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Cosmopolitan, May 1918, with "The Star-Shell"
Craig Kennedy has met with few more exciting adventures in his long career than when he here has to deal with a startling case of kidnaping, involving some enemies of our country who are endeavoring to cripple the nation's wartime efforts in a very important direction.
"IF you'll look out of the window, Walter, you'll see the glare of the Lenoir grain-elevator fire."
Kennedy turned from a hasty call on the telephone, and together, out of the window, we could see the lurid light of a great blaze in the sky.
"It was Captain Myles, of the Special Harbor Police," Craig said. "He wants us to meet him on the patrol-boat at the foot of Degraw Street at once—says there's something very suspicious about the fire and that it's my duty to aid the government."
As we neared the water-front neighborhood to which Myles had directed us, we could see that we were not far from the scene of a great conflagration. We could hear the dull throbbing of the fire-engines, and everywhere we encountered excited crowds, policemen, and men of the Home Defense League.
We had no trouble in passing ourselves through the fire-lines and soon found that Myles was waiting for us impatiently at the end of the long wharf.
"I suppose you'd like to see the fire," he greeted, then, taking the answer for granted, turned to the patrol-boat, aboard which we followed him. "We can talk just as well watching it."
A moment later, the boat was heading out into the river. We could now see fire-boats pouring on thick streams of water.
The Lenoir elevators were great wooden and sheet-iron structures, towering some couple of hundred feet. They seemed to be all ablaze, the dark-red flames licking about them, surmounted by a dense pillar of smoke, which was taken and carried by the wind as far as the eye could see. Everywhere in the air was that peculiar, pungent smell of burning grain.
"Great spectacle," muttered Myles. "But not an accident—take it from me."
Kennedy said nothing but nodded, encouraging him to go on to the point where we might fit into the case.
"You saw in that announcement of the Food Administration that there was considerable danger from German plots to burn cattle in stock-yards and grain in elevators throughout the country," Myles continued. "There have been many fires; in fact, a series of fires—enough to convince me that there is a serious plot to burn vast food-stores. This is only the latest and one of the largest attempts. There are thousands of bushels of grain consigned to the Allies stored here in the Lenoir elevators alone. And if this thing keeps up millions of bushels are in danger in grain-elevators on the Brooklyn and Jersey shores."
"Have you discovered anything yet?" prompted Kennedy.
"I think we have," returned Myles, growing more excited. "In this case, workmen tell me that they could distinguish two explosions, one minor and the second so powerful that it blew the top off the elevator. At the same time, flames shot up through the top more than a hundred feet." Myles paused a moment. "A theory has been advanced," he recollected, "that the explosions in grain-elevators are caused by spontaneous combustion. But I cannot believe this, even though I know that such things are possible. There has been a too high percentage of fires. And take this very case—Lenoir himself assures me that he installed blowers to remove the dust."
"Then you think the fire was set, that it was started by a bomb explosion?" deduced Kennedy.
"I'm pretty sure. I have every reason to believe that this fire—and others—were set by a fellow who appears in a speedy motor-boat with a hunting-cabin. This time, my men inform me, they caught a glimpse of the boat. Before we could give chase, he escaped in a sort of white fog in the dusk. Here's something I want to show you," continued Myles, indicating a peculiar box on the deck. "My men have found two or three of these things floating in the water."
Craig and I examined the strange box. It had a slit in the side, which had once been covered with a piece of adhesive tape. The contents, however, seemed to have vanished. On the top, the box bore the stencil of one of the great powder manufacturers.
"An explosive, perhaps," suggested Myles.
Kennedy shook his head.
"The box would have been destroyed in that case," he objected. "It hasn't been opened, either, to take anything out. May I take it along with me?"
Myles had been saving it for that very purpose. Kennedy took the box and glanced again at the fire. There was no chance of saving the elevator, but the surrounding buildings now appeared to be safe.
We promised Myles to report to him at once when we found out anything, and he set us ashore.
As we left the wharf, we ran into a crowd in the street, kept back by the police lines, still watching the fire. Suddenly, in the crowd, I felt an arm reach out, and a fist struck the box that Kennedy was carrying. By force of habit, from the old days, perhaps, Craig was carrying it as he would a football, and the box did not fall from his arms. We turned quickly, but it was impossible to accuse anyone in the darkness and the close-pressing jam.
I studied the faces about me. Two or three, particularly evil-looking, had a snarl on them.
"This can mean only one thing," muttered Kennedy, shouldering his way through to where the crowd thinned. "We are watched even at the start. That would seem to indicate an organized gang, just as Myles suspects."
Back in the laboratory, Kennedy began at once an examination of the box, taking off the cover and scraping round the inside to recover what he could of the contents.
"What is the thing?" I asked, after a few minutes.
"These are traces of its former contents. I should say that the box had contained a composition of phosphorus and tar or some other free carbon."
"Phosphorus and tar?" I repeated. "What's that for?"
"A smoke-box—used to leave a smoke-screen behind when a ship is trying to elude a pursuing submarine or torpedo-boat. The 'smoke' is a creamy white haze that effectually cuts off vision—exactly what Miles says they observed. The things cost about twenty-five dollars each."
THERE was a knock at the door, and Kennedy opened it
carefully, for our experience at the wharf had counseled caution.
Far from our visitor being dangerous, it was a very pretty and
flushed young woman.
"I am Ethel Lenoir," she introduced. "Perhaps you have heard of my father, Gaston Lenoir, the wheat-broker?"
"Not only so," replied Kennedy, placing a chair for her, "but you have my utmost sympathy. Mr. Jameson and I have just come from witnessing that most unfortunate fire."
"Indeed? I suppose that it is about that fire, either directly or indirectly, that I have come to you," she hastened, now perfectly at ease though still excited. "You know, I am one of the workers down at the college settlement which is not very far from the elevators. Of course, I don't have to tell you that we have a very large foreign population about our neighborhood house."
She paused a moment. "I've been very active down there in the citizens' secret service. You know there's plenty to do in merely watching some of these people just now. Father says I shouldn't be so active, that it is dangerous. But then he won't let me go into Red Cross work—and what am I to do?"
She went on earnestly: "But it was about the fire that I started to tell you. I've come to the conclusion that it must have been set by some one down there in the neighborhood. It's a hotbed of secret sedition. I've talked to others of the workers at the settlement, but none of them seems to think that there is anything back of it—in fact, they say I'm unduly suspicious. George Avery laughs at me, says I'm trying to play detective, and so does Frank Langley."
"Who are they?" asked Kennedy.
"Workers at the settlement—both of them have boys' clubs there. Mr. Langley is editor of a little paper he calls The Proletariat. But George Avery's the worst. He said to-night that I ought to inform the government about Mr. Lithgow—that's our head worker—and have him interned as an enemy alien for living within the prohibited area of the naval-stores buildings. He thought that was sarcasm. They can't seem to see what I see. Perhaps I'm too patriotic—can there such a thing, Professor Kennedy?" Kennedy smiled.
"I don't think so," he replied. "But tell me some more."
"Oh they all know me down there," Ethel Lenoir continued, with a pardonable touch of pride. "I have a class of girls. I don't teach them internationalism—just plain Americanism. That's one of the things that made me come to you to-night—just a little incident that happened. You know, I think I can learn more of the intimate life of these people through the children than some of the investigators could ever learn from the parents. There's one little girl, Maria Willar—well, I won't tell you the story. I want you to hear it yourself. I think there's a gang. Have you time to come down there with me?"
Ethel Lenoir was very much excited and very much in earnest. Accordingly, it was not long before we were on our way down to the settlement with her in her run-about.
"It's a mistake many people make," she said, in answer to my remark about going to settlement work in a stylish car. "Some people up-town seem to think they've got to dress and act down to these people. Nothing of the kind. They expect you to come to them as you would to your own friends. So I wear the same clothes, act the same as I might at an up-town hotel. The other thing they know is not sincere, and they resent being patronized."
WE drove up before the settlement, and Miss Lenoir climbed out
from behind the wheel of the car. As we started into the plain
but artistic entrance of the building, a couple of street-urchins
coming out grabbed at their caps. "Good-evening, Miss
Lenoir!"
She smiled and spoke to them. It was evident that she was popular down there.
We entered and passed down the hall. On all sides, in the big rooms, there was a perfect babel of voices. Games and all manner of entertainments were going on.
"Oh, Mr. Avery, I want you to meet Professor Kennedy!" introduced Ethel, as we almost ran into a young man lounging up the hall with a copy of the pacifist New Democracy ostentatiously under his arm.
As we chatted for a moment, it was evident that Avery was very much more interested in Ethel than he was in us.
It was not many minutes before, from what seemed to be an office down the hall, another young man appeared.
"Mr. Lithgow, our head worker," introduced Miss Lenoir.
The approach of Lithgow seemed to freeze Avery. We realized that the two were rivals.
I watched Ethel Lenoir closely. Her face had shown plainly her interest in Lithgow the moment he joined us, yet it was more than fancy that discovered restraint in her manner toward him.
Lithgow was, in fact, a handsome, almost distinguished-looking fellow, but with a decidedly foreign air that had not been Americanized out of him. I learned afterward that he was an Austrian by birth but had become naturalized here. He appeared to be well educated, and I was not surprised to learn later that his family were bankers.
Miss Lenoir excused herself and us.
"I must find Bernice and relieve her," she remarked, as we started up-stairs. "She took my girls while I was away. You'll find Miss Bowne delightful. Only," she added, in a burst of confidence, "I do wish I could make George Avery see it that way. I don't want her to think it's my fault if he spends evenings here when his own boys have no club-meetings and my girls do."
We had one more encounter before we reached the room where Miss Lenoir's girls were meeting.
"Mr. Langley," introduced Miss Lenoir, as a tall, smooth-shaven young man with long hair and low collar came down from an upper room, a sheaf of galley-proofs in his hand.
I should have recognized him anywhere as the editor of The Proletariat or some such periodical.
He seemed to desire to be friendly with Ethel, but here again I could feel a sense of restraint. I wondered whether each, in the vernacular, was "class-conscious."
At last, however, we reached the door through which we could hear the drone of merry voices. Miss Lenoir opened it, and a moment later we were chatting with Bernice Bowne, a fluffy, vivacious little person of most "advanced" ideas of everything from matrimony to the war. By this time I was beginning to orient myself in this atmosphere.
I had suspected the close intimacy of Lithgow and Ethel, the rivalry of Avery and Lithgow. Now I sensed a latent jealousy on the part of Bernice, and I was not surprised to learn later that it was over Avery. Nor was I surprised to find that, until recently, the gossip of the settlement had been that Lithgow and Ethel Lenoir would furnish a romance, which, for some reason, had been interrupted. Ethel herself had already hinted to us the reason. Evidently, it was another of those unfortunate divisions growing out of the great war.
Ethel Lenoir, as the children crowded about her, put her arms about one little girl, drawing her to herself.
"This is little Maria, of whom I spoke to you," she whispered to Kennedy. "We had a sewing-class the other day, and I thought there would be nothing nicer than to have all the girls make their own little flags. We cut them out, and they were to finish working on them at home and bring them to-night. Maria is the only one who didn't bring hers. I'll try to get her to repeat her story as she told it to me." Miss Lenoir had by this time managed to separate Maria and ourselves from the children. "Tell me. Maria dear, why didn't you have your flag?" she asked encouragingly.
The child's face suddenly became grave. She acted as though frightened. She stood silent, embarrassed before strangers. Kennedy dropped on one knee beside her.
"Maria," he said reassuringly, "what is your country?"
"Why—America!" she replied artlessly, beginning to forget her embarrassment.
Kennedy smiled.
"And you love your flag, don't you?"
"Of course," came the quick answer; then she caught herself, startled. Kennedy realized he was progressing.
"Suppose I buy you a nice little silk flag," he suggested.
There was a look of genuine terror on the child's face.
"No—no—my uncle—burned the other one!" burst from her in a sob.
"Burned it?"
"Yes—with the thing that burns." The words came from the childish lips with a sinister simplicity.
"'The thing that burns?'" asked Kennedy.
"Yes," she sobbed; "the white stuff—like salt."
Kennedy exchanged a glance with me, and we both looked at Miss Lenoir. She nodded. It was the story she had wanted us to hear. Evidently, Kennedy had succeeded better than he anticipated. Through her tears the child now looked up at Miss Lenoir, trembling.
"And he says he'll burn you, too," she said.
Ethel Lenoir stood aghast. This was something new. It had not been in the first story. She tried to smile.
"But he doesn't know me," she replied.
"Yes, he does," came back the answer. "He asked me to point you out—and the car."
There was terror now on the child's face as she realized what she had said through love for her friend. Nor could Ethel Lenoir conceal her consternation.
"Who is your uncle?" asked Kennedy.
"Johann Willar," faltered the child. "We live on Front Street."
There was no mistaking the child's truthfulness. We looked at Kennedy. Even though this might have no bearing on the grain-elevator fire, it was one of those things that demanded action in the present state of affairs.
IT was the work of only a few moments for us to crowd into
Miss Lenoir's car. As we wound our way through the narrow,
crowded streets, we picked up a policeman. Hasty explanation and
an order from Kennedy gave our enterprise the sanction of the
law.
I had expected that we would have trouble. As a matter of fact, we did not even have to break into the Willar rooms. The uncle was out, and the child knew where there was a key. Maria was right. Concealed in a closet, we found a veritable bomb factory. The "thing that burns" was a high explosive!
"That's his picture on the mantel," pointed out Maria.
We looked. It was of a man, bull-necked, heavy-jawed, with a scar over his right eye running up into his wiry pompadour.
Inquiry of a neighbor elicited the fact that he might be found at a saloon known as "the club," a couple of blocks off.
"I don't think you had better go," decided Craig, as we stood with Miss Lenoir on the sidewalk. But she was not listening.
"I've seen that man at the settlement," she remarked aloud, as though voicing her thoughts. "Once—yes—I know—he called on Mr. Lithgow—in his office—a long time."
Maria was sobbing. The car before the house had drawn a crowd. She began to realize the punishment she would receive.
"Never mind, Maria," Ethel murmured, in a sweet voice; "I'll take care of you, dear."
"Suppose you do," decided Kennedy. "Drive away with her. Mr. Jameson and I will go down to this 'club' as they call it."
Overjoyed at a ride, Maria departed, bright and happy, as Kennedy and I turned down toward the river-front, rumpling up our clothes as we went, smearing some dirt on our hands and faces, in the hope of looking rough enough to pass muster down there.
As we went along, I realized that it was some blocks over from the fire and in the neighborhood of a naval storehouse. There were many saloons, but all had been closed, by order of the government for a radius of several blocks.
We came at last to "the club." It was still open, but the warning sign to the thirsty over the door read, "Birch Beer." We slouched in. What had been a bar was now a sort of cheap lunch-room. We scuffled on through the bar into a back room. How it was we got by the door, I don't know, but it must have been by sheer nerve, for, in the back room, we suddenly discovered that there were many people, and that the place was really illicitly open.
We sat down at the only table which had two empty chairs. Across from us was a disreputable and evil-looking water-rat. He scowled as he looked us over.
"Been to the fire?" he demanded.
"Yeh," growled Kennedy, demanding a scuttle of half-and-half from an equally ill-favored waiter. "There oughta be more. Then we'd get somethin' to eat ourselves, 'stead o' sendin' it all to England."
The water-rat reached over a dirty, smelly hand for us to grasp, indicating that those were his sentiments to a dot.
"Yer won't have ter wait long," he nodded confidentially. "They's another hopper over in Weehawken booked to go up this week, I hear." Kennedy nodded, and over some more half-and-half our friend waxed more confidential. "Of course I ain't supposed to know nothin," he went on, "but up on the Palisades I hear there's some fact'ry where they're makin' bombs—a cave in the rocks, they tells me."
Kennedy nudged me, and I followed the direction of a quick glance of his eyes. There, across, eyeing us, was a man with a scar over his eye running up into his stiff pompadour.
"Yes, sir," pursued the man at the table with us; "an' they got a fast cruiser, too, one with a huntin'-cabin onto her. It's somewheres in a cove on Long Island they keeps her."
Just then a man reeled in through the former bar and over to the man I had already identified as Willar. At a mere whisper from him, Willar seemed to rise and, before I knew it, flung himself, with a knife, squarely at Kennedy.
A shot rang out, and the knife that must inevitably have landed in Kennedy's back clattered to the floor as Willar reeled backward. I turned. The gun had been in the hands of our river-rat friend. Another shot rang out, shattering the light overhead, and in a moment we were a desperate, struggling mass of humanity.
"It's all right," muttered a voice in my ear. "You and Kennedy beat it out with me this way. This bunch has been due for a raid all night, and now's the time."
I felt a rough but friendly hand steering us through the mass to a rear window. We managed to shatter the glass and sash and, a moment later, found ourselves standing in an alley.
I looked, and gasped in surprise. It was our friend the river-rat, his hat off, his false beard askew, puffing and blowing with exertion, but a smile on his face.
"Burke!" exclaimed Kennedy, in genuine admiration, as we grasped the hand of the secret-service man. "I must hand it to you—you built up that nose and forehead—Say, that's great! How did you get here?"
"Assigned to the Navy Department for some special work. So you like my disguise? Come; we'll get around to the other side. I've been watching this gang to protect the storehouse. When I saw you come in, I suspected it was on the matter I told you about. That's all on the level, the stuff I picked up to-night. I've been trying to get that fellow Willar—only, I hoped I'd get him some time when he was with the man higher up in the gang."
We had by this time reached the side where Burke's men were pulling out the plotters and the innocent indiscriminately.
Burke plunged into the work of direction as a patrol-wagon with some more police clanged up. Following him, we wormed our way back into the place.
There on the floor, only an old coat over his face, lay Willar, dead.
If he had been only an emissary of this gang of food-burners, who might be the genius that was at the head?
Burke joined us.
"Sorry," he apologized; "but you'll have to excuse me. They've got 'em all lined up outside. I must go along to the precinct station to make the charge. I got orders to-night to hold myself ready to go to Kansas City on a stock-yard case—maybe I won't see you again. Was I right? Was my clue any good to you?"
"Probably invaluable," returned Craig, as we grasped hands, proud to belong to a fraternity that was beating down the most wide-spread and nefarious secret organization that had ever been aimed at the heart of America. "Is that all you know?"
"Absolutely. Just picked it up tonight. I was going to ask time to look into it, but now I don't need to. I'll leave it to you—with my blessing."
In a moment he was gone. But we had discovered that an attempt was to be made that week on the Lenoir elevator over in Weehawken. By a curious chance, the intuition of Ethel Lenoir had led, through the girl Maria, to a clue that might save the elevator.
IT was so late that we could do nothing more that night, but
early in the morning Kennedy got in touch over the telephone with
Captain Myles and poured into his amazed ear the story of our
adventure. He was arranging for a fast motor-boat to meet us so
that we might take up our search for the rumored craft with the
hunting-cabin. Somehow the wires must have become crossed with
some one who was calling us.
"All right. Myles," concluded Kennedy hurriedly; "meet you at ten with the boat. There's some one else on this wire. Hello! ... Yes; this is Professor Kennedy."
He talked excitedly for a moment, then turned quickly to me.
"It was Bernice Bowne!" he exclaimed. "Ethel Lenoir has disappeared, and with her little Maria. It must have happened on their way home last night. They found the car, deserted, on the Drive."
This was a startling bit of information. As he told of Miss Bowne's report—of how Gaston Lenoir had sent out a general alarm, and of the police search, which had, so far, been without result—he packed up a camera with a peculiar lens.
"I'd intended to use this with Myles on the police launch," he said, "but now we'll have to go down to the settlement-house first. They're all very excited there. I guess they realize that some of them have been playing with fire."
DOWN at the settlement we found Avery, Langley, Lithgow, and
Bernice Bowne very much upset over the news. In place of the
undercurrents which we had observed the night before, there
seemed now to be open recrimination.
It appeared as though Avery was refusing to speak to both Lithgow and Langley. I did not gather at once what was the matter, but finally Avery let it out.
"Seems to me you ought to know how to proceed!" he blurted out at Lithgow. "It's my opinion it was some of these people down here that did it—for revenge. You know them. Besides, where were you last night?"
Lithgow's face burned with indignation.
"I don't know why you should accuse me," he returned. "It's you, as a matter of fact, who have tried to poison her mind against me. And then, too," he retorted, "where were you last night? And Langley—where was he?"
There flashed through my mind Ethel Lenoir's recollection of a visit of Willar to Lithgow at the settlement.
"Why do you question me?" continued Lithgow hotly. "I am not the editor of a paper like The Proletariat, which has already had trouble with the postal authorities. I tell you," he added, advancing a step toward Avery, "I'm a better American than either of you."
Langley smiled cynically.
"It merely proves what I have been telling you all along, in spite of the postal authorities," he remarked quietly. "We have a larger job on our hands than we dream of. There's no use of our standing here, calling each other names. Why don't we do something?"
Lithgow turned to us.
"I know you won't believe me, either." he said, in a low tone. "But when they accuse me of having pro-German sympathies, they forget. Of all of you, I am the most hated. They hate the English—the Americans, too, with a bitter hatred. But for me and those like me, there is the unforgettable, unforgivable hatred. A former German-American, now an American—I am, to them, a traitor to the Fatherland in the hour of need. I stood for my new country, America."
There was a strange ring in his words. Was Lithgow telling the truth? Or was this merely his "cover?"
Langley interrupted.
"Since we cannot work together, suppose that we work separately," he suggested.
They parted, leaving us alone. I recollected the appointment with Captain Myles and glanced at my watch. The hour was rapidly approaching.
"What shall we do about Captain Myles?" I reminded Craig.
"There's nothing to do but to follow our clue," he decided. "Somehow, I believe that these things are connected."
STILL carrying the camera with its peculiar lens, Kennedy and
I met Captain Myles, and, in the speedy police launch, we began
our combing of the harbors out on Long Island.
In and out of every bay and cove we cruised, always on the lookout for the motor-boat with a hunting-cabin. We must have seen scores of such craft, but none of them proved to have anything suspicious connected with it. As the day wore on, I began to feel that ours was an almost hopeless task.
In the middle of the afternoon we rounded into the bay at Blackstone, where, at the head of the harbor, we could see a large fleet of motor-boats at anchor. Carefully we cruised down one side of the harbor, looking the boats over.
As we were searching, Kennedy suddenly leaned over and almost grabbed the wheel from me.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "Watch that boat over there!"
He had swung our launch around and was headed directly across the harbor. Ahead of us I could see at anchor a long, slim craft, built on speed-lines. It had a hunting-cabin. Even as we watched, it began to move out toward the Sound.
Kennedy swung the wheel. The other boat veered and moved off more swiftly. It was evident that the fellow in it was trying to avoid us.
We might possibly have overhauled him, for our launch was fast. But that alone did not seem to trouble this boatman. He acted as though he were anxious to avoid even being seen.
No sooner had he cleared the line of anchored boats than we saw him, head down, rise and throw something overboard in his wake. Immediately, a white smoke began to rise from the water.
"It's one of those smoke-boxes," growled Myles.
As the white haze grew, it was evident that, under cover of it, the fellow would be able to elude us in the smoke-screen.
Without a word. Kennedy relinquished the wheel to me and began focusing his peculiar camera directly at the foggy haze, which now spread out over the water in a long train. Back of it, wrapped in it, somewhere I could imagine the speedy motor-boat, taking advantage of the smoke-screen, turning and fleeing in a direction we could not see. His camera pointed full at it, Craig was snapping away.
"Confound the fellow!" muttered Myles. "He has given us the slip."
Kennedy was, however, actually elated.
"I had feared as much," he returned. "This is a special camera with my best telephoto lens."
"What good is that?" objected Myles.
"What good? Why, over the lens I have a newly-invented ultra-violet-ray filter, cutting off the rays you see and allowing only the rays you don't see, the ultraviolet, to pass through. The photograph will be very different from what you're used to seeing, but I think it may show enough."
Pursuit was now hopeless. The fellow had made a clean getaway under his ingenious artificial fog. It was very disappointing, for I had hoped that, at least, we might get a clue to the whereabouts of Ethel Lenoir, if, indeed, we did not find her a prisoner on the boat.
THERE was nothing to do now but to return to the city, and, at
the laboratory. Kennedy set to work at once to develop his
ultra-violet picture while I called up the settlement.
There was no news. Lithgow was not at the house, nor had anyone there heard from him or from the others all day. While we waited impatiently, Kennedy continued to develop the plates he had taken. Finally, he emerged from his dark-room, holding up before the light a plate.
I looked through it. On one of his plates, at least, the telephoto lens had caught a strange face. I picked up a magnifying glass to aid my vision. But, even with it, I could not recognize the face, though it was plain enough.
"Palpably disguised," explained Kennedy. "Yet, I feel sure that if I ever see the fellow in his disguise, I'd recognize him."
I continued to study the plate. It was indeed peculiar, like no ordinary plate I had ever seen, for the effect of ultraviolet rays is something totally unknown to the eye, though the sensitized plate catches it.
It was now early evening, and twilight was approaching when the telephone-bell rang. Kennedy sprang to it, and, a moment later, turned to Myles and me.
"The police have just picked up the child, Maria Willar, over on the Jersey shore of the river, near Cliffwood," he reported. "They are holding her out there. Walter, get a car, while I get ready. I think this will lead us to that bomb-cavern in the Palisades."
IT was not long before I was back at the laboratory with a
fast automobile, and Kennedy and Myles piled into it, Kennedy
carrying a peculiar-shaped case.
As rapidly as we could, we crossed the ferry and started up along the Jersey shore toward Cliffwood. It was quite dark by the time we reached the town, but we had not lost much time, and now stopped only long enough to find the direction of the local police headquarters.
It was almost pathetic, the manner in which little Maria welcomed Kennedy. Evidently the child had had a terrible experience. So far, the police had been able to make little out of her story.
Eager though Craig was to get to work, he realized that he must tactfully draw out from the child whatever it was that she knew. Gradually, bit by bit, Maria told of starting away from us the night before with Ethel Lenoir, of an accident with another car that had collided with them, undoubtedly by design, of the sudden appearance of a closed car, of a man, masked, who had seized them.
As nearly as Kennedy could make out from her story, it seemed as though both of them must have been drugged, for Maria remembered nothing until they were taken from the closed car on a road between some rocks near the water.
"Who was it?" encouraged Kennedy. "What did the man look like?"
"He was dark," struggled the child. "There was something black over his face. There were others, too," she went on, in her treble. "They made us get out into the road, and then we began climbing a path in the rocks until we came to a cave. And, oh," she added, her eyes widening, "there was more of the thing that burns there, too!" At once I thought of the bomb-cavern. "They kept us there all night," she went on, still in terror over the experience. "We could see out of the cave—there was a river, with boats, far below. All day they kept us. But, this afternoon, while they were not looking, I found another hole in the rocks. I squeezed through, but Miss Lenoir couldn't get through. So I began to climb. Then when I got to the top, there was no one there. When I saw a policeman, I ran to him. But I could not find the place where I climbed up."
Maria had begun to cry.
"Where did you pick her up?" demanded Kennedy of the policeman who had found her.
"Oh, it was half a mile from the edge of the cliffs," he returned. "I went back with her, but she couldn't remember the place where she came up."
"Do you know any road that leads down a ravine to the river?" asked Kennedy.
"There are two. The nearest is about half a mile."
WITH the policeman, Kennedy hastened out into the car, and in
a moment we were off, Craig holding little Maria close to him,
while he handed the peculiar case to me to carry.
I understood. We must find the bomb-cavern. Ethel Lenoir was there yet, without a doubt, waiting the time when the burning of her father's elevators at Weehawken would take place. Kennedy had been right. The two cases were inextricably connected.
It was a steep road that led with many sharp windings down the face of the cliff to the river below, where there had been a dock.
"Does this look like the place, Maria?" asked Kennedy, as the car came to a stop at the foot of the steep grade.
"Yes, sir," she piped. "I mean, it looked like this."
It was rather discouraging.
"How is the other road?" asked Kennedy of the policeman. "Does it resemble this place?"
"Not much," he returned. "Perhaps the kid is right."
"You were forced to walk up—over the rocks, Maria?"
"Yes, sir—up there—I guess."
Kennedy seized the light at the side of the car and turned it up along the cliffs above. Its piercing beam had scarcely penetrated the darkness when, from far up on the cliff, came the "spit" of a revolver, a "ping!" and the light—bulb, glass, reflector, and all—was in ruins.
Kennedy seized the case which I was carrying and began opening it as we all started scrambling up a narrow path in the rocks. Faintly there floated down what sounded like a far-off cry for help. Could it be Ethel Lenoir? Slipping and crawling, we made our way upward as best we could, Kennedy still working at the cover of the case he carried.
"This is the path!" trebled Maria, in excited tones, then screamed with fright.
Far above us, a revolver flashed in the blackness, and a bullet clipped the foliage near us. In the momentary flash of light. I could just make out a figure disappearing behind a rock for shelter.
It was too much for Myles and the policeman. "Spit! Spit! Spit!" came a fusillade of shots from them, and answering from the cliffs came others in reply, punctuating the darkness with dashes of light, but doing no damage to anyone.
Down below us, on the shore, I heard a deep voice calling,
"Hello, Kennedy!"
Craig was too busy to pay attention as we struggled forward and up, taking advantage of every bit of shelter.
There was another cry above, shrill. Was it Ethel Lenoir?
In the shelter of a ledge. Kennedy paused. From the case, which he had now loosened, he pulled a peculiar gun. As he worked at it, he jammed into the breech a huge cartridge, not like anything I had ever seen before. He aimed the gun upward and fired.
From the barrel came a streak of light that described, mounting upward, a parabolic curve. As it reached the vertex, far above us, there was a burst of fire.
A blinding light cut the darkness. In its penetrating glare, everything stood out in sharp relief.
I could just make out in the air a little parachute from which a magnesium flare was suspended. It was a strange piece of pyrotechnics—and ghostly.
"What is it?" I asked, as Kennedy pressed forward.
"A star-shell—they use them in the war."
We climbed hastily upward as the star-shell floated gracefully in the air above. The whole face of the cliff was bathed in its weird light.
Then there came an exclamation from Kennedy as he pointed. Far above, in the light of the star-shell, we could see Ethel Lenoir, clinging to the edge of a jutting, jagged rock.
And, crawling along the ledge, I saw a malignant form, his back toward us, creeping slowly nearer to her.
I shouted. But it did no good.
Kennedy jammed another cartridge into the gun and fired. Upward another star-shell sped. It was a desperate chance.
The shell burst directly over the head of the man on the ledge. The force of the explosion loosened his hold. For an instant, he wavered, dazed. Then he toppled forward—down—down....
In the weird light we could still see Ethel Lenoir, clinging to the ledge where she had either fallen or been thrown.
We struggled up. As Kennedy and I reached over to pull her back to safety, I felt some one push me aside.
"Please—Mr. Jameson—you will pardon me?" In the dying light of the star-shell, I recognized Lithgow.
Together, he and Kennedy drew Ethel to the pathway, as Maria ran crying and knelt down beside her.
"You—you with Mr. Kennedy?" murmured Ethel, catching sight of Lithgow.
"I have been here all day," returned Lithgow. "Willar gave me some hint when he threatened me once. But I could not find the place."
"You'll—forgive me—for suspecting?" she murmured.
Maria Willar was weeping as Ethel leaned over and patted her golden hair.
"Never mind, Maria," she soothed. "Mr. Lithgow and I will take care of you."
Half an hour later, after we had formally turned the bomb-cavern over to the Cliffwood policeman, Kennedy and I, searching over the rocks on the shore, came at last upon a senseless, broken form. As Craig bent over and stripped off the disguise, in the light of his bull's-eye I saw that the face was that of the ray-filter photograph—the pacifist editor, brains of the gang of food-burners—Langley.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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