Quickly, ere Dart could speak, Martha Crouch stepped forward in wide-eyed wonder.
‘Frimbo—you’re—alive …?’
‘Yes, I am alive,’ said the deep clear voice of the man in the chair. Something just less than a smile touched the handsome dark face.
‘But they said—they said you were dead—’
‘They were correct,’ affirmed Frimbo, without emotion.
CHAPTER XVI
EVERYONE in the room perceptibly shrank. So terrible a thing, so calmly said, at once impelled them to flight and held them captive.
‘My Gawd!’ breathed Aramintha Snead. ‘The man done come back!’ And she with the others drew away staring and terrified. For a moment it seemed they would have fled, had the air not been turned to jelly, holding them fast. ‘He done done a Lazarus!’ Bubber Brown whispered.
But Perry Dart’s amazement gave way to exasperation. He stepped forward. ‘Say, what is all this, anyway? Who the devil are you?’
There was something extraordinarily disconcerting in the unwavering deep-set black eyes of the man in the chair. Even the redoubtable Dart must have felt the penetrating, yet impenetrable calmness and vitality of that undisturbed gaze as it switched to meet his own.
‘I am Frimbo. You heard this lady?’
‘Oh, yea? Then who was killed?’
‘I was.’
‘You were, were you? I suppose you’ve risen from the dead?’
‘It is not the first time I have outwitted death, my friend.’
‘Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you are the man I saw lying dead on that couch downstairs?’
‘I am the man. And if you will be patient, I will try to explain the matter to your satisfaction.’
‘But how did you—what did you do? Where did you go? What’s the idea dousing the lights? What do you think we are, anyway?’
‘I think you are a man of intelligence, who will appreciate that cooperation achieves more than antagonism. I trust I am correct?’
‘Go ahead—talk,’ said Dart gruffly.
‘Thank you. I hope you will understand. The facts are these: At the time I was attacked—I am uncertain myself of the precise moment, for time is of little importance to me personally—I was in a state of what you would probably call suspended animation. More exactly, I was wholly immune to activities of the immediate present, for I had projected my mind into the future—that gentleman’s future—Mr Jenkins’. During that period I was assaulted—murderously. Physically, I was murdered. Mentally I could not be, because mentally I was elsewhere. Do you see?’
‘I never heard of such thing,’ said Dart, but he spoke uncertainly, for nothing could have been more impressive than this cool, deliberate deep voice, stating a mystic paradox in terms of level reason.
‘Your profession, Mr Dart,’ returned Frimbo, ‘should embrace an understanding of such matters. They do occur, I assure you, but at the moment I must not take the time to convince you personally. I can, if necessary. Now, since my apparently lifeless body, which you and Dr Archer abandoned downstairs, was not seriously damaged in any vital particular, the return of consciousness, which is to say, the return of present mental activity, was naturally accompanied by a return of physical activity also. In short, I came to. I realized what must have happened. Naturally, I decided to assist your further efforts.
‘But I have certain aversions, Mr Dart. One is to be impeded physically, particularly by such worthy but annoying persons as gigantic minions of the law. I therefore desired to return to this room, where you were, without being obstructed by your deputies. It was not difficult to reach my laboratory without being detected, but the hallway there could not be so easily negotiated. And so I adopted the simple, if theatrical, device of completing my journey under cover of darkness. It was much simpler and pleasanter for me, you see.’
For the first time tonight Dart was uncertain of procedure. Nothing in his training, thorough as it had been, covered this situation where, with a murder on the verge of solution and the definitely incriminated assailant in handcuffs, the victim walked in, sat down, and pronounced himself thoroughly alive. It swept the very foundation out from under the structure which his careful reasoning had erected and rendered it all utterly and absurdly useless. So, for the present at least, it seemed.
But Frimbo continued with a statement altogether startling in its implications:
‘The fact remains, of course, that a murder was committed. I live, but someone killed me. Someone is guilty.’ The voice took on a new hardness. ‘Someone must pay the penalty.’
Something in that suggestion brought method back into Dart’s mind. ‘Where were you when we were searching the house just now?’ said he.
‘Obviously, we simply were not in the same place at the same time. That is nothing extraordinary.’
‘How do I know it was you who was killed?’
‘You saw me, did you not? My identity is easy to establish. Mrs Crouch knows me, as she has indicated, by sight. The other visitors may not have been able to see me well, but they will perhaps recognize my voice.’
‘Sho’ is the same voice,’ vowed Jinx, unaware that he was testifying against himself.
‘Are you sure of that?’ Dart asked.
‘Sho’ is,’ repeated Jinx, and the others murmured assent.
‘Well,’ Dart turned to the doctor, ‘at least it wasn’t the servant doing the talking.’
But Dr Archer now spoke. ‘I beg your pardon, Dart, but may I point out that it is of no consequence whether this gentleman is Frimbo or not. The only question of importance is whether he is the man whom we saw downstairs.’
Thereupon Frimbo said, ‘Dr Archer, who pronounced me dead, will naturally be most reluctant to identify me with the corpse, since the implication would be that he had been mistaken in his original pronouncement. Thereupon I must insist that he examine me now.’
The physician was slightly surprised. ‘I should think you would prefer someone less prejudiced,’ he said.
‘On the contrary. If you identify me with the man you yourself pronounced dead, there can be no further question. You are the only person who would be reluctant to do so. You will allow only the most reliable evidence to overcome that reluctance.’
Dr Archer stared for a moment from behind his spectacles into the serene dark face of this astonishing fellow, sensing for the first time perhaps how his own irrepressible curiosity was to lead him shortly into an investigation of the most extraordinary personality he had ever confronted.
Then he went over to the seated figure. ‘Will you please remove your head-band? The wound would hardly be healed so soon.’
‘You will find the wound unhealed,’ said Frimbo, complying. The silken headdress removed, there appeared a small white dressing affixed by adhesive, over the right temple. ‘Look beneath the dressing,’ suggested the African.
Dr Archer appreciated the ever so faintly malicious little irony, for he answered gravely:
‘I shall look even further than that.’
He detached the dressing, removed it, and examined a short scalp wound thus disclosed, a wound apparently identical with the one he had probed over an hour ago.
‘I delayed a moment to dress it, of course,’ said Frimbo.
The physician inspected carefully every peculiarity of feature that might answer the question. To the lay eye, certainly there was nothing in this strikingly vivid countenance to recall that other death-distorted visage. But violent death—or even near death—often performs strange transfigurations. Dr Archer eventually stood erect.
‘As nearly as I can determine,’ he said, ‘this is the same man. I should request him to submit to a further test, however, before I commit myself finally—a test which will require some little time.’
‘Whatever the doctor wishes,’ agreed Frimbo.
‘I have in my bag a small amount of blood on a dressing with which I swabbed the wound before probing it. There are one or two tests which can be used as
convincing evidence, provided I may have a sample of your blood now for comparison.’
‘An excellent idea, doctor. Here’—Frimbo drew back the wide sleeve of his black satin robe, baring a well-formed forearm—‘help yourself.’
The physician promptly secured a tourniquet just above the elbow, moistened a sponge with alcohol, swabbed a small area, where large superficial veins stood out prominently, carefully removed a needle from its sterile tube container, deftly inserted it into a vein, caught a few drops of blood in the tube, loosed the tourniquet, withdrew the needle, and pressed firmly a moment with his swab on the point of puncture.
‘Thank you,’ he said, the operation over.
‘How long will this take you, doc?’ Dart asked.
‘At least an hour. Perhaps two. I’ll have to go back to my office to do it.’
‘You will do the usual agglutination tests, of course?’ Frimbo inquired.
‘Yes,’ said Dr Archer, unable to veil his astonishment that this apparent charlatan should even know there were such tests. ‘You are familiar with them?’
‘Perfectly. I am somewhat of a biologist, you see. Psychology is really a branch of biology.’
‘You subscribe to the Spencerian classification?’ Dr Archer said.
It was Frimbo’s turn to express surprise, which appeared in the slight lift of his lids.
‘In that particular, yes.’
‘I should like to discuss the subject with you.’
‘I should be very glad indeed. I have met no one competent to do so for years. Today is Sunday. Why not later today?’
‘At what hour?’
‘Seven this evening?’
‘Splendid.’
‘I shall look forward to seeing you.’
At this point, a surreptitious remark from Bubber, who had been unwontedly silent, drew attention back to the matter in hand.
‘He sho’ can talk—for a dead man, can’t he?’
‘Listen, Frimbo,’ said Dart. ‘You say you were killed. All right. Who killed you?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘I have tried to explain, Mr Dart, that I was in a mental state equivalent to being absent. My entire mind was elsewhere—contemplating that gentleman’s future. I can no more answer your question than if I had been sound asleep.’
‘Oh, I see. Would it be asking too much of this strange power of yours if I suggested that you use it to determine the identity of your assailant?’
‘I’m glad you suggested it, even ironically. I was reluctant to interfere with your methods. You already have what you believe to be damning evidence against Jenkins. You may be right. But you still have to make sure of the items of motive and possible complicity. Is that not true?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since I am the victim and thus the most personally interested party, I suggest that you allow me to solve this matter for you.’
‘How?’
‘By the use of what you sarcastically call my strange power. If you will have all the suspects here on Monday night at eleven, I will provide you with the complete story of what took place here tonight and why.’
‘What are you going to do—reconstruct the crime?’
‘In a sense, yes.’
‘Why can’t you do that now? All the suspects are here. Here’s Jenkins. His finger print on the club that inflicted that wound can’t mean but one thing—he handled that club. Why don’t you just read his mind and find out what made him do it?’
‘It’s not so simple as that, my friend. Such a thing requires preparation. Tonight there is not time. And I am tired. But see, I am not suggesting that you neglect doing any single thing that you would have done anyway. Proceed as if I had not returned—I insist that my being alive does not alter the fundamental criminal aspect of this case—proceed, hold whom you will, determine such facts as you can by every means at your disposal, establish your case—then accept my suggestion, if you care to, simply as a corroboration of what you have concluded. Consider what I shall show you on Monday night as just a check on what you already know.’
Dart was impressed by the turn of the suggestion. ‘I suppose,’ he mused, ‘I could change the charge to felonious assault—’
Frimbo said, ‘You are working on a common fallacy, my friend. You are making the common assumption that any creature who is alive cannot have been dead. This is pure assumption. If a body which has presented all the aspects of death, resumes the functions of life, we explain the whole thing away merely by saying, “He was not dead.” We thus repudiate all our own criteria of death, you see. I cannot think in this self-contradictory fashion. Physically, I was dead by all the standards accepted throughout the years as evidence of death. I was so pronounced by this physician, who has already shown himself to be unusually competent. Had I been anyone else on earth, I should still be dead. But because I have developed special abilities and can separate my mental from my physical activities, the circumstances were such that I could resume the aspects of life. Why must you, on that account, assume that the death was any less actual than the life? Why must you change the charge from murder, which it unquestionably was, to assault, which is only part of the story? Must I pay a premium for special abilities? Must I continually re-expose myself to a criminal who has already carried out his purpose? He has killed—let him die also. If he is able, as I was, to resume life afterwards, I am sure I shall have no objection.’
Dart shook his head. ‘No living person could convince a judge or a jury, that he’d been really murdered. Even if I believed your argument, which I don’t, I couldn’t arrest this man for murder. A conviction of murder requires the production of a corpse—or tangible evidence of a corpse. I can’t present you as a corpse. I’d be the joke of the force.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ Frimbo conceded. ‘I had not considered the—force.’
‘Still,’ Dr Archer injected, ‘Mr Frimbo’s suggestion can do no harm. All he says is proceed as if he had not returned. That’s what you’d have done anyway. Then, if you like, he will produce additional evidence—Monday night. Personally, I’d like to see it.’
‘So would I,’ Dart admitted. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. My only point is that if this is the same man, it’s no longer murder.’
‘There’s still plenty to be answered, though,’ the doctor reminded him. ‘Jenkins’ stout denial in the face of the strongest evidence, the probability of complicity, the motive—’
‘And,’ popped unexpectedly from Bubber, ‘where that flunky disappeared to, all of a sudden.’
Frimbo apparently rarely smiled, but now his awesome dark face relaxed a little. ‘That need not worry you. My assistant has been with me a long time. He is like a brother. He lives here. He could not possibly be guilty of this crime.’
‘Then,’ inquired Bubber, ‘how come he hauled hips so fast?’
‘He is free to leave at eleven every night. It is our understanding and our custom. At that hour tonight, he no doubt took his departure as usual.’
‘Departure for where—if he lives here?’ asked Dart.
‘Even servants are entitled to their hour or two of relaxation. He takes his at that time. You need have no doubts about him. Even if I found him guilty, I should not press charges. And I assure you he will be present Monday night.’
Later, Detective Dart conveyed to Dr Archer the considerations which had influenced his decision. First, it had been his experience that in Harlem the most effective method of crime detection was to give your man enough rope with which to hang himself. If Jenkins’ denial was true, in whole or part, careful observation of the behaviour of the other suspects would reveal something incriminating. Believing himself free and unwatched, the actual criminal—or accomplice—would soon betray himself. The forty-eight hour interval would reveal much about all the suspects. Secondly, if any suspect demurred on the matter of returning or actually failed to return on Monday night, that fact, together with whatev
er was discovered meanwhile by trailers, would carry its own weight. In short, it was Dart’s persuasion that in Harlem one learned most by seeking least—to force an issue was to seal it in silence forever.
And therefore, he now complied with the suggestion that the company be reassembled here on Monday night.
‘Very well. I agree. Jenkins and Hicks will be returned under guard. Do any of you other ladies and gentlemen feel that you will be unable to be present?’
No one demurred.
‘It is understood, then, that you will be present here at eleven P.M. on Monday. That is all. You are free to go.’
The visitors departed, each in his own manner: Jinx, shackled to Officer Green, glowered unforgivingly at Bubber, who for once did not indulge in an opportunity to mock. Doty Hicks glared helplessly at the superbly calm figure of the man whose death he had admittedly sought and failed to effect. Martha Crouch seemed about to stop and speak to Frimbo, but simply smiled and said, ‘Good-night.’ Easley Jones and Aramintha Snead made their way out almost stumblingly, so unable were they to remove their fascinated stares from the man who had died and now lived.
The detective and the doctor took leave of each other in the street below.
‘I will start this test tonight and finish it in the morning,’ promised the latter. ‘You’ll get the result as soon as I am reasonably certain of it.’
‘Could he really be the same guy, doc? Is that suspended animation stuff on the level?’
‘Cases have been reported. This is the first in my experience.’
‘You sound sceptical.’
‘I am more than sceptical in this case, my suspicious friend. I am positively repudiative. Somehow, I stubbornly cling to the belief that the man I examined was dead, completely and permanently.’
‘What? Well, why didn’t—’
The Conjure-Man Dies Page 14