Whispering Wires

  CHAPTER SIX

  "HARRY NICHOLS"

  Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. Hebowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolverclutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge's right hand. He bowed for asecond time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he saiddistinctly:

  "Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father.It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won't you pleasego back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am incharge of matters."

  "Matters? What do you mean?"

  The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if shewere unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in herdirection. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in theworld. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination.

  "Something happened," he repeated. "I'm very sorry for you, MissStockbridge."

  "Happened!" she exclaimed. "Happened to him? You don't mean thatletter--that telephone call--do you?"

  Loris' splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lightsshone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon theenvelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter laywith one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. Theyswung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between herand the body of her father. She divined this movement with quickintuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a gracefulmovement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, whichwavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side ofher head. She started sobbing--short, throaty sobs of poignantdistress.

  "Please don't," whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. "Pleasedon't, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You shouldnot have come down here."

  "Dead?"

  The word came from the depths of a soul. "Dead?" she repeated with hertaper fingers spreading across her face.

  "Yes, Miss," said Drew with a catch in his voice. "Yes, he is quitedead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behindand under his left ear. No one was in the library when he lockedhimself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down.And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was----"

  "Murdered!" Loris' voice had lifted to one wild shriek of finalconviction and grief. She swayed. Her knees bent beneath her skirt andbulged outwardly. She sank into a slow faint at the detective's feet.She pillowed her head upon the rug. A silence followed.

  Drew stooped, after a glance at the servants in the doorway, thrust hisbody as a barrier, and reached along Loris' white arm until his handclosed over the barrel of the little revolver. He untwisted her coldfingers, and palmed the weapon under a shielding cuff. He rose, sayingto Delaney, who had hurried forward:

  "I'll take charge of this."

  "Sure, Chief. Plant it. She didn't have it."

  "She had it all right, but--we'll suspend judgment. You and the butlercarry her upstairs. Go easy. Her bedroom is on the third floor, Ithink. That's the reason she didn't come down sooner. Perhaps, well, Isay, she didn't hear us breaking down the door. We are her agents inthis matter, now. Remember that, and say nothing to anybody. I'll dothe talking."

  Drew dropped his hand into his side pocket. It came out without therevolver but with a handkerchief between his fingers. He mopped hisbrow gracefully, then replaced the handkerchief. The motion was anatural one.

  He followed Delaney and the butler with their soft burden as far as thefirst steps of the stairway. He turned and strode back to the doorwayleading into the library. He faced about in this. He eyed the servants,who lowered their heads beneath his accusing scrutiny. Focusing hisgaze to a searching squint he tried to single out a culprit from theirmidst. There seemed to be none. Each face was terror-lined and drawn.Each seemed to want to avoid his direct glance. None of all of themfaced him with boldness or assurance. It was as he expected things tobe. There was no evidence shown in the case that the servants of theStockbridge regime had ever threatened the master. They were old, triedand trusted. They had the faults of their kind. These faults onlyserved to strengthen Drew's opinion that the murderer of the magnatehad struck from the outside, without benefit of inside information. Theletter and the telephone call were foreign. A note, pinned upon themillionaire's pillow, would have been more effective. Nothing had beentried like that. This proved to Drew that he could eliminate theservants, for the time being.

  "Which one of you is the valet?" he asked with final resolve.

  "I am, sir!"

  Drew ran his eyes over an aged man in white vest and tight-fittingclothes which were studded here and there with gold-plated buttons. Thefit of the stockings--the neatness of the low patent-leather shoes--thesmartness and aloofness of the individual, caused the detective tosmile slightly. The man was better dressed than his master.

  "Your native country is Germany?" said Drew.

  "It was, sir."

  "No, it is yet. You can't change that part of it. When did you come tothe United States?"

  "Fourteen--fifteen years ago, sir. The master brought me from Englandwhere I was employed by the Right Honorable Arthur Sandhurst, sir."

  "You are now a naturalized American?"

  "Going on thirteen years, sir."

  "Come down to my office about noon to-morrow. I want to speak to youthen. I haven't time now. Be sure you bring that magpie with you." Drewturned and jerked his thumb toward the front of the library. "Do youunderstand?"

  "I do, sir!"

  "That's all!" exclaimed the detective. "One of you may stand by thedoor until Mr. Delaney returns. The rest may go downstairs. Remember,no talking to anybody but accredited police officers, who will soon behere."

  "I'll stand guard!" announced the second-man with a pompous voice."Nobody'll get by me, sir. I'll 'ave them know I'm right 'ere, sir."

  Drew backed through the curtains as the second-man was speaking. Hedropped them behind him and started another search, which was done insolitude and in silence. He went over everything in the library withthe trained eyes of an operative who had learned his profession in manyschools. He left deduction and surmise for a later hour. He was aftercold facts which might lead to an answer to the riddle. He held, withsome slight scorn, the theory of the armchair detective and the puzzleworked out by retrospection. His experience had been, that only throughhard work could he expect to find his answer. He had been credited withvisiting six hundred laundries in search of a certain mark. He had anote book filled with his failures to find the man he was after. Themen he had found caused him no concern whatsoever. They had gone toprison and closed their accounts with him.

  He applied hard work over the minutes to the case at hand. He went overthe body of the aged millionaire. He took scrapings of the blood stainson the floor. He scratched up some few atoms of dried whisky. Heexamined the bottle. He searched each square inch under and about thebody. He went through Stockbridge's pockets and beneath his vest. Hetried everything in the way of getting facts which might bear on thecase. A tape measure furnished certain distances which were recordedupon the back of an envelope. His data was complete, insofar as he hadtime to go. He desired to spend at least twelve hours in the library.This could not be. The case would be taken from his hands withinminutes. Already there was a stir in the front part of the house. Thebell had been ringing for some time. Delaney and the butler hadhastened forward to answer it.

  "The Central Office bunch!" announced the operative, parting thecurtains and staring in at Drew. "Here they are, Chief!"

  The detective stepped briskly out of the room and glided through thefoyer hall to the front door. Here Delaney joined him, as steps wereheard coming up from the servants' quarters as well as outside. It wasas if a raid were in progress.

  "Brass band methods!" said Drew. "You get out, Delaney, and go to ourtaxi. Stay there! I want to speak to Fosdick."

  The door opened. A burly form blotted out the light from the Avenue andstam
ped in, shaking the snow from his overcoat. It was Fosdick--Chiefof Detectives.

  "Hello," he said cuttingly. "Hello, Drew! What's this you've beengiving me over the 'phone?"

  The detective drew Fosdick aside and allowed five Central Office men tostream into the hallway.

  "Go and see," he suggested into the detective's ear. "Go and see. I'veleft everything just as I found it. The body is still there. Theservants have been kept in the house. Question them. I'm off, now.'Phone me not later than eight this morning. I'll be at my office. I'macting in a private capacity. I'm protecting Loris Stockbridge--thesole heir!"

  "Protecting!" exclaimed Fosdick. "What d'ye mean?"

  Drew dropped his hand to his pocket and crammed down the littleivory-handled revolver. "Well," he smiled broadly. "You know what Imean. She's alone in this world--save for her friends. The old mancalled me in the case. I'm still in the case--remember that!"

  Fosdick gulped hard. "All right," he said, turning and peeling off hiscoat. "I'll soon get to the bottom of this! Case looks easy to me. It'ssuicide! That's all it ever could be!"

  Drew found his hat and coat where the butler had hung them. He went outthrough the front door without answering Fosdick. He crossed the Avenueon a diagonal which brought him to the waiting taxi where Delaney stoodmuffled to the chin. The two men climbed upon the running-board. Thedriver started up with a jerk, from his frozen position in the snow.They rounded the block and stopped in front of the drug-store whereLoris had met the officer.

  The Central Office man who had taken O'Toole's place had little toreport. O'Toole had vanished toward the south. When last seen he wasclose on the heels of the man in olive-drab.

  "Come on, Delaney," said Drew at this information. "We'll walk over toFifth Avenue and then downtown. The driver can pick up our men in thealley. I want to clear my head of this muddle. A walk will do it!"

  Delaney fell in behind his chief. They turned the corner. They struckthrough a side street and westward. They saw ahead of them the whiteexpanse of untrodden snow, and beyond this the faint blue barricade ofthe Palisades.

  The hour was after three. The crisp underfooting brought wine to theircheeks. The grip of winter air cleared both men's heads like a draughtof ether. They stepped out. Their shoulders went back. Their thoughtspassed from the case at the mansion to other things. The night had beenfilled with a thousand disappointments. Greatest of these was thestabbing memory that they both had been picked by the multimillionaireto protect him and save him from his enemies. They had failed in thistrust. Their patron lay dead, and somewhere a whispering voice chuckledover a victory.

  "Fifth Avenue!" announced Drew as they reached the corner. "Now,downtown, Delaney," he added cheerily. "Old Kris Kringle has nothing onus to-night. I believe we're the only ones out."

  The operative caught his chief's humor, and glanced into his face witha smile. "Whew!" he breathed. "Whew!" he repeated from the depths ofhis lungs. "I'm glad, Triggy, to get from that damn house and that damnmagpie and that----"

  "So am I!" said Drew, thrusting out his hand and linking his elbow intothe cove of Delaney's arm. "So am I. Fine night for the poor firm ofDrew and Company."

  Delaney glanced around and over his left shoulder. He blinked withfrosty lids as he saw the towering facades of Stockbridge's mansion;its turrets and towers spiraled in the winter sky. He drew in his lipsand compressed them. He puffed them out as he turned.

  "I'm deducting," he said, "that there's more at the bottom of thisthing than we think. Put it down for me that the Germans are mixed upin it."

  Drew walked on for a block before he answered. He gripped theoperative's arm by closing his own as he said:

  "Quit deducting! It's fatal! Get your facts! Get all of them. Theanswer will come then, without an effort. It will be the right answeror none at all."

  "Just the same, Chief----"

  "The trouble with you," broke in Drew severely, "the trouble is, thatyou are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans,with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in thiscountry at the present time. In other words, the most of them are goodAmericans and sane."

  "That walley-sham?"

  "He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?"

  "Sure, Chief!"

  "Anything strike you as peculiar?"

  "N--o."

  "There were tears in his eyes--the only ones shed in that house forStockbridge--outside of the daughter."

  Delaney gulped. "I didn't see them," he said frankly.

  "No! Well, I did--and when he wasn't expecting me to see them. A womanis never wholly lost who can blush, or a man who can shed tears."

  "Sounds like good deduction," admitted the operative. "But then, Chief,there are a lot of fine actors in this world. I think there has beensome in this case."

  "This case, Delaney," Drew said, "is like many others which appear atfirst impossible of solving. All things can be solved by firstprinciples. Give me all the facts and I'll give you the answer to anyriddle. The answer will come! Don't try to write your plot until youhave words to form your story. Don't make the mistake of forcing ananswer to father a wish. In other words, Delaney, best of friends, wehaven't all the facts we are going to get in this case and therefore itis idle to attempt to deduce who shot Stockbridge!"

  "Or how he was shot, Chief?"

  "It's almost the same thing. Both answers will come with hard work andplenty of it. We must keep along the main stem. Truth is a tree withmany branches. It rises from the roots named cause, and reaches the topcalled effect. It springs from motive up to crime in one straight stem.We must trim away the branches and the false-work, and then we can seethe trunk."

  "There's one I'd like to trim right now," said Delaney, pausing in hissnow-caked stride.

  "Which one?" asked Drew.

  "That noise in the library like a cat getting its tail twisted."

  "I can explain that!"

  "It's been driving me to drink, Chief."

  "The telephone company, Delaney, have a device they call a howler. Theycut this device in on the wire when a receiver is left off the hook. Itis simply a high-frequency current generated for the purpose ofvibrating the receiver's diaphragm until somebody hears the noise andputs the receiver back on the hook."

  "It's a howler, all right, Chief!"

  "Oftentimes a book or magazine gets under a receiver and lifts it up aninch or more. This attracts the attention of the central operator whothinks somebody is trying to get a number. When the situation is clearto her that the receiver is off the hook, or that the circuit is closedwithout anybody being at the receiver end, she notifies thewire-captain or chief-operator. It was either one or the other who putthe howler on after Stockbridge was shot and the 'phone had fallen tothe floor. Is that satisfactory? Does that explain the noise we heardin the library before we broke down the door?"

  "I see now, Chief. I thought all along it was spirits like the rest ofthe job. Outside of spirits, what is the answer to the things thathappened in that house? I know it. I deduct it, Chief. The old man wasexpecting somebody all of the time. He let this somebody into thelibrary when the butler wasn't looking. Maybe it was a woman, for allwe know. Maybe a German spy. Maybe anybody. This somebody got in anargument with him over spoils on some deal, and shot him dead. That'smy idea, Chief!"

  "You've missed your profession, Delaney. You've disgraced the firm! Howdid the library door get locked on the inside? How did that happen? DidStockbridge, shot through the brain, rise and do it? It was mighty welllocked--you remember!"

  "I never thought of that," admitted the operative. "Then it looks,Chief, as if it was a case of suicide."

  "Fosdick said the same thing without having many facts. How could aright-handed man shoot himself behind the left ear? How could he do athing like that and then get rid of the weapon without leaving a traceof it? How--oh, well, get facts and you won't ask such questions!"

  "Then it was done by an outsider?" blurted Delaney, staring t
hrough thewind-blown snow which came off the housetops. "It was done by thefellow who 'phoned and wrote that letter, or had the letter written? Idon't see how he could do it!"

  Drew smiled at Delaney's candor. "Neither do I," he said simply. "Butwe've crossed Forty-second Street and we're on the trail by everyday,up-to-date methods which never fail if they are continued long enoughand men work hard enough. We'll start with Harry Nichols--the man inolive-drab! I've his address!"