Elizabeth looked rather surprised when Bill wandered up to her steps
a second time in one day. But she was a wise little girl, oh, much,
much wiser than her kind, and she said nothing; just greeted him in
her pleasant low voice, and gave Bill the chair she had been sitting
in. If Bill had not been a mere boy, this in itself would have made
him wonder. Elizabeth’s chair faced the De Lorme house. It was
Elizabeth’s silent little sarcasm to offer it to Bill when he was
pretending that he had come to call on her.
And Bill, being a mere boy, did not even notice that Elizabeth had
changed seats, but took her chair and felt lucky to think that he
could have an unobstructed view of the house next door!
In three quarters of an hour, when two spruce looking officers came
up the street, Bill had talked himself to a standstill. He only
wished the man who had said slurring things about his work that
afternoon was about ...
But up the streets at last came the two officers and went up the
steps of the De Lorme house, and rang the bell. Bill stopped trying
to talk.
It seemed a year before the door opened, and then Bill could not see
who was standing within, but he saw the heavy portal suddenly swing
shut, and at that moment both men sprang forward and pressed it open.
With a scuffle they both plunged into the hall, and Bill could stand
no more. Again Elizabeth found herself alone.
Bill leaped across the lawn and was close on the detectives’ heels
when they closed on Mr. De Lorme. But that gentleman was not yet in
their grasp. With the quickness of a trained athlete, he sprang into
the parlor and stood with a table between them.
“What does this intrusion mean?” he asked harshly. “Are you drunk?
Have you mistaken the house?”
“Neither!” said the Major. “We are here to arrest you. Better come
quietly. It will be better for you in the end.”
“Arrest me?” said Mr. De Lorme, smiling. “Arrest me for what? Why
should you arrest an old and harmless student like myself?”
“You know why,” said the Captain bitterly. “Don’t try to escape! If
you are curious, we can tell you where your dynamite is hidden, and
where your accomplices in this city are located. Come, step up here,
and get these bracelets on. Why, we know you! It is nearly the
thirteenth, and you are known as ‘The Avenger.’ Does that convince
you?”
He took a step forward, and De Lorme found himself looking into the
muzzle of a revolver.
With a queer, nervous motion, he fussed with his watch chain for a
moment, then clapping his hand over his mouth, dropped into a chair.
He looked at the men strangely, his face twitched, and his
outstretched legs jerked for a moment. Then he straightened up and
laughed aloud, a jeering, sneering laugh, looking from one to the
other, and past the men at Bill, whose flesh crept at that sardonic
sound. Then his head dropped, bobbed queerly, and both men sprang to
his side, crying “Poison!”
De Lorme was dead.
The body slid to the floor and lay there crumpled up. The glasses
fell from the staring eyes; a bit of white powder lay on the sneering
lips.
“As quick as that,” said the Major bitterly. “I never thought he
would try that!”
“He--he’s dead!” gasped Bill, shuddering as he looked at death, death
that is meant to be peaceful and lovely, lying there in its most
unlovely form, a man dead by his own hand.
“Yes, he is dead,” said the Captain. “He will wait for us now, I
reckon. Where is the other one, do you suppose?”
“Zip?” asked Bill. “Upstairs probably.”
The three walked out into the hall and turned toward the stairs just
as a door above opened, and Zip appeared at the head of the flight.
He took one glance at three faces below and instantly a flash of
flame leaped at them; he had fired from his hip. An answering flame
from the Major’s revolver, and Zip’s right arm hung useless.
“It is all up!” said the Major. “Come down here and take your
medicine!”
Groaning, Zip descended the stairs, holding his uninjured hand above
his head. The detectives shoved him into a chair, shackled his
ankles and handcuffed the well arm to the back of the chair. He was
unable to move if he had wished to do so, and sat shivering a little
as he stared at the form of his former employer on the floor.
“You will get the electric chair, I suppose,” said the Major, “and
the man on the floor, who deserves it as much or more than you do,
has escaped it.”
Zip quite suddenly and horribly commenced to cry.
“Stop that snivelling,” finally commanded the Major.
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the prisoner. “I shall not go to the electric
chair! I shall turn state’s evidence. I shall tell all!”
“You can commence right off then,” said the detective, and turning to
Bill, asked, “Where is your brother?”
“Here!” said Frank from the hall, where he too had been a witness to
the encounter.
“You know shorthand, don’t you? Take down whatever he says.”
Frank whipped out a notebook and pencil, and Zip, staring at his
captor, asked with chattering teeth, “What do you want me to say?”
“Tell all about everything!”
“Then shall I go free?” begged the man.
“I will do all I can for you,” the Major promised. “Go on!”
“We made it here ... the dynamite .. and those infernal machines
that went through the mails. They were an invention of Mr. De
Lorme’s.” He glanced shudderingly at the dead man. “They were very
powerful. One would blow a house up easily. We made them all. The
cases were cylinders of brass, and the top was screwed on. They
never failed unless they were wet. Water spoiled them. We could
never invent a top that could be screwed on easily enough not to send
the blast off and that yet was tight enough so water would not enter.
Otherwise they were perfect.
“Mr. De Lorme stored the infernal machines and the dynamite in small
cases in a cave out at the Camp at Knox. No one would think to look
for anything of _that_ sort right in the bounds of a military camp.
We had friends, members of our Order, who came in and took the stuff
out there.
“They are preparing for a great dynamite plot on the thirteenth. All
the material out there will be taken away and distributed, and all
the public buildings in many cities will be destroyed. But you will
let me go, and I will tell you where it is.”
“You needn’t trouble about that,” said the detective. “We know.
What did you use that wireless for?”
“We did all our communicating by means of wireless,” said Zip. “We
have a network of plants all over the city and throughout the country
so we can use one short circuit after another, and communicate from
sea to sea.
“It was too dangerous ever to write, and still more so to telephone.
No one knew that our wireless was anything more than a lot of boys
talking. A great many boys have little wireless plants.”
“What about this boy Marion that De Lorme has been calling his son?
And what about his blindness?”
“The blindness was his safeguard. Everyone who saw him thought him
half helpless. It was for that reason that he made Marion make
friends all over the neighborhood. The ladies around here sent him
jellies and good things, because they like the boy, and are sorry for
his father. Not a soul suspected us. I don’t see how you got on.”
The detective smiled, but said nothing. Zip went on.
“About Marion; he is Mr. De Lorme’s stepson. Mr. De Lorme married
Marion’s mother when he was only a baby. She died soon, and the boy
has been a care and a drag, and yet a great safeguard. We have
travelled widely, and everywhere the boy has made friends, and people
have pitied him because of his half blind father and his apparent
loneliness. The boy was never abused, although Mr. De Lorme hated
him. And he was getting beyond us. He did not tell what his
pursuits were, or where he spent his time. Then all at once he heard
the hidden wireless in my room, and answered it. And Mr. De Lorme
put him up in the attic, and told me to get rid of him.”
“How?” asked the detective, his steely eyes hypnotizing the man into
the truth.
“He ordered me to kill him,” said Zip. “I couldn’t do that. I
couldn’t harm anyone.”
“Why, you fool!” exclaimed the Major. “Wouldn’t harm anyone? What
do you think happened when your infernal machines exploded in San
Francisco, in Detroit, in Newark, and Syracuse and New York?”
“That is different,” said Zip. “That is part of our creed. It must
be for the good of humanity.”
“Of course!” said the Captain bitterly. “Well, go on! Did you
finally accept the boy as part of your creed, and kill him?”
“No,” said Zip. “He escaped. A fellow up the street here saw him
going into the L. & N. Station. I suppose he found out the address
of a relative in the Blue Grass country and has gone down there.”
“If he is not up in an airplane headed for Louisville,” said the
Major, “he is now sitting on or near a pile of dynamite in a cave out
at Camp Knox.”
Zip paled. “So he--why--how--” he said and stuttering, stopped.
“What about the plot for the thirteenth?” the detective demanded.
Zip turned sullen. “I have said enough,” he muttered.
“Enough to electrocute you all right,” the detective agreed. “But
not enough to save your life.”
It galvanized the man into speech. “I will tell you!” he babbled.
“Be sure to put it all down!
“We have been preparing for a great stand here in America. The time
is ripe for the overthrow of the Government and all in power. Sixty
thousand anarchists have come to this conclusion.”
“Do tell!” murmured the detective.
“These men and women, devoted to their Cause, are stationed all over
the United States, and from several stations like ours explosives are
to be distributed. Then, at a busy hour, eleven A.M. on the
thirteenth, as though struck by a single blow, these bombs and
delicate infernal machines will explode.”
“Aunt _Merriar_!” whispered Frank as his pencil flew over the paper.
“I would like to see about sixty thousand electrocutions done Dutch.”
The Captain looked at him questioningly. He did not understand; but
Zip was speaking.
“Mr. De Lorme was the greatest chemist of them all; and aside from
the fact that we could never manage to make the infernal machines
waterproof, he invented a number of ingenious and deadly toys. They
were all to be used on the thirteenth. He used to send prescriptions
all over; formulas for the lesser men to pattern after.”
“I want the names of all these men, their workshops, and also a list
of as many anarchists as you have,” said the Major.
“Not that,” Zip said. “I can’t be a traitor!”
“You’re one already!” and the detective shoved his revolver hard into
Zip’s meager stomach.
“Take that away!” he gasped. “Let me say what you want, and for
mercy’s sake get me a doctor! My arm is killing me. The lists,
complete to date, with names of the inner circles, and the addresses
of the men who were to handle and distribute the bombs, are on a
typewritten memorandum under the marble top of the stand in my room.”
The detective turned. “Go up and see if he is telling the truth,
Bill,” he ordered.
Keeping as far away from the dead man on the floor as he could, Bill
left the room and hurried up the stairs. There was only one room
with a marble top table and, lifting the slab, Bill found several
typewritten sheets fastened together. These he carried to the
detective, who glanced at them, placed them carefully in his pocket
and asked, “Is there a telephone here in the house?”
“No,” said Zip.
“You know the people next door,” said the detective, smiling
meaningly at Bill. “Perhaps the young lady will allow you to call up
the police station. Tell them S. S. Detective Harris wants a patrol
and six officers sent here. And the ambulance. Say there is a dead
man here.”
Elizabeth still sat on the porch rocking. She rose when Bill came
leaping up the steps.
“What is going on, Bill?” she demanded. “I heard a pistol. What has
happened?”
“Lots of things!” said Bill, tantalizingly. And then he added
hastily, if importantly, “Tell you all about it soon as I can! A
Government affair we are mixed up in. Let me use your telephone,
will you?”
While he was getting central, Elizabeth murmured, “Government affair
indeed! Well, I reckon you will tell all about it, Bill Wolfe!”
The ambulance arrived first, and the dead man, decently covered and
laid on a stretcher, was carried through the crowd that had assembled
about the door and hurried away.
Then the patrol thundered up, and Zip, still shackled, was carried
out and placed in it. Stationing a policeman at the front and
another at the back of the house and calling, “See you later!” to
Bill, the detectives and Frank got into the patrol and went rattling
down the street.
Bill heard a voice; a determined, quiet voice at his elbow. “Now,
Bill Wolfe, what is it all about?” said Elizabeth.