The Otophone
Punctually at half-past twelve the Inspector arrived at Sir Clinton’s
house. The Chief Constable’s first glance was at the feet of his
subordinate.
“Tennis shoes? That’s right. Now, Inspector, I want you to understand
clearly that silence is absolutely essential when we get to work.
We’ll need to take a leaf out of the book of the ‘Pirates of
Penzance’:
With cat-like tread
Upon our prey we steal.
That’s our model, if you please. The car’s outside. We’ll go at once.”
As preparations for an important raid, these remarks seemed to
Armadale hardly adequate; but as Sir Clinton showed no desire to
amplify them, the Inspector was left to puzzle over the immediate
future without assistance. The hint about the otophone had roused his
curiosity.
“Foss’s hearing was quite normal,” he said to himself, turning the
evidence over in his mind. “He heard that conversation in the
winter-garden quite clearly enough. So quite evidently one couldn’t
call him deaf. And yet he was dragging an otophone about with him. I
don’t see it.”
The Chief Constable pulled up the car in the avenue at a considerable
distance from the house.
“Change here for Ravensthorpe,” he explained, opening the door beside
him. “I can’t take the motor nearer for fear of the engine’s noise
giving us away.”
He glanced at the illuminated clock on the dashboard.
“We’re in nice time,” he commented. “Come along, Inspector; and the
less said the better.”
They reached the door of Ravensthorpe exactly at one o’clock. Cecil
was waiting for them on the threshold.
“Switch off those lights,” Sir Clinton said in a whisper, pointing to
the hall lights which Cecil had left burning. “We mustn’t give the
show away if we can help it. Some one might be looking out of a window
and be tempted to come down and turn them out. You’re supposed to be
in bed, aren’t you?”
Cecil nodded without speaking, and, crossing the hall, he extinguished
the lamps. Sir Clinton pulled an electric torch from his pocket.
“There’s a staircase giving access to the servant’s quarters, isn’t
there?”
Cecil confirmed this, and Sir Clinton turned to the Inspector.
“Which of your men is on duty at the museum door to-night?”
“Froggatt,” the Inspector answered.
“We’ll go along to him,” said Sir Clinton. “I want you, Cecil, to take
the constable and post him at the bottom of that stair. Here’s the
flash-lamp.”
Froggatt was surprised to see the party.
“Now, Froggatt,” the Chief Constable directed. “You’re to go with Mr.
Chacewater. He’ll show you where to stand. All you have to do is to
stick to your post there until you’re relieved. It’ll only be a matter
of ten minutes or so. Don’t make the slightest sound unless anything
goes wrong. Your business is to prevent any one getting down the
stair. There’ll be no trouble. If you see any one, just shout: ‘Who’s
there?’ That’ll be quite enough.”
The Inspector and Sir Clinton waited on the threshold of the museum
until Cecil came back.
“Very convenient having these museum lights on all night,” Sir Clinton
remarked. “We don’t need to muddle about with the flash-lamp. Now just
wait here for a moment, and don’t speak a word. I’m going upstairs.”
He ascended to the first floor, entered Foss’s room and picked up the
otophone, with which he returned to his companions.
“Now we can get to work,” he whispered, leading the way into the
museum. “Just lock that door behind us, Inspector.”
Followed by the other two he stepped across the museum to the bay
containing the safe. There he put the otophone on the floor and opened
the case of the instrument. From one compartment he took an ear-phone
with its head-band. A moment’s search revealed the position of the
connection, and he plugged the ear-phone wire into place in sockets
let into the outside of the attaché case. A little further examination
revealed a stud beside the leather handle, and this Sir Clinton
pressed.
“That should start the thing,” he commented.
He lifted the hinged metal plate slightly and peered into the cavity
which contained the valves.
“That seems all right,” he said, as his eye caught the faint glow of
the dull emitters.
Shutting down the plate again, the Chief Constable put his finger into
the compartment from which he had taken the ear-phone, pressed a
concealed spring, and pulled up the floor of the compartment.
“This is the microphone,” he explained, drawing out a thick ebonite
disk mounted on the false bottom of the compartment. “It’s attached to
a longish wire so that you can take it out and put it on a table while
the case with the valves and batteries lies on the floor out of the
way. Now we’ll tune up.”
He brought microphone and ear-phone together, when a faint musical
note made itself heard. Then he handed the microphone to Cecil.
“Hold that tight against the safe door, Cecil. Get the base in contact
with the metal of the safe and keep the microphone face downwards.
It’s essential to hold it absolutely steady, for the slightest
vibration will put me off.”
He fitted on the head-band and moved the two tiny levers of the
otophone until the adjustment of the instrument seemed to satisfy him.
Then, very cautiously, he began to work the mechanism of the
combination lock. For some time he seemed unable to get what he
wanted; but suddenly he made a slight gesture of triumph.
“It’s an old pattern, as I thought. There’s no balanced fence arbour.
This is going to be an easy business.”
Easy or not, it took him nearly a quarter of an hour to accomplish his
task; for at times he obviously went astray in the work.
“Try to keep your feet still,” he said. “Every movement you make is
magnified up to the noise of a pocket avalanche.”
At last the thing was done. The safe door swung open. Sir Clinton took
off the head-band, received the microphone from Cecil, and packed it
away in the case of the otophone along with the ear-phone.
“You’d better jot down the number of the combination, Cecil,” he
suggested. “It’s on the dial at present.”
While Cecil was busy with this, the Chief Constable switched off the
otophone and put it in a place of safety.
“Now we’ll see what’s inside the safe,” he said.
He swung the door full open and disclosed a cavity more like a
strong-room than a safe.
“Have you any idea where the medallions were usually kept?” he
inquired.
Cecil went over to one of the shelves and searched rapidly.
“Why, there are only two of them here!” he exclaimed in dismay.
“Hush!” Sir Clinton warned him sharply. “Don’t make a row. Have a good
look at the things.”
Cecil picked up the medallions and scanned them minutely. His face
showed his amazement as he turned from one to another.
“These are the replicas! Where have the genuine Leonardos gone?”
“Never mind that for the present. Put these things back again. I’m
going to close the safe. We mustn’t risk talking too much here; and
the sooner we’re gone the better.”
He picked up the otophone and led the way out of the museum.
“You might bring Froggatt back to his post here,” he said. “We don’t
need him at the stair any longer. I must go upstairs again for a
moment with this machine.”
Cecil piloted Froggatt back to his original post just as the Chief
Constable rejoined them.
“I don’t want to talk here,” Sir Clinton said to Cecil. “Get a coat
and walk with us down to the car. We’ve done our work for the night.”
The Chief Constable waited until they were well away from the house
before beginning his explanation.
“That otophone is—as I expect you saw—simply a microphone for picking
up sound, plus a two-valve amplifier for magnifying it. The sounds
that reach the microphone are amplified by the valves set to any
extent, within limits, that you like to set it for. You can make the
crumpling of a piece of paper sound like a small thunderstorm if you
choose; and it’s especially sensitive to clicks and sounds of that
sort. The mere involuntary shifting of your feet on that parquet floor
made a lot of disturbance.
“Now in the older type of combination locks, if the dial was carefully
manipulated, a person with sharp hearing might just be able to detect
a faint click when a tumbler fell into place in the course of a
circuit; and by making a note of the state of the dial corresponding
to each click the combination could finally be discovered. In the
modern patterns of locks this has been got round. They’ve introduced a
thing called a balanced fence arbour, which is lifted away from the
tumblers as soon as the lock spindle is revolved; so in this new
pattern there’s no clicking such as the older locks give.”
“I see now,” said the Inspector. “That’s an old pattern lock; and you
were using the otophone to magnify the sound of the clicks?”
“Exactly,” Sir Clinton agreed. “It made the thing mere child’s play.
Each click sounded like a whip-crack, almost.”
“So that’s why Foss brought the otophone along? He meant to pick the
lock of the safe and get the medallions out of it?”
“That was one possibility, of course,” Sir Clinton said, with a grave
face. “But I shouldn’t like to say that it was the only possibility.”
He smoked for a few moments in silence, then he turned to Cecil.
“Now I’ve a piece of work for you to do; and I want you to do it
convincingly. First thing to-morrow morning you’re to find some way of
spreading the news that you’ve recovered all the genuine medallions
and that they’re in the safe. Don’t give any details; but see that the
yarn gets well abroad.”
“But all the real medallions are gone!” said Cecil in disgust. “And
whoever’s got them must know they’re gone.”
“There’s nothing like a good authoritative lie for shaking
confidence,” Sir Clinton observed, mildly. “That’s your share in the
business. You’d better mention it at breakfast time to as many people
as you can; and you can telephone the glad news to me, with the door
of the telephone box open so that any one can hear it. Yell as loud as
you please, or louder if possible. It won’t hurt me at the other end.
In any case, see that the happy tidings wash the most distant shores.”
“Well, since you say so, I’ll do it. But it’s sure to be found out,
you know, sooner or later.”
“All I want is a single day’s run of it. My impression is that, if
things go well, I’ll have the whole Ravensthorpe affair cleared up by
this time to-morrow. But I don’t promise that as a certainty.”
“And this yarn is part of your scheme?”
“I’m setting a trap,” Sir Clinton assured them. “And that lie is the
bait I’m offering.”
As they reached the car, he added:
“See that your constable doesn’t say a word about this affair
to-night—to any one. That’s important, Inspector.”