“I’m hopin’ so, sor,” the Sergeant returned as he drew up a chair and accepted a cup of steaming coffee. “I’m afther needin’ help this mornin’.”
“A robbery, a murder, blackmail, kidnaping?” de Grandin ran through the catalogue of crime. “Which is it, or is it a happy combination of all?”
“Mebbe so, sor, I’m not quite sure yet meself,” Costello replied. “Ye see, ’twas early this mornin’ it happened, an’ I ain’t got organized yet, so to speak. It were like this, sor:
“A Miss Brindell come over to Harrisonville on th’ six o’clock train. She wuz comin’ to visit her sister who lives down on the South Shore, an’ they hadn’t expected her so early, so there’s no one to meet her when she gits to th’ station. She knows about where her brother-in-law’s house is over to Mary’s Landin’, so she hops in a taxi an’ starts there. ’Twere a twenty-mile drive, sor, but she’s satisfied wid th’ price, so, th’ cabby don’t argue none wid her.
“Well, sors, th’ taxi has hardly started from th’ depot when alongside runs another car, crowds ’im to th’ curb an’ dishes his wheel. Th’ cabby ain’t too well pleased wid that, ye may be sure, so he starts to get down an’ express his opinion o’ th’ felly as done it when wham! sumpin hits him on th’ coco an’ he goes down fer th’ count.”
“The comte?” Renouard interjected. “Where was this nobleman, and why should the chauffeur descend for him?”
“Silence, mon brave, it is an American idiom, I will explain later,” de Grandin bade. To Costello: “Yes, my Sergeant, and what then?”
“Well, sor, th’ next thing th’ pore felly knows he’s in Casualty Horspittle wid a bandage round his head an’ his cab’s on th’ way to th’ police pound. He tells us he had a second’s look at th’ guy that crowned ’im, an—”
“I protest!” Renouard broke in. “I understood you said he was struck with a massue, now I am told he was crowned. It is most confus—”
“Imbécile, be silent!” de Grandin ordered savagely. “Because you speak the English is no reason for you to flatter yourself that you understand American. Later I shall instruct you. Meantime, keep fast hold upon your tongue while we talk. Proceed, Sergeant, if you please.”
“He got a glimpse o’ th’ felly that K.O.’d him, sor, an’ he swore it were a Chinaman. We’re holdin’ ’im, sor, for his story seems fishy to me. I’ve been on th’ force, harness bull an’ fly cop, since th’ days when Teddy Roos-velt—God rest his noble soul!—wuz President, an’ though we’ve a fair-sized Chinatown here an’ th’ monks gits playful now an’ then an’ shoots each other up or carves their initials in each other wid meat-cleavers, I’ve never known ’em to mix it wid white folks, an’ never in me livin’ days have I heard of ’em stealin’ white gur-rls, sor. I know they tells some funny tales on ’em, but me personal experience has been that th’ white gur-rls as goes wid a Chinaman goes o’ their own free will an’ accord an’ not because annybody steals ’em. So—”
“What is it you say, she was kidnaped?” de Grandin interrupted.
“Looks kind o’ that way, sor. We can’t find hide nor hair o’ her, an’—”
“But you know her name. How is that?”
“That’s part o’ th’ funny business, sor. Her grips an’ even her handbag wuz all in th’ taxi when we went through it, an’ in ’em we found letters to identify her as Miss Avis Brindell, who’d come to visit her brother-in-law an’ sister, Mr. an’ Mrs. Dougal McDougal, at their house at Mary’s Landin’; so—”
“Nom d’un chou-fleur, do you tell me so?” de Grandin gasped. “Madame McDougal’s sister kidnaped by Orientals? Ha, can it be possible? One wonders.”
“What’s that, sor?”
“I think your taximan is innocent, my friend, but I am glad you have him readily available,” de Grandin answered. “Come, let us go interview him right away, immediately; at once.”
MR. SYLVESTER MCCARTY, DRIVER of Purple Cab 188672, was in a far from happy frame of mind when we found him in the detention ward of Casualty Hospital. His day had started inauspiciously with the wreck of his machine, the loss of a more than usually large fare, considerable injury to his person, finally with the indignity of arrest. “It’s a weepin’ shame, that’s what it is!” he told us as he finished the recital of his woes. “I’m an honest man, sir, an’—”
“Agreed, by all means,” de Grandin interrupted soothingly. “That is why we come to you for help, my old one. Tell us, if you will, just what occurred this morning—describe the cowardly miscreant who struck you down before you had a chance to voice your righteous indignation. I am sure we can arrange for your release from durance.”
McCarty brightened. “It’s hard to tell you much about it, sir,” he answered, “fer it all happened so quick-like I hardly had time to git me bearin’s. After I’m crowded to th’ curb an’ me wheel’s dished, I sees th’ other car is jammed right smack agin me, an’ just as I turns round I hears me fare holler, ‘Leave me be; take yer hands off’n me!’
“Wid that I jumps down an’ picks up me crank-handle, fer if there’s goin to be a argyment, I figures on bein’ prepared. I on’y gits one eye-flash at ’em, though, sir. There’s a queer-lookin’ sort o’ gink settin’ at th’ wheel o’ th’ other car—a brown-faced guy, not colored nor yet not quite like a Chinee, but more like some o’ them Fillypinos ye see around sometimes, ye know. He’s all muffled up in a fur coat wid th’ collar turned up around his chin an’ his cap pulled down over his eyes, so I can’t git much of a slant on him. But just as I starts in to tell him what sort o’ people I think his family wuz, up hops another coffee-an’-cream-colored son-of-a-gun an’ zingo! let’s me have a bop over th’ bean that makes me see all th’ stars there is, right in broad daylight. I goes over like th’ kingpin when a feller rolls a strike, but just before I goes to sleep I sees th’ guy that smacked me down an’ another one hustlin’ th’ young lady out o’ me cab into th’ other car; then th’ chauffeur steps on her an’ rolls away, leavin’ me flatter’n a pancake. Then I goes out like a light an’ th’ next thing I knows I’m layin’ here in th’ horsepittle wid a bandage round me dome an’ th’ nurse is sayin’, ‘Sit up, now, an’ drink this.’”
“U’m?” de Grandin regarded him gravely. “And did you notice the make of car which fouled you?”
“Not rightly, sir. But it was big an’ long—a limousine. I thought it wuz a Rolls, though it might o’ been a Renault or Issorta—I don’t think it wuz an American car.”
“Very good. And one presumes it is too much to hope you had opportunity to note the number?”
“I did that, sir. We gits camera-eyed in this racket, an’ th’ first thing we do when anyone fouls us is to look at his number. It’s second nature.”
“Ah, fine, excellent, parfait. Tell me—”
“X11—7734, sir. Jersey plates.”
“Ah, my prince of chauffeurs, I salute you! Assuredly, it was nobly done! Sergeant, you will surely let him go now?”
“Sure,” Costello grunted. “You can run along, feller; but don’t try any hideaway business. We’ll know where to git ye when we want ye, don’t forgit.”
“Sure, you will,” Mr. McCarty assured him earnestly. “Right by th’ depot, chief. I’m there ter meet all th’ trains.”
“An’ now fer th’ number,” Costello chuckled. “Bedad, Doctor de Grandin, sor, this case is easier than I thought. I’m sorry I bothered ye wid it, now.”
“Not too fast, my friend,” the Frenchman counseled. “The prudent cat does not mistake all that is white for milk.”
Five minutes later Costello returned from a telephone conversation with the license bureau. “I reckon I wuz all wet, Doctor de Grandin,” he admitted ruefully. “X11—7734 is th’ plate o’ Gleason’s Grocery car. It’s a Ford delivery truck, an’ its plates wuz stolen last night whilst it was standin’ in front o’ th’ store.”
4. Poltergeist?
FOR A MOMENT WE stared at each other in blank cons
ternation. “Que diable?” swore Renouard, grasping his tuft of beard and jerking it so violently that I feared for his chin.
“Looks that way,” Costello nodded dismally, understanding the Frenchman’s tone, if not his words.
“Sacré nom de dix mille sales cochons!” de Grandin exclaimed. “Why do we stand here looking ourselves out of countenance like a convention of petrified bullfrogs in the Musée de l’Histoire Naturelle? Let us be doing!”
“Sez you,” Costello responded. “Doin’ what, sor?”
“Finding them, pardieu. Consider: Their appearance was bizarre enough to be noted by the excellent Monsieur McCarty, even in the little minute between the collision of their vehicle and his and the blow which struck him senseless. Very well. Will not others notice them likewise? I think so. They have not been here long, there has been small time to acquire a base of operations, yet they must have one. They must have a house, probably not far from here. Very good. Let us find the house and we shall have found them and the missing lady, as well.”
“All right I’ll bite,” Costello offered. “What’s th’ answer to that one?”
“Cordieu, it is so simple even you should see it!” the Frenchman retorted. “It is like this: They have scarcely had time to consummate a purchase; besides, that would be wasteful, for they require only a temporary abode. Very well, then, what have they done? Rented a house, n’est-ce-pas? I think likely. We have, then, but to set a corps of energetic investigators to the task of soliciting the realty agents of the city, and when one tells us he has let a house to an Oriental gentleman—voilà, we have him in our net. Certainly.”
“Sure, it sounds O.K.,” Costello agreed, “but th’ only thing wrong wid it is it won’t work. Just because th’ assistant villains who kidnaped th’ pore little lady this mornin, wuz a lot o’ monkey-faced chinks is no sign th’ head o’ th’ gang’s one, too. ’Tis more likely he’s a white man usin’ Chinese to do his dirty work so’s he’ll not be suspected, an’—”
“And it is entirely probable that pigs would fly like birds, had they the necessary wings,” de Grandin interrupted bitingly. “I say no! Me, I know—at least I damn suspect—what all this devil’s business means, and I am sure an Oriental is not only the head, but the brains of this crew of apaches, as well. Come, mon fils, do as I say. We shall succeed. We must succeed.”
Dubiously Costello agreed, and two officers at headquarters were given copies of the classified telephone directory and bidden go down the list of real estate agents systematically, ’phoning each and inquiring whether he had rented a dwelling to a Chinese gentleman during the past week or ten days. Meantime de Grandin smoked innumerable cigarettes and related endless risqué stories to the great edification of the policemen lounging in the squad room. I excused myself and hurried to the office, for consulting hours had come, and I could not neglect my practise.
THE SEASONAL NUMBER OF coryza cases presented themselves for treatment and I was wondering whether I might cut short the consultation period, since no more applicants for Seiler’s solution and Dover’s powder seemed imminent, when a young man hurried into the office. Tall, lean, sun-bitten till he almost resembled a Malay, he was the kind of chap one took to instantly. A scrubbed-with-coldwater cleanliness and vigor showed in every line of his spare face and figure, his challenging, you-be-damned look was softened by the humorous curve of the wide, thin-lipped mouth beneath his dark, close-clipped mustache. Only the lines of habit showed humor now, however, for an expression of keen anxiety was on his features as he advanced toward me. “I don’t know whether you’ll remember me or not, Doctor Trowbridge,” he opened while still ten feet from me, “but you’re one of my earliest recollections. I’m Archy Hildebrand. My father—”
“Why, surely I remember you, son,” I returned, “though I don’t know I’d have recognized you. We were talking about you last night.”
“Were, eh?” he answered grimly. “Suppose you particularized concerning how many different kinds of a fool I’ve made of myself? Well, let me tell you—”
“Not at all,” I cut in as I noted the quick anger hardening in his eyes. “A French gentleman from Saigon was out to McDougal’s last night, and he happened to mention your romance, and we were all greatly interested. He seemed to think—”
“Was he a policeman?” Archy interrupted eagerly.
“Why—er—yes, I suppose you might call him that. He’s an inspector in the Sûreté Général, and—”
“Thank the Lord! Maybe he’ll be able to help us. But I need you, first, sir.”
“What’s the matter?” I began, but he literally dragged me toward the door.
“It’s Thi-bah, my wife, sir. I met her in Cambodia and married her in France. No time to go into particulars now, but she—she’s in a bad way, sir, and I wish you’d see her as soon as you can. It seems like some sort of eruption, and it’s dreadfully painful. Won’t you come now, right away?”
“Mais certainement, right away, immediately,” de Grandin assured him, appearing with the abruptness of a phantom at the consulting-room door. “We shall be most happy to place ourselves at the entire disposal of Madame, your wife, young Monsieur.”
As Hildebrand stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment he explained: “I have but just entered the house, and it was impossible for me not to overhear what you said to Doctor Trowbridge. I have had much experience with the obscure diseases of the Orient, whence Madame Hildebrand came, and I am sure I shall be of assistance to Friend Trowbridge, if you do not object to my entering the case with him?” He paused on a questioning note and regarded Archy with a frank, disarming smile.
“Delighted to have you,” I put in before the younger man could express an opinion. “I know you’ll be glad of Doctor de Grandin’s assistance, too, Archy,” I added.
“Certainly,” he agreed. “Only hurry, please, gentlemen. She may be suffering another attack right now, and she’s so lonely without me—I’m the only one who understands her, you see.”
We nodded sympathetically as we left the house, and a moment later I had headed the car toward the Hildebrand mansion.
“Perhaps you can give us a description of Madame’s malady?” de Grandin asked as we spun along.
Archy flushed beneath his coat of tar. “I’m afraid it’ll be hard to tell you,” he returned slowly. “You know”—he paused a moment, then continued in evident embarrassment—“if such a thing were possible, I’d say she’s the victim of a poltergeist.”
“Eh, what is it you say?” the Frenchman demanded sharply.
The young man misunderstood his query. “A poltergeist,” he returned. “I’ve seen what they declared to be their work in the Black Forest district of Germany, and I assure you it’s very mystifying. A person, usually a child or young woman, will become the victim of a malignant spirit, the peasants believe, and this pelting ghost, or poltergeist, as they call it in German, will follow the poor thing about, fling dishes and light articles of furniture at her, snatch the bedclothes off her while she sleeps, and bite, pinch and scratch her. I’ve seen severe skin-wounds inflicted on unfortunate children who’d been selected by a poltergeist as its victim, and the parents assured me the injuries appeared by magic, while others looked on in broad daylight, yet no one could see the hand that inflicted the scratches or the teeth which bit the afflicted person. I’d set the whole business down as superstitious nonsense, but since I saw what happened to my wife this morning, I’m not so certain I wasn’t laughing out of turn when I grinned at those German peasants.”
“Say on, Monsieur, I listen,” de Grandin answered.
“My wife was dressing this morning when she suddenly let out a shrill scream and half fell across the bench before her vanity. I ran to her, and when I reached her I saw across the white skin of her shoulders the distinct wale of a whip. I’ve seen just such marks on laborers in Cochin China when the overseer had lashed them. She was almost fainting when I got to her, and babbling something in Khmer which I couldn’t unde
rstand. I picked her up and started to carry her toward the bed, and as I did so she emitted another cry, and crossing the first diagonal mark was a second wale, so heavy this time that I could see the little spots of blood starting through the skin where it had been bruised to the point of rupture.
“I laid her on the bed and ran into the bathroom to soak a towel in witch hazel to put across her shoulders.” He paused a moment and looked challengingly at us. “Please remember she was lying on her back in bed,” he continued with slow emphasis. “Her shoulders were pressing directly on the sheet; nothing, not even a bullet from a high-power rifle could have struck her from beneath through the thick layers of cotton-felt of the mattress, yet even as I was crossing the room to her she screamed a third time, and when I reached her there was another whip-mark crossing the first two at an angle on her shoulders. This happened just as I’m telling you,” he concluded, then regarded us with an almost threatening glance as he awaited our expressions of polite incredulity.
“Mais oui, I believe you, my friend,” de Grandin told him. “It is entirely possible. Indeed, I am not at all surprised. No. On the contrary.
“Are we arrived? Good, we shall examine these so strange marks upon your poor lady and do what we can to relieve her suffering.
“By the way,” he added as we mounted the porch steps, “at what time did this most unpleasant experience befall Madame?”
Hildebrand considered a moment. “About eight o’clock, as near as I can remember,” he answered. “We usually breakfast at eight, but we’d overslept this morning and were hurrying to get down to the dining-room before Rumsen, the cook, presented her resignation. She usually resigns if she has to wait a meal more than half an hour, and we were dressing with one eye on the clock when Thi-bah felt the first pain and the first mark showed on her skin.”
“Eight o’clock,” de Grandin repeated musingly. “At six they take her, at eight the phenomenon is observed. Eh bien, they wasted little time, those ones. Yes, it all fits together admirably. I was sure before, now I am certain.”
The Dark Angel Page 5