The hollow lens

The author of “Beyond the Wall,” “Whispering Wires,” and “Peterman’s Luck” is at his best in this fascinating story of underworld life.

In the argot of the underworld, Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere, an expert on other people’s strong-boxes, had lammistered to Short Hills, California, where an excellent golf-links surrounds a half-hotel, half-clubhouse of the superior order.

After finishing a game, upon the twelfth day of his stay at Short Hills, Fay tossed his golf-bag to the turf, dismissed his caddy and sat down at the Nineteenth Hole, where refreshments were at that time available.

The girl who entered his life, a few minutes after he was seated, came diagonally from the clubhouse. He mentally concluded that she had been waiting on the porch for the game to finish.

She wore a picture-hat, carried a parasol and was extremely cool, as was attested by her manner as she drew a chair up to his table and said:

“I’m Charlie Laurie’s only daughter.”

Had the California sky fallen upon the links, Fay would not have been more surprised. Charlie Laurie was serving fifty years in the Isolation Section of Dannemora for the crime, committed against the dignity of New York State, of forcing open a national bank, seizing the contents of the vault and escaping to Argentina, where he was later turned up by a former pal.

This man, as Fay recalled him in that long minute of his stare across the table, was bulky, rough-voiced and disfigured by a giant scar which ran from the lobe of his right ear down to, and under, his chin. The girl who now professed to be his daughter resembled him in no particular.

“Some mistake,” Fay said, rising gallantly. “I’m sure that you have taken me for some one else.”

The girl lifted her elbows from the table, opened her parasol, raised it and asked:

“Wont you sit down? I haven’t mistaken you for some one else. You are Chester Fay, alias Edward Letchmere--an old friend of my father’s.”

Fay took off his plaid cap and sat down. He fingered a platinum-and-gold cigarette-case, removed a monogrammed cigarette, scratched a match on the bottom of the table and inhaled a deep breath of Turkish-scented smoke.

“By what other name was your father known?” he tested her.

“He was sometimes called ‘Big Scar’!”

“Where were you born?”

“In Chi. I was with Micky Gleason’s mob in Paris. I worked deep-sea with Minnie May, ‘The Duchess.’ I have been trained by my father to dip, forge, stall for pennyweighting and ever so many useful things.”

“You don’t look it!” Fay exclaimed. “Upon my word I don’t believe you’re Charlie Laurie’s daughter. Why, he is hardly your kind--at all.”

“Laying aside compliments, Mr. Fay, and how I found where you were here in California and--so many things that take up time, I’ve got a proposition to make which should be mutually advantageous. In other words you are the only man in the world I would let in on a great, big job.”

Fay removed his cigarette from his mouth and eyed the ashes. He ran his slender fingers through his prematurely gray hair. His face lighted with retrospection.

“Go on Miss--”

“Saidee Isaacs, they call me, although you know my name is Saidee Laurie.”

“Proceed, Miss Isaacs, with your plan.”

The girl’s olive-shaped and tinted eyes swept the golf-links. She brushed back a lock of sherry-colored hair.

“I’m going to help you crack a safe,” she informed him, “The safe--or goopher, as Father would call it--is in the brokerage office of Frank Robertson Pope, otherwise known in California get-rich-quick circles as ‘The Black Cougar.’”

Fay crushed his cigarette. A film dropped over his eyes. His lips hardened to a straight line.

“Go on,” he said.

“You know the man?”

“I know him!”

“He deserves no mercy?”

“None.”

“He is a disgrace to all the good crooks in the world--a coward and a hypocrite. He has served time--for usury. He got out of San Quentin by squealing on his pals. He is trimming suckers right and left. He makes suicides of widows. He fills the poorhouses. He is within the law--but far guiltier than you or I.”

Fay realized that he faced a very well-informed young woman. He moistened his lips and gazed over the golf-links. No one was within driving distance of the Nineteenth Hole.

“Briefly,” he suggested, “you believe me to be Chester Fay, an old friend of your father’s. You located this Chester Fay through the underworld. You want him to help you turn off a trick on ‘The Black Cougar.’ What would there be in it for him if this trick were successfully turned?”

“One hundred thousand for him and the same for me.”

“How is the goopher protected?”

“By every known electrical device. It is in the back of his office. It consists of three layers of vanadium steel and two layers of fireproofing. The circular door has two dials and a time-lock. The inner door has one dial. The day door has a flat-key lock.”

“What is above the vault?”

“A photograph studio.”

“What is in the basement?”

“The basement is occupied by a cigar-store. It doesn’t close until twelve o’clock. There’s a pool-room in the back. Sometimes men play poker there all night.”