“How many men were there in the room?”
“About twenty, I guess.”
“Were the lights turned off before you turned
around, or after?”
“I don’t remember that; it might have
been after.” And suddenly poor bewildered
Peter cried: “It makes me feel like a fool.
Of course I ought to have talked to the fellow, and
made sure it was Joe Angell before I turned away again;
but I thought sure it was him. The idea it could
be anybody else never crossed my mind.”
“But you’re sure it was Jerry Rudd that
was talking to him?”
“Yes, it was Jerry Rudd, because his face was
toward me.”
“Was it Rudd or was it the other fellow that
made the reply about the `sab-cat’?” And
then Peter was bewildered and tied himself up, and
led them into a long process of cross-questioning;
and in the middle of it came the detective, bringing
the book on sabotage with McCormick’s name written
in the fly-leaf, and with the ground plan of a house
between the pages.
They all crowded around to look at the plan, and the
idea occurred to several of them at once: Could
it be Nelse Ackerman’s house? The Chief
of Police turned to his phone, and called up the great
banker’s secretary. Would he please describe
Mr. Ackerman’s house; and the chief listened
to the description. “There’s a cross
mark on this plan—the north side of the
house, a little to the west of the center. What
could that be?” Then, “My God!” And
then, “Will you come down here to my office
right away and bring the architect’s plan of
the house so we can compare them?” The Chief
turned to the others, and said, “That cross
mark in the house is the sleeping porch on the second
floor where Mr. Ackerman sleeps!”
So then they forgot for a while their doubts about
Peter. It was fascinating, this work of tracing
out the details of the conspiracy, and fitting them
together like a picture puzzle. It seemed quite
certain to all of them that this insignificant and
scared little man whom they had been examining could
never have prepared so ingenious and intricate a design.
No, it must really be that some master mind, some
devilish intriguer was at work to spread red ruin in
American City!
They dismissed Peter for the present, sending him
back to his cell. He stayed there for two days
with no one to advise him, and no hint as to his fate.
They did not allow newspapers in the jail, but they
had left Peter his money, and so on the second day
he succeeded in bribing one of his keepers and obtaining
a copy of the American City “Times,” with
all the details of the amazing sensation spread out
on the front page.
