same telephone-booth at the Grand Central Station. Ah, here's the
number! That's why Westlake didn't give it to me on the first call to
the booth. Number, Gramercy Hill 9845, Chief. That's over near the east
end of the building--on the lower level."
"A quiet place!" mused Drew.
"Yes! Well, Chief, here is the time. The call was for twenty-two
minutes, extending from a quarter to twelve--midnight--to seven minutes
after twelve. It was charged to the Auditing Department of the prison."
Drew rose from his chair. "That covers the hour in which Stockbridge
was murdered!" he declared, reaching for the roll-top of his desk
"That's nice work on your part."
Harrigan flushed slightly. He leaned over and laid the paper upon the
desk. Drew took it, folded it with two fingers forming the creases,
then crammed it into his breast pocket The roll-top came down with a
bang. Harrigan lifted an overcoat from a tree, helped Drew on with it,
and found the detective's hat.
"When will you be back, Chief?" he inquired.
"Hard to say! Get me some French-gray powder. A little will do. I'm
going to see if I can get any fingerprints in that booth. They might
help!"
"Will you be back by night!" Harrigan asked, leading the way through
the door.
"Don't know! Get that powder! Tell Delaney, if he calls up, that I'm
hot after my man. Tell him to stick up where he is, till he hears from
me. Tell Flynn, when he comes in from Morristown, that he can relieve
O'Toole who is trailing Harry Nichols. I don't think there is much in
that. I'm covering every one--that's all."
Harrigan opened the drawer of a cabinet and fingered about till he
found a small, round box of gray powder used for preserving
fingerprints. He turned with this and saw that Drew had crammed into
his side coat-pocket, a flat camera which the telephone girl brought to
him. "Got flash lights?" asked Harrigan.
"Yes. There's some in the back of this camera." Drew slapped his
overcoat. "I got everything, I guess. Remember about Delaney and
Flynn."
The detective moved toward the door which led to the hallway where the
elevators were. He turned as Harrigan laid a hand on his shoulder.
"What's that sticking out of your other pocket, Chief?" asked the
assistant-manager. "A paper, ain't it?"
Drew flushed beneath his olive skin. He pressed the object down with
soft fingers. He turned and said simply:
"That's a picture of the girl in the case. Forgot I had it. Good-by!"
The door slammed as he strode over the white tiling and jabbed at an
elevator button with his right thumb.
Swirled in wind-blown snow from the office buildings and wrapped to the
chin with the collar of his overcoat, Drew plunged, with head downward,
for the nearest subway station.
He caught an up-town express, and, after three grinding station-stops,
he reached the Grand Central Station wherein was the telephone-booth to
which the calls had been sent from the prison.
He made swift work of the matter at hand. Time was pressing. The
booths, to the number of three in that portion of the station, were
fortunately empty.
Going over the slot-box and the tiny shelf in the center booth, which
bore the number "Gramercy Hill 9845" on the transmitter, Drew pulled
the door shut and dusted all the nickel work and the polished surface
of the receiver, with French-gray powder of superior make.
He took three exposures by aid of small flashes. He opened the door and
allowed the smoke to escape. Pocketing the camera, after winding on a
fresh film, he entered the booth for a second time and inspected its
lower paneling for possible clews.
An oath, close-bitten and expressive, escaped his lips as he discovered
a small hole drilled through the woodwork. He stooped and peered
through this opening. It led to the next booth. It had been made with a
long auger of quarter-inch diameter. Shavings lay upon the floor of the
booth.
He emerged and investigated the second booth. The hole came through,
underneath the slot-box. It had been drilled in order to make a
connection between the two telephones. He found splinters and sawdust
at his feet. He backed out and stood perplexed. There was no way of
finding out just what sort of connection had been made between the two
booths. All evidence of wires had been taken down. Only an expert could
give an answer to the new riddle. Drew recalled Westlake as he rushed
to the subway-platform.
He found the vice-president busy, with a score of men waiting in the
outer room of the telephone company's office. The secretary-in-charge
hurried in with his card and his urgent request for three minutes'
important matter which could not well wait.
Drew, however, was forced to wait seven minutes by his watch. He chafed
at the delay. He crossed his legs at least once each leaden minute. He
feared that the trail was getting cold. Twice he rose, as if to go.
Each time the secretary had indicated patience by an arching of her
brows and a jerk of her thumb toward the ground-glass door.
"Send in Drew!" boomed as the door opened and let out the caller. Drew
strode in with his notes in his hand.
"Just a minute, Westlake," he said, dropping into a chair and leaning
over the desk behind which sat a good-natured official of the superior
order. "A minute! I'm in a jam! What d'ye make of this?"
Drew related his discovery in the booths of the Grand Central. He went
right to the point. He explained the auger-hole, the shavings, and the
fact that it was the same set of booths to which the call had been sent
from the prison, over the time Stockbridge had been slain.
Westlake listened with dawning light. He leaned back as Drew finished
talking. He smiled. He thrust his thumbs under his vest. "You're a
hardworking man, Drew," he said, "but you didn't get it all. Do you
remember the third call that I gave you this morning?--the one when the
chief-operator at Gramercy Hill put the howler on? It was from the same
booths you just mentioned!"
"What?"
"It certainly was. There's no use looking at the record. The number was
9844 Gramercy Hill. In other words we have the evidence to show that a
thin, whispering voice called up Stockbridge from one booth in the
Grand Central at the same time the prison was connected to the adjacent
booth."
"For the love of Mike!" said Drew.
"Yes--your case grows interesting, Chief. You've got a lot of tangled
leads and all that, but a little more work should untangle them. A
telephone engineer ought to make a crackerjack detective. He's trained
to unsnarl the worst snarls in the world. You ought to see some of our
wiring diagrams. It takes study to trace them out. You're learning!"
"I don't know if I am, Westlake. I think that Morphy, up at the prison,
has been 'phoning New York. I believe he has a confederate in this
town. This confederate, we will say, received his instructions about
midnight last night. He bored a hole through the booths and called up
Stockbridge. But what was it all for?"
"That I can't answer!"
Drew rose from the chair and crammed his notes in his inner, overcoat
pocket. "What the devil did they do that for?" he asked with flashing
eyes. "Morphy calls up Gramercy Hill 9843 at, or about, midnight.
Gramercy Hill 9844 calls up Stockbridge. Stockbridge was killed by a
bullet in the neck as he's talking over the 'phone. Was the call to
warn him? Was it to threaten him? Was it to occupy his attention so
that the murderer could get in the room and fire the shot?"
"Did you find out how he got into the room?" asked Westlake, leaning
forward.
"I have not! The whole thing gets weird. I can't sleep! I'm not going
to sleep till I get some light on this!"
"You look healthy," said Westlake, as he pressed the buzzer for the
next caller.
Drew emerged from the elevator and hurried to the street with short,
quick strides. He crossed the snow and pressed open the door to a cigar
store. He fished out a nickel and called up his office.
To Harrigan who answered, he said tersely, "Get Flynn up to the Grand
Central! Get him to the east-end telephone-booth, on the lower level.
Tell him I'll be there. He's back from Morristown, isn't he? He phoned,
eh? Get him to me! I need him!"
Drew hung up with a swift flip of the receiver. He hurried to the
subway station and caught a local up-town. He had time to flash a
fourth and fifth set of photos before Flynn came puffing across the
lower level.
"See here!" snapped Drew, drawing the operative into the middle booth.
"Bend down there where that hole is, and tell me what you see on the
varnish."
"It's fingerprints, Chief. Two, three of them. Looks like somebody
pressed hard when they drilled that hole. The outer print is a good one
of a thumb. Left thumb, I should say."
"That's right! I'm going to find out who made that impression, within
one hour. You stay here and grab anybody who tries to talk with the
prison. Frick is up there!"
"How about O'Toole, who's watching Nichols?" asked Flynn.
"Leave him stay on that assignment. I need you here. Stick now! Watch
everybody who talks over these three phones. Arrest anybody who
receives or sends a call to the prison. There's plenty of Central
Office men handy for a pinch. Fosdick will back them up!"
Drew rushed for the subway. He realized that he had wasted valuable
time by not taking the complete set of fingerprint photos on his first
inspection of the booths. It was a detail he had overlooked. But then,
he could afford to make mistakes. The men or man he was after, dared
not make any. This was a thing he had often recalled in dealing with
super-criminals.
Fosdick's rooms at Detective Headquarters, on Center Street, were
luckily deserted as he rushed down through the hallway. The
Commissioner widened his eyes as Drew handed over the camera, with a
request that the films be developed and prints made within twenty
minutes.
"Can't be done that soon," said the detective. "Give us fifty minutes."
"I'll make it twenty-five!" shot Drew. "I got lots to tell you, but
it'll keep. Get those prints and we'll land our man. The last two films
have perfect samples of finger-work. Our man slipped there! He signed
his own death warrant!"
The Commissioner pressed a button. To the young man who came, he
explained the necessity of rushing the developing and printing of the
films. He turned as the messenger hurried out with the camera.
"What about that bullet?" he asked.
"Just as I said, Commissioner. It was fired from a smooth-bore pistol
or gun. What do you think?"
"Oh, maybe not! Sometimes there isn't much rifling on an old revolver.
Those little twenty-two affairs are made out of cast-iron."
"But the cupronickel bullet shows smokeless powder and high-class
criminal activity. I doubt if one of those little rods would take a
modern steel-jacketed bullet. They're used in automatics."
"But automatics have good rifling. That bullet was as smooth as before
it was shot. Here it is!"
Fosdick opened a drawer and pulled out a later-day projectile of the
lesser-caliber.
"This is smooth!" he repeated with heat. "It was cut from the old
millionaire's brain. It ain't scratched. It never took the rifling it
was intended for. My theory is, that it was fired from a gun of larger
caliber. That is to say, it didn't fit the bore. A thirty-thirty rifle
might be used to hold a twenty-two caliber bullet. It would not take
the rifling of this."
Drew shook his head. "That's hardly possible," he declared. "It's too
vague and doesn't suit me. We're going to find that the deeper we get
in this thing, the simpler will be the explanation. I remember any
number of cases which have been solved in this city where the mystery
was so wrapped up in speculation and the improbable that our minds
failed to grasp the simple thing which was the solution."
"Then you think the lack of rifling on the bullet might be the opening
wedge to catching the man who shot Stockbridge?"
"It could well be, Fosdick. The lack of a thing sometimes is just as
important as the visible clue. Do you remember the Rajah case at
Gramercy Park?"
Fosdick leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. "Seems
to me that I do," he said, thrusting out his lower lip. "There was a
big jewel missing. Sort of an Idol's Eye case--wasn't it?"
"Exactly! A white diamond was missing at a dinner. Lights went out as
they were passing the stone around the table. Lights came on again and
the diamond was gone. Everybody accused. A strange print was found on
the sideboard. Servants knew nothing about it. The print didn't
correspond to any which we took there. Seemed impossible and all that.
Well, the very fact that the print didn't correspond was the means of
finding the stone and the culprit. You remember it?"
"Vaguely."
"Simple! A Lascar who waited on the table slipped off his shoes, crept
into the room, secured the diamond and climbed to the sideboard where
he hid it on top of a picture. The thumbprint which we puzzled our
heads over was a toe-print! We got the fellow!"
"I recall it now," said Fosdick. "I think one of our men thought out
the matter."
"He didn't!" declared the detective. "We worked it out! The city
department had given up the case. This may be the same. I'll venture to
say that as soon as you get a good operative some private agency
secures his services. Now, Commissioner, confess up. What manner of gun
could fire a bullet, such as a cupronickel one, without leaving
markings?"
"Smooth bore. An old flint-lock--for instance."
"We'll grant that! They're clumsy, however. The shot which killed the
millionaire was fired at very close range through a smooth tube of a
greater caliber than the diameter of the bullet found in his head. If
it were fired through a gun which was rifled, then there was a collar
or collars on the bullet, which we didn't find. The same thing was
discovered by examination of the shells which the Germans fired at
Paris. There was no rifling on those long-range projectiles. The bands
dropped off after the shell left the gun."
"Then this bullet was fired at long range?" Fosdick was openly
incredulous.
"No! Again we have the impossibility or seeming impossibility. I
examined that library, both before and after the murder. No shot could
have been fired from the outside so that a bullet would reach the old
man. If that were the case there would have been an opening in the
walls or at the windows or the ventilators. Besides, we have the powder
burns on the millionaire's head. We are squarely confronted with a
paradox. Riddle me that paradox and we will go a long ways toward
finding the man who murdered Stockbridge."
Fosdick frowned. "I can't see it at all," he confessed. "I still hold
to the theory that we should third degree all of the servants. I've got
some of them. If they don't squeal, I'll get the others!"
Drew glanced at his watch. "Personally," he said, "I'm of the opinion
that you will not get anything out of them. I think it was a mistake to
arrest them. It would have been far better to trail the butler and the
doorman and see if they connected with anybody."
"I'm doing this!" exclaimed Fosdick with asperity. "I've got charge of
this case, Drew. I got charge and I don't want any meddling. I've my
own methods."
"All right," said the detective. "All right! I want a check-up on the
finger prints and then I'll be going. I had to come to you for this.
You have such an interesting collection."
"Here's your answer!" said the commissioner, rising and striding around
the desk. "Take this bullet and look it over. Put it in your pocket.
And----"
Drew turned swiftly. The messenger stood in the doorway. He came
forward as Fosdick nodded. He passed over the hastily developed prints
which Drew had taken. The commissioner glanced at them, frowned, held
them to the light, then said:
"We'll try these on the Man Who Can't Be Beat! He's the best in the
world. He'll know in three minutes who made these prints if the fellow
is on our records."
The fingerprint expert nodded to Drew as they entered a huge room which
was lined with mahogany cabinets in the manner of a filing system in a
mail-order house. Fosdick passed the five photos into this man's hand.
He smiled as the expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket
magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.
"We're infallible!" exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. "Watch
Pope get your man. He'll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?"
The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued
as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then
laid them down on a table and shook his head.
"We have no record of this fellow," he said coldly. "It looks like a
man's print. Here's the thumb and here is the middle finger of the
right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I'd say, as a pretty sure
thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?"
"Yes! Look!" said Fosdick.
Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from
cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still
others.
"No go?" he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet
and turned with shaking head. "No go? Try again."
"Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints," said Pope, holding
out the photos. "He hasn't registered with us yet. Whoever made these
prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony."
"How about a misdemeanor?" asked Drew.
"No! They're all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion
or for auto speeding or beating his wife,--if he has one,--he would be
here. I'm sorry, inspector."
Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward
Fosdick.
"Have you got a print of Finklestein?" he asked. "You remember the
fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released
for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I've forgotten how
he got off. He's supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I
had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you'd
compare these prints with Finklestein's."
"Go ahead," said the commissioner. "Go as far as you like. I don't
think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong
ones--that's all."
"What's Finkle--Finklestein's initials?" asked the expert.
"J. B.," said Drew quickly. "Julius B.!"
A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two
drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard,
and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had
started from before taking the prints in the booth.
"No record could be more different," Pope said. "Finklestein has a big
hand and very broad fingers. The fellow who made these prints has a
little hand with thin fingers. The whorls and loops are entirely
dissimilar. He comes under classification 2-4-X. Finklestein is in
cabinet 2-9-0. They couldn't be further away."
Drew started out through the doorway with Fosdick following him. They
stood on the landing leading to the downstairs steps, where the
detective was about to leave the commissioner with a curt good-by. His
hand was out when he drew it back, dropped it to his side and wheeled
with sudden intuition.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "Are you and I detectives or children? Come
back to the fingerprint room. Hurry now. I want to see Pope. I forgot
something!"
The expert rose as they entered. "Well?" he asked with arching brows
and a slight frown on his face. "Well, what is it?"
Drew pointed a finger as steady as a rifle. He bared his eyes into
Pope's own. "Were you up to Stockbridge's house?" he asked swiftly.
"Yes! Why?"
"Did you take prints and photos of everything in the library? I
understand that this was done after I turned the case over to
Commissioner Fosdick."
"It was done!" rasped Fosdick. "Of course it was done. It's always done
when a case looks like a homicide!"
"This case looked worse than that!" said Drew. "It was slaughter!"
The commissioner turned to the fingerprint man. "Where are the prints
and photos you took up at the house?" he asked.
"Still in the developing room."
"Do you think they are developed?"
"I'll soon know, sir," he answered, pressing a button.
The messenger entered who had attended to Drew's prints which the
detective took in the telephone-booth.
"Get down to the developing room," ordered Pope. "Get me all the prints
and positives of Exhibit 12 of the Stockbridge case. Bring what is
already developed. Tell them to rush the others."
The three men waited in silence for the return of the messenger. Drew
paced the floor thoughtfully. He clasped and unclasped his hands behind
his back. He had almost slipped in an important matter. It was a chance
he was taking, but a vital one in the case. The fingerprints taken by
the expert in the library might and might not jibe with those taken in
the slot-booth. If they were the same, or any one was the same, the
case would offer a new line for investigation.
A sliding footstep at the door announced the messenger. He held a
sheath of curling papers in his hand. Pope reached and snatched the
photos. He ran over them with widening eyes. He sorted them into two
piles upon the table.
"Five prints!" he announced, glancing at Drew with a sly smile. "Five
of these prints are the same as your set. In other words, the man who
made the impressions in the telephone-booth was also in the library at
or about the time of the murder!"
"Impossible!" snorted Fosdick.
"Ah!" said Drew. "Photos don't lie. Now we're getting there! That's the
first light I've seen in some time. It clears the case of the
supernatural. It puts it where it belongs--in the material world of
flesh and blood and hate and revenge."
"It does that!" corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. "Now," he
added good-naturedly, "I'll help out some more. I've got a book of
notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I
flashed every print I could see. There's some of the butler on the
bottle and the tray. There's a number on the polished table. There are
at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I
suppose yours is among them, inspector?"
Drew held out his right hand. "Look and see," he suggested with a short
laugh. "I've never been printed in my life."
"That won't be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the
ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There's no record of
this fellow in our cabinet. But--he was in that library!"
"Where did he leave his prints?" asked Drew.
Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page,
thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. "What's
the number on the back of that one?" he asked, nodding toward the
topmost photograph.
"Ten," said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.
"Ten," repeated the expert. "That is a print which was flashed on the
corner of the little table which was overturned when Stockbridge fell
to the floor after being shot."
"And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?"
"The same!" declared the expert dryly.
"I don't see where you two are getting," said Fosdick. "How could a man
get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go
over to a slot-booth?"
"He might have been in the slot-booth first," suggested Drew with slow
smiling. "From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge."
"The fact is established," exclaimed Pope, "that the man you are after
was in the library and in the booth. That's all you can say. There's no
way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made."
Drew lifted a second print. "No. sixteen," he said, turning to the
expert. "Where was that made?"
Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease
over the development in the case. "That," he said, swinging his eyes
till they met Drew's, "that was made on the hardwood floor directly
under Stockbridge's body. We found the print, with others of the little
finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!"
The detective stared at Pope. "You mean," he said shrewdly, "that the
man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was
down on his knees arranging Stockbridge's body, or doing something like
that?"
"He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the
body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this
impression. I venture to say that it is there yet."
"Good!" said Drew. "I may have a look at it. I never went after prints
in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business--like
yourself."