by Sax Rohmer
“This thorn—a briar thorn, I think—neatly attached to a wooden peg. It was inserted in a hole bored between the sole and the upper leather of de Maura's right shoe, so that his toe would come in contact with the point. In fact, this occurred according to plan, and he removed the shoes to learn the cause of the trouble. His finger also was pricked by the thorn. Now, the case rests like this: There is a black substance on the thorn; and I suggest that no one in this neighborhood—except your husband and yourself—knows, or knew, (a) Gabriel Varez; (b) Major de Maura; and (c) where to obtain this substance—which is curare. Furthermore, no one else, other than Stickle, has a key to Stickle's cottage. No, Mrs. Allardyce, I did not receive your telephone message, but I believe that it was you who sent it, and I suggest hat it was someone in this house who lured Stickle out on Thursday night. I have only one question to ask: Why was it done?”
there was an interval during which amber eyes searched his own, an interval which the bimbashi knew must decide the swing of the pendulum. Then Mrs. Allardyce pointed to the armchair and returned to her place on the settee.
“You are a clever man, Major Baruk,” she said, speaking with perfect composure. “I salute you. Since you have found the shoe it would be useless on my part to refuse your offer. Scotland Yard would meet with no difficulty in tracing my former relations with Rafael de Maura and the identity of Gabriel Varez. So I will tell you the story, and you may do as you please. Shall we smoke?”
She offered a cigarette from a box beside her and took one herself. Bimbashi Baruk took one also and lighted both. He sat down again.
“Am I to suppose from your words, Major Baruk, that you believe my husband to be concerned?”
“Not necessarily. I await your story with an open mind. You spoke of your former relations with Rafael de Maura. Suppose we begin there?”
Mrs. Allardyce nodded quietly; her expression grew introspective.
“Rafael de Maura was a member of a well-known family which owned large estates in Santa Fe. They adjoined our own. Rafael was handsome, fascinating, and an experienced woman-hunter, although I did not know it at the time. I was nineteen. But deceived by all sorts of solemn promises, or perhaps because I was blindly infatuated, I consented to his proposals—only to discover that he had a devoted wife living in Buenos Aires. Even this might have failed to cure me completely, if I had not met Gabriel Varez. Gabriel was the son of a neighboring doctor and we were both studying medicine. I learned then that what I had mistaken for love was no more than an outburst of adolescent passion. Gabriel taught me this.”
Her eyes glowed as if a somber fire burned in the brain behind them; and the bimbashi wondered by means of what arts the dour Scottish scientist had won the affection of this beautiful, turbulent woman.
“To come to the point of my story. Rafael found Gabriel and myself together. There was an unpleasant scene. Later, there was worse, when I told him quite plainly that Gabriel knew everything about us and that Gabriel and I were to be married. Now, you must understand that Rafael's ardor had by no means cooled. He was not yet tired of me; nor would his vanity permit him to believe that I was tired of him. He made threats which would have shown me—supposing I had not known it already—that I had been infatuated by as callous a ruffian as ever breathed. All the same, the next two months were among the happiest of my life. Then came the end. If you will excuse me for a moment, I will show you in what form it came.”
Mrs. Allardyce stood up and went out. A swift doubt leaped to the bimbashi's mind, to be dismissed as swiftly. Indeed, she was not absent more than two minutes, and when she returned and resumed her place on the settee, she handed him a faded note. He glanced at it and shook his head; it was in Spanish.
“I will translate for you, Major. It says, 'Please tell Gabriel Varez that I am with him in spirit. Rafael.' Gabriel was dying when it came—I nursed him throughout. Andthis was the cause of his death.”
From a wooden box she took a thorn fixed to a round wooden plug and held it up for the bimbashi's inspection.
“Anopuntia thorn—prickly pear—coated with curare. The de Mauras employed an old colored servant, Hannibal, who was widely credited with being an Obeah man—and such people understand the use of secret poisons. He was utterly devoted to Rafael. I knew from experience that Hannibal could smuggle messages with incredible cunning; he seemed almost to be able to make himself invisible. Gabriel one evening walked over to see me, and had scarcely set his foot on the veranda when he collapsed. I had him undressed and put to bed. I was terrified. His symptoms were those of paralysis. I sent for the nearest doctor—his father—and almost lost my reason because he was so long in coming. When he arrived, it was already too late. Gabriel's mind was clear, but he had lost the power of speech—” Her composure, which had earned the bimbashi's respectful admiration, threatened to break down, but she conquered this weakness and went on. “Late that night, Hannibal came with a message, from Rafael de Maura. It was this, which you have seen. He left the room before I had read it, but I ran after him. What is more, I caught him—stealing out of the back porch with the shoes which Gabriel had worn! In one of them I found this thorn.” She replaced it in the box.
“Now, I am sure you understand that I belong to a hot-blooded race—I was Mariana Borrego. I swore a most solemn—as I realized later, a most dreadful—oath, beside Gabriel's bed, that I would repay.” She shrugged her shoulders and lighted a second cigarette from the stub of the first. “The de Mauras had met with misfortune. Indeed, we all had. Rafael fled to Spain so soon after Gabriel's death that I had no time to act. I went to Buenos Aires and later took my degree there. It was during my first year that I met my husband. He came as a visiting lecturer from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Ah, Major Baruk, England seldom knows her greatest men. Beginning as an almost religious respect for a wonderful intellect, my affection for Julian grew into a love that nothing in life can ever change—perhaps nothing afterwards. If Gabriel had lived it would not have been possible, but, Gabriel dead, I found in Julian all that I had lost—indeed, more. He does not work for profit, nor to aid destruction. He works for human good. He has no vanity. He seeks no honors. You saw his name on our plate: Julian Allardyce, F.R.C.P. He holds five other degrees. He might have been wealthy, titled, if he wished. He does not so wish—nor do I.”
She paused, and the bimbashi noted that her eyes glowed in a new way. He found occasion to reproach himself for his bad habit of jumping to conclusions. This was not the story as he had reconstructed it.
“We returned to England, and I set up in practice. I was fairly successful. Then, one day— nearly two months ago—I saw Rafael de Maura, and I remembered my”—she hesitated—“solemn obligation; but I made up my mind not to tell Julian, as I knew how it would disturb him. I saw Rafael going into the shop of an old patient, Jeremiah Stickle, and I could not refuse to believe that I had been chosen as an instrument of justice. My husband is working on a new treatment for tetanus: it is based on curare. And I remembered that I had a key of Stickle's door! All that remained was to get ready and to await another visit of Rafael to the shoemaker. I prepared a briar thorn, coating it with curare from Julian's laboratory and then fixing a bead of gum on the point, as had been done in Gabriel's case, so that the scratch would not take place until the heat of the foot dissolved the gum. This, a brad awl and a tube of seccotine were all that was necessary.
“I made it my business to call often on Stickle when passing—for I should have known Rafael's shoes at a glance because of their small size and high heels. My opportunity came a month ago—”
“A month ago?”
“Yes, my first opportunity. I discovered that a pair of Rafael de Maura's shoes would be finished on a certain Wednesday evening—and I gave Stickle a seat for the local cinema. He blankly refused to go. I am afraid I got really angry. But the attempt had to be given up. He declared that nothing would induce him to leave the house at night. I thought over the problem for a week or more before a possible so
lution came to me: Stickle's professional vanity and his love of money.
“In the meantime I found out all I could about Rafael de Maura. He saw me once, but owing to my 'disguise,' I suppose, failed to recognize me. I discovered the name of the poor little soul who was risking her happiness to amuse him. Beyond saying that she is the wife of a young officer commanding a submarine in the Mediterranean, I must be silent. Many women would condemn her—but few who had had the misfortune to be hunted by Rafael de Maura.
“Yes”—her brilliant eyes challenged the bimbashi's—“I know you thought at one time that I was his secret visitor. Well—my second opportunity came, and I put that absurd advertisement in theCounty Mirror. I typed it on a sheet of plain paper and enclosed a ten-shilling note. It succeeded. While Stickle was out on Thursday night, I opened his door and made a fairly neat job of what I had come to do.”
“Those shoes,” murmured the bimbashi, and shook his head reproachfully. “Had you given due reflection to their history after they had served your purpose? My dear Mrs. Allardyce, you might now be responsible for a score of deaths!”
“Good heavens!” She bit her full, red lower lip, and he was sincerely glad to see a shadow of horror cloud those remarkable eyes. “To have overlookedthat!”
He shook his head again. This woman's emotional reactions were too tropical for analysis.
“But the telephone message?”
“It was purely by accident that I learned on Friday night how well I had succeeded. I was called out to a case in the same street and was told about the ambulance calling at Mrs. Saunders'. This tempted me to send the message from a public call-box, spoken in carefully bad English, which, I suppose, completed the case against me. So now you know how Rafael de Maura died, and why.”
“On the contrary, Marian,” came a light, vibrant voice, “you have grossly misled the major!”
Bimbashi Baruk sprang up and turned, all in one movement. Julian Allardyce stood in a doorway directly behind him. His expression was puzzling, for he was looking at his wife, and there was something like a smile about his lips and in his steadfast eyes.
“Julian!” she whispered—and that was all.
“Major Baruk, I fear I have been eavesdropping. I beg your pardon. I happened, not by design, to see my wife take from her bureau certain —relics. I thought it to be my duty to do what I have done. The story which you have heard, of the death of Gabriel Varez, is true in every particular. I have, myself, examined the substance on the thorn which killed him. It is curare. But that upon the briar which you have isnot.”
“Julian!”—his wife's voice was husky—“what are you saying?”
“I am endeavoring to correct any misapprehension under which Major Baruk may be laboring. Allow me to make my meaning clear, Major. When Rafael de Maura first appeared in this district, some two months ago, I chanced to hear of his arrival. I may say that I had never met him, but I knew the whole story. I knew also that one of Marian's family might well hold views regarding the sanctity of an oath made to a dying man which others would look upon more tolerantly. I feared the outcome of a meeting.”
He crossed to his wife, with that light, lithe step which characterized his movements, and stood beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder.
“Nevertheless, Marian, I knew from your behavior that you had seen him—and those fears of mine were shown to be justified. Your earliest experiments with briar thorns and small spigots of soft wood did not escape my attention.”
He fixed his analytical gaze upon the bimbashi. “You may possibly inquire, sir, why I hesitated to put an end to these preparations for murder. I will answer you in this way: By the common laws of men, de Maura's life was forfeit; by the private laws of the Borregos, of whom my wife is one, it was forfeit to her. But I hoped and believed that if the attempt should be made, and fail, she would consider her duty—for as a sacred duty she regarded it—to be done. I knew, also, that de Maura was soon to be posted elsewhere.”
Julian Allardyce sat down beside his wife; and the bimbashi reflected that a wise man is uncertain of everything, because he believes nothing to be impossible.
“Forgive my discourtesy, Major. Please be seated. I cannot know if Marian has told you—I overheard only part of your conversation—but I am engaged upon experiments with a new antidote for tetanus, a condition which accounts for so many casualties in war. I am employing, not without success, one based upon curarine. It follows that I have a stock of curare in my laboratory. It is somewhat difficult to come by in England, and I keep what I have in a special container. However, detecting my wife's purpose, I transferred it to another and placed a harmless preparation of similar appearance in the original flask—”
“But, Julian”—Marian Allardyce's voice remained husky—“how could it have been harmless, when—”
“When de Maura died?” He patted her shoulder. “You planned your murder perfectly. Do not reproach yourself.” Unmistakably, now, Julian Allardyce was smiling. “You see, he did not die of curare poisoning; he died of tetanus.”
“If I may interrupt for a moment,” said the bimbashi diffidently, “I have seen the scratch on his foot as well as that on his finger.”
“No doubt, sir. I have conceded the point that this attempt was well planned. But there are laws higher than those of Spanish retributive justice. De Maura some days before had sustained a cut on his left calf from partly buried barbed wire. No doubt you have seen this scar also?” The bimbashi inclined his head. “He called upon a local practitioner, who noted unsatisfactory conditions and who also chanced to be acquainted with me and my special studies. Dr. Weldon and his patient came to consult me a few days ago—”
“You mean”—Mrs. Allardyce spoke in a low tone—“that Rafael de Maura camehere?”
“Certainly. I made the appointment for a time when I knew you would be away from home, and de Maura had no reason to suspect the identity of my wife. Perhaps I need not stress the point, Major Baruk, but prognosis in such cases is extremely difficult. Tetanus sometimes supervenes as late as ten days after infection. Even I am not infallible. Indeed, I am weakly human. In my second year at Edinburgh I was regarded as at least the equal of any middleweight in Great Britain, and I remain physically fit. I will not deny that the temptation to thrash de Maura to within an inch of his life was strong upon me. He would have defended himself, for cowardice was not among his vices; but man for man I stood in a different class, and I conquered the impulse. I examined the wound and gave the best advice in my power. Finally, I should be glad if you would arrange to have the substance upon the thorn examined by a competent person, other than myself. I naturally regret this exposure of intimate domestic matters, but I have complete confidence in your discretion. I do not pretend to apologize for my wife.”
He put his arm about her shoulders. “Circumstances, and the heritage of Borrego blood, explain her slightly irregular behavior. If I can assist you in any other way, at any time, pray call upon me, Major Baruk. I shall be at your service.”
4. The Laughing Buddha Finds a Purchaser
BUT THE REAL purpose of Bimbashi Baruk's presence in Lychgate was in no way concerned with the lives of Julian Allardyce and his beautiful wife. It was concerned with a deadly secret menace for a time believed to overhang the Allied nations —a thing so frightful that it might not be contemplated without horror: and it was this which led to the curious behavior of Mr. Martin Brown and to the following events.
Before a small shop window in Lychgate High Street a man stood looking in. He was a well-built man wearing an expensive but rather shabby tweed suit: his dark skin, cleanly chiseled features, and drooping eyelids made for good looks, but good looks of a vaguely Oriental sort. The sign over the shop said: “Brown, Madder & Co., Artists' Requisites.” Bright sunshine flooded the street, although already there was a wintry nip in the air.
The ancient bow window, partly of bottle glass, had lately contained a few paintings of Egyptian scenes and two or three wa
ter colors of Lychgate Heath by the well-known illustrator, Martin Brown, together with boxes of paints, brushes and an unusual pot or so. These, however, were now removed, and the sole exhibit consisted of a wooden figure, some eight inches high, obese but joyous, arms upflung, possibly of Chinese workmanship. A girdle about its pendulous belly was crudely gilded and some of the gilt had worn off. The right hand of this figure seemed to have been damaged and rather carelessly restored. A card resting against its pedestal announced:
LAUGHING BUDDHA
A Bargain.
Price £100
When the inquirer who stood outside turned and glanced to right and left along the High Street, he was smiling, and one saw that his eyes were of the same color as the cloudless sky above Lychgate. He opened the shop door, so that a bell jangled, and went in. He carried a drawing under his arm. From behind a painted screen which masked an inner door, a man appeared—a tall but stooping figure in careless gray flannels, wearing a silver Vandyke beard and mustache and a wide-brimmed Stetson, a man of distinctive personality; in fact, Martin Brown. English illustrators had fallen on hard times, and Brown was no longer young. “Brown, Madder & Co.” was his final bid to cheat bankruptcy.
“Hullo, B.B.,” he rumbled; he had a voice which suggested casks being rolled along a wine cellar. “Glad to see you.”
“Any bids?”
Martin Brown shook his head. “Don't expect any.”
He fixed a glance of mock severity upon his visitor. During a year spent painting in Egypt, Martin Brown had met Mohammed Ibrahim Brian Baruk of the Camel Corps and had become his friend for life. This fascinating product of an Anglo-Arab marriage had made a strong appeal to the painter, and Bimbashi Baruk and he had gone on a number of expeditions into the desert, once as far as Siwa; for the bimbashi aspired to paint. But, alas, not even Martin Brown's untiring tuition had enabled him to do more than daub. Bimbashi Baruk unwrapped the water color which he carried and propped it up on a chair. One psychically gifted might have divined that it was meant to portray the windmill on Lychgate Heath, presumably during a thunderstorm.