‘That’s all. It’ll be easy. See your dentist—’
‘I know—twice a year. What time’ll you be back here?’
‘Four o’clock. And bring that club with you.’
‘Right. I’ll see you—if Frimbo lets you out whole.’
With the clue resting like a jewel upon soft cotton in a small wooden box, Detective Dart sought out one Dr Chisholm Dell, known to his friends, including Perry Dart, as Chizzy. Chizzy was a young man of swarthy complexion, stocky build, and unfailing good humour, whose Seventh Avenue office had become a meeting-place for most of the time-killing youth of Harlem—ex-students, confidence boys, insurance agents, promoters, and other self-confessed ‘hustlers.’ The occasional presence of a pretty dancing girl from Connie’s or the Cotton Club, presumably as a patient awaiting her turn, kept the boys lingering hopefully about Chizzy’s reception room.
Detective Dart was not deceived, however, and rose promptly when Chizzy, in white tunic, came out of his operating-room.
‘Can you give the law a hot minute?’
‘I couldn’t give anybody anything right now,’ grinned Chizzy. ‘But I’ll lend you one. Come on in.’
Dart obeyed. He produced his exhibit.
‘Take a look.’
‘What the devil’s that?’ Chizzy exclaimed after glancing at it.
Dart explained, adding, ‘As I get it, this bridge is a pretty accurate means of identification. Is that right?’
‘I’ve been practicing ten years,’ said Chizzy, ‘and I haven’t seen two exactly alike yet.’
‘Good. Now is there any way to tell who this belonged to?’
‘Sure. Whose bone is it?’
‘Don’t be funny. Would I ask for help if I knew that?’
Chizzy considered. ‘Well—it can be narrowed down, certainly. I can tell you one thing.’
‘No?’
‘Sure. That bridge is less than two months old.’
‘Yea?’
‘See this part here that looks like gums?’
‘Is that what it’s supposed to look like?’
‘Yea. That’s a new dental compound called deckalite. Deckalite has been on the market only two months. I haven’t made a case yet.’
‘Know anybody in Harlem that might have?’
‘When you limit it to Harlem, that makes it easy. Do you know it was made in Harlem?’
‘No. But it was made for a Harlemite. The likelihood is that he went to a local dentist.’
‘I doubt it. I haven’t seen a patient for so long I believe all the Harlemites must be going to Brooklyn for their teeth. But if he did go to a Harlem dentist, it’s easy.’
‘Hurry up.’
‘Well, you see there are only two dental mechanics up here that can handle deckalite. As it’s a recent product it requires a special technique. Not one of the regular dentists knows it, I’m sure. Whoever your unknown friend went to would just take the impression and send it to one of those two men to be made up. All you’ve got to do is to go to each of the two mechanics, find out what dentist he’s made deckalite uppers for, go back to the referring dentist and trace down your particular bridge.’
‘Beautiful,’ said Dart. ‘Two names and addresses, please.’
Chizzy complied. ‘You’ll find ’em in now, sitting down with their chins in their hands, wishing for something to do.’
‘Thanks, Chizzy. If you weren’t so damned funny-lookin’, I’d kiss you.’
‘Is that all that prevents you?’ Chizzy called—but Dart was already banging the outside door behind him.
‘Come into my laboratory, doctor,’ Frimbo invited Dr Archer. ‘I’m glad you could return, because, if you remember, I promised to demonstrate to you a little experiment. Let’s see, this time you have your bag, haven’t you? Good. Have you a gauze dressing?’
Dr Archer produced the requested article and handed it over. Frimbo removed it from the small, sealed tissue paper envelope which kept it dry and sterile, and dropped it into a sealed glass beaker. Then he rolled up the left sleeve of his robe, the one he had worn the night before.
‘Please, doctor, remove a few cubic centimetres of blood. Put a little in that test tube there, which contains a crystal of sodium citrate to prevent clotting, and the rest in the empty tube beside it. You will be interested in this, I’m sure.’
The physician applied a tourniquet, procured a syringe, touched a distended vein of Frimbo’s forearm with alcohol, and obeyed the latter’s directions. Frimbo, the tourniquet removed, pressed the swabbing sponge on the point of puncture a moment, then discarded it and dropped his sleeve.
‘Now, doctor, there are my red cells, are they not?’ He indicated the first tube. ‘And in a moment we shall have a little of my serum in this other tube, as soon as the blood clots and squeezes the serum out.’ They awaited this process in silence.
‘Good. Now I take your sterile dressing and pour onto it some of my serum. In a general way, now, this dressing might have wiped a bloody wound on some part of my body—except that it has upon it only serum instead of whole blood. A mere short cut to my little demonstration. I return the dressing to the beaker and add a few cubic centimetres of distilled water from this bottle. Then I remove the dressing, thus, leaving, you see, a dilute sample of my serum in the beaker.’
‘Yes,’ Dr Archer said thoughtfully.
‘Now on this slide, with this loop, I place a drop of my diluted serum’—he stressed ‘my’ whenever he used it—‘and mix with it a loopful of my red cells, so. Now. Will you observe with the microscope there, what takes place?’
The doctor put the slide on the stage of the microscope, adjusted the low power, and looked long and intently. Eventually he looked up. He was obviously astonished.
‘Apparently your serum agglutinates its own cells. But that’s impossible. One part of your blood couldn’t destroy another—and you remain alive.’
‘Perhaps I am dead,’ murmured Frimbo. ‘But there is a much simpler explanation: Your dressings are evidently treated with some material which is hostile to red cells. In such a procedure as this, where the serum has to be soaked out of the dressing, this hostile material is soaked out also. It is this material that is responsible for the phenomenon which we usually attribute to hostile serum. Let us prove this.’
Thereupon he repeated the experiment, discarding the dressing, and using a dilution of his serum made directly in another test tube. This time the microscope disclosed no clumping of red cells.
‘You see?’ the African said.
The doctor looked at him. ‘Why did you show me this?’ he asked.
‘Because I did not wish you to interpret falsely any observations you might have made in your investigation of night before last.’
‘Thank you,’ Dr Archer said. ‘And may I say that you are the most remarkable person I have ever met in my life.’
‘Being remarkable also in my lack of modesty,’ smiled the other, ‘I quite agree with you. Tell me. How do you like my little laboratory?’
‘It certainly reveals as unusual combination of interests. Biology, chemistry, electricity—’
‘The electricity is, with me, but a convenience. The biochemistry is vital to my existence.’
‘Isn’t that a television receiver over there?’
‘Yes. I made it.’
‘Small, isn’t it?’
‘Therein lies its only originality.’
‘I hope you’ll pardon my curiosity; you have taken me somewhat into your confidence, and if I presume you must pardon me. But you seem so absorbed in more or less serious pursuits—have you no lighter moments? I should think you would have to relax—at least occasionally—to offset your habitual concentration.’
‘I assure you I have—lighter moments,’ smiled the other.
‘You are a bachelor?’
‘Yes.’
‘And bachelors—you may look upon this as a confession if you like—are notoriously prone to seek relaxation in feminine compan
y.’
‘I assure you,’ Frimbo returned easily, ‘that I am not abnormal in that respect. I admit I have denied myself little. I have even been, on occasion, indiscreet in my affairs of the heart—perhaps still am. But,’ he promptly grew serious, ‘this,’ he waved his hand at the surrounding apparatus, ‘this is my real pleasure. The other is necessary to comfort, like blowing one’s nose. This I choose—I seek—because I like it. Or,’ he added after a pause, ‘because a part of it lifts me out of the common order of things.’
‘What do you mean?’ The voice of Dr Archer was not too eager.
‘I mean that here in this room I perform the rite, which has been a secret of my family for many generations, whereby I am able to escape the set pattern of cause and effect. I wish I might share that secret with you, because you are the only person I have ever met who has the intelligence to comprehend it and the balance not to abuse it. And also because’—his voice dropped—‘I am aware of the possibility that I may never use it again.’
The doctor drew breath sharply. But he said quietly:
‘It is always the greatest tragedy that a profound discovery should remain unshared.’
‘Yes. Yet it must be so. It is the oath of my dynasty. I can only name it for you.’ He paused. Then, ‘We call it the rite of the gonad.’
‘The rite of the gonad.’ With the greatest difficulty the physician withheld his glance from the direction of the shelf whereon he had observed a specimen jar containing sex glands.
‘Yes,’ Frimbo said, a distant look creeping into his deep-set eyes. ‘The germplasm, of which the gonad is the only existing sample, is the unbroken heritage of the past. It is protoplasm which has been continuously maintained throughout thousands of generations. It’s the only vital matter which goes back in a continuous line to the remotest origins of the organism. It is therefore the only matter which brings into the present every influence which the past has imprinted upon life. It is the epitome of the past. He who can learn its use can be master of his past. And he who can master his past—that man is free.’
For a time there was complete silence. Presently Dr Archer said, ‘You have been very kind. I must go now. I shall see you tonight.’
‘Yes. Tonight.’ A trace of irony entered the low voice. ‘Tonight we shall solve a mystery. An important mystery.’
‘Your death,’ said the doctor.
‘My death—or my life. I am not sure.’
‘You—are not sure?’
‘The life of this flesh, my friend.’
‘I do not follow you.’
‘Do not be surprised. Released of this flesh, I should be freer than ever.’
‘You mean—you think you may be—released?’
‘I do not know. It is not important now. But Saturday night, an odd thing happened to me. I was talking to the man, Jenkins. I had projected my mind into his life. I could foresee his immediate future—up till tonight. Then everything went blank. There was nothing. I was as if struck blind. I could see no further. You see what that means?’
‘A sort of premonition?’
‘So it would be called. To me it is more than that. It meant the end. Whether of Jenkins’ body or mine, I can not say at the moment. I was with him, of him, so to speak. But you see—the abrupt termination which cut off my vision could be either his—or—mine.’
The doctor could say nothing. He turned, went out, and slowly descended the stairs.
CHAPTER XXII
AGAIN Bubber Brown called on his friend Jinx Jenkins and again was permitted to see him. Jinx had never been of cheerful mien; but today he had sunk below the nadir of despondency as his glum countenance attested. But Bubber wore a halo of hope and his face was a garland of grins.
‘Boy, I told you I’d get you out o’ this!’
‘Where,’ asked the sardonic prisoner, ‘is the key to the jail?’
‘Far as you concerned, it’s on Doc Archer’s desk.’
‘That’s a long way from this here lock.’
‘I been goin’ after mo’ evidence, boy. And I got it. I give it to the doc and, what I mean, yo’ release is jes’ a matter of time.’
‘So is twenty years.’
‘You’ good as out, stringbean.’
‘Not so long as I’m in. Look.’ He laid hold of the grille between them and shook it. ‘That’s real, man; that’s sump’m I can believe, even the holes. But what you’re sayin’ don’t widen nothin’ but yo’ mouth.’
‘Listen. You know what I found?’
And he related, how, at great personal risk, which he ignored because of his friend’s predicament, he had voluntarily entered the stronghold of mystery and death, ignored the undertaker’s several corpses—four or five of them lying around like chickens on a counter—descended past the company of voodoo worshippers who would have killed him on sight for spying on their secrets, and so into the pit of horror, where the furnace was merely a blind for the crematory habits of the conjure-man.
‘He come straight out o’ the wall,’ he related, ‘and me there hidin’ lookin’ at him. Come through the wall like a ghost.’
‘Ghos’es,’ Jinx demurred, ‘is white. Everybody know that.’
‘And so was I,’ avowed Bubber.
‘Well,’ Jinx conceded, ‘you might ’a’ turned white at that—when you seen Frimbo come out o’ that wall.’
Bubber went on with his story. ‘And,’ he eventually concluded, ‘when Doc Archer seen what I’d found, he said that settled it.’
‘Settled what?’
‘That proved somebody’s been killed sho’ ’nough. See?’
Jinx gazed a long time upon his short, round friend. Finally he said, ‘Wait a minute. I know I didn’t hear this thing straight. You say that what you found proves it was murder?’
‘Sho’ it do.’
‘Boy, I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘Oh that’s all right. You’d ’a’ done the same for me.’
‘First you get me pulled in on a charge of assault. But you ain’ satisfied with that. Tha’s only twenty years. You got to go snoopin’ around till you get the charge changed to murder. My pal.’
‘But—but—’
‘But my ash can. You talkin’ ’bout dumbness and ignorance. Well, you sho’ ought to know—you invented ’em. All right; now what you go’n’ do? You got me sittin’ right in the electric fryin’-pan. Somebody got to throw the switch. You done arranged that too?’
‘Listen, boy. All I’m doin’ is tryin’ to find enough facts to clear you. You ain’t guilty sho’ ’nough, is you?’
‘I didn’t think so. But you got me b’lievin’ I must be. If you keep on bein’ helpful, I reckon I’ll jes’ have to break down and confess.’
‘Well, what would you ’a’ done?’
‘What would I ’a’ done? First place, I wouldn’ ’a’ been there. Second place, if the man wanted to burn up sump’m in his own furnace, he could ’a’ burned it. He could ’a’ got in the furnace and burned hisself up for all I’d ’a’ cared. But you—you got to run up and stop the thing from burnin’—you rather see me burn.’
‘Aw man, quit talkin’ lamb-yap. If Frimbo’s tryin’ to get rid o’ remains, who’s responsible for ’em bein’ remains? Frimbo, of course. Frimbo put his flunky up to killin’ somebody; then he got the flunky away and tried to get rid o’ the remains.’
‘Yea? Well, I don’ see Frimbo in this jail house. I’m here. I’m holdin’ the well-known bag. And all you doin’ is fillin’ it.’
‘I wish I could fill yo’ head with some sense. Maybe when you get yo’ big flat feet out on the street again you’ll appreciate what I’m doin’ for you.’
‘Oh, I appreciate it now. But I never expect to get a chance to show you how much. That’ll be my only dyin’ regret.’
Bubber gave up. ‘All right. But you needn’ never fear dyin’ in nobody’s electric chair.’
‘No?’
‘No. Not if they have to put that electric cap
on yo’ head to kill you. Yo’ head is a perfect non-conductor.’
With this crushing remark Bubber terminated his call and gloomily departed.
‘You’re ahead of time,’ said Dr Archer.
‘This won’t wait,’ returned Perry Dart. ‘It took me less than an hour to get the dope. Here’s your club.’ He laid a package on the desk. ‘And here,’ he put the box containing Bubber’s discovery down beside the other package, ‘is your removable deckalite bridge. And I’ll bet a week’s wages you can’t guess who that bridge belonged to.’
‘I can’t risk wages. Who?’
‘A tall, slender, dark gentleman by the name of N. Frimbo.’
The physician sat forward in his chair behind the desk. The grey eyes behind his spectacles searched Dart’s countenance for some symptom of jest. Finding none, they fell to the box, where they rested intently.
‘And his address,’ the detective added, ‘is the house across the street.’
‘Unless I’ve been seeing things,’ said Dr Archer, ‘Frimbo’s teeth are very nearly perfect. Those two teeth are certainly present.’
‘This patient differed from our friend in only one respect.’
‘How?’
‘The dentist who treated him insists that he was cock-eyed.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder aren’t we all?’
‘Frimbo’s servant was cock-eyed.’
‘And otherwise much like his master—tall, dark, slender.’
‘With the same name?’
The physician regarded the detective a solemn moment. ‘What’s in a name?’ he said.
Before the detective could answer, Dr Archer’s door bell rang again. The caller proved to be Bubber Brown; and a more disconsolate Bubber Brown had never appeared before these two observers.
‘Sit down,’ said the doctor. ‘Found anything else?’
‘Gee, doc,’ Bubber said, ‘my boy Jinx is got me worried. He brought up a point I hadn’t thought about before.’
‘What point?’
‘Well, if that clue I brought you last night changes the charge to murder, Jinx’ll have to do life at least. ’Cose life in jail with nothin’ to worry ’bout, like meals and room rent, has its advantages. But the accommodations is terrible they tell me, and I don’t like the idea that I messed my boy up.’
The Conjure-Man Dies Page 21