Phantom Wires: A Novel

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE ENTERING WEDGE

  It was at least four o'clock in the afternoon--as the janitor of thebuilding later reported to the police--when a Postal-Union lineman,carrying a well-worn case of tools, made his way up through the hallsand stairways of one of those many Italian apartment houses just southof Washington Square and west of Broadway.

  This lineman worked on the roof, apparently, for some twenty minutes.Then he came down again, chatted for a while with the janitor in thebasement, and giving him a cigar, borrowed an eight-foot step-ladder,for the purpose of scaling some twelve feet of brick wall, where theadjoining office building towered its additional story above theapartment-house roof.

  If the janitor had been less averse to mounting his five flights ofstairway, or less indifferent as to the nature of the work which tookthe busy telegraph official up to his roof, he might, that afternoon,have witnessed both a delicate and an interesting electrical operation.

  For once up on the second roof, and sure that he was under no immediateobservation, the lineman in question carefully unpacked his bag oftools. His first efforts were directed toward the steel transom whichcovered the trapdoor opening out on the roof. This, he discovered witha grunt of disappointment, resisted even his short, curved steel lever,pointed at one end, like a gigantic tack-drawer. Restoring this leverto the bottom of his leather tool-bag, he made his way to the southeastcorner of the building, where a tangle of insulated wires, issuing fromthe roof beneath his feet, merged into one compact cable, which, inturn, entered and was protected by a heavy lead pipe, leading,obviously, to the street below, and thence to the cable galleries ofBroadway itself.

  It took him but a minute or two to cut away a section of thisprotecting pipe. In doing so, he exposed to view the many wires makingup an astonishingly substantial cable, for so meager an officebuilding. He then turned back to his tool-case and lifted therefrom,first a Bunnell sounder, and then a Wheatstone bridge, of thepost-office pattern, a coil of KK wire, a pair of lineman's pliers, anda handful or two of other tools. Still remaining in the bottom of hisbag might have been found two small rubber bags filled withnitroglycerine, a cake of yellow soap, a brace and bit, a half-dozendiamond-pointed drills, a box of timers, and a coil fuse, threetempered-steel chisels, a tiny sperm-oil lantern and the steel "jimmy"which had already been tested against the obdurate transom.

  Then, skilfully relaxing the metallic cable strands, he as carefullygraduated his current and attached his sounder, first to one wire andthen to another. Each time that the little Bunnell sounder wasgalvanized into articulate life he bent his ear and listened to thebusy cluttering of the dots and dashes, as the reports of races, as theweights and names of jockeys, and lists of entries and statements ofodds and conditions went speeding into the busy keys of the bigpoolroom below, where men and women waited with white and strainingfaces, and sorrowed and rejoiced as the ever-fluctuant goddess ofchance brought them ill luck or success.

  But Durkin paid little attention to these flying messages wingingcityward from race-tracks so many miles away. What he was in search ofwas the private wire leading from Penfield's own office, whereoninstructions and information were secretly hurried about the city tohis dozen and one fellow-operators. It was from this wire that Durkinhoped, without "bleeding" the circuit, to catch some thread of factwhich might make the task before him more lucid and direct.

  He worked for an hour, connecting and disconnecting, testing andlistening and testing still again, before the right wire fell under histhumb. Then he listened intently, with a little start, for he knew hewas reading an operator whose bluff, heavy, staccato "send" was asfamiliar to his long-practiced ear as a well-known face would be to hiswatching eyes.

  It was MacNutt himself who was "sending." His first interceptedmessage was an order, to some confederate unknown, to have a carriagecall for him at eight. That, Durkin told himself, was worth knowing.His second despatch was a warning to a certain "Al" Mackenzie not tofail to meet Penfield in Albany, Sunday, at midnight. The thirdmessage was brief, and seemed to be an answer to a question which hadescaped the interloper.

  "Yes, got her here, and here she stays. Things will happen tonight."

  "Ah!" ejaculated Durkin, as he wiped his moist forehead, while therunning dots and dashes resolved themselves into the two intelligiblesentences.

  Then he looked about him, at the leaden sky, at the roofs and walls andwindows of the crowded and careless city, as a _sabreur_ about to enterthe arena might look about him on life for perhaps the last time.

  "Yes," he said, with a meditative stare at the transom before him,"things _will_ happen tonight."