Stepping over to the dead man, he jerked the mask from his face and disclosed the features, now cold in death — of Jimmy Burke, the coward!
Chapter XIV
That night, with the assistance of Innis, who was acting as state’s attorney during the absence of his partner, I succeeded in clearing up the mystery. Joan and Grimes accompanied us to Burke’s residence, where, among the papers hidden away in his desk, we found the diary which not only showed the part he had played, but implicated the cook at the Grimes home, as well as his various accomplices at the cave.
That Burke was insane, there is no doubt in my mind, although Innis disagrees with me. According to the story set forth in his diary, he conceived the idea of blackmailing the chemical company, of which he was a director, fully a year before he commenced the operations which resulted in his death.
In many ways the man was an anomaly. With the physique of a woman, he possessed the heart of a lion and the ambition of a Napoleon. Raised a pampered and petted child of wealthy parents, never allowed to mingle with other children of his age, he saturated himself with literature of the blood and thunder type, enjoying in his older years that which he was deprived of during his youth.
While wandering through the hills back of his residence, he chanced upon the opening to the tunnel which led into the cave. Covered by weeds and underbrush, it had long since been forgotten even by the older residents of the place.
Following the tunnel, he finally emerged into the cave. His explorations showed him that it had not been entered for years.
Leading from the cavern, like the spokes of a wheel, were unnumerable other tunnels, crossing and recrossing each other, making a perfect labyrinth, for the original workers in the stone quarry—some half a century before — had followed only the peculiar vein-like formation through the sandstone instead of blasting out the entire hole as would be done in these modern times of high-priced labor.
In every particular he had, in his discussion with me, told me the truth. He did not need the money and actually, according to his diary, expected to rob his colleagues and himself, only to turn the money over to the poor. His principal idea, according to the story he left behind, was to satisfy his longing for excitement. He had laid his plans carefully, even to the extent of bribing poor Mrs. McGrady, Grimes’ motherly old cook, into bombarding her employer with the notes he had written.
His piratical crew of gangsters he had recruited, as Travis had told me, through a crooked employment agency and had assembled them just as they had said. He had secured his weapons from a New York concern and shipped them by express as automobile parts. The enlargement of the silencer for the one pounder was his own idea.
He was, in every particular, an odd character, filled with good and evil and love of romance; he was in many respects a boy who would not grow up.
Yet, what to my mind shows his mental condition, was his betrayal of his confederates. For, following the finding of Backus’ body, the board of directors had capitulated despite the protests of Grimes, who suddenly became panic-stricken on Joan’s account, as I will explain later, and had hoisted the white flag and, acting under instructions telephoned from what was afterwards discovered to have been a tapped wire near his residence, had left the package of money on a stump close to the tunnel entrance.
The money in his possession, he had deliberately telephoned to Innis and Grimes—using his own name—giving up to them the secret of the hidden entrance and telling them that I had written him a hasty note with the instructions.
Evidently, he had not been able to resist the temptation, however, of visiting his hidden cavern for the last time, trusting on his ability to get away before the raid. That he was an actor of extraordinary power was demonstrated by his ability to assume the two characters—the role of coward before his fellow board members and the gruff, sharp-toned leader in front of his men.
The money, in the original package in which he had received it, we found tucked away in the library safe.
That, following his unsuccessful attempt to murder me, he had deliberately planned to implicate Innis by “planting” the lavender-scented, initialed handkerchief, was described in detail in the little book which he had so faithfully kept. He had hated Innis for years, he confessed, because of a boyish quarrel. He felt that Innis had wronged him and, looking at the world from the warped standpoint he had assumed, had never forgiven.
As a result of my testimony, his confederates were given prison terms, I being able to prove conclusively that they were accessories both before and after the fact of both the murder of the chief of police and the scheme to blackmail the factory.
And thus passed into history one of the strangest criminal characters I have ever met in my long career as a criminal investigator — Jimmy Burke, “The Man in the Black Mask.”
Chapter XV
Sitting in the parlor of the Grimes home, Joan and Grimes confessed to Innis and myself the parts they had played in the strange affair.
Grimes had accidentally discovered the entrance to the tunnel shortly after leaving me on the afternoon of my capture. Entering it, he found, a short distance from its mouth, the cache where Burke kept his various disguises. Just as he was about to leave to announce his discovery, he heard footsteps and, hiding behind a fallen rock, saw Joan enter, and, donning one of the outfits, strike boldly towards the cavern.
Too astonished for utterance, Grimes hastened away, laboring under the belief that Joan was, herself, “The Man in the Black Mask.” She had always been a romantic young woman and the old man feared that she had, at last, given way to her inclination. Later, watching his opportunity, he had made several visits to the cavern.
As for Joan’s part in the affair—it was purely accidental. Like all women, she imagined that she possessed detective ability and, because of Grimes’ odd actions, due to worry, she had formed the conclusion that he was in financial straits and was, himself, the mysterious blackmailer.
As a child, she had played in the old tunnel. She remembered it now and shrewdly deduced it as the entrance to the hiding-place of “The Man in the Black Mask,” following Backus’ discovery of the shell fragment and my remark about the shot being fired down the creek. She had attempted to dissuade me from entering into the case because of her fear that I would unmask her uncle. This led her, also, to imitate the notes which had by means of the bribed cook been sent to Grimes, and to write and pin the counterfeit on my door.
There is nothing more to write. She and Grimes, working at cross purposes, suspecting each other, created the mixup which puzzled me so greatly in the cave. Oddly enough, they never chanced to meet nor to encounter Burke because of the numerous tunnels through which they entered, after leaving the main one.
Chapter XVI
My work was finished. My fee had been paid. I was ready to go back, and yet I lingered at the invitation of John Grimes. For something stronger than the desire for a vacation held me in Elkhorn.
Yet, after a week had passed, I felt that I was no closer to my heart’s desire than I had been the first day I met her. I felt, too, that I owed it to myself and my work to get back.
I announced my decision to Joan one evening as we stood under the moon close to the vine-covered arbor. She looked up at me, her great eyes wistfully pathetic, her soft hand resting on my arm, and whispered, as she had whispered on that eventful day when first we met:
“Don’t go — please!”
I smiled as I demanded her reason for asking me to remain. It was the same—a woman’s reason, always—the one little word: