Chapter III

Guided by the touch of Sydney Thames’s sleeve against his, the blind man made his way through the crowd of curious, idle persons, whom the sight of a policeman entering a building always attracts in New York. From the precinct station around the corner had come two uniformed men, and two detectives on the run, to answer the murder-call that had gone out. Colton and his secretary had met them coming up the stairs, and the problemist had given curt nods to their gruff greetings. Nearly every detective in the city knew the blind man; and he knew all of them by the sound of their voices, just as he knew the voices of a thousand other men. A hundred times his abilities had made their efforts look ridiculous, and scores of the city-paid sleuths refused to believe that he was blind. Nor did any one in the morbid crowd that opened before him suspect that the slight touch of cloth against cloth was guiding him in the darkness that had been his since birth.

Leaning back in the soft cushions of the tonneau, Thornley Colton lighted a cigarette and took several deep puffs. The machine had started without orders, as it always did when there was any one around who might hear. For several blocks they went in silence; then Colton leaned forward.

“Osmuhn’s, Fifth Avenue, Michael,” he directed.

“A jewellery shop?” asked Sydney Thames, in surprise.

“Yes. I am going to make sure of every property for the last scene. There can’t be a chance of failure!” There was an ominous ring in his voice.

“You speak as though you knew the murderer and the thief!” cried Thames, in amazement. “I don’t see----”

“You _do_ see!” interrupted the blind man, with unconscious sharpness. “Like the average person, you see too much. To any one with perfect eyes the whole thing is a jumble, for the murder of Meynerd was planned--devilishly planned--to make possible the one minute of hopeless confusion necessary to steal the jewel. The eyes of the men in that room could see but one thing, then--the mocker of the devils. Nothing could have drawn their gaze from Meynerd! That is the one fault of eyes. In great crises they numb every other sense!”

“But if you know the murderer, why not arrest him at once?” asked Sydney, his brain trying to fix upon the one man who could be guilty.

“Because I’m not a policeman. The arrest of the guilty person is always secondary, with me, to the complete solving of a problem. A crime-puzzle is never solved until the guilt of the prisoner is established beyond _all_ question. No, Sydney, I’m not a detective, for a detective arrests, and then tries to fix the guilt. I fix the guilt first. That is the problem in this case!”

“Joslyn and Wilson certainly acted queer,” mused Sydney. “The Chinese, too, seemed strange.” A new thought flashed to his mind. “There is something Oriental about that murder!” he exclaimed, suddenly. “A dart, and a poison which could act like that!”

Colton nodded as he flicked his cigarette into the street. “Devilishly Oriental, Sydney,” he said, quietly.

“Ching Li Chu!” gasped Sydney. “He----”

“Is secretary of a foreign legation, and therefore immune from arrest. Also, I think he could prove absolutely that he was standing in such a position that he could not have shot the poisoned dart at Meynerd!”

The machine swung into the curb before the shop of Osmuhn & Son. Colton alighted and hurried into the shop, followed by Sydney. He knew every step here, for he had learned them in the days when the problem of the Thousand Facets of Fire had interested him.

The elder Osmuhn came forward with a smile of welcome and extended hand. Colton swung his slim stick under his left arm and extended his left hand; the other had been in his pocket since they had left the room in the Wanderers’ Club.

“I want to get an imitation pearl the size of this finger-tip, with small holes drilled in the back at exactly these distances apart.” He drew his right hand from his pocket, and Thames saw that his right index-finger was smudged with ink, and on the middle finger were four dots of black, at equal distances around the finger-tip. “A bit of ink from my fountain pen on the four prongs, then I got the marks, to tell me where the holes had been, when I poked my middle finger into the eye-socket,” he explained to his secretary.

“Come into my office,” requested Osmuhn. “We have some imitation gems that we use merely to show sizes. They wouldn’t fool an expert for a minute.”

“I don’t want them to,” Thornley Colton smiled, faintly. “I only want him to feel the gem.”

“Ah, another of your problems.” Osmuhn pulled open a velvet-lined drawer. “Hold out your finger, please.” He adjusted a small caliper over the tip, and with a smaller one measured the distances between the dots. “How soon do you want it?” he asked, when he had made several cabalistic notes on his small desk pad.

“As soon as possible.”

“In two hours, then.”

Colton nodded and hurried out.

“Police headquarters,” he ordered, when the tonneau-door had clicked shut behind Sydney.

“So soon?” asked the secretary, in wonderment.

“Griffith and Jensen, the two detectives we passed on the stairs, are, perhaps, the most dull-witted in New York. Naturally they’d be on hand in a case like this. The thing will be bungled hopelessly if I let them have their way. After they have been shown the facts I gathered”--a grim smile hovered on his lips for a second--“they’ll have every one in the room under arrest, even Captain Richards. I want them all--_all_--at my house to-night.”

Thames knew the futility of further questions. Colton would do the thing in his own way, and explain when the time came. So they rode in silence to the big building that housed the central departments of the big force.

“While I’m inside, Sydney, call up Shrimp and tell him to get an inch auger and the most powerful pocket tubular flash-light he can buy.”

“An auger and a flash-light?” repeated the secretary.

“More scenery,” explained the blind man, laconically. “If I had been in the room when the murder was committed, my lack of eyes would have enabled me to detect the murderer-thief in the very act. Now I must carefully work on his nerves until I have the confession. And I’ll do it!” Again there was the ominous ring in his voice that Sydney had noticed every time the blind man spoke of the murderer.

With a curt nod of emphasis, Colton turned on his heel and walked briskly into headquarters, unerringly finding his way through the corridors he had travelled many times before.

There was no doubt of The Fee’s delight when Sydney Thames gave him the strange order. “Gee! Anoder case!” came his squeal of joy over the wire. “An’ the arm I got broke in the gilded-glove thing is all right. You bet I’ll get ’em!”

Sydney smiled as he rang off. Nothing pleased the freckle-faced, blue-eyed boy, with the slightly-twisted nose, who had become a member of the Colton household at the conclusion of a particularly baffling murder case, like participation in one of the blind man’s problems. But since the affair of the gilded glove, Colton had been careful to keep the irrepressible youngster out of all harm’s way.

For half-an-hour Sydney sat in the automobile and puzzled over the theft and the murder, the use of the imitation eye, the request for an auger and a flash-light. Then Colton came out of headquarters.

“One more stop,” he said, as the car glided away from the curb. “Five o’clock,” he announced, as his fingers touched the face of the crystalless watch in his pocket. “Just time for the call, a hurried bite, and then the dénouement.” He leaned forward to speak to the driver. “The Waldorf,” was the order he gave.

At the big desk of the famous hotel, Colton’s low-voiced inquiry brought an involuntary ejaculation of amazement from Sydney Thames. The blind man had asked for the Chinese ambassador.

“Not here!” declared the man at the desk with a positiveness that only hotel-clerks can assume when they are lying.

“Tell him I’d like to see him in regard to the Seven Devils of Sin.” Colton’s voice was quiet and even, but there was something in it that commanded respect--and got it.

“I’ll see!” The clerk turned to the house switchboard, and a few minutes later Thames and the blind man were being ushered to the suite of the diplomat. The ambassador, unlike his secretary, who had worn clothes of the latest cut, was dressed in robes rich with embroidery. He looked at them inquiringly as they entered, and the man at his side bowed deeply.

“His excellency bids you welcome,” the interpreter said, in precise English.

“I came to tell you that the eye of the Seven Devils has been stolen, and one of my countrymen murdered to make the theft possible,” Colton said, without preamble or preface.

The interpreter might have been a graven image for all the expression that came to his face. He bowed again, and spoke in Chinese to the ambassador. When the diplomat had answered him, he spoke again to Colton.

“His excellency says that the thing of which you speak is impossible. The devils would not allow it. The eye of the Seven Devils of Sin disappears for a week every hundred years, and has done so for centuries at the Yunling temple.”

“Ah!” There was a note of quiet satisfaction in the problemist’s voice as though sudden light had been thrown on an obscure point. “How did his excellency know where the devils were?” he asked, gravely.

For several minutes the two Chinese talked. Colton stood in the middle of the floor, idly switching his trouser-leg with his slim stick, apparently paying no attention to the two Chinese. But Sydney Thames knew that the keen ears of the blind man were taking in every word; for he knew that the problemist understood the language perfectly! What were the two Mongolians talking about? Why the discussion before such a simple question could be answered?

Then the interpreter spoke. “The gods decreed that his excellency should know the exact place and the hour at which it would be ready,” he said, solemnly. “The devils stirred to anger the people of Chingtu against the white rogue who so cleverly outwitted the Yunling mountain men. But the gods found him, after months had passed, so the anger of the devils might be appeased and the people made content.”

“Thank you.”

Sydney Thames thought he detected a dryness in the words, but the look on the blind man’s face as he left the room augured ill for some one.

“I can’t see how apparently intelligent men can believe such rot!” declared Sydney, impatiently.

“The undeviating view-point, Sydney, the undeviating view-point. That religion has been ingrained for centuries and tens of centuries. No Western knowledge can ever change it.” A peculiar smile came to his lips. “They never consider the incongruity of the gods helping them find devils--no more than they would consider a human life beside that thing of gold we left on the table at the club.”

Thames tried to read the expression on the blind man’s face; but there was no expression. Was the Chinese the murderer? Then what could the problemist do alone? What had been the object of those apparently irrelevant questions? And why had Colton pretended he knew no Chinese.

“One thing more, Sydney.” The problemist stopped beside the operator’s desk at the telephone-booths. “Call up the club and tell the president that I’ll contribute enough to have that upper hall re-decorated. Tell him that the workmen will be there to-night. It’s about time it was fixed.”

Sydney asked no questions this time. He merely obeyed the order. During the hurried, silent meal that followed, he was all at sixes and sevens, and his brain fairly reeled as the questions raced, shuttlelike, through his mind. The Chinese had known the exact hour the thing would be unpacked at the Wanderers’ Club. The secretary had virtually threatened Meynerd with death. Yet Colton had said Ching Li Chu had not been in a position to shoot the poisoned dart. Who had been in the right position, and how did the blind man know? He had not asked the positions of the men. There were Wilson and Joslyn. What of them? He remembered stories he had heard of the men. Joslyn was an absinthe-drinker, supposed to have an independent income. But what was the source of that income? Sydney had never heard. Wilson was noted for his temper--but the crime was not that of a man with temper. It was cold-blooded, devilish.

“Six o’clock.” Colton paid his check and hurried down the winding aisle of tables, his brain unconsciously counting the steps it had registered when he entered. “Get me a paper, Sydney,” he asked, when they were on the side-walk once more.

Sydney hailed a boy and bought one. At the first sight of the black headlines he gasped aloud.

“They’ve arrested Nesu!” he cried. “The two detectives took him to headquarters!”

He saw again the quiet little Jap; the one man he had never suspected! Colton had said that the murder was devilishly Oriental; he had said that the Chinese had not committed it. The Japanese was the guilty one! He must have been standing at the side of the table opposite Meynerd, for Sydney had seen the cotton tufts he had dropped. And the police had beaten the blind man; they had gotten ahead of the problemist who had scorned them so often. Sydney could see them laughing up their sleeves at the man he loved.

“It’s a shame, Thorn!” he choked.

“It is,” admitted Colton, quietly. “But better a live prisoner than a dead freeman. I asked the chief to arrest Nesu, for he would have been the next victim of the poisoned dart!”

“The next----” began Sydney, dully; but Colton did not let him finish.

“Yes, but we haven’t time to discuss it now. Run up to Osmuhn’s, and get the fake pearl. I’ll take the car, and you can come home in the subway. There’s a little job Shrimp and I have to do.”

Once more Thames silently did as he was told, and when he got back to the old-fashioned, brownstone house in the upper eighties, he found the blind man carefully studying two deep scratches in the polished top of the library table.

“All right, Shrimp,” called Colton, without raising his head.

Thames looked around, but could see no sign of the boy; he was not in the hall, nor in the music-room. He opened his lips for the question, then the electric front-door bell tinkled its announcement.

“The jewel! Quick!” Sydney Thames thrust the imitation pearl into Colton’s hand. For a second the blind man rubbed it between his flexible fingers. With a nod of satisfaction he dropped it carelessly into his lower vest-pocket, and was sitting on the table, feet dangling, smoking a cigarette, when the servant entered to announce the four men.

Captain Richards came first, and in his arms, held as carefully as though it were fragile glass, was the Seven Devils. He grunted in relief as he set it down on the table and mopped his sweat-beaded forehead. Ching Li Chu, who had been at his heels, remained standing, straight and rigid, beside the thing of gold on the table. Joslyn, who could not seem to keep his twitching fingers still, flopped into a chair without even a grunt of greeting. Wilson seemed strangely cool, and calmly chewed an unlighted cigar as he shook hands with the blind man and his secretary.

“No trouble getting us all here together,” he grinned. “Not one of us has dared leave the other’s sight all afternoon. Sat like bumps on a log glaring at each other, and trying to figure which of us was a murderer.”

“For God’s sake, get it over with!” Joslyn licked his dry lips with his tongue, and his voice was shaky. “The police were going to arrest all of us until their brains got untangled, and they took the right one. What d’ye want us here for, anyway?” he demanded.

“To show you the eye of the Seven Devils,” Colton said, quietly. He moved the golden image along the table, and carefully placed it in the centre, facing the five chairs that were drawn up against the wall. The blind man was very careful of the placing, and his secretary knew that he was putting it exactly over the scratches. Why?

“I told you not to drink so much absinthe this afternoon, Joslyn,” put in the captain, impatiently. “Your nerves are all gone.” He spoke to the problemist. “Are you really going to find the eye?” he asked, and there was a note of disbelief in his voice that Sydney Thames instantly resented.

A nod was Colton’s only answer.

Richards shook his head doubtfully. “Where that infernal Jap could have hidden the thing is beyond me. We literally tore the room to pieces, and picked the cotton apart, tuft by tuft.” His voice changed suddenly. “Did you find it?” he demanded.

The blind man straightened up. “Take seats,” he invited, for he had apparently not even heard the question. “You, too, Ching; the devils won’t get away.”

“The ambassador said that I must guard them,” replied the Chinese, simply.

“I expected he would,” declared Colton. “I saw him for a few minutes this afternoon.”

“You did!” The exclamation came from Captain Richards.

“Yes. I’d like to speak to you a few minutes in private, if the others will excuse us?” he turned to them, apologetically.

“Long as you like,” granted Wilson, lightly.

“Have it over with!” snarled Joslyn.

Colton put his hand on the captain’s shoulder and drew him to a far corner of the room. For several minutes they conversed in earnest whispers. The blind man’s back was toward the seated men, but they could see him making gestures of emphasis with the hand that was not resting on the captain’s arm.

The captain nodded emphatically, and they returned to the others. His face was grave, unreadable, but Sydney Thames saw a look of satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. So the blind man had convinced him that the pearl would be recovered!

They were all seated now, even the Chinese. Colton leaned against the table beside the seven golden devils, and faced them. His finger-tips felt of his crystalless watch.

“Ten minutes of seven,” he said. “At seven o’clock the jewel will be returned. Seven has been a mystic number for centuries.”

Wilson laughed shortly. “You’re worse than the Chinese, Colton,” he accused.

“Rot!” growled Joslyn.

“You know that seven is the number sacred to our devils?” asked the Chinese, gravely.

An inclination of the blind man’s head was his only answer. Silence came. The minutes slowly ticked past. As time went the men again felt the sinister influence of the thing of gold before them; just as the blind man had intended they should. Joslyn could not keep his twitching hands still. Wilson bit through his cigar and muttered a curse as it fell to the floor. Even Captain Richards nervously tapped his vest-front with his fingers. Sydney Thames shifted uncomfortably. What was going to happen? Was this merely another of the irrelevant, apparently senseless things?--like the others of the afternoon.

Colton’s voice, low, solemn, broke the stillness. “The murderer of Meynerd can never receive his full punishment on this earth. He has murdered thousands!” Every man straightened in his chair. “For years he has lived on the blood of innocent women and children, and for years I have waited this opportunity. Thank God it has come!”

From the lower hall came the first stroke of seven. The blind man stood facing them, hands resting lightly on the table at his sides. The mellow note of the second stroke came. Unconsciously each man’s muscles tightened for something--they knew not what. Week-long seconds passed before the gong sounded the third time. Still the blind man did not move. He stood there as rigid as the hideous, eyeless thing of gold beside him.

“Do not move!”

With the snapped-out order came darkness, black, impenetrable. An indrawn breath sounded hissingly, sucked in through tight, clenched teeth.

Again the clock sounded. From over their head, behind them, came a single shaft of soft, white light. In the small circle of brightness the face of the Seven Devils leered at them. And over the squat, wide-nostriled nose the single eye of pearl, perfect, flawless, gleamed with its spark-red heart!

An animal-like snarl broke the silence. Sydney Thames felt the sweeping rush of a body past his chair; heard body meet body in struggle. He knew one was the blind man. The other----

He made a move to rise and snap on the lights.

Some subtle fifth sense of the blind man seemed to tell him the very thought in his secretary’s mind.

“Stay where you are!” came his command. “Don’t touch the lights!”

Came a crash of a falling body.

The blind man’s voice cut the blackness. “You would, eh!” He followed in with a half-dozen words in Chinese. In the tone was some terrible accusation, and they seemed to goad the other to madness.

“Your devilish Oriental poisons will never kill another!” There was not even a catch in the blind man’s breath; but the men who could not move a muscle heard the sobbing gasps of the other. Suddenly came silence. Then two sharp clicks of snapped handcuffs.

And as though the clicks had been a signal, the lights came, and with them the voice of Thornley Colton, quietly triumphant:

“The murder of Ralph Meynerd will at last bring you the death you have deserved so long, _Captain Richards_! Yes, the pearl you have been assuring yourself you still had in your pocket is an imitation. I took the real eye from you while we were talking in the corner. My fingers might make me a successful pickpocket.”

He turned to face the doorway, and there the dazed Sydney Thames saw the wide-eyed Fee. Behind him were two stalwart detectives.

“The prisoner I promised your chief,” Colton said, shortly.

They came forward and jerked the cursing man to his feet. “One minute!” commanded Colton. He faced the Chinese. “The Seven Devils was stolen from your temple. It is yours. Take it.”

“Damn you!” shrieked Richards. “You----”

For a silent second Colton’s eyes seemed to stare at him, then his eyes dropped.

“Take it to its true owners,” repeated Colton. “But first, see!” He went to the golden thing on the table. One hand, held cuplike, under the eye. A finger touched the toe of one of the figures. The eye dropped to his hand! “The true secret of the image,” he said, quietly. “The prongs, by some method of a forgotten genius, open by the pressure of one of the toes. That is how it was stolen in the instant you could see nothing but the dead man before you!”