fear," he murmured. "The truth is what will benefit the company, all
right. She did it."
The Branford estate lay some distance back from the railroad station,
so that, although it took longer to go by automobile than by train, the
car made us independent of the rather fitful night train service and
the local cabmen.
We found the house not deserted by the servants, but subdued. The body
of the maid had been removed to a local morgue, and a police officer
was patrolling the grounds, though of what use that could be I was at a
loss to understand.
Kennedy was chiefly interested in the safe. It was of the so-called
"burglar-proof" variety, spherical in shape, and looking for all the
world like a miniature piece of electrical machinery.
"I doubt if anything could have withstood such savage treatment as has
been given to this safe," remarked Craig as he concluded a cursory
examination of it. "It shows great resistance to high explosives,
chiefly, I believe, as a result of its rounded shape. But nothing could
stand up against such continued assaults."
He continued to examine the safe while we stood idly by. "I like to
reconstruct my cases in my own mind," explained Kennedy, as he took his
time in the examination. "Now, this fellow must have stripped the safe
of all the outer trimmings. His next move was to make a dent in the
manganese surface across the joint where the door fits the body. That
must have taken a good many minutes of husky work. In fact, I don't see
how he could have done it without a sledge-hammer and a hot chisel.
Still, he did it and then--"
"But the maid," interposed Maloney. "She was in the house. She would
have heard and given an alarm."
For answer, Craig simply went to a bay-window and raised the curtain.
Pointing to the lights of the next house, far down the road, he said,
"I'll buy the best cigars in the state if you can make them hear you on
a blustery night like last night. No, she probably did scream. Either
at this point, or at the very start, the burglar must have chloroformed
her. I don't see any other way to explain it. I doubt if he expected
such a tough proposition as he found in this safe, but he was evidently
prepared to carry it through, now that he was here and had such an
unexpectedly clear field, except for the maid. He simply got her out of
the way, or his confederates did--in the easiest possible way, poor
girl."
Returning to the safe, he continued: "Well, anyhow, he made a furrow
perhaps an inch and a half long and a quarter of an inch wide and, I
should say, not over an eighth of an inch deep. Then he commenced to
burgle in earnest. Under the dent he made a sort of little cup of red
clay and poured in the 'soup'--the nitroglycerin--so that it would run
into the depression. Then he exploded it in the regular way with a
battery and a fulminate cap. I doubt if it did much more than discolour
the metal at first. Still, with the true persistency of his kind, he
probably repeated the dose, using more and more of the 'soup' until the
joint was stretched a little, and more of an opening made so that the
'soup' could run in.
"Again and again he must have repeated and increased the charges.
Perhaps he used two or three cups at a time. By this time the outer
door must have been stretched so as to make it easy to introduce the
explosive. No doubt he was able to use ten or twelve ounces of the
stuff at a charge. It must have been more like target-practice than
safe-blowing. But the chance doesn't often come--an empty house and
plenty of time. Finally the door must have bulged a fraction of an inch
or so, and then a good big charge and the outer portion was ripped off
and the safe turned over. There was still two or three inches of
manganese steel protecting the contents, wedged in so tight that it
must have seemed that nothing could budge it. But he must have kept at
it until we have the wreck that we see here," and Kennedy kicked the
safe with his foot as he finished.
Blake was all attention by this time, while Maloney gasped, "If I was
in the safe-cracking business, I'd make you the head of the firm."
"And now," said Craig, "let us go back to New York and see if we can
find Mrs. Branford."
"Of course you understand," explained Blake as we were speeding back,
"that most of these cases of fake robberies are among small people,
many of them on the East Side among little jewellers or other
tradesmen. Still, they are not limited to any one class. Indeed, it is
easier to foil the insurance companies when you sit in the midst of
finery and wealth, protected by a self-assuring halo of moral
rectitude, than under less fortunate circumstances. Too often, I'm
afraid, we have good-naturedly admitted the unsolved burglary and paid
the insurance claim. That has got to stop. Here's a case where we
considered the moral hazard a safe one, and we are mistaken. It's the
last straw."
Our interview with Mrs. Branford was about as awkward an undertaking as
I have ever been concerned with. Imagine yourself forced to question a
perfectly stunning woman, who was suspected of plotting so daring a
deed and knew that you suspected her. Resentment was no name for her
feelings. She scorned us, loathed us. It was only by what must have
been the utmost exercise of her remarkable will-power that she
restrained herself from calling the hotel porters and having us thrown
out bodily. That would have put a bad face on it, so she tolerated our
presence. Then, of course, the insurance company had reserved the right
to examine everybody in the household, under oath if necessary, before
passing on the claim.
"This is an outrage," she exclaimed, her eyes flashing and her breast
rising and falling with suppressed emotion, "an outrage. When my
husband returns I intend to have him place the whole matter in the
hands of the best attorney in the city. Not only will I have the full
amount of the insurance, but I will have damages and costs and
everything the law allows. Spying on my every movement in this way--it
is an outrage! One would think we were in St. Petersburg instead of New
York."
"One moment, Mrs. Branford," put in Kennedy, as politely as he could.
"Suppose--"
"Suppose nothing," she cried angrily. "I shall explain nothing, say
nothing. What if I do choose to close up that lonely big house in the
suburbs and come to the city to live for a few days--is it anybody's
business except mine?"
"And your husband's?" added Kennedy, nettled at her treatment of him.
She shot him a scornful glance. "I suppose Mr. Branford went out to
Arizona for the express purpose of collecting insurance on my jewels,"
she added sarcastically with eyes that snapped fire.
"I was about to say," remarked Kennedy as imperturbably as if he were
an automaton, "that supposing some one took advantage of your absence
to rob your safe, don't you think the wisest course would be to be
perfectly frank about it?"
"And give just one plausible reason why you wished so much to have it
known that you were going to Palm Beach when in reality you were in New
York?" pursued Maloney, while Kennedy frowned at his tactless attempt
at a third degree.
If she had resented Kennedy, she positively flew up in the air and
commenced to aviate at Maloney's questioning. Tossing her head, she
said icily: "I do not know that you have been appointed my guardian,
sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and with
that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing one
biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish did he
have for this ticklish part of the proceedings.
I think we all felt like schoolboys who had been detected robbing a
melon-patch or in some other heinous offence, as we slowly filed down
the hall to the elevator. A woman of Mrs. Branford's stamp so readily
and successfully puts one in the wrong that I could easily comprehend
why Blake wanted to call on Kennedy for help in what otherwise seemed a
plain case.
Blake and Maloney were some distance ahead of us, as Craig leaned over
to me and whispered. "That Maloney is impossible. I'll have to shake
him loose in some way. Either we handle this case alone or we quit."
"Right-o," I agreed emphatically. "He's put his foot in it badly at the
very start. Only, be decent about it, Craig. The case is too big for
you to let it slip by."
"Trust me, Walter. I'll do it tactfully," he whispered, then to Blake
he added as we overtook them: "Maloney is right. The case is simple
enough, after all. But we must find out some way to fasten the thing
more closely on Mrs. Branford. Let me think out a scheme to-night. I'll
see you tomorrow."
As Blake and Maloney disappeared down the street in the car, Kennedy
wheeled about and walked deliberately back into the Grattan Inn again.
It was quite late. People were coming in from the theatres, laughing
and chatting gaily. Kennedy selected a table that commanded a view of
the parlour as well as of the dining-room itself.
"She was dressed to receive some one--did you notice?" he remarked as
we sat down and cast our eyes over the dizzy array of inedibles on the
card before us. "I think it is worth waiting a while to see who it is."
Having ordered what I did not want, I glanced about until my eye rested
on a large pier-glass at the other end of the dining-room.
"Craig," I whispered excitedly, "Mrs. B. is in the writing-room--I can
see her in that glass at the end of the room, behind you."
"Get up and change places with me as quietly as you can, Walter," he
said quickly. "I want to see her when she can't see me."
Kennedy was staring in rapt attention at the mirror. "There's a man
with her, Walter," he said under his breath. "He came in while we were
changing places--a fine-looking chap. By Jove, I've seen him before
somewhere. His face and his manner are familiar to me. But I simply
can't place him. Did you see her wraps in the chair? No? Well, he's
helping her on with them. They're going out. GARCON, L'ADDITION--VITE"
We were too late, however, for just as we reached the door we caught a
fleeting glimpse of a huge new limousine.
"Who was that man who just went out with the lady?" asked Craig of the
negro who turned the revolving-door at the carriage entrance.
"Jack Delarue, sah--in 'The Grass Widower,' sah," replied the doorman.
"Yes, sah, he stays here once in a while. Thank you, sah," as Kennedy
dropped a quarter into the man's hand.
"That complicates things considerably," he mused as we walked slowly
down to the subway station. "Jack Delarue--I wonder if he is mixed up
in this thing also."
"I've heard that 'The Grass Widower' isn't such a howling success as a
money-maker," I volunteered. "Delarue has a host of creditors, no
doubt. By the way, Craig," I exclaimed, "don't you think it would be a
good plan to drop down and see O'Connor? The police will have to be
informed in a few hours now, anyhow. Maybe Delarue has a criminal
record."
"A good idea, Walter," agreed Craig, turning into a drug-store which
had a telephone booth. "I'll just call O'Connor up, and we'll see if he
does know anything about it."
O'Connor was not at headquarters, but we finally found him at his home,
and it was well into the small hours when we arrived there. Trusting to
the first deputy's honour, which had stood many a test, Craig began to
unfold the story. He had scarcely got as far as describing the work of
the suspected hired yeggman, when O'Connor raised both hands and
brought them down hard on the arms of his chair.
"Say," he ejaculated, "that explains it!"
"What?" we asked in chorus.
"Why, one of my best stool-pigeons told me to-day that there was
something doing at a house in the Chatham Square district that we have
been watching for a long time. It's full of crooks, and to-day they've
all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a haul and
been generous with the rest, And one or two of the professional
'fences' have been acting suspiciously, too. Oh, that explains it all
right."
I looked at Craig as much as to say, "I told you so," but he was
engrossed in what O'Connor was saying.
"You know," continued the police officer, "there is one particular
'fence' who runs his business under the guise of a loan-shark's office.
He probably has a wider acquaintance among the big criminals than any
other man in the city. From him crooks can obtain anything from a jimmy
to a safe-cracking outfit. I know that this man has been trying to
dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among jewellers in Maiden Lane.
I'll bet he has been disposing of some of the Branford pearls, one by
one. I'll follow that up. I'll arrest this 'fence' and hold him till he
tells me what yeggman came to him with the pearls."
"And if you find out, will you go with me to that house near Chatham
Square, providing it was some one in that gang?" asked Craig eagerly.
O'Connor shook his head. "I'd better keep out of it. They know me too
well. Go alone. I'll get that stool-pigeon--the Gay Cat is his name--to
go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have any number of
plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the moment you get
the evidence. But you'll never get any evidence if they know I'm in the
neighbourhood."
The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made me
bolt my food most unceremoniously. We were out in Montclair again
before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that in spite
of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the way and had
got a package which he carried carefully.
Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar to
attic in daylight. What he expected to find, I did not know, but I am
quite sure nothing escaped him.
"Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there remains
just one place. Here is this little wall safe in Mrs. Branford's room.
We must open it."
For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening to
the fall of the tumblers in the lock. It was a simple little thing and
one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have opened it in
short order. The perspiration stood out on his forehead, so intent was
he in working the thing. At last it yielded. Except for some of the
family silver, the safe was empty.
Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig unwrapped
the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He placed it on a
writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it was not at all
conspicuous, and focused it on the safe.
"This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of great
illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been
practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new shutter has
so much greater speed than anything ever invented before that it is
possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run these fine wires
like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an alarm I'll attach them
to the camera so that we can get a picture. I've proved its speed up to
one two-thousandth of a second. It may or it may not work. If it does
we'll catch somebody, right in the act."
About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary insurance.
I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy insisted on
playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was part of the
agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise. He had been
combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs. Branford. Still,
Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the detective on his
activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable ability in the first place
in locating Mrs. Branford.
"I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have needed
money for some reason or other," said Maloney. "So I went to the
commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford. I can't say he has
been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these days, and that's
just the thing that causes an increase in fake burglaries. Then there
is another possibility," he continued triumphantly. "I had a man up at
the Grattan Inn, and he reports to me that Mrs. Stanford was seen with
the actor Jack Delarue last night, I imagine they quarrelled, for she
returned alone, much agitated, in a taxi-cab. Any way you look at it,
the clues are promising--whether she needed money for Branford's
speculations or for the financing of that rake Delarue."
Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford to
patronise a good amateur--but after all an amateur. Kennedy said
nothing, and of course I took the cue.
"Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty
good one. Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around in a
bog of false scents."
"It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy
quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden
somewhere by Mrs. Branford herself." He said nothing of his own
unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you
suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them somewhere
before she got the yeggman to break the safe. She'd hardly trust them
in his hands. But she might have been foolish enough for that. Of
course it's another possibility that he really got away with them. I
doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or even if she would personally
put them in a safe deposit vault. Perhaps Delarue figures in that end
of it. We must let no stone go unturned."
"That's right," meditated Maloney, apparently turning something over in
his mind as if it were a new idea. "If we only had some evidence, even
part of the jewels that she had hidden, it would clinch the case.
That's a good idea, Kennedy."
Craig said nothing, but I could see, or fancied I saw, that he was
gratified at the thought that he had started Maloney off on another
trail, leaving us to follow ours unhampered. The interview with Blake
was soon over, and as we left I looked inquiringly at Craig.
"I want to see Mrs. Branford again," he said. "I think we can do better
alone today than we did last night."
I must say I half expected that she would refuse to see us and was
quite surprised when the page returned with the request that we go up
to her suite. It was evident that her attitude toward us was very
different from that of the first interview. Whether she was ruffled by
the official presence of Blake or the officious presence of Maloney,
she was at least politely tolerant of us. Or was it that she at last
began to realise that the toils were closing about her and that things
began to look unmistakably black?
Kennedy was quick to see his advantage. "Mrs. Branford," he began,
"since last night I have come into the possession of some facts that
are very important. I have heard that several loose pearls which may or
may not be yours have been offered for sale by a man on the Bowery who
is what the yeggmen call a 'fence.'"
"Yeggmen--'fence'?" she repeated. "Mr. Kennedy, really I do not care to
discuss the pearls any longer. It is immaterial to me what becomes of
them. My first desire is to collect the insurance. If anything is
recovered I am quite willing to deduct that amount from the total. But
I must insist on the full insurance or the return of the pearls. As
soon as Mr. Branford arrives I shall take other steps to secure
redress."
A boy rapped at the door and brought in a telegram which she tore open
nervously. "He will be here in four days," she said, tearing the
telegram petulantly, and not at all as if she were glad to receive it.
"Is there anything else that you wish to say?"
She was tapping her foot on the rug as if anxious to conclude the
interview. Kennedy leaned forward earnestly and played his trump card
boldly.
"Do you remember that scene in 'The Grass Widower,'" he said slowly,
"where Jack Delarue meets his runaway wife at the masquerade ball?"
She coloured slightly, but instantly regained her composure. "Vaguely,"
she murmured, toying with the flowers in her dress.
"In real life," said Kennedy, his voice purposely betraying that he
meant it to have a personal application, "husbands do not forgive even
rumours of--ah--shall we say affinities?--much less the fact."
"In real life," she replied, "wives do not have affinities as often as
some newspapers and plays would have us believe."
"I saw Delarue after the performance last night," went on Kennedy
inexorably. "I was not seen, but I saw, and he was with----"
She was pacing the room now in unsuppressed excitement. "Will you never
stop spying on me?" she cried. "Must my every act be watched and
misrepresented? I suppose a distorted version of the facts will be
given to my husband. Have you no chivalry, or justice, or--or mercy?"
she pleaded, stopping in front of Kennedy.
"Mrs. Branford," he replied coldly, "I cannot promise what I shall do.
My duty is simply to get at the truth about the pearls. If it involves
some other person, it is still my duty to get at the truth. Why not
tell me all that you really know about the pearls and trust me to bring
it out all right?"
She faced him, pale and haggard. "I have told," she repeated steadily.
"I cannot tell any more--I know nothing more."
Was she lying? I was not expert enough in feminine psychology to judge,
but down in my heart I knew that the woman was hiding something behind
that forced steadiness. What was it she was battling for? We had
reached an impasse.
It was after dinner when I met Craig at the laboratory. He had made a
trip to Montclair again, where his stay had been protracted because
Maloney was there and he wished to avoid him. He had brought back the
camera, and had had another talk with O'Connor, at which he had mapped
out a plan of battle.
"We are to meet the Gay Cat at the City Hall at nine o'clock,"
explained Craig laconically. "We are going to visit a haunt of yeggmen,
Walter, that few outsiders have ever seen. Are you game? O'Connor and
his men will be close by--hiding, of course."
"I suppose so," I replied slowly. "But what excuse are you going to
have for getting into this yegg-resort?"
"Simply that we are two newspaper men looking for an article, without
names, dates, or places--just a good story of yeggmen and tramps. I've
got a little--well, we'll call it a little camera outfit that I'm going
to sling over my shoulder. You are the reporter, remember, and I'm the
newspaper photographer. They won't pose for us, of course, but that
will be all right. Speaking about photographs, I got one out at
Montclair that is interesting. I'll show it to you later in the
evening--and in case anything should happen to me, Walter, you'll find
the original plate locked here in the top drawer of my desk. I guess
we'd better be getting downtown."
The house to which we were guided by the Gay Cat was on a cross street
within a block or two of Chatham Square. If we had passed it casually
in the daytime there would have been nothing to distinguish it above
the other ramshackle buildings on the street, except that the other
houses were cluttered with children and baby-carriages, while this one
was vacant, the front door closed, and the blinds tightly drawn. As we
approached, a furtive figure shambled from the basement areaway and
slunk off into the crowd for the night's business of pocket-picking or
second-story work.
I had had misgivings as to whether we would be admitted at all--I might
almost say hopes--but the Gay Cat succeeded in getting a ready response
at the basement door. The house itself was the dilapidated ruin of what
had once been a fashionable residence in the days when society lived in
the then suburban Bowery. The iron handrail on the steps was still
graceful, though rusted and insecure. The stones of the steps were
decayed and eaten away by time, and the front door was never opened.
As we entered the low basement door, I felt that those who entered here
did indeed abandon hope. Inside, the evidences of the past grandeur
were still more striking. What had once been a drawing-room was now the
general assembly room of the resort. Broken-down chairs lined the
walls, and the floor was generously sprinkled with sawdust. A huge
pot-bellied stove occupied the centre of the room, and by it stood a
box of sawdust plentifully discoloured with tobacco-juice.