fear," he murmured. "The truth is what will benefit the company,
all right. She did it."
The Branford estate lay some distance back from the railroad station,
so that, although it took longer to go by automobile than by train,
the car made us independent of the rather fitful night train service
and the local cabmen.
We found the house not deserted by the servants, but subdued. The
body of the maid had been removed to a local morgue, and a police
officer was patrolling the grounds, though of what use that could be
I was at a loss to understand.
Kennedy was chiefly interested in the safe. It was of the so-called
"burglar-proof" variety, spherical in shape, and looking for all
the world like a miniature piece of electrical machinery.
"I doubt if anything could have withstood such savage treatment as
has been given to this safe," remarked Craig as he concluded a
cursory examination of it. "It shows great resistance to high
explosives, chiefly, I believe, as a result of its rounded shape.
But nothing could stand up against such continued assaults."
He continued to examine the safe while we stood idly by. "I like
to reconstruct my cases in my own mind," explained Kennedy, as he
took his time in the examination. "Now, this fellow must have
stripped the safe of all the outer trimmings. His next move was
to make a dent in the manganese surface across the joint where the
door fits the body. That must have taken a good many minutes
of husky work. In fact, I don't see how he could have done it
without a sledge-hammer and a hot chisel. Still, he did it and
then -"
"But the maid," interposed Maloney. "She was in the house. She
would have heard and given an alarm."
For answer, Craig simply went to a bay-window and raised the curtain.
Pointing to the lights of the next house, far down the road, he said,
"I'll buy the best cigars in the state if you can make them hear you
on a blustery night like last night. No, she probably did scream.
Either at this point, or at the very start, the burglar must have
chloroformed her. I don't see any other way to explain it. I doubt
if he expected such a tough proposition as he found in this safe, but
he was evidently prepared to carry it through, now that he was here
and had such an unexpectedly clear field, except for the maid. He
simply got her out of the way, or his confederates did - in the
easiest possible way, poor girl."
Returning to the safe, he continued: "Well, anyhow, he made a furrow
perhaps an inch and a half long and a quarter of an inch wide and, I
should say, not over an eighth of an inch deep. Then he commenced
to burgle in earnest. Under the dent he made a sort of little cup
of red clay and poured in the 'soup' - the nitroglycerin - so that
it would run into the depression. Then he exploded it in the regular
way with a battery and a fulminate cap. I doubt if it did much more
than discolour the metal at first. Still, with the true persistency
of his kind, he probably repeated the dose, using more and more of
the 'soup' until the joint was stretched a little, and more of an
opening made so that the 'soup' could run in.
"Again and again he must have repeated and increased the charges.
Perhaps he used two or three cups at a time. By this time the
outer door must have been stretched so as to make it easy to
introduce the explosive. No doubt he was able to use ten or twelve
ounces of the stuff at a charge. It must have been more like
target-practice than safe-blowing. But the chance doesn't often
come - an empty house and plenty of time. Finally the door must
have bulged a fraction of an inch or so, and then a good big charge
and the outer portion was ripped off and the safe turned over.
There was still two or three inches of manganese steel protecting
the contents, wedged in so tight that it must have seemed that
nothing could budge it. But he must have kept at it until we have
the wreck that we see here," and Kennedy kicked the safe with his
foot as he finished.
Blake was all attention by this time, while Maloney gasped, "If I
was in the safe-cracking business, I'd make you the head of the
firm."
"And now," said Craig, "let us go back to New York and see if we
can find Mrs. Branford."
"Of course you understand," explained Blake as we were speeding
back, "that most of these cases of fake robberies are among small
people, many of them on the East Side among little jewellers or
other tradesmen. Still, they are not limited to any one class.
Indeed, it is easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit
in the midst of finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring
halo of moral rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances.
Too often, I'm afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved
burglary and paid the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's
a case where we considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are
mistaken. It's the last straw."
Our interview with Mrs. Branford was about as awkward an undertaking
as I have ever been concerned with. Imagine yourself forced to
question a perfectly stunning woman, who was suspected of plotting
so daring a deed and knew that you suspected her. Resentment was no
name for her feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by
what must have been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power
that she restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having
us thrown out bodily. That would have put a bad face on it, so she
tolerated our presence. Then, of course, the insurance company had
reserved the right to examine everybody in the household, under oath
if necessary, before passing on the claim.
"This is an outrage," she exclaimed, her eyes flashing and her
breast rising and falling with suppressed emotion, "an outrage.
When my husband returns I intend to have him place the whole matter
in the hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I
have the full amount of the insurance, but I will have damages and
costs and everything the law allows. Spying on my every movement
in this way - it is an outrage! One would think we were in St.
Petersburg instead of New York."
"One moment, Mrs. Branford," put in Kennedy, as politely as he could.
"Suppose - "
"Suppose nothing," she cried angrily. "I shall explain nothing,
say nothing. What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house
in the suburbs and come to the city to live for a few days - is it
anybody's business except mine?"
"And your husband's?" added Kennedy, nettled at her treatment of him.
She shot him a scornful glance. "I suppose Mr. Branford went out to
Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on my jewels,"
she added sarcastically with eyes that snapped fire.
"I was about to say," remarked Kennedy as imperturbably as if he
were an automaton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your
absence to rob your safe, don't you think the wisest course would be
to be perfectly frank about it?"
"And give just one plausible reason why you wished so much to have
it known that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were
in New York?" pursued Maloney, while Kennedy frowned at his tactless
attempt at a third degree.
If she had resented Kennedy, she positively flew up in the air and
commenced to aviate at Maloney's questioning. Tossing her head, she
said icily: "I do not know that you have been appointed my guardian,
sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and
with that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing
one biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish
did he have for this ticklish part of the proceedings.
I think we all felt like schoolboys who had been detected robbing a
melon-patch or in some other heinous offence, as we slowly filed
down the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so
readily and successfully puts one in the wrong that I could easily
comprehend why Blake wanted to call on Kennedy for help in what
otherwise seemed a plain case.
Blake and Maloney were some distance ahead of us, as Craig leaned
over to me and whispered: "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have
to shake him loose in some way. Either we handle this case alone
or we quit."
Right-o," I agreed emphatically. "He's put his foot in it badly at
the very start. Only, be decent about it, Craig. The case is too
big for you to let it slip by."
"Trust me, Walter. I'll do it tactfully," he whispered, then to
Blake he added as we overtook them: "Maloney is right. The case is
simple enough, after all. But we must find out some way to fasten
the thing more closely on Mrs. Branford. Let me think out a scheme
to-night. I'll see you to-morrow."
As Blake and Maloney disappeared down the street in the car, Kennedy
wheeled about and walked deliberately back into the Grattan Inn again.
It was quite late. People were coming in from the theatres, laughing
and chatting gaily. Kennedy selected a table that commanded a view
of the parlour as well as of the dining-room itself.
"She was dressed to receive some one - did you notice?" he remarked
as we sat down and cast our eyes over the dizzy array of inedibles
on the card before us. "I think it is worth waiting a while to see
who it is."
Having ordered what I did not want, I glanced about until my eye
rested on a large pier-glass at the other end of the dining-room.
"Craig," I whispered excitedly, "Mrs. B. is in the writing-room - I
can see her in that glass at the end of the room, behind you."
"Get up and change places with me as quietly as you can, Walter,"
he said quickly. "I want to see her when she can't see me."
Kennedy was staring in rapt attention at the mirror. "There's a
man with her, Walter," he said under his breath. "He came in while
we were changing places - a fine-looking chap. By Jove, I've seen
him before somewhere. His face and his manner are familiar to me.
But I simply can't place him. Did you see her wraps in the chair?
No? Well, he's helping her on with them. They're going out. Garcon,
l'addition - vite."
We were too late, however, for just as we reached the door we caught
a fleeting glimpse of a huge new limousine.
"Who was that man who just went out with the lady?" asked Craig of
the negro who turned the revolving-door at the carriage entrance.
"Jack Delarue, sah - in 'The Grass Widower,' sah," replied the
doorman. "Yes, sah, he stays here once in a while. Thank you, sah,"
as Kennedy dropped a quarter into the man's hand.
"That complicates things considerably," he mused as we walked slowly
down to the subway station. "Jack Delarue - I wonder if he is mixed
up in this thing also."
"I've heard that 'The Grass Widower' isn't such a howling success
as a money-maker," I volunteered. "Delarue has a host of creditors,
no doubt. By the way, Craig," I exclaimed, "don't you think it
would be a good plan to drop down and see O'Connor? The police will
have to be informed in a few hours now, anyhow. Maybe Delarue has
a criminal record."
"A good idea, Walter," agreed Craig, turning into a drug-store which
had a telephone booth. "I'll just call O'Connor up, and we'll see
if he does know anything about it.
O'Connor was not at headquarters, but we finally found him at his
home, and it was well into the small hours when we arrived there.
Trusting to the first deputy's honour, which had stood many a test,
Craig began to unfold the story. He had scarcely got as far as
describing the work of the suspected hired yeggman, when O'Connor
raised both hands and brought them down hard on the arms of his
chair.
"Say," he ejaculated, "that explains it!"
"What?" we asked in chorus.
"Why, one of my best stool-pigeons told me to-day that there was
something doing at a house in the Chatham Square district that we
have been watching for a long time. It's full of crooks, and to-day
they've all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a
haul and been generous with the rest. And one or two of the
professional 'fences' have been acting suspiciously, too. Oh, that
explains it all right."
I looked at Craig as much as to say, "I told you so," but he was
engrossed in what O'Connor was saying.
"You know," continued the police officer, "there is one particular
'fence' who runs his business under the guise of a loan-shark's
office. He probably has a wider acquaintance among the big criminals
than any other man in the city. From him crooks can obtain anything
from a jimmy to a safe-cracking outfit. I know that this man has
been trying to dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among
jewellers in Maiden Lane. I'll bet he has been disposing of some
of the Branford pearls, one by one. I'll follow that up. I'll
arrest this 'fence' and hold him till he tells me what yeggman came
to him with the pearls."
"And if you find out, will you go with me to that house near Chatham
Square, providing it was some one in that gang?" asked Craig eagerly.
O'Connor shook his head. "I'd better keep out of it. They know me
too well. Go alone. I'll get that stool-pigeon - the Gay Cat is
his name - to go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have
any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the
moment you get the evidence. But you'll never get any evidence if
they know I'm in the neighbourhood."
The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made
me bolt my food most unceremoniously. We were out in Montclair
again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that
in spite of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the
way and had got a package which he carried carefully.
Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar
to attic in daylight. What he expected to find, I did not know,
but I am quite sure nothing escaped him.
"Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there
remains just one place. Here is this little wall safe in Mrs.
Branford's room. We must open it."
For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening
to the fall of the tumblers in the lock. It was a simple little
thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have
opened it in short order. The perspiration stood out on his
forehead, so intent was he in working the thing. At last it yielded.
Except for some of the family silver, the safe was empty.
Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig
unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He
placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it
was not at all conspicuous, and focused it on the safe.
"This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of
great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always
been practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new
shutter has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before
that it is possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run
these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an
alarm I'll attach them to the camera so that we can get a picture.
I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It
may or it may not work. If it does we'll catch somebody, right in
the act."
About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary
insurance. I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy
insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was
part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise.
He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs.
Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the
detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable
ability in the first place in locating Mrs. Branford.
"I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have
needed money for some reason or other," said Maloney. " So I went
to the commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford. I can't
say he has been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these
days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake
burglaries. Then there is another possibility," he continued
triumphantly. "I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports
to me that Mrs. Branford was seen with the actor Jack Delarue last
night. I imagine they quarrelled, for she returned alone, much
agitated, in a taxi-cab. Any way you look at it, the clues are
promising - whether she needed money for Branford's speculations or
for the financing of that rake Delarue."
Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford
to patronise a good amateur - but after all an amateur. Kennedy
said nothing, and of course I took the cue.
"Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty
good one. Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around
in a bog of false scents."
"It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy
quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden
somewhere by Mrs. Branford herself." He said nothing of his own
unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you
suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them
somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd
hardly trust them in his hands. But she might have been foolish
enough for that. Of course it's another possibility that he really
got away with them. I doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or
even if she would personally put them in a safe deposit vault.
Perhaps Delarue figures in that end of it. We must let no stone
go unturned."
"That's right," meditated Maloney, apparently turning something
over in his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some
evidence, even part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would
clinch the case. That's a good idea, Kennedy."
Craig said nothing, but I could see, or fancied I saw, that he was
gratified at the thought that he had started Maloney off on another
trail, leaving us to follow ours unhampered. The interview with
Blake was soon over, and as we left I looked inquiringly at Craig.
"I want to see Mrs. Branford again," he said. "I think we can do
better alone to-day than we did last night."
I must say I half expected that she would refuse to see us and was
quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go
up to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was
very different from that of the first interview. Whether she was
ruffled by the official presence of Blake or the officious presence
of Maloney, she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it
that she at last began to realise that the toils were closing about
her and that things began to look unmistakably black?
Kennedy was quick to see his advantage. "Mrs. Branford," he began,
"since last night I have come into the possession of some facts
that are very important. I have heard that several loose pearls
which may or may not be yours have been offered for sale by a man
on the Bowery who is what the yeggmen call a 'fence.'"
"Yeggmen - 'fence'?" she repeated. "Mr. Kennedy, really I do not
care to discuss the pearls any longer. It is immaterial to me what
becomes of them. My first desire is to collect the insurance. If
anything is recovered I am quite willing to deduct that amount from
the total. But I must insist on the full insurance or the return
of the pearls. As soon as Mr. Branford arrives I shall take other
steps to secure redress."
A boy rapped at the door and brought in a telegram which she tore
open nervously. "He will be here in four days," she said, tearing
the telegram petulantly, and not at all as if she were glad to
receive it. "Is there anything else that you wish to say?"
She was tapping her foot on the rug as if anxious to conclude the
interview. Kennedy leaned forward earnestly and played his trump
card boldly.
"Do you remember that scene in 'The Grass Widower,'" he said slowly,
"where Jack Delarue meets his runaway wife at the masquerade ball?"
She coloured slightly, but instantly regained her composure.
"Vaguely," she murmured, toying with the flowers in her dress.
"In real life," said Kennedy, his voice purposely betraying that he
meant it to have a personal application, "husbands do not forgive
even rumours of - ah - shall we say affinities? - much less the fact."
"In real life," she replied, "wives do not have affinities as often
as some newspapers and plays would have us believe."
"I saw Delarue after the performance last night," went on Kennedy
inexorably. "I was not seen, but I saw, and he was with - "
She was pacing the room now in unsuppressed excitement. "Will you
never stop spying on me?" she cried. "Must my every act be watched
and misrepresented? I suppose a distorted version of the facts
will be given to my husband. Have you no chivalry, or justice, or
- or mercy?" she pleaded, stopping in front of Kennedy.
"Mrs. Branford," he replied coldly, "I cannot promise what I shall
do. My duty is simply to get at the truth about the pearls. If it
involves some other person, it is still my duty to get at the truth.
Why not tell me all that you really know about the pearls and trust
me to bring it out all right?"
She faced him, pale and haggard. "I have told," she repeated
steadily. "I cannot tell any more - I know nothing more."
Was she lying? I was not expert enough in feminine psychology to
judge, but down in my heart I knew that the woman was hiding
something behind that forced steadiness. What was it she was
battling for? We had reached an impasse.
It was after dinner when I met Craig at the laboratory. He had made
a trip to Montclair again, where his stay had been protracted because
Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought back
the camera, and had had another talk with O'Connor, at which he had
mapped out a plan of battle.
"We are to meet the Gay Cat at the City Hall at nine o'clock,"
explained Craig laconically. "We are going to visit a haunt of
yeggmen, Walter, that few outsiders have ever seen. Are you game?
O'Connor and his men will be close by - hiding, of course."
"I suppose so, I replied slowly. But what excuse are you going to
have for getting into this yegg-resort?"
"Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article,
without names, dates, or places - just a good story of yeggmen and
tramps. I've got a little - well, we'll call it a little camera
outfit that I'm going to sling over my shoulder. You are the
reporter, remember, and I'm the newspaper photographer. They won't
pose for us, of course, but that will be all right. Speaking about
photographs, I got one out at Montclair that is interesting. I'll
show it to you later in the evening - and in case anything should
happen to me, Walter, you'll find the original plate locked here
in the top drawer of my desk. I guess we'd better be getting
downtown."
The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross
street within a block or two of Chatham Square. If we had passed
it casually in the daytime there would have been nothing to
distinguish it above the other ramshackle buildings on the street,
except that the other houses were cluttered with children and
baby-carriages, while this one was vacant, the front door closed,
and the blinds tightly drawn. As we approached, a furtive figure
shambled from the basement areaway and slunk off into the crowd
for the night's business of pocket-picking or second-story work.
I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all - I
might almost say hopes - but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a
ready response at the basement door. The house itself was the
dilapidated ruin of what had once been a fashionable residence in
the days when society lived in the then suburban Bowery. The iron
handrail on the steps was still graceful, though rusted and
insecure. The stones of the steps were decayed and eaten away by
time, and the front door was never opened.
As we entered the low basement door, I felt that those who entered
here did indeed abandon hope. Inside, the evidences of the past
grandeur were still more striking. What had once been a
drawing-room was now the general assembly room of the resort.
Broken-down chairs lined the walls, and the floor was generously
sprinkled with sawdust. A huge pot-bellied stove occupied the
centre of the room, and by it stood a box of sawdust plentifully
discoloured with tobacco-juice.