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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78643 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                                         ---------------
+                                                         THORNLEY COLTON
+                                                         BLIND DETECTIVE
+                                                         ---------------
+
+
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                            THORNLEY COLTON
+                            BLIND DETECTIVE
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                            CLINTON H. STAGG
+
+                         AUTHOR OF “HIGH SPEED”
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                             G. HOWARD WATT
+                            558 MADISON AVE.
+                                  1923
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1923, by
+                             G. HOWARD WATT
+
+
+
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                      Page
+              The First Problem--
+                 The Keyboard of Silence,                7
+
+              The Second Problem--
+                 Unto the Third Generation,             56
+
+              The Third Problem--
+                 The Money Machines,                    94
+
+              The Fourth Problem--
+                 The Flying Death,                     130
+
+              The Fifth Problem--
+                 The Thousand Facets of Fire,          168
+
+              The Sixth Problem--
+                 The Gilded Glove,                     209
+
+              The Seventh Problem--
+                 The Ringing Goblets,                  258
+
+              The Eighth Problem--
+                 The Eye of the Seven Devils,          301
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                            THORNLEY COLTON
+
+                            Blind Detective
+
+
+
+
+                           THE FIRST PROBLEM
+
+                        THE KEYBOARD OF SILENCE
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+Not often did mere man attract attention in the famous dining-room of
+the “Regal,” but men and women alike, who were seated near the East
+Archway, raised their eyes to stare at the man who stood in the doorway,
+calmly surveying them. The smoke-glass, tortoise-shell library
+spectacles, which made of his eyes two great circles of dull brown,
+brought out the whiteness of the face strikingly. The nose, with its
+delicately sensitive nostrils, was thin and straight; the lips, now
+curved in a smile, somehow gave one the impression that, released by the
+mind, they would suddenly spring back to their accustomed thin, straight
+line. For a smile seemed out of place on that pale, masterful face, with
+its lean, cleft chin. The snow-white hair of silky fineness that curled
+away from the part to show the pink scalp underneath contrasted sharply
+with the sober black of the faultless dinner-coat that fell in just the
+proper folds from the broad shoulders and deep chest.
+
+The eyes of the girl at the sixth table seemed to be held, fascinated.
+The elder woman, who was with her, toyed with her salad and conformed to
+convention by stealing covert glances at the man in the archway, and the
+square-chinned, clean-looking young man who made the third of the party
+stared openly, unashamed; but his eyes held not the other diners’ rude
+questioning, nor yet the girl’s frank fascination.
+
+“You are staring, Rhoda,” rebuked the elder woman mildly.
+
+The girl turned her eyes with a little sigh.
+
+“What wonderful character there is in his face!” she murmured.
+
+“He is a wonderful character,” asserted the man, his face lighting up
+boyishly, his tone one of admiration.
+
+“You know him?” Both asked it in a breath, eyes eager.
+
+“Yes. He is Thornley Colton, man about town, club member, musician,
+whose recreation is the solving of problems that baffle other men. It
+was he who found the murderer of President Parkins of the up-town
+National, and, when the crash came, secured me my position in the
+Berkley Trust.”
+
+“A detective?” The elder woman asked it; the girl’s eyes were again on
+Colton.
+
+“No.” The man shook his head. “He jokingly calls himself a problemist,
+and accepts only those cases that he thinks will prove interesting, for
+the solving of them is merely his recreation. He takes no fees. The man
+with him is his secretary, Sydney Thames, whose name is pronounced like
+that of the river. He, too, is a remarkably handsome man, but he is
+never noticed when with Thornley Colton, except as his coal-black hair
+and eyes, and red cheeks, form a striking contrast to Colton.”
+
+“I had not even noticed him,” confessed the elder woman, as she glanced
+for the first time at the slim young man of twenty-five or six, who
+stood at Colton’s side, eyes apparently taking in every detail of the
+big dining-room. Then she remembered her duty as mentor. “You _must_ not
+stare so rudely, Rhoda!” she chided.
+
+“I don’t think Mr. Colton minds the stare,” the man said quietly. “He
+has been totally blind since birth, though many people refuse to believe
+it.”
+
+“Blind!” They both breathed it, in their voices the tender sympathy all
+women feel for the misfortunes of others.
+
+“He is coming,” warned the elder woman unnecessarily.
+
+They had seen the head-waiter apparently apologize to Colton, and step
+aside. The secretary had whispered a few words, and Thornley Colton, his
+slim stick held lightly and idly in his fingers, started down the aisle
+between the rows of tables, shoulders swung back, chin up, followed by
+Sydney Thames. The woman and the girl watched his approach with parted
+lips, in their eyes mother fear for his safety as he hurried toward
+them, stepping aside at exactly the proper moment to avoid a hurrying
+waiter, walking around the very much overdressed, stout woman whose
+chair projected a foot over the unmarked aisle line. As he neared their
+table, they saw the thin lips frame a smile of friendly greeting.
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Norris?” His voice, rich, of wonderful musical
+timbre, seemed to thrill the girl with its kindliness and strength, as
+he stepped around her chair to shake hands with her escort. “Sydney saw
+you while we were waiting for our table.”
+
+“Will you meet Miss Richmond?” asked Norris, when he had answered the
+greeting in kind. Colton turned instantly to face the girl, his slim
+white hand, with its long, tapering fingers, outstretched.
+
+“It is a concession we of the darkness ask of every one,” he apologized.
+
+Their hands met, the girl felt the warm grip, and her sensitive wrist
+seemed to feel a touch, light as the touch of wind-blown thistle-down,
+but it was gone instantly, and she knew it was but the telepathic thrill
+of the meeting palms. She murmured a commonplace, and bit her lips in
+vexation, because it was a commonplace. The man before her seemed to
+call for more.
+
+“Your singing is wonderful, Miss Richmond,” he declared
+enthusiastically. “Sydney and I have had orchestra seats three nights
+this week. You know, to me music must give the combined pleasures of
+painting, sculpture, architecture, and other beautiful things the
+average person doesn’t even appreciate.”
+
+Her eyes expressed their pity, but her lips said only: “My mother, Mr.
+Colton.” They shook hands across the table, Mrs. Richmond with a
+heartiness that was not part of the artificial code New York has fixed,
+he with a few words that brought a flush of pleasure to her faded
+cheeks.
+
+“Why didn’t Mr. Thames stay?” asked Norris curiously. “He hurried on as
+though he thought we were plague victims.”
+
+“He usually does,” smiled Colton. “He has a very curious fear. I’ll tell
+you about it some time.”
+
+“Why don’t you drop into the bank and see me some day? You haven’t been
+in my tomb-like office for months. Miss Richmond and her mother saw me
+at work for a few minutes this afternoon. It compares very favourably
+with the dressing-rooms given to opera-singers, they say.”
+
+“I should say so!” laughed the girl. “If you can compare Persian rugs
+and mahogany with our cracked walls, and box-propped dressing-tables,
+and plugged gas-jets!”
+
+“Men always do take the best,” conceded Colton smilingly. Then he
+addressed Norris directly. “How is Simpson attending to business
+nowadays?”
+
+“He has been away for a week. He came in this afternoon to amaze us with
+the news that he had just been married. He didn’t have much to say about
+his wife, however, except that he was going to turn over a new leaf.”
+
+“That’s news!” whistled Colton. “He never struck me as the marrying
+kind.”
+
+“Nor any one else,” laughed Norris, with a tender, significant glance at
+the girl across the table.
+
+“I’ll have to look him up and congratulate him. Till we meet again,
+then.” And with a pleasant nod of parting to each of them, a touch of a
+chair leg with his slim stick, Colton hurried down the aisle to the
+small table in the far corner, where Sydney Thames was giving his order
+to the waiter. The serving-man responded to a friendly nod from Colton,
+closed his order tablet, and hurried away. Thornley took a cigarette
+from his case, scratched a match on the bronze box, and leaned
+comfortably back in his chair.
+
+“Some time, Sydney, your terrible fear of beautiful women is going to
+get me into a very embarrassing position.” He said it half seriously,
+half smilingly. “Instead of seventeen steps, it was but sixteen and a
+short half. If it hadn’t been for Norris’s habit of nervously tapping
+his glass with his finger-tips, my outstretched hand would have gone
+back of his neck.”
+
+“I thought I had figured it exactly!” There was earnest contrition in
+the tone; the sombre, black eyes showed the pain of the mistake.
+
+“It is forgotten,” dismissed Colton. Then: “But you should have stopped,
+Sydney. Miss Richmond’s personality is as remarkable as her singing, and
+her mother is so proud and happy she forgets to be embarrassed at the
+difference between Keokuk and the Regal. Norris is lucky, for she loves
+him, and he----” The smiling lips needed no finishing words.
+
+“But she is already commanding two hundred dollars a week at the very
+beginning of her career, and Norris cannot be earning more than five
+thousand a year,” protested Thames.
+
+“You poor boy!” smiled Colton. “You’ll never know women; that
+susceptible heart of yours, which drives you away like a scared sheep
+whenever a beautiful woman approaches, will never be good for anything
+but pumping blood.”
+
+“Thorn, don’t I know my weakness!” The tone was indescribably bitter. “I
+must keep away, though I’m starving for the society of good women. To
+meet one would be to fall in love, hopelessly, helplessly. I’d forget
+that I was a thing of shame, a brat picked up on the banks of the river
+that gave me the only name I know.”
+
+Colton was instantly serious. “Starvation seems a peculiar cure for
+hunger,” he mused. “But we have argued that so many times----” Again the
+thin, expressive lips finished the sentence.
+
+Then came the waiter with a club sandwich for Thames and Colton’s
+invariable after-theatre supper that was always ready when he came, and
+which he never needed to order; two slices of graham bread covered with
+rich, red beef-blood gravy, and a bottle of mineral water. Colton’s slim
+cane, hollow, and light as a feather, the slightest touch of which sent
+its warning to his supersensitive finger-tips, rested between his knees
+as he ate.
+
+Sydney Thames nibbled his sandwich absentmindedly, eyes roving around
+the dining-room, now stopping at a gaudily-dressed dowager, now at an
+overpainted lady who smiled her fixed smile at the bull-necked man at
+her table, now at the circle-eyed girl who stabbed the cherry from her
+empty cocktail glass with a curved tine of her oyster fork; but always
+coming back to the fresh, wholesomely beautiful face of Rhoda Richmond.
+Then the sombre eyes would light up; for a beautiful face, to Sydney
+Thames, was more intoxicating than wine, and, to his highly sensitive
+nature, more dangerous.
+
+Colton pushed his plate aside as the other’s eyes once more started
+their round of the dining-room.
+
+“The gods give gaudiness in recompense for the eye-sparkle they have
+taken, and the wrinkles they have given,” Thornley Colton murmured
+quietly. “One must come to a New York restaurant to realize the true
+pathos of beauty.” Colton’s mood had been curiously serious since those
+few words at Norris’s table.
+
+Thames did not answer, for no answer was needed. His wandering eyes had
+rested on a table to the left.
+
+“One often wonders,” continued Colton, in that same musing, low-pitched
+voice, “why a stout woman, like that one two tables to our left, for
+instance, will suffer the tortures of her hereafter for the sake of
+drinking high balls in a tight, purple gown.”
+
+Sydney had turned his eyes to stare at Colton, as he always did when the
+man who had picked him up as a bundle of baby-clothes on the banks of
+the Thames, twenty-five years before, made an observation of this kind.
+Many such had he heard, but never did they fail to startle him.
+
+“How, in Heaven’s name, did you know what I was doing, or that she was
+dressed in purple?” he demanded.
+
+“You should keep both feet flat on the floor if you want to keep your
+staring a secret,” laughed Colton quietly. “You forget that crossed
+knees make your suspended foot tell my cane each time you turn your head
+ever so slightly. See that my fingers are not on my stick when you
+covertly watch the women you fear to meet.”
+
+“But the purple gown?” demanded Sydney, repressing the inclination to
+uncross his knees, and flushing at the amused smile the involuntary
+first motion of the foot had brought to the lips of Colton.
+
+“All stout women who breathe asthmatically wear purple,” declared Colton
+emphatically. “It is the only unfailing rule of femininity. And to one
+who has practised the locating of sounds that come to doubly sharp ears
+the breathing part was easy. There is no one at the next table on the
+left, you’ll observe. Now you can resume your overt watching of Miss
+Richmond; see”--he laid both hands on the white table-cloth before
+him--“I won’t look.”
+
+The head-waiter stopped at the table.
+
+“Mr. Simpson would like to have you come to his table, Mr. Colton. He
+wants you to meet his wife.”
+
+“His wife?” put in Thames quickly.
+
+“She is, sir.” It was said with a positiveness there was no gainsaying.
+
+“Where is Mr. Simpson?” asked Colton. “We had not seen him.”
+
+“In the east wing, sir, where the palms are.”
+
+“We will go to him immediately.”
+
+“I’ll tell him, sir.” His beckoning finger brought the waiter who had
+served them with the check.
+
+Sydney Thames spoke. “Some one of his cheap actress friends has roped
+him at last,” he said scornfully. “He’s a pretty specimen of man to be
+first vice-president of the conservative Berkley Trust Company.”
+
+“I’ll wager you’re wrong,” declared Colton quietly, as he handed the
+waiter a two-dollar bill from his fold. “If it were one of the women for
+whom he has been buying wine suppers for the past two years, she
+wouldn’t be ‘where the palms are,’ nor would the waiter be so positive
+of the marriage relation.”
+
+“I’m not going,” protested Thames quickly.
+
+“Surely, Sydney, you are not afraid a married woman will kidnap you?”
+smiled Colton, as he took the stick between his fingers and prepared to
+rise. “How many?”
+
+Sydney, who had turned half around in his chair to gaze toward the
+entrance to the east wing, faced him. “I’ll go,” he said shortly;
+another hasty glance, and he rose with Colton. “Thirty-seven straight,
+eighteen left, nine right. We will stop at the door of the east wing. I
+can’t see it.”
+
+“There are no pretty women to disturb the distance judgment you have
+been so many years acquiring?” queried Colton mildly.
+
+Without answering, Thames turned on his heel, and made his way rapidly
+between the tables toward the east wing. Colton laughed silently, picked
+up his change, and hurried after, his perfectly trained brain counting
+the steps automatically, his thoughts busy elsewhere. He was thinking of
+Simpson, who had gained such an unenviable reputation as a spender along
+the gay White Way during the past two years.
+
+Simpson had always interested him, student of human nature that he was,
+as the one man who had never lived up to the impression Colton’s
+unerring instinct had told him was the right one the first time they had
+met. The problemist had expected things of Simpson, and Simpson had done
+nothing but idle as much time as possible in the position as first
+vice-president of one of the most conservative banks in the city, and
+spend money on women.
+
+Colton stopped for an instant beside Thames in the archway, apparently
+gazing idly at the crowd of men and women at the palm-shaded tables.
+
+“Two left, nineteen straight, half in,” directed Thames, stepping aside
+to follow.
+
+The heavy-lidded, thickset man, with the faint lines of blue vein
+traceries in his cheeks, rose to meet them.
+
+“This is a pleasure, Mr. Colton,” he exclaimed, in heavy-voiced
+heartiness. “You are the one man I wanted to see; though I hardly
+believed it would be my luck to catch you this night of all nights. You
+knew the pace I was going, and I want you to meet the little girl I went
+back to the old town to marry. We’ve been friends since we were tots.
+Thank God, I waked up in time to know what a good woman means! When next
+you see us it will be in our own home. One moment, please”--his voice
+sank to an almost reverent whisper--“my wife is deaf and dumb, Mr.
+Colton.”
+
+Thames had heard; had seen, with curiously mixed feelings, the little
+woman with the small, boyish face around which the tendrils of brown
+hair curled from under the close-fitting toque, and had appraised the
+slim, quietly dressed figure, the half smile as she stared inquiringly
+at them. The girl seemed but a child, but he saw that her face was
+heavily daubed with powder and rouge, as though its application had
+neither been taught nor practised. Until those last explaining words he
+had stood back with a half-pitying light in his eyes, for he knew
+Simpson’s reputation with women. But at the quietly spoken sentence he
+had undergone an instant change of feeling, such as only highly-strung,
+hypersensitive men like him are capable of, toward the man who had gone
+away from his women of wine to marry a simple country girl who could
+neither speak nor hear.
+
+Simpson’s fingers had been moving rapidly; he bowed toward Thornley
+Colton. The girl smiled, and put out her small hand, the movement
+throwing back from her wrist the filmy lace of the long sleeve. For a
+moment they clasped hands; then the girl’s fingers worked again.
+
+Simpson laughed. “She does not believe you are blind, Mr. Colton; she
+says you have eyes like every one else.”
+
+Thornley Colton smiled. “If you tell her that I’ve got to wear these
+large-lensed, smoked glasses to prevent the light giving me a headache
+you will probably never convince her,” he observed, as he refused the
+chair the waiter had drawn up.
+
+Sydney Thames acknowledged his introduction with a bow and the usual
+meaningless words, but his eyes were soft and tender as a woman’s as
+they met those of the girl in the instant’s glance she gave him before
+the lashes were lowered. A woman’s face never failed to stir him.
+
+“Won’t you sit down?” pleaded Simpson. “It will probably be the last
+time you will ever find me in one of these gilded palaces. A man who has
+been my kind of a fool _can_ appreciate his own fireside, and Gertie,
+who was all aflutter to visit one of the famous Broadway restaurants,
+recognized in ten minutes the crass artificiality it took me years to
+discover.” He was holding her hand openly and unashamed as he said it.
+
+Thornley Colton shook his head. “It is past my time for going home, and
+you know my habits. A glass of Célestin’s at one-fifteen, the beauties
+of the Moonlight Sonata on my piano for fifteen minutes, and then to
+bed. If I may visit you at your home, Mrs. Simpson?” his outstretched
+hand met that of the girl. “Ah, you read the lips? A wonderful
+accomplishment to us who have never had eyes.” His lips framed a smile
+of pleasure; he turned to Thames. “The same, Sydney?” he asked.
+
+The secretary’s eyes travelled up the aisle. “The man nine steps up is
+gesticulating quite freely.”
+
+“Lots of room.” Colton’s slim stick touched a chair-leg, he bowed, and
+hurried away, the hearty good-night of Simpson following. Thornley
+Colton never needed any direction for going back over the same route,
+for his mind, trained to the figures of steps, neither hesitated nor
+made mistakes in following them backward. He stepped aside to avoid the
+swinging arm of the loud-voiced man who was punctuating his liquor-born
+blatancy with violent gestures, and paused at the archway of the main
+dining-room for Thames.
+
+“Is Norris still at his table?” he asked.
+
+“It is empty.”
+
+“Um!” Colton’s high forehead wrinkled a frown, his slim stick tapped his
+leg. “Time enough to-morrow,” he announced finally, and started through
+the maze of tables towards the entrance.
+
+They received their hats and overcoats and left the big hotel to enter
+the long, black car that awaited them at the north entrance at one
+o’clock each morning. They were well on their way to the big,
+old-fashioned brownstone house where Thornley Colton had been born,
+before the silence was broken. Then Sydney Thames spoke:
+
+“There must be a lot of latent goodness in a man who could take a woman
+like that to love, and cherish, and protect,” he said slowly.
+
+“You mean Miss Richmond?” The darkness concealed the whimsical smile on
+Colton’s lips.
+
+“No!” The negative was short. “Norris will marry Miss Richmond just
+because she is beautiful and accomplished; because his man’s vanity will
+be tickled to exhibit her before men as his possession. I mean Simpson,
+who took a simple country girl whom God had handicapped, just because he
+loved her. That means something.”
+
+“But, Sydney”--Colton’s thin fingers rested lightly on the other’s
+sleeve; there was just the faintest trace of laughter in the
+words--“don’t you think she was a bit too heavily rouged?”
+
+He felt the highly-strung man jump under his hand.
+
+“Good heavens, Thorn!” Sydney burst out. “Sometimes I wonder if you
+_are_ blind!”
+
+“God gives fingers to the sightless, Sydney,” Colton’s voice was quietly
+serious. “In the darkness the keyboard of my piano gives me the soul
+secrets of dead men gone to dust. In the lights of a Broadway restaurant
+the keyboard of silence gives me the secrets of living hearts. And they
+cannot lie.”
+
+“What do you mean? What have I missed?” Thames asked the questions
+eagerly, tensely, for he knew the moods of this man who had been the
+only father he had ever known; he understood that something of grave
+portent had given its significance to the man who could not see, while
+he with five perfect senses, had seen nothing, suspected nothing.
+
+Colton pulled his crystalless watch from his pocket, and touched it with
+a finger-tip. “One-thirty; we are fifteen minutes late.” He put his hand
+on the door catch as the big machine slowed up before his home. And it
+was not until they were ascending the broad brownstone steps that he
+answered the question.
+
+“You have missed the first act of what promises to be a very remarkable
+crime, Sydney,” he said quietly.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+Colton scowled when the red jack failed to turn up, but the mouth
+corners smiled when the ace of diamonds slid between the sensitive
+fingers to take its place in the top row of Mr. Canfield’s famous game.
+The deuce followed, the red jack immediately after; then the problemist
+looked up toward the doorway of the library.
+
+“Well, Shrimp?” he smiled.
+
+“They’s the theatrical papers yuh wanted.” The red-headed, freckle-faced
+boy with the slightly-twisted nose came forward with an armful of big
+magazines and newspapers, the front pages of which were adorned with
+full-length portraits of stage celebrities. Before he quite reached the
+table he stopped short, eyes crackling their excitement. “Snakes! You’re
+gettin’ it, Mr. Colton! They’s the four of hearts and the five of
+spades. Don’t stop now.”
+
+Colton laughed. “All right, Shrimp. Do you want to do a little detective
+work for me?”
+
+“Do I?” The eyes danced with eagerness. “Ain’t I been studyin’? Nineteen
+steps from the kitchen t’ the first chair in the dinin’-room. Six----”
+
+“I know,” assured Colton hastily. “But you take those papers to your
+room and write down the names of all the vaudeville actors--men, you
+know--who have quit the stage within the last two months; where they
+have gone, and why, if possible.”
+
+“Snakes!” The boy’s face showed his disappointment. “Nick Carter never
+had t’ do that.”
+
+“He never had to count steps for a blind man, either,” smiled Thornley
+Colton. “You do that and there’ll probably be some real detective
+work--shadowing, disguises, and the rest of it.”
+
+There was no answer. The boy had taken a firmer grip on the papers, and
+was already out of the room.
+
+The four of hearts and the five of spades had been placed when Sydney,
+face broad in a smile, entered.
+
+“What’s the matter with ‘The Fee’?” he demanded. “He ran past me as
+though he were on his way to a fire.” Thames always referred to Shrimp
+as The Fee, because the red-headed, freckle-faced boy had become part of
+the Colton household after a particularly baffling case, at the
+conclusion of which the joy of capturing the murderer had been
+overshadowed by the blind man’s sorrow for the broken-nosed boy who had
+jumped between him and a vicious blackjack. And Shrimp had been his fee
+for the case. As the boy’s mother was the murdered one, and his father
+the murderer, there had been no one to object.
+
+Before Colton had a chance to voice his laughing explanation, the
+tinkling telephone-bell on the desk demanded attention. At the first
+words the thin lips tautened to a straight line, the voice became
+pistol-like in its crispness, the muscles under the pale skin of the
+face became tense.
+
+The problemist had a problem.
+
+“When? Last night. All right. Still that two-wire burglar connection on
+the safe? Never mind further details. We’ll be right down.”
+
+As his hand dropped the receiver on the hook a finger pressed the garage
+bell button that would bring his machine instantly at any hour of the
+day or night.
+
+“Get your hat and coat, Sydney,” he ordered curtly. “We’re going to the
+Berkley Trust Company. Somebody’s gotten away with half a million in
+negotiable bonds!”
+
+“Half a million?” gasped Thames.
+
+“So they said. Didn’t wait for details.” Colton grabbed his private
+phone-book of often-needed numbers, and ran his fingers down the backs
+of the thin pages on which the names and numbers had been heavily
+written with a hard pencil. As Sydney hurried out he heard the curt
+voice give a number over the phone. And it was fully five minutes before
+Colton took his place in the car.
+
+In the smooth-running machine, with the wooden-faced Irish chauffeur at
+the wheel, Sydney Thames voiced the question:
+
+“Last night, you said?”
+
+“Yes, the second act came sooner than I expected,” broke in Thornley
+Colton. “I underrated the man.” And the expression on the pale face
+augured ill for some one.
+
+The funereal atmosphere of the Berkley Trust Company could be _felt_ as
+they entered. In the office of the third secretary, the white-haired
+president of the institution stopped his nervous pacing to mumble a
+greeting in tremulous accents. First Vice-President Simpson’s grave face
+broke into a smile of welcome. Norris raised his bowed head from his
+hands, and came forward joyfully, pleadingly. The red-faced man who had
+been standing over him kept a step away, but always near enough to touch
+him with an outstretched hand.
+
+“My God, Mr. Colton! They think I’m guilty!” There was agony unutterable
+in Norris’s voice.
+
+“Ridiculous!” snapped Simpson, his heavy-lidded eyes half closed. “Mr.
+Colton will soon put this detective right.”
+
+The problemist nodded a grim acquiescence, and took the outstretched
+hand of Norris. “I know better,” he said kindly. The red-faced man gave
+voice to a grunt, and Colton instantly swung around to face him. “So
+you’ve cleaned it up already, Jamison?” he asked mildly.
+
+“Nobody said he was guilty,” growled the red-faced central-office man
+significantly. “I just been questionin’ him, that’s all.”
+
+“And accusing him with every question!” snapped Colton. “Like the rest
+of your kind, you haven’t the intelligence to suit your methods to the
+crime. Every crime must be worked according to the old Mulberry Street
+formula. That didn’t change with the modern Centre Street building.”
+
+“But we know enough not to make any cracks till we get all the
+information,” sneered Jamison. “We don’t hand out that know-it-all stuff
+till we know _something_!”
+
+“True,” smiled the problemist with his lips, but there was no smile in
+his tone. Two hectic spots glowed in his cheeks, the muscles worked
+under the pale skin. “What do you think, President Montrose?” The
+white-haired president halted his pacing once more, and stroked his
+Vandyke.
+
+“The first stain on the unsullied escutcheon of the Berkley Trust
+Company,” he groaned. “In all of the half century----”
+
+“I know all that!” broke in Colton impatiently. “What happened? Why are
+the police here instead of the protective-agency men?”
+
+“I was excited,” moaned the president. “It was the first thing that
+occurred to me. In all the half century of----”
+
+“I guess we were all excited,” interjected Simpson, his lips twisted in
+a wry smile. “I know I was up in the air. I came down here, happier than
+I ever was before in my life, to arrange for a short vacation to take a
+wedding trip. Now this comes up. When I came to my senses I telephoned
+for you, because I want the robbery solved as soon as possible. The
+little girl has banked so much on our little time.”
+
+“Too bad,” murmured Colton. “Tell me the story, Norris.” Before he could
+get an answer he turned to Thames, who always stayed discreetly in the
+background when Colton was on a case. “See that no one goes near that
+safe, Sydney; I may want to examine it.”
+
+“Kind of dropped that bluff of bein’ blind, ain’t you?” sneered Jamison,
+who was one of the hundreds of persons in New York who would not believe
+that Thornley Colton was really sightless. And the problemist did not
+deign to explain that once he had been in a room and touched its objects
+with his cane his trained brain held the correct mental picture for
+ever.
+
+“The bonds were fifty in number, ten thousand each, government fours,
+negotiable anywhere,” began Norris, licking his dry lips to make the
+words come easier. “They were the bulk of the Stillson estate, on which
+I was working. We are settling it up. As third secretary my work is with
+trusts and estates. It was necessary to have everything finished by
+to-night. I worked late yesterday, so late that the bonds and other
+papers could not go into the time-locked vaults, and I had to be at work
+on them this morning before the clock-release time.”
+
+“Is it customary to keep valuable bonds in the small safe in this
+office?” interrupted Colton.
+
+“It is not unusual. The safe is practically as strong as the big vaults,
+and only lacks the clocks. This office is really part of the vault
+itself, the walls are windowless, and of four-foot concrete reinforced
+by interlocked steel rails. The sheet-steel door, the only entrance to
+the room, opens into a small cage that is occupied during the day by
+Thompson, head of the trust and estate routine clerks, and at night by
+one of our two watchmen. The watchmen never leave it, because it often
+happens that valuable papers and bonds are left out of the big vaults so
+that we can work on them before nine o’clock, the hour set on the
+vault’s clocks. To get to the steel door of this office one would have
+to enter the outer and inner steel cages, the steel-barred door of the
+small ante-room, besides setting off burglar-alarms on all, disturbing
+the watchman, and ringing the bells in the burglar-alarm department of
+the Bankers’ Protective Association, of which we are a member. And there
+was no sign of a break, the safe was opened with the combination that
+only Mr. Montrose and Mr. Simpson and myself know.”
+
+“The watchman could get to this door without any trouble?”
+
+“Both have been in the employ of the bank for forty years. They are
+absolutely above suspicion. Both are illiterate. Even though they could
+enter the office, they could not open the safe, and even if they did
+that they would not know enough to steal all the notes I had made
+regarding the estate, or the bonds that have so utterly vanished. They
+have been sent for, however, and should be here any minute.”
+
+“Were the notes you made stolen, too?”
+
+“All of them.”
+
+“Any of the other employees of the bank know the bonds were in this
+safe?”
+
+“Several, probably.”
+
+“All have access to this room, at any time?”
+
+“Only Thomas, the head of the T. and E. clerks.”
+
+“Trustworthy?”
+
+“He grew up with the bank.”
+
+“You require other clerical assistance at times?”
+
+“Thomas takes the papers from this office, and the clerks get them from
+him outside. All must be returned to me before closing time. I carefully
+checked over every one last night before any of them went away.”
+
+“Any one in here yesterday while you were at work on the papers; any one
+who could have seen the bonds?”
+
+For a moment there was no answer; then it came, almost in a whisper:
+“Miss Richmond and her mother were in for a few moments----”
+
+“And I was, too, by Jove!” The interruption came from Simpson. “And I
+remember asking you how you were getting on with the Stillson estate. I
+just finished my part when I went away. I guess I really held them up
+longer than I should.”
+
+“Has Miss Richmond been sent for?” Colton paid absolutely no heed to the
+first vice-president.
+
+A grunting laugh from the detective. “She sure has, bo. After I found
+out this guy’s stage lady had been in here with a tailor’s suit-box
+after closin’ time, my partner went right up to her hotel.”
+
+“By Heaven! You----” Norris rose to his feet, face black with fury.
+Colton’s hand on his shoulder forced him back into the chair. Sydney
+Thames, to whom all women were angels, clenched his fists.
+
+“Is that true?” There was a new tone to Colton’s voice.
+
+Norris seemed to recognize the menace. “She isn’t guilty, I tell you!
+She can’t be. She’s--Listen, man! She’s my wife!”
+
+“Your wife!” They all echoed it. The detective with laughing triumph;
+President Montrose with horror; Sydney Thames in dazed surprise; Simpson
+with a half-suppressed, significant gasp.
+
+“We were married two days ago; but it was to be a secret until the end
+of her season.”
+
+“How long ago was she sent for?”
+
+The detective answered: “My side kick ought to be back now. We was on
+the job there, all right, all right.”
+
+Voices outside came to their ears--the harsh, commanding voice of a man,
+the half-subdued sobbing of a woman. The door was thrown open, and Rhoda
+Richmond, opera singer, and wife of Norris, was half pushed, half
+carried into the small room.
+
+“Good work, Jim!” grinned Jamison. “Did she put up a howl at the hotel?”
+
+“Hotel?” growled the other scornfully. “No hotel for hers. I had a lot
+of luck or I’d never’ve got her. She was boardin’ a boat fer South
+America that sails in an hour.”
+
+“It’s a lie!” Norris screamed the words as he leaped toward the man
+whose rough hand was clenched around the slim arm of the girl. Sydney
+Thames, obeying Colton’s silent signal, forced him back, his own hands
+trembling. The problemist without a word untwisted the central-office
+man’s fingers, and gently seated the girl in a chair at the long table.
+
+“Who the----” The blustering detective was cut off suddenly.
+
+“We’ve had enough of your strong-arm methods!” Colton’s voice was hard
+as flint. “We’ll get some facts now.” The hardness vanished; in its
+place came gentle sympathy. “When did you get the message, Miss
+Richmond?” he asked.
+
+The voice seemed to have the reassuring effect of a pat on the head of a
+hurt child. With an effort the girl controlled her sobs, and answered as
+though it had been the most natural question in the world: “An hour
+ago--over the telephone--I thought I recognized How--Mr. Norris’s voice.
+He wanted me to meet him at the Buenos Aires dock. He had to go to South
+America secretly, he said, and I must tell no one. I hurried to the dock
+without even telling mother. I waited for an hour, but he did not come;
+then I decided to go aboard and see if he had missed me and gone to his
+state room. This man--said Howard had--robbed--I thought----”
+
+She broke down again.
+
+“I guess that’s bad!” grinned Jamison gloatingly. “In another hour
+there’d of been a clean get-away.”
+
+“The whereabouts of the bonds doesn’t seem to worry you!” snapped Colton
+sarcastically.
+
+“The stuff ain’t never far away from the guy that took it,” growled
+Jamison. “When you get through your know-it-all talk we’ll sweat that
+out, all right.”
+
+“Did you have a tailor’s suit-box with you yesterday?” asked Colton
+abruptly of the girl.
+
+“Yes. I called to see if my new walking-suit was finished. It was all
+ready to be sent to my home, but when I saw the poor, tired little boy
+who would have to carry it I took it myself. The tailor is just around
+the corner, on the avenue; that is why mother and I dropped in here.”
+
+“Of course,” nodded Colton, his teeth snapping together as he seemed to
+sense the derisive grins on the faces of the detectives. “Did you
+recognize the bonds among the papers on which Mr. Norris was working?”
+
+“Oh, he showed them to me, and we laughingly spoke of what we could do
+with half a million dollars. Then, when he took mother out to show her
+around the bank--I was too tired--I picked one up and read it.”
+
+“Rhoda!” cried Norris. He could realize the present significance of
+yesterday’s innocent words.
+
+“That’ll be about all from you!” scowled Jamison. “If this guy wants to
+third-degree her, and cinch it for us, let him.”
+
+“An’ if he don’t cinch it this will.” The other detective pulled a paper
+from his pocket. “Here’s the _Buenos Aires’s_ passenger list, and here’s
+Mr. and Mrs. Frank Morris, who booked yesterday, added in pencil. Morris
+for Norris! Slick enough to be almost good.”
+
+Every one in the room but Colton seemed to be shocked into a state of
+stupefied rigidity.
+
+“Now----” Jamison said that word in the tone one uses to introduce some
+especially clever thing, and accompanied it with a sarcastic glance
+toward the blind man, who tapped his trouser leg with his cane in
+thoughtful silence. “If _you_ ain’t got no objection we’ll take these
+two to headquarters, and get a line on where they got the stuff cached.”
+He paused suggestively, mockingly.
+
+The permission came, with a deprecatory wave of the cane, and a smile
+that was menacing in its very suaveness. “Go as far as you like,
+Jamison. Don’t be too gentle with them.”
+
+“My God, Mr. Colton! You don’t think----” The words choked in Norris’s
+throat.
+
+“I think you had better go.” The problemist’s tone was peculiarly quiet.
+“Jamison and his partner have the reputation of being the two wealthiest
+detectives in the department. No one knows how they got it, but they’ve
+enough to give you and your wife a twenty-thousand-dollar nest egg each
+on a false-arrest suit. Isn’t that worth a few hours’ discomfort? I can
+prove your innocence when they have gone. They worry me here.”
+
+Simpson whistled, and turned it into a jerky laugh. “Gad, that was
+clever!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Oh, is that so!” The detectives chorused it, in their voices
+sarcasm--and just a tinge of something else, too. Colton knew the one
+thing that would make them stop and think.
+
+“Are you going?” snapped Colton.
+
+“We’ll see them two watchmen first,” growled Jamison.
+
+“Good!” The problemist laughed at the sudden change. “I think you’ll
+have quite a crowd to take down to head-quarters if you hang around long
+enough. Before I started I telephoned to the burglar-alarm telegraph
+department of the protective agency to get hold of the men who answered
+the alarm that rang in from this office early this morning.”
+
+“What burglar-alarm?” snarled Jamison. He whirled on the white-haired
+president. “Why didn’t you tell us there was an alarm rung in?”
+
+“Really”--the Vandyke received several severe yanks--“I didn’t know it.
+We do not receive the clock reports and emergency alarm sheets until
+about noon. Er--Mr. Colton, might I ask where you got this information?”
+
+“I telephoned for it,” answered Colton curtly. “If these policemen
+hadn’t been so anxious to make arrests, and the robbery hadn’t been too
+obvious for their thick heads, they might have investigated. But they
+are just head-quarters men; the obvious arrest is the one they always
+make. Feet make good central-office men, not heads. Ah, here are the
+men, all together.”
+
+They came in slowly, two old men first; one with straggly, white
+whiskers that concealed the weak chin and grew up around the faded,
+watery eyes; the other’s parchment-like face a network of wrinkles.
+Honesty shone from every part of them; the weak, helpless honesty of
+their kind.
+
+As Colton took each man’s hand with a murmured greeting he felt it
+tremble in his. The aged watchmen knew that something had happened;
+something that concerned them and the bank they had guarded so long. The
+two men from the burglar-alarm company nodded to the two detectives, and
+their eyes narrowed as they shook the hand of the problemist. Both knew
+him, and both knew this had been no common summons. Thornley Colton
+never bothered with common things. Sydney Thames had pulled two chairs
+up to the table, and the old men sat down. Colton lighted a cigarette
+thoughtfully, then he spoke:
+
+“This morning, gentlemen, that small safe was robbed of five hundred
+thousand dollars’ worth of government bonds.” His slim cane, apparently
+held idly between his fingers, touching the chair of the man nearest
+him, felt the watchman’s involuntary jump. The others saw the old jaws
+drop, saw the watchmen glance helplessly at each other, their trembling
+fingers picking at worn trouser-knees. Colton heard the gasp of the two
+protective-agency men.
+
+“I knowed it!” quavered the white-whiskered watchman. “I knowed
+something’d happen when Mary took sick.”
+
+“Who’s Mary?” queried Colton interestedly. The others crowded forward.
+
+“She’s Mary, my wife. She’s been scrubbin’ the bank floors fer thirty
+years, an’ nobody ever said a word against her.” He glanced at them all
+with pathetic belligerence. “She even picked up the pins she found on
+the floor, and put ’em in a box on the cashier’s desk.”
+
+“That’s true,” laughed Simpson. “It’s the joke of the bank.”
+
+“And she was taken sick last night?” Thornley asked gently.
+
+“A week ago.” The other watchman answered, while the first brushed his
+dry lips with his work-gnarled hand. “Mrs. Bowden, she’s got the
+consumption, and lives across the hall from us and----”
+
+“Where do you live?” interrupted Colton.
+
+“Sixteen hundred Third Avenue. I been boardin’ with him an’ his wife fer
+thirty years. Mrs. Bowden’s been doin’ Mary’s work. We didn’t say
+nothin’ about Mary bein’ sick, ’cause she might get laid off. An’ Mrs.
+Bowden’s awful poor.” His voice was a childish, quavering treble.
+
+“Last night, after Mrs. Bowden had gained your confidence, you allowed
+her to scrub Mr. Norris’s office?” encouraged Colton.
+
+Norris started. “I’d forgotten that!” he ejaculated. A motion from
+Colton commanded silence.
+
+“Yes,” trembled Mary’s husband. “John opened the door, an’ started to
+punch his clocks, an’ I stayed in the ante-room, like I allus do, to
+watch Mrs. Bowden. Then somehow the door got closed. An’ Mrs. Bowden got
+scared there in the dark. She screamed an’ cried till it was real sad.
+But John had the key, an’ he had to punch his clocks on the minute, er
+Mr. Montrose’d be mad when he got the records next day. An’ I couldn’t
+leave my place in the ante-room. So I encouraged her, sayin’ that
+John’ld be back in half an hour an’ let her out. She quieted after a
+while, an’ didn’t scream so loud, but I could hear her stumblin’ around.
+Then John had to run to the front door to see who was knockin’, an’ he
+let these gentlemen in. The burglar-alarm on the safe had rung, they
+said, an’----”
+
+“Never mind that part,” halted Colton. “One of these men will tell me
+that part.”
+
+“We was called at seven-eighteen,” began the taller of the two Bankers’
+Protective Agency men, “by the safe bell. The safe is connected with one
+wire, and under the carpet, running all around the safe, is a thin steel
+plate connected with the other. A man standing near enough to touch the
+safe forms a connection that rings our gong. In the day-time, of course,
+we pull the switch. We got here, and found the door locked, an’ we could
+hear moaning. This guy”--he indicated the one with the straggly
+beard--“unlocked the door, and behind it was a woman, her skirt pinned
+up around her, laying on the floor, frightened to death. When she seen
+us she jumped to her feet with a little screech, and muttered something
+about thanking God.”
+
+“You were satisfied that she was frightened?”
+
+“Sure! But we didn’t let it go at that. We snapped on every light, and
+examined the room. Nothing had been touched. We frisked the woman,
+gentle, of course, but enough to know that she hadn’t a thing on her. We
+finally got it out of her that she’d fell against the safe trying to
+find the door in the dark. She didn’t know enough to snap on a light.”
+
+“She couldn’t have had fifty ten-thousand-dollar bonds on her person?”
+
+Both men laughed. “Gee, Mr. Colton,” laughed the short one. “She was so
+frail you could almost see through her. She couldn’t hardly have hid a
+cigarette paper without making a hump.”
+
+“What happened then?”
+
+“She picked up the pail she had--it was full of dirty scrub water, and
+the yellow bar of soap was bobbing around in it--and John, here, took
+her into the cashier’s cage. We hung around, talking, an’ watching her
+scrub and weep into the pail until it was time fer her to go home. She
+was so all in I put her on a car.”
+
+“Um!” Colton puffed his cigarette in silence; then he turned to Jamison
+and his partner. “Looks mighty suspicious, doesn’t it, Jamison? I’d
+advise you to arrest these four men and get the woman. Five hundred
+thousand is likely to make any honest man a crook.”
+
+“Some kidder, ain’t you?” sneered Jamison. “I know Pete, there, an’ if
+he says it was all right, it was. We got the guilty parties first off,
+an’ we’ll get the stuff, too!”
+
+The smile went from Colton’s lips instantly. “You arrest them, and we’ll
+start false-arrest proceedings in an hour!” he warned. “You leave Norris
+and Miss Richmond here! Any one but a fool detective would know they
+weren’t guilty.”
+
+As he said the last word he jumped toward the safe, ran his highly
+sensitive fingers over the steel surface, knelt down, brushed the heavy
+carpet lightly with his finger tips. The two hectic spots on his cheeks
+glowed redder; the nostrils quivered like those of a hound on the scent,
+even the eyes, behind the great, round, smoked glass lenses seemed to
+shine. Silently they watched him. He lowered his face almost to the
+floor, the cane was laid down, and his hand gave the carpet a resounding
+slap. They crowded closer. One hand went to his hip-pocket, a
+handkerchief brushed the hard-wood floor under the safe, between the
+edge of the rug and the wall. He rose, touched the burning end of his
+cigarette ever so lightly to the linen handkerchief that was now covered
+with a fine yellow powder.
+
+“See it! See it!” he snapped. “You couldn’t before because it was the
+same colour as the hard-wood floor.”
+
+“It’s wood-polish powder, used for cleaning the varnished wood,” sneered
+Jamison, stepping forward. “We don’t want----”
+
+“Smell it, then!” The blind man thrust the handkerchief under the
+central-office man’s nose. “Do you recognize it now? It’s sulphur.
+Ordinary powdered sulphur. The thing that would tell any man how the
+bonds were taken out of the office. Go to a drug store and find out what
+sulphur is used for.”
+
+He thrust the handkerchief into his coat-pocket, brushed off the knees
+of his trousers, and picked up his stick.
+
+“Come, Sydney,” he said quietly. “We’ve finished.”
+
+Before the astonished men could make move or protest he hurried from the
+office, automatically counting the steps. He jumped into the waiting
+machine, Sydney Thames followed, and as Simpson and Jamison ran to the
+door, he snapped: “Home, John!” to the Irish chauffeur, and the machine
+sped away.
+
+Around the first corner he leaned forward.
+
+“Sixteen hundred Third Avenue--quick!” he ordered.
+
+“You don’t think those two old watchmen guilty?” asked Thames, in
+surprise.
+
+“No!” The tone was almost brusque. “Merely an unimportant detail I want
+to clear up.”
+
+“You certainly left that crowd in the office at sixes and sevens.”
+Thames laughed at the recollection.
+
+“I intended to. That’s why I went into all those details. I wanted to
+leave every one up in the air, especially the two detectives. They’ll
+begin to think now. And they won’t let any one get away before we have
+made this call. I want to think, now.”
+
+Sydney Thames knew the moods of the blind man; knew he could expect no
+explanations, or even replies, until Colton was ready to give them; so
+they sped in silence to the upper East Side.
+
+Soon they were on upper Third Avenue. Overhead the clanking “L” trains
+pounded their din into the two men’s ears. The streets were crowded with
+their heterogeneous mass of men, women, and children. The rusty
+fire-escapes staggered drunkenly across the dirty, red tenement-fronts.
+
+The look of tense concentration left Colton’s face. “A far cry from the
+luxurious, staidly conservative Berkley Trust, eh, Sydney?” He smiled,
+leaning back in the cushions, puffing his cigarette as though untroubled
+by a serious thought; his eyes, behind the smoked library glasses,
+seemingly fixed on the narrow strip of blue sky overhead.
+
+The car came to a stop.
+
+“Is this it, John?”
+
+“Th’ saloon on th’ corner is fifteen-ninety-four, sorr.”
+
+“Lead the way, Sydney.” Again the twin red spots glowed in Colton’s
+white cheeks, he jumped to the sidewalk, his slim stick tapping his
+trouser-leg eagerly.
+
+Thames stepped along beside him, close enough for his coat-sleeve to
+touch that of Thornley Colton. And with that slight touch to guide him
+the problemist followed; for Thornley Colton was a trifle sensitive over
+his blindness, and nothing made him angrier than an attempt to lead him.
+Sydney found the entrance, between a second-hand-clothing store and a
+pawnbroker’s shop. As he stopped to make sure of the weather-dimmed,
+painted number the clothing-store proprietor popped out, rubbing his
+dirty palms together, and coughing apologetically.
+
+“On which floor does Mrs. Bowden live?” asked Colton sharply.
+
+“Der fourt’, front. You maybe like some clo’es?”
+
+“Is her husband watchman at the Berkley Trust Company?”
+
+“He’s dead. You means Mrs. Schneider, across the hall. Her man watches.
+Dere boarder also. You like a elegant skirt for der poor vimens. Such
+a----”
+
+Thames opened the door, and they left the clothing man in the middle of
+his sentence. In the dark hall Sydney made his way cautiously. Colton,
+cane lightly touching the heels of the man ahead, followed
+unhesitatingly. The journey up the rickety steps was torture to Colton.
+To his doubly acute ears and sense of smell the odours, the squalling of
+half-starved babies were terrible, but his brain automatically counted
+the steps so that he would have not the slightest difficulty in finding
+his way back to the automobile.
+
+“Schneider first,” whispered Colton, as Thames stopped in the
+fourth-floor hall.
+
+In the dim light Thames saw that they were standing between two doors.
+
+“I don’t know which it is, but I’ll take a chance.” He knocked on the
+one at his left.
+
+The one behind immediately popped open.
+
+“Mrs. Bowden’s gone away,” shrilly proclaimed a tottery old woman,
+bobbing her head.
+
+“Could you give us her address?” asked Colton, doffing his hat and
+bowing politely.
+
+“Laws!” The woman’s fluttering hand set her spectacles farther askew, in
+a hurried effort to straighten them. “She’s gone to spend the day with
+her sister in Brooklyn. Them boys of mine pestered her till she’s near
+sick. And she bein’ so delicat’ an’ out late last night washin’ dishes
+at the church sociable.”
+
+“Are you Mrs. Schneider?”
+
+The darkness hid the smile the reference to the “boys” had caused.
+
+“I’m her. Be you the Associated Charities? Mis’ Bowden said she’d asked
+fer help. She came here two weeks ago, after losin’ her job in the
+department store on account of her weak lungs. She had to take in odd
+day’s work. Asthma, _she_ calls it, but I ain’t fooled on consumption.
+Two of my----”
+
+“And you helped her by pretending you were ill?” interrupted Colton.
+
+“I was sick fer two days.” The woman hastened to set him right. “But she
+was so powerful glad to earn a few cents fer her asthma snuff, not that
+it is asthma. My sister’s brother----”
+
+“Of course she left the key with you until her return?” Colton left the
+sister’s brother in mid-air.
+
+“Yes; but----” There was just a shade of suspicion in the voice.
+
+“As agents of the Associated Charities we must make an examination of
+the room, to prove that she is really in need of financial help,”
+assured Colton gravely. “We can wait until she returns, of course, but
+this is the last application day for this month.”
+
+“Laws! I’ll get it right away.” She darted back into the room with
+surprising agility, and returned a moment later with an iron key tied to
+a broken-tined fork.
+
+“There’s no need of bothering you, Mrs. Schneider,” declared Colton
+earnestly, as Thames took the key.
+
+“Laws! Soon’s I get these pataters on I’ll be right with you. My boys
+had to go down to their bank----” The rest of the sentence was lost, for
+as she turned to the stove Colton had jerked Thames from the door.
+
+“Quick!” he whispered. In an instant the key was in the lock, and the
+door was open. Colton pushed his way in, his cane touching the scarred,
+tumbled bed and the one broken chair. “Where’s the trunk?” he queried,
+cane feeling around.
+
+“No sign of one, nor a case.”
+
+“Damn!” snapped Colton. “The bureau drawers! See what your eyes find.”
+
+Thames had the top drawer open almost before he had finished. He
+whistled in amazement. “Nothing but an empty pill-box, with no
+druggist’s label, three quills with the feathers cut off, and a tuft of
+cotton. What the----”
+
+“Those are what I want! Put them in your pocket!” The tenseness went out
+of his voice; it became politely ingratiating, for his keen ears had
+heard the woman coming. “There is no doubt that Mrs. Bowden is in need
+of our assistance, Mrs. Schneider,” he said smoothly. “Er--is that some
+of her asthma snuff in the top bureau-drawer?”
+
+She ran past him, and bobbed her head over the open drawer. “Yes, sir;
+there is a little sprinkled over the bottom. You got mighty powerful
+eyes, mister.” She nodded vigorously at the blind man. He had not been
+within five feet of the bureau. “She’s dead set on it bein’ asthma, but
+my sister’s brother was----”
+
+“Do you know anything against Mrs. Bowden’s character?” Again the
+sister’s brother was left dangling.
+
+“Laws, no. She’s that frightened she’s afraid of her own shadow. I’m the
+on’y one in the house she took to, an’ even me she kept at a distance.”
+Another vigorous nod. “An’ so modest! Laws, she wouldn’t ha’ come into
+the halls half dressed, like some of the other women does. An’ clean!
+Laws! She lugged all her clo’es over to her sister’s in Brooklyn to-day,
+to be washed in their Thirtieth Century Washer; not that I----”
+
+“Ah, thank you, but we have four other calls to make.” And, bowing
+gravely, Colton backed from the room, and hurried toward the head of the
+stairs, followed by Thames and the shrill-voiced encomiums of the woman.
+
+They took their places in the car silently, and it was not until they
+had left the noise of the avenue for the quiet of the side-streets that
+Colton spoke.
+
+“What do you think of it, Sydney?” asked the problemist gravely.
+
+“I’m completely at sea,” confessed Thames, with a shake of his head. “It
+looked awfully bad for Norris when we arrived at the bank. Then that
+South American boat business. How did you know she had received a
+message?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“Didn’t. But I knew Miss Richmond, or rather Mrs. Norris. Common sense
+would have told any one that could be the only reason for her presence
+at the dock. Jamison and his kind don’t use common sense. They use the
+old policeman’s formula; arrest the logical suspect and then convict
+him. With persons like Norris and his wife, each half doubting, half
+suspecting, either would have confessed to save the other. It was an
+ideal arrest, from the police view-point.”
+
+“Then you seemed to involve the two watchmen and the two men from the
+protective agency. Jamison will have a whole waggon-load.”
+
+“He’ll take no one,” answered Colton. “I know him. He’ll spend the rest
+of the day trying to find out what I was talking about. Then he’ll
+telephone to head-quarters, and they’ll send men to find out who sent
+the message to Miss Richmond, and to locate Mrs. Bowden.”
+
+“There’s the woman, Thorn!” Thames spoke nervously, excitedly. “She took
+a dress-suit case, presumably full of clothes, to her ‘sister’ in
+Brooklyn. The bonds----”
+
+“You forget that the agency men saw her come out of the room
+empty-handed; they even searched her, and one put her on the trolley.”
+Colton smiled curiously. “This was wholly a man’s job, Sydney. The work
+of the rarest kind of criminal; a detailist. This crime, while perfectly
+simple, is, I think, unique in its attention to details. That’s why it
+interests me.”
+
+“Simple!” ejaculated Thames. “Simple? You speak as though you knew the
+guilty man.”
+
+“I do. Perfectly. I knew last night.”
+
+“Last night? The----”
+
+“The robbery was committed early to-day. Exactly.”
+
+“Why--why----” Helpless amazement was in Sydney Thames’s voice. “Why
+don’t you arrest him? Why all this----”
+
+“Simply because I would be laughed at. I haven’t the proof--yet. The
+usual criminal stumbles on his opportunity, and seizes it in a haphazard
+fashion. The rare criminal, the detailist, attends to every detail;
+works his problem out with the shrewdness and forethought of a captain
+of finance, plans a coup months ahead. Then he creates the opportunity.
+You must understand, Sydney, that half a million is worth a few months’
+work.”
+
+“But suspicion points only to Miss Richmond, Norris, and this Mrs.
+Bowden.”
+
+“Suspicion points to every one,” corrected the problemist. “Doesn’t it
+seem suspicious that President Montrose should call in the police when
+he would naturally take all steps in his power to avoid publicity?
+Doesn’t the very eagerness of the central-office men to arrest Norris
+and his wife seem queer? Isn’t there a bit of suspicion in Simpson’s
+confession that he delayed the Stillson estate until Norris was
+compelled to work after hours on them? Doesn’t Miss Richmond’s story
+that she was carrying her suit home to save work for a delivery boy seem
+highly improbable and unwomanlike? How about Norris telling his wife of
+the bonds? An unbusinesslike proceeding in the case of half a million’s
+worth of negotiable bonds, truly. Didn’t the two men who answered the
+early-morning alarm seem a bit too sure that nothing was wrong? Weren’t
+the two watchmen in the conspiracy to pretend that Mrs. Schneider was
+ill, so that a woman whom they had known but two weeks could gain access
+to the bank? Doesn’t the finding of an unlabelled pill-box, three
+featherless quills, and surgeon’s cotton in the otherwise empty room of
+a woman dying with tuberculosis strike you as strange? As a further
+detail in this crime of details, doesn’t my confession that I knew the
+criminal before the crime was committed seem a trifle like guilty
+knowledge?” He smiled broadly.
+
+“Great Scott, Thorn!” Sydney Thames’s voice trailed off in a whistle of
+pure bewilderment. “You’ve involved every one.”
+
+“Oh, no.” Colton snapped his cigarette into the street. “Not every one.
+An unfortunate vaudeville actor will appear on the scene as soon as I
+get the list on which I left Shrimp busily at work.”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+In the absolute darkness of the shade-drawn library Thornley Colton
+softly whistled a syncopated version of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” as
+his deft fingers filled an empty goose-quill with a fine white powder
+from an improvised paper funnel. He plugged the open end with a small
+wad of cotton; then his wonderfully sharp ears caught the rustle of the
+double portières.
+
+“Oh, Sydney,” he called, “have you heard anything from the bank this
+morning?”
+
+Thames entered the darkness unhesitatingly, for his constant practice of
+judging distance and figuring steps for Colton had made him almost as
+much at home in the darkness as the blind man himself.
+
+“No,” he answered shortly. Then, with the frank criticism of long
+friendship: “It’s a crime, Thorn, for you to be idle while that girl is
+being dogged, and harassed, and----”
+
+“I thought she sang remarkably well last night for a person under such a
+strain,” interrupted Colton musingly.
+
+“It was wonderful, wonderful!” Sydney Thames spoke with the breathless
+enthusiasm a beautiful girl always aroused in his woman-hungry heart.
+
+“Here, here!” protested the problemist laughingly. “Remember that she is
+another man’s wife!”
+
+“Great heavens, Thorn! How can you laugh?” cried Thames resentfully.
+“Think of those two dogs of detectives, questioning, bulldozing,
+shadowing! Why, they didn’t let Miss Richmond get away from the bank
+until late in the afternoon, then Jamison insisted on going with her.
+His partner hung around the bank till it closed----”
+
+“Trying to discover the use of powdered sulphur,” smiled Colton. “I
+thought he would. Any one but a central-office man would have gone to a
+drug store, as I suggested.”
+
+“Two other head-quarters men hauled that frail old Mrs. Schneider and
+the two watchmen to police head-quarters, and put them through the third
+degree.”
+
+“And a half-dozen more were on the trail of Mrs. Bowden, while we were
+enjoying the opera and an alleged cabaret show afterward, for which this
+dark room is the penalty. Too much light yesterday gave me a frightful
+headache.”
+
+The sudden ringing of the telephone in the darkness made Thames jump,
+and Colton’s cane, which was never away from him, felt the movement.
+
+“Answer it, Sydney,” he requested.
+
+The secretary’s hands had not the sureness of his feet, and he had to
+fumble a moment. When he had given the customary salutation and had
+listened a moment he gasped:
+
+“It’s Simpson, Thorn. His wife is missing! He wants you.” He extended
+the phone in the darkness, but Thornley Colton made no move to take it.
+
+“Tell him I’ll be down to the bank in an hour or so. I’ll see him then.”
+Colton spoke idly.
+
+Sydney repeated the message. Followed a silence. “He’s frantic, Thorn!”
+Thames’s voice shook with excitement. “When he got home last night she
+was gone. The doorman at his apartment house said that she had gone out
+in the morning, for a short walk, he supposed. Simpson was so excited
+about the robbery he did not telephone her during the day, as he had
+promised. He spent half the night searching, and tried a dozen times to
+get you. She is deaf and dumb, Thorn. Think of it! Deaf and dumb, and
+lost!” It only needed a woman in trouble to shatter Sydney Thames’s
+nerves.
+
+“Tell him that I’m trying to figure out that robbery. Tell him also that
+I never let one case interfere with another. I’m not a detective.
+There’s nothing interesting about a missing woman. Hundreds of ’em every
+day. I find my pleasure in interesting problems, not in police work.”
+Colton’s voice was sharp, curt, utterly devoid of sympathy.
+
+Sydney knew that tone, as he knew the man who used it. He repeated part
+of the message, added gentle-voiced apologies, and hung up the receiver
+with a sigh.
+
+“That was heartless, Thorn! Think of that woman, deaf and dumb, lost in
+this----”
+
+“Sometimes, Sydney, that susceptible heart of yours becomes wearisome.”
+Colton spoke a bit sharply. “A moment ago you were protesting because I
+was here instead of running around after the man who stole the
+half-million in bonds from the Berkley Trust Company.”
+
+“But Mrs. Norris is not helpless----” And for fifteen minutes he argued,
+while Colton smiled imperturbably in the darkness, and filled two other
+quills with the white powder, and plugged the ends with tufts of cotton.
+
+Suddenly Thames stopped, for Colton had picked up the telephone and was
+giving a number.
+
+“Hello, Shrimp!” he called, when the connection had been made.
+“Everything all right? Fine business. Three hours, eh? Good! Be on time,
+and obey orders. Good-bye!”
+
+“Where’s The Fee?” demanded Sydney. “I haven’t seen him since
+yesterday.”
+
+“Emulating the example of his worthy hero, Nick Carter. Shrimp is a real
+detective now.” Colton returned the crystalless watch to his pocket,
+picked up the three quills, and arose. “Come on, Sydney. We’ll walk over
+to the bank.”
+
+“Walk?” ejaculated Thames, for he knew the blind man’s aversion to
+walking when he could ride. “Where’s the machine?”
+
+“John and the machine are helping Shrimp in his detective work,”
+explained Colton. And in the twenty minutes’ walk to the Berkley Trust
+Company he absolutely refused to answer questions, but kept up a
+continuous conversation on trivial topics, that was maddening to the
+nervous secretary.
+
+The effect of the previous day’s badgering, questioning, and threats of
+the central-office men could be seen as one entered the bank. The aged
+cashier’s hands trembled as he tried to count a sheaf of new bills.
+Book-keepers in the rear wrote figures and erased them. Thompson, head
+of the trust and estate clerks, in his little ante-room cage, was in a
+pitiable state of nerves. The typewriter’s chair by President Montrose’s
+desk was vacant, because the lady stenographer was at home under the
+care of a doctor. The fifty years of staid, conservative calm that had
+characterized the Berkley Trust Company during its long and useful life
+had been hit by a five-hundred-thousand-dollar storm.
+
+The group in the vaultlike office of Second Secretary Norris was little
+better. President Montrose could hardly control his trembling hand to
+stroke his Vandyke; Norris’s eyes showed the sleeplessness of the night
+before; Miss Richmond was calm with the calmness that means coming
+nervous collapse; her mother was crying softly; Simpson seemed
+positively haggard, and Sydney Thames murmured words of sympathy for the
+man who had two troubles. Jamison and the other central-office man could
+not make their sneers wholly sceptical. The protective-agency men were
+plainly puzzled.
+
+“I see you are all on hand.” There was no smile in Colton’s voice now,
+or on his lips; he was deadly calm, coldly earnest. “You didn’t think it
+necessary to send for the two watchmen?”
+
+“We got men watchin’ them,” put in the surly Jamison.
+
+“Thanks!” came curtly from Colton. “Sit down at this table, all of you.
+I want to tell you a story.”
+
+“We didn’t come to hear----”
+
+Simpson interrupted the detective: “For God’s sake, make it short, Mr.
+Colton! My wife----”
+
+“I’ll look into that later.” Colton’s cane assured him that the chairs
+were around the long table, and his finger-tips felt the face of his
+watch in his pocket.
+
+“Will you?” Simpson’s voice was almost sarcastically eager, his
+heavy-lidded eyes narrowed. Thames could not blame the man’s natural
+resentment for Colton’s offhandedness.
+
+Silently they took seats. Colton sat facing the closed door; across the
+table was Simpson and Norris. Miss Richmond and her mother were at the
+end. The four detectives were on either side of the problemist.
+
+“This is a story of a criminal who was born a criminal; who couldn’t be
+honest if he tried,” began Colton, in his quietly expressive voice. One
+hand lay idly on the table before him, the other on his knees, fingers
+holding the slim, hollow cane. “He wasn’t just born crooked. He started
+petty thieving before he was out of short trousers. He was the rare
+criminal that works years as an honest man to pave the way for
+criminality. He had brains. He could have been a wonderful success as an
+honest man. But he couldn’t be straight. The criminal instinct was
+there. He was waiting for the proper time. But the coarser side of his
+nature refused to be held in leash. He needed money. And with the
+inherent craft of his kind he began to plan the robbery of the Berkley
+Trust Company. It wasn’t so hard, because, being an old, conservative
+institution, in which men had grown gray, the personal side entered as
+it cannot in the modern, up-to-date institutions where men come and go.
+Instead of elaborate safeguards the simple protection of proven honesty
+entered largely into the protection of the bank’s valuables. And where
+there is simple honesty there is always vulnerability.
+
+“This criminal had found the vulnerable spot years before the robbery
+was actually planned; when the time came for its consummation luck came
+to his aid, as it often does.” He paused. On the outside door came a
+knock, so faint that only his wonderfully sharp ears heard it. “There
+was no possibility of suspicion attaching itself to him, for he had
+planned an elaborate programme to foist suspicion on others. And this
+robbery was but one of a series, for the method his shrewd brain had
+devised was capable of endless combinations. In a few years the Berkley
+Trust losses would have mounted to millions!”
+
+His fist crashed down on the heavy table. The door opened. Between the
+sober-faced Shrimp and the expressionless Irish chauffeur was a
+sunken-eyed, tottering creature, unshaven----
+
+“_There’s your wife, Simpson!_” In the silence Colton’s voice came like
+the crack of a pistol.
+
+“My God, Thorn, it’s a _man_!” In Sydney Thames’s tone was agony that
+the sensitive blind man whom he loved could have made such a mistake.
+
+“Yes, a man! _Sit still, Simpson!_” With a movement as quick as light
+itself Colton’s fingers had dropped the slim cane that had given its
+warning, and held a blue-steel automatic. “Or rather what was once a
+man.” His tone rang with deadly menace. “Charlie de Roque, vaudeville
+actor, the youngest and best female impersonator on the stage; Mrs.
+Bowden, the consumptive who played so well on the sympathies of the
+three simple-minded souls at sixteen-hundred Third Avenue; Mrs. Simpson,
+the deaf-and-dumb little girl who was going to make Simpson lead a
+better life.”
+
+“You lie!” The shambling shadow of a man screamed it as he tried to jerk
+away from the chauffeur. “They told me they were going to take me to a
+sanatorium. I don’t know what you’re talking about. They’ve kept me----”
+His whole body racked with sobs.
+
+“Would you tell the truth for these?” The automatic did not waver a
+fraction of an inch as Colton’s unoccupied hand threw down on the table
+three cotton-plugged quills.
+
+“Merciful God! _Yes!_” With insane strength he broke away from the big
+Irishman and darted to the table. His twitching fingers snatched a
+quill, pulled the cotton from the end, threw his head back----
+
+“Enough of these damn’ theatrics!” Simpson snarled it viciously, but he
+did not move. “By Heaven, Colton, you can’t railroad me to save Norris
+and his wife with the fool ravings of a cocaine snuffler!” His face was
+purple, the veins in his forehead seemed ready to burst. “Mrs. Bowden!”
+He scoffed. “How did she get the bonds? Where are they? Find ’em!” he
+laughed triumphantly at Colton across the table, and the two
+central-office men who now stood over him.
+
+“Here yuh are, Mr. Colton.” It was Shrimp, staggering under the weight
+of a big bucket of dirty water. He set it down beside the problemist’s
+chair.
+
+“The bonds are here, Simpson!” Colton’s hand plunged into the water, and
+came up with a dripping, shiny black object. “There’s the first package,
+in an all-rubber ice bag!”
+
+“You devil!” Simpson’s rage made his voice a scream.
+
+“Take your prisoner, policemen.” Colton could not refrain from adding
+that last scornful word to the two detectives who had not seen until a
+blind man had shown them.
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+“Of course, De Roque, who was merely the drug-crazed tool of the real
+criminal, would have told where the bonds were,” declared Thornley
+Colton, when they were once more in the shade-drawn library of the big,
+old-fashioned house. “But Simpson would have had time to be on his
+guard. The finding of the bonds, as I did, before he had time to recover
+his nerve, drew from him those last betraying words. The police can
+establish his connection with the telephone message to Miss Richmond,
+the booking of the two passages under the name of Morris, and the place
+where he and De Roque met while the fake Mrs. Bowden was supposed to be
+out at day’s work. Those details were not even worth bothering with, for
+me, because the keyboard of silence told me the guilty persons before
+the robbery was committed.”
+
+“I am as much at sea as ever,” confessed Sydney Thames.
+
+“In the Regal we saw the first act. Simpson, with the dare-devilishness
+that characterizes the type, introduced me to the accomplice. It was not
+wholly dare-devilishness, however, for it was to prepare the get-away.
+He wanted, before the time came for her to disappear, to arouse your
+sympathy and my interest in the deaf-and-dumb woman, whom he had married
+to accomplish his reformation. After a fruitless search he would need a
+long vacation in Europe, with the bonds, of course, to recover from the
+shock. There could be no suspicion attached to him. No sane man would
+look for a deaf-and-dumb wife in the person of a vaudeville actor dying
+of tuberculosis and cocaine who had drug dreams of money coming his way.
+Once Simpson had gotten out of the country, De Roque could have raved
+and stormed, even confessed, and his confession would have been accepted
+as nothing but cocaine dementia. Simpson never intended to play fair; it
+isn’t his nature. From the first time I ever shook his hand I have known
+him to be a born criminal, for I can read hands as the physiognomist
+reads faces. And I have the advantage, because men like Simpson, with
+the aid of their strong wills, can mask their emotions behind eyes and
+faces so that no man can read their minds. But they have never given a
+thought to their hands.”
+
+“Do you mean to say you could tell what Simpson was planning by shaking
+his hands there in the Regal?” demanded Thames incredulously.
+
+“Not quite,” protested Colton laughingly. “But you know how I shake
+hands. My long index finger always rests lightly on the keyboard of
+silence--the wrist. With a touch like mine, so light that I can read
+handwriting by feeling the ridges left on the blank side of the paper,
+not one person in a million could feel it. I think Miss Richmond did,
+when I shook hands with her, because I felt a responsive thrill. In the
+case of Simpson his heart was working like a steam-engine, though his
+face and eyes were a mask that neither you nor any man with eyes could
+read; my finger-tip on his pulse told me that he was labouring under
+some strong excitement. When I shook hands with his ‘wife,’ I discovered
+why.”
+
+“Why?” echoed Thames blankly.
+
+“Because the wife was a man, and a drug-fiend.”
+
+“Your hand told you that, and my eyes were deceived!”
+
+“My knowledge of anatomy told me the man part. Don’t you know that over
+the muscles of a woman is a layer of fat that gives the beautiful
+feminine curves? The man’s muscles play directly under the skin, and the
+curves of female impersonators are due to flabby muscles, and not the
+feminine fat layer. Besides, the cocaine pulse of the ‘wife,’ my
+finger-tip immediately felt the play of the muscles as the hand gripped
+mine. Knowing Simpson, the impersonation could mean nothing else but a
+contemplated crime. I further proved it by getting her to put out her
+hand before she could have had any knowledge, by signs, of my intention
+to say good-bye. Remember my reference to lipreading? Simpson was taking
+no chance of letting her talk. The cocaine gave her the brightness of
+eye, and the heavily-daubed rouge I knew would have to be there to
+convince you that she was really a country girl who didn’t know the use
+of cosmetics, and also to cover any trace of man’s beard and cocaine
+pastiness of skin. It would have deceived any one who had eyes, where an
+artistic make-up would immediately have aroused suspicion. Simpson was a
+wonderful detailist.
+
+“Commonsense told me that Simpson could not risk working with an
+amateur. Therefore I set Shrimp to looking up actors who had been forced
+to leave the stage on account of ill health within the last two months.
+The whole thing must have been rehearsed many times, for the detailist
+would overlook no detail. In Shrimp’s list was De Roque. A few telephone
+inquiries proved that he was really a cocaine fiend of the worst kind,
+also that he had returned, yesterday morning, from a sanitarium, no
+better, to his old boarding-house. It was Simpson’s scheme to let him do
+that, for it eliminated him. As soon as I found out that Simpson would
+not risk visiting him, Shrimp and John got him on the pretence that they
+were from Simpson. Cocaine snufflers as far gone as he need the drug
+every hour. For three hours before the time arranged for Shrimp to bring
+him to the bank De Roque hadn’t had a pinch; he was insane with craving.
+The visit to Third Avenue, and the finding of the quills which cocaine
+snufflers use to hide the stuff on their bodies and conceal it in their
+palms so that no one can see them snuff it gave me the things I needed
+to make him talk. You saw how they worked.”
+
+“But the detectives who helped him out of the room? How did you ever
+figure the possibility of the bonds being in the scrub water?”
+
+“The protective-agency men told me. Their eyes saw what my lack of eyes
+understood. The yellow bar of soap bobbing on top of the water, I think
+one of them expressed it. An instant’s intelligent thought would tell
+any one that the yellow soap used for scrubbing floors never floats. The
+finding of the powdered sulphur showed me the clever ice-bag trick, for
+powdered sulphur is always used by druggists to keep the thin rubber
+from sticking together when the bags are in the boxes. Of course, De
+Roque carried it with him every night waiting for his opportunity, and
+in pulling it out the powder scattered on the carpet. The natural thing
+was to brush it under the safe, where my handkerchief found it after my
+slapping hand had raised the scattered grains he had missed.
+
+“The ringing of the burglar-alarm was a master-stroke. It was the link
+necessary to establish the innocence of Mrs. Bowden. Simpson, of course,
+knew of the connection. De Roque probably removed his shoes and stood on
+the rubber ice-bags while he opened the safe and took out the bonds and
+papers Simpson had so accurately described. Then, when they had all been
+packed and the safe closed, a natural stumbling against the safe would
+bring the protective-agency men to swear that nothing could have been
+taken from the room. When the time came to leave the building, the pail,
+still full of water, was carefully put in a far, dark corner of the
+cellar closet, where the scrub pails and mops are kept. It would have
+been safe until Simpson was ready to take the bonds away. That was why I
+worked to keep Jamison and his partner around the bank; I didn’t want
+Simpson to have any opportunity to get the loot out.
+
+“Of course, it was he who suggested the calling of the regular police to
+the flustered President Montrose. Because, while he was sure that he
+could deceive me, he wasn’t taking any foolish risks. He wanted the
+central-office men to muddle the thing as much as possible, and he was
+shrewd enough not to overdo the casting of suspicion on Norris and his
+wife; the way he put in a word here and there, and looks, of course, was
+quite in keeping with the other details. This morning, I think, he had
+begun to realize what I was doing, but there was nothing he could do but
+count on a bluff. I took him off his guard.”
+
+For several minutes the two men smoked in silence.
+
+“But why didn’t you warn some one instead of letting the robbery go on?”
+Sydney asked finally.
+
+Colton’s expressive lips framed a wry smile. “You will insist on showing
+the fly in the ointment, Sydney. The truth is, I was caught napping. But
+I guess it’s just as well I didn’t. Jails are built for the protection
+of society, and Simpson is the one man in a thousand against whom
+society needs protection.”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SECOND PROBLEM
+
+                       UNTO THE THIRD GENERATION
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+For weeks the five-hundred-thousand-dollar reception of the Jimmy
+Raeltons had been heralded as the greatest event of the New York social
+season. The news columns had been filled with accounts of the costly
+preparations, the wonderful gowns, the millions in jewels that would
+grace the first appearance of the Raeltons in society since the
+Carlton-Browne reception of thirteen months before. The newspapers had
+retold, lest their readers should forget, the tragic story of the
+mysterious suicide of Mrs. Jimmy Raelton’s sister, Mrs. Donald Wreye, on
+the night following the Carlton-Browne affair. The consequent retirement
+of the Raeltons had been reviewed; the report of the ill health of Mrs.
+Raelton had been substantiated; and the two months’ cruise on the
+palatial Raelton yacht was said to have brought back the bloom to faded
+cheeks. And to-night the Jimmy Raeltons were formally to re-enter New
+York’s social scheme of things; again to fill the niche that had been
+vacant for thirteen months.
+
+The small army of police herded the curious crowd from the side-walk as
+a black limousine drove up silently and came to a stop at the canopied
+curb. The door swung open, and men and women, who would stand patiently
+for hours to catch a mere glimpse of the notables they worshipped from
+afar, saw the first man alight. The electric globe under the awning
+brought out the striking whiteness of the face and hair; the contrast of
+the great blue circles of the smoked-glass, tortoise-rimmed library
+spectacles that rested lightly on the thin nose; the broad shoulders,
+and deep chest under the Inverness. The first arrival rapped the
+pavement lightly with the slim stick he carried as the apple-cheeked,
+black-haired man who accompanied him spoke a word to the driver and
+stepped beside him.
+
+A policeman touched his hat. “Early, ain’t you, Mr. Colton?” he greeted
+the other.
+
+“These things never interest me, Peters,” returned Thornley Colton, in
+his deep, musical voice. “A quiet chat with Jimmy and my goddaughter
+before the crowd arrives, then home and quiet.”
+
+He started briskly toward the wide steps, the red-cheeked man so close
+that his coat-sleeve touched that of the other. The policeman turned to
+his partner.
+
+“A great guy, Tom,” he observed, in a hoarse whisper. “He says he’s
+blind, an’ everybody else says he’s blind, but if he is, then I wish I
+was! That’s all.”
+
+The two men had ascended the steps. A man of impassive face opened the
+door, two others took their coats and sticks. Silent-footed servants
+were everywhere, deftly arranging the last details before the guests
+should arrive. On every hand was evidence of the lavishness that would
+mark the reception; but it was the lavishness of good taste, not the
+garishness of mere money. Through the great, high hall they were
+conducted to the Moorish room, where Jimmy Raelton greeted them with
+characteristic enthusiasm. But the superkeen ears of Thornley Colton
+caught an undercurrent of seriousness in the host’s voice.
+
+“Robbery?” he asked quietly, as the slim, hollow stick he always carried
+found a chair.
+
+“Scott, yes!” laughed Raelton; then, seriously: “That mind-reading stunt
+of yours is positively uncanny at times, Colton.”
+
+“Simple elimination,” explained the blind problemist. “Something more
+serious would have been given publicity before this; something less
+serious would not have caused you to ask us here an hour before guests
+should arrive.”
+
+“It’s more puzzling than really serious,” declared Raelton. “You know
+I’m so foolishly happy to-night because Dorothy is herself again that
+nothing else could really matter.” His face lighted up boyishly. The
+Jimmy Raeltons had been married five years, and society still called
+them the Newlyweds.
+
+He took a small leather case from the inlaid taboret beside him, and
+snapped open the lid. Sydney Thames, the blind man’s secretary and
+constant companion, could not repress a gasp of admiration as the
+wonderful diamond necklace sent its thousand flashing fires toward the
+shaded lights above.
+
+“This is the thing I wanted to see you about,” quizzically smiled Jimmy
+Raelton, as he extended the open case toward the blind man. A question
+would be needed here, at least.
+
+Colton took the case, weighed it on his open palm an instant, brushed
+the stones ever so lightly with the tip of his forefinger, and snapped
+shut the lid.
+
+“Worth fifty thousand--if it wasn’t paste,” he announced.
+
+“Good Lord!” Raelton sank weakly into a big morris chair, the one
+anachronism his comfort-loving body demanded.
+
+“To a person with highly sensitive finger-tips there can be no such
+thing as a fake diamond; because no crystal less hard will hold a
+sharply-defined facet edge. When, and how, was the substitution made?”
+
+“That is just the point. Since the morning following the Carlton-Browne
+reception they have been in the safe-deposit vault to which only Dorothy
+and I have access. You know she has never used them since; she hasn’t
+been herself for six months or so.” A troubled light came to his eyes.
+“It wasn’t her sister’s death so much--it seemed to be something else.
+Sometimes I almost feared that she was discontented; that she didn’t
+want to stay at home with the kiddies any more. Her father was always a
+wanderer, and her grandfather died in China--you know how. But, thank
+God, that’s over. The two months’ cruise on the _Sea Mew_ have made her
+the same old Dorothy.”
+
+He paused an instant, then came back to the point. “I’m quite an expert
+in an amateur way, and I recognized the substitution instantly to-night.
+The discovery seemed to agitate Dorothy terribly. She always set great
+store by the necklace--it was my wedding-present. The thing has upset
+her so that she will be positively ill, unless you discover how the
+substitution was made, and by whom. She wouldn’t let me call the
+police.”
+
+“Where is Dorothy?” asked Colton anxiously.
+
+“She is lying down. I’m afraid this thing is going to spoil the whole
+evening.” Again came the troubled note. He touched a small silver bell.
+“I’ll call her. I want you to convince her that it isn’t worth worrying
+about. You can do it, because she has always looked upon you as a
+father.”
+
+A servant entered, bowed at the order, withdrew.
+
+They waited in silence for the coming of Dorothy Raelton. Thornley
+Colton’s mind went back to the death of Colonel Calvin, the promise
+given by the blind man that he would be a father to the two parentless
+girls. A look of sadness came to the thin expressive lips. He was
+thinking of the other beautiful daughter; the suicide that had never
+been explained.
+
+The servant returned. His ruddy English face had lost a bit of its
+colour; his voice trembled slightly.
+
+“Mrs. Raelton is sleeping. The door’s locked--and Dora can’t wake her.”
+
+In three minds leaped a single, horrible thought. Jimmy Raelton leaped
+to his feet, dry-lipped.
+
+“My God, Thornley!” He ran toward the door, and into the hall. Thornley
+Colton was at his heels, supersensitive ears following each footfall
+unerringly. Sydney Thames hurried after them; the servant brought up the
+rear. They raced up the marble stairs. In the upper hall a maid leaned
+against the wall, wringing her hands.
+
+“Mr. Raelton!” she sobbed. “Oh, I can’t bear it!”
+
+Thornley Colton had not paused; his slim stick found the closed door. He
+turned to face them, on his countenance an expression Sydney Thames had
+never seen before. He spoke to the white-faced servant.
+
+“The guests will begin to arrive any moment, now,” he said, and his tone
+was as strange as the look on his face. “Tell them that Mrs. Raelton has
+been taken suddenly ill. The reception is postponed--indefinitely. Let
+no one in.” He waited a moment till the man had gone; then his hand fell
+on Jimmy Raelton’s shoulder. “Sydney and I will go,” he said huskily.
+
+“She isn’t----” Raelton could not finish.
+
+Colton shook his head sadly. “She isn’t dead, Jimmy,” he said, and
+stopped, with a world of suggestion in his tone.
+
+“Then I want you to stay,” pleaded the husband hysterically. “Nothing
+else matters--if she is alive.”
+
+He thrust his shoulder against the door. The lock gave way. He staggered
+in; stopped short with a gasp of horror. On the wide bed lay Dorothy
+Raelton, unconscious, hair disarranged, priceless gown dishevelled. From
+one limp hand dangled a long, black opium pipe. On a low table beside
+the bed a sweet-oil lamp burned flickeringly. A small can of opium was
+overturned beside it. The needle that had cooked the drug over the flame
+stained the white coverlet of the bed. The pungent smell of opium smoke
+was in the air.
+
+Jimmy Raelton darted across the room, flung himself on his knees beside
+the bed.
+
+“My God!” he moaned in agony. “My God!”
+
+Thornley Colton’s hand fumbled for the knob, found it.
+
+“Come, Sydney,” he murmured softly. Mechanically Thames obeyed. The door
+closed softly behind them. The Jimmy Raeltons were alone.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+Black headlines in the morning papers told of the strange postponement
+of the Raelton reception. Black type told eager readers of the scene in
+front of the Raelton home when arriving guests were met at the door with
+a startling announcement: “Mrs. Raelton is ill. The reception has been
+postponed indefinitely.” And the door had been closed in their faces!
+
+Eager readers learned of the silent line of servants that had filed from
+the rear entrance of the darkened house; the fifty thousand dollars’
+worth of flowers left to wilt unseen; the caterers’ elaborate
+preparations--estimated to have cost thousands--left to spoil untasted.
+Much was made of the fact that Jimmy Raelton refused even to see a
+reporter, and all the papers, yellow and conservative alike, hinted at a
+sinister something that would explain a thing so unprecedented in the
+annals of New York society. Two of the most progressive sheets learned
+that Doctor Henry, the young physician who had made such rapid strides
+in his practice among the social leaders, had not been called, and knew
+nothing of Mrs. Raelton’s reported illness until told by the reporters.
+
+In the library of his old-fashioned up-town house Thornley Colton sat
+with bowed head. At his feet were the crumpled papers Sydney had read to
+him.
+
+“This is the saddest day of my life, Sydney,” the blind man said slowly.
+“I promised Colonel Calvin that I would watch over his daughters. His
+father died an opium fiend.”
+
+Sydney’s eyes widened. “I never knew that!”
+
+“Few did. I have zealously guarded the secret all my life. Not even the
+girls knew it, though I told Jimmy when he married Dorothy. Colonel
+Calvin was always afraid of the stain being in the blood. He had fought
+the craving, but he feared for his daughters. I laughed at him, for
+atavism, to me, has always seemed merely a cloak for weakness. Now I am
+reaping my whirlwind. One is dead by her own hand, the other an opium
+fiend. I can never forget my feelings when I caught the unmistakable
+smell of opium smoke before we opened that door.”
+
+Silence came again, to be broken by The Fee, a red-haired, freckle-faced
+blue-eyed boy, who had become a part of the Colton household at the
+conclusion of a particularly baffling murder case.
+
+“Dere’s a feller an’ goil downstairs wants to see yuh. Looks like
+soivents, and says dere name’s Rayton.”
+
+Only for an instant was the expression of surprise on the blind man’s
+face. “Send them up,” he said quietly, and he rose to meet Jimmy Raelton
+and his wife.
+
+A cry of pity came to Sydney Thames’s lips as the man and woman entered.
+Jimmy Raelton, in an ill-fitting suit of blue, a plaid cap pulled down
+over his eyes, had grown an old man in a night. Mrs. Raelton, in a
+tawdry dress, leaned heavily on the arm of her husband, as she had
+leaned when their disguises took them safely past the cordon of
+newspaper men.
+
+Silently Thornley Colton took a hand in each of his, the mobile face
+telling them what his tongue could not; silently he lead them to chairs.
+Not until they were seated did Jimmy Raelton speak.
+
+“We are going away,” he said, and his tone was dead, hopeless. “We are
+going to fight the fight together. Dorothy wanted to say good-bye--and
+tell you.”
+
+“I couldn’t go without seeing you,” Dorothy Raelton sobbed chokingly.
+“It will make it easier--to know that you understand. I’m glad--that
+Jimmy knows at last.” Her voice steadied, and she went on simply,
+bravely: “If it hadn’t been for little Jimmy and Dorothy, I would have
+done as Marjorie did--ended it all. Marjorie, too, had the curse, though
+I didn’t know it until that hideous morning I waked with a terrible
+headache and the opium pipe on the floor beside me. I screamed for my
+maid. Then she told me why Marjorie had written that pitiful, pleading
+note, begging me to take Dora because she could be trusted if anything
+happened. Dora was the only one who even suspected that my sister was an
+opium fiend, just as my grandfather was. Marjorie had told her that.
+Dora said that she had heard me going downstairs in the night, and in a
+dream I seem to remember going to the Chinese room and taking the opium
+set and small glass jar of the drug we kept as curiosities; but it seems
+hazy, unreal.
+
+“I hid the set in my room; I didn’t dare risk getting it out. Every week
+the longing would come. I’d go blind, insane with craving, and in the
+morning I would wake, with the opium pipe beside me, and the little lamp
+still burning. Time after time I tried to hide the things, but in my
+blind delirium I always found them. One day I gave them to Dora for her
+to destroy, and that night I went and choked her until she gave them
+back. She had not had time to carry out my orders. I don’t remember
+going to her at all, but in the morning I waked with the pipe beside me,
+and on Dora’s throat were the marks of my fingers.”
+
+She stopped, sobs racking her slender frame. Beside her Jimmy Raelton’s
+head was in his hands, his body quivering. She went on: “Jimmy thought
+it was nervous break-down. He insisted on a long cruise in the yacht.
+For two whole months I never once felt the craving! I thought it was
+gone! I romped and played with the children; I laughed and joked with my
+husband. Then we planned last night’s reception. My God! The discovery
+by Jimmy of the substitute diamonds in my necklace overwrought me. I
+went upstairs, took a headache powder, and I waked----”
+
+She broke down utterly. Jimmy Raelton raised his bowed head. “Now you
+know the whole pitiful story. Will you keep our secret till we win the
+fight?”
+
+“Always,” assured Thornley Colton softly. He laid a gentle hand on
+Dorothy’s shoulder. “You may need help, little goddaughter; will you
+call on me?”
+
+A nod answered him; she could not speak.
+
+“The fight will be short; such faith cannot help but win quickly,” he
+added. His voice brought a look that was almost hopeful into the woman’s
+eyes, so full of assurance was it. Some subtle special sense seemed to
+tell him, for his thin lips curved in one of their rare smiles of
+encouragement. “I know you will win,” he repeated. Then, to change the
+subject: “I will investigate the necklace substitution while you are
+gone. We’ve forgotten it completely.”
+
+Only the silent Sydney Thames saw the startled look leap to the eyes of
+the man and woman. Dorothy Raelton found her voice first. “Don’t!” she
+cried brokenly. “I took the stones. They--were all--I had--to pay some
+one.”
+
+“What!” The tone of Colton’s voice startled them. In it was amazement;
+under it was anguish, the anguish of a man who has made a horrible
+mistake. “You have been paying blackmail?” His voice was almost harsh.
+
+“Yes.” She scarcely breathed it.
+
+“How long? To whom?” He was standing over her now; his attitude half
+menacing. His voice compelled an answer.
+
+“For six months,” she whispered, “the letters have been coming. They
+said I must pay, or the world would be told of the curse. I could do
+nothing else. I burned the letters as fast as they came, and I’ve sent
+fifty thousand dollars to a lock-box in Philadelphia. I had to sell my
+diamonds, and have them replaced by imitations to make the last
+payment.”
+
+“My God, what a fool I’ve been!” There was only anguish in the blind
+man’s voice now. He paced the floor with tigerish strides.
+
+“Do you ever remember cooking the opium pill?” It came like a
+pistol-shot.
+
+“Cooking----” He gave her no chance to finish.
+
+“Where did you get the headache powders you take?”
+
+“Doctor Grayton gave me the prescription, just before he died. I have
+never taken any others.”
+
+“How often do you take them?”
+
+“Several times a week. They quiet my nerves. I have been taking them for
+years, renewing the prescription when necessary.”
+
+“Did you take any on the cruise?”
+
+“Perhaps a dozen. They prevent sea-sickness.”
+
+“You never felt the craving for that two months?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“They put you to sleep?”
+
+“A light sleep that comes of quieted nerves.” She was answering the
+questions automatically, staring at him. Her husband listened, lips
+parted, breath coming fast. Sydney Thames was leaning forward, tense,
+expectant.
+
+The blind problemist whirled from her and continued his pacing. Twice he
+made the length of the room.
+
+“The inhuman devils!” they heard him mutter. “God, what devils there
+are!”
+
+Jimmy Raelton could stand it no longer. “What do you mean?” he cried.
+
+The blind man stopped before him, sightless eyes behind the round, dark
+glasses apparently staring deep into his. “I mean that my neglect is
+responsible for this.” There was terrible bitterness in his voice. “_Not
+a breath of opium smoke has ever passed Dorothy Raelton’s lips!_”
+
+Dumb, stupefied, they could only stare; then, as though moved by hidden
+springs, the man and woman leaped to their feet. But as quickly as it
+came the look of hope died in Dorothy Raelton’s eyes. She fell back into
+the chair.
+
+“Don’t!” she sobbed. “I can’t bear it! I’ve used the horrible stuff a
+hundred times. I couldn’t fight against it!”
+
+The man still stood, swaying ever so slightly, finger-nails biting into
+his palms, as his hands clenched convulsively.
+
+Gently the blind man forced him down into his chair. “It is true,
+Jimmy,” he said, and his voice was normal once more. “I should have
+known it last night when the whole game was in my hands. Now I must
+start at the beginning. The mind I have trained for years to be purely
+eliminative, that I have thought impervious to outside influences, is
+only human, after all. Last night I believed the evidence of my four
+senses and did not use my brain.”
+
+Only Sydney Thames realized what this confession cost the man who had so
+prided himself on his infallibility.
+
+“I don’t understand,” came dully from Jimmy Raelton.
+
+The blind man resumed his pacing of the room. “Dorothy doesn’t even know
+that the opium pill must be ‘cooked’ over the sweet-oil lamp! She
+doesn’t know the first thing about opium smoking! And last night there
+was no key on the inside of the door. _It was locked from the outside!_
+I remember distinctly that my fumbling fingers felt no key as I went
+out. I know--now--that none fell. Someone wanted you”--his finger
+pointed at Jimmy Raelton--“to see your wife!” He paused for an instant,
+then continued, rapidly, crisply: “The whole thing is the most devilish
+blackmail I have ever heard of. It is based on the one thing that all
+the past dead centuries have taught us to fear--atavism. When Dorothy’s
+money had gone, and the selling of the necklace stones told the
+blackmailers so, the husband must be the next victim of the vampire. The
+scene of last night was arranged so that only a touch would be needed to
+explode the powder-magazine the reception postponement had started if
+Jimmy refused to pay. The fiendish simplicity of it!”
+
+“But who----” began Dorothy Raelton, and there was almost eagerness in
+her voice. Then the hopelessness came back. “But it is impossible. I
+know----”
+
+“You know nothing! Where is your maid?”
+
+A terrible expression came to Raelton’s face. “The maid! She----” The
+words came like curses before the problemist stopped him.
+
+“The maid is absolutely innocent! Absolutely! Remember that above all
+things!” cried Colton. “Where is she?”
+
+“I sent her to mail a letter so that she would be out of the way when we
+started. I wouldn’t even trust her,” Jimmy Raelton answered slowly.
+
+“To whom was the letter addressed?”
+
+“To you. I didn’t want to come here, but Dorothy insisted.”
+
+“Did you get a letter from the blackmailer this morning?”
+
+Silently Jimmy Raelton took a letter from his pocket and extended it.
+Colton received it eagerly, jerked out the inclosure, laid it face down
+on the desk. His hypersensitive finger-tips brushed lightly the
+reversed, raised words the typewriter keys had driven through the paper
+as he read aloud slowly:
+
+    “_Mr. Raelton._
+
+    “SIR,--May be you don’t know it, but your wife smokes
+    hop. If you don’t want the wurld to get wise, send 25
+    one-thousand-dollar bills to lock-box 117, Philadelphia. Don’t
+    register. We’ll take a chance they land safe. If you’re too up
+    in the air to-day give you till to-morrow, but put a personal in
+    the _Telegram_ saying when. And do it, too!”
+
+The blind man paused an instant, then continued: “The fact that they
+want the money in thousand-dollar bills proves that the blackmailers are
+persons who can pass them without question, despite the childish attempt
+at illiteracy. They also know that the money would arrive safely without
+registry, which would necessitate signing a receipt. The fact that they
+want the money sent to a place so easily watched as a public lock-box
+proves that they have some means of getting their hands on it before it
+gets there!”
+
+He grasped the telephone. “Six thousand Greeley. _Telegram?_ Take a
+personal for the next edition. Ready? ‘Lock-box 117. Not even
+twenty-five cents.--J. R.’ That’s all. On the street in an hour? Charge
+it to Thornley Colton. Right.”
+
+They listened, white-faced; he shot a question at Dorothy before a
+protest could be voiced:
+
+“Have you ever called in Doctor Henry?”
+
+“There are things one can’t tell even one’s physician,” she said simply.
+“Jimmy called him, once, when he thought I was suffering from nervous
+break-down. Doctor Henry never suspected, couldn’t suspect. He told
+Jimmy that his plans for a two months’ cruise were excellent. That is
+the only time I have seen him during this awful six months. He has
+dropped in several times to see the children, but I have been out.”
+
+“A curious coincidence,” mused Colton idly; then his questions took a
+new turn. “You had no suspicion that your sister was an opium fiend?”
+
+“No--I wouldn’t have believed--if----” The words choked in her throat.
+
+“Didn’t you drift apart after her marriage?”
+
+“Donald Wreye turned out a cad!” blurted Raelton. “You know that as well
+as I! He spent every cent of Marjorie’s money. There wasn’t a penny of
+the hundred thousand her father left when she died. Wreye tried to
+borrow ten thousand from me five months ago, and I ordered him from the
+house!”
+
+“Five months ago?” murmured Colton. “He must have got it from someone. I
+know he was on the ragged edge about that time.” He turned away from
+them and jabbed two desk-buttons. “You are going back home now. I want
+you to slip in the way you came. Shrimp will go with you.”
+
+He turned to face The Fee, who had answered one button. “The reporters
+will probably hold you up, thinking you servants. Let Mr. and Mrs.
+Raelton slip past, then let the newspaper men get the information that
+Mrs. Raelton had a serious heart-attack, also that Doctor Henry was
+asked not to divulge the fact that he had been called. I’ve rung for the
+machine. It will take you within two or three blocks of your home. Walk
+the rest of the way, and stay indoors until you hear from me. Now this
+is important: I want you to give Shrimp two of the headache powders you
+have been taking, without the knowledge of the maid or any one else. Can
+you?”
+
+Mrs. Raelton nodded dumbly.
+
+“No one is to know that you have seen me. No one!”
+
+He sat down at the desk and wrote rapidly for a moment.
+
+“Send this telegram on your way back, Shrimp, and tell Michael not to
+wait for you. Sydney and I want to use the machine.”
+
+He held out his hands to the man and woman. “Good-bye, for a little
+while,” he said. Silently he watched them out, then he turned toward
+Sydney.
+
+“Tell John to serve us a cold lunch immediately.”
+
+For the first time in an hour Sydney Thames spoke. “Where are we going?”
+he asked curiously.
+
+“To see Donald Wreye.”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+Society had never called the marriage of Marjorie Calvin and Donald
+Wreye a brilliant one. Seven years before Marjorie had entered New York
+society, and society had knelt at her feet. She had many offers of
+marriage; all were laughed aside. Then came Donald Wreye, big, blond,
+masterful. He carried the little black-haired girl off her feet, swept
+the other suitors aside like chaff. He had neither money nor family. By
+sheer doggedness he had fought his way to a ten-thousand-dollar position
+in the Street. Society had pleaded with Marjorie Calvin. Thornley Colton
+had pleaded. But she loved with the love that only women of the
+Southland feel. They eloped.
+
+For five years the marriage had seemed ideal. Then came the last year.
+Marjorie’s sunny nature changed completely. Wreye was constantly at his
+club, drinking, gambling. Thornley Colton was received almost coldly by
+the girl he loved as a daughter. Then she was found in her room, the
+pistol she had used beside her.
+
+Wreye cast restraint to the winds then. His position was lost because of
+dissipation. He had opened an office of his own, and although he was
+known to do comparatively little business, for the past few months he
+had seemed to have plenty of money. But to the men and women he had
+known in the old days he became a pariah.
+
+And it was to his office that Colton and Sydney Thames started in the
+big machine an hour later. The blind man’s lips were a thin, straight
+line; the bloodless face sinister in its grimness. What his thoughts
+were none could tell. Sydney’s were a maze of conflict. The astounding
+assertion of Colton’s that Dorothy Raelton had never smoked opium had
+carried him off his feet, mentally, when it was made, but now, with
+sober afterthought, came the utter absurdity of it. Dorothy had
+known--_known_--that the blind craving could only be satisfied by the
+drug, and she had used it. It was not within the range of human
+possibility that _she_ could be mistaken. And _they_ had seen.
+
+The car came to a stop before a tall office-building near Wall Street.
+Colton, cane in hand, stepped to the side-walk, and, with only the touch
+of Sydney’s sleeve against his to guide him, made his way to the
+elevator. On an upper floor they halted before the door with its plain
+announcement:
+
+“Donald Wreye, Broker. Odd Lots.”
+
+Following Thornley Colton’s knock came the slam of a hastily-shut
+drawer, and a gruff invitation to enter. The smile of welcome faded as
+the heavy-featured man with the tawny hair saw his visitors.
+
+“Well?” he snapped ungraciously, slumping into the swivel chair without
+even inviting them to be seated.
+
+Thornley Colton’s slim stick located a chair before he answered. “You
+won’t be well very long unless you keep away from that black bottle in
+the drawer,” he said grimly.
+
+Wreye jumped to his feet with an oath. “That bottle’s my own affair,” he
+snarled. “I’ll drink when I damn’ please! I’m not in your bootlicking
+set any more. I got----” He stopped suddenly. “Get down to cases! This
+is my busy day.”
+
+The blind man picked up the chair and placed it directly before the big
+man, not two feet from him. “I want you to answer a few questions.” He
+said it simply, quietly, but some indefinable timbre of his voice made
+it a command.
+
+“I’ll answer if I see fit!” blustered Wreye.
+
+“You’ll answer whether you want to or not.” Still that quiet voice; the
+velvet covering for the will of steel beneath it. Sydney Thames held his
+breath as he watched the two men. One, a veritable giant, clumsy in his
+very bigness, face flushed with anger and liquor; the other, half a head
+shorter, with the chest and shoulders of an athlete, belied by the
+well-tailored slimness the faultless clothes gave him; face and hair
+white, accentuated by the big circles of the smoked library-glasses, his
+cane, held idly between the slim, supersensitive fingers, touching the
+floor a few inches from Donald Wreye’s foot.
+
+“I’ll see about that!” blustered Wreye, and the words seemed foolishly
+puerile.
+
+“When did you first discover that your wife was an opium fiend?” It was
+put so unexpectedly, so baldly, that even Sydney Thames gasped.
+
+The livid fury mounted to the face of Wreye. “By God! You----” His voice
+trembled with unleashed passion.
+
+Knife-like Thornley Colton’s voice cut in: “Answer me!”
+
+And, like lightning, the answer came--a vicious, smashing right fist
+straight at the face of the seated blind man!
+
+The exact sequence of ensuing events could never be told by Sydney, for
+the simple reason that his eyes were incapable of following the moves of
+the man who was sightless. He remembered leaping to his feet with a cry
+of horror as the blind man’s chair toppled over. Then he saw a
+purple-faced, cursing man straining and tugging to release the arms that
+were being slowly doubled behind him. A crash of a great body hurled
+downward in the heavy swivel chair, and Thornley Colton, unruffled,
+breathing accelerated but a trifle, straightened the tortoise-rimmed
+glasses and smiled down at the man he had so easily mastered.
+
+Mechanically Sydney righted the chair and picked up the blind man’s
+cane.
+
+“Thanks,” murmured Colton absently, and Sydney Thames gasped in
+amazement at the smile he saw on the thin lips of the problemist. It was
+a smile of pure joy; the joy of a man who has learned something more
+easily than he had expected.
+
+“Don’t you know that a seated man can’t leap to his feet without a
+warning move of the foot on the floor?” Thornley Colton asked quietly.
+“My cane told me what you were going to do the instant you knew
+yourself. Do you want to proceed conversationally or physically?” he
+finished grimly.
+
+“I could kill you for that!” The big man’s voice was like a sob.
+
+“It was raw,” apologized Colton, but both knew he was referring to the
+question he had asked, and not the vicious blow, or the struggle. Then
+the menace came again to his voice. “Where did you get that ten thousand
+you needed so badly five months ago?”
+
+The effect of this question was fully as startling, in a totally
+different way, to Sydney Thames as the other had been. The red rage
+receded from Wreye’s face, the snarl went from the lips; a sneering
+smile came.
+
+“So you come from my lily-fingered brother-in-law, eh? Hasn’t got the
+nerve to come himself, I suppose?”
+
+“Where did you get it?” repeated Colton.
+
+“Oh, I’ll tell you quick enough. _I got it from Jimmy Raelton!_”
+
+If this reply was unexpected, it did not cause the slightest change of
+expression on the face of Thornley Colton.
+
+“Quite strange that he should have given you the money after he had so
+emphatically refused it once before, wasn’t it?” he observed quietly.
+
+The black scowl came back to Donald Wreye’s face. “The letter that came
+with the money was devilish plain. The ten thousand was to keep me away
+from him and his wife. I was told that I’d get something worse than mere
+loss of position if I even told where it came from. Now I suppose he
+wants it back.”
+
+“Oh, no,” assured Colton, as he rose. “He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
+
+“What do you want, then?” There was snarling suspicion in the voice now.
+
+“Information--which I got.” The blind man smiled down curiously at the
+scowling man; then the smile went as quickly as it came. “What became of
+Marjorie’s hundred thousand dollars?” he jerked out.
+
+“She----” Wreye’s jaws snapped together, the big shoulders hunched
+aggressively. “If you’re so damn’ clever, find out!” he challenged
+sullenly.
+
+Sydney Thames could see the man’s huge muscles tighten under the coat,
+as if he expected force once more, and was prepared to meet it. But
+Colton only nodded and turned toward the door.
+
+“I will,” he promised grimly. “And I’m going to have you on hand when I
+make the discovery.”
+
+It was not until they were on the side-walk outside that a word was
+spoken.
+
+“A man like that makes my blood boil!” ejaculated Sydney Thames.
+
+“Yes?” replied the blind man seriously, but the rising inflection made
+it enigmatical. His beckoning finger brought a leather-lunged newsboy.
+
+“Latest _Telegram_?”
+
+It was thrust into his hand.
+
+“Did Shrimp see the reporters, Sydney?” he asked, as he handed the paper
+to Thames and stepped into the car.
+
+“The heart-stroke story is on the first page.”
+
+“Good! Then the advertisement I telephoned must be in. Take us to Doctor
+Henry’s home, Michael.”
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+With plenty of money, a distinguished appearance, and the manners of a
+courtier, Doctor Charles V. Henry had entered New York society three
+years before, with letters of introduction from prominent men and women
+in Paris. He soon opened an office in the fashionable up-town
+residential district. He had an independent fortune--his bachelor
+apartments cost him fifteen thousand a year--but it pleased him to
+follow his profession, and when Doctor Grayton died he fell natural heir
+to his society practice.
+
+“Do not tell me that you are ill, Mr. Colton!” he laughed, as he ushered
+the blind man and Sydney into his quietly luxurious office half an hour
+after they had left Donald Wreye.
+
+“Old Hippocrates and I are sworn enemies,” smiled the problemist. “I
+came to get a little professional information.”
+
+“Yes?” politely from the physician, as he accepted a proffered
+cigarette.
+
+“It is this.” Colton spoke seriously; all trace of the smile had gone.
+“Is there any medicinal cure for opium craving?”
+
+The heavy lashes of the doctor veiled his eyes as he looked down
+thoughtfully at the floor. “There are several reputed cures,” he said
+finally. “The most effective, and simple, probably, is rice powder and
+morphia. The morphia satisfies the violent craving at first, then the
+drug is diminished gradually, until the patient is satisfied with the
+harmless rice powder. This is effective, however, only in the first
+stages.”
+
+“I am speaking of atavistic craving. The opium craving, having skipped
+one generation, appears doubly strong in the next.”
+
+“You mention a rare case,” said Doctor Henry slowly; “and an incurable
+one. The effect of opium smoking, primarily, is a sensation of the
+nerves, or, rather, lack of sensation. The nerves feel the craving
+first. When that craving finds lodgment in the brain, the case is
+hopeless. With the inherited craving the process is absolutely reversed.
+The seat of the trouble is in the brain before the nerves know the drug,
+and when the nerves once feel the satisfied craving, it becomes a
+monomania. There is no cure.”
+
+For a full minute there was silence in the office. Thornley Colton blew
+thoughtful smoke-rings toward the ceiling. Sydney Thames was conscious
+of a strange, new feeling toward the man he loved; the man who had
+picked him up as a bundle of baby-clothes on the banks of the English
+river that had given him the only name he had ever known. The feeling
+was almost bitter. He could not keep his mind from the man and woman
+that Colton had sent back to their home but a short time before, full of
+hope, of joy. Now he realized that the words had been but empty
+encouragement. And there was no hope!
+
+Thornley Colton spoke again. “I disagree with you, doctor. There is a
+cure!” He had risen to his feet; his voice trembled with vehemence.
+
+The physician, startled from his usual professional calmness, was on his
+feet, staring. Colton took a step forward, stumbled blindly against a
+chair, his hands thrust out gropingly. Before Sydney Thames could reach
+him, Doctor Henry was again the cool physician. He extended a hand, and
+led the blind man back to his seat.
+
+“I forgot myself,” apologized the blind man huskily. “This thing has
+unnerved me.” He swallowed hard, his voice became normal. “The time for
+equivocation is past, doctor; I’m going to be frank. Dorothy Raelton is
+an opium fiend!”
+
+The physician half rose again from his chair in amazement.
+“Why--why--such a thing is incredible!” he gasped.
+
+Briefly, dispassionately, Colton told him of the night before. “Now,” he
+continued, “for the cure.” Again there was excitement in his voice.
+“Early to-morrow morning the Raeltons start for a year’s cruise on their
+yacht. I am making all the arrangements. They will go to the South
+Pacific, and keep wholly out of touch with the world, Mrs. Raelton will
+not take her maid, Jimmy will not even have his man. They will be
+absolutely alone, except for the crew. What do you think of that?”
+
+Doctor Henry’s fingers ceased their nervous drumming on the chair-arm,
+his lowered eyes raised. “It may be effective,” he admitted, in his
+deepest professional tones. “At what time--do they start?”
+
+“With the seven-o’clock tide. To-night Mrs. Raelton is going to receive
+a few intimate friends, and explain last night’s postponement. By the
+way”--he took the newspaper he had purchased from his pocket--“I used
+your name in explaining to the reporters the cause of last night’s
+affair. I knew you wouldn’t object.” The physician took the paper
+eagerly.
+
+The problemist was almost to the door before he remembered another
+question. “Did you ever suspect that Mrs. Donald Wreye was an opium
+fiend?” he asked.
+
+The unexpectedness of the question made Doctor Henry forget his usual
+suave manner for an instant, and his voice was almost sharp as he
+replied: “She was not! Her death was----” He stopped suddenly; then, in
+a different tone, “I am going to meet your frankness with frankness,” he
+said slowly. “I have always thought Mrs. Wreye’s suicide was a natural
+result of an utter breaking of her hypersensitive nervous system.”
+
+“Her husband?” put in Colton.
+
+“Yes!” emphatically.
+
+“Marjorie Wreye’s death was not a suicide!” Colton spoke quietly, but in
+his tone was that ominous menace Sydney Thames had noticed so many times
+that day. “It was deliberate murder! Good-day, doctor.”
+
+He extended his hand. It was taken by the serious-faced physician.
+Thornley Colton nodded a jerky farewell, and hurried from the office,
+his brain automatically counting the steps it had registered when he
+entered.
+
+In the car, speeding homeward, Sydney Thames drew a long breath.
+
+“Great Scott!” he murmured. “What a villain he is!”
+
+“Doctor Henry?” There was mild surprise in the blind man’s voice.
+
+“Donald Wreye,” corrected Sydney shortly. “Hanging is too good for him!”
+
+“Did you notice the almost curious resemblance between the deep
+professional tones of Doctor Henry and the ordinary voice of Wreye?”
+asked the problemist seriously.
+
+Without giving Thames a chance to reply he leaned forward to speak to
+the driver. “Take us to the nearest drug-store telephone pay-station,
+Michael,” he ordered. And as the car turned in toward the curb he
+explained to Sydney: “I must tell the Raeltons of my plans; also get
+twenty grains of trional and a heavy rubber band. Trional is one of the
+few harmless narcotics. The rubber band is _highly_ important. It is
+going to trap the most inhuman criminal I have ever known!”
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+Sydney Thames paced the library floor impatiently. Where was Thornley
+Colton? For three hours he had asked himself that question. The blind
+problemist had spent fully half an hour in the closed telephone booth at
+the drug-store after he had purchased two morphia powders and half a
+dozen strong rubber bands. Then, when Michael had driven them home,
+Sydney had been curtly ordered from the machine, and the eager-eyed
+Shrimp had taken his place as guide.
+
+As he walked he tried to piece together the events of the day; to
+discover some loose end in the snarl of circumstances. But his mind
+refused to find logic in the tangle of statements, of events that
+apparently led nowhere. Donald Wreye was a villain. He had driven his
+wife to suicide after squandering her fortune. That was certain. But
+what part had he in the life of Dorothy Raelton? Why had Jimmy Raelton
+secretly sent him ten thousand dollars after openly refusing it? Why had
+Raelton pretended such bitterness against his brother-in-law that
+morning? Why had Colton made the astounding statement that Dorothy
+Raelton had never smoked opium, and then sought a physician’s advice for
+a possible cure? Why had the blind man remarked the similarity of Donald
+Wreye’s voice to that of Doctor Henry? These, and a hundred more, raced
+back and forth through his brain like a flying shuttle. He took out his
+watch for the fiftieth time; then turned eagerly as the blind man
+hurried into the room.
+
+With a sigh of weariness Thornley Colton dropped into a chair and
+lighted a cigarette; when he spoke there was weariness in his voice.
+
+“A strange case, Sydney,” he said slowly, as though he had accepted this
+first quiet opportunity for retrospection. “The strangest I have ever
+known. A crime so damnably ingenious that even I--who have made a study
+of crime and criminals for years--did not recognize it. A crime so
+infernally clever that even the victim refuses to believe that it is a
+crime. A criminal who could confess this minute, and be laughed to scorn
+by any jury in the land. It is a crime unique in the annals of crime.”
+
+He took a telegram from his pocket. “Here is the answer to a query I
+sent regarding the lock-box in Philadelphia.”
+
+Sydney took it and read:
+
+    “Lock-box 117 one of six rented to Philadelphia Insurance Co.
+    for past five years.”
+
+“That means an accomplice there!” ejaculated Sydney.
+
+“It proves my former statement that the blackmailer never allowed the
+money to get to that box. And there could be only one method of
+interception in this case. It was never mailed!”
+
+“But Mrs. Raelton said----” began Sydney dazedly.
+
+“She also said she was an opium fiend,” interrupted Colton brusquely.
+Again his hand went to his pocket; on his palm as he extended it were
+two white, folded papers. “These are the powders Shrimp brought. The
+papers have been changed by me, but these powders have been used to mask
+the weapon of a fiend. Get me a glass of water.”
+
+Mechanically Sydney obeyed. He returned in a moment with the water and a
+question.
+
+“But Mrs. Raelton declared that Doctor Grayton had given her those
+powders?” he objected.
+
+“Yes.” Thornley Colton carefully unfolded one. “And Doctor Grayton has
+been dead two years.” He held the paper, opened, between his thumb and
+forefinger. “These powders were used to cause the suicide of Marjorie
+Wreye and make Dorothy Raelton, to all intents and purposes, an opium
+fiend!” He raised the powder to his lips, dropped it on his tongue.
+Sydney could not repress a gasp of horror. The blind man took a sip of
+the water, and stood up, fingers feeling the crystalless watch in his
+pocket. “It is seven o’clock, Sydney, time we were starting for the
+Raelton home. The machine is waiting.”
+
+Thames licked his dry lips. “My God, Thorn!” he choked. “It
+isn’t--poison?”
+
+“No.” The blind man’s smile held no humour. “These powders are perfectly
+harmless. Doctor Grayton was a careful practitioner, and his
+prescriptions have helped my headaches before.”
+
+“But what--how----” gulped Sydney, amazed into incoherence by this new
+convolution.
+
+“I’ll tell you later,” promised Thornley Colton. “I can’t now. There is
+too much at stake to spoil with premature explanations.”
+
+He took his hat and coat from the tree, and hurried down the stairs,
+Sydney following. In the automobile the blind man lay back in the deep
+seat, only rousing when the machine came to a stop before the Raelton
+home. The awning canopy was gone now; there was no waiting crowd.
+Another machine came to a stop behind them; where it had come from
+Sydney did not know. Then came a feminine greeting; the blind man lifted
+his hat, and hurried to the other car unerringly.
+
+“How are you, Mrs. Neilton, and you, Mrs. Bracken, also your husbands?”
+The assumed cheeriness in the voice seemed perfect to the listening
+Sydney Thames. As the blind man assisted the women to alight, Thames was
+surprised to note that they were all strangers to him. As Colton’s
+constant companion and guide he knew most of the blind man’s friends,
+though his memory of faces was not to be compared with the blind
+problemist’s wonderful memory of voices.
+
+Sydney was introduced to the men and women as Thornley Colton’s
+secretary; they were presented to him as friends of the Jimmy Raeltons,
+who had come to see them on the eve of the departure for the South
+Pacific.
+
+Together they mounted the steps. Thornley Colton rang the bell. And the
+door was opened by the red-haired Shrimp!
+
+“The servants is all gone,” explained the boy, as he closed the door
+after them. “All but Mrs. Raelton’s maid. Mr. Raelton’s in the Moorish
+room.”
+
+But at the first sound of their voices Jimmy Raelton had hurried out to
+meet them; his face was still haggard, and in the eyes was a piteous
+expression of pleading.
+
+“Where is Mrs. Raelton?” asked Thornley Colton quietly.
+
+“She is lying down. I’ll call her.” Raelton had not even nodded to the
+two men and the women who were quietly watching.
+
+“Wait!” Thornley Colton grasped his arm. Some one was coming up the
+steps outside. The door-bell rang. Shrimp opened it, and into the hall
+stumbled Donald Wreye! His bloodshot eyes blinked in the bright light as
+he glared at them, his hands twitched at his sides. He hunched his great
+shoulders, and clenched his fists to get a grip on himself.
+
+“Where’s----” he began, in the deep, hoarse voice so like that of the
+physician.
+
+From above them came a frightened scream--a woman’s scream.
+
+“Mr. Raelton! Mr. Raelton!” It was the maid.
+
+He bounded toward the stairs, the others at his heels. At the top was
+the maid, weeping and wringing her hands.
+
+“She told me to get myself something to eat, and I wasn’t downstairs
+twenty minutes,” she cried hysterically. “And I found her----”
+
+Jimmy Raelton dashed past her. Sydney felt Colton brush past him, and
+realized that somehow he had gotten behind the others when they started.
+
+At the door of the room where they had stopped the night before they
+halted again. The door was not even closed this time, and once more
+their eyes took in the same scene. But the electrics were out now, only
+the flickering rays of the sweet-oil lamp shone on the sleeping woman
+and the opium-pipe at her side.
+
+“My God! Again!” The words came in sobs from Jimmy Raelton.
+
+He tried to leap forward, but the outstretched hand of Thornley Colton
+stopped him. Then the others saw the blind man dart across the room to
+the bed without a false move; saw him pick up a white, dangling arm,
+brush his fingers up the whole length of it, under the flowing sleeve of
+the loose kimono, then stop at the wrist. They were all around him now.
+He straightened up to face them.
+
+“It’s something more, this time,” he said huskily. “Mrs. Raelton is
+dead!”
+
+“Dead!” the terror-stricken word came from the maid. The others seemed
+suddenly turned to stone.
+
+Silently Colton held the arm for her to feel the pulse. Her fingers
+found the artery, her face went dead white. They could hear the
+fluttering gasp of her breath as she dropped the arm.
+
+Raelton brushed past her; his trembling fingers searched for a single
+faint heart-beat. A cry of agony burst from him. Colton gently drew him
+away.
+
+“Phone Doctor Henry, Dora!” he ordered sharply. Then he seemed to sense
+that the maid was staring at Donald Wreye, who stood in the centre of
+the room, swaying back and forth, hands clenching and unclenching at his
+sides.
+
+“_You_, Wreye!”
+
+The blind man’s voice seemed to galvanize Donald Wreye into action. He
+whipped a revolver from his pocket.
+
+“Like Marjorie, eh?” His laugh seemed insane. “Get out of here, all of
+you!”
+
+He stood beside the door-way, the revolver threateningly sweeping the
+silent men and women. Jimmy Raelton tensed his body for a spring, but
+Thornley Colton’s hand viced his arm.
+
+“We can do nothing,” he whispered.
+
+Like sheep they filed past the menacing pistol, the two men and women
+who had met them outside going first. In the hall-way they stopped.
+
+“Straight ahead!” ordered Wreye. He spoke over his shoulder to the maid.
+“Call Doctor Henry,” he sneered. “Go downstairs and call him.”
+
+The girl’s limbs seemed hardly able to support her as she walked past
+him to the head of the stairs. He turned his attention again to the
+driven men and women. Sydney’s eyes caught a glimpse of a portiered
+door-way at their left, but Colton’s grip on his arm held him. Down the
+hall they went. A door was open at the extreme end, the key in the
+outside of the lock.
+
+“In there, all of you!” ordered Wreye.
+
+The women stumbled in. The men followed. The door slammed behind them.
+The key turned. Outside they heard running footsteps.
+
+“He’s gone down the backstairs,” muttered one of the men.
+
+The dot of light at the keyhole disappeared.
+
+“He’s put out the lights,” hoarsely whispered the other.
+
+Thornley Colton took something from his pocket. He inserted it in the
+keyhole; they heard the bolt slip back.
+
+“He’ll return,” he whispered. “You four stay here and kick at the door.
+The darkness means nothing to me. I’m going to take Sydney and Raelton
+outside to watch. Give us a minute, and then begin your noise.”
+
+He opened the door without a sound. His hands on the two men’s arms drew
+them out. The blackness of the unlighted hall was impenetrable, but the
+blind man pulled them forward almost on a run. Sydney’s feet
+mechanically obeyed the pulling arm; Raelton, still in a daze, was
+merely an automaton obeying the will of a master. The blind man thrust
+them through the portieres Sydney had noticed before.
+
+“Not a sound!” he warned, as he dragged them down to the floor, his
+fingers biting deep into their arms.
+
+The house echoed with the blows of feet and fists on the door of the
+room they had just left. A door slammed downstairs. They heard the voice
+of The Fee, shrill with fright.
+
+“Dere all locked in back!”
+
+Hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. They heard a woman’s voice
+whisper; a man’s deep, hoarse voice in answer. Sydney’s muscles grew
+tense. It was the heavy voice of Donald Wreye!
+
+“She’s dead, I tell you!” trembled the maid. They were passing the door
+now.
+
+The man’s answering whisper sounded like the growling of an animal. “You
+little fool!” he hissed. “You let the other get away from us, and this
+one was worth a million----”
+
+The words ended in a woman’s scream. They heard the sound of a falling
+body. A man’s curse. A short struggle. Then the dull impact of fist
+against flesh. Thornley Colton’s gripping hands relaxed. He jumped
+through the sheltering portieres. His voice cut the darkness:
+
+“Stop, Wreye, stop! Doctor Henry is unconscious! Shrimp!”
+
+The incandescents leaped to light.
+
+On the floor was the maid, senseless. Near her was Doctor Henry, limp,
+torn, his face bruised and beaten. Standing over him was Donald Wreye,
+panting, trembling.
+
+The two men who had stayed in the locked room came running forward,
+shining handcuffs in their hands.
+
+“Handcuff Mrs. Henry,” ordered Colton. “She has only fainted.” He turned
+to face the still-dazed Jimmy Raelton and Sydney. “There is the
+atavistic vampire!” He touched the limp body of the physician as though
+it was a snake. “God knows how many lives he has ruined with his
+devilish schemes. He blackmailed Marjorie Wreye out of a hundred
+thousand dollars, and murdered her as surely as though his finger had
+pulled the trigger that sent the bullet crashing into her brain. He made
+Donald Wreye a pariah. And he almost succeeded in ruining the lives of
+you and Dorothy.”
+
+The name aroused Jimmy Raelton.
+
+“Dorothy!” he cried brokenly. “He killed Dorothy!”
+
+The blind man’s hand fell gently on his shoulder. “It was necessary that
+she should sleep through it all,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think she
+could stand another dose of the doctor’s morphia, so the powder she took
+was trional powder. She will wake in an hour, suffering no ill effects.
+If you’ll remove the tight rubber band I put on her arm under the kimono
+sleeve the blood will flow back through the pulse.”
+
+
+                                  VI.
+
+Sydney and Thornley Colton were back in the library of the old-fashioned
+house. The blind man had removed the tortoise-rimmed glasses, and around
+his head and over his eyes was an alcohol-soaked bandage to relieve the
+splitting headache the loss of his usual four hours of darkness in the
+afternoon had produced.
+
+“Yes, it was melodrama, Sydney,” he admitted. “But it was necessary. It
+was carefully staged to shatter the nerves of the cool Dora, and arouse
+the doctor’s anger at what he thought was a mistake of his accomplice.
+That last resulted in the angry confession we overheard. I knew his
+temper would give way under certain conditions, and I made those
+conditions. Shrimp was stationed downstairs to let him in at the proper
+moment, and also to keep the maid and the doctor from confidences until
+they were upstairs, where they could hear the door-pounding, and would
+suppose we were all together. Of course, the quartet of men and women
+were private detectives posing as guests to deceive the maid. They were
+stationed around the corner with orders to follow right behind us. Wreye
+was across the street from the Raelton house, so that he could run over
+and ring the bell a moment after we entered.”
+
+“But how did Doctor Henry happen to be there?” demanded the puzzled
+Sydney.
+
+“Shrimp, mimicking the maid’s voice, called him up the minute our
+machine appeared, and told him that Mrs. Raelton was dead. He rang off
+before the doctor could get in a word. But that gave Henry all the time
+he needed to get there. Shrimp says the physician fumed and fretted in
+the vestibule fully three minutes before the boy heard the door-pounding
+that was the signal to admit him.”
+
+“But I thought Donald Wreye----” began Sydney helplessly.
+
+“It was Doctor Henry and the maid from the first. Pure elimination and
+the headache powders told me that.”
+
+“But you said the powders were harmless, that Doctor Grayton was
+careful,” objected Sydney.
+
+“Their harmlessness was the crux. It put them above suspicion, but when
+it became necessary to impress Dorothy Raelton with the fact that she
+was a hopeless opium fiend the powder the maid gave her was a heavy dose
+of morphia, which is the base of opium, and produces almost the same
+after-effects. Of course, as soon as Dorothy became unconscious the
+outfit was arranged for her awakening. Dorothy’s highly-strung nervous
+system, like that of her sister, made it easy for a strong mind like
+that of the maid to make her know--_know_--that she had smoked the drug
+in a blind delirium of craving. And the wonderful suggestive stories of
+the maid, and the fake finger-marks on her throat, made the thing
+complete. I understood them all when I heard of the blackmail, but it
+was necessary to impress the Raeltons with Dora’s innocence so that she
+would be unsuspicious until the time came for the dénouement.
+
+“The ten thousand I knew Wreye must have got puzzled me at first, though
+it didn’t seem possible that he could be in the plot. The interview in
+the morning proved his utter incapability of such a thing. The game
+required a cool, iron-nerved man. His actions during our talk proved
+conclusively that he was neither. Five minutes’ conversation with Doctor
+Henry gave me all I wanted to know. His coolness, his nerve, the fact
+that he had called at the Raelton home several times when Mrs. Raelton
+was out, ostensibly to see the children, but really to see the maid, the
+clever way he blamed Wreye for Marjorie’s suicide, his eager desire to
+know at what time the Raeltons sailed in the morning, the manner in
+which he took the paper he knew should contain the personal, were all
+guide-posts on the right track. His beautifully clever explanation why
+the opium craving I described could not be alleviated was intended to
+show me my helplessness. But it gave me what I wanted. Pretending to
+stumble, I got his hand in mine; my finger was on his pulse--the
+Keyboard of Silence. He knew I was going to tell him of Dorothy! Though
+his face was a mask, his heart-beats showed the nervousness underneath;
+the nervousness no eye could have detected. That was the final proof.
+
+“Then I realized his real cleverness. _He_ had sent the money to Wreye
+with a forged note, apparently from Raelton. The maid had undoubtedly
+told him of Wreye’s need and attempt to borrow from his brother-in-law,
+and the doctor was afraid that Wreye, in a hot-headed rage at continued
+refusals, would blurt out Marjorie’s trouble, and cause a premature
+confession from Dorothy before the blackmailer had gotten her firmly in
+his clutches. Henry was overlooking no possibility, and the ten thousand
+was a paltry amount, beside what he expected to get. Of course, you see
+how he really got the money into his hands? The envelopes containing the
+bills, given to a trusted maid to mail to the fake lock-box, were merely
+handed over to the real vampire. There was no chance of detection.
+
+“This afternoon Shrimp and I went to Wreye’s office and explained the
+whole game to him. He refused to believe, at first, because Marjorie had
+confessed five months before her death that she was an opium fiend.
+Wreye was more of a man than we ever thought. He hid the fact from the
+world. He let her go her own way. He didn’t suspect the blackmailing,
+because Marjorie probably feared to tell him, lest his temper should
+lead him to expose the secret in his efforts to seek out the
+blackmailer. And when she died, penniless, he supposed she had lost her
+money gambling, the usual passion that follows opium smoking. He kept
+quiet, but naturally he was bitter against the whole world.
+
+“But I finally persuaded him to do his part in trapping the vampire.
+Remember the similarity of the two voices? That was my trump card. I
+knew that my story of the Raeltons’ early departure and the curt
+advertisement would rouse the doctor to drastic action, and force him to
+call up Dora, and give new instructions. That was what I wanted--it
+would make her unsuspicious when the second call I planned came. It
+worked like a charm. She never suspected the voice. It was then, by the
+way, that we learned Dora was really Mrs. Henry, and that she was
+getting tired of her part. We learned, also, that Mrs. Raelton was to be
+given an extra heavy dose of morphia, so that it would be impossible for
+her to get away in the morning. Doctor Henry needed time, you see.
+
+“Wreye, impersonating the doctor over the phone, gave her new
+instructions. The same plan was to be followed, but the doctor would
+send her two new powders--they were my trional powders; I wouldn’t take
+a chance on morphia again--and she was to arrange the opium set as
+usual, and scream for Jimmy as soon as Donald Wreye arrived. Then, if
+anything went wrong, she was to foist suspicion upon Wreye, who, she was
+told, was on the verge of delirium tremens, and would be sent by the
+doctor on some pretext.
+
+“Donald, as you saw, could hardly control himself, but that made him
+perfect in her eyes, though I had to stay behind a second after you
+started upstairs to warn him, and I also had to give him his cue in the
+room before he acted. My little trick with the rubber band utterly
+unnerved the maid, who supposed that her husband had really sent poison.
+So, when the doctor got there, they were at cross-purposes, and the
+angry betrayal we heard was the logical result.”
+
+For a minute there was silence; then Sydney Thames spoke. “But Wreye,
+why did you let him----” There was no need to finish.
+
+“It was pure brutishness, Sydney,” confessed Thornley Colton slowly.
+“The brutishness that makes us think of physical revenge before we think
+of the law. There are crimes so foul that we want to pound, to tear
+their perpetrators. The driving to death of one innocent girl and the
+nearly successful attempt to make a mental wreck of Dorothy Raelton, who
+had never known the taste of opium smoke in her life, is one of them. My
+fingers itched for Doctor Henry’s throat. But Donald Wreye’s right came
+first. He took it. I am glad.”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE THIRD PROBLEM
+
+                           THE MONEY MACHINES
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+The man in the long blue car was a person of consequence. The big
+traffic policeman had stopped all north and south traffic, but the
+chauffeur of the blue machine darted in front of a stopped Bowling Green
+car without the slightest slackening of speed, and shot between an
+eastbound slot car and a westbound delivery truck. Traffic cop 7389
+saluted gravely and silenced with a warning scowl the snarling driver of
+a held-up van, who had to reach the ten-thirty boat.
+
+The lone occupant of the roomy tonneau, rigidly straight on the
+cushions, answered the salute with a barely perceptible nod of his head,
+and a half smile of the thin, almost bloodless lips. But there was no
+change of expression in the granite-hard gray eyes, nor a movement of
+the straight back. One lean hand gripped the tonneau door, the fingers
+resting just above the small silvered monogram on the blue enamel; the
+other dropped lightly on the seat beside his knee. John T. Villers, the
+power behind the throne of Money, was on his way to his office.
+
+It was characteristic of the man that he did not lounge back in his
+seat; that his pose was one of tense rigidity. No one had ever seen John
+T. Villers relax; none of the hundreds who knew him thought that he
+could relax. Alert, watchful, a machine for the massing of millions; a
+machine that never required rest; that never needed the lubrication of
+pleasure to insure its smooth running; a human mechanism that never
+deviated a hair’s breadth from its schedule. Such was the king of the
+kings of finance.
+
+At ten-fifteen he would be at his office in Wall Street. Elsewhere, a
+monarch of half a million fighting men paced the floor of his castle
+room, impatiently awaiting the word that a simple touch of a desk button
+in that Wall Street office would bring. Ten thousand yellow coolies,
+half a world away, idled in bamboo-thatched construction huts for a
+stroke of John T. Villers’s pen. And he answered the salute of a traffic
+policeman!
+
+Men and women on Broadway halted in their hurrying to stare at the big
+blue car, and the silent, straight-backed occupant; for the face and the
+pose of the financier were as familiar to the reading public as Broadway
+itself. Weak-chinned men of the unemployed ranks cursed the “luck” that
+gave him money and them hunger. Clerks, from high office windows,
+bemoaned the fate that compelled them to commence work at eight and
+allowed him to begin at ten. There was no sign in the hard gray eyes of
+the man who answered the traffic men’s salutes that the money machine
+had been working until daylight over the inch-thick packet of papers now
+buttoned tightly beneath his coat. The machine never showed signs of its
+running.
+
+At Murray Street a deeper inclination of the head was the honour paid a
+business friend in a passing automobile. At Park Place the blue machine
+skirted ahead of the traffic block where the huge Woolworth Building
+mounted skyward. A taxi darted in front of it, tried to cut in ahead;
+then stopped. Villers’s chauffeur cursed under his breath as he swerved
+toward the curb. The wheels of the smooth-running car struck the thin
+end of a building girder, ran over it with a great jolt that jarred the
+car body down on its springs. A fat traffic cop hurried across the
+street just as the stalled taxi came to life and scurried down Broadway.
+The blue car had never even paused; the incident was closed.
+
+The chauffeur bent lower over his wheel so that his muttered oaths would
+not reach the silent man behind him, for he knew that his job hung on
+the hair of his employer’s morning humour. John T. Villers’s one rule,
+whether it be for trusted clerks or chauffeurs, was smoothness; he did
+not like jolts.
+
+The next traffic cop, who had sworn sympathetically when he saw that
+jar, let his jaw drop and his salute become a gesture of surprise. The
+lone man in the tonneau was lying back in the cushions, his eyes closed,
+the fingers of the hand that had been on the door relaxed.
+
+“’Tis a tired man he is this mornin’,” muttered the traffic man in
+sympathy.
+
+The car swung into Wall Street, stopped before the world-known banking
+house of Villers. Instantly the chauffeur was down, his hand pulled open
+the door. But the machine that never relaxed was sleeping. Wonderment
+came to the face of the driver; then fear. He laid a hand lightly on the
+shoulder of his employer. The breathing man did not stir. The fear on
+the chauffeur’s face deepened. Mr. Villers must be sick!
+
+He obeyed the first instinct, and looked wildly around. Relief chased
+some of the fear away when he saw the approaching private watchman, who
+had been stationed before the Villers’s house for years.
+
+“Mr. Villers is sick!” he cried.
+
+The watchman brushed him aside, and stared at the bloodless face with
+the closed, blue-veined lids.
+
+“He must ’a’ fainted!” gasped the watchman; and he, too, looked wildly
+around for help.
+
+“Can I be of any assistance?” Both jumped nervously as the stout,
+full-bearded man with the black satchel spoke. “I am a doctair.” He
+enunciated the words slowly, distinctly, with a pause after each.
+
+“Mr. Villers has fainted.” They chorused it, huge relief in their
+voices, and stepped back instantly.
+
+The bearded man stepped to the car, ripped open the unconscious man’s
+coat and vest, and placed his hand over the beating heart
+professionally.
+
+“Heart trouble. Seerious,” he told them slowly, as if the words caused
+him trouble. “Tell them inside.” Both started. He called the watchman
+back. “Spread the robe on the side-walk.” The watchman’s clumsy fingers
+fumbled with the robe as the physician put his ear to the financier’s
+chest, muttered an angry ejaculation, and fumbled with the black bag at
+his feet.
+
+“It’s ready, sir.” Then the watchman swore under his breath at the
+crowding men and boys who had apparently sprung from the very side-walk.
+
+The big man paid not the slightest attention. He lifted the slight form
+of the man of millions and laid it gently on the robe-covered stones.
+“He must go to a hospital,” he announced with precise distinctness. “I
+will call the ambu-lance.”
+
+The crowd parted, he hurried through.
+
+Inside the banker’s office the chauffeur blurted the news to the
+multi-millionaire’s private secretary, utterly unmindful of the two
+strangers who were with him.
+
+“Fainted?” echoed the secretary blankly.
+
+“Fainted?” repeated the red-cheeked, black-haired stranger.
+
+“Men like Villers don’t faint. Where is he?” The chauffeur stared at the
+deep-chested, striking-looking man with the wavy white hair, fine as
+silk, and the strong, lean face, whose extreme paleness was accentuated
+by the great blue circles of the smoked tortoise-shell library glasses
+that rested lightly on the nose with its delicate, sensitive nostrils.
+“Show me where he is, Sydney.” The cleft chin was set at an ominous
+angle, his slim stick, apparently of heavy ebony, dangled idly between
+the tapering fingers of his right hand.
+
+“Can’t you see the crowd running?” The shock had made the chauffeur
+forget that he was only a chauffeur; he jerked his head toward the door
+he had opened so unceremoniously.
+
+“I am blind.” The white-haired man said it simply, quietly.
+
+“Come, Thorn.” His apple-cheeked secretary led the way from the office,
+the blind man at his heels. Villers’s private secretary and the
+chauffeur followed dumbly after.
+
+There were now two policemen to keep the surging crowd from the still
+body of the master of millions on the cold side-walk. The outer ranks
+parted for the apple-cheeked man, the blind one followed him to the
+centre. One of the policemen mopped his brow in relief as they entered
+the small circle.
+
+“It looks like heart trouble, Mr. Colton,” he murmured nervously.
+
+“Think so, Thompson?” The end of the slim stick touched a knee of the
+prostrate man lightly. Thornley Colton knelt and picked up a lax arm.
+His fingers felt the pulse.
+
+“That’s what the doctor said it was.” The watchman licked his dry lips.
+“He ought to be back by now.”
+
+“Doctor?” snapped the kneeling man, without looking up.
+
+“He laid him there t’ call th’ ambulance.” Once more the watchman wet
+his lips.
+
+“Who is Mr. Villers’s physician?” The blind man’s finger-tips were
+lightly brushing the coat-lining.
+
+“Doctor Clayton.” The private secretary answered.
+
+“Get him. Quick!” The tone of the voice sent a bareheaded clerk who had
+followed them on the jump to obey.
+
+“Is it a serious heart attack?” stammered the still-dazed private
+secretary.
+
+“Heart attack? _No!_” The blind man spoke sharply, crisply. “This is a
+morphine stupor!”
+
+“Morphine?” gasped the dazed secretary incredulously.
+
+“Yes!” The word was jerked out, a slim fore-finger and thumb raised an
+eyelid of the prostrate man. “See the contracted pupils? Pin-points!”
+
+“But how----Thank Heaven, Mr. MacLaren!” The secretary’s voice changed
+from helpless amazement to joyous relief as the square-shouldered,
+square-chinned man with the iron-gray hair pushed his way though the
+crowd.
+
+“My God! What does this mean?” cried the new comer.
+
+The blind man rose, picked up his stick, and brushed his trousers knees.
+
+“It means robbery--now,” he said grimly. “It will probably mean murder
+in a few hours!”
+
+Dreyfus MacLaren, the one man in all the world who enjoyed the full
+confidence of John T. Villers, paced the floor of his office with
+nervous strides, halting at every turn, ears strained to catch the
+faintest sounds from the inner room, where the doctor worked over the
+unconscious money machine. On the street outside, stretching from the
+sub-treasury steps to the dingy buildings where the sugar brokers buy
+and sell, the crowd still waited, whispered. In the outer room of the
+financier’s office came the low-voiced hum of half a hundred newspaper
+men, tensely waiting a word from that inner room. At the end of his
+small office MacLaren swung around to face the blind problemist, who
+rolled the thin, hollow stick he always carried between his tapering
+white fingers.
+
+“My God, Mr. Colton!” he broke out. “It couldn’t have happened!”
+
+“It did,” answered the blind man mildly.
+
+“But he was in an open automobile; a thousand persons saw him; he
+answered the salutes of, perhaps, fifty policemen along Broadway. No one
+was near him; no one could have got near enough to render him
+unconscious with morphine.”
+
+“The fact that he is still in a morphine stupor is the best answer to
+that.” Thornley Colton’s voice was still mild, even gentle.
+
+“You say that the man who lifted him out of the car did not inject the
+stuff?”
+
+“Yes. The bounding pulse my fingers felt told me immediately that it had
+been in the system at least ten minutes. The bounding pulse, as it is
+called, is peculiar to morphia. I have made a special study of pulse
+beats.” The blind man did not add that the pulse, to him, was the
+Keyboard of Silence that told many secrets of the heart to the
+supersensitive finger-tips that always rested on the wrist when he shook
+hands.
+
+“Then that puts it right up to the chauffeur, whom the police arrested,”
+admitted MacLaren. “But I can’t see how he did it,” he added.
+
+Sydney Thames, silent in a corner chair, also shook his head.
+
+“He didn’t!” snapped Colton. “If the police were forced to use brains
+instead of feet to hold their jobs, there wouldn’t be so many fool
+mistakes made. They should have arrested the automobile,” he finished
+seriously.
+
+Before the surprised expression on MacLaren’s face could be put into
+words the inner door opened, and the grave-faced doctor stood before
+them.
+
+“Has Mr. Villers’s family been notified?” he asked.
+
+“He won’t die!” There was utter disbelief in MacLaren’s tone.
+
+“He will die,” amended the physician quietly. “His nerve has been
+keeping his worn-out body going for years; such an overdose of morphine
+could not but be fatal. I have tried to arouse him, but heroic methods
+would only result in an instant stopping of his heart. He will sleep
+for, perhaps, an hour more; then he will quietly stop breathing.”
+
+“My God, doctor! That is murder!” MacLaren’s great body dropped limply
+into a chair, his face was white. He had refused to believe, before,
+that the master of millions could die. It was impossible. The wonderful
+machine could not stop. Now it was silent, useless.
+
+The doctor was speaking: “There is no doubt that a heavy dose of morphia
+is responsible; every symptom points to it unmistakably, but”--the
+physician stroked his Vandyke perplexedly--“I have been unable to find
+the spot on his body where the hypodermic needle entered. I have
+minutely examined the chest, the abdomen, the arms, thighs, even the
+face. It is puzzling, very.”
+
+“Mr. Villers is still lying on his back?” The question was put casually
+by the blind man, whom the physician had not even noticed.
+
+“Certainly!” The doctor answered as one answers a foolish question.
+
+“If you will turn him gently on his side for a moment you will probably
+find the broken point of the hypodermic needle under his
+shoulder-blade.”
+
+“His back--why----” The physician darted through the inner door.
+
+The doctor’s going left them silent. MacLaren’s square shoulders were
+hunched forward, his eyes fixed steadily on the closed door. Sydney
+Thames, in the big leather chair in the corner, was tense, rigid. A
+hundred times he had heard the blind man, whom he loved, make a
+statement of this kind. Never had he known him to be wrong; but always
+did he fear that Thornley Colton would make some terrible mistake in his
+sureness of himself. And the sightless problemist smoked his cigarette
+calmly, the great, blue circles of eyes fixed on the ceiling above him.
+The door opened; the doctor faced them.
+
+“The needle had broken under the right shoulder-blade--as you said.”
+Doctor Clayton’s keen eyes bored the blind man with a look of
+half-suspicion.
+
+The words seemed to arouse MacLaren; he realized their significance.
+“How--did--you--know--that?” Each separate word was a gasp. “And blind!”
+The tone of his voice was a demand for explanation.
+
+“I knew it because of my blindness,” explained the problemist quietly.
+“We of the darkness must learn to visualize, mentally, what your eyes
+accept unconsciously. We learn to see with our brains, you see without
+them. My whole life has been spent in this development of mental
+visualization. I can instantly picture, in my brain, a scene that has
+been given me in pieces by my four other senses. And that mental picture
+often goes back to events that lead up to, and make, the scene.”
+
+“Do you mean that you can _imagine_ who administered the morphine?”
+asked MacLaren incredulously.
+
+“Not at all!” There was just a shade of impatience in the tone. “I have
+no clairvoyant powers. I haven’t the remotest idea of the guilty
+persons’ identity--yet. But I knew Mr. Villers; I knew his habits, just
+as every man in New York, and Europe, too, who reads the papers, knows
+them. He has probably been given more columns of newspaper space than
+any other man who ever lived. Everything he did was machine-like, never
+changing; as sure as the sun and moon. I know how he sits in an
+automobile; I know the attention he attracts. You do, too, but you
+accepted them merely as something too obvious for the brain--as merely a
+routine report of the eyes. So, when I felt the unmistakable morphia
+pulse, an instant’s thought told me the only possible way it could have
+been administered. The trained mind doesn’t have to take up time with
+the consideration of innumerable possibilities; it is trained to the
+instant elimination of impossibilities. The back was the only place it
+could have been injected.”
+
+“How? By whom?” They chorused it eagerly.
+
+“By the innocent tool of a master mind: Mr. Villers’s automobile.”
+
+“The automobile! What do you mean?” Incredulity, amazement were in the
+voices of the excited men.
+
+“During the excitement attending the carrying of Mr. Villers to his
+office my fingers were examining the cushions of the tonneau. The
+upholstery had been cut in the crease formed by the two tuft buttons,
+about where a man’s back would come. A specially made hypodermic was
+inserted, and the cut sewed. Of course, the crease concealed the
+stitches. No one ever used the car but Villers, and every one knows how
+he sits in the machine. You heard the statement of the chauffeur before
+the police arrested him. The jolt caused by the girder and the stalled
+taxi in front of the Woolworth Building were all that was needed. If
+that had not succeeded, the taxi would have swung in front and caused a
+collision. Then the ‘doctor’ would have gotten right on the job there,
+as he did here, when the taxi hurried on ahead to be on hand here. The
+breaking of the hypo needle was almost a certainty. It only required the
+barest fraction of an instant for the stuff to enter the body, and the
+broken needle would at once destroy the instrument and make its presence
+for some time unsuspected by any one sitting in the car.”
+
+“How fiendish,” murmured Doctor Clayton, and the words seemed puerile.
+
+MacLaren shook his head, as if to clear the cobwebs from his usually
+alert brain; then he leaped to his feet, totally unmindful of the dying
+man in the next room.
+
+“Colton, he _can’t_ die! The quarter-billion Chinese loan must be put
+through to-day. The new German bond bid is being held open for us till
+midnight. Another twenty-four hours’ delay means that we lose both. He
+had all the data, the papers! They were----”
+
+“Stolen,” finished Thornley Colton quietly. “That was the object of the
+game--as I told you outside.”
+
+“I never thought of them!” In MacLaren’s voice was the strong man’s
+contrition for an unpardonable oversight. His teeth snapped together
+with the squaring of his jaw as he paced the room before the silent
+blind man and the red-cheeked, black-haired Sydney Thames. Behind the
+closed door they could hear the hum of the doctor’s voice, as he tried
+vainly to call up the Villers’s up-town house; though a hundred thousand
+black-typed extras were on the street telling of the racing special
+train that was bringing the family to the city and the dying man.
+
+MacLaren made a circuit of the office before he stopped in front of the
+blind man, who idly twirled his cane. The sudden stopping of the machine
+that he had thought could not stop had unnerved him completely, driven
+every other thought from his mind. But theft was something he
+understood. It meant money. MacLaren, too, was a money machine.
+
+“The loss of those papers means millions!” He was calm now, with the
+calm of deadly earnestness. “More than that! The stealing of those data
+Mr. Villers had means that the United States will be frozen out of both
+the Chinese and German loans. You know how we had to fight for the
+chance! Ours is the only American banking house that could handle them.
+All the figures were prepared by Mr. Villers, and you know his
+invariable rule to hold things like this until his last minute of grace.
+Those papers must be recovered before midnight! Even the murder--there
+seems to be no doubt that it will be murder--pales into insignificance
+beside this, and”--there was a curious catch in his voice--“God knows I
+loved John T. Villers. But the loss of that Chinese loan means that the
+United States won’t have a say in the new republic; that American
+interests will be crowded out by the powers who control China
+financially. Every last detail was in those papers he was to have ready
+to-day. Think of the German loan!” He was pacing the floor again,
+talking as he walked. One money machine had stopped; another must take
+its place. “The loss of those papers means a loss of at least ten
+millions to us, and American interests in China and Germany will lose a
+hundred millions in the next ten years!”
+
+“Midnight,” murmured Thornley Colton, as a sensitive finger-tip touched
+the crystalless watch in his pocket. “And it’s now one-fifteen.”
+
+“Less than eleven hours!” MacLaren fairly jumped to the telephone on his
+desk. “The police must have inducements to hustle!” One hand lifted the
+receiver; then he swung round. “_You!_” It was almost an accusation as
+he hurled it at the blind problemist. “You solved that code-book theft
+for us a year ago. I’d forgotten! There isn’t a minute to lose!”
+
+“A man is dying in the next room,” reminded Thornley Colton quietly.
+
+MacLaren wet his dry lips. “I know.” His voice was lower, calmer. “But
+think what it means. The hugeness of it! A theft of a hundred millions!”
+It wasn’t lack of human feeling in MacLaren. He was a money machine,
+doing what the man in the next room would wish done.
+
+The blind man nodded understandingly. “I came in this morning to see Mr.
+Villers regarding his cheque for our Home for Blind Children. We haven’t
+received it this year.”
+
+“If you can recover those papers I will give you my personal cheque for
+a hundred thousand!”
+
+“I never accept fees,” corrected Colton. “The solving of mysteries is my
+recreation. But if you will continue Mr. Villers’s contributions to the
+home----” His expressive lips finished the sentence without words.
+
+“Yes! Ten times the amount.” MacLaren was half out of his chair, staring
+at the blind man.
+
+“Thank you. That home means a lot to me.” The blind man spoke
+reverently. “Sydney and I will look into the case after lunch; I am
+hungry.”
+
+“Hungry? My God!” MacLaren fell back weakly into the chair. “Don’t you
+realize that you have less than eleven hours? Don’t you understand that
+every minute of delay may be fatal?”
+
+“Oh, no,” replied the problemist easily. “It will be at least several
+hours before the man who has the papers finishes his elaborate
+precautions for putting the police off his trail. There is no sense in
+hurrying after a man who is dodging and doubling to avoid possible
+pursuit. When he is convinced that his trail has been covered he will
+resume his normal way. The chased hare can wear out a hundred dogs that
+follow his devious windings, and when they are worn out he returns to
+the bosom of his family, contented and serene. That’s where the ferret
+gets him.”
+
+For a full minute MacLaren stared, as if the blind man had presented a
+problem in Euclid which he could not understand. Then he brushed his
+sweat-beaded forehead with a trembling hand. “But the police didn’t
+waste an instant,” he protested. “There are two hundred detectives
+working now. They’ve got a minute description of the man.” He stopped
+suddenly. “You weren’t even present when they questioned the chauffeur
+and the watchman!”
+
+“The senseless bulldozing of the police always makes me lose my temper,”
+confessed Thornley Colton. “I spoke to the chauffeur for ten minutes
+before the detectives arrived. Afterward I preferred to sit here, where
+I could smoke a cigarette and use the telephone.”
+
+“But the police learned that the man who lifted Mr. Villers from the car
+was stout, with a full brown beard, and dressed in light gray,”
+persisted MacLaren.
+
+“And in this office, alone with my cigarette, I learned that he was slim
+and smooth-shaven,” smiled Thornley Colton, as he rose. “But those are
+minor details. He had the nail of his right index finger broken, and
+wore a curious thumb ring. Also, he did not actually place the
+hypodermic in the tonneau cushions. That was done by a small, slightly
+built man, and a very beautiful woman who is left-handed.”
+
+“Without eyes----” began MacLaren gaspingly.
+
+“With my ten eyes.” Thornley Colton held out his two hands, with their
+tapering hypersensitive fingers.
+
+Broadway was a pandemonium of newsboys’ shouts; Wall Street a murmur of
+low-voiced speculation; newspaper offices a buzz of humming activity.
+John T. Villers was dead--murdered. London whispered it solemnly, Paris
+gesticulated over it, Berlin gutturaled the news phlegmatically, Tokyo
+took it with characteristic lack of characteristics. Men in tin-roofed
+cable offices on the coast of Africa caught the telegraph clicks with
+news eagerness instead of curses. The wireless aerials of a thousand
+ships filched the story from the air. The man who had builded the
+American empire of money was dead. Would the empire crumble? Would the
+world-power of money return to the seats of the mighty on the other side
+of the ocean, where it had been before the money machine had demanded a
+hand-grasp on the golden sceptre the jealous hands of Europe had wielded
+so long? The money machines of Paris, London, Berlin awaited the answer
+that would be in the Chinese loan, the German loan--the answer that was
+in the pocket of a murderer!
+
+And in the quiet dining-room of the old Astor House Thornley Colton
+complained to the waiter of the lack of crust shortening in the
+apple-pie he was eating. It was three o’clock.
+
+Across the table Sydney Thames chewed his cigar nervously and tried to
+keep his mind on the “latest” extra he held in his hands. He had read
+the life story of John T. Villers, printed under the great black word:
+“DEAD!” It was the story of the poor boy who came to the city, the story
+of machine-like habits, of putting through vast deals only when he had
+taken the last possible hour to consider every point, until he became
+known in Europe and America as “Last-Minute” Villers.
+
+He read of Johnson, Villers’s personal chauffeur, who slept alone with
+his wife and three small children in the big private garage that was now
+empty because the dozen other Villers machines and their drivers had
+gone to Bar Harbour with Mrs. Villers and the two sons. He read of
+Johnson’s five years of service, of his exemplary habits, his nights
+spent at home with his family; even of his taking his wife and two
+larger children to the theatre the night before, while the baby was
+cared for by a neighbour. Even the police admitted that he was innocent,
+but police-like, they still held him.
+
+The story of finding the curious hypodermic, surrounded by a strong
+spring to hold it in place, caused Sydney to laugh nervously. The police
+had not discovered it until reporters, who had interviewed MacLaren
+after Thornley Colton had left, told them of it. Now the search was on
+for the taxi which had caused the Villers machine to run over the
+girder. And there was no clue! The three traffic policemen who had seen
+the whole thing had neither number nor idea of the machine. It was red;
+so were a thousand others. An expert had said that the hypodermic of
+death had been made abroad, possibly in Germany. And that was all.
+
+But the papers revelled in the details; they gave inch-typed prominence
+to the announcement that MacLaren had offered a huge reward for certain
+papers stolen from the unconscious Villers. It was a big story; the
+biggest story of the most daring crime New York had ever known.
+
+Yes, Sydney read, and re-read, until the inch paragraph in the lower
+left-hand corner regarding the activities of a band of international
+smugglers was a relief. On any other day that story would have been
+given prominence, to-day it was only a filler. He glanced up at the
+clock on the wall, then his eyes turned toward the blind man, in them a
+look of appeal for hurry.
+
+“Nervous, Sydney?” smiled Thornley Colton over the top of his glass of
+milk.
+
+Thames flushed, as he usually did when this man, who had picked him up
+as a bundle of baby-clothes on the banks of the English river that had
+given him the only surname he had ever known, read his thoughts.
+
+“It is five minutes past three,” he murmured apologetically.
+
+“And we haven’t done a thing,” finished Colton, the smile still on his
+thin, expressive lips.
+
+“But this is so big; the consequences----”
+
+“Do you expect the success of this murder to pave the way for others?”
+interjected Thornley Colton mildly.
+
+“I wasn’t thinking----” Sydney stopped suddenly.
+
+“Of the murder.” The problemist again finished the sentence for him.
+“You were thinking of the stolen data. So are a million others.” The
+smile was cynical, now. “What a pitiful thing a human life is, compared
+to a few millions. No one thinks of Villers’s death as the death of a
+man. It is merely the stopping of a machine with its work unfinished.”
+He took a bill from his fold and laid it beside his plate. “Come, then;
+I’ll get busy.”
+
+“To the Villers garage?” asked Thames eagerly. “There should be
+countless clues, for you, leading to the persons who placed the
+hypodermic.”
+
+“All superfluous,” declared Thornley Colton, with a slight wave of the
+thin, hollow stick he always carried. “Following a multitude of
+unimportant clues is police work. We are going to the office of the
+Manhattan Tug and Lighterage Company; yesterday was quite foggy.
+Remember?”
+
+“What----” began Sydney amazedly.
+
+Thornley Colton interrupted. “The same?” he asked quietly.
+
+Sydney Thames choked back the words and glanced over the dining-room.
+His brain, trained for years to count steps for the man who could not
+see, and who refused a guiding arm, calculated rapidly. “The waiter is
+serving the table twelve steps straight. Turn eleven, four right, and
+seven to the door, left.”
+
+A nod, and the blind man hurried forward confidently with long, swinging
+strides, the hollow cane dangling idly from his fingers. Sydney
+followed, and, at the door, he stepped beside Colton. The slight touch
+of his sleeve on the sightless man’s arm guided him to a taxi-cab. It
+was not until the directions had been given, and they were on their way
+toward the Battery, that Thornley Colton spoke.
+
+“The Manhattan Tug and Lighterage Company got a whole lot of free
+publicity a few weeks ago in connection with that rescue at sea of the
+Oldwell private yacht by one of their big sea-going tugs that happened
+to be near. Recollect?”
+
+“Yes,” admitted Thames, puzzled. “But what has that to do with it?”
+
+“Nothing, except that the story went the rounds, and the name would
+naturally occur to any one who needed a sea-going tug. I have an idea
+that the fog of yesterday caused several persons a whole lot of anxiety.
+Ah, here we are.”
+
+Dazedly Sydney Thames followed the blind man to the side-walk. What had
+a sea-going tug to do with a robbery on Wall Street? What had the fog of
+yesterday to do with the murder of to-day? But Sydney knew the
+uselessness of the eager questions that were in his mind. The problemist
+would tell him, all in good time. So, silently, he fell in beside
+Thornley Colton, and guided him into the offices with the slight touch
+of his sleeve.
+
+President M‘Inness was the man Colton asked for, and they were shown
+into the private office immediately.
+
+“Glad to see you, Mr. Colton; glad to see you!” boomed the
+wide-shouldered, rugged-faced man, as he took the other’s fingers in his
+vice-like grip. “What is it this time; smugglers again? They say a new
+gang’s workin’. They’re even watching my boats.”
+
+Thornley Colton shook his head, for answer to that last. Then he came
+right to the point.
+
+“You got a wireless from the _Moravia_, early yesterday morning, to take
+a passenger off at Quarantine, and rush him to New York.” It was not a
+question; it was a simple statement of a known fact.
+
+“Sure,” admitted M‘Inness. “Then the Lord stepped in and brushed away
+the fog at midnight, and the _Moravia_ docked at eight o’clock this
+morning.”
+
+“Can you give us the name that was on the wireless?”
+
+“Sure. I guess you’ve heard it often enough. Percy Vanderpoole.”
+
+Sydney Thames could not repress a gasp of surprise; but Thornley
+Colton’s tone was merely casual as he said:
+
+“Dreyfus MacLaren’s nephew?”
+
+“That’s him. He’s got about nine million dollars, you know, and he’s
+certainly been making it fly in the four years since he left college.
+Hasn’t brains enough to get in out of the rain, either.”
+
+“Um!” Thornley rolled the hollow stick between his fingers absently.
+“Nothing else in the wireless, I suppose?”
+
+“Nope. Just wanted a tug if the _Moravia_ was held up after two o’clock.
+Wasn’t. The fog lifted, she docked, and we lost two hundred dollars.”
+The sentence ended in a wry smile.
+
+“From what I’ve heard of Vanderpoole, and from what I know of him, I
+should think he’d have taken that tug anyway, and hang the expense.” The
+blind man rose. “He must have been taking some one’s advice,” he
+finished.
+
+“Be the first time he ever did, then, according to the papers,” grunted
+M‘Inness. “Accordin’ to them I’ve seen, he has a bug for giving fool
+dinners.”
+
+“So I’ve heard,” murmured Colton, backing toward the door.
+
+“Ain’t any use asking your game, I guess?” grinned the amiable Mr.
+M‘Inness.
+
+“You’ll probably read about it in the morning papers,” smiled Colton.
+Then he hurried out, his brain automatically counting the steps it had
+registered as he entered.
+
+On the side-walk outside, Sydney allowed his thoughts to find expression
+in two words:
+
+“Great Scott!”
+
+“It was a surprise,” admitted the problemist. “It means a total change
+of plans. Take me to a telephone.”
+
+There was one at hand in the corridor of a big office building. For
+nearly half an hour Colton telephoned, while Sydney waited outside the
+closed booth vainly trying to understand this new complication. What
+connection had the nephew of the man who had offered them a hundred
+thousand dollars for the recovery of the papers with their theft, and
+with the murder of John T. Villers?
+
+Colton emerged from the booth, a smile of triumph on his thin lips.
+
+“Now a jewellery store, Sydney,” he said crisply. “I want to buy a
+cheap, unset diamond.”
+
+“A diamond?” echoed Thames blankly.
+
+“Exactly. I’ve just accepted an invitation for you and me and MacLaren
+to a little dinner aboard Percy Vanderpoole’s yacht this evening. I’m
+going to see if a diamond really has the wonderful power of suggestion
+so often attributed to it.”
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+The Fee’s eyes sparkled with delight as he listened. When Thornley
+Colton had finished, queer gurgling noises of joy issued from the boy’s
+throat before the words came:
+
+“Jumpin’ Jiminy, Mr. Colton! A motor boat at night an’ a disguise.
+That’s _real_ detective work!”
+
+The blind man’s lips framed a whimsical smile as he gazed down at the
+red-haired, freckled-faced youth, with the slightly twisted nose, who
+had become a member of the Colton household as the result of a
+particularly baffling murder case, for which he had been the only fee.
+
+“A whole lot depends on you, Shrimp,” said Thornley Colton seriously.
+“Michael will go with you, but your part will have to be done all alone.
+I don’t think you will be in any personal danger; if I did I wouldn’t
+let you go.”
+
+Some of the joyous light went from the boy’s eyes. “Chee! I wisht there
+was goin’ t’ be some real gun play,” he sighed.
+
+“You have a long life before you,” laughed Colton. “Hurry now; here
+comes Sydney.”
+
+As his secretary entered he turned to face him. “Your foolish fear of
+women is not going to spoil it, Sydney?” he asked amusedly.
+
+“No!” Sydney answered with the gruffness that was always in his voice
+when this subject was brought up. Sydney’s fear of woman was really
+adoration. All women, to him, were angels; his fear was that he would
+fall in love with one--and he was nameless, a bundle of rags, abandoned
+on the banks of the Thames in London. This was constantly in Sydney
+Thames’s mind.
+
+“Here comes MacLaren,” the blind man said suddenly; a moment later the
+big, square-jawed man burst into the room.
+
+“Where are they? Have you got them?” he gasped, the top-coat, flung over
+his arm, dragging on the floor.
+
+“Your coat will need the services of a dozen brushers in a short while,”
+murmured Colton.
+
+“Damn the coat!” flared MacLaren, flinging it on to the library desk.
+“I’ve walked forty miles, in that office of mine, this afternoon. Every
+reporter in the world has baited me. I’ve had a very devil of a time
+getting here without them on my trail. Our code messages from Europe say
+the financiers are grinning up their sleeves at us. They know! And all
+the word I get from you is to be here at seven o’clock, and you’d show
+me where the papers were.”
+
+“I said I’d get the papers, and show you where the murderers were,”
+corrected Colton mildly. “I have an old-fashioned idea of the value of
+human life.”
+
+“Yes. Certainly,” choked MacLaren. The hours of inaction had done their
+work.
+
+“We have a dinner engagement at eight,” went on Colton smoothly.
+
+“Dinner!” exploded the square-jawed man. “My God, man! You----”
+
+“Exactly.” The voice of the blind man held a new tone now; a steel-like
+timbre that Sydney Thames instantly recognized. “I am taking you to that
+dinner to get your mind off the terrible events of this afternoon.
+Nothing else!”
+
+“Where is the dinner?” The meekness of the big man was almost ludicrous.
+
+“On the yacht of your nephew, Percy Vanderpoole.”
+
+“That fool!” There was acridity in the voice this time.
+
+“He has that reputation.” Sydney Thames thought the tone dry. “He is
+giving what he calls a wireless dinner on his yacht, anchored off the
+Metropolis Yacht Club. All the arrangements were made, and the
+invitations sent out from the _Moravia_, by wireless. You know Percy has
+quite a reputation for unique affairs of this kind. I called him up this
+afternoon regarding some other matter, and he insisted that I come. I
+sought an invitation for you, and I got it. Several men who were friends
+on the way over are included.”
+
+“All right,” agreed MacLaren gloweringly.
+
+“We’ll go to the club in your car,” was all Thornley Colton said, as he
+led the way from the room.
+
+Vanderpoole’s guests were all awaiting their appearance, and
+introductions were hurried through. There was a gushy, black-haired Miss
+Clements, who was paired with an anæmic, slightly-built American; a
+tall, stout German, who answered the name of Von Wagnen, with pale
+cheeks, and chin that contrasted strangely with his ruddy forehead; a
+dissipated-looking Englishman named Brookes; several feminine
+nonentities, and one or two of Percy’s male society friends. It was a
+mixed party, characteristic of the money-flinging Percy Vanderpoole.
+
+The hurry was in honour of the military-looking Count d’Auboi whom Percy
+had met in Europe two years before, with his charming wife, the
+countess. The count had been aboard the _Moravia_. So had the countess,
+though Percy chaffed her for taking her cabin before he even knew she
+was aboard, and staying there the whole time. Her cheeks were
+colourless, but her eyes shone, despite the fearful ordeal of
+seasickness she now laughed over. And there was the great joke of the
+count, who confessed that he had never been in America, losing Percy on
+the pier, and wandering around the city for several hours, with his
+nervous wife, until they succeeded in locating Percy by telephone.
+
+“They finally got to the Waldorf, Lord knows how,” laughed Percy, as he
+led the way to the dining-cabin. “And now they’re going on the midnight
+train to Frisco, so we’ll have to hustle this little affair through.”
+
+“My seestair, she is married there,” smiled the count, in his broken
+English. Then, with entire disregard of connection: “An’ I even mees my
+brodair-in-law, Mr. Clauson”--he indicated the anæmic-looking
+American--“who come to meet us.”
+
+Sydney took his seat, almost tremulously between the Countess d’Auboi
+and the vivacious Miss Clements, at the table in the mahogany-finished
+cabin. But in a few minutes he was surprised and delighted to find that
+his foolish fear of the sex was being driven away like mist before the
+sunshine of the charming countess’s conversation. Miss Clements, at his
+left, chattered away at a mad rate to Clauson, and did not bother him.
+But the countess, her wonderful voice surcharged with sympathy and the
+intuitive understanding of women, drew him from his shell immediately.
+
+Across the table the blind man chatted with Count d’Auboi, who was even
+more charming, if possible, than his wife. At the head of the table
+Percy laughed uproariously at the dissipated-looking Englishman’s
+account of his first pigsticking in India. At the foot, MacLaren
+glowered in silence, utterly ignoring the sullen-looking German and the
+yellow-haired woman who was his partner. The dissipated Englishman and
+the German were cabin friends Percy had met on the _Moravia_. They had
+both been interesting, and that was all Percy ever asked.
+
+During a lull in the conversation Percy happened to glance at the face
+of the German, who had relapsed into sullen silence after repeated
+attempts to get a word from MacLaren.
+
+“Any one would think you’d committed a crime, Von Wagnen,” he laughed.
+
+The blind man was the only one who did not see the blood mount to the
+strangely pale cheeks of the Teuton; but MacLaren was the only one who
+caught the lighting eye signal from the Englishman. His own eyes
+narrowed cunningly. This was no mere dinner engagement!
+
+“But what a horrible crime the murder of Mr. Villers was!” gushed Miss
+Clements, with a shiver.
+
+“By Jove!” The ejaculation came from Percy Vanderpoole. “You used to be
+quite clever at solving mysteries, Mr. Colton. Why don’t you get on this
+one?”
+
+MacLaren cursed under his breath. Sydney Thames could not keep the
+startled look from his eyes.
+
+“You are a detective, Mr. Colton?” The countess asked it almost
+accusingly, the charming touch of accent in her voice giving it a subtle
+undercurrent of laughter.
+
+Thornley Colton’s thin lips smiled back at her. “I do a little in that
+line,” he admitted.
+
+“Tell us about eet.” It was the count at his side, eyes eager with
+interest.
+
+“My cases are only simple little affairs, naturally,” deprecated the
+blind man. He thrust two fingers into his waistcoat pocket. “Here is
+something that I expect to solve a mystery for me.” He held a small,
+glittering diamond on his outstretched palm. MacLaren’s keen ears caught
+the sharp intake of breath of the German at his side. “Yes,” continued
+the problemist. “That came from the thumb ring of a pickpocket, torn
+from the prongs by the lining of his victim’s coat.”
+
+“An’ he deed not know eet--what a joke!” laughed the count, picking up
+the diamond from the extended palm, more closely to examine the stone.
+The light from the shaded incandescents above reflected in the four
+small rubies that formed the eyes of the twisted snake ring he wore on
+his thumb.
+
+The sullen-looking German had apparently recovered his nerve. MacLaren
+looked puzzled.
+
+“Let’s see it; I know a bit about the bally things.” The Englishman took
+the stone from the count. “There’s a flaw in it as big as a shilling!”
+he announced, with the disgust of an expert. Again MacLaren caught the
+signal of eyes to the German beside him.
+
+“Dere iss few goot stones,” announced the Teuton ponderously.
+
+“Ple-ese tell us about it?” pleaded the countess.
+
+“Oh, do, please do,” pouted Miss Clements, as if to forestall a refusal.
+The request was chorused by the others.
+
+“It really isn’t worth it,” protested Colton; then he seemed to know,
+for the first time, that the Englishman held the stone for him to take
+back. “Thank you,” he smiled, as he replaced it carefully in his pocket.
+“I was afraid some one would switch off the lights and steal it in the
+darkness and confusion. By the way, Percy, is that deck-light switch
+still where it used to be when your father was alive?”
+
+“The same place,” nodded Vanderpoole. “Right beside the cabin-door, on
+the after-deck.”
+
+“See!” Colton’s laugh was loud, but somehow it did not seem to ring
+true. “Any one could steal the stone in the darkness, and get away with
+it.”
+
+MacLaren scowled. His quick mind understood that Colton wanted the
+location of that switch for some purpose of his own. And, without eyes,
+he must take this method of learning its location. But he knew that the
+other guests, too, had recognized some sinister motive under the
+palpable affectation of banter the blind man had assumed. There came a
+tenseness there had not been before. And every one knew the location of
+the switch that could plunge the decks into instant darkness.
+
+“Let’s have the coffee and cigarettes under the awnings on the
+after-deck,” suggested Percy, to cover the break.
+
+“Let’s,” acquiesced Colton eagerly, then he paused impressively for an
+instant. “If you’ll hurry I’ll tell you something about the Villers
+murder. I _am_ working on that case!”
+
+Instantly chairs were pushed back as the guests crowded to the door.
+
+As Sydney rose, the countess found time to whisper in his ear:
+
+“He speaks strangely, your Mr. Colton.” There was feminine nervousness
+in her voice. Sydney nodded dumbly, sick at heart. The blind man he
+loved had made a mistake.
+
+MacLaren kept close to the sullen German, utterly ignoring his
+yellow-haired dinner partner. The money machine’s hands were clenched in
+his pockets, his shoulders braced for some attack. “A big, stout man,
+with a full beard,” was the description he remembered. The Teuton
+answered that description perfectly; the pale cheeks showed where the
+beard had been recently shaven. He passed out to the awninged,
+dimly-lighted deck, brushing the coat of the blind man, who stood beside
+the door, almost over the small wicker table where the countess and
+Sydney had taken their seats with the brother-in-law of the count and
+the chatty Miss Clements.
+
+For several seconds the blind man stood there, apparently calmly eyeing
+them. The light of the switch incandescent shone on his wavy, white
+hair, his broad shoulders, his deep chest. The German moved uneasily.
+The dissipated-looking Englishman, who had manœuvred to a seat beside
+him, gripped his arm. Every muscle in MacLaren’s body was tense. The
+yellow-haired woman and the three other feminine nonentities bit their
+lips nervously.
+
+Sydney Thames could not repress his own nervousness. Was the blind man
+going to accuse desperate men who had murdered a man and robbed him of
+papers worth a hundred millions? No help was near. The sky was cloudy,
+the anchorage was deserted, except for an empty speed boat that rode at
+anchor in the silent darkness two hundred yards away.
+
+Then Thornley Colton spoke quietly, smoothly. “The story of the diamond
+is the story of the Villers murder.” One hand drew out the crystalless
+watch. “It is now ten-thirty; at ten-forty-five the police will search
+this boat for the papers stolen from the unconscious man in front of his
+office!” Men and women jumped to their feet. “Sit still!” His hand went
+above his head. The switch snapped out. They were in darkness.
+
+A chair toppled over. They heard him fumble with the switch lever. Then,
+shrill, frightened, came the voice of a boy:
+
+“Let go! Let go! I’m workin’ fer Mister Colton!”
+
+The lights came. Startled men and women saw a small boy squirming in the
+grasp of a brawny man. Sydney Thames knocked over the empty chair at his
+right as he leaped to his feet. It was The Fee, caught, and in his hand
+was a black bag.
+
+“It’s the papers!” yelled The Fee.
+
+Thames knew instantly the reason for that sudden darkness. It was
+Colton’s plan--and an ignorant deck hand had ruined it!
+
+But almost in a bound Thornley Colton was at the boy’s side. He tore the
+man’s hands from his arm, with fingers like steel.
+
+“It’s all right, Mike; start ’er!” screamed the freckle-faced boy.
+
+Under their very feet, seemingly, came the bark of a gasoline engine.
+
+“Stand back!” ordered Colton.
+
+Dumbly, as if dazed, they obeyed. The boy stood alone at the rail. Below
+him the motor boat coughed.
+
+Dreyfus MacLaren jumped forward to take the bag. A clenched fist sent
+him sprawling. A hand tore the bag from the boy’s hand. A black
+automatic swept before the circle of white faces. Behind it was Count
+d’Auboi, lips drawn back in a snarl.
+
+“I take it!” The snarling smoothness went out of the voice; it rose to a
+yell: “_Jean!_”
+
+At the signal the darkness again shut down on them. They stood huddled
+together before the menacing automatic they could not see.
+
+“A move, I shoot into ze crowd, a woman, maybe,” came the flint-like
+voice of the count before them. Somewhere behind them came the sounds of
+a short scuffle, a snarled oath. A man leaped to the rail. A splash
+sounded below; then a hoarse order in French.
+
+“’Nette!” snapped the count. There was no response. Again came that
+hoarse voice from the water. A scrambling shadow over the rail. The
+motor boat leaped away from the side.
+
+Out of the darkness came the piercing call of a police whistle. Across
+the black waters a broad beam of dazzling white shot out--picked up the
+boat--held it. Men were running on the decks of the speed craft two
+hundred yards away. It fairly leaped in pursuit of the smaller boat.
+
+The white searchlight brought out the escaping boat with startling
+vividness. The two men crouched over the wheel. The black bag was on the
+seat beside them. A line of fire shot from the pursuing boat. Another.
+The small engine went dead. The space was closing now--fifty
+yards--twenty--the searchlight still held like a calcium.
+
+The stupefied watchers on the yacht saw the count stand up in the boat;
+saw him look wildly around. He stooped, picked up the black satchel, and
+flung it far out into the water. In the bright glare they could see his
+very teeth bared in a snarling smile as he waited. The ripples gleamed
+in an ever-widening circle where the satchel had sunk.
+
+“Nervy devil, isn’t he?” It was the cool voice of Thornley Colton. For
+the first time the watchers realized that the lights were on again; that
+they had been actors in reality, not wraiths in a dream.
+
+Dreyfus MacLaren was first to recover, and as he raised his voice it had
+in it the strong man’s sob:
+
+“My God! The data!”
+
+“The charming Countess Annette is sitting on them,” smiled Thornley
+Colton. “I couldn’t bear exposing her to police shots. She is handcuffed
+to her chair.”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+“Yes, Sydney, the police can’t be beaten when it comes to making
+arrests. Find the guilty ones, label them, lead them up to the police,
+and the cops’ll get them every time. And the police dearly love a plant,
+that’s why they worked so well to-night. You see, I made all the
+arrangements this afternoon when you had left me in disgust to walk off
+your nervousness. The telephone is a mighty handy thing for the blind.”
+He took a sip of the vichy at his elbow, and touched the crystalless
+watch lying on the old-fashioned library table before him. It was
+twelve-thirty.
+
+“But how--where?” Sydney Thames changed it to a confession. “I am still
+dazed.”
+
+“I suppose you’ll have to have it all,” smiled Colton. “All right. Ten
+minutes’ intelligent conversation with the chauffeur before the fool
+detectives arrived gave me practically all of the information I needed.
+He told me of the theatre party with his wife and two eldest children. I
+was interested because they went to a famous Broadway children’s show,
+where the seat prices are high. The tickets had been given his wife by a
+rich woman who devoted her time to showing mothers how to care for their
+babies, and had taken an interest in his own. Of course, that told me
+immediately how the chauffeur had been gotten away while the car was
+fixed. Through his wife and tots was the only way he could be reached.
+
+“Then I wanted to know if there was a good, quiet hotel near by. The
+woman must have taken quarters near his home to be on the watch for the
+opportunity to get acquainted with his wife and children. They are
+fairly well-to-do, and would resent the professional interference of a
+settlement worker. There was. A telephone call from MacLaren’s office
+while you and the others were outside with the police--with the
+description the chauffeur had given me--fixed her as a Mrs. Allen, a
+widow, who was spending her money and time on poor babies. She had been
+there two weeks. She wasn’t in when I called, but would be in the
+morning. See how clever. Not a breath of suspicion by telling them that
+she was going to leave. Did she have a habit of calling a special taxi?
+She did, from the Nelson House. It was easy to get a description of the
+chauffeur from the starter there. The calls had been made without any
+attempt at concealment; for who would connect a settlement worker in New
+York with the wife of a French count? The chauffeur had been employed a
+week. He was undoubtedly an American. The woman was French, though she
+spoke English perfectly. See how simple the possibilities are when the
+foolish impossibilities the police delight in are eliminated?
+
+“Then the chauffeur’s recollection of the bearded man who had lifted
+Villers out of the car; his stilted way of speaking. I knew then that
+he, too, was a Frenchman, trying to hide it by repeating, slowly and
+carefully, without his usual accent, words he had learned by rote. Where
+had he been while the other two were making the arrangements? A man with
+the brains and knowledge to plan a crime like that couldn’t be common
+enough, even in appearance, to hide successfully for two weeks. I
+remembered the _Moravia_, due from Havre last night. What could be a
+greater alibi than that of a man who had been in the city but a few
+hours? But the fog must have caused him considerable anxiety. That’s why
+I went to see M‘Inness. I knew the name of the Manhattan Tug and
+Lighterage Company would still be in everybody’s mind. You know that
+Percy stepped in and sent that message on his own hook--at a hint from
+the count, of course, who was quick to see that that would cover his
+last possible connection. When I got him on the phone I learned of the
+count and his wife for the first time. Then I realized how infernally
+clever they were, and knew I’d have to act accordingly. The Englishman
+and the German also entered to complicate affairs. I didn’t know whether
+they were in it or not.”
+
+“But the description you gave in MacLaren’s office,” interrupted Sydney.
+“It was wholly at variance with that of every one who had seen him. And
+the left-handed woman who placed the hypodermic?”
+
+Colton laughed. “The first came from knowledge of human nature. If he
+was stout and full-bearded when he exposed himself before the eyes of
+several hundred persons, it was a moral certainty that he was neither,
+with the disguise off. He’d absolutely reverse it when he stepped into
+the taxi that was waiting around the corner after it had let him off in
+time to get the papers. The stitches in the cushions told me the other.
+They were too fine to have been made by a man. My fingers showed me that
+the needle had been thrust upward, instead of downward, as would have
+been the case with a right-handed person.”
+
+“But the actual robbery?” insisted Sydney. “The man with the broken
+finger-nail? I paid particular attention at the dinner. All seemed
+perfect.”
+
+“You are learning to observe,” smiled the blind man. “When my fingers
+brushed the coat-lining of the unconscious man they felt the torn
+threads of the caught finger-nail as it swept upward when he thrust his
+hand under the coat for the thick packet of papers. But the packet was
+evidently wedged, in some way, for it was necessary for him to thrust
+his whole hand down into the pocket. His thumb ring tore the lining
+slightly at the corner. These things could not be seen with the naked
+eye, but they could be felt with fingers trained to read handwriting by
+touching the reverse side of the paper, and feeling the indentations of
+the pencil.”
+
+Sydney nodded understandingly. “Now if you’ll explain the diamond, and
+The Fee’s entrance?” he asked.
+
+“Suggestion. Psychology,” declared Thornley Colton seriously. “The
+diamond held on my palm was primarily intended to find the man whose
+broken finger-nail had pulled the threads from the coat lining. Held on
+my palm, the man who picked it up must touch my flesh with his
+finger-nail. The count’s was cut to the quick; that of his thumb was
+long and tapering. Then the Englishman wanted to see it. I knew he
+wasn’t the man, therefore I caused the stampede to the after-deck with
+the promise of telling about the Villers murder to find out what he and
+his German friend really were. A quick touch in the crowd, as they came
+through the door, felt the heavy belt around the German’s waist.
+Smugglers!
+
+“That was easy, merely an incident in the case. But the police seemed
+glad to get them. They were part of the long-sought band. So we’ll
+dismiss them. But their presence shows further cleverness on the part of
+the wily count in including them to divert suspicion if it became
+necessary. He probably knew their game, and would have used it to cover
+his, if he had to.
+
+“My talk of the thumb-ringed pickpocket was intended to make the count
+suspicious of me. My reference to the light switch and the darkness were
+for the sole purpose of showing him how he could escape if it came to a
+show-down. My idiotic attempt to cover up what he, and others, supposed
+to be the only means I had of locating that switch was not intended to
+deceive them; it was intended to make them understand that I thought I
+was deceiving them. I knew the papers must be somewhere near; they
+planned to get away at midnight. But I couldn’t take a chance of
+arresting them, and then searching; for men clever enough to steal those
+papers would be clever enough to put them where no one could get them.
+Therefore the talk of the police search and the pulling of the switch to
+put out the lights.
+
+“By that time they understood that the only thing they could do was get
+away. I’d stood watching them in silence long enough to let them see
+that the anchorage was deserted, and that they had a pretty fair chance
+of escaping. When the darkness came I knew one of them would take
+instant advantage of it, and get the papers if they weren’t already on
+his person. You didn’t give a thought to Clauson’s being absent when you
+toppled over his empty chair, as you saw The Fee with that fake bag
+bait. I did, and I knew the count would look at that bag as I intended
+he should. He wasn’t given an opportunity to see that Clauson had gone.
+He was told of the ready boat, given an opportunity to grab the bag from
+the boy’s hand. He called ‘Jean’ as a signal for Clauson to put out the
+lights. Jean wasn’t there, but the quick-witted countess was. Jean, of
+course, heard that call, and came running. I met him at the cabin-door,
+held him long enough to get the packet from his inside pocket. It was
+easy, for”--a whimsical-smile came to the thin lips--“I am quite at home
+in the darkness. It was done so quickly that the frightened Jean hardly
+knew it, I guess, and, of course, the count supposed the boy had gotten
+the data for me. Then the police stepped in, and we saw the spectacular
+play of the greatest crook I ever had the pleasure of meeting, while the
+countess struggled on the chair to escape. I’d put the papers under her
+for safe-keeping, and also because they wouldn’t go in my dinner-coat
+pocket.”
+
+“Then,” puzzled Sydney, “the doctor who first attended Villers was--this
+count! But I can’t see why--he needed his bag?”
+
+“Because he was a mighty clever man. He knew it would be easy to take a
+thick packet of papers from Villers’s pocket without being seen, but he
+also knew that it would be almost impossible to slip them into his own
+unobserved. Therefore the open doctor’s bag at his feet, where they
+could be dropped in an instant.”
+
+“Papers worth a hundred million,” murmured Sydney Thames, almost in awe.
+
+“And costing a single, human life,” digressed Thornley Colton wearily.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE FOURTH PROBLEM
+
+                            THE FLYING DEATH
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+The last sobbing notes of the violin died away. Slowly, reverently, the
+girl lowered the bow and lifted her chin; the throat-filling hush
+wrought by the conjuring of her music became wild, unrestrained applause
+as the spell broke. The beating surges of sound from the gallery, the
+balcony, the floor seemed to frighten her a little; the frail body in
+its simple white frock shrank before it; but the girlish lips smiled
+bravely as she bowed her way to the wings.
+
+Clamorous, insistent, the applause continued. She reappeared; silence
+came as she lifted the violin to her chin. The lilting fantasy of a
+folk-song rollicked from under the dancing bow. Once more came the
+enthusiastic outburst when she finished. She gestured her thanks, smiled
+an instant at the upper right-hand box, laughed and kissed her hand to
+the lone occupant of lower left and ran from the stage.
+
+“Sheer genius, Sydney!” murmured Thornley Colton, in expression of the
+reverence good music always aroused in him; for music, to the blind man,
+held all the pleasures that painting, sculpture, and beautiful
+architecture hold for those whom God has given sight. Now his whole
+face, from the high forehead to the lean, cleft chin, was alight; even
+the sightless eyes seemed to shine behind the great blue circles of the
+smoked-glass, tortoise-shell-rimmed library spectacles that accentuated
+the striking whiteness of his face and hair.
+
+“Wonderful!” breathlessly agreed the red-cheeked, black-haired Sydney
+Thames, secretary and constant companion of the blind man.
+
+“It makes my woids muss up when I try to talk,” gulped The Fee,
+freckle-faced, red-haired, blue-eyed boy, who had become a member of the
+Colton household at the conclusion of a particularly baffling murder
+case. Thornley Colton laughed softly and pushed back his chair. Then
+real alarm came to the boy’s voice. “Gee, yuh ain’t goin’ now?” he
+pleaded. “They’s a coupla comedy acr’bats an’ a wop knife t’rower yet!”
+
+“We’ll wait,” promised Colton, as he made room for a pale-faced young
+man who had just risen to hurry past him and out of the box.
+
+The problemist moved his chair farther back, and whispered to Sydney.
+“Our friend who just left seems to be troubled with a mighty bad case of
+nerves,” he observed. “My cane could feel his chair trembling under him
+the whole time the girl was playing. He seemed to jump a foot when she
+left the stage that last time, and he’s been muttering under his breath
+ever since. What happened?”
+
+“I’d say he was wildly in love with her, and madly jealous of some one
+else,” accounted Sydney. “She smiled up at him an instant after that
+last encore, but she immediately turned and kissed her hand to the man
+in the lower left-hand box. If ever black rage shone in a man’s face it
+was on that of our neighbour. He isn’t more than twenty-two or three,
+and he doesn’t look as if he had ever learned to curb a nasty temper.”
+
+“He left as if he were going in search of some one’s heart blood,”
+smiled the blind man, leaning back in his chair.
+
+One of the comedy acrobats had just succeeded in pushing the other from
+a high table, and was joyously dancing on his rubber stomach, to the
+great delight of The Fee, and some fourteen or fifteen hundred others.
+
+“You don’t happen to know the occupant of lower left?” asked Colton.
+Somehow the thought of sordid jealousy of two men, and a girl whose
+witchery could produce such music, seemed to jar.
+
+Sydney gazed covertly down at the occupant of lower left. He was a
+big-bodied man, and fat. There were fleshy pouches of good living and
+bad drinking under his eyes; but no dissipation could hide the iron
+will, the dominant arrogance the heavy chin showed. He sat back in the
+deep box, the black of his evening clothes verging into the black of the
+heavy velvet hangings that covered the wall behind him. The white
+expanse of shirt front contrasted strikingly with the sombre background;
+one white fist rested on the back of a gold chair.
+
+“It’s James P. Cartwright, the theatrical manager!” returned Sydney
+suddenly. “Her manager!” he supplemented in sudden anger as he compared
+the innocent girlishness of the violinist and the coarse grossness of
+the recognized man in the box. Sydney Thames deified all women from
+afar, for he had forbidden himself the joys of propinquity, because he
+could never forget that he had no name but that of the English river on
+the banks of which Thornley Colton had found him, a bundle of dirty
+baby-clothes, years before.
+
+“Cartwright has an unenviable reputation among his women of the stage,”
+muttered Colton. The smile was gone from the thin, expressive lips now.
+The rocking notes of the fantastic folk-song still haunted him; the
+sobbing cadence of the piece she had played before was in his mind: an
+omen of tragedy. A soul that could conjure music like that--and a
+Cartwright who, gossip said, demanded his price for others’ success!
+
+The two comedy acrobats had disinterred themselves from an avalanche of
+chairs and a table; the first to his feet had been promptly knocked down
+by the other, and dragged off the stage by his heels, while The Fee and
+a few hundred others shouted and clapped their approval. A card
+announced Signor Delvetoi and his marvellous whirling knives.
+
+Sydney, watching the occupant of the lower left, saw him take out a big
+watch impatiently, lean ponderously back in a chair, and summon an
+usher. The uniformed man came, listened a moment, nodded, and opened the
+door at the stage end of the box, to reappear a moment later and whisper
+his message, or news. Cartwright nodded, and turned his attention idly
+toward the stage, where the signor sent a whirling knife toward the high
+boards before which his yellow-haired partner had set a red apple
+swinging on a long string. The knife point thudded into the wood; the
+cut string parted, and the apple rolled to the stage floor.
+
+“Gee, that’s some stunt!” ecstatically exclaimed The Fee, as he
+enthusiastically described the feat of the black-bearded signor to
+Colton.
+
+A handful of playing cards flurried before the wooden stop. Three
+whirling knives shot across the whole length of the stage; three cards
+were pinned fast, and the assistant held them up triumphantly to show
+the pierced ace spots.
+
+Cartwright inclined his head in a nod of grudging approval, then turned
+quickly as he heard the door that led back to the stage open. Sydney saw
+the girl who had played appear in her street clothes, a simple white
+shirt waist and dark skirt, her coat thrown over her arm. He gritted his
+teeth at the greeting she gave the theatrical manager, and as he saw the
+flush of happiness on the winsome face, while the thick lips of the man
+grinned as he took her coat. Cartwright jerked his thumb toward the
+stage where the dexterous signor had just succeeded in planting five
+knives in a black spot not bigger than a half dollar.
+
+He pulled his chair close to that of the girl, and they sat talking; the
+girl with many pretty, unconscious gestures, the man listening, with a
+jerky nod now and then. They were in the rear of the box, not three feet
+from the heavy velvet hangings that covered the wall back of them. They
+could not be seen from the body of the theatre, but from the upper box
+opposite, where Sydney sat, everything in their box was visible.
+
+Sydney interrupted The Fee’s excited description of the signor’s act
+long enough to tell the news to Colton; and he made no excuse for his
+spying. The blind man nodded grimly, and continued his patient listening
+to The Fee, who was having the time of his young life. The signor, in
+his suit of black silk and his black, pointed beard, had performed
+miracles with the whirling knives. Now the boy waited breathlessly for
+this last feat, because the soft music of the orchestra told him it
+would be the best of all. A huge frame was being lowered from the flies.
+The blond assistant stepped to the small shelf, thrust her hands through
+the leather loops, and stood against the golden back, arms spread wide,
+feet apart. The signor brought his table of glittering knives to the
+footlights; the frame and the assistant swung aloft. The lights went
+out. Darkness for a few brief seconds, then the calcium from the balcony
+outlined the suspended woman and the gold background.
+
+“Ah!” The Fee’s gasp swelled a thousand others, as the knife shot into
+the calcium beam from the darkness below, whirled with a thousand silver
+fires, and buried its point in the wood, blade grazing the cheek of the
+woman. A few seconds of breathless suspense, and another followed, to
+graze the ear. Even Sydney forgot the man and girl in the box as he
+watched the whirling blades. The weirdness of the thing held him
+fascinated; the knives, hurled from the hands of the man who was
+invisible in the darkness below the single light beam, pinwheeled
+through the light to find their place unerringly.
+
+Then something caused Sydney Thames to turn his eyes again to the lower
+box. At the instant a flash of lurid light leaped from the darkness,
+silhouetting with startling vividness the seated man and girl. The roar
+of a pistol came to his ears; and while the light cut the darkness he
+saw behind the seated man and girl the face of the youth who had been in
+the box with them; the man whose jealousy had been shown so plainly.
+
+Pandemonium followed instantly. A chair crashed over in the darkness
+across the theatre; clear above the cries of the panic-stricken men and
+women came the scream of a man:
+
+“My God! I didn’t do it! I didn’t! I didn’t!”
+
+The scream stopped. “Lights!” frenziedly called some one from the
+darkness.
+
+They came. In the box opposite, Sydney Thames saw Cartwright struggling
+with the man whose face he had seen so distinctly in the pistol’s flash.
+On the floor of the box, face downward, was the girl of the violin.
+Between her shoulders, on the white shirt waist, was a widening splotch
+of crimson.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+The girl was dead. The white-coated ambulance surgeon who examined her
+had shaken his head, and refused to take her in the ambulance. The
+morgue waggon had taken the body but a short time after the police
+reserves had beaten their way through a mob of thousands to arrest the
+white-faced, hysterical prisoner, who cried his innocence through lips
+battered by the fist of Cartwright.
+
+In the precinct station the prisoner had collapsed, and Cartwright told
+his story. He had heard a slight noise, and swung around in his chair.
+At that instant came the flash of the pistol behind him. He heard the
+man drop it, and he leaped to grapple with him. Yes, he knew the
+prisoner; name was Nelson, a half-baked kid, who had bothered Miss
+Reynolds for months. Yes, this was Miss Reynolds’s first engagement; her
+first appearance on any stage. He was her manager. No, nothing else.
+Emphatically!
+
+The prisoner, brought around roughly, swore that he was innocent. He had
+known Miss Reynolds for months, they had been friends in Europe. She had
+asked him to be present at her first appearance, and at the end of her
+act he had gone to meet her at the stage entrance. It was there that he
+was told that she had an engagement with Cartwright. That this made him
+wild with jealousy he admitted; he knew Cartwright by reputation, and
+Miss Reynolds was but a girl, innocent, unsophisticated.
+
+He had walked around outside the theatre for about fifteen minutes, then
+he had decided to go to the box and demand an explanation. The theatre
+was in darkness for the knife-throwing act, but he knew his way. His
+hand had been on the black velvet hangings when he stopped. And the
+revolver flash had come _from the air_ not a foot ahead of him. No, he
+could not explain how the shot had been fired. No one could have moved
+from the spot where the pistol had been, _because the weapon dropped on
+his toe_!
+
+He was taken away to a cell on a charge of murder.
+
+Cartwright, leaving the station when the last of the curious crowd had
+drifted away, seemed to have aged ten years since the tragedy. He was
+haggard, the grim, hard smile that had been characteristic was gone, his
+big hands trembled. He tried in vain to get permission to remove the
+girl’s body from the morgue immediately. But the law demanded that the
+coroner see it first; and the official was out of town.
+
+Cartwright remembered his political friends. He tried to locate a dozen
+over the telephone and failed. Then, by chance, he met the one man in
+the city who could help him; the one man among the four millions whom he
+could trust: Theodore Rogers, the theatrical lawyer, a friend for thirty
+years.
+
+He tried to tell Rogers what he wanted, but his nervousness made his
+words a jumble.
+
+“What is it, Jim? What’s the trouble?” Rogers shook him, and he looked
+into his eyes anxiously.
+
+Cartwright told him of the shooting. “And, by God, Ted!” he finished
+passionately. “I won’t rest a minute till I see that devil in the
+electric chair! God! To kill a girl like that!”
+
+The lawyer looked at him curiously. This was not the cool, suave
+Cartwright he had known so long.
+
+Cartwright read the look on the lawyer’s face, and the thoughts behind
+it. “Not that! I swear it’s not that, Ted!” he choked.
+
+“Come, have a drink,” pleaded Rogers, pulling him toward the lighted
+entrance of a rathskeller.
+
+“With that girl on a slab in the morgue?”
+
+“One drink,” insisted Rogers. “You are worse than useless this way.
+Come!”
+
+He dragged Cartwright down the steps. The clock over the bar said
+half-past two, and the leather-seated booths were in darkness. But
+drinks could be had. The barman dozed, and the lone waiter yawned as he
+carried a tray toward the booths in the rear. Rogers led the theatrical
+man to a seat at the side of the room in front of the bar, ordered
+whisky, and waited patiently until Cartwright had gulped down the
+liquor.
+
+“Now tell me about it, Jim,” demanded Rogers.
+
+Cartwright, as near the end of the leather seat as he could get, glanced
+at the dark booths in the back, then turned and surveyed the front of
+the place. The rathskeller was empty, except for the dozing barman and
+the waiter, who had gone into one of the front booths to figure his
+day’s checks.
+
+“Don’t think--what you’ve been thinking about me and that girl, Ted.”
+There was almost pathetic pleading in the manager’s voice; it was
+pitched so low that even the lawyer at the other side of the narrow
+table could scarcely hear. “She was--a daughter to me--the daughter of
+the only woman I ever loved.”
+
+Rogers stared. This from the man Broadway thought it knew!
+
+“Remember twenty years ago?” continued Cartwright, in that same low,
+pleading voice. “The girl I took away from Kelly, that drunken burlesque
+magician?”
+
+The lawyer nodded, a look of understanding in his eyes.
+
+“You know we loved each other, and we ran away; she, and I, and the six
+months’ old kid,” he went on. “You know how she died: killed in the C. &
+O. wreck two hours out of Chicago, two hours after we started--and the
+kid under her body, alive! I guess that’s what woke me up. All I thought
+about after that was making money for the kid. I put her with good
+people, and I didn’t tell them who she was, or who I was. When she got
+old enough to understand, I adopted her legally. But she never knew who
+her father and mother were. I couldn’t tell her about the drunken sot
+that died in the Chicago alcoholic ward. A thing like that would have
+spoiled her.
+
+“She was born with music in her. I kept her away from me and the people
+that knew me. I sent her abroad. And to-night was her try-out! I wanted
+to see if she could face the lights, because I wouldn’t have her laughed
+at by the highbrows if she couldn’t make good. And she did! God, how
+they went wild! I wouldn’t tell a soul that she was my adopted
+daughter--until to-morrow. Now----” He fingered his whisky glass with
+twitching hands.
+
+Theodore Rogers, whose heart was reputed to be of stone, felt a lump in
+his throat. He pushed his gloves from the table, so in bending he would
+get the needed instant to hide his feelings. Something made him jerk up
+his head! He saw----
+
+The roar of the pistol in his ears deafened him. He cried out as the
+long-barrelled gun recoiled across the table and struck him, butt
+foremost, on the chest. His glass was crashed to a hundred pieces as the
+pistol fell on the table before him. The white shirt front of Cartwright
+was black, a small circle of fire glowed in the linen; on his face was
+an awful look of horror as his head pitched forward on his arms.
+
+And then Rogers understood what his eyes had first seen; the picture
+that had lasted but the hundredth part of a second, perhaps, but which
+would be graven on his mind for a lifetime.
+
+He had seen the pistol against Cartwright’s heart, _with nothing to hold
+it there_; the recoil of the explosion had driven it across the table
+before it fell, _because no human hand had grasped it; no finger had
+pulled the trigger_!
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+In the darkness of his library Thornley Colton paced back and forth. The
+cigarette-end glowed and died as he puffed thoughtfully. Each detail of
+the girl’s murder at the theatre, described to him by the excited
+Sydney, while panic had raged above them and below them in the playhouse
+the night before, was being visualized by the wonderful brain that so
+unerringly found logic in seeming absurdity; explanation in apparent
+impossibility--because that brain had never been tricked by seeing eyes.
+
+The murder of the girl had moved him mightily; the stilling forever of
+that wonderful music seemed more a crime against the world than against
+an individual. And as he paced the curtained room the mosaics of detail
+became a complete picture, and he knew--_knew_--that the man who had
+left their box so hurriedly the night before; the man whom Sydney had
+_seen_ fire the shot, was guiltless of the murder!
+
+He turned to face the door as hurried footsteps proclaimed to his
+trained, supersensitive ears that Sydney Thames was approaching.
+
+“Cartwright has been murdered!” cried the red-cheeked secretary
+breathlessly. “It happened too late for the morning papers, but The Fee
+got some early extras of the evening editions with full details.”
+
+“Where? How?” asked Colton.
+
+“In an up-town rathskeller. He was shot by Theodore Rogers, the lawyer.”
+
+“He was not,” corrected the blind man quietly.
+
+“How did you hear of it?” demanded Sydney, in surprise.
+
+“This is the first intimation I had of such a thing, but your statement
+was just a little too positive; your voice told me that _you_ believe
+Rogers guilty because of the utter impossibility of the story he must
+have given the police.”
+
+Sydney flushed. “But his story is crazy, insane!” he insisted.
+
+“Perhaps if I heard it----” suggested Colton.
+
+Excitedly, with utter disbelief in his voice, Sydney Thames told of the
+unheld pistol Rogers swore he saw; of its firing with no finger near the
+trigger; of its recoil, and fall.
+
+“Of course the police arrested him,” continued Sydney. “Cartwright held
+a lot of Rogers’s paper. That’s the motive. They’ve got a clear case, as
+clear as the one against the love-crazed kid who shot the violinist.”
+
+“Just as clear,” echoed Colton slowly. Then: “But haven’t you withheld
+the fact that the pistols used in both murders are exactly alike?”
+
+“How--did you know--that?” gasped Sydney. Many times he had heard the
+blind man make such amazing statements, but they always startled him.
+
+“Because both crimes were committed by the same man in the same way!”
+
+“But Nelson, the kid who shot the girl, was locked up in a cell,”
+protested Thames.
+
+“Exactly,” admitted the blind man. “But he killed Cartwright as surely
+as he murdered the girl.”
+
+It was several seconds before the meaning of that sentence struck
+Sydney. “He shot that girl in the back!” rebelled Thames. “I saw his
+face over the flash of the pistol. Even he admits that no one else could
+have fired it, because it fell on his toe!”
+
+“Rogers swears that no one did fire the bullet which killed Cartwright,”
+reminded Colton. “And the pistol fell on the table in front of him.”
+
+“That’s impossible,” asserted Thames emphatically. “Some one must have
+held the gun. Some one must have pulled the trigger. There can be no
+explanation of what he says he saw. The days of ghosts and black magic
+have passed.”
+
+“But not the days of black murder,” retorted Colton. “There is no black
+art, ghosts, or hypnotism in the murders of last night. The method is
+unique, that’s all.”
+
+He picked up the slim, hollow stick he always carried. “I’m going to
+find that murderer,” he said. “A man who could kill a girl like that is
+either a fiend or a hideous blunderer. I think it’s the latter. Will you
+call the machine?”
+
+The big automobile was always ready for instant service, day or night,
+and ten minutes later they were on their way down town. Beside the
+driver, eager-eyed, joyful, was The Fee. Colton had promised to let him
+help on the case, and the boy’s cup of happiness was full. The Fee had
+but two heroes: Thornley Colton in real life; Nick Carter in his
+favourite fiction.
+
+“We’ll go to police head-quarters first,” decided Colton. “The prisoners
+will be there this morning, and I’d like to question Rogers.” Then he
+got from Sydney all the details the papers had given of Cartwright’s
+murder.
+
+The Fee found a friendly doorman when they reached police head-quarters
+and prepared to have the time of his life. Colton’s card secured them
+grudging admittance to the office of the chief of detectives. The chief,
+like his men, had all the professional’s scorn for the amateur, but he
+knew the blind man, with his wide acquaintance with influential people,
+was not a person to antagonize. And the police had found Rogers a
+different proposition from the youth whose infatuation had led him to
+the dark box and the murder charge. The lawyer was well known, and his
+story demanded respect despite the utter impossibility of the thing he
+described. Of course, the barman and the waiter had been arrested as
+witnesses, but they had not seen the actual shooting. The barman had
+been dozing, and the waiter had been busy in a front booth. The shot had
+aroused them.
+
+“Going to give us some more pointers?” asked the chief tolerantly, when
+he had shaken hands with Colton and nodded curtly to Sydney.
+
+“I’d like to look into that double-murder case a bit,” confessed the
+problemist, paying no attention to the tone.
+
+“You mean the two murders committed last night,” corrected the chief
+gruntingly. “Nothing to ’em. We’ve got the goods on young Nelson. Twenty
+people in the three front rows saw him do it. And Rogers’s fool story is
+enough to hang any man.” The real detective’s scorn for the criminal
+whose methods are crude came to his voice. “He might have got away with
+a suicide story--Cartwright was all broken up about the girl--but Rogers
+swears it wasn’t suicide, because the manager’s hands were not near the
+pistol when it was fired. He says Cartwright’s look was one of horror,
+as if he’d seen his end coming, and couldn’t get away from it.”
+
+“He did see his death coming,” put in Colton quietly; “and I think that
+during the last instant he lived he realized at whose hand it came.”
+
+“You think he got wise to Rogers at the end, eh?” guessed the chief.
+
+“No!” The negative was sharp. “Rogers had no more to do with the murder
+than you or I. Cartwright was killed by a man who had been planning the
+murder for years; the death of the girl was a terrible mistake.”
+
+The chief jumped from his chair. “What do you know?” he demanded.
+
+“Nothing--definitely. With a little help from you I think I can show you
+the real murderer.”
+
+“You can’t show me any murderer but Rogers and Nelson,” snapped the
+chief, with an air of finality. “Because you can’t convince me or
+anybody else that a man could see what Rogers says he saw. A pistol with
+no hand near it. It’s impossible! It’s dam’ foolishness!” He snorted.
+
+Unconsciously Sydney Thames found himself nodding confirmation. That was
+the whole thing: an impossibility. No one had been near Cartwright but
+Rogers. The girl had been shot in the back, and no one could have been
+behind her but Nelson. This last Sydney knew, and had seen.
+
+“Let me see the pistols which killed Cartwright and the girl, and I’ll
+convince you that the same man murdered both,” offered Colton.
+
+“Duplicate guns aren’t so rare,” instantly resented the chief. This man
+was practically telling him that he didn’t know his business!
+
+“Those two pistols--and others that may be in the possession of the
+murderer--are the only ones of their kind in the world!”
+
+“Look at ’em, then.” The chief grabbed them from his desk. “They’re a
+standard German make, single-shot target pistols, blued steel, with
+barrels six inches long, numbered and sold all over Europe.”
+
+Colton took the two pistols, and Sydney drew his chair closer to see.
+
+“In the first place,” began the blind man, as his thin, supersensitive
+fingers examined one gun, while the other lay on his knees, “murderers
+don’t usually have this kind of pistol. They can’t be carried in any
+ordinary pocket, and”--his forefinger-tip rested over the shallow slot
+near the muzzle--“you never before saw target pistols without front
+sights!”
+
+“Took ’em off so they wouldn’t catch in the pocket,” grunted the chief
+knowingly.
+
+Colton’s lips curved in a smile. “An ingenious theory,” he grunted.
+“Have you one to fit the banged-up appearance of these butts?” He held
+out the pistol and indicated the nicks and scratches.
+
+“Been used to hammer nails,” declared the chief, exaggerated weariness
+in his voice. “Gun owners use ’em that way sometimes, like a woman uses
+a hairbrush. Nothing to that.”
+
+“Yes there is! No gun owner in the world ever drove a nail by holding a
+gun vertically, hand on the barrel, and pounding it up and down like a
+pile driver! See, the hard usage doesn’t show on the bottom of the butt,
+as it would have done had the pistol been swung as a hammer. The dents
+and scratches are all on the outside edge!”
+
+The chief took the extended gun. The sarcastic smile on his lips faded
+as he tried the two ways of holding it. The blind man was right! No
+driving of nails could have made nicks and scratches where they were on
+this pistol! “What’s that got to do with the murder?” he growled.
+
+“Everything,” answered the problemist shortly. He took the other pistol
+on his palm. “Didn’t it strike you that these were two finely balanced
+pistols, even for target use?” Before the chief could reply Colton shot
+another inquiry: “Didn’t you wonder at the fact that both triggers had
+been filed to a hair so that the slightest jar would cause the hammer to
+fall? See!” He cocked the pistol and jammed the muzzle against the
+chief’s desk. The hammer choked down sharply. He tried it again, this
+time jamming the butt down on a chair arm. Once more the hammer snapped
+on the empty chamber.
+
+The chief’s jaw dropped. “That’s how those nicks were made!” he
+ejaculated, shocked from his supercilious attitude. The lightning-like
+questions, the proving of fact after fact by Colton, had disconcerted
+him. In ten minutes the man who was sightless had shown him details that
+neither his keen eyes nor the eyes of his hundred men had seen, and
+Colton had made of those details startling, vivid possibilities.
+
+“May I speak to Mr. Rogers?” Colton asked the question quietly, simply,
+but under his voice was a subtle note that was dominantly compelling; a
+note that had made bigger and stronger men than the chief of the New
+York detective bureau bow to his wishes.
+
+“That’s all very interesting stuff,” began the chief pompously, “but
+Rogers is the man who shot Cartwright, and we know that Cartwright held
+a dozen thousand dollars’s worth of his paper.”
+
+The door opened to admit an attaché, and Sydney hid a grin with his
+hand. He had seen the chief press the call button even before he began
+to speak.
+
+“Bring Rogers here,” grunted the head of the detective bureau.
+
+The lawyer came in a moment later, and the two men who accompanied him
+were curtly ordered out. The strong face of the prisoner was marred by
+lines indicating loss of sleep; his lips were shut grimly, a scowl
+creased his forehead, his eyes, sharp and piercing, were fixed on the
+chief.
+
+“This is Mr. Colton, Rogers,” introduced the detective shortly. “He’s
+got a sort of a theory on the Cartwright murder.”
+
+“If it’s the right one he’ll save you a lot of trouble,” snapped the
+lawyer ungraciously. He turned to Colton. “I’ve heard of your work on
+the Villers case.” His tone was almost amiable; then into it came dull
+wonder. “But that was simplicity itself beside this. I saw that revolver
+before the shot was fired, unsupported by human hands, against Jim
+Cartwright’s shirt front. It must have flown there on invisible wings!”
+
+The chief grunted sarcastically, as he had grunted at each repetition of
+that unvarying statement.
+
+Thornley Colton, tapping his foot lightly with his thin stick, looked
+up. “That is just what it did do!” he said. The three men stared
+blankly. The blind man continued: “According to the newspapers, Mr.
+Rogers, you said that something caused you to jerk up your head in time
+to see that picture. Do you know what it was?”
+
+“I do not.” Rogers shook his head. “I can only describe it as some inner
+impulse.”
+
+“Wasn’t it”--Thornley Colton’s tone was impressive--“wasn’t it a shadow,
+a swift-passing shadow, your eyes saw on the floor?”
+
+Rogers leaped to his feet. “By Heaven, it was!” he shouted. “I remember
+now!” His voice trembled with excitement. “I had lowered my head, and
+across the streak of light between the seat edge and table flew a
+shadow--like a bird passing overhead.” He stopped suddenly, the
+bewildered look on his face telling the sudden realization of his words.
+“How could you know that?” he burst out.
+
+“The human brain is a curious thing,” explained the blind man slowly.
+“It unconsciously records impressions the eyes give, but they are
+instantly forgotten--because the giving is so automatic--until something
+recalls them. Without sight I have been compelled to figure all things
+in my brain. Even the steps that you take without seeing must be
+mentally visualized by me. I knew it _must_ have been a shadow that
+caused you to look up. To you it was merely one of the thousand
+unconscious-conscious things your eyes see during the day which are
+locked up in the brain until some outside influence brings them back.”
+
+“You can solve this thing!” Rogers shot out the words as if he had just
+made a wonderful discovery. The blind man’s conscious power in himself
+had won the confidence of the lawyer; made him realize that there was
+some logical explanation for the thing which his eyes had seen, and
+which his reason refused to accept. He forgot that he was a prisoner
+formally charged with murder, he paced the room nervously. And the
+chief, scowling down at his desk, was silent. “If you can find the man
+who killed Jim Cartwright!” The excitement died from Roger’s voice, a
+new tone came. “I knew him for thirty years, yet I never knew him until
+last night!”
+
+“I want to bring to justice the man that could kill a girl whose soul
+held the music of Miss Reynolds’s.” There was unconscious rebuke in the
+problemist’s voice. All his powers he had brought to avenge the innocent
+girl; but he knew his efforts must be concentrated on the Cartwright
+murder because that was the key, the only key that would lead to the
+murderer.
+
+“The love-crazed kid did that! He----” Rogers stopped, his eyes saw the
+two pistols side by side on the commissioner’s desk. Instantly his keen
+brain recognised the significance. “They’re the same!” he exclaimed.
+
+“What were Cartwright’s relations with Miss Reynolds?” It was a command,
+as Colton put it. Rogers lifted his eyes from the two pistols.
+
+“You wrong Jim Cartwright,” he said quietly. “You’ve accepted the
+general opinion of him; the opinion he never cared enough about to
+refute. He wasn’t an angel, but he wasn’t the devil a thousand
+jealousies have painted him. I’m going to tell you the story he told me
+last night.” And he did, with all the deep feeling of his friendship,
+splendidly, simply.
+
+As the men listened they understood the tragedy of Cartwright’s love for
+the woman who had been killed in the first moments of her new-found
+happiness--and his; of the little girl he had taken from her dead
+mother’s arms to work for, to protect, to give the happiness the mother
+had been denied--only to see her foully murdered when her cup of joy had
+but just been filled. The fiendishness of it held them spell-bound. The
+two beings that Cartwright had loved had been snatched from him, and he
+had been killed, knowing in the last instant of his life that the real
+murderer of the girl was not even suspected, could not be suspected,
+because of the devilish ingenuity of his crime.
+
+“Kelly, the drunken magician, is the man who killed Cartwright!”
+ejaculated the chief.
+
+Rogers was startled for a moment, but Colton, with an inscrutable smile
+on his thin lips, put a question:
+
+“The father of the girl is dead, isn’t he?”
+
+Rogers glanced at the blind man in surprise. “Yes,” he admitted. “He
+died in the alcoholic ward of a Chicago hospital three months after his
+wife was killed. He was buried in the potters’ field.”
+
+“Where did you find that out?” scowlingly demanded the chief.
+
+“That I didn’t proves the fact,” answered the blind man crisply. “If
+Cartwright hadn’t known he was dead you’d have heard of him before. Do
+you want me to go on?” he asked.
+
+“Might as well,” granted the chief. “Maybe this is your lucky day.”
+
+“Then I’d like to ask a few questions of the boy who was arrested as
+Miss Reynolds’s murderer.”
+
+The chief gave the order, but there was a light of triumphant
+anticipation in his eyes as he waited. Unlike the murderer of
+Cartwright, there was nothing mysterious in the killing of the girl,
+despite the clever efforts of the blind man to prove differently. A
+score of persons had seen the flash of the pistol from the rear of the
+box. His men had examined the velvet-hung wall toward which the girl’s
+back had been, and there was not a break in it, not a crack.
+
+When the boy--he was little more--was led in by two detectives there
+came a look of pity to the faces of Sydney and Rogers. He staggered to a
+chair when the men released his arms. His lips were purple and torn
+where Cartwright had beaten him to the floor the night before. A
+haunting look of terror was in his eyes; his face was pasty white.
+
+“I didn’t do it! I didn’t! I didn’t!” he whispered hoarsely, when he had
+wet his dry lips to make even the whisper possible.
+
+Colton put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I know you didn’t,” he said,
+and there was a world of sympathy in his voice. A new look came to the
+boy’s eyes, a trembling hand sought that of the blind man.
+
+“I loved her and she loved me,” he said chokingly. “We were going to be
+married--but that Cartwright----” Shrill vehemence came to the tone, and
+he stopped.
+
+Colton’s hand quieted him. “Listen closely now, Mr. Nelson, and tell me
+if this is what happened: You groped your way to the box with your right
+hand on the wall. You felt the black velvet hangings, stopped, and the
+pistol went off while your right hand was stretched above you, on the
+hangings, and you were facing the door that led back off the stage.”
+
+“I remember that!” interjected Sydney. “His left side was towards
+Cartwright and the girl!”
+
+“Yet you said that the pistol flash crossed his body.”
+
+“It did!” broke in the boy. “It was not twelve inches ahead of me! My
+right foot was extended to take another step, and the pistol fell on my
+toe!”
+
+Colton turned to the three listening men. “To have fired that shot he
+would have had to double his left arm behind him and have shot around
+his body--a physical impossibility, even with a long-barrelled pistol.”
+He placed his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder once more. “Go outside
+to the men who brought you in,” he said. “You will be free in a few
+hours.”
+
+Silently the boy obeyed. When Colton faced them again there was a
+curious expression on his face; the expression of a man who has seen a
+thoughtless boy destroy a priceless work of art by his clumsiness.
+
+“He killed that girl as surely as if he had placed the pistol at her
+back,” he said sadly. “Yet he is as innocent of her murder as a child
+unborn!”
+
+Eager questions, demands for an explanation of that cryptic remark, were
+fairly hurled at the blind man by the excited Rogers. What did he mean?
+How could the boy have killed Miss Reynolds and not be guilty of her
+murder? How had she been killed? By whom? Sydney Thames forbore the
+questions he knew would not be answered. The chief scowled down at the
+two pistols, silent, thoughtful. Colton’s statement regarding the firing
+of the pistol across the boy’s body had struck him like a dash of cold
+water. It was true! The boy could not have fired the shot that killed
+the girl! Once more the blind man’s unerring instinct for truth had torn
+down the case he and his men had been building for hours. In less than
+five minutes the sightless problemist had proved a fact that twenty
+pairs of eyes had failed to see.
+
+“Where are the two men who were arrested in the rathskeller?” asked
+Colton curtly, utterly ignoring the questions.
+
+“Bailed by their boss,” answered the chief. “They can only establish
+details anyway.”
+
+“I want to interview at least one of them,” declared Colton. “I also
+want to visit the rathskeller. Can Mr. Rogers go, in your company, of
+course?”
+
+“Yes.” The chief took the responsibility unhesitatingly. He realized
+that he must see the thing through now.
+
+“Is your machine down here? I want to send my boy on an errand with
+mine.”
+
+“Outside, waiting.” The chief took his hat and coat from the tree. “I’ll
+go with Rogers while he gets his,” he added, as he opened the door.
+
+The blind man hurried out, feet unerringly retracing the steps his brain
+had registered when they entered. The red-haired boy ran from the group
+of detectives he had been entertaining.
+
+“Shrimp!” The blind man used the name he always called the boy, and took
+him aside. He whispered instructions, thrust two or three bills into the
+other’s hand. The youngster darted for the machine, and jumped up beside
+the driver as the chief and Rogers came from the front door.
+
+In silence the quartet climbed into the car; in silence they made the
+journey to the rathskeller, where James Cartwright had been shot a few
+hours before. The waiter who had been on duty early in the morning was
+again on hand, heavy-eyed. The barman was at his home.
+
+“Where’s the booth you occupied?” asked Colton of Rogers, when the chief
+had established their identity with the nervous proprietor.
+
+The lawyer went to it, stopped at the table, and stared down at the dark
+stain that could not be removed.
+
+“This is where we were,” he said huskily.
+
+Colton stepped in between the table and the seat edge, and sat down,
+facing the rear of the rathskeller. “Cartwright was seated at the end of
+the seat, like this?” He illustrated.
+
+Rogers nodded. “He was on the extreme end, so he could assure himself
+that no one would hear.”
+
+Colton rose, and with only the slim stick to guide him, made his way to
+a booth that faced the front of the rathskeller, at right angles to the
+one where the watching men still stood.
+
+“Who was in this booth when Cartwright was shot?” It was snapped out
+like the crack of a whip to the waiter.
+
+“No-body,” faltered the serving man, wincing under the battery of eyes.
+
+“There was!” The voice held accusation. “A man was in this booth, and he
+entered a moment or so before Mr. Rogers and Mr. Cartwright!”
+
+The waiter brushed his dry lips with the back of his hand. “He couldn’t
+have had nothin’ to do with it,” he mumbled, fingers twisting and
+untwisting the napkin in his hands.
+
+“No one said he did!” said the blind man sharply. “You’ve been a witness
+in a murder case before, haven’t you?”
+
+The watching men saw a look of alarm come to the man’s eyes. The chief
+stepped toward him menacingly. “Yes, sir,” muttered the waiter,
+shrinking. “I saw a man shot while I was at the Royal. The police kept
+me in the detention for three months, and I lost my job.”
+
+There was a grim smile on Colton’s lips as he nodded understandingly.
+“You weren’t going to take a chance on that again, were you?” His tone
+was less brusque. “I’ll assure you that you won’t be held a minute if
+you give me a description of the man.”
+
+The chief opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap.
+
+“Then I’ll tell you,” consented the waiter eagerly. “He was a good-sized
+guy, with a yellow, old-lookin’ face, bald-headed, with a scar on the
+top, and he had eyes that was like slits. He came in that door.” He
+pointed to one that opened at the rear corner of the rathskeller,
+apparently on a side street. “He was so drunk he couldn’t hardly walk,
+and he almost fell into the seat. I was goin’ to put him out, we closed
+in half an hour, an’ I didn’t want to have to throw no drunks in the
+street. But he wanted a whisky and----” The waiter flushed and stopped.
+
+“Go on,” prodded Colton.
+
+The waiter looked at the proprietor and gulped nervously. “He gave me a
+five-spot, an’ told me to keep the change. I was bringin’ the drink when
+the other two came in. I got theirs, and went up front to figger my
+checks. Then I heard the shot. When I thought of the drunk again he was
+gone. But he couldn’t ’a’ done nothin’. He had a horrible bun, an’ we
+seen the gun layin’ in front of this guy.” He indicated Rogers. “Me an’
+the bartender figgered we wouldn’t say nothin’ about him. If we did the
+police ’ld put us in the detention till they found him. His gettin’ out
+like that would ’a’ looked suspicious to them if it didn’t to nobody
+else. He was scared sober an’ beat it quick. That’s my idear.”
+
+“Probably he’d had an experience in the house of detention, too,”
+declared the blind man dryly; then: “You never saw him before?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“That’s all. Let’s go, chief. There’s a detail I want to clear up at the
+theatre. I’ve got to prove that girl’s murder.” Again there was the
+ominous ring in the problemist’s voice.
+
+The chief glowered at the waiter. “You stay right here till I want you,”
+he warned. “If you try to beat it you go up the river.” He turned to
+Colton. “Wait a minute, until I call up headquarters. I’ll give ’em the
+description of that drunk, and have every man in the city on his trail.”
+
+“And spend a week following up clues,” snapped the blind man
+impatiently. “I’ll show you where he is in less than an hour!”
+
+He paid no further attention to the gaping chief of detectives, but made
+his way out of the place, the silent Sydney Thames at his elbow, the
+latter’s coat sleeve lightly touching that of Thornley Colton. And the
+chief followed meekly.
+
+The blind man climbed into the front seat with the driver, and Sydney
+realized that he wanted to avoid interrogation; to figure out the last
+steps alone. But in the tonneau the men could not resist voicing the
+questions that filled their minds. Who had killed Miss Reynolds, and
+what could have been the object of the murder? What connection could a
+drunken man have with the murder of Cartwright; with a pistol that had
+been fired without the aid of human hands?
+
+They were at the theatre. The box-office had just been opened for the
+day, and the manager took them into the darkened house. The big
+interior, dim and tomblike, sent a shudder through Sydney Thames. Last
+night there had been brilliant lights, happy men, laughing women--and
+the girl of the violin. To-day the great stage gaped before them, huge,
+untenanted; the seats were covered with their white dust cloths; voices
+sounded eerie in the barnlike emptiness. The velvet hangings at the rear
+of the box, which had looked so striking with their sleek blackness the
+night before, now appeared worn and dusty. The overturned chairs had
+been righted, the blood-stained carpet had been replaced.
+
+Thornley Colton’s thin stick located the chairs. His right hand groped
+along the wall, so that the velvet moved under it. He thrust his slim
+cane under his arm, and the wonderful fingers went over the velvet inch
+by inch, sometimes so strongly that the thick stuff moved under them,
+then the pressure was so light that not a quiver of the loose velvet
+betrayed their presence. Inch by inch the feeling fingers made their
+way, as the men watched breathlessly. Rogers could stand it no longer.
+
+“Was the murderer concealed behind those hangings?” he asked excitedly.
+
+“No,” Colton answered him, without moving. “The pistol flash came from
+this side of the velvet.”
+
+Silence came again. The slow-moving fingers stopped. The blind man
+looked up; then his doubly keen ears caught the sound of hurrying
+footsteps coming toward them down the aisle.
+
+“A telephone message for me?” he asked, as the attaché stopped.
+
+“Mr. Colton?”
+
+“Yes.” He turned to the others. “Come! I think this is the last detail.”
+
+They were at his heels as he entered the boxlike office. Tense,
+expectant, though they knew not for what, they listened to the one-sided
+conversation.
+
+“Yes. Good. Did you see him? No, that’s all right. Stay there until we
+come.” He spoke an aside to the ticket-seller: “Will you please take
+this address for me?” The man picked up his pencil and drew a small pad
+toward him. “Nine hundred and ninety-seven West Forty-fourth.” The blind
+man hung up the receiver.
+
+“What is it?” The question was chorused by the excited men.
+
+“The address of the man who murdered Cartwright and Miss Reynolds!”
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+Before the gasps of amazement, the ejaculations of incredulity could
+become coherent questions, Thornley Colton had turned and made his way
+from the office, light stick dangling idly from his fingers. Dazedly
+they followed him from the theatre and into the waiting automobile. He
+had located the murderer of Cartwright and the girl! They were dumb with
+the wonder of it. Swiftly, unerringly, the blind man had found the
+murderer whose very being they had not suspected a short time before. To
+the men who had followed every step of the problemist, who had seen
+things that he could not see, the finding seemed magic comparable only
+to the magic of the pistol that had apparently flown from the air to
+deal its death. There was a new expression on the face of the chief of
+detectives now. The scowl was gone; the sarcastic curve of lips had
+vanished. In their place had come wonder, tinged with awe toward the man
+who had builded a wonderful structure of truth from the pieces he and
+his hundred men had either discarded or had not seen.
+
+The car turned into Forty-fourth, passed the brownstone houses where
+every door bore its sign: “Table Board. Furnished Rooms.” A red-headed
+boy ran out into the street, and the chauffeur slowed up.
+
+“It’s t’ree houses down, Mr. Colton.” The Fee’s voice fairly trembled
+with excitement. “He’s on the top floor. Kin I go with yuh?”
+
+Colton nodded and stepped down from the machine. “We’ll walk the rest of
+the way,” he told them. He started, the bright-eyed boy at his elbow.
+
+They mounted the steps of a brownstone house, and Colton rang the bell.
+A frowsy-haired lady in a grease-spotted kimono opened the door. The
+smell of cooking onions assailed their nostrils; somewhere within a
+piano banged out a ragtime tune; a raucous voice screeched: “I call her
+Little Hy’cinth, but her name’s M‘Swigg;” from the depths of the house a
+squeaky clarinet piped off-key opera.
+
+“Profesh’n?” snapped the lady of the kimono suspiciously before any one
+had a chance to speak.
+
+“We want to see Signor Delvetoi,” said the blind man quietly.
+
+Sydney Thames never remembered the short colloquy that followed; never
+recollected just how they entered the house. Signor Delvetoi! That name
+drove everything else from his mind. Once more he saw the black-clothed,
+black-bearded man at the theatre; again he saw the whirling knives
+flashing from the darkness into the beam of the calcium to bury their
+points beside the woman of the golden frame; once more came to his mind
+the wonderful skill that had directed those keen-pointed knives toward
+their target of living flesh--to brush a cheek and not even scratch it.
+
+Then he found himself following the others up the narrow stairs. In the
+second floor hall-way a fat, greasy-faced woman murmured husky
+endearments to a monkey in her arms, while a goose waddled at her side.
+A dozen discordant tunes came from the closed rooms. This was the place
+they had come to arrest a murderer!
+
+On the third floor Thornley Colton stopped and knocked on a door panel.
+Thames could feel the tenseness of the men’s bodies as they crowded up
+close to the door as it slowly opened. Standing before them, framed in
+the light that came into the hallway from the room, stood a big man in a
+stained red bath-robe that trailed the floor behind the worn
+carpet-slippers. His head was bald, and across the skull ran a livid
+scar; his face was a deep-lined, jaundiced yellow.
+
+“We want you for the murder of Cartwright and the girl at the theatre.”
+That was all Colton said, and his voice was low.
+
+For an instant the face of the man went a fish-belly white; then
+murderous red rage leaped to the cheeks, and darted from the slit eyes.
+
+“You devils!” he shrieked.
+
+The red robe was flung back; but with a movement as quick as light
+itself Colton’s hand darted out, closed with a grip of steel on a wrist,
+and the red robe whirled as the man spun to his knees.
+
+“Better handcuff him,” advised the blind man quietly, as he pushed aside
+the fallen knife with the thin cane that had warned him of the murderous
+movement. The handcuffs clicked on the knife-thrower’s wrists as the
+chief dragged him to a chair.
+
+“So you’re the one, eh?” The detective chief tried to make his tone
+casual, but he could not keep the wonder from his eyes, or voice.
+
+“Oh, you got me right,” sneered the knife-thrower.
+
+“How did you do it?” put in Rogers dazedly. The picture he had seen the
+night before was still in his mind.
+
+A cunning light leaped to the half-closed eyes of the red-robed man.
+“D’you want to hear the whole thing?” he asked. “You might as well,” he
+boasted. “I’ll never swing for it.”
+
+“Go ahead,” growled the chief, drawing his chair up closer and placing
+his revolver on his knees. The knife-thrower grinned sneeringly.
+
+“Well,” he began, and his evil eyes seemed to gloat at them. “I’m the
+only man in the world that could have pulled the trick. It took years of
+practice to get it down pat, but there’s Indian blood in me, mixed with
+the Irish. They don’t know much about me in this country, and I didn’t
+want them to, till I got Jim Cartwright. But in Europe I’m the best in
+the business, and I’m the only one that could ever plant five knives in
+a spot the size of a half dollar at thirty feet, and do it on the
+level.”
+
+There was boasting in the tone, but to Sydney Thames, who had seen his
+amazing work of the night before, it was not idle boasting.
+
+“The story of why I killed Cartwright is the same old game: I had a
+woman and he took her. She wasn’t much good, only a doll-faced fool, and
+there was a squalling kid that got on my nerves; but she was mine, body
+and soul.” The listening men gritted their teeth at the tone, and he
+sneered at them for it. “Cartwright took her, and I went after them
+both. I had a little money, I was headin’ the olio in a burlesque.
+Before I started I went in a place along the river front in Chicago,
+where I was. I musta showed my roll, because--now I don’t expect you to
+believe what’s comin’, and I don’t give a damn whether you do or not!”
+There was sullen defiance in the voice. “But I woke up in a hospital I
+never saw before, and the nurse talked German! It was in Berlin, and it
+was ten years after! Oh, it wasn’t anything new, the doctors told me.
+One of the Windy City thugs had lead-piped me for my roll; you can see
+the scar I got. Something cracked in my head then, and when I woke I’d
+just been in a German train smash-up. The doctors said the bump I got
+there straightened me out.
+
+“I remembered everything after a while. I was doin’ a knife-throwin’
+act. Some wop had picked me up when I didn’t know my own name, and
+brought me to Europe with him. Somehow the kink had kept me off the
+booze, and I was even better than him, and he was the best in the world,
+bar none. He died a few months after I got out, and I copped his layout.
+We’d been rehearsin’ a stunt that was going to make ’em all sit up. The
+Flyin’ Death, we called it, and we threw pistols instead of knives. We
+had a blank board at one end of the stage, and a target at the other.
+We’d stand in the centre, let it fly at the blank board, duck, and the
+butt striking would jar down the trigger, and the bullet’d go over our
+heads and hit the bull’s-eye three times out of five. It was big stuff!
+But I wasn’t satisfied, because I wanted to hit the bull’s-eye every
+time. I was goin’ to play that act fer one man; the one that stole my
+wife and ten years out of my life. So I put in two more years on the
+Continent, still practisin’. If you looked at the nicks in the
+pistol-butts you can see how many times they’d been used.
+
+“When I got so I couldn’t go wrong I came to the States. I learned I was
+dead--one of the thugs that got my coin and papers, I guess. But that
+suited me right down to the ground. I found Cartwright was the big
+cheese in the business, but I couldn’t find the wife, or the kid. I
+wanted to get them, too; ten years don’t make no difference to me.”
+Again came the sneer to the evil, yellow face, as his eyes caught their
+looks of horror and disgust. “I spent a year touring here before I could
+book Cartwright’s house. I wanted to get him right before everybody’s
+eyes. That’s why I had that dark act. He was up to the rehearsal in the
+mornin’ with a kid that looked something like the woman he stole, but it
+wasn’t my kid, because he made it plain he was only her manager. You can
+bet he’d a showed it if he had claims. I heard him make a date for the
+box after her act, and that looked good to me, because I’d get him right
+beside her.
+
+“Under the knives for the spotlight act was the pistol with a real
+cartridge, of course. I only used minichure ones with a pinch of powder
+for the act. The guns was balanced special in Germany, and the front
+sights was off the barrels so they could slide out of my hand. I could
+see the white of the girl’s waist and his shirt between every
+knife-throw, because I waited a few seconds each time to get ’em right.
+Then, when I knew I couldn’t make a mistake, I let the gun fly. I was
+goin’ to have the butt hit the wall in back of him, and bullet catch him
+between the shoulders. It was easy, because I was above him on the
+stage, and I thought there couldn’t be any suspicion because I was in
+front of him, and he’d be shot in the back. But that darn’ fool kid,” he
+spat out snarlingly, “had to have his hands on the hanging just when the
+gun hit, and throw it off enough to kill the girl.”
+
+Sydney Thames gasped audibly.
+
+“It wasn’t my fault she was in the way, but a little thing like that
+wasn’t going to keep me from gettin’ the man I wanted. I got another of
+the guns out of my prop trunk and went after him. I couldn’t get him
+right until I heard the other feller arguin’ with him in front of the
+rathskeller. I ducked around to the side-door. I’d been in there before,
+but I’d had my black stage-whiskers and wig on, and the waiter didn’t
+know me. I played drunk, and gave the waiter a five-spot for a drink,
+and told him not to turn on the booth-light.
+
+“Cartwright faced my booth, but I was in the dark. They started to
+whisper. The waiter was out of sight, and the bartender was sleepin’. I
+had the gun ready for five minutes. This man bent down--and I let her
+fly. There wasn’t going to be any mistake this time, because I was going
+to put another half turn on the gun and make it jam its muzzle against
+his heart. No chance of missin’ that way! And he saw the gun comin’ when
+it was too late to dodge! And he knew me then! And the last thing he
+ever saw was me grinnin’ at him! It was a cinch to slope out in the
+excitement after.”
+
+There was silence in the room when he had finished. From beyond the
+closed door came the discordant medley of the tinny piano, the
+screeching clarinet, the hoarse-voiced singers. Before them a manacled
+man, with sneers in his voice, and boasts, and snarls, had just told
+them of the man whose death he had accomplished with such fiendish
+cunning; of the innocent girl whose life he had destroyed.
+
+“Do you mean to say that you could fling those pistols as accurately as
+all that?” demanded the chief, who was a policeman, first, last, and all
+the time. The case, to him, had ceased to be one of human emotions, of
+sorrow and tragedy; it was a matter of proof, of conviction. Such is the
+policeman’s philosophy of life--and death.
+
+“Do you want me to prove it?” taunted the murderer. “There’s the other
+pistol for the act on the bureau. It ain’t loaded. Get it and I’ll show
+you.”
+
+“Better take his word,” suggested Colton warningly.
+
+“I’ll see that he plays no tricks,” boasted the chief. It was his case
+now. He got the pistol from the bureau. “I’ll take one cuff off, and
+I’ll have this gun on you every second!” he snapped.
+
+The knife-thrower leered at him with his bloodless lips, and the slit
+eyes shone with an exultant gleam. He took a stubby pencil from his
+bath-robe pocket and drew a small circle on the blank wall. He walked to
+the other end of the room, the chief watching him like a hawk. The
+pistol dangled from the man’s hand as he turned. A snap of the arm, and
+it became a flying whirl of blue. The muzzle struck the exact centre of
+the small circle, the hammer snapped down, and for an instant the gun
+seemed suspended against the wall before it jangled to the floor.
+
+“God! That’s what I saw last night!” choked Rogers.
+
+The knife-thrower picked up the pistol. “It’s just as easy to make the
+butt strike first, with the muzzle pointed at me, as it should have
+pointed at Cartwright’s back last night.”
+
+The commissioner watched every move as he walked to the end of the room.
+
+Suddenly Colton’s voice rang out:
+
+“_Don’t let him throw that pistol!_”
+
+The chief jumped from his chair as the red arm swung.
+
+A line of fire leaped from the blank wall toward the scarlet-robed
+figure across the room. The explosion echoed and re-echoed in the room.
+The pistol clattered on the bare boards under the small circle it had
+struck so unerringly. On the butt were flakes of the white plaster where
+it had been driven into the wall. The red robe seemed slowly to crumple
+as the knife-thrower sank to the floor; and as they ran to where he lay,
+the lips twisted in an evil leer of triumph, the slit eyes gleamed their
+gloating.
+
+“I told you I’d never swing for it!” he sneered up at them. “Palming
+that cartridge was easy. I used to be a magician--when my name
+was--Kelly!”
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+“Yes, Sydney, he paid the price the State puts on murder, and I guess it
+is just as well.” A fleeting smile crossed Colton’s thin lips for an
+instant. “But the chief is naturally angry that such a spectacular
+murderer should escape his clutches so easily. My keen ears caught the
+click of the breech as he put in the cartridge. But I was too late; he
+had waited until the last second.”
+
+The two men were in the library of the old-fashioned house, where the
+blind man had come to spend his regular afternoon four hours in darkness
+that meant insurance against the splitting headaches too-long-continued
+light on his sensitive, sightless eyes always caused. The knife-thrower
+had lived but a few minutes, for his skill had not failed him, and the
+bullet had pierced one of his lungs. Rogers had gone to arrange for the
+funerals of Cartwright and the daughter he had loved. They were to be
+side by side in death, and the story would go to their graves. On that
+the men had agreed in the big bare room where the last act of the
+tragedy had been played.
+
+“How did you ever connect the knife-thrower with the murders?” asked
+Sydney finally.
+
+“Your story of the shooting in the box, as you told it to me while we
+were waiting for the panic to cease in the theatre, gave me the first
+clue,” explained the blind man thoughtfully. “The fact that you saw the
+face of Nelson so plainly told me that the flash must have crossed his
+body, and, in groping his way in the darkness, his right hand must have
+been on the hangings. Shrimp’s enthusiastic description of the
+knife-thrower’s act told me how wonderful it was, and--he was the
+possibility.
+
+“Then the murder of Cartwright was the proof needed. There could be no
+explanation but that of a thrown pistol for the thing Rogers saw. And
+the two pistols being identical was the last link. But no one would
+believe the theory without irrefutable proof. That I got, first by the
+nicked-up butts of the guns, showing how long they had been used in
+practice. Then Rogers’s story of Cartwright told me the guilty person.
+But then came the necessity of explaining where he had been all the
+years. I sent Shrimp to the stage-entrance to get the knife-thrower’s
+address and locate him. He did, and, being a boy, he aroused not the
+slightest suspicion when he made an inquiry at the house. I knew also
+that at least one of the two employees of the rathskeller must have
+known another man had been on hand when the murder was committed. I had
+to go there to see why they had withheld the information from the
+police. The explanation was logical enough, but the police would never
+have seen it. Then I had to go to the theatre and find the place where
+the butt of the gun had struck on the wall. The finding was more of a
+job than I thought. In his excitement the boy must have moved the
+hangings a foot, for the scar in the velvet was a foot lower than I
+should have found it. And you must remember that it was a scar that no
+eye could have seen, one that could only be found with a microscope, or
+supersensitive finger-tips like mine. Then came the message from Shrimp,
+whom I had told to call me up either at the rathskeller or the theatre.”
+
+Silence came in the darkened room. When Thornley Colton spoke again his
+voice was low, solemn, its tone one of reverent wonder. “The death of
+that girl is one of the higher mysteries, Sydney. Was she murdered
+because of a terrible mistake, or did a merciful Providence send a
+thoughtless, foolish boy to grope in the darkness at just the right
+instant to deflect that pistol, and send the bullet into her back? She
+died in the happiest moment of her life; joy was in her heart and on her
+lips. If the pistol had not been turned by the moving velvet, Cartwright
+would have died. Her whole story would have had to come out then; she
+would have heard it bandied by unclean lips on the street-corners; to
+know that her father, the father who did not even recognize her, was a
+murderer. A merciful Providence? I’ll always wonder, Sydney.”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE FIFTH PROBLEM
+
+                      THE THOUSAND FACETS OF FIRE
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+Outside was the hurry and bustle of the busy avenue; inside was the
+quietness and calm that characterised the house of Osmuhn & Son,
+jewellers and dealers in articles of vertu. The Heppelwhite chairs were
+carefully placed before each velvet square on the crystal cases that
+extended the length of the shop on both sides. In rows of expert array
+on the shelves and in the cabinets on the velvet-carpeted floor were
+rich European and Oriental porcelains: Faïence and cloisonné; rare
+pieces of Limoges, Satsuma, Arita, and Ninsei; lacquer ware of Kajikawa,
+Ritsuo, and Korin. The salesmen, soft-footed, soft-voiced, appeared
+merely indolent to the casual observer, but to one who could look
+beneath the surface of things, they gave the impression of being alertly
+on guard against a hidden something.
+
+A limousine stopped before the door. The woman who alighted was
+beautiful; the girl who followed her was wonderful--the type that makes
+men putty and women envious. The uniformed attendant opened the door,
+they stepped inside. If those two women had crossed the threshold of any
+other shop on the avenue, there would have been a noticeable flurry of
+excitement instantly. But not a clerk in the shop showed more than
+courteous readiness. Osmuhn’s customers were all of the same type: the
+richest, the most cultured, the most exclusive persons in New York. A
+diamond ceased to be merely a diamond when it had been sold by Osmuhn.
+It became a gem with the reputation of the seller behind it; a flawless,
+matchless carbon. So it was with anything else one bought from Osmuhn &
+Son.
+
+But if the clerks showed no particular interest, the same could not be
+said of the light-haired, blue-eyed young man who had been talking with
+two others at the end of a long glass case. A smile of welcome came to
+his lips as he hurried forward, hand outstretched.
+
+“Mrs. Marle!” he exclaimed. “And Helen!”
+
+His two hands met theirs in more than friendly clasp; the left to the
+woman, the right to the girl. Only one man in the shop could not see the
+light in the man’s eyes as he looked at the girl; but that one had
+recognised love in the man’s voice.
+
+“You knew I’d be here, didn’t you, Mr. Osmuhn?” laughed the woman
+rippingly.
+
+“The ruby.” It was not a question, just a smiling statement.
+
+“Could mother ever resist a wonderful jewel?” put in the girl.
+
+“It hasn’t been taken out of the private safe since you
+saw it before, three months ago,” said the younger Osmuhn.
+“Five-hundred-thousand-dollar rubies aren’t the playthings of the
+average gem-buyer.”
+
+“Respect my weakness, please,” pouted the woman in mock pleading; then
+her eyes saw for the first time one of the men young Osmuhn had just
+left, and they lighted with pleasure.
+
+“I must speak to Mr. Colton,” she said, and she hurried to where he was
+standing. The girl and the man followed slowly, talking in earnest
+undertones.
+
+Thornley Colton’s pale face lighted with pleasure as he took her hand,
+and his thin, expressive lips smiled their glad welcome. Only the eyes
+behind the great, round lenses of the smoked, tortoise-rimmed library
+glasses did not change. His slim stick, apparently of ebony, hung
+lightly from the tapering fingers of his left hand, as did the hat which
+a moment before had covered the snow-white hair that curled from the
+pink scalp.
+
+“Now tell me where you’ve been keeping yourself!” the woman demanded
+severely. “No evasion! We haven’t seen you since that wonderful thing
+you did for the Jimmy Raeltons. It _was_ wonderful!” she added
+earnestly.
+
+“Thank you,” Colton said simply. There was no mock modesty; only quiet
+sincerity in his rich deep voice.
+
+“But you didn’t answer my questions,” she smiled. She turned to the
+apple-cheeked, black-haired man who had stood silent. “Can you answer
+them for him, Mr. Thames?”
+
+The black-haired man started nervously as she spoke, for he had been
+paying attention only to the beautiful girl with Osmuhn. Mrs. Marle
+repeated the question before he had time to stammer the apology she saw
+trembling on his lips.
+
+“I am merely Mr. Colton’s secretary.” He said it a trifle stiffly, and
+she understood that his hypersensitive nature resented her intuitive
+understanding.
+
+“I don’t like gaiety,” put in Colton quickly. “A quiet chat is my
+greatest pleasure. Crowds confuse me, and make my eyes nervous.” He laid
+his hand fondly on the other man’s shoulder, and to her eyes came
+womanly sympathy. She knew what Thornley Colton meant. He was blind, and
+the red-cheeked man beside him furnished the only eyes he knew.
+
+“But you’ll come to my reception to-morrow night?” she asked earnestly.
+“Only for a few minutes, but _do_ come.”
+
+“I had intended to,” he smiled.
+
+“That’s settled,” she nodded. “Now,” she added, with mock pleading in
+her voice, “who is to be the happy recipient of your favour this time?”
+One gloved hand made a small gesture toward the trays of jewels under
+the glass. The blind man, whose years of practice had made him reader of
+every inflection, understood instantly, but young Osmuhn came up in time
+to answer.
+
+“Mr. Colton has kindly consented to investigate a small matter for us,”
+he said nervously.
+
+“The necklace robbery you were telling me about?” asked the girl, eyes
+shining.
+
+“Here comes father.” Young Osmuhn’s face was red, his tone guilty.
+
+Mrs. Marle repressed a smile with difficulty. She had never heard a
+whisper of a necklace robbery in the house of Osmuhn & Son. She
+understood how carefully the secret must have been guarded, and she
+understood also the lack of caution that was part of youth and love. But
+she was a wonderfully bright woman, and apparently she had not even
+heard her daughter’s remark. All her attention was on the stout little
+man with the shiny bald head and the bright eyes that gleamed from under
+bushy brows.
+
+“A great pleasure, Mrs. Marle,” said the elder Osmuhn, as he bowed
+gravely. “You have come to see the Thousand Facets of Fire.”
+
+“To buy it, I think,” she smiled, extending her hand.
+
+“Ah,” murmured the gem-dealer, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. “I will
+show it to you at once. It is in the vault.” Then a troubled light came
+to his eyes, as they rested on Thornley Colton and Sydney Thames. Some
+subtle fifth sense seemed to tell the blind man the cause instantly.
+
+“Sydney and I will wait in your office, if you don’t mind,” he put in
+quickly.
+
+Osmuhn’s voice showed his relief. Experience had taught him that there
+was much more appreciation when the customer was alone. “My son will
+tell you everything,” he said. He looked around to where the other
+member of the firm had been standing a moment before; then shrugged his
+shoulders in parental helplessness. Osmuhn, junior, was leading Miss
+Helen Marle toward the rear of the shop.
+
+Mrs. Marle laughed. “You would have done the same thing at his age,” she
+accused.
+
+The jeweller shook his head. “I suppose so.” Then, to the blind man: “A
+minute only, Mr. Colton,” he apologised.
+
+“Make it ten,” smiled Colton. “Your son told me practically everything,
+and I’d like to have ten minutes or so to think over the facts.”
+
+Osmuhn turned toward the small, glass-enclosed office at the rear of the
+shop, from which he could see everything that went on. The blind man
+followed unhesitatingly, superkeen ears noting each footfall of the man
+who preceded him.
+
+“Only a minute,” repeated the seller of jewels again, when the two men
+had been made comfortable in the two big chairs by the desk. “Come, Mrs.
+Marle.” He seemed to take an unnecessary step or two as he said it, and
+only the blind man heard the click of some secret electric connection
+releasing the steel door that Osmuhn opened a minute later by a curious
+pressure of his fingers on the knob, and a peculiar-looking key.
+
+Mrs. Cornelius Marle, probably the richest woman in New York, lover of
+jewels because they were jewels, and not merely as ornaments, owner of
+what was reputed to be the finest collection of rare gems, entered the
+innermost citadel of the house of Osmuhn. The steel door shut softly
+behind her, and she knew that she was as far removed from the world
+outside as though she were a thousand feet underground. She knew that
+the tapestry-covered walls of the twelve-foot room were of eighteen-inch
+concrete, interlaced with steel rails; that the Winton-carpeted floor
+and the panelled ceiling were the same. The steel door behind her was
+the only opening in the walls of man-made stone.
+
+She needed no direction to take a seat at the small Sheraton table
+against the wall at the far side of the vault. She had been there
+before; each time when Osmuhn had picked up some rare and costly jewel.
+The jeweller, with a soft-voiced apology, leaned over her shoulder to
+press the pearl-centred black button in the brass wall-plate a foot from
+the woman’s elbow. The table light shed its brilliance on the white
+velvet table-pad.
+
+“The Thousand Facets of Fire is the most wonderful ruby I have ever seen
+or handled,” declared Osmuhn enthusiastically, as he stepped behind her
+to twirl the two combination knobs on the door of the steel safe that
+was imbedded in the concrete wall. “Mr. Norvel heard of it when he was
+in Europe last year. He negotiated for months, and sent it to me just
+ten days before his horrible accident in France.”
+
+“The accident left him a hopeless cripple, did it not?” she asked
+politely, turning in her chair so that she could see the deft fingers at
+work with the combination.
+
+“Yes.” Osmuhn’s voice was sad. “He must walk with canes always.” Then a
+note of pride came to his voice. “But he refuses to give up. He is here
+every day, and I need him. In the twenty-eight years he has been with me
+he has learned everything I know about stones, and to-day he is probably
+the greatest living expert on diamonds.”
+
+The round safe-door swung open, and, with a wholly unconscious flourish,
+he placed the big jewel-case before her and snapped back the lid.
+
+A thousand blood-red flashes of living fire seemed to leap upward,
+battling with their myriad sword points against the soft glow of the
+electric--then the whole room seemed lighted only by the wonderful ruby
+in its velvet case.
+
+As great music hypnotises, intoxicates to sense-numbing silence, so the
+refraction of the ruby’s million rays held the woman spellbound. She
+could not speak, nor move; her eyes were held by the lights that danced
+and flashed from the thousand facets--now invitingly, now mockingly, but
+always sure of their victory.
+
+Osmuhn’s eyes, under their bushy brows, gleamed brighter--they
+understood. At his first sight of the jewel he, too, had known why men
+had risked their lives and why women had bartered their souls and bodies
+for the Thousand Facets of Fire.
+
+“Is it not well named?” he asked.
+
+His words seemed to break the spell that bound her. She nodded as one in
+a dream, and put forth her fingers almost timidly to touch the flashing
+stone.
+
+“Take it in your hand, feel the weight of it.” He turned away, walked
+the length of the room. When he came back she was holding the ruby on
+her palm. The velvet box had been thrust aside, and in her eyes was
+almost childish wonder that a thing so full of fire could be so cold.
+
+With a quiet nod of satisfaction Osmuhn turned away again--it was no
+time for words. Mrs. Marle would want to speak in a moment; until
+then----. He went behind her, and bent down to the safe, his hands idly
+rearranging the small boxes that held the most valuable jewels in his
+possession; jewels that were never allowed to go from the
+specially-constructed safe in the specially-constructed room, unless his
+hands removed them.
+
+The woman still gazed at the jewel. A wavering streamer of mist seemed
+to hover over it for an instant--or was it a picture the jewel had
+conjured in her brain? As she watched, immovable, it spread over her
+hand, then over the whole table--an impenetrable veil of filmy nothing.
+She lifted her unoccupied hand to brush her eyes.
+
+A gasping noise came from her throat. The man behind her seemed to sense
+something wrong in the very sound. He wheeled, the hand that had been on
+the safe-door clanged it shut.
+
+“It’s gone!” she choked. “_Gone!_”
+
+The mist had vanished as it had come. The hand that never moved; the
+hand that had held the ruby was empty!
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+As the steel door closed behind Osmuhn and Mrs. Marle, Thornley Colton
+leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully puffed a cigarette. But Sydney
+Thames, the secretary the blind man had picked up twenty-five years
+before as a bundle of baby-clothes on the bank of the English river that
+had given him his name, could not remain silent. The story young Osmuhn
+had been telling them when the Marles had interrupted was not one
+calculated to keep the ever-doubting Sydney still.
+
+“What do you think of that necklace disappearance Osmuhn asked you to
+investigate?” he demanded.
+
+“One of the most interesting problems I’ve been called to solve in a
+long time,” answered Colton. A smile of joy curved the thin lips, for a
+problem, to the blind man who solved crime-puzzles as his recreation,
+was the greatest pleasure he knew.
+
+“But the thing is utterly impossible!” protested Sydney. “Such a thing
+couldn’t have happened in broad daylight and in New York.”
+
+“As I’ve told you once or twice before, Sydney, the fact remains that it
+did happen. And there must be some explanation.”
+
+Sydney shook his head. “The statement that a man in full possession of
+his senses could stare blankly at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar diamond
+necklace while it disappeared into a thin mist before his very eyes is a
+trifle too strong for me,” he averred stoutly.
+
+“Do you think young Osmuhn is lying?” smiled Colton.
+
+“He seems to be absolutely straight,” hesitated Sydney. “But his
+story----” The rest was obvious.
+
+The smile on the blind man’s face broadened. “But consider his frankness
+in telling of it, Sydney. If he’d been lying I imagine he’d have
+concocted a better story than that. Consider how every detail of the
+disappearance is firmly impressed in his mind. The robbery, for that’s
+what it was, occurred after closing hours, when all the clerks and other
+employees had gone. Only the younger Osmuhn and the diamond-expert for
+the firm were on the premises. Norvel, the expert, seeing young Osmuhn
+behind the long case in the shop, wanted to show him the completed
+diamond necklace that was to be delivered at the Nevin home next day. He
+laid it before Osmuhn, and together they examined it for possible flaws.
+Norvel placed his cane on the case while he took a cigarette from his
+pocket. Finding he had no matches, he limped with the aid of his other
+cane to his overcoat, which he had thrown over the back of a chair five
+feet or so away. A gasp from Osmuhn caused him to turn, with the
+overcoat still on his arm. He saw the other man staring wildly at the
+place where, a few minutes before, the diamond necklace had been. Osmuhn
+swears that, while Norvel was walking toward his overcoat, a thick mist,
+which he describes as not unlike steam, appeared over the necklace,
+completely hiding it from his eyes. He confesses that the thing was so
+remarkable that for an instant he could do nothing but stare. Then the
+mist began to dissolve, and he saw that the necklace had vanished
+utterly. His gasp caused Norvel to turn. Norvel hadn’t seen the mist,
+for it had entirely disappeared when he had hobbled back to the case.
+Together they searched for the missing diamonds without finding a trace.
+Also, without leaving one another’s sight for an instant, they
+telephoned to the elder Osmuhn, and sat watching one another for their
+mutual protection, until he and a private detective came. They submitted
+to a thorough search, and took part in the all-night hunt for the jewels
+that covered every part of the store and building. Why, the very
+impossibility of the story stamps it with truth!”
+
+“But Norvel was there,” reminded Sydney.
+
+“He had no possible chance of touching the necklace. He had turned away,
+and his back was toward Osmuhn.”
+
+“But the mist?” persisted Sydney. “That is the impossible part of the
+whole thing. How, in Heaven’s name, could there be a mist such as he
+describes in a New York jewellery shop? It’s absurd!”
+
+“Not absurd, Sydney,” corrected the problemist mildly. “Merely the
+solution; the solution of the whole thing.”
+
+The smile went from his face, he leaned forward with a sudden tenseness
+of face and body; the delicate nostrils quivered like those of a hound
+scenting a new trail.
+
+“Something’s wrong inside, Sydney!” His sightless eyes were fixed on the
+closed, soundproof door, his head was bent forward expectantly. Then he
+straightened back in his chair, and was quietly puffing his cigarette
+when the door opened, and the elder Osmuhn, white-faced, trembling,
+staggered out of the vault-room.
+
+“It’s gone!” He choked the words just as the woman had choked them a few
+minutes before. “The Thousand Facets of Fire has vanished!”
+
+The blind man had risen at the first word, and before the gem-dealer had
+finished speaking he had brushed past him, the thin, hollow stick that
+gave its messages to the hypersensitive finger-tips locating the steps
+unerringly.
+
+The sobbing, hysterical woman at the small table did not even look up as
+he laid his hand gently on her shoulder, but he felt her body shudder
+under the touch, as though her overwrought mind had already pictured
+visions of the police.
+
+“Tell me how it happened, Mrs. Marle.” The words were soft-spoken,
+kindly.
+
+“There is nothing to tell,” she sobbed. “The ruby just--went.”
+
+“Dissolved into mist?”
+
+She looked up, sudden, wild hope showing behind the tears in her eyes.
+“Would you believe that?” she asked breathlessly. “It seems
+so--impossible--I was afraid----.”
+
+“I know that is how it disappeared,” Thornley Colton said quietly. “Mr.
+Osmuhn will tell you that a diamond necklace vanished in the same way
+nearly ten days ago.”
+
+The white-faced jeweller brushed his sweat-beaded forehead with a
+shaking hand. “Yes,” he groaned, “that, and this ruby, will bring the
+loss to nearly three-quarters of a million. But it couldn’t have
+happened!” he declared, almost fiercely. “Mrs. Marle was holding it in
+her hand! I wasn’t two feet away. The walls are solid concrete! There
+isn’t a crack in them!” Each staccato sentence was jerked out almost
+passionately. Osmuhn seemed to be trying to convince himself, as well as
+his hearers, that the thing he knew had happened was utterly impossible.
+
+Colton paid no attention. He spoke to the woman, still quietly, gently,
+smoothing his questions so that they became merely statements for which
+he wanted confirmation.
+
+“You knew the ruby was gone, even before your eyes saw the empty hand?”
+
+Osmuhn and Sydney Thames came closer to the little table.
+
+“Yes.” She spoke more calmly. “I raised my other hand to brush my
+eyes--I thought it was an optical illusion of some kind--then I felt the
+stone--go.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she faltered, looking from one to the other in
+bewilderment. “I could see nothing but the thick mist that seemed to
+cover the whole table. Then--I suddenly felt my outstretched hand
+relieved of the weight. It--seemed to just fly away!”
+
+“A ruby weighing nearly two hundred carats would make a very good
+flyer,” observed the blind man smilingly. Then: “But the mist, wasn’t it
+a trick of the lights?”
+
+She shook her head. “Mist is the only word that describes it. When my
+eyes first noticed it, it was a ribbon that widened almost instantly to
+hide the whole table, though the light shone above it perfectly. I know
+that last unconsciously, for I think the jewel had hypnotised me--I
+couldn’t take my eyes away, even when the mist hid it from sight.”
+
+“Where is the switch for the table-light? Snap it off, Mr. Osmuhn.”
+
+The jeweller leaned across the table to obey. Colton examined every inch
+of the table-light with his fingers.
+
+“Absolutely nothing there,” he murmured. Then his fingers felt the two
+buttons in the brass plate that he had made the jeweller locate for him.
+He snapped the light on again, then off, and back.
+
+“It wasn’t a trick of the light,” he declared emphatically. “Nor of your
+eyes, Mrs. Marle.” He stood erect. “Tell your son to come here, Mr.
+Osmuhn,” he said quietly.
+
+The white-faced jeweller almost tottered from the small room. The
+instant that Osmuhn’s footsteps told the blind man that he had gone
+through the door, Thornley Colton spoke.
+
+“Mrs. Marle.” His voice was crisp, imperative. “At the instant you first
+saw the mist, _was_ it as wide as a ribbon?”
+
+She answered steadily enough, despite the sudden change in the blind
+man’s tone: “Yes, it seemed to stretch over the table lengthways, waving
+slightly, as a ribbon would do in a breath of air, but almost instantly
+it widened and widened, until it covered the whole table.” There was
+only a slight tremor in her voice, but in her eyes was awe, as she spoke
+of the inexplicable thing her eyes had seen.
+
+“Mr. Osmuhn had his back toward you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+She smiled wanly up at him, forgetting, as people usually did when
+Colton was speaking, that he could see nothing. “I don’t know it because
+I saw him,” she replied, “but I _do_ know it because he always turns
+toward the small safe back of this chair, and idly arranges the
+jewel-cases on the shelves when a customer is examining one of the rare
+gems he keeps in this room. He knows the value of silence when a lover
+of jewels is looking at a wonderful stone like the Thousand Facets of
+Fire.”
+
+Colton smiled understanding; then wheeled to face the door as Osmuhn
+entered, followed by his son. Following them, unnoticed, came Helen
+Marle. She took her place behind her mother without a word.
+
+“Father says the ruby has vanished!” cried the younger Osmuhn, and his
+voice, and eyes, and very manner seemed a wild plea for denial.
+
+Colton merely nodded. “Utterly,” he confirmed. “Just as the necklace
+disappeared--into a mist. Now tell me, Mr. Osmuhn,” he continued
+quietly, “what was the appearance of the mist when you first saw it over
+the necklace on the glass case outside?”
+
+“Why, it was just a mist,” stammered the son. “Just a cloud that spread
+instantly.”
+
+“You never lifted your eyes from the stones?”
+
+“I don’t think so--though I may have looked up for an instant as Mr.
+Norvel started toward his coat.”
+
+“Cloud--ribbon,” murmured the blind man, apparently to himself, tapping
+his trouser-leg with his slim stick.
+
+“That wonderful ruby--gone!” muttered the elder Osmuhn, sinking, almost
+inertly, into a chair at the other side of the small table.
+
+“My God!” They all turned, as the cry burst from the man who had entered
+the vault-room unnoticed. The new comer was a cripple who hobbled along
+with the aid of two heavy black canes. But it was the lean, intelligent
+face, with the coal-black eyes and the thin nose, that held Sydney’s
+gaze. Mentality was stamped in every deep-graven line, but now there
+seemed a pitiful helplessness in the tremulous lips of the man as he
+advanced toward them.
+
+“Mr. Norvel?” Colton stepped to meet the man with outstretched hand.
+Then he answered the surprised looks some inner consciousness told him
+was on the faces of the other persons in the room: “Mr. Osmuhn told me
+of you when we were talking outside, and the tap of your canes as you
+entered was all the identification I needed.”
+
+“Yes, I am Mr. Norvel.” The words came almost gaspingly, and Colton felt
+the man’s hand tremble in his. “I was in my office when I saw Mr. Osmuhn
+speak to Henry. I knew there was something wrong with the Thousand
+Facets of Fire, and----.”
+
+He gasped chokingly, and staggered. Osmuhn jumped from his chair with a
+cry of concern, the sight of the man before him momentarily driving from
+his mind even the loss of the great ruby. “Sit down, Philip,” he
+commanded, leading the crippled man to a chair.
+
+“These things--are taking the life out of me,” gasped the diamond expert
+of the firm. “The necklace--then this!”
+
+“Mr. Norvel is on the verge of collapse,” whispered young Osmuhn. “He
+has had valvular heart trouble for years. The loss of the diamond
+necklace he had worked on upset him terribly--and he worked for months
+to get the Thousand Facets of Fire.”
+
+Colton nodded sympathetically. “He should take a long rest,” murmured
+the blind man.
+
+Norvel heard him. “I’ll get it soon,” he said helplessly, “in the
+grave.”
+
+“You have years before you yet,” smiled Colton encouragingly.
+“Disappearances like these are calculated to frazzle the best of
+nerves.” Then, in the same gentle tone he had used in questioning Mrs.
+Marle, he went on: “Mr. Osmuhn told me of the terrible auto accident you
+had in France last summer, Mr. Norvel. Your driver and the occupant of
+the other car were killed, weren’t they?”
+
+“Yes,” the cripple shuddered. “And it made an old man of me, that and my
+rotten heart.”
+
+Again Thornley Colton nodded sympathetically. “You hovered between life
+and death for several months, I understand?”
+
+“Practically dead,” Norvel answered.
+
+“Um!” The blind man rolled the thin stick between his slender fingers,
+and puzzled lines appeared on his forehead.
+
+“What is the object of those questions?” demanded the elder Osmuhn, and
+he could not keep the impatience from his voice.
+
+“A long chance, nothing more,” Colton assured him quietly. “A chance
+that Mr. Norvel, in his delirium, might have told secrets that gave the
+criminal information necessary to commit these robberies.”
+
+The diamond expert half rose from his chair, his hands clutching his
+heavy canes. “That may be true--I may be responsible!”
+
+“Ridiculous!” snapped Osmuhn, and he made no attempt to keep the
+impatience from his tone now.
+
+“We can’t afford to overlook even the remotest possibility in a case
+like this,” said Thornley Colton evenly.
+
+Norvel lowered the hand that had been clutching at his heart. “Why don’t
+you search?” he cried. “The stone couldn’t have gotten out of the room!
+The walls are of solid concrete, impregnable. The ruby must be here!”
+
+The elder Osmuhn looked around nervously, eyes travelling from one face
+to the other, seeking vainly for some way out. Mrs. Marle rose and
+slipped her arm around the waist of her daughter.
+
+“I will submit to a search,” she said quietly.
+
+“Thank you! Thank you!” Osmuhn fairly choked his relief. “I will get
+Miss----.”
+
+“Do you want to search Sydney and me?” asked Thornley Colton, with a
+half smile on his expressive lips.
+
+“I don’t think it is necessary; you weren’t----.” Osmuhn stopped,
+understanding that he had practically admitted that Mrs. Marle was the
+only one on whom suspicion rested. His son opened his mouth to protest,
+but the woman forestalled him.
+
+“I understand,” she said steadily.
+
+“Then we will go; it is long past my lunch-hour.” The blind man’s
+fingers touched the crystalless watch in his pocket.
+
+“Don’t you want to know the result of the search?” Osmuhn asked blankly.
+
+“I know it now,” said the blind man, with that same curious smile on his
+lips. “Good-bye, Mr. Osmuhn.” He shook hands heartily with the jeweller,
+and held the woman’s hand in his for an instant.
+
+“I shall be at your reception to-morrow night,” he reminded, and she
+murmured a steady-voiced “Thank you.”
+
+The blind man touched the fingers of the daughter, clasped the palm of
+the younger Osmuhn and that of Norvel, and hurried out, leaving them
+staring after him.
+
+It was not until he and Sydney were in the big car on their way to the
+old-fashioned up-town house and luncheon that Thornley Colton spoke.
+
+“One of the most remarkable crimes I’ve ever had the good fortune to
+work on, Sydney. And a remarkable thief--a criminal with an
+imagination.”
+
+“But how did they vanish; where did the ruby and the necklace go?” asked
+Sydney Thames helplessly.
+
+“Regarding the first part of your double-barrelled question: Is it
+possible, after all you have heard, that you don’t know _how_ they
+vanish?” The smile on the thin lips was inscrutable. “Where they go,
+Sydney, is not half so important as where they are. That’s where the
+work comes in. I am sure that I know where the Thousand Facets of Fire
+is, but I don’t know where the necklace is. I never half complete a
+case. By waiting I can get both the necklace and the ruby. By jumping
+recklessly I can arrest the criminal and recover the ruby; but I’m not a
+detective, Sydney; problems are merely my recreation. So I’ll recover
+both.”
+
+“The ruby!” exclaimed Sydney. “You know where that is?”
+
+“Certainly,” nodded Colton, snapping his smoked cigarette into the
+street. “The thief has been safe because he has worked against men who
+have imaginations that are handicapped by eyes. My imagination is
+unhampered. As I told Osmuhn, the search will reveal nothing, despite
+the fact that the ruby is just about three feet from the place where it
+disappeared!”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+The red-haired boy with the slightly twisted nose who had become a
+member of the Colton household as the only fee to a particularly
+baffling murder case, shifted from one foot to the other in an ecstasy
+of joy, listening intently and eagerly as the blind man talked. When
+Thornley Colton had finished, he could contain himself no longer.
+
+“Gee! I’m gettin’ to be a reg’ler detective. Yuh reelly want me to trail
+him?” He asked the last anxiously, fearful lest he had heard wrong.
+
+“Yes,” smiled the problemist. “Shadow him.”
+
+“B’lieve me, Mr. Colton.” The boy’s eyes were round and serious. “If I
+locate that nigger, I’ll show him Nick Carter ain’t got nothin’ on me.
+An’ I’ll find him, too!” he boasted.
+
+“There’s a Hindu somewhere around,” nodded Colton. “He doesn’t amount to
+much, except as a trail to the real criminal, but I expect him to do a
+certain thing, and I want to make sure of it. That’s all.”
+
+“I’ll get him,” chirped the boy, and, pulling his cap down over his
+ears, he darted from the room.
+
+Colton snapped out the light and sat puffing his cigarette in the
+darkness. For half an hour he did not move, except to light a new
+cigarette. Sydney Thames entered with a slip of paper in his hand, and
+Colton switched on the light again.
+
+“Three boats leave this week,” announced Sydney. “The _Bordeaux_
+to-morrow, the _Trevoila_ Thursday, and the _Paris_ Saturday.”
+
+“I think that last is about it,” mused Colton, his thin fingers beating
+a devil’s tattoo on the arm of his chair.
+
+“What?”
+
+“The date of the thief’s departure for Europe.”
+
+“The date of----,” gasped Sydney.
+
+Thornley Colton nodded. “He’ll have time for that one after he finds out
+that the next trick he’s going to play hasn’t thrown me off the track.
+He doesn’t realise--yet--the possibilities of blindness; he doesn’t
+understand that the things which deceive the ordinary man only make
+facts clearer to me.” Colton pushed the desk-button that would summon
+the automobile at any hour of the twenty-four. “Let’s take in a matinée,
+Sydney,” he said, rising.
+
+That afternoon, and that night, not a word was said regarding the
+remarkable thefts at the shop of Osmuhn & Son. Thornley Colton had
+apparently forgotten all about it. Early the next morning he answered an
+anxious query from Osmuhn by saying that he was hard at work, and
+immediately after he idled away two hours in his music-room. At ten
+o’clock the telephone rang, and the puzzled Sydney heard the following
+one-sided conversation:--
+
+“Hello, Shrimp. English valet, eh? Funny! What! Invalid who has a Hindu
+servant that wheels him out every afternoon at four o’clock? Hindu went
+away alone at ten o’clock this morning? Where? Good! Good! That’s all
+now. Go to one of your moving-picture shows for the rest of the day.”
+
+There was a broad smile on his lips as he hung up the receiver.
+
+“What is it?” asked Sydney.
+
+“Just another example of how a clever man will accomplish his object in
+a clever way. Look up Irotette’s number, will you? I haven’t got it on
+my list.”
+
+“The caterer?”
+
+“Yes.” When Colton got the connection, and gave his name, there was no
+doubt of his standing with New York society’s biggest caterer. “I want a
+favour,” he said, when the head of the firm was at the other end of the
+wire. “An exceptionally intelligent-looking coloured man just applied
+for a night’s work at Mrs. Marle’s reception to-night. You took him? I
+thought you would, for I know the difficulty of getting good men for a
+big affair like that. Now for the favour. Can you fix it so that his
+work will allow him the freedom of the rooms? Thanks!”
+
+Sydney started to ask a question, but the blind man forestalled him.
+“To-morrow you’ll know all about it,” he promised.
+
+Sydney realised that Colton would not say a word till the time came,
+and, under protest, he accompanied the problemist to the Marle reception
+that night. Colton apparently enjoyed every minute of the time, but
+Sydney, as usual, was on edge continuously, for his fear of pretty women
+amounted almost to an obsession. Even the wonderful personality of Mrs.
+Marle, who went from one guest to another, as though she had not a care
+in the world, and as though the disappearance of the ruby had never
+occurred, was not able to put him at his ease.
+
+Promptly at eleven o’clock next morning Colton summoned his car. “We’re
+going to make a party call on Mrs. Marle,” was the way he answered
+Sydney’s question.
+
+“Didn’t you get enough last night?” groaned Thames.
+
+“Quite,” nodded the blind man, “but did you notice that bright-looking
+serving man with the coal-black eyes? Mrs. Marle pointed him out to me.
+He is the Hindu whom I spoke to Irotette about.”
+
+“Hindu?” ejaculated Sydney. “Why should a Hindu be serving ices at a
+fool reception?”
+
+“Because he had a little job to do. I’m going to call on Mrs. Marle this
+morning, and see how he did it,” replied Colton, as he pulled on his
+gloves.
+
+When Mrs. Marle appeared, Sydney Thames had hard work to repress a gasp
+of astonishment. Last night she had been happy, cheerful. Now she was
+haggard, there were circles under her eyes, and her hand trembled as she
+held it out.
+
+“An unexpected pleasure, Mr. Colton.” She tried to say it graciously,
+but her voice shook, and there was a piteous look in her eyes.
+
+Thornley Colton spoke quietly, evenly. “The ruby, please.” The words
+struck the astounded Sydney like a pistol-shot.
+
+The woman choked a sob in her throat, and swayed slightly. Thornley
+Colton led her gently to a chair.
+
+“I didn’t take it!” she cried brokenly. “I didn’t! I’m _not_ a thief! I
+found it in my jewel-case last night. I don’t know how it got there--and
+Helen saw it, too!” The last words came in a sobbing gasp.
+
+“Of course you didn’t take it!” declared Colton. “You haven’t even got
+it!” She looked up, searching his eyes to find the truth she had prayed
+for during the long hours of the night.
+
+“You mean it! You know!” Her hand was on his arm; pleading, joy
+unutterable was in her voice.
+
+“I didn’t think that you would find it until this morning,” Colton said
+contritely. “It was placed there last night by an accomplice of the real
+thief. I knew it would be. The thief realised that he must throw some
+dust in the eyes of all of us. He failed to understand that dust
+wouldn’t affect my eyes. The ruby you have is only an imitation, but it
+would have served its purpose. Let me have it.”
+
+“Yes! Yes! Take it!” The hysteria of reaction was in her voice; she held
+out her left hand, and the red stone gleamed as the folds of the
+covering handkerchief fell away from it. “I must tell Helen--I asked her
+to call up Mr. Osmuhn.”
+
+“I’m going to see him now,” Colton told her, and he hurried out,
+followed by her tremulous thanks.
+
+The elder Osmuhn seemed on the verge of nervous prostration when they
+arrived at the shop. He jumped from the chair in his glass-enclosed
+office, and fairly ran to meet them.
+
+“I’ve been trying to get you for fifteen minutes!” he said hoarsely.
+“Mrs. Marle has the ruby. Henry has just gone there. I never
+thought----.”
+
+“I have seen Mrs. Marle,” said Colton sharply. “You should know her
+better than that. The ruby she had was a mere imitation. Here it is.”
+
+Osmuhn snatched it eagerly, glanced at it, and groaned. “But how did she
+get this stone?” he demanded. “It is exactly the same weight and cut as
+the Thousand Facets of Fire. She saw the ruby three months ago!” There
+was suspicion in his voice now. “She is the only one in New York who did
+see it! No one could have made an imitation so exactly in the few hours
+since the original was stolen. And her story of the disappearance was so
+impossible!” Hours of brooding over the loss of the stone had apparently
+done their work.
+
+“Don’t you believe your son’s story of the necklace disappearance?”
+asked Colton impatiently.
+
+“But _she_ has a passion for jewels. The ruby must have destroyed----.”
+
+“If she had stolen it, she would have had more sense than bring this new
+suspicion against herself. I’ll get the thief, also the ruby and
+necklace. But I’ll get him in my own way and my own time. You’d better
+wait. Good day!”
+
+Leaving the head of the house of Osmuhn & Son staring, mouth agape, he
+left the shop. Thornley Colton never had patience with men who couldn’t
+see through a ladder when God had given them eyes.
+
+“Telephone-booth, Sydney,” the blind man said, when they were out of the
+shop. “I’m going to put joy into the heart of Shrimp. Then we’ll kill a
+few hours before the next act. This is a show with long intermissions.”
+
+The next three hours seemed the longest Sydney Thames had ever spent.
+They went to an up-town restaurant, and Colton ate as though there was
+not another thing worth thinking about in the world. Sydney was a
+flutter of impatience. He couldn’t enjoy his food; the music of the
+orchestra grated on his nerves; the waiter angered him by his continued
+hovering. But Sydney knew the futility of questioning the blind man. He
+knew that each apparently irrelevant thing the blind man had done would
+lead logically to the finish of the case. But what was the finish? Who
+was the thief? Where were the jewels that Thornley Colton expected to
+get by waiting?
+
+At last the crystalless watch told the blind man that the time had come.
+“We’ll take a little walk along Ninety-first Street,” he said. “I expect
+to meet a white-haired invalid in a wheel-chair, with a Hindu servant.
+Watch for him.”
+
+They reached Ninety-first Street, and strolled along casually; two
+idlers out for an afternoon walk. Suddenly Sydney saw the invalid.
+
+“A man in a wheel-chair was just brought out of that brownstone house a
+block up the street. The man wheeling him is coloured.”
+
+“Don’t notice him,” warned Colton.
+
+They walked slowly toward the on-coming wheel-chair. Sydney tried his
+best to appear as calm as the blind man, but he could feel his heart
+pounding in his chest. What was going to happen? The street, for a
+block, was deserted, save for them, the two others, and a ragged street
+gamin, who was speeding along the smooth pavement on roller skates.
+
+Sydney could see the man in the chair plainly now. His long, white hair
+almost touched his shoulders, the white beard swept his breast, and came
+up almost to his eyes. His legs were wrapped tight in a red blanket, and
+a shawl was thrown over his shoulders.
+
+Only five feet separated them. As they stepped out to let the chair go
+past, the gamin, with a wild whoop, came speeding up in back of the
+chair, head down. He skated straight at the Hindu servant, struck him,
+and bowled him over. With a shriek of joy he continued on his way after
+staggering Sydney Thames as he brushed past him.
+
+Colton leaped forward with a cry of mingled anger and sympathy. His hand
+on the round iron handle of the chair kept it from going over, and he
+grasped one of the big knobs at the handle-ends to steady himself as he
+helped the muttering servant to his feet.
+
+“Little devil!” snapped the invalid, in a high-pitched, querulous voice.
+Then, as Thornley Colton stepped in front of him: “Thank you, young
+man.”
+
+“He should be arrested,” declared Colton emphatically. He held out his
+hand. “I am blind,” he apologised. “Will you shake the hand of another
+of the afflicted? My secretary described you to me as you came along.”
+
+“Well, you’re no worse off than I am,” cackled the man in the chair. “I
+see too devilish much! Good day.”
+
+Colton bowed and stood aside. The impassive-faced servant pushed the
+chair down the side-walk.
+
+“It’s a crime the way those gamins carry on,” muttered Sydney, when they
+had walked a hundred yards or so in silence.
+
+Colton chuckled. “I’ll have to tell Shrimp how good his disguise was,”
+he laughed.
+
+“Shrimp!” echoed Sydney in amazement.
+
+“Certainly.” Thornley Colton grinned broadly. “He was on hand to give
+our Hindu friend a bump when the proper time came.”
+
+“In Heaven’s name why?”
+
+“So that I could locate the probable hiding-place of the ruby and the
+necklace when the time came for hiding them there. Also, to give me a
+chance to shake the hand of the man who stole them. Davidson is the
+invalid’s name. Quite a character, isn’t he?”
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+In the darkened music-room Thornley Colton’s fingers wandered idly over
+the keys, now improvising, now filling the room with the ever-living
+soul of Beethoven, now swinging crashingly into Wagner; then his fingers
+on the upper treble brought forth a strange discord of notes through
+which ran a weird minor melody. The last seemed to please him, for he
+repeated it, until Sydney Thames, who had been nervously pacing the
+room, stopped in his tracks.
+
+“What the deuce do you call that?” he demanded, the discords still
+ringing in his ears. “It’s horrible!”
+
+“Because it doesn’t agree with your orthodox ideas of music,” declared
+Colton seriously. “That is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I
+know. It is a Hindustan adaptation of the ‘Chinese Flute Song’ of _Siao
+She_. It is a fitting accompaniment for this latest case of ours.”
+
+“And just as understandable,” observed Sydney, walking up and down the
+room again. Colton turned again toward the keys, and Sydney broke out
+impatiently: “Why don’t you do something, Thorn? Two whole days have
+passed since you found the man who stole the ruby, and you haven’t done
+a thing! Osmuhn suspects Mrs. Marle, and she is on the verge of
+collapse. You haven’t made an attempt to clear up the mystery. It isn’t
+right! Osmuhn is rapidly losing his patience; his son must stand
+helplessly by and see the mother of the girl he loves suspected; and the
+thing is making a nervous wreck of Norvel. It is only a matter of days
+when he will have to leave the business for good.”
+
+“Osmuhn’s patience became exhausted last night,” Thornley Colton said.
+“He advised me that he had lost faith in my efforts, and that he was
+going to call in the police.”
+
+“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Sydney. “That means that they will arrest Mrs.
+Marle!” It only needed a woman in trouble to put the susceptible Sydney
+Thames at sixes and sevens.
+
+“I think even the police will hesitate before arresting a woman like
+Mrs. Marle on mere suspicion,” the blind man declared.
+
+The electric bell at the front door sent out its announcement.
+
+“See who it is, will you? Shrimp is out on a little job for me.”
+
+Sydney hurried out, and the problemist’s sensitive finger-tips felt the
+face of the crystalless watch in his pocket. A frown furrowed his
+forehead for a minute. He went into the library, and was sitting at the
+desk which held the telephone when Sydney came back, followed by Henry
+Osmuhn, junior.
+
+“They are going to arrest Helen’s mother!” burst out Osmuhn the instant
+he crossed the threshold.
+
+Colton’s mobile face expressed sympathy. “I don’t think they will,” he
+assured quietly.
+
+“But they’re going to!” cried Osmuhn fiercely. “My father put the thing
+into the hands of the police yesterday afternoon. The days of brooding
+over the loss of the Thousand Facets of Fire have driven him half crazy.
+The finding of the imitation ruby in Mrs. Marle’s possession, and your
+refusal to explain what you are waiting for, have driven every bit of
+commonsense from him. Detectives badgered her for two hours last night.
+She is on the verge of hysteria. And Helen----.” He paced up and down
+the room like a caged tiger, each word tumbling over the other as it
+came from his lips; his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. The
+sensitive-nerved Sydney Thames caught the contagion.
+
+“It’s a crime to let those innocent women suffer, while you sit there,
+calmly smoking a cigarette!” charged the secretary bitterly. He turned
+away as the blind man’s lips curved in a smile. “He has known the thief
+for two days!” he told Osmuhn, beside himself at the injustice of the
+problemist.
+
+“He knows the thief!” Osmuhn stopped dead in his tracks, staring
+incredulously at Sydney. Then he whirled to face the blind man, who sat
+quietly back in his chair, blowing smoke-rings towards the ceiling. “Why
+don’t you have him arrested?” he demanded, voice high with excitement.
+
+“Because I want to get the jewels,” answered the blind man.
+
+“But a search, a confession, will----.”
+
+“Do you suppose that a man with the daring and cleverness necessary to
+accomplish those robberies would either confess or hide the stones where
+they could be found?” he asked, a trifle impatiently. “I’m waiting for
+the thief to hide the jewels in a place where I can find them. That will
+be when he is about to start away. To arrest him before would mean an
+endless search. You must understand that the thief who could commit
+robberies like those is a wonderfully clever man. I know that he is
+marvellous, for he is the only man I ever saw whose heart-beats failed
+to show any emotion whatever.”
+
+“Who is the thief!” asked Osmuhn soberly. All the excitement and
+incredulity had gone from his voice now.
+
+“A man who calls himself Davidson; an invalid who is wheeled around by a
+Hindu servant for an hour or so each afternoon. He is never seen at
+other times. He lives next door to Mr. Norvel, your diamond-expert.”
+
+“So that’s how he knew!” cried Osmuhn, eye alight with understanding.
+“Was he in France when Mr. Norvel’s accident occurred?” The question
+Colton had put at the time of the ruby robbery flashed back in his mind.
+
+The blind man nodded. “I am going to see him the minute my boy calls me
+up and tells me that he is getting ready to start to the steamer
+_Paris_, which sails at noon to-day.”
+
+The jangling telephone-bell came as a period to the sentence. Colton
+removed the receiver, listened a moment, said a single “All right,
+Shrimp,” and rose. “The curtain is up for the last act,” he said
+soberly. He pulled open a drawer of the desk and took out a
+wicked-looking blued-steel automatic and slipped it into his side
+coat-pocket.
+
+“There won’t be any need of that?” Osmuhn asked nervously.
+
+“The man we are going after isn’t the kind that holds his hands out for
+the steel bracelets,” replied the problemist grimly.
+
+“But you are blind!” cried Osmuhn. “You can’t see!”
+
+The blind man’s smile was one of amusement as he answered: “If I had not
+been blind, I wouldn’t have solved this case, and, if I’m not mistaken
+in my man, my lack of eyes is going to do more toward his actual capture
+than your keen ones. I have an idea you’ll see another mysterious
+disappearance--of men this time.”
+
+He slipped on his overcoat and led them out of the house and into the
+waiting car, which had stood at the curb for the last half-hour. There
+was not a word spoken by the three men until the car turned into
+Ninety-first Street.
+
+“Hadn’t we better stop at the corner and walk?” asked Osmuhn, as the car
+continued on and swerved in toward the curb before the brownstone house.
+
+Colton flicked his cigarette away and shook his head. “I guess Mr.
+Davidson is expecting us. I’ve had Shrimp working pretty openly in the
+last day or two. I think the thief will want to pull off one last
+grand-stand play before he leaves.”
+
+The red-haired boy who had been leaning against a tree at the other side
+of the street ran over and hopped on the run-board.
+
+“Kin I go in with yuh, Mr. Colton?” he asked eagerly, eyes shining with
+excitement.
+
+The blind man shook his head. “No, Shrimp,” he denied. “You go over and
+telephone for the police. We’ll need them in a few minutes.”
+
+The boy’s face showed his disappointment, but he tried bravely to keep
+it out of his voice. “All right, sir,” he said, with an assumed
+cheeriness that was pathetic.
+
+Sydney opened the tonneau-door, and Colton alighted, his slim stick
+before him locating the way up the wide stone steps. His lips were a
+grim, straight line as he pushed the button, and Osmuhn saw him put his
+hand in his pocket to assure himself that the automatic was ready for
+instant use. The nerves of the junior Osmuhn were taut, and his muscles
+tensed as the door swung back and the grave-faced Hindu that the
+disguised Shrimp had bowled over two days before stood looking at them
+gravely.
+
+“What wish the Sahibs?” His voice was deep and rich. He had only
+muttered when they had seen him last.
+
+“Is Mr. Davidson in?” asked Colton politely. Sydney thought he saw a
+gleam of fire in the Hindu’s dark eyes for an instant.
+
+“Sahib Davidson is busied. He starts for the German baths at noon on the
+boat.”
+
+“It is highly important.” The blind man’s voice was suave.
+
+From somewhere in the rear of the house came the piping, querulous voice
+of the invalid: “Who the devil is it, Pinjur?”
+
+“I know not, Sahib,” called the Hindu, in reply.
+
+“The blind man who spoke to him two days ago when the boy of the street
+nearly upset his chair,” enlightened Thornley Colton, and the ears of
+the old man were keen, for they heard.
+
+“Send him in!” snapped the squeaky voice. “And come in yourself. There’s
+a very devil of a draft!”
+
+The Hindu stood aside gravely as they entered, closed the door carefully
+behind them, and, with a bowed invitation to follow, led the way down
+the hall toward the library.
+
+Osmuhn’s tense muscles relaxed, and a gasp of amazement came to his lips
+as they stepped inside the semi-darkened room, and he saw the
+white-haired, white-bearded old man Thornley Colton had declared was the
+thief who had stolen the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond
+necklace. Could this be the man, who, by some infernal magic, had caused
+three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of jewels to disappear while
+people watched them?
+
+The old man drew himself closer to the desk, with his white hands on the
+wheels of his steel-framed chair, and peered at them short-sightedly.
+
+“What do you want, gentlemen?” he piped. “I haven’t but a minute. Have
+I, Pinjur?” He darted a queer, bird-like glance toward the Indian
+servant, who stood, straight-backed, before the one window that broke
+the lines of high bookshelves surrounding the room. The Hindu bowed.
+
+Colton advanced half a step toward the desk. “We want,” he said, slowly
+and distinctly, “the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond necklace!”
+
+The old man’s cackling laugh came from the white beard even before the
+last word had been uttered. “You want the ruby, eh?” he squealed, his
+hand falling on the desk before him. “He wants the necklace, too,
+Pinjur.”
+
+Osmuhn’s eyes turned toward the Hindu; he saw the Indian lift one
+hand--then a rising curtain of mist seemed to hide him! Another rose
+over the desk! In an instant the two had joined, and a solid wall of
+fog, dense, impenetrable, hid half of the room.
+
+“The mist!” he cried, falling back a step, the fear of the supernatural
+in his eyes.
+
+He saw Thornley Colton leap forward; saw him swallowed up--vanish
+utterly. He could not move, nor could Sydney Thames beside him. They
+both heard a weird, gurgling cry, an oath in a strange language. Then
+the report of a pistol echoed through the room; the flash showed
+yellow-pink through the mist.
+
+Thornley Colton’s voice rang out:--
+
+“Fling open the door!” The words loosed the leaden muscles of Sydney
+Thames. He sprang to obey. The current of air seemed to tear the mist to
+shreds instantly. Osmuhn took a half-step forward--stopped. Horror
+showed on his face for an instant; then amazement.
+
+On the floor beside the bookcase lay the Hindu. The blood from his wound
+was staining the carpet. Beside him was a curious-looking knife, with
+the point stained a dull green. But Thornley Colton and the invalid had
+vanished utterly!
+
+The line of bookcases was still unbroken. The wheel-chair was where it
+had been before, but the occupant and the blind man were gone!
+
+Fascinated, horror-stricken, the two men gazed at the empty chair and
+the silent form of the Indian. A soft click sounded like a pistol-shot
+in the death stillness of the room. A section of the case swung outward,
+and Thornley Colton, his overcoat slashed from shoulder to waist, stood
+before them, smiling grimly.
+
+“My God, Thorn!” gasped Sydney, his strictured heart beating once more.
+
+“Is there any blood on that knife-point, Sydney?” asked the blind man
+quietly.
+
+Thames picked up the knife to examine it.
+
+“Careful,” warned the problemist. “By the way he slashed at me I think
+there is one of the devilish Indian poisons on the point.”
+
+Osmuhn and Sydney looked at the green-stained point, the slashed coat of
+the man who stood before them, smiling calmly, as he awaited the verdict
+of life or death.
+
+“No,” choked Sydney. He staggered against the wall. “Thank God! Thank
+God!” he prayed, eyes on the man who had been the only father he had
+ever known.
+
+Thornley Colton dismissed his escape with a nod and spoke to the
+white-faced Osmuhn. “I think I told you that eyes would be of very
+little use in the _denouement_. I knew the man, and the chances he’d
+take. I expected the fog. The game was to spring open the secret door,
+wheel the man and the chair inside, and leave us gaping idiotically.
+Would you like to see the thief; the cleverest, most daring I have ever
+encountered?”
+
+He stepped aside. Dazedly Osmuhn and Sydney followed, only to stop at
+the doorway.
+
+Manacled on the floor was the thief. Beside him, in a little heap, was
+the white wig and beard.
+
+The thief was Norvel, the diamond expert!
+
+“No,” said Thornley Colton, “it isn’t Norvel. It is the man who has been
+impersonating him for months. The man who lay in a French hospital
+learning every secret of the real Norvel, as he raved in delirium
+following the accident. Where Norvel is----.” He paused significantly.
+
+“His carcass is feeding fishes in the Seine!” snarled the crippled man.
+Then he burst into a vicious, sneering laugh. “Find the jewels?” he
+taunted.
+
+“Easily.” Colton went through the door that Sydney and Osmuhn now knew
+connected Norvel’s house with the one next door. He wrenched off one of
+the knobs at the end of the wheel-chair handle. They saw the red flash
+of the ruby as he held it up to the light.
+
+“The necklace and the dozen other jewels that haven’t yet been missed
+are in the hollow handle,” he said quietly.
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+It was several hours later. In the ornately furnished vault at the shop
+of Osmuhn & Son were the younger Osmuhn and Helen Marle, seated side by
+side in two Heppelwhite chairs, their hands clasped, unashamed. At the
+small table was Osmuhn, senior; across from him, where she had been when
+the wonderful ruby disappeared, was Mrs. Marle.
+
+Young Osmuhn jumped to his feet as footsteps sounded outside.
+
+“Here he comes!” his voice rang out joyously, as Thornley Colton
+entered, a long, paper-wrapped bundle under his arm.
+
+Osmuhn, senior, came forward and held out his hand. “I can never thank
+you enough,” he said brokenly.
+
+“Thank me?” smiled the blind man. “The thanks are all on my side. It was
+the most interesting problem I ever tackled.”
+
+He laid down the long bundle on the small table, and took Mrs. Marle’s
+extended hand. She did not say a word, but the expression on her face
+told volumes; and she understood that the man without eyes knew.
+
+“Now tell us how it was all done,” broke in Helen Marle eagerly. “Henry
+has just told us how wonderful you were at the house. Tell us how the
+ruby vanished.”
+
+The irrepressible curiosity of the girl brought a smile to the blind
+man’s lips. “I’ll start right at the beginning,” he promised. “At the
+police station the false Norvel consented to talk--a little. The Hindu
+is in the hospital. The two of them followed the Thousand Facets of Fire
+all through Europe, trying to get their hands on it. The real Norvel
+bought it before they had a chance to steal it, and substitute the
+imitation they had had made. Not knowing that he had already sent it to
+America, they were following Norvel when their automobile crashed into
+his on the outskirts of an obscure French village. The drivers of both
+cars were killed. Norvel got a knock on the head that resulted in
+concussion of the brain.
+
+“The thief, who refuses to tell his name, or anything of his history,
+had both hips broken, and was made a cripple for life. But he is a
+wonderful man. He had a cot next to Norvel, and for weeks he heard
+Norvel rave of his past life, the ruby, the business--things that are
+reiterated over and over in the raving of delirium. The thief realised
+what the knowledge was worth. The fake news of Norvel’s death went out.
+When he had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital, he was
+murdered, and the thief became Norvel. He returned here, a changed man,
+but there was never a chance for suspicion. He was a wonderful actor. He
+knew everything that Norvel had known, and he knew jewels even better
+than Norvel himself.
+
+“His Hindu partner and an Englishman who merely played the role of
+Norvel’s valet came with him. But the thief was a master. The crude
+stealing made possible by his position didn’t appeal to him. He wanted
+excitement, to astound people. So he planned to make a million by the
+cleverest thefts ever committed in the world. The Hindu had learned
+secrets from the greatest yogi in India, and he was a wonderful worker
+in gold plate and other metals. For weeks he worked and produced these.”
+Colton stripped the paper from the long bundle, and the two heavy canes
+Norvel had always carried were revealed.
+
+“What----,” began Osmuhn dazedly.
+
+Colton took one of the canes and laid it on the table. “This is the cane
+Norvel put on the glass case when the diamond necklace disappeared. Let
+me have that one he stole for a minute, will you?”
+
+Osmuhn swung open the door of the safe and laid it before the blind man.
+
+“Your son was talking, while Norvel was fingering the necklace like
+this.” Colton pretended to examine the string of stones with his eyes,
+placing them in a perfectly straight line with the end of the cane, not
+four inches from its feruled bottom. “Watch!” he commanded. “Don’t take
+your eyes from the stones!” He turned away; not one of them saw the
+delicate pull he gave to the black thread that was attached to an almost
+invisible knob at the cane handle. But they did see the feruled bottom
+spring open. They saw a small claw dart out, swift as the fang of a
+snake, catch the first stone of the necklace, and in a fraction of an
+instant the necklace had been drawn into the hollow cane like a snake in
+its hole--swiftly, silently. The cap closed at the bottom, the cane was
+merely a cane once more.
+
+He showed them the thread, like the one Norvel had pulled when he
+started toward his overcoat.
+
+“But the mist I saw?” demanded Osmuhn, junior. “What was that?”
+
+“That is the most wonderful thing the Hindu yogi have in their bag of
+tricks. I was present at a private exhibition of it twenty years ago in
+the hill country of India. The men who were with me said that they saw a
+man disappear in a cloud of mist, just as you saw it attempted to-day.
+Twenty years ago it was one of the most profound mysteries of India.
+To-day it isn’t.”
+
+“Isn’t?” echoed Osmuhn.
+
+“No. The trick is done with a wonderful powder called _scurtii-scurtii_.
+The powder is so finely ground that when let free in absolutely still
+air it hangs in the shape of a mist until a breeze blows it away. But it
+doesn’t billow out like mist, or fog. By some curious property it hangs
+in the form of a thin, impenetrable curtain, either vertically or
+horizontally, according to the way it has been shot into the air. The
+disappearance trick in India can be done only on an absolutely calm day.
+Just as it could be done only in a vault like this, or in the store
+outside, when every one had gone, and there was no possibility of a door
+opening. The powder was released from the cane when the end opened.”
+
+“But the ruby?” asked Mrs. Marle. “There is no break in the concrete
+walls; no way that Mr. Norvel could have gotten access to this room.”
+
+Colton pointed toward the brass wall-plate, with its two light buttons,
+a foot from her elbow. “There is the explanation, and the thing that
+told me how the trick had been done.”
+
+They crowded around the table to gaze at the two innocent-appearing
+buttons.
+
+“When you snapped off the light for me,” said the blind man to the
+jeweller, “my ear, trained for years to read every sound, immediately
+caught the false note in the snap of the button against the contact.
+When I snapped on the lights my fingers found something that no eye
+could ever have detected. Instead of being roughly ground
+mother-of-pearl, as the centre of those black buttons always is, my
+supersensitive finger tip knew instantly that it was highly polished
+glass; a lens, in fact.”
+
+“By Jove, you’re right!” Osmuhn had been examining it with a powerful
+glass.
+
+“Yes,” nodded Colton, “and if you put the glass to the other plain
+button you’ll see a narrow slot, not much thicker than a sheet of paper,
+through which the _scurtii-scurtii_ was injected the minute Mr. Osmuhn
+turned his back to follow his invariable rule of arranging the small
+boxes in the safe, while the customer looked at the jewel. The minute
+the mist had covered the ruby, Norvel, in his office on the other side
+of the wall, where there is a plate exactly opposite this, so that the
+electricians would only have to make one hole for both in the solid
+concrete, swung the plates back and stole the jewel like this.”
+
+He unscrewed the heavy knob from the other cane, and from the hollow
+interior took what looked like a slender cane that, they could see, was
+made like a telescope of wonderfully thin metal sections. At the small
+end was a shallow, heavy rubber cup, with the interior smeared with a
+thick, gummy substance. Colton’s fingers found a curious trigger-like
+projection at the larger end.
+
+“I don’t need the ruby for this. When the wall plate, which he and the
+Hindu had fixed when Norvel was supposed to be working late, swung
+open--hidden, of course, from Mrs. Marle by the mist--he thrust the cup
+end of the cane through the opening like this.” He thrust the cane
+toward Mrs. Marle’s hand. Before she could jerk it away, his finger
+touched the trigger, and the cane shut up like a telescope, as swiftly
+and silently as a darting shaft of light. “The actual theft didn’t take
+an instant,” explained Colton, and he couldn’t keep the admiration from
+his voice. “All he had to do was to touch the stone in your hand, which
+wasn’t a foot from the wall-plate, the partial vacuum of the cup and the
+gummy substance would make it stick, and the spring inside would bring
+it through the plate-hole instantly. Then the plate closed, and the
+thing was accomplished before you could move a muscle.”
+
+“But what made the mist disappear?” Osmuhn wanted to know. “There was no
+current of air here.”
+
+“When you turned you must have shut the safe door. Of course, that would
+blow it away instantly, and the powder is so fine that you’d never see a
+trace of it. In the robbery of the necklace Norvel swung around with his
+coat on his arm, so that it formed a fan.”
+
+“But how did you ever connect the man who had fooled us all; the man who
+had impersonated Norvel so successfully?” queried Osmuhn.
+
+Colton’s lips curved in a curious smile. “The impersonation was so
+perfect that it would have deceived any one with eyes, just as his
+thefts did. And his acting of Davidson was a wonderful piece of work. He
+could impersonate everything but valvular heart disease.”
+
+“Valvular heart disease?” queried Osmuhn dumbly.
+
+“Yes.” Colton’s lips and voice were serious. “He was the most wonderful
+criminal I have ever met. A criminal with imagination great enough to
+plan such crimes, and daring sufficient to execute them when a single
+move, or a breath of air, would have betrayed him. But his acting was
+too good. When he came in here after stealing the ruby there was not a
+fraction of a beat above normal in his heart. He was as cool as ice when
+the heart of ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have been pounding
+like a trip hammer. It was steady as a clock even when I left him in the
+chair apparently on the verge of collapse. Even then he was planning an
+unsuspicious get-away. Even when Shrimp, my boy, almost knocked his
+chair over, there wasn’t a flutter. I shook hands with him, so that I
+could establish his identity absolutely. To me there is as much
+difference between hands and wrists as there is between faces to men who
+see. But the pulse beat of valvular heart disease is absolutely
+unmistakable. The heart of the man who played Norvel so successfully was
+as sound as my own.
+
+“I spoke in here of the possibility of the thief having learned his
+facts by listening to Norvel in his delirium. The thief realised that a
+cable to France might give away his whole game. I was afraid that he had
+hidden the necklace so cunningly that we wouldn’t find it, though I knew
+where the ruby was ten minutes after it was stolen.”
+
+Osmuhn half jumped from his chair.
+
+“You--knew where--the ruby was!” he gasped.
+
+“Yes. I took care to touch his cane handles as I shook hands with him.
+Your son’s story of the necklace theft told me that one of the canes was
+responsible for that. While he was in here the ruby was in the big knob
+at the end of the cane, not three feet away from where it had been
+stolen. But with my own stick and wonderfully sensitive finger-tips, I
+knew that the necklace had been put somewhere else. Therefore, I gave
+him the hint he needed about Mrs. Marle’s reception. I knew if he had an
+imitation--which was likely, because he must have been on the track of
+the ruby to meet Norvel on the other side--he would try to get it into
+Mrs. Marle’s possession for the purpose of confusing all of us. Then my
+boy found out about his dual role of Davidson and Norvel. Davidson
+appeared only after Norvel had arrived home, and Norvel was supposed to
+be in such physical condition that he couldn’t be seen at home. I
+immediately told you that the jewel was an imitation, put in Mrs.
+Marle’s home by the real thief, because I knew Norvel would hear all
+about it, and understand that I wasn’t fooled for a minute. It was time
+for him to go. The French boat sailed at noon to-day. I knew he would
+see me, because he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to prove his
+superiority, and make a final grand-stand play by disappearing before
+our very eyes as Davidson, and walk out of the next house a few minutes
+later as Norvel the diamond expert, whose twenty-eight years’ service
+with Osmuhn & Son placed him above suspicion. You see, he was taking no
+chances; he always had two ways open. But he forgot that the mist he had
+appear in his library meant nothing to me. _My eyes can’t be deceived!_”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SIXTH PROBLEM
+
+                            THE GILDED GLOVE
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+A hundred eyes turned as the woman entered the dining-room; a hundred
+lips parted in admiration as she made her way through the winding aisle
+of tables in the wake of the straight-backed head-waiter. There were
+many beautiful women in the room, but, among them all, she was
+wonderful. Under the soft glow of shaded lights the ivory tints of her
+skin, with the colour of rich warm blood under it, were accentuated by
+the burnished gold of her hair. Behind the full red lips the pearl of
+her teeth showed; the great brown eyes looked over the room calmly, with
+aloofness. There was nothing girlish about the new arrival. Every line,
+every curve, bespoke perfect maturity.
+
+Then the lips that had been parted in admiration curved in a smile as
+the eyes saw the man who followed her. He was scarcely five feet tall; a
+caricature of a man. His small moustache and ragged Vandyke were so
+colourless that they could not be seen at a distance. And he walked
+behind the woman with a peculiar lifting of knees at each step that
+reminded every one who saw of a helpless little coach-dog. To a hundred
+minds flashed the simile: the beauty and the beast of Madame
+Villeneuve’s immortal story.
+
+The waiter, conscious of the new attraction that was to make his
+dining-room picture perfect, stopped at a table in the corner and pulled
+back a chair with an unconscious flourish.
+
+“Your table, ma-dame!” Then real regret tinged his tone: “It was all we
+had.”
+
+A startled look leaped to the eyes of the woman; died on the instant.
+Her tone was merely casual as she asked:
+
+“You got the reservation--how long ago?”
+
+“A scant ten minutes, ma-dame.”
+
+She turned her great eyes on the little man, and in her voice as she
+spoke was the lilt of badinage. “And you were to telephone an hour ago,
+Pierre?” she censured. Her hand idly moved the napkin on the table.
+
+But the man did not answer. He had slumped into the chair at the other
+side of the small table even before she had made a move toward taking
+her own seat. His teeth chewed his ragged moustache-ends. Under the
+table his fingers interlocked and twitchingly separated.
+
+The woman’s opera cloak slipped to the back of the chair, revealing the
+white purity of the skin of her shoulders, and the curves of the throat.
+She picked up the _carte du jour_ languidly, and a little pout came to
+her lips, and a tracery of a scowl appeared on her forehead as she
+studied the items.
+
+“Absinthe, Pierre, and a cup of bouillon?” she smiled.
+
+The man nodded.
+
+“Only the bouillon for me.”
+
+A slight inclination of her head dismissed the waiter, and he hurried
+away. The woman rested an elbow on the table-edge and leaned forward.
+The wonderful smile still curved her lips, but the voice was hard as
+flint as she whispered in sibilant Italian:--
+
+“Stop it, you fool of a coward!”
+
+His tongue touched his lips. “It has found us!” he muttered chokingly,
+and the language he used was Russian.
+
+“Hasn’t it always found us?” she demanded hissingly, but the expression
+on her face changed not a bit. “Hasn’t it always been on our heels? But
+have I not laughed at it for years? Laugh!” The last word came like the
+lash of a whip through the smiling lips.
+
+The man’s throat twitched, his face contorted, and a tremulous parody of
+laughter came.
+
+“Hideous!” she snapped. “Pitiful ape of a man! Stop it!”
+
+“We cannot all be creatures of steel and stone!” he muttered, in the
+curious patois of northern Hungary.
+
+“We can all act! We can play our parts! Be a gay boulevardier of Paris
+with the false courage of the green poison in the water of your veins!”
+She spoke vehemently, and her words were the words of the Gascony
+peasant.
+
+She turned her gracious smile on the waiter as he appeared with the
+bouillon and the absinthe for the little man.
+
+“We shall order again presently,” she said, in her perfect English, and
+the serving-man backed away.
+
+Without touching the folded napkin, she took a sip of the bouillon. Her
+eyes, pin-points of fire under the shade of the long lashes, watched the
+man take up the glass of dull-green liquor and drain it at a gulp. The
+fire died from her eyes as they saw the faint flush of colour come to
+the yellow skin of the man and the steadiness of the hand that put the
+empty glass on the cloth.
+
+“Ah,” she murmured, in liquid Spanish, her eyes fixed fondly on the face
+of the little man. “My Pierre is himself again. Sip of your bouillon, my
+dear.”
+
+The little man obeyed her meekly. “The gaming-table has played the devil
+with my nerves,” he growled.
+
+“But they are strong once more. See!” Her fingers lifted the folded
+napkin and laid it on her knee. The man leaned forward to stare at the
+white tablecloth it had covered. A gasping whistle of indrawn breath
+came from his lips. On the white linen beside the woman’s bouillon cup
+were five smudges of gold; prints of the finger and thumb tips of a
+right hand.
+
+“The sign of the Gilded Glove!” he choked, and the colour went from his
+face.
+
+“Cease staring, owl of a man!” she commanded in Italian. “Have you not
+seen the sign before? Do the wrecked nerves of the _rouge et noir_ table
+need another franc’s worth of green heart? Summon the waiter.”
+
+With a doglike shake of his body the man threw off the fear that gripped
+him. He touched his empty glass. The woman gave another order, and the
+waiter hurried away. Then the man’s eyes were drawn again to the five
+spots of gold.
+
+“The finger prints of warning, the crushed glove of sentence, the
+clutched glove of death!” He repeated it as though it were a lesson
+that, once learned, was never to be forgotten.
+
+“But have they not always been at _my_ side?” she asked quietly. “In
+Paris, in Constantinople, in Budapest, in St. Petersburg, have I not
+seen them always by my side? Yet I live! Should I fear in New York, when
+I have escaped in Europe, where the Long Arm sweeps everything?”
+
+The waiter returned with the absinthe. The little man took the glass up
+slowly, sipped part of the liquor, and set it down. A glance from the
+eyes of the woman rewarded him.
+
+“Does my Pierre see any one who might wear the Gilded Glove?” she asked.
+
+His small eyes roved around the dining-room, gazing intently at every
+face. He shook his head. “They are all Americans; men of wood and women
+of china. Asses all!” The heavy gutturals of the German he now used made
+even more incongruous the puniness of his body.
+
+She nodded. “Those who so carefully reserved the table that we might see
+the sign have gone,” she said, “and other ears cannot follow our
+talking.”
+
+The man caught a glimpse of some one his eyes had missed before; he
+moved a trifle to the left, to see behind a great pillar in a far corner
+of the room.
+
+“Your blind friend is eating his midnight meal of bread and beef-gravy,”
+he said.
+
+“Mr. Colton?” There was a new tone in the voice now, and the man
+instantly recognised it.
+
+“A blind man?” There was a sneer in the words.
+
+“I fear him!” she whispered. “He is the only man on earth I have ever
+feared. He is the only man on earth I know I cannot deceive. All the
+things I have--my beauty, my nerves of steel, my acting, are to him as
+nothing. They delude only men of keen eyes! The American secret agents
+who watch us are fools, but he----.”
+
+“Bah! A blind pig of an American!” he sneered again. It was the man
+whose nerve was perfect now; it was the woman who was unstrung.
+
+“His blindness makes me afraid!” She was talking passionately in French.
+“Minds that are closed to all the world are an open book to him. I know
+it!”
+
+“You think he knows of the plans; of our going away to-morrow?” The
+voice was sarcastic, but the words came slowly, haltingly, droned in the
+dialect of the lower Yang-tse-Kiang River.
+
+“I know not!” she whispered, in purest Japanese. “He may; he may not.
+But no mistake have I ever made in a man!”
+
+“Then hide your fear,” warned the man. “He has emptied his last glass of
+Célestin, and is coming toward this table.”
+
+The woman’s hand fluttered tremulously toward her throat; but in an
+instant she was her calm, collected self. As she ate, and talked French
+commonplaces to the little man, she watched the approach of Thornley
+Colton from the corner of her eyes. She saw the white hair that curled
+and waved from the pink scalp; the wonderful paleness of the face that
+was brought out strikingly by the great round lenses of the smoked-glass
+library spectacles with their tortoise-shell rims. She knew that the
+eyes behind them had been sightless from birth; yet the strides of the
+approaching man through the winding aisle of tables were long and
+confident. Not a false move did he make, stepping aside at just the
+proper moment to avoid hurrying waiters, halting a second to let a
+nimble omnibus pass; never once turning to ask a question of the
+black-haired, apple-cheeked man who followed at his heels.
+
+At the table he stopped, a smile of pleasure lighting his pale, strong
+face, as he extended his hand. “A delightful surprise, Madame Gorski!”
+he said, with quiet enthusiasm. “Sydney told me that you were here, but
+I could scarcely credit my good fortune. When is the next of your
+marvellous recitals to be?”
+
+The woman’s smile of joy and surprise as she took his hand had been
+wonderful in its perfection, and as she answered his last question, no
+human ear could have detected the lie behind the words: “In a few days,
+M’seur Colton. You are an inspiration. One seldom finds so appreciative
+a person. My husband thinks them frightful affairs.”
+
+“But Monsieur Gorski is not blind,” smiled Colton, as he took the hand
+of the little man. “Music is the only beautiful thing we of the darkness
+have, you know. Eyes can see God’s wonderful creations and the beautiful
+things man’s hands have wrought. We can only hear.”
+
+A tender look of genuine sympathy came to the eyes of Madame Gorski.
+“Won’t you sit down and talk?” she invited.
+
+She saw Thornley Colton’s hand go to his vest-pocket, and she knew that
+the supersensitive finger-tips were feeling the face of the crystalless
+watch he carried.
+
+He shook his head. “It is twelve-forty,” he apologised. “I make it my
+invariable rule to be in bed at one.” He stepped back regretfully.
+“Pardon me,” he said suddenly, “your napkin has fallen to the floor.” He
+leaned over quickly, picked it up, and put it on the end of the table.
+“Au revoir.” He smiled again, and with a nod to the silent Sydney
+Thames, who had merely bowed to the man and the woman, he started
+between the tables towards the entrance of the dining-room.
+
+The woman’s eyes followed him. When he had disappeared through the door
+she turned to her husband. “A wonderful man!” she murmured. “Wonderful!”
+She expected a sneer, but her husband was staring at the crumpled-up
+napkin Thornley Colton had picked up.
+
+“You say he is blind!” he hissed, in French.
+
+She nodded, puzzled.
+
+“Then how did he know your napkin had fallen? Can he hear the fall of
+linen on velvet? Can he?”
+
+She reached toward the napkin, lifted a corner as she pulled it toward
+her; then withdrew her hand suddenly. In the crumpled-up folds of the
+linen both had seen the dull glint of gilt; both knew that concealed in
+the napery was a crushed, gilded glove!
+
+“The sentence!” choked the man.
+
+The woman lifted her eyes to the door through which Thornley Colton had
+passed a few minutes before. “Can he be one of the sinews of the Long
+Arm?” she murmured: “A man like that!”
+
+Her fingers toyed with her fork a moment. “Pay the check, Pierre,” she
+said finally, and there was a note of hopelessness in her voice. “We
+will go home. I am tired.”
+
+The admiring eyes that had watched the woman enter followed her as she
+left the room. The face, calm, patrician, was beautiful; and the long
+lashes hid the look in the deep, brown eyes. In the taxi seat she
+relaxed; the beautiful face held an expression of utter weariness. The
+little man’s hand touched her shoulder reverently, caressingly.
+
+“Do not falter now, _ma chère_,” he murmured. “To-morrow we will have
+the plans of the harbour mines and the hundred thousand dollars they
+will bring. We will go far away, then, out of reach of the Long Arm and
+its glove of gilt.”
+
+“To-morrow,” she breathed softly, and she touched his cheek with her
+lips. She was a woman, was Hedwig Gorski, strange, unreadable. Her heart
+was a woman’s heart, and grim-lipped men in a hundred cities knew that
+she loved this little caricature of a man. A smile came to her lips.
+“Yes,” she whispered, in low-voiced Russian, “to-morrow we will be
+through with it all.”
+
+At the big hotel where they stopped the woman commanded the same
+admiration; the man the same derisive smiles. But they did not see. In
+their apartment on the thirteenth floor, whose door was watched night
+and day by the floor clerks they had bribed to see that no one entered,
+the woman sank into a big chair beside the table. The man snapped on the
+lights in every room, and peered into every corner. “No one has
+entered,” he announced, when he had seen that every window still held
+the screws he had driven through the frames the first hour they had
+occupied the apartments.
+
+“Leave me a few minutes, _mon cher_,” the woman said, and she pulled his
+head down to kiss him. “I must think--alone.”
+
+Obediently, doglike, he went out into the hall and turned the key in the
+lock behind him. The woman sighed. She rose and went to the small
+cabinet, took from it a bottle of wine and a glass. She started to pour
+the liquor; then shook her head.
+
+“Poison,” she whispered. “That would be their only chance. I can’t risk
+it.” She went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, rinsing the
+glass under the stream until the water was almost boiling. Then she
+filled the glass to the brim under the cold-water tap, drained it. She
+walked slowly back to the room, switched off the lights, and seated
+herself again in the big chair.
+
+The minutes passed. The woman never moved; her eyes stared unwaveringly
+into the darkness before her. And from out the dark a gilded hand came
+slowly, certainly. It touched the throat of the woman. Hedwig Gorski did
+not move. The fingers of gold tightened.
+
+Outside the door came the voice of Gorski: “Do you wish anything,
+Hedwig, _ma chère_?”
+
+And from the darkness came the voice of his wife: “_Non_, Pierre, _mon
+cher_.”
+
+But neither the eyes nor the lips of the woman, nor yet the gilded
+fingers, had moved.
+
+Silence. The man’s voice called again. There was no answer. Shaking, he
+unlocked the door and entered the room. A curtain that had been pulled
+to the bottom of the window was up now. A shaft of moonlight shone on
+the woman’s face--a dead face. At her throat a golden hand seemed
+clutched. But he came nearer, and saw that it was an empty, gilded
+glove. And in the air of the room was the faint odour of crushed
+bananas.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+The little French clock had just chimed the hour of three when the
+tinkling telephone-bell waked Thornley Colton. He reached forth a hand
+to the crystalless watch on the small table at his bed-side and
+whistled. The bell jingled again. He threw a bath robe over his
+shoulders and went into the library.
+
+He answered the inquiring voice instantly: “Good morning, Mr. Ames.
+Certainly. I will be ready in ten minutes.”
+
+For a minute after he had hung up the receiver he stood in the darkness,
+his sightless eyes fixed on the mouthpiece of the instrument. Then he
+went into Sydney Thames’s room and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
+“Get dressed,” he said quietly, but the apple-cheeked secretary saw the
+grim, ominous lines that were around the thin lips. “Ames, of the
+diplomatic secret service, will be here in fifteen minutes. Madame
+Gorski has been murdered.”
+
+“Murdered!” The emotional, highly-strung Thames echoed the word in
+horror.
+
+“Yes.” Still that tone of quiet certainty. “An hour or so ago, I should
+judge. We will probably go down to the hotel. Hustle!” he admonished
+again, as he hurried from the room.
+
+In less than ten minutes Thornley Colton, fully dressed, and smoking a
+cigarette, was seated in the library awaiting the coming of the secret
+agent. The door-bell rang, and he rose to answer it.
+
+He stopped in the hall, when his superkeen ears caught the patter of
+bare feet on the carpet. “Go back to bed, Shrimp,” he ordered.
+
+“Gee, is it a case, Mister Colton?” The wide-eyed boy, with the
+fiery-red hair, the multitude of freckles, and the slightly-twisted
+nose, asked the question eagerly. His hands literally trembled with
+anticipation as they fumbled with the front of his purple pyjama coat.
+
+“Yes.” Thornley Colton’s lip curved in a slight smile, and he patted the
+boy’s shoulder fondly. “But you can do nothing to-night. Go back to bed,
+and to-morrow there may be some real detective work for you to do.”
+
+“Gosh, I hope so!” the boy exclaimed fervently; then his voice became
+almost wistful: “Gee, Mister Colton. I wisht youh’d let me get in a case
+where there was real Nick Carter stuff; blackjacks, an’ assaults, an’
+stuff like that.”
+
+“You’ve got a long life before you, Shrimp,” smiled the blind man, as he
+started downstairs to answer the second ring of the bell.
+
+The man who entered had his rain-coat buttoned up to his chin, and the
+brim of his soft hat came down to the eyes that gleamed from under it.
+
+Colton bowed gravely. “Rather an early-morning call, Mr. Ames.”
+
+The gimlet eyes of the secret agent were fixed on his pale face, seeming
+to bore and probe into the very soul of the blind man. “Mind telling me
+how you knew my name?” he asked. “To my knowledge we have never met
+before.”
+
+“I think we never have.” The grave smile still curved Thornley Colton’s
+thin lips. “But I never forget a voice I have once heard. I heard yours
+several years ago, when I was trying to solve the puzzle of the missing
+Villers code book. The diplomatic service was somewhat interested in
+that case, I believe.”
+
+“So you’re that man!” There was new respect in the tone, and the eyes of
+the secret agent gleamed brighter.
+
+“A lucky touch of the fingers found the solution of the case,” explained
+Colton modestly. “If you will come up to my library we can talk more
+comfortably.” He turned and ascended the stairs.
+
+Sydney Thames was already in the library, and Thornley Colton introduced
+him. “My secretary, Mr. Ames.” He seemed to sense the other’s desire for
+a private conversation, and added: “My eyes, also.”
+
+The secret agent accepted the presence of a third person, and took off
+his rain-coat. Seated in a big chair, which a gesture of the blind man’s
+arm had indicated, he asked his first question abruptly, curtly:--
+
+“Mr. Colton, what do you know about Hedwig Gorski?”
+
+A thin ribbon of blue smoke rose from the blind man’s lips. He seemed to
+watch the smoke waver ceilingward before he answered: “I think she is
+one of the most remarkable women I have ever met. There is no subject
+she cannot discuss intelligently. She speaks all languages, apparently,
+and she is the only woman I ever met who can interpret Grieg properly.
+In fact, I would consider her the most accomplished and wonderful
+international spy I ever met.”
+
+Ames straightened in his chair as though he had been suddenly jabbed
+with a pin. “How did you know that?” he demanded.
+
+“By a process of elimination made necessary by lack of eyes. I sought an
+introduction to Madame Gorski after I had heard her husband address her
+in the Cantonese dialect. I spent several years in China, and,
+naturally, I was interested. And her _musicales_ have been wonderful
+affairs--wonderful, and food for considerable thought!” he finished
+musingly.
+
+“You know that she is dead--murdered?”
+
+“Your visit at this hour could mean nothing else. I have known for some
+time that Madame Gorski feared something. I have known also that she was
+constantly watched.”
+
+For a minute there was silence in the room. Ames took a cigarette from
+his case, lighted it, and became absorbed in the spiraling smoke. Sydney
+Thames, silent, as always, sat back to listen. The secret agent reached
+his decision and spoke:--
+
+“Mr. Colton, I came here with a different plan of procedure in my mind.
+I’m going to be frank. For months we have known that negotiations have
+been going on with a foreign government to obtain possession of the
+secret naval plans of the harbour mines in New York harbour. When you
+understand that those planted electrical mines are the only real
+safeguard against the invasion of the greatest city in America, you will
+know just what they are worth. We know Hedwig Gorski came to this
+country to get them--from whom we have never been able to discover. But
+we have watched every movement, opened every line of mail she has
+received, and have not been able to find a single clue. For a month my
+wife and I have occupied an apartment in the hotel directly opposite the
+Gorski rooms. We have been on guard day and night, as have the floor
+clerks we learned that she had bribed. This morning at one-twenty-five
+Hedwig Gorski and her husband returned to their apartment. They went in,
+lighted every light, and I know they were examining everything to see
+whether or not the rooms had been entered. In a few minutes Gorski came
+out, locked the door, and began pacing up and down before it. This was
+something new, and we watched him curiously. He called. His wife
+answered cheerily in French. Ten minutes later he called again. There
+was no answer. He unlocked the door and stumbled in. I was at his heels.
+Madame Gorski was dead in her chair. At her throat was an empty gilded
+glove--like a hand of gold that had strangled her.”
+
+“A gilded glove.” Colton repeated it without incredulity or surprise in
+his voice; merely as the verification of a known fact.
+
+“You know of the Gilded Glove?” asked the secret agent quickly.
+
+“Yes. My world wanderings have taken me to Russia. The glove has always
+had a peculiar significance. In China two thousand years ago a glove was
+always given to make legal the transfer of land. The custom was also in
+vogue among the ancient Egyptians and Phœnicians. In the correct literal
+translations of the Bible the word ‘glove’ is found instead of ‘shoe’ in
+the fourth chapter of Ruth, and in the one hundred and eighth Psalm.”
+
+Ames nodded, and the blind man went on: “Twenty years ago a certain
+Russian order first used the gilded glove as a death sign for traitors
+to the government. With a love of the significant that only the true
+Oriental mind has--and the mind of the Russian is all Oriental--the
+gilded glove was left at the throat of persons who transferred their
+allegiance for gold.”
+
+“That is right,” corroborated Ames. “Hedwig Gorski and her husband were
+the greatest spies Russia had. Then, for some unknown reason, they went
+into the service of another country. And for five years she has laughed
+at the Gilded Glove and its wearers, who have been constantly on her
+trail.” Again he smoked in silence for a few minutes, his eyes fixed on
+the ceiling. “You seem to know a whole lot about this thing, Mr.
+Colton,” he said frankly. “I’d like you to come with me to the hotel.
+When I entered the room, Gorski, who is a little rat, and heaven only
+knows how a woman like Hedwig could love him, was absolutely insane. He
+moaned and cried without seeing me for several minutes. When he did, he
+accused _you_ of the murder!”
+
+“Accused----” Sydney Thames half rose in his chair and flopped back into
+it with a gasp of amazed horror.
+
+Thornley Colton’s face had not a flicker of expression. “Yes?” he said
+politely.
+
+The gimlet eyes of the secret agent went ceilingward once more. “He
+muttered something about his wife having always feared you--which is the
+highest compliment that could possibly come from a woman like Hedwig
+Gorski. He also babbled something about your not being blind because you
+had seen his wife’s napkin fall to the floor, and that, when you put it
+on the table, its folds concealed a crushed gilded glove--the sentence
+of death. He swears that you couldn’t have heard the napkin fall on the
+velvet carpet.”
+
+“The napkin had not fallen,” Colton said evenly. “I pulled it from
+Madame Gorski’s knees as I leaned over to pick up the crushed gilt glove
+I knew was on the carpet by her chair.” His fingers felt the crystalless
+watch in his pocket. “If you don’t mind,” he apologised, “I’d like to
+get down to the hotel as soon as possible. The most valuable clue, I
+think, will disappear shortly.”
+
+Ames opened his mouth, then closed it. “My taxi is waiting at the door,”
+he said quietly, as he picked up his rain-coat. “I warned the hotel
+manager that the police were not to be notified until I gave permission.
+Even the murder is of secondary importance to finding a clue to the
+damned traitor who is going to sell those harbour plans!”
+
+“A human life, to me, is a wonderful thing,” murmured Colton, as he
+slipped into his overcoat and took the thin cane that gave its messages
+to his supersensitive finger-tips. There was unconscious rebuke in his
+tone.
+
+It was not until they were in the taxi, well on their way down, that the
+silence was broken. Then Ames spoke again. “I’ll frankly admit that the
+murder is a most wonderful piece of work. I went over every inch of the
+rooms while Gorski was gibbering. The door is absolutely the only
+entrance, and I know they looked over the apartment pretty thoroughly.
+Gorski could not have done it, even if he had the nerve. I heard his
+wife answer him. I couldn’t see a thing!”
+
+In the darkness Colton nodded. “I don’t think this will be a case where
+eyes will be of much use,” he said quietly.
+
+The taxi stopped at the entrance of the big hotel, and they went through
+the lobby without exciting comment or receiving a single stare. The news
+of the murder had not been allowed to get downstairs. But a man
+lounging, half asleep, in a leather chair, made a slight signal that
+Ames understood. The secret-service agents had covered the hotel, and
+were working in a dozen different places.
+
+As the three men entered the Gorski apartment, Monsieur Gorski rose from
+his chair with a half-suppressed scream of rage. “Murderer!” he hissed,
+in French. “Murderer!”
+
+A heavy hand forced him back, and an apologetic voice came to the ears
+of Thornley Colton.
+
+“He’s been ravin’ that way for an hour, Mister Colton,” put in the
+red-faced man at Gorski’s side.
+
+“Good morning, Joe,” Colton greeted the house detective.
+
+The white-faced manager of the hotel, who had stood back, nervously
+biting his finger-nails, came forward. “We must notify the police, Mr.
+Ames,” he protested. “I have obeyed your instructions, but if they ever
+know----” The manager left unspoken the horrible possibilities, but his
+whole manner cried them aloud.
+
+“You can notify them in a very few minutes, Mr. Jones,” the blind man’s
+voice cut in curtly. He went to the side of the dead woman unerringly. A
+faint flush seemed to mount to his pale cheeks; his thin nostrils
+quivered like those of a hound on the scent. Almost reverently he
+touched the cheek of Hedwig Gorski. His fingers, light as wind-blown
+thistledown, brushed the beautiful cold skin under the eyes, then down
+to the throat, stopping short before reaching the five finger-marks of
+gold that were deep in the flesh. The gilded glove was on the table,
+where it had fallen as soon as Gorski had touched it. The blind man
+seemed not even aware of its existence.
+
+“Have you a glass, Mr. Ames?” asked the problemist, and there was
+unintentional curtness in his tone. Thornley Colton’s whole mind was on
+the case before him; nothing else existed.
+
+The secret agent took a magnifying glass from his pocket.
+
+“Look at the gilt finger-prints!” ordered the blind man, as his two
+hands lifted the woman’s arms. “Are the prints cleanly cut, sharp?”
+
+“Not a single blur!” announced Ames, raising his eyes. “She never moved
+a muscle after those fingers clutched her throat.”
+
+“Ah!” Quiet triumph was in the blind man’s voice. “Madame Gorski was
+poisoned!”
+
+“Poisoned!” It seemed that every one in the room echoed it. The clutched
+glove at the throat, the deep graven finger-prints of gilt had seemed to
+point to but one thing.
+
+“Yes. No hand of that size could have sufficient strength to keep the
+woman from moving and blurring the gilt prints that were put there with
+another gilt glove worn on the hand of the murderer. The wearer of the
+gilt glove would not overlook a detail. He probably carried the other
+glove in a box so that its shape would not be lost, and fitted it to the
+prints after. It is the usual way.”
+
+“The bottle and the glass!” Ames took a step nearer, but Colton’s hand
+picked up the glass beside the tall wine-bottle. He stepped away from
+the table, and raised the glass to his lips; held it there for several
+seconds.
+
+“Hedwig Gorski did not drink from this glass!”
+
+“Why? How do you know that?” Ames gasped it.
+
+“Because it was put there by the man whose gloved hand made those marks
+on Madame Gorski’s throat after she was dead.”
+
+“Bah!” The expletive came in a snarling sneer from the dead woman’s
+husband. “You think my wonderful Hedwig a fool? She would drink of no
+wine that had been unguarded all evening! I heard her in the bathroom
+washing the glass for one, two, three minutes. If she drank she drank
+fresh water.”
+
+“How long after you heard the water running did she answer you?” asked
+Colton; and even in his sightless eyes there seemed to come a light.
+
+“Five, six, seven, ten minutes. Ten minutes,” repeated the husband, with
+sullen positiveness.
+
+“As long as that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where is the bathroom, Sydney?” snapped Colton. The muscles under the
+skin of his lean jaws played back and forth. He was tense as a hound in
+leash.
+
+“Five steps to the right, half turn,” Sydney answered mechanically, his
+eyes judging the distance instantly because of years of practice.
+
+Colton darted inside. He turned on the hot water and bent down so that
+his face was not an inch away from the running stream. He did the same
+thing when he had turned the cold-water tap.
+
+“The devilish ingenuity of it!” They heard him mutter as he straightened
+up.
+
+“What is it?” Again Ames asked the question. Student of men as his work
+had made him, Ames had realised, minutes before, that he was in the
+presence of a man who would lead always; he understood that he was but a
+pupil before a master.
+
+“They knew Madame Gorski was too clever to be poisoned in any ordinary
+way. They knew that she would even suspect the presence of poison in an
+empty glass, and would wash any glass, under the hot-water tap, before
+she drank, because the heat would dissolve any poison. They knew, also,
+that if she wanted a drink it would be of cold water, fresh from the
+tap. The poison, a paste of peculiar odour that my keen sense of smell
+instantly detected, is smeared on the inside of the cold-water faucet.
+The minute it was turned, the stream that flowed was almost pure
+poison!”
+
+“Good God!” came the horror-stricken voice of the hotel manager.
+
+“But there must have been some one here to make those marks and leave
+the gilded glove,” put in Ames.
+
+“Where is the clothes-closet?” Colton asked.
+
+The secret agent hurried into the bedroom that adjoined the room of
+death. Colton was at his heels, the slim, hollow cane locating every
+piece of furniture as he passed. Ames opened the door of a closet full
+of clothes, and stepped inside. Colton stood at the threshold, his head
+bent forward, apparently peering intently into the depths of the closet.
+
+“Another?” he asked curtly.
+
+In the other bedroom was a huge wardrobe. Ames opened it, and again the
+blind man seemed to look into every corner of it. “The murderer hid in
+there behind the clothes! Take some of them out and you’ll find flecks
+of gilt from the glove he wore!”
+
+The secret agent grabbed an armful and threw them on the bed, with no
+regard for their mussing. He pawed them over. His eyes found what they
+sought, and he uttered a shout of triumph. “Here they are! On the
+Inverness and this black evening gown!” Then awe came to his voice. “How
+did you know that?” he asked. “How could you know it--and blind?”
+
+“Because I am blind. Because my other senses are abnormally developed to
+recompense the loss of sight. I knew the murderer had hidden in the
+closet; I knew the gilt from the glove he wore on his hand would come
+off on the clothes that concealed him, just as I knew the glass on the
+table was not the one Madame Gorski had used, and just as I knew the
+crushed glove was at her feet in the restaurant--because I have a sense
+of smell that is more than doubly acute. Wherever there is gilt there is
+banana oil. It is always used in gilding, and its odour is unmistakable.
+I knew of the men of the Gilded Glove, and I suspected that Madame
+Gorski feared it. When my nostrils caught the odour and located it at
+the floor beside her chair, I knew instantly what it meant. I covered it
+with the napkin so that people would not stare. I wanted her to see it
+so that she might be warned. The glass on the table has the banana-oil
+odour because the murderer placed it there with the hand that still
+smelled of the oil with which the soft kid of the glove had become
+saturated. The smell was also in the wardrobe. Simple, isn’t it?” A
+mirthless smile curved his thin lips. Thornley Colton could not forget
+that in the next room was the body of the woman killed by the hand that
+left its trail so faintly that only his blindness enabled him to follow
+it.
+
+“Where are the windows?” Colton asked sharply, before any one had a
+chance to say a word.
+
+“In the next room, overlooking the street.”
+
+“Show them to me.”
+
+Ames hurried back to the sitting-room. The hotel manager still bit his
+finger-nails. The husband of the woman who was dead had buried his face
+in his hands, and was sobbing. The eyes of the hotel detective were
+fixed on Colton, following his every movement, in them a look of
+wondering admiration.
+
+The blind man’s feeling fingers examined every inch of the casements
+that overlooked busy Broadway, thirteen storeys below. “Nothing here,”
+he said, when he had finished. “There must be another window!”
+
+“Only a small one, in the bathroom, that overlooks an air-shaft,” the
+secret agent informed him.
+
+Colton turned and darted into the bathroom. “This is the one!” Once more
+his exploring fingers went over every inch.
+
+“But that hasn’t been touched. Not a screw has been loosened,” declared
+Ames positively.
+
+“No, there hasn’t been a screw touched. The murderer was too clever for
+that, but he wasn’t clever enough to get the banana-oil smell from his
+fingers. The entire pane was taken out by cutting away the putty, and
+probably put back with triangular tin tacks that would never be noticed
+through the frosted glass.”
+
+“That’s a mighty small opening,” Ames said slowly.
+
+“The murderer must have been small, and as active as a cat. Also----”
+Colton did not finish; he stepped out of the bathroom. “Who has the
+rooms directly over this one?” he asked the manager.
+
+“They have no occupants yet,” hesitated the nervous Mr. Jones.
+
+“When were they coming? Who were they?” The questions came sharply,
+crisply.
+
+“A couple from Philadelphia, who telegraphed to have them reserved. They
+had occupied them once before, and liked them.”
+
+“Clever,” muttered the blind man. “They wouldn’t take a chance of
+occupying them, but were going to see to it that they were empty when
+wanted. Let’s look at them.”
+
+“But what am I going to do?” began the nerve-frayed manager. “The
+police----”
+
+“Notify them.”
+
+Colton gave the permission grimly; then a look of compassion came to his
+face as he seemed aware of the presence of Monsieur Gorski for the first
+time. He took a step toward him; then halted. He could do nothing--now.
+
+“Joe?” he said softly. The house detective glanced at the inert figure
+of the man, and came forward. “When the police come, let them arrest
+Gorski,” Colton whispered. “He will be safe in their hands, and God
+knows he isn’t safe from that band of gilt-handed devils anywhere else.
+It will only be a short time before the real murderer is found.”
+
+The house detective nodded. “It’ll be best that way,” he admitted.
+
+“Show us the rooms!” ordered Colton; then, as the manager hesitated:
+“Let Joe telephone police headquarters from here,” he advised shortly.
+
+With Ames and Sydney at his heels, he followed the manager to the floor
+above. The minute the lights were snapped on in the apartment, Ames ran
+to the open bathroom window. In a heap on the floor under it was a thin,
+strong rope. Beside it were fragments of what had been a wine flask, and
+an empty pasteboard box, with the inside smeared with gilt--the one in
+which the gilt glove found at the woman’s throat had been carried to
+prevent its handling. And under the bath-tub was thrown another glove of
+gilt, with most of the gold worn off the inside of the fingers.
+
+“Good Lord!” gasped Ames eagerly. “There’s clues enough here!”
+
+“Too many!” declared Colton tersely. He turned to the manager. “Who has
+the apartments opposite this?”
+
+“A German family,” the head of the hotel answered, as a pupil to a
+teacher.
+
+“How many?”
+
+“Three. A big, bearded man and his wife, and a gawky boy. They’ve been
+here a week.”
+
+“The boy! Describe him!”
+
+“Well,” began the manager nervously. “He’s about seventeen, I should
+judge, but small. He’s awkward, and speaks the rottenest English I ever
+heard in the darndest, squeakiest voice. Seems to like to listen to
+people, though, and he’s always sitting around the lobby gaping at the
+guests.”
+
+“I want to see him!” Colton’s voice had a new note, dominant,
+compelling.
+
+“At this hour?” stammered the manager.
+
+“Now!”
+
+Ames, attracted by the tone and the words, came from the bathroom.
+
+“What is it?” he asked eagerly.
+
+“The man who murdered Madame Gorski.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“I don’t know--now.” Thornley Colton spoke the words over his shoulder,
+for he was following the manager out of the room. A knock at the door
+across the hall brought no response. Colton pushed the manager aside,
+and, with his horrified protest unheeded, opened the unlocked door. A
+snap of the fights under Ames’ fingers, and the men saw that the rooms
+were empty. But in the air was a strong smell of banana oil.
+
+“The floor clerk!” demanded Colton, and the manager went meekly to get
+him.
+
+Ames was everywhere, rummaging, prying with practiced fingers into every
+drawer, every closet. Each piece of clothing he pulled out was examined
+with lightning-moving fingers. He picked the lock of the big trunk, and
+cursed when the opened lid revealed only cloth-wrapped stones. But in
+the bottom was an overturned bottle that had once held gilt.
+
+“The glove had just been gilded,” guessed the secret agent.
+
+The floor clerk entered, visibly nervous.
+
+“When did the German boy return here to-night?” asked Colton.
+
+“About twelve-thirty.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Were his mother and father in the room?”
+
+The floor clerk scratched his head. “I didn’t see them come in, but I
+heard them giving the kid the very devil. They raised an awful row.” He
+grinned at the recollection.
+
+“Ah!” The blind man’s tone held quiet satisfaction. “And an hour or so
+later the boy slipped out, saying that his mother and father were
+asleep, and he was going downstairs to watch the people for a while.”
+
+“Yes.” There was amazement written all over the hotel clerk’s face.
+
+Colton turned to face Ames. “The bird has flown,” he said quietly. “He
+is the one who entered Madame Gorski’s rooms, put the poison in the tap
+and the glove at her throat. For a week the three have been waiting
+their opportunity. To-night all was ready. The father and mother left
+early in the evening, and did not return. They, or another accomplice,
+dropped the glove at Madame Gorski’s chair in passing, expecting her to
+look down and see it. The waiter probably kicked it so near her chair
+that she couldn’t have noticed it if the smell of the banana oil hadn’t
+made me find it.”
+
+“But the clerk heard the father and mother talking?” protested Ames. “He
+didn’t see them go out, and,” he added, “there are several of my men
+around who would have stopped them instantly.”
+
+“No one left that room but the boy!” There was no gainsaying the
+positiveness in the floor clerk’s tone.
+
+The grim smile came again to Thornley Colton’s lips. “When I learned
+that Madame Gorski had answered her husband _ten minutes_ after he had
+heard the water running, and she must have taken the poison, I began to
+suspect the true facts. A poison that left no signs of agony must have
+killed quickly and painlessly. It wasn’t her voice monsieur heard at
+all! It was the voice of a wonderful mimic; the mimic who made the floor
+clerk believe that his mother and father were scolding him in this room.
+And who would stop a gawky German boy? You have his description. Put
+your men at work.” He rose. “Come, Sydney, it is time for breakfast.”
+
+The secret agent took his hand and shook it fervently. “I can’t tell you
+how I thank you,” he said, and there was genuine feeling in his voice.
+“But I will see that Washington recognises this night’s work of yours.”
+
+Once more the mirthless smile that had been in evidence so often that
+night came to his lips. “I want no recognition,” he said slowly. “I
+merely want to avenge the death of the most wonderful woman I ever met.
+There is nothing half so precious as the life of a woman, or a child.”
+
+He bowed gravely. Silently he and Sydney walked to the elevator and into
+the lobby. Halfway out Thornley Colton stopped.
+
+“I want to telephone the house, Sydney. There’s a foolish fear in my
+mind that I can’t throw off.” He went into the telephone-booth. When he
+emerged a minute later, there was a look on his face that Sydney Thames
+had never seen before; a look terrible in its earnestness.
+
+“Do you believe in presentiments, Sydney?” The blind man’s voice was
+calm, even. He gave his secretary no chance to answer. “I have just had
+one come true. John found five finger-smudges of gold on the white
+table-cloth in the dining-room, and Shrimp has disappeared absolutely!”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+Thornley Colton paced the floor of his library with long, tigerish
+strides. His head was bowed, and over his eyes the lines of
+concentration had deepened in the hours of the long day. His fingers
+touched the face of the crystalless watch in his pocket.
+
+“Three o’clock,” he muttered. He turned to the desk and its telephone;
+stretched forth a hand, withdrew it, and shook his head. Again his
+strides covered the length of the room; across and back, across and
+back.
+
+He lifted his head eagerly--lowered it. The steps his superkeen ears had
+heard were only those of Sydney Thames, as he left his bedroom on the
+floor above.
+
+“Any news yet, Thorn?” asked the apple-cheeked secretary as he entered.
+The blind man shook his head.
+
+“Nothing,” he said quietly. He took a half-turn around the room, then
+suddenly wheeled to face the silent Thames. “If anything happens to that
+boy, Sydney, I swear to God I’ll punish those responsible!” The voice,
+always so calm, so unstirred by any inner feeling, now trembled with
+fierce passion. The blind man seemed to realise that the mask he had
+cultivated so carefully for years had dropped; for his tone was even as
+he continued: “I thought when I took him that I could give him the real
+life he had been denied. But I understand now that I was only bringing
+him to take the risks that have never caused me a second thought. I
+realise now the dozens of times I have sent him into places of danger,
+merely to satisfy my own conceit; to enable me to beat some one else on
+a baffling case. Now he is gone! All my vaunted powers are useless, and
+I’m as much at sea as the veriest tyro. A problemist? I!” His voice
+vibrated with scorn and self-denunciation.
+
+“You are in no way to blame!” defended Sydney Thames instantly.
+
+Colton turned again on his heel. “I’m as guilty as hell!” he declared
+vehemently. “Why do you suppose John or the other servants heard no
+noise? Do you think it was because the man who murdered Madame Gorski,
+the man who made those glove prints downstairs, overcame Shrimp so
+easily and so quietly? No! It was because of the training I have given
+the boy; training to be instantly on the alert to follow, to shadow, to
+discover; training that no boy should have had. Shrimp, sent brusquely
+to bed by me, couldn’t sleep. What boy could? But I didn’t understand. I
+only looked at it from my side. He probably heard the man who entered.
+Instead of raising an alarm as a normal person would, he probably
+followed him outside. Then----” His hands spread wide before him in a
+gesture of helplessness.
+
+This was a side of Thornley Colton that Sydney Thames had never seen
+before; a new side, a human side. He understood now the deep love for
+the undersized, red-haired boy with the twisted nose that was in the
+heart of the blind man. He hadn’t understood the depths of Colton’s
+feelings when the blind man had gone through the house calmly when they
+returned to search for clues. He hadn’t suspected that there was
+anything but the cold, analytical love of a problem in the cool voice
+that had put ten thousand police in the big city on the trail of the
+missing boy. Nor had he understood the cool way Thornley Colton had
+directed Ames and his squad of underground diplomatic workers to rake
+the city with a fine-tooth comb for the murderer of Hedwig Gorski. No,
+he hadn’t understood then. Through it all Colton had been the same
+dominant, emotionless machine, directing, suggesting, issuing curt
+orders.
+
+But the hours of inaction had done their work. For the first time in his
+life the problemist was completely at sea. The signs he had read so
+unerringly a hundred times before; signs that were usually hidden from
+men of eyes, were missing in this new development of the Gorski case.
+The man who had left the finger-prints of the gilded glove had
+apparently entered with a key, for there was not a scratch on a window
+or door. He had touched nothing but the white table-cloth, for there was
+not a trace of the banana oil anywhere else. There was nothing,
+absolutely nothing, to tell a fact about the disappearance of The Fee.
+He was gone. That was all. And Thornley Colton could do nothing but
+wait. His blindness made him helpless now.
+
+The telephone-bell rang, and Colton sprang to answer it. The eager
+expression died from his face as the voice of the secret agent came over
+the wire.
+
+“No trace of the boy yet--Ah!--A bundle of manuscript music addressed to
+Madame Gorski at the post-office?--No word?--Yes, bring it up to the
+house. I think it will fit a theory I have been constructing for some
+time. Good-bye.”
+
+He hung up the receiver wearily, and his voice was tired as he spoke to
+Sydney Thames. “Not a word,” he said slowly. “Ames is wholly engrossed
+with the search for those harbour-mine plans. That is the big thing to
+him. The murder of Madame Gorski and the disappearance of Shrimp are
+only incidents.” He resumed his pacing of the room. “It’s another case
+like that of the Money Machines, Sydney. Human life and happiness are
+pushed aside as unimportant because of a few papers and figures in
+lifeless ink.”
+
+Sydney Thames silently withdrew. He knew that the man who had picked him
+up, as a bundle of dirty baby-clothes, on the banks of the English river
+that had given him the only name he ever knew, wanted to be alone. So he
+left him to his tireless pacing while the wonderful brain behind the
+high forehead figured each step in the problem; aligning motives;
+testing theories.
+
+When the front-door bell announced the coming of Ames, Colton seated
+himself at the desk, and when the secret agent entered there was no
+inkling of the thoughts in the mind of the blind man.
+
+“There’s absolutely nothing in this,” began Ames apologetically, as he
+laid the thick envelope on the desk. “It’s just music, poor stuff, too.
+Probably written by some sentimental amateur who has read of Madame
+Gorski and her recitals, and wants a criticism.”
+
+“Such persons usually inclose a long letter of pleading,” remarked
+Colton dryly, as he took the thin sheets from the big envelope and ran
+his supersensitive finger-tips over the back of the paper to feel the
+indentations of the pen. “You have no trace of the boy, yet?” His tone
+was almost uninterested, and his finger-tips still brushed the back of
+the music sheet.
+
+“No.” Ames shook his head. “The men are combing the city. Finding the
+boy means finding those harbour-mine plans, probably.”
+
+Colton’s lips tightened. “No, it doesn’t,” he said quietly. “These are
+the plans of the location of every electrically-operated mine in the
+harbour and bay.”
+
+“_What!_” Ames fairly shouted the word as he leaped to his feet. He
+jumped to the desk and picked up one of the manuscript sheets Colton had
+examined and laid aside. As he stared, the expression of incredulity
+gave way to one of bewildered puzzlement. “What do you mean?” he
+demanded. “There is nothing concealed here. This is straight music.”
+
+“It would contain some horrible discords if you tried to play it, I
+imagine, though it was done by a man who has some knowledge of
+composing. But, as you said before, any one with _eyes_ would put that
+down as mere amateurishness. Eyes are the greatest handicap pure
+eliminative reasoning has. For weeks you have watched Madame Gorski. You
+have had men at her _musicales_, and have attended them yourself, no
+doubt. To you those wonderful affairs were merely a cloak the woman had
+assembled to hide her real purpose for being here. To me they were
+something else. They were part of a carefully thought-out plan. She knew
+that you were watching her. She knew that every person who approached
+her and every bit of her mail would be examined. But who would suspect a
+dozen sheets of music manuscript? Who but a blind man!” The faint colour
+of excitement was in his cheeks, the lean, cleft jaw was set. “See!” He
+turned over the sheet he had examined last. “Every sheet is written in
+five flats, yet in this page alone there are more than a dozen sharp
+accidentals. Three notes out of five must be played on the black keys.
+Every sharp and flat on every sheet denotes the placement of a blind
+mine! Look!” He snatched up a pencil from the desk, located the middle
+bar in the top staff with his finger-tip, and drew down the paper a
+wide, curving line, following the course of his feeling finger, to a
+measure in the lower right-hand corner. “Notice,” he observed quietly,
+“that not one of the measures the pencil has touched contains either a
+sharp or a flat.”
+
+“The secret naval lane through the outer harbour,” whispered Ames, and
+in his voice was the awe that had been there once before.
+
+“Yes.” Thornley Colton leaned back in his chair. “You know that the
+harbour is laid out in half-mile squares, subdivided by smaller squares
+of two-hundred-and-eighty-yard mine placements. Take the sheets
+numerically, and draw perpendicular parallel lines. Each one of these
+will represent the two-hundred-and-eighty-yard square. The measures of
+the treble and bass clefs placed directly under each other will make the
+half-mile squares. The sheets lettered A, B, C should be laid from left
+to right, I imagine, to give the anchorage width. I think a line
+following the staccato notes will give the rough shore-line necessary.”
+He lighted a cigarette, and his sightless eyes were apparently fixed on
+the ceiling, his thoughts far away.
+
+Ames lifted his eyes from the papers to the impassive face of the blind
+man. “My God, Mr. Colton!” he cried, and his voice shook with feeling.
+“Do you realise what you’ve done? Do you understand that in ten minutes
+you have accomplished a thing that has baulked every secret agent in the
+country for months? Do you know that you have kept in the hands of this
+country the greatest naval secret we possess”--his voice choked--“the
+secret I was about to let slip through my fingers? It means----”
+
+A wave of the problemist’s hand stopped him. “It means that my boy is
+missing, perhaps dead,” the blind man said dispassionately. “It means
+that the most wonderful woman I ever knew is dead. That is all.”
+
+A look of pity came to the face of the secret agent. “We will do all we
+can,” he assured. “We will find the boy just as surely as we will find
+the traitor who is responsible for these.” He picked up the precious
+sheets, and put them carefully in his pocket, and buttoned his coat.
+
+“Finding the traitor should be comparatively easy,” Colton told him.
+“Men who have the knowledge of music composition necessary to put that
+together are not common in the war department.”
+
+Ames picked up his hat and held out his hand. “Believe me, Mr. Colton,
+Washington will not forget this work of yours. I will let you know the
+instant we hear anything. Good day!”
+
+Colton sat quiet while the secret agent and Sydney Thames left the room.
+There was no hope in his heart. By his showing the government agent the
+secret of the music he had filled his mind with thoughts of finding the
+man who was responsible. Every effort of the secret agents would be in
+that direction now. What was a little, red-headed kid beside a traitor
+who would betray his country? Nothing--to the men who were paid to guard
+the secrets of state.
+
+By silence Colton could have kept the trained government-men on the
+trail of the boy he loved. But he had given all that was in him to solve
+the puzzle of the music. The secret agents would go on that track now.
+The police could do nothing against men like those of the Gilded Glove.
+They had been content to arrest Monsieur Gorski; they had proclaimed in
+every morning-paper that he was the murderer. They were already lying
+back on their laurels, smug, complacent. No, there was no one but the
+blind man to find The Fee!
+
+The long hours of the afternoon passed. Still Thornley Colton sat in the
+arm-chair, immovable. From time to time Sydney Thames came to the
+doorway, looked in, and went away. He knew that the problemist did not
+want to be disturbed. And the blind man’s mind through the hours was the
+mind of the men who were behind the gilded glove. His mind worked as
+their minds would work; planning out each step they would take in their
+next move; leading off into tangents that made necessary the discarding
+of entire trains of thought. Patiently he would start again at the
+beginning. Finally his brow cleared; the rigid lip-lines softened.
+
+“It is the only way,” he murmured, and his hand went out to the button
+on the desk that would summon his automobile any hour of the day or
+night. Another button brought Sydney on the run.
+
+Colton sensed the unasked question and shook his head. “No,” he
+anticipated. “I am going out in the machine to get a breath of fresh
+air--alone.”
+
+“But----” Sydney started to protest.
+
+“Alone,” repeated the blind man. “I shall not be gone more than an
+hour.”
+
+Sydney Thames went with him to the waiting car, and watched with anxious
+eyes as the stolid Irish chauffeur whirled him away. It was less than an
+hour later that the blind man returned.
+
+“Any news?” he asked of Thames, as he threw off his hat and coat.
+
+“Headquarters report that they have gone through every house in the
+Russian sections.”
+
+“The one place where he would not be likely to be,” sneered the blind
+man. Then weariness made his voice heavy. “I’m going to bed, Sydney. I
+don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. Good-night.”
+
+He went to the bedroom that adjoined the library, undressed, and in a
+few minutes was under the covers, sleeping peacefully. Sydney Thames
+shook his head and went to his own room. It was the first time in years
+he had known the blind man to miss an evening out.
+
+When the little clock on the mantel chimed twelve, Thornley Colton waked
+immediately, got up noiselessly, and put on his clothes, all but his
+collar and tie, coat and vest. From his overcoat-pocket he took the
+thing he had gone out for in the early evening. It was a small rubber
+bulb with a long rubber tube that had a curved end of hollow, red glass.
+He carefully placed the bulb in his right armpit, adjusted the tube down
+the length of his arm, so that the curved end of red glass was concealed
+in his half-shut right palm. He drew the coat of his pyjamas over his
+shirt, and, without even removing his shoes, crawled back under the
+covers.
+
+The little clock chimed one--two. The calm, even breathing of the blind
+man came regularly. The superkeen ears caught the faint sound of an
+opening door. But he did not move. Dead silence. He heard the
+library-door open, and to his nostrils came the strong odour of banana
+oil. His regular breathing was the only sound that broke the stillness.
+The library-door closed. Instantly, noiselessly, he was out of bed.
+Seemingly with one motion he was in his coat, and vest, and overcoat.
+His hand touched the loaded automatic in his outside pocket. He did not
+even wait to put on the smoked glasses his sensitive, sightless eyes
+needed to protect them from the burning light. He did not wait to pick
+up the thin, hollow stick that gave its message to his finger-tips. Nor
+did he pause an instant in the library, where the smell of bananas told
+him that a crushed glove of gilt had been laid on the desk. Down the
+stairs he ran with steps that were as silent as the night itself. He
+flung wide the front door. Down the street he heard an automobile door
+slam; the engine barked.
+
+“Was I mistaken? Was it all wrong?” ran the bitter thought through his
+mind. He had staked everything on his ability to anticipate a probable
+plan of action on the part of the murderers. Then an eager look came to
+his face.
+
+“Gee, Mister Colton, I’m glad yuh come!” The piping boy’s voice came
+from his side.
+
+“What is it, Shrimp?” he asked tensely. “Where have you been?”
+
+“I been watchin’ them guys. I follered the one that got in the house,
+an’ I know where dey hang out. Gee, Mister Colton, dere’s a taxi.”
+
+“Hail it!”
+
+The shrill voice brought the cab to the curb. The chauffeur nodded at
+the low-voiced instructions. In the darkness Thornley Colton lolled back
+in the cushions. On his face was a curious look of resolution, content,
+victory. His wonderfully-keen ears, trained for years to know every
+sound, every voice and inflection of voice, knew that the person at his
+side was not Shrimp! He had known from the first that the voice was that
+of the man whose marvellous mimicry of Hedwig Gorski’s voice had
+deceived even her husband. He knew that the man beside him was Madame
+Gorski’s murderer. Blind, helpless but for the automatic pistol in his
+pocket, he was allowing himself to be taken to the men who had left
+their death-sentence sign on the desk in his library; to the men who had
+taken the boy he loved!
+
+One chance in a thousand there had been, and the blind man had grasped
+it eagerly. He knew that one false move would destroy even that chance.
+He had realized that hours before. He had not dared give an inkling of
+his plan to a soul; he had not dared ask for help in the one desperate
+chance, for he did not know how many keen eyes were watching. He did not
+know where he was going, and he could not risk having men who would come
+to his aid shadowing him. No, the one chance in a thousand could only be
+taken _alone_.
+
+As they rode the voice chattered on, telling of trailing the man who had
+left the glove-prints to a little house in Harlem; of stealing a
+basement-door key from a servant. Thornley Colton complimented quietly
+and often, but his whole mind was fixed on the street-corners the cab
+turned, calculating distance, remembering directions. And he knew they
+were not going near Harlem; but were in the dark, winding side-streets
+of Greenwich Village.
+
+The taxi came to a stop. “The house is three doors down, Mister Colton.
+We’ll chase dis guy an’ slide up soft.”
+
+Colton took a bill from his pocket, and the hand of the murderer
+snatched it to pay the driver. “Dis way,” whispered the voice, when the
+chauffeur had gone. Colton felt a hand lightly touch his elbow to guide
+him.
+
+Stealthily they went, keeping close to the dark shadows of the houses.
+With a hiss of warning the hand drew him against the wall of a house,
+seconds after the blind man had heard the sound of approaching
+footsteps. A policeman passed, swinging his stick and whistling softly.
+
+“Come on!” The hand pulled him forward and down an area-way. He heard a
+handle turn and an iron-grille door open rustily. A key in the hand of
+his guide opened another door, and he felt the carpet of the
+basement-hall under his feet as the door closed behind him.
+
+“Wait here a minute, Mister Colton,” came the whisper at his side. “I
+want a scout ’round a little.”
+
+Obediently the blind man stood in the darkness. He heard the light,
+almost soundless footsteps retreating until they died away somewhere in
+the depths of the house. Like a flash he whirled to the door. His
+fingers found the catch, sprung it back. The way to escape was open!
+Then he crept forward into the darkness, every nerve strained to catch
+the slightest warning sound. From the floor above came the hoarse murmur
+of voices, but even his wonderful ears could not distinguish words. Then
+his lips tautened to a thin, straight line. A moan, faint, quavering,
+came from the darkness. He knew instantly that it was the voice of the
+boy he had come to find. He had heard it before, years ago, when the boy
+had tossed on his bed and dreamed horrid dreams of his murdered mother
+and his murderer father, from whom Thornley Colton had taken him.
+
+“Only a few minutes more, kiddie,” he breathed, then he darted back to
+the place his guide had left him. His superkeen ears had warned him.
+
+“Here upstairs playin’ cards an’ half drunk,” whispered the piping voice
+so like that of Shrimp. “Got a gun?”
+
+Thornley Colton knew that the man was leaning forward, watching him in
+the darkness, but his hand touched the pocket that contained the heavy
+pistol, and he nodded. The lips of the blind man set even grimmer as he
+heard the sharp breath-intake of satisfaction. So the thousandth chance
+demanded that he lose even the pistol! Well, he would play the game
+according to their own set rules.
+
+Up the stairs he followed at the heels of his leader, his brain
+automatically counting the steps and turns, as it had been taught to do
+years before. The guide stopped. Colton could hear the faint murmur of
+voices.
+
+“Dere’s where dey are!” whispered the voice. “Get in before dey know
+where dey’s at.” The blind man’s hand fumbled for the door-handle. He
+flung the door wide.
+
+The bright lights of the room stung his naked eyeballs like a million
+swords of living fire; his hands went involuntarily to shield them.
+Instantly he felt the fingers of the man who had guided him dive toward
+his pocket, snatch out the pistol.
+
+“Welcome, Herr Colton!” The voice came from in front of him in heavy
+German, and each word was a sneer. “Fool!” grated the voice. “Into our
+hands like a baby you come. Three pistols are pointed at your heart! Sit
+down!”
+
+Colton groped forward blindly, his hand found a chair, his fingers told
+him that it was set close to a heavy oak table.
+
+“Goot!” grunted the man who had spoken. Colton knew that he was sitting
+directly in front of him, across the table. The blind man’s ears also
+informed him that on either side of the voice was another man. Three
+against one! Three with loaded pistols against an unarmed man who was
+blind!
+
+The door closed softly, and Colton knew that the man who had led him was
+gone.
+
+“Where’s my boy?” demanded the problemist suddenly, fiercely. “Where is
+he!” He leaned across the table, and the heavy voice commanded him to
+sit back. But Thornley Colton had learned the table’s width; a powerful
+lift of his knee had told him of its weight. That table was his
+thousandth chance! He slumped back in his chair, his left hand
+protecting his burning eyes, his right hand half closed on the arm of
+his chair.
+
+“You have offended the Gilded Glove,” began the rumbling German voice.
+
+“I understand Russian!” broke in the blind man curtly.
+
+The man at the right drew in his breath sharply. Colton heard the man at
+the left tilt his chair until its back touched a wall.
+
+“The Gilded Glove has always been sacred to traitors,” the voice went
+on, and the language was Russian. “But you have learned things that men
+with eyes would never have learned. We have watched you with Hedwig
+Gorski, and we knew that you knew. We know that you discovered the
+secret written in the music. But for you, that secret would have been
+our secret. The clutching fingers of the Long Arm are always reaching
+for those who fight the Little Father. You fell into our trap. You are a
+brave man. Your hands do not shake, nor does your body tremble. Your
+death will be an easy death.”
+
+“Thanks.” The word came laconically from the blind man, but every nerve,
+every sense was alert as he mentally pictured the room and its
+occupants. He knew that the heavy table must be less than three feet
+from the wall. The tilted chair had told him that. Even the quiet
+breathing of the men located them for the blind man, who was waiting the
+thousandth chance.
+
+“This chamber is sound-proof. Its secrets are always secrets,” continued
+the voice. “We could riddle you with bullets, and the world would be
+none the wiser. But we will be merciful.”
+
+Colton heard the click of a bottle-neck on a glass, heard the gurgle of
+the flowing wine, then the glass was pushed across the table.
+
+“Drink!” ordered the harsh voice. “It is the poison that killed Hedwig
+Gorski; swift, powerful, painless. Drink!”
+
+Thornley Colton drew back, a look of horror on his face.
+
+“That, or the bullets which do not kill painlessly!”
+
+The problemist’s right hand reached blindly for the glass. His palm
+almost tipped it as it covered the top for an instant; then his fingers
+lifted it.
+
+“You will not harm my boy?” he asked, and there was a queer chokiness in
+his voice.
+
+“Drink!”
+
+“You will not harm my boy?” The voice was pleading.
+
+“I shall count three!”
+
+Slowly, his hands shaking so that it required both of them to keep the
+drink from spilling. Thornley Colton lifted the glass to his lips. Six
+eyes watched him, but the nervousness seemed to pass as the fire of the
+wine entered his veins. He set down the empty glass and wiped his lips
+with his handkerchief. Narrowly the men watched him. A hectic flush
+seemed to mount the pale cheeks; the lean, cleft jaw was set rigidly.
+Suddenly Thornley Colton bent forward across the table; his left hand
+gripping its edge. And his voice came to their ears like the snap of a
+steel cable.
+
+“For every minute of pain you have caused the boy I will make you
+suffer hours of agony!” he swore passionately. The voice became dull,
+then, the words came slowly, haltingly. “Hours--hours--for my
+boy’s--hours--hours----”
+
+The half-closed right fist dropped to his chair arm; the left hand
+dropped limply to his side; his body convulsively turned in the chair so
+that his hip was at the table-edge; the eyes stared straight ahead.
+
+“It has done its work--as always,” whispered the man at the left.
+
+“A pity we could not make of him another Boris!” said the man at the
+right.
+
+“Put away the needless pistols!” commanded the heavy voice. “Darkness
+for the sign!” The hand that had held the pistol reached back of him.
+The fingers pulled a switch, and the lights went out. The door opened
+softly.
+
+From the darkness a gilded hand came slowly, certainly. The fingers
+touched the throat of the blind man----
+
+With every ounce of strength in his powerful body, Thornley Colton sent
+the table crashing on the three men, pinning them like rats in the
+narrow space their chairs had occupied, knocking the breath from them,
+half stunning them. So instantaneously that it seemed part of the same
+lightning movement the blind man’s hand darted out to grasp the
+invisible arm that held the gilded glove. A snapping jerk, and Madame
+Gorski’s murderer was on his knees. Colton’s right fist went out; the
+curved glass tube in his palm that had sucked up the wine to the bulb in
+his arm-pit while his hands had concealed the wineglass, shattered with
+the impact, cutting his tender palm in a dozen places. A choking gurgle
+came from the torn lips of the murderer, and the problemist knew that
+the sudden movement of his right arm had sent a spurting stream of the
+poison down the throat of the mimic. He let the lax body slide to the
+floor. A groan came from one of the pinned-down men. It was only a
+matter of seconds now.
+
+The steps of a running man sounded in the hall-way. The superkeen ears
+of the problemist located them in the direction of the basement-stairs,
+and he realised that the approaching man must have been on the lower
+floor guarding the boy. That would leave the coast clear! He darted
+across the room; crouched beside the door. The man who had groaned
+cursed jerkingly, and one of the heavy chairs creaked as he tried to
+writhe from under the big table. A hoarse growl came from the doorway.
+Like a cat, crouching, Thornley Colton spun on the balls of his feet and
+caught the man around the knees. A wrestler’s twist of his body, and the
+new comer went down. The problemist pulled the door closed with a slam
+and jumped into the hall-way.
+
+A shot sounded in the room, and the blind man’s lips curved in a grim
+smile. The way to escape was clear! In the darkness of the closed room
+the men of the Gilded Glove would be for precious minutes wholly at sea;
+in the darkness of the halls, Colton was at home--himself. He knew that
+he had gained several minutes now, because in the dark and the confusion
+of returning senses the men would not realise that he had escaped; every
+suspicious sound made by one of them would mean, to the others’
+bewildered brains, the location of the enemy.
+
+Colton ran down the hall noiselessly; every nerve, every faculty alert
+to warn him of danger before a man with eyes would ever suspect its
+presence. His brain counted the steps without conscious effort. At the
+top of the basement-stairs he paused a second. From the room came a
+crash, and he knew the crushing weight of the table had been lifted.
+Then another shot. They were fighting among themselves in the darkness!
+Down the basement-stairs he ran. His wonderful ears told him that no
+other guard was there.
+
+His hand brushing the wall, as he hurried back into the dark lower
+hall-way, located the door. He found the bolt and slid it back. From the
+corner came a faint moan. In a single stride he was across the floor. He
+leaned over a pile of blankets in the corner, and his hand brushed the
+face of the boy; his fingers felt the warm stickiness of the hair, and
+he cursed the men upstairs.
+
+“Shrimp!” he called softly. The boy stirred, and his eyes opened as
+Thornley Colton picked him up tenderly in his strong arms.
+
+“I fought ’em like--the very dickens!” Shrimp’s voice was scarcely a
+whisper, but it took every bit of the gameness in the small body to make
+it even that. “They blackjacked me.” His body went limp.
+
+Colton ran with his burden down the dark hall to the front door. The
+confusion upstairs had ceased. He heard a door slam; a rumbling Russian
+curse; running footsteps. The minutes he had counted on had become
+seconds again! He jerked open the door he had unlatched, swung back the
+iron grille, and took a great gulp of the cool night air; let the wind
+fan his still-burning eyeballs. Running footsteps sounded; a dozen of
+them.
+
+“Colton! My God, Colton!” It was the voice of Ames; and there were men
+with him.
+
+“In the house with the open basement-door!” gasped Colton, and in his
+voice was a prayer of thankfulness for the thousandth chance. “The whole
+crowd!” he finished.
+
+The running footsteps sounded once more. Ames lingered.
+
+“The taxi-driver put us wise,” he jerked out. “He knew the boy, and
+realised there was something wrong when the man with you imitated his
+voice. Reported it to the police. I got the tip instantly. Called up
+your house, and Thames found you gone. I got half a dozen of my men here
+in taxis.”
+
+“Where are the cabs?” snapped Colton. “I want one. My boy is hurt!”
+
+“Around the corner.” Ames whistled shrilly. “Here comes one. I’ve got to
+be with my men!” He was gone.
+
+Colton laid the boy gently on the cushions, and, as the taxi started
+uptown, Shrimp’s eyes fluttered open. “Gee!” he murmured faintly. “I got
+m’ real detective work--that--time--assaults--blackjacks----” The voice
+died as unconsciousness came again.
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+The afternoon sun came slantingly through the great glass windows,
+lighting the happy face of the blind man and the pale, smiling face of
+The Fee, as he lay in bed, his head swathed in bandages, one arm in a
+sling.
+
+“I was goin’ round, ’cause I couldn’t sleep, an’ I heard somebody open
+the front door”--Shrimp scowled as his voice became weak, and set his
+teeth for a moment. “I thought it was you. Then I seen his whole head
+was covered with a black thing, an’ there was black gloves on his hands,
+an’ he didn’t wear no shoes.”
+
+Colton nodded. “So that he could not be seen, nor heard, in the
+darkness. The hood covered everything but his eyes and lips; the latter
+were left free so that he could mimic a voice.”
+
+“I watched him sneak into the library an’ come out. Then I beat it down
+the backstairs, an’ when he got in his automobile I was hangin’ on the
+back. He musta knew I was there all the time, but he never let on. I was
+scoutin’ ’round the house when three of ’em jumped me. I guess they
+knocked me out good, for it was a long time ’fore I come round. Then a
+guy I couldn’t see came in the dark room where I was an’ started
+knockin’ you. I told him where he stood, all right.”
+
+“It was the mimic,” Colton explained. “He wanted to learn every tone of
+your voice.”
+
+“The government agents got every one of them,” put in Sydney
+unnecessarily.
+
+“Yes, and the house has been the scene of many crimes. Ames and his men
+found a lot of valuable papers, together with the ringleaders of the
+Gilded Glove. Jones, of the hotel, identified the bearded man who did
+all the talking as the German husband who had the rooms. The chair arms
+didn’t protect him very much from the falling table, and his three
+broken ribs will keep him quiet for a while. The one who posed as his
+wife, and the third man at the table, have bruises and contusions enough
+to last them a lifetime. The murderer of Hedwig Gorski”--Thornley Colton
+paused a minute and went on--“was brought around all right by the
+ambulance surgeon; only a little of the poison went down his throat; but
+he told his story. He was a wonderful boy mimic fifteen years ago. Any
+sound, any voice was as easy for him to learn as names would be to you
+and me. Then the Gilded Glove got him. What devilish method they used I
+don’t know, but they made him their tool. Boris Strevelski forgot that
+he had ever been anything but a dealer of death to traitors; that he was
+the Hammer of God was the only idea left in his mind. But they taught
+him all languages, and he picked them up as the average man would
+remember names.
+
+“He worked for half an hour to get the pane of glass from the window of
+the Gorski bathroom, and, in a skin-tight suit of black silk that
+covered everything but his mouth and eyes, he hid behind the coat and
+dress in the closet after putting the poison in the tap. He had on the
+same suit at the house. My hands told me that.”
+
+“But how did you know he would come here?” asked Sydney breathlessly.
+
+“I risked everything on my mental ability to follow the workings of the
+Oriental mind,” Colton said slowly. “The Caucasian mind is always
+content with mere killing. But the Oriental mind must have the
+significant! Think of the risk of staying in the Gorski rooms when they
+knew the poison would do its work. But to them the mere death was only
+part; their whole course of thought demanded that the sign be left.
+
+“I knew it would be the same in my case. So I gave them no chance to
+leave the crushed glove anywhere but here; and I knew they would come. I
+didn’t know that they had been watching me for weeks because of my
+friendship with Madame Gorski, nor that they had gotten a duplicate key.
+But I was almost at the heels of the stranger. When he saw me I knew he
+would instantly think of luring me to my death. The sign had been left,
+and death was next. I knew, also, that he would never overlook the
+opportunity to mimic Shrimp’s voice, because in the years mimicry has
+become a mania with him. He slammed the door of the car in which he came
+so that I would think he had escaped. Then his playing Shrimp’s part
+seemed easy and logical. What was there to do but take me to the New
+York headquarters of the Gilded Glove? Following out their
+mind-processes further, I had no doubt that they would give me a chance
+to drink the poison, for that, too, is a peculiar kink of the Oriental
+mind. Hence my precaution. The rest was simple.”
+
+“Simple!” gasped Sydney Thames, and there was sweat on his brow. “My
+God, Thorn, think of you, _blind_, risking yourself alone with those
+men.”
+
+“My blindness was my greatest ally there,” smiled Colton faintly. “The
+instant darkness came they were helpless, while I was my normal self,
+which I couldn’t be in the burning light, but”--he touched the
+alcohol-soaked bandage that covered his head and eyes--“the tortures of
+the Inquisition were mild beside that light on my unprotected eyeballs.”
+
+He patted the hand of the boy gently. “And it was Shrimp who led the
+secret agents, after all,” he said quietly. “If the taxi-driver hadn’t
+been one of the hundred friends he has made around the city, there might
+have been another story to tell. The men of the Gilded Glove weren’t far
+behind me.”
+
+The door-bell rang downstairs. “Ames again,” commented Colton, a trifle
+wearily, and in a few minutes the government agent was ushered into the
+room by John, the butler.
+
+“We got everything, Mr. Colton!” he cried. “The whole gang is cleaned
+up. Gorski was released from jail to-day, and is going back to Paris.
+Without his wife he will never bother any one. Even the Gilded Glove
+didn’t think him worthy of their attention. And those harbour-mine
+plans! A wonderful piece of work! Placed in order under an onion-skin
+paper map of the harbour, with the staccato-note marks at certain points
+on the shore line, every sharp and flat traced on the map gave, as you
+said, the exact locations of the mines.”
+
+“Have you found the traitor?” asked Colton.
+
+“Yes.” Ames’s voice was sober. “His body was found this morning in his
+office. The pistol he had used was beside him. A closed incident.” Then
+enthusiasm came to his tone once more. “What you have done on this case
+will never be forgotten, Mr. Colton,” he said earnestly. “It will not be
+made public, of course, but the secretary of state will write you a
+personal letter offering you any reward you may ask. The president
+himself will tender you a position that----”
+
+Thornley Colton’s upraised hand stopped him. The blind man turned his
+sightless eyes toward the closed eyes of The Fee, and gently withdrew
+his fingers from the clasp of the small hand. “Hush,” he said softly.
+“The boy is sleeping.”
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          THE SEVENTH PROBLEM
+
+                          THE RINGING GOBLETS
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+His chin resting on his chest, his hands gripping the wide-spread
+leather arms of the chair, the man stared at the log fire--fixedly,
+intently; as though the ceaseless war the flames waged against the
+darkness held him enthralled by its hopelessness. The wind, whistling
+encouragement down the wide chimney, caused the fire to leap upward and
+drive the shadows in retreat to the farthest corner of the library. For
+an instant the flames crackled their triumph; then died down. The
+shadows rushed forward, swiftly and silently, to recover the territory
+they had lost. The fire sputtered its chagrin.
+
+The man in the chair shivered, though his hands felt the warmth of the
+leather arms. For an instant the hopeless look went from his eyes; his
+chin lifted. Then the eyes resumed their staring at the flames. “I
+won’t!” he muttered. “I won’t! I’ll----” The thin right fist doubled; he
+raised it to smite the arm of the chair. In the air it unclenched and
+dropped lifelessly.
+
+“There must be some way!” Hope again shone in his eyes. The flames,
+apparently encouraged by his spirit, again leaped to their fight with
+the shadows. “There is!” His voice, low, passionate, died suddenly. He
+jerked his head around the side of the high chair, and darted a fearful
+glance at a dark corner. A trembling chill shook his body, and his lips
+formed the silent words: “I mustn’t forget _that_ devilish thing!”
+
+The door opened softly, and the man in the chair heard, but he did not
+move. The impassive-faced servant came forward with soundless footsteps.
+
+“You wish anything, sir?” he asked humbly.
+
+“Nothing, Paul.”
+
+“A bit more wood on the fire, sir?”
+
+The seated man turned his eyes back to the glowing logs that had given
+up their fight with the darkness, and whose flames no longer leaped
+their defiance, but spluttered their defeat.
+
+“I think not,” came finally.
+
+“Your wine, sir?”
+
+“At eight, Paul.”
+
+“Yes, sir. I’ll remember, sir.” The servant bowed himself back a step,
+then stopped. “Miss Nadine says as ’ow she ’opes you are quite fit this
+evenin’, sir.”
+
+A sudden draft of cold air seemed to strike the man, for his body shook
+and his hands gripped tighter on the leather arms.
+
+“Tell her I feel much better,” he lied pitifully, moistening his dry
+lips with his tongue.
+
+“I will, sir.” The man bowed gravely and withdrew, closing the door
+quietly behind him.
+
+Silence came again to the room, broken only by the crackle of the dying
+fire that gave to the haggard, deep-lined face of the man a pink glow of
+health that belied the hunted look in his eyes, and the lines of utter
+hopelessness around the mouth. For minutes he sat, immovable, swallowed
+in the depths of the big leather chair.
+
+The door opened again, and the sound of it brought a new expression to
+his face; a curious expression of mingled joy and dread. His thin hands
+clenched as if the very action were intended to brace his whole body.
+Then his lips formed a tremulous smile as the golden-haired,
+pink-cheeked girl ran across the room, and flung her arms around his
+neck. Her lips touched his cheek; she drew back and gazed deep into his
+eyes for an instant before he lowered them.
+
+“Oh, daddy-father,” she pleaded. “You _mustn’t_ worry so!” She seated
+herself on the chair-arm, her small hand patted his shoulder. “It will
+all come out right,” she whispered fondly.
+
+“Hush!” he breathed, and she could feel his body tremble under her
+fingers.
+
+“The curs!” she said passionately, lifting her head to look over the
+back of the high leather chair and gaze into the dark corner, as her
+father had done a few minutes before.
+
+He lifted a hand and touched her lips warningly, but she shook her head
+away.
+
+“It’s killing you, daddy-father!” There was a sobbing catch in her
+voice. “You’ve grown old, old, in the past month. Won’t you _please_ let
+that wonderful blind man help you? Oh, daddy-father”--both hands were on
+his shoulders now; her eyes bright with held-back tears, looked into
+his--“think of what he did for Ned--and I love you so!”
+
+“No, no!” he choked. “I--he--please don’t make me talk.” The last was a
+whisper, even the girl in the arm-chair barely heard it.
+
+“I don’t care!” she cried. “I’ll----”
+
+From the shadowed shelf over the fire-place came the mellow chime of a
+clock. The girl and the man started as though some sudden electric shock
+had passed through them. Her hand clutched at his shoulder; a sob came
+from her throat. The man’s fingers picked at the leather chair-arms; his
+dry lips moved mechanically as he counted the eight strokes of the
+clock-bell. When the last note had died away the girl’s hand fell
+lifelessly from his shoulder; she rose to her feet.
+
+“You are going to the opera to-night, Nadine?” he asked, trying bravely
+to keep the quaver from his voice.
+
+“Yes,” she said steadily. She bent down to kiss him, her hand touched
+his thin white hair for a minute before she turned to go. Half-way
+across the room she stopped, and her little hands clenched at her sides
+as the door-handle turned softly; but she merely bowed bravely and
+hurried past the wooden-faced manservant who entered.
+
+“Your wine, sir?”
+
+The man rubbed his hands together, as though warming them in the glow of
+the logs; his face was hidden in the shadows above.
+
+“Yes, Paul.”
+
+From the shadow beside the fire-place the servant brought a small, round
+tabouret, and set it beside the big chair.
+
+“Turn me around a bit, Paul. The light hurts my eyes.”
+
+Obediently the servant placed the big chair so that its side was to the
+fire-light. The little man was completely swallowed up in its depths.
+Only the tip of one slippered foot showed in the ruddy crimson that came
+under the chair. The tabouret was in the dark at the side away from the
+fire.
+
+“The usual two goblets, sir?” asked the servant, as he swung back the
+door of the cellaret.
+
+“Yes, Paul, and a cigar.”
+
+The man placed the two wine-filled goblets on the small table, and a few
+drops of the wine spilled as it swayed a trifle on its uneven legs.
+
+“Table seems a trifle wabbly, sir. Shall I put something under the legs
+to steady it?”
+
+The seated man merely shook his head and stretched forth a hand to lift
+one of the goblets to his lips. Slowly he sipped it while the servant
+stood patiently by with the box of cigars. In the flare of the match,
+held to light the cigar he had selected, the servant’s eyes, invisible
+in the shadows above, studied every line of the haggard face. But there
+was no commiseration in the studying--only satisfaction and triumph.
+
+“That is all; I won’t need you again to-night, Paul.”
+
+“Very well, sir.” The servant bowed and withdrew.
+
+For several minutes the smoke from the unmoving cigar spiraled in the
+darkness. Then the seated man turned in the big chair, and the ashes
+dropped to his knee unheeded as he shuddered. His two hands on the small
+tabouret moved it an inch toward him. He shook his head, and moved it
+half an inch to the right. The wine in the full glass was spilling, and
+he poured half of it into the other goblet. Apparently the uneven legs
+that caused the tabouret to teeter back and forth bothered him, for he
+spent several minutes setting it to his satisfaction. Then he carefully
+placed the two goblets in the exact centre, so that the rims touched,
+and leaned back in the big leather chair.
+
+One hand showed on the arm-chair nearest the fire; the other was in the
+shadow. Suddenly the two glasses clicked together with a musical,
+ringing sound, as though his hand had nervously fallen on the table and
+caused it to sway. Then his shaking fingers on the tabouret-edge caused
+a musical soothing jingle of the egg-shell rims. The sound seemed to
+please him, for the clink-click-tap-tap-clink kept up for minutes.
+
+“I won’t!” he cried suddenly, vehemently. His trembling fingers made the
+wine dance in the ringing goblets.
+
+The hand holding the cigar rested on the chair-arm, the fingers clenched
+so that the wrapper almost crackled under their pressure.
+
+“No, no! Nadine----” The moaning voice died; he bent forward in his
+chair. The slipper that showed in the light under the chair lifted, then
+dropped back to its original position. The cigar smoke curled upward
+from the chair-arm, an iridescent ribbon in the feeble glow of the
+darkness-defeated logs.
+
+Clink! Clink-clink! Tap! Tap-tap! came the ring of the goblets on the
+tabouret. The clock on the mantel ticked off minute after minute.
+
+Softly, silently the door opened--an inch, two inches. From the darkness
+of the hall outside two eyes stared into the darkness of the room.
+
+The streamer of smoke rose steadily; the glasses still sang their song
+of nervousness. Suddenly the door opened a full half. The owner of the
+watching eyes had smelled burning leather. The servant stepped into the
+room, stumbled over a big chair near the door, and swore softly.
+
+“Do you wish anythink, sir?” It was the respectful voice of the servant.
+
+The smoke still ascended unwaveringly; the music of the goblets did not
+cease. But no answer came from the big chair.
+
+The servant approached the chair on tiptoe. A sound made him turn toward
+the door. It was swinging open. He walked to it, and stopped it before
+it struck the heavy bookcase, and closed it noiselessly.
+
+“Do you wish anythink, sir?” he whispered again.
+
+The slipper still showed in the ribbon of light. The glasses were still
+ringing. The cigar still burned. The man sniffed again, then reached the
+side of the chair in a single bound.
+
+A curse escaped him; a deep curse of bafflement, rage.
+
+_The chair was empty!_
+
+On the arm the cigar was burning the leather. The empty slipper was just
+where the foot had been. The wine still moved in the now-silent glasses.
+But the man he had left a few minutes before, the man whose nervous
+fingers had caused the glasses to ring but a second before, had
+vanished!
+
+Two steps took the servant across the room. A snap, and the
+incandescents sprang to light. The big chair by the door, a counterpart
+of the one at the fire-place, was unmoved. Everything in the room was as
+he had left it. But the man was gone.
+
+“Damn him!” muttered the fellow who had been a servant. But he wasn’t a
+servant now. His shoulders were hunched aggressively. The wooden look
+had gone. In its place was tenseness, animal strength; the muscles
+played back and forth under the tightly-drawn skin of the cheek-bones.
+
+“He’s gone, chief!” he said, and his voice was low. “How the devil he
+did it is more than I can figure.” He ran to the fire-place and knelt on
+the hearth, his sharp eyes studying every inch. And as he leaned over
+the fire he talked: “I watched the door every minute. His infernal
+nervousness gave me the willies. I heard the glasses clink till I got to
+the chair, chief--to the _chair_!”
+
+He ran to the high window, and searched every inch of the sill and
+curtains, still speaking in that level, even tone: “Get the boys out and
+cover the house! Spread ’em around the block! He can’t have been gone
+more than ten minutes. There’s not a damn’ crack in the wall. I know
+that!”
+
+His fingers were running over the bookcases, his eyes seeming to bore
+into their very depths as he went on: “The girl’s all ready for the
+opera----” His keen ears heard footsteps, and his voice changed to an
+agonised wail as the girl entered: “’E’s gone, Miss Nadine, ’e’s gone!”
+
+“Gone!” she cried, staggering against the chair near the door. “Gone!”
+she repeated, and her voice was scarcely a whisper.
+
+“I smelled ’is cigar burning the leather. I thought as ’ow ’e was
+asleep.”
+
+She forced her limbs to support her weight across the floor. She looked
+down into the chair where the untouched cigar still burned. The opera
+cloak slipped from her shoulders unheeded as she touched the
+tabouret-edge with her fingers for an instant. The glasses clinked
+mockingly.
+
+“Gone!” she said again. “He has gone to them--at last!”
+
+She swayed, fell, sending the tabouret and glasses crashing to the
+floor. The servant leaned over her for an instant; then ran to the
+corner of the room.
+
+“Hear that, chief!” he whispered tensely. “Get it? Rip out the wires
+when I cut ’em. There’ll be merry hell around here in a little while!”
+
+A gleam of nickel showed in his hand as he thrust it behind a high
+bookcase. Came two sharp clicks, and as he turned toward the girl he put
+into his pocket a round, black disc. It was a dictograph.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+For two hours Nadine Nelson had sat, white-faced but steady-voiced, as
+the three men questioned, cajoled, badgered, and threatened. At her
+right, his chair within a foot of that in which she sat, was the man who
+had posed as a servant. At her left was another, just as keen-eyed and
+alert. Before her sat a heavy-chinned, broad-shouldered man whose
+fingers crackled the typewritten sheets as he jerked out his questions.
+The girl’s eyes met his fairly, unwaveringly. Yet she knew he was Chief
+Whittson, of the United States secret service.
+
+“You know that, for months, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been
+passed through the agency of your father’s bank?” he snapped.
+
+“I know nothing,” she said unemotionally.
+
+“Then why did you say----” He referred to the typewritten sheets: “‘It
+will all come out right?’”
+
+“Because it will,” she replied steadily.
+
+The men at her sides snorted impatiently.
+
+“Did you know that your father was the head of the best-organised
+counterfeiting gang in the country?” jerked out the secret-service
+chief.
+
+Her eyes did not flinch for an instant. “I knew nothing.”
+
+“Where is your father, Miss Nelson?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+“Then why did you say”--his forefinger punched the typewritten page
+viciously, and in his voice was snarled impatience--“‘he has gone to
+them at last.’ Who did you mean?”
+
+“I know nothing,” came the unvarying answer she had given a hundred
+times before.
+
+“Why didn’t you call in the police when you knew that your father had
+disappeared?”
+
+For the first time a shade of expression came to the girl’s face; her
+lips curved in contempt. “Because I knew that the police could do no
+more than the secret-service men of the United States.” There was more
+than a tinge of contempt in her voice.
+
+Chief Whittson straightened back in his chair. “Did you know that your
+servant was not what he pretended to be?” he demanded.
+
+“Yes,” she said defiantly. “We knew from the first that he was a spy.”
+
+The former servant leaped to his feet, face red with rage. “So that’s
+why you took it so cool, eh? That’s why you didn’t raise the fuss I
+expected?” he flared. “And you went to your own room and locked the
+door to cry. And I was _sorry_ for you. Me! A wise guy!
+Some--clever--actress!”
+
+She shrank back before the lashing sneer in the words.
+
+“Then you knew of the dictograph?” demanded the chief, instantly alert
+to take advantage of the first signs of break-down.
+
+“Yes,” she whispered tremulously. “We knew, and we----” she stopped, her
+breath catching suddenly.
+
+“‘We,’” repeated the chief sharply. “What? What?”
+
+Her lips quivered piteously. The nerve that had forced her frail woman’s
+body to bear the rack for hours was breaking.
+
+“What did you do? Tell me!” he commanded viciously.
+
+“Don’t you think you’ve gone quite far enough on that line?” The quiet,
+even voice of the man in the door-way caused the two men at the girl’s
+side to leap to their feet, and the chief to jerk his body erect. “If I
+were you, Miss Nelson,” the man in the door-way spoke to the girl, and
+his voice was gentle, “I would answer only courteous questions.”
+
+His white face, with its lean, cleft chin, and thin, firm lips, lighted
+in a wonderful smile of encouragement; the hand that was not holding the
+slim stick brushed back from his high forehead the hair whose whiteness
+was accentuated by the great blue circles of the tortoise-rimmed library
+glasses.
+
+“Who are you?” demanded the chief, but there was no bluster in his tone.
+The manner he had assumed for the girl had dropped like a mask. He was
+the calm, alert detective once more, and his keen judgment told him
+instantly that the new comer was not the type to bluff.
+
+Before the man at the door-way could answer, a youth rushed past him to
+the girl’s side.
+
+“I found him, Nadine,” he cried joyously. “Here’s Mr. Colton. He’ll find
+uncle.”
+
+“Thank God!” breathed the girl, and her body relaxed.
+
+Thornley Colton turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “A glass of
+water, Sydney. Quickly!”
+
+“So you’re Thornley Colton, eh?” The secret-service chief eyed him
+sharply. “I understand you’ve done some rather remarkable work--for a
+blind man.”
+
+Colton smiled, then stepped aside as his black-haired, apple-cheeked
+secretary came in with a glass of water. The girl’s eyes fluttered open,
+and the blind man realised that she needed time to regain her scattered
+senses.
+
+“You have the average person’s idea of the blind, chief,” he said. “And
+the average person gets _his_ notion from the blind beggar on the
+street-corners who hobbles along led by a small boy and a dog, and taps
+every inch of the side-walk with a heavy cane. Very few realise that is
+mostly for effect. Fewer still know that in New York there are nearly
+two hundred sightless men and women who go to business every day without
+help or guidance. Some of the highest-paid private secretaries and
+stenographers in the country are blind. Several of the blind
+proof-readers are famous. And for many years the court of last resort in
+the dead-letter office at Washington was a blind man. He was the most
+expert ever employed by the government, and could read with his
+supersensitive finger-tips addresses that had passed through the hands
+of the keenest-eyed readers of illegible writing in the world. So you
+see, the blind are not so helpless as one might imagine. Ah, Miss
+Nelson, do you feel better?”
+
+“Yes.” She looked up at him with a curious expression in her eyes. It
+was the look of a child who has sought a protector only to be a little
+frightened at the result. But she smiled bravely. “You did such a
+wonderful thing for Ned”--she rested her hand fondly on her cousin’s
+arm--“when he was arrested for the murder of the girl in the theatre,
+and I thought----” Again came the look that was almost fear.
+
+“I will do my best,” promised the blind man. “Do you mind my hearing the
+story from Chief Whittson--his side of it?”
+
+“No,” she said, with only a bit of nervousness in her voice.
+
+Whittson smiled quizzically. This blind man might be interesting. On his
+face and the faces of his men there was no doubt of the outcome. They
+were government men, trained, efficient; the interloper was an
+amateur--and blind.
+
+“We know that Dryden F. Nelson was the biggest passer of counterfeit
+money in the country!” began the chief. “He is the cleverest of them
+all. Who would suspect the bank of a man like Nelson as a clearing house
+for the cleverest counterfeits ever made? The scheme was wonderful, the
+only organised gang in the country who could pass ‘queer’ at its face
+value was that of this girl’s father. How long it’s been going on we
+don’t know. The bills have the ‘feel,’ something no other counterfeiter
+has ever been able to get. It was only within the past six months we
+traced the bills to their source. And that was Nelson’s bank! For six
+months we have tried to locate the plant, and failed. For the past three
+weeks my man here has been in the house, and there has been a dictograph
+in the library.”
+
+“And you discovered nothing?”
+
+“Nothing except to make morally certain his guilt. And he knew we were
+closing in. He was frightened stiff! Now we find out that the girl,
+here, was wise. She’s fooled us right along. We never suspected that she
+was one of the gang.”
+
+The girl cowered in her chair. “I’m not,” she faltered. “It isn’t true.”
+
+“Now Nelson’s slipped through our fingers,” went on the chief
+relentlessly. “Just when we had him worked up to a confession. He got
+out of that room in some devilish way.”
+
+“I’ve got the facts of his disappearance,” put in Colton.
+
+“So have we!” snapped the chief. “Within ten minutes of the time he
+went, every inch of this block was covered, and to-day ten thousand
+police and two hundred secret-service men are scouring the city for him.
+He can’t get out of it, and he can’t stay in it--long.”
+
+“Why didn’t you arrest him before if you were so certain of his guilt?”
+
+“Because we wanted his pals! We wanted to locate the plant! And he went
+while Jim was watching the door every minute! While my ears were glued
+to the dictograph-receivers and my pencil taking every word down in
+shorthand.”
+
+“You heard nothing?”
+
+“After Jim brought the wine there wasn’t a sound but the infernal
+ringing of the two glass rims on the teetery tabouret he insisted on
+having beside his chair.”
+
+Colton looked up with sudden interest. “Did you ever hear those glasses
+ring before?”
+
+“Every night at eight, when Jim here served his wine.”
+
+“What other time did he have wine served?”
+
+The former servant answered: “He only had it at eight in the library,
+and he wanted it on the minute.”
+
+“Significance--somewhere,” mused the problemist. For several seconds
+there was silence as his slim cane idly tapped his shoe-sole.
+
+Suddenly the girl sat rigid in her chair. “I can’t!” she cried. “Oh,
+please! Please! I can’t!”
+
+The expression on the blind man’s face was the only one that did not
+change. The three secret-service men looked the amazement the sudden
+irrelevant words had caused. The youth who was kneeling at the girl’s
+side gazed at her in wonder.
+
+“The truth will help us all, Miss Nelson,” said Colton gently.
+
+But she paid no attention to the words. Her eyes, widened in fear, were
+fixed on the shoe of the problemist.
+
+“Yes,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “Every night!”
+
+The chief jumped to his feet. “What’s that?” he demanded. “What’s that?”
+
+“The one thing you overlooked; the significance of two plus two,”
+declared Thornley Colton. “If you will show me the library perhaps I can
+point out some other things that your eyes have missed.”
+
+The girl lifted her bowed head. “Oh, Mr. Colton,” she pleaded, “do not
+show them--you don’t know what it means!”
+
+The blind man went to her side, and put his hand gently on her shoulder.
+“It is necessary,” he said, and his voice was tender. Then, to the
+chief: “If you will lead the way.”
+
+Chief Whittson rose, and jerked his thumb toward the girl as she buried
+her head in her arms. One of the men nodded. She was to be guarded every
+minute.
+
+“I’ll stay here,” whispered Sydney Thames, as Colton passed him. The
+black-haired secretary, tender-hearted, deifier of all women, was going
+to guard the girl against further badgering.
+
+The government man who had posed as the servant opened the door of the
+library. “This is the room,” he growled. “There isn’t a break in the
+walls. We’ve gone over every inch.”
+
+Colton’s thin cane located the big chair near the door. He walked around
+it, touched its back, the walls behind it, and measured the distance to
+the room entrance. On his white cheeks was a hectic flush of excitement;
+his nostrils quivered like those of a hound on the scent.
+
+“You were watching the door every minute?” His voice was unconsciously
+sharp.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+The blind man turned to the chief, a curious smile on his face. “This is
+an instance of the blind’s superiority. You and your man know that there
+is but one possible way for a man to get out of this room. You’re as
+sure of that as you are of death. Yet you can’t realise that that is the
+way Nelson got out because your eyes deceive your brain into thinking it
+impossible. Sight is the greatest handicap pure reasoning has. Even a
+man with eyes instinctively closes them when he is trying to figure out
+some particularly intricate problem. The trouble is that you haven’t
+closed your eyes. Nelson went out through that door!”
+
+“What?” The chief and his man chorused it blankly.
+
+The blind problemist did not answer at once. He darted across the room.
+His stick found the chair at the fire-place.
+
+“Nelson wanted you to turn this chair away from the fire?” he said
+suddenly.
+
+“How did you know that?” asked the chief, and in his tone was wonder.
+
+“Because it was necessary for his escape.” The words came like staccato
+notes on a taut wire. “He knew that a man was watching that door. He
+didn’t know what instant it might open an inch. But he knew that with
+the high sides of the chair toward the fire he would be invisible in the
+depths. He pulled his slippers off, and left one so that it could be
+seen--young Nelson, who came to see his cousin last night, gave me most
+of the facts. Then he slid from the chair, and crawled across the floor
+to crouch down behind that other big chair near the door. From past
+tests he knew just how the servant would enter the room and just what he
+would do. It was the work of an instant to slip through the open door as
+the servant was crossing the room toward the fire-place. His stockinged
+feet made his exit absolutely noiseless. The very simplicity of the
+thing would deceive any man in the world who could _see_. Yet you knew
+it was the only way he _could_ have gone!”
+
+“I saw the door open!” gasped the secret-service man. “I thought it was
+a draught.”
+
+“Yes,” nodded the blind man, “because your eyes saw the cigar-smoke and
+the slipper. They wouldn’t let your brain get any idea but that he was
+in the chair.”
+
+“But the very simplicity of that would make elaborate preparations
+necessary,” objected the chief. “The thing would have to be timed to the
+instant. Nelson hadn’t a chance to communicate with any one without our
+knowledge. Jim, here, and the dictograph took care of that.”
+
+Colton’s lips curved in a mirthless smile. “They made it possible! Their
+very actions prove that both Nelson and his daughter knew of the
+dictograph. They understood that, so long as you didn’t suspect they
+knew, you would take no other precautions. They knew that you would
+depend on the instrument to hear every word, and on this man to see that
+there wasn’t a written word of instruction put into their hands. And
+they fooled you! Tricked you every day!”
+
+At the last word he dropped to his knees beside the big chair by the
+fire-place. His supersensitive finger-tips brushed the carpet. Back and
+forth they went a dozen times, then stopped. “See that!” he cried. “See
+that!”
+
+The two men leaned forward. For a minute they stared.
+
+“Only a nail-hole through the rug,” declared the chief.
+
+“Yes, only a nail-hole,” Colton repeated quietly. “That’s the only thing
+your eyes can see. But my finger-tip felt the point of a nail under the
+carpet and on a level with the floor.”
+
+“Nail?” repeated the chief dumbly. He had forgotten his superior
+attitude of a short time before. The dominant personality of the blind
+man; his absolute sureness of himself compelled respect, and brought a
+realisation that Thornley Colton was the master, he the pupil.
+
+The blind man walked from the chair. His stick, poking in the corner
+beside the fire-place, found the tabouret. With an exclamation of
+satisfaction he pulled it out and touched its edge with his finger-tips.
+
+“You spoke of it as being ‘teetery.’ See how finely it is balanced on
+the two legs that are a fraction of an inch longer than the others. And
+see here!” His stick fell to the floor as he used both hands to turn it
+upside-down. The two secret-service men saw that all four legs were
+tipped with metal balls. “See the scars of the nail-point on the balls
+of the short legs?” cried Colton. He took his knife from his pocket, and
+tapped with the blade. A low, musical click-click-click that could be
+heard distinctly by the men resulted. “Hear that?” he demanded.
+
+“What does it mean?” The chief made no effort to keep the bewilderment
+from his voice.
+
+“It means that under the floor, and under that nail-hole in the rug, is
+a finely-adjusted magnet with a nail-pointed plunger in the centre of
+the coil. That’s how Nelson beat your dictograph! That’s how he beat
+your spy. Just as the girl inside understood the Morse messages I tapped
+with my cane.”
+
+“Telegraphy!” gasped the chief. “Nelson was chief staff-telegrapher in
+the army for years.”
+
+The blind man nodded. “The table was set here at eight because that is
+the time the person at the other end would be ready to send the
+messages. Nelson adjusted the tabouret so that one of the short legs
+would be directly above the magnet-plunger, which was as sensitive to
+the touch of the telegraph-key sending the current through the
+magnet-coils as the most delicate instrument in the world. To the
+trained operator who has learned to take a message from any single
+instrument in a room where a thousand others are clattering away, the
+click of the plunger against that hollow metal ball would be as easy to
+read as print to the average man. But ordinarily the dictograph would
+also hear. That’s why the goblets were placed rim to rim--so that the
+ringing would drown the other sound over the wires of the dictograph, or
+to a man listening at the door. Acoustics would take care of that. The
+dot-dash of the magnet-plunger could not be heard five feet away, though
+the man in the chair could get every word.”
+
+“By God, that’s clever!” There was admiration in Chief Whittson’s tone.
+“Pull back that chair, Jim! We’ll get the rug up and see the thing!
+We’ll follow those wires and land the whole gang.”
+
+He stopped as Nadine Nelson entered the room. She wasn’t the sobbing
+girl they had left who now entered; but a white-cheeked, white-lipped
+woman who did not speak until she had crossed the room and stood before
+the chief.
+
+“I am the ‘gang’ you speak of,” she said quietly. “The wires go to my
+room!”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+Calmly, disdainfully, the girl stood at the door of her room, and
+watched the secret-service men search it with no regard for care. At her
+side stood her cousin, looking on helplessly. His boyish protests had
+been stilled by a terse “Shut up!” from the chief. At the other side of
+the girl, his face black with a scowl, and his hands clenched at his
+sides, stood Sydney Thames. To the soft-hearted Sydney no crime was so
+great as that of causing a woman pain. So he gritted his teeth, and
+darted murderous glances at the secret-service men, and looks of
+pleading at the blind man who leaned against the wall, apparently
+watching the searchers.
+
+The girl had shown them the room. She had flung open the door of the
+closet, and cleverly concealed behind hanging clothes they had found a
+telegraph-key on a small shelf. They had pulled out the wires, and found
+they led to the magnets in the library. Now they were beginning a
+systematic search of the room--and finding nothing. The girl had
+evidently told the truth. She, and only she, could have sent the
+messages.
+
+“Where did you learn telegraphy?” demanded the chief suddenly.
+
+“I can’t remember when I didn’t have a key to play with,” she answered
+coolly. “Father was an expert telegrapher for years, and he taught us
+almost before we could read and write.”
+
+“‘Us?’” snapped out the chief.
+
+“My brother and me,” she answered, and the ears of the blind man,
+trained to interpret every inflection of tone, caught the sudden forced
+note.
+
+“Where is your brother, Miss Nelson?” he asked.
+
+“He died ten years ago, in the tropics,” she answered, and there was a
+curious break in her voice.
+
+“And you left the library every night at eight so you could send your
+father messages?” asked the chief sarcastically.
+
+“Yes. We did not dare talk because of your spy. And his eyes were never
+off my father.”
+
+“Well,” the chief’s tone was even more sarcastic than before, “_you_
+might have found an easier way.”
+
+She did not answer, but watched Thornley Colton as he stepped across the
+room to the closet. For a minute he poked inside with his cane, moving
+the hanging clothes away from the telegraph-instrument. He leaned over
+it, and seemed to be examining it intently. There was a frown of
+puzzlement on his forehead as he straightened up. It disappeared almost
+instantly, and in its place came a look of sudden enlightenment.
+
+“Did you ever smoke South American cigarettes with licorice-pectoral
+papers, Miss Nelson?” he asked.
+
+“No, never!” She tried to make the denial indignant, but Colton’s
+superkeen ears caught the false note instantly, as did the keen-eyed
+chief of the secret service. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but
+the blind man forestalled him.
+
+“The next house is built right against this one, isn’t it, chief?”
+
+“Yes, but the crazy Frenchman next door is absolutely above suspicion.
+We looked up his whole life’s history. He’s a semi-invalid and nutty. He
+has a pet bear; also two servants to take care of the animal.”
+
+“Crazy, eh?” muttered Colton. He hurried across the room, his cane
+locating every piece of furniture. He stopped before the bureau, and
+leaned forward toward a drawer-pull. An instant he paused, and in that
+instant came the betrayal he had hoped to bring from the girl.
+
+“Don’t, please!” She stopped suddenly, biting her lips until the blood
+came.
+
+Colton straightened up; his lips set grimly. “Pull out the bureau, and
+you’ll find an opening into the house of the crazy Frenchman,” he said.
+
+“What?” The chief jumped across the room, and pulled out the heavy piece
+of furniture. Behind it was a jagged hole that a crouching man could go
+through with ease.
+
+The two secret-service men jumped through the opening, but the chief
+paused. “How did you know that?” he asked wonderingly.
+
+“Because the clothes in the closet held the faint licorice odour of the
+pectoral cigarette papers that South Americans affect. Therefore some
+man must have been sending those messages. It wasn’t a man in this
+house. There had to be an entrance--and I tricked the girl into telling
+me that it was concealed behind the bureau. It had to be in this room
+because the message-sender wouldn’t risk entering another to get where
+the telegraph-key was!”
+
+The girl leaned back against the wall, and a sob came from her lips.
+“Oh, why did I ask Ned to find you!” she cried. “Their eyes could have
+seen nothing, and you----”
+
+“It was necessary, Miss Nelson!” The gentleness that had been in the
+blind man’s voice downstairs was missing now; it was brusque, sharp.
+“Better have one of your men remain here, chief,” he said, and there was
+no mistaking his meaning. “I’d like to go through that house.”
+
+The chief looked at him curiously; then, with the docility that came to
+most men when the blind man advised or ordered, he whistled sharply. One
+of the men returned.
+
+“Stay here!” commanded the chief, and he stepped aside as the blind man
+bent low and entered the next house. The chief followed.
+
+“What do you know about the occupant here?” Colton asked the chief as he
+walked around the room, his thin cane locating furniture again, and
+giving his brain a mental picture of the whole chamber.
+
+“He’s lived here for some time. We looked him up from A to Izzard, also
+his three servants. About six months ago, it appears, he bought a pet
+bear, a nasty beast, and sometimes takes him out. Attracts quite a lot
+of attention because the old man wears a huge fur coat that makes him
+look like the animal’s big brother.”
+
+“And because every man in your business thinks the crook is always
+seeking cover there would be no suspicion of a man who courts attention
+by means of keeping a pet bear. Clever game enough to throw any man that
+had eyes off the track!”
+
+“Oh, the Frenchman’s on the level,” resented the chief. “He’s getting
+worse, failing fast. Anybody can see that. Doctor comes twice a day to
+see him.”
+
+“And he comes every night about eight o’clock!” declared Colton
+suddenly. “He’s the man that’s been sending those messages. He’s the
+chief of the gang you’ve been trying to locate so long. He must be, or
+he’d stay here all the time. He has to attend to the outside work while
+the men here do the actual counterfeiting. And it was never suspected
+because all you could see was a _pet bear_! Look!” He pulled open the
+drawer of a dresser. “Here’s a dozen cigarette ends, all of pectoral
+paper and Brazilian paper. The doctor smoked them here the times he had
+to wait for eight o’clock and the time to talk to Nelson.”
+
+“By Jove! You’re----”
+
+“Hey, chief!” The cry came from downstairs.
+
+“It’s Jim. He’s found something!” The chief started toward the door and
+stopped. “Do you want me to guide you?” he asked.
+
+“Go ahead!” Colton said dryly. “My ears will follow your footfalls.”
+
+“This way, chief! Quick!” The voice directed them to the kitchen. The
+chief stopped with an ejaculation of amazement at the door.
+
+The secret-service operative who had entered the house first was lifting
+an unconscious man from a heavy wooden chair. On the floor were the cut
+ropes that had bound him, and the wadded handkerchiefs that had
+prevented outcries.
+
+“The Frenchman!” gasped the chief. “He’s got to talk! Lay him down,
+Jim!”
+
+The Frenchman groaned feebly as they put him on the floor, and choked
+when a pocket flask was held to his lips.
+
+“_Mon Dieu!_” he moaned weakly. Then his dazed brain realised that men
+were standing over him. “Pleeze stop! I do nozzing!” he cried
+supplicatingly.
+
+“We are friends--gendarmes.” Chief Whittson said the words slowly and
+distinctly, so that the man could understand. “Who did this?”
+
+The fear went from the Frenchman’s eyes. “My servants,” he whispered
+hoarsely. “Zay have kep’ me prisoner for mont’s; ever since my old
+servants go an’ zay come.”
+
+“Damn!” jerked out the chief. “They’ve tricked us right along. We looked
+up the old servants’ records, and didn’t suspect for an instant the
+impersonation. Where did they go? When?”
+
+The Frenchman fell back, his eyes closed
+
+“I think I can answer the ‘when’ part of that question,” put in Thornley
+Colton, as he appeared at the doorway. “I apologise to the man here for
+the things I said upstairs. But even I didn’t give the master
+counterfeiter credit for such diabolical ingenuity as this. The fake
+servants left the minute you entered Nelson’s house to question the
+girl. And the man that went with them as the Frenchman was Dryden F.
+Nelson. That’s the only way he could go!”
+
+The Frenchman stirred, and tried to lift his head. “Zat is right,” he
+gasped chokingly. “He----” His eyes closed.
+
+“Get an ambulance, Jim!” ordered the chief. “This man’s in bad shape.
+Get the boys from outside! Put two on the trail of the carriage. Nelson
+and his gang won’t get far. Bring the others in to search the house!”
+The man darted out, and the chief picked the invalid up in his strong
+arms and carried him gently to a couch in the dining-room.
+
+The Frenchman moaned, and a shudder shook his body. “Don’t make ze bear
+hurt me!” he cried weakly. “Don’t knock ze glasses togezzer and make him
+mad-crazee.” He lapsed back into unconsciousness.
+
+The chief looked at Colton significantly, but the blind man only nodded.
+
+“But how did old man Nelson ever get a chance to get in here?” puzzled
+the chief.
+
+“He didn’t!” Colton’s voice was sharp. “The man who posed as the doctor
+is the ringleader.” There came a ring of menace in his tone. “I’ll find
+him! I know him!”
+
+“You know him?” The chief did not even nod to the three men who entered
+the room and stood respectfully by for orders.
+
+“Yes! He’s tanned a dark brown, an expert telegrapher, thirty-five years
+old, a man who likes to pet and fondle a bear, and his first name is
+Joe. There are a few other details I’ll give you when the proper time
+comes.”
+
+“Great Scott!” Amazement, incredulity were in the chief’s voice. He
+turned to one of his men. “Was the doctor here last night, Tom?” he
+asked.
+
+“We saw him coming out a minute before we got the alarm from you, chief.
+Said good evening, and told us it was only a matter of days for the old
+guy here.”
+
+“Eyes attach no significance to things they have seen a dozen times
+before,” Colton observed.
+
+The chief turned to him again. “Where did you get those facts?” he
+demanded, with the brusqueness of chagrin in his voice.
+
+“The Brazilian tobacco and pectoral papers told me he had spent years in
+South America. Naturally he’d be tanned a dark brown. The fact that he
+must be an expert telegrapher is obvious. I know that he is thirty-five
+years old because I know that he is fifteen years older than Nadine
+Nelson. How I knew that you’ll know later. This told me his name--and
+another fact.” The blind man held out a charred fragment of paper
+scarcely two inches square, a deep brown in colour from heat and smoke.
+“The fact that the man you want takes pleasure in fondling and handling
+a bear my keen sense of smell told me. The bear-fur odour is
+unmistakable and clings to a thing for hours. It was on the handkerchief
+in the kitchen, and in the corner of the linen was the initial J!”
+
+“It’s impossible to decipher a word of this!” protested the chief,
+looking up from the charred fragment of paper.
+
+“With eyes--yes. But my finger-tips found the tracery of that name, even
+though the ink had entirely disappeared! The pen-ridges remain, and
+would remain until the paper was consumed.” He changed the subject
+suddenly. “There comes the ambulance. I want to go up and see the girl
+again.”
+
+“I’ll go with you.” Chief Whittson’s tone was curiously humble. He
+turned to give curt orders to the men, and followed the blind man out of
+the room.
+
+Despite the minutes that had passed, Nadine Nelson was just where they
+had left her. The secret-service guard sat easily on a gilt chair.
+Sydney Thames and the girl’s cousin were alternately pleading with her
+to sit down. As the chief and Thornley Colton stepped into the room her
+teeth gripped her lower lip, and her hands clenched tighter at her
+sides.
+
+“Who is the man who has been coming into this room every night to send
+those messages?” Thornley Colton’s voice was hard, stern.
+
+The face of the girl went white at the cruelty of it. Sydney Thames took
+a half step forward, and a gesture of the blind man stopped him.
+
+“Who is he?” snapped the blind man again.
+
+She raised her head to look straight into his sightless eyes.
+
+“My husband!” she answered defiantly.
+
+“That isn’t true!” The words came like the lash of a whip.
+
+“Thorn!” In Sydney Thames’s voice was agony that the man he loved could
+say such a thing to a woman.
+
+“And you were the man I thought could help me!” Scorn, bitterness,
+self-accusation were in the vibrant voice of the girl. “You’re worse
+than those curs who listened to every word! You’ve _killed_ my father!
+If I were a man I’d kill _you_--even though you are blind!”
+
+The last words came through her clenched, white teeth, and she advanced
+half a step, so that her hot breath reached the face of the blind man.
+But he only idly twirled his slim cane and looked down at her with a
+tolerant, amused grin that was maddening.
+
+“You’ll talk!” he promised curtly. “She’ll talk in jail, chief!”
+
+“I wouldn’t talk if you tore me to little pieces!” she cried vehemently.
+
+Colton did not answer; he nodded curtly to the chief, and with a “Come,
+Sydney!” he hurried from the room, and from the girl who stared straight
+ahead of her with dull, fixed eyes.
+
+Sydney Thames followed him down the stairs silently. In the lower hall
+he spoke. “God, Thorn, that was barbarous! It almost made me forget----”
+
+“Find the telephone and get me the number of the United Fruit Company,”
+ordered the blind man sharply.
+
+Without a word Thames found the ’phone in an alcove of the hall, and
+gave the number to Colton.
+
+“What boat sails for South America to-day?” asked the problemist when
+the connection had been established. “The _Carracas_? Is there a bear
+consigned on that boat? Hasn’t arrived yet? The sailing’s at five? Thank
+you!”
+
+As he hung up the receiver the angry boy’s tone of Nadine Nelson’s
+cousin came to them indistinctly. Sydney Thames jumped as though a pin
+had jabbed him. When he spoke to the blind man there was a look on his
+face that had never been on it before.
+
+“Thorn,” he said, and there was a break in his voice, “you’ve been the
+only father I ever knew, but I _won’t_ leave that girl to the mercy of
+those police brutes!”
+
+“This is no time for sentiment!” snapped Colton.
+
+“It is time for good-bye, then!” Sydney Thames, the colourless, the
+characterless, the counter of steps for the man who had picked him up, a
+bundle of baby-clothes on the banks of the English river that had given
+him the only name he ever knew, held out his hand.
+
+The blind man’s lips tightened; he ignored the outstretched hand as he
+pulled on a glove. “Make it _auf wiedersehen_,” he said wearily. “Shrimp
+and I are going to catch the boat for Brazil at five o’clock!”
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+The Fee, red-haired, freckle-faced boy, who had become a member of the
+Colton household as the blind man’s only pay for solving a particularly
+baffling murder case, eased his plaster-encircled arm on the rail of the
+_Carracas_, and watched with all the power of his round blue eyes the
+lowering of the big cage on the forward deck. As it swung for an instant
+on a level with the promenade deck on which they stood, the boy caught a
+glimpse of the shaggy animal under the canvas protecting-hood that
+covered the top and fitted tightly halfway down the sides.
+
+“Gee, Mister Colton, it’s certain’y got some claws on its feet!”
+observed the boy admiringly. A hitch of the rope jarred the cage, and
+brought forth a deep growl that could be heard above the creaking of
+ropes and the squeaky wheels of the stevedores’ trucks as they rushed
+the last few cases of freight on deck. “There she bumps!” cried the boy
+as the cable touched the deck.
+
+Then came a shriek of pain. “Gee whiz!” gasped the boy, and the blind
+man’s cane felt him jump a foot. “One of the workin’men bent down to get
+the rope off the bottom of the cage, and the bear reached under the
+canvas, tore his arm with its claws. Darn it, but he’s wicious!”
+
+The bawling voice of an officer broke in: “Here, you men that own that
+bear! Unsling the cage!”
+
+Three ragged, dark-skinned men jumped to the cage, and unslung the
+tackle ropes without arousing even a deep-throated growl from the
+animal.
+
+The tense look left Thornley Colton’s face as he heard the block slip to
+the deck, and for the first time in hours there came the slightest trace
+of satisfaction in the curve of the thin lips. He was right! Once more
+he had risked everything on his judgment and his wonderful mental
+ability to find logic in seeming chaos by following to their end the
+mind processes of men against whom he was pitted.
+
+The proof had come with the shriek of the clawed stevedore. Thornley
+Colton’s whole mind had been concentrated to catch one other sound among
+the multitude of noises. He had heard it and recognised it--the musical
+clink of glass on glass--the ring of a goblet! That had been the thing
+that had aroused the fury of the bear at exactly the instant that the
+workman was within reach of the tearing claws. That was the thing that
+had sent Dryden F. Nelson’s daughter to jail, and had caused Sydney
+Thames to renounce the man who loved him.
+
+“I’ll bet nobody but them guys that own the bear’ll go near him after
+this,” observed the boy sagely.
+
+“I don’t think they will,” the blind man said grimly. “Let’s take a walk
+around.”
+
+The boy’s eyes squinted along the deck from his feet to the rail at the
+other side. “It’s ten steps,” he calculated. “They’s a man an’ a fat
+woman five ahead lookin’ down at the front deck, an’ at the other rail
+there’s a guy in a chair readin’ a paper. Yuh gotta step out a bit for
+him.”
+
+“All right,” nodded the blind man, as he started.
+
+The boy walked at his side, and he avoided the man and the woman, but
+his foot seemed to slip at the steamer chair, and he fell sprawling into
+the lap of the seated man, sending the thin glass he had held in his
+hands behind the paper in a hundred pieces to the deck.
+
+“What the devil!” snapped the hoarse voice of the man, as he angrily
+brushed away the sparks of fire that had fallen on his coat when the
+black-brown cigarette had fallen from his lips.
+
+Instantly Colton was on his feet, apologising. “I am blind; I made a
+false step,” he said contritely.
+
+“Oh, all right,” growled the man ungraciously.
+
+The problemist started again on his walk. The grim lines had returned
+around his thin-lipped mouth, but there was no other change in the blind
+man’s expression, not even triumph. Yet he had located the man he
+wanted; the man who had fooled the entire secret service of the country
+for months! Reasoning had done it; the pure eliminative reasoning that
+was made possible by his lack of sight. The man into whose lap he had
+just fallen was the one who had aroused the bear’s anger with the tap of
+his glass. He was the man whose pectoral cigarette papers and tobacco
+had scented the closet at the Nelson home. And he had recently handled a
+bear!
+
+As his brain worked at lightning speed behind his high, white forehead,
+the blind man walked with the boy aimlessly around the decks, hardly
+hearing Shrimp’s delighted chatter. The _Carracas_ was in mid-stream
+now, her nose pointed toward the Narrows. Most of the passengers had
+gone to their state-rooms, and the steam hissed from the winch cylinders
+forward as the last pieces of cargo were lowered into the hold. The
+blind man’s ears were strained to catch each sound, or suspicion of
+sound that would tell him the things he could not see, and his brain
+counted the steps, measuring distance, memorising directions as years of
+training had taught it to do. Suddenly Colton realised that some one was
+following them, watching every move. A growingly familiar furtive
+footstep every little while as the shadow quickly dodged, whiffs of the
+Brazilian tobacco smoke wafted to his nostrils on sudden gusts of wind,
+told him more than eyes could have told. His fall, crude because of its
+necessity, had aroused the other man’s suspicion.
+
+“Show me our stateroom, Shrimp,” he said finally. “Then you can come up
+on deck again. I’ll remember all the steps.”
+
+“Gee!” grinned the boy, in huge relief. “I’m glad I don’t have to stay
+down there. I wanta watch that little yacht that’s comin’ out.”
+
+Colton nodded. He knew why the “little yacht” was coming out. He knew
+she should be flying a flag with perpendicular red stripes--the flag of
+the revenue service. And he knew that on board her was Chief Whittson
+and his men, who awaited his signal.
+
+The boy proudly opened the door of the little white room, and Colton
+closed it behind him. “Wait a minute, Shrimp,” he said quietly. From his
+pocket he took a memorandum book and pencil. For a minute he wrote, then
+he handed the torn-out leaf to the boy, who read, with widening eyes:
+
+    If you miss me for fifteen minutes, or see me on deck with the
+    man I fell over, run to the wireless house and give the operator
+    this message: John Jones, 56 Cedar Street, New York. Close.
+
+                                                             PAYTON.
+
+“Gee!” whispered the boy joyfully. “I _knowed_ it was a case! I knowed
+you didn’t mean what you said about not lettin’ me in on any more when I
+broke this arm. Gee!”
+
+“Go up on the deck and see all the sights you can, Shrimp,” smiled the
+blind man. “See you later.”
+
+The problemist sat down on the edge of the brass bed to go over the
+situation again and make sure that there was not a loose end. He had
+figured out on deck the only way, but he wanted to prove his reasoning
+by mental tests. The master counterfeiter, cunning, desperate, could do
+only one thing--eliminate the man he knew suspected him. And Thornley
+Colton could do but one thing--“watch” every minute the head of the
+gang. The success of the whole case depended on Colton’s alertness in
+preventing the criminal from making one move that the problemist knew he
+would make the instant the master rogue discovered all was lost. Yet the
+presence of the man at the dénouement was _necessary_! Colton rose. He
+must take a desperate chance, just as he had taken them many times
+before.
+
+He opened the door, and went down the narrow corridor, his brain
+automatically counting the steps it had registered when he entered. He
+stopped. He smelled the heavy licorice odour of the pectoral papers
+again. For an instant a grim smile flashed to his lips. He had followed
+the mind-processes of the man correctly once more. The smell of the
+smoke was too obvious; it had been overdone.
+
+A stateroom door opened before him.
+
+“Got a match?” asked a voice, and Colton understood the disguising of
+tone instantly.
+
+The blind man held out his match safe; then the snarling whisper of the
+man cut the stillness, and he felt a gun-muzzle jab viciously into his
+ribs. “Get in here!” Colton quietly obeyed the order, and stepped over
+the threshold into the stateroom that was filled almost to suffocation
+with cigarette smoke.
+
+“Put ’em over your head! Up!” The snarl changed to a sneer. “So you’re
+the slick blind man that sister of mine talked about, eh? The lonehander
+that makes boobs of the police and secret service? Well, little bat-eye,
+I’ve been laying for you ever since I got wise to that slick fall trick.
+Got a damn’ fine nose, eh, smelling that pec smoke I’ve been filling the
+lower deck with ever since you and the kid came down.”
+
+“Humour palls when the audience is forced to stand in so uncomfortable a
+position,” said the blind man evenly.
+
+He felt his own pistol snatched away.
+
+“Back up a step, and you’ll find the bed!” ordered the voice.
+
+The blind man sat down and waited patiently. When the other man spoke
+again there was grudging admiration in his voice. “I’ve got to hand it
+to you,” he admitted. “I didn’t think there was one man on earth that’d
+get wise. Now I suppose you want the old man?”
+
+“I want you first,” Colton told him.
+
+“You got me!” laughed the man with the gun. “But you haven’t got me like
+you got that sister of mine, have you? She wouldn’t say a word, would
+she? Well, it’s a damn’ good thing she didn’t!”
+
+“I knew that,” said Colton quietly.
+
+“You didn’t think the wayward son could come back after ten years, with
+a counterfeiting process that couldn’t be beat, and then get his father
+in on the scheme to pass the phony money through his bank, did you? And
+you didn’t know that staid old Dryden Nelson would ever become head of
+the gang, and then slide out under the noses of the secret-service men.
+I guess he’s the man you want to get, eh? Well, I’m the little man
+that’s going to see that you don’t!”
+
+“I will find him when the time comes.”
+
+“You will, eh--you will!” Snarling viciousness dominated the voice.
+“Well, you won’t! You, with your lone hand! Why, you poor boob, it’d
+take a gang to get me!”
+
+“I had about concluded you were just taking a chance on a word dropped
+by Miss Nelson and a thing or two you might have heard of me,” Colton
+said quietly. “I didn’t think you’d dare have any one near enough to get
+real information. This is one of the games where I don’t play a lone
+hand. The boat that’s been following us ever since we left the dock is
+the revenue cutter _Proctor_, with Chief Whittson and his men aboard.”
+
+The man ripped out an oath. “So that’s it!” he snarled. “Fooled me, eh?
+Stand up! Put your hands behind your back! No funny work! I’ve tied men
+before with one hand.”
+
+Colton smiled at him sardonically. “If I am off the deck fifteen minutes
+Chief Whittson and his men will board the _Carracas_, and nab the fake
+owners of the bear. Quite a scheme, that. No one would ever suspect
+ignorant, ragged-looking, brown men with a dancing bear as
+counterfeiters, would they?” His tone was a burlesque of the man’s own.
+“And what do you suppose the chief’ll do when he finds me here? Tied up
+or dead makes no difference. I promised myself to get you, and get you
+alone. But it’ll be just as good that way.” The mockery had died out of
+his voice at that last sentence; there was a tinge of bitterness that
+the man instantly recognised.
+
+“Well, you couldn’t put him wise to _me_!” gritted the man. “So you
+_are_ a lone-handed worker, after all. Get up!” he commanded. Colton
+obeyed the jabbing gun-barrel. “I’m a single-hander, too!” went on the
+counterfeiter. “We’re going up on the deck, and if there’s a move to get
+me, out you go! This gun’ll be in my pocket, jamming your kidneys every
+minute. Let ’em get the gang! I’m through with ’em! Let ’em have the
+bear, too! It’ll be no good to anybody! I’ll see to that. But if you
+even lift a finger to point me out----” He made a horrible gurgling
+sound in his throat that was more than significant. “Come on!” he
+ordered sharply.
+
+They left the stateroom, Colton idly twirling his slim stick, the man at
+his side talking commonplaces in a grim tone that made them anything but
+commonplaces. To the passengers who saw them on the deck they were only
+ship acquaintances, but the blind man felt the gun-muzzle now and then
+in his side.
+
+“We’ll stop here,” growled the man at the forward rail, overlooking the
+open deck below. “I want to be where I can watch those men of mine. Put
+your hands on the rail where I can see ’em!”
+
+Colton quietly obeyed, resting his elbows on the wood and dangling his
+cane over the edge. The crash of the wireless sender broke out; the
+blind man felt his companion grow tense as his trained ears read the
+dots and dashes. Then he knew that the message he had written so that
+the man who was an expert telegrapher could not suspect had flashed to
+the revenue cutter, “John Jones, 56 Cedar Street,” meant nothing but a
+business deal.
+
+Minutes passed. Below them the three ragged men lounged around the cage.
+Four or five other men, of the crew off watch, stood around, scowling
+vindictively at the bear cage and its sleeping animal. Then came the
+thing that the blind man had been waiting for. He felt the big engines
+slow down. Not a muscle of his body seemed to move, but the knuckles of
+his right hand whitened as he gripped the end of his cane.
+
+An oath came from the man at his side. “So you tricked----”
+
+So sudden that it seemed but a whir in the light, the slim cane in the
+hand of the blind man swished around, straight for the other man’s eyes.
+There had been not a warning move but a lightning turn of the wrist. The
+first instinct man has is to protect his eyes. The criminal obeyed it,
+forgetting all else. He dodged with a gasp. Colton’s knees seemed to
+give way under him, he spun around on the balls of his feet like a cat;
+then his whole body straightened like a suddenly released whalebone, his
+right fist found the jaw of the other, and the master counterfeiter fell
+without a groan and lay still.
+
+Colton’s whistle rang out shrilly. A screamed oath came from the deck
+below. The sound of a struggle.
+
+“Get the bear!” shouted Colton.
+
+A shot rang out. Another. He could hear the big cage rattle and groan as
+the dying animal thrashed out its life. Around the cage seven men were
+struggling, the three ragged, dark-skinned men who had guarded the cage
+and the four men who had been apparently lounging sailors.
+
+The blind man listened for a moment, then he smiled a grim smile. “A
+lone hand!” he murmured. “I hate assistants--but I’m not such an
+egotistical fool as all that!”
+
+On the port side of the boat he heard the scrambling of men to the high,
+white deck. Then Chief Whittson’s voice came:
+
+“Did you get him?”
+
+Colton touched the unconscious body of the man near the rail just as he
+would have touched the body of a snake with his foot.
+
+“Where’s Nelson?” asked the chief eagerly.
+
+“Down there in the false, canvas-covered top of that bear cage!”
+
+“What!”
+
+“Yes. Drugged! For God’s sake get that suffocating cover off, and send
+for the ship’s doctor.”
+
+The order was bawled to the men below. Willing hands ripped the cover to
+pieces, and on a thin mattress, in a steel-floored, steel-meshed upper
+compartment of the cage, was Dryden F. Nelson, white-faced, unconscious!
+
+“By Heaven, he had his nerve with him to take that chance to get away!”
+gasped the chief, in admiration. “It’s a new one! We’d never have
+suspected a bear cage in a thousand years. And we had every way out of
+the city guarded.”
+
+“Yes!” The word came as a half groan, half snarl, from the man on the
+deck, whom one of the secret-service operatives had just manacled. “He
+had his nerve! He’s my father! And he’s the greatest counterfeiter of
+them all!”
+
+Thornley Colton leaned forward. He grasped a wrist of the man, and
+almost pulled the arm out of its socket.
+
+“You dirty, lying cur!” he said, and his tone was one that he had never
+used before. “You forced that old man to serve you after he had
+discovered what you were doing! You forced the girl who thought you were
+her brother to protect you! By God, if ever a man deserved hanging
+you’re the one!”
+
+“He’s my father!” grated the handcuffed man. “If I go to jail he’ll go,
+too! He knows I’m his son!”
+
+“You dog!” Colton’s voice fairly shook with passion. “You fooled him
+into believing that you were his rotten-hearted son that died ten years
+ago. But you can’t fool me! You may look like Joe Nelson! You may
+deceive even the eyes of a father! But I’m blind! Blind! I talked for an
+hour with a school chum who played in the football game in which Joe
+Nelson broke his wrist. You never had a broken wrist in your life! The
+bones are perfect!” He turned to the chief. “Keep a careful guard on
+that cage, chief, until we get to the cutter. I think there’s a million
+or so dollars that this dog got from Nelson’s bank stuffed into that
+mattress!”
+
+“Damn you!” The man half rose to his knees as he shrieked it. “I tricked
+them all! And you----”
+
+“That’s the confession I wanted to vindicate Nelson,” said the blind man
+contentedly.
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+Nadine Nelson rose as the blind man entered the room, her lips curved in
+a wonderful smile of joyous greeting, and she hurried across the floor
+to meet him.
+
+“Can you ever forgive me?” he asked, in his rich, musical voice.
+
+“Forgive you?” she cried happily. “Why, I could--kiss you!” She stopped,
+crimson-cheeked.
+
+He smiled seriously down at her. “It was necessary, the way I spoke to
+you,” he said gently. “Before, I did not realise how desperate the game
+was. I knew that your father’s life hung on the thread of your silence.
+And I knew that the only way I could assure myself that you wouldn’t
+break down and talk was to arouse every bit of that wonderful fighting
+gameness you have. The men who had your father would have killed him
+rather than risk getting him away if they thought there was a breath of
+suspicion.”
+
+“I know,” she said; “I know--and understand.”
+
+“The ringleader talked a little to the chief on the way back in the
+revenue cutter,” went on Colton. “He had been a pal of your brother’s
+for years in South America. They worked together in a telegraph office
+in Rio.”
+
+“He was a wonderful operator,” murmured the girl. “He is the only man I
+ever knew of who could imitate another man’s touch on the key. That was
+the proof that convinced father that he was Joe. You know the touch of
+an operator on a sender is as individual as handwriting.”
+
+Colton nodded. “My knowledge of that fact is what threw me off the track
+at first. You knew your brother was implicated the minute you spoke of
+him in your room. I remembered then the stories I had heard of him. I
+remembered that he was fifteen years older than you, and was supposed to
+have been shot in South America ten years ago, where he went following
+some trouble here.”
+
+“Joe always was wild,” the girl confessed softly, “though I only
+remember him as a big, strong brother who used to hold me on his knee
+while he told me wonderful stories. I couldn’t believe sometimes that
+the man who was making daddy do such horrible things could be the
+brother I knew. But I couldn’t convince father. The counterfeiter knew
+every incident of Joe’s life, and there was the touch of the operator
+that father thought was so indisputable. I tried to get father to
+confess it all. I refused to carry him the messages that were left in my
+room after we knew the secret-service men were watching us, and that Joe
+and his men were next door. Then Joe--I can’t call him anything
+else----”
+
+“That is the name he has gone under for years,” put in Colton.
+
+“Then Joe rigged up the magnets and key,” went on the girl. “He had to
+give father instructions every night where to distribute the counterfeit
+money that was packed in the vaults of the bank in place of the reserve.
+And he made father sell all his bonds to cover the shortage. Then, with
+the help of a watchman, who was another of the gang, they got the
+counterfeit money in to take the place of that father had gotten to make
+good. Every day Joe promised that he would make restitution, for he had
+made father believe that he had sent the money to Brazil for investment,
+and it would double in a month. So father hoped and prayed, and got
+years older every hour. The secret-service men were dogging every step,
+watching every move. Jail stared him in the face--and he believed the
+man he thought his son, believed that he would have the money to look
+the world squarely in the face once more.
+
+“Then Joe told him one night, over the wire, that he had lost all.
+Father must go. I watched outside my door every night to see that Paul
+did not come near. I caught a word. I pleaded with father. For four days
+I fought against them. Then they won. I was at the door last night when
+father came running up the stairs, panting, half dead with the
+excitement of having slipped past the secret-service man. He darted past
+me. I followed. Joe grabbed me by the arm when I started to protest.
+‘Get downstairs and throw a fit because your father has gone!’ he
+hissed. ‘You’ll be along in a little while, and be with him!’ he
+finished, and there was a look in his eyes that frightened me. So you
+see it wasn’t only acting in the library.” She shuddered.
+
+Colton understood, even more than she, for he had heard the confession
+of the master counterfeiter on the revenue cutter that had brought them
+all back to the city. He had learned then why he had taken such pains to
+get the old man away. The crook had not been satisfied to take every
+dollar of the old man’s fortune. He had seen the girl; he had wanted
+her, and she was to have been the price of her father’s life!
+
+“The chief’s men got the whole plant next door,” he put in hastily.
+“It’s a new process of bleaching one-dollar bills, and making hundreds
+from them with a new photographic process. The master crook had been
+perfecting it for years in Brazil, waiting for a big stake in New York.
+He put one of his assistants as correspondent of your father’s bank down
+there. A year ago he had him write a humble letter asking for a position
+in New York. Your father gave it to him.”
+
+“Yes,” admitted the girl. “And the man who took the position was the one
+who posed as my brother. He pretended to be very dull. That’s why the
+secret-service men never suspected him. When he had been in the bank
+three months, father discovered a shortage of sixty thousand dollars. He
+accused the man who came from Brazil. Father’s bank, you know, is a
+private institution, and only has seven employees. The man confessed,
+and convinced father that he was Joe. He said he would make good the
+loss. And he did, with the clever counterfeits. That was the entering
+wedge. After that father was only putty in his hands. Six months ago he
+resigned, after seeing to it that one of his gang was put in as watchman
+and another took his place.”
+
+“That is when he took up his role as doctor,” put in Colton, “and got
+his scheme of taking the poor Frenchman’s house. And at the hospital
+they say the Frenchman will recover fully.”
+
+“And father is upstairs sleeping,” she said softly. “You brought him
+back to me--and he knows that the man who tried to ruin him, the man who
+would have killed him if you had not been there to prevent him when the
+revenue men came, was not his son! That is the greatest of all! We owe
+you a debt that we can never repay; you and Sydney, here, who stood so
+bravely by when I thought all the world had turned against me.”
+
+She touched the arm of the black-haired man who had sat silent beside
+her, and he looked at her with a wonderful new light in his eyes. Gone,
+now, was Sydney Thames’s great fear of women that had been his obsession
+all his life. He had met _the_ woman.
+
+“Can you ever forgive me, Thorn?” he asked, speaking for the first time.
+He had not even raised his eyes to the face of the man he had renounced
+that morning. Ever since Dryden Nelson had been brought back to his
+home, and the wireless message from the revenue cutter had opened the
+jail-door for the girl, his thoughts had been torturing him.
+
+“I must forgive myself first,” the blind man said quietly. “It hurt me
+more than anything else to talk to you like that. But a man’s life hung
+in the balance. I could not tell you, for I knew you would tell the girl
+rather than see her suffer a minute.” One of his rare smiles lighted up
+his face. “Let’s make it a burned paper, more completely burned than the
+charred fragment I found in the Frenchman’s house; the part of a note
+one of the outside men sent to the master counterfeiter. For on that my
+fingers read three words: Joe, cage, _Carracas_. That finished the
+case--my case.” And his sightless eyes seemed to look at them with
+understanding and joy.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           THE EIGHTH PROBLEM
+
+                      THE EYE OF THE SEVEN DEVILS
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+A jarring incongruity in the room of tapestries, silken-shaded lights,
+and furnishings of mahogany, the rough wooden box, with its dirty,
+scarred sides, scratched the top of the polished table in a hundred
+places without arousing even a murmur of protest from the four men who
+watched every movement of the little Japanese servant as he carefully
+pried the holding nails from the cover boards. A chorused “Ah!” came
+from four pairs of lips as the servant laid the chisel down and lifted
+the last board.
+
+“Careful, Nesu,” warned the frock-coated man with the white moustache
+and sun-tanned cheeks.
+
+The dissipated-looking youth, with the Egyptian cigarette dangling
+loosely from his lower lip, rose to get a better view of the interior.
+“’Nough cotton stuffing there to fill a barrel, captain,” he grinned,
+vacuously.
+
+“Yes,” nodded the white-moustached captain. “Nearly ten pounds, and the
+Devils are bound into place with nearly twenty yards of silk strips. A
+man takes a little care with a thing that’s cost him forty thousand,
+Meynerd.”
+
+The Japanese servant pulled out a huge handful of cotton, and placed it
+on a spread newspaper as another of the group spoke. “Is it really worth
+that, captain?” he asked.
+
+“Three times that, Joslyn. Forty thousand is only what I paid the
+hunchback outcast priest in the Yunling mountain monastery in Sze Chuen.
+He had had it hidden for nearly fifty years. The eye alone is worth
+sixty-five thousand, if it’s worth a cent. The forty thousand I paid
+will buy the priest all the prayers he needs for the next hundred years;
+and they’ll be the best prayers money can buy, at that.” He smiled,
+grimly. “I needed a few of those same prayers on several occasions
+myself,” he went on. “Especially on that three-hundred-mile journey
+through the Yunlings to Chingtu. I have an idea the priest wanted to
+steal a march on the prayers, and threw out a hint that the ‘white dogs’
+had found the pearl-eyed Seven Devils of Sin. During the half century
+that had passed since he stole it, of course, it has been ‘lost.’”
+
+“Why didn’t he return it instead of getting forty thousand dollars to
+buy prayer papers to burn for his soul?” asked Wilson, the fourth member
+of the group, taking his eyes from the busy-fingered Jap.
+
+“Because he was a Chinese,” explained Captain Richards. “He stole the
+thing when he had just entered the monastery, for a white man who bribed
+him--that’s a long story in itself. The briber was killed the day of the
+theft. The young priest was suspected, and tortured until he became a
+hunchback and outcast, but no confession could be gotten. In the years
+the blame has been laid on the white man’s devil, who stole the Chinese
+devils and took them to his home, when the white master was killed. The
+peculiar kink of the Chinese mind would not let the thief confess or
+return the devils. He couldn’t see where the mere restitution would
+expiate his sin. The only way he could figure was to wait until some one
+came with enough money to pray him into heaven for a hundred years after
+he had gone. Peculiar cusses, the Chinese.”
+
+He rose at the last word, and the others rose with him. The Japanese was
+unwinding yard after yard of two-inch silken strips.
+
+“Ah!” It was more than an exclamation: it was a three-man-power cry of
+amazement, wonder, and surprise as the captain lifted the thing from the
+box and set it gently on the table.
+
+“Great guns!” gasped the dissipated-looking youth, backing away a step
+and stopping with a sheepish grin.
+
+“The Seven Golden Devils of Sin with the single eye!” announced the
+captain, with a flourish.
+
+The men stared at the most curious-looking object they had ever seen. At
+first glance it seemed merely a spidery collection of arms and legs;
+then seven figures stood out, separately and distinctly, grouped closely
+together. In the centre stood the shortest; around him, in every
+conceivable position, were six others. Their bodies were grotesquely
+deformed, their backs misshapen, their limbs twisted; and the genius who
+had fashioned the thing of his dull, hand-hammered gold in the centuries
+gone, had given to the bodies and limbs the distortion of horrible
+agony.
+
+But it was the head; the single head that surmounted the seven bodies,
+which held their attention. The face was hideous; but in the very
+hideousness the gold worker had put cunning, power, strength. The thick
+lips leered a smile of satanic triumph; the cheek bones were high,
+oblique. And above the squat, wide-nostriled nose was a single eye! It
+was a pearl, perfect, flawless: milk-white against the red-yellow gold.
+
+As they stared there seemed to come into the single eye of pearl a glow
+of red, as though the heart of the great jewel were a spark of fire that
+shone through the lustred surface. It was a trick of the lights,
+perhaps, or the reflected colour of the overhanging brow, but to the men
+who watched, it seemed that the eye held all the malevolence and cruelty
+of the Pit itself.
+
+“The devilish thing gives a man the creeps!” growled Meynerd; and his
+hand shook a bit as he took the cigarette from his lips.
+
+Joslyn laughed jerkily, for the spell of the thing was on him, too.
+
+“Better cut out a few of those high balls, Mey,” he taunted.
+
+A flush of resentment mounted the youth’s cheeks; but the captain
+forestalled his angry reply.
+
+“Those figures represent the seven sins, each one enough to keep a
+Chinese from his heaven. The one in the centre, though the shortest and
+most horribly deformed of all, has the biggest and strongest body. That
+is Deceit, the most powerful of devils. The Mongolian reasons that none
+of the other devils can enter the heart of man unless deceit has entered
+first.”
+
+“Excellent philosophy, that,” commented Wilson.
+
+“That is why the head rests on the centre figure and the bodies of the
+others are bent forward to meet it,” continued the captain. “Notice,
+too, that though the limbs are terribly twisted, and the bodies scarred
+to symbolize the awful punishment the gods have inflicted on the wicked
+seducers of men’s hearts, the head is perfect, showing that the devils
+can still think with their one head, and plan traps for the unwary. And
+the eye”--his face lighted with the enthusiasm of the collector--“the
+wonderful eye that is all-seeing, alert to catch the first sign of
+weakening in the lowest coolie in the kingdom. That, gentlemen, is the
+thing I worked years to get; the thing that nearly cost me my life a
+dozen times--the Eye of the Seven Devils! The most wonderful pearl in
+the world; the pearl with a heart of fire!”
+
+“Funny the thief priest didn’t pry out the eye and sell it to buy his
+prayers, without risking getting rid of the whole thing,” put in Joslyn.
+
+“That’s the wonder of the thing!” exclaimed the captain. “By some method
+that no one has ever been able to fathom, the maker of the thing set the
+stone in such a way that it can’t be taken out without cutting the whole
+thing to pieces. The pearl appears merely pasted in its socket, but the
+microscope can see, in the space around it, that the jewel is gripped in
+four prongs that fit into tiny holes bored in the back of the pearl. The
+space around it is so narrow that no instrument of strength, sufficient
+to cut or break the prongs, can be inserted. And if it could, the very
+act would cause the gem to chip, and, perhaps, split. That is the way
+the maker made theft impossible!”
+
+“Wouldn’t mind having the pearl,” growled Meynerd, “but I’d throw the
+rest of it in a sewer.”
+
+The tanned cheeks of Captain Richards went a dull red with anger, and
+his moustache bristled; but Wilson cut in to prevent an open break.
+
+“Let’s have a little drink.”
+
+The servant, who had stuffed the last silk strip into the empty case,
+straightened up.
+
+“High ball,” grunted Meynerd.
+
+“Another absinthe drip,” added Joslyn.
+
+“Bourbon,” ordered Wilson, and the captain nodded.
+
+Silence followed the going of the servant. The captain took out his
+watch, glanced at it, chewed his cigar almost nervously, and lounged
+back in the chair he had taken beside Joslyn. The eyes of the others
+wandered around the room, but always returned to the twisted bodies of
+the seven devils of the single eye. The thing of hand-wrought metal on
+the table seemed to exert an uncanny influence over men who had never
+known superstition. As the silent seconds passed there came a tension in
+the mood of all. Each found himself continually catching the other’s
+eye, only to glance hastily and sheepishly away. And the twisted devil
+mouth leered at them; in the smouldering fire of the devil eye seemed
+infinite scorn.
+
+The return of the servant with the tray of drinks made each one sit up
+eagerly. The Japanese went to the captain first and held out a card.
+
+“Hustle the high ball,” growled Meynerd. The Jap hurried over. Meynerd’s
+unsteady hands had spilled a third of the liquor before Wilson took the
+small carafe from his shaking hands and poured the remainder over the
+ice. The youth growled monosyllabic thanks. Captain Richards whistled as
+Meynerd tossed his drink off at a gulp.
+
+“Going to leave us, captain?” asked Joslyn, poking his straws farther
+down in the cracked ice of the absinthe.
+
+Captain Richards looked up from the card he held between his thumb and
+forefinger. “Puzzling thing,” he prefaced. “Here’s the card of Ching Li
+Chu.” His eyes went again to the pasteboard as he read: “Secretary to
+the ambassador at Washington of the Imperial Chinese Republic.”
+
+“What does he want?” asked Wilson. “That?” He jerked his head toward the
+table.
+
+“How on earth----” Sudden decision cleared the look of puzzlement from
+the captain’s brow. “Send him in, Nesu,” he ordered.
+
+“Chink devils, chink secretaries,” grinned Meynerd. The liquor had
+pulled his nerves together again, and his lips curved in contempt when
+he caught Joslyn stealing a covert glance toward the table, as the door
+opened.
+
+The man who entered, unquestionably a Mongolian, had a lean, intelligent
+face. The eyes, but slightly aslant, looked straight before him, giving
+no sign that they even saw the seated men, but stared fixedly at the
+table and its thing of gold. In the centre of the room the Chinese
+stopped and made a deep obeisance, once, twice, thrice. A low laugh of
+contempt came from Meynerd’s lips, but the Chinese paid no heed. He
+walked to the table, and for several silent seconds gazed steadily into
+the eye of the pearl. With another deep bow he turned, his eyes
+searching each face.
+
+“Captain Richards?” His voice was low, mellow, with no trace of accent.
+
+“I am he!” The captain rose from his seat and bowed.
+
+“So my information was correct; it is the Seven Devils with the True
+Eye.” Again the Chinese bowed toward the figures. Once more Meynerd
+laughed sneeringly. This time the Mongolian turned toward him
+inquiringly.
+
+“You do not mock me,” he rebuked, mildly. “Your mockery is of the Seven
+Devils. I would be careful, were I you.”
+
+“Bah!” Meynerd set down his empty glass. “I didn’t know you fellows
+worshipped devils, and little gold devils on a table, at that.”
+
+“Nor do we.” Still that mild, even voice. “We worship our gods; but we
+are careful not to incur the wrath of our devils. The gods may forgive
+the ignorant mocker; the devils slay. That I believe, and I am no
+coolie, but a man educated in your own universities.”
+
+“Drunken kid!” muttered the captain, his fingers moving along the
+table-edge as he leaned against it. “You wanted to see me on business?”
+he asked the Chinese.
+
+“Yes. I wish to pay you one hundred thousand dollars for the golden
+Seven Devils of Sin!” The amazement this announcement caused showed
+plainly on each man’s face. The Chinese went on: “The new republic seeks
+to unite its people, but throughout the province of Chingtu it is known
+that the lost Seven Devils has been taken from the country. They demand
+that the new government see that it is returned if they are to believe
+that government’s power. Our failure will mean a costly and bloody war,
+for the Yunling mountain men are fighters who know every inch of its
+vast slopes.”
+
+“So my six months of devious routes and constant guarding amounted to
+nothing.” The captain’s lips smiled grimly, but there was a light in his
+eyes that had not been there before. “I suppose the priest is being
+honoured for having been told by the gods that the white dog had stolen
+the thing.”
+
+“Prayer papers have been burning this last five months for the
+hunchback,” said the Chinese, quietly.
+
+“Um.” The smile left the captain’s lips. He shook his head. “I will not
+sell,” he declared, and there was finality in his voice.
+
+It seemed a full minute before any one spoke. The noiseless Jap servant
+industriously picked up small tufts of cotton that had fallen to the rug
+back of the table. Joslyn set his glass, with its green-tinged cracked
+ice on the table, clinkingly, and the captain’s eyes left the
+Mongolian’s face as the noise attracted them. Meynerd’s lips still
+grinned contemptuously as he spun the piece of ice around in his empty
+high-ball glass.
+
+“The devils can only bring sorrow to you.” The voice of the Chinese was
+deep, full of sincerity. “Perhaps death, for in your country there will
+be mockers, and, as I told your friend, the devils slay those who mock
+them.” His deep eyes rested on Meynerd. The face of the youth went red
+for an instant; then the sneer came back.
+
+“Like to see ’em kill me!” he said, boastfully. “A chink knife in back
+might, but no pigeon-toed gang of devils with one eye could!”
+
+“Do not speak that way!” There was stern reproof in the tone of the
+Chinese. “You may know the things of the West, but there are things of
+the East that you do not know!”
+
+“Is that so!” Meynerd shook off the restraining hand of Wilson and stood
+up. The face of the captain went white with rage, and his hands fumbled
+with the handkerchief he had been in the act of lifting to his brow.
+
+“Be a gentleman!” he snapped.
+
+Meynerd paid no heed. “Here’s to you devils!” he laughed, sneeringly.
+“Long may you wave--in a glass case!”
+
+“The mockers kotow before they die!” The words came rapidly, almost
+hissingly, from the lips of the Chinese.
+
+“Here’s to crime!” Meynerd stood in front of the golden devils and
+drained the last drops of his drink. A gasp came from the Japanese as he
+backed away a step, his hand full of cotton tufts he had picked up from
+the floor. Captain Richards crushed the handkerchief in his hand as he
+brushed his lips. Every eye in the room was on the gently swaying man
+with the glass to his lips.
+
+Suddenly Meynerd’s face went livid; the glass fell to the floor. Slowly
+his knees bent. For a second he seemed to kneel before the leering face
+of gold. His body fell forward. His forehead touched the ground. Then
+the limbs straightened convulsively, and he lay still.
+
+The seated men jumped to their feet, with exclamations of horror. The
+Chinese, face impassive, leaned over and touched the pulse of the man on
+the floor. Then he looked up into the faces of the three white-faced men
+who bent over him.
+
+“He is dead,” said the Mongolian, quietly. “The devils have slain.”
+
+Mechanically, involuntarily, they turned toward the hideous thing on the
+table. As one the startled cry came from three pairs of lips:
+
+“_The Eye! The Eye!_”
+
+The twisted, thick lips of gold still leered at them, but where the eye
+of pearl had been, only an empty socket seemed to stare down at the dead
+man on the floor.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+“Pawn to king five and checkmate.” Thornley Colton took a final puff of
+his cigarette, and dropped it in the ash tray beside the chessboard.
+
+Sydney Thames, the apple cheeked, black-haired secretary to the blind
+problemist, laughed ruefully. “I almost believe that you could beat me
+with pawns alone, Thorn,” he declared, looking over the pieces on the
+board.
+
+“Your whole game is attack,” Colton observed. “You forget all about
+defence. Another?”
+
+Thames merely nodded, and silently rearranged the pieces on the board.
+“Three and pawn again?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, if you----” The ringing telephone-bell on the desk broke in, and
+Sydney rose to answer it. He returned almost on the run.
+
+“It’s Captain Richards, at the Wanderers’ Club,” he began, breathlessly.
+“He wants you at once. He said something about a murder, and the eye of
+some seven devils of sin, as near as I could understand.”
+
+Thornley Colton’s mobile face, whose paleness was strikingly accentuated
+by the great blue circles of the tortoise-rimmed library glasses that
+shielded his sightless eyes from all glares, lighted up with interest.
+“Is he still on the wire?” He rose as he asked the question.
+
+Thames shook his head. “He blurted out the message and rang right off.
+He seemed positive you’d come.”
+
+A faint smile came to Thornley Colton’s lips. “I guess he knew that a
+single breath from the Orient would interest me.” He touched the
+call-button on the desk that would summon the big black automobile
+instantly, at any hour of the day or night. “I hadn’t any idea Captain
+Richards had returned. I haven’t seen him for years.” The smile left his
+face. “My fingers have been itching to see those wonderful Seven Devils
+I’ve heard so much about.”
+
+“Your interest in things Chinese is beyond me,” confessed Sydney, as he
+followed the blind man out of the room and down the stairs.
+
+“You were in college the last four years I spent in China, Sydney.”
+Colton spoke as the chauffeur closed the tonneau-door of the touring
+car, and threw in the gears. “The lure of the East has never gotten out
+of my veins. To a man who can see, China must be wonderful. To me it is
+marvellous. Old, satiated of every human emotion before we discovered
+emotion; a view-point as incomprehensible as the hereafter itself; a
+character that cannot be visualized--why, Sydney, to men of eyes, the
+lure of China is the lure of a beautiful picture. To me it is the lure
+of the unattainable.”
+
+“Something like the mystery of woman?” asked Sydney Thames, seriously.
+
+“Not at all.” The slim cane waved an impatient gesture over the side of
+the car. “The so-called mystery of woman is her constantly shifting
+view-point dependent on outside influences; the mystery of the Chinese
+is his undeviating view-point.”
+
+“Too deep for me,” laughed Thames; then he swung open the door as the
+car stopped before the great Gothic door-way of the Wanderers’ Club.
+
+The mantle of tragedy hung heavily over the luxurious, exclusive
+interior of the famous club as they entered. In the main lounging-room a
+small group of members talked in hushed whispers, and their nervous
+starts at each sound belied the reputations most of them had gained as
+travellers in countries where danger lurked constantly. The servitors,
+usually alert, swift to receive and execute an order, moved with lagging
+footsteps. Thornley Colton recognised the atmosphere of uneasiness
+immediately, and a cynical smile flashed across his thin lips as he
+understood the cause. The Wanderers, rich seekers of excitement and
+danger in foreign countries, hard-headed, with nerves of steel when face
+to face with violent death, had fallen under the spell of the uncanny,
+the supernatural.
+
+The chief steward, from his vantage-point at the head of the stairs,
+spied them and hurried down.
+
+“It’s--they’re upstairs, sir.” A scared note was in his voice. “The
+physician has just this minute arrived. The police haven’t been told.
+Captain Richards thought maybe---- It’s terrible, sir.”
+
+“Very, Peters,” nodded Colton, absently, as he followed the man up the
+broad staircase, and to himself he muttered, “Lucky the police haven’t
+had a chance to bungle it. Very, very lucky.”
+
+The instant they opened the door Captain Richards bounded across the
+floor to meet them. “Thank God you came, Mr. Colton!” he cried, shaking
+the hand of the blind man with more than heartiness.
+
+“Who was it?” asked Colton.
+
+“Meynerd. The doctor’s trying to find the cause of death now.” He nodded
+his head toward the broad leather couch against the wall, with its grim
+occupant, and the physician bending over it.
+
+Colton asked a dozen crisp, terse questions. The answers he got told him
+the whole story. The captain introduced him to every one in the room,
+and Colton shook their hands, even to the obsequious Japanese servant,
+who stood patiently awaiting orders, near the wall.
+
+The doctor finished his examination and straightened up.
+“Heart-failure,” he announced. “Brought on by alcoholic excesses, I
+should judge, and probably superinduced by excitement.”
+
+“Strange that the hand of God should have descended at the exact moment
+chosen by a thief to steal the pearl,” remarked Colton quietly.
+
+“You don’t think it’s murder?” There was a queer chokiness in Captain
+Richards’s voice.
+
+“_Yes!_” Colton shot out the word as he stood in the centre of the room,
+turning his head slowly, as though his sightless eyes were trying to
+surprise some expression of guilt on the white faces of the men.
+Wilson’s hands gripped his chair-arms so tightly that the knuckles
+cracked. Joslyn stretched an arm toward the glass, with its green-tinged
+ice on the table, but withdrew it quickly, to let his hands fall on his
+knees. The Japanese servant’s foot shifted nervously over a small wad of
+cotton that had fallen from his hands, minutes before. Only the Chinese
+was unmoved.
+
+“Neither the gods nor the devils murder,” he said. “They kill.”
+
+The blind man nodded toward him, slowly. “True,” he answered, and his
+voice was serious. “But when the killing is done by human instruments,
+the law calls it murder.”
+
+“You are of the West,” shrugged the Mongolian.
+
+“But the whole thing is impossible!” There seemed almost a whine of
+incredulous protest in Captain Richards’s voice.
+
+“Does the impossible happen?” Colton’s voice was sharp, curt. “No! But
+the improbable does! A hundred times a day! Every time a perfect match
+fails to strike an improbable thing has happened. Because that thing on
+the table hypnotized your eyes into waking the superstition that is the
+mental appendix handed down through the thousand centuries, you say that
+_it_ is impossible. What is impossible? Meynerd’s death? The fact that
+he was killed? My statement that he was murdered? Or do you mean that
+each one of you is so wise that no one could have deceived you? Yet the
+eye is gone! And even if the devils had killed Meynerd, would they have
+stolen their own eye?”
+
+Each crisp sentence fairly sizzled as he shot it out. The hand that held
+his slim, hollow cane, that gave its messages to his super-sensitive
+finger-tips, waved up and down for emphasis, touching blindly the table,
+the golden devils, and some part of each man’s body as he paced back and
+forth across the floor.
+
+“A man can’t give another man heart-failure to kill him,” declared the
+physician, pompously.
+
+“Can’t!” The smile on the problemist’s face was sardonic as he faced the
+doctor. “Then no murder was ever committed. If a man’s heart didn’t fail
+he’d keep right on living. What caused Meynerd’s heart to fail is the
+thing we’ve got to find out. Do you know how Meynerd fell?”
+
+“No, immaterial details----”
+
+“Very material!” The blind man interrupted brusquely. “Every
+diagnostician should be a detective, and I might mention right here that
+one of the greatest surgeons and diagnosticians in America is a blind
+man. You should know that a man standing as Meynerd stood, suddenly
+stricken with heart-disease, would fall flat on his back. Yet he fell on
+his knees, his body bent forward so that his forehead touched the ground
+for an instant before it relaxed.”
+
+“By Jove--I supposed----” the physician sputtered his chagrin. Then his
+face brightened. “Some caustic, causing a griping in the intestines.”
+
+“Exactly.” The sharpness had gone from the detective’s voice now, and he
+spoke in his old calm, even tone.
+
+“He drank a toast!” Even as he spoke, the doctor’s foot crunched a bit
+of the broken glass on the floor.
+
+“You’d have to analyze the rug,” reminded Colton. “And who had the
+chance?” He looked around inquiringly.
+
+“Wilson poured his drink!” The words came in a gasp from Joslyn.
+
+Wilson sprang to his feet with an oath. “Are you accusing me of killing
+him?” He snarled the question, but his face was white.
+
+“Meynerd had gulped his drink even before Ching Li Chu entered,”
+suddenly remembered Captain Richards. “There was only a few drops of the
+melted ice-water in his glass when he stood before the Seven Devils.”
+
+“There are poisons that act after minutes have passed.” The even,
+monotonous voice of the Chinese broke in.
+
+“Do you think the poisoner knew to the second when Meynerd’s drunken
+folly would take the turn it did?” demanded Colton; and each man in the
+room recognised the menace in his tone.
+
+A gleam flashed to the eyes of the Mongolian for an instant, then
+vanished. “The instruments of the gods and the devils cannot fail,” he
+answered, quietly.
+
+“No poison known could be timed like that,” declared Colton, positively.
+
+“Right!” growled Wilson, as he resumed his seat and darted a glance of
+new-born hatred across the room toward the man who had virtually accused
+him of the murder.
+
+Again came silence as the blind man stood in the centre of the room,
+alternately brushing the rug where lay the untouched pieces of the
+broken high-ball glass, and swishing at his trouser-leg. Across his
+high, white forehead, and at his eye-corners behind the round, blue
+glasses, innumerable fine lines deepened as his wonderful brain worked:
+visualizing each object in the room, every detail in the picture, every
+action that must have taken place at the instant of hopeless confusion
+when Meynerd had pitched forward on the floor.
+
+Immovable, the men watched, each tense for the first word or movement to
+break the suspense. Sydney Thames sat in his chair, with his eyes fixed
+on the devils of gold. Ever since he had entered the room the thing on
+the table had held him fascinated. More sinister, more fiendish than
+ever, without its single eye of pearl, the empty eye socket seemed to
+glare at him as though it gloated over the repugnant fascination it
+exerted. Sydney had heard the captain’s story; in his mind’s eye he
+could picture the toast, the sneers, the fall. _Had_ the devils killed
+Meynerd?--as the Chinese had said they would. Then his eyes narrowed
+slightly as they went to the Mongolian, whose impassive face showed
+nothing of the thoughts behind the bright, slit eyes. He had said that
+death would follow. He was a Chinese--of a race to whom a life means
+nothing; a race of mystery. Then his eyes went to the Jap servant who
+stood against the wall, patiently waiting permission to leave the room;
+then, at the two scowling men, who carefully avoided each other’s
+glances as they stared straight ahead of them--at nothing. Wilson had
+poured the drink. Why had Joslyn been so quick to tell the fact?
+
+Suddenly the swishing taps of the blind man’s cane ceased; the lines
+across his forehead and at his eye-corners vanished. “There is one way.”
+He spoke apparently to himself. “Only one way.”
+
+He crossed the room to the couch where the dead man lay, his face
+covered with a handkerchief. He pulled aside the coat, and unloosed a
+button of the thin silk shirt. From his vest-pocket he took a small
+rubber band, and the watching men saw him put it around the middle
+finger of his right hand, until the black rubber strands were deep
+sunken in the flesh. Then, gingerly, as though he were testing the heat
+of a red-hot stove, he opened the shirt, and with the tourniqueted
+finger gently touched the skin of Meynerd. Slowly, very slowly, the
+finger moved over the cold flesh of the dead man, then stopped.
+
+“See, doctor!” He held the banded finger aloft. The physician’s
+ejaculation of amazement was echoed by every other man in the room, but
+the unemotional Chinese and the well-trained servant. On the tip of the
+blind man’s finger was a drop of blood!
+
+“And see here!” His fingers, holding the shirt back, exposed an inch or
+so of the dead man’s skin. Four men bent their heads to see the small
+smear of red Colton’s finger had left when it had brushed away the
+single blood-drop.
+
+“I don’t understand.” There was no doubt of the physician’s
+bewilderment.
+
+Colton pulled the coat back and stood erect. “The most diabolically
+primitive of all murderous weapons,” he said. “A poisoned dart.”
+
+“But who? How?” gasped the captain.
+
+“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” the blind man said, curtly. With
+his pocket-knife he carefully cut the strands of the rubber and gently
+massaged the swollen, blood-congested finger. “A nasty thing to try to
+locate with delicate finger-tips,” he remarked, casually. “A big chance
+that the thing hadn’t penetrated its full length, as this one had, and a
+scratch would have meant another dead man.”
+
+Sydney Thames’s face lost its last vestige of colour as he realized that
+once again the blind man had toyed with death. A hundred times had
+Thames seen the problemist--the benefactor who had picked him up on the
+bank of the English river from which came his only name--take his life
+in his hands for the sake of solving one of the crime-puzzles he loved;
+but always before there had been a chance for a fight against men with
+lesser brains. This time a single scratch of his feeling finger would
+have killed him instantly, horribly; just as the mocker of the Seven
+Devils had been killed by the man among them who had coveted the
+wonderful pearl that had been the eye. And that man----
+
+Joslyn laughed a jerky laugh of nervousness as he turned away and
+reached out his hand for the glass that had held his absinthe. The ice
+had melted partially, and there was a half-inch or so of the pale-green
+liquid showing through the cracked-ice crystals.
+
+“Don’t touch that glass!” The command came, shot-like, from the lips of
+Colton. He lowered the slim cane that had touched Joslyn’s leg and
+warned him of the movement.
+
+Joslyn withdrew his hand as if it had suddenly touched fire.
+
+“Why? Wh-y?” he gasped, and his face was pasty white.
+
+“Because I don’t want you to kill yourself!” The blind man’s hand moved
+to pick up the glass. He held it up and gingerly poked into the ice with
+his fingers. A grim smile came to his lips, and he dumped the whole
+thing on the polished top of the mahogany table. Colton’s eight fingers
+seemed to touch every piece of ice in a single instant, so quickly did
+they move. Then his fore-finger separated a small pile of
+curiously-shaped crystals.
+
+“Broken glass!” The exclamation came from the physician.
+
+Colton corroborated him with a nod, and spoke to the still pasty-faced
+Joslyn. “Some of the smaller particles would surely have gone down your
+throat.”
+
+Joslyn’s Adam’s apple moved convulsively for a moment. “What is it?” he
+gulped, finally.
+
+“The broken glass-tube that was used to shoot the poisoned dart;
+probably not more than two inches long, because of the short distance,
+and of the thinnest glass, with just this object in view.”
+
+“But how on earth did it get there?” puzzled Captain Richards.
+
+“I’ll bet it wasn’t there five minutes ago!” Wilson cried; and every man
+in the room remembered Joslyn’s movement toward the glass a few minutes
+before.
+
+The suave voice of the Chinese cut in. “Might I be informed how one who
+is blind could know of the glass?” he asked.
+
+“Because the cracked ice made an absolutely perfect hiding-place for
+fine pieces of broken glass. If dropped on the floor with the bigger,
+thicker pieces of high-ball glass, the difference would have been
+immediately noted. I discovered that it had been a frappéd drink when I
+walked up and down before the table and talked.”
+
+Ching Li Chu rose and bowed gravely toward the golden thing on the
+table. “Truly, the wisdom of the gods and of the devils is infinite,” he
+said, in his even voice. “But one man has such a drink. The devils chose
+him to protect their emissary!”
+
+“Pretty philosophy,” admitted Colton, “made grim by the fact that some
+one must suffer for being the devils’ tool.” He turned to face the
+silent Japanese servant, who stood still by the wall. “Tell the steward
+he can notify the police now, Nesu.”
+
+The sunny Japanese smile that had been missing so long came to the
+little servitor’s face, and he took a step forward to obey the order.
+
+“What about the pearl?” asked Captain Richards, suddenly.
+“This man shouldn’t get out until he has been searched. A
+sixty-five-thousand-dollar gem would tempt ’most any one.”
+
+Colton broke in, amazedly: “Hasn’t the search been made yet?”
+
+“No.” The captain stammered over the monosyllable. “I called you as
+quickly as I could get to a telephone, after warning every one to stay
+in the room. I knew you were a member here, and clever at this sort of
+thing. The police are such asses, you know, and the scandal----”
+
+Again the blind man cut him short. “Because there seemed no possible way
+by which the jewel could have been stolen--if the stories I heard of the
+famous Seven Devils, when I was first in China twenty years ago, are
+true--logically the jewel could be nowhere. Is that it?” he asked.
+
+“Something like that.” The tan on the captain’s cheeks was a deeper
+tinge than usual.
+
+“The jewel is nowhere.” The Chinese spoke solemnly, earnestly, almost
+reverently. “The devils have merely hidden it from the sight of mockers.
+My government will give you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for
+the Seven Devils without the True Eye.”
+
+“So that’s it!” The captain’s voice was almost a shout; the tone one of
+a man who has made a great discovery. “_You_ have it! You killed Meynerd
+to make me sell, eh?” He advanced a step, threateningly.
+
+“The police will attend to that part!” warned the blind man, curtly.
+“Search Nesu--or go yourself.”
+
+He turned to the table, and his wonderful fingers, each one an eye that
+could see things the eye of a normal man could not discern, touched the
+twisted limbs of one of the Seven Devils.
+
+“Come over nearer the light, Nesu,” ordered Captain Richards, and the
+serious-faced Japanese followed him around the table.
+
+The attention of the silent men in the room was divided between the
+search of the Jap and Colton’s examination of the thing on the table. At
+times the blind man’s fingers moved swiftly over the dull-gold surface;
+at others they seemed to rest for seconds, unmoving, only to resume
+their journey, slowly. Each man in the room understood, subconsciously,
+that those marvellous finger-tips would give to the sightless man a
+mind-picture as perfect as that their eyes had given them--more perfect,
+perhaps.
+
+“All right!” There was a growl of chagrin in the captain’s voice, as he
+finished the search. The little Jap pattered out.
+
+“Didn’t find it, eh?” Colton spoke idly, without raising his head. His
+right forefinger was gently probing into the empty eye-socket. He put
+his hand in his vest-pocket for an instant, then felt again where the
+pearl had been, first with one finger, then another.
+
+“Strange,” they heard him murmur. “Strange.” Then he whirled to face
+them. “The prongs that held the pearl are unbent and unbroken! They are
+exactly as they were when they gripped the jewel! Yet it is gone!”
+
+“I want to search you, Ching!” There was no mistaking the threat in
+Captain Richards’s tone this time.
+
+Calmly, disdainfully, the Mongolian raised his arms and stood ready.
+Richards explored every thread of his clothing. There was no doubt he
+had done similar things before; not a pin could have escaped him. He
+stepped back with a muttered curse of bafflement.
+
+“Go through me, too.” It was a snarl from Joslyn; the snarl of a man
+whose nerves are raw.
+
+No second invitation was needed. Thornley Colton stood leaning against
+the table, his back toward the golden devils. He idly swished his cane
+and apparently watched every move. Wilson was searched--and there was
+nothing.
+
+“The thief who had brains and nerve enough to commit that theft would
+certainly know enough not to have the pearl in his clothing,” observed
+Colton, quietly.
+
+“It’s in the room here, then,” growled the loser of the pearl, pacing
+the floor. “I’ll tear it apart! That jewel was worth sixty-five
+thousand!”
+
+“You haven’t searched Meynerd’s clothes yet. Every one in the room had a
+chance to secrete it there--temporarily,” suggested Colton.
+
+The captain’s face went white, and he shuddered as his eyes went to the
+body of the man whose death had been caused by the thing of gold he had
+brought into the room. “I’m not a ghoul,” he choked. “The police can
+attend to that part of it.”
+
+“I think I hear them coming now; the tread is unmistakable.” The
+problemist took a firmer grip on his cane with the hand that was not in
+his pocket. “They can mess things as badly as they want to now; I’ve
+finished.” He took a step toward the door, then turned to face them--the
+captain, the physician, who had not spoken for minutes, Joslyn, Wilson,
+and the silent Chinese. “If you’ll bring the Seven Devils to my house at
+six-thirty this evening, captain, I will show you the pearl, and
+handcuff the man who killed Meynerd!” Another step, and he halted again.
+“All of you must come, for only the guilty one will want to stay away.
+_All_, especially Ching Li Chu!”
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+Guided by the touch of Sydney Thames’s sleeve against his, the blind man
+made his way through the crowd of curious, idle persons, whom the sight
+of a policeman entering a building always attracts in New York. From the
+precinct station around the corner had come two uniformed men, and two
+detectives on the run, to answer the murder-call that had gone out.
+Colton and his secretary had met them coming up the stairs, and the
+problemist had given curt nods to their gruff greetings. Nearly every
+detective in the city knew the blind man; and he knew all of them by the
+sound of their voices, just as he knew the voices of a thousand other
+men. A hundred times his abilities had made their efforts look
+ridiculous, and scores of the city-paid sleuths refused to believe that
+he was blind. Nor did any one in the morbid crowd that opened before him
+suspect that the slight touch of cloth against cloth was guiding him in
+the darkness that had been his since birth.
+
+Leaning back in the soft cushions of the tonneau, Thornley Colton
+lighted a cigarette and took several deep puffs. The machine had started
+without orders, as it always did when there was any one around who might
+hear. For several blocks they went in silence; then Colton leaned
+forward.
+
+“Osmuhn’s, Fifth Avenue, Michael,” he directed.
+
+“A jewellery shop?” asked Sydney Thames, in surprise.
+
+“Yes. I am going to make sure of every property for the last scene.
+There can’t be a chance of failure!” There was an ominous ring in his
+voice.
+
+“You speak as though you knew the murderer and the thief!” cried Thames,
+in amazement. “I don’t see----”
+
+“You _do_ see!” interrupted the blind man, with unconscious sharpness.
+“Like the average person, you see too much. To any one with perfect eyes
+the whole thing is a jumble, for the murder of Meynerd was
+planned--devilishly planned--to make possible the one minute of hopeless
+confusion necessary to steal the jewel. The eyes of the men in that room
+could see but one thing, then--the mocker of the devils. Nothing could
+have drawn their gaze from Meynerd! That is the one fault of eyes. In
+great crises they numb every other sense!”
+
+“But if you know the murderer, why not arrest him at once?” asked
+Sydney, his brain trying to fix upon the one man who could be guilty.
+
+“Because I’m not a policeman. The arrest of the guilty person is always
+secondary, with me, to the complete solving of a problem. A crime-puzzle
+is never solved until the guilt of the prisoner is established beyond
+_all_ question. No, Sydney, I’m not a detective, for a detective
+arrests, and then tries to fix the guilt. I fix the guilt first. That is
+the problem in this case!”
+
+“Joslyn and Wilson certainly acted queer,” mused Sydney. “The Chinese,
+too, seemed strange.” A new thought flashed to his mind. “There is
+something Oriental about that murder!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “A dart,
+and a poison which could act like that!”
+
+Colton nodded as he flicked his cigarette into the street. “Devilishly
+Oriental, Sydney,” he said, quietly.
+
+“Ching Li Chu!” gasped Sydney. “He----”
+
+“Is secretary of a foreign legation, and therefore immune from arrest.
+Also, I think he could prove absolutely that he was standing in such a
+position that he could not have shot the poisoned dart at Meynerd!”
+
+The machine swung into the curb before the shop of Osmuhn & Son. Colton
+alighted and hurried into the shop, followed by Sydney. He knew every
+step here, for he had learned them in the days when the problem of the
+Thousand Facets of Fire had interested him.
+
+The elder Osmuhn came forward with a smile of welcome and extended hand.
+Colton swung his slim stick under his left arm and extended his left
+hand; the other had been in his pocket since they had left the room in
+the Wanderers’ Club.
+
+“I want to get an imitation pearl the size of this finger-tip, with
+small holes drilled in the back at exactly these distances apart.” He
+drew his right hand from his pocket, and Thames saw that his right
+index-finger was smudged with ink, and on the middle finger were four
+dots of black, at equal distances around the finger-tip. “A bit of ink
+from my fountain pen on the four prongs, then I got the marks, to tell
+me where the holes had been, when I poked my middle finger into the
+eye-socket,” he explained to his secretary.
+
+“Come into my office,” requested Osmuhn. “We have some imitation gems
+that we use merely to show sizes. They wouldn’t fool an expert for a
+minute.”
+
+“I don’t want them to,” Thornley Colton smiled, faintly. “I only want
+him to feel the gem.”
+
+“Ah, another of your problems.” Osmuhn pulled open a velvet-lined
+drawer. “Hold out your finger, please.” He adjusted a small caliper over
+the tip, and with a smaller one measured the distances between the dots.
+“How soon do you want it?” he asked, when he had made several cabalistic
+notes on his small desk pad.
+
+“As soon as possible.”
+
+“In two hours, then.”
+
+Colton nodded and hurried out.
+
+“Police headquarters,” he ordered, when the tonneau-door had clicked
+shut behind Sydney.
+
+“So soon?” asked the secretary, in wonderment.
+
+“Griffith and Jensen, the two detectives we passed on the stairs, are,
+perhaps, the most dull-witted in New York. Naturally they’d be on hand
+in a case like this. The thing will be bungled hopelessly if I let them
+have their way. After they have been shown the facts I gathered”--a grim
+smile hovered on his lips for a second--“they’ll have every one in the
+room under arrest, even Captain Richards. I want them all--_all_--at my
+house to-night.”
+
+Thames knew the futility of further questions. Colton would do the thing
+in his own way, and explain when the time came. So they rode in silence
+to the big building that housed the central departments of the big
+force.
+
+“While I’m inside, Sydney, call up Shrimp and tell him to get an inch
+auger and the most powerful pocket tubular flash-light he can buy.”
+
+“An auger and a flash-light?” repeated the secretary.
+
+“More scenery,” explained the blind man, laconically. “If I had been in
+the room when the murder was committed, my lack of eyes would have
+enabled me to detect the murderer-thief in the very act. Now I must
+carefully work on his nerves until I have the confession. And I’ll do
+it!” Again there was the ominous ring in his voice that Sydney had
+noticed every time the blind man spoke of the murderer.
+
+With a curt nod of emphasis, Colton turned on his heel and walked
+briskly into headquarters, unerringly finding his way through the
+corridors he had travelled many times before.
+
+There was no doubt of The Fee’s delight when Sydney Thames gave him the
+strange order. “Gee! Anoder case!” came his squeal of joy over the wire.
+“An’ the arm I got broke in the gilded-glove thing is all right. You bet
+I’ll get ’em!”
+
+Sydney smiled as he rang off. Nothing pleased the freckle-faced,
+blue-eyed boy, with the slightly-twisted nose, who had become a member
+of the Colton household at the conclusion of a particularly baffling
+murder case, like participation in one of the blind man’s problems. But
+since the affair of the gilded glove, Colton had been careful to keep
+the irrepressible youngster out of all harm’s way.
+
+For half-an-hour Sydney sat in the automobile and puzzled over the theft
+and the murder, the use of the imitation eye, the request for an auger
+and a flash-light. Then Colton came out of headquarters.
+
+“One more stop,” he said, as the car glided away from the curb. “Five
+o’clock,” he announced, as his fingers touched the face of the
+crystalless watch in his pocket. “Just time for the call, a hurried
+bite, and then the dénouement.” He leaned forward to speak to the
+driver. “The Waldorf,” was the order he gave.
+
+At the big desk of the famous hotel, Colton’s low-voiced inquiry brought
+an involuntary ejaculation of amazement from Sydney Thames. The blind
+man had asked for the Chinese ambassador.
+
+“Not here!” declared the man at the desk with a positiveness that only
+hotel-clerks can assume when they are lying.
+
+“Tell him I’d like to see him in regard to the Seven Devils of Sin.”
+Colton’s voice was quiet and even, but there was something in it that
+commanded respect--and got it.
+
+“I’ll see!” The clerk turned to the house switchboard, and a few minutes
+later Thames and the blind man were being ushered to the suite of the
+diplomat. The ambassador, unlike his secretary, who had worn clothes of
+the latest cut, was dressed in robes rich with embroidery. He looked at
+them inquiringly as they entered, and the man at his side bowed deeply.
+
+“His excellency bids you welcome,” the interpreter said, in precise
+English.
+
+“I came to tell you that the eye of the Seven Devils has been stolen,
+and one of my countrymen murdered to make the theft possible,” Colton
+said, without preamble or preface.
+
+The interpreter might have been a graven image for all the expression
+that came to his face. He bowed again, and spoke in Chinese to the
+ambassador. When the diplomat had answered him, he spoke again to
+Colton.
+
+“His excellency says that the thing of which you speak is impossible.
+The devils would not allow it. The eye of the Seven Devils of Sin
+disappears for a week every hundred years, and has done so for centuries
+at the Yunling temple.”
+
+“Ah!” There was a note of quiet satisfaction in the problemist’s voice
+as though sudden light had been thrown on an obscure point. “How did his
+excellency know where the devils were?” he asked, gravely.
+
+For several minutes the two Chinese talked. Colton stood in the middle
+of the floor, idly switching his trouser-leg with his slim stick,
+apparently paying no attention to the two Chinese. But Sydney Thames
+knew that the keen ears of the blind man were taking in every word; for
+he knew that the problemist understood the language perfectly! What were
+the two Mongolians talking about? Why the discussion before such a
+simple question could be answered?
+
+Then the interpreter spoke. “The gods decreed that his excellency should
+know the exact place and the hour at which it would be ready,” he said,
+solemnly. “The devils stirred to anger the people of Chingtu against the
+white rogue who so cleverly outwitted the Yunling mountain men. But the
+gods found him, after months had passed, so the anger of the devils
+might be appeased and the people made content.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+Sydney Thames thought he detected a dryness in the words, but the look
+on the blind man’s face as he left the room augured ill for some one.
+
+“I can’t see how apparently intelligent men can believe such rot!”
+declared Sydney, impatiently.
+
+“The undeviating view-point, Sydney, the undeviating view-point. That
+religion has been ingrained for centuries and tens of centuries. No
+Western knowledge can ever change it.” A peculiar smile came to his
+lips. “They never consider the incongruity of the gods helping them find
+devils--no more than they would consider a human life beside that thing
+of gold we left on the table at the club.”
+
+Thames tried to read the expression on the blind man’s face; but there
+was no expression. Was the Chinese the murderer? Then what could the
+problemist do alone? What had been the object of those apparently
+irrelevant questions? And why had Colton pretended he knew no Chinese.
+
+“One thing more, Sydney.” The problemist stopped beside the operator’s
+desk at the telephone-booths. “Call up the club and tell the president
+that I’ll contribute enough to have that upper hall re-decorated. Tell
+him that the workmen will be there to-night. It’s about time it was
+fixed.”
+
+Sydney asked no questions this time. He merely obeyed the order. During
+the hurried, silent meal that followed, he was all at sixes and sevens,
+and his brain fairly reeled as the questions raced, shuttlelike, through
+his mind. The Chinese had known the exact hour the thing would be
+unpacked at the Wanderers’ Club. The secretary had virtually threatened
+Meynerd with death. Yet Colton had said Ching Li Chu had not been in a
+position to shoot the poisoned dart. Who had been in the right position,
+and how did the blind man know? He had not asked the positions of the
+men. There were Wilson and Joslyn. What of them? He remembered stories
+he had heard of the men. Joslyn was an absinthe-drinker, supposed to
+have an independent income. But what was the source of that income?
+Sydney had never heard. Wilson was noted for his temper--but the crime
+was not that of a man with temper. It was cold-blooded, devilish.
+
+“Six o’clock.” Colton paid his check and hurried down the winding aisle
+of tables, his brain unconsciously counting the steps it had registered
+when he entered. “Get me a paper, Sydney,” he asked, when they were on
+the side-walk once more.
+
+Sydney hailed a boy and bought one. At the first sight of the black
+headlines he gasped aloud.
+
+“They’ve arrested Nesu!” he cried. “The two detectives took him to
+headquarters!”
+
+He saw again the quiet little Jap; the one man he had never suspected!
+Colton had said that the murder was devilishly Oriental; he had said
+that the Chinese had not committed it. The Japanese was the guilty one!
+He must have been standing at the side of the table opposite Meynerd,
+for Sydney had seen the cotton tufts he had dropped. And the police had
+beaten the blind man; they had gotten ahead of the problemist who had
+scorned them so often. Sydney could see them laughing up their sleeves
+at the man he loved.
+
+“It’s a shame, Thorn!” he choked.
+
+“It is,” admitted Colton, quietly. “But better a live prisoner than a
+dead freeman. I asked the chief to arrest Nesu, for he would have been
+the next victim of the poisoned dart!”
+
+“The next----” began Sydney, dully; but Colton did not let him finish.
+
+“Yes, but we haven’t time to discuss it now. Run up to Osmuhn’s, and get
+the fake pearl. I’ll take the car, and you can come home in the subway.
+There’s a little job Shrimp and I have to do.”
+
+Once more Thames silently did as he was told, and when he got back to
+the old-fashioned, brownstone house in the upper eighties, he found the
+blind man carefully studying two deep scratches in the polished top of
+the library table.
+
+“All right, Shrimp,” called Colton, without raising his head.
+
+Thames looked around, but could see no sign of the boy; he was not in
+the hall, nor in the music-room. He opened his lips for the question,
+then the electric front-door bell tinkled its announcement.
+
+“The jewel! Quick!” Sydney Thames thrust the imitation pearl into
+Colton’s hand. For a second the blind man rubbed it between his flexible
+fingers. With a nod of satisfaction he dropped it carelessly into his
+lower vest-pocket, and was sitting on the table, feet dangling, smoking
+a cigarette, when the servant entered to announce the four men.
+
+Captain Richards came first, and in his arms, held as carefully as
+though it were fragile glass, was the Seven Devils. He grunted in relief
+as he set it down on the table and mopped his sweat-beaded forehead.
+Ching Li Chu, who had been at his heels, remained standing, straight and
+rigid, beside the thing of gold on the table. Joslyn, who could not seem
+to keep his twitching fingers still, flopped into a chair without even a
+grunt of greeting. Wilson seemed strangely cool, and calmly chewed an
+unlighted cigar as he shook hands with the blind man and his secretary.
+
+“No trouble getting us all here together,” he grinned. “Not one of us
+has dared leave the other’s sight all afternoon. Sat like bumps on a log
+glaring at each other, and trying to figure which of us was a murderer.”
+
+“For God’s sake, get it over with!” Joslyn licked his dry lips with his
+tongue, and his voice was shaky. “The police were going to arrest all of
+us until their brains got untangled, and they took the right one. What
+d’ye want us here for, anyway?” he demanded.
+
+“To show you the eye of the Seven Devils,” Colton said, quietly. He
+moved the golden image along the table, and carefully placed it in the
+centre, facing the five chairs that were drawn up against the wall. The
+blind man was very careful of the placing, and his secretary knew that
+he was putting it exactly over the scratches. Why?
+
+“I told you not to drink so much absinthe this afternoon, Joslyn,” put
+in the captain, impatiently. “Your nerves are all gone.” He spoke to the
+problemist. “Are you really going to find the eye?” he asked, and there
+was a note of disbelief in his voice that Sydney Thames instantly
+resented.
+
+A nod was Colton’s only answer.
+
+Richards shook his head doubtfully. “Where that infernal Jap could have
+hidden the thing is beyond me. We literally tore the room to pieces, and
+picked the cotton apart, tuft by tuft.” His voice changed suddenly. “Did
+you find it?” he demanded.
+
+The blind man straightened up. “Take seats,” he invited, for he had
+apparently not even heard the question. “You, too, Ching; the devils
+won’t get away.”
+
+“The ambassador said that I must guard them,” replied the Chinese,
+simply.
+
+“I expected he would,” declared Colton. “I saw him for a few minutes
+this afternoon.”
+
+“You did!” The exclamation came from Captain Richards.
+
+“Yes. I’d like to speak to you a few minutes in private, if the others
+will excuse us?” he turned to them, apologetically.
+
+“Long as you like,” granted Wilson, lightly.
+
+“Have it over with!” snarled Joslyn.
+
+Colton put his hand on the captain’s shoulder and drew him to a far
+corner of the room. For several minutes they conversed in earnest
+whispers. The blind man’s back was toward the seated men, but they could
+see him making gestures of emphasis with the hand that was not resting
+on the captain’s arm.
+
+The captain nodded emphatically, and they returned to the others. His
+face was grave, unreadable, but Sydney Thames saw a look of satisfaction
+gleaming in his eyes. So the blind man had convinced him that the pearl
+would be recovered!
+
+They were all seated now, even the Chinese. Colton leaned against the
+table beside the seven golden devils, and faced them. His finger-tips
+felt of his crystalless watch.
+
+“Ten minutes of seven,” he said. “At seven o’clock the jewel will be
+returned. Seven has been a mystic number for centuries.”
+
+Wilson laughed shortly. “You’re worse than the Chinese, Colton,” he
+accused.
+
+“Rot!” growled Joslyn.
+
+“You know that seven is the number sacred to our devils?” asked the
+Chinese, gravely.
+
+An inclination of the blind man’s head was his only answer. Silence
+came. The minutes slowly ticked past. As time went the men again felt
+the sinister influence of the thing of gold before them; just as the
+blind man had intended they should. Joslyn could not keep his twitching
+hands still. Wilson bit through his cigar and muttered a curse as it
+fell to the floor. Even Captain Richards nervously tapped his vest-front
+with his fingers. Sydney Thames shifted uncomfortably. What was going to
+happen? Was this merely another of the irrelevant, apparently senseless
+things?--like the others of the afternoon.
+
+Colton’s voice, low, solemn, broke the stillness. “The murderer of
+Meynerd can never receive his full punishment on this earth. He has
+murdered thousands!” Every man straightened in his chair. “For years he
+has lived on the blood of innocent women and children, and for years I
+have waited this opportunity. Thank God it has come!”
+
+From the lower hall came the first stroke of seven. The blind man stood
+facing them, hands resting lightly on the table at his sides. The mellow
+note of the second stroke came. Unconsciously each man’s muscles
+tightened for something--they knew not what. Week-long seconds passed
+before the gong sounded the third time. Still the blind man did not
+move. He stood there as rigid as the hideous, eyeless thing of gold
+beside him.
+
+“Do not move!”
+
+With the snapped-out order came darkness, black, impenetrable. An
+indrawn breath sounded hissingly, sucked in through tight, clenched
+teeth.
+
+Again the clock sounded. From over their head, behind them, came a
+single shaft of soft, white light. In the small circle of brightness the
+face of the Seven Devils leered at them. And over the squat,
+wide-nostriled nose the single eye of pearl, perfect, flawless, gleamed
+with its spark-red heart!
+
+An animal-like snarl broke the silence. Sydney Thames felt the sweeping
+rush of a body past his chair; heard body meet body in struggle. He knew
+one was the blind man. The other----
+
+He made a move to rise and snap on the lights.
+
+Some subtle fifth sense of the blind man seemed to tell him the very
+thought in his secretary’s mind.
+
+“Stay where you are!” came his command. “Don’t touch the lights!”
+
+Came a crash of a falling body.
+
+The blind man’s voice cut the blackness. “You would, eh!” He followed in
+with a half-dozen words in Chinese. In the tone was some terrible
+accusation, and they seemed to goad the other to madness.
+
+“Your devilish Oriental poisons will never kill another!” There was not
+even a catch in the blind man’s breath; but the men who could not move a
+muscle heard the sobbing gasps of the other. Suddenly came silence. Then
+two sharp clicks of snapped handcuffs.
+
+And as though the clicks had been a signal, the lights came, and with
+them the voice of Thornley Colton, quietly triumphant:
+
+“The murder of Ralph Meynerd will at last bring you the death you have
+deserved so long, _Captain Richards_! Yes, the pearl you have been
+assuring yourself you still had in your pocket is an imitation. I took
+the real eye from you while we were talking in the corner. My fingers
+might make me a successful pickpocket.”
+
+He turned to face the doorway, and there the dazed Sydney Thames saw the
+wide-eyed Fee. Behind him were two stalwart detectives.
+
+“The prisoner I promised your chief,” Colton said, shortly.
+
+They came forward and jerked the cursing man to his feet. “One minute!”
+commanded Colton. He faced the Chinese. “The Seven Devils was stolen
+from your temple. It is yours. Take it.”
+
+“Damn you!” shrieked Richards. “You----”
+
+For a silent second Colton’s eyes seemed to stare at him, then his eyes
+dropped.
+
+“Take it to its true owners,” repeated Colton. “But first, see!” He went
+to the golden thing on the table. One hand, held cuplike, under the eye.
+A finger touched the toe of one of the figures. The eye dropped to his
+hand! “The true secret of the image,” he said, quietly. “The prongs, by
+some method of a forgotten genius, open by the pressure of one of the
+toes. That is how it was stolen in the instant you could see nothing but
+the dead man before you!”
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+An alcohol-soaked bandage around his eyes to ease the splitting headache
+the loss of four hours of sleep in the afternoon had caused, Thornley
+Colton sat in the darkened music-room. Hours before, the hand-cuffed
+Captain Richards had been led away, cursing, raving, blaspheming. The
+table in the library where had been the wonderful Seven Devils of Sin,
+was empty now, but in a room at the Waldorf four sleepless Chinese
+guarded the sacred thing with their lives; praying alternately to it and
+to their gods in thanks. Under the waters of the Pacific had already
+sped the news that the True Eye would again look from the altar of the
+Yunling monastery. The Chinese ambassador had come personally to thank
+Colton. He had promised the blind man honours, decorations, and Thornley
+Colton had smiled them aside.
+
+“A curious crime; that of committing a murder to steal the thing he
+already owned?” The blind man repeated the question Sydney Thames had
+asked minutes before. “Yes, it was a curious crime, Sydney. But Richards
+knew that he was dealing with a curious people; he had dealt with them
+for thirty years. He understood perfectly that a Chinese who knew the
+legend regarding the impossibility of theft would not deviate a hair’s
+breadth from his century-old ideas. The devils would not let it be done;
+therefore it could not be done. The disappearance of the eye--coupled
+with the century vanishings which, of course, the captain knew all
+about--would only make the Chinese more anxious to get the image. It
+would prove to his peculiar mind that the devils had not lost their
+powers in the years they had been gone. You heard him raise the price.
+You saw Richards’s clever acting then; though he must have known that
+Ching couldn’t be found guilty of the murder. He would have seen to it
+that at the time of the killing the Chinese was in the wrong position to
+shoot the dart. He was wise enough to know that police suspicion would
+be immediately directed toward the Mongolian, but it was no part of his
+game to have him arrested. The others could have sworn Ching could not
+have committed the crime.
+
+“The reason for it all is very simple--money. Richards, temple-looter
+for years, knew that this was his last game. No collector would have
+given him more than a hundred thousand, and that would have included the
+eye. He could not have substituted a gem that would deceive an expert.
+And by murdering in such a way as to make the Chinese think it was the
+work of the devils, he could have sold the image to the Chinese
+government for two hundred thousand _without the eye_! They would have
+staked their lives on the pearl re-appearing in some supernatural manner
+the minute the thing was restored to the monastery. And by killing
+Meynerd, Richards would gain the eye; an extra sixty-five thousand
+dollars. That was the price of the boy’s life. It was Richards, too, who
+sold the jade god that caused the Boxer trouble; that cost the lives of
+a thousand innocent women and children, and lives of ten thousand men to
+net him twenty-five thousand dollars!”
+
+“He did that?” gasped Sydney, horror in his tone.
+
+“Yes. He stole it and laid the blame on a white missionary to save his
+own worthless hide. That caused the first massacre. How he aroused the
+people of Chingtu over the Seven Devils I don’t know, but he had been in
+China long enough to learn all of the underground methods. He must have
+stayed there months to get the people in a proper spirit to make the
+government willing to go to any lengths to prevent an insurrection. Then
+he picked New York for the final scene. He joined the Wanderers’ years
+ago, and no one knew that his money came from the loot of temples and
+the blood of massacred women and children. I did, but I could do nothing
+but wait.
+
+“See how carefully he picked his audience. Meynerd, drunken kid, could
+be depended upon to mock the serious Chinese. Joslyn, whose nerves were
+shattered by absinthe, would surely act suspiciously because of his very
+nervousness. Then Wilson to add fuel. And the Chinese! The scene was
+laid just as he has probably laid dozens of others.
+
+“How he learned the secret of the devils’ eye I don’t know, nor care.
+Perhaps he learned it accidentally. Perhaps he picked it up in some
+obscure corner of the kingdom during his years of wandering. But he
+never thought that my supersensitive finger-tips would discover it,
+though his bringing of Nesu to the window was done so that he could get
+into a position where he could watch me. But I had found the thing in an
+instant, and while he watched I carefully kept away from it. The minute
+my finger felt the unbent prongs I knew they must have opened, and the
+toes would be the most ingenious place for the manipulator of them.
+
+“It was he who notified the Chinese ambassador the exact hour he would
+unpack the image. I wanted to make sure of that, so I went to the
+Waldorf. I knew the thing was important enough to bring the diplomat all
+the way from Washington, though I knew, too, as Richards did, that a
+secretary would make the first visit.”
+
+“How do you know that Richards told them?” asked Sydney. “Was he the
+‘gods’ they spoke of?”
+
+“The discussion between the ambassador and the interpreter before they
+answered my question told me that. While they spoke of the gods they
+mentioned a note sent the night before from New York. Of course, I was
+careful to conceal the fact that I understood Chinese, because I knew
+they would never tell any one of that. To them it was a decree of the
+gods; and a state secret.”
+
+“And Richards deliberately killed Meynerd to make the one necessary
+minute of confusion?” put in Sydney.
+
+“It didn’t matter whether it was Meynerd or not. But luck was with him;
+luck and the working out of the chance on which he had invited Meynerd
+as one of the party. The poisoned dart, in its short glass-tube, was in
+his handkerchief. I also took that from the pocket of his frock-coat
+when we talked in the library, and in it were fine glass particles. He
+hadn’t even thought it necessary to get rid of the thing. A simple
+crushing of the tube in his handkerchief when a breath had sent the dart
+on its journey of death, the dropping of the pieces into Joslyn’s drink,
+where eyes would never have seen them, was the work of an instant. Of
+course, if Joslyn hadn’t had the frappéd drink Richards needed as a
+hiding-place, the captain would have ordered one for himself. But there
+was one break in the programme. The Jap saw the theft of the jewel.”
+
+“How did you know that?”
+
+Colton smiled grimly. “The keyboard of silence again. When I shook hands
+my index-finger on the Jap’s wrist told me that his heart was pounding
+like a trip hammer. A mere death would never have excited an Oriental
+like that. For a time I suspected that he had shot the poisoned dart,
+and the captain had stolen the jewel. But the glass in the ice instead
+of the cotton, and the captain’s gentle manner toward him, proved that
+they were not working together. If they had been accomplices Richards
+would have acted harshly to avert suspicion. He was trying to convince
+the Jap that silence would mean a share of the theft. But I knew
+Richards wasn’t the kind to divide, or pay blackmail. The poisoned dart
+was too easy. There wasn’t a chance to end the Jap’s life in the room,
+for I knew the captain would have hardly dared bring two darts and
+tubes. There was always a possibility of his being searched by the
+police. At the first opportunity outside, though, puff! A dead Japanese
+who would tell no tales. Therefore I had the police arrest Nesu because
+Captain Richards probably had another one of his devilish darts
+somewhere around the club.”
+
+“But the pearl?” demanded Sydney. “Why didn’t you search Richards before
+we left that room?”
+
+“Do you think he would have taken such pains to hide the broken tube and
+then have kept the pearl?” asked Colton, dryly. “He hid the gem in a
+previously picked-out place when he left the room to call me on the
+telephone. Suppose I had arrested him; suppose we had torn the club
+apart and found the jewel. Would Captain Richards have gone to the chair
+for murder? Not with an American jury, and the mass of other suspicious
+things that would make more than a ‘reasonable doubt’ of his guilt.
+
+“So I arranged to-night’s affair for a dénouement. I knew his nerves
+weren’t steel, for he had shown that when I told him to search the body
+of the man he had killed. That was a little too much even for him. Then
+I got the ‘eye’ while I pretended to tell him of a plan I had to make
+Joslyn confess. I substituted the fake pearl that would feel just the
+same in the darkness, because the whole thing depended on his having no
+premature suspicion. My announcement that workmen would be on hand to
+re-decorate the upper hall of the club, the place he must have chosen
+because of its nearness, forced him to take the pearl from its
+hiding-place to-night. He had to bring it here because I timed the thing
+so that he would have no chance to find another hiding-place. During the
+afternoon he probably saw to it that Joslyn kept on drinking absinthe,
+though Wilson’s drinks only seemed to straighten out his nerves.
+
+“It was simple, very simple, but I have waited years for the
+opportunity; ever since I heard the true story of the Boxer uprising
+from the lips of a dying coolie who had helped to steal the jade god. I
+knew my chance would come some day, and the cocksure attitude I always
+took when Captain Richards was around, I knew would make Captain
+Richards welcome the opportunity to amuse himself by watching me try to
+solve a puzzle. That Chinese sentence I used there in the darkness told
+him for the first time that I knew all about him, and he realized then
+that I had been waiting for the chance his egotism had brought me.”
+
+Sydney Thames’s lips curved in a superior smile. “And the Chinese can
+only see it as the working-out of the gods’ decree,” he murmured.
+
+The blind man leaned back in his chair and blew a thoughtful smoke ring
+toward the ceiling. When he spoke his voice was low, almost reverent. “A
+half-century ago the thing was stolen by a young priest who did not know
+the secret that had been carefully guarded by the highest priests for
+centuries. Fifty years later it passes into the hand of a white man, and
+is brought thousands of miles to New York. A man is killed, another is
+in a prison-cell, and the devils are returned by one who is blind. The
+working of the gods? I wonder, Sydney, I wonder.”
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover
+art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.
+
+Spelling, hyphenation, and italicisation of words like “dénouement” and
+“finger-tip” are inconsistent between the different stories in the
+printed source text and have not been standardised.
+
+The following changes and corrections have been made:
+
+ • p. 159: Replaced “Thomas” with “Thames” in phrase “Thames could feel
+   the tenseness of the men’s bodies.”
+ • p. 159: Added comma after “servant” in phrase “He skated straight at
+   the Hindu servant, struck him, and bowled him over.”
+ • p. 213: Added period after phrase “He shook his head.”
+ • p. 231: Replaced “it” with “its” in phrase “in which the gilt glove
+   found at the woman’s throat had been carried to prevent its
+   handling.”
+ • p. 285: Replaced closing single with double quotation mark after
+   phrase “Shrimp and I are going to catch the boat for Brazil at five
+   o’clock!”
+ • p. 312: Replaced closing single with double quotation mark after
+   phrase “To me it is the lure of the unattainable.”
+ • p. 159: Replaced “its” with “it” in phrase “the law calls it murder.”
+ • p. 324: Removed stray apostrophe before phrase “I don’t see----.”
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78643 ***