about the factory, the niece led the way through the building. Although
this was four stories high, all the stairways and elevators stopped
at the third floor. The private laboratories on the top floor were
never entered by any one but Torreton and his niece, who went there
daily, drawing themselves up by an ingenious contrivance like a dumb
waiter built into the wall and concealed behind a panel in the private
secretary's office. To this she now went, and under her direction the
others ascended one at a time to the floor above. The laboratory was in
darkness, and the electric light would not work. But as they approached
the door of the vault by lantern light, strange noises were heard.
Tremblingly the girl worked the combination and released the heavy
door. Torreton was there and alive, and without speaking he stumbled
blindly toward the light, and then fell unconscious.
Before closing the vault again, the niece looked wonderingly in. Burned
matches and paper ashes attracted her attention. They lay on the floor,
beneath the electric light bracket. On a shelf lay a note hastily
scrawled on a Joy Drop wrapper:
"Locked in--suffocating. Secret shall die with me. Have burned the
formula. Wife has enough--she shall not be persecuted as I have
been. Good-bye."
Beneath this was written:
"A thought has come to me that may save my life: _I shall try to give
the alarm by cutting the electric wires and putting out the cupola
light_."
He had indeed given the alarm in time to save his life, but his mind
became a complete blank. The Torreton Joy Drops disappeared from
the market, and the light in the cupola of the deserted works has
never been relighted. Finally, even the family residence was given
to the city for a hospital, but it was not until after the extensive
greenhouses had been dismantled and their treasures scattered that
it was suggested that they might have held the secret of the famous
sweetmeat. That secret, with its possibilities, lies hopelessly buried
in the darkened brain of Walter Torreton.
And it is darkness alone that disturbs him now. It was observed from
the beginning of the attempts to treat his remarkable case that he
displayed the utmost repugnance to darkness, and grew nervous, uneasy
and wild as twilight came on. He is happy only in a glare of light, and
it was upon the advice of an eminent Parisian specialist that he was
finally removed to the beautiful California valley, where he lives,
day and night, in a flood of radiance. His mind slipped a cog, the
specialist says, which may slip back again, just as a train that has
jumped the track may jump back--but it is one chance in a million.
DOODLE'S DISCOVERY
John Jefferson Doodle derived a large amount of pleasure from the
knowledge that he was considered a crank. In Doodle's opinion cranks
were persons who, knowing the right way, refused to have things done
in any other. John Jefferson demanded full value for his own money
and persisted in giving the same in return for the money of others.
Business back-steps, fool fakery, and lame excuses were foreign to his
methods, so when he opened his restaurant success was assured. Doodle's
was the most up-to-date café in the entire eating zone. The food,
service and appointments were of the best, and from the opening day the
future prosperity of Doodle was something that a fifth-rate prophet
could foretell without running the risk of a headache.
But Doodle's Café was in the direct line of a trouble cyclone. In the
washrooms connected with the establishment the proprietor supplied the
finest toilet soap that money could buy, but unfortunately for the
peace of mind of John Jefferson he was called upon to supply much more
than legitimate demands required. Expensive soap proved a tempting bait
to unprincipled patrons, and Doodle soon discovered that something like
forty dollars' worth of soap was required to meet the daily demands of
his six hundred patrons. Legitimate hand-washing could not possibly be
responsible for this enormous outlay, so Doodle set his brain the task
of devising a plan by which the thieves could be detected.
As all the world knows, various ingenious schemes have been tried
with the object of protecting the soap in the washrooms of hotels
and restaurants. The cakes have been chained to the wash-stands, for
example, only to be cut away by well-to-do people who take things
as they come. Again, hotel proprietors have put up liquid soap in
fixed contrivances, but the kleptomaniacs outwitted the vigilance of
the worried owners. The soap was carried away in bottles, and the
unfortunate proprietors, finding it impossible to circumvent the
ingenuity of the thieves, furnished common soap in large quantities as
the only means of lessening their loss.
But Doodle continued to buy the finest toilet soap that was on the
market, and he was determined that no thief would make him change his
methods. On this account he set his wits to work and Doodle's Soap
Thief Detector was the result.
The café owner was in rapture over his invention. Its ability to do all
that he claimed for it was beyond question. He had it patented, fitted
to the wash-stands, and then awaited results.
The Detector was a simple contrivance. It consisted of a small
kodak-like arrangement concealed behind the mirror that hung above each
washbowl, the eye of the camera being hidden among the electric light
fixtures. The picture-taking device was connected with the soap tray in
such a manner that a person lifting the soap relieved the pressure upon
a button in the bottom of the tray and was by this means immediately
photographed by the unseen instrument. When the soap was replaced a
self-developing film was moved up in readiness to snap the next person
who lifted the tablet, but if it was not replaced the photographic
apparatus stopped working and the picture of the soap thief was,
therefore, the last on the film.
Doodle gave orders to his staff to immediately report to him when
they found a cake of soap missing from its tray, and on the first
day he waited anxiously. John Jefferson had philanthropic ideas and
he considered the exposure of a soap thief an act for the benefit
of the community. He had not long to wait. Dinner had scarcely
begun when a cake of soap was reported missing and the proprietor
immediately stepped to the washroom and took the film from its place of
concealment. The last snapshot was that of a well-dressed middle-aged
man, and Doodle, with the long film in his hand, walked down the big
dining-room in search of the original. At the very last table he found
his man, and, leaning over, addressed him.
"Pardon me," he said, quietly, touching an overcoat that hung near the
customer, "is this your overcoat?"
The diner nodded.
"Then," continued John Jefferson, "will you kindly take out of the
pocket the cake of soap you took from the wash-stand a few moments ago?"
The accused man grew red in the face and indignant, but Doodle was
persistent.
"Very well," he said, when the customer refused to comply with the
request, "I will take it out myself. It belongs to me."
He inserted his hand in the pocket of the overcoat and drew forth the
missing soap wrapped in one of the small hand towels also belonging to
the establishment.
"As I thought," commented Doodle. "A wet piece of soap calls for a dry
wrapper, and I suffer doubly. Now, sir, you had better keep quiet. I
have the picture of the fellow who took the soap, and that picture is
yours." He pushed the film before the eyes of the astonished diner and
that person immediately grabbed his hat and coat, paid his check, and
fled.
The Thief Detector did good work on its first day. Twenty-seven
prominent citizens were among those detected, and the machine finished
up the day's work by photographing the mayor of the city, who was
accompanied by three ladies. The official blustered when Doodle made
the accusation, but, like the others, was forced into a corner when
confronted with the tell-tale film, and he drew a cake of soap from his
pocket when the proprietor threatened to call an officer.
In ten days Doodle had recovered thirteen hundred and eleven cakes of
soap, or, more correctly speaking, he had recovered several cakes
thirteen hundred and eleven times from the same number of soap thieves,
who were ignorant of the fact that their theft had been recorded by the
unseen instrument. And in no single instance had the Detector made a
mistake.
But Doodle found that the detection of soap thieves was a costly
business. The thirteen hundred and eleven customers detected in the
act of purloining the cakes of soap did not return, and each day made
matters worse. The Detector's average decreased as the patrons fell
away, but each day it scored its victims.
And Doodle was determined. He had made up his mind that he would not
allow a man who paid seventy-five cents for a dinner to carry off forty
cents' worth of soap, and the moment the machine registered a thief
John Jefferson lost no time in making the accusation and recovering
the stolen property.
On the twenty-fifth day after the installation of the invention Doodle
had but ten customers to dinner, and before the meal was over John
Jefferson Doodle retired to his office, and throwing himself into a
chair spent some two hours in considering the situation. He then arose
and acted with sudden energy. He dictated a lengthy telegram and after
seeing that it was immediately dispatched, he drafted a circular and
had it typewritten. Then, with a satisfied expression upon his face, he
sat down and awaited events.
And he had not long to wait. Two hours after the dispatch of the wire a
fat man walked into the dining-rooms and asked for the proprietor. John
Jefferson inclined his head and motioned the stranger to a seat.
"I am the president of the International Toilet Soap Trust," said the
newcomer eagerly, "and I came in response to your peculiar telegram. It
is a trifle vague, and we want more information regarding the matter
you mentioned."
John Jefferson Doodle stood up, and without speaking led the way to the
washroom. With a grim smile upon his face he explained the mechanism of
the Soap Thief Detector to the president of the International Toilet
Soap Trust, and the fat man breathed heavily.
"There is nothing vague about this," sneered Doodle. "What I wired you
is the truth. Nine out of every ten people who steal soap from hotels
and restaurants never buy toilet soap. Therefore, the more thieving the
more soap you will sell us, and it stands to reason that you do not
wish the Thief Detector to come into general use."
"Into general use?" queried the visitor.
"Yes," snapped Doodle. "I'm going to have this circular printed, which
tells the whole story in plain language. If every hotel, café, and
boarding-house uses one--but, there, read it, and then I'll talk terms
with you."
The president of the International Toilet Soap Trust leaned back in his
chair and read the document, then he did some rapid figuring on the
back of an envelope.
"What are your terms?" he asked sullenly.
"A quarter of a million for all rights," cried Doodle. "If you don't
want it I guess that every member of the Hotel, Restaurant and Boarding
House Union will feel glad when they get my circular. There are over
two hundred thousand members, and the trifling sum of five dollars a
head will yield me over a million."
The other stood silent for a moment, regarding the face of John
Jefferson with his keen gray eyes.
"I couldn't do it on my own responsibility," he said at last.
"Get busy on the long-distance 'phone," suggested Doodle. "Call a
special meeting of directors and explain matters, and I'll await the
decision. If your people don't buy, I'll promise you that the Great
Soap Thief Detector will be known from Mindanao to Baffin's Bay inside
three months."
Three hours afterwards the fat man returned, and picking up a pen he
wrote a check in favor of Doodle for two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, which he exchanged for a deed, conveying all rights in the
Detector. He then stepped into the washroom, tore the picture machine
from its hiding place, disconnected the wires leading to the soap
tray, and ripped the film into a thousand pieces.
"I've seen enough of that thing," he growled angrily. "'Cleanliness is
next to Godliness,' and the man who stops another man from stealing
soap is running pretty near the sin line, I take it."
Then, with a final snort of disgust, he went out into the street, and
the doors of Doodle's Famous Dining-rooms were closed. Doodle the Crank
was happy and--rich.
KOOTCHIE
The east wind had failed to put in an appearance that evening, and the
thermometer registered ninety-five under the stately elms of the Boston
Common.
The family had gone away for the summer, and Buttons and the butler
were out for an airing. Both were so well fed and so little exercised
that they needed something to stir their blood.
Buttons was a sleek, fat pug, with a knowing eye and oily manner. They
called him Buttons because the harness he wore about his forequarters
was studded with shining ornaments.
His companion was likewise sleek and fat, and the amount of lofty
dignity he stored under his bobtailed jacket and broadcloth trousers
told everybody that he was the butler. He carried a wicked little cane
with a loaded head, and seemed to own the greater part of the earth.
As the two strolled proudly through the Beacon Street Mall, fate
favored Buttons and the butler. There was a cat on the Common,--a pet
cat without an escort. This cat belonged to one of the wealthy families
who at the tail end of winter board up their city residences and go to
the country to spend the summer and save their taxes. The owners of
this particular cat had speeded missionaries to the four corners of the
globe to evangelize the heathen, but their pet puss they had turned
into the streets of the modern Athens to seek its own salvation. With
no home or visible means of support, but with true feline fortitude,
the dumb creature now haunted the doorstep of the deserted mansion
and grew thin. Hunger had at last driven her to the Common in the hope
that she might surprise an erring sparrow, or, perchance, purloin a
forgetful frog from the pond.
The instant Buttons spied her he gave chase and drove her for refuge
into a small tree. Then he stood below and barked furiously, until
the sympathizing butler shook the tree and gave him another chance.
This time the cat barely succeeded in reaching a low perch on the iron
fence, from which with terrified gaze she watched her tormentor.
"Why do you torture that cat?" angrily asked a quiet gentleman who sat
on one of the shady benches holding a yellow-haired little girl on his
knee.
"Oh, me and Buttons is having a little fun," answered the butler.
"Buttons is death on cats."
The quiet man said nothing, but got up, helped the frightened cat to
escape to a safe hiding place, and then resumed his seat.
That night puss went to bed without a supper, while her owner presided
at the one hundred and eleventh seaside anniversary of the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and punctuated the courses of a
fish dinner with rare vintages of missionary port.
The next evening the same heat hung heavily over the Beacon Street
Mall, and Buttons and the butler were again taking an airing and
looking for fun.
As Buttons neared the scene of his former encounter, he pricked up his
ears, and sniffed the air for the scent of game. Presently his anxious
eye was attracted by something his pug nose had failed to detect. On a
bench near by sat the quiet gentleman whose acquaintance Buttons and
the butler had made on the previous evening. The same yellow-haired
little girl was seated near him, intently watching the rings of cigar
smoke he puffed high into the evening air. Between the two a huge
inflated paper bag was surging to and fro. It was this paper bag that
had caught the eye of Buttons. It interested him. Drawing himself all
up in a heap, he proceeded with cautious, measured step to satisfy his
curiosity. As he slowly approached the curious object, his low, fretful
growls seemed to rouse it to renewed gymnastics. This frightened
Buttons and caused him to turn tail and flee. His curiosity had,
however, got the better of him, and, returning to what he deemed a safe
distance, he began barking furiously.
"Cat, Buttons, where's the cat?" came from the butler, who was
leisurely bringing up the rear, unconscious of Buttons's find.
With renewed courage, the pug rushed towards the paper bag. He had
almost reached it when the quiet gentleman gave the bag an opening
twist, and, as a furry head with a pair of fiery eyes shot out, he
exclaimed:
"Hi, hi, Kootchie!"
The earnestness with which Kootchie "hi, hied" became instantly
apparent by the piteous howls that rose from out of the murderous
clawing, snarling mass of flying fur and silver ornaments. And the
speed with which Buttons's companion hastened to the rescue with his
loaded cane proved that even a Boston butler can get a move on. Before
he could interfere, however, the quiet gentleman took a hand in the
game.
"Stand back," he demanded, in tones that showed he would brook no
interference. "Buttons is death on cats. Kootchie is death on pugs. You
like fun. I like fair play."
In less than twenty seconds a crowd of loungers, newsboys, nurse-girls,
and pedestrians hurried to the scene. In the confusion somebody
thoughtfully told a policeman to ring for the "hurry-up" wagon. But
before it arrived the butler was permitted to carry home in his arms
what there was left of Buttons.
"Beat it, der cop!" shouted a newsboy, as the butler picked up his
limp and disfigured companion. And, as the crowd scattered, every one
was amused to see a fine, gray, stumpy-tailed cat make its way to the
yellow-haired little maid on the bench.
As the latter lovingly stroked her shining coat she remarked proudly,
"Kootchie is my little pussy tat. Papa say, 'Kootchie, put Buttons to
sleep.'"
And the policeman winked with ghoulish satisfaction when the father
spoke up, "Kootchie is a nine-jointed cyclone. She's a young California
wild cat a friend in Tiger Valley sent me. I'm fond of pets, you know,
and as she felt a bit homesick this evening I brought her out here for
an airing."
HER EYES, YOUR HONOR
"The witness is yours."
As the prosecuting attorney sat down, the spectators craned their
necks and eagerly leaned forward. Every one expected a merciless
cross-examination, as the reputation of the young lawyer, who had been
brought two hundred miles to defend the prisoner, had preceded him. And
though Delos McWhorter had thus far taken no part in the proceedings,
he was the most conspicuous figure in the great trial. One person alone
rivaled him,--the mysterious woman who stood at the bar, charged with
murder. The hush that fell upon the packed court room as the man slowly
rose to his feet resembled the awful silence with which the death
sentence is awaited. As he stood silent and irresolute for a moment,
the color rising to his plain, youthful face, his fingers nervously
fumbling with a pencil, the spectators were conscious of a feeling of
disappointment.
With almost boyish embarrassment, his eye sought that of the presiding
judge; next he scanned the faces of the jury, and then, turning to the
witness, in a voice at once gentle, sarcastic, and magnetic, he began:
"Mr. Slade, I will trouble you to look once more very carefully at the
prisoner. Perhaps she will rise that you may see her better. You have
testified that shortly before eight on the night of the murder you saw
this woman enter the apartment house of which you are the janitor, and
in which the body of Charlotte Ames was found. Now, I would like to
have you tell the jury just what it was in the appearance of the woman
you say you then saw that enables you to swear to-day that she and the
prisoner are one and the same person."
The witness, fearing a trap, hesitated, and nervously eyed the lawyer.
"I would like you to tell us," calmly continued the questioner,
"whether you took such particular notice of her height, her face, her
complexion, her hair, her nose, and her teeth during the few moments
that you say you saw her in the dimly lighted hallway, four months ago,
as to enable you to swear to-day that you cannot be mistaken. Was it
her size, her apparent age, perhaps, or the color of her hair, or what?"
"It was her looks," answered the witness, squirming in his seat. "It's
the same woman."
"Yes, her looks; but I must trouble you to answer my question so that
the jury may have the whole truth before they are asked to send any one
to the gallows. Remember, Mr. Slade, you are under oath. Now tell us,
what was it?"
"We object," came from the prosecuting attorney as he sprang to his
feet. "We object, your honor, to this attempt to intimidate the
witness."
Before the court could pass upon the objection, the witness, turning
from his questioner to the court, exclaimed half defiantly:
"It was her eyes, your honor!"
"That is all," came from the lawyer for the defence, as he resumed his
seat; and the spectators relaxed into a condition of restlessness that
clearly showed their further disappointment.
Each of the succeeding witnesses declared without hesitation that the
prisoner was the woman they had seen near the scene of the murder,
either just before or shortly after the deed was discovered. As one
after the other was dismissed by the defence, upon insisting under
cross-examination that he could not possibly be mistaken, the faces
of the government counsel beamed with satisfaction, while those of
the spectators assumed the blankness of mystification. What was the
strange lawyer there for? they whispered among themselves, and many
turned toward the prisoner as though to ascertain whether she realized
how surely her life was being sworn away. In his opening address the
prosecuting attorney had said:
"On the second day of last November, a woman residing in this town,
young, rich, and notorious for her gay and reckless career, was found
murdered in her bed at half past eight at night. Everything about
the room was in perfect order. There had been no robbery, and the
instrument used was found in her breast, where it had been driven to
the heart. It was a gold ornament, such as a woman wears in her hair.
"We shall not attempt to defend the character of the dead woman, but we
shall ask that justice be done.
"It is true that many a woman in this town had good reason to wish the
murdered woman ill. It is true that there are men in the community who
might have been driven by desperate hate, desperate love, or desperate
jealousy, to do the deed, but, fortunately, before cruel suspicion
made any blunder of that sort the police discovered the criminal.
Almost simultaneously with the rumors of the murder came the reports
of a mysterious woman found leaving the city. Within twelve hours this
woman, who now stands at the bar, had been identified by no less than
four people, who saw her in the vicinity of the scene of the crime
either before or after it was committed.
"No one knew her. She refused to give any account of herself. She
appeared to be in a state of great nervous excitement. The government
will show that she entered the house shortly before the murder was
committed; that she left it a few minutes after the deed was done; that
on the very day of the murder she had high words with the dead woman,
and that the instrument with which the deed was done was such an one as
the prisoner was known to possess. Gentlemen of the jury," he concluded
dramatically, "Fate plays no tricks of that sort. Fate fashions no such
chain of circumstantial evidence as that which establishes the guilt of
this woman and upon which we ask her conviction."
These were his words, and now that the janitor had testified that he
saw the prisoner enter the building, a patrolman had declared that
he saw her leaving it within fifteen minutes before the crime was
discovered, and the dead woman's coachman had sworn to having overheard
the prisoner using threatening language to his mistress,--after this
and other circumstantial evidence had gone before the jury and remained
unshaken by cross-examination, the prosecution announced that the case
for the government was in.