Three days later Britz and Greig returned from Atlanta. It had been a
tiresome journey, fifty-five hours of the seventy-two having been spent
in a Pullman coach. But the information which they had obtained kept
their energies awake. So that when their train drew into the new
Pennsylvania station at ten o'clock, they hastened through the
illuminated corridors and out into the refreshing night air, with
elastic steps and excitement in their eyes.
A telegram sent en route had kept Manning at his desk, awaiting his
subordinates. He greeted Britz with unconcealed satisfaction,
acknowledging at the same time that he had grown heartily tired of
directing the Whitmore investigation.
"It is one awful mess," said he with a comprehensive shrug of his broad
shoulders. "And it appears to be getting worse all the time!"
"Let me tell my story first," interrupted Britz. "Mine's an eye-opener!"
The three men disposed themselves in comfortable attitudes about the
chief's desk, bit the ends off fresh cigars, and prepared for a long
interchange of information.
"Well, I discovered where Whitmore spent the six weeks of his absence
from business," began Britz.
"Where?" The chief's face lit with an expression of eagerness.
"In jail," said Britz, and for the life of him he was unable to smother
the smile that struggled to his lips. "Right here in the city," he
added. "In the Tombs."
"Well, I'll be hung!" In his astonishment, the chief could think of no
adequate exclamation beyond the commonplace one which issued from his
widely parted lips.
"Yes," pursued Britz, "Greig and I have been treated to a series of
surprises--even now I haven't recovered entirely from my bewilderment."
"Well, go ahead and spring them," urged Manning. "They can't be much
more astounding than the one I've bumped into."
"In the first place," said Britz, arranging in chronological order in
his mind, the incidents which he was about to narrate, "the man that was
captured trying to break into the post office at Delmore Park, was
Herbert Whitmore. Judging from the statements of Julia Strong and the
butler in the Whitmore house, it is obvious that Whitmore sent a letter
to Mrs. Collins, with whom he was in love. Something transpired to make
him regret having sent the note and he decided to steal it out of the
post office. He was caught before he had succeeded in 'jimmying' the
door, so that the letter must have been delivered at the Collins house.
I take it, from the threats which Collins made against Whitmore, that he
intercepted the note and that a lively scene between him and his wife
followed.
"As for Whitmore, he did a most sensible thing. He kept his identity
effectually concealed. Before arriving at the post office he had
disguised himself in cheap, shabby clothes, so that when he was captured
no one thought he was other than an ordinary burglar. At the police
station, and subsequently in the Federal court, he gave his name as
Arthur Travis. It was such an unusual name for a cheap post office
burglar that I determined instantly there was some connection between
the attempted robbery and Whitmore's murder.
"Ordinarily, we are both aware, the capture of an unimportant post
office robber, would not be allotted more than a paragraph or two in the
newspapers. As the banking investigation was occupying pages of space
seven weeks ago, Travis's arrest was not even mentioned in most of the
papers, while those that took note of it, buried the item on one of the
inside pages.
"Whitmore, alias Travis, had the ablest lawyer in the city to advise
him. Undoubtedly Tom Luckstone counseled him as to the manner in which
he was to conduct himself in jail and in court so as not to arouse
newspaper curiosity. Well, ten days before Whitmore returned to his
death, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years and a half in
jail. And on the day before he returned to his business, a deputy
marshal started with him for Atlanta."
"But how did he get away?" interrupted the chief. "There was nothing in
the papers about an escape."
"Arthur Travis is in the Atlanta prison," said Britz. "But the prisoner
isn't Herbert Whitmore."
The chief's eyes alternated between Britz and Greig, as if trying to
read the explanation of the puzzling circumstances, in their faces.
"I don't quite get it," he acknowledged.
"Of course, the prisoner can't be Whitmore. He's dead. There's no doubt
of that."
"Not the slightest," acquiesced Britz. "Yet Whitmore and Travis were one
and the same person. Now what do you think occurred?"
"A substitution of prisoners," guessed the chief.
"Precisely," said Britz. "I sweated a confession out of the substitute.
He's a poor, sorrowful creature, named Timson. Two weeks ago he was down
and out, broke, jobless, starving. He was shuffling dejectedly along
Broadway when a man tapped him on the shoulder and asked a few minutes'
conversation with him. As Timson had nothing to lose but time, he
offered no resistance when the stranger led him in the direction of a
restaurant.
"'Here's a fifty-dollar bill just to show I mean business,' the host
opened the conversation. Timson nearly went into hysterics at sight of
the bill. 'Now tell me all about yourself--if you're the right man, I
can put you in the way of a lot of money,' said the host. Well, Timson
told all about himself and gave the stranger his address. Two days later
he was sent for by a man named Beard. He visited Beard at his home, and
there the scheme for the substitution of prisoners was unfolded.
"It seems that soon after Whitmore's arrest, Beard made a deal with the
deputy marshal whereby the deputy was to receive fifty thousand dollars
to permit the substitution to be made on board the train on the way to
Atlanta. Of course, the warden of the prison had never seen Travis,
hadn't the slightest idea what he looked like. But in order to be on the
safe side, the deputy insisted that Beard get someone who resembled
Whitmore, alias Travis, in general appearances. For a week Beard
searched and finally lit on Timson. Although the resemblance between
Timson and Whitmore is not sufficient to have fooled anyone who knew
Whitmore, nevertheless a description of the merchant as he appeared in
court, might easily pass for a description of the substitute.
"For one hundred thousand dollars Timson agreed to go to jail in place
of Whitmore. The money was placed in trust for him, so as to net him an
income of five thousand dollars a year for life. Beard found it
comparatively easy to induce the man to fall in with the scheme. In the
first place, Timson was that unhappiest of all living creatures, the
middle-aged failure. So far as he could see, the future loomed dark and
forbidding, his old age was to be attended by the most bitter poverty.
Not being a drinking man and being cursed with an active imagination,
his plight was doubly hard. Under the circumstances, it could make
little difference to him whether he spent his remaining years in jail or
the poor-house.
"He seized the opportunity which Beard offered. At the most he had two
years and six months to serve. By good behavior he could reduce the term
to a trifle less than two years. When he got out, his future comfort was
assured. Five thousand a year looked colossal to him--in the most
hopeful period of his advancing manhood he had never been able to earn
above two thousand a year.
"The day before Whitmore started for prison the trust fund was
established and the interest began to accumulate for Timson. So that on
the day he leaves prison, he'll have ten thousand dollars with which to
begin to enjoy life."
"That is, if he is not sent away for ten years for aiding and abetting
the escape of Whitmore, alias Travis," interrupted the chief.
"Well, I sort of pity him," replied Britz. "The warden was present, of
course, when he made the confession. Timson can get out of jail on a
writ of habeas corpus. Of course, he'll be rearrested immediately and
tried, with the deputy marshal, for having brought about the escape of
the man that was sentenced to prison. However, if Timson can be of
service to us in unraveling the Whitmore mystery, we might arrange with
the Federal authorities to grant him immunity."
"Do you think we can use him?" inquired the chief.
"Yes, in fact we need him," replied Britz.
"It is certainly a most astounding state of affairs," mused Manning. "I
suppose by this time the deputy marshal has cleared out."
"It doesn't concern us whether he has or not," said Britz. "His case is
up to the Federal authorities."
"But when and where was the substitution made?" asked the chief.
"On board the train to Atlanta," Britz informed him. "Whitmore was
handcuffed to the marshal when they left the Tombs. They occupied a
stateroom on one of the through parlor cars. It is unusual for a deputy
to engage a stateroom, or to permit his prisoner to engage one, but no
law is violated by doing so. All that is required of the deputy is to
deliver his prisoner at the jail and obtain a receipt for him.
"The substitute followed the deputy and the prisoner into the
compartment, the handcuffs were slipped from Whitmore's wrist to
Timson's, and, at Philadelphia, Whitmore left the train. It is now up to
us to trace his movements from the time he alighted at Philadelphia
until he walked to his death in his office."
A long interval of silence followed, in which the three men tried to
appraise the precise value of the substitution of prisoners in its
relation to Whitmore's untimely death. Whitmore had escaped prison only
to meet a worse fate, and in less than twenty-four hours after his wrist
was freed from the cold pressure of the steel bracelet.
"It was Beard who engineered the substitution," observed the chief.
"Yes," replied Britz.
"And to save Whitmore from prison he took a chance of going to jail."
"Evidently he stood ready with the deputy and the substitute to forfeit
his liberty for the sake of his employer."
"But was he actuated by loyalty to Whitmore or did he have a sinister
design of his own?" questioned Manning.
"That's for us to ascertain."
"And how are we going to do it?"
"By means of the man he hired as a substitute," declared Britz in
positive tone.
"But how--how?" demanded Manning.
"That will depend on circumstances. Now I'm ready to hear the
developments at this end."
Manning settled back in his chair with the relieved air of one about to
discard an irksome burden. From a drawer of his desk he produced half a
dozen long envelopes which he tossed to Britz.
"They contain all the reports of the men," said he. "You'd better go
through them at your leisure to-night or to-morrow morning. It's useless
to discuss the case further until you've familiarized yourself with
them."
As they left Headquarters for their homes, the three men realized that
despite the many developments of the case, they had, as yet, barely
penetrated the surface. Every new discovery had only succeeded in adding
further complications to the mystery. The evidence thus far was
fragmentary, disconnected, throwing an uncertain light on the crime. The
substitution of prisoners tended to involve Beard, yet it gave not the
least hint of the motive that actuated the killing of Whitmore. Nor did
it reveal how the crime was committed. That it would prove of
importance, of vital significance in solving the crime, Britz believed
implicitly. But, such are the complexities in all human things, that the
possibility of error is never eliminated. And in a criminal
investigation a single error may destroy every chance of success, just
as a single error on the part of the criminal may destroy all the
safeguards which he has so carefully thrown around him.
At the Seventy-second street station of the subway Britz bade his
companions good night. Dismissing the Whitmore case and all other police
business from his mind, he headed straight for his home, retired at once
and fell into a deep sleep.