectively.
+Rather it was a spirit of earnestness, of retribution, justice.
+
+"You know all this?" he inquired gently of the girl.
+
+"I saw it," she said simply, raising her bowed head.
+
+Dorgan had been doing some quick thinking. He leaned over and
+whispered quickly to Ogleby.
+
+"Why was she not discovered then when these detectives broke into
+the private house--an act which they themselves will have to
+answer for when the time comes?" demanded Ogleby.
+
+It seemed as if the mere sound of his voice roused the girl.
+
+"Because it was dangerous to keep her there any longer," she
+replied. "I heard the talk about the hotel, the rumour that
+someone was using this new French detective scheme. I heard them
+blame the District Attorney--who was clever enough to have others
+working on the case whom you did not know. While you were watching
+his officers, Mr. Kennedy and Miss Kendall were gathering evidence
+almost under your very eyes.
+
+"But you were panic-stricken. You and your agents wanted to remove
+the danger of discovery. Dr. Harris and Marie Margot had a plan
+which you grasped at eagerly. There was Ike the Dropper, that
+scoundrel who lives on women. Between them you would spirit her
+away. You were glad to have them do it, little realizing that,
+with every step, they had you involved deeper and worse. You
+forgot everything, all honour and manhood in your panic; you were
+ready to consent, to urge any course that would relieve you--and
+you have taken the course that involves you worse than any other."
+
+"Who will believe a story like that?" demanded Ogleby. "What are
+you--according to your own confession? Am I to be charged with
+everything this gang, as you call it, does? You are their agent,
+perhaps working for this blackmailing crew. But I tell you, I will
+fight, I will not be blackened by--"
+
+Sybil laughed, half hysterically.
+
+"Blackened?" she repeated. "You who would put this thing all off
+on others who worked for you, who played on your vices and
+passions, not because you were weak, but because you thought you
+were above the law!
+
+"You did not care what became of that girl, so long as she was
+where she could not accuse you. You left her to that gang, to Ike,
+to Marie, to Harris." She paused a moment, and flashed a quick
+glance of scorn at him. "Do you want to know what has become of
+her, what you are responsible for?
+
+"I will tell you. They had other ideas than just getting her out
+of the way of your selfish career. They are in this life for
+money. Betty Blackwell to them was a marketable article, a piece
+of merchandise in the terrible traffic which they carry on. If she
+had been yielding, like the rest of us, she might now be
+apparently free, yet held by a bondage as powerful and unescapable
+as if it were of iron, a life from which she could not escape. But
+she was not yielding. They would break her. Perhaps you have tried
+to ease your conscience, if you have any, by the thought that it
+is they, not you, who have her hidden away somewhere now. You
+cannot escape that way; it was you who made her, who made others
+of us, what we are."
+
+"Let her rave, Ogleby," sneered Dorgan.
+
+"Yes--raving, that's it," echoed Ogleby. But his expression belied
+him.
+
+"There it is," she continued. "You have not even an opinion of
+your own. You repeat even the remarks of others. They have you in
+their power. You have put yourself there."
+
+"All very pretty," remarked Dorgan with biting sarcasm. "All very
+cleverly thought out. So nice here! Wait until you have to tell
+that story in court. You know the first rule of equity? Do you go
+into court with clean hands? There is a day of reckoning coming to
+you, young woman, and to these other meddlers here--whether they
+are playing politics or meddling just because they are old-maidish
+busy-bodies."
+
+She was facing the politician with burning cheeks.
+
+"You," she scorned, "belong to an age that is passing away. You
+cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton,
+who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You
+do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You
+would not pull us up--you shoved us down deeper, in your greed.
+But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose?
+You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything
+from us. We--"
+
+"Come, Ogleby," interposed Dorgan, deliberately turning his back
+on her and slowly placing his hat on his half-bald head. "We are
+indebted to Professor Kennedy for a pleasant entertainment. When
+he has another show equally original we trust he will not forget
+the first-nighters who have enjoyed this farce."
+
+Dorgan had reached the door and had his hand on the knob. I had
+expected Kennedy to reply. But he said nothing. Instead his hand
+stole along the edge of the table beside which he was standing.
+
+"Good-night," bowed Dorgan with mock solemnity. "Thank you for
+laying the cards on the table. We shall know how to play--"
+
+Dorgan cut the words short.
+
+Kennedy had touched the button of an electric attachment which was
+under the table by which he could lock every door and window of
+the laboratory instantly and silently.
+
+"Well?" demanded Dorgan fiercely, though there was a tremble in
+his voice that had never been heard before.
+
+"Where is Betty Blackwell?" demanded Craig, turning to Sybil
+Seymour. "Where did they take her?"
+
+We hung breathlessly on the answer. Was she being held as a white
+slave in some obscure den? I knew that that did not mean that she
+was necessarily imprisoned behind locked doors and barred windows,
+although even that might be the case. I knew that the restraint
+might be just as effective, even though it was not actually or
+wholly physical.
+
+An ordinary girl, I reasoned, with little knowledge of her rights
+or of the powers which she might call to her aid if she knew how
+to summon them, might she not be so hemmed in by the forces into
+whose hands she had fallen as to be practically held in bonds
+which she could not break?
+
+Here was Sybil herself! Once she had been like Betty Blackwell.
+Indeed, when she seemed to have every chance to escape she did
+not. She knew how she could be pursued, hounded at every turn,
+forced back, and her only course was to sink deeper into the life.
+The thought of what might be accomplished by drugs startled me.
+
+Clare bent over the poor girl reassuringly. What was it that
+seemed to freeze her tongue now? Was it still some vestige of the
+old fear under which she had been held so long? Clare strove,
+although we could not hear what she was saying, to calm her.
+
+At last Sybil raised her head, with a wild cry, as if she were
+sealing her own doom.
+
+"It was Ike. He kept us all in terror. Oh, if he hears he will
+kill me," she blurted out.
+
+"Where did he take her?" asked Clare.
+
+She had broken down the girl's last fear.
+
+"To that place on the West Side--that black and tan joint, where
+Marie Margot came from before the gang took her in."
+
+"Carton," called Kennedy. "You and Walter will take Miss Kendall
+and Miss Seymour. Let me see. Dorgan, Ogleby, and myself will ride
+in the taxicab."
+
+Carton was toying ostentatiously with a police whistle as Dorgan
+hesitated, then entered the cab.
+
+I think at the joint, as we pulled up with a rush after our wild
+ride downtown, they must have thought that a party of revellers
+had dropped in to see the sights. It was perhaps just as well that
+they did, for there was no alarm at first.
+
+As we entered the black and tan joint, I took another long look at
+its forbidding exterior. Below, it was a saloon and dance hall;
+above, it was a "hotel." It was weatherbeaten, dirty, and
+unsightly, without, except for the entrance; unsanitary,
+ramshackle, within, except for the tawdry decorations. At every
+window were awnings and all were down, although it was on the
+shady side of the street in the daytime and it was now getting
+late. That was the mute sign post to the initiated of the
+character of the place.
+
+Instead of turning downstairs where we had gone on our other
+visit, Kennedy led the way up through a door that read, "Hotel
+Entrance--Office."
+
+A clerk at a desk in a little alcove on the second floor
+mechanically pushed out a register at us, then seeming to sense
+trouble, pulled it back quickly and with his foot gave a sharp
+kick at the door of a little safe, locking the combination.
+
+"I'm looking for someone," was all Kennedy said. "This is the
+District Attorney. We'll go through--"
+
+"Yes, you will!"
+
+It was Ike the Dropper. He had heard the commotion, and, seeing
+ladies, came to the conclusion that it was not a police
+plainclothes raid, but some new game of the reformers.
+
+He stopped short in amazement at the sight of Dorgan and Ogleby.
+
+"Well--I'll be--"
+
+"Carton! Walter!" shouted Kennedy. "Take care of him. Watch out
+for a knife or gun. He's soft, though. Carton--the whistle!"
+
+Our struggle with the redoubtable Ike was short and quickly over.
+Sullen, and with torn clothes and bleeding face, we held him until
+the policeman arrived, and turned him over to the law.
+
+At a room on the same floor Craig knocked.
+
+"Come in," answered a woman's voice.
+
+He pushed open the door. There was the woman who had fled so
+precipitately from the dope joint.
+
+Evidently she did not recognize us. "You are under arrest,"
+announced Kennedy.
+
+The blonde woman laughed mockingly.
+
+"Under arrest? For what?"
+
+"You are Marie Margot. Never mind about your alias. All the arts
+of your employees and Dr. Harris himself cannot change you so that
+I cannot recognize you. You may feel safe from the portrait parle,
+but there are other means of detection that you never dreamed of.
+Where is Betty Blackwell? Marie, it's all off!"
+
+All the brazen assurance with which she had met us was gone. She
+looked from one to the other and read that it was the end. With a
+shriek, she suddenly darted past us, out of the door. Down the
+hall was Ike the Dropper with the policeman and Carton. Beside her
+was a stairway leading to the upper floors. She chose the stairs.
+
+Following Kennedy we hurried through the hotel, from one dirty
+room to another, with their loose and creaking floors, rotten and
+filthy, sagging as we walked, covered with matting that was
+rotting away. Damp and unventilated, the air was heavy and filled
+with foul odours of tobacco, perfumery, and cheap disinfectants.
+There seemed to have been no attempt to keep the place clean.
+
+The rooms were small and separated by thin partitions through
+which conversations in even low tones could be heard. The
+furniture was cheap and worn with constant use.
+
+Downstairs we could hear the uproar as the news spread that the
+District Attorney was raiding the place. As fast as they could the
+sordid crowd in the dance hall and cabaret was disappearing. Now
+and then we could hear a door bang, a hasty conference, and then
+silence as some of the inmates realized that upstairs all escape
+was cut off.
+
+On the top floor we came to a door, locked and bolted. With all
+the force that he could gather in the narrow hall, Kennedy
+catapulted himself against it. It yielded in its rottenness with a
+crash.
+
+A woman, in all her finery, lay across the foot of a bed, a
+formless heap. Kennedy turned her over. It was Marie, motionless,
+but still breathing faintly. In an armchair, with his hands
+hanging limply down almost to the floor, his head sagging forward
+on his chest, sprawled Harris.
+
+Kennedy picked up a little silver receptacle on the floor where it
+lay near his right hand. It was nearly empty, but as he looked
+from it quickly to the two insensible figures before us he
+muttered: "Morphine. They have robbed the law of its punishment."
+
+He bent over the suicides, but it was too late to do anything for
+them. They had paid the price.
+
+"My heavens!" he exclaimed suddenly, as a thought flashed over his
+mind. "I hope they have not carried the secret of Betty Blackwell
+with them to the grave. Where is Miss Kendall?"
+
+Down the hall, cut off from the rest of the hotel into a sort of
+private suite, Clare had entered one of the rooms and was bending
+over a pale, wan shadow of a girl, tossing restlessly on a bed.
+The room was scantily furnished with a dilapidated bureau in one
+corner and a rickety washstand equipped with a dirty washbowl and
+pitcher. A few cheap chromos on the walls were the only
+decorations, and a small badly soiled rug covered a floor innocent
+for many years of soap.
+
+I looked sharply at the girl lying before us. Somehow it did not
+occur to me who she was. She was so worn that anyone might safely
+have transported her through the streets and never have been
+questioned, in spite of the fact that every paper in the country
+which prints pictures had published her photograph, not once but
+many times.
+
+It was Betty Blackwell at last, struggling against the drugs that
+had been forced on her, half conscious, but with one firm and
+acute feeling left--resistance to the end.
+
+Kennedy had dropped on his knees before her and was examining her
+closely.
+
+"Open the windows--more air," he ordered. "Walter, see if you can
+find some ice water and a little stimulant."
+
+While Craig was taking such restorative measures as were possible
+on the spur of the moment, Miss Kendall gently massaged her head
+and hands.
+
+She seemed to understand that she was in the hands of friends, and
+though she did not know us her mute look of thanks was touching.
+
+"Don't get excited, my dear," breathed Miss Kendall into her ear.
+"You will be all right soon."
+
+As the wronged girl relaxed from her constant tension of watching,
+it seemed as if she fell into a stupor. Now and then she moaned
+feebly, and words, half-formed, seemed to come to her lips only to
+die away.
+
+Suddenly she seemed to have a vision more vivid than the rest.
+
+"No--no--Mr. Ogleby--leave me. Where--my mother--oh, where is
+mother?" she cried hysterically, sitting bolt upright and staring
+at us without seeing us.
+
+Kennedy passed the broad palm of his hand over her forehead and
+murmured, "There, there, you are all right now." Then he added to
+us: "I did not send for her mother because I wasn't sure that we
+might find her even as well as this. Will someone find Carton? Get
+the address and send a messenger for Mrs. Blackwell."
+
+Sybil was on her knees by the bedside of the giri, holding Betty's
+hand in both of her own.
+
+"You poor, poor girl," she cried softly. "It is--dreadful."
+
+She had sunk her head into the worn and dirty covers of the bed.
+Kennedy reached over and took hold of her arm. "She will be all
+right, soon," he said reassuringly. "Miss Kendall will take good
+care of her."
+
+As we descended the stairs, we could see Carton at the foot. A
+patrol wagon had been backed up to the curb in front and the
+inmates of the place were being taken out, protesting violently at
+being detained.
+
+Further down the hall, by the "office," Dorgan and Ogleby were
+storming, protesting that "influence" would "break" everyone
+concerned, from Carton down to the innocent patrolmen.
+
+Kennedy listened a moment, then turned to Clare Kendall.
+
+"I will leave Miss Blackwell in your care," he said quietly. "It
+is on her we must rely to prove the contents of the Black Book."
+
+Clare nodded, as, with a clang, Carton drove off with his
+prisoners to see them safely entered on the "blotter."
+
+"Our work is over," remarked Kennedy, turning again to Miss
+Kendall, in a tone as if he might have said more, but refrained.
+
+Looking Craig frankly in the eye, she extended her hand in that
+same cordial straight-arm shake with which she had first greeted
+us, and added, "But not the memory of this fight we have won."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE ELECTION NIGHT
+
+
+It was election night. Kennedy and Carton had arranged between
+them that we were all to receive the returns at the headquarters
+of the Reform League, where one of the papers which was
+particularly interested, had installed several special wires.
+
+The polls had scarcely closed when Kennedy and I, who had voted
+early, if not often, in spite of our strenuous day, hastened up to
+the headquarters. Already it was a scene of activity.
+
+The first election district had come in, one on the lower East
+Side, which was a stronghold of Dorgan, where the count could be
+made quickly, for there were no split tickets there. Dorgan had
+drawn first blood.
+
+"I hope it isn't an omen," smiled Carton, like a good sport.
+
+Kennedy smiled quietly.
+
+We looked about, but Miss Ashton was not there. I wondered why not
+and where she was.
+
+The first returns had scarcely begun to filter in, though, when
+Craig leaned over and whispered to me to go out and find her,
+either at her home, or if not there, at a woman's club of which
+she was one of the leading members.
+
+I found her at home and sent up my card. She had apparently lost
+interest in the election and it was with difficulty that I could
+persuade her to accompany me to the League headquarters. However,
+I argued the case with what ability I had and finally she
+consented.
+
+The other members of the Ashton family had monopolized the cars
+and we were obliged to take a taxicab. As our driver threaded his
+way slowly and carefully through the thronged streets it gave us a
+splendid chance to see some of the enthusiasm. I think it did
+Margaret Ashton good, too, to get out, instead of brooding over
+the events of the past few days, as she had seen them. Her
+heightened colour made her more attractive than ever.
+
+The excitement of any other night in the year paled to
+insignificance before this.
+
+Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing horns. Now
+a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass of people
+before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans, hisses,
+and catcalls, or all together, with cheers, as the returns swung
+in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a
+crowd as this.
+
+Enterprising newspapers had established places at which they
+flashed out the returns on huge sheets on every prominent corner.
+Some of them had bands, and moving pictures, and elaborate forms
+of entertainment for the crowds.
+
+Now and then, where the crowd was more than usually dense, we had
+to make a wide detour. Even the quieter streets seemed alive. On
+some boys had built huge bonfires from barrels and boxes that had
+been saved religiously for weeks or surreptitiously purloined from
+the grocer or the patient house-holder. About the fires, they kept
+an ever watchful eye for the descent of their two sworn enemies--
+the policeman and the rival gang privateering in the name of a
+hostile candidate.
+
+Boys with armfuls of newspapers were everywhere, selling news that
+in the rapid-fire change of the statistics seemed almost
+archeologically old.
+
+Lights blazed on every side. Automobiles honked and ground their
+gears. The lobster palaces, where for weeks, Francois, Carl, and
+William had been taking small treasury notes for tables reserved
+against the occasion, were thronged. In theatres people squirmed
+uneasily until the ends of acts, in order to listen to returns
+read from the stage before the curtain. Police were everywhere.
+People with horns, and bells, and all manner of noise-making
+devices, with confetti and "ticklers" pushed up on one side of
+Broadway and down on the other.
+
+At every square they congested foot and vehicle traffic, as they
+paused ravenously to feed on the meagre bulletins of news.
+
+Yet back of all the noise and human energy, as a newspaperman, I
+could think only of the silent, systematic gathering and editing
+of the news, of the busy scenes that each journal's office
+presented, the haste, the excitement, the thrill in the very smell
+of the printer's ink.
+
+Miss Ashton, I was glad to note, as we proceeded downtown, fell
+more and more into the spirit of the adventure.
+
+High up in the League headquarters in the tower, when we arrived,
+it was almost like a newspaper office, to me. A corps of clerks
+was tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official
+reports. As first the city swung one way, then another, our hopes
+rose and fell.
+
+I could not help noticing, however, after a while that Miss Ashton
+seemed cold and ill at ease. There was such a crowd there of
+Leaguers and their friends that it was easily possible for her not
+to meet Carton. But as I circulated about in the throng, I came
+upon him. Carton looked worried and was paying less attention to
+the returns than seemed natural. It was evident that, in spite of
+the crowd, she had avoided him and he hesitated to seek her out.
+
+There were so many things to think of thrusting themselves into
+one's attention that I could follow none consistently. First I
+found myself wondering about Carton and Miss Ashton. Before I knew
+it I was delivering a snap judgment on whether the uptown
+residence district returns would be large enough to overcome the
+hostile downtown vote. I was frankly amazed, now, to see how
+strongly the city as a whole was turning to the Reform League.
+
+A boy, pushing through the crowd, came upon Kennedy and myself,
+talking to Miss Ashton. He shoved a message quickly into Craig's
+hand and disappeared.
+
+"For heaven's sake!" he exclaimed as he tore open the envelope and
+read. "What do you think of that? My shadows report that Martin
+Ogleby has been arrested and his confession will be enough, with
+the Black Book and Betty Blackwell, to indict Dorgan. Kahn has
+committed suicide! Hartley Langhorne has sailed for Paris on the
+French line, with Mrs. Ogleby!"
+
+"Mary Ogleby--eloped?" repeated Miss Ashton, aghast.
+
+The very name seemed to call up unpleasant associations and her
+face plainly showed it. Kennedy had said nothing to her since the
+day when he had pleaded with her to suspend judgment.
+
+"By the way," he said in a low voice, leaning over toward her,
+"have you heard that those pictures of her were faked? It was
+really Dorgan, and some crook photographer cut out his face and
+substituted Carton's. We got the Black Book, this morning, too,
+and it tells the story of Mrs. Ogleby's misadventures--as well as
+a lot of much more important things. We got it from Mr. Murtha
+and---"
+
+"Mr. Murtha?" she inquired, in surprise.
+
+"It is a secret, but I think I can violate it to a certain extent
+for Mr. Carton is a party to it and--"
+
+Kennedy paused. He was speaking with the assurance of one who
+assumed that John Carton and Margaret Ashton had no secrets. She
+saw it, and coloured deeply.
+
+Then he lowered his voice further to a whisper and when he
+finished, her face was even a deeper scarlet. But her eyes had a
+brightness they had lacked for days. And I could see the emotion
+she felt as her slight form quivered with excitement.
+
+Kennedy excused himself and we worked our way through the press
+toward Carton.
+
+"Dorgan has lost his nerve!" ejaculated Craig as we came up with
+him, watching district after district which showed that the Boss's
+usual pluralities were being seriously reduced.
+
+"Lost his nerve?" repeated Carton.
+
+"Yes. I told him I would publish the whole affair of the
+photographs just as I knew it, not caring whom it hit. I advised
+him to read his revised statutes again about money in elections
+and I added the threat, 'There will be no "dough day" or it will
+be carried to the limit, Dorgan, and I will resurrect Murtha in an
+hour!' You should have seen his face! There was no dough day.
+That's what I meant when I said it was to be a fair fight. You see
+the effect on the returns."
+
+Carton was absolutely speechless. The tears stood in his eyes as
+he grasped Kennedy's hand, then swung around to me.
+
+A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office.
+One of them rushed in with a still unblotted report.
+
+Kennedy seized it and read:
+
+"Dorgan concedes the city by a safe plurality to Carton, fifty-two
+election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform League
+victory."
+
+I turned to Carton.
+
+Behind us, through the crowd, had followed a young lady and now
+Carton had no ears for anything except the pretty apology of
+Margaret Ashton.
+
+Kennedy pulled me toward the door.
+
+"We might as well concede Miss Ashton to Carton," he beamed.
+"Let's go out and watch the crowd."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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