The Silent Bullet Part 16

Craig paused and glanced first at Farrington, then at Mrs. Popper, and then at Mr. Vandam.

"Mr. Jameson," he resumed, "will escort the doctor, the inspector, Mr.

Farrington, Mrs. Popper, and Mr. Vandam into my imitation hall of the Vandam mansion. I want each of you in turn to tiptoe up that hall to a spot indicated on the wall, back of the cabinet, and strike that spot several sharp blows with your knuckles."

I did as Craig instructed tiptoeing up myself first so that they could not mistake his meaning. The rest followed separately, and after a moment we returned silently in suppressed excitement to the room.

Craig was still standing by the table, but now the pendulums with the magnets and needles and the drums worked by clockwork were before him.

"Another person outside the Vandam family had a key to the Vandam mansion," he began gravely. "That person, by the way, was the one who waited, night by night, until Mrs. Vandam took the fatal capsule, and then when she had taken it apprised the old man of the fact and strengthened an already blind faith in the shadow world."

You could have heard a pin drop. In fact you could almost have felt it drop.

"That other person who, un.o.bserved, had free access to the house," he continued in the breathless stillness, "is in this room now."

He was looking at O'Connor as if for corroboration. O'Connor nodded.

"Information derived from the butler," he muttered.

"I did not know this until yesterday," Kennedy continued, "but I suspected that something of the sort existed when I was first told by Dr. Hanson of the rappings. I determined to hear those rappings, and make a record of them. So, the night Mr. Jameson and I visited Mr.

Vandam, I carried this little instrument with me."

Almost lovingly he touched the pendulums on the table. They were now at rest and kept so by means of a lever that prevented all vibration whatever.

"See, I release this lever--now, let no one in the room move. Watch the needles on the paper as the clockwork revolves the drums. I take a step--ever so lightly. The pendulums vibrate, and the needles trace a broken line on the paper on each drum. I stop; the lines are practically straight. I take another step and another, ever so lightly. See the delicate pendulums vibrate? See, the lines they trace are jagged lines."

He stripped the paper off the drums and laid it flat on the table before him, with two other similar pieces of paper.

"Just before the time of the rapping I placed this instrument in the corner of the Vandam cabinet, just as I placed it in this cabinet after Mr. Jameson conducted you from the room. In neither case were suspicions aroused. Everything in both cases was perfectly normal--I mean the 'ghost' was in ignorance of the presence, if not the very existence, of this instrument.

"This is an improved seismograph," he explained, "one after a very recent model by Prince Galitzin of the Imperial Academy of St.

Petersburg. The seismograph, as you know, was devised to register earthquakes at a distance. This one not only measures the size of a distant earthquake, but the actual direction from which the earth-tremors come. That is why there are two pendulums and two drums.

"The magnetic arrangement is to cut short the vibrations set up in the pendulums, to prevent them from continuing to vibrate after the first shock. Thus they are ready in an instant to record another tremor. Other seismographs continue to vibrate for a long time as a result of one tremor only. Besides, they give little indication of the direction from which the tremors come.

"I think you must all appreciate that your tiptoeing up the hall must cause a far greater disturbance in this delicate seismograph than even a very severe earthquake thousands of miles away, which it was built to record."

He paused and examined the papers sharply.

"This is the record made by the 'ghost's' walk the other night," he said, holding up two of them in his left hand. "Here on the table, on two other longer sheets, I have records of the vibrations set up by those in this room walking to-night.

"Here is Mr. Jameson's--his is not a bit like the ghost's. Nor is Mr.

Vandam's. Least of all are Dr. Hanson's and Inspector O'Connor's, for they are heavy men.

"Now here is Mr. Farrington's"--he bent down closely, "he is a light man, and the ghost was light."

Craig was playing with his victim like a cat with a mouse.

Suddenly I felt something brush by me, and with a swish of air and of garments I saw Mrs. Popper fling herself wildly at the table that bore the incriminating records. In another instant Farrington was on his feet and had made a wild leap in the same direction.

It was done so quickly that I must have acted first and thought afterward. I found myself in the midst of a melee with my hand at his throat and his at mine. O'Connor with a jiu-jitsu movement bent Farrington's other arm until he released me with a cry of pain.

In front of me I saw Craig grasping Mrs. Popper's wrists as in a vise.

She was glaring at him like a tigress.

"Do you suppose for a moment that that toy is going to convince the world that Henry Vandam has been deceived and that the spirit which visited him was a fraud? Is that why you have lured me here under false pretences, to play on my feelings, to insult me, to take advantage of a lone, defenceless woman, surrounded by hostile men? Shame on you," she added contemptuously. "You call yourself a gentleman, but I call you a coward."

Kennedy, always calm and collected, ignored the tirade. His voice was as cold as steel as he said: "It would do little good, Mrs. Popper, to destroy this one link in the chain I have forged. The other links are too heavy for you. Don't forget the evidence of the ink. It was your ink. Don't forget that Henry Vandam will not any longer conceal that he has altered his will in favour of you. To-night he goes from here to his lawyer's to draw up a new will altogether. Don't forget that you have caused the Vandams separately to have the prescription filled, and that you are now caught in the act of a double murder. Don't forget that you had access to the Vandam mansion, that you subst.i.tuted the deadly for the harmless capsules. Don't forget that your rappings announced the death of one of your victims and urged the other, a cruelly wronged and credulous old man, to leave millions to you who had deceived and would have killed him.

"No, the record of the ghost on the seismograph was not Mr.

Farrington's, as I implied at the moment when you so kindly furnished this additional proof of your guilt by trying to destroy the evidence.

The ghost was you, Mrs. Popper, and you are at liberty to examine the markings as minutely as you please, but you must not destroy them. You are an astute criminal, Mrs. Popper, but to-night you are under arrest for the murder of Mary Vandam and the attempted murder of Henry Vandam."

VI. The Diamond Maker

"I've called, Professor Kennedy, to see if we can retain you in a case which I am sure will tax even your resources. Heaven knows it has taxed ours."

The visitor was a large, well-built man. He placed his hat on the table and, without taking off his gloves, sat down in an easy chair which he completely filled.

"Andrews is my name--third vice-president of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company. I am the nominal head of the company's private detective force, and though I have some pretty clever fellows on my staff we've got a case that, so far, none of us has been able to unravel. I'd like to consult you about it."

Kennedy expressed his entire willingness to be consulted, and after the usual formalities were over, Mr. Andrews proceeded.

"I suppose you are aware that the large insurance companies maintain quite elaborate detective forces and follow very keenly such of the cases of their policy-holders as look at all suspicious. This case which I wish to put in your hands is that of Mr. Solomon Morowitch, a wealthy Maiden Lane jeweller. I suppose you have read something in the papers about his sudden death and the strange robbery of his safe?"

"Very little," replied Craig. "There hasn't been much to read."

"Of course not, of course not," said Mr. Andrews with some show of gratification. "I flatter myself that we have pulled the wires so as to keep the thing out of the papers as much as possible. We don't want to frighten the quarry till the net is spread. The point is, though, to find out who is the quarry. It's most baffling."

"I am at your service," interposed Craig quietly, "but you will have to enlighten me as to the facts in the case. As to that, I know no more than the newspapers."

"Oh, certainly, certainly. That is to say, you know nothing at all and can approach it without bias." He paused and then, seeming to notice something in Craig's manner, added hastily: "I'll be perfectly frank with you. The policy in question is for one hundred thousand dollars, and is incontestable. His wife is the beneficiary. The company is perfectly willing to pay, but we want to be sure that it is all straight first. There are certain suspicious circ.u.mstances that in justice to ourselves we think should be cleared up. That is all--believe me. We are not seeking to avoid an honest liability."

"What are these suspicious circ.u.mstances?" asked Craig, apparently satisfied with the explanation.

"This is in strict confidence, gentlemen," began Mr. Andrews. "Mr.

Morowitch, according to the story as it comes to us, returned home late one night last week, apparently from his office, in a very weakened, a semiconscious, condition. His family physician, Doctor Thornton, was summoned, not at once, but shortly. He p.r.o.nounced Mr. Morowitch to be suffering from a congestion of the lungs that was very like a sudden attack of pneumonia.

"Mr. Morowitch had at once gone to bed, or at least was in bed, when the doctor arrived, but his condition grew worse so rapidly that the doctor hastily resorted to oxygen, under which treatment he seemed to revive.

The doctor had just stepped out to see another patient when a hurry call was sent to him that Mr. Morowitch was rapidly sinking. He died before the doctor could return. No statement whatever concerning the cause of his sudden illness was made by Mr. Morowitch, and the death-certificate, a copy of which I have, gives pneumonia as the cause of death. One of our men has seen Doctor Thornton, but has been able to get nothing out of him. Mrs. Morowitch was the only person with her, husband at the time."

There was something in his tone that made me take particular note of this last fact, especially as he paused for an instant.

"Now, perhaps there would be nothing surprising about it all, so far at least, were it not for the fact that the following morning, when his junior partner, Mr. Kahan, opened the place of business, or rather went to it, for it was to remain closed, of course, he found that during the night someone had visited it. The lock on the great safe, which contained thousands of dollars' worth of diamonds, was intact; but in the top of the safe a huge hole was found--an irregular, round hole, big enough to put your foot through. Imagine it, Professor Kennedy, a great hole in a safe that is made of chrome steel, a safe that, short of a safety-deposit vault, ought to be about the strongest thing on earth.

"Why, that steel would dull and splinter even the finest diamond-drill before it made an impression. The mere taking out and refitting of drills into the brace would be a most lengthy process. Eighteen or twenty hours is the time by actual test which it would take to bore such a hole through those laminated plates, even if there were means of exerting artificial pressure. As for the police, they haven't even a theory yet."