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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Mystery, December 1933, with "Which Man's Eyes"
Madame Storey, beautiful, internationally famous woman detective, is warned to "keep out of things that don't concern her"—which she does by capturing the head of New York's vicious crime ring—but not without risking her life.
SOMEHOW the man contrived to open the door of my office and to close it behind him without making a sound. I looked up from my desk and there he stood with a leering grin fixed on his hairy face. I could see at a glance that he was disguised. He didn't care if I knew it.
The whole lower part of his face was hidden under a rough grizzled beard, and he wore a matted curly wig to match it, with hair coming down low over his forehead. His skin was stained a dull reddish tint; he wore clumsy, soiled clothes like a longshoreman—but his hands were smooth and manicured. He looked like some grotesque character off the stage, there in my office on Gramercy Park in the full light of day.
"Good morning, sister," he said, leering at me; showing his discolored teeth through the beard. He spoke in a hoarse throaty voice that was obviously assumed.
The suddenness of his appearance made my nerves flutter like loose strings. But I did not scream.
"What do you want?" I asked in a fairly steady voice.
His ugly grin broadened. "I want to see Madame Storey, your charming boss."
"She hasn't come in yet," I said, looking at him straight.
"You lie, my dear," he said coolly. "I saw her come in a quarter of an hour ago. I know that you are keeping long hours these days to catch up with your work. I know a lot about you."
I bit my lips to control their trembling. An awful fear took the heart out of me. It was his coolness. A madman you might be able to handle; this one was not mad; he was too cool. I looked longingly at the telephone which was within reach of my hand. He followed my look and said:
"Don't touch the telephone, sister. It wouldn't be healthy."
A caressing softness came into his voice that made me look at him with fresh fear. He had a smooth black automatic in his hand, fingering it lovingly. I certainly thought it was all up with me at that moment.
"Stand up!" he commanded in a harder voice. "Back to the door of Mme. Storey's room. Put your hand behind you and open the door. Back inside the room. I'll follow you."
For an instant I hung in horrible irresolution. I couldn't bear to lead an armed man to my employer. On the other hand she had to be warned somehow. And in her room she had a secret way of summoning help from the basement.
"Step lively!" he rapped out, with a significant movement of the gun.
I obeyed. What else could I do?
I COULDN'T see Mme. Storey as I backed into the adjoining room, but I knew that she was sitting writing at her big desk, her back to the windows that look out on Gramercy Park. I was tremendously bucked up when I heard her say in a voice as cool as dawn:
"Well! What's the point of this little comedy?"
"Well!" exclaimed Madame Storey, "What's the idea of this little comedy?"
"Stand aside!" the bearded man barked at me. He went on to Mme. Storey: "I know that you've got a gun in the middle drawer of your desk, Madame. If you make a move to pull out that drawer I'll shoot!"
"Wouldn't think of it!" she drawled.
He had his gun up now. His eyes turned in my direction again—blue eyes, inhuman and venomous as a snake's.
"Draw up a chair alongside Mme. Storey," he commanded, "so I can cover you both."
When I got the chair I had my first look at my employer. She sat with her hands loosely clasped on the edge of the desk, her dark head slightly lowered, looking up at him with a provoking smile. You would almost have thought she was enjoying the situation. The expression of the man's fixed eyes changed slightly.
"By God, you're a fine woman!" he said, as if forced to it.
"Thanks," she drawled. "Sorry I can't return the compliment."
He laughed shortly. "That's all right, Madame. Some day I'll show you my rightful face and you can judge it."
"Charmed, I'm sure," said Mme. Storey.
"Open the drawer," he commanded, "pick up your gun by the muzzle, and pass it across the desk."
With a shrug she obeyed. He dropped the gun in his pocket.
"May I take a cigarette now?" she asked.
"I'll look in the box first," he growled.
There were two boxes standing on the desk. The first was an antique Oriental affair decorated with bits of mirror. This concealed a camera that Mme. Storey could operate by pressing her knee against a bulb under the desk. The other box was a large silver container for cigarettes. The man put out his hand toward the camera first, and Mme. Storey said offhand:
"Those in the other box are better."
He lifted the cover of the silver box, and satisfying himself that it contained only cigarettes, tossed one toward Mme. Storey, and taking one himself, lighted it. He kept his gun in his hand. They studied each other warily through the smoke.
"Won't you sit down?" said Mme. Storey with mocking politeness.
He dropped into the chair that was placed for visitors. This brought him directly into focus with the camera. I saw her leg move, and I knew that she had his picture.
"What can I do for you?" she asked.
"For me, nothing!" he said, cutting the air with the side of his hand. "I came here to do you a favor."
"Nice of you! Indeed it's very nice of you."
"They say that a word to the wise is sufficient," he went on. "My word to you is, stick to your high-toned trade, see? Keep off the rough stuff."
"I don't quite get you."
"You are cooperating with the police at the present time."
"That's not my fault," said Mme. Storey. "I was appointed by the Washburn legislative committee to report on the methods of detecting crime. Patriotic duty and all that, you know."
"Sure!" he said with a hardy grin. "Good publicity for you, too. But you don't have to work yourself to death at it."
"No," said Mme. Storey.
"Yesterday there was a guy found shot full of holes up in the Bronx, and you and Inspector Barron viewed the body together. Mitch Ahlers the guy's name is, an all-round bad guy. He'll never be missed. Just another gang killing. Keep off it, I say. Barron, he's wise. He goes through the motions, but he don't do nothing in these cases. Why should he?"
"Well, that's a matter of opinion."
"The public ain't harmed by it, are they? Us guys is engaged in a private business of our own. It's outside the law, consequently when a crook or a traitor or any kind of skunk turns up, we got to deal with him in our own way."
"That's a new point of view," said Mme. Storey half-smiling. "As I dope it out, there's a kind of combine that controls the whole business of supplying liquor to this city. This man Mitch Ahlers was outside the combine, and when he tried to get his share he was stepped on."
"Maybe so," said our visitor. "Naturally, I'm not talking."
"Are you the head of the combine?" Mme. Storey asked with mocking flattery. "That mysterious, hidden figure the police can't touch?"
He shrugged. In spite of the hair on his face one could see the look of complacency that overspread it. He was a young man. The rough clothes could not hide the fine lines of his physique. I could almost have felt sorry for him because he was trapped. Two of Mme. Storey's operatives, Crider and Stephens, were down in the basement awaiting their assignments for the day. She had only to press a button under her desk to bring them up.
"Barron told me," Mme. Storey went on, "that every head of the liquor ring had been shot down by a jealous rival as soon as he won the place. But that the organization functioned just the same without a day's interruption. Barron couldn't understand it, but it was obvious to me that these men were put forward as figureheads while the real chief remained unseen and untouched."
The man with the gun made his face like a mask, but one could see how he was swelling with gratified vanity.
"And are you really he?" Mme. Storey continued seductively. "Good heavens! Your income must surpass the dreams of avarice! I salute you as a captain of industry!"
He smiled dryly. "You've got a neat way of getting round a man," he said, "but that don't chop no wood for the stove. This morning the newspapers said that you were undertaking an investigation of the liquor ring independently of the police. That's why I'm here." His hand cut the air again. "Keep off it, see? It's no fit work for a lady like you to be mixed up in. Keep off it!"
"And if I don't?" said Mme. Storey softly.
His strange eyes flickered venomously. "I'll stop you," he said woodenly. "You're a fine woman. You put on a swell show. . . . But I'll stop you! Nobody can interfere with my business and get away with it."
There was a silence. Since he had disarmed her, the man was not so attentive to the movements of Mme. Storey's hands. One of them crept under the desk and pressed the button; a long ring followed by two short. Far away I heard the faintest whisper of the buzzer in the basement. According to the prearranged code this signal ordered the men to come upstairs but not to enter Mme. Storey's office. They were to wait outside and seize whoever came out.
"As I understood it, you are asking me to promise not to take any further steps to solve the killing of Mitch Ahlers." Mme. Storey was only talking to gain time now. "You must know that any promise given under duress"—she glanced at the gun—"is not binding."
"I don't give a damn about any promise," he said scornfully. "I'm telling you. If you go on with this case I'll know it, and I'll stop you. The whole police force of New York can't save you."
"You're a cool hand," remarked Mme. Storey with a kind of admiration—regret, too.
"The same to you," he answered promptly. "I didn't think there was a woman up to it."
"You and I ought to know each other better."
He grinned in his hardy way. "Maybe we will," he said. "When this little trouble blows over."
He got up and backed away to the door of my room. My heart was beating like a steam drill. I knew that the men must have come up by this time. I could picture them hidden behind the turn of the stairs. Our visitor would not stand a ghost of a chance even if he went out with his gun in his hand. I felt a crazy desire to warn him. There was something magnificent in his boldness.
He listened at the door, and changed his gun into his left hand. A queer grin came into his hairy face. "Will you shake hands?" he said to Mme. Storey. "Just as one good sport with another. It don't commit you to anything."
"Don't do it!" I cried, distrusting that grin.
But he had appealed to something she couldn't resist. "Certainly I will," she said rising. "Whatever he is, he's game!"
She passed around her desk with me at her heels. As she approached, the man at the door put his hand behind him and released the catch on the spring lock, thus locking the door from the other side. Mme. Storey stopped short. Measuring the distance to the open window, the man seemed to cover it without touching the ground. I have never seen any living thing move so quickly. He was out on the sill; he dropped to the areaway beneath the window while we stared at him blankly.
I screamed and threw open the door into my room. Crider and Stephens dashed in, but they were too late of course. There had been a car waiting at the curb with the engine running. The man was inside, and it was shooting down the street. I got the number of the license, but that didn't do us any good. The car was found abandoned a few blocks away.
We felt badly sold. My feeling of compassion for the man turned to gall and vinegar. Our two fellows cursed him savagely. Only Mme. Storey remained cool. As we crowded around the window she said:
"Don't put your hands on the sill. There's a perfect set of finger-prints on it that I will photograph."
WITHIN half-an-hour or so Inspector Barron was in our office with Slosson, his personal assistant, and Mme. Storey with a smile was telling him what had happened. The handsome, full-blooded Inspector was not smiling. He swelled and reddened, and drove his fist into his palm.
"By God! this is too much!" he cried. "This exceeds the limit! I'll get this fellow now if it's the last act of my life!" He leaned toward my employer and his voice actually shook with emotion. "My God, Rosika, what if he had... Rosika, he didn't hurt you, did he?"
"Oh, no," she said, with a provoking smile. "I quite enjoyed it."
"Don't say that!" he protested. "It's damnable!"
At the same time Slosson, a good-looking, bespectacled young man moved close to me murmuring: "What a nasty fright you must have had, Bella. I wish to God I had been here. I wish I could save you from this sort of thing!"
"Not at all!" I lied. "I was certain all the time that he wouldn't fire his gun."
FOR some weeks before this the four of us had been very closely associated, and naturally we had reached a considerable degree of intimacy. Barron was hopelessly infatuated with my employer, and as jealous as hell of her professionally. This conflict of feelings caused him to perform some strange capers. George Slosson made believe to be smitten with me, too. It was exciting because he was very much of a man in his quiet, efficient way, but I resented it because I didn't think he meant it. He was just copying his boss.
"Certainly we're going to catch this crook," said Mme. Storey. "Let's lay out our plan of campaign here and now."
Barron paled a little. "But, Rosika, you've got to keep out of it! I couldn't let you take this risk!"
Unseen by the others Slosson threw an arm around me and gave me a little squeeze as much as to say he shared these sentiments. I edged out of the way.
Mme. Storey dropped her smiling air. "Now look here, Barron," she said. "I'm not going to waste time arguing with you. You ought to know me by this time. If I took a dare from this crook I could never again look myself in the face. I'll work with you if you want. Otherwise I'll go ahead on my own."
"I don't like it!" muttered Barron.
"Never mind that." Mme. Storey fixed him with a steady eye. "This time we are going to give the gang a fight to a finish," she said meaningly. "It is something they have never been up against. There can be only one outcome."
"If they don't get you," he muttered unhappily.
"If they get me you can carry on," she retorted. "I already have the finger-prints of the man we want, and his photograph."
"What good is a photograph of a man who was completely disguised?"
"He couldn't disguise the expression of his eyes. I shall concentrate on that... What information have you about the gang?"
Barron looked at Slosson for his cue. Barron in his trim uniform and gold-braided hat made a superb looking inspector, but Slosson was really the brains of his office. Barron leaned on him heavily, and I must say Slosson had never let him down yet. Slosson had the entire business of the detective force at his fingertips.
He now gave us the history of the gang that controlled the liquor trade in lower New York. "What they call themselves we don't know," he said. "We refer to them as Joe Paglar's mob, though Paglar himself bit the asphalt eighteen months ago. Since then they have had two leaders who have come to violent ends. The present boss of the outfit is Mike Casini."
"What about him?" asked Mme. Storey.
"Casini is one of the best known characters south of Grand Street. Famous for his diamonds, his girls, his bodyguards who accompany him everywhere, his armored cars. He runs a flossy 'speak' on Delancey Street, and that is presumably the headquarters of the gang."
"What sort of looking man?"
"An Italian about forty years old; short; enormously fat."
"Not our man," said Mme. Storey instantly. "Casini I take it, is just another figurehead willing for the sake of a little power and glory to put himself up to be shot at."
"No doubt," said Slosson.
"Do you know any other members of the gang?" she asked.
Slosson read out a list of names.
"What are you going to do?" Barron demanded.
"Better not ask me," she said smiling. "When the case is ready you shall strike and all the credit will be yours."
Barron scowled heavily. He hated to have his hand forced, but as he had nothing better to propose he was forced to submit. "All right," he growled, "but I don't like it. It's not right for a woman like you to be mixed up in this kind of business."
"That's what our bearded friend said," Mme. Storey remarked with a smile.
WE immediately embarked in a whirl of activity. All other business was dropped for the time. Suspecting that her offices might be watched, Mme. Storey established temporary headquarters in the Hotel Vandermeer. Here she rounded up her operatives and despatched them on their missions. Before the day was out there were a dozen on the case.
Each of these people was warned in plain terms of the danger attached to this assignment.
"You take your life in your hands," said Mme. Storey. "If you are suspected for one moment it is all up with you."
A few of them paled at the prospect; others smiled. Mme. Storey let the faint-hearted ones go with her blessing. Those that remained were all young, keen and adventurous; and each one a master of disguise.
IT was after midnight before we got home to her little place on East Sixty-third Street. Crider was with us. Mme. Storey opened the big wardrobe that lined the walls of her bedroom and pulled out some dresses and coats. I saw that she was planning a disguise and my heart sunk. She got out the curly wig she had worn in her famous impersonation of Jessie Seipp.
"Surely you don't mean to go amongst the gang?" I faltered.
"Certainly I do," she said coolly. "I'm not going to send others into a danger that I refuse to face.... I have saved Casini for myself," she added with a smile. "Slosson said he was susceptible to the ladies. Perhaps I can attract him."
I groaned and shut my mouth. What could you do with such a woman?
Mme. Storey shares a little house near Lexington Avenue with her friend Mrs. Lysaght. It is divided into two maisonettes in the French fashion. You enter through an iron gate at the street level which gives on a brick-paved passage leading through to the yard. The front door proper opens from this passage. Mme. Storey has the two lower floors; kitchen and dining room below; bedroom and living room overhead. Her maids sleep at the top of the house.
The last thing before we went to bed Mme. Storey, in order to reassure me, pointed out that the windows of the kitchen (which was in front of the house) were protected by heavy bars, and the entrance gate secured by a business-like iron bolt. The door from the passage was likewise locked. Even so I suppose I did not look any too happy, for my employer laughed and said:
"Well, anyhow you can sleep in peace tonight, my Bella. It is too soon yet for the gang to have learned what we're up to."
I slept on a divan in her bedroom and Crider was given a sofa in the dining room downstairs. My employer, healthily tired by the activities of the day was almost instantly asleep. In the still room I could hear her breathing as regularly as a child. Sleep was far from my eyes. The stillness oppressed my breast like a weight. There was no traffic through that quiet street. Through the open window I could hear the hum of the city, which never sleeps, as from far away.
In a silence so complete you are bound to imagine that you hear sounds; the stairs creak; door handles are softly turned; stealthy feet creep across the floors. A dozen times I was brought up in my bed as taut as a wire; and all for nothing at all; only to fall back trembling. Somewhere I could hear a church clock striking the quarter hours. It seemed as if half a night stretched between each fifteen minutes.
IN the end I must have fallen asleep while still dreaming I was awake. Suddenly I was shocked into real wakefulness. I sat up in bed sweating in cold terror without knowing what I had heard. There was light enough in the room for me to see Mme. Storey sitting up in her bed, so I knew she had heard it too. I instinctively threw back the covers and ran to her.
"Sh!" she whispered. "Listen!" There was a dreadful moment filled with imaginary sounds, and then we heard real sounds; sounds of a hushed desperate struggle from the dining room.
"They're in the house!" I gasped. "How could they have got in!"
"Over the back fences I reckon," she whispered grimly.
She retained the presence of mind to slip her feet into slippers and draw a dressing gown around her. We ran to the front windows. There was a little balcony outside from which it would have been possible to drop to the street without breaking a leg. But there was a car waiting by the curb with engine running. An open car with the top down; a quiet muffled figure sitting at the wheel; another with his foot on the running board. No need to be told that these men were armed. No escape that way.
Mme. Storey picked up the telephone, and immediately put it down again. "Dead!" she muttered. "Wires cut!"
Hysteria had me in its grip. I scarcely knew what I was doing. I remember staggering to the door of the room with the idea of shooting the bolt. But Mme. Storey overtook me and thrust me aside.
"Let them come in freely," she whispered. "It's our only chance."
I was strangling for breath. I suppose I would have screamed could I have got any sounds out. My employer flung an arm protectingly around my shoulders, and clapped her free hand softly over my mouth. "Quiet! Quiet, for God's sake!" she urged. "It's our only chance of life!"
The sense of what she said reached me dimly, and I ground my teeth together in the effort to recover some self-control. She pointed across the room. "Get in the wardrobe," she whispered. "Hide behind the dresses!"
I obeyed her, but I left the door open to see what she was going to do. With a sweep she gathered up my bedclothes and thrust them under the divan. She ran to her bed and with hands that moved swifter than my eyes could follow them, did something with spare pillows and the bedclothes. She snatched up the curly wig from the table. When she left the bed I saw that she had arranged the rough semblance of a human figure under the covers with the wig sticking out at the top. She came to me in the wardrobe and closed the door. I clung to her more dead than alive.
There was a rush of feet on the stairs, the door crashed back against the wall, and instantly it seemed as if the world flew into small pieces like an exploding flywheel. Blinding, shattering explosions that stunned me. My senses could not take it in. Not until afterward did I learn that it was a burst of machine gun fire. The bed was riddled with bullets.
They ran downstairs again; the iron gate clanged shut; the car roared away down the street. When I realized that it was over, and that Mme. Storey was still safe in my arms, I just quietly passed out.
When I came to myself the bedroom was flooded with light. I was lying on the divan with Mme. Storey and Crider bending over me. Not more than a few seconds had passed. Crider was ghastly pale and there was an ugly bruise over his eye, but he was all right. I was certain that he had been killed in the dining room. When I saw him—my dear old pal who had worked with me so long—I burst into helpless weeping and could not stop.
Mme. Storey patted me soothingly. "Good old Bella!" she murmured, "always turns on the water after the fire is out!"
I commenced to laugh weakly. We all laughed.
Immediately afterward the room filled up with police, servants, neighbors, all attracted by the shots. In answer to their confused questions Mme. Storey said coolly:
"I have no idea who attacked me. Anybody in my line is bound to have enemies, of course. However, nobody was hurt except my Louis Quinze bedstead."
IN the morning we dropped Mme. Storey at the Hotel Vandermeer where she had appointments with several of her operatives, and Crider and I went on to the office. There we found the photographs waiting for us; the finger-prints and the head and bust of our mysterious visitor of the day before.
Mme. Storey had ordered several enlargements of the head made, and according to her instructions I now pasted out one of them with strips of paper, allowing only the eyes to show. Terrible eyes; the camera had caught their poisonous glitter to the life. They made me shiver with their reminder of yesterday's scene. They seemed to follow me around the room.
IN about an hour Mme. Storey came in wearing the inscrutable smile that always promises excitement one way or another. "Bella," she said immediately, "I think I have our man."
"What! Already!" I cried, and stammered out a dozen questions.
Without answering any of them she said: "Let me look at the photograph." She studied it for a while and her smile broadened. "Yes, I think I have him," she said. That was all I could get out of her.
Very soon Benny Abell and John Rouse, two of our operatives, came in bringing a prisoner between them. He was a good-looking, well-built young man, very smartly dressed. He was unknown to me. He was the same size and build as the man who had come to our office the day before, but I did not recognize him as the same. The expression of his eyes was different now. He seemed to be terrified half out of his wits.
"It's all a mistake... all a mistake," he stammered. "I can explain everything."
My imagination had been so struck by his daring nerve the day before that I felt a contempt for his collapse. Another illusion shattered. Mme. Storey put him in the room behind her office under guard of the men who brought him in.
MEANWHILE Barron and Slosson were up at her flat viewing the damage and looking for evidence. There was no evidence except a hundred bullets or more. According to Crider's story he had been overpowered by four masked men. They had entered from the door on the yard. They must have possessed keys to that door and to the door from the passage, since neither lock had been tampered with.
The Inspector and his assistant came into our office in a great state of excitement. They had two plainclothes-men with them who waited out in the hall. The magnificent inspector was as near pale as his florid complexion would allow. He seized Mme. Storey's hand between both of his and fondled it.
"Rosika, this is terrible!" he said. "You must drop this case. You must leave town. This scoundrel has got clear away, and he will certainly try it again. You must have a proper police guard. You must leave town. Think of me a little bit, my dear. God! Machine-guns! I can't stand it!"
His voice shook, he was perfectly sincere, yet there was something comic about it. To tell the truth, the softer emotions did not sit well on him. One would have thought he was about to cry. Mme. Storey led him into her office.
George Slosson was standing there looking at me strangely. Behind his glasses his eyes were burning. He came close to me and bent his head until his murmuring lips were almost brushing my cheek.
"Bella, you mustn't let her go on with this," he whispered. "If you make a stand against it, she'll give it up." His voice broke a little. "I've been in hell since I heard what happened. I can't let you be exposed to such a danger. I want you.... I want you...."
He was a handsome man and it was terribly exciting to see him so roused. But I didn't know whether I liked it or not. I couldn't believe that he was so crazy about me as all that.
"Don't be silly," I said sharply. "At least, not during office hours."
"That's the only time you will let me see you," he grumbled.
There was a call from Barron, and he went into the next room. The burly inspector's eyes were fairly popping with excitement.
"Slosson," he cried, "Madame Storey has caught the man who threatened her yesterday!"
Slosson's face lighted up. "Good!" he cried. "I knew she would!"
Barron was not so well pleased. It went hard to have a woman beat him at his own game. "Where is he?" he asked.
"In the back room," said Mme. Storey.
"Fetch him in."
"Wait a minute," she said, "I have a mind to try out an identification first from the photograph. How many men have you got with you?"
"Two beside Slosson here."
"I have three men here. Let's put them all in the back room together. Hang a sheet in the doorway with a strip cut out of it at the height of their eyes. Then they can show us their eyes one after another."
"Good idea!" said Barron.
Our man Benny Abell took charge of the arrangements. He was a small man and his eyes were dark, so he didn't figure in the test. The others were all tall, all about of a size. They were sent into the back room; the sheet was hung and the strip cut out of it; Barron, Mme. Storey and I took our places in front. Barron had the photograph to compare with. My employer and I didn't require it.
A choking excitement took possession of me when the test began. It gives you the weirdest feelings to be shown living eyes like that, and nothing else. I had no idea that eyes were so expressive. The rest of the face helps us to conceal things; without it the eyes give everything away. Each pair that looked through the sheet seemed to reveal a naked soul.
The first pair were brown and steady. The man was told to move on. The second pair were blue but had a vacant foolish look—one of Barron's worthy flat-feet I reckoned. The third pair were dark gray; wrong color. The fourth pair were blue; right color, but they seemed to beam with good will and good humor. This man moved on, but something about him had struck Barron's attention.
"Let that fellow show himself again," he called out.
THE blue eyes returned to the hole in the sheet, but their expression had changed. Now they mantled and glittered as if there were little shooting flames inside them. They brought back the scene of the day before so vividly that I felt sick with remembered fear. A cry arose to my lips, but Mme. Storey glanced at me, and I choked it back. She wanted Barron to make the identification.
And he did. "By God, those are the eyes!" he cried in a loud voice. Striding forward, he yanked down the sheet and found himself face to face with... George Slosson.
Barron was knocked silly for the moment. His jaw dropped; his eyes were daft. Slosson's face was like a mask with only those glittering blue eyes alive. The other man pressed into the room.
"What does this mean.... What does this mean?" Barron stuttered.
"It means," said Mme. Storey dryly, "that we are dealing with the cleverest crook I have ever known. He organizes his business under a figurehead like Mike Casini while he himself digs in as a scout at police headquarters. Could anything be simpler?"
"What have you got to say for yourself?" Barron demanded of Slosson.
Slosson put on his spectacles and looked owlish and efficient again. "Nothing whatever," he answered with a cool grin.
"There is some mistake!" cried Barron. "It's ridiculous. I don't believe a word of it!"
Mme. Storey turned to me. "Can you identify him, Bella?"
MY feelings were in a mad whirl. It gave me a secret joy to discover that Slosson was a big man in his way. It justified the powerful attraction he had for me. Even at this moment when he was found out, I was drawn to him, because he kept his head up and grinned. But how thankful I was that I had never given in to him!
"That is the man who came here yesterday in disguise," I said.
"I don't believe it!" cried Barron, louder.
"Well, we have another test," said Mme. Storey. She pushed forward an inked pad and a sheet of paper on her desk. "Ink your fingers," she said to Slosson, "and let us have a set of prints."
"I refuse," said Slosson coolly.
Barron hesitated. The efficient secretary had established a powerful influence over him, you see. But the plainclothesmen were not susceptible to it. All Barron's men were jealous of Slosson. "Yeah, let's see his fingerprints," growled one of them, and Barron had to submit. With a jerk of his head he ordered Slosson to make the prints. Slosson obeyed with a grin of bravado.
Barron compared the prints with the photograph taken the previous day, and gave up. "Take him away," he growled, turning his back to Slosson.
The two plainclothesmen were only too pleased to obey. One of them without waiting for an order snapped a pair of handcuffs on Slosson's wrists. When he was led out a big piece of me seemed to be dragged with him. When all was said and done he was a man.
When everyone had gone I dropped in a chair in Mme. Storey's room shaking like an aspen leaf. The excitement had been so great that the reaction sickened me a little. I was still confused in my mind.
"That man that Benny Abell and John Rouse brought in this morning," I asked, "who was he?"
"One of my new operatives," said Mme. Storey smiling and blowing a cloud of smoke. "That was just a little comedy that we staged."
"Why did you have to deceive me?" I asked reproachfully.
"Well, you have a very open face, my dear. I was afraid it might give something away if you were in on the secret."
"What first put you on to Slosson?" I asked.
"Well, one has hunches," she said thoughtfully. "With a person who wears glasses, if you look closely you can tell roughly what is the nature of the defect in his vision, and the sort of lens he requires to correct it. I noticed some time ago that Slosson's sight was perfect and that the lenses in his glasses were nothing but clear glass. And I wondered, that's all."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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