Part 2

“Perhaps he did. I’ve got mirrors to heat the vanadium and keep the temperature of the plate high. Our chief difficulty will be in the loss of heat due to radiation. The--”

Saidee Isaacs sprang back from the opening. A sizzling sounded. Blue smoke filled the room. The plate was being melted along the line Fay had drawn. The movement of the sun, from east to west, was changing the position of the ray.

Fay climbed to the table and adjusted his curved mirrors. He focused them about the spot of whiter light that coned down from the hollow lens. The California sun is bright. The skylight did not require opening.

“We’re getting on!” he exclaimed. “I’ve gone through the first plate and reached the fireproofing. I’ll have to change the lens and spot across the oblong. My east and west lines are easy. The cross lines will take some time.”

“How about the heat melting the paint in the vault?”

“The asbestos layers between the plates will prevent that. See! We were lucky that ‘The Black Cougar’s’ was both fireproof and burglar-proof. But then, Saidee, they make them all that way.”

The girl shielded her eyes and leaned over the opening in the floor. A narrow channel showed where the spot of light had cut through the first vanadium plate. The fused metal formed bubbles along the edges. Beneath the bubbles was the white fireproofing material.

Fay pulled her back. “Look out for that ray,” he said. “I estimate its temperature to be all of five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’ll melt anything--particularly high-carbon steel.”

“Could you have done the same thing with the oxy-acetylene blow-torch?”

“No! You have to have an edge to start on. All we had here was a flat plate. This is the only way we could have done it. The electric-arc requires a heavy amperage--far more than can be obtained from a lamp-circuit. Besides, the coppers would suspect me if I used an arc.”

“They’re going to think this was done by electricity.”

“No, they’re not. We’ll leave the mirrors behind us. It’ll throw them off my trail.”

Saidee went out at noon and returned with two lunches bought at a restaurant. She found Fay standing on the table and holding the lens so that it spotted tiny blisters first along the north, then south, lines of the oblong. The sun went behind a cloud. Fay sprang to the floor lightly. He sat down, turned in his chair, and stared at the top of the vault. “We’ve got the first plate pretty well cut through,” he said. “Suppose you look and see what ‘The Black Cougar’ is doing.”

She rose and dusted her knees after a long study of the operator’s office.

“He’s got that spool of iron wire on his desk. He’s been running it through the little box. There’s a lot of tape scattered about. It must be a quotation machine of some kind, Chester.”

“No. The days of the old swindle are gone. He couldn’t get away with fake quotations. He may have a fast wire and a slow wire in his offices. The customer trades on the slow wire while the firm sells on the fast wire. But then, I understand ‘The Black Cougar’s’ business is done mostly through the mails. That spool he has down there has something to do with his mail game. Maybe it’s a system to beat the market.”

“There never will be such a thing!”

Fay nodded. “You’re very wise,” he mused, staring directly at her. “You don’t remind me of your old man, at all. He did a lot of very heavy work--such as blasting and using a can-opener. You inherited your quick-wittedness from your mother’s side, I suppose?”

“Partly.”

Fay went to work with the lens as the sun came out. He finished the first cutting by two o’clock. He lifted the plate out, after allowing it to cool. It was three quarters of an inch in thickness. Its edges were brittle as glass.

“I’ll cut away the fireproofing,” he told Saidee, “and get ready for the sun tomorrow. I expect, from what I know of the Terryton boxes, that the middle plate will be almost twice as thick as the outer one. That means a lot of burning.”

Saidee Isaacs attended to the meals. She watched the studio door in case of interruption. Once Fay saw her adjust the shade at a certain height. This shade could be seen from the street.

He recalled an old signal used by house prowlers to indicate that it was all right for pals to enter the house. The thought flashed through him that the girl had a confederate outside. He puzzled over this matter, without speaking to her about it. There seemed no reason to suspect treachery on her part.

Her interest in robbing “The Black Cougar” reached a high point when he succeeded, after two days’ work, in cutting out the second, or central, plate of the vault. This plate was an inch and a quarter in thickness. It was designed to resist drills. It was hardened on the surface and somewhat soft inside.

The fumes and smoke from the burning metal floated through the skylight. The heat of the hot spot was sufficient to vaporize most metal. Fay added to this heat the radiations from the concave mirrors. He feared, at times, that there would be indication inside the vault that work was going on above.

Saidee, on watch over the peekhole, kept him informed of “The Black Cougar’s” movements. The bucket-shop operator had not used the spool of wire for two days. He had entered the vault but twice. Each time he came out with yellow bills in his hands.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” said Saidee. “That’s a half-holiday for brokers. There wont be anybody in the office during the afternoon or Sunday. We must go through the last plate and get that money.”

Fay washed up and put on his coat.

“I’ll attend to our getaway,” he said. “I’ll bring a lot of tourist folders and lay them around the reception-room. They’ll all indicate to the average sleuth that we fled to Seattle and from there took an Alaskan boat.”

“There isn’t a dick in this town who wouldn’t fall for that,” she said. “The detectives I’ve met are a lot of boobs. There’s only one or two in the Secret Service who are any good.”

“Old Triggy Drew?”

“Yes, and Marway--the man who was never seen by a criminal.”

Fay opened the door.

“I’ve heard of him,” he said going out.

The railroad and steamship folders were secured. Saidee’s inspection of her room at the hotel, and a general search of the photograph studio for overlooked clues, left Saturday and Sunday for work. It was that period of the California summer when the sun is brightest. The girl reported the office below clear of clerks and customers. The janitress came and scrubbed up. The watchman made his rounds. The time-lock on the vault’s outer door had been set by “The Black Cougar” so that no one could open it until Monday morning.

Fay took the chance. He went through the inner plate Saturday afternoon. He burned a larger hole, set the lens and allowed the high swing of the overhead sun to trace out a line. Smoke and vapor rose from the sizzling pencil of light. Drops of molten metal fell within the vault, the floor of which was not carpeted.

* * * * *

The job was finished soon after noon on Sunday. Fay looped a wire around the plate and tapped its edges with a hammer. The last of the metal cracked. The plate swung free. The way was open.

“I’ll go down!” exclaimed Saidee.

“No, not yet. Let the things cool off. Help me get the lens apart. We’ll destroy it. We’ll clean up everything incriminating.”

“But--”

“Don’t be in such a hurry. The vault may be ‘bugged’ inside. Suppose there’s an electric mat?”

“Oh, you know best! But I’m very anxious.”

Fay took his time. He coolly moved to the front window, raised the blind an inch and looked out. Autos and trolley-cars hurried by. Policemen stood directing traffic. Tourists thronged the street.

He went to Saidee Isaacs. She helped him lift down the lens. He poured out the water, smashed the two halves with the hammer, and tossed the fragments into a box.

“They’ll never suspect what that was,” he said. “Now, give me your hand and lower me into the vault. I can’t touch the edges yet. They’re still hot!”

She braced herself over the opening, grasped his wrists, and lowered him. Her strength was considerable. He felt her face close to his own as she leaned.

“Let go,” he said, steadying his legs.

He landed on the metal floor of the vault. The light that streamed through the jagged opening was sufficient for his purpose. He started removing ledgers and cash-boxes to the center of the strong-room. Some, but not all, of these boxes contained money. It took him ten minutes, no longer, to count up the spoil.

Allowing for small bills and silver, he had obtained thirty-seven thousand dollars. He had expected two hundred thousand.

He bundled up the larger packages of bills, snapped rubber-bands about them and began a search of the shelves. He overlooked nothing. Book after book was torn apart.

Having finished with the last ledger, he stared up at Saidee’s intent face framed in the jagged opening.

“You’re a fine pal!” he said. “I’ve only got thirty-seven grand. You’ve steered me wrong!”

“Have you found the sucker-list?”

“No. I didn’t see it.”

“Look around. It must be there. He probably had no copy. He wouldn’t trust anybody with a copy. It is far more important than the money.”

Fay coolly tossed up the bundle of bank-bills. He hesitated.

“Look again--it’s not here,” she said. “Look on the shelves. See if there isn’t a secret panel, or something.”

Fay had already searched for any break in the metal of the vault. It was smooth and enameled. He regarded the remaining objects.

“The spools of iron wire are here.”

“Give one of them to me. Put it in my hands.”

“It’s very heavy. We might as well leave them.”

“No! We must not overlook a single thing. Hand me a spool. I can lift it.”

Fay poised a heavy spool between his fingers. Saidee drew it through the opening. He waited until she lowered a short piece of clothes-line. He went up this, hooked his knee over the edge of the plate, and rose to her side.

“We might as well split the money two ways and go,” he said coldly. “I’m not exactly satisfied. I should never have gone into this thing. We’ve smeared things up. We’ve left more or less of a trail and gotten very little for our trouble.”

Saidee sat on the floor. She started searching through the torn books. Now and then she glanced at Fay without saying anything. Disappointment stamped her features when she finished. She projected the package of money toward him with a sharp kick.

“It’s all yours, Chester!”

“No. I’m not that kind of a man. But you’re a foolish little moll. Here we’ve gone and laid ourselves open to twenty years in stir for next to nothing. We haven’t even put a dent in ‘The Black Cougar’s’ bank-roll. The chances are that he transferred most of his ill-gotten gains to the Coast National Bank.”

“All I wanted was the sucker-list. That would have put him out of business. He has about twenty thousand preferred names of boobs in this country who will bite at anything.”

Fay scraped the collodium from his finger-tips. He washed his hands, went through the studio rooms, looked everywhere for possible left-over clues, and then said:

“Come on. I’ll carry the money. We might as well leave here.”

She reached down and lifted the spool of iron wire. “You take the money and I’ll take this,” she said at the door. “We’ll separate. I may have to come back here--so give me the key.”

“What for?”

Fay caught a direct stare full of meaning. “You’re not a boob, though you fell like one. My name isn’t Saidee Laurie. It’s Saidee Isaacs of the Secret Service, Post Office Department, at present. We intercepted your note to Charlie Laurie at Dannemora. They had me decipher your rather simple code. The order was out to bring you in. I had been working on ‘The Black Cougar’ case. I thought you might be of more help outside than inside. So I posed as Charlie Laurie’s daughter and got you to help me rob the vault. The rogues’ gallery picture was framed up to make things more convincing.”

Fay’s eyes flashed.

“You see,” went on Saidee Isaacs, “the importance of getting ‘The Black Cougar’s’ sucker-list overshadowed the importance of putting an end to your activities. There was no way, through the law, that would stop the bucket-shop operator. He had the list, and as long as it was in his possession, he could trim the suckers. They’d buy anything, and they wouldn’t squeal on him.”

Fay blurted: “Well, in that case you’ve lost and I have gained. Thirty-seven thousand isn’t going back to him, nor is it going to the Government. I’m going to keep it--for professional services.”

“It’s yours, Chester. The police have been pulled off this job. You can go free.”

“What about the sucker-list? Who’s coming back here?”

“I may bring Marway. I may not need to bring him.”

Saidee lifted the heavy spool from her knee, “After you,” she said. “Open the door for me. Go out to the golf-club and wait.”

“I’ll wait about twenty minutes!” he exclaimed hotly. “I suppose Marway will order me pinched.”

“I’m in charge of the entire case. I’ve failed so far--unless--”’

“What?”

“This spool contains part of the sucker-list. I don’t see how it can. Do you?”

Fay jerked the door open, allowed the girl to pass through, and locked it. He thrust the key into her hand.

“Good-by,” he said.

“No. Promise you will wait on the links for me. You have my word you wont be pinched.”

His packing of the two kit-bags in his room at the club took no longer than fifteen minutes. He paid his bill, left his bags with a porter, and went out on the links.

Golfers, a fair gallery, and caddies were scattered over the green. He sat down at a table and pulled out his watch. The California sun was sinking over the Coast Range when a taxi churned through the dust, swung under the _porte-cochère_ and discharged Saidee Isaacs.

She crossed the turf with her face as inscrutable as ever. Her hand darted over the table. Shading her eyes with her parasol, she whispered:

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Chester, but we found the sucker-list. Part was in that spool. Marway’s assistant found it ten minutes ago.”

“How?”

“By experimentation. I told Marway what I had seen ‘The Black Cougar’ doing at his desk. You remember he ran the wire through a ticker-machine and the tape came out printed with dots and dashes?”

“I didn’t know they were dots and dashes.”

“Yes. He’s a telegraph operator--an old Phillips code man. His stenographers could read Morse like print.”

Fay began to see the purpose of the wire.

“The sucker-list,” continued Saidee, “is magnetized in the fine wire that is wound about the spools. Each few inches contains a name and address in dots and dashes. The Black Cougar had an apparatus to magnetize the wire. Marway’s assistant said this apparatus probably consisted of a small solenoid through which the wire was drawn at the beginning. A touch of a key would make a dot. A longer touch made a dash. The wire was special--hard and capable of being made into a permanent magnet.”

“Then he could read these same dots and dashes by running the wire through the relay-ticker on his desk?”

“Yes. That part of the idea has been used in duplex telegraphy and in seeing-over-a-wire-apparatus. You can find it in the technical books.”

“How did Marway demonstrate it?”

“By a small pocket-compass. It’s really very ingenious and simple. ‘The Black Cougar’ kept his whole sucker-list on the spools. He has no copy of it. He is beaten without it. He might as well go out of business. Marway and the assistant operative are going to mail every sucker on the list a warning letter authorized by the Government. Some of them will get wise.”

“But most of them will fall for another swindler.”

“We did our part--pulled ‘The Black Cougar’s’ claws.”

“And I pulled the chestnuts for you.”

“Thirty-seven thousand dollars and the satisfaction of knowing you did a good deed in a wicked world is no chestnut.”

“I’m going East on the first train tonight, Saidee.”

“Stay around. Marway would like to meet you.”

“I thought he had never been seen by a criminal?”

“You’re not a criminal. You only think you are.”

Fay leaned over the table.

“I’m a dub,” he admitted. “I’ll let you put it all over me.”

“And I let you go free with my best wishes,” said Saidee Isaacs. “Turn for turn, Chester. Don’t write to prisons and give your address in code lettering. I had orders to come here and arrest you--about a week ago.”

Fay flushed. She was gone across the short-cropped turf.

“I’m a dub,” he repeated, “and yet I wouldn’t have had it happen any other way for the world.”

The End

[Transcriber’s Note: This article appeared in the April 1920 issue of Blue Book Magazine.]