posture with finger-tips together, placed both hands back of his head,
and leaned back facing us squarely.
“The first step,” he said slowly, “must be to arrange a ‘plant.’ As
nearly as I can make out the shoplifters or shoplifter, whichever it
may prove to be, have no hint that any one is watching them yet. Now,
Donnelly, it is still very early. I want you to telephone around to the
newspapers, and either in the Trimble advertisements or in the news
columns have it announced that your jewellery department has on
exhibition a new and special importation of South African stones among
which is one—let me see, let’s call it the ‘Kimberley Queen.’ That
will sound attractive. In the meantime find the largest and most
perfect paste jewel in town and have it fixed up for exhibition and
labelled the Kimberley Queen. Give it a history if you can; anything to
attract attention. I’ll see you in the morning. Good-night, and thank
you for coming to me with this case.”
It was quite late, but Kennedy, now thoroughly interested in following
the chase, had no intention of waiting until the morrow before taking
action on his own account. In fact he was just beginning the evening’s
work by sending Donnelly off to arrange the “plant.” No less interested
in the case than himself, I needed no second invitation, and in a few
minutes we were headed from our rooms toward the laboratory, where
Kennedy had apparatus to meet almost any conceivable emergency. From a
shelf in the corner he took down an oblong oak box, perhaps eighteen
inches in length, in the front of which was set a circular metal disk
with a sort of pointer and dial. He lifted the lid of the box, and
inside I could see two shiny caps which in turn he lifted, disclosing
what looked like two good-sized spools of wire. Apparently satisfied
with his scrutiny, he snapped the lid shut and wrapped up the box
carefully, consigning it to my care, while he hunted some copper wire.
From long experience with Kennedy I knew better than to ask what he had
in mind to do. It was enough to know that he had already, in those few
minutes of apparent dreaming while Donnelly and Bentley were fidgeting
for words, mapped out a complete course of action.
We bent our steps toward the under-river tube, which carried a few late
travellers to the railroad terminal where Kennedy purchased tickets for
Glenclair. I noticed that the conductor on the suburban train eyed us
rather suspiciously as though the mere fact that we were not travelling
with commutation tickets at such an hour constituted an offence.
Although I did not yet know the precise nature of our adventure, I
remembered with some misgiving that I had read of police dogs in
Glenclair which were uncomfortably familiar with strangers carrying
bundles. However, we got along all right, perhaps because the dogs knew
that in a town of commuters every one was privileged to carry a bundle.
“If the Willoughbys had been on a party line,” remarked Craig as we
strode up Woodridge Avenue trying to look as if it was familiar to us,
“we might have arranged this thing by stratagem. As it is, we shall
have to resort to another method, and perhaps better, since we shall
have to take no one into our confidence.”
The avenue was indeed a fine thoroughfare, lined on both sides with
large and often imposing mansions, surrounded with trees and shrubbery,
which served somewhat to screen them. We came at last to the Willoughby
house, a sizable colonial residence set up on a hill. It was dark,
except for one dim light in an upper story. In the shadow of the hedge,
Craig silently vaulted the low fence and slipped up the terraces, as
noiselessly as an Indian, scarcely crackling a twig or rustling a dead
leaf on the ground. He paused as he came to a wing on the right of the
house.
I had followed more laboriously, carrying the box and noting that he
was not looking so much at the house as at the sky, apparently. It did
not take long to fathom what he was after. It was not a star-gazing
expedition; he was following the telephone wire that ran in from the
street to the corner of the house near which we were now standing. A
moment’s inspection showed him where the wire was led down, on the
outside and entered through the top of a window.
Quickly he worked, though in a rather awkward position, attaching two
wires carefully to the telephone wires. Next he relieved me of the oak
box with its strange contents, and placed it under the porch where it
was completely hidden by some lattice-work which extended down to the
ground on this side. Then he attached the new wires from the telephone
to it and hid the connecting wires as best he could behind the swaying
runners of a vine. At last, when he had finished to his satisfaction,
we retraced our steps, to find that our only chance of getting out of
town that night was by trolley that landed us, after many changes, in
our apartment in New York, thoroughly convinced of the disadvantages of
suburban detective work.
Nevertheless the next day found us out sleuthing about Glenclair, this
time in a more pleasant role. We had a newspaper friend or two out
there who was willing to introduce us about without asking too many
questions. Kennedy, of course, insisted on beginning at the very
headquarters of gossip, the country club.
We spent several enjoyable hours about the town, picking up a good deal
of miscellaneous and useless information. It was, however, as Kennedy
had suspected. Annie Grayson had taken up her residence in an artistic
little house on one of the best side streets of the town. But her name
was no longer Annie Grayson. She was Mrs. Maud Emery, a dashing young
widow of some means, living in a very quiet but altogether comfortable
style, cutting quite a figure in the exclusive suburban community, a
leading member of the church circle, an officer of the Civic League,
prominent in the women’s club, and popular with those to whom the
established order of things was so perfect that the only new bulwark of
their rights was an anti-suffrage society. In fact, every one was
talking of the valuable social acquisition in the person of this
attractive young woman who entertained lavishly and was bracing up an
otherwise drooping season. No one knew much about her, but then, that
was not necessary. It was enough to accept one whose opinions and
actions were not subversive of the social order in any way.
The Willoughbys, of course, were among the most prominent people in the
town. William Willoughby was head of the firm of Willoughby & Walton,
and it was the general opinion that Mrs. Willoughby was the head of the
firm of Ella & William Willoughby. The Willoughbys were good mixers,
and were spoken well of even by the set who occupied the social stratum
just one degree below that in which they themselves moved. In fact,
when Mrs. Willoughby had been severely injured in an automobile
accident during the previous summer Glenclair had shown real solicitude
for her and had forgotten a good deal of its artificiality in genuine
human interest.
Kennedy was impatiently waiting for an opportunity to recover the box
which he had left under the Willoughby porch. Several times we walked
past the house, but it was not until nightfall that he considered it
wise to make the recovery. Again we slipped silently up the terraces.
It was the work of only a moment to cut the wires, and in triumph Craig
bore off the precious oak box and its batteries.
He said little on our journey back to the city, but the moment we had
reached the laboratory he set the box on a table with an attachment
which seemed to be controlled by pedals operated by the feet.
“Walter,” he explained, holding what looked like an earpiece in his
hand, “this is another of those new little instruments that scientific
detectives to-day are using. A poet might write a clever little verse
en-titled, ‘The telegraphone’ll get you, if you don’t watch out.’ This
is the latest improved telegraphone, a little electromagnetic wizard in
a box, which we detectives are now using to take down and ‘can’
telephone conversations and other records. It is based on an entirely
new principle in every way different from the phonograph. It was
discovered by an inventor several years ago, while experimenting in
telephony.
“There are no disks or cylinders of wax, as in the phonograph, but two
large spools of extremely fine steel wire. The record is not made
mechanically on a cylinder, but electromagnetically on this wire. Small
portions of magnetism are imparted to fractions of the steel wire as it
passes between two carbon electric magnets. Each impression represents
a sound wave. There is no apparent difference in the wire, no surface
abrasion or other change, yet each particle of steel undergoes an
electromagnetic transformation by which the sound is indelibly
imprinted on it until it is wiped out by the erasing magnet. There are
no cylinders to be shaved; all that is needed to use the wire again is
to pass a magnet over it, automatically erasing any previous record
that you do not wish to preserve. You can dictate into it, or, with
this plug in, you can record a telephone conversation on it. Even rust
or other deterioration of the steel wire by time will not affect this
electromagnetic registry of sound. It can be read as long as steel will
last. It is as effective for long distances as for short, and there is
wire enough on one of these spools for thirty minutes of uninterrupted
record.”
Craig continued to tinker tantalisingly with the machine.
“The principle on which it is based,” he added, “is that a mass of
tempered steel may be impressed with and will retain magnetic fluxes
varying in density and in sign in adjacent portions of its mass. There
are no indentations on the wire or the steel disk. Instead there is a
deposit of magnetic impulse on the wire, which is made by connecting up
an ordinary telephone transmitter with the electromagnets and talking
through the coil. The disturbance set up in the coils by the vibration
of the diaphragm of the transmitter causes a deposit of magnetic
impulse on the wire, the coils being connected with dry batteries. When
the wire is again run past these coils, with a receiver such as I have
here in circuit with the coils, a light vibration is set up in the
receiver diaphragm which reproduces the sound of speech.”
He turned a switch and placed an ear-piece over his head, giving me
another connected with it. We listened eagerly. There were no foreign
noises in the machine, no grating or thumping sounds, as he controlled
the running off of the steel wire by means of a foot-pedal.
We were listening to everything that had been said over the Willoughby
telephone during the day. Several local calls to tradesmen came first,
and these we passed over quickly. Finally we heard the following
conversation:
“Hello. Is that you, Ella? Yes, this is Maud. Good-morning. How do you
feel to-day?”
“Good-morning, Maud. I don’t feel very well. I have a splitting
headache.”
“Oh, that’s too bad, dear. What are you doing for it?”
“Nothing—yet. If it doesn’t get better I shall have Mr. Willoughby
call up Dr. Guthrie.”
“Oh, I hope it gets better soon. You poor creature, don’t you think a
little trip into town might make you feel better? Had you thought of
going to-day?”
“Why, no. I hadn’t thought of going in. Are you going?”
“Did you see the Trimble ad. in the morning paper?”
“No, I didn’t see the papers this morning. My head felt too bad.”
“Well, just glance at it. It will interest you. They have the Kimberley
Queen, the great new South African diamond on exhibition there.”
“They have? I never heard of it before, but isn’t that interesting. I
certainly would like to see it. Have you ever seen it?”
“No, but I have made up my mind not to miss a sight of it. They say it
is wonderful. You’d better come along. I may have something interesting
to tell you, too.”
“Well, I believe I will go. Thank you, Maud, for suggesting it. Perhaps
the little change will make me feel better. What train are you going to
take? The ten-two? All right, I’ll try to meet you at the station.
Good-bye, Maud.”
“Good-bye, Ella.”
Craig stopped the machine, ran it back again and repeated the record.
“So,” he commented at the conclusion of the repetition, “the ‘plant’
has taken root. Annie Grayson has bitten at the bait.”
A few other local calls and a long-distance call from Mr. Willoughby
cut short by his not finding his wife at home followed. Then there
seemed to have been nothing more until after dinner. It was a call by
Mr. Willoughby himself that now interested us.
“Hello! hello! Is that you, Dr. Guthrie? Well, Doctor, this is Mr.
Willoughby talking. I’d like to make an appointment for my wife
to-morrow.”
“Why, what’s the trouble, Mr. Willoughby? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“Oh, no, I guess not. But then I want to be sure, and I guess you can
fix her up all right. She complains of not being able to sleep and has
been having pretty bad headaches now and then.”
“Is that so? Well, that’s too bad. These women and their
headaches—even as a doctor they puzzle me. They often go away as
suddenly as they come. However, it will do no harm to see me.”
“And then she complains of noises in her ears, seems to hear things,
though as far as I can make out, there is nothing—at least nothing
that I hear.”
“Um-m, hallucinations in hearing, I suppose. Any dizziness?”
“Why, yes, a little once in a while.”
“How is she now?”
“Well, she’s been into town this afternoon and is pretty tired, but she
says she feels a little better for the excitement of the trip.”
“Well, let me see. I’ve got to come down Woodridge Avenue to see a
patient in a few minutes anyhow. Suppose I just drop off at your place?”
“That will be fine. You don’t think it is anything serious, do you,
Doctor?”
“Oh, no. Probably it’s her nerves. Perhaps a little rest would do her
good. We’ll see.”
The telegraphone stopped, and that seemed to be the last conversation
recorded. So far we had learned nothing very startling, I thought, and
was just a little disappointed. Kennedy seemed well satisfied, however.
Our own telephone rang, and it proved to be Donnelly on the wire. He
had been trying to get Kennedy all day, in order to report that at
various times his men at Trimble’s had observed Mrs. Willoughby and
later Annie Grayson looking with much interest at the Kimberley Queen,
and other jewels in the exhibit. There was nothing more to report.
“Keep it on view another day or two,” ordered Kennedy. “Advertise it,
but in a quiet way. We don’t want too many people interested. I’ll see
you in the morning at the store—early.”
“I think I’ll just run back to Glenclair again to-night,” remarked
Kennedy as he hung up the receiver. “You needn’t bother about coming,
Walter. I want to see Dr. Guthrie a moment. You remember him? We met
him to-day at the country club, a kindly looking, middle-aged fellow?”
I would willingly have gone back with him, but I felt that I could be
of no particular use. While he was gone I pondered a good deal over the
situation. Twice, at least, previously some one had pilfered jewellery
from stores, leaving in its place worthless imitations. Twice the
evidence had been so conflicting that no one could judge of its value.
What reason, I asked myself, was there to suppose that it would be
different now? No shoplifter in her senses was likely to lift the great
Kimberley Queen gem with the eagle eyes of clerks and detectives on
her, even if she did not discover that it was only a paste jewel. And
if Craig gave the woman, whoever she was, a good opportunity to get
away with it, it would be a case of the same conflicting evidence; or
worse, no evidence.
Yet the more I thought of it, the more apparent to me was it that
Kennedy must have thought the whole thing out before. So far all that
had been evident was that he was merely preparing a “plant.” Still, I
meant to caution him when he returned that one could not believe his
eyes, certainly not his ears, as to what might happen, unless he was
unusually skilful or lucky. It would not do to rely on anything so
fallible as the human eye or ear, and I meant to impress it on him.
What, after all, had been the net result of our activities so far? We
had found next to nothing. Indeed, it was all a greater mystery than
ever.
It was very late when Craig returned, but I gathered from the still
fresh look on his face that he had been successful in whatever it was
he had had in mind when he made the trip.
“I saw Dr. Guthrie,” he reported laconically, as we prepared to turn
in. “He says that he isn’t quite sure but that Mrs. Willoughby may have
a touch of vertigo. At any rate, he has consented to let me come out
to-morrow with him and visit her as a specialist in nervous diseases
from New York. I had to tell him just enough about the case to get him
interested, but that will do no harm. I think I’ll set this alarm an
hour ahead. I want to get up early to-morrow, and if I shouldn’t be
here when you wake, you’ll find me at Trimble’s.”
XIV
THE CRIMEOMETER
The alarm wakened me all right, but to my surprise Kennedy had already
gone, ahead of it. I dressed hurriedly, bolted an early breakfast, and
made my way to Trimble’s. He was not there, and I had about concluded
to try the laboratory, when I saw him pulling up in a cab from which he
took several packages. Donnelly had joined us by this time, and
together we rode up in the elevator to the jewelry department. I had
never seen a department-store when it was empty, but I think I should
like to shop in one under those conditions. It seemed incredible to get
into the elevator and go directly to the floor you wanted.
The jewelry department was in the front of the building on one of the
upper floors, with wide windows through which the bright morning light
streamed attractively on the glittering wares that the clerks were
taking out of the safes and disposing to their best advantage. The
store had not opened yet, and we could work unhampered.
From his packages, Kennedy took three black boxes. They seemed to have
an opening in front, while at one side was a little crank, which, as
nearly as I could make out, was operated by clockwork released by an
electric contact. His first problem seemed to be to dispose the boxes
to the best advantage at various angles about the counter where the
Kimberley Queen was on exhibition. With so much bric-a-brac and other
large articles about, it did not appear to be very difficult to conceal
the boxes, which were perhaps four inches square on the ends and eight
inches deep. From the boxes with the clockwork attachment at the side
he led wires, centring at a point at the interior end of the aisle
where we could see but would hardly be observed by any one standing at
the jewelry counter.
Customers had now begun to arrive, and we took a position in the
background, prepared for a long wait. Now and then Donnelly casually
sauntered past us. He and Craig had disposed the store detectives in a
certain way so as to make their presence less obvious, while the clerks
had received instructions how to act under the circumstance that a
suspicious person was observed.
Once when Donnelly came up he was quite excited. He had just received a
message from Bentley that some of the stolen property, the pearls,
probably, from the dog collar that had been taken from Shorham’s, had
been offered for sale by a “fence” known to the police as a former
confederate of Annie Grayson.
“You see, that is one great trouble with them all,” he remarked, with
his eye roving about the store in search of anything irregular. “A
shoplifter rarely becomes a habitual criminal until after she passes
the age of twenty-five. If they pass that age without quitting, there
is little hope of their getting right again, as you see. For by that
time they have long since begun to consort with thieves of the other
sex.”
The hours dragged heavily, though it was a splendid chance to observe
at leisure the psychology of the shopper who looked at much and bought
little, the uncomfortableness of the men who had been dragged to the
department store slaughter to say “Yes” and foot the bills, a
kaleidoscopic throng which might have been interesting if we had not
been so intent on only one matter.
Kennedy grasped my elbow in vise-like fingers. Involuntarily I looked
down at the counter where the Kimberley Queen reposed in all the
trappings of genuineness. Mrs. Willoughby had arrived again.
We were too far off to observe distinctly just what was taking place,
but evidently Mrs. Willoughby was looking at the gem. A moment later
another woman sauntered casually up to the counter. Even at a distance
I recognised Annie Grayson. As nearly as I could make out they seemed
to exchange remarks. The clerk answered a question or two, then began
to search for something apparently to show them. Every one about them
was busy, and, obedient to instructions from Donnelly, the store
detectives were in the background.
Kennedy was leaning forward watching as intently as the distance would
permit. He reached over and pressed the button near him.
After a minute or two the second woman left, followed shortly by Mrs.
Willoughby herself. We hurried over to the counter, and Kennedy seized
the box containing the Kimberley Queen. He examined it carefully. A
flaw in the paste jewel caught his eye.
“There has been a substitution here,” he cried. “See! The paste jewel
which we used was flawless; this has a little carbon spot here on the
side.”
“One of my men has been detailed to follow each of them,” whispered
Donnelly. “Shall I order them to bring Mrs. Willoughby and Annie
Grayson to the superintendent’s office and have them searched?”
“No,” Craig almost shouted. “That would spoil everything. Don’t make a
move until I get at the real truth of this affair.”
The case was becoming more than ever a puzzle to me, but there was
nothing left for me to do but to wait until Kennedy was ready to
accompany Dr. Guthrie to the Willoughby house. Several times he tried
to reach the doctor by telephone, but it was not until the middle of
the afternoon that he succeeded.
“I shall be quite busy the rest of the afternoon, Walter,” remarked
Craig, after he had made his appointment with Dr. Guthrie. “If you will
meet me out at the Willoughbys’ at about eight o’clock, I shall be much
obliged to you.”
I promised, and tried to devote myself to catching up with my notes,
which were always sadly behind when Kennedy had an important case. I
did not succeed in accomplishing much, however.
Dr. Guthrie himself met me at the door of the beautiful house on
Woodridge Avenue and with a hearty handshake ushered me into the large
room in the right wing outside of which we had placed the telegraphone
two nights before. It was the library.
We found Kennedy arranging an instrument in the music-room which
adjoined the library. From what little knowledge I have of electricity
I should have said it was, in part at least, a galvanometer, one of
those instruments which register the intensity of minute electric
currents. As nearly as I could make out, in this case the galvanometer
was so arranged that its action swung to one side or the other a little
concave mirror hung from a framework which rested on the table.
Directly in front of it was an electric light, and the reflection of
the light was caught in the mirror and focused by its concavity upon a
point to one side of the light. Back of it was a long strip of ground
glass and an arrow point, attached to which was a pen which touched a
roll of paper.
On the large table in the library itself Kennedy had placed in the
centre a transverse board partition, high enough so that two people
seated could see each other’s faces and converse over it, but could not
see each other’s hands. On one side of the partition were two metal
domes which were fixed to a board set on the table. On the other side,
in addition to space on which he could write, Kennedy had arranged what
looked like one of these new miniature moving-picture apparatuses
operated by electricity. Indeed, I felt that it must be that, for
directly in front of it, hanging on the wall, in plain view of any one
seated on the side of the table containing the metal domes, was a large
white sheet.