The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because it was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As a matter of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the miscreants shortly—for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth Avenue?
The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and the fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the back of his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. The Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated with the Ruritania by wireless, and asked the purser if among the passengers were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years of age, with paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute laryngitis, and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a nervous affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. Within twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: “St. Vitus here, under name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis.”
So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J. Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas W. Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The New York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they were on the right trail.
Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the American Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering Willie, who had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris police reported that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the scar on his hand vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew normal when questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story of having been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask in a whisper for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office on February 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer bade him good-by on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his hand and told him always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the description of Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police found that the whisperer's trail led a second time to the Herald office. The clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very well indeed. Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the police they had rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. J. C. Atkinson, an Englishman who had given as references a firm of international bankers on whom his letter of credit for five thousand pounds was drawn. The bankers knew nothing about him personally or socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the entire five thousand pounds. He had occupied the house two months, paid his rent promptly, and had given a satisfactory deposit against possible damage happening to any of the furniture.
The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues that merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the paralyzed vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling himself W. W. Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. Longworth, alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman was not known to any member of the New York police force, but fortunately he had a nervous affliction which would betray him without recourse to the third degree.
Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, and Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, typewritten on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton:
Having disposed of the pearls of the Princess Patricia at a price only eight per cent, below that at which you offered them to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught, we beg to suggest that it is a waste of money for you to encourage the detectives and downright dishonesty for the detectives to encourage you. You have caused to be arrested unfortunate men suffering from chorea in Liverpool, Bremen, Genoa, Buenos Ayres, and Panama, as well as Mr. W. W. Lowry in Paris and W. W. Longman in the City of Mexico. For the last eleven months Whispering Willie has been in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he is Number 317. Our Colonel Lowther has not St. Vitus's dance, is not an Englishman, and has not left New York! The Duke of Connaught, otherwise W. W. Lovell, of the Acme Vibrator Company, has a fine, strong barytone voice, has no scar on the back of his right hand, is too young to have gray hair, and his nose is not what it was when he was known as Mr. Lovell. We needed time to move about unwatched in New York, hence the elaborate false clues. We always plan our deals carefully and we are uniformly successful. We may inform you, in selfdefense, that we operate only on the rich enemies of society. Pearls and diamonds have ruined as many women as drink has ruined men or Wall Street has destroyed souls! We regard them as plunder to be recovered. You may be interested to know that we propose to induce one of our most famous high financiers to contribute a couple of millions to our surplus this month. At the proper time we shall supply the name and the particulars, in order that you may compare notes with the other patrons of
Yours truly,
The Plunderers.
The jewelers were inclined to regard the letter as a jest in very bad taste perpetrated by one of their number. But all denied it, and the communication was turned over to the police. The detective sergeant who was in charge of the case also thought the letter was a joke—until Mr. Boon told him he didn't see anything funny in the loss of a million dollars' worth of gems and a score of false arrests. He wondered, like the rest, whether there really was a syndicate, and presently found himself waiting for the news of the second exploit. “He fooled me” Boon confided to Donnelly. But what he really meant was that the man who impersonated the private secretary of the Duke of Connaught could fool anybody.