“Now, then, if you’ll take the trouble to look at the door, you’ll find little marks in the wood which correspond to the marks on the toes of the shoes. In other words, whether those shoes were occupied or not, they were hammering against that door a few minutes ago.”
Captain Harder shook his head impatiently.
“The trouble with all that reasoning is that it leads into impossibilities.”
Sid Rodney stooped to the vest pocket, looked once more at the gold embossed fountain pen.
“Has any one tried this to see if it writes?” he asked.
“What difference would that make?” asked the police captain.
“He might have left us a message,” said Sid.
He abstracted the pen, removed the cap, tried the end of the pen upon his thumb nail. Then he took a sheet of paper from his notebook, tried the pen again.
Captain Harder grunted.
“Listen, you guys, all this stuff isn’t getting us anywhere. The facts are that Dangerfield was here. He ain’t here now. Albert Crome has this place rented. He has a grudge against Dangerfield. It’s an odds-on bet that we’re going to get the whole fiendish scheme out of him — if we get there soon enough.”
There was a mutter of affirmation from the officers, even men who were more accustomed to rely upon direct action and swift accusation than upon the slower method of deduction.
“Wait a minute,” said Sid Rodney. His eyes were flaming with the fire of an inner excitement. He unscrewed the portion of the pen which contained the tip, from the barrel, drew out the long rubber tube which held the ink.
Captain Harder regarded him with interest, but with impatience.
“Just like any ordinary self-filling pen the world over,” said the police captain.
Sid Rodney made no comment. He took a knife from his pocket, slit open the rubber sac. A few sluggish drops of black liquid trickled slowly down his thumb, then he pulled out a jet-black rod of solid material.
He was breathing rapidly now, and the men, attracted by the fierce earnestness of his manner, crowded about him.
“What is it?” asked one.
Rodney did not answer the question directly. He broke the thing in half, peered at the ends.
These ends glistened like some polished, black jewel which had been broken open. The light reflected from little tiny points, giving an odd appearance of sheen and luster.
Slowly a black stain spread along the palm of the detective’s hand.
Sid Rodney set the long rod of black, broken into two pieces, down upon the tray of food.
“Is that ink?” demanded Harder.
“Yes.”
“What makes it look so funny?”
“It’s frozen.”
“Frozen!”
“Yes.”
“But how could ink be frozen in a room of this sort? The room isn’t cold.”
Sid Rodney shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m not advancing any theories — yet. I’m simply remarking that it’s frozen ink. You’ll notice that the rubber covering and the air which was in the barrel of the pen acted as something of a thermal insulation. Therefore, it was slower to thaw out than some things.”
Captain Harder stared at Rodney with a puckered forehead and puzzled eyes.
“What things do you mean?”
“The watch, for instance. You notice that it’s started to run again.”
“By George, it has!” said Charles Ealy. “It’s started ticking right along just as though nothing had happened, but it’s about six and a half or seven minutes slow.”
Sid nodded silent affirmation.
Captain Harder snorted.
“You birds can run all the clues that you want to. I’m going to get a confession out of the bird that’s responsible for this.
“Two of you stay here and see that no one comes in or goes out. Guard this place. Shoot to kill any one who disobeys your orders. This thing is serious, and there’s murder at the bottom of it, or I miss my guess.”
He whirled and stamped from the room, walking with that aggressive swing of the shoulders, that forward thrust of his sturdy legs which betokened no good for the crack-brained scientist.
Chapter IV
A Madman’s Laboratory
They hammered on the door.
After a matter of minutes there was an answer, a thin, cracked voice which echoed through the thick partitions of a door which seemed every bit as substantial as the door which Captain Harder had forced in order to enter that curious room where an empty suit of clothes had mocked him.
“Who it is?”
Captain Harder tried a subterfuge.
“Captain Harder, come to see about the purchase of an invention. I’m representing the War Department.”
The man on the other side of that door crackled into a cackling chuckle. “It’s about time. Let’s have a look at you.”
Captain Harder nodded to the squad of grim-visaged men who were grouped just back of him.
“All ready, boys,” he said.
They lowered their shoulders, ready to rush the door as soon as it should be opened.
But, to their surprise, there was a slight scraping noise, and a man’s face peered malevolently at them from a rectangular slit in the door.
Captain Harder jerked back.
The face was only partially visible through the narrow peephole. But there was a section of wrinkled forehead, shaggy, unkempt eyebrows, the bridge of a bony nose, and two eyes.
The eyes compelled interest.
They were red rimmed. They seemed to be perpetually irritated, until the irritation had seeped into the brain itself. And they glittered with a feverish light of unwholesome cunning.
“Psh! The police!” said the voice, sounding startlingly clear through the opening of the door.
“Open in the name of the law!” snapped Captain Harder.
“Psh!” said the man again.
There was the faintest flicker of motion from behind the little peephole in the door, and a sudden coughing explosion. A little cloud of white smoke mushroomed slowly out from the corner of the opening.
The panel slid into place with the smooth efficiency of a well oiled piece of machinery.
Captain Harder jerked out his service revolver.
“All together, boys. Take that door down!”
He gathered himself, then coughed, flung up his hand to his eyes.
“Gas!” he yelled. “Look out!”
The warning came too late for most of the squad of officers who were grouped about that door. The tear gas, a new and deadly kind which seemed so volatile as to make it mix instantly with the atmosphere, spread through the corridor. Men were blinded, staggering about, groping their way, crashing into one another.
The panel in the door slid back again. The leering, malevolent features twisted into a hoarse laugh.
Captain Harder flung up his revolver and fired at the sound of that demoniac laughter.
The bullet thudded into the door.
The panel slid shut.
Sid Rodney had flung his arm about the waist of Ruby Orman at the first faint suggestion of mushrooming fumes.
“Back, back. It may be deadly!”
She fought against him.
“Let me go! I’ve got to cover this!”
But he swept her from her feet, flung her to his shoulder, sprinted down the hallways of the house. A servant gazed at them from a lower floor, scowling. Men were running, shouting questions at each other, stamping up and down stairs. The entire atmosphere of the house took on a peculiarly acrid odor.
Sid Rodney got the girl to an upper window on the windward side of the house. Fresh air was blowing in a cooling stream.