The catspaw by Ward Sterling one. The Peck mansion was as carefully guarded as
a prison. At the front and rear doors, armed operatives from the best
detective bureau in the city. All tried men were posted day and night.
Others patrolled the grounds. There was not one chance in ten million for any
one to creep through the network of protection we had thrown about the aged millionaire
in his family. Yet the first murder occurred within twenty four hours of the
time set by lawn dixby Lanigan. The second man did not report for duty
in the morning as usual. Jenkins, the butler, entering the room when
he did not respond, found him cold in death. The tragedy had taken
place some time during the night. The body was cold and rigid when we
rushed into the chamber in response to the butler's frantic calls for help. Bloated
to nearly double his natural size, blackened, the limbs twisted as from convulsions,
the face drawn out of shape. The unfortunate man presented a terrifying spectacle.
Doctor Maxwell Pack's regular physician, who was locked up in the house with
the remainder of us, gave as his opinion after a hurried examination, that
death was the result of poisoning. Yet Lanigan had eaten nothing, to the
best of our knowledge and belief, that the rest of us had not also
eaten That had been part of our agreement that we would all partake of the
same food in order to protect peck from poison. Nor had anything in the
provision line been brought to the house prepared to stand a siege. Everything,
even the fresh meats, had been purchased in advance and stored away in the
refrigerating plants downstairs. Doctor Fry, the coroner, summoned by telephone as soon
as the tragedy was discovered, agreed with his colleague that Lannigan had been poisoned.
It was his belief, however, that the poison had been administered by
injection into a vein. Both physicians made a careful examination of the body just
above the knee. They found two minute punctures in the skin. Here,
too, the swelling seemed more aggravated than elsewhere, while the spot had turned
a darker hue. The body had every symptom of death from snake bite.
Yet we knew that there was not a snake in the house, nor could
there have been one in the room. Lannigan had, according to my instructions,
slept with his windows and door locked. They were in this condition when
the body was found, for it had been necessary for the butler to let
himself into the room with is past key. The other servants had locked themselves
in in the same way. An alert detective had been posted all night in
each corridor. In spite of the precautions, in order to make certain,
we removed every piece of furniture from the dead man's room. There was no
possibility of a reptile having been hidden there, nor could a man have in
any possible way entered the house. To make matters more complicated, we knew
that Lannigan had not left the house that day nor the day before, for
this was part of the arrangement we had made. Ponder as I would,
I could think of no possible solution to the puzzle. It was as mysterious
as Poe's mystery of the room. Orgue Peck the storm Center, the man
for whom all these precautions were taken, and for whom poor Lambagan had died,
was the calmest of us. All five minutes after the appearance of the
coroner. The millionaire was summoned to the phone. In accordance with my determination
not to allow him out of my sight day or night. I accompanied him
to the library a harsh, metallic voice, a voice so loud that it
could be heard all over the big room. He informed him that the death
of a member of his household had been a warning, a warning, scent
to prove to him that in spite of all of his precautions, his enemies
were able to strike when and where they pleased. His own death would follow
in good time. Shaking slightly, yet gained to the core, he motioned
to me and handed me the instrument. The voice died out in a mirthless,
diabolical chuckle. Then the receiver at the other end the wire was hung
up with a click. Jiggling the hook up and down, I succeeded in
getting central within a few seconds. An instant later, I was connected with
my friend Armstrong, manager of the traffic department, to whom I hurriedly explained
the situation and requested that the call be traced. Armstrong moved speedily, for
in spite of the fact that hundreds of calls go through the Capitol Hill Exchange,
every hour. So thorough is their system that inside of five minutes he
had me back on the wire. The call had originated in one of the
pay stations at the Pennsylvania Depot, ten miles away. Two Perhaps, in
my efforts to hold the reader's attention, I have not explained matters as thoroughly
as I should. Then, too, like all detectives, I am a
poor narrator of my own experience. What seems to the average person to be
an exciting adventure is to us only part of a day's work, an episode
to be forgotten as speedily as possible after it has been disclosed to a judge
and jury. Yet the Morgan Peck case is so unique in criminal annals as
to be worthy of being put in a class by itself. The reader will
recall the sensation in financial circles caused by the appearance of Alonzo Bixby, the
South African Magnet. For two short years he was one of the kingpins of
the exchange. Then came the battle between Bixby and Peck. It was short
but memorable. Peck, backed by his years of experience, crushed his enemy
beneath his heel. As a farmer's scotches a harmless worm. Bixby cornered,
his fangs bared, showed his makeup by turning crook. Timothy Owens, Peck's
right hand manned, was killed over the body of his friend Morgan Peck swore
vengeance. One of Bixby's retainers, arrested by the police, admitted the murder,
charging Bixby with having instigated the crime. All of Peck's gigantic fortunes were
placed at the disposal of the prosecution. The trial lasted for weeks. An
army of lawyers battled for every point. In the end, the jury sent
Bixby to the penitentiary for life. The day that sentence was pronounced is one
that will long be remembered in newspaper and legal circles. Bixby, surrounded by
his lawyers, his beautiful young wife at his side, listened impassively to the
judge's voice. It was not until the officer seized him to part him forever
from the woman he loved that lie gave way to his emotions. Leaping to
his feet, his rough hewn face quivered with diabolical rage. He shook his
huge fist at Morgan Peck, damn you in prison or out. I'll get
you, he shouted. I'll make you suffer as you're making me an.
I for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, gravening like a madman,
that dragged him away. Remember, Bixby was still a wealthy man,
and money will buy almost anything, even liberty. There were those among us
who predicted that Bixby would not remain long behind prison walls. We were correct
in our surmise. In just eleven months and three days he was at liberty.
With him disappeared half a dozen guards. How much he paid them for
his liberty, no one will probably ever know, for none of them were
ever captured. Some of us hold to the theory that after helping Bixby make
his escape, they were killed at his orders, but that is another story.
Three weeks after Bixby made his break from prison, an effort was made
to blow up Peck's office with a bomb. Fortunately, the financier was absent
when the package was received. The secretary who opened it lost his life.
A week later, some one fired a shot at Peck in the dark.
Only the fact that the old man moved slightly in that instant prevented the assassin's
bullet from finding its mark, as it was only a slight flesh wound rewarded
the attempt. Then Peck's colleagues took a hand. He was the center around
which one of the biggest financial deals ever pulled off was being engineered, a
deal that involved governments. His death would have meant a world panic. In
spite of his sneers at their fears, for Peck was a battler who fought
for the sheer love of the sport. They finally induced him to obey their
commands. He was locked in his own house, surrounded by guards. As
I have stated, the best detective bureau in the city was engaged to look
after his safety. Half a hundred operatives were put to work combing the country
for his enemies. Ay, and I trust that the reader will pardon the
seeming egotism displayed as the best men available among all the detectives in the city
was placed in charge of the guards surrounding Morgan Peck. Two hours after we
had taken our precautions, a special delivery letter mailed from the downtown station was
received. It read as follows, Peck, I swore I get you and
I meant it. By cooping yourself up like a sick chicken. You have
opened the way for my vengeance. Inside of forty eight hours, I will
strike. God help you from now on. Bixby three morgan Peck was said
by his enemies to be a man without feeling nerves or love. A widower,
his only daughter dying in childhood, having few near relatives, he had
schooled himself against emotion. Yet that afternoon, after the body of poor Lanigan
had been removed from the house, we sat together in the big library discussing
the affair. Two things took place which threw a different light on the old
man's character. Gladys Peck, his niece, an orphan, and his nearest
relative, a girl whom he had raised from childhood, passed through the room.
The old face lighted up, and as she passed out of hearing,
he turned savagely to me. I don't give a damn about myself, he
growled. I'm old enough to cash in. Time's coming sooner or later anyway.
But God helped Bixby if he harms that girl, and God help you
if you let him. That was all. Yet in his face was an
odd light that betrayed the gruffness of his voice. I wondered if his enemies
knew of his love for this orphaned girl. I shuddered as I thought of
what might happen if they chanced to learn and struck him through her. The
other incident I mentioned was when the cat, an ordinary common variety of feline,
entered the room and with back arched, rubbed purringly against the millionaire's leg.
Funny little devil, he grumbled. Picked him up five years ago when
he was a kitten. Somebody turned him out to die, freeze to death.
Damn such people. Stuck him in my overcoat pocket and brought him home.
Never cared for cats, Angoras, Persians and the blue blooded aristocracy of
catdom. But this little cuss made a hit with me. Scrap. See
that spot of red hair on his head that shows it. He'd fight Old
nick, intelligent too, makes the servants all stand around, got a habit
of biting him on the ankles. They all like him, though, funny,
isn't it. Got a lot of human traits in him. Reminds me
a little bit of myself, he added, with a smile, reaching down
and rubbing the cat's head affectionately. And this was the man whose enemies claimed
him to be without a heart. The same afternoon, the coffin came.
An undertaker's wagon stopped at the front door, and two solemn faced men brought
the casket up the stairs in accordance with his orders. The detective on duty
refused to admit them, but called me cross questioned they knew nothing. The
coffin had been ordered from Morgan'stern Casket Company, and they were here to deliver
it. Address was plainly marked. Detaining them. After ordering the unsightly reminder
of death that was constantly in our midst replaced in the wagon, I hurried
Holdridge, one of the brightest operatives, under my direction, over to the
offices of the casket company. He returned inside thirty minutes. The casket had
been ordered by mail. A bank draft for four hundred dollars drawn by the
First National Trust and Savings Bank, one of Peck's own institutions, had accompanied
the letter. The letter merely stated that a death would shortly occur at Peck's
home and asked that the coffin be delivered immediately. A telephone call to the
bank proved fruitless. The draft clerk remembered drawing the draft, which was paid
for in cash, But owing to the large number of similar papers which passed
through his hands daily had no recollection as to who this customer had been.
In fact, only the number on the draft recalled the incidents to mind at
all. I released the two men from the factory. In my own mind,
I was convinced that the affair had been pulled off by Bixby merely in
an effort to break down pex morale. But they failed to reckon with the
old man's fighting spirit. Four The remainder of the afternoon and night passed uneventfully,
everyone warned by what had happened the night before. Doubling his vigilance,
I spent the following morning in going over the reports of the fifty odd operatives
scattered about the city in quest of Bixby. Despite the fact that the former
haunts of the Big South African had been combed by our men. Not only
could no trace be found of the financier himself, but several of his close
friends, men who at the trial were proven to have done his bidding without
question, had also disappeared. As for Missus Bixby, it appeared that she
had left the quiet hotel, where she had remained since the trial. Nearly
a month before her husband had made his escape, and the trail was too
old to follow. She had dropped out of sight as completely as though the
earth had opened up and swallowed her. For two hours, I sat at
the big library table and went over the case from every angle. There were
a number of things that puzzled me more than I was willing to admit.
In the first place, who and what had killed Michael Lennigan. I had
proved, to my satisfaction and to that of Peck, that the second man
had not been absent from the house an instant from the time that he,
like the rest of us, went into seclusion. Trained detectives, each an
ex policeman, men with years of service behind them, were ready to swear
that no one had entered the mansion. These men had taken turns in watching
the place and the grounds in shifts of two hours on and two hours off
during the entire time since we had been in a state of siege. On
the other hand, I realized that Bixby had money, and that money will
buy almost anything. Yet I was not ready to condemn these men on mere
conjecture. Then, too there was a matter of the special delivery letter,
who was in such close touch with the money master that they were able to
find out to the minute when he had driven into seclusion outside of our own
party, only his closest friends knew of our plans. And had it been
a mere coincidence that the telephone call from the pay station at the Pennsylvania Deep
had come in just after the arrival of the coroner. Was there some one
in the house who was signaling the happenings inside to our enemies on the outside.
Was one of our own number the murderer? Would he when the time
came strike down Peck as he had struck down Lenigan. I reached for the
list of those who made up our party and checked it over, in the
hope that through it I might arrive at the truth. In addition to Peck,
his niece, and myself, there was doctor Maxwell, an old friend,
a man immensely wealthy in his own name, and who had been the
millionaire's private physician for thirty years. All of the servants had been in the
old man's employ from periods ranging from over a quarter of a century of service
on the part of Miss Langry. The housekeeper to ten years on the part
of Lanigan, the murdered second man. Pack had hired them all and vouched
for them. The detectives, as I stated, were all men with years
of service behind them. No, on the face of it, it seemed
like an impossibility. Yet there was the murder of Lanigan to prove the falsity
of my reasoning. It was shortly after noon that Pack and I, smoking
in the library, were brought to our feet by a shriek of help from
the servants quarters at the rear of the house. Drawing my revolver and shoving
the millionaire who would have taken the lead behind me, I rushed in the
direction that the sound came from. Fred Diets, who acted as chauffeur and
valet for Pack, was lying on his back in the middle of the kitchen
in convulsions. Beside him stood Missus Mulkahey, the cook, from whose voluminous
lungs the shouts for help were emanating. Coincidentally, with my arrival came the
others, with the ex exception of the two men stationed at the doors.
They, like the veterans, they were remained at their posts in response to
my orders. Jenkins summoned doctor Maxwell, who was asleep in his room.
Inside of a minute, the physician, his emergency kid in his hand,
made his appearance. He shook his head as he bent over the stricken man
and felt his pulse. For a second, there was silence. Then the
physician straightened up and shrugged his shoulders. He's dying, he said quietly,
while missus Mulkahee let out a wail of despair. I turned to the physician.
Do you think same as Lanagan? He answered, See for yourself how
the poor fellow started to bloat. After half a century of medical experience,
it's the first case I ever failed to diagnose, or at least make a
fairly good guest. He stopped. Suddenly, a shudder over the body of
the man on the floor. Then his jaw dropped. Fred Deets was dead.
Five. I turned to missus mulcahey, tell me just what happened?
I commanded, Sure, and that's the worst of it, she sobbed.
There is nothing happened at all. He was sitting there, happy as you
please, talking to Teta. When Teta, who's Teta? I demanded?
The cat peck answered grimly. Deats was one of Teta's warmest friends. The
little animal is decidedly empathic in his likes and dislikes, but poor Fred was
one of his favorites. I nodded then to missus mulcahey, go ahead with
your story well shore. As I was saying, he was sitting there talking
to Teta, when all of a sudden and I heard him give a little
gasp. My back was turned to him at the time. I looked around
quickly, just in time to see him slide from the chair with the foam
coming out of his mouth. I yelled for help, and you've seen the
rest. Missus mulcahy had been with Peck for eighteen years. My record showed
that she was not the murderer, was a certainty. Yet Deats had been
killed under her very eyes. I questioned her for nearly half an hour,
in the hope that she might recall having seen some other member of the household
in or near the kitchen at or about the time Deats was stricken down.
But she was emphatic she and she alone had been with the dead chauffeur.
There was nothing to do but send for the coroner again. Meanwhile, the
body had been removed to an upstairs room where doctor Maxwell made an examination.
He called as I passed through the hall. As I entered the room,
he pointed to the naked body of the murdered chauffeur, close to the knee
of the right leg. The skin was blacker than elsewhere, and in the
center of the dark spot was a tiny puncture similar to the ones we had
found on Lannigan's leg. A detective occasionally gets hunches. If he is a
good one, he plays them to the limit. I, as I have
stated before, believe and I trust that the reader will not accuse me of
egotism, that I am among the top notchers, despite the poor opinion he
has received of me through my rambling account of the murders at the Peck mansion.
Just now I got a hunch. I decided to play it Hardly,
taking time to thank my friend the physician for his courtesy, I hurried downstairs
to the library, where a pack was busy reading. The big cat,
curled up in a ball on the chair opposite the millionaire, looked up in
astonishment at my catapultic entrance. Mister Peck, I burst forth, I want
to borrow Teta. The millionaire elevated his brows. You what he demanded.
I want to borrow Teta the cat here. I've an idea that he'd make
a first class detective. I'll promise you that I'll not injure him in the
least, but I am firm in the conviction that he can lead us to
the murderers of Lannigan and Deets, the men who are trying to get you,
and possibly at Miss Grady through you. As I spoke, the big
cat arched his back and got on to his feet with a yawn, exercising
his digits by drawing and withdrawing his claws in the padding of the chair half
a dozen times. The action decided the old man. He looked up at
me with a suspicion of a twinkle in his eyes. The little cuss is
a scrapper, as I told you, he chuckled. Look at the way
he girds up his loyal for action at the mere mention of taking part in
a scrap. Take him and welcome, but don't let him get hurt.
With a curt knot of thanks, I picked up the cat and carried him
upstairs to my own room. For the next half hour, the little animal
and myself were busily engaged among the retorts and tubes which doctor Maxwell had brought
from his laboratory for experimental purposes during his enforced attention, and which I borrowed
for my own use. When I had completed my task, I turned to
the furred beauty with a smile of satisfaction. Teta, I whispered, this
whole affair is a secret between the two of us. I thought that I
was on the right track, and now I know it. You're the boy
who will bring home the bacon. It's up to you to get the men
who killed your pals, Lannigan and Deets. Will you do it? There
are some people who claim that cats have no intelligence. I stand ready to
swear that Teta Morgan Peck's cat understood every word I said, for he rubbed
against my leg with a loud purr of satisfaction, and immediately took up his
station close to the door, as if clamoring for action. We went downstairs
together. I stopped at both the front and rear doors and gave my instructions
to the operatives on watch. I want to be informed the minute the cat
meows to get out, I instructed them pass this word on to the men
who will relieve you. Remember no excuses go before he is let out.
I am to be called. Fifteen minutes later, Olmsted, on duty at
the rear door, called me. The cat's howling at my station, he
said. I followed the animal to the door and per personally let him out.
Six across the lawn. I followed the cat with my eyes until he
disappeared around the corner of a nearby garage. Oh Leary and Kin, the
two men on duty on the grounds, had had their orders. As Teta
disappeared down the alley, I saw O'Leary dodger round a nearby bush and follow
him. A second later he reappeared and approached the house, your friend.
The cat went into a barn that's been transformed into a garage at fourteen twenty
four North tenth, just five houses below here, he reported, with a
grin. And if you'll pardon the joke, Chief, I have shadowed darn
near everything that walks, but this is the first time I ever trailed a
cat. Stepping up to the telephone, I called up my friend Hitchins,
chief of detectives, who was cooperating with us in every way possible. Satisfied
with the results of my conversation, I sat down to spend the remainder of
the afternoon among Peck's books. Suddenly, the phone at my elbow jangled,
turning, I picked up the receiver and answered the call. The same metallic
voice that had talked to Peck the day of Lennigan's murder answered my gruff,
Hello, Pack, He asked, I'll call him. I responded, never
mind. The other answered. Then, as I hesitated for words, the
voice went on, tell your boss he can prepare for another killing. It
may be him, it may be another, but his time is coming soon.
The voice died away in the same harsh laughter that I had heard before.
I hung up the receiver with a bang and jiggled the hook to attract
the attention of Central. An instant later, I was connected with my friend
Armstrong, to whom I again explained matters while Peck looked on, his furrowed
face wrinkled in doubt. This time Armstrong was speedier than before. Scarcely had
I hung up the receiver that he called me back. The phone call was
from a booth in a drug store in the busiest corner of the city to
trace the person who had called would be impossible. Packard on duty at the
rear door called me at fifteen minutes past five o'clock. The cat just came
in, he yelled. The afternoon's hunting had evidently been the best, for
the cat was purring contentedly as he passed down the hallway on his way to
the library. But I was taking no chances of a scratch from his sharp
claws, for I protected my hands with heavy gloves as I tenderly picked him
up and carried him upstairs to my room. Ten minutes later, I was
at the telephone with my friend Hitchins at the other end. Half an hour
afterward, there came a sudden blast of a police whistle from a dozen different
directions from which they had been stationed. Hurried policemen and detectives, all centering
on the big brick house at fourteen twenty four North tenth. There was no
response to our knocks. A burly policeman hurled his bulk against the door.
It refused to give way. He swung an axe over his head. Came
a sound of splintering wood. A second later we were inside the hallway.
A revolver spit at us from down the corridor. Another flashed from the head
of the stairs. We answered them, shot for shot, bullet for bullet.
For five minutes the battle waged. Then our superior numbers told we dashed
through the smoke filled rooms, gathering in our prisoners. Four men were caught
in the net, and one woman. She was missus Lawn Bixby. Her
husband, suffering from a severe wound in the shoulder, was one of the
four. The remainder was merely his tools. Seven Battersby, one of Bixby's
aides, confronted with the murders of Lanigan and Dets, turned state's evidence and
confessed stick. One of the others backed him up in his statements. Bixby,
as I had figured from the first, was the instigator of the whole
diabolical affair. How he made his escape from prison, however, is something
that he refused to divulge even when he and his confederates were taken to the
gallows to answer for their crimes. How did they kill Lanagan and Deets by
means of teta unwittingly? The little animal was the indirect cause of both murders.
Battersby, according to his own confession, had been posted by Bixby,
who had, while still in prison, had him engage the place at fourteen
twenty four in North tenth Street under an alias in order that he might watch
the pack home in his guise as a servant. He had gotten acquainted with
Deats. While the latter was working with one of the cars. He had
noticed Teta come out of the barn at fourteen twenty four, which having been
empty for a number of years, was filled with rats. As the cat
passed Deats, the latter had bent over and scratched it, making a chance
remark about Peck's affection for the animal. He had also remarked with a chuckle
at the fondness the pet had for drawing and withdrawing his claws in whatever he
chanced to be, lying on a habit which all cats indulge in at times.
Battersby, alert to give every detail to his employer, had remarked this
fact to Bixby in his report. The latter saw an opportunity to turn the
incident to his own advantage. Learning that Peck's cat frequented the barn, he
had catered to the animal in every possible way until the animal passed a great
deal of its time in and about the Bixby place. Failing in his attempts
to kill Pack, the instant that he had chased the millionaire to cover Bixby,
seized upon the cat to carry out his own diabolical ends. Covering the
animal's claws with a concentrated extract of venom made from the poison of the cobra,
he had turned it loose, leaving it to fate as to where death
would strike. Peck was likely to be the first. He was the cat's
master, and the animal would be more likely to be with him than anyone
else. That it was Lanigan who was the first was simply one of those
peculiar freaks of chance. The cat, purring contentedly on Lenigan's lap, had
stuck his claws slightly into the servant's knee. Lenigan had worn thick trousers,
and as a result, a great deal of the poison rubbed off as the
claws went through. He was therefore not strickened until during the night, when
the venom had gone entirely through his system. On the other hand, deats
wearing a pair of thin trousers, and there might have been more of the
poison on the cat's claws, or it may have been Fresher was strickened almost
immediately after the sharp points had penetrated his flesh. Bixby, a native of
South Africa, was an adept on poisons, which led to the fact that
he finally selected this subtle method of committing his crimes. Located so close to
the pack house, he was able to see from his window a great deal
of what was going on around the mansion. As a result, when the
the coroner called, he knew that death through the cat had struck, but
he did not know who. He had a Confederate station downtown, somewhere close
to the Pennsylvania station. It was but the work of seconds to call the
ladder up and instruct him to call Peck to the phone. When the latter
answered in person, the Confederate knew that death had struck someone else, and
so informed Bixby. The second phone call was sent in a spirit of mere
braggadocio. After Tetu's clause had been smeared for a third time with the poison,
the coffin was sent for the same reason, to break down Peck's morale.
How do I know these things? Conjecture and conjecture. Only At first
I imagined, as did doctor Maxwell and the coroner, that the two punctures
in Lennigan's leg were caused by the fangs of a snake. The fact that
the symptoms where all those of snake bite led to this deduction. It was
not until Deets had died and missus Mulkaye had told me that Teta had been
on his lap at the time that the idea suddenly came to me. Coupled
with this fact was that of finding a puncture on Deete's legs similar to that
on the leg of Lannigan. I had noticed the cat's habit of pressing his
claws into everything on which he sat. Pack had told me that the cat
was a favorite of the two men who had died. I put two and
two together and made four of them. When I borrowed the cat, I
took him to my room and with my hands gloved, scraped his claws and
submitted the scraping to chemical tests. The result showed snake venom. The remainder
was easy. I had only to disinfect the cat's claws and then turn him
loose. When my men reported where he went, I summoned Chitchens and asked
him to station his men near the house. When the cat returned, I
seized him before he had had an opportunity of killing any one else, and
again scraped his claws. The chemical tests showed snake venom in great quantities.
The raid on the house at fourteen twenty four followed. I have often wondered
if Teta knows the part he played in the death of his two friends and
the detection of the murderers. Who knows the end of the cat's paw