launch into a dissertation on the subject of the code itself is open to
but one construction--some one has lifted the key to the cipher."
"Yes, some one has. At least, it was in this safe last night"--here a
wave of his hand indicated a small and rather old-fashioned strong box
in the corner--"and it wasn't there when I arrived this morning. I
reported the matter to the Secretary and he asked me to give you the
details."
"You are certain that the cipher was there last evening?" asked the
chief.
"Not the cipher itself--at least not a code-book as the term is
generally understood," explained the Under Secretary. "That's one of the
beauties of the Carruthers system. You don't have to lug a bulky book
around with you all the time. A single slip of paper--a cigarette paper
would answer excellently--will contain the data covering a man's
individual code. The loss or theft of one of these would be
inconvenient, but not fatal. The loss of the master key, which was in
that safe, is irreparable. If it once gets out of the country it means
that the decoding of our official messages is merely a question of time,
no matter how often we switch the individual ciphers."
"What was the size of the master key, as you call it?"
"Merely a slip of government bond, about six inches long by some two
inches deep."
"Was it of such a nature that it could have been easily copied?"
"Yes, but anything other than a careful tracing or a photographic copy
would be valueless. The position of the letters and figures mean as much
as the marks themselves. Whoever took it undoubtedly knows this and will
endeavor to deliver the original--as a mark of good faith, if nothing
else."
"Was this the only copy in existence?"
"There are two others--one in the possession of the Secretary, the other
in the section which has charge of decoding messages. Both of these are
safe, as I ascertained as soon as I discovered that my slip was
missing."
A few more questions failed to bring out anything more about the mystery
beyond the fact that the Assistant Secretary was certain that he had
locked the safe the evening before and he knew that he had found it
locked when he arrived that morning.
"All of which," as Taylor declared, "means but little. The safe is of
the vintage of eighteen seventy, the old-fashioned kind where you can
hear the tumblers drop clean across the room. Look!" and he pointed to
the japanned front of the safe where a circular mark, some two inches in
diameter, was visible close to the dial.
"Yes, but what is it?" demanded the Secretary.
"The proof that you locked the safe last night," Taylor responded.
"Whoever abstracted the cipher key opened the safe with the aid of some
instrument that enabled them clearly to detect the fall of the tumblers.
Probably a stethoscope, such as physicians use for listening to a
patient's heart. Perfectly simple when you know how--particularly with
an old model like this."
Finding that there was no further information available, Taylor and the
chief left the department, the chief to return to headquarters, Taylor
to endeavor to pick up the trail wherever he could.
"It doesn't look like an inside job," was the parting comment of the
head of the Secret Service. "Anyone who had access to the safe would
have made some excuse to discover the combination, rather than rely on
listening to the click of the tumblers. Better get after the night
watchman and see if he can give you a line on any strangers who were
around the building last night."
But the night watchman when roused from his sound forenoon's sleep was
certain that no one had entered the building on the previous evening
save those who had business there.
"Everybody's got to use a pass now, you know," he stated. "I was on the
job all night myself an' divvle a bit of anything out of the ordinary
did I see. There was Mr. McNight and Mr. Lester and Mr. Greene on the
job in the telegraph room, and the usual crowd of correspondents over in
the press room, and a score of others who works there regular, an' Mrs.
Prentice, an'--"
"Mrs. who?" interrupted Taylor.
"Mrs. Prentice, wife of th' Third Assistant Secretary. She comes down
often when her husband is working late, but last night he must have gone
home just before she got there, for she came back a few minutes later
and said that the office was dark."
Whatever Taylor's thoughts were at the moment he kept them to
himself--for Prentice was the man from whose safe the cipher key had
been abstracted!
So he contented himself with inquiring whether the watchman was certain
that the woman who entered the building was Mrs. Prentice.
"Shure an' I'm certain," was the reply. "I've seen her and that green
evening cape of hers trimmed with fur too often not to know her."
"Do you know how long it was between the time that she entered the
building and the time she left?" persisted Taylor.
"That I do not, sir. Time is something that you don't worry about much
when it's a matter of guarding the door to a building--particularly at
night. But I'd guess somewhere about five or ten minutes?"
"Rather long for her to make her way to the office of her husband, find
he wasn't there, and come right back, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir--but you must remember I wasn't countin' the minutes, so to
speak. Maybe it was only three--maybe it was ten. Anyhow, it was just
nine-thirty when she left. I remember looking at the clock when she went
out."
From the watchman's house, located well over in the northeastern section
of the city, Taylor made his way to Madelaine James's apartment on
Connecticut Avenue, discovering that young lady on the point of setting
off to keep a luncheon engagement.
"I won't keep you a minute, Madelaine," promised the Secret Service
operative. "Just want to ask what you know about Mrs. Mahlon Prentice?"
"Wife of the Third Assistant Secretary of State?"
Taylor nodded.
"She's a Chicago woman, I believe. Came here a couple of years ago when
her husband received his appointment. Rather good-looking and very
popular. I happened to be at a dinner with her last evening and--"
"You what?"
"I was at a dinner at the Westovers' last night," repeated the James
girl, "and Mrs. Prentice was among those present. Looked stunning, too.
What's the trouble?"
"What time was the dinner?" Taylor countered.
"Eight o'clock, but of course it didn't start until nearly
eight-thirty."
"And what time did Mrs. Prentice leave?"
"A few minutes after I did. She was just going up for her wraps as I
came downstairs at eleven o'clock."
"You are certain that she was there all evening--that she didn't slip
out for half an hour or so?"
"Of course I'm sure, Mell," the girl replied, a trace of petulance in
her voice. "Why all the questions? Do you suspect the wife of the Third
Assistant Secretary of State of robbing a bank?"
"Not a bank," Taylor admitted, "but it happens that the safe in her
husband's office was opened last night and a highly important slip of
paper abstracted. What's more, the watchman on duty in the building is
ready to swear that Mrs. Prentice came in shortly before nine-thirty,
and went out some five or ten minutes later, stating that her husband
had evidently finished his work and left."
"That's impossible! No matter what the watchman says, there are a score
of people who dined with Mrs. Prentice last evening and who know that
she didn't leave the Westovers' until after eleven. Dinner wasn't over
by nine-thirty, and she couldn't have gotten to the State Department and
back in less than twenty minutes at the inside. It's ridiculous, that's
all!"
"But the watchman!" exclaimed Taylor. "He knows Mrs. Prentice and says
he couldn't miss that green-and-fur coat of hers in the dark. Besides,
she spoke to him as she was leaving."
Madelaine James was silent for a moment, and a tiny frown appeared
between her eyes, evidence of the fact that she was doing some deep
thinking.
Then: "Of course she spoke! Anyone who would go to the trouble of
copying Mrs. Prentice's distinctive cloak would realize that some
additional disguise was necessary. Last night, if you remember, was
quite cold. Therefore it would be quite natural that the woman who
impersonated Mrs. Prentice should have her collar turned up around her
face and probably a drooping hat as well. The collar, in addition to
concealing her features, would muffle her voice, while the watchman, not
suspecting anything, would take it for granted that the green cloak was
worn by the wife of the Under Secretary--particularly when she spoke to
him in passing."
"You mean, then, that some one deliberately impersonated Mrs. Prentice
and took a chance on getting past the watchman merely because she wore a
cloak of the same color?"
"The same color--the same style--practically the same coat," argued Miss
James. "What's more, any woman who would have the nerve to try that
would probably watch Prentice's office from the outside, wait for the
light to go out, and then stage her visit not more than five minutes
later, so's to make it appear plausible. How was the safe opened?"
"Stethoscope. Placed the cup on the outside, and then listened to the
tumblers as they fell. Simplest thing in the world with an antiquated
box like that."
"What's missing?"
By this time Taylor felt that their positions had been reversed. He, who
had come to question, was now on the witness stand, while Madelaine
James was doing the cross-examining. But he didn't mind. He knew the way
the girl's mind worked, quickly and almost infallibly--her knowledge of
women in general and Washington society in particular making her an
invaluable ally in a case like this.
"A slip of paper some six inches long and two inches wide," he said,
with a smile. "The key to the Carruthers Code, probably the most
efficient cipher in the world, but now rendered worthless unless the
original slip is located before it reaches some foreign power."
"Right!" snapped Miss James. "Get busy on your end of the matter. See
what you can find out concerning this mysterious woman in the green
cloak. I'll work along other and what you would probably call strictly
unethical lines. I've got what a man would term a 'hunch,' but in a
woman it is 'intuition'--and therefore far more likely to be right. See
you later!" and with that she was off toward her car.
"But what about your luncheon engagement?" Taylor called after her.
"Bother lunch," she laughed back over her shoulder. "If my hunch is
right I'll make your chief pay for my meals for the next year!"
The next that Taylor heard from his ally was a telephone call on the
following evening, instructing him to dig up his evening clothes and to
be present at a certain reception that evening.
"I have reason to believe," said Madelaine's voice, "that the lady of
the second green cloak will be present. Anyhow, there'll be several of
your friends there--including myself, Mrs. Armitage, and an ambassador
who doesn't stand any too well with the Administration. In fact, I have
it on good authority that he's on the verge of being recalled. Naturally
we don't want him to take a slip of paper, some six inches by two, with
him!"
"How do you know he hasn't it already?"
"He doesn't return from New York until six o'clock this evening, and the
paper is far too valuable to intrust to the mails or to an underling.
Remember, I'm not certain that it is he who is supposed to get the paper
eventually, but I do know who impersonated Mrs. Prentice, and I likewise
know that the lady in question has not communicated with any foreign
official in person. Beyond that we'll have to take a chance on the
evening's developments," and the receiver was replaced before Taylor
could frame any one of the score of questions he wanted to ask.
Even at the reception that night he was unable to get hold of Madelaine
James long enough to find out just what she did know. In fact, it was
nearly midnight before he caught the signal that caused him to enter one
of the smaller and rather secluded rooms apart from the main hall.
There he found a tableau that was totally unexpected.
In one corner of the room, her back against the wall and her teeth bared
in a snarl which distorted her usually attractive features into a mask
of hate, stood Mrs. Armitage. Her hands were crossed in front of her in
what appeared to be an unnatural attitude until Taylor caught a glimpse
of polished steel and realized that the woman had been handcuffed.
"There," announced Madelaine, "in spite of your friend the watchman,
stands 'Mrs. Prentice.' You'll find the green cloak in one of the
closets at her home, and the stethoscope is probably concealed somewhere
around the house. However, that doesn't matter. The main thing is that
we have discovered the missing slip of paper. You'll find it on the
table over there."
Taylor followed the girl's gesture toward a table at the side of the
room. But there, instead of the cipher key that he had expected, he saw
only--a gold bracelet!
"What's the idea?" he demanded. "Where's the paper?"
"Snap open the bracelet," directed the girl. "What do you see?"
"It looks like--by gad! it is!--a tightly wrapped spindle of paper!" and
a moment later the original of the Carruthers Code reposed safely in the
Secret Service agent's vest pocket. As he tossed the empty bracelet back
on the table he heard a sound behind him and turned just in time to see
the woman in the corner slip to the floor in a dead faint.
"Now that we've got her," inquired Madelaine James, "what'll we do with
her?"
"Take off the handcuffs, leave the room, and close the door," directed
Taylor. "She'll hardly care to make any fuss when she comes to, and the
fact that she is unconscious gives us an excellent opportunity for
departing without a scene."
"But what I'd like to know," he asked, as they strolled back toward the
main ballroom, "is how you engineered the affair?"
"I told you I had an intuition," came the reply, "and you laughed at me.
Yes you did, too! It wasn't apparent on your face, but I could feel that
inside yourself you were saying, 'Just another fool idea.' But Mrs.
Armitage was preying on my mind. I didn't like the way she had slipped
one over on us in connection with the leak on the peace note. Then, too,
she seemed to have no visible means of support, but plenty of money.
"I felt certain that she wasn't guilty of blackmail or any of the more
sordid kinds of crime, but the fact that she was on terms of familiarity
with a number of diplomats, and that she seemed to have a fondness for
army and navy officials, led me to believe that she was a sort of super
spy, sent over here for a specific purpose. The instant you mentioned
the Carruthers Code she sprang to my mind. A bill, slipped into the
fingers of her maid, brought the information about the green cloak, and
the rest was easy.
"I figured that she'd have the cipher key on her to-night, for it was
her first opportunity of passing it along to the man I felt certain she
was working for. Sure enough, as she passed him about half an hour ago
she tapped her bracelet, apparently absent-mindedly. As soon as he was
out of sight I sent one of the maids with a message that some one wanted
to see her in one of the smaller rooms. Thinking that it was the
ambassador, she came at once. I was planted behind the door, handcuffed
her before she knew what I was doing, and then signaled you!
"Quite elementary, my dear Melville, quite elementary!"
* * * * *
"That," added Quinn, "was the last they heard of Mrs. Armitage. Taylor
reported the matter at once, but the chief said that as they had the
code they better let well enough alone. The following day the woman left
Washington, and no one has heard from her since--except for a package
that reached Taylor some months later. There was nothing in it except
that photograph yonder, and, as Taylor was interested only in his bride,
_nee_ Madelaine James, he turned it over to me for my collection."
XXIV
FIVE INCHES OF DEATH
"Quinn," I said one evening when the veteran of the United States Secret
Service appeared to be in one of his story-spinning moods, "you've told
me of cases that have to do with smuggling and spies, robberies and
fingerprints and frauds, but you've never mentioned the one crime that
is most common in the annals of police courts and detective bureaus."
"Murder?" inquired Quinn, his eyes shifting to the far wall of his
library-den.
"Precisely. Haven't government detectives ever been instrumental in
solving a murder mystery?"
"Yes, they've been mixed up in quite a few of them. There was the little
matter of the Hallowell case--where the crime and the criminal were
connected by a shoelace--and the incident of 'The Red Circle.' But
murder, as such, does not properly belong in the province of the
government detective. Only when it is accompanied by some breach of the
federal laws does it come under the jurisdiction of the men from
Washington. Like the Montgomery murder mystery, for example."
"Oh yes, the one connected with the postmark that's framed on your wall
over there!" I exclaimed. "I'd forgotten about that. Hal Preston handled
it, didn't he--the same man responsible for running down 'The Trail of
the White Mice'?"
"That's the one," said Quinn, and I was glad to see him settle
luxuriously back in his old armchair--for that meant that he was
preparing to recall the details of an adventure connected with a member
of one of the government detective services.
* * * * *
If it hadn't been for the fact that Preston was in California at the
time, working on the case of a company that was using the mails for
illegal purposes, it is extremely doubtful if the mystery would ever
have been solved [Quinn continued]; certainly not in time to prevent the
escape of the criminal.
But Hal's investigations took him well up into the foot-hills of the
Sierra Nevadas, and one morning he awoke to find the whole town in which
he was stopping ablaze with a discussion of the "Montgomery mystery," as
they called it.
It appeared from the details which Preston picked up in the lobby of his
hotel that Marshall Montgomery had settled down in that section of the
country some three years before, but that he had surrounded himself with
an air of aloofness and detachment which had made him none too popular.
Men who had called to see him on matters of business had left smarting
under the sting of an ill-concealed snub, while it was as much as a book
agent's life was worth to try to gain entrance to the house.
"It wasn't that he was stingy or close-fisted," explained one of the men
who had known Montgomery. "He bought more Liberty Bonds than anyone else
in town--but he bought them through his bank. Mailed the order in, just
as he did with his contributions to the Red Cross and the other
charitable organizations. Wouldn't see one of the people who went out to
his place. In fact, they couldn't get past the six or eight bulldogs
that guard the house."
"And yet," said Preston, "I understand that in spite of his precautions
he was killed last night?"
"Nobody knows just when he was killed," replied the native, "or how.
That's the big question. When his servant, a Filipino whom he brought
with him, went to wake him up this morning he found Montgomery's door
locked. That in itself was nothing unusual--for every door and window in
the place was securely barred before nine o'clock in the evening. But
when Tino, the servant, had rapped several times without receiving any
reply, he figured something must be wrong. So he got a stepladder,
propped it up against the side of the house, and looked in through the
window. What he saw caused him to send in a hurry call for the police."
"Well," snapped Preston, "what did he see?"
"Montgomery, stretched out on the floor near the door, stone dead--with
a pool of blood that had formed from a wound in his hand!"
"In his hand?" Preston echoed. "Had he bled to death?"
"Apparently not--but that's where the queer angle to the case comes in.
The door was locked from the inside--not only locked, but bolted, so
there was no possibility of anyone having entered the room. The windows
were tightly guarded by a patented burglar-proof device which permitted
them to be open about three inches from the bottom, but prevented their
being raised from the outside."
"Was there a chimney or any other possible entrance to the room?"
"None at all. Three windows and a door. Montgomery's body was sprawled
out on the rug near the doorway--a revolver in his right hand, a bullet
hole through the palm of his left. The first supposition, of course,
was that he had accidentally shot himself and had bled to death. But
there wasn't enough blood for that. Just a few drops on the table and a
small pool near the body. They're going to hold an autopsy later in the
day and--"
It was at that moment that the Post-office operative became conscious
that some one was calling his name, and, turning, he beckoned to the
bell-boy who was paging him.
"Mr. Preston? Gentleman over there'd like to speak to you." Then the boy
added in a whisper, "Chief o' police."
Excusing himself, Preston crossed the lobby to where a large and
official-looking man was standing, well out of hearing distance of the
guests who passed.
"Is this Mr. Preston of the Postal Inspection Service?" inquired the
head of the local police force, adding, after the government operative
had nodded. "I am the chief of police here."
"Glad to meet you, Chief," was Preston's response. "I haven't had the
pleasure of making your acquaintance, though of course I know you by
sight." (He neglected to add how recently this knowledge had been
acquired.) "What can I do for you?"
"Have you heard about the murder of Montgomery Marshall?"
"Only the few details that I picked up in the lobby just now. But a case
of that kind is entirely out of my line, you know."
"Ordinarily it would be," agreed the other, "but here's something that I
think puts a different complexion on things," and he extended a
bloodstained scrap of paper for Preston to examine.
"That was found under the dead man's hand," the chief continued. "As you
will note, it originally formed part of the wrapping of a
special-delivery parcel which reached Montgomery about eight o'clock
last night--just before the house was locked up, in fact. Tino, the
Filipino servant, signed for it and took it in, placing it upon the
table in the room in which his master was found this morning. The scrap
of paper you are holding is just enough to show the postmark
'Sacramento'--but it's quite evident that the package had something to
do with the murder."
"Which is the reason that you want me to look into it, eh?"
"That's the idea. I knew that you were in town, and the very fact that
this box came through the mails makes it necessary for the Post-office
Department to take cognizance of what otherwise would be a job for the
police force alone. Am I right?"
"Perfectly," replied Preston. "Provided you have reason to believe that
there was some connection between the special-delivery package and the
crime itself. What was in the box?"
"Not a thing!"
"What?"
"Not a thing!" repeated the chief. "Perfectly empty--at least when we
found it. The lid was lying on the table, the rest of the box on the
floor. The major portion of the wrapping paper had been caught under a
heavy paper weight and it appears that Montgomery, in falling, caught at
the table to save himself and probably ripped away the scrap of paper I
have just given you."
"But I thought his body was found near the door?"
"It was, but that isn't far from the table, which is jammed against the
wall in front of one of the windows. Come on up to the house with me
and we'll go over the whole thing."
Glad of the excuse to look into a crime which appeared to be
inexplicable, Preston accompanied the chief to the frame dwelling on the
outskirts of town where Montgomery Marshall, hermit, had spent the last
three years of his life.
The house was set well back from the road, with but a single gateway in
a six-foot wall of solid masonry, around the top of which ran several
strands of barbed wire.
"Montgomery erected the wall himself," explained the chief. "Had it put
up before he ever moved into the house, and then, in addition, kept a
bunch of the fiercest dogs I ever knew."
"All of which goes to prove that he feared an attack," Preston muttered.
"In spite of his precautions, however, they got him! The question now
is: Who are 'they' and how did they operate?"