of headgear which hung upon the wall of his den, "is a memento of one of
Simmons's cases. The man who bought it would tell you that I'm dead
right when I say that Larry was persevering. That's putting it mildly."
* * * * *
Quite a while back [continued Quinn, picking up the thread of his story]
there was a man out in Saint Joseph, Missouri, named Dave Holden. No one
appeared to know where he came from and, as he conducted himself quietly
and didn't mix in with his neighbors' affairs, no one cared very much.
Holden hadn't been in town more than a couple of weeks when one of the
older inhabitants happened to inquire if he were any kin to "Old Dave
Holden," who had died only a year or two before.
"No," said Holden, "I don't believe I am. My folks all came from Ohio
and I understand that this Holden was a Missourian."
"That's right," agreed the other, "and a queer character, too. Guess he
was pretty nigh the only man that fought on the Union side in the Civil
War that didn't stick th' government for a pension. Had it comin' to
him, too, 'cause he was a captain when th' war ended. But he always said
he didn't consider that Uncle Sam owed him anything for doin' his duty.
Spite of th' protests of his friends, Dave wouldn't ever sign a pension
blank, either."
A few more questions, carefully directed, gave Holden the history of his
namesake, and that night he lay awake trying to figure out whether the
plan which had popped into his head was safe. It promised some easy
money, but there was the element of risk to be considered.
"After all," he concluded, "I won't be doing anything that isn't
strictly within the law. My name is David Holden--just as the old man's
was. The worst that they can do is to turn down the application. I won't
be committing forgery or anything of the kind. And maybe it'll slip
through--which would mean a pile of money, because they'll kick in with
all that accumulated during the past fifty years."
So it was that, in the course of time, an application was filed at the
Bureau of Pensions in Washington for a pension due "David Holden" of
Saint Joseph, Missouri, who had fought in the Civil War with the rank of
captain. But, when the application had been sent over to the War
Department so that it might be compared with the records on file there,
it came back with the red-inked notation that "Capt. David Holden had
died two years before"--giving the precise date of his demise as
evidence.
The moment that the document reached the desk of the Supervisor of
Pensions he pressed one of the little pearl buttons in front of him and
asked that Larry Simmons be sent in. When Larry arrived the chief handed
him the application without a word.
"Right! I'll look into this," said Larry, folding the paper and slipping
it into the pocket of his coat.
"Look into it?" echoed the supervisor. "You'll do more than that! You'll
locate this man Holden--or whatever his right name is--and see that he
gets all that's coming to him. There've been too many of these cases
lately. Apparently people think that all they have to do is to file an
application for a pension and then go off and spend the money. Catch the
first train for Saint Joe and wire me when you've landed your man. The
district attorney will attend to the rest of the matter."
The location of David Holden, as Simmons found, was not the simplest of
jobs. The pension applicant, being comparatively a newcomer, was not
well known in town, and Simmons finally had to fall back upon the
expedient of watching the post-office box which Holden had given as his
address, framing a dummy letter so that the suspect might not think that
he was being watched.
Holden, however, had rented the box for the sole purpose of receiving
mail from the Pension Bureau. He had given the number to no one else and
the fact that the box contained what appeared to be an advertisement
from a clothing store made him stop and wonder. By that time, however,
Simmons had him well in sight and followed him to the boarding-house on
the outskirts of the town where he was staying.
That evening, while he was still wondering at the enterprise of a store
that could obtain a post-office box number from a government bureau at
Washington, the solution of the mystery came to him in a decidedly
unexpected manner. The house in which Holden was staying was
old-fashioned, one of the kind that are heated, theoretically at least,
by "registers," open gratings in the wall. Holden's room was directly
over the parlor on the first floor and the shaft which carried the hot
air made an excellent sound-transmitter.
It so happened that Simmons, after having made a number of inquiries
around town about the original Dave Holden, called at the boarding
house that night to discover what the landlady knew about the other man
of the same name, who was seated in the room above.
Suddenly, like a voice from nowhere, came the statement in a
high-pitched feminine voice: "I really don't know anything about him at
all. Mr. Holden came here about six weeks ago and asked me to take him
in to board. He seemed to be a very nice, quiet gentleman, who was
willing to pay his rent in advance. So I let him have one of the best
rooms in the house."
At the mention of his name Holden listened intently. Who was inquiring
about him, and why?
There was only a confused mumble--apparently a man's reply, pitched in a
low tone--and then the voice of the landlady again came clearly through
the register:
"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't do anything like that. Mr. Holden is...."
But that was all that the pension applicant waited for. Moving with the
rapidity of a frightened animal, he secured one or two articles of value
from his dresser, crammed a hat into his pocket, slipped on a raincoat,
and vaulted out of the window, alighting on the sloping roof of a shed
just below. Before he had quitted the room, however, he had caught the
words "arrest on a charge of attempting to obtain money under false
pretenses."
Some two minutes later there was a knock on his door and a voice
demanded admittance. There was no reply. Again the demand, followed by a
rattling of the doorknob and a tentative shake of the door. In all, it
was probably less than five minutes after Larry Simmons had entered the
parlor before he had burst in the door of Holden's room. But the bird
had flown and the open window pointed to the direction of his flight.
Unfortunately for the operative the night was dark and the fugitive was
decidedly more familiar with the surrounding country than Larry was. By
the time he had secured the assistance of the police half an hour had
elapsed, and there weren't even any telltale footprints to show in which
direction the missing man had gone.
"See that men are placed so as to guard the railroad station," Simmons
directed, "and pass the word up and down the line that a medium-sized
man, about thirty-five years of age, with black hair and a rather ruddy
complexion--a man wanted by the government on a charge of false
pretenses--is trying to make his escape. If anyone reports him, let me
know at once."
That, under the circumstances, was really all that Larry could do. It
ought to be an easy matter to locate the fugitive, he figured, and it
would only be a question of a few days before he was safely in jail.
Bright and early the next morning the operative was awakened by a
bell-boy who informed him that the chief of police would like to see
him.
"Show him in," said Larry, fully expecting to see the chief enter with a
handcuffed prisoner. But the head of the police force came in alone,
carrying a bundle, which he gravely presented to Simmons.
"What's this?" inquired the pension agent.
"All that's left of your friend Holden," was the reply. "One of my men
reported late last night that he had heard a splash in the river as
though some one had jumped off the wharf, but he couldn't find out
anything more. To tell the truth, he didn't look very hard--because we
had our hands full with a robbery of Green's clothing store. Some one
broke in there and--"
"Yes--but what about Holden?" Simmons interrupted.
"Guess you'll have to drag the river for him," answered the chief. "We
found his coat and vest and raincoat on the dock this mornin', and on
top of them was this note, addressed to you."
The note, as Larry found an instant later, read:
I'd rather die in the river than go to jail. Tell your boss
that he can pay two pensions now--one for each of the Dave
Holdens.
The signature, almost illegible, was that of "David Holden (Number
two)."
"No doubt that your man heard the splash when Holden went overboard last
night?" inquired the operative.
"Not the least in the world. He told me about it, but I didn't connect
it with the man you were after, and, besides, I was too busy right then
to give it much thought."
"Any chance of recovering the body?"
"Mighty little at this time of the year. The current's good and strong
an' the chances are that he won't turn up this side of the Mississippi,
if then. It was only by accident that we found his cap. It had lodged
under the dock and we fished it out less 'n half an hour ago--" and the
chief pointed to a water-soaked piece of cloth which Simmons recognized
as the one which Holden had been wearing the evening before.
"Well, I don't suppose there's anything more that we can do," admitted
Larry. "I'd like to have the river dragged as much as possible, though I
agree with you that the chances for recovering the body are very slim.
Will you look after that?"
"Sure I will, and anything else you want done." The chief was nothing if
not obliging--a fact which Simmons incorporated in his official report,
which he filed a few days later, a report which stated that "David
Holden, wanted on a charge of attempting to obtain money under false
pretenses, had committed suicide by drowning rather than submit to
arrest."
The body has not been recovered [the report admitted], but
this is not to be considered unusual at this time of the year
when the current is very strong. The note left by the
fugitive is attached.
Back from Washington came the wire:
Better luck next time. Anyhow, Holden won't bother us again.
If this were a moving picture [Quinn continued, after a pause], there
would be a subtitle here announcing the fact that seven years are
supposed to elapse. There also probably would be a highly decorated
explanatory title informing the audience that "Uncle Sam Never Forgets
Nor Forgives"--a fact that is so perfectly true that it's a marvel that
people persist in trying to beat the government. Then the scene of the
film would shift to Seattle, Washington.
They would have to cut back a little to make it clear that Larry Simmons
had, in the meantime, left the Pension Bureau and entered the employment
of the Post-office Department, being desirous of a little more
excitement and a few more thrills than his former job afforded. But he
was still working for Uncle Sam, and his memory--like that of his
employer--was long and tenacious.
One of the minor cases which had been bothering the department for some
time past was that of a ring of fortune-tellers who, securing
information in devious ways, would pretend that it had come to them from
the spirit world and use it for purposes which closely approximated
blackmail. Simmons, being in San Francisco at the time, was ordered to
proceed to Seattle and look into the matter.
Posing as a gentleman of leisure with plenty of money and but little
care as to the way in which he spent it, it wasn't long before he was
steered into what appeared to be the very center of the ring--the
residence of a Madame Ahara, who professed to be able to read the stars,
commune with spirits, and otherwise obtain information of an occult
type. There Larry went through all the usual stages--palmistry,
spiritualism, and clairvoyance--and chuckled when he found, after his
third visit, that his pocket had been picked of a letter purporting to
contain the facts about an escapade in which he had been mixed up a few
years ago. The letter, of course, was a plant placed there for the sole
purpose of providing a lead for madame and her associates to follow. And
they weren't long in taking the tip.
The very next afternoon the government agent received a telephone call
notifying him that madame had some news of great importance which she
desired to impart--information which had come to her from the other
world and in which she felt certain he would be interested.
Larry asked if he might bring a friend with him, but the request--as he
had expected--was promptly refused. The would-be blackmailers were too
clever to allow first-hand evidence to be produced against them. They
wished to deal only with principals or, as madame informed him over the
phone, "the message was of such a nature that only he should hear it."
"Very well," replied Simmons, "I'll be there at eleven this evening."
It was not his purpose to force the issue at this time. In fact, he
planned to submit to the first demand for money and trust to the
confidence which this would inspire to render the blackmailers less
cautious in the future. But something occurred which upset the entire
scheme and, for a time at least, threatened disaster to the Post-office
schemes.
Thinking that it might be well to look the ground over before dark,
Larry strolled out to Madame Ahara's about five o'clock in the afternoon
and took up his position on the opposite side of the street, studying
the house from every angle. While he was standing there a man came
out--a man who was dressed in the height of fashion, but whose face was
somehow vaguely familiar. The tightly waxed mustache and the iron-gray
goatee seemed out of place, for Simmons felt that the last time he had
seen the man he had been clean shaven.
"Where was it?" he thought, as he kept the man in sight, though on the
opposite side of the street. "New York? No. Washington? Hardly. Saint
Louis? No, it was somewhere where he was wearing a cap--a cap that was
water-stained and ... I've got it! In Saint Joseph! The man who
committed suicide the night I went to arrest him for attempting to
defraud the Pension Bureau! It's he, sure as shooting!"
But just as Simmons started to cross the street the traffic cop raised
his arm, and when the apparently interminable stream of machines had
passed, the man with the mustache was nowhere to be seen. He had
probably slipped into one of the near-by office buildings. But which?
That was a question which worried Larry for a moment or two. Then he
came to the conclusion that there was no sense in trying to find his man
at this moment. The very fact that he was in Seattle was enough. The
police could find him with little difficulty.
But what had Holden been doing at the clairvoyant's? Had he fallen into
the power of the ring or was it possible that he was one of the
blackmailers himself?
The more Larry thought about the matter, the more he came to the
conclusion that here was an opportunity to kill two birds with a single
stone--to drive home at least the entering wedge of the campaign against
the clairvoyants and at the same time to land the man who had eluded him
seven years before.
The plan which he finally evolved was daring, but he realized that the
element of time was essential. Holden must not be given another
opportunity to slip through the net.
That night when Larry kept his appointment at madame's he saw to it that
a cordon of police was thrown around the entire block, with instructions
to allow no one to leave until after a prearranged signal.
"Don't prevent anyone from coming into the house," Simmons directed,
"but see that not a soul gets away from it. Also, you might be on the
lookout for trouble. The crowd's apt to get nasty and we can't afford to
take chances with them."
A tall dark-skinned man, attired in an Arabian burnoose and wearing a
turban, answered the ring at the door, precisely as Larry
anticipated--for the stage was always well set to impress visitors.
Madame herself never appeared in the richly decorated room where the
crystal-gazing seances were held, preferring to remain in the background
and to allow a girl, who went by the name of Yvette, to handle visitors,
the explanation being that "Madame receives the spirit messages and
transmits them to Yvette, her assistant."
Simmons therefore knew that, instead of dealing with an older and
presumably more experienced woman, he would only have to handle a girl,
and it was upon this that he placed his principal reliance.
Everything went along strictly according to schedule. Yvette, seated on
the opposite side of a large crystal ball in which she read strange
messages from the other world--visions transmitted from the cellar by
means of a cleverly constructed series of mirrors--told the operative
everything that had been outlined in the letter taken from his pocket on
the preceding night, adding additional touches founded on facts which
Larry had been "careless" enough to let slip during his previous visits.
Then she concluded with a very thinly veiled threat of blackmail if the
visitor did not care to kick in with a certain sum of money.
Larry listened to the whole palaver in silence, but his eyes were busy
trying to pierce the dim light in which the room was shrouded. So far as
he could see, the door through which he had entered formed the only
means of getting into the room--but there were a number of rugs and
draperies upon the walls, any one of which might easily mask a doorway.
When the girl had finished, the operative leaned forward and hitched his
chair around so that he could speak in a whisper.
"If you know what's good for you," he cautioned, "don't move! I've got
you covered, in the first place, and, secondly, there's a solid cordon
of police around this house! Careful--not a sound! I'm not after you. I
want the people who're behind you. Madame and her associates. This
blackmailing game has gone about far enough, but I'll see that you get
off with a suspended sentence if you do as I tell you. If not--" and the
very abruptness with which he stopped made the threat all the more
convincing.
"What--what do you want me to do?" stammered the girl, her voice barely
audible.
"Turn state's evidence and tip me off to everyone who's in on this
thing," was Larry's reply, couched in the lowest of tones. "There's not
a chance of escape for any of you, so you might as well do it and get it
over with. Besides that, I want to know where I can find a man with a
waxed mustache and iron-gray goatee who left this house at ten minutes
past five this afternoon."
"Madame!" exclaimed the girl. "Davidson!"
"Yes--Madame and Davidson, if that's the name he goes by now. It was
Holden the last time I saw him."
"He"--and the girl's voice was a mere breath--"he is madame!"
"What?"
"Yes, there is no Madame Ahara. Davidson runs the whole thing. He is--"
But at that moment one of the rugs on the wall which Larry was facing
swung outward and a man sprang into the room, a man whose face was
purple with rage and who leaped sidewise as he saw Larry's hand snap an
automatic into view above the pedestal on which the crystal ball
reposed. In a flash Simmons recognized two things--his danger and the
fact that the man who had just entered was Holden, alias Davidson,
blackmailer and potential thief.
Before the government agent had time to aim the head of the clairvoyant
ring fired. But his bullet, instead of striking Larry, shattered the
crystal ball into fragments and the room was plunged into total
darkness. In spite of the fact that he knew the shot would bring speedy
relief from outside the house, Simmons determined to capture his man
single-handed and alive. Half-leaping, half-falling from the chair in
which he had been seated, the operative sprang forward in an attempt to
nail his man while the latter was still dazed by the darkness. But his
foot, catching in one of the thick rugs which carpeted the floor,
tripped him and he fell--a bullet from the other's revolver plowing
through the fleshy part of his arm.
The flash, however, showed him the position of his adversary, and it was
the work of only a moment to slip forward and seize the blackmailer
around the waist, his right hand gripping the man's wrist and forcing it
upward so that he was powerless to use his revolver. For a full minute
they wrestled in the inky darkness, oblivious to the fact that the sound
of blows on the outer door indicated the arrival of reinforcements.
Then suddenly Larry let go of the blackmailer's arm and, whirling him
rapidly around, secured a half nelson that threatened to dislocate his
neck.
"Drop it!" he snarled. "Drop that gun before I wring your head off!" and
the muffled thud as the revolver struck the floor was the signal that
Holden had surrendered. A moment later the light in the center of the
room was snapped on and the police sergeant inquired if Larry needed any
assistance.
"No," replied Simmons, grimly, "but you might lend me a pair of
bracelets. This bird got away from me once, some seven years ago, and
I'm not taking any more chances!"
XVII
THE POISON-PEN PUZZLE
Beside the bookcase in the room which Bill Quinn likes to dignify by the
name of "library"--though it's only a den, ornamented with relics of
scores of cases in which members of the different government detective
services have figured--hangs a frame containing four letters, each in a
different handwriting.
Beyond the fact that these letters obviously refer to some secret in the
lives of the persons to whom they are addressed, there is little about
them that is out of the ordinary. A close observer, however, would note
that in none of the four is the secret openly stated. It is only hinted
at, suggested, but by that very fact it becomes more mysterious and
alarming.
It was upon this that I commented one evening as I sat, discussing
things in general, with Quinn.
"Yes," he agreed, "the writer of those letters was certainly a genius.
As an author or as an advertising writer or in almost any other
profession where a mastery of words and the ability to leave much to the
imagination is a distinct asset, they would have made a big success."
"They?" I inquired. "Did more than one person write the letters?"
"Don't look like the writing of the same person, do they?" countered
Quinn. "Besides, that was one of the many phases of the matter which
puzzled Elmer Allison, and raised the case above the dead level of
ordinary blackmailing schemes."
* * * * *
Allison [Quinn went on, settling comfortably back in his big armchair]
was, as you probably remember, one of the star men of the Postal
Inspection Service, the chap who solved the mystery of the lost one
hundred thousand dollars in Columbus. In fact, he had barely cleared up
the tangle connected with the letters when assigned to look into the
affair of the missing money, with what results you already know.
The poison-pen puzzle, as it came to be known in the department, first
bobbed up some six months before Allison tackled it. At least, that was
when it came to the attention of the Postal Inspection Service. It's
more than likely that the letters had been arriving for some time
previous to that, because one of the beauties of any blackmailing
scheme--such as this one appeared to be--is that 90 per cent of the
victims fear to bring the matter to the attention of the law. They much
prefer to suffer in silence, kicking in with the amounts demanded, than
to risk the exposure of their family skeletons by appealing to the
proper authorities.
A man by the name of Tyson, who lived in Madison, Wisconsin, was the
first to complain. He informed the postmaster in his city that his wife
had received two letters, apparently in a feminine handwriting, which he
considered to be very thinly veiled attempts at blackmailing.
Neither of the letters was long. Just a sentence or two. But their
ingenuity lay in what they suggested rather than in their actual
threats.
The first one read:
Does your husband know the details of that trip to Fond du
Lac? He might be interested in what Hastings has to tell him.
The second, which arrived some ten days later, announced:
The photograph of the register of a certain hotel in Fond du
Lac for June 8 might be of interest to your husband--who can
tell?
That was all there was to them, but it doesn't take an expert in plot
building to think of a dozen stories that could lie back of that
supposedly clandestine trip on the eighth of June.