was composed of three continuous series of markings which looked, under
the lens, for all the world like the impressions of an endless straight
series of molar teeth. Flanking these three tooth-like impressions were
other lines--varying in width and in number--I should say, about four,
both above and below the tooth-like impressions. When highly magnified
one could distinguish roughly parallel parts of what at even a low
magnification looked like a single line.
"I have been studying voice analysis lately," explained Kennedy,
"particularly with reference to the singing voice. Mr. Edison has made
thousands and thousands of studies of voices to determine which are
scientifically perfect for singing. That side of it did not interest me
particularly. I have been seeking to use the discovery rather for
detective purposes."
He paused and with a fine needle traced out some of the lines on the
photographs before us.
"That," he went on, "is a highly magnified photograph of a minute
section of the phonographic record of the voice that called you up,
Carton, as editor of the Wall Street Record. The upper and lower lines,
with long regular waves, are formed by a voice with no overtones. Those
three broader lines in the middle, with rhythmic ripples, show the
overtones."
Carton and I followed, fascinated by the minuteness of his
investigation and knowledge.
"You see," he explained, "when a voice or a passage of music sounds or
is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received upon the
diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the surface of the
cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig-zag lines of
infinitely varying depth and breadth.
"Close familiarity with such records for about forty years has taught
Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation in the
lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By examining them under
the microscope one can analyze each tone with mathematical accuracy and
can almost hear it--just as a musician reading the score of a song can
almost hear the notes."
"Wonderful," ejaculated Carton. "And you mean to say that in that way
you can actually identify a voice?"
Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking
them over under a microscope--yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a
singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I
can recognize a voice--mathematically. In short," Craig concluded
enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement,
the finger-print, the portrait parle of the human voice!"
Incredible as it seemed, we were forced to believe, for there on the
table lay the graphic evidence which he had just so painstakingly
interpreted.
"Who was it?" asked Carton breathlessly.
Kennedy picked up another microphotograph. "That is the record I took
of one of the calls I made--merely for the purpose of obtaining samples
of voices to compare with this of the impersonator. The two agree in
every essential detail and none of the others could be confounded by an
expert who studied them. Your 'wolf' was your old friend Kahn!"
"Fighting back at me by his usual underhand methods," exclaimed Carton
in profound disgust.
"Or else trying himself to get control of the Black Book," added
Kennedy. "If you will stop to think a moment, his shafts have been
levelled quite as much at discrediting Langhorne as yourself. He might
hope to kill two birds with one stone--and incidentally save himself."
"You mean that he wants to lay a foundation now for questioning the
accuracy of the Black Book if it ever comes to light?"
"Perhaps," assented Kennedy carefully.
"Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his
impostures," hastened Carton.
"I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that we
know what he is up to and can trace it to him--provided you don't tell
him how we did it--yet."
Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every place in
which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his offices, nor
at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton left a message
which told the story and which he could hardly fail to receive soon.
As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown study.
He rose slowly and put on his hat.
"Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked,
"particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with it.
I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I heard about
his condition. I want to see him myself."
Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to speak
to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more important to look
to the foundations than to the building just now."
A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the
private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced that
Murtha had been taken.
I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty either
in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We arrived at
the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high brick wall, and
evidently once a fine country estate, at just about dusk. To my
surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had no difficulty in being
admitted.
For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room, I
listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the building.
Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state of disorder. I
had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for the care and
treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of excitement which
palpably pervaded the air was not what one would have expected. I began
to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and wonder whether
there might not have been a revolution in the place and the patients
have taken charge of their keepers.
At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any
attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going to
pass us without notice.
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, who had heard his footsteps
approaching and had placed himself in the hallway so that the attendant
could not pass, "but we have called to see Mr. Murtha."
The attendant eyed us curiously. I expected him to say that it was
against the rules, or to question our right to see the patient.
"I'm afraid you're too late," he said briefly, instead.
"Too late?" queried Kennedy sharply. "What do you mean?"
The man answered promptly as if that were the quickest way to get back
to his own errand.
"Mr. Murtha escaped from his keepers this evening, just after dinner,
and there is no trace of him."
XX
THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH
Murtha's escape from the sanitarium had again thrown our calculations
into chaos. We rode back to the city in silence, and even Kennedy had
no explanation to offer.
Even at a late hour that night, although a widespread alarm had been
sent out for him, no trace of the missing man could be found. The next
morning's papers, of course, were full of the strange disappearance,
but gave no hint of his discovery. In fact, all day the search was
continued by the authorities, but without result.
On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well
known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the official
and political life of the city, could remain at large unrecognized.
Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men had disappeared. The
facts in Murtha's case spoke for themselves.
Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the political
campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now
drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the
final spurt to the finish.
With Kennedy's unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn, that
worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our sight. Mrs.
Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect that the shadow
that had been placed on her could not have been engaged by Martin
Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take reports of the sort
complaisantly. Someone else must be interested.
As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that no
one made use of it. Even though we gained no hint from Langhorne after
the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was impossible to tell whether or
not he still retained the detectaphone record. On the other hand, if
Dorgan had obtained it by using the services of someone in the criminal
hierarchy that Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that
we would have heard anything about it. We were in the position of men
fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly whom
we fought.
We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as had
been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous twenty-four,
had been speculating on the possible solution of the mysterious
dropping out of sight of Murtha. The evening papers had contained
nothing that the morning papers had not already published and Kennedy
had tossed the last of an armful into the scrap basket when the buzzer
on the door of our apartment sounded.
A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a note, as
he touched his hat. "A message for Professor Kennedy from Mr. Carton,
sir," he announced.
I recognized him as Carton's valet as he stood impatiently waiting for
Craig to read the letter.
"It's all right--there's no answer--I'll see him immediately," nodded
Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet disappeared.
"My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves," read the
note. "Would you like to look it over? I can't find anything missing
except a bundle of old and valueless photographs. Carton."
"Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book from
Langhorne," I commented, following the line on which I had been
thinking at the time.
"And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not
finding it?" Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my theory.
"Perhaps," I acquiesced weakly, as we went out.
Instead of turning in the direction of Carton's immediately, Kennedy
walked across the campus toward the Chemistry Building. At the
laboratory we loaded ourselves with a large and heavy oblong case
containing a camera and a tripod.
The Cartons lived in an old section of the city which still retained
something of its aristocratic air, having been passed by, as it were,
like an eddy in the stream of business that swirled uptown, engulfing
everything.
It was an old four-story brownstone house which had been occupied by
his father and grandfather before him, and now was the home of Carton,
his mother, and his sister.
"I'm glad to see you," Carton met us at the door. "This isn't quite as
classy a robbery as Langhorne's--but it's just as mysterious. Must have
happened while the family were at dinner. That's why I said it was a
robbery by a sneak thief."
He was leading the way to his study, which was in an extension of the
house, in the rear.
"I hope you've left things as they were," ventured Craig.
"I did," assured Carton. "I know your penchant for such things and
almost the first thought I had was that you'd prefer it that way. So I
shut the door and sent William after you. By the way, what have you
done with him?"
"Nothing," returned Craig. "Isn't he back yet?"
"No--oh, well I don't need him right away."
"And nothing was taken except some old photographs?" asked Craig,
looking intently at Carton's face.
"That is all I can find missing," he returned frankly.
Kennedy's examination of the looted study was minute, taking in the
window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he
had forced, and the situation in general. Finally he set up his camera
with most particular care and took several flashlight pictures of the
window, the cabinet, the doors--including the study--from every angle.
Outside he examined the extension and back of the house carefully,
noting possible ways of getting from the side street across the fences
into the Carton yard.
With Carton we returned to Craig's splendidly equipped photographic
studio and while Carton and I made the best of our time by discussing
various phases of the case, Kennedy employed the interval in developing
his plates.
He had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size, mounted on
stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on all four margins.
Carton and I puzzled over them.
"Those are metric photographs, such as Bertillon of Paris used to
take," Craig explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other
methods that have been worked out, we can determine from those pictures
distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the
spot ourselves. Bertillon cleared up many crimes with this help, such
as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other
cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with other
devices in the study of crime."
He was going over the photographs carefully.
"For instance," he continued, "in order to solve the riddle of a crime,
the detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans
and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each object
is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera
is called into requisition. The plundered room is photographed, as in
this case. I might have done it by placing a foot rule on a table and
taking that in the picture. But a more scientific and accurate method
has been devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a
fixed height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an
exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a
space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is
printed. In the way he has worked it out, the distance between any two
points in the picture can be determined. With a topographical plan and
a metric photograph one can study a crime, as a general studies the map
of a strange country. There were several peculiar things that I
observed at your house, Carton, and I have here an indelible record of
the scene of the crime. Preserved in this way, it cannot be questioned.
You are sure that the only thing missing is the photographs?"
Carton nodded, "I never keep anything valuable lying around."
"Well," resumed Kennedy, "the photographs were in this cabinet. There
are other cabinets, but none of them seems to have been disturbed.
Therefore the thief must have known just what he was after. The marks
made in breaking the lock were not those of a jimmy, but of a
screwdriver. No amazing command of the resources of science is needed
so far. All that is necessary is a little scientific common sense."
Carton glanced at me, and I smiled, for it always did seem so easy,
when Craig did it, and so impossible when we tried to go it alone.
"Now, how did the robber get in?" he continued, thoroughly engrossed in
his study. "All the windows were supposedly locked. I saw that a pane
had been partly cut from this window at the side--and the pieces were
there to show it. But consider the outside, a moment. To reach that
window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There
were no marks of a ladder or even of any person in the soft soil of the
garden under the window. What is more, that window was cut from the
inside. The marks of the diamond which cut it plainly show that.
Scientific common sense again."
"Then it must have been someone in the house or at least familiar with
it?" I exclaimed.
Kennedy shook his head affirmatively.
I had been wondering who it could be. Certainly this was not the work
of Dopey Jack, even if the far cleverer attempt on Langhorne's safe had
been. But it might have been one of his gang. I had not got as far as
trying to reason out the why of the crime.
"Call up your house, Carton," asked Craig. "See if William, your valet,
has returned."
Carton did so, and a moment later turned to us with a look of
perplexity on his face. "No," he reported, "he hasn't come back yet. I
can't imagine where he is."
"He won't come back," asserted Kennedy positively. "It was an inside
job--and he did it."
Carton gasped astonishment.
"At any rate," pursued Kennedy, "one thing we have which the police
greatly neglect--a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing
the crime, as Bertillon used to call it."
"Strange that he should take only photographs," I mused.
"What were they?" asked Kennedy, and again I saw that he was looking
intently at Carton's face.
"Nothing much," returned Carton unhesitatingly, "just some personal
photographs--of no real value except to me. Most of them were amateur
photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different
times and places that I kept for the associations."
"Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?" suggested
Kennedy.
Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied frankly.
Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of
the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of
Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been
careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. I frankly had not
believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of the same type and I felt that
his open face would surely have disclosed to us any real loss that he
suffered or apprehension that he felt over the robbery.
I was forced to give it up, and I think Kennedy, too, had decided not
to worry over the crossing of any bridges until at least we knew that
there were bridges to be crossed.
Carton was worried more by the discovery that one he had trusted even
as a valet had proved unfaithful. He knew, however, as well as we did
that one of the commonest methods of the underworld when they wished to
pull off a robbery was to corrupt one of the servants of a house.
Still, it looked strange, for the laying of such an elaborate plan
usually preceded only big robberies, such as jewelery or silver. For
myself, I was forced back on my first theory that someone had concluded
that Carton had the Black Book, had concocted this elaborate scheme to
get what was really of more value than much jewelry, and had found out
that Carton did not have the precious detectaphone record, after all. I
knew that there were those who would have gone to any length to get it.
A general alarm was given, through the police, for the apprehension of
William, but we had small hope that anything would result from it, for
at that time Carton's enemies controlled the police and I am not sure
but that they would have been just a little more dilatory in
apprehending one who had done Carton an injury than if it had been
someone else. It was too soon, that night, of course, to expect to
learn anything, anyhow.
It was quite late, but it had been a confining day for Kennedy who had
spent the hours while not working on Carton's case in some of the
ceaseless and recondite investigations of his own to which he was
always turning his restless mind.
"Suppose we walk a little way downtown with Carton?" he suggested.
I was not averse, and by the time we arrived in the white light belt of
Broadway the theatres were letting out.
Above the gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some
belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"--the only superlative left
to one of the more enterprising papers whose every issue was an "Extra."
Kennedy bought one, with the laughing remark, "Perhaps it's about your
robbery, Carton."
It was only a second before the smile on his face changed to a look of
extreme gravity. We crowded about him. In red ink across the head of
the paper were the words:
"BODY OF MURTHA, MISSING, FOUND IN MORGUE"
Down in a lower corner, in a little box into which late news could be
dropped, also in red ink, was the brief account:
This morning the body of an unknown man was found in The Bronx near the
Westchester Railroad tracks. He had been run over and badly mutilated.
After lying all day in the local morgue, it was transferred, still
unidentified, to the city Morgue downtown.
Early this evening one of the night attendants recognized the
unidentified body as that of Murtha, "the Smiling Boss," whose escape
day before yesterday from an asylum in Westchester has remained a
mystery until now.
"Well--what do you--think of that!" ejaculated Carton.
"Murtha--dead--and I thought the whole thing was a job they were
putting up on me!"
Kennedy crooked his finger at a cabby who was alertly violating the new
ordinance and soliciting fares away from a public cab stand.
"The Morgue--quick!" he ordered, not even noticing the flabbergasted
look on the jehu's face, who was not accustomed to carrying people
thither from the primrose path of Broadway quite so rapidly.
XXI
THE MORGUE
There had come a lull in the activities which never entirely cease,
night or day, in the dingy building at the foot of East Twenty-sixth
Street. Across the street in the municipal lodging-house the city's
homeless were housed for the night. Even ever wakeful Bellevue Hospital
nearby was comparatively quiet.
The last "dead boat" which carries the city's unclaimed corpses away
for burial had long ago left, when we arrived. The anxious callers who
pass all day through the portals of the mortuary chamber seeking lost
friends and relatives had disappeared. Except for the night keeper and
one or two assistants, the Morgue was empty save of the overcrowded
dead.
Years before, as a cub reporter on the Star, I had had the gruesome
assignment once of the Morgue. It was the same old place after all
these years and it gave me the same creepy sensations now as it did
then. Even the taxicab driver seemed glad to set down his fares and
speed away.
It was ghoulish. I felt then and I did still that instead of
contributing to the amelioration of conditions that could not be
otherwise than harrowing, everything about the old Morgue lent itself
to the increase of the horror of the surroundings.
As Kennedy, Carton, and I entered, we found that the principal chamber
in the place was circular. Its walls were lined with the ends of
caskets, which, fitting close into drawer-like apertures were
constantly enveloped in the refrigerated air.
It seemed, even at that hour, that if these receptacles were even
adequate to contain all of the daily tenants of the Morgue, much of the
anguish and distress inseparable from such a place might be spared
those who of necessity must visit the place seeking their dead. As it
was, even for those bound by no blood ties to the unfortunates who
found their way to the city Morgue, the room was a veritable chamber of
horror.
We stood in horrified amazement at what we saw. On the floor, which
should be kept clear, lay the overflow of the day's intake. Bodies for
which there was no room in the cooling boxes, others which were yet
awaiting claimants, and still more awaiting transfer to the public
burying ground, lay about in their rough coffins, many of them brutally
exposed.
It seemed, too, that if ever there was a time when conditions might
have been expected to have halfway adjusted themselves to the pressure
which by day brought out all too clearly the hopeless inadequacy of the
facilities provided by the city to perform one of its most important
and inevitable functions, it was at that early morning hour of our
visit. Presumably preparation had been completed for the busy day about
to open by setting all into some semblance of respectful order. But
such was not the case. It was impossible.
In one group, I recall, which an attendant said had been awaiting his
removal for a couple of days, the rough board coffins, painted the
uniform brown of the city's institutions, lay open, without so much as
face coverings over the dead.
They lay as they had been sent in from various hospitals. Most of them
were bereft of all the decencies usual with the dead, in striking
contrast, however, with the bodies from Bellevue, which were all
closely swathed in bandages and shrouds.
One body, that of a negro, which had been sent in to the Morgue from a
Harlem hospital, lay just as it came, utterly bare, exposing to public
view all the gruesome marks of the autopsy. I wondered whether anything
like that might be found to be the fate of the once jovial and popular
Murtha, when we found him.