Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 27 "One thousand !" cried Marsh, gasping. "Marsh is not fool enough to believe that !" exclaimed Pinckney, almost as quickly. "Is not that the true royalty, Mr. Durant?" Bradley asked. "It is, sir," replied Mr. Durant, puzzled by the effect of this. "Exactly ! Now, Marsh, does that mean anything to you?" "No, sir," the little man denied again. He glared at Pinckney, and then stared helplessly at the floor. "Nothing." Frances glanced quickly at Sommers ; but he was watching Marsh more interestedly now. Mr. Durant, too, bent forward. "Will you tell me, now, more clearly what you are aiming at through this?" he asked Bradley. "To prove that Lieutenant Sommers — to whom both you and your daughter twice owe your lives, and who has saved Mr. Pinckney's life twice also — was not responsible in any way for the fatal disaster to his gun. I am pursuing this search, not for that end only, but hoping to ascertain circumstances connected with this first charge which can clear Lieutenant Sommers from the second and far graver charge against him. For, as you know, he has to answer for treason, on charge of attempting to sell designs of his gun to foreign arsenals. You did not know that, Marsh?" the secret-service man asked suddenly. "That the plans of the Sommers gun were offered for sale to foreigners? No, sir." "Well, they were. These duplicate papers were taken just as they were to pass into the hands of German and Japanese agents." Bradley took a package of folded sheets from his coat pocket, and laid them upon the table. "There is against him, also, the unsubstantiated suspicion," he continued calmly, "that he connived with the Bagol chiefs in their finally successful attempts to supply themselves with arms. "The chance connection of this third charge with the other two I will postpone for the present But, in considering the other two charges, I noted a strange contradiction in them — if Lieutenant Sommers is the guilty man. For the first accuses him of making a gun of so bad a design that it must inevitably explode at the first test ; while the second charges him with negotiations to sell the same gun successfully to experts from foreign gun works. "Now, I came here and discovered the few rather significant circumstances which I have just brought before you ; first, the extraordinary leniency in dealing with this drunken Smith, who was put in charge of the gun at the most critical stage ; second, the sending away of the regular furnace men for three hours, and the clear conviction in Marsh's mind that something was badly wrong ; and third, the really remarkable fact that, though Rheinstrum is contracted to draw the most extortionate royalties ever paid, no one about the works has ever seen, known, or heard of him." "What do these facts indicate to you, Mr. Bradley?" demanded Mr. Durant. "That Lieutenant Sommers' designs were right, but that some one at these gun works — interested, let us say, in saving royalties upon the Rheinstrum gun — spoiled the Sommers gun in the forging." "But not Marsh?" cried Mr. Durant, shocked. "Not Marsh, Mr. Bradley!" "I have not said Marsh, Mr. Durant. For, though I admit that at first I thought Marsh might be that interested person, I do not think so now. I have just said that I believed there was a connection between the spoiling of this gun and the attempt to sell its designs abroad. I believe that the man who spoiled the Sommers gun here in these works, because he knew it was a good gun and would drive out the Rheinstrum, is the same one who tried to sell the designs of this superior gun to the Germans and the Japanese. And I do not believe that person is Marsh." "Who, then — who?" demanded Mr. Durant excitedly. "I am getting to that now, sir," the secret-service man replied quietly, holding the eyes of the others, fascinated, upon him as he slowly drew from his pocket and spread out before them three blank sheets of paper. "What is this ?" asked Mr. Durant impatiently. "What are they, Marsh ?" Bradley referred the question. "Why, just th ree blank sheets of ordinary tracing and copying paper," the little man answered, puzzled. "Not exactly ordinary, either," he continued, as he examined them a little more closely. "You have seen them before, Marsh ?" "Why, yes, sir. I was with you when you took them — I don't know why — from our offices." "Yes, but do you remember seeing this sort of sheet before — this peculiar texture and watermark?" "Why, yes, sir. This is some of the lot I bought in Manila and had aboard the Irvessa when I was working out some details with Mr. Pinckney, in our cabin, over in Manila Bay, before we came back here." "Exactly, Marsh !" cried Bradley triumphantly."He had it in his cabin on the evening of the dance, to look over those designs — didn't he?" "Why, yes, sir," replied Marsh, still uncomprehending. "I had left some of it there that afternoon." "Mr. Durant, Miss Durant, Lieutenant Sommers !" Bradley called them all together. "I want you all to examine this paper closely. Thank you ! Now compare it with the paper upon which are these tracings of Lieutenant Sommers' designs which were offered for sale to foreigners. Ah— you see? Now, Marsh — do you see, too? And is there enough now to make you tell the name of the criminal who spoiled the Sommers gun to save his stolen royalties, and let that gun go to the test to maim and murder? And the name, too, of the traitor to his country who spoiled the better gun, so that his own navy should not have it because he could claim no royalties for it ; and who tried to sell it to foreigners to kill our own men and sink our own ships? Tell us, now, Marsh." • "Marsh !" Pinckney sprang at the little man, but Marsh was quicker, and by a well-directed blow, felled him to the floor. Bradley grasped the frenzied Marsh as he was about to go through the door. But the little man, purple and breathless from the strain of the struggle, had drawn a pistol from his pocket. He cocked it and covered the tall young manager and held him cowering before it. "If you speak again, or try to stop me now, Pinckney, as there is a God above us, I'll shoot you where you stand !" "And the rest of you, too !" he cried, beside himself. "As you value your lives, let me tell the truth — for I shall tell it all now ! "First, I know I let that rotten, ruined gun go to kill those men. I know I helped spoil it and send it on, but at