THE DEAD LINE
Maiden Lane, no less than Wall Street, was deeply interested in the
radium case. In fact, it seemed that one case in this section of the
city led to another.
Naturally, the _Star_ and the other papers made much of the capture of
Denison. Still, I was not prepared for the host of Maiden Lane cases
that followed. Many of them were essentially trivial. But one proved to
be of extreme importance.
“Professor Kennedy, I have just heard of your radium case, and I—I feel
that I can—trust you.”
There was a note of appeal in the hesitating voice of the tall, heavily
veiled woman whose card had been sent up to us with a nervous “Urgent”
written across its face.
It was very early in the morning, but our visitor was evidently
completely unnerved by some news which she had just received and which
had sent her posting to see Craig.
Kennedy met her gaze directly with a look that arrested her involuntary
effort to avoid it again. She must have read in his eyes more than in
his words that she might trust him.
“I—I have a confession to make,” she faltered.
“Please sit down, Mrs. Moulton,” he said simply. “It is my business to
receive confidences—and to keep them.”
She sank into, rather than sat down in, the deep leather rocker beside
his desk, and now for the first time raised her veil.
Antoinette Moulton was indeed stunning, an exquisite creature with a
wonderful charm of slender youth, brightness of eye and brunette
radiance.
I knew that she had been on the musical comedy stage and had had a
rapid rise to a star part before her marriage to Lynn Moulton, the
wealthy lawyer, almost twice her age. I knew also that she had given up
the stage, apparently without a regret. Yet there was something strange
about the air of secrecy of her visit. Was there a hint in it of a
disagreement between the Moultons, I wondered, as I waited while
Kennedy reassured her.
Her distress was so unconcealed that Craig, for the moment, laid aside
his ordinary inquisitorial manner. “Tell me just as much or just as
little as you choose, Mrs. Moulton,” he added tactfully. “I will do my
best.”
A look almost of gratitude crossed her face.
“When we were married,” she began again, “my husband gave me a
beautiful diamond necklace. Oh, it must have been worth a hundred
thousand dollars easily. It was splendid. Everyone has heard of it. You
know, Lynn—er—Mr. Moulton, has always been an enthusiastic collector of
jewels.”
She paused again and Kennedy nodded reassuringly. I knew the thought in
his mind. Moulton had collected one gem that was incomparable with all
the hundred thousand dollar necklaces in existence.
“Several months ago.” she went on rapidly, still avoiding his eyes and
forcing the words from her reluctant lips, “I—oh, I needed
money—terribly.”
She had risen and faced him, pressing her daintily gloved hands
together in a little tremble of emotion which was none the less genuine
because she had studied the art of emotion.
“I took the necklace to a jeweler, Herman Schloss, of Maiden Lane, a
man with whom my husband had often had dealings and whom I thought I
could trust. Under a promise of secrecy he loaned me fifty thousand
dollars on it and had an exact replica in paste made by one of his best
workmen. This morning, just now, Mr. Schloss telephoned me that his
safe had been robbed last night. My necklace is gone!”
She threw out her hands in a wildly appealing gesture.
“And if Lynn finds that the necklace in our wall safe is of paste—as he
will find, for he is an expert in diamonds—oh—what shall I do? Can’t
you—can’t you find my necklace?”
Kennedy was following her now eagerly. “You were blackmailed out of the
money?” he queried casually, masking his question.
There was a sudden, impulsive drooping of her mouth, an evasion and
keen wariness in her eyes. “I can’t see that that has anything to do
with the robbery,” she answered in a low voice.
“I beg your pardon,” corrected Kennedy quickly. “Perhaps not. I’m
sorry. Force of habit, I suppose. You don’t know anything more about
the robbery?”
“N—no, only that it seems impossible that it could have happened in a
place that has the wonderful burglar alarm protection that Mr. Schloss
described to me.”
“You know him pretty well?”
“Only through this transaction,” she replied hastily. “I wish to heaven
I had never heard of him.”
The telephone rang insistently.
“Mrs. Moulton,” said Kennedy, as he returned the receiver to the hook,
“it may interest you to know that the burglar alarm company has just
called me up about the same case. If I had need of an added incentive,
which I hope you will believe I have not, that might furnish it. I will
do my best,” he repeated.
“Thank you—a thousand times,” she cried fervently, and, had I been
Craig, I think I should have needed no more thanks than the look she
gave him as he accompanied her to the door of our apartment.
It was still early and the eager crowds were pushing their way to
business through the narrow network of downtown streets as Kennedy and
I entered a large office on lower Broadway in the heart of the jewelry
trade and financial district.
“One of the most amazing robberies that has ever been attempted has
been reported to us this morning,” announced James McLear, manager of
the Hale Electric Protection, adding with a look half of anxiety, half
of skepticism, “that is, if it is true.”
McLear was a stocky man, of powerful build and voice and a general
appearance of having been once well connected with the city detective
force before an attractive offer had taken him into this position of
great responsibility.
“Herman Schloss, one of the best known of Maiden Lane jewelers,” he
continued, “has been robbed of goods worth two or three hundred
thousand dollars—and in spite of every modern protection. So that you
will get it clearly, let me show you what we do here.”
He ushered us into a large room, on the walls of which were hundreds of
little indicators. From the front they looked like rows of little
square compartments, tier on tier, about the size of ordinary post
office boxes. Closer examination showed that each was equipped with a
delicate needle arranged to oscillate backward and forward upon the
very minutest interference with the electric current. Under the boxes,
each of which bore a number, was a series of drops and buzzers numbered
to correspond with the boxes.
“In nearly every office in Maiden Lane where gems and valuable jewelry
are stored,” explained McLear, “this electrical system of ours is
installed. When the safes are closed at night and the doors swung
together, a current of electricity is constantly shooting around the
safes, conducted by cleverly concealed wires. These wires are picked up
by a cable system which finds its way to this central office. Once
here, the wires are safeguarded in such manner that foreign currents
from other wires or from lightning cannot disturb the system.”
We looked with intense interest at this huge electrical pulse that felt
every change over so vast and rich an area.
“Passing a big dividing board,” he went on, “they are distributed and
connected each in its place to the delicate tangent galvanometers and
sensitive indicators you see in this room. These instantly announce the
most minute change in the working of the current, and each office has a
distinct separate metallic circuit. Why, even a hole as small as a lead
pencil in anything protected would sound the alarm here.”
Kennedy nodded appreciatively.
“You see,” continued McLear, glad to be able to talk to one who
followed him so closely, “it is another evidence of science finding for
us greater security in the use of a tiny electric wire than in massive
walls of steel and intricate lock devices. But here is a case in which,
it seems, every known protection has failed. We can’t afford to pass
that by. If we have fallen down we want to know how, as well as to
catch the burglar.”
“How are the signals given?” I asked.
“Well, when the day’s business is over, for instance, Schloss would
swing the heavy safe doors together and over them place the doors of a
wooden cabinet. That signals an alarm to us here. We answer it and if
the proper signal is returned, all right. After that no one can tamper
with the safe later in the night without sounding an alarm that would
bring a quick investigation.”
“But suppose that it became necessary to open the safe before the next
morning. Might not some trusted employee return to the office, open it,
give the proper signals and loot the safe?”
“No indeed,” he answered confidently. “The very moment anyone touches
the cabinet, the alarm is sounded. Even if the proper code signal is
returned, it is not sufficient. A couple of our trusted men from the
central office hustle around there anyhow and they don’t leave until
they are satisfied that everything is right. We have the authorized
signatures on hand of those who are supposed to open the safe and a
duplicate of one of them must be given or there is an arrest.”
McLear considered for a moment.
“For instance, Schloss, like all the rest, was assigned a box in which
was deposited a sealed envelope containing a key to the office and his
own signature, in this case, since he alone knew the combination. Now,
when an alarm is sounded, as it was last night, and the key removed to
gain entrance to the office, a record is made and the key has to be
sealed up again by Schloss. A report is also submitted showing when the
signals are received and anything else that is worth recording. Last
night our men found nothing wrong, apparently. But this morning we
learn of the robbery.”
“The point is, then,” ruminated Kennedy, “what happened in the interval
between the ringing of the alarm and the arrival of the special
officers? I think I’ll drop around and look Schloss’ place over,” he
added quietly, evidently eager to begin at the actual scene of the
crime.
On the door of the office to which McLear took us was one of those
small blue plates which chance visitors to Maiden Lane must have seen
often. To the initiated—be he crook or jeweler—this simple sign means
that the merchant is a member of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance,
enough in itself, it would seem, to make the boldest burglar hesitate.
For it is the motto of this organization to “get” the thief at any cost
and at any time. Still, it had not deterred the burglar in this
instance.
“I know people are going to think it is a fake burglary,” exclaimed
Schloss, a stout, prosperous-looking gem broker, as we introduced
ourselves. “But over two hundred thousands dollars’ worth of stones are
gone,” he half groaned. “Think of it, man,” he added, “one of the
greatest robberies since the Dead Line was established. And if they can
get away with it, why, no one down here is protected any more. Half a
billion dollars in jewels in Maiden Lane and John Street are easy prey
for the cracksmen!”
Staggering though the loss must have been to him, he had apparently
recovered from the first shock of the discovery and had begun the fight
to get back what had been lost.
It was, as McLear had intimated, a most amazing burglary, too. The door
of Schloss’ safe was open when Kennedy and I arrived and found the
excited jeweler nervously pacing the office. Surrounding the safe, I
noticed a wooden framework constructed in such a way as to be a part of
the decorative scheme of the office.
Schloss banged the heavy doors shut.
“There, that’s just how it was—shut as tight as a drum. There was
absolutely no mark of anyone tampering with the combination lock. And
yet the safe was looted!”
“How did you discover it?” asked Craig. “I presume you carry burglary
insurance?”
Schloss looked up quickly. “That’s what I expected as a first question.
No, I carried very little insurance. You see, I thought the safe, one
of those new chrome steel affairs, was about impregnable. I never lost
a moment’s sleep over it; didn’t think it possible for anyone to get
into it. For, as you see, it is completely wired by the Hale Electric
Protection—that wooden framework about it. No one could touch that when
it was set without jangling a bell at the central office which would
send men scurrying here to protect the place.”
“But they must have got past it,” suggested Kennedy.
“Yes—they must have. At least this morning I received the regular Hale
report. It said that their wires registered last night as though some
one was tampering with the safe. But by the time they got around, in
less than five minutes, there was no one here, nothing seemed to be
disturbed. So they set it down to induction or electrolysis, or
something the matter with the wires. I got the report the first thing
when I arrived here with my assistant, Muller.”
Kennedy was on his knees, going over the safe with a fine brush and
some powder, looking now and then through a small magnifying glass.
“Not a finger print,” he muttered. “The cracksman must have worn
gloves. But how did he get in? There isn’t a mark of ‘soup’ having been
used to blow it up, nor of a ‘can-opener’ to rip it open, if that were
possible, nor of an electric or any other kind of drill.”
“I’ve read of those fellows who burn their way in,” said Schloss.
“But there is no hole,” objected Kennedy, “not a trace of the use of
thermit to burn the way in or of the oxyacetylene blowpipe to cut a
piece out. Most extraordinary,” he murmured.
“You see,” shrugged Schloss, “everyone will say it must have been
opened by one who knew the combination. But I am the only one. I have
never written it down or told anyone, not even Muller. You understand
what I am up against?”
“There’s the touch system,” I suggested. “You remember, Craig, the old
fellow who used to file his finger tips to the quick until they were so
sensitive that he could actually feel when he had turned the
combination to the right plunger? Might not that explain the lack of
finger prints also?” I added eagerly.
“Nothing like that in this case, Walter,” objected Craig positively.
“This fellow wore gloves, all right. No, this safe has been opened and
looted by no ordinarily known method. It’s the most amazing case I ever
saw in that respect—almost as if we had a cracksman in the fourth
dimension to whom the inside of a closed cube is as accessible as is
the inside of a plane square to us three dimensional creatures. It is
almost incomprehensible.”
I fancied I saw Schloss’ face brighten as Kennedy took this view. So
far, evidently, he had run across only skepticism.
“The stones were unset?” resumed Craig.
“Mostly. Not all.”
“You would recognize some of them if you saw them?”
“Yes indeed. Some could be changed only by re-cutting. Even some of
those that were set were of odd cut and size—some from a diamond
necklace which belonged to a—”
There was something peculiar in both his tone and manner as he cut
short the words.
“To whom?” asked Kennedy casually.
“Oh, once to a well-known woman in society,” he said carefully. “It is
mine, though, now—at least it was mine. I should prefer to mention no
names. I will give a description of the stones.”
“Mrs. Lynn Moulton, for instance?” suggested Craig quietly.
Schloss jumped almost as if a burglar alarm had sounded under his very
ears. “How did you know? Yes—but it was a secret. I made a large loan
on it, and the time has expired.”
“Why did she need money so badly?” asked Kennedy.
“How should I know?” demanded Schloss.
Here was a deepening mystery, not to be elucidated by continuing this
line of inquiry with Schloss, it seemed.