The Adventuress Read online

  We went down again by the back stairs and outside, where Kennedy picked up the wire that hung down to the earth.

  Having completed this part of his preparations, Kennedy entered the Harbour House and we followed.

  We were passing through the corridor when a page stepped up to Kennedy. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he announced, ‘but there is a lady in the parlour who would like to speak to you and Mr Jameson, sir.’

  Kennedy excused himself from Burke and Steel, and together we went in the direction of the parlour, eager to discover who it was that sent for us.

  To my surprise, it was Winifred Walcott whom we saw sitting all alone.

  ‘How are you after your thrilling experience last night?’ inquired Kennedy. ‘It was so early this morning when we left that we really could not disturb anyone to find out. I trust that you are feeling better?’

  ‘Yes—better,’ she repeated, her eyes with an absent look, as though she was not thinking of how she felt. ‘I wanted to thank you ever so much for what you did. Without you, who knows what might have happened to me or where I should be now?’

  There was genuine feeling in her words now, as she went on, ‘Professor Kennedy, after what has happened I am afraid that I shall have to appeal to you for protection. I have thought about it all a great deal, and still there is no explanation of the strange events of last night.’

  ‘You have no idea who it was who carried you off?’

  She shook her head. ‘You may not believe it, but I have not. All I remember was being seized from behind and before I knew it I was half choked, half smothered. That thing wrapped about my head kept me from seeing or crying out until it was too late. Even then I could not see. There is only one thing I can say I really know, and that is that whoever it was that carried me off, it was someone of great strength. You see, I am no light-weight and pretty strong. Yet I never had a chance until you and Mr Jameson and the rest came up back of me. Oh, I am so sorry I came to your laboratory that day with her!’

  Winifred paused. It was evident that she was in a very nervous and high-strung state, and naturally so. The one thing that seemed uppermost in her mind was that she had listened to the biased interpretations of Irene Maddox. The dénouement had proved how wrong they had been, at least in their suggested characterisation of Kennedy. And she hastened to apologise.

  ‘Not a word about that,’ insisted Kennedy. ‘There was no reason why you should not have come to see me on any errand and with anybody.’

  ‘Just the same, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Has anything more happened today?’ queried Kennedy, changing the subject deftly.

  ‘N-no, nothing in particular. I have been thinking mostly of what it all was about last night. Someone wanted to hold me—but didn’t want to hurt me. Who could it be? Why?’

  ‘That is exactly what I am trying to find out,’ assured Craig. ‘We went into the city on what looked as though it might prove to be a very promising clue, but nothing came of it. However, it is only a short while, now, and we shall soon have something to report, I am convinced.’

  ‘Did you see—Mr Maddox?’ she asked, hesitatingly, and I knew that the mention of Shelby’s name had cost her some effort, after the serious tiff of the evening before. ‘He was very solicitous, sent up word, and some flowers, but could not miss the express, he wrote on account of an important engagement.’

  ‘Yes, we saw him for just a minute—down in Wall Street. I believe he has taken some interest in business lately and has spent much time at the office of his brokers down-town.’

  The look of relief that passed over her face could not easily be concealed. It was evident that she knew of the sudden early departure of Paquita and, like Hastings, in her suspicions, had been afraid that there might be some connection with Shelby. Kennedy did not say anything about the appearance of Paquita in Wall Street; and, on reflection, I reasoned that he was right, for it could have no effect except to arouse unjust suspicions.

  Winifred said nothing for a few moments. I wondered what was passing in her mind. Was she sorry that she had not taken Shelby at his word the night before? At any rate she said nothing, nor should I have expected her to admit anything to us.

  ‘What do your brother and sister-in-law think?’ asked Kennedy, at length.

  ‘Johnson promised to get a detective himself if there was anything new on which to base suspicions,’ she replied. ‘He seemed rather vexed at me that I could tell no more, said that no detective could be expected to catch anyone on my hazy description—which, I suppose, is true.’

  ‘And Mrs Maddox?’

  ‘Oh, she seems to think—well, it’s pretty hard to tell what poor Irene thinks from one moment to another. She says it’s what I might expect for being mixed up with the Maddoxes. I can’t see what that has to do with it, though. I’m not mixed up with them, even if Johnson is.’

  There was a naïveté about the remark that was not lost on Kennedy. Winifred was still mistress of her own heart, at least so she would have us think. Her solicitude about Shelby and the careful way in which she refused to let us see that it went too far would have indicated otherwise. She was really afraid of herself.

  ‘There has been absolutely nothing suspicious since this morning?’ reiterated Kennedy, hoping that she might recall something, no matter how trivial, that might point the way further ahead.

  ‘Nothing,’ she repeated. ‘I didn’t come down from my room until pretty late. Everybody had left for the city by that time. I did see that gentleman who brought us back in his car, though.’

  ‘Oh, Sanchez?’ interrogated Craig, his attention aroused in an instant. ‘What of him? Did he do or say anything?’

  ‘Nothing except that he inquired very particularly how I was and whether I had found out anything—nothing more than common politeness might suggest.’

  As for me, I felt sure, now, that there was something much deeper than courtesy in the inquiry of Sanchez.

  ‘I don’t suppose you noticed anything about him?’ asked Craig.

  ‘Nothing except that he avoided Irene Maddox when he saw her coming toward me. I think I can guess why.’

  She nodded knowingly to Kennedy.

  ‘Did he seem to be interested in Paquita’s absence?’ pursued Kennedy.

  ‘I can’t say,’ strove Winifred to remember. ‘I did see him talking to some of the boys about the hotel—that is all.’

  ‘And where did he go?’

  ‘Drove off in his car. It was about the middle of the morning. I haven’t seen him about since then.’

  Winifred seemed quite reassured by the few words with Kennedy, and with a parting assurance of protection Kennedy and I excused ourselves.

  We rejoined Burke and Steel in the lobby, where Burke was nervously pacing up and down, for precious minutes were being wasted, he felt. And yet I could not see that he was able to make a move without the aid of Kennedy.

  Like Burke, I, too, was eager to know what it was that Kennedy was planning to accomplish by the elaborate and secret preparations he was making. Accordingly, I was not sorry when he decided to go immediately up to our rooms.

  Naturally, I was keenly interested in what Kennedy was doing in establishing his own little wireless plant, but the operator, Steel, looked at it in increasing wonder as Craig laid out the apparatus in the room.

  ‘It’s not exactly like anything that I’ve ever seen before,’ Steel remarked finally. ‘What do you expect to do with it, sir?’

  Kennedy smiled. ‘I don’t believe you ever did see one of these sets, although you may have heard of them,’ he explained, not pausing in his work of installing it. ‘It is an apparatus only lately devised for use by the United States Government to detect illegalities in the air in wireless, whether they are committed by amateurs or not.’

  As we watched in silence, Kennedy went on explaining. ‘You know that wireless apparatus is divided into three parts—the source of power, whether battery or dynamo; the making and sending of wireless waves
, including the key, spark condenser, and tuning oil; and the receiving apparatus, head telephones, antennæ, ground and detector.’

  Kennedy was talking to us rather than the operator, but now he turned to him and remarked, ‘It’s a very compact system, with facilities for a quick change from one wave-length to another. I suppose you’ve noticed it—spark gap, quenched type—break system relay, and all the rest. You understand, I can hear any interference while I’m transmitting. Take the transformation—by a single throw of this six-point switch. It tunes the oscillating and open circuits to resonance. It’s very clever and, best of all, efficient.’

  His wireless installed and adjusted, Kennedy clapped the ear-pieces on and tuned it up. Not only he, but the wireless operator tried it, rapidly changing the wave-lengths, as the system admitted, in the hope of discovering something. Whatever it was that had caused the trouble at the Seaville Station, it was not working now. They seemed able to discover nothing.

  This had been going on for some time when our telephone rang and Burke jumped to answer it.

  ‘That’s one of my men,’ he exclaimed with a gesture that indicated he had forgotten something. ‘I meant to tell you that they were holding a funeral service for Marshall Maddox, and this apparatus of yours clean knocked it out of my head. Hallo! … Yes, I remember. Wait.’ Burke put his hand over the transmitter and looked at us. ‘Do you want to go?’ he asked.

  ‘I think I would like to see them together again,’ Craig replied, after a moment’s consideration.

  ‘All right,’ returned Burke, removing his hand. ‘We’ll be down in a minute.’

  Kennedy took from another package what looked like an arrangement containing a phonograph cylinder, and attached it, through a proper contrivance, to his receiving apparatus.

  ‘Now I think we can safely leave this thing,’ bustled Kennedy, eager to get back in touch with things at Westport.

  The wireless operator, Steel, glanced at his watch. ‘I’m due back at Seaville soon to do my trick. Is there anything else I can tell you or do for you?’

  Kennedy thanked him. ‘Not just at the moment,’ he returned. ‘We shall have to wait now until something happens. Perhaps you are right. I think the best thing you can do is to return to Seaville and keep your eyes and ears open. If there is anything at all that comes up that seems to lead to our wireless jammer, I wish you would let me know.’

  Steel was only too glad to promise and, a moment later, left us to return to the wireless station.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE WIRELESS WIRETAPPER

  A FEW moments later we went downstairs again and Burke drove us in his car up to the town, where, in the main street, was a little chapel whose bell was now tolling slowly and mournfully.

  As his car drew up at the end of the long line down the street, I saw why Kennedy had decided to break into the time so sorely needed in our own investigation of the case. It seemed as though everyone must be at the funeral, even the reporters from New York. Kennedy and I managed to avoid them, but their presence testified to the wide interest that the case had aroused throughout the country.

  ‘Rather a telling object-lesson in the business that the Maddoxes are in,’ commented Kennedy as we walked the rest of the way to the shrubbery-surrounded chapel. ‘If there is such a thing as retributive justice, this is the result of the business of making a profit out of mere instruments to kill.’

  I fancied that there was more than coincidence behind the reasoning. The Maddoxes had been so long engaged in making munitions, devoid of any feeling of patriotism, had amassed such an immense fortune out of which the curse had been taken by no philanthropy, that it must undoubtedly be a true philosophy which traced from their very business and consequent character the evils and tragedies that followed in the wake of the Maddox millions. I reflected that even over the telautomaton, the destroyer itself, there had been no thought of public service in the family, but merely the chance to extort more gain from the frailties and sufferings of humanity. And now this was the end of one arch-extortioner.

  There seemed to be something hollow in the funeral of Marshall Maddox. It took me some time to explain it to myself. It was not because we were there, outsiders, and in our capacity of observers, in fact almost spies, although that may have had something to do with the impression it made on me.

  The little chapel was crowded, but with the curious who had heard vague rumours about the death. As I looked at the real mourners I fancied that my impression must be due to them, that somehow this was a mockery of mourning.

  I could not imagine that Irene Maddox was overwhelmed by grief after what had occurred to her. As for the gay little Paquita, she was, of course, not there at all, and her presence would only have sounded a new note of hollowness. I had not seen her manifest any deep sign of grief. At present, I supposed, she was still in New York, going about her own or some unknown business as unconcerned as if nothing had happened.

  Shelby Maddox had come up from whatever business he was engaged in in New York just in time for the service. Once or twice I thought he showed real grief, as though the death of his brother brought back to his recollection other and better days. Yet I could not help wondering whether even his emotions might not be affectation for our benefit, for the tragedy seemed not to have deterred him from doing pretty much as he might have done anyhow.

  I looked about for Winifred Walcott. Evidently the strain of events had been too much for her. She was not there, but her brother was there with his wife, who was next to her own brother, Shelby.

  The service was short and formal, and I shall not dwell on it, for, after all, nothing occurred during it which changed our attitude toward any of those present.

  For a brief moment at the close the family were together, and I felt that Shelby was the most human of them all, at least. Mrs Walcott and her husband were the first to leave, and I could not help comparing it with a previous occasion, when they had taken Irene Maddox in their car. A little later Shelby appeared with his sister-in-law, leaving her only when some of her own family, who had come to Westport evidently to be with her, appeared.

  Instead of going to the Lodge he walked slowly down to the pier and jumped into one of his tenders that was waiting to take him out to the Sybarite, alone. Now and then I had seen him glance sharply about, but it was not at us that he was looking. He seemed rather to be hoping that he might chance to meet Winifred Walcott. I think she was much more on his mind at present than even his brother.

  Johnson Walcott and his wife passed us in their car and we could see them stop at the Harbour House porte-cochère. Frances Walcott alighted and, after a moment talking together, Johnson drove away alone, swinging around into the road to the city.

  Our friends of the Secret Service seemed to be about everywhere, but unobtrusively, observing. There was much that was interesting to observe but nothing that pointed the way to the solution of the mystery. The funeral over; it was again the old Maddox house of hate, each member going his own way. It was as though an armistice had been declared, and now the truce was over. I felt that we might now expect war again, to the last dollar. It was not to be expected that any of them would allow the other to control without a fight, nor relinquish any claim that was not fully compensated.

  One bright spot only shone out in the drab of the situation. So far the dead hand of the Maddox millions had not stretched out and fallen on the lovely and pure personality of Winifred Walcott. The more I thought of it the more I had come to fear that these hates and jealousies and bitter rivalries might engulf her as they had many others.

  Had that been the trouble with Irene Maddox? Had she been once even as Winifred now was? Had she been drawn into this maelstrom of money? I dreaded the thought of the possible outcome of the romance of Shelby Maddox and Winifred. Would it, too, blast another life—or might it be that by some miracle Winifred might take out the curse that hung over the blood-money of the Maddoxes? Never before had our responsibility in the case, far beyond th
e mere unravelling of the mystery, presented itself to me so forcibly as it did now, after the solemn and sobering influence of the last rites of the murdered head of the house.

  We came along past the carriage entrance to the Lodge again. Beside the door were piled several large packages, and the uniformed boy who presided over that entrance of the Lodge was evidently much worried over them. Burke had left us on the way up, and as we turned the boy at the door caught sight of Kennedy and hurried over to us.

  ‘The young man said these were for you, sir,’ he announced, indicating the packages, undecided whether to play for a tip or to ask to have them taken away.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ recognised Kennedy, as Watkins, who had brought them down, appeared. ‘Some stuff I had brought from the city. Will you help me down to the dock with them?’

  The boy was more than willing. Not only were the packages to be taken away from his door, but Kennedy had crossed his palm with a coin. With Watkins he carried the things down.

  Kennedy had no intention at present, evidently, of using the material which had come from New York, but left it in the summer-house in charge of the student.

  We were about to turn back to the Casino and the Lodge, when Craig caught my eye and nodded in the direction of the beach. There I could see the solitary figure of a girl coming slowly along. It was Winifred Walcott. I watched her. Evidently she had been out for a walk alone.

  Now and then she gave a quick glance across the water and I soon realised that it was at the Sybarite she looked. Shelby had long since reached the yacht, but apparently she had seen his tender dashing out there. I could not help but think of the stroll that Shelby had taken with Paquita the night before down the beach in the same direction. Was Winifred thinking of it, too, and was she sorry that she had dismissed him without accepting his explanation at its face value?

  ‘That shows what a great part chance plays in our lives,’ mused Kennedy to me, as we watched her. ‘They’re thinking of each other. If Shelby had been a few minutes later, or she had been a few minutes earlier, they would have met. I suppose they are both too proud to go to each other now.