“Paddon wasn’t murdered, Chief McIlroy,” put in the short, stocky man, contemptuously. “Don’t you remember how he went over the Quincy Street draw into the river — full tilt — one night last August?”
“I remember it well, Kelsey,” said McIlroy. “I don’t recall anything about a Rothblume or a Lee, however.” He turned to the tall, thin man. “Do you, Roberts?”
The man addressed shook his head. “No, chief.”
“Mr. Lee was supposed to have died from ptomaine poisoning,” put in Folwell. “And Rothblume was picked up, supposedly a victim of apoplexy. Each had received threatening letters, however, as did Eaves, here. That’s all I can tell you about that in brief.”
“Well, go on with the story,” commanded McIlroy.
“Mr. Eaves hired me yesterday afternoon to take his place on the streets for fourteen days, dressed exactly as I am in his outer clothing — thus resembling him — and with my face done up in that roll of gauze which lies there. I was armed with a weapon he gave me, in case an attack was made upon me. His intentions were to eat and sleep in the office here, and thus circumvent whoever was out to get him.”
“What’d he pay you for the job?” snapped McIlroy.
“Well, there were certain private arrangements entered into,” said Folwell guardedly, “in the nature of promises relating to various matters about patents and so forth.” He dismissed the question. “I fulfilled my part of the contract last night. I left him at about seven o’clock. I went straight to his home, where I spent the entire evening in his stepson’s company, slept there, came down this morning — and here’s what I found. Then I called you.” He pointed to the ghastly dead body.
McIlroy looked him over between cold grey eyes, under shaggy grey eyebrows.
“So he received a threat, eh? Wonder where it is?”
“He told me he had sealed it up and put it away in the vault there,” replied Folwell.
“Do you know the combination?” asked the man in the faded blue coat.
“I did,” said Folwell. Without any further ado he stepped over to the vault door and pulling back the cuffs of Eaves’s substitute coat he was still wearing, turned the shiny dial around to the combination. It failed to give the answering click, and he knew at once the cause. Eaves had altered both the inner and outer combinations after his unfortunate loss, which to Folwell was still a perplexing riddle. He turned to McIlroy. “Mr. Eaves has altered the combination,” he said simply.
The two younger men were taking notes in their leather-covered note-books, and talking together in low tones, pointing around at various articles. Like good headquarters men, however, they were careful not to disturb the location or position of anything. The silence was broken by McIlroy, pointing at the bright silver-plated machine with its many-coloured keys that stood close to Eaves’s elbow on its rubber-tyred wheels.
“And what do you call that?”
“That,” Folwell informed him, “is the Shanks Dictatograph, one of Mr. Eaves’s stock promotions. It is a machine which is supposed, by the aid of anyone who has learned to operate the keyboard, to allow the taking down of conversation — of dictation — and the transmitting of it on paper in groups of English consonants and vowel sounds which any typist can learn to transcribe. The platen, carrying the paper from the paper-roll, travels to and fro continuously while the machine is in operation catching the impact of the keys as they fall. A powerful clockwork spring inside causes this ceaseless travel, as well as turning the platen up one line at the end of each swing. The small keyboard at the top allows names and figures to be tapped out letter by letter by the operator.”
“And is that long ribbon of paper coming out of the roller — the platen, I think you called it — the record that the machine makes?”
Folwell gazed at the cylinder-shaped platen of the instrument. Somehow, so used had he been to the Dictatograph that the sight of a long, broad-ribbon of white paper coming forth from the rubber-roll, trailing backward over the top of the machine and there hanging downward, had seemed the customary thing.
He nodded. “Yes.”
McIlroy stepped forward, and, seizing the end that hung down at the back, swung it forward and held it up vertically above the platen. And, with a queer sidelike motion of his head, he surveyed the groups of consonants and symbols, each separated from the next group, typed in clear black ink and evidently representing words. With his free hand he pointed at the red, clocklike circle with its one hand that graced the top of the sheet.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That is a time stamp incorporated in the machine, automatic, which records the time each letter is dictated. The same lever that releases the platen for swinging to and fro imprints that time-clock stamp.”
“Can a man take down his own dictation?” asked McIlroy.
“Far easier than he can take down anyone else’s,” said Folwell truthfully. “It’s not at all diffcult with a little practice to take down your own words, for the reason that your mind sees them in advance. But it’s a difficult feat to take down someone else’s.”
McIlroy gazed troubledly at the long ribbon of paper he still held upright. “Now another question, my friend. The rows an’ rows of letters and Greek or Chinese marks, whatever they are, stop in the middle of a line, an’ the whole thing stops about one-third way down the whole ribbon. How comes that two-thirds of the ribbon of paper is blank — the last two thirds?”
“The only explanation I can give,” said Folwell truthfully, “is that Eaves was writing some copy himself, that he was killed right in the middle of it, and that the machine went on running until the spring inside of it was run down completely.” He pointed at a certain green-handled lever to the side. “The stop lever has not been thrown.” He stepped forward and with fingers lightly touching the outer edges of a wide, flat winding key on one side, he turned it slightly, nodding his head. “Yes, the machine is run down. The spring has practically no tension whatsoever.”
“Why would he have been using the machine himself?” asked McIlroy.
“If the record contains a business letter,” replied Folwell, “it is probably one that occurred to him while he was working by himself last evening, and he clicked it hurriedly off, intending probably to have me typewrite it for him to-day, or perhaps the old book-keeper, who can read and transcribe Dictatograph notes. Very likely he intended to type it himself to-day when he had leisure. His stenographer, you see has left for a two week’s, vacation.”
McIlroy folded the ribbon of paper down upon itself so that it creased at a point about an inch below where the entire matter ceased. Then he tore off the portion containing the notes with a careful motion. He handed it to Folwell. “Then give us a reading on this, Mr. Mechanical Expert. We have something here that looks good, I’m thinking.” He turned to the short, stocky man. “Kelsey, if this man typed out one of his business letters at nine forty-five, as the little red time stamp shows, then do we know for sure that he wasn’t murdered till after that hour, eh, old Camera Eye?”
Folwell stared at the time stamp. As McIlroy had stated, the red arrow pointed at the fourth of the six dots between the nine and the ten. Then, with the facility gained by long experience in translating and interpreting Dictatograph material, he began reading very slowly:
“Dear Sir:
“In reply to your letter will say if you intend to loan on the Shanks stock he owns said stock according to our books, and I hold first lien on it for $2,000 which I agreed last week to renew for one year from date of expiration. The stock is well worth a further loan, and I would be glad to advance more, but am very tight myself. Only to-day my mechanical expert in this company — ”
Folwell stopped dead. His face burned bright red. His ears tingled. His throat seemed to close up on him. A roaring was in his eardrums.
“I — I — I can’t very well go on,” he stammered desperately. “I — ”
“Give us every word of it,” demanded McIlroy suspiciously
, staring at Folwell’s finger poised half-way along the groups of symbols and consonants. “Go on, my man.”
Folwell sighed a desperate, sickening sigh. He couldn’t stop midway and plead ignorance of the meaning when he had proceeded this far smoothly. Should he do so, it would be a very easy thing for a man on the Central Detective Bureau, armed with one of the instruction booklets that accompanied the Dictatograph, to read the remainder of the notes. And even if this were not so, old Fisher, Beebe, Meier, even young Hal almost, could read them. One long, angry, embarrassing moment he paused, the cynosure of all eyes in the room. Then, with an ugly click he shut his teeth together and went on recklessly, despairingly:
“ — signed a written confession to the effect that he — ”
Folwell stopped to swallow the lump in his throat. McIlroy glared. “Go on,” he snapped.
“stole $5,100 in bonds and stocks from my safe.
“Very truly yours,
“To John J. Jeng,
Hotel Courtland,
New York City.
Hold till called for.”
Folwell looked up. He caught a reflection of his face in the glass across the room. It was white as paper. McIlroy’s gaze was pinned on the forefinger, which had stopped but four-fifths of the distance down the page of notes.
“The rest of it,” he ordered gruffly. “Every word.”
Folwell sighed. He was thankful there were but two more lines of an evidently new letter which had just begun. He read, trying to drown out the sounds of thundering waterfalls in his brain:
“Dear Shanks:
“Account of Jeng’s letter and the old error on the stock books, please send on immediately the serial number of your second stock certificate. I think — ”
Folwell looked up. “That is all.” His voice was unreal, strange to his ears. “The second letter breaks suddenly off there.”
McIlroy was gazing scornfully at him. “You damned English thief,” he ejaculated contemptuously. He stepped forward and jerked from Folwell’s fingers the paper. “What do you know about that, boys?” Folwell found his tongue at last. His words came forth in a torrent of stammering indignation. “He — he had no right to write that first letter.” His tone of voice was desperate. “That — that — that refers to personal matters between us. He had no right to leave such words. He — ”
“No right, eh?” said the Scotsman. “And since when doesn’t a man have a right to answer a business letter? Kelsey, get the stuff out of the dead man’s pockets; then go through the desk and collect up all the papers. You, Roberts, call headquarters and get O’Brien, Egan, Pederson, and Lanson over here; also the camera man. Then call radio station W — G — N and have a police flash regarding this killing sent out to all the squad cars touring the city so’s they can be on the look out for anything suspicious. It won’t hurt any, even if all this did happen last night.” He stood surveying Folwell from under his iron-grey brows, while Kelsey ran his fingers into each of the pockets of the dead man, who sat quite oblivious to the insult.
“Thank God!” said Folwell fervently to himself, “that he locked that cursed confession back in the vault yesterday. They’ll be able to get no further information. Heavens, what a complication! Why — why did he do it?”
But his triumph was short-lived, for from J. Hamilton Eaves’s breast-pocket Kelsey’s stubby fingers emerged holding a paper at the sight of whose purple writing Folwell’s spirits dropped clear to his toes. It was the confession he had signed that morning before. It was the same, unmistakable.
Kelsey was unfolding it. He glanced at it. His eyes opened wider. Then, with a short, hard laugh, he handed it to his superior, who, with the Dictatograph letter still in one hand, ran his eyes over the written words and the signature on the bottom. At the conclusion of his inspection, he turned to Kelsey.
“This British bird,” he said contemptuously, flicking his thumb in Folwell’s direction, “may have an alibi on the matter of the murder, but he’s a self-confessed thief to the tune of five thousand one hundred dollars, at least, from this man Eaves. And his confession’s been witnessed as well. If we don’t get anything else out of the case, we’ll see that an American States-attorney sends him over the road, where he belongs, for grand larceny. Put the bracelets on him, Camera Eye, and take him over to headquarters and lock him up!”
CHAPTER VIII
WHEN THE UNIVERSE CRUMBLED
FOLWELL stared at McIlroy, speechless, dumbfounded.
“Do you mean to say,” he stammered, “that you’re going to take me into custody on the word of a dead man who — ”
“Certainly I do,” snapped the detective bureau officer gruffly, “and by the help of an American States-attorney and this man’s nearest heir-at-law, we’ll run you over the road into the penitentiary, where your kind belongs.” He turned to Kelsey. “Put the cuffs on him and take him to headquarters and lock him up.” And he turned without further ado and fell to examining the body once more.
Folwell said but nine words. “Very well. Never mind the handcuffs. I’ll go peaceably.”
“I’ll say you will,” said Kelsey belligerently. “Come — let’s go.”
Folwell stripped off Eaves’s coat and resumed his own, which lay in the tiny closet across the room. He motioned to his back pocket and clapped his own hat on his head.
“There’s the gun Eaves gave me,” he said in a low voice. “Take it, please.”
Kelsey, withdrawing it, and running his hands in a pit-a-pat motion up and down Folwell’s whole anatomy from his shoulders to the cuffs of his trousers to assure himself that no more weapons were present, slipped it into his own side pocket. Then, with a curt nod toward the door, he led the way from the offices.
Once outside, he proceeded in silence to the street, Folwell, very still, his mind working rapidly, however, following at his side. Now, indeed, he realized he was in a predicament. The paper which was never to see the light of anyone’s eyes other than Eaves’s had now, through the blow of the latter’s assassin, the self-styled Star of the Night, been thrown into publicity; and how was he, Folwell, ever to explain why he had signed such a confession without, as before, bringing Avery Reardon’s name into the painful notoriety? It was an ugly situation, and he wondered now what unkind fate had ever sent him strolling months before into the office of J. Hamilton Eaves, fresh from college far across the seas, and searching for a position in America.
The brilliant yellow police Cadillac which had evidently brought McIlroy and his men, stood at the curb of the Temple of Commerce Building, a driver at the wheel; but Kelsey did not disturb it. Instead he signalled a Checker taxicab, rolling by, and showing his star to the driver gave one significant order: “Detective Bureau — yes, 11th and State.” And piloting Folwell ahead of him, climbed in.
But as the taxi stood at the curb, not far from the city hall, waiting for traffic to be released so that it could shoot rapidly East to State, Folwell saw that a drug-store lay not twenty-five feet from the vehicle. He turned to Kelsey.
“If I’m to be locked up, let alone booked on a charge of grand larceny,” he pleaded, “let me call up a lawyer I know who has a connection with a bondsman, and who knew my father, when he was alive, in London. Will you do that?”
“Then do it quick,” growled Kelsey, evidently anxious to get in the thick of things centring about the new sensation just sprung upon the police. “Being it’s larceny only, I’ll let you ‘phone. But I’ll be waiting on the outside of the telephone booth, an’ don’t hold any long drawn-out love talks.”
In the ‘phone directory Folwell looked up the number of Walter Treadway, the man who had known his father before him. Treadway’s offices were in the Reaper Block, that great hive which houses thousands of lawyers, from well-paid corporation consultants to the little shysters who hang around police courts to earn their daily five-dollar fee. But to his consternation, Treadway proved to be out of town for the morning, and not scheduled back in Chicago till late that af
ternoon. Already, with a sinking heart, he saw looming before him nothing less than a day spent inside stone walls. He sighed, and leaving a long message with Treadway’s stenographer, hung up and rejoined the impatient Kelsey, who was stamping up and down in front of the booth.
Over they went to Central Detective Headquarters, housed in its huge stone building that seemed, in its very newness, an anomaly of sorts, situated as it was on the very boundary line between the lodging-house district of “down-at-heel” Chicago, and the famed Black Belt with its scores of square miles of negroes and negro businesses. There he was searched completely and booked on a charge of grand larceny, the old white-haired detective sergeant back of the desk scrutinizing through gold-rimmed spectacles both the confession Kelsey had brought along, and the man who had signed such a damning paper. After a long, protracted scratching of the pen across the red-ruled spaces in the wide book, Folwell was assigned to one of a series of a dozen or more very narrow cells placed along a corridor, whose only illumination was that coming from the reflections of five tungsten electric bulbs against the whitewashed walls of the opposite side.
There he sat gloomily all morning, and at noontime was brought upstairs to McIlroy’s office, the inner one of three large connecting rooms, where he spent a gruelling half-hour with the old Scotsman, this time relating everything he knew about the threat against Eaves’s life and the latter’s ideas concerning the danger in which he stood, a group of reporters taking in the whole interview.
“And what was the price,” put in McIlroy, at one stage of the cross-questioning, “why you did all this for a man who only paid you the sum of thirty dollars per week?”
“That confession was promised back to me for the job,” said Folwell truthfully. “A confession that should never have been signed.”
“And perhaps you signed it to protect someone eise in the office?” said McIlroy. “Two of my men, Lyons and Cassidy, tell me they were called up there by Eaves right after he discovered his loss, a week ago yesterday, and that there was another employee that he suspected.” His astute police mind was evidently scenting the one possibility that Folwell would not for the world have had come out.
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