ARTHUR B. REEVE (continued 3)

We could not hear what he said as he reached her, but she took no pains to modulate her own voice.

“No—no!” she exclaimed, angrily, choking back a sob. “No—leave me. Don’t speak to me. Take your little dancer, I say!”

A moment later she had come into the circle of light from the Casino. Pursuit meant only a scene.

At the float at the other end of the pier bobbed one of the tenders of the Sybarite. Shelby turned deliberately and called, and a moment later his man ran up the dock.

“I’m not going to go out to the yacht to-night,” he ordered. “I shall sleep at the Lodge. Tell Mito, and come ashore with my things.”

Then he turned, avoiding the Casino, and walked slowly up to the Harbor House, as we followed at a distance.

I wondered if he might be planning something.

XIII

THE SERPENT’S TOOTH

We were approaching the hotel when we met Riley’s operative with whom we had been talking shortly before. He was looking about as though in doubt what to do next.

“So you managed to pick them up again on the beach?” greeted Kennedy.

“Yes,” he replied in surprise. “How did you know?”

“We were back of the bath-houses as they came along. You passed within a few feet of us.”

The detective stared blankly as Kennedy laughed.

“What happened?”

“Nothing very much. I missed them at first, because of the delay of that fellow Mito. But I reasoned that they must have strolled down the beach, though I didn’t know how far. I took a chance and made a short cut overland. Fortunately I caught up with them just as they were about to turn back. I was a little careful, I suppose—after what happened.”

He hesitated a bit apologetically, then went on: “I couldn’t hear much of what they said. Queer fellow, that Shelby. First he sends to meet the girl, then they quarrel nearly all the time they are together.”

“What did the quarrel seem to be about?” demanded Kennedy. “Couldn’t you get any of it?”

“Oh yes, I caught enough of it,” returned the operative, confidently. “I can’t repeat exactly what was said, for it came to me only in snatches. They seemed to be arguing about something. Once he accused her of having been the ruin of his brother. She did not answer at first—just laughed sarcastically. But Shelby wasn’t content with that. Finally she turned on him.

“‘You say that I ruined Marshall Maddox,’ she cried. ‘His wife says I ruined him. Oh, Shelby, Shelby, he wasn’t a man who had reached the age of discretion, I suppose—was he? Oh, it’s always I who do things—never anybody else.’”

“Yes,” prompted Kennedy. “What else did she say?”

“She was bitter—angry. She stopped short. ‘Shelby Maddox,’ she cried, ‘you had better be careful. There is as much crime and hate and jealousy in every one of you as there is in Sing Sing. I tell you, be careful. I haven’t told all I know—yet. But I will say that wherever your house of hate goes and whomever it touches, it corrupts. Be careful how you touch me!’ Say, but Paquita was mad! That was when they turned back. I guess Shelby sort of realized that it was no use. They turned so suddenly that they almost caught me listening.”

“Anything else?” inquired Kennedy. “What did Shelby have to say about himself? Do you think he’s tangled up with her in any way?”

“I can’t tell. Most of what they said was spoken so low that it was impossible for me to hear even a word. I think both of them realized that they were being watched and listened to. It was only once in a while when their feelings got the better of them that they raised their voices, and then they pretty soon caught themselves and remembered.”

“Then it was no lovers’ meeting?” I asked.

“Hardly,” returned the detective, with a growl. “And yet she did not seem to be half as angry at Shelby as she did at the others. In fact, I think that a word from him would have smoothed out everything. But he wouldn’t say it. She tried hard to get him, too. That little dancer is playing a game—take it from me. And she’s artful, too. I wouldn’t want to be up against her—no, sir.”

There was something incongruous about the very idea of this bull-necked flatty and the dainty little adventuress—as though the hippopotamus might fear the peacock. I would have laughed had the business itself not been so important. What was her game? In fact, what was Shelby’s game? Each seemed to be playing a part.

“How about Mito?” I asked. “Have you seen him again since you were jiu-jitsued?”

The detective shook his head. “No,” he returned, reminiscently. “He seems to have disappeared altogether. Believe me, I have been keeping an eye peeled for him. That Jap is a suspicious character. And it’s just when you can’t put your fingers on him that he is plotting some deviltry, depend on it.”

We left the Secret Service operative and continued toward the hotel. In the lobby Kennedy and I looked about eagerly in the hope of finding Winifred, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Our search was partly rewarded, however. At the end of the porch, in the shadow, we did find Frances Walcott and Irene Maddox. It was evident that they had seriously disagreed over something, and it did not require much guessing to conclude that it had to do with Winifred. Though Frances Walcott was really a Maddox and Irene Maddox was not, one would have scarcely guessed it. The stamp of the house of hate was on both.

Just a fragment of the conversation floated over to us, but it was enough.

“Very well, then,” exclaimed Mrs. Maddox. “Let them go their own way. You are like all the rest—you seem to think that a Maddox can do no wrong. I was only trying to warn Winifred, as I wish some one had warned me.”

The answer was lost, but Mrs. Walcott’s reply was evidently a sharp one, for the two parted in unconcealed anger and suspicion. Everywhere the case seemed to drag its slimy trail over all.

Look about as we might, there was no sign of Paquita. Nor was our friend Sanchez about, either. We seemed to have lost them, or else, like Mito, they were under cover.

“I think,” decided Kennedy, “that I’ll just drop into our rooms, Walter. I haven’t much hope that we’ll find anything yet, but it will be just as well to be on the watch.”

Accordingly we mounted by a rear staircase to our floor, and for a moment Kennedy busied himself adjusting the apparatus.

“A bit early, I think,” he remarked, finally. “There are too many people about to expect anything yet. We may as well go down-stairs again. Perhaps Burke may return and I’m rather anxious to know what it is he has been after.”

For a moment, as we retraced our steps down-stairs, I attempted, briefly, a résumé of the case so far, beginning with the death of Maddox, and down to the attack on Hastings and then on myself. As I viewed the chief actors and their motives, I found that they fell into two groups. By the death of Maddox, Shelby might profit, as might his sister, Frances. On the other hand were to be considered the motives of jealousy and revenge, such as might actuate Irene Maddox and Paquita. Then, too, there was always the possibility of something deeper lying back of it all, as Burke had hinted—an international complication over the telautomaton, the wonderful war engine which was soon likely to be the most valuable piece of property controlled by the family. Into such calculations even Mito, and perhaps Sanchez, might fit, as indeed might any of the others.

It was indeed a perplexing case, and I knew that Kennedy himself had not yet begun to get at the bottom of it, for the simple reason that when in doubt Kennedy would never talk. His silence was eloquent of the mystery that shrouded the curious sequence of events. At a loss for a means by which to piece together the real underlying story, I could do nothing but follow Kennedy blindly, trusting in his strange ability to arrive at the truth.

“One thing is certain,” remarked Kennedy, evidently sensing that I was trying my utmost to arrive at some reasonable explanation of the events, “and that is that this hotel is a very jungle of gossip—sharper than a serpent’s tooth. In my opinion, none of us will be safe until the fangs of this creature, whoever it may be, are drawn. However, we’ll never arrive anywhere by trying merely to reason it out. This is a case that needs more facts—facts—facts.”

Following out his own line of thought, Craig decided to return down-stairs to the seat of operations, perhaps in the hope of running across Hastings, who might have something to add. Hastings was not about, either. We were entirely thrown upon our own resources. If we were ever to discover the truth, we knew that it would be by our own work, not by the assistance of any of them.

Attempts to locate Hastings quickly demonstrated that we could not depend on him. Having worked secretly, there seemed to be little else to do now but to come out into the open and play the game manfully.

“What was the matter?” inquired Riley, as Kennedy and I sauntered into the lobby of the Harbor House in such a way that we would appear not to be following anybody.

“Why?” asked Kennedy.

“First it was Paquita,” continued Riley. “She bounced into the hotel, her face flushed and her eyes flashing. She was as mad as a hornet at something. Sanchez met her. Why, I thought she’d bite his head off! And he, poor shrimp, took it as meekly as if he were the rug under her feet. I don’t know what she said, but she went directly to her room. He has been about, somewhere. I don’t see him now. I guess he thought she was too worked up to stay up there. But I haven’t seen her come down.”

“Shelby must have been telling her some plain truth,” said Craig, laconically.

“Shelby?” echoed Riley. “Why, it wasn’t five minutes afterward that Winifred Walcott came through, as pale as a ghost. She passed Irene Maddox, but they scarcely spoke. Looked as if she had been crying. What’s the matter with them? Are they a bunch of nuts?”

Kennedy smiled. Evidently Riley was unacquainted with the softer side of life.

“Where’s Shelby?” inquired Craig. “Have you seen him—or Mito?”

“Down in the café, the last I saw him,” replied Riley. “Shelby’s another nut. You know how much he loves the rest. Well, he came in all excited, too. And what does he do? Sees Johnson Walcott reading a paper, grabs him by the arm as though he was a long lost friend, and drags him down to the café. Say, I’ll be dippy, too, if this keeps on. They can’t even remember their own feuds!”

Kennedy glanced at me with an amused significance. I gathered that he meant to hint that Shelby was stopping at nothing to secure the aid of Johnson Walcott in smoothing affairs over with his sister, Winifred. Just how Walcott himself would look on such a match I had no idea and was rather glad when Kennedy suggested that we adjourn to the café ourselves to look them over.

In a leather-cushioned booth were Shelby and Walcott, Shelby doing most of the talking, while Walcott listened keenly. We could not very well deliberately take the next booth, but we did manage to find a corner where they were not likely to notice us.

We had not been there long before Mito came in, carrying a grip in which were the clothes and linen his master had ordered ashore. Shelby directed him where to take the things, and as the Jap stood there I saw that Walcott was watching him closely. Not once did Mito look at him, yet one could not help feeling that the Oriental knew that he was watched and that Walcott was absorbing something from Shelby.

Mito bowed as he received his orders. No sooner had he turned than I saw Walcott shoot a glance at Shelby. If I had been a lip-reader I might have been more certain of the words framed by his lips. As it was, I was ready to swear that Walcott asked, “Do you trust that fellow?” Shelby’s answer I could not guess, but his face showed no anxiety, and it seemed as though he passed off the remark lightly.

Though the others had not seen us, Mito spied us with his beady eyes, though he did not turn his head to do so. At the door he almost ran into Sanchez, who was engrossed in watching Shelby. Neither said a word, but the quick scowl of Sanchez spoke a volume. He hated Shelby and everything pertaining to him.

Whatever it was that Shelby and Walcott were discussing, it was apparent that Walcott was not at all enthusiastic. He did not betray any feeling in the matter other than coldness.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they were discussing Winifred,” concluded Kennedy. “If that is what it’s about, it doesn’t look as though Johnson Walcott had any overburdening desire to have Shelby as a brother-in-law.”

In spite of Walcott’s coldness Shelby continued talking earnestly, but it seemed to have no effect. Walcott’s reticence seemed to exasperate Shelby, who with difficulty restrained his own feelings. I fancied that, had it not been for Winifred, Shelby’s temper would have got the better of him.

When finally Walcott rose and with a polite excuse started to move away, it was apparent that Shelby was intensely resentful. However, he said nothing, nor did he even attempt to follow Walcott out of the café.

“Evidently he has made little progress in patching up the tiff with Winifred,” concluded Craig, as we, too, rose and sauntered out into the main part of the hotel.

XIV

THE GEOPHONE

We had no more than reached the lobby of the hotel again when we found Hastings seeking us. Evidently he had sensed that Kennedy was vexed at him for letting Winifred pass without finding out what was her mission.

“This time, at least, I think I have something to tell you,” he hastened, drawing us aside.

“What is it about?” encouraged Kennedy, eagerly.

“Paquita,” he replied, scanning our faces. “She has returned to the hotel.”

Kennedy’s countenance betrayed some disappointment, for we already knew that.

“I saw Frances and Irene together, too,” went on Hastings.

Again Kennedy could not conceal his disappointment, for it was all an old story to us. Hastings was not to be gainsaid, however.

“Well, after Frances left Irene Maddox,” he continued, “I saw that she was wrought up and nervous. So I watched her. She sought out Paquita.”

He drew back, gratified at the flash of interest that Craig instantly betrayed.

“Indeed?” asked Craig. “What took place?”

“I could not hear it all,” continued the lawyer. “But it seemed as though Frances was pleading with Paquita for something. I heard the names of both Shelby and Winifred mentioned. Paquita seemed quite haughty. Whatever it was that Frances was after, I am quite sure that she was not successful.”

I could see that Kennedy was actively trying to piece together the fragmentary information that we had gained during the evening.

What it all meant I could not fathom. But we knew enough to be quite sure that something important was afoot. First, Shelby had sent for Paquita and his supposedly secret interview, of which we had learned enough to know that he had sought to influence the little dancer to let him alone. The meeting of Winifred and Irene we knew, as well as the meeting of Irene and Frances. It seemed that Frances Walcott had an interest in the events much more than we had expected, for, failing to obtain any satisfaction from Irene, she had even swallowed her pride and sought out Paquita.

What did it mean? Was Frances really trying to play the match-maker? Was it for her brother, Shelby, that she showed the concern, or was it for her sister-in-law, Winifred? There was a positive motive in the fact that a marriage between the two might more closely protect her own interests.

“They were talking,” pursued Hastings, “when I saw her husband, Johnson, coming from the café. I think Paquita must have seen him first, for she cut the interview short very curtly and left her, though not before Johnson saw them together. He came over to his wife and I think he was a trifle angry at what he had seen. At any rate, it seemed that she was endeavoring to explain something to him and that he did not in the least approve.”

“Could you hear anything?” queried Kennedy.

“Not a thing, except that there seems to be something about which the Walcotts do not quite agree.”

I wondered whether Johnson Walcott’s dissatisfaction had been more at finding his wife talking with Paquita than at the romance between Shelby and his own sister. In the café he had seemed to be far from delighted over the affair. Frances, on the other hand, bore every evidence of wishing to promote the match. It was a strange romance that we were watching.

“Was there anything else?” asked Kennedy.

“No,” replied Hastings. “They walked away, still talking earnestly, and I think they have gone to their rooms.”

“Winifred was not about?”

“No. I saw Shelby, finally, though. But he seemed to be preoccupied and didn’t give me a chance to speak to him.”

“Where is he?”

“In the café, I suppose.”

Riley’s approach at that moment served to introduce a new element into the situation.

“You saw Mito again?” asked Kennedy.

The Secret Service man nodded. “Saw him take his master’s things into the café, then to his room. After that he managed to slip away again. He seems to have something on his mind. I don’t know what it is. We had a glimpse of Sanchez. He is about, but is keeping very low.”

“What has he been doing?”

“Nothing in the open, as far as I know,” returned Riley. “He may be planning something. I don’t like him any more than my man likes Mito. These Japs and wops are deep ones.”

Kennedy smiled, but said nothing. To Riley any foreigner was a suspicious character, if for no other reason than that he could not understand him.

“Any word from Mr. Burke?” I reiterated.

Riley nodded. “Yes, he will be here soon, now, I think.”

“Nothing else on Mito or Sanchez?” resumed Kennedy.

Riley negatived. “Trouble with them is they know I’m watching them,” he explained. “And when a man knows he is being watched it’s easy for him. There’s only one way to get him and that is to stick so close that it means a fight. We’ve had one and I hate to take the responsibility of another without orders from Mr. Burke. Another fight with Mito might not turn out so luckily, either. Besides, I don’t know that we want it to come to a fight—yet. Sanchez looks as though he might give an account of himself. These dark fellows are all knife-men, you know. I decided that it was best to pick up what we could without making a scene.”

Kennedy shrugged. There seemed to be nothing to criticize, though it was a shame that circumstances were such that we were compelled to be content with fragments at a time when we needed every scrap of information.

“It’s getting late,” he observed, glancing at his watch. “I think we might leave the field to Riley to cover, Walter, while we retire to our rooms. Good night, Mr. Hastings. You’ll tell Mr. Burke to wake us, no matter what time he comes in?” he added, turning to Riley.

The Secret Service man agreed, and together Kennedy and I went back to our suite a second time. I was glad enough to go, too, for I wanted to see what the instrument was which he had installed in the garage.

As we entered, I could not help thinking of Winifred’s action and why she had cut Shelby off so shortly. Was it a case of intuition, or was it merely what often passes for intuition—the capacity for making hasty and incorrect judgments on slender grounds?

What, too, was Mito? Was it he who had committed the murder of Marshall Maddox? Had he stolen the telautomaton plans? I wondered whether, after all, he might not be in the service of some foreign government, perhaps even be a spy.

With scarcely a word, Kennedy had taken his position at the table on which he had placed the peculiar miniature transmitter, holding it to his ear and listening intently.

“Is any one talking there?” I asked, supposing that it was some special form of the detectaphone which he was using.

“I don’t expect that there’ll be any talking,” he replied. “In fact, there may be only one person, for all I know, and he certainly won’t talk to himself.”

A knock at our door cut short further inquiry. I opened it cautiously and was greeted by the cheery voice of Burke, who had come in on the last train.

“I think I’ve earned a rest to-night,” he remarked, dropping down into the easiest chair he could find. “I’m tired, but at least I have some satisfaction for the day’s work.”

“What have you found?” asked Kennedy, eagerly, remembering that Burke had devoted himself first of all to tracing what had become of the deadly wireless destroyer itself.

“For one thing,” replied Burke, slowly, “I’m convinced, as far as I can be regarding something I don’t actually know, that the telautomaton model is out here at Westport—at least not far away.”

“What makes you think so?” I asked, quickly.

“That clue of the car waiting near the office interests me,” went on Burke, slowly. “I wasn’t able to get anything out of the rookie on the beat. But I went on the supposition that somewhere between here and New York I might find a clue. And I have found several clues from constables and special officers in towns between Westport and the city. A car answering the description was seen at several points, and the time matches up. So I think it is safe to conclude that we are on the right track. The model is out here—somewhere—I am sure.”

“Have you made any progress in running down your band of foreign criminals?” asked Kennedy.

“No trace so far,” returned Burke, still cheerfully, “except that it is entirely likely that Mito, or Paquita, or that fellow Sanchez may be the outside workers. Of course they would cover up their connection pretty closely. We can’t expect to beat the most clever minds of the Continent as easy as we would a gang of sneak-thieves. Riley tells me you have been in the city most of the day. Have you uncovered anything?”

Briefly Kennedy outlined what had happened, coming down to the events of the evening down on the beach.

Another knock on the door, and Riley entered.

“You didn’t come down, so I knew that Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson were awake. You don’t mind my coming in?”

“Not a bit,” returned Kennedy. “We were just going over what I had gathered to-day. I was telling about that meeting between Frances and Irene Maddox.”

Riley’s face assumed the same look of perplexity as it had when we left him, nonplussed by the queer actions of the Maddox family.

“You saw it,” demanded Burke. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Riley. “Maybe it means something, maybe not. I think it does. There’s some kind of difference between those two women. I can’t make it out. They seemed to be so friendly at first. Why, they even tell me Mrs. Walcott backed Mrs. Maddox in her fight with Mr. Maddox over that Paquita. But now it’s different, and it’s growing worse.”

“Natural enough,” commented Burke. “If Marshall Maddox was separated from his wife, don’t you see he would have destroyed his will in her favor. If he was intestate, as it is most likely, then the other heirs—his brother and sister—stand to gain. There were no children. Mrs. Maddox has her interest in a third. They can’t take that away from her. But no doubt it makes her feel as if she had been done out of something, to see the others get what might have been hers under different circumstances.”

“That’s it, I guess,” considered Riley. “I’ve heard her say that she thought now that Paquita was put up to winning Marshall Maddox away from her, so that the others would benefit.”

“Pretty deep,” pondered Burke, “but not impossible.”

“If she thinks that way,” I interposed, “it might account for her attitude toward Winifred. She might be just jealous enough not to want her to come into not only Shelby’s share, but part of the remainder.

“On the other hand,” I reconsidered, remembering my first theory, “Mrs. Maddox with her third interest is much better off than she was on what had been allowed her during the life of Marshall Maddox.”

“Shelby Maddox profits by it, any way you look at it,” observed Burke, following out our general review of possible motives. “Where is he now?”

“Gone up to his room, I suppose,” replied Riley.

“And Mito?”

“In the servants’ quarters—unless he manages to slip out and get into some more deviltry.”

“Confound it, Riley,” broke in Burke, “you’ve got to trail these people better! What’s the matter? Haven’t you enough men to—”

“‘Sh!” cautioned Craig from his place at the instrument on the table, his face showing intense attention to something.

“What’s that?” asked Burke.

Kennedy was busy for the moment and did not answer. But a minute or so later he replied.

“A geophone, designed originally to record earth tremors, microseisms, small-amplitude earth shakings. It is really a microphone, the simplest form of telephone, applied to the earth—hence its name. Any high-school student in physics could make one. All that is necessary is to place that simple apparatus, which Mr. Jameson saw, on the ground anywhere and attach it to a microphone receiver at the other end of the wire. You can hear an earthquake, or a big gun, or some one walking about. Hello!—here’s our friend again.”

Craig was again listening intently. What the most sensitive mechanical eavesdropper could not overhear this little geophone was now transmitting to him.

“Some one is in that garage,” he reported to us. “Those are footsteps. Our frame-up is working. He never would have gone there unless he thought we were not only going to go there to-morrow ourselves, but were out of sight now, too. By George!—there’s another—there are two of them!”

I listened a moment myself, with Kennedy. The diaphragm vibrated terrifically. Then, suddenly, all was still.

What was going on?

Kennedy dropped the receiver on the table regardless of what might happen to its delicate adjustment, jumped up, and dashed out into the hall. Down-stairs he went, not waiting for an elevator, for it was only three flights.

We followed madly, past the amazed night clerk, and out the back door of the hotel.

As we entered the garage, in the fitful light we could see a dark mass on the floor. Craig flashed his electric bull’s-eye. In the circle of light we saw that it was a man. Craig turned the form over.

It was Mito—dead!

XV

THE NIGHT OF TERROR

In utter bewilderment we looked at one another. Evidently Mito had entered, had been surprised by some one, and in a fight had been overpowered and killed.

Quickly I tried to reason it out. Plainly, even if the Jap had been the murderer of Marshall Maddox for the plans, he could not have been the thief of the telautomaton model in New York. Yet he must have known something about it all. Had we begun to get too close to Mito for some one’s comfort?

Where was the annihilator which was to revolutionize warfare and industry? In whose hands were the secrets of the “patent of death”? Who was the master criminal back of it all?

Mito’s lips were sealed, at least.

It needed only a cursory examination of the body to determine how he had met his death. His face was drawn, as though he had seen the blow descending and was powerless to avoid it. On his skull was a deep gash, made by some heavy implement. The weapon, too, was lying there—Burke discovered it—a broken leaf of an automobile spring, used by some one to force tires over rims. There was no art, no science, no finesse about the murder. It was just plain, brutal force.

If a bomb had been dropped among us, however, we could not have been more stunned than by the murder of Mito.

Burke and Riley were plainly at a loss, but I did not mind that. It was the look on Kennedy’s face that worried me. He did not say much, but it was plain that he was thinking much.

“Just a brutal murder,” he remarked at length, after he had surveyed the garage and finally come back to Mito himself again. “There doesn’t seem to be a clue. If it were odd, like the murder of Marshall Maddox, then there’d be more to work on. But it isn’t. No, it’s the harder just because of its simplicity. And it puts us just that much further back, because one whom we thought might lead us to the person higher up has been removed in the most primitive and, after all, most startling fashion.”

“I’ll wager that fellow Sanchez could tell something about this if we could only get at him right,” put in Burke, to whom Kennedy had delegated the removal of Mito’s body.

Kennedy said nothing, but it surely had begun to look as though he might be acting for Paquita in some capacity. Was she, in turn, acting for a desperate band of crooks? I felt that if we could break down Sanchez we might reach her.

Burke barked his orders to Riley and the rest. “You fellows have been marking time too long. Get out and find that man Sanchez.”

His men knew better than to question or defend. Action was the only thing that satisfied Burke. They took the orders on the jump and hurriedly organized themselves into a searching party, though what it was that was tangible that they had on Sanchez, supposing that they got him, it was hard to see. As thoroughly as they could the men under Burke and Riley covered the hotel, the Casino, the grounds, and finally turned their attention to the town.

Kennedy and I took up the search together, beginning at the hotel. Hunting through the corridors and other rooms brought no trace of the man we sought. He was not registered at the Harbor House, and though the clerk and some of the attendants knew him, they professed to be able to tell nothing. Nor was there any trace of Paquita.

Meanwhile Burke and Riley had spread a general alarm through the town, although I am sure that many of those whom they enlisted as searchers had not the slightest idea who Sanchez was or even what he looked like. The search was rapidly resolving itself into an aimless wandering about in the hope of running across this elusive individual. There seemed to be no particular way of tracing the man. The farther they got away from the hotel, however, the more convinced did it seem to make Kennedy to stick about the Lodge and Casino, if for no other reason than to keep an eye on any possible moves of the Maddoxes and Walcotts.

We were standing not far from the garage, back of the hotel, when from a second-story window, around the corner, issued a series of screams for help in a woman’s voice. We dashed into the hotel, following the shouts of alarm inside and up-stairs.

“It’s Winifred Walcott’s room,” answered one of the boys as we breathlessly questioned him.

As we approached the room on the second floor we came upon the maid, one or two guests, and several servants.

“Miss Winifred—she’s gone, carried off!” blurted out the maid, catching sight of Kennedy.

She gestured wildly about. The outer sitting-room of the suite was in great disorder. The window, low and leading out on the roof of the hotel porch, was wide open. Some chairs were overturned and the portières between the living-room and the bedroom were torn from their fastenings, and gone.

“Tell me what happened?” demanded Kennedy.

The maid was almost too excited to talk coherently.

“In the room—Miss Winifred was pacing up and down—nervous—I don’t know what it was about, sir,” she managed to blurt out. “I was in the next room, preparing some tea over an electric heater.”

“Yes, yes,” urged Kennedy, impatiently. “But what happened?”

“The window, sir, from the porch roof—opened—a man must have entered.”

“Did you see a man?”

“No, sir, but I heard a scream from Miss Winifred, as though something had been held over her mouth. No, I didn’t see any one. By the time I got in here I saw no one.”

Kennedy had stepped over by the door and was examining the torn hangings, hastily trying to reconstruct what had happened.

“Apparently the intruder, whoever it was, seized her from behind,” he concluded, hastily, “wrapped the portières over her head, and jerked her backward. The rush of the abductor must have torn them from their fastenings. Besides, they were a good muffler for her cries. The kidnapper must have carried her off, with them wrapped about her head, to prevent her screams from being heard again.”

He leaped out on the roof and I quickly followed. “It would be quite possible,” he pointed out, approaching the far end, “at this point for any one to have gained entrance from the lower porch and to lift a girl like Winifred down from the roof to the ground.”

The slope of the land at this point was such that the second-floor level was not many feet above the ground level of the hillside.

I looked at Kennedy, at a loss to know what to do. Almost under our eyes, while every one was looking for something else, Winifred had been spirited off. Why—and by whom?

Craig turned to the night clerk, who had been among the first to arrive and had followed us out on the porch roof.

“Has any one any bloodhounds about here?” he asked, quickly.

“Yes, sir—in the cottage back of the hotel there is a dog-fancier. He has a couple.”

“You know him?”

“Well.”

“Then you can borrow them?”

“Surely,” returned the clerk.

“Get them,” ordered Kennedy, waving away a group who had come up on the ground just below us. “And hurry, before the scent gets cold.”

The clerk nodded and disappeared on the run.

Down below the crowd kept collecting.

“Keep them back,” ordered Kennedy, “until the bloodhounds get here. See—there are marks in the grass that show that some one has been here—and—look—on this bush a torn corner of the portière.”

A moment later two men from the hotel stables appeared, with the dogs tugging on leash.

Quickly Kennedy gave them the scent before the trail of the footprints and the dragging portière had been destroyed by the curious.

They were off, tugging at the leash, Kennedy with one and I with the other. Burke and Riley had come up by this time, post-haste from their search for Sanchez, and joined us.

Away across the lawn, through the shrubbery, the trail led us, over a fence until farther along through a break in the hedge we came upon the road. Together we four hastened out over the highway.

“There’s one thing in our favor,” panted Kennedy. “No car was used—at least not yet. And if one or even two are carrying her, we can go a great deal faster than they can.”

My dog, which seemed to be the more active of the two, was outrunning the other, and, not through any desire on my part, but through his sheer tugging at the leash, he kept me a few paces ahead of the rest.

The road which had been taken by the kidnappers bent around the head of the harbor, branching off at a little country store, closed since early in the evening. No help was to be expected there, and we followed the road which ran down through a neck of land that led to the harbor opposite Westport.

So accustomed had I become to the steady tug of the dog on his leash, that, as we passed a little brook, where it seemed the abductor had paused, I was surprised to feel his pull on my hand suddenly relax.

Before I knew it the dog had stopped. He uttered a peculiar wheeze—half sneeze, half gasp. Before I realized what it could be about he rolled over, as though he had been shot. It was not that he had lost the scent. Again and again, as he lay for the few seconds, gasping, he tried to pick up the trail.

As I watched him in utter astonishment I noticed a peculiar, subtle odor, with just the faintest suggestion of peach pits.

Kennedy, with more presence of mind than I had shown, drew up sharply on the leash of his dog, some feet behind me.

“Here, Burke,” he cried. “Hold him—well away. Don’t let him break loose.”

As Craig advanced toward me he stopped and picked up something that his foot had kicked in the dust. He advanced, holding away from him what looked like a small glass vial, while with his other hand he fumbled a small pocket flashlight.

“Whoever he was,” he exclaimed, excitedly, “the fellow is clever. Read the label.”

I did and drew back, with a hasty glance at my hound, which already lay dead at my feet.

The vial was labeled, “PRUSSIC ACID—POISON.”

“Winifred!” I exclaimed, voicing the first fear that flashed through my mind.

“I think she is all right,” reassured Craig. “If the abductor had wanted to kill her he would have had plenty of chances before this. No, I can imagine him stopping a second to wet a handkerchief in the brook and bind it over his nose as he opened the bottle and smeared the deadly fluid over the soles of his shoes, casting the empty bottle back of him. Certainly a clever ruse.”

Together we had retreated from the danger zone toward Burke and Riley, who were agape with astonishment as they learned of the unheard-of discovery we had made.

We looked at one another in blank astonishment and fear. Would the abductor get away, after all?

“A vexatious delay,” interrupted Kennedy, calmly. “But I doubt if they counted on our having another dog. The stuff must have worn off their shoes rapidly as they hurried on. Here, Burke, let me have the hound, now. It may take me some time, but I am sure that I can overcome this obstacle.”

While we waited, Craig cut a wide circle off the road, with the dog whining at having lost the scent. For some minutes down the road he let him run pretty free, trying to pick up the scent again at some point well past that at which we had found the deadliest of acids, where a dirt road debouched from the macadam.

“Come on!” he shouted at last, as a deep bay from the dog announced that he was off again and now running silent, since he had found the trail.

We made splendid progress now, and, by hasty calculation of the time, which must have been brief before the alarm was given, we concluded that we were without a doubt rapidly gaining on the abductor.

It was growing darker and darker as we went out of the lights of the main road into a deeper recess of the woods. Our little pocket flashlights were too puny for such work.

Just then along the dirt road back of us came tearing a car. As it pulled up the driver flashed his spot-light ahead and it cut through the blackness like a bull’s-eye.

“I heard you had gone this way,” shouted a voice from the darkness. “Here, let me drive behind and light you ahead.”

In the shaft of light we could see a single figure of a man, staggering along with some heavy burden in his arms, and behind, several hundred yards away, Kennedy swiftly following with the hound.

As the light played on them, the figure seemed to realize that escape was now hopeless, unless he dropped his burden.

He paused just an instant, as though calculating something desperate. Just then I raised my gun and fired. I had no hope of hitting him in the fitful light and at the distance. But at least the shot had its effect.

He dropped Winifred and bolted.

At that moment the car came abreast of me. I turned quickly. The man in the car with the spot-light was Sanchez!

We had all come up with Kennedy now, the car stopping on the road with its lights playing full on the group.

Slowly now Winifred, who had fainted, revived. As she opened her eyes she seemed in a daze. Beyond what we already knew of her exciting adventure, she could tell nothing. Sanchez offered to drive her back to the hotel.

It was the first time he had spoken, and I wondered what Burke, fire-eater that he was, would do.

For a moment he hesitated, then strode up to the sallow-faced man deliberately.

“This thing has gone too far,” he ground out. “Has all this been staged so that you could play the hero?”

Sanchez flared. For a moment I thought that there would be a fight. But he seemed to consider.

With a shrug, he replied, quietly, “I am at your service, if I can be of assistance to the young lady.”

The man was baffling. There was nothing for Burke to do but to hide his exasperation and take advantage of the offer.

To me, the sudden appearance of Sanchez was most mystifying. Had he in reality been on his way to overtake his own agent, when he had, fortunately for himself, overtaken us? Or were we all wrong and was Sanchez innocent? No one said a word as we made our quick return to the hotel.

Winifred was, by this time, herself and able to return to her room, which was now guarded from below. Neither she nor any of the rest of us could offer an explanation of the sudden attack or its purpose.

It had been a night of terror and we were about ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. Besides, it was too late now to do anything more. Kennedy and I decided to retire, leaving the Secret Service operatives to watch for any further suspicious move on the part of any one, especially those who, to all appearances, at least, seemed to be safely asleep at the Lodge.

XVI

THE INVISIBLE INK

We were awakened very early by the violent ringing of our room telephone. Kennedy was at the receiver almost before I realized what was going on.

“Have you a machine to follow her?” I heard him ask, hurriedly, then add: “All right. I’ll leave the trailing to you. Don’t let her get away. We will go to the city on the train and then you can communicate with me at Mr. Hastings’s office. I’ll go there.”

“Who was it?” I asked as Craig hung up. “What has happened?”

“Paquita has tried to steal a march on us, I imagine,” he replied, beginning to dress hastily. “Riley must have been up all night—or at least very early. He saw her come down-stairs—it’s scarcely five o’clock now—and a moment later her car pulled up. She’s off, apparently by the road to New York. It’s strange, too. Except that she got off so early, she made very little effort at concealment. You would think she must have known that she would be seen. I wonder if she wanted us to know it, or was just taking a chance at getting away while we were napping?”

“Is Riley following her?” I asked.

“Yes. As soon as he saw her speedster at the door he went out by another door and around to the garage. It just happened that the night man was there and Riley wheedled him into letting him have a car. It isn’t as fast as Paquita’s, but then it isn’t always the fast car that gets away with it between here and New York. Sometimes, if you know how to drive and where the bad spots in the road are, you can make up what you lack in speed.”

Kennedy had pulled a time-table out of his pocket and was hurriedly consulting it.

“The service is very poor at this hour,” he remarked. “It will be an hour before we can get the next train. We’ve missed the first by a few minutes.”

“What do you suppose she’s up to now?” I speculated.

Kennedy shrugged silently.

We had finished dressing and for the moment there seemed to be nothing to do but wait.

“By George!” Craig exclaimed, suddenly, starting for the door. “Just the chance! Hardly anybody is about. We can get into her room while she is gone. Come on!”

Paquita’s room, or rather suite, was on the floor above and in a tower at the corner. It was difficult to get into, but from a porch at the end of the hall we found that it was possible to step on a ledge and, at some risk, reach one window. Kennedy did not hesitate, and I followed.

As was to be supposed, the room was topsy-turvy, showing that she had been at some pains to get away early and quick.

We began a systematic search, pawing with unhallowed fingers all the dainty articles of feminine finery which might conceal some bit of evidence that might assist us.

“Pretty clever,” scowled Kennedy, as drawer after drawer, trunk after trunk, closet after closet, yielded nothing. “She must have destroyed everything.”

He paused by a dainty little wicker writing-desk, which was scrupulously clean. Even the blotters were clean, as though she had feared some one might, by taking her hand-mirror, even read what she blotted.

The scrap-basket had a pile of waste in it, including a couple of evening papers. However, I turned it over and examined it while Craig watched.

As I did so I fairly pounced on a sheet of paper crumpled into a ball, and eagerly straightened it out flat on the table.

“Humph!” I ejaculated in disgust. “Blank! Might have known she wouldn’t leave anything in writing around, I suppose.”

I was about to throw it back when Kennedy took it from me. He held it up to the light. It was still just a crumpled sheet of white paper. He looked about. On a dressing-table stood an electric curling-iron. He heated it and passed it over the paper until it curled with the heat. Still it was just a blank sheet of paper.

Was he pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp?

For a moment he regarded it thoughtfully. “If I were in the laboratory,” he ruminated, “I could tell pretty quick whether— Wait!—that’s foolish. She hasn’t any laboratory here. Walter, fill that basin with warm water.”

In the bottom of the basin Craig laid the sheet of paper and we bent over it.

“Nothing doing,” I remarked, disappointed.

“Why not?” he returned, eagerly, turning the wet paper. “We had it wrong side up!”

There, before our eyes, under the water, characters of some sort were appearing.

“You can make a perfectly good sympathetic ink from linseed oil, liquor of ammonia, and any of several other ingredients,” he said, watching with me. “When writing with it dries it is invisible. Only water will bring it out. Then when it dries it is invisible again. Look.”

I did, but could not yet make out what it was, except that it seemed to be a hodge-podge of figures:

251533331514543245434412152515354433331552 543442254533442431521521243324432323154215

“It’s a cipher!” I exclaimed with that usual acumen that made Kennedy smile indulgently.

“Quite right,” he agreed, studying the peculiar scrawl of the figures. “But if we are going to get to New York at anything like the time she does, we must get that train. I can’t stop to decipher it now. We’ll have plenty of time later in the morning. There’s no use staying here, with the bird flown from the cage. I wonder whether Hastings is up yet.”

The lawyer, who was not as young as he used to be, was not awake, and it took some pounding on his door to wake him. As he opened it sleepily he was prepared to give some one a piece of his mind, until he saw that it was Kennedy and myself.

“Hello!” he suppressed a surly growl. “What’s the trouble?”

Quickly Craig told him of the strange departure of Paquita.

“Up to something again,” muttered Hastings, finding some one at least on whom he could vent his spleen, although by this time he was fully awake. “But, man, I can’t get away for that early train!”

“Oh, that’s all right,” reassured Kennedy. “I think it will be enough if you come down on the express. But I wanted to tell you that when Riley called up and said he was off after Paquita, I couldn’t think of a place in the city that was more central than your office and I took the liberty of telling him to call me up there, without thinking how early it would be.”

“I’ll let you have the key,” returned Hastings, taking one from a ring. “I’ll join you as soon as I can get away.”

“Just what I wanted,” commented Kennedy, as we left the lawyer and hurried down to the dining-room for the few remaining minutes before the hotel ’bus left for the station. “Besides, I wanted to get there when no one was around, so that I could have a chance to look at that confounded detectaphone again. Whoever it was who installed it was clever.”

“Might not that be the purpose of Paquita’s trip to New York?” I queried.

“I was thinking of that. Between us, Riley and ourselves ought to be able to find that out.”

There was just time for a hasty bite of breakfast and we went into the dining-room, where Burke was evidently looking for us, for he came over and sat down. No one else was about and he felt free to talk.

“If you’re going,” he decided, after telling us of Riley’s report to him also of Paquita, “I think I had better stay. We ought not to let any of them remain here unobserved—not after last night,” he added.

“Quite right,” agreed Kennedy. “Have you heard anything more about the attack on Winifred?”

Burke negatived. He was still sore at Sanchez, who seemed to have come out of the affair with credit. I fancied that if ever the sallow-faced man ran afoul of Burke it would go hard with him.

“I didn’t get that business straight last night,” mused the detective. “Why should any one have wanted to kidnap Winifred? It couldn’t have been to hurt her—for there was plenty of opportunity to do that. It must have been to hold her somewhere and force some one to do something. What do you think of that, Kennedy?”

“Your reasoning is very logical,” agreed Craig.

“There is only one thing missing—who was it and what was it for?”

“Pretty large questions,” agreed Burke, good-humoredly now. “There must have been some big reason for it. Well, I hope this trip of Paquita’s proves to be the key to something. I almost wish I had told Riley to stay. I’d like to go with you.”

“No,” reassured Craig. “It’s better that you should be here. We must not leave any loopholes. You’ll communicate with me if anything happens?”

Burke nodded and glanced hastily at his watch as a hint to us to hurry. With a parting assurance from him, we made the dash for the train in the hotel ’bus.

The crisp morning air as we spun up to the station was a tonic to Kennedy. He seemed to enjoy the excitement of the chase keenly and I must admit that I, too, felt the pleasing uncertainty of our errand.

I had found by this time that there was an entirely different crowd that regularly took each train. None of those whom we had seen the previous day on the express were on this train, although I felt sure that some of them at least would take their regular trip to the city later, especially Shelby. Whatever happened, at least we were ahead of them, although I doubted whether we would be ahead of Paquita unless she had some trouble on the road.

Nothing was to be gained by the study of the other passengers, and there was not even a chair car on the accommodation. The papers had not arrived from New York in spite of the fact that Westport was not very far out, and the time consumed in stopping at every station on the road seemed to hang heavy.

Kennedy, however, was never at a loss for something to do. We had no more than settled ourselves in the smoker with its seats of hot, dirty, worn, antiquated railroad plush, when he pulled from his pocket a copy he had made of the figures that had appeared on the wet paper.

In a moment he was deeply engaged in a study of them, trying all manner of tricks, combining them, adding them, setting figures opposite the letters of the alphabet, everything that could occur to him on the spur of the moment, although I knew that he had worked out a scientific manner of reading any cipher. Still, his system of deciphering would take time, and in the brief interval of the railroad journey it was his intention to see whether he might not save the labor and perhaps stumble on some simple key.

Evidently the cipher was not so simple. One after another he used up sheets from his loose-leaf note-book, tearing up the scrawls and throwing them out of the window, but never seeming to become discouraged or to lose his temper at each fresh failure.

“I can’t say I’m making much progress,” he admitted, finally, closing his note-book and taking from his wallet carefully the original crumpled sheet I had found in the scrap-basket. “There’s just one thing I’d like to try—not to decipher it, for that will take time, I see—but to see if there is anything else that I missed as I looked at it so hastily up there in that room.”

At the ice-water cooler, which never had any ice in it, nor cups about it, he held the sheet of paper for a moment under the tepid running water. Since he had first wet it, it had dried out and the figures were again invisible. Then he returned to our seat and soon was deep in the study of the original this time.

“I can say one thing,” he remarked, folding the cipher carefully so as not to tear the weakened fibers, as we rolled into the New York terminus, “the person who wrote that thing is a crook—has the instincts of a spy and traitor.”

“How do you know that?” I inquired.

“How?” he repeated, quietly, glancing up sharply from a final look at the thing. “Did you ever hear of the science of graphology—the study of character in handwriting? Much the same thing applies to figures. It’s all there in the way those figures are made, just as plain as the nose on your face, even if the meaning of the cipher is still hidden. We have a crook to deal with, and a very clever one, too, even if we don’t know yet who it is. It’s possible to hide a good deal, but not everything—not everything.”

From the station Kennedy and I went immediately down to the office of Hastings. It was still very early and few offices were occupied. Kennedy opened the door and, as I anticipated, went directly to the spot in the office where he had unearthed, or rather unwalled, the detectaphone transmitter.

There was not a chance that any one would be listening at the other end, yet he proceeded cautiously. The transmitter had been placed close to the plaster which had not been disturbed in Hastings’s office. So efficient was the little machine that even the plaster did not prevent sound waves from affecting its sensitive diaphragm.

“But how could it have been put in place?” I asked as Kennedy explored the hole he had made in the wall.

“That’s new plaster back there,” he pointed out, peering in. “Some one must have had access on a pretense to the next office and placed the transmitter that way, plastering up the wall again and painting it over. You see, Hastings wouldn’t know about that.”

“Still,” I objected, “any one going in and out of the next office would be likely to be seen. Who has the office?”

“It’s no use to look,” replied Kennedy, as I started for the hall. “They are as ignorant as we are. See—the wire doesn’t go there. It goes horizontally to that box or casing in the corner which carries steam-pipes. Then it goes down. It’s not likely it goes down very many floors. Let’s see what’s under us.”

The office beneath bore on its doors the name of a well-known brokerage firm. There was no reason to suspect them, and Kennedy and I walked down another floor. There, in a little office, directly under that occupied by Hastings, gilt letters announced simply “Public Stenographer Exchange.” Without a doubt that was the other end of the eavesdropper.

“There’s no one in yet, sir,” informed a cleaning woman who happened to see us trying the door.

Kennedy was ready with a story. “That’s too bad,” he hastened, with a glance at his watch. “They want to sublet it to me and I’d like to look at it before I decide on another office at nine o’clock.”

“I can let you see it,” hinted the woman, rattling a string of keys.

“Can you?” encouraged Kennedy, slipping a silver coin into her hand. “Thank you. It will save me another trip.”

She opened the door and we saw at once why Kennedy’s chance story had seemed so plausible. Whatever furniture had been there had been moved out, except a single plain chair and a very small table. But on the table stood a box, the receiving end of the detectaphone. It was the eavesdropper’s station, all right.

The woman left us a moment and we made the best of the opportunity. Not even a scrap of paper had been left. Except for what greeted us on our first entrance, there was nothing.

Who had rented the place? Who had listened in, had heard and anticipated even our careful frame-up?

Could it have been that this was the objective of the hasty visit of Paquita, that it had been she who was so eager to destroy the evidence of the eavesdropping on Hastings?

It was galling to have to stand here in inaction at a time when we felt that we might be learning much if we had only so much as a hint where else to look.

“The easiest way of finding out is to watch,” concluded Kennedy. “We can’t just stand about in the hall. That in itself will look suspicious. You wait here a few minutes while I see if I can find the agent of the building.”

Around a bend in the hall I waited, trying to seem interested more in some other office down the hall. No one appeared, however, looking for any of the offices, and it was only a few minutes before Kennedy returned.

“I found him,” he announced. “Of course he could tell me next to nothing. It was as I had supposed, just some one who was an emissary of our criminal. I doubt if it would do us much good to catch the person now, anyway. Still, it’s worth while taking a chance on. A girl who said she was a typewriter and stenographer hired the place, and paid for it in cash in advance. I managed to persuade the agent to let me have the key to this vacant office opposite. We can watch better from that.”

We let ourselves into the opposite office, which was bare, and I could see that I was in for a tiresome wait.

No one had arrived yet in Hastings’s office and Kennedy was eager to receive some word from Riley as well as watch the eavesdropping plant. Accordingly, he left me to watch while he returned to the lawyer’s office.

Every footfall in the hall raised my hopes, only to dash them again as the new-comer entered some other office than the one I was watching.

XVII

THE CIPHER LETTER

Irksome though it was to be compelled to do fruitless watching in a vacant office, there was nothing to do but stick at it. What Paquita might be up to was a mystery, but I knew that until we heard from Riley we could have only the most slender chance to locate her in the big city.

It was perhaps half an hour later when, to my relief, Kennedy returned, bringing with him a strange man. I looked at him inquiringly.

“You’re just wasting time here, Walter,” Craig explained. “I’ve got one of the Secret Service men here in the city to relieve you of your job. But I very much suspect that, after what happened last night, whoever had that place across the hall is through and would rather lose the detectaphone receiver than risk being caught.”

“Have you had any word from Riley?”

“Not a word. I’m getting anxious,” he replied, turning to the new man and instructing him what to do.

Kennedy was eager to get back, in case there might be a hasty call about Paquita. I could see, too, that he was convinced that we were baffled, at least as far as discovering who had been using the detectaphone was concerned.

We returned quickly to Hastings’s office, which was still deserted, and there, as we waited nervously, Kennedy drew forth the cipher and began to study it again, but this time on an entirely different line, following his own scientific principles, which he had laid down after investigating the work of other expert decipherers.

My hopes rose momentarily when we heard footsteps in the hall and the door was burst open. It was, however, merely a messenger-boy.

“Telegram for Mr. Kennedy,” he shouted, penetrating even the sacred inner office of Hastings.

Craig tore open the yellow envelope, read the message, and tossed it over to me. It was from Burke at Westport.

“Wireless operators at Seaville Station,” it read, “report strange interference. May be in reference to telautomaton. Will keep you advised if anything happens.”

The possibility of a new twist to events was very fascinating, though I did not understand it. I was just about to question Kennedy about the telautomaton when the door opened again. This time it was Hastings himself.

“Has there been any word?” he asked, eagerly.

“Nothing so far,” replied Craig. “You came on the express, I suppose?”

“Yes,” he replied, his face wearing a puzzled expression. “I don’t quite understand what is going on.”

“What in particular?” queried Craig, seeing that there was something on Hastings’s mind.

“Why, Shelby, of course,” he answered. “Some change has taken place in him. He’s not like the Shelby I used to know. Yesterday he came in to town. He was on the train again to-day. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. Johnson Walcott was on the train, too. He noticed it—called my attention to it, as a matter of fact. I saw some of the younger men, too. Shelby as a regular commuter is a joke to them. But it’s more than a joke, I’m thinking. Shelby never came near Wall Street—or Broad Street—before. But now they tell me he seems to be taking an active interest in the Maddox Munitions stock on the curb. I don’t understand it.”

“Could he be trying to put through some deal?” I inquired, hastily. “Perhaps he’s trying to get the control his brother would have had.”

“I don’t doubt that he has some such scheme,” agreed Hastings. “But—well, what do you say, Kennedy? Doesn’t it look suspicious, so soon afterward? It may be real ambition, now. He may have changed. But—”

Hastings’s “but” meant volumes.

Just then the telephone rang and the lawyer answered it, handing the instrument over to Kennedy.

We listened eagerly. It was the first long-delayed report of Paquita from Riley, and as Kennedy pursued the one-sided conversation that we heard I gathered that, far from clearing up things, the actions of Paquita had further muddled them.

Hastings glanced at me and shook his head sagely, whispering, “That’s a clever and a dangerous woman: When she looks most innocent is the time to be wary.”

I tried to pay no attention to his banal remarks, but still was unable to follow, from what I heard, the course of the report from Riley.

Finally it seemed as if Kennedy were cut off in the middle of a remark or that Riley had hung up suddenly. Kennedy jiggled the hook but was unable to get any one back again, though Central tried for some time.

“What was it?” I asked, keenly interested.

“I’m afraid she’s putting one over on us again,” commented Kennedy as he hung up the receiver.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Why, it’s evidently a purposeless visit to the city, as nearly as I can make out. Riley followed her in—had no difficulty. In fact, he thinks that she knew she was being followed before they reached the turnpike from Westport.”

“Where did she go after she got here?” I asked, hoping that at last there was some clue that might lead to the “gang” which Burke suspected, but which I was almost tempted to believe was mythical.

“Just stopped at her city apartment,” returned Craig. “There wasn’t any telephone handy and Riley was afraid to leave her for fear she might come out and get away before he could get back. It was very early. When it came time for the offices to open she made a call at her theatrical agents again. After that she came down-town. She wasn’t far away from us here. This will interest you, Mr. Hastings.”

Hastings needed no prompting. He was already interested.

“Riley found her talking to a clerk in a brokerage house—Dexter & Co. You know them?”

“Slightly. I wonder what that can mean.”

“Perhaps something to do with Shelby—at least Riley thinks so. It was while she was talking to the clerk that he got his first chance to telephone me. What cut him short was that he could see from the telephone booth that she was starting away. He had to go, but he did get time to say that he had just seen Shelby Maddox enter the same building, though Shelby didn’t see Paquita.”

“Did she see him?”

“I suppose so. That must have been why she went away so quickly. I suppose she didn’t want to be seen.”

“What can that girl be up to now?” considered Hastings. “You may just rest assured that it is something devilish.”

“Any word from Sanchez?” I asked, remembering my own experience the time I had tried to trail Paquita.

“Nothing so far,” replied Kennedy. “Riley was looking for him, but hasn’t seen a trace of him. Except for the visit down-town, Paquita seems to be just going about as though giving Riley something to do. He thinks it’s mighty strange she doesn’t try to throw him off. Really, she seems to want to be shadowed.”

“How can that be?”

Kennedy shrugged. “I don’t know. Riley promised to call up the next chance he got.”

“Why not go over to Dexter’s?” suggested Hastings.

“She can’t be there,” returned Kennedy. “If she was, Riley would have had a chance to make a second call. Therefore I reason that she must have gone away after she had seen the clerk and when Shelby appeared. I think I’ll stay here awhile, until I hear again—especially as I have nowhere else to go,” he decided, pulling out the cipher from his pocket again. “We may hear some more about Shelby and his schemes.”

Kennedy had now fallen into an earnest study of the peculiar cryptogram which we had discovered.

“I suppose you’ve noticed that there’s no figure above five in it,” he remarked to me, looking up for an instant from several sheets of paper which he was covering with a hopeless jam of figures and letters.

“I had not,” I confessed. “What of it?”

“Well, I’ve tried the numbers in all sorts of combinations and permutations. They don’t work. Let me see. Suppose we take them in pairs.”

For several moments he continued to figure and his face became continuously brighter.

“There are six pairs of 33’s,” he remarked, almost to himself. “Now, it’s well known that the letter ‘e’ is the most commonly used letter. That’s the starting point usually in working out a cipher. Wait—there are eight ‘15’s’—that must be ‘e.’ Yes, the chances are all for it. Now what letter is 33, if any?”

He appeared to be in a dream as he recalled from his studies of cryptograms what were the probabilities of the occurrence of the particular letters. Suddenly he exclaimed:

“Perhaps it’s ‘n’—let’s see.”

Hastily he wrote down some letters and numbers in the following order—“25enne1454.”

He looked at it for a moment, and then his face registered the dawn of an idea.

“By George!” he exclaimed, “we don’t have to go any further! I have it. It’s my own name—Kennedy. Let me see how that works. I believe it’s the system we call—”

Kennedy was again interrupted by the entrance of the messenger-boy with another telegram. He tore it open and, as I expected, it was a second message from Burke.

“Seaville Station has reported interference to Government. Just received orders Washington to take up investigation. Not wireless messages that interfere. Some mystery. When can you come out?”

Kennedy read and reread the message. To neither Hastings nor myself did it convey any idea upon which we could build. But to Kennedy, seemingly, it suggested a thousand and one things.

It was evident that the appeal from Burke had moved Kennedy very much. Paquita had lured us into town, but I cannot say that it was giving us much to show for our pains.

“What do you suppose that message can mean?” I questioned. “What does Burke mean about the telautomaton?”

“I can’t say at this distance. There must be more to it than he has put into the telegram. But at least it is possible that the men at the station have stumbled over some attempt to use the wireless in testing out the little model. It’s pretty hard to tell. Really, I wish I was out there. A clue like this interests me much more than our little adventuress.”

Kennedy had scarcely laid down the message from Burke when the telephone tinkled again. He seized the receiver expectantly. By his excitement I could see that it was Riley again.

“Yes, Riley,” we heard him answer. “Where are you now?”

The conversation was rapid-fire. As Kennedy hung up his face showed considerable interest.

“That woman is just making sport of Riley,” exclaimed Kennedy, hotly, facing us in perplexity.

“Why, what is she doing?”

“Seems to be aimlessly driving about the city. I’ll bet she is just laughing at him. I wonder what the game may be?”

“Where is she now?”

“Up-town again. I suppose that we could jump up there and probably catch Riley somewhere, by keeping in touch with this office, if both of us kept calling up here. But what good it would do I can’t see. I’m disappointed. This thing has degenerated into a wild-goose chase.”

His eye fell on the telegram from Burke, and I knew that the two things had placed Kennedy in a dilemma. If he might have been in two places at once, he would have been satisfied. Should he drop everything and go to Burke or should he wait for Riley?

“We’ll let the cipher decide,” concluded Kennedy, turning to the scribbled papers before him.

“What is the cipher system?” I asked, mechanically, my head rather in a whirl at the fast-crowding events.

“Don’t you understand?” he cried, almost gleefully, working at the solution of the secret writing. “I’ve got it! How stupid of me before not to think of it. Why, it’s the old checkerboard cipher again!”

Quickly he drew on paper a series of five squares horizontally and five vertically and filled them in with the letters of the alphabet, placing I and J in the same square, thus using twenty-five squares. Over the top he wrote the numbers to 5 and down the side he did the same, as follows:

1 2 3 4 5

1 A B C D E

2 F G H IJ K

3 L M N O P

4 Q R S T U

5 V W X Y Z

“Do you see?” he cried, eagerly. “The letter ‘e’ is in the first row, the fifth letter—15. The letter ‘n’ is the third letter in the third row—33. Why, it’s simple!”

It might have been simple to him now, but to Hastings and myself, as Kennedy figured the thing out, it was little short of marvelous. For all we could have done it, I suppose the blank scrap of paper would still have been a hidden book.

We were crowded about Kennedy, eagerly watching what his deciphering might yield, when the office-boy announced, “Mr. Shelby Maddox to see you, Mr. Hastings.”

Kennedy quickly covered the papers on which he was writing with some others on the desk, just as Shelby entered.

“Is Kennedy here?” cried Shelby. “Oh—I thought maybe you might be. They told me that you’d gone early to the city.”

Our greeting was none too cordial, but Shelby either did not notice it or affected not to do so.

“I wanted to ask you about that kidnapping,” he explained. “You see, I wasn’t about when they found Mito, and it wasn’t until later that I heard of it and the attempt on Winifred. What do you suppose, Mr. Kennedy, was the reason? Who could have wanted to carry her off?”

Kennedy shrugged. “So far I haven’t been able to give a final explanation,” he remarked, keenly.

“Then the kidnappers got away clean?” asked Shelby.

“It was very clever,” temporized Kennedy, “but I would hardly say that there is no clue.”

Shelby eyed Craig keenly, as though he would have liked to read his mind. But Kennedy’s face did not betray whether it was much or little that he knew.

“Well,” added Shelby, “all I’ve got to say is that some one is going to get into trouble if anything happens to that girl.”

I was listening attentively. Was this a bluff, or not? From the expression on Hastings’s face one would have said that he was convinced it must have been Shelby himself who kidnapped her. I wondered whether it was wholly interest in Winifred that prompted Shelby’s visit and inquiry.

“At any rate,” he went on, “you’ll all be watching now against a repetition of such a thing, won’t you? I don’t need to remind you, Kennedy, of your promise when I talked to you before?”

Craig nodded. “I’ll give you a square deal, Mr. Maddox,” returned Craig. “Of course I can’t work for two people at once. But I shall do nothing for any client that I am not convinced is perfectly right. You need not fear for Miss Walcott as long as I can protect her.”

Maddox seemed to be relieved, although he had found nothing that pointed to the origin of the attack. Or was it because of that?

He glanced at his watch uneasily. “You’ll pardon me,” he said, rising. “I had a few minutes and I thought I’d drop in and see you. I must keep an appointment. Thank you for what you have said about Winifred.”

As he withdrew I shot a hasty glance at Craig. Should I follow him? Kennedy negatived.

Apparently not even the intrusion of Shelby had got out of his mind either the dilemma we were in or the hidden message that he seemed on the point of reading.

“An engagement,” commented Hastings, incredulously. “Since when has Shelby had important engagements? More than likely it is something to do with this Paquita woman.”

There was no mistaking the opinion that Hastings had of the youngest scion of the house of Maddox. Nor was it unjustified. Shelby’s escapades had been notorious, though I had always noticed that, in the aftermath of the stories, Shelby was quite as much, if not more, sinned against than sinning. Young men of his stamp are subject to many more temptations than some of the rest of us. If Shelby were coming through all right, I reflected, so much the greater credit for him.

Kennedy either shared my own feelings toward Shelby or had decided that he was not at present worth considering to the delay of something more important.

I looked over his shoulder, fascinated, as he fell to work again immediately on the cipher with the same zest which he had displayed before Shelby’s interruption.

Rapidly Kennedy translated the figures into letters and, as each word was set down on paper, became more and more excited.

Finally he leaped up and seized his hat.

“Confound her!” he exclaimed, “that explains it all! Look!”

Hastings and I read what he had written:

“KENNEDY MUST BE KEPT IN NEW YORK UNTIL WE FINISH HERE.”

XVIII

THE RADIO DETECTIVE

Here, it seemed, was a new danger. Was it to be taken as a proof of Burke’s theory that some one, perhaps a gang, was back of Paquita! I was almost inclined to Hastings’ opinion, for the moment. What was the reason that Shelby had been so interested in Kennedy as to seek him out even in the office of the lawyer of his brother who hated him?

I could evolve no answer in my own inner consciousness for the questions. As far as I could see we were still fighting in the dark, and fighting an unknown.

Kennedy quickly chose one horn of the dilemma that had been presented to him. Both the wording of the cipher and Burke’s enigmatic message regarding the wireless which came so close on its heels quite decided him to hurry back to Westport—that is, if one might so call traveling on midday trains that lounged along from station to station.

We left Hastings in a high state of excitement. Some pressing business prevented his immediate return to Westport, and Kennedy was evidently rather pleased than otherwise, for he did not urge him to go.

“There’s just one thing that I must stop for, and we shall have plenty of time, if we don’t waste it,” he planned. “I must go to the laboratory. There’s some stuff there I want to take out if, as I foresee, we are to have to deal with wireless in some way. Besides, I may need some expert assistance and I want to arrange with one of the graduate students at the university, if I can.”

In the laboratory he found what he wanted and began gathering it into bundles, packing up some head telephone receivers, coils of wire, and other apparatus, some of which was very cumbersome. The last he placed in a pile by itself.

The door opened and a young man entered.

“Oh, Watkins,” Craig directed, as I recognized one of the students who had attended his courses, “there’s a lot of apparatus I would like you to take out to Westport for me.”

They talked briefly in a wireless jargon which I did not understand, and the student agreed to carry the stuff out on a late train, meeting us at the Harbor House. At the last moment Kennedy was off for the railroad station. It was making close connections, but we succeeded.

The ride out was nerve-racking to us under the circumstances. We had taken the bait so temptingly displayed by Paquita and had gone to New York. Now we could not get back fast enough. We had not been in the city long, it is true. But had it been too long? What had happened out in the town we were anxious to learn. I felt sure that in our absence some of the Maddoxes might well have attempted something which our presence would have restrained.

Burke met us at the station with a car, so sure was he that Kennedy would return immediately on receipt of his second message, and it was evident that he felt a great sense of relief at regaining Kennedy’s help.

As we spun along down from the station Kennedy hastened to tell Burke what had happened, first about Paquita as Riley had reported, then his deciphering of the cipher message, our failure to discover anything in the scantily furnished office at the other end of the detectaphone wire, Shelby’s visit, and the whole peculiar train of circumstances.

Instead of going directly to the Harbor House Burke drove us around by the hotel dock, where we saw that there was a stranger in a power boat apparently waiting for him.

Kennedy was just finishing his recital of our unsatisfactory experience as we approached.

“Perhaps it all has something to do with what I wired you about,” returned Burke, thoughtfully. “This new affair is something that I know you’ll be interested in. You see, among my other jobs for the Government I’m what you might call a radio-detective, I guess. You know that there are laws aimed against these amateur wireless operators, I suppose?”

Kennedy nodded, and Burke went on, “Well, whenever regular operators find anything illegal going on in the air, they notify the Government, and so the thing is passed along for me to take up. Heaven knows I don’t know much about wireless. But that doesn’t matter. They don’t want a wireless man so much as they do a detective to ferret out from the operator’s evidence who can be violating the law of the air, and where. So that is how I happened to get hold of this evidence which, I think, may prove valuable to us.”

As we pulled up near the hotel dock Burke beckoned to the strange man who had been waiting for him.

“Let me introduce you to Steel, whom they have sent to me on that matter I told you about.”

Kennedy and I shook hands with the man, who glanced out over the harbor as he explained briefly, “I’m an operator over there at the Seaville Station, which you can see on the point.”

We also gazed out over the water. The powerful station which he indicated was on a spit of sand perhaps two miles distant and stood out sharply against the horizon, with its tall steel masts and cluster of little houses below, in which the operators and the plant were.

“It’s a wonderful station,” Steel remarked, noticing that we were looking at it also. “We’d be glad to have you over there, Mr. Kennedy. Perhaps you could help us.”

“How’s that?” asked Craig, keenly.

“Why,” explained the operator, with a sort of reflective growl, “for the past day or so, now and then, when we least expect it, our apparatus has been put out of business. It’s only temporary. But it looks as though there was too much interference. It isn’t static. It’s almost as though some one was jamming the air. And we don’t know of any one around here that’s capable of doing it. None of us can explain it, but there are some powerful impulses in the air. I can’t make it out.”

Kennedy’s eye rested on the graceful white hull of the Sybarite as she lay still at anchor off the Harbor House. I had not noticed, although Kennedy had, that the yacht was equipped with wireless.

“It’s not likely that it is any one on the Sybarite who is responsible?” he considered, tentatively.

The operator shook his head. “No, the apparatus isn’t strong enough. We would be more likely to put them out of business.”

Burke turned the car around and drove up to the Harbor House. Kennedy jumped out of the car and carried part of the stuff he had brought from the laboratory, while I took the rest, followed by Burke and Steel.

“When I got your message, Burke,” he said, “I thought that there might be something going on such as you’ve told me. So I came out prepared. I’ve got some more apparatus coming, too, in case we don’t get what we want with this. Will you see if we can get permission to go up on the roof—and do it without attracting attention, too?”

Burke quickly made the arrangements and we quietly went up-stairs by a back way, finally coming out on a flat portion of the Lodge roof.

From one of the packages Kennedy took some wire and hastily and ingeniously strung it so that in a short time it was quite evident that he was improvising the aerial of a wireless outfit of some sort. Finally, when he had finished, he led the proper wires down over the edge of the roof.

“One of these,” he said, preparing to leave the roof, “I want to carry down to the ground, the other to our own room.”

We went down again by the back stairs and outside, where Kennedy picked up the wire that hung down to the earth.

Having completed this part of his preparations, Kennedy entered the Harbor House and we followed.

We were passing through the corridor when a page stepped up to Kennedy. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he announced, “but there is a lady in the parlor who would like to speak to you and Mr. Jameson, sir.”

Kennedy excused himself from Burke and Steel, and together we went in the direction of the parlor, eager to discover who it was that sent for us.

To my surprise, it was Winifred Walcott whom we saw sitting all alone.

“How are you after your thrilling experience last night?” inquired Kennedy. “It was so early this morning when we left that we really could not disturb any one to find out. I trust that you are feeling better?”

“Yes—better,” she repeated, her eyes with an absent look, as though she was not thinking of how she felt. “I wanted to thank you ever so much for what you did. Without you, who knows what might have happened to me or where I should be now?”

There was genuine feeling in her words now, as she went on, “Professor Kennedy, after what has happened I am afraid that I shall have to appeal to you for protection. I have thought about it all a great deal, and still there is no explanation of the strange events of last night.”

“You have no idea who it was who carried you off?”

She shook her head. “You may not believe it, but I have not. All I remember was being seized from behind and before I knew it I was half choked, half smothered. That thing wrapped about my head kept me from seeing or crying out until it was too late. Even then I could not see. There is only one thing I can say I really know, and that is that whoever it was that carried me off, it was some one of great strength. You see, I am no light-weight and pretty strong. Yet I never had a chance until you and Mr. Jameson and the rest came up back of me. Oh, I am so sorry I came to your laboratory that day with her!”

Winifred paused. It was evident that she was in a very nervous and high-strung state, and naturally so. The one thing that seemed uppermost in her mind was that she had listened to the biased interpretations of Irene Maddox. The dénouement had proved how wrong they had been, at least in their suggested characterization of Kennedy. And she hastened to apologize.

“Not a word about that,” insisted Kennedy. “There was no reason why you should not have come to see me on any errand and with anybody.”

“Just the same, I am sorry.”

“Has anything more happened to-day?” queried Kennedy, changing the subject deftly.

“N-no, nothing in particular. I have been thinking mostly of what it all was about last night. Some one wanted to hold me—but didn’t want to hurt me. Who could it be? Why?”

“That is exactly what I am trying to find out,” assured Craig. “We went in to the city on what looked as though it might prove to be a very promising clue, but nothing came of it. However, it is only a short while, now, and we shall soon have something to report, I am convinced.”

“Did you see—Mr. Maddox?” she asked, hesitatingly, and I knew that the mention of Shelby’s name had cost her some effort, after the serious tiff of the evening before. “He was very solicitous, sent up word, and some flowers, but could not miss the express, he wrote, on account of an important engagement.”

“Yes, we saw him for just a minute—down in Wall Street. I believe he has taken some interest in business lately and has spent much time at the office of his brokers down-town.”

The look of relief that passed over her face could not easily be concealed. It was evident that she knew of the sudden early departure of Paquita and, like Hastings, in her suspicions, had been afraid that there might be some connection with Shelby. Kennedy did not say anything about the appearance of Paquita in Wall Street; and, on reflection, I reasoned that he was right, for it could have no effect except to arouse unjust suspicions.

Winifred said nothing for a few moments. I wondered what was passing in her mind. Was she sorry that she had not taken Shelby at his word the night before? At any rate, she said nothing, nor should I have expected her to admit anything to us.

“What do your brother and sister-in-law think?” asked Kennedy, at length.

“Johnson promised to get a detective himself if there was anything new on which to base suspicions,” she replied. “He seemed rather vexed at me that I could tell no more, said that no detective could be expected to catch any one on my hazy description—which, I suppose, is true.”

“And Mrs. Maddox?”

“Oh, she seems to think—well, it’s pretty hard to tell what poor Irene thinks from one moment to another. She says it’s what I might expect for being mixed up with the Maddoxes. I can’t see what that has to do with it, though. I’m not mixed up with them, even if Johnson is.”

There was a naïveté about the remark that was not lost on Kennedy. Winifred was still mistress of her own heart, at least so she would have us think. Her solicitude about Shelby and the careful way in which she refused to let us see that it went too far would have indicated otherwise. She was really afraid of herself.

“There has been absolutely nothing suspicious since this morning?” reiterated Kennedy, hoping that she might recall something, no matter how trivial, that might point the way further ahead.

“Nothing,” she repeated. “I didn’t come down from my room until pretty late. Everybody had left for the city by that time. I did see that gentleman who brought us back in his car, though.”

“Oh, Sanchez?” interrogated Craig, his attention aroused in an instant. “What of him? Did he do or say anything?”

“Nothing except that he inquired very particularly how I was and whether I had found out anything—nothing more than common politeness might suggest.”

As for me, I felt sure, now, that there was something much deeper than courtesy in the inquiry of Sanchez.

“I don’t suppose you noticed anything about him?” asked Craig.

“Nothing except that he avoided Irene Maddox when he saw her coming toward me. I think I can guess why.”

She nodded knowingly to Kennedy.

“Did he seem to be interested in Paquita’s absence?” pursued Kennedy.

“I can’t say,” strove Winifred to remember. “I did see him talking to some of the boys about the hotel—that is all.”

“And where did he go?”

“Drove off in his car. It was about the middle of the morning. I haven’t seen him about since then.”

Winifred seemed quite reassured by the few words with Kennedy, and with a parting assurance of protection Kennedy and I excused ourselves.

We rejoined Burke and Steel in the lobby, where Burke was nervously pacing up and down, for precious minutes were being wasted, he felt. And yet I could not see that he was able to make a move without the aid of Kennedy.

Like Burke, I, too, was eager to know what it was that Kennedy was planning to accomplish by the elaborate and secret preparations he was making. Accordingly, I was not sorry when he decided to go immediately up to our rooms.

Naturally I was keenly interested in what Kennedy was doing in establishing his own little wireless plant, but the operator, Steel, looked at it in increasing wonder as Craig laid out the apparatus in the room.

“It’s not exactly like anything that I’ve ever seen before,” Steel remarked, finally. “What do you expect to do with it, sir?”

Kennedy smiled. “I don’t believe you ever did see one of these sets, although you may have heard of them,” he explained, not pausing in his work of installing it. “It is an apparatus only lately devised for use by the United States Government to detect illegalities in the air in wireless, whether they are committed by amateurs or not.”

As we watched in silence, Kennedy went on explaining. “You know that wireless apparatus is divided into three parts—the source of power, whether battery or dynamo; the making and sending of wireless waves, including the key, spark condenser, and tuning coil; and the receiving apparatus, head telephones, antennæ, ground and detector.”

Kennedy was talking to us rather than the operator, but now he turned to him and remarked, “It’s a very compact system, with facilities for a quick change from one wave-length to another. I suppose you’ve noticed it—spark gap, quenched type—break system relay, and all the rest. You understand, I can hear any interference while I’m transmitting. Take the transformation—by a single throw of this six-point switch. It tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance. It’s very clever and, best of all, efficient.”