Chapter 10

Three days later Britz and Greig returned from Atlanta. It had been a tiresome journey, fifty-five hours of the seventy-two having been spent in a Pullman coach. But the information which they had obtained kept their energies awake. So that when their train drew into the new Pennsylvania station at ten o'clock, they hastened through the illuminated corridors and out into the refreshing night air, with elastic steps and excitement in their eyes.

A telegram sent en route had kept Manning at his desk, awaiting his subordinates. He greeted Britz with unconcealed satisfaction, acknowledging at the same time that he had grown heartily tired of directing the Whitmore investigation.

"It is one awful mess," said he with a comprehensive shrug of his broad shoulders. "And it appears to be getting worse all the time!"

"Let me tell my story first," interrupted Britz. "Mine's an eye-opener!"

The three men disposed themselves in comfortable attitudes about the chief's desk, bit the ends off fresh cigars, and prepared for a long interchange of information.

"Well, I discovered where Whitmore spent the six weeks of his absence from business," began Britz.

"Where?" The chief's face lit with an expression of eagerness.

"In jail," said Britz, and for the life of him he was unable to smother the smile that struggled to his lips. "Right here in the city," he added. "In the Tombs."

"Well, I'll be hung!" In his astonishment, the chief could think of no adequate exclamation beyond the commonplace one which issued from his widely parted lips.

"Yes," pursued Britz, "Greig and I have been treated to a series of surprises--even now I haven't recovered entirely from my bewilderment."

"Well, go ahead and spring them," urged Manning. "They can't be much more astounding than the one I've bumped into."

"In the first place," said Britz, arranging in chronological order in his mind, the incidents which he was about to narrate, "the man that was captured trying to break into the post office at Delmore Park, was Herbert Whitmore. Judging from the statements of Julia Strong and the butler in the Whitmore house, it is obvious that Whitmore sent a letter to Mrs. Collins, with whom he was in love. Something transpired to make him regret having sent the note and he decided to steal it out of the post office. He was caught before he had succeeded in 'jimmying' the door, so that the letter must have been delivered at the Collins house. I take it, from the threats which Collins made against Whitmore, that he intercepted the note and that a lively scene between him and his wife followed.

"As for Whitmore, he did a most sensible thing. He kept his identity effectually concealed. Before arriving at the post office he had disguised himself in cheap, shabby clothes, so that when he was captured no one thought he was other than an ordinary burglar. At the police station, and subsequently in the Federal court, he gave his name as Arthur Travis. It was such an unusual name for a cheap post office burglar that I determined instantly there was some connection between the attempted robbery and Whitmore's murder.

"Ordinarily, we are both aware, the capture of an unimportant post office robber, would not be allotted more than a paragraph or two in the newspapers. As the banking investigation was occupying pages of space seven weeks ago, Travis's arrest was not even mentioned in most of the papers, while those that took note of it, buried the item on one of the inside pages.

"Whitmore, alias Travis, had the ablest lawyer in the city to advise him. Undoubtedly Tom Luckstone counseled him as to the manner in which he was to conduct himself in jail and in court so as not to arouse newspaper curiosity. Well, ten days before Whitmore returned to his death, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years and a half in jail. And on the day before he returned to his business, a deputy marshal started with him for Atlanta."

"But how did he get away?" interrupted the chief. "There was nothing in the papers about an escape."

"Arthur Travis is in the Atlanta prison," said Britz. "But the prisoner isn't Herbert Whitmore."

The chief's eyes alternated between Britz and Greig, as if trying to read the explanation of the puzzling circumstances, in their faces.

"I don't quite get it," he acknowledged.

"Of course, the prisoner can't be Whitmore. He's dead. There's no doubt of that."

"Not the slightest," acquiesced Britz. "Yet Whitmore and Travis were one and the same person. Now what do you think occurred?"

"A substitution of prisoners," guessed the chief.

"Precisely," said Britz. "I sweated a confession out of the substitute. He's a poor, sorrowful creature, named Timson. Two weeks ago he was down and out, broke, jobless, starving. He was shuffling dejectedly along Broadway when a man tapped him on the shoulder and asked a few minutes' conversation with him. As Timson had nothing to lose but time, he offered no resistance when the stranger led him in the direction of a restaurant.

"'Here's a fifty-dollar bill just to show I mean business,' the host opened the conversation. Timson nearly went into hysterics at sight of the bill. 'Now tell me all about yourself--if you're the right man, I can put you in the way of a lot of money,' said the host. Well, Timson told all about himself and gave the stranger his address. Two days later he was sent for by a man named Beard. He visited Beard at his home, and there the scheme for the substitution of prisoners was unfolded.

"It seems that soon after Whitmore's arrest, Beard made a deal with the deputy marshal whereby the deputy was to receive fifty thousand dollars to permit the substitution to be made on board the train on the way to Atlanta. Of course, the warden of the prison had never seen Travis, hadn't the slightest idea what he looked like. But in order to be on the safe side, the deputy insisted that Beard get someone who resembled Whitmore, alias Travis, in general appearances. For a week Beard searched and finally lit on Timson. Although the resemblance between Timson and Whitmore is not sufficient to have fooled anyone who knew Whitmore, nevertheless a description of the merchant as he appeared in court, might easily pass for a description of the substitute.

"For one hundred thousand dollars Timson agreed to go to jail in place of Whitmore. The money was placed in trust for him, so as to net him an income of five thousand dollars a year for life. Beard found it comparatively easy to induce the man to fall in with the scheme. In the first place, Timson was that unhappiest of all living creatures, the middle-aged failure. So far as he could see, the future loomed dark and forbidding, his old age was to be attended by the most bitter poverty. Not being a drinking man and being cursed with an active imagination, his plight was doubly hard. Under the circumstances, it could make little difference to him whether he spent his remaining years in jail or the poor-house.

"He seized the opportunity which Beard offered. At the most he had two years and six months to serve. By good behavior he could reduce the term to a trifle less than two years. When he got out, his future comfort was assured. Five thousand a year looked colossal to him--in the most hopeful period of his advancing manhood he had never been able to earn above two thousand a year.

"The day before Whitmore started for prison the trust fund was established and the interest began to accumulate for Timson. So that on the day he leaves prison, he'll have ten thousand dollars with which to begin to enjoy life."

"That is, if he is not sent away for ten years for aiding and abetting the escape of Whitmore, alias Travis," interrupted the chief.

"Well, I sort of pity him," replied Britz. "The warden was present, of course, when he made the confession. Timson can get out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus. Of course, he'll be rearrested immediately and tried, with the deputy marshal, for having brought about the escape of the man that was sentenced to prison. However, if Timson can be of service to us in unraveling the Whitmore mystery, we might arrange with the Federal authorities to grant him immunity."

"Do you think we can use him?" inquired the chief.

"Yes, in fact we need him," replied Britz.

"It is certainly a most astounding state of affairs," mused Manning. "I suppose by this time the deputy marshal has cleared out."

"It doesn't concern us whether he has or not," said Britz. "His case is up to the Federal authorities."

"But when and where was the substitution made?" asked the chief.

"On board the train to Atlanta," Britz informed him. "Whitmore was handcuffed to the marshal when they left the Tombs. They occupied a stateroom on one of the through parlor cars. It is unusual for a deputy to engage a stateroom, or to permit his prisoner to engage one, but no law is violated by doing so. All that is required of the deputy is to deliver his prisoner at the jail and obtain a receipt for him.

"The substitute followed the deputy and the prisoner into the compartment, the handcuffs were slipped from Whitmore's wrist to Timson's, and, at Philadelphia, Whitmore left the train. It is now up to us to trace his movements from the time he alighted at Philadelphia until he walked to his death in his office."

A long interval of silence followed, in which the three men tried to appraise the precise value of the substitution of prisoners in its relation to Whitmore's untimely death. Whitmore had escaped prison only to meet a worse fate, and in less than twenty-four hours after his wrist was freed from the cold pressure of the steel bracelet.

"It was Beard who engineered the substitution," observed the chief.

"Yes," replied Britz.

"And to save Whitmore from prison he took a chance of going to jail."

"Evidently he stood ready with the deputy and the substitute to forfeit his liberty for the sake of his employer."

"But was he actuated by loyalty to Whitmore or did he have a sinister design of his own?" questioned Manning.

"That's for us to ascertain."

"And how are we going to do it?"

"By means of the man he hired as a substitute," declared Britz in positive tone.

"But how--how?" demanded Manning.

"That will depend on circumstances. Now I'm ready to hear the developments at this end."

Manning settled back in his chair with the relieved air of one about to discard an irksome burden. From a drawer of his desk he produced half a dozen long envelopes which he tossed to Britz.

"They contain all the reports of the men," said he. "You'd better go through them at your leisure to-night or to-morrow morning. It's useless to discuss the case further until you've familiarized yourself with them."

As they left Headquarters for their homes, the three men realized that despite the many developments of the case, they had, as yet, barely penetrated the surface. Every new discovery had only succeeded in adding further complications to the mystery. The evidence thus far was fragmentary, disconnected, throwing an uncertain light on the crime. The substitution of prisoners tended to involve Beard, yet it gave not the least hint of the motive that actuated the killing of Whitmore. Nor did it reveal how the crime was committed. That it would prove of importance, of vital significance in solving the crime, Britz believed implicitly. But, such are the complexities in all human things, that the possibility of error is never eliminated. And in a criminal investigation a single error may destroy every chance of success, just as a single error on the part of the criminal may destroy all the safeguards which he has so carefully thrown around him.

At the Seventy-second street station of the subway Britz bade his companions good night. Dismissing the Whitmore case and all other police business from his mind, he headed straight for his home, retired at once and fell into a deep sleep.