THE BLACKMAILER
It was late in the afternoon, while Garrick was still busy with a
high-powered microscope, making innumerable micro-photographs, when the
door of the office opened softly and a young lady entered.
As she advanced timidly to us, we could see that she was tall and gave
promise of developing with years into a stately woman--a pronounced
brunette, with sparkling black eyes. I had not met her before, yet
somehow I could not escape the feeling that she was familiar to me.
It was not until she spoke that I realized that it was the eyes, not
the face, which I recognized.
"You are Mr. Garrick?" she asked of Guy in a soft, purring voice which,
I felt, masked a woman who would fight to the end for anyone or
anything she really loved.
Then, before Guy could answer, she explained, "I am Miss Violet
Winslow. A friend of mine, Mr. Warrington, has told me that you are
investigating a peculiar case for him--the strange loss of his car."
Garrick hastened to place a chair for her in the least cluttered and
dusty part of the room. There she sat, looking up at him earnestly, a
dainty contrast to the den in which Garrick was working out the capture
of criminals, violent and vicious.
"I have the honor to be able to say, 'Yes' to all that you have asked,
Miss Winslow," he replied. "Is there any way in which I can be of
service to you?"
I thought a smile played over his face at the thought that perhaps she
might have come to ask him to work for three clients instead of two.
At any rate, the girl was very much excited and very much in earnest,
as she opened her handbag and drew from it a letter which she handed to
Garrick.
"I received that letter," she explained, speaking rapidly, "in the noon
mail to-day. I don't know what to make of it. It worries me to get such
a thing. What do you suppose it was sent to me for? Who could have sent
it?"
She was leaning forward artlessly on her crossed knee looking
expectantly up into Garrick's face, oblivious to everything else, even
her own enticing beauty. There was something so simple and sincere
about Violet Winslow that one felt instinctively that nothing was too
great a price to shield her from the sordid and the evil in the world.
Yet something had happened that had brought her already into the office
of a detective.
Garrick had glanced quickly at the outside of the slit envelope. The
postmark showed that it had been mailed early that morning at the
general post office and that there was slight chance of tracing
anything in that direction.
Then he opened it and read. The writing was in a bold scrawl and
hastily executed:
You have heard, no doubt, of the alleged loss of an automobile by Mr.
Mortimer Warrington. I have seen your name mentioned in the society
columns of the newspapers in connection with him several times lately.
Let a disinterested person whom you do not know warn you in time. There
is more back of it than he will care to tell. I can say nothing of the
nefarious uses to which that car has been put, but you will learn more
shortly. Meanwhile, let me inform you that he and some of the wilder of
his set had that night planned a visit to a gambling house on
Forty-eighth Street. I myself saw the car standing before another
gambling den on Forty-seventh Street about the same time. This place, I
may as well inform you, bears an unsavory reputation as a gambling
joint to which young ladies of the fastest character are admitted. If
you will ask someone in whom you have confidence and whom you can ask
to work secretly for you to look up the records, you will find that
much of the property on these two blocks, and these two places in
particular, belongs to the Warrington estate. Need I say more?
The letter was without superscription or date and was signed merely
with the words, "A Well-Wisher." The innuendo of the thing was apparent.
"Of course," she remarked, as Garrick finished reading, and before he
could speak, "I know there is something back of it. Some person is
trying to injure Mortimer. Still---"
She did not finish the sentence. It was evident that the "well-wisher"
need not have said more in order to sow the seeds of doubt.
As I watched her narrowly, I fancied also that from her tone the
newspapers had not been wholly wrong in mentioning their names together
recently.
"I hadn't intended to say anything more than to explain how I got the
letter," she went on wistfully. "I thought that perhaps you might be
interested in it."
She paused and studied the toe of her dainty boot. "And, of course,"
she murmured, "I know that Mr. Warrington isn't dependent for his
income on the rent that comes in from such places. But--but I wish just
the same that it wasn't true. I tried to call him up about the letter,
but he wasn't at the office of the Warrington estate, and no one seemed
to know just where he was."
She kept her eyes downcast as though afraid to betray just what she
felt.
"You will leave this with me?" asked Garrick, still scrutinizing the
letter.
"Certainly," she replied. "That is what I brought it for. I thought it
was only fair that he should know about it."
Garrick regarded her keenly for a moment. "I am sure, Miss Winslow," he
said, "that Mr. Warrington will thank you for your frankness. More than
that, I feel sure that you need have no cause to worry about the
insinuations of this letter. Don't judge harshly until you have heard
his side. There's a good deal of graft and vice talk flying around
loose these days. Miss Winslow, you may depend on me to dig the truth
out and not deceive you."
"Thank you so much," she said, as she rose to go; then, in a burst of
confidence, added, "Of course, after all, I don't care so much about it
myself--but, you know, my aunt--is so dreadfully prim and proper that
she couldn't forgive a thing like this. She'd never let Mr. Warrington
call on me again."
Violet stopped and bit her lip. She had evidently not intended to say
as much as that. But having once said it, she did not seem to wish to
recall the words, either.
"There, now," she smiled, "don't you even hint to him that that was one
of the reasons I called."
Garrick had risen and was standing beside her, looking down earnestly
into her upturned face.
"I think I understand, Miss Winslow," he said in a low voice, rapidly.
"I cannot tell you all--yet. But I can promise you that even if all
were told--the truth, I mean--your faith in Warrington would be
justified." He leaned over. "Trust me," he said simply.
As she placed her small hand in Garrick's, she looked up into his face,
and with suppressed emotion, answered, "Thank you--I--I will."
Then, with a quick gathering of her skirts, she turned and almost fled
from the room.
She had scarcely closed the door before Garrick was telephoning
anxiously all over the city in order to get in touch with Warrington
himself.
"I'm not going to tell him too much about her visit," he remarked, with
a pleased smile at the outcome of the interview, though his face
clouded as his eye fell again on the blackmailing letter, lying before
him. "It might make him think too highly of himself. Besides, I want to
see, too, whether he has told us the whole truth about the affair that
night."
Somehow or other it seemed impossible to find Warrington in any of his
usual haunts, either at his office or at his club.
Garrick had given it up, almost, as a bad job, when, half an hour
later, Warrington himself burst in on us, apparently expecting more
news about his car.
Instead, Garrick handed him the letter.
"Say," he demanded as he ran through it with puckered face, then
slapped it down on the table before Guy, in a high state of excitement,
"what do you make of that?"
He looked from one to the other of us blankly.
"Isn't it bad enough to lose a car without being slandered about it
into the bargain?" he asked heatedly, then adding in disgust, "And to
do it in such an underhand way, writing to a girl like Violet, and
never giving me a chance to square myself. If I could get my hands on
that fellow," he added viciously, "I'd qualify him for the coroner!"
Warrington had flown into a towering and quite justifiable rage.
Garrick, however, ignored his anger as natural under the circumstances,
and was about to ask him a question.
"Just a moment, Garrick," forestalled Warrington. "I know just what you
are going to say. You are going to ask me about those gambling places.
Now, Garrick, I give you my word of honor that I did not know until
to-day that the property in that neighborhood was owned by our estate.
I have been in that joint on Forty-eighth Street--I'll admit that. But,
you know, I'm no gambler. I've gone simply to see the life, and--well,
it has no attraction for me. Racing cars and motorboats don't go with
poker chips and the red and black--not with me. As for the other place,
I don't know any more about it than--than you do," he concluded
vehemently.
Warrington faced Garrick, his steel-blue eye unwavering. "You see, it's
like this," he resumed passionately, "since this vice investigation
began, I have read a lot about landlords. Then, too," he interjected
with a mock wry face, "I knew that Violet's Aunt Emma had been a
crusader or something of the sort. You see, virtue is NOT its own
reward. I don't get credit even for what I intended to do--quite the
contrary."
"How's that?" asked Garrick, respecting the young man's temper.
"Why, it just occurred to me lately to go scouting around the city,
looking at the Warrington holdings, making some personal inquiries as
to the conditions of the leases, the character of the tenants, and the
uses to which they put the properties. The police have compiled a list
of all the questionable places in the city and I have compared it with
the list of our properties. I hadn't come to this one yet. But I shall
call up our agent, make him admit it, and cancel that lease. I'll close
'em up. I'll fight until every---"
"No," interrupted Garrick, quickly, "no--not yet. Don't make any move
yet. I want to find out what the game is. It may be that it is someone
who has tried and failed to get your tenant to come across with graft
money. If we act without finding out first, we might be playing into
the hands of this blackmailer."
Garrick had been holding the letter in his hand, examining it
critically. While he was speaking, he had taken a toothpick and was
running it hastily over the words, carefully studying them. His face
was wrinkled, as if he were in deep thought.
Without saying anything more, Garrick walked over to the windows and
pulled down the dark shades. Then he unrolled a huge white sheet at one
end of the office.
From a corner he drew out what looked like a flat-topped stand, about
the height of his waist, with a curious box-like arrangement on it, in
which was a powerful light. For several minutes, he occupied himself
with the adjustment of this machine, switching the light off and on and
focussing the lenses.
Then he took the letter to Miss Winslow, laid it flat on the machine,
switched on the light and immediately on the sheet appeared a very
enlarged copy of the writing.
"This is what has been called a rayograph by a detective of my
acquaintance," explained Garrick. "In some ways it is much superior to
using a microscope."
He was tracing over the words with a pointer, much as he had already
done with the toothpick.
"Now, you must know," he continued, "or you may not know, but it is a
well-proved fact, that those who suffer from various affections of the
nerves or heart often betray the fact in their handwriting. Of course,
in cases where the disease has progressed very far it may be evident to
the naked eye even in the ordinary handwriting. But, it is there, to
the eye of the expert, even in incipient cases.
"In short," he continued, engrossed in his subject, "what really
happens is that the pen acts as a sort of sphygmograph, registering the
pulsations. I think you can readily see that when the writing is thrown
on a screen, enlarged by the rayograph, the tremors of the pen are
quite apparent."
I studied the writing, following his pointer as it went over the lines
and I began to understand vaguely what he was driving at.
"The writer of that blackmailing letter," continued Garrick, "as I have
discovered both by hastily running over it with a tooth-pick and, more
accurately, by enlarging and studying it with the rayograph, is
suffering from a peculiar conjunction of nervous trouble and disease of
the heart which is latent and has not yet manifested itself, even to
him."
Garrick studied the writing, then added, thoughtfully, "if I knew him,
I might warn him in time."
"A fellow like that needs only the warning of a club or of a good pair
of fists," growled Warrington, impatiently. "How are you going to work
to find him?"
"Well," reasoned Garrick, rolling up the sheet and restoring the room
to its usual condition, "for one thing, the letter makes it pretty
evident that he knows something about the gambling joint, perhaps is
one of the regular habitues of the place. That was why I didn't want
you to take any steps to close up the place immediately. I want to go
there and look it over while it is in operation. Now, you admit that
you have been in the place, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," he replied, "I've been there with Forbes and the other
fellows, but as I told you, I don't go in for that sort of thing."
"Well," persisted Garrick, "you are sufficiently known, any way, to get
in again."
"Certainly. I can get in again. The man at the door will let me in--and
a couple of friends, too, if that's what you mean."
"That is exactly what I mean," returned Garrick. "It's no use to go
early. I want to see the place in full blast, just as the after-theatre
crowd is coming in. Suppose you meet us, Warrington, about half past
ten or so. We can get in. They don't know anything yet about your
intention to cancel the lease and close up the place, although
apparently someone suspects it, or he wouldn't have been so anxious to
get that letter off to Miss Winslow."
"Very well," agreed Warrington, "I will meet you at the north end of
'Crime Square,' as you call it, at that time. Good luck until then."
"Not a bad fellow, at all," commented Garrick when Warrington had
disappeared down the hall from the office. "I believe he means to do
the square thing by every one. It's a shame he has been dragged into a
mess like this, that may affect him in ways that he doesn't suspect.
Oh, well, there is nothing we can do for the present. I'll just add
this clew of the handwriting to the clew of the automobile tires
against the day when we get--pshaw!--he has taken the letter with him.
I suppose it is safe enough in his possession, though. He can't wait
until he has proved to Violet that he is honest. I don't blame him
much. I told you, you know, that the younger set are just crazy over
Violet Winslow."