"Well?"
"I wasn't mistaken. It was one of those two, because there are only two portholes anywhere near. It was one of those two; and I think, I say I think, it was Dr. Kyle's."
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't see what more evidence you want," remarked Warren, rather querulously. "I'll do what the Brains says, and no questions asked, but I've got my own theories. Come on. We've got to go up and see Captain Whistler."
A voice just above them said: "Excuse me, Mr. Warren. I don't want to bust up anything; but if you've ten minutes to spare, I think I can make it worth your while."
Leaning over the gilt banister, tapping it with his finger, Mr. Charles Woodcock was regarding them in a very curious fashion.
11 — One Who Saw the Blind Barber
Mr. Woodcock's countenance wore such an expression of tense and alert seriousness that Morgan felt a new uneasiness. He remembered Valvick's remarks to the effect that Woodcock had hinted of things, nebulous but dangerous things, the man claimed to know. Never thoroughly at ease before live-wire business men, because his mind could not move as fast as theirs along their own lines, Morgan thought of several disturbing possibilities, including blackmail. And so it was that they encountered a feature of the case which (a week before) Morgan would have considered an absurdity or a frank impossibility, yet which to others was serious: one of the deadly serious things which underlay a tissue of misdirection and nonsense.
Woodcock was a wiry, restless, shock-headed man with a bony face and good-humoured eyes which were nevertheless rather fixed. Round his sharp jaw were wrinkles as though from much talking; the talking, in fact — as he strolled about the ship hitherto — had been rapid, lurid, jovial and winking. He seemed desirous of conveying the impression that he was a bouncing, engagingly mendacious good fellow with little on his mind. Now he leaned over the banister, his sharp eyes moving swiftly right and left.
"Now I spoke to the old skipper," he went on in a rapid and confidential undertone, "because I didn't have any idea of shoving myself in, you understand, where I mightn't be wanted. All right!" said Mr. Woodcock lifting his palm in a gesture as though he expected an objection. He did this each time he said, "All right!" It was a means of noting that he had made a point; and could go on from there with a certainty that, so far, everything was understood. "All right! But I know how it is with these things, and I want to make it man to man, and fair and square, so that I can convince you you'll be doing a thing you'll never regret if you come in on my proposition. All right! Now, all I want, Mr. Warren, is ten minutes of your valuable time — alone. Just ten minutes. You can take out your watch and put it on the table, and if I haven't interested you in just ten minutes—"Here he made a significant gesture of his wrist and raised his eyebrows—"then there's absolutely no more to be said."
"Not at all, not at all," said Warren rather vaguely. He was flustered at this new intrusion, and clearly had the idea Woodcock was trying to sell him something. "Glad to give you all the time you want. Well — we'll have a drink and talk it over. But not just now. My friends and I have an important date—"
Woodcock leaned closer.
"Exactly, old man. Exactly. I know. With the captain. It's all right now; it's all right," he whispered, raising his hand. "I understand, old man."
The conspirators stared at each other, and Woodcock's eyes swept from one to the other of them. "What," said Warren, "what's on your mind?"
"Ten minutes," said the other, "alone?"
"Well — yes. But my friends have got to be there. You can tell all of us, can't you?"
Woodcock seemed to scent a bluff somewhere. His eyebrows went up, but he spoke in a tone of pleasant and fatherly chiding, anxiously.
"Look, old man. Are you sure you've got it straight? Are you sure you'd like to have the young lady there?"
"Why not? Good God! what have you got into your head, anyhow?"
"All right, old man, if that's what you want!" He was affable. "I admit I'd rather talk to you alone, but I won't argue. Suppose we go up to the writing-room, where it'll be quiet."
On the way he talked steadily and with sprightly bounce of other matters, laughing heartily, amid many jocose references. The white-panelled writing-room was deserted. He led them to an embrasure of full-glass windows, where the morning sun was muffled by thick curtains, and quiet was broken only by the pounding of the engines. Here, when they were seated, he ran a hand through his bristly hair, fidgeted, and suddenly shot into action.
"Now, I want to help you, old man," he explained, still confidentially, "but you see, it's a case of mutual benefits, you see? You're young, and you don't understand these things. But when you get older and have a wife and family, ah!" said Mr. Woodcock. He made an impressive gesture. "Then you'll understand that business isn't only a matter of favours. All right! Now, frankly, you're sort of in a jam, aren't you?"
"Shoot," said Warren briefly.
"Well then. I don't know what went on on the boat last night, that everybody's talking about; I don't want to know. It's none of my business, see? But I do know what happened yesterday afternoon. A roll of film was stolen from your cabin, wasn't it? No, no, don't answer, and don't interrupt.
"I'm going to show you," continued Mr. Woodcock, after a pause in which he demonstrated himself an admirable showman—"'m going to show you," he went on, rather sharply, "a little moving-picture of my own as to what might have happened. I don't say it did happen, y'unnastand. You wouldn't expect me to pin myself down to that, would you? I say it might have happened. All right! Now here's my little moving-picture. I'm coming along the gangway down on C deck, see? about ha'-past four yesterday afternoon, and I've just been up sending off a radio to my firm, and there's nothing on my mind. All of a sudden I hear a noise behind me when I'm passing one of those little offshoots of the gangway, and I turn around in time to see a guy ducking out of it, and across the gangway into the wash-room. All right! And I see this bozo's got a whole mess of movie film that he's trying to stuff under his coat—
"U-uh, now!" said Mr. Woodcock warningly, "don't interrupt! Well, suppose I see this guy's face so that if I haven't seen it before I'd know it again wherever I saw it; just-suppose that. I wonder what it is, but I figure it's none of my business. Still, I think there may be a angle to it, see, so I sort of go down and take a peek. But all I can see is a door sort of open and a lot of film and film-boxes scattered around on the floor; and I see a guy — maybe yourself — sort of getting up from the floor with his hands to his head.
"And I think 'Whu-o, Charley! You'd better get out of this, and not be mixed up in any trouble,' see? Besides, the guy was coming round and didn't need any help, or I'd have stopped. But then I get to thinking—"
"You mean," said Warren, rather hoarsely, "you saw who—?"
"Now go easy, old man, go easy. Let me show my picture now!"
His picture, they discovered, exhibited a sort of strange interlude in which Mr. Woodcock's memory spoke to him. Apparently he was a great hand at reading die tabloids and scandal sheets, explaining also that he was a subscriber to the magazine True Sex-Life Stories. One of the papers, it appeared, had recently published a red-hot, zippy item straight from the capital city. It was couched in the form of innuendo, inquiring what Big Shot had a nephew who could always get a job turning a camera crank in Hollywood; furthermore, was it possible that the afore-mentioned Big Shot, in a sportive mood, had been indiscreet before a camera; and, if this were within the limits of possibility, who was the woman in the case?
"Woman?" said Warren uncontrollably. "Woman? There's no woman! Why, my un—"
"Steady," interrupted Morgan, his face stolid. "Mr. Woodcock's doing the talking."
Woodcock did not even smile or contradict. He probably expected this. He was still helpful, concerned; but there were tighter wrinkles round his jaw and his eyes were expressionless. "So maybe I'm thinking to myself," he pursued, jerking his wrist and shoulder with a curiously Hebraic gesture while the sharp eyes f
ixed Warren, "about a very funny cablegram I overhear in the wireless-room. And maybe I don't make much sense out of it, see? because I don't hear much of it; except that it's about a movie film and also about somebody being bare. Now, now, old man, you needn't look so funny at me — I understand how these things are. But I think, 'Charley, maybe you're wrong. Maybe it was just an ordinary stick-up job. And if it was, then of course there'll be a noise about it this evening, and Mr. Warren'll report he's been robbed.' All right! Only," concluded Mr. Woodcock, leaning over and tapping Warren on the knee, "there wasn't, and he didn't."
During the silence they could hear some children crying out and pelting past the door of the writing-room. The engines throbbed faintly. Slowly Warren passed his hand over his forehead.
"There've been some funny interpretations put on all this," he said in a strained voice, "but this is the limit. A woman!… All right to you, old horse," he added, with sudden crispness. "You're wrong, of course; but this isn't the time to discuss that. Who was that man who stole the film? That's what we want to know. What is it you want? Money?"
Clearly this had never occurred to the other. He jumped on the seat of the window. "I may not be as big as you," he said quietly, "but you try offering me money again, and, by God! you'll regret it. What do you think I am, a blackmailer? Come on, old man" — his voice changed and his eyes had a hopeful and propitiatory gleam—"come on now. I'm a business man and this is the biggest chance of my life. I'm only trying to do my job, after all. If I can put this across, I'll be in line for an assistant-vice-presidency. I'm giving it to you straight: if I'd thought that anything really important'd been stolen, or anything like that, I wouldn't hold out on you for a second. But I figure it this way. What's happened? An old guy, who ought to know better, has played sugar-daddy and got himself into a jam with a woman, and there's a picture of it. All right! I don't wish him any bad luck — I sympathise, and I offer to help. I offer to tell you who's got it, so's you can get it back… well, whatever way you like. But I figure I rate a favour in return. And if that's not fair, I don't know what is."
The man was desperately serious. Morgan studied him, trying to understand both the man's ethics and the man's nature. He was a problem aside from both the grim and the comic. That a governmental stuffed-shirt had been caught in a compromising position with a woman before somebody's moving-picture camera he thought of as neither serious nor ridiculous; in all probability he simply supposed that, if a government official got into difficulties they would be difficulties of that nature, to be judged solely from how he could use the fact in a legitimate business fashion. Morgan looked at Warren, and he could see that the latter considered it all fair enough.
"Good enough," said Warren, nodding grimly. "You've got a right to proposition me. Fire away. But what the devil can / do for you?"
Woodcock drew a deep breath.
"I want a signed testimonial, with a picture," he said, "for the newspapers and magazines."
" Testimonial? Hell, yes, I'll give you a testimonial for anything," Warren returned, staring. "But what good can I do you? What — Wait a minute. Holy smoke! You don't mean a bug-powder testimonial, do you?"
"1 mean," said Woodcock, "I want a recommendation for a certain article which my firm is about to place on the market and which I invented. Mind, old man, if I didn't know this thing was a world-beater I wouldn't try to sell you the idea. I'm not going to ask you to accept anything sight unseen. I'm going to show you," said Mr. Woodcock, suddenly taking out a long package from under his coat like an anarchist who gets his victim in a corner with a bomb. "I'm going to show you that this little gadget will really do everything we claim for it in the advertising campaign. Yes, I want a testimonial, old man… But not from you."
"He means, Curt," said Peggy, regarding Mr. Woodcock with a fascinated horror—"he means, you see—"
Woodcock nodded. "You get it lady. I want a testimonial of endorsement from the Hon. Thaddeus G. Warpus for the Mermaid Electrically-fitted Mosquito Gun, fitted with Swat No. 2 Liquid Insect Exterminator; saying that he personally uses it at his country home in New Jersey, and warmly recommends it. This is my chance, and I'm not going to miss it. For years we've been trying to get testimonials for our stuff from the big shots or the society women. And we can't. Because why? Because they say it isn't dignified. But what's the difference? Cigarettes, toothpaste, face cream, shaving soap — you'll get them recommended all right, and what's the difference? I'm not asking you to recommend a bug-powder, but a neat, svelte-looking, silver-plate and enamel job. Let me show it to you, let me explain how it works — that combines all the advantages of a double-sized electric torch with—"
Eagerly, as though to press an advantage, he began to take off the wrappings of the parcel. Morgan, as he looked at Curtis Warren, was more and more startled. This business, which had the elements of howling farce, was not farce at all. Warren was as serious as the Bug-powder Boy.
"But, man, have some sense!" he protested, waving his arms. "If it had been anything else, toothpaste, cigarettes… It can't be done. It'ud make him out to look foolish… "
"Yeah?" said Woodcock coolly. "Well, answer me this. Which is going to make him look more foolish, which is going to show he's more of a mug, this neat little apparatus or that film? Sorry, old man, but there you are. That's my offer. Take it or leave it."
"And otherwise you won't tell who stole that film?"
"That's what I said," agreed the other, almost cordially. "I'll tell you what, old man. You get the cablegrams working; you tell him his bare skin'll be saved if he plays ball with Charley Woodcock… "
"But he'd never do it!"
"Then it'll be just too bad for him. won't it?" asked the other candidly. He folded his arms. "Now you're a nice fellow and I like you. There's nothing personal in it. But I've got to look out for myself… Oh, and don't try to start anything either," he suggested, as Warren suddenly got to his feet. "You start any funny business, and I may not get my testimonial, but the story of T. G. Warpus's brief movie stardom is going to be all over the world as fast as I can broadcast it. Get me? In fact, old man," said Mr. Woodcock, trying to keep his confidential suavity, but breathing a little hard now, "if I don't get some assurance before we leave this boat that T. G. Warpus is a right guy who can take his medicine, I might get indiscreet when "I'd had a drink too many in the bar."
"You wouldn't do that!" said Peggy.
There was a long silence. Woodcock had turned away to stare past the curtain at the sea, his hand fluttering at his bony chin. The hand dropped and he turned round.
"All right, lady," he said in a rather different voice. "I suppose you win there. No, I guess I wouldn't." He addressed Warren fiercely. "I'm not a crook. I just got mad for a minute, that was all. At least you don't have to worry about that part of it. I may try to pull some fast ones, but I'm not a lousy blackmailer. I've made you a straight proposition, and it stands. Come on, now; I apologise. What about it?"
Warren, slowly hammering his fist on one knee, said nothing. He looked at Peggy. He looked round at Henry Morgan. Morgan said:
"I'm glad you said that, Mr. Woodcock."
"Said what? Oh, about not being a crook? Thanks," the other answered bitterly, "for nothing, I'm not one of those smooth boys who can scare you into doing anything, only they call it successful salesmanship… Why?"
"For instance," said Morgan, trying to keep his voice steady. He had an idea, and he only prayed that he would not bungle it. "For instance, would you like to be tried as accessory after the fact in a murder?"
"Oh, cut it," said Woodcock. "I've been wondering when the bluff would start."
All the same, his pale blue eyes briefly flashed sideways. He had got out a handkerchief and begun to mop his forehead as though he were tired of the whole business; but his bony hand stopped. The word "murder" comes rather startlingly in a business discussion. As the idea grew on Morgan — he thought that in a few minutes, if he kept his jugglery going with a steady
hand, they might hear the Blind Barber's name — he had still more difficulty to keep from showing his nervous excitement. Easy, now. Easy does it…
"Let's see. You know the name of the man who stole a piece of film from Curt Warren's cabin?"
"I could point him out to you. There's not much chance of his leaving the boat."
"He committed a murder last night. He cut a woman's throat in the cabin next to Curt's. I thought you'd better be warned, that's all. Do you want me to show you the razor he did it with?"
"For God's sake," said Woodcock, jerking round, "be yourself!"
It was dusky and stuffily warm in the white writing-room, with its parade of gold-leafed mirrors and mortuary chairs. The white glass-topped desks, the ink-wells and pen-racks rattled slightly with the slight roll of the Queen Victoria; and, with the motion, a drowsy curling swish of water would rise in the silence. Morgan reached into the breast pocked of his coat and took out a folded dark-smeared handkerchief. He opened it just beneath a long beam of sunlight that came through the curtains, and a dull glitter shone inside.
Again there was silence…
But Mr. Woodcock was not having any. Morgan saw him sitting there very straight, his hands relaxed, and a very thin smile fluttered across his face. It was a curious psychological fact, but the very production of evidence, the very display of a blood-stained razor with such sudden convenience, was what seemed to convince Woodcock that he was being elaborately bluffed.
He shook his head chidingly.
"Oh, I remember now, Hank, old man. You're the fellow who writes the stories. Say, I've got to hand it to you at that. You had me wondering for a second." The man looked as though he honestly relished this. "It's all right. I appreciate a good try. I've done the same thing myself. But put it back, old man; put it back and let's talk turkey."
"We don't know who the girl was," Morgan went on, but with a desperate feeling that he had lost his game; "that is, not yet. We were just going up to the captain to find out. It'll be very easy to prove…"
The Blind Barber dgf-4 Page 12