J. Fletcher - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 1 — April 1922)

“Are you accusing me of—?”

He seized her roughly by the wrist. “Come along. You’ll find out soon enough what you’re accused of. You sit next to me on the front seat of the car. I’m going to keep a gun with a silencer pressed against your side. If you cry out I’ll shoot six pretty holes into you!”

The raiding party, consisting of ten members of the federal secret service and four city detectives, including Sergeant Nevins, hit Wortz’s print shop at precisely nine o’clock. The place had previously not been shadowed; it was feared a shadow might be noticed and a raid suspected.

In Wortz’s place, the raiders discovered such things as can be found in any print shop and one meek little man who was printing handbills. The searchers passed through every room; they tapped for false floors and walls; they overlooked no nook or corner.

“You got a fine tip, I must say,” commented Captain Wayne, who headed the federal detectives.

“I got my tip from the most dependable person in the world!” retorted Nevins.

While this discussion was going on in the hallway, Tim Tripp, a city detective, was standing before a table in one of the rooms on the second floor. There were dominoes on the table; most of the pieces were piled in neat heaps in a corner. But in the centre of the table lay several other dominoes, face up, and something about their arrangement attracted and held Tripp’s attention. So that a better comprehension of what followed can be had, we will lay before the reader the dominoes as Tim Tripp saw them spread before him:

The dominoes forming an arrowhead were turned face down.

After Tim Tripp had stood before the table a few moments, he called, “Hey, Al, come in here and look at this.”

Nevins, with several other detectives, gathered around the table. “Do these dominoes mean anything to any of you fellows?” asked Tripp.

After a silence of a few minutes, Capt. Wayne volunteered, “Well — the arrangement certainly appears — deliberate — and not accidental. Take that arrow now — if it is not intended to draw attention to the other dominoes, then why is it there?”

“If a signal — a message was intended,” said Tripp, “it is obvious that some code was used.”

“Code,” muttered Nevins. “Code — code — what kind of a code—?”

“Well, in the Morse system,” reflected Capt. Wayne, “dots and dashes are—”

“Morse Code!” exploded Nevins, brushing aside several men and edging closer to the table. He was trembling with excitement. “Of course it’s the Morse Code! The dots on the dominoes are dots, and the blanks are dashes. It’s clear—”

“Keep inside your shirt,” protested Captain Wayne. “Let’s try to figure this out calmly.” Then, after a pause, “From the arrangement, it would seem that the domino at the bottom — the one with the two blanks, is a signature. In Morse, two dashes stand for the letter M. Does M signify any—?”

“Marguerite!” cried Nevins. “Marge is with us, boys! She—”

“All right” interrupted Wayne. “Now assuming that each domino denotes one letter, that would make the first letter in the word at the top — h’m — let me see — dot stop two dots—”

“That’s an R,” said Nevins.

“The next letter is dot dash — that’s an A,” went on Wayne. “The third letter is dot stop dot — that’s an O. The last letter is dash two dots, which denotes D. That makes the word ROAD — which doesn’t mean anything at all!”

Again a pause, this time a long one.

Then Nevins. “The third letter, the O, spoils the sense. Now assuming that Marge wanted to use two dots instead of dot stop dot — there is no way of denoting two dots with one domino. You must either have dot stop dot or two dots dash. If that third letter was really intended for two dots — that would make it an I. And the word would be RAID!”

“Al,” said Captain Wayne, “you’ll be of great help to your mother when you grow up... We’ll go on with the deciphering. Dash four dots stands for the number 8. Three dots stop three dots has no meaning, so we’ll have to read it six dots, which signify the number 6.”...

Translated first into Morse and then into English, the domino cipher read as follows:

“Raid 86 Bay Road!” thundered Wayne. “I’ll say we will!” He nodded to one of his men. “You stay here, Gus, and watch that runt printing handbills downstairs. Let’s go!”...

Eighty-Six Bay Road was a cottage of the Queen Anne type in Pelham. Harry Creighton paid little heed to traffic regulations in getting there; he made it in forty minutes. Rita, at his side on the front seat, was not in the least inclined to attempt an escape. Rita, you see, was on the sunny side of twenty and engaged; she possessed all the confidence — and recklessness of youth. She expected to be in for an exciting evening and in this expectation she was not disappointed.

They were admitted into the house by a man in the garb of a butler. To judge by his face, he’d have made a better bouncer. He whispered a few words to Creighton, after which Creighton led Rita into a room on the lower floor. Creighton spoke no word; he kept pacing the room nervously. Rita sat down on a settee and wondered how soon Nevins would drop in... she expected, of course, that he would see her message at once, decipher it in one or two seconds and come chasing after her... we’ve remarked on her confidence.

While they waited, several men came into the house (they were admitted by the butler after ringing four times) and went up the stairway to the floor above. Then, after half an hour or so, Rita and Creighton were asked to follow the butler.

They went up one flight and entered a large square room. There was no furniture except ten chairs and one table. The chairs were arranged in an arc with the table in the centre. One chair was vacant — the second from the right — Creighton sat down on it. “It appears as though they’re peeved,” thought Rita. “They’re going to let me stand.”

The butler entered the room, too, locked the door and stood leaning against it.

Rita, glancing swiftly at the men in the arc, recognized Wortz, Larry Harker and Rudie Breen. Breen sat on the end chair, left. “A rather serious minded convention,” mused Rita. “And that gentleman, in the centre, at the table—”

Abruptly, that particular reflection was broken off. Rita ran forward, stopped, and then screamed.

The man at the table, the ringleader, the tall white-haired, black-eyed, theatrically handsome man was J. Stanley Bradshaw!

Of that there could be no doubt whatsoever! Bradshaw was sitting within a few feet of her, Bradshaw was alive, and grinning at her with that cruel, straight, thin-lipped mouth!

Again Rita screamed. Then... there had been no murder!... “Good old Rudie — I felt — I knew he couldn’t have been so callous!”... There was no blood on her hands... she was free — free of a terrible nightmare... but why was Bradshaw here?... here, — at the head of — head ... he was The Mogul — he must be The Mogul — but if that was the case... “You killed Jimmy!” she screamed. “And I’ve got you at last! I’ve got you!” — she ran to the table and pounded upon it... she felt faint... where — where was Al? — dear old Al—