Arthur B. Reeve

“ A waiter came over to us grinning, for we had assumed the role of sightseers.
"Who is that, 'way back there, with his chair tipped to the wall, talking to the man with his back to us?" asked Kennedy.
"Ike the Dropper, sah," informed the waiter with obvious pride that such a celebrity should be harboured here.
I looked with a feeling akin to awe at the famous character who, in common with many others of his type, had migrated uptown from the proverbial haunts of the gunmen on the East Side in search of pastures new and untroubled. ”

“ I do now—before you married—that's all."
"Is there no way to correct the mistake?" she asked softly. "Must marriage end all—all happiness?"
Langhorne said nothing, but I could almost hear his breathing over the vocaphone, which picked up and magnified even whispers.
"Mary," he said in a deep, passionate voice, "I—I will defend you—from this Murtha thing—if it ever gets out. I know it is always on your mind—that you couldn't keep away from that trial for fear that Carton, or Murtha, or SOMEBODY might say something by chance or drop some hint about it. Trust me." ”

“ Instantly, the scene transformed itself from a suffrage meeting to a social function that was unique. Leaders of the smart set rubbed elbows, and seemed to enjoy it, with working girls and agitators. Conservative and radical, millionaire and muckraker succumbed to the spell of the Ashton hospitality and the lure of the new dances. It was a novel experience for all, a levelling-up of society, as contrasted to some of the levelling-down that we had recently seen.
Kennedy and I, having no mood as things stood for the festivities, drew aside and watched the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers. ”

“ Mind you—I ain't making any threats, but when it comes to gossip and scandal and mud-slinging—look out for the little old organization—that's all!"
Carton had set his tenacious jaw. "You can go as far as you like,
Murtha," was all he said, with a grim smile.
Murtha looked at him a moment, then his manner changed.
"Carton," he said in a milder tone, at length, "what's the use of all this bluffing? You and I understand each other. These men understand—life. It's a game—that's what it is—a game. Sometimes one move is right, sometimes another. ”

“ She leaned against the laboratory table, certainly an incongruous picture in her new role as contrasted with the stained and dirty background of paraphernalia of medico-legal investigation. I could not help feeling that if Clare Kendall ever had decided to go in for such things, Marie herself would have had to look sharp to her laurels.
"As you enter the place," she began, "you feel a delightful warmth and there is an odour of attar of roses in the air. There are thick half-inch carpets that make walking a pleasure and dreamy Sleepy Hollow rockers that make it an impossibility. ”

“ No, Walter, it is not that women are weak or that men are inherently vicious. That doesn't account for a case like this. Then, too, some mawkish people to-day are fond of putting the whole evil on low wages as a cause. It isn't that—alone. It isn't even lack of education or of moral training. Human nature is not so bad in the mass as some good people think. No, don't you, as a reporter, see it? It is big business, in its way, that Carton is fighting—big business in the commercialized ruin of girls, such, perhaps, as Betty Blackwell—a vicious system that enmeshes even those who are its tools. ”

“ We followed, slowly also. There was something unreal about the bright afternoon sunshine after the atmosphere of the Futurist Tea Room, where everything had been done to promote the illusion of night.
Harris walked along meditatively, crossing one street after another, not as if debating where he was going, but rather in no great hurry to get there.
Instead of going down Broadway he swerved into Seventh Avenue, then after a few blocks turned into a side street, quickened his pace, and at last dived down into a basement under a saloon. ”

“ Nervously, as if he were taking his own life in his hands he delivered the verdict.
"We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment!"
Instantly, before anyone could move, the dignified judge faced the prisoner deliberately.
"You have heard the verdict," he said colourlessly. "I shall sentence you Friday."
Three court attendants were at Dopey Jack's side in a moment, but none too soon. The pent-up feeling of the man idolized by blackmailers, and man-killers, and batteners on street-women, who held nothing as disgrace but a sign of respect for law or remorse for capture, burst forth. ”

“ On all sides was the buzz of conversation. Kahn himself sat silent, gazing for the most part at the papers before him. There must have been some wrangling of the jury, for twice hope of the gangsters revived when they sent in for the record.
But it was not over an hour later when the jury finally filed back again into their box. As Judge Pomeroy faced them and asked the usual question, the spectators hung, breathless, on the words of the foreman as the jurors stood up silently in their places. There was a tense hush in the courtroom, as every eye was fastened on the face of the foreman. ”

“ Kennedy pressed the button and a waiter brought a menu, imposing in length and breath-taking in rates.
"The cost of vice seems to have gone up with the cost of living," remarked Miss Kendall, as the waiter disappeared as silently as he had responded to the bell. It was a phrase that stuck in my head, so apt was it in describing the anomalous state of things we found as the case unrolled.
Craig ordered, now and then consulting Clare about some detail. The care and attention devoted to us could not have been more punctilious if it had been an elaborate dinner party. ”

“ There he lay, alone, uncared for except by such rude hands as those of the Morgue attendants. I could not help reflecting on the strange vicissitudes of human life, and death, which levelled all distinctions between men of high and low degree. Murtha had almost literally sprung from the streets. His career had been one possible only in the social and political conditions of his times. And now he had only by the narrowest chance escaped a burial in a pauper's grave at the hands of the city which he had helped Dorgan to debauch.
Carton, too, I could see was overwhelmed. ”

“ Murtha was alive!
The commitment to the asylum, the escape, the search, the finding of a substitute body, mutilated beyond ordinary recognition, the mysterious transfers, and finally the identification in the Morgue—all had been part of an elaborately staged play!
We saw it all, now. Carton had got too close to him in the conviction of Dopey Jack and the proceedings against Kahn. He had seen the handwriting on the wall for himself. In Carton's gradual climbing, step by step, for the man higher up, he would have been the next to go. ”

“ Dorgan," began Kennedy quietly, when we were seated alone in the little Sanctum of the Boss, "you will pardon me if I seem to be a little slow in coming to the business that has brought me here this morning. First of all I may say that you probably share the idea that ever since the days of Daguerre photography has been regarded as the one infallible means of portraying faithfully any object, scene, or action. Indeed, a photograph is admitted in court as irrefutable evidence. For, when everything else fails, a picture made through the photographic lens almost invariably turns the tide. ”

“ Narrowly I watched Kennedy. Here, I felt instinctively, were the "new" woman and the "new" man, if there are such things. I wondered just how they would hit it off together. For the moment, at least, Clare Kendall was an absorbing study, as she greeted us with a frank, jerky straight-arm handshake.
"Mr. Carton," she said directly, "has told me that he received an anonymous letter this morning. May I see it?"
There are times when the so-called "new" woman's assumed masculine brusqueness is a trifle jarring, as well as often missing the point. ”

“ A moment later Clare Kendall entered and paused at the door an instant, absorbing the gay scene as only a woman and a detective could. Craig rose and advanced to meet her, and as she caught sight of us her face brightened. The show girls eyed her narrowly and with but slight approval.
"We feel more at ease with a lady in the party," remarked Craig, as they reached the table and I rose to greet her. "Two men alone here are quite as noticeable as two ladies. Walter, I know, was quite uncomfortable." ”

“ Kennedy nodded. "By examining the records in the laboratory, looking them over under a microscope—yes. I can count the overtones, say, in a singing voice, and it is on the overtones that the richness depends. I can recognize a voice—mathematically. In short," Craig concluded enthusiastically, "it is what you might call the Bertillon measurement, the finger-print, the portrait parle of the human voice!" ”

“ You cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton, who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You would not pull us up—you shoved us down deeper, in your greed. But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose? You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything from us. We—"
"Come, Ogleby," interposed Dorgan, deliberately turning his back on her and slowly placing his hat on his half-bald head. "We are indebted to Professor Kennedy for a pleasant entertainment. ”

“ Other maps of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the various strongholds of Boss Dorgan and Sub-boss Murtha.
Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting out a vast amount of campaign "literature" in a hurry; in short, a perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have been proud of, were in evidence everywhere one looked. ”

“ Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.
"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been—er—foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. ”

“ There was nothing more that we could do that night and we waited impatiently until Clare Kendall came to make her daily report in the morning.
"The question is, whom are we going to get whom we can trust to go to that dope joint and explore it?" remarked Kennedy, after we had finished telling Miss Kendall about our experiences of the night before.
"Carton must have someone who can take a course in beauty and dope," I replied. "Or perhaps Miss Kendall has one of her investigators whom she can trust." ”

“ It may be that the very cleverness of the fellow will be his own undoing. The unusual criminal is often that much the easier to run down. It narrows the number of suspects."
"Well," rejoined Carton, not as confident now as when he had first met us in the laboratory, "then there is a possible suspect—a fellow known in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack—Jack Rubano. He's a clever fellow—no doubt. But I hardly think he's capable of that, although I should call him a rather advanced yeggman."
"What makes you suspect him?" asked Kennedy eagerly. ”

“ She said it with an impersonal tone as if there were complete detachment between herself as an observer and as a guest of the Montmartre.
"Miss Kendall," asked Kennedy, "did you notice anything particularly downstairs? I'd like to check up my own impressions by yours."
"I noticed that Titian beauty in the hotel office as we left the reception room and entered the elevator."
Craig smiled.
"So did I. I thought you would be both woman enough and detective enough to notice her. Well, I suppose if a man likes that sort of girl that's the sort of girl he likes. That's point number one. ”

“ Across from us was a wide doorway that opened into a spacious conservatory, a nook of tropical and temperate beauty. Several couples had wandered in there to rest and, as the orchestra struck up something new that seemed to have the "punch" to its timeful measures, they gradually rejoined the dancers.
It had evidently suggested an idea to Kennedy, for a moment later he led me toward the coat room and uncovered the package which he had brought consisting of the two oaken boxes I had seen him adjusting in the laboratory. ”

“ Dorgan was regarding him keenly, but saying nothing. Kennedy did not mind, as he resumed.
"Combination photographs change entirely the character of the initial negative and have been made for the past fifty years. The earliest, simplest, and most harmless photographic deception is the printing of clouds in a bare sky. But the retoucher with his pencil and etching tool to-day is very skilful. A workman of ordinary ability can introduce a person taken in a studio into an open-air scene well blended and in complete harmony without a visible trace of falsity." ”

“ I laid down the paper with a questioning look at Kennedy.
"As a scientist," he replied deliberately, "the theory, of course, does appeal to me, especially in the ingenious way in which that writer applied it. However, as a detective"—he shook his head slowly—"I must deal with facts—not speculations. It leaves much to be explained, to say the least."
Just then the door buzzer sounded and Carton himself sprang to answer it. ”

“ Most of them were amateur photographs, too, pictures of myself in various groups at different times and places that I kept for the associations."
"Nothing that might be used by an enemy for any purpose?" suggested
Kennedy.
Carton laughed. "More likely to be used by friends," he replied frankly.
Still, I felt that there must have been some sinister purpose back of the robbery. In that respect it was like the scientific cracking of Langhorne's safe. Langhorne, too, though he had been robbed, had been careful to disclaim the loss of anything of value. ”

“ XIV THE BEAUTY PARLOUR "It seems strange," remarked Kennedy the following morning when we had met in his laboratory for our daily conference to plan our campaign, "that although we seem to be on the right trail we have not a word yet about Betty Blackwell herself. Carton has just telephoned that her mother, poor woman, is worrying her heart out and is a mere shadow of her former self." ”

“ XII THE "PORTRAIT PARLE" What it was that Clare Kendall had on her mind, appeared the following day.
"There's something I want to try," she volunteered, evidently unable to repress it any longer. "I have a plan—or half a plan. Don't you think it would be just the thing, under the circumstances, to ring up District Attorney Carton, tell him what we have accomplished and take him into our confidence? Perhaps he can suggest something. At any rate we have all got to work together, for there is going to be a great fight when they find out how far we have gone."
"Bully idea," agreed Craig. ”