X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Last but not least, Ezekiah, it may interest you to know that there is said to be a piece of coded information left behind by Marceau—information as to the name of the person responsible for his demise, in case such demise should occur. I have not this particular coded information, nor have I ever seen it. It is, in fact, in the hands of someone else who I happen to know is also working upon this case. It is beyond probability, I am sure, that Marceau should have—or could have—named you in it, even inadvertently, but if by some unaccountable chance the name “Ezekiah” or “Guy” did appear in it—well, Ezekiah, I must aver that in the hands of the possessor of such coded information, you would indeed be in a temporarily bad “spot.”

  For, as you yourself say, you are not in England now. You are in Belgium. And, moreover, you expect—and hope—to go to Germany. From the frying pan into the fire, as it were. What, then, should you do?

  If, as I surmise, a certain American is back of this possible conspiracy to nab you there in Germany, it will be solely to obtain a big newspaper story. And your confession would constitute the story!

  Now, were you here in England, Ezekiah, I might—would, in fact—advise you quite differently. But you are in a land—or will be in another such land—where the police do not, as you intimate, use kid gloves—and if an outfit containing both Americans and Germans is on your trail, its members can be—probably will be—“tough customers” when it comes to making you talk—if circumstances convince them you are their man.

  So my advice is this—and I can render it quite freely, in view of the fact that I am not today a “policeman” anywhere, in any sense of the word. I would, in case they got me, “confess the crime” on the basis of that erroneous map—and my having been a wirewalker. Though, let me quite definitely qualify my foregoing words, as follows: “I would ‘confess the crime’ providing that, when I did so, I was within 24 hours of the 25th of February.” In short, Ezekiah, I would not, if I were you, open in Berlin as you intended, on the 17th of February. I am sure that, after you have arrived there and after you have booked up at your hotel, the manager of the Jungfern Theatre will give you a week’s postponement. A postponement to the night of the 24th, that is. You can claim illness—a hundred things. And I would, immediately I obtained it, slip quietly away from Berlin. To some gasthof in the rural districts. If you find, on arriving at the Breslau, that some effort is being made by someone to get in touch with you to have you call some place—as, for instance, to see some American “theatrical manager”—or something like that—you will naturally have to keep in mind that it may be some legitimate person genuinely seeking a business and professional meeting with you, or it may be an effort to decoy you somewhere. But regardless of what I thought or suspected, or didn’t think or suspect, I would send word to my would-be interviewers that I would be happy to see them immediately upon my return. On the morning of the 24th. And in the event of no such inquiries, I would leave word with the hotel that I would be back on that morning only—to open that evening. Then, of course, the parties in question—if it should be the outfit I think it is—will prepare to act immediately you do return—for that will be plenty sufficient time for a “news beat.” In other words, Ezekiah, I would just go “on holiday” for 7 days.

  But I would not by any means consider those 7 days to be—a holiday! For during that time, Ezekiah, I would sleep with that Marceau Case, dream it, live with it, literally eat it!—I would ponder upon it for 24 hours a day, studying as to how I, Ezekiah, a wirewalker, if I had had it in for Marceau, would have gone about killing him, in conformance with the conditions under which his body was found.

  You have, you say, that entire story which was published in the American papers on November 13th last. There is, I must admit, no more full and complete setting forth of the Marceau Case anywhere in existence, than in that story. And which story, moreover, is without a single error other than the one map with but the one misplaced building. That story, Ezekiah, may well be your textbook for one week!

  And I would not, as I say, return to my hotel till the morning of the 24th. The very day, in short, that I was to open. Or not before well past midnight of the 23rd. The reason I do not advise your making it a point to get into Berlin towards evening of the 24th is that I once knew a juggler in India who informed me that jugglers could not put on an efficient act after train travel or anything else tending to disturb their co-ordination. Or perhaps he said the sense of equilibrium. Whatever he said, my impression is that, if you are to open that night, you will have to have a day of quiet in your hotel, with a chance possibly to rest up for five or six hours in bed. Am I right upon this?

  But if, on that day which the circumstances of your calling require you to be back at your hotel in Berlin, your pursuers catch up with you in some way—as, for instance, some call being made upon you for an interview which looks to you 100 per cent legitimate, only turning out subsequently to be 100 per cent non-legitimate—in short, a decoy affair—and you find yourself unfortunately in unofficial custody—well—I think I would render a “confession” in full—so as to avoid manhandling. A “confession” which, of course, you will repudiate completely later. It will require at least 24 hours, slightly more or less, to check up on any “confession” which you might render—and to demonstrate that it does not hold water at this or that point—and it is right there, of course, that, ordinarily, you would be subject to further manhandling to get you to give the “straight” of things. And it is manhandling that we want to aid you to avoid.

  For my release, which is to be given to the newspapers for February 25th publication—and which I am more than certain will be printed widely in part and in whole—will very probably set forth, and moreover certify to—though as a purely incidental feature—the erroneousness of that map, as well as certain other factors which will withdraw from you any further attack.

  And last but not least—though I am sure this will be of no interest to you whatsoever—a “confession” on your part will result in about 200,000 pounds sterling worth of publicity for you! For I rather fancy that many persons, in all parts of the world, will subsequently wish to see the Little Man who “confessed” to creating the Marceau cause célèbre—though I am equally sure that if American vaudeville managers thereafter cable attractive offers to you, you will stoutly turn them down!

  However, Ezekiah, let me give you a further bit of advice. No “confession” laid eagerly upon the laps of your captors is going to be accepted. You will have to let them literally sweat it out of you—and bulldoze it out of you. Rendering it only—and with high “reluctance”—when you see they are ready to use fists, rubber hose, or what. Again, my little friend, you will have to account in it for a great many things—at least if you “confess” to killing Marceau on the basis of wire-walking! For do not lose sight of the fact that the autogiro which left Lymewich with an “infant” in the cockpit was real—and no figment of people’s imaginations; and that that autogiro, and no other, hovered over the Marceau grounds that night—hovered twice over them, to be exact. And do not forget, either, that before Marceau’s wind was cut off, he screamed aloud the presence of that “horrible baby” which he had seen both at Hampstead Heath and Wormwood Scrubbs—and the seeing of which his diary entries completely attested. Do not forget that you will have many, many things to account for, not the least of which is how on earth you, a Lilliputian, were able to go freely about London—most particularly, from Doll Gardens, Wittings Heights Forest, to Little Ivington—to transport and rig up wirewalking apparatus, etc., etc.— however, come to think of it, we have Horridge—our mystery man—have we not? Horridge—with his old closed Gilrick car! I don’t know but that Horridge is practically made to order, as the ideal accomplice for you—inasmuch as he is a mystery man of unknown connections, and, being quite dead, cannot refute anything you say about him. At any rate, I enclose you a rather complete cutting on him, printed a couple of days after his death, which cutting I myself had occasion recentl
y to be referring to. You may have it, with my compliments. And so there are, Ezekiah, approximately 10 days between the day you receive this letter—and the fateful 24th. You have, let us say, 10 days of deep and intense thought before you—if you are to lay the myriad bits of colored glass which constitute the Marceau Case together into a pattern that will not only be 100 per cent convincing—but will stand by itself for 24 hours. It will not be child’s play, Ezekiah—the construction of that pattern. It will be—if you succeed in creating it—the masterpiece of all confessions—of all times!

  And now referring once more to this chap “Horridge.” I thank you for your information concerning him and Captain Ettenborough. It confirms what one other person, now with the Yard, and myself, know. That is, we know they were half-brothers—and we know who “Horridge” was, and why. But the matter is to be suppressed. At least for the present. And I will ask you to treat this confidentially.

  And now, reverting back to something I started out to say in the early part of this letter—but did not finish. I was about to say, if you will refer back to it, that if between now and the date of my official newspaper release in re the affair of May 10, 1935, I receive a certain letter from Canton, China—then, and then only, may I say that I will be able to strip completely from the Marceau Case the entire veil that has hitherto hidden it. The Marceau Case—as one of the famous world riddles—no longer exists—if that letter comes! It becomes, in that event, relegated to the annals of bizarre criminological history. And if that letter fails to come—then we shall have to concede that the “veil” still lies here, and there, in folds, across the case!

  Well, Ezekiah, I wish you luck. And do watch your step. For you are a little man. Remember, that the general and average depth of those footprints in Marceau’s lawn indicate a weight of 35 to perhaps 40 pounds. And you are now electing, perchance, by virtue of your small size and weight, to claim those footprints. One slap of a man of such weight—by a man of ordinary weight—is enough to send the smaller of you clear across the room, head on into the wall. In brief, Ezekiah, I do not wish to see you beaten up by persons capable of beating up a tough 200-pound Chicago gangster. I am afraid there would be just nothing left of you! And it is precisely because of that—plus the fact that I cannot render my own release for any date prior to the one I have outlined—that I have advised you today as I have.

  Sincerely,

  X. Jones.

  DOCUMENT XCVIII

  Letter, of date February 19, 1937, from X. Jones, London, England, to Gerald Wilkins, Cliff Cottage, Chale, Isle of Wight.

  Dear Gerald:

  I was happy to hear from you and to know that you are making such strides, under your grandfather, towards preparing yourself for Oxford. I was surprised, also, to learn that such a little place as Chale has a “literary society.” But don’t you think, old man, that in joining such society, you are in danger of sidetracking your energies? Writing short-stories is, I take it, arduous work.

  About your first question: No, I cannot say that I have yet cleared up—to the last and ultimate degree!—the Marceau Case. I could not say that, indeed, unless I had received a certain letter from Canton, China, before the 24th of this month—and the receipt of which letter is far, far from certain.

  Nor, in answer to your next question, can I say that I yet know who was named, in code, in that second story of André Marceau’s. The script is still, so far as I know, in the possession of the party—or parties—to whom Jane Trotter turned it over. I can say, though, that if André Marceau lived up exactly to the forenote which, at least in your letter of November 24th last year, you described him to have written at the top of the first page, the person named in code in the story was not a midget—but was a giant! Does that surprise you?

  And now about your third question—the matter of a basic idea for the plot of a detective-story to be read before your literary society on the afternoon of the coming February 24th. A “radical idea”—as you specify it! Well, about the only “radical idea” I can suggest offhand is the idea of a criminal who has hired another criminal to both engineer and commit a crime, but who confesses to having done it himself in order to scotch completely all investigation running to—and beyond himself; and—but here, here, lad wait!—that isn’t the radical part; the radical part is that he gets someone, officially connected with the law—someone whom, incidentally, he hates, because this someone constitutes a continuous threat toward uncovering the persons hired by him—to advocate (in actual writing) his making such “confession” so that he will later have concrete evidence as to the cause for his doing such a wild and apparently unmotivated thing. And which piece of writing will also serve to discredit completely the man who has advocated the procedure set forth within it. I have not, you will note, in suggesting the foregoing, endeavored to suggest any individuality as to persons, but if you would have bizarre characterization in your story, you might even make the “artful confessor” a Lilliputian—something à la our Marceau Case, don’t you know!—and the main criminal, whom he hired to engineer and commit the entire crime, a giant. Or is that too radical?

  If so, just let them be Mr. A and Mr. B. As for your detective you will, I trust, make him an Englishman—for after all, you know, “Buy British” applies to literary things as well as fountain pens and electric refrigerators. But you might have, as such detective, a chap who is so engrossed with purely theoretical things that he has to take a chance and allow his professional rivals to do all the arduous work of shadowing—and “third-degree”ing, and so forth; and then, of course, as the usual Obstacle upon which all Drama rests, you will have the unique problem faced by this detective who, in order not to lose face (as the Chinese say) will have to get the “artful confessor” out of the hands of those rivals (and into his own) just before the vital moment when the “confessor” is certain to trip himself up accidentally—and give the true and real story of the crime—and to name all persons involved in it. There, more or less sketchily, are some “elements” for your “fiction” story. However, dear boy, you must remember that there is no such thing in the world as “fiction.” For every fiction “story” is fact in that it presents a co-ordinated series of events which are an actualization, which, if it has not already come into existence somewhere, inevitably will. Let me know the ultimate reaction to your “story,” as read to your society on this fateful afternoon of February 24th—and particularly how you worked it out. For it can be proven, you know, that the Universe would have to be not less than six-dimensional to permit of the existence of all such actualizations as are possible of development, through choice, out of each separate moment of “now” lying on the line of the 4th dimension. And, as you know, I am interested in multi-dimensional conceptions of existence—and I should personally like to see a portrayal of a hypothetical actualization possible from a given set of premises—which was different than that which really did evolve. Or is yet to evolve. If you get me—and I fear you don’t at all!

  Anyway, I am your sincere friend,

  X. Jones.

  DOCUMENT XCVIX

  Excerpts from code telegram (as decoded) of date February 23, 1937, 8 a.m. Berlin time, from Aleck Snide, Bülowstrasse 10-a, Zehlendorf-W, Berlin, Germany, to Gilbert Whittimore, 14 Lud­gate Circus, London, England.

  “Dear Gil:

  “Under no circumstances spring such a half-baked storiette as you have there. And threaten to do. The big complete one is within in hours now of being in my paws, and will eclipse anything you could toss into print. I will deliver absolutely tomorrow, and in time to beat Jones’ story amply. Sit tight in office all day tomorrow and don’t wire me Bülowstrasse because I won’t be there. And don’t even try to locate me, because nobody can contact me tomorrow—nor reach any person or persons with whom I’ll be in contact. And in case you’re thinking of taking a plane and coming on here, don’t! I want you to handle something very important at your end. Check up secretly, and see whether a certain Greek, named Elfterios D
emos, is back in London. From Greece, where he went around last October. Possibly you know him, but if not, let me say he is a giant, seven feet six inches tall, and runs a skate-and-chips restaurant in Oxford Street close to Marble Arch. In case Demos is back in England, you squat right there and by pulling various wires insure that he will be on tap tomorrow night, and not outside of London. That’s to be your job. Now...”

  DOCUMENT C

  Letter, received at destination February 23, 1937, 4 p.m. London time, with emendations by London postoffice facilitating delivery.

  DOCUMENT CI

  Telegram, of date February 24, 1937, 12 noon Illinois time, from Gus Erks, Director of the All-America News Service, Empire State Building, New York City, to Hammiston Barr, Publisher of the “Springfield Bee,” Springfield, Illinois.

  DOCUMENT CII

  C.C. Report No. 38,521, I.C.D.S., Inc., U.S.A.

  CRIMINOLOGICAI. CLEARANCE REPORT

  No. 38,521