“But how was it done?” I repeated. “You think a bomb was thrown through
the open port?”
“Without a doubt. Perhaps, as you guessed, from a boat outside, the
roof of a cruiser, anything, as far as that end of it goes. Whoever did
it might also have entered the room in the same way.”
“Entered the room?” I asked.
“Yes, wearing a mask composed of several layers of gauze impregnated
with glycerinated solution of sodium hypophosphate. That is one of
many substances used. All that was necessary was to wet the mask with
water and adjust it. It would have served a double purpose――to protect
the wearer’s life as well as his identity.”
Amazed at Kennedy’s powers of reconstruction from evidence that looked
so slender, I merely waited for him to proceed.
“Then whoever it was probably rifled his clothes and so obtained the
keys to the building and the office. From the brief-case they must
have extracted the copies of the telautomaton plans. After that it
was a simple matter to throw the body overboard in the hope that the
affair might possibly be covered up as an accident or suicide. In the
course of the night the wind cleared the room of the gas. They did not
reckon, however, on what science can discover――or if they did, cared
little. After that, I suppose, some one went to New York, perhaps in a
high-powered car.”
“Mito couldn’t have gone to New York――and got back again,” I exclaimed,
impulsively, recalling that Mito had been seen ashore that night
without apparent reason.
“Mito may or may not have played his part,” was all that Kennedy would
comment.
He left me wildly speculating. Was Mito a cog in the wheel, of which
Paquita and the gang suspected by Burke were other cogs? Was Shelby
Maddox also a cog, willingly or unwillingly? Could he have got away
from the yacht and got back again? A host of unanswered questions raced
through my mind. But Kennedy had said all that he was prepared to say
now.
“We had better be going,” he remarked, calmly, “if we are to keep that
appointment with Hastings and Burke.”
He was evidently much more interested in what Burke might turn up than
in his own investigation, which was quite natural, for what he had told
me was already an old story to him, and his restless mind craved to be
speeding toward the solution of the mystery.
Half an hour later Kennedy and I entered the office of Hastings. I
looked about curiously. There were, as in many lawyers’ offices, two
private offices for the members of the firm, while outside was a large
room for the clerks, the stenographers, and the telephone girl.
As we were welcomed by Hastings in his own office I wondered what the
walls might have heard. Marshall Maddox and his lawyer must have had
many conferences there during the time that Maddox was planning his
great coup in the munitions company.
“Burke hasn’t arrived yet,” remarked Hastings, nervously. “I’ve been
expecting him any moment. I wonder what is keeping him?”
There was no way of finding out, and we were forced to sit impatiently.
A few moments later we heard hurried footsteps down the hall and Burke
burst in, his face flushed with excitement.
“This thing is devilish,” he exclaimed, looking keenly at Hastings. “I
must be in your class.”
“How’s that? Did some one shoot at you?” queried the lawyer.
“No, but I came within an ace of being poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” we inquired, incredulously.
“Yes. You know I started to find that night watchman. Well, I found
him. He knows nothing――and I think he is telling the truth. But after I
had questioned him I made him admit that sometimes he takes a meal in
the middle of the night. Of course he has to leave the front hall of
the ground floor unguarded to do so. I figured that the robber might
have got in and got away during that time. And I guess I’m right.
“After that I saw the policeman who walks the beat at night. I
thought he was going to prove a better witness. He remembers, under
questioning, seeing a speedster that stopped around the next corner and
was left there standing some time――about the time that the robbery
must have taken place, if I am right. He thought it was strange and
hung about.
“When the fellow who drove the car came back the policeman walked over.
The fellow offered no explanation of leaving his car on the street
at such an hour, except that he had stopped to shift a shoe that had
blown. Then he asked where there was an all-night lunch-room. The
policeman directed him and the fellow thanked him and drove off in that
direction.”
“But the poisoning,” prompted Craig. “How did that happen?”
“I’m coming to it. Well, I thought at once of going to the lunch-room
and inquiring. You see, I thought I might check up both the night
watchman’s story and the cop’s. So I went in and it happened that the
night man was just going to work. I hadn’t had anything to eat since
this morning and I ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I left the
coffee standing on a little table while I talked to the man behind the
counter.
“I found out from him that the night watchman had been there, all
right. But he didn’t remember any one in a speedster. In fact, I hadn’t
expected that he would. I don’t believe the fellow went there.
“Anyhow, when I went to look for my coffee I noticed something on the
lip of the cup. It looked like sugar, and I recollected that I hadn’t
put any sugar in the coffee. Besides, this looked like powdered sugar,
and I wouldn’t have put powdered sugar in when there was lump sugar. I
tasted a bit of it. It was bitter――very bitter. Here’s some of it.”
Kennedy took from Burke a few particles of a white powder which he
had carefully preserved in a piece of paper and began examining the
particles closely.
“There were lots of people coming and going at the lunch-room,” went on
Burke, “but I didn’t pay much attention to any of them.”
Kennedy had placed just a particle of the powder on his tongue, and
was now making a wry face. As he turned toward us he exclaimed,
“Strychnine!”
“See?” nodded Burke, excitedly. “I thought it was some poison. I knew
there was something wrong.”
Burke looked at Kennedy fixedly. There could be no doubt now that we
were watched. Some one was evidently desperate to prevent discovery.
First the attack had been leveled at Hastings. Now it was Burke. Who
would be next? I think we all realized that we were marked, though
none of us said anything at the time.
Burke looked over questioningly at Kennedy.
“I’ve found out how Maddox was killed,” volunteered Craig,
understanding the query implied in his glance.
“Indeed――already?” interrupted Hastings, to whom Kennedy was already
frankly incomprehensible.
“How?” demanded Burke, checking himself in time to protect himself
from setting forth a theory of his own, for Burke was like all other
police detectives――first forming a theory and then seeking facts that
confirmed it.
Eagerly both Burke and Hastings listened as Kennedy repeated briefly
his discoveries of the spectroscopic tests which he had already told me.
“Gassed, by George!” muttered Burke, more puzzled than ever. “I may as
well admit that I thought he had been thrown overboard and drowned.
The shot at Mr. Hastings rather confirmed me in the rough-neck methods
of the criminal. But this burglar’s microphone and the strychnine have
shaken my theory. This fellow is clever beyond anything I had ever
suspected. And to think of his using gas! I tell you, Kennedy, we don’t
know what to expect of criminals these days.”
Burke shook his head sagely. At least he had one saving grace. He
realized his own shortcomings.
“How about the speedster?” reverted Kennedy, passing over the subject,
for both Craig and I had a high regard for Burke, whatever might be his
limitations. “What did the patrolman say the fellow in the speedster
looked like?”
Burke threw up his hands in mock resignation. “As nearly as I could
make out, he looked like a linen duster and a pair of goggles. You know
that kind of cop――doomed always to pound pavements. Why, it might have
been anybody――a woman, for all he knew.”
“I think we’ve been away from Westport long enough,” concluded
Kennedy. “Perhaps our unexpected return may result in something. A
speedster――h’m. At least we can look over the garage of the Harbor
House.”
I remember that I thought the words of little consequence at the
moment. Yet, as it proved, it was a fateful statement made at this time
and place.