“When I received Mr. Edwards’ letter this morning,” Trant said, in
answer to the questions that showered upon him, “it was clear to me at
once that the advertisement he inclosed depended for its appeal on
reminding Eva Silber of some event of prime importance to herself, but
also, from the wording employed, of popular or national significance as
well. You further told me that October 30th was a special holiday with
Miss Silber. That, I found, to be the date of the czar’s manifesto of
freedom and declaration of amnesty to political prisoners. At once it
flashed upon me: Eva Silber was a Russian. The difference between the
seventeenth given in the advertisements and the thirtieth--thirteen
days--is just the present difference between the old-style calendar used
in Russia and ours.
“Before going to the Crerar Library, then, it was clear that we had to
do with a Russian revolutionary intrigue,” he went on. “At the library I
obtained the key to the cipher and translated the advertisement,
obtaining the name of Meyan and his address, and also the name and
address of Dmitri Vasili, a well-known revolutionary writer. To my
surprise, Vasili knew nothing of any revolutionist named Meyan. It was
inconceivable that a revolutionary emissary should come to Chicago and
he not know of it. It became necessary to find Meyan immediately.
“My first direct clew was the hammering that we heard in this house. It
was too much to suppose that in two separate instances this hammering
should be heard, and in each case Eva’s father he present and no other
discoverable agent, and that still he should have nothing to do with it.
Obviously, it must have been Herman Silber who did the hammering at
Eva’s home and here in this house. It was obvious, too, that Herman
Silber was the ‘your own’ of the advertisement.
“To test Meyan, whom we found in the saloon, was not difficult,” said
Trant. “I arranged to have him overhear some one speaking of an arrest
at Warsaw, which would at once suggest itself as a hotbed of Russian
revolutionists to either a revolutionist or a police agent; but the idea
would certainly give positive and very opposite reactions if the man
were a true revolutionist or if he were a spy. Meyan’s pulse so
strengthened and slowed--as under a pleasurable stimulus--that I felt I
had received confirmation of my suspicions, though I had not then the
information which would enable me to expose the man. To secure this I
sought out Dmitri Vasili. He introduced me to Munikov, who had been a
friend of Silber before his imprisonment and between them I got the
history of Herman Silber and his daughter.
“I explained to Munikov and Vasili that the methods of the psychological
laboratory would be as efficacious in picking out a spy among true men
as I have many times proved them to be in convicting the criminal.
“Every emotion reacts upon the pulse, which strengthens in joy and
weakens in sorrow, changes with anger and with despair; and as every
slightest variation it undergoes can be detected and registered by the
sphygmograph--I felt certain that if I could test the three men together
by having Miss Silber tell her father’s story aloud, I could determine
conclusively by comparison of the records of the two true revolutionists
with that of Meyan, whether his sympathies were really with the
revolutionist party. I arranged with Munikov and Vasili to come here
with me tonight, and, after Meyan had arrived, they left us here and
went to him as representatives of the revolutionary movement to ask his
credentials.
“When he could furnish none,” Trant went on, “they proposed, and in fact
forced him, into this test. It is a dangerous thing to endeavor to pass
oneself off as a revolutionist, and it was safer for him to submit to a
test than to have his mission frustrated by incurring not only
suspicion, but possibly death. Completely ignorant of the pitiless
powers of psychological methods, and confiding in his steely nerves,
which undoubtedly have carried him through many less searching ordeals,
he agreed. You saw how perfectly he was able to control his face and
every movement of his body while the test went on. But you can see
here”--Trant spread out his strips of smoked paper--“on these records,
which I shall preserve by passing them through a bath of varnish, how
useless that self-control was, since the sphygmograph recorded by its
moving pencil the hidden feelings of his heart.
“As I lay these side by side, you can see how consistently at each point
in the story Munikov and Vasili experienced the same feelings; but Meyan
had feelings which were different. I did not dream, of course, when I
started the test that I would discover in Meyan the same man who had
betrayed Herman Silber. It was only when at her first mention of
Valerian Urth I obtained from Meyan this startling and remarkable
record,” he pointed to a place where the line suddenly had grown almost
straight and flat, “that I realized that if the man before me was not
himself Urth, he at least had some close and, under the circumstances,
oppressive connection with him.
“Eva Silber still had the note that had been sent to summon her father
on the errand of mercy which had caused his imprisonment. She gave it to
me before you entered the room. I was certain that of all men in the
world there was but one who could recognize or feel any emotion at sight
of that yellowed and time-worn paper; and that man was Valerian Urth,
who had used it to betray Herman Silber.
“I showed it to Meyan, and obtained this really amazing reaction which
ends his record.” The psychologist pointed to the record. “It assured me
that Meyan and Urth were one.”
“This is amazing, Mr. Trant,” Cuthbert Edwards said. “But you have left
unexplained the most perplexing feature of all--the hammering!”
“To communicate with one another from their solitary cells, Russian
prisoners long ago devised a code of spelling letters by knocking upon
the wall--a code widely spread and known by every revolutionist. It is
extremely simple; the letters of the alphabet”--Trant took from his
pocket a slip of paper--“are arranged in this manner.”
He set down rapidly the alphabet, omitting two letters, arranged in four
lines, thus:
a b c d e f
g h i k l m
n o p r s t
u v w x y z
“A letter is made,” the psychologist explained, “but giving first the
proper number of knocks for the line, a short pause, then knocks for the
number of the letter in the line. For instance, _e_ is one knock and
then five; _y_ is four knocks and then five.
“By means of this code I translated the figures in the advertisement and
obtained Meyan’s name and address. I suppose he used it not only in the
advertisement, but at the office, because his long experience had taught
him that Herman Silber, as many another man condemned to the horrors of
a Russian prison for a term of years, had probably lost the power of
speech, and continued to communicate, in freedom, by the means he had
used for so many years in prison.”
“Wonderful, Mr. Trant, wonderful!” exclaimed Cuthbert Edwards. “I only
regret that we can do nothing to Meyan; for there is no law, I think, by
which he can be punished.”
The psychologist’s face darkened. “Vengeance is not ours,” he answered
simply. “But I have given the key of Meyan’s room to Munikov!”
The elder Edwards, clearing his throat, moved over to Eva and put his
arm about her as though to protect her. “Since you must see that you
cannot go back to Russia, my dear,” he said awkwardly, “will you not let
me welcome you now into your place in my home?”
And as the son sprang swiftly forward and caught his father’s hand,
Trant took up his instrument cases under his arm, and went out alone
into the warm April night.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story originally appeared in the May 1, 1915
issue of Top-Notch Magazine.]