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Whispering Wires

by Henry Leverage · English · Gutenberg #34046 · 392,296 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Whispering Wires

Author: Henry Leverage


        
Release date: October 8, 2010 [eBook #34046]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34046

Credits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHISPERING WIRES ***


E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team (http://www.fadedpage.net)



WHISPERING WIRES

Adapted from the _Saturday Evening Post_ Story of the Same Title

by

HENRY LEVERAGE







New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Copyright, 1918,
by
Moffat, Yard & Company

First printing . . . . September, 1918
Second printing . . . . September, 1918
Third printing . . . . October, 1918




DEDICATED

TO

ONE WHO HELPED




CONTENTS

    I   "The Whispering Voice"           1
   II   "The Magpie"                    15
  III   "The Man in Olive-Drab"         31
   IV   "The Murder"                    46
    V   "The First Clews"               59
   VI   "Harry Nichols"                 74
  VII   "The Spot of Black"             89
 VIII   "Tangled Wires"                107
   IX   "Men and Motives"              124
    X   "A Woman Calls"                144
   XI   "The Closing Net"              181
  XII   "Suspicion Fastens"            202
 XIII   "A Silent Prisoner"            222
  XIV   "The Prisoner Speaks"          239
   XV   "The Voice on the Wire"        260
  XVI   "The End"                      277




WHISPERING WIRES




CHAPTER ONE

"THE WHISPERING VOICE"


In the greatest city of the modern world, in the Metropolis of Guilt
and Guile--where Alias and Alibi ride in gum-shod limousines while Mary
Smith of the pure heart walks the pavements with broken shoes--there is
a mansion so rich and so rare that it stands alone.

Turret and tower, green-bronze roof, Cararra-marbled portico and
iron-grilled gates brought from Hyderabad, have made this mansion the
show place and the Peri's paradise for those who parade the Avenue
called Fifth, in an unending sash of fashion.

Out from this palace at the close of a winter's day, there flashed the
tiny pulsations of voice-induced currents of electricity which reached
the telephone-central, were plugged upon the proper underground
paper-insulated wires and entered, even as the voice was speaking, the
cloud-hung office of Detective Drew.

Triggy Drew, as he was called, was dark, stout and forty-one years of
age to a month. He crooked his elbow, removed his cigar and pressed the
telephone-receiver to his ear.

The voice that came over the whispering wires was as clear as a bell
within a bell. It said:

"Montgomery Stockbridge wants you."

Drew hung up the telephone-receiver. He replaced the cigar in his
mouth. He wheeled in his chair and pressed a buzzer. To the operative
who entered he said:

"Delaney, watch things while I'm gone. I'm called up-town!"

The operative reached and handed Drew his coat. He took the
swivel-chair before the desk, as his chief clapped on a hat, turned his
eyes toward the ground-glass door, and passed out with a brisk stride.

"It's a big case," said Delaney leaning back. "Triggy is on somebody's
trail. Maybe German--maybe not!"

Drew nodded to the waiting operatives in the outer room of the suite.
He swung into the hallway with his brown eyes glowing like a man who
walked out of realism into romance.

The elevator plumbed eighteen stories. The corridor was clear. A taxi
stood at the curb. Into this Drew stepped, gave the address and was
gently seated as the driver released his brake, set the meter, and
dropped through first, second and into third speed.

Past Wall Street the taxi flashed. It rounded toward the Bowery, which
showed that the driver knew his map. It struck up through the car
tracks, across to Washington Park and there took the long longitude of
Fifth Avenue as the shortest and quickest way up-town.

Drew had no eye for the passers-by. He was repeating two words over and
over like a novice counting the same beads. Montgomery Stockbridge was
a name to conjure with in the Bagdad of Seven Million. He had made many
enemies and much money. His wealth ran well above seven figures.

The taxi came to a gliding halt. Drew stepped out in front of a church.
He tossed the driver two one-dollar bills and some silver. He waited as
the taxi merged in the traffic. He turned and glanced keenly up and
down the Avenue. Then he hurried north for one square, paused before
the mansion of turrets and towers, and pressed a button which was set
in the doorway.

The door opened to a crack, then wide. A butler barred the way. To him
Drew said, "Mr. Stockbridge sent for me."

The butler bowed with old world civility. He took the detective's hat
and coat. He waited until Drew removed his gloves. He bowed for a
second time and led the way over rugs whose pile was as thick as some
Persian temple's. They came finally, after an aisle of old masters, to
the inner circle of latter-day finance and money-wizardry--the
celebrated library of Montgomery Stockbridge.

The Munition Magnate sat there. He turned as the butler announced the
detective. He shot a gray-thatched pair of eyes up and over a mahogany
table upon which a white envelope lay. He smiled coldly. His thumb
jerked toward a leather chair into which Drew sank and leaned his
elbows upon the table.

Stockbridge coughed dryly. He blinked and studied the detective's face
for a long minute. He glanced from the envelope up at a cone of rose
light which hung from a cluster of electric-globes. His expression,
seen in this light, was like an aged lion brought to bay. His wrinkled
skin was tawny. His hands coiled and uncoiled like claws. They moved
prehensilely, as though cobwebs were in that perfumed air of wealth and
security. They poised over the envelope as if to snatch the secret or
delusion hidden there.

"See that letter!" declared the Munition Magnate, closing his fist and
banging the table. "See it? D'ye see it?"

Drew widened his eyes at the outburst. He crossed his legs and nodded.

"It's blackmail!" Stockbridge snarled. "Rank-scented blackmail of the
cheapest order."

"A threat of some kind?"

"Threat? Yes--a threat, in a way. It's clever, but it won't _work_ with
me!"

Drew recrossed his legs. He touched his short-cropped mustache with the
fingers of his right hand. He coughed as in suggestion. His brows
lifted as he studied the envelope from a distance.

Stockbridge snatched it up suddenly. He slapped it against the edge of
the polished table. He turned and found a cigar to his liking out of
many in a humidor beneath a smaller table at the right of his chair. He
bit on this cigar, struck a match, and dragged in the smoke with deep
inhalings before he turned and opened the envelope, exposing a letter
which he rapped with the knuckles of his left hand.

"I'll beg to be excused," he said half-apologetically. "I'm not myself.
This letter, you know. I want you to ferret it out. I want you to find
out who sent it, and make him or her pay. Make them pay in full!"

"May I see it?"

Stockbridge hesitated. His eyes ran across the paper. His lips curled
in an ugly, thin-visaged smile which wrinkled his yellow face. "See it?
Yes!" he snapped, volplaning the sheet across the table with a vicious
jerk of his wrist.

"Ridgewood Cemetery," said Drew lifting the letter. "Heading, Ridgewood
Cemetery," he repeated softly. "Dated yesterday," he added with a sly
glance at Stockbridge. "Signed by the superintendent, I suppose. Yes,
by the superintendent. He scrawls worse than I do. Well, it looks
official and smells--ah!"

Stockbridge worked his brows up and down like a gorilla. He chewed on
his cigar with savage grinding of gold-filled teeth.

"Smells graveyardy," continued Drew. "I get flowers and urns and
new-turned earth. This seems to be the bare announcement that the grave
you ordered dug in the family plot--is ready and waiting." Drew glanced
up.

"Quite so," sneered the Magnate.

Drew stroked his upper lip. He turned the letter over. He held it to
the rose-light and studied the water-mark. He raised his black brows
and said sepulchrally:

"Who is dead?"

Stockbridge stiffened. "Dead?" he exclaimed. "Why, nobody is dead! Damn
it, Drew, there's nobody dead at all!"

The detective frowned. "Somebody in the immediate family?" he
questioned. "Somebody you are expecting to pass away soon? Some one on
their sick-bed, for instance?"

Stockbridge snatched the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the rug.
"That letter's a stab, Drew!" he exclaimed. "It's a damn insult to me
and mine, if you want to know. I'll have the author of it, or know the
reason why. I'll spend fifty thousand to catch the miscreants. They'll
not monkey with me!"

"The writer of this seems to be the superintendent."

"Yes--that part's all right. He knows nothing save what you see there.
This threat concerns Loris and I. We are the only two who will ever be
buried in our family plot."

"What does she know? Has she seen this letter?"

"Yes!"

"Knows nothing about it?"

"Nothing."

"Has no enemies?"

"Certainly not! She's just a girl!" The Magnate's eyes softened
slightly. He glanced around for a cigar.

Drew laid the letter on the table. "It seems to me," he said, "that you
have not explained everything. When did you get this letter, Mr.
Stockbridge? What time did it arrive?"

"It came in the late mail last night. I showed it to Loris at supper.
Then I called up the cemetery people this morning. Got the
superintendent. He said that 'Dr. Conroy'--our family physician--'had
phoned him and ordered the grave dug.' Said, 'A death was about to
occur in the Stockbridge family.' Conroy never sent any such message!"

"Umph!" broke in Drew.

"Yes! He assured me of it. Was terribly put out!"

"It seems to me," said Drew, "that the entire matter is a practical
joke of the low order. I see nothing else to it--so far. It isn't even
clever."

"I'm not so sure," Stockbridge said huskily. "It may be _very_ clever.
It may mean that death is coming--to me or to Loris. There's men in
this city who are capable of anything!"

The break in the Magnate's voice brought Drew to the edge of his chair.

"Whom do you suspect?" he asked professionally. "Motive goes before
crime--you know. Sometimes a warning is sent--more often there is none.
Clever men do not telegraph a blow."

"I suspect the whole city!" declared Stockbridge.

Drew smiled sincerely. It was plainly evident that the Magnate was
suffering from the thrust about Loris and the graveyard. The detective
had never seen him so unsettled.

"How about Germans?" he asked. "You've made a lot of
ammunition--haven't you?"

"Ye--s. I've still holdings in Standard Shell, Preferred, and
Amalgamated Powder. Also, there is my interest in Flying Boat."

"Could the Germans be after you for any reason at all?"

The Magnate weighed the question from a score of angles. He reached and
secured a second cigar. "I don't think so," he said with a dark frown.
"I don't think they would bother with me. I'm more or less retired.
I've drawn out of a lot of things. Younger men are turning out the
ammunition now."

"Then which of your friends might be responsible for this letter?"

"Well put!" exclaimed Stockbridge. _"Friends_ may be right. Friends
now, or former friends who have rounded on me."

"Name some!"

"There's Morphy!"

"We settled him. We should never hear from him again."

"I'm not so sure! You don't know him like I know him. He's a vindictive
devil! He got ten to twenty years in state prison. You remember the
case. He lost his appeal to the Governor, only last week. I blocked it
through Tammany affiliations. You know what that fiend in stripes is
capable of doing. He would sell his soul to get me!"

Drew grew serious. "Yes, I know," he said.

"Then there is--well, there are others. Ten, at least! What man can
rise in this slippery city without pushing a few down the ladder? Wall
Street and Broad Street and New Street are full of curb-stone
blackmailers who knew me when I was struggling with my companies. They
saw me take chances they themselves feared to take. They hounded me,
then. Thank God, I got above them!"

Drew leaned over the table. "A few names," he said. "Something
specific. Who of all of them would be capable of phoning the cemetery,
representing himself to be your family physician and ordering the grave
dug? Who might think of a thing like that?"

"Well, there's Harry Nichols, for instance. He's an ass with a
champagne thirst and a shoestring salary. I threw him out of the house
the other day. He was calling on Loris. Think of that! He's probably
sworn to get me."

"How old is he?"

"About twenty-three--or four! Smokes, drinks and plays golf!"

"Name some others," suggested Drew artfully.

"Morphy!"

"I got him."

"Morphy's brother who escaped when we had Morphy indicted. I don't know
where he is. Then there's Vogel and Vogel's friends. Oh, there's a
pirate crew of them. Some were mixed up in the first Flying Boat
failure. They would all like to see me in Ridgewood Cemetery. I'll fool
them!"

"You've given me Harry Nichols, Morphy, Morphy's brother, Vogel and
Vogel's friends. That's four and a few outsiders. Can you think of any
more?"

"Not at present! One of them is responsible for this letter. I want you
to get busy. If you won't take the case, I'll get an agency that will.
There's plenty!"

"I'll handle it," said Drew, "when it gets to be a case. As it is now,
Mr. Stockbridge----"

"Buuurrruuurrr! Buuurrruuurrr! Buuurrruuurrr!"

The Magnate started. He lowered his cigar, balanced it on the edge of
the table, and turned slowly in his chair. He leaned over a smaller
table which was littered with bronze ash-trays and inlaid match-boxes.
He lifted the receiver of the insistent telephone. He pressed this to
his ear.

Drew watched him narrowly. The terseness of a static charge of high
voltage was in the great library. The face of the Munition Magnate grew
cold with hauteur. It changed over the seconds to venom and red anger.
His neck purpled. The diaphragm of the telephone instrument hissed its
message. His hand clutched the hard-rubber receiver with white
strength. A click followed as the connection was broken. Stockbridge
dropped the receiver upon the hook. He turned slowly and stared at Drew
with eyes that had aged over the moments. Wrinkles shot from their
corners. Sullen light gleamed in their yellow depths.

"What happened?" questioned Drew half rising from his chair and leaning
over. "Who phoned?"

The Magnate's chin described an upward arc. His lips grew firm. Bulges
showed at the sides of his jaw.

"What--who was it?" asked the detective.

Stockbridge stared at the letter upon the table. His neck changed from
purple to a pasty ochre. A green sheen, like of death, overspread his
crafty features. He was stricken with the clutch of fear.

Drew waited and thought rapidly. "What happened?" he asked with
persuasion. "Nothing serious--I hope?"

"Serious," said Stockbridge absently. "Serious!" he snarled. "Yes, it
was serious! It was a death threat! It was what I had expected. It
follows the letter. They--he will get me! He--he----"

"Who?" asked the detective.

Drew heard the table creaking as Stockbridge's muscles stiffened--as
the Magnate's hands clutched the edge of the polished surface.

"Who?" he repeated on the alert for possible clews.

"Who! I don't know! But they will--he will!"

"Easy," said Drew. "Take it easy, sir. This is a modern age. We are in
the heart of civilization. Nobody is going to _get_ you! I'll see to
that!"

"You can't see! This man knows everything. He said that I would be dead
within twelve hours. That I would be in my grave in seventy-two hours.
He mentioned the grave at Green--Ridgewood Cemetery. He gave secret
details of my life which few alone know. Early follies of mine. An
actress. A deal in War Babies and an electrical stock which was hushed
up. I was the silent partner in that. How should this man know all of
these things about me?"

"Just what did he say?"

"I've told you! He said enough! He threatened to kill me despite all
the precautions I would take. He said I was marked for a death which
all the police in the world couldn't solve. That I would be killed in
spite of every effort to save me. What is it--poison? Have I already
been given poison?"

Drew reached across the table and clutched the magnate's left wrist. He
pulled out a flat watch and timed the pulse. "Normal, almost," he said
softly. "You're normal, despite the shock. Your temperature is fair. I
don't think it was a toxin he meant. That deadens a man and brings slow
coma."

"Well, what did he mean?" The magnate had found his voice and his
old-time nerve. "What would you do in my case?" he said cunningly.

Drew glanced at the telephone. He raised his brows and swung,
full-staring, upon Stockbridge. His finger pointed between the
money-king's eyes. It was as steady as an automatic revolver.

"Did you recognize that voice?" he asked sharply. "Tell me the facts. I
can't go ahead unless you do. I must work from facts!"

"No!" declared Stockbridge. "No, I did not! I never heard it before.
I----"

"What was it like?"

"Hollow-whispering--almost feminine in tone. I thought it was a woman
at first. It wasn't, though! It was a man or boy."

"Have you told me everything?"

"Yes--except this man or boy--this whispering voice, wound up by
threatening to get my daughter, Loris, as soon as he finished with me.
Said he'd clean up with her!"

"I'll take the case!" snapped Drew.




CHAPTER TWO

"THE MAGPIE"


The Munition Magnate thrust a shaking hand toward the detective. "I'm
glad!" he declared raising his voice. "You did well in the Morphy case.
That's the reason I called upon you. Now find the miscreant or
miscreants, who telephoned the cemetery superintendent, and you'll not
be forgotten."

Drew glanced shrewdly at the 'phone. "May I use it?" he asked briskly.
"I'll try to trace that call."

Stockbridge moved his chair away from the little table. Drew glided
across the room, pressed the ash-trays and match-boxes to one side, and
picked up the receiver. He worked the hook up and down with his broad
thumb.

"Hello! Hello!" he repeated clicking the hook. "Hello, central! Hello!"

He glanced at Stockbridge as he waited. He frowned as he stooped and
spoke more directly into the transmitter. "Hello! Hello!"

"Something the matter?" asked the Magnate with quick suspicion. "Don't
they answer?"

"Hello! Hello! I Hello, there!" Drew glared at the transmitter, then
tapped the receiver against the silver-plated cover. "Hello!" he
shouted. "Damn it, Hello!"

He turned. "No go," he said thoughtfully. "Connection seems to be
broken. I'm talking right out into thin air. Wonder who cut your
wires?"

Stockbridge bristled. He slid forward in his great chair and stared at
the detective. "They're cut, eh?" he asked.

Drew set the 'phone on the table and turned. "Looks mighty like it," he
said. His eyes swung over the walls of the splendid room. They rested
upon a high, ebony stand with a belfry from which dangled a gilt spring
suspending an ornate bird cage. Out of this cage, a magpie peered with
beaded eyes. Its tail extended up through the bars like a feather from
a hat.

"My bird," said Stockbridge. "A tame magpie I brought from Spain. It
talks."

Drew raised his brows. He continued his search of the library. Its
wealth of books and paintings and antiques almost stunned him. "I'm
looking for another 'phone," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
"Have you another 'phone in this house?"

"Yes. Two more. This is Gramercy Hill 9763. The one in Loris' room is
Gramercy Hill 9764. Another in the butler's pantry, downstairs, is
9765. Perhaps the others are disconnected."

"We'll see. I want that call traced before it gets cold. I know a wire
chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange. He'll help if I can get him. Have your
butler show me his 'phone. Also, we better get a trouble-hunter, or
report the cut wires. Somebody will pay for this! It's an outrage and a
felony!"

Stockbridge moved his slippered foot and pressed a button under the
larger table. He waited, then pressed again. His eyes wavered about the
room. They fastened upon the portieres which draped from the pole
across the doorway leading into the hall. His tongue moistened dry lips
as he watched for the butler.

"I'll 'phone my office," said Drew hurriedly as steps were heard in the
hall. "I'll get up five operatives--no, six--right away. This all may
be a hoax, but I've lived forty-one years too long to overlook a threat
of this kind. Particularly when it concerns a man who has made as many
enemies as you have."

The butler parted the portieres as Drew ceased speaking. Stockbridge
nodded and indicated that the detective wanted to go downstairs. The
butler led the way to the lower telephone. Into this, Drew spoke
hurriedly and very much to the point. He secured three numbers in rapid
succession. He snapped his orders in a manner to set the cut-glass
tinkling on the pantry shelves. He hung up the receiver, glanced
shrewdly at the servants about, then climbed the stairs like a boy of
twelve.

"All is set!" he announced to Stockbridge as he entered the library and
crossed to the table. "All moving, now! My wire-chief had gone home. I
got the chief operator. She's going to send the first trouble-man
handy. Delaney will be up from the office with his flying squad. I left
it to him to arrange about tracing the call through a telephone
official. No use telling the chief operator too much. The official will
go right over her head and into the heart of the thing. Now,"--Drew
pulled down the lapels of his black coat and leaned over the Magnate.
"Now," he said with vigor, "now, what about your servants? I had a good
look at some of them. How about that English butler? How long have you
had him?"

"Ten years! Brought him over, myself. Wife picked the other servants.
They're all old, tried and trusted. I'll answer for them. She died
telling me to take care of them. I don't think her equal lived in
choosing help. It was uncanny!"

Drew stroked his cropped mustache. "Good!" he said. "That's fine! We'll
start with the supposition that they're _not_ guilty. Are any of them
of German birth?"

"My valet is part German, but he ran away to avoid their army. He hates
the Junker party. Says 'It is responsible for the War.'"

"How long have you had him?"

"Nine years."

"That should let him out. Well," Drew added with a sweeping glance
about the library, "well, these big windows--how about them?"

The detective advanced to the front of the room as he asked the
question. "Two," he mused. "Two bay-windows of the superior order.
Curtains very heavy and rich. There's a good catch on this one," he
added springing upon the radiator-box. "And a good catch on this one.
Both catches are closed. Seem to have been closed for some time. Here's
dust. High-class housekeeper, but I've got her here."

Drew smiled as he ran his fingers over the upper sash. He peered out
into the Avenue with its flowing tide of vehicles. He turned and said
to Stockbridge:

"Suppose you order your butler or doorman to shut the outside blinds.
It's getting dark and cold. I want to be sure that no one can get
through this way."

"Good," said Stockbridge reaching for the button with his toe. "Good!
We'll take every precaution. Twelve hours will show the thing one way
or the other. Twelve hours should do it."

The butler entered bearing a silver tray. He set this on a mahogany
tea-wagon and rolled it to the Magnate's chair. Drew frowned at the
sight of a black bottle and one glass. A signal of understanding had
been sent to the perfect servant.

Stockbridge moistened his thin lips thirstily. He whispered the
instructions concerning the blinds. The butler withdrew like a shadow
merging into a shadow. Drew shrugged his shoulders and went the round
of the library with the keen, trained scrutiny of a man-hunter and a
modern operative. He paused before a case of morocco-bound books.
"These cases?" he asked. "How about them? What's behind?"

"Books! Books!" shrilled the magpie.

Drew raised his brows and swung upon the bird.

"Books! Books!" repeated the pet. "Books, books, books!"

"Fine bird," said Drew with thought. "But what is behind the cases, Mr.
Stockbridge? I don't want to move them if the walls are all right."

A glass clicked against the silver tray as the Magnate answered
hastily:

"All right! They're all right. I was here when they were filled. I just
ordered so many feet of books. Six hundred feet, I think it was. I
never look at them. All that I ever read is the magazines and the
financial items in the newspapers."

"The pictures--paintings," Drew said.

"Pictures! Pictures!" repeated the magpie.

"Shut up!" snarled Stockbridge. "Keep quiet, Don!"

The bird ruffled its feathers and leaped to a top perch. It peered from
there at Drew, with its head cocked sideways.

"How about them?" repeated the detective.

"I had them hung by my orders," Stockbridge said. "They're all right.
Nothing but a strong wall behind. No need to bother about them."

"Everything is important," Drew suggested with a slight reproof in his
voice. "Trifles may make for the answer to the riddle."

"That Corot over there is no trifle. It cost me thirty-five thousand
dollars in France!"

Drew lifted the lower edge of the painting from the wall. Dust fell. He
pressed his face against the paper and looked behind the canvas.
Letting the frame back he tried the same operation with the other
paintings of size.

"No secret panel, or anything queer," he said finally as he dusted his
hands. "All's well with the walls. Now the floor. How about trapdoors?"

"Impossible!" Stockbridge exclaimed. "I'm sure these rugs have been
taken out and cleaned every time I go to my country-place. A trapdoor
would be noticed!"

"I'm trying to find out," suggested Drew glancing from the bottle to
the purple face of the Magnate. "Please answer me if you want to get
results. I've got to see that no one comes into this library for the
next twelve hours. After that period of time--we can breathe easier."

"Go on," said Stockbridge feeling the thrust.

"This door," Drew said. "The door to the hall. Can it be locked
securely?"

"Yes! It can be locked and bolted from the inside. I often lock myself
in--in----"

Stockbridge stiffened in his chair. He glanced toward the portieres. He
leaned forward and attempted to shield the view of the quarter-emptied
Bourbon-bottle and the used glass, as a girl in lavender and Irish-lace
swept into the room.

Drew recognized Loris Stockbridge from newspaper photos. He held his
breath as she glided by him, unseeingly. He touched his mustache and
waited. Her face, framed in close-drawn hair the color of midnight sky,
softened perceptibly as she swished round the great table in the center
of the library and laid an unjeweled hand upon her father's shoulder.

She turned with a start as she realized that Stockbridge was not alone.
Drew bowed with swift courtesy.

"Mr. Drew," said the Magnate. "Mr. Drew, my daughter, Loris."

Again the detective bowed. He met her level glance with a smile in his
brown eyes. She answered it and leaned over her father's shoulder. Drew
wheeled and fell to studying the titles on the books. He moved to the
magpie's cage. He extended one finger. The bird fluttered and sprang
from perch to perch.

Drew thrust his hands into his pockets. He heard Loris speaking in
terse, throaty tones to her father. He could not well avoid catching
the tenor of their conversation. It concerned the letter from the
cemetery and the threat of death within twelve hours, which the Magnate
repeated to her with a softness in his aged voice.

A gushing torrent of unbridled emotion poured down upon his gray head.
The girl paced the floor between the chair and the table. She fell to
her knees with swift grace.

"Be careful, father," she sobbed. "You must be so careful. Remember
you're all that I have, now. That letter and that telephone call means
that somebody is planning to destroy you. Oh, father, be careful. What
would happen if you were taken away from me?"

"You'd marry that cad--Nichols!" blurted Stockbridge. "I'm the one
thing that stands in his way. You'd marry him--wouldn't you?"

The girl rose proudly. Drew, from the shadow outside the rose-light,
studied the slender figure crowned with a close-drawn turban of
blue-black hair. His eyes ranged down to her slipper heels. They lifted
again. He stroked his chin as he waited for her answer. It came
truthfully enough and with high spirit.

"Yes, I'll marry him some day. I want your permission, but with it or
without it, father, I am going to marry him. He's a captain in the
Army. Doesn't that prove he is not all the things you said he was?"

"Good girl," said Drew in whispered admiration.

"It proves nothing!" exclaimed Stockbridge stiffening in his chair and
half rising. "He's a cad and an ass under all his uniform. He's too
poor to be considered for one moment. I want my daughter to marry----"

"Whom she pleases," said Loris. "Harry may be poor, but he's not too
proud to fight!"

"Bah! They get those uniforms so the girls will notice them. What does
he know about war?"

"He's been at Plattsburg for three months. He's in town on furlough.
He's helping us with Red Cross work. Isn't that noble!"

"That part's all right," said the Magnate. "I want you to keep him from
me, that's all. I believe he's half German!"

"He's not! Harry is all-American. His mother was born of German parents
in this country. His father was Canadian. You've heard of the Nichols
who built part of the Grand Trunk Railroad. Was he German?"

Stockbridge paled under the torrent which gushed from the girl's lips.

"Well, all right," he said resignedly. "Don't bring him here or allow
him to call. I've too much to think about to worry over Harry Nichols.
You better go to your room and think things over."

Loris glanced at her wrist-watch. She leaned with quick motion and
kissed her father on the forehead. She turned at the portieres and
threw back her head.

"Good-by, Mr. Drew," she said prettily. "I hope that you have not been
annoyed."

The detective, naturally quick at answering, found his tongue tied in
his mouth. He stammered a reply, which was too late. Loris swished
through the curtains, leaving the room empty for her passing.

"A mighty fine girl," was Drew's whispered comment. "They don't often
come like that. She's very high class. She's got spirit. I'd hate to
snatch a delusion from that young lady--Harry Nichols, for instance."

"Come here!" broke in Stockbridge.

Drew crossed the rugs. He stood by the magnate's side. He watched him
pour out a half-glass of Bourbon and take the whisky neat. He frowned.
"Well?" he asked.

"Not a word from your men or the telephone company?" asked Stockbridge,
wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That's queer, isn't it?"

Drew took out his watch. He replaced it after a glance at the dial. His
eyes wandered to a little Sevres clock on a book-case. "It's time for
both," he said. "It's----"

"There's somebody now--go see," Stockbridge whispered tersely.
"Somebody is in the hallway."

The portieres parted and revealed the beef-red face of the English
butler. He advanced a step.

"The trouble-man from the telephone company is 'ere, sir," he said.
"'E's 'ere! 'E's been hover the junctions in the halley, sir. 'E's
looked at the junction-box. 'E says, sir, there's no trouble there. 'E
says 'it must be in 'ere, sir.'"

"In 'ere, sir," repeated the magpie with a loud squawking and rustle of
wings. "Junction-box! Junction-box!" it cried with its head through the
gilded bars.

"Shut up, Don!" ordered Stockbridge. "Be a good bird," he added
sharply. "Now, Straker, you may show the trouble-hunter up."

"Trouble-hunter! Trouble-hunter!" echoed the magpie.

Drew, somewhat amused, thrust his hands in the pockets of his coat and
eyed the opening between the curtains. A click of tools sounded
metallically. A shambling step was in the hallway.

"This woiy," said the butler in a superior tone. "Right this woiy,
you!"

The portieres parted. A slouching figure, with a greasy cap drawn far
down over the eyes, entered the library with a lineman's satchel on his
hip. He swung the strap from his shoulder, glanced at Stockbridge and
then at the detective. He dropped the satchel to the floor and
scratched his head.

"Take a look at this 'phone," said Drew. "Go over the wires. Look for
any cuts. The trouble ought not to be in here."

Stockbridge rose and made room for the lineman, who lifted the satchel
and strode to the 'phone. He dropped to one knee by the little table.
He fished forth a testing-set from his shirt. It was bound with two
leads of cotton-insulated wire.

"I'll test here," he suggested, clamping a set of claws into the wires
which came through the molding and entered the ringing-box.

"Hello!" he said. "Hello, this you, Saidee? Say, Saidee, give me
Franklin Official, seventeen. Yes ... all right! Hello! This you,
Tupper? Say, Tupper, I went over the junction-box in the alley back of
the house. Everything O. K. there. I'll go over the leads in the house.
Loose connection somewhere, I guess."

A clicking of tools followed as the lineman selected a pair of pliers.
They rattled over the binding-posts at the receiver. They tightened the
connections. He went over the transmitter, and then every inch of the
exposed wiring. He removed the cover of the ringing-box and examined
the connections. Replacing this cover, he rose with a puzzled
expression.

"All right," he said to Stockbridge, who was standing with his back
turned. "It's all right here, sir. I don't find a thing. See--it's all
right."

The trouble-hunter lifted the receiver from the hook. "Hello," he said
in a low voice. "Hello, Saidee. Say, Saidee, what number is this on
your board?"

The lineman glanced around the room. His eyes widened. He whistled with
naive admiration. "Hello," he said softly. "Yes ... Gramercy Hill 9763.
That's right. O.K. Tell Franklin Official--tell Tupper that I took
forty minutes on the job. Forty minutes at time and a half. Don't
forget that. Yes ... bridle--everything, all right, Saidee. See you
later."

The trouble-hunter reached for his satchel. He hitched it over his
shoulder.

"Hold on!" said Drew. "What _was_ the trouble? Why couldn't we get
Central?"

"You can search me--sir. It wasn't in this room, mister. That's a
Western-Union cinch!"

"Where was it?"

"I don't know."

"How about the junction-box in the alley? Could it have been there?"

"Well it could--come to think of it. I scraped an' cleaned th'
connections to make sure. They're all right now."

"Did you see anybody about?"

The lineman hitched up the satchel and scratched his ear. "Seems to me,
I did. A fellow climbed over the fence from the back yard of this house
just as I swings in from the side street. It was snowin' a bit an' I
couldn't see very well."

"What kind of looking fellow?" snapped Drew with awakened interest.
"German?"

"You took th' very words right out of my mouth," said the
trouble-hunter. "He looked like a German."

"Describe him! Tall, fat or small?"

"I wasn't near enough to notice for sure. Tall, I think. He went out
the alley and turned toward Fifth Avenue."

"Could he have called us up from that junction-box?"

"Sure--if he had a set of testers like this." The lineman tapped his
shirt with his left hand. "He could have talked with you, but he
couldn't ring your bell without a magneto or an alternating current of
some kind."

"Could he have cut the wires and connected them again without Central
noticing anything out of the ordinary?"

"He might. But who would do that, sir?"

"That's all!" said Drew in dismissal. "Here's a dollar. Keep still
about your visit here. We may want you later."

"Want you later," repeated the magpie.

Drew turned toward Stockbridge as the lineman shuffled through the
portieres. "Queer," he said. "Tall fellow, eh! That's the man who cut
in and threatened you. We'll get him! I'll go out and see if Delaney
has arrived. Two hours of the twelve have passed. Ten more should see
you safely out of it."




CHAPTER THREE

"THE MAN IN OLIVE-DRAB"


Triggy Drew stood on the marble steps of the Stockbridge mansion. The
butler had just helped him on with his coat. The door had closed
softly. The outer air gripped with cold that crackled. A soft snow was
falling upon the city. It blurred the view of the Avenue, as seen to
north and south. It wound the opposite buildings with a shroud of
winter.

The detective squared his shoulders, thrust his hands in his pockets
for warmth, and hurried out between the iron-grilled gates, which stood
slightly ajar. He hesitated a moment on the sidewalk. Again he glanced
up and down the Avenue. The soft purring of a motor sounded. A taxi
churned through the snow. It came to a slow stop at the opposite curb.
The glow from an overhead arc showed that this taxi was crammed black
with men.

"That's Delaney and his squad," said the detective turning up his
collar. "He's late."

Drew crossed the Avenue on a long diagonal. He eyed the alert
chauffeur. He rounded the taxi and jerked open its door. The orders he
whispered to the squad of operatives were terse and to the point.

"Keep Stockbridge's block covered," he said. "Watch all four corners.
Two of you get into the alley, back of the house, and climb the fence.
Keep your eyes on the junction-box and the telephone wires. Don't let
anybody touch them. All out, now. It's a big job with double-pay, men!"

The cramped operatives climbed out and stood on the sidewalk. They
glanced from Drew to the towering spires of the Stockbridge mansion.
Their eyes grew hard with calculation.

"She's big," repeated Drew. "You know who lives there? He's been
threatened twice. Somebody gave him twelve hours to live. Two of the
twelve are gone. It's up to us to see that nothing happens in the next
ten."

Delaney touched his hat. "All right, Chief," he said. "We'll see. I'll
answer for the boys I brought. I'll get rid of this taxi." The
operative turned toward the driver.

"Keep it around the corner on the side street," Drew ordered. "Have him
turn and head this way. We can't tell what minute we will need him."

Delaney gave the order. He paired off the operatives and sent them
hurrying through the snow. Drew noticed that he had brought six men for
the assignment.

"Good," he said as the last operative disappeared. "Six is better than
five. This thing is widening out. I wouldn't wonder if we needed more,
before the night passes."

"What's coming off?" asked Delaney with an Irish grin. "Another stock
scandal like the Flying Boat one?"

"An echo of it--perhaps," said Drew. "It's dog eat dog, I guess.
Stockbridge is no saint. Some man with a whispering--consumptive voice
has 'phoned him the news that he was going to die before daylight. I
don't think he is. Not if I can help it."

"Who did he rob this time--the old devil!"

"He's retired. It's a case, perhaps, of thieves falling out in high
places. Remember how Stockbridge beat Morphy to the District Attorney
and told all he knew, and went before the Grand Jury? Morphy may be
behind this threat-by-wire."

"Morphy's behind bars, Chief!"

"I know that. He's always dangerous, though."

"Another old devil," said Delaney thrashing his arms. "I can see him
now, Chief, in his big automobile. A husky man with a leather coat and
cap. And always a woman by his side, Chief. A different woman, every
time!"

"He fell a long way, Delaney. Come on. We'll forget Morphy for a while.
Stockbridge is alone. He is in danger."

Drew clutched the operative's arm and motioned across the street. They
plunged through the snow with heads down. They entered the iron-grilled
gate. Drew touched a button set in the stone of the doorway. He
repeated the signal.

The door opened to a crack. A chain rattled. A face blotted out the
inner light of the mansion.

"All right," said Drew. "All right, butler. This is one of my
operatives. Let us in."

The butler led the way through the hall of old masters, after taking
the detectives' coats and hats. He parted the curtains and announced
the operatives. Drew pressed Delaney into the library.

Stockbridge sat in the same position between the tables. The rose-light
from the ornate lamp brought out deep lines which transversed his
yellow face. Fear gave way to a mumbling satisfaction as he stared at
the two resolute detectives who had come to guard him. He rested his
eyes upon Delaney. His brows raised in inquiry.

"This is Delaney," said Drew. "He's the man who brought back Morphy
from Hartford. He's true blue. Delaney, this is your case as well as
mine. Your old prisoner may be involved."

"Morphy ain't in it, Chief. He's locked up tighter than the
Sub-Treasury's strong-box. It's some one else."

"What did you get on the telephone call? The call I had you trace
through Spencer Ott, the Chief Electrician?"

"Nothing, as yet! I waited. That's what kept me so long." Delaney
glanced at his watch.

"He'll 'phone later, I guess," said Drew. "Now," he added turning
toward Stockbridge. "Now, let's cover everything in this house. What
time was it, Delaney?"

"Nine forty-eight, when I looked, Chief."

"That's early. Suppose you allow a half hour for a search of the upper
house. Take that time and go over everything. Pay particular attention
to Mr. Stockbridge's rooms. Look at the windows. See that they are
locked. See that there are no places where a man could be hidden.
You'll permit Delaney to do this, Mr. Stockbridge?"

The Munition Magnate nodded. He kept his eyes on Drew, who still faced
him. "Do you think it is necessary?" he asked. "I'll answer for my
servants."

"We must suspect everybody," Drew said. "Go on, Delaney. Find the
butler and let him show you around. I've searched in here."

Delaney started toward the portieres as Stockbridge reached down and
pressed the floor-button with his finger.

"Just a moment," said Drew with afterthought. "You better knock on Miss
Stockbridge's door and ask permission to go through her suite. There's
just a chance that you might see something."

"Might see something!" shrilled the magpie.

Delaney turned with a startled half-oath. "Wot's that?" he asked,
aggressively clenching his huge fists.

"Might be something!" chortled the magpie.

"Go on," Drew laughed. "That's only a magpie."

"Looks like a crow, Chief. It sure startled me. I thought we had the
villain right here."

Drew waited. Delaney--with a last glance toward the bird-cage--followed
the butler to the upper floors of the mansion. Drew opened the letter
and studied it. He examined the postmark. He heard, as he was replacing
the paper in the envelope, the click of the glass against the bottle at
Stockbridge's side. There followed a dry chuckle of inner satisfaction.
A match was struck. Cigar smoke wreathed under the rose-light and
floated toward a high radiator which was over the book-cases. Drew went
over to these and glanced upward. The gilt-grilled ventilator, through
which the smoke passed, was narrow and set within the wallplaster. It
showed no sign of marks at its edge. It was the only opening, save the
door and the two great windows at the front, which led from or into the
library.

He returned to the center of the library. A swishing sounded. Loris,
with eyes aflame, glided into the room. The curtains dropped behind her
with soft rustling. She glanced from Drew to her father. She stamped
her slippered foot upon the thick pile of the rug before the doorway.

"By what right?" she said to Drew. "By whose orders have you sent that
awful man to my rooms?"

Drew flushed beneath the olive of his skin.

"_I_ sent him," he admitted guiltily. "I never thought you would be
offended, Miss Stockbridge."

"I am--greatly so! Do you mistrust me?"

"Miss Stockbridge," Drew hastened to say with soft apology. "Miss
Loris--that thought never entered my mind. It never did! I'll have Mr.
Delaney out, right away. He should not have gone in without your
permission. I told him to knock and ask you."

"My maid let him in. I--I----"

Drew studied her gown. It had been changed. The Irish lace and the
lavender one had been replaced by an Oxford-gray tailor-made suit which
fitted her slender, elegant form like a close glove. Her slippers were
topped with fawn-hued spats. One ring was on her finger. It was a
solitaire of price. It gleamed and flashed in the rose-light as she
raised her hand to her hair.

"I'll have Delaney right out," repeated Drew, bowing and starting for
the doorway.

"No!"

Drew paused. He turned. The magnate towered over the table. His eyes
were blood-shot and glazed with resolve.

"No!" he declared. "No, you'll not have him out! Let him do his duty!
Loris, go upstairs!"

"But, father----"

"Go--up--stairs!"

The girl flushed. Scarlet ripples rose from her young breast. Her
cheeks crimsoned into two burning spots. She wheeled, gathered up her
skirt, and glided swiftly through the portieres which dropped behind
her like a curtain of a stage.

"Go--up--stairs," quoted the magpie greatly excited.

Drew retained the vision of Loris long after her footsteps had ceased
to sound in the hallway. He grew thoughtful as he waited. There were
details to the case which already caused him concern. It was evident
that the girl was tremendously high-spirited and willful. Her obedience
to her father's demand had only been after a struggle with her
turbulent nature. She had given in to him, but friction was there which
might cause trouble at a future hour.

Delaney parted the portieres, finally. He strode into the library with
a flushed face. He lifted one brow as he jerked his head upward in a
mute signal to Drew.

"I guess it's all O. K.," he blurted swinging toward Stockbridge and
eyeing the bottle beside the telephone. "O. K. upstairs. I searched
most everything--posted a valet at the master's suite and took a look
into Miss Stockbridge's rooms. They seem all right. I guess they're all
right," he added with candor, which Drew understood referred to the
girl and her outburst in her boudoir.

"Good," Drew said closing his lips. "That's good. Now, Mr.
Stockbridge," he added, "there will be eight of us on the outside of
this house. You have your trusted servants inside. There's three
telephones in good order, thanks to the trouble-man. There's the entire
New York Police and Detective Departments to back us up. There should
be no trouble."

The Magnate blinked beneath the cone of rose-light. He wet his dry
lips. He rubbed his scaly hands. "Any orders to me?" he asked
determinedly. "What shall I do?"

"You lock this library door when Delaney and I go out. Lock it and bolt
it securely. Don't take a particle of food. Don't drink any water. Try
to get along to-night without sampling anything."

Stockbridge reached for the bottle of Bourbon. He held it up to the
light. It was half full. "All right," said he. "I might finish part of
this--that's all."

Drew glanced at Delaney. "That'll be all right," he said turning. "That
bottle's been tested. You might let this officer try a little of it.
Nothing like being sure, you know."

Delaney was willing. The drink he poured, after the butler brought a
clean glass, would have cost him considerable money in war time. He
upended it neat. He smiled as one hand rested upon his chest. "Fine!"
he said with sincerity. "There's nothin' th' matter with that!"

Drew turned toward the portieres, where, between, the butler waited.
"We'll go now," he said. "Remember--lock and bolt this door. Instruct
your man to stay outside and not to leave it under any circumstances.
When you go up to your bedroom, have him go with you. Then lock the
upstairs door and let your valet sleep across the threshold. You can
have a mattress moved for that purpose. I'll come in--first thing in
the morning. Good night, sir!"

"Good night," repeated Stockbridge rising from his chair and leaning
his hands upon the polished surface of the table. "Good night to both
of you!"

Drew glanced back as the butler pressed in the curtains and started
closing the hardwood door. The Magnate still stood erect under the rich
glow from the overhead cone. His eyes were slit-lidded and defiant. He
glared about the room like an aged lion in a jungle-glade. He started
around the table.

The door closed. Drew waited in the hallway. He heard the lock snap.
The bolt shot home. Stockbridge was alone in a sealed room.

"Watch this door!" ordered Drew clutching the butler's purple sleeve.
"Watch it like a cat. Stay right near it under any and all
circumstances. Don't go away from it. It may mean life or death to your
master."

"I'll stoiy right 'ere, sir."

"See that you do," cautioned the Detective. "See that you do."

Delaney found the hats and coats in the foyer. These they donned,
opened the outer door, and stepped into the night with jaws squared and
hands thrust deep in their pockets.

They crossed the snow-mantled Avenue upon a long diagonal which brought
them to the up-town corner and the waiting taxi, whose engine was
softly purring beneath its hooded bonnet.

The driver was asleep. He woke as Drew laid a hand on his arm.

"Seen anything?" asked the Detective.

"Nothin', boss, but snow. Nothin' at all," he yawned.

Delaney glanced about. He opened the taxi door on the street side and
lunged inward with a sigh of relief. Drew followed and pulled the door
shut.

"Where's the bunch?" he asked. "Just how did you post them?"

"Flood's with the fixed-post cop on the Avenue. He's down a block.
Flynn and Cassady are in the alley--in the yard, I mean. They're
watching the junction-box and the wires. Joe and O'Toole went east.
Harrigan is planted across the street. That's him between the two
buildings. See him?"

Drew rubbed the rear glass of the taxi. He pressed his nose against
this. A blurred form, almost obliterated by falling snow, showed where
the operative was guarding the mansion.

Delaney, who was watching out through another window, suddenly clutched
Drew by the arm. "Look!" he exclaimed. "Look, Chief! Over toward the
big house!"

The Detective drew back from his study of Harrigan. He turned on the
seat and followed Delaney's pointing finger. He clamped his jaw shut
with a click of strong teeth.

"Somebody's coming out of Stockbridge's," said the operative.

"Quek!" signaled Drew. "Watch, closely," he added in a whisper.

A girl came through the doorway and opened the iron-grilled gates. She
paused and glanced north and south through the curtain of down-falling
snow. She turned with resolution and hurried along the east side of the
Avenue. She was at the corner opposite the taxi, when Drew reached and
opened the door with sly fingers.

"Tail her," he ordered. "Right after her, Delaney. I'd know that little
lady in a million."

"Who is she, Chief?"

"Loris Stockbridge!"

"Sure?"

"Yes! Right after her! There--she turned east. See her white spats? See
her furs? Some queen to be out a night like this. Don't let her get too
far ahead of you. That's right, Delaney!"

The operative sprang to the curb. He rounded the hood of the taxi. He
slouched along the pavement to the corner, waited for the fraction of a
minute until a limousine passed, then hurried over the Avenue. He
disappeared into the canyon whose walls were towering apartments and
whose end was marked by a row of soft arcs across which, snow falling
from housetops, sparkled in the night like diamonds beyond price.

The Avenue churned with returning theater-parties and night-hawk cabs.
The roar of the city came to the waiting Detective's ears like a giant
turning in his first sleep. The sifting snow sanded against the windows
of the taxi. The purring motor missed sparking now and then. It shook
the cab as it resumed its revolving with a sputter and a cough in the
muffler. The driver huddled deeper in his sheep-skin coat collar. He
snored in synchronism with the engine.

Drew rubbed the glass before him and studied the aspect with
close-lidded intentness. He marked the shut gates of the Mansion down
the Avenue. He saw that the lights from the inner globes had been
extinguished. He counted the staring windows. His eyes lowered to the
soft rose-glow which streamed out through the shut blinds of the
library. Snow was on the slats and sills.

A swift crunch of heavy shoes at the side of the taxi--the turning of
the door-lock--the burly form in black that climbed in, announced
Delaney.

"All right, Chief!" he said somewhat out of breath. "All right--move
over. Here she comes back!"

Drew rubbed a frosted pane with his elbow. A blurred form--close to the
sheltering wall of the side street--revealed itself into Loris
Stockbridge. She turned the corner. She glanced back over her sabled
shoulder. She pressed her gloved hands deep within her muff and almost
ran for the iron-grilled gates of the mansion.

"She connected with a blonde lad in olive-drab uniform!" said Delaney.
"He gave her something that looked to me like a revolver. Wot d'ye make
out-a that, Chief?"




CHAPTER FOUR

"THE MURDER"


Triggy Drew had no good answer for Delaney's question concerning the
revolver. The matter was important in view of the threat aimed toward
Stockbridge. Why Loris should obtain a gun from a rendezvous in a
drug-store was more than the Detective could fathom. He turned to
Delaney.

"Explain yourself!" he snapped, gripping the operative by the sleeve.
"Make yourself clear! We have no time to waste in this matter!"

Delaney gulped and whispered. "It's this way. I follows the girl until
she turns around the corner where there is an all-night drug-store. She
was in a telephone-booth when I came up and looked through the window.
She was trying to get a number. While she's trying, a taxi rushes up
and out jumps a lad in a long benny. He pays the driver with a bill and
hurries past me and into the drug-store. I gets a good look at him.
He's about twenty-three years old, blonde hair and tall----"

"Tall?"

"He was five feet eleven, Chief. I'd say that to be safe. The uniform
he wore under the benny was olive-drab with bars on his shoulder. He
took the overcoat off--afterwards."

"How many bars?"

"Two, Chief."

"That's good!" exclaimed Drew with sudden vigor. "Good!"

"The girl," went on Delaney, "was 'phoning for him. She dropped the
receiver when she heard him come in. She had the party she
wanted--right there. Good deduction--that is!"

The Detective snorted. "Go on," he said with a faint frown.

"Sure it was! Well, I moves over and starts puttin' a penny in the
slot-machine outside the drug-store. The machine didn't work very well
on account of the snow. I'm a long time gettin' my piece of
chewin'-gum. I sees them talking in the drug-store. His coat is off
'cause it's warm inside. He had an officer's uniform on."

"One bar or two?"

"Two bars on his shoulder, Chief."

"Captain, then. Go on."

"He's a tall lad with thick lips and wide-blue eyes. He's straight as a
pike-staff and good lookin'--for a blonde."

"Looks German?"

"Not so I could notice! Seemed to be a bit of a swell. Had gloves and a
high-class wrist watch. I hate them things."

Drew smiled. "Hurry," he said. "Don't take too long. What happened?
What about the smoke-wagon?"

"I'm comin' to it, Chief. They moves over to the drug-case. They chins
some more. Then he blows her to a soda--a cherry sundae."

Drew rubbed the glass at his side and started out. He swept the mansion
with swift-running eyes. He turned.

"They were sweet--them two," went on Delaney with thought. "I deducts
they'd known each other a long while."

"Quit your deducting. Get to facts!"

"Well, Chief, he ups and gives the drug-store the once over with sharp
looks. Then he handed her a little, flat box which she pops into her
muff--quick as any shop-hister. It was as quick as that!"

"How do you know it was a revolver?"

"By what followed, Chief."

"What followed?"

"Her hand creeps into the muff. It works around while the clerk is
mixin' the sundae. When the clerk's back is turned, out comes the hilt
of a nice, little gat with ivory trimmin's. It's one of them lovely
watch-charm affairs--all polished up without a knock-out punch."

"A twenty-two?"

"About that. It's the caliber them actresses carry in their stockings.
It might kill, though, at short range."

"Go on, Delaney. Tell me what happened then?"

"I gets my chewin'-gum, Chief. I backs to the curb. They finish their
sundae. I'm across the street when the lad goose-steps out of the
drug-store--alone. O'Toole was talking with the fixed-post cop and a
Central Office man half-way down the block. They gets my office when I
pulls out my handkerchief. The C. O. dick covers the corner. O'Toole
falls in behind the lad in the fur benny as he passes him, with collar
turned up and leggins working at a double-time through the snow."

"That's good! O'Toole will put him to bed."

"Sure, Chief. Leave it to O'Toole. He never lost a tail yet. He'll
follow that lad to France--unless you call him off."

Drew polished the glass and strained his eyes in the direction of
Stockbridge's mansion. The Avenue had quieted over the hour after
midnight. A few belated pedestrians, muffled to the brows, glanced at
the waiting taxi with curiosity. They did not stop, however.

Delaney drew out his watch and studied its dial by aid of the light
which streamed from a corner arc. He replaced the watch.

"Twelve-forty-five," he announced. "Wish I'd brought a pint along. I
would have, if the dame hadn't come out of the drug-store so quick."

"Did she buy anything--or do anything, after the officer left her?"

"No! Just waited a second, then came sailin' out without a smile. Had
her hands crammed in her muff. That's where the revolver was. Bet it
was loaded."

"More deduction," said Drew. "Don't jump at conclusions, Delaney. Get
facts and work from them. Get----"

The Detective's voice trailed into silence. He reached swiftly and
wiped his hand over the frosted pane. He pressed his nose against the
glass until it became white with cold. He jerked back his head.

"Quek!" he signaled from deep down in his throat. "Quek, Delaney! Open
the door. Somebody is coming out of the house!"

Delaney twisted the handle. A breath of stinging air swept into the
taxi's heated space. Snow followed and drifted across the detectives'
knees. Both men strained in one position. Their eyes burned as they
waited with grim-set lips.

A light shone from the lower entrance of the mansion. Its oblong
brought out in bold-relief the details of the iron-grilled gates.
Across this fine snow sifted. A man emerged. He closed the door. He
opened the gates and staggered toward the Avenue's curb. He stood,
bare-headed in the night. His chin swung north and south with helpless
motion. He fixed his eyes upon the waiting taxi, with a start of
recognition. He came over the surface of the Avenue with faltering,
bewildered steps.

"The butler!" snapped Drew. "That's Stockbridge's butler! What's
happened?"

"God only knows!" exclaimed Delaney.

Drew climbed over the operative and sprang to the curb. He charged
around the rear of the taxi and brought up with a jerk before the
startled servant.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

The butler stammered an incoherent answer. His eyes wavered from the
taxi to the mansion--then back again. They gripped to a dead-lock with
the detective's own.

"What happened?" exclaimed Drew.

"I don't know, sir. I don't know----"

"Keep cool! Answer me!" The Detective clutched the butler's shoulder
with a vise-grip.

"Answer me," he repeated. "What happened? What is the matter--over
there?"

"I don't----"

"None of that! Answer! Answer!"

"The telephone company, sir. The telephone people rang me ... they rang
me hup hon the downstairs 'phone, sir. They said ... she said ... the
chief-loidy said for me to 'ang the receiver hup hon the Gramercy 'ill
'ook, sir. The 9763 one, sir."

"Which one is that--the library?"

"It his, sir!"

"Go on! Go on! Go on!"

"I goes back where I 'ad left the second-man, sir, by the door, sir, as
you'd ordered, sir. I knocks 'ard on the door."

"Yes! Yes!" said Drew, feeling Delaney's hot breath over his shoulder.
"Yes! Go on!"

"I knocks, sir. I pounds 'ard. I 'ammers and 'ammers hon the wood, sir.
'E don't answer--'e don't."

Drew's face grew stern. "Well?" he asked still holding the butler's
eyes. "Well--what then?"

"I knocks some 'arder. Then the second-man, 'e knocks. 'E 'its the door
with 'is 'eel, sir!"

"Come on!" said Drew, turning and clasping Delaney's sleeve. "Come
on--something _is_ wrong!"

The detective swept the Avenue with a sharp glance as he hurried across
the wheel-churned ice and snow. He signaled to Harrigan by drawing a
handkerchief. That operative detached himself from the shadow between
the two houses and moved toward the corner. He stood there on guard as
Drew hurried through the iron-grilled gates and thrust his knee against
the door. It opened. Delaney and the butler crowded in. They mounted
the inner stairs on tiptoes. Drew's hand went behind him in warning. He
turned at the top of the landing. The second-man was standing before
the library door with folded arms and a watchdog expression on his
cockney face. He remained in that position as Drew glided to his side.

"Hear anything?" asked the detective.

"Never a word, sir. Hit's blym quiet hin there. Hi think 'e's 'ad
something 'appen, sir. 'E never acted like that--before, sir. Sometimes
'e sleeps, but 'e always wakes hup when the walley comes after 'im,
sir."

"'E does," echoed the butler with chattering teeth.

"Are you sure you tried to unlock this door?" queried Drew, twisting
the knob. "Have you tried the outer lock? You might have shot the bolt
in your excitement."

"The key to the houter lock, sir, is hinside!"

"It is!" snapped Drew, pressing against the panel as he listened close
up to the chamfering. "It is, eh? That's funny."

"'E put hit there, sir. The master did, sir!"

Drew did not dwell further on this. He stared at Delaney, with unseeing
eyes. He bent and listened for a second time. He stiffened suddenly. He
jerked back.

"Listen," he whispered tersely. "Everybody listen. What's that noise
inside? Hear it? Hear it, Delaney?"

The operative dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to a faint line
of light below the door. He rose, dusting his knees. He swore audibly.

"What is it?" asked Drew.

"Sounds like the crow, Chief."

"Stockbridge's magpie?"

"Something like that."

The Detective laid his ear flat against the key-hole. His face hardened
as he waited. He lifted his head and pointed with a steady finger.
"Listen!" he commanded. "There--listen. That's no magpie!"

_A low whine like the howl of a wild thing rose to a reed note of
moribund terror. It died; then resumed its shrieking. It leaped the
octaves from no note to a blare of a soul in agony. Suddenly it struck
down the tone scale with descending steps of mocking laughter._

"Look out!" shouted Drew, bending his knees and gliding back to the
wall of the hallway. "Look out!" he repeated.

"What are you goin' to do?" asked Delaney huskily.

"Do? I'm going to break the door down! Look out!"

The detective braced himself against the wall. He lunged forward and
crashed against the dark panel near the lock and bolt, with the energy
of a college fullback. He backed away and repeated the smashing blow.

"Hold on, Chief," Delaney said. "That's no use. The door is two inches
thick. I had a good look at it. Wait!"

Drew rubbed his right shoulder as Delaney turned toward the white-faced
butler.

"You get an ax!" he ordered. "Beat it, and get a big ax, quick!"

"The axes are in the furnace room, sir."

"Get one! Bring it right up, you. Hurry now!"

The operative turned toward Drew. "The only way, Chief," he explained.
"I've been in too many of Big Bill Devery's raids not to know how to
break down a strong door. I'm the man who took Honest John Kelsey's
house apart for him. It was built like a British tank."

The puffing butler appeared with a fire ax. He handed it to Delaney,
who eyed the edge with concern.

"Not sharp," he said, "but it'll do, at a pinch. Look out--everybody!"

Delaney waved the servants away. He moistened his broad palms. He swung
the ax and crashed its weight into the panel nearest the lock. He
followed this blow with another. He panted as he rained swinging
slashes at the dark wood. It splintered. An opening was made. This
opening was enlarged by short-arm jabs until Drew laid a hand on
Delaney's shoulder and called a halt. "Let me see," he said bending
down.

He straightened. He enlarged the chopped place with his fingers. He
ripped off the splinters until there was room for a palm to be
inserted. Delaney, dropping the ax upon the hall-rug, thrust through
his arm to the elbow. He bent his knee as he strained. His face screwed
into a knot.

"Is the key there?" asked Drew.

"Ye--s. I turned it. All the way, Chief. Here's the bolt. Both were
locked tight. Both locked, on the inside of the library."

"Remember that!" snapped Drew, squaring his shoulders. "Everybody
remember that. It may be important!"

Drew pressed Delaney aside. He seized the gold knob and turned it
slowly. He waited for a moment. Nothing sounded save the loud breathing
of the butler and the other servants who were crowded in the hall.

The detective jerked open the splintered door. He hesitated and
listened. He pressed aside the portieres with his left hand as his
right fingers coiled over the ugly hilt of a police regulation .44. He
advanced into the library, foot by foot. His fingers still coiled the
gun's butt. He stood rigid as he reached the fringe of the splendid rug
which was under the great table. His sweeping, close-lidded eyes took
in the details of the room. He saw the magpie in its cage. The bird's
feathers were ruffled. Its head darted in and out the bars with great
excitement.

Drew frowned as he noticed a wreath of pale-blue smoke curling under
the dome of the rose-light. He sniffed the air with a shrewd intake. A
powder explosion of some kind had left a trace. The air, so close and
warm, was filled with acrid menace.

The detective removed his hand from the revolver's butt and waved it
behind him as a signal to Delaney and the servants to stay where they
were. He took one step forward. The white writing paper and envelope
from the cemetery company were upon the table. The stump of a
half-smoked cigar draped over this table's edge like a gun on a
parapet. It was cold and without ash.

The smaller of the two tables was overturned. The whisky bottle and
glass lay at the edge of the rug nearest the wall. The telephone
transmitter and receiver were upon the hardwood floor, where they had
fallen with the butts of two Havana cigars and the ash trays and match
boxes.

Stockbridge was crumpled into a twisted knot against the rich
wainscoting. His head was half under his left shoulder. His iron-gray
hair was singed black over the left ear.

Drew leaned with one hand on the corner of the table and peered
downward. He called the magnate's name. He repeated it. He turned
toward the doorway. His hand raised. His finger pressed against his
lips.

"Stockbridge is dead," he told Delaney, who glided to his side. "He is
dead. He was shot to death in this sealed room. I wonder who did it?"

"Ah, Sing!" shrieked the magpie. "Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!"




CHAPTER FIVE

"THE FIRST CLEWS"


The magpie's words, repeated over and over as Drew and Delaney stood in
the room of death, struck both men as a possible clew. It was more than
likely that the murderer or the murdered man had shouted something, the
moment the shot was fired. This exclamation might have been, "Ah,
Sing!" The bird had repeated something it had memorized, or retained in
its shallow brain.

"Ah, Sing!" suggested Drew, keenly on the alert. "Ah, Sing, eh? Never
forget that! We may need it--later."

"Sounds like a Chinaman," said the operative. "Stockbridge was shot by
a Chink!"

"Get busy! Go over the room and look for a possible hiding place. You,
butler, stand across that doorway! Don't move from there!" Drew wheeled
and stared at the white faces of the servants which were framed in the
somber curtains of the opening to the hall.

The detective swung back. He rounded the large table with slow steps.
He bent down. One knee touched the rug. He reached and grasped the
magnate's stiff arm. He worked it like a hinge. He felt of the muscles.
They were rigid.

Rising, Drew again tested the air of the library. He glanced at
Delaney, who was opening the book-case doors.

"What do you smell?" he asked sharply.

The operative turned and sniffed with widening nostrils.

"It's powder!" he said. "Gunpowder, Chief."

"Sure?"

"It's kind-a peculiar--at that."

"Explain yourself--be clear!"

Delaney scratched his head. "I'd say, Chief, it was smokeless powder.
It don't smell like the ordinary kind."

"I saw smoke when I came in!"

"That smokeless stuff smokes. It ain't altogether what they call it.
Remember the shootin'-gallery at Headquarters? There's smoke there when
the police are practicing with them steel-jacketed bullets."

"You're right," said Drew. "Keep on looking about. I'm getting on.
Stockbridge was shot at very close range behind and under the left ear.
The weapon used was a small-caliber revolver. The bullet is undoubtedly
lodged in the lower brain. Powder stains are in his hair. The opening
is clotted shut. He fell forward. In falling he knocked over the little
table with its load of ash-trays, match-boxes, telephone, cigar butts
and the whisky bottle and the glass. He's been dead some time."

"I 'e'rd no shot!" cried the butler from the doorway.

Drew wheeled. "You wouldn't," he said sharply. "Delaney," he added,
"say, Delaney, get out your note book and pencil. I want to put down
everything we can think of before I send for the coroner. We'll take a
complete record. This thing is diabolical. You see nothing?"

"Nothing," echoed Delaney as he slammed a book-case door shut, dusted
his fingers and reached in his pocket. "There's nobody planted in this
room--that's a fact, Chief. That's what gets me. How was the murder
done?"

"Speculation is useless--now! Get ready for notes."

"I'm ready, Chief."

The detective strode across the library rugs and snapped on the wall
switch by jabbing at a mother-of-pearl button. Each time he jabbed,
more lights came on. The room flooded with soft glowing from concealed
globes. This glow brought out the full details of the palatial
interior. Drew chewed at his mustache thoughtfully. He measured the
walls with his eyes. He glided swiftly toward the windows. He thrust
aside the heavy curtains of one and glanced upward.

"Closed and locked," he said to Delaney. "Put that down. There's snow
on the sill which has drifted through the outer slats. Put that down.
No sign of footprints. Put that down. Now, the upper part!"

He climbed up on the ornate radiator box. His fingers went over the
catch. "Locked here!" he said, glancing down. "Locked and the same as
it was. Make a note of that!"

He sprang down and examined the other window. He went over the sill and
the catch with absorbed intentness. His teeth bit against his upper
lip. He shook his head as he turned.

"No chance for a bullet to have been fired through these windows!" he
declared positively. "No chance at all. This end of the library is
sealed as far as we are concerned. Now, we'll consider the only other
opening--the door!"

"Double locks, Delaney," he called over his shoulder as he crossed the
room and pressed the butler back into the hall. "Double locks of the
superior order. Gold knobs and key-holes. The holes are not in line.
The chamfering is clean, except where you struck it once or twice with
the ax. No sign of outside tampering or jimmy work. I'd say we've
covered this door. Any suggestions?"

Delaney tried both the inner lock and the bolt which was actuated with
a gold butterfly-wing of heavy construction. He studied the flat key.
It was gold-plated. He dropped to his knees and went over the entire
lower chamfering with his broad finger.

He said, "No suggestions, Chief. This was locked twice, until we broke
a hole through with an ax. I don't see----"

"Make a note of everything!" ordered Drew with a sharp glance at the
waiting servants. "Make a full record of what we have found--including
your exact interpretation of the magpie's words. What were they?"

"Ah, Sing!"

"I think the same. Let's look the bird over. Perhaps it will repeat."

The two detectives strode to the bird-cage. "I'm going to send for
Fosdick and the coroner," said Drew hastily. "We've got to hurry. What
do you make of this bird? Could it have had anything to do with the
murder?"

The magpie protested against this accusation. Its feathers ruffled. Its
claws clamped over the perch. Its tail extended upward and seemed to
dart with indignation.

"Ah, Sid!" exclaimed Drew close up to the gilded bars. "Ah, Sid. Ah,
Sid!" he repeated as the bird sprang to the bottom of the cage and set
this jumping up and down at the end of the spring.

"No go," said Delaney. "This black parrot don't like our looks."

Drew fingered the cage. He tested the spring. He stooped and glanced
underneath. He tapped the belfry. It was of inlaid wood. It rang solid.
"No use," he said. "This is all, all right. Let's get to the other
matters before the clews get cold. Look everywhere for a possible
trapdoor or a secret panel. Test the walls. Move the book-cases. Turn
the pictures. Lift up the rugs. Then put everything back like you found
it. Fosdick will be on the job with both feet and the Homicide Squad,
before we know it. We haven't much time." Drew glanced at his watch as
Delaney started by moving out one of the book-cases.

The detective ignored the body which lay upon the floor near the little
table. He was holding his investigation down to outside facts, and
bringing them to bear upon the crux of the matter. In this way, he
believed, he would secure better results. He did not want to be blinded
by an impossibility at the beginning. His first glance at Stockbridge
sufficed to assure him that the lethal instrument which had felled the
magnate was not in evidence. The bright light from a score of globes
would reveal any such object as a revolver or rifle. No one of the
servants had seen anything. They still were peering into the room like
men and women who had lost all they owned. Stockbridge, despite his
temper and sins, had been a good master to those who served him without
questioning.

Drew glared at his watch for a second time, in preoccupation. He strode
to the library door and beckoned a hooked finger toward the butler who
towered over the other servants.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You didn't obey orders. You didn't stay where you
were told to stay! Why did you leave this door at all?"

"S' 'elp me, sir, I didn't, Mr. Drew. If I did it wasn't farther than
the foyer or the downstairs steps. I took very careful pains to call
the second-man, sir, when I went after you."

Drew's eyes smoldered with inner fire. "I told you," he repeated, "I
told you to stay by this door and not leave it--even for a minute. You
went after the second-man, by your own admission. You went to the foyer
hall. You went to the staircase leading down to the lower part of the
house. In other words, you didn't watch the door, and you lost your
master through your own foolishness!"

"But, sir, nobody could 'ave gotten through the door. Hit was locked
and bolted on the hinside, sir! I 'e'rd Mr. Stockbridge do that when
you left 'im! I did, sir!"

"We may have been mistaken when we thought we heard that! Perhaps he
just fumbled with the locks, and left it unlocked." Drew eyed the
servant's red face with a keen-lidded glance. He waited.

"That cawn't be right, sir," said the butler, after thought and a wild
glance about. "'Ow can that be right? I tried the door when the
telephone loidy called me hup! I tried hit twice. James tried hit! 'E
fixes hall the locks in the 'ouse, sir. 'E says it was most excellently
secured, sir."

"How about that?" asked Drew, turning to the second-man. "What of that,
James?"

"'E's right. I'm a little of everythin' about the 'ouse. I tends the
door and I watches the lights and locks, sir. I was born in Brixton,
sir, where the old man kept a lock-shop, sir. That's twenty years, and
more ago, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir."

Drew swung upon the butler. The second-man was the living picture of
truth. His dereliction, if any, might consist in sly tapping of the
wine-cellar. His nose attested to this habit, in a brilliant rosette.

"You're partly to blame!" Drew told the butler. "There's nobody in this
room who could have committed the murder. There was nobody here when we
left Mr. Stockbridge. There is no way for anybody to get in, save
through this door. The same applies in getting out--escaping. If you
were awake and always here, and if you were honest," he added, "I could
presume that the master was slain by--well, let us say, unnatural
causes. Such things do not exist. This is a material age. Nothing as
much as a pin-head or point was ever moved save through a natural
cause. No bullet could be fired into a man's brain without a hand which
planned or pulled the trigger."

The butler stared at Drew with blank expression. He gulped. His eyes
dropped. "I'm thinking," he said, "that the whole blym occurrence his
unnatural. I never left that door until they told me the telephone
company's loidy wanted me on the wire. It was then I left it."

"Ah!" said Drew. "We're getting there. Then, if you are speaking truth,
and I won't help you if you are not, we have reached a point in the
case which will bear considerable thought. It is evident that
Stockbridge was murdered by a pistol shot, at or about the time the
table and contents were spilled over. In other words, the shot which
bowled him over brought down with it the telephone transmitter and
receiver. That is the thing which fixes, within minutes--perhaps
seconds--the time of the murder. The telephone girl will have a record
which will help us considerable. Many criminals have been caught--and
convicted by the time element. There is no alibi against truth! A man
can't be in two places at the same time!"

Drew turned toward the door. He hesitated and wheeled.

"You heard nothing fall in this room?" he asked sharply.

"I did not, sir."

"No shot?"

"I cawn't say that I did, sir."

"No telephone bell ringing? Ringing at any time after I left the
house?"

"Not downstairs, sir."

"You did!"

"'Ow, sir?"

"Didn't you tell me the telephone company rang up and wanted you to put
the receiver on the hook in the library?"

"I didn't 'ear it ring. James brought the word, sir."

"Then, what happened upstairs?"

"'Ow do you know, sir? 'Ow'd you know it rang up there!"

"By elimination! It rang then, in Loris' room? You said 'nothing
downstairs' in such a way I presume it rang upstairs."

The butler stroked his chin. It was blue and close-shaved. The purple
of his cheeks and neck had deepened. He glanced about the hallway. His
eyes wandered toward the grand stairway which, coiled upward to the
second story. "I'm 'iding nothing, sir," he said. "Miss Loris often is
called up at night. She's very popular, sir. I 'e'rd 'er telephone
ringing once or twice while I was standing by this door, waiting for
the master to come out--which 'e never did."

Drew hesitated. He plucked out his watch and glanced at the dial. He
turned swiftly. "Stay right there," he said as he parted the portieres
and faced Delaney who wore the puzzled expression of a man baffled and
entirely at sea.

"What did you find?" he snapped to the operative.

"Not a thing, Chief." Delaney mopped his brow with his sleeve. "Nothing
at all!" he added. "Everything regular. Modern--very modern house!
Thick, new, fireproof, soundproof, million-dollar building. No
trapdoors or panels. No loose boards. No hole in the ceiling. No
nothing to hang a ghost on. The gunman who shot Stockbridge went right
up in blue smoke, Chief. I quit!"

Drew glided around the table and kneeled by the magnate's body. His
swift, light-fingered touch went through the trousers and vest. The
pockets he turned inside out. The watch attracted his attention. Its
dial had been cracked by the fall. A splinter of glass pressed against
the minute hand. He rose with a low cry. He pressed the repeater and
listened to the time chimes. He counted the strokes. He had a test in a
million. Had the watch been tampered with by the murderer, the chimes
would have proved a lie. It was possible to set the hands to any
position. It would be difficult to change both the hands and the
repeater.

"Delaney!" he said with his dark eyes glowing, "we've got the exact
time of the murder. As I told the butler--it is very important. Both,
chimes and hands, show that Stockbridge was shot at four minutes and
eighteen seconds past midnight--this morning! This is a fine watch. It
cost several thousand dollars. Robbery was not the motive. An ordinary
crook, and they're all ordinary--with few exceptions--would have taken
this timepiece."

"That's all right," said Delaney with a quick frown. "That's fine,
Chief, but--but how did that exceptional--crook get into this room? How
did he get out? That's what I want to know!"

Drew combed his fingers through his black hair. He described a complete
circle about the library, with his eyes taking in everything, before he
faced Delaney.

"I don't know!" he said frankly. "I don't want to think of it, either.
We'll turn the case over to other men for the time. Let them do some
thinking. I believe we have secured everything we want."

The detective dropped his glance to the telephone receiver upon the
floor at Stockbridge's elbow. He stooped, grasped the silk-insulated
cord, and fished it up.

"I'll try to get Central," he said. "This has been off a long while.
She may have sent the trouble-man again."

Drew worked the hook of the 'phone up and down. He was answered after a
short wait. The girl's surprised voice at hearing life at the end of a
dead set of wires was drowned in the detective's request to get him,
"Spring 3100--quickly!"

"Hello! Hello!" said Drew as he got the connection. "Hello! Is this
Spring 3100? It is? Who's talking? ... Jones? This you, Jones? ... Say,
Jones, plug me in on the Fifth Deputy Commissioner's private house
wire!... Sir? ... I don't care! ... This is Drew talking.... Drew! ...
D--r--e--w! ... That's right ... Drew, of Drew's Agency!"

The Detective turned. He eyed Delaney who was searching the floor about
the millionaire's upturned shoes. He tapped the receiver against the
transmitter's silver-plated edge. His eyes lifted. His lips hardened as
the diaphragm of the receiver vibrated harshly.

"Hello!" he answered tersely. "Hello! This you, Commissioner? Is this
Fosdick? ... This is Drew talking. Yes! ... Drew.... Yes! I say,
Fosdick, there's been a murder committed at Stockbridge's.... You
know--the munitions magnate! ... The millionaire! ... Morphy's old
partner."

Drew waited a moment. He dropped his eyes upon the body below him.

"Yes!" he continued into the transmitter. "Yes, Fosdick. I hear better,
now. Yes--Stockbridge is dead! ... He's stone dead! He was shot down in
cold blood! ... Yes! ... Shot in the brain.... Yes! Send your best
operatives.... Yes! ... Send a fingerprint man and photographer. You'll
need 'em! ... Yes! ... Yes! ... Shot with a small-bore revolver, I
guess! ... Wound behind ear looks like it! What? ... No! ... Room was
bolted.... He was inside.... Butler on guard.... Windows closed and
locked! ... No! ... No! ... No! ... It wasn't suicide. He was
threatened twice, this time!... By letter and telephone call....
What? ... What? ... No! ... He didn't shoot himself! ... There's no gun.
It's on the left side--close up! ... Hair is singed ... flesh is powder
spotted.... Burned? ... Yes.... You'll be right up?... Yes! ... I'll be
waiting! ... Come! ... come----"

Drew lowered the receiver and clicked it upon the hook of the telephone
which stood on the hardwood floor. He slowly turned toward the open
doorway of the library. The servants had drawn back and out of sight.
Delaney leaned forward with both hands on his bent knees. A girl's
voice had sounded in the mansion. It came closer. The portieres parted
with a silken sweep. Drew braced himself against the larger table. His
hand went back to his hip. It dropped to his side. He stared across the
flood of light with line-drawn eyelids.

Loris Stockbridge, gowned in lace chiffon and cloaked with ermine and
sable, glided across the rugs and stood framed beneath the soft,
rose-light of the central dome. Her dusk-black eyes burned and blazed
like flame through tinder smoke as she confronted the detective.

Clasped in the fingers of her jewelless right hand was a tiny,
ivory-handled revolver.

"What are all these people doing here?" she asked hysterically.




CHAPTER SIX

"HARRY NICHOLS"


Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. He
bowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolver
clutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge's right hand. He bowed for a
second time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he said
distinctly:

"Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father.
It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won't you please
go back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am in
charge of matters."

"Matters? What do you mean?"

The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if she
were unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in her
direction. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in the
world. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination.

"Something happened," he repeated. "I'm very sorry for you, Miss
Stockbridge."

"Happened!" she exclaimed. "Happened to him? You don't mean that
letter--that telephone call--do you?"

Loris' splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lights
shone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon the
envelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter lay
with one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. They
swung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between her
and the body of her father. She divined this movement with quick
intuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a graceful
movement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, which
wavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side of
her head. She started sobbing--short, throaty sobs of poignant
distress.

"Please don't," whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. "Please
don't, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You should
not have come down here."

"Dead?"

The word came from the depths of a soul. "Dead?" she repeated with her
taper fingers spreading across her face.

"Yes, Miss," said Drew with a catch in his voice. "Yes, he is quite
dead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behind
and under his left ear. No one was in the library when he locked
himself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down.
And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was----"

"Murdered!" Loris' voice had lifted to one wild shriek of final
conviction and grief. She swayed. Her knees bent beneath her skirt and
bulged outwardly. She sank into a slow faint at the detective's feet.
She pillowed her head upon the rug. A silence followed.

Drew stooped, after a glance at the servants in the doorway, thrust his
body as a barrier, and reached along Loris' white arm until his hand
closed over the barrel of the little revolver. He untwisted her cold
fingers, and palmed the weapon under a shielding cuff. He rose, saying
to Delaney, who had hurried forward:

"I'll take charge of this."

"Sure, Chief. Plant it. She didn't have it."

"She had it all right, but--we'll suspend judgment. You and the butler
carry her upstairs. Go easy. Her bedroom is on the third floor, I
think. That's the reason she didn't come down sooner. Perhaps, well, I
say, she didn't hear us breaking down the door. We are her agents in
this matter, now. Remember that, and say nothing to anybody. I'll do
the talking."

Drew dropped his hand into his side pocket. It came out without the
revolver but with a handkerchief between his fingers. He mopped his
brow gracefully, then replaced the handkerchief. The motion was a
natural one.

He followed Delaney and the butler with their soft burden as far as the
first steps of the stairway. He turned and strode back to the doorway
leading into the library. He faced about in this. He eyed the servants,
who lowered their heads beneath his accusing scrutiny. Focusing his
gaze to a searching squint he tried to single out a culprit from their
midst. There seemed to be none. Each face was terror-lined and drawn.
Each seemed to want to avoid his direct glance. None of all of them
faced him with boldness or assurance. It was as he expected things to
be. There was no evidence shown in the case that the servants of the
Stockbridge regime had ever threatened the master. They were old, tried
and trusted. They had the faults of their kind. These faults only
served to strengthen Drew's opinion that the murderer of the magnate
had struck from the outside, without benefit of inside information. The
letter and the telephone call were foreign. A note, pinned upon the
millionaire's pillow, would have been more effective. Nothing had been
tried like that. This proved to Drew that he could eliminate the
servants, for the time being.

"Which one of you is the valet?" he asked with final resolve.

"I am, sir!"

Drew ran his eyes over an aged man in white vest and tight-fitting
clothes which were studded here and there with gold-plated buttons. The
fit of the stockings--the neatness of the low patent-leather shoes--the
smartness and aloofness of the individual, caused the detective to
smile slightly. The man was better dressed than his master.

"Your native country is Germany?" said Drew.

"It was, sir."

"No, it is yet. You can't change that part of it. When did you come to
the United States?"

"Fourteen--fifteen years ago, sir. The master brought me from England
where I was employed by the Right Honorable Arthur Sandhurst, sir."

"You are now a naturalized American?"

"Going on thirteen years, sir."

"Come down to my office about noon to-morrow. I want to speak to you
then. I haven't time now. Be sure you bring that magpie with you." Drew
turned and jerked his thumb toward the front of the library. "Do you
understand?"

"I do, sir!"

"That's all!" exclaimed the detective. "One of you may stand by the
door until Mr. Delaney returns. The rest may go downstairs. Remember,
no talking to anybody but accredited police officers, who will soon be
here."

"I'll stand guard!" announced the second-man with a pompous voice.
"Nobody'll get by me, sir. I'll 'ave them know I'm right 'ere, sir."

Drew backed through the curtains as the second-man was speaking. He
dropped them behind him and started another search, which was done in
solitude and in silence. He went over everything in the library with
the trained eyes of an operative who had learned his profession in many
schools. He left deduction and surmise for a later hour. He was after
cold facts which might lead to an answer to the riddle. He held, with
some slight scorn, the theory of the armchair detective and the puzzle
worked out by retrospection. His experience had been, that only through
hard work could he expect to find his answer. He had been credited with
visiting six hundred laundries in search of a certain mark. He had a
note book filled with his failures to find the man he was after. The
men he had found caused him no concern whatsoever. They had gone to
prison and closed their accounts with him.

He applied hard work over the minutes to the case at hand. He went over
the body of the aged millionaire. He took scrapings of the blood stains
on the floor. He scratched up some few atoms of dried whisky. He
examined the bottle. He searched each square inch under and about the
body. He went through Stockbridge's pockets and beneath his vest. He
tried everything in the way of getting facts which might bear on the
case. A tape measure furnished certain distances which were recorded
upon the back of an envelope. His data was complete, insofar as he had
time to go. He desired to spend at least twelve hours in the library.
This could not be. The case would be taken from his hands within
minutes. Already there was a stir in the front part of the house. The
bell had been ringing for some time. Delaney and the butler had
hastened forward to answer it.

"The Central Office bunch!" announced the operative, parting the
curtains and staring in at Drew. "Here they are, Chief!"

The detective stepped briskly out of the room and glided through the
foyer hall to the front door. Here Delaney joined him, as steps were
heard coming up from the servants' quarters as well as outside. It was
as if a raid were in progress.

"Brass band methods!" said Drew. "You get out, Delaney, and go to our
taxi. Stay there! I want to speak to Fosdick."

The door opened. A burly form blotted out the light from the Avenue and
stamped in, shaking the snow from his overcoat. It was Fosdick--Chief
of Detectives.

"Hello," he said cuttingly. "Hello, Drew! What's this you've been
giving me over the 'phone?"

The detective drew Fosdick aside and allowed five Central Office men to
stream into the hallway.

"Go and see," he suggested into the detective's ear. "Go and see. I've
left everything just as I found it. The body is still there. The
servants have been kept in the house. Question them. I'm off, now.
'Phone me not later than eight this morning. I'll be at my office. I'm
acting in a private capacity. I'm protecting Loris Stockbridge--the
sole heir!"

"Protecting!" exclaimed Fosdick. "What d'ye mean?"

Drew dropped his hand to his pocket and crammed down the little
ivory-handled revolver. "Well," he smiled broadly. "You know what I
mean. She's alone in this world--save for her friends. The old man
called me in the case. I'm still in the case--remember that!"

Fosdick gulped hard. "All right," he said, turning and peeling off his
coat. "I'll soon get to the bottom of this! Case looks easy to me. It's
suicide! That's all it ever could be!"

Drew found his hat and coat where the butler had hung them. He went out
through the front door without answering Fosdick. He crossed the Avenue
on a diagonal which brought him to the waiting taxi where Delaney stood
muffled to the chin. The two men climbed upon the running-board. The
driver started up with a jerk, from his frozen position in the snow.
They rounded the block and stopped in front of the drug-store where
Loris had met the officer.

The Central Office man who had taken O'Toole's place had little to
report. O'Toole had vanished toward the south. When last seen he was
close on the heels of the man in olive-drab.

"Come on, Delaney," said Drew at this information. "We'll walk over to
Fifth Avenue and then downtown. The driver can pick up our men in the
alley. I want to clear my head of this muddle. A walk will do it!"

Delaney fell in behind his chief. They turned the corner. They struck
through a side street and westward. They saw ahead of them the white
expanse of untrodden snow, and beyond this the faint blue barricade of
the Palisades.

The hour was after three. The crisp underfooting brought wine to their
cheeks. The grip of winter air cleared both men's heads like a draught
of ether. They stepped out. Their shoulders went back. Their thoughts
passed from the case at the mansion to other things. The night had been
filled with a thousand disappointments. Greatest of these was the
stabbing memory that they both had been picked by the multimillionaire
to protect him and save him from his enemies. They had failed in this
trust. Their patron lay dead, and somewhere a whispering voice chuckled
over a victory.

"Fifth Avenue!" announced Drew as they reached the corner. "Now,
downtown, Delaney," he added cheerily. "Old Kris Kringle has nothing on
us to-night. I believe we're the only ones out."

The operative caught his chief's humor, and glanced into his face with
a smile. "Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!" he repeated from the depths of
his lungs. "I'm glad, Triggy, to get from that damn house and that damn
magpie and that----"

"So am I!" said Drew, thrusting out his hand and linking his elbow into
the cove of Delaney's arm. "So am I. Fine night for the poor firm of
Drew and Company."

Delaney glanced around and over his left shoulder. He blinked with
frosty lids as he saw the towering facades of Stockbridge's mansion;
its turrets and towers spiraled in the winter sky. He drew in his lips
and compressed them. He puffed them out as he turned.

"I'm deducting," he said, "that there's more at the bottom of this
thing than we think. Put it down for me that the Germans are mixed up
in it."

Drew walked on for a block before he answered. He gripped the
operative's arm by closing his own as he said:

"Quit deducting! It's fatal! Get your facts! Get all of them. The
answer will come then, without an effort. It will be the right answer
or none at all."

"Just the same, Chief----"

"The trouble with you," broke in Drew severely, "the trouble is, that
you are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans,
with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in this
country at the present time. In other words, the most of them are good
Americans and sane."

"That walley-sham?"

"He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?"

"Sure, Chief!"

"Anything strike you as peculiar?"

"N--o."

"There were tears in his eyes--the only ones shed in that house for
Stockbridge--outside of the daughter."

Delaney gulped. "I didn't see them," he said frankly.

"No! Well, I did--and when he wasn't expecting me to see them. A woman
is never wholly lost who can blush, or a man who can shed tears."

"Sounds like good deduction," admitted the operative. "But then, Chief,
there are a lot of fine actors in this world. I think there has been
some in this case."

"This case, Delaney," Drew said, "is like many others which appear at
first impossible of solving. All things can be solved by first
principles. Give me all the facts and I'll give you the answer to any
riddle. The answer will come! Don't try to write your plot until you
have words to form your story. Don't make the mistake of forcing an
answer to father a wish. In other words, Delaney, best of friends, we
haven't all the facts we are going to get in this case and therefore it
is idle to attempt to deduce who shot Stockbridge!"

"Or how he was shot, Chief?"

"It's almost the same thing. Both answers will come with hard work and
plenty of it. We must keep along the main stem. Truth is a tree with
many branches. It rises from the roots named cause, and reaches the top
called effect. It springs from motive up to crime in one straight stem.
We must trim away the branches and the false-work, and then we can see
the trunk."

"There's one I'd like to trim right now," said Delaney, pausing in his
snow-caked stride.

"Which one?" asked Drew.

"That noise in the library like a cat getting its tail twisted."

"I can explain that!"

"It's been driving me to drink, Chief."

"The telephone company, Delaney, have a device they call a howler. They
cut this device in on the wire when a receiver is left off the hook. It
is simply a high-frequency current generated for the purpose of
vibrating the receiver's diaphragm until somebody hears the noise and
puts the receiver back on the hook."

"It's a howler, all right, Chief!"

"Oftentimes a book or magazine gets under a receiver and lifts it up an
inch or more. This attracts the attention of the central operator who
thinks somebody is trying to get a number. When the situation is clear
to her that the receiver is off the hook, or that the circuit is closed
without anybody being at the receiver end, she notifies the
wire-captain or chief-operator. It was either one or the other who put
the howler on after Stockbridge was shot and the 'phone had fallen to
the floor. Is that satisfactory? Does that explain the noise we heard
in the library before we broke down the door?"

"I see now, Chief. I thought all along it was spirits like the rest of
the job. Outside of spirits, what is the answer to the things that
happened in that house? I know it. I deduct it, Chief. The old man was
expecting somebody all of the time. He let this somebody into the
library when the butler wasn't looking. Maybe it was a woman, for all
we know. Maybe a German spy. Maybe anybody. This somebody got in an
argument with him over spoils on some deal, and shot him dead. That's
my idea, Chief!"

"You've missed your profession, Delaney. You've disgraced the firm! How
did the library door get locked on the inside? How did that happen? Did
Stockbridge, shot through the brain, rise and do it? It was mighty well
locked--you remember!"

"I never thought of that," admitted the operative. "Then it looks,
Chief, as if it was a case of suicide."

"Fosdick said the same thing without having many facts. How could a
right-handed man shoot himself behind the left ear? How could he do a
thing like that and then get rid of the weapon without leaving a trace
of it? How--oh, well, get facts and you won't ask such questions!"

"Then it was done by an outsider?" blurted Delaney, staring through the
wind-blown snow which came off the housetops. "It was done by the
fellow who 'phoned and wrote that letter, or had the letter written? I
don't see how he could do it!"

Drew smiled at Delaney's candor. "Neither do I," he said simply. "But
we've crossed Forty-second Street and we're on the trail by everyday,
up-to-date methods which never fail if they are continued long enough
and men work hard enough. We'll start with Harry Nichols--the man in
olive-drab! I've his address!"




CHAPTER SEVEN

"THE SPOT OF BLACK"


Delaney stepped behind his chief and followed in single file as the
detective swung from the Avenue at Thirty-ninth Street and turned
toward the east on the up-town side of the thoroughfare.

The snow had ceased falling from out the leaden sky. A roar came to
them of the awakening city which was stirring in its last sleep. A tug
whistled hoarsely somewhere on the East River. Its blare and signal
echoed down the towering canyon. An answering rattle sounded from the
Elevated. A milk wagon churned by. A deep-seagoing hansom-cab, of the
vintage of ten years before, struggled along Madison Avenue as the two
detectives paused on the corner and sought a pathway through the snow
to the opposite side.

"Some night," said the operative, pulling down his derby hat and facing
Drew. "A hell of a night to be out. Good thing we walked, though. My
head is clearing."

"It needed clearing," said the detective. "Some of your deductions were
impossible. Whom do you suppose we're going to meet here?"

"How should I know, Chief?"

"Guess!"

"Harry Nichols."

"Who else?"

"Search me, Chief."

"Who's that over across the street in the shelter of the stoop? See! He
sees us! You ought to know who that is!"

"He looks familiar," admitted Delaney.

"It's O'Toole!"

"That's right, Chief. It is! He tailed the lad in the fur benny from
the drug-store and came here. The lad in the drug-store was Harry
Nichols. The thing works out all right."

"Get over to the other side of the street and tell O'Toole that he can
go home and get some sleep. Tell him to be at the office not later than
eight o'clock--this morning. Get what information you can from him.
This brownstone house with the sign out is our address. I'll wait on
the stoop."

Delaney was over in three minutes. "All right," he said cheerfully.
"O'Toole says that Nichols left the drug-store and walked south. Trail
led to Fred's Old English Chop House where Nichols drank a split of
mineral water and had a chop with a potato. He 'phoned twice before
leaving. O'Toole don't know where to. The booth was soundproof and all
the lad did was to drop coins. He left a piece of paper in the booth.
O'Toole got it. Here it is, Chief."

Drew slanted a torn portion of envelope and studied its surface. He
deciphered a scrawling handwriting into the words, "Loris, Loris,
Gramercy Hill, Attorney Denman of Cedar Street, will consult with him
in morning.... Drew's Detective Agency ... look out."

"Umph!" said Drew, pocketing the scrap of paper with a thoughtful
frown. "That last may be a warning. Again it could be a mere notation.
What else did O'Toole find, Delaney?"

"That's all, except that he put the boy to bed here at about one
o'clock. There's a 'phone in Nichols' apartment. O'Toole sneaked up the
stairs and heard it ringing. He had to come down for fear of queering
things. He said that's all, chief."

The detective turned and entered the storm-door. He struck a match and,
shielding it with his hands, searched the names over the mailboxes. A
neat card, set in well-polished bronze, indicated, "Harry E. Nichols,
Apartment Three."

"He keeps this place all of the time," said Drew, jabbing at the
button. "He's down on furlough or Government business. Nice place,
this," he added as the inner door-lock clicked and he thrust his foot
forward. "Looks like about two hundred a month. This is exclusively
bachelor!"

"Them bachelor apartments," said Delaney with candor as he glided into
the hallway. "Them places like this ain't what they seem. There's some
big parties pulled off in them. I remembers----"

"Sisst!" warned Drew, clutching the operative's arm. "Easy," he
whispered. "Come on. Somebody is waiting upstairs for us. See his head
in the light by the banister. Same chap, ain't it?"

"Can't see, Chief. Might be!"

"Nice house," commented Drew as his feet sank in a deep-blue hall
carpet. "Good ornaments and fixtures throughout the place. Nice house!
Just about what I'd expected. Here we are. I'll do the talking."

A blond pompadour, under which was a pair of wide gray eyes that
blinked at them, greeted the two detectives as they turned the last
landing. A thick-lipped mouth, in which was considerable strength and
determination, opened and revealed a double row of strong, young teeth
that would have delighted an Army recruiting sergeant.

"Well, what do you gentlemen want at this hour of the morning?"

Drew squared his shoulders and pressed Delaney back a foot or more.

"Harry Nichols?" he asked brusquely.

"Yes, I'm Harry Nichols."

"Miss Stockbridge's friend?"

The gray eyes widened perceptibly. The lids dropped in heavy
calculation. "Who are you?" the young man asked point-blankly. "I don't
believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting either of you gentlemen."
Nichols glanced into Delaney's leaning face which was just over his
chief's shoulder.

"No, you haven't," said Drew softening his tone. "We've never met, but
we may see considerable of each other. Here's my card!"

Nichols took the card, tilted it to the light from the open door, then
dropped it into the right-hand side pocket of his lounging robe beneath
which blue pajamas showed.

"Come in!" he said without committing himself. "Come in, and take off
your hats. I've only two rooms and a bath, here."

Drew stepped upon heavy rugs and crossed the chamber to a chair. He
turned this, removed his hat, and sat down with his legs thrust
outward. His eyes roamed the place in slow calculation. Dark, old
masters, which were probably good in their day, stared down at him. A
little globe, petticoated in soft silk, gave a yellow light to the
walls and floor. It brought out Nichols' features in sharp, actinic
shadows. Drew continued his searching glance. A bed, with tossed
coverlet and sheets, loomed from an inner room. A table, upon which was
an officer's cap and gloves, stood between two doors that were closed.
One of these doors, Drew concluded, was the bathroom entrance, the
other might have been a closet. His eyes fastened finally upon a
telephone upon a dark-wood stand. He lifted his chin.

"Montgomery Stockbridge is dead!" he snapped, darting at Harry Nichols
the keen scrutiny of a man salvoing a surprise.

Nichols glanced at the 'phone. "I know that!" he said with rising
color. "I'm aware of that fact, Mr. Drew."

"When did you first learn of it?"

"See here! I have your card. I know who you are. I was almost expecting
you, or another detective. But,"--Nichols' voice raised to a determined
key--"but, sir, I am not talking to anybody about what you just told
me. How do I know who you represent--the police or the law or the----"

"You have talked with Miss Stockbridge. She told you in the drug-store
that I was in the house. She has told you that I was called in by her
father. She undoubtedly 'phoned you, after she recovered from her
faint. You have the details of the dastardly murder--if ever there was
one! I represent her. I represent her friends. I have no other interest
in this case!"

Harry Nichols drew out the card and studied it. He glanced at Delaney.
"Who is this man?" he asked.

"My right bower. He's with me--and you and Miss Loris. We're together
in this. The police now have the case. What I want is to protect you
and her from the police. What will they do when they learn from the
servants--which they will--that Miss Stockbridge had _this_ gun in her
hand when she entered the library?"

Drew extended his palm. In the hollow of it lay the little
ivory-handled revolver which he had taken from Loris.

"What are they going to do when they learn about this?" he asked with
shrewd reasoning. "Particularly, Mr. Nichols, when the caliber of this
revolver is probably the same caliber of the bullet which entered, and
is still in, Mr. Stockbridge's brain."

The gray eyes narrowed. The lips compressed until they were white. They
seemed drawn with pain. A faint hiss of surprise sounded in the room.
Harry Nichols turned and strode to an ornate mantel-piece upon which
was a single cabinet photo. He lifted it impulsively. He stared at the
picture of Loris Stockbridge as if in it lay inspiration, and resolve.
He set the photo down and wheeled upon Drew. His eyes blazed.

"If you have no connection in this case, save as an adviser," he said
clearly and from his heart, "why are you trying to trap me or her? Are
all detectives alike? Would they rather see a man in jail than free?"

Drew closed his fingers over the little revolver. He glanced upward at
Delaney's towering bulk which was near the doorway leading to the outer
hall. This door was the only way out of the apartment. The detective
gave no signal to the operative. His fingers uncoiled and revealed a
thumb pressing upon the silver-plated barrel from which the leaden
noses of six bullets showed as he turned it.

"You are wrong," he said with simple naivete. "You wrong me in this
matter. The affair at Stockbridge's will sooner or later bring you in
contact with the Police Department's Detective Bureau. Fosdick, the
district attorney, the coroner, may want to interview you. The
servants, the newspapers, idle tongues will connect your name with that
of Loris Stockbridge. This connection, taking in the fact that she had
a revolver of the same caliber as was used to slay her father, may
cause trouble. I want----"

"How do you know it's the same revolver--the same caliber?"

There was a stubborn defense in the young man's tones which somewhat
pleased the detective. It promised loyalty.

"It may not be the same revolver," Drew said softly. "It may be that
the murder was not committed with a revolver. A rifle, held close to a
man's brain, would make the same kind of mark and burns. I do know
this, however, that the opening in Mr. Stockbridge's head is the same
size as my lead pencil--which I have measured and found to be under a
quarter-inch. It would seem then that twenty-two caliber might fit the
wound. I know of no other caliber very close to it."

"An army rifle," suggested Delaney from the doorway.

"It is larger," said Nichols with a quick frown. "The modified
Lee-Enfields, which we are now using, have a greater bore than the
British or German rifles. They are about .30 caliber."

"Whatever the case," Drew said, "we must get to our first question. I'm
trying to find the truth and protect Miss Stockbridge from the police
in case she is suspected. Whose revolver is this? Who does it belong
to? How came she to have it so soon after meeting you in the corner
drug-store? Did she request it? Perhaps you will clear these points and
allow me to go ahead."

"Before I answer your questions, Mr. Drew, before I say anything at
all, I would rather have a talk with Miss Loris. You see, we are too
good friends to act apart. I'll answer for her. She is innocent! She is
too good, too pure to have anything to do with it. She never shot the
old--Mr. Stockbridge."

"He threw you out of the house on one occasion."

Harry Nichols clenched his fists. "I'll do the same to you!" he
exclaimed. "This is my apartment. What right have you got coming here
and accusing Loris? I don't care who you are!"

"Good!" said the detective, rising and stepping forward. "You said just
what I wanted you to say. And you said it like a man who can wear an
American uniform. Shake hands!"

Harry Nichols did not exactly brighten under the professional flattery.
He held out his fingers, however. Drew clasped his hand after
transferring the revolver to his left palm. He twirled it as he stepped
backward. "Clean," he said. "It don't seem to have been used for some
time. But then, who knows? A gun can be wiped and polished,--even in
the barrel,--in a very few minutes."

Drew glanced at Nichols with a silent question in his eyes. Delaney had
already sized Nichols up as a very clever young man. He was not far
wrong, as he learned when the detective's spoken question was shot
through determined lips.

"Nichols," said Drew, "did you lend Miss Stockbridge this revolver? Is
it yours? I shall have to turn it over to the police sooner or later.
They will trace it by the number."

"Is it fully loaded?"

Drew turned the barrel with his broad thumb. He clicked the mechanism.
He broke it and held it out.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's fully loaded. This is still a merry whirl
for six!"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive, Nichols!"

The soldier's face cleared like a lake from a storm. He beamed upon
Drew. He smiled for a second time. He pointed toward the chair which
the detective had quitted. "Sit down," he said, "and make yourself at
home. This is a temperance dugout, but I've got some real good soft
stuff--grape juice or club soda. Which will you have?"

"I'll take a cigar," said Delaney.

Drew allowed a smile to creep over his lips. He waited as Harry Nichols
dipped into a kitchenette, then came back with three glasses of soda
and a huge black Havana.

"Smoke up," he said good-naturedly to Delaney. "Light up and take a
chair. It's daybreak, isn't it?"

"Yes, time we're going," said Drew, setting his empty glass upon the
offered tray. "We'll go in a minute. Now, as I told you and as you can
see, this revolver is fully loaded. It looks clean. I suppose you lent
it to Miss Stockbridge without any empty cartridges. These are the
ordinary lead kind which can be secured at any hardware store. You've
got some here, perhaps."

"None here. They're all up at Plattsburg. We do some target shooting at
times. These little revolvers don't make much noise. You can use them
most anywhere."

"That's satisfactory," said Drew, watching the glow of Delaney's cigar.
"That's all right. Now, when she 'phoned for the gun or you suggested
that she better have one with her, what did she say about the cemetery
letter or the threat over the wire? Did she fear anything else? Was
that her sole reason for having a revolver with her?"

"You cannot expect me to answer for Miss Stockbridge, Mr. Drew. She is
available. You can talk to her. You represent her. I shall not say
anything concerning her. She is sacred. The revolver was not
discharged. It is the same as when I gave it to her in the drug-store.
Therefore, I'll trouble you for it. It's mine. I admit that."

Drew rose from the chair. His left hand went out. His fingers clasped
Harry Nichols' shoulder with a fatherly pressure.

"I'm going now," he said. "I'll leave the gun with you. If the police
want it, give it to them. Perhaps they will never hear of it. I doubt
if more than one or two servants saw it in Miss Loris' hand when she
came into the library. They may not tell Fosdick. He'll try to
rough-shod over them. He may arrest the entire household--including
Loris. That's his way. It's effective, but it's not my way. Now is
there anything that you want to say to me which will clear your mind of
this affair?"

Nichols glanced from Drew's clean-cut face. His eyes rested upon the
telephone. "I'm going to call her up presently," he said. "I'll talk
with her. I'll tell her that you were here--that you left the little
revolver--that you stand ready to swear it was clean and fully loaded.
Then, when I hear what she has to say about everything, I shall call
you up. Is that satisfactory, Mr. Drew?"

The detective turned the revolver in his palm and pressed it forward.
"Take it," said he, "and keep it under cover. I'm off with Mr. Delaney.
Thanks for the club soda."

"And the cigar," added the big operative as he opened the door.

Drew hesitated on the landing. He turned and went back. Nichols stood
by the banisters. The soft light from inside clear-cut the officer's
figure like a statue.

"You can do me a favor," said the detective in a whisper. "A damn nice
little favor."

"What is it?"

"Have you an extra photo of the girl-in-the-case. One that's laying
around somewhere. I don't mean the one on the mantel."

"What do you want it for?"

"For myself. I admire that young lady."

Harry Nichols disappeared through the doorway. He returned within a
minute with a cabinet-size photo upon the front of which was written,
"From Loris, January '18," in the vertical chirography much practiced
by social buds.

"Thanks," said Drew unbuttoning his overcoat and thrusting the photo
within his breast. "I shall keep and cherish this, as one of my most
sacred possessions. Congratulations, young man!"

The detective's words rang sincere. Nichols flushed. He stammered an
answer as Drew hurried down the carpeted steps and joined Delaney at
the storm-door.

"Chief," said the operative as they reached the sidewalk and turned
toward Madison Avenue. "Chief, why didn't you pump that lad about
Stockbridge. You didn't ask him a thing about the old man."

"Unethical to a client," reproved Drew linking arm with the operative.
"Come on! We must hurry! I've an idea--which is a very strange thing
for a New York detective to have--that Harry Nichols, if he stays in
town on furlough, will represent Loris in all matters. I don't know
where she could find a better counselor. He's a clam! He told us
nothing!"

"Wise boy, Chief! Only fools and women talk to detectives."

"Umph!" said Drew at this sally. "Umph! Well, come on. It's quit
snowing. It's daybreak over there in the east and I think the clouds
will clear before it gets much later. You----"

"Say, Chief!" exclaimed Delaney clutching the detective's shoulder and
wheeling him around. "Say, stand right there a minute. Right in that
light. What's that on your chin? Right under the tip of your left ear.
Turn around a little more!"

Drew raised his left hand and rubbed it across his face. He pinched the
lobe of his ear between his thumb and index finger. He whistled with
frosty amazement as he eyed his nail and thumb.

"What to blazes!" he said. "What's that?"

"Turn around! Right under this arc light. Say, Chief, how did you get
that spot of black on your neck? You've smeared it all over your
collar."

"I don't know. What's it look like?"

"Soot!"

"Soot?"

"Sure, Chief. Lampblack or soot!"

Drew arched his dark brows as he rubbed his finger-tips together. He
held them up to the stronger light. He turned and glanced back through
the silent walls of the street down which they had walked. He took one
step toward the east.

"Hold on!" said Delaney. "Where are you going?"

"Going back!"

"Why, Chief!"

"Smell that stuff! Smell it!" Drew thrust his fingers under Delaney's
wrinkled nose. "Smell it, good and strong!" he snapped bitterly. "What
is it?"

"By God, Chief, it's powder, I smell! Gunpowder, it is!"

"Umph! I must have gotten it from that gat!"

"You couldn't, Chief. That gun was polished up like a whistle. Besides,
how would the spot come to be under your left ear?"

Drew furrowed his brow. He swung in the snow with new decision. "Come
on!" he said. "We'll think this over! I didn't see any soot on that
gat. I don't know where I got it either. Could it have been there for
some time?"

"Sure, Chief. I just happened to notice it. Light's bright." Delaney
nodded toward the arc.

"Did you get a good look at my face in Stockbridge's?"

"Can't say that I did, Chief. I was too busy with that howler thing and
that magpie and that murder, to see anything. You might of got it there
without me noticing it. It wasn't there in the taxicab. I'll swear to
that."

Drew passed his fingers across his nostrils like a man sampling
perfume. He repeated the motion. He scraped some of the powder from his
nails with a pocket knife and dropped the sample into the crease of an
envelope which he carefully folded and crammed into his pocket.

"I'll have that analyzed," he said, as they turned toward Fifth Avenue.
"Another trifle in a chain of circumstance. Think it over, Delaney. It
resembles and smells like powder which has been burnt. You hurry along
home. Be at the office no later than nine. I'll keep on down Fifth
Avenue to the Flatiron Building. I want to walk and clear my head. I'll
get some coffee, pie and rolls, at an all-night restaurant. I'll take
time for a shave, shine and shampoo. Perhaps I'll jump into a Turkish
bath to finish up and get ready for work."

"You're not going to bed at all?"

"Not until I find out who murdered Stockbridge!"

"Or how he was murdered?" said Delaney, with a puzzled frown as he
turned to go.

"If I get the murderer, I'll find out how he did it!" snapped Drew,
with a parting glance.




CHAPTER EIGHT

"TANGLED WIRES"


It was five minutes before nine when Delaney reached the ornate
entrance to the skyscraper wherein were the offices of Drew's Agency.

He wandered into the express elevator, yawned a "eighteen, out" signal
to the elevator pilot and stepped from the cage with the general air of
a man who had spent a hard night without getting anywhere in
particular.

Stopping in the operatives' room for a few minutes, he picked up scraps
of news concerning the case at Stockbridge's. There was a report,
moreover, that an extra was expected by ten o'clock. The air of
desertion about the suite told Delaney plainer than words that most of
the operatives were upon the case. The entire corps, with few
exceptions, had been working hard while he slept. The telephone-girl
and the assistant-manager, Harrigan, wound up each of his questions by
a nod or a jerk of the thumb toward the inner office where Drew was
sitting like a spider in a web which was being spun about the case at
hand.

Delaney yawned, braced himself with a drink of ice water drawn from an
inverted-bottle, and stepped toward Drew's door. He knocked with tired
knuckles. He pressed forward as he heard a hearty: "Come in!"

The operative eyed his Chief with sovereign amazement. Drew looked as
fresh as a daisy. There was a pink tinge upon his olive cheeks. These
cheeks had been close shaven. Oil glistened from the detective's black
hair. His mustache was trimmed and level with his upper lip. His eyes,
as he swung and fastened a clear glance upon Delaney, were almost too
bright. They were like the hectic fires of an inner furnace.

Delaney searched about the room. He lifted one foot and then the other
with a tired motion. He leaned against a filing-case like a heavy dray
horse which had come to a final stop. He yawned behind his big, red
hand.

"How d'ye do it, Chief?" he asked with a second yawn. "I'm dead on my
feet. All the sleep I got was about thirty minutes. I haven't woke up
yet. I met myself going to work this morning."

Drew laughed quickly and motioned toward a leather chair. "Sit down!"
he suggested. "Sit right down, Delaney. Take it easy for a few minutes.
You seem tired."

"It beats me how you can do it!" declared the operative, sprawling
across the chair and crossing his weary legs.

"One or two hours' sleep is never any good. Better keep awake. You
remind me of the last rose of Sharon!"

"I feel like a house-man in an all-night poker game. What's the use!
I'm going over to some bank and get a job as a night watchman, if this
keeps up. I can sleep my head off, there."

Drew swung in his chair and eyed the papers on his desk. He swiveled as
Delaney inquired:

"What's the news in the Stockbridge case? I've been asking Marie and
Harrigan. They don't seem to know anything except that everybody is
out--already." Delaney extended his huge mouth to a cavernous yawn. He
fished up his great, silver watch. "What's the news, Chief? Any
assignments for me?"

"News? There's very little news, Delaney. No good news, yet! I've been
busy as a Chinaman on a contract, though. I can't let that matter get
cold. It's now or never in this case!"

"What does our friend Fosdick say?"

"He's all at sea! I've talked with him twice." Drew glanced at the
'phone. "He says the murder was a second Rue Morgue. He can't see any
light at all!"

"He's come around to our deduction?"

"There's no deduction in it!"

"He says it's murder?"

"Cold, curdling, cunning, crafty murder, Delaney. The coroner said it
would have been impossible for a man to shoot himself in the manner
Stockbridge was shot. They're right--both of them--and we're right.
I'll stake my badge on it! Particularly in view of the two threats.
Why, I was there when he was called up and given twelve hours on this
earth."

Delaney glanced out the window. "Snowing again," he said, "I wonder if
there are any footprints in that back yard or alley. Wouldn't that be a
clue, Chief?"

"To what?"

"Well, you told me that the trouble-man said a tall lad climbed the
fence near the junction-box and beat it for Fifth Avenue. Maybe that
lad left footprints behind."

"They're snowed over now!"

"But if he made them, couldn't we find them underneath?"

Drew's eyes narrowed. He leaned in his chair with a searching glance at
Delaney. "How long did you sleep?" he asked sharply.

"About thirty minutes, Chief. Mary and the kids woke me up and I
couldn't get settled again. I did some thinking."

"You must 'ave! That idea about the footprints is a mighty good one.
There was first a thaw, then a freeze, then a snow fall which preserved
everything. If we wait till spring there might be a set of prints
underneath the other sets. Two of our operatives were there. The
trouble-man was there. He scraped the connections. If we find a fourth
set of prints, that's our man!"

"The tall lad?"

"Yes, Delaney. We can build a box about the fence and start a thaw of
our own. I'll think it over!"

"I'll go up and do it, Chief. I can make plaster-casts of all the
prints. There's a French system I heard of once. I can find out from
Farot over at Headquarters."

"Keep it under cover for a while," decided Drew, sitting down and
drawing a sheath of papers to the edge of the desk. "Keep it quiet," he
added. "I'll think it over."

Delaney rubbed his chin. He watched Drew rapidly thumb over the data.
"Say, Chief," he yawned. "I see another light."

"What?" shot Drew over his shoulder. "S--o? Wait a moment before you
give it to me--you reminded me of something. Where was the spot of
powder on my face? The rubber in the Turkish bath said it was right
here." The detective turned and touched his forefinger below the lobe
of his left ear. "Right there," he added.

"That's where it was, Chief. Just where you got your finger. It was on
the cord. Seems to me that it was circular in shape. Like a half-moon."

Drew raised his black brows in reflective thought. He opened a small
drawer with a sudden dart of his arm. He poised a mirror so that the
light from the window brought out his left ear and neck. He dropped the
mirror to the desk. "Delaney," he said, "that's exactly the spot where
Stockbridge was shot!"

The operative felt a cold chill dart up and down his tired spine. He
came to life with an oath, and a slap of his huge palm upon his knee.

"Chief, you're right!" he exclaimed, leaning forward. "You're right!
That spot of black was just where the old man was hit. Now, what d'ye
make of that?"

Drew drummed his fingers on the edge of the polished desk. He tapped
his toes on the floor. He coughed and picked up the mirror for a second
and longer glance at his face and neck. He tossed the mirror to the
desk and swiveled slowly.

"What do I think of it?" he repeated, with flashing eyes. "I think
there are features to this case I don't like!"

"Could it have been an accident, Chief? You might of got a bit of soot
from the gun and then scratched your neck. Maybe that Harry Nichols put
one over on us. The gun might have been fired, reloaded, and we never
noticed it. Looks bad for Nichols and the girl."

Drew closed his eyelids tightly. His brow furrowed in deep thought.
"No," he said finally. "I don't think the soot or powder came from the
pearl-handled revolver. I don't think so! It would seem to me, Delaney,
that intuition is stronger than evidence. That girl and that boy rang
true. That valet is above suspicion. The servants are to be trusted.
Stockbridge trusted them and he was noted for his shrewdness in picking
men. The only mistake he ever made was Morphy. That individual was out
to do the old man. He was a biter, bitten! I think we'll eliminate, for
the time, Loris, Harry, the servants and German influences in the
matter at hand. What was your idea?" Drew rubbed his neck beneath his
ear, as he turned to his papers.

"I've forgotten it, Chief. That spot drove it all out. No, wait--say!
I've been thinking--this morning laying there and listening to the kids
getting ready for school--that the powder we smelled in the library
wasn't ordinary powder. I know a firecracker, or a regular Chinese
smell when I get near one. That wasn't the kind I got. It was like
something else. It was powder--all right--but----"

Drew lifted a sheet of paper. "I covered that," he said. "Analysis made
by Higgens, this morning, shows traces of smokeless-powder in
Stockbridge's hair and about the bullet hole. There's a difference.
Now, I'm going further than that. I'm going to have those scrapings I
got from my neck looked at. If they are the same as the powder that was
used to slay Stockbridge, we are getting on."

"There's lots of smokeless, Chief."

"That's the trouble--that's what we are right up against. Let's leave
the footprints and the powder for a few minutes. Both are important.
They'll wait. See here!"

Drew raised a sheath of papers from his desk, turned with the chair,
and started thumbing over the data he had accumulated.

"See here," he repeated absently. "First branch of the tree of Truth in
this case is a stubborn one. It requires considerable work on our part
to get to the end of it. I've sent out six operatives to scout the
telephone calls and get me some light on them. I've kept some notes on
what they have 'phoned in to me. The telephone company, the wire-chief
at Gramercy Hill, and an official I know, have been enlisted in getting
to the bottom of these calls. They have made progress. But, Delaney, of
all the devilish inventions of man, a telephone is the most subtle.
It's a wonder to me we have found anything. It's the crook's one best
tool. With it he can play safe, and we can't catch him!"

"What have you found, Chief?"

Drew held up a paper. "The first call, Delaney," he said, "was the one
to the cemetery company's superintendent, notifying him to excavate a
grave in the Stockbridges' family plot. Subtle suggestion, that, in the
light of what followed."

"It was," said Delaney.

"This call has received all of the attention it deserved. It's the
first of the series, and was perhaps made before the crook had time to
cover himself completely. It has been traced to a slot booth in the
Pennsylvania Railroad Station in the Woman's Waiting Room."

"Woman's?"

"Yes, Delaney. That is no criterion that a woman did the calling-up.
The girl there in charge of the pay-booths states that more men than
women use the 'phones in that part of the station."

"Just our luck!"

"The toll collected on this call must have been thirty-five cents,
including the war-tax. The superintendent says that the voice over the
wire was thin and tired. He says he thought it was Dr. Conroy. He never
gave the matter second consideration. Conroy, however, has a voice like
a bull. We checked that up."

"Does the superintendent know Conroy?"

"No! Except by name!"

"Then, Chief, I don't see any use trying that lead. It begins and ends
in air."

"It most certainly does! We'll cross it out. The next call for our
investigation----"

"Which was?" asked Delaney, waking up.

"Which was the one notifying Stockbridge that he had about reached his
span of life on this earth. I was there in that library when the call
came in. Again, from the millionaire's description, this time, we have
the thin, whispering voice on the wire. The man was probably the same.
He mentioned the cemetery letter which would establish that fact."

"I'm following you, Chief. Go on!"

Drew picked out a second sheet of paper from his pile. "We went after
this call at the time, or soon after the time it was sent in," he said,
tapping the sheet with his fingers. "I called the office here and had
Harrigan get in touch with George Westlake, third vice-president of the
telephone company. Westlake got busy."

Delaney eyed his unpolished shoes with a sage wink.

"Westlake turned things over," continued the detective. "He made a most
thorough investigation. We have his word that there is no record of
this call! The wire-chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange declares that it
never went through the switchboard. That the connection had been made
on the outside."

"From the air?"

"Looks that way. They tried everything and questioned everybody. No one
talked with Stockbridge through the switchboard at Gramercy Hill, at or
near that hour. Therefore, we must conclude, that, insomuch as I know
somebody _did_ talk with him at that hour, the connection was made,
either in the junction-box in the alley or behind the switchboard at
Gramercy Hill Exchange."

"How about underground, Chief?"

"Impossible! That is--almost impossible. The cables are in conduit and
sheathed with lead. It would be a poor place to tap in on a line. I'm
going to presume that the man who tapped in knew his business. The
junction-box in the alley is under suspicion. I think it was done
there, in this manner." Drew paused and picked up a third sheet of
hurriedly-written notes.

"A junction-box," he said, "is merely a small switchboard where the
conduit ends and the house connections begin. It would have been easy
for an expert to disconnect the two leads which led into Stockbridge's
library, ring up with a low tension magneto, and then cut in with a
testing set and a battery current and do the talking. That is what the
trouble-man told us might have been done. He found no signs of
tampering. He saw a tall man escaping down the alley. It would seem,
Delaney, that this tall man is the one we're after. Perhaps, as you
said, he left footprints. But footprints, like fingerprints, are not
much use until you get the man who made them."

"What d'ye deduct in this second call--Chief?"

"That we've run squarely up against a blind wall. We'll drop it for a
time and go to the third call."

"When was that?"

"Stockbridge was murdered at four minutes and eighteen seconds past
twelve, by his own watch, Delaney. It was a very good watch! Now
allowing for a movement of the hands on account of the fall, how are we
to account for a telephone call sent into Gramercy Hill 9763--the
library 'phone--at exactly five minutes past twelve from a
slot-telephone booth at the east end of the Grand Central Railroad
Station on Forty-second Street?"

"How did you get that, Chief?"

Drew chuckled and wheeled in his chair. "I got it," he said, "by simple
arithmetic plus the vice-president's pull. Here's how it was found,
Delaney. Easy as two and two. You remember the howler?"

"I'll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!"

"The howler established considerable in this case. The chief operator
remembers putting it on. She remembers the time. She looked back, after
being jogged by George Westlake, and found that some one had called up
Stockbridge a few minutes after twelve. It was probably this call to
the old man that caused him to be near enough to the telephone to knock
it over when he was shot. The operator did not hear the shot, but she
remembers a thin, piping voice asking for Gramercy Hill 9763."

"The same guy, every time!" declared the operative, mopping his brow
with his sleeve. "I'd like to have that fellow for five minutes,
Chief!"

"We'll get him! We've got the time established twice. Stockbridge's
watch fixes the murder at twelve-four-eighteen. The telephone call at
five minutes past twelve, and the howler put on soon afterward, checks
up. The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand
Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you
see that?"

Delaney frowned. "I see it and I don't," he said. "I'm all balled up,
Chief. What with the magpie and the howler and a man shot in a locked
room and the spot of soot on your neck--I'm all twisted into a knot. I
think I'll go out and get a drink!"

"No, Delaney, don't," said Drew. "You'll need your head in this case.
We're squarely up against class of the highest order. Since Sheeney
Mike and the gas-tube over the transom in Chinatown, I don't know of a
more baffling set of clews. All these calls--which seem so important in
the case--lead to a whispering voice of low pitch and timber. Perhaps
the police records will show such a man who is at large--very much at
large."

Delaney furrowed his brows and screwed his face into a painful knot.
"I'm trying to go back, Chief, to the Morphy case and them crooked
witnesses he had. They all had loud voices--like wolves!"

"Yes--I remember them. But then, Delaney, a man can change his voice.
That whole pack will bear watching."

"You've eliminated some things that were worrying, Chief. But there's
some I don't see yet. It's impossible for a man to get shot like that
old millionaire was. We went over that room and that house. We frisked
good and plenty. There was nothing suspicious. The walls were thick.
The floor was hardwood. The ceiling was some kind of patent plaster,
that's like stone. I got two looks at the door, and you tried the
windows. Now what's the answer, chief? I'll say you are never going to
clear this case up. I don't think you can. It's going to be one of them
unsolved mysteries. If you do figure something out it ain't going to be
proved to my satisfaction. The thing couldn't be done the way it was
done!"

"That's definite," smiled Drew, tapping the desk with the tips of his
well-polished finger nails. "You're talking in a circle. I'll solve the
case, or I won't sleep!"

"It's impossible!"

Drew sorted his papers and bent over them. He turned the swivel chair
by a pressure of his knee. His eyes narrowed as he studied Delaney's
lugubrious face which was sadly in need of a shave.

"Impossible," he repeated softly. "There's no such word, Delaney. It's
a fool's excuse. Now I don't want you to be a fool. Don't make the
mistake of allowing a seeming impossibility to dull your efforts.
There's always a way around everything which looks high and impassable.
They used to go round the Horn. Now they cut through the Isthmus. They
used to think men were supernatural. Now they know that nothing works
without a law. I admit that I don't know how Stockbridge came to his
end. I don't want to dwell upon it, either. But this we do know, by
these papers, that he was well-hated, threatened and marked for death
by an individual or clique of individuals. That is all we know, and all
we ever need to know, in order to proceed on the basis that a material
agency struck out his life with a material substance--such as lead
propelled by smokeless powder."

"Whew!" exclaimed Delaney, rising.

"As for the library wherein he was slain," continued Drew. "As for it,
we must revert to simple geometry. Matter occupies space. A material
act was committed by a material body which got past all our precautions
and struck the magnate down. What is there in this world, which is at
one and the same time, material and yet capable of penetrating through
a door or wall without a trace? Give me that answer, and we'll get
results. What is it?"

"Damned if I know! I'm all balled up! You talk like a college
professor. You mean something that is and something that isn't. Good
morning!"

Delaney reached for the door knob with a gesture of disdain. Drew
wheeled and stared at him. "Wait a minute," he said softly.

The operative turned and dropped his hands to his side.

"You remember the magpie?" asked Drew.

Delaney nodded.

"Well, sit down and wait. It'll be here within five minutes. The valet
'phoned he was bringing it in a taxi. That was just before you came in."

"Taxi!" snorted the big operative, stretching himself on the leather
chair. "Them valets have got it soft. Last night was the first ride
I've had in one for months, and----"

Delaney's voice trailed to an end. He turned in the chair and saw
Harrigan's red face and auburn hair come slowly through the aperture
made by opening the door.

"Well?" snapped Drew.

"There's a funny lookin' guy out here, chief," said the
assistant-manager. "He wants to see you in person. He's got
knee-britches and a bunch of brass-buttons on his monkey-jacket. Says
he's a valet."

"Has he got anything with him?" asked Drew.

"He has, Chief! He's got a gilded cage with the damnedest looking bird
in it I ever saw. It ain't a parrot and it ain't a crow. It's a
blue-jay or something like that!"

"Show him in!" Drew said. "Show him in. You can wait, Delaney!"




CHAPTER NINE

"MEN AND MOTIVES"


The two detectives leaned back in their respective chairs and eyed each
other. Both swung and stared out of the window at the swirling snow
which salted across the window in an unending curtain of white. Both
returned to the locked stare so common to men who have worked together
in danger and know each other's merits.

Delaney's eyes dropped first. He studied the rug beneath Drew's
polished shoes. He coughed behind his hand, and turned with a shrug of
his shoulders. He fastened upon the closed door a glance of expectancy
which brought a smile to the chief's lips.

"Things are picking up," said Drew, with a short laugh. "Your
friend--the bird--has arrived."

"My friend?" blurted the big operative. "It's no friend of mine! I'd
wring its neck, gladly."

"It may be the key to the whole thing. Smarter men than the ones we are
fighting have fallen through less. You remember Eddy, The Brute, who
left his umbrella after him in the Homesdale Murder Mystery. Funny,
wasn't it? Took three months to plan the murder and left his rain-stick
behind. His initials were on it."

"They can't get away----" started Delaney.

"Here's your bird!" announced Drew, as a knock sounded on the door.
"Move over and let that valet stand there. I want the light in his eyes
when we're talking to him. Always get the light in the other fellow's
eye. Sisst!"

The door opened to a crack--then wide. The valet came in with an
important strut. He turned and deposited a cage at Delaney's big feet.
The operative moved back with a grunt of disgust. He eyed the cage and
contents with a homicidal expression. His eyes raised and fastened upon
the valet. He hooked his broad thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest and
took a deep breath.

"I hope you're satisfied," he said to Drew, who was smiling. "I hope
this black sparrow don't start anything. I'll finish it, sure."

"What's your name?" asked the chief, turning and consulting a paper.

"Otto Braun," said the valet. "Otto Braun, sir."

"Born in Cologne ... year, sixty-three ... worked as valet and major
domo for British families ... came to America with Mr. Stockbridge, and
have been with him since?"

"That's correct, sir," the valet said, with a start of amazement.

"Are you married?"

"Twice--sir."

"Wife living?"

"Both, sir. I'm paying a small alimony to both."

Delaney grunted. His foot went out toward the magpie which had finished
hopping about the perches of the cage, and was listening with head
cocked sideways.

"You--you have charge of this bird?" asked Drew, turning fully around
and facing the valet with heavy-lidded intentness.

"I'm its keeper, sir!"

Delaney coughed explosively. He leaned down to cover his confusion. He
jabbed a thumb at the bird.

"It's savage," he rumbled. "It pecked at me!"

"Easy," warned Drew, with a quick frown. "Easy, Delaney. I want to get
to the facts of this case. We're wasting time."

"Go ahead, Chief."

"I've had you come down here," said Drew, turning to the valet, "in
order to find out about that magpie. You had charge of it when Mr.
Stockbridge was alive?"

"Yes, sir. I fed it and kept it clean, for the--master." The valet
sniffled slightly. Drew watched him with keen eyes.

"Did it repeat much of Mr. Stockbridge's conversation?" he asked.

"Repeat, sir?"

"What I'm trying to get at is, whether or not the bird was in the habit
of repeating words that seemed to strike its fancy. Did it act like a
parrot?"

"It's very much like a parrot, sir. Sometimes it was sulky and wouldn't
say anything for days. Other times, sir, we had trouble keeping it
quiet."

Drew turned in his chair and fingered a paper. "I looked up everything
I can find in my library here, in regard to magpies," he said. "Is
there any difference between an ordinary magpie and a Spanish one?" he
added, turning.

"I don't think so, sir. They can all be taught to talk--the same as a
parrot, sir."

"Then if this bird should repeat a word, or two words, over and over
again it would be plausible to assume that some one had used the word
or two words. I want to make myself clear," Drew added with engaging
candor. "What I'm getting at is important in view of the fact that this
magpie used two words after we broke down the door to the library and
found Mr. Stockbridge murdered."

Delaney leaned forward.

"The words this bird used were 'Ah Sing,' as near as we can arrive at
them. Did you ever hear it repeat that couplet?"

"I can't say that I have, sir."

The detective lifted his brows and stared at the cage. "Repeat that,"
he said to Delaney. "Repeat what we heard in the library."

"Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!" boomed the operative.

The magpie ruffled its feathers and darted about the cage like a
sparrow in a barrel. "Keep it up," said Drew.

"Ah, Sin! Ah, Sing! Ah, Singing!" roared Delaney.

"That'll do! You've frightened it. Let it alone for a while. We'll keep
it here, Otto. I'll send it back in a few days. How's Miss Stockbridge
bearing the strain, up at the house?"

"She hasn't left her room, sir. Mr. Nichols called. The Red Cross
people called. There's been lots of callers, sir, but she hasn't
appeared, sir. It's early, though."

Drew glanced at his watch. "That's all," he said. "You may go."

The door closed softly as the valet bowed, replaced his hat and passed
out without glancing back.

"A good servant," said Drew, rising and kneeling down beside the cage.
"Now, Delaney," he added tersely. "Now, old sleepy head, we have the
key to the case locked here. I don't doubt but that you unconsciously
struck the right clew when you bawled your little hymn. You said, 'Ah,
Singing.' Now couldn't that be Ossining?"

"By God, Chief, it could!"

"Or, more likely, Ah! Sing Sing!"

"Who said that?"

"The bird!"

"But who taught the bird?"

"Nobody taught it! It might have been the last thing said by
Stockbridge--just before he was shot."

"And the bird repeated it--to us?"

"Certainly! A parrot or a magpie is a living phonograph. They reproduce
a sound, at times, without any idea of knowing what they are saying.
This bird may have been so frightened by the shot which was fired in
the library, that it recalled the words used by Stockbridge before the
shot was fired. These words, in my opinion, tell us that the
millionaire was 'phoning to some individual, probably the
whispering-voiced man. This individual and Ah, Sing! or Ah, Sing Sing!
or Ah, Singing! or Ossining! are closely allied. Now who of
Stockbridge's enemies does that fit?"

Drew rose to his feet and dusted his knees. "Is that clear?" he asked.

"Clear as mud, Chief! I don't get it yet!"

"You will," said the detective, dropping down in his chair and reaching
for his papers. "See these," he added, swiveling and darting a quick
glance at the bird-cage. "These, Delaney, are a list of the old man's
known enemies. I have compiled this list from the secretary's
statements, my own newspaper reading, the facts we gained at Morphy's
trial, and from what Stockbridge told me in the library before he was
slain." Drew counted the list with a steady finger. "There's seven," he
said.

"Is that all! I thought there was more 'an that!"

"No! Seven is the number! He was well hated as you will see. First and
foremost we have Mortimer Morphy, who is serving from ten to twenty
years in state prison, with other indictments hanging over his
iron-gray head. He's the captain of them all. He lacks soul, conscience
and heart. 'The Wolf of the Ticker' they used to call him. I had the
warden on the wire this morning. He's ready to aid justice to the
limit. He says that Morphy, or rather Convict 87313, I think they call
them inmates up there, is well and working. He's in charge of the books
in the front office."

"He'd never keep any books for me!" declared Delaney.

Drew nodded. "Me, either," he said. "I have heard too much about his
past to trust his future. Stockbridge always feared him."

"Does he fit what the black crow said?"

"He does, most certainly! Sing Sing and Morphy are linked together in
every way. Morphy must have been mentioned on the wire and Stockbridge
shouted, 'What, in Sing Sing?' or words to the same meaning."

"Go on," said Delaney, glancing at the magpie with round eyes.

"Then comes Vogel, who was at state's prison, but whom they transferred
to the hospital at Glendale, where he is said to be dying of
tuberculosis."

"I remember him. A little runt with a big nose. That might be the
whispering voice, Chief, if he's got T. B."

"Hardly! I also had Glendale on the 'phone, or Harrigan did. They say
Vogel is right there and is going to stay there, if fifty guards will
keep him."

"Next, Chief?"

"The next is Vogel's partner, Ross. You remember him? A good-natured,
fat fellow with a bald head. He was always smiling. He's making little
rocks out of big ones in a convict camp near Lake George. He was at
Sing Sing, or Ossining, for a time. Most of the New York prisoners are
taken there first. It's a sort of clearing house for the other prisons
of the state."

"Would he fit in with what this bird said, Chief?"

"He might!"

"Go on, I'm getting interested."

"Then," said Drew, "we have the two brokers who handled Morphy's Blue
Sky, preferred; Flying Boat, and other swindles. They are at Sing
Sing."

"What's their names, Chief? I've forgotten."

"Greene and Goldberg! One confessed and one turned state's evidence.
They got off with from two to four years. A nice bunch of squealers!"

"They'll be out pretty soon, Chief!"

"Yes--but they're harmless. I don't think they had anything to do with
the murder of Stockbridge. The other fellow might."

"Who's that, Chief?"

"Finklestein--the banker. The one who went before the Grand Jury and
claimed exemption. He's somewhere on the outside. I think Flynn is
covering him. I sent him over to Jersey, where Finklestein has a place
near Morristown. We'll hear of him later."

Delaney shifted his big feet and started counting on his fingers. He
widened his eyes. "There's one more," he said, as Drew leaned back.

"Yes, there's one more. I kept him for the last. He's out of sight,
reach and hearing. You know who I mean?"

"That guy who invented wireless boat, or flying boat, or them
movie-picture things in seventeen colors. I know who you mean. He beat
it, slick as any porch-climber. What's his name, Chief?"

"Morphy's brother, Cuthbert Morphy! He's an electrical-engineer and the
inventor of all their shady promotions. He's the real brains of the
mob. You never saw him?"

"No--did you?"

"Can't say that I have!" declared Drew with a snap. "I call him one of
my failures. I've made enough. Remember how Flood and Cassady searched
for him after the others were arrested? He's cost us thousands of
dollars--without result. I charged it to Stockbridge."

"Which way did he go, Chief?"

"He beat it for Argentine. From there he went across South America to
Antofagasta. From there he disappeared like a rocket in No Man's Land.
No trace was found. For all we know, he might be right here in little
old New York--the best hiding place in the known world. I hate to think
of the places a man could plant in this town!"

"Sure! But they always come around the old corner. Remember Dutch Gus,
the boxman. Five years, Chief, in every town on the map, and then he
was picked up at Forty-second Street and Broadway. Maybe your friend,
Cutbert, will show up some day?"

"Cuthbert!" corrected Drew. "He's no friend of mine, Delaney. The
trouble is, we haven't got a single photograph of him. That shows he
was figuring on crime all his life. A man who don't get his picture
taken, is generally a man to watch."

"He's slick, Chief. What does he look like?"

Drew pressed a buzzer-button. "Look like?" he said, turning toward the
door. "Oh, he is a little fellow, quick-tempered and probably handy
with a gat. He's dangerous. I think Cuthbert Morphy is a good lead if
we can find him."

"I never did like that first name!" Delaney blurted as Harrigan opened
the door to a crack.

"What have you found out about Harry Nichols?" asked Drew, as the
assistant-manager stepped in softly.

"Got Plattsburg, Chief," said Harrigan briefly. "Harry is O. K. up
there. Captain's commission. Three months intensive training. Going to
France soon. On fourteen-days' furlough in New York. Was floor manager
for Harris, Post and Browning. Quit good job to go in the Army. Harris,
of the brokerage firm, says Harry can come back and hang up his hat any
time. That's about all!"

"Umph!" said Drew. "That's fine, in a way. He couldn't have a better
record. Now we'll lay him aside. What did Frick learn at Ossining?"

"Frick 'phoned once. I was going to connect you with him but that
fellow with the bird-cage came in. Frick says the warden is O. K. and
will lend every aid. He saw Morphy in the Auditor's Department. Looks
worried, he says. Getting old! The visitor's list shows that he's had
an average of three visits a month. No sign of his brother. There's a
fellow calls, though, who might be Cuthbert Morphy. Answers general
description. They'll pinch him next time he comes. We never thought of
looking for him there!"

"No! We were going to _send_ him there! It's like a crook, though, to
play with fire. What else did Frick say?"

"Nothing more, Chief. He's looking around. He says he'll report as soon
as there is anything. He says----"

"Buurr! Burrr! Burrrr!"

Drew turned and snatched up the telephone receiver. He pressed the
diaphragm to his ear. "All right," he said tersely. "Connect me. Yes!"

Delaney breathed deeply and watched his chief's face.

"Hello! Hello!" whispered Drew. "Yes," he added guardedly. "Yes,
Commissioner.... What? You say that ... that the autopsy on
Stockbridge's body--head--shows what? Repeat it! I can't quite hear
what you are saying. Louder, Commissioner! That's better. Yes--all
right now, Fosdick. It shows.... It shows that the typo cupronickel
bullet found in--in, ... repeat that.... In Stockbridge's brain was not
scored or ... or what? ... Marked? ... Wait! I don't get your
meaning.... It was lodged in the soft tissues of the.... Yes! ... I
see! Go on.... There were no rifling marks on it.... What?"

Drew turned and motioned toward the open door. Harrigan closed it
softly as the detective resumed his position at the 'phone. "Yes," he
said tersely. "Yes, Fosdick. That's important. I should say it was
important! ... New wrinkle, what? ... Why, I'd think at a quick jump
that the bullet which killed the old man wasn't fired from a regulation
revolver.... Yes, it couldn't of! ... It must have been fired from a
smooth-bore rifle or pistol!... What? ... Yes.... It seems that way to
me.... Are you dead sure?"

Drew waited. He tapped the desk with a pencil. He reached with his
right hand and pulled a sheet of paper to him. "Go on," he said slowly.
"Yes, go on, Commissioner. Oh, I've been busy! Yes. You have! Well....
I wouldn't of. No, I don't think that's the right lead at all. They're
all right. All right.... Go to it! ... Good-by, Fosdick."

The detective flipped the receiver on the hook and slowly swung the
chair. His eyes darted first at Harrigan and then rested upon Delaney's
broad face.

"That damn fool!" he exclaimed. "He's pinched the whole bunch of
servants. He's looking for the valet. The butler is under lock and key.
All that's left up there is the housekeeper and some housemaids and
Miss Loris. He better not touch her! Brass Band Fosdick! He's a mile
off the case!"

"What about that bullet, Chief?" asked Delaney.

"Oh! That's new! It's different and important. The coroner's inquest
shows--the autopsy, I mean--that the bullet found in the millionaire's
brain was a cupronickel affair of twenty-two caliber projected by
smokeless powder from a smooth-bore weapon held not more than three
inches from the old man's head."

"Whew!" whistled Delaney. "That's going some, Chief," he added, rising.
"But what does it mean? I ain't got that at-tall!"

"Nor I!" snapped Drew. "We're only getting deeper and deeper into
facts. After a while we'll have enough of them to solve the case. The
smooth bullet is important. It suggests many things--a home-made gun,
for instance."

"Might have been an old Civil War gun, Chief."

"I don't believe there was anything like that in Stockbridge's house.
You might inquire when you go up. He was very modern with his Flying
Boat stock and his improved munitions for the Allies. He has no old
collection of arms."

Delaney stared at Harrigan. Drew swung to his desk and tapped the
blotter for a moment. "We'll get busy," he said briskly, as he swung
back again and faced the two operatives. "I've almost got my man. That
bird there," Drew pointed toward the magpie, "is our one best bet and
lead. I may be wrong, but I'll wager a good cigar there's a convict or
ex-convict at the back of this case. How else can we explain 'Ossining'
or 'Ah, Sing' repeated through the magpie to us. It's not an impossible
clue. It might happen. Let's move with both feet!"

Delaney rose lankily and stood by the door. He braced his shoulders,
then shelved them forward as he reached a finger toward the bird-cage.
"Pretty Poll!" he said.

The magpie darted about the cage like a shaft of blue light. It came to
rest with its tail feathers thrust through the bars. It peered with
beaded eyes at Drew who had snatched up a bundle of papers and was
sorting them.

"Get busy, Delaney, on this assignment!" he said sharply. "Waste no
time. Run up to Stockbridge's and get me plaster-paris casts of all the
footprints you can find around that junction box. It's stopped
snowing," he added, glancing out the window.

"All right, Chief."

"Wait a minute. Stop somewhere on your way up-town and find out the
exact temperature changes last night. What I want you to get is a
record of every quarter-hour, so as to show when the early, packed snow
in Stockbridge's yard froze solid. The under crust!"

"I got that in my head, Chief! That's my idea, exactly. If a tall lad
tapped in on the junction box early in the night his footprints will be
frozen close to the ground. The whole surface is level now, but there
ought to be ice-posts sticking up when I get done thawing."

"That's right! You'll probably find the trouble-hunter's and one other
set of prints. The other set is our man's!"

"What size feet did the trouble-hunter have?"

"Small--about six!"

"All right, Chief, I'm off."

"Walt a minute." Drew studied a sheet of paper. "After you get the
temperature data, Delaney," he said. "After you get that and the
plaster casts of the footprints, go into the house and stay there.
Watch Miss Loris. Don't talk to Fosdick's men. Tell her to be careful.
Tell her that she is in grave danger. Remember that the same man who
threatened Stockbridge over the wire, also said he was going to get
her. Remember that, Delaney!"

"Good-by!"

"Get a shave!" shot Drew out through the closing doorway.

"I'll do that little thing," came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.

"Now, Harrigan," Drew said, shuffling the slips of paper like a deck of
cards. "Now, we're closing in on our man or men. See if you can find
Frick at the prison. 'Phone from the booth!"

Harrigan was back within three minutes. He leaned over Drew.

"Frick was with the warden," he whispered tersely. "He was easy to get.
He says that Morphy has been trying to telephone----"

"What?"

"Tryin' to telephone, Chief----"

"What has he got to do with the telephone? What right has an inmate of
a prison got to phone? Unless--unless the warden thought the case was
justified--like in sickness or important business."

"Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn't ask Frick!"

"Get out there and ask him! Quick!"

Drew waited with every muscle taut. He drummed the table with impatient
fingers. He thumbed the sheath of papers he had collected on the
Stockbridge case. He wheeled in his chair and stared out through the
frosted window with unseeing eyes. The vision came to him of a pompous
old man in prison gray, strutting about the front office with silk
socks and a Havana cigar. Drew had no sympathy with a certain kind of
convict. The misguided safeblower or house prowler might be excused for
a great many things. The pickpocket was a professional, who took his
chances as they ran. The gentleman bank-wrecker, with his overextended
tale of woe and his bid for the world's sympathies, was the one the
detective detested with all his soul. Such men, he believed, were
beyond the pale. They knew better. Morphy, for instance, had not only
gotten away with much of widow's and orphan's money, but he had wrecked
a score of homes and dragged down many with him at the final assizes.

"So he uses the phone!" Drew repeated like an indictment. "Well! Well!
Well!"

Harrigan stepped in through the door. Drew turned away from the window
and stared at the assistant-manager. "What did you find?" he snapped.

"I found enough, Chief! Frick says that Morphy is the whole thing up
there. They call him the 'Assistant-Warden,' in jest. The Welfare
League won't have anything to do with him. They got him down for a
squealing 'rat.'"

"You can't fool the Gray Brotherhood," said Drew. "Their rooms are too
close together. What about this telephoning? Who was it to?"

"A telephone booth in the Subway Station at Times Square!"

"Good God!"

"Frick says it was! He tried to listen but Morphy came out and looked
around twice."

The detective rose from his chair and grasped Harrigan's narrow
shoulders with fingers of steel.

"Get out there!" he ordered through line-drawn lips. "Get out there and
phone from the soundproof booth. Ask my friend--the vice-president of
the telephone company--to find out for us whether Morphy or anybody
else in the prison telephoned at four minutes past twelve this morning.
Get that?"

"That was when Stockbridge was shot, wasn't it, Chief?"

"It was!" exclaimed Triggy Drew.




CHAPTER TEN

"A WOMAN CALLS"


The business of a modern detective agency is managed in much the same
manner as a corporation or a large firm of corporation lawyers. Its
tentacles, or operatives, are spread over the globe. Its news and
assignments come in via wire. Its telephone and telegraph bills amount
to thousands of dollars every year. In no other way can satisfactory
results be secured.

Drew had started his agency on a shoestring and ran it into a
"tannery," in the parlance of the street. He had made many mistakes. He
had once, to his knowledge, sent the wrong man to prison. This mistake
had been so costly, he never spoke of it. It was soon after the
conviction of the innocent man, that Drew gave up circumstantial
evidence and got down to hard work, wherein the evidence accumulated
was tempered with some degree of fact and common sense.

The first Stockbridge case had been in connection with an absconder.
This man, Drew brought back in person from Adelaide. The work so
pleased the millionaire that when Morphy broke under the financial
strain and robbed everybody, right and left, Drew was called in to
bring the promoter to the bar of justice. It was a long fight, fraught
with danger and disappointment. The courts dragged. War broke over the
civilized world. Morphy fought fiercely--like a cornered hyena. He was
sent away, after dragging down his confederates. He had sworn at the
time of conviction that he would get Stockbridge if it took to the
longest day of his life. Drew remembered this oath and promise as he
waited for Harrigan to appear from the booth.

He turned to the magpie and the cage. He studied both with keen eyes
which had been trained in the school of hard facts piled upon each
other until they pointed a way. Stockbridge had owned the pet for many
years. It was the one domestic trait in his make-up, save Loris. It
would be a strange thing, Drew concluded, swinging toward the window,
if Morphy and Morphy's confederates were to fall through a remembered
couplet dropped by the magpie. It was in the order of events, however.
It was the bright, particular finger which pointed toward the prisoner
at Sing Sing. Nothing would be more logical than for the bird to
remember the millionaire's last words--or dying words. They would be
shrieked aloud and unforgetable.

"More snow," said Drew to himself. "This is a white day if ever there
was one. I wonder if Delaney got to the house in time?"

He turned as a "Buurrrr! Burrrr!" sounded at the ringing-box below the
desk.

"Hello!" he said sharply into the transmitter. "Hello! Who's this?"

He waited as some out-of-town connection was made. A thin voice broke
in from the silence. The voice rose in timber. "Oh, Hello!" exclaimed
the detective, recognizing Flynn, one of his operatives. "Hello,
Flynn," he said. "What's the weather like out at Morristown? Yes! ...
Yes! ... Oh, is that so.... What? ... Too bad! ... Well, you better
come in.... Take the first train and jump on the job.... He's in
Florida, eh? ... Well, that lets him out.... Good-by, Flynn!"

Drew reached for a pencil and scratched a name off his list before he
hung up the receiver. "That leaves six," he said, running his eyes down
the names of the suspects. "Six to go. We'll round them up--or out. It
looks bad for one or two of them!"

He dropped the pencil to the desk with a flip of his fingers. He
replaced the telephone receiver on the hook. He twirled the chair and
leaned forward with his hands on his knees.

"Nice bird, you," he said, addressing the magpie. "We're alone, you and
I. Why don't you tell me what you know--what you heard in that library,
when the millionaire talked over the phone and then received the
cupronickel bullet in the base of his brain? He said, 'Ah, Sing!' eh?
He said it, or we are jumping at conclusions. Have Delaney and I
erred--as once or twice before?"

The bird strutted about the cage. It pecked at a hard, white fish-bone,
thrust between two bars. It dipped its bill into the water-holder, then
held high its head as it gulped. It switched its tail and hopped onto
the first perch. There it sat, with coiled claws, as Drew leaned
closer.

"Ah, Sing!" he repeated confidentially. "Ah, Singing! Ossining! Sing
Sing! Let me hear you do your prettiest, birdie. Don!"

The magpie lowered its head and peered outwardly. It lifted a wing with
ruffled dignity. Drew narrowed his eyes. "You were there," he
whispered. "You were in that sealed room--that double-locked and
triple-watched library. How did the murderer shoot down the old man?
How could he do it, Don? I think I know _why_ it was done. I'm fairly
sure who is directing matters. What I want to know is, what devilish
ingenuity of the criminal tribe projected that bullet into the old
man's brain? Answer that, Don!"

The bird was as stately as a raven. It seemed to Drew that he heard an
echoed "Nevermore." He sat upright and took his hands from his knees.
"Answer that, Don?" he repeated.

"Gone batty, Chief?" asked Harrigan, thrusting his shoulders through
the open door.

Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping
motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. "Guess I am," he
admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant's
hand. "Well!" he snapped, recovering himself. "Well, what luck? I see
that you got something!"

"Yep! I got him, all right. He's hanging around the front office of the
prison seeing what he can find out. He says," Harrigan consulted the
paper. "He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like
a man in a daze. Always----"

"I don't want that, now! Didn't I send you out to call up the
vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us
early this morning. Westlake!"

"I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought
I'd get Frick again. That's all Frick had to say, except a----"

"Well?"

"Except he'll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the
contrary. Says he'll report if anything turns up."

"Go on with Westlake!" The detective's voice hardened.

"Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers
in his office. He's in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says
that their records show----"

"Show what?" Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. "It took some
time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the
Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison
between six o'clock last night and this morning. The first one was at
seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central
Railroad Station."

"Good!" snapped Drew. "Good! Go on! We're getting there!"

"This call was for seventeen minutes. It was charged to the prison."

"What was the booth number?"

Harrigan consulted his sheet. "I didn't get that," he said, scratching
his head. "Westlake didn't give it to me."

"Go on--we'll get it! Go on! What was the next call?"

"The second call, Chief, was to the State Capitol Building at Albany.
It was for three minutes. No more! I guess that was the warden talking
to the Pardon Clerk, or something like that. We'll forget it, eh?"

"Chop it out!"

"The third and last call, Chief," said Harrigan with haste, "was to the
same telephone-booth at the Grand Central Station. Ah, here's the
number! That's why Westlake didn't give it to me on the first call to
the booth. Number, Gramercy Hill 9845, Chief. That's over near the east
end of the building--on the lower level."

"A quiet place!" mused Drew.

"Yes! Well, Chief, here is the time. The call was for twenty-two
minutes, extending from a quarter to twelve--midnight--to seven minutes
after twelve. It was charged to the Auditing Department of the prison."

Drew rose from his chair. "That covers the hour in which Stockbridge
was murdered!" he declared, reaching for the roll-top of his desk
"That's nice work on your part."

Harrigan flushed slightly. He leaned over and laid the paper upon the
desk. Drew took it, folded it with two fingers forming the creases,
then crammed it into his breast pocket The roll-top came down with a
bang. Harrigan lifted an overcoat from a tree, helped Drew on with it,
and found the detective's hat.

"When will you be back, Chief?" he inquired.

"Hard to say! Get me some French-gray powder. A little will do. I'm
going to see if I can get any fingerprints in that booth. They might
help!"

"Will you be back by night!" Harrigan asked, leading the way through
the door.

"Don't know! Get that powder! Tell Delaney, if he calls up, that I'm
hot after my man. Tell him to stick up where he is, till he hears from
me. Tell Flynn, when he comes in from Morristown, that he can relieve
O'Toole who is trailing Harry Nichols. I don't think there is much in
that. I'm covering every one--that's all."

Harrigan opened the drawer of a cabinet and fingered about till he
found a small, round box of gray powder used for preserving
fingerprints. He turned with this and saw that Drew had crammed into
his side coat-pocket, a flat camera which the telephone girl brought to
him. "Got flash lights?" asked Harrigan.

"Yes. There's some in the back of this camera." Drew slapped his
overcoat. "I got everything, I guess. Remember about Delaney and
Flynn."

The detective moved toward the door which led to the hallway where the
elevators were. He turned as Harrigan laid a hand on his shoulder.
"What's that sticking out of your other pocket, Chief?" asked the
assistant-manager. "A paper, ain't it?"

Drew flushed beneath his olive skin. He pressed the object down with
soft fingers. He turned and said simply:

"That's a picture of the girl in the case. Forgot I had it. Good-by!"

The door slammed as he strode over the white tiling and jabbed at an
elevator button with his right thumb.

Swirled in wind-blown snow from the office buildings and wrapped to the
chin with the collar of his overcoat, Drew plunged, with head downward,
for the nearest subway station.

He caught an up-town express, and, after three grinding station-stops,
he reached the Grand Central Station wherein was the telephone-booth to
which the calls had been sent from the prison.

He made swift work of the matter at hand. Time was pressing. The
booths, to the number of three in that portion of the station, were
fortunately empty.

Going over the slot-box and the tiny shelf in the center booth, which
bore the number "Gramercy Hill 9845" on the transmitter, Drew pulled
the door shut and dusted all the nickel work and the polished surface
of the receiver, with French-gray powder of superior make.

He took three exposures by aid of small flashes. He opened the door and
allowed the smoke to escape. Pocketing the camera, after winding on a
fresh film, he entered the booth for a second time and inspected its
lower paneling for possible clews.

An oath, close-bitten and expressive, escaped his lips as he discovered
a small hole drilled through the woodwork. He stooped and peered
through this opening. It led to the next booth. It had been made with a
long auger of quarter-inch diameter. Shavings lay upon the floor of the
booth.

He emerged and investigated the second booth. The hole came through,
underneath the slot-box. It had been drilled in order to make a
connection between the two telephones. He found splinters and sawdust
at his feet. He backed out and stood perplexed. There was no way of
finding out just what sort of connection had been made between the two
booths. All evidence of wires had been taken down. Only an expert could
give an answer to the new riddle. Drew recalled Westlake as he rushed
to the subway-platform.

He found the vice-president busy, with a score of men waiting in the
outer room of the telephone company's office. The secretary-in-charge
hurried in with his card and his urgent request for three minutes'
important matter which could not well wait.

Drew, however, was forced to wait seven minutes by his watch. He chafed
at the delay. He crossed his legs at least once each leaden minute. He
feared that the trail was getting cold. Twice he rose, as if to go.
Each time the secretary had indicated patience by an arching of her
brows and a jerk of her thumb toward the ground-glass door.

"Send in Drew!" boomed as the door opened and let out the caller. Drew
strode in with his notes in his hand.

"Just a minute, Westlake," he said, dropping into a chair and leaning
over the desk behind which sat a good-natured official of the superior
order. "A minute! I'm in a jam! What d'ye make of this?"

Drew related his discovery in the booths of the Grand Central. He went
right to the point. He explained the auger-hole, the shavings, and the
fact that it was the same set of booths to which the call had been sent
from the prison, over the time Stockbridge had been slain.

Westlake listened with dawning light. He leaned back as Drew finished
talking. He smiled. He thrust his thumbs under his vest. "You're a
hardworking man, Drew," he said, "but you didn't get it all. Do you
remember the third call that I gave you this morning?--the one when the
chief-operator at Gramercy Hill put the howler on? It was from the same
booths you just mentioned!"

"What?"

"It certainly was. There's no use looking at the record. The number was
9844 Gramercy Hill. In other words we have the evidence to show that a
thin, whispering voice called up Stockbridge from one booth in the
Grand Central at the same time the prison was connected to the adjacent
booth."

"For the love of Mike!" said Drew.

"Yes--your case grows interesting, Chief. You've got a lot of tangled
leads and all that, but a little more work should untangle them. A
telephone engineer ought to make a crackerjack detective. He's trained
to unsnarl the worst snarls in the world. You ought to see some of our
wiring diagrams. It takes study to trace them out. You're learning!"

"I don't know if I am, Westlake. I think that Morphy, up at the prison,
has been 'phoning New York. I believe he has a confederate in this
town. This confederate, we will say, received his instructions about
midnight last night. He bored a hole through the booths and called up
Stockbridge. But what was it all for?"

"That I can't answer!"

Drew rose from the chair and crammed his notes in his inner, overcoat
pocket. "What the devil did they do that for?" he asked with flashing
eyes. "Morphy calls up Gramercy Hill 9843 at, or about, midnight.
Gramercy Hill 9844 calls up Stockbridge. Stockbridge was killed by a
bullet in the neck as he's talking over the 'phone. Was the call to
warn him? Was it to threaten him? Was it to occupy his attention so
that the murderer could get in the room and fire the shot?"

"Did you find out how he got into the room?" asked Westlake, leaning
forward.

"I have not! The whole thing gets weird. I can't sleep! I'm not going
to sleep till I get some light on this!"

"You look healthy," said Westlake, as he pressed the buzzer for the
next caller.

Drew emerged from the elevator and hurried to the street with short,
quick strides. He crossed the snow and pressed open the door to a cigar
store. He fished out a nickel and called up his office.

To Harrigan who answered, he said tersely, "Get Flynn up to the Grand
Central! Get him to the east-end telephone-booth, on the lower level.
Tell him I'll be there. He's back from Morristown, isn't he? He phoned,
eh? Get him to me! I need him!"

Drew hung up with a swift flip of the receiver. He hurried to the
subway station and caught a local up-town. He had time to flash a
fourth and fifth set of photos before Flynn came puffing across the
lower level.

"See here!" snapped Drew, drawing the operative into the middle booth.
"Bend down there where that hole is, and tell me what you see on the
varnish."

"It's fingerprints, Chief. Two, three of them. Looks like somebody
pressed hard when they drilled that hole. The outer print is a good one
of a thumb. Left thumb, I should say."

"That's right! I'm going to find out who made that impression, within
one hour. You stay here and grab anybody who tries to talk with the
prison. Frick is up there!"

"How about O'Toole, who's watching Nichols?" asked Flynn.

"Leave him stay on that assignment. I need you here. Stick now! Watch
everybody who talks over these three phones. Arrest anybody who
receives or sends a call to the prison. There's plenty of Central
Office men handy for a pinch. Fosdick will back them up!"

Drew rushed for the subway. He realized that he had wasted valuable
time by not taking the complete set of fingerprint photos on his first
inspection of the booths. It was a detail he had overlooked. But then,
he could afford to make mistakes. The men or man he was after, dared
not make any. This was a thing he had often recalled in dealing with
super-criminals.

Fosdick's rooms at Detective Headquarters, on Center Street, were
luckily deserted as he rushed down through the hallway. The
Commissioner widened his eyes as Drew handed over the camera, with a
request that the films be developed and prints made within twenty
minutes.

"Can't be done that soon," said the detective. "Give us fifty minutes."

"I'll make it twenty-five!" shot Drew. "I got lots to tell you, but
it'll keep. Get those prints and we'll land our man. The last two films
have perfect samples of finger-work. Our man slipped there! He signed
his own death warrant!"

The Commissioner pressed a button. To the young man who came, he
explained the necessity of rushing the developing and printing of the
films. He turned as the messenger hurried out with the camera.

"What about that bullet?" he asked.

"Just as I said, Commissioner. It was fired from a smooth-bore pistol
or gun. What do you think?"

"Oh, maybe not! Sometimes there isn't much rifling on an old revolver.
Those little twenty-two affairs are made out of cast-iron."

"But the cupronickel bullet shows smokeless powder and high-class
criminal activity. I doubt if one of those little rods would take a
modern steel-jacketed bullet. They're used in automatics."

"But automatics have good rifling. That bullet was as smooth as before
it was shot. Here it is!"

Fosdick opened a drawer and pulled out a later-day projectile of the
lesser-caliber.

"This is smooth!" he repeated with heat. "It was cut from the old
millionaire's brain. It ain't scratched. It never took the rifling it
was intended for. My theory is, that it was fired from a gun of larger
caliber. That is to say, it didn't fit the bore. A thirty-thirty rifle
might be used to hold a twenty-two caliber bullet. It would not take
the rifling of this."

Drew shook his head. "That's hardly possible," he declared. "It's too
vague and doesn't suit me. We're going to find that the deeper we get
in this thing, the simpler will be the explanation. I remember any
number of cases which have been solved in this city where the mystery
was so wrapped up in speculation and the improbable that our minds
failed to grasp the simple thing which was the solution."

"Then you think the lack of rifling on the bullet might be the opening
wedge to catching the man who shot Stockbridge?"

"It could well be, Fosdick. The lack of a thing sometimes is just as
important as the visible clue. Do you remember the Rajah case at
Gramercy Park?"

Fosdick leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. "Seems
to me that I do," he said, thrusting out his lower lip. "There was a
big jewel missing. Sort of an Idol's Eye case--wasn't it?"

"Exactly! A white diamond was missing at a dinner. Lights went out as
they were passing the stone around the table. Lights came on again and
the diamond was gone. Everybody accused. A strange print was found on
the sideboard. Servants knew nothing about it. The print didn't
correspond to any which we took there. Seemed impossible and all that.
Well, the very fact that the print didn't correspond was the means of
finding the stone and the culprit. You remember it?"

"Vaguely."

"Simple! A Lascar who waited on the table slipped off his shoes, crept
into the room, secured the diamond and climbed to the sideboard where
he hid it on top of a picture. The thumbprint which we puzzled our
heads over was a toe-print! We got the fellow!"

"I recall it now," said Fosdick. "I think one of our men thought out
the matter."

"He didn't!" declared the detective. "We worked it out! The city
department had given up the case. This may be the same. I'll venture to
say that as soon as you get a good operative some private agency
secures his services. Now, Commissioner, confess up. What manner of gun
could fire a bullet, such as a cupronickel one, without leaving
markings?"

"Smooth bore. An old flint-lock--for instance."

"We'll grant that! They're clumsy, however. The shot which killed the
millionaire was fired at very close range through a smooth tube of a
greater caliber than the diameter of the bullet found in his head. If
it were fired through a gun which was rifled, then there was a collar
or collars on the bullet, which we didn't find. The same thing was
discovered by examination of the shells which the Germans fired at
Paris. There was no rifling on those long-range projectiles. The bands
dropped off after the shell left the gun."

"Then this bullet was fired at long range?" Fosdick was openly
incredulous.

"No! Again we have the impossibility or seeming impossibility. I
examined that library, both before and after the murder. No shot could
have been fired from the outside so that a bullet would reach the old
man. If that were the case there would have been an opening in the
walls or at the windows or the ventilators. Besides, we have the powder
burns on the millionaire's head. We are squarely confronted with a
paradox. Riddle me that paradox and we will go a long ways toward
finding the man who murdered Stockbridge."

Fosdick frowned. "I can't see it at all," he confessed. "I still hold
to the theory that we should third degree all of the servants. I've got
some of them. If they don't squeal, I'll get the others!"

Drew glanced at his watch. "Personally," he said, "I'm of the opinion
that you will not get anything out of them. I think it was a mistake to
arrest them. It would have been far better to trail the butler and the
doorman and see if they connected with anybody."

"I'm doing this!" exclaimed Fosdick with asperity. "I've got charge of
this case, Drew. I got charge and I don't want any meddling. I've my
own methods."

"All right," said the detective. "All right! I want a check-up on the
finger prints and then I'll be going. I had to come to you for this.
You have such an interesting collection."

"Here's your answer!" said the commissioner, rising and striding around
the desk. "Take this bullet and look it over. Put it in your pocket.
And----"

Drew turned swiftly. The messenger stood in the doorway. He came
forward as Fosdick nodded. He passed over the hastily developed prints
which Drew had taken. The commissioner glanced at them, frowned, held
them to the light, then said:

"We'll try these on the Man Who Can't Be Beat! He's the best in the
world. He'll know in three minutes who made these prints if the fellow
is on our records."

The fingerprint expert nodded to Drew as they entered a huge room which
was lined with mahogany cabinets in the manner of a filing system in a
mail-order house. Fosdick passed the five photos into this man's hand.
He smiled as the expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket
magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.

"We're infallible!" exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. "Watch
Pope get your man. He'll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?"

The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued
as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then
laid them down on a table and shook his head.

"We have no record of this fellow," he said coldly. "It looks like a
man's print. Here's the thumb and here is the middle finger of the
right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I'd say, as a pretty sure
thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?"

"Yes! Look!" said Fosdick.

Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from
cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still
others.

"No go?" he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet
and turned with shaking head. "No go? Try again."

"Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints," said Pope, holding
out the photos. "He hasn't registered with us yet. Whoever made these
prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony."

"How about a misdemeanor?" asked Drew.

"No! They're all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion
or for auto speeding or beating his wife,--if he has one,--he would be
here. I'm sorry, inspector."

Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward
Fosdick.

"Have you got a print of Finklestein?" he asked. "You remember the
fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released
for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I've forgotten how
he got off. He's supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I
had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you'd
compare these prints with Finklestein's."

"Go ahead," said the commissioner. "Go as far as you like. I don't
think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong
ones--that's all."

"What's Finkle--Finklestein's initials?" asked the expert.

"J. B.," said Drew quickly. "Julius B.!"

A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two
drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard,
and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had
started from before taking the prints in the booth.

"No record could be more different," Pope said. "Finklestein has a big
hand and very broad fingers. The fellow who made these prints has a
little hand with thin fingers. The whorls and loops are entirely
dissimilar. He comes under classification 2-4-X. Finklestein is in
cabinet 2-9-0. They couldn't be further away."

Drew started out through the doorway with Fosdick following him. They
stood on the landing leading to the downstairs steps, where the
detective was about to leave the commissioner with a curt good-by. His
hand was out when he drew it back, dropped it to his side and wheeled
with sudden intuition.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "Are you and I detectives or children? Come
back to the fingerprint room. Hurry now. I want to see Pope. I forgot
something!"

The expert rose as they entered. "Well?" he asked with arching brows
and a slight frown on his face. "Well, what is it?"

Drew pointed a finger as steady as a rifle. He bared his eyes into
Pope's own. "Were you up to Stockbridge's house?" he asked swiftly.

"Yes! Why?"

"Did you take prints and photos of everything in the library? I
understand that this was done after I turned the case over to
Commissioner Fosdick."

"It was done!" rasped Fosdick. "Of course it was done. It's always done
when a case looks like a homicide!"

"This case looked worse than that!" said Drew. "It was slaughter!"

The commissioner turned to the fingerprint man. "Where are the prints
and photos you took up at the house?" he asked.

"Still in the developing room."

"Do you think they are developed?"

"I'll soon know, sir," he answered, pressing a button.

The messenger entered who had attended to Drew's prints which the
detective took in the telephone-booth.

"Get down to the developing room," ordered Pope. "Get me all the prints
and positives of Exhibit 12 of the Stockbridge case. Bring what is
already developed. Tell them to rush the others."

The three men waited in silence for the return of the messenger. Drew
paced the floor thoughtfully. He clasped and unclasped his hands behind
his back. He had almost slipped in an important matter. It was a chance
he was taking, but a vital one in the case. The fingerprints taken by
the expert in the library might and might not jibe with those taken in
the slot-booth. If they were the same, or any one was the same, the
case would offer a new line for investigation.

A sliding footstep at the door announced the messenger. He held a
sheath of curling papers in his hand. Pope reached and snatched the
photos. He ran over them with widening eyes. He sorted them into two
piles upon the table.

"Five prints!" he announced, glancing at Drew with a sly smile. "Five
of these prints are the same as your set. In other words, the man who
made the impressions in the telephone-booth was also in the library at
or about the time of the murder!"

"Impossible!" snorted Fosdick.

"Ah!" said Drew. "Photos don't lie. Now we're getting there! That's the
first light I've seen in some time. It clears the case of the
supernatural. It puts it where it belongs--in the material world of
flesh and blood and hate and revenge."

"It does that!" corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. "Now," he
added good-naturedly, "I'll help out some more. I've got a book of
notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I
flashed every print I could see. There's some of the butler on the
bottle and the tray. There's a number on the polished table. There are
at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I
suppose yours is among them, inspector?"

Drew held out his right hand. "Look and see," he suggested with a short
laugh. "I've never been printed in my life."

"That won't be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the
ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There's no record of
this fellow in our cabinet. But--he was in that library!"

"Where did he leave his prints?" asked Drew.

Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page,
thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. "What's
the number on the back of that one?" he asked, nodding toward the
topmost photograph.

"Ten," said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.

"Ten," repeated the expert. "That is a print which was flashed on the
corner of the little table which was overturned when Stockbridge fell
to the floor after being shot."

"And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?"

"The same!" declared the expert dryly.

"I don't see where you two are getting," said Fosdick. "How could a man
get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go
over to a slot-booth?"

"He might have been in the slot-booth first," suggested Drew with slow
smiling. "From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge."

"The fact is established," exclaimed Pope, "that the man you are after
was in the library and in the booth. That's all you can say. There's no
way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made."

Drew lifted a second print. "No. sixteen," he said, turning to the
expert. "Where was that made?"

Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease
over the development in the case. "That," he said, swinging his eyes
till they met Drew's, "that was made on the hardwood floor directly
under Stockbridge's body. We found the print, with others of the little
finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!"

The detective stared at Pope. "You mean," he said shrewdly, "that the
man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was
down on his knees arranging Stockbridge's body, or doing something like
that?"

"He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the
body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this
impression. I venture to say that it is there yet."

"Good!" said Drew. "I may have a look at it. I never went after prints
in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business--like
yourself."

Pope smiled. He glanced at his book for a third time. "What's the
number of that last print?" he asked.

"Forty-four!"

"Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by
Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work."

"I had a hand in that," admitted Drew.

"This print was close to the knob. There's none like it on the knob
itself."

"Umph!" declared Fosdick.

Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on
Fosdick's shoulder. "I've got you to thank," he said, "for letting me
use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it
clears the case in a remarkable manner."

"How?" asked the commissioner.

"Well for one thing," Drew said, lifting the third photo. "For one
thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after
the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half
mile or more away from the mansion."

"I'll grant you that, but what does it prove?"

Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. "It
proves," he said, "that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never
arrested in New York."

"That's a large order!" chuckled the commissioner. "There are a few
good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven't got--yet!"

"I'm satisfied," said the detective, pulling his hat down over his
head. "I'm going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good.
He's stayed out of your clutches. He's forgotten more about telephones
than most men know. He's as slippery as an eel and as clever as the
very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase."

"What's that?" asked the commissioner.

"He didn't wear gloves on the job. That's where we may trip him up."

"They all forget something," said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through
the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.

The detective hurried down the steps,--passed the sergeant at the
entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building
and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter
was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!

Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a
towering canyon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the
one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the
feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.

The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit
who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages.
He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself
in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective
realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the
city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.

Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker.
He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great
operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.

Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little
position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers. He
had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was 

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