The Case of the Crumpled Knave

by Anthony Boucher

  “May I speak to Mr. O’Breen, please?”

  “Just a moment. I’ll see if he’s in.”

  A pause, then a heavier voice which sounded suspiciously like the first one in a different register. “This is the O’Breen speaking.”

  “Fergus!”

  “Kay sweetheart! And how are you this balmy afternoon?”

  “Fergus,” she faltered, “I want you to come over here right away. It’s terribly important.”

  He hesitated. “You’re speaking for yourself?”

  “Yes.” She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “I just thought—But it doesn’t matter. Look. I’m supposed to see Mrs. Rittenthal in an hour and tell her who poisoned her darling itsybitsy Ming Toy. I could make it later—say around dinner time.”

  “Please, Fergus. Now. It’s—it’s professional,” she added.

  “In that case, darling, nothing could please me more. My business conscience is appeased, and Fergus of the Red Branch rides to your rescue. I didn’t want to see Mrs. Rittenthal anyway. You see, it was her husband, and I’m damned if I blame him.”

  “Then you will come?”

  “Of course. But what’s the matter? Your voice sounds as though you were about to burst out keening.”

  “No questions now, Fergus. Please.” Her voice was indeed dangerously shaky. “I’ll tell you when you come.”

  “Which will be,” he said firmly, “in roughly eleven shakes of a lamb’s tail. ’By.”

  Rand hung up his extension. He was reserving judgment.

  V

  Fergus Takes Over

  Colonel randhad never before seen a detective in a tight-fitting yellow polo shirt. It was really not a good idea. It made the young man’s lean face seem even leaner and clashed violently with his crimson hair—hair of so brilliant a shade that Rand wondered whether Kay was really entitled to be called a redhead after all. But then, the Colonel reflected, this was Southern California. If ever someone succeeded in establishing a Los Angeles Fascist organization, the mark of membership would indubitably be a polo shirt.

  Rand had answered the doorbell, to see this red-and-yellow apparition leaning against the jamb and hear him announce, with ancient Gaelic trumpets ringing in his crisp modern voice, “The O’Breen to see Miss Garnett.” There had followed, with Farrington’s technical assistance, a brief conference on the young man’s qualifications.

  These seemed auspicious enough. He had been in the private inquiry business for six months. He admitted frankly that this was his first murder case; but he had impressive references of clients satisfied by his solutions of several robberies and one arson. Rand was especially pleased with the account of how he had trapped a peculiarly obnoxious blackmailer by extra-legal means.

  Farrington seemed highly satisfied—a trifle more readily, in fact, than Rand had anticipated. “Of course,” the lawyer said, “I don’t need to express how much I wish you luck. It isn’t just your luck—it’s mine and my client’s and this young lady’s as well. I feel I can safely leave the case in your hands now; I have the bail and other matters to see to.” And with brisk politeness he took his leave.

  Fergus uncoiled himself from his chair and began to pace the room softly but rapidly. “Now look, Kay,” he began. “There isn’t any use my saying how sorry I am this happened. I know how it’s hit you, and I know it’s going to hit you a lot worse, when you’ve had time to think about it. But we’ve got to be impersonal about the whole thing—and that’s asking a hell of a lot from an Irishman. I’ve got to forget you used to spend week ends with my sister. I’ve got to forget the time you taught me to waltz and the time I gave you your first roller-coaster ride. In short, I’ve got to be serious and unsentimental—and so do you.”

  Kay managed a small smile. “All right, Fergus. I’ll try. It isn’t going to be easy, you know.”

  “Don’t I know, darling.” He stopped sharply. “Look at me now for a fine fatted fool. I start out being impersonal by calling my client darling. Even Kay is dangerous. I’ll stick to Miss Garnett. Professional-like. And by the way, if my pacing bothers you, just tell me to quit.”

  “It’s all right so far.”

  “Good. You see, there’s two reasons for it. It helps me think, and then sometimes it gets people so nervous they say things they didn’t mean to. Now for the questions. I know—I suppose you’ve had more than enough of ’em today already; but I’ve got to get it all straight.” “Go ahead—Mr. O’Breen.”

  “Thank you—Miss Garnett. Now tell me first of all about your father—what kind of a guy—I mean—well, tell me about him.”

  “Didn’t you ever meet him?”

  “I …” For a moment Fergus seemed not quite so self-possessed. “No, I can’t say I did.”

  “I just thought—I was at your house so often, and Maureen used to come here.”

  Fergus squirmed quietly. “Well, I have talked with him on the telephone—but hardly in a social way.”

  Rand leaned forward. “Professional, then?”

  “Yes, in a way, but—Look. Who’s conducting this investigation? I’m supposed to be grilling, not being grilled. And I want to know what Humphrey Garnett was really like, not what he sounded like giving orders on the phone. Go on—Miss Garnett. Tell me things.”

  “I think Colonel Rand could do that better than I could. You see, to me Father was just—well, just my father. I mean, he was sweet and good and—I don’t know; I always thought he was something marvelous.”

  Fergus whirled to Colonel Rand. “And was he?”

  “Was he what?”

  “Was he something marvelous?”

  Rand went “harrumph.” “Hang it, young fellow, you ought to know that a man doesn’t think that way about another man. I liked Garnett. I liked him better than anyone else I’ve ever known. That’s all I can say.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s hard to say; it seems as though you’ve always known the people who are close to you. Some time around 1910, I’d venture. I met him through this young lady’s mother—Alicia Willowe then. We struck up a firm friendship and then we quarreled. I didn’t see him again until just before the war—our work threw us together then. It seemed foolish to hold an ancient grudge, and we simply fell back into our old friendship. By that time he was married to Alicia and Kay was horn. I was an unofficial member of the family until Garnett moved out here around eight years ago. Since then I’ve seen him once or twice a year on his trips east.”

  “Just a minute, Colonel,” Fergus interrupted with a gesture something like a radio announcer shushing studio applause. “There’s a lot in that brief statement of yours. Now comes questions. Why did you and Garnett quarrel?”

  “I fail to see, sir, that that is any concern of yours.”

  Fergus shrugged. “That’s the curse of being unofficial. No authority, no power. If I were a policeman, now, I could browbeat you—if I had the remotest idea how to browbeat. It just isn’t in my character. Sweetness and light, that’s what I am. All right, Colonel, so it’s no concern of mine. I won’t ever mention it again. Now then, after you had quarreled over Alicia Willowe—”

  Rand thumped the arm of his chair vigorously. “Blast you, sir, do you mean to—”

  Fergus once more waved him to silence. “We can’t discuss that, can we, sir? I promised never to mention it again.”

  Rand subsided. For all the yellow polo shirt, he admitted grudgingly, the young man had a certain shrewdness. “Go on,” he grunted.

  “You say your work threw you together. What work was that?”

  “I was attached to the General Staff. Garnett was doing research work in chemical warfare. We were both stationed in Washington.”

  “I see. When did Garnett retire from government service?”

  “Immediately after the war. We very nearly had another quarrel then. He had suddenly become filled with some nebulous sort of weakling humanitarianism. He felt that the work he
had been doing was wrong, and that he should devote himself henceforth to the causes of peace.” Rand’s voice was scornful.

  “Wait a minute there, Colonel. What’s wrong with peace? Me, I’m all for it, even if I am an Irishman. A good rousing fight with shillelaghs is one thing, but bombs and gas are another. I’ve yet to see why my fine head of red hair should be blown to shreds to make the world safe for plutocracy.”

  Rand shook his head sadly. “We didn’t think like that when I was young. Perhaps that was because there were still some vestiges of honor left in war then. We still thought of Grant and Sherman and Lee—rebel though he was—of plumes and cavalry charges and glory. Men died, but they died honorably—and in one piece. Perhaps you young men are right now in your horror. I don’t know.”

  “And what—coming back to our strayed muttons—did Garnett do for peace? Idealistic pacifism sounds a little out of his line from what I’ve heard of him.”

  “He spent ten years as a highly paid research technician for several large chemical companies and then retired. I may add that he found the service of peace much more profitable.”

  “Uncle Teddy!”

  “I am not criticizing your father, my dear. I am simply doubting his humanitarian motives. Possibly I flatter him.”

  Fergus resumed his questions. “These regular trips east—what brought them about?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. He was carrying on some private researches—he had to keep his fine mind busy. These trips were probably connected with whatever he was doing on his own, but he never told me what that was.”

  “As intimate as you two were, he never told you?”

  “Mr. O’Breen, you are young. When men are young, they share all their ambitions. They tell each other their newest hopes and ideas and perhaps work them out together. Garnett and I were like that once. But old men’s friendships are different. They smoke together, they drink together, they play cards and chess and golf together; but all they tell each other are the newest versions of the oldest smoking-room stories. They respect each other’s privacy. It’s more comfortable—more dignified.”

  Fergus scratched his head and paced some more. “I never thought of it like that. You’re right about young men. We shoot our mouths off about everything. But maybe you should keep your deepest self for yourself. It makes sense. … But at least you can tell me what kind of a man Garnett was?”

  “He had, sir, the most typically masculine mind which I have ever known. It was at once hard and intricate, strong and subtle. He could derive equal pleasure from climbing a mountain, solving an equation, catching a fish, inventing a new end game, or—if you will forgive me, Kay—making love to a beautiful woman. And he did them all exceedingly well.”

  “What was his temper like?”

  “Vigorous. Whether good or bad, it was vigorous. He liked people and he hated them. I have never known him simply to tolerate a person—unless perhaps it was Arthur Willowe. Whatever he did, he strongly wanted to do. He never had whims. He went always in a straight, inflexible line.”

  “Would you call him a tolerant man?”

  “No,” said Rand simply.

  “I begin to see him,” Fergus said. “I’m sorry I never actually met him, even though I suppose he might well have decided to kick me out of the house. Maureen gave me pretty much the same idea from the times she visited you, Kay.”

  “I thought, Mr. O’Breen, that you’d decided on Miss Garnett?”

  “Look. That’s too much trouble. Suppose I just call you Client. That’s easy, and still it’s formal. Well, almost formal anyway.”

  “Very well … Detective.” She tried hard to smile.

  VI

  Fergus Hears the Facts

  All right.” Fergus drew a sharp line in the air as though to mark the end of a section. “That’s background. Fine. So much for that. But now for the facts in the case.”

  “I don’t know quite how—” Kay began falteringly.

  “Look. We’ll take them, as the programs say, in the order of their appearance. That’ll be simpler. And try to look at them as facts and not—not feel too much about them.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “That’s my fine wench. Now did anything happen before yesterday that could give us a sort of point of departure?”

  “The telegram,” Rand suggested, and went on to explain.

  Fergus stopped pacing for a moment. “And the Lieutenant kept it. Helpful-like. Well, I don’t blame him. Do you know if he checked the sending of it?”

  “I asked him before he took Vinton away. He’d checked it by phone. It was sent from this telephone and charged to the phone bill. Beyond that, there wasn’t any possible way of identifying the sender.”

  “Can you remember the exact words of the message?”

  “Yes. Needless to say, it puzzled me, and I read it over a good many times. It went:

  COME TO LOS ANGELES AT ONCE STOP FLY IF NECESSARY STOP YOU MAY BE INVALUABLE WITNESS AT INQUEST ON MY BODY STOP WATCH HECTOR CAREFULLY

  And it was signed HUMPHREY GARNETT.”

  “Hmm. Do those sound like Mr. Garnett’s words to you?”

  “It’s hard to say. Everyone’s style sounds much the same in a telegram. But I’d say it was probably from him. It’s direct and vigorous and a little cryptic. I would rather have expected him to sign himself simply GARNETT, but he used the full name occasionally.”

  “So that’s why you asked that funny question,” Kay put in.

  “What funny question, Client?”

  “He all of a sudden shouted out, ‘Who is Hector?’ I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Very well. And who in the name of the sons of Usnech is Hector?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  “And you, sir?”

  Rand shook his head. “It means nothing to me.”

  “At any rate, whoever Hector may he, this telegram seems to mean that Mr. Garnett expected an attempt on his life—and a successful one at that. Were you coming out here soon anyway, Colonel Rand?”

  “Yes. My life in the east was growing regrettably dull, and I’d told Garnett I’d be out in a month or so. That’s why this sudden urgency surprised me all the more.”

  “‘YOU MAY BE INVALUABLE WITNESS,’” Fergus repeated. “How could you, if you didn’t get here till after the crime? Or did he expect it wouldn’t come off until after your arrival?”

  “I was able to explain the knave of diamonds,” Rand suggested.

  “The knave of diamonds?”

  “The crumpled knave,” and Rand went on to retell the story of the Cunarder, old Vantage, and Lawrence Massey.

  The young Irishman listened with keen interest. When the story was over he grunted unhappily. “So you knew all that. And I was staunchly upholding my professional honor, and all for what? Not even for Hecuba.”

  “I don’t understand, Fergus.”

  “I mean this, Client. I almost let it slip when you asked me if I’d ever met your father. You see, this spot of work he had me do was concerned with Richard Vinton.”

  Kay gasped. “You mean that you told him—”

  “Quiet there. Remember I haven’t seen you for donkey’s years. Maureen told me you were engaged, but I didn’t remember the fellow’s name. All I knew was that your father called me up at the office, said he’d heard about me from you as a promising young man—which I modestly assured him was a rank understatement—and told me to find out what I could about an actor calling himself Richard Vinton and claiming to be the son of Sir Edward Vinton.

  “I didn’t ask any questions—we don’t, you know—All Work Strictly Confidential. I just went ahead and checked what I could myself here in town through his professional contacts—dug up some broken-down hams who’d known him years ago—got in touch with other sources in New York and London—your father had said not to spare expenses.

  “Anyway, total upshot: Sir Edward Vinton’s son is fighting in Spain—his conservative father’s body must be leading
the life of a corkscrew—and was recently reported missing; and this Vinton used to call himself Lawrence Massey and was reputedly a not-too-honest gambler.”

  “Did you come across this story about Massey and the knave of diamonds?” Rand asked.

  “No. That yarn wasn’t in my report, and that’s what puzzles me. Because if the knave of diamonds did mean Vinton, how did Garnett know—unless he’d pieced together your story and mine …” He broke off sharply. “But after all, our purpose, if possible, is to save Vinton—not to tighten the chains around him. Let’s get hack to the telegram. Are there any other ways that you could prove invaluable?”

  “None that I know of so far.”

  “All right. Let’s get on with our reconstruction. Three days before the crime that telegram is sent. This is Monday. That would be last Friday. Now, Client, when did you learn the secrets of your fiancé’s past?”

  Kay hesitated. “That was Friday too. Richard took me to the preview of his latest picture. Afterwards we drove up in the hills and parked. It was a lovely night. … Suddenly he said, ‘My dear, I can’t go on like this any longer. If you’re going to marry me, you must know all about me.’”

  “And he told you—?”

  “He told me that Vinton wasn’t his real name and that he wasn’t a son of Father’s old friend in London and that he used to be a cardsharper who traveled on ocean liners. He tried to tell me details too, but I didn’t want to hear any more. I’ve known him for almost a year, and I know that now he’s as grand a man as any girl could want. To know that he’s changed so much and made himself what he is—well, it just made me love him more.”

  She said all this very simply. Rand was watching her closely; she did love him—there was no possible doubt of that. And he resolved from that moment to do everything he could to help her and this strange young Irishman in their efforts to outwit the police.

  Fergus had digested her story and was ready with more questions. “Did your father show any signs of displeasure with Vinton?”

  “No. They got on well. You see, Richard’s a very good chess player and he’s interested in puzzles and cards the way Father is—was. They were quite congenial.”