Odor of Violets by Baynard Kendrick (books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT) 📕

“The F. B. I. nailed three of them in the Rumrich case,” Spud reminded him. “A couple of Russians, Gorin and Salich, were convicted in Los Angeles, too.”

“Yes,” Maclain admitted, “that’s true—but Rumrich turned against the others. Let’s consider this business of catching and convicting the hidden spy. First, the motive’s fairly obvious in an ordinary criminal case. Not so with the spy. Love of a mother country may be buried very deeply. The background of a suspect has to be thoroughly traced.”

“You mean by that that everyone’s a suspect until they’re proved innocent?” Spud went around the desk and took a chair.

“Exactly,” said Maclain. “If you’re in contact with anything which may be valuable information to another country—then you’re a potential spy. You may be selling out for money, patriotism, political disagreement with the government in power, or unwillingly for self-protection.”

“Blackmail?”

“Crude, Spud, but terribly true. Government agents of a foreign power may have dug up some secret in your past—or in the life of someone very dear to you. They kindly give you a Hobson’s choice of facing ruin and disgrace or accepting a nicely remunerative commission as a spy.

“Once you’re in, you’re devilishly hard to catch. Al Capone built up an organization which nearly stifled a city—but the government put him away. He was a piker compared to the humblest of spies. When you become a secret agent—you have a government back of you.

“All the resources of a powerful nation are at your command. False references, false passports, or any necessary records to give you a seemingly authentic background are easy to obtain. Money? You’re drawing on a national treasury.”

“And where’s the weakness?” Spud asked.

“That’s what I’m looking for.” Maclain thoughtfully tucked in his under lip. “It seems to me there are two. An ordinary criminal often has a police record—but a record is fatal to a spy. Once a spy is caught, his usefulness ends immediately. Let him become known to the authorities—and they’re forever more on guard against him.”

“What’s the second?”

“It’s even more important.” The Captain spread his restless hands flat on the desk and for a moment left them in repose. “General knowledge, available to the public, is of no value to the secret agent. His field is limited. The saboteur must confine his destruction to objects of military or naval importance—things which are carefully protected. In other words, Spud, the authorities always know where to look for threatened espionage, and sabotage. Locate the raison d’être. Saboteurs must have something to sabotage. Spies must have something worth-while on which to spy.”

“I suppose you’re telling me, in your own peculiar way,” Spud declared, “that this fellow, Gerente, was killed by a spy.”

“Don’t put flat statements into my mouth,” the Captain remonstrated patiently. “Form your own conclusions, as you usually do. Gerente had some Braille instructions to deliver to me from Colonel Gray, the head of our defense plans for New York City. Gerente was killed and those instructions stolen from his rooms—”

“And brought to you anyhow,” said Spud. “Why?”

“Maybe they were photostated on the way. Braille can be deciphered, you know,” Maclain reminded him drily, “even by people who can see.”

“Just because I have eyes, you needn’t get sarcastic with me.”

The Captain laughed softly. “A few things are clear. The man who brought those instructions here knew exactly what arrangements had been made for Gerente to talk with me. He knew also what the instructions said—except for the part in code, and that’s the part he most wanted to know. He took a chance—”

“A long one.”

“But a good one, that he might trick me. And another thing, if I hadn’t become suspicious of receiving delicately scented instructions from G-2—Gerente’s murder might have gone undiscovered until the following day.”

“It’s the following day now,” said Spud. “It’s half-past four.” He stood up and stretched.

The Captain followed suit. “We’ll have four hours’ sleep at any rate. Colonel Gray is coming here at nine.”

“He wants to see you, not me.”

The Captain smiled. “I promised you’d be there too.”

Spud picked up the sheets of Braille and sniffed them as he took them to the safe to put them away. “Violets, eh? None of this makes sense, Dunc. It’s unbelievable that a man would confess to a murder he didn’t commit. Yet when you say this fellow Cameron isn’t guilty—well, if I personally saw him blow a guy’s head off, I’d still be inclined to let him go.” Spud stopped in the middle of the floor. “Say, Dunc. Do you remember the Axel Fish case four years ago? Fish confessed to a killing he didn’t do—but he confessed to save a girl.”

“Your back is about to run into something,” said Maclain. “You’re traveling the right road at high speed—but you’re in reverse.”

“Reverse?”

“Certainly.” The Captain pressed his temples wearily. “When the police pick up this Lestrade girl as a witness she’s going to swear by all that’s holy that she never even heard of Paul Gerente.”

“Did she?”

“What the hell’s the difference?” asked Maclain. “Davis will probably have three highball glasses out of Gerente’s apartment with her prints all over them—and a moulage of her teeth where she bit Gerente on the neck after he fell to the floor. If that isn’t enough to hold her, they’ll set a bail that Garbo couldn’t raise—and spray the irate Miss Lestrade all over with violet perfume.”

“I take it,” said Spud. “They mean to hold her in jail.”

“Check,” said Duncan Maclain. “Cameron didn’t confess to a murder to save a girl—he confessed to a murder to get a girl out of his way!”

CHAPTER X

COLONEL MALCOLM W. GRAY arrived at Maclain’s penthouse apartment while Spud and the Captain were still busy with eggs and coffee. At Maclain’s suggestion, they transferred their coffee to the office from the dining room.

The Colonel was far from being the erect military figure which anyone awaiting the head of New York’s defense plans might have expected to see. Instead, he turned out to be a chubby little