Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

The man who passed as Williams looked venomous as he said this. The man to whom he spoke, thinking in his ignorance that he was indeed helping his native land instead of hurting it, and forgetful that in aiding the enemies of America he was stabbing a country which had ever been a faithful friend of Erin’s, gave particulars of his operations which Trent memorized as best he might. He was appalled to hear to what length these men were prepared to go if only the good relations between the Allies might be brought to naught.

So engrossed was he with the importance of what he heard that the passing of the large sum of money from Williams to the Sinn Feiner lost much of its entrancing interest. Trent meant to have the money, but he intended also to give the Department of Justice what help he could.

It was not the first time that he had gone from one floor to another by means of a dumbwaiter. It was never an easy operation and rarely a noiseless one. In this instance he was fortunate in finding well-oiled pulleys. It was only when he stepped out in the kitchen that he ran into danger. There was a man asleep on a folding bed which had been drawn across the door. To leave by the front door immediately was imperative. Even were it possible to leave by a rear entrance he would find himself in the little garden at the back and could only get out by climbing a dozen fences. This would be to court observation and run unnecessary risks.

To invite electrocution by killing men was no part of Anthony Trent’s practice. It was plain that the servant was slumbering fitfully and the act of stepping over him to freedom likely to awaken him instantly. Even if he had the needed rope at hand binding and gagging a vigorous man was at best a matter of noise and struggle. But something had to be done. He must reach the street in time to follow O’Sheill.

Superimposed on the bed’s frame was a mattress and army blanket. Directly behind the sleeper’s head was a door which led, as Trent knew from his knowledge of house design, to the cellar. It opened inward and without noise. He bent quietly over the man, put his hands gently beneath the mattress and then with a tremendous effort flung him, mattress, army blanket and all, down the cellar stairs. There was a clatter of breaking bottles, a cry that died away almost as it was uttered, and then the door was shut on silence.

A little later Williams, feeling the need for iced beer and cheese sandwiches, rang the bell for Fritz. When he received no answer he descended to the kitchen with the intention of buffeting soundly a man who could so forget his duties to his superiors. Mr. Williams found only the bare bed. Fritz, with his bedding, had disappeared.

A front door unlocked when instructions had been exact as to the necessity of its careful fastening at all hours, brought uneasy conjectures to his mind. It was only so long as he and his companions were invested with the immunity of neutrality that he was of value to his native land. Of late he had been conscious of Secret Service activities.

Obedient to his training, Williams instantly reported the matter to the thin, acid-faced man under whose instructions he had been commanded to act.

“They have taken Fritz away,” he cried.

“Who?” demanded his superior.

“The Secret Service,” said Williams wildly. He was now beginning to ascribe aggressive skill to a service at which he had formerly sneered.

Going down to the kitchen, they were startled by a feeble cry from the cellar. There they discovered the frightened Fritz, cut about the face from the bottles he had broken in his fall. His injuries gave him less concern than the admission he had slept at his post. He was, therefore, of no aid to them.

“I do not know,” he repeated as they questioned him. “There must have been many of them. One man alone could not do it.”

The thin man turned to Williams: “This O’Sheill is in danger. Arm yourself and go to his hotel. It will go badly with you if harm comes to him.”

CHAPTER XII

THE SINN FEIN PLOT

FORTUNATELY for O’Sheill’s peace of mind, he left the house before Williams made his discovery. He stepped into the street painfully conscious of the large sum of money he carried. It seemed to him that every man looked at him suspiciously. A request for a match was met with an oath and the two women who asked him the location of a certain hotel drew back nervously at his scowl.

He boarded the Elevated at the Ninety-third Street station and alighted at Ninth Avenue and Forty-second Street, still glancing about him suspiciously. It was not until he was in his room on the top floor of a cheap and old hotel on the far West Side that he ventured to feel safe. He sighed with relief as he stuffed a Dublin clay with malodorous shag. Twenty thousand dollars! Four thousand pounds! Some would go to the traitorous work he was employed to prosecute, but a lot of it would go to satisfy private hates. And when it was exhausted there would be more to come. It would be easy to conceal the notes about his person, and, anyway, he reflected, he was not under suspicion.

He was aroused from his reveries by the sudden, gentle tapping on his door. After a few seconds of hesitation he called out:

“What is it ye want?”

The voice that answered him was strongly tinged with the German accent to which he had recently become used. It will not be forgotten that Anthony Trent had a genius for mimicry.

“I’m from Mr. Williams,” said the stranger gutturally. He had followed O’Sheill with no difficulty.

“What’s your name?” O’Sheill demanded.

“We won’t give names,” Trent reminded him significantly. “But I can prove my identity. I was in the house at Ninety-third Street when you came. The money was given you to stir up trouble in Ireland and circulate rumors that will embarrass the British government and made bad blood between English and American sailors. You have twenty one-thousand-dollar bills and you put them in a green oilskin package.”

“That’s right,” O’Sheill admitted, “but what do you want?”

He was filled with a vague uneasiness. This young man seemed so terribly in earnest and his eyes darted from door to window and window to door as though he feared interruption.

“Mr. Williams sent me here to see if you had been followed. Directly you went we had information from an agent of ours that your visit was known to the Secret Service. Tell me, did any person speak to you on your way here?”

“No,” answered O’Sheill, now thoroughly nervous by the other’s anxiety.

“Are you sure?” he was asked.

“There was one fellow who asked me for a light, but I told him to go to hell and get it.”

“Anything suspicious about him?” Trent demanded.

“Not that I could see.”

“That will be good news for Mr. Williams,” Trent returned. “Our agent said the Hunchback was on the job.”

“Who’s he?” O’Sheill said.

“One of our most dangerous enemies,” the younger man retorted. “He’s a man of forty, but looks younger. He had one shoulder higher than the other and he limps when he walks. He’s the man we’re afraid of. I think we have alarmed ourselves unnecessarily.”

O’Sheill’s face was no longer merely uneasy. He was terror-stricken.

“And I guess we haven’t,” he exclaimed. “The man who asked me for a light was a hunchback. There was two women who asked me the way to some blasted hotel. They looked at me as if they wanted never to forget my face.”

“Stop a minute,” said Trent gravely. “Answer me exactly about these women. I want to know in what danger we all stand. The only two women known by sight to us who are likely to be put on a case of this kind wouldn’t look like detectives. There’s Mrs. Daniels and Miss Barrett. They work as mother and daughter. Mrs. Daniels is gray-haired, tall and slight, with a big nose for a woman and eyes set close together. When she looks at you it seems as if the eyes were gimlets. The girl is pretty, reddish hair and laughing eyes.” Trent paused for a moment to think of any other attributes he could ascribe to the unknown women he had directed to their hotel just after O’Sheill had scowled at them a half hour back. “And very white little teeth.”

“My God!” cried O’Sheill, his arms dropping at his side, “that’s them to the life! What’s going to happen to me?”

“If they find you with that money you’ll be deported and handed over to your British friends. How can you explain having twenty thousand dollars? Mr. Williams thought of that, but he didn’t actually know they were on your trail. You must give me the money. I shan’t be stopped. You are to stay here. They may be here in five minutes or they may wait till morning, but you may be certain that you won’t be allowed to get away. You must claim to be just over here to get an insight into labor conditions.” Mr. Williams’ messenger chuckled. “I don’t believe they can get anything on you.”

“But if they do?” O’Sheill demanded. It seemed to him that the stranger’s levity was singularly ill-timed.

“If they do,” Trent advised, “you must remember that you’re a British subject still – whether you like it or not – and you have certain inalienable rights. Immediately appeal to the British authorities. Give the Earl of Reading some work to do. Make the Consul-General here stir himself. Tell them you came over here to investigate labor conditions. That story goes any time and just now it’s fashionable. As an Irishman you’ll have far more consideration from the British Government than if you were merely an Englishman.”

“But what about this money?” O’Sheill queried uneasily.

“I’ll take it,” Trent told him. “If it’s found on you nothing can do you any good. You’ll do your plotting in a British jail.”

O’Sheill was amazed at the careless manner in which this large sum was thrust into the other man’s pocket. Surely these accomplices of his dealt in big things.

“When you’re ready to sail you can get it back,” Trent continued. “That can be arranged later. Meanwhile don’t forget my instructions. Be indignant when you are searched. Call on the British Ambassador.” Trent paused suddenly. An idea had struck him. “By the way,” he went on, “you have other things that would get you into trouble beside that money.”

“I know it,” O’Sheill admitted. “What am I to do with them?”

“I’m taking a chance if they are found on me,” the younger man commented. “But they are not after me. Give me what you have,” he cried.

Into this keeping the frightened O’Sheill confided certain letters which later were to prove such an admirable aid to the United States Government.

It was as Trent turned to the door that he heard steps coming along the passage as softly as the creaking boards permitted.

He placed his fingers on his lips and enjoined silence. The furtive sound completed O’Sheill’s distress. He felt himself entrapped. Trent saw him take from his hip pocket a revolver.

“Not yet,” he whispered. “Wait.”

He turned down the gas to a tiny glimmer. Through the transom the stronger light in the passage was seen. It was but a slight effort for the muscular Trent to draw himself up so that he could peer through the transom at the man tapping softly at the door.

Unquestionably it was Williams, and the hand concealed in his right hand coat pocket was no doubt gripping the butt of an automatic. He was a man of great physical strength, that Trent had noted earlier in the evening. Although of enormous strength himself, and a boxer and wrestler, he knew he would stand no chance if these two discovered his errand. There was no other exit than the door.

Anthony Trent stepped silently to O’Sheill’s side.

“It’s the Hunchback,” he whispered. “If once he gets those long fingers around your throat you’re gone. Listen to me. I’m going to turn the gas out. Then I shall open the door. When he rushes in get him. If he gets you instead I’ll be on the top of him and we’ll tie him up. Ready?”

The prospect of a fight restored O’Sheill’s spirits. Every line of his evil face was a black menace to Friedrich Wilhelm outside.

“Don’t use your revolver,” Anthony Trent cautioned.

“Why?” O’Sheill whispered.

“We can’t stand police investigation,” said the other. “Get ready now I’m going to open the door.”

When he flung it open Williams stepped quickly in. O’Sheill maddened at the very thought that any one imperiled his money, could only see, in the dim light, an enemy. The first blow he struck landed fair and square on the Prussian nose. On his part Williams supposed the attack a premeditated one. O’Sheill was playing him false. The pain of the blow awoke his own hot temper and made him killing mad. He sought to get his strong arms about the Sinn Feiner’s throat.

It was while they thrashed about on the floor that Anthony Trent made his escape. He closed the door of the room carefully and locked it from the outside. Then he unscrewed the electric bulb that lit the hall. None saw him pass into the street. It was one of his triumphant nights.

Next morning at breakfast he found Mrs. Kinney much interested in the city’s police news as set forth in the papers.

He was singularly cheerful.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Some very dreadful crime?”

“A double murder,” she told him, “and the police don’t seem to be able to figure it out at all.”

Trent sipped his coffee gratefully.

“What’s strange about that?” he demanded.

“I don’t see,” Mrs. Kinney went on, “what a gentleman like this Mr. Williams seems to have been – ”

Anthony Trent put down his cup.

“What’s his other name?” he inquired.

“Frederick,” said the interested Mrs. Kinney. “Frederick Williams, a Holland Dutch gentleman living in Ninety-third Street near the Drive. He aided the Red Cross and bought Liberty Bonds. What I want to know is why he went to a low place like the Shipwrights Hotel to see a man named O’Sheill from Liverpool, England?”

“A double murder?” he demanded.

“Here it is,” she returned, and showed him the paper. The two men had been found dead, the report ran, under mysterious circumstances, but the police thought a solution would quickly be found. Anthony Trent smiled as he read of official optimism. He was inclined to doubt it.

When Mrs. Kinney was out shopping he read through the documents he had taken from O’Sheill. They seemed to him to be of prime importance. There was a list of American Sinn Feiners implicating men in high positions, men against whom so far nothing detrimental was known. Outlines of plots were made bare to embroil and antagonize Britain and the United States – allies in the great cause – and all that subtle propaganda which had nothing to do with the betterment of prosperous Ireland but everything to do with Prussian aggrandizement. It was a poisonous collection of documents.

The chief of the Department of Justice in New York was called up from a public station and informed that a messenger was on his way with very important papers. The chief was warned to make immediate search of the premises at Ninety-third Street where a highly important German spy might be captured.

In the evening papers Anthony Trent was gratified to learn that the highly-born, thin, haughty person was none other than the Baron von Reisende who had received his congé with Bernstorff and was thought to be in the Wilmhelmstrasse. He had probably returned by way of Mexico.

And certain politicians of the baser sort were sternly warned against plotting the downfall of America’s allies. Altogether Trent had done a good night’s work for his country. As for himself twenty thousand dollars went far toward making the total he desired.

Consistent success in such enterprises as his was leading him into a feeling that he would not be run to earth as had been those lesser practitioners of crime who lacked his subtlety and shared their secrets with others.

But there was always the chance that he had been observed when he thought he was alone in some great house. Austin, the Conington Warren butler, looked him full in the face on his first adventure. And that other butler who served the millionaire whose piano he had wrecked might, some day, place a hand on his shoulder and denounce him to the world. Yet butlers were beings whose duties took them little abroad. They did not greatly perturb him.

CHAPTER XIII

ANTHONY TRENT INTERESTS HIMSELF IN POLICE GOSSIP

SO far as he knew, none suspected him. His face had been seen on one or two occasions, but he was of a type common among young Americans of the educated classes. Above middle height, slenderly fashioned but wire-strong, he had a shrewd, humorous face with strongly marked features. It might be that the nose was a trifle large and the mouth a trifle tight, but none looking at him would say, “There goes a criminal.” They would say, rather, “There goes a resourceful young business man who can rise to any emergency.”

Since Trent had calculated everything to a nicety, he knew he must, during these harvesting years, deny himself the privilege of friendship with other men or women. Too many of his gild had lost their liberty through some errant desire to be confidential. This habit of solitude was trying to a man naturally of a sociable nature, but he determined that it could be cast from him as one throws away an old coat when he was a burglar emeritus.

That blessed moment had arrived. He even looked up an old editor friend, the man who had first put into his mind that he could make more money at burglary than in writing fiction.

“It’s good to see you again!” cried the editor. “I often wish you hadn’t been left money by that Australian uncle of yours, so that you could still write those corking crook yarns for us. There was never any one like you. I was talking about you at the Scribblers’ Club dinner the other night.”

Trent frowned. Publicity was a thing to avoid and this particular editor had always been ready to sound his praise. The editor had once before asked him to join this little club made up of professional writers. They were men he would have delighted to know under other conditions.

“Be my guest next Tuesday,” the editor persisted. “I’m toastmaster and the subject is ‘Crime in Fiction.’ I told the boys I’d get you to speak if I possibly could. I’m counting on you. Will you do it?”

It seemed a deliciously ironical thing. Here was an honest editor asking the friend he did not know to be a master criminal to make an address on crime in fiction. Trent laughed the noiseless laugh he had cultivated in place of the one that was in reality the expression of himself. The editor thought it a good sign.

“Who are the other speakers?” Trent demanded.

“Oppenheim Phelps for one. He’s over here on a visit. His specialty is high-grade international spy stuff, as you know. E. W. Hornung would be the man to have if we could get him, but that’s impossible. I’ve got half a dozen others, but Phelps and you will be the drawing cards.”

“Put me down,” Trent said genially, “but introduce me as a back number almost out of touch with things but willing to oblige a pal.” He laughed again his noiseless laugh.

Crosbeigh looked at him meditatively. Certainly Anthony Trent was changed. In the old days, before he came into Australian money, he was at times jocund with the fruitful grape, a good fellow, a raconteur, one who had been popular at school and college and liked to stand well with his fellows. But now, Crosbeigh reflected, he was changed. There was a certain suspicion about him, a lack of trust in men’s motives. It was the attitude no doubt which wealth brought. The moneyless man can meet a borrower cheerfully and need cudgel his mind for no other excuse than his poverty.

Crosbeigh was certain Trent had a lot of money for the reason he had actually refused four cents a word for what he had previously received only two cents. But the editor admired his old contributor and was glad to see him again.

“I’m going to spring a surprise on you,” Crosbeigh declared, “and I’m willing to bet you’ll enjoy it.”

“I hope so,” Trent returned, idly, and little dreamed what lay before him.

The dinner was at a chop house and the food no worse than the run of city restaurants. Anthony Trent, who had fared delicately for some time, put up with the viands readily enough for the pleasure of being again among men of the craft which had been his own.

Oppenheim Phelps was interesting. He was introduced as a historian who had made his name at fiction. It was a satisfaction, he said, to find that modern events had justified him. The reviewers had formerly treated him with patronizing airs; they had called his secret diplomacy and German plot-stuff as chimeras only when they had shown themselves to be transcripts, and not exaggerated ones at that, of what had taken place during the last few years.

Anthony Trent sat next to the English novelist and liked him. It brought him close to the war to talk to a man whose home had been bombed from air and submarine. And Phelps was also a golfer and asked Trent, when the war was over, to visit his own beloved links at Cromer.

It had grown so late when the particularly prosy member of the club had made his yawn-bringing speech, that Crosbeigh came apologetically to Trent’s side.

“I’m afraid, old man,” he began, “that it’s too late for any more speeches except the surprise one. A lot of us commute. Do you mind speaking at our next meeting instead?”

“Not a bit,” Trent said cheerfully. But he felt as all speakers do under these circumstances that his speech would have been a brilliant one. He had coined a number of epigrams as other speakers had plowed laboriously along their lingual way and now they were to be still-born.

But he soon forgot them when Crosbeigh announced the surprise speaker.

“I have been very fortunate,” Crosbeigh began, “in getting to-night a man who knows more of the ways of crooks than any living authority. Gentlemen, you all know Inspector McWalsh!”

“Well, boys,” said the Inspector, “I guess a good many of you know me by name.” He had risen to his full height and looked about him genially. He had imbibed just the right amount to bring him to this stage. Three highballs later, he would be looking for insults but he was now ripe with good humor. He had come because Conington Warren had asked him to oblige Crosbeigh. For writers on crime he had the usual contempt of the professional policeman and he was fluent in his denunciation. “You boys,” he went on, “make me smile with your modern scientific criminals, the guys what use chemistry and electricity and x-rays and so forth. I’ve been a policeman now for thirty years and I never run across any of that stuff yet.”

Inspector McWalsh poured his unsubtle scorn on such writings for ten full minutes. But he added nothing to the Scribblers’ knowledge of his subject.

It chanced that the writer he had taken as his victim was a guest at the dinner. This fictioneer pursued the latest writings on physicist and chemical research so that he might embroider his tales therewith. Personally Trent was bored by this artificial type of story; but as between writer and policeman he was always for the writer.

The writer was plainly angry but the gods had not blessed him with a ready tongue and he was prepared to sit silent under McWalsh’s scorn. Some mischievous devil prompted Anthony Trent to rise to his aid. It was a bold thing to do, to draw the attention of the man who had been in charge of the detectives sent to run him to earth, but of late excitement had been lacking.

“Inspector McWalsh,” he commenced, “possesses precisely that type of mind one would expect to find in a successful policeman. He has that absolute absence of imagination without which one cannot attain his rank in the force. All he has done in his speech is to pour his scorn of a certain type of crime story on its author. As writers we are sorry if Inspector McWalsh never heard of the Einthoven string galvanometer upon which the solution of the story he ridicules rests, yet we know it to exist. Were I a criminal instead of a writer I should enjoy to cross swords with men who think as the Inspector does. I could outguess them every time.”

“Who is this guy?” Inspector McWalsh demanded loudly.

“Anthony Trent,” Mr. Crosbeigh whispered. “He wrote some wonderful crook stories a few years ago dealing with a crook called Conway Parker.”

“What one would expect to hear from a man with McWalsh’s opportunities to deal with crime is some of the difficulty he experiences in his work. There must be difficulty. We know by statistics what crimes are committed and what criminals brought to justice. What happens to the crooks who remain safe from arrest by reason of superior skill? I’ll tell you, gentlemen. They live well and snap their fingers at men like the last speaker. There is such a thing as fatty degeneration of the brain – ”