Front matter (continued 3)

“Exactly! A white diamond was missing at a dinner. Lights went out as they were passing the stone around the table. Lights came on again and the diamond was gone. Everybody accused. A strange print was found on the sideboard. Servants knew nothing about it. The print didn’t correspond to any which we took there. Seemed impossible and all that. Well, the very fact that the print didn’t correspond was the means of finding the stone and the culprit. You remember it?”

“Vaguely.”

“Simple! A Lascar who waited on the table slipped off his shoes, crept into the room, secured the diamond and climbed to the sideboard where he hid it on top of a picture. The thumbprint which we puzzled our heads over was a toe-print! We got the fellow!”

“I recall it now,” said Fosdick. “I think one of our men thought out the matter.”

“He didn’t!” declared the detective. “We worked it out! The city department had given up the case. This may be the same. I’ll venture to say that as soon as you get a good operative some private agency secures his services. Now, Commissioner, confess up. What manner of gun could fire a bullet, such as a cupronickle one, without leaving markings?”

“Smooth bore. An old flint-lock—for instance.”

“We’ll grant that! They’re clumsy, however. The shot which killed the millionaire was fired at very close range through a smooth tube of a greater caliber than the diameter of the bullet found in his head. If it were fired through a gun which was rifled, then there was a collar or collars on the bullet, which we didn’t find. The same thing was discovered by examination of the shells which the Germans fired at Paris. There was no rifling on those long-range projectiles. The bands dropped off after the shell left the gun.”

“Then this bullet was fired at long range?” Fosdick was openly incredulous.

“No! Again we have the impossibility or seeming impossibility. I examined that library, both before and after the murder. No shot could have been fired from the outside so that a bullet would reach the old man. If that were the case there would have been an opening in the walls or at the windows or the ventilators. Besides, we have the powder burns on the millionaire’s head. We are squarely confronted with a paradox. Riddle me that paradox and we will go a long ways toward finding the man who murdered Stockbridge.”

Fosdick frowned. “I can’t see it at all,” he confessed. “I still hold to the theory that we should third degree all of the servants. I’ve got some of them. If they don’t squeal, I’ll get the others!”

Drew glanced at his watch. “Personally,” he said, “I’m of the opinion that you will not get anything out of them. I think it was a mistake to arrest them. It would have been far better to trail the butler and the doorman and see if they connected with anybody.”

“I’m doing this!” exclaimed Fosdick with asperity. “I’ve got charge of this case, Drew. I got charge and I don’t want any meddling. I’ve my own methods.”

“All right,” said the detective. “All right! I want a check-up on the finger prints and then I’ll be going. I had to come to you for this. You have such an interesting collection.”

“Here’s your answer!” said the commissioner, rising and striding around the desk. “Take this bullet and look it over. Put it in your pocket. And––”

Drew turned swiftly. The messenger stood in the doorway. He came forward as Fosdick nodded. He passed over the hastily developed prints which Drew had taken. The commissioner glanced at them, frowned, held them to the light, then said:

“We’ll try these on the Man Who Can’t Be Beat! He’s the best in the world. He’ll know in three minutes who made these prints if the fellow is on our records.”

The fingerprint expert nodded to Drew as they entered a huge room which was lined with mahogany cabinets in the manner of a filing system in a mail-order house. Fosdick passed the five photos into this man’s hand. He smiled as the expert adjusted his glasses, pulled out a pocket magnifying-glass, and leaned close up to the prints.

“We’re infallible!” exclaimed the Commissioner with superiority. “Watch Pope get your man. He’ll hound him out in no time. Eh, Pope?”

The expert was not of a sanguine disposition in the minute which ensued as he ran over the prints, studied them, held them to the light then laid them down on a table and shook his head.

“We have no record of this fellow,” he said coldly. “It looks like a man’s print. Here’s the thumb and here is the middle finger of the right hand, I think. Hard to tell, sometimes. I’d say, as a pretty sure thing, that we have no duplicates in our collection. Shall I look?”

“Yes! Look!” said Fosdick.

Drew felt that the case was slipping from him as Pope fluttered from cabinet to cabinet, pulled out drawers, replaced them and tried still others.

“No go?” he asked as the expert shot back the last cross-index cabinet and turned with shaking head. “No go? Try again.”

“Absolutely no record of the maker of these prints,” said Pope, holding out the photos. “He hasn’t registered with us yet. Whoever made these prints has never been arrested in the United States for a felony.”

“How about a misdemeanor?” asked Drew.

“No! They’re all in this cabinet. Even if he was picked up on suspicion or for auto speeding or beating his wife,—if he has one,—he would be here. I’m sorry, inspector.”

Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and turned toward Fosdick.

“Have you got a print of Finklestein?” he asked. “You remember the fellow who was arrested in the Morphy case. He was afterwards released for lack of evidence or else he claimed exemption. I’ve forgotten how he got off. He’s supposed to be in Florida or somewhere in the South. I had a man out to Morristown who reports along those lines. I wish you’d compare these prints with Finklestein’s.”

“Go ahead,” said the commissioner. “Go as far as you like. I don’t think that there is anything in these prints. You got the wrong ones—that’s all.”

“What’s Finkle—Finklestein’s initials?” asked the expert.

“J. B.,” said Drew quickly. “Julius B.!”

A quick search through an alphabet-index, a consultation of two drawers, out of which the expert pulled some tiny squares of cardboard, and then a slow shaking of his head, brought Drew back to where he had started from before taking the prints in the booth.

“No record could be more different,” Pope said. “Finklestein has a big hand and very broad fingers. The fellow who made these prints has a little hand with thin fingers. The whorls and loops are entirely dissimilar. He comes under classification 2-4-X. Finklestein is in cabinet 2-9-0. They couldn’t be further away.”

Drew started out through the doorway with Fosdick following him. They stood on the landing leading to the downstairs steps, where the detective was about to leave the commissioner with a curt good-by. His hand was out when he drew it back, dropped it to his side and wheeled with sudden intuition.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “Are you and I detectives or children? Come back to the fingerprint room. Hurry now. I want to see Pope. I forgot something!”

The expert rose as they entered. “Well?” he asked with arching brows and a slight frown on his face. “Well, what is it?”

Drew pointed a finger as steady as a rifle. He bared his eyes into Pope’s own. “Were you up to Stockbridge’s house?” he asked swiftly.

“Yes! Why?”

“Did you take prints and photos of everything in the library? I understand that this was done after I turned the case over to Commissioner Fosdick.”

“It was done!” rasped Fosdick. “Of course it was done. It’s always done when a case looks like a homicide!”

“This case looked worse than that!” said Drew. “It was slaughter!”

The commissioner turned to the fingerprint man. “Where are the prints and photos you took up at the house?” he asked.

“Still in the developing room.”

“Do you think they are developed?”

“I’ll soon know, sir,” he answered, pressing a button.

The messenger entered who had attended to Drew’s prints which the detective took in the telephone-booth.

“Get down to the developing room,” ordered Pope. “Get me all the prints and positives of Exhibit 12 of the Stockbridge case. Bring what is already developed. Tell them to rush the others.”

The three men waited in silence for the return of the messenger. Drew paced the floor thoughtfully. He clasped and unclasped his hands behind his back. He had almost slipped in an important matter. It was a chance he was taking, but a vital one in the case. The fingerprints taken by the expert in the library might and might not jibe with those taken in the slot-booth. If they were the same, or any one was the same, the case would offer a new line for investigation.

A sliding footstep at the door announced the messenger. He held a sheath of curling papers in his hand. Pope reached and snatched the photos. He ran over them with widening eyes. He sorted them into two piles upon the table.

“Five prints!” he announced, glancing at Drew with a sly smile. “Five of these prints are the same as your set. In other words, the man who made the impressions in the telephone-booth was also in the library at or about the time of the murder!”

“Impossible!” snorted Fosdick.

“Ah!” said Drew. “Photos don’t lie. Now we’re getting there! That’s the first light I’ve seen in some time. It clears the case of the supernatural. It puts it where it belongs—in the material world of flesh and blood and hate and revenge.”

“It does that!” corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. “Now,” he added good-naturedly, “I’ll help out some more. I’ve got a book of notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I flashed every print I could see. There’s some of the butler on the bottle and the tray. There’s a number on the polished table. There are at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I suppose yours is among them, inspector?”

Drew held out his right hand. “Look and see,” he suggested with a short laugh. “I’ve never been printed in my life.”

“That won’t be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There’s no record of this fellow in our cabinet. But—he was in that library!”

“Where did he leave his prints?” asked Drew.

Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page, thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. “What’s the number on the back of that one?” he asked, nodding toward the topmost photograph.

“Ten,” said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.

“Ten,” repeated the expert. “That is a print which was flashed on the corner of the little table which was overturned when Stockbridge fell to the floor after being shot.”

“And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?”

“The same!” declared the expert dryly.

“I don’t see where you two are getting,” said Fosdick. “How could a man get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go over to a slot-booth?”

“He might have been in the slot-booth first,” suggested Drew with slow smiling. “From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge.”

“The fact is established,” exclaimed Pope, “that the man you are after was in the library and in the booth. That’s all you can say. There’s no way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made.”

Drew lifted a second print. “No. sixteen,” he said, turning to the expert. “Where was that made?”

Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease over the development in the case. “That,” he said, swinging his eyes till they met Drew’s, “that was made on the hardwood floor directly under Stockbridge’s body. We found the print, with others of the little finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!”

The detective stared at Pope. “You mean,” he said shrewdly, “that the man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was down on his knees arranging Stockbridge’s body, or doing something like that?”

“He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this impression. I venture to say that it is there yet.”

“Good!” said Drew. “I may have a look at it. I never went after prints in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business—like yourself.”

Pope smiled. He glanced at his book for a third time. “What’s the number of that last print?” he asked.

“Forty-four!”

“Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work.”

“I had a hand in that,” admitted Drew.

“This print was close to the knob. There’s none like it on the knob itself.”

“Umph!” declared Fosdick.

Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on Fosdick’s shoulder. “I’ve got you to thank,” he said, “for letting me use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it clears the case in a remarkable manner.”

“How?” asked the commissioner.

“Well for one thing,” Drew said, lifting the third photo. “For one thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half mile or more away from the mansion.”

“I’ll grant you that, but what does it prove?”

Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. “It proves,” he said, “that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never arrested in New York.”

“That’s a large order!” chuckled the commissioner. “There are a few good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven’t got—yet!”

“I’m satisfied,” said the detective, pulling his hat down over his head. “I’m going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good. He’s stayed out of your clutches. He’s forgotten more about telephones than most men know. He’s as slippery as an eel and as clever as the very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase.”

“What’s that?” asked the commissioner.

“He didn’t wear gloves on the job. That’s where we may trip him up.”

“They all forget something,” said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.

The detective hurried down the steps,—passed the sergeant at the entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!

Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a towering cañon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.

The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages. He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.

Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker. He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.

Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers. He had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was a big factor in the criminal game. The members of the criminal tribe worked through luck and sheer audacity. Many escaped from the net and moved in the underworld until they made their final mistake which was probably so glaring it couldn’t be overlooked.

Despite the fact that the finger prints were not of record, Drew held to the swirling conviction that the man he was after was of the criminal horde. There was much to lead him to this belief. The cleverness in connecting up the two telephone booths—the warning through the mail to Stockbridge—the manner in which the murder had been covered up in a score of details, all pointed to a criminal mind of the cunningest order. It savored of practice in crime and study of natural conditions. Its bizarre features placed it out from other crimes and raised it to a class of its own.

The snow which impeded the detective’s steps, in some manner cleared his brain. He began to review the series of events. He boxed the case with returning shrewdness. He went over the points like a sailor repeating the compass-chart. He even saw a light.

This light was a star that guided him around a corner and then along the long reach of a white-mantled street where children shrilled and played. Snow-balls flew past his head. Sleighs and muffled taxis churned by. Women in furs and heavy cloaks glanced up at his olive face from which peered sanguine eyes bent upon a known destination.

He paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading to a library. In this building he knew there would be on file certain data concerning three links of the chain which he was trying to forge about the criminal or criminals who had slain Stockbridge.

He entered the storm-door, shook the snow from his coat, and removed his hat with a swinging bow as he drew erect in front of a prim lady at a desk.

“I want all the books you have on modern telephony,” he said with a winning smile. “I’m sure that you have one or two.”

The prim lady who knew a gentleman when she saw one, raised her brows and rapidly thumbed over a filing-card system.

“One or two,” she repeated. “Why, we have over twenty. Now just what branch of Telephony do you want? There are a number of divisions in the subject. We have Smith on Central Office practice. We have Steinward on Induced Currents in Relation to Magnetism. We have Oswerlander on Switchboards and Carbon Transmitters. We have Burke on Circuits and Batteries. We have––”

“Hold on, please,” said Drew, catching his breath. “I better try something easy. One of those Juvenile books with simple diagrams and switchboards or junction-boxes.”

Drew carried the book to an alcove which was deserted. He took off his coat, hung it on the back of a chair, upended his hat and sat down with a tired smile. Soon he was busy in the mystery of electricity in relation to the telephone. He conned over the pages. He browsed along like a novice trying to understand trigonometry. He frowned over such terms as micro-ampere and micro-volt. He grew dizzy following wiring diagrams which were far worse than any clue he had ever attempted.

“A telephone engineer,” he said half aloud. “A man who could trace out this stuff ought to make a mighty fine detective. I never saw such a snarl. Now what does hysteresis and laminations mean? What’s the idea of having an alternating current of low voltage on the same line with a talking current of three volts? I don’t see how they can get two currents on one set of wires. Maybe they don’t.”

He tossed the book to the table in front of him and rose with a frown. This frown changed to a wrinkled furrow of half amusement as he hurried back to the little prim lady.

“Too deep for me,” he said, referring to the book she had given him. “That may be a beginner’s treatise, but I’m in the kindergarten class in electricity. What’s a micro-volt?”

“I’ll look it up, sir,” she said.

“Never mind. I wouldn’t know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book on magpies.”

The librarian fingered her files. “Try Birds of England,” she suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow over to a book-case. “Try this. It’s complete. You’ll find magpies and starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this splendid volume.”

“The one that interested me was black as a crow,” he said, as he turned toward his alcove. “Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white crows. I never saw one, though. My bird’s a deep one.”

The little librarian stared after Drew’s vanishing form with a slight pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and telephones.

Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles. These she had in plenty. A great many war books had been purchased during the period which followed America’s declaration.

The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact upon fact. He had the formulæ of smokeless powder and the analysis of cupronickle bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire. He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.

The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the north and plowed along the sidewalk.

Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost six o’clock.

“Lord,” he said in surprise. “I’m going crazy. Two hours in a trance. Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They ought to have something. I wonder,” he added, peering under the fine drizzle of snow, “I wonder where the nearest telephone is located? Another block, I guess.”

His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along. Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library. The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.

The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters, was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a whirling dervish across the detective’s vision.

He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he asked Central for his office phone.

The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. “What’s new in the Stockbridge case?” asked Drew in a whisper.

He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the entire series of reports. There were six of them. The last was from Delaney.

“Hang up!” the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. “Hang up, Harrigan, and let me get him.”

Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large slot and jiggled the receiver’s hook until Central answered.

“Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!” he exclaimed. “Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!”

“That’s her number,” he said aloud. “Loris Stockbridge’s number. It must be her number. I haven’t forgotten that, have I?”

The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The receiver’s diaphragm clicked finally. “Hello!” he snapped. “Hello, who’s this?”

He waited a full second. “This Delaney?” he asked. “Who?” he added. “Oh! you’re the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes, Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!”

“This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? Hello, Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?”

The big operative’s voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. “What’s the news?” asked Drew. “What’s that you’ve been telling Harrigan? Something about a coffin? A coffin? What—a casket? A hardwood casket. I’ll be right up! I’m coming!”

The detective’s olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.

The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this, sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver’s muffled ear.

“Drive like sin—full speed and more—up Fifth Avenue! I’ll tell you when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I can help it,” he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the taxi.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“THE CLOSING NET”

Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway signs—the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow worms—the muffled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.

Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew’s taxi turned and ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at the curb.

“Stay around the corner!” he ordered. “Stay, till I send word. Here’s a dollar for supper. Get that and wait!”

The driver touched his cap and reached for the bill. Drew swung northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden sidewalk. Delaney’s statement over the telephone had stirred every drop of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in defiance to the powers of darkness which encompassed the dwelling.

A snow-crusted form stepped out from a basement shelter. Drew raised his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.

“Hello, O’Toole!” he blurted, recognizing the operative. “What are you doing here?”

O’Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. “Our lad’s in there,” he said, thrashing his arms and flipping his finger for a second time. “Harry Nichols!” he explained.

“S—o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads this way now. What did you learn to-day?”

O’Toole yawned. “I got on the job early,” he said with frosty breath. “I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I’m right after him. First he went to the Quartermaster’s Offices at the Battery. Then he went to Governor’s Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross Headquarters. He ’phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times.”

“To the girl in the case?”

“Yep, Chief! He’s gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers—three dozen lilies of the valley—then came on up here. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Seen anybody about?”

“Delaney and some Central Office men—that’s all! Shall I stay here?”

“Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think Delaney has been there. You’ll find the snow melted in spots. Plant somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with the wires to the house. I’m looking for trouble to-night. They threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon.”

Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O’Toole, turned at the iron-grilled gate, passed through and pressed the button.

A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.

“All right!” said Drew. “Let me in!”

The door swung wider. Drew lunged through and turned. “What’s new?” he asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “Are those servants still under arrest?”

“Some of them, Inspector,” grunted the Central Office man. “I can’t talk much. Fosdick gave me hell for talking to a newspaper man. He left word, though, that you could come in.”

“Thanks!” Drew said dryly. “Thanks! That’s kind of him. You are holding down this door?”

“Sure, Inspector! The butler and the second-man are down at Headquarters. I don’t like the job, but orders is orders.”

Drew loosened his overcoat, removed his kid-gloves, stamped his snow-covered shoes on the rug, and hurried past the library, where stood a burly Central Office man on guard. He mounted the steps with the running motion of a boy of fifteen. He glanced upward to where velvet-soft light glowed at the entrance to Loris Stockbridge’s suite of rooms. Delaney stood framed in the opening. His huge bulk blotted out the inner rooms. His face, seen in the high shadows, was long and grim.

“She’s in there,” said the operative, raising his chin over his lifted arm. “Miss Stockbridge is in there. She’s with her maid—one Fosdick tried to pinch—and Harry Nichols. She’s got a notice by special delivery, that the coffin she ordered from the Hardwood Casket Company, of Jersey City, will be delivered to-morrow. She never ordered any coffin, Chief. Ain’t that dirt—to a girl like that? What d’ye think of it?”

Drew’s answer to Delaney’s question was a grinding of teeth and a sharp oath of defiance. He clutched the operative’s arm in a nipping grip. He led him into the tiny reception-hall of the suite.

The detective paused on the threshold of a larger room. He dropped his hand from Delaney’s arm. He stabbed sharp glances here and there about the interior. He widened his eyes as they came to rest upon a further doorway, which was hung with soft tapestries gathered to the side-walls by cords of silk. Beyond this doorway, like the vista of some rare painting, shone an inner light of a woman’s shrine.

Silver and pearl and old rose blended into a bower such as is found in palaces. Tiny medallions and plaques and miniatures—narrow framed studies in oil—fans, vases, statuettes of ivory and rare china, a hundred choice and dainty objects of haute-art were in that splendid room.

Drew advanced over a rug so soft and deep he felt like a peri entering Paradise. He brushed aside the tapestries and strode swiftly forward. His hat came off as Loris advanced to meet him from a large chamber, wherein the color scheme had been worked out in black and white with a suggestion of green-in-gold.

He forgot the material things of that apartment as he bowed gallantly. He thrust his hand forward and clasped strong fingers over her own. The grief of her father’s death had widened her eyes and set them in circles of dark brows and tear-stained features. Her voice clutched in her throat as she tried to speak. Her hand was drawn from his slowly. It raised to her broad forehead beneath her blue-black hair, with a passing motion that dispelled some of the doubt within her. She smiled wanly. Her round, young breast rose and fell with the rustle of perfumed laces. She swished her lavender gown behind her with a turn of a white, supple wrist upon which was a tiny, diamond-studded watch of superior make.

“Courage!” said Drew. “Have courage! They won’t get you!”

“They—they,” she breathed. “They have threatened me like they threatened poor father. They sent a letter. Oh, I wish I were a man!”

Drew flushed beneath his olive cheeks. He reached upward and turned down his overcoat collar. He laid his hat on a chair, braced his shoulders, and stared around the room. His eyes wandered from the walls to the inner opening. “Who’s in there?” he asked.

“Harry—Harry Nichols. I telephoned for him. I was afraid. I admit I’m afraid, Mr. Drew. You know what they did to father?”

“Yes, I know. It was an error on my part. We did not take the proper precautions. But this time—we will!”

“I hope you do. I don’t feel like myself, after last night. It came so suddenly. I heard you people talking in the lower hallway. I went to the bannisters and saw all the servants at the library door. And then—and then, I went down without a particle of warning. It was a shock, Mr. Drew.”

“One I could have spared you,” admitted the detective. “It was preventable,” he added, turning toward Delaney.

The operative stepped forward. He struck a chair with his foot and tumbled it over. Picking it up and setting it down on its legs, he flushed guiltily.

“Be careful!” snapped Drew. “Get me that letter this young lady received from Jersey. Get it! We’ll look it over right now!”

Delaney glanced at Loris. “She’s got it,” he said. “I gave it back to her.”

Loris shuddered and pressed her hands to her breast. “I tore it up,” she whispered. “I was so excited and angry I tore it up. It’s in the waste-basket.”

“Fetch the basket!” said Drew to Delaney. “Go get it. We’ll make this room our headquarters,” he added, swinging about on one heel. “We’ll stay right here and watch things, Miss Loris.”

The girl nodded prettily. Her courage came back with flushed cheeks. She glanced up at Drew’s strong jaw and face. The detective squared his shoulder with a final shrug. “We’ll stay here!” he said masterly. “Though all the demons in hell are closing in on you, we’ll stick. We’ll get them this time! I’ve almost got my man. If he moves his pawns to-night, we’ll round up the whole bunch and send them to the chair!”

“Are there more than one?”

“Yes! One is directing—another or others are doing his will. Your father was slain in some mysterious manner which we have not, as yet, determined. The man, or men, who caused him to meet with death, left their marks behind them—fingerprints—footprints, voices over wires, and other evidences of material deviltry. They blundered a score of times! They should have killed that magpie. They did not wear gloves when they should have worn gloves. They forgot, or overlooked, that telephone calls can be traced. We’ve traced them. We’ve almost succeeded. The trouble is, that time is short. What was in that letter?”

Loris turned toward the inner room. Delaney, followed by Harry Nichols in full uniform, appeared. The operative held out a handful of scrapped paper.

“Ain’t much to learn here, Chief. It’s pretty well torn up. I remember what it said, though.”

“Repeat it!”

“It was from the Hardwood Casket Company of Jersey City. It was dated this morning. It said that the coffin Miss Stockbridge ordered for the lady who was about to die in her family, would be delivered to-morrow afternoon by express at her town house, as ordered.”

“The curs!” exclaimed Drew.

“Sure they are, Chief. The letter was signed by the manager. I think it was the manager. I couldn’t read his writing!”

“Let me see the scraps.”

Delaney sorted them into a small stack and passed them to Drew. The detective lifted each fragment, held it to the light, and placed it into his right overcoat-pocket. “I get it,” he said. “It looks genuine. Did you telephone them?”

“Nope! I was a-waiting for you to come up here. There’s a phone here. It’s over there!”

Drew nodded. “I saw it,” he said thoughtfully. “We better be careful how we use the phones of this house. They tapped the wires before, and they can do it again. We’re fighting very high-class devils.”

“It doesn’t seem real!” blurted Harry Nichols. “I thought that death only stalked in No Man’s Land. It’s right here, gentlemen!”

Drew frowned and shook his head. He glanced at Miss Stockbridge. He rubbed his hands softly. “No more danger,” he warned in a confident voice. “We’ve got twenty Central Office men in the house or about the place. No bank was ever better protected. There will be no real trouble to-night.”

“That’s what you said the other time, to father,” Loris suggested without thought. “You did—you remember? You were in the library and he felt so confident nothing would happen. Something did happen!”

“I admit it!” Drew said with candor, “I admit everything, Miss Loris. I’m partly to blame. The trouble was, I underestimated my adversary. A man should never do that. This time, though,” he added with glazed eyes that roamed the walls. “This time is going to be different. Now, how about all your rooms? We must be sure that there is no slip. We must be sure––”

“Sure, we must be sure!” interrupted Delaney. “I’ve looked everywhere, Chief. Leave that to me!”

Drew glanced at Loris, who had stepped toward Harry Nichols. He studied the picture the two made, with their heads close together. The captain held himself defiantly, but with that certain polish which goes with a fondness for the things of life worth having. He had chosen a rather pretty girl, and upon her he had lavished his attentions. He had defied Stockbridge! This was motive enough for a crime. He was not the criminal, decided Drew. There was that to the captain’s resolute, though thick lips, and his wide eyes, which assured the detective he would not stoop to low things to gain his ends. He had enlisted voluntarily. He had worked hard at Plattsburg. He had served, and was upon the eve of going to Pershing. No man with such a record would slay a girl’s father to gain the girl.

The detective erased Harry Nichols from his mind. “You two,” he said commandingly, “had better go into the library! I mean Miss Stockbridge’s writing-room. Stay there, please, till Mr. Delaney and I notify you. Who else, beside we four, are in this part of the house?”

“Only the maid,” said Loris.

“Go in, please, and wait. I’m going to lock everything up. We’re going to take every precaution this time. Frankly, I don’t see how any agency can do more than we have already. Were we dealing with ordinary crooks or blackmailers, I would have you take a taxi and move to some Fifth Avenue hotel. But it seems an unnecessary risk. This is the safest place in the world, despite the letter from the casket company and the former warning. What man can enter this place to-night—without our permission?”

“I’d like to see one!” blurted Delaney.

Harry Nichols offered his arm to Loris. They passed from the view of the two detectives with the locked, gliding stride of two dancers who moved to slow time. Drew heard the portières which led to the writing-room rustle downward and settle into place. He passed his hand over his forehead and breathed deeply.

“We’ll get busy,” he whispered tersely. “We’ll search these rooms again. Let’s start with a definite foundation!”

Delaney grunted at the uselessness of this as he reached and took the detective’s overcoat which was peeled off and extended to him.

“Hang it on a chair,” said Drew sharply. “Over there with my hat. Now,” he snapped, “what about the windows of this room, the little reception hall and the bedroom over there? That’s a bedroom, isn’t it?”

“Sure, Chief! I frisked it good. The Central Office men were up here early in the morning. They went through everything. Fosdick, they say, was like a bull. He said the thing couldn’t be done.”

“It was done!”

“Did you get any clue, Chief, as to how it was done?”

“It’s as much a mystery as ever. But we’re trimming the tree called Truth with a broad ax. I’m going around this case to get the man or men who did it. Then we’ll find out how it was done!”

“Oh!” Delaney’s expression was thought-laden. “Just thought of it, Chief. I got them plaster-of-paris casts. I got ’em down stairs. It was some job, believe me. I took everything about that junction-box, after I’d thawed the snow with hot blankets which a good-looking cook brought to me.”

“Go down and get them!”

Delaney hurried out through the tapestries of the room. Drew started his search of the apartment by a study of the windows and the catches. He opened one and glanced outside. Snow had drifted to the depth of three inches on the sill. This snow was unmarked. He examined all of the sills extending from the three rooms. He closed and locked the windows. He backed off into the center of the reception room and studied the situation from every angle. The furniture was fragile and in sets of such splendid periods his eyes closed over them. The rugs and tapestries—curtains and portières—sheathings of yellow hand-painted silk from Nippon—rare ceramics and cloisonnés—a huge peach-blow vase of the Ming dynasty and a hundred little jade and jasper knick-knacks were the outward evidence of wealth.

He opened the plate-glass cases and peered inside. He crawled under a couch and backed out dusting his hands. He tapped with slow knuckles a long cheval-glass by the side of which was a tiny gold-bracket and a silver-plated telephone. He went the rounds of the walls, lifting pictures, portraits and little military oils by French painters of the Franco-Prussian period. He found nothing to excite his suspicion!

Entering a simple bedroom, with its tiled flooring and its single white bed, he spared this as he passed to the bath beyond, which had no outlet save a ventilating shaft securely barred by a bronze grating of close, fantastic-scrolled mesh.

Delaney’s heavy steps were heard in the reception hall as Drew finished. Striding out into the larger room he frowned as the operative deposited a blanket upon a Persian rug and began to untie its corners.

“I got ’em here, Chief,” explained the assistant with upturned face. “There’s five or six prints—all alike.”

“What? Repeat that!” Drew dropped to one knee.

“Sure, Chief. There’s only been one guy at that junction-box before the freezing started. He made plenty of tracks. He came and went from the fence to the box. It’s a small foot. There was plenty of prints made after the snow piled on top of these little prints.”

“The operatives?”

“Sure, and the Central Office bunch! But these prints I got here are the only ones under the snow. They stuck up when I melted away the surface.”

Delaney offered a plaster-cast of the top of a footprint. It was roughly done. It had been made, like the others in the blanket, by pouring cold plaster within a retaining bulge of soap. The plaster had hardened and brought out each detail. Drew traced his finger over the toe. “Right foot,” he said. “Now let’s see the others!”

“Here’s a left foot, Delaney,” added the detective slowly. “Only one left and four right. That might happen. You didn’t take them all. Well, bundle them up and plant them somewhere. Put them under that couch, out of sight. I’ve got an idea!”

“What is it, Chief?” asked the operative as he drew on the knots until he had gathered the corners together. “What’s new? I can’t see anything in sight, at-tall, at-tall. One man—that’s all I see.”

“And that’s all I see—the trouble-hunter—Delaney!”

“But what about the tall guy who looked like a German? The fellow the trouble-man saw getting over the fence and beating it for Fifth Avenue?”

“He didn’t leave any tracks!”

“Ah, Chief, get out! That ain’t human!”

Drew paced the floor with his hands clasped behind him. He wheeled with sudden energy. “Go, you!” he exclaimed with a pointing finger. “Hurry out of this house and telephone Gramercy Hill Exchange. Tell the superintendent to send over that trouble-man. I want to compare these prints with his shoes. He couldn’t have been lying. There’s no object in that! But, Delaney, how could a man tap in on that junction-box and never leave prints in the snow? That’s my question!”

“How could one shoot a man in a sealed room, Chief? There ain’t much difference!”

Drew snatched out his watch. “Hurry,” he said. “Get over to Gramercy Hill Exchange—it’s only three blocks from here. Ask Jack Nefe, or whoever is in charge, for the trouble-man who fixed the phone last night. He’ll be able to tell us what part of the fence the tall fellow, who looked like a German, got over. Perhaps he wasn’t at the junction-box at all!”

“Who, Chief?”

“The tall fellow! Perhaps he was skulking about the windows at the back.”

“Perhaps he was a ghost,” said Delaney to himself as he lunged through the tapestries toward the staircase which led down from the third floor of the mansion.

Drew crossed the room and rapped softly on a panel by the portières which covered the opening to the reading-room and library. He heard a muffled word of warning. Loris Stockbridge glided across the rugs and peered out. Her face was set and tear-stained. She had been sobbing upon an olive-drab shoulder.

“Pardon,” said Drew with a slight sigh. “I beg pardon, Miss Stockbridge. I want to look over the sitting-room and examine the windows. Where is the maid?”

Loris touched her eyes with a handkerchief drawn from her breast. She replaced this and nodded over her shoulder. She parted the portières with her unjeweled right hand. “The maid,” she said softly, “is in her room. That’s back of this reading-room. Shall I call her?”

“You and Mr. Nichols come in here, please,” said Drew. “I’ll knock on the maid’s door and look her over. We can’t be too careful—remember that. It’s getting late,” he added with candor.

Drew allowed Harry Nichols and Loris to pass him as he held the portières for them with a thoughtful bow. He crossed the reading-room, examined the books and cases, glanced under a low divan, and saw to it that each window was latched before he knocked lightly upon a further door which was hidden by curtains.

A maid appeared, in smart white apron and pursed lips of inquiry. Drew regarded her not unkindly. He ran his eyes up and down her trim figure from the black bow in her brown hair to the wide ribbons which laced her trim French shoes.

“How long have you been with Miss Stockbridge?” he asked.

“Merci, Monsieur!” she courtesied. “It has been for zee longest time. Cinq—sept, années, monsieur,” she counted mentally.

“Good!” said Drew closing the door lightly. “Good little girl. We won’t bother you the rest of the night,” he added as he turned a good key in a perfectly good lock and dropped the curtains.

“Now!” he said with a final glance about the reading-room, with its morocco-bound tomes and glowing lights. “Now, let the worst come! Let that come what may!”

He strode through to the reception room, glanced slit-lidded at Loris and Nichols, who had seated themselves in the deeper recess of a splendid alcove, and hurried to the hall where Delaney was hastily removing his coat, and showing other evidences of some answer to his quest at the telephone exchange.

“Well?” asked Drew as the bulk of the big operative loomed through the tapestries. “Well, what did you find out over there?”

“Enough, Chief!” Delaney’s voice was hard. He glanced at Loris and Nichols. His right eye closed in a warning wink of caution.

“Come into this other room,” said Drew. “Come right in, Delaney. This way!” Drew lifted the portières, then dropped them after the operative had stumbled forward.

“What did you find?” he asked into Delaney’s ear. “Out with it!”

The operative glanced about the reading-room. He blinked at the glowing electrics. He recovered his voice as he drew in a deep breath which bulged his chest to barrel proportions.

“I went,” he said huskily. “I went to Gramercy Hill Exchange. Found the superintendent.... Fellow, you told me to find, Chief ... I draws him to one side.... I asked about this trouble-hunter.... He ups like I’d hit him.... He says fellow quit to-day.... Says fellow.... Says he was no good.... Says he was tapping joints instead of soldering them. Says he only hired him on account of the shortage of electricians and helpers ... because of the last Army draft.”

“Did you get his address?”

“I got it, Chief.... It is over on Fifty-third Street near the River.... I didn’t go.... I wanted to see you first.... There’s more.”

“Out with it!”

“The superintendent says he never sent that trouble-hunter over here last night.... There’s a record of sending another man named Frisby.”

“Did you see—Frisby?”

“I did, Chief.”

“What did he say?” Drew’s fingers had clutched the operative’s arm. “What did he say?” he repeated grimly.

“Said, that Albert—that’s the trouble-hunter—had stopped him on the way over here and took his place.... Said, he was satisfied.... Albert could have all the jobs on a night like last night. That’s just what Frisby said, Chief!”

Drew loosened his fingers from Delaney’s arm and turned slowly. The portières swayed slightly. They shook anew. They parted at the center and revealed Loris Stockbridge. Her eyes burned the soft gloom with glazed interrogation. She raised her white hand and pressed back her hair from her forehead. She stepped forward with her knees striking against the stiff satin of her skirt. She swung from Delaney toward Drew.

“What were you saying?” she asked imperiously. “What did you say about a trouble-man? What was it, please?”

“I’m lookin’ for one, Miss!” declared Delaney. “I was over at the telephone company’s exchange lookin’ for the lad that was here last night and fixed the junction-box in the yard back of the house. Mr. Drew wants him.”

Loris turned toward the detective. “You want him?” she asked softly. “What do you want him for? Please tell me. I don’t like him, at all.”

It was Drew’s turn to draw in his breath. He eyed the girl. He tried to fathom the reason for her simple question and her objection. “Miss Loris,” he said, shrugging his square shoulders. “Why, it’s a slight matter. The man has disappeared. We can’t find him. He’s flown—perhaps.”

“Is he a little chap with a satchel and a testing set?” she asked. “A nice-mannered, soft-voiced little man who was so obliging, and yet so—oh! I don’t know what I have against him. He’s so sly—don’t you think so, Mr. Dr—e—w?”

“When did you ever see him?” asked Drew, feeling the blood rising to his cheeks at a thought which surged through his brain.

“Meet him? Why! he was here early this afternoon. He was all over the house!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“SUSPICION FASTENS”

Triggy Drew had been trained in the hardest school in the world. Loris Stockbridge’s statement, delivered with such sincerity and so naïvely, completely upset him. It was like a gentle reminder that, as a hunter of men, he had failed. He took the blow with flaming cheeks and an almost stopped heart.

Delaney realized that something of moment in the case had happened. He stared at his chief, then turned his eyes upon Harry Nichols, who stepped through the portières and stood by Loris’ side.

“What is it, Chief?” asked the operative. “Was there anything in what she said?”

“Anything!” exclaimed Drew, recovering himself with a tossing shrug of his shoulders. “Anything? Everything! The man we want is––”

“Found?” breathed Loris clutching Nichols’ arm.

“Not yet—but very soon!” said the detective with sanguine eyes. “We want that trouble-hunter, Delaney,” he added gathering in the details for action as he spoke. “You’ll have to hurry right over to the address and see if you can round him up. If he isn’t there—get him! I want him brought here at once. He’s got much to explain!”

“I’ll go right now,” said Delaney, starting toward the reception room.

“Wait,” said Drew.

Delaney turned at the portières.

“Don’t phone me here,” the detective warned. “Don’t do anything by telephone. We’re on the trail of a man or men who can tap wires. He or they may have a confederate in this house. Be careful—get your suspect and bring him here. We’ll try him with the footprints. We’ll check up with the fingerprints. Then, if he don’t cave in, we’ll turn him over to Fosdick and the Third Degree. I firmly believe that Albert, whom I saw in the library and who was in this house in the early afternoon of this day, is implicated in the murder. Strange that I never suspected him.”

“I’m going!” growled Delaney, tearing his eyes away from Loris and glancing through the curtains. “I’m right after him, Chief. I won’t stop till I get him, either.”

“If you don’t make it in thirty minutes,” said Drew glancing sharply at his watch, “if you don’t make it by then—come back here. Perhaps something will have turned up in the meantime. Get that?”

“Sure, Chief! Good-by!”

Delaney had passed through the portières, crossed the reception room and pressed aside the tapestries leading to the hallways, before Drew stepped to the broad doorway and motioned for Loris and Nichols to take their former positions. He waited until they were seated with their faces in the shadow cast by the overhead silken hangings. He spoke then, and to the point.

“This case,” he said, thrusting his hands in his coat pockets and striding back and forth. “This case is clearing clue by clue. The trouble-man, whom some one let into the house this afternoon, is the missing link in the chain of circumstance and applied deduction. Who let him in?”

“I did!”

Drew stopped in his stride. “You, Nichols?” he questioned sharply. “Why did you let him in?”

“Because I asked Harry to,” defended Loris with heat. “I heard the bell ring. I sent the maid downstairs. She came back and told me that a man from the telephone company was waiting to look over the connections. She said that he said that there was trouble with the wires.”

“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Drew; “that is,” he added hastily, “I don’t believe there was anything the matter at all. In the light of what Delaney has told me, that fellow came here last night, when some one else named Frosby or Frisby was sent. Now why would he want to take another’s place? For one reason only—the same reason that he came here this afternoon. This reason concerns your future health and security. We had one death in this house which followed his first visit. We don’t want anything to happen after his second visit.”

“You are right, Mr. Drew,” said Nichols. “I was careless. I went down stairs and talked with the fellow. It was just a few minutes after I arrived from downtown. He seemed so plausible that I asked the Central Office Detective at the door, who gave the permission. It was all my fault, I guess.”

“Where did this fellow go? What did he do in the house?”

“He went into the library and tested the phone there. The connection seemed to be all right. Then he went down stairs and tested the butler’s ’phone. The butler had been taken as a material witness by Fosdick. I followed the man. He didn’t do anything but test and then talk with Franklin Official—I think it was.”

“Are you sure he talked over the phone? It’s ridiculously easy for a person to hold down the hook and make believe they are talking to most anybody.”

“I don’t know about that, Mr. Drew,” said the captain, turning toward Loris. “Did he talk to anybody when he used this ’phone, Miss Stockbridge?”

“I believe so, Harry. I really thought he did.”

Drew furrowed his brows in perplexity. There was no evidence shown that the trouble-man had ever talked with anybody, via wire, from the mansion. He recalled the first appearance of the lineman in the library. That time both calls, to Central, might have been feigned by holding down the hook and speaking into a disconnected transmitter. The man was clever. He knew all there was to be known concerning telephony.

“I’m a child,” the detective concluded, swinging about the room in perplexity. “One thing,” he added aloud to Loris and Nichols. “One thing! We are absolutely alone in this part of the house. I have locked the maid in her room. No one can get through the door to the hall. There’s a spring lock on it. Delaney closed it when he went out.”

“And there’s a score of detectives scattered about,” said the captain reassuringly, as he leaned toward Loris. “Why should we fear anything at all?”

“I wouldn’t, Harry,” said Loris, “if it wasn’t for what happened to poor father. Mr. Drew took the same precautions and had everything locked and watched. It doesn’t seem as if we were in New York at all. It seems like some mediæval time and place.”

Drew reached for a fragile-looking chair, turned it, sat down and thrust his custom-made shoes out across the rug in the direction of Loris and Nichols, whose faces shone white and drawn in the soft light of the alcove where they were seated.

Swirling thought surged through the detective’s brain. He went over the case with dulled understanding. Briefly, he had eliminated the former suspects and compressed the matter into a small compass. His conclusion brought him to his feet with slow swaying from side to side. Some one in state prison was probably directing matters. Some one in New York was carrying out the arch-fiend’s orders. This free agent had the nerve of the damned and the cunning of Cagliostro. He had succeeded in planting a confederate in the mansion, or entering himself, and slaying Stockbridge. The entire case, concluded Drew, rested in capturing the free agent before he could do further murder. Loris was marked and had been from the first.

“What servants remain?” he asked, dropping his hand on his right hip pocket and feeling the bulge of an automatic there. “Which of the servants, Miss Stockbridge, have Fosdick and his men left for you?”

“The French maid,” said Loris softly.

“I saw her! She looks all right. She says she has been with you five or six years.”

“Six—almost. It’s been over six years, Mr. Drew!”

“That ought to let her out of the case. Now, the next one?”

“The housekeeper, Mrs. Seeley. She has been with us ten or twelve years—ever since I can remember. Mother thought the world of Mrs. Seeley.”

“Who else?”

“Father’s valet. They didn’t arrest him.”

“He was down to my office. He looks all right. I’ll cross him off the list of suspects. Now, are there any more servants in the house?”

“There’s a French chef and a pantry man, I think. Also there’s a poor old darkey who tends to the furnace. I don’t believe he leaves the basement. I never see him, only on holidays.”

“The butler, then, and the doorman and the second man and the rest of the servants have been taken down to Center Street for interrogation and as suspects. That leaves us with very few to handle, Miss Stockbridge. I’m going to start by securing the door which leads into the hallway. Then we’ll wait here.”

Drew hurried through the tapestries, stopped, and examined the lock of the door before he shot home a second bolt which was functioned by a butterfly of heavy gold alloy. He stood erect with both hands pressing at his temples. It came to him with double force that the same precautions had been taken when Stockbridge was alone in the library downstairs. There was the lock of superior make and the winged-latch. There was the two-inch, or more, door of dark wood. There were the servants and detectives both within and outside the mansion. Yet the millionaire had been reached in a secret manner through all the precautions.

“Things repeat, sometimes,” mused Drew, fingering the catch and the flat key. “The same conditions bring the same results. I––”

The detective’s voice trailed into a whisper as he heard footsteps outside the door. He reached back to his pocket and waited. His heart thumped like a prisoned bird within his breast. It was a case of strained nerves. He felt the responsibility of guarding Loris.

“Bah!” he exclaimed, recovering himself and squaring his jaw. “Bah,” he repeated. “It’s somebody for me.”

He opened the door after twisting the butterfly and turning the flat key in the lock. A blurred figure pressed forward. A gruff voice boomed from a muffling collar.

“Hello, Chief! I’m back in a half-hour! No luck, either!”

Drew waited until Delaney had removed his overcoat and overshoes, which he placed in one corner by a hall-tree. “What did you find?” he asked glancing toward the tapestries.

“The fellow’s beat it for good. Landlady says he owes her one week’s rent. He cleaned out with a suit-case and left this.” The operative reached in his pocket and brought forth a single drill of quarter-inch diameter. He held it out. “All I could find, Chief, after a quick frisk. This was in the mattress.”

“Regulation lineman’s wood-bit,” said Drew as he examined the size number on the shank. “This might have been the one used in boring the hole between the slot-booths at Grand Central Station.”

“Then Albert is the lad, Chief?”

“We don’t know, yet. There’s lots of bits like this one. Did you try it for fingerprints?”

“They’re all rubbed off! I had to pull it from the mattress. It was stuck in a hole near the foot of the bed.”

“Hold it!” said Drew. “Hold it for evidence. Put it with your plaster casts. Now––”

“Well, Chief?”

Drew glanced at his watch. “I’m going out to that drug-store,” he said. “I want to phone. I can’t use the phones of this house. The wires may be tapped. You stay right by this door and wait till I get back. It won’t be more than ten minutes. Go get my hat when you’re putting the bit away. It’s in the corner by Loris and Nichols. Tell them I’m stepping out and that you will stand guard. They might hold me. She is very nervous.”

Delaney was back at the detective’s side, after a clumsy stride through the tapestries. “Cute couple,” he said, jerking his thumb over-shoulder toward the inner room. “They’re sittin’ there so close you couldn’t get a sheet of paper between them. I like that colleen, Chief! She’s the kind you see on them magazine covers—only prettier.”

“A cat can look at a queen,” quoted Drew, pulling down his hat and opening the door wide. “Be sure and lock this after me,” he warned. “Lock and bolt it. Stand guard and don’t let anybody in at all. I’m only going round the block.”

Delaney shut the door and turned the key. He followed this action by twisting the butterfly. Then he drew his gun and waited, grimly alert.

Drew reached the drug-store after a brisk, lung-cleansing walk through the down-driving snow. He dropped a coin in the slot and first called up his office. Harrigan, who had remained at his post, answered for most of the operatives who were out on the case and who had ’phoned in at every opportunity.

“Get Frick at the prison,” Drew shot back, after making a few notes. “Get him and tell him to call up this ’phone,” Drew glanced at the number over the transmitter. “Tell him to call up Gramercy Hill 9749 and let whoever I station here, know to whom and to what number Morphy is talking in New York. Get that?”

“Sure,” came back over the wires. “Sure, Chief. You want to pinch the fellow he’s connecting with?”

“I certainly do,” said Drew. “We can work it this way. As soon as I find out from Frick where Morphy or anybody else is ’phoning from the prison, I can get a man over there in time to make the arrest. The superintendent at Gramercy Hill will help us out if the call comes through his exchange. He can get the girl to stall for a minute or two. I’ll send Delaney here to hold this end of the wire. You keep him posted as to developments. O’Toole, yes! He’s planted in the alley back of the house. He can’t report. All the others are all right?”

Drew hung up with a flip of the receiver. He backed out of the booth and hurried around the corner. He reached the iron-grilled gate of the mansion with his head down and the snow seeping between his collar and his neck.

“Rotten night!” said the Central Office man at the door. “I don’t think we’ll hear anything from anybody. Them gunmen like the backrooms of saloons too well to pull off a gun-play in this storm, Inspector.”

“You never can tell,” said Drew, shaking his coat and hurrying toward the stairway which led to Loris Stockbridge’s apartment.

Delaney opened the door after a repeated knock in Morse code. He eyed his chief. He motioned toward the inner rooms. “All quiet,” he said with a broad smile. “Them turtle doves sure like to be left alone.”

“And you would too! Especially if you lost your only relative the night before—lost him in the way she lost hers.”

The big operative gulped down the thrust. “What did you find out?” he asked in a husky whisper.

“Get your coat on. Get over to that drug-store and plant near that booth—Gramercy Hill 9749. Frick, at the prison, is going to call that booth up as soon as Morphy or anybody else there tries to get New York. If Frick gives you a number, call up the superintendent at Gramercy Hill and tell him who you are. He’s on duty all night. He’ll give you the address of the number, and stall the call. That’ll give you time to rush to the address and grab your man.”

“I’ll grab him, Chief!” rumbled Delaney, reaching for his storm coat which was supposed to be fur-lined. “Leave that to me!” he added. “Jus’ leave it tu me!”

Drew eyed the operative’s huge hands. “I’ll do that,” he said with a short laugh. “Now hurry! No, wait.”

“What is it, Chief?” asked Delaney in the doorway.

“If the address is downtown, or in Brooklyn, what would you do then?”

“I’d get the office, Chief, and have Harrigan rush over a man. This super at Gramercy Hill ought to be able to stall that call long enough for us to connect—with both hands and both feet.”

“Go to it!” said Drew, pressing Delaney out through the door. “Good luck,” he added as he twisted the key and shot the bolt. “Now we are getting there,” he said softly. “Unfortunately for that devil up-the-river, he has to phone from one place. That’s the thing which will beat him. I hate to think what would happen if he was outside giving orders. He could get away with it, nicely.”

Drew never felt surer of himself in a case. He tested the lock and bolt for a second time. He draped the tapestries and strode into the sitting room with his shoulders held back—a sanguine light in his olive eyes.

“Well, Miss Stockbridge,” he said, pausing in the center of the room and smiling. “I think we are on the verge of big things. The attempt cannot be made to-night without we have plenty of warning.”

“Good!” exclaimed Loris, standing upright and arranging her lavender gown about her slipper-tops. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Mr. Drew,” she added, glancing archly at the detective, beneath her dark lashes. “Has that Mr. Delaney found any one?”

Drew raised his brows. Loris’ question was not exactly a compliment to the big operative, who meant so well.

“He hasn’t found anything,” said Drew, with soft, pleasing voice. “He hasn’t done that, but I’m venturing my future reputation that he will find our man—the trouble-man perhaps.”

Harry Nichols stepped to Loris’ side. “We were children there,” he admitted frankly. “At least I was. I never suspected him at all. His manners were so pleasant. He seemed so weak and intent about his business.”

“Ah!” said Drew, raising his finger. “That’s it! He was intent about his business. Only, this particular business concerned the taking of a human life in cold blood. Mr. Stockbridge was murdered by this fiend, in the guise of a harmless trouble-hunter. How the murder was accomplished and by what lethal method we do not know. I’m acting on the theory that if we catch the man we will find out how it was done. If I can’t make him—Fosdick, Commissioner of Detectives, will. May God help him if he doesn’t talk to Fosdick!”

“But can’t we find out how father was killed?” asked Loris, with tears glazing over her eyes. “It don’t seem—it don’t––”

The captain caught Loris about the waist and led her to the divan in the alcove. She sank down with her face covered with her hands. Soft sobs, brought to her throat by the memory of the murder, caused Drew to pace the rugs with alert, nervous strides like a man who would guard her from some menacing shadow. He went to the ventilators and closed them slightly. He crossed the room to the radiator-boxes and set them in an open position. He adjusted a thermostat on the wall, to seventy degrees. He stood back then and listened with both ears strained for outside sounds.

Snow sifted across the curtain-drawn panes with a cutting of fine diamonds against diamonds. A wind whistled and moaned and swirled over the turrets and towers of the mansion. An echo lifted from the driving traffic of the Avenue. Below this echo, so faint it seemed like a murmur of a distant sea, the city throbbed with the shifting of the whimpering wind. Once it roared. Then afterward there was silence, save for the sifting snow, and Loris’ low, throat choke from welling sorrow.

She sat up finally and dried her eyes. “I should be ashamed of myself,” she said, brokenly. “I must be brave. I fear something, though. It seems to be in the room or the air. What is it I fear, Mr. Drew?” Her question was vague. Her eyes shone hectically bright and strangely alluring to the detective.

“There’s nothing to fear!” he declared with a direct glance. “I’m armed! Then,” he added as an additional encouragement. “Then, Mr. Nichols is a soldier! You are in safe hands, believe me!”

Harry Nichols bowed politely. “I’ve got a gun, myself,” he admitted candidly. “It’s not that little one, either. It’s army regulation. It, or the ones like it, have been stopping the Huns. I guess we’ll take care of anything that comes up to-night, Mr. Drew. It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

The detective glanced at his watch. “I ought to hear from Delaney,” he said, replacing the watch and reaching for a chair. “Delaney is like old Dobbin—faithful and slow.”

Drew sat down, pulled at the knees of his black trousers and rested his heels on the thick soft pile of a Persian rug. Behind him was the cheval glass and the telephone stand. Before him, and in the shade of the silk draperies, Loris’ eyes glowed alongside the captain’s resolute face.

The minutes passed with the trio in the same position. The snow sifted across the cold panes. The wind whined. Suddenly between gusts, Loris asked point-blankly:

“Do you suspect that man, Morphy?”

“Yes; I do!” said Drew with a snap. “I believe that every single lead we have points to him. I believe he planned to destroy your father ever since the day of conviction. I believe––”

“But he is in prison.”

“Ah!” said the detective, with bright eyes. “So is his master, Lucifer, in the lower regions. He’s there, but he has a long arm. Morphy’s tool in this affair is probably the telephone repair-man. You saw him. Mr. Nichols saw him. I saw him. We all agree that he does not look the part of a scoundrel and a scoundrel’s tool. But,” Drew paused and spread out his hands; “but,” he continued, “that’s the reason he was chosen for Morphy’s murderous work. You can’t send a thug into a drawing room—or a library. You can’t cut a sharp slice with a dull tool. This trouble-hunter is all that the name implies—a hunter of trouble. I don’t doubt that we have the case rounded up, save for bringing him in. Morphy, we can get at any time. He’s in prison and he’s getting very close to the little green door that leads to the electric-chair. One slip to-night, and we have him!”

“Miss Stockbridge must go south after the funeral,” said Nichols. “She can’t be jeopardized! She is nervous and has suffered acutely. I for one am sorry we let her stay here. It is the place she should not be. They know where to look for her!”

“They’re beat to-night,” assured Drew, rising and stretching his arms. “My! my!” he added, “this is slow, sleepy work. I’d ask for tea, but I think it’s best we stay locked in here. Don’t you, Miss Stockbridge?”

“Marie can get some. There’s a service-waiter running up to her room. Suppose I order tea, or coffee, and cakes. It might cheer us up?”

Drew held out a warding arm as Loris rose and started toward the writing room. “I’ll tend to it,” he said. “You stay right here close up to Mr. Nichols. We’re taking no chances at all.”

The detective parted the portières and knocked upon the maid’s door as he turned the key with his left hand. He waited as she gave the order through a silver-plated speaking tube. He heard the service-waiter rising. He leaned forward and took the tray with a sharp glance about the maid’s room. It was as clean and as neat as a work basket. A French novel, with a vivid portrait of a poilu carrying a very sharp bayonet on its cover, lay in the center of a white counterpane on the bed.

“Good-night!” he said as he closed and carefully locked the door. He reached downward and caught up the tray. He started across the writing-room. He paused in its center as he heard:

“Burrrr! Burrrr! Burrrrr!”

Shrillingly the perfumed air of the suite vibrated with the silver notes of the telephone. Drew hesitated, with the tray balanced in his hand. He took one step forward as Loris swished across the sitting-room, lifted the hard-rubber receiver and voiced a soft, “Hello!”

Drew let go of the tray and sprang forward. He parted the portières and watched Loris’ face. It changed between seconds to a flushed mask of crimson-fear. She staggered back, dropped the receiver, and cried “Harry!” as she sank to the floor.

Drew darted across the rugs and snatched up the instrument. He heard a low, chuckling laugh that died to a whisper and then to nothingness. He flipped the receiver back on the hook. He turned with a savage twist. He stared across the room toward Loris, who had risen to her knees and whose head was against Nichols’ olive-drab breast.

“What was said?” he questioned sharply.

A mass of turbaned, midnight-hued hair uncoiled and fell about the girl’s white face. Glorious eyes dulled, then glowed, with the fire which was pulsing within her. Her lips trembled and went blanched as she throated brokenly:

“The man—the man at the other end said.... He said that his master had ordered my coffin.... He said that I had only a few hours to live.... He said that he would call me up again.... For me to be ready then, to meet my Master and my—doom.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“A SILENT PRISONER”

Loris Stockbridge finished speaking with a low sob which went straight to the detective’s heart. He advanced across the room and ran his arm about her supple waist. “We’ll help her to the divan,” he told Nichols. “That’s it! Right over here and in the corner. She’s all right. I’ll tend to that threat which came over the wires.”

Drew backed away and turned toward the telephone. He eyed it with cold calculation. He took one step further, then wheeled and glanced at Nichols.

“I want to trace that call if it is humanly possible,” he said with decision. “We can find out, at least, from where it came. Suppose you leave me here with Miss Stockbridge, and you go down stairs and around to the drug-store?”

Loris rested her weight on one elbow. She sat erect, with slowly widening eyes. Her hands strayed to her hair and pressed it back from her ears. She gained command of herself after a shudder had passed through her slender body. She half rose.

“I’ve heard that voice before!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the ’phone. “It was familiar, Mr. Drew. Now where have I heard it?”

“Some friend of your father’s?”

“No, I don’t think it was. But I’ve heard it in this house.”

“A servant—the valet?”

“No! No, Mr. Drew, it wasn’t the valet’s voice. It was whispering and consumptive. It squeaked. It sounded like a little boy’s voice.”

“How about that trouble-man?” Drew advanced with keen steps. He felt that he was very close to the truth.

“It might have been. Only—only, Mr. Drew, it was younger—thinner—squeakier. It was a terrible voice. It rings and rings in my ears. It was so sure!”

“Ump!” declared Drew with clenched fists. “It won’t be so sure,” he said, squaring his jaw. “It won’t be near so sure, next time. I think it was that trouble-man you heard. Don’t you remember anything he said when he was in the house, for comparison?”

“I just heard him say—I heard him say that the connections, I think he called them, were all right. Then he went away, Mr. Drew.”

“Did his voice squeak then?”

“It was rather low—like a boy’s or a girl’s. He seemed too polite. He had his cap in his hand.” Loris stopped speaking and stood erect. She arranged her gown and glanced down at Nichols. “I feel stronger,” she said bravely. “I wonder what became of that tea?”

Drew stepped into the writing-room and found the tea-pot upon its side. He poured from this a cup of tea which he carried to Nichols. “Just taste it,” he ordered. “I want to be sure it isn’t doped or anything like that. That’s it. Just a small swallow. It’s all right, isn’t it? It isn’t bitter?”

Nichols handed the cup to Loris. “Drink it,” he said with confidence. “That’s good tea—only a little cold.”

Drew took the empty cup and set it down on a small table. “You’ll go for me?” he asked Nichols. “I want it traced without using the wires of this house. They might be tapped.”

“Be back in ten minutes!” said the captain at the tapestries, after Loris had nodded. “Whom shall I ask for at Gramercy Hill?”

“The superintendent—Jack Nefe! If he isn’t there, get the chief operator. Delaney will attend to that. Find out from what number the call came. We might get that whispering devil right away.”

“I believe it was the trouble-man,” said Loris, as Drew returned after locking the door to the hallway. “Now that I think of it—I’m almost sure it was. He just tried to change and lower his voice—that was all.”

“Lower it?”

“Yes, Mr. Drew. It was so faint that I hardly heard it at first. He seemed afraid of something. Perhaps somebody was in the room where he was telephoning.”

“That might have been. Well—he can’t hurt or harm you that way. The thing is for you to keep up your courage. Fear is a terrible thing if you would let yourself be mastered by it. It might be their game to break you down by a series of threats.”

“I won’t do that. I’ve Harry and you to stand by me!”

Drew pulled out his watch. “It’s getting toward midnight,” he said. “No word yet from Delaney or any of the others on watch. I think that the storm will clear soon. You can go to bed. Harry—Mr. Nichols and I’ll get a deck of cards and keep watch out here. We’ll do sentry duty. He’s used to that!”

Loris glided about the room. She stopped at the cheval glass and arranged her hair with a series of twists that formed a turban secured by loops. She swished around and glanced archly toward Drew. Their eyes met bravely. Hers dropped under shading lashes.

“I’m all right,” she whispered with a half laugh. “I did look awful. It was the shock of hearing that terrible man. How childish to call me up and say what he did. He didn’t mean it!”

“Ah,” said Drew, reaching in his pocket and bringing out a key. “Ah, he did mean it, I think. He has overreached himself by telephoning. Gramercy Hill Exchange is on the alert. There’s Mr. Nichols with good news, at the door. Now for his report.”

The captain came in, brushing snow from his olive-drab uniform. He glanced at Loris as he strode across the room and took her hand with a firm grip. “Delaney,” he said confidentially, “was right at the booth. He was sitting on a chair, propped up and talking with the prescription clerk. He did the telephoning to Gramercy Hill. I don’t know who he got there, but they already knew about the call.”

Nichols turned toward Drew for confirmation.

“That’s right!” the detective exclaimed. “They should know! The vice-president, Westlake, has left orders to record all calls to this house. Where was that whispering voice from, Mr. Nichols?”

“From Forty-second Street and Broadway.”

“Close!” exclaimed Drew, rubbing his hands. “The fellow took chances.”

“It came from a slot-booth in a cigar store in a big building. It only lasted two minutes. The operator at Gramercy Hill says the first voice she heard, asking for Gramercy Hill 9764, was harsh and loud. I don’t understand that.”

“Harsh and loud,” repeated Drew, toying with his watch chain. “That’s odd. Was it the same man that Miss Stockbridge heard?”

“The operator don’t know. Delaney says maybe there were two of them. One, who called up, and one who talked to this room.” Nichols turned and nodded toward the silver-plated telephone.

“Hardly possible,” mused Drew. “I think he changed his voice after he got the connection. He didn’t want Miss Stockbridge to recognize him.”

Loris glanced at the two men. “What will they do?” she asked anxiously. “Will Mr. Delaney and the other detectives catch him by that call?”

“Hardly,” said Drew. “He was in and out within three minutes. The bird has flown from there!”

“But where will he go?”

“I don’t know, Miss Stockbridge. I wish that I did know. There are over a hundred thousand telephones in New York he could use. It’s impossible to guess which one. The booths at the Grand Central are covered by one of my operatives. The telephone company is on the alert for all calls to this house. All they can do is to record them and tell us what happens after it happens. We are trying now to get this whispering dog when he is compelled to wait at a booth. If Morphy ’phones him from the prison to-night we have him. The telephone company is going to delay the call after getting the number. It would look natural. Then, we can strike at the booth or place where the call is directed in time to catch the man Morphy is telephoning to. Up to now, Morphy has not ’phoned or Delaney would have said something about it.”

“But can’t you stop these calls?” asked Loris.

“Very easy. We could order the wires disconnected. But then we wouldn’t catch our man. He would be suspicious and wait for another time.”

“The whole thing seems so strange, Mr. Drew. We’re locked in here. The house is so well guarded. All they can do is ’phone and yet we—at least I am nervous. Why have I got that strange feeling?”

“From experience!” declared Drew. “If we knew how your poor father was killed there wouldn’t be cause for worry. We don’t know. It was so subtle that we are confronted with the unknown in terrible form. You feel a shadow and so do I. A reaching shadow about this splendid house of yours. It isn’t anything we can grasp and say, ‘Come here! You’re under arrest.’ It’s the uncanny mystery of the entire case that holds us three on the ragged-edge. I confess I have not been myself since last night. The powers of darkness and Lucifer, himself, have nothing on the people we are fighting.”

“How about running Morphy in the guard house, or whatever they have up there?” asked Nichols. “Why not lay the case before the warden and have him put out of harm’s way? That’s what they’d do in the Army!”

“We can’t prove a single thing on him!” declared Drew. “He used the ’phone—once or twice. Perhaps he has permission from the superintendent of state prisons to do so. He has business interests which require his telephoning, we’ll say.”

“Then we’re just going to wait right here?” asked Loris, stamping her slipper. “Wait right here and let them do their worst?”

“The city detectives would do the same thing I’m doing,” said Drew on the defensive. “They’d trap their men. Do you want to see the man or men who slayed your father, escape? He will, or they will, unless we give them enough rope to hang themselves.”

“Or wire!” said Nichols cheerfully. “No, Loris, Mr. Drew is right. He’s done everything. All we have got to do, is wait. Let’s sit down for a little while. Delaney said he might have word soon.”

Drew waited until Loris had pressed herself into a small compass at the back of the divan, with Harry Nichols leaning over her in a shielding position which was thoughtful and at the same time affectionate. He strode toward the writing room and parted the heavy, silk portières. He studied every detail. He dropped the portières and crossed the sitting room to the doorway leading into Loris’ chamber. This, too, he searched with his eyes. Backing to the center of the room he dropped his chin in thought. A sound outside the mansion caused him to turn and hurry to a window. He brushed the curtain aside and tried to peer out. He rubbed the frosted glass vigorously. His nose pressed to a white button as he searched the side street. A taxi had come to a grinding halt directly below the window. Its wheels spun upon the slippery surface. A man leaned out of an open doorway and urged the driver on with a brandished fist of ham-like proportions. The driver backed into the snow, dropped into first speed and stepped on his throttle. The taxi leaped forward, gripped the surface, and plowed toward Fifth Avenue in a welter of flying ice and flakes.

Drew sprang back and faced Loris and Nichols who had risen and were standing together in the glow from the cluster over their heads.

“What happened?” they asked in unison. “What was outside?”

“Delaney!” snapped Drew, dragging out his watch and glancing at it. “Delaney’s got word where to find his man. He’s on the trail at last! It’s twelve-two. We ought to have that fellow in a half hour.”

“The trouble-man?” asked Loris, with rising hopes. “Do you think it is the trouble-man, Mr. Drew?”

“Nine chances in ten, it is! I’m venturing a guess it is. If we get him—if Delaney gets him—he’ll know it. Delaney used to work under the old-time police chiefs. They showed scant consideration.”

“But, he won’t hurt him!” said Loris, with a tremulous exclamation.

“That murderer! Why, Miss Stockbridge, isn’t he plotting to slay you? Didn’t he kill your father? I wish I were in Delaney’s place.”

“Me too!” declared Nichols, drawing closer to the detective. “Say, Inspector, I want to congratulate you. I do.”

“Wait, Harry. Just wait! You two sit down and be quiet. This affair is a personal one with me. I don’t doubt that Morphy or perhaps some one else in state prison ’phoned to the same party who phoned Miss Loris. That was all we needed. Delaney jumped into a taxi and hurried downtown as fast as the storm permitted. Perhaps the call came from the same booth. I don’t think so, though.”

“The one at Forty-second Street and Broadway?”

“I don’t think so, Nichols. This fellow seems to pick a new one every time. He’s very crafty. That alone shows a criminal mind.”

Drew paced the floor with soft gliding. He turned at the portières and crossed to the tapestries. He returned and stood before Loris and Nichols.

“Captain,” he said, “we can now begin to reconstruct this case. We can get some of the dead-wood from our minds. It is apparent to me that one of Mr. Stockbridge’s sworn enemies—Morphy, for instance—confined in state’s prison, set about to slay both members of the family. He secured a confederate whom he knew. This confederate has never been arrested in the state. We have that from the finger prints in the booth at Grand Central. We will presume that this confederate is the trouble-man. He is probably an expert electrician. He either tapped in on the wires the night Mr. Stockbridge was murdered or got behind the switchboard and called up the library ’phone.”

“The switchboard?” asked Loris. “You mean the big place where the girls are?”

“Not exactly there. The wires run down and are tagged. It would be possible for him to cut in somewhere between the switchboard and the conduits. Now I don’t know how it was done. There’s several ways. But wherever he tapped in, he must have used a magneto to ring Mr. Stockbridge up, and afterwards a battery-set to do the talking. All this Westlake says it would be necessary to do, so that the operator would not notice a permanent signal on the board.”

“What was his object?” asked Nichols.

“To cover himself. He first disconnected the wires and waited till I sent for a trouble-man. Frosby, or Frisby, was sent. The trouble-man took his place. He came here and looked the place over. He lied to Mr. Stockbridge and I when he told us about that tall German in the alley. If there was such a man there before the snow froze we would have his footprints.”

“You haven’t them?” asked Loris.

“No. Delaney has a set made by this trouble-hunter when he was at the junction-box. This must have been the time he either cut the connections so that I would send for him, or it was the time when he called up and threatened Mr. Stockbridge with death within twelve hours. You remember that the telephone company have no record of the call. Now the next call––”

“Was there another?” the girl asked.

“Yes—to your father at or about the moment he died. That was from the Grand Central Station at Forty-second Street. There’s a good record of that. Your father knocked the telephone down when he dropped dead. The operator noticed that the connection was open and put on the howler. The record is clear on that.”

“But what is all this twisting and turning for?”

“To throw us off, Miss Stockbridge. We’re dealing with a crafty, cunning mind. This mind took the extreme precaution of connecting two booths at Grand Central so that a man in Sing Sing could talk to your father without leaving a record at the Westchester Exchange or at Gramercy Hill Exchange. How this was done I don’t know. It could be done with auxiliary batteries and looping so that the Gramercy Hill operator thought the Westchester call was to a slot booth, while another call from the next booth to this house was really the same connection shunted or looped through. Westlake, vice-president of the telephone company, says that there would be several ways of doing this. He added it would take an expert in telephony.”

“I’m all twisted up, Mr. Drew. I suppose you understand it. But what about that call to-night—the one that frightened me?”

“The man was sure of himself!” said Drew without thinking. “He has his plans made. He figures they will not fail!”

“Oh, you mean––”

“I mean, Miss Stockbridge, that he expects to slay you in the same manner your father was slain. We have this advantage. You are not alone in this room or these rooms. Your father was alone. The murderer will have Mr. Nichols and myself to deal with this time! Be calm.”

“But—I don’t see how he could—get in here?”

“Nor do I. The point is that he got into the library and out again without trace. He had an hour to do his work in. Here, he is running every risk.”

“But he has already been here, Mr. Drew.”

The detective glanced keenly at Nichols, who had shot the statement straight through clean white teeth.

“I know it,” Drew said with a trace of anxiety in his voice. “That is disquieting. But we have searched these rooms and found absolutely no trace of tampering with locks or ventilators or window-catches.”

“Could he climb up here? He might have climbing irons,” added Nichols glancing toward the windows.