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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voice on the Wire, by Eustace Hale Ball
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Voice on the Wire
+
+Author: Eustace Hale Ball
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5672]
+Posting Date: June 12, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VOICE ON THE WIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE ON THE WIRE
+
+
+By Eustace Hale Ball
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. WHEN THREE IS A MYSTERY
+
+
+
+"Mr. Shirley is waiting for you in the grill-room, sir. Just step this
+way, sir, and down the stairs."
+
+The large man awkwardly followed the servant to the cosey grill-room on
+the lower floor of the club house. He felt that every man of the little
+groups about the Flemish tables must be saying: "What's he doing here?"
+
+"I wish Monty Shirley would meet me once in a while in the back room of
+a ginmill, where I'd feel comfortable," muttered the unhappy visitor.
+"This joint is too classy. But that's his game to play--"
+
+He reached the sought-for one, however, and exclaimed eagerly: "By
+Jiminy, Monty. I'm glad to find you--it would have been my luck after
+this day, to get here too late."
+
+He was greeted with a grip that made even his generous hand wince, as
+the other arose to smile a welcome.
+
+"Hello, Captain Cronin. You're a good sight for a grouchy man's eyes!
+Sit down and confide the brand of your particular favorite poison to our
+Japanese Dionysius!"
+
+The Captain sighed with relief, as he obeyed.
+
+"Bar whiskey is good enough for an old timer like me. Don't tell me you
+have the blues--your face isn't built that way!"
+
+"Gospel truth, Captain. I've been loafing around this club--nothing to
+do for a month. Bridge, handball, highballs, and yarns! I'm actually a
+nervous wreck because my nerves haven't had any work to do!"
+
+"You're the healthiest invalid I've seen since the hospital days in the
+Civil War. But don't worry about something to do. I've some job now.
+It's dolled up with all them frills you like: millions, murders and
+mysteries! If this don't keep you awake, you'll have nightmares for the
+next six months. Do you want it?"
+
+"I'm tickled to death. Spill it!"
+
+"Monty, it's the greatest case my detective agency has had since I left
+the police force eleven years ago. It's too big for me, and I've come
+to you to do a stunt as is a stunt. You will plug it for me, won't
+you--just as you've always done? If I get the credit, it'll mean a
+fortune to me in the advertising alone."
+
+"Haven't I handled every case for you in confidence. I'm not a fly-cop,
+Captain Cronin. I'm a consulting specialist, and there's no shingle hung
+out. Perhaps you had better take it to some one else."
+
+Shirley pushed away his empty glass impatiently.
+
+"There, Monty, I didn't mean to offend you. But there's such swells
+in this and such a foxey bunch of blacklegs, that I'm as nervous as a
+rookie cop on his first arrest. Don't hold a grudge against me."
+
+Shirley lit a cigarette and resumed his good nature: "Go on, Captain.
+I'm so stale with dolce far niente, after the Black Pearl affair last
+month, that I act like an amateur myself. Make it short, though, for I'm
+going to the opera."
+
+The Captain leaned over the table, his face tense with suppressed
+emotion. He was a grizzled veteran of the New York police force: a man
+who sought his quarry with the ferocity of a bull-dog, when the line
+of search was definitely assured. Lacking imagination and the subtler
+senses of criminology, Captain Cronin had built up a reputation for
+success and honesty in every assignment by bravery, persistence, and
+as in this case, the ability to cover his own deductive weakness by
+employing the brains of others.
+
+Montague Shirley was as antithetical from the veteran detective as a man
+could well be. A noted athlete in his university, he possessed a society
+rating in New York, at Newport and Tuxedo, and on the Continent which
+was the envy of many a gilded youth born to the purple.
+
+On leaving college, despite an ample patrimony, he had curiously enough
+entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting page he was
+graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last closing his career
+as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday thriller, in many colors
+of illustration and vivacious Gallic style which interpreted into heart
+throbs and goose-flesh the real life romances and tragedies of the
+preceding six days! He had conquered the paper-and-ink world--then deep
+within there stirred the call for participation in the game itself.
+
+So, dropping quietly into the apparently indolent routine of club
+existence, he had devoted his experience and genius to analytical
+criminology--a line of endeavor known only to five men in the world.
+
+He maintained no offices. He wore no glittering badges: a police card,
+a fire badge, and a revolver license, renewed year after year, were the
+only instruments of his trade ever in evidence. Shirley took assignments
+only from the heads of certain agencies, by personal arrangement as
+informal as this from Captain Cronin. His real clients never knew of his
+participation, and his prey never understood that he had been the real
+head-hunter!
+
+His fees--Montague Shirley, as a master craftsman deemed his artistry
+worthy of the hire. His every case meant a modest fortune to the
+detective agency and Shirley's bills were never rendered, but always
+paid!
+
+So, here, the hero of the gridiron and the class re-union, the gallant
+of a hundred pre-matrimonial and non-maturing engagements, the veteran
+of a thousand drolleries and merry jousts in clubdom--unspoiled by
+birth, breeding and wealth, untrammeled by the juggernaut of pot-boiling
+and the salary-grind, had drifted into the curious profession of
+confidential, consulting criminal chaser.
+
+Shirley unostentatiously signaled for an encore on the refreshments.
+
+"You're nervous to-night, Captain. You've been doing things before you
+consulted me--which is against our Rule Number One, isn't it?"
+
+The Captain gulped down his whiskey, and rubbed his forehead.
+
+"Couldn't help it, Monty. It got too busy for me, before I realized
+anything unusual in the case. See what I got from a gangster before I
+landed here."
+
+He turned his close-cropped head, as Montague Shirley leaned forward
+to observe an abrasion at the base of his skull. It was dressed with a
+coating of collodion.
+
+"Brass knuckled--I see the mark of the rings. Tried for the
+pneumogastric nerves, to quiet you."
+
+"Whatever he tried for he nearly got. Kelly's nightstick got his
+pneumonia gas jet, or whatever you call it. He's still quiet, in the
+station house--You know old man Van Cleft, who owns sky-scrapers
+down town, don't you?--Well, he's the center of this flying wedge of
+excitement. His family are fine people, I understand. His daughter was
+to be married next week. Monty, that wedding'll be postponed, and old
+Van Cleft won't worry over dispossess papers for his tenants for the
+rest of the winter. See?"
+
+"Killed?"
+
+"Correct. He's done, and I had a hell of a time getting the body home,
+before the coroner and the police reporters got on the trail."
+
+Shirley lowered his high-ball glass, with an earnest stare.
+
+"What was the idea?"
+
+"Robbery, of course. His son had me on the case--'phoned from the
+garage where the chauffeur brought the body; after he saw the old man
+unconscious. Just half an hour before he had left his office in the same
+machine, after taking five thousand dollars in cash from his manager."
+
+"Who was with him?"
+
+"Now, that's getting to brass tacks. When I gets that C.Q.D. from
+Van Cleft, I finds the young fellow inside the ring of rubbernecks,
+blubbering over the old man, where he lies on the floor of the
+taxi--looking soused."
+
+"He was a notorious old sport about town, Captain."
+
+"Sure--and I thinks, it sorter serves him right. But, that's his
+funeral, not mine. Van Cleft, junior, says to me: 'There's the girl that
+was with him.'"
+
+"Where was the girl?"
+
+"She was sitting on a stool, near the car, a little blonde chorus
+chicken, shaking and twitching, while the chauffeur and the garage boss
+held her up. I says, 'What's this?' and Van Cleft tells me all he knows,
+which ain't nothing. Them guys in that garage was wise, for it meant a
+cold five hundred apiece before I left to keep their lids closed. Van
+Cleft begs me to hustle the old man home, so one of my men takes her
+down to my office, still a sniffling, and acting like she had the
+D.T.'s. The young fellow shook like a leaf, but we takes him over to
+Central Park East, to the family mansion,--carrying him up the steps
+like he was drunk. We gets him into his own bed, and keeps the sister
+from touching his clammy hands, while she orders the family doctor. When
+he gets there on the jump, I gives him the wink and leads him to one
+side. 'Doc,' I says, 'you know how to write out a death certificate, to
+hush this up from your end. I've done the rest.'"
+
+Captain Cronin leaned forward, a queer excitement agitating him.
+
+"Do you know what that doctor says to me, Monty?"
+
+Shirley shook his head.
+
+He says; "My God, it's the third!"
+
+Shirley's white hand gripped the edge of the table. "The Van Cleft's
+doctor is one of the greatest surgeons in the country, Professor
+MacDonald of the Medical College. He said that?"
+
+"He did. I answers, 'Whadd'y mean the third?' Then he looks me straight
+in the eye, and sings back, 'None of your business.'" Cronin shook
+his head. "I never seen a man with a squarer look, and yet he has me
+guessing. I goes back to the garage, over past Eighth Avenue, you know,
+where two johns come up along side o' me. One rubs me with his elbow
+and the other applies that brass knuckle,--then they gets pinched. I got
+dressed up in a drug store, got the chauffeur's license number, and goes
+on down to my office to see this girl. She's hysterical about his family
+using all their money to put her in jail. I looks at her, and says, 'You
+won't need their money to get to jail. That old man's dead!' Her eyes
+was as big as saucers. 'I thought old Daddy Van Cleft was drunk.' I
+tells her, 'He was dead in that taxi, with a chorus girl, and a roll of
+bills gone. What you got to say?' She staggers forward and clutches my
+coat, and what do you think SHE says to me?"
+
+Shirley made the inquiry only with his eyes, puffing his cigarette
+slowly.
+
+"She looks sorter green, and repeats after me: 'Dead, with a chorus
+girl, and a roll of bills gone,'--just like a parrot. Then she springs
+this on me: 'My God, it's the third!'"
+
+Shirley dropped his cigarette, leaning forward, all nonchalance gone.
+
+"Where is she now? Quick, let's go to her."
+
+He rose to his feet. Just then a door-boy walked through the grill-room
+toward him. "A telephone call for Captain Cronin, sir; the party said
+hurry or he would miss something good."
+
+Shirley snapped out, "When has the rule about telephone calls in this
+club been changed? You boys are never to tell any one that a member or
+guest are here until the name is announced."
+
+He turned toward the puzzled Captain.
+
+"Did you ask any of your operatives to call you here? You know what a
+risk you are taking, to connect me with this case like that, don't you?"
+
+"I never even breathed it to myself. I told no one."
+
+"Follow me up to the telephone room."
+
+Shirley hurried through the grill, to the switchboard, near which stood
+the booths for private calls. He called to one of the operators. "Here,
+let me at that switchboard." He pushed the boy aside, and sat down in
+the vacated chair.
+
+"Which trunk is it on? Oh, I see, the second. There Captain, take the
+fourth booth against the wall."
+
+Cronin stepped in. Shirley connected up and listened with the
+transmitter of the operator at his ear, holding the line open.
+
+"Go ahead, here's Captain Cronin!"
+
+A pleasant voice came over the wire. It was musical and sincere.
+
+"Hello, Captain Cronin, is that you?"
+
+"Yes! What do you want?"
+
+The voice continued, with a jolly laugh, ringing and infectious in its
+merriment.
+
+"Well, Captain, the joke's on you. Ha, ha, ha! It's a bully one! Ho, ho!
+Ha, ha!"
+
+"What joke?"
+
+"You're working on the Van Cleft case. Oh, sure, you are, don't kid me
+back. Well, Captain, you've missed two other perfectly good grafts. This
+is the third one!"
+
+There was a click and the speaker, with another merry gurgle, rang off.
+
+"Quick, manager's desk," cried Shirley, jiggling the metal key. "What
+call was that? Where did it come from?"
+
+After a little wait, a languid voice answered: "Brooklyn, Main 6969,
+Party C."
+
+"Give me the number again--I want to speak on the wire."
+
+After another delay, the voice replied "The line has been discontinued."
+
+"I just had it! What is the name of the subscriber. Hurry, this is a
+matter of life and death."
+
+"It's against the rules to give any further information. But our record
+shows that the house burned down about two weeks ago. No one else has
+been given the number. There's no instrument there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE FLEETING PROMPTER
+
+
+Monty's puzzled smile was in no wise reciprocated by the Captain, whose
+red face evidenced a growing resentment.
+
+He began a tirade, but a wink from the club man warned him. Shirley
+replaced the receiver, and the regular attendant resumed his place
+at the switchboard. The lad was curious at the unusual ability of
+the wealthy Mr. Shirley to handle the bewildering maze of telephone
+attachments. Monty explained, as he turned to go upstairs.
+
+"Son, that was one of my smart friends trying to play a practical joke
+on my guest. I fooled him. Don't let it happen again, until you send in
+the party's name first."
+
+"Yes, sir," meekly promised the boy.
+
+"Well, Captain Cronin, as the old paperback novels used to say at the
+end of the first instalment, 'The Plot thickens!' At first I thought
+this case of stupid badger game--"
+
+"You aren't going to back out, Monty? Here's a whole gang of crooks
+which would give you some sport rounding up, and as for money--"
+
+"Money is easy, from both sides of a criminal matter. What interests me
+is that ghostly telephone call from a house that burned down, and the
+caller's knowledge of Number Three. I'm in this case, have no fear of
+that."
+
+Shirley led his guest to the coat room.
+
+"I'll get a taxicab, Monty. We'd better see that girl first and then
+have a look at the body."
+
+The Captain turned to the door, as the attendant helped Monty with his
+overcoat. The waiter from the grill-room approached. "Excuse me, sir,
+but the gentleman dropped his handkerchief in his chair opposite you."
+
+"Thank you, Gordon," he said, as he faced the servant for an instant.
+When he turned again, toward the front hall, the Captain had passed out
+of view through the front door.
+
+Shirley received a surprise when he reached the pavement on Forty-fourth
+Street, for Captain Cronin was not in sight. Two club men descended the
+steps of the neighboring house. Others strolled along toward the Avenue,
+but not a sign of a vehicle of any description could be seen, nor was
+there anything suspicious in view. Cronin had disappeared as effectually
+as though he had taken a passing Zeppelin!
+
+"I'm glad this affair will not bore me," murmured the criminologist, as
+he evolved and promptly discarded a dozen vain theories to explain the
+disappearance of his companion.
+
+Twenty minutes were wasted along the block, as he waited for some sight
+or sign. Then he decided to go on up to Van Cleft's residence. But,
+realizing the probability of "shadow" work upon all who came from the
+door of the club, after the curious message on the wire, Shirley did not
+propose to expose his hand. Walking leisurely to the Avenue, he hailed
+a passing hansom. He directed the driver to carry him to an address on
+Central Park West. His shrewdness was not wasted, for as he stepped into
+the vehicle, he espied a slinking figure crossing the street diagonally
+before him, to disappear into the shadow of an adjacent doorway. This
+was the house of Reginald Van Der Voor, as Shirley knew. It was closed
+because its master, a social acquaintance of the club man's, was at this
+time touring the Orient in his steam yacht. No man should have entered
+that doorway. So, as the horse started under the flick of the long whip,
+Shirley peered unobserved through the glass window at his side.
+
+A big machine swung up behind the hansom, at some unseen hail, and
+the figure came from the doorway, leaping into the car, as it followed
+Shirley up the Avenue, a block or so behind.
+
+"It is not always so easy to follow, when the leader knows his chase,"
+thought Shirley. "I'm glad I'm only a simple club man."
+
+The automobile was unmistakably trailing him, as the hansom crossed the
+Plaza, then sped through the Park drive, to the address he had given his
+driver.
+
+As Shirley had remembered, this was a large apartment house, in which
+one of his bachelor friends lived. He knew the lay of the building well:
+next door, with an entrance facing on the side street was another just
+like it, and of equal height.
+
+"Wait for me, here," said Shirley. "I'll pay you now, but want to go to
+an address down town in five minutes."
+
+He gave the driver a bill, then entered and told the elevator man to
+take him to the ninth floor.
+
+"There's nobody in, boss," began the boy. But Shirley shook his head.
+
+"My friend is expecting me for a little card game, that's why you think
+he is out. Just take me up."
+
+He handed the negro a quarter, which was complete in its logic.
+
+As he reached the floor, he waved to the elevator operator. "Go on
+down, and don't let any one else come up, for Mr. Greenough doesn't want
+company."
+
+As the car slid down, Shirley fumbled along the familiar hall to the
+iron stairs which led to the roof of the building. Up these he hurried,
+thence out upon the roof. It was a matter of only four minutes before
+he had crossed to the next apartment building, opened the door of the
+roof-entry, found the stairs to the ninth floor, and taken this elevator
+to the street.
+
+He walked out of the building, and turned toward Central Park West, to
+slyly observe the entrance of the building where waited the faithful
+hansom Jehu. A young man was in conversation with the driver, and the
+big automobile could be seen on the other side of the street awaiting
+further developments.
+
+"He has a long vigil there," laughed Shirley. "Now, for the real
+address. I think I lost the hounds for this time."
+
+Another vehicle took him through the Park to the darkened mansion of
+the Van Clefts'. Here, Shirley's card brought a quick response from the
+surprised son of the dead millionaire.
+
+"Why--why--I'm glad to see you, Mr. Shirley--Who sent you?" he began.
+
+Shirley registered complete surprise. "Sent me, my dear Van Cleft? Who
+should send me? For what? It just happened that I was walking up the
+Avenue, and to-morrow night I plan to give a little farewell supper
+to Hal Bingley, class of '03, at the club You knew him in College? I
+thought you might like to come."
+
+"Step in the library," requested Van Cleft, weakly. "Sit down, Mr.
+Shirley--I'm upset to-night."
+
+He mopped his brow with a damp handkerchief, and Shirley's big heart
+went out to the young chap, as he saw the haggard lines of horror and
+grief on his usually pleasant face.
+
+"What's the trouble, old man? Anything I can do?"
+
+"My father just died this evening, and I'm in awful trouble--I thought
+it was the Coroner, or the police--" he bit his tongue as the last
+words escaped him. Shirley put his hand on Van Cleft's shoulder, with an
+inspiring firmness.
+
+"Tell me how I can help. You've had a big shock. Confide in me, and I
+pledge you my word, I'll keep it safer than any one you could go to."
+
+Van Cleft groped as a drowning man, at this opportunity. He caught
+Shirley's hand and wrung it tensely.
+
+"Sit down. The doctor is still upstairs with mother and sister. When the
+Coroner comes, I would like to have you be here as a witness. It's an
+ordeal--I'll tell you everything."
+
+Shirley listened attentively, without betraying his own knowledge.
+Soothing in manner, he questioned the son about any possible enemy of
+the murdered man.
+
+"There's not one I know. Dad is popular--he's been too gay, lately,
+but just foolish like a lot of rich men. He wouldn't harm any one. He
+inherited his money, you know. Didn't have to crush the working people.
+Like me, he's been endeavoring to spend it ever since he was born, but
+it comes in too fast from our estates."
+
+He looked up apprehensively, at the sympathetic face of his companion.
+
+"It's very unwise to tell this. I suppose it's a State's prison offence
+to deceive about murder. But you understand our position: we can't
+afford to let it become gossip. I'll pay this girl anything to go to
+Europe or the Antipodes!"
+
+"I wouldn't do that," suggested Shirley, thoughtfully. "Let her stay.
+You would like to bring the culprit to justice, if it can be done
+without dragging your name into it. If he has planned this, he has
+executed other schemes. She certainly would not remain the machine if
+she were the guilty one. Why not employ a good detective?"
+
+"I did, but hesitated to tell you. I secured Captain Cronin, of the
+Holland Agency. He's managed everything so far--I was too rattled
+myself. But, I wonder why he isn't here now? He was to return as soon as
+he visited the garage."
+
+As Van Cleft spoke, the butler approached with hesitation.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir. But you are wanted on the telephone, sir."
+
+"All right, Hoskins. Connect it with the library instrument."
+
+Van Cleft lifted the receiver nervously, and answered in an unsteady
+voice.
+
+"Yes--This is Van Cleft's residence."
+
+Silence for a bit, then the wire was busy.
+
+"What's that? Captain Cronin? What about him? Let me speak to him."
+
+Shirley was alert as a cat. Van Cleft was too dazed to understand his
+sudden move, as the criminologist caught up the receiver, and placed his
+palm for an instant over the mouthpiece.
+
+"Ask him to say it again--that you didn't understand." Shirley removed
+his hand, and obeyed. Shirley held the receiver to his ear, as the young
+man spoke. Then he heard these curious words: "You poor simp, you'd
+better get that family doctor of yours to give you some ear medicine,
+and stop wasting time with the death certificate. I told you that Cronin
+was over in Bellevue Hospital with a fractured skull. Unless you drop
+this investigating, you'll get one, too. Ta, ta! Old top!"
+
+The receiver was hung up quickly at the other end of the line.
+
+Shirley gave a quick call for "Information," and after several minutes
+learned that the call came from a drug store pay-station in Jersey City!
+
+The melodious tones were unmistakably those of the speaker who had used
+the wire from faraway Brooklyn where the house had been burned down!
+It was a human impossibility for any one to have covered the distance
+between the two points in this brief time, except in an aeroplane!
+
+Van Cleft wondered dumbly at his companion's excitement. Shirley caught
+up the telephone again.
+
+"Some one says that Cronin is at Bellevue Hospital, injured. I'll find
+out."
+
+It was true. Captain Cronin was lying at point of death, the ward nurse
+said, in answer to his eager query. At first the ambulance surgeon had
+supposed him to be drunk, for a patrolman had pulled him out of a dark
+doorway, unconscious.
+
+"Where was the doorway? This is his son speaking, so tell me all."
+
+"Just a minute. Oh! Here is the report slip. He was taken from the
+corner of Avenue A and East Eleventh Street. You'd better come down
+right away, for he is apt to die tonight. He's only been here ten
+minutes."
+
+"Has any one else telephoned to find out about him?"
+
+"No. We didn't even know his name until just as you called up, when we
+found his papers and some warrants in a pocketbook. How did you know?"
+
+But Shirley disconnected curtly, this time. He bowed his head in
+thought, and then, with his usual nervous custom, fumbled for a
+cigarette. Here was the Captain, whom he had left on Forty-fourth
+Street, near Fifth Avenue, a short time before, discovered fully three
+miles away.
+
+And the news telephoned from Jersey City, by the fleeting magic voice
+on the wire. Even his iron composure was stirred by this weird
+complication.
+
+"I wonder!" he murmured. He had ample reason to wonder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER
+
+
+"Well, Mr. Shirley, your coming here was a Godsend! I don't know what
+to do now. The newspapers will get this surely. I depended on Cronin: he
+must have been drinking."
+
+Shirley shook his head, as he explained, "I know Cronin's reputation,
+for I was a police reporter. He is a sterling man. There's foul work
+here which extends beyond your father's case. But we are wasting time.
+Why don't you introduce me to your physician? Just tell him about
+Cronin, and that you have confided in me completely."
+
+Van Cleft went upstairs without a word. Unused to any worry, always able
+to pay others for the execution of necessary details, this young man was
+a victim of the system which had engulfed his unfortunate sire in the
+maelstrom of reckless pleasure.
+
+By his ingenuous adroitness, it may be seen, Shirley was inveigling
+himself into the heart of the affair, in his favorite disguise as that
+of the "innocent bystander." His innate dramatic ability assisted him
+in maintaining his friendly and almost impersonal role, with a success
+which had in the past kept the secret of his system from even the
+evildoers themselves.
+
+"A little investigation of the telephone exchanges during the next day
+or two will not be wasted time," he mused. "I'll get Sam Grindle, their
+assistant advertising manager to show me the way the wheels go 'round.
+No man can ride a Magic Carpet of Bagdad over the skyscrapers in these
+days of shattered folklore."
+
+Howard Van Cleft returned with the famous surgeon, Professor MacDonald.
+He was elderly, with the broad high forehead, dignity of poise, and
+sharpness of glance which bespeaks the successful scientist. His face,
+to-night, was chalky and the firm, full mouth twitched with nervousness.
+He greeted Shirley abstractedly. The criminologist's manner was that of
+friendly anxiety.
+
+"You are here, sir, as a friend of the family?"
+
+"Yes. Howard has told me of the terrible mystery of this case. As an
+ex-newspaper man I imagine that my influence and friendships may keep
+the unpleasant details from the press."
+
+"That is good," sighed the doctor, with relief. "How soon will you do
+it?"
+
+"Now, using this telephone. No, for certain reasons, I had better use an
+outside instrument. I will call up men I know on each paper, as though
+this were a 'scoop,' so that knowing me, they will be confident that
+I tell them the truth as a favor. Such deceit is excusable under the
+circumstances. It may eventually bring the murderer to justice."
+
+Professor MacDonald winced at the word. He turned toward Van Cleft, on
+sudden thought, remarking: "Howard your mother and sister may need the
+comfort of your presence. I will chat with your friend until the Coroner
+comes."
+
+The physician sank into a library chair. The criminologist quietly
+awaited his cue. He lit a cigarette and the minutes drifted past with no
+word between them. The doctor's gaze lowered to the vellum-bound books
+on the carven table, then to the gorgeous pattern of the Kermansha at
+his feet. Once more he studied the face of his companion, with the keen,
+soul-gripping scrutiny of the skilled physician. As last he arrived at a
+definite conclusion. He cleared his throat, and fumbled in his waistcoat
+pocket for a cigar. A swiftly struck match in Monty's hand was held
+up so promptly to the end of the cigar, that the doctor's lips had not
+closed about it. This deftness, simple in itself, did not escape the
+observation of the scientist. He smiled for the first time during their
+interview.
+
+"Your reflex nerves are very wide awake for a quiet man. I believe I can
+depend upon those nerves, and your quietude. May I ask what occupation
+you follow, if any? Most of Howard's friends follow butterflies."
+
+"I am one of them, then. Some opera, more theatricals, much art gallery
+touring. A little regular reading in my rooms, and there you are! My
+great grandfather was too poor a trader to succeed in pelts, so he
+invested a little money in rocky pastures around upper Manhattan: this
+has kept the clerks of the family bankers busy ever since. I am an
+optimistic vagabond, enjoying life in the observation of the rather
+ludicrous busyness of other folk. In short, Doctor, I am a corpulent
+Hamlet, essentially modern in my cultivation of a joy in life, debating
+the eternal question with myself, but lazily leaving it to others to
+solve. Therein I am true to my type."
+
+"Pardon my bluntness," observed MacDonald, watching him through
+partially closed eyes. "You are not telling the truth. You are a busy
+man, with definite work, but that is no affair of mine. I recognize in
+you a different calibre from that of these rich young idlers in Howard's
+class. I am going to take you into my confidence, for you understand the
+need for secrecy, and will surely help in every way--noblesse oblige.
+This man Cronin, the detective, was rather crude."
+
+"He is honest and dependable," replied Shirley, loyally.
+
+"Yes, but I wonder why professional detectives are so primitive. They
+wear their calling cards and their business shingles on their figures
+and faces. Surely the crooks must know them all personally. I read
+detective stories, in rest moments, and every one of the sleuths lives
+in some well-known apartment, or on a prominent street. Some day we
+may read of one who is truly in secret service, but not until after his
+death notice. But there, I am talking to quiet my own nerves a bit,--now
+we will get to cases."
+
+The doctor dropped his cigar into the bronze tray on the table, leaning
+forward with intense earnestness, as he continued.
+
+"This, Mr. Shirley, is the third murder of the sort within a week.
+Wellington Serral, the wealthy broker, came to a sudden death in a
+private dining room last Monday, in the company of a young show girl.
+He was a patient of mine, and I signed the death certificate as
+heart failure, to save the honorable family name for his two orphaned
+daughters.
+
+"Herbert de Cleyster, the railroad magnate, died similarly in a taxicab
+on Thursday. He was also one of my patients. There, too, was concerned
+another of these wretched chorus girls. To-night the fatal number of the
+triad was consummated in this cycle of crime. To maintain my loyalty
+to my patients I have risked my professional reputation. Have I done
+wrong?"
+
+"No! The criminal shall be brought to justice," replied Shirley in a
+voice vibrant with a profound determination which was not lost upon his
+companion.
+
+"Are you powerful enough to bring this about, without disgracing me
+or betraying this sordid tragedy to the morbid scandal-rakers of the
+papers?"
+
+"I will devote every waking hour to it. But, like you, my efforts must
+remain entirely secret. I vow to find this man before I sleep again!"
+
+"You are determined--yet it cannot be one single man. It must be an
+organized gang, for all the crimes have been so strangely similar,
+occurring to three men who are friends, and entrez nous, notorious for
+their peccadilloes. The girls must be in the vicious circle, and ably
+assisted. But there is one thing I forgot to tell you, which you forgot
+to ask."
+
+"And this is?"
+
+"How they died. It was by some curious method of sudden arterial
+stoppage. Old as they were, some fiendish trick was employed so
+skilfully that the result was actual heart failure. There was no trace
+of drugs in lungs or blood. On each man's breast, beneath the sternum
+bone I found a dull, barely discernible bruise mark, which I later
+removed by a simple massage of the spot!"
+
+Shirley closed his eyes, and passed his hand over his own chest--along
+the armpits--behind his ears--he seemed to be mentally enumerating some
+list of nerve centers. The physician observed him curiously.
+
+"I have it, doctor! The sen-si-yao!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"The most powerful and secret of all the death-strokes of the Japanese
+art of jiu-jitsu fighting. I paid two thousand dollars to learn the
+course from a visiting instructor when I was in college. It was worth it
+for this one occasion."
+
+Shirley arose to his feet, and approached the other, touching his
+shoulder.
+
+"Stand up, if you please. Let me ask if this was the location of the
+mark?"
+
+The physician, interested in this new professional phase, readily
+obeyed. One quick movement of Shirley's muscular hand, the thumb oddly
+twisted and stiffened, and a sudden jab in the doctor's abdomen made
+that gentleman gasp with pain. Shirley's expression was triumphant, but
+the professor regarded him with an expression of terror.
+
+"Oh! Ugh!--What-did-you-do-to me?" he murmured thickly, when he was at
+last able to speak.
+
+"Merely demonstrated the beginning of the death punch which I named.
+That pressure if continued for half a minute would have been fatal."
+
+"I wish you would teach me that," was the physician's natural request,
+as he nodded with a wry face.
+
+"Impossible, my dear sir, for I learned it, according to the Oriental
+custom under the most sacred obligations of secrecy. One must advance
+through the whole course, by initiatory degrees, before learning the
+final mysteries of the samurais. Now, we have a working hypothesis. The
+girls could never have accomplished this. One man and one alone must
+have killed the three, although doubtless with confederates. Yamashino
+assured me that there were only six men in this country who knew it
+beside myself. We must find an Orientalist!"
+
+Shirley paced the floor, but his meditations were interrupted by the
+arrival of the Coroner and his physician. Van Cleft hurried into the
+room with them, to present the doctor, who exchanged a formal greeting
+with the men he had met twice before that week.
+
+"A sad affair, Professor," observed the Coroner nervously, drinking in
+with profound respect the magnificent surroundings which symbolized
+the great wealth of which he secretly hoped to gain a tithing. "I trust
+that, as usual, in such cases, I may suggest an undertaker?"
+
+"Why--talk about that at once, sir?" asked Howard with a shudder.
+
+The physician, familiar with the subtleties of coroners, gently placed
+an arm about the young man's shoulder. He nodded, understandingly, to
+the Coroner, as he turned toward Shirley.
+
+"I must be going now," the latter interposed. "Just a word with you,
+Howard, that I may send a message to your mother and sister."
+
+The physician led away the two officials as Shirley continued: "I must
+go to see Cronin--deserted there like a run-over mongrel on the street.
+Can I leave this house by the rear, so that none shall know of my
+assistance in the case, or follow me to the hospital? If you can secure
+an old hat and coat, I will leave my own, with my stick, to get them
+some other time."
+
+"I will get some from the butler, if you wait just a moment. You can
+leave by the rear yard, if you don't mind climbing a high board fence."
+
+Van Cleft hurried downstairs, in a few minutes, bearing a weather-beaten
+overcoat and an English cap, which Shirley drew down over his ears. With
+the coat on, he looked very unlike the well-groomed club man who had
+entered. Unseen by Van Cleft he shifted an automatic revolver into the
+coat pocket from the discarded garment.
+
+"Now, Mr. Shirley, come this way. Follow the rear area-way, across to
+the next yard, where after another climb you find a vacant lot where the
+Schuylers are preparing to erect their new city house. Will you attend
+to everything?"
+
+"Everything. I'll start sooner than you expect."
+
+Truly he did! For no sooner had he descended the second fence into the
+empty lot than a stinging blow sent him at full length on the rocky
+ground, where the excavations were already being started. Two men
+pounced upon him in a twinkling--only his great strength, acquired
+through the football years, saved him from immediate defeat. His
+head throbbed, and he was dizzy as he caught the wrist of the nearest
+assailant with a quick twist which resulted in a sudden, sickening
+crunch. The man groaned in agony, but his companion kicked with
+heavy-shod feet at the prostrate man. Shirley's left hand duplicated
+the vice-like grip upon the ankle of the standing assailant, and his
+deftness caused another tendon strain! Both men toppled to the ground,
+now, and before they realized it Shirley had reversed the advantage.
+His automatic emphasized his superiority of tactics. He understood their
+silence, broken only by muted groans: they feared the police, even as
+did he, although for different reasons. He "frisked" the man nearest him
+upon the ground, and captured deftly the rascal's weapon: then he sprang
+up covering the twain.
+
+"Get up! Youse guys is poachin' in de wrong district--dis belongs to de
+Muggins gang. I'll fix youse guys fer buttin' in. Up, dere!" His hands
+went into his coat pockets, but the men knew that they were still
+pointing at them, the gunman's "cover" as it is called. They staggered
+sullenly to their feet. He beckoned with his head, toward the front of
+the lot. They followed the silent instructions, one limping while his
+mate wrung the injured wrist in agony.
+
+Directly before the lot stood a throbbing, empty automobile. Shirley
+decided to take another car--he could not guard them and drive at the
+same time.
+
+"Down to Fift' Avnoo," he ordered. "I got two guns--not a woid
+from youse!" His erstwhile amiable physiognomy, now gnarled into an
+unrecognizable mask of low villainy bespoke his desperate earnestness.
+The men obeyed. This was apparently a gangster, of gangsters--their fear
+of the dire vengeance of a rival organization of cut-throats instilled
+an obedience more humble than any other threats.
+
+Toward the Park side they advance, one leaning heavily upon the other.
+Shirley, his broad shoulders hunched up; with the collar drawn high
+about his neck, the murderous looking cap down over his eyes, followed
+them doggedly.
+
+A big limousine was speeding down the Avenue from some homing theater
+party. Shirley hailed it with an authoritive yell which caused the
+chauffeur to put on a quick brake.
+
+"Git out dere,--no gun play. Up inter dat car!" he added, as they
+approached the machine.
+
+"Say, what you drivin' at?" cried the driver, queruously. "Is this a
+hold-up?" It was a puzzling moment, but the criminologist's calm bravado
+saved the situation: as luck would have it no policemen were in sight,
+to spoil the maneuver.
+
+"No," and he assumed a more natural voice and dialect. "I'm a detective.
+These men were just house-breaking, and I got them. There's twenty-five
+dollars in it for you, if you take us down to the Holland Detective
+Agency, in ten minutes."
+
+"He's kiddin' ye, feller," snapped out one man.
+
+"Don't fall fen him, yen boob!" sung out the other.
+
+But Shirley's automatic now appeared outside the coat pocket. The
+chauffeur realized that here was serious gaming. With his left hand
+Shirley jerked out the ever ready police card and fire badge, which
+seemed official enough to satisfy the driver.
+
+"Quick now, or I'll run you in, too, for refusing to obey an officer.
+You men climb into that back seat. Driver, beat it now to Thirty-nine
+West Forty Street, if you need that twenty-five dollars. I'll sit with
+them. I don't want any interference so I can come back and nab the rest
+of their gang."
+
+His authoritative manner convinced this new ally, and he climbed into
+the car, facing his prisoners, with the two weapons held down below the
+level of the windows. Pedestrians and other motorists little recked what
+strange cargo was borne as the car raced down the broad thoroughfare.
+
+In nine minutes they drew up before the Holland Agency, a darkened,
+brown front house of ancient architecture. The chauffeur sprang out to
+swing back the door.
+
+"Go up the steps, and tell the doorman that Captain Cronin wants two men
+to bring down their guns and handcuffs and get two prisoners. Quick!"
+
+The street was not empty, even at this hour. Yet the passersby did not
+realize the grim drama enacted inside the waiting machine. Hours seemed
+to pass before Cronin's men returned with the driver, as much surprised
+by the three strange faces within the machine, as he had been.
+
+"You take these men upstairs and keep them locked up," bluntly commanded
+the criminologist. "They're nabbed on the new case of the Captain's
+which started to-night, I'm going over to Bellevue to see him." His
+voice was still disguised, his features twisted even yet.
+
+The men gave him a curious glance, and then obeyed. As they disappeared
+behind the heavy wooden door, Shirley stepped into a dark hallway, close
+by. He lit a wax match to give him light for the choosing of the right
+amount, from the roll of bills which he drew forth. The chauffeur
+whistled with surprise at the size of the denominations. The twenty-five
+were handed over.
+
+"Thanks very much, my friend," and the face unsnarled itself, into the
+amiable lines of the normal. The voice was agreeable and smooth, which
+surprised the man the more. "You took me out of a ticklish situation
+tonight. I don't want any mere policemen to spoil my little game. Please
+oil up your forgettery with these, and then--forget!"
+
+"Say, gov'nor," retorted the driver, as he put the money into the band
+of his leather cap. "I ain't seen so much real change since my boss got
+stung on the war. I ain't so certain but what you was the gink robbin'
+that house, at that. But that's them guys funeral if you beat 'em to
+it. Good-night--much obliged. But I got to slip it to you, gov'nor--you
+ain't none of them Central Office flat-feet, sure 'nuff! If you are a
+detective, you're some fly cop!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. A SCIENTIFIC NOVELTY
+
+
+In a private ward room at Bellevue Hospital, Captain Cronin was just
+returning to memory of himself and things that had been. Shirley arrived
+at his cot-side as he was being propped up more comfortably. The older
+man's face broke into game smiles, as the criminologist took the chair
+provided by the pretty nurse.
+
+"Thanks, I'll have a little chat with my friend, if you don't think it
+will do him any harm."
+
+"He is better now, sir. We feared he was fatally injured when they
+brought him in. I'll be outside in the corridor if you need anything."
+
+She left not without an admiring look at the big chap, wondering why he
+wore such disreputable superstructure with patent leather pumps and
+silk hose showing below the ragged overcoat. Strange sights come to
+hospitals, curiosity frequently leading to unprofitable knowledge: so
+she was silently discreet. Shirley's garb was not unobserved by the
+detective chief. Monty laughed reminiscently at the questioning glance.
+
+"These are my working clothes--a fine combination. I nabbed two of the
+gang. But what became of you?"
+
+"Outside that club door, I wanted to save time for us both. I took
+the first taxi in sight. Before I could even call out to you, the door
+slammed on me, the shades flopped down, the car started up--the next
+thing I knew this here nurse was sticking a spoon in my mouth, a-saying:
+'Take this--it's fine for what ails you!'"
+
+"I wonder if it could have been the same machine they left at Van
+Cleft's? I will tell you how things progressed." So he did, leaving
+out only the confidence of Professor MacDonald. The Captain became
+feverishly excited, until Shirley abjured him to beware of a relapse.
+"You must be calm, for the next twenty-four hours: there will be much
+for you to do, even then. Meanwhile, let me call up your agency; then
+you give them instructions over this table telephone to let Howard Van
+Cleft interview the little chorus girl, with his friend. I'll be the
+friend."
+
+"I'm afraid I'm going to be snowed under in this case, Monty. The finest
+job I've had these dozen years. But you're square, and will do all you
+can."
+
+"Old friend, I'll do what I can to make Van Cleft and the newspapers
+sure that you are the most wonderful sleuth inside or outside the public
+library. Here's your office--speak up. Let me lift you."
+
+"Hello Pat!" called Cronin, as his superintendent came to the 'phone. "I
+am detained at Bellevue, so that I can't be there when Van Cleft comes
+down. Let him Third Degree that little Jane from the garage. Keep them
+two men apart, too--oh, that's all right, the fellow is a friend of mine
+on the 'Frisco police force. He won't butt in." Silence for a moment,
+then: "Oh, shucks, let 'em yowl! They've got more than kidnapping to
+worry about for the next twenty-five years."
+
+He hung up the receiver, sinking back on his pillows wan from the
+strain. Monty handed him a glass of water, and adjusted the bandages
+with a hand as tender as a woman's. He lifted the instrument again.
+
+"You are sterling, twenty-two carat and a yard wide, Captain! Now, get
+to sleep while I find out who the ring-master is. I've sworn to keep
+awake until I do. I think it well to telephone Van Cleft, and arrange
+for a better get-a-way for us both."
+
+He was soon talking with the son of the murdered man. "Meet me down at
+the Vanderbilt Hotel--ask for Mr. Hepburn's room, and send up the name
+of Williams. See you in an hour. Good-bye."
+
+Hanging up the receiver, he turned toward the door, after a friendly pat
+on Cronin's shoulder. The bell rang, and the Captain reached for it, to
+sink back exhausted upon the bed. Shirley answered, to be greeted by a
+pleasant feminine voice.
+
+"Is this Captain Cronin?"
+
+Instantly the criminologist replied affirmatively, suiting his tones as
+best he could to the gruff voice of the detective chief, with a wink at
+that worthy.
+
+"I just called up, Captain, to ask about you--Oh, you don't recognize my
+voice. I'm Miss Wilberforce, private secretary to Mr. Van Cleft. Has any
+one been to see you yet? I understand that you are very busy, and have
+already missed two other good cases, this one being the THIRD! Well,
+don't hurry, Captain. You may get the rest to come--if you live long
+enough. Good-bye!"
+
+Shirley looked at Cronin, startled. Another mention of the mystic
+number. He called for information about the origin of the call.
+
+"Lordee, son! Are they at it again?" asked Cronin in disgust.
+
+"Yes--overdoing it. One thing is clear, that whoever is behind this
+telephone trickery is very clever, and very conceited over that
+cleverness. It may be a costly vanity. Yes, information?"
+
+"The call was from Rector 2190-D. The American Sunday School
+Organization, sir--It doesn't answer now; the office must be closed."
+
+Shirley put the instrument down, with a smile on his pursed lips. He
+waved a good natured farewell to his friend, as he drew the cap down
+over his eyes.
+
+"Look a little happier, Captain. I'll send down some fruit and a special
+vintage from our club which has bottled up in it the sunlight of a
+dozen years in Southern France. I hope they keep the telephone wires
+busy--they may tangle themselves up in their own spider-web!"
+
+Leaving the hospital, he hurried to the hotel. One of his secret
+idiosyncracies was a custom of "living around" at a number of hotels,
+under aliases. Maintaining pleasant suites in each, he kept full
+supplies of linen and garments, while effectively blotting out his own
+identity for "doubling" work.
+
+He was known as "Mr. Hepburn" here, and entering the side door he was
+subjected to the curious gaze of only one servant, the operator of the
+small elevator. Once in the shelter of his quarters he rummaged through
+some scrap-books for data--he found it in a Sunday feature story
+published a month before in a semi-theatrical paper. It described with
+rollicking sarcasm, a gay "millionaire" party which had been given in
+Rector's private dining rooms. Among the ridiculed hosts were Van Cleft,
+Wellington Serral and Herbert De Cleyster! Here, in some elusive manner,
+ran the skein of truth which if followed would lead to the solution of
+mystery. He must carve out of this mass of pregnant clues the essentials
+upon which to act, as the sculptor chisels the marble of a huge block to
+expose the figure of his inspiration, encased there all the time!
+
+"To find out the source of their golden-haired nymphs for this
+merry-merry, that is the question! Some stage doorkeeper might be
+persuaded to unburden what soul he has left!"
+
+He jotted in his memorandum book the names of the other eight wealthy
+men who were pilloried by the journalist. The younger men,
+Shirley felt sure, were of that peculiarly Manhattanse type of
+hanger-on--well-groomed, happy-go-hellward youths who danced, laughed
+and drank well,--so essential to the philanderings of these rich old
+Harlequins and their gilded Columbines. As he scribbled, the telephone
+of the room tinkled its summons.
+
+He started toward it: then his invaluable intuition prompted him to
+walk into the adjoining room, where another instrument stood on a small
+table, handy to the bed. Only two people could possibly know he was
+there. Van Cleft could not have arrived, as yet. The other bell jingled
+impatiently, but Shirley finally heard the voice of the switch-board
+girl.
+
+"I'm trying to get you on the other wire, sir. There's a call."
+
+"Don't connect me," he hurriedly ordered, "except to open the switch, so
+I may listen. If I hang up without a word, tell the party I will be back
+in twenty minutes."
+
+With a hotel telephone girl tact is more important than even the
+knowledge of wire-knitting. It was the woman's voice which he had heard
+at the hospital. Captain Cronin was anxious to speak to Mr. Williams,
+who was calling on Mr. Hepburn! With the biggest jolt of this day of
+surprises Shirley disconnected and whistled. Again he laughed--with that
+grim chuckle which was so characteristic of his supreme battling mood!
+They had found the trail even quicker than he had expected. Fortunate
+it was that he had not mentioned his own name in telephoning from
+the hospital to Howard. Not a wire was safe from these mysterious
+eaves-droppers now. He hurried into a business suit, and left the hotel,
+to walk over Thirty-fourth Street to the studio of his friend, Hammond
+Bell. Here he was admitted, to find the portrait-painter finishing a
+solitary chafing-dish supper.
+
+"Delighted, Monty! Join me in the encore on this creamed chicken and
+mushrooms!"
+
+"Too rich for my primitive blood, Hammond. I'm in a hurry to get a
+favor."
+
+"I've received enough at your hands--say the word."
+
+"Simply this: I want to experiment with sound waves. I remembered that
+once in a while some of these wild Bohemian friends of yours warbled
+post-impressionist love-songs into your phonograph. It stood the strain,
+and so must be a good one. It is too late now to get one in a shop; will
+you lend me the whole outfit, with the recording attachment as well, for
+to-night and to-morrow?"
+
+"The easiest thing you know. Let's slide it into this grip--you can
+carry the horn."
+
+Three minutes later Shirley made his exit, and soon was shaking hands
+with Van Cleft in his own room at the hotel. He sketched his idea
+hurriedly, as he adjusted the instrument on the dressing-table near the
+telephone.
+
+"When the call comes, be sure to say: 'Get closer, I can't hear you.'
+That's the method, and it's so simple it is almost silly." They were
+barely ready when the bell warned them. At Van Cleft's reply, when the
+call for "Mr. Williams" Shirley pushed the horn close to the telephone
+receiver. Van Cleft twisted it, so as to give the best advantage, and
+demanded that the speaker come closer to the 'phone.
+
+"Can you hear me now?" asked the feminine voice. "Do you hear me now?"
+
+"No, speak louder. This is Mr. Williams. Speak up. I can't understand
+you." The voice was petulant and so distinct that even Shirley could
+hear it, as he knelt by the side of the phonograph. Again Van Cleft
+insisted on his deafness. There was the suggestion of a break in the
+voice which brought to Shirley's eyes the sparkle of a presentiment of
+success. At last Van Cleft admitted that he could hear.
+
+"Well, you fool, I've a message for your friend Mr. Van Cleft."
+
+"Which one?" was the innocent inquiry, as he forgot for an instant that
+now he was the sole bearer of that name.
+
+"The one that's left. Tell him there will be none left if he continues
+this gum-shoe work. He had better let well enough alone, and let that
+little girl get out of town as soon as possible. The papers will go
+crazy over a scandal like this, and some one is apt to grab Van Cleft.
+That's all. Good-bye!"
+
+Silently Shirley shut off the lever of the machine, to catch up the
+receiver. As before his endeavor to locate the call resulted in a new
+address: this time in the Bronx!
+
+"Ah, the lady leaps from the business district to the Bronx in half an
+hour. That is what I call some traveling."
+
+Van Cleft studied him with open mouth, as he withdrew the phonograph
+record, coating it with the preservative to make the tiny lines
+permanent.
+
+"In the name of common sense, who was that? And what's this phonograph
+game?" he demanded.
+
+"The second question may answer the first before sunrise, unless I am
+badly mistaken. I have heard an old adage which declares that if you
+give a man long enough rope he will hang himself. My new application is
+that you let him talk enough he is apt to sing his own swan song, for a
+farewell perch on the electric chair at Sing Sing!"
+
+Then he lit a cigarette and packed up the phonograph.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE MISBEHAVIOR OF THE 'PHONE
+
+
+Still befuddled by the unusual events of the day, Howard Van Cleft was
+unable to delight in a theoretical discovery. Personal fear began to
+manifest itself.
+
+"Mr. Shirley, you're going at this too strong. We know the guilty
+party--this miserable girl in the machine. We want to hush it up and let
+things go at that."
+
+"We're hushing it, aren't we?" demanded Shirley, as he placed the record
+in the grip. "Don't you see the wisdom of knowing who may systematically
+blackmail you after secrecy is obtained. This is a matter of the future,
+as well as the present."
+
+"But I don't want to lose my own life--I am young, with life before me,
+and I want to let well enough alone, after these threats."
+
+"I am afraid that you have a yellow streak." His lip curled as he
+studied the pallid features of the heir to the Van Cleft millions.
+Fearless himself, he could still understand the tremors of this
+care-free butterfly: yet he knew he must crush the dangerous thoughts
+which were developing. "If you mistrust me, hustle for yourself. You
+have the death-certificate, the services will be over in a few days, and
+then you will have enough money to live on your father's yacht or terra
+firma for the rest of your life, in the China Sea, or India, as far away
+from Broadway chorus girls as you want. That might be safe."
+
+He gazed out of the window, toward the twinkling lights far away across
+the East River. His sarcasm made Van Cleft wince as though from a whip
+lash. The latter mopped his forehead and tried to steady his voice, as
+he replied with all humility.
+
+"You're a brick, and I don't mean to offend you. Today has been
+terrible, you know: this tornado has swept me from my moorings. I don't
+know where to turn."
+
+"I am thoughtless," and Shirley's warm hand grasped the flaccid fingers
+of the young man. "Forgive me for letting my interest run away with my
+sympathies. I'm thinking of the future, more than mere protection from
+newspaper scandal. This crime is so ingenious that I believe it has a
+more powerful motive than mere robbery. You are now at the head of a
+great house of finance and society. You must guard your mother and your
+sister, and those yet to come. A deadly snake is writhing its slimy
+trail somewhere: here--there--'round about us! Who knows where it will
+strike next? Who knows how far that blow may reach--even unto China, or
+wherever you run?"
+
+He hesitated, studying the effect upon Van Cleft, who dropped limply
+into a chair, his eyes dark with terror. The psychological ruse had won.
+Selfish cowardice, which temporarily threatened to ruin his campaign,
+now gave way to the instinct of a fighting defense.
+
+"There, Van Cleft, it is ghastly. You have the significance now: we must
+scotch the snake. That girl is over at the Holland Agency, and we should
+see her at once, to learn what she knows. Cronin has arranged for my
+coming with you, so introduce me under my real name.
+
+"Wait here fifteen minutes after I leave, so that I may get the
+phonograph in readiness, for you will undoubtedly be shadowed, and that
+may mean another telephone call. You were not a coward in college--I do
+not believe you are one now!"
+
+Van Cleft straightened up proudly.
+
+"No, I will fight them with all I have. But why these phonograph
+records: isn't one enough?"
+
+"No, I want autographs of all the voices. I will go now. Don't hurry in
+following me. Do not fear to let any shadowers see you--it will help us
+along."
+
+Before many minutes he had been admitted to the corridor of the Holland
+Agency by a sharp-nosed individual who regarded him with suspicion. The
+operatives were undoubtedly expecting trouble from all quarters, for
+three other large men of the "bull" type, heavy-jowled, ponderous men,
+surrounded him as he presented his card.
+
+"I am the friend of Howard Van Cleft, about whom Captain Cronin
+telephoned you from Bellevue. I am to help him interview the girl: may I
+wait until he arrives?"
+
+"Oh, you're wise to the case? Sure then, come into the reception room on
+the right. What's that in your grip?" asked the apparent leader of the
+men.
+
+"Just an idea of Van Cleft's," said Shirley, as he followed into the
+adjoining compartment. "It's a phonograph. Have you received any phoney
+'phone calls to-night? Queer ones that you didn't expect and couldn't
+explain? Van Cleft has, and he decided to take records of them on this
+machine."
+
+The superintendent nodded. Shirley opened the grip and drew out the
+instrument, and made ready on the small table, near which was the desk
+telephone.
+
+"Let's get this in readiness then, and if you get any calls have them
+switched up to this instrument, so that when you talk, you can hold the
+receiver handy to the horn."
+
+"Young feller, I think you must know more about this business than
+you've a right to. Just keep your hands above the table--I think I'll
+frisk you!"
+
+"No need," snapped Shirley with a smile in his eyes, and the automatic
+revolver was drawn and covering the detective before he could reach
+forward. "But I have no designs on you. You will have to work quicker
+than that with some people in this case."
+
+He slid the weapon across the table to the other who snatched it
+anxiously.
+
+"If a call comes and you don't recognize the voice at once, please ask
+the party to come closer to the 'phone, to speak louder--listen, there
+is the bell now! Get it connected here at once!"
+
+The surprised superintendent, fearing that after all he might miss
+some good lead, yielded to his professional curiosity against his
+professional prejudices. He bawled down the hall.
+
+"Switch on up here, Mike. I'll talk." He caught up the instrument, as
+Shirley dropped to his knees beside him, to swing the horn into place.
+
+"What's that?" he shouted over the wire. "Yes, shure it is--What's that
+you say?--I don't get you, cull--You want to speak to the girl?--What
+girl?--Talk louder. Hire a hall!--Say, I ain't no mind reader! Speak
+up."
+
+Over the instrument came the phrase once more: "Can you hear me now?"
+
+It was the man's voice! Shirley was exultant.
+
+"Yes, I hear you. What do you want?"
+
+"I want to call for my sister, if you're going to let her go. I want--"
+
+An inspiration prompted Shirley to press down the prongs of the
+receiver. The connection was stopped, and the superintendent turned upon
+him angrily.
+
+"You spoiled that, you nut! We was just about to find out who her
+brother was--say, who are you, anyway?"
+
+"There, don't you worry. That makes another call certain. Don't you see?
+That's what I'm playing for. But here comes Van Cleft, who will tell you
+I am all right."
+
+The millionaire entered the hallway before any serious altercation could
+arise. He greeted Shirley warmly and introduced him to Pat Cleary. The
+man was mollified.
+
+"Well, I'm Captain Cronin's right bower, and I thinks as how this guy
+is the joker of the deck trying to make a dirty deuce out of me. But,
+if you want to see the girl, she's right upstairs. His work was a little
+speedy on first acquaintance. Nick, keep your eyes on this machine, for
+we may get another call on this floor--This way gentlemen. Watch your
+step, for the hallway's dark."
+
+The girl was imprisoned in a windowless room on the second floor. As the
+door opened, Shirley beheld a pitiful sight. Attired in the finery of
+the Rialto, she lay prone upon a couch in the center of the dingy room,
+sobbing hysterically. Her blonde hair was disheveled, her features wan
+and distorted from her paroxysms of fear and grief. Like a frightened
+animal, she sprang to her feet as they entered the room, retreating
+to the wall, her trembling hands spread as though to brace her from
+falling.
+
+"I didn't do it! I swear! The old fool was soused and I don't know what
+was the matter with me. But I didn't kill any one in the world!"
+
+"There, sit down, little girl, and don't get frightened. This gentleman
+and I have come to learn the truth--not to punish you for something you
+didn't do. Start with the beginning and tell all you remember."
+
+Shirley's gentle manner was so unexpected, his voice so inspiring that
+she relaxed, sinking to the floor, as Shirley caught her limp girlish
+form in his arms. He placed her on the couch again, and she regained
+her composure under his calm urging. Little by little she visualized
+the details of the gruesome evening and narrated them under the magnetic
+cross-questions of the criminologist.
+
+She had met the elder Van Cleft in the tea-room of a Broadway hostelry,
+by appointment made the evening before at Pinkie Taylor's birthday
+party. After several drinks together they took a taxicab to ride uptown
+to a little chop house. Did she see any one she knew in the tea-room? Of
+course, several of the fellows and girls whom she couldn't remember just
+now, buzzed about, for Van Cleft was a liberal entertainer around the
+youngsters. She had five varieties of cocktails in succession, and
+she became dizzy. In the taxicab she became dizzier and when next she
+remembered anything definite she was sitting on the stool in the garage
+where she had been arrested. That was all. As she reached this point
+there came a knock on the door with a call for Van Cleft.
+
+"You Van's son!" she screamed. Then she fainted, while Shirley caught
+her, calling an assistant to care for her, as he followed Van Cleft
+downstairs to answer the telephone. "You know your cues?"
+
+The millionaire nodded, as with trembling fingers he caught up
+the instrument and knelt on the bare floor to hold it close to the
+phonograph, which Shirley was engineering, with a fresh record in place.
+
+"Hello! Hello, there, I say. Hello!"
+
+Shirley strained his ears, to hear this time a rough, wheezy voice which
+caused the two men to exchange startled glances, as it proceeded: "Is
+this you, Howard, my boy?"
+
+"What do you want? I can't hear you. The telephone is buzzing. Louder
+please!"
+
+Shirley nodded approbation, as the machine ran along merrily.
+
+"Now, can you hear me. Ahem! Can you hear me now? Is this Howard Van
+Cleft?"
+
+"Yes, go ahead, but louder still."
+
+"Now, can you hear me? This is your father's dearest friend,
+Howard,--this is William Grimsby speaking. I am fearfully distressed and
+shocked to learn of his death, my poor boy. And Howard, I am grieved
+to learn that there is some little scandal about it. As your father's
+confidential adviser, I urge you to hush it up at all cost. I was told
+at your home just now by one of the servants that you had gone to this
+vulgar detective agency."
+
+Here Shirley shut off the phonograph, addressing Van Cleft with his hand
+over the mouthpiece of the telephone for the minute.
+
+"Keep on talking until I return. Get his advice about flowers and
+everything else you can think of."
+
+Then he ran from the room, into the hallway, out of the door, and down
+the stoop to Fortieth Street. He looked about uncertainly, then espied
+across the way a tailor shop, where the light of the late workman still
+burned. Monty hurried thither and asked the use of the telephone upon
+the wall.
+
+"Shuair, mister, but it will cost you a dime, for I have to pay the gas
+and the rent."
+
+From the telephone directory he obtained the address and number of
+William Grimsby, the banker. He received an answer promptly. The
+servant, after learning his name promised to call the master. A gruff
+voice answered soon. Mr. Grimsby declared that he had been reading in
+his library for the last two hours, undisturbed by any telephone calls.
+Shirley expressed a doubt.
+
+"How dare you doubt my word, sir. The telephone is in my reception room
+where I heard it ring just now, for the first time. What do you want?"
+
+"An interview with you to-morrow morning at nine on a life and death
+matter. I can merely remind you, sir, that two of your friends,
+Wellington Serral and Herbert de Cleyster have met mysterious deaths
+during the past week. Mr. Van Cleft died of heart failure to-night.
+I will be there at nine. As you value your own life do not leave your
+residence or even answer any telephone messages again until I see you."
+
+"Well, I'll be--" Shirley disconnected, before the verb was reached. He
+tossed the coin to the tailor, and speedily returned to the waiting room
+where he signaled Van Cleft to end the conversation.
+
+"Quick now, find out what wire called you up." The answer was "William
+Grimsby, 97 Fifth Avenue."
+
+"You had the wrong tip that time, Mr. Shirley," said Van Cleft. "But how
+could he have found out where I was, for none of the servants know about
+Captain Cronin, or even my family that I was coming down here. He gave
+me some good advice however. I want to pay the hush money and end it all
+forever."
+
+Shirley had preserved the record and put it away with the others in the
+grip. Now he lit a cigarette and puffed several rings of smoke before
+answering.
+
+"Van, it must be wonderful to be twins."
+
+"This is no night for joking," petulantly, observed the nervous young
+man. "I want the girl silenced--"
+
+"She won't open her mouth after I tell her some things. It may entertain
+you to know, Van, that while you were getting such good advice from Mr.
+Grimsby on this wire, I was talking to the real Mr. Grimsby on his own
+wire: he said I was his first caller in more than an hour. So, I gave
+him some good advice, which wouldn't interest you. After this don't
+believe what the telephone tells."
+
+"Who was I speaking with?"
+
+"The most brilliant criminal it has ever been my pleasure to run
+across," and his eyes snapped with joy, the huntsman instinct rising to
+the surface at last, "I will call him the voice until I know his better
+name. He is the most scientific crook of the age."
+
+"What do you know about criminals?" was the incredulous question.
+
+"I'll know a hundred times as much as I do now, when I know all about
+this one, Van. You'd better have Cleary send an armed guard along with
+you, and get home for a good rest. Get a man who can drive a car, and
+bring back the empty auto three houses away from your residence: it will
+bear looking into! I'm going up to have a revival meeting with that girl
+now, for I am convinced that she is not a whit more implicated in the
+conception or execution of this crime than you are. Good-night."
+
+Van Cleft left the house, with a pitying shake of the head. He was
+not quite certain that he had done wisely, after all, in bringing his
+eccentric friend into the affair. He little reckoned how much more
+peculiarly Montague Shirley was to act for the remainder of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE "MOVIES"
+
+
+The cross-examination of Polly Marion resulted in little advantage. She
+had known of the sudden departure of two other songbirds, well equipped
+with funds for the land of Somewhere Else. Their absence had been the
+subject of some quiet jesting among the dragon flies who flitted over
+the pond of pleasure. A suggestion, from some unrecalled source, that
+their disappearance had been connected with the deaths of the two
+aged suitors was revitalized in her memory by the words of the elderly
+detective. Familiar with the strange life of this jeweled half-world
+Shirley's keenness brought forth nothing to convince him that the girl
+had been more culpable than in the following of her class, known to the
+initiate as the "gentle art of gold digging."
+
+"Polly, go home now, and stay away from these parties: that's my honest
+advice, if you want to be on the 'outside looking in,' when some one is
+sent to prison for this. I am in favor of hushing up this affair, and
+want to ease it up for you. Are you wise?"
+
+Polly was wise, beyond her years. Her equipoise was regained, and with a
+coquettish interest in this handsome interviewer--such girls always have
+an eye for future business--he returned to her theatrical lodging
+house, in which at least dwelt her wardrobe and makeup box when she was
+"trouping" in some spangled chorus. Of recent months she had not been
+subjected to the Hurculean rigors of bearing the spear, thanks to the
+gratuities of the open-handed Van Cleft, Senior. She pleaded to remain
+out of the white lights, meaning it as she spoke. But Shirley wisely
+felt that the butterfly would emerge from the chrysalis, shortly, to
+flutter into certain gardens where he would fain cull rare blossoms! Pat
+Cleary deputized a "shadow" to diarize her exits and entrances.
+
+"The hooks are cleaned, with fresh bait upon them," soliloquized
+Shirley, as he went down the dark stoop. "Now for a little laboratory
+work on the wherefore of the why!"
+
+Although long after midnight, he numbered among his acquaintanceship,
+many whom he could find far from Slumber-land. His steps led to the
+apartment of a certain theatrical manager, whom he found engaged in
+a lively tournament of the chips, jousting with two leading men, one
+playwright, a composer and a merchant prince. The latter, of course, was
+winning. The host, contributing both chips and bottled cheer, was far
+from optimistic until the arrival of the club man.
+
+"A live one abaft the mizzen!" exclaimed Dick Holloway, "Here's Shirley
+sent by Heaven to join us. After all I hope to pay my next month's
+rent."
+
+Noisily welcomed by the victims of mercantile prowess, he apologetically
+declined to flirt with Dame Fortune, pleading a business purpose.
+
+"Business, Monty! By the shade of Shakspeare! I never knew you to look
+at business, except to prevent it running you down like a Fourth Avenue
+mail bus."
+
+"It is in the interest of science," said Shirley, drawing the manager
+aside, "an experiment--"
+
+"Fudge on science. You interrupt a game at this time of night!"
+
+"But it means money. I am willing to pay."
+
+"Ah, Monty, money should never come between friends, and so I retract:
+with three failures this season, because the public doesn't appreciate
+art."
+
+"It's about moving pictures. I know that you have floated a syndicate
+for big productions. Do you work night and day?"
+
+"An investment? Heaven bless you! Come into my bedroom and we'll arrange
+things of course, we work at night. Just this minute they are producing
+the 'Bartered Bride' in six reels and eighteen thrills a foot. A
+magnificently equipped studio, the public yelling for more how much have
+you?"
+
+"Not so fast, Dick. It's merely some special work tonight, what you
+would call trick photography. I need a photographer, some lights, a
+little space, a microscopic lens and the complete developing during the
+night. And, I'll pay cash, as I have done with some suspicious poker
+losses in this temple of the muses on bygone evenings. Which, I may
+urge with gentle sarcasm is more than I have frequently received at your
+hands."
+
+"Touche!" laughed Holloway. "I'll write a note to the studio
+manager--he's there now, and will do what you want. You could have your
+picture completed by morning with a little financial coaxing applied in
+the right place. Come to the library table. Go on with the game, boys,
+it will save me a little."
+
+The potentate of dry goods was drawing in his winnings, as Shirley
+leaned over Holloway's shoulder to dictate the missive. Suddenly a
+revolver shot rang out from the window, and a bullet crashed into the
+wall behind Shirley's head.
+
+His hand, idly dropped into his overcoat pocket, intuitively closed
+around his automatic revolver. A dark silhouette was outlined against
+the gray luminosity cast up by the lights of Broadway, half a block from
+the window. Through the opening another belching flame shot forth, to
+be answered by the criminologist's weapon, barking like a miltraileuse.
+They heard a stifled cry, and as Shirley ran forward, he exclaimed with
+disappointment.
+
+"He's escaped down the fire-escape and through that skylight."
+
+He faced about to smile grimly at the curious scene within. The
+playwright had taken refuge among the brass andirons of the big empty
+fireplace. The matinee heroes were under chairs, and Holloway behind the
+mahogany buffet. From the direction of the stairway came shrill cries
+from the speeding merchant, softening in intensity as he neared the
+street level.
+
+"The battle's over!" exclaimed Holloway. "I don't know whether it was my
+chorus men wishing the gipsy curse on me, or the stage-carpenters going
+on a strike. But look! See the swag that Jerry left behind! What shall
+we do with it?"
+
+"Loot!" suggested the playwright, with rare discrimination, as he dusted
+off the wood ashes, and approached the table with glistening eyes.
+"We'll divide share and share alike. It's the only way to win from
+Jerry."
+
+Temperament was asserting its gameness. Shirley put back into position
+a shattered portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, and his eyes twinkled as the
+apostles of the muses hastened to divide the chips of the departed one
+into five generous piles. Holloway completed the letter, albeit with a
+nervous chirography, and handed him the envelope.
+
+"Go now, before a submarine war zone is declared. I'm going to close up
+shop before the police come visiting. Good luck, Monty, in the cause of
+science."
+
+Although his conscience was clear about the game having created five
+surprised winners by his interruption, he was disturbed over the
+certainty that the voice was aware of his personal work in the case. The
+difficulties were now trebled! Before any policemen appeared Shirley
+had passed Broadway on his way to the motion picture studio, on the West
+side of Tenth Avenue. Whatever secret observers may have been on his
+tracks, nothing untoward occurred: still, his senses were quickened into
+caution by the attempt on his life.
+
+A parley with a grumpy gateman, the presentation of his letter and he
+was admitted to the presence of the manager, a man exhausted with the
+strenuosity of night and day work. Shirley understood the antidote for
+his sullenness.
+
+"Here, old man, send out for a little luncheon for the two of us. I have
+some unusual experimental work, and need the assistance of a well-known
+expert like yourself." The flattery, embellished by a ten-dollar bill,
+opened a flood-gate of optimism.
+
+A camera man was summoned, and the apparatus prepared for some
+"close-up" motion pictures. Under the weird green lights of the mercury
+vapor lamps, a director and company of players were busily enacting
+a dramatic scene, before a studio set. They gave little heed to the
+newcomer: boredom is a prime requisite of poise in the motion picture
+art.
+
+"I have here three phonograph records, which I want photographed."
+
+"But they don't move--you want a still camera," exclaimed the dumfounded
+manager.
+
+"Yes, they do move as the picture is taken. I want a microscopic lens
+used in the camera in such a way that we take a motion picture of the
+twinings and twistings of one little thread on the wax cylinder, as it
+records the sound waves around the cylinder."
+
+The photographer sniffed with scorn, being familiar with eccentric
+uplifters of the "movies," but responded to the command of the manager
+to adjust his delicate camera mechanism for the task.
+
+"There is a certain phrase of words on each cylinder which I want
+recorded this way. Can all three be taken parallel with each other on
+the same film?"
+
+"Sure, easiest thing to do--just a triple exposure. We take it on one
+edge of the film, through a little slit just a bit wider than the space
+of the thread, cut in a screen. Then we rewind that film, and slide the
+slit to the middle of the lens, take your second wax record, and do the
+same on the right edge of the film for the third. But what's the idea?"
+
+The camera man began to show interest: he was a skilled mechanician and
+he caught the drift of a sensible purpose, at last.
+
+Shirley did not answer. He placed the first record in the phonograph,
+running it until the feminine voice could be distinguished asking: "Can
+you hear me now?" He marked the beginning and end of this phrase with
+his pocket knife. So with the merry masculine and the aged, disagreeable
+voice, he located the same order of words: "Can you hear me now?"
+The operation seems easy, in the telling, or again perhaps it appears
+intensely involved and hardly worth the trouble. A motto of Shirley's
+was: "Nothing is too much trouble if it's worth while." So, with this.
+To the cynical camera man its general nature was expressed in his
+whispered phrase to the manager:
+
+"You better not leave them property butcher knives on that there table,
+Mr. Harrison. This gink is nuts: he thinks's he's Mike Angelo or some
+other sculpture. He'll start sculpin' the crowd in a minute!"
+
+"You take the picture and keep your opinions to yourself," snapped
+Shirley whose hearing was highly trained.
+
+The man lapsed into silence. For two hours they fumed and perspired and
+swore, under the intense heat of the low-hung mercury lamps, until at
+last a test proved they had the right combination. Shirley greased
+the skill of the camera man with a well-directed gratuity, and ordered
+speedy development of the film. Before this was done, however, he took
+six other records of voices from the folk in the studio, using the same
+words: "Can you hear me now?"
+
+The three strips of triple exposures were taken to the dark room and
+developed by the camera man. They were dried on the revolving electric
+drums, near a battery of fans. Shirley studied every step of the work,
+with this and that question--this had been his method of acquiring a
+curiously catholic knowledge of scientific methods since leaving the
+university, where sporting proclivities had prompted him to slide
+through courses with as little toil as possible.
+
+A print upon "positive" film was made from each: every strip was
+duplicated twenty-five times, at Shirley's suggestion. Then after two
+hours of effort the material was ready to be run through the projecting
+machine, for viewing upon the screen.
+
+The manager led Shirley to the small exhibition theatre in which every
+film was studied, changed and cut from twenty to fifty times before
+being released for the theatres. The camera man went into the little
+fire-proof booth, to operate the machine.
+
+"Which one first, chief?"
+
+"Take one by chance," said Shirley, "and I will guess its number. Start
+away."
+
+There was a flare of light upon the screen, as the operator fussed with
+the lamp for better lumination. He slowly began to turn the crank, and
+the criminologist watched the screen with no little excitement. The
+picture thrown up resembled nothing so much as three endless snakes
+twisting in the same general rhythm from top to bottom of the frame. The
+twenty-five duplicates were all joined to the original, so that there
+was ample opportunity to compare the movements.
+
+"Well, gov'nor, which film was that?" asked the operator.
+
+"Not A--it was B or C!"
+
+"Correct. How'd you guess it? Which is this one?"
+
+As he adjusted another roll of film in the projector, Shirley turned to
+the manager sitting at his side. "Mr. Harrison, were those snakes all
+exactly alike?"
+
+"No. They all wriggled in the same direction, at the same time. But
+little rough angles in some movements and queer curves in others made
+each individually different."
+
+"Just what I thought. There goes another.--That is not film A, either!"
+
+"Righto!" confirmed the camera man. As the detailed divergence between
+the lines became more evident in the repetitions, Shirley slapped his
+knee.
+
+"Now for the finish. Try reel A."
+
+This time the three snakey lines moved along in almost identical
+synchronism. The only difference was that the first was thin, the second
+heavier, the third the darkest and most ragged of all. The relationship
+was unmistakable!
+
+"I got you gov'nor," cried the operator. "Some dope, all right, all
+right."
+
+"Why, what is all this?" asked the manager, nonplussed. "The last three
+are alike, but what good does it do?"
+
+"It is known that the human voice in its inflections is like
+handwriting--with a distinct personality. Certain words, when pronounced
+naturally, without the alterations of dialect, are always in the same
+rhythm. The records taken in the studio of those five words, 'Can you
+hear me now?' are in the same general rhythm, but only the last three
+snakes show exact similarity, to each little quaver and turn. There was
+only the difference in shading: one was the voice of a women. The second
+of a man of perhaps forty, the third of an old man--all three taken at
+different times, and I thought from different people. But they all came
+from one throat, and my work is completed along this line--Will you
+please lock up the films, the phonograph, and my records in your film
+vault, until I send for them; through Mr. Holloway?"
+
+The criminologist arose and walked into the deserted studio, from whence
+the company had long since departed for belated slumbers. He picked up
+three bricks which lay in a corner of the big studio, and placed them
+gently into his grip. The manager and the camera man observed this with
+blank amazement, as he locked it and put the key into his pocket. Then
+he handed each of them a large-sized bill.
+
+"I'm very grateful, gentlemen, for your assistance. Pleasant dreams."
+
+Shirley abstractedly walked out of the studio, one hand comfortably in
+his overcoat pocket, swinging the grip in the other.
+
+"Say, Lou," confided the manager, "he's the craziest guy I've ever seen
+in the movies. And that's going some, after ten years of it."
+
+Lou treated himself to a generous bite of plug tobacco, and spat
+philosophically, before replying.
+
+"Sure, he's crazy. Crazy, like the grandfather of all foxes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. ENTER A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
+
+
+A reddening zone in the East silhouetted the serrated line of the
+distant elevated structure, as Shirley walked along the gray street, his
+thoughts busy with the possibilities of applying his new certainty.
+
+He had reached Sixth Avenue, and was just passing one of the elevated
+pillars when a black touring car crept up behind him. The clanging bell
+and the grinding motors of an early surface car drowned the sound of
+the automobile in his rear. Suddenly the big machine sprang forward at
+highest speed. A man leaned from the driver's seat, and snatched the
+grip from his hand.
+
+The motorman, cursing, threw on the emergency brake, in time to barely
+graze the machine with his fender as it shot across the street before
+him.
+
+Shirley's view was cut off, until he had run around the street-car--then
+he beheld the big automobile skidding in a half-circle, as it turned
+down Fifth Avenue. It was too far away to distinguish the number of the
+singing license tag.
+
+"Much good may the bricks do them! Perhaps they will help to build the
+annex necessary up the river, when these gentry go there for a long
+visit."
+
+Shirley laughed at the joke on his pursuers, and turned into a little
+all-night grill for a comforting mutton chop of gargantuan proportions,
+with an equally huge baked potato. He was a healthy brute, after all
+his morbid line of activities! Later, at the Club, he submitted to the
+amenities of the barber, whose fine Italian hand smoothed away, in a
+skilful massage, the haggard lines of his long vigil. As he left the
+club house for William Grimsby's residence he looked as fresh and
+bouyant as though he had enjoyed the conventional eight hours' sleep.
+
+"You are this Montague Shirley?" was the querulous greeting from the
+old gentleman, when he was admitted to the drawing-room. "You kept me in
+anguish the entire night, with your silly words. The telephone bell
+rang at intervals of half an hour until dawn: I may have missed some
+important business deal by not replying What do you mean? Is this some
+blackmail game?"
+
+"No, sir. It has to deal with blackmailing, however--but not for my
+profit."
+
+"Explain quickly. I am a busy man. My motor is waiting now to take me to
+my office."
+
+"Look here, Mr. Grimsby, at this memorandum book," said Shirley, holding
+forward the list which he had copied from the joy-party article in the
+theatrical paper. "With some friends of yours, you held merry carnival
+to Venus and Bacchus at an all-night lobster palace not long ago. Have I
+the right names?"
+
+"This is rank impertinence. How dare you? Get out of my house."
+
+"Not so fast, my dear sir, until you understand my drift. Throughout
+Club circles you and Mr. Van Cleft, with these other cronies are
+sarcastically referred to as the Lobster Club. Did you know that?"
+
+Grimsby's face was purple with angry mortification, but Shirley would
+not be gainsaid. "I am acting in this matter as a friend of Howard Van
+Cleft," he continued. "Your three friends have met their deaths at the
+hand of a cunning conspirator. Last night, white I talked with you on
+the telephone, young Van Cleft was receiving advice over another wire
+from a person who pretended to be William Grimsby--advising him to hush
+the matter up and drop the investigation. But--Captain Cronin the
+famous detective--has received a tip that the number of victims would be
+increased very soon--frankly, now: do you want to be the fourth?"
+
+Grimsby's face changed to ashen gray, as he timidly clutched Shirley's
+sleeve.
+
+"Then cooperate with me. You understand now the nature of this villain's
+work: to rob and assassinate his victim in the company of a girl, so
+that this would endeavor to hush the scandal, without reporting it to
+the police. His progress is unchecked, and afterwards he would have
+untold opportunity for continuing a demand for hush money on the
+surviving relatives. May I count on you to help?"
+
+"You may count on me to leave the city within the next two hours."
+
+"Good! But I want to have you disappear so quietly that this cunning
+unknown will not know of it. He is watching your house now, without a
+doubt."
+
+Grimsby strode to the window, with his characteristic limp, and drew the
+heavy curtains aside, to peer out nervously.
+
+"No one is in sight."
+
+"The man is as unseen in his work as a germ. But he is not unheard: he
+uses the telephone to locate his victims, that is why I advised you to
+let your instrument ring unanswered."
+
+"I'll do what I can, if I can keep out of more danger. An old man craves
+life more than a young one. I fought through the Civil War and brought
+a medal from Congress and this wounded knee out of it, Mr. Shirley. I
+didn't fear anything then, but times have changed!"
+
+"Here is my plan, then," continued Shirley, his lips twitching with
+sub-strata amusement, "I want to impersonate you, when you leave, so
+that this man tries to send me after the other three. Don't interrupt,
+let me finish--You will say that it is impossible to deceive any one at
+close range. Surely, it does sound melodramatic, like a lurid tale of
+a paper back novel. But I have studied the photographs of your friends.
+You and I bear the closest resemblance of any in the group. Your weight
+is about the same as mine--your shoulders are a trifle stooped and
+you walk with a curious drag of your left foot. Your hair is white
+but thick: the contour of our faces is quite similar, and so with dry
+cosmetics, some physical mimicry, and the use of a pair of horn-rimmed
+glasses like yours I can make a comparatively good double. The only
+exposure to the sharp eyes of your enemies will be, first, when I
+substitute myself for you and take your automobile back home; second,
+when I go down to the theatrical district, to visit a well-known tearoom
+where I learn you are a frequent guest. There the wall tables are
+shrouded by decorations, and I shall keep in the shadow and talk as
+little as possible. Behind those dark glasses, and entering the place
+with your peculiarly spotted fur coat, I will resemble you more than you
+believe. If to add to the illusion, I show hospitable prodigality with
+drinks for the others, it is probable that their observation will be
+less analytical. Then, third in the line of activities, I will go to the
+theatre, sit in a darkened box, and let them take me where they will in
+whatever automobile turns up. Thus you see my campaign."
+
+"How much do I have to pay you?"
+
+"I might have expected that," was the laughing retort. "You are noted
+for the fortunes you waste on stupid show girls, while times are hard
+with you in your offices where young and old men struggle along to
+support honest families. Have no fear, Mr. Grimsby, my income is enough
+for my simple wants. I am entering this hunt for big game, just as I
+have gone to India and East Africa, for jungle trophies. It will not
+cost you a nickel."
+
+"I had better contribute a little," began Grimsby, embarrassed, as he
+drew out a check-book. But Shirley negatived with emphasis.
+
+"How about your servants? Can you trust them with the secret?"
+
+"They have been with me for twenty-five years or more. My wife is in
+California, and the rest of the servants, except two maids and a butler,
+up at my country home on the Hudson."
+
+"Fine: then, in two hours from now, meet me at the Hotel Astor, where I
+have rooms, in the name of Madden. Bring down an extra suit of clothes,
+and an extra overcoat, for I want to wear your fur one, which I see
+there on the davenport. On the downward trip instruct your chauffeur
+to drive your car up to your country place, as soon as he has made the
+return trip from the hotel. You will be there before he gets up, on the
+country roads and he will be none the wiser. Goodbye, Mr. Grimsby."
+
+At the club Shirley made some necessary disposition of his private
+matters, for he knew this case would run longer than a day. From
+his rooms he sent a note by messenger to his theatrical friend, Dick
+Holloway, which read simply.
+
+"Dear Holloway:--The experiment with the movies won the blue ribbon. I
+have a new plan on foot. You can help me in this, as well. I want you to
+engage for me a beautiful, clever and daring actress, afraid of nothing
+under the sun or moon, and absolutely unknown on Broadway. No amateurs
+or stage-struck heiresses or manicurists: you are the one impresario who
+can fill my bill. I will call at your office in fifteen minutes, so have
+the compact sealed by then. Who finally won the loot, last night?
+
+                             Your friend, Montague Shirley."
+
+The manager was forced to go through the note twice, to make sure that
+his senses were not leaving him. Then he turned in the chair, toward
+the unusual young woman who sat in his private office, observing with
+mingled amusement and curiosity the fleeting expressions upon his face.
+
+"In view of your mission in America, this may interest you," was his
+amused comment, as he handed her the missive. "It is from the most
+curious man in New York."
+
+He studied the downcast lashes, as she read the letter. Hers was a
+face which had stirred a continent, yet he had never met her until this
+memorable day. She might have been twenty-three years old--and again,
+might have been three years younger or older. Rippling red-gold waves
+of hair separated in the center of her smooth brow to caress with a soft
+wave on either side the blooming cheeks, whose Nature-grown roses were
+unusual in this world-weary vicinity of Broadway. A sweet mouth with a
+sensuous smile at one corner, and a barely perceptible droop of pathos
+at the other, lent an indescribable piquance to her dimpled smile. The
+blue orbs which raised to his own with a Sphinxian laugh in their
+azure depths thrilled him--Holloway, the blase, the hardened theatrical
+manager, flattered and cajoled by hundreds of beautiful women on the
+quest of stage success!
+
+Adroitly veiled beneath the silken folds of the clinging gown, redolent
+with the bizarre artistry of a Parisian atelier, was the shapely
+suggestion of exquisite physical perfection which did not escape the
+connoisseur glance of Holloway.
+
+"He is a literary man: I know that from the small, yet fluent writing,
+and the cross marks for periods show that he has written for newspapers
+and corrected his own proofs--He is unusually definite in what he
+desires and accustomed to having his imperious way about most things. In
+this case, he is easily pleased--merely perfection is his desire."
+
+"Shirley is generally prompt, and is apt to breeze in here any second
+now, with his two hundred pounds and six feet of brawn and ginger. I
+wonder--"
+
+"Why do you suppose such a paragon is desired by your friend? Who is he?
+What is he like, not an ordinary actor--" and the wondrous eyes darkened
+with a curious thought.
+
+"My dear lady, no one has discovered the mental secrets of Montague
+Shirley. He apparently wastes his life as do other popular society men
+with much money and more time on their hands. Yet, somehow, I always
+feel in his presence as one does when standing on the bow of an ocean
+liner, with the salt breeze whizzing into your heart. He is a force of
+nature, yet he explains nothing: a thorough man of the world; droll,
+sarcastic, generous and I believe for democracy he is unequaled by any
+Tammany politician: he knows more policemen, dopes, conductors, beggars,
+chauffeurs, gangsters, bartenders, jobless actors, painters, preachers,
+anarchists, and all the rest of New York's flotsam and jetsam than any
+one in the world. He is always the polished gentleman, and yet they take
+him man for man."
+
+"What does this unusual person do for a living?"
+
+"Nothing but living!"
+
+Her interest was naturally undiminshed by this perfervid tribute, and
+she clapped her dainty hands together with sudden mirth.
+
+"You know why I came here, and why to you, Mr. Holloway. You know who I
+am, and although I answer none of those exorbitant terms except that I
+am not known by sight along your big street Broadway, why not recommend
+me for the position?"
+
+"But you, of all people!" Holloway's face was a study in amazement. "You
+can't tell what wild project he has in view. Shirley is a wild Indian,
+in many things you know--just when you least expect it. I have known him
+a dozen years."
+
+He paused to weigh the matter, and his sense of humor conquered. He
+roared with mirth, which was joined in more sedately by the unknown
+girl. "That settles it. You couldn't start on your campaign in a better
+way. You shall be the Lady of Mystery in this story! I will not breathe
+a hint of your identity to Shirley, and no one else knows, of course.
+What a ripping good joke: I'm glad you came here the first hour after
+your landing in New York."
+
+"What shall I call myself? I have it--a romantic name, which will be
+worth laughing over later--let me see--Helene Marigold. Is that flowery
+enough?"
+
+"Shirley will be sure you are an actress when he hears that. Mum is
+the word, may you never have stage fright and never miss a cue--Here he
+comes now!"
+
+The criminologist rushed into the office impetuously, dropping his bag
+on the floor, and doffing his hat as he beheld the pretty companion of
+Holloway.
+
+"On time to the minute, as usual, Shirley. Your note came, and I
+followed your instructions. Let me present to you your new star, Miss
+Helene Marigold, who just disembarked on the steamer from England this
+morning. You have secured a young lady who is making all Europe sit up
+and rub its eyes. I believe I have at last found a match for you, Prince
+of the Unexpected!"
+
+Shirley held forth his fervent hand, and was surprised at the almost
+masculine sincerity with which the delicately gloved fingers returned
+the pressure. He looked into the blue eyes with a challenging scrutiny,
+and received as frank an answer!
+
+Dick Holloway indulged in an unobserved smile, as he turned to look out
+of the window, lost for the nonce in mirthful speculation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
+
+
+"Dick, you can help me further, with your dramatic knowledge. I feel in
+duty bound to tell Miss Marigold that she is risking her life, if she
+takes up this task."
+
+Instead of hesitancy, which Shirley half expected, the girl's face
+flushed with quickened interest, and her eyes sparkled with enjoyment as
+he unfolded the situation. At the mention of Grimsby, Holloway grunted
+with disgust--it may have been a variety of professional jealousy. Who
+knows? However, the problem fascinated the mysterious young woman, who
+blushed, in spite of herself, when Shirley put his blunt question to
+her.
+
+"And you are willing to assume for a time the character of one of these
+stage moths, whom rich men of this type pursue and woo, wine, dine and
+boast about? Will it interfere with your own work? Any salary arranged
+by Mr. Holloway is agreeable, for this unusual task."
+
+"The game, not the money, is the attraction. I will be ready when you
+pronounce my cue."
+
+"Splendid. Dick, will you assist Miss Marigold in selecting an
+attractive apartment in a theatrical hotel this afternoon. I will call
+for her at four-thirty, to take her to tea. She may not know me, at
+first glance: that depends upon the help you give me at the Astor.
+I will expect you there in an hour. I haven't acted since I left the
+college shows: with a hundred chances to one against my success, even I
+am not bored."
+
+He hurried from the office, and Holloway noted the glow in the
+girl's glance which followed his stalwart figure. Holloway was a
+good tactician: there were reasons why he enjoyed this new role of
+match-maker de luxe, yet he played his hand far more subtly than at
+poker. Which was well!
+
+Ensconced in the Astor, Shirley was soon busy before the cheval glass,
+from which were suspended three photographs of William Grimsby, obtained
+from a photographic news syndicate.
+
+Coat and waistcoat had been removed, as he discriminatingly applied the
+dry cosmetics with skill which suggested that he had disguised himself
+for daylight purposes far more than he would admit. By the time he had
+powdered his thick locks with the white pulverized chalk, and donned
+a pair of horn-rim glasses of amber tint, his whole personality had
+changed. The similarity was startling to the prototype who was admitted
+to the room a few minutes later.
+
+"Why, I beg pardon--I have come to the wrong suite," were Grimsby's
+apologetic words, as he essayed to retreat.
+
+"You are the first victim of the mirage. Do you like the caricature?"
+
+"Astounding, my friend!" gasped Grimsby, sinking into the chair. Shirley
+drew him to the mirror, to make a closer study of the lines of senility
+and late hours. A few delicate touches of purple and blue, some
+retouching of the nostrils, and he drew on the suit provided by his
+elder. Dick Holloway was announced, and Shirley ordered some wine and a
+dinner for one! At Grimsby's surprise, Shirley, smiled indulgently.
+
+"I am selfish--I will have a little supper party by myself, and spare
+you in nothing. I want you to eat, to drink, to pour wine, to take out
+your wallet, to walk, to sit down, to laugh, to scold! You have a task,
+sir: I will imitate you move by move! This is a rare experiment."
+
+"Great Scott! Which is you?" cried Holloway who entered with the
+burdened waiter.
+
+"Neither. We're both me!" chuckled the criminologist. "But let me
+introduce you to my twin--"
+
+The two men exchanged formalities with an undercurrent of dislike.
+Shirley lost no time. He compelled the old man to run through his paces,
+as Holloway criticized each study in miming. Just as the capitalist
+would swing his arms, limp with his left leg, shift his head ever so
+little, from side to side in his walk, so Shirley copied him. A
+word here, an exhortation there, and Shirley improved steadily under
+Holloway's analytical direction. At last the lesson was ended, with the
+manager's pronounciamento of "graduation cum lauda."
+
+"I'll have to star you, Monty," he declared, as Shirley put on the fur
+greatcoat of the old man, grasping the gold headed cane, and drooping
+his shoulders in a perfect imitation of the other's attitude.
+
+"Perhaps it will be necessary. The chorus men have invaded society with
+their fox-trots and maxixe steps. We club men will have to countercharge
+the enemy, for self-preservation, to play heavy villains upon the stage.
+Eh?"
+
+He turned toward Grimsby, who was well wearied with the trying ordeal,
+and evidencing a growing nervousness about his own escape.
+
+"You know how to leave, according to my plan? Wrap the muffler well
+around the lower part of your face, button this second overcoat closely
+about your neck, and enter the private carriage which I ordered for 'Mr.
+Lee,' waiting now at the Forty-fifth Street Side. Then drive leisurely
+to the West Forty-second Street Ferry, where you can catch the late
+afternoon train for your country place."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Shirley. I have been an old curmudgeon with you, I fear.
+You have taught this old dog new tricks in several ways, young man.
+Neither I nor my friends will forget your bravery. They are all out of
+the city by now, according to word from my private secretary. Your field
+is clear. Good luck, sir!"
+
+Shirley and Holloway left the rooms first. Neither addressed the other
+on the lift, as it descended to the street level. Holloway casually
+followed Monty as he stiffly walked to the big red limousine waiting at
+the Forty-fourth Street entrance of the hostelry. The chauffeur sprang
+out, opening the door with a respectful salute. The disguise was
+successful!
+
+"Home!" grunted Shirley, sinking back into the car, with collar high
+about his neck and the soft hat half concealing his eyes. He scrutinized
+the faces of the passers-by, photographing in that receptive memory of
+his the ugly features of two men, who peered into the limousine from
+under the visors of their black caps. The car sped up town through the
+bewildering maze of street traffic. The chauffeur helped him up the
+steps of the brownstone mansion, while Grimsby's old butler swung open
+the glass door, with a helping hand under the feeble arm.
+
+Shirley puffed and grunted impatiently until he heard the door close
+behind him. Then straightening up, he turned upon the startled butler.
+
+"Well, my man. Go out and tell the chauffeur to leave for the country at
+once, as Mr. Grimsby already ordered him to do."
+
+"My Gawd, sir!" exclaimed the servant, paling perceptibly. "What's come
+over you, sir?--Oh, I beg pardon, sir, you're the other gentleman. You
+certainly fooled me, sir--You're bloody brave, sir, to do all this for
+the master. Are we in any danger?"
+
+"Not a bit--whatever happens will be outside the house. Just keep up the
+secret, as you value your master's life. Go, and tell the man. I must
+kill time here in the library, reading until four o'clock."
+
+Shirley threw aside the greatcoat, and walked to the window of the small
+reception room which faced the street, to draw aside the curtains and
+watch the chauffeur, as he entered the machine to speed away. A black
+automobile slowly passed the house, bearing two men on the driver's
+seat. From under the visors of their black caps they scrutinized the
+building, to hastily look away as they observed the face at the window.
+
+Shirley made a note of the number of the machine. He could have sworn
+that this was the same car which had passed him that morning at dawn
+when the grip was snatched from his hand.
+
+He returned to the library, where he lost himself in the rare old
+volumes of Grimsby's life collection: the criminologist was a booklover
+and the hours drifted by as in a happy playtime, until the butler came
+to tell him the time.
+
+"Great Scott! I must hurry. Call a taxi, for me. I will go to Holloway's
+office to learn where Miss Marigold has been ensconced."
+
+He sat in the machine before the office building, as he sent the
+chauffeur up to Dick's office, to inquire for a message to "Mr.
+Grimsby." A note was brought down, informing him that the girl awaited
+him in the Hotel California, a few blocks above. The machine started off
+once more, and Shirley laughed at the droll situation in which he found
+himself.
+
+"I wonder who Helene Marigold can be? I wonder what Holloway meant
+precisely when he predicted that I would meet my match. I am not seeking
+one kind--and blue eyes, surrounded by red-gold hair and peaches and
+cream will not shake my determination."
+
+But the best laid determinations of bachelor hearts gang aft agley!
+
+Down at the Hotel California, famous for its rare collection of
+attractive feminine guests and the manifold breach-of-promise suits
+which had emanated from the palm bedecked entrance, Helene Marigold was
+indulging herself in a delighted, albeit highly amused, inspection
+of sundry large boxes which had been arriving from shops in the
+neighborhood.
+
+"As nearly as I can imagine this must look like the bower of a Broadway
+Phryne. All that is missing is a family portrait in crayon of the father
+who was a coal miner, the presence of a buxom financial genius for the
+stage mother, and a Chinese chow-dog on a cerise velvet cushion. But who
+ever attains perfection here below?"
+
+She lifted some filmy gowns which had arrived in the latest parcel
+to her chin, peering over the sheerness of the lacy cascade, into the
+mirror of the dressing-table.
+
+"If good old Jack could see me now? Poor, old, stupid, dear, silly
+Jack! I must write to him at once, for he is largely responsible for my
+present unusual surroundings. How pleased this would not make him, the
+old dear."
+
+With the thought, she sat down before the escritoire, dipping a pearl
+and gold pen, as she paused for the words with which to begin the note.
+Another knock came at the door. It could not be another gown. She had
+told Holloway to keep all her personal baggage at the steamer dock
+until she had finished her lark! At the portal a diminutive messenger
+delivered a large white box, ornately bound in lavender ribbons. When
+she unwrapped it, hidden in the folds of many reams of delicate tissue,
+she found a gorgeous bunch of orchids.
+
+"How beautiful! I wonder who could have--" then she found a white card,
+and read it aloud, with a mirthful peal of laughter.
+
+"To Lollypop's little Bonbon Tootems--from her foolish old Da-Da!"
+
+Helene turned toward the window, to gaze out over the mysterious,
+foreign motley array of roofs and obtruding skyscrapers of this curious
+district.
+
+"This mysterious man plays his part with a sense of humor. If only he
+will be different and not mean the flowers, ever!"
+
+And she forgot to finish the note which was to have gone to faraway,
+stupid, dear old Jack.
+
+Ten minutes later an aged gentleman entered the gorgeous foyer of the
+Hotel California, impatiently presenting his card to the bell-boy,
+for announcement to Miss Marigold. The lad, true to tradition, quietly
+confided the name to the interested clerk, before doing so. As the
+visitor was shown to the elevator, the clerk turned to his assistant
+with a nudge.
+
+"There's the easiest spender of the Lobster Club. That means good trade
+here, with this new peach in the crate. These old ginks are hard as
+Bessemer armor-plate in business, but oh, how soft the tumble for a new
+shade of peroxide."
+
+"Mr. Grimsby" was soon sitting on the velour divan, at a comfortable
+distance from possible eavesdroppers at the door. She was putting the
+finishing touches to her preparation for the butterfly role. Shirley
+felt an unexpected thrill at this little intimacy of their relations:
+the rooms were permeated with the most delicate suggestion of a curious
+perfume, which was strange to him. Somehow it fitted her personality
+so effectually: for despite the physical appeal of her beauty,
+now accentuated by the risque costume which she had donned, at the
+professional suggestion of Dick Holloway, there was a pervasive
+spirituality in the girl's face, her hands, and the tones of her soft
+voice.
+
+She turned to smile at him, her dimples playing hide and seek with the
+white pearls beneath the unduly scarlet lip.
+
+"Isn't this a ripping good situation for a novel?" she began.
+
+"Yes, too good at present, Miss Marigold. There are too many, important
+people to be affected for it ever to be given to the public, for the
+identities would all be exposed ruthlessly. Besides, no one would
+believe it: it seems too improbable, being real life. It will be more
+improbable before we finish the adventure, I suspect. Can I trust your
+discretion to keep it secret? You know, I have a deal of skepticism
+about the best of women."
+
+Helene reddened under that keen glance, and he saw that he had offended
+her.
+
+"I beg your pardon: I know that we shall work it out together, with
+absolute mutual trust."
+
+Such an earnest vibrance was in his voice that somehow she was reminded
+of another voice: her mind went back to the neglected letter to Jack.
+What could have caused her to be so remiss? She would not let herself
+dwell on the subject--instead, with a surprising deftness, she caught up
+Shirley's own cue, for a staggering question of her own.
+
+"Are you sure that you have absolutely confided in me? Did you start at
+the beginning, when you told the story to-day."
+
+"What do you mean?" and Shirley caught the glance sharply.
+
+"Your unusual rapidity of action, Mr. Shirley, for a mere interested
+friend! It is queer how wonderfully your mind has connected this work,
+and the various accidental happenings, to evolve this clever ruse in
+which I am to assist. It doesn't seem so amateurish as you would make
+it. You seem mysterious to me."
+
+"Do you think I am the voice? Here is a chance for real detective work,
+if you can double the game, and capture me?" was the laughing retort. "I
+don't believe you trust me."
+
+The girl stood up before him, and after one deep look, her eyes fell
+before his. Those exquisite lashes sent a tiny flutter through the
+case-hardened heart of the club man, despite his desperate determination
+to be a Stoic.
+
+"I do trust you," the voice was impetuous, almost petulant. "You are a
+real man: I merely give you credit for being better than the class of
+rich young men of whom you pretend to be an absolute type. But there,
+I waste words and time. Is my costume for this little opera boufe
+satisfactory to you? Do you like my warpaint and battle armor?"
+
+She stood before him, a glorious bird of paradise. The wanton display
+of a maddening curve of slender ankle, through the slash of the clinging
+gown imparted just the needed allurement to stamp her as a Vestal of
+the temple of Madness. The cunning simplicity of the draping over her
+shoulders--luminous with the iridiscent gleam of ivory skin beneath,
+accentuated by the voluptuous beauty of her youthful bosom--the fleeting
+change of colors and contours as she slowly turned about in this
+maddening soul-trap of silk and laces--all these were not lost on the
+senses of Shirley. As the depths of those blue eyes opened before his
+gaze, a mad, a ridiculous aching to crush her in his arms, surprised
+the professional consulting criminologist! For this swift instant, all
+memory of the Van Cleft case, of every other problem, was driven from
+his mind, as a blinding blast of seething desire surged about him.
+
+Then the old resolution, the conquering will of the man of one purpose,
+beat back the flames of this threatening conflagration. His eyes
+narrowed, his hands dropped to his side, and he squinted at her with the
+frigid dissective gaze of an artist studying the curves of a model.
+
+"You must rouge your cheeks more, blue your eyelids and redden your lips
+even yet. Then be generous with the powder--and that wonderful perfume."
+
+An inscrutable smile played about the sensitive lips, as Helene turned
+to her dressing-table. Shirley stood with his face to the window; he did
+not observe it, nor would he have understood its menace to his own peace
+of mind. Helene, however, did. She was a woman.
+
+"May I smoke a cigarette? I am afraid I am almost a fiend, for I seem to
+crave the foolish comfort that I imagine they give, in times of nervous
+drain."
+
+"No, Lollypop's little Bonton Tootems enjoys their fragrance. Don't
+ever ask me again. I have completed the mural decoration with futurist
+extravagance in the color scheme. My cloak, sir!"
+
+He tossed it about her, and took up his hat and gold-headed stick. With
+a final glance at his own careful make-up, he started after her for the
+street.
+
+"Some chikabiddy!" was the remark of the clerk to the head bell-boy. The
+words reached the ears of Shirley and Helene. Her hand trembled on his
+arm as they entered a waiting taxicab. She looked pathetically at him,
+as she asked.
+
+"Don't you think I am interested, sincere and loyal, to brave such
+remarks as these, and the other worse things they will say before long?
+I wouldn't dare do this, if I were not sure that no one in America but
+you and Mr. Holloway knows me. To wear this horrid stuff on my face--to
+dress in these vulgar clothes--to impersonate such a girl! You know I'm
+not nearly as bad as I'm painted!"
+
+Shirley clasped her white-gloved hand and nodded. He was studying the
+pedestrians for a familiar twain of faces. He was not disappointed, as
+the car swung into Broadway.
+
+"Look--those two men have been following me wherever I have gone. They
+are a pair of old-fashioned pirates. Don't forget their faces!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. IN THE GARDEN OF TEMPTATION
+
+
+Their destination, one of the score of tango tea-rooms which had sprung
+to mushroom popularity within the year, was soon reached. Leaning
+heavily upon his stick, limping like his aged model, and spluttering
+impatiently, Shirley was assisted by the uniformed door man into the
+lobby. Helene followed meekly. Four hat boys from the check-room made
+the conventional scramble for his greatcoat, hat and stick, nearly
+upsetting him in their eagerness. Then Shirley led the way into the half
+light of the tropical, indoor garden, picking a way through the tables
+to a distant wall seat, embowered with electric grapes and artificial
+vines.
+
+"Sit down, my darling child," said the pseudo Grimsby, as he dropped
+into a seat behind the table, which was protected from the lights, and
+furthest away from any possible visitors. "We are early, avoiding the
+crush. Soon the crowd will be here. We must have some champagne at once,
+to assist me in my defensive tactics. You will have to do most of the
+talking. Remember, we are going to the Winter Garden musical review when
+we leave here: you may tell this to whom you will."
+
+Helene looked about curiously, as the big tea-room began to fill with
+its usual late afternoon crowd of patrons,--young, old and indeterminate
+in age. Women of maturely years, young misses from "finishing" schools,
+demimondaine, social "bounders" deluded by the glitter of their own
+jewelry and the thrill of their wasted money that they were climbing
+into New York society--these and other curious types rubbed elbows in
+this melting pot of folly. The tinkle of glasses, the increasing buzz
+of conversation, the empty laughter of too many emptied cocktail glasses
+mingled with the droning music of an Hawaiian string quartette in the
+far corner.
+
+Suddenly, with banging tampani and the crash of cymbals, rattle of
+tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the
+dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known
+law of harmony--swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling
+rhythm of a maxixe.
+
+"How strange!" murmured Helene, as the waiter brought them some
+champagne and indigestible pastries--the true ingredients of 'dansant
+the'.
+
+"Yes, on with the dance-let joy be unrefined! The fall of the Roman
+Empire was the bounce of a rubber nursery ball, compared with this New
+York avalanche of luxurious satiation! Now, my child, old Da-da, is
+going to become too intoxicated to talk three words to any of these
+gallants and their lassies. Grimsby did not write a monologue for me,
+so I must pantomime: you will have to carry the speaking part of our
+playlet. Flatter them--but don't leave my side to dance!"
+
+The first bottle of wine had been carried away by the waiter, (half
+emptied it is true,) as he filled a second order. Shirley shielded his
+face beneath a drooping spray of artificial blooms from the top of
+their wallbower. Several young men were approaching them, and the
+criminologist noted with relief that they evidenced their afternoon
+libations even so early. Eyes dulled with over-stimulus were the less
+analytical. Chance was favoring him. The newcomers were garbed in that
+debonair and "cultured" modishness so dear to the hearts of magazine
+illustrators. Faces, weak with sunken cheek lines, strong in creases
+of selfishness, darkened by the brush strokes of nocturnal excesses and
+seared, all of them with the brand mark of inbred rascality, identified
+them to Shirley as members of that shrewd class of sycophants who feast
+on the follies of the more amateurish moths of the Broadway Candles.
+
+"Hello, old pop Grimsby!"
+
+"You're in the dark of the moon, Grimmie! I couldn't make you out but
+for those horn rimmed head lights."
+
+"Welcome to the joy-parlor, old scout."
+
+The greetings of the juvenile buzzards varied only in phraseology: their
+portent was identical: "Open wine."
+
+"Poor Mr Grimsby is so ill this afternoon, but sit down and have
+something with us," volunteered Helene tremulously.
+
+The bees gathered about the table to feast on the vinous honey, while
+Shirley, mumbling a few words, maintained his partial obscurity, with
+one hand to his forehead.
+
+"Fine boysh, m'deah. Boysh, meet little Bonbon--my protashsh!"
+
+Little Bonbon was a pronounced attraction. Her vivacious charm drew the
+eyes away from Shirley, who studied the expressions of the weasel faces
+about him. The girl's heart sickened under the brutal frankness of a
+dozen calculating eyes, yet she valiantly maintained her part,
+while Shirley marveled at her clever simulation of silly, giggly,
+semi-intoxication. One youth deserted them to disappear through
+the distant dining room entrance. The comments about the table were
+interesting to the keen-eared masquerader.
+
+"Old Grimsby's picked a live one, this time!"--"What show is she
+with?"--"Won't Pinkie be sore?" The criminologist was not left to wonder
+as to the identity of "Pinkie," for an older man, walking behind a
+red-headed girl in a luridly modern gown, approached the table with the
+absent guest. The men were talking earnestly, the girl staring angrily
+at Shirley's, beautiful companion.
+
+"Hey, here come's Reggie! Sit down, Reg. Pop has passed away, but his
+credit is still strong."
+
+"There's Pinkie--come, my dear, and join the Ladies' Aid Society and
+have a lemonade," jested another youth, making a place for the girl in
+the aisle.
+
+Pinkie's dark-haired companion sank somewhat unsteadily into a chair
+next the girl. He frowned and rubbed his forehead, as though to clear
+his mind for needed concentration. He shook Shirley's arm, and spoke
+sharply.
+
+"Look up; Grimmie. I never saw you feel your wine so early in the
+afternoon. It was a lucky day for me on Wall Street, so I celebrated
+myself. You are here earlier than usual. Everybody have some champagne
+with me."
+
+As he beckoned to the waiter, the red-haired girl bestowed a murderous
+look upon Helene, who was sniffing some flowers which she had drawn from
+the vase on the table.
+
+"Who's that Jane?" she demanded, her voice-shaking with jealousy.
+"Grimmie, you act as if you were doped. Introduce us to your swell
+friend. Wake him, Reg Warren."
+
+Helene's jeweled white hand protected the safety-first dozing of her
+companion, as, through the interstices of his fingers, he studied the
+inscrutable difference between the face of Warren and the other youths
+about them.
+
+"Let Pop dream of a new way to make a million!" laughed one young man.
+"His money grows while he sleeps."
+
+"Yes, let him dream on," laughed Helene, with a shrill giggle. "When he
+makes that extra million he can star me on Broadway, in my own show. He,
+he!"
+
+"You'll have to spend half of it at John the Barber's getting your voice
+marceled and your face manicured," snarled Pinkie. "Come, Reg, and dance
+with me: these bounders bore me."
+
+"Run along, Pinkie, and fox-trot your grouch away with Shine Taylor.
+Here comes the wine I ordered--What's your name, girlie? Where did you
+meet Grimsby?"
+
+"Oh, we're old friends," and Helene maliciously spilled a bottle over
+the interrogator's waistcoat, as she reached forward to shake his hand.
+"My name's Bonbon, you wouldn't believe me if I told you my real name,
+anyway. Who are you?"
+
+"I'm not Neptune," he retorted, as he mopped the bubbles with a napkin.
+"You've started in badly." Shirley mentally disagreed. His stupor still
+obsessed him, but he noted with interest that Warren paid the check
+for his bottle with a new one-hundred dollar bill. Warren could elicit
+nothing from Helene but silly laughter, and so he arose impatiently,
+as Shine Taylor returned to whisper something in his ear. "I must be
+getting back to my apartment. Bring Grimsby up to it to-night: a little
+bromo will bring him back to the land of the living. I'll have a jolly
+crowd there--top floor of the Somerset, on Fifty-sixth Street, you know,
+near Sixth Avenue. Come up after the show."
+
+"We're going to the Winter Garden," suggested Helene, at a nudge from
+Shirley, and Warren nodded.
+
+"I'll try to see you later, anyway. Goodbye!"
+
+Losing interest in the proceedings, as the time for reckoning the bill
+approached, the other gallants followed these two. Alone, again, Shirley
+ordered some black coffee, and smiled at his assistant.
+
+"He told the truth for once."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He will try to see us later. That man is a member of the murderous
+clan whom we seek. 'To-night is the night' for the exit of William
+Grimsby--but, perhaps we may have a stage wait which will surprise
+them."
+
+Gradually the guests thinned out in the tea-room, but Shirley cautiously
+waited until the last.
+
+"Do you believe these young men are all members of the gang?" asked the
+girl. "Why do you suppose these men are all criminals? They surely look
+a bad lot."
+
+"There are two general reasons why men go wrong. One is hard luck, aided
+by tempting opportunity--they hope to make a success out of failure, and
+then keep on the straight path for the rest of their lives. Such men
+are the absconders, the forgers, the bank-wreckers, and even the petty
+thieves. But once branded with the prison bars and stripes, they seldom
+find it possible to turn against the tide in which they find themselves:
+so they become habitual offenders. They are the easiest criminals to
+detect. The second class are the born crooks, who are lazy, sharp-witted
+and without enough will-power to battle against the problems of
+honesty in work. It is easy enough to succeed if a man is clever and
+unscrupulous without a shred of generosity. The hard problem is to be
+affectionate, human, and conquer every-day battles by remaining actively
+honest, when your rivals are not straight. The born crook is safer from
+prison than the weakling of the first class." He looked down at the
+coffee, and then continued.
+
+"I do not believe all these young men are in this curious plot. They are
+merely the small fry of the fishing banks: they are petty rascals, with
+occasional big game. But somewhere, behind this sinister machine, is a
+guiding hand on the throttle, a brain which is profound, an eye which
+is all-seeing and a heart as cold as an Antartic mountain. There is the
+exceptional type of criminal who is greedy--for money and its luxurious
+possibilities; selfish--with regard for no other heart in the world;
+crafty--with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and
+cruelty; refined and vainglorious--with pride in his skill to thwart
+justice and confidence in his ability to continually broaden the scope
+of his work. Crime is the ruling passion of this unknown man. And the
+way to catch him is by using that passion as a bait upon the hook. I
+am the wriggling little angle worm who will dangle before his eyes
+to-night. But I do not expect to land him--I merely purpose to learn his
+identity, to draw the net of the law about him, in such a way as to keep
+the Grimsby and Van Cleft names from the case."
+
+"And how can that be done?"
+
+"That, young lady, is my 'fatal secret.' The subplot developing within
+my mind is still nebulous with me,--you would lose all interest, as
+would I, if you knew what was going to happen. But the time has passed,
+and now we can go to the theatre. I bought the tickets by messenger
+this afternoon. I will let you do the talking to the chauffeur and the
+usher."
+
+They left the tea-room, the last guests out.
+
+It was a touching sight to see the elderly gentleman supported on one
+side by a fat French waiter, and on the opposite, by the solicitous
+girl. The old Civil War wound was unusually troublesome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. WHEN IT'S DARK IN THE PARK
+
+
+At the entrance of the restaurant the starter tooted his shrill whistle,
+and a driver began to crank his automobile in the waiting line of cars.
+According to the rules of the taxi stands he was next in order. But, as
+is frequently the custom in the hotly contested district of "good fares"
+another car "cut in" from across the street. This taxi swung quickly
+around and drew up before the waiting criminologist.
+
+Grunting and mumbling, as though still deep in his cups, Monty allowed
+himself to be half pushed, half lifted into the car by the attendant.
+Helene followed him. "Winter Garden," she directed, and the machine sped
+away, while the thwarted driver in the rear sent a volley of anathemas
+after his successful competitor.
+
+Shirley scrutinized the interior of the machine, but there seemed
+nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of other piratical craft
+which pillage the public with the aid of the taximeter clock on the
+port beam! Soon they were at the big Broadway playhouse, where Shirley
+floundered out first, after the ungallant manner of many sere-and-yellow
+beaux. He swayed unsteadily, teetering on his cane, as Helene leaped
+lightly to the sidewalk beside him. The driver stood by the door of the
+car, leering at him.
+
+"Here, keep the change," and Shirley handed him a generous bill.
+
+"Shall I wait fer ye, gov'nor? I ain't got no call to-night. I'll be
+around here all evening."
+
+The criminologist nodded, and the chauffeur handed Helene the carriage
+number check.
+
+"Don't let 'em steal de old gink, inside, girlie. He's strong fer de
+chorus chickens."
+
+Helene shuddered before the hawk-like glare of his malevolent eyes, but
+in her part, she shook her head with a laugh, and followed airily after
+her escort.
+
+"Good-evening, sir. Back again to-night, I see," volunteered the ticket
+taker, to whom William Grimsby was a familiar visitant. Shirley reeled
+with steadied and studied equilibrium, into the foyer of the theatre,
+as he nodded. Their seats were purposely in the rear of a side box, well
+protected from the audience by the holders of the front positions. The
+criminologist appeared to relapse into dreams of bygone days, while his
+companion peered into the vast audience and then at the nimble limbed
+chorus on the stage with piquant curiosity.
+
+"For years I wanted to see an American stage and an American audience,"
+she confided in an undertone, "and to think that when I do so, it is
+acting myself, on the other side of the footlights in a stranger, more
+dramatic part than any one else in the theatre. A curious world, isn't
+it?"
+
+Shirley breathed deeply, drinking in the maddening perfume of her
+glorious hair, so perilously near his own face. The shimmer of her
+shoulders, the adorable curves of that enticing scarlet mouth murmuring
+so near his own, and yet so far away, in this soul-racking game of
+make-believe, stirred his blood as nothing else had done in all the
+kalaediscopic years.
+
+"Yes, a more than curious world. How things have changed since last
+evening when I planned a sleepy evening at the opera. I wonder what the
+outcome will be?"
+
+Helene looked up at him quickly, then as suddenly toward the Russian
+danseuse within the golden frame of the great proscenium. The orchestra,
+with its maddening Slavic music, stirred her pulses with a strange
+telepathy. The evening wore along, until the final curtain. Shirley,
+with cumbersome effort helped her with her cloak, dropping his hat and
+stick more than once in simulated awkwardness. The electric numerals of
+the carriage call soon brought the grimy-faced chauffeur.
+
+"Jack on the spot, gov'nor, that's me!" and he swung the door open.
+
+"We'll go get some supper--no, we'll take little 'scursion in Central
+Park, first," and his voice was thick, "correct, cabbie. Drive us shru
+Central Park."
+
+"Are you going to take a chance in a dark park?" Helene asked him,
+as they sat within the car, while the chauffeur cranked. Shirley was
+sharply observing the man. A pedestrian crossed directly in front of the
+machine, brushing against the driver, as he fumbled with the lamp. If
+there were an interchange of words, the criminologist could not detect
+it.
+
+"Surely. The park is good. We can be free of interference from the
+police. Are you afraid?"
+
+"No--" yet, it was a pardonably weak little voice which uttered the
+valiant monosyllable.
+
+"Here, Miss Marigold. Take this revolver. Don't use it until you have
+to, but then don't hesitate a second."
+
+The machine started slowly up the street. Shirley groped about the
+sides and bottom of the car, to make sure that no one could be concealed
+within it. They were advancing up Broadway in leisurely fashion. It
+might have been for the purpose of allowing some to follow. Shirley
+wondered, then sniffed the air suspiciously. The girl looked at him with
+a silent question.
+
+"Quick, tear off your glove and let me have that diamond ring I noticed
+on your finger, the large solitaire, not the dinner ring."
+
+Unquestioningly she obeyed. There was a strange Oriental odor in the
+car--suggestive of an incense. The car was gliding up Central Park West,
+toward one of the road entrances into the Park proper. Shirley's hand
+clutched the ring, tensely. The driver, tactfully looking straight to
+the front, gave no heed to the occupants of the Death Car. He was, by
+this time speeding too rapidly for either of his passengers to have
+leaped out without injury. Shirley understood the smoothness of the
+voice's system, by now. His hand slid to the top of the glass door pane,
+on the right. Down the glass, across the bottom, down from the other
+corner, and then over the top line, he cut with the diamond, using a
+peculiar pressure. He rose to his feet, gave the lower part of the pane
+a sharp tap. The glass, practically cut loose from its case, now
+dropped and would have slid out to the roadway with a crash had he not
+dexterously caught it, to draw it into the car. Quickly he repeated
+the operation with the door pane at the left. A nauseating, weakening
+something in the car sent Helene's head spinning; she choked for breath
+and lay back weakly, despite her will. Shirley turned to the small glass
+square in the rear. This came out more easily. He lay the glass with the
+others, on the floor of the car. The good clear air whirled through the
+openings, reviving the girl.
+
+"Keep your eyes open, and that revolver ready. Now is the time. Pretend
+to sleep."
+
+Shirley had drawn his own automatic by this time, and he realized that
+the machine was slowing down. The chauffeur, as they passed a walk
+light, looked back, observing that the two were apparently unconscious.
+He slowed down still more, and tooted his horn three times. A large
+touring car passed them, to stop some distance ahead. Then it sped on,
+as Shirley's taxi followed lazily.
+
+A figure suddenly came out of the darkness of the road. The driver
+stopped the taxi, and walked around the front, as though to adjust the
+lamp. The door opened slowly. A face covered with a black handkerchief
+obtruded. A hand slid up the detective's knee, along his side toward the
+abdomen, and a protruding thumb began a singular pressure directly below
+the criminologist's heart. Shirley's analysis for Dr. MacDonald had been
+correct! But jiu-jitsu is essentially a game for two.
+
+Shirley's left hand suddenly shot forth to the neck of his assailant.
+His muscular fingers closed in a deft and vice-like pinch directly below
+the silk handkerchief. It was the pneumogastric nerve, which he reached:
+a nerve which, when deadened by Oriental skill, paralyzes the vocal
+chords. Not a sound emanated from the mysterious man, even when
+Shirley's right hand shot forward, under the chin of the other, for a
+deft blow across the thorax. The other tumbled backward.
+
+"What's wrong, Chief? Too much gas?" cried the chauffeur rushing to
+the side of the fallen man. As the driver dropped to his knees, Shirley
+flung himself like a tiger upon the rascal's back. The struggle was
+brief--the same silent silencer accomplished its purpose. Before the
+man knew what had happened to him, he was dragged inside the car, and
+another deft pinch sent him to oblivion!
+
+"Hit him over the forehead with the butt of the revolver if he opens his
+mouth," grunted Shirley. "This is the chauffeur, now I'll get the other
+one."
+
+Just then a cry came from the darkness: it was a passing patrolman.
+
+"What you doing in that auto?"
+
+But Shirley waited for no parley-explanations, showing his hand, laying
+the whole scandal before the morning edition of the newspapers, were all
+out of question now. He must take up the pursuit later. He caught up,
+the chauffeur's cap, sprang into the driver's seat, and the car shot
+forward like a race horse as he threw forward the lever. The astonished
+policeman was within twenty-five yards of the spot, when the auto
+disappeared in the darkness. He pursued it vainly.
+
+A few moments later, a man with a handkerchief across his face, groaned
+and then raised himself on his elbow, there in the roadway. He could not
+remember where he was, nor why. Slowly he crawled on hands and
+knees, into the rhododendrons by the roadside, where he again lost
+consciousness.
+
+A big touring car rounded the curve of the roadway.
+
+"Not a sign of the Chief," said the driver. "He must have gone back to
+the garage with the Monk. But that's a fool idea. Let's get down there
+right away."
+
+The injured man's memory returned, and he rose stiffly to his feet.
+He limped out of the Park, putting away the handkerchief, muttering
+profanity and trying to fathom the mystery. As nearly as he could reason
+it out, he must have been struck by another machine from the rear.
+
+Far up in the northernmost driveway of the Park, where shrub grown banks
+and rocky uplands shelter the thoroughfares, Shirley stopped his runaway
+taxicab.
+
+"Let me have his rubber coat, for I'm going to hide this car out on Long
+Island. It's a long ride, but this man and his machine will disappear as
+completely as though they had been dumped in the ocean."
+
+Shirley manacled the prisoner, and gagged him with a tightly knotted
+handkerchief. He put the greatcoat of Grimsby's about Helene's
+shoulders, as he brought her to the front seat of the machine. Then he
+shut the doors on the prisoner, and drove the automobile out through the
+Easterly entrance of the park.
+
+"I'm not really brave, Mr. Montague," said the tired voice at his side.
+"I'm so glad I'm sitting by you, instead of back inside. We will be home
+soon, won't we? I'm so exhausted--my first day in a strange country, you
+know."
+
+Shirley, with the skill of a racing expert, guided the machine through
+the maze of streets toward the Bridge over the East River. The touch of
+that sweet shoulder, as it unconsciously nestled against his own, sent
+through him a tremor which he had not experienced during the weird
+silent battle in the dark.
+
+"A strange night, in a strange country. Are you sorry you tried it?"
+
+With a sidelong glance, he caught the starry light in her eyes as she
+looked up at him: there seemed more than the mere reflection of passing
+street lamps.
+
+"A wonderful night: I'm glad, so glad, not sorry," was her dreamy
+response. She lapsed into silence as the somnolent drone of the motor
+and the whirr of the wheels caused the tired eyes to close sleepily.
+
+When he looked at her again, as they were speeding down the bridge
+Plaza in Long Island City, she was dozing. The drowsy head touched
+his shoulder; she seemed like a child, worn out with games, trustingly
+asleep in the care of a big, strong brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. A TURN IN THE TRAIL
+
+
+Helene was still asleep when Shirley stopped the engine of the taxi
+before a stately Colonial mansion seated back among the pines of a
+beautiful Long Island estate. They had been driving for more than an
+hour. The girl stirred languorously as he strove to awaken her. She
+murmured drowsily:
+
+"No, Jack, dear. Emphatically no. Let's not talk about it any more, dear
+boy."
+
+"Who can Jack be?" and a surprising pang shot through Montague Shirley's
+heart. "Jack, dear! Well, and what's it my business. She is a stranger.
+She lives her life and I mine. But, at any rate, that settles some silly
+things I've been thinking. I'm less awake than she is."
+
+This time he tried with better success, and Helene rubbed her eyes, with
+hands stiffened by the brisk bite of the chill wind. She gazed at the
+dimly lit house, at the big figure beside her, as Shirley sprang to the
+ground--then remembered it all, and trembled despite herself.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Mr. Shirley," and she summoned up a little throaty laugh,
+as she arose stiffly. "What a queer place to be in!"
+
+"We are a long way from New York's white lights, Miss Marigold. This is
+the country home of a good old friend of mine. You can remain here for
+the rest of the night, as his wife's guest. To-morrow, when you are
+rested, he can send you to the city in one of his cars."
+
+"You are the most curious man in two continents. I am bewildered. First,
+you kidnap a chauffeur and privateer his car, then me. Now you besiege a
+friend and wish to leave me on his doorstep as a foundling."
+
+"I'm sorry--it's the exigency of war! We must finish what we started.
+This is the only place I know where I could thoroughly hide my trail. We
+must wake up Jim, but first I will have a look at our guest."
+
+Shirley walked around the car, shooting the beam from his pocket
+flashlight in through the open window of the taxi, to be met by
+the wicked black eyes of his prisoner, who uttered volumes of
+unpronounceable hatred.
+
+"You are still with us, little bright eyes. A pleasant trip, I trust? I
+hope you found the air good--I tried to improve the ventilation for your
+benefit, as well as my own." Only a subdued gurgle answered him.
+
+"Oh, what will they think of me--in this immodest gown, with this paint
+on my face, and at this hour of night?" pleaded Helene, as he started
+toward the door of the mansion.
+
+"It would be awful at that," and Shirley paused at the beseeching tone
+of the girl. "I want you to meet Mrs. Jim as well as Jim. I am afraid
+they would think this was the echo of an old college escapade, and
+misjudge you. Let me think--"
+
+He led her to a little summer-house close by, and tucked the big coat
+about her as he added: "It's dark here--the wind doesn't reach you, and
+I'll take you back to town in five minutes. Will that do?"
+
+As she nodded, he hurried to the door where he yanked vigorously at the
+bell. An angry head protruded from an upper story, after many encores of
+the peals.
+
+"Aw, what the dickens? Go some place else and find out!"
+
+"Jim, Jim. It's Monty! Come down and let me in quick."
+
+The window closed with a bang as the head was withdrawn, while a light
+soon appeared in the beveled panes of the big front door.
+
+"You poor boob," was the cheerful greeting as it swung wide, "What
+brings you out here? I thought it was the usual joy party which had lost
+its way. They always pick me out for an information bureau. Come on in!"
+
+Shirley spoke rapidly, in a low tone. The girl in the dark summer-house
+marveled at the rapid change of mien, as Jim suddenly ran down the steps
+to gaze into the taxicab, then nodding to Shirley. The house-holder
+as promptly returned through his front door, while Shirley swiftly
+unmanacled the prisoner enough to let him walk, stiff and awkward from
+the long ordeal in the car. The stern grip, of his captor prompted
+obedience.
+
+Friend Jim had appeared with warmer garments, carrying a lantern. At the
+door of the stable Jim's stentorian yell to the groom seemed useless,
+but the two men entered. Helene felt miserably weak and deserted, in
+the chill night, but she was cheered by seeing the energetic Shirley
+reappear, pushing open the doors of the garage, which was connected with
+the stable. He hurried to the deserted taxicab, where he seemed busied
+for several minutes, the glow of his pocket lamp shooting out now and
+then. Through the door of the garage a long, rakish-looking racing car
+was being pushed out by Jim and his sleepy groom. There was a cheery
+shout from the taxi, and Helene heard a ripping sound. Shirley
+reappeared, carrying an oblong box.
+
+"I have the gas generator:--it was built in, under the seat, and
+controlled by a battery wire from the front lamp, Jim. A nice little
+mechanism. Well, old pal, please apologize to Mrs. Merrivale for my rude
+interruption of her beauty sleep. Keep a fatherly eye on Gentleman Mike,
+and the taxicab under cover. I'll communicate with you very soon. So
+long."
+
+To Helene's amazement, Shirley cranked the racer, jumped in and seemed
+to be starting away without her, down the sweep of the driveway. Could
+he have forgotten her? The man must indeed be mad, as some of his
+actions indicated! But her aroused indignation was turned to admiration
+of his finesse, for suddenly he veered the lights of the car toward
+the garage door, throwing them in the faces of Jim and his servant. He
+leaped out again, walking past the place of concealment.
+
+"Slip into the car, while I go inside with them. I'll come out on the
+run, and no one will be the wiser."
+
+With this passing stage direction he rushed toward his accomodating
+friend, with some final directions. They were apparently humorous in
+content, for both the other men roared with mirth, as he walked inside
+the building, with them, an arm around the shoulder of each. Helene
+obeyed him, hiding as best she could in the low seat of the throbbing
+machine. As Shirley returned, Jim Merrivale was still laughing blithely.
+
+"Good-bye, you old maniac: you'll be the death of me. I'll take care of
+the star boarder, however, and feed him champagne and mushrooms."
+
+With a roar, Shirley started the engines, as he bounced into the seat,
+and they sped down the curving driveway, with Helene leaning forward,
+unobserved.
+
+"There, we've had a little by-play that friend Jim didn't guess. I
+always enjoy a little intrigue," he laughed, as they whizzed along
+toward distant New York. "But, I had to lie, and lie, and lie--like the
+light that lies in women's eyes. What a jolly game!"
+
+He was a big boy, happy in the excitement, and bubbling with his
+superabundance of vitality. Helene felt curiously drawn toward him, in
+this mood: she remembered a little paragraph she had read in a book that
+day:
+
+"A woman loves a man for the boy spirit that she discovers in him: she
+loves him out of pity when it dies!" Then she fearsomely changed the
+current of her thoughts, to complain pathetically of the cold wind!
+
+"There, now, I am so thoughtless," was his apology, as he stopped
+the car, to wrap the overcoat more closely about her, and tuck her
+comfortably in a big fur. Through the darkened streets of the suburb
+they raced, entering the silent factory districts, which presaged the
+nearness of the river. It was well on toward daybreak before they rolled
+over the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan. It was his second day without
+sleep, but Shirley was sustained by the bizarre nature of the exploit:
+he could have kept at the steering wheel for an eternity.
+
+"Are you glad we're getting back?" he asked. Helene shook her head, then
+she answered dreamily.
+
+"Do you remember something from one of Browning's poems, that I do? It's
+just silly for us, but I understand it better now."
+
+Shirley surprised her by quoting it, as he looked ahead into the dark
+street through which they swung, his unswerving hand steady on the
+wheel:
+
+    "What if we still ride on, we two,
+     With life forever old yet new,
+     Changed not in kind, but in degree,
+     The instant made eternity,--
+     And heaven just prove that I and she
+     Ride, ride together, forever ride?"
+
+A quick flush, not caused by the biting wind, suffused her cheek beneath
+the remnants of the rouge. Then she laughed up at him appreciatively.
+
+"Curious how our minds ran that way, and hit the very same poem, wasn't
+it?"
+
+Shirley smiled back, as he swung down Fifth Avenue.
+
+"Not so curious after all!"
+
+Soon they drew up before the ornate portal of the California Hotel,
+where late arrivals were so customary as to cause no comment. He bade
+her good-night, words seeming futile after their long hours together.
+The drive in the car to the club was short. Paddy the door man was
+instructed to send down to Shirley's own garage for a mechanic to store
+the car until further orders. The criminologist had ere this rubbed off
+his grease paint, so that his appearance was not unusual. Once in his
+rooms he treated himself to a piping hot shower, cleaned off the powder
+from his dark locks, and as he smoked a soothing cigarette, in his
+bathrobe, studied the mechanism of the gas generator for a few moments.
+
+"That was made by an expert who understands infernal machines with a
+malevolent genius. I must look out for him," he mused. "Well, I promised
+Professor MacDonald that I would not sleep until I had come face to face
+with the voice. I have fulfilled the vow: now for forgetfulness."
+
+He tumbled into bed, but not to oblivion. For his dreams were disturbed
+by tantalizing visions of certain sun-gold locks and blue eyes not at
+all in their simple connection with the business end of the Van Cleft
+mystery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE HAND OF THE VOICE
+
+
+It took stoicism to the Nth degree for Shirley to respond to the early
+telephone call next morning, from the clerk of the club. A few minutes
+of violent exercise, in the hand ball court, the plunge, a short swim in
+the natatorium and a rub down from the Swedish masseur, however, brought
+him around to the mood for another adventure. Sending for the racing
+car he began the round-up of details. There was, first of all, Captain
+Cronin to be visited in Bellevue. Here he was agreeably surprised to
+find the detective chief recuperating with the abettance of his rugged
+Celtic physique. The nurse told Shirley that another day's treatment
+would allow the Captain to return to his own home: Shirley knew this
+meant the executive office of the Holland Detective Agency.
+
+"And sure, Monty, when I have a free foot once again, I'm going to apply
+it to them gangsters who put me to sleep."
+
+"Just what I want you to do, Captain! I 'phoned to your men this morning
+while I had breakfast at the club: they have that taxicab which was left
+near Van Cleft's house. It's put away safely, Cleary said. There are two
+gangsters where the dogs won't bite them; today they are sending out to
+Jim Merrivale's house to get the third and he'll be busy with a little
+private third degree. I have no evidence which would connect the man
+who tried to kill me last night with the other murders, except in a
+circumstantial way. What I must do is to follow up the trail, and get
+the gentleman carrying out the bales, in other words, with the goods on
+him."
+
+"You'll get him, Monty, if I know you. The fellow hasn't called up at
+all on the telephone to-day. I think he's afraid of you."
+
+"No, Captain Cronin, not that! He's up to some new game. Well, I'm
+off--take care of yourself and don't eat anything the nurse doesn't
+bring you with her own hands. I wouldn't put anything past this gang."
+
+He shook hands and hurried out of the hospital, with several more
+errands to complete. He looked vainly about him for the gray racing-car.
+It was gone! Here was another unexpected interference with his work, and
+Shirley, sotto voce, expressed himself more practically than politely.
+He hurried to an ambulance driver who stood in a doorway, solacing his
+jangled nerves with a corn-cob smoke.
+
+"Neighbor, did you see any one take the gray car standing here a few
+minutes ago?"
+
+"Yep, a feller just came out of the hospital entry, cranked her and
+jumped in."
+
+"How long ago?"
+
+"Well, I just returned with a suicide actor case five minutes ago."
+
+"Then you might have seen him enter first?"
+
+"Nope. Not a sign. All I seen was the way he cranked the machine, and
+he didn't waste any elbow grease doin' it, either. He knew the trick.
+That's what I thought when I seen him, even if he did look like a dude."
+
+Shirley hurried to the entry once more. This was the only portal through
+which visitors were admitted to the hospital for the purpose of calling
+on patients. He hastened to the uniformed attendant who took down the
+names of all applicants. This man, upon inquiry, was a trifle dubious.
+True, there had been two Italian women and before them--yes, there had
+been a young chap with a green velour hat, and white spats. He had asked
+about a Captain Cronin, and when told that a visitor was already seeing
+the patient, agreed to wait outside. It had been about five minutes
+before. The man was indefinite about more details. Shirley hurried to
+the telephone booth in the corridor. To Headquarters he reported the
+theft of car "99835 N.Y.," giving a description of its special features
+and its make. This warning he knew would be telephoned to all stations
+within five minutes, so that every policeman in New York would be on
+the lookout for the missing machine. Satisfied, he left the hospital, to
+walk across the long block to the nearest north and south avenue, where
+he might catch a surface car.
+
+Suddenly he halted, to mutter in astonishment at a sight which was the
+surprise of the morning: it was the missing car standing peacefully on
+the next corner.
+
+"I wonder what that means?" he murmured, as he stopped to study with
+great interest the window of an Italian green grocer. A sidelong glance
+at the car and its surroundings revealed nothing out of the way. He
+retraced his steps to the hospital, wasted ten minutes with a cigarette
+or two, and still no one seemed to take an interest in the automobile.
+Finally he walked up to the car, trying the lock of which he had the
+only key. Apparently it had been untampered with, for the key worked
+perfectly. Here was Jim Merrivale's car, a good three hundred yards away
+from the place where he had locked it to prevent any moving. He felt
+certain that keen eyes had him under surveillance, yet he could not
+observe any observers within the range of his own vision. It was simply
+a stupid, quiet slum neighborhood and at the time, unusually deserted by
+the customary hordes of children and dogs!
+
+What had been the purpose in moving it such a short distance?
+
+Where had it been in the twenty-five minutes since he had left it at the
+entrance to the hospital?
+
+Why had it been left here, of all places, where he would naturally walk
+if desirous of taking a street-car?
+
+There seemed no immediate answer to the conundrums. So, he nonchalantly
+clambered into the car, after cranking it. The mechanism seemed in
+perfect order. Puzzled, he started to speed up the street, when he
+observed a white envelope close by his foot, on the floor of the car.
+
+He picked it up, and tearing it open quickly read this simple message.
+
+"To whom it may concern: It is frequently advisable to mind your own
+business--is it not? Answer: Yes!"
+
+"Huh," grunted Shirley. "While not thrilling in originality, it is a
+lasting truth which nobody can deny. I'll save this and frame it on the
+walls of my rooms."
+
+As he drove around the corner and up the Avenue, there was suddenly a
+terrific explosion, which threw him completely out of the machine!
+The car, without a driver, its engines whirring madly, dashed into a
+helpless corner fruit stand, scattering oranges, bananas, apples and
+desolation in its wake, as it vainly endeavored to climb to the second
+story with super-mechanical intelligence! Shirley, stunned and bruised,
+fell to the pavement where he lay until an excited patrolman rushed to
+his rescue.
+
+A little "first aid" work brought Shirley back to consciousness, and he
+stiffly rose to his feet, with a head throbbing too much for any real
+thinking.
+
+"What's the matter with your auto?" cried the policeman. "Can't you run
+it? Let's see the number." The officer took out his notebook, to jot
+down the details according to police rules. Then he turned on Shirley in
+amazement. "Be gorry, it's car 99835 N.Y. I just wrote the number down
+when I came on post with my squad! This car is stolen. You come with
+me!"
+
+Shirley had been adjusting the mechanism, and the wheels had ceased
+their whirring. He tried to expostulate in a dazed way, realizing that
+for once the department was working with a vengeful promptness. He was
+hoist by his own petard!
+
+"I'm the owner of the car," he began, rubbing his aching forehead.
+
+"What's yer name?"
+
+"Montague Shirley!" The policeman laughed, as he caught the
+criminologist by the shoulder, and blew his whistle for another man from
+post duty.
+
+"You lie. This car is owned by James Merrivale. You can't put over
+raw stuff like that on me. I'm no rookie--Here, Joe," (as the other
+policeman ran up through the growing, jeering crowd,) "watch this
+machine. This guy's one of them auto Raffles, and I done a good job when
+I lands him. I'm going to the station-house now."
+
+The other policeman was examining the car, when he called to his fellow
+officer: "Here, Sim, did you see this car was blown up inside the seat?"
+
+Shirley, his acuteness returned by this time, ran to the car eluding his
+captor's hold. He had not observed before the jagged shattered hole torn
+in the side of the leather side. It had all happened so swiftly, that
+his professional instincts were slow in reasserting themselves after the
+"buck" of the car.
+
+"You're right," he exclaimed. "There's an alarm clock and a dry
+battery--the same man made this who built the gas-generator--"
+
+"Whadd'ye mean--ain't you the feller after all?" asked the first
+patrolman, beginning to get dubious about his arrest.
+
+"No, I am no thief. But just take me to the station-house quick, and
+turn in your report. Let this other man guard that car. Hurry up!"
+
+"Say, feller, who do you think is making this arrest? You'll go to the
+station-house when I get ready."
+
+"Then you're ready now," snapped the criminologist. "You'll see me
+discharged very promptly, when I speak to the Commissioner over the
+wire."
+
+The officer was supercilious until the station-house was reached. He
+had heard this blatant talk before. What was his surprise when Shirley
+telephoned to the head of the Department and then called the Captain to
+the instrument.
+
+"Release Mr. Shirley at once," was the crisp order. "Give him any men or
+assistance he needs."
+
+"Well, whadd'ye know about that? Not even entered on the blotter to
+credit me with a good arrest!" The patrolman turned away in disgust.
+
+"Do you want any of the reserves, sir?" The Captain was scrupulously
+polite.
+
+"Not one. I'm going to study that machine again. You might detail a
+plain clothes man to walk along the other side of the street for luck.
+Good-day."
+
+The automobile to which he returned was still the object of community
+interest. Shirley took the remains of the bomb which had caused his
+sudden elevation. The policeman approached him from the fruit store.
+
+"The man wants damages for the stock you destroyed, mister. I'll fix it
+up with him if you want--about twenty-five dollars will do."
+
+"Well, hand him this five-dollar bill and see if that won't dry some of
+the imported tears," retorted Shirley with a laugh. In a few minutes he
+was bowling along on a surface car, to the club. There was no longer any
+use in trying to hide his identity or address, for the conspirators knew
+at least of his interest and assistance in the case: although in this as
+all others he was not known to be a professional sleuth.
+
+In the quiet of his room he drew out magnifying glasses and other
+instruments for a thorough analysis of the remains of the infernal
+machine. He compared this with the mechanism of the gas-generator which
+had been placed in the seat of the Death taxi. There was evidence that
+it had come from the same source. Shirley sniffed at the generator and
+the peculiar odor still clinging to it was familiar.
+
+"Well, I think I will have a little surprise for Mr. Voice, the next
+time we grapple, which will be an encore of his own tune, with a new
+verse!"
+
+He went to a cabinet, took out a small glass vial, filled with a limpid
+liquid and placed it within his own pocket. Then he prepared for a new
+line of activities for the day. His first duty was a call on Pat Cleary,
+superintendent of the Holland Agency.
+
+"The Captain is progressing splendidly," was his answer to the anxious
+query. "He will be back in the harness again to-morrow. How are the
+prisoners?"
+
+"They have tried to break out twice and gave my doorman a black eye. But
+they got four in return: Nick is no mollycoddle, you know. I can't quite
+get the number of these fellows, for they are not registered down at
+Headquarters, in the Rogue's Gallery. Their finger-prints are new ones
+in this district, too. They look like imported birds, Mr. Shirley. What
+do you think?"
+
+Cleary's opinion of the club man had been gaining in ascendency.
+
+"They may be visitors from another city, but I think the state will keep
+them here as guests for a nice long time, Cleary. They say New York is
+inhospitable to strangers, but we occasionally pay for board and room
+from the funds of the taxpayers without a kick. We saved the day for the
+Van Clefts, all right. The paper told of a beautiful but quiet funeral
+ceremony, while the daughter has postponed her marriage for six months."
+
+Then he recounted the adventure of the exploding car. Cleary lit his
+malodorous pipe, and shook his head thoughtfully.
+
+"Young man, you know your own affairs best. But with all your money,
+you'd better take to the tall pines yourself, like these old guys in
+the 'Lobster Club.' That's the advice of a man who's in the business for
+money not glory. This is a bum game. They'll get me some day, some of
+these yeggs or bunk artists that I've sent away for recuperation, as
+the doctors call it. But I'm doing it for bread and beefsteak, while it
+lasts. You run along and play--a good way from the fire, or you'll get
+more than your fingers burnt. Take their hint and beat it while the
+beating's good."
+
+A glint of steel shone from the eyes of the criminologist as he lit
+another cigarette and took up his walking-stick.
+
+"Why, Cleary, this is what I call real sport. Why go hunting polar bears
+and tigers when we've got all this human game around the Gold Coast of
+Manhattan? I'm tired of furs: I want a few scalps. Good-morning."
+
+As Cleary went up the stairway to renew the ginger of the Third Degree
+for the two prisoners, he smiled to himself, and muttered:
+
+"The guy ain't such a boob as he looks: he's just a high-class nut. I'd
+enjoy it myself if it wasn't my regular work."
+
+At Dick Holloway's office Shirley was greeted with an eager demand for
+his report of the former evening's activities. An envious look was on
+the face of the theatrical manager.
+
+"Shucks, Monty! It's a shame that all this sport is private stock, and
+can't be bottled up and peddled to the public, for they're just crazy
+about gangster melodrama. They're paying opera prices for the old time
+ten-twent-and-thirt-melodrama, right on Broadway. Hurry up and get the
+man and I'll have him dramatized while the craze is rampant."
+
+"Not while I own the copyright," retorted Shirley, "this is one of the
+chapters of my life that isn't going to be typewritten, much less the
+subject of gate-receipts."
+
+"I'm not so certain of that," and Holloway's smile was quizzical.
+
+"What do you mean? Who is this Helene Marigold? I have a right to know
+in a case like this."
+
+"Good intuition, as far as you go. But you're guessing wrong, for she
+has nothing to do with my little joke. But why worry about her?" laughed
+Holloway. His friend had leaned forward, intensely, clutching his cane,
+with an unusually serious look on his face. Holloway had never seen
+Shirley take such an interest in any woman before. He arose from
+his desk-chair and walked to the broad window, which overlooked the
+thronging sidewalks of Broadway.
+
+"Down there is the biggest, busiest street in the world filled with
+women of all hues and shades. This is the first time you ever looked so
+anxious about any combination of lace, curls, silks and gew-gaws before.
+You have been the bright and shining example of indifferent bachelor
+freedom which has made me--thrice divorced--so envious of your
+unalloyed, unalimonied joy. Don't betray the feet of clay which have
+supported my idol!"
+
+The baffling smile of the debonair club man returned to Shirley's face,
+as he twitted back: "Purely an altruistic inquiry, Dick. I feared that
+you might be risking your own heart and the modicum of freedom which you
+still possess. But I'll wager a supper-party for four that I'll find out
+who she is, without either you or she telling me."
+
+"Taken. At last I'm to have a free banquet, after years of business
+entertaining. You have met a girl who will match your wits--I expect the
+sparks to fly. Well, she's worth while--I might do worse--but in perfect
+fairness she ought to do better. How about it?"
+
+"Yes, with Jack," and Shirley tapped the walking stick on the floor with
+an emphatic thump, while Holloway regarded him in startled surprise.
+
+"Who is Jack?"
+
+"You see--I am learning already. But, you and I are drifting from my
+task. I wish that you would take me to call on Miss Marigold, in my
+present lack of disguise. I do not care for that ancient garb any
+longer. It was stretching the chances rather far, but thanks to the
+darkness, the champagne, and good fortune, I succeeded in impersonating
+our aged friend without detection. I will not return to Grimsby's house,
+but propose now to get down to brass tacks with Mr. Voice, even though
+the tacks be hard to sit upon. I wish to use her as a bait, by taking
+her out to tea and getting a first-hand speaking acquaintance with these
+convivial assassins."
+
+"Monty, you are wasting your talents outside the pages of a play
+manuscript, but we will make that call instanter."
+
+In leisure, they promenaded up the crowded Gay Wide Way, through the
+noontime crowd of theatrical folk who dot the thoroughfare in this part
+of the city. His adversaries were to have every opportunity to observe
+his movements and draw their own conclusions. At the Hotel California
+new comment buzzed between the garrulous clerk and the switchboard
+person, at sight of the well-known manager and his prosperous-looking
+companion.
+
+"Who is that come on?" asked the clerk of the bellboy.
+
+"Sure, dat's Montague Shirley, one of dem rich ginks from de College
+Club on Forty-fourth Street, where I used to woik in de check room. If I
+had dat guy's money I'd buy a hotel like dis."
+
+"Then I see where Holloway, with that blonde dame upstairs, will be
+putting on a new musical show, with a new angel. It's a great business,
+Miss Gwendolyn--no wonder they call it art." And the clerk removed a
+silk handkerchief from his coat cuff, to dust the register wistfully.
+"Why didn't I devote my talents to the drama instead of room-keys and
+due-bills?"
+
+But Miss Gwendolyn was too busy talking to the Milwaukee drummer in Room
+72 to formulate a logical reason. Shirley and Holloway improved the time
+by taking the elevator to the top floor where Helene greeted them at the
+door of her pretty apartment. She welcomed them happily, declaring it
+had been a lonesome morning.
+
+"Weren't you resting from that long thrill of last night, in which you
+starred?" asked Holloway.
+
+"It was too thrilling for me to sleep: I know I look a perfect frump,
+this morning. I tossed on the pillow, watching the dawn over your
+towering New York roofs, so nervous and almost miserable. But, with
+company, it's all right again."
+
+Holloway laughed inwardly at the warmth of the glance which she bestowed
+upon Shirley. From the angle of an audience, he was beginning to observe
+a phase of this double play of personalities which was unseen by either
+of the participants. Two sleepless nights, after such a first evening
+together, and what then? He imagined the denouement, with a growing
+enjoyment of his vantage-point as the game advanced.
+
+"To-day, I am reversing the usual progress of history," said Shirley, as
+he sat down in the window-seat. "From second juvenility I am returning
+to the first. In other words, I wish to become your adoring suitor in
+the role of Montague Shirley."
+
+"I don't understand," and her eyes widened in wonder, not without an
+accompanying blush which did not escape Holloway.
+
+"No longer a lamb in sheep's clothing, I want to entertain you, without
+the halo of William Grimsby's millions. I want to take tea with these
+gentle-voiced cut-throats, who after my warning to-day, are directing
+their attention to me." He narrated the narrow escape from death in
+the racing-car. Helene's eyes darkened with an uncertainty which he had
+hardly expected. Perhaps she would refuse to carry out their compact
+along these dangerous lines.
+
+"Do you feel it wise to place yourself beneath this new menace?"
+
+"The sword of Damocles is over me now, I know. To run would be a
+confession of weakness and open the field for his further activities,
+with the rear-guard continuously exposed. There is nothing like the
+personal equation. I will call at five this afternoon, if you are
+willing, Miss Marigold?"
+
+"I will fight it out to the end," and she placed her warm hand firmly
+within his own. The two friends departed, Shirley retracing his steps to
+the club where many things were to be studied and planned. His system
+of debit and credit records of facts known and needed, was one which
+brought finite results. As he smoked and pondered at his ease, a tapping
+on the study door aroused him from his vagrant speculations. At his
+call, a respectful Japanese servant presented a note, just left by a
+messenger-boy. He tore the envelope and read it.
+
+"Montague Shirley:--The third time is finis. As a friend you
+accomplished the purpose you sought. There is no grudge against you.
+Why seek one? It is fatal for you to remain in the city. Leave while you
+have time."
+
+That was all. The chirography was the same as that upon the note of the
+racing-car episode. Shirley locked up the missive in his cabinet, and
+smiled at the increasing tenseness of the situation.
+
+"The writer of these two notes may have an opportunity to leave town
+himself before long, to rest his nerves in the quiet valley of the
+Hudson, at Ossining. My friend the enemy will soon be realizing a
+deficit in his rolling-stock and gentlemanly assistants. Two automobiles
+and three prisoners to date. There should be additional results before
+midnight. I wonder where he gardens into fruition these flowers of
+crime?"
+
+And even as he pondered, a curious scene was being enacted within a
+dozen city blocks of the commodious club house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE SPIDER'S WEB
+
+
+The setting was a bleak and musty cellar, beneath an old stable of
+dingy, brick construction. The building had been modernized to the
+extent of one single decoration on the street front, an electric sign:
+"Garage." On the floor, level with the sidewalk, stood half a dozen
+automobiles of varied manufacture and age. Near the wide swinging
+doors of oak, stood a big, black limousine. Two taxicabs of the usual
+appearance occupied the space next to this, while a handsome machine
+faced them on the opposite side of the room. Two ancient machines were
+backed against the wall, in the rear.
+
+In the basement beneath, several men were grouped in the front
+compartment, which was separated by a thick wooden partition from the
+rear of the cellar. Three dusty incandescents illuminated this space. In
+the back a curious arrangement of two large automobile headlights set on
+deal tables directed glaring rays toward the one door of the partition.
+In the center of the rear room was another table, standing behind a
+screen of wire gauze, at the bottom of which was cut a small semicircle,
+large enough for the protrusion of a white, tense hand, whose fingers
+were even now spasmodically clenching in nervous indication of fury.
+Behind either lamp was a heavy black screen, which effectually shut off
+ingress to that portion of the room.
+
+The man standing between the table and the closed door of the partition,
+full in the light of the lamps, watched the hand as though fascinated.
+He could see nothing else, for behind the gauze all was darkness.
+Absolutely invisible, sat the possessor of the hand, observing the face
+of his interviewer, on the brighter side of the gauze.
+
+"So, there's no word from the Monk?"
+
+"No, chief. De bloke's disappeared. Either he got so much swag offen dis
+old Grimsby guy, after youse got de bumps, or he had cold feet and beat
+it wid de machine."
+
+"It's a crooked game on me." rasped the voice behind the screen. "I'll
+send him up for this. You know how far my lines go out. What about Dutch
+Jake and Ben the Bite?"
+
+The man before the screen shook his head in helpless bewilderment There
+was a suggestion of fright in his manner, as well.
+
+"Can't find out a t'ing, gov'nor. I hopes you don't blame me for dis.
+I'm doin' my share. Dey just disappears dat night w'en you sends 'em to
+shadder Van Cleft's joint. My calcerlation is--"
+
+"I'm not paying you to calculate. I've trusted you and lost six thousand
+dollars' worth of automobiles for my pains. You can just calculate this,
+that unless I get some news about Jake, Ben and the Monk by this time
+tomorrow, I'll send some news down to Police headquarters on Lafayette
+Street that will make you wish you had never been born."
+
+For some reason not difficult to guess, the suggestion had a galvanic
+effect on the bewildered one. His hands trembled as he raised them
+imploringly to the screen.
+
+"Oh, gov'nor, wot have I done? Ain't I been on de level wid yez? Say,
+I ain't never even seen yez for de fourteen months I've been yer
+gobetween. I've been beat up by de cops, pinched and sent to de
+workhouse 'cause I wouldn't squeal, and now ye t'reatens me. Did I ever
+fall down on a trick ontil dis week? You'se ain't goin' ter welch on me,
+are you'se? I ain't no welcher meself, an' ye knows it."
+
+The other snapped out curtly: "Very well, cut out the sob stuff. It's
+up to you to prove that there hasn't been a leak somewhere or a double
+cross. Send in those rummies,--I want to give them the once over again.
+There's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, and I'm no abolitionist!
+Quick now. Get a wiggle on."
+
+The hand was withdrawn from the little opening, as the lieutenant
+advanced into the front compartment of the cellar. He beckoned meaningly
+to the others to follow him. They obeyed with a slinking walk, which
+showed that they were obsessed by some great dread, in that unseen
+presence, in the heart of the spider-web!
+
+"Which one of you is the stool pigeon," came the harsh query.
+
+"W'y, gov'nor, none of us. You'se knows us," whined one of the men.
+
+"Yes, and I know enough to send you all to Atlanta or Sing Sing or
+Danamora, for the rest of your rotten lives, if I want to."
+
+The rascals stared vainly into the black vacuum of the screen, blinking
+in the glaring lights, cowering instinctively before the unseen but
+certain malignancy of the power behind that mysterious wall.
+
+"I brought you here to New York," continued the master, "you are making
+more money with less work and risk than ever before. But you're playing
+false with me, and I know some one is slipping information where it
+oughtn't to go. I'm going to skin alive the one who I catch. There's one
+eye that never sleeps, don't forget that."
+
+"Gee, boss, wot do we know to slip?" advanced the most forward of them.
+"We follers orders, and gets our kale and dat's all. We ain't never
+even seen ya, and don't know even wot de whole game is. Don't queer us,
+gov'nor!"
+
+"Go out front again, and shut off this blab. I warn you that's all-Now,
+Phil, give this to the men. Tell them to keep off the cocaine--they're
+getting to be a lot of bone heads lately. Too much dope will spoil the
+best crook in the world."
+
+The white hand passed out a roll of crisp, new currency to the
+lieutenant of the gang, who gingerly reached for it, as though he
+expected the tapering fingers to claw him.
+
+"Fifty dollars to each man. No holding out. Remember, every one of them
+is spying on the other to me. I'm not a Rip Van Winkle. Now, I want
+you to keep this fellow Montague Shirley covered but don't put him away
+until I give you the word. Send the bunch upstairs, for I don't want to
+be disturbed the next two hours. And just keep off the coke yourself.
+You're scratching your face a good deal these days--I know the signs."
+
+Phil expostulated nervously. "Oh, gov'nor, I ain't no fiend--just once
+and a while I gets a little rummy, and brightens up. It takes too much
+money to git it now, anyway. Goodbye, chief."
+
+As he closed the wooden door to pay the gangsters, there was a
+slight grating noise, which followed a double click. A bar of wood
+automatically slid down into position behind the door, blocking a
+possible opening from the front of the cellar. The lights suddenly were
+darkened. The sound of shuffling feet would have indicated to a listener
+that the owner of the nervous hand was retreating to the rear of the
+darkened den. A noise resembling that of the turn of a rusty hinge
+might have then been heard: there was a metallic clang, the rattle of a
+sliding chain and the rear room was as empty as it was black!
+
+In the front room, after payment from the red-headed ruffian, Phil, the
+men clambered in single file up a wooden ladder to the street level.
+A trap-door was put into place and closed. Then the men began to shoot
+"craps" for a readjustment of the spoils, with the result that Red Phil,
+as his henchmen called him, was the smiling possessor of most of the
+money, without the erstwhile necessity of "holding out."
+
+Then the gangsters scattered to the nearby gin-shops to while away the
+time before darkness should call for their evil activities. It was a
+cheerful little assortment of desperadoes, yet in appearance they
+did not differ from most of the habitues of New York garages, those
+cesspools of urban criminality.
+
+From his club, Shirley telephoned Jim Merrivale in his downtown office,
+purposely giving another name, as he addressed his friend--a pseudonym
+upon which they had agreed during the night call. Shirley was suspicious
+of all telephones, by this time, and his guarded inquiry gave no
+possible clue to a wiretapping eavesdropper.
+
+"How is the new bull-dog?" was the question, after the first guarded
+greeting. "Is he still muzzled?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Smith," responded Merrivale, "and the meanest specimen I have
+ever seen outside a Zoo! When I sent the groom out to feed him this
+morning, he snarled and tried to claw him. He's on a hunger strike. I
+looked up the license number on his collar but he's not registered in
+this state." (This, Shirley knew, meant the automobile tag under the
+machine which had been captured.)
+
+"When are you apt to send for him--I don't think I'll keep him any
+longer than I can help."
+
+"I'll send out from the dog store, with a letter signed by me. Feed him
+a little croton oil to cure his disposition. Good-bye, for now, Jim.
+I'll write you, this day."
+
+Shirley hung up, and smiled with satisfaction at the news. The man would
+be glad to get bread and water, before long, he felt assured. However,
+he despatched a note to Cleary, of the Holland Agency, enclosing a
+written order to Merrivale to deliver over the prisoner, for safer
+keeping in the city.
+
+This disposed of the started out from the club house for his afternoon
+of dissipation. As he left the doorway, he noticed the two men with the
+black caps standing not far away. They were engrossed in the rolling of
+cigarettes, but the swift glance which they shot at him did not escape
+Monty.
+
+"Like the poor and the bill collectors, they are always with us," was
+his thought, as he calmly strolled over to the Hotel California. He
+determined to place them in a quiet, sheltered retreat at the earliest
+opportunity. He found Helene more attractive than ever.
+
+"Shall I put on this wretched rouge again to-day," was the plaintive
+question, after the first greeting. "I hate it so--and yet, will do
+whatever you order."
+
+"Your role calls for it, my dear girl. Perhaps we may close the dramatic
+engagement sooner than we expect. To-night should be an eventful one,
+for I will accept every lead which Reginald Warren offers. I would like
+to have a record of his voice, and that of some of his friends. There
+is a difference between the telephone voice and that heard face to
+face,--you would be a good witness if I could persuade him to sing or
+speak for me into a record. You can straighten out the difficulties of
+this case, if you will, in a thoroughly feminine manner."
+
+"And what, sir, is that, I pray you?"
+
+"Give him the opportunity--to fall in love with you."
+
+Helene's cheeks flushed a stronger carmine than the rouge which she was
+administering, as she looked up in quick embarrassment.
+
+"I don't want him to love me. I want no man to love me," was the
+petulant answer.
+
+"Doubtless you have reason to be satisfied as things are," replied
+Shirley, puffing a cigarette, "but the softness of cerebral conditions
+increases in direct ratio with the mushiness of the affections. If it
+is important to us--and you are my partner in this fascinating business
+venture--will you not sacrifice your emotions to that extent: merely
+to let him lead himself on, as most men do?" He paused for a critical
+observation of her, and then added: "You are even more beautiful to-day
+than you were yesterday. He cannot help loving you if he is given the
+chance!"
+
+Helene's white fingers crushed the orchid which she was pinning to the
+bosom of her gown. Her intent gaze met the mask of Shirley's ingenuous
+smile, reading in his telltale eyes a message which needed no court
+interpreter! Quickly she turned to her mirror to put the finishing
+touches to her coiffure, the golden curls so alluringly wilful.
+
+"Your flattery, sir, is very cruel. Beware! I may take it seriously.
+What would happen if my verdant heart were to fall a victim to the
+cunning wiles of the voice? Remember, I have only met two men, since I
+came to America, yesterday. And they are both pronounced woman-haters.
+I will take you at your word, about Mr. Reginald Warren, and loosen my
+blandishments to the best of my rustic ability."
+
+A wayward twinkle in her eyes should have warned Shirley that she was
+planning a little mischief. But, he was too preoccupied in finding the
+real front of her baffling street cloak to observe it. They left for
+the tearoom, while Helene still laughed to herself over certain subtle
+possibilities which she saw in the situation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A PILGRIMAGE INTO FRIVOLITY
+
+
+Rather early, again, for the usual throng, they were able to choose
+their position to their liking: to-day, it was in the center of the big
+room, close by the space cleared for the dancing. Gradually the tables
+were occupied, apparently by the identical people of the afternoon
+before, so marked is the peculiar character of the dance-mad
+individuality. To-day he varied his menu with a mild order of
+cocktails--for now he was not emulating the Epicurean record of the
+bibulous Grimsby. They observed with amusement the weird contortions,
+seldom graced by a vestige of rhythm or beauty, with which the intent
+dancers spun and zigzagged.
+
+"Considering how much money they pay to learn these steps from
+dancing-masters, there is unusually small value in the market, Miss
+Marigold. I resigned myself to the approach of the sunset years, and
+became a voluntary exile in the garden of the wallflowers, when society
+dancing became mathematical."
+
+"I don't understand?"
+
+"Once it was possible to chat, to smile, to woo or to silently enjoy
+the music and the measures of the dance in company with a sympathetic
+partner. Now, however, since the triumph of the 'New Mode,' one must
+count 'one-two-three,' and one's partner is more captious than a
+schoolmarm! What puzzles me is the need for new steps, to be learned
+from expensive teachers, when it's so easy to slide down hill in this
+part of New York. But here endeth the sermon, for I recognize the
+amiable Pinkie at that other table, where she is studying your face with
+the malevolence of a cobra."
+
+Helene slowly turned her eyes toward the other girl, who now advanced
+with forced effusiveness.
+
+"Oh, my dear, and you're back again today. But where is dear old
+Grimmie; he is a nice old soul, though a trifle near-sighted. He wasn't
+half seas over last night--he was a war-zone submarine, out for a
+long-distance record!"
+
+She impudently seated herself at the table with them, sending a
+questioning glance at the handsome companion of her quondam rival.
+Helene instinctively drew back, but a warning glance from Shirley
+plunged her into her assumed character, and she greeted the other girl
+with the quasi-comradeship of their class.
+
+"Oh, yes, dear. Grimsby was a little poisoned by the salad or something
+like that: he was actually disagreeable with me, of all people in the
+world. But, I have so many friends that Grimsby does not give me any
+worry. He means nothing in my life. You seemed quite worried over him,
+though--"
+
+"Yes, girlie," was Pinkie's effort to parry. "I was upset--not because
+he was with you, but to see the old chap showing his age. His taste has
+deteriorated so much since he started wearing glasses. But why don't you
+introduce me to your gentleman friend?"
+
+Helene's faint smile expressed volumes, as she turned toward the
+modest Shirley with a bow of condescension. "This is Pinkie, one of old
+Grimsby's sweethearts, Mr. Shirley. I'm sure you'll like her."
+
+"Are you Montague Shirley?" demanded the auburn-haired coquette with
+sudden interest. As Shirley nodded, she caught his hand with an ardent
+glance, ogling him impressively, as she continued: "I've heard a lot of
+you. I'm just that pleased to meet you!"
+
+An indefinable resentment crept over Helene. How could this creature
+of the demi-monde have even distant acquaintance of such a wholesome,
+superior man as her escort? The effusiveness was irritating, and the
+overacted kittenishness of the girl made her sick at heart, although
+she betrayed no sign of her feeling. Helene could not understand that
+despite its mammoth size, New York is relatively provincial in the
+club and theatrical community, his acquaintanceship numbering into
+the thousands. Town Topics, the social gossipers of the newspapers and
+talkative club men bandied names about in such wise that it was easy
+for members of Pinkie's profession to satisfy their hopeful
+curiosity--prompted by visions of eventual social conquest on the one
+hand and a professional desire to memorize street numbers on the Wealth
+Highway for ultimate financial manipulations. As one of the richest
+members of the exclusive bachelor set, Montague Shirley, even unknown to
+himself, occupied reserved niches in the ambitions of a hundred and one
+fair plotters!
+
+"You will honor us by taking a drink, Miss Pinkie?" was the
+criminologist's courteous overture.
+
+"Pinkie Marlowe, if you want to know the rest of my name. Yes, I need a
+little absinthe to wake me up, for I just finished breakfast. We had a
+large party last night at Reg Warren's. Why don't you dance with me?"
+
+"The old adage about fat men never being loved applies especially to
+those who brave the terrors of the fox-trot. I weigh two hundred, so I
+wisely sit under the trees and laugh at the others."
+
+"You two hundred?" and admiration flashed from Pinkie's emotional eyes,
+"I don't believe it. Why, you're just right! I could dance with a man
+like you all night!"
+
+Helene's helplessness only fanned the flames of her inward fury at the
+brazen intent of the girl. She forgot about Jack and even her plans
+about Reginald Warren. But Shirley's purpose was now rewarded, for
+Pinkie acted as the magnet to draw over several of the gilded youths
+whom they had met the day before. More introductions followed, and
+additional refreshments were soon gracing the table. Shine Taylor was
+the next to join the party, and erelong the waited-for visitor was
+approaching them. His eyes were upon Shirley from the instant that
+he entered the room: he advanced directly toward their table with a
+certainty which proved to Monty that method was in every move.
+
+"What a pleasant surprise, little Bonbon!" exclaimed this gentleman as
+he drew up to their table. "I'm so glad. I was afraid you wouldn't get
+home safely with Grimsby; he was so absolutely overcome last night. He
+promised to bring you to my little entertainment but didn't show up.
+What became of him?"
+
+"Join us in a drink and forget him," suggested Helene, as she took his
+hand with an innocently stupid smile. "This is Mr. Shirley, Mr.--Mr.--I
+had so much champagne last night I forgot your name."
+
+"Warren, that's simple enough. Glad to see you, Mr. Sherwood, oh,
+Shirley! It seems as though I had heard your name--aren't you an actor,
+or an artist? A musician, or something like that? My memory is so
+miserable."
+
+"I'm just a 'something like that,' not even an actor," was the answer,
+as the tiniest of nudges registered Helene's appreciation. "What is your
+favorite poison?"
+
+Warren gave him a startled look, and then laughed: "Oh, you mean to
+drink? Now you must join me for I am the intruder." He drew out a roll
+of money; more nice, new hundred dollar bills. Shirley remembered that
+old Van Cleft had drawn several thousand dollars from his office the
+night of the murder. Even his trained stoicism rebelled at thought of
+drinking a cocktail bought with this bloody currency!
+
+"You didn't tell me about Grimsby?" persisted Warren, turning to Helene,
+with an admiring scrutiny of the girl's charms. "I'm rather interested."
+
+"You'll have to ask him, not me. After we took a taxi from the
+Winter-Garden we had a ride in the Park. So stupid, I thought, at
+this time of the year. When I woke up, Grimmie was helping me into the
+entrance of the hotel. He was very cross with the chauffeur and with me,
+too. Then he took the taxi and went home, still angry."
+
+"So!" after a moment's silence, Warren continued, a puzzled look on his
+face. "What was the trouble? I don't see how any one could be cross with
+a nice little girl like you. But to-night, I'm to have another little
+party up at my house. Bring some one up, who won't be cross. You come,
+Mr. Shirley?"
+
+Helene hesitated, but Monty acquiesced.
+
+"That would be splendid. What time?"
+
+"About eleven. I'll expect you--I must run along now, as I'm ordering
+some fancy dishes."
+
+Shirley had paid his waiter, and he rose with Helene.
+
+"We must be leaving, too. I'll accept your invitation."
+
+"And I'll be there, too, Mr. Shirley," put in Pinkie Marlowe. "I'll
+teach you some new steps. Reggie has a wonderful phonograph for dancing,
+with all the new tunes. See you later, girlie."
+
+They were accompanied to the door by Shine and Warren. At the
+check-room, Shirley was interested to note that Shine Taylor took out
+his green velour hat. His feet were adorned with white spats. After the
+door of their taxi had slammed he confided to Helene that he had located
+the gentleman who had caused his wreck that morning. Still, however, the
+clues were too weak for action. The car went first to the club, where
+Shirley sent in for any possible letters or messages. The servant
+brought out a note. It was another surprise. He gave an address to the
+driver and as the car turned up Fifth Avenue, he studied this missive
+with knit brows.
+
+"A new worry?" asked Helene. "May I help you?"
+
+He handed her the letter, and she noticed the nervous handwriting. It
+was short.
+
+"Dear Mr. Shirley: Just received a threatening note demanding money. Can
+you come up at once? Howard V. C."
+
+Shirley answered the question in the blue eyes, as she finished.
+
+"As I thought it would turn out. Baffled in their game of robbing old
+men who have all left the city, they have begun to work the chance for
+blackmail. I will advise Van Cleft to pay them, and then we will follow
+the money. Here is the mansion and I will be out in five minutes."
+
+He soon disappeared behind the bronze door. True to his promise, in five
+minutes he had returned. He looked up and down the Avenue amazed. Not a
+trace of the taxicab, nor of Helene Marigold could be seen!
+
+Shirley's impulse was to pinch himself to awaken from the chimera. He
+knew she was armed, and would use the weapon if only to call for help.
+For the first time in his career the chill of terror crept into his
+heart--not for himself, but an irresistible dread of some impending
+danger for this unfathomable woman who had shared his dangers so
+uncomplainingly during this last wonderful day. He racked his mind
+vainly for some plausible reason. "She knows I need her. Yet at the
+supreme moment of the game she disappears. Can she be like other women,
+when she is most necessary?"
+
+And he walked slowly down the Avenue, disconcerted, endeavoring to solve
+this sudden abortion of his best laid plans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. CONCERNING HELENE'S FINESSE
+
+
+Shirley endured a miserable three hours, in his attempts to locate the
+girl. She had not returned to the Hotel California, and he returned to
+the club in moody reflection. It was beginning to snow, and the ground
+was soon covered with a thin coat of white, through which he noticed his
+footprints stenciled against the black of the wet pavement. He wasted a
+dozen matches in the freshening wind, as he tried to light a cigarette.
+He stepped into a doorway on the Avenue to avail himself of its shelter.
+As he turned out to the street again, he almost bumped into two men,
+wearing black caps! One of them grunted a curt apology, as he stepped
+on.
+
+"They are after me as usual," he thought. "Why not reverse operations
+and find out where they belong?"
+
+It seemed hopeless: as in a checker game they had him at disadvantage
+with the odd number of the "move." Theirs was the chance to observe, and
+an open attempt to follow them would be ridiculous. Then, the footprints
+gave him an idea.
+
+Dimly behind could be discerned the two men, as he quickened his pace,
+turning into a side street, off Fifth Avenue. Here he knew that traffic
+would be light, and his footprints the best evidence of his progress.
+The men unwittingly caught his plan, and dropped almost out of sight.
+At the intersection of Madison Avenue, they quickened their steps, and
+caught up with him again. Across corners, down quiet streets, and by
+purposed diagonals he led them: still they dogged his footprints.
+So adroit were they that only one experienced in the art could have
+realized their watchfulness.
+
+Shirley now turned a corner quickly, into an unusually deserted
+thoroughfare, running with short steps, so as not to betray his speed
+by the tracks. Before they had time to round the corner he ran up
+the thinly blanketed steps of a private residence. Then he backed, as
+swiftly down the stoop, and thus crablike, walked across the street,
+down a dozen houses and backward still, up the steps of another private
+dwelling. Inside the vestibule he hid himself. The entry had strong
+wooden outside doors, and he tried the strength of the hinges: they
+satisfied him. A dim light burned behind the glass of the inner portal.
+He quietly clambered up the door, and balanced himself on the wood which
+gallantly stood the strain. Fortunately it did not come within four feet
+of the high ceiling of the old fashioned house.
+
+He suffered a good ten minutes' wait before his ruse was rewarded. Being
+on the "fence" was a pastime compared to this precarious test of his
+muscles. The two men who had followed the first footprints tired of
+waiting before the house. One of them determined to investigate the
+other steps, which led into the house of their vigilance, from the other
+dwelling. And so he followed on, to the vestibule where he rang the
+bell. Shirley could have touched his head, so near he was, but the
+darkness of the upper space covered the retreat of the criminologist.
+
+"What do you want?" was the angry question of an indignant old caretaker
+who answered the bell tardily. "You woke me up."
+
+"Say, lady, can I speak to Mr. Montague Shirley?" began the man,
+gingerly.
+
+"You get away from this house, you loafer or I'll call the police. No
+one by that name ain't here. Now, you get!"
+
+She slammed the door in his face.
+
+"I'll get Chuck to watch de udder joint," muttered the man, in a tone
+audible to Shirley. "Den I'll go back and git orders from Phil."
+
+This habit of thinking aloud was expensive. Shirley stiffly but
+noiselessly slid down the steps, as he disappeared in the thickening
+snowfall. The criminologist slowly crossed the street, and sheltered
+himself in a basement entrance, from which he reversed the shadowing
+process. The twain hesitated before the first house, then one came up
+the sidewalk, as the other stood his ground. This man passed within a
+few feet of Shirley, who followed him over to Madison Avenue, then north
+to Fifty-fifth Street. Here he turned west, and turned into one of the
+old stables, formerly used by the gentry of the exclusive section for
+their blooded steeds. Into one building, which announced its identity as
+"Garage" with its glittering electric sign, the man disappeared.
+
+Shirley paused, looked about him, and chuckled. For he knew that through
+the block on Fifty-sixth Street was the tall apartment building, known
+as the Somerset--the address given him by Reginald Warren.
+
+"If I only had some word from Helene Marigold I could go ahead before
+they realized my knowledge."
+
+Even as this thought crossed his mind, he turned back into Sixth Avenue.
+A hatless, breathless young person, running down the snowy street
+collided with him. As he began to apologize, he awoke to the startling
+fact that it was his assistant.
+
+"Great Scott! What are you doing here? Where have you been all this
+time?"
+
+The girl caught his arm unsteadily, but there was a triumph in her
+voice, as she cried: "Oh, this wonderful chance meeting. I was running
+down to my hotel but you have saved the day. I will tell you later.
+Quick, take this book."
+
+She drew forth a volume, flexibly bound, like a small loose-leaf ledger.
+Shirley stuck it into his overcoat pocket, which he was already slipping
+about the girl's shivering shoulders.
+
+"Take me back at once, for there is more for me to do."
+
+"Where, my dear girl? You are indeed the lady of mysteries."
+
+"To the basement of Warren's apartment house. I came down the
+dumb-waiter, when they left me. I left the little door ajar--Can you
+pull me up again? He is on the eighth floor. It is a long pull--Oh, if
+we can only make it before they return."
+
+Her eyes sparkled with the thrill of the mad game, as she ran once more,
+Shirley keeping pace with her. The flurries of the snowstorm protected
+them from too-curious observation, as the streets seemed deserted
+by pedestrians who feared the growing blizzard. She led him to the
+tradesman's entrance of the Somerset, into the dark corridor through
+which she had emerged.
+
+"Don't strike a light, for I can feel the way. We mustn't be seen."
+
+Shirley obeyed,--at last she found the base of the dumbwaiter shaft.
+
+"How did you have the strength to lower yourself down this shaft--it is
+no small task?" and his tone was admiring.
+
+"I am not a weakling--tennis, boating, swimming were all in my
+education; they helped. But it is beyond me to pull all those floors,
+and lift my weight. Pull up as far as the little elevator car goes, then
+go away and come to his party to look for me. Do not be surprised at my
+actions. My role has really developed into that of an emotional heavy."
+
+She patted his hand with a relaxation of tenderness, as he began to draw
+on the long rope. The girl was by no means a light weight, but at last
+the dumb-waiter came to a stop. Shirley heard the opening and closing of
+a door above. Then, still wondering at it all, he returned to the street
+as unobserved as they had entered. There was at least an hour to wait.
+He walked over to the Athletic Club, of which he was a remiss member,
+attending seldom during the recent months when his exercise had been
+more tragic than gymnastic work. In the library of the club house he sat
+down to study the volume which Helene had thrust into his hands at their
+startling meeting.
+
+He gave a low whistle of surprise.
+
+"Some little book!" he muttered, "and Helene Marigold has shown me that
+I must fight hard to equal her in the race for laurels!"
+
+Then he proceeded to rack his brains with a new and knottier problem
+than any which he had yet encountered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE STRANGE AND SURPRISING WARREN
+
+
+The volume was a loose-leaf diary, with each page dated, and of letter
+size. It covered more than the current year, however, running back for
+nearly eighteen months. It was as scrupulously edited as a lawyer's
+engagement book, and curiously enough it was entirely written in
+typewriting!
+
+Most surprising of all, however, was the curious code in which the
+entire matter was transcribed,--the most unusual one which Shirley had
+ever read.
+
+Here was the first page to which he opened, letter for letter and symbol
+for symbol:
+
+"THURSDAY: JANUARY SEVENTH, 1915.
+;rstmrfagtp,ansmlafrav;rudyrtaftreadocayjpi
+dsmfaoma,ptmomha,pmlassdohmrfaypayscoae
+ptlagptayrsadjomrasddohmrfagocahrmrsypta
+,sthoragsotgscafsyraeoyjafrav;rudyrtasyagobra
+djomrasmfalprajse;ruavobrtomhas,rakslras
+smffanrmasddohmrfan;svlavstagpta,raqsofaqj
+o;apmrajimftrfavpbrtomhadqrvos; aeptlakpn
+agomodjrfatobrtdofraftobrasyarohjyoayjotfad ocadjstqafrqpdoyr
+famohjyasmfaffuagpitayjpi dsmfadsgrafrqpdoyagogyrrmajimftrfa;
+rmyaf p;;ua,stopmayepajimfrtgptaftrddagptaqstyua
+eoyjabsmv;rgyamrcyasgyrtmppmasfbsmvrfad jomrapmrayjpidsm
+daypavpbrtapqyopmapga usvjyadimnrs, aqsofaypantplrtayjsyamohjyapt
+frfaqtpbodop,dayr;rqjpmragptausvjyayepa,p myjabtiodra,
+pmlasddohmrdagptkpnamrcyafs uasfbs mvrfadjomragojimftrfapmasvvpimyae
+ptlapmaer;;omhypmadrtts;a,syyrtatrqsitdan; svla,svjomra"
+
+and so it ran on, baffling and inspiring a headache!
+
+Shirley went over and over the lines of this bewildering phalanx of
+letters with no reward for his absorbed devotion to the puzzle.
+
+"Let me see," he mused. "Thursday, January seventh, was the date upon
+which Washington Serral was murdered, according to Doctor MacDonald. Any
+man who will maintain a record of the days in such a difficult code as
+this must not only be extremely methodical, but is certain to have much
+to put upon that record worth the trouble. Here may lay the secret of
+the entire case."
+
+At the end of the hour he had allowed himself, there was no more
+proximity to solution than at the inception of his effort. It was
+almost half-past eleven, and he knew that it was time to go to Warren's
+apartment. He sent a messenger with the book, carefully wrapped up, to
+his rooms at the club on Forty-fourth Street. It was too interesting
+a document to risk taking up to that apartment again, after Helene's
+exertions in obtaining it.
+
+The Somerset was not dissimilar from the hundreds of highly embellished
+dwellings of the sort which abound in the region of the Park, causing
+out-of-town visitors to marvel justly at the source of the vast sums of
+money with which to pay the enormous rentals of them all.
+
+The elevator operator smirked knowingly, when he asked for Warren's
+apartment. "You-all can go right up, boss. He's holdin' forth for
+another of dem high sassiety shindigs to-night. Dat gemman alluz has too
+many callin' to bother with the telephone when he has a party. You don't
+need no announcin'."
+
+The man directed him to the door on the left. Closed as it was the
+sounds of merrymaking emanated into the corridor. Shirley's pressure
+on the bell was answered by Shine Taylor's startled face. Warren stood
+behind him. The surprise of the pair amused Shirley, but their composure
+bespoke trained self-control.
+
+"I'm sorry to be late," was the criminologist's greeting. "But I came
+up to apologize for not being able to bring Miss Marigold. We missed
+connections somewhere, and I couldn't find her."
+
+"I am so pleased to have you with us anyway. We'll try to get along
+without her--" but Warren was interrupted to his discomfiture.
+
+A silvery laugh came from the hallway behind him. Helene Marigold waved
+a champagne glass at Shirley.
+
+"There's my tardy escort now. I'm here, Shirley old top! Te, he! You see
+I played a little joke on you this afternoon and eloped with a handsomer
+man than you." She leaned unsteadily against the door post and waved
+a white hand at him as she coaxed. "Come on in, old dear, and don't be
+cross now with your little Bonbon Tootems!"
+
+Taylor and Warren exchanged glances, for this was an unexpected sally.
+But they were prompt in their effusive cordiality, as they assisted
+Shirley in removing his overcoat, and hanging his hat with those of the
+other guests. He placed his cane against the hall tree, and followed his
+host into the jollified apartment. He did not overlook the swift glide
+of Shine's hand into each of his overcoat pockets in the brief interval.
+Here was a skilful "dip"--Shirley, however, had taken care that the
+pickpocket would find nothing to worry him in the overcoat.
+
+Warren's establishment was a gorgeous one. To Shirley it was hard to
+harmonize the character of the man as he had already deduced it with
+the evident passion for the beautiful. That such a connoisseur of art
+objects could harbor in so broad and cultured a mind the machinations
+of such infamy seemed almost incredible. The riddle was not new with
+Reginald Warren's case: for morals and "culture" have shown their
+sociological, economic and even diplomatic independence of each other
+from the time when the memory of man runneth not!
+
+Shirley's admiration was shrewdly sensed by his host. So after a tactful
+introduction to the self-absorbed merrymakers, now in all stages of
+stimulated exuberance, he conducted his guest on a tour of inspection
+about his rooms.
+
+"So, you like etchings? I want you to see my five Whistlers. Here is my
+Fritz Thaulow, and there is my Corot. This crayon by Von Lenbach is a
+favorite of mine." His black eyes sparkled with pride as he pointed
+out one gem after another in this veritable storehouse of artistic
+surprises. Few of the jolly throng gave evidence of appreciating them:
+the man was curiously superior to his associations in education as well
+as the patent evidence which Shirley now observed of being to the manor
+born. Helene Marigold, ensconced in a big library chair, her feet curled
+under her, pink fingers supporting the oval chin, dreamily watched
+Shirley's absorption. She seemed almost asleep, but her mind drank in
+each mood that fired the criminologist's face, as he thoroughly relaxed
+from his usual bland superiority of mien, to revel in the treasures.
+
+Ivory masterpieces, Hindu carvings, bronzes, landscapes, rare wood-cuts,
+water colors--such a harmonious variety he had seldom seen in any
+private collection. The library was another thesaurus: rich bindings
+encased volumes worthy of their garb. The books, furthermore, showed the
+mellowing evidence of frequent use; here was no patron of the instalment
+editions-de-luxe!
+
+"You like my things," and Warren's voice purred almost happily. There
+was a softening change in his attitude, which Shirley understood. The
+appreciation of a fellow worshiper warmed his heart. "My books--all
+bound privately, you know, for I hate shop bindings. Most of them from
+second-hand stalls, redolent with the personalities of half a hundred
+readers. Books are so much more worth reading when they have been read
+and read again. Don't you think so?"
+
+"Yes. I see your tastes run to the modern school. Individualism,
+even morbidity: Spencer, Nietsche, Schopenhauer, Tolstoi, Kropotkin,
+Gorky--They express your thoughts collectively?"
+
+"Yes, but not radically enough. My entire intellectual life has driven
+me forward--I am a disciple of the absolute freedom, the divinity of
+self, and--but there I invited you to a joy party, not a university
+seminar."
+
+"But the party will grow riper with age," and Shirley was prone to
+continue the autopsy. "You are a university man. Where did you study?"
+
+"Sipping here and there," and a forgivable vanity lightened Warren's
+face. "Gottingen, Warsaw, Jena, Oxford, Milan, The Sorbonne and even at
+Heidelberg, the jolly old place. You see my scar?" He pulled back a lock
+of his wavy black hair from the left temple to show a cut from a student
+duelist's sword. "But you Americans--I mean, we Americans--we have such
+opportunities to pick up the best things from the rest of the world."
+
+"No, Warren," and Shirley shook his head, not overlooking the slight
+break which indicated that his host was a foreigner, despite the quick
+change. "I have been to busy wasting time to collect anything but
+fleeting memories. Too much polo, swimming, yachting, golfing--I have
+fallen into evil ways. I think your example may reform me. You must dine
+with me at my club some day, and give me some hints about making such
+wonderful purchases."
+
+"I know the most wonderful antique shop," Warren began, and just then
+was interrupted by Shine Taylor and a dizzy blonde person with whom he
+maxixed through the Hindu draperies, each deftly balancing a champagne
+glass.
+
+"Here, Reg, you neglect your other guests. Come on in!" Shine's
+companion held out a wine glass to Warren, but her eyes were fixed in a
+fascinated stare upon Montague Shirley.
+
+"Why, what are you doing here?"
+
+It was little Dolly Marion, Van Cleft's companion on the fatal
+automobile ride. She trembled: the glass fell to the floor with a tinkly
+crash. Shirley smiled indulgently. Taylor and Warren exchanged looks,
+but Monty knew that they must by this time be aware of his command to
+the girl to abstain from gay associations.
+
+"You couldn't resist the call of the wild, could you, Miss Dolly?"
+
+The girl sheepishly giggled, and danced out of the room, to sink into a
+chair, wondering what this visitation meant. Another masculine butterfly
+pressed more champagne upon her, and in a few moments she had forgotten
+to worry about anything more important than the laws of gravity. Warren
+had been rudely dragged away from his intellectual kinship with his
+guest. His manner changed, almost indefinably, but Shirley understood.
+He looked at Helene, a little bundle of sleepy sweetness in the big
+chair.
+
+"Well, Miss! Where did you go when I left you on my call of condolence
+to Howard Van Cleft? He leaves town to-night for a trip on his yacht,
+and it was my last chance to say good-bye."
+
+"Where is he going?" was Warren's lapsus linguae, at this bit of news.
+
+"Down to the Gulf, I believe. Do you know him, Warren? Nice chap. Too
+bad about his father's sudden death from heart failure, wasn't it? He
+told me they were putting in supplies for a two months' cruise and would
+not be able to sail before three in the morning."
+
+"I don't know Van Cleft," was Warren's guarded reply. "Of course, I read
+of his sad loss. But he is so rich now that he can wipe out his grief
+with a change of scene and part of the inheritance. It's being done in
+society, these days."
+
+"Poor Van Cleft! He's besieged by blackmailers, who threaten to lay
+bare his father's extravagant innuendos, unless he pays fifty thousand
+dollars. He can afford it, but as he says, it's war times and money
+is scarce as brunette chorus girls. He has put the matter before the
+District Attorney and is going to sail for Far Cathay until they round
+up the gang. These criminals are so clumsy nowadays, I imagine it will
+be an easy task, don't you, Warren?"
+
+The other man's eyes narrowed to black slits as he studied the childlike
+expression of Shirley's face. He wondered if there could be a covert
+threat in this innocent confidence. He answered laconically: "Oh, I
+suppose so. We read about crooks in the magazines and then see their
+capers in the motion picture thrillers, but down in real life, we find
+them a sordid, unimaginative lot of rogues."
+
+He proffered Shirley a cigarette from his jeweled case. As he leaned
+toward the table to draw a match from the small bronze holder, Helene
+observed Shirley deftly substitute it for one of his own, secreting the
+first.
+
+"Yes," continued Shirley, "the criminal who is caught generally loses
+his game because he is mechanical and ungifted with talent. But think of
+the criminals who have yet to be captured--the brilliant, the inspired
+ones, the chess-players of wickedness who love their game and play it
+with the finesse of experts."
+
+Shirley smoothed away the ripple of suspicion which he had mischievously
+aroused with, "So, that is why fellows like us would not bother with the
+life. The same physical and intellectual effort expended by a criminal
+genius would bring him money and power with no clutching legal hand to
+fear. But there, we're getting morbid. What I really want to do is to
+satisfy my vanity. Where did Miss Marigold disappear?"
+
+"Talking about me?" and Helene opened her eyes languorously. "I was so
+tired waiting for you that when Mr. Warren came along in his wonderful
+new car I yielded to his invitation, so we enjoyed that tea-room trip
+which you had promised. Such a lark! Then we came up here where I had
+the most wonderful dinner with him and three girls. I was tired and
+sleepy, so I dozed away on that library davenport until the party
+began--and there you are and here I are, and so, forgive me, Monty?"
+
+She slipped nimbly to the floor, with a maddening display of a silken
+ankle, advancing to the criminologist with a wistful playfulness which
+brought a flush of sudden feeling, to the face of Reginald Warren.
+Helene was carrying out his directions to the letter, Shirley observed.
+
+They lingered at Warren's festivities until a wee sma' hour, Helene
+pretending to share the conviviality, while actually maintaining a
+hawk-like watch upon the two conspirators as she now felt them to be.
+She was amused by the frequency with which Shine Taylor and Reginald
+Warren plied their guest with cigarettes: Shirley's legerdemain in
+substituting them was worthy of the vaudeville stage.
+
+"The wine and my smoking have made me drowsy," he told her, with no
+effort at concealment. "We must get home or I'll fall asleep myself."
+
+A covert smile flitted across Warren's pale face, as Shirley
+unconventionally indulged in several semi-polite yawns, nodding a bit,
+as well. Helene accepted glass after glass of wine, thoughtfully poured
+out by her host. And as thoughtfully, did she pour it into the flower
+vases when his back was turned: she matched the other girls' acute
+transports of vinous joy without an error. Shirley walked to the
+window, asking if he might open it for a little fresh air. Warren nodded
+smiling.
+
+"You are well on the way to heaven in this altitude of eight stories,"
+volunteered Shirley, with a sleepy laugh.
+
+"Yes. The eighth and top floor. A burglar could make a good haul of my
+collection, except that I have the window to the fire escape barred from
+the inside, around the corner facing to the north. Here, I am safe from
+molestation."
+
+"A great view of the Park--what a fine library for real reading; and
+I see you have a typewriter--the same make I used to thump, when I
+did newspaper work--a Remwood. Let me see some of your literary work,
+sometime--"
+
+Warren waved a deprecating hand. "Very little--editors do not like it. I
+do better with an adding machine down on Wall Street than a typewriter.
+But let us join the others." There was a noticeable reluctance
+about dwelling upon the typewriter subject. Warren hurried into the
+drawing-room, as Shirley followed with a perceptible stagger.
+
+Shine Taylor scrutinized his condition, as he asked for another
+cigarette. As he yielded to an apparent craving for sleep, the others
+danced and chatted, while Taylor disappeared through the hall door.
+After a few minutes he returned to grimace slightly at Warren. Shirley
+roused himself from his stupor.
+
+"Bonbon, let us be going. Good-night, everybody."
+
+He walked unsteadily to the door, amid a chorus of noisy farewells,
+with Helene unsteady and hilarious behind him. Warren and Shine seemed
+satisfied with their hospitable endeavors, as they bade good-night.
+The elevator brought up two belated guests, the roseate Pinkie and a
+colorless youth.
+
+"Oh, are you going, Mr. Shirley? What a blooming shame. I just left the
+most wonderful supper-party at the Claridge to see you."
+
+"Too bad: I hope for better luck next time."
+
+"The elevator is waiting," and Helene's gaze was scornful. Shirley
+restrained his smile at the girl's covert hatred of the redhaired
+charmer. Then he asked maliciously: "Isn't she interesting? Too bad she
+associates with her inferiors."
+
+"You put it mildly."
+
+"Here, boy, call a taxicab," he ordered the attendant, as they reached
+the lower level.
+
+"Sorry, boss, but I dassent leave the elevator at this time of night.
+I'm the only one in the place jest now."
+
+Shirley insisted, with a duty soother of silver, but the negro returned
+in a few minutes, shaking his head. Shirley ordered him to telephone the
+nearest hacking-stand. Then followed another delay, without result.
+
+"Come, Miss Helene, there is method in this. Let us walk, as it seems to
+have been planned we should."
+
+"Is it wise? Why put yourself in their net?"
+
+For reply, he placed in her hand the walking stick which he had so
+carefully guarded when they entered the apartment. It was heavier than a
+policeman's nightstick. As he retook it, she observed the straightening
+line of his lips.
+
+"As the French say, 'We shall see what we shall see.' Please walk a
+little behind me, so that my right arm may be free."
+
+It was after two, and the street was dark. Shirley had noted an
+arc-light on the corner when he had entered the building--now it was
+extinguished. A man lurched forward as they turned into Sixth Avenue,
+his eyes covered by a dark cap.
+
+"Say gent! Give a guy that's down an' out the price of a beef stew? I
+got three pennies an' two more'll fix me."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Aw, gent, have a heart!" The man was persistent, drawing closer, as
+Shirley walked an with his companion, into the increasing darkness, away
+from the corner. Another figure appeared from a dark doorway.
+
+"I'm broke too, Mister. Kin yer help a poor war refugee on a night like
+this?"
+
+Shirley slipped his left hand inside his coat pocket and drew out a
+handkerchief to the surprise of the men. He suddenly drew Helene back
+against the wall, and stood between her and the two men.
+
+"What do you thugs want?" snapped the criminologist, as he clenched the
+cane tightly and held the handkerchief in his left hand. There was no
+reply. The men realized that he knew their purpose--one dropped to a
+knee position as the other sprang forward. The famous football toe shot
+forward with more at stake than ever in the days when the grandstands
+screeched for a field goal. At the same instant he swung the loaded cane
+upon the shoulders of the upright man, missing his head.
+
+The second man swung a blackjack.
+
+The first, with a bleeding face staggered to his feet.
+
+The handkerchief went up to the mouth of the active assailant, and to
+Helene's astonishment, he sank back with a moan. Shirley pounced upon
+his mate, and after a slight tussle, applied the handkerchief with the
+same benumbing effect. Then he rolled it up and tossed it far from him.
+
+He took a police whistle from his pocket and blew it three times. His
+assailants lay quietly on the ground, so that when the officer arrived
+he found an immaculately garbed gentleman dusting off his coat shoulder,
+and looking at his watch.
+
+"What is it, sir?" he cried.
+
+"A couple of drunks attacked me, after I wouldn't give them a handout.
+Then they passed away. You won't need my complaint--look at them--"
+
+The policeman shook the men, but they seemed helpless except to groan
+and hold their heads in mute agony, dull and apparently unaware of what
+was going on about them.
+
+"Well, if you don't want to press the charge of assault?"
+
+"No. I may have it looked up by my attorney. Tonight I do not care to
+take my wife to the stationhouse with me. They ought to get thirty days,
+at that."
+
+Shirley took Helene's arm, and the officer nodded.
+
+"I'll send for the wagon, sir. They're some pickled. Good-night."
+
+As they walked up to the nearest car crossing, Helene turned to him with
+her surprise unabated.
+
+"What did you do to them, Mr. Shirley?"
+
+"Merely crushed a small vial of Amyl nitrite which I thoughtfully put
+in my handkerchief this afternoon. It is a chemical whose fumes are used
+for restoring people afflicted with heart failure: with men like these,
+and the amount of the liquid which I gave them for perfume, the result
+was the same as complete unconsciousness from drunkenness.--Science is a
+glorious thing, Miss Helene."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH SHIRLEY SURPRISES HIMSELF
+
+
+They reached the hotel without untoward adventure.
+
+"Perhaps we might find a little corner in that dining-room I saw this
+afternoon, with an obliging waiter to bring us something to eat. Shall
+we try? I need a lot of coffee, for I am going down to the dock of the
+Yacht Club to await developments."
+
+"You big silly boy," she cautioned, with a maternal note in her voice
+which was very sweet to bachelor ears from such a maiden mouth, "you
+must not let Nature snap. You have a wonderful physique but you must go
+home to bed."
+
+"It can't be done--I want to hear about your little visit to the
+apartment, and the story of the diary. I'll ask the clerk."
+
+A bill glided across the register of the hotel desk, and the greeter
+promised to attend to the club sandwiches himself. He led them to a
+cosey table, in the deserted room, and started out to send the bell-boy
+to a nearby lunchroom.
+
+"Just a minute please,--if any one calls up Miss Marigold, don't let
+them know she has returned. I have something important to say, without
+interruption: you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I get you, sir," and the droll part was that with a familiarity
+generated of the hotel arts he did understand even better than Shirley
+or Helene. He had seen many other young millionaires and golden-haired
+actresses. Shirley looked across the table into the astral blue of
+those gorgeous eyes. Certain unbidden, foolish words strove to liberate
+themselves from his stubborn lips.
+
+"I am a consummate idiot!" was all that escaped, and Helene looked her
+surprise.
+
+"Why, have you made a mistake?"
+
+"I hope not. But tell me of Warren's mistake."
+
+She had been waiting what seemed an eternity before Van Cleft's house,
+when a big machine drew up alongside. Warren greeted her with a smiling
+invitation to leave Shirley guessing. Her willingness to go, she felt,
+would disarm his suspicions. The little dinner in the apartment with
+Shine, Warren and three girls had been in good taste enough: pretending,
+however, to be overcome with weariness she persuaded them to let her
+cuddle up on the couch, where she feigned sleep. Warren had tossed an
+overcoat over her and left the apartment with the others, promising to
+return in a few minutes. He had said to Shine, "She'll be quiet until
+we return--it may be a good alibi to have her here." Then he had
+disappeared, wearing only a soft hat, with no other overcoat. Listening
+at the closed hall door, she heard him direct the elevator man, "Second
+off, Joe." The door was locked from the outside. The servant's entrance
+was locked, all the bedrooms locked, every one with a Yale lock above
+the ordinary keyhole. The Chinese cook had been sent out sometime before
+to buy groceries and wine for the later party.
+
+"But where did you find the note-book? It may send him to the electric
+chair." Monty Shirley was lighting one of the cigarettes handed him by
+his host. He sniffed at it and crushed out the embers at the end. "This
+cigarette would have sent me to dreamland for a day at least--Warren
+understands as much chemistry as I do."
+
+"At first I studied the books in the library out of curiosity and then
+noticed that three books were shoved in, out of alignment with the
+others on the shelf. With a manservant in the house, instead of a woman,
+of course things needed dusting. But where these three books were it
+had been rubbed off! I took out the books, reached behind and found the
+little leather volume. It was simple. I went to his typewriter when I
+saw that the pages were all typed, and took out some note-paper, from
+the bronze rack."
+
+"And then, Miss Sleuth?"
+
+"Don't laugh at me. I had heard of the legal phrase 'corroborative
+evidence,' so knowing that it would be necessary to connect that
+typewriter with the book, I rattled off a few lines on the machine. Here
+it is: it will show the individuality of the machine to an expert."
+
+"You wonderful girl!" he murmured simply. She protested, "Don't tease
+me. I have watched you and am learning some of your simple but complete
+methods of working. I understand you better than you think."
+
+"Go on with your story," and Shirley was uncomfortable, although he knew
+not why.
+
+"That is the end of my tale of woe. The kitchen being open, I took
+advantage of the dumb-waiter, as you already know. It's fortunate that
+waiter is dumb, for it must have many lurid confessions to make. I never
+saw such an interminable shaft; it seemed higher than the Eiffel Tower.
+See how I blistered my hands on the rope, letting myself down."
+
+She opened her palms, showing the red souvenirs of the coarse strands.
+Almost unconsciously she placed her soft fingers within Shirley's for a
+brief instant. She quickly drew them away, sensing a blush beneath
+the cosmetics, glad that he could not detect it. That gentle contact
+thrilled Shirley again, even as the dear memory of the tired cheek
+against his shoulder, during the automobile trip of the previous night.
+
+"After finding you so accidentally and returning with your aid, on the
+little elevator, I threw myself back into the original pose on the
+big couch. It was just in time, for Warren returned. His cook came in
+shortly afterward. I imagine that he allows no one in that apartment,
+ordinarily, when he is not there himself. But what, sir, do you think I
+discovered upon the shoulder of his coat?"
+
+Shirley shook his head. "A beautiful crimson hair," he asked gravely,
+"from the sun-kissed forehead of the delectable Pinkie? Or was it white,
+from the tail of the snowy charger which tradition informs us always
+lurks in the vicinity of auburn-haired enchantresses?"
+
+"Nothing so romantic. Just cobwebs! He saw me looking at them, and
+brushed them off very quickly."
+
+"The man thinks he is a wine bottle of rare vintage!" observed Shirley.
+But the jest was only in his words. He looked at her seriously and
+then rapt in thought, closed his eyes the better to aid his mental
+calculation. "He got off at the second floor--He wore no overcoat--A
+black silk handkerchief--cobwebs--and that garage on the other street,
+through the block! Miss Helene, you are a splendid ally!"
+
+"Won't you tell me what you mean about the garage? Who were those men
+who attacked you? What happened since I deserted you?"
+
+But Shirley provokingly shook his head, as he drew out his watch.
+
+"It is half-past two. I must hurry down to East Twenty-fifth Street and
+the East River, at the yacht club mooring, before three. Tomorrow I will
+give you my version in some quiet restaurant, far from the gadding crowd
+of the White Light district."
+
+He rose, drawing back his chair; they walked to the elevator together.
+The clerk beckoned politely.
+
+"A gent named Mr. Warren telephoned to ask if you were home yet, Miss
+Marigold. I told him not yet. Was that wrong?"
+
+"It was very kind of you. Thank you so much," and Helene's smile was
+the cause of an uneasy flutter in the breast of the blase clerk.
+"Good-night."
+
+"That's a lucky guy, at that, Jimmie," confided the clerk to the
+bell-boy. "She is some beauty show, ain't she? And she's on the right
+track, too."
+
+"Yep, but she's too polite to be a great actress or a star. Her
+temper'ment ain't mean enough!" responded this Solomon in brass buttons.
+"I hopes we gits invited to the wedding!"
+
+Outside, Shirley enjoyed the stimulus of the bracing early morning air.
+A new inspiration seemed to fire him, altogether dissimilar to the glow
+which he was wont to feel when plunging into a dangerous phase of a
+professional case. He slowly drew from his pocket the typed note-paper
+which had nestled in such enviable intimacy with that courageous heart.
+The faint fragrance of her exquisite flesh clung to it still. He held
+it to his lips and kissed it. Then he stopped, to turn about and look
+upward at the tall hostelry behind him. High up below the renaissance
+cornice he beheld the lights glow forth in the rooms which he knew were
+Helene's.
+
+As he hurried to the club, he muttered angrily to himself: "I have made
+one discovery, at least, in this unusual exploit. I find that I have
+lost what common sense I possessed when I became a Freshman at college!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE RISING TIDE
+
+
+A hurried message to the Holland Agency brought four plain clothes men
+from the private reserve, under the leadership of superintendent Cleary.
+Monty met them at the doorway of the club house, wearing a rough and
+tumble suit.
+
+They sped downtown, toward the East River, the criminologist on the
+seat where he could direct the driver. At Twenty-sixth Street, near
+the docks, they dismounted and Shirley gave his directions to the
+detectives.
+
+"I want you to slide along these doorways, working yourselves separately
+down the water front until you are opposite the yacht club landing. I
+will work on an independent line. You must get busy when I shoot, yell
+or whistle,--I can't tell which. As the popular song goes, 'You're here
+and I'm here, so what do we care?' This is a chance for the Holland
+Agency to get a great story in the papers for saving young Van Cleft
+from the kidnappers."
+
+He left them at the corner, and crossing to the other pavement, began
+to stagger aimlessly down the street, looking for all the world like a
+longshoreman returning home from a bacchanalian celebration from
+some nearby Snug Harbor. It was a familiar type of pedestrian in this
+neighborhood at this time of the morning.
+
+"That guy's a cool one, Mike," said Cleary to one of his men. "These
+college ginks ain't so bad at that when you get to know 'em with their
+dress-suits off."
+
+"He's a reg'lar feller, that's all," was Mike's philosophical response.
+"Edjication couldn't kill it in 'im."
+
+A hundred yards offshore was the beautiful steam yacht of the Van
+Clefts', the "White Swan." Lights on the deck and a few glowing
+portholes showed unusual activity aboard. Shirley's hint to Warren about
+the contemplated trip to southern climes was the exact truth. Naked
+truth, he had found, was ofttimes a more valuable artifice than
+Munchausen artistry of the most consummate craft! The longshoreman,
+apparently befuddled in his bearings, wandered toward the dock, which
+protruded into the river, a part of the club property. He staggered,
+tumbled and lay prostrate on the snowy planks.
+
+Then he crawled awkwardly toward one of the big spiles at the side of
+the structure, where he passed into a profound slumber. This, too, was
+a conventional procedure for the neighborhood! A man walked across the
+street, from the darkness of a deserted hallway: he gave the somnolent
+one a kick. The longshoreman grunted, rolled over, and continued to
+snore obliviously.
+
+An automobile honk-honked up Twenty-third Street, and then swung around
+in a swift curve toward the dock. The investigating kicker slunk away,
+down the street. The limousine drew up at the entrance to the tender
+gangway. Accompanied by a portly servant, a young man in a fur coat,
+stepped from the machine.
+
+"Give them another call with your horn, Sam," he directed. "The boat
+will be in for me, then."
+
+This was done. A scraping noise came from the hanging stairway of the
+dock, and a voice called up from the darkness: "Here we are, sir!"
+Howard Van Cleft leaned over the edge and looked down, somewhat
+nervously. A reassuring word came up from the boat, rocking against the
+spiles.
+
+"You was a bit late, sir. You said three, Mr. Van Cleft, and now it's
+ten after. So the captain sent us in to wait for you. Everything's
+shipshape, sir, steam up, and all the supplies aboard. Climb right down
+the ladder, sir. Steady now, lads!"
+
+This seemed to presage good. Van Cleft turned to his butler.
+
+"Take down the luggage, Edward. Goodbye, Sam. Keep an eye on the
+machines. The folks will attend to everything for you while I am away.
+Good-bye."
+
+The butler had delivered the baggage and now returned up the ladder,
+puffing with his exertions.
+
+"Good-bye, sir," and his voice was more emotional than usual. "Watch
+yourself, sir, if you please, sir. You're the last Van Cleft, and
+we need you, sir." The old man touched his hat, and climbed into the
+automobile, as Van Cleft climbed down the ladder. The machine sped away
+under the skilful guidance of Sam.
+
+"Steady, sir, steady--There, we have you now, sir,--Quick, men! Up the
+river with the tide. Row like hell!--Keep your oars muffled--here comes
+the other boat."
+
+All this seemed naturally the accompaniment of the embarkment of Van
+Cleft's yachting cruise, but the sleeping longshoreman suddenly arose to
+his feet and blew a shrill police whistle. Next instant the flash of
+his pocket-lamp illumined the dark boat below him. A volley of curses
+greeted this untoward action! A revolver barked from the hand of a big
+man in the stern. Young Van Cleft lay face downward in the boat, neatly
+gagged and bound. As the light still flickered over the surprised
+oarsmen, an answering shot evidenced better aim. The man in the back of
+the bobbing vessel groaned as he fell forward upon the prostrate body of
+the pinioned millionaire. One oarsman disappeared over the side of the
+boat, to glide into the unfathomable darkness, with skilful strokes.
+
+"Hold still! I'll kill the first man who makes a move!"
+
+As Shirley's voice rang out, Cleary with his assistants was dashing
+across the open space to the end of the dock.
+
+"Shove out that boat-hook and hold onto the dock!" was the additional
+order, accompanied by a punctuation mark in the form of another bullet
+which splintered the gunwale of the boat. Looking as they were, into the
+dazzling eye of the bulb light, the men were uncertain of the number of
+their assailants: surrender was natural. Cleary's men made quick work
+of them. The boat from the yacht now hove to by this time, filled with
+excited and profane sailormen. The skipper of the "White Swan," revolver
+drawn, stood in its bow as it bumped against the stairway. Howard Van
+Cleft was unbound: dazed but happy he tried to talk.
+
+"What--why--who?" he mumbled.
+
+"Pat Cleary, from the Holland Detective Agency," was Shirley's response.
+"There, handcuff these men quick. Two cops are coming. We want the
+credit of this job before the rookies beat us to it."
+
+Van Cleft recognized the speaker, and caught his hand fervently.
+Shirley, though, was too busy for gratitude. He gave another quick
+direction.
+
+"Hurry on board your yacht tender and get underway. Your life isn't
+worth a penny if you stay in town another hour. These men will be
+attended to. Good luck and goodbye."
+
+The young man rapidly transferred his luggage to his own boat. They
+were soon out of view on their way to the larger vessel. Shirley turned
+toward Cleary.
+
+"I'll file the charge against these two men. They tried to rob me and
+make their getaway in this boat. You were down here as a bodyguard for
+Van Cleft, who, of course, knew nothing about the matter as he left for
+his cruise. So his name can be kept out of it entirely. And the fact
+that you helped to save him from paying fifty thousand dollars in
+blackmail, will not injure the size of Captain Cronin's bill. Get me?"
+
+"It's got!" laughed Cleary.
+
+Two patrolmen were dumfounded when they reached the spot to find four
+men in handcuffs in charge of six armed guardians. The superintendent
+explained the situation as laid out by Shirley. The cavalcade took its
+way to the East Twenty-first Street Police Station, where the complaint
+was filed. Sullen and perplexed about their failure, the men were all
+locked in their cells, after their leader had his shoulder dressed by an
+interne summoned from the nearby Bellevue Hospital.
+
+Shirley and Cleary returned with the others to the waiting automobile,
+after these formalities. The prisoners had been given the customary
+opportunity to telephone to friends, but strangely enough did not avail
+themselves of it.
+
+"We're cutting down the ranks of the enemy, Cleary," observed the
+detective as he lit a cigarette. "But I wonder who it was that escaped
+in the water?"
+
+"He'll be next in the net. But say, Mr. Shirley, what percentage do you
+get for all this work, I'm awondering?" was the answering query. The
+criminologist laughed.
+
+"Thanks, my dear man, simply thanks. That's a rare thing for a
+well-to-do man to get since the I.W.W. proved to the world that it's a
+crime for a man to own more than ten dollars, or even to earn it! But
+I wish you would drop me off about half a block from the Somerset
+Apartments, on Fifty-sixth Street. I want to watch for a late arrival."
+
+He waited in the shadows of the houses on the opposite side of the
+street. After half an hour he was rewarded by the sight of Mr. Shine
+Taylor dismounting from a taxicab. The young gentleman wore a heavy
+overcoat over a bedraggled suit. One of his snowy spats was missing;
+his hat was dripping, still, from its early immersion. He entered the
+building, after a cautious survey of the deserted street, with a stiff
+and exhausted gait.
+
+Shirley was satisfied with this new knot in the string. He returned to
+his rooms at the club, to gain fresh strength for the trailing on the
+morrow. And this time, he felt that he deserved his rest!
+
+Next morning, after his usual plunge and rub-down, he ordered breakfast
+in his rooms. He instructed the clerk to send up a Remwood typewriter,
+and began his experiments with the code of the diary.
+
+From an old note-book, in which were tabulated the order of letter
+recurrences according to their frequency in ordinary English words, he
+freshened his memory. This was the natural sequence, in direct ratio to
+the use of the letters: "E: T: A: O: N: I: S: B: M, etc." The use of "E"
+was double that of any other. Yet on the pages of the book he found that
+the most frequently recurring symbol was "R" which was, ordinarily, one
+of the least used in the alphabet. "T," which would have been second
+in popularity, naturally, was seen only a few times in proportion. "Y,"
+also seldom used, appeared very often. The symbol "A" was used with
+surprising frequency.
+
+"Let me see," he mused. "This code is strictly typewritten. It must be
+arranged on some mechanical twist of the typing method. A is used so
+many times that it might be safe to assume that it is used for a space,
+as all the words in this code run together. If A is used that way,
+what takes its place? S would by rights be seventh on the list, but the
+average I have made shows that it is about third or fourth."
+
+Carefully he jotted down in separate columns on a piece of paper the
+individual repetitions of letters on the page of "January 7, 1915." He
+arrived at the conclusion, then, that "R" was used for "E," that "S"
+took the place of "A" and that "Y" alternated in this cipher for "T"
+which was second on his little list.
+
+Fur the benefit of the reader who may be interested enough to work
+out this little problem, along the lines of Shirley's deductions the
+arrangement of the so-called "Standard" keyboard is here shown, as it
+was on the "Number Four" machine of Warren's Remwood, and the duplicate
+machine which Shirley was using.
+
+            Q  W  E  R  T  Y  U  I  O  P
+
+              A  S  D  F  G  H  J  K  L;
+
+                Z   X  C  V  B  N  M,.
+
+          Shift      SPACE BAR          Shift
+           Key                           Key
+
+This diagram represents the "lower case" or small letters, capitals
+being made by holding down one of the shift keys on either side, and
+striking the other letter at the same time, there being two symbols on
+each metal type key. As only small letters were used through the code
+Shirley did not bother about the capitals. He realized at last, that if
+his theory of substitution were correct the writer had struck the key
+to the right of the three frequent letters. He had the inception of the
+scheme.
+
+Starting with the first line of the sentences so jumbled on the page
+for January 7, 1915, he began to reverse the operation, copying it off,
+hitting on the typewriter the keyboard letter to the left of the one
+indicated in the order of the cipher.
+
+The result was gratifying. He continued for several lines, having
+trouble only with the letter "P." At last he realized that the only
+substitution for that could be "Q." In other words, "A" had been used
+for the space letter throughout, and for all the other symbols the one
+on the right had been struck, except "P" which being at the end of the
+line had been merely swung to the first letter on the other end of it!
+
+No wonder Warren had been so confident of its baffling simplicity! Many
+of the well-known rules for reading codes would not work with this one,
+and had it not been for Shirley's suspicion, aroused in the library
+of the arch-schemer the night before, he would hardly have given the
+typewriter, as a mechanical aide, a second thought. Warren's desire to
+drop the subject of machines had planted a dangerous seed.
+
+Laboriously Shirley typed off the material of the entire page for the
+fatal Thursday, and his elation knew no bounds as he realized that here
+was a key to many of the activities of his enemy. He donned his hat and
+coat and hurried over to the Hotel California to show his discovery
+to Helene. She invited him up to her suite at once, where he wasted no
+words but exhibited the triumphant result of his efforts. He handed her
+his own transcription, and this is what she read:
+
+"January 7, 1915, Thursday.
+
+"learned from bank de cleyster drew six thousand in morning monk assigned
+to taxi work for tea shine assigned to fix generator margie fairfax date
+with de cleyster at five, shine and joe hawley covering game jake and
+ben assigned black car for me paid phil one hundred covering special
+work job finished riverside drive at eighty third sharp deposited night
+and day four thousand safe deposit fifteen hundred lent dolly marion two
+hundred for dress for party with van cleft next afternoon advanced shine
+one thousand to cover option of yacht sunbeam paid to broker that night
+ordered provisions telephone for yacht two month cruise monk assigned
+for job next day advanced shine five hundred on account work on
+wellington serral matter repairs black machine fifty party apartment
+same night champagne one hundred fifty caterer one hundred tips fifty
+five to janitor taxis twelve must stir phil up on work for grimsby
+matter memorandum arrange for yacht mooring on east river instead of
+north after wednesday eighth job finis memorandum settle telephone
+exchange proceeds not later than monday paid electrician special wiring
+two hundred in full settlement."
+
+"There, Miss Helene, how do you like my little game of letter building?"
+
+There was a boyish gleam of triumph in his smile as he turned toward
+her.
+
+"You are a wizard, but how did you work it all out?" There was no
+smile in her face, only a mingled horror at the revelations of this
+calculating monster in his businesslike murder work, and an unfeigned
+admiration for Shirley's keenness.
+
+"A very old method, but one which would have availed for naught without
+your help. The letter paper which you used and the unmistakable identity
+of Warren's machine are two more bars of iron with which to imprison
+him. The paper of that note is the same on which they wrote to Van
+Ceft for money, and their threats to me. This shows from a microscopic
+examination of its texture. I will give the whole book to a trustworthy
+stenographer: more than six months of these little confessions are
+tabulated here. Warren was evidently so used to this code that he could
+write in it as easily as I do with the straight alphabet. His training
+in German universities developed a thoroughness, a methodical recording
+of every thing, which is apt to cost him dearly. And his undoubted
+vanity prompted him to have a little volume of his own in that library
+to which he could turn occasionally for the retrospection of his own
+cleverness. Now, I must investigate this clever telephone system. I
+think I have the clue necessary."
+
+He intrusted the book to Helene for the morning, promising to return
+in an hour or two with new information, drolly refusing to tell her his
+destination.
+
+"You're a bad, bold boy, and should be spanked, for not letting some
+one know where to look for you in case you get into difficulties," she
+pouted. "Perhaps I will do some equally foolish thing myself."
+
+"If you knew how you frightened me yesterday!" he began.
+
+"Did you really worry and really care?" But Shirley had slipped out of
+the door, leaving her to wonder, and then begin that long delayed letter
+to Jack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. AN EXPEDITION UNDERGROUND
+
+
+The criminologist picked his way through the swarming vehicles which
+swung up and down Broadway, across to Seventh Avenue, where he turned
+into a plumber's shop. This fellow had handled small jobs on Shirley's
+extensive real estate holdings, and he was naturally delighted to do a
+favor in the hope of obtaining new work.
+
+"Mike, I want to borrow an old pair of overalls, a jumper and one of
+those blue caps hanging up on your wall. And I need some plumbers'
+tools, as well, for a little joke I am to play on one of my friends."
+
+The workman was astounded at such a request from his rich client,
+but nodded willingly. The dirtiest of the clothes answered Shirley's
+requirements and with soot rubbed over his face and hands, his hair
+disarranged, he satisfied his artistic craving for detail. He was
+transformed into a typical leadpipe brigand. Hanging his own garments in
+the closet, after transferring his automatic revolver into the pocket of
+the jeans, he started out, carrying the furnace pot, and looking like a
+union-label article.
+
+He reached the Somerset by a roundabout walk, passing more than one of
+his acquaintances with inward amusement at their failure to recognize
+him. He had arranged for Helene to invite Shine Taylor and Reginald
+Warren down to call on her at the apartment in the California at this
+particular time. So thus he felt that the coast was clear. At the
+tradesmen's entrance, where he had gone before to hoist on the
+dumbwaiter, he entered the building. An investigation of the basement
+showed him that in the rear of the building were one large and two small
+courts or air shafts. Then he ascended the iron stairway to the street
+level of the vestibule.
+
+"Say, bo, I come to fix de pipes on de second floor," was his
+self-introduction to the haughty negro attendant. "Dey're leakin' an' me
+boss tells me to git on de job in a hustle."
+
+"Which one? I ain't heard o' no leaks. It must be in de empty apartment
+in de rear, kase dat old maid in de front would been kickin' my fool
+head off ef she's had any trouble. She's always grouchy."
+
+"Sure, dingy, it's de empty one in de rear. Lemme in an' I'll fix it."
+
+"You-all better see de superintendent. People is apt to be lookin' at
+dat apartment to-day to rent it, an' he mightn't want no plumber mussin'
+round. I'll go hunt 'im fer you-all."
+
+"Say, you jest lemme in now. I'm paid by de hour. You knows what plumber
+bills is, an' your superintendent'll fire you if he has to pay ten
+dollars' overtime 'cause you hold me up."
+
+This was superior logic. The negro took him up and opened the door.
+Shirley entered, and peered out of the court window in the rear.
+Helene's suggestion about the dust was applicable here, for he found
+all the windows coated except the one opening upon the areaway. Below he
+observed a stone paving with a cracked surface. It was semidark, but his
+electric pocket-light enabled him to observe one piece of the rock which
+seemed entirely detached. Shirley investigated the closets of the empty
+apartment. In one of them he discovered the object of his search. It
+was a knotted rope. He first observed the exact way in which it had been
+folded in order to replace it without suspicion being aroused. Then he
+took it to the small window of the air shafts hanging it on a hook which
+was half concealed behind the ledge. Down this he lowered himself, hand
+over hand. The stone was quickly lifted--it was hinged on the under
+surface. In the dark hole which was before him there was an iron ladder.
+Down he went, into the utter blackness. His outstretched hands apprised
+him that he was at the beginning of a walled tunnel, through which
+he groped in a half-upright position. He reached an iron door, and
+remembering his direction calculated that this must be at the rear
+entrance of the old garage on West Fifty-fifth Street. It opened, as he
+swung a heavy iron bar, fitted with a curious mechanism resembling the
+front of a safe. Softly he entered, carrying his heavy boots in his
+hand. All was still within, and he shot the glow ray of his little lamp
+about him. As the reader may guess, it was the rear room of Warren's
+private spider-web! The table, facing the screen was surmounted by an
+ingenious telephone switchboard.
+
+Shirley examined this closely. The various plugs were labelled:
+"Rector," "Flatbush," "Jersey City," "Main," "Morningside," and other
+names which Shirley recognized as "central" stations of the telephone
+company. Here was the partial solution of the mysterious calls. He
+determined to test the service!
+
+He took up the telephone receiver and sent the plug into the orifice
+under the label, "Co." wondering what that might be. Soon there was an
+answer.
+
+"Yes, Chief. What is it?"
+
+"How's everything?" was Shirley's hoarse remark. "I find connections bad
+in the Bronx? What's the matter?"
+
+"I'll send one of the outside men up there to see, Chief. There's a new
+exchange manager there, and he may be having the wires inspected. But
+my tap is on the cable behind the building. I don't see how he could get
+wise."
+
+Shirley smiled at this inadvertent betrayal of the system: wire tapping
+with science. He was able to trap the confederate with his own mesh of
+copper now.
+
+"I want to see you right away. Some cash for you. I'm sick with a cold
+in the throat so don't keep me waiting. Go up town and stand in the
+doorway at 192 West Forty-first Street. Don't let anybody see you while
+you wait there, so keep back out of sight. How soon can you be there?"
+
+"Oh, in half an hour if I hurry. Any trouble? You certainly have a bum
+voice, Chief. But how will I know it's you?"
+
+"I'll just say, 'Telephone,' and then you come right along with me, to a
+place I have in mind. Don't be late, now! Good-bye."
+
+Shirley drew out the connection and tried the exchange labelled
+"Rector." Instantly a pleasant girl's voice inquired the number desired.
+
+"Bryant 4802-R."
+
+This was the Hotel California.
+
+The operator on the switchboard of the hostelry replied.
+
+"Give me Miss Marigold's apartment, please."
+
+Helene's voice was soon on the wire. Shirley asked for Warren in a gruff
+tone.
+
+"What do you want?" was that gentleman's musical inquiry, in the tones
+which were already so familiar to the criminologist.
+
+"Chief, dis is de Rat. I wants to meet you down at de Blue Goose on
+Water Street in half an hour. Kin you'se come? It's important."
+
+The other was evidently mystified.
+
+"The Rat? What do you mean? I don't know you. Ring off!"
+
+Shirley heard the other receiver click. He held the wire, reasoning
+out the method of the intriguer. Soon there was a buzz in his ear, and
+Warren's voice came to him. It was droll, this reversal of the original
+method, which had been so puzzling.
+
+"What number is this?"
+
+"Rector 4471, sir," answered the criminologist in the best falsetto tone
+he could muster. Then he disconnected with a smile. This was turning the
+tables with a vengeance. But he knew that he must be getting away from
+the den before the possible investigation by Warren or his lieutenant.
+There were many things he would have liked to study about the place.
+But his curiosity about the telephone had made it impossible for him to
+remain. It was a costly mistake, as events were destined to prove!
+
+He hurried out of the compartment, into the tunnel, up the rope and
+through the window. He replaced the knotted rope, exactly as it had been
+before. He put a few drippings of molten lead from the bubbling pot,
+under the wash-stand of the bathroom, to carry out the illusion of his
+work as plumber. Then he departed from the building, as he had entered.
+
+In ten minutes he was changing his garments in Mike's plumbing shop,
+with a fabulous story of the excruciating joke he had played upon a sick
+friend. Then he walked rapidly to the doorway at 192 West Forty-first
+Street.
+
+Back against the wall of this empty store entry, lounged a
+pleasant-looking young man who puffed at a perfecto. Shirley stepped
+in, and in a low tone, said: "Telephone." The other started visibly, and
+scrutinized the well-groomed club man from head to foot.
+
+"Well, Chief, you're a surprise. I never thought you looked like that.
+Where will we go?"
+
+"Over to the gambling house a friend of mine runs, just around the
+corner. There we can talk in quiet."
+
+Shirley led the way, restraining the smile which itched to betray his
+enjoyment of the situation. The other studied him with sidelong glances
+of unabated astonishment. They were soon going up the steps of the
+Holland Agency, which looked for all the world, with its closed
+shutters, and quiet front, like a retreat for the worshipers of Dame
+Fortune. Cronin fortunately did not believe in signs. So the young man
+was not suspicious, even when Shirley gave three knocks upon the door,
+to be admitted by the sharp-nosed guardian of the portal.
+
+"Tell Cleary to come downstairs, Nick," said the criminologist. "I want
+him to meet a friend of mine."
+
+The superintendent was soon speeding two steps at a time.
+
+"The Captain is back, Mr. Shirley," he exclaimed. "He's in the private
+office on a couch."
+
+"Good, then we'll take my friend right to him."
+
+The stranger was beginning to evidence uneasiness, and he turned
+questioningly to his conductor, with a growing frown.
+
+"Say, what are you leading me into, Chief?"
+
+Shirley said nothing but strode to the rear of the floor, through the
+door of Captain Cronin's sanctum. The old detective was covered with
+a steamer shawl, as he stretched out on a davenport. The young man
+observed the photographs around the room,--an enormous collection of
+double-portraits of profile and front face views--the advertized crooks
+for whom Cronin had his nets spread in a dozen cases. The handcuffs on
+the desk, the measuring stand, the Bertillon instruments on the table,
+all these aroused his suspicions instantly.
+
+He whirled about, angrily.
+
+Shirley smiled in his face. Then he addressed the surprised Captain
+Cronin.
+
+"Here is our little telephone expert who arranged the wires for Warren
+and his gang, Captain. You are welcome to add him to your growing
+collection of prisoners."
+
+For answer the young man whipped out a revolver and fired point-blank at
+the criminologist. His was a ready trigger finger. But he was no swifter
+than the convalescent detective on the couch, who had swung a six
+shooter from a mysterious fold of the steamer blanket, and planted a
+bullet into the man's shoulder from the rear.
+
+As the smoke cleared away, Shirley straightened up from the crouching
+position on the floor which had saved him from the assassin, and dragged
+the wounded criminal to his feet. The handcuffs clicked about his wrists
+before the young man had grasped the entire situation. Cleary and three
+others of the private force were in the room.
+
+"I've got to hurry along now, Captain. Just let him know that his Chief
+is captured and the sooner he turns State's evidence the better it will
+be for him. The District Attorney might make it lighter, if he helps.
+I'll be back this evening if I can." And Shirley hurried away, leaving
+much surprise and bewilderment in every mind.
+
+Cronin was equal to the task of picking up the threads, and under
+his sarcasm, and Cleary's rough arguments, the prisoner admitted some
+interesting matters about the mysterious employer whose face he had
+never seen. But Shirley's task was far from completed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. A DOUBLE ON THE TRAIL
+
+
+Shirley walked up to the Hotel California, at the door of which he met
+Warren and Taylor just leaving. They looked somewhat embarrassed but his
+manner was cordiality itself.
+
+"Sorry you are going. I was just stepping up to see Miss Marigold. Won't
+you come back?"
+
+His invitation was refused. Then Shirley urged Warren to be his guest
+at the club for dinner that evening. This was accepted with a surprising
+alacrity. So, he left them, and was soon talking with Helene.
+
+"You missed a curious little sociable party," she assured him. "They
+tried to quiz me, and I confess that I worked for the same purpose--no
+results on either side. But, Warren had an unusual telephone call, which
+disturbed him so much that he hurried away, sooner than he had planned."
+
+Shirley recounted his explorations of the afternoon, with the
+explanation of Reginald's disturbance. It was certain now that the
+leader of the assassins had something to cause uneasiness,--enough to
+take his mind off the campaign of murder and blackmail.
+
+"But he will try to get you out of the way," was her anxious answer.
+"You are multiplying needless dangers. Why don't you have him arrested
+now--the phonograph records will identify his voice, will they not? The
+diary will show his career, and everything seems complete in the case."
+
+Shirley sat down in the window-seat, before replying.
+
+"It is just my own vanity, then, perhaps. I am foolish enough to believe
+that I can trap him on some crime which will give him the complete
+punishment he deserves without dragging in the names of these
+unfortunate old society men. All our trouble would be for nothing, just
+now, if the story came out. The phonograph records helped me--but
+I prefer to keep that method to myself, as a matter of interest and
+selfishness. Somewhere, in that beautiful apartment of his there must be
+clues which will send him to the electric chair on former crimes: Warren
+is an artist who has handled other brushes than the ones he used on this
+masterpiece. He is not a beginner. So, I must ransack his apartment."
+
+"That is impossible, with all the care he takes with bolts and locks."
+
+"We shall see. Meanwhile, I'll spin the yarn of the last thirty-six
+hours. I'm sure your curiosity is whetted: my own is by no means
+satisfied."
+
+So he gave her a survey of the progress he had made. Helene brought
+forth a number of typewritten pages which she had transcribed from the
+diary, proudly exhibiting a machine which she had ordered sent up from
+the hotel office.
+
+"There, sir, we are unwinding the ravelings of his past life to an
+extent. I have found a mysterious reference to a Montfluery case in
+Paris, during August of last year. What can you do to investigate that
+lead?"
+
+Shirley jotted down the name, and answered: "A cable to the prefecture
+of Police of the city of Paris from Captain Cronin will bring details.
+That should be an added link in the chain, within the next twenty-four
+hours. I am going to leave you for the while, as I wish to investigate a
+certain yacht which is moored in the East River. That yacht is there for
+a purpose--you remember his reference to the payment of supplies for
+a two-month cruise. My amateurish vanity leads me to a hope that I can
+capture him just at the crucial moment when he thinks he is successful
+in his escape from pursuit."
+
+"That is the childishness of the masculine mind," retorted Helene. "You
+say we women are illogical, but we are essentially practical in the
+small things. I would advise closing the doors before the horse escapes,
+rather than a chase from behind!"
+
+"Perhaps," answered Monty, "but the uncertainty does allure me. I always
+enjoyed skating on thin ice, from the days of college when I loved to
+get through a course of lectures on as little work as possible. The
+satisfaction of 'getting away with it' against odds was so exhilarating.
+I will return after my little dinner with Warren at the Club. Where will
+you dine?"
+
+"Your friend Dick Holloway is taking me to some restaurant where singing
+and music may alter my refusal to him."
+
+"Your refusal?" and Shirley shot a quick glance at the girl. Her dimples
+appeared as she added: "Yes--he wants me to star in a little play for
+the coming spring, but I have had such fun playing in real-life drama
+that I said him nay."
+
+"Oh," was all the criminologist said, but as he left, Helene's laugh
+interpretated a little feminine satisfaction. Monty's mind was just
+disturbed enough about the attitude of Dick Holloway to keep him from
+worrying over the Warren case until he had reached the East River, near
+the yacht club mooring.
+
+There was the white yacht which had been mentioned in the purloined
+book. It was a trim, speedy craft. The criminologist walked down a few
+blocks to the office of a boat contractor with whom he had dealt on
+bygone occasions.
+
+"I want to engage a fast motor-boat, Mr. Manby," was his request. "The
+speediest thing you've got. Keep it down at your dock, at Twenty-first
+Street, with plenty of gasoline and a man on duty all the time, starting
+with six o'clock to-night. I may need it at a minute's notice."
+
+"I've got a hydroplane which I'll sell this spring to some yachtsman,"
+said Manby. "It's a bargain--you can do forty miles an hour in it,
+without getting a drop of spray. Shall I show it to you?"
+
+"Yes, and the two men who you will have alternating on duty, so they
+will know me when I come for it. I'll pay for every minute it is
+reserved."
+
+They soon came to terms; the men were introduced and Shirley was well
+satisfied with the racing craft, which was moored according to his
+directions, handy for a quick embarkation.
+
+Then he went up to the Holland Agency. Cronin was disappointed in
+his results with the telephone confederate. All of Warren's men were
+close-mouthed, as though through some biting fear of swift and unerring
+vengeance for "squealing." Even the prisoners in the station-house had
+not volunteered to communicate with friends, as they were allowed to
+do by law. They were "standing pat," as the old detective declared in
+disgust.
+
+"That proves one thing," remarked the criminologist. "They are not local
+products, or they would have friends other than their chief on whom to
+call for bail or aid. Their whole work centers on him. I think I will
+send a code message to this man Phil this afternoon or evening. He may
+be able to read it, and if he does, it may assist us. I wish you would
+have a man call on Miss Marigold at the California Hotel, so that she
+may know his face. Then keep him covering her for they are apt to get
+suspicious of her and try to quiet her. She is a game and fearless girl,
+but she is no match for this gang."
+
+Cronin assigned one of the men immediately, and the sleuth took up a
+note of introduction to Helene, in which Monty explained the need for
+his watch.
+
+Shirley then repaired to the club house to await his dinner guest. He
+was thoughtful about the alacrity of Warren to dine with him. There was
+more to this assumed friendliness than the mere desire to talk to him.
+
+"I wonder if he wants to keep me occupied for some certain reason?"
+pondered the club man. "Helene is protected now by a silent watcher. The
+members of the Lobster Club are all out of the city. Van Cleft is safe
+on the ocean. They must be laying a trap. I wonder where that trap would
+be?"
+
+As he looked about his rooms he realized that many important pieces of
+evidence were locked up in his chests and the small safe. His bedroom,
+in the uppermost floor of the club building, was in a quiet and less
+frequented part of the house. Shirley summoned one of the shrewd
+Japanese valets who worked on the dormitory floors of the building.
+
+"Chen," he began. "Are you a good fighter?"
+
+The Mongolian grinned characteristically. Shirley took out a bill, and
+handed it to the little fellow.
+
+"I have reason to think some one may come into my rooms to-night, while
+I am busy downstairs. How would you like to lock yourself on the inside
+of my clothes closet, and wait? The air is not very good, but with this
+ten dollars you could take a nice ride in the country to-morrow, and get
+lots of good oxygen in your lungs to make up for it."
+
+Chen was a willing little self-jailer. Shirley handed him his own
+revolver, and the slant eyes sparkled with glee at the opportunity for
+some excitement. Americans may carp at the curious manners and alleged
+shortcomings of the Oriental, but personal fear does not seem to be in
+the category of their faults. So, with this little valet, who improved
+his time, as Shirley had discovered, by taking special courses in
+Columbia University's scientific department. The criminologist had used
+him on more than one occasion when Eastern subtlety and apparent lack of
+guile had accomplished the impossible!
+
+The closet door was closed, and Shirley went downstairs. At the desk of
+the, club clerk he sent a cablegram to the police authorities of Paris.
+The message was simple
+
+"Cable collect to Holland Detective Agency name and record of man in
+Montfleury case, August, 1914. Do you want him?................. Cronin,
+Captain."
+
+Shirley smiled as he handed the envelope to the little messenger who had
+been summoned, and made his exit through the front doorway just as the
+affable Reginald Warren entered it: another instance of "ships that pass
+in the night," was the thought of the host who advanced courteously.
+
+"You are on time to the minute: German training, I see. Let the boy have
+your hat and coat, Mr. Warren."
+
+These little amenities completed, they sauntered about the beautiful
+building, Shirley pointing out the many interesting photographs of
+athletic teams, trophies, club posters, portraits of famous graduates,
+and the like, which seem part and parcel of collegiate atmosphere.
+Warren was profoundly interested, yet there was an abstraction in his
+conversation which was not unobserved by his entertainer. As they passed
+a tall, colonial clock in the broad hallway, Shirley caught him glancing
+uneasily at it. This was the second time he had looked at its silvered
+face since they came into the range of it. Purposely the club man took
+him down the length of the big dining-hall, to exhibit the trophies of
+the hunt, from jungles and polar regions, contributed by the sportsmen
+members of past classes. Here Shirley chatted about this and that boar's
+head, yonder elephant hide, the other tiger skin, until he had consumed
+additional time. As they passed into the lounging room Shirley led his
+guest past another small mahogany clock. Again the sharp, anxious
+glance at the progress of the minutes. He was convinced by now that some
+deviltry was being perfected on schedule time. He began to worry over
+his little assistant on the floor high above: perhaps he would not be
+able to cope with the plotters, after all. Yet, Chen was wiry, cunning,
+and needed no diagrams as to the purpose for which he was to guard the
+rooms.
+
+At last Shirley led Warren to the grill-room where they ordered their
+dinner: the supreme test of a gentleman is his taste in the menu for a
+discriminating guest. Warren sensed this, as the delicious viands and
+rare old wines were brought out in a combination which would have warmed
+the heart cockles of the fussiest old gourmon from Goutville!
+
+"Ah, a feast fit for the gods," were his admiring words, as the two men
+smiled across this strange board of hospitality. In the midst of
+the meal, their chat of student days was interrupted by a page who
+approached Shirley.
+
+"Begging your pardon, sir, but I have a note which was left here by
+messenger for a gentleman named Mr. R. Warren; your guest, I believe,
+sir?"
+
+Warren's face flushed, and his surprise was indubitable. He snatched
+the envelope from the boy, who had reached it toward Shirley. The
+criminologist was no less in the dark. Warren, with a scant apology,
+tore open the missive. It was typewritten! He read it, and his brows
+came together with an angry scowl.
+
+He arose from his seat swiftly, turning toward Shirley with a nervous
+twitching of the erstwhile firm lips.
+
+"Would you pardon me if I ran? A Wall Street client of mine has suddenly
+been stricken with apoplexy. We have deals together, dependent upon
+gentlemen's agreements, without a word of writing. It may mean a fortune
+to get to him before he loses all power of speech. It is a shame to
+spoil, at this time, such a wonderful dinner as I had promised myself
+with you. Can you forgive me?"
+
+The man was visibly panic-stricken, although his superb nerve was
+fighting hard to cover his terror. Shirley wondered what news could have
+fallen into his hand this way. He watched the envelope, hoping that he
+would inadvertently drop it. But no such luck! Warren carefully folded
+it and put it with the letter into the breast pocket of his coat.
+
+"My dear fellow, business before indigestion, always! I am sorry to have
+you go, but we will try again. I will go upstairs with you. Shall I call
+a taxicab for you?"
+
+Warren expostulated, but the host followed him to the check room. Unseen
+by Warren, Shirley inserted a handkerchief from his own pocket into the
+overcoat pocket of the other with a sleight-of-hand substitution, in the
+withdrawal of the guest's small linen square!
+
+Warren rushed to the door. He sprang into the first taxicab that came
+along, and disappeared. Shirley watched the car as it raced away and
+noticed its number. He turned to the door man.
+
+"Whose machine was that? On the regular club stand here?"
+
+"Yes, sir. A man named Perkins drives it, sir."
+
+"Will it return here as soon as the fare is taken to the end of the
+trip?"
+
+"Yes, sir, they have orders for that. They belong to a gent who supplies
+cars for our club exclusively, sir. They are not allowed to take outside
+passengers."
+
+"Very good! You send for me, in my rooms, as soon as the driver of the
+car shows up. I want to find out where he went."
+
+Shirley hurried up in the lift to his own floor. He went to the door of
+his room, and tried to open it with his key. It was bolted from inside!
+There came a muffled report from within. Then he heard a cry, which
+he recognized as the voice of Chen, the Jap. He dropped to the floor,
+listening at the crack--a scuffle was in progress within!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. A BURGLARY FOR JUSTICE
+
+
+Shirley rose, and once more applied that gridiron-trained boot of his:
+this time to the lock of the door. Two doses resulted in a complete cure
+for its obstinacy. As he rushed into the room, he saw a figure swing out
+of the window on a dangling rope. He hesitated--the desire to chase
+this intruder to the roof of the club struggled with his duty to the
+unfortunate Jap, who lay on the floor, where he was being garroted by a
+burly ruffian in a chauffeur's habiliments. He sprang toward his little
+assistant, and made quick work of the big man.
+
+As he threw the other, with one of his "silencer" twists of the neck
+cords, the Jap sprang up. A demoniac anger twisted that usually smiling
+countenance, and it took all of Shirley's strength, to wrest away the
+automatic revolver from the maddened valet, to prevent swift revenge.
+
+"Why, Chen. He's caught. Don't shoot him now!"
+
+Chen, with a voluble stream of Nagasaki profanity, spluttered in rage,
+and strove like a bantam rooster to get at his antagonist. The necessity
+for quieting him to prevent bloodshed was fatal to the pursuit of the
+other man, as Shirley realized bitterly. The servants were running to
+the room by this time. The club steward opened the battered door, and
+Shirley turned to explain.
+
+"You have a brave little man, here, Cushman. Chen heard this burglar
+in my room, and tried to capture him at the risk of his own life. He
+deserves promotion and a raise in salary. Go downstairs and call the
+police. We'll have this fellow locked up!"
+
+The man glared at Shirley, and rubbed his throat which throbbed from the
+vice-like grip of the jiu-jitsu. Chen still breathed hard and his almond
+eyes rolled nervously. At last he was quiet again, although the slender
+fingers twitched hungrily for a clawing of that dirty neck. Shirley
+patted him on the back. Judgment had come to another of the gangsters,
+and the criminologist was pleased at the diminution in the ranks of his
+opponent.
+
+An examination of his cabinet and dresser drawers showed that the
+pillaging had barely begun when Chen popped out of his hiding-place.
+It was no wonder that Warren had been so solicitous as to the speeding
+time: intuition had once more intervened to interrupt these well-laid
+schemes.
+
+The little Jap could tell barely more of his adventure than that he had
+opened the door when he heard men walking and talking in the room. Then
+the struggle had ensued, with the result already described.
+
+Now, indeed, was Shirley more puzzled than ever at Warren's sudden
+departure. It had upset the plans of the conspirators: it was an
+unwelcome surprise to their Chief. And furthermore it had interfered
+with a little scheme of the criminologist by which he had expected to
+craftily imprison his guest for the remainder of the night.
+
+The room was put in order--not much was there to rearrange, for the
+tussle had come so promptly. With a final look at his belongings,
+Shirley left Chen in charge, not forgetting to slip to him another
+reward for his courage.
+
+Then he went downstairs and hurried over to the Hotel California to hold
+a conference of war with Helene Marigold.
+
+She was nervous, as she greeted him. Yet a subtle smile on her face
+showed that she was not surprised by the visit. Shirley quickly outlined
+the occurrences of the dinner hour. When he asked her opinion, for he
+had learned to place a growing trust in her quick grasp of things, she
+walked silently to her typewriter.
+
+"Here, sir, is a little note which may amuse you."
+
+She handed him a piece of paper. It read:
+
+"Chief: The Monk has turned up at the Blue Goose on Water Street. He is
+drunk and telling all he knows. Come down at once to help us quiet him.
+Hurry or every thing will be known. You know who."
+
+Shirley looked at the message, and then with tilted eyebrows at his fair
+companion.
+
+"What do you know about the Blue Goose?" he asked. "And the Monk? For I
+presume that you wrote this out?"
+
+"Your presumption is correct. I remembered hearing Warren ask Taylor
+this afternoon after that telephone call from you, where the Blue Goose
+saloon could be. Taylor told him it was a sailor's dive on Water Street.
+The night they thought me dreaming on his library couch, I heard Taylor
+ask Warren if they had heard from the Monk. So, it seemed to me that
+the two questions might interest Mr. Reginald Warren if presented in a
+language that he understood."
+
+"And what was that language?"
+
+"It was a code message, which I typed out on this Remwood machine here,
+by the system you told me. It was slow work, but I finished it and sent
+it over to the club, knowing Warren would be with you. I really don't
+know what good the message would do. But being an illogical woman, and
+a descendant of Pandora, I thought it would be amusing to open the
+Pandora's box and let all the little devils loose, just to see the
+glitter of their wings!"
+
+Shirley caught her hands delightedly.
+
+"You bully girl! Nothing could have happened better. I'll improve my
+time now, by visiting Mr. Warren's apartment, impolite as it is without
+an invitation. And then I think I will go calling in that little cave of
+the winds in the rear of his art collection, on the other street."
+
+"But, Monty--I Mean, Mr. Shirley," and a rosy embarrassment overcame
+her, "you will put your head into the lion's mouth once too often. Why
+not wait until you get him under lock and key?"
+
+"My dear girl, we will telephone my club and talk to the door man. I
+think that he may be under lock and key by this time, in a manner you
+little suspect. Let me have the number."
+
+He went to the instrument on her dressing-table. The club was soon
+reached, and Dan the door man was answering his eager question.
+
+"Yes, sir, the taxi has come back, sir."
+
+"Send the chauffeur to the wire. I want to talk to him," said Shirley.
+The man was soon speaking. "What address did you take that gentleman to,
+my man?"
+
+"Why, sir, I started out for the Battery, but sir, a terrible thing
+happened."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"The gentleman was overcome with an ep'leptic stroke or somethin' like
+that. He pounded on the winder behind me, and when I stopped me car, and
+looked in he was down an' out. I was on Thirty-third Street and Fift'
+Avenue at the time, so I calls a cop, and he orders me to run 'im over
+to Bellevue. He's there now, sir. He ain't hardly breathin', sir. It's
+terrible!"
+
+"Too bad, I must go and call, to see if I can help him!" was Shirley's
+remark as he hung up the receiver. He repeated the news to Helene. Her
+eyes sparkled, as she said: "Ah, those symptoms resemble the ones you
+told me which came from that amo-amas-amat-citron, or whatever it was."
+
+"Not quite such a loving lemon, Miss Marigold," he chuckled. "Amyl
+nitrite. The same soothing syrup which quieted our would-be robbers on
+Sixth Avenue, that night when we left his apartment. It will wear off
+in about three hours. I had a little glass container folded in my own
+handkerchief, which I put in his overcoat pocket as a parting souvenir,
+crushing it as I did so. I reasoned that undue anxiety which he
+displayed might cause him to mop his brow, close to that student-duel
+scar. One smell of the chemical on that handkerchief, in the quantity
+which I gave, was enough to quiet his worries. Now for the Somerset
+Apartment."
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"It is eight fifteen. I want you to telephone up to Warren's apartment
+exactly at ten o'clock. Tell them--there should be a them, that I have
+been overcome in your apartment, and that they are the only people who
+can help you, or who know you. I believe that the idea of finding me
+unconscious, and getting me away will bring any and all of his friends
+who may be there. If Taylor is there with others, he will hardly leave
+them in the place when he goes. What I want is to be sure that the coast
+is cleared of people at that hour. Then I will make an investigation
+into his papers and other matters of interest. Can I count on you?"
+
+A reproachful pouting of the scarlet lips was the only answer. Shirley
+left, this time hurrying uptown to a certain engine-house, whose fire
+captain he had known quite well in the old reportorial days.
+
+It was beginning to snow once more. And as Shirley slipped out of the
+engine-house, carrying a scaling ladder which he had borrowed after much
+persuasion from his good-natured friend, he thanked his luck for this
+natural veiling of the night, to baffle eyes too curious about the
+campaign he had planned. He knew the posts of the policemen on this
+street, and sedulously avoided them.
+
+The Warren apartment faced the Eastern side of the structure, and when
+he reached the front of the Somerset, he sought for a way in which
+to use his implement. A scaling ladder, it may be explained to the
+uninitiated, is about eight feet long--a single fire-proof bar, on which
+are short cross-pieces. At one end is a curiously curving serrated hook,
+which is used for grappling on the sills of windows or ledges above.
+It is the most useful weapon for the city fire-fighter, enabling him to
+climb diagonally across the face of a threatened structure, or even
+to swing horizontally from one window to a far one, where ladders and
+hose-streams might not reach.
+
+A hundred feet to the West of the Somerset he found the excavations for
+a new apartment house. No watchman was in sight, in the mist of falling
+flakes, so the criminologist disappeared over the fence which separated
+the plot of ground from the sidewalk. Advancing with many a stumble
+through the blasted rock and shale, he obtained ingress to an alleyway
+in the rear. Following this brought him to the back of the Somerset.
+Shirley had an obstinate grandfather, and heredity was strong upon him.
+It seemed a foolhardy attempt to scale the big structure, but he raised
+the ladder to the window-sill of the second story, climbing cautiously
+up to that ledge.
+
+On the second sill he rested, then stretched his scaler diagonally
+forward to the left. As he put his feet upon this, he swung like a
+pendulum across the space. It was a severe grueling of nerves, but his
+judgment of placement was good. When the ladder stopped swinging he
+clambered up another story, as he had learned to do on truant afternoons
+wasted at the firemen's training school, during the privileged days of
+journalistic work.
+
+Floor after floor he ascended, until he reached the eighth, on which was
+Shirley's great goal. Here he exerted the utmost prudence, refraining
+from the natural impulse to look down at the great crevasse beneath
+him. His footing was slippery, but the thickening snowfall was a boon
+in white disguise, for it protected him from almost certain observation
+from the street below. Slowly he raised his eyes to a level with the
+illuminated window, and peered in.
+
+A strange sight greeted him.
+
+Shine Taylor was busily engaged in the 'twisting of coils of wire, about
+shiny brass cylinders, with an array of small and large clocks, electric
+batteries and mysterious bottles on the carved library table. He was
+intent upon the manufacture of another of his diabolical engines of
+death!
+
+Even as he watched, the door opened and who should stagger into the room
+but Reginald Warren!
+
+"Great Scott, Reg! What hit you?" was Taylor's ejaculation, as the
+other stumbled forward, with a hand to his purple face, to sink into an
+easy-chair, groaning. The man outside the window could not distinguish
+the words, but the current of thought was well expressed in pantomime.
+
+"I've been drugged!" moaned Warren. "That devil put something on my
+handkerchief which knocked me out. I came to in Bellevue and I had a
+time getting away to come back here. What about the Monk? Did you see
+him?"
+
+Taylor had run to his side. It seemed as though Warren's eyes would pop
+from his head. The veins were swollen on his pallid brow, and he gasped
+for air.
+
+"Open the window!" he murmured, and his confederate rushed to the very
+portal through which the criminologist was watching this unusual
+scene, with bated breath. His heart sank, as he lowered himself with
+a suddenness which vibrated the loosely-attached scaler. For the first
+time his eyes turned toward the terrifying distance from which he had
+ascended.
+
+There was a squeak and he heard the window slide in its frame. He
+felt that all was over. It would be impossible for Shine Taylor not to
+observe the hooked prong of the ladder, with its curving metal a few
+inches from his hands. In this ghastly minute of suspense, Shiley's
+thoughts, strangely enough turned back to one thing. He did not
+dash through the gamut of his life experiences nor regret all past
+peccadilloes, as novelists inform us is generally the ultimate thought
+in the supreme moment before a dash into eternity! He felt only a
+maddening, itchingly bewitching desire to reach up to his coat pocket
+and draw out that scent-laden page of typed note-paper which had been
+glorified by its caress of the warm, bare bosom of the wonderful woman
+who had so mysteriously drifted into the current of his life.
+
+Then he heard a voice through the open window so close to his ears: it
+was Shine Taylor's nasal whine.
+
+"It's snowing, Reg. The air will do you good. What a gorgeous night for
+a murder. Tell me now, what was the trouble?"
+
+And Shirley swung, and swung and swung!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. IN THE DOUBLE TRAP
+
+
+Eternity had passed, the Judgment Day had been overlooked and new aeons
+had gone their way, it seemed to the criminologist, when the voice was
+audible again.
+
+"Oh, all right. I just drew it down from the top. Tell me about your
+doping. Who was the devil?"
+
+He had been unobserved. By the grace of the fates, Warren's sudden
+appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and
+Taylor's own abstraction had dissipated any interest in the world beyond
+the window. Again he lifted himself to the level of the sill, sure that
+the creamy curtains upon which the light from the big electrolier
+was beaming, would shield him from their view. Warren called for some
+brandy. Taylor served him, but it was three minutes or more before the
+other could collect himself. Then he began furiously, as the pain in his
+forehead diminished.
+
+"This Shirley: he's a clever dog. He put something on my handkerchief,
+and when I got that message of yours it got me, right in the taxicab, as
+I was on my way to the Blue Goose to meet you."
+
+"To meet me?" and Taylor's turn came to be startled. "I don't know why
+you should meet me at the Blue Goose!"
+
+"Say, didn't you send me this note in code?" demanded Warren, drawing
+out the typewritten sheet. Taylor shook his head, with a blanched face.
+
+The other looked at him with the first evidence of fear which Shirley
+had ever seen on the confident face. Warren caught his assistant's hand,
+and drew his face down toward the note.
+
+"Look, it is in our code. Phil can read it but he is the only one beside
+you. He is locked up in jail, and couldn't reach a typewriter. I got a
+message from him this afternoon that he wouldn't squeal. You know how he
+smuggled it out to me. Tell me how could any one know about the Monk and
+write this so?"
+
+Taylor shook his head, speechless. As he turned his face toward the
+window Shirley observed the great drawn shadows under his squinting
+eyes. The sudden shock was telling on that weasel face. Taylor walked
+unsteadily toward the infernal machine, and he looked blankly toward
+Warren again. The other's blazing orbs were full upon him now. There was
+a frightful menace in their glittering depths as he spoke.
+
+"Taylor, if I thought you had sold out I'd skin you alive right now!"
+
+"Reg--Reg--you are my best friend. Don't say a thing like that."
+
+"Are you selling me for some purpose. Are you soft on that chicken? Has
+she blarneyed you into this?" demanded his chief, rising, unsteadily,
+but fierce in his suspicious tensity.
+
+Taylor cowered, with imploring hands stretched out.
+
+"Why, Reg, no one ever did for me what you've done. I'd die rather than
+sell you out, and there ain't a dame in the world that could make me
+soft on a real game like this."
+
+As Warren studied his white face there came a tinkle on the telephone.
+
+"What's that? Who's that?" Warren turned and ran toward the instrument,
+still studying the face of his companion. It was evident that a seed of
+distrust was planted in his bosom. He answered nervously.
+
+"Yes, yes! What do you want? Who's speaking?"
+
+Then he listened, and a wise expression came over his face. It broke
+into a smile for the first time since he entered the room. He winked at
+Taylor who drew near him. Shirley strained his ears to catch the words.
+
+"Yes, yes, why, my dear Miss Bonbon. Surely, I'll be glad to come
+down--To help take care of Mr. Shirley--Of course, I will come in my
+machine and bring him uptown to a hospital--That's what you want?--Yes,
+indeed, nothing would give me greater pleasure."
+
+He rang off, and turned toward Taylor.
+
+"That smooth devil has sniffed some of his own dope as sure as you live,
+Shine. We'll get him. Call up and have the machine sent around. You and
+I will be a committee of two, and we'll end this tonight. Bring what you
+need."
+
+Warren drank another full glass of brandy, while Taylor gave a quick
+order over the telephone. Then the latter snatched up a small black
+satchel which was standing on a side table. The assistant came to the
+window, and Shirley dropped down out of sight, for another moment of
+suspense. But the sash was quickly closed and bolted.
+
+The light was turned out, and he waited another five minutes, stiffening
+in the cold wind which had sprung up to send the big flakes in eddies
+against his numbed fingers. With difficulty he fished out a long, thin
+wire from his pocket, with which he had frequently turned the safety
+catch of windows on other such occasions. Again it served its purpose,
+and he drew himself up to the sash of the opened window. He brushed off
+the snow, so as to leave no telltale puddles of drippings. He went to
+the door of the library, and then to that of the vestibule.
+
+It was locked from the outside, even as they had done when Helene was
+the drowsy prisoner.
+
+He had little time, he knew, for his search, but he first thought of
+the girl's predicament. He must cover the tracks there. He took up the
+receiver, and in a minute was talking to her.
+
+"I'm in. Leave word downstairs (and pay the clerk and bell-boy a good
+bribe) that you have gone to a hospital with a sick friend. Tell them
+to swear to that, and better still leave the hotel at once, hunt up
+Dick Holloway--you'll find him at the Thespis Club to-night. Send in the
+chauffeur to ask for him and have him stay with you in the machine. I am
+going to visit the other place when I finish here. I'll be down there,
+at the Thespis Club, by eleven again. Good-bye--use your wits."
+
+Then he began a hurried ransacking of the apartment. He picked up a
+note-book here, sheets of memoranda there, letters and documents which
+he thought would be convenient. Warren's bedrooms were locked, but a
+small "jimmie" sufficed to force them open. He found in one drawer a
+dozen or more bank books, with as many different financial houses, and
+under many names. This he shoved into his pockets. At last, satisfied
+that he could gain no more, he retreated to the window. He shut this
+and was once more on the windowsill. Here he looked down, and a new
+inspiration came to him. He would have difficulty in getting admission
+to the apartment entrance, at this time of night. The attendant would
+remember him and warn Warren upon the latter's return. It was but one
+more climb, a single story, to the roof. So, up he went, deserting the
+faithful scaling ladder on the roof, for the time being.
+
+He sought around for several minutes on the snowy, slippery surface
+before he found the entrance to the iron stairway close by the elevator
+shaft. Then he went softly down.
+
+Past Warren's apartment, on his way without a noise, his boots off, he
+continued until he reached the second floor. Here he was baffled again.
+Why had he not taken some impression of the pass-key of the negro
+attendant when let in before? Yet now he remembered that the man had
+never relinquished his hold upon that open sesame. He remembered the
+"jimmy"--yet this would betray him, by the broken lock!
+
+There was the servant's entrance, however, in the rear of the hallway.
+To this he slipped, even as the elevator passed up bearing Warren and
+Shine Taylor, muttering angrily. Shirley found the rear door to the
+rooms, and there he worked quickly, forcing the lock. He was soon
+inside, and hid himself in the pantry of the darkened apartment. He had
+not long to wait.
+
+There was a clicking noise which reverberated through the empty room,
+as the other two entered by the front portal. He heard them talking in
+whispers, then the creaking of a window, and all was silent again.
+
+Shirley went to the same small window through which he had descended
+before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from
+his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found
+the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A
+block of wood held it back from the jamb.
+
+"He is prepared for a quick retreat. So shall I be," thought Shirley,
+as he noiselessly crept into the chamber, after having drawn away the
+wooden block. He let the door come gently to its frame, stopping it
+within an inch of its lock. As he turned slightly forward he caught two
+curious silhouettes: Warren at his table, with Shine at his side, their
+outlines clear and black against the brightness of the headlights.
+On, the other side of the transparent screen stood a man, with one
+eye blackened, his face badly bruised and wicked in its battered
+condensation of evil determination with rage and fright, so oddly mixed.
+
+"It ain't my fault, Chief! There are only six of the boys left. I tried
+me best but this little Chinyman he soaks me one on the lamp, with a
+gun butt. Me pal was nabbed in the room when I sneaks out on the rope. I
+finds out afterward that Jimmie's watch must-a been about twenty minutes
+slow. That's how we misses."
+
+"But you didn't get him, and I'm going to break you for this!"
+
+"But gov'nor, listen--we leaves the machine all right. That'll git 'im
+anyway. What'll I do?"
+
+"I have the addresses of the other men here in my pocket. You tell them
+to stick right in their rooms for the next twenty-four hours. If they
+don't hear anything from me, tell them to go to Frisco by roundabout
+ways and I'll forward their money, care of Kelso. Now get out."
+
+The man disappeared and there was a double click as the door to the
+front compartment closed. Warren turned toward Taylor, While Shirley
+flattened himself against the rear wall, and crouched down slowly,
+without a betraying sound.
+
+"I don't understand that girl not being there. Some one's closing in on
+us. I'm going to break that girl's spirit before I'm through. She'll be
+on the yacht tonight, for everything's ready now. What sort of a machine
+did you arrange for his room?"
+
+"The old telephone one we worked in Oakland. It is under his bed. I told
+the men to do that first before they went through his things. Then it
+would look like plain robbery, and when he goes to take the receiver
+off the hook it's 'good-night, nursey!' That little popper will blow the
+roof off that club house!"
+
+Shirley's blood might have run cold at the calm pride of this degenerate
+fiend, had it not been boiling at the reference to Helene. He crept
+nearer to them, along the wall. He lay down on the floor, below the
+level of the first bullet paths. Then he drew his automatic and the bulb
+light, ready for his surprise.
+
+"I'll call up Kick Brown at the telephone company. He's on duty until
+twelve. That's an hour yet."
+
+He placed the plug in position but there came no answer over his private
+wire. Warren cursed: this time in a dialect unknown to Shirley. The man
+was asserting his most primitive nature now.
+
+"What does that mean? He knows that it's important to-night. I wonder if
+some one has squealed. You know what I said upstairs, Shine?" Warren's
+voice was ominous. "I don't like the looks of things. And you're the
+only one who has ever known the inside working of my system. I've even
+told you the key to my code--Phil knows it in part, but there is nothing
+I've kept from you."
+
+Here Shirley's dramatic instinct asserted itself. In a sepulchral voice,
+he spoke: "One key to the right, in writing. One to the left to read.
+Hands up, Warren, you're wanted in Paris, and we have the goods on you!"
+
+Placing the bulb light far to his left, he twisted the little catch
+which kept it glowing permanently. The light fell full on the face of
+Warren and Taylor as they sprang up back to back!
+
+"Drop that revolver. It's all up now. You go to the chair for these
+murders."
+
+Warren shot for the body he supposed to be above the little light. As he
+did so Shirley sent a bullet into the arch criminal's right wrist.
+The weapon dropped from his hand to the table. Shine Taylor,
+terror-stricken, staggered against his companion, groping for support.
+Warren misunderstood it: he thought his assistant was trying to hold
+him. The swift interpretation gave new fuel to the flame of mistrust
+which had sprung up in his heart. He knew not how many men were
+about him--he merely realized that his crafty plans had been set at
+naught,--there could be only this one explanation. He struck at Taylor,
+who moaned in pain.
+
+"You cur, you've squealed on me!" With his uninjured left hand he caught
+the other in his Oriental death grip, with all his consummate skill.
+Astonished at the sudden move, Shirley rose to his feet. But he
+hesitated too long.
+
+With a faint gurgle, Shine Taylor, pickpocket, mechanical artist and
+criminal genius sank to the mouldy ground of the cellar--lifeless!
+
+Shirley snatched up the light, instinctively throwing its rays upon the
+face of the dead man. It was horrible to see this ghastly ending of the
+miserable life, so suddenly conceived and grewsomely executed! Here was
+Warren's opportunity. He caught up his weapon from the table with the
+left hand, and sent a shot at the intruder, leaping at the same time
+toward the rear entrance. Monty swung the light about, but the other
+threw on an electric switch. He stood by the iron portal a fiendish
+smirk on his distorted features.
+
+"So, my luck is good after all: I've got you where I most want you!" His
+weapon covered Shirley's. "I shoot as well with my left hand as with
+my right. But, no, I won't shoot you. I'll put you away without a
+trace left. That is always the clever way. I told you that the average
+criminal was too careless about little things. Good-bye, Mr. Montague
+Shirley, I wish you a pleasant journey!"
+
+His hand, bleeding from the bullet wound, was pushing the iron door,
+behind him as he faced Shirley. Suddenly a frightful sound broke the
+stillness: it was the final exhalation of air from the dead man's lungs.
+It sent a creeping chill through Shirley's blood. Warren's right hand
+dropped, nervously for an instant, despite his resolution. In that
+second Shirley had brought his own weapon up to a level with the other's
+eyes.
+
+The door closed with a clang!
+
+Warren's face lost its sneering smile. He was locked in from the rear!
+
+"Now, let's see you get out the front way," retorted the criminologist.
+He had one hand behind him. He felt a metal contrivance, With three
+buttons on it. He thought perhaps it were the controlling switch for
+the lights. He would take his chances in the dark. He pressed all three
+quickly.
+
+There was a clang from the front, as some mechanism whirred for an
+instant. A gong sounded above, and scurrying feet could be heard--then
+were audible no more. It was the warning alarm for the gangsters: they
+had fled.
+
+Suddenly to Shirley's straining ears came the tick-ticking of an alarm
+clock, from the corner of the room to his right. He dare not look at it.
+Warren's eyes grew black with the Great Fear!
+
+"You fool, you've locked all the entrances, and sent the men away. That
+clock will ring in exactly five minutes. When it does, this place will
+go up from a load of lyddite. You've dug your own grave!"
+
+Warren's voice was hoarse, and his bright eyes radiated venomously, as
+he kept his weapon pointed, like Shirley's, at the face opposite. They
+were both prisoners in the death cellar, with the advantage in favor of
+neither!
+
+And the ticking clock, with its maddening, mechanical death chant
+seemed to Shirley to cry, with each beat, like the reminiscence of some
+nightmare barbershop: "Next! Next! Next!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. CAPTURED AND THEN
+
+
+Warren's white lips were moving in perfect synchronism, as he counted
+the seconds and ticks of the clock. Shirley, never so acute, cudgeled
+his mind for some devise by which he might overcame the other. It was
+hopeless. At last, just as he knew the inevitable second was almost
+completed, a faint rustling came from the other side of the iron door.
+Warren's face brightened with hope. With a nerve-racking rasp, the iron
+bar on the other side was raised: it was a torturing delay as the two
+waited!
+
+The door slowly opened. After a harrowing pause a revolver muzzle slid
+gently through the crack, and a woman's voice murmured softly: "Drop the
+gun!"
+
+It was Helene Marigold!
+
+Warren's ashen face changed to purple hue, his hand trembled just
+enough to incite Shirley to a desperate chance. As the criminal drew the
+trigger with a spasmodic jerk, Shirley was dropping to the floor, whence
+he pushed himself forward with a froglike leap, as he straightened out
+the great muscles.
+
+Together they rolled in a frenzied struggle.
+
+"Run back, Helene. The clock will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately.
+Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical
+arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and
+her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had
+she torn the wire, as a man would have done, the dreaded explosion would
+have ended it all.
+
+"We're coming!"
+
+It was the voice of Pat Cleary from the passageway. He rushed through
+the subterranean passage, followed by several men, with Dick Holloway
+excitedly in their train. After a titanic struggle, with the man baffled
+in this maddening moment of ruined triumph, they handcuffed him.
+
+Shirley led Helene into the front compartment before she could observe
+the horror stamped upon the face of the murdered rogue.
+
+The girl turned her glorious eyes to his, reached forth her hands, and
+then the eternal feminine conquered as she trembled unsteadily and sank
+into his arms.
+
+"Break down the doors, Cleary. Out here, to the street. Pull off the
+hands of that clock--it's a lyddite bomb!" cried Shirley, excitedly.
+
+One of the men used the table with clattering effect. The iron door of
+the front room gave way, and Shirley carried Helene up the ladder, to
+the main floor of the old garage. She seemed a sleeping lily--so pale,
+so fragile, so fragrant in her colorless beauty. He had never seen her
+so before! For an instant a great terror pierced him: she seemed not to
+breathe. But as he placed his face close to her mouth, her eyes opened
+for one divine look, then drooped again. A white hand and arm curled,
+with childish confidence, about his shoulder. He bore her thus to the
+big car from the Agency, which stood outside.
+
+"Quick, down to the Hotel California," he called to the chauffeur, "Pat
+Cleary can handle matters there."
+
+As they sped toward her apartment the roses took their wonted place
+in her cheeks. She sat up to smile in his face. Then she lowered
+her glance, with carmine mounting hotly to her brow. Helene said no
+word--nor did Shirley. She simply leaned toward him, to bury her face
+upon the broad shoulder, as neither heeded the possible curiosity of the
+driver on the seat in front.
+
+At least, they understood completely. There was nothing else to say!
+
+        *       *       *
+
+As Shirley left her at the door of the apartment, he turned into the
+elevator, his mind whirling with the strange imprisonment into which he
+had let his unwilling heart drift. The clerk stopped him at the lower
+floor.
+
+"There's a call for you, sir. It's rush, the gentleman said!"
+
+"Great Scott! What now?" he ran to the instrument, and he heard Captain
+Cronin's excited voice.
+
+"Shirley. The man's escaped again! They just came into the place. He
+threw some sort of bottle at the front of the patrol wagon which blew it
+all to pieces. He got away in the mix-up--three policemen were injured!"
+
+"I'll get him, Captain, if it's the last act of my life."
+
+To the surprise of the blase clerk, the well-known club man ran out of
+the hotel, dropping his hat in his excitement. He shouted to the driver
+who still waited in the agency machine.
+
+"The sky's the limit, now, son. Race for Twenty-first Street and the
+East River. Let me off at the end of the dock. Then go back to get some
+men from the agency, as I'll have a prisoner, then, or they'll get my
+body!"
+
+The machine raced down the street, regardless of the warnings of
+policemen. Shirley was confident that his was not the only car on such
+a mission. He reached the dock of Manby, where was waiting the expert
+engineer of the hydroplane. He had not planned in vain.
+
+"Have you seen an auto go past here before mine?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I was smoking me pipe, and settin' on the rail of the dock,
+when one shoots up toward the Twenty-third Street Ferry, with a cop on a
+motor-cycle chasin' it behind."
+
+"Then, quick, into the boat."
+
+They clambered down the wet ladder, and after an aggravating delay, the
+whirring engines of the racing craft were started. Shirley took off his
+coat, and lashed a long rope about his waist. He tied the other end of
+it securely to a thwart in the boat.
+
+"What's your idee, Cap?" asked the engineer, as he waited the signal.
+
+"There's a man trying to catch that white yacht out in the river. I want
+to get him, that's all. If I fall out of this boat, keep right on going,
+for I'm tied up now. Where's the boat hook?"
+
+"Here, sir. Are you ready? Just give me your directions. All right, sir,
+we're off."
+
+Shirley grunted and the hydroplane sped out onto the river, in a big
+curve, as he directed. Like a white ghost on the river was the trim
+yacht, which even now could be seen speeding down the stream, all steam
+up. There were two toots on the whistle and Shirley feared that his man
+had boarded her. But the hydroplane, ploughing through the cold waves,
+whizzed toward the yacht, as he climbed out to the small flat stern. A
+small boat had swung close to the yacht now. A ladder had been lowered
+from a spar, while a man standing in the little craft missed it. The
+yacht was gliding past the boat, when another rope ladder was deftly
+swung over the stern.
+
+The hydroplane was close up now, and Shirley saw his prey dangling at
+the end of the ladder, now in the water, struggling with the rungs of
+the ladder, and now being drawn up.
+
+His engineer, with a skilful hand on the helm, swung in close to the
+yacht, as keen for the capture as his patron. They whizzed past at
+almost railroad speed, and Shirley, sprang toward the ladder. His arms
+closed about the body of Reginald Warren in a grip which he braced by a
+curious finger-lock he had learned in wrestling practice.
+
+Two revolvers barked over the taffrail of the yacht, as the hydroplane
+raced onward, dragging Shirley and his prisoner at the end of the rope,
+through the water. Again the shots rang out, but they were out of range,
+on the dark waters so quickly, that before the police boat had set
+out from shore to investigate the firing from the pleasure vessel, the
+criminologist's struggle with his wounded antagonist was over.
+
+Half drowned, himself, with Warren completely past consciousness,
+Shirley was pulled into his own boat as the engines were slowed down.
+They returned rapidly to the dock.
+
+"Help me work him--that was a pretty rough yank. He's been shot in the
+hand already."
+
+They rolled Warren on a barrel, "pumped" his arms, and by the time the
+Cronin automobile had returned with the other detectives, Warren was
+restored to understanding again. Shirley forced some liquor between his
+teeth, to be greeted with a torrent of strange oaths.
+
+"The jig is up, Warren," said the criminologist. "As a chess-player
+in the little game, you are a wonder. But, I think I may at last call
+'Checkmate.'"
+
+"I'm not dead yet, Shirley," hissed Warren. "I gave you your chance to
+keep out of this. But you wouldn't take it. I'll settle the score with
+you before I'm finished. There's one man in the world who knows how to
+get away from bars. I'm that man."
+
+Then his teeth snapped together with a click. He said nothing more that
+night, even during the operation for probing Shirley's bullet, and the
+painful dressing. At the station-house, and his arraignment before the
+magistrate at Night Court, where he saw some other familiar faces of
+his fellow gangsters--now rounded up on the same charges--he still
+maintained that feline silence.
+
+And his eyes never left the face of Montague Shirley, as long as that
+calm young man was in sight!
+
+Shirley merely presented his charge of murder--for the strangling of
+Shine Taylor. The names of the aged millionaires were not brought into
+the matter--there was no need. He had done his work well.
+
+At Cronin's agency, late that night, there came a cablegram from the
+greatest detective bureau of France.
+
+"The Montfleury case" was the most daring robbery and sale of state war
+secrets ever perpetrated in Paris. It had been successful, despite the
+capture, and conviction of the criminal, Laschlas Rozi, a Hungarian
+adventurer who had killed three men to carry his point. The scoundrel
+had escaped after murdering his prison guard, and wearing his clothes
+out of the gaol. A reward of 100,000 francs had been offered for his
+capture, by the Department of Justice.
+
+"Monty, who gets all the credit for this little deal--that's what's
+bothering me?" asked Captain Cronin, as they sipped a toast of rare old
+port, in his rear office.
+
+Shirley lit the ubiquitous cigarette, and tilted back in his chair.
+
+"Captain: why ask foolish questions? This case ought to buy you five or
+six of those big farms you've been planning about--and leave you fifty
+thousand dollars with which to pay the damages for being a gentleman
+farmer."
+
+"And you, Monty? You know you never have to present a bill with me. What
+will you do with your pin money?"
+
+"I'm going down on Fifth Avenue tomorrow and invest it in a solitaire
+ring, for a very small finger."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION
+
+
+Shirley made some investigations in a private reading room of the
+Public Library: there was much good treasure there, not salable over the
+counter of a grocery store, mayhap, but unusually valuable in the high
+grade work which was his specialty. In an old volume enumerating the
+noble families of Austro-Hungary he found two distinguished lines,
+"Laschlas" and "Rozi."
+
+From the library he went to a cable office where he sent a message to
+the chief of police of Budapesth inquiring about the remaining members
+of the families. The old volume in the library was thirty-four years
+behind the times: it was the only record obtainable in America.
+
+After a couple of hours, which he devote to some personal matters, he
+received a response to his inquiry. When translated from the Hungarian
+it read thus:
+
+"Professor Montague Shirley, College Club, N.Y., U.S.A.
+
+Families extinct except Countess Laschlas, and son Count Rozi Laschlas,
+reported killed in Albanian revolution.
+
+                            Csherkini, Minister of Justice."
+
+The criminologist was happy. Here was a weapon which he had not yet
+used. Now he turned his steps towards the Tombs, for an interview with
+the prisoner.
+
+After some parley with the warden, he was admitted for a visit to
+Reginald Warren. That gentleman's fury was rekindled at the sight of
+the club man who had been so instrumental in his downfall. But a cunning
+smile played over the features of the criminal.
+
+"So, you have come to gloat over your work, Shirley? Well, it is a game
+two can play."
+
+"Yes? I am always interested in sport. I came to see if there was
+anything I could do for you in your confinement," was the unruffled
+reply.
+
+"You will be busy with your own affairs," retorted Warren. "I have been
+busy writing my confession. Here is the manuscript. I will baffle all
+your efforts to hush up the affairs of the 'Lobster Club.' Furthermore,
+my confession," (and he exultantly waved a mass of manuscript at his
+visitor,) "will send young Van Cleft to prison for perjury on the
+certificate of his father's death. Captain Cronin, that prince of
+blockheads, will share the same fate. Professor MacDonald, who I know
+very well signed the death certificates, will be disgraced and driven
+from professional standing. You will be implicated in this plot to
+thwart justice. With the German university thoroughness to which you so
+sarcastically referred, I have written down the facts as carefully as
+though I were preparing a thesis for a doctor's degree!"
+
+He laughed maliciously, studying the effect of his words. He was
+disappointed. Shirley's bland manner changed not a whit. Instead the
+criminologist offered him a cigarette.
+
+"You might as well smoke now--as later!" and there was a wealth of
+innuendo in the emphasis. "Is that all you are going to do, to square
+your accounts?"
+
+"By no means! As my trump card, I have implicated Miss Helene Marigold
+in the various exploits which have been so successful now. She is
+unknown in New York--I investigated that matter. She will have a fine
+task in proving an alibi, after the careful preparation I have made. In
+fact, I accuse her of being the mistress of my dead con'federate--"
+
+Shirley sprang to his feet, and the rage which was shown in his strong
+features brought a leer to the face of the other.
+
+"Strike me," continued the tormentor. "All I have to do is to call the
+guard. I have been busy thinking since they locked me up here. There is
+nothing more to do to me than the electric chair--but, I am not finished
+yet."
+
+The criminologist controlled himself with difficulty. He realized that
+an altercation with the prisoner would shatter his whole case, like a
+house of cards blown down by a vagrant breeze. He sat down again, the
+mask of calm indifference playing over his features.
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Is not that sufficient to interest you? It will be another month before
+my trial, and my literary work has just begun. The newspapers are filled
+with war news, which have ceased to be a nine days' wonder. I shall
+provide them with material which will be the story of the age! Another
+month, and then?"
+
+The prisoner lit the cigarette which he had accepted, and stretched back
+in the plain wooden chair to enjoy the misery of his victim.
+
+"But, a month--let me see? That would enable me to do some corresponding
+myself, wouldn't it?" and Shirley took out a memorandum book. "You have
+degraded a splendid intellect, a gallant spirit and brought disgrace
+upon yourself, for this miserable ending. You have ruthlessly murdered
+others, caring naught for the misery and wretchedness of those left
+behind. Has it been worth it all, Warren?"
+
+The other's eyes twinkled, as he nodded.
+
+"A wonderful game. And I haven't completed the score, even now."
+
+"You are right, Warren. There is one soul more whom you have not
+affected. It is too bad that you were not killed in the Albanian
+revolution,--then you would have been on record as a hero instead of the
+vilest scoundrel in Christendom."
+
+Had the death-dealing current of the electric chair been turned upon
+Warren he could not have been more startled, as he sprang up. His
+pallid face seemed to turn a sickly green, as his dark eyes opened in
+galvanized amazement.
+
+"Albanian--what do you mean? I never saw Albania!"
+
+"You will never see it again. You will never see Budapesth again,
+either," was the menacing continuation of the criminologist's methodical
+speech. "But a very old lady, the Countess Laschlas, will see the
+accounts of her son's wretched death, in the New York papers which will
+be sent to her, in care of the American consul!"
+
+It was merely a deductive guess: but the shot struck the center of
+the bull's-eye. Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back, and his
+nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone wall. He
+dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his nonchalance. It was a
+pitiable failure.
+
+"Just as you have dealt to the children of others, so will you deal
+with your own mother, the last of a distinguished line of aristocrats.
+I swear, by the memory of my own dead parents, that I will avenge the
+misery you have given to the innocent. The good Book says, the sins of
+the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and
+the fourth generation. But life to-day has taught me that the sins of
+the children are visited upon the fathers and the mothers--especially,
+the sweet, loving, trusting mothers! As I value my honor, Reginald
+Warren, or Count Rozi, I will see to it that your mother shall know
+every detail of the whole miserable career of her son. That is my answer
+to your alleged confession. If there is a hereafter, from which you may
+observe that which follows your death, you will be able to see through
+eternity the earthly punishment which has been visited upon the one
+person whom you love and respect."
+
+The criminal's ashen face was buried in his hands.
+
+Great sobs emanated from his white lips, as his shoulders heaved in a
+paroxysm.
+
+Shirley had struck the Achilles tendon--the hardest wretch in the world
+had one, as he knew!
+
+"Oh--oh--" he moaned, "the poor little mutter. She has forgiven so much,
+suffered so much. You can't do it. You won't do it!" He fell to his
+knees, clawing at the criminologist's garments with his trembling hands,
+the tears streaming down his face.
+
+"What about those who have seen no compassion from you?" cried Shirley
+in a terrible voice. "Your vanity, your self-worship! Do they not
+comfort you now? This is only the suffering of another which you
+contemplate! Why all these hysterics?"
+
+Warren, groveling on the floor of the reception-room, was a picture
+of abject, horrid soul-torture. At last, through the subtlety of this
+unconventional sleuth, along methods which were never dreamed of in the
+ordinary police category, he had been broken on the wheel which he had
+himself so cunningly constructed!
+
+"And if that mother dies, cursing your memory with her last breath,
+cursing the love of the father, of her husband, of the ancestors, all
+responsible for your being in the world today, what will you think, when
+you watch from the other side of that great unseen wall?"
+
+"Oh, Shirley! I can't. See--I'll destroy this stuff. I'll keep silent
+about the others. I mean it. Here: I tear it up now and give you the
+pieces to burn!"
+
+Warren, maddened by his fears, nervously tore the sheets into bits and
+pressed the remnants into the criminologist's hands.
+
+"Will you promise to keep my identity a secret?"
+
+"I will not send word to Budapesth. You have a bad record in Paris,
+and other parts of the world. But, if you play fair on the confidential
+nature of this case, saving the innocent from disgrace and shame, I will
+see that the story never reaches your mother. There is no need to ask
+this on your honor--that does not count."
+
+Warren winced at this final thrust. He turned toward Shirley, eagerly.
+
+"You don't understand me at that, Shirley. I have had a curious career.
+Somewhere I inherited a strain of criminality--you know how many
+ancestors a man has in ten generations. I was a member of a poor but
+prominent family. The government paid for my education in the best
+universities of Europe, for I was to hold a position under the Emperor,
+which had been held in my family for generations. But I was ruined by
+the extravagances and the excesses which I learned from the rich young
+men whom I met. I studied feverishly, yet was able to waste much time
+with the gilded fools, by my ability to learn more quickly. The result
+was that I could not be contented with the small salary of my government
+office. I had to keep up appearances with my companions. So, I drifted
+into gambling, into sharp tricks--then became a mercenary soldier,
+an officer, in the continuous revolutions of the southeastern part of
+Europe. I sank deeper and at last, in one serious escapade, I managed to
+have myself reported dead, so as to quiet the heartaches of my mother,
+who believed I was killed on the battlefield. There is the miserable
+story--or all I will tell. They caught me in Paris and a girl betrayed
+part of my name--fortunately they did not hunt me up, so my mother
+was saved that disgrace. Will you keep the secret now, on our
+understanding?"
+
+"I give you my word for that, Warren." Shirley rose, putting the torn-up
+papers into his pockets. "I am sorry for the past--but you have made the
+present for yourself. Good-bye."
+
+Warren returned to his cell and the detective to the club house.
+
+There he found an additional cable message. It said: "Countess Laschlas
+has been dead ten months." It was signed like the other.
+
+Shirley tore up the message, and blinked more than seemed necessary.
+
+"Poor little old lady, she knows it all now. I will not have to tell
+her."
+
+        *       *       *
+
+That afternoon Shirley called again at the Hotel California for Helene.
+
+"I want you to go to a sweet, old-fashioned English tea-room, where I
+may tell you the rest of the story. There will be no tango music, no
+cymbals, no tinkling cocktails, nor, champagne. Can you pour real tea?"
+
+"I am an English girl. I have been five days without it."
+
+As they were ensconced at the quaint little table, he realized how
+wondrously blended in her was that triad of feminine essential spirits:
+the eternal mother instinct, the sensuous strength of the wife-love and
+the wistful allurement of maiden tenderness.
+
+"Does my great big boy wish three lumps of sugar, after his hard tasks?"
+
+"He'll die in the flower of immaturity if he has too many sweets in one
+day."
+
+He drew out his memorandum book, opening it to a closely-written page.
+
+"Before the confections, I must hand in my report to the commanding
+officer."
+
+"Advance three paces to the front, and hand over the details," and she
+added another lump of sugar, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue
+eyes.
+
+"Very well, excellency. We transcribed the addresses of Warren's
+gangsters from his note-book, and they have all been arrested. The men
+we captured in the earlier skirmishes are all languishing in the tombs,
+as accomplices in his crime, as well as for their attempts against my
+own life. You will be astonished, Helene, at the revelations of his
+operations as shown by his bank-books, a translation of that diary and
+some of the letters which I took when I burglarized his rooms. I have
+sent a code letter to Phil, advising him to confess all, and that
+man's testimony adds to the corroboration. I went down to the District
+Attorney with a full statement of the facts, leaving nothing unbared.
+Like me, he agreed that it were best to let the law take its course,
+demanding the full penalty, and saving the honor of a dozen families
+who would have been dragged into the case, had not Warren laid himself
+liable by the murder of his confederate, Taylor. That young man was an
+electrical genius--with his brains misguided by his equally misdirected
+employer. There is no chance of a miscarriage of justice, and Warren had
+accumulated so much money that many of the victims of his organization
+can be reimbursed in full."
+
+"You have handled all this with a suspicious skill for a lazy society
+man, with no experience in such matters."
+
+Shirley understood the subtle sarcasm of the remark, but he proceeded
+unruffled, to lull her suspicious.
+
+"I only tried to cover the points which meant happiness and peace of
+mind to others. It was merely a matter of common or garden horse sense,
+as we call it in America. Warren has been systematically robbing the
+rich men of New York for three years, under various subterfuges. No
+wonder he could afford such gorgeous collections of art, keeping aloof
+from his associates in crime. His treasures, like those in many European
+museums were bought with blood. It is curious how a complex case like
+this smooths itself out so simply when the key is obtained. And you,
+Helene, have been the genius to supply that key: my own work has been
+merely corroborative!"
+
+He looked at the delicate features of the girl, remembering with a
+recurring thrill the margin by which they had escaped death in the
+cellar den of the conspirators.
+
+"Cleary and Dick Holloway told me how cleverly you led the men to the
+Somerset where you followed my trail through the mole's passage. It was
+a frightful risk for you to take: Cleary should have had more sense and
+led the way himself."
+
+Helene's lips pursed themselves into a tempting pout.
+
+"Are you not happier that it was I, at that supreme moment?"
+
+"Indeed I am: success was all the sweeter. There is remaining only one
+mystery which I must admit is still unsolved in this curious affair. And
+that is you. Who are you?"
+
+She parried with the same question.
+
+"I know your name, sir, but you profess to be a society butterfly,
+flitting from pleasure to dissipation, and back again. Tell me the
+truth, now, if ever."
+
+"Why--gracious, Helene--of all the foolish questions!" He was adorably
+boyish in his confusion. She laughed gleefully, like a happy schoolgirl.
+
+"Then, Monty Shirley, my score is better than yours, for I have every
+mystery cleared. But while I know all about you, what frightful chances
+you are taking with me!"
+
+Shirley reddened, as he burned his finger with the match which had been
+raised to the end of his cigarette. He accused her of teasing, and she
+glanced happily at the iridiscent solitaire upon the third finger of her
+left hand.
+
+"Dear boy, I realize that I understand about you what you cannot fathom
+with me. You are not a moth, but your self-sacrifice, and bravery in
+this case are professional: you worked on this case as you have on
+a hundred others: you are a very original and successful expert
+in criminology. And I am not more than half bad at observation and
+deduction, myself; now, am I, dear?"
+
+Shirley gracefully admitted defeat, with a question: "Who are you,
+Helene? And who is dear old Jack?"
+
+The roses blossomed in her cheeks as she answered: "Jack is a very
+sweet boy, ten years older than you in gray hair and the calendar, and
+infinitely younger in worldly wisdom and intellect. He is an English
+army officer, who was foolish enough to imagine he loved me, foolish
+enough to propose every three days for the last three years and foolish
+enough to bore me until in self-defense I escaped from his clutches. As
+for myself, at least I am not the young woman who can stand staying in
+that gaudy theatrical hotel for another day longer. I have done so many
+bold, unmaidenly things that you may believe it easy for me. It is not.
+
+"I am truly a horrid, old-time, hoopskirt-minded prude. My first act of
+domestic tyranny is to make you find a sedate, prim place for my work
+and play, where I may know my own blushes when I see them in the mirror,
+and will have less occasion to deserve them!"
+
+"Your work? What is that?"
+
+"It is very hard work--with a typewriter, but not in code. I will not
+divulge my name until we tell it to the marriage license clerk. But Dick
+Holloway knows me, and I came to this country, partly to see him. I
+have written a few plays, which simple as they were, seemed to interest
+European audiences and critics. Some of my novels have strangely enough
+brought in royalties, despite the publishers! But, I became satiated
+with life in England and on the Continent. I came here because I felt
+that I needed life in a younger and newer country. I needed an emotional
+and physical awakening."
+
+"You have not wasted any time in drowsiness since you reached America."
+
+"No--and all because I went to Holloway's office that fateful morning,
+before I saw any one else in New York, to ask about a play which he is
+to produce this spring. I confess that it was my first experience as an
+actress. Will you forgive my deception?"
+
+Shirley nodded, as he studied the animated face with a new interest. He
+admitted to himself that Holloway's prediction had come true--he had met
+his match.
+
+"And so, my dear Helene (for such I shall always call you, whether your
+really, truly name be Mehitabel, Samantha or Sophronisa) you came
+here, went through all these horrors without a complaint, crushing
+the independence of my confirmed bachelorhood for the sake of what we
+newspaper men call copy?"
+
+Helene nodded demurely.
+
+"Yes, but it was such wonderful 'copy,' Monty boy."
+
+The criminologist scowled over his cigarette, yet he could not feel as
+unhappy as he felt this defeat should make him.
+
+"When will the 'copy' be ready for publication, my dear girl. It would
+be most interesting, I fancy."
+
+Helene caught his hand, drawing it toward her throbbing heart. Her wet
+lips were almost touching his ear, as she confided, whisperingly,
+with the blue eyes averted: "Only published in editions de luxe: some
+bindings will be with blue ribbons, some with pink. All of them with
+flexible backs and gloriously illumined by the Master's brush. The
+authors' autographs will be on every copy to prove the collaboration,
+and every volume will be a poem in itself.... But there, Montague dear,
+I am a novelist--not a fortune-teller!"
+
+"How can I forecast the exact dates of publication?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Voice on the Wire, by Eustace Hale Ball
+
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