number of that last print?" he asked.
"Forty-four!"
"Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by
Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work."
"I had a hand in that," admitted Drew.
"This print was close to the knob. There's none like it on the knob
itself."
"Umph!" declared Fosdick.
Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on
Fosdick's shoulder. "I've got you to thank," he said, "for letting me
use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it
clears the case in a remarkable manner."
"How?" asked the commissioner.
"Well for one thing," Drew said, lifting the third photo. "For one
thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after
the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half
mile or more away from the mansion."
"I'll grant you that, but what does it prove?"
Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. "It
proves," he said, "that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never
arrested in New York."
"That's a large order!" chuckled the commissioner. "There are a few
good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven't got--yet!"
"I'm satisfied," said the detective, pulling his hat down over his
head. "I'm going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good.
He's stayed out of your clutches. He's forgotten more about telephones
than most men know. He's as slippery as an eel and as clever as the
very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase."
"What's that?" asked the commissioner.
"He didn't wear gloves on the job. That's where we may trip him up."
"They all forget something," said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through
the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.
The detective hurried down the steps,--passed the sergeant at the
entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building
and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter
was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!
Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a
towering canyon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the
one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the
feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.
The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit
who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages.
He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself
in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective
realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the
city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.
Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker.
He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great
operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.
Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little
position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers. He
had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was a big
factor in the criminal game. The members of the criminal tribe worked
through luck and sheer audacity. Many escaped from the net and moved in
the underworld until they made their final mistake which was probably
so glaring it couldn't be overlooked.
Despite the fact that the finger prints were not of record, Drew held
to the swirling conviction that the man he was after was of the
criminal horde. There was much to lead him to this belief. The
cleverness in connecting up the two telephone booths--the warning
through the mail to Stockbridge--the manner in which the murder had
been covered up in a score of details, all pointed to a criminal mind
of the cunningest order. It savored of practice in crime and study of
natural conditions. Its bizarre features placed it out from other
crimes and raised it to a class of its own.
The snow which impeded the detective's steps, in some manner cleared
his brain. He began to review the series of events. He boxed the case
with returning shrewdness. He went over the points like a sailor
repeating the compass-chart. He even saw a light.
This light was a star that guided him around a corner and then along
the long reach of a white-mantled street where children shrilled and
played. Snow-balls flew past his head. Sleighs and muffled taxis
churned by. Women in furs and heavy cloaks glanced up at his olive face
from which peered sanguine eyes bent upon a known destination.
He paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading to a library. In
this building he knew there would be on file certain data concerning
three links of the chain which he was trying to forge about the
criminal or criminals who had slain Stockbridge.
He entered the storm-door, shook the snow from his coat, and removed
his hat with a swinging bow as he drew erect in front of a prim lady at
a desk.
"I want all the books you have on modern telephony," he said with a
winning smile. "I'm sure that you have one or two."
The prim lady who knew a gentleman when she saw one, raised her brows
and rapidly thumbed over a filing-card system.
"One or two," she repeated. "Why, we have over twenty. Now just what
branch of Telephony do you want? There are a number of divisions in the
subject. We have Smith on Central Office practice. We have Steinward on
Induced Currents in Relation to Magnetism. We have Oswerlander on
Switchboards and Carbon Transmitters. We have Burke on Circuits and
Batteries. We have----"
"Hold on, please," said Drew, catching his breath. "I better try
something easy. One of those Juvenile books with simple diagrams and
switchboards or junction-boxes."
Drew carried the book to an alcove which was deserted. He took off his
coat, hung it on the back of a chair, upended his hat and sat down with
a tired smile. Soon he was busy in the mystery of electricity in
relation to the telephone. He conned over the pages. He browsed along
like a novice trying to understand trigonometry. He frowned over such
terms as micro-ampere and micro-volt. He grew dizzy following wiring
diagrams which were far worse than any clue he had ever attempted.
"A telephone engineer," he said half aloud. "A man who could trace out
this stuff ought to make a mighty fine detective. I never saw such a
snarl. Now what does hysteresis and laminations mean? What's the idea
of having an alternating current of low voltage on the same line with a
talking current of three volts? I don't see how they can get two
currents on one set of wires. Maybe they don't."
He tossed the book to the table in front of him and rose with a frown.
This frown changed to a wrinkled furrow of half amusement as he hurried
back to the little prim lady.
"Too deep for me," he said, referring to the book she had given him.
"That may be a beginner's treatise, but I'm in the kindergarten class
in electricity. What's a micro-volt?"
"I'll look it up, sir," she said.
"Never mind. I wouldn't know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book
on magpies."
The librarian fingered her files. "Try Birds of England," she
suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow
over to a book-case. "Try this. It's complete. You'll find magpies and
starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this
splendid volume."
"The one that interested me was black as a crow," he said, as he turned
toward his alcove. "Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white
crows. I never saw one, though. My bird's a deep one."
The little librarian stared after Drew's vanishing form with a slight
pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the
series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he
was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and
telephones.
Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the
lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles.
These she had in plenty. A great many war books had been purchased
during the period which followed America's declaration.
The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He
conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and
trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact
upon fact. He had the formulae of smokeless powder and the analysis of
cupronickel bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire.
He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his
overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing
back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.
The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust
out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he
had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the
north and plowed along the sidewalk.
Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had
forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge
which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost
six o'clock.
"Lord," he said in surprise. "I'm going crazy. Two hours in a trance.
Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They
ought to have something. I wonder," he added, peering under the fine
drizzle of snow, "I wonder where the nearest telephone is located?
Another block, I guess."
His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along.
Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a
raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt
longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library.
The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections
which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.
The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew
discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters,
was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be
traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a
whirling dervish across the detective's vision.
He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the
white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He
found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he
asked Central for his office phone.
The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. "What's new in
the Stockbridge case?" asked Drew in a whisper.
He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the
entire series of reports. There were six of them. The last was from
Delaney.
"Hang up!" the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. "Hang up,
Harrigan, and let me get him."
Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large
slot and jiggled the receiver's hook until Central answered.
"Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!" he exclaimed. "Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!"
"That's her number," he said aloud. "Loris Stockbridge's number. It
must be her number. I haven't forgotten that, have I?"
The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted
one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The
receiver's diaphragm clicked finally. "Hello!" he snapped. "Hello,
who's this?"
He waited a full second. "This Delaney?" he asked. "Who?" he added.
"Oh! you're the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes,
Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!"
"This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? Hello,
Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?"
The big operative's voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. "What's the
news?" asked Drew. "What's that you've been telling Harrigan? Something
about a coffin? A coffin? What--a casket? A hardwood casket. I'll be
right up! I'm coming!"
The detective's olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped
the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged
out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat
collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk
leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.
The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and
along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew
westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He
crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this,
sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver's muffled ear.
"Drive like sin--full speed and more--up Fifth Avenue! I'll tell you
when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I
can help it," he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the
taxi.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"THE CLOSING NET"
Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night
would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway
signs--the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow
worms--the muffled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their
well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters
more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.
Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew's taxi turned and
ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no
definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two
blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a
familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his
chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at
the curb.
"Stay around the corner!" he ordered. "Stay, till I send word. Here's a
dollar for supper. Get that and wait!"
The driver touched his cap and reached for the bill. Drew swung
northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden
sidewalk. Delaney's statement over the telephone had stirred every drop
of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He
clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He
crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white
line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets
and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in
defiance to the powers of darkness which encompassed the dwelling.
A snow-crusted form stepped out from a basement shelter. Drew raised
his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.
"Hello, O'Toole!" he blurted, recognizing the operative. "What are
_you_ doing here?"
O'Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. "Our
lad's in there," he said, thrashing his arms and flipping his finger
for a second time. "Harry Nichols!" he explained.
"S--o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads
this way now. What did you learn to-day?"
O'Toole yawned. "I got on the job early," he said with frosty breath.
"I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I'm right after him.
First he went to the Quartermaster's Offices at the Battery. Then he
went to Governor's Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross
Headquarters. He 'phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times."
"To the girl in the case?"
"Yep, Chief! He's gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters
connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers--three dozen lilies of
the valley--then came on up here. I've been waiting a long time."
"Seen anybody about?"
"Delaney and some Central Office men--that's all! Shall I stay here?"
"Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think
Delaney has been there. You'll find the snow melted in spots. Plant
somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with
the wires to the house. I'm looking for trouble to-night. They
threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon."
Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O'Toole, turned at
the iron-grilled gate, passed through and pressed the button.
A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open
and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.
"All right!" said Drew. "Let me in!"
The door swung wider. Drew lunged through and turned. "What's new?" he
asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Are those servants still
under arrest?"
"Some of them, Inspector," grunted the Central Office man. "I can't
talk much. Fosdick gave me hell for talking to a newspaper man. He left
word, though, that you could come in."
"Thanks!" Drew said dryly. "Thanks! That's kind of him. You are holding
down this door?"
"Sure, Inspector! The butler and the second-man are down at
Headquarters. I don't like the job, but orders is orders."
Drew loosened his overcoat, removed his kid-gloves, stamped his
snow-covered shoes on the rug, and hurried past the library, where
stood a burly Central Office man on guard. He mounted the steps with
the running motion of a boy of fifteen. He glanced upward to where
velvet-soft light glowed at the entrance to Loris Stockbridge's suite
of rooms. Delaney stood framed in the opening. His huge bulk blotted
out the inner rooms. His face, seen in the high shadows, was long and
grim.
"She's in there," said the operative, raising his chin over his lifted
arm. "Miss Stockbridge is in there. She's with her maid--one Fosdick
tried to pinch--and Harry Nichols. She's got a notice by special
delivery, that the coffin she ordered from the Hardwood Casket Company,
of Jersey City, will be delivered to-morrow. She never ordered any
coffin, Chief. Ain't that dirt--to a girl like that? What d'ye think of
it?"
Drew's answer to Delaney's question was a grinding of teeth and a sharp
oath of defiance. He clutched the operative's arm in a nipping grip. He
led him into the tiny reception-hall of the suite.
The detective paused on the threshold of a larger room. He dropped his
hand from Delaney's arm. He stabbed sharp glances here and there about
the interior. He widened his eyes as they came to rest upon a further
doorway, which was hung with soft tapestries gathered to the side-walls
by cords of silk. Beyond this doorway, like the vista of some rare
painting, shone an inner light of a woman's shrine.
Silver and pearl and old rose blended into a bower such as is found in
palaces. Tiny medallions and plaques and miniatures--narrow framed
studies in oil--fans, vases, statuettes of ivory and rare china, a
hundred choice and dainty objects of haute-art were in that splendid
room.
Drew advanced over a rug so soft and deep he felt like a peri entering
Paradise. He brushed aside the tapestries and strode swiftly forward.
His hat came off as Loris advanced to meet him from a large chamber,
wherein the color scheme had been worked out in black and white with a
suggestion of green-in-gold.
He forgot the material things of that apartment as he bowed gallantly.
He thrust his hand forward and clasped strong fingers over her own. The
grief of her father's death had widened her eyes and set them in
circles of dark brows and tear-stained features. Her voice clutched in
her throat as she tried to speak. Her hand was drawn from his slowly.
It raised to her broad forehead beneath her blue-black hair, with a
passing motion that dispelled some of the doubt within her. She smiled
wanly. Her round, young breast rose and fell with the rustle of
perfumed laces. She swished her lavender gown behind her with a turn of
a white, supple wrist upon which was a tiny, diamond-studded watch of
superior make.
"Courage!" said Drew. "Have courage! They won't get you!"
"They--they," she breathed. "They have threatened me like they
threatened poor father. They sent a letter. Oh, I wish I were a man!"
Drew flushed beneath his olive cheeks. He reached upward and turned
down his overcoat collar. He laid his hat on a chair, braced his
shoulders, and stared around the room. His eyes wandered from the walls
to the inner opening. "Who's in there?" he asked.
"Harry--Harry Nichols. I telephoned for him. I was afraid. I admit I'm
afraid, Mr. Drew. You know what they did to father?"
"Yes, I know. It was an error on my part. We did not take the proper
precautions. But this time--we will!"
"I hope you do. I don't feel like myself, after last night. It came so
suddenly. I heard you people talking in the lower hallway. I went to
the bannisters and saw all the servants at the library door. And
then--and then, I went down without a particle of warning. It was a
shock, Mr. Drew."
"One I could have spared you," admitted the detective. "It was
preventable," he added, turning toward Delaney.
The operative stepped forward. He struck a chair with his foot and
tumbled it over. Picking it up and setting it down on its legs, he
flushed guiltily.
"Be careful!" snapped Drew. "Get me that letter this young lady
received from Jersey. Get it! We'll look it over right now!"
Delaney glanced at Loris. "She's got it," he said. "I gave it back to
her."
Loris shuddered and pressed her hands to her breast. "I tore it up,"
she whispered. "I was so excited and angry I tore it up. It's in the
waste-basket."
"Fetch the basket!" said Drew to Delaney. "Go get it. We'll make this
room our headquarters," he added, swinging about on one heel. "We'll
stay right here and watch things, Miss Loris."
The girl nodded prettily. Her courage came back with flushed cheeks.
She glanced up at Drew's strong jaw and face. The detective squared his
shoulder with a final shrug. "We'll stay here!" he said masterly.
"Though all the demons in hell are closing in on you, we'll stick.
We'll get them this time! I've almost got my man. If he moves his pawns
to-night, we'll round up the whole bunch and send them to the chair!"
"Are there more than one?"
"Yes! One is directing--another or others are doing his will. Your
father was slain in some mysterious manner which we have not, as yet,
determined. The man, or men, who caused him to meet with death, left
their marks behind them--fingerprints--footprints, voices over wires,
and other evidences of material deviltry. They blundered a score of
times! They should have killed that magpie. They did not wear gloves
when they should have worn gloves. They forgot, or overlooked, that
telephone calls can be traced. We've traced them. We've almost
succeeded. The trouble is, that time is short. What was in that
letter?"
Loris turned toward the inner room. Delaney, followed by Harry Nichols
in full uniform, appeared. The operative held out a handful of scrapped
paper.
"Ain't much to learn here, Chief. It's pretty well torn up. I remember
what it said, though."
"Repeat it!"
"It was from the Hardwood Casket Company of Jersey City. It was dated
this morning. It said that the coffin Miss Stockbridge ordered for the
lady who was about to die in her family, would be delivered to-morrow
afternoon by express at her town house, as ordered."
"The curs!" exclaimed Drew.
"Sure they are, Chief. The letter was signed by the manager. I think it
was the manager. I couldn't read his writing!"
"Let me see the scraps."
Delaney sorted them into a small stack and passed them to Drew. The
detective lifted each fragment, held it to the light, and placed it
into his right overcoat-pocket. "I get it," he said. "It looks genuine.
Did you telephone them?"
"Nope! I was a-waiting for you to come up here. There's a phone here.
It's over there!"
Drew nodded. "I saw it," he said thoughtfully. "We better be careful
how we use the phones of this house. They tapped the wires before, and
they can do it again. We're fighting very high-class devils."
"It doesn't seem real!" blurted Harry Nichols. "I thought that death
only stalked in No Man's Land. It's right here, gentlemen!"
Drew frowned and shook his head. He glanced at Miss Stockbridge. He
rubbed his hands softly. "No more danger," he warned in a confident
voice. "We've got twenty Central Office men in the house or about the
place. No bank was ever better protected. There will be no real trouble
to-night."
"That's what you said the other time, to father," Loris suggested
without thought. "You did--you remember? You were in the library and he
felt so confident nothing would happen. Something did happen!"