HOW THE SAN REVE KEPT HER STORRI
Richard was of a temperament singularly cool and steady. His curiosity had been trained to wait, and he put questions only as a last resort. Throughout the strange happenings of the night—the tryst with Inspector Val—the meeting with Mr. Duff and Mr. England at the drain's mouth—the presence of Steamboat Dan—the colloquy between that unworthy and Inspector Val—the signal pistol shot—the flight of the robbers—he had not spoken a word. While his astonishment was kept to an upgrade, there had not been elicited a syllable of inquiry from Richard. He threaded the drain, encountered the long fleet of little rubber argosies, and finally brought up at London Bill's tunnel, and never an interrogation. This was not acting nor affectation; Richard knew that he might with better intelligence invite an explanation from Inspector Val after having seen and understood his utmost. Moreover, what with the storm and the splashing journey up the drain, there had been scanty opportunity for conversation. Also, when he saw how Inspector Val looked forward to the capture of Storri in the midst of crime, the strain of expectation made silence the natural thing. It took Inspector Val's sudden yet decisive assertion that Storri was dead, to provoke the first word. Storri's death instantly overshadowed all else in the thoughts of Richard.
"Storri dead!" he exclaimed, making as though he would enter London Bill's tunnel, from which Inspector Val had crawled to make his grim announcement.
"Dead as Nero!" returned Inspector Val. "But not there—not in the tunnel!"
"Where then?" asked Richard.
"In Grant Place. You recall the San Reve?—she who wrote the letter about those French shares? Both Storri and she are dead in Grant Place, or I'm not an Inspector of Police."
Richard was for going to Grant Place, but Inspector Val detained him.
"There's no hurry," he said. "Any discoveries to be made in Grant Place will wait. On second thought the death of the Russian is the best solution. But there's no hurry. Besides," continued Inspector Val, his tones betraying that sublime appreciation of art at its utmost which an amateur of bronzes might have felt in the presence of Cellini's Perseus, "besides, I want you to take a look over this job of London Bill! You'll never again see its equal—never such perfection of plan and execution!"
Richard was glad of the darkness that hid the half-smile which the delight of Inspector Val called forth. Protest would be of no avail; it was one of those cases where to yield is the only way of saving time.
Inspector Val re-entered London Bill's tunnel and invited Richard to follow. He showed Richard how truthfully, like the work of a best engineer, the tunnel—begun high above water-mark on the side of the drain—sloped downward until it dipped beneath the Treasury walls. Then it began to climb, heading as unerringly for the gold as though London Bill had brought clairvoyant powers to direct his digging. The tunnel ran to the rear of the vault, and about six feet beneath its floor. Then it went straight upward; and next, the supporting earth and masonry having been removed, the gold, pressing with its vast weight, had forced down two of the floor slabs of steel on one side, precisely as London Bill designed from the beginning. Those five-thousand-dollar sacks spilled themselves into the tunnel of their own motion—a very cataract of gold! As fast as they were carried away, more came tumbling—a flow of riches, ceaseless! Inspector Val flashed his lantern here and there in disclosure of the wonderful beauties of the work. As he did so, Richard heard him sigh in a positive contentment of admiration.
"The most scientific job in the history of the police!" whispered Inspector Val. "London Bill is certainly entitled to his rank as the world's foremost box-worker! It's this sort of a thing that makes you respect a man!"
Richard was driven to smile again as he recalled the sleepy, intolerant exquisite, gloved and boutonnièred, whom he met in Willard's, and compared him with the thief-hunting enthusiast who, dark-lantern in hand and crouching under the low clay roof of the tunnel, was so rapturously expounding the genius of the great burglar.
"But greater still," continued Inspector Val, "greater than London Bill, was that Russian party Storri. And to think this was his first—that he was only a beginner! I used to wonder how he was going to bring out the gold; and I'm free to admit I couldn't answer the question. Sometimes, I'd even think he had blundered; I'd figure on him as the amateur who had only considered the business of going to the gold, without remembering that getting away with it was bound to be the hardest part of the trick. You can see yourself," and here Inspector Val appealed to Richard, "and you no crook at all, that if it ever became a case of lugging out this gold by hand, it would take the gang a week to get away with a half-million. It was when Storri ordered those circular rubber rafts that I fell to it all; it was then I took off my hat to him!"
When Richard and Inspector Val were again at the mouth of the drain, the lashing storm had worn itself out. The night was silently serene; the clouds were breaking, and two or three big stars peered down. There was a moon, and having advantage of a rift in the clouds, a ray struck white on Arlington. Over across, one might make out the tall dark Maryland hills. Far away on the river burned the lights of the Zulu Queen; she was holding her best speed down-stream, having reason to think her recent anchorage a perilous one.
"Their hearts will be in their mouths until they clear Point Comfort," said Inspector Val, pointing to the retreating Zulu Queen. Then turning to Mr. Duff, who, with Mr. England, had faithfully met him and Richard when they emerged from the drain, and giving him a pasteboard from his case, he continued: "Mr. Duff, present my card to the Chief of the Secret Service, and tell him with my compliments that he and what men lie handy to his call are wanted at this drain. Should he be a bit slow, say that a big slice of the gold reserve has fallen into the drain, and the situation doesn't do him credit. You, Mr. England, will remain on guard until the Secret Service people get here. London Bill might regain confidence, and come back for a sack of that gold."
"Where now?" asked Richard as Inspector Val, taking him by the arm, bent his steps towards the center of town.
"Grant Place," replied Inspector Val. "And on that point, if I may advise you, I'd not go to Grant Place; one of us will be enough. You'd see something disagreeable; besides, this killing may get into the coroner's office, and from there into the courts and the newspapers. Considering that you are to be married in a few days, I should say that you don't want to have your name mixed up with it. No, the wise thing is for me to go alone."
"It's the question of publicity," responded Richard, "that I was revolving in my mind. Here's this bald attempt to rob the Treasury——"
"It was magnificent!" interjected Inspector Val, unable to restrain his tribute.
"And if your surmise be correct," continued Richard, disregarding the interruption, "now come the deaths of Storri and the woman San Reve to cap the robbery. What, may I ask, do you call your duty in the premises?"
"Duty?" repeated Inspector Val. "I've no duty; that is, no official duty. Washington is off my beat. My course, however, must depend upon circumstances. As far as I may, I shall smother every mention of to-night's work. If the papers get hold of one end of it, and begin to haul it ashore, they will bring in yourself and Mr. Harley and Senator Hanway in a manner not desired at this time. Besides, the Secret Service people, goaded by publicity, might pinch Steamboat Dan and his gang. Now I'm not going to lose my best stool pigeon to please these somnambulists of the Secret Service. Also, I've given my promise to Dan, and I never break my word."
"I'm quite anxious, as you may imagine," said Richard, "to bury what we've seen and heard to-night. But how can it be done? You've sent word to the Secret Service Chief."
"The men of the Secret Service will never mention the business unless they have to; it's not to their glory. The danger lies with those dead folk waiting in Grant Place. If there were nothing to hide but the gold in the drain, and the hole under the Treasury wall, it would prove easy enough."
"But are you sure that Storri is dead? It's simply your deduction, you know. You may yet find him very much alive."
"He's dead," reiterated Inspector Val, with deepest conviction. "If he were alive, we would have found him at the drain. That gold would have drawn him there in his sleep. Besides, I saw it coming. I've an idea, however, that the Russian legation people possess as many motives for holding Storri's death a secret as do the Secret Service men for keeping dark the fact that the Treasury has been tapped. Yes, the Russians, with the State Department to help them, will find a way. Everything goes by pull, you know," concluded Inspector Val, confidently, "and it will be queer if the State Department and the Russians, working together, can't call Storri's blinking out by some name that won't attract attention."
Inspector Val related how, step by step, he had kept abreast of Storri.
"When he came out of retirement," explained Inspector Val, "following the loss of his money in Northern Consolidated, I kept close tabs on him. These half-civilized people are only half sane, and some crazy crime would have come natural to this Russian at that time. So, as I tell you, I stayed close to his heels. I could see by his face that he had some big purpose. He began buying maps and visiting the department buildings. I knew then we were getting to the heart of the affair, and, while I couldn't guess the shoot he would take, I had only to follow to find out. The moment he put foot in the Treasury Building, I turned wise. Those visits to the other buildings had been mere 'stalls.' As I followed him through the Treasury I could see that now he was in earnest.
"When the Assistant Secretary showed him the vault that held the gold reserve, I learned all I wanted to learn. His design and the crime he plotted were written on his face. Of course as soon as ever I realized that he meant to try his teeth on the Treasury, I had only to run my eye over the year's calendar to tell when. There was a Sunday followed by Decoration Day—two holidays, and no one on guard worth considering; it was sure that Storri would hit upon those days to make the play. When I saw how the Saturday before was set apart for a special holiday, the thing was surer than ever. It did not require any deep intelligence to determine when Storri would act. Next I followed him up the drain; and later to Steamboat Dan's. That visit to Dan's so reduced the business that nothing was left but the question of when to make the collar."
"What yacht was that?" asked Richard.
"It belongs to a fat-witted rich young fellow from whom Storri borrowed it. Steamboat Dan is aboard; he went out in the skiff he spoke of. When he's tied her up and his gang's ashore, I'll wire the fat-witted one to come and claim his boat."
Inspector Val never breathed a hint concerning Storri's ebon purpose of abduction, and how he meant to fire the Harley house and then kidnap Dorothy in the confusion certain to be an incident of flames and smoke at four o'clock in the morning. This reticence arose from the delicacy of Inspector Val. The relation could not fail to leave a most unpleasant impression upon Richard, and Inspector Val decided to suppress it for the nonce.
"I'll keep it a year and a day," thought Inspector Val; "then I'll tell him."
Richard adopted the counsel of Inspector Val, and did not accompany that gentleman of secrets to Grant Place. It was the half hour after midnight when Inspector Val climbed the Warmdollar steps, and strenuously pulled the bell. The latter appurtenance was one of those old-fashioned knob-and-wire tocsins, and its clangorous voice was calculated to arouse, not only the house whereof it was a fixture, but the neighborhood round about. Inspector Val's second pull at this ancient engine brought Mr. Warmdollar, something bleary and stupid to be sure, but wide awake for Mr. Warmdollar. Once inside the hallway, Inspector Val told Mr. Warmdollar that he was a police agent, showed that ex-representative the gold badge glimmering beneath his coat, and concluded by informing him that all might not be well in the San Reve's room. Inspector Val did what he could to frighten Mr. Warmdollar. It was necessary to tame that householder to docility, and what should achieve this sooner than a great fright? At the fearful hints of Inspector Val—they were in his manner more than in his words—the purple nose of Mr. Warmdollar became a disastrous gray. Beholding this encouraging symptom, Inspector Val delayed no longer, but bid him beat upon the San Reve's door. This Mr. Warmdollar, nervous and shaken, did with earnestness, not once but twice. Nobody responded; after each visitation of the panel the silence that prevailed was sinister.
"There's no one in," faltered Mr. Warmdollar.
Inspector Val pointed ominously to the hall-rack on which were hanging Storri's hat and waterproof coat. Mr. Warmdollar wrung his hands; his imagination, fretted into fever by the remoteness of his latest whisky toddy,—whisky toddy being Mr. Warmdollar's favorite tipple,—began to give him pictures of what dread things lay hidden in the silence beyond that unresponsive door.
Inspector Val took from his pocket three pieces of steel, each about the size of a lead pencil, and began screwing them together, end for end. The instrument produced was a foot in length and looked like a screwdriver. As a matter of burglarious fact it was a jimmy of fineness and finish. It had been the property of a gentlemanly "flat-worker," who made rich hauls before he fell into the fingers of Inspector Val and went to Sing Sing. Inspector Val applied the absent gentleman's jimmy to the San Reve's door, squarely over the lock. He gave it a twitch and the door flew inward, the bolt tearing out a mouthful of the casing.
"Stand back!" said Inspector Val to Mr. Warmdollar, who having already retired to the lower step of the stair, where he sat with his face buried in his hands, hardly required the warning.
One gas jet was burning in the San Reve's room; being turned down to lowest ebb, it was about as illuminative as a glow-worm. Inspector Val stretched forth his hand and instantly the room was flooded of light. Inspector Val was neither shocked nor surprised at the spectacle before him; he was case-hardened by a multitude of professional experiences, and besides, for full a fortnight he had read murder in the San Reve's face.
Storri was lying upon the lounge, dead—stone-dead. A trifling hole in the back of the head showed where the bullet entered in search of his life. There was a minimum of blood; the few dried drops upon a curling lock of the black hair were all there was to tell how death came. Storri had been dead for hours; the small thirty-two caliber revolver—being that one which Storri had seen on a memorable night in mid-winter—lay on the floor where it fell from the San Reve's jealous fingers. It was a diminutive machine, blue steel and mother of pearl, more like a plaything than a pistol.
The San Reve was on her knees beside the dead Storri, her left arm beneath his head and her face buried in the silken cushion that served as pillow. There was a looseness of attitude that instantly struck Inspector Val; he stepped to the San Reve and lifted the free hand which hung by her side. The hand was clammy and cold as ice. The San Reve had died when Storri died, but there was none of the rigidity of death, the body was relaxed and limp. Inspector Val sniffed the air inquisitively, and got just the faintest odor of bitter almonds. That, and the relaxed limbs, enlightened him.
"Prussic acid," said he.
As Inspector Val replaced the San Reve's hand by her side, a tiny vial—that with a prayer-book—was dislodged from a fold of her dress. The vial showed a few drops of a yellow-green fluid in the bottom. Inspector Val picked it up, and the bitter breath of the almond was more pronounced than ever.
"Exactly!" murmured Inspector Val; "prussic acid! She died as though by lightning;—which is a proper way to die if one's mind is made up. Now why couldn't she have sent Storri by the same route? A drop of this"—here he surveyed the tiny vial with interest, almost with approval—"a drop of this in the corner of his eye, or on his lip, would have beaten the pistol. Ah, yes, the pistol!" mused Inspector Val, taking the baby weapon in his hand; "I suppose the storm drowned the report. Well, they're gone! Storri was asleep, and never knew what hit him; which, considering his record,—and I'm something of a judge,—was an easier fate than he had earned."
Inspector Val made a close examination of the room, rather from habit than any thought more deep, and straightway discovered the sleepy whisky. He put it to his nose as he had the tiny vial.
"Laudanum!" he muttered; "she had mapped it out in every detail. It was the sight of the Zulu Queen; she saw that he was about to desert her."
Inspector Val heaved a half-sigh, as even men most like chilled steel will when in the near company of death, and then, stiffening professionally, he called in Mr. Warmdollar, still weeping drunken tears at the stair's foot.
"I want, for your own sake," explained Inspector Val, "to impress upon you the propriety of silence. These deaths will produce a sensation in both the State Department and the Russian legation. If word get abroad through you, it might be resented in the quarters I've named. I shall give the Russians notice, and you must not let a word creep into the papers until after they have been here. If news of this leak out, it may cost Mrs. Warmdollar her situation."
Inspector Val was aware that in Washington the hinted loss of one's position as the penalty of loquacity has ever been the way of ways to lock fast the garrulous tongue. Mr. Warmdollar became a prodigal of promises; neither sign nor sound should escape him of the tragedy. Mrs. Warmdollar, as head scrubwoman, must not be put in jeopardy!
Inspector Val visited the Secret Service Chief, and the two were as brothers of one mind. To lapse into the rustic figures of the farms, on that subject of secrecy they fell together like a shock of oats. Why should the world know of the splendid gopher work of London Bill? The gold had been saved; to publish the dangers it had grazed might inspire other bandits. No, secrecy was the word; that question Inspector Val and the Secret Service Chief answered as one man. And so no word crept forth. When the vault must be restored, it was said that those tons upon tons of gold it sheltered had broken down the steel floor. As bricks by the wagon load went into the drain through the manhole nearest the scene of London Bill's exploits, a pavement idler asked their purpose. They were to repair the drain where the water had eaten into and undermined the walls. Yes, it was a secret stubbornly protected; the tunnel was stopped up, the vault restored to what had been a former strength or weakness, and never a dozen souls to hear the tale.
With the Russians, Inspector Val met views which ran counter to his own. An attaché of the Bear accompanied Inspector Val to the San Reve's rooms in Grant Place. The Attaché was for sending Storri's body to St. Petersburg. Inspector Val objected.
"Why should you care?" said the Attaché to Inspector Val. "I do not understand your interest."
"She cares," returned Inspector Val, pointing to the dead San Reve. "I have made her interest mine. She died to keep this Storri by her side; I will not see her cheated."
The Attaché looked curiously at Inspector Val; a sentimental lunatic was not a common sight. The Attaché, however, was no one to yield. Storri's remains must go to Russia.
"Will you send home then the body of a thief overtaken in the crime?" asked Inspector Val. "This Storri schemed to rob the Treasury. I do not think the representatives of the Czar should oppose me in my whim."
"Who are you?" asked the Attaché. Inspector Val's disclosures were alarming; trained in caution, he did not care to defy them until he was sure of his foothold of fact. "The news you brought so affected me that I failed of politeness and never asked your name."
"I am Inspector Val of the New York police."
"And you declare Count Storri a thief engaged in robbing your Treasury?"
"I say it word for word. More; he had it in train to burn a house and abduct a girl."
The Attaché surveyed Inspector Val with his sharp black eyes. Clearly, here was a man whom it would not be wise—for the honor of the Bear—to oppose!
"And this poor woman loved Count Storri," said the Attaché, shifting his glance to the dead San Reve. "She died, you say, to keep him by her. Yes, you are right; they should not be parted now."
The San Reve, no longer jealous, and Storri, no longer false, were given one grave, and the Attaché of the Czar and Inspector Val alone attended, as though representing rival interests. The San Reve's prayer of passion had been granted; her Storri would be her own and hers alone throughout eternity.