THE CODE TELEGRAM.
Chick Carter was on the lookout for Bart Bailey at seven o’clock the
following morning, after trailing him to Philadelphia. He had felt sure
that his quarry would not be stirring before that hour, but he soon
found that he had allowed himself but little leeway. For Bailey appeared
in the hotel office ten minutes later and hurried in to breakfast.
Chick saw plainly that the rascal did not suspect an espionage, but his
haste denoted that he had important business in view. Chick determined
not to lose sight of him, therefore, and he deferred for that reason and
in order to gather additional evidence, a telephone talk with Nick,
precisely as the latter had inferred.
Chick shadowed Bailey from the hotel about eight o’clock, and the store
mentioned by the clerk the previous night. It proved to be a small
establishment, occupying only the ground floor and basement of a corner
building, with an office in the rear, and to which the crook immediately
hastened.
“I’ll not follow him,” thought Chick, sizing up the store from outside.
“I may get a line on him from the rear.”
Hastening in that direction, Chick saw that the back windows of an
automobile agency overlooked a paved area back of Meyers’ store, and he
entered and introduced himself to the manager, confiding the situation
to him and requesting the privilege of using the rear windows.
“Why, certainly, Mr. Carter,” he readily consented, after Chick had
concluded. “Go as far as you like. I wouldn’t bank much myself, as a
matter of fact, on Rudolph Meyers’ integrity. I know he used to run a
pawnshop in one of the lower precincts of the city. He opened this store
about eight months ago.”
“Soon after the New York robberies began,” Chick nodded.
“I see the point. I have often wondered why he could sell goods cheaper
than his competitors. I inferred that his rent might be lower, and he
keeps only one clerk, a man named Finley.”
“Many of his goods cost him less--at present,” Chick said significantly.
“I judge so, now,” smiled the other. “They unpack most of them in the
area back of the store. A big case came in there this morning by
express. It now is out there. I suppose they will open it, now that
Finley has showed up. Yes, by Jove, they’re just coming out of the rear
door.”
Chick directed the manager to remain in his office, and he then stole to
a point from which he could easily see and hear the two men without
being detected.
They had emerged from a back door of the store, and had opened another
leading down a flight of stone steps to the basement. Barton Bailey
already was working upon a large packing case, while Rudolph Meyers, a
short, swarthy man of about fifty, stood looking on with a sinister
grin.
“Another vindfall, eh?” he remarked, after a moment. “Another vindfall.
If it proves to be as good as the last----”
“Much better, Meyers, and then some,” Bart Bailey interrupted, turning
from his work. “I happen to know just what is in this one. I was with
Murdock when the goods were packed.”
“You left him all right, eh?”
“As right as a trivet, Rudolph.”
“Not one is yet wise, eh?”
“Not yet, old man, nor likely to be,” declared Bart confidently. “The
headquarters dicks have been bounced and others are to be tried. You
know whom I mean. They’re the worst ever, too, but I reckon they’ll find
this nut too hard a one for their ugly jaws. If they----”
“Wait!” cut in Meyers sharply. “Here vas a poy with a message. Vait von
minute.”
Chick pricked up his ears and crept nearer the window. Through the open
back door of the store he could see a telegraph messenger entering from
Broad Street. He saw Meyers hurry in to meet him, saw him glance at the
address on the yellow envelope, and then turn and beckon to Bailey, who
dropped his tools and hurried into the store.
“By Jove, I wonder what that signifies,” thought Chick, with instinctive
misgivings. “A wire to Bailey, eh? Can any one have got wise to my
doings?”
Bart Bailey, to whom the telegram evidently was addressed, hastened to
sign for it, and then broke the seal. He read the message, and then both
men hurried into the rear office.
Chick then could see them through one of the office windows, which had
been opened to admit the morning air.
Bart Bailey took a small leather book from his pocket and sat down at a
desk, spreading the telegram on it and seizing a large pad of blank
paper and a pencil. He then began to refer to various pages in the book,
pausing to write briefly at intervals on the pad.
“A code message,” thought Chick, intently watching the couple. “He has
the key to it in that book, and is making a transcription on the pad. By
Jove, this looks like something doing.”
Chick’s suspicions were almost immediately confirmed. Both men appeared
much disturbed. Leaving Barton still at work at the desk, Meyers hurried
to the front part of the store, where, through some lace draperies that
were displayed in one of the windows, he began to peer cautiously into
Broad Street, evidently searching the wide thoroughfare in each
direction.
“By gracious, I must be right,” Chick muttered. “Bart Bailey has been
tipped by some one, as sure as death and taxes. The other rat is looking
to see whether the store is being watched. You’re looking in the wrong
direction, old man. By Jove, I would give a trifle for a copy of that
transcription.”
Bart Bailey evidently completed it a few moments later. He sprang up in
some excitement, tore the written sheet from the pad, then hurried out
to the front of the store to read it to his companion. Both remained
there, earnestly discussing it and gazing cautiously toward the street.
“Here’s my chance, by Jove, if I ever had one,” thought Chick, after
watching them for a moment. “I’ll take it, too, let come what may.”
Stepping quickly to one of the other windows, Chick quietly raised it,
then sprang out noiselessly and crossed the area between the two
buildings. The desk in the rear office was within reach through the open
window.
Chick leaned over the sill and listened for a moment. He could hear the
subdued voices of the two men in the front of the store, but could not
distinguish what they were saying.
Taking the pad from the desk, Chick drew back and tore off the upper
blank sheet and slipped it into his pocket. He then replaced the pad and
returned it to its former position, quietly closing the window. The two
men in the front of the store still were cautiously watching the street.
“Neither of them heard me,” thought Chick, with some satisfaction. “Nor
will a single blank sheet be missed from that pad. I’ll wager I can
learn something from it.”
One might wonder how he could accomplish it, but Chick Carter was wise
to all the tricks of his profession. He thanked the manager of the
agency for the accommodations afforded him, cautioned him to say
nothing in regard to his visit, and he then learned the location of the
nearest drug store.
Hastening to it, Chick bought from a clerk some fine black powder
adapted to his purpose. He then requested the privilege of using the
prescription room for a few moments, stating with what object, and the
favor was readily granted.
Chick then spread the blank sheet of paper on a table and covered it
with a thin layer of the fine black dust, which he then blew gently from
its surface.
Particles of it remained, however, in the indentations caused by the
pressure of the pencil through the sheet on which Bart Bailey had been
writing, and it brought out quite legibly nearly every word of the
transcription hurriedly made by the crook.
Chick read it carefully, quick to readily interpret the condensed
phrases transcribed from the code book, and he found that it fully
confirmed his suspicions.
It told him that Bart Bailey had been warned that a detective was
following him; that he must watch out for him and lure him to New York,
if possible, and to some place designated only as a cobweb. The
communication bore no signature whatever.
Chick Carter smiled a bit grimly, now knocking the particles of dust
from the sheet and returning it to his pocket. The circumstances,
nevertheless, puzzled him somewhat.
“Who the dickens could have learned of my doings and warned this
rascal?” he said to himself. “Not Helen Bailey, surely, nor the
boarding-house landlady. Neither of them would have done so. I’ll be
hanged if I now can fathom it, but I reckon I see my way to doing so.
Lure me to New York, eh? I can guess what that means, all right. Well,
I’ll give the rats a chance.”
Most men would have shrunk from the risks involved, but not Chick
Carter. He now hastened to find a second-hand clothing store, where he
clad himself in a somewhat seedy suit and a woolen cap, directing that
his own discarded garments should be sent to his New York address.
Ten minutes later, wearing an entirely different facial disguise and
having a rather sinister appearance, Chick returned to Broad Street and
entered Meyers’ store.
He then found both suspects engaged in hurriedly putting into various
shelves and drawers the goods taken from the packing case, which had
been opened during his brief absence.
Both at once ceased working when he entered, and Chick saw that he was
instantly suspected. He saw, too, that Bailey shot a swift, significant
glance at Meyers, plainly directing him not to interfere.
“Is the boss around?” Chick inquired, as he approached them.
Bart Bailey nodded, hooking his thumbs through the armholes of his vest,
while he replied inquiringly:
“I am the boss, my man. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a job, sir,” said Chick, respectfully touching his cap
with his forefinger. “I thought, mebbe----”
“That I would give you employment?” Bart put in, with searching
scrutiny. “What led you to think so?”
“Nothing, sir, save that most stores need help,” Chick explained, quite
humbly. “I have been trying for a job in others, sir, but luck seems
against me. I’m broke and in hard sledding, you see, and----”
“Do you live in the city?” Bart cut in again.
“No, sir. I’m here from Chicago only a couple of days.”
“Why did you leave there?”
“My boss failed, and that threw me out of a job. I couldn’t get another
in Chicago, so I worked my way here on a freight train.”
“What sort of work can you do?”
“Any old kind, sir, that’ll earn me a dollar,” Chick asserted, somewhat
suggestively. “I wouldn’t be particular. You can bet on that.”
“You’d do most anything, eh?”
“That’s what I would, sir. When a man’s up against it good and hard, he
don’t stick over trifles. I’d do anything the boss told me.”
“Suppose it was something off color?”
“That would be up to him, sir. I’d do it, all right, and shut my eyes to
what it was about.”
“And your mouth, too, perhaps?”
“I would, sir, and keep it shut,” said Chick, with a sinister nod. “You
can bank your pile on that, sir.”
Bart Bailey laughed and glanced again at the listening merchant.
“Murdock might use the fellow,” he remarked significantly.
“Vell, yes, he might,” Meyers allowed tentatively, evidently taking a
cue the other had given him.
Bart turned to Chick again, saying:
“We’ve got no use for you here, my man, but I think I could find a job
for you in New York.”
“That would suit me all right, sir,” Chick declared, with manifest
eagerness. “I’d go to New York, sir, or to perdition, if need be. Give
me a letter to the party, sir, and I’ll find a way to get there.”
“I’d do better than that, my man, if you mean what you say,” replied
Bailey, glancing at his watch.
“You’ll find I mean it, sir,” Chick insisted.
“I’m going to New York in just half an hour,” Bart added. “I’ll not
promise you the job, mind you, but I think I can fix you with a friend
who wants a man for general work. I’ll take the chance, at all events,
and will pay your fare, which can be returned to me out of your first
week’s pay. How does that suit you?”
“I couldn’t be hit more to my liking, sir,” said Chick, with manifest
gratitude. “I’m more obliged than I could tell if I----”
“Never mind thanking me,” Bart interrupted. “There’ll be time enough for
that after you get what’s coming to you. What’s your name?”
“James Donovan, sir.”
“Where are you stopping? Have you got any luggage?”
“Only what’s on my back.”
“Well, that’s easily carried,” Bart laughed, with a covert gleam in his
shifty eyes. “Sit down there, Donovan, for about ten minutes. We then
shall have time to hit a fast express.”
Chick obeyed him with alacrity, taking a chair to which the rascal
pointed.
There was nothing remarkable in the celerity with which these
arrangements were completed. Chick knew that the two crooks did not
dream of his having learned of the code telegram and its significance,
and that they not only would suspect his identity, but also would see in
his application for work only a scheme to watch them and the
Philadelphia store.
That he would walk with open eyes into such a net as the telegram
indirectly suggested would seem utterly improbable, and Bart Bailey had
immediately seized the supposed opportunity which the situation
presented, feeling sure that he could trap Chick before he could learn
that his identity and designs were suspected.
Half an hour later, therefore, found both seated in the smoking car of
an express train bound for New York, whither Chick had really expected
to have taken the crook in irons, instead of traveling as his supposed
dupe.
This appeared to Chick, nevertheless, the surest and speediest way to
discover the identity and doings of Bailey’s confederates, as well as to
round up the entire gang, which might possibly be perverted by the
immediate arrest of Bailey and Rudolph Meyers.
It was early afternoon when they arrived in New York, each having played
his part consistently, resulting in no material change in the situation,
save a change of base.
“We’ll take a taxi,” said Bailey, as they emerged from the station.
“I’ve got the price.”
“That beats working one’s passage on a freight train,” Chick replied.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Finley, goes.”
“This way, then.”
Chick followed him to a taxicab, to the driver of which the crook
quietly gave his instructions.
The taxicab stopped in front of an unpretentious store in one of the
crosstown streets. The single front window denoted that wooden toys and
novelties of like description were sold within. A sign over the door
apparently told the whole story:
“ACME NOVELTY COMPANY.”
Chick glanced at the sign and window when he followed Bart Bailey from
the taxicab. Beyond the low brick building in which this store was
located, the two upper floors of which were evidently used for a
dwelling, towered the rear wall of a vast mercantile edifice, which
Chick immediately recognized.
“Mantell & Goulard’s department store,” he said to himself. “By Jove,
this should signify something.”
“This way, Donovan.” Bart Bailey spoke with a growl. “Get a move on.”
Chick did not hesitate. He followed the ruffian without replying, and
entered the quarters of the Acme Novelty Company.