A Writ of Habeas Corpus

by Arthur Somers Roche

 

A Writ of Habeas Corpus

BY ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE

---

Gray Ghost, Shrewd Malefactor, Apparently Reaches Climax of His Career in Contest With Pelham and Tryon.

 

IT WAS exactly six days since the Gray Ghost had telephoned that within a week he would kill Pelham with his own hands. Twice motor cars had barely missed running over Pelham. Three times shots had been fired at him. One of them had clipped his hat.

Jerry Tryon, his partner, and Slim Dickenson, his cook-valet-friend, were both equally anxious during this especially trying week. They were convinced that If Pelham remained indoors the Gray Ghost would come to him. And when the criminal should come a score of Tryon operators would be awaiting him.

But their pleas had been unheeded Pelham.

“Slim,” eaid Pelham. “I'm going out to dinner.”

“I got a swell steak in the ice box,” said Slim. But his voice was hopeless.

“Then eat it,” snapped Pelham.

“What's the big idea?” demanded Slim. “You're not going out without me, are you?”

“I am,” declared Pelham. ”Every where I've gone I've had a group of people with me, and our friend has made only long-range attempts. If I'm alone he'll come close. And that's what I want.” He laughed. “But because that's what I want, he'll not make any effort tonight.”

The Tryon Agency held title to the whole block in which Pelham's apartment was situated. This was not merely an investment calculated to bring in a certain percentage of return—it was also in the nature of a precautionary measure.

So Pelham had been able to construct various doors and passages which made It possible for him, walking into his bedroom, to appear five minutes later in the doorway of a building fifty yards away.

It was dusk when he slipped quietly into the street. He was recognized at once by an operative of the agency. The man would have followed, but Pelham peremptorily ordered him to remain where he was and darted down a side street.

West of Broadway he picked up a taxi and drove to Edgemont. that gay roadhouse which, well within the city's limits, yet makes one feel that the city has been left behind.

As he progressed peacefully through an excellent dinner he began to feel something ridiculous in his precautions. This was New York, not Corsica, or Sicily, or some other land of the vendetta.

Looking across the river at the twinkling lights of Jersey, watching the moonlight turn the river into dancing silver, hearing the orchestra play the latest waltz, seeing the smiling faces of girls—he managed to bring a temporary sense of security to his strained nerves.

Deliberately he forced himself to regard tho past months of the Gray Ghost's renaissance, the past few days of strain, as unrealities, and the present, with its calm and joyous security, as the true reality.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

THERE is in the make-up of every man who may lay claim to being an artist—and if Pelham's profession was not artistic, his methods entitled him to be considered, at least more imaginative than his fellow craftsmen—something which enables him to disregard the immediate past and the immediate future, and live only in the moment. Pelham could do this. He was quite forgetful of the Gray Ghost, as, his hunger satisfied, he lighted a cigarette, stirred the sugar In his coffee, and looked about the room.

Presently he realized that the pretty blonde who sat alone, two tables away from him, was eying him.

He had idly noticed her when she first came in, and had seen her insist upon being shown to the table where he now sat. A card, with the word “Reserved” printed upon it, had disappeared from the table almost simultaneously with the transfer of something from the girl's hand to that of the head waiter.

She held up her hand and furtively beckoned to him. He hesitated a moment. Then it seemed to him that it was to him as an individual to whom she wished to speak, and not merely to a well-dressed stranger. So he rose and approached the table at which she sat.

Her face lighted up as he stopped beside her. “Won't you sit down?” she invited him.

“Thank you,” said Pelham.

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and looked inquiringly at her. She was even prettier than she had seemed at longer range. For the rest she seemed a well-bred girl whose air of sophistication might well be due to nothing more than the contacts required by the necessities of earning a living. Pelham set her down as connected In some capacity with the theater.

“I suppose you must have a terrible opinion of me,” she said.

”I am reserving judgment,” smiled Pelham.

Convinced that her mute invitation to join her had not been born of an inclination to flirtation, but had been inspired by some real need, he gave her time to approach the matter, whatever it was, in her own way. It was rather delightful to sit at table with this girl, drinking in through the open windows the soft air of the spring evening.

He suddenly wished to whisper pleasant nothings, and to hear them told to him. But there was something so forced in her tones that he became more than ever convinced that she had had a weightier reason for summoning him.

“You didn't invite me here for idle chatter,” he said presently. “Not that I wouldn't be glad if you had. But why did you want me to join you?”

She smiled uncertainly.

“Because tonight I need money,” she said, ruefully.

“How much?” asked Pelham.

”Until the waiter gives me the check I will not know,” she replied. She laughed nervously. “I didn't feel like dining at home tonight. This lovely spring evening tempted me out. And it was not until I had finished my dining that I realized I had come here without money. The situation has its embarrassing features.”

“Fortunately, the embarrassment need not endure,” he said.

“Nor need the loan go long unpaid,” she told him.

He waved a deprecating hand. “Suppose that I had had the good fortune to own your acquaintance; in that case there would have been no talk of repayment.”

“”But those are suppositions,” she reminded him. ”I can stretch convention so far, but not beyond. If you will pay my check and then come with me to my apartment—it is on 95th street, just off the Drive—I will refund the money.”

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

PELHAM was conscious that she was anxiously awaiting his reply. The girl was lying. She had indubitably tipped the head waiter in order to procure the special table which she had chosen. Furthermore, the waiter who had served her had greeted her with apparent recognition as he came to take her order.

She had picked him because he was Jimmy Pelham. Why?

There could be only one answer to this question. Yet to connect the Gray Ghost with this decent girl seemed a little far-fetched. But he pleasantly agreed to accompany her to her apartment and receive money to replace that which now he gave to her waiter.

Outside the dining room she left him, stating that she must reclaim her complexion from the ravages of this spring evening. She disappeared into one of the reception rooms. Pelham waited for her. If this girl were in any way connected with the Gray Ghost matters of importance might be learned from her. When she came out he ordered a taxi, helped her into it and sat down beside her. The machine started.

“I think,” he said, “that under the circumstances it would not be impertinent if I told you my name. It's James Pelham.”

The color faded from her cheeks and she gasped with amazement or horror. She leaned instantly forward and knocked upon the window in front of which sat the chauffeur. The man glanced over his shoulder, then turned into the curb and stopped.

“What's the matter?” demanded Pelham.

“They said it was—that you were—get out,” she ordered. “Quickly. They may be on their way, in this neighborhood——”

Pelham took both her hands in his and held them tightly. “Suppose, my dear young lady, that you begin at the beginning. Of course, I know for whom you're working, but how did it happen that you didn't know my name, considering for whom you work?”

”I didn't know for whom I was working until you mentioned your name. But now I can guess,” she told him.

“And what did you think you were doing?” demanded Pelham. Beneath his cynical glance she crimsoned. “You see,” he went on, “I know you have money in your purse. I saw you tip the head waiter.”

“Yet you came with me; you have courage, Mr. Pelham.”

“Rather an extremely natural curiosity,” he retorted. ”But tell me.”

Her color became more pronounced. “A man whom I have known casually for some time—he is a stage manager and I am an actress—knew that I had been out of an engagement for months. He told me that a certain man was badly wanted as a witness in a will case that was being handled by some lawyer friends of his. He said that the witness had avoided all attempts to serve subpoenas on him. And if I would dine every night at Edgemont and look for this man, and if I were so fortunate as to find the wanted man, and detain him long enough for subpoena servers to get to him, I was to receive a $1,000.”

Pelham whistled softly. Then he smiled.

“How did you know me?”

“I was given half a dozen photographs of you to study,” she replied.

Pelham's smile grew broader. “You believed this cock-and-bull story about a missing witness? You believed that it wan necessary to entice this possessor of information to your apartment?”

“I didn't believe it,” she admitted. ”But—I needed the dinners and the $1,000. And I din't dream that murder was meant. But if you are James Pelham, only one person could be behind the stage manager.”

He eyed her gravely. “As for the thousand dollars that you have lost—I will give ten thousand for information that would lead me to the Gray Ghost. I'm not going to censure you. Give me the name and address of your stage-manager friend. And keep your eyes open.” He descended from the taxicab.

The girl leaned through the door. “Mr. Pelham,” she said eagerly, “I've been straight. I've worked. It's only recently that the luck has been bad——”

“It's all right,” said Pelham.

He walked swiftly away. But before he went home he telephoned the agency, and ordered operatives to watch the apartment where the girl lived, and to arrest her friend, the stage manager.

Slipping cautiously through the night, he reached one of the many entrances to his apartment, and was finally in his own bedroom.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

SLIM greeted him with delight. He handed his employer a telegram. It was from Philadelphia, was signed with the name of Wade Bonstel, one of Pelham's oldest friends, and stated that the sender would arrive in New York in the morning. He would pay Pelham a long-promised visit. And he was sending a trunk by express.

Pelham was delighted. He had not seen Bonstel for two years.

When expressmen arrived with Bonstel'a trunk, a sizable wardrobe affair, Pelham directed them to bestow it in the guest bedroom. The men had just left when the telephone rang. He answered it, and recognized the voice of his feminine companion of the earlier evening.

“Mr. Pelham,” she said, “I was so ashamed that I didn't tell you that when I went into the deception room at Edgemont, It was to telephone my friend that I had found the missing witness. He and some others came to my apartment just now. I told them that you had become suspicious and left me.

“When they left I followed them. They went to a garage near here, and a minute later a truck came out of that garage. Two of the men who had come to my apartment rode on the truck. I followed it in a taxi. The men whom I knew got down after a few blocks, but the truck continued downtown. It stopped before your house, and two men who still remained on the truck carried a trunk into your apartment building. I don't know what it means.”

”But I do,” cried Pelham. “And I think you've earned the $10,000.“

He hung up; he turned to Dickenson. He led the way into the guestroom and drew his revolver. “Slim,” he cried, “in just two minutes I'm going to put six bullets through that trunk.”

“Are you crazy?” demanded Slim.

Pelham laughed. “You thought I was crazy when I went out tonight. But If I hadn't gone out I'd never have met a certain young lady about whom I've been telling you. She tried to do a little sleuthing on her own. The Gray Ghost's week is almost up. She stumbled into his last desperate plan. Slim, in ten seconds more I begin to fire.”

But in five seconds the trunk open, and the Gray Ghost, his arms lifted above his head, stepped out of the receptacle.

”Luck was with you, Mr. Pelham,” he said.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

THE Gray Ghost sat humbled and shrunken before Pelham the next day in an office in the criminal courts building. Yet there was no smile upon Pelham's lips, no twinkle in his eye.

The Gray Ghost was a quitter! He was the last man on earth who should have wept and pleaded for his life.

Pelham burst suddenly into protest. “For heaven's sake, Ballantyne, be a man!” he cried.

The Gray Ghost lifted his ashen face. All the terror that, on other occasions, his gray personality had been able to inspire was now gone.

“That's all very well for you to say, Mr. Pelham,” he whined, “but you aren't looking at the electric chair. I am. That's why I sent for you, to make a deal, if I could. What good will it do to send me to the chair?”

Pelham's contempt burst the bonds of courtesy to a defeated foe.

“Good? We won't argue the question, Ballantyne. You couldn't understand the feeling that the sight of you arouses in decent people.”

“Yes, I could,” replied Ballantyne. “When I think of the things I've done, I feel ashamed.”

Pelham's jaw dropped. The statement was childishly weak and futile. The Gray Ghost seemed to have crumbled into nothingness. There remained nothing of the great though vicious spirit that had laughed at law.

“What do you expect me to reply?” demanded Pelham. “That as long as you're ashamed and sorry it will be all right, eh?”

“I want to make a deal,” said the Gray Ghost. “You may be able to try me for murder. I'm not saying that you can't get a conviction. But I'm offering five million dollars for my life.”

“A shade more than it's worth,” grunted Jerry Tryon.

“Still,” argued Ballantyne, “there's a lot of people would be glad to get their money back. I'll plead guilty to murder in the second degree. If you and the district attorney will accept that plea, I'll give you, this minute, the exact location of everything that I've stolen in the last year. It's all in one place, easy to get at. What's the use of killing a poor old man like me? I am all through: I never can get away.”

For a moment Pelham thought that in the prisoner's eyes gleamed an odd light, a light of eager watchfulness. Then, as the thin shoulders sagged, he decided that he had been mistaken. He looked at Jerry. They both looked at the district attorney. The latter gentleman smiled deprecatingly. He glanced casually at his copy of the indictment and cleared his throat portentously.

“After all, Mr. Pelham,” he said, “the ends of justice will be as well served by the imprisonment of this man as by inflicting upon him the ultimate penalty. With nothing to gain, we can hardly hope that he will disclose the hiding place of his loot. But if his life is promised to him, he agrees to surrender property of great value. Also the state will be spared the great expense of a contest. What do you say, Mr. Pelham?”

“I am a private detective, with private clients to serve,” replied Pelham. “If the acceptance of such a plea is satisfactory to you, it is, of course, all right with me.”

The Gray Ghost hurled himself from his chair; sobbing, he prostrated himself before his opponent. It was one of the most painful moments in Pelham's whole life.

He turned his back upon the other men, walked to a window and stared at the street below. He could not help hearing Ballantyne's hysterical tale, but he could avoid looking longer upon this painful disintegration of character.

“Well, come clean,” he heard Jerry say.

“I would not deceive you, Mr. Tryon,” whined Ballantyne. ”You gentlemen are so good and kind to me that I wouldn't lie to you.”

“Where's the stuff?” demanded the district attorney.

“At Rolling Meadows,” replied the Gray Ghost.

“Where is that?” asked the district attorney.

But Jerry Tryon answered the question. “In Westchester, about ten miles north of White Plains,” he cried. “You're kidding us!”

“Why should I do that?” countered Ballantyne.

“There are no storage warehouses in a village like Boiling Meadows,” asserted Jerry. Imagination had never been Tryon's strong point.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

SOMETHING of the old spirit sounded in the Gray Ghost's voice. “Warehouses are owned by people who ask inconvenient questions, Mr. Tryon. But if a South American millionaire purchased an estate in Westchester, no one is surprised if vans occasionally drive up to his house. Many of the treasures I acquire have no merchantable value. I took them for my own pleasure. They would give me no pleasure stored in a room somewhere. But in my own drawing room, on the walls of my library——”

Pelham glanced over his shoulder. It seemed to him that not merely was there new vigor in the prisoner's voice, but the shrunken figure seemed to have taken on flesh. But as he looked again he decided that his eyes and ears had been mistaken. For Ballantyne's attitude was again cringing and his voice whined.

“All you've got to do,” said the Gray Ghost, “is to go up there to Rolling Meadows, surround the house of Mr. Rafael Anatolia, and I shall have earned my life.”

Pelham could stand no more. He ignored the prisoner as he spoke to Jerry.

“Make your arrangements,” he said, ”and call for me. I'll be at my rooms.”

He strode from the office and out of the criminal courts building, engrossed in his own thoughts.

“Why hadn't the Gray Ghost gone down fighting?”

He put the question to Jerry Tryon later on that evening. Jerry laughed at him. “All crooks are rats,” declared Jerry.

“Rats fight when cornered.” objected Pelham.

“Not human rats,” argued Jerry.

Pelham shrugged. “What do we do?” he asked.

Jerry looked at his young-old partner. There was an almost reverential affection in the ex-policeman's blue eyes. Also there were traces of worry In them. Pelham did not look as fit as the man who loved him liked to see him. At a time when he should be jubilant Pelham seemed depressed and nervous.

“The thing for you to do is to go to bed,” said Jerry. ”The only thing left to do is to mop up the debris, and we won't need you at all. You've been under a terrific strain for months, and tonight's the night when you begin a long vacation.”

Pelham's thin lips curled faintly in a smile. He brushed his nervous, muscular hand over his high forehead.

“What's the idea, Mr. Tryon, of the bulge over your right hip?”

Jerry's ruddy features took on a deeper blush. “Well, there might be a little trouble——”

“And so you wish me to be snugly in bed if occasion arises for you to use that cannon in your pocket, eh?”

“Well, I don't see any necessity for you doing the rough work,” said Jerry obstinately. ”Besides, the chances are a thousand to one against there being any trouble out at Mr. Rafael Anatolia's estate.”

Pelham's smile grew broader. “Thousand to one shots bring home the bacon sometimes.” He rose from the chair in which he lounged and slapped Jerry upon the shoulder. “Some day I'll deliberately leave you out of the climax of one of our cases, and my excuse will be that you need your eight hours' sleep. Answer my question: What do we do?”

“I have five automobiles filled with plain-clothes men, waiting downstairs,” said Jerry. “We ought to make Rolling Meadows in a little over an hour. When we get there we crash in. That ought to be all there is to it.”

”I hope so,” said Pelham.

“What do you mean?” demanded Jerry.

Wrinkles appeared on Pelham's forehead. “Jerry, I am cussed if I know what I mean. Only—weren't you surprised at Ballantyne's attitude? His cowardice. I mean.”

“Nothing that a crook does surprises me,” declared Jerry.

Pelham sighed. “All right, let's go,” he said.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

JUDGE Smithson Waddell's note of hand was so long overdue that his honor had almost forgotten ever having signed the document. A member of the supreme bench of his state, with thirty years of honorable practice of his profession to look back upon, it was only natural that he should have forgotten—almost—an incident of his early career. Judge Waddell, in those moments when circumstances reminded him of an incident of long ago, remembered it in a most impersonal way. The Smithson Waddell who had committed a crime was a person so long disassociated from Judge Waddell that it was difficult for him to realize that the same person was an uncaught criminal and an ornament to the bar. Memory was jogged tonight.

He had just finished dinner when a servant brought him word that Jason Anstey was calling. The judge frowned. He had looked forward to a quiet evening. But he would come up for renomination six months from now, and it was just as well to be on friendly, even cordial, terms with a man who was supposed to hold a great many thousand notes in the hollow of his hand. A few moments later they sat facing each other across a narrow mahogany desk, littered with briefs and law books.

Mr. Anstey was a stout gentleman, with a mop of white hair upon a huge round head. He had two chins, thick lips, a blob of a nose, and green eyes that twinkled. Only the black brows that ran harshly in an unbroken line from temple to temple denied his expression of easy good humor.

“I want to tell you a little story, judge,” Anstey began. ”Thirty years ago there was a young lawyer just beginning practice in New York. A widow sued a railroad for damages for personal injuries. The railroad settled for $6,000, and the lawyer signed a receipt for that amount. But he told the widow that he had collected $3,000. He took one thousand for his fee, and paid her two. Now it happened that shortly afterward the widow died, and the lawyer who settled her estate—it was a little one—ran across some items that aroused his suspicion. He investigated and found that the facts were as I have just related them. What do you suppose he did?”

Judge Waddell's lean, stern face was white.

”What?” he whispered.

Anstey smiled blandly. “He did nothing, beyond filing away a few affidavits. Why? Because he had an idea that the information which he possessed would come in handy some day. That 'some day' is now.”

“This is blackmail,” said the judge hoarsely.

Anstey's smile became a grin. “I've always said, judge, that when it came to rendering quick decisions on the law there was no one in your class. You call it blackmail, and that's exactly what it is.”

“Why?” demanded Waddell.

“I was the young lawyer who handled the widow's estate and put the affidavits away in my safe,” said Anstey. ”You looked like a clever young chap to me, bound to succeed. The widow had no heirs and there was nothing to be gained by putting you in jail. Why, judge, you'd be surprised if you knew the men on whom I have the goods. Some of them will never know, perhaps, that I could send them to Sing Sing. Others, like yourself, find it out only when necessity arises.”

“The crime—if you want to call it that—is outlawed,” declared the Judge.

Anstey shrugged his fat shoulders. “Sure it is, but news is always news: ‘Respected Judge Proved Criminal.' Think what the headline writers would say!”

”What do you want?” asked Waddell.

Anstey leaned forward. The harsh black line of his eyebrows made Waddell think of an iron bar—the sort of iron bar that, with others, fronts a prison cell. “I want you to issue a writ of habeas corpus within the next five minutes,” he said.

“For whom?” asked the judge.

“For Peter Ballantyne, alias the Gray Ghost.” replied Anstey.

“You're mad!” cried Waddell.

Anstey stared at him. “When I leave your house I'm going to call up every city editor in New York and tell them why I shall oppose your nomination.”

“You wouldn't dare! You'd expose yourself,” said the judge.

Anstey laughed. “I am one of the Gray Ghost's lawyers. He's been worth a hundred thousand a year to me for some time. A client like that in well worth risking a little exposure for.”

“It will ruin me,” objected Waddell.

“You'll be ruined if you don't,” retorted Anstey. “Besides, I've got plenty of reasons why the writ should be granted. I have sworn statements to the effect that the Gray Ghost is the victim of a conspiracy. Will you grant the writ?”

The long overdue note had been presented. Judge Smithson Waddell paid it, with interest.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

SHORTLY before 10 o'clock that night, men having been stationed all around the house, Jerry Tryon rang the front door bell of the mansion of Mr. Rafael Anatolia and was admitted, with Pelham and eight detectives, into a magnificent hall. Soon both he and Pelham were thoroughly convinced that they were the victims of a gigantic hoax. For Mr. Anatolia was at home, entertaining at dinner two foreign bankers, a senator, a former member of the Argentine cabinet and their wives. Not merely did the South American gentleman prove conclusively that Rafael Anatolia was not a nom de guerre of the Gray Ghost, but that Raphael Anatolia—though as yet hardly known in New York—was a man of high position in his native Argentina, with financial affiliations in three continents. Crestfallen, the detectives departed.

Almost as soon as their automobiles stopped before Pelham's apartment, a member of the district attorney's staff waiting there told them that at half past 9 o'clock that night the warden of the Tombs had been served a writ of habeas corpus. Judge Waddell had held court at once in the Ballantyne case and had committed the prisoner to tho custody of his attorneys.

They went upstairs to Pelham's living room, telephoned the Tombs and verified the statement made to them by the district attorney's office. Both of them knew that the attorneys who were responsible for the person of the Gray Ghost would never deliver him to the court. They would offer a story of violent escape, and though all the world might suspect no one would be able to disprove their tale.

“It's not hard to have hindsight,” said Pelham. “Here are the facts, Jerry. The Gray Ghost came to my room prepared to kill me. I got the jump on him, and he surrendered. Now, a man of bis great ability knew that there was always the chance of my getting the jump on him. Yet he took no precaution. He must have known all along that he would manage to get out.”

”You mean that he knew Waddell would grant a writ of habeas corpus?”

“I'm sure of it,” asserted Pelham. “Oh, we'll never be able to prove complicity between Waddell and the Gray Ghost, but we know it just the same.”

“That's absurd, Mr. Pelham,” said Jerry. “Why, if we'd been in town when that writ was presented we'd have risked contempt proceedings rather than surrender Ballantyne.”

“You've noticed, perhaps,” said Pelham, sardonically, “that we weren't in town.”

“What do you mean?” cried Jerry.

“I mean that all this cringing cowardice of Ballantyne's was assumed to quiet any suspicions that we might have; it was feigned in order to give him a couple of hours in which he could be certian that we would offer no interference to the schemes of his lawyers and himself.”

“But why on earth did he take such a chance? It sounds as though he actually wanted to spend a night in jail,” said Jerry.

Pelham stared at his partner. He leaped to his feet. “Jerry.” he cried, “that's exactly it. He did want to spend a night in jail.”

“Why?” asked Jerry incredulously.

“Jerry,” Pelham said, “I know that I have my finger within an inch of the reason, but it might as well be a mile. I don't know.”

*⁠*⁠*⁠*

NEXT morning the papers contained long accounts of the release of the Gray Ghost on a writ of habeas corpus issued by Judge Waddell. The late evening papers were even more sensational. Phillips and Grathwait, the attorneys to whom the Gray Ghost had been turned over, appeared in court to state that their client had escaped. Pelham was not even interested. He merely wanted to know why the Gray Ghost had submitted to arrest. For he knew there was a reason.

”There must be money in stealing,” Jerry said two nights later. ”You know that gardener who worked for Mrs. Leamington-”

“The man that stole her jewel casket?” asked Pelham, idly.

“That's the man. You know they got him an hour after he stole the jewels. And the police know that he hid the jewels within half a mile of Mrs. Leamington's house in Great Neck. He wouldn't know where to sell them, for he was not a professional crook, just a tough chap that went wrong.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Pelham.

“The district attorney asked for heavy ball. A hundred thousand dollars. This afternoon lawyers appeared for the gardener, put up a hundred thousand in cash, and the man walked out of the court. Now where did he get the money to put up?”

Pelham groaned. “Jerry, now we know why the Gray Ghost was willing to take the chance of arrest, and also the chance of getting away.”

“I don't follow you,” said Jerry.

“No?” said Pelham. “A man steals half a million dollars' worth of jewels, just an amateur. The Gray Ghost is arrested and sent to the same prison. The prisoners are allowed to walk around: even if they aren't, communication is not hard to establish. The Gray Ghost escapes. Two days later your amateur thief puts up a hundred thousand dollars in cash for ball. Where did he get it?”

“You mean that the Gray Ghost went down to the Tombs to see him, found out where he'd hidden the jewels, and in return put up the money for his bail?” demanded Jerry.

“I mean exactly that,” replied Pelham.

And two days later he received in the mail a diamond ring. It was accompanied by a card on which were engraved the words, “Mr. Peter Ballantyne,” and on which was written, in Ballantyne's handwriting:

“A little souvenir of a pleasant stay in the Tombs. If you have scruples about retaining it, you may give it to Mrs. Leamington.”

(Copyright, 1924.)