himself cleaning up the apparatus he had just used. There was
nothing in his manner even to hint at the fact that we had gone
further and interviewed the young lady in question.
"Well," resumed the coroner, "in view of what you have just
discovered I don't mind telling you that I believe it was more than
a rumour. I have had a man watching the woman and this is a report
I received just before I came up here."
We read the note which he now handed to us. It was just a hasty
line: "Miss Lovelace left hurriedly for Washington this morning."
What was the meaning of it? Clearly, as we probed deeper into the
case, its ramifications grew wider than anything we had yet expected.
Why had Miss Lovelace gone to Washington, of all places, at this
torrid season of the year?
The coroner had scarcely left us, more mystified than ever, when a
telephone message came from McBride saying that he had some important
news for us if we would meet him at the St. Cenis Hotel within an
hour. He would say nothing about it over the wire.
As Kennedy hung up the receiver he quietly took a pistol from a
drawer of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at
the cartridges in the cylinder. Then he snapped it shut and stuck
it into his pocket.
"There's no telling what we may run up against before we get back
to the laboratory," he remarked and we rode down to meet McBride.
The description which the house man had sent out to the other hotel
detectives the night before had already produced a result. Within
the past two days a man answering the description of the younger man
whom McBride had seen in the caf=82 and a woman who might very
possibly have been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and
Mme. Duval. Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to
impress upon the hotel that they were persons of some position and
that it was going direct from the railroad to the steamer, after
their tour of America. They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing
to excite suspicion until the general request for information had
been received.
The house man of the St. Cenis welcomed us cordially upon McBride's
introduction and agreed to take us up to the rooms of the strange
couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour
and they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not be too
particular in his search of their effects, for he did not wish to
arouse suspicion upon their return, at least not yet.
"It seems to me, Craig," I suggested after we had nosed about for
a few minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case
in which to use the dictograph as you did in that Black Hand case."
He shook his head doubtfully, although I could see that the idea
appealed to him. "The dictograph has been getting too much
publicity lately," he said. "I'm afraid they would discover it,
that is, if they are at all the clever people I think them. Besides,
I would have to send up to the laboratory to get one and by the time
the messenger returned they might be back from lunch. No, we've got
to do something else, and do it quickly."
He was looking about the room in an apparently aimless manner. On
the side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy
seemed engrossed in it while the rest of us fidgeted at the delay.
"Can you get me a couple of old telephone instruments?" he asked at
length, turning to us and addressing the St. Cenis detective.
The detective nodded and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes
later he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them
I do not know, but I suspect he simply lifted them from vacant rooms.
"Now some Number 30 copper wire and a couple of dry cells," ordered
Kennedy, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The
detective despatched a bellboy down to the basement to get the
wire from the house electrician.
Kennedy removed the transmitters of the telephones, and taking the
carbon capsules from them placed the capsules on the table carefully.
Then he lifted down the etching from the wall and laid it flat on
its face before us. Quickly he removed the back of the picture.
Pressing the transmitter fronts with the carbon capsules against
the paper and the glass on the picture he mounted them so that the
paper and glass acted as a large diaphragm to collect all the sounds
in the room.
"The size of this glass diaphragm," he explained as we gathered
around in intense interest at what he was doing, "will produce a
strikingly sensitive microphone action and the merest whisper will
be reproduced with startling distinctness."
The boy brought the wire up and also the news that the couple in
whose room we were had very nearly finished luncheon and might be
expected back in a few minutes.
Kennedy took the tiny wires, and after connecting them hung up the
picture again and ran them up alongside the picture wires leading
from the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the
top of the moulding and out through the transom it was easy enough
to run the wires and so down the hall to a vacant room, where Craig
attached them quickly to one of the old telephone receivers.
Then we sat down in this room to await developments from our hastily
improvised picture frame microphone detective.
At last we could hear the elevator door close on our floor. A
moment later it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face
that some one had entered the room which we had just left. He had
finished not a moment too soon.
"It's a good thing that I didn't wait to put a dictograph there,"
he remarked to us. "I thought I wasn't reckoning without reason.
The couple, whoever they are, are talking in undertones and
looking about the room to see if anything has been disturbed in
their absence."
Kennedy alone, of course, could follow over his end of the telephone
what they said. The rest of us could do nothing but wait, but from
notes which Craig jotted down as he listened to the conversation
I shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some
anxious moments until at last they had satisfied themselves that no
one was listening and that no dictograph or other mechanical
eavesdropper, such as they had heard of, was concealed in the
furniture or back of it.
"Why are you so particular, Henri?" a woman's voice was saying.
"Louise, I've been thinking for a long time that we are surrounded
by spies in these hotels. You remember I told you what happened at
the Vanderveer the night you and Madame arrived? I'm sure that
waiter overheard what Gonzales and I were talking about."
"Well, we are safe now anyhow. What was it that you would not tell
me just now at luncheon?" asked the woman, whom Kennedy recognised
as Madame de Nevers's maid.
"I have a cipher from Washington. Wait until I translate it."
There was a pause. "What does it say?" asked the woman impatiently.
"It says," repeated the man slowly, "that Miss Lovelace has gone to
Washington. She insists on knowing whether the death of Marie was
a suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind
of some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I
must go down there or the whole affair may be exposed and fall
through. Things could hardly be worse, especially this sudden
move on her part."
"Who was that detective who forced his way to see her the night they
discovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't
the Secret Service also. Do you think they could have suspected
anything?"
"I hardly think so," the man replied. "Beyond the death of Madame
they suspect nothing here in New York, I am convinced. You are sure
that all her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her
with the business in hand were destroyed, and particularly that the
package she was to deliver is safe?"
"The package? You mean the plans for the coaling station on the
Pacific near the Canal? You see, Henri, I know."
"Ha, ha, - yes," replied the man. "Louise, shall I tell you a
secret? Can you keep it?"
"You know I can, Henri."
"Well, Louise, the scheme is deeper than even you think. We are
playing one country against another, America against - you know the
government our friend Schmidt works for in Paris. Now, listen.
Those plans of the coaling station are a fake - a fake. It is just
a commercial venture. No nation would be foolish enough to attempt
such a thing, yet. We know that they are a fake. But we are going
to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War
Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will
give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the
future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly
and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle is overcome
a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By using
those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which
when we all return to Paris we can convert into thousands of francs.
There, I can say no more. But I have told you so much to impress
upon you the extreme need of caution."
"And how much does Miss Lovelace know?"
"Very little - I hope. That is why I must go to Washington myself.
She must know nothing of this coup nor of the real de Nevers, or
the whole scheme may fall through. It would have fallen through
before, Louise, if you had failed us and had let any of de Nevers's
letters slip through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate
for that act of treachery. The affair would have been so simple,
otherwise. Luck was with us until her insane jealousy led her to
visit Miss Lovelace. It was fortunate the young lady was out when
Madame called on her or all would have been lost. Ah, we owe you
a great deal, Louise, and we shall not forget it, never. You will
be very careful while I am gone?"
"Absolutely. When will you return to me, Henri?"
"To-morrow morning at the latest. This afternoon the false coaling
station plans are to be turned over to our accomplice in the War
Department and in exchange he is to give us something else - the
secret of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high
circles. It is very much more important than you suppose and
discovery might lead to a dangerous international complication just
now."
"Then you are to meet your friend in Washington to-night? When do
you start, Henri? Don't let the time slip by. There must be no
mistake this time as there was when we were working for Japan and
almost had the blue prints of Corregidor at Manila only to lose
them on the streets of Calcutta."
"Trust me. We are to meet about nine o'clock and therefore I leave
on the limited at three-thirty, in about an hour. From the station
I am going straight to the house on Z Street - let me see, the
cipher says the number is 101 - and ask for a man named Gonzales.
I shall use the name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package
- that thing I have told you about - then I am to return here by
one of the midnight trains. At any cost we must allow nothing to
happen which will reach the ears of Miss Lovelace. I'll see you
early to-morrow morning, ma cherie, and remember, be ready, for the
Aquitania sails at ten. The division of the money is to be made in
Paris. Then we shall all go our separate ways."
Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel
service to find out how the trains ran for Washington. The only one
that would get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next,
leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had
evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in
our friend down the hall missing the limited, but abandoned it. Any
such scheme would simply result in a message to the gang in
Washington putting them on their guard and defeating his purpose.
"At all costs we must beat this fellow to it," exclaimed Craig,
waiting to hear no more over his improvised dictograph. "Come,
Walter, we must catch the limited for Washington immediately.
McBride, I leave you and the regular house man to shadow this
woman. Don't let her get out of your sight for a moment."
As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig
hastily informed me of what he had overheard. We took up our post
so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes
later Craig spotted our man from McBride's description, and
succeeded in securing chairs in the same car in which he was to ride.
Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey. For five mortal
hours we sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car,
never letting the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know
that we were watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking
myself what good it did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if
the affair was so important as it appeared? How were we to get
ahead of him in Washington better than in New York? I knew that
some plan lurked behind the calm and inscrutable face of Kennedy
as I tried to read and could not.
The train had come to a stop in the Union Station. Our man was
walking rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand.
Suddenly Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking
abreast of him.
"I beg your pardon," began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow
of the arc lights, "but have you a match?"
The man halted and fumbled for his match-box. Instantly Kennedy's
pocket handkerchief was at his nose.
"Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs," ground out
Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes under his
handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect.
The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him
between us. Up the platform we led him in a daze.
"Here," shouted Craig to a cabman, "my friend is ill. Drive us
around a bit. It will sober him up. Come on, Walter, jump in,
the air will do us all good."
Those who were in Washington during that summer will remember the
suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a
certain very humid night. Nothing leaked out at the time as to
the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly
averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the
departments were all away, the President was at his summer home in
the North, and even some of the under-secretaries were out of town.
Hasty messages had been sizzling over the wires in cipher and code
for hours.
I recall that as we rode a little out of our way past the Army
Building, merely to see if there was any excitement, we found it
a blaze of lights. Something was plainly afoot even at this
usually dull period of the year. There=20was treachery of some
kind and some trusted employee was involved, I felt instinctively.
As for Craig he merely glanced at the insensible figure between
us and remarked sententiously that to his knowledge there was only
one nation that made a practice of carrying out its diplomatic and
other coups in the hot weather, a remark which I understood to
mean that our mission was more than commonly important.
The man had not recovered when we arrived within several blocks of
our destination, nor did he show signs of recovery from his
profound stupor. Kennedy stopped the cab in a side street, pressed
a bill into the cabman's hand, and bade him wait until we returned.
We had turned the corner of Z Street and were approaching the house
when a man walking in the opposite direction eyed us suspiciously,
turned, and followed us a step or two.
"Kennedy!" he exclaimed.
If a fourteen-inch gun had exploded behind us I could not have been
more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy we were
followed, watched, and beaten.
Craig wheeled about suddenly. Then he took the man by the arm.
"Come," he said quickly, and we three dove into the shadow of an alley.
As we paused, Kennedy was the first to speak. "By Jove, Walter, it's
Burke of the Secret Service," he exclaimed.
"Good," repeated the man with some satisfaction. "I see that you
still have that memory for faces." He was evidently referring to
our experiences together some months before with the portrait parle
and identification in the counterfeiting case which Craig cleared
up for him.
For a moment or two Burke and Kennedy spoke in whispers. Under the
dim light from the street I could see Kennedy's face intent and
working with excitement.
"No wonder the War Department is a blaze of lights," he exclaimed
as we moved out of the shadow again, leaving the Secret Service man.
"Burke, I had no idea when I took up this case that I should be
doing my country a service also. We must succeed at any hazard.
The moment you hear a pistol shot, Burke, we shall need you. Force
the door if it is not already open. You were right as to the
street but not the number. It is that house over there. Come on,
Walter."
We mounted the low steps of the house and a negress answered the
bell. "Is Mr. Gonzales in?" asked Kennedy.
The hallway into which we were admitted was dark but it opened into
a sitting-room, where a dim light was burning behind the thick
portieres. Without a word the negress ushered us into this room,
which was otherwise empty.
"Tell him Mr. Montez is here," added Craig as we sat down.
The negress disappeared upstairs, and in a few minutes returned
with the message that he would be down directly.
No sooner had the shuffle of her footsteps died away than Kennedy
was on his feet, listening intently at the door. There was no
sound. He took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it.
Turning it upside down he placed it at the foot of the stairs with
the four legs pointing obliquely up. Then he drew me into a corner
with him.
How long we waited I cannot say. The next I knew was a muffled step
on the landing above, then the tread on the stairs.
A crash and a deep volley of oaths in French followed as the man
pitched headlong over the chair on the dark steps.
Kennedy whipped out his revolver and fired point-blank at the
prostrate figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing on
a man when he is down, nor did I have time to stop to think.
Craig grasped my arm and pulled me toward the door. A sickening
odour seemed to pervade the air. Upstairs there was shouting and
banging of doors.
"Closer, Walter," he muttered, "closer to the door, and open it a
little, or we shall both be suffocated. It was the Secret Service
gun I shot off - the pistol that shoots stupefying gas from its
vapour-filled cartridges and enables you to put a criminal out of
commission without killing him. A pull of the trigger, the cap
explodes, the gunpowder and the force of the explosion unite some
capsicum and lycopodium, producing the blinding, suffocating
vapour whose terrible effect you see. Here, you upstairs," he
shouted, "advance an inch or so much as show your heads over the
rail and I pump a shot at you, too. Walter, take the gun yourself.
Fire at a move from them. I think the gases have cleared away
enough now. I must get him before he recovers consciousness.
A tap at the door came, and without taking my eyes off the stairs
I opened it. Burke slid in and gulped at the nauseous atmosphere.
"What's up?" he gasped. "I heard a shot. Where's Kennedy?"
I motioned in the darkness. Kennedy's electric bull's-eye flashed
up at that instant and we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of
manacles on the wrists of the man on the floor, who was breathing
heavily, while blood flowed from a few slight cuts due to his fall.
Dexterously as a pickpocket Craig reached into the man's coat,
pulled out a packet of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after
another. From among them he unfolded one written in French to Madame
Marie de Nevers some weeks before. I translate:
DEAR MARIE: Herr Schmidt informs me that his agent in the War
Department at Washington, U.S.A., has secured some important
information which will interest the Government for which Herr
Schmidt is the agent - of course you know who that is.
It is necessary that you should carry the packet which will be
handed to you (if you agree to my proposal) to New York by the
steamer Tripolitania. Go to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few
days, as soon as a certain exchange can be made, either our
friend in Washington or myself will call on you, using the name
Gonzales. In return for the package which you carry he will hand
you another. Lose no time in bringing the second package back
to Paris.
I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and
your expenses for your services in this matter. Under no
conditions betray your connection with Herr Schmidt. I was to
have carried the packet to America myself and make the exchange
but knowing your need of money I have secured the work for you.
You had better take your maid, as it is much better to travel
with distinction in this case. If, however, you accept this
commission I shall consider you in honour bound to surrender
your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty
thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of
whom you know. Please let me know immediately through our
mutual friend Henri Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory.
Henri will tell you that fifty thousand is my ultimatum.
"The scoundrel," ground out Kennedy. "He lured his wife from
Paris to New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him,
I suppose. Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise
and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the
part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has
succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an
American fortune."
"Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and
choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too
clever for me. This blackmailing must stop. Miss Lovelace knows
something, thanks to you, but she shall never know all - never -=20
never. You - you - ugh! - Stop. Do you think you can hold me
back now with those little white hands on my wrists? I wrench them
loose - so - and - ugh! - What's this? Where am I?"
The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead
of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the
terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in
the Vanderveer.
"Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake
nobleman, real swindler of five continents. Marie de Nevers alive
stood in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace.
Dead, she prevents it absolutely."
Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke.
At last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk. As he broke the
seal he glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, "There,
Burke. Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn
out their lights and stop their telegrams. This seems to be a copy
of our government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal,
heights of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations,
everything from painstaking search of official and confidential
records. That is what this fellow obtained in exchange for his
false blue prints of the supposed coaling station on the Pacific.
"I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department.
What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations
and betrayed one of them. To me this adventurer who calls himself
Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers."
X
The SMUGGLER
It was a rather sultry afternoon in the late summer when people who
had calculated by the calendar rather than by the weather were
returning to the city from the seashore, the mountains, and abroad.
Except for the week-ends, Kennedy and I had been pretty busy, though
on this particular day there was a lull in the succession of cases
which had demanded our urgent attention during the summer.
We had met at the Public Library, where Craig was doing some special
research at odd moments in criminology. Fifth Avenue was still half
deserted, though the few pedestrians who had returned or remained in
town like ourselves were, as usual, to be found mostly on the west
side of the street. Nearly everybody, I have noticed, walks on the
one side of Fifth Avenue, winter or summer.
As we stood on the corner waiting for the traffic man's whistle to
halt the crush of automobiles, a man on the top of a 'bus waved to
Kennedy.
I looked up and caught a glimpse of Jack Herndon, an old college
mate, who had had some political aspirations and had recently been
appointed to a position in the customs house of New York. Herndon,
I may add, represented the younger and clean-cut generation which
is entering official life with great advantage to both themselves
and politics.