Calmly, disdainfully, the girl stood at the door of her room, and
watched the secret-service men search it with no regard for care. At her
side stood her cousin, looking on helplessly. His boyish protests had
been stilled by a terse “Shut up!” from the chief. At the other side of
the girl, his face black with a scowl, and his hands clenched at his
sides, stood Sydney Thames. To the soft-hearted Sydney no crime was so
great as that of causing a woman pain. So he gritted his teeth, and
darted murderous glances at the secret-service men, and looks of
pleading at the blind man who leaned against the wall, apparently
watching the searchers.
The girl had shown them the room. She had flung open the door of the
closet, and cleverly concealed behind hanging clothes they had found a
telegraph-key on a small shelf. They had pulled out the wires, and found
they led to the magnets in the library. Now they were beginning a
systematic search of the room--and finding nothing. The girl had
evidently told the truth. She, and only she, could have sent the
messages.
“Where did you learn telegraphy?” demanded the chief suddenly.
“I can’t remember when I didn’t have a key to play with,” she answered
coolly. “Father was an expert telegrapher for years, and he taught us
almost before we could read and write.”
“‘Us?’” snapped out the chief.
“My brother and me,” she answered, and the ears of the blind man,
trained to interpret every inflection of tone, caught the sudden forced
note.
“Where is your brother, Miss Nelson?” he asked.
“He died ten years ago, in the tropics,” she answered, and there was a
curious break in her voice.
“And you left the library every night at eight so you could send your
father messages?” asked the chief sarcastically.
“Yes. We did not dare talk because of your spy. And his eyes were never
off my father.”
“Well,” the chief’s tone was even more sarcastic than before, “_you_
might have found an easier way.”
She did not answer, but watched Thornley Colton as he stepped across the
room to the closet. For a minute he poked inside with his cane, moving
the hanging clothes away from the telegraph-instrument. He leaned over
it, and seemed to be examining it intently. There was a frown of
puzzlement on his forehead as he straightened up. It disappeared almost
instantly, and in its place came a look of sudden enlightenment.
“Did you ever smoke South American cigarettes with licorice-pectoral
papers, Miss Nelson?” he asked.
“No, never!” She tried to make the denial indignant, but Colton’s
superkeen ears caught the false note instantly, as did the keen-eyed
chief of the secret service. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but
the blind man forestalled him.
“The next house is built right against this one, isn’t it, chief?”
“Yes, but the crazy Frenchman next door is absolutely above suspicion.
We looked up his whole life’s history. He’s a semi-invalid and nutty. He
has a pet bear; also two servants to take care of the animal.”
“Crazy, eh?” muttered Colton. He hurried across the room, his cane
locating every piece of furniture. He stopped before the bureau, and
leaned forward toward a drawer-pull. An instant he paused, and in that
instant came the betrayal he had hoped to bring from the girl.
“Don’t, please!” She stopped suddenly, biting her lips until the blood
came.
Colton straightened up; his lips set grimly. “Pull out the bureau, and
you’ll find an opening into the house of the crazy Frenchman,” he said.
“What?” The chief jumped across the room, and pulled out the heavy piece
of furniture. Behind it was a jagged hole that a crouching man could go
through with ease.
The two secret-service men jumped through the opening, but the chief
paused. “How did you know that?” he asked wonderingly.
“Because the clothes in the closet held the faint licorice odour of the
pectoral cigarette papers that South Americans affect. Therefore some
man must have been sending those messages. It wasn’t a man in this
house. There had to be an entrance--and I tricked the girl into telling
me that it was concealed behind the bureau. It had to be in this room
because the message-sender wouldn’t risk entering another to get where
the telegraph-key was!”
The girl leaned back against the wall, and a sob came from her lips.
“Oh, why did I ask Ned to find you!” she cried. “Their eyes could have
seen nothing, and you----”
“It was necessary, Miss Nelson!” The gentleness that had been in the
blind man’s voice downstairs was missing now; it was brusque, sharp.
“Better have one of your men remain here, chief,” he said, and there was
no mistaking his meaning. “I’d like to go through that house.”
The chief looked at him curiously; then, with the docility that came to
most men when the blind man advised or ordered, he whistled sharply. One
of the men returned.
“Stay here!” commanded the chief, and he stepped aside as the blind man
bent low and entered the next house. The chief followed.
“What do you know about the occupant here?” Colton asked the chief as he
walked around the room, his thin cane locating furniture again, and
giving his brain a mental picture of the whole chamber.
“He’s lived here for some time. We looked him up from A to Izzard, also
his three servants. About six months ago, it appears, he bought a pet
bear, a nasty beast, and sometimes takes him out. Attracts quite a lot
of attention because the old man wears a huge fur coat that makes him
look like the animal’s big brother.”
“And because every man in your business thinks the crook is always
seeking cover there would be no suspicion of a man who courts attention
by means of keeping a pet bear. Clever game enough to throw any man that
had eyes off the track!”
“Oh, the Frenchman’s on the level,” resented the chief. “He’s getting
worse, failing fast. Anybody can see that. Doctor comes twice a day to
see him.”
“And he comes every night about eight o’clock!” declared Colton
suddenly. “He’s the man that’s been sending those messages. He’s the
chief of the gang you’ve been trying to locate so long. He must be, or
he’d stay here all the time. He has to attend to the outside work while
the men here do the actual counterfeiting. And it was never suspected
because all you could see was a _pet bear_! Look!” He pulled open the
drawer of a dresser. “Here’s a dozen cigarette ends, all of pectoral
paper and Brazilian paper. The doctor smoked them here the times he had
to wait for eight o’clock and the time to talk to Nelson.”
“By Jove! You’re----”
“Hey, chief!” The cry came from downstairs.
“It’s Jim. He’s found something!” The chief started toward the door and
stopped. “Do you want me to guide you?” he asked.
“Go ahead!” Colton said dryly. “My ears will follow your footfalls.”
“This way, chief! Quick!” The voice directed them to the kitchen. The
chief stopped with an ejaculation of amazement at the door.
The secret-service operative who had entered the house first was lifting
an unconscious man from a heavy wooden chair. On the floor were the cut
ropes that had bound him, and the wadded handkerchiefs that had
prevented outcries.
“The Frenchman!” gasped the chief. “He’s got to talk! Lay him down,
Jim!”
The Frenchman groaned feebly as they put him on the floor, and choked
when a pocket flask was held to his lips.
“_Mon Dieu!_” he moaned weakly. Then his dazed brain realised that men
were standing over him. “Pleeze stop! I do nozzing!” he cried
supplicatingly.
“We are friends--gendarmes.” Chief Whittson said the words slowly and
distinctly, so that the man could understand. “Who did this?”
The fear went from the Frenchman’s eyes. “My servants,” he whispered
hoarsely. “Zay have kep’ me prisoner for mont’s; ever since my old
servants go an’ zay come.”
“Damn!” jerked out the chief. “They’ve tricked us right along. We looked
up the old servants’ records, and didn’t suspect for an instant the
impersonation. Where did they go? When?”