American Sherlocks

by Nick Rennison

  There was a suggestion of grotesque unreality about it all. It was much as though I had been viewing the denouement of a play from the snug vantage point of an orchestra seat, waiting for the lights to flare up and the curtain to ring down. A shriek ran through my ears, jarring me back to the realization that I was not a spectator, but a part, of the play.

  A figure darted toward the window. It was John Dorrence, the valet.

  The next instant Inspector Taylor threw himself on the fleeing man’s shoulders, and the two went to the floor.

  ‘Can you manage him?’ Madelyn called.

  ‘Unless he prefers cold steel through his body to cold steel about his wrists,’ was the rejoinder.

  ‘I think you may dismiss the other servants, Senator,’ Madelyn said. ‘I wish, however, that the family would remain a few moments.’

  As the door closed again, she continued, ‘I promised you also, Senator, the return of your stolen property. I have the honour to make that promise good.’

  From her stand, which was rapidly assuming the proportions of a conjurer’s table, she produced a round, brown paper parcel.

  ‘Before I unwrap this, have I your permission to explain its contents?’

  ‘As you will, Miss Mack.’

  ‘Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the tragedy is the motive. It is this parcel which supplies us with the answer.

  ‘Your secretary, Mr Duffield, was an exceptional young man. Not only did he repeatedly resist bribery such as comes to few men, but he gave his life for his trust.

  ‘At any time since this parcel came into his possession, he could have sold it for a fortune. Because he refused to sell it he was murdered for it. Perhaps every reader of the newspapers is more or less familiar with Senator Duffield’s investigations of the ravages of a certain great Trust. A few days ago, the Senator came into possession of evidence against the combine of such a drastic nature that he realized it would mean nothing less than the annihilation of the monopoly, imprisonment for the chief officers, and a business sensation such as this country has seldom known.

  ‘Once the officers of the Trust knew of his evidence, however, they would be forearmed in such a manner that its value would be largely destroyed. The evidence was a remarkable piece of detective work. It consisted of a phonographic record of a secret directors’ meeting, laying bare the inmost depredations of the corporation.’

  Madelyn paused as the handcuffed valet showed signs of a renewed struggle. Inspector Taylor without comment calmly snapped a second pair of bracelets about his feet.

  ‘The Trust was shrewd enough to appreciate the value of a spy in the Duffield home. Dorrence was engaged for the post, and from what I have learned of his character, he filled it admirably. How he stumbled on Senator Duffield’s latest coup is immaterial. The main point is that he tried to bribe Mr Rennick so persistently to betray his post that the latter threatened to expose him. Partly in the fear that he would carry out his threat, and partly in the hope that he carried memoranda which might lead to the discovery of the evidence that he sought, Dorrence planned and carried out the murder.

  ‘In the secretary’s pocket he discovered the combination of the safe, and made use of it last night. I found the stolen phonograph record this morning behind the register of the furnace pipe in Dorrence’s room. I had already found that this was his cache, containing the dagger which killed Rennick, and the second of Cinderella’s slippers. The pair was stolen some days ago from the room of Miss Beth Duffield.’

  ****

  The swirl of the day was finally over. Dorrence had been led to his cell; the coroner’s jury had returned its verdict; and all that was mortal of Raymond Rennick had been laid in its last resting place. Madelyn and I had settled ourselves in the homeward bound Pullman as it rumbled out of the Boston station in the early dusk.

  ‘There are two questions I want to ask,’ I said reflectively.

  Madelyn looked up from her newspaper with a yawn.

  ‘Why did John Dorrence bring you back a blank sheet of paper when you despatched him on your errand?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, there was nothing else for him to bring back. Mr Taylor kept him at police headquarters long enough to give me time to carry my search through his room. The message was a blind.’

  ‘And what was the quarrel that the servant girl, Anna, heard in the Duffield library?’

  ‘It wasn’t a quarrel, my dear girl. It was the Senator preparing the speech with which he intended to launch his evidence against the Trust. The Senator is in the habit of dictating his speeches to a phonograph. Some of them I am afraid, are rather fiery.’

  JIGGER MASTERS

  Created by Anthony M Rud (1893-1942)

  Born in Chicago, the son of two doctors, Anthony M Rud studied at medical college himself as a young man but soon turned to writing. He became one of the many prolific, versatile authors who wrote chiefly for the pulp magazines. He produced dozens and dozens of stories in a variety of genres. He also worked as editor of Detective Story Magazine and Adventure. Probably his best remembered tales fall into the broad categories of horror or science fiction (‘Ooze’, reprinted many times, appeared in the first issue of the legendary Weird Tales) but he wrote plenty of detective fiction. The adventures of his crime fighter Jigger Masters were published in 1918 in The Green Book Magazine with enticing titles such as ‘The Vengeance of the Wah Fu Tong’ and ‘The Giant Footprints’. According to The Green Book, ‘Not since Sherlock Holmes has any fiction detective done such interesting things as our friend Masters’. This is exaggeration and hype, of course, but perhaps forgivable. In truth, the Jigger Masters stories, narrated by his Watson, the artist Bert Hoffman, are fairly standard issue crime fiction of the time but they remain good fun to read and their red-blooded, patriotic hero is a likeable character.

  THE AFFAIR AT STEFFEN SHOALS

  The bell rang insistently. Knowing that Central would have me fully awake in five minutes anyway, I rose and yanked down the receiver, prepared to bite the head off the individual who had nerve enough to rout me out at three in the morning.

  ‘Bert?’ The quick question forestalled the savage growl I was summoning as I leaned over the transmitter. I straightened instantly from my belligerent slouch, for it was the one voice in the world I most wanted to hear.

  ‘Jigger!’ I exclaimed, as wide awake suddenly as if it had been noon. ‘Where are you? Where have you been? I’d given you up for dead two months ago!’ This was literally the truth, for Masters had been out of town nearly four months, and because I knew his sledge-hammer methods in dealing with his quarries and the risks he delighted in taking, I had pictured him lying somewhere in the mud of the East River, or hacked to pieces by some of the alien criminals he sought.

  ‘Not yet, Hoffman!’ he chuckled. ‘Can’t answer your questions over the wire, though. Are you very busy?’

  ‘Lord no!’ If I had been painting the Queen of England at the moment, I would have answered in the same way. As it was, I had two portrait appointments for the following week, but I knew these could be postponed.

  ‘Same old Bert!’ he laughed. ‘Well, meet me at the 5:32 Grand Central.’

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, and bring your golf sticks, if you can find them. We may be able to get in eighteen holes. I’m anxious for a game.’

  ‘All right.’ I knew that Masters was chaffing, for he scarcely knew a driver from a sammy iron, but behind the lightest of his jests there lay always a serious side. ‘Any – other weapons?’ I asked, thinking of the two automatics that had lain unused in my bureau drawer for so long.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘That’s always understood.’ As he dropped the receiver. I sprang to my feet, thrilling with delight at the prospect of action. I needed it badly, for my work had fallen off in quality of late. The impetus and inspiration of an adventure with Masters was just wh
at I wanted.

  ****

  I gathered a few pieces of clean linen, in case I should be away longer than the day, and crammed them into my leather bag. I started to put the automatics on top, but changed my mind. Masters’s affairs often developed with such startling suddenness that it was unwise not to be fully prepared. I placed one in the pocket of my jacket and the other on my right hip. My breakfast was a hurried affair, not because there was any particular reason for rush but because I was burning with impatience. As a result I got to Grand Central nearly a half-hour early.

  I was lighting my second panatella when I spied Masters. He was approaching briskly from the subway stairs, dressed as I had never seen him before. His angular frame was revealed more than usual by a back-fitted tweed coat, and the material advertised by garish checks the fact that the new American dyes were not yet complete successes. The soft collar of his shirt, though pinned together carefully over the tie, left his bony neck unprotected. Always previously he had worn the highest linen procurable. Completely engulfing his mat of black hair was a checked cap, pulled down too far toward his ears. I thought he seemed a little paler and thinner than on the last occasion I had accompanied him – the time we chased the family ghost for Lew Macey.

  ‘Jigger!’ I cried, seizing his hand warmly. He did not speak for a second, but I saw the curious expression creep into his blue eyes that was his nearest approach to sentiment.

  ‘I’m glad to see you, old man!’ he answered, a moment later, crushing my fingers. ‘Thought I never was going to get back to New York.’

  ‘So did I! Well, what’s the assignment that gets us up before the roosters this morning?’

  And this was all the spoken greeting between us. I think that it would have been the same had Masters been away for ten years instead of a few months; each of us knew exactly what the other thought and felt, yet both were unable to phrase our genuine gladness.

  Masters purchased our tickets, signifying by a gesture that he would tell me the story as soon as possible. When he came back, we made for the smoker, and took the seat farthest forward. The train had just been made up, so we were the first in the car.

  ‘It has been a tangled skein, Bert,’ began Masters, when we had arranged our baggage, ‘the hardest case to get at I’ve ever tackled. I have one end of the thread in hand now, and because I know how you delight in being on hand at the finish, I’ve asked you out with me.

  ‘Over fourteen weeks ago I was called to Washington. I couldn’t tell you, for I was asked to keep my own counsel strictly. It seems that for some months they have been cognizant of certain information leaks. News reached the Germans before our own troops in France knew it.’

  ‘You mean that there were spies in our own departments?’

  ‘Yes, were and are!’ he nodded emphatically. ‘That’s nothing unusual, of course. Every nation has to contend with that problem. The feature about it that caused me to be called in was that such a quick and comprehensive chain for the revealing of ordnance and construction secrets had been established that the Germans actually were using our newest war weapons against us about as quickly as we could bring them into play ourselves.

  ‘One of the most striking examples of this was the chloropicrin-phosgene gas mine. This was an American invention, but the Germans knew all about it and brought it up on the Toul front only ten days after we used it first. Since it takes at least a month to make one of these terrible agents of destruction, you can see readily how soon the Germans must have heard of it.’

  ‘I should think we would begin to investigate!’ I replied. ‘What was this gas-mine apparatus?’

  ‘A huge tank-bomb arrangement for use underground,’ replied Masters. ‘I won’t trouble you with a description of it except to say that it was placed in territory about to be evacuated. When the enemy occupied the position it was exploded. First it gave off terrific clouds of chloropicrin gas: this is an agent that makes every soldier sicker than he was his first trip on the ocean. Naturally every man takes off his gas mask when he gets sick – chloropicrin gets through the mask – and that leaves him an easy mark for the phosgene. The latter gas comes from the mine five minutes after the chloropicrin. Since the inhalation of a microscopic quantity of phosgene is immediately fatal, taking off the masks at this time allows the phosgene to get in its deadly work. Most of the victims of chloropicrin are too sick to care, anyway.’

  I shuddered. ‘Ghastly thing, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ Masters shrugged his shoulders. ‘They have found, though, that the only way to fight the Huns successfully is to beat them to it. Because the Germans are learning our secrets as fast as we can invent new machines and methods, though, is exactly the reason you and I are here.’

  ‘Where are we bound for this morning?’

  ‘Jaques Corners, Rhode Island,’ answered Masters promptly.

  ‘Sounds rural,’ I commented. ‘What are we going to find there?’ I noticed that our train had started.

  ‘Well, I am told that the Weekapang Country Club near there has an excellent golf course.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be tight!’ I exclaimed. ‘What are we after? Where are these outlandish places?’

  Masters smiled. ‘You can find Weekapang on the map, down in the southernmost corner of Rhode Island. The golf course –’

  ‘Oh, hang that! What about Jakeville, or whatever you called it? Jaques Corners, wasn’t it?’

  Masters’s expression became serious. ‘That is a war town, put up entirely by the government for the construction of war machines and munitions. I have traced my skein that far, and I have a hint of the next coil of the strand. I think they call the town by that hick name just to avoid suspicion. I have three men in high positions in our war organization who are going to face a firing squad before another month has passed. It is only because I do not care to let the method go undiscovered that I have not had them court-martialled already. They have confederates and some method of conveying news to Germany that is novel, to say the least. In all the time I have watched them not one of the crowd has sent a wireless message, mailed a letter or engaged in intimate conversation with any people outside their own homes. And I have made certain that members of the family have not carried the messages on.’

  ‘Then why do you suspect them? They sound blameless.’

  ‘Yes, entirely too much so!’ Masters’s tone was savage. ‘An innocent man posts a letter now and then. He also gets chummy with other men. These men don’t. Besides – and I’ll admit that this feature occurred to me after I had them nailed down – I have evidence to prove that the specifications of the chloropicrin-phosgene mine passed through these particular hands, not to mention other documents that Hindenburg would pay millions to possess. The last snarl in the thread I am following is a Mr Mesnil Phillips, a government inspector of ordnance. I am convinced that through him the news reaches the Germans, though how he does it I cannot pretend to say just yet.

  ‘The manner in which I have pinned down these men has not been spectacular in the least. Only five persons saw the specifications of the gas mine before it was taken to the ordnance factory at Jaques Corners. One of these was the President. Another was the Secretary of War.’

  ‘That leaves three possible suspects.’ I commented.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Masters in a solemn voice, ‘and it is a dreadful thing to know that individuals even in these lesser positions of trust can prove traitors.’

  I moved uneasily. ‘But are you certain?’ I asked. ‘It seems to me that there ought to be plenty of chance for some mechanic or foreman or someone like that out at the manufacturing plant to send on the news.’

  Masters shook his head. ‘No, it’s not possible. On the twelfth of November, 1917, the plans of this mine were submitted by one of our greatest military inventors.

  ‘He had worked alone on the project, and is a man who appreciates thoroughly the fac
t that secrecy is a prime factor in the success of any new machine. On the twenty-seventh of November the approved plans were placed in a time-lock safe at the factory. On the fourth of January of this year the first of the mines arrived at our front in France. On the evening of the thirteenth of January the Germans exploded an identical mine near St Mihiel. Making every allowance for the transmission of the plans, the lesser time required for transporting from Essen or Brandenburg, the finger points unerringly at the fifteen-day period elapsing before the plans reached the factory.’

  ‘Sounds a little shaky!’ I remarked dubiously.

  ‘In one case, yes,’ returned Masters. ‘I have followed through the gas mine with you because I mentioned it first. The infrangible part of the reasoning rests in the law of averages, however. I have established the same chain in no less than four other important instances. Even at that I never would dare to prefer charges of this sort without having every loophole covered. In the past three months I have directed a body of sixty picked secret-service agents. These have made it their business to know every movement during every second of waking time of all of the individuals who even might have obtained access to the plans at any time, but with negative results. I have data in hand to show what all of these have done every day – with one exception. That exception is Mr Mesnil Phillips, one of the original three, and concerns his recreation periods.’

  ‘Golf, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ Masters’s face was drawn and serious. ‘I know that it is possible for me to make mistakes, Bert, but I have given this case the very best I have, and without hurry. I have eliminated all the factors but one. That one must materialize!’ The long fingers of his right hand clenched with unconscious emphasis.

  ‘Have you baited any trap?’ I asked.

  He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. That is what makes success just at this time absolutely necessary. A certain construction secret is going through now that a thousand men in Washington would give their lives to prevent the Germans from receiving. Because I have given my solemn promise of its protection, I have prevailed on the Secretary of War to send it by the usual channels!’ He regarded me quietly. ‘It’s up to us, Bert,’ he said in a strained tone.