The Blind Barber (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 4)

by John Dickson Carr

  Warren brooded.

  “Well, as I say, one little thing led to another. The signal for the fireworks was when one Cabinet member, who had been chuckling to himself for some time, recounted a spirited story about the travelling salesman and the farmer’s daughter. And then came the highlight of the whole evening. My uncle Warpus had been sitting by himself—you could almost see his mind going round click-click—click-click—and he was weighed down by a sense of injustice. He said he was going to make a speech. He did. He got in front of the microphone, cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and then the cataract came down at Lodore.

  “In some ways,” said Warren, rather admiringly, “it was the funniest thing I ever heard. Uncle Warpus had had to repress his sense of humour for some time. But I happened to know of his talent for making burlesque political speeches … Wow! What he did was to give his free, ornamental, and uncensored opinion of the ways of government, the people in the government, and everything connected with it. Then he went on to discuss foreign policy and armaments. He addressed the heads of Germany, Italy, and France, explaining exactly what he thought of their parentage and alleged social pastimes, and indicating where they could thrust their battleships with the greatest possible effect … ” Warren wiped his forehead rather dazedly. “You see, it was all done in the form of a burlesque flag-waving speech, with plenty of weird references to Washington and Jefferson and the faith of the fathers … Well, the other eminent soaks caught on and were cheering and applauding. Senator Borax got hold of a little American flag, and every time Uncle Warpus made a particularly telling point, Senator Borax would stick his head out in front of the camera, and wave the flag for a second, and say, ‘Hooray!’ … Boys, it was hair-raising. As an oratorical effort I have never heard it surpassed. But I know two or three newspapers in New York that would give a cool million dollars for sixty feet of that film.”

  Peggy Glenn, struggling between laughter and incredulity, sat forward, with her bright hazel eyes fixed on him; she seemed annoyed. “But I tell you,” she protested again, “it’s absurd! It—it isn’t nice, you know … ”

  “You’re telling me,” said Warren, grimly.

  “ … and all those awfully nice high-minded people; it’s disgusting! You can’t really tell me! … Oh, it’s absurd! I don’t believe it.”

  “Baby,” said Warren gently, “that’s because you’re British. You don’t understand American character. It’s not in the least unreasonable; it’s simply one of those scandals that sometimes happen and have to be hushed up somehow. Only this one is a scandal of such enormous, dizzying proportions that—Look here. We’ll say nothing of the explosion it would cause at home. It would ruin Uncle Warpus, and a lot of others with him. But can you imagine the effect of those pronouncements on, say, certain dignitaries in Italy and Germany? They wouldn’t see anything funny about it in the least. If they didn’t jump up and down, tearing out handfuls of hair, and rush out and declare war immediately, it would be because somebody had the forethought to sit on their heads … Whoosh! T.N.T.? T.N.T.’s as mild as a firecracker compared with it.”

  It was growing dark in the cabin. Heavy clouds had massed up; there was a tremble through the ship above the dull beat of her screws, and a deeper thunder and swish of water as she pitched. Glasses and water-bottle were rattling in the rack above the washstand. Morgan reached up to switch on the light. He said:

  “And someone stole it from you?”

  “Half of it, yes … Let me tell you what happened.

  “The morning after that little carnival, Uncle Warpus woke up with a realisation of what he’d done. He came rushing into my room, and it appears he’d been bombarded with phone-calls from other offenders since seven o’clock. Fortunately, I was able to reassure him—as I thought, anyhow. What with other difficulties, I’d taken in all only two reels. Each reel was packed into a container like this … ”

  Reaching down under his berth, Warren pulled out a large oblong box, bound in steel, with a handle like a suitcase. It was unlocked, and he opened the snap-catch. Packed inside were a number of flat circular tins measuring about ten inches in diameter painted black, and scrawled with cryptic markings in white chalk. One of these had its lid off. Inside had been jammed a tangled and disarranged spool of film from which a good length seemed to have been torn off.

  Warren tapped the tin. “I was taking some of my better efforts with me,” he explained. “I’ve got a little projector, and I thought they might amuse people on the other side …

  “On the night of Uncle Warpus’s eloquence, I was a little tight myself. The packing up I left to the butler, and I showed him how to do the marking. What must have happened—I can see it now—was that he got the notations mixed. I carefully destroyed two reels that I thought were the right ones. But, like an imbecile”—Warren got out a pack of cigarettes and stuck one askew into his mouth—“like an imbecile, I only examined one of the reels with any care. So I destroyed the Gettysburg Address, the Dagger Scene, and the singing of ‘Annie Laurie.’ But the rest of it … well, I can figure it now. What I got rid of were some swell shots of the Bronx Park Zoo.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  Warren pointed to the floor.

  “In my luggage, without my knowing it. Never a suspicion, you see, until this afternoon. Gaa! what a situation. Well, you see, I had an urgent radiogram I had to send off to somebody at home—”

  “Oh?” said Miss Glenn, sitting up and eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Yes. To my old man. So I went up to the wireless-room. The operator said he’d just received a message for me. He also said, ‘This looks like code. Will you check it over and make sure it’s all right?’ Code. Ho-ho! I glanced over it, and it seemed so queer that I read it aloud. You must remember, what with the excitement of going away and things on board here and all, I’d forgotten that little performance entirely. Besides, the radiogram was unsigned; I suppose Uncle Warpus didn’t dare … ” Warren shook his head sadly, a weird turbaned figure with the cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth and his face scrubbed like a schoolboy’s. Then he took the cable from his pocket. “It said, ‘found traces in sweeping out. Hiller—’ that’s his butler; old family retainer; wouldn’t squeal if Uncle Warpus pinched the silver out of the White House—‘Hiller nervous. They look like bears. Is this real reel. Urgent no hitch in sarcasm effaced. Advise about bears.’”

  “Eh?” demanded Captain Valvick, who was puffing slowly.

  “That’s the closest he could take a chance on coming to it,” Warren explained. “Bears in the zoo. But it’s not the sort of thing that makes much sense when it’s sprung on you unexpectedly. I argued it out with the wireless operator, and it wasn’t until ten minutes later that it struck me—how the devil was I to know Uncle Warpus had sent it? So I couldn’t connect up the words; then suddenly it hit me.

  “Well, I rushed down here to my cabin. It was getting dark, and besides, the curtain was drawn over the porthole … but there was somebody in here.”

  “And of course,” said Morgan, “you didn’t see who it was?”

  “When I get that low-down”—snarled Warren, going off at a tangent and glaring murderously at the water-bottle—“when I find—no, damn it! All I knew was that it was a man. He had my film-box over in the corner, half the tins with their lids off (I found this later) and had the right roll in his hands. I dived for him, and he let go a hard one at my face. When I grabbed him I grabbed a piece of the film. He cracked out again—there isn’t much space in here, and the boat was pitching pretty heavily—then we staggered over against the washstand while I tried to slam him against the wall. I didn’t dare let go of the film. The next thing I knew the whole cabin went up like a flashlight powder; that was his blackjack on the back of my head. I didn’t quite lose consciousness, but the place was going round in sparks; I slugged him again, and I was bent over the part of the film I had. Then he yanked the door open and got out somehow. I must have been knocked out for a f
ew minutes then. When I came to, I rang for the steward, sloshed some water on my head, and discovered—” With his foot Warren raised the tangle of film on the floor.

  “But didn’t you see him?” asked the girl, in her fluttering concern, again taking hold of his head and causing an agonised “Ow!” She jumped. “I mean, old boy, that, after all, you were fighting with him … ”

  “No, I didn’t see him, I tell you! It might have been anybody … But the question is, what’s to be done? I’m appealing to you for help. We’ve got to get that piece of film back. He got—maybe fifty feet of it. And that’s as dangerous as though he’d got all of it.”

  3

  Trap for a Film Thief

  “WELL,” MORGAN OBSERVED THOUGHTFULLY, “I admit this is the rummiest kind of secret-service mission that a self-respecting hero was ever called on to undertake. It rouses my professional instincts.”

  He felt a glow of pleasurable excitement. Here was he, an eminent writer of detective stories, involved in one of those complicated spy plots to recover a stolen document and preserve the honour of a great Personage. It was the sort of thing that would have been nuts to Mr. Oppenheim; and, Morgan reflected, he himself had often used the background of a luxurious ocean liner, sweeping its lighted decks through waters floored with stars—full of monocled crooks sipping champagne; of pale, long-necked Ladies with a Purpose who are not interested in love-making; and of dirty work in general. (The women in a secret-service story seldom are interested in love-making; that is the trouble with it.) Although the Queen Victoria was scarcely the boat for such goings-on, Morgan considered the idea and found it good. Outside, it had begun to rain. The liner was bumping like a tub against the crash of the swell, and Morgan lurched a little as he stalked up and down the narrow cabin, revolving plans, pushing his glasses up and down his nose, becoming each second more excited with the prospect.

  “Well?” demanded Peggy Glenn. “Say something, Hank! Of course we help him, don’t we?”

  She still seemed hurt by the behaviour of the eminent soaks; but her protective instincts had been roused and her small jaw was very square. She had even put on her shell-rimmed reading-glasses, which lent a look of unwonted sombreness (or flippant make-believe, if you like) to the thin face. And she had removed her hat, to show a mop of black bobbed hair. Sitting with one leg curled under her, she regarded Morgan almost fiercely. He said:

  “My girl, I wouldn’t miss it for—well, for a good deal. Ha! It is obvious,” he continued, with relish, and hoped it was true, “that there is aboard a wily and clever international crook who is determined to secure that film for purposes of his own. Very good. We therefore form a Defensive Alliance … ”

  “Thanks,” said Warren, in some relief. “God knows I need help and—you see, you were the only people I could trust. Well, then?”

  “Right. You and I, Curt, will be the Brains. Peggy will be the Siren, if we need one. Captain Valvick will be the Brawn—”

  “Hah!” snorted the captain, nodding vigorously and lifting his shoulders with approval. He twinkled down on them, and raised his arm with terrific gusto. “‘For God! For de cause! For de Church! For de laws,’” he thundered unexpectedly. “‘For Charles, King of England, and Rupert off de Rhine!’ Ha-ha-ha.”

  “What the devil’s that?” demanded Morgan.

  “Ay dunno yust what it mean,” admitted the captain, blinking on them rather sheepishly. “Ay read it in a book once, and ay t’ink it iss fine. If ay ever get stirred up in de heart—hoooo-o!—Ay say it.” He shook his head. “But ay got to be careful wit’ de books. When ay finish reading one, ay got to be careful to write its name down so I don’t forget and go back and read it all over again.”

  He looked on them with great amiability, rubbing his nose, and inquired, “But what iss dere you want me to do?”

  “First,” said Morgan, “it’s agreed that you don’t want official steps taken, Curt? I mean, you could tell Captain Whistler—?”

  “Lord, no!” the other said violently. “I can’t do that, don’t you see? If we get this back at all, it’s got to be under the strictest cover. And that’s where it’s going to be difficult. Out of the whole passenger-list of this boat, how are we going to pick out the person who might want to steal the thing? Besides, how did the fellow know I had that film, if I didn’t know it myself?”

  Morgan reflected. “That wireless message—” he said, and stopped. “Look here, you said you read it aloud, and it was only a very short time afterwards that the chap tried to burgle this cabin. It seems too much to be a coincidence … Was there anybody who might have overheard you?”

  The other made scoffing noises. In the pure absorption of the debate he had absent-mindedly fished out a bottle of whisky from one of his suit-cases. “Bunk!” said Warren. “Suppose there were a crook of some description aboard. What would that cock-eyed message mean to him? It took some time for me to figure it out.”

  “All right. All right, then! It’s got to mean this. The thief was somebody who already knew about the film; that is, that there had been one made … That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Warren hesitated, knocking his knuckles against his turbaned forehead.

  “Ye-es, I suppose it is,” he admitted. “There were all sorts of rumours afloat next day; you know how it is. But we were in the library with the door locked, and naturally it can’t be any of the people who were in the game … I told you there was a reception downstairs, but how anybody down there could have known—”

  “Well, evidently somebody did know,” Morgan argued. “And it’s at a crush of a reception like that, at the home of some big pot, where you’d expect to find a specimen of the gentry we’re looking for … Put it this way, just for a starter.” He meditated, pulling at his ear-lobe. “The thief—we’ll call him, say, Film-Flam—gets wind of your important document. But he thinks it’s been destroyed and abandons any idea of pinching it. Still, he is travelling abroad on the Queen Victoria—”

  “Why?” inquired Miss Glenn practically.

  “How should I know?” Morgan demanded, with some asperity. His imagination had been working on opulent ballrooms full of tiaras and red shirt-ribbons; and sinister whiskery strangers smoking cigarettes round the corners of pillars. “Maybe it was accident, maybe Film-Flam is a professional diplomatic crook who dashes about from capital to capital and hopes for the best. Anyway, you’ve got to admit it was somebody who’d been in Washington and heard all about the indiscretion … Righto, then. He’s abandoned the idea, but all the same he happens to be travelling aboard the same boat as Curt. If you looked at the passenger-list, Curt, would you recognise the name of anybody who’d been at your uncle’s house that night?”

  Warren shook his head.

  “There were millions of ’em and I didn’t know anybody. No, that won’t work … But you mean this. You mean that this bird (after abandoning the idea) overhears that cable in the wireless-room, tumbles to it before I do, and takes a long chance on stealing it before I’ve got time to realise what I’m carrying?”

  “He’d have to work fast, man. Otherwise, as soon as you knew you’d chuck it overboard. And here’s another thing,” crowed Morgan, stabbing his finger into his palm as the idea grew on him. “The field of search isn’t as wide as you’d think at first. Again this is only a theory, but look here!—isn’t this chap pretty sure to be somebody who has scraped an acquaintance with you already? I mean, if I were an international crook, even though I didn’t think you were carrying that roll of film, I’m jolly certain I’d try to get into your good graces. As Uncle Warpus’s favourite nephew, you’d be a valuable person to make friends with … Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”

  By this time they were all eagerly engrossed in the business, floundering as they tried to stand or sit in the creaking cabin, and each playing with theories. Warren, who had produced paper cups and was pouring out drinks, stopped. He handed a cup carefully to Peggy Glenn before he spoke. Then he said:

&
nbsp; “It’s a funny thing you should say that … ”

  “Well?”

  “Aside from yourselves, I know very few people aboard this tub. The weather’s been too bad, for one thing. But it’s funny.” He blew into a folding paper cup savagely to open it; then he looked up. “There were—let’s see—there were five people in the wireless-room at the time my cable came through, aside from the operator and myself. There was Captain Whistler, who was having some kind of whispered row with the operator; he walked out in a turkey-cock rage. There was a girl I hadn’t seen before. Wash out the captain and that girl, and there were three men. One of ’em I didn’t know; didn’t notice him at all … But the last two are the only other people I do know. One was that fellow Woodcock, the travelling salesman for the bug-powder firm; and the other was Dr. Kyle, who sits at our table.”

  There was a hoot of derision from Peggy Glenn at the mention of the latter name. Even Morgan, whose profession of necessity made him doubly suspicious of any respectable person, inclined to agree with her. They had both heard of Dr. Kyle. He was one of the more resounding names in Harley Street—a noted brain specialist who had figured as alienist in several murder trials. Morgan remembered him at the table—a tall, lean, rather sardonic Scot, slovenly except for his well-brushed hair, with shrewd eyes under ragged brows whisking upwards at the outer corner, and two deep furrows running down his cheeks. To imagine this distinguished loony-doctor in the role of Film-Flam strained even Morgan’s credulity. If he were given a choice in crooks, he would have preferred to fasten on the bouncing Mr. Charles Woodcock, commercial traveller for “Swat,” the instant eradicator of insects. But, distinctly, Dr. Kyle must be counted out.

  However, when he pointed out this difficulty to Warren, it seemed to make the American all the more certain Dr. Kyle was the culprit.

  “Absolutely!” said Warren excitedly. “It’s always people like that. Besides—suppose somebody’s impersonating him? There’s an idea for you! What better disguise would there be for an international crook than as the respectable head of a bughouse? Say, if we were to tax him with it—jump on him suddenly, you see—”