Front matter (continued 2)

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

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

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

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

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

“Protecting!” exclaimed Fosdick. “What d’ye mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just the same, Chief––”

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

“That walley-sham?”

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

“Sure, Chief!”

“Anything strike you as peculiar?”

“N—o.”

“There were tears in his eyes—the only ones shed in that house for Stockbridge—outside of the daughter.”

Delaney gulped. “I didn’t see them,” he said frankly.

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

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

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

“Or how he was shot, Chief?”

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

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

“Which one?” asked Drew.

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

“I can explain that!”

“It’s been driving me to drink, Chief.”

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

“It’s a howler, all right, Chief!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER SEVEN

“THE SPOT OF BLACK”

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

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

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

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

“How should I know, Chief?”

“Guess!”

“Harry Nichols.”

“Who else?”

“Search me, Chief.”

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

“He looks familiar,” admitted Delaney.

“It’s O’Toole!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can’t see, Chief. Might be!”

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

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

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

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

“Harry Nichols?” he asked brusquely.

“Yes, I’m Harry Nichols.”

“Miss Stockbridge’s friend?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When did you first learn of it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you know it’s the same revolver—the same caliber?”

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

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

“An army rifle,” suggested Delaney from the doorway.

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

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

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

“He threw you out of the house on one occasion.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it fully loaded?”

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

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s fully loaded. This is still a merry whirl for six!”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive, Nichols!”

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

“I’ll take a cigar,” said Delaney.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is it?”

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

“What do you want it for?”

“For myself. I admire that young lady.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What to blazes!” he said. “What’s that?”

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

“I don’t know. What’s it look like?”

“Soot!”

“Soot?”

“Sure, Chief. Lampblack or soot!”

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

“Hold on!” said Delaney. “Where are you going?”

“Going back!”

“Why, Chief!”

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

“By God, Chief, it’s powder, I smell! Gunpowder, it is!”

“Umph! I must have gotten it from that gat!”

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

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

“Sure, Chief. I just happened to notice it. Light’s bright.” Delaney nodded toward the arc.

“Did you get a good look at my face in Stockbridge’s?”

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

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

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

“You’re not going to bed at all?”

“Not until I find out who murdered Stockbridge!”

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

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

CHAPTER EIGHT

“TANGLED WIRES”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does our friend Fosdick say?”

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

“He’s come around to our deduction?”

“There’s no deduction in it!”

“He says it’s murder?”

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

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

“To what?”

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

“They’re snowed over now!”

“But if he made them, couldn’t we find them underneath?”

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

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

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

“The tall lad?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There’s lots of smokeless, Chief.”

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

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

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

“What have you found, Chief?”

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

“It was,” said Delaney.

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

“Woman’s?”

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

“Just our luck!”

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

“Does the superintendent know Conroy?”

“No! Except by name!”

“Then, Chief, I don’t see any use trying that lead. It begins and ends in air.”

“It most certainly does! We’ll cross it out. The next call for our investigation––”

“Which was?” asked Delaney, waking up.

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

“I’m following you, Chief. Go on!”

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

Delaney eyed his unpolished shoes with a sage wink.

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

“From the air?”

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

“How about underground, Chief?”

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

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

“What d’ye deduct in this second call—Chief?”

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

“When was that?”

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

“How did you get that, Chief?”

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

“I’ll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s impossible!”

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

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

“Whew!” exclaimed Delaney, rising.

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

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

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

The operative turned and dropped his hands to his side.

“You remember the magpie?” asked Drew.

Delaney nodded.

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

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

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

“Well?” snapped Drew.

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

“Has he got anything with him?” asked Drew.

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

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

CHAPTER NINE

“MEN AND MOTIVES”

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

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

“Things are picking up,” said Drew, with a short laugh. “Your friend—the bird—has arrived.”

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

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

“They can’t get away––” started Delaney.

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

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

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

“What’s your name?” asked the chief, turning and consulting a paper.

“Otto Braun,” said the valet. “Otto Braun, sir.”

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

“That’s correct, sir,” the valet said, with a start of amazement.

“Are you married?”

“Twice—sir.”

“Wife living?”

“Both, sir. I’m paying a small alimony to both.”

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

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

“I’m its keeper, sir!”

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

“It’s savage,” he rumbled. “It pecked at me!”

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

“Go ahead, Chief.”

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

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

“Did it repeat much of Mr. Stockbridge’s conversation?” he asked.

“Repeat, sir?”

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

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

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

“I don’t think so, sir. They can all be taught to talk—the same as a parrot, sir.”

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

Delaney leaned forward.

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

“I can’t say that I have, sir.”

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

“Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!” boomed the operative.

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

“Ah, Sin! Ah, Sing! Ah, Singing!” roared Delaney.

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

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

Drew glanced at his watch. “That’s all,” he said. “You may go.”

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

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

“By God, Chief, it could!”

“Or, more likely, Ah! Sing Sing!”

“Who said that?”

“The bird!”

“But who taught the bird?”

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

“And the bird repeated it—to us?”

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

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

“Clear as mud, Chief! I don’t get it yet!”

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

“Is that all! I thought there was more ’an that!”

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

“He’d never keep any books for me!” declared Delaney.

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

“Does he fit what the black crow said?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Next, Chief?”

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

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

“He might!”

“Go on, I’m getting interested.”

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

“What’s their names, Chief? I’ve forgotten.”

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

“They’ll be out pretty soon, Chief!”

“Yes—but they’re harmless. I don’t think they had anything to do with the murder of Stockbridge. The other fellow might.”

“Who’s that, Chief?”

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

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

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

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

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

“No—did you?”

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

“Which way did he go, Chief?”

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

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

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

“He’s slick, Chief. What does he look like?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No! We were going to send him there! It’s like a crook, though, to play with fire. What else did Frick say?”

“Nothing more, Chief. He’s looking around. He says he’ll report as soon as there is anything. He says––”

“Buurr! Burrr! Burrrr!”

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

Delaney breathed deeply and watched his chief’s face.

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

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

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

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

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

“What about that bullet, Chief?” asked Delaney.

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

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

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

“Might have been an old Civil War gun, Chief.”

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

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

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

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

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

“All right, Chief.”

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

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

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

“What size feet did the trouble-hunter have?”

“Small—about six!”

“All right, Chief, I’m off.”

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

“Good-by!”

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

“I’ll do that little thing,” came echoing back with a hearty chuckle.

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

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

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

“What?”

“Tryin’ to telephone, Chief––”

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

“Maybe the warden allowed him, Chief. I didn’t ask Frick!”

“Get out there and ask him! Quick!”

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

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

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

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

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

“A telephone booth in the Subway Station at Times Square!”

“Good God!”

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

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

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

“That was when Stockbridge was shot, wasn’t it, Chief?”

“It was!” exclaimed Triggy Drew.

CHAPTER TEN

“A WOMAN CALLS”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello!” he said sharply into the transmitter. “Hello! Who’s this?”

He waited as some out-of-town connection was made. A thin voice broke in from the silence. The voice rose in timber. “Oh, Hello!” exclaimed the detective, recognizing Flynn, one of his operatives. “Hello, Flynn,” he said. “What’s the weather like out at Morristown? Yes! ... Yes! ... Oh, is that so.... What? ... Too bad! ... Well, you better come in.... Take the first train and jump on the job.... He’s in Florida, eh? ... Well, that lets him out.... Good-by, Flynn!”

Drew reached for a pencil and scratched a name off his list before he hung up the receiver. “That leaves six,” he said, running his eyes down the names of the suspects. “Six to go. We’ll round them up—or out. It looks bad for one or two of them!”

He dropped the pencil to the desk with a flip of his fingers. He replaced the telephone receiver on the hook. He twirled the chair and leaned forward with his hands on his knees.

“Nice bird, you,” he said, addressing the magpie. “We’re alone, you and I. Why don’t you tell me what you know—what you heard in that library, when the millionaire talked over the phone and then received the cupronickle bullet in the base of his brain? He said, ‘Ah, Sing!’ eh? He said it, or we are jumping at conclusions. Have Delaney and I erred—as once or twice before?”

The bird strutted about the cage. It pecked at a hard, white fish-bone, thrust between two bars. It dipped its bill into the water-holder, then held high its head as it gulped. It switched its tail and hopped onto the first perch. There it sat, with coiled claws, as Drew leaned closer.

“Ah, Sing!” he repeated confidentially. “Ah, Singing! Ossining! Sing Sing! Let me hear you do your prettiest, birdie. Don!”

The magpie lowered its head and peered outwardly. It lifted a wing with ruffled dignity. Drew narrowed his eyes. “You were there,” he whispered. “You were in that sealed room—that double-locked and triple-watched library. How did the murderer shoot down the old man? How could he do it, Don? I think I know why it was done. I’m fairly sure who is directing matters. What I want to know is, what devilish ingenuity of the criminal tribe projected that bullet into the old man’s brain? Answer that, Don!”

The bird was as stately as a raven. It seemed to Drew that he heard an echoed “Nevermore.” He sat upright and took his hands from his knees. “Answer that, Don?” he repeated.

“Gone batty, Chief?” asked Harrigan, thrusting his shoulders through the open door.

Drew glanced up. He passed his hand over his forehead in a sweeping motion as if brushing cobwebs from his brain. “Guess I am,” he admitted, with a sparkling glance at the paper held in the assistant’s hand. “Well!” he snapped, recovering himself. “Well, what luck? I see that you got something!”

“Yep! I got him, all right. He’s hanging around the front office of the prison seeing what he can find out. He says,” Harrigan consulted the paper. “He says, Morphy has been worried all morning. That he acts like a man in a daze. Always––”

“I don’t want that, now! Didn’t I send you out to call up the vice-president of the telephone company? The same man who helped us early this morning. Westlake!”

“I was getting to him, Chief! He was busy when I called, so I thought I’d get Frick again. That’s all Frick had to say, except a––”

“Well?”

“Except he’ll stay there until he receives instructions from you to the contrary. Says he’ll report if anything turns up.”

“Go on with Westlake!” The detective’s voice hardened.

“Well, I got him, finally. Had to wait till he cleaned out the callers in his office. He’s in charge of maintenance and equipment. He says that their records show––”

“Show what?” Harrigan had scowled at his own writing. “It took some time to get this, Chief. Oh, I see. Well, the records of the Westchester Company shows three long-distance calls from the prison between six o’clock last night and this morning. The first one was at seven-ten P. M. to a slot booth at the east end of the New York Central Railroad Station.”

“Good!” snapped Drew. “Good! Go on! We’re getting there!”

“This call was for seventeen minutes. It was charged to the prison.”

“What was the booth number?”

Harrigan consulted his sheet. “I didn’t get that,” he said, scratching his head. “Westlake didn’t give it to me.”

“Go on—we’ll get it! Go on! What was the next call?”

“The second call, Chief, was to the State Capitol Building at Albany. It was for three minutes. No more! I guess that was the warden talking to the Pardon Clerk, or something like that. We’ll forget it, eh?”

“Chop it out!”

“The third and last call, Chief,” said Harrigan with haste, “was to the same telephone-booth at the Grand Central Station. Ah, here’s the number! That’s why Westlake didn’t give it to me on the first call to the booth. Number, Gramercy Hill 9845, Chief. That’s over near the east end of the building—on the lower level.”

“A quiet place!” mused Drew.

“Yes! Well, Chief, here is the time. The call was for twenty-two minutes, extending from a quarter to twelve—midnight—to seven minutes after twelve. It was charged to the Auditing Department of the prison.”

Drew rose from his chair. “That covers the hour in which Stockbridge was murdered!” he declared, reaching for the roll-top of his desk “That’s nice work on your part.”

Harrigan flushed slightly. He leaned over and laid the paper upon the desk. Drew took it, folded it with two fingers forming the creases, then crammed it into his breast pocket The roll-top came down with a bang. Harrigan lifted an overcoat from a tree, helped Drew on with it, and found the detective’s hat.

“When will you be back, Chief?” he inquired.

“Hard to say! Get me some French-gray powder. A little will do. I’m going to see if I can get any fingerprints in that booth. They might help!”

“Will you be back by night!” Harrigan asked, leading the way through the door.

“Don’t know! Get that powder! Tell Delaney, if he calls up, that I’m hot after my man. Tell him to stick up where he is, till he hears from me. Tell Flynn, when he comes in from Morristown, that he can relieve O’Toole who is trailing Harry Nichols. I don’t think there is much in that. I’m covering every one—that’s all.”

Harrigan opened the drawer of a cabinet and fingered about till he found a small, round box of gray powder used for preserving fingerprints. He turned with this and saw that Drew had crammed into his side coat-pocket, a flat camera which the telephone girl brought to him. “Got flash lights?” asked Harrigan.

“Yes. There’s some in the back of this camera.” Drew slapped his overcoat. “I got everything, I guess. Remember about Delaney and Flynn.”

The detective moved toward the door which led to the hallway where the elevators were. He turned as Harrigan laid a hand on his shoulder. “What’s that sticking out of your other pocket, Chief?” asked the assistant-manager. “A paper, ain’t it?”

Drew flushed beneath his olive skin. He pressed the object down with soft fingers. He turned and said simply:

“That’s a picture of the girl in the case. Forgot I had it. Good-by!”

The door slammed as he strode over the white tiling and jabbed at an elevator button with his right thumb.

Swirled in wind-blown snow from the office buildings and wrapped to the chin with the collar of his overcoat, Drew plunged, with head downward, for the nearest subway station.

He caught an up-town express, and, after three grinding station-stops, he reached the Grand Central Station wherein was the telephone-booth to which the calls had been sent from the prison.

He made swift work of the matter at hand. Time was pressing. The booths, to the number of three in that portion of the station, were fortunately empty.

Going over the slot-box and the tiny shelf in the center booth, which bore the number “Gramercy Hill 9845” on the transmitter, Drew pulled the door shut and dusted all the nickel work and the polished surface of the receiver, with French-gray powder of superior make.

He took three exposures by aid of small flashes. He opened the door and allowed the smoke to escape. Pocketing the camera, after winding on a fresh film, he entered the booth for a second time and inspected its lower paneling for possible clews.

An oath, close-bitten and expressive, escaped his lips as he discovered a small hole drilled through the woodwork. He stooped and peered through this opening. It led to the next booth. It had been made with a long auger of quarter-inch diameter. Shavings lay upon the floor of the booth.

He emerged and investigated the second booth. The hole came through, underneath the slot-box. It had been drilled in order to make a connection between the two telephones. He found splinters and sawdust at his feet. He backed out and stood perplexed. There was no way of finding out just what sort of connection had been made between the two booths. All evidence of wires had been taken down. Only an expert could give an answer to the new riddle. Drew recalled Westlake as he rushed to the subway-platform.

He found the vice-president busy, with a score of men waiting in the outer room of the telephone company’s office. The secretary-in-charge hurried in with his card and his urgent request for three minutes’ important matter which could not well wait.

Drew, however, was forced to wait seven minutes by his watch. He chafed at the delay. He crossed his legs at least once each leaden minute. He feared that the trail was getting cold. Twice he rose, as if to go. Each time the secretary had indicated patience by an arching of her brows and a jerk of her thumb toward the ground-glass door.

“Send in Drew!” boomed as the door opened and let out the caller. Drew strode in with his notes in his hand.

“Just a minute, Westlake,” he said, dropping into a chair and leaning over the desk behind which sat a good-natured official of the superior order. “A minute! I’m in a jam! What d’ye make of this?”

Drew related his discovery in the booths of the Grand Central. He went right to the point. He explained the auger-hole, the shavings, and the fact that it was the same set of booths to which the call had been sent from the prison, over the time Stockbridge had been slain.

Westlake listened with dawning light. He leaned back as Drew finished talking. He smiled. He thrust his thumbs under his vest. “You’re a hardworking man, Drew,” he said, “but you didn’t get it all. Do you remember the third call that I gave you this morning?—the one when the chief-operator at Gramercy Hill put the howler on? It was from the same booths you just mentioned!”

“What?”

“It certainly was. There’s no use looking at the record. The number was 9844 Gramercy Hill. In other words we have the evidence to show that a thin, whispering voice called up Stockbridge from one booth in the Grand Central at the same time the prison was connected to the adjacent booth.”

“For the love of Mike!” said Drew.

“Yes—your case grows interesting, Chief. You’ve got a lot of tangled leads and all that, but a little more work should untangle them. A telephone engineer ought to make a crackerjack detective. He’s trained to unsnarl the worst snarls in the world. You ought to see some of our wiring diagrams. It takes study to trace them out. You’re learning!”

“I don’t know if I am, Westlake. I think that Morphy, up at the prison, has been ’phoning New York. I believe he has a confederate in this town. This confederate, we will say, received his instructions about midnight last night. He bored a hole through the booths and called up Stockbridge. But what was it all for?”

“That I can’t answer!”

Drew rose from the chair and crammed his notes in his inner, overcoat pocket. “What the devil did they do that for?” he asked with flashing eyes. “Morphy calls up Gramercy Hill 9843 at, or about, midnight. Gramercy Hill 9844 calls up Stockbridge. Stockbridge was killed by a bullet in the neck as he’s talking over the ’phone. Was the call to warn him? Was it to threaten him? Was it to occupy his attention so that the murderer could get in the room and fire the shot?”

“Did you find out how he got into the room?” asked Westlake, leaning forward.

“I have not! The whole thing gets weird. I can’t sleep! I’m not going to sleep till I get some light on this!”

“You look healthy,” said Westlake, as he pressed the buzzer for the next caller.

Drew emerged from the elevator and hurried to the street with short, quick strides. He crossed the snow and pressed open the door to a cigar store. He fished out a nickel and called up his office.

To Harrigan who answered, he said tersely, “Get Flynn up to the Grand Central! Get him to the east-end telephone-booth, on the lower level. Tell him I’ll be there. He’s back from Morristown, isn’t he? He phoned, eh? Get him to me! I need him!”

Drew hung up with a swift flip of the receiver. He hurried to the subway station and caught a local up-town. He had time to flash a fourth and fifth set of photos before Flynn came puffing across the lower level.

“See here!” snapped Drew, drawing the operative into the middle booth. “Bend down there where that hole is, and tell me what you see on the varnish.Footprints”

“It’s fingerprints, Chief. Two, three of them. Looks like somebody pressed hard when they drilled that hole. The outer print is a good one of a thumb. Left thumb, I should say.”

“That’s right! I’m going to find out who made that impression, within one hour. You stay here and grab anybody who tries to talk with the prison. Frick is up there!”

“How about O’Toole, who’s watching Nichols?” asked Flynn.

“Leave him stay on that assignment. I need you here. Stick now! Watch everybody who talks over these three phones. Arrest anybody who receives or sends a call to the prison. There’s plenty of Central Office men handy for a pinch. Fosdick will back them up!”

Drew rushed for the subway. He realized that he had wasted valuable time by not taking the complete set of fingerprint photos on his first inspection of the booths. It was a detail he had overlooked. But then, he could afford to make mistakes. The men or man he was after, dared not make any. This was a thing he had often recalled in dealing with super-criminals.

Fosdick’s rooms at Detective Headquarters, on Center Street, were luckily deserted as he rushed down through the hallway. The Commissioner widened his eyes as Drew handed over the camera, with a request that the films be developed and prints made within twenty minutes.

“Can’t be done that soon,” said the detective. “Give us fifty minutes.”

“I’ll make it twenty-five!” shot Drew. “I got lots to tell you, but it’ll keep. Get those prints and we’ll land our man. The last two films have perfect samples of finger-work. Our man slipped there! He signed his own death warrant!”

The Commissioner pressed a button. To the young man who came, he explained the necessity of rushing the developing and printing of the films. He turned as the messenger hurried out with the camera.

“What about that bullet?” he asked.

“Just as I said, Commissioner. It was fired from a smooth-bore pistol or gun. What do you think?”

“Oh, maybe not! Sometimes there isn’t much rifling on an old revolver. Those little twenty-two affairs are made out of cast-iron.”

“But the cupronickle bullet shows smokeless powder and high-class criminal activity. I doubt if one of those little rods would take a modern steel-jacketed bullet. They’re used in automatics.”

“But automatics have good rifling. That bullet was as smooth as before it was shot. Here it is!”

Fosdick opened a drawer and pulled out a later-day projectile of the lesser-caliber.

“This is smooth!” he repeated with heat. “It was cut from the old millionaire’s brain. It ain’t scratched. It never took the rifling it was intended for. My theory is, that it was fired from a gun of larger caliber. That is to say, it didn’t fit the bore. A thirty-thirty rifle might be used to hold a twenty-two caliber bullet. It would not take the rifling of this.”

Drew shook his head. “That’s hardly possible,” he declared. “It’s too vague and doesn’t suit me. We’re going to find that the deeper we get in this thing, the simpler will be the explanation. I remember any number of cases which have been solved in this city where the mystery was so wrapped up in speculation and the improbable that our minds failed to grasp the simple thing which was the solution.”

“Then you think the lack of rifling on the bullet might be the opening wedge to catching the man who shot Stockbridge?”

“It could well be, Fosdick. The lack of a thing sometimes is just as important as the visible clue. Do you remember the Rajah case at Gramercy Park?”

Fosdick leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Seems to me that I do,” he said, thrusting out his lower lip. “There was a big jewel missing. Sort of an Idol’s Eye case—wasn’t it?”