Chapter 13

Carton, naturally, was the lion of the evening, though he tried hard to keep in the background. I was amused to see his efforts. In fleeing from the congratulations of some of his own and Miss Ashton's society friends, he would run into a group of newspaper men and women who were lying in wait for him. Shaking himself loose from them would result in finding himself the centre of an enthusiastic crowd of Reform Leaguers.

Mrs. Ogleby was there, also, and both Kennedy and I watched her curiously. I wondered whether she might not feel just a little relieved to think that Murtha was seemingly out of the way for the present. Her knowledge of the Black Book which had first given the tip to Carton had always been a mystery to Kennedy and was one of the problems which I knew he would like to solve to-night. She was keenly observant of Carton, which led us to suppose that she had not yet got out of her mind the idea that somehow it was he who had been responsible for the detectaphone record which so many of those present were struggling to obtain. Though Langhorne studiously avoided her, I noticed that each kept an eye on the other, and I felt that there was something common to both of them.

It was with an unexpressed air of relief to several members of the party that Miss Ashton at last rapped for order and after a short, pithy, pointed speech of introduction presented the several speakers of the evening. It was, like the audience, a well-balanced programme, which showed the tactfulness and political acumen of Miss Ashton. I shall pass over the speeches, however, as they had no direct bearing on the mystery which Kennedy and I found so engrossing.

The meeting had been cleverly planned so that in spite of its accomplishing much for the propaganda work of the "cause," it did not become tiresome and the speaking was followed by the entrance of one of the best little orchestras for dance music in the city.

Instantly, the scene transformed itself from a suffrage meeting to a social function that was unique. Leaders of the smart set rubbed elbows, and seemed to enjoy it, with working girls and agitators. Conservative and radical, millionaire and muckraker succumbed to the spell of the Ashton hospitality and the lure of the new dances. It was a novel experience for all, a levelling-up of society, as contrasted to some of the levelling-down that we had recently seen.

Kennedy and I, having no mood as things stood for the festivities, drew aside and watched the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers. Across from us was a wide doorway that opened into a spacious conservatory, a nook of tropical and temperate beauty. Several couples had wandered in there to rest and, as the orchestra struck up something new that seemed to have the "punch" to its timeful measures, they gradually rejoined the dancers.

It had evidently suggested an idea to Kennedy, for a moment later he led me toward the coat room and uncovered the package which he had brought consisting of the two oaken boxes I had seen him adjusting in the laboratory.

We managed to reach the conservatory and found in a corner a veritable bower with a wide rustic seat under some palms. Quickly Kennedy deposited in the shadow of one of them an oaken box, sticking into it the plugs on the ends of the wires that I had brought. It was an easy matter here in the dim half light to conceal the wire behind the plants and a moment later he tossed the end through a swinging window in the glass and closed the window.

Casually we edged our way out among the dancers and around to the room into which he had thrown the wire. It was a breakfast room, I think, but at any rate we could not remain there for it was quite easy to see into it through the crystal walls of the conservatory. There was, however, what seemed to be a little pantry at the other end, and to this Kennedy deftly led the wires and then plugged them in on the other oaken box.

He turned a lever. Instantly from the wizard-like little box issued forth the strains of the dance music of the orchestra and the rhythmic shuffle of feet. Now and then a merry laugh or a snatch of gay conversation floated in to us. Though we were effectually cut off from both sight and hearing in the pantry, it was as though we had been sitting on the rustic bench in the conservatory.

"What is it?" I asked in amazement, gazing at the wonderful little instrument before us.

"A vocaphone," he explained, moving the switch and cutting off the sound instantly, "an improved detectaphone--something that can be used both in practical business, professional, and home affairs as a loud speaking telephone, and, as I expect to use it here, for special cases of detective work. You remember the detectaphone instruments which we have used?"

Indeed I did. It had helped us out of several very tight situations--and seemed now to have been used to get the organization into a very tight political place.

"Well, the vocaphone," went on Kennedy, "does even more than the detectaphone. You see, it talks right out. Those little apertures in the face act like megaphone horns increasing the volume of sound." He indicated the switch with his finger and then another point to which it could be moved. "Besides," he went on enthusiastically, "this machine talks both ways. I have only to turn the switch to that point and a voice will speak out in the conservatory just as if we were there instead of talking here."

He turned the switch so that it carried the sounds only in our direction. The last strains of the dance music were being followed by the hearty applause of the dancers.

As the encore struck up again, a voice, almost as if it were in the little room alongside us, said, "Why, hello, Maty, why aren't you dancing?"

There was an unmistakable air of familiarity about it and about the reply, "Why aren't you, Hartley?"

"Because I've been looking for a chance to have a quiet word with you," the man rejoined.

"Langhorne and Mrs. Ogleby," cried Craig excitedly.

"Sh!" I cautioned, "they might hear us."

He laughed. "Not unless I turn the switch further."

"I saw you down at the Criminal Courts Building this morning," went on the man, "but you didn't see me. What did you think of Carton?"

I fancied there was a trace of sarcasm or jealousy in his tone. At any rate, woman-like, she did not answer that question, but went on to the one which it implied.

"I didn't go to see Carton. He is nothing to me, has not been for months. I was only amusing myself when I knew him--leading him on, playing with him, then." She paused, then turned the attack on him. "What did you think of Miss Ashton? You thought I didn't see you, but you hardly took your eyes off her while I was in the hallway waiting to hear the verdict."

It was Langhorne's turn to defend himself. "It wasn't so much Margaret Ashton as that fellow Carton I was watching," he answered hastily.

"Then you--you haven't forgotten poor little me?" she inquired with a sincere plaintiveness in her voice.

"Mary," he said, lowering his voice, "I have tried to forget you--tried, because I had no right to remember you in the old way--not while you and Martin remained together. Margaret and I had always been friends--but I think Carton and this sort of thing,"--he waved his hand I imagined at the suffrage dancers--"have brought us to the parting of the ways. Perhaps it is better. I'm not so sure that it isn't best."

"And yet," she said slowly, "you are piqued--piqued that another should have won where you failed--even if the prize isn't just what you might wish."

Langhorne assented by silence. "Hartley," she went on at length, "you said a moment ago you had tried to forget me--"

"But can't," he cut in with almost passionate fierceness. "That was what hurt me when I--er--heard that you had gone with Murtha to that dinner of Dorgan's. I couldn't help trying to warn you of it. I know Martin neglects you. But I was mad--mad clean through when I saw you playing with Carton a few months ago. I don't know anything about it--don't want to. Maybe he was innocent and you were tempting him. I don't care. It angered me--angered me worse than ever when I saw later that he was winning with Margaret Ashton. Everywhere, he seemed to be crossing my trail, to be my nemesis. I--I wish I was Dorgan--I wish I could fight."

Langhorne checked himself before he said too much. As it was I saw that it had been he who had told Mrs. Ogleby that the Black Book existed. He had not told her that he had made it, if in fact he had, and she had let the thing out, never thinking Langhorne had been the eavesdropper, but supposing it must be Carton.

"Why--why did you go to that dinner with Murtha?" he asked finally, with a trace of reproach in his tone.

"Why? Why not?" she answered defiantly. "What do I care about Martin? Why should I not have my--my freedom, too? I went because it was wild, unconventional, perhaps wrong. I felt that way. If--if I had felt that you cared--perhaps--I could have been--more discreet."

"I do care," he blurted out. "I--I only wish I had known you as well as I do now--before you married--that's all."

"Is there no way to correct the mistake?" she asked softly. "Must marriage end all--all happiness?"

Langhorne said nothing, but I could almost hear his breathing over the vocaphone, which picked up and magnified even whispers.

"Mary," he said in a deep, passionate voice, "I--I will defend you--from this Murtha thing--if it ever gets out. I know it is always on your mind--that you couldn't keep away from that trial for fear that Carton, or Murtha, or SOMEBODY might say something by chance or drop some hint about it. Trust me."

"Then we can be--friends?"

"Lovers!" he cried fiercely.

There was a half-smothered exclamation over the faithful little vocaphone, a little flurried rustle of silk and a long, passionate sigh.

"Hartley," she whispered.

"What is it, Mary?" he asked tensely.

"We must be careful. Carton MUST be defeated. He must not have the power--to use that--record."

"No," ground out Langhorne. "Wait--he shall not. By the way, aren't those orchids gorgeous?"

The encore had ceased and over the vocaphone we could hear gaily chatting couples wandering into the conservatory. The two conspirators rose and parted silently, without exciting suspicion.

For several minutes we listened to snatches of the usual vapid chatter that dancing seems to induce. Then the orchestra blared forth with another of the seductive popular pieces.

Kennedy and I looked at each other, amazed. From the underworld up to the smart set, the trail of graft was the same, debauching and blunting all that it touched. Here we saw the making of a full-fledged scandal in one of the highest circles.

We had scarcely recovered from our surprise at the startling disclosures of the vocaphone, when we heard two voices again above the music, two men this time.

"What--you here?" inquired a voice which we recognized immediately as that of Langhorne.

"Yes," replied the other voice, evidently of a young man. "I came in with the swells to keep my eye peeled on what was going on."

The voice itself was unfamiliar, yet it had a tough accent which denoted infallibly the section of the city where it was acquired. It was one of the gangsters.

"What's up, Ike?" demanded Langhorne suspiciously.

Craig looked at me significantly. It was Ike the Dropper!

The other lowered his voice. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Langhorne. You're in the organization and we ain't got no grudge against you. It's Carton."

"Carton?" repeated Langhorne, and one could feel the expectant catch in his breath, as he added quickly: "You mean you fellows are going to try to get him right?"

"Bet your life," swaggered Ike, believing himself safe. "How?"

The gangster hesitated, then reassured by Langhorne, said: "He's ordered a taxicab. We got it for him--a driver who is a right guy and'll drive him down where there's a bunch of the fellows. They ain't goner do nothing serious--but--well, he won't campaign much from a hospital cot," he added sagely. "Say--here he comes now with that girl. I better beat it."

Langhorne also managed to get away apparently, or else Carton and Miss Ashton were too engrossed in one another to notice him, for we heard no word of greeting.

A moment later Carton's and Miss Ashton's voices were audible.

"Must you go?" she was saying.

"I'm afraid so," he apologized. "I've a speech to prepare for to-morrow and I've had several hard days. It's been a splendid evening, Miss Ashton--splendid. I've enjoyed it ever so much and I think it has accomplished more than a hundred meetings--besides the publicity it will get for the cause. Shall I see you to-morrow at headquarters?"

"I shall make it a point to drop in," she answered in a tone as unmistakable.

"Mr. Carton--your cab is waiting, sir," announced a servant with an apology for intruding. "At the side entrance, sir, so that you can get away quietly, sir."

Carton thanked him.

I looked at Kennedy anxiously. If Carton slipped away in this fashion before we could warn him, what might not happen? We could hardly expect to get around and through the press of the dancers in time.

"I hate to go, Miss Ashton," he was adding. "I'd stay--if I saw any prospect of the others going. But--you see--this is the first time to-night--that I've had a word with you--alone."

It was not only an emergency, but there were limits to Kennedy's eavesdropping propensities, and spying on Carton's love affairs was quite another thing from Langhorne's.

Quickly Craig turned the lever all the way over.

"Carton--Miss Ashton--this is Kennedy," he called. "Back of the big palm you'll find a vocaphone. Don't take that cab! They are going to stick you up. Wait--I'll explain all in a moment!"

XVIII

THE WALL STREET WOLF

It was a startled couple that we found when we reached the conservatory. As we made our hasty explanation, Carton overwhelmed us with thanks for the prompt and effective manner in which Kennedy had saved him from the machinations of the defeated gangsters.

Miss Ashton, who would have kept her nerves under control throughout any emergency, actually turned pale as she learned of the danger that had been so narrowly averted. I am sure that her feelings, which she made no effort to conceal, must have been such as to reassure Carton if he had still any doubt on that score.

The delay in his coming out, however, had been just enough to arouse suspicion, and by the time that we reached the side entrance to the house both Ike and the night-hawk taxicab which had evidently been drafted into service had disappeared, leaving no clue.

The result of the discovery over the vocaphone was that none of us left Miss Ashton's until much later than we had expected.

Langhorne, apparently, had gone shortly after he left the conservatory the last time, and Mrs. Ogleby had preceded him. When at last we managed to convince Miss Ashton that it was perfectly safe for Carton to go, nothing would suffice except that we should accompany him as a sort of bodyguard to his home. We did so, without encountering any adventure more thrilling than seeing an argument between a policeman and a late reveller.

"I can't thank you fellows too much," complimented Carton as we left him. "I was hunting around for you, but I thought you had found a suffrage meeting too slow and had gone."

"On the contrary," returned Kennedy, equivocally, "we found it far from slow."

Carton did not appreciate the tenor of the remark and Craig was not disposed to enlighten him.

"What do you suppose Mrs. Ogleby meant in her references to Carton?" mused Kennedy when we reached our own apartment.

"I can't say," I replied, "unless before he came to really know Miss Ashton, they were intimate."

Kennedy shook his head. "Why will men in a public capacity get mixed up with women of the adventuress type like that, even innocently?" he ruminated. "Mark my words, she or someone else will make trouble for him before we get through."

It was a thought that had lately been in my own mind, for we had had several hints of that nature.

Kennedy said no more, but he had started my mind on a train of speculative thought. I could not imagine that a woman of Mrs. Ogleby's type could ever have really appealed to Carton, but that did not preclude the possibility that some unscrupulous person might make use of the intimacy for base purposes. Then, too, there was the threat that I had heard agreed on by both Langhorne and herself over the vocaphone.

What would be the next step of the organization now in its sworn warfare on Carton, I could not imagine. But we did not have long to wait. Early the following forenoon an urgent message came to Kennedy from Carton to meet him at his office.

"Kennedy," he said, "I don't know how to thank you for the many times you have pulled me through, and I'm almost ashamed to keep on calling on you."

"It's a big fight," hastened Craig. "You have opponents who know the game in its every crooked turn. If I can be only a small cog on a wheel that crushes them, I shall be only too glad. Your face tells me that something particularly unpleasant has happened."

"It has," admitted Carton, smoothing out some of the wrinkles at the mere sight of Craig.

He paused a moment, as if he were himself in doubt as to just what the trouble was.

"Someone has been impersonating me over the telephone," he began. "All day long there have been reports coming into my office asking me whether it was true that I had agreed to accept the offer of Dorgan that Murtha made, you know,--that is, practically to let up on the organization if they would let up on me."

"Yes," prompted Kennedy, "but, impersonation--what do you mean by that?"

"Why, early to-day someone called me up, said he was Dorgan, and asked if I would have any objection to meeting him. I said I would meet him--only it would do no good. Then, apparently, the same person called up Dorgan and said he was myself, asking if he had any objection to meeting me. Dorgan said he'd see. Whoever it was, he almost succeeded in bringing about the fool thing--would have done it, if I hadn't got wise to the fact that there was something funny about it. I called up Dorgan. He said he'd meet me, as long as I had approached him first. I said I hadn't. We swore a little and called the fake meeting off. But it was too late. It got into the papers. Now, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference to either of us. It doesn't to him. People will think he tried to slip one over on ME. But it does make a difference to me. People will think I'm trying to sell out."

Carton showed plainly his vexation at the affair.

"The old scheme!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That's the plan that has been used by a man down in Wall Street that they call, 'the Wolf.' He is a star impersonator--will call up two sworn enemies and put over something on them that double-crosses both."

"Wall Street," mused Carton. "That reminds me of another batch of rumours that have been flying around. They were that I had made a deal with Langhorne by which I agreed to support him in his fight to get something in the contracts of the new city planning scheme in return for his support of the part of the organization he could swing to me in the election,--another lie."

"It might have been Langhorne himself, playing the wolf," I suggested.

Kennedy had reached for the telephone book. "Also, it might have been Kahn," he added. "I see he has an office in Wall Street, too. He has been the legal beneficiary of several shady transactions down there."

"Oh," put in Carton, "it might have been any of them--they're all capable of it from Dorgan down. If Murtha was only out, I'd be inclined to suspect him."

He tossed over a typewritten sheet of paper. "That's the statement I gave out to the press," he explained.

It read: "My attention has been called to the alleged activities of some person or persons who through telephone calls and underground methods are seeking to undermine confidence in my integrity. A more despicable method of attempting to arouse distrust I cannot imagine. It is criminal and if anyone can assist me in placing the responsibility where it belongs I shall be glad to prosecute to the limit."

"That's all right," assented Kennedy, "but I don't think it will have any effect. You see, this sort of thing is too easy for anyone to be scared off from. All he has to do is to go to a pay station and call up there. You couldn't very well trace that."

He stopped abruptly and his face puckered with thought.

"There ought to be some way, though," I murmured, without knowing just what the way might be, "to tell whether it is Dorgan and the organization crowd, or Langhorne and his pool, or Kahn and the other shysters."

"There IS a way," cried Kennedy at last. "You fellows wait here while I make a flying trip up to the laboratory. If anyone calls us, just put him off--tell him to call up later."

Carton continued to direct the work of his office, of which there had been no interruptions even during the stress of the campaign. Now and then the telephone rang and each time Carton would motion to me, and say, "You take it, Jameson. If it seems perfectly regular then pass it over to me."

Several routine calls came in, this way, followed by one from Miss Ashton, which Carton prolonged much beyond the mere time needed to discuss a phase of the Reform League campaign.

He had scarcely hung up the receiver, when the bell tinkled insistently, as though central had had an urgent call which the last conversation had held up.

I took down the receiver, and almost before I could answer the inquiry, a voice began, "This is the editor of the Wall Street Record, Mr. Carton. Have you heard anything of the rumours about Hartley Langhorne and his pool being insolvent? The Street has been flooded with stories--"

"One moment," I managed to interrupt. "This is not Mr. Carton, although this is his office. No--he's out. Yes, he'll certainly be back in half an hour. Ring up then."

I repeated the scrap of gossip that had filtered through to me, which Carton received in quite as much perplexity as I had.

"Seems as if everybody was getting knocked," he commented.

"That may be a blind, though," I suggested.

He nodded. I think we both realized how helpless we were when Kennedy was away. In fact we made even our guesses with a sort of lack of confidence.

It was therefore with a sense of relief that we welcomed him a few minutes later as he hurried into the office, almost breathless from his trip uptown and back.

"Has anyone called up?" he inquired unceremoniously, unwrapping a small parcel which he carried.

I told him as briefly as I could what had happened. He nodded, without making any audible comment, but in a manner that seemed to show no surprise.

"I want to get this thing installed before anyone else calls," he explained, setting to work immediately.

"What is it?" I asked, regarding the affair, which included something that looked like a phonograph cylinder.

"An invention that has just been perfected," he replied without delaying his preparations, "by which it is possible for messages to be sent over the telephone and automatically registered, even in the absence of anyone at the receiving end. Up to the present it has been practicable to take phonograph records only by the direct action of the human voice upon the diaphragm of the instrument. Not long ago there was submitted to the French Academy of Sciences an apparatus by which the receiver of the telephone can be put into communication with a phonograph and a perfect record obtained of the voice of the speaker at the other end of the wire, his message being reproduced at will by merely pressing a button."

"Wouldn't the telegraphone do?" I asked, remembering our use of that instrument in other cases.