"Why, one of my best stool-pigeons told me to-day that there was something doing at a house in the Chatham Square district that we have been watching for a long time.It's full of crooks, and to-day they've all been as drunk as lords, a sure sign some one has made a haul and been generous with the rest.And one or two of the professional 'fences' have been acting suspiciously, too.Oh, that explains it all right."I looked at Craig as much as to say, "I told you so," but he was engrossed in what O'Connor was saying.
"You know," continued the police officer, "there is one particular 'fence' who runs his business under the guise of a loan-shark's office.He probably has a wider acquaintance among the big criminals than any other man in the city.From him crooks can obtain anything from a jimmy to a safe-cracking outfit.I know that this man has been trying to dispose of some unmounted pearls to-day among jewellers in Maiden Lane.I'll bet he has been disposing of some of the Branford pearls, one by one.I'll follow that up.I'll arrest this 'fence' and hold him till he tells me what yeggman came to him with the pearls.""And if you find out, will you go with me to that house near Chatham Square, providing it was some one in that gang?" asked Craig eagerly.
O'Connor shook his head."I'd better keep out of it.They know me too well.Go alone.I'll get that stool-pigeon - the Gay Cat is his name - to go with you.I'll help you in any way.I'll have any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the moment you get the evidence.But you'll never get any evidence if they know I'm in the neighbourhood."The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made me bolt my food most unceremoniously.We were out in Montclair again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that in spite of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the way and had got a package which he carried carefully.
Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar to attic in daylight.What he expected to find, I did not know, but I am quite sure nothing escaped him.
"Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there remains just one place.Here is this little wall safe in Mrs.
Branford's room.We must open it."
For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening to the fall of the tumblers in the lock.It was a simple little thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have opened it in short order.The perspiration stood out on his forehead, so intent was he in working the thing.At last it yielded.
Except for some of the family silver, the safe was empty.
Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera.He placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it was not at all conspicuous, and focused it on the safe.
"This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained."It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before that it is possible to use it in detective work.I'll just run these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an alarm I'll attach them to the camera so that we can get a picture.
I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second.It may or it may not work.If it does we'll catch somebody, right in the act."About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary insurance.I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was part of the agreement.Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise.
He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs.
Branford.Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable ability in the first place in locating Mrs.Branford.
"I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have needed money for some reason or other," said Maloney." So I went to the commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford.I can't say he has been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake burglaries.Then there is another possibility," he continued triumphantly."I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports to me that Mrs.Branford was seen with the actor Jack Delarue last night.I imagine they quarrelled, for she returned alone, much agitated, in a taxi-cab.Any way you look at it, the clues are promising - whether she needed money for Branford's speculations or for the financing of that rake Delarue."Maloney regarded Craig with the air of an expert who could afford to patronise a good amateur - but after all an amateur.Kennedy said nothing, and of course I took the cue.
"Yes," agreed Blake, "you see, our original hypothesis was a pretty good one.Meanwhile, of course, the police are floundering around in a bog of false scents.""It would make our case a good deal stronger," remarked Kennedy quietly, "if we could discover some of the stolen jewellery hidden somewhere by Mrs.Branford herself." He said nothing of his own unsuccessful search through the house, but continued: "What do you suppose she has done with the jewels? She must have put them somewhere before she got the yeggman to break the safe.She'd hardly trust them in his hands.But she might have been foolish enough for that.Of course it's another possibility that he really got away with them.I doubt if she has them at Grattan Inn, or even if she would personally put them in a safe deposit vault.
