The Mistress of Mysteries
True Stories from the Notebook of
Mary E Holland, a Woman Detective
(1868-1915) |
Illustrated by
R.M. Brinkerhoff
(1880-1958) |
THE VANISHING FIREBUG
IN
one of the precinct stations of the
Chicago Fire Department there
hangs a dingy skin bag. The casual
visitor would never suspect its history
nor its purpose — but then the
casual visitor is not familiar with
the tools of the professional "fire-bug."
The skin bag occupies much
the same place in incendiarism as
the "jimmy" does in burglary. For
instance, the bag to which I refer
was one of three which caused a
hundred-thousand-dollar conflagration.
Suspended from the ceiling in a store-room
of a burning warehouse, it was discovered by
a squad of firemen, filled with ether, the fumes
escaping from a dozen punctured holes in its
sides. The flames sweeping the building were
already at the door of the room when the bag
was hurled through the window. Had the
advance of the firemen been two minutes later,
the trio who made the discovery would have
been blown into eternity. Ether explodes with
disastrous effect in the proper degree of heat.
There was no doubt that the two simultaneous
blasts, which preceded the discovery of
the blazing warehouse, came from other bags
suspended at strategic points, perhaps just above
the flames of a lamp or a candle. Sometimes
the fire-bug's skin bag is filled with kerosene.
The final analysis, of course, is the same. It
is seldom, however, that the bag is discovered.
Its obvious advantage is that it is always the
first object to be reached by the flames!
The fire-bug occupies a peculiar place in
the criminal encyclopedia. He shows less
physical daring, assumes less risk, and as a
general rule displays less ingenuity than any
of the other marauders of society. His crime
is planned on obvious lines. Generally he finds
little need for cunning. The very force which
he sets in motion covers his trail. The blazing
building that he leaves, calls to the world — but
calls in mockery.
The broken window betrays the burglar's
entrance. The blasted safe shows at once the
handiwork of the bank robber. The tell-tale
signature points the trail of the forger. The
crime of 1hc fire-bug alone leaves no evidence.
We may suspect but — suspicion will not win a
jury case. Ashes arc proof of destruction — but
not deliberate destruction.
We are just appreciating the menace of the
fire-bug, and his opportunities. We are just
awakening to the peril of the torch. We have
spent millions for fire protection, millions for
fire-fighting apparatus, but our measures have
been, designed to fight the conflagration — not
the skulking figure responsible for it. We are
shocked by the charge that a third, or maybe
a half or our national fire loss is due to the
incendiary. But, after all, the fact is not
startling. Its most significant thought is the
length of time it has taken us to find it out.
Human agency behind the mysterious fires
at Lawrenceville might never have been
suspected, and the climax toward which they were
directed might have been reached had it not
been for the discovery of half of a potato in
the shadow of a back fence! The fire-bug
can guard against everything but chance. . . . . Which
brings me at last to my story.
The chief of police leaned back in his chair
and glanced across at the president of the
Citizens Vigilance League uncertainly.
"I suppose, Mr. Raymond, the story should
begin with Stubbs' barn?"
THE president of the League, who was also
president of the town's largest bank, nodded
nervously. It had been easy enough to see during
my twenty minutes' conversation with him
that the situation was wearing on his nerves.
But it was obvious that something besides
hysteria was behind the hurry-up telegram that
had brought me three hundred miles through
the August night.
At a nod from me, the chief re-lighted his
cigar and continued:
"Of course, at the outset none of us
suspected a fire-bug. We never do. Stubbs' barn
was located on the edge of town, and as barns
go around here was a rather valuable piece of
property. It was a large frame structure,
almost new, and it burned like tinder. The fire
department had no chance. The chief thought
he was lucky to save the house. . . . Somebody
said a tramp, stealing a night's lodging, was
responsible. Somebody thought that Stubbs'
stable-boy had dropped a match.
"This was the second week in May. The
next week the Moran house burned. The family
were out of town on a visit. It was as much
of a wreck as the barn. We have a fairly good
fire department, but the place was doomed from
the start."
"An unoccupied house?" I interjected
thoughtfully.
"Well, not exactly. The Moran servant was
attending to things while the family were gone.
She was notoriously careless, and everybody
conceded at first that she was responsible. And
then came the Gibson barn, and the first
suspicion that something was amiss. Of course,
there had been other blazes in the meantime,
but we have pretty well eliminated them from
the case. The Gibson barn was one of the
largest in town, but it took something less than
two hours to reduce it to charred timbers.
IT was Kelly of the Herald who began the
rumors of a fire-bug. Kelly has an imagination
that will make news when he can't fill his
paper any other way, and most of us put his
article down as one of his ‘pipe dreams.' When
the Benson and Sturgis warehouse went the
next week, though, we began to look at the
situation a little more seriously.
"The warehouse was a twenty-thousand-dollar
property, and it had ten thousand dollars'
worth of goods inside. The alarm came about
midnight. By morning, there wasn't enough
left to make a good-sized bonfire. The
insurance was big enough to cover the loss pretty
well, but that wasn't the point. That fire burned
with too much system to look natural. It
swept that building from end to end, and this
in spite of the fact that there was hardly a
breath of wind that night. The next day there
were some pertinent questions asked in town.
It didn't need Kelly's article in the Herald to
stir the popular imagination. Of course, a poor
electric light circuit might have been
responsible, or somebody might have dropped a match,
but it looked a whole lot more like the application
of four or five gallons of kerosene in the
right places.
"The whole discussion might have died down,
though, if it hadn't been for Kelly's discovery
of the potato in the back yard of the Riggs
house when it burned five nights later."
"Potato?" I echoed.
The chief smiled glumly.
"I'll give Kelly credit for a rather clever bit
of detective work. You see, he had convinced
himself that a definite human agency was back
of it all and he started on a still-hunt for clews.
He was one of the first at the Riggs place when
the alarm came in but it was impossible to get
inside the house even then. He was skulking
around in the yard when near the alley fence, he
happened on a half of a raw potato. But this
wasn't the most curious part of it. In its center
was a small round hole which looked as though
it might hare been bored with something about
the size of a nail.
"I don't know whether you have ever lived
in a small town but if you have, you know
that it is the custom of a good many grocers
in a rural community to use a potato to plug
the spouts of kerosene cans. Kelly sniffed at
the small round hole. The odor which still
clung to it could not be mistaken.
HE dropped the potato into his pocket, and the
next morning learned that the Riggs family
burned gas and electricity, and never used kerosene.
And the same was true of both of the
adjoining neighbors. It was then that the
detectives of the insurance companies went to
work."
"Was the potato traced further?" I asked.
The chief shook his head.
"They narrowed down the grocers who
plugged kerosene cans in that manner to eight.
From this list something like sixty-two cans
of coal oil and kerosene had gone out during
the two days before the fire. To follow the
trail further was practically hopeless. This
took us up to a month ago — and the burning of
the city hall. So far this has been the biggest
fire on the list.
"The city hall was an old-fashioned three-storied
frame building There was more or less
talk last year about tearing it down and building
a new one. . . . It was not necessary to tear
it down. They were able to save the walls of
one end of it, but the whole thing might as
well have gone. There must have been a ton
of documents and books in it and it blazed like
a match-box. The insurance was heavy enough,
but the gross loss was something like fifty
thousand. This doesn't include the municipal
records of course. Some of them were in vaults,
but enough of them were destroyed to make the
council sit up and take notice. It offered a
reward of five hundred dollars for proof of
incendiarism and another five hundred dollars for
the conviction of the criminal. The Citizens'
League was organized on the same night as the
council meeting and added another thousand
dollars to the reward.
"And the suspicious fires have stopped?" I
questioned.
"There have been two more since then, but
both in private buildings, a house and a saloon.
The last alarm was three nights ago."
"Were all of the buildings destroyed,
of frame?"
"Without exception."
"And the owners have rebuilt or planned to
do so?"
"In all cases, but one or two of the barns.
Oh, business isn't suffering! The Benson and
Sturgis people let a contract for a property
worth double the building that was burned. But
they are making it of cement this time! The
council is to hear the bids for the new city
hall at its meeting tonight. I understand there
is some lively competition. At a special meeting
a week after the fire, it was decided to
rebuild at once and use one of the sets of
plans that were submitted last year when the
proposition was first discussed. They have
limited the amount they will spend at a hundred
thousand."
"Rather a tidy sum?" I continued.
"Oh, the new building operations that the
fire-bug has caused will run well toward two
hundred thousand dollars. Some people seem
to think it hasn't been a bad thing for the
town! But they are not those who have seen
their property sacrificed."
The chief tossed his cigar to the floor. President Raymond of the Citizens' League looked at
his watch.
"Has no person been accused or suspected?"
I asked.
The chief hesitated.
"No!" he said abruptly.
"Oh, come now, Ronalds," broke in Mr.
Raymond, "tell her the stories that are being
circulated about Jack Burr!"
The chief flushed.
"I didn't think them important enough to be
repeated. Burr is a friend of mine, Mr.
Raymond. I have known him for twenty years.
Those yarns about him are nothing but the most
outrageous political libel!"
"Then the sooner they are nailed the
better!" said Mr. Raymond briskly.
"And who is Burr?" I asked.
"He was the former head of the fire
Department," answered the chief more hesitatingly
than he had yet spoken. "Six months ago he
resigned. He and the mayor couldn't agree."
Last month he announced his candidacy for
Sheriff. It is easy enough to understand the
motive behind all of these tom-fool yarns!"
"And what are the yarns?"
"That Jack Burr started the fires to get
back at the city administration!"
IT
was at just twelve o'clock on my second
night in Lawrenceville that the alarm of the
fire at the high school building pealed out. I had
not yet retired and was among the first of the
guests' at the Mercury Hotel to telephone to
the office for information as to the scene of
the latest conflagration.
With the excited answer of the clerk, I
stepped to the window, and an angry red was
already blazing into the sky, and, in the five
minutes since the first summons of the fire bell,
the street below had filled with a rushing
crowd. A clatter of hoofs from the engine team
of one of the outlying stations raced past as
I bent down. It was evident that a general
alarm had already gone out.
I seized my hat, and rang for the elevator.
When I reached the pavement, I saw that the
crowd contained almost as many women as men.
There was something like hysteria in the air.
Bedlam had broken loose. Mechanically the
thought came to me that should the identity of
the fire-bug be announced at such a moment there
would be no need for the courts to pass sentence.
The square in which the high school building
was located was a mass of feverish humanity.
The building, itself, was already a great
hissing furnace. The flames were sweeping its
roof like a huge red surf. In the strange,
ghastly glow the faces of the crowd stood out
like the figments of a hideous dream.
The combined forces of the Lawrenceville
Fire Department were working with frantic
Energy, but already with something of grim
Hopelessness. It was as though a score of fiery
arms had embraced the building simultaneously.
It was a rambling frame structure, to which I
judged several additions had been made from
time to time as the educational needs of the
community demanded — just such a building as
would fall a ready prey to a thoroughly launched
fire. And it was evident that even before the
first response to the alarm could possibly have
come the flames had gained a menacing headway.
I elbowed my way through the crowd until
I reached the opposite side of the conflagration.
Here we could see that a half dozen of the firemen
had gained the roof and were laboring
with axe and hose almost in the zone of the
flames. It was an heroic fight, but a useless
one. In sullen surrender they were being forced
back toward their swaying ladders. On the
ground below a throng of volunteers from the
citizens were laboring at the lines of hose.
IT
was possible to see now even more clearly
than at first the extent and violence of the
fire. The onslaught of the flames must have
sprung up in each of the three stories at
almost the same time. Even a novice would
have doubted the theory of accidental origin. I
will confess that I had found myself somewhat
skeptical of the charges of the Lawrenceville
incendiarism. But there was no longer a possibility
for argument in the face of the scene
before me. The flames moved with the precision
of a well generaled army.
I stepped again to the front. There was a
curious fascination in this midnight destruction
— in the very ruthlessness of its ravages.
At one of the throbbing engines I found a
haggard faced man whom I recognized as the
fire chief on whom I had called during the
morning.
He stepped back, breathing heavily, and
motioned me to his side.
"This clinches it!" he said.
I looked at him questioningly, and he held
out a rubber glove. It exuded the faint, but
unmistakable odor of ether.
"We found it in one of the class-rooms," he
explained significantly. "There wasn't time for
a further search. We had to fight our way back
through six feet of fire as it was!
I
EXAMINED the glove curiously. The glow
of the burning building made a noon-day
brilliance, but there were no betraying hints of
ownership in the clue. It was an ordinary
rubber glove, the kind frequently used by
electricians in repairing a dangerous circuit, and it
was obvious that it had seen little service. It
did not contain either the name of maker or
dealer. I passed it back, feeling that the chief
was again surveying me.
"The glove isn't the only thing," he said.
"This fire establishes what I have suspected
for some time. No one could have set this
kind of a blaze or that at the city hall who
was not familiar with building construction!
I have had fifteen years in the department, and
I know that it is one thing to set fire to a
building, especially a large one, and quite
another proposition to burn that building to the
ground!"
"You mean that we are dealing with someone
who knows the technical side of the building
trade?" I asked.
The chief nodded.
"Some one who knows as much about erecting
houses as burning them!' he said grimly
as he turned back to his post.
With a final glance at the roaring building,
I retraced my way to the hotel. In my room,
I spread out the back copies I had obtained of
the Lawrenceville Herald, covering the period
since the first intimation of the presence of a
fire-bug.
After an hour I laid three of the papers
aside, and turned to them for a second reading.
The earliest dated issue told of the letting of
the contract for the new Benson and Sturgis
warehouse. I quote its pertinent paragraph:
"It was announced this morning that the
Benson and Sturgis Company has awarded the
building of its new sixty-thousand-dollar warehouse
to the firm of Homer Maxwell and Son
of this city. The competition for the award was
quite lively. Ten estimates for the work were
submitted, three from local concerns, and the
remainder from out of the city. It is a significant
fact for the Lawrenceville boosters that
the two lowest in the list were from firms
in this city, the plum going to the Maxwell
people by a margin of less than two thousand
dollars. The nearest competitor was George
Worton, who has been extensively advertising
during the last few months, it will be recalled,
new cement building blocks. The design
suggested for the new warehouse by the Maxwell
firm will also be of cement, and it is stated,
practically fire-proof."
THE
second article in the Herald, published the
week after the burning of the city hall, told
of the special council meeting to take action on
the erection of a new municipal building:
"With the announcement that the Lawrenceville
city government will spend one hundred
thousand dollars in the erection of a new city
hall, speculation as to who will be the winner
of the contract already promises some interesting
angles. It is understood that at least three
local firms will enter the competition, all of
whom submitted plans for the new building when
the subject was discussed last year. With
perhaps ten out-of-town contractors also in the
bidding, the final result will be watched with
unusual attention. Representatives of two St.
Louis firms, and Dryden Maxwell and George
Worton, the Lawrenceville contractors, were
present at the council meeting last night and
watched the proceedings with close interest."
THE third issue of the Herald that held my
attention bore the date of the day before, and
gave the account of the council session, which
awarded the city hall contract, as follows:
"When Chairman O'Brien of the new municipal
building committee arose to make his
report, a hush fell over the council chamber. The
bids closed at six P. M., and it was understood
that at least two sealed estimates were passed
to the committee almost on the stroke of the
last hour of the competition. The committee had
been closeted in secret session until the clerk of
council called the roll at eight o'clock.
"'We have considered sixteen bids,' reported
Mr. O'Brien, 'and have thrown out one because
it failed to comply with the specifications that
we announced. Of the remaining fifteen, the
highest calls for one hundred and forty thousand
dollars, and the lowest for ninety-two thousand
dollars. Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of
announcing that this estimate comes from our local
firm of Homer Maxwell and Son.'
"In a burst of applause, council formally
voted the acceptance of the report. At the
conclusion of the vote, Dryden Maxwell, who was
present in the audience, was smothered with
congratulations. Among the first to take his
hand was George Worton, the second in the list
of bidders, who was beaten out by just fifteen
hundred dollars."
I laid aside the paper, and strolled to the
window. The flames from the burning high
school building were still throwing great red
waves into the sky. I stood staring down at the
homeward-bound crowd in the street. In the
back of my mind, the emphatic declaration
of the fire-chief was again forming: "No
one could have started a blaze like this
who was not familiar with building
construction."
I was conscious that I was trying
to form a mental picture of Mr. Dryden
Maxwell.
I turned again to the newspapers,
reviewing the series of conflagrations,
beginning with a barn blaze
and ending at the most prominent
buildings in the city. There had been
a definite scale of advancement. There
was nothing hap-hazard in the stages
of climax. It was as though the
torch of destruction had been gradually
testing itself, making sure of its
skill — or maybe purposely advancing
on its ultimate goal by a circuitous
route to conceal the method of its
approach. By the own admission of
the chief of police, had it not been for
an imaginative reporter, restless at
a dearth of news, and his chance
discovery of the tell-tale potato, even
yet the suspicions of Lawrenceville
might not have been crystalized into
a definite channel.
I WONDERED
if the firm of Homer
Maxwell & Son would also win the
contract for re-building the high
school!
My telephone rang abruptly. The
chief of police was on the wire, and
in his voice was a note of elation.
"Tonight's blaze has straightened
one kink in our riddle," he
announced. "Jack Burr has been out
of town for two days. I had a letter
from him this evening. This clears
him unless they can prove that he
sneaked back in an invisible
aeroplane!"
"Can you give me the address of
his letter?" I asked.
"National Hotel, Peoria."
I JOTTED it down when I hung up
the receiver. I have known much
more clever alibis than this. It is
one of the cardinal rules of the
detective to maintain an open mind —
to fit the crime to the criminal, not
the criminal to the crime. And in
my suddenly awakened suspicion of
the golden harvest of the Maxwell
contracting firm I didn't, care to
neglect other possibilities in the case.
As you will see, however, in spite
of my precautions, I did allow
myself to be blinded — blinded to the
most significant clue of all, which
even then was staring up at me.
I spent a busy morning. The
tangible clues in the case, to date,
ranged themselves as follows:
The rubber glove found at the high
school building.
The fact that the fire had been
started by ether explosions, and the
inference that the peculiar thoroughness
of the conflagration could only
have been accomplished by someone
with a technical knowledge of building
construction.
I selected the last angle as the
starting point of my day's work, and
with the sudden influx of business,
gained by the Maxwell firm, in mind,
paid a visit to President Raymond of
the Citizens' League. But it was not
in this character that I sought him.
"As a banker," I began, "you are
necessarily familiar with the financial
rating of most of the business
firms in town. Can you tell me if
any of your leading contractors have
been pressed for money — say in the
last six months?"
His brow knotted.
"For instance, Homer Maxwell and
Son?"
"I can answer that question at
once," he replied, his face clearing.
"The firm has banked with us for
forty years. It is one of the soundest financially in Lawrenceville. The
older Mr. Maxwell has talked of
retiring this fall, and it was much
against his wishes that the firm took
the city hall contract. This will keep
him in the harness for another year."
I arose dubiously. This was hardly
the answer that I had expected.
MY next visit took me to police
headquarters. The chief was
already at work on the ether clue. Eight
of his men were scouring the local
drug stores. There was little promise,
however, of tangible discoveries. A
man of the calibre of the Lawrenceville
incendiary would hardly leave
such an obvious trail as an order for
a wholesale supply of ether at any of
the city drug stores — even provided
that he could get it from such a
source without a satisfactory explanation.
The chances were that he had
either made his purchase at a
distant point in person — or had had his
supply shipped to him. With this
latter thought, I called on the reporter
of the industrious imagination, Kelly
of the Herald, pausing on my way at
a telegraph office to dispatch a query to
Peoria to establish the alibi of the
absent Jack Burr.
I found Kelly to be a tall, clean-cut
young chap, with the proverbially
enthusiastic newspaper smile at the
prospect of a big "story." He turned
from a battered typewriter, and
swept a litter of papers from a chair
for me.
I took him frankly into my confidence.
"Would it be possible to trace a
shipment of ether during the last two
months at the local express offices?"
His instant assurance was that of
the born reporter.
"If such a shipment has been made,
I can find it out! There are six offices
in town, and the agents at four of
them are under personal obligations
to me. I can let you have a report
by noon."
HE did but it was emphatically in
the negative. There had been no
order of ether handled by the express
companies even for the drug stores,
and Kelly brought the additional
information that, the search of the
police on the same clue had been
equally fruitless.
I ate a moody lunch, and then took
a street car for the office of Maxwell
and Son. To the stenographer, who
greeted me, I boldly gave my official
card. She returned a moment later,
with a short, harassed-looking man,
whom she introduced as Mr. Phillips,
the office manager.
"Mr. Homer Maxwell has been ill
in bed for a week," he informed me.
"Mr. Dryden Maxwell left on the
midnight train Tuesday for New
York."
It was on Tuesday evening that
the council awards for the city hall
had been made. Evidently the younger
Mr. Maxwell had gone directly to the
railroad station. Most emphatically
all of my clues were leading against
the proverbial stone wall! I did not
seem to be getting anywhere.
At the hotel I found a telegram
from Peoria. Jack Burr had
registered at the National Hotel Monday
night, and was still there.
I tucked the telegram into my bag,
hesitated, and then turned back to
the street. My remedy for a knotty
problem is a long walk. I had quite
obviously reached a point where I
must begin over again, where I must
turn about and adjust myself anew.
But how?
IF there had been no developments
from the clues in our possession,
that fact did not alter the significance
of the clues. They still
remained undiminished — still remained
a starting point. I had failed to apply
them correctly, that was all. But
what, other angle of investigation
remained?
An hour later I turned again into
police headquarters and approached
the chief.
"Let me see the rubber glove that
was found at the high school last
night," I said.
From a pigeon hole in his desk,
the chief produced it glumly. He
was evidently in much the same mood
as that into which I found myself
drifting.
"Nothing doing in that direction!"
he said morosely. "If this thing
doesn't clear pretty soon, they'll be
taking me to a sanitorium! For
half a —"
His sentence trailed into a staring
silence. I had turned the glove inside out. On the lining, just at the
edge of the finger tips, where the
inscription would have been quite
invisible unless the whole glove had
been reversed, was the tiny, gilt-lettered
legend:
"Murray & Williams,
Hospital Supplies,
St. Louis, Mo."
|
The chief mechanically lighted a
fresh cigar.
"That's a start, of course, but I
don't see how it is going to help us
much. We simply made a mistake in
presuming this was an electrician's
glove. It was evidently designed for
a surgeon's use. The firm that made
it is probably a wholesale house, and
places a good many thousand pairs
in the course of a year! How are
they going to tell us who bought
these particular gloves?" said he,
pointing at the article.
"You are assuming that the firm
deals only in gloves!" I
reminded him. "I believe that ether is also a
hospital supply!"
FIFTEEN minutes later a telegraph
boy was racing back to his office
with a message to my St. Louis
agent. It was seven o'clock when the
answer came, and when I read it, I
flung it to the floor in my disappointment.
Its tidings were the following:
"Records of Murray and Williams
show twenty ounces ethylic ether and
one pair surgeon's rubber gloves sold
to Dr. Harvey Radcliff, 2030
Reynolds Avenue. June 18. Only sale of
the kind reported."
Our trail had failed again!
The knock at my door was repeated
twice before I roused myself.
Kelly of the Herald entered the room.
"I thought I would drop around to
see if I could be of any service," he
said beaming.
"Service?" I almost snapped. I
stepped toward the crumpled telegram,
but he was before me.
"Read it," I said indifferently, "and
see the result of a wasted day's
work!"
