“Another one,” added Burke excitedly. “He stayed at the hotel—jealous as the the deuce of Valcour, too, they say. She was stopping at the hotel. You can imagine that Sanchez and Sinclair are not—well—just exactly pals,” finished Burke. “Any one else?”
“Oh, several others,” said Kennedy. “We were introduced and sat next to a Mrs. Hawley.”
“She’s a peculiar woman, as nearly as I can learn,” remarked Burke. “I don’t think she liked Valcour much. I haven’t been able to make out yet whether it was just because her interests were similar to those of Sinclair or whether there was something more to it, but if the Colonel would only say the word, I guess she wouldn’t stop long in saying ‘Yes.’ You see, I’ve only started on the case—just got into New York and haven’t had a chance to see any of these people yet. I’m giving you only the impressions I got out there from the people I talked to. Sinclair, as nearly as I can make out, ‘loves the ladies,’ to quote the cabaret song to that effect, but I don’t think there is any particular lady.”
“It’s a peculiar situation,” chimed in Craig. “Señora Ruiz, it seemed to me, thinks that Sanchez is just about right. And he is a rather striking-looking fellow, too. There’s one person, though, Burke, that I didn’t see or hear about, who interests me. Did you hear anything about a chap named Morelos?”
“Morelos—Morelos,” repeated Burke. “The name is familiar. No—I didn’t hear anything about him, in this case. But—why, yes. He wouldn’t be with these people. He’s one of the Revolutionist junta, here in the city. These people are all Government supporters.”
“I thought as much,” agreed Kennedy. “But you know him?”
“I never had anything to do with him,” replied Burke. “But I believe the Government—our Government—has had a good deal of trouble with him about the embargo on arms, since it was reestablished. He has been shipping them down there when he gets a chance. I can find out all about him for you, though.”
“I wish you would,” said Craig, “but the plans—how did they happen to be in Westport? What connection did Sinclair have with them?”
“Well, you see, the thing was the invention of Colonel Sinclair,” explained Burke. “I saw him, and although I couldn’t get him to talk much about these people—I suppose he was afraid to, for fear of his interests in Mexico—he was ready enough to talk about his invention. He told me he had never patented it, that it was too valuable to patent. He has been working on it for years, and only recently perfected it. As soon as it seemed likely that there might eventually be hostilities, he took a trip to Washington and gave it outright to the Government.”
“Mighty patriotic,” I commented.
“Yes,” agreed Burke. “The Colonel is a big man all right. You see this was one of his hobbies. He has spent thousands of dollars of his own money on it. There were two sets of plans made—one which he took to Washington and one which he kept him self out on his estate on Long Island. His own plans out there are those that have been stolen, not the plans that he gave to the Government.”
“The Government had accepted them, then?” queried Craig.
“Yes, indeed. They sent experts up to look at his machine, went over the thing thoroughly. Oh, there is no doubt about it.”
“You certainly have made a good start,” commented Kennedy.
“I haven’t had much time, it’s true,” said Burke modestly. “Sinclair had Washington on long-distance as soon as he discovered the theft, and I was taken off a case and hustled up to Westport immediately, without much chance to find out what it was all about.”
“What did you find up there?” asked Kennedy.
Burke shook his head.
“As far as I can make out,” he answered, “it must have been a most remarkable theft. The plans were stolen from Sinclair’s safe, in his own library. And you can imagine that Sinclair is not the sort who would have an old-fashioned, antiquated safe, either. It was small, but one of the latest type.”
“What did they do—drill it or use soup?” cut in Craig.
“Neither, as far as I could see,” replied Burke. “That’s perhaps the most remarkable feature of the whole thing. How the fellow got into the safe is more than I can figure out. There wasn’t a mark of violence on it. Yet it had been opened. Not a soul in the world knew the combination except Sinclair, and he says that if he should happen to forget it or to die the safe would have to be drilled open. But they got in, nevertheless, and they seemed to know just what to take and the value that might be attached to it.”
As Burke proceeded with the details of the amazing case, Kennedy became more and more interested. For the moment, he forgot all about Valcour, or at least concluded that we had unexpectedly crossed a trail that would aid in the solution of that case.
BURKE had drawn from his capacious pocket a small but rather heavy apparatus, and, as we gathered about, displayed it under the light of the electric lamp overhead.
“Sinclair found this thing in his study the next morning,” he explained. “The thieves, whoever they were, must have left it in their hurry to get away after they found the plans.”
I looked at it uncomprehendingly. It was a small box, flattened so that it could be easily carried in a coat-pocket.
Craig opened it. Inside was what seemed to be a little specially constructed dry battery, and in another compartment a most peculiar instrument, something like a diminutive flat telephone transmitter. It was connected by flexible silk-covered wires to ear-pieces that fitted over the head, after the manner of the headgear used by telephone operators or operators in wireless.
“I can make nothing out of it,” confessed Burke, as Kennedy turned the thing over and over, shook it, fitted it on his head, examined it again, and then replaced the whole thing in its neat, compact box.
“I suppose you have no objection to my keeping this for a day or so?” he asked.
“None—if you can tell me what it is,” agreed Burke.
“You are positive that the safe had been opened?” asked Kennedy a moment later.
“We have Sinclair’s word,” asserted Burke. “That is all I know, and I assume that he is telling the truth. There couldn’t be any object in giving the invention to the Government and then robbing himself. No, if you knew Sinclair you’d know that about a thing like this he is as straight as a string. I feel that I can say positively that the papers were in the safe when it was locked by him for the night. He told me he put them there himself. And when he opened the safe in the morning they were gone.
“And, mind you, Kennedy, there wasn’t a mark of any kind on the safe—not a mark. I went over it with a glass and couldn’t find a thing, not a scratch—not even a finger-print—nothing except this queer arrangement which Sinclair himself found.”
“Why,” I exclaimed, “it sounds incredible—supernatural.”
“It does indeed,” asserted Burke. “It’s beyond me.”
Kennedy closed the cover of the little case and slipped the
