Argosy, Vol. 111, No. 1 — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 room the day of the murder—and what else could he have been here for?”’ ‘What else?” I stormed. ‘“ Dozens of things! Hundreds of things! Why, man alive, every person who set foot in this room on that day didn’t necessarily kill Amos Gately!” ‘““ Every person who set foot in this room on that day is his potential murderer,” Wise returned calmly. ‘‘ Every person must be suspceted—or, at least, investi- gated”. “Well,” I said, after realizing that he spoke truly, ‘‘ you investigate the question of Rivers’s visit here that day. I don’t want to do that. But I’m going down to headquarters now, and perhaps I'll dig up something of importance.” And I did. A visit to the chief told me the interesting tale of further discoveries of Sadie Kent’s industries. It seems they had discovered a complete and powerful wire- less station in a cottage at Southeast Beach, a fairly popular summer resort. The cottage was seemingly untenanted, but some unex- plained wires which ran along the rafters of an adjoining house led to the discovery of the auxiliary wireless station. Experts had broken into the locked house and had found a cleverly concealed key- board of a wireless apparatus. Further search had disclosed the whole thing, and, moreover, had brought out the fact that the adjoining cottage was occupied by two ap- parently innocent old pegple, who were really in the employ of Sadie Kent. The Link was a person of importance, and though she passed for a mere telegraph operator, she was one of the most important links in the German spy system in the United States. In the room where the wireless apparatus was found, there were also quantities of letter-paper from the various hotels of New. York City. : These sheets, abstracted from the writing rooms of the hotels, constituted the code system used in forwarding the stolen in- telligence. It all hung together, and the bunch of those hotel papers found in Gately’s desk, and, especially the fact that one reached his address the day after his demise, proved THE ARGOSY. beyond all doubt his implication in the despicable business. | Now, I thought, to what extent or in what way, was Case Rivers concerned? Surely the man had been in Gately’s office on that fatal day. I had no idea that he had killed the banker—that was only Zizi’s foolishness — but he had certainly been there. ‘ It came to me suddenly that if Rivers could be taken again to the Gately offices, the rooms, the associations, would, in all probability, bring back his lost memory, and let him reinstate himself in his real personality. To be sure, this might prove him the murderer, but if so, it would be only the course of justice; and, on the other hand, if it explained his innocent or casual call on Gately, that, too, was what the man deserved. And so, I went at once to see Rivers. I found him in his rooms, the ones he had taken while he was to assist Wise in his work, and he greeted me cordially. ‘The plot thickens,” he said, as I told him of Sadie’s wireless station. ‘1 knew that girl was a big one. She’s one of the important people in the big spy web. She’s one of their spiders, who spin a pretty web and attract gullible flies. Amos Gately fell for her charms—you know, Brice, she is a siren—and somehow she lured him into the web she so deftly spun. To my mind, Gately was a good, upright citizen, who fell for a woman’s wiles. I’m not sure about this, it may be he was mixed up in the spy work before Sadie came on the scene—but I’m certain she was accessory before, dur- ing, or after the fact.” ‘‘ Accessory to his murder?”’ I asked. ‘“* Not necessarily; but strongly accessory to his wrong-doing in the matter of treason. I think she, for a time, worked Gately through Rodman, but, latterly, she grew bolder, or found she could do more by per- sonal visits, and she came and went, by the secret elevator, pretty much as she chose.”’ ‘‘T hate to have Miss Raynor know this,” I said, with a covert glance at Rivers, to see how he took the remark. ‘* So do I,” he said, as frankly as a boy; ‘“T may as well tell you, Brice, that I love that girl. She is, to me, the very crown of COMmiiclooo SS (@