The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars
Page 17
“One of his secretaries at the studio,” Maureen said, “did have a nervous breakdown. But so many walked out on him that it’s hard to remember just which one. No. Sorry, Lieutenant, but it’s no help. She was short and dark—sort of cute in a way, but not the wonderful beauty that Mr. Ridgly got so excited about.”
“Anybody else?” Jackson stared intently at the silent gathering.
At last it was Ridgly who spoke. “You might be more specific,” he suggested quietly. “Ask Dr. Bottomley.”
Dr. Rufus Bottomley bristled. All at once the eccentric dignity which was so much a part of him seemed merely a false and hollow pomposity, a pretentious coat of mail which its wearer knew to be only too vulnerable. “Why the devil should I—?” he began.
“I see what Mr. Ridgly means, Jackson interrupted. “According to his story, Dr. Withers said that the girl was unable to recognize her former friends, then added that he knew of a friend of Ridgly’s—you. That doesn’t sound like a random remark; there’s an association there. He also said that he was having the girl carry on the work that she’d done before her disaster; apparently that was work in a doctor’s office. Out with it, Dr. Bottomley—who is this girl and what is her connection with Worth?”
Dr. Bottomley’s usually booming voice sounded uncertain of itself. “You have no right to ask me that, Lieutenant. You know that you have no more official position here than any of the rest of us; I am under no compulsion to answer you.”
It was Drew Furness who took him up, and with unwonted vigor. “But you are under a compulsion to answer us,” he said. “We’re gathered tonight to thresh this thing out. Whatever comes up has to be probed to its fullest depth. If you know any relevant facts—”
“I assure you that they are not relevant.”
“And what relevance was there to your ridiculous, fabulous scandals about my family? That was all right, wasn’t it? That was in the spirit of the game. Pull all the rotten crawling things out into the light whether they’ll help us or not. Let’s have a good look. But when it’s your—”
“He’s right, you know, Bottomley,” Jonadab Evans broke in. “Whatever it is that you know about Worth—”
“True, Herr Doktor. Our investigations must we make without regard to persons or personalities—”
Rufus Bottomley had risen. The proud imperial waggled with hopeless indignation, and his short, stout body swelled with fury. He opened his mouth, but he did not say, “Hell and death!” He simply said, “God damn it! I’m not a man to be hounded like this. I’ve told you that Ann’s case has nothing to do with Worth—nothing whatsoever. If it had … But no matter. It’s hell that Ridgly should have stumbled onto this. But that faint, I swear to you, is the merest coincidence; and if you want to twist it to something else, you can dive with my compliments down to the deepest lake in hell and twist yourself silly.”
“Control yourself, Bottomley,” said Mr. Evans mildly.
“Control myself? It isn’t enough that I should have to sit here and listen to news that would tear a man’s heart. It isn’t enough that I should be plagued with questions and insinuations and vile innuendoes of some unbelievable complicity. But now I must be asked to control myself? Control, hell!” he shouted—having done which, he seemed suddenly to obey the injunction he had scorned. A semblance of muscular control at least he did attain. His body no longer shook, and his beard was stern and unwavering as he walked to the door.
“I am going to my room,” he said with forcible restraint. “I might, if I chose, question even Lieutenant Finch’s legal right to keep us in this house. Certainly no one has the official power to detain me in this room. I shall be curious to hear later what further little surprises you contrive among you. At the moment I desire only quiet. Good night.”
He walked out of the room. Neither Jackson nor the Sergeant made a move to stop him.
“After which touching scene,” said Harrison Ridgly, “I propose another drink all around. And then, if I may take over the chair in the absence of our perturbed Tantalus, we shall have the privilege of hearing from Otto Federhut. And whose toes,” he wondered aloud, “will be crushed this time?”
Chapter 14
THE REMARKABLE CASE OF THE
VENOMOUS LIZARD
being the narrative of Otto Federhut
This story, meine Herren, I must with two apologies preface. One is for the order of my speech; for although I have typed this manuscript and reread it with all care, still am I not sure where words should go. Often have I heard the Americans and the English protest at the order of words in German; but our words fall at least by rule. To you that rule may seem strange; but to us there is never doubt where a word must be. In your order (“natural,” as I believe you call it), I am lost.
The other apology is that I provide you with no change of scene. I offer to you no deserted houses filled with Nazi spies, no sanitoria with beautiful swooning attendants. I give to you for setting only this house, this 221B and can plead for the interest of my story only that I found my life in greater danger than ever it was from the followers of the Führer.
After lunch my story commences when I find at the front door in progress a disputation between Sergeant Hinkle and a strange young man. The young man, I gather, is striving to see any one of us—any Irregular, that is, save only Jonadab Evans—a fact which at the time seems to be most peculiar. The Sergeant is stubbornly convinced that the young man is the reporter of a newspaper and resolved that he shall not pass, but on the face I read an intensity of personal concern which is not that of a man trying to secure for his editor a story.
I interpose myself in the disputation. “Sergeant,” I say, “if this young man wishes to see one of us, why should he not? It may be of importance.”
The young man’s face lit up and he attacked the Sergeant with fresh vigor until at last that worthy officer with a grudge yielded.
“I am Otto Federhut,” I explained. “And I fear that I alone must serve you. I have seen today none of the others save Herr Evans, and whereto they may be gone, I do not know. But if you will come to my room, we can confer upon your problem.”
On the first floor it was hot beneath the roof. (I beg your pardon; as I read I remember that you say second floor. If I am to be a good American, I must accustom myself to these things.) I opened the windows and we both removed our coats and were comfortable.
I wish that I could here add the touch of the romancer and describe to you the young man, though it has ever seemed to me that physical description was of little aid in determining thought and character. For were it not else a rule of legal procedure that in each appeal of a case should be furnished a complete description of all parties and witnesses? The day of Lombroso is past; and the day of Hooton, though it has dawned, is not yet all-convincing in its light. Moreover to me the young men of America, in their slim and muscular homeliness, seem sometimes as indistinguishable as so many Chinese. So I can say no more save that this was a young American, who from his many brothers differed only in that he carried what is in this land so rare, a walking stick, and that I found him seemingly honest and straightforward even before I owed to him my life. Besides, it is possible that Mr. Evans will give to you a more complete description when I have finished.
Jonadab Evans sat up with a jerk. “What do you mean, Federhut? I never even knew you had a caller today.”
Federhut smiled and wagged his mane. “You shall see.”
“But you said the fellow specifically did not want to see me—”
“Would a stranger say that?” Ridgly interposed lazily. “It would seem to me offhand that that fact alone demonstrates that he knew you. No slur intended, Evans—simple logical deduction.”
“You are right, Herr Ridgly. But I resume the narration.”
The young man found difficulty in coming to the point. He smoked three cigarettes, each from the other lit, while we spoke in fragments of the Worth case and he sought to resolve himself. At last he began, and the story
was this:
His name he wished for the moment not to state. He was a wandering youth who traveled about the United States, working now as reporter, now as salesman, now as day laborer, and always enjoying himself and his life. Some years ago he had been in Los Angeles for a long period, working in the gubernatorial campaign of 1934, of which he spoke as though it was most significant and I should know of it, though I comprehended only that he had had his part in working for the United Front. (That term, amid all the confusions of your local politics, is one readily understandable to me, who strove for it in Vienna so hard and so fruitlessly.)
During his stay here he served on a coroner’s jury in the case of a young girl who had died mysteriously. The verdict returned was death from natural causes, but the medical evidence was not clear; and as the years passed, the young man found himself thinking on this case back and wondering if all was right. There had been a stepfather who was a herpetologist—a reptile student—and who appeared to have some financial interest in the girl, although its exact nature was never brought out. The name of this stepfather was Dr. Royal Farncroft, and the name of the girl was Miss Amy Gray.
At this point was it that I became most interested; for Amy Gray, if I mistake not, was the name which a strange voice mentioned on the telephone to Miss O’Breen. Coincidence was possible, I knew; but it seemed also that some clue to the Worth case might be about to come to my hands.
The young man worried long over this case. He has a sense of his duty as a citizen, and it seemed to him terrible that in serving the state as juror he might have frustrated justice. What most disturbed him was that this Amy Gray had had a sister Florence; and if it had suited Dr. Royal Farncroft to be rid of the one stepdaughter, why not then of the other.
When he returned to Los Angeles a few weeks ago, he was determined to learn more of this case. He asked among people whom he knew, and at last he contrived to be introduced to a young architect who had been at the time of her death to Amy Gray affianced. This man too had his doubts, because he knew that certain funds of Miss Gray’s upon her marriage would from Dr. Farncroft’s control pass to her, and he had not trusted the scientist’s handling of those funds. Now, moreover, he heard that Miss Florence Gray was also affianced; and my young friend conceived lively and (as we were too soon to learn) not ungrounded fears for her safety.
Already had I remarked the extraordinary similarity which beyond doubt one of you gentlemen is now eager to call to my attention; but it was the young man himself who first remarked on the coincidence. He had read in some article of cinema gossip that Rita La Marr was to play in “The Speckled Band,” and being (as what male is not?) a devoted admirer of the charms of that woman, he looked up and read the story. There, to his amazement, was the parallel of his own problem—the two sisters, the stepfather, the financial involvement, the mysterious death. He was thunderstruck.
(He read, I may add, only the short-story version of “The Speckled Band.” To those who know also the dramatic form, I need not to point out that there is a further parallelism in his own role, that of the suspicious coroner’s juror. This whole problem of the interrelation of story and drama is one much neglected, in particular the suppression in the short story of the previous connection with the Stoner family of Dr. Watson. But all this belongs to another paper which I have been of late preparing.)
This coinciding of plot led him to action. He thought his story too thin with which to go to the police, in particular since his political activities had not made him friends among officials. But he had heard of us, the Irregulars, through a man whom he knew who is of us; and he thought that we, interested by the analogy, might use influence to aid him.
“Your problem does interest me,” I told him. “My knowledge of law is however that of the Roman code in Europe prevalent, and of Anglo-Saxon usage I am ignorant—a fact which does not make me happy in continuing my career here as an émigré. Our influence, moreover, is now in great doubt and jeopardy. We ourselves, if you have followed the journals, are not what you would call ‘in the clear’ with the law. However, what I can do to help you, that I will.”
The young man did not look oversatisfied with this statement, but he grinned and thanked me. “Now I suppose,” he said, “you want to ask me questions. OK. Shoot.”
Involuntarily I thought of last night, when first I learned that idiom “shoot” and heard a shot in echo. But I brought my mind back to the present problem and asked, “The first thing that disturbs me—why do you carry a cane? It is surely not common usage among Americans.”
“It isn’t a common cane, either,” he said, in both hands weighing the stick. “It’s good stout wood, and the handle’s leaded. This, Mr. Federhut, is a weapon.”
“But why?”
“Because I think I’ve seen Dr. Royal Farncroft at times and places where he shouldn’t be. I’ve got an idea he knows what I’m up to and he doesn’t like it. There’s no harm in going armed, just in case.”
“Then you really think that you are in danger of your life?”
“I do.” Quite simply he said it, and one had to believe.
“Tell me now more,” I said, “about this Dr. Royal Farncroft. Give me some idea—”
In the hallway was a loud noise, compounded in part of the protesting voice of Sergeant Hinkle and in part of another voice, harsh, gruff, and to me unfamiliar. The young man started to his feet. “Either I’m nuts,” he said, “or you’re about to get the answer to your question. That voice is Dr. Royal Farncroft’s.”
He and the Sergeant came at once together into the room. “This guy insists he’s got to see you,” said Hinkle. “Say the word though, and I’ll throw him out.” The Sergeant glared upon the herpetologist as though he wished indeed that I would say the word.
His instant dislike for the man I could understand. Dr. Farncroft was of medium height, I believe, but he gave the impression of a large and burly man. It was in part his black beard no doubt, and also in part the frown of cruelty on his brow. With a strange courtesy of repressed violence, he waited for me to speak, setting on the floor beside him the black bag which he carried.
“Leave him with me,” I said to the Sergeant.
“OK, if that’s the way you want it. But you just say the word—” The Sergeant retired with a look desirous of action at my visitor’s back.
No sooner was the Sergeant gone than Dr. Farncroft burst out. “I know you!” he cried at the young man. “You were on the jury. Well, the verdict was natural causes, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?” he loudly repeated.
The young man said nothing until Dr. Farncroft had a third time screamed his question. Then he simply replied, “And will it be again?”
Ignoring him, the reptile scholar turned to me. “And you, you meddling busybody, what is all this to you? Why do you sit here holding conferences on what is none of your affair?”
I felt that I could not do better than to emulate Holmes on the similar occasion when Dr. Grimesby Roylott invaded his office. “It is a little warm for the time of year,” I said in paraphrasis.
“What have you learned from this young idiot?” he demanded furiously.
“But,” I continued imperturbably, “I have heard that the crocuses promise well.”
Dr. Farncroft stepped forward in a manner which indicated that his menacing was to go from the verbal to the physical. The young man interposed before me himself and held his weighted stick ready for action.
“You trifle with me!” Dr. Farncroft’s voice was half a scream. He seized the stick, held it in his two hands, and thus in midair, not even against his knee striking it, he snapped that heavy stick in two pieces.
“There!” he cried. “See that I do not need to apply the same treatment to you.” He bent over to pick up his bag, seemed to find some trouble with the handle, and remained stooped for many seconds, which destroyed alas the dramatic quality of his exit.
“There you have it,” said the young man. “Sweet little number, isn’t he?”
“What do you think we should do?”
“If you will give me time, I shall think upon the matter and perchance confer with my colleagues and with the young detective Jackson, who seems sympathisch. If you will give me your name so that I may come again with you into contact—”
He grinned a very broad grin. “You might, if you like, call me John O’Dab.”
“John O’Dab!” I started. “But that is—”
“Creator of that dashing gentleman adventurer, the Honorable Derring Drew. Sure. That’s me, and if you want I can prove it. But it’s pretty much of a secret for a lot of reasons; we won’t go into that. Maybe you better just call me Larry Gargan.”
“My friend Mr. Evans—” I commenced.
“I know. Skip it. It’s a long story.”
I managed with an effort to control my curiosity. “And where can I find you?”
“I don’t rightly know. I’m pretty much on the loose now. Tell you what—I’ll call you here tomorrow or the next day, if the dear doctor doesn’t carry out his threats, and find out what you’ve decided. And I hope it’s good. This Florence seems a sweet kid, and if we don’t take steps pretty quick, Dr. Farncroft may try to pull a fast one.”