The jacques futrelle meg.., p.57
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack, page 57
“The wire was dead then. Central didn’t know the number. There was no way to get that number save by the tedious process of testing the wires in the exchange, and that might have taken days. It took only two hours or so, fortunately; but I got the number at last from which I was called; that is, I got a wire which was inexplicably dead, and assumed the rest. The number of that wire was fortyone-seventeen. The records showed the street and number of the house where it came from. Therefore I went there. Before I went I took the precaution of calling up police headquarters to see if any report of a murder or attempted murder or anything unusual had come in. Nothing had come in. This fact in itself was elucidating, because vaguely it indicated that I had been called, rather than the police, because—well, perhaps because it was not desirable for the police to know.
“Well, as I explained, I searched the house; and by the way, Mr. Mallory, I don’t know if you know the advantages of always holding your dark lantern as far away from your body as possible when going into dangerous places; because if there is danger, a shot, say, the natural impulse of the person who shoots is to aim at the light. Incidentally this precaution saved my life in the cellar, when I feigned death. But I’m going a little ahead of myself.
“I found telephone number fortyone-seventeen, and there was a heavy coat of dust on the receiver. Obviously it had not been recently used. The line was dead, it is true, but the instrument was in perfect condition. There was no sign of a bullet mark anywhere round or near it. If the bullet that was fired had killed the man who had been using the line, it would not have deadened the wire; therefore instantly I saw that the line had been tapped somewhere; that this instrument had been cut off from it, and the instrument which was demolished was the one on the branch wire.
“I knew this, and was going to the window to see if the wire led up or down, when I heard some one approaching. I first supposed that the person, whoever it was, was in the room with me, the steps were so distinct; but when I flashed the light, intending at least to see him, I knew he was above me. One loses the sense of direction of sound, particularly in the dark; and it is an incontestable fact that footsteps, or any sound above, can be heard more clearly than the same sound below. Therefore I knew that some one was in the room above me. For what purpose? Possibly to disconnect the branch wire on the telephone line.
“I waited until the person, whoever it was, came down and went his way; then I found the wire, and saw where the connection had been made on it. Then I went straight down to the subcellar. There I saw this Folsom lying on the ground, bound. He was not gagged; yet he didn’t answer my questions; obviously because he knew if he did he would place himself in danger. The shot was fired at me, or rather at my light, and I went through the farce which ultimately placed me in a coal bin. Then I began to get a definite idea of things from the conversation, when Cranston’s name was mentioned several times.
“Folsom persisted in an outspoken declaration to reveal everything he knew, including the story of my murder. He insisted until he placed himself in grave danger, and then, under cover of utter darkness, I extended one hand and pinched him twice on the ankle. He knew then that I was not dead, that I had heard, and did the very thing I wanted him to do—begged for his life. It was a bit of justifiable duplicity. I knew if he was the man his every act so far had indicated that he would humbug Cranston and the other man into letting him go, or at least not committing another murder. Subsequent developments showed that this conjecture was correct.
“From the coal bin I went back to the subcellar, knowing positively now that there would be no one there. Those men were frightened when they left me, and men run from fright. What they would do with young Folsom I didn’t know. There, with my electric light, I found the branch telephone. The transmitter box had been ruined by a shot, as I imagined. So, thus far at least, the logic of the affair was taking me some place.
“And then I followed that tunnel through the subway into another tunnel. I should not have ventured into that second tunnel had I not been fairly confident that no one else was there. In that I was mistaken. I don’t know now, but I imagine that young Folsom was temporarily being held prisoner there, and that possibly Cranston was on guard. Anyway, there was a fight, and the trap door was open—the trap door into the vault. And I don’t know yet whether Folsom and Cranston, if they were there, even knew I was at hand. Certainly the trap door, once closed behind me, was not opened again. And you know the rest of it.” Again there was a pause, and the scientist twiddled his fingers idly.
“Now it all comes down to this,” he concluded at last. “Cranston dragged Burge in to the affair—Burge is a mechanical engineer, and a good one was needed to do this work—they rented the house, and went to work. It took weeks, perhaps months, to do it all. Folsom in some way learned of it, and he is an honest man. He took a desperate means of getting the information into my hands, instead of the hands of the police. Why the telephone was in the house I don’t know—perhaps it was already there, perhaps they had it put in. Anyway, of your prisoners, Mr. Mallory, this young Folsom is guilty only of an attempt to shield his uncle, Burge, while Cranston is the ringleader, and Burge the man who achieved the immense task of getting under the vault of the bank.
“This vault has a floor of cement, cut into small squares. The trap door is in that floor, and so perfectly concealed in the lines of the squares that it is invisible unless submitted to a close scrutiny, just as the doors in the tiled walls of the subway were invisible to a casual observer. They overcame tremendous difficulties, these two men, in cutting through the immense foundation of the vault, even the steel itself, but remember that they worked at night for weeks and weeks, and were making no mistakes. They did not actually rob the bank because, I imagine, they were awaiting the deposit there of some immense sum. Is that correct, Mr. Hall?”
President Hall started suddenly. “Yes, in a week or so we were expecting a shipment of gold from Europe—nearly three million dollars,” he explained. “Think of it!”
Detective Mallory whistled. “Phew! What a haul it would have been!”
“Now, Mr. Mallory, either of these three men, if properly approached, will confess the whole thing substantially as I have told it,” remarked The Thinking Machine. “But I would advise that Folsom be allowed to go. He is really a very decent sort of young man.”
When they had all gone except Hatch, the eminent man of science went over and laid one hand upon the report’s shoulder and squinted straight into his eyes for a moment. “You know, Mr. Hatch,” he said, and there was a strange note in the irritable voice, “my first fear, when the telephone call came, was that it was you. You must be careful—very careful, always.”
MYSTERY OF THE FLAMING PHANTOM
I
Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, stood beside the City Editor’s desk, smoking and waiting patiently for that energetic gentleman to dispose of several matters in hand. City Editors always have several matters in hand, for the profession of keeping count of the pulse-beat of the world is a busy one. Finally this City Editor emerged from a mass of other things and picked up a sheet of paper on which he had scribbled some strange hieroglyphics, these representing his interpretation of the art of writing.
“Afraid of ghosts?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” Hatch replied, smiling a little. “I never happened to meet one.”
“Well, this looks like a good story,” the City Editor explained. “It’s a haunted house. Nobody can live in it; all sorts of strange happenings, demoniacal laughter, groans and things. House is owned by Ernest Weston, a broker. Better jump down and take a look at it. If it is promising, you might spend a night in it for a Sunday story. Not afraid, are you?”
“I never heard of a ghost hurting anyone,” Hatch replied, still smiling a little. “If this one hurts me it will make the story better.”
Thus attention was attracted to the latest creepy mystery of a small town by the sea which in the past had not been wholly lacking in creepy mysteries.
Within two hours Hatch was there. He readily found the old Weston house, as it was known, a two-story, solidly built frame structure, which had stood for sixty or seventy years high upon a cliff overlooking the sea, in the center of a land plot of ten or twelve acres. From a distance it was imposing, but close inspection showed that, outwardly, at least, it was a ramshackle affair.
Without having questioned anyone in the village, Hatch climbed the steep cliff road to the old house, expecting to find some one who might grant him permission to inspect it. But no one appeared; a settled melancholy and gloom seemed to overspread it; all the shutters were closed forbiddingly.
There was no answer to his vigorous knock on the front door, and he shook the shutters on a window without result. Then he passed around the house to the back. Here he found a door and dutifully hammered on it. Still no answer. He tried it, and passed in. He stood in the kitchen, damp, chilly and darkened by the closed shutters.
One glance about this room and he went on through a back hall to the dining-room, now deserted, but at one time a comfortable and handsomely furnished place. Its hardwood floor was covered with dust; the chill of disuse was all-pervading. There was no furniture, only the litter which accumulates of its own accord.
From this point, just inside the dining-room door, Hatch began a sort of study of the inside architecture of the place. To his left was a door, the butler’s pantry. There was a passage through, down three steps into the kitchen he had just left.
Straight before him, set in the wall, between two windows, was a large mirror, seven, possibly eight, feet tall and proportionately wide. A mirror of the same size was set in the wall at the end of the room to his left. From the dining-room he passed through a wide archway into the next room. This archway made the two rooms almost as one. This second, he presumed, had been a sort of living-room, but here, too, was nothing save accumulated litter, an old-fashioned fireplace and two long mirrors. As he entered, the fireplace was to his immediate left, one of the large mirrors was straight ahead of him and the other was to his right.
Next to the mirror in the end was a passageway of a little more than usual size which had once been closed with a sliding door. Hatch went through this into the reception-hall of the old house. Here, to his right, was the main hall, connected with the reception-hall by an archway, and through this archway he could see a wide, old fashioned stairway leading up. To his left was a door, of ordinary size, closed. He tried it and it opened. He peered into a big room beyond. This room had been the library. It smelled of books and damp wood. There was nothing here—not even mirrors.
Beyond the main hall lay only two rooms, one a drawing-room of the generous proportions our old folks loved, with its gilt all tarnished and its fancy decorations covered with dust. Behind this, toward the back of the house, was a small parlor. There was nothing here to attract his attention, and he went upstairs. As he went he could see through the archway into the reception-hall as far as the library door, which he had left closed.
Upstairs were four or five roomy suites. Here, too, in small rooms designed for dressing, he saw the owner’s passion for mirrors again. As he passed through room after room he fixed the general arrangement of it all in his mind, and later on paper, to study it, so that, if necessary, he could leave any part of the house in the dark. He didn’t know but what this might be necessary, hence his care—the same care he had evidenced downstairs.
After another casual examination of the lower floor, Hatch went out the back way to the barn. This stood a couple of hundred feet back of the house and was of more recent construction. Above, reached by outside stairs, were apartments intended for the servants. Hatch looked over these rooms, but they, too, had the appearance of not having been occupied for several years. The lower part of the barn, he found, was arranged to house half a dozen horses and three or four traps.
“Nothing here to frighten anybody,” was his mental comment as he left the old place and started back toward the village. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. His purpose was to learn then all he could of the “ghost,” and return that night for developments.
He sought out the usual village bureau of information, the town constable, a grizzled old chap of sixty years, who realized his importance as the whole police department, and who had the gossip and information, more or less distorted, of several generations at his tongue’s end.
The old man talked for two hours—he was glad to talk—seemed to have been longing for just such a glorious opportunity as the reporter offered. Hatch sifted out what he wanted, those things which might be valuable in his story.
It seemed, according to the constable, that the Weston house had not been occupied for five years, since the death of the father of Ernest Weston, present owner. Two weeks before the reporter’s appearance there Ernest Weston had come down with a contractor and looked over the old place.
“We understand here,” said the constable, judicially, “that Mr. Weston is going to be married soon, and we kind of thought he was having the house made ready for his Summer home again.”
“Whom do you understand he is to marry?” asked Hatch, for this was news.
“Miss Katherine Everard, daughter of Curtis Everard, a banker up in Boston,” was the reply. “I know he used to go around with her before the old man died, and they say since she came out in Newport he has spent a lot of time with her.”
“Oh, I see,” said Hatch. “They were to marry and come here?”
“That’s right,” said the constable. “But I don’t know when, since this ghost story has come up.”
“Oh, yes, the ghost,” remarked Hatch. “Well, hasn’t the work of repairing begun?”
“No, not inside,” was the reply. “There’s been some work done on the grounds—in the daytime—but not much of that, and I kind of think it will be a long time before it’s all done.”
“What is the spook story, anyway?”
“Well,” and the old constable rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It seems sort of funny. A few days after Mr. Weston was down here a gang of laborers, mostly Italians, came down to work and decided to sleep in the house—sort of camp out—until they could repair a leak in the barn and move in there. They got here late in the afternoon and didn’t do much that day but move into the house, all upstairs, and sort of settle down for the night. About one o’clock they heard some sort of noise downstairs, and finally all sorts of a racket and groans and yells, and they just naturally came down to see what it was.
“Then they saw the ghost. It was in the reception-hall, some of ’em said, others said it was in the library, but anyhow it was there, and the whole gang left just as fast as they knew how. They slept on the ground that night. Next day they took out their things and went back to Boston. Since then nobody here has heard from ’em.”
“What sort of a ghost was it?”
“Oh, it was a man ghost, about nine feet high, and he was blazing from head to foot as if he was burning up,” said the constable. “He had a long knife in his hand and waved it at ’em. They didn’t stop to argue. They ran, and as they ran they heard the ghost a-laughing at them.”
“I should think he would have been amused,” was Hatch’s somewhat sarcastic comment. “Has anybody who lives in the village seen the ghost?”
“No; we’re willing to take their word for it, I suppose,” was the grinning reply, “because there never was a ghost there before. I go up and look over the place every afternoon, but everything seems to be all right, and I haven’t gone there at night. It’s quite a way off my beat,” he hastened to explain.
“A man ghost with a long knife,” mused Hatch “Blazing, seems to be burning up, eh? That sounds exciting. Now, a ghost who knows his business never appears except where there has been a murder. Was there ever a murder in that house?”
“When I was a little chap I heard there was a murder or something there, but I suppose if I don’t remember it nobody else here does,” was the old man’s reply. “It happened one Winter when the Westons weren’t there. There was something, too, about jewelry and diamonds, but I don’t remember just what it was.”
“Indeed?” asked the reporter.
“Yes, something about somebody trying to steal a lot of jewelry—a hundred thousand dollars’ worth. I know nobody ever paid much attention to it. I just heard about it when I was a boy, and that was at least fifty years ago.”
“I see,” said the reporter.
That night at nine o’clock, under cover of perfect blackness, Hatch climbed the cliff toward the Weston house. At one o’clock he came racing down the hill, with frequent glances over his shoulder. His face was pallid with a fear which he had never known before and his lips were ashen. Once in his room in the village hotel Hutchinson Hatch, the nerveless young man, lighted a lamp with trembling hands and sat with wide, staring eyes until the dawn broke through the east.
He had seen the flaming phantom.
II
It was ten o’clock that morning when Hutchinson Hatch called on Professor Augustus S. F.
X. Van Dusen—The Thinking Machine. The reporter’s face was still white, showing that he had slept little, if at all. The Thinking Machine squinted at him a moment through his thick glasses, then dropped into a chair.
“Well?” he queried.
“I’m almost ashamed to come to you, Professor,” Hatch confessed, after a minute, and there was a little embarrassed hesitation in his speech. “It’s another mystery.”
“Sit down and tell me about it.”
Hatch took a seat opposite the scientist.
“I’ve been frightened,” he said at last, with a sheepish grin; “horribly, awfully frightened. I came to you to know what frightened me.”
“Dear me! Dear me!” exclaimed The Thinking Machine. “What is it?”
