Arthur B. Reeve Crime & Mystery Boxed Set. Arthur B. Reeve

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СКАЧАТЬ about him. Besides, she seems to think that Haddon has treated her shamefully. According to her story, he seems to have been lavishing everything on her, but lately, for some reason, has deserted her. Still, even in her jealousy she does not accuse any other woman of winning him away."

      "Perhaps it is the opposite—another man winning her," suggested Craig dryly.

      "It's a peculiar situation," shrugged Carton. "There is another man. As nearly as I can make out there is a fellow named Brodie who does a dance with her. But he seems to annoy her, yet at the same time exercises a sort of fascination over her."

      "Then she is dancing at the Mayfair yet?" hastily asked Craig.

      "Yes. I told her to stay, not to excite suspicion."

      "And Haddon knows?"

      "Oh, no. But she has told us enough about him already so that we can worry him, apparently, just as what he can tell us would worry the others interested in the hotels. To tell the truth, I think she is a drug fiend. Why, my men tell me that they have seen her take just a sniff of something and change instantly—become a willing tool."

      "That's the way it happens," commented Kennedy.

      "Now, I'll go up there and meet Haddon," resumed Carton. "After I have been with him long enough to get into his confidence, suppose you two just happen along."

      Half an hour later Kennedy and I sauntered into the Prince Henry, where Carton had made the appointment in order to avoid suspicion that might arise if he were seen with Haddon at the Mayfair.

      The two men were waiting for us—Haddon, by contrast with Carton, a weak-faced, nervous man, with bulgy eyes.

      "Mr. Haddon," introduced Carton, "let me present a couple of reporters from the Star—off duty, so that we can talk freely before them, I can assure you. Good fellows, too, Haddon."

      The hotel and cabaret keeper smiled a sickly smile and greeted us with a covert, questioning glance.

      "This attack on Mr. Carton has unnerved me," he shivered. "If any one dares to do that to him, what will they do to me?"

      "Don't get cold feet, Haddon," urged Carton. "You'll be all right. I'll swing it for you."

      Haddon made no reply. At length he remarked: "You'll excuse me for a moment. I must telephone to my hotel."

      He entered a booth in the shadow of the back of the café, where there was a slot-machine pay-station. "I think Haddon has his suspicions," remarked Carton, "although he is too prudent to say anything yet."

      A moment later he returned. Something seemed to have happened. He looked less nervous. His face was brighter and his eyes clearer. What was it, I wondered? Could it be that he was playing a game with Carton and had given him a double cross? I was quite surprised at his next remark.

      "Carton," he said confidently, "I'll stick."

      "Good," exclaimed the district attorney, as they fell into a conversation in low tones.

      "By the way," drawled Kennedy, "I must telephone to the office in case they need me."

      He had risen and entered the same booth.

      Haddon and Carton were still talking earnestly. It was evident that, for some reason, Haddon had lost his former halting manner. Perhaps, I reasoned, the bomb episode had, after all, thrown a scare into him, and he felt that he needed protection against his own associates, who were quick to discover such dealings as Carton had forced him into. I rose and lounged back to the booth and Kennedy.

      "Whom did he call?" I whispered, when Craig emerged perspiring from the booth, for I knew that that was his purpose.

      Craig glanced at Haddon, who now seemed absorbed in talking to Carton. "No one," he answered quickly. "Central told me there had not been a call from this pay-station for half an hour."

      "No one?" I echoed almost incredulously. "Then what did he do? Something happened, all right."

      Kennedy was evidently engrossed in his own thoughts, for he said nothing.

      "Haddon says he wants to do some scouting about," announced Carton, when we rejoined them. "There are several people whom he says he might suspect. I've arranged to meet him this afternoon to get the first part of this story about the inside working of the vice trust, and he will let me know if anything develops then. You will be at your office?"

      "Yes, one or the other of us," returned Craig, in a tone which Haddon could not hear.

      In the meantime we took occasion to make some inquiries of our own about Haddon and Loraine Keith. They were evidently well known in the select circle in which they travelled. Haddon had many curious characteristics, chief of which to interest Kennedy was his speed mania. Time and again he had been arrested for exceeding the speed limit in taxi-cabs and in a car of bis own, often in the past with Loraine Keith, but lately alone.

      It was toward the close of the afternoon that Carton called up hurriedly. As Kennedy hung up the receiver, I read on his face that something had gone wrong.

      "Haddon has disappeared," he announced, "mysteriously and suddenly, without leaving so much as a clue. It seems that he found in his office a package exactly like that which was sent to Carton earlier in the day. He didn't wait to say anything about it, but left. Carton is bringing it over here."

      Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Carton himself deposited the package on the laboratory table with an air of relief. We looked eagerly. It was addressed to Haddon at the Mayfair in the same disguised handwriting and was done up in precisely the same fashion.

      "Lots of bombs are just scare bombs," observed Craig. "But you never can tell."

      Again Kennedy had started to dissect.

      "Ah," he went on, "this is the real thing, though, only a little different from the other. A dry battery gives a spark when the lid is slipped back. See, the explosive is in a steel pipe. Sliding the lid off is supposed to explode it. Why, there is enough explosive in this to have silenced a dozen Haddons."

      "Do you think he could have been kidnapped or murdered?" I asked. "What is this, anyhow—gang-war?"

      "Or perhaps bribed?" suggested Carton.

      "I can't say," ruminated Kennedy. "But I can say this: that there is at large in this city a man of great mechanical skill and practical knowledge of electricity and explosives. He is trying to make sure of hiding something from exposure. We must find him."

      "And especially Haddon," Carton added quickly. "He is the missing link. His testimony is absolutely essential to the case I am building up."

      "I think I shall want to observe Loraine Keith without being observed," planned Kennedy, with a hasty glance at his watch. "I think I'll drop around at this Mayfair I have heard so much about. Will you come?"

      "I'd better not," refused Carton. "You know they all know me, and everything quits wherever I go. I'll see you soon."

      As we drove in a cab over to the Mayfair, Kennedy said nothing. I wondered how and where Haddon had disappeared. Had the powers of evil in the city learned that he was weakening and hurried him out of the way at the last moment? Just what had Loraine Keith to do with it? Was she in any way responsible? СКАЧАТЬ