THE GREAT BLACK BIRD
THERE was exactly one week to the night of the fancy dress dance at the
Uplands from the time that the Northend sisters gave the abstractor so
much information. Every moment of it was carefully taken up by that
calculating gentleman.
For example, on the following morning, Wednesday he played a round with
the club’s champion, an amateur of some skill. Dangerfield posing for
the moment as a warm admirer of the local player, followed the two on
their match, betting freely on Blackhall, his clubmate. Also, he
violated every rule of the royal and ancient game by speaking as Trent
made his strokes. Never in his ten years of golf had Trent played such a
game. It was characteristic of him to do his best when conditions were
worst.
When the game was over at the thirteenth hole Dangerfield turned crossly
to Blackhall.
“You played a rotten game!” he said.
“I never played a better,” that golfer exclaimed. “The whole trouble
with me was that I was up against a better man.”
It may be observed that Blackhall was a sportsman.
Dangerfield was astonished and gratified next day when he was essaying
some approaching to find Trent watching his efforts in a not unfriendly
spirit.
“The trouble with you,” said the younger player graciously, “is that you
chop your stroke instead of carrying through. I’ll show you what I
mean.”
In the half hour he devoted to Dangerfield he improved the millionaire’s
game six strokes a round.
“It would be no fun to play with you,” he said when Dangerfield again
invited him, “but I hate to see a man trying to approach as you did when
a little help could put him right.”
Thus were any Dangerfield suspicions disarmed. He helped him once or
twice more and on every occasion insisted that the hovering attendant be
sent away.
“Your keeper,” said Trent genially, “puts me off my stroke.”
“Keeper,” grinned Dangerfield, “I’m not as bad as that. He’s my valet.”
Two days before the ball at the Uplands it was observed that Anthony
Trent visited the Nineteenth Hole more frequently and stayed there
longer. He was playing less golf now. The bartender confided in Mr.
Dangerfield, who was also a consistent patron, that he was drinking
heavily.
“I guess,” said the tender of the bar with the sapience of his kind,
“that he’s one of these quiet periodic souses. They tell me he has the
stuff sent up to his room.”
“Too bad!” said Mr. Dangerfield, shaking his head as he ordered another.
It was true that to Trent’s room much dry gin and lemon juice found its
way, together with siphons of iced carbonic. The carbonic and the lemon
juice was drunk since a belated heat wave was visiting the Sunset Park
Hotel. The gin found its way into his flower laden window boxes, which
should have bloomed into juniper berries. Trent liked a drink as well as
any other golfer, but he found that it just took the keen edge off his
nerves. He was less keen to realize danger and too ready to meet a risk
when he drank. As a conscientious workman he put it behind him when
professionally engaged.
On the night of the ball he was, to quote a bell boy, dead to the world,
which proves that bell boys may be deceived by appearances. On the night
of the ball he was keyed up to his highest personal efficiency.
Physically he was at his best. His muscles were always hard and his wind
good. The resisting exercises he practised maintained the former and a
little running every day aided the latter.
The great costume ball was to take place on the third of September, when
the sun would set at half-past six. The Uplands was no more than a half
hour motor spin distant from the hotel. The time set was half-past nine,
which meant few would be there before ten. It was plain then that Mrs.
Jerome Dangerfield would not commence her preparations for dressing
until after the dinner. She was devoted to the pleasures of the table,
as her maid lamented when she harnessed her mistress within her corsets.
Looking from his window, Trent saw that the sun had retired behind
clouds early in the afternoon. Darkness would not be delayed, and the
success of his venture depended upon this.
Reviewing the amazing events of the evening of September the third, it
is only fair to let Jerome Dangerfield relieve his feelings in a letter
to his closest friend, the president of the First Agricultural Bank of
New York.
“You were right in warning me not to bring the Mt. Aubyn ruby up to this
place. It was Adele’s fault. She wanted it for the wedding. The damned
thing has gone, Steve, vanished into thin air. If you told me what I’m
going to tell you, I should say you were crazy. The people here and the
fool police thought I’d been drinking. I’d had three or four cocktails,
but what is that to me--or you? I was absolutely in possession of my
senses.
“We dined early and we dined alone. At eight I went down for the jewels
Adele wanted to wear. The ruby was the _pièce de résistance_ of course.
I went down my own private stairway as usual and unlocked the door
leading from it to the hotel lobby. Devlin is here, and O’Brien, but
they were both outside keeping tabs on strangers. The papers have played
this costume ball up so much that every crook in the land knew what we
had to offer in the way of loot. Graham, the hotel clerk, came with me
to the private stairway and swears he pushed the door to as I started to
go up the stairs. And he swears also that, although it wasn’t lighted as
well as usual, there was nobody in sight. They are steep stairs, Steve,
but they save me rubbing shoulders with every man or woman who might
want to get acquainted in the public elevators; and, naturally, I wasn’t
carrying a fortune where any crook could get a crack at me.
“Read this carefully. I was on the fifteenth step of the flight of
twenty-two steps when the thing happened. The light was dim because one
of the bulbs wasn’t working and the only illumination came from a red
light at the head of the stairway.
“I was holding the jewel box in both hands resting it almost on my chest
when the thing happened. There was suddenly a noise that might have been
made by the beating of wings and something swooped out of nowhere and
hit me on my wrists with such violence that I went backwards down the
stairs and was unconscious for more than ten minutes. On each wrist
there is an abrasion that might be caused by the sharp bill of a big
bird. I’m bruised all over and have three stitches over one eye.
“I found the box lying on one of the steps closed as I had held it. _The
only thing that was missing was the Mt. Aubyn Ruby!_
“Devlin and O’Brien have all kinds of theories but I told them I wanted
the stone back and if they didn’t get it I wouldn’t have them any longer
in my employ.
“Devlin says he will swear a car passed him on the Boston road yesterday
containing some Continental crooks who used to operate along the Italian
and French riviera. He’s full of wild fancies and swears I shall get the
ruby back. I’m not so sure. I’ve given up the theory that it was a great
black bat which hit me, but whatever it was it was a stunt pulled by a
master craftsman who is laughing at Devlin and his kind. Can you imagine
a crook who would leave behind what this fellow did?
“I wish you’d go to the Pemberton Detective Agency and get them to send
some one up here capable of handling the situation. I shall be coming
down to New York as soon as I’m able. I’m too much bruised to play golf
but when I do I shall win some of your money. I’ve had some lessons
from a crackerjack golfer up here who goes round the eighteen holes in
anything from seventy-two to seventy-eight. My stance was wrong and I
wasn’t gripping right.”
So much for Jerome Dangerfield. When Devlin and O’Brien examined the
scene of the crime they immediately noticed that some fifteen feet above
the ground level a stained glass window lighted the stairway. “Of
course,” they exclaimed in unison, “that is the solution.” But the
theory did not hold water, as the soil of the flower-beds showed no sign
of a ladder or any footmark. They had been raked over that afternoon and
the gardener swore no foot but his had set foot in this enclosed garden
which supplied the hotel tables with blooms. An examination of the
window showed no helpful finger marks. It was an indoor job, they
declared, amending their first opinion.
But they were thorough workmen in their way. For instance: Anthony
Trent, reclining fully dressed across his bed with cigarette stubs and
emptied glasses about him within thirty minutes of the robbery, was
evidently in fear of interruption. An onlooker would have seen him take
three gin fizzes in rapid succession until indeed his face wore a faint
flush. He listened keenly when outside his door footsteps lingered. And
he was snoring alcoholically when the hotel clerk entered, bringing with
him Messrs. Devlin and O’Brien.
“He’s been like this for days,” Graham, the clerk, asserted. “If it
wasn’t that he was no trouble and made no noise I should have told him
to get out. A pity,” Graham shook his head, “one of the
pleasantest-spoken men in the hotel, and some golfer, they tell me.”
“You leave us,” Devlin commanded. “We are acting for the boss and it’ll
be all right.”
Out of the corner of his eye Trent watched the two trained men make a
thorough examination of his room and effects. Indeed, their thoroughness
gave him ideas which were later to prove of use. But they drew blank.
They examined the two fly rods he had brought with him and a collapsible
landing net with great care, tapping the handles and balancing the rods.
They sighed when nothing was found.
“This guy is all right,” said O’Brien.
“I don’t know,” said Devlin. “He looks a little too much like a
moving-picture hero to suit me. He may have it on him.”
At this moment Trent sat up with an effort and looked from one to the
other of the visitors. As drunken men do, it appeared not easy to get
them in proper focus.
Devlin was not easily put in the wrong. His manner was most respectful.
“Mr. Dangerfield wants you to join him in a little game of bridge,” he
began ingratiatingly.
“Sure,” said the inebriate. “Any time at all.” He attempted to get up.
“You can’t go like this,” Devlin assured him. “You’d better sober up a
bit. Take a cold bath.”
O’Brien obligingly turned the water on and five minutes later Devlin
assisted him into the tub, while O’Brien examined the clothes he had
left in his sitting-room.
Then the two left him abruptly and made no more mention of bridge or
Dangerfield. Trent rolled on the bed chuckling. The honors were his.
The great black bird swooping from nowhere to relieve Dangerfield of his
great ruby and other stones of value, to strike that worthy upon his
strong wrists with such startling effect as to make him fall down a
dozen steps, was capable of a simpler explanation than he had supposed.
Trent, a week before the robbery, had observed with peculiar attention
the window leading to Dangerfield’s private stairway. He could see one
easy approach to it and one of greater difficulty. The first was
approach by a step-ladder. The second was a great arm of the enormous
tree that reared its head above the hotel roof. This arm hung down from
the roof almost twenty feet above the little window. He believed that
his weight would bring it swaying down to the window-ledge. He tried it
one moonless night and found the scheme feasible. Already the chiller
mountain breezes following the heat spell were making visitors close
their windows. On the evening of the third of September he stole from
his room by climbing over the roof until he came to the side where the
big tree was. In one hand he held a coil of rope to hold the branch when
his weight was taken off it. This rope he tied to the iron staple of the
shutter outside the window. It was easy to open this.
Dropping silently on to the stairs, he unscrewed the bulb of the light
until the staircase was in partial darkness. Tense, he knelt on the edge
of the window and waited for the millionaire. And as the man came in
sight he suddenly lifted from a step his landing net, the same
collapsible one Devlin had examined with such care. But this time it was
draped in dark material to conceal its form. The brass rim, sharp and
heavy, struck Dangerfield’s wrists as he held the box by both hands on a
level with his heart. Into the open net the precious casket fell
silently. Trent was in his room ten minutes ere Dangerfield came to
consciousness. His next move seemed strange and unnecessary. With a used
golf ball in his pocket, he slid down the veranda posts until he came,
by devious routes, to the shed in which the lockers were of those who
used the links. It had long since been closed for the night. Parker
unfastened Dangerfield’s locker and placed the ball in the pocket, where
it lay with others of similar age and make.
He was able to return to his room unobserved. It was less than a half
hour afterward that he received his call from the two detectives.
Although he was anxious to get on the links again and breathe the air of
the pine woods, he was careful not to undo his artistic preparations. It
was noticed that no more drink was sent to his room. There came instead
ice water and strong coffee. He was getting over it, they said. Two days
later he was out on the links and made a peculiarly bad round, taking
ten more strokes than usual. Dangerfield watched him from the piazza.
One of his arms was in a sling.
“Cut the rough stuff out,” said Dangerfield, “that’s the second time you
topped your ball.”
Trent passed a hand across his face, possibly to hide a smile.
“I guess I’ll have to,” he returned simply. “It was that damned heat
wave that got me going.”
* * * * *
It happened that the Dangerfields and Trent returned to New York on the
same train. Devlin and O’Brien were in attendance. Trent noticed that
when Devlin’s eye fell on the golf bag over his shoulder he frowned. So
far the ruby had not been recovered and here was a piece of baggage that
might hold crown jewels. Over Devlin’s broad shoulders his master’s golf
bag was suspended. Cheerily and with respect he approached the crack
player.
“Let me hold your golf bag, sir,” he said with a ready smile. “I’ll put
it on the train for you.”
Trent relinquished it with relief. “Thank you,” he returned, “it will be
a help.”
He had long ago noticed that his own bag and Dangerfield’s were alike
save for the initials. They were both of white canvas, bound with black
leather. Watching the smiling Devlin with a well-disguised curiosity, he
saw that Dangerfield’s bag had been substituted for his own. Devlin had
done exactly as Trent expected him to do and had, in the doing of it,
saved him much trouble.
There were not many people in his Pullman. Dangerfield had his private
car. None saw Anthony Trent open the ball pouch on the Dangerfield bag
and extract therefrom an aged and somewhat dented ball. He balanced it
almost lovingly in his hand. Never in the history of the great game had
a ball been seen with the worth of this one. And yet he had so cunningly
extracted its core and repaired it when once the Mount Aubyn ruby was
nestling in its strange home that detection was unlikely, even were an
examination made. A porter had the Dangerfield bag and Trent’s suitcase
when Devlin came up to him. He was no longer obliging. He had spent
wearisome hours in the privacy of the Dangerfield car examining every
part of the Trent impedimenta. The task had wearied him and had been
fruitless.
“You got the boss’s clubs,” he said shortly.
Languidly Trent examined what his porter carried.
“You’re to blame for it,” he answered, and as Mr. Dangerfield came up
raised his voice a little. He knew Devlin suspected him, and he sensed
that some day the two would meet as open foes.
“This man of yours,” cried Trent, “tried to give me your clubs instead
of my own. I wouldn’t lose mine for anything.”
“You crack golfers couldn’t do anything without your own specially built
clubs,” jeered the millionaire, “I believe it’s half the game.”
Trent smiled.
“There’s something in the ball, too,” he admitted, and had difficulty in
keeping his face straight.
Mrs. Kinney was delighted to see her employer home again, and hurried to
a convenient delicatessen store so that he might be fed. It was when she
came back that her eye caught sight of the brass lamp from Benares.
Where had been the unsightly gap caused by her breaking of the red glass
was now a piece which glittered gaily.
“Why, you’ve had it mended, sir,” she cried. “I feel I ought to pay for
it, since it was my carelessness which broke it.”
“I’m glad you did,” he laughed. “If you hadn’t I shouldn’t have got
this.” He looked at it with pride. “Do you know, Mrs. Kinney, I like
this one better.”
“It makes the other ones look common though,” she commented.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I think I shall have to replace them,
too.”