“I never heard of an Italian named Talipes,” Jackson observed. “Sounds more nearly Greek if anything. But it’s this picture drawing that interests me.”
He set the card down again on the table. The two men bent over it, staring at the fantastic line of little figures:
This, of course, is an enlargement. The original was so finely drawn, as it had to be to fit the back of a visiting card, that Lieutenant Jackson took out a small magnifying glass—the only conventional detective’s tool which he habitually carried, even off duty.
“It’s a code of some sort,” he explained. “Now that’s not regularly in my line—we turn all such things over to a staff that specializes in them—but I’ve always been more or less interested in codes, as sort of a professional amateur.”
“Then at least, Herr Leutnant,” Federhut snorted, “you should have sufficient knowledge not to call a cipher a code. So much of your language even I know.”
“You’re right,” the Lieutenant admitted. “Sorry. With all your experience, you probably know much more about these things than I do. But let me make a stab at some rudimentary cryptanalysis. I’d guess offhand that the guys that hold flags mark the end of words—seem plausible to you?”
“Yes.”
“All right. That gives us a six-word message—more likely five and a signature. It’s too short to be sure of anything as far as frequency goes; but the one standing on his head occurs so often that we could tentatively say that was E. The one-armed squatter, the sprawl, and the spread eagle—all next in frequency—could be T, N, S, or the common vowels—maybe H or L. That doesn’t help much.”
“No,” Federhut agreed, with a half-smile which seemed to indicate something up his sleeve.
“There’s another approach, though. Notice the fifth word—a sign followed by another doubled. That is, the form 122. Now I’d venture that the commonest word in that form is too. That gives us tentatively two more letters, T and O. Also you’ll notice that the man with no legs holds the flag twice—that is, that letter ends two out of these six words. It’s probably S. To be sure, the one doing a jig holds two flags too, but one of these is the last word—probably the signature and not so likely to be a plural or a verb.”
The Austrian nodded. “I am not so familiar with the frequencies of English, but this seem plausible. What does it give you?”
Jackson took out a pencil and scratched on the white envelope:
- E -- S -- --- ES -- TES - T - - - - - TOO --- E - T - E -
“I don’t know just what to make of that,” he confessed. “But it is a start, and no violent implausibilities yet. Now if you—”
Otto Federhut laughed. “I am afraid, Herr Leutnant, I have been only curious to see how you American detectives attack a cryptic problem. I believe indeed that you mean well, but it is the shortness of the message that must defeat the logic of your approach.”
“OK, then.” Jackson sounded a bit resentful. “You tackle it.”
“Very well. This, it is apparent, is some joke played upon Mr. Worth because of his hatred of Holmes; for this cipher, as you may recall, is that employed in the Holmes adventure, because of it, called The Dancing Men. Now let me see …”
He glanced around the room until he espied the volume of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories which had occupied a place of honor in the reception. Deftly he leafed through it until he found The Adventure of the Dancing Men.
“I have always thought,” he said as he set to work with pencil and paper, “that the great Holmes solved this cipher with an ease too complete. He approached it as you did, and with but little more to go on, and solved it; whereas in all likelihood he should have been as confounded and mired in a mass of insufficient probabilities as were you. But if our oddly named friend of the visiting card used the same cipher as in the story, our task should now be simple. Aha, already it comes! S—T—E—V—H—E—N: STEVHEN, that is Mr. Worth’s name.”
“Look,” Jackson objected. “STEPHEN could maybe be with a V, or it could—in this case I’m pretty sure it is—with a PH; but it just can’t be VH.”
Federhut snapped his fingers with irritation. “But of course. It is strange—in my monograph have I mentioned it—that in this cipher the same man, the one with no arms and the walk of Charles Chaplin, may stand for either V or P. A slip, no doubt, from the pen of that most careless of chroniclers, Dr. Watson. The next symbol I do not find here. It must be that of a letter which is not in the original, though still I seem to have seen it before.”
Drew Furness stuck his lean face into the room. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but have you seen Miss O’Breen?”
Federhut remained preoccupied with his problem. Jackson thought back. “No—matter of fact, I haven’t. I just took for granted you were both gone by now.”
“I’ve been waiting in the car for almost a quarter of an hour. Do you think—?”
What Lieutenant Jackson thought was that this was a deliberate joke. It had probably pleased the girl’s malice to sneak out of the house the back way and slip down to the Highland car, leaving her unwelcome escort very thoroughly stood up. But he said nothing of this. He merely observed, “You never can tell how long it takes a woman to powder her nose, Furness.”
“This is too long. Something might have happened. Remember that Worth is upstairs there.” Genuine worry sounded in his dry voice. “Have you heard anything?”
“Not a thing. There’s been a deathly ’ush except for Weinberg on the phone and your car backfiring.”
“My car didn’t backfire. I’m going upstairs.”
Before the full significance of this remark reached Jackson, Furness hal left the room and Federhut was jubilantly waving his scrap of paper. “It is magnificent,” he cried. “How shall I rejoice when I see that Worth read this! The letter I did not know, it must be a W. And the rest—behold!”
Lieutenant Jackson looked at the paper and read:
STEPHEN WORTH
DEATH CANCELS ALL CONTRACTS
Chapter 6
“I’ll be damned,” said Lieutenant Jackson softly. “I start in by simply being curious about a screwy code—I beg your pardon, cipher—and I end up with a death threat on my hands. Is this some sort of a rib?”
“‘Rib’?”
“Joke. Gag. Hoax. Skip it. What I mean is, do you think anyone was serious in this threat?”
Federhut shrugged. “It would not surprise me. From the little that I have seen of Mr. Worth, the desire to kill him would seem to me almost an automatic reflex.”
Jackson smiled and rubbed his purpling eye. “I see what you mean. But if every loudmouthed low-life was rubbed out automatically, it’d play hell with the population.”
“Herr Furness!” Federhut exclaimed loudly.
Jackson’s back was toward the door into the hall. At this cry, he whirled around and saw the lean young professor standing in the doorway, bearing in his arms the unmoving body of Maureen O’Breen.
“Brandy,” Furness said quietly. Almost tenderly he carried her across the room and laid her down on the soft.
Jackson hurriedly cast an eye over the half-empty bottles on the bar. “You’ll have to make do with whisky, I’m afraid.” Quickly he poured a stiff jolt and brought glass and bottle to the sofa. Questions, he decided, could wait until later.
Drew Furness was bending over the girl, holding her hand in his and rubbing it in what he hoped was the way you were supposed to in such cases. Jackson waved him away. “Open a window,” he said sharply, then realized that two windows were already open. The room seemed terribly silent. He wondered why; then realized it was because the sound of Weinberg’s voice on the telephone had stopped.
The little producer stood in the doorway through which Furness had entered. “Fifteen years of advertising I pour into the newspapers,” he was moaning. “So now I need them and what happens? Nothing. And now this. What,” he groaned, “happens here?”
“I do not know,” Federhut said. “Mr. Furness comes into the room be
aring this young lady, and else we know nothing.”
“Maureen!” There was genuine sympathy in Weinberg’s voice, but Jackson gestured him away.
“Give her time to come around. This whisky should do it. It doesn’t look like anything worse than a faint.”
“Is there anything I can do?” This was Jonadab Evans. When or whence he had entered the room no one could say; but there the inconspicuous little man was, with an intense desire to be of some use glowing on his dry face.
“Yes. You can run upstairs and ask Dr. Bottomley to come down here. We might need him.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Evans nodded, and disappeared again.
Jackson had forced the whisky through Maureen’s lips. Her body stirred a bit; she seemed to be slowly coming back to consciousness. The Lieutenant turned to Furness.
“Where did you find her?”
“In the hallway upstairs. Just outside the door of the room where we left Worth. I missed her when I went past the first time. I looked in—in the other places where she might have been, and then as I was coming back, I—I almost fell over her.”
“Was Worth conscious yet?”
“I didn’t look in his room. All I wanted to do was to get her down here and help her. But I think I remember that his room was still dark.”
A disturbing thought continued to nag at Lieutenant Jackson. “And you’re sure your car didn’t backfire?”
The question seemed to amaze Furness. “Quite sure, Lieutenant. But what on earth—”
“Nothing … I hope.”
Dr. Rufus Bottomley came in just then, with a large calabash in his hands and a small Derring Drew writer trailing behind him. With no needless words he crossed to the couch. “She’s quite all right,” he pronounced after a brief examination. “Just give her time to come around.”
“It’s merely a faint then?”
“Can’t say, Lieutenant. There’s a bruise on the back of her head—maybe from the fall. Maybe not. Mrmfk. What happened?”
“I’m afraid,” said Jackson, “she’s the only one who can tell us that. Notice anything wrong on the upper floor?”
“Not a thing.”
“You didn’t happen to look into the room where we left Worth?”
“No, I didn’t But why—?”
“She’s regaining consciousness!” said Drew Furness, jubilantly if pedantically.
Maureen sat up a little and gazed at the six anxious men. “I am,” she articulated slowly, “in the living room of the temporary home of the Baker Street Irregulars at 221B Romualdo Drive courtesy of Metropolis Pictures produced by F. X. Weinberg. There! See—I did not need to say where am I.”
“The poor child is delirious,” Mr. Evans murmured sympathetically.
“But,” she added, “I would like to know why am I.”
“So would we,” said Jackson.
“Oh my.” She looked at him. “You’re the police lieutenant, aren’t you? Fergus’ friend?”
“Yes,” he smiled.
“Now I begin to remember. …” She shuddered. “Lieutenant Jackson, I’m afraid you’re going to have to act as though you were on duty after all.”
“So what has happened?” Mr. Weinberg groaned. “In the papers is already a scandal, and now you bring us something new yet? Maureen, to me you should do this!”
Jackson disregarded him. “What do you mean, Miss O’Breen?”
“Seems to me I remember some understanding soul pouring whisky into me. I think if you let me have another go at that, I might manage better.”
Drew Furness filled the glass and handed it to her. Dr. Bottomley considerately passed over the bottle as well.
She sipped a moment and gave a little jerk as though to coordinate her distraught memories. “There. All right, Lieutenant, here’s your assignment: I saw Stephen Worth murdered.”
She made the statement calmly enough, but her voice trembled despite herself. The men reacted variously. Mr. Weinberg executed a moaning double take; you could hear him thinking on scandalous headlines. Jonadab Evans seemed to wish that he had a tortoise shell to draw his timid head into. Drew Furness turned and made as though to hasten upstairs to investigate.
Lieutenant Jackson stopped him. “Let’s hear the story first,” he said.
Dr. Bottomley nodded. “Not that we distrust you, Miss O’Breen—”
Maureen grinned. “I know. You think I’m crazy with the heat, and you don’t want to start a ruckus till you hear if my yarn makes any sense. I don’t blame you.”
“Now tell us, Miss O’Breen, just what happened. Then,” Jackson assured her, “I’ll take whatever steps seem necessary.”
“Sure. Humor me. I get it. Well, you remember I went upstairs to powder my nose.”
“What time was that?” Dr. Bottomley asked.
“I don’t know. Ask the Lieutenant—he was here.”
“Lieutenant?”
“I’m afraid, Doctor, I don’t know. I’m beginning to understand now why witnesses are so uncertain. It was some time around eleven.”
“Well,” Maureen resumed, “whenever it was, I went upstairs. To go to the bathroom, I had to pass all the bedrooms. They were all dark, including the one Stephen Worth was in, except for yours, Doctor. I noticed a light under your door. When I came out, I got my coat and started down the hall again. Only this time there was light pouring out of the room where you left Worth. I tried to slip past it as quietly as I could; but he was standing in the doorway and he saw me.”
She paused and sought fresh strength in the whisky. “Go on, Maureen,” said Furness.
She seemed not to notice his first use of her given name. “He still looked sodden and bleary-eyed and vicious. He just stood there for a moment, sort of swaying, and I thought maybe I could get by. But all of a sudden he called to me and I stopped. I don’t know why. It was partly to humor him, I suppose—keep him from starting another scene. But besides there was something in his voice—kind of a rough authority. I don’t know. I hated him and I wanted to get away and still I stopped there.
“Then he began talking. His voice was low and persistent and just went on—saying things. You can guess what he wanted; I don’t have to tell you that. But it wasn’t only that. It was the things he kept saying about me and about Mr. Weinberg and about Drew. It was foul.
“And as he went on I began to get stronger. I lost this funny feeling of compulsion that I’d had at first. I knew he didn’t even have the strength and virility he boasted about so much—he was just a stupid weakling, trying to cover it up with a lot of ranting obscenity. So I started to go.
“As I said, he was kind of weaving about. Just then he had staggered back a couple of steps into the room, but when he saw me leaving, he reached out into the air—just grabbing emptiness about a yard away from me. His face was awful. It was the way it was that morning in the publicity office or later that day in your office, Mr. Weinberg—remember? And just when he was grabbing at me like that, the shot came.”
Dr. Bottomley thumped his chair. “Hell and death! Then it was a shot I heard.”
Jackson nodded. “We heard it too, and like bright little boys thought it was Furness’ car. What time did you make it?”
“For my own amusement, Lieutenant, I often observe the exact time of backfires. There is always the flattering chance that I might be a witness to something significant. And I clocked this one at 11:08.”
“Seems plausible, though I didn’t check it myself. Go on, Miss O’Breen. Where did this shot come from?”
“I wasn’t sure then, but now I think I know. All I noticed then was Worth grabbing at his heart, and the blood beginning to drip. He was really staggering now, different from before, somehow. He just looked at me, and he said …” She hesitated.
“You’ll have to say it sometime, Miss O’Breen,” Jackson reminded her.
“I’m not being maidenly, Lieutenant. It’s just that it’s all so … Well, what he said was, ‘You bitch! So you did have the guts!’ And
then he crumpled up all in a heap and the blood began to ooze over the floor.”
“You fainted then?”
“No. I damned near did, but I managed to get a grip on myself. After all, no matter what I thought of Stephen Worth, here was a man who’d just been shot. I had to do something for him. I never stopped to think that there must be somebody else in that room—somebody who’d just shot him in cold blood.”
“So then you—”
“I don’t think I even cried out. I might have though, I’m not sure.”
“I heard nothing,” Dr. Bottomley contributed parenthetically.
“I went over to him and knelt beside him and—look!” she exclaimed. “There’s a splotch of blood on my skirt where I knelt.” She shuddered. “And while I was kneeling there, I thought I heard a noise. All of a sudden I realized that I wasn’t alone—I couldn’t be alone. Whoever shot him had to be there with me. I jumped up and started to run out of the room. I didn’t even have sense enough to scream. I just wanted to get to one of you for help. But before I could reach the doorway, something hit me on the back of the head. That’s the last I remember until I was here on the sofa.”
“Are you sure that he was dead?” Otto Federhut asked.
“I’m afraid I’m not qualified to give medical evidence,” said Maureen. “But he was awfully still and he was bleeding from here,” and she laid her hand over her heart.
“I’m going upstairs,” said Jackson. “Somebody will probably remind me pretty soon that I’ve got no official standing at the moment; but just the same, with your permission, I’m taking charge. As soon as we find out just what’s happened, I’ll phone headquarters. One of you come along with me—you, Furness. You’re young and active, even if I’d hate to have to rely on your fists in a pinch after this evening’s little set-to. I think I can trust the rest of you to stay together here.”
Dr. Bottomley acted as spokesman. “Go ahead, Lieutenant. We shall jointly guard each other.”
“Come on, Furness.”
“Who—who found me?” Maureen asked, as the two younger men left on their investigation.
The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars Page 7