THE SPEAKING ARC
"Looks pretty deserted here," remarked Garrick to Dillon's man, who had
accompanied us from the door into the now deserted gambling den.
"Yes," he grinned, "there's not much use in keeping me here since they
took all the stuff to headquarters. Now and then one of the old
rounders who has been out of town and hasn't heard of the raid comes
in. You should see their faces change when they catch sight of my
uniform. They never stop to ask questions," he chuckled. "They just
beat it."
I was wondering how the police regarded Garrick's part in the matter,
and while Garrick was busy I asked, "Have you seen Inspector Herman
lately?"
The man laughed.
"What's the matter?" I asked, "Is he sore at having the raid pulled off
over his head?"
"Sore?" the roundsman repeated, "Oh, not a bit, not a bit. He enjoyed
it. It gave him so much credit," the man added sarcastically,
"especially after he fell down in getting the evidence against that
other place around the corner."
"Was that his case, too?" I asked.
"Sure," replied the policeman. "Didn't you know that? That Rena Taylor
was working under his orders when she was killed. They tell me at
headquarters he's working overtime on the case and other things
connected with it. He hasn't said much, but there's someone he is
after--I know. Mark my words. Herman is always most dangerous when he's
quiet. The other day he was in here, said there was a man who used to
be seen here a good deal in the palmy days, who had disappeared. I
don't know who he was, but Herman asked me to keep a particular lookout
to see if he came back for any purpose. There's someone he suspects,
all right."
I wondered why the man told me. He must have seen, by the look on my
face, that I was thinking that.
"I wouldn't tell it to everybody," he added confidentially, "only, most
of us don't like Herman any too well. He's always trying to hog it
all--gets all the credit if we pick up a clew, and,--well, most of us
wouldn't be exactly disappointed to see Mr. Garrick succeed--that's
all."
Garrick was calling from the back room to me, and I excused myself,
while the man went back to his post at the front door. Garrick
carefully closed the door into the room.
While I had been busy getting the copies of the faked edition of the
Star, which had so alarmed the owner of the garage and had set things
moving rapidly, Garrick had also been busy, in another direction. He
had explored not only the raided gambling den, but the little back yard
which ran all the way to an extension on the rear of the house in the
next street, in which was situated the woman's poolroom.
He had explored, also, the caved-in tunnel enough to make absolutely
certain that his suspicions had been correct in the first place, and
that it ran to this other joint, from which the gamblers had made their
escape. That had satisfied him, however, and he had not unearthed the
remains of the tunnel or taken any action in the matter yet. Something
else appeared to interest him much more at the present moment.
"I found," he said when he was sure that we were alone, "that the feed
wire of the arc light that burns all the time in that main room over
there in the place on Forty-seventh Street--you recall it?--runs in
through the back of the house."
He was examining two wires which, from his manner, I inferred were
attached to this feed wire, leading to it from the room in which we now
were. What the purpose of the connection was I had no idea. Perhaps, I
thought, it was designed to get new evidence against the place, though
I could not guess how it was to be done. So far, except for what we had
seen on our one visit, there had appeared to be no real evidence
against the place, except, possibly, that which had died with the
unfortunate Rena Taylor.
"What's that?" I asked, as Garrick produced a package from a closet
where he had left it, earlier in the day.
I saw, after he had unwrapped it, that it was a very powerful
microphone and a couple of storage cells. He attached it to the wire
leading out to the electric light feed wire.
"I had provided it to be used in an emergency," he replied. "I think
the time has come sooner than I anticipated."
I watched him curiously, wondering what it would be that would come
next.
There followed a most amazing series of groanings and mutterings from
Garrick. I could not imagine what he was up to. The whole proceeding
seemed so insane that, for the moment, it left me nonplussed and
speechless.
Garrick caught the puzzled look on my face.
"What's the matter?" he laughed heartily, cutting out the microphone
momentarily and seeming to enjoy the joke to the utmost.
"Would you prefer to be sent to a State or a private institution?" I
rasped, testily. "What insanity is all this? It sounds like the
fee-faw-fum and mummery of a voodoo man."
"Come, now, Tom," he rejoined, argumentatively. "You know as well as I
do what sort of people those gamblers are--superstitious as the deuce.
I did this once before to-day. This is a good time to do it again,
before they persuade themselves that there is nothing in that story
which we printed in the Star. That fellow is in there now, probably in
that room where we were, and it is possible that they may reassure him
and settle his fears. Now, just suppose a murder had been committed in
a room, and you knew it, and heard groanings and mutterings--from
nowhere, just in the air, about you, overhead--what would you do, if
you were inclined to be superstitious?"
Before I could answer, he had resumed the antics which before I had
found so inexplicable.
"Cut out and run, I suppose," I replied. "But what has that to do with
the case? The groanings are here--not there. You haven't been able to
get in over there to attach anything, have you? What do you mean?"
"No," he admitted, "but did you ever hear what you could do with a
microphone, a rheostat, and a small transformer coil if you attached
them properly to a direct-current electric lighting circuit? No? Well,
an amateur with a little knowledge of electricity could do it. The
thing is easily constructed, and the result is a most complicated
matter."
"Well?" I queried, endeavouring to follow him.
"The electric arc," he continued, "isn't always just a silent electric
light. You know that. You've heard them make noises. Under the right
conditions such a light can be made to talk--the 'speaking arc,' as
Professor Duddell calls it. In other words, an arc light can be made to
act as a telephone receiver."
I could hardly believe the thing possible, but Garrick went on
explaining.
"You might call it the arcophone, I suppose. The scientific fact of the
matter is that the arc is sensitive to very small variations of the
current. These variations may run over a wide range of frequency. That
suggested to Duddell that a direct-current arc might be used as a
telephone receiver. All that you need is to add a microphone current to
the main arc current. The arc reproduces sounds and speech distinctly,
loud enough, even, to be heard several feet away from the light."
He had cut out the microphone again while he was talking to me. He
switched it in again with the words, "Now, get ready, Tom. Just one
more; then we must hurry around in that car of ours and watch the fun."
This time he was talking into the microphone. In a most solemn,
sepulchral voice he repeated, "Let the slayer of Rena Taylor beware.
She will be avenged! Beware! It will be a life for a life!"
Three times he repeated it, to make sure that it would carry. Then,
grabbing up his hat and coat, he dashed out of the room, past the
surprised policeman at the door, and took the steps in front of the
house almost at a bound.
We hardly had time to enter our own car and reach the corner of
Forty-seventh Street, when the big black automobile which we had
followed uptown shot by almost before the traffic man at the crossing
could signal a clear road.
"We must hang onto him!" cried Garrick, turning to follow. "Did you
catch a glimpse of his face? It's our man, the go-between, the keeper
of the garage whom they call the Boss. He was as pale as if he had seen
a ghost. I guess he did think he heard one. Between the news-paper fake
and the speaking arc, I think we've got him going. There he is."
It was an exciting ride, for the man ahead was almost reckless, though
he seemed to know instinctively still just when to put on bursts of
speed and when to slow down to escape being arrested for speeding. We
hung on, managing to keep something less than a couple of blocks behind
him. It was evident that he was making for the ferry uptown across the
river to New Jersey, and, taking advantage of this knowledge, Garrick
was able to drop back a little, and approach the ferry by going down a
different street so that there was no hint yet that we were following
him.
By judicious jockeying we succeeded in getting on the boat on the
opposite side from the car we were following, and in such a way that we
could get off as soon as he could. We managed to cross the ferry, and,
in the general scramble that attends the landing, to negotiate the hill
on the other side of the river without attracting the attention of the
man in the other car. His one idea seemed to be speed, and he had no
suspicion, apparently, that in his flight he was being followed.
As we bowled along, forced by circumstances to take the fellow's dust,
Garrick would quietly chuckle now and then to himself.
"Fancy what he must have thought," he chortled. "First the newspaper
that sent him scurrying up to the gambling place for more news, or to
spread the alarm, and then, while they were sitting about, perhaps
while someone was talking about the strange voices they had already
heard this morning, suddenly the voice from nowhere. Can you blame them
if they thought it was a warning from the grave?"
Whatever actually had happened in the gambling house, the practical
effect was all that even Garrick could have desired. Hour after hour,
we hung to that car ahead, leaving behind the cities, and passing along
the regular road through town after town.
Sometimes the road was well oiled, and we would have to drop back a bit
to escape too close observation. Then we would strike a stretch where
it was dry. The clouds of dust served to hide us. On we went until it
was apparent that the man was now headed at least in the direction of
Tuxedo.
We now passed the boundary between New York state and New Jersey and
soon after that came to the house of Dr. Mead where Warrington had been
convalescing until Garrick's warning had brought him, still half ill,
down to the city to protect Violet Winslow. In fact, the road seemed
replete with interesting reminiscences of the case, for a few miles
back was the spot where Rena Taylor's body had been found, as well as
the garage whence had come the rumour of the blood-stained car. There
was no chance to stop and tell the surprised Dr. Mead just what had
become of his patient and we had to trust that Warrington would explain
his sudden disappearance himself. In fact, Garrick scarcely looked to
either the right or left, so intent was he on not missing for an
instant the car that was leading us in this long chase.
On we sped, around the bend where Warrington had been held up. It was a
nasty curve, even in the daytime.
"I think this fellow ahead noticed the place," gritted Garrick, leaning
forward. "He seemed to slow up a bit as he turned. I hope he didn't
notice us as he turned his head back slightly."
It made no difference, if he did, for, the curve passed, he was
evidently feeding the gas faster than ever. We turned the curve also,
the forward car something more than a quarter of a mile ahead of us.
"We must take a chance and close up on him," said Garrick, as he, too,
accelerated his speed, not a difficult thing to do with the almost
perfect racer of Warrington's. "He may turn off at a crossroad at any
time, now."
Still our man kept on, bowling northward along the fine state road that
led to one of the richest parts of the country.
He came to the attractive entrance to Tuxedo Park. Almost, I had
expected him to turn in. At least I should not have been surprised if
he had done so.
However, he kept on northward, past the entrance to the Park. We hung
doggedly on.
Where was he going? I wondered whether Garrick might have been wrong,
after all. Half a mile lengthened into a mile. Still he was speeding on.
But Garrick had guessed right. Sure enough, at a cross road, the other
car slowed down, then quickly swung around, off the main road.
"What are you going to do?" I asked Garrick quickly. "If we turn also,
that will be too raw. Surely he'll notice that."
"Going to stop," cried Garrick, taking in the situation instantly.
"Come on, Tom, jump out. We'll fake a little tire trouble, in case he
should look around and see us stopping here. I'll keep the engine
running."
We went back and stood ostentatiously by the rear wheel. Garrick bent
over it, keeping his eye fixed on the other car, now perhaps half a
mile along on the narrow crossroad.
It neared the top of a hill on the other side of the valley across
which the road wound like a thin brown line, then dipped down over the
crest and was lost on the other side.
Garrick leaped back into our car and I followed. He turned the bend
almost on two wheels, and let her out as we swept down a short hill and
then took the gentle incline on high speed, eating up the distance as
though it had been inches instead of nearly a mile.
A short distance from the top of the hill, Garrick applied the brake,
just in time so that the top of our car would not be visible to one who
had passed on down the next incline into the valley beyond.
"Let us walk up the rest of the way," he said quickly, "and see what is
on the other side of this hill."
We did so cautiously. Far down below us we could see the car which we
had been trailing all the way up from the city, threading its way along
the country road. We watched it, and as we did so, it slowed up and
turned out, running up a sort of lane that led to what looked like a
trim little country estate.
The car had stopped at an unpretentious house at the end of the lane.
The driver got out and walked up to the back door, which seemed to be
stealthily opened to admit him.
"Good!" exclaimed Garrick. "At last we are on a hot trail!"