“Yes. Through the booths at Grand Central. Their conversation was probably a brief one. Morphy undoubtedly gloated a minute or two, then told Mr. Stockbridge that his time had come on this earth. Naturally Mr. Stockbridge asked who was talking. Morphy answered by stating who he was, and also that he was at Sing Sing. Mr. Stockbridge repeated this statement aloud. He probably said, ‘What, Sing Sing?’ or ‘Ah, Ossining!’ or words to that effect. The bird heard it and remembered it.”
“How strange!” exclaimed Nichols.
“Not at all,” said Drew, leaning forward. “It was just like a magpie to pick out the one salient part of a conversation and repeat it. The couplet ‘Sing Sing’ was one it had never heard. It is so striking to even a bird. It probably came with such emphasis, there was no forgetting it!”
The group facing the detective was silent for a long minute. Delaney moved uneasily as Nichols toyed with his cup. Loris breathed in suppressed wonder at the tiny clew which had overthrown the best laid plans on the part of Morphy and his confederate. It was like an echo of a dead voice coming back to confront a murderer. She shivered as she widened her eyes and stared at Drew.
“There’s another question,” she said. “How did the trouble-man get into this house in the first place, Mr. Drew?”
“I was responsible. He forced my hand!”
“How?”
“By a clever subterfuge. He disconnected the library telephone wires at the junction-box in the alley. He knew that sooner or later Mr. Stockbridge would try to use the ’phone. He couldn’t get a connection, or I couldn’t. It was the time I tried to ’phone and then notified Gramercy Hill Exchange through another ’phone. He was listening in and consequently caught the gist of my orders to Harrigan. He hurried to Gramercy Hill Exchange and there met Frisby, another trouble-man, starting out to investigate my complaint. He took Frisby’s place, hurried over and closed the library connection and then came into the house, stating that we had sent for him.”
“Clever,” said Nichols. “That was clever, wasn’t it?”
“Remarkably so!” exclaimed Drew. “It was a case of making the detective on the premises act as a tool. It was like a safeblower asking a night watchman to move a safe out on a truck. I never suspected that fellow at all. I hardly looked at him when he was testing the connections in the library. I even heard him rattling a pair of pliers over the binding posts on the receiver. That was the time he took the old one off and put on the loaded pistol. It was done very quickly.”