the moment forgetting the embargo he had imposed on his own words.
As for myself, I saw at once that others besides ourselves were keenly
interested in this robbery.
"There," remarked Kennedy when at last he had finished packing up the
dynamometer into two packages. "At least, Mr. Langhorne, you have the
satisfaction of knowing that it was in all probability a man, a strong
man, and one experienced in forcing doors who succeeded in entering
your office during your brief absence last night."
Langhorne shrugged his shoulders non-committally, but it was evident
that he was greatly relieved and he could not conceal his interest in
what Kennedy was doing, even though he had succeeded in conveying the
impression that it was a matter of indifference to him.
"I suppose you keep a great many of your valuable papers in safety
deposit vaults," ventured Kennedy, finishing up the wrapping of the two
packages, "as well as your personal papers perhaps at home."
He made the remark in a casual manner, but Langhorne was too keen to
fall into the trap.
"Really," he said with an air of finality, "I must decline to be
interviewed at present. Good-day, gentlemen."
"A slippery customer," was Craig's comment when we reached the street
outside the office. "By the way, evidently Mrs. Ogleby is leaving no
stone unturned in her effort to locate that Black Book and protect
herself."
I said nothing. Langhorne's manner, self-confident to the point of
bravado, had baffled me. I began to feel that even if he had lost the
detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff of still
having it, in much the same manner that he would have played the market
on a shoestring or made the most of an unfilled four-card flush in a
game of poker.
Kennedy was far from being discouraged, however. Indeed, it seemed as
if he really enjoyed matching his wit against the subtlety of a man
like Langhorne, even more than against one the type of Dorgan and
Murtha.
"I want to see Carton and I don't want to carry these bundles all over
the city," he remarked, changing the subject for the moment, as he
turned into a public pay station. "I'll ring him up and have him meet
us at the laboratory, if I can."
A moment later he emerged, excited, perspiring from the closeness of
the telephone booth.
"Carton has some news--a letter--that's all he would say," he
exclaimed. "He'll meet us at the laboratory."
We hastily resumed our uptown journey.
"What do you think it is?" I asked. "About Betty Blackwell?"
Kennedy shook his head non-committally. "I don't know. But he has some
of his county detectives watching Dorgan and Murtha in that Black Book
case, I know. They are worried. It doesn't look as though they, at
least, had the record--that is, if Langhorne has really lost it."
I wondered whether Langhorne might not, after all, as Kennedy had
hinted, have concealed it elsewhere. The activity of Dorgan and Murtha
might indicate that they knew more about the robbery than appeared yet
on the surface. Had they failed in it? Had they been double-crossed by
the man they had chosen for the work, assuming that they knew of and
had planned the "job"?
The safe-breaking and the way Langhorne took it had served to
complicate the case even further. While we had before been reasonably
sure that Langhorne had the book, now we were sure of nothing.
IV
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER
"What do you make of that?" inquired Carton half an hour later as he
met us breathlessly at the laboratory.
He unfolded a letter over which he had evidently been puzzling
considerably. It was written, or rather typewritten, on plain paper.
The envelope was plain and bore no marks of identification, except
possibly that it had been mailed uptown.
The letter ran:
DEAR SIR:
Although this is an anonymous letter, I beg that you will not consider
it such, since it will be plain to you that there is good reason for my
wishing to remain nameless.
I want to tell you of some things that have taken place recently at a
little hotel in the West Fifties. No doubt you know of the place
already--the Little Montmartre.
There are several young and wealthy men who frequent this resort. I do
not dare tell you their names, but one is a well-known club-man and man
about town, another is a banker and broker, also well known, and a
third is a lawyer. I might also mention an intimate friend of theirs,
though not of their position in society--a doctor who has somewhat of a
reputation among the class of people who frequent the Little
Montmartre, ready to furnish them with anything from a medical
certificate to drugs and treatment.
I have read a great deal in the newspapers lately of the disappearance
of Betty Blackwell, and her case interests me. I think you will find
that it will repay you to look into the hint I have given. I don't
think it is necessary to say any more. Indeed it may be dangerous to
me, and I beg that you will not even show this letter to anyone except
those associated with you and then, please, only with the understanding
that it is to go no farther.
Betty Blackwell is not at this hotel, but I am sure that some of those
whose wild orgies have scandalized even the Little Montmartre know
something about her.
Yours truly,
AN OUTCAST.
Kennedy looked up quickly at Carton as he finished reading the letter.
"Typical," he remarked. "Anonymous letters occasionally are of a
friendly nature, but usually they reflect with more or less severity
upon the conduct or character of someone. They usually receive little
attention, but sometimes they are of the most serious character. In
many instances they are most important links in chains of evidence
pointing to grave crimes.
"It is possible to draw certain conclusions from such letters at once.
For instance, it is a surprising fact that in a large number of cases
the anonymous letter writer is a woman, who may write what it does not
seem possible she could write. Such letters often by their writing,
materials used, composition and general form indicate at once the sex
of the writer and frequently show nationality, age, education, and
occupation. These facts may often point to the probable author.
"Now in this case the writer evidently was well educated. Assumed
illiteracy is a frequent disguise, but it is impossible for an author
to assume a literacy he or she does not possess. Then, too, women are
more apt to assume the characteristics of men than men of women. There
are many things to be considered. Too bad it wasn't in ordinary
handwriting. That would have shown much more. However, we shall try our
best with what we have here. What impressed you about it?"
"Well," remarked Carton, "the thing that impressed me was that as usual
and as I fully expected, the trail leads right back to protected vice
and commercialized graft. This Little Montmartre is one of the swellest
of such resorts in the city, the legitimate successor to the scores and
hundreds of places which the authorities and the vice investigators
have closed recently. In fact, Kennedy, I consider it more dangerous,
because it is run, on the surface at least, just like any of the
first-class hotels. There's no violation of law there, at least not
openly."
Craig had continued to examine the letter closely. "So, you have
already investigated the Little Montmartre?" he queried, drawing from
his pocket a little strip of glass and laying it down carefully over
the letter.
"Indeed I have," returned the District Attorney, watching Kennedy
curiously. "It is a place with a very unsavoury reputation. And yet I
have been able to get nothing on it. They are so confounded clever.
There is never any outward violation of law; they adhere strictly to
the letter of the rule of outward decency."
Over the typewritten characters Kennedy had placed the strip of glass
and I could see that it was ruled into little oblongs, into each of
which one of the type of the typewritten sheet seemed to fall.
Apparently he had forgotten the contents of the letter in his interest
in the text itself. He held the paper up to the light and seemed to
study its texture and thickness. Then he examined the typed characters
more closely with a little pocket magnifying glass, his lips moving as
if he were counting something. Next he seized a mass of correspondence
on his desk and began comparing the letter with others, apparently to
determine just the shade of writing of the ribbon. Finally he gave it
up and leaned back in his chair regarding us.
"It is written in the regular pica type," he remarked thoughtfully,
"and on a machine that has seen considerable rough usage, although it
is not an old machine. It will take me a little time to identify the
make, but after I have done that, I think I could identify the
particular machine itself the moment I saw it. You see, it is only a
clue that would serve to fix it once you found that machine. The point
is, after all, to find it. But once found, I am sure we shall be close
to the source of the letter. I may keep this and study it at my
leisure?"
"Certainly."
For a moment Carton was silent. Then it seemed as though the matter of
Betty Blackwell brought to mind what he had read in the morning papers.
"That robbery of Langhorne's safe was a most peculiar thing, wasn't
it?" he meditated. "I suppose you know what Miss Blackwell was?"
"Langhorne's stenographer and secretary, of course," I replied quickly.
"Yes, I know. But I mean what she had actually done? I don't believe
you do. My county detectives found out only last night." Kennedy paused
in his rummaging among some bottles to which he had turned at the
mention of the safe robbery. "No--what was it?" he asked.
Carton bent forward as if our own walls might have ears and said in a
low voice: "She was the operator who took down the detectaphone
conversations at the other end of the wire in a furnished room in the
house next to Gastron's."
He drew back to see what effect the intelligence had on us, then
resumed slowly: "Yes, I've had my men out on the case. That is what
they think. I believe she often executed little confidential
commissions for Langhorne, sometimes things that took her on short
trips out of town. There is a possibility that she may be on a mission
of that sort. But I think--it's this Black Book case that involves her
now."
"Langhorne wouldn't talk much about anything," I put in, hastily
remembering his manner. "He may not be responsible--but from his
actions I'd wager he knows more about her than appears."
"Just so," agreed Carton. "If my men can find out that she was the
operator who 'listened in' and got the notes and the transcript of the
Black Book, then she becomes a person of importance in the case and the
fact must be known to others who are interested. Why," he pursued,
"don't you see what it means? If she is out of the way, there is no one
to swear to the accuracy of the notes in the record, no one to identify
the voices--even if we do manage finally to locate the thing."
"Dorgan and the rest are certainly leaving nothing undone to shake the
validity of the record," ruminated Kennedy, accepting for the moment at
least Carton's explanation of the disappearance of Miss Blackwell.
"Have you any idea what might have happened to her?"
Carton shook his head negatively. "There are several explanations," he
replied slowly. "As far as we have been able to find out she led a
model life, at home with her mother and sister. Except for the few
commissions for Langhorne and lately when she was out rather late
taking the detectaphone notes, she was very quiet,--in fact devoted to
her mother and the education of her younger sister."
"What sort of place was it in which the receivers of the detectaphone
were located--do you know?" asked Kennedy quickly.
"Yes, it seems to be a very respectable boardinghouse," answered
Carton. "She came there with a grip about a week ago and hired a room,
saying she was out of town a great deal. Just about the same time a
young man, who posed as a student in electrical engineering at some
school uptown, left. It must have been he who installed the
detectaphone--perhaps with the aid of a waiter in Gastron's. At any
rate, she seems to have been alone in the boarding-house--that is, I
mean, not acquainted with any of the other guests--during the time when
she was taking down the record. Dorgan traced the wires, outside the
two buildings, to her rooms, but she was not there. In fact there was
nothing there but a grip with a few articles that give no clue to
anything. Somehow she must have heard of it, for no one knows anything
about her, since then."
"Perhaps Langhorne is keeping her out of the way so that no one can
tamper with her testimony," I suggested.
"It's possible," said Carton in a tone that showed that he did not
believe in that explanation. "How about that safe robbery, Kennedy?
Some of the papers hinted that she might have known something of that.
I had a man down there watching, afterwards, but I had cautioned him to
be careful and keep under cover. One of the elevator boys told him that
the robbers had made a hole in the safe. What did he mean? Did you see
it?"
Rapidly Kennedy sketched what we had done, telling the story of how the
dynamometer had at least partly exonerated Betty Blackwell.
When he reached the description of the hole in the safe, Carton was
absolutely incredulous. As for myself, it presented a mystery which I
found absolutely inexplicable. How it was possible in such a short time
to make a hole in a safe by any known means, I could not understand. In
fact, if I had not seen it myself, I should have been even more
sceptical than Carton.
Kennedy, however, made no reply immediately to our expressions of
doubt. He had found and set apart from the rest a couple of little
glass bottles with ground glass stoppers. Then he took a thick piece of
steel and laid it across a couple of blocks of wood, under which was a
second steel plate.
Without a word of explanation, he took the glass stopper out of the
larger bottle and poured some of the contents on the upper plate of
steel. There it lay, a little mound of reddish powder. Then he took a
little powder of another kind from the other bottle.
He lighted a match and ignited the second pile of powder.
"Stand back--close to the wall--shield your eyes," he called to us.
He had dropped the burning mass on the red powder and in two or three
leaps he joined us at the far end of the room.
Almost instantly a dazzling, intense flame broke out. It seemed to
sizzle and crackle. With bated breath we waited and, as best we could,
shielding our eyes from the glare, watched.
It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed
literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In
tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could see the reflection of
the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for itself in the cold
steel plate.
At last it fell through to the lower piece of steel, on which it burnt
itself out--fell through as the burning roof of a frame building might
have fallen into the building.
Neither Carton nor I spoke a word, but as we now cautiously advanced
with Kennedy and peered over the steel plate we instinctively turned to
Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to regard him as if he were
some uncanny mortal. For, there in the steel plate, was a hole. As I
looked at the clean-cut edges, I saw that it was smaller but identical
in nature with that which we had seen in the safe in Langhorne's office.
"Wonderful!" ejaculated Carton. "What is it?"
"Thermit," was all Kennedy said, as just a trace of a smile of
satisfaction flitted over his face.
"Thermit?" echoed Carton, still as mystified as before.
"Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen, Germany.
It is composed of iron oxide, such as conies off a blacksmith's anvil
or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered metallic aluminum. You
could thrust a red-hot bar into it without setting it off, but when you
light a little magnesium powder and drop it on thermit, a combustion is
started that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It
has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate
spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidizing
agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface.
You see how it ate its way directly through this plate. Steel, hard or
soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized--it all burns just as
fast and just as easily. And it's comparatively inexpensive, also. This
is an experiment Goldschmidt it fond of showing his students--burning
holes in one--and two-inch steel plates. It is the same with a
safe--only you need more of the stuff. Either black or red thermit will
do the trick equally well, however."
Neither of us said anything. There was nothing to say except to feel
and express amazement.
"Someone uncommonly clever or instructed by someone uncommonly clever,
must have done that job at Langhorne's," added Craig. "Have you any
idea who might pull off such a thing for Dorgan or Murtha?" he asked of
Carton.
"There's a possible suspect," answered Carton slowly, "but since I've
seen this wonderful exhibition of what thermit can do, I'm almost
ashamed to mention his name. He's not in the class that would be likely
to use such things."
"Oh," laughed Kennedy, "never think it. Don't you suppose the crooks
read the scientific and technical papers? Believe me, they have known
about thermit as long as I have. Safes are constructed now that are
proof against even that, and other methods of attack. No indeed, your
modern scientific cracksman keeps abreast of the times in his field
better than you imagine. Our only protection is that fortunately
science always keeps several laps ahead of him in the race--and
besides, we have organized society to meet all such perils. It may be
that the very cleverness of the fellow will be his own undoing. The
unusual criminal is often that much the easier to run down. It narrows
the number of suspects."
"Well," rejoined Carton, not as confident now as when he had first met
us in the laboratory, "then there is a possible suspect--a fellow known
in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack--Jack Rubano. He's a clever
fellow--no doubt. But I hardly think he's capable of that, although I
should call him a rather advanced yeggman."
"What makes you suspect him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.
"Well," temporized Carton, "I haven't anything 'on' him in this
connection, it's true. But we've been trying to find him and can't seem
to locate him in connection with primary frauds in Murtha's own
district. Dopey Jack is the leader of a gang of gunmen over there and
is Murtha's first lieutenant whenever there is a tough political battle
of the organization either at the primaries or on Election Day."
"Has a record, I suppose?" prompted Kennedy.
"Would have--if it wasn't for the influence of Murtha," rejoined Carton.
I had heard, in knocking about the city, of Dopey Jack Rubano. That was
the picturesque title by which he was known to the police and his
enemies as well as to his devoted followers. A few years before, he had
begun his career fighting in "preliminaries" at the prize fight clubs
on the lower East Side.
He had begun life with a better chance than most slum boys, for he had
rugged health and an unusually sturdy body. His very strength had been
his ruin. Working decently for wages, he had been told by other petty
gang leaders that he was a "sucker," when he could get many times as
much for boxing a few rounds at some "athletic" club. He tried out the
game with many willing instructors and found that it was easy money.
Jack began to wear better clothes and study the methods of other young
men who never worked but always seemed to have plenty of money. They
were his pals and showed him how it was done. It wasn't long before he
learned that he could often get more by hitting a man with a blackjack
than by using his fists in the roped ring. Then, too, there were
various ways of blackmail and extortion that were simple, safe, and
lucrative. He might be arrested, but he early found that by making
himself useful to some politicians, they could fix that minor
difficulty in the life.
Thus because he was not only strong and brutal, but had a sort of
ability and some education, Dopey Jack quickly rose to a position of
minor leadership--had his own incipient "gang," his own "lobbygows."
His following increased as he rose in gangland, and finally he came to
be closely associated with Murtha himself on one hand and the "guns"
and other criminals of the underworld who frequented the stuss games,
where they gambled away the products of their crimes, on the other.
Everyone knew Dopey Jack. He had been charged with many crimes, but
always through the aid of "the big fellows" he avoided the penitentiary
and every fresh and futile attempt to end his career increased the
numbers and reverence of his followers. His had been the history and he
was the pattern now of practically every gang leader of consequence in
the city. The fight club had been his testing ground. There he had
learned the code, which can be summarized in two words, "Don't squeal."
For gangland hates nothing so much as a "snitch." As a beginner he
could be trusted to commit any crime assigned to him and go to prison,
perhaps the chair, rather than betray a leader. As a leader he had
those under him trained in the same code. That still was his code to
those above him in the System.
"We want him for frauds at the primaries," repeated Carton, "at least,
if we can find him, we can hold him on that for a time. I thought
perhaps he might know something of the robbery--and about the
disappearance of the girl, too.
"Oh," he continued, "there are lots of things against him. Why, only
last week there was a dance of a rival association of gang leaders.
Against them Dopey Jack led a band of his own followers and in the
ensuing pistol battle a passer-by was killed. Of course we can't
connect Dopey Jack with his death, but--then we know as well as we know
anything in gangland that he was responsible."
"I suppose it isn't impossible that he may know something about the
disappearance of Miss Blackwell," remarked Kennedy.
"No," replied Carton, "not at all, although, so far, there is
absolutely no clue as far as I can figure out. She may have been bought
off or she may have been kidnapped."
"In either case the missing girl must be found," said Craig. "We must
get someone interested in her case who knows something about what may
happen to a girl in New York."
Carton had been revolving the matter in his mind. "By George," he
exclaimed suddenly, "I think I know just the person to take up that
case for us--it's quite in her line. Can you spare the time to run down
to the Reform League headquarters with me?"
"Nothing could be more important, just at the minute," replied Craig.
The telephone buzzed and he answered it, a moment later handing the
receiver to Carton.
"It's your office," he said. "One of the assistant district attorneys
wants you on the wire."
As Carton hung up the receiver he turned to us with a look of great
satisfaction.
"Dopey Jack has just been arrested," he announced. "He has shut up like
an oyster, but we think we can at least hold him for a few days this
time until we sift down some of these clues."
V
THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY
Carton took us directly to the campaign headquarters of the Reform
League, where his fight for political life was being conducted.
We found the offices in the tower of a skyscraper, whence was pouring
forth a torrent of appeal to the people, in printed and oral form of
every kind, urging them to stand shoulder to shoulder for good
government and vote the "ring" out of power.
There seemed to me to be a different tone to the place from that which
I had ordinarily associated with political headquarters in previous
campaigns. There was a notable absence of the old-fashioned politicians
and of the air of intrigue laden with tobacco.
Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency, which was
decidedly encouraging and hopeful. It seemed to speak of a new era in
politics when things were to be done in the open instead of at secret
meetings and scandalous dinners, as Dorgan did them at Gastron's.