Книга - The Adventuress

The Adventuress
Arthur B. Reeve

David Brawn


Marking 100 years since publication, The Adventuress was the first full-length novel to feature ‘scientific detective’ Craig Kennedy, who was dubbed ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’ and the first fictional detective to use forensic science.Who killed Marshall Maddox of Maddox Munitions, Inc., the inventors of the top secret telautomaton? Was his death retribution for a double life, or was it due to the covetousness of some schemer? Even Craig Kennedy is challenged by the diabolical scientific inventiveness and ruthlessness at the centre of the crime – and by Paquita, the mysterious adventuress . . .Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) was a New York author and criminologist whose creation, the scientific detective Craig Kennedy, became famous as ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’. Reeve’s cutting-edge stories, newspaper serials and movies about Craig Kennedy made him the most popular detective writer of the era, and The Adventuress was his first full-length novel for Harper & Brothers, published in 1917 as part of the company’s centenary year celebrations.This Detective Club classic is introduced by publisher David Brawn, who examines the rise and fall of Arthur B. Reeve, whose bestselling fiction was credited as introducing forensic science to real police work, yet 100 years later has been all but forgotten.







‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’

Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929

Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.











Copyright (#ulink_f6b28241-2f2c-5e6d-a322-ef26013af17e)


Published by COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1918

Published by The Detective Story Club Ltd 1930

Introduction © David Brawn 2017

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1930, 2017

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 978000813656

Ebook Edition © March 2017 ISBN: 9780008137663

Version: 2017-01-30


Contents

Cover (#u58c8717e-2e3d-5838-9c12-f6a61c757f3a)

Title Page (#uda89e503-bbc8-5a1e-a65c-81a139a9600f)

Copyright (#u89e46f31-a527-5bc7-b166-45ecbcb1a67d)

Introduction (#u4091af77-49f5-5813-b76a-b77364d02f7c)

Editor’s Preface (#ubc5675dc-29c5-5a4c-8b7a-5b87d4780f1d)

I. THE MYSTERY OF THE ‘SYBARITE’ (#ub3f51e52-8d0b-52c1-9e37-f34f94c19420)

II. THE SECRET SERVICE (#u42366fdf-b6e4-555e-872b-59595c6f50bc)

III. THE CABARET DANCER (#u79c8f687-4ef9-5645-b1a2-082b8694812f)

IV. THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE (#u8ec09049-3743-5b6d-995d-1360d3193037)

V. THE WHITE LIGHT CAFÉ (#ucf4a8701-456c-5e10-bfa3-76ac7067bb21)

VI. THE POISON GAS (#u362676b8-e176-510e-bcf7-70b7c9f8a8a7)

VII. THE DIVORCE DETECTIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

VIII. THE PULMOTOR (#litres_trial_promo)

IX. THE TRAILING OF PAQUITA (#litres_trial_promo)

X. THE DETECTAPHONE DETECTOR (#litres_trial_promo)

XI. THE FRAME-UP (#litres_trial_promo)

XII. THE EAVESDROPPERS (#litres_trial_promo)

XIII. THE SERPENT’S TOOTH (#litres_trial_promo)

XIV. THE GEOPHONE (#litres_trial_promo)

XV. THE NIGHT OF TERROR (#litres_trial_promo)

XVI. THE INVISIBLE INK (#litres_trial_promo)

XVII. THE CIPHER LETTER (#litres_trial_promo)

XVIII. THE RADIO DETECTIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

XIX. THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPER (#litres_trial_promo)

XX. THE SPEED DEMON (#litres_trial_promo)

XXI. THE SUBMARINE EAR (#litres_trial_promo)

XXII. THE TELAUTOMATON (#litres_trial_promo)

XXIII. THE CURB MARKET (#litres_trial_promo)

XXIV. THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT (#litres_trial_promo)

XXV. THE ADVENTURESS (#litres_trial_promo)

Footnote (#litres_trial_promo)

The Detective Story Club (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




INTRODUCTION (#ulink_c6fc79fa-fa59-5da2-bfbd-3c9c2c315d1d)


‘The name’s Kennedy. Craig Kennedy.’

The twenty-first century crime reader might be forgiven for replying, ‘Who?’ But a hundred years ago, Craig Kennedy, ‘scientific detective’, needed no introduction. He was a household name on both sides of the Atlantic, acquiring the impressive tagline ‘The American Sherlock Holmes’ and conquering newspapers, magazines, books, comic strips, stage, films—silent and spoken—and early television, destined, or so it seemed then, for literary immortality.

Kennedy’s creator, Arthur Benjamin Reeve, was born in the New York town of Patchogue on 15 October 1880. A gifted academic and polymath, he graduated from Brooklyn’s exclusive Boys’ High School in 1899 and went to Princeton University, studying ‘about everything with an ’ology or an ’onomy at the end of it’, inspiring and even tutoring fellow students. Law School beckoned, and although fascinated by the subject of criminal law Reeve had no appetite to compete when he discovered that there were 16,000 lawyers in New York and dropped out to pursue his first love: writing. Various editorial posts led to freelance journalism and some short stories, his first in Argosy magazine, before his big break came with Cosmopolitan in 1910.

Cosmopolitan, the magazine that had premiered H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in the US in 1897, was at that time a monthly literary publication with nearly a million readers. Reeve’s story, ‘The Case of Helen Bond’, introduced Craig Kennedy, ‘the Professor of Criminal Science’, and was followed the next month by ‘The Silent Bullet’ (January 1911), which became the titular chapter of the first hardback when the first dozen stories were collected and published by Dodd, Mead in 1912. The adventures of Craig Kennedy were a constant monthly fixture in Cosmopolitan for two years before becoming less regular items, and more than 80 were published altogether by 1918.

The innovation of Reeve’s stories was that Kennedy, a chemistry professor based in New York, would apply scientific methods to the detection of crime. The fictional narrator was Walter Jameson, a newspaper reporter whose bemused interpretation of Kennedy’s wild experiments gave the reader’s eye view of events, recalling Sherlock Holmes’ Dr Watson. The stories contained more than a little science fiction, from developments in chemistry and medicine to speculative communication devices and weaponry, but these were not tales of fantasy: the scientific theories were perceptive and up to date. Reeve prided himself on keeping abreast of the science journals and plundered them for story ideas, with scientists like Tesla and Edison complimenting him on his technological intelligence, and readers thrilled at the possibilities that were envisioned in the Craig Kennedy tales. As John Locke observes in his invaluable biography, From Ghouls to Gangsters: The Career of Arthur B. Reeve (Off-Trail Publications, 2007), the inventions had mysteriously evocative names like the ‘vocaphone’, the ‘sphygmograph’ and the ‘optophone’, but Reeve was not a research scientist or a soothsayer of future-truth and did not restrict himself to hard sciences. He was writing detective stories, and it was his entertaining storytelling and mastery of the puzzle-solution structure that ensured his continuing popularity.

In addition to Cosmopolitan, Reeve wrote stories in the early years for McClure’s, Hearst’s, The Popular, The Red Book, Pearson’s and Adventure magazines, also creating new principal characters—Guy Garrick, an enlightened young detective who had studied criminal science, and Constance Dunlap, a relative rarity in 1913 being a woman detective. There were more books, all bind-ups of the short stories, although they began to be presented as novels, with additional linking material and chapter breaks to disguise the original short story format. The first full-length Craig Kennedy novel, The Gold of the Gods, was published in 1915 by Hearst’s International Library.

It was at this point that the movie industry, a fertile ground for dramatic writers with its requirement for cliffhanger serials, lured Reeve and his fictional brainchild to the silver screen. The Exploits of Elaine (1914), a formulaic follow-on from that year’s The Perils of Pauline, featured Craig Kennedy heroically deploying science against the menace of the villainous Clutching Hand. Two sequels swiftly followed, as did novelisations, which were published by Hearst’s in 1916 and separately in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton. Meanwhile, Craig Kennedy also made his stage debut, with the first play opening in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1915.

Despite a general curtailment in Reeve’s short story output during his film writing years, a new full-length novel commissioned by the respected New York publishing house Harper & Brothers was published in 1917 as part of their centenary year celebrations. The Adventuress,concerning a murder in a munitions firm and the theft of a new invention, the ‘telautomaton’, was serialised initially in the Chicago Examiner for, they claimed, ‘the highest price ever paid this author for a novel’. UK rights were sold to Harpers’ future sister company, William Collins, who also bought the final two collections of Cosmopolitan shorts, The Treasure-Train and The Panama Plot. Meanwhile Harpers went on to publish ten more books with Reeve, plus an impressive twelve-volume reprint collection, The Craig Kennedy Stories (1918), which included the bulk of the Cosmopolitan shorts (although not the newly released The Panama Plot), the novel The Gold of the Gods, the Elaine novelisations and the two non-Kennedy books, Guy Garrick and Constance Dunlap. The widespread success of this set at the time has ensured that the early Craig Kennedy books have remained relatively easy to track down, whereas The Adventuress and the novels that followed it remain generally much harder to find.

With his Cosmopolitan run having ended in 1918, the 1920s saw Reeve diversifying. More film work included writing for stage sensation Harry Houdini, with their first movie, The Master Mystery, also having the distinction of featuring the first on-screen robot, Automaton ‘Q’; he even wrote Westerns. A return to magazines, newspapers and lucrative pulps saw Craig Kennedy appearing in both cosier romantic mysteries and stories set in the country as well as harder-edged gangster stories and syndicated comic strips. Technology remained a constant theme—the film serial Craig Kennedy: Radio Detective (1926) capitalised on a very topical medium, and the novel Pandora (1926) featured synthetic fuel and an atomic bomb.

By the end of the decade Reeve was focusing more on real-life criminology. He became ‘radio detective’ himself when NBC signed him in 1930 to write and host Crime Prevention Program, an advisory series in conjunction with the NYPD. It rejuvenated his journalistic career: more radio followed, he published his first non-fiction book, The Golden Age of Crime, an examination of racketeering and other consequences of Prohibition since its introduction in 1920, and he covered high-profile crime cases in newspapers, including the Lindbergh kidnapping case that had inspired Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (1934).

Reeve’s final novel, The Stars Scream Murder (Appleton-Century, 1936), was in terms of the science one of his least plausible—astrology!—and was also Craig Kennedy’s swan song. The flap of the dust-wrapper bore an enthusiastic summary of Reeve’s achievements since creating his scientific detective a quarter of a century earlier:

‘More than a million copies of Arthur B. Reeve’s “Craig Kennedy” books have been sold in the United States to date and almost as many in Great Britain.


They have been translated into practically every language, including one book into ancient Korean.

‘The Stars Scream Murder, probably the first astrological detective novel ever published, maintains Mr Reeve’s long record of firsts. His first story employed the use of tire treads in detection, a method which has now borne fruit in the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. Department of Justice, with its astounding file of the treads of all tires manufactured. The first story ever to use the now well-known dictagraph was written by Mr Reeve even before the scientific journals had described it. He also wrote the first story based upon the Freudian theory and psychoanalysis. Pioneering in this manner, he has created a new type of detective story with a host of imitators. He himself considers his most important influence the helping along of the creation of a scientific department in every one of the country’s modern detective headquarters.

‘It is hardly necessary to recount the innumerable titles which have made his name a household word as a master of detective fiction, nor to recall his various motion picture serials, such as The Exploits of Elaine, The Master Mystery, Terror Island, etc., which so many of us remember. He was in radio in the days of its infancy, his N.B.C. Crime Prevention Program having achieved particularly wide attention.’

Arthur B. Reeve died just four months later, on 9 August 1936, of cardiac asthma, aged only 55. As John Locke wryly observes, ‘Reeve all but took Kennedy to the grave with him. Most of the books were already out of print; the remainder soon joined the silence. Reeve went from American institution to forgotten man of antiquity virtually overnight.’ The only reprieve was a 26-part television series starring Donald Woods, Craig Kennedy, Criminologist in 1952, although it was pretty generic and largely ignored the science angle that had distinguished the original Craig Kennedy from his peers.

Reeve had undoubtedly struck a chord with readers and had modernised crime fiction to make it feel relevant and exciting; but sadly nothing dates quite as quickly as yesterday’s cutting-edge science. Craig Kennedy now reads more like a parody than a visionary detective. But if you can transport your mind back 100 years, The Adventuress might still ‘unfold new delights to readers of exciting mysteries’, as the review in the London Globe newspaper maintained, and will hopefully inspire readers to investigate more of the forgotten work of Arthur B. Reeve and his ‘American Sherlock Holmes’.

DAVID BRAWN

October 2016




EDITOR’S PREFACE (#ulink_b446b6dc-bd38-5eb7-89c3-2bf8f0c34fd8)


To the real reader of detective fiction the name of Craig Kennedy must be almost as well known as that of Bulldog Drummond, or Sherlock Holmes himself. He has taken his place among the great crime investigators of our literature, not simply because he is the ‘hero’ of some of the world’s best mystery novels, but because he is distinctly an individual. His personality and his methods are his own, and except perhaps in his success as a solver of crimes he cannot be said to resemble any other detective hero. He is essentially the scientific sleuth; not only in his logic, but in the more melodramatic sense of the word—in his laboratory experiments.

Mr A. B. Reeve, the creator of Craig Kennedy, seems to be a very mine of ingenuity. He introduces into his stories strange cyphers, diabolical machines, subtle poisons, and a hundred and one new weapons for his murderer, but he never becomes cheaply sensational. His farthest flights of imagination appear rational to his readers, for he unfolds his story so cunningly and with such a conviction of truth.

At the present time, when the crime novel is at the height of its popularity and authors vie with each other in turning out more and more complex plots, it is refreshing to find someone like A. B. Reeve, who is content to entertain and mystify us without putting us through an examination in mathematics or psychology.

One need only read The Adventuress to test the truth of this assertion; it is of the author’s best and, unlike many of Craig Kennedy’s cases, is a full-length novel and not a short story; but the one admirable feature of an A. B. Reeve book is that it makes one forget office, household duties, everything one wants to forget, for several glorious hours in a new world of romance and mystery.




CHAPTER I (#ulink_ff338a77-de25-57da-b53f-8dccda5f1971)

THE MYSTERY OF THE ‘SYBARITE’ (#ulink_ff338a77-de25-57da-b53f-8dccda5f1971)


A REVOLVER-SHOT followed by the crash of glass sounded in our hall.

At the same instant the laboratory door burst open and an elderly, distinguished-looking man stumbled in on us, his hat now off, his coat and collar awry, his hair rumpled, and his face wearing a dazed, uncertain expression, as though he did not yet comprehend what had so suddenly taken place.

‘My God!’ he exclaimed, gazing about in a vain effort to restore his dignity and equilibrium. ‘What was that? I hardly had my hand on the knob when it happened.’

A glance was enough to assure Kennedy that the man was unhurt, except for the shock, and in a moment he dashed out into the hall.

The front door of the Chemistry Building had been shattered by a revolver-shot. But not even the trace of a skulking figure could be seen on the campus. Pursuit was useless. There was, apparently, no one to pursue.

Pale and agitated still, the man sank limply into a chair as I forced a stimulant into his trembling lips.

Kennedy closed the door and stood there a moment, a look of inquiry on his face, but without a word.

‘Someone—must have—shadowed me—all the way,’ gasped the man as he gulped hard, ‘must have seen me come in—tried to shoot me before I had a chance to tell you my story.’

It was some minutes before our strange visitor regained his poise, and Craig refrained from questioning him, though I was consumed with curiosity to know the reason of his sudden entrance.

When at last he did speak, his first words were so different from anything I had expected that I could hardly believe him to be the same person. In spite of his nervousness, his tone was that of a hard, practical man of business.

‘I suppose you know something of Maddox Munitions, Incorporated?’ he inquired, somewhat brusquely.

I did not quite understand a man who could be himself so soon after an episode such as he had been through, nor do I think Kennedy did, either.

‘I have no interest in “war brides”,’ returned Craig coldly.

‘Nor have I—as such,’ the man agreed, apparently rather pleased than otherwise at the stand-off attitude Kennedy had assumed. ‘But I happen to be Maxwell Hastings, attorney for Marshall Maddox, who was—’

Kennedy wheeled about suddenly, interrupting. ‘Whose body was found floating in Westport Bay this morning. Yes, Mr Jameson and I have read the little five-line despatch in the papers this morning. I thought there was something back of it.’

As for me, I was even more excited now than Kennedy, and I could see a smile of satisfaction flit over the face of Hastings. In a few sentences the clever lawyer had extracted from us what others took all manner of time and art to discover. He knew that we were interested, that he could depend on Kennedy’s taking the case.

Kennedy and I exchanged a significant glance. We had discussed the thing cursorily at the breakfast-table as we did any odd bit of news that interested us.

Already I knew, or fancied I knew, something of the affair. For it was at the time when explosions in munitions plants had furnished many thrilling chapters of news.

All the explosions had not been confined to the plants, however. There had been and still were going on explosions less sanguinary but quite as interesting in the Maddox family itself.

There was a hundred million dollars as the apple of discord, and a most deadly feud had divided the heirs. Together they had made money so fast that one might think they would not feel even annoyance over a stray million here and there. But, as so often happens, jealousy had crept in. Sudden wealth seemed to have turned the heads of the whole family. Marshall Maddox was reported to have been making efforts to oust the others and make himself master of the big concern.

‘Maddox had had some trouble with his wife, hadn’t he?’ I asked, recalling scattered paragraphs lately in the papers.

Hastings nodded. ‘They were separated. That, too, was part of the family disagreement. His sister Frances, took the part of his wife, Irene, I believe.’

Hastings considered a moment, as though debating how far he should go in exposing the private affairs of his client, then caught the eye of Kennedy, and seemed to realise that as long as he had called Craig into the case he must be frank, at least with us.

‘At the Westport Harbour House,’ he added deliberately, ‘we know that there was a little Mexican dancer, Paquita. Perhaps you have heard of her on the stage and in the cabarets of New York. Marshall Maddox knew her in the city.’

He paused. Evidently he had something more to say and was considering the best way to say it.

Finally Hastings leaned over and whispered, ‘We know, too, that Shelby Maddox, his brother, had met Paquita at the Harbour House just before the family conference which brought them all together.’

It was evident that, at least to Hastings, there was something in the affair that looked ugly to him as far as Shelby was concerned.

‘It’s not at all strange,’ he added, ‘that two men as unlike as Marshall and Shelby should disagree. Marshall was the dominating type, eager for power; Shelby easy-going, more interested in having a good time. In this affair of Paquita—whatever it amounted to—I’m not at all surprised at Shelby. He is younger than Marshall was—and inclined to be a sport. Still, there was a vein of susceptibility in Marshall, too. There must have been.’

Hastings paused. Human frailties were out of his ken as a lawyer. Property he understood; passions, no. With him the law had been a jealous mistress and had brooked no rival.

‘It was on Shelby’s yacht, the Sybarite, was it not, that the tragedy occurred?’ ventured Kennedy.

It was a leading question and Hastings knew it. He drew in a long, contemplative breath as he decided whether he should consent to be led.

‘Yes—and no,’ he answered finally. ‘They were there on the yacht, of course, to agree to disagree and to divide the family fortune. Shelby Maddox went to Westport on the yacht, and it was so hot at the Harbour House that they decided to hold the conference on the Sybarite. Marshall Maddox and I had motored out from town. The sister, Frances, and her husband, Johnson Walcott, live on the other side of the island. They motored over, also bringing with them Johnson Walcott’s sister, Winifred, who stayed at the Harbour House. Johnson Walcott himself went ashore from the yacht early in the evening, having to go to the city on business. That was all right, for there was Bruce, the lawyer who represented Frances Maddox—I mean Mrs Walcott, of course. You see, I’ve known the family so long that I often forget that she is married. Shelby had his lawyer, also, Mr Harvey. That was the party. As for the tragedy, I can’t say that we know positively that it took place on the yacht. No. We don’t know anything.’

‘Don’t know anything?’ hastened Kennedy. ‘How’s that? Wasn’t the conference amicable?’

‘Well,’ temporised Hastings, ‘I can’t say that it was especially. The division was made. Marshall won control of the company—or at least would have done so if the terms agreed on had been signed in the morning. He agreed to form a syndicate to buy the others out, and the price at which the stock was to be sold was fixed.’

‘But did they dispute about anything?’ persisted Kennedy, seeing how the lawyer had evaded his question.

Hastings seemed rather to appreciate the insistence than to be annoyed by it. So far, I could see that the great corporation lawyer was taking Kennedy’s measure quite as much as Craig was doing the same by him.

‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘there was one thing that occasioned more dispute than anything else. Maddox Munitions have purchased a wonderful new war invention, the telautomaton—wireless control of submarines, torpedoes, ships, vehicles, aeroplanes, everything—the last word in the new science of telautomatics.

An exclamation of surprise escaped Kennedy. Often he and I had discussed the subject and he had even done some work on it.

‘Of course,’ resumed Hastings, ‘we have had to acquire certain rights and the basic, pioneer patents are not ours. But the manner in which this telautomaton has been perfected over everything yet devised by inventors renders it the most valuable single piece of property we have. At last we have an efficient electric arm that we can stretch out through space to do our work and fight our battles. Our system will revolutionise industry as well as warfare.’

It was not difficult to catch the enthusiasm which Hastings showed over the telautomaton. There was something fascinating about the very idea.

Kennedy, however, shook his head gravely. ‘Too big a secret to be in the hands of a corporation,’ he objected. ‘In warfare it should only be possessed by the Government, and in industry it is—well, it is a public service in itself. So that went to Marshall Maddox also?’

Hastings nodded.

‘There will be trouble over that,’ warned Kennedy. ‘Mark my words. It is too big a secret.’ For a moment he pondered, then changed the subject. ‘What happened after the conference?’

‘It was so late when we finished,’ continued Hastings, ‘and there were still some minor details to be cleared up in the morning. We all decided to stay on the yacht rather than go ashore to the Harbour House. The Sybarite is a large yacht, and we each had a cabin, so that we all turned in. There wasn’t much sociability in a crowd like that to keep them up later than was necessary.’

‘Yes,’ prompted Kennedy as Hastings paused. ‘Marshall Maddox seemed all right when he retired?’

‘Perfectly. I went into his cabin and we chatted a few moments before I went to mine, planning some steps we would take in the morning to clear things up, especially to release all claims on the telautomaton. I remember that Maddox seemed in very good spirits over the way things had been going, though very tired. To my mind, that removes the possibility of its having been suicide.’

‘Nothing is impossible until it is proved so,’ corrected Kennedy. ‘Go on. Tell me how it was discovered.’

‘I slept later than usual,’ replied Hastings, seeking to get everything in order. ‘The first thing I heard was Shelby’s Jap, Mito, rapping on all the doors to make sure that we were awake. We had agreed to that. Well, we gathered on the deck, all except Mr Maddox. We waited, no one thinking much about it except myself. I can’t say why it was, but I felt uneasy. Mr Maddox had always been so punctual and I had known him so long. It was not like him to be the last on an occasion like this.

‘Finally someone, I think it was Shelby, suggested that inasmuch as I was in a sense his representative, I might go and hurry him up. I was only too glad to go. I walked forward to the cabin he occupied and rapped on the door. No answer. I tried the handle. To my surprise it turned and I pushed the door open.’

‘Don’t stop,’ urged Kennedy eagerly. ‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Hastings. ‘There was nothing there. The bed had been slept in. But Mr Maddox was gone!’

‘How about his clothes?’

‘Just as he had left them.’

‘What did you do next?’

‘I shouted an alarm and they all came running to me. Shelby called the crew, Mito, the steward, everyone. We questioned them all. No one had seen or heard anything out of the way.’

‘At least that’s what everybody said,’ observed Craig. ‘What then?’

‘No one knew what to do. Just about that time, however, we heard a horn on a small boat tooting shrilly, as though for help. It was an oysterman on his way to the oyster beds. His kicker had stopped and he was signalling, apparently for help. I don’t know why it was, but Mrs Walcott must have thought something was wrong. Even before one of the crew could find out what was the matter she picked up a marine glass lying on a wicker chair.

‘“It—it’s a body!” she cried, dropping the glasses to the deck.

‘That was enough for us. Like a flash it went through my mind that it could be no other than Mr Maddox.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘The most natural thing. We did not wait for the oysterman to come to us. We piled into one of Shelby’s tenders and went to him. Sure enough, the oysterman had found the body, floating in the bay.’

There was a trace of a tear in Hastings’s eye, and his voice faltered a bit. I rather liked him better for it. Except for fear at the revolver-shot, I had almost begun to think him devoid of feeling.

‘So far as we could see,’ he resumed, as though ashamed to show weakness even over one whom he had known so long, ‘there was nothing to show whether he might not have got up, fallen overboard in some way, and have been drowned, or might have been the victim of foul play—except one thing.’

‘What was that?’ inquired Kennedy eagerly.

‘Maddox and I had taken out with us, in a brief-case which he carried, the plans of the telautomaton. The model is in the company’s safe here in New York. This morning when we went back to Maddox’s room I found that the brief-case was missing. The plans are gone! You were right. There has been trouble over them.’

Kennedy eyed Hastings keenly. ‘You found nothing in the room that would give a hint?’

‘I didn’t look,’ returned Hastings. ‘I sealed the door and window—or port-hole—whatever you call it—had them locked and placed a wax seal bearing the impression of my ring, so that if it is broken, I will know by whom. Everything there is just as it was. I wanted it that way, for I had heard of you, and determined to come to town myself and get you.

‘The body?’

‘I had the oysterman take it to an undertaking establishment in the town so that we would have witnesses of everything that happened after its discovery.’

‘Did any of them suggest a theory?’ asked Kennedy after a moment’s thought. ‘Or say anything?’

Hastings nodded negatively. ‘I think we were all too busy watching one another to talk,’ he ventured. ‘I was the only one who acted, and they let me go ahead. Perhaps none of them dared stop me.’

‘You don’t mean that there was a conspiracy?’ I put in.

‘Oh, no,’ smiled Hastings indulgently. ‘They could never have agreed long enough, even against Marshall Maddox, to conspire. No, indeed. I mean that if one had objected, he would immediately have laid himself open to suspicion from the rest. We all went ashore together. And now I must get back to Westport immediately. I’m not even going to take time to go down to the office. Kennedy, will you come?’

‘An unnecessary question,’ returned Craig, rising. ‘A mystery like this is the breath of my life. You could scarcely keep me away.’

‘Thank you,’ said Hastings. ‘You won’t regret it, financially or otherwise.’

We went out into the hall, and Kennedy started to lock the laboratory door, when Hastings drew back.

‘You’ll pardon me?’ he explained. ‘The shot was fired at me out here. I naturally can’t forget it.

With Kennedy on one side and myself on the other, all three of us on the alert, we hurried out and into a taxicab to go down to the station

As we jolted along Kennedy plied the lawyer with a rapid fire of questions. Even he could furnish no clue as to who had fired the shot at him or why.




CHAPTER II (#ulink_b76578bf-f784-5fba-8582-b7015702032d)

THE SECRET SERVICE (#ulink_b76578bf-f784-5fba-8582-b7015702032d)


HALF an hour later we were on our way by train to Westport with Hastings. As the train whisked us along Craig leaned back in his chair and surveyed the glimpses of water and countryside through the window. Now and then, as we got farther out from the city, through a break in the trees one could catch glimpses of the deep-blue salt water of bay and Sound, and the dazzling whiteness of sand.

Now and then Kennedy would break in with a question to Hastings, showing that his mind was actively at work on the case, but by his manner I could see that he was eager to get on the spot before all that he considered important had been messed up by others.

Hastings hurried us directly from the train to the little undertaking establishment to which the body of Marshall Maddox had been taken.

A crowd of the curious had already gathered, and we pushed our way in through them.

There lay the body. It had a peculiar, bloated appearance and the face was cyanosed and blue. Maddox had been a large man and well set up. In death he was still a striking figure. What was the secret behind those saturnine features?

‘Not a scratch or a bruise on him, except those made in handling the body,’ remarked the coroner, who was also a doctor, as he greeted Kennedy.

Craig nodded, then began his own long and careful investigation. He was so busily engaged, and I knew that it was so important to keep him from being interrupted, that I placed myself between him and those who crowded into the little room back of the shop.

But before I knew it a heavily veiled woman had brushed past me and stood before the body.

‘Irene Maddox!’ I heard Hastings whisper in Kennedy’s ear as Craig straightened up in surprise.

As she stood there there could be no doubt that Irene Maddox had been very bitter toward her husband. The wound to her pride had been deep. But the tragedy had softened her. She stood tearless, however, before the body, and as well as I could do so through her veil I studied her face. What did his death mean to her, aside from the dower rights that came to her in his fortune? It was impossible to say.

She stood there several minutes, then turned and walked deliberately out through the crowd, looking neither to the right nor to the left. I found myself wondering at the action. Yet why should she have shown more emotion? He had been nothing to her but a name—a hateful name—for years.

My speculation was cut short by the peculiar action of a dark-skinned, Latin-American-looking man whose face I had not noticed in the crowd before the arrival of Mrs Maddox. As she left he followed her out.

Curious, I turned and went out also. I reached the street door just in time to see Irene Maddox climb into a car with two other people.

‘Who are they?’ I asked a boy standing by the door.

‘Mr and Mrs Walcott,’ he replied.

Even in death the family feud persisted. The Walcotts had not even entered.

‘Did you know that the Walcotts brought Mrs Maddox here?’ I asked Hastings as I returned to Kennedy.

‘No, but I’m not surprised,’ he returned. ‘You remember I told you Frances took Irene’s part. Walcott must have returned from the city as soon as he heard of the tragedy.’

‘Who was that sallow-faced individual who followed her out?’ I asked. ‘Did you notice him?’

‘Yes, I saw him, but I don’t know who he can be,’ replied Hastings. ‘I don’t think I ever saw him before.’

‘That Latin-American?’ interposed Kennedy, who had completed his first investigation and made arrangements to co-operate with the coroner in carrying on the autopsy in his own laboratory. ‘I was wondering myself whether he could have any connection with Paquita. Where is she now?’

‘At the Harbour House, I suppose,’ answered Hastings—‘that is, if she is in town.

Kennedy hurried out of the establishment ahead of us and we looked down the street in time to see our man headed in the direction the Walcott automobile had taken.

He had too good a start of us, however, and before we could overtake him he had reached the Harbour House and entered. We had gained considerably on him, but not enough to find out where he went in the big hotel.

The Harbour House was a most attractive, fashionable hostelry, a favourite run for motor parties out from the city. On the water-front stood a large, red-roofed, stucco building known as the Casino entirely given over to amusements. Its wide porch of red tiles, contrasting with the innumerable white tables on it, looked out over the sheltered mouth of Westport Bay and on into the Sound, where, faintly outlined on the horizon, one saw the Connecticut shore.

Back of the Casino, and on a hill so that it looked directly over the roof of the lower building, was the hotel itself, commonly known as the Lodge, a new, up-to-date, shingle-sheathed building with every convenience that money and an expensive architect could provide. The place was ideal for summer sports—golf, tennis, motoring, bathing, boating, practically everything one could wish.

As we walked through the Lodge we could almost feel in the air the excited gossip that the death of Maddox had created in the little summer colony at Westport.

Vainly seeking our dark-skinned man, we crossed to the Casino. As we approached the porch Hastings took Kennedy’s arm.

‘There are Shelby Maddox and Winifred Walcott,’ he whispered.

‘I should like to meet them,’ said Kennedy, glancing at the couple whom Hastings had indicated at the far end of the porch.

Following the lawyer, we approached them.

Shelby Maddox was a tall young chap, rather good-looking, inclined to the athletic, and with that deferential, interested manner which women find almost irresistible.

As we approached he was talking earnestly, oblivious to everything else. I could not blame him. Winifred was a slender, vivacious girl, whose grey-blue eyes caught and held yours even while you admired her well-rounded cheeks, innocent of make-up. Her high forehead denoted an intellect which the feminine masses of puffy light-brown hair made all the more charming. One felt her personality in every action. She was not afraid of sun and air. A pile of the more serious magazines near her indicated that she was quite as much alive to the great movements that are stirring the world today as she was to the outdoor life that glowed in her face. It was easy to see that Shelby Maddox was having a new experience.

‘Good morning,’ greeted Hastings.

Winifred smiled, but Shelby was plainly annoyed at the intrusion of the lawyer. I could not make out whether there was an aversion to Hastings behind the annoyance or not.

The introductions over, we sat down for a moment. Hastings had been careful not to say that Kennedy was a detective, but to hint that he was a friend and, by implication, a lawyer.

‘It must have been a severe shock when you heard what had happened,’ he began, speaking to Winifred.

‘It was, indeed,’ she replied gravely. ‘You see, I stayed here at the Harbour House while my brother and sister-in-law were on the yacht. Johnson came off early because he had to go to the city, and telephoned up to the room that they were going to be late and Frances would stay out on the yacht. Then when I came down this morning they were just bringing the body ashore.’

She shuddered at the recollection and Shelby flashed a look at Kennedy as though he could knife him for bringing up the distasteful subject. It seemed as though Shelby Maddox was pretty unconcerned about his brother’s death.

‘Strange that you heard nothing on the yacht,’ switched Kennedy, looking full at Shelby.

‘We didn’t,’ returned the young man, but in a tone that showed his attention was somewhere else.

I followed the direction of his eyes.

A petite, frilly, voluptuous figure stood in the doorway. She had an almost orchid beauty that more than suggested the parasite. Of a type quite the opposite of Winifred, she had nevertheless something interesting about her. For the born adventuress is always a baffling study.

Even before Hastings whispered I knew it must be Paquita.

She passed across the porch toward a flight of steps that led down to the shore, and as she did so nodded to Shelby with a smile, at the same time casting a look at Winifred such as only one woman can when she is taking in another at a glance. Winifred was first of all a woman. Her face flushed almost imperceptibly, but her own glance of estimation never faltered. I felt that there was a silent clash. Winifred was the antithesis of Paquita.

Shelby failed even with his cigarette to cover up his confusion. But as I searched his face I thought I saw one thing at least. Whatever might or might not have been the truth in Hastings’s story of Shelby’s acquaintance with Paquita once, it was evident now that Winifred Walcott quite filled his eye.

As she paused before going down the steps Paquita darted back one more look at Shelby. Had he once felt the lure? At least now he made no move. And Paquita was insanely jealous.

‘I should like to have Mr Kennedy look over the Sybarite, especially the room which I sealed,’ suggested Hastings in a tone which was not peremptory, but nevertheless was final.

Shelby looked from Hastings to Winifred. The passing of Paquita seemed to have thrown a cloud over the sunshine which had brightened the moments before. He was torn between two emotions. There was no denying the request of Hastings. Yet this was no time to leave Winifred suspicious.

‘I think you had better go,’ she said finally, as Shelby hesitated.

‘Would you not be one of the party?’ he asked eagerly.

‘I don’t think I could stand it,’ she replied hastily.

It was perfectly natural. Yet I could see that it left Shelby uncertain of her real reason.

Reluctantly he said goodbye and we four made our way down the dock to the float where was moored a fast tender of the yacht. We climbed aboard, and the man in charge started the humming, many-cylindered engine. We darted off in a cloud of spray.

Once I saw Kennedy looking back, and I looked back also. In the far corner of the Casino stood the sallow-faced man, watching us intently. Who and what could he be?

Westport Bay is one of those fjords, as they almost might be called, which run in among the beautifully wooded hills of the north shore of Long Island.

The Sybarite was lying at anchor a mile or so off-shore. As we approached her we saw that she was a 150-foot, long, low-lying craft of the new type, fitted with gas engines, and built quite as much for comfort as for speed. She was an elaborately built craft, with all the latest conveniences, having a main saloon, dining-room, library, and many state-rooms, all artistically decorated. In fact, it must have cost a small fortune merely to run the yacht.

As we boarded it Shelby led the way to the sheltered deck aft, and we sat down for a moment to become acquainted,

‘Mito,’ he called to a Japanese servant, ‘take the gentlemen’s hats. And bring us cigars.’

The servant obeyed silently. Evidently Shelby spared nothing that made for comfort.

‘First of all,’ began Craig, ‘I want to see the state-room where Marshall Maddox slept.’

Shelby arose, apparently willingly enough, and led the way to the lower berth deck. Hastings carefully examined the seal which he had left on the door and, finding it intact, broke it and unlocked the door for us.

It was a bedroom rather than a state-room. The walls were panelled in wood and the port-hole was finished inside to look like a window. It was toward this port-hole that Kennedy first directed his attention, opening it and peering out at the water below.

‘Quite large enough for a man to get through—or throw a body through,’ he commented, turning to me.

I looked out also. ‘It’s a long way to the water,’ I remarked, thinking perhaps he meant that a boat might have nosed up alongside and someone have entered that way.

‘Still, if one had a good-sized cruiser, one might reach it by standing on the roof of the cabin,’ he observed. ‘At any rate, there’d be difficulty in disposing of a body that way.’

He turned. The wind had swung the yacht around so that the sun streamed in through the open port. Kennedy bent down and picked up some little bright slivers of thin metal that lay scattered here and there on the carpet.

He looked about at the furniture, then bent down and examined the side of the bedstead. It seemed to be pitted with little marks. He rose, and as he did so his gaze fell on one of the brass fittings of the cabin. It seemed to have turned green, almost to be corroded. With his penknife he scraped off some of the corrosion and placed it on a piece of paper, which he folded up.

The examination of the state-room completed, Shelby took us about the boat. First of all, he showed us the handsomely furnished main saloon opening into a little library, almost as if it were an apartment.

‘It was here,’ he volunteered, ‘that we held the conference last night.’

For the first time I became aware, although Kennedy had noticed it before, that when we boarded the Sybarite Mito had been about. He had passed twice down the hall while we were in the state-room occupied by Marshall Maddox. He was now busy in the library, but on our entrance had withdrawn deferentially, as though not wishing to intrude.

Henceforth I watched the Japanese keenly as he padded about the boat. Everywhere we went I fancied that he turned up. He seemed ubiquitous. Was it that he was solicitous of the wants of his master? Had he received instructions from him? Did the slant-eyed Oriental have something hidden behind that inscrutable face of his?

There did not seem to be anything else that we could discover aboard the yacht. Though we interviewed the officer and those of the crew who had been on watch, we were unable to find out from them that anything unusual had been observed, either as far as any other boat was concerned or on the Sybarite itself. In spite of them, the affair was as completely shrouded in mystery as ever.

Having looked the yacht over, Kennedy seemed now to be eager to get ashore again.

‘I hope you are satisfied, gentlemen?’ asked Shelby at last as our tour brought us to the mahogany steps that led from the outside of the white hull to the tender which had brought us out.

‘Very well—so far,’ returned Kennedy.

Maddox looked up quickly, but did not ask what he meant. ‘If there is any way in which I can be of service to you,’ he continued, ‘you have only to command me. I have as much reason as anyone to clear up the mystery in this unfortunate affair. I believe I will go ashore with you.’

He did not need to say that he was eager to get back to see Winifred Walcott, any more than Kennedy needed to tell me that he would like to see our sallow-faced friend again.

The tender skimmed over the waves, throwing the spray gaily as we sped back to the Harbour House dock.

We landed and Maddox excused himself, repeating his desire to aid us. Down the beach toward the bathhouses I could make out the frilly Paquita, surrounded now by several of the bathers, all men. Maddox saw her, but paid no attention. He was headed for the veranda of the Lodge.

The day was growing older and the Casino was beginning to liven up. In the exquisitely appointed ballroom, which was used also for morning and afternoon dances, strains of the one-step attracted some dozen couples. Kennedy sauntered along, searching the faces we passed in the hope of seeing someone who might be of value to know on the case, now and then reminding Hastings not to neglect to point out anyone who might lend aid. Hastings saw no one, however, and as we mounted the steps to the Lodge excused himself for a minute to send some telegrams to those of the family whom he had forgotten.

We had promised to meet him in the lobby by the desk, and thither Kennedy bent his steps.

‘I think I’ll look over the register,’ he remarked, as we approached the busiest part of the hotel. ‘Perhaps, too, some of the clerks may know something.’

There was nothing on the register, apparently, for after turning it around and running through it he merely laid his finger on the name ‘Señorita Paquita Gonzales, Maid and Chauffeur, New York,’ written under the date of the day before the arrival of the Maddoxes for the conference, and among the last of the day, showing that she had arrived late.

As we were looking over the names we were startled by a voice softly speaking behind us.

‘Well, I should have known you fellows would be out here before long. It’s a big case. Don’t notice me here. I’ll see you in the writing-room. It’s empty now.’

We turned in surprise. It was our old friend Burke, of the Secret Service.

He had already lounged off, and we followed without seeming to do so, stopping only for a moment at the news-stand.

‘Why are you here?’ demanded Craig, pointedly, as we three settled ourselves in an angle of the deserted writing-room.

‘For the same reason that you are,’ Burke returned, with a smile; then added gravely, ‘I can trust you, Kennedy.’

Craig was evidently much impressed by the low tone and the manner of the detective, but said nothing.

‘They tell me Hastings was in town this morning, at your laboratory,’ went on Burke. ‘Too bad he didn’t take the time to call up his office. But he knows something now—that is, if he has that note I left for him.’

‘Why, what is that?’ chorused both Craig and I.

Just then Hastings himself almost ran into the room as if his life depended on finding us.

As he saw us he darted over to our corner.

‘You are Mr Burke, of the Secret Service?’ he queried as Burke nodded. ‘Kennedy, the safe in the office of Maddox Munitions in New York was robbed late last night or early this morning and the model of the telautomaton is stolen!’




CHAPTER III (#ulink_92f55184-58ff-5b1f-88b3-2a35cd87bb79)

THE CABARET DANCER (#ulink_92f55184-58ff-5b1f-88b3-2a35cd87bb79)


WE could only stare from Burke to Hastings, startled at the magnitude of the affair as it developed so rapidly.

For a moment Hastings was at a loss, then darted quickly into a telephone-booth to call up his office on long distance for confirmation of the news.

As we waited I happened to glance out into the lobby. At the far end, in an angle, to my surprise I saw Shelby and Paquita. Evidently she had hovered about, waiting for a chance to find him alone, and had at last succeeded.

Already Kennedy and Burke had seen them.

Paquita was talking earnestly. Of course, we could not overhear what was said, and they were so placed that even if we moved closer to them they would be likely to see us. Still, from our corner we could observe without being observed.

It seemed as if Paquita were making a desperate effort to attract Shelby, while, on his part, it was quite evident that he was endeavouring to get away.

Paquita was indeed a fascinating figure. From what I had already observed, a score of the young fellows about the Harbour House would have given their eyes to have been in Shelby’s place. Why was he seeking so to avoid her? Was it that he did not dare to trust himself with the little dancer? Or was there some hold that she had over him which he feared?

The interview had not proceeded long when Shelby deliberately seemed to excuse himself and walked away. Paquita looked after him as he hurried off, and I would have given much to have been close enough to observe her expression. Was it one of fury, of a woman scorned? At any rate, I would have wagered that it boded no good for Shelby.

I turned to say something to Kennedy and found that he was looking in another direction. We were not the only observers. From a window outside on the porch the sallow-faced man was also watching. As Shelby walked away the man seemed to be very angry. Was it the anger of jealousy because Paquita was with Shelby or was it anger because Shelby had repulsed her advances? Who was the fellow and why was he so interested in the little dancer and the young millionaire?

Hastings rejoined us from the telephone-booth, his face almost pale.

‘It’s a fact,’ he groaned. ‘They have been trying to reach me all day, but could not. The secret of the telautomaton stolen—the secret that is too terrible to be in the hands of anyone except the Government. How did you hear of it?’ he asked Burke.

Burke answered slowly, watching the expression on Hastings’s face. ‘When the cashier of the company arrived at the office this morning he found the safe had been rifled. It seems an almost incomprehensible thing—as you will understand when you see it for yourself. The cashier telephoned at once to the Secret Service in the Custom-House, and I jumped out on the case. You did not go to your own office. I did a little hasty deduction—guessed that you might have gone to see Kennedy. At any rate I wanted to see him myself.’

Kennedy interrupted long enough to tell about the revolver-shot and the attack on Hastings at our very door.

‘Whew!’ exclaimed Burke, ‘just missed you. Well,’ he added, with a dry sort of humour, ‘I missed you, too, and decided to come out here on the train. Kennedy, you must go back to town with me and look at that safe. How anybody could get into it is a mystery beyond me. But the telautomaton is gone. My orders are simple—get it back!’

For a moment neither Kennedy nor Hastings spoke. It was most peculiar—the plans gone in Westport, the model gone in New York.

‘Who could have stolen the model?’ I asked finally. ‘Have you any theory, Burke?’

‘A theory, yes,’ he replied slowly, ‘but no facts to back it. I suppose you know that the war has driven out some of the most clever and astute crooks that Paris, Vienna, London, and other capitals ever produced. The fact is that we are at present in the hands of the largest collection of high-grade foreign criminals that has ever visited this country. I think it is safe to say that at present there are more foreign criminals of high degree in New York and at the fashionable summer resorts than could be found in all the capitals of Europe combined. They have evaded military service because at heart they are cowards and hate work. War is hard work. Then, there is little chance of plying their trade, for their life is the gay life of the cafés and boulevards. Besides, America is the only part of the world where prosperity is reigning. So they are here, preying on American wealth. Suppose someone—some foreign agent—wanted the telautomaton. There are plenty of tools he could use for his purpose in obtaining it.’

The countenance of the sallow-faced man recurred to me. It was an alarming possibility that Burke’s speculation raised. Were we really not involved in a pure murder case, but in the intricacies of the machinations of some unknown power?

Burke looked at his watch, then again at Kennedy. ‘Really, I think you ought to go back to town,’ he reiterated, ‘and take the case up there.’

‘And leave these people all here to do as they please, cover up what they will?’ objected Hastings, who had tried to prevent just that sort of thing by bringing Kennedy out post-haste.

‘My men are perfectly competent to watch anything that goes on at Westport,’ returned Burke. ‘I have them posted all about and I’m digging up some good stuff. Already I know just what happened the night before the conference. That cabaret dancer, Paquita, motored out here and arrived about the time the Sybarite cast anchor. She met Shelby Maddox at the Casino and they had a gay supper party. But it ended early. She knew that Marshall Maddox was coming the next day. I know he had known her in the city. As to Shelby we don’t know yet. The meeting may have been chance or it may have been prearranged.’

I recalled not only the little incident we had just seen, but the glance of jealousy Paquita had given Shelby when she saw him with Winifred. What did it mean? Had Shelby Maddox been using Paquita against his brother, and now was he trying to cast her off? Or was Burke’s theory correct? Was she a member of a clever band of super-criminals, playing one brother against the other for some ulterior end? Was the jealousy feigned or was it real, after all?

‘What I am endeavouring to do now,’ went on Burke, ‘is to trace the doings of Paquita the night of the murder. I cannot find out whether she came out at the invitation of Marshall Maddox or not. Perhaps it was Shelby. I don’t know. If it was Marshall, what about his former wife? Did he suppose that she would not be here? Or didn’t he care?’

‘Perhaps—blackmail,’ suggested Hastings, who, as a lawyer, had had more or less to do with such attempts.

Burke shook his head. ‘It might have been, of course, but in that case don’t you think you, as Maddox’s lawyer, would have heard something of it? You have not—have you? You don’t know anything about her?’

Burke regarded the lawyer keenly, as though he might be concealing something. But Hastings merely shook his head.

‘Mr Maddox did not confide his weaknesses to me,’ Hastings remarked coldly.

‘If we are going back to the city,’ returned Burke, cheerfully changing the subject, to the evident surprise of Hastings, ‘I must find my operative, Riley, and let him know what to do while we are gone.’

‘Look,’ muttered Kennedy under his breath to us and nodding down the lobby.

Shelby Maddox had sought and found Winifred, and was chatting as animatedly as if there had been no Paquita in the world less than five minutes before.

As we watched, Hastings remarked: ‘It was only the day before the murder that Shelby first met Winifred Walcott. I believe he had never seen his brother-in-law’s sister before. She had been away in the West ever since Frances Maddox married Walcott. Winifred seems to have made a quick conquest.’

Remembering what had happened before, I took a quick look about to see whether anyone else was as interested as ourselves. Seeing no one, Kennedy and I strolled down the corridor quietly.

We had not gone far before we stopped simultaneously. Nestled in the protecting wings of a big wicker chair was Paquita, and as we watched her she never took her eyes from the couple ahead.

What did this constant espionage of Shelby mean? For one thing, we must place this little adventuress in the drama of the Maddox house of hate. We moved back a bit where we could see them all.

A light footfall beside us caused us to turn suddenly. It was Mito, padding along on some errand to his master. As he passed I saw that his beady eyes had noted that we were watching Shelby. There was no use to retreat now. We had been observed. Mito passed, bestowing a quick sidewise glance on Paquita as he did so. A moment later he approached Shelby deferentially and stood waiting a few feet away.

Shelby looked up and saw his valet, bowed an excuse to Winifred, and strode over to where Mito was standing. The conversation was brief. What it was about we had no means of determining, but of one thing we were certain. Mito had not neglected a hasty word to his master that he was watched. For, an instant later when Mito had been dismissed, Shelby returned to Winifred and they walked deliberately out of the hotel across a wide stretch of open lawn in the direction of the tennis-courts. To follow him was a confession that we were watching. Evidently, too, that had been Shelby’s purpose, for as he chatted he turned half-way, now and then, to see if they were observed. Again Mito padded by and I fancied I caught a subtle smile on his saturnine face. If we were watching, we were ourselves no less watched.

There was nothing to be gained in this blind game of hide-and-seek, and Kennedy was evidently not yet prepared to come out into the open. Paquita, too, seemed to relinquish the espionage for the moment, for she rose and walked slowly toward the Casino, where she was quickly joined by some of her more ardent admirers.

I glanced at Kennedy.

‘I think we had better go back to Burke and Hastings,’ he decided. ‘Burke is right. His men can do almost as much here as we could at present. Besides, if we go away the mice may play. They will think we have been caught napping. That telautomaton robbery is surely our next big point of attack. Here it is first of all the mystery of Marshall Maddox’s death, and I cannot do anything more until the coroner sends me, as he has promised, the materials from the autopsy. Even then I shall need to be in my laboratory if I am to discover anything.’

‘Your sallow-faced friend seemed quite interested in you,’ commented Burke as we rejoined him.

‘How’s that?’ inquired Kennedy.

‘From here I could see him, following every move you made,’ explained the Secret Service man.

Kennedy bit his lip. Not only had Mito seen us and conveyed a warning to Shelby, but the dark-skinned man of mystery had been watching us all. Evidently the situation was considerably mixed. Perhaps if we went away it would really clear itself up and we might place these people more accurately with reference to one another.

Burke looked at his watch hurriedly. ‘There’s a train that leaves in twenty minutes,’ he announced. ‘We can make the station in a car in fifteen.’

Kennedy and I followed him to the door, while Hastings trailed along reluctantly, not yet assured that it would be safe to leave Westport so soon.

At the door a man stepped up deferentially to Burke, with a glance of inquiry at us.

‘It’s all right, Riley,’ reassured Burke. ‘You can talk before them. One of my best operatives, Riley, gentlemen. I shall leave this end in your charge, Val.’

‘All right, sir,’ returned the Secret Service operative. ‘I was just going to say, about that dark fellow we saw gum-shoeing it about. We’re watching him. We picked him up on the beach during the bathing hour. Do you know who he is? He’s the private detective whom Mrs Maddox had watching her husband and that Paquita woman. I don’t know what he’s watching her yet for, sir, but,’ Riley lowered his voice for emphasis, ‘once one of the men saw him talking to Paquita. Between you and me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to double-cross Mrs Maddox.’

Hastings opened his eyes in wonder at the news. As for me, I began to wonder if I had not been quite mistaken in my estimate of Irene Maddox. Was she the victim, the cat’s-paw of someone?

Riley was not finished, however. ‘Another thing before you leave, Mr Burke,’ he added. ‘The night watchman at the Harbour House tells me that he saw that Japanese servant of Shelby Maddox last night, or, rather, early this morning. He didn’t go down to the dock and the watchman thought that perhaps he had been left ashore by mistake and couldn’t get out on the Sybarite.

‘That’s impossible,’ cut in Hastings quickly. ‘He was on the yacht last night when we went to bed and he woke me up this morning.’

‘I know it,’ nodded Riley. ‘You see, I figure that he might have come off the yacht in a row-boat and landed down the shore on the beach. Then he might have got back. But what for?’

The question was unanswered, but not, we felt, unanswerable.

‘Very well, Riley,’ approved Burke. ‘Keep right after anything that turns up. And don’t let that Paquita out of sight of some of the men a minute. Goodbye. We’ve just time to catch the train.’

Hastings was still unreconciled to the idea of leaving town, in spite of the urgency of the developments in New York.

‘I think it’s all right,’ reassured Kennedy. ‘You see, if I stayed I’d have to call on an agency, anyhow. Besides, I got all I could and the only thing left would be to watch them. Perhaps if I go away they may do something they wouldn’t dare otherwise. In that case we have planted a fine trap. You can depend on it that Burke’s men will do more for us, now, than any private agency.’

Hastings agreed reluctantly, and as we hurried back to New York on the train Kennedy quizzed Burke as he had Hastings on the journey out.

There was not much that Burke could add to what he had already told us. The robbery of the safe in the Maddox office had been so cleverly executed that I felt that it would rank along with the historic cases. No ordinary yeggs or petermen had performed this operation, and as the train neared the city we were all on edge to learn what possibly might have been uncovered during the hours that we had been working on the other end of the case out at Westport.




CHAPTER IV (#ulink_8bb75c8c-7915-5ec8-beb7-e284e608e6ab)

THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE (#ulink_8bb75c8c-7915-5ec8-beb7-e284e608e6ab)


AS we crossed the city Hastings, remembering the sudden attack that had been made on him on the occasion of his last visit, looked about nervously in the crowds.

Sometimes I wondered whether the lawyer had been frank with us and told all he knew. However, no one seemed to be following him and we lost no time in hustling from the railroad terminal to the office of Maddox Munitions.

The office was on the top floor of the new Maddox Building, I knew, one of the recent tower skyscrapers down-town.

As we turned into the building and were passing down the corridor to the express elevator a man stepped out from behind a pillar. Hastings drew back nervously. But it was Burke that the man wanted to see. He dropped back and we halted, catching only the first whispered sentence.

‘We’ve been watching Randall, sir,’ I overheard the man say, ‘but he hasn’t done anything—yet.

There was a hasty conference between the man and Burke, who rejoined us in a few seconds, while the man went back to his post of watching, apparently, every face of the crowd that thronged forward to the elevators or bustled away from them.

‘My men have been at work ever since I was called in on the case,’ explained Burke to Kennedy. ‘You see, I had only time to map out a first campaign for them, and then I decided to hurry off to find you and later to look over the ground at Westport. Randall is the cashier. I can’t say that I had anything on him—really—but then you never can tell, you know.’

We rode up in the elevator and entered the imposing offices of the great munitions corporation, where the executive business was conducted for the score or more plants owned or controlled by the company in various parts of the country.

Hastings led the way familiarly past the girl sitting at a desk in the outside office and we soon found ourselves in the section that was set apart for the accounting department, over which Randall had charge.

It seemed that the lawyer was well acquainted with the cashier as he introduced him to us, and we noted that Randall was a man approaching middle age, at least outwardly, with that solid appearance that seems to come to men who deal with numbers and handle large sums of money.

While we talked I looked about curiously. Randall had an inner office, though in the outer office stood the huge safe which was evidently the one which had been rifled.

The cashier himself seemed to have lost, for the time, some of his customary poise. Trying to make him out, I fancied that he was nearly frantic with fear lest he might be suspected, not so much, perhaps, of having had anything to do with the loss of the telautomaton as of being remiss in his duties, which included the guardianship of the safe.

The very anxiety of the man seemed to be a pretty good guarantee of his honesty. There could be no doubt of how deeply he felt the loss, not only because it was of such vital importance, but from the mere fact that it might reflect on his own management of his department.

‘It seems almost incredible,’ Randall exclaimed as we stood talking. ‘The most careful search has failed to reveal any clue that would show even how access to the office was gained. Not a lock on any of the doors has been tampered with, not a scratch indicates the use of a jimmy on them or on the windows. In fact, entrance by the windows at such a height above the surrounding buildings is almost beyond the range of possibility as well as probability. How could it have been accomplished? I am forced to come back to the explanation that the outer office doors had been opened by a key!’

‘There were keys—in the hands of several people, I suppose?’ inquired Kennedy.

‘Oh, yes! There are in every large office like this,’ hastened Randall.

‘Mr Maddox had a key, of course?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Who else?’

‘The agent of the building.’

‘I mean who else in the office?’

‘My assistant—oh, several. Still, I am sure that no one had a key except those whom we could trust.’

‘Did Shelby Maddox ever have a key?’ cut in Hastings.

The cashier nodded in the negative, for the moment surprised, apparently, at the very idea that Shelby would ever have had interest enough in business to have such a thing.

I saw Burke looking in covert surprise at Hastings as he asked the question. For the moment I wondered why he asked it. Had he really thought that Shelby might have a key? Or was he trying hard to make a case? What was his own connection with the affair? Kennedy had been looking keenly about.

‘Is that the safe over there?’ he indicated. ‘I should like to examine it.’

‘Yes, that’s it, and that’s the strangest part of it,’ hastened Randall, as though eager to satisfy us on all points, leading the way to a modern chrome-steel strong-box of a size almost to suggest a miniature bank vault: surely a most formidable thing to tackle.

‘You see,’ he went on nervously, as though eager to convince us, ‘there is not a mark on it to show that it has been tampered with. Yet the telautomaton is gone. I know that it was there last night, all right, for I looked in the compartment where we keep the little model, as well as the papers relating to it. It is a small model, and of course was not charged with explosive. But it is quite sufficient for its purpose, and if its war-head were actually filled with a high explosive it would be sufficiently deadly against any ordinary ship in spite of its miniature size.’

Kennedy had already begun his examination, first of all assuring himself that it was useless to try to look for finger-prints, inasmuch as nearly everybody had touched the safe since the robbery and any such clue, had it once existed, must have been rendered valueless.

‘How did you discover the loss?’ I ventured as Craig bent to his work. ‘Did anything excite your suspicion?’

‘N-no,’ returned the cashier. ‘Only I have been very methodical about the safe. The model was kept in that compartment at the bottom. I make it a practice in opening and closing the safe to see that that and several other valuable things we keep in it are there. This morning nothing about the office and certainly nothing about the safe suggested that there was anything wrong until I worked the combination. The door swung open and I looked through it. I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw that that model was gone. I couldn’t have been more astonished if I had come in and found the door open. I am the only one who knows the combination—except for a copy kept in a safety deposit box known only to Marshall Maddox and Mr Hastings.

Before any of us could say a word Kennedy had completed his first examination and was facing us. ‘I can’t find a mark on it,’ he confessed. ‘No “soup” has been used to blow it. Nitroglycerin enough might have wrecked the building. The old “can-opener” is of course out of the question with a safe like this. No instrument could possibly rip a plate off this safe unless you gave the ripper unlimited time. There’s not a hint that thermit or the oxy-acetylene blow-pipe have been used. Not a spot on the safe indicates the presence of anything that can produce those high temperatures.’

‘Yet the telautomaton is gone!’ persisted Hastings.

Kennedy was looking about, making a quick search of the office.

As his eye travelled over the floor he took a step or two forward and bent down. Under a sanitary desk, near a window, he picked up what looked like a small piece of rubber tubing. He looked at it with interest, though it conveyed no idea to me. It was simply a piece of rubber tubing. Then he took another step to the window and raised it, looking out. Far below, some hundred or more feet, was the roof of the next building, itself no mean structure for height.

‘Have you searched the roof below?’ he asked, turning to Burke.

Burke shook his head. ‘How could anyone get in that way?’ he negatived.

‘Well—search the roof below,’ repeated Kennedy.

Even though he did not understand what good might come of such a strange request, Burke had known Kennedy long enough not to question his actions. He moved away, seeking one of his men whom he could send on the errand.

While we waited Kennedy continued to question Randall.

‘Mr Maddox was very careful of his key, I suppose?’ he ventured.

‘Yes, sir, very careful. So we all were of the combination, too. Not even my assistant knows that. If I should drop dead, there would be only one way to get it—to open that safety deposit box, and that must be done by someone with the proper authority. It has all been carefully safeguarded.’

‘You know of no one intmate with Mr Maddox—who might have obtained the key—or the combination?’

I wondered at what Kennedy was driving. Had he the little dancer, Paquita, in mind? Did he suspect that she might have wormed from Maddox the secret? Or was he, too, thinking of Shelby?

Randall shook his head, and Kennedy continued his quick examination of the office, questioning the assistant, who was unable to add anything of value.

So far there had been nothing to show that the robbery might not have been an inside job. As Kennedy was still pondering on the new mystery that confronted us Burke approached with the man whom he had sent to make the search.

His face indicated that he was puzzled. In his hand he was holding a disc that was something like the flat telephone receivers one sees often on interior office telephones. To it was attached a rubber tube like that which Kennedy had picked up in the office a few minutes before.

‘My man found this thing on the roof below,’ explained Burke, with a look of inquiry. ‘What do you suppose it is? How did it get there?’

Kennedy took the disc and began examining it carefully, fitting on the other rubber tube.

‘Perhaps it had served its purpose—was no longer of use,’ he meditated. ‘At any rate, if someone had to get away with that telautomaton he would not want to burden himself with anything else that was unnecessary. He might very well have discarded this.’

What the thing was I could not imagine. We all crowded about, examining it, not even Burke offering an explanation.

Suddenly Craig’s face lightened up. He thrust the tubes into his ears and walked over to a smaller safe that was still locked. As he turned the combination handle he held the black disc up close to the safe. The intent look on his face caused us all to watch without a word. Around and around he turned the handle slowly. Finally he stopped. Then, with a few quick turns, he gave the door a pull and it swung open on its oiled hinges.

We fairly gasped. ‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘Magic?’

Kennedy smiled. ‘Not magic, but black science,’ he replied. ‘This is a burglar’s microphone.’

‘A burglar’s microphone?’ I repeated. ‘What’s that?’

‘Well,’ he explained, ‘the microphone is now used by burglars for picking combination locks. When you turn the lock a slight sound is made when the proper number comes opposite the working part. It can be heard by a sensitive ear, sometimes, I am told. However, it is imperceptible to most persons. But by using a microphone it is an easy matter to hear the sounds. Having listened to the fall of the tumblers, the expert can determine what are the real numbers of the combination and open the safe. That is what happened in this case.’

We followed Kennedy speechless. What was there to say? We had already seen him open a safe with it himself.

Though we were thus far on our way, we had not even a clue as to the identity of the criminal or criminals.

I recalled Burke’s own theory as he had expressed it. Could it be that someone had betrayed to a foreign government agent the priceless secret of the telautomaton?




CHAPTER V (#ulink_e2ca0101-7425-55b4-bf3f-94e61610a820)

THE WHITE LIGHT CAFÉ (#ulink_e2ca0101-7425-55b4-bf3f-94e61610a820)


‘AS long as I am back in the city,’ continued Kennedy, while we stared at one another, wondering what next move to make, ‘I think that I had better take the opportunity to make some investigations in my laboratory which would be impossible out at Westport.’

In the meantime Burke had been examining the burglar’s microphone, turning it over and over thoughtfully, as if in the hope that it might furnish some clue.

‘It might have been possible,’ he ruminated, ‘for someone to get into the building at night if the night watchman was off his guard and he had a key to the building. I suppose he might get out again, too, under the same circumstances.’

‘A good lead,’ agreed Kennedy. ‘While you are finding the night watchman and getting anything else along that line of reconstructing what actually did take place it will give me just the chance I need. Let us meet in two or three hours—say, at Mr Hastings’s office. Let me see, I believe your firm is Hastings and Halsey, isn’t it?’

‘Hastings and Halsey,’ repeated the lawyer. ‘You are quite welcome to meet again there. You know where it is, on Wall Street?’

We noted the number and Kennedy and I hurried up-town to the laboratory which we had left only a few short hours before.

Already there were waiting for him, by special messenger, the materials from the autopsy which had been promised by the Westport coroner, who for once had appreciated the importance of a case and had acted with speed and decision.

Kennedy lost no time in throwing off his coat and donning his acid-stained smock. For some minutes I watched him in silence as he arranged his jars and beakers and test-tubes for the study which he had in mind. He had taken some of the material and placed it over a Bunsen burner in an apparatus which looked like a miniature still. Another apparatus which he took from a cabinet was disposed on a table. It seemed to consist primarily of three tubes. In one was a slit, and through the slit evidently rays of light were caused to stream. Inside I saw a lens. Each of the tubes seemed to radiate from a triangular prism of some substance that looked like glass. Two of the radiating tubes had an eye-piece and on one was a sort of scale.

As Kennedy made these rapid preparations he paused now and then to study carefully the slivers of bright metal he had picked up from the carpet in the state-room, while on a porcelain plate he placed the powder which he had scraped from the brass fittings.

‘I’m not doing you a bit of good here, Craig,’ I remarked, at length. ‘Isn’t there something I can do while you are working? I can come back here in time to go down and meet Hastings and Burke with you.’

He paused a moment. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘there is something that you might be doing. I have been wondering just how intimate that little Mexican dancer was with Marshall Maddox and whether Shelby actually knew her in New York before he met her out at Westport the other night. I think you might make some inquiries along that line, and by the time you find anything you may find me more interesting also.’

Glad of the opportunity to be of service, for anything was better than to sit about idle in the present high-keyed state of my nerves, I started out.

My first impulse was to visit the New Amsterdam Club, one of the oldest clubs in the city, of which I knew that Maddox had been a member.

I knew several men who were members, and I was sure that among them I might find someone at the club at that time, and perhaps either from him learn something of Maddox or at least obtain an introduction to someone who did know.

I found that I had not acted without reason. In the big window that overlooked Fifth Avenue, ensconced in the deep leather chairs, looking out on the fashionable throng of shoppers who passed up and down the Avenue, I found several men, among whom was Conigsby, whom I had known for some time as assiduous first-nighter and man about town.

Conigsby welcomed me and I soon saw that the topic of conversation was the reports that all had been reading in the papers about the mystery that shrouded the death of Marshall Maddox.

‘Peculiar fellow, Maddox,’ commented Conigsby. ‘What do the boys down on the Star have to say about the case, Jameson?’

I had no desire to commit myself, yet I wanted to glean as much as I could. For although we are prone to accuse the ladies of gossip, I think most men will back me up when I say that there is no place for the genuine article that cannot be beaten by a comfortable window in a club where congenial spirits have gathered over a succession of brandies and soda.

‘It promises to be the great case of the year,’ I returned guardedly. ‘So far, I understand there is much more in the life of Maddox than even some of his friends suspect.

At the mere suggestion of scandal all eyes were fixed on me. Yet I was determined to speak in riddles and betray nothing, in the hope that some of them might open up a rich vein of inquiry.

Conigsby laughed. ‘Perhaps more than some of his friends imagined—yes,’ he repeated.

‘Why, what was it?’ inquired one of the group. ‘Is there another woman in the case? I thought Maddox was divorced.’

‘So he was,’ returned the clubman. ‘I knew his wife, Irene, before they were married. Really, it was a shame the way that man treated her. I can claim no special virtue,’ he added, with a shrug, ‘but then I haven’t a wife—not so much as a friend who would care whether I was here or in No Man’s Land. But Maddox—well, he was one of those men who have worked hard all their lives, but in middle age seem to begin sowing the wild oats they failed to sow in youth. You know the kind. I guess he must have reached the dangerous age for men, if there is such a thing.’

‘What was it—chorus girls?’ chimed in the other, ever ready for a spicy bit of gossip.

‘Yes—lately cabaret dancers—one in particular—at The White Light—a little Mexican—Paquita.

‘What—Paquita?’ chorused the group, and I could see by the inflection that she was not unknown to several of them. ‘You don’t say. Well, you must admit he was a good picker.’

‘I rather suspect that his acquaintance cost him high, though,’ persisted Conigsby. ‘Paquita has a scale of prices. It costs so much to take dinner with her. She’ll drive out of an afternoon with you—but you must pay. There’s a union scale.’

‘It takes dough to make tarts,’ frivolously suggested another of the group, forgetful of the tragedy that they were discussing.

Indeed, I was amazed at the nonchalant attitude they took. Yet, on analysis, I concluded that it also might be significant. No doubt the estimate of Maddox by his club members was more accurate than that of the world at large.

‘If it had been Shelby,’ put in another man, ‘I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

‘Don’t worry,’ interposed Conigsby. ‘Shelby Maddox is clever. Remember, Shelby is young. Underneath his wildness there is ambition. I think you’ll hear more of that boy before we are through. I know him, and he’s likely to prove a chip of the old Maddox block. Nothing that Shelby does would surprise me.’

‘How about the other sister, Frances?’ inquired another. ‘Do you know her husband, Walcott?’

‘Not very well. You’re more likely to find him on Broad Street than Broadway. You know what I care for Broad Street. I’d never visit it if my bankers were not down there. Walcott has a deuced pretty little sister, though. I hear that Shelby is quite smitten.’

‘Well, whatever you may think of him, I have seen Shelby Maddox with Paquita, too. I’ll lay you a little bet that that little baggage knows something about the case. Remember, the murder was on Shelby’s yacht.’

Conigsby shrugged. ‘Quite possible—another case of notoriety for The White Light.’

‘Notoriety for Paquita, you mean,’ corrected another. ‘I hear she plans to get back into musical comedy this fall. She’s not at The White Light any longer.’

‘Well, I think she’ll make good,’ agreed Conigsby. ‘I wonder who the angel is for her new show?’

The conversation was now hopelessly drifting, and I excused myself. At least I had learned enough to give me an insight into another phase of the life of Marshall Maddox.

Pondering what I had just heard, I decided to wander over towards the café and theatre district, and drop into the cabaret which they had mentioned—The White Light.

As I entered the place in broad daylight I was struck by the sordidness of it. Deserted except by those who were cleaning up for the coming late afternoon and evening, it was positively tawdry. It needed the glamour of bright faces and night life, and even then it must be viewed through the bottom of a glass to wear even the semblance of attraction.

In the main dining-room of the café, grouped about the little dancing floor before the platform on which sat the orchestra when things were in full swing, stood innumerable little white tables. Just now there seemed to be no one there except a man at the piano and a girl who was evidently rehearsing her dance steps.

I paused for a moment and a waiter who had been arranging the tables for the coming crowd moved over to tell me that the place was not yet open.

I satisfied him that it was on other business that I had come, then asked him whether Paquita was at The White Light any more.

‘No, sir,’ he replied brusquely. ‘She hasn’t been here for several days. I’ve heard that she has gone away to the country—has another contract. It is a rehearsal for the girl who is to do her number that is going on now. Is there anything I can do for you?’

I thanked him. It was not the waiter I wanted, but the proprietor, Henri.

In a little office in the rear I at last discovered him, a rather stout, genial Frenchman, who had made a reputation as one of New York’s restaurateurs to the risqué. I had known Henri once when I had the assignment on the Star that covered the theatre and hotel district, and I had no fear that he would not talk.

‘Well, Henri,’ I began cautiously, ‘I suppose you saw in the papers this morning about your friend, Marshall Maddox?’

Henri, who was matching up cheques showing the business done up to an early hour of the morning, shrugged. ‘Monsieur was more the friend of La Paquita than of me,’ he returned, still matching cheques.

‘Still, he came here a great deal,’ I asserted, taking a chance.

‘Oui,’ he agreed, ‘but it was not to see us. Always La Paquita, La Paquita. So different from his brother.’

‘Indeed?’ I queried, quite overjoyed at the turn the conversation was taking. ‘Then you know Shelby, too?’

‘Ver’ well. Oh, yes. He has been here. A fine fellow, but—it is all right. Business is not for him. He is always ready for the good time—a sport, you call it?’

I smiled. ‘Was he a friend of Paquita’s, too?’ I hazarded, watching Henri’s face.

He lifted his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. ‘No more than of the rest,’ he returned, with a deprecating gesture. ‘Pretty faces and figures all look good to Shelby,’ he added, with a smile; then, seriously: ‘But he will settle down. We will see him here no more, some day. Also I know his brother-in-law, Messtair Walcott. I do not like him.’

‘Why?’ I asked, somewhat amused at getting his point of view.

‘Too quiet. He will come in, not often, perhaps, bow, maybe speak, then go away.’

I thought I ‘got’ him. One must be a good spender to appeal to Henri. I could not imagine Johnson Walcott as such. In fact, I could scarcely imagine him coming to Henri’s at all.

‘Paquita was quite intimate with Marshall Maddox, wasn’t she?’ I ventured again.

Henri brought into play his ready shrug. It was not for him to say anything about his patrons, much less about the dead. Still, his very manner gave the impression that his lips would not frame.

‘Did anyone ever seem to be watching him here?’ I asked, the thought of the sallow-faced man at Westport recurring to my mind.

Henri stopped matching his cheques and looked up. Was he growing suspicious of my disinterestedness?

‘Such things are not unusual,’ he answered, showing a fine assortment of ivory beneath his black moustache.

I met his eye frankly. He seemed to understand.

‘Not for the Star, you understand?’ he nodded, still looking at me fixedly.

‘Oh, no, no!’ I hastened, truthfully. ‘I am not playing reporter now, Henri.’

He appeared to be satisfied, and it did not occur to him to inquire why else I should be interested.

‘Yes,’ he went on slowly, ‘he has been watched. I have seen it myself. Several times there was a man who came in, Spanish-looking.’

‘Did Mr Maddox know it?’ I inquired, more eager than ever.

Henri shook his head negatively. ‘Not until one day when La Paquita was talking to the man. Monsieur came in unexpectedly.’

The manager laughed a little to himself.

‘Why do you laugh?’ I asked. ‘What happened?’

‘Nothing,’ he returned. ‘It was not what happened. It was what she told him. So clever, too. She said it was a detective set to trail him by Mrs Maddox, that she had flirted with the man and found out.’

‘Then you do not think he was a detective?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘How should I know?’ replied Henri, with another question. ‘It might have been. It might not have been. She is clever.’

‘What did Maddox do?’ I persisted. Was he more cautious?’

Again Henri shook his head. ‘He gave orders that the man was not to be admitted. And we? He was a ver’ wealthy man, Mr Maddox. We could not afford to lose him.’

‘But this Spaniard,’ I reiterated, convinced it was the same man whom we had seen at Westport, ‘isn’t it possible that Mrs Maddox really did pick him out as a detective in the hope that he might get acquainted with Paquita and so report on her husband?’

‘We are just guessing, monsieur,’ dodged Henri. ‘I speak only of the things I know—and not all of them.’

He had evidently told me in substance about all that he was sure of. I knew him of old. Even after he had told his story he liked to leave a sort of ‘continued in our next’ at the close of it, just so that you would not think he was not what Broadway calls a ‘live one.’ I had absorbed about all that he had at first hand. It was enough. It gave me a view of the characters of the chief actors, from an angle which others did not know. I rose nonchalantly, thanked Henri, and sauntered out as I had in the old days when the Star picked on me to expose some new society scandal.

The visit to Henri’s White Light cabaret had shown me one very important thing, however. Shelby Maddox had known Paquita before the night of the gay dinner party preceding the arrival of the Maddox family for the conference on the yacht.

What that might indicate I did not yet venture to guess. And yet I felt sure that it must prove significant. Else why had Paquita arrived at Westport at just that particular time? It seemed as though it must have something to do with the calling of the family conference.

Above all, however, stood forth the strange coincidence of the murder of Marshall Maddox, head of the family, and the stealing of the telautomaton, the most valuable single piece of property that the family owned. There was mystery enough in this case to satisfy even Kennedy.




CHAPTER VI (#ulink_afc2357b-0564-5ef9-9046-6e59c278119c)

THE POISON GAS (#ulink_afc2357b-0564-5ef9-9046-6e59c278119c)


A GLANCE at my watch was sufficient to assure me that I should have no time for further inquiries if I wanted to meet Kennedy before going down to the office of Hastings. I wanted to do that, too, for I felt sure that Craig would talk more freely to me than to the rest, and my interest in the affair had by this time become insatiable.

Accordingly, I retraced my steps to the laboratory. Kennedy was still at work, partly over some reactions in test-tubes, but mostly using the strange three-tubed instrument I had noted. As I outlined to him rapidly what I had discovered and the plain inferences to be drawn from it, he listened attentively, still working.

‘Very good,’ was Kennedy’s sole comment as I concluded my story. ‘That’s very interesting—possibly very important. It begins to look as though Maddox had been in someone’s way and that that someone was taking no chances in order to “get” him.’

‘What have you discovered so far?’ I hesitated, not sure yet whether he was willing to talk, for Kennedy never said anything, even to me, until he was perfectly sure of his ground.

‘Marshall Maddox was not drowned, at least,’ he vouchsafed.

‘Not drowned?’ I repeated, more to lead him on than because I was surprised.

‘No. Whatever was the cause of his death, he was not killed by drowning. The lungs and stomach show that. In fact, I knew at Westport that he might have died a natural death or might even have been a suicide. But he certainly did not die of drowning. Only more careful tests than either the coroner or I could make at Westport were necessary.’

‘How did it happen, then?’ I continued, emboldened by his apparent readiness to talk.

Kennedy took a bottle with a ground-glass stopper and held it up so that I could see its greenish-yellow contents. Then he pulled out the stopper, covered with vaseline, for an instant and shoved it back again.

The instant was enough. A most unpleasant odour filled the laboratory. I felt a sense of suffocation in the chest, an irritation in the nose and throat, as though by the corrosive action of some gas on the air passages.

‘If we could only have seen him before he died,’ continued Kennedy, ‘I suspect we should have found his face as blue as it was when we did see him, his lips violet, his pulse growing weaker until it was imperceptible, and perhaps he would have been raising blood. It would have been like an acute bronchitis, only worse. Look.’

From a little pin prick which he made on his own thumb Craig squeezed out a drop of blood into a beaker containing some distilled water.

‘This is a spectroscope,’ he explained, touching the instrument I had noticed. ‘I think you are acquainted with it in a general way. Blood in water, diluted, shows the well-known dark bands between what we call “D” and “E.” These are the dark bands of oxyhaemoglobin absorption. Now, I add to this, drop by drop, the water from that bottle which I uncorked. See—the bands gradually fade in intensity and finally disappear, leaving a complete and brilliant spectrum devoid of any bands whatever. In other words, here is a substance that actually affects the red colouring matter in the blood, bleaches it out, and does more—destroys it.’

I listened in amazement at the fiendish nature of his discovery.

‘Marshall Maddox was overcome by the poison gas contained in a thin-shelled bomb that was thrown through his state-room window. The corrosion of the metal in the room gave me a clue to that. Then—’

‘But what is this poison gas?’ I demanded, horrified.

Kennedy looked at me fixedly a moment. ‘Chlorine,’ he replied simply; adding, ‘the spectroscope shows that there is a total absence of pigment in the blood. You can readily see that it is no wonder, if it has this action, that death is sometimes so rapid as to be almost instantaneous. Why, man alive, this thing destroys without the possibility of reconstitution! It is devilish in the quantity he inhaled it.’

I could only gasp with surprise at the discovery.

‘But how was it done?’ I repeated. ‘You think a bomb was thrown through the open port?’

‘Without a doubt. Perhaps, as you guessed, from a boat outside, the roof of a cruiser, anything, as far as that end of it goes. Whoever did it might also have entered the room in the same way.’

‘Entered the room?’ I asked.

‘Yes, wearing a mask composed of several layers of gauze impregnated with glycerinated solution of sodium hypophosphate. That is one of many substances used. All that was necessary was to wet the mask with water and adjust it. It would have served a double purpose—to protect the wearer’s life as well as his identity.’





Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Получить полную версию книги.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/arthur-b-reeve-2/the-adventuress/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.