Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

Chapter I

The Letter

“Don’t turn around yet,” Ruggles said guardedly, “but, after a moment, take a look just behind us at that middle-aged man, tall, slender, walking with a limp just behind us — I say; he’s following us.”

We had just come down the steps of our snug little apartment on West Eighty-Sixth Street for a little fresh air in the late afternoon. I at least was exhausted by our work on a particularly dangerous and exacting case we had finished not two hours ago, and I was in no mood immediately to start in on a new one.

Ruggles’s word, however, that a man was following us had a warning in it which I could not ignore. So, at the next crossing I looked idly back, then, as we walked on, I said:

“I’ve spotted the man, but I don’t believe he’s following us.”

“All right,” Ruggles said; “we’ll keep on down here to Riverside Drive, then turn back, and you will see that he will.”

Ruggles was right; the middle-aged man, keeping always on the opposite side of the street from us, now turned and stepped down off the curb, crossing diagonally as if about to speak to us, narrowly escaping being run down by a taxi while doing it.

“This is a new turn in an old situation,” Ruggles said, as we walked slowly back in the direction of our apartment.

“I don’t see anything new in it,” I said. “This man is following us for some reason, and a good many men have done that. Probably he’s working for some of our friends who are trying for a pot shot at you. We’d better walk on up to the subway and go down town, giving him the slip in the crowd.”

“No,” Ruggles said, “I don’t want to give him the slip. You’ve missed the new turn I told you about; this man is not working for any of our enemies; he is an anxious amateur. In addition to that, he is utterly exhausted. I was wrong in saying he walked with a limp — in his case the reason is physical weakness.”

“Then let him go to his doctor,” I said. “The thing for us to do is to dodge this invalid—”

“No,” Ruggles said. “We’ll go home and let him follow us in; then we can hear his story before he collapses. Hold on, there he goes now — down on the sidewalk!”

Ruggles forced his way through the crowd which instantly had gathered about the man who now lay, conscious, but too weak to rise, on the sidewalk.

“You wanted to speak to me, I believe,” my companion said, bending over him.

“Yes,” the man said hoarsely. “I must talk with you while I can, Mr. Ruggles. At your rooms, if you will—”

“Crane and I will take you there at once, and you can rest first, then tell us what you desire to. Here, taxi!”

For a moment, I wondered if the traffic officer, who had come up to disperse the crowd, was going to question us. I knew that, if he did, Ruggles and I would be hard put, for, though the man called Ruggles by name, neither of us had ever seen him before — and now we were putting him in a taxi, in effect were running away with him.

The policeman did not question us. We lifted the man into the taxi. Ruggles pointed up the street to where our apartment was, and we started.

Our mysterious guest spoke suddenly: “Open the windows!” he commanded weakly.

“Do you feel faint?” Ruggles asked.

“Yes,” the other said, “but that is not the reason why you must instantly open the windows. I am coming down with a serious illness, I believe, and I do not want to give it to either of you.”

“No danger of that,” Ruggles reassured him, throwing open one of the doors and holding it as we drove along. “With this wind blowing through, it will be all right. Don’t try to talk in this racket; we shall be at my apartment in no time. It is just up the block, here.”

“I know,” the man said with difficulty. “I watched you come out of it — then I began following you.”

When we had assisted him to the couch in our quiet living room and he had seen us lock the street door and pull the heavy portières across the windows, our guest said in panting breaths:

“I must warn you again that I am stricken with a dangerous illness—”

Ruggles nodded, and said humoringly: “We will disinfect this room if you will feel any easier; it will take only an instant.”

We went to the bathroom and Ruggles poured fresh into an atomizer some of the strong antiseptic he kept always on hand; then, when we had shot it through our noses and throats, we went back into the living room.

As we did so, I whispered to Ruggles: “He certainly looks like a dead man!”

But I do not think Ruggles heard me — after one quick sniff of the air, he darted to the front door, threw it open, and looked sharply up and down the sidewalk; then he flung open the windows, letting in the strong, fresh wind from the river.

“What’s the matter?” I cried. “Going to leave everything open so that the whole town can come in?”

“The first thing to do is to get this gas out.”

“Gas?”

“Yes,” Ruggles said, “and a deadly gas, too. There, this is better. Now we are all right! He was quick about it; shot the gas into the room, then rushed down the front steps and hid himself in the crowd! Undoubtedly I saw his back; but there was no way I could tell which he was.”

Ruggles, leaving me staring in bewilderment, went back to the motionless figure on the couch.

“But how did it get in here,” I demanded, “this gas you’re talking about? The front door was locked and everything shut—”

“Everything but the keyhole in our front door,” Ruggles whispered to me over his shoulder. “The gas was shot through the keyhole from a tiny gas-pistol which, by a queer inconsistency of the law of this State, any individual is permitted to carry.”

“I still don’t see—”

“The gas was sent in here as easily as the antiseptic was sent from the atomizer into our throats and noses — just the pressure of a rubber bulb and the air in the bulb pushed the gas through the keyhole into the room.”

“It’s good you noticed it.”

“It was good that this fine wind blew in through this room — there was undoubtedly enough gas in the gun to kill all three of us; this man here is not dead, only unconscious. I’ll go through his pockets before he comes to.”

Ruggles had his practical, skilled hands in and out of the man’s clothes in a moment, bringing from the man’s inside right breast pocket something which made us wonder: a letter which made us stare: