The Black Box | Page 2

little. He himself
was impressed.
"You're in luck, Alfred," he declared. "That's the most interesting man
in New York--one of the most interesting in the world. That's Sanford
Quest."
"Who's he?"
"You haven't heard of Sanford Quest?"
"Never in my life."

The young man whose privilege it was to have been born and lived all
his days in New York, drank half a glassful of wine and leaned back in
his chair. Words, for a few moments, were an impossibility.
"Sanford Quest," he pronounced at last, "is the greatest master in
criminology the world has ever known. He is a magician, a scientist,
the Pierpont Morgan of his profession."
"Say, do you mean that he is a detective?"
The New Yorker steadied himself with an effort. Such ignorance was
hard to realise--harder still to deal with.
"Yes," he said simply, "you could call him that--just in the same way
you could call Napoleon a soldier or Lincoln a statesman. He is a
detective, if you like to call him that, the master detective of the world.
He has a great house in one of the backwater squares of New York, for
his office. He has wireless telegraphy, private chemists, a little troop of
spies, private telegraph and cable, and agents in every city of the world.
If he moves against any gang, they break up. No one can really
understand him. Sometimes he seems to be on the side of the law,
sometimes on the side of the criminal. He takes just what cases he
pleases, and a million dollars wouldn't tempt him to touch one he
doesn't care about. Watch him go out. They say that you can almost tell
the lives of the people he passes, from the way they look at him. There
isn't a crook here or in the street who doesn't know that if Sanford
Quest chose, his career would be ended."
The country cousin was impressed at last. With staring eyes and opened
mouth, he watched the man who had been sitting only a few tables
away from them push back the plate on which lay his bill and rise to his
feet. One of the chief maîtres d'hôtel handed him his straw hat and cane,
two waiters stood behind his chair, the manager hurried forward to see
that the way was clear for him. Yet there was nothing about the
appearance of the man himself which seemed to suggest his demanding
any of these things. He was of little over medium height,
broad-shouldered, but with a body somewhat loosely built. He wore
quiet grey clothes with a black tie, a pearl pin, and a neat coloured shirt.

His complexion was a little pale, his features well-defined, his eyes
dark and penetrating but hidden underneath rather bushy eyebrows. His
deportment was quite unassuming, and he left the place as though
entirely ignorant of the impression he created. The little cluster of
chorus girls looked at him almost with awe. Only one of them ventured
to laugh into his face as though anxious to attract his notice. Another
dropped her veil significantly as he drew near. The millionaire seemed
to become a smaller man as he glanced over his shoulder. The lady who
had been recently divorced bent over her plate. A group of noisy young
fellows talking together about a Stock Exchange deal, suddenly ceased
their clamour of voices as he passed. A man sitting alone, with a drawn
face, deliberately concealed himself behind a newspaper, and an
aldermanic-looking gentleman who was entertaining a fluffy-haired
young lady from a well-known typewriting office, looked for a moment
like an errant school-boy. Not one of these people did Sanford Quest
seem to see. He passed out to the elevator, tipped the man who
sycophantly took him the whole of the way down without a stop,
walked through the crowded hall of the hotel and entered a closed
motor-car without having exchanged greetings with a soul. Yet there
was scarcely a person there who could feel absolutely sure that he had
not been noticed.
* * * * *
Sanford Quest descended, about ten minutes later, before a large and
gloomy-looking house in Georgia Square. The neighbourhood was, in
its way, unique. The roar and hubbub of the city broke like a restless
sea only a block or so away. On every side, this square of dark, silent
houses seemed to be assailed by the clamour of the encroaching city.
For some reason or other, however, it remained a little oasis of
old-fashioned buildings, residences, most of them, of a generation
passed away. Sanford Quest entered the house with a latch-key. He
glanced into two of the rooms on the ground-floor, in which telegraph
and telephone operators sat at their instruments. Then, by means of a
small elevator, he