The Silent Bullet Part 17

"And the diamonds"

"All gone--everything of any value was gone. Even the letter-files were ransacked. His desk was broken open, and papers of some nature had been taken out of it. Thorough is no name for the job. Isn't that enough to arouse suspicion?"

"I should like to see that safe," was all Kennedy said.

"So you shall, so you shall," said Mr. Andrews. "Then we may retain you in our service? My car is waiting down-stairs. We can go right down to Maiden Lane if you wish."

"You may retain me on one condition," said Craig without moving. "I am to be free to get at the truth whether it benefits or hurts the company, and the case is to be entirely in my hands."

"Hats on," agreed Mr. Andrews, reaching in his vest pocket and pulling out three or four brevas. "My chauffeur is quite a driver. He can almost beat the subway down."

"First, to my laboratory," interposed Craig. "It will take only a few minutes."

We drove up to the university and stopped on the campus while Craig hurried into the Chemistry Building to get something.

"I like your professor of criminal science;" said Andrews to me, blowing a huge fragrant cloud of smoke.

I, for my part, liked the vice-president. He was a man who seemed thoroughly to enjoy life, to have most of the good things, and a capacity for getting out of them all that was humanly possible. He seemed to be particularly enjoying this Morowitch case.

"He has solved some knotty cases," was all I said. "I've come to believe there is no limit to his resourcefulness."

"I hope not. He's up against a tough one this trip, though, my boy."

I did not even resent the "my boy." Andrews was one of those men in whom we newspaper writers instinctively believe. I knew that it would be "pens lifted" only so long as the case was incomplete. When the time comes with such men they are ready to furnish us the best "copy" in the world.

Kennedy quickly rejoined us, carrying a couple of little gla.s.s bottles with ground-gla.s.s stoppers.

Morowitch & Co. was, of course, closed when we arrived, but we had no trouble in being admitted by the Central Office man who had been detailed to lock the barn door after the horse was stolen. It was precisely as Mr. Andrews had said. Mr. Kahan showed us the safe. Through the top a great hole had been made--I say made, for at the moment I was at a loss to know whether it had been cut, drilled, burned, blown out, or what-not.

Kennedy examined the edges of the hole carefully, and just the trace of a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face as he did so. Without saying a word he took the gla.s.s stopper out of the larger bottle which he had brought and poured the contents on the top of the safe near the hole. There it lay, a little mound of reddish powder.

Kennedy took a little powder of another kind from the other bottle and lighted it with a match.

"Stand back--close to the wall," he called as he dropped the burning ma.s.s on the red powder. In two or three leaps he joined us at the far end of the room.

Almost instantly a dazzling, intense flame broke out, and sizzled and crackled. With bated breath we watched. It was almost incredible, but that glowing ma.s.s of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could still see the reflection of the molten ma.s.s in the cup which it had burned for itself in the top of the safe.

At last it fell through into the safe--fell as the burning roof of a frame building would fall into the building. No one spoke a word, but as we cautiously peered over the top of the safe we instinctively turned to Kennedy for an explanation. The Central Office man, with eyes as big as half-dollars, acted almost as if he would have liked to clap the irons on Kennedy. For there in the top of the safe was another hole, smaller but identical in nature with the first one.

"Thermit," was all Kennedy said.

"Thermit?" echoed Andrews, s.h.i.+fting the cigar which he had allowed to go out in the excitement.

"Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen, Germany. It is a compound of iron oxide, such as comes off a blacksmith's anvil or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered metallic aluminum. You could thrust a red-hot bar into it without setting it off, but when you light a little magnesium powder and drop it on thermit, a combustion is started that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidising agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface.

You see how it ate its way through the steel. Either black or red thermit will do the trick equally well."

No one said anything. There was nothing to say.

"Someone uncommonly clever, or instructed by someone uncommonly clever, must have done that job," added Craig. "Well, there is nothing more to be done here," he added, after a cursory look about the office. "Mr.

Andrews, may I have a word with you? Come on, Jameson. Good day, Mr.

Kahan. Good day, Officer."

Outside we stopped for a moment at the door of Andrews's car.

"I shall want to see Mr. Morowitch's papers at home," said Craig, "and also to call on Doctor Thornton. Do you think I shall have any difficulty?"

"Not at all," replied Mr. Andrews, "not at all. I will go with you myself and see that you have none. Say, Professor Kennedy," he broke out, "that was marvellous. I never dreamed such a thing was possible.

But don't you think you could have learned something more up there in the office by looking around?"

"I did learn it," answered Kennedy. "The lock on the door was intact--whoever did the job let himself in by a key. There is no other way to get in."

Andrews gave a low whistle and glanced involuntarily up at the window with the sign of Morowitch & Co. in gold letters several floors above.

"Don't look up. I think that was Kahan looking out at us," he said, fixing his eyes on his cigar. "I wonder if he knows more about this than he has told! He was the 'company,' you know, but his interest in the business was only very slight. By George--"

"Not too fast, Mr. Andrews," interrupted Craig. "We have still to see Mrs. Morowitch and the doctor before we form any theories."

"A very handsome woman, too," said Andrews, as we seated ourselves in the car: "A good deal younger than Morowitch. Say, Kahan isn't a bad-looking chap, either, is he? I hear he was a very frequent visitor at his partner's house. Well, which first, Mrs. M. or the doctor?"

"The house," answered Craig.

Mr. Andrews introduced us to Mrs. Morowitch, who was in very deep mourning, which served, as I could not help noticing, rather to heighten than lessen her beauty. By contrast it brought out the rich deep colour of her face and the graceful lines of her figure. She was altogether a very attractive young widow.

She seemed to have a sort of fear of Andrews, whether merely because he represented the insurance company on which so much depended or because there were other reasons for fear, I could not, of course, make out.

Andrews was very courteous and polite, yet I caught myself asking if it was not a professional rather than a personal politeness. Remembering his stress on the fact that she was alone with her husband when he died, it suddenly flashed across my mind that somewhere I had read of a detective who, as his net was being woven about a victim, always grew more and more ominously polite toward the victim. I know that Andrews suspected her of a close connection with the case. As for myself, I don't know what I suspected as yet.

No objection was offered to our request to examine Mr. Morowitch's personal effects in the library, and accordingly Craig ransacked the desk and the letter-file. There was practically nothing to be discovered.

"Had Mr. Morowitch ever received any threats of robbery?" asked Craig, as he stood before the desk.

"Not that I know of," replied Mrs. Morowitch. "Of course every jeweller who carries a large stock of diamonds must be careful. But I don't think my husband had any special reason to fear robbery. At least he never said anything about it. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing. I merely thought there might be some hint as to the motives of the robbery," said Craig. He was fingering one of those desk-calendars which have separate leaves for each day with blank s.p.a.ces for appointments.

"'Close deal Poissan,'" he read slowly from one of the entries, as if to himself. "That's strange. It was the correspondence under the letter 'P' that was destroyed at the office, and there is nothing in the letter-file here, either. Who was Poissan?"

Mrs. Morowitch hesitated, either from ignorance or from a desire to evade the question. "A chemist, I think," she said doubtfully. "My husband had some dealings with him--some discovery he was going to buy.

I don't know anything about it. I thought the deal was off."

"The deal?"

"Really, Mr. Kennedy, you had better ask Mr. Kahan. My husband talked very, little to me about business affairs."

"But what was the discovery?"

"I don't know. I only heard Mr. Morowitch and Mr. Kahan refer to some deal about a discovery regarding diamonds."

"Then Mr. Kahan knows about it?"