The Ear in the Wall Part 6

It was almost incredible, but that glowing ma.s.s of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could see the reflection of the molten ma.s.s in the cup which it had burned for itself in the cold steel plate.

At last it fell through to the lower piece of steel, on which it burnt itself out--fell through as the burning roof of a frame building might have fallen into the building.

Neither Carton nor I spoke a word, but as we now cautiously advanced with Kennedy and peered over the steel plate we instinctively turned to Craig for an explanation. Carton seemed to regard him as if he were some uncanny mortal. For, there in the steel plate, was a hole. As I looked at the clean-cut edges, I saw that it was smaller but identical in nature with that which we had seen in the safe in Langhorne's office.

"Wonderful!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Carton. "What is it?"

"Thermit," was all Kennedy said, as just a trace of a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face.

"Thermit?" echoed Carton, still as mystified as before.

"Yes, an invention of a chemist named Goldschmidt, of Essen, Germany.

It is composed of iron oxide, such as conies off a blacksmith's anvil or the rolls of a rolling-mill, and powdered metallic aluminum. You could thrust a red-hot bar into it without setting it off, but when you light a little magnesium powder and drop it on thermit, a combustion is started that quickly reaches fifty-four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. It has the peculiar property of concentrating its heat to the immediate spot on which it is placed. It is one of the most powerful oxidizing agents known, and it doesn't even melt the rest of the steel surface.

You see how it ate its way directly through this plate. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or Harveyized--it all burns just as fast and just as easily. And it's comparatively inexpensive, also. This is an experiment Goldschmidt it fond of showing his students--burning holes in one--and two-inch steel plates. It is the same with a safe--only you need more of the stuff. Either black or red thermit will do the trick equally well, however."

Neither of us said anything. There was nothing to say except to feel and express amazement.

"Someone uncommonly clever or instructed by someone uncommonly clever, must have done that job at Langhorne's," added Craig. "Have you any idea who might pull off such a thing for Dorgan or Murtha?" he asked of Carton.

"There's a possible suspect," answered Carton slowly, "but since I've seen this wonderful exhibition of what thermit can do, I'm almost ashamed to mention his name. He's not in the cla.s.s that would be likely to use such things."

"Oh," laughed Kennedy, "never think it. Don't you suppose the crooks read the scientific and technical papers? Believe me, they have known about thermit as long as I have. Safes are constructed now that are proof against even that, and other methods of attack. No indeed, your modern scientific cracksman keeps abreast of the times in his field better than you imagine. Our only protection is that fortunately science always keeps several laps ahead of him in the race--and besides, we have organized society to meet all such perils. It may be that the very cleverness of the fellow will be his own undoing. The unusual criminal is often that much the easier to run down. It narrows the number of suspects."

"Well," rejoined Carton, not as confident now as when he had first met us in the laboratory, "then there is a possible suspect--a fellow known in the underworld as 'Dopey' Jack--Jack Rubano. He's a clever fellow--no doubt. But I hardly think he's capable of that, although I should call him a rather advanced yeggman."

"What makes you suspect him?" asked Kennedy eagerly.

"Well," temporized Carton, "I haven't anything 'on' him in this connection, it's true. But we've been trying to find him and can't seem to locate him in connection with primary frauds in Murtha's own district. Dopey Jack is the leader of a gang of gunmen over there and is Murtha's first lieutenant whenever there is a tough political battle of the organization either at the primaries or on Election Day."

"Has a record, I suppose?" prompted Kennedy.

"Would have--if it wasn't for the influence of Murtha," rejoined Carton.

I had heard, in knocking about the city, of Dopey Jack Rubano. That was the picturesque t.i.tle by which he was known to the police and his enemies as well as to his devoted followers. A few years before, he had begun his career fighting in "preliminaries" at the prize fight clubs on the lower East Side.

He had begun life with a better chance than most slum boys, for he had rugged health and an unusually st.u.r.dy body. His very strength had been his ruin. Working decently for wages, he had been told by other petty gang leaders that he was a "sucker," when he could get many times as much for boxing a few rounds at some "athletic" club. He tried out the game with many willing instructors and found that it was easy money.

Jack began to wear better clothes and study the methods of other young men who never worked but always seemed to have plenty of money. They were his pals and showed him how it was done. It wasn't long before he learned that he could often get more by hitting a man with a blackjack than by using his fists in the roped ring. Then, too, there were various ways of blackmail and extortion that were simple, safe, and lucrative. He might be arrested, but he early found that by making himself useful to some politicians, they could fix that minor difficulty in the life.

Thus because he was not only strong and brutal, but had a sort of ability and some education, Dopey Jack quickly rose to a position of minor leaders.h.i.+p--had his own incipient "gang," his own "lobbygows."

His following increased as he rose in gangland, and finally he came to be closely a.s.sociated with Murtha himself on one hand and the "guns"

and other criminals of the underworld who frequented the stuss games, where they gambled away the products of their crimes, on the other.

Everyone knew Dopey Jack. He had been charged with many crimes, but always through the aid of "the big fellows" he avoided the penitentiary and every fresh and futile attempt to end his career increased the numbers and reverence of his followers. His had been the history and he was the pattern now of practically every gang leader of consequence in the city. The fight club had been his testing ground. There he had learned the code, which can be summarized in two words, "Don't squeal."

For gangland hates nothing so much as a "snitch." As a beginner he could be trusted to commit any crime a.s.signed to him and go to prison, perhaps the chair, rather than betray a leader. As a leader he had those under him trained in the same code. That still was his code to those above him in the System.

"We want him for frauds at the primaries," repeated Carton, "at least, if we can find him, we can hold him on that for a time. I thought perhaps he might know something of the robbery--and about the disappearance of the girl, too.

"Oh," he continued, "there are lots of things against him. Why, only last week there was a dance of a rival a.s.sociation of gang leaders.

Against them Dopey Jack led a band of his own followers and in the ensuing pistol battle a pa.s.ser-by was killed. Of course we can't connect Dopey Jack with his death, but--then we know as well as we know anything in gangland that he was responsible."

"I suppose it isn't impossible that he may know something about the disappearance of Miss Blackwell," remarked Kennedy.

"No," replied Carton, "not at all, although, so far, there is absolutely no clue as far as I can figure out. She may have been bought off or she may have been kidnapped."

"In either case the missing girl must be found," said Craig. "We must get someone interested in her case who knows something about what may happen to a girl in New York."

Carton had been revolving the matter in his mind. "By George," he exclaimed suddenly, "I think I know just the person to take up that case for us--it's quite in her line. Can you spare the time to run down to the Reform League headquarters with me?"

"Nothing could be more important, just at the minute," replied Craig.

The telephone buzzed and he answered it, a moment later handing the receiver to Carton.

"It's your office," he said. "One of the a.s.sistant district attorneys wants you on the wire."

As Carton hung up the receiver he turned to us with a look of great satisfaction.

"Dopey Jack has just been arrested," he announced. "He has shut up like an oyster, but we think we can at least hold him for a few days this time until we sift down some of these clues."

V

THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY

Carton took us directly to the campaign headquarters of the Reform League, where his fight for political life was being conducted.

We found the offices in the tower of a skysc.r.a.per, whence was pouring forth a torrent of appeal to the people, in printed and oral form of every kind, urging them to stand shoulder to shoulder for good government and vote the "ring" out of power.

There seemed to me to be a different tone to the place from that which I had ordinarily a.s.sociated with political headquarters in previous campaigns. There was a notable absence of the old-fas.h.i.+oned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with tobacco.

Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency, which was decidedly encouraging and hopeful. It seemed to speak of a new era in politics when things were to be done in the open instead of at secret meetings and scandalous dinners, as Dorgan did them at Gastron's.

Maps of the city were hanging on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins, denoting the condition of the canva.s.s. Other maps of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the various strongholds of Boss Dorgan and Sub-boss Murtha.

Huge systems of card indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting out a vast amount of campaign "literature" in a hurry; in short, a perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have been proud of, were in evidence everywhere one looked.

Work was going ahead in every department under high pressure, for the campaign, which had been more than usually heated, was now drawing to a close. Indeed, it would have taken no great astuteness, even without one's being told, to deduce merely from the surroundings that the people here were engaged in the annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for reform and were nearly worn out by the arduous endeavour.

It had been, as I have said, the bitterest campaign in years. Formerly the reformers had been of the "silk-stocking" type, but now a new and younger generation was coming upon the stage, a generation which had been trained to achieve results, ambitious to attain what in former years had been considered impossible. The Reform League was making a stiff campaign and the System was, by the same token, more frightened than ever before.

Carton was fortunate in having shaken off the thralldom of the old bosses even before the popular uprising against them had a.s.sumed such proportions as to warrant anyone in taking his political life in his hands by defying the powers that ruled behind the scenes. In fact, the Reform League itself owed its existence to a fortunate conjunction of both moral and economic conditions which demanded progress.

Of course, the League did not have such a big "barrel" as their opponents under Dorgan. But, at least they did have many willing workers, men and women, who were ready to sacrifice something for the advancement of the principles for which they stood.

In one part of the suite of offices which had been leased by the League, Carton had had a.s.signed to him an office of his own, and it was to this office that he led us, after a word with the boy who guarded the approach to the door, and an exchange of greetings with various workers and visitors in the outside office.