Part 24 (1/2)
”How did it disappear? Is that known?”
”It was stolen. A government clerk named Westerfeltner, a man who held a place of trust and confidence, was the man who stole it. For it he was offered a sum of money which would make him independent for life, and under the temptation he weakened and he stole it. But first he stole the key to the cipher, which would make it possible for anyone having both the key and the message to decode the message. Once this is done the damage is done, for the signature is ample proof of the validity of the doc.u.ment. That is the one thing above all others we are trying to prevent now.”
”But why couldn't the thief have decoded the dispatch?”
”He might have, excepting for two things. In the first place his princ.i.p.al, the man who corrupted him to betray his honour and incidentally to betray his Government, would not trust him to do this.
The head plotter demanded the original paper. In the second place an interval of a day and a half elapsed between the theft of the code and the theft of the dispatch. Before the thief secured the dispatch the key had already pa.s.sed out of his possession.”
”How do you know these things with such certainty?”
”Because Westerfeltner has confessed. He confessed to me at three o'clock yesterday morning after the thefts had practically been traced to his door. He made a clean breast of it all right enough. The high points of his confession have all been verified. I am sure that he was honest with me. Fear and remorse together made him honest. At present he is--well, let's call it sequestered. No outsider knows he is now under arrest; or perhaps I should say in custody. No interested party is likely to feel concern regarding his whereabouts, because so far as he was concerned the crooked contract had been carried out and completed before he actually fell under suspicion.”
”Meaning by that, what?”
”Meaning just this: On the night he secured possession of the key he handed it over to his princ.i.p.al, who still has it unless he has destroyed it. It is fair to a.s.sume that this other man, being a code expert, already has memorised the key so that he can read the dispatch almost offhand. At least that is the a.s.sumption upon which I am going.”
”All this happened in Was.h.i.+ngton, I suppose?”
”Yes, in Was.h.i.+ngton. The original understanding was that as soon as possible after stealing the dispatch Westerfeltner would turn it over to the other man. But something--we don't know yet just what--frightened the master crook out of town. With the job only partially accomplished he left Was.h.i.+ngton and came to New York. But before leaving he gave to Westerfeltner explicit instructions for the delivery of the dispatch--when he had succeeded in getting his hands on it--to a third party, a special go-between, with whom Westerfeltner was to communicate by telephone.
”Late the next day Westerfeltner did succeed in getting his hands on the doc.u.ment. That same evening, in accordance with his instructions, he called up from his house a certain number. He had been told to call this number exactly at eight o'clock and to ask for Mrs. Williams. Without delay he got Mrs. Williams on the wire. Over the wire a woman's voice told him to meet her at the McPherson Statue in McPherson Square at eleven-fifteen o'clock that night. He was there at the appointed hour, waiting. According to what he tells me, almost precisely on the minute a woman, wearing plain dark clothes and heavily veiled, came walking along the path that leads to the statue from Fifteenth Street. It was dark there, anyhow, and for obvious reasons both the conspirators kept themselves well s.h.i.+elded in the shadows.
”As she came up and saw him waiting there, she uttered the catchwords which made him know her for the right person. The words were simple enough. She merely said to him 'Did you go to the p.a.w.nshop?' He answered 'Yes, I went there and I got your keepsake.' 'Thank you,' she answered, 'then give it to me.' 'Here it is, safe and sound,' he replied and pa.s.sed to her the paper, which was wadded up, he says, in a pellet about the size of a hazelnut.
”Up to this point the pair had been speaking in accordance with a sort of memorised ritual, each knowing from the instructions given to both by their employer what the other would say. But before they parted they exchanged a few other words. Westerfeltner tells me that, having his own safety in mind as well as a natural anxiety for the safe delivery of the paper to its real purchaser, he said to her: 'I hope you understand that you should keep this thing in your possession for every minute of the time until you hand it over to our mutual friend.'
”As he recalls her answer, as nearly as possible in the words she used, she said: 'Certainly I do. It will be kept on my person where I can put my hand on it, but where no one else can see it and where no one else will ever suspect it of being.' Then she asked him: 'Was there anything else you wanted to say to me?' He told her there was nothing else and she said good night to him and turned and walked away in the direction from which she had come. He waited a minute or so and then walked off, leaving the square on the opposite side--the Vermont Avenue side. He went directly home and went to bed.
”He is unmarried and lives alone, taking his luncheons and dinners out, but preparing his own breakfasts in his rooms. At three o'clock in the morning he was in bed and asleep when I rang his doorbell. In his night clothes he got up and let me in; and as soon as I was in I accused him.
As a matter of fact the double theft had been discovered the evening before, but unfortunately by then several hours had elapsed from the time the dispatch was taken, and already, as you know, the dispatch had changed hands.
”Within an hour after the discovery of the loss I had been set to work on the job. At once suspicion fell upon three men, one after the other.
It didn't take very long to convince me that two of these men were innocent. So these two having been eliminated by deductive processes, I personally went after the third man, who was this Westerfeltner. The moment I walked in on him I was convinced from his behaviour that I had made no mistake. So I took a chance. I charged him point-blank with being the thief. Almost immediately he weakened. His denials turned to admissions. As a conspirator Westerfeltner is a lame duck. I only wish I had started after him three or four hours earlier than I did; if only I had done so I'm satisfied the paper would be back where it belongs and no damage done. Well, anyhow, if I am one to judge, he told me everything frankly and held back nothing.”
”Well, then, who is the woman in the case?”
”He didn't know. To his best knowledge he had never seen her before that night. He is sure that he had never heard her voice before. Really, all he does know about her is that she is a small, slender woman with rather quick, decided movements and that her voice is that of a refined person.
He is sure she is a young woman, but he can furnish no better description of her than this. He claims he was very nervous at the time of their meeting. I figure he was downright excited, filled as he was with guilty apprehensions, and no doubt because of his excitement he took less notice of her than he otherwise might. Besides, you must remember that the place of rendezvous was a fairly dark spot on rather a dark night.”
”He has absolutely no idea of his own, then, as to the ident.i.ty of Mrs.
Williams?”
”He hasn't; but I have. The telephone number which figures in the case is the number of a pay station in an all-night drug store in Was.h.i.+ngton.
Westerfeltner freely gave me the number. Both the proprietor of this drug store and his clerk remember that night before last, shortly before eight o'clock, a rather small, slight woman wearing a black street costume with a dark veil over her face came into the place and said she was expecting a telephone call for Mrs. Williams. Within two or three minutes the bell rang and the clerk answered and somebody asked for Mrs.
Williams. The woman entered the booth, came out almost immediately, and went away. All that the drugstore man and his clerk remember about her is that she was a young woman, plainly dressed but well-groomed. The druggist is positive she had dark hair; the clerk is inclined to think her hair was a deep reddish-brown. Neither of them saw her face; neither of them remarked anything unusual about her. To them she was merely a woman who came in to keep a telephone engagement, and having kept it went away again. So, having run into a blind alley at that end of the case, I started in at the other end of it to find the one lady to whom naturally the chief conspirator would turn for help in the situation that confronted him when he ran away from Was.h.i.+ngton. And I found her--both of her in fact.”
”Both of her! Then there are two women involved?”
”No, only one; but which one of two suspects she is I can't for the life of me decide. I know who she is, and yet I don't know. I'll come to that part of it in a minute or two. I haven't told you the name of the head devil of the whole intrigue yet, have I? You've met him, I imagine. At any rate you surely have heard of him.