“By using the device which ministers at the same time to the vanity
and the necessity of man, the clipping bureau,” I replied. “We will
subscribe to that distributor of special information, and get every
clipping for the last six months that bears upon falling blinds, signs
lost, or stolen iron. They can ransack the files for us, and send us
the result of their labor.”
“Just the trick,” cried Tom enthusiastically. “We’ll go straight to
work on it. Now let’s get out of here.”
Bearing our precious tube of gas, we started back, leaving Swenton to
close the laboratory and follow later. No such delightful wandering was
provided for our return as for our coming. All too soon we were back
at the Savoy with our day’s labor over, ready to follow the new trail
wherever it might lead us.
Two mornings after the eventful day in Heidenmuller’s laboratory, I
knocked at Dorothy’s door, and entered to find the broad table of her
sunny parlor covered with piles of neat clippings, each with a docketed
slip at the top. The clipping bureau had exceeded my best hopes, and
had turned in the information in quantities. Tom and Dorothy were
bending over the piles sorting them, as the maid ushered me in.
“If you hadn’t told them to sort these things at their office, we
should have been swamped beyond all hope of salvation,” grumbled Tom,
as he stood with a bundle of clippings between every finger of both
hands. “Where are the Westminster shutters, Dorothy?”
“Here they are,” said Dorothy. “Now I want the Chelsea signs. It’s just
like solitaire. The signs are my cards. The blinds go to Tom, and you
can take stolen iron. That’s stolen iron, that heap of packets over on
the other side of the table.”
I sat down to my task. Hour after hour passed, and we sorted, read, and
rejected. Now and then a clipping would go aside for further reference.
Occasionally a packet or a single slip would pass from one to another.
Lunch took an hour, but after lunch we turned again to our labors, and
afternoon tea time came and went before we were done. At length Tom
rose and gave a mighty yawn. “Eight that look good,” he remarked.
“Eight from me,” I echoed.
“Ten,” chimed in Dorothy.
“That’s not half bad,” said Tom reflectively. “There were hundreds of
clippings there, and we’ve brought them down pretty low, all things
considered.”
We three dined alone that night, and when the coffee came on, Tom
reached into his pocket and pulled out a long envelope with the
twenty-six clippings. “Which comes first?” he asked, “Signs or blinds
or stolen iron?”
“Match you to decide,” I answered, and I pulled out a sovereign. “I’ll
take signs, you take shutters.” Tom won.
“Shutters against stolen iron then,” cried Dorothy.
“I’ll match you this time,” said Tom. We matched again, and again Tom
won.
“Then one of my eight shutters is the trump card,” exclaimed Tom. “I’ll
number them one to eight, and then pass the bunch around so we can each
pick the two that look like winners. Then I’ll pass the signs to pick a
second choice.”
Dorothy, in her gray gown of shimmering silk, her face flushed with the
excitement of the decision, pored over the little list carefully for
some minutes before she returned them to Tom, who passed them on to
me, remarking briefly, “I made up my mind when I picked the eight out
of the bunch.” Three times over I read the list which told of blinds
dropping on still days and injuring passers-by. Tom had eliminated the
accounts which told of signs and shutters blown off in gales. It might
easily happen that a gale and the escape of the destructive power would
occur simultaneously, but the unusual was the thing we were after;
there, most of all, would lie the clue we sought. At last I came to a
decision and looked up. “One in the first lot and three in the second,”
I said.
“One and three,” echoed Dorothy.
“The same,” said Tom. “Great thing to be unanimous. Read ’em aloud,
Jim.” I obeyed.
“‘A shutter which fell from a house on Gower Street, just off Tottenham
Court Road, struck a passing laborer yesterday morning, and inflicted
injuries of so grave a character that he was immediately removed in an
unconscious condition to the hospital. His identity has not yet been
established.’ That’s number one.”
“‘A large sign which fell from a second story at Chelsea yesterday
broke in pieces on the sidewalk beneath, but fortunately inflicted no
serious injury.’ That’s number three. Which do we choose?”
“Both of those look rather good to me,” answered Tom. “But I think the
one near Tottenham Court Road looks best. The chances of finding the
man’s laboratory would be greater in Bloomsbury than farther out.”
Dorothy nodded her approval.
“All right,” I said, as we rose. “The corps will move upon Bloomsbury
at dawn, under command of General Dorothy Haldane.”
“Dawn being interpreted nine thirty, we will,” answered Dorothy
laughing.
The next morning found us bowling along towards our destination,
discussing meanwhile the method of attack. “Leave it to inspiration,” I
said, as we drew up at the door. “Let me play a lone hand on this.”
Luck was with me. There was a sign of “Lodgings” in the window. Leaping
out I walked up the steps and rang the bell, while the cab went on
down the street. The maid who opened the door was trimmer than I had
expected to find. The mistress of the lodging house, when she appeared,
though a perfect mountain of flesh, gave signs of a very considerable
intelligence. “Yes, there were lodgings. A second and fourth floor
front.” Up the stairs panted and wheezed the stout landlady, while I
followed in her train. On the fourth floor we halted and entered the
small hall bedroom at the top of the stairs. I threw the window open
and leaned out, and looked up and down the street.
“Bad thing if a shutter fell from here,” I said. “Wasn’t it in one of
the houses near this that the shutter fell and injured a laborer a
couple of months ago?”
The landlady seized my lead instantly. “It was the right hand shutter,”
she said, “in the very window you’re looking out of now.”
I bent eagerly to look at the hinges. They were brand new, while those
on the other side were strained and worn through years of exposure to
wind and sun and rain.
“You don’t say,” I replied. “Most interesting. I suppose the hinges
rusted and broke.”
“No,” said the landlady, “that was one of the queerest things about
it. After the whole thing was over, and I came to look at the place
where the shutter fell, there was no trace of a hinge. It must have
pulled right out of the brick, and when I went next day to look at the
shutters in the kitchen, the hinges, screws, and everything were gone,
and I never saw the least trace of them from that day to this. We had
the new shutter put up a week later.”
“What luck!” I thought to myself, as I looked around over the adjoining
housetops. “Hit it first time trying. Somewhere, behind those roofs,
lies the laboratory of the man who is trying to stop all war.” I parted
with the landlady, promising an early decision, and went in search of
Tom and Dorothy.
They left the carriage as I approached and hurried towards me. “The
iron of the shutter disappeared,” I said significantly.
Tom gave the long, low whistle which always typified interest and
surprise to him.
“You think the man’s laboratory is somewhere near here, then,” asked
Dorothy excitedly.
“Judging by Hamerly’s experience with the sign opposite Dr.
Heidenmuller’s laboratory, I certainly do,” I answered seriously. “This
probably happened just as that did.”
“Then,” said Tom, “it’s probably up to us to make a house to house
canvass of the neighborhood. It looks to me as if the chances were
better in one of the buildings on Tottenham Court Road than in any of
the houses round here.”
“That’s right,” I answered briefly. “Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll ask
at every shop if they know of any chemical laboratory. Tell ’em we’re
hunting for a man who works in such a laboratory. Lay it on thick and
give ’em plenty of detail. That’s the way to get the information you
want.”
“I’ll wait for you in the carriage round the corner,” Dorothy called
after us, as we started away.
From bakeshop to dairy, from furniture store to shoe shop, I travelled,
searching for some news of my poor Cousin George, who had worked in a
laboratory somewhere near the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Gower
Street, and who had disappeared. Persistently diplomatic, I forced
my way on, under rebuff after rebuff, leaving no store until I had a
pretty vivid idea of the various occupations which made their home on
every floor of its building. As I left after receiving one particularly
stinging answer, I caught sight of Tom across the street, beckoning. I
followed him at a little distance until he turned a sharp corner into
a little alley. He appeared slightly dishevelled as he turned around.
“See here,” he said abruptly, “I’m afraid we’ll be run in if we keep
this up much longer. I’ve been in one row already. Had to knock a man
down who made caustic remarks about sneak thieves. What have you got
hold of, anyway?”
“Haven’t got hold of a thing,” I responded.
“Well, then,” said Tom, “let’s cast back and take another look at the
topography, just where the shutter fell.”
Back we went over the ground once more, and stopped to examine
cautiously the window with its green blind.
“That’s a fourth story corner room,” said Tom reflectively, “and the
house next to it is only three stories. Why, you blind man,” he went on
suddenly, “only one side of the shutter fell, so the attack couldn’t
have come from the front. It must have come from the back of the house.
Let’s go round and see what is just behind this.”
Round the square we circumnavigated, landing finally at a building some
five stories high, whose first story showed the shelves and cluttered
window of a second-hand book shop. Beside the shop a flight of stairs
led to the upper stories. No sign gave evidence of any business carried
on above the first.
“Here goes for the book shop,” said Tom, and we marched in.
A tall, stooping youth of exaggerated height, with lank and flaming red
moustache, came wearily forward, stifling a cavernous yawn as he came.
We repeated our stock inquiry to him. We were Colonials from Australia
seeking our Cousin George, who worked in a laboratory. Did our friend
with the red moustache know of any laboratory near? A gleam of interest
lighted the slightly watery eyes.
“H’I don’t rightly know w’ether h’it’s h’a laboritory h’or not,” he
began, “but there’s some sort h’of a bloomin’ show h’occupies h’our
’ole fifth. H’I’ve never been h’ible to see h’inside h’it yet. You
might try h’a shot h’at h’it ’owever.”
We received the volley of misplaced aspirates with joyous hearts,
noting the gleam of avid curiosity in the watery eyes, as the clerk
thought of the mysterious laboratory on the top floor. All he could
tell was that the top floor had been let a few months before to a tall
man. With the usual vagueness of his type of mind, that was as far
as he could go. Over and over again he repeated the same indefinite
phrase, a tall man. When the man moved in, a couple of vans had brought
strange furnishings, a small furnace, glassware and instrument cases.
A little while ago an assistant had appeared, a foreigner who knew no
English, or at least refused to understand the language. The two,
the man and his assistant, often worked together till late at night.
Sometimes, the clerk believed, they worked all night. As for him, he
would have repeated the thing to the police. He didn’t believe in
having mysteries like that around, but his master, the proprietor of
the book shop, refused to part with regular paying tenants. Yes, sir,
he’d tried again and again to see what they were doing, but there was
a curtain over the door, and you couldn’t see anything through the
keyhole. The door was always locked, so that the adventurous spirit
of the clerk had to be content with imagining the horrible crimes
perpetrated behind the curtained door.
This certainly looked good. With anxious hearts, Tom and I started up
the stairs in search once more of our Cousin George, halting, however,
at the second story, once the clerk was left safely behind.
“It certainly looks like queer street, anyway,” remarked Tom
reflectively. “It may be the man, or it may be some bunch of
counterfeiters or other criminals. I’m not going to back down for a
minute, but I think one of us had better hunt up Dorothy, tell her
where we are, and have her put the police on the trail, if we shouldn’t
happen to turn up to-night. Strikes me that that would be only an
elementary precaution.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “You watch here.”
Before Tom could object, I was half way down the stairs and out on
the street. On Tottenham Court Road, I found Dorothy driving up and
down. She leaned forward questioningly as I jumped in. I nodded in
answer, “Yes. We’ve got the place, but we need your help now.” Warned
by experience as to its necessity, I had mapped out my line of argument
carefully, as I hurried along. “We have the very place, but we want you
to stay outside and send us help, if we should get into trouble.”
Dorothy’s face fell. “I want to go with you the worst way,” she said.
“Yet I don’t like the idea of you two going into danger without any
outside assistance. What have you found out?”
It was no easy matter to convince her, yet when Dorothy saw the
condition of affairs, there was really nothing she could do but give
in. For us to explore that unknown territory, without some line on
the outside to protect us in case of peril, was manifestly unwise.
Certainly it was not possible for us to let so plain a clue go by.
At my command, the cabman drove past the old book store, up the street,
and round the square. Back on the main thoroughfare again, I made ready
to return and join Tom.
“You’ve got the place fixed clearly in mind?” I asked, looking up at
her from the sidewalk.
To my surprise, Dorothy’s eyes were filled with tears, and her voice
came pleadingly. “I wish you did not feel you had to go. I don’t know
why I feel so strangely about your going, but I do. Isn’t there some
other way out?”
I felt my resolution waning, as an almost overmastering desire to seize
her in my arms, in the face of shocked and respectable Bloomsbury,
swept over me.
“We’ve got to follow the trail to the end, Dorothy,” I answered.
“Everything’s going to be all right, don’t worry.”
As I turned away, I felt a light touch, almost like a caress, on my
coat sleeve. Accident or not, no knight ever went into battle more
inspired by his lady’s gage than I, bearing that accolade, strode
towards the old book shop and the mysterious laboratory on the fifth
floor.
Tom greeted me eagerly as I reached the second story. “Not a sound from
the laboratory,” he began. “And, luck of lucks, there’s an open, empty
room opposite, where we can wait. Come on up.”
Up the stairs and into the empty room we passed, pausing briefly to
examine the blank and heavy door of the mysterious workers fastened by
heavy locks. Our waiting place proved nothing more than a bare attic
chamber, with a constricted view of roofs and chimney pots.
“Not exactly the abode of luxury,” I said, glancing around critically,
“but then it’s all in the day’s work. I’ve waited in worse places for a
lot smaller stakes.”
Folding his great coat for a cushion, Tom seated himself back against
the wall. He had left the door a trace ajar. “I’m practically sure that
there’s no one in there now, and we’ll wait here till they arrive.
We shall be sure to hear them when they come up the stairs. By Jove,
never thought of it. Not a thing to read with us. There’s the book
shop downstairs; I wonder if I dare to try a sortie.” He thought a
moment. “No, not yet, anyway. Tell you what I’ll do. Here’s a sporting
proposition for you.” He pulled out his penknife and opened it. “Here’s
a bully bare floor. I’ll play you a game of stick knife to while away
the time.”
Nobody but an eternal boy like Tom would have conceived of a game of
stick knife to while away the time of waiting before the mystery hidden
by the blank face of the oaken door across the passage. Nobody but an
eternal boy would have won so exasperatingly. Expert in all intricacies
of the art, Tom had far outdistanced me as a knife juggler and I was
lagging far in the rear, when we heard the quiet closing of the door
five stories below. In an instant we were on our feet, waiting for the
ascending heavy footsteps. Tom’s mobile face stiffened into rigid lines
as he crouched, poised beside the door, while I stood ready to swing
the door open, and spring if necessary on the man who came. As the
footsteps halted on the landing before us, Tom bent towards me.
“The assistant,” he whispered, “let him unlock the door and we’ll push
our way in with him.”
Everything happened in the twinkling of an eye. The jingle of keys,
the slight creak of the opening door, then a sudden bound and we
were across the hall and in an anteroom facing a bewildered man,
evidently a Norwegian, whose blond face was framed in flaxen hair and
spade-shaped flaxen beard, and whose somewhat cowlike eyes peered
out from spectacles of massive frame. He was clothed in a queer,
straight-fronted, long, blue sack coat with voluminous, almost
sailor-like trousers. As he saw us standing on either side of him,
he started back for a moment, but then stopped short, his keys still
dangling from his hand.
“Pardon this somewhat sudden entrance,” I said, in my politest tone,
“but we are inspectors to visit the laboratory.”
A flood of unintelligible gutturals followed my statement. This was
accompanied by vehement pointings at the door by which we had entered,
and which was now closed, with Tom before it. I sat on the table
swinging my legs till the torrent passed. Then, as it died away, I
walked boldly to one of the two doors on the opposite side to that
which we entered, tried it, and then tried the other. Both were locked.
Carefully watching the assistant’s face, I pointed first at the keys
still dangling forgotten in his hand, and then pointed at the first
door I had tried, going to it and shaking the lock. To our surprise,
the indignation in the man’s countenance suddenly ceased. A mild
acquiescence shone from behind his glasses and, going forward, he
unlocked the door, opened to a twilight behind and went in. We stumbled
in to the half light, Tom closing the door behind us. As we entered,
I tripped over a chair and fell headlong, throwing Tom, who was
following. As I scrambled to my feet, a guttural laugh rang in my ears
and a door slammed. There was a sound of bolts run home as I dashed
forward, only to come headlong against a closed door. I rushed back to
the door through which we had entered, and shook it in vain, hearing,
to my bitter mortification, a bolt running into its slide as I shook,
a sound followed by another outburst of Northern Teutonic glee. Foiled
on both sides, I wheeled to look about me, and saw Tom already making a
rapid investigation of the premises.
We were in a small room, perhaps ten by twelve, surrounded by blank
walls, save for openings made by the two doors on opposite sides. The
only passage to the outer air was through an iron plate, perhaps nine
inches by three feet, placed in the flat roof. In this were set small
glass bull’s-eyes, of the same type as those used to light basements
from sidewalks. A couple of wooden stools made the only furnishings of
the room. Tom turned to me at the end of his inspection and shook his
head.
“I’ve made many a bad break in my life,” he said regretfully, “but
coming in here after you and closing that door is the worst yet. That
assistant, with his fool face, tricked me completely.”
“Same here,” I answered, “but there’s no use in wasting time talking
about it. If there’s any possible way to do it, we must be out of here
before the man can notify the master.”
“Right,” said Tom. “Let’s try smashing our way out, first, by aid of
these stools.”
In the pause that followed this proposal, we heard the heavy, slow step
of the assistant cross the anteroom, heard the opening and the closing
of the outer door. We were left alone.
“Good,” said Tom, “Now we can make all the noise we want to.”
Suiting the action to the word, he gave a mighty blow to the door with
the wooden stool. The door stood like a rock, but the stool flew to
pieces, the fragments of its seat narrowly missing me as they flew by.
“A well-made door,” said Tom reflectively. “They don’t have doors like
that in most modern houses.”
As he spoke, he crossed the room to examine the door on the opposite
side. “Same staunch build,” he remarked judicially. “We couldn’t be
caged better, outside a prison. I’m rather lighter than you, Jim,”
he went on, “let me get up on your shoulders and try this small roof
window.”
He climbed up, and in a minute or two came down again. “Padlocked with
an iron bar and staple from the outside,” he said briefly. “There’s
just one thing left. To dig our way out with our knives through that
solid oak door. I don’t know, of course, whether we can do it or not,
but I think it’s the only alternative.”
“That’s one way, but not the only one,” I said. “One thing we can do
first, put a signal out for Dorothy.”
“How can you signal Dorothy?” asked Tom.
“Break a hole in one of those glass bull’s-eyes up there,” I answered,
“and put a rung of the broken stool up through, with my handkerchief
tied on it.”
“Good work,” said Tom. “Just the ticket.”
In two minutes our flag of distress was waving on the roof.
“Now for the door,” I cried, and we both set to work on the hard oak
about the lock. British oak is proverbially tough, but that oak was the
toughest that ever came out of Britain’s primeval forests, I verily
believe. When we had worked on it for what seemed an endless time, we
had but a slight furrow on either side of the lock, and two broken
blades to show for our labors. Still we kept doggedly on, chiseling
and cutting, little by little, till some impression really began to be
made. At length Tom straightened up painfully.
“That’s backbreaking work, all right,” he remarked, with a groan. “I
never knew how much I sympathized with escaping prisoners till now.”
As we leaned against the wall, I heard a slight movement outside.
“Hush,” I muttered, “there’s a sound.”
The noise grew louder. It was a key turning in the inside door. Then
not one, but three or four persons, came hurriedly across the floor
towards the door by which we had entered. Tom seized the whole stool
and poised it ready to rush out, while I gripped a rung of the broken
one. The bolt shot back, the key turned, the door swung open, and
there in the rectangle stood Dorothy, Hamerly, the assistant who had
imprisoned us and an unknown elderly man. In a moment Dorothy was in
Tom’s arms, but her hand groped for mine as she clung to him. She
sobbed only for a moment, recovering herself almost as swiftly as she
had broken down.
“Good work, old girl,” said Tom, patting her. “I don’t think, frankly,
that I was ever so glad to see you in all my life.”
As Dorothy, still with a slightly tremulous smile, turned towards me,
Tom gave his hand to Hamerly.
“How in blazes did Dorothy do this trick, anyway?” he asked.
“I saw your signal of distress from the other side of the street,”
broke in Dorothy, “and I drove straight to the Museum for one of our
friends there. I didn’t want to bother with police if I could help it.
I met Mr. Hamerly just where you met him before, on the steps. And just
think, this good man here is the book shop man. We met him as we came
down to the door after trying the place.”
“So you and Hamerly charged the lion’s den alone, did you?” I
interrupted.
“Why, of course,” said Dorothy.
“It’s all due to her,” said Hamerly.
“No, it’s due to the assistant’s getting frightened,” said Dorothy.
“Isn’t it, Mr. Elder?”
“If you’d not been here, Miss Haldane,” said the book store proprietor,
“I never should have known what he was after. I couldn’t make out at
all.”
“What kind of laboratory is this?” I asked, determined not to be thrown
off the scent.
The old man laughed. “I fancy my clerk must have been telling you some
queer things. I’ve never told him all I knew. I don’t mind keeping him
wondering. This is my brother’s laboratory, and as to what he does,
look here!”
He threw open the second door and we gazed in. Sets on sets of false
teeth, boxes of dentist’s supplies and dental machinery met our view. I
suddenly began to laugh. Tom looked at me for a moment and burst into
peal on peal of laughter, while the whole crowd, even the assistant,
who had been gazing anxiously at us meanwhile, finally joined in. At
last, weak with laughter, I asked, “Why did the assistant shut us up?”
“He thought you were burglars,” explained the book shop man, “and as my
brother is out of town, he ran for me. My brother is a little careful
whom he lets in, as he does his main business in another place, and
this is a side affair.”
And so the incident of the false teeth laboratory closed.
The outer air had never seemed so good to me save twice before,--when
I left the New York prison in Tom’s motor car headed for Dorothy,
and when I came up from the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor. I took in
long breaths of it, as we walked towards the carriage and as we drove
towards the hotel. Dorothy sat silent beside Tom, but every now and
then I met her eyes, and they fell. The old look seemed gone. There was
a change, a new and very sweet timidity.
As we entered the hotel, Tom drew a long breath. “A good night’s
sleep,” he said, “and we’ll tackle clipping number three.”
“Agreed,” said I.
“Agreed,” chimed in Dorothy, “provided you’ll take me with you. But I
won’t go through another afternoon like this for anybody.”