Evening star., 1922-02-09
11The Scientific Cracksman''
By ARTHUR B. REEVE
FIRST INsTALLMENT OF THE STARS
New Week End Fiction
EACH STORY COMPLETE THREE INsTALIA1ENTs.
rac1Jv

I
| SO that they would leave no prints.
But you can't work very well with
| rubber gloves. Last fall in Paris 1
: heard of fellow who had given the
/ police lot of trouble. He never left
| mark, or at least 1t was no good II
| he did. He painted his hands lightly
| with liquid rubber which he had
J invented himself. 1t did all that rub
ber gloves would do and yet left him
, the free use of his fingers with prac-
tically the same keenl -ss Of touch.
Fletcher, whatever is at the bottom
| that you have to deal with no or
| dinary criminal.
/ "Do YOU suppose there are any rel
! atives besides those we know Off.
! asked Kennedy when Fletcher had
left 70 summons the servants s,;,,, M.
! Fletcher and Helen Bond. his-second
cousin. to whom he is engaged, are
! the only two
| Kennedy continued to study the
library. He walked in and out OF the
! doors and examined the windows and
| viewed the safe from all angles The
! old gentleman's bedroom is here, he
; said, indicating a door. Now good.
! smart noise or perhaps even light
! shining through the transom from
, the library might arouse MN. sup
, pose he woke uD suddenly and entered
+, by this door. He would see the thief
at work on the safe Yes. that part
of reconstructing the story is sim
pie. But who was the intruder"
lust then Fletcher returned with
the servants. The questioning was
| long and tedious and developed moth
ing except that the butler admitted
that he was uncertain whether the
windows in the library were locked.
| The gardener was very "obtuse' put
finally contributed one possibly i'm
portant fact. He had noted in the
morning that the back gate. leading
into the disused road closer to the
bay than the main highway in front
| of the house. was open. whoever hau
hook it. He had thought 1T strange
, that it was unlocked, and In closing II
! he had noticed in the mud OF tne
| roadway marks that seemed TO lndi,
cate that an automobile had stood
| there.
After the servants had gone Fletcher
| asked us to- excuse him for while
as he wished to run over TO lhe
Greenes, who lived across the pay;
| Miss Bond was completely prostrated
by the death of her uncle. ne sa'd, ooHdii ana
ton. Meanwhile. If we found any
need of a machine we might use ms
| uncIe's, or, in fact, anything around
| the place.
I
| town tonight. and I have something
! I'd like to have you do, too.
| We were soon speeding back along
| the splendid road to Long lsiahd
City. while he laid out our prograni >,
| "You go down to the Star office"
he said. .and look through all the clip
pings on the whole Fletcher family:
Get complete story of the lie OF
Helen Bond, too-what she has done
| in society, with whom she mas oeeh
seen mostly, whether she has made any
| trims abroad, and whether she has ever
heen engaged-you know. anything
likely to be significant. I'm going up
| to the apartment to get my camera and
then to the laboratory to get some
rather bulky paraphernalia 1 want TO
take out to Fletcherwood. Meet me
at Columbus Circle station at. say, hal1-
! past TO-"
So we separated. My search re-
yealed the fact that Miss Bond had al
| ways been intimate with the ultra
fashionable set. had spent last summer
| in Europe. good part of the time IN
Switzerland and Paris with the Greenes.
As far as 1 could find out she had
never been reported engaged. but
plenty of fortunes. as well as foreign
titles, had been fitting about the ward
of the steel magnate.
| Craig and I met at the appointed
time. He had a lot of paraphernalia
I with him, and it did not add to our
comfort as we sped back, but it wasn't
much over half an hour before we
again found ourselves nearing Great
| Neck.
| Instead of. going directly back to
Fletcherwood, however, Craig had told
the chauffeur to stop at the plant of
the local electric light and power COM
pany, where he asked if he might see
+, the record of the amount of current
used the night before.
| The curve sprawled across the ruled
surface of the sheet by the automatic
registering needle was irregular, show
Ling the ups and downs of the current.
rising sharply from sundown and grad
| ually declNing after 9 o'clock, rs the
lights went out. Somewhere between
III and 70 o'clock, however, the irregu-
lar fall of the curve was broken by a
quite noticeable upward twist.
| Craig asked the men If that usually
happened. They were quite sure that
the curve as rule went gradually
down until 12 o'clock, when the power
was shut off. But they did not see any
thing remarkable in it. "Oh, sup
pose some of the big houses had
guests" volunteered the foreman, "and
just to show off the place perhaps they
turned on all the lights. don't know,
sir, what it was. but 1t couldn't have
been a heavy drain, or we would have
noticed 1t at the time. and the lights
would all have been dim"
"Well,' said Craig, lust wait and see
If it occurs again tonight about the
same time"
"All right, SIR"
"And when you close down the plant
for the night, will you bring the rec
ord card up to Fletcherwood?" asked
Craig, slipping bill into the pocket OF
the foreman's shirt.
Il will, and thank you, SIR"
CONTINUED in Tomorrow's Star.)