XXIV
THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN
Sunday morning came and with it the huge batch of papers which wealways took. I looked at them eagerly, though Kennedy did not seem toevince much interest, to see whether the Carton photographs had beenused. There were none.
Kennedy employed the time in directing some work of his own and haddisappeared, I knew not where, though I surmised it was on one of hisperiodic excursions into the underworld in which he often knockedabout, collecting all sorts of valuable and interesting bits ofinformation to fit together in the mosaic of a case.
Monday came, also, the last day before the election, with its lull inthe heart-breaking activities of the campaign. There were still nopictures published, but Kennedy was working in the laboratory over apeculiar piece of apparatus.
"I've been helping out my own shadows," was all the explanation hevouchsafed of his disappearances, as he continued to work.
"Watching Mrs. Ogleby?" I hinted.
"No, I didn't interfere any more with Miss Kendall. This was someoneelse--in another part of the city."
He said it with an air that seemed to imply that I would learn allabout it shortly and I did not pursue the subject.
Meanwhile, he was arranging something on the top of a large, flattable. It seemed to be an instrument in two parts, composed of manylevers and discs and magnets, each part with a roll of paper about fiveinches wide.
On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords attached at rightangles to each other near the point. On the other was a capillary glasstube at the junction of two aluminum arms, also at right angles to eachother.
It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his laboratoryagain, and I watched him curiously. Two sets of wires were attached toeach of the instruments, and they led out of the window to some otherwires which had been strung by telephone linemen only a few hoursbefore.
Craig had scarcely completed his preparations when Carton arrived.Things were going all right in the campaign again, I knew, at least asfar as appeared on the surface. But his face showed that Carton wasclearly dissatisfied with what Craig had apparently accomplished, for,as yet, he had not told Carton about his discovery after studying thephotographs, and matters between Carton and Margaret Ashton stood inthe same strained condition that they had when last we saw her.
I must say that I, too, was keenly disappointed by the lack ofdevelopments in this phase of the case. Aside from the fact that thephotographs had not actually been published, the whole thing seemed tome to be a mess. What had Craig said to Dorgan? Above all, what was hisgame? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings merely by allowingthe election to go on without a scandal to Carton? I knew the result ofthe election was now the least of Carton's worries.
Carton did not say much, but he showed that he thought it high time forKennedy to do something.
We were seated about the flat table, wondering when Kennedy would breakhis silence, when suddenly, as if by a spirit hand, the stylus beforeus began to move across one of the rolls of paper.
We watched it uncomprehendingly.
At last I saw that it was actually writing the words. "How is itworking?"
Quickly Craig seized the stylus on the lower part of the instrument andwrote in his characteristic scrawl, "All right, go ahead."
"What is the thing?" asked Carton, momentarily forgetting his ownworries at the new marvel before us.
"An instrument that was invented many years ago, but has only recentlybeen perfected for practical, every-day use, the telautograph, thelong-distance writer," replied Kennedy, as we waited. "You see, withwhat amounts to an ordinary pencil I have written on the paper of thetransmitter. The silk cord attached to the pencil regulates the currentwhich controls another capillary glass tube-pen at the other end of theline. The receiving pen moves simultaneously with my stylus. It is thesame principle as the pantagraph, cut in half as it were, one halfhere, the other half at the other end of the line, two telephone wiresin this case connecting the halves. Ah,--that's it. The pencil of thereceiving instrument is writing again. Just a moment. Let us see whatit is."
I almost gasped in astonishment at the words that I saw. I lookedagain, for I could not believe my eyes. Still, there it was. My firstglance had been correct, impossible as it was.
"I, Patrick Murtha," wrote the pen.
"What is it?" asked Carton, awestruck. "A dead hand?"
"Stop a minute," wrote Kennedy hastily.
We bent over him closely. Craig had drawn from a packet severalletters, which he had evidently secured in some way from the effects ofMurtha. Carefully, minutely, he compared the words before us with thesignatures at the bottom of the letters.
"It is genuine!" he cried excitedly.
"Genuine!" Carton and I echoed.
What did he mean? Was this some kind of spiritism? Had Kennedy turnedmedium and sought a message from the other world to solve theinexplicable problems of this? It was weird, uncanny, unthinkable. Weturned to him blankly for an explanation of the mystery.
"That wasn't Murtha at all whose body we saw at the Morgue," he hurriedto explain. "That was all a frame-up. I thought as soon as I saw itthat there was something queer."
I recalled now the peculiar look on his face which I had interpreted asindicating that he thought Murtha had been the victim of foul play.
"And the other night, when we were in Carton's office and someonecalled up threatening you, Carton, and Dopey Jack, I saw at once thatthe voice was concealed. Yet there was something about it that wasfamiliar, though I couldn't quite place it. I had heard that voicebefore, perhaps while we were getting the records to discover the'wolf.' It occurred to me that if I had a record of it I might identifyit by comparing it with those we had already taken. I got the record. Istudied it. I compared it with what I already had, line, and wave, andovertone. You can imagine how I felt when I found there was only onevoice with which it corresponded, and that man was supposed to be dead.Something more than intuition as I looked at the body that night hadroused my suspicions. Now they were confirmed. Fancy how thatinformation must have burned in my mind, during these days while I knewthat Murtha was alive, but could say nothing!"
Neither Carton nor I could say a word as we thought of this voice fromthe dead, as it almost seemed.
"I hadn't found him," continued Craig, "but I knew he had used a paystation on the West Side. I began shadowing everyone who might havehelped him, Dorgan, Kahn, Langhorne, all. I didn't find him. They weretoo clever. He was hiding somewhere in the city, a changed personality,waiting for the thing to blow over. He knew that of all places a cityis the best to hide in, and of all cities New York is safest.
"But, though I didn't actually find his hiding place, I had enough onsome of his friends so that I could get word to him that his secret wasknown to me, at least. I made him an offer of safety. He need not comeout of his hiding place and I would agree to let him go where and whenhe pleased without further pursuit from me, if he would let me installa telautograph in a neutral place which he could select and the otherend in this laboratory. I myself do not know where the other place is.Only a mechanic sworn to secrecy knows and neither Murtha nor myselfknow him. If Murtha comes across, I have given my word of honour thatbefore the world he shall remain a dead man, free to go where hepleases and enjoy such of his fortune as he was able to fix so that hecould carry it with him into his new life."
Carton and I were entranced by the romance of the thing.
Murtha was alive!
The commitment to the asylum, the escape, the search, the finding of asubstitute body, mutilated beyond ordinary recognition, the mysterioustransfers, and finally the identification in the Morgue--all had beenpart of an elaborately staged play!
We saw it all, now. Carton had got too close to him in the convictionof Dopey Jack and the proceedings against Kahn. He had seen thehandwriting on the wall for himself. In Carton's gradual climbing, stepby step, for the man higher up, he would have been the next to go.
; Murtha had decided that it was time to get out, to save himself.
Suddenly, I saw another aspect of it. By dropping out as though dead,he destroyed a link in the chain that would reach Dorgan. There was noway of repairing that link if he were dead. It was missing and missingfor good.
Dorgan had known it. Had it been a hint as to that which had finallyclinched whatever it was that Kennedy had whispered to the Silent Bossthat morning when we had seen him in his office?
All these thoughts and more flashed through my head with lightning-likerapidity.
The telautograph was writing again, obedient to Kennedy's signal thathe was satisfied with the signature.
"... in consideration of Craig Kennedy's agreement to destroy even thisrecord, agree to give him such information as he has asked for, afterwhich no further demands are to be made and the facts as alreadypublicly recorded are to stand."
"Just witness it," asked Kennedy of us. "It is a gentleman's agreementamong us all."
Nervously we set our names to the thing, only too eager to keep thesecret if we could further the case on which we had been almostliterally sweating blood so long.
Prepared though we were for some startling disclosures, it was,nevertheless, with a feeling almost of faintness that we saw the stylusabove moving again.
"The Black Book, as you call it," it wrote, "has been sent by messengerto be deposited in escrow with the Gotham Trust Company to bedelivered, Tuesday, the third of November, on the written order ofCraig Kennedy and John Carton. An officer of the trust company willnotify you of its receipt immediately, which will close the entiretransaction as far as I am concerned."
Kennedy could not wait. He had already seized his own telephone and wascalling a number.
"They have it," he announced a moment later, scrawling the informationon the transmitter of the telautograph.
A moment it was still, then it wrote again.
"Good-bye and good luck," it traced. "Murtha!"
The Smiling Boss could not resist his little joke at the end, even now.
"Can--we--get it?" asked Carton, almost stunned at the unexpected turnof events.
"No," cautioned Kennedy, "not yet. To-morrow. I made the same promiseto Murtha that I made to Dorgan, when I went to him with Walter,although Walter did not hear it. This is to be a fair fight, for theelection, now."
"Then," said Carton earnestly, "I may as well tell you that I shall notsleep to-night. I can't, even if I can use the book only after electionin the clean-up of the city!"
Kennedy laughed.
"Perhaps I can entertain you with some other things," he saidgleefully, adding, "About those photographs."
Carton was as good as his word. He did not sleep, and the greater partof the night we spent in telling him about what Craig had discovered byhis scientific analysis of the faked pictures.
At last morning came. Though Kennedy and I had slept soundly in ourapartment, Carton had in reality only dozed in a chair, after we closedthe laboratory.
Slowly the hours slipped away until the trust company opened.
We were the first to be admitted, with our order ready signed andpersonally delivered.
As the officer handed over the package, Craig tore the wrapper offeagerly.
There, at last, was the Black Book!
Carton almost seized it from Kennedy, turning the pages, skimming overit, gloating like a veritable miser.
It was the debacle of Dorgan--the end of the man highest up!
The Ear in the Wall Page 24