The Silent Bullet | Page 8

"So you think this Parker case is a mess?" I asked.
"I know it. That's a pretty swift bunch of females that have been
speculating at Kerr Parker & Co.'s. I understand there's one
Titian-haired young lady--who, by the way, has at least one husband

who hasn't yet been divorced--who is a sort of ringleader, though she
rarely goes personally to her brokers' offices. She's one of those uptown
plungers, and the story is that she has a whole string of scalps of
alleged Sunday-school superintendents at her belt. She can make Bruce
do pretty nearly anything, they say. He's the latest conquest. I got the
story on pretty good authority, but until I verified the names, dates, and
places, of course I wouldn't dare print a line of it. The story goes that
her husband is a hanger-on of the System, and that she's been working
in their interest, too. That was why he was so complacent over the
whole affair. They put her up to capturing Bruce, and after she had
acquired an influence over him they worked it so that she made him
make love to Mrs. Parker. It's a long story, but that isn't all of it. The
point was, you see, that by this devious route they hoped to worm out
of Mrs. Parker some inside information about Parker's rubber schemes,
which he hadn't divulged even to his partners in business. It was a deep
and carefully planned plot, and some of the conspirators were pretty
deeply in the mire, I guess. I wish I'd had all the facts about who this
red-haired female Machiavelli was--what a piece of muckraking it
would have made! Oh, here comes the rest of the news story over the
wire. By Jove, it is said on good authority that Bruce will be taken in as
one of the board of directors. What do you think of that"
So that was how the wind lay--Bruce making love to Mrs. Parker and
she presumably betraying her husband's secrets. I thought I saw it all:
the note from somebody exposing the scheme, Parker's incredulity,
Bruce sitting by him and catching sight of the note, his hurrying out
into the ladies' department, and then the shot. But who fired it? After all,
I had only picked up another clue.
Kennedy was not at the apartment at dinner, and an inquiry at the
laboratory was fruitless also. So I sat down to fidget for a while. Pretty
soon the buzzer on the door sounded, and I opened it to find a
messenger-boy with a large brown paper parcel.
"Is Mr. Bruce here?" he asked.
"Why, no, he doesn't--" then I checked myself and added "He will be
here presently. You can leave the bundle."

"Well, this is the parcel he telephoned for. His valet told me to tell him
that they had a hard time to find it, but he guesses it's all right. The
charges are forty cents. Sign here."
I signed the book, feeling like a thief, and the boy departed. What it all
meant I could not guess.
Just then I heard a key in the lock, and Kennedy came in.
"Is your name Bruce?" I asked.
"Why?" he replied eagerly. "Has anything come?"
I pointed to the package. Kennedy made a dive for it and unwrapped it.
It was a woman's pongee automobile-coat. He held it up to the light.
The pocket on the right-hand side was scorched and burned, and a hole
was torn clean through it. I gasped when the full significance of it
dawned on me.
"How did you get it?" I exclaimed at last in surprise.
"That's where organisation comes in," said Kennedy. "The police at my
request went over every messenger call from Parker's office that
afternoon, and traced every one of them up. At last they found one that
led to Bruce's apartment. None of them led to Mrs. Parker's home. The
rest were all business calls and satisfactorily accounted for. I reasoned
that this was the one that involved the disappearance of the
automobile-coat. It was a chance worth taking, so I got Downey to call
up Bruce's valet. The valet of course recognised Downey's voice and
suspected nothing. Downey assumed to know all about the coat in the
package received yesterday. He asked to have it sent up here. I see the
scheme worked."
"But, Kennedy, do you think she--" I stopped, speechless, looking at
the scorched coat.
"Nothing to say--yet," he replied laconically. "But if you could tell me
anything about that note Parker received I'd thank you."

I related what our managing editor had said that morning. Kennedy
only raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.
"I had guessed something of that sort," he said merely. "I'm glad to find
it confirmed