"A junction-box," he said, "is merely a small switchboard where the conduit ends and the house connections begin. It would have been easy for an expert to disconnect the two leads which led into Stockbridge's library, ring up with a low tension magneto, and then cut in with a testing set and a battery current and do the talking. That is what the trouble-man told us might have been done. He found no signs of tampering. He saw a tall man escaping down the alley. It would seem, Delaney, that this tall man is the one we're after. Perhaps, as you said, he left footprints. But footprints, like fingerprints, are not much use until you get the man who made them."
"What d'ye deduct in this second call--Chief?"
"That we've run squarely up against a blind wall. We'll drop it for a time and go to the third call."
"Stockbridge was murdered at four minutes and eighteen seconds past twelve, by his own watch, Delaney. It was a very good watch! Now allowing for a movement of the hands on account of the fall, how are we to account for a telephone call sent into Gramercy Hill 9763--the library 'phone--at exactly five minutes past twelve from a slot-telephone booth at the east end of the Grand Central Railroad Station on Forty-second Street?"
Drew chuckled and wheeled in his chair. "I got it," he said, "by simple arithmetic plus the vice-president's pull. Here's how it was found, Delaney. Easy as two and two. You remember the howler?"
"I'll never forget it, Chief! Not as long as I live!"
"The howler established considerable in this case. The chief operator remembers putting it on. She remembers the time. She looked back, after being jogged by George Westlake, and found that some one had called up Stockbridge a few minutes after twelve. It was probably this call to the old man that caused him to be near enough to the telephone to knock it over when he was shot. The operator did not hear the shot, but she remembers a thin, piping voice asking for Gramercy Hill 9763."
"The same guy, every time!" declared the operative, mopping his brow with his sleeve. "I'd like to have that fellow for five minutes, Chief!"
"We'll get him! We've got the time established twice. Stockbridge's watch fixes the murder at twelve-four-eighteen. The telephone call at five minutes past twelve, and the howler put on soon afterward, checks up. The old man was alive during the telephone call from the Grand Central, and dead when the howler was put on for the first time. Do you see that?"