Chapter II

For two hours Nadine Nelson had sat, white-faced but steady-voiced, as the three men questioned, cajoled, badgered, and threatened. At her right, his chair within a foot of that in which she sat, was the man who had posed as a servant. At her left was another, just as keen-eyed and alert. Before her sat a heavy-chinned, broad-shouldered man whose fingers crackled the typewritten sheets as he jerked out his questions. The girl’s eyes met his fairly, unwaveringly. Yet she knew he was Chief Whittson, of the United States secret service.

“You know that, for months, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been passed through the agency of your father’s bank?” he snapped.

“I know nothing,” she said unemotionally.

“Then why did you say----” He referred to the typewritten sheets: “‘It will all come out right?’”

“Because it will,” she replied steadily.

The men at her sides snorted impatiently.

“Did you know that your father was the head of the best-organised counterfeiting gang in the country?” jerked out the secret-service chief.

Her eyes did not flinch for an instant. “I knew nothing.”

“Where is your father, Miss Nelson?”

“I do not know.”

“Then why did you say”--his forefinger punched the typewritten page viciously, and in his voice was snarled impatience--“‘he has gone to them at last.’ Who did you mean?”

“I know nothing,” came the unvarying answer she had given a hundred times before.

“Why didn’t you call in the police when you knew that your father had disappeared?”

For the first time a shade of expression came to the girl’s face; her lips curved in contempt. “Because I knew that the police could do no more than the secret-service men of the United States.” There was more than a tinge of contempt in her voice.

Chief Whittson straightened back in his chair. “Did you know that your servant was not what he pretended to be?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said defiantly. “We knew from the first that he was a spy.”

The former servant leaped to his feet, face red with rage. “So that’s why you took it so cool, eh? That’s why you didn’t raise the fuss I expected?” he flared. “And you went to your own room and locked the door to cry. And I was _sorry_ for you. Me! A wise guy! Some--clever--actress!”

She shrank back before the lashing sneer in the words.

“Then you knew of the dictograph?” demanded the chief, instantly alert to take advantage of the first signs of break-down.

“Yes,” she whispered tremulously. “We knew, and we----” she stopped, her breath catching suddenly.

“‘We,’” repeated the chief sharply. “What? What?”

Her lips quivered piteously. The nerve that had forced her frail woman’s body to bear the rack for hours was breaking.

“What did you do? Tell me!” he commanded viciously.

“Don’t you think you’ve gone quite far enough on that line?” The quiet, even voice of the man in the door-way caused the two men at the girl’s side to leap to their feet, and the chief to jerk his body erect. “If I were you, Miss Nelson,” the man in the door-way spoke to the girl, and his voice was gentle, “I would answer only courteous questions.”

His white face, with its lean, cleft chin, and thin, firm lips, lighted in a wonderful smile of encouragement; the hand that was not holding the slim stick brushed back from his high forehead the hair whose whiteness was accentuated by the great blue circles of the tortoise-rimmed library glasses.

“Who are you?” demanded the chief, but there was no bluster in his tone. The manner he had assumed for the girl had dropped like a mask. He was the calm, alert detective once more, and his keen judgment told him instantly that the new comer was not the type to bluff.

Before the man at the door-way could answer, a youth rushed past him to the girl’s side.

“I found him, Nadine,” he cried joyously. “Here’s Mr. Colton. He’ll find uncle.”

“Thank God!” breathed the girl, and her body relaxed.

Thornley Colton turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “A glass of water, Sydney. Quickly!”

“So you’re Thornley Colton, eh?” The secret-service chief eyed him sharply. “I understand you’ve done some rather remarkable work--for a blind man.”

Colton smiled, then stepped aside as his black-haired, apple-cheeked secretary came in with a glass of water. The girl’s eyes fluttered open, and the blind man realised that she needed time to regain her scattered senses.

“You have the average person’s idea of the blind, chief,” he said. “And the average person gets _his_ notion from the blind beggar on the street-corners who hobbles along led by a small boy and a dog, and taps every inch of the side-walk with a heavy cane. Very few realise that is mostly for effect. Fewer still know that in New York there are nearly two hundred sightless men and women who go to business every day without help or guidance. Some of the highest-paid private secretaries and stenographers in the country are blind. Several of the blind proof-readers are famous. And for many years the court of last resort in the dead-letter office at Washington was a blind man. He was the most expert ever employed by the government, and could read with his supersensitive finger-tips addresses that had passed through the hands of the keenest-eyed readers of illegible writing in the world. So you see, the blind are not so helpless as one might imagine. Ah, Miss Nelson, do you feel better?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him with a curious expression in her eyes. It was the look of a child who has sought a protector only to be a little frightened at the result. But she smiled bravely. “You did such a wonderful thing for Ned”--she rested her hand fondly on her cousin’s arm--“when he was arrested for the murder of the girl in the theatre, and I thought----” Again came the look that was almost fear.

“I will do my best,” promised the blind man. “Do you mind my hearing the story from Chief Whittson--his side of it?”

“No,” she said, with only a bit of nervousness in her voice.

Whittson smiled quizzically. This blind man might be interesting. On his face and the faces of his men there was no doubt of the outcome. They were government men, trained, efficient; the interloper was an amateur--and blind.

“We know that Dryden F. Nelson was the biggest passer of counterfeit money in the country!” began the chief. “He is the cleverest of them all. Who would suspect the bank of a man like Nelson as a clearing house for the cleverest counterfeits ever made? The scheme was wonderful, the only organised gang in the country who could pass ‘queer’ at its face value was that of this girl’s father. How long it’s been going on we don’t know. The bills have the ‘feel,’ something no other counterfeiter has ever been able to get. It was only within the past six months we traced the bills to their source. And that was Nelson’s bank! For six months we have tried to locate the plant, and failed. For the past three weeks my man here has been in the house, and there has been a dictograph in the library.”

“And you discovered nothing?”

“Nothing except to make morally certain his guilt. And he knew we were closing in. He was frightened stiff! Now we find out that the girl, here, was wise. She’s fooled us right along. We never suspected that she was one of the gang.”

The girl cowered in her chair. “I’m not,” she faltered. “It isn’t true.”

“Now Nelson’s slipped through our fingers,” went on the chief relentlessly. “Just when we had him worked up to a confession. He got out of that room in some devilish way.”

“I’ve got the facts of his disappearance,” put in Colton.

“So have we!” snapped the chief. “Within ten minutes of the time he went, every inch of this block was covered, and to-day ten thousand police and two hundred secret-service men are scouring the city for him. He can’t get out of it, and he can’t stay in it--long.”

“Why didn’t you arrest him before if you were so certain of his guilt?”

“Because we wanted his pals! We wanted to locate the plant! And he went while Jim was watching the door every minute! While my ears were glued to the dictograph-receivers and my pencil taking every word down in shorthand.”

“You heard nothing?”

“After Jim brought the wine there wasn’t a sound but the infernal ringing of the two glass rims on the teetery tabouret he insisted on having beside his chair.”

Colton looked up with sudden interest. “Did you ever hear those glasses ring before?”

“Every night at eight, when Jim here served his wine.”

“What other time did he have wine served?”

The former servant answered: “He only had it at eight in the library, and he wanted it on the minute.”

“Significance--somewhere,” mused the problemist. For several seconds there was silence as his slim cane idly tapped his shoe-sole.

Suddenly the girl sat rigid in her chair. “I can’t!” she cried. “Oh, please! Please! I can’t!”

The expression on the blind man’s face was the only one that did not change. The three secret-service men looked the amazement the sudden irrelevant words had caused. The youth who was kneeling at the girl’s side gazed at her in wonder.

“The truth will help us all, Miss Nelson,” said Colton gently.

But she paid no attention to the words. Her eyes, widened in fear, were fixed on the shoe of the problemist.

“Yes,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “Every night!”

The chief jumped to his feet. “What’s that?” he demanded. “What’s that?”

“The one thing you overlooked; the significance of two plus two,” declared Thornley Colton. “If you will show me the library perhaps I can point out some other things that your eyes have missed.”

The girl lifted her bowed head. “Oh, Mr. Colton,” she pleaded, “do not show them--you don’t know what it means!”

The blind man went to her side, and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “It is necessary,” he said, and his voice was tender. Then, to the chief: “If you will lead the way.”

Chief Whittson rose, and jerked his thumb toward the girl as she buried her head in her arms. One of the men nodded. She was to be guarded every minute.

“I’ll stay here,” whispered Sydney Thames, as Colton passed him. The black-haired secretary, tender-hearted, deifier of all women, was going to guard the girl against further badgering.

The government man who had posed as the servant opened the door of the library. “This is the room,” he growled. “There isn’t a break in the walls. We’ve gone over every inch.”

Colton’s thin cane located the big chair near the door. He walked around it, touched its back, the walls behind it, and measured the distance to the room entrance. On his white cheeks was a hectic flush of excitement; his nostrils quivered like those of a hound on the scent.

“You were watching the door every minute?” His voice was unconsciously sharp.

“Yes.”

The blind man turned to the chief, a curious smile on his face. “This is an instance of the blind’s superiority. You and your man know that there is but one possible way for a man to get out of this room. You’re as sure of that as you are of death. Yet you can’t realise that that is the way Nelson got out because your eyes deceive your brain into thinking it impossible. Sight is the greatest handicap pure reasoning has. Even a man with eyes instinctively closes them when he is trying to figure out some particularly intricate problem. The trouble is that you haven’t closed your eyes. Nelson went out through that door!”

“What?” The chief and his man chorused it blankly.

The blind problemist did not answer at once. He darted across the room. His stick found the chair at the fire-place.

“Nelson wanted you to turn this chair away from the fire?” he said suddenly.

“How did you know that?” asked the chief, and in his tone was wonder.

“Because it was necessary for his escape.” The words came like staccato notes on a taut wire. “He knew that a man was watching that door. He didn’t know what instant it might open an inch. But he knew that with the high sides of the chair toward the fire he would be invisible in the depths. He pulled his slippers off, and left one so that it could be seen--young Nelson, who came to see his cousin last night, gave me most of the facts. Then he slid from the chair, and crawled across the floor to crouch down behind that other big chair near the door. From past tests he knew just how the servant would enter the room and just what he would do. It was the work of an instant to slip through the open door as the servant was crossing the room toward the fire-place. His stockinged feet made his exit absolutely noiseless. The very simplicity of the thing would deceive any man in the world who could _see_. Yet you knew it was the only way he _could_ have gone!”

“I saw the door open!” gasped the secret-service man. “I thought it was a draught.”

“Yes,” nodded the blind man, “because your eyes saw the cigar-smoke and the slipper. They wouldn’t let your brain get any idea but that he was in the chair.”

“But the very simplicity of that would make elaborate preparations necessary,” objected the chief. “The thing would have to be timed to the instant. Nelson hadn’t a chance to communicate with any one without our knowledge. Jim, here, and the dictograph took care of that.”

Colton’s lips curved in a mirthless smile. “They made it possible! Their very actions prove that both Nelson and his daughter knew of the dictograph. They understood that, so long as you didn’t suspect they knew, you would take no other precautions. They knew that you would depend on the instrument to hear every word, and on this man to see that there wasn’t a written word of instruction put into their hands. And they fooled you! Tricked you every day!”

At the last word he dropped to his knees beside the big chair by the fire-place. His supersensitive finger-tips brushed the carpet. Back and forth they went a dozen times, then stopped. “See that!” he cried. “See that!”

The two men leaned forward. For a minute they stared.

“Only a nail-hole through the rug,” declared the chief.

“Yes, only a nail-hole,” Colton repeated quietly. “That’s the only thing your eyes can see. But my finger-tip felt the point of a nail under the carpet and on a level with the floor.”

“Nail?” repeated the chief dumbly. He had forgotten his superior attitude of a short time before. The dominant personality of the blind man; his absolute sureness of himself compelled respect, and brought a realisation that Thornley Colton was the master, he the pupil.

The blind man walked from the chair. His stick, poking in the corner beside the fire-place, found the tabouret. With an exclamation of satisfaction he pulled it out and touched its edge with his finger-tips.

“You spoke of it as being ‘teetery.’ See how finely it is balanced on the two legs that are a fraction of an inch longer than the others. And see here!” His stick fell to the floor as he used both hands to turn it upside-down. The two secret-service men saw that all four legs were tipped with metal balls. “See the scars of the nail-point on the balls of the short legs?” cried Colton. He took his knife from his pocket, and tapped with the blade. A low, musical click-click-click that could be heard distinctly by the men resulted. “Hear that?” he demanded.

“What does it mean?” The chief made no effort to keep the bewilderment from his voice.

“It means that under the floor, and under that nail-hole in the rug, is a finely-adjusted magnet with a nail-pointed plunger in the centre of the coil. That’s how Nelson beat your dictograph! That’s how he beat your spy. Just as the girl inside understood the Morse messages I tapped with my cane.”

“Telegraphy!” gasped the chief. “Nelson was chief staff-telegrapher in the army for years.”

The blind man nodded. “The table was set here at eight because that is the time the person at the other end would be ready to send the messages. Nelson adjusted the tabouret so that one of the short legs would be directly above the magnet-plunger, which was as sensitive to the touch of the telegraph-key sending the current through the magnet-coils as the most delicate instrument in the world. To the trained operator who has learned to take a message from any single instrument in a room where a thousand others are clattering away, the click of the plunger against that hollow metal ball would be as easy to read as print to the average man. But ordinarily the dictograph would also hear. That’s why the goblets were placed rim to rim--so that the ringing would drown the other sound over the wires of the dictograph, or to a man listening at the door. Acoustics would take care of that. The dot-dash of the magnet-plunger could not be heard five feet away, though the man in the chair could get every word.”

“By God, that’s clever!” There was admiration in Chief Whittson’s tone. “Pull back that chair, Jim! We’ll get the rug up and see the thing! We’ll follow those wires and land the whole gang.”

He stopped as Nadine Nelson entered the room. She wasn’t the sobbing girl they had left who now entered; but a white-cheeked, white-lipped woman who did not speak until she had crossed the room and stood before the chief.

“I am the ‘gang’ you speak of,” she said quietly. “The wires go to my room!”