Section 13 of the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to
volunteer, please visit librivox.org.
Recording by Tony Maxey. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes,
Volume 1. The case of the Dixon Torpedo by
Arthur Morrison, Part 1. Hewitt was very apartment in
conversation to dwell upon the many curious chances and
coincidences that he had observed not only in connection
with his own cases but also in matters dealt with by the
official police, with whom he was on terms of pretty regular
and indeed friendly acquaintanceship.
He has told me many an anecdote of similar happenings to
Scotland Yard officials with whom he has exchanged
experiences of Inspector Nettings, for instance, who
spent many weary months in search of a man wanted by the
American government, and in the end found by the merest accident
a misdirected call that the man had been lodging next door to
himself the whole of the time. Just as ignorant, of course, as
was the inspector himself. As to the enemy at the other
side of the party wall. Also of another inspector, whose
name I cannot recall, who, having given rather meager and
insufficient details of a man whom he anticipated having great
difficulty in finding, went straight down the stairs of the
office where he had received instructions, and actually fell
over the man near the door where he had stooped to tie shoelace.
There were cases, too, in which a great notorious crime had been
committed, and various persons had been arrested on suspicion.
Some were found among them who had long been badly wanted for
some other crime altogether. Many criminals admit they're
desserts by venturing out of their own particular line of
crime into another. Often a man who got into trouble
over something comparatively small found himself in for a
startlingly larger trouble, the result of some previous misdeed
that otherwise would have gone unpunished.
The ruble note Forger Merski might never have been handed
over to the Russian authorities had he confined his genius to
forgery alone. It was generally supposed at the
time of his extradition that he had communicated with the
Russian Embassy with a view to giving himself up.
A foolish proceeding on his part, it would seem, since his
whereabouts, indeed even his identity as the forger, had not
been suspected. He had communicated with the
Russian Embassy, it's true, but for a different purpose, as
Martin Hewitt well understood at the time.
What that purpose was, is now for the first time published.
The time was 1:30 in the afternoon, and Hewitt sat in his
interoffice examining and comparing the handwriting of 2
letters by the aid of a large lens.
He put down the lens and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece
with a premonition of lunch, and as he did so his clerk quietly
entered the room with one of those printed slips which were
kept for the announcement of unknown visitors.
It was filled in in a hasty and almost illegible hand.
Thus Name of visitor. F Graham Dixon, address Chancery
Lane. Business private and urgent.
Show Mr. Dixon in, said Martin Hewitt.
Mr. Dixon was a gaunt, worn looking man of 50 or so well,
although rather carelessly dressed and carrying in a strong
though drawn face and dullish eyes the look that characterizes
the lifelong strenuous brain worker.
He leaned forward anxiously in the chair which Hewitt offered
him, and told his story with a great deal of very natural
agitation. You may have possibly heard, Mr.
Hewitt, I know there are rumors of the new locomotive torpedo
which the Government is about adopting.
It is, in fact, the Dixon torpedo, my own invention, and
in every respect, not merely in my own opinion, but in that of
the Government experts, by far the most efficient and certain
yet produced. It may travel at least 400 yards
farther than any torpedo now made, with perfect accuracy of
aim, a very great desideratum, let me tell you, and will carry
an unprecedentedly heavy charge. There are other advantages,
speed, simple discharge, and so forth, that I needn't bother you
about. The machine is the result of
many years of work and disappointment, and its design
has only been arrived at by careful balancing of principles
and means which are expressed on the only four existing sets of
drawing. The whole thing, I need hardly
tell you, is a profound secret, and you made judge of my present
state of mind when I tell you that one set of the drawings has
been stolen from your house. From my office in Chancery Lane
this morning the four sets of drawings were distributed.
Thus 2 were at the Admiralty Office, one being a finished set
on thick paper and the other a set of tracings therefrom.
And the other two were at my. Own office, one being a pencil
set, uncolored, sort of finished draft, you understand, and the
other a set of tracing similar to those at the Admiralty.
It is this last set that is gone.
The two sets were kept together in one drawer in my room.
Both were there at 10 this morning, of that I'm sure, for I
had to go to that very drawer for something else when I first
arrived. But at 12 the tracings had
vanished. You suspect somebody?
Probably I cannot. It is the most extraordinary
thing. Nobody has left the office
except myself. And then only to come to you
since 10:00 this morning, and there's been no visitor.
And yet the drawings are gone. But you have searched the place.
Of course I have. It was 12:00 when I first
discovered my loss, and I've been turning the place upside
down ever since. I and my assistants.
Every drawer has been emptied, every desk and every table
turned over, the very carpet and linoleum have been taken up, and
there is not a sign of the drawings.
My men even insisted on turning all their pockets inside out,
although I never for a moment suspected either of them, and it
would take a pretty big pocket to hold the drawings doubled up,
as small as they might be. You say your men?
There were two, I understand, and neither left the office?
Neither, and they are both staying in now.
Warsfold suggested that it would be more satisfactory if they did
not leave till something was done toward clearing up the
mystery, and although, as I've said, I don't suspect either in
the least, I acquiesce. Just so now, I'm assuming that
you wish me to undertake the recovery of these drawings?
The engineer nodded hastily. Very good.
I will go around to your office. But perhaps.
You can tell me something about your assistance, something it
might be awkward to tell me in their presence, you know, Mr.
Warsfold, for instance. He is my draftsman, a very
excellent and intelligent man, a very smart man indeed and I feel
sure, quite beyond suspicion. He has prepared many important
drawings for me. He's been with me for nearly ten
years. Now.
And I've always found him trustworthy.
But of course the temptation in this case would be enormous.
Still, I cannot suspect Warsfold.
Indeed, how can I suspect anybody in the circumstances?
The other now, his name's Ritter.
He's merely A tracer, not a fully skilled draftsman.
He's quite a decent young fellow, and I've had him nearly
two years. I don't consider him
particularly smart or he would have learned a little more of
his business by this time, but I don't see the least reason to
suspect him. As I said before, I can't
reasonably suspect anybody. Very.
Well, we will get to Chancery Lane now, if you please, and you
can tell me more as we go. I have a cab waiting.
What else can I tell you? I understand the position to be
succinctly this. The drawings are in the office
when you arrive. Nobody came out and nobody went
in, and yet they vanished. Is that so?
That is so when I say that absolutely nobody came in, of
course I accept the postman. He brought a couple of letters
during the morning. I mean that absolutely nobody
came past the barrier in the outer office.
The usual thing, you know, like a counter with a frame of glass
over it. I quite understand that, but I
think he said that the. Drawings were in a drawer in
your own room, not the outer office where the draftsmen are.
I presume that is the case. It's an inner room, or rather a
room parallel with the other, communicating with it, just as
your own room is, which we have just left.
But then you say you never left your office, and yet the
drawings vanished, apparently by some unseen agency, while you
were there in the room. Let me explain more clearly.
The cab was bowling smoothly along the Strand and the
engineer took out a pocketbook and pencil.
I fear he proceeded, but I am a little confused in my
explanation. I am naturally rather agitated,
as you will see presently. My office consists of three
rooms, 2 at one side of a corridor and the other opposite.
Thus. He made a rapid pencil sketch.
In the outer office, my men usually work.
In the inner office I work myself.
These rooms communicate, as you can see, by door.
Our ordinary way in and out of the place is by the door of the
outer office leading into the corridor, and when we first pass
through the usual lifting flap in the barrier, the door leading
from the inner office to the corridor is always kept locked
on the inside. And I don't suppose I unlock it
once in three months. It has not been unlocked all
morning. The drawer in which the missing
drawings were kept, and in which I saw them at 10:00 this
morning, is at the place Mark D. It is a large chest of shallow
drawers in which the plans lie flat.
I quite understand. Then there is that private room
opposite. What of that?
That is a sort of private sitting room that I rarely use
except for business interviews of a very private nature.
When I said I never left my office, I did not mean that I
never stirred out of the inner office.
I was about in one room and another, both the outer and the
inner offices and once I went into the private room for 5
minutes but nobody came either in or out of any of the rooms at
that time, for the door of the private room was wide open and I
was standing at the bookcase and just gone to consult a book.
Just inside the door, with a full view of the doors opposite.
Indeed worst fold was at the door of the outer office.
Most of the short time he came to ask me a question.
Well, Hewitt replied, it all comes to the simple first
statement. You know that nobody left the
place or arrived except the postman, who couldn't get near
the drawings, and yet the drawings went.
This your office. The cab had stopped before a
large stone building. Mr. Dixon alighted and LED the
way to the first floor. Hewitt took a casual glance
around each of the three rooms. There was a sort of door in the
frame of ground glass over the barrier to admit a speech with
visitors. This door Hewitt pushed wide
open and left. So he and the engineer went into
the inner office. Would you like to ask Wurzfeld
and Ritter any questions? Mr. Dixon inquired presently.
Those are their coats, I take it, hanging just to the right of
the outer office door, over the umbrella stand.
Yes, those are all their things. Coats, hats, stick umbrella.
And those coats were searched, you say?
Yes, And this is the drawer. Thoroughly searched, of course.
Oh, certainly. Every drawer was taken out and
turned over. Well, of course, I must assume
that you made no mistake in your hunt.
Now tell me, did anybody know where these plans were beyond
yourself and your two men? As far as I can tell, not a
soul. You don't keep an office boy?
No, there would be nothing for him to do except to post a
letter now and again, which Ritter does quite well, for as
you were quite sure that the drawings were there at 10:00,
perhaps the thing scarcely matters.
But I may as well know if your men have keys of the office.
Neither. I have patent locks to each door
and I keep all the keys myself. If Wurzfeld or Ritter arrived
before me in the morning, they have to wait to be let in, and
I'm always present myself when the rooms are clean.
I have not neglected precautions, you see.
No, I suppose the object of the theft.
Assuming it is a theft, it's pretty plain the thief would
offer the drawings for sale to some foreign government.
Of course, that would probably come in a great sum.
I've been looking, as I need Harley tell you, to that
invention to secure me a very large fortune, and I shall be
ruined indeed if the design is taken abroad.
I'm under the strictest engagements to the secrecy with
the Admiralty, and not only should I lose all my labor, but
I should lose all the confident reposed at me at headquarters,
should in fact be subject to penalties for breach of
contract, and my career stopped forever.
I cannot tell you what serious business this is for me.
If you cannot help me, the consequences will be terrible.
Bad for the service of the country too, of course.
Of course. Now tell me this.
It would I take it be necessary for the thief to exhibit these
drawings to anybody anxious to buy the secret?
I mean, he couldn't describe the invention by word of mouth.
Oh no, that would be impossible. The drawings are of the most
complicated description and full of figures upon which the whole
thing depends. Indeed, one would have to be a
skilled expert to properly appreciate the design at all.
Various principles of hydrostatics, chemistry, and
electricity and pneumatics are most delicately manipulated and
adjusted, and the smallest error omission in any part would upset
the whole. No, the drawings are necessary
to the thing, and they're gone. At this moment the door of the
outer office was heard to open and somebody entered.
The door between the two offices was ajar and Hewitt could see
right through to the glass door left open over the barrier and
into the space beyond. A well dressed, dark, bushy
bearded man stood there carrying a handbag which he placed on the
ledge before him. Hewitt raised his hand to enjoin
silence. The man spoke in a rather high
pitched voice and with a slight accent.
Is Mr. Dixon now within? He asked.
He's engaged, Answered one of the draftsmen.
Very particularly engaged. I'm afraid you won't be able to
see him this afternoon. Can I give him any message?
This is 2 the second time I've come today, not two hours ago.
Mr. Dixon himself tells me to call again.
I have a very important, very excellent steam packing.
Show him it is very cheap and the best on the market.
The man tapped his bag. I have just taken orders from
the largest railway companies. Can I not see him for one second
only? I will not detain him.
Really. I'm sure you can't.
This afternoon he isn't seeing anybody.
But if you'll leave your name? My name is Hunter.
But what good is that? He asks me to call a little
later and I come. And now he's engaged.
It's a very great pity. And the man?
Snatched up his bag and walking stick and stalked off
indignantly. Hewitt stood gazing through the
small aperture in the doorway. You'd scarcely expect a man with
such a name as Hunter to talk with that accent, would you?
He observed musingly. It isn't a French accent, nor a
German, but it seems foreign. You don't happen to know him, I
suppose. No, I don't.
He called here about 12:30 just while we were in the middle of
our search, and I was frantic over the loss of the drawings.
I was in the outer office myself and told him to call later.
I have lots of such agents here anxious to sell all sorts of
engineering appliances. But what will you do now?
Shall. You see my men, I think?
Said Hewitt, rising. I think I'll get you to question
them yourself, myself. Yes, I have a reason.
Will you trust me with the key of the private room opposite?
We'll go over there for a little while while you talk to your men
in this room. Bring them in here and shut the
door. I can look after the office from
across the corridor, you know, ask them each to detail his
exact movements about the office this morning and get them to
recall each visitor who's been here from the beginning of the
week. I'll let you know the reason for
this later. Come across to me in a few
minutes. Hewitt took the key and passed
through the outer office into the corridor. 10 minutes later,
Mr. Dixon, having questioned his draftsman, followed him.
He found Hewitt standing before the table in the private room on
which lay several drawings on tracing paper.
See here, Mr. Dixon, said Hewitt, I think these are the
drawings you're anxious about. The engineer sprang toward them
with a cry of delight. Why, yes, yes, He exclaimed,
turning them over. Every one of them.
But where? How?
They must have been in the place after all.
Then what a fool I have been. Hewett shook his head.
I'm afraid you're not quite so lucky as you think, Mr. Dixon,
he said. These drawings have most
certainly been out of the house for a little while.
Never mind how we'll talk of that after.
There is no time to lose. Tell me, how long would it take
a good draftsman to copy them? They couldn't possibly be traced
over properly in less than two or two and a half long days of
very hard work. Dixon replied with eagerness.
Ah, then it is as I feared. These tracings have been
photographed, Mr. Dixon, and our task is one of every possible
difficulty. If they have been copied in the
ordinary way, one might hope to get hold of the copy, but
photography upsets everything. Copies can be multiplied with
such amazing facility that once the thief gets a decent start it
is almost hopeless to check mayhem.
The only chance is to get at the negatives before the copies are
taken. I must act at once, and I fear
between ourselves it may be necessary for me to step very
distinctly over the line of the law in the matter.
You see, the get at those negatives may involve something
very like house breaking. There must be no delay, no
waiting for legal procedure or the mischief is done.
Indeed, I very much question whether you have any legal
remedy, strictly speaking. Mr. Hewitt, I implore you, do
what you can. I need not say that all I have
is at your disposal. I will guarantee to hold you
harmless for anything that may happen.
But do I treat you? Do everything possible, think of
what the consequences may be? Well yes, so I do.
Hewitt remarked with a smile. Consequences to me if I were
charged with house breaking might be something that no
amount of guarantee can mitigate.
However, I will do what I can, if only from patriotic motives.
Now I must see your tracer, Ritter.
He is the traitor in the camp, Ritter.
But how? Never mind that now you are
upset and agitated, and had better not know more than is
necessary for a little while. In case you say or do something
unguarded with Ritter, I must take a deep course.
What I don't know, I must appear to know, and that will seem more
likely to him if I disclaim acquaintance with what I do
know. But first put these tracing
safely away out of sight. Dixon slipped them behind his
bookcase. Now Hewitt pursued.
Call Mr. Warsfold and give him something to do that will keep
him in the inner office across the way, and tell him to send
Ritter in here. Mr. Dixon called his chief
draftsman and requested him to put in order the drawings in the
drawers of the inner room that had been disarranged by the
search and to send Ritter as Hewitt had suggested.
Ritter walked into the private room with an air of respectful
attention. He was a puffy faced, unhealthy
looking young man with very small eyes and a loose, mobile
mouth. Sit down, Mr. Ritter, Hewitt
said in a stern voice. Your recent transactions with
your friend, Mr. Hunter, are well known both to Mr. Dixon and
myself. Ritter, who had at first leaned
easily back in his chair, started forward at this and
paled. You are surprised?
I observe you should be more careful in your movements out of
door if you do not wish your acquaintances to be known.
Mr. Hunter, I believe, has the drawings Mr. Dixon has lost, and
if so, I'm certain that you have given them to him.
That, you know, is theft, for which the law provides a severe
penalty. Ritter broke down completely and
turned appealingly to Mr. Dixon. Oh, Sir, pleaded.
It isn't so bad, I assure you. I was tempted, I confess, and I
hid the drawings. But they are still in the office
and I can give them to you. Really.
I can indeed. Hewitt went on.
Then in that case, perhaps you'd better get them at once.
Just go fetch them in. We won't trouble to observe your
hiding place. I'll only keep this door open to
be sure you don't lose your way. You know, down the stairs, for
instance, the wretched Ritter with hanging heads slunk into
the office opposite. Presently he reappeared,
looking, if possible, ghastlier than before.
He looked irresolutely down the corridor, as if meditating a run
for it, but Hewitt stepped forward and motioned him back to
the private room. You mustn't try anymore.
That sort of humbug, Hewitt said with increased severity.
The drawings are gone and you have stolen them.
You know that well enough. Now attend to me.
If you received your desserts, Mr. Dixon would send for a
policeman this moment and have you hauled off to jail.
That is your proper place. But unfortunately your
accomplice, who calls himself Hunter, but who has other names
besides that, as I happen to know, has his drawings, and it's
absolutely necessary that these should be recovered.
I'm afraid that it will be necessary, therefore, to come to
some arrangement with this scoundrel, to square him, in
fact. Now, just take that pen and
paper and write to your Confederate as I dictate.
You know the alternative if you cause any difficulty.
Ritter reached tremblingly for the pen.
Address him in your usual way. Dixon proceeded.
Say this. There has been an alteration in
the plans. Have you got that?
There has been an alteration in the plans.
I shall be alone here at 6:00. Please come without fail.
Have you got it? Very well.
Sign it and address the envelope.
He must come here, and then we may arrange matters.
In the meantime you will remain in the inner office opposite.
The note was written, and Mr. Martin Hewitt, without glancing
at the address, thrusted into his pocket.
When Ritter was safely in the inner office, however, he drew
it out and read the address. I see he observed he uses the
same name. Hunter, 27, Little Carton St.
Westminster, is the address. And there I shall go at once
with the note. If the man comes here, I think
you'd better lock him in with Ritter and send for a policeman.
It may at least frighten him. My object is of course to get
the man away, then if possible to invade his house in some way
or other and steal or smash his negatives if they are there and
to be found. Stay here in any case till I
return, and don't forget to lock up those.
Tracing End of the Case of the Dixon Torpedo by Arthur
Morrison, Part 1 Recording by Tony Maxey, Red Bluff, CA.
Section 14 of the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to
volunteer, please visit librivox.org.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
The Case of the Dixon Torpedo by Arthur Morrison, Part 2 It was
about 6:00 when he would return, alone, but with a smiling face
that told a good fortune at first sight.
First, Mr. Dixon, he said as he dropped into the easy chair in
the private room, Let me ease your mind by the information
that I have been most extraordinarily lucky.
In fact, I think you have no further cause for anxiety.
Here are the negatives. They were not all quite dry when
I well, what stole them, I suppose I must say so that they
have stuck together a bit, and probably the films are damaged.
But you don't mind that, I suppose.
He laid a small parcel wrapped in a newspaper on the table.
The engineer hastily tore away the paper and took up five or
six class photographic negatives of 1/2 plate size, which were
damp and stuck together by the gelatin films and couples.
He held them one after the other up to the light of the window
and glanced through them. Then with a great sigh of
relief, he placed them on the heart and pounded them to dust
and fragments with the poker. For a few seconds neither spoke.
Then Dixon, flinging himself into a chair, said, Mr. Hewitt,
I can't express my obligation to you.
What would have happened if you had failed?
I preferred not to think of. But what shall we do with Rider
now? The other man hasn't been here
yet. Bye, bye.
No, the fact is I didn't deliver the letter.
The worthy gentleman saved me a world of trouble by taking
himself out of the way he would laughed.
I'm afraid he has rather got himself into a mess by trying
two kinds of theft at once. And you may not be sorry to hear
that his attempt on your torpedo plans is likely to bring him a
dose of penal servitude for something else.
I'll tell you what has happened. Little Carlton St., Westminster,
I found to be a city sort of place, one of those old streets
that have seen much better days. A good many people seem to live
in each house. They are fairly large houses by
the way, and there was quite a company of bell handles on each
doorpost, all down the side like organ stops.
A Barber had possession of the ground floor front at #27 for
trade purposes, so to him I went.
Can you tell me? I said, where in this house I
can find Mr. Hunter? He looked outful, so I went on.
His friend Will, do you know I can't think of his name.
Foreign gentleman Dark, the bushy beard.
The Barber understood it once. Oh, that's Mersky, I expect, he
said. Now I come to think of it, he
has had letters addressed to Hunter once or twice.
I took him in top floor back. This was good so far.
I had got it Mr. Hunter's utter alias.
So by way of possessing him with the idea that I knew all about
him, I determined to ask for him as Mersky before handing over
the letter addressed to him as Hunter.
A little bluff of that sort is invaluable at the right time.
At the top floor back I stopped at the door and tried to open it
once, but it was locked. I could hear somebody scuttling
about within, as though carrying things about, and I knocked
again. In a little while the door
opened about a foot. And there's to Mr. Hunter, or
Mercy, as you like, the man who, in the character of a traveler
in steam packing, came here twice today.
He was in his shirtsleeves and cuddled something out of his arm
hastily covered with a spotted pocket handkerchief.
I have called to see Mr. Aminsky, said I with a
confidential letter. Oh, yes, yes, he answered.
Case delay. I know, I know, Excuse me one
minute. And he rushed off downstairs
with his parcel. Here was a noble chance.
For a moment I thought of following him in case there
might be something interesting in the parcel.
But I had to decide in a moment and I decided on trying the
room. I slipped inside the door and
finding the key on the inside, locked it.
It was a confused sort of room, with a little iron bed stayed in
one corner and a sort of rough board enclosure in another.
This I run the conjecture to be the photographic darkroom, and
made for it at once. There was plenty of light within
when the door was left open, and I made it once for the drying
rack that was fastened over the sink.
There were a number of negatives in it, and I began hastily
examining them one after another.
In the middle of this our friend Merski returned and tried the
door. He rattled violently at the
handle and pushed. Then he called.
At this moment I had come upon the first of the negatives you
have just smashed. The fixing and washing had
evidently only lately been completed, and the negative was
drying on the rack. I seized it, of course, and the
others which stood by it. Who are you there inside?
Mercy shouted indignantly from the landing.
Why, for you to go in my room like that?
Open the store once, or I'll call the police.
I took no notice. I had got the full number of
negatives, one for each drawing, but I was not by any means sure
that he had not taken an extra set.
So I went on hunting down the rack.
There were no more, so I set to work to turn out all the
undeveloped plates. It was quite possible, you see,
that the other set, if it existed, had not yet been
developed. Mercy changed his tune.
After a little more banging and shouting, I could hear him kneel
down and try the keyhole. I had left the key there so that
he could see nothing, but he began talking softly and rapidly
through the hole in a foreign language I did not know in the
least, but I believe it was Russian.
What had led him to believe I understood Russian I could not
at the time imagine, though I have a notion now.
I went on, ruining his stock of plates.
I found several boxes, apparently of new plates, but it
is there was no means of telling whether they were really unused
or merely undeveloped. But with the chemical impress of
your drawings on them, I dragged everyone ruthlessly from its
hiding place and laid it out in the full glare of the sunlight,
destroying it thereby, of course, whether it was unused or
not. Mercy left off talking, and I
heard him quietly sneaking off. Perhaps his conscience was not
sufficiently cleared warrant and appealed to the police, but it
seemed to me rather probable at the time that that was what he
was going for. So I hurried on with my work.
I found three dark slides, the parts that carried the plates in
the back of the camera, you know one of them, fixing the camera
itself. These I opened and exposed the
place to ruination as before. I suppose no one ever did so
much devastation in a photographic studio.
In 10 minutes as I managed, I had spoiled every plate I could
find and had to develop negative safely in my pocket.
When I happened to glance at the porcelain washing wall under the
sink. There was one negative in that,
and I took it up. It was not a negative of a
drawing like yours, but I have a Russian 20 ruble note.
This was a discovery. The only possible reason any man
could have for photographing a bank note was the manufacturer
of an edge plate for the production of forged copies.
I was almost as pleased as I had been at the discovery of your
negatives. He might bring the police now.
As soon as he liked. I could turn the tables on him
completely. I began to hunt about for
anything else related to this negative.
I found an inking roller, some old pieces of blanket used in
printing from plates, and in a corner on the floor heaped over
with newspapers and rubbish, a small copying press.
There was also a dish of acid, but not an edge plate or a
printed note to be seen. I was looking at the press with
the negative in one hand and the inking roller in the other when
I became conscious of a shadow across the window.
I looked up quickly and there was mercy hanging over from some
Ledger projection to the side of the window and staring straight
at me with the look of unmistakable terror and
apprehension. The face vanished immediately.
I had to move a table to get at the window, and by the time I
had opened it there was no sight or sound of the right tenant of
the room. I had no doubt now his reason
for carrying a parcel downstairs.
He probably mistook me for another visitor.
He was expecting, and knowing he must take this visitor into the
room through the papers and rubbish over the press, then put
off the plates and papers in a bundle and secreted them
somewhere downstairs, lest his occupation should be observed
plainly. My duty now is to communicate
with the police, so by the help of a friend, the Barber
downstairs, a messenger was found and a note sent over to
Scotland Yard. I awaited the course for the
arrival of the police and occupied the interval and
another look around, finding nothing important.
However, when the official detective arrived, he recognized
it. Once the importance of the case,
a large number of forged Russian notes have been put into
circulation on the continent lately, it seems, and it was
suspected that they came from London.
The Russian government have been sending urgent messages to the
police here on the subject. Of course, I said nothing about
your business, but while I was talking with the Scotland Yard
man, a letter was left by a messenger addressed to Mersky.
The letter will be examined, of course, by the proper
authorities, but I was not a little interested to proceed
that the envelope bore the Russian Imperial arms above the
words Russian Embassy. Now, why should Mersky
communicate with the Russian Embassy?
Certainly not to let the officials know that he was
carrying on a very extensive and lucrative business in the
manufacturer of spurious Russian notes.
I think it is rather more than possible.
He wrote, probably before he actually got your drawings, to
say that he could sell information of the highest
importance, and that this letter was a reply.
Further, I think it quite possible that when I asked for
him by his Russian name and spoke of a confidential letter,
he had once concluded that I had come from the Embassy in answer
to his letter. That would account for his
addressing me in Russian to the keyhole.
And of course, an official from the Russian Embassy would be the
very last person in the world whom he would like to observe
any indications in his little etching experiments.
But anyhow, be that as it may, you were concluded your drawings
are safe now and at once mercy is caught, and I think it
likely, for a man in his shirtsleeves with scarcely any
star and perhaps no money about him, hasn't a great chance to
get away. If he is caught, I say he will
probably get something handsome at Saint Petersburg in the way
of imprisonment, or Siberia or whatnot, so that you will be
amply avenged. Yes, but I don't at all
understand this business, the drawings even now.
How in the world will they take an out of the place, And how in
the world did you find it out? Nothing could be simpler, and
yet the plan itself was rather ingenious.
I'll tell you exactly how the thing reveals itself to me.
From your original description of the case, many people would
consider that an impossibility had been performed.
Nobody had gone out, and nobody had come in, and yet the
drawings have been taken away. But an impossibility is an
impossibility, after all, and his drawings don't run away on
themselves. Plainly somebody had taken them,
unaccountable as it may seem Now, as they were in your inner
office, the only people who could have gotten at them,
besides yourself, were your assistants.
So that was a pretty clear that one of them at least, has
something to do with the business.
You told me that Wurzfeld was an excellent and intelligent
draughtsman. Well, if such a man is that
attended treachery, he would probably have been able to carry
away the design in his head, at any rate a little bit of time,
and would be under no necessity to run the risk of stealing a
set of the drawings. But Ritter, you remarked, was an
inferior sort of man, not particularly smart, I think,
Were your words only a mechanical sort of tracer, he
would be unlikely to be able to carry in his head the
complicated details in such designs as yours.
And being in a subordinate position and continually
overlooked, he would find it impossible to make copies of the
plans in the office. So that to begin with, I thought
I saw the most probable path to start on when I looked around
the rooms. I pushed open the glass door of
the barrier and left the door to the inner office ajar in order
to be able to see anything that might happen in any part of the
place without actually expecting any definite development.
While we were talking. As it happened, our Fred, Mercy
or Hunter as you please, came into the outer office and my
attention was instantly called to him by the first thing he
did. Did you notice anything?
Procure yourself? No, really, I can't say I did.
He seemed to behave much as any traveler agent might.
Well, what I noticed was the fact that as soon as he entered
the place, he put his walking stick into the umbrella.
Stand over there by the door, close by where he stood.
A most unusual thing for a casual caller to do before even
knowing whether you were in. This made me watch him closely,
I perceived with increased interest.
The stick was exactly the same kind and pattern as one already
standing there, Also a curious thing.
I kept my eyes carefully on those sticks, and was all the
more interested and edified to see, when he left, that he took
the other stick, not the one he came with, from the stand, and
carried it away, leaving his own behind.
I might have followed him, but I decided that more could be
learned by stay, as in fact proved to be the case.
This, by the by, is the stick he carried away with him.
I took the liberty of fetching it back from Westminster,
because I could see him to be Ritter's property.
Hewitt produced the stick. It was an ordinary thick malacca
cane, with a Buckhorn handle and a Silver Band.
Hewitt bent it across his knee and laid it on the table.
Yes. Dixon answered, That is Ritter's
stick. I think I have often seen it in
the stand. But what in the world?
One moment I'll just fetch the stick.
Mercy left behind and he would stepped across the corridor.
He returned with another stick, apparently an exact facsimile of
the other, and placed it by the side of the other.
When your assistants went into the inner room, I carried the
stick off for a minute or two. I knew it was not worse felt
because there was an umbrella there with his initial on the
handle. Look at this.
Martin Hewitt gave the handle A twist and rapidly unscrewed it
from the top. Then it was seen that the stick
was a mere tube of very thin metal, painted to appear like
Malacca cane. It was planned at once that this
was no Malacca cane. It wouldn't bend inside it.
I found your tracings rolled up tightly.
You can get a marvelous quantity of thin tracing paper into a
small compass by tight rolling. And this, this was the way they
were brought back. The engineer exclaimed.
I see that clearly. But how do they get away?
That's as mysterious as ever. Not a bit of it.
See here. Murphy gets hold of Ritter and
they agree to get your drawings and photograph them.
Ritter is to let its Confederate have the drawings, and Murphy is
to bring them back as soon as possible so that they shall be
missed for a moment. Ritter habitually carries this
block a Cade, and the cunning of Murphy at once suggested this
tube should be made in outward facsimile.
This morning Murphy keeps the actual stick, and Ritter comes
to the office with a tube. He seizes the first opportunity,
probably when you were in this private room and Wurzfeld was
talking to you from the corridor, to get at the
tracings, roll them up tightly and put them in the tube,
putting the tube back in the umbrella stand at 12:30 or
whenever it was. Mursky turns out for the first
time with the actual stick and exchanges them just as he
afterwards did when he brought the drawings back.
Yes, but Mursky came half an hour after they were.
Oh, Oh yes, I see. What a fool I was.
I was forgetting, of course, when I first missed the
tracings. They were in this walking stick,
safe enough, and I was tearing my hair out within an arm's
reach of them. Precisely.
And mercy took them away before your very eyes, I expected.
Ritter was in a rare funk when he found that the drawings were
missed, He calculated. No doubt when you're not wanting
them for the hour or two they would be out of the office.
How lucky that it struck me to jot a pencil note on one of
them. I might easily have made my note
somewhere else, and then I should never have known that
they had been away. Yes, they didn't give you any
too much time to miss them. Well, I think they're best
pretty clear. I brought the tracings in here,
screwed up the sham stick and put it back.
You identified the tracings and found none missing, and then my
course was pretty clear, though it looked difficult.
I knew you would be very naturally indicted with Ritter,
so as I wanted to manage him myself, I told you nothing of
what he had actually done, for fear that in your agitated state
you might burst out with something that might spoil my
game to Ritter. I pretended to know nothing of
the return of the drawing or how they had been stolen.
The only things I did know was certainty, but I did pretend to
know all about Murky or Hunter, when as a matter of fact I knew
nothing at all except that he probably went under more than
one name. That put Britter into my hands
completely. When he found the game was up.
He began with a lying confession, believing that the
tracings were still in the stick and that we knew nothing of
their return. He said that they had not been
away and that he would fetch them as I had expected he would.
I let him go for them alone, and when he returned, utterly broken
up by the discovery that they were not there, I had them all
together, had my Mercy. You see, if he had known the
drawings were all the time behind your bookcase, he might
have brazened it out, swore that the drawings had been there all
the time, and we could have done nothing with him.
We couldn't have sufficiently frightened him by the threat of
prosecution for theft, because those things were in your
possession to his knowledge. As it was, he answered the helm
capitally, gave us Mercy's address on the envelope, and
wrote the letter that was to have got him out of the way
while I committed burglary, if that disgrace expedient had not
been rendered unnecessary. On the whole the case has gone
very well. It has gone moral through well,
thanks to yourself. But what should I do with
Ritter? Here's a stick knocking
downstairs with it, if you like. I should keep the two, if I were
you, as a memento. I don't suppose the respectable
Mercy will ever call to ask for it.
But I should certainly get Ritter out of the door, or out
of the window if you like, without delay.
Mercy was caught and after 2 rans at the police court was
extradited. On the charge of forging Russian
notes. It came out that he had written
to the embassy as he would have survived, stating that he had
certain valuable information offer and the letter which he
would have seen delivered was an acknowledgement and a request
for more definite particulars. This is what gave rise to the
impression that Mercy had himself informed the Russian
authorities of his forgeries. His real interest was very
different, but was never guessed.
I wonder who it has once or twice observed whether, after
all, it would not have paid the Russian authority better on the
whole, if I had never investigated Murphy's little
note factory. The Dixon torpedo was worth a
good many 20 ruble notes. End of the Case of the Dixon
Torpedo by Arthur Morrison, recording by Todd.
Section 15 of the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
This is a Librivox recording. All.
Librivox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit
librivox.org. Recording by Janet.
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
The Woman in the Big Hat by Baroness Emma Ozzie, Part 1.
Lady Molly always had the idea that if the finger of fate had
pointed to Mathis's in Regent Street, rather than to Lions, as
the most advisable place for us to have a cup of tea that
afternoon, Mr. Calden would be alive.
At the present moment. My dear lady is quite sure, and
Needless to say that I share her belief in herself that she would
have anticipated the murderer's intentions, and thus prevented
one of the most cruel and callous of crimes which were
ever perpetrated in the heart of London.
She and I had been to a matinee of Trilby, and we're having tea
at Lions, which is exactly opposite Mathis's Vienna Cafe
and Regent Street. From where we sat we commanded a
view of the street and of the cafe, which had been very
crowded during the last hour. We had lingered over our toasted
muffin until past 6:00, when our attention was drawn to the
unusual commotion which had arisen both outside and in the
brilliantly lighted place over the road.
We saw two men run out of the doorway and return a minute or
two later in company with a policeman.
You know what is the inevitable result of such a proceeding in
London. Within 3 minutes a crowd had
collected outside Mathis's. Two or three more constables had
already assembled and had some difficulty in keeping the
entrance clear of intruders. But already my dear Lady, keen
as a pointer on the scent, had hastily paid her bill, and
without waiting to see if I followed her or not, had quickly
crossed the road, and the next moment her graceful form was
lost in the crowd. I went after her, impelled by
curiosity, and presently caught sight of her in close
conversation with one of our own men.
I have always thought that Lady Molly must have eyes at the back
of her head, otherwise how could she have known that I stood
behind her now? Anyway, she beckoned to me and
together we entered Mathis's, much to the astonishment and
anger of the less fortunate crowd.
The usually gay little place was indeed sadly transformed.
In one corner the waitresses in dainty caps and aprons had put
their heads together and were eagerly whispering to one
another whilst casting furtive looks at the small group
assembled in front of one of those pretty alcoves which, as
you know, line the walls all around the big tea room at
Mathis's. Here two of our men were busy
with pencil and notebook whilst 1 fair haired waitress dissolved
in tears was apparently giving them a great deal of irrelevant
and confused information. Chief Inspector Saunders had, I
understood, been already sent for the constables.
Confronted with this extraordinary tragedy, we're
casting anxious glances towards the main entrance whilst putting
the conventional questions to the young waitress, and in the
alcove itself, raised from the floor of the room by a couple of
carpeted steps. The cause of all this commotion,
all this anxiety and all these tears, sat huddled up on a chair
with arms lying straight across the marble top table on which
the usual paraphernalia of afternoon tea still lay.
Scattered about the upper part of the body, limp back, boneless
and awry, half propped up against the wall, half falling
back upon the outstretched arms, told quite plainly its weird
tale of death. Before my dear lady and I had
time to ask any questions, Saunders arrived in a taxicab.
He was accompanied by the medical officer, Doctor
Townsend, who at once busied himself with the dead man, while
Saunders went up quickly to Lady Molly.
The chief suggested sending for you.
He said quickly he was phoning you when I left.
There's a woman in this case, and we shall rely on you a good
deal. What has happened?
Asked my dear lady, whose fine eyes were glowing with
excitement at the mere suggestion of work.
I have only a few stray particulars, replied Saunders.
But the chief witness is that yellow haired girl over there.
We'll find out what we can from her directly.
Doctor Townsend has given us his opinion.
The medical officer who had been kneeling beside the dead man now
rose and turned to Saunders. His face was very grave.
The whole matter is simple enough so far as I'm concerned,
he said. The man has been killed by a
terrific dose of morphia, administered, no doubt, in this
cup of chocolate, he added, pointing to a cup in which there
still lingered the cold dregs of the thick beverage.
But when did this occur? Asked Saunders, turning to the
waitress. I, I can't say, she replied,
speaking with obvious nervousness.
The gentleman came in very early with the lady somewhere about
four. They made straight for this
alcove. The place was just beginning to
fill and the music had begun. And where is the lady now?
She went off almost directly. She had ordered tea for herself
and a cup of chocolate for the gentleman, also muffins and
cakes. About 5 minutes afterwards, as I
went past their table I heard her say to him, I'm afraid I
must go now or Jay's will be closed, but I'll be back in less
than half an hour. You'll wait for me, won't you?
Did the gentleman seem all right then?
Oh, yes, said the waitress, he had just begun to sip his
chocolate, and merely said, so long as she gathered up her
gloves and muff, and then went out of the shop, and she has not
returned since. No.
When did you first notice there was anything wrong with this
gentleman? Asked Lady Molly.
Well, said the girl, with some hesitation.
I looked at him once or twice as I went up and down, for he
certainly seemed to have fallen all of a heap.
Of course I thought that he had gone to sleep and I spoke to the
man address about him, but she thought that I had to leave him
alone for a bit. Then we got very busy and I paid
no more attention to him until about 6:00, when most afternoon
tea customers had gone and we were beginning to get the tables
ready for dinners. Then I certainly did think there
was something wrong with the man.
I called to the man address and we sent for the police and the
lady who was with him at first. What was she like?
Would you know her again? Queried Saunders.
I don't know, replied the girl. You see, I've to attend to such
crowds of people of an afternoon, I can't notice each
one. And she had on one of those
enormous mushroom hats. No one could have seen her face,
not more than her chin, unless they looked right under the hat.
Would you know the hat again? Asked Lady Molly.
Yes, I think I should, said the waitress.
It was black velvet and had a lot of plumes.
It was enormous, she added with a sigh of admiration and of
longing for the monumental headgear.
During the girls narrative, one of the constables had searched
the dead man's pockets. Among other items, he had found
several letters addressed to Mark Culloden, Esquire, some
with an address in Lombard St. others with one in Fitz Johns
Ave. Hampstead.
The initials MC, which appeared both in the hat and on the
silver mount of a letter case belonging to the unfortunate
gentleman, proved his identity beyond a doubt.
A house in Fitz Johns Ave. does not somehow suggest a bachelor
establishment. Even while Saunders and the
other men were looking through the belongings of the deceased
lady, Molly had already thought of his family, children, perhaps
a wife, a mother. Who could tell what awful news
to bring to an unsuspecting happy family who might even now
be expecting the return of father, husband or son at the
very moment when he laid murdered in a public place the
victim of some hideous plot or feminine revenge, as our amiable
friends in Paris would say. It jumped to the eyes that there
was a woman in the case, a woman who had worn A gargantuan hat
for the obvious purpose of remaining unidentifiable, when
the question of the unfortunate victims companion that afternoon
came up for solution. And all these facts to put
before an expectant wife or an anxious mother.
As no doubt you have already foreseen, Lady Molly took the
difficult task on her own kind shoulders.
She and I drove together to Lorberry House, Fitz John's
Avenue, and on asking of the man servant who opened the door if
his mistress were at home, we were told that Lady Irene Cullen
was in the drawing room. Mine is not a story of
sentiment, so I'm not going to dwell on that interview, which
was one of the most painful moments I recollect having lived
through. Lady Irene was young, not 5 and
20 I should say, petite and frail looking, but with a quiet
dignity of manner which was most impressive.
She was Irish, as you know, the daughter of the Earl of
Atheyville, and, it seems, had married Mr. Mark Culloden in the
teeth of strenuous opposition on the part of her family, which
was as penniless as it was aristocratic, whilst Mr.
Culloden had great prospects and a splendid business, but
possessed neither ancestors nor high connections.
She had only been married six months, poor little soul, and
from all accounts must have idolized her husband.
Lady Molly broke the news to her with infinite tact, but there it
was. It was a terrific blow, wasn't
it, to deal to a young wife, now a widow, and there was so little
that a stranger could say in these circumstances.
Even my dear lady's gentle voice, her persuasive eloquence,
her kindly words, sounded empty and conventional in the face of
such appalling grief. Two, Of course, everyone
expected that the inquest would reveal something of the murdered
man's inner life, would in fact allow the over eager public to
get a peep into Mr. Mark Calden's secret orchard, wherein
walked a lady who wore abnormally large velvet hats and
who nourished in her heart one of those terrible grudges
against a man which can only find satisfaction in crime.
Equally, of course, the inquest revealed nothing that the public
did not already know. The young widow was extremely
reticent on the subject of her late husband's life, and the
servants had all been fresh arrivals when the young couple,
just home from their honeymoon, organized their new household at
Lorberry House. There was an old aunt of the
deceased, Missus Steinberg, who lived with the Caldings, but who
at the present moment was very ill.
Someone in the house, one of the younger servants, probably very
foolishly, had told her every detail of the awful tragedy with
positively amazing strength. The invalid thereupon insisted
on making a sworn statement which she desired should be
placed before the coroner's jury.
She wished to bear solemn testimony to the integrity of
her late nephew, Mark Calden, in case the personality of the
mysterious woman in the big hat suggested to evilly disposed
minds any thought of scandal. Mark Calden was the one nephew
whom I loved, she stated with solemn emphasis.
I have shown my love for him by bequeathing to him the large
fortune which I inherited from the late Mr. Steinberg.
Mark was the soul of honor, or I should have cut him out of my
will as I did my other nephews and nieces.
I was brought up in the Scotch home, and I hate all this modern
fastness and smartness which are only other words for what I call
profligacy. Needless to say, the old lady's
statement, solemn though it was, was of no use whatsoever for the
elucidation of the mystery which surrounded the death of Mr. Mark
Calden. But as Missus Steinberg had
talked of other nephews whom she had cut out of her will in favor
of the murdered man, the police directed inquiries in those
various quarters. Mr. Mark Calden certainly had
several brothers and sisters, also cousins who had different
times usually for some peccadillo or other seem to have
incurred the wrath of the straight laced old lady.
But there did not appear to have been any ill feeling in the
family owing to this. Missus Steinberg was the sole
mistress of her fortune. She might just as well have
bequeathed it in Toto to some hospital as to one particular
nephew whom she favored, and the various relations were glad, on
the whole, that the money was going to remain in the family
rather than be cast abroad. The mystery surrounding the
woman in the big hat deepened as the days went by.
As you know, the longer the period of time which elapses
between a crime and the identification of the criminal,
the greater the chance the latter has of remaining at
large. In spite of strenuous efforts
and close questionings of every one of the employees at
Mathis's, no one could give a very accurate description of the
lady who had tea with the deceased on that fateful
afternoon. The first glimmer of light on
the mysterious occurrence was thrown about 3 weeks later by a
young woman named Catherine Harris, who had been parlour
maid at Lurberry House when first Mr. and Lady Irene
Culloden returned from their honeymoon.
I must tell you that Missus Steinberg had died a few days
after the inquest. The excitement had been too much
for her enfeebled heart. Just before her death she had
deposited 250 lbs with her banker, which sum was to be paid
over to any person giving information which would lead to
the apprehension and conviction of the murderer of Mr. Mark
Culloden. This offer had stimulated
everyone's zeal and, I presume, had aroused Catherine Harris to
realization of what? All the while had been her
obvious duty. Lady Maui saw her in the chief's
private office and had Much Ado to disentangle the threads of
the girls confused narrative. But the main point of Harris's
story was that a foreign lady had once called at Lorberry
House about a week after the master and mistress had returned
from their honeymoon. Lady Irene was out at the time
and Mr. Calden saw the lady in his smoking room.
She was a very handsome lady, explained Harris, and was
beautifully dressed. Did she wear a large hat?
Asked the chief. I don't remember if it were
particularly large, replied the girl.
But you remember what the lady was like, Suggested Lady Molly.
Yes, pretty well. She was very, very tall and very
good looking. Would you know her again if you
saw? Her.
Rejoined, my dear lady? Oh, yes, I think so, was
Catherine Harris's reply. Unfortunately, beyond this
assurance, the girl could say nothing very definite.
The foreign lady seems to have been closeted with Mr. Caldon
for about an hour, at the end of which time Lady Irene came home.
The Butler being out that afternoon, it was Harris who let
her mistress in. And as the latter asked no
questions, the girl did not volunteer the information that
her Master had a visitor. She went back to the servants
hall, but 5 minutes later the smoking room bell rang and she
had to run up again. The foreign lady was then in the
hall alone and obviously waiting to be shown out.
This Harris did, after which Mr. Calden came out of his room, and
in the girl's own graphic words he went on dreadful.
I don't know if I'd done anything so very wrong, she
explained. But the master seemed quite
furious and said I wasn't a proper parlor maid, or I'd have
known that visitors must not be shown in straight away like
that. I ought to have said that I
didn't know if Mr. Calden was in that I would go and see.
Oh, he did go on at me, continued Catherine Harris
volubly. And I suppose he complained to
the mistress, for she gave me notice the next day.
And you have never seen the foreign lady since, concluded
Lady Molly. No, she never come while I was
there. By the way, how do you know she
was foreign? Did she speak like a foreigner?
Oh, no, replied the girl. She did not say much, only asked
for Mr. Calden, But she looked French like.
This unanswerable bit of logic concluded Catherine's statement.
She was very anxious to know whether, if the foreign lady was
hanged for murder, she herself would get the £250.
On Lady Molly's assurance that she certainly would, she
departed in apparent content. Three.
Well, we are no nearer than we were before.
Said the chief with an impatient sigh, when the door had closed
behind Catherine Harris. Don't you think so?
Rejoined Lady Molly blandly. Do you consider that what we
have heard just now has helped us to discover who was the woman
in the big hat? Retorted the chief somewhat
testily. Perhaps not, replied my dear
lady with her sweet smile, But it may help us discover who
murdered Mr. Calden. With which enigmatical statement
she effectively silenced his chief, and finally walked out of
his office, followed by her faithful Mary.
Following Catherine Harris's indications, a description of
the lady who was wanted in connection with the murder of
Mr. Calden was very widely circulated, and within two days
of the interview with the ex parlor maid another very
momentous one took place in the same office.
Lady Molly was at work with the chief over some reports whilst I
was taking shorthand notes at a side desk, when a card was
brought in by one of the men. And the next moment, without
waiting either for permission to enter or to be more formally
announced, a magnificent apparition literally sailed into
the dust covered little back office, filling it with an
atmosphere of Parma violets and Russia leather.
I don't think that I have ever seen a more beautiful woman in
my life. Tall, with a splendid figure and
perfect carriage, she vaguely reminded me of the portraits one
sees of the late Empress of Austria.
This lady was moreover dressed to perfection and wore a large
hat adorned with a quantity of plumes.
The chief had instinctively risen to greet her, whilst Lady
Molly, still and Placid, was eyeing her with a quizzical
smile. You know who I am, Sir, began
the visitor, as soon as she had sunk gracefully into a chair.
My name is on that card. My appearance, I understand,
tallies exactly with that of a woman who is supposed to have
murdered Mark Culloden. She said this so calmly, with
such perfect self possession, that I literally gasped.
The chief, too, seemed to have been metaphorically lifted off
his feet. He tried to mutter a reply.
Oh, don't trouble yourself, Sir. She interrupted him with a
smile. My landlady, my servant, my
friends have all read the description of the woman who
murdered Mr. Culloden. For the past 24 hours I've been
watched by your police. Therefore I have come to you of
my own accord before they came to arrest me in my flat.
I'm not too soon, am I? She asked with that same cool
indifference which was so startling considering the
subject of her conversation. She spoke English with a
scarcely perceptible foreign accent, but I quite understood
what Catherine Harris had meant when she said that the lady
looked French like. She certainly did not look
English, and when I caught sight of her name on the card which
the chief had handed to Lady Molly, I put her down at once as
Viennese. Miss Elizabeth Lone Thal had all
the charm, the grace, the elegance which one associates
with Austrian women more than with those of any other nation.
No wonder the chief found it difficult to tell her that, as a
matter of fact, the police were about to apply for a warrant
that very morning for her arrest on a charge of wilful murder.
I know, I know, she said, seeming to divine his thoughts.
But let me tell you at once, Sir, that I did not murder Mark
Culloden. He treated me shamefully and I
would willingly have made a scandal just to spite him.
He had become so respectable and straight laced.
But between scandal and murder there's a wide gulf.
Don't you think so, Madam? She added, turning for the first
time towards Lady Molly. Undoubtedly, replied my dear
lady, with the same quizzical smile, a wide golf, which no
doubt Miss Elizabeth Lowenthal will best be able to demonstrate
to the magistrate tomorrow, rejoined the chief with official
sternness of manner. I thought that for the space of
a few seconds the lady lost herself assurance.
At this obvious suggestion, the bloom on her cheeks seemed to
vanish, and two hard lines appeared between her fine eyes.
But frightened or not, she quickly recovered herself and
said quietly. Now, my dear Sir, let us
understand one another. I came here for that express
purpose. I take it that you don't want
your police to look ridiculous any more than I want a scandal.
I don't want detectives to hang around my flat questioning my
neighbors and my servants. They would soon find out that I
did not murder Mark Culloden, of course, but the atmosphere of
the police would hang round me and I I prefer parm of Violets,
she added, raising a daintily perfumed handkerchief to her
nose. Then you have come to make a
statement? Asked the chief.
Yes, she replied. I'll tell you all I know.
Mr. Calden was engaged to marry me.
Then he met the daughter of an Earl, and thought he would like
her better as a wife than a simple Miss Lowenthal.
I suppose I should be considered an undesirable match for a young
man who has a highly respectable and snobbish aunt, who would
leave him all her money only on the condition that he made a
suitable marriage. I have a voice, and I came over
to England two years ago to study English, so that I might
sing in oratory at the Albert Hall.
I met Mark on the Calais Dover boat when he was returning from
a holiday abroad. He fell in love with me, and
presently asked me to be his wife.
After some demure I accepted him.
We became engaged, but he told me that our engagement must
remain a secret, for he had an old aunt from whom he had Great
Expectations, and who might not approve of his marrying a
foreign girl who was without connections, and a professional
singer. From that moment I mistrusted
him, nor was I very astonished when gradually his affection for
me seemed to cool. Soon after he informed me quite
callously that he had changed his mind and was going to marry
some swell English lady. I didn't care much, but I wanted
to punish him by making a scandal, you understand?
I went to his house just to worry him and finally I decided
to bring in action for breach of promise against him.
It would have upset him, I know. No doubt his aunt would have cut
him out of her will. That is all I wanted.
But I did not care enough about him to murder him.
Somehow her tale carried conviction.
We were all of us obviously impressed.
The chief alone looked visibly disturbed, and I could read what
was going on in his mind. As you say, Miss Lowenthal, he
rejoined. The police would have found all
this out within the next few hours.
Once your connection with the murdered man was known to us,
the record of your past and his becomes an easy one to pursue.
No doubt, too, he added insinuatingly.
Our men would soon have been placed in possession of the one
undisputable proof of your complete innocence with regard
to that fateful afternoon spent at Mathis's Cafe.
What is that? She queried blandly.
An alibi? You mean where?
Was I during the time that Mark was being murdered in a tea
shop? Yes, said the chief.
I was out for a walk, she replied quietly.
Shopping, perhaps? No.
You met someone who would remember the circumstance, or
your servants could say at what time you came in.
No, she repeated drily. I met no one, for I took a brisk
walk on Primrose Hill. My 2 servants could only say
that I went out at 3:00 in the afternoon and returned after
five. There were silence in the little
office for a moment or two. I could hear the scraping of the
pen with which the chief was idly scribbling geometrical
figures on his blotting pad. Lady Molly was quite still.
Her large, luminous eyes were fixed on the beautiful woman who
had just told us her strange story, with its unaccountable
sequel, its mystery which had deepened with the last phrase
which she had uttered. Miss Lowenthal, I felt sure, was
conscious of her peril. I am not sufficiently A
psychologist to know whether it was guilt or merely fear which
was distorting the handsome features now hardening the face
and causing the lips to tremble. Lady Molly scribbled a few words
on a scrap of paper which she then passed over to the chief.
Miss Lowenthal was making visible efforts to steady her
nerves. That is all I have to tell you,
she said, in a voice which sounded dry and harsh.
I think I will go home now. But she did not rise from her
chair, and seemed to hesitate, as if fearful lest permission to
go were not granted her. To her obvious astonishment, and
I must add to my own, the chief immediately rose and said quite
urbanely. I thank you very much for the
helpful information which you have given me.
Of course, we may rely on your presence in town for the next
few days. May we not?
She seemed greatly relieved, and all at once resumed her former
charm of manner and elegance of attitude.
The beautiful face was lit up by a smile.
The chief was bowing to her in quite a foreign fashion, and in
spite of her visible reassurance, she eyed him very
intently. Then she went up to Lady Molly
and held out her hand. My dear lady took it without an
instant's hesitation. I who knew that it was the few
words hastily scribbled by Lady Molly which had dictated the
chief's conduct with regard to Miss Lowenthal, was left
wondering whether the. Woman I loved.
Best in all the world had been shaking hands with a murderous
end of The Woman in the Big Hat by Baroness Emma Ozzie.
Part 1 recording by Janet Marysville, WA Section 16 of The
Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in
the public domain For more information or to volunteer.
Please visit librivox.org. Recording by Janet, The Rivals
of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1. The Woman in the Big Hat, by
Baroness Emma Ozzie, Part 2. No doubt you will remember the
sensation which was caused by the arrest of Miss Lowenthal on
a charge of having murdered Mr. Mark Culloden by administering
morphia to him in a cup of chocolate at Mathis's Cafe in
Regent Street. The beauty of the accused, Her
undeniable charm of manner, the hitherto blameless character of
her life, all tended to make the public take violent sides either
for or against her, and the usual budget of amateur
correspondence, suggestions, recriminations, and advice
poured into the chief's office in Titanic proportions.
I must say that personally all my sympathies went out to Miss
Lowenthal. As I have said before, I am no
psychologist, but I had seen her in the original interview at the
office and I could not get rid of an absolutely unreasoning
certitude that the beautiful Viennese singer was innocent.
The Magistrates Court was packed, as you may well imagine,
on that first day of the inquiry, and of course sympathy
with the accused went up to fever pitch when she staggered
into the dock, beautiful still, despite the ravages caused by
horror, anxiety, fear in face of the deadly peril in which she
stood, the magistrate was most kind to her.
Her solicitor was unimpeachably assiduous.
Even our fellows who had to give evidence against her did no more
than their duty, and were as lenient in their statements as
possible. Miss Lowenthal had been arrested
in her flat by Danvers, accompanied by two constables.
She had loudly protested her innocence all along, and did so
still pleading not guilty in a firm voice.
The great points in favor of the arrest were, firstly, the
undoubted motive of disappointment and revenge
against a faithless sweetheart than the total inability to
prove any kind of alibi, which, under the circumstances,
certainly added to the appearance of guilt.
The question of where the fatal drug was obtained was more
difficult to prove. It was stated that Mister Mark
Culloden was director of several important companies, one of
which carried on business as wholesale druggists.
Therefore it was argued that the accused at different times and
under some pretext or other, had obtained drugs from Mr. Culloden
himself. She had admitted to having
visited the deceased at his office in the city both before
and after his marriage. Miss Lowenthal listened to all
this evidence against her with a hard set face, as she did also
to Catherine Harris's statement about her calling on Mr.
Culloden at Lorberry House, but she brightened up visibly when
the various attendants at Mathis's Cafe were placed in the
box. A very large hat belonging to
the accused was shown to the witnesses, but though the police
upheld the theory that that was the headgear worn by the
mysterious lady at the cafe on that fateful afternoon, the
waitresses made distinctly contradictory statements with
regard to it. Whilst one girl swore that she
recognized the very hat, another was equally positive that it was
distinctly smaller than the one she recollected, and when the
hat was placed on the head of Miss Lowenthal, 3 out of four
witnesses positively refused to identify her.
Most of these young women declared that though the
accused, when wearing the big hat, looked as if she might have
been the lady in question, yet there was a certain something
about her which was different. With that vagueness which is a
usual and highly irritating characteristic of their class,
the girls finally parried every question by refusing to swear
positively either for or against the identity of Miss Lowenthal.
There's something that's different about her somehow.
One of the waitresses asserted positively.
What is it that's different? Asked the solicitor for the
accused, pressing his point. I can't say, was the perpetual
madding reply. Of course the poor young widow
had to be dragged into the case, and here I think opinions and
even expressions of sympathy were quite unanimous.
The whole tragedy had been inexpressibly painful to her, of
course, and now it must have seemed doubly so.
The scandal which had accumulated round her late
husband's name must have added the poignancy of shame to that
of grief. Mark Calden had behaved as
callously to the girl whom clearly he had married from
interested family motives as he had to the one whom he had
heartlessly cast aside. Lady Irene, however, was most
moderate in her statements. There was no doubt that she had
known of her husband's previous entanglement with Miss
Lowenthal, but apparently had not thought fit to make him
accountable for the past. She did not know that Miss
Lowenthal had threatened a breach of promise against her
husband. Throughout her evidence, she
spoke with absolute calm and dignity.
And looked indeed a strange contrast in her closely fitting
tailor made costume of black Serge and tiny black toquet to
the more brilliant woman who stood in the dock.
The 2 great points in favor of the accused were firstly the
vagueness of the witnesses who were called to identify.
Her. And secondly, the fact that she
had undoubtedly begun proceedings for breach of
promise against the deceased. Judging by the latter's letters
to her, she would have had a splendid case against him, which
fact naturally dealt a severe blow to the theory.
As to motive for the murder, on the whole the Magistrate felt
that there was not a sufficiency of evidence against the accused
to warrant his committing her for trial.
He therefore discharged her, and amid loud applause from the
public, Miss Lowenthal left the court a free woman.
Now I know that the public did loudly and to my mind very
justly blame the police for that arrest, which was denounced as
being as cruel as it was unjustifiable.
I felt as strongly as anybody on the subject, for I knew that the
prosecution had been instituted in defiance of Lady Molly's
express advice and in distinct contradiction to the evidence
which she had collected. When, therefore, the Chief asked
my dear Lady to renew her efforts in that mysterious case,
it was Small wonder that her enthusiasm did not respond.
To his anxiety. That she would do her duty was
beyond a doubt, but she had very naturally lost her more fervent
interest in the case. The mysterious woman in the big
hat was still the chief subject of leading articles in the
papers, coupled with that of the ineptitude of the police, who
could not discover her. There were caricatures and
picture postcards in all the shop windows of a gigantic hat
covering the whole figure of its wearer, only the feet, and a
very long and pointed chin protruding from beneath the
enormous brim below was the device.
Who is she? Ask the police.
One day. It was the second since the
discharge of Miss Lowenthal. My dear lady came into my room
beaming. It was the first time I had seen
her smile for more than a week, and already I had guessed what
it was that had cheered her. Good news, Mary, she said gaily.
At last. I've got the chief to let me
have a free hand. Oh dear, what a lot of argument
it takes to extricate that man from the tangled meshes of red
tape. What are you going to do?
I asked. Prove that my theory is right as
to who murdered Mark Culloden. She replied seriously.
And as a preliminary, we'll go and ask his servants at Laura
Berry House a few questions. It was then 3:00 in the
afternoon at Lady Molly's bidding.
I dressed somewhat smartly and together we went off in a taxi
to Fitz John's Ave. Lady Molly had written a few
words on one of her cards, urgently requesting an interview
with Lady Irene Culloden. This she handed over to the
manservant who opened the door at Lorberry House.
A few moments later we were sitting in the cosy bourdois.
The young widow, high bred and dignified in her tight fitting
black gown, sat opposite to us, her white hands folded demurely
before her, her small head with its very close coffer bent in
closest attention towards Lady Molly.
I most sincerely hope, Lady Irene, began my dear Lady, in
her most gentle and persuasive voice, that you will look with
all possible indulgence on my growing desire, shared, I may
say, by all my superiors at Scotland Yard, to elucidate the
mystery which still surrounds your late husband's death.
Lady Molly paused, as if waiting for encouragement to proceed.
The subject must have been extremely painful to the young
widow. Nevertheless, she responded
quite gently. I can understand that the police
wish to do their duty in the matter.
As for me, I have done all I think that could be expected of
me. I am not made of iron.
And after that day in the police court, she checked herself as if
afraid of having betrayed more emotion than was consistent with
good breeding, and concluded more calmly.
I cannot do any more. I fully appreciate your feelings
in the matter, said Lady Molly. But you would not mind helping
us, would you? In a passive way, if you could
by some simple means further the cause of justice.
What is it you want me to do? Asked Lady Irene, only to allow
me to ring for two of your maids and ask them a few questions.
I promise you that they shall not be of such a nature as to
cause you the slightest pain. For a moment I thought that the
young widow hesitated. Then, without a word, she rose
and rang the bell. Which of my servants did you
wish to see? She asked, turning to my dear
lady as soon as the Butler entered in answer to the bell.
Your own maid and your parlour maid, if I may, replied Lady
Molly. Lady Irene gave the necessary
orders and we all sat expectant and silent until a minute or two
later 2 girls entered the room. 1 wore a cap and apron, the
other in neat black dress and dainty lace collar was obviously
the lady's maid. This lady said their mistress,
addressing the 2 girls, wishes to ask you a few questions.
She is a representative of the police, so you had better do
your best to satisfy her with your answers.
Oh, rejoined Lady Molly pleasantly, choosing not to
notice the tone of assurbidity with which the young widow had
spoken, nor the unmistakable. Barrier of hostility and
reserve, which her words had immediately raised between the
young servants and the representative of the police.
What I am going to ask these two young ladies is neither very
difficult nor very unpleasant. I merely want their kind help in
a little comedy which will have to be played this evening in
order to test the accuracy of certain statements made by one
of the waitresses at Mathis's tea shop with regard to the
terrible tragedy which has darkened this house.
You will do that much, will you not?
She added, speaking directly to the maid's.
No one can be so winning or so persuasive as my dear lady.
In a moment I saw the girl's hostility melting before the
sunshine of Lady Molly's smile. We'll do what we can, ma'am,
said the maid. That's a brave good girl,
replied My lady. You must know that the chief
waitress at Mathis's has this very morning identified the
woman in the big hat who we all believe murdered your late
master. Yes, she continued, in response
to a gasp of astonishment which seemed to go round the room like
a wave. The girl seems quite positive,
both as regards the hat and the woman who wore it.
But of course 1 cannot allow a human life to be sworn away
without bringing every possible proof to bear on such a
statement. And I am sure that everyone in
this House will understand that we don't want to introduce
strangers more than we can help into the sad affair which
already has been brooded abroad too much.
She paused a moment then, as neither Lady Irene nor the maids
made any comment, she continued. My superiors at Scotland Yard
think it their duty to try and confuse the witness as much as
possible in her act of identification.
They desire that a certain number of ladies wearing
abnormally large hats should parade before the waitress.
Among them will be, of course, the one whom the girl has
already identified as being the mysterious person who had tea
with Mr. Culloden at Mathis's that afternoon.
My superiors. Can then satisfy themselves
whether the waitress is or is not so sure of her statement
that she invariably picks out again and again one particular
individual amongst a number of others or not surely interrupted
lady. Irene, Dryly, you and your
superiors do not expect my servants to help in such a
farce. We don't look upon such
proceedings as a farce. Lady Irene rejoined Lady Molly
gently. It is often resorted to in the
interest of an accused person, and we certainly would ask the
cooperation of your household. I don't see what they can do.
But the two girls did not seem unwilling.
The idea appealed to them. I felt sure it suggested an
exciting episode and gave promise of variety in their
monotonous lives. I am sure both these young
ladies possess fine big hats, continued Lady Molly with an
encouraging smile. I should not allow them to wear
ridiculous headgear, retorted Lady Irene sternly.
I have the one year ladyship wouldn't wear and threw away,
interposed the young parlour maid.
I put it together again with the scraps I found in the dust hole.
There was just one instant of absolute silence, one of those
magnetic moments when fate seems to have dropped the spool on
which she was spinning the threads of a life and is just
stooping in order to pick it up. Lady Irene raised a black
bordered handkerchief to her lips and then said quietly.
I don't know what you mean, Mary.
I never wear big hats. No, my lady here, interposed the
lady's maid. But Mary means the one you
ordered at Sanchea's, and only were the once the day you went
to that concert. Which day was that?
Asked Lady Molly blandly. Oh I couldn't forget that day,
ejaculated the maid. Her ladyship came home from the
concert. I had undressed her and she told
me that she would never wear her big hat again, it was too heavy.
That same day Mr. Culloden was murdered.
That hat would answer our purpose very well, said Lady
Molly quite calmly. Perhaps Mary will go and fetch
it and you had better go and help her put it on.
The 2 girls went out of the room without another word and there
were we three women left facing one another with that awful
secret only half revealed, hovering in the air like an
intangible spectre. What are you going to do?
Lady Irene Asked Lady Molly after a moment's pause during
which I literally could hear my own heart beating whilst I
watched the rigid figure of the widow in deep black crepe, her
face set and white, her eyes fixed steadily on Lady Molly.
You can't prove it, she said defiantly.
I think we can rejoined Lady Molly simply.
At any rate, I mean to try. I have two of the waitresses
from Mathis's outside in a cab, and I've already spoken to the
attendant who served you at Sanchia's, an obscure maligner
in a back street near Portland Rd.
We know that you were at great pains there to order a hat of
certain dimensions and to your own minute description.
It was a copy of 1 you had once seen Miss Lowenthal wear when
you met her at your late husband's office.
We can prove that meeting, too. Then we have your maid's
testimony that you wore the same hat once and once only the day,
presumably, that you went out to a concert, a statement which you
will find it difficult to substantiate, and also the day
on which your husband was murdered.
Bah, the public will laugh at you, retorted Lady Irene, still
defiantly. You would not dare to formulate
so monstrous a charge. It will not seem monstrous when
justice has weighed in the balance the facts which we can
prove. Let me tell you a few of these.
The result of careful investigation there is the fact
that you knew of Mr. Culloden's entanglement with Miss Elizabeth
Lowenthal and did your best to keep it from old Missus
Steinberg's knowledge. Realizing that any scandal round
her favorite nephew would result in the old lady cutting him, and
therefore you, out of her will, you dismissed A parlour maid for
the sole reason that she had been present when Miss Lowenthal
was shown into Mr. Cullet in study.
There is the fact that Missus Steinberg had so worded her will
that. In the event of her nephew dying
before. Her her fortune would devolve on
you. The fact that with Miss
Lowenthal's action for breach of promise against your husband,
your last hope of keeping the scandal from the old lady's ears
had effectually vanished. You saw the fortune eluding your
grasp. You feared Missus Steinberg
would alter her will. Had you found the means, and had
you dared, would you not rather have killed the old lady?
But discovery would have been certain.
The other crime was bolder and. Shorter, you have inherited the
old lady's millions, for she never knew of her nephew's
earlier peccadilloes. All of this we can state and
prove, and the history of the hat bought and worn one day
only, that same memorable day, and then thrown away.
A loud laugh interrupted her, a laugh that froze my very marrow.
There is one fact you have forgotten.
My Lady of Scotland Yard came in sharp, strident accents from the
black robed figure, which seemed to have been strangely spectral
in the fast gathering gloom which had been enveloping the
luxurious little Bardois. Don't omit to mention the fact
that the accused took the law into her own hands, and before
my dear lady and I could rush to prevent her, Lady Irene Culloden
had conveyed something. We dare not think what to her
mouth. Find Danvers.
Quickly, Mary, said Lady Molly calmly.
You'll find him outside. Bring her doctor back with you.
Even as she spoke, Lady Irene, with a cry of agony, fell
senseless in my dear lady's arms.
The doctor, I may tell you, came too late.
The unfortunate woman evidently had a good knowledge of poisons.
She had been determined not to fail in case of discovery.
She was ready and able to meet out justice to herself.
I don't think the public ever knew the real truth about the
woman in the big hat. Interest in her went the way of
all things. Yet my dear lady had been right
from beginning to end. With unerring precision she had
placed her dainty finger on the real motive and the real
perpetrator of the crime, the ambitious woman who had married
solely for money and meant to have that money even at the cost
of one of the most dastardly murderers that have ever
darkened the criminal annals of this country.
I asked Lady Molly what it was that first made her think of
Lady Irene as the possible murderess.
No one else for a moment had thought her guilty.
The big hat, replied my dear lady with a smile.
Had the mysterious woman at Mathis's been tall, the
waitresses would not one and all have been struck by the abnormal
size of the hat. The wearer must have been
petite, hence the reason that under a wide brim only the chin
would be visible. I at once sought for a small
woman. Our fellows did not think of
that because they are men. You see how simple it all was?
End of the Woman in the Big Hat by Baroness Emma Ozzie, Part 2
recording by Janet Marysville, WA.
Section 17 of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1.
This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to
volunteer, please visit librivox.org.
Recording by St. Mcduff, The Rivals of Sherlock
Holmes, Volume 1. The Affair of the Tortoise by
Arthur Morrison. Very often Hewitt was tempted by
the fascination of some particularly odd case to neglect
his other affairs to follow up a matter that from a business
point of view, was of little or no value to him.
As a rule, he had a sufficient regard for his own interests to
resist such temptations, but in one curious case at least, I
believe he allowed it largely to influence him.
It was certainly an extremely odd case, one of those affairs
that, coming to light at intervals but more often
remaining unheard of by the general public.
Convince one that, after all, there is very little
extravagance about Mr. RL Stevenson's bizarre imaginings
of doings in London in his new Arabian Nights.
There's nothing in this world that is at all possible.
I have often heard Martin Hughitt say that has not
happened or is not happening in London.
Certainly he had opportunities of knowing the case I have
referred to occurred some time before my own acquaintance with
him began in 1878. In fact, he had called one
Monday morning at an office in regard to something connected
with one of those uninteresting, though often difficult cases
which formed perhaps the bulk of his practice, when he was
informed of a most mysterious murder that had taken place in
another part of the same building on the previous
Saturday afternoon. Owing to the circumstances of
the case, only the vaguest account had appeared in the
morning papers, and even this, as it chanced, Hewett had not
read. The building was one of the new
row in a partly rebuilt street near the National Gallery.
The whole row had been built by a speculator for the purpose of
letting out in flats suites of chambers, and in one or two
cases on the ground floors, offices.
The rooms had let very well and two desirable tenants, as a
rule, Police satisfactory tenant, the proprietor
reluctantly admitted, was a Mr. Ramo, A Negro gentleman single,
who had three rooms on the top floor but one of the particular
building that Hewitt was visiting.
His rent was paid regularly, but his behaviour had produced
complaints from other tenants. He got uproariously drunk and
screamed and howled in unknown tongues.
He fell asleep on the staircase ladies were afraid to pass.
He bawled rough chaff down the stairs and along the quarters at
Butcher Boys and Messengers, and played on errand boy's brutal
practical jokes that ended in police court summonses.
He once had a way of sliding down the balusters, shouting
Hoy, Hoy, Hoy, yeah, as he went. But as he was a big heavy man
and the balusters had been built for different treatment, he had
very soon and very firmly been requested to stop it.
He had plenty of money and spent it freely, but it was generally
felt that there was too much of the light hearted savage about
him to fit him to live among quiet people.
How much longer the landlord would have stood for this sort
of thing, Hewitt's informant said, was a matter of
conjecture, for on the Saturday afternoon in question the
tenancy had come to a startling full stop.
Ramo had been murdered in his room, and the body had, in the
most unaccountable fashion, been secretly removed from the
premises. The strongest possible suspicion
pointed to a man who had been employed in shoveling and
carrying coals, cleaning windows and chopping wood for several of
the buildings, and who had left that very Saturday.
The crime had, in fact, been committed with this man's
chopper, and the man himself had been hurt again and again to
threaten Ramo, who in his brutal fashion had made a butt of him.
This man was a Frenchman, Victor Goujon by name, who had lost his
employment as a watchmaker by reason of an injury to his right
hand which destroyed its steadiness, and so he had fallen
upon evil days and odd jobs. He was a little man of no great
strength, but extraordinarily excitable, and the coarse gibes
and horseplay of the big Negro drove him almost to madness.
Ramo would often, after some more than ordinarily outrageous
attack, contemptuously fling Gujon a shilling, which the
little Frenchman, although wanting a shilling badly enough,
would hurl back in his face, almost weeping with impotent
rage. Pig, can I?
He would scream. Dirty pig of Africa, take your
shilling to value a stole it Volor.
Pig. There was a tortoise living in
the basement, of which Goujon had made rather a pet, and the
Negro would sometimes use this animal as a missile, flinging it
at the little Frenchman's head. On one such occasion the
tortoise struck the wall so forcibly as to break its shell,
and then Goujon seized a shovel and rushed at his tormentor with
such blind fury that the latter made a bolt of it.
These were but a few of the passages between Rameau and the
fuel Porter, but they illustrate the state of feeling between
them. Gougeon, after correspondence
with a relative in France who offered him work, gave notice to
leave, which expired on the day of the crime.
At about 3:00 that afternoon a housemaid, proceeding toward
Ramo's rooms, met Gougeon. I see was going away.
Gougeon bade her goodbye, and, pointing in the direction of
Ramo's room, said exultantly. There shall be no more of the
black pig for me. Victim have I done for Zoot.
I mock me of him even never tracase me no more.
And he went away. The girl went to the outer door
of Ramo's rooms, knocked, and got no reply.
Concluding that the tenant was out, she was about to use her
keys when she found that the door was unlocked.
She passed through the lobby and into the sitting room, and there
fell in a dead faint at the sight that met her eyes.
Ramo lay with his back across the sofa and his head drooping
within an inch of the ground. On the head was a fearful gash
and below it was a pool of blood.
The girl must have laid unconscious for about 10
minutes. When she came to her senses.
She dragged herself terrified from the room and up to the
housekeepers apartments where, being an excitable nervous
creature, she only screamed murder and immediately fell in a
fit of hysterics that lasted 3/4 of an hour.
When at last she came to herself she told her story, and the hall
Porter having been summoned, Romo's rooms were once again
approached. The blood still lay on the
floor, and the chopper with which the crime had evidently
been committed, rested against the Fender, but the body had
vanished. A search was at once made, but
no trace of it could be seen anywhere.
It seemed impossible that it could have been carried out of
the building, for the hall Porter must have once have
noticed anybody leaving with so bulky a burden still in the
building. It was not to be found.
When Hewitt was informed of these things on Monday, the
police were, of course, still in possession of Ramo's rooms.
Inspector Netting, Hewitt was told, was in charge of the case
and as the inspector was an acquaintance of his and was then
in the room upstairs, Hewitt went up to see him.
Nettings was pleased to see Hewitt and invited him to look
around the rooms. Well, perhaps you can spot
something we've overlooked, he said, Though it's not a case
there can be much doubt about. You think it's Goujon, don't you
think? Well, rather look here.
As soon as we got here on Saturday we found this piece of
paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to the house maid,
and then she remembered. She was too much upset to think
of it before that. When she was in the room, the
paper was laying on the dead man's chest, pinned there.
Evidently it must have dropped off when they removed the body.
It's a case of half mad revenge on Gujan's part.
Plainly. See it.
You were French, don't you? The paper was a plain, large
half sheet of note paper on which a sentence in French was
scrawled in red ink in a large, clumsy hand.
Thus puni param vonger de la tortue.
Puni param vonger de la tortue, Hewitt replied musingly.
Punished by an avenger of the tortoise.
That seems odd. Well, rather odd, but you
understand the reference, of course.
Have they told you about Remau's treatment of Gujon's pet
tortoise? I think it was mentioned among
his other pranks. But this is an extreme revenge
for a thing of that sort, and a queer way of announcing it.
Though he's mad. Mad with Remau's continual
ragging and baiting. Nettings answered.
Anyway, this is a plain indication.
Plain as though he'd left his own signature.
Besides, it's in his own language, French.
And there's his chopper, too. Speaking of signatures.
Hewitt remarked. Perhaps you have already
compared this with other specimens of Gujon's writing.
Well, I did think of it, but they don't seem to have a
specimen to hand, and anyway it doesn't seem very important.
There's avenger of the tortoise plain enough in the man's own
language, and that tells everything.
Besides, handwriting's are easily disguised.
Have you got Gujon? Well, no, we haven't.
There seems to be some little difficulty about that, but I
expect to have him by this time tomorrow.
Here comes Mr. Stiles, the landlord.
Mr. Stiles was a thin, querulous and withered looking little man
who twitched his eyebrows as he spoke and spoke in short, jerky
phrases. No news.
Ay, Inspector. Ay ay found out nothing else.
Ay, terrible thing for my property.
Terrible. Who's your friend?
Nettings introduced Hewitt. Shocking thing this.
A Mr. Hewitt Terrible comes of having anything to do with these
bloodthirsty foreigners, eh? New buildings and all.
Character ruined. No one to come live here now,
eh? Tenants, noisy *** murdered by
my own servant, Terrible. You formed any opinion, eh?
I dare say I might if I went into the case.
Yes, yes, same opinion as inspectors, eh?
I mean an opinion of your own. The old man scrutinized Hewitt's
face sharply. Oh, if you'd like me to look
into the matter. Hewitt began.
Eh, oh, look into it. Well, I can't Commission you,
you know. Matter for the police, Mr.
Stunn. Police doing very well, I think.
Must be Goujon. But look about the place
certainly, if you like. If you see anything likely to
serve my interest, tell me and, and perhaps I'll employ you, eh,
eh. Good afternoon.
The landlord vanished and the inspector laughed.
Likes to see what he's buying, does Mr. Styles.
He said Hewett's first impulse was to walk out of the place at
once, but his interest in the case had been roused and he
determined at any rate to examine the rooms, and this he
did very minutely. By the side of the lobby was a
bathroom, and in this was fitted a tip up wash basin, which he
would inspected with particular attention.
Then he called the housekeeper and made inquiries about Ramos
clothes and linen. The housekeeper could give no
idea of how many overcoats or how much lidden he had had.
He had all the negro's love of display, and was continually
buying new clothes, which indeed, were lying, hanging,
littering, and choking up the bedroom in all directions.
The housekeeper, however, on Hewitt's inquiring after such a
garment, in particular did remember 1 heavy black Ulster,
which Ramo had very rarely worn, only in the coldest weather.
After the body was discovered, Hewitt asked the housekeeper,
was any stranger observed about the place, whether carrying
anything or not? Oh, no, Sir, the housekeeper
replied. There's been particular
inquiries about that. Of course, after we knew what
was wrong and the body was gone, nobody was seen or he'd have
been stopped. But the hall Porter says he's
certain no stranger came or went for half an hour or more before
that, the time about when the housemaid saw the body and
fainted. At this moment a clerk from the
landlord's office arrived and handed Nettings a paper.
Here you are, said Nettings to Hewitt.
They found a specimen of Goujon's handwriting at last.
If you'd like to see it, I don't want it.
I'm not a graphologist, and the case is clear enough for me
anyway. Hewitt took the paper.
This, he said, is a different sort of handwriting from that on
the paper. The red ink note about the
avenger of the tortoises. In a crude, large, clumsy,
untaught style of writing. This is small, neat and well
formed, except that it is A trifle shaky, probably because
of the hand injury. That's nothing.
Contended nettings. Handwriting clues are worse than
useless as a rule. It's so easy to disguise and
imitate writing. And besides, if Gujan is such a
good penman, as you seem to say, why could all the easier alter
his style? Say now yourself, can any
fiddling question of handwriting get over this thing about
avenging the tortoise? Practically a written
confession, to say nothing of the chopper and what he said to
the housemaid as he left. Well, said Hewett, perhaps not,
but we'll see. Meantime, turning to the
landlord's clerk, possibly you will be good enough to tell me
one or two things. First, what was Goujon's
character? Oh, excellent, as far as we
know. Oh, we never had a complaint
about him, except for little matters of carelessness, leaving
coal scuttles on the staircases for people to fall over, losing
shovels, and so on. He he was certainly a bit
careless, but as far as we could see, quite a decent little
fellow. One would never have thought him
capable of committing murder for the sake of a tortoise, though
he was rather fond of the animal.
The tortoise is dead now, I understand.
Yes. Have you a lift in this
building? Only for coal and heavy parcels.
Gujon used to work it sometimes going up and down in it himself
with coals and so on. It goes into the basement.
And are the coals kept under this building?
No, no, the store for the whole row is under the next two
houses. The basements communicate.
Do you know Ramos, other name Cesar Ramos?
He signed in our agreement. Did he ever mention his
relations? No.
What that is to say. He did say something one day
when he was very drunk. But of course it was all
wrought. Someone told him not to make
such a row. He was a beastly tenant and he
said he was the best man in the place and his brother was Prime
Minister and all sorts of things.
Mere drunken rant. I never heard him say anything
sensible about relations. Oh, we know nothing of his
connections. He came here on a banker's
reference. Thanks.
I think that's all I want to ask you Notice.
Hewitt proceeded, turning to Nettings.
The only ink in this place is scented and Violet, and the only
paper is tinted and scented, too, with a monogram
characteristic of Negro with money.
The paper that was pinned on Rambo's breast is in red ink on
common and rather grubby paper. Therefore it was written
somewhere else, and brought here.
Inference, premeditation. Oh, yes, yes.
But are you an inch nearer with all these speculations?
Can you get nearer than I am now without them?
Well, perhaps not, Hewett replied.
I don't profess at this moment to know the criminal.
You do. I'll concede you that point for
the present. But you don't offer an opinion
as to who removed Ramo's body, which I think I know.
But who was it then? Come try and guess that
yourself. It wasn't.
Goujon, I don't mind letting you know that.
But it was a person quite within your knowledge of the case.
You've mentioned the person's name more than once.
Nettings stared blankly. I don't understand you the
least, he said. But of course.
You mean that this mysterious person you speak of is having
moved the body, committed the murder?
No, I don't, nobody could have been more innocent of that.
Well, Nettings concluded with the resignation.
I'm afraid one of us is rather thick headed.
What will you do, Interview the person who took away the body?
Hewitt replied with a smile. But men alive, why?
Why bother about the person if it isn't the criminal?
Never mind. Never mind.
Probably the person will be a most valuable witness.
You mean you think that this person, whoever it is, saw the
crime? I think it very probable indeed.
Well, I won't ask you any more. I shall get hold of Gougeon.
That's simple and direct enough for me.
I prefer to deal with the heart of the case, the murder itself,
when there's such clear evidence as I have.
I shall look a little into that, too, perhaps, Hewett said.
And if you like, I'll tell you the first thing I shall do.
What's that? I shall have a good look at the
map of the West Indies, and I advise you to do the same.
Good morning. That ING stirred down the
quarter after Hugh went and continued staring for nearly two
minutes after he had disappeared.
Then he said to the clerk who had remained.
What was he talking about? I don't know, replied the clerk.
Couldn't make head or tail of it.
I don't believe there is a head to it, declared Nettings.
Nor a tail, either. He's kidding us.
Nettings was better than his word, for within two hours of
his conversation with Hewitt, Goujon was captured and safe in
a cab bound for Bow Street. He had been stopped at New Haven
in the morning on his way to Dieppe and was brought back to
London. But now Nettings met a check.
Late that afternoon, he called on Hewitt to explain matters.
We've got Goujon, he said gloomily.
But there's a difficulty. He's got two friends who can
swear an alibi. Raimo was seen at 1:30 on
Saturday and the girl found him dead about 3.
Now Goujon's two friends, it seems, were with him from 1:00
till 4:00 in the afternoon, with the exception of 5 minutes when
the girl saw him, and then he left them to take a ghee or
something to the housekeeper before finally leaving.
They were waiting on the landing below when Gujon spoke to the
housemaid, heard him speaking, and seen him go all the way up
to the housekeeper's room and back, as they looked up the wide
well of the staircase. They are men employed near the
place, and seem to have good characters, but perhaps we shall
find something unfavorable about them.
They were drinking with Gujon. Seems by way of seeing him off.
Well, Hewitt said, I scarcely think you need trouble to damage
these men's characters. They're probably telling the
truth. Come now, be plain.
You've come here to get a hint as to whether my theory of the
case helps you, haven't you? Well, if you can give me a
friendly hint. Although, of course, I may be
right after all. Still, I wish you'd explain a
bit as to what you meant by looking at a map of all that
mystery. Nice thing for me to be taking a
lesson in my own business after all these years, but perhaps I
deserve it. See.
Now, Quoth Hewitt, you remember what map I told you to look at
The West Indies, right? Well, here you are.
Hewitt reached an Atlas from his bookshelf.
Now look here. The biggest island of the lot on
this map, barring Cuba, is Haiti.
You know as well as I do that the western part of that island
is peopled by the Black Republic of Haiti, and that the country
is in a degenerate state of almost unexampled savagery with
a ridiculous show of civilization.
There are revolutions all the time.
The South American republics are peaceful and prosperous compared
to Haiti. The state of the country is
simply awful. Read Sir Spencer St.
John's book on it. President after President of the
vile Assort forces his way to power and commits the most
horrible and bloodthirsty excesses, murdering his
opponents by the 100 and seizing their property for himself and
his satellites, who are usually as bad, if not worse than the
President himself. Whole families, men, women and
children, are murdered at the instance of these ruffians, and
as a consequence the most deadly feuds spring up, and the
presidents and their followers are always themselves in danger
of reprisals from others. Perhaps the very worst of these
presidents in recent times has been the notorious Domeng, who
was overthrown by an insurrection.
As they all are sooner or later and compelled to fly the
country, Domeng and his nephews, one of whom was chief minister
while in power, committed the cruelest bloodshed.
And many members of the opposite party sought refuge in a small
island lying just to the north of Haiti, but were sought out
there and almost exterminated. Now I will show you that island
on the map. What's its name?
Tortuga. It is.
Tortuga, however, is only the old Spanish name.
The Haitians speak French, Creole French.
Here is a French Atlas. Now see the name of that island?
La Tortu. La Tortu, it is the tortoise.
Tortuga means the same thing in Spanish, but that island is
always spoken of in Haiti as La Tortu.
Now, do you see the drift of that paper pinned to Ramos's
breast, punished by an avenger of or from the tortoise or la
Tortu? Clear enough, It would seem that
the dead men had something to do with the massacre there, and
somebody from the island is avenging it.
The thing's most extraordinary. And now listen, the name of
Domang's nephew, who was chief minister, was Septimus Ramo.
And this was Cesar Ramo, his brother, probably.
I see. Well, this is a case, I think
the relationship probable. Now, do you understand why I was
inclined to doubt that Gujon was the man you wanted?
Well, of course, of course. And now I suppose I must try to
get a *** the chap who wrote that paper.
I wish he hadn't been such an ignorant *** If he'd only put
the capitals to the words la tortu, I might have thought a
little more about them, instead of taking it for granted that
they meant that wretched tortoise in the basement of the
house. Well, I've made fool of a start,
but I'll be after that *** now, and I, as I said before, said
Hewett shall be after the person that carried off Remmo's body.
I've had something else to do this afternoon, or I should have
begun already. You said you thought he saw the.
Crime. How did you judge that?
Hewett smiled. I think I'll keep that little
secret to myself for present, he said.
You shall know soon. Very well, Nettings replied with
resignation. I suppose I mustn't grumble if
you don't tell me everything. I feel too great a fool all
together of this case to see any farther than you show me.
And Inspector Nettings left on the search, while Martin Hewitt
as soon as he was alone. Laughed joyously and slapped his
thigh. There was a cab rink and shelter
at the end of the street where Mr. Styles building stood, and
early that evening a man approached it and hailed the
cabman and the Waterman. Anyone would have known the
newcomer at once for a cabman taking a holiday.
The brim of the hat, the bird's eye neckerchief, the immense
coat buttons, and more than all, the rolling wok and the wrinkled
trousers marked him out distinctly.
Watcher. He exclaimed affably with the
self possessed nod only possible to cabbies and bustmen.
Why we looking for a Bilko? I'm told one of a blokes off
this rank carried him last Saturday and I want to know
where he went. I ain't had a chance of getting
his address yet. Took a cab just as it got dark,
I'm told. Tallish chap muffled up a lot in
a long black overcoat. Any of you seen him?
The cabbies looked at one another and shook their heads.
It chanced that none of them had been on that particular rank at
the time, but the water man said Oh Dawn, I bet he's the bloke
what old Bill Stammers took. Yorkie was first on the rank,
but the bloke wouldn't have had an ansum.
Wanted four Wheeler, so Bill took him.
Biggest chap in a long black coat, collar up and muffler.
Thick, soft, wide awake at pulled over his eyes and he was
hurry too. Jumped in sharp as a weasel.
Didn't see his face, did you? No, not an inch of it.
Too much muffled. Couldn't tell if he had a face.
Was his arm in a sling? Why, it looked so?
Had it stuffed through the breast of his coat like as
though there might be a sling inside?
That's him. Any of you tell me where I might
run? Across Old Bill Stammers you'd
tell me where my precious Bilka went to.
As to this there was plenty of information, and in 5 minutes
Martin Hewitt, who had become an unoccupied cabman for the
occasion, was on his way to find Old Bill Stammers.
That respectable old man gave him full particulars as to the
place in the East End where he had driven his muffled fare on
Saturday, and Hewitt then began an 18 or 20 hours search beyond
White Chapel. At about 3:00 on Tuesday
afternoon, as Nettings was in the act of leaving Bow Street
Police station, Hewitt drove up in a four Wheeler.
Some prisoner appeared to be crouching low in the vehicle,
but leaving him to take care of himself.
Hewitt hurried into the station and shook Nettings by the hand.
Well, he said, have you got the murder of Ramo yet?
No, Nettings growled. Unless, well, Cujon's under a
man still, and after all, I've been thinking that you know, he
may know something. Pooh, nonsense, Hewitt answered.
You'd better let him go now. I have got somebody.
Hewitt laughed and slapped the Inspector's shoulder.
I've got the man who carried Ramo's body away.
The deuce you have Where? Bring him in.
We must have him. All right.
Don't be in a hurry. He won't bolt.
And Hewett stepped out to the cab and produced his prisoner,
who, pulling his hat farther over his eyes, hurried furtively
into the station. One hand was stowed in the
breast of his long coat, and below the wide brim of his hat a
small piece of white bandage could be seen, and as he lifted
his face it was seen to be that of a Negro.
Inspector Nettings. Hewett said ceremoniously.
Allow me to introduce Mr. Cesar Ramho.
Nettings gasped. What?
He at length ejaculated. What, you, Your Remo?
The Negro looked around nervously and shrank farther
from the door. Yes, he said, but please not so
loud. Please not loud.
Say maybe near. And I'm afraid you will certify,
will you not, Asked Hewett with malicious Glee.
Not only that you were not murdered last Saturday by Victor
Guchon, but that in fact you were not murdered at all.
Also that you carried your own body away in the usual fashion
on your own legs. Yes, yes, responded Ramo,
looking haggardly about. But he's not this so swoop
oblique I should not be seen. Nonsense, replied Hewitt, rather
testily. You exaggerate your danger and
your own importance and your enemy's abilities as well.
You're safe enough, I suppose. Then Nettings remarked slowly,
like a man on whose mind something vast was beginning to
dawn. I suppose.
Why, hang it? You must have just got up while
that fool of of a girl was screaming and fainting upstairs
and walked out. I say there's nothing so hard as
a *** skull, and yours is certainly made a fool of me.
But then somebody must have chopped you over the head.
Who was it? My enemies, My great enemies.
Enemies, Politique. I am a great man, this, with the
faint revival of vanity amid his fear.
A great man. In my country they have great
secret clubs ciates to kill me, me and my friends, and one enemy
coming in my room does this one too.
He indicated wrist and head, viz.
A Chapa ramo made the case plain to netting, so far as the actual
circumstances of the assault on himself were concerned.
A Negro, whom he had noticed near the place more than once
during the previous day or two, had attacked him suddenly in his
rooms, dealing him 2 savage blows with a chopper.
The first he had caught on his wrist, which was seriously
damaged as well as excruciatingly painful, but the
second had taken effect on his head.
His assailant had evidently gone away then, leaving him for dead,
but as a matter of fact, he was only stunned by the shock, and
had, thanks to the adamantine thickness of the Negro skull and
the ill direction of the chopper, only a very bad scalp
wound, the bone being no more than grazed.
He had lain insensible for some time, and must have come to his
senses soon after the housemaid had left the room.
Terrified at the knowledge that his enemies had found him out,
his only thought was to get away and hide himself.
He hastily washed and tied up his head, and enveloped himself
in the biggest coat he could find, and let himself down into
the basement by the coal lift. For fear of observation.
He waited in the basement of one of the adjoining buildings till
dark, and then got away in a cab with the idea of hiding himself
in the East End. He had had very little money
with him on his flight, and it was by reason of this
circumstance that Hewitt, when he found him, had prevailed on
him to leave his hiding place, since it would be impossible for
him to touch any of the large sums of money in the keeping of
his bank so long as he was supposed to be dead.
With much difficulty and the promise of ample police
protection, he was at last convinced that it would be safe
to declare himself and get his property, and then run away and
hide wherever he pleased. Nettings and Hewitt strolled off
together for a few minutes and chatted, leaving the wretched
Remo to cower in a corner among several policemen.
Well, Mr. Hewitt, netting said, this case has certainly been a
shocking beating for me. I must have been as blind as I
bet when I started on it, And yet I don't see that you had a
deal to go on even now. What struck you first?
Well, in the beginning it seemed rather odd to me that the body
should have been taken away, as I had been told it was, after
the writing paper had been pinned on it.
Why should the murderer pin a label on the body of his victim
if he meant carrying that body away?
Who would read the label and learn of the nature of the
revenge gratified? Plainly that indicated that the
person who had carried away the body was not the person who had
committed the murder. But as soon as I began to
examine the place, I saw the probability that there was no
murder after all. There were any number of
indications of this fact, and I can't understand you're not
observing them. First, although there was a good
deal of blood on the floor just below where the housemaid had
seen REMA lying, there was none between that place and the door.
Now, if the body had been dragged or even carried to the
door, blood must have become smeared about the floor, or at
least there would have been drops.
But there were none, and this seemed to hint that the corpse
might have come to itself, sat up on the sofa, stanched the
wound, and walked out. I reflected at once that Ramo
was a full blooded Negro, and that a negro's head is very
nearly invulnerable to anything short of bullets.
Then if the body had been dragged out as such a heavy body
must have been almost of necessity.
The carpet and rugs would show signs of the fact.
But there were no such signs. But beyond these there was the
fact that no long black overcoat was left with the other clothes.
Although the housekeeper distinctly remembered Ramo's
possession of such a garment. I judged he would use some such
thing to assist his disguise, which is why I asked her.
Why he would want to disguise was plain, as you shall see.
Presently there were no towels left in the bathroom, inference
used for bandages. Everything seemed to show that
the only person responsible for Remo's removal was Remo himself.
Why then had he gone away, secretly and hurriedly, without
making complaint? And why had he stayed away?
What reason would he have for doing this if it had been Gujon
that had attacked him? None.
Gujon was going to France clearly remote, was afraid of
another attack from some implacable enemy whom he was
anxious to avoid, one against whom he feared legal complaint
or defence would be useless. And this brought me at once to
the paper found on the floor. If this were the work of Gujon,
and an open reference to his tortoise, why should he be at
such pains to disguise his handwriting?
He would have been already pointing himself out by the mere
mention of the tortoise, and if he could not avoid a shake in
his natural small handwriting, how could he have avoided it in
a large, clumsy, slowly drawn, assumed hand?
No, the paper was not Gujan's. As to the writing on the paper,
Nettings interposed. I've told you how I made that
mistake. I took the readiest explanation
of the words, since they seemed so pat, and I wouldn't let
anything else outweigh that. As to the other things, the
evidences of Ramos having gone off by himself, well, I don't
usually miss such obvious things, but I never thought of
the possibility of the victim going away on the quiet, not
coming back as though he'd done something wrong.
Comes of starting with a set of fixed notions.
Well, answered Hewitt, I fancy you must have been rather out of
form. As they say, everybody has his
stupid days and you can't keep up the concert pitch forever.
But to return to the case, the evidence of the chopper was very
untrustworthy, especially when I heard of Gougeon's careless
habits, losing shovels and leaving coal scuttles on stairs.
Nothing more likely than for the chopper to be left lying about
and a criminal who had calculated his chances would
know the advantage to himself of using a weapon that belonged to
the place and leaving it behind to divert suspicion.
It's quite possible, by the way, that the man who attacked Remau
got way down the coal lift and out by an adjoining basement,
just as Remau himself. This, however, is mere
conjecture. The would be murder had plainly
prepared for the crime. Witness the previous preparation
of the paper, declaring his revenge an indication of his
pride at having run his enemy to earth at such a distant place as
this, although I expect he was only in England by chance, for
Haitians are not persistently energetic race.
In regard to the use of small instead of capital letters in
the words La Tortue on the paper, I observed in the
beginning that the 1st letter of the whole sentence, the P in
Puny, was a small one. Clearly the writer was an
illiterate man, and it was at once plain that he may have made
the same mistake with ensuing words.
On the whole, it was plain that everyone had begun with the 2
ready disposition to assume that Goujon was guilty.
Everybody insisted, too, that the body had been carried away,
which was true, of course, although not in the sense
intended. So I didn't trouble to
contradict or to say more than that I guessed who had carried
the body off, and to tell you the truth, I was a little peaked
at Mr. Styles's manner, and indisposed interested in the
case, as I was to give away my theories too freely.
The rest of the job was not very difficult.
I found out the cat man who had taken Ramo away.
You can always get rid of your help from cabbies if you go as
one of themselves, especially if you're after a bilker.
And from him got a sufficiently near East End direction to find
Ramo. After inquiries.
We ventured, by the way, on a rather long shot.
I described my man to the cat man as having an injured arm or
wrist, and it turned out a correct guess.
You see, a man making an attack with a chopper is pretty certain
to make more than a single blow, and as there appeared to have
been only a single wound on the head, it seemed probable that
another had fallen somewhere else, almost certainly on the
arm, as it would be raised to defend the head.
At Lime House I found he had had his head and wrist attended to
at a local medicos, and a big *** in a fright, with a long
black coat, a broken head and a lame hand, is not so difficult
to find in a small area. How I persuaded him up here you
know already. I think I frightened him a
little too, by explaining how easily I had tracked him, and
giving him a hint that others might do the same.
He's in a great funk. He seems to have quite lost
faith in England as a safe asylum.
The police failed to catch Remau's assistant, chiefly
because Remau could not be got to give a proper description of
him, nor to do anything except get out of the country in a
hurry. In truth, he was glad to be quit
of the matter. With nothing worse than his
broken head. Little Goujon made a wild storm
about his arrest, and before he did go to France, managed to
extract 20 lbs from Remau by way of compensation, in spite of the
absence of any strictly legal claim against his old tormentor.
So that on the whole, Gujon was about the only person who
derived any particular profit from the tortoise.
Mystery. End of the Affair of the
Tortoise by Arthur Morrison. Section 18 of the Rivals of
Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1. This is a Librivox recording.
All Librivox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit
librivox.org. The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes,
Volume 1 The Assyrian Rejuvenator by Clifford Ashton
At six O clock struck, the procession of the undined began
to stream beneath the electric arcade which graces the entrance
to Christianity's. The door swung unceasingly.
The mirrors no longer reflected a mere squadron of tables and a
Rex serviettes, a hum of conversation now mingled with a
clatter of knives and the popping of corks and the brisk
Curry of waiters. Slippers replaced the stillness
of the afternoon. Although the restaurant had been
crowded some time before he arrived, Mr. Rodney Pringle had
secured his favorite seat opposite the feminine print
after Gainsborough, and in the intervals of feeding listen to a
selection from Ascioni through a convenient electrophone price at
6 pence in the slot. It was a warm night for the time
of year, a muggy spell having succeeded a week of biting NE
wind, and as the evening wore on the atmosphere grew somewhat
oppressive, more particularly to those who had dined well.
Its effects were not very visible on Pringle, whose
complexion a small port wine mark on his right cheek.
It's only blemish was of that fairness which imparts to its
fortunate possessor the air of youth until long past 40,
especially in a man who shaves clean and habitually goes to bed
before 2:00 in the morning. As a smoke from Pringles Havana
reached upwards to an extractor, his eye fell, not for the first
time, upon a diner at the next table.
He was elderly, probably on the wrong side of 60, but with his
erect features might easily have claimed a few years grace.
While the retired soldier spoke in his scrupulous neatness and
in the trim of his carefully tended mustache.
He had finished his dinner some little time, but remained
seated, studying a letter with an intentness more due to its
subject then to its length, which Pringle could see was by
no means excessive. At last, with a gesture almost
equally compounded of weariness and disgust, he rose and was
helped into his overcoat by a waiter, who held the door for
him in the obsequious manner of his kind.
The languid attention which Pringle at first bestowed on his
neighbor had by this time given place to a deeper interest, and
as the swing doors closed behind the old gentleman, he scarcely
repressed a start when he saw a line beneath the vacant table,
the identical letter which had received such careful study.
His first impulse was to run after the old gentleman and
restore the paper, but by this time he had disappeared, and the
waiter being also invisible, Pringles sat down and read The
Assyrian Rejuvenator Company 82 Barbican E Central, April 5th.
Dear Sir, we regret to hear of the failure of the rejuvenator
in your hands. This is possibly due to your not
having followed the directions for its use sufficiently
closely. But I must point out that we do
not guarantee it's infallible success.
As it is an expensive preparation.
We do not admit the justice of your contention that our charges
are exorbitant. In any case, we cannot entertain
your request to return the whole or any part of the fees.
Should you act upon your threat to take proceedings for the
recovery of the same, we must hold your good self responsible
for any publicity which may follow your trial of the
preparation yours faithfully. Henry Jacobs, Secretary.
Lieutenant Colonel Sandstrom, 272 Piccadilly West To Pringle,
this business like communication hardly seemed to deserve so much
consideration as Colonel Sandstream had given it.
But having read and pondered over at Afresh, he walked back
to his chambers in Funerals Inn. He lived at #33 on the left as
you enter from Holborn. And anyone who scaling the stone
stairs reached the 2nd floor might observe on the entrance to
the front set of chambers the legend Mr. Romney Pringle
literary agent. According to high authority, the
reason of being of the literary agent is to act as a buffer
between the ravening publisher and his prey.
But although a very fine oak Bureau with capricious pigeon
holes stood conspicuously in Pringles sitting room, it was
tenanted by no rolls of manuscript or typewritten
sheets. Instead, little or no business
appeared to be transacted in the chambers.
The buffer was at present idle. If it could be said to have ever
had worked, it was resting to use a theatrical expression.
Mr. Pringle was an early riser, and it's 9 O clock time the next
morning from the brass Lantern clock which ticks sedately on a
mantle unencumbered by the usual litter of a bachelor's quarters.
He had already spent some time in consideration of last night's
incident, and a further study of the letter had only served
thoroughly to arouse his curiosity and decided him to
investigate the affair of the mysterious rejuvenator.
Unlocking a cupboard in the bottom of the Bureau, he
disclosed a regiment of bottles and jars from his cheek.
Then from another vial he saturated a sponge and rubbed it
into his eyebrows, which turned to the process from the original
yellow to a jetty black. From a box of several he
selected a waxed mustache, that most a seal item of a disguise,
and having attached it with a few drops of spirit gum, covered
his scalp with a black wig, which, as is commonly the case,
remains an aggressive fraud in spite of the most assiduous
adjustment. Satisfied with completeness of
his disguise, he sallied out in search of the offices of the
Assyrian rejuvenator. Affecting a military bearing,
which is slim, but tall and straight backed figure readily
enabled him to assume. My name is Parkins Major
Parkins, said Pringle as he opened the door of a mean
looking room on the second floor of #82 Barbican.
He addressed an oleogenous looking gentleman whose curly
locks and beard suggested the wings bowls of Nineveh.
And who appeared to? Be the sole representative of
the concern. The latter bowed politely and
handed him a chair. I have been asked, Pringle
continued by a friend who saw your advertisement to call upon
you for some further information.
Now the subject of rejuvenation being a delicate one, especially
where ladies are concerned, the business with the company was
mainly transacted through the post.
So seldom, indeed, did a client desire a personal interview that
the Assyrian looking gentleman jumped to the conclusion that
his visitor was interested in quite another manner.
Ah, yes, you refer to Pelosia, he said briskly.
Allow me to read you an extract from the prospectus.
And before Pringle could reply, he proceeded to read from a
small leaflet with unctuous elocution.
Pelosia, the sovereign remedy of mud, has long been used with the
greatest success in the celebrated baths of Schwabach
and Frazambad. The proprietors of Pelosia,
having noted the beneficial effect which many of the lower
animals derive from the consumption of earth with their
food, have been led to investigate the eternal uses of
mud. The success which has crowned
the treatment of some of the longest standing cases of
dyspepsia, the disease so characteristic of this neurotic
age, has induced them to admit the world at large to its
benefits. To thoroughly safeguard the
public, the proprietors have secured the sole right to the
alluvial deposits of a stream revoked from human habitation
and consequently above any suspicion of contamination.
Careful analysis has shown that the deposit in this particular
locality, consisting of finely divided mineral particles
practically free from organic admixture, is calculated to give
the most gratifying results. The proprietors are prepared to
quote special terms for public institutions.
Many thanks, said Pringle, as the other momentarily paused
breath. But I think you are under a
slight misapprehension. I called on you with reference
to the Assyrian Rejuvenator. Have I mistaken the offices?
Pray excuse my absurd mistake. I am secretary of the Assyrian
Rejuvenator Company, who are also the proprietors of Palosia.
And an evident concern. He regarded Pringle fixedly.
It was not the first time he had known a diffident person to
assume an. Interest in the senility.
Of an absent friend and he mentally decided that Pringle's
wax mustache. It's blue blackness, speaking
loudly a hair dye together with the unmistakable wig were
evidence of the decrepitude for which his new customer
presumably sought the company's assistance.
Ours, my dear Sir. He resumed, leaning back in his
chair and placing the tips of his fingers in opposition.
Ours is a world renowned specific for removing the
ravages which time effects in the human frame.
It is a secret which has been handed down for many generations
in the family of the original proprietor.
Its success is frequently remarkable, and it's absolute
failure is impossible. It is not a drug, it is not a
cosmetic, yet it contains the properties of both.
It is agreeable and soothing to use, and being best administered
during the hours of sleep, does not interfere with the ordinary
avocations of everyday life. The price is so moderate, 10 and
sixpence including the government stamp, that it could
only prove remunerative with an enormous sale.
If you, on behalf of your friend, would care to purchase a
bottle, I shall be most happy to explain its operation.
Mr. Pringle laid 1/2 Sauber and a sixpence on the table, and the
secretary, diving into a large packing case which stood on one
side, extracted A parcel. This contained a cardboard box
adorned with a representation of Blake's preposterous
illustration to the grave, in which a centenarian on crutches
is hobbling into a species of bankers drawing room with a
Rocky Top, whereupon is seated a youth clothed in nothing and
with an ecstatic expression. This, said Mr. Jacobs
impressively, is the entire apparatus, and he opened the
box, displaying A moderately sized file and a spirit lamp
with a little tin dish attached. On retiring to rest, a
teaspoonful of the contents of the bottle is poured into
receptacle above the lamp, which is then lighted, and the
preparation, being vaporized, is inhaled by the patient.
It is best to concentrate the thoughts on some object of
beauty, whilst the delicious aroma soothes the patient to
sleep. But how does it act, Inquired
the major trifle impatiently. In this way, replied the
imperturbable secretary, remember that the appearance of
age is largely due to wrinkles, that is to say, to the skin
losing its elasticity and fullness.
So true is it that beauty is only skin deep.
Here he laughed gaily. The joints grow stiff from loss
of their natural tone, the figure Stoops, and the vital
organs decline their functions from the same cause.
In a word, old age is due to loss of elasticity and that is
the very property which the rejuvenator imparts to the.
System. If inhaled for a few hours
daily, Mr. Pringle diplomatically succeeded in
maintaining his gravity while the merits of the rejuvenated
were expounded, and it was not until he had bitten Mr. Jacobs a
courteous farewell and was safely outside the office that
he allowed the fastening of his mustache to be disturbed by an
expansive grin. About 9:00 the same evening, the
housekeeper of the Barbican offices was returning from
market, her thoughts centered on the savory piece of fried fish
she was carrying home for dinner.
Missus Smith, said a man's voice behind her as she produced her
latchkey. My name's August, she replied
unguardedly, dropping the key in her agitation.
You're the housekeeper, aren't you?
Said the stranger, picking up the key and handing it to her
politely. Lore, Sir, you did give me a
turn. She faltered.
Very sorry, I'm sure. I only want to know where I can
find Mr. Jacobs of the Assyrian Rejuvenator Company.
Well, Sir, he told me I wasn't to give his address to anyone.
Not that I know it either, Sir, for I always send the letters to
Miss for weeks. I see you're not found fault
with. I know he won't mind you telling
me. A sovereign clinked against the
latch key in her palm. For a second she hesitated.
Then her eye caught the glint of the gold and she fell.
All I know, Sir, is that when Mr. Jacobs is away I send the
letters, and a rare lot there are to Mr. Newton Weeks at the
Northumberland Ave. Hotel.
Is he one of the firm? I don't know, Sir, but there's
no one comes here but Mr. Jacobs.
Thank you very much and good night, said the stranger, and he
strode down Barbican, leaving Missus Odges staring at the coin
in her hand, as if doubting weather like fairy gold, it
might not disappear even as she gazed.
The next day Mr. Jacobs received a letter at his hotel.
April 7th. Sir, my friend.
Colonel Sandstream informs me he has communicated with the police
and has sworn an information. Against you in.
Respect of the money you have obtained from him, as he alleges
by false pretenses. Although I am convinced that his
statements are true, a fact which I can more readily grasp
after my interview with you today, I give you this warning
in order that you may make your escape before it is too late.
Do not misunderstand my motives. I have not the slightest desire
to save you from the punishment you so richly deserve.
I am simply anxious to rescue my old friend from the ridiculous
position he will occupy before the world should he prosecute
you. Your obedient servant.
Joseph Parkins. Major Newton Weeks, Esquire.
Northumberland Ave. Hotel Mr. Jacobs read this
declaration of war with very mixed feelings.
So his visitor of yesterday. Was the friend of Colonel.
Sandstream obviously come to get up evidence against him.
Knowing old. Dog that sandstream.
But then how had they run him to earth?
That looked as if the police had got their fingers in the pie.
Missus Hodges was discreet. She would never have given the
address to any but the police. It was annoying, though, after
all his precautions, seemed as if the game was really up at
last. Well, was found to come someday,
and he had been in tighter places before.
He could hardly complain. The Rejuvenator had been going
very well lately, but suppose the whole thing was a plant, a
dodge to intimidate him? He read the letter through
again. The writer had been careful to
admit his address, but it seemed plausible enough on the face of
it. Anyhow, whatever the Major's
real motive might be, he couldn't afford to neglect the
warning, and the one clear thing was that London was an unhealthy
place for him. Just at the present he would
pack up so as to be ready for all emergencies, and drive
around the Barbican and reconnoiter.
Then, if things look fishy, he could go to Cannon Street and
catch the 11:00 and 5:00 Continental.
He'd show them that Harry Jacobs wasn't the man to be bluffed out
of his claim. Mr. Jacobs stopped his cab some
doors from the Rejuvenator office and was in the act of a
lighting when he paused. Spellbound at the apparition.
Of Pringle. The latter was loitering outside
#82 and as the cab drew up he ostentatiously consulted a large
pocketbook, and glanced several times from its pages to the
countenance of his victim, as if comparing a description attired
in a long overcoat, a bowler hat, and wearing thick boots of
a Constabulary pattern, to the nervous imagination of Mr.
Jacobs. He afforded startling evidence
of the police interest in the establishment, and this idea was
confirmed when Pringle, as if satisfied with his scrutiny,
drew a paper from his pocketbook and made a movement in his
direction. Without waiting for further
developments, Mr. Jacob retreated into the cab, and
Horsley whispered through the trap door.
Cannon Street. As hard as you can go.
The cabman ranks the horse's head round.
He had been an interested spectator of the scene, and
sympathized with the evident desire of his fare to escape
what appeared to be the long arm of the law.
At this moment a crawling Hanson came up, and was promptly hailed
by Pringle. Follow that cab, and don't lose
it on any account. He cried as he stood on the step
and pointed vigorously after the receding hansom, while Mr.
Jacobs Careen Don Barbican, his cab man, looked back in time to
observe this expressive pantomime, and with.
The instinct of a true. Sportsman lashed the unfortunate
route into a hand gallop, but the observant eye of a policeman
checked this moderate exhibition of speed just as they were
rounding the sharp corner into Aldersgate St. and had not a
lumbering railway van intervened, Pringle would have
caught him up and brought the farce to an awkward finish, But
the van saved the situation. The moments for spite was all
that the chase needed, and in response to the promises of
largesse, frantically roared by Mr. Jacobs through the trap
door. He was soon bounding and bumping
over the wood pavement with Pringle well in the rear.
Then ensued a mad Stampede down Aldersgate St. in and out
between the crowded files of vans.
And buses the. Two cabs wound a zigzag course,
the horses slipping and skating over the greasy surface or
plowing up the mud as their bits skidded them within inches of a
collision. In vain did policemen roar to
them to stop. The order fell on heedless ears.
In vain did officious boys wave intimidating arms or make futile
grabs at the harness of the apparent runaways.
Did a cart dart unexpectedly out from a side street?
The inevitable disaster failed to come off.
Did an obstacle loom dead ahead? It melted into thin air as they
approached. Triumphantly they piloted the
narrowest of straights and dashed unscathed in Saint
Martin's Le Grand there was a block in Newgate St. and the
cross traffic was stopped. Mr. Jacobs, handsome, nipped
through a temporary gap, grazing the pole and omnibus and being
lustily anathemanized in the process, but Pringles cab man
attempting to follow, was imperiously waved back by a
policeman. No go, I'm afraid, Sir, was the
man's comment as they crossed into Saint Paul's churchyard
after a 3 minutes wait. I can't see him nowhere.
Never mind, said Pringle cheerfully.
Go to Charing Cross Telegraph office.
There he sent the following message to Missus Hodges. 82
Barbican called away to country. Mr. Weeks will take charge of
office. Jacobs About two the same
afternoon, Pringle, wearing the wig and mustache of Major
Parkins, rang the housekeeper's bell at 82.
I'm Mr. Weeks, he stated, as Missus Hodges emerged from the
bowels of the earth. Mr. Jacobs has had to leave town
and has asked me to take charge of the office.
Oh, yes, Sir. I've had a telegram for Mr.
Jacobs to say so. You know the way up, I suppose,
I think. So but.
Mr. Jacobs forgot to send me the office key.
I'd better lend you mine then, Sir, till you can hear from Mr.
Jacobs. She fumbled in her voluminous
pocket. I hope nothing's the matter with
him. Oh dear, no.
He found he needed a short holiday.
That's all. Pringle reassured her, and
taking the key from the confiding woman, he climbed to
the second floor. Sitting down at the secretarial
desk, he said a quick glance around the office.
A poor creature, that Jacobs, he reflected, for all his
rascality, or he wouldn't have been scared so easily, and he
drew a piece of wax from his pocket and took a careful
impression of the key. He had not been in possession of
the Rejuvenator offices for very long before he discovered that
Mister Jacobs desire to break. Out in a fresh place had.
Proved abortive. It will be remembered that on
the occasion of his interview with that gentleman, Mr. Jacobs
assumed that Pringles visit had reference to Palosia, whose
virtues he extolled in a leaflet composed in his own very
pronounced style, a large package in the office.
Pringle found to contain many thousands of these effusions,
which had apparently been laid aside for some considerable
time. From the absence and daily
correspondence of any inquiries thereafter, it was clear that
the public had failed to realize the advantages of the internal
administration of MUD, so that Mister Jacobs had been forced to
stick to the swindle that was already in existence.
After all, the latter was a paying concern.
Eminently so. Besides, the patent medicine
trade is rather overdone. The price of the Assyrian
rejuvenator was such as to render the early caching of
remittances an easy matter, 10 and 6 pence being a sum for
which the average banker demurs to honor a check.
The payments were usually made in postal orders, and Pringle
acquired a larger faith, in Carlyle's opinion, of the
majority of his fellow creatures, as he cashed the
previous day's takings at the General Post Office on his way
up to Barbican each morning. The business was indeed a
flourishing 1, and his satisfaction was only alloyed by
the probability of some legal interference at the assistance
of Colonel Sandstream with the further operations for the
company. But for the present, Fortune
smiled, and Frankel continued energetically to dispatch
parcels of the rejuvenator in response to the daily shower of
postal orders. And this, indeed, he had little
trouble, for he had found many gross of parcels duly packed and
ready for posting one day. While engaged in the process,
which had grown quite a mechanical one by that time, he
listened absently to a slow but determined step which ascended
the stairs and paused on the landing outside.
Above, on the 3rd floor, was an importer of cigars made in
Germany, and the visitor evidently delayed the further
climb until he had regained his wind.
Presently, after a preliminary pant or two, he got underway
again, but pursued it only as far as a rejuvenator door, to
which he gave a promptory thought, and opening it, walked
in without further ceremony. There was no need for him to
announce himself. Pringle recognized him at first
glance, although he had never seen him since the.
Eventful evening at. Christiana's Restaurant.
I'm Colonel Sandstream, he growled, looking around him
savagely. Delighted to see you, Sir, said
Pringle with assurance. Pray be seated, he added
politely. Who am I speaking to?
My name is Newton Weeks. I am.
I don't want to see you, interrupted the Colonel testily.
I want to see the secretary of this concern.
I've no time to waste either. I regret to say that, Mister
Jacobs. Ah, yes, that's the name.
Where is he again interrupted the old gentleman.
Mr. Jacobs is at present out of town.
Well, I'm not going to run after him.
When will he be here again? It is quite impossible for me to
tell, but I was just now going to say that as the managing
director of the company, I am also acting as secretary during
Mr. Jacob's absence. What do you say your name is?
Demanded the other still ignoring the chair which
criminal had offered him. Newton Weeks.
Newton Weeks repeated the Colonel making a note of the
name on the back of an envelope. Managing director, added
Pringles wovely. Well, Mr. Weeks, if you
represent the company. This with a contemptuous glance
from the middle of the room and his surroundings.
I've called with reference to a letter you've had the
impertinence to send me. What was the date of it?
Inquired Pringle innocently. I don't remember, snapped the
Colonel. May I ask what was the subject
of the correspondence? Why, this confounded rejuvenator
of yours, of course. You see, we have had a very
large amount of correspondence concerning the rejuvenator, and
I'm afraid, unless you have the letter with you, I've lost it or
mislaid it somewhere. That is unfortunate.
Unless you can remember the contents, I fear it will be
quite impossible for me to do so.
I remember them well enough. I'm not likely to forget them in
a hurry. I asked you to return me the
money. Your rejuvenator, as you call
it, has cost me because it's been quite useless.
And in your reply you not only refused absolutely, but hinted
that I dare not prosecute you. As Pringle made no reply, he
continued more savagely. Would you like to hear my candid
opinion of you? We are always pleased to hear
the opinion of our clients. Pringles calmness only appeared
to exasperate the Colonel the more.
Well, Sir, you shall have it. I consider that letter the most
impudent attempt at blackmail that I have ever heard of.
He ground out the words from between his clenched teeth in a
voice of concentrated passion. Blackmail.
Echoed Pringle, allowing an expression of horror to occupy
his countenance. Yes, Sir, blackmail.
I surveyed the Colonel, nodding his head vigorously.
Of course, said Pringle, with a depreciating gesture.
I am aware that some correspondence has passed
between us, but I could not attempt to remember every word
of it. At the same time, although you
are pleased to put such an unfortunate construction upon
it, I am sure there is some misunderstanding in the matter.
I must positively decline to admit that there has been any
attempt on the part of the company of such a nature as you
allege. Oh, so you don't admit it, don't
you? Perhaps you won't admit taking
pounds and pounds of my money for your absurd concoction.
Which hasn't done me the least bit of good in the world, nor
ever will. And perhaps you won't admit
refusing to return me my money. A Perhaps you won't admit daring
me to take proceedings because it would show up what it has
I've been. Don't talk to me, Sir.
Ha, I'm really very sorry that this unpleasant has arisen,
began Pringle. But pleasant or unpleasant, Sir,
I'm going to. Stop your little game.
I mislaid your letter or I'd have called upon you before
this. As you're the managing director.
I'm better pleased to see you than your precious secretary.
Anyhow, I've come to tell you that you're a set of swindlers.
Of swindlers, Sir. I can make every allowance for
your feelings, said Pringle, drawing himself up with an air
of pain dignity. But I regret to see a holder of
His Majesty's Commission so deficient in self-control, like
your impertinent Sir. Both separate the veteran.
I'll let the money go, and I'll prosecute the pair of you, no
matter what it cost me. Yes, you and your rascally
secretary, too. I'll go and swear on information
against you this very day. He bounced out of the room and
explosively snorted downstairs. Pringle followed in the rear and
reached the outer door in time to hear him exclaim Mansion
House Police Court to the driver of a motor cab in which he
appropriately clanked and rumble out of sight.
Returning upstairs, Pringle busied himself in making a
bonfire of the last few days correspondence.
Then, collecting the last batch of postal orders, he proceeded
to cash them at the General Post Office and walked back to
Fernibles IN. After all, the forest couldn't
have lasted much longer. Arrived at Fernibles IN, Pringle
rapidly divested himself with a wig and mustache and, assuming
his official port wine mark, became once more the unemployed
literary agent. It was now 1:30, and after
lunching lightly at a near restaurant, he lighted a cigar
and strolled leisurely eastward. By the time he reached Barbican,
3 O clock was reverberating from Saint Paul's.
He entered the private bar of a Tavern nearly opposite, and sat
down by a window which commanded a view of #82.
As time passed and the quarters continued to strike in rapid
succession, Pringle felt constrained order for the
refreshment, and he was lighting 1/3 cigar before his patience
was rewarded. Having to glance up at the 2nd
floor window, he caught a glimpse of a strange man engaged
in taking a momentary survey of the street below.
The March of edits had been rapid.
He had evidently resigned the secretary ship not a moment too
soon. Not long after the strange face
had disappeared from the window, A4 wheeled cab stopped outside
the Tavern, and an individual wearing a pair of large blue
spectacles and carrying a Gladstone bag, got out and
carefully scrutinized the office of the rejuvenator.
Mr. Jacobs, or was he, did not intend to be caught in having
this time. At length, being satisfied with
the normal appearance of the premises, he crossed the road,
and to Pringle his intense amusement, disappeared into the
house opposite. The spectator had not long to
wait for the next act of the drama.
About 10 minutes after Mr. Jacobs disappearance, the man
who had looked out of the window emerged from the house and
beckoned to the waiting cab. As it drew up at the door, a
second individual came down the steps fast, holding Mr. Jacobs
by the arm. The latter, in a very
crestfallen guise, re entered the vehicle being closely
followed by his captor, and the first man having has taken his
seat with them. The party adjourned to a
destination as to which Pringle had no difficulty in hazarding a
guess. Satisfying the barmaid, he
sallied into the street. The rejuvenator offices seemed
once more to be deserted, and the postman entered.
In the course of his afternoon round.
Pringle walked a few yards up the street and then, crossing as
a postman reappeared, turned back and entered the house.
Boldly, softly mounting the stairs, he knocked the door.
There was no response. He knocked again, more loudly,
and finally turned the handle. As he expected, it was locked
securely, and satisfied that the coast was clear, he inserted his
own replica of the key and entered.
The books tumbled on the floor in confused heaps.
The wide open and empty drawers and the overturned acting cases
showed how thoroughly the place had been ransacked in the search
for compromising evidence. But Pringle took no further
interest in these things. The letterbox was a sole object
of his attention. He tore open the batch of newly
delivered letters and, cramming the postal orders into his
pockets, then securing the correspondence behind a rifle
package case, he silently locked the door as he strolled down the
street. On a last visit to the General
Post Office, the two detectives passed him on their way back in
quest of the managing director. End of the Assyrian Rejuvenator
by Clifford Ashton, recorded by Todd.