CHAPTER V
I deserved the taunt, of course, but I winced a little at Godfrey's chuckle.
"You'd fool the devil himself, Jemmy," said his captor. "And now I'll thank you to pass over to me those five little packets which my friend here left on that desk up yonder."
Without a word Jemmy unbuttoned his coat and produced the five packets. I could not but admire the coolness with which he accepted defeat.
"Take 'em, Lester," said Godfrey, "and put 'em back in your bag. We'll leave 'em over at the Tenderloin station, where we'll lodge this gentleman for the night. No use to disturb Mrs. Magnus till morning," he added, with a glance at the gloomy house. "Then we'll have Jemmy give us a special performance of his impersonation of the ghost of Peter Magnus."
The prisoner laughed.
"Glad to," he said. "I think you'll find it A one."
"No doubt," assented Godfrey. "As soon as Lester told me the story I knew you were the only man who could have worked it. And then there was the desk."
"Of course," agreed the prisoner. "You'd see that."
This was all Greek to me, but I knew the explanation would come in time. Meanwhile I carefully stowed away the five precious packets in my bag.
"Why can't we go over to my rooms at the Marathon and hear the story?"
I suggested. "It's right across the street from the station."
"All right," said Godfrey, and led the way down the street, with Jemmy keeping step with him as well as his short legs would permit. Five minutes later we were in my rooms, and I switched on the lights and got out the cigars.
"If you'll see that the doors are locked, Lester, I'll open this handcuff temporarily," said Godfrey. "But first," and he ran his hands over his prisoner's person. "Ah, I thought so," he said, and produced a small revolver of exquisite workmanship. "You always were a connoisseur, Jemmy," he added, examining the weapon, and then slipping it into his own pocket. "All right. Now you sit down over there and be good."
"Oh, I'll be good," said Jemmy. "I guess I know when I'm crimped.
Thanks," he added, accepting the smoke I offered him.
When the cigars were drawing nicely we were ready to hear the story. Not until then did I fully realize what a little fellow Jemmy was. Now I saw that he was almost a dwarf, little if any over four feet in height, and very slightly built. His face, shrunken and wrinkled, had that look of prenatural wisdom which dwarfs sometimes have, and his little black eyes were incredibly bright. He was evidently something of a dandy, for his clothes were immaculate. I admired again the aplomb with which he accepted the situation.
"Well," he began, "to make a long story short, I started on this lay just after old Magnus' death, when a friend of mine in the fortune-tellin' line told me Mrs. Magnus was a spiritualist."
"A spiritualist?" I queried, in surprise.
"Oh, yes; had been for years. That give me my clue, so I—ah—got into the house."
"How?" demanded Godfrey.
"That's telling."
"Bribed a servant, of course," said Godfrey. "We'll look them over in the morning. Go on."
"I got inside the house, looked over the ground, an' decided on my line of operation. I wanted something neat an' effective, an' I worked on it a good while before I had it goin' just right. There were so many little details. It took a lot of practice—these things do—an' then I had to remodel the inside of the desk—shorten up the drawers, an' make room for myself behind them. Luckily I'm little, an' the desk was one of the biggest I ever saw."
"So you were in the desk?" I asked.
"Sure," he chuckled. "Where else? Lookin' at you out of one of the pigeon-holes, an' wonderin' if I'd better risk it."
"And you decided you would?"
"Yes," said Jemmy slyly; "I saw you were scart to death, an' I was afraid if I didn't demonstrate for the old lady, I wouldn't get the money."
"How did you know she had it?"
"I heard you tell her you'd brought it, down in the parlor."
"Oh," I said; "then it was your step I heard in the hall?"
"I guess so, if you heard one. I just had time to get upstairs an' make my plant before you came in. The rest was easy."
"But the ashes?" I said.
"Flicked out through a pigeonhole. That's what took practice, to make 'em fall just right. Also the cigar."
"And the odor of tobacco?"
He got a little vial out of his pocket, uncorked it, and again I caught the sweet and heavy odor of Peter Magnus' cigar.
"An' here's a fine point I'm proud of," said Jemmy. "I had this made from half a dozen of Magnus' cigars I found in a box in his room. So the smell was just right. I thought for a while of showin' some smoke, but didn't dare risk it."
"But the note," I said. "That was the cleverest of all."
Jemmy chuckled and glanced at Godfrey.
"You'll understand that, Jim," he said. "You remember I worked it backward in that National City Bank case."
Godfrey nodded.
"I remember the signature disappeared from old Murgatroyd's check."
"Backward or forward, it don't make no difference. It all depends on the acid."
"What acid?"
"Ah," chuckled Jemmy, "you'd like to know, wouldn't you? You never will. But it all depends on it. If I put the acid in before the salt, the writin' disappears at the end of two hours; if I put the salt in before the acid, the writin' don't appear for the same length of time. It took me five years to work it out."
"But the writing didn't all appear at once," I objected.
"Of course not," said Jemmy impatiently. "It wasn't all wrote at once, was it? It appeared just like it was wrote."
"How could you time it?"
"Why," answered Jemmy still more impatiently, "I began operations at the same time every night, didn't I? I timed the writin' for eight-forty-five."
"But the chair?" I persisted.
Jemmy shot a disgusted glance at Godfrey.
"Any faker on Sixth Avenue can do that," he said. "A hook on a thread.
Anything else?"
"Yes," I said, "one thing. What horror did you perpetrate last night?"
Jemmy grinned mechanically as he looked at me, and I even fancied he reddened a little.
"Did she tell you about that?" he asked.
"She tried to, but couldn't. What was it?"
"Well, you know," said Jemmy apologetically, "I had to bring matters to a head some way, for the old girl certainly did hate to shell out. I was sorry to have to scare her, but I couldn't help it."
"But what did you do?"
Jemmy blew a ring, and watched it fade away in front of him.
"I don't think I'll tell," he said at last.
Godfrey had been listening with an amused smile.
"We'll get that detail from Mrs. Magnus," he said. "Accept my compliments, Jemmy. It was cleverly done. I'm almost sorry you didn't get away with it."
"Oh," answered Jemmy, with studied indifference, "that's all in the day's work, you know. But thank you all the same, Jim."
He was flicking the ashes from the end of his cigar as he spoke, and I saw that he didn't meet Godfrey's eyes.
The latter looked at him an instant; then, with a low exclamation, sprang to his feet, and snapped open the bag in which I had stowed the packets Jemmy had given me. He ripped one of them open, and disclosed, not ten thousand dollars in currency, but a neat bundle of blank paper!
Jemmy was looking at him now, and his face was alight with triumph.
"How did you know I was there?" Godfrey demanded.
"I didn't," grinned Jemmy. "But I wasn't takin' any chances."
"Who was your pal?"
"That's tellin'," answered Jemmy easily.
"Did you see any of the servants, Lester?"
"Only one," I said. "I didn't notice anything about her, except that she was rather good-looking, and—oh, yes—the little finger of her left hand was missing."
Godfrey grabbed the telephone, and I heard him call headquarters, and give terse orders to send a detail at once to the Magnus house, to watch all ferries and trains, and to search all the thieves' haunts in the city for Kate Travis—"Lady" Kate. Headquarters seemed to know perfectly whom he meant.
"You won't get her," said Jemmy calmly, as Godfrey hung up the receiver. "She got away as soon as we turned the corner. She's got a good half hour's start."
"Come along," said Godfrey roughly, and snapped the handcuffs on again. I could see that he was deeply chagrined. "Good night, Lester. I've made a botch of this thing. I've got to catch that woman."
But he hasn't caught her yet, and I suppose, when Jemmy finishes his term, he will find his share of that fifty thousand dollars waiting for him.
I hope so, anyway.