Whispering Wires Part 26

"Never mind. I wouldn't know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book on magpies."

The librarian fingered her files. "Try Birds of England," she suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow over to a book-case. "Try this. It's complete. You'll find magpies and starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this splendid volume."

"The one that interested me was black as a crow," he said, as he turned toward his alcove. "Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white crows. I never saw one, though. My bird's a deep one."

The little librarian stared after Drew's vanis.h.i.+ng form with a slight pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and telephones.

Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles.

These she had in plenty. A great many war books had been purchased during the period which followed America's declaration.

The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact upon fact. He had the formulae of smokeless powder and the a.n.a.lysis of cup.r.o.nickel bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire.

He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.

The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the north and plowed along the sidewalk.

Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost six o'clock.

"Lord," he said in surprise. "I'm going crazy. Two hours in a trance.

Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They ought to have something. I wonder," he added, peering under the fine drizzle of snow, "I wonder where the nearest telephone is located?

Another block, I guess."

His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along.

Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library.

The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.

The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters, was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a whirling dervish across the detective's vision.

He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he asked Central for his office phone.

The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. "What's new in the Stockbridge case?" asked Drew in a whisper.

He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the entire series of reports. There were six of them. The last was from Delaney.

"Hang up!" the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. "Hang up, Harrigan, and let me get him."

Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large slot and jiggled the receiver's hook until Central answered.

"Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!" he exclaimed. "Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!"

"That's her number," he said aloud. "Loris Stockbridge's number. It must be her number. I haven't forgotten that, have I?"

The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The receiver's diaphragm clicked finally. "h.e.l.lo!" he snapped. "h.e.l.lo, who's this?"

He waited a full second. "This Delaney?" he asked. "Who?" he added.

"Oh! you're the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes, Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!"

"This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? h.e.l.lo, Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?"

The big operative's voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. "What's the news?" asked Drew. "What's that you've been telling Harrigan? Something about a coffin? A coffin? What--a casket? A hardwood casket. I'll be right up! I'm coming!"

The detective's olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.

The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this, sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver's m.u.f.fled ear.

"Drive like sin--full speed and more--up Fifth Avenue! I'll tell you when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I can help it," he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the taxi.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"THE CLOSING NET"

Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway signs--the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow worms--the m.u.f.fled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.

Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew's taxi turned and ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at the curb.

"Stay around the corner!" he ordered. "Stay, till I send word. Here's a dollar for supper. Get that and wait!"

The driver touched his cap and reached for the bill. Drew swung northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden sidewalk. Delaney's statement over the telephone had stirred every drop of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in defiance to the powers of darkness which encompa.s.sed the dwelling.

A snow-crusted form stepped out from a bas.e.m.e.nt shelter. Drew raised his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.

"h.e.l.lo, O'Toole!" he blurted, recognizing the operative. "What are _you_ doing here?"

O'Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. "Our lad's in there," he said, thras.h.i.+ng his arms and flipping his finger for a second time. "Harry Nichols!" he explained.

"S--o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads this way now. What did you learn to-day?"

O'Toole yawned. "I got on the job early," he said with frosty breath.

"I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I'm right after him.

First he went to the Quartermaster's Offices at the Battery. Then he went to Governor's Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross Headquarters. He 'phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times."

"To the girl in the case?"

"Yep, Chief! He's gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers--three dozen lilies of the valley--then came on up here. I've been waiting a long time."

"Seen anybody about?"

"Delaney and some Central Office men--that's all! Shall I stay here?"

"Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think Delaney has been there. You'll find the snow melted in spots. Plant somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with the wires to the house. I'm looking for trouble to-night. They threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon."

Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O'Toole, turned at the iron-grilled gate, pa.s.sed through and pressed the b.u.t.ton.

A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.

"All right!" said Drew. "Let me in!"