Part 4

“Of course, De Roque, who was merely the drug-crazed tool of the real criminal, would have told where the bonds were,” declared Thornley Colton, when they were once more in the shade-drawn library of the big, old-fashioned house. “But Simpson would have had time to be on his guard. The finding of the bonds, as I did, before he had time to recover his nerve, drew from him those last betraying words. The police can establish his connection with the telephone message to Miss Richmond, the booking of the two passages under the name of Morris, and the place where he and De Roque met while the fake Mrs. Bowden was supposed to be out at day’s work. Those details were not even worth bothering with, for me, because the keyboard of silence told me the guilty persons before the robbery was committed.”

“I am as much at sea as ever,” confessed Sydney Thames.

“In the Regal we saw the first act. Simpson, with the dare-devilishness that characterizes the type, introduced me to the accomplice. It was not wholly dare-devilishness, however, for it was to prepare the get-away. He wanted, before the time came for her to disappear, to arouse your sympathy and my interest in the deaf-and-dumb woman, whom he had married to accomplish his reformation. After a fruitless search he would need a long vacation in Europe, with the bonds, of course, to recover from the shock. There could be no suspicion attached to him. No sane man would look for a deaf-and-dumb wife in the person of a vaudeville actor dying of tuberculosis and cocaine who had drug dreams of money coming his way. Once Simpson had gotten out of the country, De Roque could have raved and stormed, even confessed, and his confession would have been accepted as nothing but cocaine dementia. Simpson never intended to play fair; it isn’t his nature. From the first time I ever shook his hand I have known him to be a born criminal, for I can read hands as the physiognomist reads faces. And I have the advantage, because men like Simpson, with the aid of their strong wills, can mask their emotions behind eyes and faces so that no man can read their minds. But they have never given a thought to their hands.”

“Do you mean to say you could tell what Simpson was planning by shaking his hands there in the Regal?” demanded Thames incredulously.

“Not quite,” protested Colton laughingly. “But you know how I shake hands. My long index finger always rests lightly on the keyboard of silence--the wrist. With a touch like mine, so light that I can read handwriting by feeling the ridges left on the blank side of the paper, not one person in a million could feel it. I think Miss Richmond did, when I shook hands with her, because I felt a responsive thrill. In the case of Simpson his heart was working like a steam-engine, though his face and eyes were a mask that neither you nor any man with eyes could read; my finger-tip on his pulse told me that he was labouring under some strong excitement. When I shook hands with his ‘wife,’ I discovered why.”

“Why?” echoed Thames blankly.

“Because the wife was a man, and a drug-fiend.”

“Your hand told you that, and my eyes were deceived!”

“My knowledge of anatomy told me the man part. Don’t you know that over the muscles of a woman is a layer of fat that gives the beautiful feminine curves? The man’s muscles play directly under the skin, and the curves of female impersonators are due to flabby muscles, and not the feminine fat layer. Besides, the cocaine pulse of the ‘wife,’ my finger-tip immediately felt the play of the muscles as the hand gripped mine. Knowing Simpson, the impersonation could mean nothing else but a contemplated crime. I further proved it by getting her to put out her hand before she could have had any knowledge, by signs, of my intention to say good-bye. Remember my reference to lipreading? Simpson was taking no chance of letting her talk. The cocaine gave her the brightness of eye, and the heavily-daubed rouge I knew would have to be there to convince you that she was really a country girl who didn’t know the use of cosmetics, and also to cover any trace of man’s beard and cocaine pastiness of skin. It would have deceived any one who had eyes, where an artistic make-up would immediately have aroused suspicion. Simpson was a wonderful detailist.

“Commonsense told me that Simpson could not risk working with an amateur. Therefore I set Shrimp to looking up actors who had been forced to leave the stage on account of ill health within the last two months. The whole thing must have been rehearsed many times, for the detailist would overlook no detail. In Shrimp’s list was De Roque. A few telephone inquiries proved that he was really a cocaine fiend of the worst kind, also that he had returned, yesterday morning, from a sanitarium, no better, to his old boarding-house. It was Simpson’s scheme to let him do that, for it eliminated him. As soon as I found out that Simpson would not risk visiting him, Shrimp and John got him on the pretence that they were from Simpson. Cocaine snufflers as far gone as he need the drug every hour. For three hours before the time arranged for Shrimp to bring him to the bank De Roque hadn’t had a pinch; he was insane with craving. The visit to Third Avenue, and the finding of the quills which cocaine snufflers use to hide the stuff on their bodies and conceal it in their palms so that no one can see them snuff it gave me the things I needed to make him talk. You saw how they worked.”

“But the detectives who helped him out of the room? How did you ever figure the possibility of the bonds being in the scrub water?”

“The protective-agency men told me. Their eyes saw what my lack of eyes understood. The yellow bar of soap bobbing on top of the water, I think one of them expressed it. An instant’s intelligent thought would tell any one that the yellow soap used for scrubbing floors never floats. The finding of the powdered sulphur showed me the clever ice-bag trick, for powdered sulphur is always used by druggists to keep the thin rubber from sticking together when the bags are in the boxes. Of course, De Roque carried it with him every night waiting for his opportunity, and in pulling it out the powder scattered on the carpet. The natural thing was to brush it under the safe, where my handkerchief found it after my slapping hand had raised the scattered grains he had missed.

“The ringing of the burglar-alarm was a master-stroke. It was the link necessary to establish the innocence of Mrs. Bowden. Simpson, of course, knew of the connection. De Roque probably removed his shoes and stood on the rubber ice-bags while he opened the safe and took out the bonds and papers Simpson had so accurately described. Then, when they had all been packed and the safe closed, a natural stumbling against the safe would bring the protective-agency men to swear that nothing could have been taken from the room. When the time came to leave the building, the pail, still full of water, was carefully put in a far, dark corner of the cellar closet, where the scrub pails and mops are kept. It would have been safe until Simpson was ready to take the bonds away. That was why I worked to keep Jamison and his partner around the bank; I didn’t want Simpson to have any opportunity to get the loot out.

“Of course, it was he who suggested the calling of the regular police to the flustered President Montrose. Because, while he was sure that he could deceive me, he wasn’t taking any foolish risks. He wanted the central-office men to muddle the thing as much as possible, and he was shrewd enough not to overdo the casting of suspicion on Norris and his wife; the way he put in a word here and there, and looks, of course, was quite in keeping with the other details. This morning, I think, he had begun to realize what I was doing, but there was nothing he could do but count on a bluff. I took him off his guard.”

For several minutes the two men smoked in silence.

“But why didn’t you warn some one instead of letting the robbery go on?” Sydney asked finally.

Colton’s expressive lips framed a wry smile. “You will insist on showing the fly in the ointment, Sydney. The truth is, I was caught napping. But I guess it’s just as well I didn’t. Jails are built for the protection of society, and Simpson is the one man in a thousand against whom society needs protection.”

THE SECOND PROBLEM

UNTO THE THIRD GENERATION

I.

For weeks the five-hundred-thousand-dollar reception of the Jimmy Raeltons had been heralded as the greatest event of the New York social season. The news columns had been filled with accounts of the costly preparations, the wonderful gowns, the millions in jewels that would grace the first appearance of the Raeltons in society since the Carlton-Browne reception of thirteen months before. The newspapers had retold, lest their readers should forget, the tragic story of the mysterious suicide of Mrs. Jimmy Raelton’s sister, Mrs. Donald Wreye, on the night following the Carlton-Browne affair. The consequent retirement of the Raeltons had been reviewed; the report of the ill health of Mrs. Raelton had been substantiated; and the two months’ cruise on the palatial Raelton yacht was said to have brought back the bloom to faded cheeks. And to-night the Jimmy Raeltons were formally to re-enter New York’s social scheme of things; again to fill the niche that had been vacant for thirteen months.

The small army of police herded the curious crowd from the side-walk as a black limousine drove up silently and came to a stop at the canopied curb. The door swung open, and men and women, who would stand patiently for hours to catch a mere glimpse of the notables they worshipped from afar, saw the first man alight. The electric globe under the awning brought out the striking whiteness of the face and hair; the contrast of the great blue circles of the smoked-glass, tortoise-rimmed library spectacles that rested lightly on the thin nose; the broad shoulders, and deep chest under the Inverness. The first arrival rapped the pavement lightly with the slim stick he carried as the apple-cheeked, black-haired man who accompanied him spoke a word to the driver and stepped beside him.

A policeman touched his hat. “Early, ain’t you, Mr. Colton?” he greeted the other.

“These things never interest me, Peters,” returned Thornley Colton, in his deep, musical voice. “A quiet chat with Jimmy and my goddaughter before the crowd arrives, then home and quiet.”

He started briskly toward the wide steps, the red-cheeked man so close that his coat-sleeve touched that of the other. The policeman turned to his partner.

“A great guy, Tom,” he observed, in a hoarse whisper. “He says he’s blind, an’ everybody else says he’s blind, but if he is, then I wish I was! That’s all.”

The two men had ascended the steps. A man of impassive face opened the door, two others took their coats and sticks. Silent-footed servants were everywhere, deftly arranging the last details before the guests should arrive. On every hand was evidence of the lavishness that would mark the reception; but it was the lavishness of good taste, not the garishness of mere money. Through the great, high hall they were conducted to the Moorish room, where Jimmy Raelton greeted them with characteristic enthusiasm. But the superkeen ears of Thornley Colton caught an undercurrent of seriousness in the host’s voice.

“Robbery?” he asked quietly, as the slim, hollow stick he always carried found a chair.

“Scott, yes!” laughed Raelton; then, seriously: “That mind-reading stunt of yours is positively uncanny at times, Colton.”

“Simple elimination,” explained the blind problemist. “Something more serious would have been given publicity before this; something less serious would not have caused you to ask us here an hour before guests should arrive.”

“It’s more puzzling than really serious,” declared Raelton. “You know I’m so foolishly happy to-night because Dorothy is herself again that nothing else could really matter.” His face lighted up boyishly. The Jimmy Raeltons had been married five years, and society still called them the Newlyweds.

He took a small leather case from the inlaid taboret beside him, and snapped open the lid. Sydney Thames, the blind man’s secretary and constant companion, could not repress a gasp of admiration as the wonderful diamond necklace sent its thousand flashing fires toward the shaded lights above.

“This is the thing I wanted to see you about,” quizzically smiled Jimmy Raelton, as he extended the open case toward the blind man. A question would be needed here, at least.

Colton took the case, weighed it on his open palm an instant, brushed the stones ever so lightly with the tip of his forefinger, and snapped shut the lid.

“Worth fifty thousand--if it wasn’t paste,” he announced.

“Good Lord!” Raelton sank weakly into a big morris chair, the one anachronism his comfort-loving body demanded.

“To a person with highly sensitive finger-tips there can be no such thing as a fake diamond; because no crystal less hard will hold a sharply-defined facet edge. When, and how, was the substitution made?”

“That is just the point. Since the morning following the Carlton-Browne reception they have been in the safe-deposit vault to which only Dorothy and I have access. You know she has never used them since; she hasn’t been herself for six months or so.” A troubled light came to his eyes. “It wasn’t her sister’s death so much--it seemed to be something else. Sometimes I almost feared that she was discontented; that she didn’t want to stay at home with the kiddies any more. Her father was always a wanderer, and her grandfather died in China--you know how. But, thank God, that’s over. The two months’ cruise on the _Sea Mew_ have made her the same old Dorothy.”

He paused an instant, then came back to the point. “I’m quite an expert in an amateur way, and I recognized the substitution instantly to-night. The discovery seemed to agitate Dorothy terribly. She always set great store by the necklace--it was my wedding-present. The thing has upset her so that she will be positively ill, unless you discover how the substitution was made, and by whom. She wouldn’t let me call the police.”

“Where is Dorothy?” asked Colton anxiously.

“She is lying down. I’m afraid this thing is going to spoil the whole evening.” Again came the troubled note. He touched a small silver bell. “I’ll call her. I want you to convince her that it isn’t worth worrying about. You can do it, because she has always looked upon you as a father.”

A servant entered, bowed at the order, withdrew.

They waited in silence for the coming of Dorothy Raelton. Thornley Colton’s mind went back to the death of Colonel Calvin, the promise given by the blind man that he would be a father to the two parentless girls. A look of sadness came to the thin expressive lips. He was thinking of the other beautiful daughter; the suicide that had never been explained.

The servant returned. His ruddy English face had lost a bit of its colour; his voice trembled slightly.

“Mrs. Raelton is sleeping. The door’s locked--and Dora can’t wake her.”

In three minds leaped a single, horrible thought. Jimmy Raelton leaped to his feet, dry-lipped.

“My God, Thornley!” He ran toward the door, and into the hall. Thornley Colton was at his heels, supersensitive ears following each footfall unerringly. Sydney Thames hurried after them; the servant brought up the rear. They raced up the marble stairs. In the upper hall a maid leaned against the wall, wringing her hands.

“Mr. Raelton!” she sobbed. “Oh, I can’t bear it!”

Thornley Colton had not paused; his slim stick found the closed door. He turned to face them, on his countenance an expression Sydney Thames had never seen before. He spoke to the white-faced servant.

“The guests will begin to arrive any moment, now,” he said, and his tone was as strange as the look on his face. “Tell them that Mrs. Raelton has been taken suddenly ill. The reception is postponed--indefinitely. Let no one in.” He waited a moment till the man had gone; then his hand fell on Jimmy Raelton’s shoulder. “Sydney and I will go,” he said huskily.

“She isn’t----” Raelton could not finish.

Colton shook his head sadly. “She isn’t dead, Jimmy,” he said, and stopped, with a world of suggestion in his tone.

“Then I want you to stay,” pleaded the husband hysterically. “Nothing else matters--if she is alive.”

He thrust his shoulder against the door. The lock gave way. He staggered in; stopped short with a gasp of horror. On the wide bed lay Dorothy Raelton, unconscious, hair disarranged, priceless gown dishevelled. From one limp hand dangled a long, black opium pipe. On a low table beside the bed a sweet-oil lamp burned flickeringly. A small can of opium was overturned beside it. The needle that had cooked the drug over the flame stained the white coverlet of the bed. The pungent smell of opium smoke was in the air.

Jimmy Raelton darted across the room, flung himself on his knees beside the bed.

“My God!” he moaned in agony. “My God!”

Thornley Colton’s hand fumbled for the knob, found it.

“Come, Sydney,” he murmured softly. Mechanically Thames obeyed. The door closed softly behind them. The Jimmy Raeltons were alone.

II.

Black headlines in the morning papers told of the strange postponement of the Raelton reception. Black type told eager readers of the scene in front of the Raelton home when arriving guests were met at the door with a startling announcement: “Mrs. Raelton is ill. The reception has been postponed indefinitely.” And the door had been closed in their faces!

Eager readers learned of the silent line of servants that had filed from the rear entrance of the darkened house; the fifty thousand dollars’ worth of flowers left to wilt unseen; the caterers’ elaborate preparations--estimated to have cost thousands--left to spoil untasted. Much was made of the fact that Jimmy Raelton refused even to see a reporter, and all the papers, yellow and conservative alike, hinted at a sinister something that would explain a thing so unprecedented in the annals of New York society. Two of the most progressive sheets learned that Doctor Henry, the young physician who had made such rapid strides in his practice among the social leaders, had not been called, and knew nothing of Mrs. Raelton’s reported illness until told by the reporters.

In the library of his old-fashioned up-town house Thornley Colton sat with bowed head. At his feet were the crumpled papers Sydney had read to him.

“This is the saddest day of my life, Sydney,” the blind man said slowly. “I promised Colonel Calvin that I would watch over his daughters. His father died an opium fiend.”

Sydney’s eyes widened. “I never knew that!”

“Few did. I have zealously guarded the secret all my life. Not even the girls knew it, though I told Jimmy when he married Dorothy. Colonel Calvin was always afraid of the stain being in the blood. He had fought the craving, but he feared for his daughters. I laughed at him, for atavism, to me, has always seemed merely a cloak for weakness. Now I am reaping my whirlwind. One is dead by her own hand, the other an opium fiend. I can never forget my feelings when I caught the unmistakable smell of opium smoke before we opened that door.”

Silence came again, to be broken by The Fee, a red-haired, freckle-faced blue-eyed boy, who had become a part of the Colton household at the conclusion of a particularly baffling murder case.

“Dere’s a feller an’ goil downstairs wants to see yuh. Looks like soivents, and says dere name’s Rayton.”

Only for an instant was the expression of surprise on the blind man’s face. “Send them up,” he said quietly, and he rose to meet Jimmy Raelton and his wife.

A cry of pity came to Sydney Thames’s lips as the man and woman entered. Jimmy Raelton, in an ill-fitting suit of blue, a plaid cap pulled down over his eyes, had grown an old man in a night. Mrs. Raelton, in a tawdry dress, leaned heavily on the arm of her husband, as she had leaned when their disguises took them safely past the cordon of newspaper men.

Silently Thornley Colton took a hand in each of his, the mobile face telling them what his tongue could not; silently he lead them to chairs. Not until they were seated did Jimmy Raelton speak.

“We are going away,” he said, and his tone was dead, hopeless. “We are going to fight the fight together. Dorothy wanted to say good-bye--and tell you.”

“I couldn’t go without seeing you,” Dorothy Raelton sobbed chokingly. “It will make it easier--to know that you understand. I’m glad--that Jimmy knows at last.” Her voice steadied, and she went on simply, bravely: “If it hadn’t been for little Jimmy and Dorothy, I would have done as Marjorie did--ended it all. Marjorie, too, had the curse, though I didn’t know it until that hideous morning I waked with a terrible headache and the opium pipe on the floor beside me. I screamed for my maid. Then she told me why Marjorie had written that pitiful, pleading note, begging me to take Dora because she could be trusted if anything happened. Dora was the only one who even suspected that my sister was an opium fiend, just as my grandfather was. Marjorie had told her that. Dora said that she had heard me going downstairs in the night, and in a dream I seem to remember going to the Chinese room and taking the opium set and small glass jar of the drug we kept as curiosities; but it seems hazy, unreal.

“I hid the set in my room; I didn’t dare risk getting it out. Every week the longing would come. I’d go blind, insane with craving, and in the morning I would wake, with the opium pipe beside me, and the little lamp still burning. Time after time I tried to hide the things, but in my blind delirium I always found them. One day I gave them to Dora for her to destroy, and that night I went and choked her until she gave them back. She had not had time to carry out my orders. I don’t remember going to her at all, but in the morning I waked with the pipe beside me, and on Dora’s throat were the marks of my fingers.”

She stopped, sobs racking her slender frame. Beside her Jimmy Raelton’s head was in his hands, his body quivering. She went on: “Jimmy thought it was nervous break-down. He insisted on a long cruise in the yacht. For two whole months I never once felt the craving! I thought it was gone! I romped and played with the children; I laughed and joked with my husband. Then we planned last night’s reception. My God! The discovery by Jimmy of the substitute diamonds in my necklace overwrought me. I went upstairs, took a headache powder, and I waked----”

She broke down utterly. Jimmy Raelton raised his bowed head. “Now you know the whole pitiful story. Will you keep our secret till we win the fight?”

“Always,” assured Thornley Colton softly. He laid a gentle hand on Dorothy’s shoulder. “You may need help, little goddaughter; will you call on me?”

A nod answered him; she could not speak.

“The fight will be short; such faith cannot help but win quickly,” he added. His voice brought a look that was almost hopeful into the woman’s eyes, so full of assurance was it. Some subtle special sense seemed to tell him, for his thin lips curved in one of their rare smiles of encouragement. “I know you will win,” he repeated. Then, to change the subject: “I will investigate the necklace substitution while you are gone. We’ve forgotten it completely.”

Only the silent Sydney Thames saw the startled look leap to the eyes of the man and woman. Dorothy Raelton found her voice first. “Don’t!” she cried brokenly. “I took the stones. They--were all--I had--to pay some one.”

“What!” The tone of Colton’s voice startled them. In it was amazement; under it was anguish, the anguish of a man who has made a horrible mistake. “You have been paying blackmail?” His voice was almost harsh.