Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle (11 page)

“Respectfully,

“Pietro Petrozinni.”

This done the secret agent carefully cleaned the ink 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 writing with it, between the lines of ink:

“I am in no danger. I hold credentials to United States, which, when presented, will make me responsible only to the Italian government as special envoy, according to international law. Arrange escape for one week from to-night; use any money necessary. 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. This sheet he folded, placed in an envelope, and addressed.

Later the guard passed along the corridor, and Signor Petrozinni 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 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 by Johnson, came out of a photographer’s dark room in Pennsylvania Avenue with a developed negative which he set on a rack to dry. At the end of another hour he was sitting at his desk studying, under a magnifying 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 pass that Miss Thorne and Chief Campbell of the Secret Service were reading the hidden, milk-written message at almost the identical moment.

“Johnson got Petrozinni’s letter from the postman,” Mr. Grimm was explaining. “I opened it, photographed it, sealed it again and remailed it. There was not more than half an hour’s delay; and Miss 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 decipherable in the negative.”

“What do you make of it?” Mr. Campbell asked. The guileless 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 envoy this government must respect them, even if Senor Alvarez dies, and leave it to his own government to punish him. If we were officially aware that he has such credentials 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. 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 as if surprised at the question. “I was looking for Prince Benedetto d’Abruzzi, of Italy. I have found him.”

Mr. Campbell’s clock-like brain ticked over the situation in detail.

“It’s like this,” Mr. Grimm elucidated. “He has credentials which he knows will free him if he is forced to present them, but I imagine they were given to him more for protection in an emergency like this than for introducing him to our government. As the matter stands he can’t afford to discover himself by using those credentials, and yet, if the Latin compact is signed, he must be free. Remember, too, that he is accredited from three countries—Italy, France and Spain.” He was silent for a moment. “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 great powers held for attempted—!”

“Officially we are not aware of his purpose, or his identity,” Mr. Grimm reminded him. “If he escaped it would clarify the situation tremendously.”

“If he escaped!” repeated Mr. Campbell musingly.

“But, of course, the compact would not be signed, at least in this country,” 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 came home to him. Finally he nodded his head.

“Use your own judgment, Mr. Grimm,” he directed.

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, the warden’s right hand moved toward the open drawer of his desk where a revolver lay, and his left toward several electrically connected 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 voice. “I have come 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, eh?” he queried. He still sat motionless, with his eyes fixed on the black mask. “How did you pass the outside guard?”

“He was bribed,” was the ready response. “Now, Warden,” the masked intruder continued pacifically, “it would be much more pleasant all around and there would be less personal danger in it for both of us if you would release Signor Petrozinni without question. I may add that no bribe was offered to you because your integrity was beyond question.”

“Thank you,” said the warden grimly, “and it shall remain so as long as I have this.” He tapped on the desk with the revolver.

“Oh, that isn’t loaded,” said the masked man quietly.

One quick glance at the weapon showed the warden that the cartridges had been drawn! His teeth closed with a snap at the treachery of it, and with his left hand he pulled back one of the levers—that which should arouse the jailers, turnkeys and guards. Instead of the insistent clangor which he expected, there was silence.

“That wire has been cut,” the stranger volunteered.

With clenched teeth the warden pulled the police alarm.

“And that wire was cut, too,” the stranger explained.

The warden came to his feet with white face, and nails biting into the palms of his hands. He still held the revolver as he advanced upon the masked man threateningly.

“Not too close, now,” warned the intruder, with a sudden hardening of his voice. “Believe me, it would be best for you to release this man, because it must be done, pleasantly or otherwise. I have no desire to injure you, still less do I intend that you shall injure me; and it would be needless for either of us to make a personal matter of it. I want your prisoner, Signor Petrozinni—you will release him at once! That’s all!”

The warden paused, dazed, incredulous before the audacity of it, while he studied two calm eyes which peered at him through the slits of the mask.

“And if I
don’t
release him?” he demanded at last, fiercely.

“Then I shall take him,” was the reply. “It has been made impossible for you to give an alarm,” the stranger went on. “The very men on whom you most depended have been bought, and even if they were within sound of your voice now they wouldn’t respond. One of your assistants who has been here for years unloaded the revolver in the desk there, and less than an hour ago cut the prison alarm wire. I, personally, cut the police alarm outside the building. So you see!”

As yet there was no weapon in sight, save the unloaded revolver in the warden’s hand; at no time had the stranger’s voice been raised. His tone was a perfectly normal one.

“Besides yourself there are only five other men employed here who are now awake,” the masked man continued. “These are four inner guards and the outer guard. They have all been bought—the turnkeys at five thousand dollars each, and the outer guard at seven thousand. The receipt of all of this money is conditional upon the release of Signor Petrozinni, therefore it is to their interest to aid me as against you. I am telling you all this, frankly and fully, to make you see how futile any resistance would be.”

“But who—who is this Signor Petrozinni, that such powerful influences should be brought to bear in his behalf?” demanded the bewildered warden.

“He is a man who can command a vast fortune—and Senor Alvarez is at the point of death. That, I think, makes it clear. Now, if you’ll sit down, please!”

“Sit down?” bellowed the warden.

Suddenly he was seized by a violent, maddening rage. He took one step forward and raised the empty revolver to strike. The masked man moved slightly to one side and his clenched fist caught the warden on the point of the chin. The official went down without a sound and lay still, inert. A moment later the door leading into the corridor of the prison opened, and Signor Petrozinni, accompanied by one of the guards, entered the warden’s office. The masked man glanced around at them, and with a motion of his head indicated the door leading to the street. They passed through, closing the door behind them.

For a little time the intruder stood staring down at the still body, then he went to the telephone and called police headquarters.

“There has been a jail delivery at the prison,” he said in answer to the “hello” of the desk-sergeant at the other end of the wire. “Better send some of your men up to investigate.”

“Who is that?” came the answering question.

The stranger replaced the receiver on the hook, stripped off his black mask, dropped it on the floor beside the motionless warden, and went out. It was Mr. Grimm!

At fifteen minutes of midnight when Miss Thorne, followed by Signor Petrozinni, entered the sitting-room of her apartments in the hotel and turned up the light they found Mr. Grimm already there. He rose courteously. At sight of him Miss Thorne’s face went deathly white, and the escaped prisoner turned toward the door again.

“I would advise that you stay, your Highness,” said Mr. Grimm coldly. Signor Petrozinni paused, amazed. “You will merely subject yourself to the humiliation of arrest if you attempt to leave. The house is guarded by a dozen men.”

“Your Highness?” Miss Thorne repeated blankly. “You are assuming a great deal, aren’t you, Mr. Grimm?”

“I don’t believe,” and Mr. Grimm’s listless eyes were fixed on those of the escaped prisoner, “I don’t believe that Prince Benedetto d’Abruzzi will deny his identity?”

There was one of those long tense silences when eye challenges eye, when wit is pitted against wit, and mind is hauled around to a new, and sometimes unattractive, view of a situation. Miss Thorne stood silent with rigid features, colorless as marble; but slowly a sneer settled about the lips of Signor Petrozinni that was, and he sat down.

[Illustration: A long tense silence when eye challenges eye.]

“You seem to know everything, Mr. Grimm,” he taunted.

“I
try
to know everything, your Highness,” was the reply. Mr. Grimm was still standing. “I know, for instance, that one week ago the plot which had your freedom for its purpose was born; I know the contents of every letter that passed between you and Miss Thorne here, notwithstanding the invisible ink; I know that four days ago several thousand dollars was smuggled in to you concealed in a basket of fruit; I know, with that money, you bribed your way out, while Miss Thorne or one of her agents bribed the guard in front; I know that the escape was planned for to-night, and that the man who was delegated to take charge of it is now locked in my office under guard. It may interest you to know that it was I who took his place and made the escape possible. I know that much!”

“You—
you
—!” the prince burst out suddenly. “
You
aided me to escape?”

Miss Thorne was staring, staring at them with her eyes widely distended, and her red lips slightly parted.

“
Why
did you assist him?” she demanded.

“Details are tiresome, Miss Thorne,” replied Mr. Grimm with the utmost courtesy. “There is one other thing I know—that the Latin compact will not be signed in the United States.”

The prince’s eyes met Miss Thorne’s inquiringly, and she shook her head. The sneer was still playing about his mouth.

“Anything else of special interest that you know?” he queried.

“Yes, of interest to both you and Miss Thorne. That is merely if the Latin compact is signed anywhere, the English-speaking countries of the world might construe it as a
casus belli
and strike soon enough, and hard enough, to put an end to it once for all.”

Again there was silence for a little while. Slowly the prince’s eyes were darkening, and a shadow flitted across Miss Thorne’s face. The prince rose impatiently.

“Well, what is the meaning of all this? Are you going to take me back to prison?”

“No,” said Mr. Grimm. He glanced at his watch. “I will give each of you one-half hour to pack your belongings. We must catch a train at one o’clock.”

“Leave the city?” gasped Miss Thorne.

“Impossible!” exclaimed the prince.

“One-half hour,” said Mr. Grimm coldly.

“But—but it’s out of the question,” expostulated Miss Thorne.

“One-half hour,” repeated Mr. Grimm. He didn’t dare to meet those wonderful blue-gray eyes now. “A special car with private compartments will be attached to the regular train, and the only inconvenience to you will be the fact that the three of us will be compelled to sit up all night. Half a dozen other Secret Service men will be on the train with us.”