"Yes, there is no Madame Ahara. Davidson runs the whole thing. He is--"
But at that moment one of the rugs on the wall which Larry was facing swung outward and a man sprang into the room, a man whose face was purple with rage and who leaped sidewise as he saw Larry"s hand snap an automatic into view above the pedestal on which the crystal ball reposed. In a flash Simmons recognized two things--his danger and the fact that the man who had just entered was Holden, alias Davidson, blackmailer and potential thief.
Before the government agent had time to aim the head of the clairvoyant ring fired. But his bullet, instead of striking Larry, shattered the crystal ball into fragments and the room was plunged into total darkness. In spite of the fact that he knew the shot would bring speedy relief from outside the house, Simmons determined to capture his man single-handed and alive. Half-leaping, half-falling from the chair in which he had been seated, the operative sprang forward in an attempt to nail his man while the latter was still dazed by the darkness. But his foot, catching in one of the thick rugs which carpeted the floor, tripped him and he fell--a bullet from the other"s revolver plowing through the fleshy part of his arm.
The flash, however, showed him the position of his adversary, and it was the work of only a moment to slip forward and seize the blackmailer around the waist, his right hand gripping the man"s wrist and forcing it upward so that he was powerless to use his revolver. For a full minute they wrestled in the inky darkness, oblivious to the fact that the sound of blows on the outer door indicated the arrival of reinforcements.
Then suddenly Larry let go of the blackmailer"s arm and, whirling him rapidly around, secured a half nelson that threatened to dislocate his neck.
"Drop it!" he snarled. "Drop that gun before I wring your head off!" and the m.u.f.fled thud as the revolver struck the floor was the signal that Holden had surrendered. A moment later the light in the center of the room was snapped on and the police sergeant inquired if Larry needed any a.s.sistance.
"No," replied Simmons, grimly, "but you might lend me a pair of bracelets. This bird got away from me once, some seven years ago, and I"m not taking any more chances!"
XVII
THE POISON-PEN PUZZLE
Beside the bookcase in the room which Bill Quinn likes to dignify by the name of "library"--though it"s only a den, ornamented with relics of scores of cases in which members of the different government detective services have figured--hangs a frame containing four letters, each in a different handwriting.
Beyond the fact that these letters obviously refer to some secret in the lives of the persons to whom they are addressed, there is little about them that is out of the ordinary. A close observer, however, would note that in none of the four is the secret openly stated. It is only hinted at, suggested, but by that very fact it becomes more mysterious and alarming.
It was upon this that I commented one evening as I sat, discussing things in general, with Quinn.
"Yes," he agreed, "the writer of those letters was certainly a genius.
As an author or as an advertising writer or in almost any other profession where a mastery of words and the ability to leave much to the imagination is a distinct a.s.set, they would have made a big success."
"They?" I inquired. "Did more than one person write the letters?"
"Don"t look like the writing of the same person, do they?" countered Quinn. "Besides, that was one of the many phases of the matter which puzzled Elmer Allison, and raised the case above the dead level of ordinary blackmailing schemes."
Allison [Quinn went on, settling comfortably back in his big armchair]
was, as you probably remember, one of the star men of the Postal Inspection Service, the chap who solved the mystery of the lost one hundred thousand dollars in Columbus. In fact, he had barely cleared up the tangle connected with the letters when a.s.signed to look into the affair of the missing money, with what results you already know.
The poison-pen puzzle, as it came to be known in the department, first bobbed up some six months before Allison tackled it. At least, that was when it came to the attention of the Postal Inspection Service. It"s more than likely that the letters had been arriving for some time previous to that, because one of the beauties of any blackmailing scheme--such as this one appeared to be--is that 90 per cent of the victims fear to bring the matter to the attention of the law. They much prefer to suffer in silence, kicking in with the amounts demanded, than to risk the exposure of their family skeletons by appealing to the proper authorities.
A man by the name of Tyson, who lived in Madison, Wisconsin, was the first to complain. He informed the postmaster in his city that his wife had received two letters, apparently in a feminine handwriting, which he considered to be very thinly veiled attempts at blackmailing.
Neither of the letters was long. Just a sentence or two. But their ingenuity lay in what they suggested rather than in their actual threats.
The first one read:
Does your husband know the details of that trip to Fond du Lac? He might be interested in what Hastings has to tell him.
The second, which arrived some ten days later, announced:
The photograph of the register of a certain hotel in Fond du Lac for June 8 might be of interest to your husband--who can tell?
That was all there was to them, but it doesn"t take an expert in plot building to think of a dozen stories that could lie back of that supposedly clandestine trip on the eighth of June.
Tyson didn"t go into particulars at the time. He contented himself with turning the letters over to the department, with the request that the matter be looked into at once. Said that his wife had handed them to him and that he knew nothing more about the matter.
All that the postal authorities could do at the time was to instruct him to bring in any subsequent communications. But, as the letters stopped suddenly and Tyson absolutely refused to state whether he knew of anyone who might be interested in causing trouble between his wife and himself, there was nothing further to be done. Tracing a single letter, or even two of them, is like looking for a certain star on a clear night--you"ve got to know where to look before you have a chance of finding it--and the postmark on the letters wasn"t of the least a.s.sistance.
Some three or four weeks later a similar case cropped up. This time it was a woman who brought in the letters--a woman who was red-eyed from lack of sleep and worry. Again the communications referred to a definite escapade, but still they made no open demand for money.
By the time the third case cropped up the postal authorities in Madison were appealing to Washington for a.s.sistance. Before Bolton and Clarke, the two inspectors originally a.s.signed to the case, could reach the Wisconsin capital another set of the mysterious communications had been received and called to the attention of the department.
During the three months which followed no less than six complaints were filed, all of them alleging the receipt of veiled threats, and neither the local authorities nor the men from Washington could find a single nail on which to hang a theory. Finally affairs reached such a stage that the chief sent for Allison, who had already made something of a name for himself, and told him to get on the job.
"Better make the first train for Madison," were the directions which Elmer received. "So far as we can tell, this appears to be the scheme of some crazy woman, intent upon causing domestic disturbances, rather than a well-laid blackmailing plot. There"s no report of any actual demand for money. Just threats or suggestions of revelations which would cause family dissension. I don"t have to tell you that it"s wise to keep the whole business away from the papers as long as you can. They"ll get next to it some time, of course, but if we can keep it quiet until we"ve landed the author of the notes it"ll be a whole lot better for the reputation of the department.
"Bolton and Clarke are in Madison now, but their reports are far from satisfactory, so you better do a little investigating of your own.
You"ll have full authority to handle the case any way that you see fit.
All we ask is action--before somebody stirs up a real row about the inefficiency of the Service and all that rot."
Elmer smiled grimly, knowing the difficulties under which the department worked, difficulties which make it hard for any bureau to obtain the full facts in a case without being pestered by politicians and harried by local interests which are far from friendly. For this reason you seldom know that Uncle Sam is conducting an investigation until the whole thing is over and done with and the results are ready to be presented to the grand jury. Premature publicity has ruined many cases and prevented many a detective from landing the men he"s after, which was the reason that Allison slipped into town on rubber heels, and his appearance at the office of the postmaster was the first indication that official had of his arrival.
"Mr. Gordon," said Allison, after they had completed the usual preliminaries connected with credentials and so forth, "I want to tackle this case just as if I were the first man who had been called in. I understand that comparatively little progress has been made--"
""Comparatively little" is good," chuckled the postmaster.
"And I don"t wish to be hindered by any erroneous theories which may have been built up. So if you don"t mind we"ll run over the whole thing from the beginning."
"Well," replied the postmaster, "you know about the Tyson letters and--"
"I don"t know about a thing," Elmer cut in. "Or at least we"ll work on the a.s.sumption that I don"t. Then I"ll be sure not to miss any points and at the same time I"ll get a fresh outline of the entire situation."
Some two hours later Postmaster Gordon finished his resume of the various cases which were puzzling the police and the postal officials, for a number of the best men on the police force had been quietly at work trying to trace the poison-pen letters.
"Are these all the letters that have been received?" Allison inquired, indicating some thirty communications which lay before him on the desk.
"All that have been called to the attention of this office. Of course, there"s no telling how many more have been written, about which no complaint has been made. Knowing human nature, I should say that at least three times that number have been received and possibly paid for.
But the recipients didn"t report the matter--for reasons best known to themselves. As a matter of fact--But you"re not interested in gossip."
"I most certainly am!" declared Allison. "When you"re handling a matter of this kind, where back-stairs intrigue and servants-hall talk is likely to play a large part, gossip forms a most important factor. What does Dame Rumor say in this case?"
"So far as these letters are concerned, nothing at all. Certain influences, which it"s hardly necessary to explain in detail, have kept this affair out of the papers--but gossip has it that at least three divorces within as many months have been caused by the receipt of anonymous letters, and that there are a number of other homes which are on the verge of being broken up for a similar reason."
"That would appear to bear out your contention that other people have received letters like these, but preferred to take private action upon them. Also that, if blackmail were attempted, it sometimes failed--otherwise the matter wouldn"t have gotten as far as the divorce court."
Then, after a careful study of several of the sample letters on the desk, Allison continued, "I suppose you have noted the fact that no two of these appear to have been written by the same person?"