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

by John Dickson Carr

  Morgan scratched his ear.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we did. It was Peggy’s fault for insisting on our saving Uncle Jules’s bacon. She said if we didn’t she’d go straight to the captain and tell him everything. We pointed out that, whatever the explanations might have been, Uncle Jules really had left a brilliant trail of shoes in our wake; that Captain Whistler was not in the mood to smile indulgently when his fifty-guinea watch sailed overboard; and after all Uncle Jules was better off in the brig. We also pointed out that, just prior to his capture, he had been seen marching through the bar and placing a shoe in the hand of any person who took his fancy. Consequently, we said, it would not appear probable to the passengers that he could work his marionette show that night.”

  “And then?”

  Morgan shook his head gloomily.

  “Well, she wouldn’t hear of it. She said it was our fault that he’d done all of it. She pointed out that most of the passengers were in the concert-hall, applauding for the show to go on, and the person she was really afraid of was Perrigord. Perrigord had prepared an elaborate and powerful speech commemorating Uncle Jules’s genius, and had just begun it at the moment Uncle Jules was firing shoes overboard. Peggy said if a good performance didn’t go on, Perrigord would be made out such an ass that he’d never let up on Uncle Jules in the papers, and their success depended on him. The girl was loony and wouldn’t see reason. At last we promised her we’d do it if she’d consent to allow Uncle Jules to stay in the brig. It was the best way out for everybody, for they’ll forgive a drunk’s insanities when they’ll prosecute an honest mistake. Curt insisted on paying for the damage, which amounted, all in all, to close on two hundred pounds. And we felt it was time for peace to descend on the Queen Victoria … ”

  “Well?”

  “It didn’t,” said Morgan gloomily. “I begged and pleaded with Peggy. I told her some damned thing was bound to happen if we tried to work that show, and Perrigord would be more infuriated than though there’d been no performance. She couldn’t see it. She wouldn’t even see it when we had one brief rehearsal of the first scene. My portrayal of Charlemagne, I flatter myself, would have been eloquent and kingly, but Curt, in the role of Roland, got stage-struck at the rehearsal and insisted on dictating a long consular report in French about the facts and figures in the export of sardines from Lisbon. Captain Valvick at the piano would have been an error. It was not merely that he wanted to greet the entrance of the Frankish army with the strains of ‘La Madelon,’ but since somebody had informed him in general terms that Moors were ‘black men,’ then the crafty Sultan of the Moors would have made his entrance with ‘Old Man River.’ Next—”

  “Hold on!” said Dr. Fell, whose eyes were growing bright with tears again, and who had clapped a hand over his mouth as he trembled. “I don’t quite understand this. It should have been one of your high lights. Why are you so reluctant to talk about it? Out with it now! Was there, or wasn’t there a performance?”

  “Well—yes and again no,” replied Morgan, shifting uneasily. “It started, anyway. Oh, I’ll admit it saved our lives in a way, because the old dabble Parcæ were working for us now; but I’d rather not have had it saved in that way … Have you noticed that I’ve not seemed too cheerful today! Have you also noticed that I’m not accompanied by my wife? She was supposed to meet me at Southampton, but at the last minute I sent her a radiogram not to come, because I was afraid some of the passengers might—”

  Dr. Fell sat up.

  “If I’ve got to tell it,” said Morgan wryly, “I suppose I must. Fortunately, we got no farther than the first scene, wherein Charlemagne speaks the prologue. I was Charlemagne. Charlemagne wore long white whiskers; his venerable head was adorned with a gold crown studded with diamonds and rubies; a mantle of scarlet and ermine swathed his mighty shoulders; a jewelled broadsword was buckled about his waist, and under his chain mail his stomach was stuffed with four sofa-pillows to give him embonpoint. I was Charlemagne.

  “Charlemagne spoke the prologue behind an illuminated gauze screen, like a tall picture-frame, at the rear of the stage. Yes. And how. Mr. Leslie Perrigord had just concluded an impassioned speech lasting fifty-five minutes to the tick. Mr. Perrigord said that this performance was the goods. He said he hoped his hearers, with minds made torpid by the miasmatic sluggishness of Hollywood, would receive a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul. He said to watch closely, even though they would not fully appreciate its lights and shadings, its subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of line, its bold chords on the metaphysical yearning of man, not surpassed in the mightiest pages of Ibsen. He also said a number of complimentary things about the prowess of Charlemagne. I was Charlemagne.

  “When at length he ran out of breath, he stopped. There were three hollow knocks. Captain Valvick, despite all that could be done to stop him, played an overture consisting of ‘La Marseillaise.’ The curtain flew up a bit prematurely, I fear. Among eighty-odd others, Mr. Perrigord saw the gauze screen glowing luminous against darkness, and full of rich colour. He saw the venerable Charlemagne. He also saw his wife. The position was—er—full of subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of line. Yes. That was the moment at which the chain mail split and the sofa-pillows flew out as though they had been fired from a gun. I was Charlemagne … Now, maybe you understand why I do not care to incorporate it into the body of the story. I have no doubt that the audience received a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul.”

  Morgan took a deep drink of beer.

  Dr. Fell turned his face towards the window. Morgan observed that his shoulders were quivering as though with shock and outrage.

  “In any event, it saved us, and it saved Uncle Jules for ever. The roar of applause which went up pleased everybody except possibly Mr. Perrigord. Such an instantaneous success was never achieved in any theatre by a performance which lasted only long enough for somebody to drop the curtain. Uncle Jules’s marionette theatre in Soho will be crowded to the end of his days whether he’s drunk or sober. And rest solemnly assured that, whatever he happens to feel about it, Mr. Leslie Perrigord will never write in the newspapers a word to condemn him.”

  The declining sun drew lower across the carpet, resting on the brown-wrapped parcel in the middle of the table. After a time, Dr. Fell turned back.

  “So—” he observed, his face gradually becoming less red as quiet settled down—“so it all ends happily, eh? Except perhaps for Mr. Perrigord and—the Blind Barber.”

  He opened a penknife and weighed it in his hand.

  “Yes,” said Morgan. “Yes, except in one sense. After all, the fact remains that—whatever little game you’re playing—we still don’t know a blasted thing that’s important. We don’t know what happened on that ship, although, in spite of all the foolery, we know there was a murder. And a murder isn’t especially funny. Nor is, actually, the fact that Curt hasn’t recovered his film, and, however ridiculous that looks, to him and to others it’s as desperately serious a matter as any.”

  “Oh?” grunted Dr. Fell. “Well, well!” he said, deprecatingly, and winked one eye, “if that’s all you want … ”

  Suddenly he reached across the table and cut the strings of the parcel with his knife.

  “I thought—” he added, beaming, as his hand dived among the wrappings and lifted up a tangled coil of film like a genial Laocoon, “I thought it might be better to have it sent up here before the police rake over the Blind Barber’s effects and cause scandal by finding this. I’ll hand it over to young Warren when he arrives, so that he can destroy it immediately; although, in return for the favour, do you think he would consent to running it privately, just once, for my benefit? Heh-heh-heh! Hang it all, I think I can insist on that much reward, hey? Of course, it’s holding back evidence, in a way. But there’ll be enough to hang the Barber witho
ut it. It was my price for pointing out the culprit to Captain Whistler and handing him the credit of capturing a dangerous criminal. I felt the old sea-horse would comply … ”

  Tossing the rustling coil across on Morgan’s arm, Dr. Fell sat back and blinked. Morgan was on his feet, staring.

  “You mean, then, the man is under arrest already?”

  “Oh, yes. Caught neatly by the brilliant Captain Whistler—who will get a medal for this, and completing everybody’s happiness—an hour before the ship docked. Inspector Jennings, at my suggestion, went down from the Yard in a fast car and was ready to take the Barber in charge when he landed … ”

  “Ready to take who in charge?” he demanded.

  “Why, the impostor who calls himself Lord Sturton, of course!” said Dr. Fell.

  21

  The Murderer

  “I PERCEIVE ON YOUR face,” continued the doctor affably, as he lit his pipe, “a certain frog-like expression which would seem to indicate astonishment. H’m! puff, puff, haaaa! You should not be in the least astonished. Under the data given, as I have tabulated in my sixteen clues, there was only one person who could conceivably have been guilty. If I were wrong on my first eight—which, as I pointed out to you, were mere suggestions—then no harm could be done by testing my theory. The second eight confirmed it, and so I had no fear of the result. But, not to leap in too sylph-like a fashion at conclusions, I did this. Here is a copy of the telegram I dispatched to Captain Whistler.”

  He drew a scribbled envelope from his pocket, on which Morgan read:

  Man calling himself Viscount Sturton is impostor. Hold him under port authority and ask to speak to Hilda Keller, secretary travelling with him. He will not be able to produce her; she is dead. Make thorough search of Man’s cabin and person. You will find evidence to support you. Among possessions you will probably find film …

  (Here followed a description.)

  If you will send this to me special messenger travelling train arriving Waterloo 3:50, kindly say capture was your own idea. Release Fortinbras from brig. All regards.

  Gideon Fell.

  “What’s the use of special authority,” inquired Dr. Fell, “if you don’t use it. Besides, if I had been wrong, and the girl was not really missing, there wouldn’t have been an enormous row. But she was. You see, this bogus Sturton was able to conceal her presence or absence admirably so long as you never had any suspicions of him. Lad, at several places he was in devilish tight positions; but his very position, and the fact that he was the one who seemed to suffer most from the theft, kept him entirely immune from being suspected … Don’t choke, now; have some more beer. Shall I explain?”

  “By all means,” said Morgan feelingly.

  “Hand me back my list of clues, then. H’mfl I’ll see if I can have a modest shot at proving to you that—always supposing your data to be correct and complete—Lord Sturton was the only person aboard the Queen Victoria who could fill all the requirements for the Blind Barber.

  “We commence, then, on one assumption: one assumption on which the whole case must rest. This assumption is that there is an impostor aboard, masquerading as somebody else. Fix that fact firmly in mind before beginning; go even to the length of believing a police commissioner’s radiogram, and you will have at least a direction in which to start.”

  “Wait a bit!” protested Morgan. “We know that now, of course; and, since you were the only one who saw who it was, you ought to have the concession. But that radiogram accused Dr. Kyle, and therefore—”

  “No, it didn’t,” said Dr. Fell, gently. “That is precisely where your whole vision strained away into the mist. It went wrong on so small but understandable a matter as the fact that people don’t waste money by sending punctuation in radiograms, and you were misled by the absence of a couple of commas. With that error I shall deal in its proper place, under the head of The Clue of Terse Style … For the moment, we have only the conception of an impostor aboard. There is another point in connection with this, stated to you so flatly and frankly that I have not even bothered to include it as a clue. As in other cases of mine, I seem to remember, it was so big that nobody ever gave it a thought. At one sweep it narrowed the search for the Blind Barber from a hundred passengers to a very, very few people. The Police Commissioner of the City of New York—not unusually timorous or faint-hearted about making arrests, even if they happen to be wrong arrests—wires thus: ‘Well-known figure and must be no mistake made or trouble,’ and adds, ‘Will not be definite in case of trouble.’ Now, that is suggestive. It is even startling. The man, in other words, is so important that the Commissioner finds it advisable not to mention his name, even in a confidential communication to the commander of the ship. Not only does it exclude John Smith or James Jones or Charles Woodcock, but it leads us towards men of such wealth or influence that the public is (presumably) interested in newspaper photographs of them (or anybody else) playing golf. This coy reticence on the part of the New York authorities may also be due partly to the possibility that the eminent man is an Englishman, and that severe complications may ensue in case of an error. But I do not press the point, because it is reasoning before my clues.”

  He had clearly been listening absently for the doorbell; and now, as the doorbell rang, he nodded and lifted his head to bellow:

  “Let ’em in, Vida!”

  There was a tramping of footfalls up the steps. The door of Dr. Fell’s study opened to admit two large men with a prisoner between them. Morgan heard Dr. Fell say, “Ah, good afternoon, Jennings; and you, too, Hamper. Inspector Jennings, this is Mr. Morgan, one of our witnesses. Mr. Morgan, Sergeant Hamper. The prisoner, I think you know …”

  But Morgan was looking at the latter, who said, almost affably:

  “How do you do, Doctor? I—er—I see you’re looking at my appearance. No, there’s no deception and damned little disguise. Too tricky and difficult … Good afternoon, Mr. Morgan. I see you’re surprised at the change in my voice. It’s a relief to let down from the jerky manner; but I’d got so used to it it almost came natural. Rubbish rubbish rubbish!” squeaked the bogus Lord Sturton, with a sudden shift back to the manner he had previously used, and crowed with mirth.

  Morgan jumped a little when he heard that echo of the old manner. The bogus Lord Sturton was in sunlight now, where Morgan remembered him only in the gloom of a darkened cabin like a picture-book wizard: his head hunched into a shawl, his face shaded by a flopping hat. Now he was revealed as a pale, long-faced, sharp-featured man with a rather unpleasant grin. A checked comforter was wound round his scrawny throat, and his clothes were weird. But he wore a bowler hat pushed back on his head, and he was smoking a cigar. Yet, although the grotesquerie had been removed, Morgan liked his look even less. He had an eye literally like a rattlesnake’s. It measured Dr. Fell, swivelled round to the window, calculated, and became affable again.

  “Come in!” said Dr. Fell. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I’ve been wanting very much to make your acquaintance, if you’re willing to talk … ”

  “Prisoner’s pretty talkative, sir,” said Inspector Jennings, with a slow grin. “He’s been entertaining Sergeant Hamper and me all the way up on the train. I’ve got a note-book full and he admits—”

  “Why not?” inquired their captive, lifting his left hand to take the cigar out of his mouth. “Rubbish rubbish rubbish! Ha-ha!”

  “… But all the same, sir,” said Jennings, “I don’t think I’ll unlock the handcuff just yet. He says his name’s Nemo. Sit down, Nemo, if the doctor says so. I’ll be beside you.”

  Dr. Fell lumbered to the sideboard and got Nemo a drink of brandy. Nemo sat down.

  “Point’s this,” Nemo explained, in a natural voice which was not quite so shrill or jerky as the Lord Sturton impersonation, but nevertheless had enough echo of it to make Morgan remember the whole scene in the darkened ill-smelling cabin. “Point’s this. You think you’re going to hang me? You’re not. Rubbish!” His snaky neck sw
ivelled round, and his eye smiled on Morgan. “Haha, no, no! I’ve got to be extradited first. They’ll want me in the States. And between that time and this—I’ve got out of worse fixes.”

  Dr. Fell put the glass at his elbow, sat down opposite, and contemplated him. Mr. Nemo worked his head round and winked.

  “Point is, I’m giving this up because I’m a fatalist. Fatalist! Wouldn’t you be? Best set-up I ever had—meat—pie—easy; ho-ho, how easy? Wasn’t as though I had to be a disguise expert. I told you there was no deception. I’m a dead ringer for Sturton. Look so much like him I could stand him in front of me and shave by him. Joke. But I can’t beat marked cards. Sweat? I never had such a bad time in my life as when those God-damned kids—” again he twisted round and looked at Morgan, who was glad he had not a razor in his hands at that moment—“when those God-damned kids tangled it all up …”

  “I was about to tell my young friend,” said Dr. Fell, “at his own request, some of the points that indicated you were—yourself, Mr. Nemo …”

  The doctor was getting great if sleepy enjoyment as he sat back against the dying light from the window and studied the man. Mr. Nemo’s lidless eyes were returning the stare.

  “Be interested to hear it myself,” he said. “Anything to—delay things. Good cigar, good brandy. You listen, m’boy,” he said, leering at Jennings. “Give you some pointers. If there’s anything you don’t know—well, when you’ve finished I’ll tell you. Not before.”

  Jennings gestured to Sergeant Hamper, who got out his notebook.

  Dr. Fell settled himself to begin with relish:

  “Sixteen clues, then. Casting my eye over the evidence presented—you needn’t take all this down, Hamper; you won’t understand all of it—I came, after the obvious giveaway of the impostor being an important man … ”