Whispering Wires Part 35

"Go on!" said Drew. "Be very clear!"

"This fellow was connecting Morphy at state prison with this house through the two slot booths. I sneaked up and waited for him to finish.

He's busy with a pair of pliers. I falls on him like a ton of bricks.

Then after I get the cuffs on, I listens in. It's Morphy roaring there, with that big bull voice of his. He's mad 'cause he gets no answer. He shouts over and over, Chief--'Bert! Bert! Bert! Is it planted in her room? Her room. Is it there?'" Delaney paused and stared about the sitting room.

"What does he mean, Chief?" he asked huskily. "What is that _'it'?"_

"Go on!" said Drew tersely.

"I got Morphy off the wire, Chief. I got Frick and then Frick got the warden. He's a good fellow. He listened to me, then he calls some guards and they drag Morphy through the prison and down to the coolers.

I guess they're down in the ground, somewhere. Anyway, Chief, he's gone for good--unless they send him to the chair for his part in the murder of Stockbridge."

"He'll go! What I want to know now, Delaney, is this fellow's right name. Morphy said 'Bert,' eh?"

"Sure he did, Chief. 'Bert! Bert! Bert!' That's close to Albert. Albert Jones, like's in the letter."

"No! That would be a throw-off. He's some other kind of a Bert. Let me see his cap."

Delaney picked the prisoner's cap from the rug and pa.s.sed it over to Drew. The detective examined it, ripped the silk, and looked under the lining. He straightened and handed it to Harry Nichols.

"Can you make that name out?" he asked. "Your eyes are younger than mine. Perhaps Miss Stockbridge can read it. It's Spanish, I think.

'Gusta' or 'Gasta.' The rest is obliterated with grease."

"Antof.a.gasta!" declared Loris suddenly. "It's Antof.a.gasta, Chile."

"Fetch the lineman's kit, the Central Office man brought," said Drew to the operative. "Put it right here by this fellow's side. I--we are getting close to the truth in this case."

Delaney hurried back with the satchel. It was the same one that Drew had seen in the library on the evening Stockbridge was murdered. It had excited no suspicion then.

"A magneto," said the detective. "First comes a ringing magneto which has seen much service. Put that over there, Delaney. Spread a paper or something. Ah," Drew added, "here's a set of small dry batteries arranged in series. Three or four of them. I don't know just what they're for, but Bert does."

The prisoner's pale eyes blinked and were closed again as the lids compressed in wrinkled determination. He moved slightly when Drew pressed a knee against his chest. He coughed with dry catching deep down in his throat. The detective felt of his pulse. It was faint but steady--like a tired sleeper's.

"He's coming out of it," Drew said. "He'll talk after awhile. Let's see, what is this?"

Delaney leaned over the satchel. "Another link," said Drew, drawing out a telephone receiver without wires attached to it. "And here," he added, "is the testing set with the sharp clamps. That's for listening in or talking with other people's connections. I don't doubt that this fellow knows his business. Here's a micro-volt meter that registers fractions of volts. Here's an ammeter of the pocket size. I've seen this kind on automobiles for testing dry-cells. Now, what is this?"

"Looks like a full set of jimmies!" blurted Delaney. "That's a sectional jimmy!"

"He's got everything," said the detective, turning and glancing at Loris. "Here, Miss Stockbridge," he said, holding up an empty cartridge sh.e.l.l. "Here is the most important link in the chain against him. It's a twenty-two sh.e.l.l which has been fired. See--wait--what's this, Delaney? The cap on the end hasn't been struck. The cartridge was discharged--the cap is intact. How could that be?"

Loris and Harry Nichols leaned over the detective. He turned the tiny sh.e.l.l around in his fingers. He sniffed it. He held it out so they could see the end. "Discharged," he exclaimed, "without touching the detonating cap on the end! That's odd! Very suggestive!"

"Let me see it," said Nichols. "I'll tell. We have exams on these things. This seems to have been fired," he continued with thought.

"It's been fired without concussion. I'd say it was heat that did it. A match touched to the base here would fire the cap, which would, in turn, set off the powder. There's a different color to the bra.s.s at the cap end. It looks to me like a sh.e.l.l which has been clamped down by three--no, four screws. There's marks on the rim. See them, Loris--Miss Stockbridge? Right there. Right at my nail."

"That's about right, Harry!" declared Drew, reaching for the cartridge.

"It was clamped down with small screws. It was ignited or set off by heat. It forms part of a home-made pistol which conforms, to a hair, with Fosd.i.c.k's statement that the bullet never went through a barrel that was rifled."

"That's your own statement!" blurted Delaney. "Fosd.i.c.k never had brains enough to figure a thing out like that. All he knows is pinch everybody two or three times. I've seen him do it."

Drew eyed the prisoner. "So you see," he said softly, cuttingly, "crime does not pay. The net has closed over your head. You erred a score of times. You couldn't afford to make one little mistake. I could--I did!

I've made a hundred in this case already! It's the hound and the hare.

The hound loses the scent and brays on blunderingly till he picks it up again. You lost me time and again. You fooled me in that lineman's guise when you came into the library. Your make-up was perfect. You said just the right things."

The prisoner's lips curled in a thin cruel line. He rattled the cuffs defiantly. His shoulders lifted then fell back upon the rug.

"Bert!" snapped Drew. "Bert!" he repeated with awakening thought.

"Delaney," he said, turning and glancing up at the operative's broad, flushed face. "I got this fellow located. What was the name of the man we tried to find in the Morphy failure? The one we had a bench-warrant for? He was indicted. The indictment was sealed. You know! It's a name you didn't like. The fellow who escaped to Rio or South America? Who afterwards went to Antof.a.gasta. Ah, Cuthbert!"

"That's it, Chief! Cutbert! Cutbert Morphy--the old devil's brother.

This is him!"

Drew rubbed his hands vigorously. "It is!" he exclaimed, with his eyes swinging over the prisoner's drawn features. "Cuthbert Morphy--a brother's tool and confederate. We're getting on!"

The detective rose and faced Loris and Nichols. "Captain," he said, "a firing squad at sunrise would be the Army's answer to this man's deviltry. Consider what he has done. He's worked back to New York after a year as a fugitive. He connected in some manner with Morphy at Sing Sing. Perhaps he went there as a visitor under the pretext of business connected with Morphy's affairs. This scheme was hatched there in the prison. It was financed by Morphy. It succeeded in so far as Mr.

Stockbridge was concerned. First the telephone call to the cemetery superintendent. Then followed his visit to this house for the purpose of fixing some fiendish device. Or----"

"He might have fixed the windows, Chief," suggested Delaney. "He might have opened a catch and climbed in afterwards."

"He wasn't near the windows," said Drew. "He had something else in the back of his crafty, twisted brain. He came and went out, with Mr.

Stockbridge and I watching him. He called up, then, and threatened the death. He probably looped the library 'phone up with Sing Sing at or about midnight. We have a record of both calls."

"Why," asked Loris, as Drew paused in thought. "Why did he have Morphy connected with father? I can't see, Mr. Drew, that part of it. The rest, you have told is, is very clear."

"Nor I yet," admitted the detective. "But that is a detail. It is probably the criminal's ego, which is in every one of them, to notify their prey that the hour has come. Morphy was an artist in crime. He was a master mind in finance and chicanery. What better revenge could he think of than to notify Mr. Stockbridge that death was about to strike? It savors of Machiavelli and Borgia. Whom the G.o.ds destroy they first make mad. He tried it on you."

"G.o.ds!" blurted Delaney with ire. "Devils, you mean, Chief!"

"Yes, or worse!" said Drew, glancing sternly at the prisoner. "This fellow," he added, "is the agent for the destroyer. Now how was it done?"

Delaney glanced about the walls of the room in apprehension. "I'll take another look around," he suggested heavily. "Maybe with them new ideas we can locate something that might be planted for the killing."

Drew glanced sharply at the prisoner's face. A faint sneer was on the thin lips. The wrists twisted and turned in the handcuffs. The steel chain rattled metallically. Loris backed step after step toward the s.h.i.+elding curtain and Harry Nichols. "Oh!" she said suddenly, as she dropped her head against his breast. "Oh, Harry! there can't be anything like _that."_

"Certainly not!" Drew hastened to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. "That's nonsense. If there was anything planted in either of these three rooms, there's no one to get in and operate it. I've searched! Mr. Delaney has searched. Do you want us to search again?" Drew's lips were drawn with doubt as he stared anxiously from Loris to Nichols. "I'll do it, captain, if you say so. I think we've done enough work, however. The thing is to get this fellow to talk. I don't want to give him over to Fosd.i.c.k and the third degree till we see if he is going to treat us right. He can turn state's evidence on Morphy, who blundered. Then he'll get off lightly.

Morphy is the master mind."

"He only smiles," said Nichols, tapping his breast suggestively. "I've a gun here and I've a mind to use it. Do you think I want Miss Stockbridge murdered like her father was murdered? I'll shoot that cur!

He's a whispering snake! A Hun!"

"Don't!" sobbed Loris, as Nichols thrust his hand in his coat and drew out a flat automatic of .44 caliber. "Don't, Harry! Perhaps this man is innocent."

"Innocent!" declared Nichols. "Why, Loris--why, Miss Stockbridge, you don't think _that_, after all the things Mr. Drew has discovered. I'll wager my commission he's guilty as h.e.l.l, and I mean it, Loris."

"He's that!" Delaney declared. "He and his brother the devil are one in sin. They're lost spirits."

"Now everybody," said Drew, gathering in the group with his eyes, which were strangely bright. "Everybody keep very quiet for a minute. Let me think."