"Miss Lovelace left hurriedly for Washington this morning."
What was the meaning of it? Clearly, as we probed deeper into the case,
its ramifications grew wider than anything we had yet expected. Why had
Miss Lovelace gone to Washington, of all places, at this torrid season
of the year?
The coroner had scarcely left us, more mystified than ever, when a
telephone message came from McBride saying that he had some important
news for us if we would meet him at the St. Cenis Hotel within an hour.
He would say nothing about it over the wire.
As Kennedy hung up the receiver he quietly took a pistol from a drawer
of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at the
cartridges in the cylinder. Then he snapped it shut and stuck it into
his pocket.
"There's no telling what we may run up against before we get back to
the laboratory," he remarked and we rode down to meet McBride.
The description which the house man had sent out to the other hotel
detectives the night before had already produced a result. Within the
past two days a man answering the description of the younger man whom
McBride had seen in the cafe and a woman who might very possibly have
been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and Mme. Duval.
Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to impress upon the
hotel that they were persons of some position and that it was going
direct from the railroad to the steamer, after their tour of America.
They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing to excite suspicion until
the general request for information had been received.
The house man of the St. Cenis welcomed us cordially upon McBride's
introduction and agreed to take us up to the rooms of the strange
couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour and
they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not be too particular
in his search of their effects, for he did not wish to arouse suspicion
upon their return, at least not yet.
"It seems to me, Craig," I suggested after we had nosed about for a few
minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case in which
to use the dictograph as you did in that Black Hand case."
He shook his head doubtfully, although I could see that the idea
appealed to him. "The dictograph has been getting too much publicity
lately," he said. "I'm afraid they would discover it, that is, if they
are at all the clever people I think them. Besides, I would have to
send up to the laboratory to get one and by the time the messenger
returned they might be back from lunch. No, we've got to do something
else, and do it quickly."
He was looking about the room in an apparently aimless manner. On the
side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy seemed
engrossed in it while the rest of us fidgeted at the delay.
"Can you get me a couple of old telephone instruments?" he asked at
length, turning to us and addressing the St. Cenis detective.
The detective nodded and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later
he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them I do not
know, but I suspect he simply lifted them from vacant rooms.
"Now some Number 30 copper wire and a couple of dry cells," ordered
Kennedy, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The detective
despatched a bellboy down to the basement to get the wire from the
house electrician.
Kennedy removed the transmitters of the telephones, and taking the
carbon capsules from them placed the capsules on the table carefully.
Then he lifted down the etching from the wall and laid it flat on its
face before us. Quickly he removed the back of the picture.
Pressing the transmitter fronts with the carbon capsules against the
paper and the glass on the picture he mounted them so that the paper
and glass acted as a large diaphragm to collect all the sounds in the
room.
"The size of this glass diaphragm," he explained as we gathered around
in intense interest at what he was doing, "will produce a strikingly
sensitive microphone action and the merest whisper will be reproduced
with startling distinctness."
The boy brought the wire up and also the news that the couple in whose
room we were had very nearly finished luncheon and might be expected
back in a few minutes.
Kennedy took the tiny wires, and after connecting them hung up the
picture again and ran them up alongside the picture wires leading from
the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the top of the
moulding and out through the transom it was easy enough to run the
wires and so down the hall to a vacant room, where Craig attached them
quickly to one of the old telephone receivers.
Then we sat down in this room to await developments from our hastily
improvised picture frame microphone detective.
At last we could hear the elevator door close on our floor. A moment
later it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face that some
one had entered the room which we had just left. He had finished not a
moment too soon.
"It's a good thing that I didn't wait to put a dictograph there," he
remarked to us. "I thought I wasn't reckoning without reason. The
couple, whoever they are, are talking in undertones and looking about
the room to see if anything has been disturbed in their absence."
Kennedy alone, of course, could follow over his end of the telephone
what they said. The rest of us could do nothing but wait, but from
notes which Craig jotted down as he listened to the conversation I
shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some anxious
moments until at last they had satisfied themselves that no one was
listening and that no dictograph or other mechanical eavesdropper, such
as they had heard of, was concealed in the furniture or back of it.
"Why are you so particular, Henri?" a woman's voice was saying.
"Louise, I've been thinking for a long time that we are surrounded by
spies in these hotels. You remember I told you what happened at the
Vanderveer the night you and Madame arrived? I'm sure that waiter
overheard what Gonzales and I were talking about."
"Well, we are safe now anyhow. What was it that you would not tell me
just now at luncheon?" asked the woman, whom Kennedy recognised as
Madame de Nevers's maid.
"I have a cipher from Washington. Wait until I translate it."
There was a pause. "What does it say?" asked the woman impatiently.
"It says," repeated the man slowly, "that Miss Lovelace has gone to
Washington. She insists on knowing whether the death of Marie was a
suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind of
some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I must go
down there or the whole affair may be exposed and fall through. Things
could hardly be worse, especially this sudden move on her part."
"Who was that detective who forced his way to see her the night they
discovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't the
Secret Service also. Do you think they could have suspected anything?"
"I hardly think so," the man replied. "Beyond the death of Madame they
suspect nothing here in New York, I am convinced. You are sure that all
her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her with the
business in hand were destroyed, and particularly that the package she
was to deliver is safe?"
"The package? You mean the plans for the coaling station on the Pacific
near the Canal? You see, Henri, I know."
"Ha, ha,--yes," replied the man. "Louise, shall I tell you a secret?
Can you keep it?"
"You know I can, Henri."
"Well, Louise, the scheme is deeper than even you think. We are playing
one country against another, America against--you know the government
our friend Schmidt works for in Paris. Now, listen. Those plans of the
coaling station are a fake--a fake. It is just a commercial venture. No
nation would be foolish enough to attempt such a thing, yet. We know
that they are a fake. But we are going to sell them through that friend
of ours in the United States War Department. But that is only part of
the coup, the part that will give us the money to turn the much larger
coups we have in the future. You can understand why it has all to be
done so secretly and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle
is overcome a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By
using those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which
when we all return to Paris we can convert into thousands of francs.
There, I can say no more. But I have told you so much to impress upon
you the extreme need of caution."
"And how much does Miss Lovelace know?"
"Very little--I hope. That is why I must go to Washington myself. She
must know nothing of this coup nor of the real de Nevers, or the whole
scheme may fall through. It would have fallen through before, Louise,
if you had failed us and had let any of de Nevers's letters slip
through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate for that act of
treachery. The affair would have been so simple, otherwise. Luck was
with us until her insane jealousy led her to visit Miss Lovelace. It
was fortunate the young lady was out when Madame called on her or all
would have been lost. Ah, we owe you a great deal, Louise, and we shall
not forget it, never. You will be very careful while I am gone?"
"Absolutely. When will you return to me, Henri?"
"To-morrow morning at the latest. This afternoon the false coaling
station plans are to be turned over to our accomplice in the War
Department and in exchange he is to give us something else--the secret
of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high circles. It is
very much more important than you suppose and discovery might lead to a
dangerous international complication just now."
"Then you are to meet your friend in Washington to-night? When do you
start, Henri? Don't let the time slip by. There must be no mistake this
time as there was when we were working for Japan and almost had the
blue prints of Corregidor at Manila only to lose them on the streets of
Calcutta."
"Trust me. We are to meet about nine o'clock and therefore I leave on
the limited at three-thirty, in about an hour. From the station I am
going straight to the house on Z Street--let me see, the cipher says
the number is 101--and ask for a man named Gonzales. I shall use the
name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package--that thing I have
told you about--then I am to return here by one of the midnight trains.
At any cost we must allow nothing to happen which will reach the ears
of Miss Lovelace. I'll see you early to-morrow morning, ma cherie, and
remember, be ready, for the Aquitania sails at ten. The division of the
money is to be made in Paris. Then we shall all go our separate ways."
Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel service
to find out how the trains ran for Washington. The only one that would
get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next, leaving an hour
later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had evidently had some
idea of causing some delay that would result in our friend down the
hall missing the limited, but abandoned it. Any such scheme would
simply result in a message to the gang in Washington putting them on
their guard and defeating his purpose.
"At all costs we must beat this fellow to it," exclaimed Craig, waiting
to hear no more over his improvised dictograph. "Come, Walter, we must
catch the limited for Washington immediately. McBride, I leave you and
the regular house man to shadow this woman. Don't let her get out of
your sight for a moment."
As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig hastily
informed me of what he had overheard. We took up our post so that we
could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes later Craig
spotted our man from McBride's description, and succeeded in securing
chairs in the same car in which he was to ride.
Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey. For five mortal hours we
sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car, never letting
the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know that we were
watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking myself what good it
did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if the affair was so important
as it appeared? How were we to get ahead of him in Washington better
than in New York? I knew that some plan lurked behind the calm and
inscrutable face of Kennedy as I tried to read and could not.
The train had come to a stop in the Union Station. Our man was walking
rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand. Suddenly
Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking abreast of him.
"I beg your pardon," began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow of
the arc lights, "but have you a match?"
The man halted and fumbled for his match-box. Instantly Kennedy's
pocket handkerchief was at his nose.
"Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs," ground out
Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes under his
handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect.
The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him between
us. Up the platform we led him in a daze.
"Here," shouted Craig to a cabman, "my friend is ill. Drive us around a
bit. It will sober him up. Come on, Walter, jump in, the air will do us
all good."
Those who were in Washington during that summer will remember the
suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a
certain very humid night. Nothing leaked out at the time as to the
cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly averted
at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the departments were all
away, the President was at his summer home in the North, and even some
of the under-secretaries were out of town. Hasty messages had been
sizzling over the wires in cipher and code for hours.
I recall that as we rode a little out of our way past the Army
Building, merely to see if there was any excitement, we found it a
blaze of lights. Something was plainly afoot even at this usually dull
period of the year. There was treachery of some kind and some trusted
employee was involved, I felt instinctively. As for Craig he merely
glanced at the insensible figure between us and remarked sententiously
that to his knowledge there was only one nation that made a practice of
carrying out its diplomatic and other coups in the hot weather, a
remark which I understood to mean that our mission was more than
commonly important.
The man had not recovered when we arrived within several blocks of our
destination, nor did he show signs of recovery from his profound
stupor. Kennedy stopped the cab in a side street, pressed a bill into
the cabman's hand, and bade him wait until we returned.
We had turned the corner of Z Street and were approaching the house
when a man walking in the opposite direction eyed us suspiciously,
turned, and followed us a step or two.
"Kennedy!" he exclaimed.
If a fourteen-inch gun had exploded behind us I could not have been
more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy we were
followed, watched, and beaten.
Craig wheeled about suddenly. Then he took the man by the arm. "Come,"
he said quickly, and we three dove into the shadow of an alley.
As we paused, Kennedy was the first to speak. "By Jove, Walter, it's
Burke of the Secret Service," he exclaimed.
"Good," repeated the man with some satisfaction. "I see that you still
have that memory for faces." He was evidently referring to our
experiences together some months before with the portrait parle and
identification in the counterfeiting case which Craig cleared up for
him.
For a moment or two Burke and Kennedy spoke in whispers. Under the dim
light from the street I could see Kennedy's face intent and working
with excitement.
"No wonder the War Department is a blaze of lights," he exclaimed as we
moved out of the shadow again, leaving the Secret Service man. "Burke,
I had no idea when I took up this case that I should be doing my
country a service also. We must succeed at any hazard. The moment you
hear a pistol shot, Burke, we shall need you. Force the door if it is
not already open. You were right as to the street but not the number.
It is that house over there. Come on, Walter."
We mounted the low steps of the house and a negress answered the bell.
"Is Mr. Gonzales in?" asked Kennedy.
The hallway into which we were admitted was dark but it opened into a
sitting-room, where a dim light was burning behind the thick portieres.
Without a word the negress ushered us into this room, which was
otherwise empty.
"Tell him Mr. Montez is here," added Craig as we sat down.
The negress disappeared upstairs, and in a few minutes returned with
the message that he would be down directly.
No sooner had the shuffle of her footsteps died away than Kennedy was
on his feet, listening intently at the door. There was no sound. He
took a chair and tiptoed out into the dark hall with it. Turning it
upside down he placed it at the foot of the stairs with the four legs
pointing obliquely up. Then he drew me into a corner with him.
How long we waited I cannot say. The next I knew was a muffled step on
the landing above, then the tread on the stairs.
A crash and a deep volley of oaths in French followed as the man
pitched headlong over the chair on the dark steps.
Kennedy whipped out his revolver and fired pointblank at the prostrate
figure. I do not know what the ethics are of firing on a man when he is
down, nor did I have time to stop to think.
Craig grasped my arm and pulled me toward the door. A sickening odour
seemed to pervade the air. Upstairs there was shouting and banging of
doors.
"Closer, Walter," he muttered, "closer to the door, and open it a
little, or we shall both be suffocated. It was the Secret Service gun I
shot off--the pistol that shoots stupefying gas from its vapour-filled
cartridges and enables you to put a criminal out of commission without
killing him. A pull of the trigger, the cap explodes, the gunpowder and
the force of the explosion unite some capsicum and lycopodium,
producing the blinding, suffocating vapour whose terrible effect you
see. Here, you upstairs," he shouted, "advance an inch or so much as
show your heads over the rail and I pump a shot at you, too. Walter,
take the gun yourself. Fire at a move from them. I think the gases have
cleared away enough now. I must get him before he recovers
consciousness."
A tap at the door came, and without taking my eyes off the stairs I
opened it. Burke slid in and gulped at the nauseous atmosphere.
"What's up?" he gasped. "I heard a shot. Where's Kennedy?"
I motioned in the darkness. Kennedy's electric bull's-eye flashed up at
that instant and we saw him deftly slip a bright pair of manacles on
the wrists of the man on the floor, who was breathing heavily, while
blood flowed from a few slight cuts due to his fall.
Dexterously as a pickpocket Craig reached into the man's coat, pulled
out a packet of papers, and gazed eagerly at one after another. From
among them he unfolded one written in French to Madame Marie de Nevers
some weeks before. I translate:
DEAR MARIE: Herr Schmidt informs me that his agent in the War
Department at Washington, U. S. A., has secured some important
information which will interest the Government for which Herr Schmidt
is the agent--of course you know who that is.
It is necessary that you should carry the packet which will be handed
to you (if you agree to my proposal) to New York by the steamer
Tripolitania. Go to the Vandeveer Hotel and in a few days, as soon as a
certain exchange can be made, either our friend in Washington or myself
will call on you, using the name Gonzales. In return for the package
which you carry he will hand you another. Lose no time in bringing the
second package back to Paris.
I have arranged that you will receive ten thousand francs and your
expenses for your services in this matter. Under no conditions betray
your connection with Herr Schmidt. I was to have carried the packet to
America myself and make the exchange but knowing your need of money I
have secured the work for you. You had better take your maid, as it is
much better to travel with distinction in this case. If, however, you
accept this commission I shall consider you in honour bound to
surrender your claim upon my name for which I agree to pay you fifty
thousand francs upon my marriage with the American heiress of whom you
know. Please let me know immediately through our mutual friend Henri
Duval whether this proposal is satisfactory. Henri will tell you that
fifty thousand is my ultimatum,
CHATEAUROUGE.
"The scoundrel," ground out Kennedy. "He lured his wife from Paris to
New York, thinking the Paris police too acute for him, I suppose. Then
by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a
crook who would even descend to play the part of valet for him and fall
in love with the maid, he has succeeded in removing the woman who stood
between him and an American fortune."
"Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and
choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too clever
for me. This blackmailing must stop. Miss Lovelace knows something,
thanks to you, but she shall never know all--never--never.
You--you--ugh!--Stop. Do you think you can hold me back now with those
little white hands on my wrists? I wrench them
loose--so--and--ugh!--What's this? Where am I?"
The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead of
the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the
terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in the
Vanderveer.
"Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake
nobleman, real swindler of five continents. Marie de Nevers alive stood
in the way of your marriage to the heiress Miss Lovelace. Dead, she
prevents it absolutely."
Craig continued to turn over the papers in his hand, as he spoke. At
last he came to a smaller packet in oiled silk. As he broke the seal he
glanced at it in surprise, then hurriedly exclaimed, "There, Burke.
Take these to the War Department and tell them they can turn out their
lights and stop their telegrams. This seems to be a copy of our
government's plans for the fortification of the Panama Canal, heights
of guns, location of searchlights, fire control stations, everything
from painstaking search of official and confidential records. That is
what this fellow obtained in exchange for his false blue prints of the
supposed coaling station on the Pacific.
"I leave the Secret Service to find the leak in the War Department.
What I am interested in is not the man who played spy for two nations
and betrayed one of them. To me this adventurer who calls himself
Chateaurouge is merely the murderer of Madame de Nevers."
X
THE SMUGGLER
It was a rather sultry afternoon in the late summer when people who had
calculated by the calendar rather than by the weather were returning to
the city from the seashore, the mountains, and abroad.
Except for the week-ends, Kennedy and I had been pretty busy, though on
this particular day there was a lull in the succession of cases which
had demanded our urgent attention during the summer.
We had met at the Public Library, where Craig was doing some special
research at odd moments in criminology. Fifth Avenue was still half
deserted, though the few pedestrians who had returned or remained in
town like ourselves were, as usual, to be found mostly on the west side
of the street. Nearly everybody, I have noticed, walks on the one side
of Fifth Avenue, winter or summer.
As we stood on the corner waiting for the traffic man's whistle to halt
the crush of automobiles, a man on the top of a 'bus waved to Kennedy.
I looked up and caught a glimpse of Jack Herndon, an old college mate,
who had had some political aspirations and had recently been appointed
to a position in the customs house of New York. Herndon, I may add,
represented the younger and clean-cut generation which is entering
official life with great advantage to both themselves and politics.
The 'bus pulled up to the curb, and Jack tore down the breakneck steps
hurriedly.
"I was just thinking of you, Craig," he beamed as we all shook hands,
"and wondering whether you and Walter were in town. I think I should
have come up to see you to-night, anyhow."
"Why, what's the matter--more sugar frauds?" laughed Kennedy. "Or
perhaps you have caught another art dealer red-handed?"