Two minutes later Barron, flushed and grinning widely, entered the room. He had the grace to look a little bit flustered by the magnitude of his reception. I felt a little better disposed towards him for it. He was followed by two plain-clothes men who were fighting back the crowd that had forced its way into the corridors. They got the door closed, and held it.
The portly bankers rushed for Barron en masse, with outstretched hands. What a scene of handshaking and back-thumping ensued. All were slightly hysterical. I hope they did not mean all they said. The gist of it was, that Barron might have anything in the world he expressed a wish for.
In the midst of it Barron caught sight of Mme. Storey, and his face changed. He came to her, quickly.
"What, Rose, you here?" he said in a tone of hypocritical solicitude. "I'm sorry."
"Why sorry?" she asked composedly.
"Well...this can't be very pleasant for you."
She smiled the same smile that I had seen in the street below. "I have a communication to make to these gentlemen," she said, "I wish you'd get them to listen to me."
"Tell me," he said, condescending and confidential.
"I said, 'to these gentlemen,'" said Mme. Storey. She took a step beyond Barron; all the bankers were staring at us. "Gentlemen," she said, "it was not poor Vallon who robbed your banks, and your customers."
They stared at her with fallen chops—then a babble arose: derisive laughter, scorn, some anger. "Ho! Ho!...Did you hear that!...Ridiculous! She's only trying to get into the spotlight!"
"What, gentlemen!" she cried in a voice strong with scorn. "That poor wretch to keep you all in terror! A hypochondriac, wasted by disease! Consider!"
The babble increased. A voice was heard to cry:
"Well, who did it then?"
"That's what I'm here to tell you," said Mme. Storey. "It's a long story. You'd better sit down."
"Sit down, gentlemen, sit down," said Mr. Fulton nervously. "We have retained Mme. Storey. We must at least hear what she has to say."
They dropped into chairs around the long directors' table. Crider and I remained in the background. Mme. Storey stood at Mr. Fulton's right. Unlike most men in a similar situation, she required the support of neither table or chair, but stood alone, a gallant figure. Unwilling admiration glinted sideways out of the eyes of the bankers. Barron also stood, on the other side of the table; his face a hard mask, his eyes fixed on my mistress's face like a preying animal's. He had the whole company with him, and he was not as yet seriously disturbed.
Mme. Storey said: "The man who robbed you, gentlemen, passes under the name of Abram Colter; his real name is Charles or "Finger" Gahagan. Does that suggest anything to you?"
Heads were shaken about the table. She had at least won their attention.
"Well, it is true, his operations were directed against your confrères in the West," said Mme. Storey. "Ten years ago he was famous west of Lake Erie. A bank robber, who was a sufficiently good chemist to manufacture his own explosives. Mark that. I secured his history from the archives of the New York police department, which also furnished me with these photographs." She passed two cards down the table. "He is now forty-seven years old, and looks ten years younger. A man of fine physique, you see. I may add that he is of a tireless activity, and daring to a degree. The first three descriptions of the smoke bandit corresponded roughly to such a man under different disguises. I have secured those disguises, gentlemen. That is your man."
"But the money," said an incredulous voice; "Barron found the money in Brooklyn, and returned it to us; almost every dollar."
"I'm coming to that," said Mme. Storey. "Let me establish Colter or Gahagan first. In the old days he always got away with the loot, and he always evaded the police. For fifteen years he kept them guessing. Then at last, seven years ago, they ran him down, and he was brought to trial for the robbery of the Manufacturers' Trust in Waukesha. They did not lack evidence against him; nevertheless, through the efforts of a clever Chicago lawyer, he escaped through technicalities. He has never been in prison."
Barron had kept his composure; his face was red as ever, but his lips were ashy. "Where is this man?" he demanded.
Mme. Storey glanced at her wrist watch. "In the Tombs," she said dryly. "Since quarter to twelve."
"When Gahagan was acquitted," Mme. Storey went on, "he disappeared from the ken of the police. As a matter of fact he came East; established himself on a poultry farm in New Jersey, where he lived very comfortably on his ill-gotten gains; and, so far as I know, kept within the law."
"Where does Vallon come in?" a voice asked.
"Patience, for a moment," said Mme. Storey. "Three months ago Finger Gahagan was tempted by a friend to engage in a new sort of crime; a dangerous crime that appealed to his daring; a crime that was not a crime, because the loot was afterwards to be returned. Whether it was Gahagan or the friend who suggested the smoke bombs, I can't say. Probably Gahagan; he was the chemist. Neither can I tell you which man picked up the unfortunate Vallon. I know that the plot was already under way when Vallon escaped from the Sanatorium, because it was November 25 when Finger's friend obtained a job for Finger in New York. The job afforded them a means of communication nobody would ever suspect."
When Mme. Storey got to this point the blood began to pound in my ears. I simply could not credit the staggering dénouement that I saw looming ahead.
"Fortunately for me," she went on, "they had sometimes to communicate by telephone also. It was through tracing the telephone calls that I was led to Finger's poultry farm."
Mme. Storey's hearers were frankly confused. "Where does Vallon come in?" the same voice idiotically repeated.
"Where does Vallon come in?" said Mme. Storey, indignation got a little the better of her; "That unhappy youth was kept a prisoner in Finger Gahagan's house up to last night."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I saw him there yesterday at noon. Locked in an upstairs room. My secretary saw him also."
"This must be looked into," said Barron.
"Who was Gahagan's friend?" cried several voices at once.
"The lawyer who got him off when he was tried," said Mme. Storey.
"Who was that?...Do you know his name?"
"Walter Barron."
Absolute silence fell on the room. The discomfited bankers stared at my mistress like puzzled sheep. The only thing to be heard was the murmur of the crowd in the streets. Hundreds had remained there, waiting to see Barron come out again. It lent a ghastly touch of irony to the situation. What a summit for a man to be dashed down from! He had brought it on himself, of course. I stole a look at him. The blow seemed to have robbed him of all sense. His mouth was open, his eyes staring vacantly before him.
He finally got out in a smothered voice: "It's a lie!"
Mme. Storey went on relentlessly: "The job you got for Finger Gahagan was that of waiter at the Shoe and Leather Club where you lunched every day alone—at Finger's table."
"I don't know him," murmured Barron.
Crider had the book Mme. Storey had brought. She held out her hand for it. Exhibiting it to the bankers, she said:
"This handsomely-bound volume is entitled: 'The New York City Government, 19—.' You know the sort of thing, gentlemen; a monument to vanity! Here is a handsome photo-engraving of each city official that year, with his biography facing it. Barron was an assistant district attorney. Here he is. I need not read you the entire biography, but only three lines:
"'Practised law in Chicago, 1907-1912; first attained prominence through his defence of the celebrated Charles or "Finger" Gahagan, accused of bank robbery. Gahagan was acquitted.'"
"But why should Barron put up a job like this?" somebody gasped.
Mme. Storey waved her hand in the direction of the murmuring crowd below. "For that," she said.
It was a sufficient answer.
"But I don't understand," wailed Mr. Fulton. "What about the cemetery vault, and the wretched young fel
low who was caught there, who killed himself?"
Mme. Storey was betrayed into a gesture of pain. "Until yesterday," she said in a moved voice, "I thought this was just going to be a sort of gigantic practical joke: you were to get your money back, Barron was to get his publicity, Gahagan had his excitement and was to get whatever reward was going; no great harm to anybody. I thought they meant to produce the poor mad youth as the criminal; that he would be returned to the sanatorium, and the matter done with. I never suspected that his death was contemplated, or I should have acted very differently—...Please listen to one of my operatives." She beckoned to Crider.
Mme. Storey sat down. Crider spoke from behind her. Barron was a ghastly sight; the mere shell of his former self.
"According to Madame Storey's instructions," Crider began, "I was to watch the house of Abram Colter on the outskirts of Cranford, New Jersey, throughout the night. I proceeded there in a car with another operative, timing myself to arrive about six, or shortly after it became dark. I stopped the car a quarter of a mile down the road in front of a house as if it belonged there. I left my partner inside, and proceeded on foot. The arrangement was, if I didn't return in three hours he was to come and relieve me.
"I concealed myself alongside a shed to the north of the house. From this point I commanded both the front and the back doors. Shortly before eight o'clock Colter came out of the back door, carrying a body in his arms, a slender man, no weight at all for Colter. At first I thought it was a stiff. Colter carried him down through the back-yard to the water's edge; it's the Rahway river there, a small stream.
"Colter had a canoe lying on the bank; one of these paddling canoes. He laid the man on the ground, while he put the canoe in the water. I had a chance to creep up and look close in the man's face. He was gagged; also handcuffed. It was Ralph Vallon. Colter laid him in the bottom of the canoe and pulled a canvas over him. He set off down-stream. There was a good bit of water on account of last week's thaw; swift current.
"I didn't have any boat, and it was out of the question to follow along the river shore. The nearest place I could get a boat was the town of Rahway, three miles or so south. Colter was headed that way. I figured if he was only going some short distance, I could pick him up again later, but if he was going to Rahway or beyond, I'd better be waiting there in a boat.
"I ran back to my car, and we beat it for Rahway. I knew I'd have about half an hour's start of him there, the river winds so. Tide-water begins at Rahway. All the boats lie in a sort of pool below the bridge. My partner and I hired a motor-boat with an engineer, and lay in it quiet. Pretty soon the canoe came under the bridge, and passing us, tied up to another motor-boat, further down-stream. There was a man waiting in that boat. They set off down the river, towing the canoe. We unhooked from our moorings, and drifted after, giving them a long start in the river.
"To make a long story short, we followed them out of the mouth of the Rahway river, through the Kill von Kull, around Staten Island. They showed lights, and we took a chance and ran without any. They cut across the upper bay, and turned into the Callopus canal basin. Here they loafed a little while without doing anything. I suppose they were too soon for their appointment.
"We couldn't follow them into the narrow canal without their spotting us, so I got out on a wharf, and followed the other boat as best I could on foot. On the right-hand side of the canal, the buildings came right to the water's edge, but on the left side there was a narrow road, the tow-path, I suppose. Coal-yards, lumber-yards, junk piles alongside. As dark and solitary a spot at night as you could find in all the five boroughs.
"The engine of the motor-boat was no more than just turning over. I could follow her by reason of her being painted white. A third of a mile or so from the basin there was a cemetery on the right-hand side—the side opposite to me. I know now that it is St. Aloysius'. The lights of the city cast a sort of faint glow on the high ground, but where I was it was pitchy. The motor-boat was just a grey streak on the oily canal.
"They came to a stop near the corner of the cemetery, beside a place where the wall had fallen. I was real anxious, because I couldn't see proper, or follow if they left the boat. The Fremont Street bridge was about three hundred yards up-stream, but I was afraid if I ran around that way I'd miss everything. So I just slipped into the water, and swam across—"
"In February!" somebody exclaimed.
"It isn't above seventy feet wide," Crider explained apologetically. "And I knew it was essential to Mme. Storey's plans, for me to get full information. I tied my overcoat at the back of my head to keep it dry as well as I could. I landed below the motor-boat, and making a little detour, skinned over the brick wall, and crept back inside it. A third man had joined the other two while I was swimming. They hadn't much to say to each other. It seemed as if everything was all arranged.
"One said: 'Is he conscious?' Another answered: 'Sure!' Then the first voice said: 'Don't start your engine right away, but scull down quietly until you're well away from here.'
"I was just inside the wall, you understand. A little bit of light was reflected through the break in the wall, enough for me to see a man come through, carefully picking his way over the fallen bricks; a heavy man wearing a Chesterfield overcoat and a soft hat turned down all around. He was carrying Vallon. Inside the wall there was a sort of road. He walked along that and I followed. Quite a ways; two hundred yards, maybe.
"He came to the vault. He went in a little way, but I could still see his back, I couldn't go up close, because of the light reflected from Fremont Street, which was pretty near to the vault. He was there a minute or so. I supposed that he took off the gag, because I heard a sort of groan from Vallon. I can't tell you exactly what happened, because I couldn't see. Barron backed out of the vault and I heard a shot inside. I saw him fire his pistol twice in the air. In no time at all two men came running from the direction of Fremont Street."
"You say it was Barron," asked a voice from the table. "Can you swear to that?"
"Yes, sir," said Crider. "When the two came, all three had their flashlights out, throwing them this way and that. And I saw the face of the big man in the Chesterfield overcoat. It was Barron. He's wearing the same coat now."
Again the silence of stupefaction fell upon us all.
"I want to say, gentlemen," added Crider, "that nothing that was said indicated that the two operatives were privy to his schemes. From the moment of the firing of the shots everything happened just as he said it did."
At the end of Crider's matter-of-fact story, Barron, who had held himself so stiffly throughout, suddenly collapsed. It was a shocking sight. He dropped into a chair, and his head fell forward on the table. A scene of great confusion followed. Mme. Storey and I and Crider got away as quickly as possible, leaving the bankers to deal with Barron. As a matter of fact, he, who had been cheered into the front door by a thousand throats, was taken out of a rear door handcuffed, and rushed to the Tombs.
That's the story. Nobody will ever know for sure if Barron fired the shot that killed young Vallon. Crider's testimony indicated that he did not. Why should he, when he knew that a pistol had only to be shoved into the unfortunate young man's hand for him to kill himself. But, though it was impossible to bring him to trial for murder, I don't think anybody ever felt that Barron was insufficiently punished. What a fall! He got fifteen years. He will never be heard of again, of course.
Finger Gahagan turned state's evidence, and got off with ten years. His story on the stand filled up the gaps in Mme. Storey's hypothesis. The original proposal for a series of fake robberies came from Barron. Finger invented the smoke bombs, and planned the details. Barron kept him supplied with full information respecting the measures taken by the banks. Finger picked up young Vallon by accident, wandering at night in a demented state over the New Jersey roads. He was just what they required. It was as if the devil had put him in the way of that precious pair.
Finger's price was to be whatever was offered a
s a reward, with a guarantee of twenty-five thousand. As a matter of fact the reward finally amounted to fifty thousand. Barron could well afford to let him have the whole of it, since he expected to be established for life at the head of his profession. All the details were cunningly thought out as you have seen. "Joseph Keating" and "Bessie Rogers" were two operatives of Barron's.
Mme. Storey never cared to talk much about the case, but once she said: "I knew Barron better than he suspected, but even I had not gauged the depths of his insane vanity. A simple man, you could generally tell in advance what he was going to do. As soon as he was engaged on the smoke-bandit case, he began to behave so differently in all ways from his usual self, that it made me thoughtful. Do you remember that I had tea one afternoon with Mr. Fulton's handsome secretary? I learned from him that it was really Barron who had instigated the bankers to employ me on the case, and it was then that the first little suspicion popped into my head; might not the whole thing be a plot of Barron's to establish himself at my expense?
"At first I laughed at my own thought; it seemed so perfectly preposterous. But one little thing after another strengthened my suspicions: Barron's pretended anxiety to help me, the obvious falsity of the evidence he turned over. Finally I went to work definitely on that theory, and it proved to be the correct one."
PART FOUR—IN THE ROUND ROOM
I
A tall gentleman of thirty-eight having still something of the boy about him. Nice eyes, but otherwise a little soft in the face. A man of quick, warm emotions one would say, but perhaps not much staying power. Dressed like an Englishman, which is to say in comfortable clothes of good material, not ironed and fitted to extinction. But notwithstanding the clothes, unmistakably a good American by his glance of slightly derisive good humour. Not at all a remarkable person, yet he brought a certain high assurance into my office, that I was at a loss to account for until he gave me his name: Norbert Starr. I looked at him with a quickened interest; it was his vast wealth, of course, which had given him that air of being set a little apart from his fellows. Everybody knows more about the Starrs than about their own best friends; all the brothers and sisters have so thoroughly and repeatedly aired their domestic difficulties in the courts. Norbert's case was not the least conspicuous among them.
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