The jacques futrelle meg.., p.110
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 110
“By wireless, perhaps?” suggested Mr. Czenki. It was the first time he had spoken, and the detective took occasion then and there to stare at him frankly.
“And not by wireless,” he said at last. “He sends and receives messages from the roof of his house in Thirty-seventh Street by homing pigeons!”
“Some more fandastics, eh, Laadham?” Mr. Schultze taunted. “Some more chimericals?”
“I demonstrate this much by the close watch I have kept of Mr. Wynne,” the detective went on, there being no response to his questioning look at Mr. Schultze. “One of my agents, stationed on the roof of the house adjoining Mr. Wynne’s” (it was the maid-servant next door) “has, on at least one occasion, seen him remove a tissue-paper strip from a carrier pigeon’s leg and read what was written on it, after which he kissed it, gentlemen, kissed it; then he destroyed it. What did it mean? It means that that particular message was from the girl to whom he transferred the diamonds in the cab, and that he is madly in love with her.”
“Oh, dese wimmins! I dell you!” commented Mr. Schultze.
There was a little pause, then Mr. Birnes continued impressively:
“This correspondence is of no consequence in itself, of course. But it gives us this: Carrier pigeons will only fly home, so if Mr. Wynne received a message by pigeon it means that at some time, within a week say, he has shipped that pigeon and perhaps others from the house in Thirty-seventh Street to that person who sent him the message. If he sends messages to that person it means that he has received a pigeon or pigeons from that person within a week. And how were these pigeons shipped? In all probability, by express. So, gentlemen, you see there ought to be a record in the express offices, which would give us the home town, even the name and address, of the person who now has the diamonds in his or her keeping. Is that clear to all of you?”
“It is perfectly clear,” commented Mr. Laadham admiringly, while the German nodded his head in approval.
“And that is the clew we are working on at the moment,” the detective added. “Three of my men are now searching the records of all the express companies in the city—and there are a great many—for the pigeon shipments. If, as seems probable, this clew develops, it may be that we can place our hands on the diamonds within a few days.”
“I don’d d’ink I vould yust blace my hands on dem,” Mr. Schultze advised. “Dey are his diamonds, you know, und your hands might ged in drouble.”
“I mean figuratively, of course,” the detective amended.
He stopped and drummed on his stiff hat with his fingers. Again he glanced at the impassive face of Mr. Czenki with keen, questioning eyes; and for one bare instant it seemed as if he were trying to bring his memory to his aid.
“I’ve found out all about this man Wynne,” he supplemented after a moment, “but nothing in his record seems to have any bearing on this case. He is an orphan. His mother was a Van Cortlandt of old Dutch stock, and his father was a merchant downtown. He left a few thousands to the son, and the son is now in business for himself with an office in lower Broad Street. He is an importer of brown sugar.”
“Brown sugar?” queried Mr. Czenki quickly, and the thin, scarred face reflected for a second some subtle emotion within him. “Brown sugar!” he repeated.
“Yes,” drawled the detective, with an unpleasant stare, “brown sugar. He imports it from Cuba and Porto Rico and Brazil by the shipload, I understand, and makes a good thing of it.”
A quick pallor overspread Mr. Czenki’s countenance, and he arose with his fingers working nervously. His beady eyes were glittering; his lips were pressed together until they were bloodless.
“Vas iss?” demanded Mr. Schultze curiously.
“My God, gentlemen, don’t you see?” the expert burst out violently. “Don’t you see what this man has done? He has—he has—”
Suddenly, by a supreme effort, he regained control of himself, and resumed his seat.
“He has—what?” asked Mr. Latham.
For half a minute Czenki stared at his employer; then his face grew impassive again.
“I beg your pardon,” he said quietly. “Mr. Wynne is a heavy importer of sugar from Brazil. Isn’t it possible that those are Brazilian diamonds? That new workings have been discovered somewhere in the interior? That he has smuggled them in concealed in the sugar-bags, right into New York, under the noses of the customs officials? I beg your pardon,” he concluded.
Late in the afternoon of the following day a drunken man, unshaven, unkempt, unclean and clothed in rags, lurched into a small pawnshop in the lower Bowery and planked down on the dirty counter a handful of inert, colorless pebbles, ranging in size from a pea to a peanut.
“Say, Jew, is them real diamonds?” he demanded thickly.
The man in charge glanced at them and nearly fainted. Ten minutes later Red Haney, knight of the road, was placed under arrest as a suspicious character. Uncut diamonds, valued roughly at fifty thousand dollars, were found in his possession.
“Where did you get them?” demanded the amazed police.
“Found ’em.”
“Where did you find them?”
“None o’ your business.”
And that was all they were able to get out of him at the moment.
CHAPTER X
THE BIG GAME
When the police of Mulberry Street find themselves face to face with some problem other than the trivial, every-day theft, burglary or murder, as the case may be, they are wont to rise up and run around in a circle. The case of Red Haney and the diamonds, blared to the world at large in the newspapers of Sunday morning, immediately precipitated a circular parade, while Haney, the objective center, snored along peacefully in a drunken stupor.
The statement of the case in the public press was altogether negative. There had been no report of the theft of fifty thousand dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds in any city of the United States; in fact, diamonds, as a commodity in crime, had not figured in police records for several weeks—not even an actress had mislaid a priceless necklace. The newspapers were unanimously certain that stones of such value could not rightfully belong to a man of Haney’s type, therefore, to whom did they belong?
Four men, at least, of the thousands who read the detailed account of the affair Sunday morning, immediately made it a matter of personal interest to themselves. One of these was Mr. Latham, another was Mr. Schultze, and a third was Mr. Birnes. The fourth was Mr. E. van Cortlandt Wynne. In the seclusion of his home in Thirty-seventh Street, Mr. Wynne read the story with puckered brows, then re-read it, after which he paced back and forth across his room in troubled thought for an hour or more. An oppressive sense of uneasiness was coming over him; and it was reflected in eyes grown somber.
After a time, with sudden determination, the young man dropped into a chair at his desk, and wrote in duplicate, on a narrow strip of tough tissue-paper, just one line:
Are you safe? Is all well? Answer quick. W.
Then he mounted to the roof. As he flung open the trap a man on the top of the house next door darted behind a chimney. Mr. Wynne saw him clearly—it was Frank Claflin—but he seemed to consider the matter of no consequence, for he paid not the slightest attention. Instead he went straight to a cage beside the pigeon-cote, wherein a dozen or more birds were imprisoned, removed one of them, attached a strip of the tissue-paper to its leg, and allowed it to rise from his out-stretched hand.
The pigeon darted away at an angle, up, up, until it grew indistinct against the void, then swung widely in a semicircle, hovered uncertainly for an instant, and flashed off to the west, straight as an arrow flies. Mr. Wynne watched it thoughtfully until it had disappeared; and Claflin’s interest was so intense that he forgot the necessity of screening himself, the result being that when he turned again toward Mr. Wynne he found that young man gazing at him.
Mr. Wynne even nodded in a friendly sort of way as he attached the second strip of tissue to the leg of another bird. This rose, as the other had done, and sped away toward the west.
“It may be worth your while to know, Mr. Claflin,” Mr. Wynne remarked easily to the detective on the other house, “that if you ever put your foot on this roof to intercept any message which may come to me I shall shoot you.”
Then he turned and went down the stairs again, closing and locking the trap in the roof behind him. He should get an answer to those questions in two hours, three hours at the most. If there was no answer within that time he would despatch more birds, and then, if no answer came, then—then—Mr. Wynne sat down and carefully perused the newspaper story again.
At just about that moment the attention of one John Sutton, another of the watchful Mr. Birnes’ men, on duty in Thirty-seventh Street, was attracted to a woman who had turned in from Park Avenue, and was coming rapidly toward him, on the opposite side of the street. She was young, with the elasticity of perfect health in her step; and closely veiled. She wore a blue tailor-made gown, with hat to match; and recalcitrant strands of hair gleamed a golden brown.
“By George!” exclaimed the detective. “It’s her!”
By which he meant that the mysterious young woman of the cab, whose description had been drilled into him by Mr. Birnes, had at last reappeared. He lounged along the street, watching her with keen interest, fixing her every detail in his mind. She did not hesitate, she glanced neither to right nor left, but went straight to the house occupied by Mr. Wynne, and rang the bell. A moment later the door was opened, and she disappeared inside. The detective mopped his face with tremulous joy.
“Doris!” exclaimed Mr. Wynne, as the veiled girl entered the room where he sat. “Doris, my dear girl, what are you doing here?”
He arose and went toward her. She tore off the heavy veil impatiently, and lifted her moist eyes to his. There was suffering in them, uneasiness—and more than that.
“Have you heard from him—out there?” she demanded.
“Not to-day, no,” he responded. “Why did you come here?”
“Gene, I can’t stand it,” she burst out passionately. “I’m worried to death. I can’t hear a word, and—I’m worried to death.”
Mr. Wynne wondered if she, too, had seen the morning papers. He stared at her gravely for an instant, then turned, crumpled up the section of newspaper with its glaring head-lines and dropped it into a waste-basket.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
“I telephoned twice yesterday,” she rushed on quickly, pleadingly, “and once last night and again this morning. There was no—no answer. Gene, I couldn’t stand it. I had to come.”
“It’s only that he didn’t happen to be within hearing of the telephone bell,” he assured her. But her steadfast, accusing eyes read more than that in his face, and her hands trembled on his arm.
“I’m afraid, Gene, I’m afraid,” she declared desperately. “Suppose—suppose something has happened?”
“It’s absurd,” and he attempted to laugh off her uneasiness. “Why, nothing could have happened.”
“All those millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds, Gene,” she reminded him, “and he is—I shouldn’t have left him alone.”
“Why, my dear Doris,” and Mr. Wynne gathered the slender, trembling figure in his arms protectingly, “not one living soul, except you and I, knows that they are there. There’s no incentive to robbery, my dear—a poor, shabby little cottage like that. There is not the slightest danger.”
“There is always danger, Gene,” she contradicted. “It makes me shudder just to think of it. He is so old and so feeble, simple as a child, and utterly helpless if anything should happen. Then, when I didn’t hear from him after trying so many times over the telephone—I’m afraid, Gene, I’m afraid,” she concluded desperately.
The long-pent-up tears came, and she buried her face on his shoulder. He stood silent, with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
This, and the thing in the newspaper there! And evidently she had not seen that! It was not wise that she should see it just yet.
“That day I took the horrid things from you in the cab I was awfully frightened,” she continued sobbingly. “I felt that every one I passed knew I had them; and you can’t imagine what a relief it was when I took them back out there and left them. And now when I think that something may have happened to him!” She paused, then raised her tear-dimmed eyes to his face. “He is all I have in the world now, Gene, except you. Already the hateful things have cost the lives of my father and my brother, and now if he—Or you—Oh, my God, it would kill me! I hate them, hate them!”
She was shaken by a paroxysm of sobs. Mr. Wynne led her to a chair, and she dropped into it wearily, with her face in her hands.
“Nothing can have happened, Doris,” he repeated gently. “I sent a message out there in duplicate only a few minutes ago. In a couple of hours, now, we shall be getting an answer. Now, don’t begin to cry,” he added helplessly.
“And if you don’t get an answer?” she insisted.
“I shall get an answer,” he declared positively. There was a long pause. “And when I get that answer, Doris,” he resumed, again becoming very grave, “you will see how unwise, how dangerous even, it was for you to come here this way. I know it’s hard, dear,” he supplemented apologetically, “but it was only for the week, you know; and now I don’t see how you can go away from here again.”
“Go away?” she repeated wonderingly. “Why shouldn’t I go away? I was very careful to veil myself when I came—no one saw me enter, I am sure. Why can’t I go away again?”
Mr. Wynne paced the length of the room twice, with troubled brow.
“You don’t understand, dear,” he said quietly, as he paused before her. “From the moment I left Mr. Latham’s office last Thursday I have been under constant surveillance. I’m followed wherever I go—to my office, to luncheon, to the theater, everywhere; and day and night, day and night, there are two men watching this house, and two other men watching at my office. They tamper with my correspondence, trace my telephone calls, question my servants, quiz my clerks. You don’t understand, dear,” he said again.
“But why should they do all this?” she asked curiously. “Why should they—”
“I had expected it all, of course,” he interrupted, “and it doesn’t disturb me in the least. I planned for months to anticipate every emergency; I know every detective who is watching me by name and by sight; and all my plans have gone perfectly until now. This is why it was necessary for me to keep away from out there as it was for you to keep away from here; why we could not afford to take chances by an interchange of letters or by telephone calls. When I left you in the cab I knew you would get away safely, because they did not know you were there, in the first place; and then it was the beginning of the chase and I forced them to center their attention on me. But now it different. Come here to the window a minute.”
He led her across the room unresistingly. On the opposite side of the street, staring at the house, was a man.
“That man is a private detective,” Mr. Wynne informed her. “His name is Sutton, and he is only one of thirty or forty whose sole business in life, right now, is to watch me, to keep track of and follow any person who comes here. He saw you enter, and you couldn’t escape him going out. There’s another on the roof of the house next door. His name is Claflin. These men, or others from the same agency, are here all the time. There are two more at my office downtown; still others are searching customs records, examining the books of the express companies, probing into my private affairs. And they’re all in the employ of the men with whom I am dealing. Do you understand now?”
“I didn’t dream of such a thing,” the girl faltered slowly. “I knew, of course, that—Gene, I shouldn’t have come if—if only I could have heard from him.”
“My dear girl, it’s a big game we are playing—a hundred-million-dollar game! And we shall win it, unless—we shall win it, in spite of them. Naturally the diamond dealers don’t want to be compelled to put up one hundred million dollars. They reason that if the stones I showed them came from new fields, and the supply is unlimited, as I told them, that the diamond market is on the verge of collapse, anyway; and as they look at it they are compelled to know where they came from. As a matter of fact, if they did know, or if the public got one inkling of the truth, the diamond market would be wrecked, and all the diamond dealers in the world working together couldn’t prevent it. If they succeed in doing this thing they feel they must do, they will only bring disaster upon themselves. It would do no good to tell them so; I merely laid my plans and am letting them alone. So, you see, my dear, it is a big game—a big game!”
CHAPTER XI
THE SILENT BELL
He stood looking at her with earnest thoughtful eyes. Suddenly the woman-soul within her awoke in a surging, inexplicable wave of emotion which almost overcame her; and after it came something of realization of the great fight he was making for her—for her, and the aged, feeble grandfather waiting patiently out there. He loved her, this master among men, and she sighed contentedly. For the moment the maddening anxiety that brought her here was forgotten; there was only the ineffable sweetness of seeing him again. She extended her hands to him impulsively, and he kissed them both.
“The difficulty of you leaving here,” he went on after a little, “is that you would be followed, and within two hours these men would know all about you—where you are stopping, how long you have been there; they would know of your daily telephone messages to your grandfather, and then, inevitably, they would appear out there, and learn all the rest of it. It doesn’t matter how closely they keep watch of me. My plans are all made, I know I am watched, and make no mistakes. But you!”
“So I should not have come?” she questioned. “I’m sorry.”
