The headlines just about told the story:
Which Ronald Whitcomb, at death’s door, couldn’t possibly have done, but which held off the newspapers as to the manner of the broker’s dying for a few hours.
Down in Captain Dunand’s office, gray haired chief and black haired sergeant sat staring at the envelope they had taken from Whitcomb’s pocket. They had already read the letter a dozen times. It was typewritten on fine paper, with the sheet cut in half to remove a letterhead or address, and said:
The enclosed check, signed by myself, is to be honored when presented for payment by any official of the Whitcomb Investment Company. The check is to be cashed in five and ten dollar bills, and these are to be taken to whichever place is designated at a later date. If the police accompany the person bringing the ransom money, when he is told where to bring it, my children will be put to death. It is my order and wish that these requirements be exactly carried out.
The communication was signed by Whitcomb. The check, attached to the letter, was for one hundred thousand dollars.
Dunand said slowly, “Not much to go on, Jimmy. We’ll have men at the Whitcomb Company tomorrow. And tap their phones. Only…”
“Only you’re a man,” said Wentworth, “and you don’t want the children hurt.”
“No. I don’t want them hurt, lad. You… you still think this means Kong Gai?”
“I do, chief. Now more than ever. No one save a fiend like that Chinese would send a father with the ransom note for his children, knowing full well that he would not be able to tell where the youngsters were. And what has been done to Whitcomb will make anyone anxious to get the children out of the hands of such monsters.”
“I don’t understand it,” muttered the head of the detective bureau.
“According to the doctors, Whitcomb was stung and stung until he became almost unconscious. Somewhere along the line he signed the demand for ransom and the letter. Then the devils allowed him to partially recover consciousness, put him in a machine, let him off somewhere near his home while — according to the doctors — he could just stagger about, but was to all intents already a dead man.”
“And if he hadn’t raved, everyone would have thought he’d died from apoplexy!”
“There is no perfect crime,” Wentworth said slowly. “At least, not yet. Given time, Kong Gai the Venomous One may find it. Through his opium sales, he has his coils about some renegade physician. That’s sure. That’s where he must’ve picked up the bee sting idea. He has his slimy coils everywhere, captain! He—”
The telephone rang briskly, and Dunand said, “Damn reporters. Or a city editor. I hate to answer it.”
He spoke gruffly into the receiver: “Dunand. Well?” and then said excitedly, “Splendid! Congratulations, sheriff! Bring him right up here!” As he hung up, he said to Wentworth, “Cravens’s caught! Down in San Bernardino county! The sheriff’s office kept it under cover, and they’ve got him downstairs now.”
“And what good is that going to do?” Jimmy Wentworth demanded. “I suppose you think Cravens tortured Ronald Whitcomb?”
“No, but he might be a tool of a gang. Perhaps” — magnanimously — “Kong Gai’s tool.”
“If he were, you’d find him in the bay with his throat slit.”
This time Wentworth reached for the telephone, for Dunand was snapping off the desk light, and pressing another button which would cause all the brightness in the room to fall on Cravens when he was brought in for examination; the Chinatown detective sergeant answered the ring with a voice so like his chief’s that Dunand was forced to smile.
“Dunand,” said Wentworth. “Well? Oh, hello, Williams… you did, eh? And it checks? Thanks. I’ll tell the captain.”
As the door opened, Wentworth said curtly, “Williams reports that the sample of ransom letter paper we gave him coincides with paper used by the people where Cravens worked, sir.”
“Very good, sergeant,” said Dunand.
The captain nodded to the three deputies and the under-sheriff who shoved a thin young man into the room. Not until the four, prisoner and captors, were in the spot of light did Dunand speak. He said, “I think it’s safe to take off the handcuffs, boys.”
“We took no chances, cap,” said Undersheriff Egan. “Not with this boy.”
“Tough, is he?”
“Say! He wouldn’t come across with a word! We says, ‘The sooner you tell us where Whitcomb and his kids is, the better it’ll be, bud,’ but the punk won’t open his head.”
“Why were you in San Bernardino?” Dunand asked quietly of the prisoner.
Cravens lifted his head. The eyes were circled with black, with fatigue, and the young man’s face was very pale.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said at last.
Dunand looked out of the window. It was black outside now. High on a roof in Chinatown a lantern glowed, like the single eye of a five-legged dragon. Dunand carefully drew open a drawer of his desk, took out a box of cigars, and handed them about to the deputies. He selected one for himself, cut the end, was about to put it in his mouth, when he roared suddenly:
“Where are the children, Cravens?”
The prisoner shivered, but his eyes met the fierce gaze of the captain.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Dunand waved the ransom letter in front of Cravens.
“When did you write this?” he asked.
“I didn’t write it.”
“It is on paper from the company you worked for!”
Cravens bowed his head, but remained silent.
A third time the telephone rang, and again Wentworth answered it. He spoke now for the first time, gently; “The charge had better be changed, captain. From kidnapping to murder. Whitcomb is dead.”
Dunand shifted ground subtly.
“You can be cleared of murder,” he said to the frightened prisoner. “If you will give us the names of the gang, and tell where the Whitcomb children are, I will do my best with the District Attorney.”
“I didn’t kill Whitcomb,” said the exhausted man, “and I didn’t kidnap his children—”
“Give an account of your actions for the past six days.”
“You won’t believe it,” repeated Cravens.
“Tell us anyhow,” said Jimmy Wentworth.
The accused man looked at him, seeing only a fellow no older than himself, in a patrolman’s uniform.
“What’s the use?” the prisoner muttered.
“Because I might believe you,” Wentworth told him gravely.
Cravens’ head was hanging; he looked so guilty that Dunand was about to roar at him again, and then the prisoner began to speak jerkily.
“I went to Whitcomb. I admit it. I’d given him three thousand dollars to invest. He put it in speculative stocks. I wanted bonds. I told him I’d… I’d…”
“You can leave out what you told him,” said Jimmy Wentworth. “Because anything you say can be used against you. Tell us why you left the city.”
“I didn’t leave the city,” blurted Cravens. “I was taken away! In a machine. I’ve been kept doped. You can see” — he pulled up a sleeve — “you can see where I’ve been doped!”
Wentworth did not intend asking who did it, lest the prisoner say, “Chinese,” and the deputies repeat it outside the Hall of Justice. So he said, “And you came to in San Bernardino county?”
“I woke up on the side of a road, and that’s all I know. I never even knew who took me away! I never heard them speak. I was blindfolded after they slugged me—”