The Poisoned Pen Part 30

The coroner had scarcely left us, more mystified than ever, when a telephone message came from McBride saying that he had some important news for us if we would meet him at the St. Cenis Hotel within an hour.

He would say nothing about it over the wire.

As Kennedy hung up the receiver he quietly took a pistol from a drawer of his desk, broke it quickly, and looked thoughtfully at the cartridges in the cylinder. Then he snapped it shut and stuck it into his pocket.

"There's no telling what we may run up against before we get back to the laboratory," he remarked and we rode down to meet McBride.

The description which the house man had sent out to the other hotel detectives the night before had already produced a result. Within the past two days a man answering the description of the younger man whom McBride had seen in the cafe and a woman who might very possibly have been Madame's maid had come to the St. Cenis as M. and Mme. Duval.

Their baggage was light, but they had been at pains to impress upon the hotel that they were persons of some position and that it was going direct from the railroad to the steamer, after their tour of America.

They had, as a matter of fact, done nothing to excite suspicion until the general request for information had been received.

The house man of the St. Cenis welcomed us cordially upon McBride's introduction and agreed to take us up to the rooms of the strange couple if they were not in. As it happened it was the lunch hour and they were not in the room. Still, Kennedy dared not be too particular in his search of their effects, for he did not wish to arouse suspicion upon their return, at least not yet.

"It seems to me, Craig," I suggested after we had nosed about for a few minutes, finding nothing, "that this is pre-eminently a case in which to use the dictograph as you did in that Black Hand case."

He shook his head doubtfully, although I could see that the idea appealed to him. "The dictograph has been getting too much publicity lately," he said. "I'm afraid they would discover it, that is, if they are at all the clever people I think them. Besides, I would have to send up to the laboratory to get one and by the time the messenger returned they might be back from lunch. No, we've got to do something else, and do it quickly."

He was looking about the room in an apparently aimless manner. On the side wall hung a cheap etching of a woodland scene. Kennedy seemed engrossed in it while the rest of us fidgeted at the delay.

"Can you get me a couple of old telephone instruments?" he asked at length, turning to us and addressing the St. Cenis detective.

The detective nodded and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later he deposited the instruments on a table. Where he got them I do not know, but I suspect he simply lifted them from vacant rooms.

"Now some Number 30 copper wire and a couple of dry cells," ordered Kennedy, falling to work immediately on the telephones. The detective despatched a bellboy down to the bas.e.m.e.nt to get the wire from the house electrician.

Kennedy removed the transmitters of the telephones, and taking the carbon capsules from them placed the capsules on the table carefully.

Then he lifted down the etching from the wall and laid it flat on its face before us. Quickly he removed the back of the picture.

Pressing the transmitter fronts with the carbon capsules against the paper and the gla.s.s on the picture he mounted them so that the paper and gla.s.s acted as a large diaphragm to collect all the sounds in the room.

"The size of this gla.s.s diaphragm," he explained as we gathered around in intense interest at what he was doing, "will produce a strikingly sensitive microphone action and the merest whisper will be reproduced with startling distinctness."

The boy brought the wire up and also the news that the couple in whose room we were had very nearly finished luncheon and might be expected back in a few minutes.

Kennedy took the tiny wires, and after connecting them hung up the picture again and ran them up alongside the picture wires leading from the huge transmitter up to the picture moulding. Along the top of the moulding and out through the transom it was easy enough to run the wires and so down the hall to a vacant room, where Craig attached them quickly to one of the old telephone receivers.

Then we sat down in this room to await developments from our hastily improvised picture frame microphone detective.

At last we could hear the elevator door close on our floor. A moment later it was evident from the expression of Kennedy's face that some one had entered the room which we had just left. He had finished not a moment too soon.

"It's a good thing that I didn't wait to put a dictograph there," he remarked to us. "I thought I wasn't reckoning without reason. The couple, whoever they are, are talking in undertones and looking about the room to see if anything has been disturbed in their absence."

Kennedy alone, of course, could follow over his end of the telephone what they said. The rest of us could do nothing but wait, but from notes which Craig jotted down as he listened to the conversation I shall reproduce it as if we had all heard it. There were some anxious moments until at last they had satisfied themselves that no one was listening and that no dictograph or other mechanical eavesdropper, such as they had heard of, was concealed in the furniture or back of it.

"Why are you so particular, Henri?" a woman's voice was saying.

"Louise, I've been thinking for a long time that we are surrounded by spies in these hotels. You remember I told you what happened at the Vanderveer the night you and Madame arrived? I'm sure that waiter overheard what Gonzales and I were talking about."

"Well, we are safe now anyhow. What was it that you would not tell me just now at luncheon?" asked the woman, whom Kennedy recognised as Madame de Nevers's maid.

"I have a cipher from Was.h.i.+ngton. Wait until I translate it."

There was a pause. "What does it say?" asked the woman impatiently.

"It says," repeated the man slowly, "that Miss Lovelace has gone to Was.h.i.+ngton. She insists on knowing whether the death of Marie was a suicide or not. Worse than that the Secret Service must have wind of some part of our scheme, for they are acting suspiciously. I must go down there or the whole affair may be exposed and fall through. Things could hardly be worse, especially this sudden move on her part."

"Who was that detective who forced his way to see her the night they discovered Marie's body?" asked the woman. "I hope that that wasn't the Secret Service also. Do you think they could have suspected anything?"

"I hardly think so," the man replied. "Beyond the death of Madame they suspect nothing here in New York, I am convinced. You are sure that all her letters were secured, that all clues to connect her with the business in hand were destroyed, and particularly that the package she was to deliver is safe?"

"The package? You mean the plans for the coaling station on the Pacific near the Ca.n.a.l? You see, Henri, I know."

"Ha, ha,--yes," replied the man. "Louise, shall I tell you a secret?

Can you keep it?"

"You know I can, Henri."

"Well, Louise, the scheme is deeper than even you think. We are playing one country against another, America against--you know the government our friend Schmidt works for in Paris. Now, listen. Those plans of the coaling station are a fake--a fake. It is just a commercial venture. No nation would be foolish enough to attempt such a thing, yet. We know that they are a fake. But we are going to sell them through that friend of ours in the United States War Department. But that is only part of the coup, the part that will give us the money to turn the much larger coups we have in the future. You can understand why it has all to be done so secretly and how vexatious it is that as soon as one obstacle is overcome a dozen new ones appear. Louise, here is the big secret. By using those fake plans as a bait we are going to obtain something which when we all return to Paris we can convert into thousands of francs.

There, I can say no more. But I have told you so much to impress upon you the extreme need of caution."

"And how much does Miss Lovelace know?"

"Very little--I hope. That is why I must go to Was.h.i.+ngton myself. She must know nothing of this coup nor of the real de Nevers, or the whole scheme may fall through. It would have fallen through before, Louise, if you had failed us and had let any of de Nevers's letters slip through to Miss Lovelace. She richly deserved her fate for that act of treachery. The affair would have been so simple, otherwise. Luck was with us until her insane jealousy led her to visit Miss Lovelace. It was fortunate the young lady was out when Madame called on her or all would have been lost. Ah, we owe you a great deal, Louise, and we shall not forget it, never. You will be very careful while I am gone?"

"Absolutely. When will you return to me, Henri?"

"To-morrow morning at the latest. This afternoon the false coaling station plans are to be turned over to our accomplice in the War Department and in exchange he is to give us something else--the secret of which I spoke. You see the trail leads up into high circles. It is very much more important than you suppose and discovery might lead to a dangerous international complication just now."

"Then you are to meet your friend in Was.h.i.+ngton to-night? When do you start, Henri? Don't let the time slip by. There must be no mistake this time as there was when we were working for j.a.pan and almost had the blue prints of Corregidor at Manila only to lose them on the streets of Calcutta."

"Trust me. We are to meet about nine o'clock and therefore I leave on the limited at three-thirty, in about an hour. From the station I am going straight to the house on Z Street--let me see, the cipher says the number is 101--and ask for a man named Gonzales. I shall use the name Montez. He is to appear, hand over the package--that thing I have told you about--then I am to return here by one of the midnight trains.

At any cost we must allow nothing to happen which will reach the ears of Miss Lovelace. I'll see you early to-morrow morning, ma cherie, and remember, be ready, for the Aquitania sails at ten. The division of the money is to be made in Paris. Then we shall all go our separate ways."

Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel service to find out how the trains ran for Was.h.i.+ngton. The only one that would get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next, leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven. He had evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in our friend down the hall missing the limited, but abandoned it. Any such scheme would simply result in a message to the gang in Was.h.i.+ngton putting them on their guard and defeating his purpose.

"At all costs we must beat this fellow to it," exclaimed Craig, waiting to hear no more over his improvised dictograph. "Come, Walter, we must catch the limited for Was.h.i.+ngton immediately. McBride, I leave you and the regular house man to shadow this woman. Don't let her get out of your sight for a moment."

As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig hastily informed me of what he had overheard. We took up our post so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes later Craig spotted our man from McBride's description, and succeeded in securing chairs in the same car in which he was to ride.

Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey. For five mortal hours we sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car, never letting the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know that we were watching him. Nevertheless I could not help asking myself what good it did. Why did not Kennedy hire a special if the affair was so important as it appeared? How were we to get ahead of him in Was.h.i.+ngton better than in New York? I knew that some plan lurked behind the calm and inscrutable face of Kennedy as I tried to read and could not.

The train had come to a stop in the Union Station. Our man was walking rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand. Suddenly Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking abreast of him.

"I beg your pardon," began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow of the arc lights, "but have you a match?"

The man halted and fumbled for his match-box. Instantly Kennedy's pocket handkerchief was at his nose.

"Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs," ground out Kennedy, crus.h.i.+ng several of the little gla.s.s globes under his handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect.

The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him between us. Up the platform we led him in a daze.