Chapter XIII
THE INCENDIARY
"The Warrington estate owns another large apartment house, besides theone where Warrington has his quarters, on the next street," remarkedGarrick, half an hour later, after we had met the boy from his office."I have arranged that we can get in there and use one of the emptysuites."
Garrick had secured two rather good-sized boxes from the boy, and wascarrying them rather carefully, as if they contained some very delicatemechanism.
Warrington, we found, occupied a suite in a large apartment onSeventy-second Street, and, as we entered, Garrick stopped andwhispered a few words to the hall-boy.
The boy seemed to be more than usually intelligent and had evidentlybeen told over the telephone by Warrington that we were coming. Atleast we had no trouble, so far.
Warrington's suite was very tastefully furnished for bachelor quarters.In the apartment, Garrick unwrapped one of the packages, and laid itopen on the table, while he busied himself opening the safe, using thecombination that Warrington had given him.
I waited nervously, for we could not be sure that no one had got aheadof us, already. There was no need for anxiety, however.
"Here's the letter, just as Warrington left it," reported Garrick in afew minutes, with some satisfaction, as he banged the safe door shutand restored things so that it would not look as though the littlestrong box had been touched.
Meanwhile, I had been looking curiously at the box on the table. It didnot seem to be like anything we had ever used before. One end was open,and the lid lifted up on a pair of hinges. I lifted it and looked in.About half way down the box from the open end was a partition whichlooked almost as if some one had taken the end of the box and had justshoved it in, until it reached the middle.
The open half was empty, but in the other half I saw a sort of plate ofsome substance covering the outside of the shoved-in end. There wasalso a dry cell and several arrangements for adjustments which I didnot understand. Back of the whole thing was a piece of mechanism, aclockwork interrupter, as I learned later. Wires led out from theclosed end of the box.
Garrick shoved the precious letter into his pocket and then placed thebox in a corner, where it was hidden by a pile of books, with the openend facing the room in the direction of the antiquated safe. The wiresfrom the box were quickly disposed of and dropped out of the window tothe yard, several stories below, where we could pick them up later aswe had done with the detectaphone.
"What's that?" I asked curiously, when at last he had finished and Ifelt at liberty to question him.
"Well, you see," he explained, "there is no way of knowing yet just howthe apartment will be entered. They apparently have some way, though,which they wouldn't discuss over the telephone. But it is certain thatas long as they know that there is anyone up here, they will put offthe attempt. They said that."
He was busily engaged restoring everything in the room as far aspossible to its former position.
"My scheme," he went on, "is for us now to leave the apartmentostentatiously. I think that is calculated to insure the burglary, forthey must have someone watching by this time. Then we can get back tothat empty apartment in the house on the next street, and before theycan get around to start anything, we shall be prepared for them."
Garrick stopped to speak to the hall-boy again as we left, carrying theother box. What he said I did not hear but the boy nodded intelligently.
After a turn down the street, a ride in a surface car for a few blocksand back again, he was satisfied that no one was following us and wemade our way into the vacant apartment on Seventy-third Street, withoutbeing observed.
Picking up the wires from the back yard of Warrington's and runningthem across the back fence where he attached them to other wiresdropped down from the vacant apartment was accomplished easily, but itall took time, and time was precious, just now.
In the darkness of the vacant room he uncovered and adjusted the otherbox, connected one set of wires to those we had led in and another setto an apparatus which looked precisely like the receiver of a wirelesstelegraph, fitting over the head with an earpiece. He placed theearpiece in position and began regulating the mechanism of the queerlooking box.
"I didn't want to use the detectaphone again," he explained as heworked, "because we haven't any assurance that they'll talk, or, ifthey do, that it will be worth while to listen. Besides, there may beonly one of them."
"Then what is this?" I asked.
"Well," he argued, "they certainly can't work without light of somekind, can they?"
I acquiesced.
"This is an instrument which literally makes light audible," he pursued.
"Hear light?" I repeated, in amazement.
"Exactly," he reiterated. "You've said it. It was invented to assistthe blind, but I think I'll be able to show that it can be used toassist justice--which is blind sometimes, they say. It is theoptophone."
He paused to adjust the thing more accurately and I looked at it withan added respect.
"It was invented," he resumed, "by Professor Fournier d'Albe, alecturer on physics at the University of Birmingham, England, and hasbeen shown before many learned societies over there."
"You mean it enables the blind to see by hearing?" I asked.
"That's it," he nodded. "It actually enables the blind to locate manythings, purely by the light reflected by them. Its action is based onthe peculiar property of selenium, which, you probably know, changesits electrical conductivity under the influence of light. Selenium inthe dark is a poor conductor of electricity; in the light it, strangeto say, becomes a good conductor. Variations of light can thus betransmuted into variations of sound. That pushed-in end of the boxwhich we hid over in Warrington's had, as you might have noticed, aselenium plate on the inside partition, facing the open end of the box."
"I understand," I agreed, vaguely.
"Now," he went on, "this property of selenium is used for producing orrather allowing to be transmitted an electric current which isinterrupted by a special clockwork interrupter, and so is made audiblein this wireless telephone receiver which I have here connected withthis second box. The eye is replaced by the ear as the detector oflight--that is all."
It might have been all, but it was quite wonderful to me, even if hespoke of it so simply. He continued to adjust the thing as he talked.
"The clockwork has been wound up by means of a small handle, and I havemoved that rod along a slit until I heard a purring sound. Then I movedit until the purring sound became as faint as possible. The instrumentis at the present moment in its most sensitive state."
"What does it sound like?" I asked.
"Well, the passage of a hand or other object across the aperture isindicated by a sort of murmuring sound," he replied, "the loudest soundindicating the passage of the edges where the contrast is greatest. Ina fairly bright light, even the swiftest shadow is discoverable.Prolonged exposure, however, blinds the optophone, just as it blindsthe eye."
"Do you hear anything now?" I asked watching his face curiously.
"No. When I turned the current on at first I heard a ticking or raspingsound. I silenced that. But any change in the amount of light in thatdark room over there would restore the sound, and its intensity wouldindicate the power of the light."
He continued to listen.
"When I first tried this, I found that a glimpse out of the window indaylight sounded like a cinematograph reeling off a film. The tickingsank almost into silence as the receiving apparatus was held in theshadow of the office table, and leaped into a lively rattle again whenI brought it near an electric-light bulb. I blindfolded myself andmoved a piece of blotting paper between the receiver and the light. Icould actually hear the grating of the shadow, yes, I heard the shadowpass. At night, too, I have found that it is even affected by the lightof the stars."
He glanced out of the window in the direction of Warrington's, which wecould not see, however, since it was around an angle of the building.
/> "See," he went on, "the moon is rising, and in a few minutes, Icalculate, it will shine right into that room over there onSeventy-second Street. By using this optophone, I could tell you themoment it does. Try the thing, yourself, Tom."
I did so. Though my ear was untrained to distinguish between sounds Icould hear just the faintest noise.
Suddenly there came a weird racket. Hastily I looked up at Garrick insurprise.
"What is that?" I asked endeavouring to describe it. "Are they therenow?"
"No," he laughed. "That was the moon shining in. I wanted you to hearwhat a difference it makes. When a ray of the sun, for instance,strikes that 'feeler' over there, a harmonious and majestic sound likethe echo of a huge orchestra is heard. The light of the moon, on theother hand, produces a different sound--lamenting, almost like thegroans of the wounded on a battlefield."
"So you can distinguish between various kinds of light?"
"Yes. Electric light, you would find if anyone came in and switched iton over there, produces a most unpleasant sound, sometimes like twopieces of glass rubbed against each other, sometimes like the titteringlaugh of ghosts, and I have heard it like the piercing cry of ananimal. Gaslight is sobbing and whispering, grating and ticking,according to its intensity. By far the most melodious and pleasingsound is produced by an ordinary wax candle. It sounds just like anaeolian harp on which the chords of a solemn tune are struck. I haveeven tried a glow-worm and it sounded like a bee buzzing. The lightfrom a red-hot piece of iron gives the shrillest and most ear-splittingcry imaginable."
He took the receiver back from me and adjusted it to his own ear.
"Yes," he confirmed, "that was the moon, as I thought. It's a peculiarsound. Once you have heard it you're not likely to forget it. I mustsilence the machine to that."
We had waited patiently for a long time, and still there was noevidence that anyone had entered the room.
"I'm afraid they decided not to attempt it after all," I said, finally.
"I don't think so," replied Garrick. "I took particular pains to makeit seem that the road was clear. You remember, I spoke to the hall-boytwice, and we lingered about long enough when we left. It isn't muchafter midnight. I wonder how it was that they expected to get in.Ah--there goes the moon. I can hear it getting fainter all the time."
Suddenly Garrick's face was all animation. "What is it?" I askedbreathlessly.
"Someone has entered the room. There is a light which sounds just likean electric flashlight which is being moved about. They haven'tswitched on the electric light. Now, if I were sufficiently expert Ithink I could tell by the varying sounds at just what that fellow isflashing the light. There, something passed directly between the lightand the box. Yes, there must be two of them--that was the shadow of ahuman being, all right. They are over in the corner by the safe, now.The fellow with the flashlight is bending down. I can tell, because theother fellow walked between the light and the box and the light must beheld very low, for I heard the shadows of both of his legs."
Garrick was apparently waiting only until the intruders, whoever theywere, were busily engaged in their search before he gave the alarm andhurried over in an attempt to head off their escape by their secretmeans of entrance.
"Tom," he cried, as he listened attentively, "call up the apartmentover there and get that hall-boy. Tell him he must not run thatelevator up until we get there. No one must leave or enter thebuilding. Tell him to lock the front door and conceal himself in thedoor that leads down to the cellar. I will ring the night bell fivetimes to let him know when to let us in."
I was telephoning excitedly Garrick's instructions and as he waited forme to finish he was taking a last turn at the optophone before we madeour dash on Warrington's.
A suppressed exclamation escaped him. I turned toward him quickly fromthe telephone and hung up the receiver.
"What's the matter?" I asked anxiously.
For a moment he did not reply, but seemed to be listening with anintensity that I knew betokened something unexpected.
"Tom," he cried abruptly, stripping the receiver from his head with ajerk and clapping it over my own ears, "quick!--tell me what you hear.What does it sound like to you? What is it? I can't be mistaken."
I listened feverishly. Not having had a former acquaintance with themachine, I did not know just what to make of it. But from the receiverof the little optophone there seemed to issue the most peculiar noise Ihad ever heard a mechanical instrument make.
It was like a hoarse rumbling cry, now soft and almost plaintive, againlouder and like a shriek of a damned soul in the fires of the netherworld. Then it died down, only to spring up again, worse than before.
If I had been listening to real sounds instead of to light I shouldhave been convinced that the thing was recording a murder.
I described it as best I could. The fact was that the thing almostfrightened me by its weird novelty.
"Yes--yes," agreed Garrick, as the sensations I experienced seemed tocoincide with his own. "Exactly what I heard myself. I felt sure that Icould not be mistaken. Quick, Tom,--get central on that wire!"
A moment later he seized the telephone from me. I had expected him tosummon the police to assist us in capturing two crooks who had,perhaps, devised some odd and scientific method of blowing up a safe.
"Hello, hello!" he shouted frantically over the wire. "The firedepartment! This is eight hundred Seventy-second--on the corner; yes,yes--northeast. I want to turn in an alarm. Yes--quick! There is afire--a bad one--incendiary--top floor. No, no--I'm not there. I cansee it. Hurry!"
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