Part 3

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

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

“How’s that?” inquired Kennedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV

THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There were keys――in the hands of several people, I suppose?” inquired Kennedy.

“Oh yes! There are in every large office like this,” hastened Randall.

“Mr. Maddox had a key, of course?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

“Certainly.”

“Who else?”

“The agent of the building.”

“I mean who else in the office?”

“My assistant――oh, several. Still, I am sure that no one had a key except those whom we could trust.”

“Did Shelby Maddox ever have a key?” cut in Hastings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yet the telautomaton is gone!” persisted Hastings.

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

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

“Have you searched the roof below?” he asked, turning to Burke.

Burke shook his head. “How could any one get in that way?” he negatived.

“Well――search the roof below,” repeated Kennedy.

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

While we waited Kennedy continued to question Randall.

“Mr. Maddox was very careful of his key, I suppose?” he ventured.

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

“You know of no one intimate with Mr. Maddox――who might have obtained the key――or the combination?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We fairly gasped. “What is it?” I demanded. “Magic?”

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

“A burglar’s microphone?” I repeated. “What’s that?”

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

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

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

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

V

THE WHITE LIGHT CAFÉ

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

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

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

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

“Hastings & Halsey,” repeated the lawyer. “You are quite welcome to meet again there. You know where it is, on Wall Street?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Peculiar fellow, Maddox,” commented Conigsby. “What do the boys down on the _Star_ have to say about the case, Jameson?”

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

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

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

Conigsby laughed. “Perhaps more than _some_ of his friends imagined――yes,” he repeated.

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

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