Trent, who asked nothing better than this, said he would be glad if he could be of any use, and drew out chairs for Captain Hildebrand and the two others.
‘Well, you may be of more use than any of us are, as it happens,’ the captain said, biting off the end of a cigar. ‘You understand our work, I know, and it seems you have lived in Paris and knew something of Dr Howland. I read that article with your name at the top of it in the paper this morning.’
‘What is the news of the old gentleman?’ Trent asked.
‘Pretty good. They feel sure now that he’ll get over it. I saw him last night. He was getting his wits back, and I think he knew me. Well now, I made this an early call, because I wanted to be sure of finding you, and I picked up Mr Gemmell on my way, thinking he might be able to throw some light on the subject. I’ll tell you what it is. When Inspector Clymer was going over the ground yesterday, he found two bits of paper, pieces of a torn-up letter, lying near the footpath through Stark Wood and close to where you come into it from the field – that’s to say, about thirty yards from where the doctor was found. Is that right, Clymer?’
‘That’s the measurement I made,’ said the inspector.
‘Now, what is written on these pieces of paper seems to be in some sort of French. I can read French pretty well, and I’ve shown them to one of my superintendents who knows the language thoroughly, and neither of us can make head or tail of some of it. I’ve got them here, and I should like to hear what you think about it.’
Captain Hildebrand produced from his pocket a letter-case, and extracted from it two battered scraps of notepaper which he handed to Trent. They bore a few lines written in a sprawling but sufficiently legible hand.
Trent frowned over the sordid-looking scrawl for a few minutes. He held the bits of paper up to the light, while Captain Hildebrand and the inspector exchanged significant glances.
‘There are some curious points about all this,’ Trent said at last. ‘Whoever wrote it knew French well enough – ’
‘Damned queer French too,’ the captain interjected.
‘Almost too queer,’ Trent agreed. ‘But what I was saying is that he didn’t know it thoroughly. You see this about some date in October falling on a Sunday –
possibly that refers to the day of the crime, Sunday the fourteenth. Well, I can’t see any Frenchman writing, or saying, “tombe sur un dimanche.” He would write “tombe un dimanche” – that is the universal idiom, as far as I know. I doubt if this man is a Frenchman at all.’
‘Ha!’ the captain exclaimed. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. What else?’
‘The puzzling words here’ – Trent laid the scraps on the table – ‘are queer French, as you say. They belong to a sort of thieves’ patter, the same sort of thing as the old back slang in the English underworld – only not so simple. You take a word, cut off the first letter and stick it on to the end, then put an L at the beginning and finish off the job by tacking on the final syllable “ème”. Louchébème, it’s called – because the butchers of the Paris abattoirs invented it before the apaches took it up. You see: boucher – ouchéb – louchéb – louchébème.’
‘Golly, what a lingo!’ Captain Hildebrand observed. He was keenly interested. The inspector’s face expressed a certain bewilderment; Mr Gemmell’s nothing whatever. ‘Well, then, what about “laufème” and “lieuvème”? I don’t seem to get it.’
‘Why that’s another point, and an important one. You see, louchébème was a spoken secret language; it was meant to keep anybody guessing who heard you talking about your private affairs – not for letter-writing. That being so, any silent letters would be dropped out. Well then, “laufème” gives you “fau” and “lieuvème” gives you “vieu”.’
Captain Hildebrand bent over the writing. ‘Yes, of course – “vieu” is “vieux”, the old man. We’re getting on! But what do you make of “fau”, then? Oh yes, I see! He must have written, “Vous something-or-other ce qu’il faut.” It would be, “You know what is necessary,” I dare say.’
‘Yes, probably. But what is odd about all this is that it’s a good many years since I lived in Paris, and learnt about louchébème. Half my friends there knew about it too. We used to use louchébème words for fun. And of course that meant that the crooks had given it up; a slang that everybody understands is no good to them. I did hear, in fact, that they had got another called javanais; and the mere fact that I heard of it probably meant that it was already disused. So you see how strange it all is – a man apparently trying to write like a French crook, and not, I think, succeeding.
‘You see the same thing in that word “flambeau”. He seems to have written “Voici le flambeau”. That used to be thieves’ slang for “This is the affair”, or “the business” – I’ve come across it in novels as old as Les Misérables, as old as Dickens. It’s like a modern English crook talking about “cly-faking”, or calling the police “slops”. And you can say the same about the word “suer”. If he wrote “faire suer le lieuvème” – make the old man sweat – it would mean in slang of the Bill Sikes vintage “kill the old man”. Which somebody tried to do. There you are, Captain Hildebrand.’ Trent handed the pieces of paper to him. ‘I’m sure I hope you enjoy hearing lectures.’
‘Some lectures.’ The captain had a pleasant smile. ‘Then what it comes to is that this is just a blind, planted near the scene of the crime for us to pick up. Somebody being clever, in fact. And we had already come to the conclusion that it’s in a disguised hand. Now, what about the watermark? I saw you spotted that. You can see on the long slip the end of a word, “KOLAJ”.’
‘Or a name. Well, you know as much about that as I do. Words ending with a J don’t belong at this end of Europe; at the other end they’re as common as blackberries. Our friend couldn’t have faked that, anyhow.’
‘Just so. It’s another point for us to think about. Now, I told you I thought Mr Gemmell here might be able to help us possibly, with you in support, as it were, Mr Trent – knowing all you do about the doctor’s life abroad. You attended to his correspondence, Mr Gemmell, I suppose?’
Mr Gemmell’s tight-lipped Scottish mouth opened for the first time since he had entered the room. ‘I made yesterday a full statement about myself and my recent movements to Inspector Clymer,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you have not seen it, Captain Hildebrand.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, I mentioned in it the fact that I have been only three weeks in Dr Howland’s employment. Until I came, he had done without a secretary. So it’s not much that I can tell you about his correspondence.’
‘Hm! That’s a pity,’ the captain said. ‘What I was going to ask is whether he had ever received anything in the nature of threatening letters, or ever answered anything of that kind.’
‘I cannot say what he may have received or what he may have answered personally,’ said Mr Gentruell with caution. ‘From my brief experience I would say that his correspondence was not large. Since I came he has dictated only a few letters to me, all of a business or formal character. My work was principally in connexion with his legal studies and the book that he was writing.’ Mr Gemmell produced a notebook from his breast pocket. ‘I have here my shorthand notes of the letters I took. The addressees were E L Chambers & Son, booksellers, 92 Ermine Street, London; Mr H T Saltwell, tailor, 143 Jermyn Street, London; the Manager, Henson’s Bank, Bridlemere; Messrs Quin & Barnard, stockbrokers, 54 Copthall Avenue, London; the Editor of The Deipnosophist, 11 Henrietta Street, London; the Secretary of the Cassowary Club, Singapore; Mr L G Minks, antique dealer, 38 Godden Street, Maidstone. And the Bridlemere Gas Company, Bridlemere. That’s all.’
‘None of them any use to us, I should think,’ Captain Hildebrand said. ‘Well, Clymer, you and I must be getting along. Sorry to have brought you here for nothing, Mr Gemmell. We shan’t be going by Fairfield again, or I’d offer you a lift back. Very many thanks for your help, Mr Trent – your very valuable help. Good morning.’
; The captain and his satellite went briskly out. Mr Gemmell rose and began to follow them at a more leisurely pace, paying no attention to Trent; but at a word from him the Scotsman paused.
‘I am thinking about one of those names you read out to us, Mr Gemmell,’ Trent said. ‘Chambers & Son, of Ermine Street. You have your note of the letter. As it is only a business letter, would it be in order for you to tell me what was in it? It had just occurred to me that there might be something worth following up.’
Mr Gemmell regarded him with a wooden face for a few moments. ‘In my opinion,’ he then said, ‘it would be highly irregular. It is no part of my duty to give such information to any private individual. Good morning to you.’ And he walked out.
Trent, not at all discomposed by a snub which he had fully expected, set off for London in his car a little later. During the hour’s run, he gave more thought to the question he had broached so unsuccessfully to the faithful Gemmel, and decided in favour of a little scouting. He had never had any dealings with the firm of Chambers & Son; but he happened to know – most people interested at all in the book world knew – that they specialised in foreign literature, stocking the books of the day in half a dozen languages, and would procure for a purchaser any foreign book that was still on sale. And was there not a foreign flavour about the whole business, about all of Dr Howland’s record, about the relic of French or pseudo-French script on which his advice had been sought? It was, he thought, a trail worth following. He would assist the police, and incidentally the Record, and satisfy his own inquisitive taste, by following it himself.
A little before noon he visited Chambers’ establishment. The only shopman visible was attending to a customer, and Trent wandered among the neatly kept shelves and tables, with their array of paper-covered volumes, until a little man wearing pince-nez, and radiating consciousness of his own importance, came down a staircase at the back and asked if there was anything he required. Trent, visited by an inspiration, wondered if a copy of Victor Hugo’s Quatre-Vingt-Treize was to be had; the shopman, with the negligent air of a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat, at once fished out the book from the recesses of a deep drawer.
Trent, showing himself properly impressed, talked with the little man, who seemed to have read, or to know all about, everything in the shop, and was very willing to display his erudition. When at length Trent asked if his friend Dr Howland was a customer of Chambers’, the man shook his head. He did not know the name, he said; though anyone, of course, could buy books without the person who served him knowing who he was.
Trent, presuming on his having made a purchase, next asked to see the manager, whose name, he was told, was Mr Nauck, and whom he saw in a little office on the first floor. Mr Nauck was a tall and bulky person, shaven-faced and crop-headed, whose correct and fluent English was marred only by a slight difficulty with the letters W and V. He knew Dr Howland by name, but not as a client of Chambers’; he had been shocked to read of the brutal assault made upon him.
Had no letter been received from Dr Howland? None, said Mr Nauck. The firm dealt with a very large correspondence, both home and foreign; but Mr Nauck had an excellent memory, and he was sure that there had been no such letter. In any case, if the letter had been received, it could easily be traced through the firm’s files. Could Trent give the date of it?
Trent knew only that it had been dictated at some time during the past three weeks. Mr Nauck, after a reference to his filing cabinet, declared positively that no letter from anyone of the name of Howland bad been received for a clear month past. It was plain that if the letter had been written, it had somehow gone astray. He was sorry to have been of no assistance to Trent, and took leave of him with a Nordic bow.
The little shopman was putting on his hat and overcoat, it being no doubt his time for lunch, as Trent passed through the shop on his way out. He returned to his house in Grove End Road, and passed an hour in mental review of the facts; then wrote and posted a letter to Inspector Clymer at Bridlemere.
The inspector met Trent the next morning, as he had suggested in his note, at a teashop in Ermine Street at the hour of noon. From a table by the window, Chambers’ shop, on the other side of the way, was well in view; and they sat down to cups of coffee.
‘I don’t know what to make of your letter, Mr Trent,’ Inspector Clymer began. ‘You say you think you may have got a line. You don’t say much more, and if it wasn’t that you have a reputation, and the way you dealt with those bits of writing, I don’t know that I should be justified in leaving my investigation on the spot. Not that it’s led to anything yet. It isn’t easy to trace a man that you know nothing about but the size of his foot. Nobody in the Wargate neighbourhood noticed any stranger about the place that evening. He could have got away by car, or cycle, or train from Bridlemere, or any of three coach services that halt near the station. Nobody there could give me anything – why should they? There’s plenty of traffic on Sunday evenings.’
‘And I suppose Dr Howland has not been able to say anything yet. Is he doing as well as they expected?’
‘Making a wonderful recovery, they say. He is conscious, and able to speak, but not much. The doctor allowed me to see him early this morning, and stood over me while I put a question or two on the main point – whether he saw anything of the man who attacked him. Nothing at all, the old man whispered – I could barely make out what he was saying. But he had heard the man talking to himself after he coshed him – something about “smash you”, “trying to smash me”, and then “think nobody’s a swell but yourself”. Which doesn’t seem to make much sense. After that, he says, he heard Edward barking – that’s the dog, we all know him in Bridlemere – and then he passed out. That was all I got; they wouldn’t let me question him any further. But it does tell us something. If those bits of a letter were dropped by the criminal on purpose, which I think is a moral certainty, they were dropped by a man who spoke English, and what you might call colloquial English at that, when he thought he had knocked a man silly, and fully intended to finish him off properly.’
Trent nodded. ‘And a man who talks to himself in English – ’
‘Is not a Frenchman, anyway; or any other kind of foreigner. It shows you we’re right about those scraps being a blind, Mr Trent, and that somebody was being clever, as the captain says. And now about that letter you wanted a copy of. I saw Gemmell this morning, and asked him to type it out for me from his shorthand note. He thought it over, and then said that in his opinion the proper procedure would be for me to take his carbon copy of the letter as sent. When I thanked him, he said it was his duty to assist the police, and that he would require a receipt. Well, I thought, Lord knows what will happen to the West Sussex Force if we lose this precious document; so I had it copied at the station, and here’s one that you can keep – have it framed, if you like.’
Trent took the envelope from him and glanced over the contents. ‘You shouldn’t let Gemmell annoy you. He is the slave of duty, and he isn’t one of the glad hearts, without reproach or blot, who do its work and know it not. Well, inspector, I am glad you got this. I think it is going to be helpful. Let me just go through it again.’
The letter ran as follows:
FAIRFIELD, WARGATE,
Sussex, 24th September 19—
Messrs E L Chambers & Son,
92 Ermine Street,
London, W1
DEAR SIRS,
Some weeks ago I asked your firm to procure for me the following books:
Darstellung der Leibnitzschen Philosophie
By Ludwig Feuerbach
Die Grundformen der Gesellschaft
By Eugen Eschscholz
When I visited your shop to give this order, I took the trouble, in order to prevent mistakes, to spell carefully the titles and the authors’ names to the person who took the order.
After about a fortnight, having heard nothing from you, I wrote to a friend of mine in Leipzig, who sent me the books required. They arrived this m
orning.
I think that if it is not worth your while to make inquiry for books not published recently, and possibly seldom asked for, I should have been told so.
Yours faithfully,
Trent looked up at the inspector. ‘A very nasty letter indeed,’ he remarked approvingly. ‘Clear, precise, not a word wasted, and yet calculated to make Chambers & Son foam at their respective mouths. Did you ask, as I suggested, if it was quite certain the letter had been signed and posted?’
‘Yes. Gemmell was quite sure of it.’
‘All right. Now, inspector, I am going to explain to you what my notion is, but time presses, it’s nearly 12.30. I want to confront Chambers’ manager with this letter, and I want to do so while his chief assistant is not within call. The assistant goes out to lunch, unless I’m mistaken, just about now, and if you will take it on trust from me, you ought to have a look at him while I am interviewing the boss. If you will do that, and meet me here in half an hour, say, I’ll tell you the whole thing.’ Trent paused, his eye on Chambers’ doorway. ‘I may say it’s possibly a chance for you, if you care about that.’
‘You bet I do!’ said Inspector Clymer fervently. ‘Here! Is that him coming out now – the cocky little chap?’
‘That’s the man. Is it a cosmic law, d’you think, that conceited men’s hats are always too small?’ But the inspector, in no mood for probing the mysteries of the universe, was already at the door, bent on not losing sight of the little man.
‘Vell, Mr Trent,’ the manager said, as he took the copy from its envelope, ‘I shall be interested to see this letter. If it is as you say, I ought to see it, as I deal with the firm’s correspondence, and it should haf been delivered here – ’ he glanced at the date – ‘nearly three weeks ago.’
Trent Intervenes and Other Stories Page 13