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The Voice on the Wire

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




"Have you seen an auto go past here before mine?"

"Yes, sir, I was smoking me pipe, and settin' on the rail of the
dock, when one shoots up toward the Twenty-third Street Ferry,
with a cop on a motor-cycle chasin' it behind."

"Then, quick, into the boat."

They clambered down the wet ladder, and after an aggravating
delay, the whirring engines of the racing craft were started.
Shirley took off his coat, and lashed a long rope about his
waist. He tied the other end of it securely to a thwart in the
boat.

"What's your idee, Cap?" asked the engineer, as he waited the
signal.

"There's a man trying to catch that white yacht out in the river.
I want to get him, that's all. If I fall out of this boat, keep
right on going, for I'm tied up now. Where's the boat hook?"

"Here, sir. Are you ready? Just give me your directions. All
right, sir, we're off."

Shirley grunted and the hydroplane sped out onto the river, in a
big curve, as he directed. Like a white ghost on the river was
the trim yacht, which even now could be seen speeding down the
stream, all steam up. There were two toots on the whistle and
Shirley feared that his man had boarded her. But the hydroplane,
ploughing through the cold waves, whizzed toward the yacht, as he
climbed out to the small flat stern. A small boat had swung
close to the yacht now. A ladder had been lowered from a spar,
while a man standing in the little craft missed it. The yacht
was gliding past the boat, when another rope ladder was deftly
swung over the stern.

The hydroplane was close up now, and Shirley saw his prey
dangling at the end of the ladder, now in the water, struggling
with the rungs of the ladder, and now being drawn up.

His engineer, with a skilful hand on the helm, swung in close to
the yacht, as keen for the capture as his patron. They whizzed
past at almost railroad speed, and Shirley, sprang toward the
ladder. His arms closed about the body of Reginald Warren in a
grip which he braced by a curious finger-lock he had learned in
wrestling practice.

Two revolvers barked over the taffrail of the yacht, as the
hydroplane raced onward, dragging Shirley and his prisoner at the
end of the rope, through the water. Again the shots rang out,
but they were out of range, on the dark waters so quickly, that
before the police boat had set out from shore to investigate the
firing from the pleasure vessel, the criminologist's struggle
with his wounded antagonist was over.

Half drowned, himself, with Warren completely past consciousness,
Shirley was pulled into his own boat as the engines were slowed
down. They returned rapidly to the dock.

"Help me work him--that was a pretty rough yank. He's been shot
in the hand already."

They rolled Warren on a barrel, "pumped" his arms, and by the
time the Cronin automobile had returned with the other
detectives, Warren was restored to understanding again. Shirley
forced some liquor between his teeth, to be greeted with a
torrent of strange oaths.

"The jig is up, Warren," said the criminologist. "As a chess-player
in the little game, you are a wonder. But, I think I may at last
call 'Checkmate.'"

"I'm not dead yet, Shirley," hissed Warren. "I gave you your
chance to keep out of this. But you wouldn't take it. I'll
settle the score with you before I'm finished. There's one man
in the world who knows how to get away from bars. I'm that man."

Then his teeth snapped together with a click. He said nothing
more that night, even during the operation for probing Shirley's
bullet, and the painful dressing. At the station-house, and his
arraignment before the magistrate at Night Court, where he saw
some other familiar faces of his fellow gangsters--now rounded up
on the same charges--he still maintained that feline silence.

And his eyes never left the face of Montague Shirley, as long as
that calm young man was in sight!

Shirley merely presented his charge of murder--for the strangling
of Shine Taylor. The names of the aged millionaires were not
brought into the matter--there was no need. He had done his work
well.

At Cronin's agency, late that night, there came a cablegram from
the greatest detective bureau of France.

"The Montfleury case" was the most daring robbery and sale of
state war secrets ever perpetrated in Paris. It had been
successful, despite the capture, and conviction of the criminal,
Laschlas Rozi, a Hungarian adventurer who had killed three men to
carry his point. The scoundrel had escaped after murdering his
prison guard, and wearing his clothes out of the gaol. A reward
of 100,000 francs had been offered for his capture, by the
Department of Justice.

"Monty, who gets all the credit for this little deal--that's
what's bothering me?" asked Captain Cronin, as they sipped a
toast of rare old port, in his rear office.

Shirley lit the ubiquitous cigarette, and tilted back in his
chair.

"Captain: why ask foolish questions? This case ought to buy you
five or six of those big farms you've been planning about--and
leave you fifty thousand dollars with which to pay the damages
for being a gentleman farmer."

"And you, Monty? You know you never have to present a bill with
me. What will you do with your pin money?"

"I'm going down on Fifth Avenue tomorrow and invest it in a
solitaire ring, for a very small finger."




CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION


Shirley made some investigations in a private reading room of the
Public Library: there was much good treasure there, not salable
over the counter of a grocery store, mayhap, but unusually
valuable in the high grade work which was his specialty. In an
old volume enumerating the noble families of Austro-Hungary he
found two distinguished lines, "Laschlas" and "Rozi."

From the library he went to a cable office where he sent a
message to the chief of police of Budapesth inquiring about the
remaining members of the families. The old volume in the library
was thirty-four years behind the times: it was the only record
obtainable in America.

After a couple of hours, which he devote to some personal
matters, he received a response to his inquiry. When translated
from the Hungarian it read thus:

"Professor Montague Shirley, College Club, N.Y., U.S.A.

Families extinct except Countess Laschlas, and son Count Rozi
Laschlas, reported killed in Albanian revolution.

Csherkini, Minister of Justice."

The criminologist was happy. Here was a weapon which he had not
yet used. Now he turned his steps towards the Tombs, for an
interview with the prisoner.

After some parley with the warden, he was admitted for a visit to
Reginald Warren. That gentleman's fury was rekindled at the
sight of the club man who had been so instrumental in his
downfall. But a cunning smile played over the features of the
criminal.

"So, you have come to gloat over your work, Shirley? Well, it is
a game two can play."

"Yes? I am always interested in sport. I came to see if there
was anything I could do for you in your confinement," was the
unruffled reply.

"You will be busy with your own affairs," retorted Warren. "I
have been busy writing my confession. Here is the manuscript. I
will baffle all your efforts to hush up the affairs of the
'Lobster Club.' Furthermore, my confession," (and he exultantly
waved a mass of manuscript at his visitor,) "will send young Van
Cleft to prison for perjury on the certificate of his father's
death. Captain Cronin, that prince of blockheads, will share the
same fate. Professor MacDonald, who I know very well signed the
death certificates, will be disgraced and driven from
professional standing. You will be implicated in this plot to
thwart justice. With the German university thoroughness to which
you so sarcastically referred, I have written down the facts as
carefully as though I were preparing a thesis for a doctor's
degree!"

He laughed maliciously, studying the effect of his words. He was
disappointed. Shirley's bland manner changed not a whit.
Instead the criminologist offered him a cigarette.

"You might as well smoke now--as later!" and there was a wealth
of innuendo in the emphasis. "Is that all you are going to do,
to square your accounts?"

"By no means! As my trump card, I have implicated Miss Helene
Marigold in the various exploits which have been so successful
now. She is unknown in New York--I investigated that matter.
She will have a fine task in proving an alibi, after the careful
preparation I have made. In fact, I accuse her of being the
mistress of my dead con'federate--"

Shirley sprang to his feet, and the rage which was shown in his
strong features brought a leer to the face of the other.

"Strike me," continued the tormentor. "All I have to do is to
call the guard. I have been busy thinking since they locked me
up here. There is nothing more to do to me than the electric
chair--but, I am not finished yet."

The criminologist controlled himself with difficulty. He
realized that an altercation with the prisoner would shatter his
whole case, like a house of cards blown down by a vagrant breeze.
He sat down again, the mask of calm indifference playing over
his features.

"And what then?"

"Is not that sufficient to interest you? It will be another
month before my trial, and my literary work has just begun. The
newspapers are filled with war news, which have ceased to be a
nine days' wonder. I shall provide them with material which will
be the story of the age! Another month, and then?"

The prisoner lit the cigarette which he had accepted, and
stretched back in the plain wooden chair to enjoy the misery of
his victim.

"But, a month--let me see? That would enable me to do some
corresponding myself, wouldn't it?" and Shirley took out a
memorandum book. "You have degraded a splendid intellect, a
gallant spirit and brought disgrace upon yourself, for this
miserable ending. You have ruthlessly murdered others, caring
naught for the misery and wretchedness of those left behind. Has
it been worth it all, Warren?"

The other's eyes twinkled, as he nodded.

"A wonderful game. And I haven't completed the score, even now."

"You are right, Warren. There is one soul more whom you have not
affected. It is too bad that you were not killed in the Albanian
revolution,--then you would have been on record as a hero instead
of the vilest scoundrel in Christendom."

Had the death-dealing current of the electric chair been turned
upon Warren he could not have been more startled, as he sprang
up. His pallid face seemed to turn a sickly green, as his dark
eyes opened in galvanized amazement.

"Albanian--what do you mean? I never saw Albania!"

"You will never see it again. You will never see Budapesth
again, either," was the menacing continuation of the
criminologist's methodical speech. "But a very old lady, the
Countess Laschlas, will see the accounts of her son's wretched
death, in the New York papers which will be sent to her, in care
of the American consul!"

It was merely a deductive guess: but the shot struck the center
of the bull's-eye. Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back,
and his nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone
wall. He dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his
nonchalance. It was a pitiable failure.

"Just as you have dealt to the children of others, so will you
deal with your own mother, the last of a distinguished line of
aristocrats. I swear, by the memory of my own dead parents, that
I will avenge the misery you have given to the innocent. The
good Book says, the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the
children even unto the third and the fourth generation. But life
to-day has taught me that the sins of the children are visited
upon the fathers and the mothers--especially, the sweet, loving,
trusting mothers! As I value my honor, Reginald Warren, or Count
Rozi, I will see to it that your mother shall know every detail
of the whole miserable career of her son. That is my answer to
your alleged confession. If there is a hereafter, from which you
may observe that which follows your death, you will be able to
see through eternity the earthly punishment which has been
visited upon the one person whom you love and respect."

The criminal's ashen face was buried in his hands.

Great sobs emanated from his white lips, as his shoulders heaved
in a paroxysm.

Shirley had struck the Achilles tendon--the hardest wretch in the
world had one, as he knew!

"Oh--oh--" he moaned, "the poor little mutter. She has forgiven
so much, suffered so much. You can't do it. You won't do it!"
He fell to his knees, clawing at the criminologist's garments
with his trembling hands, the tears streaming down his face.

"What about those who have seen no compassion from you?" cried
Shirley in a terrible voice. "Your vanity, your self-worship!
Do they not comfort you now? This is only the suffering of
another which you contemplate! Why all these hysterics?"

Warren, groveling on the floor of the reception-room, was a
picture of abject, horrid soul-torture. At last, through the
subtlety of this unconventional sleuth, along methods which were
never dreamed of in the ordinary police category, he had been
broken on the wheel which he had himself so cunningly
constructed!

"And if that mother dies, cursing your memory with her last
breath, cursing the love of the father, of her husband, of the
ancestors, all responsible for your being in the world today,
what will you think, when you watch from the other side of that
great unseen wall?"

"Oh, Shirley! I can't. See--I'll destroy this stuff. I'll keep
silent about the others. I mean it. Here: I tear it up now and
give you the pieces to burn!"

Warren, maddened by his fears, nervously tore the sheets into
bits and pressed the remnants into the criminologist's hands.

"Will you promise to keep my identity a secret?"

"I will not send word to Budapesth. You have a bad record in
Paris, and other parts of the world. But, if you play fair on
the confidential nature of this case, saving the innocent from
disgrace and shame, I will see that the story never reaches your
mother. There is no need to ask this on your honor--that does
not count."

Warren winced at this final thrust. He turned toward Shirley,
eagerly.

"You don't understand me at that, Shirley. I have had a curious
career. Somewhere I inherited a strain of criminality--you know
how many ancestors a man has in ten generations. I was a member
of a poor but prominent family. The government paid for my
education in the best universities of Europe, for I was to hold a
position under the Emperor, which had been held in my family for
generations. But I was ruined by the extravagances and the
excesses which I learned from the rich young men whom I met. I
studied feverishly, yet was able to waste much time with the
gilded fools, by my ability to learn more quickly. The result
was that I could not be contented with the small salary of my
government office. I had to keep up appearances with my
companions. So, I drifted into gambling, into sharp tricks--then
became a mercenary soldier, an officer, in the continuous
revolutions of the southeastern part of Europe. I sank deeper
and at last, in one serious escapade, I managed to have myself
reported dead, so as to quiet the heartaches of my mother, who
believed I was killed on the battlefield. There is the miserable
story--or all I will tell. They caught me in Paris and a girl
betrayed part of my name--fortunately they did not hunt me up, so
my mother was saved that disgrace. Will you keep the secret now,
on our understanding?"

"I give you my word for that, Warren." Shirley rose, putting the
torn-up papers into his pockets. "I am sorry for the past--but
you have made the present for yourself. Good-bye."

Warren returned to his cell and the detective to the club house.

There he found an additional cable message. It said: "Countess
Laschlas has been dead ten months." It was signed like the
other.

Shirley tore up the message, and blinked more than seemed
necessary.

"Poor little old lady, she knows it all now. I will not have to
tell her."

* * *

That afternoon Shirley called again at the Hotel California for
Helene.

"I want you to go to a sweet, old-fashioned English tea-room,
where I may tell you the rest of the story. There will be no
tango music, no cymbals, no tinkling cocktails, nor, champagne.
Can you pour real tea?"

"I am an English girl. I have been five days without it."

As they were ensconced at the quaint little table, he realized
how wondrously blended in her was that triad of feminine
essential spirits: the eternal mother instinct, the sensuous
strength of the wife-love and the wistful allurement of maiden
tenderness.

"Does my great big boy wish three lumps of sugar, after his hard
tasks?"

"He'll die in the flower of immaturity if he has too many sweets
in one day."

He drew out his memorandum book, opening it to a closely-written
page.

"Before the confections, I must hand in my report to the
commanding officer."

"Advance three paces to the front, and hand over the details,"
and she added another lump of sugar, with a mischievous twinkle
in the blue eyes.

"Very well, excellency. We transcribed the addresses of Warren's
gangsters from his note-book, and they have all been arrested. The
men we captured in the earlier skirmishes are all languishing in the
tombs, as accomplices in his crime, as well as for their attempts
against my own life. You will be astonished, Helene, at the
revelations of his operations as shown by his bank-books, a
translation of that diary and some of the letters which I took when
I burglarized his rooms. I have sent a code letter to Phil, advising
him to confess all, and that man's testimony adds to the
corroboration. I went down to the District Attorney with a full
statement of the facts, leaving nothing unbared. Like me, he agreed
that it were best to let the law take its course, demanding the full
penalty, and saving the honor of a dozen families who would have
been dragged into the case, had not Warren laid himself liable by
the murder of his confederate, Taylor. That young man was an
electrical genius--with his brains misguided by his equally
misdirected employer. There is no chance of a miscarriage of
justice, and Warren had accumulated so much money that many of the
victims of his organization can be reimbursed in full."

"You have handled all this with a suspicious skill for a lazy
society man, with no experience in such matters."

Shirley understood the subtle sarcasm of the remark, but he
proceeded unruffled, to lull her suspicious.

"I only tried to cover the points which meant happiness and peace
of mind to others. It was merely a matter of common or garden
horse sense, as we call it in America. Warren has been
systematically robbing the rich men of New York for three years,
under various subterfuges. No wonder he could afford such
gorgeous collections of art, keeping aloof from his associates in
crime. His treasures, like those in many European museums were
bought with blood. It is curious how a complex case like this
smooths itself out so simply when the key is obtained. And you,
Helene, have been the genius to supply that key: my own work has
been merely corroborative!"

He looked at the delicate features of the girl, remembering with
a recurring thrill the margin by which they had escaped death in
the cellar den of the conspirators.

"Cleary and Dick Holloway told me how cleverly you led the men to
the Somerset where you followed my trail through the mole's
passage. It was a frightful risk for you to take: Cleary should
have had more sense and led the way himself."

Helene's lips pursed themselves into a tempting pout.

"Are you not happier that it was I, at that supreme moment?"

"Indeed I am: success was all the sweeter. There is remaining
only one mystery which I must admit is still unsolved in this
curious affair. And that is you. Who are you?"

She parried with the same question.

"I know your name, sir, but you profess to be a society
butterfly, flitting from pleasure to dissipation, and back again.
Tell me the truth, now, if ever."

"Why--gracious, Helene--of all the foolish questions!" He was
adorably boyish in his confusion. She laughed gleefully, like a
happy schoolgirl.

"Then, Monty Shirley, my score is better than yours, for I have
every mystery cleared. But while I know all about you, what
frightful chances you are taking with me!"

Shirley reddened, as he burned his finger with the match which
had been raised to the end of his cigarette. He accused her of
teasing, and she glanced happily at the iridiscent solitaire upon
the third finger of her left hand.

"Dear boy, I realize that I understand about you what you cannot
fathom with me. You are not a moth, but your self-sacrifice, and
bravery in this case are professional: you worked on this case as
you have on a hundred others: you are a very original and
successful expert in criminology. And I am not more than half
bad at observation and deduction, myself; now, am I, dear?"

Shirley gracefully admitted defeat, with a question: "Who are
you, Helene? And who is dear old Jack?"

The roses blossomed in her cheeks as she answered: "Jack is a
very sweet boy, ten years older than you in gray hair and the
calendar, and infinitely younger in worldly wisdom and intellect.
He is an English army officer, who was foolish enough to imagine
he loved me, foolish enough to propose every three days for
the last three years and foolish enough to bore me until in
self-defense I escaped from his clutches. As for myself, at
least I am not the young woman who can stand staying in that
gaudy theatrical hotel for another day longer. I have done so
many bold, unmaidenly things that you may believe it easy for
me. It is not.

"I am truly a horrid, old-time, hoopskirt-minded prude. My first
act of domestic tyranny is to make you find a sedate, prim place
for my work and play, where I may know my own blushes when I see
them in the mirror, and will have less occasion to deserve them!"

"Your work? What is that?"

"It is very hard work--with a typewriter, but not in code. I
will not divulge my name until we tell it to the marriage license
clerk. But Dick Holloway knows me, and I came to this country,
partly to see him. I have written a few plays, which simple as
they were, seemed to interest European audiences and critics.
Some of my novels have strangely enough brought in royalties,
despite the publishers! But, I became satiated with life in
England and on the Continent. I came here because I felt that I
needed life in a younger and newer country. I needed an
emotional and physical awakening."

"You have not wasted any time in drowsiness since you
reached America."

"No--and all because I went to Holloway's office that fateful
morning, before I saw any one else in New York, to ask about a
play which he is to produce this spring. I confess that it was
my first experience as an actress. Will you forgive my
deception?"

Shirley nodded, as he studied the animated face with a new
interest. He admitted to himself that Holloway's prediction had
come true--he had met his match.

"And so, my dear Helene (for such I shall always call you,
whether your really, truly name be Mehitabel, Samantha or
Sophronisa) you came here, went through all these horrors without
a complaint, crushing the independence of my confirmed
bachelorhood for the sake of what we newspaper men call copy?"

Helene nodded demurely.

"Yes, but it was such wonderful 'copy,' Monty boy."

The criminologist scowled over his cigarette, yet he could not
feel as unhappy as he felt this defeat should make him.

"When will the 'copy' be ready for publication, my dear girl. It
would be most interesting, I fancy."

Helene caught his hand, drawing it toward her throbbing heart.
Her wet lips were almost touching his ear, as she confided,
whisperingly, with the blue eyes averted: "Only published in
editions de luxe: some bindings will be with blue ribbons, some
with pink. All of them with flexible backs and gloriously
illumined by the Master's brush. The authors' autographs will be
on every copy to prove the collaboration, and every volume will
be a poem in itself .... But there, Montague dear, I am a
novelist--not a fortune-teller!"

"How can I forecast the exact dates of publication?"

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