half-open drawer of my desk writing with this pencil notes of what has
transpired in this room. These notes, with other evidence, have been
simultaneously placed before Magistrate Brenner in the night court. At
the same time, on this other, the receiving, instrument the figures of
the accountants written in court have been reproduced here. You have
seen them. Meanwhile, Douglas was arrested, taken before the
magistrate, and the information for a charge of murder in the first
degree perpetrated in committing arson has been obtained. You have seen
it. It came in while you were reading the figures."
The conspirators seemed dazed.
"And now," continued Kennedy, "I see that the pencil of the receiving
instrument is writing again. Let us see what it is."
We bent over. The writing started: "County of New York. In the name of
the People of the State of New York--"
Kennedy did not wait for us to finish reading. He tore the writing from
the telautograph and waved it over his head.
"It is a warrant. You are all under arrest for arson. But you, Samuel
Lazard, are also under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Wend and six
other persons in fires which you have set. You are the real firebug,
the tool of Joseph Stacey, perhaps, but that will all come out in the
trial. McCormick, McCormick," called Craig, "it's all right. I have the
warrant. Are the police there?"
There was no answer.
Lazard and Stacey made a sudden dash for the door, and in an instant
they were in Stacey's waiting car. The chauffeur took off the brake and
pulled the lever. Suddenly Craig's pistol flashed, and the chauffeur's
arms hung limp and useless on the steering-wheel.
As McCormick with the police loomed up, a moment late, out of the
darkness and after a short struggle clapped the irons on Stacey and
Lazard in Stacey's own magnificently upholstered car, I remarked
reproachfully to Kennedy: "But, Craig, you have shot the innocent
chauffeur. Aren't you going to attend to him?"
"Oh," replied Kennedy nonchalantly, "don't worry about that. They were
only rock-salt bullets. They didn't penetrate far. They'll sting for
some time, but they're antiseptic, and they'll dissolve and absorb
quickly."
V
THE CONFIDENCE KING
"Shake hands with Mr. Burke of the secret service, Professor Kennedy."
It was our old friend First Deputy O'Connor who thus in his bluff way
introduced a well-groomed and prosperous-looking man whom he brought up
to our apartment one evening.
The formalities were quickly over. "Mr. Burke and I are old friends,"
explained O'Connor. "We try to work together when we can, and very
often the city department can give the government service a lift, and
then again it's the other way--as it was in the trunk-murder mystery.
Show Professor Kennedy the 'queer,' Tom."
Burke drew a wallet out of his pocket, and from it slowly and
deliberately selected a crisp, yellow-backed hundred-dollar bill. He
laid it flat on the table before us. Diagonally across its face from
the upper left-to the lower right-hand corner extended two parallel
scorings in indelible ink.
Not being initiated into the secrets of the gentle art of "shoving the
queer," otherwise known as passing counterfeit money, I suppose my
questioning look betrayed me.
"A counterfeit, Walter," explained Kennedy. "That's what they do with
bills when they wish to preserve them as records in the secret service
and yet render them valueless."
Without a word Burke handed Kennedy a pocket magnifying-glass, and
Kennedy carefully studied the bill. He was about to say something when
Burke opened his capacious wallet again and laid down a Bank of England
five-pound note which had been similarly treated.
Again Kennedy looked through the glass with growing amazement written
on his face, but before he could say anything, Burke laid down an
express money-order on the International Express Company.
"I say," exclaimed Kennedy, putting down the glass, "stop! How many
more of these are there?"
Burke smiled. "That's all," he replied, "but it's not the worst."
"Not the worst? Good heavens, man, next you'll tell me that the
government is counterfeiting its own notes! How much of this stuff do
you suppose has been put into circulation?"
Burke chewed a pencil thoughtfully, jotted down some figures on a piece
of paper, and thought some more. "Of course I can't say exactly, but
from hints I have received here and there I should think that a safe
bet would be that some one has cashed in upward of half a million
dollars already."
"Whew," whistled Kennedy, "that's going some. And I suppose it is all
salted away in some portable form. What an inventory it must be--good
bills, gold, diamonds, and jewellery. This is a stake worth playing
for."
"Yes," broke in O'Connor, "but from my standpoint, professionally, I
mean, the case is even worse than that. It's not the counterfeits that
bother us. We understand that, all right. But," and he leaned forward
earnestly and brought his fist down hard on the table with a resounding
Irish oath, "the finger-print system, the infallible finger-print
system, has gone to pieces. We've just imported this new 'portrait
parle' fresh from Paris and London, invented by Bertillon and all that
sort of thing--it has gone to pieces, too. It's a fine case, this is,
with nothing left of either scientific or unscientific
criminal-catching to rely on. There--what do you know about that?"
"You'll have to tell me the facts first," said Kennedy. "I can't
diagnose your disease until I know the symptoms."
"It's like this," explained Burke, the detective in him showing now
with no effort at concealment. "A man, an Englishman, apparently, went
into a downtown banker's office about three months ago and asked to
have some English bank-notes exchanged for American money. After he had
gone away, the cashier began to get suspicious. He thought there was
something phoney in the feel of the notes. Under the glass he noticed
that the little curl on the 'e' of the 'Five' was missing. It's the
protective mark. The water-mark was quite equal to that of the
genuine--maybe better. Hold that note up to the light and see for
yourself.
"Well, the next day, down to the Custom House, where my office is, a
man came who runs a swell gambling-house uptown. He laid ten brand-new
bills on my desk. An Englishman had been betting on the wheel. He
didn't seem to care about winning, and he cashed in each time with a
new one-hundred-dollar bill. Of course he didn't care about winning. He
cared about the change--that was his winning. The bill on the table is
one of the original ten, though since then scores have been put into
circulation. I made up my mind that it was the same Englishman in both
cases.
"Then within a week, in walked the manager of the Mozambique Hotel--he
had been stung with the fake International Express money-order--same
Englishman, too, I believe."
"And you have no trace of him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.
"We had him under arrest once--we thought. A general alarm was sent
out, of course, to all the banks and banking-houses. But the man was
too clever to turn up in that way again. In one gambling-joint which
women frequent a good deal, a classy dame who might have been a duchess
or a--well, she was a pretty good loser and always paid with
hundred-dollar bills. Now, you know women are NOT good losers. Besides,
the hundred-dollar-bill story had got around among the gambling-houses.
This joint thought it worth taking a chance, so they called me up on
the 'phone, extracted a promise that I'd play fair and keep O'Connor
from raiding them, but wouldn't I please come up and look over the dame
of the yellow bills? Of course I made a jump at it. Sure enough, they
were the same counterfeits. I could tell because the silk threads were
drawn in with coloured ink. But instead of making an arrest I decided
to trail the lady.
"Now, here comes the strange part of it. Let me see, this must have
been over two months ago. I followed her out to a suburban town,
Riverwood along the Hudson, and to a swell country house overlooking
the river, private drive, stone gate, hedges, old trees, and all that
sort of thing. A sporty-looking Englishman met her at the gate with one
of those big imported touring-cars, and they took a spin.
"I waited a day or so, but nothing more happened, and I began to get
anxious. Perhaps I was a bit hasty. Anyhow I watched my chance and made
an arrest of both of them when they came to New York on a shopping
expedition. You should have heard that Englishman swear. I didn't know
such language was possible. But in his pocket we found twenty more of
those hundred-dollar bills--that was all. Do you think he owned up? Not
a bit of it. He swore he had picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the
pier as he left the steamer. I laughed. But when he was arraigned in
court he told the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised
his find at the time. Sure enough, in the files of the papers we
discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad., just as he claimed. We
couldn't even prove that he had passed the bills. So the magistrate
refused to hold them, and they were both released. But we had had them
in our power long enough to take their finger-prints and get
descriptions and measurements of them, particularly by this new
'portrait parle' system. We felt we could send out a strange detective
and have him pick them out of a crowd--you know the system, I presume?"
Kennedy nodded, and I made a mental note of finding out more about the
"portrait parle" later.
Burke paused, and O'Connor prompted, "Tell them about Scotland Yard,
Tom."
"Oh, yes," resumed Burke. "Of course I sent copies of the finger-prints
to Scotland Yard. Within two weeks they replied that one set belonged
to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they understood, had
sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there. They were glad to
learn that he was in America, and advised me to look after him sharply.
The woman was also a noted character--Harriet Wollstone, an
adventuress."
"I suppose you have shadowed them ever since?" Kennedy asked.
"Yes, a few days after they were arrested the man had an accident with
his car. It was said he was cranking the engine and that it kicked back
and splintered the bone in his forearm. Anyhow, he went about with his
hand and arm in a sling."
"And then?"
"They gave my man the slip that night in their fast touring-car. You
know automobiles have about made shadowing impossible in these days.
The house was closed up, and it was said by the neighbours that
Williams and Mrs. Williams--as they called themselves--had gone to
visit a specialist in Philadelphia. Still, as they had a year's lease
on the house, I detailed a man to watch it more or less all the time.
They went to Philadelphia all right; some of the bills turned up there.
But we saw nothing of them.
"A short time ago, word came to me that the house was open again. It
wasn't two hours later that the telephone rang like mad. A Fifth Avenue
jeweller had just sold a rope of pearls to an Englishwoman who paid for
it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar bills. The bank had returned
them to him that very afternoon--counterfeits. I didn't lose any time
making a second arrest up at the house of mystery at Riverwood. I had
the county authorities hold them--and, now, O'Connor, tell the rest of
it. You took the finger-prints up there."
O'Connor cleared his throat as if something stuck in it, in the
telling. "The Riverwood authorities refused to hold them," he said with
evident chagrin. "As soon as I heard of the arrest I started up myself
with the finger-print records to help Burke. It was the same man, all
right--I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So will Burke. I'll
never forget that snub nose--the concave nose, the nose being the first
point of identification in the 'portrait parle.' And the ears, too--oh,
it was the same man, all right. But when we produced the London
finger-prints which tallied with the New York fingerprints which we had
made--believe it or not, but it is a fact, the Riverwood finger-prints
did not tally at all."
He laid the prints on the table. Kennedy examined them closely. His
face clouded. It was quite evident that he was stumped, and he said so.
"There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but more points of
difference. Any points of difference are usually considered fatal to
the finger-print theory."
"We had to let the man go," concluded Burke. "We could have held the
woman, but we let her go, too, because she was not the principal in the
case. My men are shadowing the house now and have been ever since then.
But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New York, who looked
like a doctor, made a visit. The secret-service man on the job didn't
dare leave the house to follow him, but as he never came again perhaps
it doesn't matter. Since then the house has been closed."
The telephone rang. It was Burke's office calling him. As he talked we
could gather that something tragic must have happened at Riverwood, and
we could hardly wait until he had finished.
"There has been an accident up there," he remarked as he hung up the
receiver rather petulantly. "They returned in the car this afternoon
with a large package in the back of the tonneau. But they didn't stay
long. After dark they started out again in the car. The accident was at
the bad railroad crossing just above Riverwood. It SEEMS Williams's car
got stalled on the track just as the Buffalo express was due. No one
saw it, but a man in a buggy around the bend in the road heard a woman
scream. He hurried down. The train had smashed the car to bits. How the
woman escaped was a miracle, but they found the man's body up the
tracks, horribly mangled. It was Williams, they say. They identified
him by the clothes and by letters in his pockets. But my man tells me
he found a watch on him with 'W. F.' engraved on it. His hands and arms
and head must have been right under the locomotive when it struck him,
I judge."
"I guess that winds the case up, eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with evident
chagrin. "Where's the woman?"
"They said she was in the little local hospital, but not much hurt.
Just the shock and a few bruises."
O'Connor's question seemed to suggest an idea to Burke, and he reached
for the telephone again. "Riverwood 297," he ordered; then to us as he
waited he said: "We must hold the woman. Hello, 297? The hospital? This
is Burke of the secret service. Will you tell my man, who must be
somewhere about, that I would like to have him hold that woman who was
in the auto smash until I can--what? Gone? The deuce!"
He hung up the receiver angrily. "She left with a man who called for
her about half an hour ago," he said. "There must be a gang of them.
Forbes is dead, but we must get the rest. Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry to
have bothered you, but I guess we can handle this alone, after all. It
was the finger-prints that fooled us, but now that Forbes is out of the
way it's just a straight case of detective work of the old style which
won't interest you."
"On the contrary," answered Kennedy, "I'm just beginning to be
interested. Does it occur to you that, after all, Forbes may not be
dead?"
"Not dead?" echoed Burke and O'Connor together.
"Exactly; that's just what I said--not dead. Now stop and think a
moment. Would the great Forbes be so foolish as to go about with a
watch marked 'W. F.' if he knew, as he must have known, that you would
communicate with London and by means of the prints find out all about
him?"
"Yes," agreed Burke, "all we have to go by is his watch found on
Williams. I suppose there is some possibility that Forbes may still be
alive."
"Who is this third man who comes in and with whom Harriet Wollstone
goes away so willingly?" put in O'Connor. "You said the house had been
closed--absolutely closed?"
Burke nodded. "Been closed ever since the last arrest. There's a
servant who goes in now and then, but the car hasn't been there before
to-night, wherever it has been."
"I should like to watch that house myself for a while," mused Kennedy.
"I suppose you have no objections to my doing so?"
"Of course not. Go ahead," said Burke. "I will go along with you if you
wish, or my man can go with you."
"No," said Kennedy, "too many of us might spoil the broth. I'll watch
alone to-night and will see you in the morning. You needn't even say
anything to your man there about us."
"Walter, what's on for to-night?" he asked when they had gone. "How are
you fixed for a little trip out to Riverwood?"
"To tell the truth, I had an engagement at the College Club with some
of the fellows."
"Oh, cut it."
"That's what I intend to do," I replied.
It was a raw night, and we bundled ourselves up in old football
sweaters under our overcoats. Half an hour later we were on our way up
to Riverwood.
"By the way, Craig," I asked, "I didn't like to say anything before
those fellows. They'd think I was a dub. But I don't mind asking you.
What is this 'portrait parle' they talk about, anyway?"
"Why, it's a word-picture--a 'spoken picture,' to be literal. I took
some lessons in it at Bertillon's school when I was in Paris. It's a
method of scientific apprehension of criminals, a sort of necessary
addition and completion to the methods of scientific identification of
them after they are arrested. For instance, in trying to pick out a
given criminal from his mere description you begin with the nose. Now,
noses are all concave, straight, or convex. This Forbes had a nose that
was concave, Burke says. Suppose you were sent out to find him. Of all
the people you met, we'll say, roughly, two-thirds wouldn't interest
you. You'd pass up all with straight or convex noses. Now the next
point to observe is the ear. There are four general kinds of
ears-triangular, square, oval, and round, besides a number of other
differences which are clear enough after you study ears. This fellow is
a pale man with square ears and a peculiar lobe to his ear. So you
wouldn't give a second glance to, say, three-fourths of the
square-eared people. So by a process of elimination of various
features, the eyes, the mouth, the hair, wrinkles, and so forth, you
would be able to pick your man out of a thousand--that is, if you were
trained."
"And it works?" I asked rather doubtfully.
"Oh, yes. That's why I'm taking up this case. I believe science can
really be used to detect crime, any crime, and in the present instance
I've just pride enough to stick to this thing until--until they begin
to cut ice on the Styx. Whew, but it will be cold out in the country
to-night, Walter--speaking about ice."
It was quite late when we reached Riverwood, and Kennedy hurried along
the dimly lighted streets, avoiding the main street lest some one might
be watching or following us. He pushed on, following the directions
Burke had given him. The house in question was a large, newly built
affair of concrete, surrounded by trees and a hedge, directly
overlooking the river. A bitter wind swept in from the west, but in the
shadow of an evergreen tree and of the hedge Kennedy established our
watch.
Of all fruitless errands this seemed to me to be the acme. The house
was deserted; that was apparent, I thought, and I said so. Hardly had I
said it when I heard the baying of a dog. It did not come from the
house, however, and I concluded that it must have come from the next
estate.
"It's in the garage," whispered Kennedy. "I can hardly think they would
go away and leave a dog locked up in it. They would at least turn him
loose."
Hour after hour we waited. Midnight passed, and still nothing happened.
At last when the moon had disappeared under the clouds, Kennedy pulled
me along. We had seen not a sign of life in the house, yet he observed
all the caution he would have if it had been well guarded. Quickly we
advanced over the open space to the house, approaching in the shadow as
much as possible, on the side farthest from the river.
Tiptoeing over the porch, Kennedy tried a window. It was fastened.
Without hesitation he pulled out some instruments. One of them was a
rubber suction-cup, which he fastened to the window-pane. Then with a
very fine diamond-cutter he proceeded to cut out a large section. It
soon fell and was prevented from smashing on the floor by the string
and the suction-cup. Kennedy put his hand in and unlatched the window,
and we stepped in.
All was silent. Apparently the house was deserted.
Cautiously Kennedy pressed the button of his pocket storage-battery
lamp and flashed it slowly about the room. It was a sort of library,
handsomely furnished. At last the beam of light rested on a huge desk
at the opposite end. It seemed to interest Kennedy, and we tiptoed over
to it. One after another he opened the drawers. One was locked, and he
saved that until the last.
Quietly as he could, he jimmied it open, muffling the jimmy in a felt
cloth that was on a table. Most people do not realise the disruptive
force that there is in a simple jimmy. I didn't until I saw the solid
drawer with its heavy lock yield with just the trace of a noise.
Kennedy waited an instant and listened. Nothing happened.
Inside the drawer was a most nondescript collection of useless
articles. There were a number of pieces of fine sponge, some of them
very thin and cut in a flat oval shape, smelling of lysol strongly;
several bottles, a set of sharp little knives, some paraffin, bandages,
antiseptic gauze, cotton--in fact, it looked like a first-aid kit. As
soon as he saw it Kennedy seemed astonished but not at a loss to
account for it.
"I thought he left that sort of thing to the doctors, but I guess he
took a hand in it himself," he muttered, continuing to fumble with the
knives in the drawer. It was no time to ask questions, and I did not.
Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets. One bottle he
opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish immediately the
volatile smell of ether. He closed it quickly, and it, too, went into
his pocket with the remark, "Somebody must have known how to administer
an anaesthetic--probably the Wollstone woman."
A suppressed exclamation from Kennedy caused me to look. The drawer had
a false back. Safely tucked away in it reposed a tin box, one of those
so-called strong-boxes which are so handy in that they save a burglar
much time and trouble in hunting all over for the valuables he has come
after. Kennedy drew it forth and laid it on the desk. It was locked.
Even that did not seem to satisfy Kennedy, who continued to scrutinise
the walls and corners of the room as if looking for a safe or something
of that sort.
"Let's look in the room across the hall," he whispered.
Suddenly a piercing scream of a woman rang out upstairs. "Help! Help!
There's some one in the house! Billy, help!"
I felt an arm grasp me tightly, and for a moment a chill ran over me at
being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering a
dwelling-house at night. But it was only Kennedy, who had already
tucked the precious little tin box under his arm.
With a leap he dragged me to the open window, cleared it, vaulted over
the porch, and we were running for the clump of woods that adjoined the
estate on one side. Lights flashed in all the windows of the house at
once. There must have been some sort of electric-light system that
could be lighted instantly as a "burglar-expeller." Anyhow, we had made
good our escape.
As we lost ourselves in the woods I gave a last glance back and saw a
lantern carried from the house to the garage. As the door was unlocked
I could see, in the moonlight, a huge dog leap out and lick the hands
and face of a man.
Quickly we now crashed through the frozen underbrush. Evidently Kennedy
was making for the station by a direct route across country instead of
the circuitous way by the road and town. Behind us we could hear a deep
baying.
"By the Lord, Walter," cried Kennedy, for once in his life thoroughly
alarmed, "it's a bloodhound, and our trail is fresh."
Closer it came. Press forward as we might, we could never expect to
beat that dog.
"Oh, for a stream," groaned Kennedy, "but they are all frozen--even the
river."
He stopped short, fumbled in his pocket, and drew out the bottle of
ether.
"Raise your foot, Walter," he ordered.
I did so and he smeared first mine and then his with the ether. Then we
doubled on our trail once or twice and ran again.
"The dog will never be able to pick up the ether as our trail," panted
Kennedy; "that is, if he is any good and trained not to go off on
wild-goose chases."