enacting. You see here on the desk an instrument that was invented
many years ago, but has only recently become really practical. It
is the telautograph - the long-distance writer. In this new form
it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any
one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the
knowledge of a caller. It makes it possible to write a message
under these conditions and receive an answer concerning the
personality or business of the individual seated at one's elbow
without leaving the desk or seeming to make inquiries.
"With an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of the
transmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the
current which controls a pencil at the other end of the line. The
receiving pencil moves simultaneously with my pencil. It is the
principle of the pantograph cut in half, one half here, the other
half at the end of the line, two telephone wires in this case
connecting the halves.
"While we have been sitting here I have had my right hand in the
half-open drawer of my desk writing with this pencil notes of what
has transpired in this room. These notes, with other evidence, have
been simultaneously placed before Magistrate Brenner in the night
court. At the same time, on this other, the receiving, instrument
the figures of the accountants written in court have been reproduced
here. You have seen them. Meanwhile. Douglas was arrested, taken
before the magistrate, and the information for a charge of murder
in the first degree perpetrated in committing arson has been
obtained. You have seen it. It came in while you were reading the
figures."
The conspirators seemed dazed.
"And now," continued Kennedy, "I see that the pencil of the receiving
instrument is writing again. Let us see what it is."
We bent over. The writing started: "County of New York. In the
name of the People of the State of New York - "
Kennedy did not wait for us to finish reading. He tore the writing
from the telautograph and waved it over his head.
"It is a warrant. You are all under arrest for arson. But you,
Samuel Lazard, are also under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Wend
and six other persons in fires which you have set. You are the real
firebug, the tool of Joseph Stacey, perhaps, but that will all come
out in the trial. McCormick, McCormick," called Craig, "it's all
right. I have the warrant. Are the police there?"
There was no answer.
Lazard and Stacey made a sudden dash for the door, and in an instant
they were in Stacey's waiting car. The chauffeur took off the brake
and pulled the lever. Suddenly Craig's pistol flashed, and the
chauffeur's arms hung limp and useless on the steering-wheel.
As McCormick with the police loomed up, a moment late, out of the
darkness and after a short struggle clapped the irons on Stacey and
Lazard in Stacey's own magnificently upholstered car, I remarked
reproachfully to Kennedy: "But, Craig, you have shot the innocent
chauffeur. Aren't you going to attend to him?"
"Oh," replied Kennedy nonchalantly, "don't worry about that. They
were only rock-salt bullets. They didn't penetrate far. They'll
sting for some time, but they're antiseptic, and they'll dissolve
and absorb quickly."
V
THE CONFIDENCE KING
"Shake hands with Mr. Burke of the secret service, Professor
Kennedy."
It was our old friend First Deputy O'Connor who thus in his bluff
way introduced a well-groomed and prosperous-looking man whom he
brought up to our apartment one evening.
The formalities were quickly over. "Mr. Burke and I are old
friends," explained O'Connor. "We try to work together when we can,
and very often the city department can give the government service
a lift, and then again it's the other way - as it was in the
trunk-murder mystery. Show Professor Kennedy the 'queer,' Tom."
Burke drew a wallet out of his pocket, and from it slowly and
deliberately selected a crisp, yellow-backed hundred-dollar bill.
He laid it flat on the table before us. Diagonally across its face
from the upper left- to the lower right-hand corner extended two
parallel scorings in indelible ink.
Not being initiated into the secrets of the gentle art of "shoving
the queer," otherwise known as passing counterfeit money, I suppose
my questioning look betrayed me.
"A counterfeit, Walter," explained Kennedy. "That's what they do
with bills when they wish to preserve them as records in the secret
service and yet render them valueless."
Without a word Burke handed Kennedy a pocket magnifying-glass, and
Kennedy carefully studied the bill. He was about to say something
when Burke opened his capacious wallet again and laid down a Bank
of England five-pound note which had been similarly treated.
Again Kennedy looked through the glass with growing amazement
written on his face, but before he could say anything, Burke laid
down an express money-order on the International Express Company.
"I say," exclaimed Kennedy, putting down the glass, "stop! How
many more of these are there?"
Burke smiled. "That's all," he replied, "but it's not the worst."
"Not the worst? Good heavens, man, next you'll tell me that the
government is counterfeiting its own notes! How much of this stuff
do you suppose has been put into circulation?"
Burke chewed a pencil thoughtfully, jotted down some figures on a
piece of paper, and thought some more. "Of course I can't say
exactly, but from hints I have received here and there I should
think that a safe bet would be that some one has cashed in upward
of half a million dollars already."
"Whew," whistled Kennedy, "that's going some. And I suppose it is
all salted away in some portable form. What an inventory if must
be - good bills, gold, diamonds, and jewellery. This is a stake
worth playing for."
"Yes," broke in O'Connor, "but from my standpoint, professionally,
I mean, the case is even worse than that. It's not the counterfeits
that bother us. We understand that, all right. But," and he leaned
forward earnestly and brought his fist down hard on the table with
a resounding Irish oath, "the finger-print system, the infallible
finger-print system, has gone to pieces. We've just imported this
new 'portrait parle' fresh from Paris and London, invented by
Bertillon and all that sort of thing - it has gone to pieces, too.
It's a fine case, this is, with nothing left of either scientific
or unscientific criminal-catching to rely on. There - what do you
know about that?"
"You'll have to tell me the facts first," said Kennedy. "I can't
diagnose your disease until I know the symptoms."
"It's like this," explained Burke, the detective in him showing now
with no effort at concealment. "A man, an Englishman, apparently,
went into a downtown banker's office about three months ago and
asked to have some English bank-notes exchanged for American money.
After he had gone away, the cashier began to get suspicious. He
thought there was something phoney in the feel of the notes. Under
the glass he noticed that the little curl on the 'e' of the 'Five'
was missing. It's the protective mark. The water-mark was quite
equal to that of the genuine - maybe better. Hold that note up to
the light and see for yourself.
"Well, the next day, down to the Custom House, where my office is,
a man came who runs a swell gambling-house uptown. He laid ten
brand-new bills on my desk. An Englishman had been betting on the
wheel. He didn't seem to care about winning, and he cashed in each
time with a new one-hundred-dollar bill. Of course he didn't care
about winning. He cared about the change - that was his winning.
The bill on the table is one of the original ten, though since then
scores have been put into circulation. I made up my mind that it
was the same Englishman in both cases.
"Then within a week, in walked the manager of the Mozambique Hotel
- he had been stung with the fake International Express money-order
- same Englishman, too, I believe."
"And you have no trace of him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.
"We had him under arrest once - we thought. A general alarm was sent
out, of course, to all the banks and banking-houses. But the man
was too clever to turn up in that way again. In one gambling-joint
which women frequent a good deal, a classy dame who might have been
a duchess or a - well, she was a pretty good loser and always paid
with hundred-dollar bills. Now, you know women are not good losers.
Besides, the hundred-dollar-bill story had got around among the
gambling-houses. This joint thought it worth taking a chance, so
they called me up on the 'phone, extracted a promise that I'd play
fair and keep O'Connor from raiding them, but wouldn't I please
come up and look over the dame of the yellow bills? Of course I
made a jump at it. Sure enough, they were the same counterfeits.
I could tell because the silk threads were drawn in with coloured
ink. But instead of making an arrest I decided to trail the lady.
"Now, here comes the strange part of it. Let me see, this must
have been over two months ago. I followed her out to a suburban
town, Riverwood along the Hudson, and to a swell country house
overlooking the river, private drive, stone gate, hedges, old trees,
and all that sort of thing. A sporty-looking Englishman met her
at the gate with one of those big imported touring-cars, and they
took a spin.
"I waited a day or so, but nothing more happened, and I began to
get anxious. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. Anyhow I watched my chance
and made an arrest of both of them when they came to New York on a
shopping expedition. You should have heard that Englishman swear.
I didn't know such language was possible. But in his pocket we
found twenty more of those hundred-dollar bills - that was all.
Do you think he owned up? Not a bit of it. He swore he had
picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the pier as he left the
steamer. I laughed. But when he was arraigned in court he told
the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised his find
at the time. Sure enough, in the files of the papers we
discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad, just as he claimed.
We couldn't even prove that he had passed the bills. So the
magistrate refused to hold them, and they were both released. But
we had had them in our power long enough to take their finger-prints
and get descriptions and measurements of them, particularly by this
new 'portrait parle ' system. We felt we could send out a strange
detective and have him pick them out of a crowd - you know the
system, I presume?
Kennedy nodded, and I made a mental note of finding out more about
the "portrait parle" later.
Burke paused, and O'Connor prompted, "Tell them about Scotland Yard,
Tom."
"Oh, yes," resumed Burke. "Of course I sent copies of the
finger-prints to Scotland Yard. Within two weeks they replied that
one set belonged to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they
understood, had sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there.
They were glad to learn that he was in America, and advised me to
look after him sharply. The woman was also a noted character - Harriet
Wollstone, an adventuress."
"I suppose you have shadowed them ever since?" Kennedy asked.
"Yes, a few days after they were arrested the man had an accident
with his car. It was said he was cranking the engine and that it
kicked back and splintered the bone in his forearm. Anyhow, he went
about with his hand and arm in a sling."
"And then?"
"They gave my man the slip that night in their fast touring-car.
You know automobiles have about made shadowing impossible in these
days. The house was closed up, and it was said by the neighbours
that Williams and Mrs. Williams - as they called themselves - had
gone to visit a specialist in Philadelphia. Still, as they had a
year's lease on the house, I detailed a man to watch it more or less
all the time. They went to Philadelphia all right; some of the
bills turned up there. But we saw nothing of them.
"A short time ago, word came to me that the house was open again.
It wasn't two hours later that the telephone rang like mad. A
Fifth Avenue jeweller had just sold a rope of pearls to an
Englishwoman who paid for it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar
bills. The bank had returned them to him that very afternoon
- counterfeits. I didn't lose any time making a second arrest up
at the house of mystery at Riverwood. I had the county authorities
hold them - and, now, O'Connor, tell the rest of it. You took the
finger-prints up there."
O'Connor cleared his throat as if something stuck in it, in the
telling. "The Riverwood authorities refused to hold them," he said
with evident chagrin. "As soon as I heard of the arrest I started
up myself with the finger-print records to help Burke. It was the
same man, all right - I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So
will Burke. I'll never forget that snub nose - the concave nose,
the nose being the first point of identification in the 'portrait
park.' And the ears, too - oh, it was the same man, all right.
But when we produced the London finger-prints which tallied with
the New York finger-prints which we had made - believe it or not,
but it is a fact, the Riverwood finger-prints did not tally at all."
He laid the prints on the table. Kennedy examined them closely.
His face clouded. It was quite evident that he was stumped, and he
said so. "There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but
more points of difference. Any points of difference are usually
considered fatal to the finger-print theory.
"We had to let the man go," concluded Burke. "We could have held
the woman, but we let her go, too, because she was not the principal
in the case. My men are shadowing the house now and have been ever
since then. But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New
York, who looked like a doctor, made a visit. The secret-service
man on the job didn't dare leave the house to follow him, but as he
never came again perhaps it doesn't matter. Since then the house
has been closed."
The telephone rang. It was Burke's office calling him. As he
talked we could gather that something tragic must have happened at
Riverwood, and we could hardly wait until he had finished.
"There has been an accident up there," he remarked as he hung up
the receiver rather petulantly. "They returned in the car this
afternoon with a large package in the back of the tonneau. But
they didn't stay long. After dark they started out again in the
car. The accident was at the bad railroad crossing just above
Riverwood. It seems Williams's car got stalled on the track just
as the Buffalo express was due. No one saw it, but a man in a buggy
around the bend in the road heard a woman scream. He hurried down.
The train had smashed the car to bits. How the woman escaped was
a miracle, but they found the man's body up the tracks, horribly
mangled. It was Williams, they say. They identified him by the
clothes and by letters in his pockets. But my man tells me he found
a watch on him with 'W. F.' engraved on it. His hands and arms and
head must have been right under the locomotive when it struck him,
I judge."
"I guess that winds the case up, eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with
evident chagrin. "Where's the woman?"
"They said she was in the little local hospital, but not much hurt.
Just the shock and a few bruises."
O'Connor's question seemed to suggest an idea to Burke, and he
reached for the telephone again. "Riverwood 297," he ordered; then
to us as he waited he said: "We must hold the woman. Hello, 297?
The hospital? This is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell
my man, who must be somewhere about, that I would like to have him
hold that woman who was in the auto smash until I can - what? Gone?
The deuce!"
He hung up the receiver angrily. "She left with a man who called
for her about half an hour ago," he said. "There must be a gang of
them. Forbes is dead, but we must get the rest. Mr. Kennedy, I'm
sorry to have bothered you, but I guess we can handle this alone,
after all. It was the finger-prints that fooled us, but now that
Forbes is out of the way it's just a straight case of detective work
of the old style which won't interest you."
"On the contrary," answered Kennedy, "I'm just beginning to be
interested. Does it occur to you that, after all, Forbes may not
be dead?"
"Not dead?" echoed Burke and O'Connor together.
"Exactly; that's just what I said - not dead. Now stop and think a
moment. Would the great Forbes be so foolish as to go about with
a watch marked 'W. F.' if he knew, as he must have known, that you
would communicate with London and by means of the prints find out
all about him?"
"Yes," agreed Burke, "all we have to go by is his watch found on
Williams. I suppose there is some possibility that Forbes may still
be alive."
"Who is this third man who comes in and with whom Harriet Wollstone
goes away so willingly?" put in O'Connor. "You said the house had
been closed - absolutely closed?"
Burke nodded. "Been closed ever since the last arrest. There's a
servant who goes in now and then, but the car hasn't been there
before to-night, wherever it has been."
"I should like to watch that house myself for a while," mused
Kennedy. "I suppose you have no objections to my doing so?"
"Of course not. Go ahead," said Burke. "I will go along with you
if you wish, or my man can go with you."
"No," said Kennedy, "too many of us might spoil the broth. I'll
watch alone to-night and will see you in the morning. You needn't
even say anything to your man there about us."
"Walter, what's on for to-night?"he asked when they had gone. "How
are you fixed for a little trip out to Riverwood?"
"To tell the truth, I had an engagement at the College Club with
some of the fellows."
"Oh, cut it."
"That's what I intend to do," I replied.
It was a raw night, and we bundled ourselves up in old football
sweaters under our overcoats. Half an hour later we were on our
way up to Riverwood.
"By the way, Craig," I asked, "I didn't like to say anything before
those fellows. They'd think I was a dub. But I don't mind asking
you. What is this 'portrait parle' they talk about, anyway?"
"Why, it's a word-picture - a 'spoken picture,' to be literal. I
took some lessons in it at Bertillon's school when I was in Paris.
It's a method of scientific apprehension of criminals, a sort of
necessary addition and completion to the methods of scientific
identification of them after they are arrested. For instance, in
trying to pick out a given criminal from his mere description you
begin with the nose. Now, noses are all concave, straight, or
convex. This Forbes had a nose that was concave, Burke says.
Suppose you were sent out to find him. Of all the people you met,
we'll say, roughly, two-thirds wouldn't interest you. You'd pass
up all with straight or convex noses. Now the next point to observe
is the ear. There are four general kinds of ears-triangular, square,
oval, and round, besides a number of other differences which are
clear enough after you study ears. This fellow is a pale man with
square ears and a peculiar lobe to his ear. So you wouldn't give
a second glance to, say, three-fourths of the square-eared people.
So by a process of elimination of various features, the eyes, the
mouth, the hair, wrinkles, and so forth, you would be able to pick
your man out of a thousand - that is, if you were trained."
"And it works?" I asked rather doubtfully.
"Oh, yes. That's why I'm taking up this case. I believe science
can really be used to detect crime, any crime, and in the present
instance I've just pride enough to stick to this thing until - until
they begin to cut ice on the Styx. Whew, but it will be cold out
in the country to-night, Walter - speaking about ice.
It was quite late when we reached Riverwood, and Kennedy hurried
along the dimly lighted streets, avoiding the main street lest some
one might be watching or following us. He pushed on, following the
directions Burke had given him. The house in question was a large,
newly built affair of concrete, surrounded by trees and a hedge,
directly overlooking the river. A bitter wind swept in from the
west, but in the shadow of an evergreen tree and of the hedge Kennedy
established our watch.
Of all fruitless errands this seemed to me to be the acme. The
house was deserted; that was apparent, I thought, and I said so.
Hardly had I said it when I heard the baying of a dog. It did not
come from the house, however, and I concluded that it must have
come from the next estate.
"It's in the garage," whispered Kennedy. "I can hardly think they
would go away and leave a dog locked up in it. They would at least
turn him loose."
Hour after hour we waited. Midnight passed, and still nothing
happened. At last when the moon had disappeared under the clouds,
Kennedy pulled me along. We had seen not a sign of life in the
house, yet he observed all the caution he would have if it had been
well guarded. Quickly we advanced over the open space to the house,
approaching in the shadow as much as possible, on the side farthest
from the river.
Tiptoeing over the porch, Kennedy tried a window. It was fastened.
Without hesitation he pulled out some instruments. One of them was
a rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the windowpane. Then
with a very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large
section. It soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor
by the string and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and
unlatched the window, and we stepped in.
All was silent. Apparently the house was deserted.
Cautiously Kennedy pressed the button of his pocket storage-battery
lamp and flashed it slowly about the room. It was a sort of library,
handsomely furnished. At last the beam of light rested on a huge
desk at the opposite end. It seemed to interest Kennedy, and we
tiptoed over to it. One after another he opened the drawers. One
was locked, and he saved that until the last.
Quietly as he could, he jimmied it open, muffling the jimmy in a
felt cloth that was on a table. Most people do not realise the
disruptive force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until
I saw the solid drawer with its heavy lock yield with just the trace
of a noise. Kennedy waited an instant and listened. Nothing
happened.
Inside the drawer was a most nondescript collection of useless
articles. There were a number of pieces of fine sponge, some of
them very thin and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol
strongly; several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some
paraffin, bandages, antiseptic gauze, cotton - in fact, it looked
like a first-aid kit. As soon as he saw it Kennedy seemed
astonished but not at a loss to account for it.
"I thought he left that sort of thing to the doctors, but I guess
he took a hand in it himself," he muttered, continuing to fumble
with the knives in the drawer. It was no time to ask questions, and
I did not. Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets.
One bottle he opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish
immediately the volatile smell of ether. He closed it quickly, and
it, too, went into his pocket with the remark, "Somebody must have
known how to administer an anaesthetic - probably the Wollstone
woman."
A suppressed exclamation from Kennedy caused me to look. The drawer
had a false back. Safely tucked away in it reposed a tin box, one
of those so-called strong-boxes which are so handy in that they save
a burglar much time and trouble in hunting all over for the valuables
he has come after. Kennedy drew it forth and laid it on the desk.
It was locked.
Even that did not seem to satisfy Kennedy, who continued to
scrutinise the walls and corners of the room as if looking for a
safe or something of that sort.
"Let's look in the room across the hall," he whispered.
Suddenly a piercing scream of a woman rang out upstairs. "Help!
Help! There's some one in the house! Billy, help!"
I felt an arm grasp me tightly, and for a moment a chill ran over
me at being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering
a dwelling-house at night. But it was only Kennedy, who had already
tucked the precious little tin box under his arm.
With a leap he dragged me to the open window, cleared it, vaulted
over the porch, and we were running for the clump of woods that
adjoined the estate on one side. Lights flashed in all the windows
of the house at once. There must have been some sort of
electric-light system that could be lighted instantly as a
"burglar-expeller." Anyhow, we had made good our escape.
As we lost ourselves in the woods I gave a last glance back and saw
a lantern carried from the house to the garage. As the door was
unlocked I could see, in the moonlight, a huge dog leap out and lick
the hands and face of a man.
Quickly we now crashed through the frozen underbrush. Evidently
Kennedy was making for the station by a direct route across country
instead of the circuitous way by the road and town. Behind us we
could hear a deep baying.