Inspector Hargrave suddenly came to life and leaped after him. “Excuse me, professor, I’m sorry I forgot to ask you before, but, just as a matter of form, will you tell me what you did after you left me last night?”
Professor Stubbs looked at him and roared with laughter. “Well,” and his voice boomed like Jeremiah Clarke’s trumpet voluntary in an empty chapel, “if you must know, I went on a pub crawl to clear my brain.”
Chapter 12
The Little Birds Fly
INSPECTOR HARGRAVE looked fixedly at the door which slammed behind the professor. Dr. Flanagan, with the twinkling of steel instruments, stowed away his odds and ends in one of those bags only used today by doctors and bowls players. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and remarked, “You might as well go by what he tells you. It fits all the facts that I could have told you. John Stubbs is nobody’s fool. You mayn’t be able to follow him all the way but that’s because he begins at the wrong end, or at least a different place from anyone else. He’s the sort of man who starts at the top of the ladder and works his way down to the bottom rung and then finds another ladder and repeats the process. You can take it that the murderer tried to make the victim unconscious with ether, and that it was as much suffocation as the ether that caused the unconsciousness. The poison was administered by pouring it into the bowl of that corncob. Thank God I smoke Players and no humorist will be able to use one of them as a feeding tube. No, you can take it from me that the description you’ve just been given of the happenings in this room is as clear a one as you’re likely to have unless the murderer breaks down and confesses.”
The inspector glanced at him sharply. “Don’t you think that perhaps our friend knows a little bit too much about the murder? I’m willing to admit that he’s quite astute, but I don’t believe in all this reconstruction stuff he’s been doing. In fact, if he’d been here watching, or taking part, he’d have been able to give us this account, but why he should do it I don’t know.”
“The trouble about having the professor as murderer,” Sergeant Jenkins put in tentatively, “is that we’ve been picking his brains all along and we are dependent upon him for nearly all we’ve got so far. He showed us that the case against young Blake wouldn’t stand, and to do this, or so he says, showed us that Swartz might be the guilty man. Then, while we’re burning up the telephone wires, ringing Liverpool and Southampton, he hunts around and finds the body for us.”
The inspector, surprised at his assistant’s unusual verbosity, lifted his hand in a gesture of protest. “Of course,” he said rather sulkily, “I wasn’t suggesting that the professor was the murderer. After all, you, Jenkins, explored his alibi yourself for the murder of Porter and found that he could not have done it. All I said was that it was very funny that he should know so much about these murders.”
The little doctor was chortling to himself. Inspector Hargrave looked at him suspiciously. “Oh no,” exclaimed Dr. Flanagan, when he could control himself, “I’ve just had a mental picture of old John Stubbs perched on a stool with an ether-soaked pad waiting for his victim. No, I’m afraid you couldn’t prove a very good case against him. Can’t you imagine his counsel describing the professor stuck on top of that tiny stool, quivering like a jelly. Why, man, no one could possibly squeeze between his belly and the wall. You’d be laughed out of court.”
The inspector’s laughter held a grudging quality but he agreed with the doctor about the unlikeliness of Professor Stubbs having managed to do the murder, at any rate in the way which he had suggested it had been done. But he still clung to his point that he did not approve of too much knowledge of murder cases by mere spectators.
Professor Stubbs, unaware, or at least seemingly unaware of the fact that, for a few moments, the cloak of suspicion had fallen from Swartz’s spare shoulders upon his own ample back, was sitting in the common room with his papers spread out in front of him. He was making notes furiously upon the margins of an abstract from one of the genetical periodicals. As he wrote he swore to himself in what he fondly believed to be an undertone, with the result that he received some shocked looks from extremely respectable looking delegates and their wives.
He got to his feet at last, still with an occupied look on his face, so that he did not notice when he sent his coffee cup spinning to the floor to smash on the parquetry. “Hmm,” he grumbled, like a bear irritated by a wasp, “I suppose I must be wrong, but I don’t see where I’ve gone off the rails. Better suggest that they look into it.”
Completely oblivious of the astonished glances which greeted his angry monologue, he continued through the room, steering his way between the tables without appearing to notice them. Standing in the hall, he tangled his grey mop of hair with one hand while with the other he shoved the sheaf of papers he carried into his jacket pocket and, with a continuance of the same movement, dug out his short black pipe, like a tinker’s much-smoked clay.
He tapped the pipe out against the heel of his shoe and scraped it carefully with the little pearl-handled penknife which he carried, for that purpose only, in his waistcoat pocket. All the time he scraped at the carbon-lined bowl his lips were moving mechanically as he muttered to himself. His forehead was wrinkled and his eyes seemed to be following every movement of his blunt square-tipped fingers, as they took the piece of dark brown plug out of his waistcoat pocket and held it expertly for the shredding movements of the knife.
Slowly he crossed the little lawn that separated the common room building from the rest of the brick buildings that made up the scientific side of the university. Entering the hall he saw Silver, rather like a marmoset, chattering away to several people. He nodded his large head in a gesture of recognition but ignored the unspoken invitation, conveyed by a slight widening of the circle, to join the gossipers.
As he walked along the stone corridors he noted the echoing thuds of his steps, like the slow tolling of a muffled bell, or the drums at a soldier’s funeral and, in spite of himself, shivered slightly; his huge bulk jerking like a giant tree which has just received the final blow, the blow that leaves it ready for the crowbars to finish its crash to the damp fern-sprouting ground of the forest. Just so, he thought, the thud of Swartz approaching must have sounded to the murderer, perched on the stool beside the door.
He shook himself and growled gruffly. Striking a fusee between his fingernails he paused until the violent sulphurous fumes had abated and lit his pipe. Then, almost briskly he continued along the corridors, turning now to the left and now to the right, with the determination of a man who had made up his mind and who was intent on one purpose only.
At the door of Dr. Fielding’s room he paused, almost imperceptibly, before knocking, arranging his words in advance. The door swung open an inch or two and a nose, ridden astride by two eyes, poked out through it, and inquired, “Wotyerwont” all as one word, before it recognised the professor. Then it disappeared and a wrinkle of blue serge, a policeman’s back, filled the opening and muffled, just about as much as a bowler hat mutes Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, his voice as he shouted, “Professor Stubbs here, Inspector. Will I let him in?”
The reply was inaudible, but must have been favourable, for the door opened wide and the professor had a momentary vision of red felt, an awning and handfuls of confetti as the sergeant stood at attention to let him pass. Professor Stubbs stumped solemnly up the room to the far end, where Inspector Hargrave was in conference with Dr. Flanagan. The inspector, having cleared away a few of the milk bottles of vinegar flies, was leaning on the edge of the bench smoking a cigarette, which he held between bunched fingertips with the lighted end toward the palm of his hand. He looked along his shoulder at Professor Stubbs. “Well, well, Professor, have you come to tell us who the murderer is and when he’ll be murdered by someone else?” He laughed heartily at his own joke until, having forgotten that he was smoking a cigarette, a drift of smoke inflamed his eyes and started him coughing.
Professor Stubbs, unperturbed by the jeer or the cough
ing, continued to swathe his own head in thick rank clouds, until the inspector had finished coughing and was once more leaning against the bench, with his eyes streaming. Then he spoke, “Look here, Inspector, I wonder whether you could do one thing for me? Find out if there are any witnesses to Silver’s accounts of his occupation at the rough time of the murders. Oh, I know you more or less cleared him at the beginnin’, but we certainly gave him rather a long time to go to his hostel and to find his paper—allowin’ him about twenty-three minutes, from the time the janitor heard him goin’ off for lunch until the time he was seen leavin’ the hostel. I think we can rely on the janitor havin’ the right time as the large electric clock in the hall is controlled by a master-clock and could not go wrong, and, remember, he was late for his lunch—havin’ been held up by a phone call and would certainly be keepin’ his eye on the clock. If, say, he did not leave the buildin’ completely but returned by one of the other doors and found that, instead of havin’ to make some excuse to Porter for postponin’ his message, that his predestined victim was knocked out ready for him.”
While he was speaking Professor Stubbs lumbered heavily up and down the room, with his hands clasped behind his back, under the tails of his jacket.
“I don’t believe that Silver did either of these murders but I would just like to be convinced that it was impossible for him to have done them. You see, the plannin’ of the first murder depended, as I have pointed out before, upon the murderer bein’ sufficiently intimate with Porter to offer to take a drop of blood from his ear. The fact that Dr. Hatton’s fist made this subterfuge unnecessary is a pure accident and we need not alter our ideas of the method because of it. Well, when you look at the case, one of the first things that strikes you is that undoubtedly Silver would have the best opportunity to do the murder as planned.
“Oh, yes, I know that Silver was Porter’s best friend, but just because of that he may have had a very strong motive for murderin’ him, or one that, at least, appeared very strong. He may have finally become exasperated at Porter’s magpie habit of pickin’ up his best ideas and have come to the conclusion that the death of Porter would be the only way to stop this stealin’. You don’t think that a very strong motive, Inspector? Hmm, murders have often been committed for motives infinitely less strong than that. You, as a police officer, should realise that the strength of motive has very little to do with the gravity of the crime. Still, I told you, I don’t think that Silver is our murderer, but before I can get my ideas properly focused on the real culprit, I must know that it was impossible for him to have done it.”
The inspector chortled softly to himself. “Good old Sherlock,” he said offensively, “you are never beaten, are you? You’ll still be finding us murderers when the real one is hanging from the gallows. You know, Professor, you are bound to find the right murderer in the end for you are carefully proving how each person did the murder. The only trouble about your system is that having found your murderer you then go on to show that he couldn’t have done it in spite of the seemingly strong case against him. If only you’d leave your case half way and just show me why someone had done the murder I’d be grateful. I could have brought quite a good case against young Blake or Swartz here,” he gestured with his thumb at the place where the body had been, a chalk outline on the floor.
Chuckling wickedly, Professor Stubbs rumbled heavily, “So ho, Inspector, you think you can get a murderer—do you? Well, I’ll give you a word of warnin’—I know who did this murder, though I’m not in a position to prove it at the moment and if you get the wrong person, why, damn it man, I’ll instruct the defense myself and blow your case as high as the Eiffel Tower and make you look an even bigger fool than you are by nature, difficult though that may be. If you’d half as much sense as you should have, you’d have as much idea of the murderer as I have and you’ve got so many better opportunities of proving a case. I’ll give you a hint, since you’re lost, go to the public library and look along the Notable Trials Series. You’ll find your answer pat in one of these, motive and all the rest of it.”
He laughed and Inspector Hargrave who had been scowling heavily, followed his example after a moment. “No offense, Inspector?” the professor inquired breezily. “No? That’s good. I was just bein’ forcible. Now, will you do what I ask? Just find out how complete Silver’s alibis are for the times of the murders. I would feel more comfortable if I knew that it was absolutely impossible for Professor Silver to have done the murder. Then when I produce my murderer from my pocket you won’t be able to bring him up as a red herrin’ to prove that I am wrong. You see I want to make certain before I start throwin’ my accusations about. Oh, by the way, you impounded the papers that were lyin’ about in the demonstration room, didn’t you? I wonder whether I could have a look at them. There might be somethin’ there that we have missed.”
The inspector laughed good-naturedly, “Oh, very well, if it amuses you, you can have a look at them, though I warn you that I’ve already chewed them over pretty carefully and there’s nothing to them. They’re just variations in people’s tastes. Dr. Swartz explained them to me. Sergeant Jenkins is going back to headquarters now. If you care to go with him I’ll give you a chit to say that you can have access to the papers, and I hope they’ll do you some good.”
He tore a sheet of paper from his notebook and, wetting the point of his pencil between pouted lips, scribbled rapidly on it, folded it up into a pellet and handed it to Professor Stubbs, who took it with the air of being grateful for small mercies, and stuffed it carefully into one of his waistcoat pockets. Followed by Sergeant Jenkins he stumped solidly out of the door.
Turning to Dr. Flanagan, Inspector Hargrave laughed, “I’m afraid, Doc, that your old pal is more than a little bit of a fraud. He knows that I have been making use of the fact that he is at home among these people, in the hope of getting a proper lead from his knowledge of them and their surroundings. That, with too much Edgar Wallace, seems to have gone to his head and he imagines that he is the great detective, complete with bags of mystery. It is all very well for these story book detectives to point out that the police are blunderers, but in real life you’ll find that we get much further by sheer hard work, than we would if we lay back in our chairs and used our ‘little grey cells.’ When we get the murderer we’ll do it by eliminating everyone else and you can’t do that by psychology or magic, but just by sheer hard work. Why, you’ll notice that whenever he wants any real work done he comes to us and asks us to do it. I may tell you that the only reason that we do it is because he usually suggests lines which we have already marked out for further investigation, and it doesn’t make much difference what order we do them in. One line appears as likely to give us a clue as another.”
The little doctor lit a cigarette carefully and flicked out the match before he replied. “Oh, yes. I know John Stubbs is a charlatan, but he’s a charlatan of an odd sort. He likes to appear as a miracle worker, who can produce the pigeon from a top hat off a stranger’s head, but to do this he puts in a lot of hard work previously, following the stranger round until he can exchange hats so skilfully that the victim will not know of the trick which has been played upon him. He’s a stage magician, only a wizard if you don’t know of all the paraphernalia hidden behind the scenes. Besides, you yourself must admit that you haven’t got a line on the murderer yet, and it doesn’t seem likely that you’ll get one before this congress finishes and if you don’t you’ll find your job much harder, for at present you’ve only got to pick your choice out of a covey, but a week from now your birds will be scattered all over the field! When John Stubbs says he knows the murderer you may be pretty sure that he really has some idea that is worth something. If I was in your position, Inspector, knowing so little, I’d play along with him as being one of your only chances. Like the famous Sherlock, I dare say there is some method in his madness. Even if it only succeeds in clarifying matters you will have gained a few points on your present position.”
&nb
sp; The inspector muttered that the professor was too damned clever by half and was putting up suspects like Aunt Sallies, and then knocking them down, so as to protect himself if he was proved wrong. Then he brightened and remarked that, if they could break his alibi, Professor Silver was as good a suspect as any he had come across. He invited the doctor to lunch with him as soon as he had made his report and they left the room, locking it behind them, empty but for the hundreds of flies madly breeding and dying, white eyes, red eyes, brown eyes, wings twisted, notched and shortened so as to be useless for flight, in milk bottles with an inch of agar-agar, each bottle a self sufficient nationalist state, permitting no intercourse with its neighbours.
In the inspector’s cubbyhole of an office Professor Stubbs sat, overflowing from the official chair, with various papers spread out in front of him. With a complete disregard for the taxpayer’s pocket he was copying certain of these papers out at length on the official paper provided for the inspector, which he had run to earth in one of the desk drawers.
He carefully ruled sheets of paper so as to duplicate the tasting sheets and filled them in painfully and checked them to make certain that he had exactly copied the originals.
Everytime he leaned over the desk it seemed to be on the point of upsetting, but just in time it rocked back on to four legs.
When the inspector arrived back, followed by Dr. Flanagan, the professor was leaning back in the chair with his eyes shut and smoke pouring from the pipe hidden in his moustache. This smoke was so thick that it was all that the inspector could do to make out the vast buddha-like figure occupying his chair.
Holding his breath the inspector advanced through balls of discarded paper and flung open the window and turned to waken the sleeper who, however, was watching him. “Aha, fresh air fiend, I see,” he remarked. “I like fresh air as well as the next one, but I like mine out of doors, not in a room. I come into a room to get away from fresh air, I don’t invite it in with me.”
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