sparrow in a barrel. "Keep it up," said Drew.
"Ah, Sin! Ah, Sing! Ah, Singing!" roared Delaney.
"That'll do! You've frightened it. Let it alone for a while. We'll keep
it here, Otto. I'll send it back in a few days. How's Miss Stockbridge
bearing the strain, up at the house?"
"She hasn't left her room, sir. Mr. Nichols called. The Red Cross
people called. There's been lots of callers, sir, but she hasn't
appeared, sir. It's early, though."
Drew glanced at his watch. "That's all," he said. "You may go."
The door closed softly as the valet bowed, replaced his hat and passed
out without glancing back.
"A good servant," said Drew, rising and kneeling down beside the cage.
"Now, Delaney," he added tersely. "Now, old sleepy head, we have the
key to the case locked here. I don't doubt but that you unconsciously
struck the right clew when you bawled your little hymn. You said, 'Ah,
Singing.' Now couldn't that be Ossining?"
"By God, Chief, it could!"
"Or, more likely, Ah! Sing Sing!"
"Who said that?"
"The bird!"
"But who taught the bird?"
"Nobody taught it! It might have been the last thing said by
Stockbridge--just before he was shot."
"And the bird repeated it--to us?"
"Certainly! A parrot or a magpie is a living phonograph. They reproduce
a sound, at times, without any idea of knowing what they are saying.
This bird may have been so frightened by the shot which was fired in
the library, that it recalled the words used by Stockbridge before the
shot was fired. These words, in my opinion, tell us that the
millionaire was 'phoning to some individual, probably the
whispering-voiced man. This individual and Ah, Sing! or Ah, Sing Sing!
or Ah, Singing! or Ossining! are closely allied. Now who of
Stockbridge's enemies does that fit?"
Drew rose to his feet and dusted his knees. "Is that clear?" he asked.
"Clear as mud, Chief! I don't get it yet!"
"You will," said the detective, dropping down in his chair and reaching
for his papers. "See these," he added, swiveling and darting a quick
glance at the bird-cage. "These, Delaney, are a list of the old man's
known enemies. I have compiled this list from the secretary's
statements, my own newspaper reading, the facts we gained at Morphy's
trial, and from what Stockbridge told me in the library before he was
slain." Drew counted the list with a steady finger. "There's seven," he
said.
"Is that all! I thought there was more 'an that!"
"No! Seven is the number! He was well hated as you will see. First and
foremost we have Mortimer Morphy, who is serving from ten to twenty
years in state prison, with other indictments hanging over his
iron-gray head. He's the captain of them all. He lacks soul, conscience
and heart. 'The Wolf of the Ticker' they used to call him. I had the
warden on the wire this morning. He's ready to aid justice to the
limit. He says that Morphy, or rather Convict 87313, I think they call
them inmates up there, is well and working. He's in charge of the books
in the front office."
"He'd never keep any books for me!" declared Delaney.
Drew nodded. "Me, either," he said. "I have heard too much about his
past to trust his future. Stockbridge always feared him."
"Does he fit what the black crow said?"
"He does, most certainly! Sing Sing and Morphy are linked together in
every way. Morphy must have been mentioned on the wire and Stockbridge
shouted, 'What, in Sing Sing?' or words to the same meaning."
"Go on," said Delaney, glancing at the magpie with round eyes.
"Then comes Vogel, who was at state's prison, but whom they transferred
to the hospital at Glendale, where he is said to be dying of
tuberculosis."
"I remember him. A little runt with a big nose. That might be the
whispering voice, Chief, if he's got T. B."
"Hardly! I also had Glendale on the 'phone, or Harrigan did. They say
Vogel is right there and is going to stay there, if fifty guards will
keep him."
"Next, Chief?"
"The next is Vogel's partner, Ross. You remember him? A good-natured,
fat fellow with a bald head. He was always smiling. He's making little
rocks out of big ones in a convict camp near Lake George. He was at
Sing Sing, or Ossining, for a time. Most of the New York prisoners are
taken there first. It's a sort of clearing house for the other prisons
of the state."
"Would he fit in with what this bird said, Chief?"
"He might!"
"Go on, I'm getting interested."
"Then," said Drew, "we have the two brokers who handled Morphy's Blue
Sky, preferred; Flying Boat, and other swindles. They are at Sing
Sing."
"What's their names, Chief? I've forgotten."
"Greene and Goldberg! One confessed and one turned state's evidence.
They got off with from two to four years. A nice bunch of squealers!"
"They'll be out pretty soon, Chief!"
"Yes--but they're harmless. I don't think they had anything to do with
the murder of Stockbridge. The other fellow might."
"Who's that, Chief?"
"Finklestein--the banker. The one who went before the Grand Jury and
claimed exemption. He's somewhere on the outside. I think Flynn is
covering him. I sent him over to Jersey, where Finklestein has a place
near Morristown. We'll hear of him later."
Delaney shifted his big feet and started counting on his fingers. He
widened his eyes. "There's one more," he said, as Drew leaned back.
"Yes, there's one more. I kept him for the last. He's out of sight,
reach and hearing. You know who I mean?"
"That guy who invented wireless boat, or flying boat, or them
movie-picture things in seventeen colors. I know who you mean. He beat
it, slick as any porch-climber. What's his name, Chief?"
"Morphy's brother, Cuthbert Morphy! He's an electrical-engineer and the
inventor of all their shady promotions. He's the real brains of the
mob. You never saw him?"
"No--did you?"
"Can't say that I have!" declared Drew with a snap. "I call him one of
my failures. I've made enough. Remember how Flood and Cassady searched
for him after the others were arrested? He's cost us thousands of
dollars--without result. I charged it to Stockbridge."
"Which way did he go, Chief?"
"He beat it for Argentine. From there he went across South America to
Antofagasta. From there he disappeared like a rocket in No Man's Land.
No trace was found. For all we know, he might be right here in little
old New York--the best hiding place in the known world. I hate to think
of the places a man could plant in this town!"
"Sure! But they always come around the old corner. Remember Dutch Gus,
the boxman. Five years, Chief, in every town on the map, and then he
was picked up at Forty-second Street and Broadway. Maybe your friend,
Cutbert, will show up some day?"
"Cuthbert!" corrected Drew. "He's no friend of mine, Delaney. The
trouble is, we haven't got a single photograph of him. That shows he
was figuring on crime all his life. A man who don't get his picture
taken, is generally a man to watch."
"He's slick, Chief. What does he look like?"
Drew pressed a buzzer-button. "Look like?" he said, turning toward the
door. "Oh, he is a little fellow, quick-tempered and probably handy
with a gat. He's dangerous. I think Cuthbert Morphy is a good lead if
we can find him."
"I never did like that first name!" Delaney blurted as Harrigan opened
the door to a crack.
"What have you found out about Harry Nichols?" asked Drew, as the
assistant-manager stepped in softly.
"Got Plattsburg, Chief," said Harrigan briefly. "Harry is O. K. up
there. Captain's commission. Three months intensive training. Going to
France soon. On fourteen-days' furlough in New York. Was floor manager
for Harris, Post and Browning. Quit good job to go in the Army. Harris,
of the brokerage firm, says Harry can come back and hang up his hat any
time. That's about all!"
"Umph!" said Drew. "That's fine, in a way. He couldn't have a better
record. Now we'll lay him aside. What did Frick learn at Ossining?"
"Frick 'phoned once. I was going to connect you with him but that
fellow with the bird-cage came in. Frick says the warden is O. K. and
will lend every aid. He saw Morphy in the Auditor's Department. Looks
worried, he says. Getting old! The visitor's list shows that he's had
an average of three visits a month. No sign of his brother. There's a
fellow calls, though, who might be Cuthbert Morphy. Answers general
description. They'll pinch him next time he comes. We never thought of
looking for him there!"
"No! We were going to _send_ him there! It's like a crook, though, to
play with fire. What else did Frick say?"
"Nothing more, Chief. He's looking around. He says he'll report as soon
as there is anything. He says----"
"Buurr! Burrr! Burrrr!"
Drew turned and snatched up the telephone receiver. He pressed the
diaphragm to his ear. "All right," he said tersely. "Connect me. Yes!"
Delaney breathed deeply and watched his chief's face.
"Hello! Hello!" whispered Drew. "Yes," he added guardedly. "Yes,
Commissioner.... What? You say that ... that the autopsy on
Stockbridge's body--head--shows what? Repeat it! I can't quite hear
what you are saying. Louder, Commissioner! That's better. Yes--all
right now, Fosdick. It shows.... It shows that the typo cupronickel
bullet found in--in, ... repeat that.... In Stockbridge's brain was not
scored or ... or what? ... Marked? ... Wait! I don't get your
meaning.... It was lodged in the soft tissues of the.... Yes! ... I
see! Go on.... There were no rifling marks on it.... What?"
Drew turned and motioned toward the open door. Harrigan closed it
softly as the detective resumed his position at the 'phone. "Yes," he
said tersely. "Yes, Fosdick. That's important. I should say it was
important! ... New wrinkle, what? ... Why, I'd think at a quick jump
that the bullet which killed the old man wasn't fired from a regulation
revolver.... Yes, it couldn't of! ... It must have been fired from a
smooth-bore rifle or pistol!... What? ... Yes.... It seems that way to
me.... Are you dead sure?"
Drew waited. He tapped the desk with a pencil. He reached with his
right hand and pulled a sheet of paper to him. "Go on," he said slowly.
"Yes, go on, Commissioner. Oh, I've been busy! Yes. You have! Well....
I wouldn't of. No, I don't think that's the right lead at all. They're
all right. All right.... Go to it! ... Good-by, Fosdick."
The detective flipped the receiver on the hook and slowly swung the
chair. His eyes darted first at Harrigan and then rested upon Delaney's
broad face.
"That damn fool!" he exclaimed. "He's pinched the whole bunch of
servants. He's looking for the valet. The butler is under lock and key.
All that's left up there is the housekeeper and some housemaids and
Miss Loris. He better not touch her! Brass Band Fosdick! He's a mile
off the case!"
"What about that bullet, Chief?" asked Delaney.
"Oh! That's new! It's different and important. The coroner's inquest
shows--the autopsy, I mean--that the bullet found in the millionaire's
brain was a cupronickel affair of twenty-two caliber projected by
smokeless powder from a smooth-bore weapon held not more than three
inches from the old man's head."
"Whew!" whistled Delaney. "That's going some, Chief," he added, rising.
"But what does it mean? I ain't got that at-tall!"
"Nor I!" snapped Drew. "We're only getting deeper and deeper into
facts. After a while we'll have enough of them to solve the case. The
smooth bullet is important. It suggests many things--a home-made gun,
for instance."
"Might have been an old Civil War gun, Chief."
"I don't believe there was anything like that in Stockbridge's house.
You might inquire when you go up. He was very modern with his Flying
Boat stock and his improved munitions for the Allies. He has no old
collection of arms."
Delaney stared at Harrigan. Drew swung to his desk and tapped the
blotter for a moment. "We'll get busy," he said briskly, as he swung
back again and faced the two operatives. "I've almost got my man. That
bird there," Drew pointed toward the magpie, "is our one best bet and
lead. I may be wrong, but I'll wager a good cigar there's a convict or
ex-convict at the back of this case. How else can we explain 'Ossining'
or 'Ah, Sing' repeated through the magpie to us. It's not an impossible
clue. It might happen. Let's move with both feet!"
Delaney rose lankily and stood by the door. He braced his shoulders,
then shelved them forward as he reached a finger toward the bird-cage.
"Pretty Poll!" he said.
The magpie darted about the cage like a shaft of blue light. It came to
rest with its tail feathers thrust through the bars. It peered with
beaded eyes at Drew who had snatched up a bundle of papers and was
sorting them.
"Get busy, Delaney, on this assignment!" he said sharply. "Waste no
time. Run up to Stockbridge's and get me plaster-paris casts of all the
footprints you can find around that junction box. It's stopped
snowing," he added, glancing out the window.
"All right, Chief."
"Wait a minute. Stop somewhere on your way up-town and find out the
exact temperature changes last night. What I want you to get is a
record of every quarter-hour, so as to show when the early, packed snow
in Stockbridge's yard froze solid. The under crust!"
"I got that in my head, Chief! That's my idea, exactly. If a tall lad
tapped in on the junction box early in the night his footprints will be
frozen close to the ground. The whole surface is level now, but there
ought to be ice-posts sticking up when I get done thawing."
"That's right! You'll probably find the trouble-hunter's and one other
set of prints. The other set is our man's!"
"What size feet did the trouble-hunter have?"
"Small--about six!"
"All right, Chief, I'm off."
"Walt a minute." Drew studied a sheet of paper. "After you get the
temperature data, Delaney," he said. "After you get that and the
plaster casts of the footprints, go into the house and stay there.
Watch Miss Loris. Don't talk to Fosdick's men. Tell her to be careful.
Tell her that she is in grave danger. Remember that the same man who
threatened Stockbridge over the wire, also said he was going to get
her. Remember that, Delaney!"
"Good-by!"
"Get a shave!" shot Drew out through the closing doorway.
"I'll do that little thing," came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.
"Now, Harrigan," Drew said, shuffling the slips of paper like a deck of
cards. "Now, we're closing in on our man or men. See if you can find
Frick at the prison. 'Phone from the booth!"
Harrigan was back within three minutes. He leaned over Drew.
"Frick was with the warden," he whispered tersely. "He was easy to get.
He says that Morphy has been trying to telephone----"
"What?"
"Tryin' to telephone, Chief----"
"What has he got to do with the telephone? What right has an inmate of
a prison got to phone? Unless--unless the warden thought the case was
justified--like in sickness or important business."
"Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn't ask Frick!"
"Get out there and ask him! Quick!"
Drew waited with every muscle taut. He drummed the table with impatient
fingers. He thumbed the sheath of papers he had collected on the
Stockbridge case. He wheeled in his chair and stared out through the
frosted window with unseeing eyes. The vision came to him of a pompous
old man in prison gray, strutting about the front office with silk
socks and a Havana cigar. Drew had no sympathy with a certain kind of
convict. The misguided safeblower or house prowler might be excused for
a great many things. The pickpocket was a professional, who took his
chances as they ran. The gentleman bank-wrecker, with his overextended
tale of woe and his bid for the world's sympathies, was the one the
detective detested with all his soul. Such men, he believed, were
beyond the pale. They knew better. Morphy, for instance, had not only
gotten away with much of widow's and orphan's money, but he had wrecked
a score of homes and dragged down many with him at the final assizes.
"So he uses the phone!" Drew repeated like an indictment. "Well! Well!
Well!"
Harrigan stepped in through the door. Drew turned away from the window
and stared at the assistant-manager. "What did you find?" he snapped.
"I found enough, Chief! Frick says that Morphy is the whole thing up
there. They call him the 'Assistant-Warden,' in jest. The Welfare
League won't have anything to do with him. They got him down for a
squealing 'rat.'"
"You can't fool the Gray Brotherhood," said Drew. "Their rooms are too
close together. What about this telephoning? Who was it to?"
"A telephone booth in the Subway Station at Times Square!"
"Good God!"
"Frick says it was! He tried to listen but Morphy came out and looked
around twice."
The detective rose from his chair and grasped Harrigan's narrow
shoulders with fingers of steel.
"Get out there!" he ordered through line-drawn lips. "Get out there and
phone from the soundproof booth. Ask my friend--the vice-president of
the telephone company--to find out for us whether Morphy or anybody
else in the prison telephoned at four minutes past twelve this morning.
Get that?"
"That was when Stockbridge was shot, wasn't it, Chief?"
"It was!" exclaimed Triggy Drew.
CHAPTER TEN
"A WOMAN CALLS"
The business of a modern detective agency is managed in much the same
manner as a corporation or a large firm of corporation lawyers. Its
tentacles, or operatives, are spread over the globe. Its news and
assignments come in via wire. Its telephone and telegraph bills amount
to thousands of dollars every year. In no other way can satisfactory
results be secured.
Drew had started his agency on a shoestring and ran it into a
"tannery," in the parlance of the street. He had made many mistakes. He
had once, to his knowledge, sent the wrong man to prison. This mistake
had been so costly, he never spoke of it. It was soon after the
conviction of the innocent man, that Drew gave up circumstantial
evidence and got down to hard work, wherein the evidence accumulated
was tempered with some degree of fact and common sense.
The first Stockbridge case had been in connection with an absconder.
This man, Drew brought back in person from Adelaide. The work so
pleased the millionaire that when Morphy broke under the financial
strain and robbed everybody, right and left, Drew was called in to
bring the promoter to the bar of justice. It was a long fight, fraught
with danger and disappointment. The courts dragged. War broke over the
civilized world. Morphy fought fiercely--like a cornered hyena. He was
sent away, after dragging down his confederates. He had sworn at the
time of conviction that he would get Stockbridge if it took to the
longest day of his life. Drew remembered this oath and promise as he
waited for Harrigan to appear from the booth.
He turned to the magpie and the cage. He studied both with keen eyes
which had been trained in the school of hard facts piled upon each
other until they pointed a way. Stockbridge had owned the pet for many
years. It was the one domestic trait in his make-up, save Loris. It
would be a strange thing, Drew concluded, swinging toward the window,
if Morphy and Morphy's confederates were to fall through a remembered
couplet dropped by the magpie. It was in the order of events, however.
It was the bright, particular finger which pointed toward the prisoner
at Sing Sing. Nothing would be more logical than for the bird to
remember the millionaire's last words--or dying words. They would be
shrieked aloud and unforgetable.
"More snow," said Drew to himself. "This is a white day if ever there
was one. I wonder if Delaney got to the house in time?"
He turned as a "Buurrrr! Burrrr!" sounded at the ringing-box below the
desk.
"Hello!" he said sharply into the transmitter. "Hello! Who's this?"
He waited as some out-of-town connection was made. A thin voice broke
in from the silence. The voice rose in timber. "Oh, Hello!" exclaimed
the detective, recognizing Flynn, one of his operatives. "Hello,
Flynn," he said. "What's the weather like out at Morristown? Yes! ...
Yes! ... Oh, is that so.... What? ... Too bad! ... Well, you better
come in.... Take the first train and jump on the job.... He's in
Florida, eh? ... Well, that lets him out.... Good-by, Flynn!"
Drew reached for a pencil and scratched a name off his list before he
hung up the receiver. "That leaves six," he said, running his eyes down
the names of the suspects. "Six to go. We'll round them up--or out. It
looks bad for one or two of them!"
He dropped the pencil to the desk with a flip of his fingers. He
replaced the telephone receiver on the hook. He twirled the chair and
leaned forward with his hands on his knees.
"Nice bird, you," he said, addressing the magpie. "We're alone, you and
I. Why don't you tell me what you know--what you heard in that library,
when the millionaire talked over the phone and then received the
cupronickel bullet in the base of his brain? He said, 'Ah, Sing!' eh?
He said it, or we are jumping at conclusions. Have Delaney and I
erred--as once or twice before?"
The bird strutted about the cage. It pecked at a hard, white fish-bone,
thrust between two bars. It dipped its bill into the water-holder, then
held high its head as it gulped. It switched its tail and hopped onto
the first perch. There it sat, with coiled claws, as Drew leaned
closer.
"Ah, Sing!" he repeated confidentially. "Ah, Singing! Ossining! Sing
Sing! Let me hear you do your prettiest, birdie. Don!"
The magpie lowered its head and peered outwardly. It lifted a wing with
ruffled dignity. Drew narrowed his eyes. "You were there," he
whispered. "You were in that sealed room--that double-locked and
triple-watched library. How did the murderer shoot down the old man?
How could he do it, Don? I think I know _why_ it was done. I'm fairly
sure who is directing matters. What I want to know is, what devilish
ingenuity of the criminal tribe projected that bullet into the old
man's brain? Answer that, Don!"
The bird was as stately as a raven. It seemed to Drew that he heard an
echoed "Nevermore." He sat upright and took his hands from his knees.
"Answer that, Don?" he repeated.
"Gone batty, Chief?" asked Harrigan, thrusting his shoulders through
the open door.
Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping
motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. "Guess I am," he
admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant's
hand. "Well!" he snapped, recovering himself. "Well, what luck? I see
that you got something!"
"Yep! I got him, all right. He's hanging around the front office of the
prison seeing what he can find out. He says," Harrigan consulted the
paper. "He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like
a man in a daze. Always----"
"I don't want that, now! Didn't I send you out to call up the
vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us
early this morning. Westlake!"
"I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought
I'd get Frick again. That's all Frick had to say, except a----"
"Well?"
"Except he'll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the
contrary. Says he'll report if anything turns up."
"Go on with Westlake!" The detective's voice hardened.
"Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers
in his office. He's in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says
that their records show----"
"Show what?" Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. "It took some
time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the
Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison
between six o'clock last night and this morning. The first one was at
seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central
Railroad Station."
"Good!" snapped Drew. "Good! Go on! We're getting there!"
"This call was for seventeen minutes. It was charged to the prison."
"What was the booth number?"
Harrigan consulted his sheet. "I didn't get that," he said, scratching
his head. "Westlake didn't give it to me."
"Go on--we'll get it! Go on! What was the next call?"
"The second call, Chief, was to the State Capitol Building at Albany.
It was for three minutes. No more! I guess that was the warden talking
to the Pardon Clerk, or something like that. We'll forget it, eh?"
"Chop it out!"