Again he turned to the supine figure, staring. Suddenly his lean countenance grew blanker than usual. Still staring, he took the detective by the arm. ‘Dart,’ he said reflectively, ‘we smart people are often amazingly—dumb.’
‘You’re telling me?’
‘We waste precious moments in useless speculation. We indulge ourselves in the extravagance of reason when a frugal bit of observation would suffice.’
‘Does prescription liquor affect you like that, doc?’
‘Look at that face.’
‘Well—if you insist—’
‘Just the general appearance of that face—the eyes—the open mouth. What does it look like?’
‘Looks like he’s gasping for breath.’
‘Exactly. Dart, this man might—might, you understand—have been choked.’
‘Ch—’
‘Stunned by a blow over the ear—’
‘To prevent a struggle!’
‘—and choked to death. As simple as that.’
‘Choked! But just how?’
Eagerly, Dr Archer once more bent over the lifeless countenance. ‘There are two ways,’ he dissertated in his roundabout fashion, ‘of interrupting respiration.’ He was peering into the mouth. ‘What we shall call, for simplicity, the external and the internal. In this case the external would be rather indeterminate, since we could hardly make out the usual bluish discolourations on a neck of this complexion.’ He procured two tongue depressors and, one in each hand, examined as far back into the throat as he could. He stopped talking as some discovery further elevated his already high interest. He discarded one depressor, reached for his flashlight with the hand thus freed, and, still holding the first depressor in place, directed his light into the mouth as if he were examining tonsils. With a little grunt of discovery, he now discarded the flashlight also, took a pair of long steel thumb-forceps from a flap in the side of his bag, and inserted the instrument into the victim’s mouth alongside the guiding tongue-depressor. Dart and the uniformed officer watched silently as the doctor apparently tried to remove something from the throat of the corpse. Once, twice, the prongs snapped together, and he withdrew the instrument empty. But the next time the forceps caught hold of the physician’s discovery and drew it forth.
It was a large, blue-bordered, white handkerchief.
CHAPTER III
‘DOC,’ said Dart, ‘you don’t mind hanging around with us a while?’
‘Try and shake me loose,’ grinned Dr Archer. ‘This promises to be worth seeing.’
‘If you’d said no,’ Dart grinned back, ‘I’d have held you anyhow as a suspect. I’m going to need some of your brains. I’m not one of these bright ones that can do all the answers in my head. I’m just a poor boy trying to make a living, and this kind of a riddle hasn’t been popped often enough in my life to be easy yet. I’ve seen some funny ones, but this is funnier. One thing I can see—that this guy wasn’t put out by any beginner.’
‘The man that did this,’ agreed the physician, ‘thought about it first. I’ve seen autopsies that could have missed that handkerchief. It was pushed back almost out of sight.’
‘That makes you a smart boy.’
‘I admit it. Wonder whose handkerchief?’
‘Stick it in your bag and hang on to it. And let’s get going.’
‘Whither?’
‘To get acquainted with this layout first. Whoever’s here will keep a while. The bird that pulled the job is probably in Egypt by now.’
‘That wouldn’t be my guess.’
‘You think he’d hang around?’
‘He wouldn’t do the expected thing—not if he was bright enough to think up a gag like this.’
‘Gag is good. Let’s start with the roof. Brady, you come with me and the doc—and be ready for surprises. Where’s Day?’
The doctor closed and picked up his bag. They passed into the hallway. Officer Day was on guard in the front vestibule according to his orders.
‘There are four more men and the medical examiner coming,’ the detective told him. ‘The four will be right over. Put one on the rear of the house and send the others upstairs. Come on, doc.’
The three men ascended two flights of stairs to the top floor. The slim Dart led, the tall doctor followed, the stalwart Brady brought up the rear. Along the uppermost hallway they made their way to the front of the third story of the house, moving with purposeful resoluteness, yet with a sharp-eyed caution that anticipated almost any eventuality. The physician and the detective carried their flashlights, the policeman his revolver.
At the front end of the hallway they found a closed door. It was unlocked. Dart flung it open, to find the ceiling light on, probably left by Officer Johnson in obedience to instructions.
This room was a large bedchamber, reaching, except for the width of the hallway, across the breadth of the house. It was luxuriously appointed. The bed was a massive four-poster of mahogany, intricately carved and set off by a counterpane of gold satin. It occupied the mid-portion of a large black-and-yellow Chinese rug which covered almost the entire floor. Two upholstered chairs, done also in gold satin, flanked the bed, and a settee of similar design guarded its foot. An elaborate smoking stand sat beside the head of the bed. A mahogany chest and bureau, each as substantial as the four-poster, completed the furniture.
‘No question as to whose room this is,’ said Dart.
‘A man’s,’ diagnosed Archer. ‘A man of means and definite ideas, good or bad—but definite. Too bare to be a woman’s room—look—the walls are stark naked. There aren’t any frills’—he sniffed—‘and there isn’t any perfume.’
‘I guess you’ve been in enough women’s rooms to know.’
‘Men’s too. But this is odd. Notice anything conspicuous by its absence?’
‘I’ll bite.’
‘Photographs of women.’
The detective’s eyes swept the room in verification.
‘Woman hater?’
‘Maybe,’ said the doctor, ‘but—’
‘Wait a minute,’ said the detective. There was a clothes closet to the left of the entrance. He turned, opened its door, and played his flashlight upon its contents. An array of masculine attire extended in orderly suspension—several suits of various patterns hanging from individual racks. On the back of the open door hung a suit of black pyjamas. On the floor a half-dozen pairs of shoes were set in an orderly row. There was no suggestion of any feminine contact or influence; there was simply the atmosphere of an exceptionally well ordered, decided masculinity.
‘What do you think?’ asked Dr Archer.
‘Woman hater,’ repeated Dart conclusively.
‘Or a Lothario of the deepest dye.’
The detective looked at the doctor. ‘I get the deep dye—he was blacker’n me. But the Lothario—’
‘Isn’t it barely possible that this so very complete—er—repudiation of woman is too complete to be accidental? May it not be deliberate—a wary suppression of evidence—the recourse of a lover of great experience and wisdom, who lets not his right hand know whom his left embraceth?’
‘Not good—just careful?’
‘He couldn’t be married—actively. His wife’s influence would be—smelt. And if he isn’t married, this over-absence of the feminine—well—it means something.’
‘I still think it could mean woman-hating. This other guess-work of yours sounds all bass-ackwards to me.’
‘Heaven forfend, good friend, that you should lose faith in my judgment. Woman-hater you call him and woman-hater he is. Carry on.’
A narrow little room the width of the hallway occupied that extent of the front not taken up by the master bedroom. In this they found a single bed, a small table, and a chair, but nothing of apparent significance.
Along the hallway they now retraced their steps, trying each of three successive doors that led off from this passage. The first was an empty store-room, the second a white tiled bathroom, and the third a bar
e closet. These yielded no suggestion of the sort of character or circumstances with which they might be dealing. Nor did the smaller of the two rooms terminating the hallway at its back end, for this was merely a narrow kitchen, with a tiny range, a table, icebox, and cabinet. In these they found no inspiration.
But the larger of the two rear rooms was arresting enough. This was a study, fitted out in a fashion that would have warmed the heart and stirred the ambition of any student. There were two large brown-leather club chairs, each with its end table and reading lamp; a similarly upholstered divan in front of a fireplace that occupied the far wall, and over toward the windows at the rear, a flat-topped desk, upon which sat a bronze desk-lamp, and behind which sat a large swivel armchair. Those parts of the walls not taken up by the fireplace and windows were solid masses of books, being fitted from the floor to the level of a tall man’s head with crowded shelves.
Dr Archer was at once absorbed. ‘This man was no ordinary fakir,’ he observed. ‘Look.’ He pointed out several framed documents on the upper parts of the walls. ‘Here—’ He approached the largest and peered long upon it. Dart came near, looked at it once, and grinned:
‘Does it make sense, doc?’
‘Bachelor’s degree from Harvard. N’Gana Frimbo. N’Gana—’
‘Not West Indian?’
‘No. This sounds definitely African to me. Lots of them have that N’. The “Frimbo” suggests it, too—mumbo—jumbo—sambo—’
‘Limbo—’
‘Wonder why he chose an American college? Most of the chiefs’ sons’ll go to Oxford or bust. I know—this fellow is probably from Liberia or thereabouts. American influence—see?’
‘How’d he get into a racket like fortune telling?’
‘Ask me another. Probably a better racket than medicine in this community. A really clever chap could do wonders.’
The doctor was glancing along the rows of books. He noted such titles as Tankard’s Determinism and Fatalism, a Critical Contrast, Bostwick’s The Concept of Inevitability, Preem’s Cause and Effect, Dessault’s The Science of History, and Fairclough’s The Philosophical Basis of Destiny. He took this last from its place, opened to a flyleaf, and read in script, ‘N’Gana Frimbo’ and a date. Riffling the pages, he saw in the same script pencilled marginal notes at frequent intervals. At the end of the chapter entitled ‘Unit Stimulus and Reaction,’ the pencilled notation read: ‘Fairclough too has missed the great secret.’
‘This is queer.’
‘What?’
‘A native African, a Harvard graduate, a student of philosophy—and a sorcerer. There’s something wrong with that picture.’
‘Does it throw any light on who killed him?’
‘Anything that throws light on the man’s character might help.’
‘Well, let’s get going. I want to go through the rest of the house and get down to the real job. You worry about his character. I’ll worry about the character of the suspects.’
‘Right-o. Your move, professor.’
CHAPTER IV
MEANWHILE Jinx and Bubber, in Frimbo’s waiting-room on the second floor, were indulging in one of their characteristic arguments. This one had started with Bubber’s chivalrous endeavours to ease the disturbing situation for the two women, both of whom were bewildered and distraught and one of whom was young and pretty. Bubber had not only announced and described in detail just what he had seen, but, heedless of the fact that the younger woman had almost fainted, had proceeded to explain how he had known, long before it occurred, that he had been about to ‘see death.’ To dispel any remaining vestiges of tranquillity, he had added that the death of Frimbo was but one of three. Two more were at hand.
‘Soon as Jinx here called me,’ he said, ‘I knowed somebody’s time had come. I busted on in that room yonder with him—y’all seen me go—and sho’ ’nough, there was the man, limp as a rag and stiff as a board. Y’ see, the moon don’t lie. ’Cose most signs ain’t no ’count. As for me, you won’t find nobody black as me that’s less suprastitious.’
‘Jes’ say we won’t find nobody black as you and stop. That’ll be the truth,’ growled Jinx.
‘But a moonsign is different. Moonsign is the one sign you can take for sho’. Moonsign—’
‘Moonshine is what you took for sho’ tonight,’ Jinx said.
‘Red moon mean bloodshed, new moon over your right shoulder mean good luck, new moon over your left shoulder mean bad luck, and so on. Well, they’s one moonsign my grandmammy taught me befo’ I was knee high and that’s the worst sign of ’em all. And that’s the sign I seen tonight. I was walkin’ down the Avenue feelin’ fine and breathin’ the air—’
‘What do you breathe when you don’t feel so good?’
‘—smokin’ the gals over, watchin’ the cars roll by—feelin’ good, you know what I mean. And then all of a sudden I stopped. I store.’
‘You whiched?’
‘Store. I stopped and I store.’
‘What language you talkin’?’
‘I store at the sky. And as I stood there starin’, sump’m didn’t seem right. Then I seen what it was. Y’ see, they was a full moon in the sky—’
‘Funny place for a full moon, wasn’t it?’
‘—and as I store at it, they come up a cloud—wasn’t but one cloud in the whole sky—and that cloud come up and crossed over the face o’ the moon and blotted it out—jes’ like that.’
‘You sho’ ’twasn’t yo’ shadow?’
‘Well there was the black cloud in front o’ the moon and the white moonlight all around it and behind it. All of a sudden I seen what was wrong. That cloud had done took the shape of a human skull!’
‘Sweet Jesus!’ The older woman’s whisper betokened the proper awe. She was an elongated, incredibly thin creature, ill-favoured in countenance and apparel; her loose, limp, angular figure was grotesquely disposed over a stiff-backed arm-chair, and dark, nondescript clothing draped her too long limbs. Her squarish, fashionless hat was a little awry, her scrawny visage, already disquieted, was now inordinately startled, the eyes almost comically wide above the high cheek bones, the mouth closed tight over her teeth whose forward slant made the lips protrude as if they were puckering to whistle.
The younger woman, however, seemed not to hear. Those dark eyes surely could sparkle brightly, those small lips smile, that clear honey skin glow with animation; but just now the eyes stared unseeingly, the lips were a short, hard, straight line, the skin of her round pretty face almost colourless. She was obviously dazed by the suddenness of this unexpected tragedy. Unlike the other woman, however, she had not lost her poise, though it was costing her something to retain it. The trim, black, high-heeled shoes, the light sheer stockings, the black seal coat which fell open to reveal a white-bordered pimiento dress, even the small close-fitting black hat, all were quite as they should be. Only her isolating detachment betrayed the effect upon her of the presence of death and the law.
‘A human skull!’ repeated Bubber. ‘Yes, ma’am. Blottin’ out the moon. You know what that is?’
‘What?’ said the older woman.
‘That’s death on the moon. It’s a moonsign and it’s never been known to fail.’
‘And it means death?’
‘Worse ’n that, ma’am. It means three deaths. Whoever see death on the moon’—he paused, drew breath, and went on in an impressive lower tone—‘gonna see death three times!’
‘My soul and body!’ said the lady.
But Jinx saw fit to summon logic. ‘Mean you go’n’ see two more folks dead?’
‘Gonna stare ’em in the face.’
‘Then somebody ought to poke yo’ eyes out in self-defence.’
Having with characteristic singleness of purpose discharged his duty as a gentleman and done all within his power to set the ladies’ minds at rest, Bubber could now turn his attention to the due and proper quashing of his unappreciative commentator.
‘Whyn’t you try it?’ he
suggested.
‘Try what?’
‘Pokin’ my eyes out.’
‘Huh. If I thought that was the onliest way to keep from dyin’, you could get yo’self a tin cup and a cane tonight.’
‘Try it then.’
‘’Tain’t necessary. That moonshine you had’ll take care o’ everything. Jes’ give it another hour to work and you’ll be blind as a Baltimo’ alley.’
‘Trouble with you,’ said Bubber, ‘is, you’ ignorant. You’ dumb. The inside o’ yo’ head is all black.’
‘Like the outside o’ yourn.’
‘Is you by any chance alludin’ to me?’
‘I ain’t alludin’ to that policeman over yonder.’
‘Lucky for you he is over yonder, else you wouldn’t be alludin’ at all.’
‘Now you gettin’ bad, ain’t you? Jus’ ’cause you know you got the advantage over me.’
‘What advantage?’
‘How could I hit you when I can’t even see you?’
‘Well if I was ugly as you is, I wouldn’t want nobody to see me.’
‘Don’t worry, son. Nobody’ll ever know how ugly you is. Yo’ ugliness is shrouded in mystery.’
‘Well yo’ dumbness ain’t. It’s right there for all the world to see. You ought to be back in Africa with the other dumb boogies.’
‘African boogies ain’t dumb,’ explained Jinx. ‘They’ jes’ dark. You ain’t been away from there long, is you?’
‘My folks,’ returned Bubber crushingly, ‘left Africa ten generations ago.’
‘Yo’ folks? Shuh. Ten generations ago, you-all wasn’t folks. You-all hadn’t qualified as apes.’
Thus as always, their exchange of compliments flowed toward the level of family history, among other Harlemites a dangerous explosive which a single word might strike into instantaneous violence. It was only because the hostility of these two was actually an elaborate masquerade, whereunder they concealed the most genuine affection for each other, that they could come so close to blows that were never offered.
Yet to the observer this mock antagonism would have appeared alarmingly real. Bubber’s squat figure sidled belligerently up to the long and lanky Jinx; solid as a fire-plug he stood, set to grapple; and he said with unusual distinctness:
The Conjure-Man Dies Page 3