“The only deduction they can make, however, is that the Rita Thorne mentioned in the message has beat them to the Rees clock just as they — or so they fatuously believe — have beat her to the Schimski clock. And since theirs is the wrong clock, hers is the right one. Now they must get that clock out of her hands if it is at all possible. The same morning on which Brossmeier leaves Daddy Rees’ empty handed, Von Tresseler, after learning of Brossmeier’s failure over the phone, makes a hasty investigation of the Bradbury apartment house. It reveals a sign which advertises wall safes in every apartment; on top of this a decoy telephone message elicits from the colored maid that Miss Thorne is laid up with a sprained ankle — sprained so badly that she can’t even come to the phone.
“The coast is clear,” Darrell continued. “Two helpless women — and the clock undoubtedly locked in the very convenient wall safe. Von Tresseler takes a chance — but not such a daring chance considering the facts. He holds up these two helpless women around noontime. He questions the putative Miss Thorne, and while he learns that she has the clock, he also learns that she has not, and knows nothing about, the so-called ‘letter from London.’ This practically assures him, considering the many days that have elapsed since John Cooper Jarndyce received a communication dispatched on the same liner, that this explanatory letter must undoubtedly be lost in transit. But having gone this far successfully he attempts to open her wall safe and get the clock out of things for once and for all.
“You gentlemen know the rest of the story as well as I. Von Tresseler failed at the expense of a two thousand five hundred dollar piece of Italian majolica broken over his head — but the failure was not absolute in his eyes, because if the young lady he regarded as Rita Thorne had not the letter from London she not only did not know the secret of the clock, but very likely even believed that she had the wrong clock in the case. The last step in the chain of action of Brossmeier, Von Tresseler, Inc., comes when we recall Hunter’s and Farley’s information obtained from the superintendent of Greenwood Cemetery this evening. The two men who tried early at dawn to-day to open the Jarndyce vault and steal the ‘body’ of John Cooper Jarndyce, were Brossmeier and Von Tresseler, who realized that now that a message had gotten to the outside world signed with the significant initials J. C. J., that wax shell was a source of extreme danger. They were driven off. Thus ends my chain.
“And now, gentlemen, I’ve rehearsed this chain carefully so that the hidden link in it would be brought saliently to the attention of all of you. Inspector, you’re the one that’s been fidgeting in your seat. I’ll call on you to speak for the rest of us by enunciating that hidden link.”
“Why it looms up now,” declared Notman forcibly, “like the moon on a dark night. The hidden link, to me, is the following: How did Brossemier and Von Tresseler, whom we left on a false scent, suddenly discover that there were two clocks; that one of them was at Schimski’s of North Wells Street; that Napoleon Foy the laundryman had a handkerchief message describing where the other of the two clocks was to be found; that that message was in his hand-carved cabinet? Where and how did they suddenly get hep to all this? There’s the hidden link.”
“You’ve said it, chief,” echoed Corrigan.
“Said it to a T,” added Burns.
Darrell nodded his head.
“You’ve stated it fully, inspector.” He gazed about the room. “There in those questions lies the hidden link of what is otherwise a very tight and logical chain. How did Von Tresseler and Brossmeier get on the true track of affairs when they were left following a false lead? Murphy knew absolutely nothing about the handkerchief message. Mr. Jarndyce told them nothing. The probate court records would prove nothing considering that John Cooper Jarndyce personally sold his uncle’s furniture which was willed to him direct by the old will.”
The circle of faces on which Darrell’s eyes now rested was a circle of very interested faces. Nearly every brow was corrugated in deep thought. It was Corrigan who finally thrust forth with much confidence a solution of the enigma.
“Well, now that we’ve got the question,” he grunted, “we haven’t far to go to get the answer. It’s plainer than day that from the group of four who knew of the facts early in the development of the case, Foy, Chi Tsung Liang, Mrs. Chi and Darrell, the information crossed over to the group who knew nothing of them, Brossmeier and Von Tresseler.”
“You’ve said a mouthful, Corrigan,” commented Notman, bringing his open hand down on his knee with an emphatic whack. “Leaving Darrell out of it altogether, Foy, Chi Tsung Liang, or Mrs. Chi let the information leak. Now which of ‘em was it?”
“It’s easy enongh to tell which of them it wasn’t,” Darrell interpolated in the inspector’s direction. “Napoleon Foy couldn’t read English — and furthermore, if ordered to lock up that handkerchief in his cabinet and remain silent about it, he would do it if it were the last thing he ever did. The Chinese of Chicago look upon Chi Tsung Liang as their virtual Mid-West emperor. As for Mrs. Chi — O Ming Chi — ” He shook his head slowly. “If you knew that little Chinese lady as I do! Why — she is more secluded from the world than a nun.”
“Which leaves only Chi Tsung Liang,” declared Notman. He snapped his fingers toward Corrigan. “Get a taxi, Frank, and bring Chi Tsung Liang here at once. We’ll — ”
Darrell raised his hand.
“It won’t be necessary, inspector. Don’t bother even to bring Chi Tsung Liang here. Have you considered the following: In the first place, Chi Tsung Liang wouldn’t have known to whom all this information would have been of any value; and in the second place, if he had been selling it, he would have sold the full information, wouldn’t he? The location of both the clocks and all the rest of it? Remember that a full forty hours — a day and two nights — elapsed between Brossmeier’s and Von Tresseler’s effort to get the Schimski clock from Schimski and the Rees clock from Daddy Rees. And don’t forget above all that Von Tresseler had actually to kill Foy in order to get the location of the Daddy Rees clock.”
Notman’s face fell. This was apparently a bombshell to his suddenly conceived theory. He sighed so audibly that Darrell hastened to cheer him up.
“The more I thought this evening,” Darrell declared, “of how the information had leaked across from apparently Chi Tsung Liang to Brossmeier and Von Tresseler, and most particularly that only half of it — the location of one clock — had leaked, the more and more I became convinced that the leak was the result of crossed telephone wires in which the conversation had existed just long enough to allow part of the facts to spill over into a new channel.
“Yet this theory of mine was untenable for two reasons: First, it partakes too much of coincidence — only in the detective stories of badly harassed authors do such unmotivated occurrences take place. And second — well — it happens that Chi Tsung Liang sent his personal servant, Mo Kee, to conduct me over to his home. Yet nevertheless, obsessed with my theory and baffled by the contradictions to it, I rang Chi Tsung Liang to-night at his residence. He had just returned from his Philadelphia trip. He tells me interesting information in response to my specific queries.
“It appears that around four o’clock of the day that Napoleon Foy brought the handkerchief to him, he rang the city room of the Call here, knowing that it was my hour to come on duty. He asked for me. He got me, so he says, and proceeded to relate in detail all that had happened, and to complete his information read off to me the copy he had made of the message. That is, he read it off up to and including the following portion: ‘Try second-hand furniture store man named Schimski, North Wells Street. If not then clock is in possession one — ’ But right there, just as he was about to complete the sentence he became convinced, so he says, that he was talking to one of the cub reporters who was getting facts which did not belong rightfully to him, and so Chi Tsung Liang, after saying he would send for me, cut off.
“Now when I came on duty I found Mo Kee waiting here for me, and when he brought me to Chi’s
home I saw only Mrs. Chi to whom Chi had not mentioned his attempt to talk to me on the phone. This was the very first information I had of the Napoleon Foy story. Now we are able to trace the leak, providing the cub who lifted my story off the wire is willing to enumerate each and every person to whom he made any mention of the story, or in any way discussed any of the facts in it.
“To get his name — the name of the man who spilled the beans — I slipped a bill for ten dollars to-night to Benny Taylor, over there by the window, with the stipulation that he divulge the name of the cub who had bribed him to call said cub to the phone whenever I was asked for, and also the amount of the bribe. The kid has written a reply to my question. He names ten dollars as the amount his palm was crossed with; so I don’t wonder the kid fell.” Darrell shrugged his shoulders.
“Personally I don’t call it ethical journalism to cut out a man on your own staff, but in so far as the one who cut me out is guilty of inadvertently spilling some valuable information over to people who never should have had it, his own recriminations in the matter will be retaliation enough for me. If he’ll apologize for the trick and name the party or parties, I’m willing to forget it completely.”
“Oh, come out of your veiled allusions, Darrell,” said Feldock sourly from the window seat. “I’ll name the party so that Notman can take him in before press-time to-night. As for apologizing to you, I’ll do nothing of the kind. When I slipped the kid ten dollars to call me to the phone when you were asked for, I simply played an old game as legitimate as eating or sleeping. On the Frisco Despatch where I received my experience, we had only one law: All’s fair in love, war and getting the story. If you fall asleep at the switch — that’s your lookout.
“A word or two further to you, Darrell. I believe that you’re about the cockiest individual I ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I’m convinced and always have been that you’re too top-heavy to handle your own live news tips efficiently. That’s why I cut in on your game — so we’d see a little action around this place. That’s all. I’ll do no apologizing. Rest assured of that.” He turned to the city editor.
“I’m mighty sorry, Mr. Crosby, if I spilled the beans, as Darrell says. If I had been taken into his confidence as I should have been, there never would have been any leak through yours truly. I had no idea of the significance of that freak story that Darrell’s chink friend poured into my ear over the phone. But there’s no reason why we can’t make up for lost time now.” He turned to Notman.
“Inspector, the same afternoon I got the story or what there was of it I went home with a pounding toothache to my rooming house at 55 Delaware Place. There I borrowed a drink of whisky from a man who occupies the room on the same floor that I do. This man calls himself Count Michael Karnow. He claims to be a former newspaper man on the Petrograd newspapers. Wears a short, crisp, black beard, as black as his hair. Also thick gold-rimmed glasses on his eyes. Entertaining chap, polished, well read, smooth in every respect. Furthermore, he never works; claims to have an inheritance. While I lay on the bed trying to down the toothache, we fell to talking exactly as one newspaper man to another, and I told him of the story I’d lifted that afternoon. He was interested and asked many questions. He left me fifteen or twenty minutes later.” Feldock shrugged his shoulders. “And now you know as much as I do myself.”
Notman appeared galvanized by the battery of facts released by Feldock. He turned to Corrigan.
“Frank, sounds like Von Tresseler to me. Get a taxi, take Burns, also Clancy, and Mullins here, and go to 55 Delaware Place as fast as you can travel. Bring this bogus count in, and keep your fingers on your gun triggers when you arrest him. I believe the case is ended. Now get — all four of you.”
“Wait just a minute, inspector,” said Darrell. Notman reluctantly motioned to Corrigan and Burns, Clancy and Mullins, to keep their seats for a moment. “I’d like to advise that we hold back a minute on this arrest. Let’s not make a faux pas at this final stage of the game by being too speedy. If this Count Michael Karnow is Von Tresseler, a half hour more or less will neither help nor hurt matters. There’s a further complication. There’s the chance that Feldock’s Russian acquaintance is genuine as he claims to be, but that he retold the facts to still another person in the same house — the real Von Tresseler — in which case if your men go out there and pull an arrest at this hour of the night, the real quarry will take alarm and we’ll lose out altogether. Now let’s comb this thing out as far as it will go.” He turned to the city editor.
“Mr. Crosby, do you recall that early in the evening Tuesday night — the night that Foy was murdered — you asked me to go to the Pennsylvania depot at eleven o’clock and interview Theresa Heinemann, the sister of the girl Von Tresseler murdered, who was on a through train from New York to Denver where you had a tip she was to stay at the Hotel Borden? I think you’ll recall it for the reason that I had to beg off on account of having certain work on my story to do — perhaps I had a little job around Greenwood Cemetery, but I’m not saying what, you understand. Anyway, you sent Feldock instead to cover the interview. Now I wonder that it never occurred to any of us at the time that maybe this woman may have been madly in love — yes, in love with the man who strangled her sister — and that instead of journeying from New York to Denver she was in reality coming to Chicago to join Von Tresseler. Why did it never occur to any of us that she might have left the train after Feldock finished his interview, and got off outside of Chicago and come back?”
“By George,” said Crosby, biting his lip, “you’re right, Darrell. If that theory were true, we might have landed our man by following the woman. What do you think of it, Mr. Feldock? What kind of a girl did she impress you as being?”
Feldock put the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully, and paused a minute before replying.
“No,” he said at last. “I don’t take much stock in that theory. Of course if she turns up in Chicago after ‘Count Michael Karnow’ is arrested — then I’m wrong.”
“Well,” grunted Notman impatiently, “it’s easy enough to check up on that theory.” He turned to Burns. “Burns, get a wire off at once to the chief of police at Denver and see whether this woman is and has been registered at the Hotel Borden. We’ll run this possibility down in short order.”
“Wait, Burns,” ordered Darrell. He turned to the detective head. “No need for Burns to send that wire. I wired her myself to-night to check up on this theory. I wired the following legitimate message in case my theory was wrong.” Then he repeated slowly:
“Can statement attributed to you in interview published in Chicago Morning Call last Wednesday morning regarding Von Tresseler being well supplied with money when he fled New York be corroborated? Please wire immediate answer to undersigned, collect.
“JEFFREY DARRELL.”
“And of course you got no answer,” replied Notman with assurance.
Darrell produced from his pocket a yellow telegram.
“We lose on that theory,” he stated quietly. “She wires me the following:” He read it off:
“Gave no interview while passing through Chicago. Any interview appearing in Chicago papers from me is spurious.
“THERESA HEINEMAN.”
“She lies!” flung forth Feldock in a fury. “She lies — and in her very attempt to repudiate that interview she proves some crooked connection of herself with the case. I interviewed that woman or her ghost, and I’ll wire her a message to-night at my own expense that’ll singe the skin off of her.”
“Maybe you interviewed the wrong woman, Feldock,” said Darrell dryly. He couldn’t resist the temptation for one further effective thrust, and the opportunity being such a rare one he seized it. “You know, Feldock, cubs have been known to do just that same thing before in the newspaper game.” He tossed the telegram over on Crosby’s desk. “Well, the lady has it she gave no interview — the gentleman has it she lies. The lady is there — the gentleman is here. So suppose we let the case go to the gentl
eman by default.” He paused, thinking. Feldock’s face was red with suppressed anger. Darrell turned to the city editor once more. “Mr. Crosby, you live on Emmett Street, I believe.”
“Why yes. Little street about a block long. What about it?”
“It’s very close to Logan Square, isn’t it?”
“Why yes. You dismount from the street car at the northeast corner of Logan Square in order to walk down a block or so and reach my house. Why did you want to know, Darrell?”
“I want to paint a doleful hypothetical picture for Feldock over there before we send out and bring in this Russian who is probably Von Tresseler.” He turned to Feldock. “Feldock, you came here to Chicago with a good bit of money on your person, didn’t you?”
“What if I did?” snapped Feldock, beside himself with rage. “And how in hell do you know, anyway?”
“Perhaps I inferred it,” said Darrell, ignoring the outburst, “due to reading that famous syndicated article of yours in the Clyley case where you remarked that a man’s best bank was a canvas money belt strapped around his own middle, next the skin. Then, too, you’re an unmarried man, you know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Few expenses — good salary and all that. Chance to save a little, don’t you know.”
“Well, hop to it. What about it?”
Again Darrell ignored the question.
“You left Frisco on or about the 17th of last month, didn’t you?”
“Certainly I did. Got here on the 20th and went to work for the Call. Any objections, if I may ask?”
“None at all. But suppose when you reached Chicago you had called up Mr. Crosby and had found that he was off duty and had gone on home. You might have been impelled then to run out to his house on Emmett Street and talk matters over with him about joining the staff of the Call, might you not?”
“Might have,” said Feldock darkly, “only I didn’t.”
Find the Clock Page 28
