The Blind Barber (19 page)

“Oh, not for murder or anything like that. I’ll tell you all about it. Of course they’re going to let him out to-day. They—”

“Humf. Harrumph! Now let me see if I understand this. Let him out today? Hasn’t the boat docked yet?”

“That’s what I was getting at, sir. It hasn’t. Thank the Lord for what you’ve said, anyhow, because that’s why I’m here … You know Captain Whistler, don’t you? And he knows of you?”

“I have had some experience,” replied Dr. Fell, shutting up one eye meditatively, “with the old—um—cuttlefish. Heh! Heh-heh-heh! Yes, I know him. Well?”

“We were to dock early this morning. The trouble was that at the last minute there was a mix-up about our dock or berth or whatever they call it; the
Queen Anne
didn’t get under way so that we could move in, and we were left lying in the harbour, with no chance of docking until about two o’clock this afternoon …”

Dr. Fell sat up. “And the
Queen Victoria
is still—?”

“Yes. Due to something you shall hear of in due course, I was able to persuade Whistler to let me go ashore with the pilot; I had to sneak it, of course, or the others would have been wild. But,” he drew a deep breath, “Whistler knowing you, I contrived to convince him that, if I could get to you before the passengers left that ship, there might be
kudos
in it for him. Actually, sir, you’ll say I had the hell of a nerve, but what I did was practically promise him you’d land him an outstanding crook with credit for it if I could get to you before the passengers left the
Queen Victoria
.”

He sat back and shrugged his shoulders; but he watched Dr. Fell closely.

“Nerve? Ha! Heh-heh-heh! Nonsense!” rumbled the doctor, affably. “What’s Gideon Fell for, I ask you, if not for that? Besides, I owe Hadley one for doing me in the eye over that Blumgarten business last week. Thank’ee, my boy, thank’ee.”

“You think—?”

“Why, between ourselves, I rather think we’ll land the Blind Barber. I have rather a strong suspicion,” said Dr. Fell, scowling, with a long rumbling sniff through his nose, “who this Blind Barber is. If I’m wrong, there’ll be no harm done aside from a little outraged dignity … But, look here, why is it necessary? What about this New York man who was supposed to arrive on the
Etrusca
this morning?”

Morgan shook his head.

“I suppose it’s bad to run ahead of my story,” he said, “but we’ve had so many mix-ups, setbacks, and dizzy confusions that one more out of place is comparatively small. The
Etrusca
arrived right enough, but Inspector Patrick isn’t on her. He didn’t sail at all. I don’t know why; I don’t make any sense of it at all; but the fact remains that if something isn’t done the Barber will walk off that ship a free man in exactly three hours.”

Dr. Fell sat back in his chair and for a moment he sat looking vacantly, and in a cross-eyed fashion, at the notes on the table.

“U! H’m, yes! Hand me that A.B.C. on the tabouret there, will you? Thanks … What train d’jou take this morning? Seven fifty-three to Waterloo? So. Now, then … H’m yes! This would do it. I don’t suppose by any chance you have a passenger-list of that ship with you?”

“Yes. I thought—”

“Hand it over.” He flicked the pages rapidly until he found a name. Then he went very slowly through it, his fingers following the list of cabins. When he found what he seemed to want, he made a comparison; but it was on the other side of the table and Morgan could not see precisely what had been done. “Now, then, excuse the old charlatan a moment. I am going to make some telephone-calls. Not under torture would I reveal what I intend to do, or where’s the fun of mystifying you, hey? Heh! There’s no pleasure like mystification, my boy,
if
you can pull it off … As a matter of fact, I’m just going to wire the name of the murdered woman to Captain Whistler, with a few suggestions. Also it would be a good idea to ring up a branch of Victoria 7000 and make other suggestions. Have another bottle of beer.”

He lumbered across the room, chuckling fiendishly and stamping his cane. When he returned, he was rubbing his hands in exultation behind a woman laden with the largest, most elaborately stocked lunch-tray Morgan had seen in a long time.

“Mash and sausage,” he explained, inhaling sensuously. “Down here, Vida … Now, then. Let’s get on with our story. There are several points on which I want to be enlightened, if you feel up to talking over the food. Your case, my boy, is the best surprise-package I’ve opened yet. With each separate event, I discover, there is no telling whether the thing is a water-pistol or a loaded automatic until you pull the trigger. In a way it’s unique, because some of the best clues are only half-serious …”

“Question,” said Morgan.

“Exactly. Have you ever reflected,” boomed Dr. Fell, tucking a napkin under his chin and pointing at his guest with a fork in the serene assumption that he had never reflected, “on old proverbs? On the sad state of affairs which makes old proverbs so popular, and so easy to quote, precisely because those old platitudes are the only maxims which to-day nobody believes? How many people really believe, for instance, ‘honesty is the best policy’?—particularly if they happen to be honest themselves. How many people believe that ‘early to bed and early to rise’ have the effect designated? Similarly, we have the saw to the effect that many a true word is spoken in jest. A true application of that principle would be too exciting; it would call for much more ingenuity and intelligence than most people are able to display; and it would make social life unendurable if anybody for a moment believed that a true word
could
be spoken in jest—worse, for instance, than going out to dinner with a crowd of psycho-analysts.”

“What’s all this?” said Morgan. “You can’t hang a man on a joke.”

“Oh, they’re not jokes. You have no idea as to the trend of this?”

“No.”

Dr. Fell scribbled rapidly on a sheet of paper, and passed it over.

“Here, for your further enlightenment,” he said, frowning. “I have tabulated eight clues. Eight suggestions, if you will. Not one of ’em is direct evidence—it’s the direct evidence I’m looking for you to supply in your next instalment of the story. I feel fairly certain you will mention the evidence I want; and my hunch is so strong that I—like several others—will risk Whistler’s official head on it. Eh?”

Morgan took the paper, which read

1. The Clue of Suggestion.

2. The Clue of Opportunity.

3. The Clue of Fraternal Trust.

4. The Clue of Invisibility.

5. The Clue of Seven Razors.

6. The Clue of Seven Radiograms.

7. The Clue of Elimination.

8. The Clue of Terse Style.

“It doesn’t mean a devil of a lot to me,” said Morgan. “The first two you could apply in any way you like … Wait! Don’t puff and blow, sir!—I say ‘you’ meaning myself. And I don’t like to consider the suggestion of the third … But what about seven razors? We didn’t find seven razors.”

“Exactly,” boomed the doctor, pointing his fork as though that explained it. “The point is that there probably
were
seven razors, you see. That’s the point.”

“You mean we ought to have looked for them?”

“Oh, no! The Barber would have got rid of the others. All you should have done was remember that they were seven. Eh?”

“And then,” said Morgan, “this point about seven radiograms … What seven radiograms? There are only two radiograms I mentioned in my story.”

“Ah, I should have explained about that,” said Dr. Fell, skewering a sausage. “Seven—mystic number; rounded, complete, suggestive number with a curious history. I use it advisedly in place of the word ‘several,’ because we assume there were several. The interesting thing is that I am not referring to any radiograms you saw. You didn’t see ’em. That’s very significant, hey?”

“No, I’ll be damned if it is,” said Morgan, somewhat violently. “If we didn’t see ’em—”

“Proceed, then,” requested the doctor, waving a large flipper. “I feel positive that before you have finished I shall have noted down eight more clues—sixteen, say—by which we finish and round out our case.”

Morgan cleared his throat and began.

A
MONG UNTHINKING CHRONICLERS IT
is much the fashion, at certain movements of mysticism, to embark on a reflection as to how, if it were not for such-and-such a small thing happening, then such-and-such a larger thing would not have happened, and so on until they have ultimately proved King Priam’s bootblack responsible for the fall of Troy. Which is, demonstrably, nonsense.

Doubtless, such a historian would say that all would yet have been well, when Curtis Warren was installed in a padded cell on D deck, if it were not for two tiny circumstances harmless in themselves. In proof of this he would point out that—if they had only known it—the conspirators were within an ace of catching the Blind Barber himself at least once that day; and there would have been no more lurid happenings aboard the
Queen Victoria
. The present chronicler does not believe it. Men go straight as a stream of liquid exterminator from the nozzle of the Mermaid Automatic Electric Bug-Powder Gun along the line that is determined by their characters, nor can any horseshoe nail affect their destinies. Curtis Warren, as may have been observed from time to time, was a fairly impetuous young man much influenced by the power of suggestion. If he had not got into more trouble one way; it would have been in another; and only a thoughtless quibbler could lay the blame on such excellent articles as a detective novel and a bottle of Scotch whisky.

Sic volvere parcæ!
To solace him in captivity they could not share, Peggy Glenn presented him with a bottle of whisky (full size) and Henry Morgan with one of his old detective-novels.

Thereby, incidentally, they showed their own characters. If anybody says Morgan should have known better, it will shortly be indicated how much he had on his mind. Morgan was fighting mad at the perverse orneriness of the Parcæ, and his own none-too-good sense reduced to a minimum. Besides—as he agreed with Peggy—if that stormy petrel, Curtis Warren, were not safe from causing trouble when locked and bolted in a padded cell, where the devil
would
he be safe?

Now let’s quit this philosophising and get down to business.

There had been an almost touching scene of farewell after Warren had been shot into the padded cell by three sturdy seamen, of whom two had to undergo considerable repairs in the doctor’s office immediately afterwards. It would also take too much time to dwell on their progress down from the captain’s cabin to D deck, which resembled an erratic Catharine wheel of arms and legs whirling down companionways and causing pale-faced passengers to bolt like rabbits. With a last heave he was fired into the cell and the door slammed; yet, damaged but undaunted, he still continued to shake the bars and hurl raspberries at the exhausted sailors.

Peggy, in a tearful frenzy, refused to leave him. If they would not let her stay with him, she made a loyal attempt to kick Captain Whistler in a vital spot and get locked up herself. Morgan and Valvick also loyally insisted that, if the old sea-cow thought Warren off his onion, they were loony, too, and demanded their rights of being imprisoned. But this Warren—either with a glimmer of sense or a desire to make a gallant gesture—would not hear of.

“Carry on, old man!” he said, grimly and heroically, shaking hands with Morgan through the bars of the cell. “The Barber’s still loose, and you’ve got to find him. Besides, Peggy’s got to help her uncle with those marionettes. Carry on, and we’ll nail Kyle yet.”

That Whistler did not accede to their demands for a uniform imprisonment, both demand and consent being made in the heat of rage, Morgan afterwards attributed solely to his desire to produce them as witness to Lord Sturton that he had been treacherously attacked. This did not occur to him at the time, or he would have made use of it as a threat; and Captain Whistler would have been saved trouble, as shall be seen, with the choleric peer. All the three conspirators knew was that their ally had been locked away in the bowels of the ship: down a dark companionway, through a steel-plated corridor pungent with oil and lit by one sickly electric bulb which quivered to the pounding of the ship’s engines, and behind a door with a steel grill through which he stared out like King Richard in exile. A sailor with a whistle, reading
Hollywood Romances
, had been stolidly posted on a chair outside, so that the possibility of a jail-break was
nil
.

There was, however, one consolation. The rather sardonic ship’s doctor—who believed not at all in Warren’s insanity, but found it prudent from long experience not to cross Captain Whistler before his temper subsided—made no objection to supplying the maniac with cigarettes and reading-matter. If he saw the bottle of whisky which Peggy smuggled through in a roll of magazines, he made no sign.

Morgan’s contributions to the captive were a box of Gold Flake and a copy of one of his earlier novels called,
Played, Partner!
Now, if you are a very prolific writer of detective stories, you will be aware that the details of earlier ones tend to fade from your mind even more quickly than they do from the reader’s. Morgan remembered in a general way what the book was about.
Played, Partner!
was the tale of Lord Gerald Derreval, known to West End Clubland as a wealthy idler,
dilettante
, and sportsman; but known to Scotland Yard under the enigmatic and terrible pseudonym of The Will-o’-the-Wisp. As a gentleman burglar, Lord Gerald was hot stuff. His thrilling escapes from captivity under heavy guard made Mr. Harry Houdini look like a bungler who had got out of clink only with a writ of
habeas corpus
. Of course, there was never anything really crooked about Lord Gerald. All he did was pinch the shirt off any old reprobate who had been low-minded enough to get rich, thereby qualifying Lord Gerald for a high place in the Socialist literature which is so popular nowadays. Besides, he was redeemed by his love for the beautiful Sardinia Trelawney. In the end he trapped the real villain who had tried to saddle a murder on him; and made it up with Inspector Daniels, the man who had sworn to get him and was in general so weak-minded and got the bird so often that even in the midst of pitying him you wondered how he contrived to hold his job.