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The Voice on the Wire

E >> Eustace Hale Ball >> The Voice on the Wire



THE VOICE ON THE WIRE





CHAPTER I

WHEN THREE IS A MYSTERY



"Mr. Shirley is waiting for you in the grill-room, sir. Just
step this way, sir, and down the stairs."

The large man awkwardly followed the servant to the cosey
grill-room on the lower floor of the club house. He felt that
every man of the little groups about the Flemish tables must be
saying: "What's he doing here?"

"I wish Monty Shirley would meet me once in a while in the back
room of a ginmill, where I'd feel comfortable," muttered the
unhappy visitor. "This joint is too classy. But that's his game
to play--"

He reached the sought-for one, however, and exclaimed eagerly:
"By Jiminy, Monty. I'm glad to find you--it would have been my
luck after this day, to get here too late."

He was greeted with a grip that made even his generous hand
wince, as the other arose to smile a welcome.

"Hello, Captain Cronin. You're a good sight for a grouchy man's
eyes! Sit down and confide the brand of your particular favorite
poison to our Japanese Dionysius!"

The Captain sighed with relief, as he obeyed.

"Bar whiskey is good enough for an old timer like me. Don't
tell me you have the blues--your face isn't built that way!"

"Gospel truth, Captain. I've been loafing around this club
--nothing to do for a month. Bridge, handball, highballs, and
yarns! I'm actually a nervous wreck because my nerves haven't
had any work to do!"

"You're the healthiest invalid I've seen since the hospital days
in the Civil War. But don't worry about something to do. I've
some job now. It's dolled up with all them frills you like:
millions, murders and mysteries! If this don't keep you awake,
you'll have nightmares for the next six months. Do you want it?"

"I'm tickled to death. Spill it!"

"Monty, it's the greatest case my detective agency has had since
I left the police force eleven years ago. It's too big for me,
and I've come to you to do a stunt as is a stunt. You will plug
it for me, won't you--just as you've always done? If I get the
credit, it'll mean a fortune to me in the advertising alone."

"Haven't I handled every case for you in confidence. I'm not a
fly-cop, Captain Cronin. I'm a consulting specialist, and
there's no shingle hung out. Perhaps you had better take it to
some one else."

Shirley pushed away his empty glass impatiently.

"There, Monty, I didn't mean to offend you. But there's such
swells in this and such a foxey bunch of blacklegs, that I'm as
nervous as a rookie cop on his first arrest. Don't hold a grudge
against me."

Shirley lit a cigarette and resumed his good nature: "Go on,
Captain. I'm so stale with dolce far niente, after the Black
Pearl affair last month, that I act like an amateur myself. Make
it short, though, for I'm going to the opera."

The Captain leaned over the table, his face tense with suppressed
emotion. He was a grizzled veteran of the New York police force:
a man who sought his quarry with the ferocity of a bull-dog, when
the line of search was definitely assured. Lacking imagination
and the subtler senses of criminology, Captain Cronin had built
up a reputation for success and honesty in every assignment by
bravery, persistence, and as in this case, the ability to cover
his own deductive weakness by employing the brains of others.

Montague Shirley was as antithetical from the veteran detective
as a man could well be. A noted athlete in his university, he
possessed a society rating in New York, at Newport and Tuxedo,
and on the Continent which was the envy of many a gilded youth
born to the purple.

On leaving college, despite an ample patrimony, he had curiously
enough entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting
page he was graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last
closing his career as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday
thriller, in many colors of illustration and vivacious Gallic
style which interpreted into heart throbs and goose-flesh the
real life romances and tragedies of the preceding six days! He
had conquered the paper-and-ink world--then deep within there
stirred the call for participation in the game itself.

So, dropping quietly into the apparently indolent routine of club
existence, he had devoted his experience and genius to analytical
criminology--a line of endeavor known only to five men in the
world.

He maintained no offices. He wore no glittering badges: a police
card, a fire badge, and a revolver license, renewed year after
year, were the only instruments of his trade ever in evidence.
Shirley took assignments only from the heads of certain agencies,
by personal arrangement as informal as this from Captain Cronin.
His real clients never knew of his participation, and his prey
never understood that he had been the real head-hunter!

His fees--Montague Shirley, as a master craftsman deemed his
artistry worthy of the hire. His every case meant a modest
fortune to the detective agency and Shirley's bills were never
rendered, but always paid!

So, here, the hero of the gridiron and the class re-union,
the gallant of a hundred pre-matrimonial and non-maturing
engagements, the veteran of a thousand drolleries and merry
jousts in clubdom--unspoiled by birth, breeding and wealth,
untrammeled by the juggernaut of pot-boiling and the
salary-grind, had drifted into the curious profession of
confidential, consulting criminal chaser.

Shirley unostentatiously signaled for an encore on the
refreshments.

"You're nervous to-night, Captain. You've been doing things
before you consulted me--which is against our Rule Number One,
isn't it?"

The Captain gulped down his whiskey, and rubbed his forehead.

"Couldn't help it, Monty. It got too busy for me, before I
realized anything unusual in the case. See what I got from a
gangster before I landed here."

He turned his close-cropped head, as Montague Shirley leaned
forward to observe an abrasion at the base of his skull. It
was dressed with a coating of collodion.

"Brass knuckled--I see the mark of the rings. Tried for the
pneumogastric nerves, to quiet you."

"Whatever he tried for he nearly got. Kelly's nightstick got
his pneumonia gas jet, or whatever you call it. He's still
quiet, in the station house--You know old man Van Cleft, who
owns sky-scrapers down town, don't you?--Well, he's the center
of this flying wedge of excitement. His family are fine people,
I understand. His daughter was to be married next week. Monty,
that wedding'll be postponed, and old Van Cleft won't worry over
dispossess papers for his tenants for the rest of the winter.
See?"

"Killed?"

"Correct. He's done, and I had a hell of a time getting the body
home, before the coroner and the police reporters got on the
trail."

Shirley lowered his high-ball glass, with an earnest stare.

"What was the idea?"

"Robbery, of course. His son had me on the case--'phoned from
the garage where the chauffeur brought the body; after he saw the
old man unconscious. Just half an hour before he had left his
office in the same machine, after taking five thousand dollars in
cash from his manager."

"Who was with him?"

"Now, that's getting to brass tacks. When I gets that C.Q.D.
from Van Cleft, I finds the young fellow inside the ring of
rubbernecks, blubbering over the old man, where he lies on the
floor of the taxi--looking soused."

"He was a notorious old sport about town, Captain."

"Sure--and I thinks, it sorter serves him right. But, that's his
funeral, not mine. Van Cleft, junior, says to me: 'There's the
girl that was with him.'"

"Where was the girl?"

"She was sitting on a stool, near the car, a little blonde chorus
chicken, shaking and twitching, while the chauffeur and the
garage boss held her up. I says, 'What's this?' and Van Cleft
tells me all he knows, which ain't nothing. Them guys in that
garage was wise, for it meant a cold five hundred apiece before I
left to keep their lids closed. Van Cleft begs me to hustle the
old man home, so one of my men takes her down to my office, still
a sniffling, and acting like she had the D.T.'s. The young
fellow shook like a leaf, but we takes him over to Central Park
East, to the family mansion,--carrying him up the steps like he
was drunk. We gets him into his own bed, and keeps the sister
from touching his clammy hands, while she orders the family
doctor. When he gets there on the jump, I gives him the wink and
leads him to one side. 'Doc,' I says, 'you know how to write out
a death certificate, to hush this up from your end. I've done
the rest.'"

Captain Cronin leaned forward, a queer excitement agitating him.

"Do you know what that doctor says to me, Monty?"

Shirley shook his head.

He says; "My God, it's the third!"

Shirley's white hand gripped the edge of the table. "The Van
Cleft's doctor is one of the greatest surgeons in the country,
Professor MacDonald of the Medical College. He said that?"

"He did. I answers, 'Whadd'y mean the third?' Then he looks me
straight in the eye, and sings back, 'None of your business.'"
Cronin shook his head. "I never seen a man with a squarer look,
and yet he has me guessing. I goes back to the garage, over past
Eighth Avenue, you know, where two johns come up along side o'
me. One rubs me with his elbow and the other applies that brass
knuckle,--then they gets pinched. I got dressed up in a drug
store, got the chauffeur's license number, and goes on down to my
office to see this girl. She's hysterical about his family using
all their money to put her in jail. I looks at her, and says,
'You won't need their money to get to jail. That old man's
dead!' Her eyes was as big as saucers. 'I thought old Daddy Van
Cleft was drunk.' I tells her, 'He was dead in that taxi, with a
chorus girl, and a roll of bills gone. What you got to say?'
She staggers forward and clutches my coat, and what do you think
SHE says to me?"

Shirley made the inquiry only with his eyes, puffing his
cigarette slowly.

"She looks sorter green, and repeats after me: 'Dead, with a
chorus girl, and a roll of bills gone,'--just like a parrot.
Then she springs this on me: 'My God, it's the third!'"

Shirley dropped his cigarette, leaning forward, all nonchalance
gone.

"Where is she now? Quick, let's go to her."

He rose to his feet. Just then a door-boy walked through the
grill-room toward him. "A telephone call for Captain Cronin,
sir; the party said hurry or he would miss something good."

Shirley snapped out, "When has the rule about telephone calls in
this club been changed? You boys are never to tell any one that
a member or guest are here until the name is announced."

He turned toward the puzzled Captain.

"Did you ask any of your operatives to call you here? You know
what a risk you are taking, to connect me with this case like
that, don't you?"

"I never even breathed it to myself. I told no one."

"Follow me up to the telephone room."

Shirley hurried through the grill, to the switchboard, near which
stood the booths for private calls. He called to one of the
operators. "Here, let me at that switchboard." He pushed the
boy aside, and sat down in the vacated chair.

"Which trunk is it on? Oh, I see, the second. There Captain,
take the fourth booth against the wall."

Cronin stepped in. Shirley connected up and listened with the
transmitter of the operator at his ear, holding the line open.

"Go ahead, here's Captain Cronin!"

A pleasant voice came over the wire. It was musical and sincere.

"Hello, Captain Cronin, is that you?"

"Yes! What do you want?"

The voice continued, with a jolly laugh, ringing and infectious
in its merriment.

"Well, Captain, the joke's on you. Ha, ha, ha! It's a bully
one! Ho, ho! Ha, ha!"

"What joke?"

"You're working on the Van Cleft case. Oh, sure, you are, don't
kid me back. Well, Captain, you've missed two other perfectly
good grafts. This is the third one!"

There was a click and the speaker, with another merry gurgle,
rang off.

"Quick, manager's desk," cried Shirley, jiggling the metal key.
"What call was that? Where did it come from?"

After a little wait, a languid voice answered: "Brooklyn, Main
6969, Party C."

"Give me the number again--I want to speak on the wire."

After another delay, the voice replied "The line has been
discontinued."

"I just had it! What is the name of the subscriber. Hurry, this
is a matter of life and death."

"It's against the rules to give any further information. But our
record shows that the house burned down about two weeks ago. No
one else has been given the number. There's no instrument
there!"




CHAPTER II

THE FLEETING PROMPTER


Monty's puzzled smile was in no wise reciprocated by the Captain,
whose red face evidenced a growing resentment.

He began a tirade, but a wink from the club man warned him.
Shirley replaced the receiver, and the regular attendant resumed
his place at the switchboard. The lad was curious at the unusual
ability of the wealthy Mr. Shirley to handle the bewildering maze
of telephone attachments. Monty explained, as he turned to go
upstairs.

"Son, that was one of my smart friends trying to play a practical
joke on my guest. I fooled him. Don't let it happen again,
until you send in the party's name first."

"Yes, sir," meekly promised the boy.

"Well, Captain Cronin, as the old paperback novels used to say at
the end of the first instalment, 'The Plot thickens!' At first
I thought this case of stupid badger game--"

"You aren't going to back out, Monty? Here's a whole gang of
crooks which would give you some sport rounding up, and as for
money--"

"Money is easy, from both sides of a criminal matter. What
interests me is that ghostly telephone call from a house that
burned down, and the caller's knowledge of Number Three. I'm in
this case, have no fear of that."

Shirley led his guest to the coat room.

"I'll get a taxicab, Monty. We'd better see that girl first and
then have a look at the body."

The Captain turned to the door, as the attendant helped Monty
with his overcoat. The waiter from the grill-room approached.
"Excuse me, sir, but the gentleman dropped his handkerchief in
his chair opposite you."

"Thank you, Gordon," he said, as he faced the servant for an
instant. When he turned again, toward the front hall, the
Captain had passed out of view through the front door.

Shirley received a surprise when he reached the pavement on
Forty-fourth Street, for Captain Cronin was not in sight. Two
club men descended the steps of the neighboring house. Others
strolled along toward the Avenue, but not a sign of a vehicle of
any description could be seen, nor was there anything suspicious
in view. Cronin had disappeared as effectually as though he had
taken a passing Zeppelin!

"I'm glad this affair will not bore me," murmured the
criminologist, as he evolved and promptly discarded a dozen vain
theories to explain the disappearance of his companion.

Twenty minutes were wasted along the block, as he waited for some
sight or sign. Then he decided to go on up to Van Cleft's
residence. But, realizing the probability of "shadow" work upon
all who came from the door of the club, after the curious message
on the wire, Shirley did not propose to expose his hand. Walking
leisurely to the Avenue, he hailed a passing hansom. He directed
the driver to carry him to an address on Central Park West. His
shrewdness was not wasted, for as he stepped into the vehicle, he
espied a slinking figure crossing the street diagonally before
him, to disappear into the shadow of an adjacent doorway. This
was the house of Reginald Van Der Voor, as Shirley knew. It was
closed because its master, a social acquaintance of the club
man's, was at this time touring the Orient in his steam yacht.
No man should have entered that doorway. So, as the horse
started under the flick of the long whip, Shirley peered
unobserved through the glass window at his side.

A big machine swung up behind the hansom, at some unseen hail,
and the figure came from the doorway, leaping into the car, as it
followed Shirley up the Avenue, a block or so behind.

"It is not always so easy to follow, when the leader knows his
chase," thought Shirley. "I'm glad I'm only a simple club man."

The automobile was unmistakably trailing him, as the hansom
crossed the Plaza, then sped through the Park drive, to the
address he had given his driver.

As Shirley had remembered, this was a large apartment house, in
which one of his bachelor friends lived. He knew the lay of the
building well: next door, with an entrance facing on the side
street was another just like it, and of equal height.

"Wait for me, here," said Shirley. "I'll pay you now, but want
to go to an address down town in five minutes."

He gave the driver a bill, then entered and told the elevator man
to take him to the ninth floor.

"There's nobody in, boss," began the boy. But Shirley shook his
head.

"My friend is expecting me for a little card game, that's why you
think he is out. Just take me up."

He handed the negro a quarter, which was complete in its logic.

As he reached the floor, he waved to the elevator operator. "Go
on down, and don't let any one else come up, for Mr. Greenough
doesn't want company."

As the car slid down, Shirley fumbled along the familiar hall to
the iron stairs which led to the roof of the building. Up these
he hurried, thence out upon the roof. It was a matter of only
four minutes before he had crossed to the next apartment
building, opened the door of the roof-entry, found the stairs to
the ninth floor, and taken this elevator to the street.

He walked out of the building, and turned toward Central Park
West, to slyly observe the entrance of the building where waited
the faithful hansom Jehu. A young man was in conversation with
the driver, and the big automobile could be seen on the other
side of the street awaiting further developments.

"He has a long vigil there," laughed Shirley. "Now, for the real
address. I think I lost the hounds for this time."

Another vehicle took him through the Park to the darkened mansion
of the Van Clefts'. Here, Shirley's card brought a quick
response from the surprised son of the dead millionaire.

"Why--why--I'm glad to see you, Mr. Shirley--Who sent you?" he
began.

Shirley registered complete surprise. "Sent me, my dear Van
Cleft? Who should send me? For what? It just happened that I
was walking up the Avenue, and to-morrow night I plan to give a
little farewell supper to Hal Bingley, class of '03, at the club
You knew him in College? I thought you might like to come."

"Step in the library," requested Van Cleft, weakly. "Sit down,
Mr. Shirley--I'm upset to-night."

He mopped his brow with a damp handkerchief, and Shirley's big
heart went out to the young chap, as he saw the haggard lines
of horror and grief on his usually pleasant face.

"What's the trouble, old man? Anything I can do?"

"My father just died this evening, and I'm in awful trouble--I
thought it was the Coroner, or the police--" he bit his tongue as
the last words escaped him. Shirley put his hand on Van Cleft's
shoulder, with an inspiring firmness.

"Tell me how I can help. You've had a big shock. Confide in me,
and I pledge you my word, I'll keep it safer than any one you
could go to."

Van Cleft groped as a drowning man, at this opportunity. He
caught Shirley's hand and wrung it tensely.

"Sit down. The doctor is still upstairs with mother and sister.
When the Coroner comes, I would like to have you be here as a
witness. It's an ordeal--I'll tell you everything."

Shirley listened attentively, without betraying his own
knowledge. Soothing in manner, he questioned the son about any
possible enemy of the murdered man.

"There's not one I know. Dad is popular--he's been too gay,
lately, but just foolish like a lot of rich men. He wouldn't
harm any one. He inherited his money, you know. Didn't have to
crush the working people. Like me, he's been endeavoring to
spend it ever since he was born, but it comes in too fast from
our estates."

He looked up apprehensively, at the sympathetic face of his
companion.

"It's very unwise to tell this. I suppose it's a State's prison
offence to deceive about murder. But you understand our
position: we can't afford to let it become gossip. I'll pay this
girl anything to go to Europe or the Antipodes!"

"I wouldn't do that," suggested Shirley, thoughtfully. "Let her
stay. You would like to bring the culprit to justice, if it can
be done without dragging your name into it. If he has planned
this, he has executed other schemes. She certainly would not
remain the machine if she were the guilty one. Why not employ a
good detective?"

"I did, but hesitated to tell you. I secured Captain Cronin, of
the Holland Agency. He's managed everything so far--I was too
rattled myself. But, I wonder why he isn't here now? He was to
return as soon as he visited the garage."

As Van Cleft spoke, the butler approached with hesitation.

"Beg pardon, sir. But you are wanted on the telephone, sir."

"All right, Hoskins. Connect it with the library instrument."

Van Cleft lifted the receiver nervously, and answered in an
unsteady voice.

"Yes--This is Van Cleft's residence."

Silence for a bit, then the wire was busy.

"What's that? Captain Cronin? What about him? Let me speak to
him."

Shirley was alert as a cat. Van Cleft was too dazed to
understand his sudden move, as the criminologist caught up the
receiver, and placed his palm for an instant over the mouthpiece.

"Ask him to say it again--that you didn't understand." Shirley
removed his hand, and obeyed. Shirley held the receiver to his
ear, as the young man spoke. Then he heard these curious words:
"You poor simp, you'd better get that family doctor of yours to
give you some ear medicine, and stop wasting time with the death
certificate. I told you that Cronin was over in Bellevue
Hospital with a fractured skull. Unless you drop this
investigating, you'll get one, too. Ta, ta! Old top!"

The receiver was hung up quickly at the other end of the line.

Shirley gave a quick call for "Information," and after several
minutes learned that the call came from a drug store pay-station
in Jersey City!

The melodious tones were unmistakably those of the speaker who
had used the wire from faraway Brooklyn where the house had been
burned down! It was a human impossibility for any one to have
covered the distance between the two points in this brief time,
except in an aeroplane!

Van Cleft wondered dumbly at his companion's excitement. Shirley
caught up the telephone again.

"Some one says that Cronin is at Bellevue Hospital, injured.
I'll find out."

It was true. Captain Cronin was lying at point of death, the
ward nurse said, in answer to his eager query. At first the
ambulance surgeon had supposed him to be drunk, for a patrolman
had pulled him out of a dark doorway, unconscious.

"Where was the doorway? This is his son speaking, so tell me
all."

"Just a minute. Oh! Here is the report slip. He was taken from
the corner of Avenue A and East Eleventh Street. You'd better
come down right away, for he is apt to die tonight. He's only
been here ten minutes."

"Has any one else telephoned to find out about him?"

"No. We didn't even know his name until just as you called up,
when we found his papers and some warrants in a pocketbook. How
did you know?"

But Shirley disconnected curtly, this time. He bowed his head in
thought, and then, with his usual nervous custom, fumbled for a
cigarette. Here was the Captain, whom he had left on Forty-fourth
Street, near Fifth Avenue, a short time before, discovered fully
three miles away.

And the news telephoned from Jersey City, by the fleeting magic
voice on the wire. Even his iron composure was stirred by this
weird complication.

"I wonder!" he murmured. He had ample reason to wonder.




CHAPTER III

THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER


"Well, Mr. Shirley, your coming here was a Godsend! I don't know
what to do now. The newspapers will get this surely. I depended
on Cronin: he must have been drinking."

Shirley shook his head, as he explained, "I know Cronin's
reputation, for I was a police reporter. He is a sterling man.
There's foul work here which extends beyond your father's case.
But we are wasting time. Why don't you introduce me to your
physician? Just tell him about Cronin, and that you have
confided in me completely."

Van Cleft went upstairs without a word. Unused to any worry,
always able to pay others for the execution of necessary details,
this young man was a victim of the system which had engulfed his
unfortunate sire in the maelstrom of reckless pleasure.

By his ingenuous adroitness, it may be seen, Shirley was
inveigling himself into the heart of the affair, in his favorite
disguise as that of the "innocent bystander." His innate
dramatic ability assisted him in maintaining his friendly and
almost impersonal role, with a success which had in the past kept
the secret of his system from even the evildoers themselves.

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