PAGE 11
The Firebug
by
“A certain person whose name I am frank to say I do not know – yet – conceived the idea of destroying the obligations of the Stacey companies to Miss Wend as well as the incriminating evidence which she held of the ‘firebug trust,’ of which she was a member up to this time. The plan only partly succeeded. The chief coup, which was to destroy he Stacey store into the bargain, miscarried.
“What was the result? Miss Wend, who had been hand in glove with the ‘trust,’ was now a bitter enemy, perhaps would turn state’s evidence. What more natural than to complete the conspiracy by carrying out the coup and at the same time get rid of the dangerous enemy of the conspirators? I believe that Miss Wend was lured under some pretext or other to the Stacey store on the night of the big fire. The person who wrote the second and third ‘A. Spark’ letters did it. She was murdered with this deadly instrument” – Craig laid the letter-file on the table – “and it was planned to throw the entire burden of suspicion on her by asserting that there was a shortage in the books of her department.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Stacey, smoking complacently at his cigar. “We have been victimised in those fires by people who have grudges against us, labour unions and others. This talk of an arson trust is bosh – yellow journalism. More than that, we have been systematically robbed by a trusted head of a department, and the fire at Stacey’s was the way the thief took to cover – er – her stealings. At the proper time we shall produce the bookkeeper Douglas and prove it.
Kennedy fumbled in the drawer of the desk, then drew forth a long strip of paper covered with figures. “All the Stacey companies,” he said, “have been suffering from the depression that exists in the trade at present. They are insolvent. Glance over that, Stacey. It is a summary of the preliminary report of the accountants of the district attorney who have been going over your books to-day.”
Stacey gasped. “How did you get it? The report was not to be ready until nine o’clock, and it is scarcely a quarter past now.”
“Never mind how I got it. Go over it with the adjusters, anybody. I think you will find that there was no shortage in Miss Wend’s department, that you were losing money, that you were in debt to Miss Wend, and that she would have received the lion’s share of the proceeds of the insurance if the firebug scheme had turned out as planned.”
“We absolutely repudiate these figures as fiction,” said Stacey, angrily turning toward Kennedy after a hurried consultation.
Perhaps, then, you’ll appreciate this,” replied Craig, pulling another piece of paper from the desk. “I’ll read it. ‘Henry Douglas, being duly sworn, deposes and says that one’ – we’ll call him ‘Blank’ for the present – ‘with force and arms did feloniously, wilfully, and intentionally kill Rebecca Wend whilst said Blank was wilfully burning and setting on fire – “
“One moment,” interrupted Stacey. “Let me see that paper.”
Kennedy laid it down so that only the signature showed. The name was signed in a full round hand, “Henry Douglas.”
“It’s a forgery,” cried Stacey in rage. “Not an hour before I came into this place I saw Henry Douglas. He had signed no such paper then. He could not have signed it since, and you could not have received it. I brand that document as a forgery.”
Kennedy stood up and reached down into the open drawer on the right of his desk. From it he lifted the two machines I had seen him place there early in the evening.
Gentlemen,” he said, ” this is the last scene of the play you are enacting. You see here on the desk an instrument that was invented many years ago, but has only recently become really practical. It is the telautograph – the long-distance writer. In this new form it can be introduced into the drawer of a desk for the use of any one who may wish to make inquiries, say, of clerks without the knowledge of a caller. It makes it possible to write a message under these conditions and receive an answer concerning the personality or business of the individual seated at one’s elbow without leaving the desk or seeming to make inquiries.