Читать книгу The Adventuress - Arthur B. Reeve, Brander Matthews - Страница 11

AS we crossed the city Hastings, remembering the sudden attack that had been made on him on the occasion of his last visit, looked about nervously in the crowds.

Sometimes I wondered whether the lawyer had been frank with us and told all he knew. However, no one seemed to be following him and we lost no time in hustling from the railroad terminal to the office of Maddox Munitions.

The office was on the top floor of the new Maddox Building, I knew, one of the recent tower skyscrapers down-town.

As we turned into the building and were passing down the corridor to the express elevator a man stepped out from behind a pillar. Hastings drew back nervously. But it was Burke that the man wanted to see. He dropped back and we halted, catching only the first whispered sentence.

‘We’ve been watching Randall, sir,’ I overheard the man say, ‘but he hasn’t done anything—yet.

There was a hasty conference between the man and Burke, who rejoined us in a few seconds, while the man went back to his post of watching, apparently, every face of the crowd that thronged forward to the elevators or bustled away from them.

‘My men have been at work ever since I was called in on the case,’ explained Burke to Kennedy. ‘You see, I had only time to map out a first campaign for them, and then I decided to hurry off to find you and later to look over the ground at Westport. Randall is the cashier. I can’t say that I had anything on him—really—but then you never can tell, you know.’

We rode up in the elevator and entered the imposing offices of the great munitions corporation, where the executive business was conducted for the score or more plants owned or controlled by the company in various parts of the country.

Hastings led the way familiarly past the girl sitting at a desk in the outside office and we soon found ourselves in the section that was set apart for the accounting department, over which Randall had charge.

It seemed that the lawyer was well acquainted with the cashier as he introduced him to us, and we noted that Randall was a man approaching middle age, at least outwardly, with that solid appearance that seems to come to men who deal with numbers and handle large sums of money.

While we talked I looked about curiously. Randall had an inner office, though in the outer office stood the huge safe which was evidently the one which had been rifled.

The cashier himself seemed to have lost, for the time, some of his customary poise. Trying to make him out, I fancied that he was nearly frantic with fear lest he might be suspected, not so much, perhaps, of having had anything to do with the loss of the telautomaton as of being remiss in his duties, which included the guardianship of the safe.

The very anxiety of the man seemed to be a pretty good guarantee of his honesty. There could be no doubt of how deeply he felt the loss, not only because it was of such vital importance, but from the mere fact that it might reflect on his own management of his department.

‘It seems almost incredible,’ Randall exclaimed as we stood talking. ‘The most careful search has failed to reveal any clue that would show even how access to the office was gained. Not a lock on any of the doors has been tampered with, not a scratch indicates the use of a jimmy on them or on the windows. In fact, entrance by the windows at such a height above the surrounding buildings is almost beyond the range of possibility as well as probability. How could it have been accomplished? I am forced to come back to the explanation that the outer office doors had been opened by a key!’

‘There were keys—in the hands of several people, I suppose?’ inquired Kennedy.

‘Oh, yes! There are in every large office like this,’ hastened Randall.

‘Mr Maddox had a key, of course?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Who else?’

‘The agent of the building.’

‘I mean who else in the office?’

‘My assistant—oh, several. Still, I am sure that no one had a key except those whom we could trust.’

‘Did Shelby Maddox ever have a key?’ cut in Hastings.

The cashier nodded in the negative, for the moment surprised, apparently, at the very idea that Shelby would ever have had interest enough in business to have such a thing.

I saw Burke looking in covert surprise at Hastings as he asked the question. For the moment I wondered why he asked it. Had he really thought that Shelby might have a key? Or was he trying hard to make a case? What was his own connection with the affair? Kennedy had been looking keenly about.

‘Is that the safe over there?’ he indicated. ‘I should like to examine it.’

‘Yes, that’s it, and that’s the strangest part of it,’ hastened Randall, as though eager to satisfy us on all points, leading the way to a modern chrome-steel strong-box of a size almost to suggest a miniature bank vault: surely a most formidable thing to tackle.

‘You see,’ he went on nervously, as though eager to convince us, ‘there is not a mark on it to show that it has been tampered with. Yet the telautomaton is gone. I know that it was there last night, all right, for I looked in the compartment where we keep the little model, as well as the papers relating to it. It is a small model, and of course was not charged with explosive. But it is quite sufficient for its purpose, and if its war-head were actually filled with a high explosive it would be sufficiently deadly against any ordinary ship in spite of its miniature size.’

Kennedy had already begun his examination, first of all assuring himself that it was useless to try to look for finger-prints, inasmuch as nearly everybody had touched the safe since the robbery and any such clue, had it once existed, must have been rendered valueless.

‘How did you discover the loss?’ I ventured as Craig bent to his work. ‘Did anything excite your suspicion?’

‘N-no,’ returned the cashier. ‘Only I have been very methodical about the safe. The model was kept in that compartment at the bottom. I make it a practice in opening and closing the safe to see that that and several other valuable things we keep in it are there. This morning nothing about the office and certainly nothing about the safe suggested that there was anything wrong until I worked the combination. The door swung open and I looked through it. I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw that that model was gone. I couldn’t have been more astonished if I had come in and found the door open. I am the only one who knows the combination—except for a copy kept in a safety deposit box known only to Marshall Maddox and Mr Hastings.

Before any of us could say a word Kennedy had completed his first examination and was facing us. ‘I can’t find a mark on it,’ he confessed. ‘No “soup” has been used to blow it. Nitroglycerin enough might have wrecked the building. The old “can-opener” is of course out of the question with a safe like this. No instrument could possibly rip a plate off this safe unless you gave the ripper unlimited time. There’s not a hint that thermit or the oxy-acetylene blow-pipe have been used. Not a spot on the safe indicates the presence of anything that can produce those high temperatures.’

‘Yet the telautomaton is gone!’ persisted Hastings.

Kennedy was looking about, making a quick search of the office.

As his eye travelled over the floor he took a step or two forward and bent down. Under a sanitary desk, near a window, he picked up what looked like a small piece of rubber tubing. He looked at it with interest, though it conveyed no idea to me. It was simply a piece of rubber tubing. Then he took another step to the window and raised it, looking out. Far below, some hundred or more feet, was the roof of the next building, itself no mean structure for height.

‘Have you searched the roof below?’ he asked, turning to Burke.

Burke shook his head. ‘How could anyone get in that way?’ he negatived.

‘Well—search the roof below,’ repeated Kennedy.

Even though he did not understand what good might come of such a strange request, Burke had known Kennedy long enough not to question his actions. He moved away, seeking one of his men whom he could send on the errand.

While we waited Kennedy continued to question Randall.

‘Mr Maddox was very careful of his key, I suppose?’ he ventured.

‘Yes, sir, very careful. So we all were of the combination, too. Not even my assistant knows that. If I should drop dead, there would be only one way to get it—to open that safety deposit box, and that must be done by someone with the proper authority. It has all been carefully safeguarded.’

‘You know of no one intmate with Mr Maddox—who might have obtained the key—or the combination?’

I wondered at what Kennedy was driving. Had he the little dancer, Paquita, in mind? Did he suspect that she might have wormed from Maddox the secret? Or was he, too, thinking of Shelby?

Randall shook his head, and Kennedy continued his quick examination of the office, questioning the assistant, who was unable to add anything of value.

So far there had been nothing to show that the robbery might not have been an inside job. As Kennedy was still pondering on the new mystery that confronted us Burke approached with the man whom he had sent to make the search.

His face indicated that he was puzzled. In his hand he was holding a disc that was something like the flat telephone receivers one sees often on interior office telephones. To it was attached a rubber tube like that which Kennedy had picked up in the office a few minutes before.

‘My man found this thing on the roof below,’ explained Burke, with a look of inquiry. ‘What do you suppose it is? How did it get there?’

Kennedy took the disc and began examining it carefully, fitting on the other rubber tube.

‘Perhaps it had served its purpose—was no longer of use,’ he meditated. ‘At any rate, if someone had to get away with that telautomaton he would not want to burden himself with anything else that was unnecessary. He might very well have discarded this.’

What the thing was I could not imagine. We all crowded about, examining it, not even Burke offering an explanation.

Suddenly Craig’s face lightened up. He thrust the tubes into his ears and walked over to a smaller safe that was still locked. As he turned the combination handle he held the black disc up close to the safe. The intent look on his face caused us all to watch without a word. Around and around he turned the handle slowly. Finally he stopped. Then, with a few quick turns, he gave the door a pull and it swung open on its oiled hinges.

We fairly gasped. ‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘Magic?’

Kennedy smiled. ‘Not magic, but black science,’ he replied. ‘This is a burglar’s microphone.’

‘A burglar’s microphone?’ I repeated. ‘What’s that?’

‘Well,’ he explained, ‘the microphone is now used by burglars for picking combination locks. When you turn the lock a slight sound is made when the proper number comes opposite the working part. It can be heard by a sensitive ear, sometimes, I am told. However, it is imperceptible to most persons. But by using a microphone it is an easy matter to hear the sounds. Having listened to the fall of the tumblers, the expert can determine what are the real numbers of the combination and open the safe. That is what happened in this case.’

We followed Kennedy speechless. What was there to say? We had already seen him open a safe with it himself.

Though we were thus far on our way, we had not even a clue as to the identity of the criminal or criminals.

I recalled Burke’s own theory as he had expressed it. Could it be that someone had betrayed to a foreign government agent the priceless secret of the telautomaton?