“Police headquarters?” interrupted Craig.  “About fifteen minutes.  This photograph shows, as I had hoped, the real forger.  John Carroll, this is a peculiar case.  You have forged the name of the president of your company, but you have also traced your own name very cleverly to look like a forgery.  It is what is technically known as auto-forgery, forging one’s own handwriting.  At your convenience we’ll ride down to Centre Street directly.”

Carroll was sputtering and almost frothing at the mouth with rage which he made no effort to suppress.  Williams was hesitating, nonplussed, until Kennedy reached over unexpectedly and grasped Carroll by the arm.  As he shoved up Carroll’s sleeve he disclosed the forearm literally covered with little punctures made by the hypodermic needle.

“It may interest you,” remarked Kennedy, still holding Carroll in his vise-like grip, while the drug fiend’s shattered nerves caused him to cower and tremble, “to know that a special detective working for me has located Mr. and Mrs. Dawson at Bar Harbor, where they are enjoying a quiet honeymoon.  Brown is safely in the custody of his counsel, ready to appear and clear himself as soon as the public opinion which has been falsely inflamed against him subsides.  Your plan to give us the slip at the last moment at the wharf and board the steamer for South America has miscarried.  It is now too late to catch it, but I shall send a wireless that will cause the arrest of Miss DeMott the moment the ship touches an American port at Colon, even if she succeeds in eluding the British authorities at Kingston.  The fact is, I don’t much care about her, anyway.  Thanks to the telelectrograph here we have the real criminal.”

Kennedy slapped down the now dry print that had come in over his “seeing over a wire” machine.  Barring the false Van Dyke beard, it was the face of John Carroll, forger and morphine fiend.  Next him in the picture in the brilliant and fashionable dining-room of the Lorraine was sitting Adele DeMott who had used her victim, Bolton Brown, to shield her employer, Carroll.

IX

THE UNOFFICIAL SPY

“Craig, do you see that fellow over by the desk, talking to the night clerk?” I asked Kennedy as we lounged into the lobby of the new Hotel Vanderveer one evening after reclaiming our hats from the plutocrat who had acquired the checking privilege.  We had dined on the roof garden of the Vanderveer apropos of nothing at all except our desire to become acquainted with a new hotel.

“Yes,” replied Kennedy, “what of him?”

“He’s the house detective, McBride.  Would you like to meet him?  He’s full of good stories, an interesting chap.  I met him at a dinner given to the President not long ago and he told me a great yarn about how the secret service, the police, and the hotel combined to guard the President during the dinner.  You know, a big hotel is the stamping ground for all sorts of cranks and crooks.”