Chapter III.
“That’s All We Know”
Next morning I had to deal with a suspicious and indignant Larry, with smoldering rebellion in every line of him. Nothing would convince him that the shot that broke the picture was not intended for me. In fact, I found him, just after breakfast, polishing up the revolver of his lawless days and whistling softly the while. I felt pretty certain that another such unconventional visitor as the man who had died at my feet would get a warm reception in my absence.
Larry had a grievance that morning; in fact, two of them. In the first place I told him that I was going to meet Moore, but had not told him why, nor what I was going to do. This was grievance number one, for up to now he had shared my plans.
But far greater than this was his grievance over the amazing metamorphosis of the graceful and negligent Moore. The glimpse Larry had caught of him, standing, smoking revolver in hand, over the dead man, had upset Larry’s calculations completely. He seemed to take it rather as a personal affront that this gentle soul should turn into a killer like that, behind his back. Perhaps the way Moore had ordered him out of the room afterwards had something to do with it.
However, I left him in charge of everything, and even commissioned him to wander about the city where his fancy led, to see whether he could pick up any clews. From a study of portraits and photographs, he had long since impressed my sister’s face on his memory, and he knew by heart the details of the dress she wore that day. This and his post in command of the fort, as it were, cheered him up a bit. I left him finally resigned and whistling over his revolver.
Personally, I felt considerably more cheerful that morning than I had felt for a long time. In the strain and fatigue of endless search, questing here, there, and wherever impulse led, I had had no time to brood over the fact that I was doing it alone. I had been in some pretty tight corners in my search, where, I believe now, only fixity of purpose had pulled me through.
I had not realized this at the time. But I am naturally rather of a peaceful disposition; I had my fill of fighting with the Lafayette Esquadrille during the war and had no desire for further excitement. So the new sense I had this morning of companionship, encouragement and backing waiting for me ahead put new heart into me. I felt somehow that things had taken a turn for the better in my quest. And I was filled with an even greater determination to see the thing through, however long it took and whatever happened. But for all this, I think it was as well that I could not see what lay ahead for me in the weeks to come.
I could find no one to meet me when I reached the rendezvous which Moore had designated. As I paused irresolute at the curb edge, a workman, lounging against a lamp-post and sucking on a dry cutty pipe, leisurely uncrossed his legs and sauntered up to me.
“Say, Mister, got a match on ye?” said he.
I handed him my box rather absently. But as he struck a match and stooped to light his pipe, he moved a little closer to me as though to shelter the flame. “Your cab’s across the way, sir,” he whispered. “At the corner, there. The driver knows.”
A moment later he straightened up and flipped away the match. “Much obliged, Mister,” he said. Then he handed me the box of matches and sauntered back to his lamp-post.
I moved across the street without looking at the man again. What I had seen of Moore and the man who had followed him the night before gave me no reason to believe that he and his associates would go in for a needless display of melodramatic secrecy. Therefore, if my arrival and destination seemed to them best kept secret, it was up to me to take the hint and fall in with their plans.
The car across the street was an ordinary taxi. As I came up to him the driver called, “Taxi, sir?” and reached back to open the door, quite in the natural manner.
“You know where to go?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Right you are, sir. Jump in!” he said, as though I had given him an address. A moment later we were speeding away. My new life and associations had begun.
Once started, I fell to wondering again as to why I had been sent for and how I could serve the ends of the Department, for of course the Department must have some definite object in view. I pictured the interview, imagining myself in some spick and span Municipal Office temporarily placed at the disposal of this distinguished visitor from Washington, chatting with some elderly gentleman of a curt and somewhat pompous mien. I was never more mistaken in my life!
We drove for ten or fifteen minutes, in and out among the little streets of Greenwich Village. Then suddenly the taxi pulled up in front of a little hotel below Washington Square, of which I had never even heard.
As I got out, the man glanced at the meter and raised his flag. “It’s sixty cents, sir,” he said casually.
Somewhat at a loss, I handed him a dollar bill. At that he dived into his pocket, picked out a dollar in change and presented it to me with a grin. He leaned forward as he did so. “Room 333, sir,” he said softly. Then, raising his voice: “All right, sir, I’ll be here at ten!”
A moment later he and his taxi had disappeared.
I entered the hotel, walked through the lobby, nodded to the elevator-boy and told him the third floor. And presently I was knocking at the door of Room 333.
It flew open and disclosed Moore, as immaculate as ever, but with an anxious look on his face which disappeared when he saw me. He reached out and pulled me into the room, shutting and locking the door again without wasting an instant.
“Thank goodness you got here all right. I was getting nervous. Now let me introduce you to the Chief.”
Instead of the pompous individual I had expected to meet, I found myself shaking hands with a big, genial fellow, with a jaw like the prow of a ship and a warm twinkle in his keen blue eyes. I took a liking to him at once.
“Well, sir,” he said, “glad to meet you—and glad you got here all serene. Mr. Clayton, isn’t it? Now let’s get to business.”
The room was an ordinary hotel bedroom and small at that. The Chief waved Moore and myself to seats on the bed and sat himself down somewhat cautiously in the only chair, which groaned under his bulk. He was still smiling, but his eyes were keen and cold, and I realized that the smile was purely automatic. He leaned forward in the groaning chair and made his points, as he talked, by tapping the forefinger of one hand in the palm of the other.
“Now, Mister Clayton,” he said, “Moore here suggested that you might be of use to us and I told him to bring you along, so that we could talk it over. You see, I am being frank with you, because I don’t suppose you imagined for a minute that this was a philanthropic proposition, eh?”
“No,” I told him bluntly, “neither on your side nor on mine.”
He laughed. “Well, we’ll call it a mutual benefit association. Anyhow, I know something about your search for the last two months and about you yourself, and your record in the war. Of course our men have had Miss Clayton on their minds. But that’s not entirely because of the dust you kicked up. There’s a bigger reason, too.”
“Bigger because it’s pretty nearly national,” Moore interjected softly.
The Chief nodded. “Yes, I might have put that differently. But my work comes first, you understand.”
“How do you think I can help you and help myself at the same time?” I asked him.
“I’m coming to that.” He broke off for a moment and glanced about the tiny green and brown bedroom. The glaring electrics in the central chandelier showed up every line of the grim, resourceful face with the grizzled hair above and the firm, heavy jaw. It was a face to inspire confidence certainly—if you happened to be on the same side with it. Otherwise it was distinctly a face to avoid.
“The fact is, Clayton,” he said suddenly, “that the Department is up against about the biggest thing in its history. German spies were pretty nearly as easy as picking cherries compared to this. And unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re up against exactly the same proposition. There’s the thing in a nutshell.”
“You mean——”
“I mean that if we can’t get anywhere with it—and we haven’t got far, I’ll admit—why your chances are pretty slim, working on your own. What’s more, if you should stumble on to something, the chances are one million to one that you’ll just get your throat cut for your pains. On the other hand, if you work for us—that is, if we work together on the proposition—why, perhaps we can help you in your search with our organization. And I believe you may be able to help us, or I wouldn’t have sent for you.”
“But what is this thing I’m—you’re up against?” I demanded.
The Chief scratched his head at this. “That’s just it. We don’t know—anything definite. However, I’ll tell you all there is to tell, and then you can make up your mind whether you’ll accept or not. I think Moore here told you that I’d like to have you working for me as an unofficial and fairly independent operative?”
“He was damned uncommunicative on the subject,” I answered.
Both the others laughed. “We don’t shout about our business from the housetops much,” said the Chief. “But this is a little of what we know. First of all, statistics. During the last six months no less than thirty girls have disappeared from the best families in and around New York—and not one of them has been traced.”
“Thirty-four, with the Schyller case,” said Moore softly.
“Exactly,” nodded the Chief. “Now, of course, girls are disappearing all the time, running away to go on the stage, eloping with the chauffeur, and so on. But very few of these are from the older, quieter families—the best families in the real sense. But the girls I’m talking about, of whom your sister was one, are practically all from the best families, all very young and all very prepossessing.”
The Chief broke off and ran his blunt fingers through his hair. “And, believe me, the pressure that’s been brought to bear on us to find them has turned my hair gray. But—we—haven’t—found—one!”
“Good God!” I began, but the Chief held up a warning finger and glanced at the door. I went on more quietly: “Do you mean to say it’s some sort of a gigantic gang of—of——” I couldn’t finish.
“White slavers? No-o, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Though I tell you, we don’t know.”
He paused at this and sat thinking for so long that impatience got the better of me, and I urged him to go on and tell me what they did know.
“Well, here’s the situation,” he said at last. “These girls have disappeared in New York, in Atlantic City, in Jersey towns and in Long Island, and two of them in Philadelphia. But most of them in New York. They have disappeared while shopping, while calling, while going to or coming from the theater, some of them on their way to hotels, and so on. Moreover, from what we can gather, it looks as if they actually were engaged in these innocent pursuits. I mean, these were not ostensible occupations to cloak escapades or elopements.
“Therefore the evidence points overwhelmingly to the fact that the disappearances were unwilling ones. So far as we can tell, none of the girls, or very few of them, were engaged in love affairs of a serious nature. So much for that.”
Suddenly the Chief made a wry face and the stubbly fingers ran through his hair rapidly two or three times. “As we haven’t been able to find out anything definite, we have had to fall back on deduction, which hasn’t taken us far. But perhaps we have learned something from it.
“You see, none of these girls were much in the public eye. At the time they disappeared, they were on the most ordinary and quietest of errands. But, in the vast majority of cases, the errands were planned at least two days in advance. That’s all we know.
“Perhaps that doesn’t tell us much and perhaps it does. It is possible, of course, that they were drugged in some way, by people on the watch in public places. I mean without regard to their identity. On the other hand, it looks as if most of the abductions must have been planned in advance, with a foreknowledge of the girls’ movements.
“You know as well as I do, that it isn’t so simple to drug and kidnap a person in broad daylight, or, at least, in a public place. These were not the type of girls to be easily drawn into a more secluded place with strangers, whether male or female, even if the girls were alone. Do you see what I mean?”
“You mean spies in their homes? Servants?” I began.
The Chief shook his head. “Not likely. Servants aren’t so well informed as all that, as a rule. No, the conclusion that’s just forced itself on me is that, unlikely as it may seem, the person or persons mixed up in this business belong to the same class of Society as the girls themselves.”
“But, good Lord, man—what—why——”
The Chief leaned forward suddenly, his jaw setting into flinty lines. “For example, what do you know about this Mrs. Furneau, who took your sister out to tea that day?”
I sat back and stared at him, my mind racing back to the night of Margaret’s disappearance. For an instant it fastened on the vague sense of resentment I had felt toward Mrs. Furneau for her part in the business. Then common sense prevailed.
“But what on earth could she have had to do with it? You don’t suppose she followed the child into the store? And how could she abduct her if she had? That was the most public of places,” I answered.
“Exactly,” said the Chief slowly; “if she ever went to the store at all!”
“But—but——”
“Did any one in the store actually see her? Did they remember and describe her?”
I shook my head. “But that doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m not trying to prove anything now. I’m trying to show you our line of deduction. But what do you know about the woman?”
“Very little. She was an acquaintance only. But many of her friends are above suspicion.”
“And the people where she took your sister?”
“I don’t know so much about them.” I stared at him in growing amazement. “But what could they have to do with it? You don’t mean to say that you think——”
“I don’t think anything. I’m asking questions. What did Mrs. Furneau’s chauffeur have to tell you?”
“Nothing more than she had to tell. He just corroborated the fact that Margaret had gone into the store.”
“H’m,” said the Chief. “But of course that doesn’t help much, one way or the other.”
“Do you mean to say you think it’s possible that Mrs. Furneau took the child to some house where she was kept a prisoner? And Mrs. Furneau invented all that business about the store? And her chauffeur was in it too?”
“I don’t know,” said the Chief. “But it’s a possible line of investigation, isn’t it? And it’s one that you haven’t touched? Now do you see where the Department might be of some help to you in your search?”
“But Mrs. Furneau—why, the Morrisons know her quite well. The thing’s out of the question.”
The Chief smiled slowly. “That’s the trouble with you amateurs. You go into an investigation like this with preconceived ideas—and all you look for is clews that fit in with those ideas. We suspect everybody until we can prove that they’ve had nothing to do with the affair. Do you see the difference?”
I nodded. “Well, I’ll try it.”
“Now here’s something else,” he went on. “We’ve come to the conclusion that, without a previous fairly intimate knowledge of the future movements of some of these girls, the abductions would have been impossible. We also deduce that they would have been very difficult, if not impossible, without actual acquaintanceship, in several cases at least. That places the gang, for I think it must be a gang, within certain high social limits.
“But during the time that these girls have been disappearing, there have also been a great many cases of addiction to drugs coming to light—and all these cases, without exception, have been highly placed socially. In fact, the Department began investigating the drug cases long before the abductions began. Many of the drug addicts are women. All the ones to whom I have reference are addicts of a peculiar kind. But almost without exception these addicts are men and women of importance and influence, either through position or wealth.”
“Can you connect them in any way with the abductions?” I asked.
“No. Not definitely. In fact, not at all, except by inference through the facts peculiar to both. But the very fact that we cannot get anything on any of these people, either the people who supply these drugs or the abductors, goes to prove that there is an extraordinary power and skill in organization behind each gang. Therefore, by inference, it may be the same organizer or group of organizers behind both. But, so far, we have not been able to connect the two things further than that, even by inference.”
Moore stirred in his place on the bed beside me and the Chief glanced up at him.
“There’s one other feature to it, sir,” he said. “I’ve been working on the abductions and nothing else. But they had a damned good try at picking me off. Clarke worked on the drug smuggling only—and——”
The Chief nodded. “Neither the one gang—nor the other, if there are two gangs, will hesitate at murder,” he said quietly.
“Good Lord, do you mean to say in this day and age——”
“This day and age is just about the same as any other day and age—because human nature doesn’t vary much,” he interrupted. “We were just about due for something new and startling in the criminal line, after this war, and it looks as if we’ve got it. I’ll tell you something more: we’ve had three highly trusted men on this job—two on the drugs, and Moore here, on the abductions. Moore has one or two leads started, though nothing very definite—and they tried to get him that night in your rooms. Of the other two operatives, one hasn’t been able to find out a thing—not a damned thing—and he’s a good man too. The other—this man Clarke, that Moore was talking about—has—disappeared.”
“But haven’t you traced him?”
“Traced him, nothing. He’s simply vanished into thin air. And, believe me, it’s no cinch for one of our men to disappear without our tracing him pretty quick. No, this gang is no slouch, I’ll say that for it.”
As I learned later on, a descent into slang was a sign of considerable feeling on the part of the Chief. But at this time his attitude struck me as a little unfeeling.
“Well,” I said, “it looks to me as if you were up against something pretty difficult. But do you mean that I can really be of some assistance to you in the business?”
“That’s it exactly. For this type of work, with this type of people, don’t you see that we’ve got to have operatives who have the social entry if we’re to get anywhere? Moore’s all right. But he can’t do it all alone. And besides, he won’t last long alone, probably, as you saw for yourself. Now if you join us in this work, you’ll be looking for your sister with the whole power of the Department back of you. But we want you to find her and bust up the gang, as much as you do yourself. There’s the situation. You’re fitted for the work, you’re vitally interested, and we can help each other. Afterwards, we’ll release you as soon as you like, if——” He left the sentence unfinished.
“If there’s anything left to release,” I added dryly.
“You’ve hit it exactly,” he smiled.
It did not take me long to make up my mind. I had nothing to lose and possibly everything to gain by joining the Department, if they were willing for me to continue my search in my own way. And working with the consciousness of a powerful organization back of me was infinitely preferable to doing it alone. I had expected that they might want me to work entirely under their direction, possibly in remote parts of the country. But the next words of the Chief set my mind at rest on that point.
“We want you to stay in New York and take up your life just where you left it off to-day. We want you to get back into Society and become a regular lounge lizard if necessary. And we want you to let the Department help you with hints when it can. But for the rest, you and Moore are to work together. It will be safer and better for both of you. Will you do it?”
“I’ll do it,” I told him.
The Chief got to his feet and held out a massive hand. “Right,” he said, “I’m mighty glad. And I think you’ve made a wise decision. Now I’ve got a lot of work to do. Moore has full instructions for you both. Anything else you want to know he can tell you. Wait here for ten minutes. Good-by and good luck!” With that he went to the door. Then he suddenly turned back to me again: “And by the way, Clayton!”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, smiling.
“Don’t talk about this business to anybody—anybody. Is that clear with you?”
“Quite clear,” I assured him.
“You’ll meet some of the other operatives perhaps. You’re almost sure to. But unless they come to you with the proper credentials for this job, which Moore will explain to you, don’t tell them things. There’s a reason.”
Moore interrupted. “Don’t you think, Chief, that we might tell him the reason?”
The Chief frowned. Then suddenly he made a wry face again. “All right, I suppose so. The fact of the matter is, Clayton, that for the first time in its history either we’ve had the rottenest of bad luck, or—there’s a leak somewhere in the Department. Now you understand.”
Without another word he strode to the door again and went out.
I turned to Moore and found him smiling whimsically.
“Nothing slow about your Chief,” I remarked.
He laughed. “Not so’s you could notice it!” Then he held out his hand. “Well,” he said, “I think you’re the sort of fellow I’d like to have with me in a real row. This is going to be a real row. Don’t make any mistake about that. But I believe we’re going to pull it off, eh?”
“I’ll give you mine on that,” I told him, and we shook hands.