Chapter IV

The afternoon sun came slantingly through the great glass windows, lighting the happy face of the blind man and the pale, smiling face of The Fee, as he lay in bed, his head swathed in bandages, one arm in a sling.

“I was goin’ round, ’cause I couldn’t sleep, an’ I heard somebody open the front door”--Shrimp scowled as his voice became weak, and set his teeth for a moment. “I thought it was you. Then I seen his whole head was covered with a black thing, an’ there was black gloves on his hands, an’ he didn’t wear no shoes.”

Colton nodded. “So that he could not be seen, nor heard, in the darkness. The hood covered everything but his eyes and lips; the latter were left free so that he could mimic a voice.”

“I watched him sneak into the library an’ come out. Then I beat it down the backstairs, an’ when he got in his automobile I was hangin’ on the back. He musta knew I was there all the time, but he never let on. I was scoutin’ ’round the house when three of ’em jumped me. I guess they knocked me out good, for it was a long time ’fore I come round. Then a guy I couldn’t see came in the dark room where I was an’ started knockin’ you. I told him where he stood, all right.”

“It was the mimic,” Colton explained. “He wanted to learn every tone of your voice.”

“The government agents got every one of them,” put in Sydney unnecessarily.

“Yes, and the house has been the scene of many crimes. Ames and his men found a lot of valuable papers, together with the ringleaders of the Gilded Glove. Jones, of the hotel, identified the bearded man who did all the talking as the German husband who had the rooms. The chair arms didn’t protect him very much from the falling table, and his three broken ribs will keep him quiet for a while. The one who posed as his wife, and the third man at the table, have bruises and contusions enough to last them a lifetime. The murderer of Hedwig Gorski”--Thornley Colton paused a minute and went on--“was brought around all right by the ambulance surgeon; only a little of the poison went down his throat; but he told his story. He was a wonderful boy mimic fifteen years ago. Any sound, any voice was as easy for him to learn as names would be to you and me. Then the Gilded Glove got him. What devilish method they used I don’t know, but they made him their tool. Boris Strevelski forgot that he had ever been anything but a dealer of death to traitors; that he was the Hammer of God was the only idea left in his mind. But they taught him all languages, and he picked them up as the average man would remember names.

“He worked for half an hour to get the pane of glass from the window of the Gorski bathroom, and, in a skin-tight suit of black silk that covered everything but his mouth and eyes, he hid behind the coat and dress in the closet after putting the poison in the tap. He had on the same suit at the house. My hands told me that.”

“But how did you know he would come here?” asked Sydney breathlessly.

“I risked everything on my mental ability to follow the workings of the Oriental mind,” Colton said slowly. “The Caucasian mind is always content with mere killing. But the Oriental mind must have the significant! Think of the risk of staying in the Gorski rooms when they knew the poison would do its work. But to them the mere death was only part; their whole course of thought demanded that the sign be left.

“I knew it would be the same in my case. So I gave them no chance to leave the crushed glove anywhere but here; and I knew they would come. I didn’t know that they had been watching me for weeks because of my friendship with Madame Gorski, nor that they had gotten a duplicate key. But I was almost at the heels of the stranger. When he saw me I knew he would instantly think of luring me to my death. The sign had been left, and death was next. I knew, also, that he would never overlook the opportunity to mimic Shrimp’s voice, because in the years mimicry has become a mania with him. He slammed the door of the car in which he came so that I would think he had escaped. Then his playing Shrimp’s part seemed easy and logical. What was there to do but take me to the New York headquarters of the Gilded Glove? Following out their mind-processes further, I had no doubt that they would give me a chance to drink the poison, for that, too, is a peculiar kink of the Oriental mind. Hence my precaution. The rest was simple.”

“Simple!” gasped Sydney Thames, and there was sweat on his brow. “My God, Thorn, think of you, _blind_, risking yourself alone with those men.”

“My blindness was my greatest ally there,” smiled Colton faintly. “The instant darkness came they were helpless, while I was my normal self, which I couldn’t be in the burning light, but”--he touched the alcohol-soaked bandage that covered his head and eyes--“the tortures of the Inquisition were mild beside that light on my unprotected eyeballs.”

He patted the hand of the boy gently. “And it was Shrimp who led the secret agents, after all,” he said quietly. “If the taxi-driver hadn’t been one of the hundred friends he has made around the city, there might have been another story to tell. The men of the Gilded Glove weren’t far behind me.”

The door-bell rang downstairs. “Ames again,” commented Colton, a trifle wearily, and in a few minutes the government agent was ushered into the room by John, the butler.

“We got everything, Mr. Colton!” he cried. “The whole gang is cleaned up. Gorski was released from jail to-day, and is going back to Paris. Without his wife he will never bother any one. Even the Gilded Glove didn’t think him worthy of their attention. And those harbour-mine plans! A wonderful piece of work! Placed in order under an onion-skin paper map of the harbour, with the staccato-note marks at certain points on the shore line, every sharp and flat traced on the map gave, as you said, the exact locations of the mines.”

“Have you found the traitor?” asked Colton.

“Yes.” Ames’s voice was sober. “His body was found this morning in his office. The pistol he had used was beside him. A closed incident.” Then enthusiasm came to his tone once more. “What you have done on this case will never be forgotten, Mr. Colton,” he said earnestly. “It will not be made public, of course, but the secretary of state will write you a personal letter offering you any reward you may ask. The president himself will tender you a position that----”

Thornley Colton’s upraised hand stopped him. The blind man turned his sightless eyes toward the closed eyes of The Fee, and gently withdrew his fingers from the clasp of the small hand. “Hush,” he said softly. “The boy is sleeping.”

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THE SEVENTH PROBLEM

THE RINGING GOBLETS