Chapter IV: Part 4

“Humph! This is getting interesting. Here am I, a live newspaper sprout, in the dead centre of a bustling and work-a-day American city, caught as sure as the sun shines, in the mysteries of a diplomatic maze between two great nations, and probably three, that is as twisted as a mediæval intrigue. At this moment, the whereabouts of little me and my message, are probably of as much importance as the comings and goings of the Czar, the Mikado, or the First Gentleman himself. But the next gay cat that tries any scoraying on me, will get the third degree right in Fogarty’s back room.”

The limousine, the traffic jam relieved, pulled slowly ahead, but Lanagan could have sworn that the benign gentleman within, just before it did, turned fully upon him with a scrutiny of deliberate coolness. It was a casual thing, such as might have happened to anyone; but it appeared to Lanagan that there was a look of secret understanding in the other’s eyes, as they dropped twice to the stick-pin and returned to Lanagan’s face, as though in inquiry. Lanagan took the number of the car, 89,776, and then returned to headquarters. He wanted to see from the police register to whom machine 89,776 belonged.

When he ran through the pages to the number, the ragtime air he was whistling--very incorrectly--quickened in tempo.

“89,776--owner--Boris Koshloff--2224 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco.”

“Aha! Either I am hearing scorayas in my mind, and either everybody that looks at me excites my suspicions, or else the Russian Mr. Koshloff is a link in the very plain chain that is stretching from me and my pin to His Majesty Nicholas, at St. Petersburg on one end, and the President in Washington at the other. Frankly, it looks preposterous that if Koshloff is on the job, he would use his own machine. Then again--what if that is the method chosen to point my path to me? If this message is to anyone in San Francisco, they must know by this time that it has gone astray. Barring my own coincidence in bungling into State secrets via ‘Kid’ Monahan’s touch, and his taste for the really distinctive in jewelry, it appears that everything is working out on a very remarkable and finished system. I shall pay Mr. Koshloff a visit. He has been too much of a figure of mystery in this city anyway.”

Boris Koshloff, a wealthy Russian portrait painter, had dropped into San Francisco with introductions, some months before. He had earned a high repute for the elegance of the soirées given at his house, and had figured in the public prints, moreover, in other ways. On one occasion, a burglar, found prowling within the Koshloff’s drawing room, had been shot and killed by Koshloff, who thereupon was lionised to a considerable extent by the neurotic and sentimental elements of his circle. He had figured again, when a household servant had fallen from his second story window, receiving frightful injuries. Although during his raving in delirium the servant had cried frequently “spare me! spare me!” and had led some cynical reporters on the hospital beat to suspect foul play, nothing was ever proved in face of Koshloff’s explanation that the servant fell in cleaning windows. After the man recovered sufficiently, he was removed by Koshloff to a private hospital, and there he passed from the scope of the newsgatherers and hence from public attention.

Now, it might be well to say here, and before the reader is too far carried away by the story, that the curious chronicles of the happenings about to be recorded must rest for all time, for their authentication, in five quarters: the Russian government, the American Department of State, Jack Lanagan, “King” Monahan, and myself.

It is not probable that either the Russian or American governments would affirm the truth of the facts recorded. As for the rest--the extraordinary series of complications following the receipts of the stick-pin, the use of such a device as the stick-pin, as the connecting link in a grave international crisis, the use of the personal courier rather than cipher-code--they must all be accepted on my word, the word of Lanagan, or the word of “King” Monahan, who first received the pin. To such as are unwilling to accept that proof, the story must be read solely as a bit of fiction.

Lanagan strolled back to the _Enquirer_. I had just finished several yards of real estate junk for the business office, and was as grouchy as the brother of the tribe always is, when assigned to do business office write-ups.

“Fine line for an able-bodied reporter,” said Lanagan cynically, looking over my shoulder. “Turn that rot in and come with me and be a real reporter. I’ll give you a story that will make the A. P. wires hum to the four corners of the earth--provided my hunch don’t go altogether wrong.”

He spoke to Sampson, telling him that there was a bare chance of something turning up on the Russo-Japanese situation, and asked for me to be detailed to accompany him.

“Good,” replied Sampson, “get after it. We haven’t broken a story on that yet. The eastern papers are having a lot of stuff on the Secretary of State, though. He has dropped out of sight; the A. P. is bringing in a story broken by the _Sun_, that his supposed sickness was the bunk, and that as a matter of fact he has been out of Washington for a week. Supposed to be in New York on some confab with the Russian Ambassador who is at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Ambassador denies any such conference. It’s a hot yarn. Try to turn up an end on it out here.”

Lanagan suggested supper and as we lingered over our coffee and cigars, he briefly outlined the situation. I read the astounding message and must confess that I was stirred to a very unprofessional pitch of excitement. Before taking a car for Pacific Avenue, we dropped in at police headquarters where Lanagan met Chief Leslie, that shrewd thief-taker, and they were in earnest talk for ten minutes. In his police reporting Lanagan had the superlative advantage of Leslie’s confidence. That famous chief had indeed as high a regard for Lanagan’s work as for that of his own men. Leslie stood many a “roast” from the opposition papers for his habit of programming with Lanagan, and for turning over his men to the service of the newspaper man more than once.

As we rode to our destination Lanagan instructed me to take a position, well concealed, opposite the Koshloff house, wait until midnight, and then if he did not appear, telephone to headquarters where Brady and Wilson, two of Leslie’s best men, would be in readiness with the police automobile. We were to force the house.

“For it’s just possible,” said Lanagan lightly, “that I can’t escape delivering my packet. If they once drop to me, it may be interesting. That ‘burglar’ shot by Koshloff takes on rather a new importance. Likewise that foreigner, who was all broken up in an accidental fall from Koshloff’s second story window. I rather look forward to a run in with this gentleman of mystery and his retinue of ‘scorayers.’ But don’t wait after midnight. Brady will have a search warrant on some ’phony charge or other, and you can tear right in.”

We parted company several blocks from the Koshloff mansion. It was nearing nine-thirty. I found a hiding-place almost directly opposite, slipped in, and in a few moments saw Lanagan walk briskly up the stairs of the Russian’s house. He was whistling a bit of ragtime; as usual off key. His insouciance cheered me. Frankly, I was nervous; a weakness I cannot seem to overcome. I have never failed Lanagan yet at a crisis, and I suppose, on results, am as brave as he. But in my own heart I know I am not. Possibly gifted with a little more imagination than he, I can see further; picture the slab at the morgue, the gang in the police reporter’s room chipping in for a floral piece while somebody tries to relieve the strain by saying something funny; Johnny O’Grady or Jim Bradley, or some of the others of the old guard delegated to the pleasant detail of carrying the news home; it was always the same. I always had that faculty, as Hamlet says, of thinking too precisely on the event.

The door opened to Lanagan’s ring, and he passed from my sight to be ushered along the main hall, down a flight of steps, through another long hall, carpeted richly, with niches here and there holding exquisite statuary, to a billiard-room panelled in richest mahogany. From the conduct of his guide it was apparent that he was expected. In the billiard-room two smooth-shaven, trim, keen-eyed men were playing a desultory game. Surmise was bulking large within Lanagan’s breast. He had seen that same type before. Secret service was stamped as indelibly upon them as his vocation is stamped upon the upper office man.

A light tattoo on a panelling, an answering tattoo, another staccato and the panel slid back and the odour of black cigars was heavy on the air as Lanagan stepped into a small compartment, the panel slipping noiselessly shut behind him as his guide disappeared. At a table were seated two men, facing him.

One of the two he recognised: Koshloff. But the other! Lanagan looked hard. There could be no mistake; those features had been looming from the front pages of the papers too frequently for any mistake. Lanagan stood without speaking, but before his mind’s eye was dancing the front page of to-morrow’s _Enquirer_. He would lay a seven column lead across that page that would carry around the world.

It was Koshloff who spoke.

“You have the packet? Yes? Would you present it?”

Then, in a low voice to the other, as Lanagan calmly placed the sealskin wallet upon the table, Koshloff murmured:

“Assuredly my superiors must know their business. But I cannot comprehend the disappearance of Carlos and the transfer of the pin and packet to the stranger. It must be in order, however. Our system has never failed.”

He turned a shrewd gaze upon Lanagan, studying him intently.

“When do you return?” he asked finally.

“Just as soon as I am permitted to,” replied Lanagan with perfect truth.

“Strange,” muttered Koshloff in the other’s ear. “Peculiar. It is the answer. We have no choice. It must be in order.”

Without more ado the packet was opened and Koshloff presented the slip in silence to his companion. That man, of massive, intellectual forehead and deep set, penetrating eyes, scanned it carefully and pondered long, Koshloff watching him with half closed but eager eyes.

“Tell your Imperial Master,” said the other, turning sharply upon Lanagan and speaking with clean incisiveness, “that you met the Secretary of State in person, and that the Secretary, speaking for his excellency the President, says, that the answer of the President is--yes.”

The Secretary of State, ten days disappeared from Washington, out here on the western fringe of the continent, pledging the attitude of the United States in the threatened Russo-Japanese conflict and not a line in any paper in the world to indicate the whereabouts of the Secretary, his business, or the definite attitude of the United States in the impending conflict!

It was the story of a newspaper man’s lifetime.

“Carry the verbal message, or transmit it to your relief,” instructed Koshloff. “Conditions may not make packets safe by the time you reach the Orient. You may go. You have funds? Your pin is safe?”

“I have,” said Lanagan, who, with two days to go to pay day, had about sixty-five cents. He indicated the pin with a gesture and turned on his heel for the panel, to be stopped by a sudden muffled uproar from the billiard-room, a sound of excited, shrill cries, of scuffling.

Neither the Secretary nor Koshloff moved a muscle; neither did Lanagan. He was thoroughly in possession of himself. Two panels swiftly and noiselessly slid open at the farther wall of the room, and two smooth-shaven, trim, keen-eyed men stepped into the room alertly and took their places beside the Secretary’s chair.

“Mr. Secretary travels with the entire secret service bureau,” Lanagan found time to comment to himself.

There came a tattoo on the panel from the billiard-room. The Secretary held up his hand for silence and motioned one of the secret service agents, who stepped noiselessly to the panel and listened. The tapping came again.

“Answer,” commanded the Secretary. “It is over, whatever it was.”

The panel slid open. Through the aperture came one of the billiard players, flashing a quick, steely glance upon Lanagan.

“Balked, by the eternal!” shot through Lanagan’s mind. “The owner of that pin has shown up. It’s now or never.” He stepped casually to the panel; it was a fine chance. Once through there, he could make a fight for the front door,--and the seven column exclusive in the _Enquirer_.

Directly before him, fairly filling the space of the panel, was the other billiard player. It was quick action. Lanagan shot out his right for the man’s jaw; but his arm got about half way. A grip like an iron clamp had him just above the elbow. He was whirled face about, a secret service man on either side.

As though nothing had happened, the man who had first entered through the panel door spoke:

“There is a person outside somewhat excited who wishes to speak to Mr. Koshloff. He said to say it was Carlos.”

Koshloff leaped for the doorway and in a moment more had dragged fairly by the hair of his head, a wild-eyed, dark-visaged person who, when he straightened up, perceived the pin in Lanagan’s tie and made a tigerish spring for him, a dirk gleaming in a half arc as he leaped. But the right fist of one of the secret agents met him en route, and the frenzied Carlos was disarmed. He staggered to his feet, striving vainly to get at Lanagan.

“Thief! Robber! Death to him! Death to him who dares rob the messenger of His Imperial Majesty, Nicholas!”

“The gentleman appears to be teething,” remarked Lanagan.

Koshloff pressed a button and two swart giants appeared. He indicated Carlos with a nod. “He wore the pin, but he has failed in his obligation. He must receive discipline.” The miserable wretch fell to his knees with upraised hands, supplicating.

“Ah, no, Sire! My wife! My babies! Ten minutes too late, or I would have had it back and this sneak thief’s life!”

But Koshloff frowned impatiently and in a second more Carlos was whisked away, a wierd scream floating back wearily from some hidden corridor to indicate the terror that gripped him. There was something in that scream of fear of more than the knout. As it rang through Lanagan’s ears, he recalled the crossed axes and the hangman’s noose of the pin. It was clear enough. There would be another burglar killed. He wheeled upon Koshloff.

“Professor Koshloff, or whoever or whatever you are,” he said in a tone of deadly acidity, “that man is turned up out of here unharmed by so much as a scratch, or I’ll have you snaked into the city prison within twenty-four hours, and some other very general suspicions will incidentally be given an airing. You may be the right eye or the right hand of His Serene Majesty Nicholas, but I’m Jack Lanagan of the San Francisco _Enquirer_, and in my own particular bailiwick, something of a czar myself. You’re a long way from Russia right now. You’re in little old San Francisco. Did you get me?”

The catlike quality of Lanagan’s eyes to glow under the stress of anger or great excitement, exhibited itself. His face in anger was not what was calculated to put infants to slumber. He had forgotten the Secretary for the moment; the agents had all withdrawn. He was recalled to him when that person, taking his cigar from his teeth and gazing upon its ash contemplatively, said in even tones:

“I think possibly you are unduly exercising yourself. Something of a Czar?” The smooth voice went on. “Indeed, and it is a pleasure to meet the Czar of the bailiwick of San Francisco,” and the Secretary bowed profoundly and gravely. “Now let us talk business, Mr. Lanagan.

“As for Carlos, his case is absolutely ex-territorial so far as we are concerned. Please inform me how you came by that packet and pin--eavesdropping in matters of State? Do you young men of the press hold nothing sacred? Not your country’s peace or the peace of other nations?”

“So far as that goes,” retorted Lanagan, coolly, “and not condescending to take note of your ‘eavesdropping,’ we young men of the press have a duty to our papers which our papers in turn owe to the people. In this case it is a clear duty. By what right do you or any other man, president or not, arrogate to yourself the power to hold this secret caucus, resting your country’s stand in this grave affair entirely upon the judgment of one or two men? You are the servant of the people. Let the whole people know where you are now and what you are doing. Get the sentiment of your country before you plunge into this agreement. I personally most emphatically disagree with the answer you are sending back. The public are as likely to think my way as yours.”

The Secretary looked bored. “It is not possible.”

“With this exception,” grimly. Lanagan turned for the panel and sought the spring. “It is ten minutes after twelve,” he said laconically. “I must leave here. Open the door, if you please.”

Neither man moved. The Secretary said:

“We have not quite covered our ground. You have not answered my question.”

“The pin I received from a friend who claimed to have taken it from a pawnshop. The packet was put in my pocket by a swarthy man who met me on the street and who said ‘scoraya.’ So did another chap in Koshloff’s automobile. I wanted to see the thing through that so accidentally came my way.

“Now, when I came in here I did not come alone. I am fully aware that nations, planning wars to cost hundreds or thousands of lives, would not scruple at one. My friends should be breaking in here now. I told them to give me until twelve o’clock.

“So far as your man Carlos is concerned, I can only surmise that he was to meet a courier at the steamer, but had his pin stolen from him. The courier then wandered the streets seeking the pin, and by happy chance tumbled against me wearing it, and likewise wandering the streets. The other ‘scoraya’ boy I presume was one of Koshloff’s secret service men, sent out to see that the messenger reached here safely. He must have likewise picked me up on the matinée promenade by accident.”

“Correctly reasoned,” murmured Koshloff. “And I believe you have cleared the situation. A most remarkable series of coincidences; but then, anything may happen in this remarkable city of yours.”

“Do I go peaceably?” asked Lanagan, glancing at his watch. His voice hardened a trifle. It was twelve-thirty.

“After--ah--a bit,” purred Koshloff, and the next instant was gazing coolly into Lanagan’s police Colt.

Koshloff lifted his hand with an indolent gesture, to push the muzzle to one side, took a look into Lanagan’s eyes, thought better of it, and turned with mock deprecation to the Secretary. That gentleman was watching Lanagan with frank admiration.

“We’ve got a place for you, Mr. Lanagan,” he said, heartily, “any time you care to come to Washington.”

Lanagan was nettled. Here were keen, quick-witted, level-headed men poking quiet fun at his spectacular display. Because they were of the quick intuitions of the exceptional mind, they fathomed his mind and knew that he would not shoot. Lanagan felt rather boyish for a fleeting second; got himself in perspective, as it were, and grinned at the grotesqueness of the situation. Then that seven-column scare head in the _Enquirer_--the exclusive that was to hum around the world, focussed before him.

“Open that door!”

Koshloff arose then. There is something singularly compelling about a blue-nosed revolver six inches from your temple, regardless of any psychological conviction you may have that the man is not going to use it. But whether Lanagan would have carried the situation through successfully cannot be answered. For at that moment there came a tapping on the panel. Koshloff stopped at a signal from Lanagan. The tapping came again. The Secretary spoke:

“The situation is becoming strained, however diverting it may be to all of us. For my part, here are three men, all presumably of minds trained to meet sudden exigencies, and yet no one of us can solve this one. But other matters seem to be pressing.” The tapping was becoming more insistent. “Let us call a truce, Mr. Lanagan, of precisely ten minutes. At the end of that time I give you my word we will return matters to just their present condition. It is agreeable?”

“Absolutely,” said Lanagan, pocketing his revolver.

Koshloff sprang across the room and tapped. He was answered to his satisfaction, for the panel slid open, and after a whispered consultation with one of the secret service men, Koshloff stood from before the panel and--

I, Norton, my hands neatly manacled behind me, was ushered into the room.

Never will I forget the look on Lanagan’s face. For at least three seconds, he was jolted out of his traditional immobility. His look was mingled alarm, surprise and amusement.

“Poor Norrie!” half-banteringly, half-serious. “Poor old blunderbuss. I have certainly got him in a fine mess, him and his sick wife at home.”

I was so glad to see that nothing had happened to him, that I paid little attention to the other two for the moment. I was telling him how I waited until 12:15 and had just determined on telephoning headquarters for Brady and Wilson when, standing as I supposed well concealed, I was suddenly pinioned by two figures that seemed to start up from the earth, handcuffed and hustled across the street into the room where we now were.

“I must compliment you on your organisation,” said Lanagan ironically, bowing toward Koshloff. Around that gentleman’s bearded lips played the faintest trace of a mocking smile. I could fancy how that smile ground into the proud soul of Lanagan.

The Secretary was growing impatient.

“The ten minutes, Mr. Lanagan?” he queried.

Lanagan turned and looked at me a long time. “You should have obeyed orders,” he said finally. “I told you to give me until twelve; not twelve-fifteen.”

It was the first time in his life Lanagan had ever criticised me, and it cut to the quick. I knew then how bitter his disappointment was.

“What is your ‘proposition?’” he said, turning abruptly to the Secretary, whom I had at once recognised as well as Koshloff.

“I haven’t any ‘proposition,’ Mr. Lanagan. It is simply that neither the Russian government nor our government can afford to let the world power know that the Secretary of State journeyed, incognito, across the American continent, to reach a diplomatic agreement with Russia. Don’t you realise what the publication of that unprecedented thing would mean?”

“My only proposition is a declaration. You hear most important information. It would undoubtedly make a splendid news sensation to-morrow morning. But you cannot possibly see the great dangers you would involve your country in. You might as well sit on a barrel of giant powder, and drop your cigar and expect to save so much as a collar button, as to print that story now and avoid war.

“My being here was absolutely a matter imperative for certain sufficient reasons. It was necessary that I present myself to Mr. Koshloff in person. That is all.

“I know newspaper men. Among the Washington correspondents I number many warm friends. I will take the judgment upon myself of placing you both upon your honour. If I permit you to go free from here, your lips are inviolately sealed for all time, upon the contents of that telegram. So far as I am concerned, that cannot be used until such time as this trouble has been adjusted; or, let me say, until the present administration is out of power at Washington.”

Into the stillness that followed I could distinctly hear Lanagan’s teeth grind together. Those remarkable eyes of his seemed fairly to emit a stream of fire, they blazed so fiercely upon Koshloff and the Secretary. He threw a sweeping glance around the room. It was a look for all the world like you see in the eyes of a caged tiger when he is aroused. For my part, there was a quick drop some place under my diaphragm. I was thinking of my sick wife, and the consequences to her of being held a State’s prisoner.

His hand went to his pocket and he half drew his revolver; but it was rather a subconscious act, I think, than any deliberate design to use it. For Government, after all, is a potent thing. We fight for it and die for it. It has a splendid and natural influence not to be lightly tossed from us. And here sat one of Government’s highest representatives. Lanagan’s hand dropped to his side.

“That is better,” said the Secretary. “For really, Mr. Lanagan, you cannot move from this room until we say the word. You are as helpless as though you were shackled. It is late and we have important work to do. Your answer?”

It was almost pitiable to see Lanagan then. He of a score of brilliant newspaper victories, the genius of his craft, who found no situation too difficult to solve, that striking figure in the newspaper life of the West who knew no duty save to his paper, who embodied the best and the highest ideals that tradition gives to the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate, was beaten.

The glow had left his eyes and his voice was dispirited, as he said:

“You have my word, Mr. Secretary, but on one condition: that Carlos’ life be spared, and that you start him back with your answer. It was no fault of his. There is only one man in town who could have got that pin from him, and I can hardly blame Carlos for losing it, once Kid Monahan wanted it.”

“That condition must be granted, Mr. Koshloff,” said the Secretary. Koshloff hesitated. “The wearer of the pin understands the penalty,” he began, curtly. “I know. But in this case I personally request it.” “It is granted,” said Koshloff, definitely.

Lanagan was morose and savage. The Secretary proffered cigars, which Lanagan impatiently refused.

“There is one thing that I would like, however,” he said with but faint show of graciousness, “and that is this pin. It will not be worn. I would like it as a memento; as something tangible to exhibit some day when I may tell this story, as proof, in support of, possibly, one of the most unusual experiences of myself or any other newspaper man.”

“There are but two in existence,” said Koshloff soberly. “This one belongs to our Ambassador at Washington. It was sent to me for use in receiving the imperial message. The other--is in the possession of the Czar, and will be worn by the receiving courier at St. Petersburg. The penalty attaching to the loss of the pin, either to myself or my agents are--well, they are somewhat stringent and, with the single exception of Carlos, have always been enforced.”

Lanagan snapped the patent clasp and handed the pin to Koshloff.

“You see, if I lost it,” with the slightest inflection on the pronoun, “there would be no Czar of this ‘particular bailiwick’ to pardon me as you pardoned Carlos, Mr. Koshloff.”

We walked the long distance back to town and dropped in at ----. Lanagan had not addressed a word to me. I knew better than to attempt to draw him into conversation. I could feel that he was working the thing over and over again in his mind. He suddenly burst forth passionately:

“I could have beaten them! I could have beaten them! And they didn’t convince me at that, that the story should not have been printed! There’s too much of this one-man-for-the-nation stuff in our government, anyhow.”

It was months before Lanagan told me that it was because of my wife’s feeble health that he feared to take the risk of having us both bottled up for a month, by manoeuvring further for freedom; and had added: “Merely another argument to prove that your true reporter should not marry.”

And as if to justify the truth of Lanagan’s assertion to me that the story should have been printed, within three days the Japanese fleet, scorpion-like, had struck and crippled that unsuspecting and unready Russian flotilla.

“Yah!” Lanagan had cried to me in furious disgust, as he ripped the front page of the _Enquirer_ with its seven-column war head to tatters, “Statesmen! Diplomats! Give me one live reporter, and I’ll teach the whole gang of them the right way! Do you suppose for one single, solitary, coruscating second, that if those Japs knew the Secretary was hobnobbing with the Russian envoy right here in San Francisco, that the blow would have been struck? Well, I tell you No! I wouldn’t even have had to print the message. The story of the meeting was enough.”

Well, the time limit set by the Secretary has long since expired, so here is the suppressed story of the Ambassador’s Stick-Pin, the finest, biggest, cleanest in its elements of any of his whole career, as Lanagan mourned to me more than once.

VI

WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH

VI

WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH

Sampson, city editor of the San Francisco _Enquirer_, sat scowling over the _Times_ and the _Herald_. Stripped blackly across the front pages of those rival morning papers was the unaccustomed seven-column head:

SUSPECT JAILED FOR MONTEAGLE MURDER!

“_Norton!_”

It was Sampson’s voice. When Sampson shot that curt call in his ugly voice through the swinging doors of his office I felt as though the warden was calling me from the condemned cell for the drop. Only the able-bodied newspaper man who has been trimmed hard by the men of the opposition papers can understand the sensation. It belongs in its exquisite misery solely to such as speak the language of the tribe. For the head in the _Enquirer_--my story--had been only a three-column:

POLICE ARE BAFFLED IN MONTEAGLE MYSTERY!

Sampson contemplated me coldly and long; he fairly brooded over me. But there was no outburst, and that, after all, hurt worse than if he had put me on the irons for a broiling.

Ralph Monteagle, broker, millionaire, well-known, popular, and engaged to the equally well-known and popular Helen Dennison, had been found in his office on the fourth floor of the Sutton Building, stabbed to death. No weapon was found, the door was locked, the window shut. Neither money nor valuables were taken. The knife, curiously, had been sliced once across each cheek, evidently done after death, with deliberate intent to mar the features. Monteagle had entered his offices at 9:15 o’clock on Monday evening. The watchman had discovered the crime at midnight. The system in the Sutton Building permitted an absolute check on all persons entering the building after 8 o’clock, when the outer doors were locked. Any person coming in after that hour was admitted by the watchman, Murray, who until 12 o’clock was stationed in the lobby. The night elevator man kept a record of each person entering the building and to which room he went. It was a building given over to brokers, capitalists, and large law firms, and several robberies of magnitude had brought about this particular system of keeping a check on all persons in the building after night.

The elevator man, on going off duty at midnight, turned his book over to the watchman, who thereupon made the rounds of each of the offices where there were still tenants or visitors. It was in this manner that the crime had been discovered after Murray had rapped repeatedly on Monteagle’s door and had finally admitted himself with his master’s key.

Only three other tenants had been in the building during the evening, and they were able to clear themselves of all suspicion. The police turned their attention to the attachés of the building. Suspicion fell on a janitor, Stromberg, who had the fourth and fifth floors. Apparently clinching proof of the police suspicions had been afforded when Stromberg’s jumper, blood stained, was located at his laundry. It was in the arrest of Stromberg, which had taken place late the night before, that I had been “scooped” through my zealousness in leaving the detectives uncovered while I followed a lead that subsequently proved entirely wrong.

Stromberg claimed to have cut his hand with a scraper while cleaning the mosaic tiling, and had a deep gash on the ball of his thumb. The police theory was that he had gashed himself purposely, and in answer to his defence that it would have been an insane thing for him to have sent his jumper to the laundry if he had committed the crime, held to the theory that he had taken precisely that method, in combination with the self-imposed gash on his hand, to divert suspicion by seeming frankness.

With the commendable faculty of the American police in usually working to fasten the crime upon whomsoever they may happen to have in custody, the officers were devoting their energies to “cinching” their case on Stromberg.

When Sampson had completed his disquieting survey of me, he finally said:

“I am giving this story to Ransom and Dickson to handle to-day.” I could see that he had it all figured out in his cold-blooded way; that nothing else was to be expected of me than to be scooped, and that any remarks would be superfluous. But it ground me. “What I want you to do,” he continued nastily, “is to find Lanagan. Possibly you can succeed in that at least. I wouldn’t be sorry at that if some more of you fellows drank the brand of liquor Lanagan drinks once in a while. I might get a story out of the bunch of you occasionally. Instead, the _Times_ and the _Herald_ give it to us on the features of this story three days running--_three days_. It’s the worst beating I’ve had in a year. You find Lanagan and tell him I want him to jump into the story independent of Ransom and Dickson. I would like to get the tail feathers out of this thing, anyhow.”

Ransom and Dickson had no relish for the story, three days old.

“Might as well try to galvanise a corpse,” grumbled Ransom. I turned over to them what matters I had that might bear watching, and was about to leave the office when the ’phone rang for me. Very fortunately, it was Lanagan; and I couldn’t forbear a sort of gulp, because I felt instinctively that he had wakened up somewhere out of his ten days’ lapse, with the knowledge that I was handling the Monteagle story and was getting badly beaten on it. I was right in that, too.

“Thought I would catch you before you left,” he said. His voice was throaty, and I judged that he had been seeing some hard days and nights. “Suppose that pickled jellyfish of a Sampson has been lacing you? You should be laced. Met Brady a few minutes ago and he said you were handling--or mishandling--the story. You ought to get a month’s lay-off for letting that crowd of two-by-four dubs, on the _Times_ at least, get the best of you. Come on down. I want to talk things over.”

He was at Billy Connors’ “Buckets of Blood,” that famed barroom rendezvous by the Hall of Justice, where the thieves’ clans were wont to forgather. There was nothing of particular coincidence in his ringing me up just when he did; it was shortly after 1 o’clock, the hour when the local staff reported on, and he would be sure of finding me in.

He sat at the rear alcove table with “King” Monahan. “You know my friend the King, of course?” was his greeting. Monahan, one-time designated King of the Pick-pockets, after serving two terms, had retired from the active practice of that profession to establish himself, it was generally believed, not only as a “fence,” handling exclusively the precious stones, but also as a sort of local organiser, to whom any outside gang must report on or before beginning operations in San Francisco. There is system in crime these days as in all things else.

“Kind of stuck it in and broke it off, didn’t they?” he continued.

“I’ve stood one panning from Sampson; I don’t want another from you,” I retorted savagely.

“Norrie,” he said, “you overlooked a very vital point. The King and I have been talking it over,”--he had the three morning papers spread out before him--“and we have concluded that there was a woman in the case. And when two eminent criminologists, like Kid Monahan and Jack Lanagan, agree that there is a woman in a case, it at least is worthy of consideration.”

“A moll, sure,” vouchsafed Monahan in his diffident way. He had a manner as timorous as a girl, which possibly accounted for the success that he enjoyed while practising his profession. He was not one, on the crowded platform of a trolley car, who would be immediately suspected when some proletarian raised a cry of sneak thief and sought in vain for a stick pin, watch, or wallet.

“Stromberg may or may not be guilty,” said Lanagan, “but I don’t think much of the case the police have made against him. It, at least, doesn’t bar us from another line of speculation.

“Tell me, for instance, why in the name of the Seven Suns, didn’t some of you sleuths go off on the theory that whoever committed that crime got into the office earlier in the evening and remained concealed in the closet until Monteagle came in? It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have decoyed Monteagle to his office even if it wasn’t known that he was working nights to make up for the lunches and bachelor dinners and afternoon teas that he’s been going to on account of his coming marriage.

“And as for whoever committed the murder getting out, you have been on the scene of too many murders not to know the hysteria that comes over a bunch of yaps like that. It’s a safe bet they all ran for a regular policeman, and that whoever was in that room--provided he was still there, or she--when the crime was discovered could have walked out of that building with a fair way as wide as Market Street.”

“Murray ran for a policeman,” I admitted, “and some of the janitors with him.”

“That’s what special cops usually do,” was Lanagan’s comment. “And it’s a safe bet that those square-head janitors all ran with him. They didn’t stay around those corridors alone after that crime was discovered until a regular copper came along. I’ve seen the thing happen and so has every police reporter in the business.”

Lanagan paused, pushed back a half-drained suisses and called for a sweet soda--his curious habit when breaking off a “lapse.”

“Whoever killed Monteagle,” he continued, “was in that room when he entered--always assuming, of course, that it was not Stromberg.

“Now I have something additional, through the King and his invaluable sources of information on men and affairs. It is this: Monteagle is known to certain portions of the night life. He was a two-faced society blatherskite, with a broad streak of primal vulgarity, who drank tea in swagger drawing-rooms with his fiancée and her friends in the afternoon and champagne with an entirely different social set after midnight. You know the kind. Was rather keen about women in an underhanded, quiet way. It is not difficult for a man of his means to do a lot of things behind the unassailable French restaurant walls and get by with it.

“You recall the knife was drawn neatly across both cheeks. I see you indulged in a theory that he possibly was the victim of some blackmail brotherhood. You even hinted at the Mafia. I am surprised at you. You ought to let that exaggerated institution rest for a while. I have a little theory of my own on that knifing business, which, I think, we will now work upon. ’Phone Sampson when you get a chance that it pleases Lanagan to go to work for his sweat-shop wages again.”

We parted company with Monahan after he had promised Lanagan to drift through his particular world--or that portion of it which was then up--and endeavour to learn something of the identity of any of Monteagle’s affiliations under the rose.

We headed for the Sutton Building, and in the lobby found Murray, just coming on duty.

“Do you think anyone could have gotten out of that room in the excitement after you found the body?” asked Lanagan.

“No, sir,” said Murray, with aged preciseness. “I locked the door on the outside when I went for an officer, and it could not have been opened, because in my hurry I left my master’s key turned in the lock when I went for a policeman.”

So much for Lanagan’s very plausible theory of the “get-away.” He came up from it as suave as ever and asked:

“Could anyone have been in that room before Monteagle came in, do you suppose?”

“No, sir,” said Murray, with the didacticism of the aged again. “No, sir. There was nobody in that room. I know because the elevator boy, Denny, heard the telephone bell ringing for eight or ten times, and finally let himself in and answered it, but the party hung up. Mr. Monteagle was very free and easy with us men, which accounts for Denny taking the liberty. There was nobody in that room when Denny was in there, and that was well after eight o’clock, after I came on duty. It all gets me, sir, how that knife sticker got into that room or how he got out after he got there. I don’t like to think Ole Stromberg had a hand in it, but it looks a leetle black for Ole, according to the papers. I know my skirts are clear.”

We went on up to the room. The Public Administrator, with Monteagle’s lawyer and his stenographer, was there. The lawyer was inclined to get forward, but the Administrator was a good programer for a newspaper man and smoothed matters over. Lanagan was studying the stenographer: intelligent of feature, stylishly but plainly dressed, and bearing about her eyes and mouth very plain indications of the nervous tension under which she must have laboured during the last three days. She was one of that type of well-poised secretary-stenographers found in most large offices.

Lanagan made an opportunity of asking her:

“Did Mr. Monteagle have any enemies that you know of? Persons who have threatened him personally, by letter or over the ’phone?”

“None that I know of,” she replied quietly.

“Do you think,” asked Lanagan quickly, eying the girl narrowly with those singularly penetrating eyes of his, “do you think it could have been possible that a person might have been concealed in that closet when you locked the office door for the night?”

“Oh, no, no,” she answered quickly, but her eyes involuntarily swept first to the closet and then to Lanagan’s face as though in secret, anxious questioning. “Why, it makes me shiver even to think such a thing could have happened,” she added, and she unmistakably shivered a little.

There was more conversation, and Lanagan fell to examining the room. He first examined the closet. Then he opened the window and scrutinised the sill for a long time. He got down on his knees and peered beneath the heat radiator of coiled pipes. He lit a match, the space between the bottom of the radiator and the floor being so slight that he could not examine it as closely as he seemed to want to.

“Expect your man to get into the room through that?” asked the Public Administrator with heavy facetiousness.

“Oh, no,” replied Lanagan smoothly; “it’s just possible he got out of the room through it, though,” and continued with his minute examination.

The stenographer, Grace Northrup by name, although assisting the other two sorting out papers, found time each moment to flash a quick glance at Lanagan. Whether it was merely active feminine curiosity I could not determine. As for me, I had been over the room half a dozen times already. It held nothing further for me; but I never could even guess at the clues Lanagan might turn up on a trail that a dozen men had tramped over, so I remained to see him work with keen interest. When Lanagan had finished we left.

“Now, Norrie, my boy, to the Bush Street office of the telephone company,” he said with as much enthusiasm as I ever saw him exhibit. “You are a fine old blunderbuss for fair! But the others aren’t any better. Plain as the nose on your face! Lord, Lord!” He stopped and looked at me, laughing immoderately. I was inclined to be a trifle sulky; he made me feel like a six-dollar cub.

“Only,” he continued, “it’s a three days’ trail that I have taken up, and that dirk wielder has got just that much of a start--always assuming, for the sake of the argument, that it was not Stromberg.”

I didn’t ask him what he was going to the telephone office for; it came to me with a sting that I had heard that same bit of information about the telephoning dropped during the last two or three days, and, in the press of clues that I considered more important, had dismissed it. Which was the difference between Jack Lanagan and the rest of us; he had that intuitive faculty of eliminating the superfluous and driving at the main fact. It is, after all, a faculty found in all successful men of whatever occupation.

We both knew Lamb, traffic manager of the ’phone company. Lanagan asked for permission to talk with the girl who on Monday night handled the board having Bush 1243--Monteagle’s number. Lamb was a substantial chap, and promised to keep our visit in confidence. It was just before 4 o’clock, and the 4 to 10 shift of girls was coming on. In a few moments a young girl of sensible, pleasant demeanour was shown to the room, and Lamb retired after requesting that she give us all the information she might have on whatever subjects we discussed.

“You will be performing a service that will be appreciated,” said Lanagan, “if you could recall whether on Monday evening, along about 8 o’clock, you had several calls for Bush 1243?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” she instantly answered. “It was not a busy night and I was handling three positions. The call came from the east office. We do not talk to the party direct on an outside call, and east supervisor came on the line several times to instruct me to try and raise the number. That is how I recall it so distinctly.”

“I may tell you that that is the telephone number of the office of Mr. Monteagle, who was murdered,” said Lanagan. “I don’t suppose you ever got a line on whom his telephone calls might be from as a general thing, did you?”

“No, sir,” she answered primly. “I pay no attention to whom is on a line.”

“Thank you,” said Lanagan. “I think you can be trusted not to say anything about our visit or questions?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

We got a card of introduction from Lamb to Adams, manager of east office, and hurried there.

“Wasn’t that rather an indiscreet thing to do, tell her Monteagle’s number?” I suggested. Lanagan laughed and slapped me on the back. It was evident he was in high feather with himself. I was trundling along, absolutely in the dark.

“My dear Norrie, when you meet a girl like that take her into your confidence. Did you get that ‘to whom’? She smelt a rat and would have looked the number up and blown the glad tidings all over the office that a couple of detectives or newspaper men had been interviewing her on the murder. Recollect, too, that the telephone from the reporters’ room at police headquarters comes in on this exchange. It’s just possible that some of those gay young blades on night police have affiliations with some of these gay young blondes. I have got many a story through ’phone girls--and have occasionally lost a story through the same medium. Get me? As it stands, she is all puffed up with her own importance and pat with us. There are times when you have got to take a chance at spilling your hand. This was one of them.” I subsided, humbled.

Not to occupy too much space with the merely routine details of working out the clue, we met Adams, another substantial chap. The chief operator recalled distinctly the number, more particularly because the woman calling it had been nervous and irritable. The call came, she said, from the public booth at Shumate’s pharmacy. It was only a couple of blocks away, and we went there.

It was a large establishment with half a dozen clerks. We worked down the list. The fourth man had been on duty Monday night and recalled a young woman who had entered the booth repeatedly on that evening. She lived some place in the vicinity, he said, and usually got off the Sutter Street car shortly after 5.30 o’clock. The car stopped directly in front of the door, and if we would wait he would point her out to us if she came that way this evening.

I took a position outside to signal in when a car approached and Lanagan remained inside. It was then just after five.

Among the passengers from one car I noticed Miss Northrup, and was about to step forward and speak to her on a chance of her dropping something additional when I caught a glimpse out of the tail of my eye of Lanagan signaling me with a swift gesture. I dodged around the corner before she saw me. She passed on up Sutter Street, and in a few moments Lanagan picked me up, his sallow face taking on a tinge of colour and his dark eyes sparkling.

“Pretty near scrambled the eggs that time, didn’t you?” he chuckled. “_That’s the woman who did the telephoning._”

I stared.

“Do you recall that furtive look with which she followed me at the office? She lives just up there, where we will let her rest for a time with her troubles. And I fancy she has them. Let us go back to Connors’. I am to meet Monahan there.”

The King was waiting for us. He took Lanagan to one side. All I could hear was Lanagan’s “Good!” once, and then the King had slipped out the side door.

“Best single asset the police have is Monahan,” said Lanagan, apropos of nothing in particular. “Knows more about the night life of this city than any four men in it. But he tips nothing that might hurt his own game or his own people. In a way he preserves a certain code even while acting as a police ‘stool.’ In this matter, however, the invaluable Mr. Monahan is working for Jack Lanagan; and the police are consequently about three laps behind.

“I see nothing in sight for some hours. We will eat our dinner and take in a show for a few moments. I rather anticipate a climax later and some rapid-fire work for us both on the typewriter. I need a little stimulus--that hasn’t got wormwood in it.”

He would give me absolutely not a line on his “lay.” He could be a baffling, enigmatic, impersonal proposition when he took the humour.

We headed for the Oyster Loaf, and I groaned for the four and a half that was between me and pay day as Lanagan methodically disposed of an onion soup, special; French mushrooms on toast, a New York cut, Gorgonzola, and a two-bit cigar. He drank three glasses of ice water, but that didn’t cost anything.

“A man’s meal,” he said with vast creature content. “Now give me that other half you have left. I want a shave. You go up and touch Dan for a five-spot. We may need expenses later. I’ll meet you at Dan’s at nine o’clock. I want to pick Monahan up again before I see you, and also see Leslie.”

At the time appointed we met. “Let’s take a ten-twenty-thirty,” suggested Lanagan. “By half-past ten we will have to get busy. There’s a singer over at the Continental that some of the dramatic critics say has real fire. La Pattini, I think she is called.”