Chapter III

“Yes, Sydney, the police can’t be beaten when it comes to making arrests. Find the guilty ones, label them, lead them up to the police, and the cops’ll get them every time. And the police dearly love a plant, that’s why they worked so well to-night. You see, I made all the arrangements this afternoon when you had left me in disgust to walk off your nervousness. The telephone is a mighty handy thing for the blind.” He took a sip of the vichy at his elbow, and touched the crystalless watch lying on the old-fashioned library table before him. It was twelve-thirty.

“But how--where?” Sydney Thames changed it to a confession. “I am still dazed.”

“I suppose you’ll have to have it all,” smiled Colton. “All right. Ten minutes’ intelligent conversation with the chauffeur before the fool detectives arrived gave me practically all of the information I needed. He told me of the theatre party with his wife and two eldest children. I was interested because they went to a famous Broadway children’s show, where the seat prices are high. The tickets had been given his wife by a rich woman who devoted her time to showing mothers how to care for their babies, and had taken an interest in his own. Of course, that told me immediately how the chauffeur had been gotten away while the car was fixed. Through his wife and tots was the only way he could be reached.

“Then I wanted to know if there was a good, quiet hotel near by. The woman must have taken quarters near his home to be on the watch for the opportunity to get acquainted with his wife and children. They are fairly well-to-do, and would resent the professional interference of a settlement worker. There was. A telephone call from MacLaren’s office while you and the others were outside with the police--with the description the chauffeur had given me--fixed her as a Mrs. Allen, a widow, who was spending her money and time on poor babies. She had been there two weeks. She wasn’t in when I called, but would be in the morning. See how clever. Not a breath of suspicion by telling them that she was going to leave. Did she have a habit of calling a special taxi? She did, from the Nelson House. It was easy to get a description of the chauffeur from the starter there. The calls had been made without any attempt at concealment; for who would connect a settlement worker in New York with the wife of a French count? The chauffeur had been employed a week. He was undoubtedly an American. The woman was French, though she spoke English perfectly. See how simple the possibilities are when the foolish impossibilities the police delight in are eliminated?

“Then the chauffeur’s recollection of the bearded man who had lifted Villers out of the car; his stilted way of speaking. I knew then that he, too, was a Frenchman, trying to hide it by repeating, slowly and carefully, without his usual accent, words he had learned by rote. Where had he been while the other two were making the arrangements? A man with the brains and knowledge to plan a crime like that couldn’t be common enough, even in appearance, to hide successfully for two weeks. I remembered the _Moravia_, due from Havre last night. What could be a greater alibi than that of a man who had been in the city but a few hours? But the fog must have caused him considerable anxiety. That’s why I went to see M‘Inness. I knew the name of the Manhattan Tug and Lighterage Company would still be in everybody’s mind. You know that Percy stepped in and sent that message on his own hook--at a hint from the count, of course, who was quick to see that that would cover his last possible connection. When I got him on the phone I learned of the count and his wife for the first time. Then I realized how infernally clever they were, and knew I’d have to act accordingly. The Englishman and the German also entered to complicate affairs. I didn’t know whether they were in it or not.”

“But the description you gave in MacLaren’s office,” interrupted Sydney. “It was wholly at variance with that of every one who had seen him. And the left-handed woman who placed the hypodermic?”

Colton laughed. “The first came from knowledge of human nature. If he was stout and full-bearded when he exposed himself before the eyes of several hundred persons, it was a moral certainty that he was neither, with the disguise off. He’d absolutely reverse it when he stepped into the taxi that was waiting around the corner after it had let him off in time to get the papers. The stitches in the cushions told me the other. They were too fine to have been made by a man. My fingers showed me that the needle had been thrust upward, instead of downward, as would have been the case with a right-handed person.”

“But the actual robbery?” insisted Sydney. “The man with the broken finger-nail? I paid particular attention at the dinner. All seemed perfect.”

“You are learning to observe,” smiled the blind man. “When my fingers brushed the coat-lining of the unconscious man they felt the torn threads of the caught finger-nail as it swept upward when he thrust his hand under the coat for the thick packet of papers. But the packet was evidently wedged, in some way, for it was necessary for him to thrust his whole hand down into the pocket. His thumb ring tore the lining slightly at the corner. These things could not be seen with the naked eye, but they could be felt with fingers trained to read handwriting by touching the reverse side of the paper, and feeling the indentations of the pencil.”

Sydney nodded understandingly. “Now if you’ll explain the diamond, and The Fee’s entrance?” he asked.

“Suggestion. Psychology,” declared Thornley Colton seriously. “The diamond held on my palm was primarily intended to find the man whose broken finger-nail had pulled the threads from the coat lining. Held on my palm, the man who picked it up must touch my flesh with his finger-nail. The count’s was cut to the quick; that of his thumb was long and tapering. Then the Englishman wanted to see it. I knew he wasn’t the man, therefore I caused the stampede to the after-deck with the promise of telling about the Villers murder to find out what he and his German friend really were. A quick touch in the crowd, as they came through the door, felt the heavy belt around the German’s waist. Smugglers!

“That was easy, merely an incident in the case. But the police seemed glad to get them. They were part of the long-sought band. So we’ll dismiss them. But their presence shows further cleverness on the part of the wily count in including them to divert suspicion if it became necessary. He probably knew their game, and would have used it to cover his, if he had to.

“My talk of the thumb-ringed pickpocket was intended to make the count suspicious of me. My reference to the light switch and the darkness were for the sole purpose of showing him how he could escape if it came to a show-down. My idiotic attempt to cover up what he, and others, supposed to be the only means I had of locating that switch was not intended to deceive them; it was intended to make them understand that I thought I was deceiving them. I knew the papers must be somewhere near; they planned to get away at midnight. But I couldn’t take a chance of arresting them, and then searching; for men clever enough to steal those papers would be clever enough to put them where no one could get them. Therefore the talk of the police search and the pulling of the switch to put out the lights.

“By that time they understood that the only thing they could do was get away. I’d stood watching them in silence long enough to let them see that the anchorage was deserted, and that they had a pretty fair chance of escaping. When the darkness came I knew one of them would take instant advantage of it, and get the papers if they weren’t already on his person. You didn’t give a thought to Clauson’s being absent when you toppled over his empty chair, as you saw The Fee with that fake bag bait. I did, and I knew the count would look at that bag as I intended he should. He wasn’t given an opportunity to see that Clauson had gone. He was told of the ready boat, given an opportunity to grab the bag from the boy’s hand. He called ‘Jean’ as a signal for Clauson to put out the lights. Jean wasn’t there, but the quick-witted countess was. Jean, of course, heard that call, and came running. I met him at the cabin-door, held him long enough to get the packet from his inside pocket. It was easy, for”--a whimsical-smile came to the thin lips--“I am quite at home in the darkness. It was done so quickly that the frightened Jean hardly knew it, I guess, and, of course, the count supposed the boy had gotten the data for me. Then the police stepped in, and we saw the spectacular play of the greatest crook I ever had the pleasure of meeting, while the countess struggled on the chair to escape. I’d put the papers under her for safe-keeping, and also because they wouldn’t go in my dinner-coat pocket.”

“Then,” puzzled Sydney, “the doctor who first attended Villers was--this count! But I can’t see why--he needed his bag?”

“Because he was a mighty clever man. He knew it would be easy to take a thick packet of papers from Villers’s pocket without being seen, but he also knew that it would be almost impossible to slip them into his own unobserved. Therefore the open doctor’s bag at his feet, where they could be dropped in an instant.”

“Papers worth a hundred million,” murmured Sydney Thames, almost in awe.

“And costing a single, human life,” digressed Thornley Colton wearily.

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THE FOURTH PROBLEM

THE FLYING DEATH