believe it, but it is the hardest thing in the world to get an accurate
description of any one. The psychologists have said enough about it,
but you don't realise it until you are up against it. Why, that might
have been the DeMott woman just as well as the former Miss Sanderson,
and the man might have been Bolton Brown as well as Dawson, for all we
know. They've both disappeared now. I wish we could get some word about
that photograph. That would settle it."
In the last mail that night Kennedy received back the letter which he
had addressed to Michael Dawson. On it was stamped "Returned to sender.
Owner not found."
Kennedy turned the letter over slowly and looked at the back of it
carefully.
"On the contrary," he remarked, half to himself, "the owner was found.
Only he returned the letter back to the postman after he had opened it
and found that it was just a note of no importance which I scribbled
just to see if he was keeping in touch with things from his
hiding-place, wherever it is."
"How do you know he opened it?" I asked.
"Do you see those blots on the back? I had several of these envelopes
prepared ready for use when I needed them. I had some tannin placed on
the flap and then covered thickly with gum. On the envelope itself was
some iron sulphate under more gum. I carefully sealed the letter, using
very little moisture. The gum then separated the two prepared parts.
Now if that letter were steamed open the tannin and the sulphate would
come together, run, and leave a smudge. You see the blots? The
inference is obvious."
Clearly, then, our chase was getting warmer. Dawson had been in
Atlantic City at least within a few days. The fruit company steamer to
South America on which Carroll believed he was booked to sail under an
assumed name and with an assumed face was to sail the following noon.
And still we had no word from Chicago as to the destination of the
photograph, or the identity of the man in the Van Dyke beard who had
been so particular to disarm suspicion in the purchase of the plate
from the photographer a few days before.
The mail also contained a message from Williams of the Surety Company
with the interesting information that Bolton Brown's attorney had
refused to say where his client had gone since he had been released on
bail, but that he would be produced when wanted. Adele DeMott had not
been seen for several days in Chicago and the police there were of the
opinion that she had gone to New York, where it would be pretty easy
for her to pass unnoticed. These facts further complicated the case and
made the finding of the photograph even more imperative.
If we were going to do anything it must be done quickly. There was no
time to lose. The last of the fast trains for the day had left and the
photograph, even though it were found, could not possibly reach us in
time to be of use before the steamer sailed from Brooklyn. It was an
emergency such as Kennedy had never yet faced, apparently physically
insuperable.
But, as usual, Craig was not without some resource, though it looked
impossible to me to do anything but make a hit or miss arrest at the
boat. It was late in the evening when he returned from a conference
with an officer of the Telegraph and Telephone Company to whom Williams
had given him a card of introduction. The upshot had been that he had
called up Chicago and talked for a long time with Professor Clark, a
former classmate of ours who was now in the technology school of the
university out there. Kennedy and Clark had been in correspondence for
some time, I knew, about some technical matters, though I had no idea
what it was they concerned.
"There's one thing we can always do," I remarked as we walked slowly
over to the laboratory from our apartment.
"What's that?" he asked absent-mindedly, more from politeness than
anything else.
"Arrest every one with a Van Dyke beard who goes on the boat
to-morrow," I replied.
Kennedy smiled. "I don't feel prepared to stand a suit for false
arrest," he said simply, "especially as the victim would feel pretty
hot if we caused him to miss his boat. Men with beards are not so
uncommon, after all."
We had reached the laboratory. Linemen were stringing wires under the
electric lights of the campus from the street to the Chemistry Building
and into Kennedy's sanctum.
That night and far into the morning Kennedy was working in the
laboratory on a peculiarly complicated piece of mechanism consisting of
electromagnets, rolls, and a stylus and numerous other contrivances
which did not suggest to my mind anything he had ever used before in
our adventures. I killed time as best I could watching him adjust the
thing with the most minute care and precision. Finally I came to the
conclusion that as I was not likely to be of the least assistance, even
if I had been initiated into what was afoot, I had as well retire.
"There is one thing you can do for me in the morning, Walter," said
Kennedy, continuing to work over a delicate piece of clockwork which
formed a part of the apparatus. "In case I do not see you then, get in
touch with Williams and Carroll and have them come here about ten
o'clock with an automobile. If I am not ready for them then I'm afraid
I never shall be, and we shall have to finish the job with the lack of
finesse you suggested by arresting all the bearded men."
Kennedy could not have slept much during the night, for though his bed
had been slept in he was up and away before I could see him again. I
made a hurried trip downtown to catch Carroll and Williams and then
returned to the laboratory, where Craig had evidently just finished a
satisfactory preliminary test of his machine.
"Still no message," he began in reply to my unspoken question. He was
plainly growing restless with the inaction, though frequent talks over
long-distance with Chicago seemed to reassure him. Thanks to the
influence of Williams he had at least a direct wire from his laboratory
to the city which was now the scene of action.
As nearly as I could gather from the one-sided conversations I heard
and the remarks which Kennedy dropped, the Chicago post-office
inspectors were still searching for a trace of the package from
Atlantic City which was to reveal the identity of the man who had
passed the bogus checks and sold the forged certificates of stock.
Somewhere in that great city was a photograph of the promoter and of
the woman who was aiding him to escape, taken in Atlantic City and sent
by mail to Chicago. Who had received it? Would it be found in time to
be of use? What would it reveal? It was like hunting for a needle in a
haystack, and yet the latest reports seemed to encourage Kennedy with
the hope that the authorities were at last on the trail of the secret
office from which the stock had been sold. He was fuming and wishing
that he could be at both ends of the line at once.
"Any word from Chicago yet?" appealed an anxious voice from the doorway.
We turned. There were Carroll and Williams who had come for us with an
automobile to go over to watch at the wharf in Brooklyn for our man. It
was Carroll who spoke. The strain of the suspense was telling on him
and I could readily imagine that he, like so many others who had never
seen Kennedy in action, had not the faith in Craig's ability which I
had seen tested so many times.
"Not yet," replied Kennedy, still busy about his apparatus on the
table. "I suppose you have heard nothing?"
"Nothing since my note of last night," returned Williams impatiently.
"Our detectives still insist that Bolton Brown is the man to watch, and
the disappearance of Adele DeMott at this time certainly looks bad for
him."
"It does, I admit," said Carroll reluctantly. "What's all this stuff on
the table?" he asked, indicating the magnets, rolls, and clockwork.
Kennedy did not have time to reply, for the telephone bell was tinkling
insistently.
"I've got Chicago on the wire," Craig informed us, placing his hand
over the transmitter as he waited for long-distance to make the final
connection. '"I'll try to repeat as much of the conversation as I can
so that you can follow it. Hello--yes--this is Kennedy. Is that you,
Clark? It's all arranged at this end. How's your end of the line? Have
you a good connection? Yes? My synchroniser is working fine here, too.
All right. Suppose we try it. Go ahead."
As Kennedy gave a few final touches to the peculiar apparatus on the
table, the cylindrical drum before us began slowly to revolve and the
stylus or needle pressed down on the sensitised paper with which the
drum was covered, apparently with varying intensity as it turned. Round
and round the cylinder revolved like a graphophone.
"This," exclaimed Kennedy proudly, "is the 'electric eye,' the
telelectrograph invented by Thorne Baker in England. Clark and I have
been intending to try it out for a long time. It at last makes possible
the electric transmission of photographs, using the telephone wires
because they are much better for such a purpose than the telegraph
wires."
Slowly the needle was tracing out a picture on the paper. It was only a
thin band yet, but gradually it was widening, though we could not guess
what it was about to reveal as the ceaseless revolutions widened the
photographic print.
"I may say," explained Kennedy as we waited breathlessly, "that another
system known as the Korn system of telegraphing pictures has also been
in use in London, Paris, Berlin, and other cities at various times for
some years. Korn's apparatus depends on the ability of the element
selenium to vary the strength of an electric current passing through it
in proportion to the brightness with which the selenium is illuminated.
A new field has been opened by these inventions which are now becoming
more and more numerous, since the Korn system did the pioneering.
"The various steps in sending a photograph by the Baker telelectrograph
are not so difficult to understand, after all. First an ordinary
photograph is taken and a negative made. Then a print is made and a wet
plate negative is printed on a sheet of sensitised tinfoil which has
been treated with a single-line screen. You know a halftone consists of
a photograph through a screen composed of lines running perpendicular
to each other--a coarse screen for newspaper work, and a fine screen
for better work, such as in magazines. Well, in this case the screen is
composed of lines running parallel in one direction only, not crossing
at right angles. A halftone is composed of minute points, some light,
some dark. This print is composed of long shaded lines, some parts
light, others dark, giving the effect of a picture, you understand?"
"Yes, yes," I exclaimed, thoroughly excited. "Go on."
"Well," he resumed as the print widened visibly, "this tinfoil negative
is wrapped around a cylinder at the other end of the line and a stylus
with a very delicate, sensitive point begins passing over it, crossing
the parallel lines at right angles, like the other lines of a regular
halftone. Whenever the point of the stylus passes over one of the
lighter spots on the photographic print it sends on a longer electrical
vibration, over the darker spots a shorter vibration. The ever changing
electrical current passes up through the stylus, vibrates with ever
varying degrees of intensity over the thousand miles of telephone wire
between Chicago and this instrument here at the other end of the line.
"In this receiving apparatus the current causes another stylus to pass
over a sheet of sensitised chemical paper such as we have here. The
receiving stylus passes over the paper here synchronously with the
transmitting stylus in Chicago. The impression which each stroke of the
receiving stylus makes on the paper is black or light, according to the
length of the very quickly changing vibrations of the electric current.
White spots on the photographic print come out as black spots here on
the sensitised paper over which this stylus is passing, and vice versa.
In that way you can see the positive print growing here before your
very eyes as the picture is transmitted from the negative which Clark
has prepared and is sending from Chicago."
As we bent over eagerly we could indeed now see what the thing was
doing. It was reproducing faithfully in New York what could be seen by
the mortal eye only in Chicago.
"What is it?" asked Williams, still half incredulous in spite of the
testimony of his eyes.
"It is a photograph which I think may aid us in deciding whether it is
Dawson or Brown who is responsible for the forgeries," answered
Kennedy, "and it may help us to penetrate the man's disguise yet,
before he escapes to South America or wherever he plans to go."
"You'll have to hurry," interposed Carroll, nervously looking at his
watch. "She sails in an hour and a half and it is a long ride over to
the pier even with a fast car."
"The print is almost ready," repeated Kennedy calmly. "By the way, it
is a photograph which was taken at Atlantic City a few days ago for a
booklet which the Lorraine was getting out. The By-Products forger
happened to get in it and he bribed the photographer to give him the
plate and take another picture for the booklet which would leave him
out. The plate was sent to a little office in Chicago, discovered by
the post-office inspectors, where the forged stock certificates were
sold. I understood from what Clark told me over the telephone before he
started to transmit the picture that the woman in it looked very much
like Adele DeMott. Let us see."
The machine had ceased to revolve. Craig stripped a still wet
photograph off the telelectrograph instrument and stood regarding it
with intense satisfaction. Outside, the car which had been engaged to
hurry us over to Brooklyn waited. "Morphine fiends," said Kennedy as he
fanned the print to dry it, "are the most unreliable sort of people.
They cover their tracks with almost diabolical cunning. In fact they
seem to enjoy it. For instance, the crimes committed by morphinists are
usually against property and character and based upon selfishness, not
brutal crimes such as alcohol and other drugs induce. Kleptomania,
forgery, swindling, are among the most common.
"Then, too, one of the most marked phases of morphinism is the pleasure
its victims take in concealing their motives and conduct. They have a
mania for leading a double life, and enjoy the deception and mask which
they draw about themselves. Persons under the influence of the drug
have less power to resist physical and mental impressions and they
easily succumb to temptations and suggestions from others. Morphine
stands unequalled as a perverter of the moral sense. It creates a
person whom the father of lies must recognise as kindred to himself. I
know of a case where a judge charged a jury that the prisoner, a
morphine addict, was mentally irresponsible for that reason. The judge
knew what he was talking about. It subsequently developed that he had
been a secret morphine fiend himself for years."
"Come, come," broke in Carroll impatiently, "we're wasting time. The
ship sails in an hour and unless you want to go down the bay on a tug
you've got to catch Dawson now or never. The morphine business
explains, but it does not excuse. Come on, the car is waiting. How long
do you think it will take us to get over to---"
"Police headquarters?" interrupted Craig. "About fifteen minutes. This
photograph shows, as I had hoped, the real forger. John Carroll, this
is a peculiar case. You have forged the name of the president of your
company, but you have also traced your own name very cleverly to look
like a forgery. It is what is technically known as auto-forgery,
forging one's own handwriting. At your convenience we'll ride down to
Centre Street directly."
Carroll was sputtering and almost frothing at the mouth with rage which
he made no effort to suppress. Williams was hesitating, nonplussed,
until Kennedy reached over unexpectedly and grasped Carroll by the arm.
As he shoved up Carroll's sleeve he disclosed the forearm literally
covered with little punctures made by the hypodermic needle.
"It may interest you," remarked Kennedy, still holding Carroll in his
vise-like grip, while the drug fiend's shattered nerves caused him to
cower and tremble, "to know that a special detective working for me has
located Mr. and Mrs. Dawson at Bar Harbor, where they are enjoying a
quiet honeymoon. Brown is safely in the custody of his counsel, ready
to appear and clear himself as soon as the public opinion which has
been falsely inflamed against him subsides. Your plan to give us the
slip at the last moment at the wharf and board the steamer for South
America has miscarried. It is now too late to catch it, but I shall
send a wireless that will cause the arrest of Miss DeMott the moment
the ship touches an American port at Colon, even if she succeeds in
eluding the British authorities at Kingston. The fact is, I don't much
care about her, anyway. Thanks to the telelectrograph here we have the
real criminal."
Kennedy slapped down the now dry print that had come in over his
"seeing over a wire" machine. Barring the false Van Dyke beard, it was
the face of John Carroll, forger and morphine fiend. Next him in the
picture in the brilliant and fashionable dining-room of the Lorraine
was sitting Adele DeMott who had used her victim, Bolton Brown, to
shield her employer, Carroll.
IX
THE UNOFFICIAL SPY
"Craig, do you see that fellow over by the desk, talking to the night
clerk?" I asked Kennedy as we lounged into the lobby of the new Hotel
Vanderveer one evening after reclaiming our hats from the plutocrat who
had acquired the checking privilege. We had dined on the roof garden of
the Vanderveer apropos of nothing at all except our desire to become
acquainted with a new hotel.
"Yes," replied Kennedy, "what of him?"
"He's the house detective, McBride. Would you like to meet him? He's
full of good stories, an interesting chap. I met him at a dinner given
to the President not long ago and he told me a great yarn about how the
secret service, the police, and the hotel combined to guard the
President during the dinner. You know, a big hotel is the stamping
ground for all sorts of cranks and crooks."
The house detective had turned and had caught my eye. Much to my
surprise, he advanced to meet me.
"Say,--er--er--Jameson," he began, at last recalling my name, though he
had seen me only once and then for only a short time. "You're on the
Star, I believe?"
"Yes," I replied, wondering what he could want.
"Well--er--do you suppose you could do the house a little--er--favour?"
he asked, hesitating and dropping his voice.
"What is it?" I queried, not feeling certain but that it was a veiled
attempt to secure a little free advertising for the Vanderveer. "By the
way, let me introduce you to my friend Kennedy, McBride."
"Craig Kennedy?" he whispered aside, turning quickly to me. I nodded.
"Mr. Kennedy," exclaimed the house man deferentially, "are you very
busy just now?"
"Not especially so," replied Craig. "My friend Jameson was telling me
that you knew some interesting yarns about hotel detective life. I
should like to hear you tell some of them, if you are not yourself
too---"
"Perhaps you'd rather see one instead?" interrupted the house
detective, eagerly scanning Craig's face.
"Indeed, nothing could please me more. What is it--a 'con' man or a
hotel 'beat'?"
McBride looked about to make sure that no one was listening. "Neither,"
he whispered. "It's either a suicide or a murder. Come upstairs with
me. There isn't a man in the world I would rather have met at this very
instant, Mr. Kennedy, than yourself."
We followed McBride into an elevator which he stopped at the fifteenth
floor. With a nod to the young woman who was the floor clerk, the house
detective led the way down the thickly carpeted hall, stopping at a
room which, we could see through the transom, was lighted. He drew a
bunch of keys from his pocket and inserted a pass key into the lock.
The door swung open into a sumptuously fitted sitting-room. I looked
in, half fearfully, but, although all the lights were turned on, the
room was empty. McBride crossed the room quickly, opened a door to a
bedroom, and jerked his head back with a quick motion, signifying his
desire for us to follow.
Stretched lifeless on the white linen of the immaculate bed lay the
form of a woman, a beautiful woman she had been, too, though not with
the freshness which makes American women so attractive. There was
something artificial about her beauty, the artificiality which hinted
at a hidden story of a woman with a past.
She was a foreigner, apparently of one of the Latin races, although at
the moment in the horror of the tragedy before us I could not guess her
nationality. It was enough for me that here lay this cold, stony, rigid
beauty, robed in the latest creations of Paris, alone in an elegantly
furnished room of an exclusive hotel where hundreds of gay guests were
dining and chatting and laughing without a suspicion of the terrible
secret only a few feet distant from them.
We stood awestruck for the moment.
"The coroner ought to be here any moment," remarked McBride and even
the callousness of the regular detective was not sufficient to hide the
real feelings of the man. His practical sense soon returned, however,
and he continued, "Now, Jameson, don't you think you could use a little
influence with the newspaper men to keep this thing off the front
pages? Of course something has to be printed about it. But we don't
want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a suicide the other
day who left an apologetic note that was played up by some of the
papers. Now comes this affair. The management are just as anxious to
have the crime cleared up as any one--if it is a crime. But can't it be
done with the soft pedal? We will stop at nothing in the way of
expense--just so long as the name of the Vanderveer is kept in the
background. Only, I'm afraid the coroner will try to rub it in and make
the thing sensational."
"What was her name?" asked Kennedy. "At least, under what name was she
registered?"
"She was registered as Madame de Nevers. It is not quite a week now
since she came here, came directly from the steamer Tripolitania. See,
there are her trunks and things, all pasted over with foreign labels,
not an American label among them. I haven't the slightest doubt that
her name was fictitious, for as far as I can see all the ordinary marks
of identification have been obliterated. It will take time to identify
her at the best, and in the meantime, if a crime has been committed,
the guilty person may escape. What I want now, right away, is action."
"Has nothing in her actions about the hotel offered any clue, no matter
how slight?" asked Kennedy.
"Plenty of things," replied McBride quickly. "For one thing, she didn't
speak very much English and her maid seemed to do all the talking for
her, even to ordering her meals, which were always served here. I did
notice Madame a few times about the hotel, though she spent most of her
time in her rooms. She was attractive as the deuce, and the men all
looked at her whenever she stirred out. She never even noticed them.
But she was evidently expecting some one, for her maid had left word at
the desk that if a Mr. Gonzales called, she was at home; if any one
else, she was out. For the first day or two she kept herself closely
confined, except that at the end of the second day she took a short
spin through the park in a taxicab--closed, even in this hot weather.
Where she went I cannot say, but when they returned the maid seemed
rather agitated. At least she was a few minutes later when she came all
the way downstairs to telephone from a booth, instead of using the room
telephone. At various times the maid was sent out to execute certain
errands, but always returned promptly. Madame de Nevers was a genuine
woman of mystery, but as long as she was a quiet mystery, I thought it
no business of ours to pry into the affairs of Madame."
"Did she have any visitors? Did this Mr. Gonzales call?" asked Kennedy
at length.
"She had one visitor, a woman who called and asked if a Madame de
Nevers was stopping at the hotel," answered McBride. "That was what the
clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you. He says
that, obedient to the orders from the maid, he told the visitor that
Madame was not at home."
"Who was this visitor, do you suppose?" asked Craig. "Did she leave any
card or message? Is there any clue to her?"
The detective looked at him earnestly for a time as if he hesitated to
retail what might be merely pure gossip.