Final Proof Part 28

Any d.i.c.kering will make me increase my price, and I will never decrease it. To save time, let me tell you something else. I have no partner in this, so there is no one to squeal on me. No one on earth but myself knows where the girl is. Now for future arrangements. You will want to communicate with me. I don't mean you to have any chance to catch me with decoy letters or anything of that sort. I know already that you have that keen devil Barnes helping you. But he'll meet his match this time. Here is my plan.

You, or your detective, I don't care which, must go to the public telephone station in the Hoffman House at two o'clock sharp. I will go to another, never mind where, and will ring you up. When you answer, I will simply say, 'D.

M.' You will recognize the signal and can do the talking. I will not answer except by letter, because I won't even run the risk of that detective's hearing my voice, and some time in the future recognizing it. You see, I may need Barnes myself some day and wouldn't like to be deprived of his valuable services. I enclose a piece of the girl's cloth dress and a lock of her hair to show that I am dealing square.

"D. M."

"Mr. Gedney," said Mr. Barnes, "make your mind easy. Your daughter is safe, at all events. I suppose this bit of cloth and the hair satisfy you that the scoundrel really has her?"

"Yes, I am convinced of that. But how does that make the girl safe?"

"The fellow wants the money. It is to his interest to be able to restore your daughter. My business shall be to get her without payment of ransom, and to catch the abductor. I'll meet you at the Hoffman House at two o'clock."

As soon as Mr. Gedney had gone, Mr. Barnes wrote the following note:

"DR. DONALDSON:--

"Dear Sir--I believe that I am on the right track, and all through the clue supplied by yourself. Please aid me a little further. I would like to know the exact size of the missing girl. As a physician, you will supply this even better than the father. Also inform me of any mark or peculiarity by which I might recognize her, alive or dead.

Please answer at once.

"Yours truly, "J. BARNES."

This he sent by a messenger, and received the following in reply:

"MR. BARNES:--

"Dear Sir--I hope you will succeed. Elinora is small and slim, being rather undersized for her age. I should say about four feet ten inches, or thereabout. I know of no distinctive mark whereby her body could be recognized, and hope that nothing of the sort seemingly suggested may be necessary.

"Yours truly, "ROBERT DONALDSON, M.D."

Mr. Barnes read this, and appeared more pleased than its contents seemed to authorize. At the appointed time he went to the Hoffman House. He found Mr. Gedney impatiently walking up and down the lobby.

"Mr. Gedney," said he, "at the beginning of this case you offered me my own price for recovering your daughter. Now, supposing that you pay this ransom, it would appear that you would have had little need of my services. If, however, I get your daughter, and save you the necessity of paying any ransom at all, I suppose you will admit that I have earned my reward?"

"Most a.s.suredly."

After this, Mr. Gedney was rather startled when he heard what the detective said to "D. M." through the telephone. They shut themselves up in the little box, and very soon received the call and then the signal "D. M." as agreed. Mr. Barnes spoke to the abductor, who presumably was listening.

"We agree to your terms," said he. "That is, we will pay twenty thousand dollars for the return of the girl unharmed. You are so shrewd that we suppose you will invent some scheme for receiving the money which will protect you from arrest, but at the same time we must be a.s.sured that the girl will be returned to us unharmed. In fact, she must be given to us as soon as the money is paid. Notify us immediately, as the father is in a hurry."

Mr. Barnes put up the instrument and "rang off." Then he turned to Mr.

Gedney and said:

"That may surprise you. But what may astonish you more is that you must obtain twenty thousand dollars in cash at once. We will need it. Ask no questions, but depend upon me and trust me."

On the next day Mr. Gedney received the following letter:

"You have more sense than I gave you credit for. So has that Barnes fellow, for it was his voice I heard through the 'phone. You accept my terms. Very well. I'll deal square and not raise you, though I ought to have made it twenty-five thousand at least. Come to the 'phone to-day, same hour, and I'll ring you up, from a different station.

Then you can tell me if you will be ready to-night, or to-morrow night. Either will suit me. Then here is the plan. You want to be sure the girl is all right. Then let the amba.s.sador be your friend, Doctor Donaldson. He knows the girl and can tell that she is all right. Let him start from his house at midnight, and drive from his office up Madison Avenue rapidly till hailed by the signal 'D. M.' He must go fast enough to prevent being followed on foot. If there is no detective with him or following him, he will be hailed. Otherwise he will be allowed to pa.s.s. I will be in hiding with the girl. Warn the doctor that I will be armed, and will have a bead on him all the time. Any treachery will mean death. I will take the cash, give up the girl, and the transaction will be ended."

When this was shown to the detective, he proposed that he and Mr. Gedney should call upon the doctor. This they did, and, after some argument, persuaded him to undertake the recovery of the girl that same night.

"Mr. Gedney has decided to obtain his child at any sacrifice," said Mr.

Barnes, "and this scoundrel is so shrewd that there seems to be no way to entrap him. No effort will be made to follow you, so you need have no fear of any trouble from the thief. Only be sure that you obtain the right girl. It would be just possible that a wrong one might be given to you, and a new ransom demanded."

"Oh, I shall know Elinora," said the doctor. "I will do this, but I think we ought to arrest the villain, if possible."

"I do not despair of doing so," said Mr. Barnes. "Get a glimpse of his face if you can, and be sure to note where you receive the girl. When we get her she may give me a clue upon which an arrest may be made. We will wait for you at Mr. Gedney's house."

After midnight that night, Mr. Gedney paced the floor anxiously, while Mr. Barnes sat at a desk looking over some memoranda. Presently he went into the hall and had a long talk with the butler. One o'clock pa.s.sed, and still no news. At half-past, however, horses' hoofs sounded upon the asphalt pavement, and a few minutes later the door-bell jingled. The door was quickly opened, and the doctor entered, bearing little Elinora asleep in his arms.

"My daughter!" exclaimed the excited father. "Thank G.o.d, she is restored to me!"

"Yes," said the doctor, "here she is, safe and sound. I think, though, that she has been drugged, for she has slept ever since I received her."

"Did you have any trouble?" asked Mr. Barnes, entering at this moment.

He had lingered outside in the hall long enough to exchange a word with the butler.

"None," said the doctor. "At One Hundred and Second Street I heard the signal and stopped. A man came out of the shadow of a building, looked into the carriage, said 'All right,' and asked if I had the cash. I replied affirmatively. He went back to the sidewalk and returned with the child in his arms, but with a pistol pointed at me. Then he said, 'Pa.s.s out the money.' I did so, and he seemed satisfied, for he gave me the child, took the package, and ran off. I saw his face, but I fear my description will not avail you, for I am sure he was disguised."

"Very possibly your description will be useless," said Mr. Barnes; "but I have discovered the ident.i.ty of the abductor."

"Impossible!" cried the doctor, amazed.

"Let me prove that I am right," said Mr. Barnes. He went to the door and admitted the butler, accompanied by the policeman who had been off his beat talking with the maid. Before his companions understood what was about to happen, Mr. Barnes said:

"Officer, arrest that man!" Whereupon the policeman seized the doctor and held him as though in a vise.

"What does this outrage mean?" screamed the doctor, after ineffectually endeavoring to release himself.

"Put on the manacles, officer," said Mr. Barnes; "then we can talk. He is armed, and might become dangerous." With the a.s.sistance of the detective this was accomplished, and then Mr. Barnes addressed himself to Mr. Gedney.

"Mr. Gedney, I had some slight suspicion of the truth after questioning the butler and the maid, but the first real clue came with the answer to the 'Personal.' You brought that to me in the morning, and I noted that it was postmarked at the main office downtown at six A.M. Of course, it was possible that it might have been written after the appearance of the newspaper, but if so, the thief was up very early. The doctor, however, knew of the 'Personal' on the day previous, as I told him of it in your presence. That letter was written in typewriting, and I observed a curious error in the spelling of three words. I found the words 'emphasize,' 'recognize,' and 'recognizing.' In each, instead of the 'z,' we have a repet.i.tion of the 'i,' that letter being doubled. I happen to know something about writing-machines. I felt certain that this letter had been written upon a Caligraph. In that machine the bar which carries the letter 'i' is next to that which carries the letter 'z.' It is not an uncommon thing when a typewriter is out of order for two bars to fail to pa.s.s one another. Thus, in writing 'emphasize' the rapid writer would strike the 'z' key before the 'i' had fully descended. The result would be that the 'z,' rising, would strike the 'i' bar and carry it up again, thus doubling the 'i,' instead of writing 'iz.' The repet.i.tion of the mistake was evidence that it was a faulty machine. I also noted that this anonymous letter was upon paper from which the top had been torn away. I wrote to the doctor here, asking about the 'size' of the girl, and for any marks whereby we might be able to 'recognize' the body. I used the words 'size' and 'recognize,' hoping to tempt him to use them also in reply. In his answer I find the word 'recognized' and also a similar word, 'undersized.' In both we have a repet.i.tion of the double 'i' error. Moreover, the paper of this letter from the doctor matched that upon which the anonymous communication had been written, provided I tore off the top, which bore his letterhead.

This satisfied me that the doctor was our man. When the last letter came, proposing that he should be the amba.s.sador, the trick was doubly sure. It was ingenious, for the abductor of course a.s.sured himself that he was not followed, and simply brought the girl home. But I set another trap. I secretly placed a cyclometer upon the doctor's carriage. He says that to-night he drove to One Hundred and Second Street, and back here, a total of ten miles. The cyclometer, which the butler obtained for me when the doctor arrived a while ago, shows that he drove less than a mile. He simply waited at his house until the proper time to come, and then drove here, bringing the girl with him."

The doctor remained silent, but glared venomously at the man who had outwitted him.

"But how did he get Elinora?" asked Mr. Gedney.

"That queer yarn which he told us about somnambulism first suggested to me that he was possibly less ignorant than he pretended to be. I fear, Mr. Gedney, that your daughter is ill. I judge from the description of her condition, given by her maid, and admitted by this man, that she was suffering from an attack of catalepsy when he was summoned. When he called the next day, finding the girl still in a trance, he quickly dressed her and took her out to his carriage. Then he coolly returned, announced that she was not in her room, and drove away with her."

"It seems incredible!" exclaimed Mr. Gedney. "I have known the doctor so long that it is hard to believe that he is a criminal."

"Criminals," said Mr. Barnes, "are often created by opportunity. That was probably the case here. The case is most peculiar. It is a crime which none but a physician could have conceived, and that one fact makes possible what to a casual observer might seem most improbable. An abduction is rarely successful, because of the difficulties which attend the crime, not the least of which are the struggles of the victim, and the story which will be told after the return of the child. Here all this was obviated. The doctor recognized catalepsy at the first visit.

Perhaps during the night the possibility of readily compelling you to pay him a large sum of money grew into a tremendous temptation. With the project half formed, he called the next morning. Circ.u.mstances favored the design. He found the girl unattended, and unresistant because of her condition. He likewise knew that when he should have returned her, she could tell nothing of where she had been, because of her trance. He started downstairs with her. There was no risk. If he had met any one, any excuse for bringing her from her room would have been accepted, because uttered by the family physician. He placed her in the carriage un.o.bserved, and the most difficult part of the affair was accomplished.

Many men of high degree are at heart rascals; but through fear, either of law or loss of position, they lead fairly virtuous lives. Temptation, accompanied by opportunity, coming to one of these, compa.s.ses his downfall, as has occurred in this instance. Criminals are recruited from all cla.s.ses."

The ransom money was recovered by searching the apartments of the doctor, and his guilt was thus indubitably proven. Mr. Mitchel, commenting upon the affair, simply said:

"I sent you to him, Mr. Gedney, because Mr. Barnes is above his kind. He is no ordinary detective."