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Show 7 SERIAL v yz story pg 1 elusive ' "'S,"," Jit, l&tia 'it lift 'tiffPiWif -Mfc iua.': J SSABELf y v I By I JACQUES FUTRELLE ! I Itlujtratlans by M. KZTTNER Copyright. lyos, bv Tho Asno,Mtel Similar MaufiElnes. Copyright 1W1, bj The Bobbp-MerrlU Coniptmy. 13 8YNOPSIS. Count dl Roslnl, the Italian ambassador. ambas-sador. Is at dinner with diplomats when a messenger summons him to the embassy, em-bassy, where a beautiful young woman asks for a ticket to the embassy ball. The ticket Is made out in the name of Miss Isabel Thorne. Chief Campbell of tho secret service, and Mr. Grimm, his head detective, are warned that a plot is brewing: in Washington, and Grimm goes to tile state ball for information. His attention at-tention Is called to Miss Isabel Thorne. who with her' companion, disappears. A shot Is heard and Senor Alvarez of the Mexican legation, is found wounded. Grimm Is assured Miss Thorne did it: he visits her, demanding knowledge of the affair, and arrests Pietro Petrozinnl. Miss Thorne visits an old bomb-maker, and they discuss a wonderful experiment. Fifty thousand dollars is stolen from the office of Senor Rodriguez, the minister from Venezuela, and while detectives are Investigating In-vestigating the robbery Miss Thorne appears ap-pears as a guest of tho legation. Grimm accuses her of the theft: the money is restored, but a new mystery occurs in the disappearance of Monsieur Bolssegur the French ambassador. Elusive Miss Thorne reappears, bearing a letter which states that the ambassador has been kidnaped kid-naped and demanding ransom. The ambassador am-bassador returns and again strangely disappears. dis-appears. Later he is rescued from an old house In the suburbs. CHAPTER XVI. Letters From Jail. For two weeks Signor Pietro Petro-zinni, Petro-zinni, known to the Secret Service as an unaccredited agent of the Italian government, and the self-confessed assailant as-sailant of Senor Alvarez of the Mexican Mexi-can legation, had been taking his ease in a cell. He had been formally arraigned ar-raigned and committed without bail to await the result of the bullet wound ! which had been inflicted upon the dip- lomatist from Mexico at the German Embassy Ball, and, since then, undis-! undis-! turbed and apparently careless of the . outcome, he had spent his time in reading and smoking. He had an-l an-l swered questions with only a curt yes j or no when he deigned to answer them at all; and there had been no callers or Inquiries for him. He had abruptly declined a suggestion of counsel. Twice each day, morning and night, he had asked a question of the jailer who brought his simple meals. "How is Senor Alvarez?" ' "He is still in a critical condition." ! The answer was always the same. Whereupon the secret agent would ; return to his reading with not a shadow of uneasiness or concern on his face. Occasionally there came a courteous little note from Miss Thorne, which he read without emotion, afterward casting cast-ing them aside or tearing them up. ' He never answered them. And then i one day there came another note which, for no apparent reason", seemed to stir him from his lethargy. Outwardly Out-wardly it was like all the others, but when Senor Petroziunl scanned the sheet his eyes lighted strangely, and I he stood staring down at it as though to hide a sudden change of expression in his face. His gaze was concentrated concen-trated on two small splotches of ink where, it .seemed, the pen had scratched asu'Miss Thorne had signed her name. The guard stood at the barred door for a moment, then started to turn away. The prisoner stopped him with a quick gesture. "Oh, Guard, may I have a glass of milk, please?" he asked. "No ice. I prefer it tepid." He thrust a small coin between the bars; the guard accepted it and passed on. Then, still standing at the door, the prisoner read the note again: "My Dear Friend: "I understand, from an Indirect source, that there has been a marked improvement in Senor Alvarez's condition, con-dition, and I am hastening to send you the good news. There is every hope ! that within a short while, if he con-j con-j tinues to improve, we can arrange a bail bond, and you will be free until the time of trial, anyway. I "Might it not be well for you to ! consult an attorney at once? Drop me a line to let me know you received this. Sincerely, "ISABEL THORNE." Finally the prisoner tossed the note on a tiny table in a corner of his cell, and resumed his reading. After a time the guard returned with the milk. I "Would It be against the rules for me to write an answer . to this?" queried Signor Petrozinnl, and he Indicated In-dicated the note. "Certainly not," was the reply. "If i might trouble you, then, for pen and ink and paper?" suggested the signor and he smiled a little. "Be- tieve me, I would prefer to get them for myself." ! "I guess that's right," the guard ' grinned good-naturedly. I Again he went away and the prls- oner sat thoughtfully sipping the milk. He took half of it, then lighted a cigarette, cig-arette, puffed it once or twice and per-mitti per-mitti J the light to die. After a iittle there came again the clatter of the guard's feet on the cement pavement, and the writing materials were thrust through the bars. "Thank you," said the prisoner. The guard went on, with a nod, and a moment later the signor heard the clangor of a steel door down the corridor cor-ridor as it was closed and locked. He leaned forward in his chair with half-closed eyes, listening for a long time, then rose and noiselessly approached ap-proached the cell door. Again he listened lis-tened intently, after which he resumed his seat. He tossed away the cigarette ciga-rette he had and lighted a fresh one, afterward holding the note over the flame of the match. Here and there, where the paper charred in the heat, a letter or word stood out from the bare whitness of the paper, and finally a message complete appeared between the innocuous ink-written lines. The prisoner read it greedily: "Am privately Informed there is little chance of Alvarez's recovery. Shall I arrange escape for you, or have ambassador intercede? Would advise former, as the other might take months, and meeting to sign treaty alliance al-liance would be dangerously delayed." Signor Petrozinnl permitted the sputtering flame to ignite the paper, and thoughtfully watched the blaze destroy It. The last tiny scrap dropped on the floor, burned out, and he crushed the ashes under his heel. Then he began to write: "My Dear Miss Thorne: "Many thanks for your courteous little lit-tle note. I am delighted to know of the Improvement in Senor Alvarez's condition. I had hoped that my impulsive impul-sive act in shooting him would not end in a tragedy. Please keep me informed in-formed of any further change In his condition. As yet I do not see 'the necessity of consulting an attorney, but later I may be compelled to do bo. "Respectfully, "PIETRO PETROZINNL" This done the secret agent carefully cleaned the tfik from the pen, wiping it dry with his handkerchief, then thrust it into the half empty glass of milk. The fluid clung to the steel nib thinly; he went on wrfting with it, between the lines of ink: "I am in no danger. I hold credentials creden-tials to United States, which, when presented, will make me responsible only to the Italian government as spe- The Prisoner Read It Greedily. cial envoy, according to international law. Arrange escape for one week from tonight; use any money necessary. neces-sary. Make careful arrangements for the test and signing of compact for two nights after." Again the prisoner cleaned the steel nib, after which he put it back In the bottle of ink, leaving it there. He waved the sheet of paper back and forth to dry it, and at last scrutinized it minutely, standing under the light from the high-up window of his cell. Letter by letter the milk evaporated, leaving the sheet perfectly clean and white except for the ink-written message. mes-sage. This sheet he folded, placed in an envelope, and addressed. Later the guard passed along the corridor, and Signor Petrozinnl thrust the letter out to him. "Be good enough to post that, please," he requested. "It isn't sealed. I don't know if your prison rules require re-quire you to read the letters that go out. If so, read it, or have it read, then seal it." For answer the guard dampened the flap of the envelope, sealed it, thrust it into his pocket and passed on. The secret agent sat down again, and sipped his milk meditatively. One hour later Mr. Grimm, accompanied accom-panied by Johnson, came out of a photographer's dark room In Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania Avenue with a developed negative nega-tive which he sat on a rack to dry. At the end of another hour he was sitting at his desk studying, under a magnifying magni-fying glass, a finished print of the negative. Word by word he was - writing on a slip of paper what his magnifying glass gave him and so. curiously enough, it came to paw that Miss Thorne and Chief Campbell of the Secret Service were reading the hidden, mllk-wrltten message at almost al-most the identical moment. "Johnson got Petrozlnnl's letter from the postman," Mr. Grimm was explaining. "I opened it, photographed photo-graphed it, sealed it again and re-mailed re-mailed It. There was not more than half an hour's delay;, and MIbs Thorne can not possibly know of it." He paused a moment. "It's an odd thing that writing such as that is absolutely invisible to the naked eye, and yet when photographed becomes deciper-J able in the negative." "What do you make of it?" Mr. Campbell asked. The guIlelesB blue eyes were alive with eagerness. "Well, he's right, of course, about not being in danger," said Mr. Grimm. "If he came with credentials as special spe-cial envoy this govrnment must re spect them, even If Senor Alvare dies, and leave it to his own government govern-ment to punish him. If we were officially offi-cially aware that he has such credentials cre-dentials I doubt if we would have the right to keep him confined; we would merely have to hand him over to the Italian embassy and demand his punishment. pun-ishment. And, of course, all that makes him more dangerous than ever." "Yes, I know that," said the chief a little Impatiently. "But who is this man?" , "Who is this man?" Mr. Grimm repeated re-peated as if surprised at the question. "I was looking for Prince Benedetto d'Abruzzl, of Italy. I have found him." Mr. Campbell's clock-like brain ticked tick-ed over the situation in detail. "It's like thlB," Mr. Grimm elucidated. eluci-dated. "He has credentials which he knows will free him if he is forced to present them, but I imagine they were given him more for protection in an emergency like this than for Introducing Intro-ducing him to our government. As the matter stands he can't afford to discover himself by using those credentials, cre-dentials, and yet, if the Latin compact com-pact is signed, he must be free. Remember, Re-member, too, that he is accredited from three countries Italy, France and Spain." He was Bllent for a moment. mo-ment. "Naturally his escape from prison would preserve his incognito, and at the same time permit him to sign the compact" There was silence for a long time. "I believe the -situation is without precedent," said Mr. Campbell slowly. "The special envoy of three gTeat powers held for attempted !" "Officially we are not aware of his purpose, or hjs identity," Mr. Grimm reminded him. "Tf he escaped it would clarify the situation tremendously." tremen-dously." "If he escaped!" repeated Mr. Campbell Camp-bell musingly. ' "But, of course, the compact would not be signed, at least In this country," coun-try," Mr. Grimm went on tentatively. Mr. Campbell gazed straight into the listless eyes of the young man for a minute or more and gradually full understanding un-derstanding came home to him. Finally Final-ly he nodded his head. "Use your own judgment, Mr. Grimm," he directed. CHAPTER XVII. A Call on the Warden. The restful silence of night lay over the great prison. Here and there in the grim corridors a guard dozed in the glare of an electric light; and In the office, too, a desk light glimmered where the warden sat at his desk, poring over a report. Once he glanced up at the clock it was five minutes of eleven and then' he went on with his reading. After a little the silence was broken by the. whir of the clock and the first sharp stroke of the hour; and at Just that moment the door from the street opened and a man entered. He was rather tall and slender, and a sinister black mask hid his face from the quickly raised eyes of the warden. For a bare fraction of a second the) two men stared at each other, then, instinctively, in-stinctively, the warden's right hand , moved toward the open drawer of his desk where a revolver lay, and his left toward several electrically connected con-nected levers. The intruder noted both gestures, and, unarmed himself, stood silent The warden was first to speak. "Well, what is it?" "You have a prisoner here, Pietro Petrozinni," was the reply, In a pleasant pleas-ant voice. "I have coms.to demand his release." The warden's right hand was raised above the desk top, and the revolver in it clicked warningly. "You have come to demand his release, re-lease, eh?" he queried. He still sat motionless, with his eyes fixed on the black mask. "How did you pass the outside guard?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) |