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The Treasure Train

A >> Arthur B. Reeve >> The Treasure Train



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team




THE TREASURE-TRAIN

BY

ARTHUR B. REEVE

FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER






CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE TREASURE-TRAIN

II. THE TRUTH-DETECTOR

III. THE SOUL-ANALYSIS

IV. THE MYSTIC POISONER

V. THE PHANTOM DESTROYER

VI. THE BEAUTY MASK

VII. THE LOVE METER

VIII. THE VITAL PRINCIPLE

IX. THE RUBBER DAGGER

X. THE SUBMARINE MINE

XI. THE GUN-RUNNER

XII. THE SUNKEN TREASURE




I

THE TREASURE-TRAIN


"I am not by nature a spy, Professor Kennedy, but--well, sometimes
one is forced into something like that." Maude Euston, who had
sought out Craig in his laboratory, was a striking girl, not
merely because she was pretty or because her gown was modish.
Perhaps it was her sincerity and artlessness that made her
attractive.

She was the daughter of Barry Euston, president of the Continental
Express Company, and one could readily see why, aside from the
position her father held, she should be among the most-sought-
after young women in the city.

Miss Euston looked straight into Kennedy's eyes as she added,
without waiting for him to ask a question:

"Yesterday I heard something that has made me think a great deal.
You know, we live at the St. Germaine when we are in town. I've
noticed for several months past that the lobbies are full of
strange, foreign-looking people.

"Well, yesterday afternoon I was sitting alone in the tea-room of
the hotel, waiting for some friends. On the other side of a huge
palm I heard a couple whispering. I have seen the woman about the
hotel often, though I know that she doesn't live there. The man I
don't remember ever having seen before. They mentioned the name of
Granville Barnes, treasurer of father's company--"

"Is that so?" cut in Kennedy, quickly. "I read the story about him
in the papers this morning."

As for myself, I was instantly alive with interest, too.

Granville Barnes had been suddenly stricken while riding in his
car in the country, and the report had it that he was hovering
between life and death in the General Hospital. The chauffeur had
been stricken, too, by the same incomprehensible malady, though
apparently not so badly.

How the chauffeur managed to save the car was a miracle, but he
brought it to a stop beside the road, where the two were found
gasping, a quarter of an hour later, by a passing motorist, who
rushed them to a doctor, who had them transferred to the hospital
in the city. Neither of them seemed able or willing to throw any
light on what had happened.

"Just what was it you overheard?" encouraged Kennedy.

"I heard the man tell the woman," Miss Euston replied, slowly,
"that now was the chance--when any of the great warring powers
would welcome and wink at any blow that might cripple the other to
the slightest degree. I heard him say something about the
Continental Express Company, and that was enough to make me
listen, for, you know, father's company is handling the big
shipments of gold and securities that are coming here from abroad
by way of Halifax. Then I heard her mention the names of Mr.
Barnes and of Mr. Lane, too, the general manager." She paused, as
though not relishing the idea of having the names bandied about.
"Last night the--the attack on him--for that is all that I can
think it was--occurred."

As she stopped again, I could not help thinking what a tale of
strange plotting the casual conversation suggested. New York, I
knew, was full of high-class international crooks and flimflammers
who had flocked there because the great field of their operations
in Europe was closed. The war had literally dumped them on us. Was
some one using a band of these crooks for ulterior purposes? The
idea opened up wide possibilities.

"Of course," Miss Euston continued, "that is all I know; but I
think I am justified in thinking that the two things--the shipment
of gold here and the attack--have some connection. Oh, can't you
take up the case and look into it?"

She made her appeal so winsomely that it would have been difficult
to resist even if it had not promised to prove important.

"I should be glad to take up the matter," replied Craig, quickly,
adding, "if Mr. Barnes will let me."

"Oh, he must!" she cried. "I haven't spoken to father, but I know
that he would approve of it. I know he thinks I haven't any head
for business, just because I wasn't born a boy. I want to prove to
him that I can protect the companies interests. And Mr. Barnes--
why, of course he will approve."

She said it with an assurance that made me wonder. It was only
then that I recollected that it had been one of the excuses for
printing her picture in the society columns of the Star so often
that the pretty daughter of the president of the Continental was
being ardently wooed by two of the company's younger officials.
Granville Barnes himself was one. The other was Rodman Lane, the
young general manager. I wished now that I had paid more attention
to the society news. Perhaps I should have been in a better
position to judge which of them it was whom she really had chosen.
As it was, two questions presented themselves to me. Was it
Barnes? And had Barnes really been the victim of an attack--or of
an accident?

Kennedy may have been thinking the problems over, but he gave no
evidence of it. He threw on his hat and coat, and was ready in a
moment to be driven in Miss Euston's car to the hospital.

There, after the usual cutting of red tape which only Miss Euston
could have accomplished, we were led by a white-uniformed nurse
through the silent halls to the private room occupied by Barnes.

"It's a most peculiar case," whispered the young doctor in charge,
as we paused at the door. "I want you to notice his face and his
cough. His pulse seems very weak, almost imperceptible at times.
The stethoscope reveals subcrepitant sounds all over his lungs.
It's like bronchitis or pneumonia--but it isn't either."

We entered. Barnes was lying there almost in a state of
unconsciousness. As we stood watching him he opened his eyes. But
he did not see us. His vision seemed to be riveted on Miss Euston.
He murmured something that we could not catch, and, as his eyes
closed again, his face seemed to relax into a peaceful expression,
as though he were dreaming of something happy.

Suddenly, however, the old tense lines reappeared. Another idea
seemed to have been suggested.

"Is--Lane--hiring the men--himself?" he murmured.

The sight of Maude Euston had prompted the thought of his rival,
now with a clear field. What did it mean? Was he jealous of Lane,
or did his words have a deeper meaning? What difference could it
have made if Lane had a free hand in managing the shipment of
treasure for the company?

Kennedy looked long and carefully at the face of the sick man. It
was blue and cyanosed still, and his lips had a violet tinge.
Barnes had been coughing a great deal. Now and then his mouth was
flecked with foamy blood, which the nurse wiped gently away.
Kennedy picked up a piece of the blood-soaked gauze.

A moment later we withdrew from the room as quietly as we had
entered and tiptoed down the hall, Miss Euston and the young
doctor following us more slowly. As we reached the door, I turned
to see where she was. A distinguished-looking elderly gentleman,
sitting in the waiting-room, had happened to glance up as she
passed and had moved quickly to the hall.

"What--you here, Maude?" we heard him say.

"Yes, father. I thought I might be able to do something for
Granville."

She accompanied the remark with a sidelong glance and nod at us,
which Kennedy interpreted to mean that we might as well keep in
the background. Euston himself, far from chiding her, seemed
rather to be pleased than otherwise. We could not hear all they
said, but one sentence was wafted over.

"It's most unfortunate, Maude, at just this time. It leaves the
whole matter in the hands of Lane."

At the mention of Lane, which her father accompanied by a keen
glance, she flushed a little and bit her lip. I wondered whether
it meant more than that, of the two suitors, her father obviously
preferred Barnes.

Euston had called to see Barnes, and, as the doctor led him up the
hall again, Miss Euston rejoined us.

"You need not drive us back," thanked Kennedy. "Just drop us at
the Subway. I'll let you know the moment I have arrived at any
conclusion."

On the train we happened to run across a former classmate,
Morehead, who had gone into the brokerage business.

"Queer about that Barnes case, isn't it?" suggested Kennedy, after
the usual greetings were over. Then, without suggesting that we
were more than casually interested, "What does the Street think of
it?"

"It is queer," rejoined Morehead. "All the boys down-town are
talking about it--wondering how it will affect the transit of the
gold shipments. I don't know what would happen if there should be
a hitch. But they ought to be able to run the thing through all
right."

"It's a pretty ticklish piece of business, then?" I suggested.

"Well, you know the state of the market just now--a little push
one way or the other means a lot. And I suppose you know that the
insiders on the Street have boosted Continental Express up until
it is practically one of the 'war stocks,' too. Well, good-by--
here's my station."

We had scarcely returned to the laboratory, however, when a car
drove up furiously and a young man bustled in to see us.

"You do not know me," he introduced, "but I am Rodman Lane,
general manager of the Continental Express. You know our company
has had charge of the big shipments of gold and securities to New
York. I suppose you've read about what happened to Barnes, our
treasurer. I don't know anything about it--haven't even time to
find out. All I know is that it puts more work on me, and I'm
nearly crazy already."

I watched him narrowly.

"We've had little trouble of any kind so far," he hurried on,
"until just now I learned that all the roads over which we are
likely to send the shipments have been finding many more broken
rails than usual."

Kennedy had been following him keenly.

"I should like to see some samples of them," he observed.

"You would?" said Lane, eagerly. "I've a couple of sections sawed
from rails down at my office, where I asked the officials to send
them."

We made a hurried trip down to the express company's office.
Kennedy examined the sections of rails minutely with a strong
pocket-lens.

"No ordinary break," he commented. "You can see that it was an
explosive that was used--an explosive well and properly tamped
down with wet clay. Without tamping, the rails would have been
bent, not broken."

"Done by wreckers, then?" Lane asked.

"Certainly not defective rails," replied Kennedy. "Still, I don't
think you need worry so much about them for the next train. You
know what to guard against. Having been discovered, whoever they
are, they'll probably not try it again. It's some new wrinkle that
must be guarded against."

It was small comfort, but Craig was accustomed to being brutally
frank.

"Have you taken any other precautions now that you didn't take
before?"

"Yes," replied Lane, slowly; "the railroad has been experimenting
with wireless on its trains. We have placed wireless on ours, too.
They can't cut us off by cutting wires. Then, of course, as
before, we shall use a pilot-train to run ahead and a strong guard
on the train itself. But now I feel that there may be something
else that we can do. So I have come to you."

"When does the next shipment start?" asked Kennedy.

"To-morrow, from Halifax."

Kennedy appeared to be considering something.

"The trouble," he said, at length, "is likely to be at this end.
Perhaps before the train starts something may happen that will
tell us just what additional measures to take as it approaches New
York."

While Kennedy was at work with the blood-soaked gauze that he had
taken from Barnes, I could do nothing but try to place the
relative positions of the various actors in the little drama that
was unfolding. Lane himself puzzled me. Sometimes I felt almost
sure that he knew that Miss Euston had come to Kennedy, and that
he was trying, in this way, to keep in touch with what was being
done for Barnes.

Some things I knew already. Barnes was comparatively wealthy, and
had evidently the stamp of approval of Maude Euston's father. As
for Lane, he was far from wealthy, although ambitious.

The company was in a delicate situation where an act of omission
would count for as much as an act of commission. Whoever could
foresee what was going to happen might capitalize that information
for much money. If there was a plot and Barnes had been a victim,
what was its nature? I recalled Miss Euston's overheard
conversation in the tea-room. Both names had been mentioned. In
short, I soon found myself wondering whether some one might not
have tempted Lane either to do or not to do something.

"I wish you'd go over to the St. Germaine, Walter," remarked
Kennedy, at length, looking up from his work. "Don't tell Miss
Euston of Lane's visit. But ask her if she will keep an eye out
for that woman she heard talking--and the man, too. They may drop
in again. And tell her that if she hears anything else, no matter
how trivial, about Barnes, she must let me know."

I was glad of the commission. Not only had I been unable to arrive
anywhere in my conjectures, but it was something even to have a
chance to talk with a girl like Maude Euston.

Fortunately I found her at home and, though she was rather
disappointed that I had nothing to report, she received me
graciously, and we spent the rest of the evening watching the
varied life of the fashionable hostelry in the hope of chancing on
the holders of the strange conversation in the tea-room.

Once in a while an idea would occur to her of some one who was in
a position to keep her informed if anything further happened to
Barnes, and she would despatch a messenger with a little note.
Finally, as it grew late and the adventuress of the tea-room
episode seemed unlikely to favor the St. Germaine with her
presence again that night, I made my excuses, having had the
satisfaction only of having delivered Kennedy's message, without
accomplishing anything more. In fact, I was still unable to
determine whether there was any sentiment stronger than sympathy
that prompted her to come to Kennedy about Barnes. As for Lane,
his name was scarcely mentioned except when it was necessary.

It was early the next morning that I rejoined Craig at the
laboratory. I found him studying the solution which he had
extracted from the blood-soaked gauze after first removing the
blood in a little distilled water.

Before him was his new spectroscope, and I could see that now he
was satisfied with what the uncannily delicate light-detective had
told him. He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall into
a little fresh distilled water, some of which he placed in the
spectroscope.

"Look through it," he said. "Blood diluted with water shows the
well-known dark bands between D and E, known as the oxyhemoglobin
absorption." I looked as he indicated and saw the dark bands.
"Now," he went on, "I add some of this other liquid."

He picked up a bottle of something with a faint greenish tinge.

"See the bands gradually fade?"

I watched, and indeed they did diminish in intensity and finally
disappear, leaving an uninterrupted and brilliant spectrum.

"My spectroscope," he said, simply, "shows that the blood-crystals
of Barnes are colorless. Barnes was poisoned--by some gas, I
think. I wish I had time to hunt along the road where the accident
took place." As he said it, he walked over and drew from a cabinet
several peculiar arrangements made of gauze.

He was about to say something more when there came a knock at the
door. Kennedy shoved the gauze arrangements into his pocket and
opened it. It was Maude Euston, breathless and agitated.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy, have you heard?" she cried. "You asked me to
keep a watch whether anything more happened to Mr. Barnes. So I
asked some friends of his to let me know of anything. He has a
yacht, the Sea Gull, which has been lying off City Island. Well,
last night the captain received a message to go to the hospital,
that Mr. Barnes wanted to see him. Of course it was a fake. Mr.
Barnes was too sick to see anybody on business. But when the
captain got back, he found that, on one pretext or another, the
crew had been got ashore--and the Sea Gull is gone--stolen! Some
men in a small boat must have overpowered the engineer. Anyhow,
she has disappeared. I know that no one could expect to steal a
yacht--at least for very long. She'd be recognized soon. But they
must know that, too."

Kennedy looked at his watch.

"It is only a few hours since the train started from Halifax," he
considered. "It will be due in New York early to-morrow morning--
twenty million dollars in gold and thirty millions in securities--
a seven-car steel train, with forty armed guards!"

"I know it," she said, anxiously, "and I am so afraid something is
going to happen--ever since I had to play the spy. But what could
any one want with a yacht?"

Kennedy shrugged his shoulders non-committally.

"It is one of the things that Mr. Lane must guard against," he
remarked, simply. She looked up quickly.

"Mr. Lane?" she repeated.

"Yes," replied Kennedy; "the protection of the train has fallen on
him. I shall meet the train myself when it gets to Worcester and
come in on it. I don't think there can be any danger before it
reaches that point."

"Will Mr. Lane go with you?"

"He must," decided Kennedy. "That train must be delivered safely
here in this city."

Maude Euston gave Craig one of her penetrating, direct looks.

"You think there is danger, then?"

"I cannot say," he replied.

"Then I am going with you!" she exclaimed.

Kennedy paused and met her eyes. I do not know whether he read
what was back of her sudden decision. At least I could not, unless
there was something about Rodman Lane which she wished to have
cleared up. Kennedy seemed to read her character and know that a
girl like Maude Euston would be a help in any emergency.

"Very well," he agreed; "meet us at Mr. Lane's office in half an
hour. Walter, see whether you can find Whiting."

Whiting was one of Kennedy's students with whom he had been lately
conducting some experiments. I hurried out and managed to locate
him.

"What is it you suspect?" I asked, when we returned. "A wreck--
some spectacular stroke at the nations that are shipping the
gold?"

"Perhaps," he replied, absently, as he and Whiting hurriedly
assembled some parts of instruments that were on a table in an
adjoining room.

"Perhaps?" I repeated. "What else might there be?"

"Robbery."

"Robbery!" I exclaimed. "Of twenty million dollars? Why, man, just
consider the mere weight of the metal!"

"That's all very well," he replied, warming up a bit as he saw
that Whiting was getting things together quickly. "But it needs
only a bit of twenty millions to make a snug fortune--" He paused
and straightened up as the gathering of the peculiar electrical
apparatus, whatever it was, was completed. "And," he went on
quickly, "consider the effect on the stock-market of the news.
That's the big thing."

I could only gasp.

"A modern train-robbery, planned in the heart of dense traffic!"

"Why not?" he queried. "Nothing is impossible if you can only take
the other fellow unawares. Our job is not to be taken unawares.
Are you ready, Whiting?"

"Yes, sir," replied the student, shouldering the apparatus, for
which I was very thankful, for my arms had frequently ached
carrying about some of Kennedy's weird but often weighty
apparatus.

We piled into a taxicab and made a quick journey to the office of
the Continental Express. Maude Euston had already preceded us, and
we found her standing by Lane's desk as he paced the floor.

"Please, Miss Euston, don't go," he was saying as we entered.

"But I want to go," she persisted, more than ever determined,
apparently.

"I have engaged Professor Kennedy just for the purpose of
foreseeing what new attack can be made on us," he said.

"You have engaged Professor Kennedy?" she asked. "I think I have a
prior claim there, haven't I?" she appealed.

Kennedy stood for a moment looking from one to the other. What was
there in the motives that actuated them? Was it fear, hate, love,
jealousy?

"I can serve my two clients only if they yield to me," Craig
remarked, quietly. "Don't set that down, Whiting. Which is it--yes
or no?"

Neither Lane nor Miss Euston looked at each other for a moment.

"Is it in my hands?" repeated Craig.

"Yes," bit off Lane, sourly.

"And you, Miss Euston?"

"Of course," she answered.

"Then we all go," decided Craig. "Lane, may I install this thing
in your telegraph-room outside?"

"Anything you say," Lane returned, unmollified.

Whiting set to work immediately, while Kennedy gave him the final
instructions.

Neither Lane nor Miss Euston spoke a word, even when I left the
room for a moment, fearing that three was a crowd. I could not
help wondering whether she might not have heard something more
from the woman in the tea-room conversation than she had told us.
If she had, she had been more frank with Lane than with us. She
must have told him. Certainly she had not told us. It was the only
way I could account for the armed truce that seemed to exist as,
hour after hour, our train carried us nearer the point where we
were to meet the treasure-train.

At Worcester we had still a long wait for the argosy that was
causing so much anxiety and danger. It was long after the time
scheduled that we left finally, on our return journey, late at
night.

Ahead of us went a dummy pilot-train to be sacrificed if any
bridges or trestles were blown up or if any new attempts were made
at producing artificially broken rails. We four established
ourselves as best we could in a car in the center of the treasure-
train, with one of the armed guards as company. Mile after mile we
reeled off, ever southward and westward.

We must have crossed the State of Connecticut and have been
approaching Long Island Sound, when suddenly the train stopped
with a jerk. Ordinarily there is nothing to grow alarmed about at
the mere stopping of a train. But this was an unusual train under
unusual circumstances.

No one said a word as we peered out. Down the track the signals
seemed to show a clear road. What was the matter?

"Look!" exclaimed Kennedy, suddenly.

Off a distance ahead I could see what looked like a long row of
white fuses sticking up in the faint starlight. From them the
fresh west wind seemed to blow a thick curtain of greenish-yellow
smoke which swept across the track, enveloping the engine and the
forward cars and now advancing toward us like the "yellow wind" of
northern China. It seemed to spread thickly on the ground, rising
scarcely more than sixteen or eighteen feet.

A moment and the cloud began to fill the air about us. There was a
paralyzing odor. I looked about at the others, gasping and
coughing. As the cloud rolled on, inexorably increasing in
density, it seemed literally to grip the lungs.

It flashed over me that already the engineer and fireman had been
overcome, though not before the engineer had been able to stop the
train.

As the cloud advanced, the armed guards ran from it, shouting, one
now and then falling, overcome. For the moment none of us knew
what to do. Should we run and desert the train for which we had
dared so much? To stay was death.

Quickly Kennedy pulled from his pocket the gauze arrangements he
had had in his hand that morning just as Miss Euston's knock had
interrupted his conversation with me. Hurriedly he shoved one into
Miss Euston's hands, then to Lane, then to me, and to the guard
who was with us.

"Wet them!" he cried, as he fitted his own over his nose and
staggered to a water-cooler.

"What is it?" I gasped, hoarsely, as we all imitated his every
action.

"Chlorin gas," he rasped back, "the same gas that overcame
Granville Barnes. These masks are impregnated with a glycerin
solution of sodium phosphate. It was chlorin that destroyed the
red coloring matter in Barnes's blood. No wonder, when this action
of just a whiff of it on us is so rapid. Even a short time longer
and death would follow. It destroys without the possibility of
reconstitution, and it leaves a dangerous deposit of albumin. How
do you feel?"

"All right," I lied.

We looked out again. The things that looked like fuses were not
bombs, as I had expected, but big reinforced bottles of gas
compressed at high pressure, with the taps open. The supply was
not inexhaustible. In fact, it was decidedly limited. But it
seemed to have been calculated to a nicety to do the work. Only
the panting of the locomotive now broke the stillness as Kennedy
and I moved forward along the track.

Crack! rang out a shot.

"Get on the other side of the train--quick!" ordered Craig.

In the shadow, aside from the direction in which the wind was
wafting the gas, we could now just barely discern a heavy but
powerful motor-truck and figures moving about it. As I peered out
from the shelter of the train, I realized what it all meant. The
truck, which had probably conveyed the gas-tanks from the
rendezvous where they had been collected, was there now to convey
to some dark wharf what of the treasure could be seized. There the
stolen yacht was waiting to carry it off.

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