The afternoon sun came slantingly through the great glass windows,
lighting the happy face of the blind man and the pale, smiling face of
The Fee, as he lay in bed, his head swathed in bandages, one arm in a
sling.
“I was goin’ round, ’cause I couldn’t sleep, an’ I heard somebody open
the front door”--Shrimp scowled as his voice became weak, and set his
teeth for a moment. “I thought it was you. Then I seen his whole head
was covered with a black thing, an’ there was black gloves on his hands,
an’ he didn’t wear no shoes.”
Colton nodded. “So that he could not be seen, nor heard, in the
darkness. The hood covered everything but his eyes and lips; the latter
were left free so that he could mimic a voice.”
“I watched him sneak into the library an’ come out. Then I beat it down
the backstairs, an’ when he got in his automobile I was hangin’ on the
back. He musta knew I was there all the time, but he never let on. I was
scoutin’ ’round the house when three of ’em jumped me. I guess they
knocked me out good, for it was a long time ’fore I come round. Then a
guy I couldn’t see came in the dark room where I was an’ started
knockin’ you. I told him where he stood, all right.”
“It was the mimic,” Colton explained. “He wanted to learn every tone of
your voice.”
“The government agents got every one of them,” put in Sydney
unnecessarily.
“Yes, and the house has been the scene of many crimes. Ames and his men
found a lot of valuable papers, together with the ringleaders of the
Gilded Glove. Jones, of the hotel, identified the bearded man who did
all the talking as the German husband who had the rooms. The chair arms
didn’t protect him very much from the falling table, and his three
broken ribs will keep him quiet for a while. The one who posed as his
wife, and the third man at the table, have bruises and contusions enough
to last them a lifetime. The murderer of Hedwig Gorski”--Thornley Colton
paused a minute and went on--“was brought around all right by the
ambulance surgeon; only a little of the poison went down his throat; but
he told his story. He was a wonderful boy mimic fifteen years ago. Any
sound, any voice was as easy for him to learn as names would be to you
and me. Then the Gilded Glove got him. What devilish method they used I
don’t know, but they made him their tool. Boris Strevelski forgot that
he had ever been anything but a dealer of death to traitors; that he was
the Hammer of God was the only idea left in his mind. But they taught
him all languages, and he picked them up as the average man would
remember names.
“He worked for half an hour to get the pane of glass from the window of
the Gorski bathroom, and, in a skin-tight suit of black silk that
covered everything but his mouth and eyes, he hid behind the coat and
dress in the closet after putting the poison in the tap. He had on the
same suit at the house. My hands told me that.”
“But how did you know he would come here?” asked Sydney breathlessly.
“I risked everything on my mental ability to follow the workings of the
Oriental mind,” Colton said slowly. “The Caucasian mind is always
content with mere killing. But the Oriental mind must have the
significant! Think of the risk of staying in the Gorski rooms when they
knew the poison would do its work. But to them the mere death was only
part; their whole course of thought demanded that the sign be left.
“I knew it would be the same in my case. So I gave them no chance to
leave the crushed glove anywhere but here; and I knew they would come. I
didn’t know that they had been watching me for weeks because of my
friendship with Madame Gorski, nor that they had gotten a duplicate key.
But I was almost at the heels of the stranger. When he saw me I knew he
would instantly think of luring me to my death. The sign had been left,
and death was next. I knew, also, that he would never overlook the
opportunity to mimic Shrimp’s voice, because in the years mimicry has
become a mania with him. He slammed the door of the car in which he came
so that I would think he had escaped. Then his playing Shrimp’s part
seemed easy and logical. What was there to do but take me to the New
York headquarters of the Gilded Glove? Following out their
mind-processes further, I had no doubt that they would give me a chance
to drink the poison, for that, too, is a peculiar kink of the Oriental
mind. Hence my precaution. The rest was simple.”
“Simple!” gasped Sydney Thames, and there was sweat on his brow. “My
God, Thorn, think of you, _blind_, risking yourself alone with those
men.”
“My blindness was my greatest ally there,” smiled Colton faintly. “The
instant darkness came they were helpless, while I was my normal self,
which I couldn’t be in the burning light, but”--he touched the
alcohol-soaked bandage that covered his head and eyes--“the tortures of
the Inquisition were mild beside that light on my unprotected eyeballs.”
He patted the hand of the boy gently. “And it was Shrimp who led the
secret agents, after all,” he said quietly. “If the taxi-driver hadn’t
been one of the hundred friends he has made around the city, there might
have been another story to tell. The men of the Gilded Glove weren’t far
behind me.”
The door-bell rang downstairs. “Ames again,” commented Colton, a trifle
wearily, and in a few minutes the government agent was ushered into the
room by John, the butler.
“We got everything, Mr. Colton!” he cried. “The whole gang is cleaned
up. Gorski was released from jail to-day, and is going back to Paris.
Without his wife he will never bother any one. Even the Gilded Glove
didn’t think him worthy of their attention. And those harbour-mine
plans! A wonderful piece of work! Placed in order under an onion-skin
paper map of the harbour, with the staccato-note marks at certain points
on the shore line, every sharp and flat traced on the map gave, as you
said, the exact locations of the mines.”
“Have you found the traitor?” asked Colton.
“Yes.” Ames’s voice was sober. “His body was found this morning in his
office. The pistol he had used was beside him. A closed incident.” Then
enthusiasm came to his tone once more. “What you have done on this case
will never be forgotten, Mr. Colton,” he said earnestly. “It will not be
made public, of course, but the secretary of state will write you a
personal letter offering you any reward you may ask. The president
himself will tender you a position that----”
Thornley Colton’s upraised hand stopped him. The blind man turned his
sightless eyes toward the closed eyes of The Fee, and gently withdrew
his fingers from the clasp of the small hand. “Hush,” he said softly.
“The boy is sleeping.”
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