XXIII
THE CASE OF MRS. ARMITAGE
To look at him no one would have thought that Bill Quinn had a trace of sentiment in his make-up. Apparently he was just the grizzled old veteran of a hundred battles with crime, the last of which – a raid on a counterfeiter's den in Long Island – had laid him up with a game leg and a soft berth in the Treasury Department, where, for years he had been an integral part of the United States Secret Service.
But in the place of honor in Quinn's library-den there hung the photograph of a stunningly handsome woman, her sable coat thrown back just enough to afford a glimpse of a throat of which Juno might have been proud, while in her eyes there sparkled a light which seemed to hint at much but reveal little. It was very evident that she belonged to a world entirely apart from that of Quinn, yet the very fact that her photograph adorned the walls of his den proved that she had been implicated in some case which had necessitated Secret Service investigation – for the den was the shrine of relics relating to cases in which Quinn's friends had figured.
Finally, one evening I gathered courage to inquire about her.
"Armitage was her name," Quinn replied. "Lelia Armitage. At least that was the name she was known by in Washington, and even the investigations which followed Melville Taylor's exposure of her foreign connections failed to reveal that she had been known by any other, save her maiden name of Lawrence."
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"You'll have to ask me something easier," and Quinn smiled, a trifle wistfully, I thought. "Possibly in London, perhaps in Paris, maybe in Rio or the Far East. But wherever she is, the center of attention is not very far away from her big violet-black eyes. Also the police of the country where she is residing probably wish that they had never been burdened with her."
"You mean – "
"That she was a crook? Not as the word is usually understood. But more than one string of valuable pearls or diamonds has disappeared when milady Armitage was in the neighborhood – though they were never able to prove that she had lifted a thing. No, her principal escapade in this country brought her into contact with the Secret Service, rather than the police officials – which is probably the reason she was nailed with the goods. You remember the incident of the 'leak' in the peace note, when certain Wall Street interests cleaned up millions of dollars?"
"Perfectly. Was she to blame for that?"
"They never settled who was to blame for it, but Mrs. Armitage was dealing through a young and decidedly attractive Washington broker at the time and her account mysteriously multiplied itself half a dozen times.
"Then there was the affair of the Carruthers Code, the one which ultimately led to her exposure at the hands of Taylor and Madelaine James."
The Carruthers Code [Quinn went on] was admittedly the cleverest and yet the simplest system of cipher communication ever devised on this side of the Atlantic, with the possible exception of the one mentioned in Jules Verne's "Giant Raft" – the one that Dr. Heinrich Albert used with such success. Come to think of it, Verne wasn't an American, was he? He ought to have been, though. He invented like one.
In some ways the Carruthers system was even more efficient than the Verne cipher. You could use it with less difficulty, for one thing, and the key was susceptible of an almost infinite number of variations. Its only weakness lay in the fact that the secret had to be written down – and it was in connection with the slip of paper which contained this that Mrs. Armitage came into prominence.
For some two years Lelia Armitage had maintained a large and expensive establishment on Massachusetts Avenue, not far from Sheridan Circle. Those who claimed to know stated that there had been a Mr. Armitage, but that he had died, leaving his widow enough to make her luxuriously comfortable for the remainder of her life. In spite of the incidents of the jeweled necklaces, no one took the trouble to inquire into Mrs. Armitage's past until the leak in connection with the peace note and the subsequent investigation of Paul Connor's brokerage house led to the discovery that her name was among those who had benefited most largely by the advance information.
It was at that time that Melville Taylor was detailed to dig back into her history and see what he could discover. As was only natural, he went at once to Madelaine James, who had been of assistance to the Service in more than one Washington case which demanded feminine finesse, plus an intimate knowledge of social life in the national capital.
"Madelaine," he inquired, "what do you know of a certain Mrs. Lelia Armitage?"
"Nothing particularly – except that one sees her everywhere. Apparently has plenty of money. Supposed to have gotten it from her husband, who has been dead for some time. Dresses daringly but expensively, and – while there are at least a score of men, ranging all the way from lieutenants in the army to captains of industry, who would like to marry her – she has successfully evaded scandal and almost gotten away from gossip."
"Where'd she come from?"
"London, I believe, by way of New York. Maiden name was Lawrence and the late but not very lamented Mr. Armitage was reputed to have made his money in South Africa."
"All of which," commented Taylor, "is rather vague – particularly for purposes of a detailed report."
"Report? In what connection?"
"Her name appears on the list of Connor's clients as one of the ones who cleaned up on the 'leak.' Sold short and made a barrel of money when stocks came down. The question is, Where did she get the tip?"
"Possibly from Paul Connor himself."
"Possibly – but I wish you'd cultivate her acquaintance and see if you can pick up anything that would put us on the right track."
But some six weeks later when Taylor was called upon to make a report of his investigations he had to admit that the sheet was a blank.
"Chief," he said, "either the Armitage woman is perfectly innocent or else she's infernally clever. I've pumped everyone dry about her, and a certain friend of mine, whom you know, has made a point of getting next to the lady herself. She's dined there a couple of times and has talked to her at a dozen teas and receptions. But without success. Mrs. Armitage has been very frank and open about what she calls her 'good fortune' on the stock market. Says she followed her intuition and sold short when everyone else was buying. What's more, she says it with such a look of frank honesty that, according to Madelaine, you almost have to believe her."
"Has Miss James been able to discover anything of the lady's past history?"
"Nothing more than we already know – born in England – husband made a fortune in South Africa – died and left it to her. Have you tried tracing her from the other side?"
"Yes, but they merely disclaim all knowledge of her. Don't even recognize the description. That may mean anything. Well," and chief sighed rather disconsolately, for the leak puzzle had been a knotty one from the start, "I guess we'd better drop her. Too many other things going on to worry about a woman whose only offense seems to be an intuitive knowledge of the way Wall Street's going to jump."
It was at that moment that Mahoney, assistant to the chief, came in with the information that the Secretary of State desired the presence of the head of the Secret Service in his office immediately.
In answer to a snapped, "Come along – this may be something that you can take care of right away!" Taylor followed the chief to the State Department, where they were soon closeted with one of the under secretaries.
"You are familiar with the Carruthers Code?" inquired the Assistant Secretary.
"I know the principle on which it operates," the chief replied, "but I can't say that I've ever come into contact with it."
"So far as we know," went on the State Department official, "it is the most efficient cipher system in the world – simple, easy to operate, almost impossible to decode without the key, and susceptible of being changed every day, or every hour if necessary, without impairing its value. However, in common with every other code, it has this weakness – once the key is located the entire system is practically valueless.
"When did you discover the disappearance of the code secret?" asked Taylor, examining his cigarette with an exaggerated display of interest.
"How did you know it was lost?" demanded the Under Secretary.
"I didn't – but the fact that your chief sent for mine and then you launch into a dissertation on the subject of the code itself is open to but one construction – some one has lifted the key to the cipher."
"Yes, some one has. At least, it was in this safe last night" – here a wave of his hand indicated a small and rather old-fashioned strong box in the corner – "and it wasn't there when I arrived this morning. I reported the matter to the Secretary and he asked me to give you the details."
"You are certain that the cipher was there last evening?" asked the chief.
"Not the cipher itself – at least not a code-book as the term is generally understood," explained the Under Secretary. "That's one of the beauties of the Carruthers system. You don't have to lug a bulky book around with you all the time. A single slip of paper – a cigarette paper would answer excellently – will contain the data covering a man's individual code. The loss or theft of one of these would be inconvenient, but not fatal. The loss of the master key, which was in that safe, is irreparable. If it once gets out of the country it means that the decoding of our official messages is merely a question of time, no matter how often we switch the individual ciphers."
"What was the size of the master key, as you call it?"
"Merely a slip of government bond, about six inches long by some two inches deep."
"Was it of such a nature that it could have been easily copied?"
"Yes, but anything other than a careful tracing or a photographic copy would be valueless. The position of the letters and figures mean as much as the marks themselves. Whoever took it undoubtedly knows this and will endeavor to deliver the original – as a mark of good faith, if nothing else."
"Was this the only copy in existence?"
"There are two others – one in the possession of the Secretary, the other in the section which has charge of decoding messages. Both of these are safe, as I ascertained as soon as I discovered that my slip was missing."
A few more questions failed to bring out anything more about the mystery beyond the fact that the Assistant Secretary was certain that he had locked the safe the evening before and he knew that he had found it locked when he arrived that morning.
"All of which," as Taylor declared, "means but little. The safe is of the vintage of eighteen seventy, the old-fashioned kind where you can hear the tumblers drop clean across the room. Look!" and he pointed to the japanned front of the safe where a circular mark, some two inches in diameter, was visible close to the dial.
"Yes, but what is it?" demanded the Secretary.
"The proof that you locked the safe last night," Taylor responded. "Whoever abstracted the cipher key opened the safe with the aid of some instrument that enabled them clearly to detect the fall of the tumblers. Probably a stethoscope, such as physicians use for listening to a patient's heart. Perfectly simple when you know how – particularly with an old model like this."
Finding that there was no further information available, Taylor and the chief left the department, the chief to return to headquarters, Taylor to endeavor to pick up the trail wherever he could.
"It doesn't look like an inside job," was the parting comment of the head of the Secret Service. "Anyone who had access to the safe would have made some excuse to discover the combination, rather than rely on listening to the click of the tumblers. Better get after the night watchman and see if he can give you a line on any strangers who were around the building last night."
But the night watchman when roused from his sound forenoon's sleep was certain that no one had entered the building on the previous evening save those who had business there.
"Everybody's got to use a pass now, you know," he stated. "I was on the job all night myself an' divvle a bit of anything out of the ordinary did I see. There was Mr. McNight and Mr. Lester and Mr. Greene on the job in the telegraph room, and the usual crowd of correspondents over in the press room, and a score of others who works there regular, an' Mrs. Prentice, an' – "
"Mrs. who?" interrupted Taylor.
"Mrs. Prentice, wife of th' Third Assistant Secretary. She comes down often when her husband is working late, but last night he must have gone home just before she got there, for she came back a few minutes later and said that the office was dark."
Whatever Taylor's thoughts were at the moment he kept them to himself – for Prentice was the man from whose safe the cipher key had been abstracted!
So he contented himself with inquiring whether the watchman was certain that the woman who entered the building was Mrs. Prentice.
"Shure an' I'm certain," was the reply. "I've seen her and that green evening cape of hers trimmed with fur too often not to know her."
"Do you know how long it was between the time that she entered the building and the time she left?" persisted Taylor.
"That I do not, sir. Time is something that you don't worry about much when it's a matter of guarding the door to a building – particularly at night. But I'd guess somewhere about five or ten minutes?"
"Rather long for her to make her way to the office of her husband, find he wasn't there, and come right back, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir – but you must remember I wasn't countin' the minutes, so to speak. Maybe it was only three – maybe it was ten. Anyhow, it was just nine-thirty when she left. I remember looking at the clock when she went out."
From the watchman's house, located well over in the northeastern section of the city, Taylor made his way to Madelaine James's apartment on Connecticut Avenue, discovering that young lady on the point of setting off to keep a luncheon engagement.
"I won't keep you a minute, Madelaine," promised the Secret Service operative. "Just want to ask what you know about Mrs. Mahlon Prentice?"
"Wife of the Third Assistant Secretary of State?"
Taylor nodded.
"She's a Chicago woman, I believe. Came here a couple of years ago when her husband received his appointment. Rather good-looking and very popular. I happened to be at a dinner with her last evening and – "
"You what?"
"I was at a dinner at the Westovers' last night," repeated the James girl, "and Mrs. Prentice was among those present. Looked stunning, too. What's the trouble?"
"What time was the dinner?" Taylor countered.
"Eight o'clock, but of course it didn't start until nearly eight-thirty."
"And what time did Mrs. Prentice leave?"
"A few minutes after I did. She was just going up for her wraps as I came downstairs at eleven o'clock."
"You are certain that she was there all evening – that she didn't slip out for half an hour or so?"
"Of course I'm sure, Mell," the girl replied, a trace of petulance in her voice. "Why all the questions? Do you suspect the wife of the Third Assistant Secretary of State of robbing a bank?"
"Not a bank," Taylor admitted, "but it happens that the safe in her husband's office was opened last night and a highly important slip of paper abstracted. What's more, the watchman on duty in the building is ready to swear that Mrs. Prentice came in shortly before nine-thirty, and went out some five or ten minutes later, stating that her husband had evidently finished his work and left."
"That's impossible! No matter what the watchman says, there are a score of people who dined with Mrs. Prentice last evening and who know that she didn't leave the Westovers' until after eleven. Dinner wasn't over by nine-thirty, and she couldn't have gotten to the State Department and back in less than twenty minutes at the inside. It's ridiculous, that's all!"
"But the watchman!" exclaimed Taylor. "He knows Mrs. Prentice and says he couldn't miss that green-and-fur coat of hers in the dark. Besides, she spoke to him as she was leaving."
Madelaine James was silent for a moment, and a tiny frown appeared between her eyes, evidence of the fact that she was doing some deep thinking.
Then: "Of course she spoke! Anyone who would go to the trouble of copying Mrs. Prentice's distinctive cloak would realize that some additional disguise was necessary. Last night, if you remember, was quite cold. Therefore it would be quite natural that the woman who impersonated Mrs. Prentice should have her collar turned up around her face and probably a drooping hat as well. The collar, in addition to concealing her features, would muffle her voice, while the watchman, not suspecting anything, would take it for granted that the green cloak was worn by the wife of the Under Secretary – particularly when she spoke to him in passing."
"You mean, then, that some one deliberately impersonated Mrs. Prentice and took a chance on getting past the watchman merely because she wore a cloak of the same color?"
"The same color – the same style – practically the same coat," argued Miss James. "What's more, any woman who would have the nerve to try that would probably watch Prentice's office from the outside, wait for the light to go out, and then stage her visit not more than five minutes later, so's to make it appear plausible. How was the safe opened?"
"Stethoscope. Placed the cup on the outside, and then listened to the tumblers as they fell. Simplest thing in the world with an antiquated box like that."
"What's missing?"
By this time Taylor felt that their positions had been reversed. He, who had come to question, was now on the witness stand, while Madelaine James was doing the cross-examining. But he didn't mind. He knew the way the girl's mind worked, quickly and almost infallibly – her knowledge of women in general and Washington society in particular making her an invaluable ally in a case like this.
"A slip of paper some six inches long and two inches wide," he said, with a smile. "The key to the Carruthers Code, probably the most efficient cipher in the world, but now rendered worthless unless the original slip is located before it reaches some foreign power."
"Right!" snapped Miss James. "Get busy on your end of the matter. See what you can find out concerning this mysterious woman in the green cloak. I'll work along other and what you would probably call strictly unethical lines. I've got what a man would term a 'hunch,' but in a woman it is 'intuition' – and therefore far more likely to be right. See you later!" and with that she was off toward her car.
"But what about your luncheon engagement?" Taylor called after her.
"Bother lunch," she laughed back over her shoulder. "If my hunch is right I'll make your chief pay for my meals for the next year!"
The next that Taylor heard from his ally was a telephone call on the following evening, instructing him to dig up his evening clothes and to be present at a certain reception that evening.
"I have reason to believe," said Madelaine's voice, "that the lady of the second green cloak will be present. Anyhow, there'll be several of your friends there – including myself, Mrs. Armitage, and an ambassador who doesn't stand any too well with the Administration. In fact, I have it on good authority that he's on the verge of being recalled. Naturally we don't want him to take a slip of paper, some six inches by two, with him!"
"How do you know he hasn't it already?"
"He doesn't return from New York until six o'clock this evening, and the paper is far too valuable to intrust to the mails or to an underling. Remember, I'm not certain that it is he who is supposed to get the paper eventually, but I do know who impersonated Mrs. Prentice, and I likewise know that the lady in question has not communicated with any foreign official in person. Beyond that we'll have to take a chance on the evening's developments," and the receiver was replaced before Taylor could frame any one of the score of questions he wanted to ask.
Even at the reception that night he was unable to get hold of Madelaine James long enough to find out just what she did know. In fact, it was nearly midnight before he caught the signal that caused him to enter one of the smaller and rather secluded rooms apart from the main hall.
There he found a tableau that was totally unexpected.
In one corner of the room, her back against the wall and her teeth bared in a snarl which distorted her usually attractive features into a mask of hate, stood Mrs. Armitage. Her hands were crossed in front of her in what appeared to be an unnatural attitude until Taylor caught a glimpse of polished steel and realized that the woman had been handcuffed.
"There," announced Madelaine, "in spite of your friend the watchman, stands 'Mrs. Prentice.' You'll find the green cloak in one of the closets at her home, and the stethoscope is probably concealed somewhere around the house. However, that doesn't matter. The main thing is that we have discovered the missing slip of paper. You'll find it on the table over there."
Taylor followed the girl's gesture toward a table at the side of the room. But there, instead of the cipher key that he had expected, he saw only – a gold bracelet!
"What's the idea?" he demanded. "Where's the paper?"
"Snap open the bracelet," directed the girl. "What do you see?"
"It looks like – by gad! it is! – a tightly wrapped spindle of paper!" and a moment later the original of the Carruthers Code reposed safely in the Secret Service agent's vest pocket. As he tossed the empty bracelet back on the table he heard a sound behind him and turned just in time to see the woman in the corner slip to the floor in a dead faint.
"Now that we've got her," inquired Madelaine James, "what'll we do with her?"
"Take off the handcuffs, leave the room, and close the door," directed Taylor. "She'll hardly care to make any fuss when she comes to, and the fact that she is unconscious gives us an excellent opportunity for departing without a scene."
"But what I'd like to know," he asked, as they strolled back toward the main ballroom, "is how you engineered the affair?"
"I told you I had an intuition," came the reply, "and you laughed at me. Yes you did, too! It wasn't apparent on your face, but I could feel that inside yourself you were saying, 'Just another fool idea.' But Mrs. Armitage was preying on my mind. I didn't like the way she had slipped one over on us in connection with the leak on the peace note. Then, too, she seemed to have no visible means of support, but plenty of money.
"I felt certain that she wasn't guilty of blackmail or any of the more sordid kinds of crime, but the fact that she was on terms of familiarity with a number of diplomats, and that she seemed to have a fondness for army and navy officials, led me to believe that she was a sort of super spy, sent over here for a specific purpose. The instant you mentioned the Carruthers Code she sprang to my mind. A bill, slipped into the fingers of her maid, brought the information about the green cloak, and the rest was easy.
"I figured that she'd have the cipher key on her to-night, for it was her first opportunity of passing it along to the man I felt certain she was working for. Sure enough, as she passed him about half an hour ago she tapped her bracelet, apparently absent-mindedly. As soon as he was out of sight I sent one of the maids with a message that some one wanted to see her in one of the smaller rooms. Thinking that it was the ambassador, she came at once. I was planted behind the door, handcuffed her before she knew what I was doing, and then signaled you!
"Quite elementary, my dear Melville, quite elementary!"
"That," added Quinn, "was the last they heard of Mrs. Armitage. Taylor reported the matter at once, but the chief said that as they had the code they better let well enough alone. The following day the woman left Washington, and no one has heard from her since – except for a package that reached Taylor some months later. There was nothing in it except that photograph yonder, and, as Taylor was interested only in his bride, née Madelaine James, he turned it over to me for my collection."