The War Terror

by Arthur B. Reeve

  CHAPTER III

  THE MURDER SYNDICATE

  Quickly now Craig completed his arrangements for the visit to theheadquarters of the real anarchist leader. Burke telephoned for ahigh-powered car, while Miss Lowe told frankly of the habits ofAnnenberg and the chances of finding his place unguarded, which weregood in the daytime. Kennedy's only equipment for the excursionconsisted in a small package which he took from a cabinet at the end ofthe room, and, with a parting reassurance to Paula Lowe, we were soonspeeding over the bridge to the borough across the river.

  We realized that it might prove a desperate undertaking, but the crisiswas such that it called for any risk.

  Our quest took us to a rather dilapidated old house on the outskirts ofthe little Long Island town. The house stood alone, not far from thetracks of a trolley that ran at infrequent intervals. Even a hastyreconnoitering showed that to stop our motor at even a reasonabledistance from it was in itself to arouse suspicion.

  Although the house seemed deserted, Craig took no chances, but directedthe car to turn at the next crossroad and then run back along a roadback of and parallel to that on which Annenberg's was situated. It wasperhaps a quarter of a mile away, across an open field, that we stoppedand ran the car up along the side of the road in some bushes.Annenberg's was plainly visible and it was not at all likely thatanyone there would suspect trouble from that quarter.

  A hasty conference with Burke followed, in which Kennedy unwrapped hissmall package, leaving part of its contents with him, and addingcareful instructions.

  Then Kennedy and I retraced our steps down the road, across by thecrossroad, and at last back to the mysterious house.

  To all appearance there had been no need of such excessive caution. Nota sound or motion greeted us as we entered the gate and made our wayaround to the rear of the house. The very isolation of the house wasnow our protection, for we had no inquisitive neighbors to watch us forthe instant when Kennedy, with the dexterity of a yeggman, inserted hisknife between the sashes of the kitchen window and turned the catchwhich admitted us.

  We made our way on cautious tiptoe through a dining room to a livingroom, and, finding nothing, proceeded upstairs. There was not a soul,apparently, in the house, nor in fact anything to indicate that it wasdifferent from most small suburban homes, until at last we mounted tothe attic.

  It was finished off in one large room across the back of the house andtwo in front. As we opened the door to the larger room, we could onlygaze about in surprise. This was the rendezvous, the arsenal, literary,explosive and toxicological of the "Group." Ranged on a table were allthe materials for bomb-making, while in a cabinet I fancied there werepoisons enough to decimate a city.

  On the walls were pictures, mostly newspaper prints, of the assassinsof McKinley, of King Humbert, of the King of Greece, of King Carlos andothers, interspersed with portraits of anarchist and anti-militaristleaders of all lands.

  Kennedy sniffed. Over all I, too, could catch the faint odor of staletobacco. No time was to be lost, however, and while Craig set to workrapidly going through the contents of a desk in the corner, I glancedover the contents of a drawer of a heavy mission table.

  "Here's some of Annenberg's literature," I remarked, coming across asmall pile of manuscript, entitled "The Human Slaughter House."

  "Read it," panted Kennedy, seeing that I had about completed my part ofthe job. "It may give a clue."

  Hastily I scanned the mad, frantic indictment of war, while Craigcontinued in his search:

  "I see wild beasts all around me, distorted unnaturally, in a life anddeath struggle, with bloodshot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths.They attack and kill one another and try to mangle each other. I leapto my feet. I race out into the night and tread on quaking flesh, stepon hard heads, and stumble over weapons and helmets. Something isclutching at my feet like hands, so that I race away like a hunted deerwith the hounds at his heels--and ever over more bodies--breathless...out of one field into another. Horror is crooning over my head. Horroris crooning beneath my feet. And nothing but dying, mangled flesh!

  "Of a sudden I see nothing but blood before me. The heavens have openedand the red blood pours in through the windows. Blood wells up on analtar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor and... a giantof blood stands before me. His beard and his hair drip blood. He seatshimself on the altar and laughs from thick lips. The black executionerraises his sword and whirls it above my head. Another moment and myhead will roll down on the floor. Another moment and the red jet willspurt from my neck.

  "Murderers! Murderers! None other than murderers!"

  I paused in the reading. "There's nothing here," I remarked, glancingover the curious document for a clue, but finding none.

  "Well," remarked Craig contemplatively, "one can at least easilyunderstand how sensitive and imaginative people who have fallen underthe influence of one who writes in that way can feel justified inkilling those responsible for bringing such horrors on the human race.Hello--what's this?"

  He had discovered a false back of one of the drawers in the desk andhad jimmied it open. On the top of innumerable papers lay a large linenenvelope. On its face it bore in typewriting, just like the card on thedrawer at Fortescue's, "E-M GUN."

  "It is the original envelope that contained the final plans of theelectro-magnetic gun," he explained, opening it.

  The envelope was empty. We looked at each other a moment in silence.What had been done with the plans?

  Suddenly a bell rang, startling me beyond measure. It was, however,only the telephone, of which an extension reached up into theattic-arsenal. Some one, who did not know that we were there, wasevidently calling up.

  Kennedy quickly unhooked the receiver with a hasty motion to me to besilent.

  "Hello," I heard him answer. "Yes, this is it."

  He had disguised his voice. I waited anxiously and watched his face togather what response he received.

  "The deuce!" he exclaimed, with his hand over the transmitter so thathis voice would not be heard at the other end of the line.

  "What's the matter?" I asked eagerly.

  "It was Mrs. Annenberg--I am sure. But she was too keen for me. Shecaught on. There must be some password or form of expression that theyuse, which we don't know, for she hung up the receiver almost as soonas she heard me."

  Kennedy waited a minute or so. Then he whistled into the transmitter.It was done apparently to see whether there was anyone listening. Butthere was no answer.

  "Operator, operator!" he called insistently, moving the hook up anddown. "Yes, operator. Can you tell me what number that was which justcalled?"

  He waited impatiently.

  "Bleecker--7l80," he repeated after the girl. "Thank you. Information,please."

  Again we waited, as Craig tried to trace the call up.

  "What is the street address of Bleecker, 7180?" he asked. "Five hundredand one East Fifth--a tenement. Thank you."

  "A tenement?" I repeated blankly.

  "Yes," he cried, now for the first time excited. "Don't you begin tosee the scheme? I'll wager that Baron Kreiger has been lured to NewYork to purchase the electro-magnetic gun which they have stolen fromFortescue and the British. That is the bait that is held out to him bythe woman. Call up Miss Lowe at the laboratory and see if she knows theplace."

  I gave central the number, while he fell to at the little secret drawerof the desk again. The grinding of the wheels of a passing trolleyinterfered somewhat with giving the number and I had to wait a moment.

  "Ah--Walter--here's the list!" almost shouted Kennedy, as he broke opena black-japanned dispatch box in the desk.

  I bent over it, as far as the slack of the telephone wire of thereceiver at my ear would permit. Annenberg had worked with amazing careand neatness on the list, even going so far as to draw at the top, inblack, a death's head. The rest of it was elaborately prepared inflaming red ink.

  Craig gasped to observe the list of world-famous men marked fordestruction in Lon
don, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg, andeven in New York and Washington.

  "What is the date set?" I asked, still with my ear glued to thereceiver.

  "To-night and to-morrow," he replied, stuffing the fateful sheet intohis pocket.

  Rummaging about in the drawer of the table, I had come to a package ofgold-tipped cigarettes which had interested me and I had left them out.Kennedy was now looking at them curiously.

  "What is to be the method, do you suppose?" I asked.

  "By a poison that is among the most powerful, approaching evencyanogen," he replied confidently, tapping the cigarettes. "Do yousmell the odor in this room? What is it like?"

  "Stale tobacco," I replied.

  "Exactly--nicotine. Two or three drops on the mouth-end of a cigar orcigarette. The intended victim thinks it is only natural. But it is thepurest form of the deadly alkaloid--fatal in a few minutes, too."

  He examined the thin little cigarettes more carefully. "Nicotine," hewent on, "was about the first alkaloid that was recovered from the bodyby chemical analysis in a homicide case. That is the penetrating,persistent odor you smelled at Fortescue's and also here. It's a verygood poison--if you are not particular about being discovered. A poundof ordinary smoking tobacco contains from a half to an ounce of it. Itis almost entirely consumed by combustion; otherwise a pipeful would befatal. Of course they may have thought that investigators would believethat their victims were inveterate smokers. But even the worst tobaccofiend wouldn't show traces of the weed to such an extent."

  Miss Lowe answered at last and Kennedy took the telephone.

  "What is at five hundred and one East Fifth?" he asked.

  "A headquarters of the Group in the city," she answered. "Why?"

  "Well, I believe that the plans of that gun are there and that theBaron--"

  "You damned spies!" came a voice from behind us.

  Kennedy dropped the receiver, turning quickly, his automatic gleamingin his hand.

  There was just a glimpse of a man with glittering bright blue eyes thathad an almost fiendish, baleful glare. An instant later the door whichhad so unexpectedly opened banged shut, we heard a key turn in thelock--and the man dropped to the floor before even Kennedy's automaticcould test its ability to penetrate wood on a chance at hittingsomething the other side of it.

  We were prisoners!

  My mind worked automatically. At this very moment, perhaps, BaronKreiger might be negotiating for the electro-magnetic gun. We had foundout where he was, in all probability, but we were powerless to helphim. I thought of Miss Lowe, and picked up the receiver which Kennedyhad dropped.

  She did not answer. The wire had been cut. We were isolated!

  Kennedy had jumped to the window. I followed to restrain him, fearingthat he had some mad scheme for climbing out. Instead, quickly heplaced a peculiar arrangement, from the little package he had brought,holding it to his eye as if sighting it, his right hand grasping ahandle as one holds a stereoscope. A moment later, as I examined itmore closely, I saw that instead of looking at anything he had beforehim a small parabolic mirror turned away from him.

  His finger pressed alternately on a button on the handle and I couldsee that there flashed in the little mirror a minute incandescent lampwhich seemed to have a special filament arrangement.

  The glaring sun was streaming in at the window and I wondered whatcould possibly be accomplished by the little light in competition withthe sun itself.

  "Signaling by electric light in the daytime may sound to youridiculous," explained Craig, still industriously flashing the light,"but this arrangement with Professor Donath's signal mirror makes itpossible, all right.

  "I hadn't expected this, but I thought I might want to communicate withBurke quickly. You see, I sight the lamp and then press the buttonwhich causes the light in the mirror to flash. It seems a paradox thata light like this can be seen from a distance of even five miles andyet be invisible to one for whom it was not intended, but it is so. Iuse the ordinary Morse code--two seconds for a dot, six for a dash witha four-second interval."

  "What message did you send?" I asked.

  "I told him that Baron Kreiger was at five hundred and one East Fifth,probably; to get the secret service office in New York by wire and havethem raid the place, then to come and rescue us. That was Annenberg. Hemust have come up by that trolley we heard passing just before."

  The minutes seemed ages as we waited for Burke to start the machineryof the raid and then come for us.

  "No--you can't have a cigarette--and if I had a pair of bracelets withme, I'd search you myself," we heard a welcome voice growl outside thedoor a few minutes later. "Look in that other pocket, Tom."

  The lock grated back and there stood Burke holding in a grip of steelthe undersized Annenberg, while the chauffeur who had driven our carswung open the door.

  "I'd have been up sooner," apologized Burke, giving the anarchist anextra twist just to let him know that he was at last in the hands ofthe law, "only I figured that this fellow couldn't have got far away inthis God-forsaken Ducktown and I might as well pick him up while I hada chance. That's a great little instrument of yours, Kennedy. I gotyou, fine."

  Annenberg, seeing we were now four to one, concluded that discretionwas the better part of valor and ceased to struggle, though now andthen I could see he glanced at Kennedy out of the corner of his eye. Toevery question he maintained a stolid silence.

  A few minutes later, with the arch anarchist safely pinioned betweenus, we were speeding back toward New York, laying plans for Burke todispatch warnings abroad to those whose names appeared on the fatallist, and at the same time to round up as many of the conspirators aspossible in America.

  As for Kennedy, his main interest now lay in Baron Kreiger and Paula.While she had been driven frantic by the outcome of the terrible pactinto which she had been drawn, some one, undoubtedly, had been tryingto sell Baron Kreiger the gun that had been stolen from the Americaninventor. Once they had his money and he had received the plans of thegun, a fatal cigarette would be smoked. Could we prevent it?

  On we tore back to the city, across the bridge and down through thecanyons of East Side streets.

  At last we pulled up before the tenement at five hundred and one. As wedid so, one of Burke's men jumped out of the doorway.

  "Are we in time?" shouted Burke.

  "It's an awful mix-up," returned the man. "I can't make anything out ofit, so I ordered 'em all held here till you came."

  We pushed past without a word of criticism of his wonderful acumen.

  On the top floor we came upon a young man, bending over the form of agirl who had fainted. On the floor of the middle of the room was a massof charred papers which had evidently burned a hole in the carpetbefore they had been stamped out. Near by was an unlighted cigarette,crushed flat on the floor.

  "How is she?" asked Kennedy anxiously of the young man, as he droppeddown on the other side of the girl.

  It was Paula. She had fainted, but was just now coming out of theborderland of unconsciousness.

  "Was I in time? Had he smoked it?" she moaned weakly, as there swambefore her eyes, evidently, a hazy vision of our faces.

  Kennedy turned to the young man.

  "Baron Kreiger, I presume?" he inquired.

  The young man nodded.

  "Burke of the Secret Service," introduced Craig, indicating our friend."My name is Kennedy. Tell what happened."

  "I had just concluded a transaction," returned Kreiger in good butcarefully guarded English. "Suddenly the door burst open. She seizedthese papers and dashed a cigarette out of my hands. The next instantshe had touched a match to them and had fallen in a faint almost in theblaze. Strangest experience I ever had in my life. Then all these otherfellows came bursting in--said they were Secret Service men, too."

  Kennedy had no time to reply, for a cry from Annenberg directed ourattention to the next room where on a couch lay a figure all huddled up.

  As we looked we saw it
was a woman, her head sweating profusely, andher hands cold and clammy. There was a strange twitching of the musclesof the face, the pupils of her eyes were widely dilated, her pulse weakand irregular. Evidently her circulation had failed so that itresponded only feebly to stimulants, for her respiration was slow andlabored, with loud inspiratory gasps.

  Annenberg had burst with superhuman strength from Burke's grasp and waskneeling by the side of his wife's deathbed.

  "It--was all Paula's fault--" gasped the woman. "I--knew I hadbetter--carry it through--like the Fortescue visit--alone."

  I felt a sense of reassurance at the words. At least my suspicions hadbeen unfounded. Paula was innocent of the murder of Fortescue.

  "Severe, acute nicotine poisoning," remarked Kennedy, as he rejoined usa moment later. "There is nothing we can do--now."

  Paula moved at the words, as though they had awakened a new energy inher. With a supreme effort she raised herself.

  "Then I--I failed?" she cried, catching sight of Kennedy.

  "No, Miss Lowe," he answered gently. "You won. The plans of theterrible gun are destroyed. The Baron is safe. Mrs. Annenberg hasherself smoked one of the fatal cigarettes intended for him."

  Kreiger looked at us, uncomprehending. Kennedy picked up the crushed,unlighted cigarette and laid it in the palm of his hand beside another,half smoked, which he had found beside Mrs. Annenberg.

  "They are deadly," he said simply to Kreiger. "A few drops of purenicotine hidden by that pretty gilt tip would have accomplished allthat the bitterest anarchist could desire."

  All at once Kreiger seemed to realize what he had escaped so narrowly.He turned toward Paula. The revulsion of her feelings at seeing himsafe was too much for her shattered nerves.

  With a faint little cry, she tottered.

  Before any of us could reach her, he had caught her in his arms andimprinted a warm kiss on the insensible lips.

  "Some water--quick!" he cried, still holding her close.