Death Points A Finger Part 23

"Well?"

"Thank you for the opportunity to investigate this, Mr. Hite. This is one of the most interesting criminal inquiries I have ever conducted."

"Were you up to Pleasantville, Professor?"

"Yes, we are coming from there now."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yes, I found this." He took from a folded slip of paper the bit of frayed thread he had found in the telephone box.

Hite looked from the bit of thread to the fine features of the man; he looked at the two young men who grinned at him. He said:

"All right, Professor, I'll bite. What is this?"

"Would you say, Mr. Hite, that this bit of thread belongs inside a properly constructed telephone box?"

When Hite still looked at him in puzzled silence, Professor Brierly, with delicate precision, using a hook on a pen knife, picked the lock of the telephone box fastened to the managing editor's desk.

"See, Mr. Hite. This box, wires, binding posts, terminals, and so forth, is identical with the box that was blown from a wall in the Flynn home in Pleasantville. On the bottom of this box you will find a number of holes; if you put your finger there you will feel them. Now, Mr. Hite, if you will examine this box carefully, you will find that there is no thread like this to be found. Indeed, you will not find any legitimate use for such a piece of thread in the box. And remember that this box locks and opens with a key owned by the man who installs the telephone. You noticed that I had to pick this lock. It looks like a screw head that opens with a screw driver, but it is not.

"Now, Mr. Hite, suppose I wanted to blow you to kingdom come with a bomb and you lived in an isolated house situated like the late Mr. Flynn's. Here is the way I might do it. There are hundreds of other safe ways but this is one of them.

"I should enter the house in your absence. I should place my bomb and run a fuse from the bomb to one of the holes in this telephone box. I should tie the clapper of the bell down in the box with a bit of weak thread, a bit of thread like this, Mr. Hite."

He held up the bit of gray thread and continued:

"I should predetermine precisely the strength of the thread with relation to the resistance offered by the tied down bell clapper.

I should know exactly how many times the operator would have to ring your telephone before the thread broke, say fourteen times. I should watch you from a convenient patch of woods. When you came home I would go to the nearest telephone and call your number. At the fourteenth ring, the clapper would break loose and strike a nail that discharges a blank cartridge that I had fastened with a small wooden block. The flare from the cartridge ignites the fuse I told you about and--"

His open hands, palms upward, made an expressive gesture.

Hite was staring at him in wide-eyed astonishment, his rugged jaws clenching his corn cob pipe until his muscles on the sides of his jaw stood out in ridges. He took the pipe slowly from his mouth.

"Say, Professor, ain't you coverin' a little too much territory.

Isn't that rather a bit--"

Professor Brierly exploded into wrath.

"You newspaper men!" he almost spat the words out. "You print the wildest, most improbable tales, stories that have no basis in fact or in logic. You print statements by charlatans, without taking the trouble to verify them. And here, when I give you the result of a simple scientific bit of reasoning, almost syllogistic in its scientific simplicity you--"

Hite ducked, from the storm. He sent a ferocious scowl in the direction of the two young men who were grinning behind Professor Brierly's back. He held out a large gnarled hand placatingly:

"Pardon me, Professor, but it does seem far--I mean--your logic is absolutely amazing. We who know you believe it, of course, but--"

"Oh," said the old man mollified. "You shall have proof of course.

We found evidence that a person stood in sight of the house in a patch of woods. A short distance from that is a filling station, where there is a public telephone. I took the name," he handed the city editor a slip of paper with the name of the filling station.

"You have the means of finding such things out and verifying them.

You have the exact time of the explosion. See if someone did not call Flynn's home at the time of the explosion without having the call completed."

Hite punched a b.u.t.ton on the desk. To the copy boy who popped his head into the office, he roared:

"Send in Mac, George and Barney!"

Three young men came into the office, greeted Jimmy and waited.

His words coming like the staccato roar of a machine gun, Hite addressed the three:

"George, a telephone call was made from this station," handing him the slip of paper, "find the number in the telephone book. The call was made last night at precisely the time that Flynn's house in Pleasantville was blown up. It might have been made from a station near there. The call was not completed, because there was no answer. Operator was asked to ring a long time. Verify this.

Don't take any hooey from the telephone company that it's against the rules. It's against the rules in this office for a reporter to come back without what he was sent to get. Scram.

"Mac, you heard what I said to George. Go to the filling station I told him about. The bird who made the call hung around there a long time, probably in a car. Mebbe somebody caught the number of the car. See if someone remembers this bird who made the call.

Take a taxi and tell him to step on it. If any dumb cop stops you, tell him I'll have him broke if he won't let you go. Go on, get out, what the h.e.l.l you waitin' for?

"Barney, go up to Center Street and see the stuffed shirt in the Commissioner's office. If he ain't in he ought to be; a public servant ought to be at his desk by this time. It's after eight o'clock. Lookit me. Get him out of bed if you have to and ask him how long the public is going to be fed on hooey when there's such an important murder case. Ask him what the h.e.l.l are the police doing on these murders besides making statements. Get going and if you don't bring in a story for the first edition I'll drop you out the window."

He turned to Professor Brierly:

"Excuse me a little while, Professor, I've got to give out some a.s.signments." He turned to Jimmy and growled:

"Say, lissen, young feller, in the last wire you sent, you misspelt a name. How many times have I got to tell you--"

He stopped. For the first time that morning did he get a good look at Jimmy's swollen, purple eye. He whistled. His face wrinkled in what pa.s.sed with him for a smile. He murmured in reverent awe:

"What a shiner, what a peach. Where did you get--"

He opened the door into the noisy city room. His roar cut through the conglomerate clatter. The room hushed.

"Hey, gang, come here quick. Lookit Jimmy. Ask him where he got it. Bet he tells each of you a different lie." The doorway was instantly filled with grinning faces. The hubbub subsided after a few minutes and Hite shooed them out of the room. He turned to Professor Brierly, his hand on the door k.n.o.b.

"Oh, by the way. I had somebody chased up to Pleasantville to see about the cops who wanted to arrest you. They were all gone. The pilot up there says it was a peach of a sc.r.a.p and he ought to know; he's been in some himself. Rather lucky for you, you were not alone, eh Professor? They didn't expect any one to be with you."

"It was not luck, Mr. Hite. John insisted on coming along with me.

Anyone would think to hear him talk that I am unable to take care of myself, but perhaps it was fortunate after all that he and Hale were there. Don't laugh at Hale's eye; he got it in that fight."

"Huh, huh, I see. Anything I can do for you, Professor, while we're waiting for a report?"

"I should like to send some telegrams, Mr. Hite, please."

"Why, sure, wires, phones, anything. Jimmy'l help you; he knows the ropes."

The door closed behind him. Professor Brierly murmured:

"What a perfectly astonishing person. He literally takes your breath away. Is that his manner all the time, Hale?"

"No, not all the time, Professor. Usually he's worse."

The two young men left him and for the next hour and a half Professor Brierly kept several copy boys and the telephone operator on the jump. He was not disturbed. The managing editor was told who was in his office when he came in and he took a desk in the city room, where he transacted his routine morning business.