The War Terror Page 15

  CHAPTER XV

  THE ASPHYXIATING SAFE

  Denison had scarcely gone to arrange for some one to watch the officethat night, when Kennedy, having gathered up his radioscope and packedinto a parcel a few other things from various cabinets, announced:"Walter, I must see that Miss Wallace, right away. Denison has alreadygiven me her address. Call a cab while I finish clearing up here. Idon't like the looks of this thing, even if Haughton does neglect it."

  We found Miss Wallace at a modest boarding-house in an old but stillrespectable part of the city. She was a very pretty girl, of theslender type, rather a business woman than one given much to amusement.She had been ill and was still ill. That was evident from thesolicitous way in which the motherly landlady scrutinized two strangecallers.

  Kennedy presented a card from Denison, and she came down to the parlorto see us.

  "Miss Wallace," began Kennedy, "I know it is almost cruel to troubleyou when you are not feeling like office work, but since the robbery ofthe safe at Pittsburgh, there have been threats of a robbery of the NewYork office."

  She started involuntarily, and it was evident, I thought, that she wasin a very high-strung state.

  "Oh," she cried, "why, the loss means ruin to Mr. Denison!"

  There were genuine tears in her eyes as she said it.

  "I thought you would be willing to aid us," pursued Kennedysympathetically. "Now, for one thing, I want to be perfectly sure justhow much radium the Corporation owns, or rather owned before the firstrobbery."

  "The books will show it," she said simply.

  "They will?" commented Kennedy. "Then if you will explain to me brieflyjust the system you used in keeping account of it, perhaps I need nottrouble you any more."

  "I'll go down there with you," she answered bravely. "I'm betterto-day, anyhow, I think."

  She had risen, but it was evident that she was not as strong as shewanted us to think.

  "The least I can do is to make it as easy as possible by going in acar," remarked Kennedy, following her into the hall where there was atelephone.

  The hallway was perfectly dark, yet as she preceded us I could see thatthe diamond pin which held her collar in the back sparkled as if alighted candle had been brought near it. I had noticed in the parlorthat she wore a handsome tortoiseshell comb set with what I thoughtwere other brilliants, but when I looked I saw now that there was notthe same sparkle to the comb which held her dark hair in a soft mass. Inoticed these little things at the time, not because I thought they hadany importance, but merely by chance, wondering at the sparkle of theone diamond which had caught my eye.

  "What do you make of her?" I asked as Kennedy finished telephoning.

  "A very charming and capable girl," he answered noncommittally.

  "Did you notice how that diamond in her neck sparkled?" I asked quickly.

  He nodded. Evidently it had attracted his attention, too.

  "What makes it?" I pursued.

  "Well, you know radium rays will make a diamond fluoresce in the dark."

  "Yes," I objected, "but how about those in the comb?"

  "Paste, probably," he answered tersely, as we heard her foot on thelanding. "The rays won't affect paste."

  It was indeed a shame to take advantage of Miss Wallace's loyalty toDenison, but she was so game about it that I knew only the utmostnecessity on Kennedy's part would have prompted him to do it. She had akey to the office so that it was not necessary to wait for Denison, ifindeed we could have found him.

  Together she and Kennedy went over the records. It seemed that therewere in the safe twenty-five platinum tubes of one hundred milligramseach, and that there had been twelve of the same amount at Pittsburgh.Little as it seemed in weight it represented a fabulous fortune.

  "You have not the combination?" inquired Kennedy.

  "No. Only Mr. Denison has that. What are you going to do to protect thesafe to-night?" she asked.

  "Nothing especially," evaded Kennedy.

  "Nothing?" she repeated in amazement.

  "I have another plan," he said, watching her intently. "Miss Wallace,it was too much to ask you to come down here. You are ill."

  She was indeed quite pale, as if the excitement had been anoverexertion.

  "No, indeed," she persisted. Then, feeling her own weakness, she movedtoward the door of Denison's office where there was a leather couch."Let me rest here a moment. I do feel queer. I--"

  She would have fallen if he had not sprung forward and caught her asshe sank to the floor, overcome by the exertion.

  Together we carried her in to the couch, and as we did so the comb fromher hair clattered to the floor.

  Craig threw open the window, and bathed her face with water until therewas a faint flutter of the eyelids.

  "Walter," he said, as she began to revive, "I leave her to you. Keepher quiet for a few moments. She has unintentionally given me just theopportunity I want."

  While she was yet hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness onthe couch, he had unwrapped the package which he had brought with him.For a moment he held the comb which she had dropped near theradioscope. With a low exclamation of surprise he shoved it into hispocket.

  Then from the package he drew a heavy piece of apparatus which lookedas if it might be the motor part of an electric fan, only in place ofthe fan he fitted a long, slim, vicious-looking steel bit. A flexiblewire attached the thing to the electric light circuit and I knew thatit was an electric drill. With his coat off he tugged at the littleradium safe until he had moved it out, then dropped on his knees behindit and switched the current on in the electric drill.

  It was a tedious process to drill through the steel of the outer casingof the safe and it was getting late. I shut the door to the office sothat Miss Wallace could not see.

  At last by the cessation of the low hum of the boring, I knew that hehad struck the inner lead lining. Quietly I opened the door and steppedout. He was injecting something from an hermetically sealed lead tubeinto the opening he had made and allowing it to run between the twolinings of lead and steel. Then using the tube itself he sealed theopening he had made and dabbed a little black over it.

  Quickly he shoved the safe back, then around it concealed several smallcoils with wires also concealed and leading out through a window to acourt.

  "We'll catch the fellow this time," he remarked as he worked. "If youever have any idea, Walter, of going into the burglary business, itwould be well to ascertain if the safes have any of these littleselenium cells as suggested by my friend, Mr. Hammer, the inventor. Forby them an alarm can be given miles away the moment an intruder'sbull's-eye falls on a hidden cell sensitive to light."

  While I was delegated to take Miss Wallace home, Kennedy madearrangements with a small shopkeeper on the ground floor of a buildingthat backed up on the court for the use of his back room that night,and had already set up a bell actuated by a system of relays which theweak current from the selenium cells could operate.

  It was not until nearly midnight that he was ready to leave thelaboratory again, where he had been busily engaged in studying thetortoiseshell comb which Miss Wallace in her weakness had forgotten.

  The little shopkeeper let us in sleepily and Kennedy deposited a largeround package on a chair in the back of the shop, as well as a longpiece of rubber tubing. Nothing had happened so far.

  As we waited the shopkeeper, now wide awake and not at all unconvincedthat we were bent on some criminal operation, hung around. Kennedy didnot seem to care. He drew from his pocket a little shiny brassinstrument in a lead case, which looked like an abbreviated microscope.

  "Look through it," he said, handing it to me.

  I looked and could see thousands of minute sparks.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "A spinthariscope. In that it is possible to watch the bombardment ofthe countless little corpuscles thrown off by radium, as they strike onthe zinc blende crystal which forms the base. When radium wasoriginally discovered, the interest
was merely in its curiousproperties, its power to emit invisible rays which penetrated solidsubstances and rendered things fluorescent, of expending energy withoutapparent loss.

  "Then came the discovery," he went on, "of its curative powers. But thefirst results were not convincing. Still, now that we know the reasonswhy radium may be dangerous and how to protect ourselves against themwe know we possess one of the most wonderful of curative agencies."

  I was thinking rather of the dangers than of the beneficence of radiumjust now, but Kennedy continued.

  "It has cured many malignant growths that seemed hopeless, brought backdestroyed cells, exercised good effects in diseases of the liver andintestines and even the baffling diseases of the arteries. The reasonwhy harm, at first, as well as good came, is now understood. Radiumemits, as I told you before, three kinds of rays, the alpha, beta, andgamma rays, each with different properties. The emanation is anothermatter. It does not concern us in this case, as you will see."

  Fascinated as I was by the mystery of the case, I began to see that hewas gradually arriving at an explanation which had baffled everyoneelse.

  "Now, the alpha rays are the shortest," he launched forth, "in lengthlet us say one inch. They exert a very destructive effect on healthytissue. That is the cause of injury. They are stopped by glass,aluminum and other metals, and are really particles charged withpositive electricity. The beta rays come next, say, about an inch and ahalf. They stimulate cell growth. Therefore they are dangerous incancer, though good in other ways. They can be stopped by lead, and arereally particles charged with negative electricity. The gamma rays arethe longest, perhaps three inches long, and it is these rays whicheffect cures, for they check the abnormal and stimulate the normalcells. They penetrate lead. Lead seems to filter them out from theother rays. And at three inches the other rays don't reach, anyhow. Thegamma rays are not charged with electricity at all, apparently."

  He had brought a little magnet near the spinthariscope. I looked intoit.

  "A magnet," he explained, "shows the difference between the alpha,beta, and gamma rays. You see those weak and wobbly rays that seem tofall to one side? Those are the alpha rays. They have a strong action,though, on tissues and cells. Those falling in the other direction arethe beta rays. The gamma rays seem to flow straight."

  "Then it is the alpha rays with which we are concerned mostly now?" Iqueried, looking up.

  "Exactly. That is why, when radium is unprotected or insufficientlyprotected and comes too near, it is destructive of healthy cells,produces burns, sores, which are most difficult to heal. It is with theexplanation of such sores that we must deal."

  It was growing late. We had waited patiently now for some time. Kennedyhad evidently reserved this explanation, knowing we should have towait. Still nothing happened.

  Added to the mystery of the violet-colored glass plate was now that ofthe luminescent diamond. I was about to ask Kennedy point-blank what hethought of them, when suddenly the little bell before us began to buzzfeebly under the influence of a current.

  I gave a start. The faithful little selenium cell burglar alarm haddone the trick. I knew that selenium was a good conductor ofelectricity in the light, poor in the dark. Some one had, therefore,flashed a light on one of the cells in the Corporation office. It wasthe moment for which Kennedy had prepared.

  Seizing the round package and the tubing, he dashed out on the streetand around the corner. He tried the door opening into the RadiumCorporation hallway. It was closed, but unlocked. As it yielded and westumbled in, up the old worn wooden stairs of the building, I knew thatthere must be some one there.

  A terrific, penetrating, almost stunning odor seemed to permeate theair even in the hall.

  Kennedy paused at the door of the office, tried it, found it unlocked,but did not open it.

  "That smell is ethyldichloracetate," he explained. "That was what Iinjected into the air cushion of that safe between the two linings. Isuppose my man here used an electric drill. He might have used thermitor an oxyacetylene blowpipe for all I would care. These fumes woulddiscourage a cracksman from 'soup' to nuts," he laughed, thoroughlypleased at the protection modern science had enabled him to devise.

  As we stood an instant by the door, I realized what had happened. Wehad captured our man. He was asphyxiated!

  Yet how were we to get to him? Would Craig leave him in there, perhapsto die? To go in ourselves meant to share his fate, whatever might bethe effect of the drug.

  Kennedy had torn the wrapping off the package. From it he drew a hugeglobe with bulging windows of glass in the front and several curiousarrangements on it at other points. To it he fitted the rubber tubingand a little pump. Then he placed the globe over his head, like adiver's helmet, and fastened some air-tight rubber arrangement abouthis neck and shoulders.

  "Pump, Walter!" he shouted. "This is an oxygen helmet such as is usedin entering mines filled with deadly gases."

  Without another word he was gone into the blackness of the noxiousstifle which filled the Radium Corporation office since the cracksmanhad struck the unexpected pocket of rapidly evaporating stuff.

  I pumped furiously.

  Inside I could hear him blundering around. What was he doing?

  He was coming back slowly. Was he, too, overcome?

  As he emerged into the darkness of the hallway where I myself wasalmost sickened, I saw that he was dragging with him a limp form.

  A rush of outside air from the street door seemed to clear things alittle. Kennedy tore off the oxygen helmet and dropped down on hisknees beside the figure, working its arms in the most approved mannerof resuscitation.

  "I think we can do it without calling on the pulmotor," he panted."Walter, the fumes have cleared away enough now in the outside office.Open a window--and keep that street door open, too."

  I did so, found the switch and turned on the lights.

  It was Denison himself!

  For many minutes Kennedy worked over him. I bent down, loosened hiscollar and shirt, and looked eagerly at his chest for the tell-talemarks of the radium which I felt sure must be there. There was not evena discoloration.

  Not a word was said, as Kennedy brought the stupefied little man around.

  Denison, pale, shaken, was leaning back now in a big office chair,gasping and holding his head.

  Kennedy, before him, reached down into his pocket and handed him thespinthariscope.

  "You see that?" he demanded.

  Denison looked through the eyepiece.

  "Wh--where did you get so much of it?" he asked, a queer look on hisface.

  "I got that bit of radium from the base of the collar button of HartleyHaughton," replied Kennedy quietly, "a collar button which some oneintimate with him had substituted for his own, bringing that deadlyradium with only the minutest protection of a thin strip of metal closeto the back of his neck, near the spinal cord and the medulla oblongatawhich controls blood pressure. That collar button was worse than thepoisoned rings of the Borgias. And there is more radium in the prettygift of a tortoiseshell comb with its paste diamonds which Miss Wallacewore in her hair. Only a fraction of an inch, not enough to cut off thedeadly alpha rays, protected the wearers of those articles."

  He paused a moment, while surging through my mind came one afteranother the explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. Denison seemedalmost to cringe in the chair, weak already from the fumes.

  "Besides," went on Kennedy remorselessly, "when I went in there to dragyou out, I saw the safe open. I looked. There was nothing in thosepretty platinum tubes, as I suspected. European trust--bah! All thecheap devices of a faker with a confederate in London to send acablegram--and another in New York to send a threatening letter."

  Kennedy extended an accusing forefinger at the man cowering before him.

  "This is nothing but a get-rich-quick scheme, Denison. There never wasa milligram of radium in the Poor Little Rich Valley, not a milligramhere in all the carefully kept reports of Miss Wallace--except what wasb
ought outside by the Corporation with the money it collected from itsdupes. Haughton has been fleeced. Miss Wallace, blinded by her loyaltyto you--you will always find such a faithful girl in such schemes asyours--has been fooled.

  "And how did you repay it? What was cleverer, you said to yourself,than to seem to be robbed of what you never had, to blame it on abitter rival who never existed? Then to make assurance doubly sure, youplanned to disable, perhaps get rid of the come-on whom you hadtrimmed, and the faithful girl whose eyes you had blinded to yourgigantic swindle.

  "Denison," concluded Kennedy, as the man drew back, his very faceconvicting him, "Denison, you are the radium robber--robber in anothersense!"