We looked, startled. There stood Saratovsky, more like a ghost than a
living being. Kennedy sprang forward and caught him as he swayed, and I
moved up an armchair for him.
"It is the spirillum Obermeieri," said Kennedy, "the germ of the
relapsing fever, but of the most virulent Asiatic strain. Obermeyer,
who discovered it, caught the disease and died of it, a martyr to
science."
A shriek of consternation rang forth from Samarova. The rest of us
paled, but repressed our feelings.
"One moment," added Kennedy hastily. "Don't be unnecessarily alarmed. I
have something more to say. Be calm for a moment longer."
He unrolled a blue-print and placed it on the table.
"This," he continued, "is the photographic copy of a message which, I
suppose, is now on its way to the Russian minister to France in Paris.
Some one in this room besides Mr. Jameson and myself has seen this
letter before. I will hold it up as I pass around and let each one see
it."
In intense silence Kennedy passed before each of us, holding up the
blue-print and searchingly scanning the faces. No one betrayed by any
sign that he recognised it. At last it came to Revalenko himself.
"The checkerboard, the checkerboard!" he cried, his eyes half starting
from their sockets as he gazed at it.
"Yes," said Kennedy in a low tone, "the checkerboard. It took me some
time to figure it out. It is a cipher that would have baffled Poe. In
fact, there is no means of deciphering it unless you chance to know its
secret. I happened to have heard of it a long time ago abroad, yet my
recollection was vague, and I had to reconstruct it with much
difficulty. It took me all night to do it. It is a cipher, however,
that is well known among the official classes of Russia.
"Fortunately I remember the crucial point, without which I should still
be puzzling over it. It is that a perfectly innocent message, on its
face, may be used to carry a secret, hidden message. The letters which
compose the words, instead of being written continuously along, as we
ordinarily write, have, as you will observe if you look twice, breaks,
here and there. These breaks in the letters stand for numbers.
"Thus the first words are 'Many thanks.' The first break is at the end
of the letter 'n,' between it and the 'y.' There are three letters
before this break. That stands for the number 3.
"When you come to the end of a word, if the stroke is down at the end
of the last letter, that means no break; if it is up, it means a break.
The stroke at the end of the 'y' is plainly down. Therefore there is no
break until after the 't.' That gives us the number 2. So we get 1
next, and again 1, and still again 1; then 5; then 5; then 1; and so on.
"Now, take these numbers in pairs, thus 3-2; 1-1; 1-5; 5-1. By
consulting this table you can arrive at the hidden message."
He held up a cardboard bearing the following arrangement of the letters
of the alphabet:
1 2 3 4 5
1 A B C D E
2 F G H IJ K
3 L M N O P
4 Q R S T U
5 V W X Y Z
"Thus," he continued, "3-2 means the third column and second line. That
is 'H.' Then 1-1 is 'A '; 1-5 is 'V '; 5-1 is 'E'--and we get the word
'Have.'"
Not a soul stirred as Kennedy unfolded the cipher. What was the
terrible secret in that scientific essay I had puzzled so
unsuccessfully over, the night before?
"Even this can be complicated by choosing a series of fixed numbers to
be added to the real numbers over and over again. Or the order of the
alphabet can be changed. However, we have the straight cipher only to
deal with here."
"And what for Heaven's sake does it reveal?" asked Saratovsky, leaning
forward, forgetful of the fever that was consuming him.
Kennedy pulled out a piece of paper on which he had written the hidden
message and read:
"Have successfully inoculated S. with fever. Public opinion America
would condemn violence. Think best death should appear natural.
Samarova infected also. Cook unfortunately took dose in food intended
Kharkoff. Now have three cases. Shall stop there at present. Dangerous
excite further suspicion health authorities."
Rapidly I eliminated in my mind the persons mentioned, as Craig read.
Saratovsky of course was not guilty, for the plot had centred about
him. Nor was little Samarova, nor Dr. Kharkoff. I noted Revalenko and
Kazanovitch glaring at each other and hastily tried to decide which I
more strongly suspected.
"Will get K.," continued Kennedy. "Think bomb perhaps all right. K.
case different from S. No public sentiment."
"So Kharkoff had been marked for slaughter," I thought. Or was "K."
Kazanovitch? I regarded Revalenko more closely. He was suspiciously
sullen.
"Must have more money. Cable ten thousand rubles at once Russian
consul-general. Will advise you plot against Czar as details perfected
here. Expect break up New York band with death of S."
If Kennedy himself had thrown a bomb or scattered broadcast the
contents of the test-tubes, the effect could not have been more
startling than his last quiet sentence--and sentence it was in two
senses.
"Signed," he said, folding the paper up deliberately, "Ekaterina
Nevsky."
It was as if a cable had snapped and a weight had fallen. Revalenko
sprang up and grasped Kazanovitch by the hand. "Forgive me, comrade,
for ever suspecting you," he cried.
"And forgive me for suspecting you," replied Kazanovitch, "but how did
you come to shadow Kharkoff?"
"I ordered him to follow Kharkoff secretly and protect him," explained
Saratovsky.
Olga and Ekaterina faced each other fiercely. Olga was trembling with
emotion. Nevsky stood coldly, defiantly. If ever there was a consummate
actress it was she, who had put the bomb at her own door and had rushed
off to start Kennedy on a blind trail.
"You traitress," cried Olga passionately, forgetting all in her
outraged love. "You won his affections from me by your false
beauty--yet all the time you would have killed him like a dog for the
Czar's gold. At last you are unmasked--you Azeff in skirts. False
friend--you would have killed us all--Saratovsky, Kharkoff--"
"Be still, little fool," exclaimed Nevsky contemptuously. "The spirilla
fever has affected your brains. Bah! I will not stay with those who are
so ready to suspect an old comrade on the mere word of a charlatan.
Boris Kazanovitch, do you stand there SILENT and let this insult be
heaped upon me?"
For answer, Kazanovitch deliberately turned his back on his lover of a
moment ago and crossed the room. "Olga," he pleaded, "I have been a
fool. Some day I may be worthy of your love. Fever or not, I must beg
your forgiveness."
With a cry of delight the actress flung her arms about Boris, as he
imprinted a penitent kiss on her warm lips.
"Simpleton," hissed Nevsky with curling lips. "Now you, too, will die."
"One moment, Ekaterina Nevsky," interposed Kennedy, as he picked up
some vacuum tubes full of a golden-yellow powder, that lay on the
table. "The spirilla, as scientists now know, belong to the same family
as those which cause what we call, euphemistically, the 'black plague.'
It is the same species as that of the African sleeping sickness and the
Philippine yaws. Last year a famous doctor whose photograph I see in
the next room, Dr. Ehrlich of Frankfort, discovered a cure for all
these diseases. It will rid the blood of your victims of the Asiatic
relapsing fever germs in forty-eight hours. In these tubes I have the
now famous salvarsan."
With a piercing shriek of rage at seeing her deadly work so quickly and
completely undone, Nevsky flung herself into the little laboratory
behind her and bolted the door.
Her face still wore the same cold, contemptuous smile, as Kennedy
gently withdrew a sharp scalpel from her breast.
"Perhaps it is best this way, after all," he said simply.
IV
THE FIREBUG
A big, powerful, red touring-car, with a shining brass bell on the
front of it, was standing at the curb before our apartment late one
afternoon as I entered. It was such a machine as one frequently sees
threading its reckless course in and out among the trucks and
street-cars, breaking all rules and regulations, stopping at nothing,
the bell clanging with excitement, policemen holding back traffic
instead of trying to arrest the driver--in other words, a Fire
Department automobile.
I regarded it curiously for a moment, for everything connected with
modern fire-fighting is interesting. Then I forgot about it as I was
whisked up in the elevator, only to have it recalled sharply by the
sight of a strongly built, grizzled man in a blue uniform with red
lining. He was leaning forward, earnestly pouring forth a story into
Kennedy's ear.
"And back of the whole thing, sir," I heard him say as he brought his
large fist down on the table, "is a firebug--mark my words."
Before I could close the door, Craig caught my eye, and I read in his
look that he had a new case--one that interested him greatly. "Walter,"
he cried, "this is Fire Marshal McCormick. It's all right, McCormick.
Mr. Jameson is an accessory both before and after the fact in my
detective cases."
A firebug!--one of the most dangerous of criminals. The word excited my
imagination at once, for the newspapers had lately been making much of
the strange and appalling succession of apparently incendiary fires
that had terrorised the business section of the city.
"Just what makes you think that there is a firebug--one firebug, I
mean--back of this curious epidemic of fires?" asked Kennedy, leaning
back in his morrischair with his finger-tips together and his eyes half
closed as if expecting a revelation from some subconscious train of
thought while the fire marshal presented his case.
"Well, usually there is no rhyme or reason about the firebug," replied
McCormick, measuring his words, "but this time I think there is some
method in his madness. You know the Stacey department-stores and their
allied dry-goods and garment-trade interests?"
Craig nodded. Of course we knew of the gigantic dry-goods combination.
It had been the talk of the press at the time of its formation, a few
months ago, especially as it included among its organisers one very
clever business woman, Miss Rebecca Wend. There had been considerable
opposition to the combination in the trade, but Stacey had shattered it
by the sheer force of his personality.
McCormick leaned forward and, shaking his forefinger to emphasise his
point, replied slowly, "Practically every one of these fires has been
directed against a Stacey subsidiary or a corporation controlled by
them."
"But if it has gone as far as that," put in Kennedy, "surely the
regular police ought to be of more assistance to you than I."
"I have called in the police," answered McCormick wearily, "but they
haven't even made up their minds whether it is a single firebug or a
gang. And in the meantime, my God, Kennedy, the firebug may start a
fire that will get beyond control!"
"You say the police haven't a single clue to any one who might be
responsible for the fires?" I asked, hoping that perhaps the marshal
might talk more freely of his suspicions to us than he had already
expressed himself in the newspaper interviews I had read.
"Absolutely not a clue--except such as are ridiculous," replied
McCormick, twisting his cap viciously.
No one spoke. We were waiting for McCormick to go on.
"The first fire," he began, repeating his story for my benefit,
although Craig listened quite as attentively as if he had not heard it
already, "was at the big store of Jones, Green leaders have been
arrested, but I can't say we have anything against any of them. Still,
Max Bloom, the manager of this company, insists that the fire was set
for revenge, and indeed it looks as much like a fire for revenge as the
Jones-Green fire does"--here he lowered his voice confidentially--"for
the purpose of collecting insurance.
"Then came the fire in the Slawson Building, a new loft-building that
had been erected just off Fourth Avenue. Other than the fact that the
Stacey interests put up the money for financing this building there
seemed to be no reason for that fire at all. The building was reputed
to be earning a good return on the investment, and I was at a loss to
account for the fire. I have made no arrests for it--just set it down
as the work of a pure pyromaniac, a man who burns buildings for fun, a
man with an inordinate desire to hear the fire-engines screech through
the streets and perhaps get a chance to show a little heroism in
'rescuing' tenants. However, the adjuster for the insurance company,
Lazard, and the adjuster for the insured, Hartstein, have reached an
agreement, and I believe the insurance is to be paid."
"But," interposed Kennedy, "I see no evidence of organised arson so
far."
"Wait," replied the fire marshal. "That was only the beginning, you
understand. A little later came a fire that looked quite like an
attempt to mask a robbery by burning the building afterward. That was
in a silk-house near Spring Street. But after a controversy the
adjusters have reached an agreement on that case. I mention these fires
because they show practically all the types of work of the various
kinds of firebug--insurance, revenge, robbery, and plain insanity. But
since the Spring Street fire, the character of the fires has been more
uniform. They have all been in business places, or nearly all."
Here the fire marshal launched forth into a catalogue of fires of
suspected incendiary origin, at least eight in all. I took them down
hastily, intending to use the list some time in a box head with an
article in the Star. When he had finished his list I hastily counted up
the number of killed. There were six, two of them firemen, and four
employees. The money loss ranged into the millions.
McCormick passed his hand over his forehead to brush off the
perspiration. "I guess this thing has got on my nerves," he muttered
hoarsely. "Everywhere I go they talk about nothing else. If I drop into
the restaurant for lunch, my waiter talks of it. If I meet a newspaper
man, he talks of it. My barber talks of it--everybody. Sometimes I
dream of it; other times I lie awake thinking about it. I tell you,
gentlemen, I've sweated blood over this problem."
"But," insisted Kennedy, "I still can't see why you link all these
fires as due to one firebug. I admit there is an epidemic of fires. But
what makes you so positive that it is all the work of one man?"
"I was coming to that. For one thing, he isn't like the usual firebug
at all. Ordinarily they start their fires with excelsior and petroleum,
or they smear the wood with paraffin or they use gasoline, benzine, or
something of that sort. This fellow apparently scorns such crude
methods. I can't say how he starts his fires, but in every case I have
mentioned we have found the remains of a wire. It has something to do
with electricity--but what, I don't know. That's one reason why I think
these fires are all connected. Here's another."
McCormick pulled a dirty note out of his pocket and laid it on the
table. We read it eagerly:
Hello, Chief! Haven't found the firebug yet, have you? You will know
who he is only when I am dead and the fires stop. I don't suppose you
even realise that the firebug talks with you almost every day about
catching the firebug. That's me. I am the real firebug, that is writing
this letter. I am going to tell you why I am starting these fires.
There's money in it--an easy living. They never caught me in Chicago or
anywhere, so you might as well quit looking for me and take your
medicine.
A. SPARK.
"Humph!" ejaculated Kennedy, "he has a sense of humour, anyhow--A.
Spark!"
"Queer sense of humour," growled McCormick, gritting his teeth. "Here's
another I got to-day:
Say, Chief: We are going to get busy again and fire a big
department-store next. How does that suit Your Majesty? Wait till the
fun begins when the firebug gets to work again.
A. SPARK.
"Well, sir, when I got that letter," cried McCormick, "I was almost
ready to ring in a double-nine alarm at once--they have me that bluffed
out. But I said to myself, 'There's only one thing to do--see this man
Kennedy.' So here I am. You see what I am driving at? I believe that
firebug is an artist at the thing, does it for the mere fun of it and
the ready money in it. But more than that, there must be some one back
of him. Who is the man higher up--we must catch him. See?"
"A big department-store," mused Kennedy. "That's definite--there are
only a score or so of them, and the Stacey interests control several.
Mac, I'll tell you what I'll do. Let me sit up with you to-night at
headquarters until we get an alarm. By George, I'll see this case
through to a finish!"
The fire marshal leaped to his feet and bounded over to where Kennedy
was seated. With one hand on Craig's shoulder and the other grasping
Craig's hand, he started to speak, but his voice choked.
"Thanks," he blurted out huskily at last. "My reputation in the
department is at stake, my promotion, my position itself, my--my
family--er--er--"
"Not a word, sir," said Kennedy, his features working sympathetically.
"To-night at eight I will go on watch with you. By the way, leave me
those A. Spark notes."
McCormick had so far regained his composure as to say a hearty
farewell. He left the room as if ten years had been lifted off his
shoulders. A moment later he stuck his head in the door again. "I'll
have one of the Department machines call for you, gentlemen," he said.
After the marshal had gone, we sat for several minutes in silence.
Kennedy was reading and rereading the notes, scowling to himself as if
they presented a particularly perplexing problem. I said nothing,
though my mind was teeming with speculations. At length he placed the
notes very decisively on the table and snapped out the remark,
"Yes, it must be so."
"What?" I queried, still drumming away at my typewriter, copying the
list of incendiary fires against the moment when the case should be
complete and the story "released for publication," as it were.
"This note," he explained, picking up the first one and speaking
slowly, "was written by a woman."
I swung around in my chair quickly. "Get out!" I exclaimed sceptically.
"No woman ever used such phrases."
"I didn't say composed by a woman--I said written by a woman," he
replied.
"Oh," I said, rather chagrined.
"It is possible to determine sex from handwriting in perhaps eighty
cases out of a hundred," Kennedy went on, enjoying my discomfiture.
"Once I examined several hundred specimens of writing to decide that
point to my satisfaction. Just to test my conclusions I submitted the
specimens to two professional graphologists. I found that our results
were slightly different, but I averaged the thing up to four cases out
of five correct. The so-called sex signs are found to be largely
influenced by the amount of writing done, by age, and to a certain
extent by practice and professional requirements, as in the
conventional writing of teachers and the rapid hand of bookkeepers. Now
in this case the person who wrote the first note was only an
indifferent writer. Therefore the sex signs are pretty likely to be
accurate. Yes, I'm ready to go on the stand and swear that this note
was written by a woman and the second by a man."
"Then there's a woman in the case, and she wrote the first note for the
firebug--is that what you mean?" I asked.
"Exactly. There nearly always is a woman in the case, somehow or other.
This woman is closely connected with the firebug. As for the firebug,
whoever it may be, he performs his crimes with cold premeditation and,
as De Quincey said, in a spirit of pure artistry. The lust of fire
propels him, and he uses his art to secure wealth. The man may be a
tool in the hands of others, however. It's unsafe to generalise on the
meagre facts we now have. Oh, well, there is nothing we can do just
yet. Let's take a walk, get an early dinner, and be back here before
the automobile arrives."
Not a word more did Kennedy say about the case during our stroll or
even on the way downtown to fire headquarters.
We found McCormick anxiously waiting for us. High up in the sandstone
tower at headquarters, we sat with him in the maze of delicate
machinery with which the fire game is played in New York. In great
glass cases were glistening brass and nickel machines with discs and
levers and bells, tickers, sheets of paper, and annunciators without
number. This was the fire-alarm telegraph, the "roulettewheel of the
fire demon," as some one has aptly called it.
"All the alarms for fire from all the boroughs, both from the regular
alarm-boxes and the auxiliary systems, come here first over the network
of three thousand miles or more of wire nerves that stretch out through
the city," McCormick was explaining to us.
A buzzer hissed.
"Here's an alarm now," he exclaimed, all attention.
"Three," "six," "seven," the numbers appeared on the annunciator. The
clerks in the office moved as if they were part of the mechanism. Twice
the alarm was repeated, being sent out all over the city. McCormick
relapsed from his air of attention.
"That alarm was not in the shopping district," he explained, much
relieved. "Now the fire-houses in the particular district where that
fire is have received the alarm instantly. Four engines, two
hook-and-ladders, a water-tower, the battalion chief, and a deputy are
hurrying to that fire. Hello, here comes another."
Again the buzzer sounded. "One," "four," "five" showed in the
annunciator.
Even before the clerks could respond, McCormick had dragged us to the
door. In another instant we were wildly speeding uptown, the bell on
the front of the automobile clanging like a fire-engine, the siren horn
going continuously, the engine of the machine throbbing with energy
until the water boiled in the radiator.
"Let her out, Frank," called McCormick to his chauffeur, as we rounded
into a broad and now almost deserted thoroughfare.
Like a red streak in the night we flew up that avenue, turned into
Fourteenth Street on two wheels, and at last were on Sixth Avenue. With
a jerk and a skid we stopped. There were the engines, the hose-carts,
the hook-and-ladders, the salvage corps, the police establishing fire
lines--everything. But where was the fire?
The crowd indicated where it ought to be--it was Stacey's. Firemen and
policemen were entering the huge building. McCormick shouldered in
after them, and we followed.
"Who turned in the alarm?" he asked as we mounted the stairs with the
others.
"I did," replied a night watchman on the third landing. "Saw a light in
the office on the third floor back--something blazing. But it seems to
be out now."
We had at last come to the office. It was dark and deserted, yet with
the lanterns we could see the floor of the largest room littered with
torn books and ledgers.
Kennedy caught his foot in something. It was a loose wire on the floor.
He followed it. It led to an electric-light socket, where it was
attached.
"Can't you turn on the lights?" shouted McCormick to the watchman.
"Not here. They're turned on from downstairs, and they're off for the
night. I'll go down if you want me to and--"
"No," roared Kennedy. "Stay where you are until I follow the wire to
the other end."
At last we came to a little office partitioned off from the main room.
Kennedy carefully opened the door. One whiff of the air from it was
sufficient. He banged the door shut again.
"Stand back with those lanterns, boys," he ordered.
I sniffed, expecting to smell illuminating-gas. Instead, a peculiar,
sweetish odour pervaded the air. For a moment it made me think of a
hospital operating-room.
"Ether," exclaimed Kennedy. "Stand back farther with those lights and
hold them up from the floor."
For a moment he seemed to hesitate as if at loss what to do next.
Should he open the door and let this highly inflammable gas out or
should he wait patiently until the natural ventilation of the little
office had dispelled it?
While he was debating he happened to glance out of the window and catch
sight of a drug-store across the street.
"Walter," he said to me, "hurry across there and get all the saltpeter
and sulphur the man has in the shop."