through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he had
forced, and the situation in general. Finally Craig set up his camera
with most particular care and took several photographs of the window,
the cabinet, the doors, including the room from every angle. Outside he
snapped the two sides of the corner of the house in which the library
was situated. Partly by trolley and partly by carriage we crossed the
island to the south shore, and finally found McLoughlin's farm where we
had no trouble in getting half a dozen photographs of the porch and
house. Altogether the proceedings seemed tame to me, yet I knew from
previous experience that Kennedy had a deep laid purpose.
We parted in the city, to meet just before it was time to visit Miss
Ashton. Kennedy had evidently employed the interval in developing his
plates, for he now had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same
size, mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on
all four sides. He saw me puzzling over them.
"Those are metric photographs such as Bertillon of Paris takes," he
explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other methods that
have been worked out we can determine from those pictures distances and
many other things almost as well as if we were on the spot itself.
Bertillon has cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the
mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The
metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with the portrait
parle, finger prints, and the rest.
"For instance, in order to solve the riddle of a crime the detective's
first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans and elevations
of a room or house are made. The position of each object is
painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera is
called into requisition. The plundered room is photographed, as in this
case. I might have done it by placing a foot rule on a table and taking
that in the picture, but a more scientific and accurate method has been
devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed height
from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The
print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of
definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In
the way he has worked it out the distance between any two points in the
picture can be determined. With a topographical plan and a metric
photograph one can study a crime as a general studies the map of a
strange country. There were several peculiar things that I observed
to-day, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime.
Preserved in this way it cannot be questioned.
"Now the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets,
but none of them has been disturbed. Therefore the thief must have
known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock were
not those of a jimmy but of a screwdriver. No amazing command of the
resources of science is needed so far. All that is necessary is a
little scientific common sense, Walter.
"Now, how did the robber get in? All the windows and doors were
supposedly locked. It is alleged that a pane was cut from this window
at the side. It was, and the pieces were there to show it. But take a
glance at this outside photograph. To reach that window even a tall man
must have stood on a ladder or something. There are no marks of a
ladder or of any person in the soft soil under the window. What is
more, that window was cut from the inside. The marks of the diamond
which cut it plainly show that. Scientific common sense again."
"Then it must have been some one in the house or at least some one
familiar with it?" I exclaimed.
Kennedy nodded. "One thing we have which the police greatly neglect,"
he pursued, "a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the
crime, as Bertillon calls it. If we only had those Hanford pictures we
should be all right."
We were now on our way to see Miss Ashton at headquarters, and as we
rode downtown I tried to reason out the case. Had it really been a
put-up job? Was Travis himself faking, and was the robbery a "plant" by
which he might forestall exposure of what had become public property in
the hands of another, no longer disposed to conceal it? Or was it after
all the last desperate blow of the Boss?
The whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind. Although
Kennedy seemed to have made little real progress, I felt that, far from
aiding Travis, it made things darker. There was nothing but his
unsupported word that he had not visited the Boss subsequent to the
nominating convention. He admitted having done so before the Reform
League came into existence. Besides it seemed tacitly understood that
both the Boss and Cadwalader Brown acquiesced in the sworn statement of
the man who said he had made the pictures. Added to that the mere
existence of the actual pictures themselves was a graphic clincher to
the story. Personally, if I had been in Kennedy's place I think I
should have taken advantage of the proviso in the compact with Travis
to back out gracefully. Kennedy, however, now started on the case, hung
to it tenaciously.
Miss Ashton was waiting for us at the press bureau. Her desk was at the
middle of one end of the room in which, if she could keep an eye on her
office force, the office force also could keep an eye on her.
Kennedy had apparently taken in the arrangement during our morning
visit, for he set to work immediately. The side of the room toward the
office of Travis and Bennett presented an expanse of blank wall. With a
mallet he quickly knocked a hole in the rough plaster, just above the
baseboard about the room. The hole did not penetrate quite through to
the other side. In it he placed a round disc of vulcanised rubber, with
insulated wires leading down back of the baseboard, then out underneath
it, and under the carpet. Some plaster quickly closed up the cavity in
the wall, and he left it to dry.
Next he led the wires under the carpet to Miss Ashton's desk. There
they ended, under the carpet and a rug, eighteen or twenty huge coils
several feet in diameter disposed in such a way as to attract no
attention by a curious foot on the carpet which covered them.
"That is all, Miss Ashton," he said as we watched for his next move. "I
shall want to see you early to-morrow, and,--might I ask you to be sure
to wear that hat which you have on?"
It was a very becoming hat, but Kennedy's tone clearly indicated that
it was not his taste in inverted basket millinery that prompted the
request. She promised, smiling, for even a suffragette may like pretty
hats.
Craig had still to see Travis and report on his work. The candidate was
waiting anxiously at his hotel after a big political mass meeting on
the East Side, at which capitalism and the bosses had been hissed to
the echo, if that is possible.
"What success?" inquired Travis eagerly.
"I'm afraid," replied Kennedy, and the candidate's face fell at the
tone, "I'm afraid you will have to meet them, for the present. The time
limit will expire to-morrow, and I understand Hanford is coming up for
a final answer. We must have copies of those photographs, even if we
have to pay for them. There seems to be no other way."
Travis sank back in his chair and regarded Kennedy hopelessly. He was
actually pale. "You--you don't mean to say that there is no other way,
that I'll have to admit even before Bennett--and others that I'm in
bad?"
"I wouldn't put it that way," said Kennedy mercilessly, I thought.
"It is that way," Travis asserted almost fiercely. "Why, we could have
done that anyhow. No, no,--I don't mean that. Pardon me. I'm upset by
this. Go ahead," he sighed.
"You will direct Bennett to make the best terms he can with Hanford
when he comes up to-morrow. Have him arrange the details of payment and
then rush the best copies of the photographs to me."
Travis seemed crushed.
We met Miss Ashton the following morning entering her office. Kennedy
handed her a package, and in a few words, which I did not hear,
explained what he wanted, promising to call again later.
When we called, the girls and other clerks had arrived, and the office
was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign.
Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge
stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrap-books, circulars were
being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal. The room was
indeed crowded, and I felt that there was no doubt, as Kennedy had
said, that nothing much could go on there unobserved by any one to
whose interest it was to see it.
Miss Ashton was sitting at her desk with her hat on directing the work.
"It works," she remarked enigmatically to Kennedy.
"Good," he replied. "I merely dropped in to be sure. Now if anything of
interest happens, Miss Ashton, I wish you would let me know
immediately. I must not be seen up here, but I shall be waiting
downstairs in the corridor of the building. My next move depends
entirely on what you have to report."
Downstairs Craig waited with growing impatience. We stood in an angle
in which we could see without being readily seen, and our impatience
was not diminished by seeing Hanford enter the elevator.
I think that Miss Ashton would have made an excellent woman detective,
that is, on a case in which her personal feelings were not involved as
they were here. She was pale and agitated as she appeared in the
corridor, and Kennedy hurried toward her.
"I can't believe it. I won't believe it," she managed to say.
"Tell me, what happened?" urged Kennedy soothingly.
"Oh, Mr. Kennedy, why did you ask me to do this?" she reproached. "I
would almost rather not have known it at all."
"Believe me, Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on
you that I depend most. We saw Hanford go up. What occurred?"
She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Mr. Bennett came in about
quarter to ten. He stopped to talk to me and looked about the room
curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a time. Then he
locked the door leading from the press bureau to his office, and left
word that he was not to be disturbed. A few minutes later a man called."
"Yes, yes," prompted Kennedy. "Hanford, no doubt."
She was racing on breathlessly, scarcely giving one a chance to inquire
how she had learned so much.
"Why," she cried with a sort of defiant ring in her tone, "Mr. Travis
is going to buy those pictures after all. And the worst of it is that I
met him in the hall coming in as I was coming down here, and he tried
to act toward me in the same old way--and that after all I know now
about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting for Mr.
Travis, and this Mr. Hanford. They are even going to ask me to carry
the money in a sealed envelope to the studio of this fellow Hanford, to
be given to a third person who will be there at two o'clock this
afternoon."
"You, Miss Ashton?" inquired Kennedy, a light breaking on his face as
if at last he saw something.
"Yes, I," she repeated. "Hanford insisted that it was part of the
compact. They--they haven't asked me openly yet to be the means of
carrying out their dirty deals, but when they do, I--I won't----"
"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy, "I beg you to be calm. I had no
idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Walter, you
will excuse us if we take a turn down the corridor and out in the air.
This is most extraordinary."
For five or ten minutes Kennedy and Miss Ashton appeared to be
discussing the new turn of events earnestly, while I waited
impatiently. As they approached again she seemed calmer, but I heard
her say, "I hope you're right. I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to
resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't expose Wesley
Travis for his sake. It cuts me to have to admit it, but Cadwalader
used always to say that every man has his price. I am afraid this will
do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman
suffrage cause which cast its lot with this party. I--I can hardly
believe----"
Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored,
"believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics is
loyalty. Wait until----"
"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Wesley Travis for giving
in--more than I hate Cadwalader Brown for his cynical disregard of
honesty in others."
She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had heard
had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her
idol had turned to clay. Nevertheless it was evident that she was
coming to look on it more as she would if she were an outsider.
"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "They won't ask you right away.
Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."
Craig's next problem seemed to be to transfer the scene of his
operations to Hanford's studio. He was apparently doing some rapid
thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did not
venture to question him on what had occurred when it was so evident
that everything depended on being prepared for what was still to occur.
Hanford was out. That seemed to please Kennedy, for with a brightening
face, which told more surely than words that he saw his way more and
more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire the vacant office
next to the studio while he went uptown to complete his arrangements
for the final step.
I had completed my part and was waiting in the empty room when he
returned. He lost no time in getting to work, and it seemed to me as I
watched him curiously in silence that he was repeating what he had
already done at the Travis headquarters. He was boring into the wall,
only this time he did it much more carefully, and it was evident that
if he intended putting anything into this cavity it must be pretty
large. The hole was square, and as I bent over I could see that he had
cut through the plaster and laths all the way to the wallpaper on the
other side, though he was careful to leave that intact. Then he set up
a square black box in the cavity, carefully poising it and making
measurements that told of the exact location of its centre with
reference to the partitions and walls.
A skeleton key took us into Hanford's well-lighted but now empty
studio. For Miss Ashton's sake I wished that the photographs had been
there. I am sure Kennedy would have found slight compunction in a
larceny of them, if they had been. It was something entirely different
that he had in mind now, however, and he was working quickly for fear
of discovery. By his measurements I guessed that he was calculating as
nearly as possible the centre of the box which he had placed in the
hole in the wall on the other side of the dark wallpaper. When he had
quite satisfied himself he took a fine pencil from his pocket and made
a light cross on the paper to indicate it. The dot fell to the left of
a large calendar hanging on the wall.
Kennedy's appeal to Margaret Ashton had evidently had its effect, for
when we saw her a few moments after these mysterious preparations she
had overcome her emotion.
"They have asked me to carry a note to Mr. Hanford's studio," she said
quietly, "and without letting them know that I know anything about it I
have agreed to do so."
"Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, greatly relieved, "you're a trump."
"No," she replied, smiling faintly, "I'm just feminine enough to be
curious."
Craig shook his head, but did not dispute the point. "After you have
handed the envelope to the person, whoever it may be, in Hanford's
studio, wait until he does something--er,--suspicious. Meanwhile look
at the wall on the side toward the next vacant office. To the left of
the big calendar you will see a light pencil mark, a cross. Somehow you
must contrive to get near it, but don't stand in front of it. Then if
anything happens stick this little number 10 needle in the wall right
at the intersection of the cross. Withdraw it quickly, count fifteen,
then put this little sticker over the cross, and get out as best you
can, though we shan't be far away if you should need us. That's all."
We did not accompany her to the studio for fear of being observed, but
waited impatiently in the next office. We could hear nothing of what
was said, but when a door shut and it was evident that she had gone,
Kennedy quickly removed something from the box in the wall covered with
a black cloth.
As soon as it was safe Kennedy had sent me posting after her to secure
copies of the incriminating photographs which were to be carried by her
from the studio, while he remained to see who came out. I thought a
change had come over her as she handed me the package with the request
that I carry it to Mr. Bennett and get them from him.
The first inkling I had that Kennedy had at last been able to trace
back something in the mysterious doings of the past two days came the
following evening, when Craig remarked casually that he would like to
have me call on Billy McLoughlin if I had no engagement. I replied that
I had none--and managed to squirm out of the one I really had.
The Boss's office was full of politicians, for it was the eve of "dough
day," when the purse strings were loosed and a flood of potent argument
poured forth to turn the tide of election. Hanford was there with the
other ward heelers.
"Mr. McLoughlin," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone with
Hanford in the little sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me if I
seem a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here
to-night. First of all, I may say, and you, Hanford, being a
photographer will appreciate it, that ever since the days of Daguerre
photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying
faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed a photograph is
admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For when everything else
fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably
turns the tide. However, such a picture upon which the fate of an
important case may rest should be subjected to critical examination for
it is an established fact that a photograph may be made as untruthful
as it may be reliable. Combination photographs change entirely the
character of the initial negative and have been made for the past fifty
years. The earliest, simplest, and most harmless photographic deception
is the printing of clouds into a bare sky. But the retoucher with his
pencil and etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of ordinary
skill can introduce a person taken in a studio into an open-air scene
well blended and in complete harmony without a visible trace of falsity.
"I need say nothing of how one head can be put on another body in a
picture, nor need I say what a double exposure will do. There is almost
no limit to the changes that may be wrought in form and feature. It is
possible to represent a person crossing Broadway or walking on
Riverside Drive, places he may never have visited. Thus a person
charged with an offence may be able to prove an alibi by the aid of a
skilfully prepared combination photograph.
"Where, then, can photography be considered as irrefutable evidence?
The realism may convince all, will convince all, except the expert and
the initiated after careful study. A shrewd judge will insist that in
every case the negative be submitted and examined for possible
alterations by a clever manipulator."
Kennedy bent his gaze on McLoughlin. "Now, I do not accuse you, sir, of
anything. But a photograph has come into the possession of Mr. Travis
in which he is represented as standing on the steps of your house with
yourself and Mr. Cadwalader Brown. He and Mr. Brown are in poses that
show the utmost friendliness. I do not hesitate to say that that was
originally a photograph of yourself, Mr. Brown, and your own candidate.
It is a pretty raw deal, a fake in which Travis has been substituted by
very excellent photographic forgery."
McLoughlin motioned to Hanford to reply. "A fake?" repeated the latter
contemptuously. "How about the affidavits? There's no negative. You've
got to prove that the original print stolen from Travis, we'll say, is
a fake. You can't do it."
"September 19th was the date alleged, I believe?" asked Kennedy
quietly, laying down the bundle of metric photographs and the alleged
photographs of Travis. He was pointing to a shadow of a gable on the
house as it showed in the metric photographs and the others.
"You see that shadow of the gable? Perhaps you never heard of it,
Hanford, but it is possible to tell the exact time at which a
photograph was taken from a study of the shadows. It is possible in
principle and practice and can be trusted. Almost any scientist may be
called on to bear testimony in court nowadays, but you would say the
astronomer is one of the least likely. Well, the shadow in this picture
will prove an alibi for some one.
"Notice. It is seen very prominently to the right, and its exact
location on the house is an easy matter. You could almost use the
metric photograph for that. The identification of the gable casting the
shadow is easy. To be exact it is 19.62 feet high. The shadow is 14.23
feet down, 13.10 feet east, and 3.43 feet north. You see I am exact. I
have to be. In one minute it moved 0.080 feet upward, 0.053 feet to the
right and 0.096 feet in its apparent path. It passes the width of a
weatherboard, 0.37 foot, in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds."
Kennedy was talking rapidly of data which he had derived from his
metric photograph, from plumb line, level, compass, and tape,
astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole and sun, declination,
azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a dozen
bewildering terms.
"In spherical trigonometry," he concluded, "to solve the problem three
elements must be known. I knew four. Therefore I could take each of the
known, treat it as unknown, and have four ways to check my result. I
find that the time might have been either three o'clock, twenty-one
minutes and twelve seconds, in the afternoon, or 3:21:31, or 3:21:29,
or 3:21:33. The average is 3:21:26, and there can therefore be no
appreciable error except for a few seconds. For that date must have
been one of two days, either May 22 or July 22. Between these two dates
we must decide on evidence other than the shadow. It must have been in
May, as the immature condition of the foliage shows. But even if it had
been in July, that is far from being September. The matter of the year
I have also settled. Weather conditions, I find, were favourable on all
these dates except that in September. I can really answer, with an
assurance and accuracy superior to that of the photographer
himself--even if he were honest--as to the real date. The real picture,
aside from being doctored, was actually taken last May. Science is not
fallible, but exact in this matter."
Kennedy had scored a palpable hit. McLoughlin and Hanford were
speechless. Still Craig hurried on.
"But, you may ask, how about the automobile picture? That also is an
unblushing fake. Of course I must prove that. In the first place, you
know that the general public has come to recognise the distortion of a
photograph as denoting speed. A picture of a car in a race that doesn't
lean is rejected--people demand to see speed, speed, more speed even in
pictures. Distortion does indeed show speed, but that, too, can be
faked.
"Hanford knows that the image is projected upside down by the lens on
the plate, and that the bottom of the picture is taken before the top.
The camera mechanism admits light, which makes the picture, in the
manner of a roller blind curtain. The slit travels from the top to the
bottom and the image on the plate being projected upside down, the
bottom of the object appears on the top of the plate. For instance, the
wheels are taken before the head of the driver. If the car is moving
quickly the image moves on the plate and each successive part is taken
a little in advance of the last. The whole leans forward. By widening
the slit and slowing the speed of the shutter, there is more distortion.