Terry Trimble's Fox Hunt

CHAPTER I. Waiting

NOW the hands of the big clock on the wall pointed to five minutes of twelve. Midnight sounds came from the street outside—newsboys calling early editions of morning papers; men and women, fashionably dressed, laughing as they left the restaurant opposite, where they had been enjoying after-theater suppers and dancing.

Inside, there was comparative quiet. Policemen held in reserve walked about on tiptoe. City detectives sat quietly before their desks and chewed at black, unlighted cigars, or tugged at their mustaches, or scowled at the wall. Now and then the desk sergeant on duty received a report or answered a telephone message, speaking in a soft voice that was unlike the hearty shout he used generally.

There was an atmosphere of tension about police headquarters, and it found its culmination in the private office of the commissioner. He was pacing the floor, his hands clasped behind his back, his cigar almost bitten through. The chief sat before a desk in a corner, pulling his fingers, as he always did when he was extremely nervous. A captain, a lieutenant of detectives, and half a dozen other officers were in the room.

“Well, we shall know soon!” the commissioner said, glancing again at the clock on the wall. “In exactly a minute it will be midnight. Within half an hour after midnight we shall be informed, I suppose, that there has been another crime big enough to shock the city and make the citizens and opposition newspapers howl about the incompetence of the police department. And they're right—we are incompetent!”

“Oh, I'd not say that!” remarked the chief.

“But I do say it!” the commissioner declared. “This thing has been going on for more than three months, and we are no nearer a solution now than we were when it began. It is not to be endured! I don't blame the newspapers and the taxpayers for howling, We've got to have an end of it!”

“My men have done everything possible,” the chief said. “We have been unable to find the slightest clew. I have taken detectives and patrolmen from other work, given them every chance, and they have all failed. It is not a question of catching a certain man—we do not even know the identity of the man we are after.”

“Well, he's a crook, isn't he?” the commissioner replied. “And you and your men are supposed to know crooks and their methods of work and all about them. Good Lord! You've got a rogues' gallery and photos and finger prints. You've got one detective with a so-called 'camera eye,' and he hasn't done anything.”

“You must understand,” said the chief, holding in his temper, “that now and then a new crook puts in an appearance. If we did not have new ones to contend with all the time, the breed soon would die out. Then there'd be no need for policemen—and you and I would be out of a job.”

“Never mind about the comedy at this juncture,” the commissioner said. “I want this man caught—undersand? The mayor has been walking around my collar about it. It is utterly preposterous that none of your men can get a line on the fellow. Are we going to sleep until he cleans the city of all its movable valuables? You don't think he is some sort of superman, do you? He is only one person against a whole bunch of you. Get him!”

“We'll do our best, commissioner,” the chief said.

“Better do a little better than your best. How about a handwriting expert?”

“We put one of the best in the country on the case. Every letter that fiend has written to us and to the newspaper editors has been investigated carefully.”

“Well?”

“And the sum total of the report is that they were all written by the same man. We knew as much as that before we called in the expert.”

“I was under the impression that these experts could look at a person's handwriting and tell all about 'em.”

“Certainly,” said the chief. “The expert reports that the person who wrote the letters is well educated—which we knew from reading the letters. Regarding character, the expert says the letters indicate that the writer is cunning, unscrupulous, deceitful. Good Lord! Do you suppose we didn't know that? And so where did the expert get us?”

The commissioner stopped before his desk and picked up an opened letter. He had read it a score of times, but now he read it again aloud, while the chief and the other officers listened carefully.

“My Dear Commissioner: It grieves me that you and your men are not foes worthy of my steel. I have been working in your fair city for almost three months, and at no time have you come close enough to me to make me feel uncomfortable. Your efforts to catch me are amusing.

“To-night, exactly at midnight, I shall be at work again. Undoubtedly you will hear of it before daylight, for I intend making quite a haul. I had thought the American police clever, but I find I was mistaken.

“The Fox.”

“I'd like to get my hands on the man!” the commissioner stormed. “He sends us letters like this, and sends duplicates to the newspapers, and then does what he says he will do, and makes fools of us.”

“Speaks of the American police, so he's a foreigner,” the chief declared. “A new one to us; that's why we can't nab him easily.”

“He may have written that for a blind,” the lieutenant of detectives declared. “I have an idea he is a local man.”

“We know every local crook skillful enough to have pulled off the stunts he has pulled off, and we have accounted for every one of them,” the chief reminded him. “Some are in jail and some are being watched. He's no local crook!”

“He's shown at various times that he knows local conditions.”

“Made it his business to find 'em out!” retorted the commissioner. “And I might remark that this conversation captures no criminals. I suppose we have to wait here until this fiend who calls himself The Fox turns another trick, and then go after him. If it's going to be a fox hunt, chief, let's make it a good one. Turn all the hounds loose. Kindly let me be in at the kill!”

“You're not ready to call in Terry Trimble yet?”

“I am not!” the commissioner declared. “I spoke to Trimble about it some time ago, and he said he had no time to waste running down an ordinary crook, who left a trail ten feet wide.”

“He said that, did he?” the chief cried. “He doesn't want to mix in it because he's afraid he'll fail—that's what! Trimble is a good man, but not a bit better than some on my staff!”

“Well, if we don't get The Fox to-night, I'll call Trimble's bluff,” the commissioner said. “I'll catch him at the club and dare him to get into the case. Maybe that'll wake him up. Trail ten feet wide, eh? I can't see it.”

“There isn't any trail at all; that's the trouble,” said the lieutenant of detectives. “He pulls off a stunt and vanishes.”

“Why, in the name of everything, should all ordinary methods fail?” the commissioner asked.

“That's another question!” said the chief. “It is well known that when a crime is committed ten persons will give at least six different descriptions of some person they think did it. Oh, we've had descriptions by the hundred in these cases. And no two of them are alike—no two of them! That is peculiar in itself. The fellow has been seen three times—at least we were led to believe so. One man says he is fat, and another slim; one that he has black hair, and another that his hair is red.”

“Disguise2” the commissioner began.

“Rot!” said the detective lieutenant. “There is not to-day a possible disguise that a clever police officer could not penetrate.”

“Speaking of yourself?” The commissioner was angry.

The detective lieutenant flushed, and the chief rushed to the rescue.

“We're getting nervous,” he said. “We'll be at one another's throats in a few minutes! We're letting this fox get our goats, so to speak. Suppose we calm down a bit.”

The commissioner glanced at the clock.

“Ten minutes after twelve,” he said. “I suppose the fiend is at work some place in the city at this moment; he always does as he says he will do. We should get an alarm before long. Then I want every man to get to work. I want this fox run to earth. We've got to nab him.”

There was silence in the private office for a time. The commissioner lighted his cigar, and the lieutenant of detectives followed his example. The chief made a pretense of reading some reports. They were waiting for the alarm they knew might come at any moment.

In the outer office the detectives on duty and the men held in reserve had been watching the clock. The fox was getting on their nerves, too, since their superior officers had sarcastic things to say about their failure to get a clew to follow.

At half past twelve the commissioner threw away the stub of his cigar and sank into a chair before his desk. The chief, just to be contrary, lighted a fresh smoke. The lieutenant of detectives was looking at some new photographs just received for the rogues' gallery, and trying to give the impression that he was not nervous. The other officers simply waited.

“Maybe the fiend changed his plans,” said the chief.

“It'll be the first time, if he has,” the commissioner replied. “You have everything in readiness, I suppose?”

“I have. Men are ready and automobiles are waiting, their engines running and the chauffeurs behind the wheels. In less than two minutes we can2”

The door opened and a sergeant came in. They sprang to their feet, reaching for their hats. But it was no alarm. The sergeant merely extended a card toward the commissioner.

“He is waiting, sir,” the sergeant said.

“Well, show him in here.”

The sergeant went out. There was a whimsical smile on the commissioner's face as he looked at the others.

“Mr. Terry Trimble honors us with a visit,” he said.

CHAPTER II. The Fox Strikes

TERRY TRIMBLE, who called himself a trouble-maker instead of a detective, was an original individual. He also had original methods. He dressed in the latest fashion and wore a monocle, and yawned considerably, as if life bored him and there was nothing of interest in earthly existence. But, for all that, he was alert continually, and certain gentlemen who had presumed upon the foppish clothing and the monocle had learned, to their great surprise, that Terry Trimble had muscles and knew how to handle them.

The sergeant opened the door again, and Terry Trimble stepped into the commissioner's private office, hat and stick held in one hand, his monocle in his eye, a smile upon his lips.

“Quite a gathering of the city's best peace officers,” he said as he shook hands with the commissioner and nodded to the others. “Am I right in supposing that the meeting has something to do with a certain individual who calls himself The Fox?”

“You are,” the commissioner said. “And we hope to have a great deal to do with that certain individual before long.”

“Yes; I understand that he intends to break a few laws this night,” Terry Trimble said.

“How do you happen to know that?”

“I have been honored,” said Trimble, “with a communication from the gentleman—or lady, as the case may be.”

“I guess it's a man, all right. He's been seen half a dozen times, you know.”

“So certain persons have declared, but it may not be the truth,” Trimble said. “Human nature is a frail thing. Lots of people think they see things when they do not.”

“So you got a letter from him?” the commissioner asked.

“Here it is, read it to the assembly.”

The commissioner: read it:

“Mr. Terry Trimble: I understand that you are supposed to be some great little bloodhound. Here is one criminal who does not quail at the mere mention of your name. Why don't you aid the silly police in their futile efforts to apprehend me? I intend committing a crime at midnight to-night, or a little later. Why not get into the game and let me show that you are not quite as brilliant as you are painted?

The Fox.”

“Nasty missive!” Trimble commented. “Rather puts it up to me, doesn't he? With your kind permission I'll have a go at this fellow.”

The commissioner beamed.

“You most certainly have my permission, Trimble,” he said. “I hope you can get him, but I have grave doubts.”

“I don't fancy there'll be any trouble about it,” declared the trouble maker, with supreme confidence. “While we are waiting for news as to his latest atrocity, suppose you give me what details you have.”

“That's the trouble—we haven't any,” said the chief.

“I know the crimes credited to him, of course, since the newspapers have been full of them,” Trimble said. “And I know that you have been given about a hundred different descriptions of the man.”

“Well, what do you think about it?” the commissioner asked.

“Mr. Fox has a new game,” Trimble declared. “All new games are merely combinations or variations of old ones. There is a key to every puzzle. It is our job to find the key.”

“Some job!” the lieutenant of detectives commented.

“That letter was delivered to me by a messenger about an hour ago,” Terry Trimble went on. “The messenger told Billings, my secretary and assistant, that it was handed him by an old man who was poorly dressed, but who gave him a dollar for delivering it, in addition to the regular fee. I decided that I'd come down here and join the police force for a time.”

“Just how are you going to begin?” the chief wanted to know.

“How can I tell?” Terry Trimble asked, smiling and allowing his monocle to drop. “We'd better wait until we hear what the fellow has done to-night.”

Once more the door of the private office was thrown open, and the sergeant entered.

“Burglar at Doctor Richard Rhone's residence!” he announced. “It was The Fox. He told the doctor so!”

There was an immediate rush through the office and to the street. Terry Trimble sprang into his big limousine and pulled the agitated commissioner in after him. The chauffeur had the machine in motion even while Trimble was calling out the address to him, and the limousine whirled around in the wide street and started at a furious rate of speed toward the residence section of the city. Behind it roared the police department cars carrying the chief and his squad of detectives.

The residence of Doctor Richard Rhone was an old-fashioned brick building in a section of the city which once had been a select residence district. There was a small yard around it, and stores had been constructed on adjoining property. Doctor Richard Rhone, in addition to being a famous surgeon, was known as an eccentric scientist. Though only fifty years of age, he had retired from active practice, declaring that he had all the money he wanted and wished to spend his time in experiments that might benefit the human race.

He was a bachelor, cared nothing for women, and declined, when urged by his friends, to move further uptown and construct a modern residence. The old house and the old location were good enough, he declared. He had his laboratory arranged exactly as he wished it, and, if he moved it his work would suffer for a year or more, was his assertion.

Everybody in the city knew Doctor Richard Rhone as a peculiar individual. Now and then he would indulge in caustic criticism of humanity in general, and an hour later, perhaps, would pick up some poor boy and endow him for life. One group declared him to be merciless in business affairs and money matters, and another mentioned the boys he had sent through college, the hospital beds he had endowed, and the large subscriptions he had made to charitable societies.

Terry Trimble found himself wondering, as the limousine went through the streets, why The Fox, as he called himself, had picked Doctor Richard Rhone for a victim. Heretofore The lox had indulged in crimes of magnitude, not in ordinary burglaries. A bachelor establishment where there was no strong box filled with women's jewels, where there lived only a preoccupied scientist and his few servants, did not seem to promise much for such a criminal as The Fox.

The limousine dashed to the curb and stopped, and Trimble opened the door and got out, turning to give a hand to the commissioner. The police cars pulled in behind, and officers scattered to surround the place. The commissioner led the way up the steps to the front entrance, the chief at his heels, Terry Trimble loitering behind as if bored by it all.

Doctor Richard Rhone himself answered their ring and ushered them into the house, taking them to an old-fashioned front parlor. His mass of gray hair was rumpled, his big eyes were blazing, his manner was that of an excited man, a man jarred out of the ordinary rut of his self-centered existence. He had on dressing gown and slippers, and evidently had been in bed when The Fox elected to pay his visit to the house. Trimble, his monocle adjusted to suit him, leaned against a wall and listened to the story.

“I was in bed and asleep,” Doctor Rhone said. “I worked all last night in the laboratory, and all day, and retired about ten o'clock. I was sleeping soundly, but something awakened me. My bedchamber is on the second floor, and I heard some sort of noise below.”

“What kind of a noise?” the chief asked.

“Just the ordinary sounds a man would make moving around. I thought it was my old butler, and called to him, but there was no answer. I realized that that was peculiar, so got out of bed. Just as I was putting on my dressing gown, the door opened and a masked man stepped in. I had already turned on the lights.”

“What did he say and do?” the chief asked.

“He was chuckling. He covered me with an automatic and ordered me to sit down on the bed. He told me that he was the man known as The Fox, and that he had just robbed my safe.”

“What did he look like?” the commissioner asked.

“Tall, thin; had black eyes that glittered through the mask he wore. He had on a shabby black suit and a soft black hat pulled down so far that I could not see any of his hair.”

“How about his voice?”

“He lisped a bit, and his voice was harsh. I'd be pretty sure to know his voice if I heard it again.”

The commissioner turned to Terry Trimble,

“Want to take the case?” he asked. “You may have full charge.”

“I'll investigate if you don't mind.”

“You know Doctor Rhone?”

“By reputation only,” Trimble said.

The commissioner made the introduction, and Trimble screwed his monocle into his eye again, yawned, then addressed himself to the scientist.

“A few questions,” he said. “You were asleep, and a noise awakened you?”

“Yes.”

“How about your servants?”

“I have but two, Mr. Trimble—an old butler, and an elderly woman who is both housekeeper and cook. Both have been with me for years. Now and then another woman is called in to do cleaning, of course.”

“They didn't hear the burglar? Where are they now?”

“The old butler was bound and gagged and left on his bed, and the cook was rendered unconscious with chloroform,” said Doctor Rhone. “As I said, the burglar entered my bedroom and informed me that he had robbed my safe. He threatened to shoot me if I resisted him or made an outcry. He forced me to stretch myself on the bed, lashed me there with cords from the portières, chloroformed me, and left.”

“And how did you get free?”

“That is peculiar,” said Doctor Rhone. “After rendering me unconscious he must have removed the cords. When I came to, I was not bound. I called to the servants, and they did not answer. I ran to the butler's room and released him and heard his story. We found the cook on her bed, moaning and just returning to consciousness—but she could tell nothing. I presume that she had been chloroformed as she slept.”

“Looks as if your burglar knew all about your household, since he went straight to the servants' rooms and took care of them,” Trimble declared.

“I thought of that, too.”

“And that's all you can tell us?”

“Yes.”

“Um! How do you account for the fact that such a criminal as The Fox picked out your house? It is not a pretentious dwelling, if you will pardon me. Was there anything to lead him to believe you had something in this place worth his stealing? What did he get, by the way?”

“Jewels,” said Doctor Rhone.

“Of great value?”

“Valued at about twenty-five thousand dollars,” the scientist replied. “They were handsome stones, but in old-fashioned settings. They have been in my family for several generations; they belonged to my mother, who gave them to me. I care nothing for jewelry, and so I have kept them as they were, not caring to have them reset. They were in a small compartment at the back of my safe. I didn't look at them twice a year. I just kept them, thinking that, if ill fortune ever came, I could sell them.”

“Who knew you had these jewels?” Trimble asked.

“I do not know. I never spoke of them that I remember. Perhaps I have mentioned them at some time or other.”

“Your servants2”

“Are above reproach, sir,” declared Doctor Rhone. “My old butler knew of the jewels, but he has not seen them in years, and I suppose has forgotten all about them. Of course he may have mentioned them in an unguarded moment, and the knowledge have come to this criminal.”

“Anything else taken?” Trimble asked.

“A small amount in currency—less than a hundred dollars.”

“That is all?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Trimble demanded. “Have you made a complete investigation since the robbery? How about your laboratory? Did you not, perhaps, have a valuable formula or two there?”

A look of alarm came into the face of the scientist.

“I never thought of that!” he gasped.

He led the way to the second floor, where the laboratory was situated. The door was locked, but Doctor Rhone unlocked it and hurried inside. One glance seemed to suffice him.

“Nothing has been touched. The man never entered here,” he declared.

“Well, that is fortunate,” said Terry Trimble.

They went back down the stairs and looked at the safe. It stood open, and some papers were scattered on the floor before it. Trimble gave it scarcely a glance.

“How about finger prints?” he asked the chief.

“The Fox must use gloves. We've never been able to get any strange finger prints.”

“He must be a good cracksman,” added Trimble. “He simply worked the combination and opened the box—didn't have to use force.”

“It is an old safe,” the scientist apologized. “I never anticipated a burglar.”

“And yet you kept a fortune in jewels there,” Trimble said. “That was careless. Jewels insured?”

“No.”

“Let's go to your bedroom.”

Again Doctor Rhone led the way to the second floor. Trimble went into the bedroom and looked around carefully. The bed gave the appearance of having been occupied recently. On the floor was a small bottle that reeked of chloroform; a towel was beside it; and the portière cords were beside the bed.

“Where did that towel come from?” Trimble asked.

“My own bathroom. He stepped in and got it, forced me to lie down, drenched the towel with chloroform after I was bound, and put it over my mouth and nostrils.”

“Were you ill when you recovered consciousness?”

“A slight nausea from the chloroform,” replied Doctor Rhone. “The whole thing is rather humiliating. I am a strong, vigorous man for my age, and perhaps should have raised an outcry or attempted a capture, but he held a gun on me all the time.”

“No use in a man throwing his life away,” Trimble said. “Wonder why he took the trouble to come upstairs and see you.”

“He was boasting; said he always wanted to make the acquaintance of a person he robbed. I suppose he wanted to show that he was a daring criminal, not like the usual run of them.”

Trimble stepped into the bathroom, but came out almost immediately.

“Do you smoke?” he asked the scientist.

“A pipe.”

“Cigarettes?”

“Never. I dislike them. Neither do I smoke cigars.”

“Butler smoke?”

“Just a pipe, in his own room in the evening.”

“I found this cigarette stub on the floor of the bathroom,” Trimble said, exhibiting it. “It is an ordinary brand, of which hundreds of thousands of packages are sold annually. So that'll not help us much, even if The Fox did drop it.”

“He must have dropped it, or it wouldn't be there,” declared the scientist. “I remember now that he was smoking a cigarette. I was rather bewildered—didn't think to mention it before.”

“I thought you said that he was masked.”

“A black mask that fitted his face closely,” said Doctor Rhone. “It seemed to be attached to his hat in front.”

“Did he have the nerve to raise his mask and smoke?”

“No, sir. As I remember now, there was a tiny slit over the mouth.”

“Oh! A regular, serviceable mask, then, instead of a makeshift, like a handkerchief?”

“It appeared so, sir.”

“A dangerous thing—hard for him to explain if found in his possession,” Terry Trimble declared.

He wrapped the cigarette stub in a bit of paper and put it carefully into his pocket. Then he asked to see the butler.

The aged servitor said merely that he had been awakened by a man who held a gun at his head. He was bound and gagged and stretched on his bed and lashed there. The binding was done with rope which the burglar took from beneath his coat, the gagging with a towel. Trimble inspected the rope; it was an ordinary clothesline.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Just growled that he'd shoot if I so much as whimpered, sir,” the butler replied.

The agitated cook was questioned, too, but she knew nothing except that she returned to consciousness and was ill. Doctor Rhone and the butler had told her what had happened, and she heard the doctor telephoning for the police.

Trimble led the way to the first floor again and stopped in the hallway before the front door.

“Might as well let your men go back to headquarters, chief,” he said. “I'll handle this alone, and in my own way.”

“Pardon me, but I—I'd prefer that more men worked on the case,” Doctor Rhone said. “Those jewels2”

“I dont need any help except Billings, my regular assistant,” Trimble declared.

“It looks like a difficult affair, Trimble,” the commissioner said. “What do you think about it?”

“There are some rather unusual features,” Trimble replied, “but I see nothing difficult about it.”

“You mean you think that you can catch The Fox?”

“Why, certainly!” Trimble said, screwing his monocle into his eye. “Of all the animals known to man, the fox leaves one of the best trails. There is just a chance that this particular fox overrates his own cunning and sagacity.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked the chief, “that, since we have been in this house, you have found a clew?”

“Why, yes—several of them! Haven't you?” Terry Trimble wanted to know.

The chief of police grew red in the face and led the way toward the front door.

CHAPTER III. An Escape

DURING the journey back to police headquarters Terry Trimble sat in one corner of the limousine among the cushions, puffed furiously at a cigarette, and seemed disinclined to conversation, though the commissioner asked a multitude of questions and continued to ask them though the trouble maker replied in monosyllables only.

Headquarters reached, they got out and went into the commissioner's private office, the chief accompanying them. Trimble tossed his hat and stick on a table and sat down before the desk.

“Let me see some of those letters you received from The Fox,” he requested.

The chief placed them before him, and the trouble maker inspected them carefully and compared them with the one he had received by messenger.

“Same person wrote them all,” he stated.

From one of his coat pockets he took a crumpled sheet of paper upon which there was writing. He compared this with the letters, shook his head, bent over the desk and compared them again. The commissioner and the chief watched him closely.

“Wrong guess to start with,” Trimble complained, and put the piece of paper back in his pocket, together with the letter he had received.

“Can you give us an idea what2” the chief began.

“I don't like to talk until I know what I am talking about,” replied Trimble. “Seems to me there is something peculiar about this case. But I think The Fox can be landed soon. I have a little theory; that is all. There are many things I shall have to discover before this theory will work out properly. I'm in charge, am I?”

“You are,” said the commissioner. “Want any help?”

“Not at present. If I do later, I'll call upon you. Trouble is, I fancy, your police have the idea that this Mr. Fox is more cunning than he really is. I'm afraid you've been overlooking things. Up at the residence of Doctor Richard Rhone, now, you overlooked several things.”