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Show I THLsrFGE MAGNUM, Scientific Consultant i THE SECRET ANALYSIS. OX F. fogy afternoon in ember .Magnum carried to the admiralty admiral-ty a written report of a highly confidential and vita'l v important impor-tant nature relathe to a certain new torpedo cnarge explosive. Heine; a man of prudence. Magnum also carried with hirn a loaded revolver, lie did not expect ex-pect to have to protect his person and Ins precious charge in law-abiding London, Lon-don, yet i-arrving a revolver was a cheap and practical form of insurance. He left Meredith at the Upper Thames street laboratories. The young Welshman was an analyst of genius, but he was no man of af-fa af-fa irs. In the rough, tough -world outside out-side the sheltered laboratories he might easily have been outwitted by a schoolboy. school-boy. Trobabiy that was shrewdly reel;- oned upon bv the unknown who called up Meredith on the telephone nnd an- i nount-ed. with a note of authority ovtr- laving the guttural of the. voice, that he was the secretary to the first sea lord. ".Mr. Magnum is here with his report on the torpedo matter,' said "the unknown. un-known. " Yes, " answered Meredith. "The duplicate of the report is want ed. "It's locked away in the safe, I think, and I haven't1 the key." ' ' M r. M agmim is under the impression impres-sion that be left it in his desk." "Ml see. Hold the line, please." Presently: "No. it's not there." The unknown clicked his annoyance. "I must get the key from Mr. Magnum and come down to your office. But perhaps it. would be safer if you drove to the admiralty and took me back with yon. " "Certainly," answered the young fellow. fel-low. " I 'I1 come at once." H e hurried ou his overcoat and ( ucked his white silk muffler around his neck, then went out iuto Upper Thames street. It is a gloomy, grimy lane in the cheeriest circumstances of weather, lined with warehouses of ancient an-cient pattern and choked with heavy, rumbling lorries: under the blanket of a sullen November fog, it seemed a region of subterranean cellars. Meredith Mere-dith made in the direction of Black-friars Black-friars station. There he would be cer-rain cer-rain to find a taxi; Upper Thames street is no region for cabs. But. most unusually, a taxi happened to be prowling prowl-ing in the line. Meredith, much pleased with his gooil luck, bailed the chauffeur, chauf-feur, gave the admiralty address and stepped inside without the slightest suspicion sus-picion that the cab might be there for the express purpose of" conveying him. It should have been a straight-line drive past Blackfriars station and along the embankment to Whitehall. The chauffeur turned, however, over Blackfriars Black-friars bridge to the south of the Thames, driving recklessly through the choking fog. Meredith called through the speaking speak-ing tube: "The shortest way is along the embankment. 1 ' "Embankment is 'up,' sir. Just as quick bv Stamford street." Stamford street was once reckoned as one of the most unsavory neighborhoods neighbor-hoods in London. At the time of this episode,' its vice-rotted houses blank and tenantless, with broken windows showing glimpses of rooms where the drab paper had blistered away from the walls, and spiders competed undisturbed undis-turbed for their harvest of insect life were being nulled down to make way for government buildings. The engine of the taxi suddenly rasped and splut- tered angrily. The chauffeur pulled up short. "What's the matter?" asked Meredith Mere-dith through the speaking tube. At that moment the near-side door of the taxi opened and a thick-set, heavy-jawed heavy-jawed man jumped in. The struggle was very brief. Meredith, Mere-dith, with his slight frame and weak muscles, stood no chance. He was quicklv stunned and carried into one of a row of empty, three-storied houses, i That portion of the scheme had i worked with the smoothness of oiled machinery. But on a further point the unknown had miscalculated. He had judged that Meredith would be in Magnum's Mag-num's full confidence over the matter of the torpedo explosive. As it happened. hap-pened. Magnum had carried out the investigation entirely by himself, not earing to let his protege run risks. What voting Meredith knew of this highlv important and confidential analysis analy-sis was therefore the most general impression. im-pression. . They tried to force a betrayal out of him; be had nothing to betray. Magnum returned from the admiralty pleased with himself. He had been able , to give a flat contradiction to a staff expert aDd to back up his words with undeniable scientific proof. That satisfied satis-fied the .belligerent side of his temperament. tempera-ment. Further, it was his first admiralty case. It formed a most useful business busi-ness connection. He now proposed to take Meredith with him to, celebrate the evening with an old English dinner at the Cheshire Cheese turtle soup, beefsteak, pudding, pancakes and toasted cheese and seats at the latest successful farce. Magnum's taste in gastronomy and in drama was unsubtle. A champagne supper would conclude the night. At the laboratories they told him that , the young fellow had been called away by a! telephone message. Probably some ! client, thought Magnum, and sat down to wait. Afternoon shaded imperceptibly impercepti-bly into the night and no word came from Meredith. The scientist had perforce per-force to make his celebration alowe and he did not enjoy it. The boy was like a son to him. On the following day Meredith was still missing, and the housekeeper at his rooms knew nothing of his wbere- 1 abouts. Magnum became seriously alarmed. He went to Scotland Y'ard and enlisted the help of his friend, Detective De-tective Inspector Callaghan. 1 Callaghan affected cheeriness. "Probably "Prob-ably a case of temporary loss of memory', mem-ory', sir. It's not an unusual thing. Let me have Mr. Meredith's photograph, and I'll find him for you witnin twenty-four hours. ' ' Three days went by fruitlessly, while Callaghan circulated 'broadcast descriptions descrip-tions of the young fellow and fine-combed fine-combed the known resorts of criminals for some possible clew. Magnum became be-came frantically anxious. The one soft snot in his hard, rough-edged temperament tempera-ment was affection for his protege. He kept the telephone wire to Scotland Yard sizzling with repeated iuquiries and suggestions at all hours of the day and night. He made in person the round of every warehouse in Upper ; Thames street) asking if no one had seen Meredith leave on tho afternoon of the fog. One lorry-driver mentioned a prowling taxi, and on that slender clew Magnum ordered Callaghan the. .herculean task of questioning every one of the 10,000 taxi chauffeurs in Loudon. On the fourth day, a call of the telephone tele-phone bell sent Magnum hurrying to the instrument. A heavy voice, the voice of one who spoke English with a smear of guttural, spoke over the wire: "Is that Mr. Magnum?" ' ' Yes, yes. ' ' ' ' You want to know where your friend is?" "I'm offering a public reward for information.' in-formation.' J "He is staying "with me." Magnum 's eagerness checked abruptly. abrupt-ly. An intuition of what was to come made him guard his words. He answered an-swered coldly: "Speak out what ycu want. " "Your reward of five hundred pounds is not sufficient." Magnum swiftly reached over fo- the dictaphone on his desk, placed the second sec-ond receiver of the telephone against the mouthpiece of the recording instrument, instru-ment, and switched on the electric, purr of the driving mechanism that revolved the wax cylinder. "Speak up, please! I can scarcely hear you. ' ' The, voice of the unknown repeated louder: "The reward you offer is not sufficient. ' " You ' II have to share, it with others. oth-ers. ' ' bluffed Magnum brusquely. "Your taxi was noted in Upper Thames street by three separate people." An incredulous laugh was the answer. Then silence. The scientist was driven to ask: "Well, say out what you want to say." ' ' Your young friend will be given bark to you in exchange for a complete copy of the report you made to the .admiralty on the torpedo matter. Otherwise, Other-wise, not. ' ' "A threat?" "I do not threaten. T act. "FVom this hour your Mr. Meredith will have no food or drink until the report is in my hands. Good -by till tomorrow!" Magnum hastened with the dictaphone reeord to find Callaghan and a?k him if he could recognize the voire from among hi? memory of blackmailers, t'al-Iathan t'al-Iathan listened to the record and shook his head; he called in nil his detective force at va rious times during the day to try it with them. No one at Scotland Yard could place the voice. T his is foreign secret work." was the obvious conclusion of the detective. He added reassuringly to Majjaum: ' But don't worry Ve'U get him for certain within the next few davs." "How?" "Your wire is from Bank exchange. We'll give instructions to the order-line order-line operators at the bank to trace the issuing point of all calls to you tomorrow. tomor-row. ' ' "They won't rarrv that out," rasped Magnum, remembering a previous experience ex-perience with the telephone authorities. "This order will go from the commissioner's commis-sioner's oitice, " replied the detective firmlv. "liven then the man will probably phone from a public call box. Tracing hack the number will tell ns nothing." " Tt will give us the neighborhood. " "He could cross London to phone if he wanted to. ' ' "I don't think he would go to that extra trouble," said Callaghan, and with forced optimism in his voice began to tell of previous cases where blackmailers blackmail-ers had been outwitted by the deteatiye force. The scientist, usually so utterly self-reliant, self-reliant, strong and masterful, broke down under the strain of his anxiety into, bitter railing at the helplessness of the situation. i 'This cursed telephone tele-phone system! It might have been invented in-vented for the very purpose of blackmailing! black-mailing! And while we're pottering about and wasting time they'll be starving starv-ing the poor boy! Heaven knows what they've done to him already!" "When the man phones ' tomorrow, try to arrange a meeting with him," suggested the dotective. " Tf I get face to face with him " said Magnum, and completed his thought by drawing his loaded revolver out of his pocket. ' He won "t find any squeamish scruples in me." The exppcted call -did not come through until the following afternoon. '"Good-day," said the voice of the unknown. "Have you thought over my offer of yesterday?" 1 ' My report to the admiralty was confidential." replied Magnum wearily. ' ' nturally. ' "T ought 'not to divulge its contents to any one." The voice on the wire became brisk. (If you do so, no one at the admiralty need never know. You can say that vour friend was held to ransom, and that, you paid 1000 pounds to get him back That is a story they will believe." be-lieve." "It's a possibility," assented Magnum Mag-num with careful hesitancy. "You would have to give me your written promise that " "T give nothing in writing. It must be a gentleman's agreement." "Where would you want me to send a copy of this report?" "To an address in Cologne." Magnum clenched his free hand in silent rage. It would be out of practical prac-tical question to get foreign police to trap the negotiator. In Cologne he or his intermediary would be safe. "Well?" queried the voice sharply. "I must think out my position. If we could meet somewhere and ' ' ' ' Decidedly not! Good-by until tomorrow! to-morrow! ' ' Magnum rang up the supervisor at Bank and presently learned that the call had come from" a Mayfair number, a public call box at the Dover street tube station. It, was just as he had expected. ex-pected. And though he hurried at once to the point, there was no clewf to be obtained. The call box was situated in an exit open to the street, with only a bookstall boy within Tange of sight. The boy had taken no notice of the manv casual users of the call box. Dover street, in the midst of Ihe fashionable club district, suggested nothing as to the locality where Meredith might be hidden. i Though Magium waited wearily in his office all the following day, no telephone tele-phone message came from the unknown. But in the evening, as he was giving up hope and preparing to leave, a letter let-ter was delivered by the postman, with the envelope in Meredith 's thin, boyish boy-ish writing. That point was certain, but the difference stood out sharply to Magnum's eyes; it seemed tbe writing of a man oh a sick .bed. K;igorly he slit open the envelope. The only message, mes-sage, on a half sheet nf very ordinary paper, was a brief sentence: ' ' Wednesday "I am being st starved to death "Ivor Meredith." No address on the sheet; the postmark post-mark on the envelope the. G. P. O.; very evident that Meredith had boon allowed to write it under surveillance, and it had then been taken from him and posted. Magnum, strong and full blooded as he was, could not repress a shiver as he looked on the message. The weakness weak-ness of the writing told its own story. He took it at once to Callaghan with the faint hope that the detective might find in the paper or envelope some clew which he himself failed to see. But though Callaghan examined and reexamined re-examined a score of times, he could gain no hint of service to them. Note paper pa-per such as that might have been bought at any one of a thousand stationers ' shops. The fact that the envelope had been posted at the general postoffice, a couple of miles distant from Dover street, crumpled up any theory of lo-ealitv. lo-ealitv. Nor did an investigation under the 'miscroscope reveal fi ngr.r marks. ' There 'a only one possible course left to you, sir." summed up Callaghan. ''That is to fuke h report which will pass muster and. send it to the Cologne address as tliev direct." ' No man can say of what baseness of action he in capable under the stress of violent circumstances. History His-tory teems with pregna nt examples. Magnum felt that he could not trust himself if the worst came to the worst to keep b;i'-k ihe secret information of national value and let Meredith be slowly killed. He foresaw a point where his own iron resolut ion to keep faith with the admiralty might melt in the fire of compulsion. He therefore took the m fitter to the first sea lord ore I ess of the damage to his reputa! ionwhich might ensue and asked that the latter should draft out a faked report to be sent to the bl::''kmnil(T. The old sailor, crizx.led and st ern. looked keenly at Magnum for some moments mo-ments "This matter i extremely serious for us'" he said. "Your man may not believe what yon send him." "That's whv I'm here." "I understand. And., believe me. 1 sympathize deeply. But " his voice vibrated with feeling "no private interest in-terest can be allowed to stand before the national interest. I had an only son in the navy. He asked me to let him volunteer for submarine duty iu the very early days nf the craft. 1 allowed it. He perished in the first submarine disaster. I did not grudge him to my count ry. ' ' He held" out a hand to Magnum and the scientist took it in silence. On the same day another telephone message from the unknown came through to Magnum. "Did you get the letter from your friend f ' ' ' ' l'cs. ' ' ' Have you any proposal to make!" ' ' I agree to yours. ' ' "Good! But play me no trick. Your Mr. Meredith will remain here with me until I know from Cologne that the report you send is quite satisfactory. Do not hope to deceive us with false information. ' ' "I will send the report. What address? ad-dress? ' ' "Marktgasse, IS III." "And the name?" "No name." "I agree to send it at once.' "I am glad you are reasonable. Meanwhile I will give your young friend a drink of milk. He is so very hungry hun-gry and thirsty. ' ' "Will you tell him what I am doing?" do-ing?" "Perhaps I may. Good-by!" By the same night train "which carried car-ried the document Cologne ward, Magnum Mag-num also traveled. A letter of introduction intro-duction to the British consul was with him and his revolver. He had nfl definite defi-nite plan of action yet in mind; he must build on his interview with the consul. A gale from the east, ice edged, flailed upon the admiralty pier at Dover. Even the optimistic stewards could nob oft'er their usual forecast of a fair passage pas-sage to Ostend. Outside, in the neck of the channel, legions of angry waves lashed against the bows of the mail packet, and though Magnum was a natural-born "good sailor,' ' he succumbed like every other traveler on board. Toward the end of the four-hour passage, pas-sage, exhausted by the seasickness, .but feeling quieter, Magnum took out from his pocketbook that pathetic message from Meredith to read it for the fiftieth fif-tieth time. It may have been that the strain of the sickness had altered his focus of vision. Whatever the explanation, explana-tion, a detail in the writing gripped at his attention for the first time. In the word starved the s, t and d were formed in a different manner to those letters in the rest of the sentence. And that "t " over which the pen had spluttered! splut-tered! It was a message within a message. mes-sage. Something street. St d street. Stafford street, perhaps, if there were a thoroughfare of such name or : yes, it might be Stamford street! Immeditely he hurried upstairs to the Marconi operator and sent off a wireless wire-less message to Scotland Yard: "Am returning by next boat. Have found a clew. Investigate at once any street beginning with 8 T and ending in D. Stronglv suspect Stamford street. "MAGNUM." Tt was 11 o'clock in the morning before be-fore he was back in London and in C'allaghau 's office, and a subordinate at once gave him good news: "Yes, sir, we believe you 're right. Mr. Callaghan Calla-ghan has been combing the neighborhood neighbor-hood of Stamford street, and he's heard of lights being seen in a row of empty houses there. If you care to wait here, sir, there may be fresh news coming in at any moment. ' ' . Magnum took a blank check from his pocket and filled it in for 500 pounds. "If Meredith is found there," he said, "you can turn this over to the polico orphanage fund." An hour later the expected message from Callaghan came in over the telephone. tele-phone. ' ' I 've got word of a man with a slight foreign accent, guttural, buying milk at a dairy near Stamford street. I'm certain it's our man." "Thank God!" exclaimed Magnum f crvently. M Probably he's got Mr. Meredith in one of those empty houses. It 's an ideal place for concealing him. No neighbors, no chance callers. But we'll have to proceed very cautiously, because be-cause I size up the man as dangerous." "I'm not afraid of risks. I'll search the houses myself." "There's the young fellow to, consider. con-sider. He's being held as hostage, re-mem re-mem her. He would be the one in danger. dan-ger. ' ' Magnum considered rapidly for a few minutes. "Do you think there is more than one of these blackmailers in the house ? ' ' " I 've only heard of a single foreigner for-eigner hereabouts. ' ' " Tn that, case Meredith would be fllone if the man went out. I'll return re-turn to my own office to wait for a possible telephone call. When t hat comes I 'II phono at once to you or ru assistant or yours waiting near Stamford Stam-ford street." "Yes, at the Waterloo Hospital for Children. That's quite close." "And while you're searching the houses 1 '11 try to keep the man busy in another direction." ' ' Excellent ! 1 ' " Yon 'II string a cordon round that district?" ' ' Rely on mo for t hat. ' Magnum returned to his laboratory nt Upper Thames street in a fever of impatience, im-patience, though he, realized the necessity neces-sity for the caution emphasized by Cnl-Inghan. Cnl-Inghan. There was nothing to be done but to wait for a message from Stamford Stam-ford street while the det cct ies wre at their search. A plan of convenient simplicity suggest sug-gest cr itself. When I he u n k nown plumed to Magnum's office a laboratory assistant would answer the i-a II and slate that the. consultant had just gone out , but was expected back a n v moment. mo-ment. Th is would probably ha ve the cfTct of keeping the man hanging i around telephone call boxes for a half hour at leat, and a clear space of time would be obtained which should prove sufficient for the police purpose--. Toward 7 o'clock in the eening the phone be in Mrignum's nftiro rung for attention. Starting out of a half do", he hock on rd to t he la bora to, --y boy 1 o answer.it as arranged. Tint even Is had taken an unforeseen turn. The a -.distant sent a t rou! tied look over to S'-icnt Ut and with a rcque; to ' ' h'dd ' the line," came to whisper rapidh: I "Thi" i somebody ele on the wire, j i r : not the man wh rise voice vim go j on the dictaphone. He sav? I'm to t.fl yon they don 't accept the report, a rid unless- von s'nd a genuine copv bv lo night's poM there will lie trouble. What shall I answer him. sir?" ''That von 're sent to find Mr. Magnum Mag-num at dinner, and he will Kf hack within ten mim;te. Say, phone again presently. Then keep him on tho wire as long as posibie. -' ' Magnum jammed on his hat, hurried into a tali lie had kept readv aif.ng for him and -cA to the Waterloo hospital. hos-pital. To his relief Cailaahan himself was there, faithful to the post of responsibility. re-sponsibility. They conferred rapidlv oyer the unexpected turn in the situation. situa-tion. There were now two men to deal with, and in all probability one of them was remaining to guard "Meredith. "I'll take the house where the lights were seen,"' said Magnum, "and enter it myself from the front. At the same time get your men on the roof of the row of houses and enter by that wav. It's dark, and the gale will drown noises." "It would be safer to wait for midnight," mid-night," answered Callaghan with the cautiousness of long experience. "Wo might oaten them asleep. Kern ember the Sidney street affair three men with automatics, and it needed a whole company of militia as well as the police po-lice force to handle them." But Magnum, torn with anxietr and forebodings over the fate of hi's voung protege, would not hear of delay. de-lay. " There "s only one man now in tha house to deal with," he rasped. "Good heavens, -wo must be incapables if wa can't surprise him back or front!" To Meredith, lying in an attic, chained up hand and foot to heavy staples in the floor, and gagged securely se-curely against any possibility of crying cry-ing out, came the sound of breaking glass from down below. Worn by that interminable week of ill-treatment and starvation, tears of relief came to his eyes. At last they had come to rescue him! The thick-set, heavy-jawed man with him in the room started up and grasped his automatic, then with infinite caution cau-tion passed out and descended the staire. An eternity of silence ensued. Meredith Mere-dith could do nothing. His position had always been helpless beyond any possibility of escape. Presently a face, grotesquely upside down, appeared at the grimy window. It was Callaghan, "being lowered from the roof by men holding his heels. Meredith clanked his chains to indicate indi-cate that he was alone in the attic. ( allaghan understood. A minute later he was prying up the window and effecting ef-fecting an entrance. Meredith was safe. But down below in that silent, light-less light-less house- a tense drama was working to its conclusion. Magnum had deliberately de-liberately smashed the glass of a front f round-floor window and had stumbled eavily against the door leading from the hallway, in order to call attention to his presence and draw the unknown away from Meredith. That done, he drew behind a fragment of frowsy curtain cur-tain in the hall and waited for footsteps. foot-steps. The blackness of night was in this ; Hghtless house. The tearing of the gale outside surfed over all lesser 1 noises. Y'et the creak of a strained board on the staira above cut shrilly to Mag- -rum's ear, and made him draw closer within the shelter of the curtain and hold his breath. Tho man above was very cautiously descending. M agnum wondered with a curious numb impersonal it v if he would bo alive ten minutes later. But, while he .listened, there came another sound, as of someone ascend- i ing from the underground region of ' the kitchen. What did this mean? Had! Callaghan 's assistants forced an entrance en-trance into tho "basement? Or was ono of them the man descending from j above? Magnum began to reproach himself tha t he had arranged no ig-nal ig-nal with the detectives by which they might recognize ono another during . the possible encounter inside the black- , ncss of the house. A mistake in j identity might he, disastrous. Ho do-; cided to be very wary before his finger pressed home the trigger of the revolver. A slapping noise came from the head of the kitchen stairs, as of a man who expected one step more and found it j non-existent. 1 Instantly from above, on the first floor, a shattering ronr( like a mine. ' explosion an automatic in action. And j then the blaze broke from the automatic auto-matic of the man below, a yell of pain nnd a headlong flight down the kitchen stairs. The man above leaped down in a pursuit of vicious ferocity. Magnum Mag-num caught a flying glimpse of a thick frame and heavy jaw; with unused revolver re-volver in hand, ho wearily followed. But his weapon ncer "came to trigger trig-ger point. Lending from the kitchen cellar to a Thames-side wharf (he after ward f ound) was an underground passage, a relic, of Sinmford street's history of crime, through which the blackmailers had been able to make their entrances and exits to the dosort.ed house without with-out the knowledge of neighbors nr police. po-lice. At the door of t his passage the final scene of the duel between the two men came to an ending nf deal li. Tliev were two partners. The one, returning from his telephone message, to Magnum, had heard tho smash in g of glass and t h o h t u m b 1 i n g and bad come upstairs from the kitchen fully prepared to find a detective in the house. The other, creeping down from above, had the same thought in mind. Their mistake was mutual. It probably saved Magnum. |