Chapter VI: The Code Telegram

Chick Carter was on the lookout for Bart Bailey at seven o’clock the following morning, after trailing him to Philadelphia. He had felt sure that his quarry would not be stirring before that hour, but he soon found that he had allowed himself but little leeway. For Bailey appeared in the hotel office ten minutes later and hurried in to breakfast.

Chick saw plainly that the rascal did not suspect an espionage, but his haste denoted that he had important business in view. Chick determined not to lose sight of him, therefore, and he deferred for that reason and in order to gather additional evidence, a telephone talk with Nick, precisely as the latter had inferred.

Chick shadowed Bailey from the hotel about eight o’clock, and the store mentioned by the clerk the previous night. It proved to be a small establishment, occupying only the ground floor and basement of a corner building, with an office in the rear, and to which the crook immediately hastened.

“I’ll not follow him,” thought Chick, sizing up the store from outside. “I may get a line on him from the rear.”

Hastening in that direction, Chick saw that the back windows of an automobile agency overlooked a paved area back of Meyers’ store, and he entered and introduced himself to the manager, confiding the situation to him and requesting the privilege of using the rear windows.

“Why, certainly, Mr. Carter,” he readily consented, after Chick had concluded. “Go as far as you like. I wouldn’t bank much myself, as a matter of fact, on Rudolph Meyers’ integrity. I know he used to run a pawnshop in one of the lower precincts of the city. He opened this store about eight months ago.”

“Soon after the New York robberies began,” Chick nodded.

“I see the point. I have often wondered why he could sell goods cheaper than his competitors. I inferred that his rent might be lower, and he keeps only one clerk, a man named Finley.”

“Many of his goods cost him less--at present,” Chick said significantly.

“I judge so, now,” smiled the other. “They unpack most of them in the area back of the store. A big case came in there this morning by express. It now is out there. I suppose they will open it, now that Finley has showed up. Yes, by Jove, they’re just coming out of the rear door.”

Chick directed the manager to remain in his office, and he then stole to a point from which he could easily see and hear the two men without being detected.

They had emerged from a back door of the store, and had opened another leading down a flight of stone steps to the basement. Barton Bailey already was working upon a large packing case, while Rudolph Meyers, a short, swarthy man of about fifty, stood looking on with a sinister grin.

“Another vindfall, eh?” he remarked, after a moment. “Another vindfall. If it proves to be as good as the last----”

“Much better, Meyers, and then some,” Bart Bailey interrupted, turning from his work. “I happen to know just what is in this one. I was with Murdock when the goods were packed.”

“You left him all right, eh?”

“As right as a trivet, Rudolph.”

“Not one is yet wise, eh?”

“Not yet, old man, nor likely to be,” declared Bart confidently. “The headquarters dicks have been bounced and others are to be tried. You know whom I mean. They’re the worst ever, too, but I reckon they’ll find this nut too hard a one for their ugly jaws. If they----”

“Wait!” cut in Meyers sharply. “Here vas a poy with a message. Vait von minute.”

Chick pricked up his ears and crept nearer the window. Through the open back door of the store he could see a telegraph messenger entering from Broad Street. He saw Meyers hurry in to meet him, saw him glance at the address on the yellow envelope, and then turn and beckon to Bailey, who dropped his tools and hurried into the store.

“By Jove, I wonder what that signifies,” thought Chick, with instinctive misgivings. “A wire to Bailey, eh? Can any one have got wise to my doings?”

Bart Bailey, to whom the telegram evidently was addressed, hastened to sign for it, and then broke the seal. He read the message, and then both men hurried into the rear office.

Chick then could see them through one of the office windows, which had been opened to admit the morning air.

Bart Bailey took a small leather book from his pocket and sat down at a desk, spreading the telegram on it and seizing a large pad of blank paper and a pencil. He then began to refer to various pages in the book, pausing to write briefly at intervals on the pad.

“A code message,” thought Chick, intently watching the couple. “He has the key to it in that book, and is making a transcription on the pad. By Jove, this looks like something doing.”

Chick’s suspicions were almost immediately confirmed. Both men appeared much disturbed. Leaving Barton still at work at the desk, Meyers hurried to the front part of the store, where, through some lace draperies that were displayed in one of the windows, he began to peer cautiously into Broad Street, evidently searching the wide thoroughfare in each direction.

“By gracious, I must be right,” Chick muttered. “Bart Bailey has been tipped by some one, as sure as death and taxes. The other rat is looking to see whether the store is being watched. You’re looking in the wrong direction, old man. By Jove, I would give a trifle for a copy of that transcription.”

Bart Bailey evidently completed it a few moments later. He sprang up in some excitement, tore the written sheet from the pad, then hurried out to the front of the store to read it to his companion. Both remained there, earnestly discussing it and gazing cautiously toward the street.

“Here’s my chance, by Jove, if I ever had one,” thought Chick, after watching them for a moment. “I’ll take it, too, let come what may.”

Stepping quickly to one of the other windows, Chick quietly raised it, then sprang out noiselessly and crossed the area between the two buildings. The desk in the rear office was within reach through the open window.

Chick leaned over the sill and listened for a moment. He could hear the subdued voices of the two men in the front of the store, but could not distinguish what they were saying.

Taking the pad from the desk, Chick drew back and tore off the upper blank sheet and slipped it into his pocket. He then replaced the pad and returned it to its former position, quietly closing the window. The two men in the front of the store still were cautiously watching the street.

“Neither of them heard me,” thought Chick, with some satisfaction. “Nor will a single blank sheet be missed from that pad. I’ll wager I can learn something from it.”

One might wonder how he could accomplish it, but Chick Carter was wise to all the tricks of his profession. He thanked the manager of the agency for the accommodations afforded him, cautioned him to say nothing in regard to his visit, and he then learned the location of the nearest drug store.

Hastening to it, Chick bought from a clerk some fine black powder adapted to his purpose. He then requested the privilege of using the prescription room for a few moments, stating with what object, and the favor was readily granted.

Chick then spread the blank sheet of paper on a table and covered it with a thin layer of the fine black dust, which he then blew gently from its surface.

Particles of it remained, however, in the indentations caused by the pressure of the pencil through the sheet on which Bart Bailey had been writing, and it brought out quite legibly nearly every word of the transcription hurriedly made by the crook.

Chick read it carefully, quick to readily interpret the condensed phrases transcribed from the code book, and he found that it fully confirmed his suspicions.

It told him that Bart Bailey had been warned that a detective was following him; that he must watch out for him and lure him to New York, if possible, and to some place designated only as a cobweb. The communication bore no signature whatever.

Chick Carter smiled a bit grimly, now knocking the particles of dust from the sheet and returning it to his pocket. The circumstances, nevertheless, puzzled him somewhat.

“Who the dickens could have learned of my doings and warned this rascal?” he said to himself. “Not Helen Bailey, surely, nor the boarding-house landlady. Neither of them would have done so. I’ll be hanged if I now can fathom it, but I reckon I see my way to doing so. Lure me to New York, eh? I can guess what that means, all right. Well, I’ll give the rats a chance.”

Most men would have shrunk from the risks involved, but not Chick Carter. He now hastened to find a second-hand clothing store, where he clad himself in a somewhat seedy suit and a woolen cap, directing that his own discarded garments should be sent to his New York address.

Ten minutes later, wearing an entirely different facial disguise and having a rather sinister appearance, Chick returned to Broad Street and entered Meyers’ store.

He then found both suspects engaged in hurriedly putting into various shelves and drawers the goods taken from the packing case, which had been opened during his brief absence.

Both at once ceased working when he entered, and Chick saw that he was instantly suspected. He saw, too, that Bailey shot a swift, significant glance at Meyers, plainly directing him not to interfere.

“Is the boss around?” Chick inquired, as he approached them.

Bart Bailey nodded, hooking his thumbs through the armholes of his vest, while he replied inquiringly:

“I am the boss, my man. What do you want?”

“I’m looking for a job, sir,” said Chick, respectfully touching his cap with his forefinger. “I thought, mebbe----”

“That I would give you employment?” Bart put in, with searching scrutiny. “What led you to think so?”

“Nothing, sir, save that most stores need help,” Chick explained, quite humbly. “I have been trying for a job in others, sir, but luck seems against me. I’m broke and in hard sledding, you see, and----”

“Do you live in the city?” Bart cut in again.

“No, sir. I’m here from Chicago only a couple of days.”

“Why did you leave there?”

“My boss failed, and that threw me out of a job. I couldn’t get another in Chicago, so I worked my way here on a freight train.”

“What sort of work can you do?”

“Any old kind, sir, that’ll earn me a dollar,” Chick asserted, somewhat suggestively. “I wouldn’t be particular. You can bet on that.”

“You’d do most anything, eh?”

“That’s what I would, sir. When a man’s up against it good and hard, he don’t stick over trifles. I’d do anything the boss told me.”

“Suppose it was something off color?”

“That would be up to him, sir. I’d do it, all right, and shut my eyes to what it was about.”

“And your mouth, too, perhaps?”

“I would, sir, and keep it shut,” said Chick, with a sinister nod. “You can bank your pile on that, sir.”

Bart Bailey laughed and glanced again at the listening merchant.

“Murdock might use the fellow,” he remarked significantly.

“Vell, yes, he might,” Meyers allowed tentatively, evidently taking a cue the other had given him.

Bart turned to Chick again, saying:

“We’ve got no use for you here, my man, but I think I could find a job for you in New York.”

“That would suit me all right, sir,” Chick declared, with manifest eagerness. “I’d go to New York, sir, or to perdition, if need be. Give me a letter to the party, sir, and I’ll find a way to get there.”

“I’d do better than that, my man, if you mean what you say,” replied Bailey, glancing at his watch.

“You’ll find I mean it, sir,” Chick insisted.

“I’m going to New York in just half an hour,” Bart added. “I’ll not promise you the job, mind you, but I think I can fix you with a friend who wants a man for general work. I’ll take the chance, at all events, and will pay your fare, which can be returned to me out of your first week’s pay. How does that suit you?”

“I couldn’t be hit more to my liking, sir,” said Chick, with manifest gratitude. “I’m more obliged than I could tell if I----”

“Never mind thanking me,” Bart interrupted. “There’ll be time enough for that after you get what’s coming to you. What’s your name?”

“James Donovan, sir.”

“Where are you stopping? Have you got any luggage?”

“Only what’s on my back.”

“Well, that’s easily carried,” Bart laughed, with a covert gleam in his shifty eyes. “Sit down there, Donovan, for about ten minutes. We then shall have time to hit a fast express.”

Chick obeyed him with alacrity, taking a chair to which the rascal pointed.

There was nothing remarkable in the celerity with which these arrangements were completed. Chick knew that the two crooks did not dream of his having learned of the code telegram and its significance, and that they not only would suspect his identity, but also would see in his application for work only a scheme to watch them and the Philadelphia store.

That he would walk with open eyes into such a net as the telegram indirectly suggested would seem utterly improbable, and Bart Bailey had immediately seized the supposed opportunity which the situation presented, feeling sure that he could trap Chick before he could learn that his identity and designs were suspected.

Half an hour later, therefore, found both seated in the smoking car of an express train bound for New York, whither Chick had really expected to have taken the crook in irons, instead of traveling as his supposed dupe.

This appeared to Chick, nevertheless, the surest and speediest way to discover the identity and doings of Bailey’s confederates, as well as to round up the entire gang, which might possibly be perverted by the immediate arrest of Bailey and Rudolph Meyers.

It was early afternoon when they arrived in New York, each having played his part consistently, resulting in no material change in the situation, save a change of base.

“We’ll take a taxi,” said Bailey, as they emerged from the station. “I’ve got the price.”

“That beats working one’s passage on a freight train,” Chick replied. “Whatever you say, Mr. Finley, goes.”

“This way, then.”

Chick followed him to a taxicab, to the driver of which the crook quietly gave his instructions.

The taxicab stopped in front of an unpretentious store in one of the crosstown streets. The single front window denoted that wooden toys and novelties of like description were sold within. A sign over the door apparently told the whole story:

“ACME NOVELTY COMPANY.”

Chick glanced at the sign and window when he followed Bart Bailey from the taxicab. Beyond the low brick building in which this store was located, the two upper floors of which were evidently used for a dwelling, towered the rear wall of a vast mercantile edifice, which Chick immediately recognized.

“Mantell & Goulard’s department store,” he said to himself. “By Jove, this should signify something.”

“This way, Donovan.” Bart Bailey spoke with a growl. “Get a move on.”

Chick did not hesitate. He followed the ruffian without replying, and entered the quarters of the Acme Novelty Company.