The Hand of Peril/Part 2/Chapter 3
III
Wilsnach, as had been planned, waited until an hour past midnight.
Then he left his room in the Hotel de France, struck through the Via Bottai to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, swung back out of the life and lights of that thoroughfare, and by streets more obscure threaded his way steadily westward. Then he rounded a block, to make sure he was not being shadowed, and quietly admitted himself to the same house where he and Kestner had met earlier in the day.
On the closed door at the top of the stairs he played a tattoo with his finger-tips, the same tattoo that had been used before, but this time more lightly.
A key turned, and he was admitted to the room.
There he beheld Kestner in his shirt-sleeves, with a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, and a switchboard operator's "helmet" made from the wires of a bed-spring clamped over his head. To one side of this improvised helmet was tied a small watch-case receiver, connected with two wires covered with insulation-silk, which ran to the window. Attached to the other side of the helmet and held still close to Kestner's ear by his own hand was a small metal microphone, also connected with two wires which led to the window and from there ran somewhere out into the night.
"Well, we're getting down to tin tacks!" quietly announced Kestner, as he motioned Wilsnach into a chair and at the same time resumed his own seat.
"What have you got?" asked Wilsnach, still standing.
"I've got their telephone wire tapped, and I've got a dictograph planted."
"Anything coming in?" anxiously inquired the newcomer.
"Not a thing from the dictograph. They're all lying low. The whole place is like a hen-run with a hawk overhead. And I can't figure out what's made them suspicious. But I'm waiting for something over this 'phone wire."
"Why do you say it's like a hen-run?"
"Because I've found their coop and they haven't altogether flown it!"
"They're here?" demanded Wilsnach.
"I've explored their whole blessed warren. And it's as complete a lay-out as you ever clapped eyes on—only I wish it were anywhere but in Palermo!"
"You mean you've found their quarters?" questioned Wilsnach, staring at him as he stopped to relight his cigar.
"I've found them and been through them. Every blessed—Wait a minute, there's something going over the wire!"
The two men suddenly froze into positions of suspended movement. Kestner was holding his head a little to one side, with the watch-case receiver pressed close against his ear, a blank stare of concentration on his face. He made the other man think of the hen-hawk again, a poised and quiescent vigilance forever on the look-out. And to that other man there also came a thought as to the wonders of electricity and the strange ends which it might be made to serve.
"That's their pass-word," Kestner was saying, "Che maestro avete? They always ask that question first."
Wilsnach was not a man of imagination. In his calling he contended, such things were a drawback. But as he stood watching that other man with the tiny receiver at his ear, the subordinate from the Paris Office was oddly impressed by the silent drama of the situation. He was conscious of a latent theatricality in Kestner's position as he sat there so quietly breaking through the reserve behind which their enemies had entrenched themselves. There, by means of a few delicate instruments and a couple of slender threads of copper, he was able to sit, like a god on Olympus, unseen and unheard, yet all the while listening to the petty talk and plans of the unsuspecting mortals below him.
Then all thought on the matter suddenly ended, for Kestner had leaned forward with a nervous jerk of the body.
"That's Morello!" he gasped, with his unseeing eyes fixed on the blank wall before him. There was silence for a while. Then Kestner spoke again.
"He's just said the Pannonia is due in Palermo harbour sometime to-morrow, and will sail again at midnight." He turned quickly to Wilsnach. "Where does that steamer come from?"
"She's a Cunarder, sailing from Trieste and Fiume. This is a port of call on her westbound trip."
"But westbound to where?"
"To New York."
"New York!" repeated Kestner, as he sat back, deep in thought. The watch-case receiver was still being held close against his ear.
"Just why should those people be interested in the Pannonia?" he ruminated aloud.
"Anything on the wire now?" inquired Wilsnach. Kestner shook his head.
Yet Wilsnach stood waiting, with the feeling that there were vast issues in the air. He watched his colleague light a fresh cigar and decided that Kestner, as usual, was smoking too much.
"Could you give me a hint or two about that plant of theirs?" he finally ventured.
Kestner tossed the silk-covered wires back over his shoulder. The movement reminded the other man of a girl tossing aside her troublesome braids.
"It's about where I thought it would be, only with a difference. They're using this woman, of course, as their stick-up. The rear door of her place opens on a garden planted with lemon trees. There's a narrow passage running under the stone walk that lies between those lemon trees. It leads from the cellar of her house right through to the broken-down villa backing it. They've taken the old wine-cellar there and wired it and fitted it up for a work-shop. They've even got a forced-draught ventilating system, for it's all underground, you see, and shut off with silence doors. And they've got a sweet collection of contraband stuff there!"
"Such as?"
"Well, such as three good-sized presses for printing their counterfeit notes, a stock of the finest inks I ever saw outside a government plant, etching tools, and a complete collection of plate-steel and copper. They've got dies for striking off silver coins, and a lathe for rimming gold."
"Then everything's grist for their mill!"
"But that's nothing compared to their stock of paper! Wilsnach, those people have paper for bank-notes of about every power in the world. They've got an imitation water-lined Irish linen, five by eight, with ragged edges, for Bank of England work. They've got an equally good white water-lined paper for their Banque de France stuff. They've got silk-fibre stock for their German thousand-mark bills. They've even got South American currency-paper done up in cinnamon brown and slate blues. They've also got the trick of process-hardening steel. I imagine that partly explains the clearness of their counterfeit print-work. They don't print from the original plate. That woman artist of theirs works out their plate first, on soft steel—and it must take her many a week to do one of those plates I They take an impression from this, and process-harden it, doing the Government trick, except that instead of printing from a cylinder they pound it off on a bed-press."
"God, what a find!" gasped Wilsnach.
Kestner did not seem to share in his exultation.
"But, don't you see, the plant's not what we want! The plant's an incident. We could wire Rome and have the Italian authorities close in on that plant, of course, at any time we wanted to show our hand. It's here, and it can't get away."
"You mean it's the people we want?"
"It's the people we've got to get. The authorities can drop that junk into the Tyrrhenian, any day they see fit. But the people who own the hands that make those plates and prepare that paper can't be allowed to wander about the world at their own sweet will. And when we get one person we get the keystone of their little arch."
"You mean the woman, Lambert's daughter?"
"I mean the woman."
"Then how are you going to get her?"
"I'm going to try a trick of her own. In other words, I think I'll try uttering a forgery. But instead of being on paper, it's going to be on this telephone circuit. To-morrow I'll have a field-transmitter to attach to this bridge I've put on her wire. Then I'll watch my time, and at the right moment have Maresi here call her up, give the pass-word, and speak to her."
"Why Maresi?"
"I'm afraid of my own voice. He can tell her the latest word is for her to get aboard the Pannonia some time before midnight. A cab will call for her, say at eleven, take her to the Marina or to the foot of Via Principe Belmonte, and there a boatman will be waiting to row her out to the steamer. Then I'll cut the wire, so there can be no more calls."
"It's a fine scheme," admitted Wilsnach, "but I don't think any woman would start across the Atlantic at a few words over a telephone."
"But some such trip is in the air, or they wouldn't be interested in the Pannonia."
"Even though she acted on the message, there'd be some one in that circle of hers to interfere."
"Then, for a few hours, it would be our duty to see that she was not interfered with."
"But you and I and Maresi can't fight all Sicily. That woman is being watched, you may be sure. She's not going to move far without the rest of the gang knowing it. And if it's a suspicious move, they won't be slow about stepping in."
"Then we must be there to help them out."
"But that gang has got money, and with money, m. this hanged country, they can have half the brigantaggio of the island at their heels. It's a combination we can't stand up against."
"Then we've got to think out a plan of beating them from under cover."
"But this doesn't take any account of Lambert himself," demurred Wilsnach.
"We don't know where Lambert is. But this much we do know: his daughter is essential to his ends. Whatever his personal feelings may be towards her, he at least needs her in his work. And wherever she goes, he'll tail along if you give him time."
"Then how about the other man, Morello?"
"Morello's in the same boat with Lambert. He'll follow the woman. And he'll be in New York, for that olive-oil importing business needs him there. I found twelve of his gallon tins in the wine-cellar. They've been packing them with counterfeit paper, filling them up with sand and cork-dust to make the right weight, and then soldering the tops on. It's as neat a scheme as I've stumbled on for some time and the Treasury Department's got to get busy on that Morello brand of oil!"
"And would this mean that you'd be on the Pannononia yourself?"
"I'd have to slip aboard at the last moment."
Wilsnach was on his feet, pacing perplexedly up and down the barren little room.
"You land your woman in New York, of course, but what do you get out of it?"
"First I get the woman."
"But what do you mean by getting her?" interrupted the other. "And what will you do with her when you've got her?"
"Heaven only knows," finally admitted the man with the helmet of wire across the top of his head.
"I'll confess the woman is more interesting than—"
"Wait!" cried Kestner. His voice was sharp and quick. "There's some one on the wire. That's the pass-word! They're going to talk again."
Once more silence reigned in the barren little room. Wilsnach sat watching the other man's face. There seemed something grotesque in the pose of the forward-stooping body, in the inclined head, in the vacant stare of the eyes that encompassed nothing of their surroundings.
But Wilsnach knew by the fine moisture lending a scattering of high-lights to the intent face before him, that things of moment were trickling in along that tiny rivulet of silk-covered copper.
The silence prolonged itself interminably. Wilsnach became restive, shifting his position and still waiting. But neither spoke.
Kestner sat back in his chair, with a sigh. Then consciousness of his immediate surroundings returned to him. He looked tired but contented.
"Maresi won't need to send that message for us," he said very quietly. "Lambert's on the Pannonia!"
Wilsnach stood staring down at him, slowly digesting this unlooked-for information.
"Lambert—on the Pannonia?" he intoned, with voluptuous delay in the delivery of each pregnant word.
"And his daughter is to join him there, as late as possible to-morrow night, before the boat sails."
"You're—you're sure of this?"
"Positive! And the gentleman known as Antonio Morello is to follow on a later steamer. He will go steerage. And like most immigrants, he will take his own bedding. But sewn up in his mattress he is to carry in seven of Maura Lambert's note plates."
Wilsnach sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. Then he sighed devoutly as he stared at the wire helmet.
"Thank the Lord, Kestner, that you ever learned the tricks of the wire-tapper! This cuts right into the core of things! This plays right into our hands! And this means I can be back in Paris by Friday!"
"But in the meantime," suggested Kestner, taking the helmet from his head, "I'd like you to relieve me here while I get six hours' sleep. If anything goes over the wire, jot it down. And keep an ear open for that dictograph."
"But what's there left for us to do?"
"Several things! One of them is to rig up my field-transmitter. And among other things, I've got to be shaved to the blood again. You see, I still have that appointment with Maura Lambert to-morrow at eight."
"But what's the use of that, now? You've got the bunch where you want them, and inside of three weeks you'll have 'em behind bars!"
"Still, I think I'll keep that appointment."
"But it's only facing danger when there's no need for it!"
"Well, I imagine it's worth it," was Kestner's somewhat enigmatic reply.