Still, the lightning swiftness of Carton's attack had taken their breath away, temporarily, at least. Already he had started proceedings to disbar Kahn, as well as to prosecute him in the courts. According to the reports that came to us Murtha himself seemed dazed at the blow that had fallen. Some of our informants asserted that he was drinking heavily; others denied it. Whatever it was, however, Murtha was changed.

As for Dorgan, he was never much in the limelight anyhow and was less so now than ever. He preferred to work through others, while he himself kept in the background. He had never held any but a minor office, and that in the beginning of his career. Interviews and photographs he eschewed as if forbidden by his political religion. Since the discovery of the detectaphone in his suite at Gastron's he had had his rooms thoroughly overhauled, lest by any chance there might be another of the magic little instruments concealed in the very walls, and having satisfied himself that there was not, he instituted a watch of private detectives to prevent a repetition of the unfortunate incident.

Whoever it was who had obtained the Black Book was keeping very quiet about it, and I imagined that it was being held up as a sort of sword of Damocles, dangling over his head, until such time as its possessor chose to strike the final blow. Of course, we did not and could not know what was going on behind the scenes with the Silent Boss, what drama was being enacted between Dorgan and the Wall Street group, headed by Langhorne. Langhorne himself was inscrutable. I had heard that Dorgan had once in an unguarded moment expressed a derogatory opinion of the social leanings of Langhorne. But that was in the days before Dorgan had acquired a country place on Long Island and a taste for golf and expensive motors. Now, in his way, Dorgan was quite as fastidious as any of those he had once affected to despise. It amused Langhorne. But it had not furthered his ambitions of being taken into the inner circle of Dorgan's confidence. Hence, I inferred, this bitter internecine strife within the organization itself.

Whatever was brewing inside the organization, I felt that we should soon know, for this was the day on which Justice Pomeroy had announced he would sentence Dopey Jack.

It was a very different sort of crowd that overflowed the courtroom that morning from that which had so boldly flocked to the trial as if it were to make a Roman holiday of justice.

The very tone was different. There was a tense look on many a face, as if the owner were asking himself the question, "What are we coming to? If this can happen to Dopey Jack, what might not happen to me?"

Even the lawyers were changed. Kahn, as a result of the proceedings that Carton had instituted, had yielded the case to another, perhaps no better than himself, but wiser, after the fact. Instead of demanding anything, as a sort of prescriptive right, the new attorney actually adopted the unheard of measure of appealing to the clemency of the court. The shades of all the previous bosses and gangsters must have turned in disgust at the unwonted sight. But certain it was that no one could see the relaxation of a muscle on the face of Justice Pomeroy as the lawyer proceeded with his specious plea. He heard Carton, also, in the same impassive manner, as in a few brief and pointed sentences he ripped apart the sophistries of his opponent.

The spectators fairly held their breath as the prisoner now stood before the tribune of justice.

"Jack Rubano," he began impressively, "you have been convicted by twelve of your peers—so the law looks on them, although the fact is that any honest man is immeasurably your superior. Even before that, Rubano, the District Attorney having looked into all the facts surrounding this charge had come to the conclusion that the evidence was sufficiently strong to convict you. You were convicted in his mind. In my mind, of course, there could be no prejudgment. But now that a jury has found you guilty, I may say that you have a record that is more than enough to disgrace a man twice your age. True, you have never been punished. But this is not the time or place for me to criticise my colleagues on the bench for letting you off. Others of your associates have served terms in prison for things no whit worse than you have done repeatedly. I shall be glad to meet some of them at this bar in the near future."

The justice paused, then extended a long, lean accusatory finger out from the rostrum at the gangster. "Rubano," he concluded, "your crime is particularly heinous—debauching the very foundations of the state—the elections. I sentence you to not less than three nor more than five years in State's prison, at hard labour."

There was an audible gasp in the big courtroom, as the judge snapped shut his square jaw, bull-dog fashion. It was as though he had snapped the backbone of the System.

The prisoner was hurried from the room before there was a chance for a demonstration. It was unnecessary, however. It seemed as if all the jaunty bravado of the underworld was gone out of it. Slowly the crowd filed out, whispering.

Dopey Jack, Murtha's right-hand man, had been sentenced to State's prison!

Outside the courtroom Carton received an ovation. As quickly as he could, he escaped from the newspapermen, and Kennedy was the first to grasp his hand.

But the most pleasing congratulation came from Miss Ashton, who had dropped in with two or three friends from the Reform League.

"I'm so glad, Mr. Carton—for your sake," she added very prettily, with just a trace of heightened colour in her cheeks and eyes that showed her sincere pleasure at the outcome of the case. "And then, too," she went on, "it may have some bearing on the case of that girl who has disappeared. So far, no one seems to have been able to find a trace of her. She just seems to have dropped out as if she had been spirited away."

"We must find her," returned Carton, thanking her for her good wishes in a manner which he had done to none of the rest of us, and in fact forgetful now that any of us were about. "I shall start right in on Dopey Jack to see if I can get anything out of him, although I don't think he is one that will prove a squealer in any way. I hope we can have something to report soon."

Others were pressing around him and Miss Ashton moved away, although I thought his handshakes were perhaps a little less cordial after she had gone.

I turned once to survey the crowd and down the gallery, near a pillar I saw Langhorne, his eyes turned fixedly in our direction, and a deep scowl on his face. Evidently he had no relish for the proceedings, at least that part in which Carton had just figured, whatever his personal feelings may have been toward the culprit. A moment later he saw me looking at him, turned abruptly and walked toward the stone staircase that led down to the main floor. But I could not get that scowl out of my mind as I watched his tall, erect figure stalking away.

Neither Murtha, nor, of course, Dorgan, were there, though I knew that they had many emissaries present who would report to them every detail of what had happened, down perhaps to the congratulations of Miss Ashton. Somehow, I could not get out of my head a feeling that she would afford them, in some way, a point of attack on Carton and that the unscrupulous organization would stop at nothing in order to save its own life and ruin his.

Carton had not only his work at the District Attorney's office to direct, but some things to clear up at the Reform League headquarters, as well as a campaign speech to make.

"I'm afraid I shan't be able to see much of you, to-day," he apologized to Kennedy, "but you're going to Miss Ashton's suffrage evening and dance, aren't you?"

"I should like to go," temporized Kennedy.

Carton glanced about to see whether there was anyone in earshot. "I think you had better go," he added. "She has secured a promise from Langhorne to be there, as well as several of the organization leaders. It is a thoroughly non-partisan affair—and she can get them all together. You know the organization is being educated. When people of the prominence of the Ashtons take up suffrage and make special requests to have certain persons come to a thing like that, they can hardly refuse. In fact, no one commits himself to anything by being present, whereas, absence might mean hostility, and there are lots of the women in the organization that believe in suffrage, now. Yes, we'd better go. It will be a chance to observe some people we want to watch."

"We'll go," agreed Kennedy. "Can't we all go together?"

"Surely," replied Carton, gratified, I could see, by having succeeded in swelling the crowd that would be present and thus adding to the success of Miss Ashton's affair. "Drop into the office here, and I'll be ready. Good-bye—and thanks for your aid, both of you."

We left the Criminal Courts Building with the crowd that was slowly dispersing, still talking over the unexpected and unprecedented end of the trial.

As we paused on the broad flight of steps that led down to the street on this side, Kennedy jogged my elbow, and, following his eyes, I saw a woman, apparently alone, just stepping into a town car at the curb.

There was something familiar about her, but her face was turned from me and I could not quite place her.

"Mrs. Ogleby," Kennedy remarked. "I didn't see her in the courtroom. She must have been there, though, or perhaps outside in the corridor. Evidently she felt some interest in the outcome of the case."

He had caught just a glimpse of her face and now that he pronounced her name I recognized her, though I should not have otherwise.

The car drove off with the rattle of the changing gears into high speed, before we had a chance to determine whether it was otherwise empty or not.

"Why was she here?" I asked.

Kennedy shook his head, but did not venture a reply to the question that was in his own mind. I felt that it must have something to do with her fears regarding the Black Book. Had she, too, surmised that Murtha had employed his henchman, Dopey Jack, to recover the book from Langhorne? Had she feared that Dopey Jack might in some moment of heat, for revenge, drop some hint of the robbery—whether it had been really successful or not?

It was my turn to call Kennedy's attention to something, now, for standing sidewise as I was, I could see the angles of the building back of him.

"Don't turn—yet," I cautioned, "but just around the corner back of you, Langhorne is standing. Evidently he has been watching Mrs. Ogleby, too."

Kennedy drew a cigarette from his case, tried to light it, let the match go out, and then as if to shield himself from the wind, stepped back and turned.

Langhorne, however, had seen us, and an instant later had disappeared.

Without a word further Kennedy led the way around the corner to the subway and we started uptown, I knew this time, for the laboratory.

He made no comment on the case, but I knew he had in mind some plan or other for the next move and that it would probably involve something at the suffrage meeting at Miss Ashton's that evening.

During the rest of the day, Craig was busy testing and re-testing a peculiar piece of apparatus, while now and then he would despatch me on various errands which I knew were more as an outlet for my excitement than of any practical importance.

The apparatus, as far as I could make it out, consisted of a simple little oaken box, oblong in shape, in the face of which were two square little holes with side walls of cedar, converging pyramid-like in the interior of the box and ending in what looked to be little round black discs.

I had just returned with a hundred feet or so of the best silk- covered flexible wire, when he had evidently completed his work. Two of the boxes were already wrapped up. I started to show him the wire, but after a glance he accepted it as exactly what he had wanted and made it into a smaller package, which he handed to me.

"I think we might be journeying down to Carton's office," he added, looking impatiently at his watch.

It was still early and we did not hurry.

Carton, however, was waiting for us anxiously. "I've called you at the laboratory and the apartment—all over," he cried. "Where have you been?"

"Just on the way down," returned Kennedy. "Why, what has happened?"

"Then you haven't heard it?" asked Carton excitedly, without waiting for Craig's answer. "Murtha has been committed to a sanitarium."

Kennedy and I stared at him.

"Pat Murtha," ejaculated Craig, "in a sanitarium?"

"Exactly. Paresis—they say—absolutely irresponsible."

Coming as it did as a climax to the quick and unexpected succession of events of the past few days, it was no wonder that it seemed impossible.

What did it mean? Was it merely a sham? Or was it a result of his excesses? Or had Carton's relentless pursuit, the raid of Margot's, and the conviction of Dopey Jack, driven the Smiling Boss really insane?



XVII

THE SOCIETY SCANDAL

Nothing else was talked about at the suffrage reception at Miss Ashton's that evening, not even suffrage, as much as the strange fate that seemed to have befallen Murtha.

And, as usual with an event like that, stories of all sorts, even the wildest improbabilities, were current. Some even went so far as to insinuate that Dorgan had purposely quickened the pace of life for Murtha by the dinners at Gastron's in order to get him out of the way, fearing that with his power within the organization Murtha might become a serious rival to himself.

Whether there was any truth in the rumour or not, it was certain that Dorgan was of the stamp that could brook no rivals. In fact, that had been at the bottom of the warfare between himself and Langhorne. Certain also was it that the dinners and conferences at the now famous suite of the Silent Boss were reputed to have been often verging on, if not actually crossing, the line of the scandalous.

Miss Ashton's guests assembled in force, coming from all classes of society, all parties in politics, and all religions. Her object had been to show that, although she personally was working with the Reform League, suffrage itself was a broad general issue. The two or three hundred guests of the evening surely demonstrated it and testified to the popularity of Miss Ashton personally, as well.

She had planned to hold the meeting in the big drawing-room of the Ashton mansion, but the audience overflowed into the library and other rooms. As the people assembled, it was interesting to see how for the moment at least they threw off the bitterness of the political campaign and met each other on what might be called neutral ground. Dorgan himself had been invited, but, in accordance with his custom of never appearing in public if he could help it, did not come. Langhorne was present, however, and I saw him once talking to a group of labour union leaders and later to Justice Pomeroy, an evidence of how successful the meeting was in hiding, if not burying, the hatchet.

Carton, naturally, was the lion of the evening, though he tried hard to keep in the background. I was amused to see his efforts. In fleeing from the congratulations of some of his own and Miss Ashton's society friends, he would run into a group of newspaper men and women who were lying in wait for him. Shaking himself loose from them would result in finding himself the centre of an enthusiastic crowd of Reform Leaguers.

Mrs. Ogleby was there, also, and both Kennedy and I watched her curiously. I wondered whether she might not feel just a little relieved to think that Murtha was seemingly out of the way for the present. Her knowledge of the Black Book which had first given the tip to Carton had always been a mystery to Kennedy and was one of the problems which I knew he would like to solve to-night. She was keenly observant of Carton, which led us to suppose that she had not yet got out of her mind the idea that somehow it was he who had been responsible for the detectaphone record which so many of those present were struggling to obtain. Though Langhorne studiously avoided her, I noticed that each kept an eye on the other, and I felt that there was something common to both of them.

It was with an unexpressed air of relief to several members of the party that Miss Ashton at last rapped for order and after a short, pithy, pointed speech of introduction presented the several speakers of the evening. It was, like the audience, a well- balanced programme, which showed the tactfulness and political acumen of Miss Ashton. I shall pass over the speeches, however, as they had no direct bearing on the mystery which Kennedy and I found so engrossing.

The meeting had been cleverly planned so that in spite of its accomplishing much for the propaganda work of the "cause," it did not become tiresome and the speaking was followed by the entrance of one of the best little orchestras for dance music in the city.

Instantly, the scene transformed itself from a suffrage meeting to a social function that was unique. Leaders of the smart set rubbed elbows, and seemed to enjoy it, with working girls and agitators. Conservative and radical, millionaire and muckraker succumbed to the spell of the Ashton hospitality and the lure of the new dances. It was a novel experience for all, a levelling-up of society, as contrasted to some of the levelling-down that we had recently seen.

Kennedy and I, having no mood as things stood for the festivities, drew aside and watched the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers. Across from us was a wide doorway that opened into a spacious conservatory, a nook of tropical and temperate beauty. Several couples had wandered in there to rest and, as the orchestra struck up something new that seemed to have the "punch" to its timeful measures, they gradually rejoined the dancers.

It had evidently suggested an idea to Kennedy, for a moment later he led me toward the coat room and uncovered the package which he had brought consisting of the two oaken boxes I had seen him adjusting in the laboratory.

We managed to reach the conservatory and found in a corner a veritable bower with a wide rustic seat under some palms. Quickly Kennedy deposited in the shadow of one of them an oaken box, sticking into it the plugs on the ends of the wires that I had brought. It was an easy matter here in the dim half light to conceal the wire behind the plants and a moment later he tossed the end through a swinging window in the glass and closed the window.

Casually we edged our way out among the dancers and around to the room into which he had thrown the wire. It was a breakfast room, I think, but at any rate we could not remain there for it was quite easy to see into it through the crystal walls of the conservatory. There was, however, what seemed to be a little pantry at the other end, and to this Kennedy deftly led the wires and then plugged them in on the other oaken box.

He turned a lever. Instantly from the wizard-like little box issued forth the strains of the dance music of the orchestra and the rhythmic shuffle of feet. Now and then a merry laugh or a snatch of gay conversation floated in to us. Though we were effectually cut off from both sight and hearing in the pantry, it was as though we had been sitting on the rustic bench in the conservatory.

"What is it?" I asked in amazement, gazing at the wonderful little instrument before us.

"A vocaphone," he explained, moving the switch and cutting off the sound instantly, "an improved detectaphone—something that can be used both in practical business, professional, and home affairs as a loud speaking telephone, and, as I expect to use it here, for special cases of detective work. You remember the detectaphone instruments which we have used?"

Indeed I did. It had helped us out of several very tight situations—and seemed now to have been used to get the organization into a very tight political place.

"Well, the vocaphone," went on Kennedy, "does even more than the detectaphone. You see, it talks right out. Those little apertures in the face act like megaphone horns increasing the volume of sound." He indicated the switch with his finger and then another point to which it could be moved. "Besides," he went on enthusiastically, "this machine talks both ways. I have only to turn the switch to that point and a voice will speak out in the conservatory just as if we were there instead of talking here."

He turned the switch so that it carried the sounds only in our direction. The last strains of the dance music were being followed by the hearty applause of the dancers.

As the encore struck up again, a voice, almost as if it were in the little room alongside us, said, "Why, hello, Maty, why aren't you dancing?"

There was an unmistakable air of familiarity about it and about the reply, "Why aren't you, Hartley?"

"Because I've been looking for a chance to have a quiet word with you," the man rejoined.

"Langhorne and Mrs. Ogleby," cried Craig excitedly.

"Sh!" I cautioned, "they might hear us."

He laughed. "Not unless I turn the switch further."

"I saw you down at the Criminal Courts Building this morning," went on the man, "but you didn't see me. What did you think of Carton?"

I fancied there was a trace of sarcasm or jealousy in his tone. At any rate, woman-like, she did not answer that question, but went on to the one which it implied.

"I didn't go to see Carton. He is nothing to me, has not been for months. I was only amusing myself when I knew him—leading him on, playing with him, then." She paused, then turned the attack on him. "What did you think of Miss Ashton? You thought I didn't see you, but you hardly took your eyes off her while I was in the hallway waiting to hear the verdict."

It was Langhorne's turn to defend himself. "It wasn't so much Margaret Ashton as that fellow Carton I was watching," he answered hastily.

"Then you—you haven't forgotten poor little me?" she inquired with a sincere plaintiveness in her voice.

"Mary," he said, lowering his voice, "I have tried to forget you— tried, because I had no right to remember you in the old way—not while you and Martin remained together. Margaret and I had always been friends—but I think Carton and this sort of thing,"—he waved his hand I imagined at the suffrage dancers—"have brought us to the parting of the ways. Perhaps it is better. I'm not so sure that it isn't best."

"And yet," she said slowly, "you are piqued—piqued that another should have won where you failed—even if the prize isn't just what you might wish."

Langhorne assented by silence. "Hartley," she went on at length, "you said a moment ago you had tried to forget me—"

"But can't," he cut in with almost passionate fierceness. "That was what hurt me when I—er—heard that you had gone with Murtha to that dinner of Dorgan's. I couldn't help trying to warn you of it. I know Martin neglects you. But I was mad—mad clean through when I saw you playing with Carton a few months ago. I don't know anything about it—don't want to. Maybe he was innocent and you were tempting him. I don't care. It angered me—angered me worse than ever when I saw later that he was winning with Margaret Ashton. Everywhere, he seemed to be crossing my trail, to be my nemesis. I—I wish I was Dorgan—I wish I could fight."

Langhorne checked himself before he said too much. As it was I saw that it had been he who had told Mrs. Ogleby that the Black Book existed. He had not told her that he had made it, if in fact he had, and she had let the thing out, never thinking Langhorne had been the eavesdropper, but supposing it must be Carton.

"Why—why did you go to that dinner with Murtha?" he asked finally, with a trace of reproach in his tone.

"Why? Why not?" she answered defiantly. "What do I care about Martin? Why should I not have my—my freedom, too? I went because it was wild, unconventional, perhaps wrong. I felt that way. If— if I had felt that you cared—perhaps—I could have been—more discreet."

"I do care," he blurted out. "I—I only wish I had known you as well as I do now—before you married—that's all."

"Is there no way to correct the mistake?" she asked softly. "Must marriage end all—all happiness?"

Langhorne said nothing, but I could almost hear his breathing over the vocaphone, which picked up and magnified even whispers.

"Mary," he said in a deep, passionate voice, "I—I will defend you—from this Murtha thing—if it ever gets out. I know it is always on your mind—that you couldn't keep away from that trial for fear that Carton, or Murtha, or SOMEBODY might say something by chance or drop some hint about it. Trust me."

"Then we can be—friends?"

"Lovers!" he cried fiercely.

There was a half-smothered exclamation over the faithful little vocaphone, a little flurried rustle of silk and a long, passionate sigh.

"Hartley," she whispered.

"What is it, Mary?" he asked tensely.

"We must be careful. Carton MUST be defeated. He must not have the power—to use that—record."

"No," ground out Langhorne. "Wait—he shall not. By the way, aren't those orchids gorgeous?"

The encore had ceased and over the vocaphone we could hear gaily chatting couples wandering into the conservatory. The two conspirators rose and parted silently, without exciting suspicion.

For several minutes we listened to snatches of the usual vapid chatter that dancing seems to induce. Then the orchestra blared forth with another of the seductive popular pieces.

Kennedy and I looked at each other, amazed. From the underworld up to the smart set, the trail of graft was the same, debauching and blunting all that it touched. Here we saw the making of a full- fledged scandal in one of the highest circles.

We had scarcely recovered from our surprise at the startling disclosures of the vocaphone, when we heard two voices again above the music, two men this time.

"What—you here?" inquired a voice which we recognized immediately as that of Langhorne.

"Yes," replied the other voice, evidently of a young man. "I came in with the swells to keep my eye peeled on what was going on."

The voice itself was unfamiliar, yet it had a tough accent which denoted infallibly the section of the city where it was acquired. It was one of the gangsters.

"What's up, Ike?" demanded Langhorne suspiciously.

Craig looked at me significantly. It was Ike the Dropper!

The other lowered his voice. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Langhorne. You're in the organization and we ain't got no grudge against you. It's Carton."

"Carton?" repeated Langhorne, and one could feel the expectant catch in his breath, as he added quickly: "You mean you fellows are going to try to get him right?"

"Bet your life," swaggered Ike, believing himself safe. "How?"

The gangster hesitated, then reassured by Langhorne, said: "He's ordered a taxicab. We got it for him—a driver who is a right guy and'll drive him down where there's a bunch of the fellows. They ain't goner do nothing serious—but—well, he won't campaign much from a hospital cot," he added sagely. "Say—here he comes now with that girl. I better beat it."

Langhorne also managed to get away apparently, or else Carton and Miss Ashton were too engrossed in one another to notice him, for we heard no word of greeting.

A moment later Carton's and Miss Ashton's voices were audible.

"Must you go?" she was saying.

"I'm afraid so," he apologized. "I've a speech to prepare for to- morrow and I've had several hard days. It's been a splendid evening, Miss Ashton—splendid. I've enjoyed it ever so much and I think it has accomplished more than a hundred meetings—besides the publicity it will get for the cause. Shall I see you to-morrow at headquarters?"

"I shall make it a point to drop in," she answered in a tone as unmistakable.

"Mr. Carton—your cab is waiting, sir," announced a servant with an apology for intruding. "At the side entrance, sir, so that you can get away quietly, sir."

Carton thanked him.

I looked at Kennedy anxiously. If Carton slipped away in this fashion before we could warn him, what might not happen? We could hardly expect to get around and through the press of the dancers in time.

"I hate to go, Miss Ashton," he was adding. "I'd stay—if I saw any prospect of the others going. But—you see—this is the first time to-night—that I've had a word with you—alone."

It was not only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy's eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton's love affairs was quite another thing from Langhorne's.

Quickly Craig turned the lever all the way over.

"Carton—Miss Ashton—this is Kennedy," he called. "Back of the big palm you'll find a vocaphone. Don't take that cab! They are going to stick you up. Wait—I'll explain all in a moment!"



XVIII

THE WALL STREET WOLF

It was a startled couple that we found when we reached the conservatory. As we made our hasty explanation, Carton overwhelmed us with thanks for the prompt and effective manner in which Kennedy had saved him from the machinations of the defeated gangsters.

Miss Ashton, who would have kept her nerves under control throughout any emergency, actually turned pale as she learned of the danger that had been so narrowly averted. I am sure that her feelings, which she made no effort to conceal, must have been such as to reassure Carton if he had still any doubt on that score.

The delay in his coming out, however, had been just enough to arouse suspicion, and by the time that we reached the side entrance to the house both Ike and the night-hawk taxicab which had evidently been drafted into service had disappeared, leaving no clue.

The result of the discovery over the vocaphone was that none of us left Miss Ashton's until much later than we had expected.

Langhorne, apparently, had gone shortly after he left the conservatory the last time, and Mrs. Ogleby had preceded him. When at last we managed to convince Miss Ashton that it was perfectly safe for Carton to go, nothing would suffice except that we should accompany him as a sort of bodyguard to his home. We did so, without encountering any adventure more thrilling than seeing an argument between a policeman and a late reveller.

"I can't thank you fellows too much," complimented Carton as we left him. "I was hunting around for you, but I thought you had found a suffrage meeting too slow and had gone."

"On the contrary," returned Kennedy, equivocally, "we found it far from slow."

Carton did not appreciate the tenor of the remark and Craig was not disposed to enlighten him.

"What do you suppose Mrs. Ogleby meant in her references to Carton?" mused Kennedy when we reached our own apartment.

"I can't say," I replied, "unless before he came to really know Miss Ashton, they were intimate."

Kennedy shook his head. "Why will men in a public capacity get mixed up with women of the adventuress type like that, even innocently?" he ruminated. "Mark my words, she or someone else will make trouble for him before we get through."

It was a thought that had lately been in my own mind, for we had had several hints of that nature.

Kennedy said no more, but he had started my mind on a train of speculative thought. I could not imagine that a woman of Mrs. Ogleby's type could ever have really appealed to Carton, but that did not preclude the possibility that some unscrupulous person might make use of the intimacy for base purposes. Then, too, there was the threat that I had heard agreed on by both Langhorne and herself over the vocaphone.

What would be the next step of the organization now in its sworn warfare on Carton, I could not imagine. But we did not have long to wait. Early the following forenoon an urgent message came to Kennedy from Carton to meet him at his office.

"Kennedy," he said, "I don't know how to thank you for the many times you have pulled me through, and I'm almost ashamed to keep on calling on you."

"It's a big fight," hastened Craig. "You have opponents who know the game in its every crooked turn. If I can be only a small cog on a wheel that crushes them, I shall be only too glad. Your face tells me that something particularly unpleasant has happened."

"It has," admitted Carton, smoothing out some of the wrinkles at the mere sight of Craig.

He paused a moment, as if he were himself in doubt as to just what the trouble was.

"Someone has been impersonating me over the telephone," he began. "All day long there have been reports coming into my office asking me whether it was true that I had agreed to accept the offer of Dorgan that Murtha made, you know,—that is, practically to let up on the organization if they would let up on me."

"Yes," prompted Kennedy, "but, impersonation—what do you mean by that?"

"Why, early to-day someone called me up, said he was Dorgan, and asked if I would have any objection to meeting him. I said I would meet him—only it would do no good. Then, apparently, the same person called up Dorgan and said he was myself, asking if he had any objection to meeting me. Dorgan said he'd see. Whoever it was, he almost succeeded in bringing about the fool thing—would have done it, if I hadn't got wise to the fact that there was something funny about it. I called up Dorgan. He said he'd meet me, as long as I had approached him first. I said I hadn't. We swore a little and called the fake meeting off. But it was too late. It got into the papers. Now, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference to either of us. It doesn't to him. People will think he tried to slip one over on ME. But it does make a difference to me. People will think I'm trying to sell out."

Carton showed plainly his vexation at the affair.

"The old scheme!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That's the plan that has been used by a man down in Wall Street that they call, 'the Wolf.' He is a star impersonator—will call up two sworn enemies and put over something on them that double-crosses both."

"Wall Street," mused Carton. "That reminds me of another batch of rumours that have been flying around. They were that I had made a deal with Langhorne by which I agreed to support him in his fight to get something in the contracts of the new city planning scheme in return for his support of the part of the organization he could swing to me in the election,—another lie."

"It might have been Langhorne himself, playing the wolf," I suggested.

Kennedy had reached for the telephone book. "Also, it might have been Kahn," he added. "I see he has an office in Wall Street, too. He has been the legal beneficiary of several shady transactions down there."

"Oh," put in Carton, "it might have been any of them—they're all capable of it from Dorgan down. If Murtha was only out, I'd be inclined to suspect him."

He tossed over a typewritten sheet of paper. "That's the statement I gave out to the press," he explained.

It read: "My attention has been called to the alleged activities of some person or persons who through telephone calls and underground methods are seeking to undermine confidence in my integrity. A more despicable method of attempting to arouse distrust I cannot imagine. It is criminal and if anyone can assist me in placing the responsibility where it belongs I shall be glad to prosecute to the limit."

"That's all right," assented Kennedy, "but I don't think it will have any effect. You see, this sort of thing is too easy for anyone to be scared off from. All he has to do is to go to a pay station and call up there. You couldn't very well trace that."

He stopped abruptly and his face puckered with thought.

"There ought to be some way, though," I murmured, without knowing just what the way might be, "to tell whether it is Dorgan and the organization crowd, or Langhorne and his pool, or Kahn and the other shysters."

"There IS a way," cried Kennedy at last. "You fellows wait here while I make a flying trip up to the laboratory. If anyone calls us, just put him off—tell him to call up later."

Carton continued to direct the work of his office, of which there had been no interruptions even during the stress of the campaign. Now and then the telephone rang and each time Carton would motion to me, and say, "You take it, Jameson. If it seems perfectly regular then pass it over to me."

Several routine calls came in, this way, followed by one from Miss Ashton, which Carton prolonged much beyond the mere time needed to discuss a phase of the Reform League campaign.

He had scarcely hung up the receiver, when the bell tinkled insistently, as though central had had an urgent call which the last conversation had held up.

I took down the receiver, and almost before I could answer the inquiry, a voice began, "This is the editor of the Wall Street Record, Mr. Carton. Have you heard anything of the rumours about Hartley Langhorne and his pool being insolvent? The Street has been flooded with stories—"

"One moment," I managed to interrupt. "This is not Mr. Carton, although this is his office. No—he's out. Yes, he'll certainly be back in half an hour. Ring up then."

I repeated the scrap of gossip that had filtered through to me, which Carton received in quite as much perplexity as I had.

"Seems as if everybody was getting knocked," he commented.

"That may be a blind, though," I suggested.

He nodded. I think we both realized how helpless we were when Kennedy was away. In fact we made even our guesses with a sort of lack of confidence.

It was therefore with a sense of relief that we welcomed him a few minutes later as he hurried into the office, almost breathless from his trip uptown and back.

"Has anyone called up?" he inquired unceremoniously, unwrapping a small parcel which he carried.

I told him as briefly as I could what had happened. He nodded, without making any audible comment, but in a manner that seemed to show no surprise.

"I want to get this thing installed before anyone else calls," he explained, setting to work immediately.

"What is it?" I asked, regarding the affair, which included something that looked like a phonograph cylinder.

"An invention that has just been perfected," he replied without delaying his preparations, "by which it is possible for messages to be sent over the telephone and automatically registered, even in the absence of anyone at the receiving end. Up to the present it has been practicable to take phonograph records only by the direct action of the human voice upon the diaphragm of the instrument. Not long ago there was submitted to the French Academy of Sciences an apparatus by which the receiver of the telephone can be put into communication with a phonograph and a perfect record obtained of the voice of the speaker at the other end of the wire, his message being reproduced at will by merely pressing a button."

"Wouldn't the telegraphone do?" I asked, remembering our use of that instrument in other cases.

"It would record," he replied, "but I want a phonograph record. Nothing else will do in this case. You'll see why, before I get through. Besides, this apparatus isn't complicated. Between the diaphragm of the telephone receiver and that of the phonographic microphone is fitted an air chamber of adjustable size, open to the outer atmosphere by a small hole to prevent compression. I think," he added with a smile, "it will afford a pretty good means of collecting souvenirs of friends by preserving the sound of their voices through the telephone." For several minutes we waited.

"I don't think I ever heard of such effrontery, such open, bare- faced chicanery," fumed Carton impatiently.

"We'll catch the fellow yet," replied Kennedy confidently. "And I think we'll find him a bad lot."



XIX

THE ESCAPE

At last the telephone rang and Carton answered it eagerly. As he did so, he quickly motioned to us to go to the outside office where we, too, could listen on extensions.

"Yes, this is Mr. Carton," we heard him say.

"This is the editor of the Wall Street Record," came back the reply in a tone that showed no hesitation or compunction if it was lying. "I suppose you have heard the rumours that are current downtown that Hartley Langhorne and the people associated with him have gone broke in the pool they formed to get control of the public utilities that would put them in a position to capture the city betterment contracts?"

"No—I hadn't heard it," answered Carton, with difficulty restraining himself from quizzing the informant about himself. Kennedy was motioning to him that that was enough. "I'm sure I can't express any opinion at all for publication on the subject," he concluded brusquely, jamming down the receiver on the hook before his interlocutor had a chance to ask another question.

The bell continued to ring, but Craig seized the receiver off its hook again and called back, "Mr. Carton has gone for the day," hanging it up again with a bang.

"Call up the Record now," advised Craig, disconnecting the recording instrument he had brought. "See what the editor has to say."

"This is the District Attorney's office," said Carton a moment later when he got the number. "You just called me."

"I called you?" asked the editor, non-plussed.

"About a rumour current in Wall Street."

"Rumour? No, sir. It must be some mistake."

"I guess so. Sorry to have troubled you. Good-bye."

Carton looked from one to the other of us. "You see," he said in disgust, "there it is again. That's the sort of thing that has been going on all day. How do I know what that fellow is doing now—perhaps using my name?"

I had no answer to his implied query as to who was the "wolf" and what he might be up to. As for Kennedy, while he showed plainly that he had his suspicions which he expected to confirm absolutely, he did not care to say anything about them yet.

"Two can play at 'wolf,'" he said quietly, calling up the headquarters of Dorgan's organization.

I wondered what he would say, but was disappointed to find that it was a merely trivial conversation about some inconsequential thing, as though Kennedy had merely wished to get in touch with the "Silent Boss." Next he called up the sanitarium to which Murtha had been committed, and after posing as Murtha's personal physician managed to have the rules relaxed to the extent of exchanging a few sentences with him.

"How did he seem—irrational?" asked Carton with interest, for I don't think the District Attorney had complete confidence in the commonly announced cause of Murtha's enforced retirement.

Kennedy shook his head doubtfully. "Sounded pretty far gone," was all he said, turning over the pages of the telephone book as he looked for another number.

This time it was Kahn whom he called up, and he had some difficulty locating him, for Kahn had two offices and was busily engaged in preparing a defence to the charges preferred against him for the jury fixing episode.

Among others whom he called up was Langhorne, and the conversation with him was as perfunctory as possible, consisting merely in repeating his name, followed by an apology from Kennedy for "calling the wrong number."

In each case, Craig was careful to have his little recording instrument working, taking down every word that was uttered and when he had finished he detached it, looking at the cylinder with unconcealed satisfaction.

"I'm going up to the laboratory again," he announced, as Carton looked at him inquiringly. "The investigation that I have in mind will take time, but I shall hurry it along as fast as I possibly can. I don't want any question about the accuracy of my conclusions."

We left Carton, who promised to meet us late in the afternoon at the laboratory, and started uptown. Instead, however, of going up directly, Craig telephoned first to Clare Kendall to shadow Mrs. Ogleby.

The rest of the day he spent in making microphotographs of the phonograph cylinder and studying them very attentively under his high-powered lens.

Toward the close of the afternoon the first report of Miss Kendall, who had been "trailing" Mrs. Ogleby, came in. We were not surprised to learn that she had met Langhorne in the Futurist Tea Room in the middle of the afternoon and that they had talked long and earnestly. What did surprise us, though, was her suspicion that she had crossed the trail of someone else who was shadowing Mrs. Ogleby.

Kennedy made no comment, though I could see that he was vitally interested. What was the significance of the added mystery? Someone else had an interest in watching her movements. At once I thought of Dorgan. Could he have known of the intimacy of his guest at the Gastron dinner with Langhorne, rather than with Murtha, with whom she had gone? Suddenly another explanation occurred to me. What was more likely than that Martin Ogleby should have heard of his wife's escapade? He would certainly learn now to his surprise of her meeting with Langhorne. What would happen then?

Kennedy had about finished with his microphotographic work and was checking it over to satisfy himself of the results, when Carton, as he had promised, dropped in on us.

"What are you doing now?" he asked curiously, looking at the prints and paraphernalia scattered about. "By the way, I've been inquiring into the commitment of Murtha to that sanitarium for the insane. On the surface it all seems perfectly regular. It appears that, unknown even to many of his most intimate friends, he has been suffering from a complication of diseases, the result of his high life, and they have at last affected his brain, as they were bound to do in time. Still, I don't like his 'next friends' in the case. One is his personal physician—I don't know much about him. But Dorgan is one of the others."

"We'll have to look into it," agreed Kennedy. "Meanwhile, would you like to know who your 'wolf' is that has been spreading rumours about broadcast?"

"I would indeed," exclaimed Carton eagerly. "You were right about the statement I issued. It had no more effect than so many unspoken words. The fellow has kept right on. He even had the nerve to call up Miss Ashton in my name and try to find out whether she had any trace of the missing Betty Blackwell. How do you suppose they found out that she was interested?"

"Not a very difficult thing," replied Kennedy. "Miss Ashton must have told several organizations, and the grafters always watch such societies pretty closely. What did she say?"

"Nothing," answered Carton. "I had thought that they might try something of the sort and fortunately I warned her to disregard any telephone messages unless they came certainly from me. We agreed on a little secret formula, a sort of password, to be used, and I flatter myself that the 'wolf' won't be able to accomplish much in that direction. You say you have discovered a clue? How did you get it?"

Kennedy picked up one of the microphotographs which showed an enlargement of the marks on the phonograph cylinder. He showed it to us and we gazed curiously at the enigmatic markings, greatly magnified. To me, it looked like a collection of series of lines. By close scrutiny I was able to make out that the lines were wavy and more or less continuous, being made up of collections of finer lines,—lines within lines, as it were.

An analysis of their composition showed that the centre of larger lines was composed of three continuous series of markings which looked, under the lens, for all the world like the impressions of an endless straight series of molar teeth. Flanking these three tooth-like impressions were other lines—varying in width and in number—I should say, about four, both above and below the tooth- like impressions. When highly magnified one could distinguish roughly parallel parts of what at even a low magnification looked like a single line.

"I have been studying voice analysis lately," explained Kennedy, "particularly with reference to the singing voice. Mr. Edison has made thousands and thousands of studies of voices to determine which are scientifically perfect for singing. That side of it did not interest me particularly. I have been seeking to use the discovery rather for detective purposes."

He paused and with a fine needle traced out some of the lines on the photographs before us.

"That," he went on, "is a highly magnified photograph of a minute section of the phonographic record of the voice that called you up, Carton, as editor of the Wall Street Record. The upper and lower lines, with long regular waves, are formed by a voice with no overtones. Those three broader lines in the middle, with rhythmic ripples, show the overtones."

Carton and I followed, fascinated by the minuteness of his investigation and knowledge.

"You see," he explained, "when a voice or a passage of music sounds or is sung before a phonograph, its modulations received upon the diaphragm are written by the needle point upon the surface of the cylinder or disc in a series of fine waving or zig- zag lines of infinitely varying depth and breadth.

"Close familiarity with such records for about forty years has taught Mr. Edison the precise meaning of each slightest variation in the lines. I have taken up and elaborated his idea. By examining them under the microscope one can analyze each tone with mathematical accuracy and can almost hear it—just as a musician reading the score of a song can almost hear the notes."

"Wonderful," ejaculated Carton. "And you mean to say that in that way you can actually identify a voice?"

Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking them over under a microscope—yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice— mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger- print, the portrait parle of the human voice!"

Incredible as it seemed, we were forced to believe, for there on the table lay the graphic evidence which he had just so painstakingly interpreted.

"Who was it?" asked Carton breathlessly.

Kennedy picked up another microphotograph. "That is the record I took of one of the calls I made—merely for the purpose of obtaining samples of voices to compare with this of the impersonator. The two agree in every essential detail and none of the others could be confounded by an expert who studied them. Your 'wolf' was your old friend Kahn!"

"Fighting back at me by his usual underhand methods," exclaimed Carton in profound disgust.

"Or else trying himself to get control of the Black Book," added Kennedy. "If you will stop to think a moment, his shafts have been levelled quite as much at discrediting Langhorne as yourself. He might hope to kill two birds with one stone—and incidentally save himself."

"You mean that he wants to lay a foundation now for questioning the accuracy of the Black Book if it ever comes to light?"

"Perhaps," assented Kennedy carefully.

"Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his impostures," hastened Carton.

"I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that we know what he is up to and can trace it to him—provided you don't tell him how we did it—yet."

Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every place in which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his offices, nor at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton left a message which told the story and which he could hardly fail to receive soon.

As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown study. He rose slowly and put on his hat.

"Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked, "particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with it. I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I heard about his condition. I want to see him myself."

Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to speak to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more important to look to the foundations than to the building just now."

A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced that Murtha had been taken.

I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty either in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We arrived at the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high brick wall, and evidently once a fine country estate, at just about dusk. To my surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had no difficulty in being admitted.

For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room, I listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the building. Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state of disorder. I had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for the care and treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of excitement which palpably pervaded the air was not what one would have expected. I began to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and wonder whether there might not have been a revolution in the place and the patients have taken charge of their keepers.

At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going to pass us without notice.

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Kennedy, who had heard his footsteps approaching and had placed himself in the hallway so that the attendant could not pass, "but we have called to see Mr. Murtha."

The attendant eyed us curiously. I expected him to say that it was against the rules, or to question our right to see the patient.

"I'm afraid you're too late," he said briefly, instead.

"Too late?" queried Kennedy sharply. "What do you mean?"

The man answered promptly as if that were the quickest way to get back to his own errand.

"Mr. Murtha escaped from his keepers this evening, just after dinner, and there is no trace of him."



XX

THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH

Murtha's escape from the sanitarium had again thrown our calculations into chaos. We rode back to the city in silence, and even Kennedy had no explanation to offer.

Even at a late hour that night, although a widespread alarm had been sent out for him, no trace of the missing man could be found. The next morning's papers, of course, were full of the strange disappearance, but gave no hint of his discovery. In fact, all day the search was continued by the authorities, but without result.

On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the official and political life of the city, could remain at large unrecognized. Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men had disappeared. The facts in Murtha's case spoke for themselves.

Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the final spurt to the finish.

With Kennedy's unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn, that worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our sight. Mrs. Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect that the shadow that had been placed on her could not have been engaged by Martin Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take reports of the sort complaisantly. Someone else must be interested.

As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that no one made use of it. Even though we gained no hint from Langhorne after the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was impossible to tell whether or not he still retained the detectaphone record. On the other hand, if Dorgan had obtained it by using the services of someone in the criminal hierarchy that Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that we would have heard anything about it. We were in the position of men fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly whom we fought.

We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as had been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous twenty-four, had been speculating on the possible solution of the mysterious dropping out of sight of Murtha. The evening papers had contained nothing that the morning papers had not already published and Kennedy had tossed the last of an armful into the scrap basket when the buzzer on the door of our apartment sounded.

A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a note, as he touched his hat. "A message for Professor Kennedy from Mr. Carton, sir," he announced.

I recognized him as Carton's valet as he stood impatiently waiting for Craig to read the letter.

"It's all right—there's no answer—I'll see him immediately," nodded Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet disappeared.

"My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves," read the note. "Would you like to look it over? I can't find anything missing except a bundle of old and valueless photographs. Carton."

"Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book from Langhorne," I commented, following the line on which I had been thinking at the time.

"And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not finding it?" Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my theory.

"Perhaps," I acquiesced weakly, as we went out.

Instead of turning in the direction of Carton's immediately, Kennedy walked across the campus toward the Chemistry Building. At the laboratory we loaded ourselves with a large and heavy oblong case containing a camera and a tripod.

The Cartons lived in an old section of the city which still retained something of its aristocratic air, having been passed by, as it were, like an eddy in the stream of business that swirled uptown, engulfing everything.

It was an old four-story brownstone house which had been occupied by his father and grandfather before him, and now was the home of Carton, his mother, and his sister.

"I'm glad to see you," Carton met us at the door. "This isn't quite as classy a robbery as Langhorne's—but it's just as mysterious. Must have happened while the family were at dinner. That's why I said it was a robbery by a sneak thief."

He was leading the way to his study, which was in an extension of the house, in the rear.

"I hope you've left things as they were," ventured Craig.

"I did," assured Carton. "I know your penchant for such things and almost the first thought I had was that you'd prefer it that way. So I shut the door and sent William after you. By the way, what have you done with him?"

"Nothing," returned Craig. "Isn't he back yet?"

"No—oh, well I don't need him right away."

"And nothing was taken except some old photographs?" asked Craig, looking intently at Carton's face.

"That is all I can find missing," he returned frankly.

Kennedy's examination of the looted study was minute, taking in the window through which the thief had apparently entered, the cabinet he had forced, and the situation in general. Finally he set up his camera with most particular care and took several flashlight pictures of the window, the cabinet, the doors— including the study—from every angle. Outside he examined the extension and back of the house carefully, noting possible ways of getting from the side street across the fences into the Carton yard.

With Carton we returned to Craig's splendidly equipped photographic studio and while Carton and I made the best of our time by discussing various phases of the case, Kennedy employed the interval in developing his plates.

He had ten or a dozen prints, all of exactly the same size, mounted on stiff cardboard in a space with scales and figures on all four margins. Carton and I puzzled over them.

"Those are metric photographs, such as Bertillon of Paris used to take," Craig explained. "By means of the scales and tables and other methods that have been worked out, we can determine from those pictures distances and many other things almost as well as if we were on the spot ourselves. Bertillon cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with other devices in the study of crime."

He was going over the photographs carefully.

"For instance," he continued, "in order to solve the riddle of a crime, the detective's first task is to study the scene topographically. Plans and elevations of a room or house are made. The position of each object is painstakingly noted. In addition, the all-seeing eye of the camera is called into requisition. The plundered room is photographed, as in this case. I might have done it by placing a foot rule on a table and taking that in the picture. But a more scientific and accurate method has been devised by Bertillon. His camera lens is always used at a fixed height from the ground and forms its image on the plate at an exact focus. The print made from the negative is mounted on a card in a space of definite size, along the edges of which a metric scale is printed. In the way he has worked it out, the distance between any two points in the picture can be determined. With a topographical plan and a metric photograph one can study a crime, as a general studies the map of a strange country. There were several peculiar things that I observed at your house, Carton, and I have here an indelible record of the scene of the crime. Preserved in this way, it cannot be questioned. You are sure that the only thing missing is the photographs?"

Carton nodded, "I never keep anything valuable lying around."

"Well," resumed Kennedy, "the photographs were in this cabinet. There are other cabinets, but none of them seems to have been disturbed. Therefore the thief must have known just what he was after. The marks made in breaking the lock were not those of a jimmy, but of a screwdriver. No amazing command of the resources of science is needed so far. All that is necessary is a little scientific common sense."

Carton glanced at me, and I smiled, for it always did seem so easy, when Craig did it, and so impossible when we tried to go it alone.

"Now, how did the robber get in?" he continued, thoroughly engrossed in his study. "All the windows were supposedly locked. I saw that a pane had been partly cut from this window at the side— and the pieces were there to show it. But consider the outside, a moment. To reach that window even a tall man must have stood on a ladder or something. There were no marks of a ladder or even of any person in the soft soil of the garden under the window. What is more, that window was cut from the inside. The marks of the diamond which cut it plainly show that. Scientific common sense again."

"Then it must have been someone in the house or at least familiar with it?" I exclaimed.

Kennedy shook his head affirmatively.

I had been wondering who it could be. Certainly this was not the work of Dopey Jack, even if the far cleverer attempt on Langhorne's safe had been. But it might have been one of his gang. I had not got as far as trying to reason out the why of the crime.

"Call up your house, Carton," asked Craig. "See if William, your valet, has returned."

Carton did so, and a moment later turned to us with a look of perplexity on his face. "No," he reported, "he hasn't come back yet. I can't imagine where he is."

"He won't come back," asserted Kennedy positively. "It was an inside job—and he did it."

Carton gasped astonishment.

"At any rate," pursued Kennedy, "one thing we have which the police greatly neglect—a record. We have made some progress in reconstructing the crime, as Bertillon used to call it."

"Strange that he should take only photographs," I mused.

"What were they?" asked Kennedy, and again I saw that he was looking intently at Carton's face.

"Nothing much," returned Carton unhesitatingly, "just some personal photographs—of no real value except to me. Most of them were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different times and places that I kept for the associations."

"Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?" suggested Kennedy.

Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied frankly.

Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. I frankly had not believed Langhorne, yet Carton was not of the same type and I felt that his open face would surely have disclosed to us any real loss that he suffered or apprehension that he felt over the robbery.

I was forced to give it up, and I think Kennedy, too, had decided not to worry over the crossing of any bridges until at least we knew that there were bridges to be crossed.

Carton was worried more by the discovery that one he had trusted even as a valet had proved unfaithful. He knew, however, as well as we did that one of the commonest methods of the underworld when they wished to pull off a robbery was to corrupt one of the servants of a house. Still, it looked strange, for the laying of such an elaborate plan usually preceded only big robberies, such as jewelery or silver. For myself, I was forced back on my first theory that someone had concluded that Carton had the Black Book, had concocted this elaborate scheme to get what was really of more value than much jewelry, and had found out that Carton did not have the precious detectaphone record, after all. I knew that there were those who would have gone to any length to get it.

A general alarm was given, through the police, for the apprehension of William, but we had small hope that anything would result from it, for at that time Carton's enemies controlled the police and I am not sure but that they would have been just a little more dilatory in apprehending one who had done Carton an injury than if it had been someone else. It was too soon, that night, of course, to expect to learn anything, anyhow.

It was quite late, but it had been a confining day for Kennedy who had spent the hours while not working on Carton's case in some of the ceaseless and recondite investigations of his own to which he was always turning his restless mind.

"Suppose we walk a little way downtown with Carton?" he suggested.

I was not averse, and by the time we arrived in the white light belt of Broadway the theatres were letting out.

Above the gaiety of the crowds one could hear the shrill cry of some belated newsboys, calling an "Extra Special"—the only superlative left to one of the more enterprising papers whose every issue was an "Extra."

Kennedy bought one, with the laughing remark, "Perhaps it's about your robbery, Carton."

It was only a second before the smile on his face changed to a look of extreme gravity. We crowded about him. In red ink across the head of the paper were the words:

"BODY OF MURTHA, MISSING, FOUND IN MORGUE"

Down in a lower corner, in a little box into which late news could be dropped, also in red ink, was the brief account:

This morning the body of an unknown man was found in The Bronx near the Westchester Railroad tracks. He had been run over and badly mutilated. After lying all day in the local morgue, it was transferred, still unidentified, to the city Morgue downtown.

Early this evening one of the night attendants recognized the unidentified body as that of Murtha, "the Smiling Boss," whose escape day before yesterday from an asylum in Westchester has remained a mystery until now.

"Well—what do you—think of that!" ejaculated Carton. "Murtha— dead—and I thought the whole thing was a job they were putting up on me!"

Kennedy crooked his finger at a cabby who was alertly violating the new ordinance and soliciting fares away from a public cab stand.

"The Morgue—quick!" he ordered, not even noticing the flabbergasted look on the jehu's face, who was not accustomed to carrying people thither from the primrose path of Broadway quite so rapidly.



XXI

THE MORGUE

There had come a lull in the activities which never entirely cease, night or day, in the dingy building at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. Across the street in the municipal lodging- house the city's homeless were housed for the night. Even ever wakeful Bellevue Hospital nearby was comparatively quiet.

The last "dead boat" which carries the city's unclaimed corpses away for burial had long ago left, when we arrived. The anxious callers who pass all day through the portals of the mortuary chamber seeking lost friends and relatives had disappeared. Except for the night keeper and one or two assistants, the Morgue was empty save of the overcrowded dead.

Years before, as a cub reporter on the Star, I had had the gruesome assignment once of the Morgue. It was the same old place after all these years and it gave me the same creepy sensations now as it did then. Even the taxicab driver seemed glad to set down his fares and speed away.

It was ghoulish. I felt then and I did still that instead of contributing to the amelioration of conditions that could not be otherwise than harrowing, everything about the old Morgue lent itself to the increase of the horror of the surroundings.

As Kennedy, Carton, and I entered, we found that the principal chamber in the place was circular. Its walls were lined with the ends of caskets, which, fitting close into drawer-like apertures were constantly enveloped in the refrigerated air.

It seemed, even at that hour, that if these receptacles were even adequate to contain all of the daily tenants of the Morgue, much of the anguish and distress inseparable from such a place might be spared those who of necessity must visit the place seeking their dead. As it was, even for those bound by no blood ties to the unfortunates who found their way to the city Morgue, the room was a veritable chamber of horror.

We stood in horrified amazement at what we saw. On the floor, which should be kept clear, lay the overflow of the day's intake. Bodies for which there was no room in the cooling boxes, others which were yet awaiting claimants, and still more awaiting transfer to the public burying ground, lay about in their rough coffins, many of them brutally exposed.

It seemed, too, that if ever there was a time when conditions might have been expected to have halfway adjusted themselves to the pressure which by day brought out all too clearly the hopeless inadequacy of the facilities provided by the city to perform one of its most important and inevitable functions, it was at that early morning hour of our visit. Presumably preparation had been completed for the busy day about to open by setting all into some semblance of respectful order. But such was not the case. It was impossible.

In one group, I recall, which an attendant said had been awaiting his removal for a couple of days, the rough board coffins, painted the uniform brown of the city's institutions, lay open, without so much as face coverings over the dead.

They lay as they had been sent in from various hospitals. Most of them were bereft of all the decencies usual with the dead, in striking contrast, however, with the bodies from Bellevue, which were all closely swathed in bandages and shrouds.

One body, that of a negro, which had been sent in to the Morgue from a Harlem hospital, lay just as it came, utterly bare, exposing to public view all the gruesome marks of the autopsy. I wondered whether anything like that might be found to be the fate of the once jovial and popular Murtha, when we found him.

I almost forgot our mission in the horror of the place, for, nearby was an even more heartrending sight. Piled in several heaps much higher than a man's head and as carelessly as cordwood were the tiny coffins holding the babies which the authorities are called on by the poor of the city to bury in large numbers—far too poor to meet the cost of the cheapest decent burial. Atop the stack of regulation coffins were the nondescript receptacles made use of by the very poor—the most pathetic a tiny box from the corner grocery. The bodies, some dozens of them, lay like so much merchandise, awaiting shipment.

"What a barbarity!" I heard Craig mutter, for even he, though now and then forced to visit the place when one of his cases took him there, especially when it was concerned with an autopsy, had never become hardened to it.

Often I had heard him denounce the primitive appointments, especially in the autopsy rooms. The archaic attempts to utilize the Morgue for scientific investigation were the occasion for practices that shocked even the initiated. For the lack of suitable depositories for the products of autopsies, these objects were plainly visible in rude profusion when a door was opened to draw out a body for inspection. About and around the slabs whereon the human bodies lay, in bottles and in plates, this material which had no place except in the cabinets of a laboratory was inhumanly displayed in profusion, close to corpses for which a morgue is expected to provide some degree of reverential care.

"You see," apologized the keeper, not averse to throwing the blame on someone else, for it indeed was not his but the city's fault, "one reason why so many bodies have to remain uncared for is that I could show you cooling box after cooling box with some subject which figured during the past few months in the police records. Why victims of murders committed long ago should be held indefinitely, and their growing numbers make it impossible to give proper places to each day's temporary bodies, I can't say. Sometimes," he added with a sly dig at Carton, "the only explanation seems to be that the District Attorney's office has requested the preservation of the grisly relics."

I could see that Carton was making a mental note that the practice would be ended as far as his office was concerned.

"So—you saw the story in the newspapers about Mr. Murtha," repeated the keeper, not displeased to see us and at the publicity it gave him. "It was I that discovered him—and yet many's the times some of the boys that must have handled the body since it was picked up beside the tracks must have seen him. It was too late to get anyone to take the body away to-night, but the arrangements have all been made, and it will be done early in the morning before anyone else sees Pat Murtha here, as he shouldn't be. We've done what we could for him ourselves—he was a fine gentleman and many's the boy that owes a boost up in life to him."

Reverentially even the hardened keeper drew out one of the best of the drawer-like boxes. On the slab before us lay the body. Carton drew back, excitedly, shocked.

"It IS Murtha!" he exclaimed.

I, too, looked at it quickly. The name as Carton pronounced it, in such a place, had, to me at least, an unpleasant likeness to "murder."

Kennedy had bent down and was examining the mutilated body minutely.

"How do you suppose such a thing is possible—that he could lie about the city, even here until the night keeper came on,— unknown?" asked Carton, aghast.

"I don't know," I said, "but I imagine that in connection with the actual inadequacy of the equipment one would find reflected the same makeshift character in the attitude and actions of those who handle the city's dead. It used to be the case, at least, that the facilities for keeping records were often almost totally neglected, and not through the fault of the Morgue keepers, entirely. But, I understand it is better now."

"This is terrible," repeated Carton, averting his face. "Really, Jameson, it makes me feel like a hound, for ever thinking that Murtha might have been putting up a game on me. Poor old Murtha—I should have preferred to remember him as the 'Smiling Boss' as everyone always called him!"

I called to mind the last time we had seen Murtha, in Carton's office as the bearer of an offer which had made Carton almost beside himself with anger at the thought of the insult that he would compromise with the organization. What a contrast, this, with the Murtha who, in turn, had been trembling with passion at Carton's refusal!

And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all—the fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions which had made possible such neglect of the district leader's body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many who owed their very positions to the organization.

I could not help but think that if he had served humanity with one-half the zeal which he had served graft, this could not have happened.

The more I contemplated the case, the more tragic did it seem to me. I longed for the assignment of writing the story for the Star- -the chance I would have had in the old days to bring in a story that would have got me a nod of approval from my superior. I determined, as soon as possible, to get the Star on the wire and try to express some of the thoughts that were surging through my brain in the face of this awful and unexpected occurrence.

There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as those of the Morgue attendants. I could not help reflecting on the strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all distinctions between men of high and low degree. Murtha had almost literally sprung from the streets. His career had been one possible only in the social and political conditions of his times. And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a pauper's grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan to debauch.

Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed. For the moment he did not even think of how this blow to the System might affect his own chances. It was only the pitiful wreck of a human being before us that he saw.

I was not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who was examining Murtha's body with minute care, now and then muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it had received in its various transfers about the city. But there were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which added even more to the horror of the case.

One thing, I felt, was fortunate. Murtha had had no family. There had been plenty of scandal about him, but as far as I knew there was no one except his old cronies in the organization to be shocked by his loss, no living tragedy left in the wake of this.

"How do you suppose it happened?" I asked the night keeper.

He shook his head doubtfully. "No one knows, of course," he replied slowly. "But I think the big fellow got worse up there in that asylum. He wasn't used to anything but having his own way, you know. They say he must have waited his chance, after the dinner hour, when things were quiet, and then slipped out while no one was looking. He may have been crazy, but you can bet your life Pat Murtha was the smartest crazy man they ever had up there. THEY couldn't hold him."

"I see," I said, struck by the faith which the man had inspired even in those who held the lowest of city positions. "But I meant how do you suppose he was killed?"

The attendant looked at me thoughtfully a while. "Young man," he answered, "I ain't saying nothing and it may have been an accident after all. Have you ever been up in that part of town?"

I had not and said so.

"Well," he continued, "those electric trains do sneak up on a fellow fast. It may have been an accident, all right. The coroner up there said so, and I guess he ought to know. It must have been late at night—perhaps he was wandering away from the ordinary roads for fear of being recaptured. No one knows—I guess no one will know, ever. But it's a sad day for many of the boys. He helped a lot of 'em. And Mr. Dorgan—he knows what a loss it is, too. I hear that it's hit the Chief hard."

The attendant, rough though he was and hardened by the daily succession of tragedies, could not restrain an honest catch in his voice over the passing of the "big fellow," as some of them called the "Smiling Boss." It was a pretty good object lesson on the power of the system which the organization had built up, how Murtha, and even the more distant Dorgan himself, had endeared himself to his followers and henchmen. Perhaps it was corrupt, but it was at least human, and that was a great deal in a world full of inhumanities. In the face of what had happened, one felt that much might be forgiven Murtha for his shortcomings, especially as the era of the Murthas and Dorgans was plainly passing.

"Here at least," whispered Carton, as we withdrew to a corner to escape the palling atmosphere, "is one who won't worry about what happens to that Black Book any more. I wonder what he really knew about it—what secrets he carried away with him?"

"I can't say," I returned. "But, one thing it does. It must relieve Mrs. Ogleby's fears a bit. With Murtha out of the way there is one less to gossip about what went on at Gastron's that night of the dinner."

He said nothing and just then Kennedy straightened up, as though he had finished his examination. We hurried over to him. I thought the look on Craig's face was peculiar.

"What is it—what did you find?" both Carton and I asked.

Kennedy did not answer immediately.

"I—I can't say," he answered slowly at length, as we thanked the Morgue keeper for his courtesy and left the place. "In fact I'd rather not say—until I know."

I knew from previous experiences that it was of no use to try to quiz Kennedy. He was a veritable Gradgrind for facts, facts, facts. As for myself, I could not help wondering whether, after all, Murtha might not have been the victim of foul play—and, if so, by whom?



XXII

THE CANARD

We did not have to wait long for the secret of the robbery of Carton to come out. It was not in any "extras," or in the morning papers the next day, but it came through a secret source of information to the Reform League.

"A clerk in the employ of the organization who is really a detective employed by the Reform League," groaned Carton, as he told us the story himself the next morning at his office, "has just given us the information that they have prepared a long and circumstantial story about me—about my intimacy with Mrs. Ogleby and Murtha and some others. The story of the robbery of my study is in the papers this morning. To-morrow they plan to publish some photographs—alleged to have been stolen."

"Photographs—Mrs. Ogleby," repeated Kennedy. "Real ones?"

"No," exclaimed Carton quickly, "of course not—fakes. Don't you see the scheme? First they lay a foundation in the robbery, knowing that the public is satisfied with sensations, and that they will be sure to believe that the robbery was put up by some muckrakers to obtain material for an expose. I wasn't worried last night. I knew I had nothing to conceal."

"Then what of it?" I asked naively.

"A good deal of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some means of putting a date on them early in the spring."

"What are they that they should take such pains with them?" persisted Kennedy, looking fixedly at Carton.

Carton met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be photographs of myself," he repeated. "One purports to represent me in a group composed of Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, another woman whom I do not even know, and myself. I am standing between Murtha and Mrs. Ogleby and we look very familiar. Another is a picture of the same four riding in a car, owned by Murtha. Oh, there are several of them, of that sort."

He paused as a dozen unspoken questions framed themselves in my mind. "I don't hesitate to admit," he added, "that a few months ago I knew Mrs. Ogleby—socially. But there was nothing to it. I never knew Murtha well, and the other woman I never saw. At various times I have been present at affairs where she was, but I know that no pictures were ever taken, and even if there had been, I would not care, provided they told the truth about them. What I do care about is the sworn allegation that, I understand, is to accompany these—these fakes."

His voice broke. "It's a lie from start to finish, but just think of it, Kennedy," he went on. "Here is the story, and here, too, are the pictures—at least they will be, in print, to-morrow. Now, you know nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have a scandal like this raised at this time. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for the suspicion to turn the tide against me. If it were earlier in the campaign, I might accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn of events I should have really the best sort of campaign material. But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick on the Saturday before election."

"Can't we buy them off?" I ventured, perplexed beyond measure at this new and unexpected turn of events.

"No, I won't," persisted Carton, shutting his square jaw doggedly. "I won't be held up—even if that is possible."

"Miss Ashton on the wire," announced a boy from the outer office.

The look on Carton's face was a study. I saw directly what was the trouble—far more important to him than a mere election.

"Tell her—I'm out—will be back soon," he muttered, for the first time hesitating to speak to her.

"You see," he continued blackly, "I'll fight if it takes my last dollar, but I won't allow myself to be blackmailed out of a cent— no, not a cent," he thundered, a heightened look of determination fixing the lines on his face as he brought his fist down with a rattling bang on the desk.

Kennedy was saying nothing. He was letting Carton ease his mind of the load which had been suddenly thrust upon it. Carton was now excitedly pacing the floor.

"They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect."

"That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off."

"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat—they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial."