CHAPTER XXVII
THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
I tried my best, but there was very little that I could find out aboutMrs. Barry. No one seemed to know where she came from, and even "Mr.Barry" seemed shrouded in obscurity. I was convinced, however, that shewas an adventuress.
One thing, however, I did turn up. She had called on Tresham at hisoffice a number of times, usually late in the afternoon, and he hadtaken her to dinner and to the theater. Apparently he knew her a greatdeal better than he had been willing to admit to us. I was notsurprised, for, like a good many men of his class, Tresham was betterknown in the white light district than one might suspect. Mrs. Barry hadall the marks of being good company on such an excursion.
On the way uptown, I stopped off in the neighborhood of Longacre Squarein the hope of picking up some more gossip at one or another of theclubs. Tresham was a member of several, though as near as I could findout, used them more for business than social reasons. On Broadway it wasdifferent, however. There he was known as a liberal spender and lover ofnight life. Like many others he now and then accumulated quite largebills. I wondered whether Mrs. Barry had not found out and takenadvantage of his weakness.
It was, as I have said, comparatively little that I had been able todiscover, yet when I met Kennedy again, later in the evening, at hislaboratory, he listened eagerly to what I had to report.
"Did anything happen downtown?" I asked when I had finished.
"Nothing much," he returned. "Of course, listening over the geophone, Icouldn't watch the Bank Building, too. There's something very queerabout Creighton. I could hear him at work in the room upstairs untilquite late, making a lot of noise. If I don't find out anything moredefinite soon, I shall have to adopt some other measures."
"You didn't do anything more about that electrolysis clew?" I queried.
"Nothing," he replied briefly, "except that I inquired of the electriclight company and found out that Creighton, or someone in his building,was using a good deal of power."
"That looks bad," I ventured, remembering the claims made for the engineand the comparatively weak batteries that were said to run it.
Kennedy nodded acquiescence, but said nothing more. We walked over insilence to our apartment on the Heights and far into the night Craig satthere, shading his eyes with his hand, apparently studying out thepeculiar features of the case and planning some new angle of approach atit tomorrow.
We were surprised the next day to receive an early visit from MissLaidlaw at the laboratory. She drove up before the Chemistry Building,very much excited, as though her news would not bear repeating even overthe telephone.
"What do you think?" she exclaimed, bursting in on us. "Mr. Creightonhas disappeared!"
"Disappeared?" repeated Kennedy. "How did you find it out?"
"Mr. Tresham just telephoned me from his office," she hurried on. "Hewas going into the Bank Building when he saw a wagon drive off from theplace next door. He thought it was strange and instead of going on up tohis own office he walked into Creighton's. When he tried to get in, theplace was locked. There's a sign on it, too, 'For Rent,' he says."
"That's strange," considered Kennedy. "I suppose he didn't notice whatkind of wagon it was?"
"Yes, he said it looked like a junk wagon--full of stuff."
I looked from Miss Laidlaw to Kennedy. Plainly our entrance into thecase had been the signal for the flitting of Creighton.
Quickly he reached for the telephone. "You know Mrs. Barry's number?" heasked.
"Yes, it's the Prince Edward Hotel."
He called up, but the conversation was over in a moment. "She didn'treturn to the hotel last night," he announced as he hung up thereceiver.
"She's in this thing, too," exclaimed Adele Laidlaw. "Can you go downwith me now and meet Mr. Tresham? I promised I would."
Though she repressed her feelings, as usual, I could see that AdeleLaidlaw was furious. Was it because Creighton had gone off with hermoney, or was it pique because Mrs. Barry had, perhaps, won him? At anyrate, someone was going to feel the fury of her scorn.
We motored down quickly in Miss Laidlaw's car and met Tresham, who wasstanding in front of the Bank Building waiting for us.
"It just happened that I came down early this morning," he explained,"or I shouldn't have noticed anything out of the way. The junk wagon wasjust driving away as I came up. It seemed to be in such a hurry that itattracted my attention."
It was the first time we had seen Tresham and Miss Laidlaw together andI was interested to see how they would act. There was no mistaking hisattitude toward her and Adele was much more cordial to him than I hadexpected.
"While I was waiting I got a key from the agent," he explained. "But Ididn't want to go in until you came."
Tresham opened the door and led the way upstairs, Miss Laidlaw followingclosely. As we entered Creighton's shop, everything seemed to be in thegreatest disorder. Prints and books were scattered about, the tools werelying about wherever they happened to have been left, all the modelswere smashed or missing and a heap of papers in the fireplace showedwhere many plans, letters and other documents had been burned.
We hurried into the big room. Sure enough, the demon motor itself wasgone! Creighton had unbolted it from the floor and some holes in theboards had been plugged up. The room below was still locked and thewindows were covered with opaque paper on the inside.
"What do you suppose he has done with the motor?" asked Adele.
"The only clew is a junk dealer whom we don't know," I replied, asKennedy said nothing.
We looked about the place thoroughly, but could find nothing else.Creighton seemed to have made a clean getaway in the early hours.
"I wish I could stay and help you," remarked Tresham at length. "But Imust be in court at ten. If there's anything I can do, though, call onme."
"I'm going to find that engine if I have to visit every junk dealer inNew York," declared Miss Laidlaw soon after Tresham left.
"That's about all we can do, yet, I guess," remarked Kennedy, evidentlynot much worried about the disappearance of the inventor.
Together we three closed up the workshop and started out with a listfrom a trade publication giving all those who dealt in scrap iron andold metal. In fact we spent most of the day going from one to another ofthe junk shops. I never knew that there were so many dealers in waste.They seemed to be all over the city and in nearly every section. It wasa tremendous job, but we mapped it out so that we worked our way fromone section to another.
We had got as far as the Harlem River when we entered one place andlooked about while we waited for someone in charge to appear.
I heard a low exclamation from Kennedy, and turned to look in thedirection he indicated. There, in a wagon from which the horse had beenunhitched, was the heavy base of the engine into which so many dollarshad been turned--sold as so much scrap!
Kennedy examined it quickly, while I questioned a man who appeared frombehind a shed in the rear. It was useless. He could give no clew thatwe already could not guess. He had just bought it from a man who seemedanxious to get rid of it. His description of the man tallied withCreighton. But that was all. It gave us no chance to trace him.
"Look," exclaimed Kennedy eagerly, bending closer over the motor. "Thisis one of the neatest perpetual motion frauds I ever heard of."
He had turned the heavy base of the motor upward. One glance left mewith little wonder why Creighton had so carefully bolted the machine tothe floor. In the base were two rectangular apertures to allow a belt torun over a concealed pulley on the main shaft of the machine in thecase. Evidently, when the circuit from the Daniell cells was closed, thepulley, somehow, was thrown into gear. It was loose and the machinebegan to revolve slowly at first, then faster and with great show ofpower. The pounding, as Kennedy had surmised, was due to the flywheelnot well balanced.
"Well," I remarked, "now that we have found it, I don't see that it doesus much good."
"Only that we under
stand it," returned Craig. "I left that geophone downthere in the room next door which I hired. I think, if Miss Laidlaw willtake us down there, I'd like to get it."
He spoke with a sort of easy confidence which I knew was hard to beassumed in the face of what looked like defeat. Had Craig deliberatelylet Creighton have a chance to get away, in order that he might convicthimself?
In silence, with Miss Laidlaw at the wheel, we went downtown again tothe room which Craig had hired next to Creighton's workshop. As weapproached it, he leaned over to Miss Laidlaw.
"Stop around the corner," he asked. "Let's go in quietly."
We entered our bare little room and Kennedy set to work as though todetach the geophone, while I explained it to our client.
"What's the matter?" she interrupted in the middle of my explanation,indicating Kennedy.
He had paused and had placed the receivers to his ears. By hisexpression I knew that the instrument was registering something.
"Someone is in the lower room of the shop next door," he answered,facing us quickly. "If we hurry, we'll have him cornered."
Miss Laidlaw and I went out and around in front, while Craig dashedthrough a back door to cut off retreat that way.
"What's that? Hurry!" exclaimed Miss Laidlaw.
Plainly there was a muffled scream of a woman as we entered the streetdoor. I hurried forward. It was the work of only a few seconds to batterdown the locked door in the room under Creighton's old workshop, and asthe door gave way, I heard the sound of shattered glass from the rearwhich told that Kennedy had heard the scream, too, and had gained anentrance.
Inside I could make out in the half-light a man and a woman. The womanwas running toward me, as if for help.
"Mrs. Barry!" gasped Adele Laidlaw.
"He got me here--to kill me!" she cried hysterically. "I am the only onewho knows the truth--it was the last day--tonight he would have had themoney--and I would have been out of the way. But I'll expose him--I'llruin him. See--he came in from the roof--"
A blinding flash of light greeted us, followed by a scream from AdeleLaidlaw, as she ran past us and dropped on her knees beside a body thathad fallen with a thud in the flame before a yawning hole in the sidewall.
Mrs. Barry ran past me, back again, at almost the same moment. It was astrange sight--these two women glaring at each other over the prostratefigure of the man.
"Here's the real demon engine," panted Craig, coming up from the backand pointing to an electric motor as well as other apparatus consistingof several series of coils. "The perpetual motion machine was just afake. It was merely a cover to an attempt to break into the bank vaultsby electrolysis of the steel and concrete. Creighton was a dummy, afiction--to take the blame and disappear when the robbery wasdiscovered."
"Creighton," I repeated, looking at the man on the floor, "a dummy?"
"Oh--he's dead!" wailed Adele Laidlaw. "He's dead!"
"Electrocuted by his own machine rather than face disgrace anddisbarment," cut in Craig. "No wonder she was in doubt which of the twomen fascinated her most."
I moved forward and bent over the contorted form of the lawyer, Tresham,who was wearing the whiskers and iron gray wig of his alter-ego,Creighton.