Whispering Wires Part 34

"Who's there?" asked Drew.

"Delaney, Chief!"

"All right! Just a moment."

The detective glanced through the slit in the tapestries, saw that Nichols and Loris were across the room, then twisted the b.u.t.terfly-latch, at the same time he thrust in the flat key and turned the lock.

The door swung open. Delaney's huge bulk blocked the way. He half turned, cursed savagely, and clutched a pipe-stem neck with rude fingers. "Come along, you!" he boomed. "Get in there!"

The form of a man hurtled by Drew, fell and rose, then fell again beyond the tapestries in the center of the sitting room. Drew, like some lithe cat, was over him with a drawn gun. Delaney puffed across the rugs and tried to speak as the detective leaned and studied the chalk-pale face below shielding cuffed hands which were raised impotently.

"The trouble-man!" exclaimed Loris fearsomely.

A Central Office detective slouched through the door, deposited a kit of lineman's tools on the floor near the tapestries, then retired discreetly.

"It's him!" said Drew. "Please get back, Miss Stockbridge. We're going to fix this fellow."

"Oh, please don't strike him."

"Please--Miss Stockbridge. I'll promise nothing in this connection.

This is the man who foully murdered your father."

Loris shrank back and against Nichols' extended arm. Drew glanced at her with swift concern. He dropped his eyes to the man at his feet.

"What happened?" he asked Delaney. "Has this fellow said anything? Done any talking?"

Delaney glared at the trouble-man. "Never a word has he said, Chief.

He's a clam. But----"

"What's that? Go on, Delaney!"

"Why, Chief, I wouldn't have brought him here if he hadn't said to Morphy over the 'phone that _'it'_ was fixed in her room. Now what does he mean by that _'it'?"_

"We'll find out!" declared Drew, dropping to the prisoner's side.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"THE PRISONER SPEAKS"

The detective wasted no time searching the trouble-hunter's pockets.

His skilled fingers drew forth two envelopes, a note book and a small roll of money, the least of which was ten-dollar bills and the greatest, on the inside, spread out to three staring noughts and a one in front of these.

"One thousand and sixty dollars!" said Drew dryly, handing the roll to Delaney. "This fellow's well heeled. Perhaps for a get-a-way. Take that. Now here----"

Drew tapped the envelopes with his fingers, spread them open and removed their sheets of closely-written paper.

"First letter," he announced with raising brows, "is from Standard Electrical Co., of Chicago, recommending Albert Jones as a capable electrician. I don't doubt it. He's capable of most anything."

Delaney took the letter and waited with his eyes fastened upon the silent figure who had not revealed his ident.i.ty from the time of the arrest.

"Second letter," continued Drew, "is addressed to Albert Jones, General Delivery, New York Post Office. It is from Ossining. It is signed Mortimer Morphy. How careless," said the detective, rising in his excitement. "How _very_ careless! It goes on to say that everything is all right. That the appeal is pending with the governor. That uncle Monty was expected to die and that aunt Lou was very low."

Drew paused and glanced toward Loris and Nichols. "You know what that means?" he asked. "Uncle Monty was Mr. Montgomery Stockbridge and aunt Lou would figure out for you, Miss Stockbridge. Keep this, Delaney.

We're going to convict this man right here--whether he talks or not.

This letter was written to him two months ago. It shows premeditation."

"He looks ill," said Loris. "His face is so white."

"Dope!" snapped Drew, pressing down the prisoner's right eyelid and glancing at the pupil. "A narcotic of some kind shows in the small iris. It's like a pin head. Yen she, eh, Delaney?"

"Guess it is, Chief. Frisk his cap and belt. They carry it there, sometimes."

Drew started at the prisoner's hair and went over his entire body with careful fingers. A bulge, at the waist, resolved itself into a chamois money-belt which contained five cartridges, a small handful of electric fuses and a spool of fine wire.

Drew eyed this last with furrowed brow. He pocketed it finally and studied the cartridges.

"Twenty-two, cup.r.o.nickel, center-fire," he announced with a hard smile.

"That forges another chain. We're getting there. He was loaded for something, Delaney."

"Sure and he was. Look at those handcuffs, Chief. I made them tight as I could."

Drew handed up the cartridges and fuses and rattled the cuffs. The prisoner protested by turning partly over. His eyelids fluttered and opened full upon Loris. She shrank back between the curtains. Her hands went up to her face in voiceless fear. "Please keep away," said Drew.

"This man is always dangerous. I want to trim his claws before I take any chances with him. Delaney," he added, "get my overcoat and bring me those plaster-casts. This case grows interesting. I wonder who the fellow is? 'Albert Jones' doesn't convey much. He is a friend and tool of Morphy. Poor Morphy! I wonder what he'll say when the governor gets this evidence? He's buried now for twenty long years of penal service.

He picked a good tool, though. A smart man!"

The prisoner did not brighten to any extent under the professional flattery. His eyes closed. The cuffed wrists dropped down upon his chest. He breathed slowly as Drew took the overcoat Delaney brought, and found the photos of the finger prints which Fosd.i.c.k and the expert at headquarters had both declared were not on record.

"A little ink," Drew said to the operative. "We'll smear this fellow's thumb and see if his print answers to the print I found in the booth at Grand Central. I'll venture that it does."

Nichols extended a fountain pen which the detective opened, sponged on the corner of a handkerchief, and returned with a chuckle of satisfaction.

"Ah," he said, gripping the prisoner's hand and smearing a thumb with a rolling motion across the back of the print. "Ah, Delaney, see here.

The same whorls and loops. The same tiny V-shaped scar. One, two, three--center right. This is the man. We have him deeper in toward the place with the little, green door. He knows what I mean!"

The prisoner's lips closed to a thin, hard line. A tiny spot of hectic fire burned in the center of each cheek as Drew completed the searching and rose.

"Footprints, now!" he said with a snappy order. "Compare those plaster casts you took at the junction-box back of this house. Are they the same? There's a series of four screw holes in his rubber-heels, Delaney. Do they compare with the casts. Measure them!"

"Sure and they do," said the big operative, rising and pointing to the small projections. "This lad, Chief, was the only one around that junction-box till after the snow froze and drifted over. That's my idea, Chief. It caught him, didn't it, Chief?"

"Every little helps to forge the chain," Drew said. "He's in bad now.

His only chance is to tell us what he knows about Morphy? What was said over the telephone wire? What did Frick say?"

"It was this way, Chief," Delaney said. "I'm waiting talking with the drug-clerk when there's a ring on the slot-booth 'phone. It's Jack Nefe at Gramercy Hill. He says to me that Frick had just 'phoned and said that Morphy had come out of the guard room, looked around, then, after chinning with a keeper at the front gate, he had started going over a telephone book for a number. Nefe said for me to hold the wire. Then I gets a number, Chief. It's Gramercy Hill 11,678. Nefe said that was a booth in the new Broadway Subway at Forty-first Street. I piles into a cab and arrives there just as this fellow had finished boring a hole between the two booths--11,678 and 11,679. I waits behind a slot-machine. Some one rang up when he coupled the wires, listens, then asks Gramercy Hill central for this 'phone here in Miss Stockbridge's room. You see the game, Chief?"