The thefts from the steel company and from the two women were duly filed in Ray’s cabinets, and the initials ROB were stored in the back of his brain.
Another two years passed and then the Chicago branch of the Bankers Association reported to the Burns office, which relayed it to the New York branch, that a forged check for $200 had come in. It was written on one of the forms of that same steel company, and signed by one “J. Arthur Watrous,” who was unknown to the company. But the check had been made out to “Roger O. Billings,” who had endorsed it over to the Calvert Hotel of New York, and received the hotel’s cash.
By a series of coincidences in those pre-airmail days the check had sped through the New York clearing house in time to catch the Twentieth Century train that same afternoon, and to arrive in Chicago the next morning. When the Chicago office of the Burns agency learned of this, it flashed word to Ray Schindler by private wire.
Those initials ROB rang a bell in a back room of Ray’s brain. He thought that R. O. Bain and R. O. Boswell might be related. Also it was the second time that steel company’s check had appeared before him. Ray sent an operative to the Calvert Hotel to see if Boswell had fled. Also he telephoned the New York office of the American Bankers Association for a photograph of Bain. None was in its files, but the Chicago office had one and promised to put it on the eastbound Twentieth Century due the next morning.
That was considered as breath-takingly swift in those days before the telephoto and the airplane as our ways will undoubtedly look old fashioned and snail-slow to the next generation of speedsters. But by that time the criminals will also have inventors at work in their behalf.
The operative who called at the Calvert Hotel informed the manager that the check he had cashed had bounced with record-breaking velocity and that he might have been entertaining the long lost R. O. Bain unawares. Both were pleasantly surprised to learn that Mr. Billings had not yet checked out.
Knowing what he did about the banking business and clearing houses, the man had counted on a little longer leisure. When the hotel manager knocked at his door he was welcomed with smiles. Even the news that the stranger was a detective did not chill Mr. “Billings.” But he was deeply hurt when he learned that the check was not good. It just showed how untrustworthy certain people were. It almost destroyed his faith in human honor.
He explained that the check was in a sense a debt of honor—that is the nicer name for a gambling debt. He had come from San Francisco to New York. On the train he had fallen in with some nice chaps who finally made up a friendly game of poker. It looked like a straight game; for he had been the biggest winner. A charming chap named J. Arthur Watrous had been the heaviest loser; but he complained that if he paid everybody off, he would have no cash left when he got off at Buffalo, where he must spend a day or two before he came on to New York to continue his pleasant acquaintance with R. O. Billings.
Watrous had lost to Bilbngs $80; and, if Billings would cash a check for $200, Watrous would pay off the other men and have enough left to get him to his bank in Buffalo. Since he said he was an official of that same old steel company and showed one of their checks to prove it, “Billings” said he had not hesitated to give him the $200. Billings announced that he would, of course, reimburse the Calvert Hotel in full for the full amount and charge it off to experience.
He was so plausible and so shocked by the duplicity of this J. Arthur Watrous that, when the operative asked him if he would mind stepping over to Ray Schindler’s office to clear the whole matter up, Mr. Billings made no demur.
The operative telephoned Ray that they would soon be there, and Ray jubilantly prepared to gather in this elusive ROB, who had been at liberty now for four years. Ray studied such descriptions as he had and instructed his staff to drop into his office from time to time and ask questions about office details. This would give them a chance to memorize the man’s features; for Ray was determined to keep him under observation somehow till that photograph arrived the next morning.
When R. O. Billings arrived, he brought with him bitter disappointment. He told his story again and it was a good story. Crooks have to be good story-tellers or go out of business. What upset Ray was that Billings did not fit the written description of Bain. Bain wore glasses. Billings wore none and had no crease on the nose to hint that he had ever worn any. Bain had a slight stammer; Billings was glib. Bain weighed about 130; Billings must be about 145. Bain was five foot eight; Billings was taller than that.
The only points that agreed were that both men had hazel eyes and dark brown hair. But you can’t arrest a man for having hazel eyes and dark brown hair.
But Ray was determined not to let the fellow go till he saw the photograph. He made talk and Billings seemed to be in no hurry. Ray asked catch questions to trip Billings; but B. knew all the right answers.
He did not object even to Ray’s searching him. Nothing incriminating was found on him, except $260. Ray figured that if B. repaid the hotel, he would have only $60 left and, if he were a crook, he would have to get more money in a hurry.
Billings did not even object to taking lunch with Ray in the office.
Ray was wearing out rapidly but the triumphant Billings grew fresher and fresher. Finally Ray said in desperation:
“You’re as anxious as we are to catch this man who robbed you, and you say he said he would come to New York right away. Everybody who comes to New York crosses Broadway at Forty-second street sooner or later. How would you like to go along with one of my men and keep watch there so you can point him out? It will show you how we detectives work, and my man will be glad to pay for the occasional drinks you’ll both need to keep warm on a nasty night like this.”
Billings said he’d be delighted. He’d like nothing better than to lay hands on that fellow “Watrous.”
It was dark and snowy by this time and Billings set out with one of Ray’s unfortunate operatives, while another was assigned to the windblown task of tailing them. “Billings” and his companion kept up a patrol punctuated by nips at this bar or that. They studied the crowds going into the theaters, and kept on going till they could study the crowds coming out of the theaters. Then they had a midnight snack.
Finally they parted at the door of the Calvert Hotel. Billings said he was going to bed, but the operatives stayed to watch the hotel’s one door. The manager promised to signal if Billings gave any sign of departure.
By three in the morning a blizzard was blowing away nearly everything but those two icy-eyed and miserable operatives. At half-past six in the morning a taxicab dashed up to the hotel door and a heavily bundled-up man darted into it. And away it went before the operatives could even decipher its number in the snow-laden gale.
One of them rushed to the night clerk and asked if it were Billings who had just left. The night clerk yawned a Yes. As usual, the signal-giver had forgotten to give the signal. All the clerk remembered was the telephone number of the taxicab company.
At that dull hour, the company was actually able to furnish the number of the cab that had been called to the Calvert. Later, the driver was found. He reported that he had taken his fare to the Grand Central Terminal.
When Ray called on the manager of the hotel to protest, he learned that Billings had paid back the $200 and also his bill. That had ended the hotel’s interest in him. When Ray reminded the man that if it had not been for his intervention, the hotel would not have got back its $200, the manager haughtily answered:
“You mind your business and I’ll mind mine.”
The bitterest pill for Ray to swallow came in the morning mail. It was the photograph of Bain. It was an early photograph of “Billings.” He had grown taller and fatter and outgrown his glasses and his stammer, but he had spent eight hours in Ray’s office, eaten a hearty lunch, and kept two operatives on ice all night. They had also paid for many drinks and the midnight supper.
The pursuit of Bain was no longer a matter of pure justice. An element of revenge for many humiliations
had entered into it. But all that Ray could do now was to make and distribute many copies of the photograph with a description pointing out the recent changes in Bain’s aspect. A photograph of the check was made and included in a leaflet, of which thousands of copies were made. Burns men, in all cities where there were branches, were sent to all first and second class hotels, to leave leaflets. Every police department in the nation received one or more. Steamships were watched. Everything was done to make it difficult for Bain to show his face with impunity.
But so unobservant and unremembering are most people that neither criminals nor detectives have need of disguises except in rare instances. People just don’t observe or remember.
The reward for five days of publishing Bain’s picture and his story all over the United States was a telephone call from Chicago: another of that steel company’s checks had bounced! This one was for $500 and the Hotel Astor had cashed it. It was signed by “R. O. Brewster.”
When Ray reached the Astor, “Brewster” was gone. He had already learned that checks on Chicago rebounded fast. Ray’s men found the taxicab driver who remembered taking “Brewster” to the Pennsylvania Station.
Thinking things over with fierce concentration, Ray decided that, though the man was a far traveller and a fast, he had gone from the Calvert to the Astor via the Grand Central. He might have gone to some other hotel in town via the Pennsylvania Station.
So Ray sent his men with several pamphlets and a picture to every New York and Newark hotel. One pamphlet went to each room clerk, one to the cashier, and one to the house detective. Also, the operative asked at each hotel “Is this man here now?” Negative answers were received everywhere.
At the Waldorf-Astoria the head-detective was a warm friend of Ray’s and he personally took the circulars and showed them to every hotel employee. He pasted one picture right over the cashier’s window.
Ten days later that very cashier, with Bain’s picture smiling down on him, cashed one of those steel company’s checks for $400. It was signed “R. O. Brigham.”
“Brigham” had left almost immediately, of course. But Ray made a check of the laundry, the valet, everything. At that time all telephone calls from a room were simply noted as “Local” or “Long Distance,” though the operators noted down for the hotel’s information each number as it was called.
To trace a number to a room was then almost unthinkable. But appalling problems of research do not deter Ray Schindler. He also yields to hunches. Here was a swindler who could not seem to get away from New York. What could be holding him?
The answer was, of course: A woman!
So Ray assumed that Mr. B. was still in town somewhere and still making up to some woman for one reason or another. And there are more reasons than one by which a woman holds a man.
So Ray approached the head-detective, Joe Smith, with a job that almost anybody else would have laughed at. This man, “R. O. Brigham,” had been in the hotel from January 6th to the 15th. If all the thousands on thousands of telephone calls sent out from that enormous caravanserai were sifted through, it might be found that a certain number appeared during those days and did not appear a week before the 6th or a week after the 15th.
Even an astronomer counting stars might have flunked that one. But Joe Smith liked the idea and assigned a girl to go over the tower of slips. Eventually she turned up the information that “Watkins 9999” was not called before January 6th or after January 15th but had appeared daily, sometimes three or four times a day, between those dates. The supervisor of the hotel telephones had a friend in the Watkins exchange and was able to learn that the subscriber to that particular telephone was a Mrs. Evelyn Saunders in a certain apartment house on West 57th street.
This did not prove, of course, that she had received those calls from ROB, because many other people had checked in on January 6th and checked out on the 15th. But it was worth looking into after all that toil.
So Ray took one of his men with him and went at once to the apartment house, reaching it at 8:30 on another of those bitterly cold and blizzardy nights that ROB seemed to choose for the particular torment of the Schindler establishment. The elevator boy, when asked if Mrs. Saunders were in, said that she had gone out half an hour before with a gentleman. Ray showed him a picture of Bain. The boy’s eyes bugged.
“Dat’s him! on’y he all dress up tonight.”
So Ray departed. But he came back with two more men in two taxicabs. They took posts, one headed East and one headed West; so that if Bain dashed out again there would be no delay in circling round to pursue him.
The reader might as well know now what these four freezing men did not know till the next day. Even before Ray reached the apartment house the man they were hunting had told Mrs. Saunders that the night was too wild for any fun and proposed that they return to her apartment and have a wild time there. While they debated, the elevator boy had gone on up. Since Mrs. Saunders’ apartment was on the second floor they had taken to the stairway; and the elevator boy, not having seen them return, had innocently misinformed Ray as to the departure they had not taken.
So, while Bain was cozy and warm, those four men kept their eyes on that doorway all night long. At five o’clock A.M., Ray dismissed one of the cabs and had the other deliver him to his apartment. He left, of course, one poor sentinel on watch.
After two hours’ vain effort at sleep, Ray went to his office. As he let himself in, he heard the telephone. The operative he had left on guard told him that at 7:34 their man had suddenly dashed out of the apartment house (where, so far as they knew, he had not yet entered). He had run like hell toward Seventh Avenue and caught a passing cab. Unable to follow the cab or reach Ray at his apartment, which he had just left, the operative had called Ray’s assistant manager, Walter Russell. And Russell had just arrived outside the apartment house.
Ray instructed Russell to go at once to Mrs. Saunders’ apartment and learn what he could. Russell walked up the stairs and rang the bell. A maid answered that Mrs. Saunders was asleep and could not be disturbed before noon.
While Russell kept his foot in the door and groped for a good reason to waken the sleeper, he heard a piercing shriek. The maid turned and ran, and Russell followed her.
And so he confronted Mrs. Saunders. She was in pink pajamas, but her eyes were bloodshot and her mouth was puffing out cries:
“My jewels! My jewels!”
She was too hysterical to note that Russell was using her telephone to call Ray. By the time Ray reached the apartment Mrs. Saunders had shrieked herself calm. When she heard what Ray had to say of her boy-friend, “R. O. Brigham,” she was in a vengeful mood.
She told her story quite frankly. She was a widow with an eight-year-old boy at a private school. She went about a bit and one night at a nightclub a very attractive man had made eyes at her, and so fascinated her that she stole away from her escort long enough to slip her telephone number, her name and address to the handsome stranger.
He did not remain a stranger long—or so she thought. He confided in her that he was the son of a big boy in a certain steel company—a name that made Ray’s ears ache. “R. O. Brigham” told Mrs. Saunders that he was in New York as a representative of his father’s firm, but he was going to ask for a vacation of two months so that he could marry her and honeymoon in Europe.
He begged her not to telephone him at his hotel, since he did not answer ©alls because the daughter of one of Chicago’s richest families was infatuated with him, and kept pestering him till he had had to change hotels from time to time.
Mrs. Saunders had a good deal of gorgeous jewelry but “Brigham” begged her not to wear so much of it in public. It was ostentatious he said; and it was tempting to thieves. He was such a home-body that, only the night before, when they faced the storm, he had told her how much he’d love to be just alone with her.
For dinner they had had a mere Welsh rabbit prepared by the maid. Then they had settled down for some earnest drinking. Love and
liquor had finished Mrs. Saunders by daybreak and “Brigham” poured her into her bed.
Just before Russell had rung her bell, she had wakened enough to note that her future bridegroom had stolen away. Something led her heavy eyes to note the absence of the jewels she had left on her dressing table. She looked farther and found that all her jewels were gone.
It was not quite a miraculous coincidence that one of the Schindler staff should have been on hand at just that moment, seeing that various operatives and the chief himself had spent an arctic night watching for her to come back from where she had never gone.
As Ray cross-examined her he learned that “Brigham” had a habit of telephoning her every day at exactly half-past twelve. She said she could have set her clock by him.
It occurred to Ray that he might set a trap for him. The fellow might telephone his victim once more at 12:30 as had been his habit for months—so that he might learn if she had discovered her loss and reported it to the police. It was a long shot but Ray played it. He arranged that in case the man called, he was to be kept on the telephone as long as possible so that the number might be traced and his whereabouts discovered.
So Ray instructed the maid to pretend that her mistress was asleep and would take a bit of waking. When Mrs. S. finally reached the telephone, she was to pretend that she had not yet discovered the loss of her jewels. She was to be her old sweet self and honey the man along for half an hour if possible. Meanwhile, Walter Russell was to be exhausting all the devices for finding out from a reluctant telephone company who was calling whom from where.
At twelve-thirty the telephone rang. It was “Brigham.” The maid answered. Russell heard her say, “Yes, Mr. Brigham, she still asleep; but she sho want to see you soon’s she git her eyes open.”
Then Russell departed and Ray sat and heard Mrs. Saunders put on a wonderful bit of acting about what a head she had after what a night. She asked, “Is this Thursday or February?” and poured out an endless stream of honey.
The Complete Detective Page 18
