THE TRAITOR UNMASKED
With his fingers across his lips, Cole enjoined silence. His glance
darted quickly over the floor, the ceiling and the walls. He moved
hither and thither, looking behind desks and filing cases. Finally he
stepped behind Carlin’s desk and gazed speculatively at a panel of
grille work in the wall. He held his hand before it and felt a strong
draft of fresh air. It was obviously a ventilating shaft, and the force
of the current suggested that air was driven into it by fans.
He whirled round and whispered to Carlin and the girl. “Talk,” he said,
“talk on any subject but the one you’re thinking on. Be as natural as
you can.”
Carlin showed plainly that he did not understand, but he nodded
obediently. Cole tiptoed to a typewriter desk in the rear, and in one
of the drawers he found a box containing a number of small tools.
Selecting a screw driver, he went back to the air shaft and loosened
several of the screws that held the grilled panel. In a few moments he
could bend it outward, and now he inserted his hand and ran it up and
down the sides of the shaft.
“Any more of that sauterne left?” he heard Carlin ask the girl.
“About a dozen bottles, I think.”
“We’ll instruct the chef to have it served after the fish course. Just
to celebrate the occasion, you know. Afterward——”
The lawyer ran on with the dogged air of a soldier obeying orders that
he doesn’t understand; but Cole heard no more. A sudden tensing of his
body hinted that he had verified a suspicion. He had found a small
metal disk attached to the opposite side of the air shaft, and to it
was affixed a wire that extended upward. A serio-comic smile twisted
his lips as he rejoined Carlin and Miss Brown. “Guess what I found,” he
said in a whisper.
The other two stared.
“An amplifying disk and a wire that seems to run out on the roof. A
dictaphone in other words. There may be others scattered throughout the
place. My little ruse has shown that these walls have ears.”
The lawyer was too astounded for words. Miss Brown looked fixedly at
Cole, her lips trembling a little at the corners.
“Did I hear you say something about sauterne?” asked Cole in his usual
speaking voice, at the same time motioning them to step farther away
from the shaft in which the disk was hidden. “Favorite drink of mine,
though I take only an occasional drop of such things.” Again he lowered
his voice. “To-night I shall get out on the roof and see where the wire
runs to. Carlin, this is additional proof that there is a renegade
in our midst. The man who posted the hunchback on how to get in here
probably installed the dictaphone. It isn’t safe for us to make a
single move until we have singled him out and rendered him harmless.
We must attend to that even before we consider what is to be done with
the body of Reeves.”
Carlin still seemed a trifle dazed. “You are right, of course,” he
said. “We must get rid of the blackguard at once. It is startling to
think that any one in our organization may be the traitor. How are we
going to find him?”
“Leave that to me.” Cole’s narrowing gaze slanted upward, as if his
thoughts were on the track of an idea. “I have noticed that a man of
that kind nearly always has a flaw in him of some sort. Generally that
flaw is cowardice. That gives us an advantage over him, right at the
start. We’ll play on his cowardice and make him betray himself.”
The lawyer looked somewhat dubious. “How?” he asked.
“I haven’t studied out the details yet,” said Cole, but the slow
twinkle in his eye told that the idea was assuming shape. “You sowed
the seed of a plan in my mind when you mentioned sauterne. But don’t
expect anything spectacular. Sometimes simple measures work best. Can
you arrange to have the whole organization here for dinner?”
The lawyer fingered his chin in a bewildered way. “It could be managed.
Most of them have planned to attend, anyway.”
“Splendid! Now, Carlin, since I am to take charge of the work here,
it would seem only fitting that everybody should drink my health in
sauterne, wouldn’t it?”
“Cer—certainly,” stammered Carlin.
“You could propose the toast yourself. I know you will do it
charmingly. And I want you to see to it that everybody is invited to
drink, including the waiters and the kitchen help. You could explain
that the toast is to be a sort of pledge of allegiance.”
The lawyer looked blinkingly at Cole, searching his face in vain for a
sign that he was jesting.
“I’m not sure there is enough sauterne to go around,” observed Miss
Brown, who evidently shared Carlin’s stupefaction.
“Then use smaller glasses,” suggested Cole. “Besides, in an emergency
the wine can be thinned out. I think you said there were a dozen
bottles. That ought to be enough for one round. I can almost taste
that sauterne already.” He smacked his lips as he consulted his watch.
“Carlin, I wonder if you would mind telephoning my landlady, Gramercy
0099, to see if any messages have been received for me. The bright
youngster who is watching Doctor Latham’s house may have been trying to
reach me. In the meantime, Miss Brown, I am going to ask you to come
with me to the dining room. I want to get a general idea of the seating
arrangement.”
With a long, wondering glance at Cole, the girl conducted him from the
office, while Carlin cleared his husky throat in preparation for the
task assigned him.
“You are a very deep person, Mr. Cole,” the girl observed, as she led
him into the dining room, where tables were set in horseshoe formation.
“I have a suspicion that you are keeping a perfectly gorgeous scheme
all to yourself.”
Cole smiled thinly, while his glance roved over snow-white napery and
brightly polished silver. At times Miss Brown had a naïveté about her
that he found rather alluring.
“I’ll take you into the secret in a few moments,” he promised. “One
confidence deserves another, however. How much longer must I go on
calling you Miss Brown?”
“Don’t you like the name?”
“I do not. I suspect you invented it on the spur of the moment the
other night. It served well enough for a temporary acquaintanceship,
but now its usefulness is past.”
“True,” she admitted. “It was an awkward alias, anyhow. How do you like
Merle Brownell?”
“Much better. One syllable more or less makes a lot of difference at
times. I take it you are the high priestess of The Unknown Seven?”
“Oh, no! I’m only an odd-job expert. My father, who died three years
ago, was the founder of the organization. I have hung around, more
or less, ever since. Most of the time I suspect I am in the way, but
occasionally I manage to make myself useful.”
Cole regarded her with a look that seemed to say, “You’ll pass.”
“You promised to take me into your secret,” she reminded him. “Aren’t
you afraid? How do you know that I’m not the traitor, or traitoress?”
“I know,” said Cole firmly, “but don’t ask me how I know. By the way,
Miss Brownell,” and Cole lowered his voice several octaves, “I see the
wineglasses haven’t been placed yet. Don’t you think you had better
speak to the chef about the sauterne?”
She gave him a puzzled look, then a roguish smile illuminated her
face. “I’m beginning to think the sauterne is the chief ingredient in
that brilliant idea of yours,” she declared, as she left the room. A
few moments later Cole followed, turning toward the laboratory which
Carlin had so proudly shown him. At one wall were several shelves on
which bottles were placed in long rows. After studying the labels, Cole
selected one of the bottles and put it in his pocket.
Miss Brownell was supervising the placing of the wineglasses when he
returned to the dining room. He stood aside and watched silently until
the task was finished and the waiter had left the room. Then he took
the bottle from his pocket and stepped to the table.
“Please guard the door,” he told Miss Brownell, speaking in very low
tones. “If any one wants to enter, keep him out on any pretext you
like.”
She watched him in astonishment while he went to work. The bottle
contained a colorless liquid, and with great care he poured a few drops
into each wineglass.
“Are you going to poison us?” she asked. There was a secretive air
about Cole that seemed to prohibit talking aloud.
“No, the stuff’s harmless. Nothing but spirits of hartshorn. It will
mix with the wine, but only a person with a very sensitive tongue will
notice the queer taste. Such a person, if there should be one among us
this evening, will notice that the wine has an odd flavor, but that’s
all. He won’t be able to identify the added ingredient. The quantity is
too slight.”
“That makes everything very clear of course,” remarked Miss Brownell.
“About as clear as mud.”
Cole went calmly on with his work. “I suppose it has often occurred
to you, Miss Brownell, that the imagination is a great aid to one’s
senses. Tell a person there’s a fire in the next room, and he will
instantly smell smoke, even though he may not have noticed it before.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with what you are doing.”
“A very great deal. When these glasses have been filled with wine, a
person, taking a casual sip of the concoction, will not notice the
queer taste. If he is told, after the second or third sip, that he
has drunk poisoned wine, the peculiar taste will become noticeable at
once. Without stopping to try to identify the queer flavor, he will
instantly become convinced that he has been poisoned, especially if the
circumstances are such that he already has reason to fear that some
such thing is going to happen to him. That’s what imagination does to a
person.”
“Is this some kind of psychological experiment?”
“In a way.” Cole had reached the last glass and was now putting the
bottle in his pocket. “Incidentally it is interesting to note that a
person with an uneasy conscience always has a lively imagination. Not
only can he spot real dangers a mile off, but his guilty conscience
is constantly surrounding him with imaginary ones. It’s a lucky
thing, too. If it wasn’t for such frailties in the human make-up,
we detectives would lose our reputation for achieving brilliant
deductions.”
Miss Brownell smiled soberly as they walked out. “I think we are
going to have a most interesting dinner,” she murmured. “I hope your
psychological experiment will succeed, Mr. Cole. I must run off now and
powder my nose.”
Cole slipped back to the laboratory and replaced the bottle. A few
moments later he met Carlin in the corridor. The lawyer told him that
he had called up Cole’s landlady, but no messages had been received for
him.
“That means Doctor Latham has made no move yet,” said Cole
thoughtfully. “He plays a slow and sure hand.”
The lawyer nodded. “Your landlady seemed quite distracted over the
robbery,” he announced.
“She isn’t the only one. I bet Toots is the most distracted female in
the world, just now.” Cole gazed gloomily into space, and then a tall,
broad-shouldered man approached with an easy swagger. Cole’s lips
twisted into a reminiscent smile, as he recognized the surgeon.
“Hello, Ballinger,” said the lawyer. “Shake hands with Kingdon Cole if
you dare. I wouldn’t blame him if he were to shoot you on sight, but he
has a forgiving disposition. Cole has just agreed to become one of us.”
“Splendid!” ejaculated the doctor, and the two men shook hands. As
their fingers touched, Cole experienced that indescribable something
that comes from contact with a man of strong personal magnetism.
Ballinger’s grip could not have been called energetic, but it
transmitted a subtle electric current.
“You are tackling a man-size job,” remarked the doctor after Carlin
had withdrawn. “You will have a chance to match your wits against the
infernal cleverness of the astutest rogue in the country. I suppose
Carlin has explained the situation to you?”
“He has only given me a few hints. There hasn’t been time for detailed
explanations. All I know is that a colossal project of some sort is on
foot, and that The Unknown Seven is trying to put a crimp in it.”
Ballinger took his arm and led him to the smoking room. He extended
his cigar case, and Cole noticed that his fingers were long, slim,
and finely tapering, the fingers of one having a deft touch, a strong
imagination, and a lively dramatic instinct. Again Cole saw that
Ballinger’s resemblance to Doctor Latham was very slight, extending
only to outward physique. It was the disguise, and the black beard in
particular that had produced the likeness.
“Too bad about poor Reeves,” murmured Ballinger, as he held a lighted
match in his cupped hands. “His life, however, would have been only a
burden to himself and others, so in one sense it is just as well that
he was shuffled off. For professional reasons I regret his death very
keenly. I had hopes of being able to restore his brain to some degree
of normal functioning. If I had succeeded I think he would have told us
a most interesting story, and that, of course, was just what the other
side feared. However, his actions told us a great deal the other night.”
“When he seemed to recognize Doctor Latham in you?”
“Exactly. To that extent the experiment was a complete success. It was
Carlin’s idea, and the credit belongs to him. I merely carried out his
suggestions, and I didn’t particularly relish the task.” He chuckled
apologetically. “Well, the murder of Reeves is additional proof of
the fact that we are fighting a crowd of very ingenious and utterly
conscienceless scoundrels. Evidently they are directed by a master
mind, a genius of the kind we often read about, but seldom meet. You
will admit there’s a great deal of fascination about a rascal of that
type, Cole?”
Cole did not answer, but he remembered the magnetic tug he had felt in
Doctor Latham’s presence.
“I almost envy you the exciting times you will have tracking this
master mind to his lair,” Ballinger went on. “We know some of the
smaller fry in the crowd, Professor Carmody, for instance, but our
efforts won’t lead anywhere until we have found the directing genius.
And when we have found him, Cole, we will be face to face with an
interesting character. Brilliant, resourceful, unscrupulous, and full
of bewildering subtleties, the kind that kills without hesitation the
moment his plans are interfered with. I dare say you have already
suspected who he is?”
Ballinger’s eyes shone with a fine glow of enthusiasm, but it was the
unimpassioned enthusiasm of a scientist who dissects and analyzes.
“Perhaps,” said Cole guardedly. “Haven’t you?”
Ballinger smiled queerly, but the opening of the door and the
announcement that dinner was served forestalled a reply. In the
corridor they were parted by a stream of people, and Cole found an
opportunity to speak a few words in Carlin’s ear. The lawyer nodded
bewilderedly, like one receiving instructions which he does not
understand. He knew Cole had a plan of some sort, but he could not make
even a guess as to what it was.
There were some twenty-five or thirty at the table. Cole found himself
seated between Miss Brownell and Carlin. Inwardly he felt a tingling
sensation, as he contemplated the bombshell he was about to explode
among the diners, but his face showed no sign of it. Now and then he
stole a glance down the two wings of the table. He liked the faces of
the men with whom he was to work. They were an alert, keen-eyed lot,
the kind of men Cole himself would have selected.
“You are a judge of faces,” whispered Miss Brownell, leaning slightly
toward him. “Who is the traitor?”
Cole shook his head. That very question had already occurred to him.
There was not one in the gathering who by his looks could be singled
out as the traitor.
“Whom would you pick?” he whispered back.
Her glance ran quickly up and down the table. He could see that her
woman’s intuition was at work. A queer gleam came into her eyes; her
face hardened for a moment. He tried to trace her glance, but it was
too late.
“It wouldn’t be fair to tell, would it?” she said evasively. “I may be
wrong, you know.”
Cole only smiled. As nearly as he had been able to tell, her glance had
rested for an instant somewhere near the center of the left wing of the
table. He scanned the faces of the men seated there, but none of them
impressed him unfavorably, and he wondered what Miss Brownell could
have based her guess on.
The dinner progressed by easy stages, and the scene which Cole had been
rehearsing in his mind was drawing near. Carlin, seated at his right,
looked nervous, and Miss Brownell’s usually vivacious manner seemed
somewhat dampened. Finally the sauterne was opened and the waiters
filled the glasses. Carlin cleared his throat.
Noisy applause greeted the lawyer’s announcement that Cole had
accepted the management of The Unknown Seven’s activities. Then Carlin
proposed a toast, and it was drunk standing. Cole watched the faces
of the men as they quaffed their wine. In several of them he saw a
vaguely wondering look, telling him that their senses had registered
an impression so faint that as yet their minds had not grasped it. He
sipped his own wine, and he wondered whether he would have been able to
taste the foreign substance if he had not known it was there.
When Carlin finished, Cole got to his feet amid renewed handclapping.
Somewhat bluntly he thanked them for the ovation, and then he veered
sharply to the subject uppermost in his mind.
“I wonder,” he said, “how many of you can look me straight in the eye
and tell me that you are loyal to this organization.”
A breathless hush followed. His very quiet tones had created a profound
impression. In the next instant every pair of eyes in the room was
leveled at him without wavering.
“It seems to be unanimous,” he observed dryly. “One can lie, however,
with his eyes as well as with his tongue, and I know that one among you
is a liar.”
Another period of silence followed, and then came a scraping of feet
and exclamations of incredulity. Cole held up a silencing hand. His
eyes were everywhere, noting each shifting expression in the startled
faces before him.
“One of you has proven false to the organization,” he declared in
short-clipped accents. “I discovered it only a little while ago. I
found positive proof, not only of the treachery, but of the traitor’s
identity as well. He is at this table. He was one of those who only a
few moments ago looked me straight in the eyes. What shall we do with
him?”
Once more came an electric hush. Cole had spoken quietly, but with an
emphasis that carried conviction. He smiled faintly, as he met the
startled glances of the diners. A slight trace of the foreign substance
in the wine was still lingering on his tongue.
“What shall we do with him?” he asked again.
“There’s only one thing to do with a traitor,” muttered some one at
the farther end of the table, and the suggestion was followed by a
chorus of approval.
“And that thing has already been done,” declared Cole with grim
emphasis. “So that it may serve as a warning to others who may be
tempted to betray us, the traitor will die right before our eyes.
Inside one minute the poison that was put into his glass will begin to
take effect.”
Cole pretended to look at his watch, but his glance was gliding swiftly
over the two long rows of faces. He had spoken rapidly, and yet with a
quiet insistence, putting his astounding announcement into the fewest
possible words. The effect he hoped to produce depended upon a quick
assault on the guilty person’s mental faculties, shocking him off
his balance before he had time to digest the statement. In the acute
tension of the moment, the vague impression that he had received while
sipping his wine would suddenly crystallize, and then, with the fear of
death upon him, he could not help betraying himself.
At least such was the psychological effect Cole had intended, and he
had been reasonably sure that the test would succeed. Moments passed
while he stood, watch in hand, glancing out of the tail of an eye
at the faces around the table. Sixty seconds passed, and a look of
diffidence crossed his features. Here and there an impatient mutter was
heard. Carlin was looking up at him with an expression of thinly veiled
disappointment. At length Cole snapped the watch shut. He smiled rather
sheepishly.
“The trick didn’t work,” he said disgustedly. “Yes, I might as well
admit it was only a trick. The traitor was too clever to betray
himself.” With that he sat down, well aware that he had made an
unfavorable impression.
“It was too thin, Cole,” whispered Carlin in his ear. “Too bad you
didn’t consult me beforehand.”
Cole nodded dejectedly. Then he felt Miss Brownell’s gaze on his face.
He turned and saw a knowing twinkle in her eyes.
“It was very clever, Mr. Cole,” she whispered. But for all that her
face indicated she might have given him only a consoling platitude.
“You saw, of course?”
“Yes, I saw enough.” The sheepish grin still lingered on Cole’s lips.
“And you guessed right. The traitor is sitting near the center of the
left wing of the table. Doctor Ballinger is a very astute rascal. It
took him only a fraction of a second to see through my little bluff. He
is smiling behind his palm this very moment. We’ll just let him keep on
smiling for a while, eh, Miss Brownell?”