Chapter EIGHT: "tangled Wires"

It was five minutes before nine when Delaney reached the ornate entrance to the skyscraper wherein were the offices of Drew's Agency.

He wandered into the express elevator, yawned a "eighteen, out" signal to the elevator pilot and stepped from the cage with the general air of a man who had spent a hard night without getting anywhere in particular.

Stopping in the operatives' room for a few minutes, he picked up scraps of news concerning the case at Stockbridge's. There was a report, moreover, that an extra was expected by ten o'clock. The air of desertion about the suite told Delaney plainer than words that most of the operatives were upon the case. The entire corps, with few exceptions, had been working hard while he slept. The telephone-girl and the assistant-manager, Harrigan, wound up each of his questions by a nod or a jerk of the thumb toward the inner office where Drew was sitting like a spider in a web which was being spun about the case at hand.

Delaney yawned, braced himself with a drink of ice water drawn from an inverted-bottle, and stepped toward Drew's door. He knocked with tired knuckles. He pressed forward as he heard a hearty: "Come in!"

The operative eyed his Chief with sovereign amazement. Drew looked as fresh as a daisy. There was a pink tinge upon his olive cheeks. These cheeks had been close shaven. Oil glistened from the detective's black hair. His mustache was trimmed and level with his upper lip. His eyes, as he swung and fastened a clear glance upon Delaney, were almost too bright. They were like the hectic fires of an inner furnace.

Delaney searched about the room. He lifted one foot and then the other with a tired motion. He leaned against a filing-case like a heavy dray horse which had come to a final stop. He yawned behind his big, red hand.

"How d'ye do it, Chief?" he asked with a second yawn. "I'm dead on my feet. All the sleep I got was about thirty minutes. I haven't woke up yet. I met myself going to work this morning."

Drew laughed quickly and motioned toward a leather chair. "Sit down!" he suggested. "Sit right down, Delaney. Take it easy for a few minutes. You seem tired."

"It beats me how you can do it!" declared the operative, sprawling across the chair and crossing his weary legs.

"One or two hours' sleep is never any good. Better keep awake. You remind me of the last rose of Sharon!"

"I feel like a house-man in an all-night poker game. What's the use! I'm going over to some bank and get a job as a night watchman, if this keeps up. I can sleep my head off, there."

Drew swung in his chair and eyed the papers on his desk. He swiveled as Delaney inquired:

"What's the news in the Stockbridge case? I've been asking Marie and Harrigan. They don't seem to know anything except that everybody is out--already." Delaney extended his huge mouth to a cavernous yawn. He fished up his great, silver watch. "What's the news, Chief? Any assignments for me?"

"News? There's very little news, Delaney. No good news, yet! I've been busy as a Chinaman on a contract, though. I can't let that matter get cold. It's now or never in this case!"

"What does our friend Fosdick say?"

"He's all at sea! I've talked with him twice." Drew glanced at the 'phone. "He says the murder was a second Rue Morgue. He can't see any light at all!"

"He's come around to our deduction?"

"There's no deduction in it!"

"He says it's murder?"

"Cold, curdling, cunning, crafty murder, Delaney. The coroner said it would have been impossible for a man to shoot himself in the manner Stockbridge was shot. They're right--both of them--and we're right. I'll stake my badge on it! Particularly in view of the two threats. Why, I was there when he was called up and given twelve hours on this earth."

Delaney glanced out the window. "Snowing again," he said, "I wonder if there are any footprints in that back yard or alley. Wouldn't that be a clue, Chief?"

"To what?"

"Well, you told me that the trouble-man said a tall lad climbed the fence near the junction-box and beat it for Fifth Avenue. Maybe that lad left footprints behind."

"They're snowed over now!"

"But if he made them, couldn't we find them underneath?"

Drew's eyes narrowed. He leaned in his chair with a searching glance at Delaney. "How long did you sleep?" he asked sharply.

"About thirty minutes, Chief. Mary and the kids woke me up and I couldn't get settled again. I did some thinking."

"You must 'ave! That idea about the footprints is a mighty good one. There was first a thaw, then a freeze, then a snow fall which preserved everything. If we wait till spring there might be a set of prints underneath the other sets. Two of our operatives were there. The trouble-man was there. He scraped the connections. If we find a fourth set of prints, that's our man!"

"The tall lad?"

"Yes, Delaney. We can build a box about the fence and start a thaw of our own. I'll think it over!"

"I'll go up and do it, Chief. I can make plaster-casts of all the prints. There's a French system I heard of once. I can find out from Farot over at Headquarters."

"Keep it under cover for a while," decided Drew, sitting down and drawing a sheath of papers to the edge of the desk. "Keep it quiet," he added. "I'll think it over."

Delaney rubbed his chin. He watched Drew rapidly thumb over the data. "Say, Chief," he yawned. "I see another light."

"What?" shot Drew over his shoulder. "S--o? Wait a moment before you give it to me--you reminded me of something. Where was the spot of powder on my face? The rubber in the Turkish bath said it was right here." The detective turned and touched his forefinger below the lobe of his left ear. "Right there," he added.

"That's where it was, Chief. Just where you got your finger. It was on the cord. Seems to me that it was circular in shape. Like a half-moon."

Drew raised his black brows in reflective thought. He opened a small drawer with a sudden dart of his arm. He poised a mirror so that the light from the window brought out his left ear and neck. He dropped the mirror to the desk. "Delaney," he said, "that's exactly the spot where Stockbridge was shot!"

The operative felt a cold chill dart up and down his tired spine. He came to life with an oath, and a slap of his huge palm upon his knee.

"Chief, you're right!" he exclaimed, leaning forward. "You're right! That spot of black was just where the old man was hit. Now, what d'ye make of that?"

Drew drummed his fingers on the edge of the polished desk. He tapped his toes on the floor. He coughed and picked up the mirror for a second and longer glance at his face and neck. He tossed the mirror to the desk and swiveled slowly.

"What do I think of it?" he repeated, with flashing eyes. "I think there are features to this case I don't like!"

"Could it have been an accident, Chief? You might of got a bit of soot from the gun and then scratched your neck. Maybe that Harry Nichols put one over on us. The gun might have been fired, reloaded, and we never noticed it. Looks bad for Nichols and the girl."

Drew closed his eyelids tightly. His brow furrowed in deep thought. "No," he said finally. "I don't think the soot or powder came from the pearl-handled revolver. I don't think so! It would seem to me, Delaney, that intuition is stronger than evidence. That girl and that boy rang true. That valet is above suspicion. The servants are to be trusted. Stockbridge trusted them and he was noted for his shrewdness in picking men. The only mistake he ever made was Morphy. That individual was out to do the old man. He was a biter, bitten! I think we'll eliminate, for the time, Loris, Harry, the servants and German influences in the matter at hand. What was your idea?" Drew rubbed his neck beneath his ear, as he turned to his papers.

"I've forgotten it, Chief. That spot drove it all out. No, wait--say! I've been thinking--this morning laying there and listening to the kids getting ready for school--that the powder we smelled in the library wasn't ordinary powder. I know a firecracker, or a regular Chinese smell when I get near one. That wasn't the kind I got. It was like something else. It was powder--all right--but----"

Drew lifted a sheet of paper. "I covered that," he said. "Analysis made by Higgens, this morning, shows traces of smokeless-powder in Stockbridge's hair and about the bullet hole. There's a difference. Now, I'm going further than that. I'm going to have those scrapings I got from my neck looked at. If they are the same as the powder that was used to slay Stockbridge, we are getting on."

"There's lots of smokeless, Chief."

"That's the trouble--that's what we are right up against. Let's leave the footprints and the powder for a few minutes. Both are important. They'll wait. See here!"

Drew raised a sheath of papers from his desk, turned with the chair, and started thumbing over the data he had accumulated.

"See here," he repeated absently. "First branch of the tree of Truth in this case is a stubborn one. It requires considerable work on our part to get to the end of it. I've sent out six operatives to scout the telephone calls and get me some light on them. I've kept some notes on what they have 'phoned in to me. The telephone company, the wire-chief at Gramercy Hill, and an official I know, have been enlisted in getting to the bottom of these calls. They have made progress. But, Delaney, of all the devilish inventions of man, a telephone is the most subtle. It's a wonder to me we have found anything. It's the crook's one best tool. With it he can play safe, and we can't catch him!"

"What have you found, Chief?"

Drew held up a paper. "The first call, Delaney," he said, "was the one to the cemetery company's superintendent, notifying him to excavate a grave in the Stockbridges' family plot. Subtle suggestion, that, in the light of what followed."

"It was," said Delaney.

"This call has received all of the attention it deserved. It's the first of the series, and was perhaps made before the crook had time to cover himself completely. It has been traced to a slot booth in the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in the Woman's Waiting Room."

"Woman's?"

"Yes, Delaney. That is no criterion that a woman did the calling-up. The girl there in charge of the pay-booths states that more men than women use the 'phones in that part of the station."

"Just our luck!"

"The toll collected on this call must have been thirty-five cents, including the war-tax. The superintendent says that the voice over the wire was thin and tired. He says he thought it was Dr. Conroy. He never gave the matter second consideration. Conroy, however, has a voice like a bull. We checked that up."

"Does the superintendent know Conroy?"

"No! Except by name!"

"Then, Chief, I don't see any use trying that lead. It begins and ends in air."

"It most certainly does! We'll cross it out. The next call for our investigation----"

"Which was?" asked Delaney, waking up.

"Which was the one notifying Stockbridge that he had about reached his span of life on this earth. I was there in that library when the call came in. Again, from the millionaire's description, this time, we have the thin, whispering voice on the wire. The man was probably the same. He mentioned the cemetery letter which would establish that fact."

"I'm following you, Chief. Go on!"

Drew picked out a second sheet of paper from his pile. "We went after this call at the time, or soon after the time it was sent in," he said, tapping the sheet with his fingers. "I called the office here and had Harrigan get in touch with George Westlake, third vice-president of the telephone company. Westlake got busy."

Delaney eyed his unpolished shoes with a sage wink.

"Westlake turned things over," continued the detective. "He made a most thorough investigation. We have his word that there is no record of this call! The wire-chief at Gramercy Hill Exchange declares that it never went through the switchboard. That the connection had been made on the outside."

"From the air?"

"Looks that way. They tried everything and questioned everybody. No one talked with Stockbridge through the switchboard at Gramercy Hill, at or near that hour. Therefore, we must conclude, that, insomuch as I know somebody _did_ talk with him at that hour, the connection was made, either in the junction-box in the alley or behind the switchboard at Gramercy Hill Exchange."

"How about underground, Chief?"

"Impossible! That is--almost impossible. The cables are in conduit and sheathed with lead. It would be a poor place to tap in on a line. I'm going to presume that the man who tapped in knew his business. The junction-box in the alley is under suspicion. I think it was done there, in this manner." Drew paused and picked up a third sheet of hurriedly-written notes.

"A junction-box," he said, "is merely a small switchboard where the conduit ends and the house connections begin. It would have been easy for an expert to disconnect the two leads which led into Stockbridge's library, ring up with a low tension magneto, and then cut in with a testing set and a battery current and do the talking. That is what the trouble-man told us might have been done. He found no signs of tampering. He saw a tall man escaping down the alley. It would seem, Delaney, that this tall man is the one we're after. Perhaps, as you said, he left footprints. But footprints, like fingerprints, are not much use until you get the man who made them."

"What d'ye deduct in this second call--Chief?"

"That we've run squarely up against a blind wall. We'll drop it for a time and go to the third call."

"When was that?"

"Stockbridge was murdered at four minutes and eighteen seconds past twelve, by his own watch, Delaney. It was a very good watch! Now allowing for a movement of the hands on account of the fall, how are we to account for a telephone call sent into Gramercy Hill 9763--the library 'phone--at exactly five minutes past twelve from a slot-telephone booth at the east end of the Grand Central Railroad Station on Forty-second Street?"

"How did you get that, Chief?"

Drew chuckled and wheeled in his chair. "I got it," he said, "by simple arithmetic plus the vice-president's pull. Here's how it was found, Delaney. Easy as two and two. You remember the howler?"

"I'll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!"

"The howler established considerable in this case. The chief operator remembers putting it on. She remembers the time. She looked back, after being jogged by George Westlake, and found that some one had called up Stockbridge a few minutes after twelve. It was probably this call to the old man that caused him to be near enough to the telephone to knock it over when he was shot. The operator did not hear the shot, but she remembers a thin, piping voice asking for Gramercy Hill 9763."

"The same guy, every time!" declared the operative, mopping his brow with his sleeve. "I'd like to have that fellow for five minutes, Chief!"

"We'll get him! We've got the time established twice. Stockbridge's watch fixes the murder at twelve-four-eighteen. The telephone call at five minutes past twelve, and the howler put on soon afterward, checks up. The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you see that?"

Delaney frowned. "I see it and I don't," he said. "I'm all balled up, Chief. What with the magpie and the howler and a man shot in a locked room and the spot of soot on your neck--I'm all twisted into a knot. I think I'll go out and get a drink!"

"No, Delaney, don't," said Drew. "You'll need your head in this case. We're squarely up against class of the highest order. Since Sheeney Mike and the gas-tube over the transom in Chinatown, I don't know of a more baffling set of clews. All these calls--which seem so important in the case--lead to a whispering voice of low pitch and timber. Perhaps the police records will show such a man who is at large--very much at large."

Delaney furrowed his brows and screwed his face into a painful knot. "I'm trying to go back, Chief, to the Morphy case and them crooked witnesses he had. They all had loud voices--like wolves!"

"Yes--I remember them. But then, Delaney, a man can change his voice. That whole pack will bear watching."

"You've eliminated some things that were worrying, Chief. But there's some I don't see yet. It's impossible for a man to get shot like that old millionaire was. We went over that room and that house. We frisked good and plenty. There was nothing suspicious. The walls were thick. The floor was hardwood. The ceiling was some kind of patent plaster, that's like stone. I got two looks at the door, and you tried the windows. Now what's the answer, chief? I'll say you are never going to clear this case up. I don't think you can. It's going to be one of them unsolved mysteries. If you do figure something out it ain't going to be proved to my satisfaction. The thing couldn't be done the way it was done!"

"That's definite," smiled Drew, tapping the desk with the tips of his well-polished finger nails. "You're talking in a circle. I'll solve the case, or I won't sleep!"

"It's impossible!"

Drew sorted his papers and bent over them. He turned the swivel chair by a pressure of his knee. His eyes narrowed as he studied Delaney's lugubrious face which was sadly in need of a shave.

"Impossible," he repeated softly. "There's no such word, Delaney. It's a fool's excuse. Now I don't want you to be a fool. Don't make the mistake of allowing a seeming impossibility to dull your efforts. There's always a way around everything which looks high and impassable. They used to go round the Horn. Now they cut through the Isthmus. They used to think men were supernatural. Now they know that nothing works without a law. I admit that I don't know how Stockbridge came to his end. I don't want to dwell upon it, either. But this we do know, by these papers, that he was well-hated, threatened and marked for death by an individual or clique of individuals. That is all we know, and all we ever need to know, in order to proceed on the basis that a material agency struck out his life with a material substance--such as lead propelled by smokeless powder."

"Whew!" exclaimed Delaney, rising.

"As for the library wherein he was slain," continued Drew. "As for it, we must revert to simple geometry. Matter occupies space. A material act was committed by a material body which got past all our precautions and struck the magnate down. What is there in this world, which is at one and the same time, material and yet capable of penetrating through a door or wall without a trace? Give me that answer, and we'll get results. What is it?"

"Damned if I know! I'm all balled up! You talk like a college professor. You mean something that is and something that isn't. Good morning!"

Delaney reached for the door knob with a gesture of disdain. Drew wheeled and stared at him. "Wait a minute," he said softly.

The operative turned and dropped his hands to his side.

"You remember the magpie?" asked Drew.

Delaney nodded.

"Well, sit down and wait. It'll be here within five minutes. The valet 'phoned he was bringing it in a taxi. That was just before you came in."

"Taxi!" snorted the big operative, stretching himself on the leather chair. "Them valets have got it soft. Last night was the first ride I've had in one for months, and----"

Delaney's voice trailed to an end. He turned in the chair and saw Harrigan's red face and auburn hair come slowly through the aperture made by opening the door.

"Well?" snapped Drew.

"There's a funny lookin' guy out here, chief," said the assistant-manager. "He wants to see you in person. He's got knee-britches and a bunch of brass-buttons on his monkey-jacket. Says he's a valet."

"Has he got anything with him?" asked Drew.

"He has, Chief! He's got a gilded cage with the damnedest looking bird in it I ever saw. It ain't a parrot and it ain't a crow. It's a blue-jay or something like that!"

"Show him in!" Drew said. "Show him in. You can wait, Delaney!"