THE reporter at the city desk in the Classic office placed his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and called to the city editor.
“Caulkins on the phone, Mr. Ward.”
“Just a minute, Gaynor.”
The reporter spoke into the telephone. Again he called to the city editor.
“Says it’s urgent, Mr. Ward.”
The city editor came grumbling to the desk.
“Time he called up,” he said. “Expected him in an hour ago. We want that Wise Owl copy in a hurry.”
He took the swivel chair as Gaynor slipped out of the way, and picked up the telephone.
“Yeah?” he growled.
Words came breathlessly from Caulkins.
“Biggest scoop ever, boss,” was what Ward heard. “I’ve located Judge Tolland—”
“Where?”
“Right here with me now. In a hideout on East Eightieth Street. Listen: This Double Z business—”
“Wait, I’ll put Gaynor on, if you can’t get in with the story.”
“No, no, boss!” came the protest. “Wait until I give you the dope. I’m afraid something may happen if I don’t get it off my chest quick. Judge Tolland is alive. He’s given me a statement. He knows who Double Z is. Don’t think I’m crazy, boss! Double Z is—”
The voice broke off. Simultaneously, Ward heard the sound of a revolver shot over the wire. Three more followed in rapid succession. There was a clatter of a telephone falling.
“Hello! Hello!” called the city editor.
Vague sounds came through the receiver. Ward fancied that he heard a gasp. A sharp click ended the chaos. The phone was hung up at the other end.
“Gaynor!” shouted the city editor. “Try to locate where that call came from — the phone number! Quick! I heard shooting.”
He singled out another reporter.
“Up to Eightieth Street, Briggs,” he said. “East Eightieth. Take Stewart along with you. Try to locate Caulkins. He was calling from somewhere up there. There was shooting in the place where he called from.”
The alert city editor spotted another man.
“Get police headquarters, Perry. Tell them what you just heard. Shooting up on Eightieth Street. Caulkins is there.”
Ward sagged back in his chair, his excitement passed. He became meditative, giving no thought to the scurrying men who were on their way to do his bidding. He leaned forward to the desk and wrote a concise memorandum of what he had just heard.
Then he pushed pencil and paper aside while he checked his recollections. He tilted back in his chair and looked across the room at the clock. He glanced toward the typewriter desks. Harwood, star rewrite man, was sitting idle.
“Say, Harwood,” said the city editor in a matter-of-fact tone, “do a Wise Owl column. Anything you want. It’s your job from now on. I don’t think Caulkins will be with us any longer.”
THE city editor of the Classic was correct in his prophecy. A few hours later, the lifeless body of Joel Caulkins was discovered in the third story of an old house on Eightieth Street. No shots had been heard in the vicinity.
Police had arrived at the place by a process of elimination. The owner of a little store had seen a car pull away from the building where no car had stopped for months. The place was supposed to be empty. The statement had warranted a search. The body of the ex-Wise Owl was found there.
Acting Inspector Fennimann was accustomed to reporters from the Classic. He considered most of them a nuisance. The tabloid newspaper was always after sensational stories, and the Wise Owl revelations, a page of presumably inside stuff, was not liked at headquarters.
But on this particular night, after he had received a report from Detective Sergeant Wentworth, the acting inspector was surprised to receive a visit from Dale Ward, city editor of the Classic.
The editor received a cordial welcome. In a few minutes he and Fennimann were in close conference, chewing fat cigars while they talked.
“I heard the shots that killed Caulkins,” explained Ward. “But it was what happened before then that is most important. He was in a hurry when he called me. Before they bumped him off, he told me that Judge Tolland was there with him.”
“Judge Tolland!” Fennimann raised his eyebrows incredulously. “That’s impossible, Ward! If Tolland was anywhere around New York, we’d have located him before this. Say! You aren’t going to run any stuff like that, are you?”
“That wasn’t all that Caulkins said. He told me that Tolland knew all about Double Z. He was just going to let me know who Double Z was when—”
Ward stopped as the door opened. In stepped the familiar form of Joe Cardona, the dark-visaged detective whose reputation as a crime investigator was known throughout New York.
“I’m glad you’re here, Joe!” exclaimed Fennimann. “This Caulkins killing has got me worried — with Inspector Klein away and you off on an other job. This is Mr. Ward, city editor of the Classic. What about this Caulkins case, Joe — have you seen Wentworth?”
“Yes,” replied Cardona tersely, while he was solemnly shaking hands with Ward.
“I stopped at East Eightieth Street on my way home from the Bronx. I’ve seen the place — the body — and Wentworth’s report. Happened to call here while you were out, and they told me about the murder.”
Fennimann turned to Ward.
“Tell Joe what you told me,” he said.
Cardona was expressionless while he heard the city editor’s statement. Then he became thoughtful. He scratched his chin and turned toward the newspaperman.
“How many shots did you hear over the wire?” he questioned Ward.
“Four.”
“Did the receiver click right after that?” continued the detective.
“Not for fifteen or twenty seconds — perhaps half a minute.”
“Four shots,” said Cardona thoughtfully. “That’s the number of bullets that were in the dead man’s body.”
“Which means—”
“That if anybody was with him when he called, it’s a sure bet that’s who killed him.”
“He said that Judge Tolland was there,” Ward asserted.
“So you told me. Was Caulkins reliable?”
“He was the Wise Owl,” said Ward without a smile. “Apt to get fanciful at a typewriter — but not on the telephone, when talking with me.”
CARDONA closed his eyes. He was visualizing the scene in that room on East Eightieth Street, where he had observed the lone body of Joel Caulkins. He pictured the bullet-ridden form.
“Wentworth thinks that some gangsters coaxed Caulkins up there,” he said. “Wentworth may be wrong.
Let’s see that paper he brought you, Inspector.”
Reluctantly Fennimann pulled a paper from the desk drawer. Cardona studied it and read it aloud:
“You have one week to live!”
He passed the note to Ward, who stared at the cryptic Double Z signature in amazement. Fennimann looked questioningly at Cardona, who signaled that all would be well.
“Where did you find this?” asked Ward.
“In the dead man’s hand,” said Fennimann.
“This ties up Double Z with the murder,” was the city editor’s comment. “But where does Judge Tolland come in?”
“That’s the question,” said Cardona.
“Is this a genuine Double Z note?”
“It looks like one. If there is such a person as Double Z, it is probably genuine.”
“What do you mean — if there is a Double Z—”
“It may simply be a ruse adopted by different criminals,” explained Cardona. “But in this case it may be Double Z. He had told us of several murders before they occurred — but they may not have been of his doing.”
“I understand that,” replied Ward. “Caulkins covered some of the Double Z cases and was working on them as the Wise Owl. Double Z, I understand, is presumably a fanatic, who has a remarkable knowledge of what is going on in the criminal world.”
“Look here,” declared Cardona. “I’m going to give you some theories. But lay off of any wild stuff. Work with us. This hits home. It’s one of your own reporters. Get me?”
Dale Ward nodded.
“A number of people have received Double Z threats,” said Cardona. “Now, the way I figure it is this. Caulkins may have received that note and kept mum about it. But that’s hardly likely, eh?”
“Not unless he got it after he went out this afternoon,” responded Ward.
“All right, then. Maybe he received it then. Sent to him by the bird that killed him. Now, why did Caulkins go to that house on East Eightieth Street?”
“Probably he got a tip to go there. He knew a lot of gangsters. Or perhaps he met some one—”
“Very well. I incline to the first theory. However, he went to the place alone, unarmed, apparently suspecting no danger. There was some one there with him. Maybe some one posing as Judge Tolland.
Double Z, for instance.”
“Double Z!” exclaimed Ward.
“Yes. Because Caulkins was not killed by a gunman!”
“Why not?”
“Gunmen don’t bump off reporters — at least, not in New York. Besides that, it took four shots, and two of them were wide ones. Caulkins was at the telephone — an easy mark. A gangster would have nailed him with one shot, or two at the most.”
Ward nodded. He saw Cardona’s point.
“Now get this,” declared the detective. “Whoever was intending to murder Caulkins inside that house gave Caulkins the opportunity to spill a certain amount of information. From your description, that information came straight from Caulkins — it was not under threat. Caulkins had confidence in the man who was with him.
“Now, Judge Tolland, if he is alive — if he is in New York — would certainly want to lay low. At any rate, he would have seen to it that Caulkins either said nothing or said everything. That’s logical, isn’t it?”
“It seems so.”
“But let’s figure Double Z on the job, pretending to be Judge Tolland. That wouldn’t be difficult. You could double for Tolland, and so could Fennimann, here. Nobody’s seen Tolland for more than a year. He’d be apt to be changed in appearance, anyway. So we’ll consider Double Z a hound for leaving his mark or showing his hand.
“He gets a phony message to Caulkins. The reporter goes up there. He meets Double Z, who calls himself Tolland, and hands him a lot of bunk. Caulkins swallows the story. He calls you.
“First he tells you that Tolland is with him. That’s part of the game. Then he brings in Double Z. That’s great. Verbal statement as a new development on the note stuff. Then, when Caulkins begins to give away who Double Z is — maybe the guy was crazy enough to actually tell him — bang! Curtains for your reporter.”
“And this note?”
“Left there to make it look like Caulkins was threatened previously by Double Z. That guy would never take back a note once he sent it. Looks like he just left it there, after Caulkins had brought it out to show him, thinking he was really Judge Tolland.”
“A great story,” declared Ward, his journalistic instinct coming to the fore.
“All right,” agreed Cardona, “if you leave out the Judge Tolland part.”
“Why?”
“Because we want to keep Double Z from thinking we’ve got everything. He doesn’t know how much was really heard or understood at your end of the phone. He wants to bring in a lot of mystery about Judge Tolland. I think his game is to make people believe that Judge Tolland has gone berserk and is Double Z.”
“That’s possible!” exclaimed Ward.
“Possible, yes,” said Cardona. “But lay off it. Your story is good enough. Caulkins was lured to the old house, after receiving a threat from Double Z. He went there because some one had tipped him that he would give him the real low-down on who Double Z was — and, naturally, Caulkins was anxious to find out, because of the threat.
“There he met Double Z in person, but didn’t know it. He called up, started to say something about Double Z, then came the shots, and— that’s all! Double Z played it right up until the last minute.”
THE city editor became reporter. He began to jot down the theory given by Cardona.
“This is a break for you,” said Fennimann. “I wanted to hold back on the note. This Double Z stuff doesn’t do us any good. Reference to Tolland would be worse.”
“Right,” agreed Ward. He was sold on the capabilities and methods of Joe Cardona.
“Now,” said the detective, “I’ll be glad to have one of your men come up and look for inside stuff. I’ve given you what appear to me to be the real facts. Let’s stick to them. Keep an eye on what your man writes. I want to nail the guy that got Caulkins. That’s my job.”
The city editor of the Classic was thoughtful when he left detective headquarters. He admired the work of Joe Cardona. He saw the fallacy of attempting to revive the Judge Tolland case, even though it fitted in with tabloid ideas.
Joe Cardona was also pleased to have met Dale Ward. He was more pleased when he saw the next day’s Classic. Along with photographs of the martyred reporter and the death house appeared the story that he had arranged. Double Z was in the news again; but now the strange criminal had overshot his mark. The police were obtaining clews. Detective Cardona expected results.
“Double Z,” muttered Joe Cardona as he stared at the newspaper spread upon the desk. “I’ve got the guy’s number now. He’ll boil up because that Tolland stuff didn’t land. He’ll show his hand again— and when he does, it will be too bad for him!”