Kitabı oku: «The Secret Toll», sayfa 11
Like a flash the truth came to him. Someone had discovered the moved sideboard and open door and surmising that the visitor was still in the cave had shut him in.
Forrester paused to reflect. It would be useless to try and force his way out. Even if he could get through the door, which he doubted, there was no telling how many of the band were in the cottage. Forrester was unarmed, as he had expected to deal only with Lucy, and a battle with more than one man would be an unequal struggle. To make matters worse, his electric lamp, which had been in constant use since he entered the cottage, now gave out. The bulb still glowed, but with a dull light that had no power. Forrester flung the lamp down and felt his way back toward the tree. He reasoned that as a package had been placed in the tree it was more than probable that detectives were concealed nearby. To climb into the opening in the tree, attract their attention by shouting, and then give directions for reaching him, seemed the only solution.
Continued calls, however, brought no response. Either there were no detectives there, or else his cries for help, which necessarily had to be subdued, were acting on superstitious minds and accomplishing just the opposite of what he intended – driving help away. Forrester ceased his calls and climbed slowly down into the cave once more.
Suddenly the place was brilliantly illuminated by the turning on of the electric lights over his head. The meaning of this was clear. The time had come when he must fight for his life and Forrester looked about for a weapon. There was nothing that would serve his purpose. Then he recollected the cylinders. Who knew better than these men their death-dealing power? With these cylinders in his hands would it not be possible to hold his assailants at bay – even to overcome them? Forrester dashed down the passage to reach the cylinders before his enemies. It was too late! As he rounded a slight curve in the rocky cleft he saw the figure of a man only a short distance away. Still there might be time. He could see the depression where the cylinders rested and the man was some distance on the other side. Forrester kept on, but his hopes fell as he saw the man reach the spot first and stop.
Forrester also came to a halt and the two men surveyed each other in silence. Completely covering the man's head and shoulders was a black hood. Through two slits Forrester could see the sparkle of his eyes. Forrester recalled Prentice's description of the two hooded men who had attacked him and realized that at last he was face to face with the "Friends of the Poor."
The man moved forward. As he approached, his body slightly crouched like a wrestler waiting for his opening, Forrester took heart. If it was simply to be a hand to hand contest and the men came only one at a time, then there was some hope.
Forrester kept the man off at first with his fists, but at length they closed and a desperate struggle began. Back and forth they tugged and pulled, neither man seemingly gaining any advantage. All at once Forrester saw the cylinders at his side and suddenly realized that throughout the struggle the man had been slowly dragging him along toward these death machines. And with the realization he saw the man reach out and seize the one with the rubber mask attached.
From that moment the battle changed. Forrester's one thought was to keep the mask away from his face, while the man's main effort was evidently directed toward placing it there. Presently Forrester detected the peculiar odor of the gas. Either the cylinder had been accidentally opened in the struggle or the man had intentionally released the gas. As the mask was directed toward Forrester, and only a few inches from his face, he received the full effect of the fumes, while the man was partially protected from its effect. Forrester felt himself weakening, as he had on the night of the battle in Jasper lane.
With a last despairing effort he tripped his antagonist and as they fell Forrester managed to come down on top. Slowly he forced the mask over the man's hooded face and just as he had it in place Forrester sank down unconscious.
CHAPTER XX – THE INVISIBLE DETECTIVE
Forrester awoke to find himself in the same bedroom in which he had recovered consciousness after the attack made upon him in Jasper lane. The recognition of his surroundings was a shocking stimulant. Like a flash the whole scene in the underground passage was recalled.
That he should again have been rescued by the girl possessed a significance which permitted of no alleviating doubt. Mary Sturtevant was unquestionably hand and glove with the "Friends of the Poor." Forrester closed his eyes and groaned. He loved her – would have redeemed her from their clutches – but she had not listened to him. Now the whole terrible secret was within his grasp and yet that love for her must hold him back!
How could he expose the "Friends of the Poor" and drag her down in the crash? Bolshevik they might be – murderers they surely were. Public opinion, aroused now to fever heat, would see that not one escaped the full penalty. Unless the girl were part and parcel with the organization and knew their inmost secrets – their every move – she would never have been close at hand to save him from that hidden passage where no one knew that he had gone.
Suddenly he felt a cool, soft hand upon his forehead. He opened his eyes and turned his head. Mary Sturtevant sat by the bedside, gazing down at him with bright eyes as she gently stroked his head.
"Mary," he whispered, reproachfully, "I can't believe it!"
"Oh, Robert," she exclaimed, "are you feeling all right again? I have been so worried. It is two days since we brought you here. Each time you awoke you were delirious and we had to give you sleeping powders to keep you quiet."
Then she seized his hands in her own and held them close to her. "Robert," she murmured, "now that it is all over, I can answer you. I love you!"
He drew her hands back to him and pressed them to his lips. "All over?" he queried, at last. "What do you mean?"
"I know it is against the doctor's orders to excite you," she answered, "but I cannot stand this dreadful suspense any longer. There is a man waiting downstairs who can explain all. I have made him stay close at hand every day so that when your mind became clear you could know the whole story immediately. I will bring him up now," and Mary Sturtevant withdrew her hands from Forrester's clasp and ran out of the room.
In a few minutes she returned, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered man, with kindly brown eyes and streaks of gray in his thick, dark hair. He smiled down reassuringly at Forrester as the girl introduced him.
"This," she announced, happily, "is Mr. Keith Marten, whom I call the invisible detective."
Marten took Forrester's hand and held it for a moment with a warm, friendly clasp, as he said, "I am very glad to meet you face to face, Mr. Forrester. I have known you well for weeks, but chiefly from some distance. As Miss Sturtevant says, I have endeavored to remain invisible."
Marten then drew a chair near the bed and sat down.
"Do either of you mind my smoking?" he asked, taking a cigar from his pocket. "Tobacco is my principal failing – one, however, which I believe I share in common with all who must draw deeply upon nervous force in their work."
Both urged him to smoke, and while Marten lighted his cigar, Mary Sturtevant explained his connection with the case to Forrester.
"Mr. Marten was in the Government Secret Service for many years, and has had his own investigative service for some time.
"You probably noticed that the majority of the men victimized by this supposed band of extortioners were prominent in banking circles. That constituted a direct assault upon the banking fraternity. While people outside of banking circles did not know of it, this persecution was gradually bringing on an actual financial panic. When it was rumored that a banker had given up a large sum to this supposed society, or his murder was reported, a mild run resulted at the bank with which he was associated. If there had been only one or two cases this would have had little effect, but as numerous banks were brought into the matter there was a tendency to spread this fear and the germs of a panic were insidiously gripping financial circles. The matter was finally taken up at a special conference of the Midland Bankers' Association.
"Shortly before you were selected as a victim, the M. B. A. engaged Mr. Marten to solve the riddle of the 'Friends of the Poor,' and the secret toll which they were imposing upon bankers. Mr. Marten has been the invisible detective, working behind the scenes in this case. Just how he accomplished his great work I shall leave to Mr. Marten to tell you."
"Your story will certainly interest me," declared Forrester, smiling at Marten, and elated at the thought that Mary Sturtevant had been working in a good cause. "I had about lost faith in the supposed abilities of detectives."
"There are many able detectives," replied Marten. "You made your first mistake in not going to a high-class detective agency. You cannot judge the ability of all detectives by ex-policemen like Green, or by the average city men. To become a city detective, a man must put in long service as a policeman; and even then he has no guarantee that he will ever be promoted to the detective section. The peculiar type of brain, the scientific turn of mind, and the education which make an efficient detective, naturally render long preliminary service as a policeman abhorrent to the men who make the best detectives. Moreover, the physical requirements of the police department shut out many brilliant thinkers. Consequently, the best detective material seldom, if ever, reaches city police departments.
"The whole principle is wrong, and until some other system is established we will continue to see fine specimens of physical development, whose very appearance advertises their calling, trying to solve intricate criminal cases by muscle-power instead of brain-power. It is analogous to placing a prize fighter in the chair of higher mathematics at some university.
"Forgive me, Mr. Forrester, if I bore you with these extraneous comments, but it is a subject that takes up much of my leisure time. I hope, by educating influential men like you, that the system will be changed; that eventually we will have a great central department like Scotland Yard, or that the detective bureaus of large cities will be separate from the regular police departments."
"You do not bore me, Mr. Marten," returned Forrester. "On the contrary, I am deeply interested; especially because of what happened in the present case."
"Well, enough of that," said Marten. "Now for the story I came here to tell.
"Unlike police detectives, I do not immediately ascribe a crime to the lower criminal classes. I know that criminal tendencies extend upward through every stratum of society. My first effort, therefore, is to place the possible social standing of the criminal, and thus learn approximately where to look for him.
"In the present instance I took all the available data and analyzed the situation. Two points impressed me at once. One, that for approximately a year not a single clue had been discovered. Second, the enormous amount of money which had been extorted. This had reached the sum of nearly a quarter of a million dollars."
"I considered those points," said Forrester, "but they gave me no clue."
"Ah, because you lacked two things," returned Marten. "Experience and the outside viewpoint. Now, in analyzing the first point, I seriously doubted the existence of a group of men as implied by the name 'Friends of the Poor.' When a gang is operating it is difficult to hold the men together. Something slips sooner or later, just as in the case of those West Side Italians who were caught by the police. I became convinced that we had to deal with one man only. I was even more convinced of this when I considered the amount of money involved. To have attempted to split so vast an amount in an equitable way among a number of ordinary criminals would eventually have led to dissensions and exposure.
"Then, in considering this second point by itself, I saw that we had to deal with no ordinary criminal. It was a vast sum, and the ordinary criminal type does not think in such large figures. The result of this analysis gave me two clues: first, that we probably had to deal with not more than one man; and second, that this man was a much higher type than the common malefactor.
"Another point to consider was the manner of death of those victims who failed to make their payments. These men were all asphyxiated. I did not know the exact method at the time, as I know it now, but the principle remained the same. To accomplish this asphyxiation, I reasoned that the victim must be lured to some place for the purpose. If only one man were engaged in the work, it was obvious that he was not only acquainted with the victims' habits, but probably sufficiently well acquainted with the victims themselves to possess their confidence. All this pointed to a man of high social position.
"My next step, therefore, was to make a list of the victims and all their business and social acquaintances. I then compared these lists to ascertain the men known in common to all, or the majority of the victims. In this way I discovered a certain number of men known to all the victims. The lives and habits of these men were investigated in search of a possible clue. No definite results. Finally, pondering over the case one day, the initials of one man impressed themselves upon me. His initials were F. P. – the same initials that would stand for 'Friends of the Poor.' Such a clue might seem fantastic. In criminal investigation, however, clues are often the result of inspiration, and I could not afford to let this coincidence pass. I made a more thorough investigation into the history and actions of Frederick Prentice."
"Frederick Prentice!" gasped Forrester, starting up in bed.
"Exactly," returned Marten, "the supposed first victim."
"Our families have been friends for years," groaned Forrester. "His daughter, Diana, and myself were childhood companions. How could he attempt my life?"
"The man was mentally unsound," explained Marten. "The successful operation of his scheme excited his weakening brain until it became an obsession with him. Although he had achieved his original purpose of recuperating his broken fortunes, I believe he continued his threats and killing for the sheer insane joy of playing with his victim and then killing him. Possibly, the attendant mystery and notoriety also appealed to some perverted side of his nature."
"Go on with your story," said Forrester.
"These were the facts which I discovered about Prentice," continued Marten. "His mother died years ago in a private sanitarium for the insane on Long Island, New York. This showed a possibility that Prentice's mind might be affected, and in its weakness assume a criminal trend. I found that Prentice's father had willed him a certain amount of money, and that Prentice had lost approximately this amount in the stock market. That showed a possible reason for his step, for Prentice had a rather expensive wife and daughter to maintain, and he knew absolutely nothing of business. Prentice's father also willed him the piece of property upon which the oak tree stands. A few weeks before the affair started, Prentice ostensibly sold this property to a man named Hans Eckmeier, who in turn quickly sold it to a colored woman who lived in a small cottage on the property – a woman, by the way, without visible means of support, and without any financial resources which could be located. This unquestionably indicated preliminary preparation designed to eliminate any connection of Prentice with the property. There were rumors, too, that this woman had murdered her husband. Rumors are hardly to be considered as evidence, yet this story offered a possible basis for Prentice having a hold over the negress.
"Further investigation revealed the fact that Hans Eckmeier had received considerable financial assistance at different periods from Prentice, and was under obligation to him. Moreover, this man, who was a chemist, had invented a deadly poison gas, the formula of which he sold to the German Government just previous to the war. Here, Mr. Forrester, were a remarkable series of clues.
"If we could back these with a few pieces of actual evidence, our case was closed. That was the problem; how to get the evidence. I dared not appear in the case myself, nor have ordinary detectives come into contact with Prentice, without the danger of arousing his suspicions; yet it was imperative that someone possessing investigative instincts should come into close association with this man.
"During the war, while I was engaged in secret service work in New York, Miss Sturtevant, like many other women of her station in life, was of great assistance to the Government. Because of her social position it was possible for her to take her place in Prentice's social set without arousing any suspicion as to her purpose. It was arranged through the M.B.A. for her to rent the Bradbury house for the summer. This house was located sufficiently near the tree for her to watch it, and also within easy reach of Prentice's home. The M.B.A. arranged for Miss Sturtevant to receive letters of introduction to Chicago people who would be most helpful to her. The stage was completely set for our work just about the time you received your notice, and we hoped, through Prentice's attack upon you, to get the definite evidence we desired. That explains, for example, the telephone calls you received. I attempted to find out about the time you would place the money in the tree so as to make proper arrangements. When you refused the information Miss Sturtevant obtained it for me. We expected Prentice to go to the tree, and Miss Sturtevant was placed in a very fortunate position to watch him that night by being invited to a dinner and dance at his home; his family, of course, being entirely ignorant of his schemes. I received a report from her on Prentice's lawn, shortly after you left, and hurried to the tree. I was standing only a short distance back of the tree during the whole affair.
"You are familiar with the fiasco which the city detectives brought about that night. The package mysteriously disappeared, and as I learned later through Miss Sturtevant that Prentice left the dance for approximately three-quarters of an hour, he undoubtedly secured it. We were absolutely sure then that Prentice was the chief conspirator, probably being assisted by the chemist and the negress, Lucy. But we had no actual evidence.
"Our next opportunity was furnished by the Melville incident."
"Tell me one thing," interrupted Forrester. "What was Mary's connection with that affair?"
"I can explain that, Robert," replied the girl. "I knew that Mr. Melville was in danger when I saw Prentice there. After going to the conservatory with his son, it suddenly occurred to me that I might find some evidence in Prentice's car – particularly as I now knew about the gas and the mask through your adventure. Knowing that my next dances were with you, I felt that no special attention would be drawn to my absence, so I excused myself and slipped out. In the compartment under the front seat of Prentice's car I found one of the gas cylinders with the mask attached. Hoping to avert another murder I tried to stuff my handkerchief into the tube. The handkerchief was too large, so I tore it in half and then succeeded."
"And," completed Marten, "the gas being forced into the cylinder under pressure, it naturally blew out the handkerchief when released; a mechanical condition which did not occur to Miss Sturtevant. Your curious suspicions of Miss Sturtevant, by the way, made it very hard for her at times. We dared not let you into the secret, because a hot-headed young man like you might have upset our carefully laid plans. It should be unnecessary now for us to explain in detail the various little incidents which aroused your suspicions of her. With your present knowledge of the case you can easily understand the underlying cause in each instance.
"Incidentally, Mr. Forrester," added Marten, soothingly, "I want to compliment you upon some of your amateur detective work. You frequently showed fine detective instincts, and it was entirely due to you that we discovered how the money was obtained from the tree. Without your visit to the cottage, that point at least might have remained a mystery."
"But you have not told me how the case finally worked out, Mr. Marten," reminded Forrester.
"I was coming to that," returned Marten. "We had definitely decided that the money was obtained from the tree in some way through the agency of Lucy. It was arranged with Melville to make a pretense of putting money in the tree. Miss Sturtevant managed to convey the information to Prentice that Melville would do this on a certain night – the night of your visit, to be exact.
"Then, instead of watching the tree, as all had done before, we watched the woman's cottage. At the time you entered, the cottage was surrounded by my men and Miss Sturtevant and I were close at hand. You may be sure you gave us a shock, but we planned to let all who wished to do so, enter the cottage, but none would be allowed to leave. You were the first. Later, Lucy appeared, and it is assumed that she discovered you in the cave. When Prentice arrived, Lucy warned him, and between them they hastily prepared the hood with which he disguised himself. Yes," added Marten, noting Forrester's astounded expression, "that was Prentice with whom you fought. We entered the passage just as you conquered him."
"And you have captured them all!" exclaimed Forrester.
"On the contrary," replied Marten, "they are all dead – but the case is solved."
"Dead!" repeated Forrester.
"Yes," said Marten. "You killed Prentice with his own gas. Lucy escaped and went to warn the chemist. He, probably realizing that escape was impossible, killed both Lucy and himself with the gas. We found their bodies when we went to his place. The most intricate case of my career, therefore, has been satisfactorily solved and a terrible menace removed."
"And Prentice's family," murmured Forrester. "What about them?"
"Mrs. Prentice turned everything over to the M.B.A. She had a small private income, however, which the association refused to touch. She and her daughter, Diana, left this morning to go to Europe, where they will remain indefinitely.
"Now," terminated Marten, rising, "I am sure that I have cleared Miss Sturtevant of any suspicion in your eyes, and I will leave you two together to solve any further problems you may have in your own way."
Marten shook hands with Forrester and Mary Sturtevant and left the room. A minute later they heard the thrumming of the engine as he drove away in his car.
