The switchboard?" asked Loris. "You mean the big place where the girls
are?"

"Not exactly there. The wires run down and are tagged. It would be
possible for him to cut in somewhere between the switchboard and the
conduits. Now I don't know how it was done. There's several ways. But
wherever he tapped in, he must have used a magneto to ring Mr.
Stockbridge up, and afterwards a battery-set to do the talking. All
this Westlake says it would be necessary to do, so that the operator
would not notice a permanent signal on the board."

"What was his object?" asked Nichols.

"To cover himself. He first disconnected the wires and waited till I
sent for a trouble-man. Frosby, or Frisby, was sent. The trouble-man
took his place. He came here and looked the place over. He lied to Mr.
Stockbridge and I when he told us about that tall German in the alley.
If there was such a man there before the snow froze we would have his
footprints."

"You haven't them?" asked Loris.

"No. Delaney has a set made by this trouble-hunter when he was at the
junction-box. This must have been the time he either cut the
connections so that I would send for him, or it was the time when he
called up and threatened Mr. Stockbridge with death within twelve
hours. You remember that the telephone company have no record of the
call. Now the next call----"

"Was there another?" the girl asked.

"Yes--to your father at or about the moment he died. That was from the
Grand Central Station at Forty-second Street. There's a good record of
that. Your father knocked the telephone down when he dropped dead. The
operator noticed that the connection was open and put on the howler.
The record is clear on that."

"But what is all this twisting and turning for?"

"To throw us off, Miss Stockbridge. We're dealing with a crafty,
cunning mind. This mind took the extreme precaution of connecting two
booths at Grand Central so that a man in Sing Sing could talk to your
father without leaving a record at the Westchester Exchange or at
Gramercy Hill Exchange. How this was done I don't know. It could be
done with auxiliary batteries and looping so that the Gramercy Hill
operator thought the Westchester call was to a slot booth, while
another call from the next booth to this house was really the same
connection shunted or looped through. Westlake, vice-president of the
telephone company, says that there would be several ways of doing this.
He added it would take an exper