Chapter XV: The Traitor Unmasked

With his fingers across his lips, Cole enjoined silence. His glance darted quickly over the floor, the ceiling and the walls. He moved hither and thither, looking behind desks and filing cases. Finally he stepped behind Carlin’s desk and gazed speculatively at a panel of grille work in the wall. He held his hand before it and felt a strong draft of fresh air. It was obviously a ventilating shaft, and the force of the current suggested that air was driven into it by fans.

He whirled round and whispered to Carlin and the girl. “Talk,” he said, “talk on any subject but the one you’re thinking on. Be as natural as you can.”

Carlin showed plainly that he did not understand, but he nodded obediently. Cole tiptoed to a typewriter desk in the rear, and in one of the drawers he found a box containing a number of small tools. Selecting a screw driver, he went back to the air shaft and loosened several of the screws that held the grilled panel. In a few moments he could bend it outward, and now he inserted his hand and ran it up and down the sides of the shaft.

“Any more of that sauterne left?” he heard Carlin ask the girl.

“About a dozen bottles, I think.”

“We’ll instruct the chef to have it served after the fish course. Just to celebrate the occasion, you know. Afterward——”

The lawyer ran on with the dogged air of a soldier obeying orders that he doesn’t understand; but Cole heard no more. A sudden tensing of his body hinted that he had verified a suspicion. He had found a small metal disk attached to the opposite side of the air shaft, and to it was affixed a wire that extended upward. A serio-comic smile twisted his lips as he rejoined Carlin and Miss Brown. “Guess what I found,” he said in a whisper.

The other two stared.

“An amplifying disk and a wire that seems to run out on the roof. A dictaphone in other words. There may be others scattered throughout the place. My little ruse has shown that these walls have ears.”

The lawyer was too astounded for words. Miss Brown looked fixedly at Cole, her lips trembling a little at the corners.

“Did I hear you say something about sauterne?” asked Cole in his usual speaking voice, at the same time motioning them to step farther away from the shaft in which the disk was hidden. “Favorite drink of mine, though I take only an occasional drop of such things.” Again he lowered his voice. “To-night I shall get out on the roof and see where the wire runs to. Carlin, this is additional proof that there is a renegade in our midst. The man who posted the hunchback on how to get in here probably installed the dictaphone. It isn’t safe for us to make a single move until we have singled him out and rendered him harmless. We must attend to that even before we consider what is to be done with the body of Reeves.”

Carlin still seemed a trifle dazed. “You are right, of course,” he said. “We must get rid of the blackguard at once. It is startling to think that any one in our organization may be the traitor. How are we going to find him?”

“Leave that to me.” Cole’s narrowing gaze slanted upward, as if his thoughts were on the track of an idea. “I have noticed that a man of that kind nearly always has a flaw in him of some sort. Generally that flaw is cowardice. That gives us an advantage over him, right at the start. We’ll play on his cowardice and make him betray himself.”

The lawyer looked somewhat dubious. “How?” he asked.

“I haven’t studied out the details yet,” said Cole, but the slow twinkle in his eye told that the idea was assuming shape. “You sowed the seed of a plan in my mind when you mentioned sauterne. But don’t expect anything spectacular. Sometimes simple measures work best. Can you arrange to have the whole organization here for dinner?”

The lawyer fingered his chin in a bewildered way. “It could be managed. Most of them have planned to attend, anyway.”

“Splendid! Now, Carlin, since I am to take charge of the work here, it would seem only fitting that everybody should drink my health in sauterne, wouldn’t it?”

“Cer—certainly,” stammered Carlin.

“You could propose the toast yourself. I know you will do it charmingly. And I want you to see to it that everybody is invited to drink, including the waiters and the kitchen help. You could explain that the toast is to be a sort of pledge of allegiance.”

The lawyer looked blinkingly at Cole, searching his face in vain for a sign that he was jesting.

“I’m not sure there is enough sauterne to go around,” observed Miss Brown, who evidently shared Carlin’s stupefaction.

“Then use smaller glasses,” suggested Cole. “Besides, in an emergency the wine can be thinned out. I think you said there were a dozen bottles. That ought to be enough for one round. I can almost taste that sauterne already.” He smacked his lips as he consulted his watch. “Carlin, I wonder if you would mind telephoning my landlady, Gramercy 0099, to see if any messages have been received for me. The bright youngster who is watching Doctor Latham’s house may have been trying to reach me. In the meantime, Miss Brown, I am going to ask you to come with me to the dining room. I want to get a general idea of the seating arrangement.”

With a long, wondering glance at Cole, the girl conducted him from the office, while Carlin cleared his husky throat in preparation for the task assigned him.

“You are a very deep person, Mr. Cole,” the girl observed, as she led him into the dining room, where tables were set in horseshoe formation. “I have a suspicion that you are keeping a perfectly gorgeous scheme all to yourself.”

Cole smiled thinly, while his glance roved over snow-white napery and brightly polished silver. At times Miss Brown had a naïveté about her that he found rather alluring.

“I’ll take you into the secret in a few moments,” he promised. “One confidence deserves another, however. How much longer must I go on calling you Miss Brown?”

“Don’t you like the name?”

“I do not. I suspect you invented it on the spur of the moment the other night. It served well enough for a temporary acquaintanceship, but now its usefulness is past.”

“True,” she admitted. “It was an awkward alias, anyhow. How do you like Merle Brownell?”

“Much better. One syllable more or less makes a lot of difference at times. I take it you are the high priestess of The Unknown Seven?”

“Oh, no! I’m only an odd-job expert. My father, who died three years ago, was the founder of the organization. I have hung around, more or less, ever since. Most of the time I suspect I am in the way, but occasionally I manage to make myself useful.”

Cole regarded her with a look that seemed to say, “You’ll pass.”

“You promised to take me into your secret,” she reminded him. “Aren’t you afraid? How do you know that I’m not the traitor, or traitoress?”

“I know,” said Cole firmly, “but don’t ask me how I know. By the way, Miss Brownell,” and Cole lowered his voice several octaves, “I see the wineglasses haven’t been placed yet. Don’t you think you had better speak to the chef about the sauterne?”

She gave him a puzzled look, then a roguish smile illuminated her face. “I’m beginning to think the sauterne is the chief ingredient in that brilliant idea of yours,” she declared, as she left the room. A few moments later Cole followed, turning toward the laboratory which Carlin had so proudly shown him. At one wall were several shelves on which bottles were placed in long rows. After studying the labels, Cole selected one of the bottles and put it in his pocket.

Miss Brownell was supervising the placing of the wineglasses when he returned to the dining room. He stood aside and watched silently until the task was finished and the waiter had left the room. Then he took the bottle from his pocket and stepped to the table.

“Please guard the door,” he told Miss Brownell, speaking in very low tones. “If any one wants to enter, keep him out on any pretext you like.”

She watched him in astonishment while he went to work. The bottle contained a colorless liquid, and with great care he poured a few drops into each wineglass.

“Are you going to poison us?” she asked. There was a secretive air about Cole that seemed to prohibit talking aloud.

“No, the stuff’s harmless. Nothing but spirits of hartshorn. It will mix with the wine, but only a person with a very sensitive tongue will notice the queer taste. Such a person, if there should be one among us this evening, will notice that the wine has an odd flavor, but that’s all. He won’t be able to identify the added ingredient. The quantity is too slight.”

“That makes everything very clear of course,” remarked Miss Brownell. “About as clear as mud.”

Cole went calmly on with his work. “I suppose it has often occurred to you, Miss Brownell, that the imagination is a great aid to one’s senses. Tell a person there’s a fire in the next room, and he will instantly smell smoke, even though he may not have noticed it before.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with what you are doing.”

“A very great deal. When these glasses have been filled with wine, a person, taking a casual sip of the concoction, will not notice the queer taste. If he is told, after the second or third sip, that he has drunk poisoned wine, the peculiar taste will become noticeable at once. Without stopping to try to identify the queer flavor, he will instantly become convinced that he has been poisoned, especially if the circumstances are such that he already has reason to fear that some such thing is going to happen to him. That’s what imagination does to a person.”

“Is this some kind of psychological experiment?”

“In a way.” Cole had reached the last glass and was now putting the bottle in his pocket. “Incidentally it is interesting to note that a person with an uneasy conscience always has a lively imagination. Not only can he spot real dangers a mile off, but his guilty conscience is constantly surrounding him with imaginary ones. It’s a lucky thing, too. If it wasn’t for such frailties in the human make-up, we detectives would lose our reputation for achieving brilliant deductions.”

Miss Brownell smiled soberly as they walked out. “I think we are going to have a most interesting dinner,” she murmured. “I hope your psychological experiment will succeed, Mr. Cole. I must run off now and powder my nose.”

Cole slipped back to the laboratory and replaced the bottle. A few moments later he met Carlin in the corridor. The lawyer told him that he had called up Cole’s landlady, but no messages had been received for him.

“That means Doctor Latham has made no move yet,” said Cole thoughtfully. “He plays a slow and sure hand.”

The lawyer nodded. “Your landlady seemed quite distracted over the robbery,” he announced.

“She isn’t the only one. I bet Toots is the most distracted female in the world, just now.” Cole gazed gloomily into space, and then a tall, broad-shouldered man approached with an easy swagger. Cole’s lips twisted into a reminiscent smile, as he recognized the surgeon.

“Hello, Ballinger,” said the lawyer. “Shake hands with Kingdon Cole if you dare. I wouldn’t blame him if he were to shoot you on sight, but he has a forgiving disposition. Cole has just agreed to become one of us.”

“Splendid!” ejaculated the doctor, and the two men shook hands. As their fingers touched, Cole experienced that indescribable something that comes from contact with a man of strong personal magnetism. Ballinger’s grip could not have been called energetic, but it transmitted a subtle electric current.

“You are tackling a man-size job,” remarked the doctor after Carlin had withdrawn. “You will have a chance to match your wits against the infernal cleverness of the astutest rogue in the country. I suppose Carlin has explained the situation to you?”

“He has only given me a few hints. There hasn’t been time for detailed explanations. All I know is that a colossal project of some sort is on foot, and that The Unknown Seven is trying to put a crimp in it.”

Ballinger took his arm and led him to the smoking room. He extended his cigar case, and Cole noticed that his fingers were long, slim, and finely tapering, the fingers of one having a deft touch, a strong imagination, and a lively dramatic instinct. Again Cole saw that Ballinger’s resemblance to Doctor Latham was very slight, extending only to outward physique. It was the disguise, and the black beard in particular that had produced the likeness.

“Too bad about poor Reeves,” murmured Ballinger, as he held a lighted match in his cupped hands. “His life, however, would have been only a burden to himself and others, so in one sense it is just as well that he was shuffled off. For professional reasons I regret his death very keenly. I had hopes of being able to restore his brain to some degree of normal functioning. If I had succeeded I think he would have told us a most interesting story, and that, of course, was just what the other side feared. However, his actions told us a great deal the other night.”

“When he seemed to recognize Doctor Latham in you?”

“Exactly. To that extent the experiment was a complete success. It was Carlin’s idea, and the credit belongs to him. I merely carried out his suggestions, and I didn’t particularly relish the task.” He chuckled apologetically. “Well, the murder of Reeves is additional proof of the fact that we are fighting a crowd of very ingenious and utterly conscienceless scoundrels. Evidently they are directed by a master mind, a genius of the kind we often read about, but seldom meet. You will admit there’s a great deal of fascination about a rascal of that type, Cole?”

Cole did not answer, but he remembered the magnetic tug he had felt in Doctor Latham’s presence.

“I almost envy you the exciting times you will have tracking this master mind to his lair,” Ballinger went on. “We know some of the smaller fry in the crowd, Professor Carmody, for instance, but our efforts won’t lead anywhere until we have found the directing genius. And when we have found him, Cole, we will be face to face with an interesting character. Brilliant, resourceful, unscrupulous, and full of bewildering subtleties, the kind that kills without hesitation the moment his plans are interfered with. I dare say you have already suspected who he is?”

Ballinger’s eyes shone with a fine glow of enthusiasm, but it was the unimpassioned enthusiasm of a scientist who dissects and analyzes.

“Perhaps,” said Cole guardedly. “Haven’t you?”

Ballinger smiled queerly, but the opening of the door and the announcement that dinner was served forestalled a reply. In the corridor they were parted by a stream of people, and Cole found an opportunity to speak a few words in Carlin’s ear. The lawyer nodded bewilderedly, like one receiving instructions which he does not understand. He knew Cole had a plan of some sort, but he could not make even a guess as to what it was.

There were some twenty-five or thirty at the table. Cole found himself seated between Miss Brownell and Carlin. Inwardly he felt a tingling sensation, as he contemplated the bombshell he was about to explode among the diners, but his face showed no sign of it. Now and then he stole a glance down the two wings of the table. He liked the faces of the men with whom he was to work. They were an alert, keen-eyed lot, the kind of men Cole himself would have selected.

“You are a judge of faces,” whispered Miss Brownell, leaning slightly toward him. “Who is the traitor?”

Cole shook his head. That very question had already occurred to him. There was not one in the gathering who by his looks could be singled out as the traitor.

“Whom would you pick?” he whispered back.

Her glance ran quickly up and down the table. He could see that her woman’s intuition was at work. A queer gleam came into her eyes; her face hardened for a moment. He tried to trace her glance, but it was too late.

“It wouldn’t be fair to tell, would it?” she said evasively. “I may be wrong, you know.”

Cole only smiled. As nearly as he had been able to tell, her glance had rested for an instant somewhere near the center of the left wing of the table. He scanned the faces of the men seated there, but none of them impressed him unfavorably, and he wondered what Miss Brownell could have based her guess on.

The dinner progressed by easy stages, and the scene which Cole had been rehearsing in his mind was drawing near. Carlin, seated at his right, looked nervous, and Miss Brownell’s usually vivacious manner seemed somewhat dampened. Finally the sauterne was opened and the waiters filled the glasses. Carlin cleared his throat.

Noisy applause greeted the lawyer’s announcement that Cole had accepted the management of The Unknown Seven’s activities. Then Carlin proposed a toast, and it was drunk standing. Cole watched the faces of the men as they quaffed their wine. In several of them he saw a vaguely wondering look, telling him that their senses had registered an impression so faint that as yet their minds had not grasped it. He sipped his own wine, and he wondered whether he would have been able to taste the foreign substance if he had not known it was there.

When Carlin finished, Cole got to his feet amid renewed handclapping. Somewhat bluntly he thanked them for the ovation, and then he veered sharply to the subject uppermost in his mind.

“I wonder,” he said, “how many of you can look me straight in the eye and tell me that you are loyal to this organization.”

A breathless hush followed. His very quiet tones had created a profound impression. In the next instant every pair of eyes in the room was leveled at him without wavering.

“It seems to be unanimous,” he observed dryly. “One can lie, however, with his eyes as well as with his tongue, and I know that one among you is a liar.”

Another period of silence followed, and then came a scraping of feet and exclamations of incredulity. Cole held up a silencing hand. His eyes were everywhere, noting each shifting expression in the startled faces before him.

“One of you has proven false to the organization,” he declared in short-clipped accents. “I discovered it only a little while ago. I found positive proof, not only of the treachery, but of the traitor’s identity as well. He is at this table. He was one of those who only a few moments ago looked me straight in the eyes. What shall we do with him?”

Once more came an electric hush. Cole had spoken quietly, but with an emphasis that carried conviction. He smiled faintly, as he met the startled glances of the diners. A slight trace of the foreign substance in the wine was still lingering on his tongue.

“What shall we do with him?” he asked again.

“There’s only one thing to do with a traitor,” muttered some one at the farther end of the table, and the suggestion was followed by a chorus of approval.

“And that thing has already been done,” declared Cole with grim emphasis. “So that it may serve as a warning to others who may be tempted to betray us, the traitor will die right before our eyes. Inside one minute the poison that was put into his glass will begin to take effect.”

Cole pretended to look at his watch, but his glance was gliding swiftly over the two long rows of faces. He had spoken rapidly, and yet with a quiet insistence, putting his astounding announcement into the fewest possible words. The effect he hoped to produce depended upon a quick assault on the guilty person’s mental faculties, shocking him off his balance before he had time to digest the statement. In the acute tension of the moment, the vague impression that he had received while sipping his wine would suddenly crystallize, and then, with the fear of death upon him, he could not help betraying himself.

At least such was the psychological effect Cole had intended, and he had been reasonably sure that the test would succeed. Moments passed while he stood, watch in hand, glancing out of the tail of an eye at the faces around the table. Sixty seconds passed, and a look of diffidence crossed his features. Here and there an impatient mutter was heard. Carlin was looking up at him with an expression of thinly veiled disappointment. At length Cole snapped the watch shut. He smiled rather sheepishly.

“The trick didn’t work,” he said disgustedly. “Yes, I might as well admit it was only a trick. The traitor was too clever to betray himself.” With that he sat down, well aware that he had made an unfavorable impression.

“It was too thin, Cole,” whispered Carlin in his ear. “Too bad you didn’t consult me beforehand.”

Cole nodded dejectedly. Then he felt Miss Brownell’s gaze on his face. He turned and saw a knowing twinkle in her eyes.

“It was very clever, Mr. Cole,” she whispered. But for all that her face indicated she might have given him only a consoling platitude. “You saw, of course?”

“Yes, I saw enough.” The sheepish grin still lingered on Cole’s lips. “And you guessed right. The traitor is sitting near the center of the left wing of the table. Doctor Ballinger is a very astute rascal. It took him only a fraction of a second to see through my little bluff. He is smiling behind his palm this very moment. We’ll just let him keep on smiling for a while, eh, Miss Brownell?”