Part 14

The blind man’s smile was one of amusement as he answered: “If I had not been blind, I wouldn’t have solved this case, and, if I’m not mistaken in my man, my lack of eyes is going to do more toward his actual capture than your keen ones. I have an idea you’ll see another mysterious disappearance--of men this time.”

He slipped on his overcoat and led them out of the house and into the waiting car, which had stood at the curb for the last half-hour. There was not a word spoken by the three men until the car turned into Ninety-first Street.

“Hadn’t we better stop at the corner and walk?” asked Osmuhn, as the car continued on and swerved in toward the curb before the brownstone house.

Colton flicked his cigarette away and shook his head. “I guess Mr. Davidson is expecting us. I’ve had Shrimp working pretty openly in the last day or two. I think the thief will want to pull off one last grand-stand play before he leaves.”

The red-haired boy who had been leaning against a tree at the other side of the street ran over and hopped on the run-board.

“Kin I go in with yuh, Mr. Colton?” he asked eagerly, eyes shining with excitement.

The blind man shook his head. “No, Shrimp,” he denied. “You go over and telephone for the police. We’ll need them in a few minutes.”

The boy’s face showed his disappointment, but he tried bravely to keep it out of his voice. “All right, sir,” he said, with an assumed cheeriness that was pathetic.

Sydney opened the tonneau-door, and Colton alighted, his slim stick before him locating the way up the wide stone steps. His lips were a grim, straight line as he pushed the button, and Osmuhn saw him put his hand in his pocket to assure himself that the automatic was ready for instant use. The nerves of the junior Osmuhn were taut, and his muscles tensed as the door swung back and the grave-faced Hindu that the disguised Shrimp had bowled over two days before stood looking at them gravely.

“What wish the Sahibs?” His voice was deep and rich. He had only muttered when they had seen him last.

“Is Mr. Davidson in?” asked Colton politely. Sydney thought he saw a gleam of fire in the Hindu’s dark eyes for an instant.

“Sahib Davidson is busied. He starts for the German baths at noon on the boat.”

“It is highly important.” The blind man’s voice was suave.

From somewhere in the rear of the house came the piping, querulous voice of the invalid: “Who the devil is it, Pinjur?”

“I know not, Sahib,” called the Hindu, in reply.

“The blind man who spoke to him two days ago when the boy of the street nearly upset his chair,” enlightened Thornley Colton, and the ears of the old man were keen, for they heard.

“Send him in!” snapped the squeaky voice. “And come in yourself. There’s a very devil of a draft!”

The Hindu stood aside gravely as they entered, closed the door carefully behind them, and, with a bowed invitation to follow, led the way down the hall toward the library.

Osmuhn’s tense muscles relaxed, and a gasp of amazement came to his lips as they stepped inside the semi-darkened room, and he saw the white-haired, white-bearded old man Thornley Colton had declared was the thief who had stolen the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond necklace. Could this be the man, who, by some infernal magic, had caused three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of jewels to disappear while people watched them?

The old man drew himself closer to the desk, with his white hands on the wheels of his steel-framed chair, and peered at them short-sightedly.

“What do you want, gentlemen?” he piped. “I haven’t but a minute. Have I, Pinjur?” He darted a queer, bird-like glance toward the Indian servant, who stood, straight-backed, before the one window that broke the lines of high bookshelves surrounding the room. The Hindu bowed.

Colton advanced half a step toward the desk. “We want,” he said, slowly and distinctly, “the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond necklace!”

The old man’s cackling laugh came from the white beard even before the last word had been uttered. “You want the ruby, eh?” he squealed, his hand falling on the desk before him. “He wants the necklace, too, Pinjur.”

Osmuhn’s eyes turned toward the Hindu; he saw the Indian lift one hand--then a rising curtain of mist seemed to hide him! Another rose over the desk! In an instant the two had joined, and a solid wall of fog, dense, impenetrable, hid half of the room.

“The mist!” he cried, falling back a step, the fear of the supernatural in his eyes.

He saw Thornley Colton leap forward; saw him swallowed up--vanish utterly. He could not move, nor could Sydney Thames beside him. They both heard a weird, gurgling cry, an oath in a strange language. Then the report of a pistol echoed through the room; the flash showed yellow-pink through the mist.

Thornley Colton’s voice rang out:--

“Fling open the door!” The words loosed the leaden muscles of Sydney Thames. He sprang to obey. The current of air seemed to tear the mist to shreds instantly. Osmuhn took a half-step forward--stopped. Horror showed on his face for an instant; then amazement.

On the floor beside the bookcase lay the Hindu. The blood from his wound was staining the carpet. Beside him was a curious-looking knife, with the point stained a dull green. But Thornley Colton and the invalid had vanished utterly!

The line of bookcases was still unbroken. The wheel-chair was where it had been before, but the occupant and the blind man were gone!

Fascinated, horror-stricken, the two men gazed at the empty chair and the silent form of the Indian. A soft click sounded like a pistol-shot in the death stillness of the room. A section of the case swung outward, and Thornley Colton, his overcoat slashed from shoulder to waist, stood before them, smiling grimly.

“My God, Thorn!” gasped Sydney, his strictured heart beating once more.

“Is there any blood on that knife-point, Sydney?” asked the blind man quietly.

Thames picked up the knife to examine it.

“Careful,” warned the problemist. “By the way he slashed at me I think there is one of the devilish Indian poisons on the point.”

Osmuhn and Sydney looked at the green-stained point, the slashed coat of the man who stood before them, smiling calmly, as he awaited the verdict of life or death.

“No,” choked Sydney. He staggered against the wall. “Thank God! Thank God!” he prayed, eyes on the man who had been the only father he had ever known.

Thornley Colton dismissed his escape with a nod and spoke to the white-faced Osmuhn. “I think I told you that eyes would be of very little use in the _denouement_. I knew the man, and the chances he’d take. I expected the fog. The game was to spring open the secret door, wheel the man and the chair inside, and leave us gaping idiotically. Would you like to see the thief; the cleverest, most daring I have ever encountered?”

He stepped aside. Dazedly Osmuhn and Sydney followed, only to stop at the doorway.

Manacled on the floor was the thief. Beside him, in a little heap, was the white wig and beard.

The thief was Norvel, the diamond expert!

“No,” said Thornley Colton, “it isn’t Norvel. It is the man who has been impersonating him for months. The man who lay in a French hospital learning every secret of the real Norvel, as he raved in delirium following the accident. Where Norvel is----.” He paused significantly.

“His carcass is feeding fishes in the Seine!” snarled the crippled man. Then he burst into a vicious, sneering laugh. “Find the jewels?” he taunted.

“Easily.” Colton went through the door that Sydney and Osmuhn now knew connected Norvel’s house with the one next door. He wrenched off one of the knobs at the end of the wheel-chair handle. They saw the red flash of the ruby as he held it up to the light.

“The necklace and the dozen other jewels that haven’t yet been missed are in the hollow handle,” he said quietly.

V.

It was several hours later. In the ornately furnished vault at the shop of Osmuhn & Son were the younger Osmuhn and Helen Marle, seated side by side in two Heppelwhite chairs, their hands clasped, unashamed. At the small table was Osmuhn, senior; across from him, where she had been when the wonderful ruby disappeared, was Mrs. Marle.

Young Osmuhn jumped to his feet as footsteps sounded outside.

“Here he comes!” his voice rang out joyously, as Thornley Colton entered, a long, paper-wrapped bundle under his arm.

Osmuhn, senior, came forward and held out his hand. “I can never thank you enough,” he said brokenly.

“Thank me?” smiled the blind man. “The thanks are all on my side. It was the most interesting problem I ever tackled.”

He laid down the long bundle on the small table, and took Mrs. Marle’s extended hand. She did not say a word, but the expression on her face told volumes; and she understood that the man without eyes knew.

“Now tell us how it was all done,” broke in Helen Marle eagerly. “Henry has just told us how wonderful you were at the house. Tell us how the ruby vanished.”

The irrepressible curiosity of the girl brought a smile to the blind man’s lips. “I’ll start right at the beginning,” he promised. “At the police station the false Norvel consented to talk--a little. The Hindu is in the hospital. The two of them followed the Thousand Facets of Fire all through Europe, trying to get their hands on it. The real Norvel bought it before they had a chance to steal it, and substitute the imitation they had had made. Not knowing that he had already sent it to America, they were following Norvel when their automobile crashed into his on the outskirts of an obscure French village. The drivers of both cars were killed. Norvel got a knock on the head that resulted in concussion of the brain.

“The thief, who refuses to tell his name, or anything of his history, had both hips broken, and was made a cripple for life. But he is a wonderful man. He had a cot next to Norvel, and for weeks he heard Norvel rave of his past life, the ruby, the business--things that are reiterated over and over in the raving of delirium. The thief realised what the knowledge was worth. The fake news of Norvel’s death went out. When he had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital, he was murdered, and the thief became Norvel. He returned here, a changed man, but there was never a chance for suspicion. He was a wonderful actor. He knew everything that Norvel had known, and he knew jewels even better than Norvel himself.

“His Hindu partner and an Englishman who merely played the role of Norvel’s valet came with him. But the thief was a master. The crude stealing made possible by his position didn’t appeal to him. He wanted excitement, to astound people. So he planned to make a million by the cleverest thefts ever committed in the world. The Hindu had learned secrets from the greatest yogi in India, and he was a wonderful worker in gold plate and other metals. For weeks he worked and produced these.” Colton stripped the paper from the long bundle, and the two heavy canes Norvel had always carried were revealed.

“What----,” began Osmuhn dazedly.

Colton took one of the canes and laid it on the table. “This is the cane Norvel put on the glass case when the diamond necklace disappeared. Let me have that one he stole for a minute, will you?”

Osmuhn swung open the door of the safe and laid it before the blind man.

“Your son was talking, while Norvel was fingering the necklace like this.” Colton pretended to examine the string of stones with his eyes, placing them in a perfectly straight line with the end of the cane, not four inches from its feruled bottom. “Watch!” he commanded. “Don’t take your eyes from the stones!” He turned away; not one of them saw the delicate pull he gave to the black thread that was attached to an almost invisible knob at the cane handle. But they did see the feruled bottom spring open. They saw a small claw dart out, swift as the fang of a snake, catch the first stone of the necklace, and in a fraction of an instant the necklace had been drawn into the hollow cane like a snake in its hole--swiftly, silently. The cap closed at the bottom, the cane was merely a cane once more.

He showed them the thread, like the one Norvel had pulled when he started toward his overcoat.

“But the mist I saw?” demanded Osmuhn, junior. “What was that?”

“That is the most wonderful thing the Hindu yogi have in their bag of tricks. I was present at a private exhibition of it twenty years ago in the hill country of India. The men who were with me said that they saw a man disappear in a cloud of mist, just as you saw it attempted to-day. Twenty years ago it was one of the most profound mysteries of India. To-day it isn’t.”

“Isn’t?” echoed Osmuhn.

“No. The trick is done with a wonderful powder called _scurtii-scurtii_. The powder is so finely ground that when let free in absolutely still air it hangs in the shape of a mist until a breeze blows it away. But it doesn’t billow out like mist, or fog. By some curious property it hangs in the form of a thin, impenetrable curtain, either vertically or horizontally, according to the way it has been shot into the air. The disappearance trick in India can be done only on an absolutely calm day. Just as it could be done only in a vault like this, or in the store outside, when every one had gone, and there was no possibility of a door opening. The powder was released from the cane when the end opened.”

“But the ruby?” asked Mrs. Marle. “There is no break in the concrete walls; no way that Mr. Norvel could have gotten access to this room.”

Colton pointed toward the brass wall-plate, with its two light buttons, a foot from her elbow. “There is the explanation, and the thing that told me how the trick had been done.”

They crowded around the table to gaze at the two innocent-appearing buttons.

“When you snapped off the light for me,” said the blind man to the jeweller, “my ear, trained for years to read every sound, immediately caught the false note in the snap of the button against the contact. When I snapped on the lights my fingers found something that no eye could ever have detected. Instead of being roughly ground mother-of-pearl, as the centre of those black buttons always is, my supersensitive finger tip knew instantly that it was highly polished glass; a lens, in fact.”

“By Jove, you’re right!” Osmuhn had been examining it with a powerful glass.

“Yes,” nodded Colton, “and if you put the glass to the other plain button you’ll see a narrow slot, not much thicker than a sheet of paper, through which the _scurtii-scurtii_ was injected the minute Mr. Osmuhn turned his back to follow his invariable rule of arranging the small boxes in the safe, while the customer looked at the jewel. The minute the mist had covered the ruby, Norvel, in his office on the other side of the wall, where there is a plate exactly opposite this, so that the electricians would only have to make one hole for both in the solid concrete, swung the plates back and stole the jewel like this.”

He unscrewed the heavy knob from the other cane, and from the hollow interior took what looked like a slender cane that, they could see, was made like a telescope of wonderfully thin metal sections. At the small end was a shallow, heavy rubber cup, with the interior smeared with a thick, gummy substance. Colton’s fingers found a curious trigger-like projection at the larger end.

“I don’t need the ruby for this. When the wall plate, which he and the Hindu had fixed when Norvel was supposed to be working late, swung open--hidden, of course, from Mrs. Marle by the mist--he thrust the cup end of the cane through the opening like this.” He thrust the cane toward Mrs. Marle’s hand. Before she could jerk it away, his finger touched the trigger, and the cane shut up like a telescope, as swiftly and silently as a darting shaft of light. “The actual theft didn’t take an instant,” explained Colton, and he couldn’t keep the admiration from his voice. “All he had to do was to touch the stone in your hand, which wasn’t a foot from the wall-plate, the partial vacuum of the cup and the gummy substance would make it stick, and the spring inside would bring it through the plate-hole instantly. Then the plate closed, and the thing was accomplished before you could move a muscle.”

“But what made the mist disappear?” Osmuhn wanted to know. “There was no current of air here.”

“When you turned you must have shut the safe door. Of course, that would blow it away instantly, and the powder is so fine that you’d never see a trace of it. In the robbery of the necklace Norvel swung around with his coat on his arm, so that it formed a fan.”

“But how did you ever connect the man who had fooled us all; the man who had impersonated Norvel so successfully?” queried Osmuhn.

Colton’s lips curved in a curious smile. “The impersonation was so perfect that it would have deceived any one with eyes, just as his thefts did. And his acting of Davidson was a wonderful piece of work. He could impersonate everything but valvular heart disease.”

“Valvular heart disease?” queried Osmuhn dumbly.

“Yes.” Colton’s lips and voice were serious. “He was the most wonderful criminal I have ever met. A criminal with imagination great enough to plan such crimes, and daring sufficient to execute them when a single move, or a breath of air, would have betrayed him. But his acting was too good. When he came in here after stealing the ruby there was not a fraction of a beat above normal in his heart. He was as cool as ice when the heart of ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have been pounding like a trip hammer. It was steady as a clock even when I left him in the chair apparently on the verge of collapse. Even then he was planning an unsuspicious get-away. Even when Shrimp, my boy, almost knocked his chair over, there wasn’t a flutter. I shook hands with him, so that I could establish his identity absolutely. To me there is as much difference between hands and wrists as there is between faces to men who see. But the pulse beat of valvular heart disease is absolutely unmistakable. The heart of the man who played Norvel so successfully was as sound as my own.

“I spoke in here of the possibility of the thief having learned his facts by listening to Norvel in his delirium. The thief realised that a cable to France might give away his whole game. I was afraid that he had hidden the necklace so cunningly that we wouldn’t find it, though I knew where the ruby was ten minutes after it was stolen.”

Osmuhn half jumped from his chair.

“You--knew where--the ruby was!” he gasped.

“Yes. I took care to touch his cane handles as I shook hands with him. Your son’s story of the necklace theft told me that one of the canes was responsible for that. While he was in here the ruby was in the big knob at the end of the cane, not three feet away from where it had been stolen. But with my own stick and wonderfully sensitive finger-tips, I knew that the necklace had been put somewhere else. Therefore, I gave him the hint he needed about Mrs. Marle’s reception. I knew if he had an imitation--which was likely, because he must have been on the track of the ruby to meet Norvel on the other side--he would try to get it into Mrs. Marle’s possession for the purpose of confusing all of us. Then my boy found out about his dual role of Davidson and Norvel. Davidson appeared only after Norvel had arrived home, and Norvel was supposed to be in such physical condition that he couldn’t be seen at home. I immediately told you that the jewel was an imitation, put in Mrs. Marle’s home by the real thief, because I knew Norvel would hear all about it, and understand that I wasn’t fooled for a minute. It was time for him to go. The French boat sailed at noon to-day. I knew he would see me, because he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to prove his superiority, and make a final grand-stand play by disappearing before our very eyes as Davidson, and walk out of the next house a few minutes later as Norvel the diamond expert, whose twenty-eight years’ service with Osmuhn & Son placed him above suspicion. You see, he was taking no chances; he always had two ways open. But he forgot that the mist he had appear in his library meant nothing to me. _My eyes can’t be deceived!_”

THE SIXTH PROBLEM

THE GILDED GLOVE

I.

A hundred eyes turned as the woman entered the dining-room; a hundred lips parted in admiration as she made her way through the winding aisle of tables in the wake of the straight-backed head-waiter. There were many beautiful women in the room, but, among them all, she was wonderful. Under the soft glow of shaded lights the ivory tints of her skin, with the colour of rich warm blood under it, were accentuated by the burnished gold of her hair. Behind the full red lips the pearl of her teeth showed; the great brown eyes looked over the room calmly, with aloofness. There was nothing girlish about the new arrival. Every line, every curve, bespoke perfect maturity.

Then the lips that had been parted in admiration curved in a smile as the eyes saw the man who followed her. He was scarcely five feet tall; a caricature of a man. His small moustache and ragged Vandyke were so colourless that they could not be seen at a distance. And he walked behind the woman with a peculiar lifting of knees at each step that reminded every one who saw of a helpless little coach-dog. To a hundred minds flashed the simile: the beauty and the beast of Madame Villeneuve’s immortal story.

The waiter, conscious of the new attraction that was to make his dining-room picture perfect, stopped at a table in the corner and pulled back a chair with an unconscious flourish.

“Your table, ma-dame!” Then real regret tinged his tone: “It was all we had.”

A startled look leaped to the eyes of the woman; died on the instant. Her tone was merely casual as she asked:

“You got the reservation--how long ago?”

“A scant ten minutes, ma-dame.”

She turned her great eyes on the little man, and in her voice as she spoke was the lilt of badinage. “And you were to telephone an hour ago, Pierre?” she censured. Her hand idly moved the napkin on the table.

But the man did not answer. He had slumped into the chair at the other side of the small table even before she had made a move toward taking her own seat. His teeth chewed his ragged moustache-ends. Under the table his fingers interlocked and twitchingly separated.

The woman’s opera cloak slipped to the back of the chair, revealing the white purity of the skin of her shoulders, and the curves of the throat. She picked up the _carte du jour_ languidly, and a little pout came to her lips, and a tracery of a scowl appeared on her forehead as she studied the items.

“Absinthe, Pierre, and a cup of bouillon?” she smiled.

The man nodded.

“Only the bouillon for me.”

A slight inclination of her head dismissed the waiter, and he hurried away. The woman rested an elbow on the table-edge and leaned forward. The wonderful smile still curved her lips, but the voice was hard as flint as she whispered in sibilant Italian:--

“Stop it, you fool of a coward!”

His tongue touched his lips. “It has found us!” he muttered chokingly, and the language he used was Russian.

“Hasn’t it always found us?” she demanded hissingly, but the expression on her face changed not a bit. “Hasn’t it always been on our heels? But have I not laughed at it for years? Laugh!” The last word came like the lash of a whip through the smiling lips.

The man’s throat twitched, his face contorted, and a tremulous parody of laughter came.

“Hideous!” she snapped. “Pitiful ape of a man! Stop it!”

“We cannot all be creatures of steel and stone!” he muttered, in the curious patois of northern Hungary.