Classic Tales of Mystery

by Editors of Canterbury Classics

  “Very muddy,” interposed Mr. Carlyle generously. “It is a wet night, Parkinson.”

  “Yes, sir; very unpleasant weather. If you will allow me, sir, I will brush you in the hall. The mud is dry now, I notice. Then, sir,” continued Parkinson, reverting to the business in hand, “there are dark green cashmere hose. A curb-pattern key-chain passes into the left-hand trouser pocket.”

  From the visitor’s nether garments the photographic-eyed Parkinson proceeded to higher ground, and with increasing wonder Mr. Carlyle listened to the faithful catalogue of his possessions. His fetter-and-link albert of gold and platinum was minutely described. His spotted blue ascot, with its gentlemanly pearl scarfpin, was set forth, and the fact that the buttonhole in the left lapel of his morning coat showed signs of use was duly noted. What Parkinson saw he recorded but he made no deductions. A handkerchief carried in the cuff of the right sleeve was simply that to him and not an indication that Mr. Carlyle was, indeed, left-handed.

  But a more delicate part of Parkinson’s undertaking remained. He approached it with a double cough.

  “As regards Mr. Carlyle’s personal appearance; sir—”

  “No, enough!” cried the gentleman concerned hastily. “I am more than satisfied. You are a keen observer, Parkinson.”

  “I have trained myself to suit my master’s requirements, sir,” replied the man. He looked towards Mr. Carrados, received a nod and withdrew.

  Mr. Carlyle was the first to speak.

  “That man of yours would be worth five pounds a week to me, Max,” he remarked thoughtfully. “But, of course—”

  “I don’t think that he would take it,” replied Carrados, in a voice of equally detached speculation. “He suits me very well. But you have the chance of using his services—indirectly.”

  “You still mean that—seriously?”

  “I notice in you a chronic disinclination to take me seriously, Louis. It is really—to an Englishman—almost painful. Is there something inherently comic about me or the atmosphere of The Turrets?”

  “No, my friend,” replied Mr. Carlyle, “but there is something essentially prosperous. That is what points to the improbable. Now what is it?”

  “It might be merely a whim, but it is more than that,” replied Carrados. “It is, well, partly vanity, partly ennui, partly”—certainly there was something more nearly tragic in his voice than comic now—“partly hope.”

  Mr. Carlyle was too tactful to pursue the subject.

  “Those are three tolerable motives,” he acquiesced. “I’ll do anything you want, Max, on one condition.”

  “Agreed. And it is?”

  “That you tell me how you knew so much of this affair.” He tapped the silver coin which lay on the table near them. “I am not easily flabbergasted,” he added.

  “You won’t believe that there is nothing to explain—that it was purely second-sight?”

  “No,” replied Carlyle tersely; “I won’t.”

  “You are quite right. And yet the thing is very simple.”

  “They always are—when you know,” soliloquized the other. “That’s what makes them so confoundedly difficult when you don’t.”

  “Here is this one then. In Padua, which seems to be regaining its old reputation as the birthplace of spurious antiques, by the way, there lives an ingenious craftsman named Pietro Stelli. This simple soul, who possesses a talent not inferior to that of Cavino at his best, has for many years turned his hand to the not unprofitable occupation of forging rare Greek and Roman coins. As a collector and student of certain Greek colonials and a specialist in forgeries I have been familiar with Stelli’s workmanship for years. Latterly he seems to have come under the influence of an international crook called—at the moment—Dompierre, who soon saw a way of utilizing Stelli’s genius on a royal scale. Helene Brunesi, who in private life is—and really is, I believe—Madame Dompierre, readily lent her services to the enterprise.”

  “Quite so,” nodded Mr. Carlyle, as his host paused.

  “You see the whole sequence, of course?”

  “Not exactly—not in detail,” confessed Mr. Carlyle.

  “Dompierre’s idea was to gain access to some of the most celebrated cabinets of Europe and substitute Stelli’s fabrications for the genuine coins. The princely collection of rarities that he would thus amass might be difficult to dispose of safely but I have no doubt that he had matured his plans. Helene, in the person of Nina Bran, an Anglicised French parlourmaid—a part which she fills to perfection—was to obtain wax impressions of the most valuable pieces and to make the exchange when the counterfeits reached her. In this way it was obviously hoped that the fraud would not come to light until long after the real coins had been sold, and I gather that she has already done her work successfully in several houses. Then, impressed by her excellent references and capable manner, my housekeeper engaged her, and for a few weeks she went about her duties here. It was fatal to this detail of the scheme, however, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I am told that Helene has so innocently angelic a face as to disarm suspicion, but I was incapable of being impressed and that good material was thrown away. But one morning my material fingers—which, of course, knew nothing of Helene’s angelic face—discovered an unfamiliar touch about the surface of my favourite Euclideas, and, although there was doubtless nothing to be seen, my critical sense of smell reported that wax had been recently pressed against it. I began to make discreet inquiries and in the meantime my cabinets went to the local bank for safety. Helene countered by receiving a telegram from Angiers, calling her to the death-bed of her aged mother. The aged mother succumbed; duty compelled Helene to remain at the side of her stricken patriarchal father, and doubtless The Turrets was written off the syndicate’s operations as a bad debt.”

  “Very interesting,” admitted Mr. Carlyle; “but at the risk of seeming obtuse”—his manner had become delicately chastened—“I must say that I fail to trace the inevitable connexion between Nina Brun and this particular forgery—assuming that it is a forgery.”

  “Set your mind at rest about that, Louis,” replied Carrados. “It is a forgery, and it is a forgery that none but Pietro Stelli could have achieved. That is the essential connexion. Of course, there are accessories. A private detective coming urgently to see me with a notable tetradrachm in his pocket, which he announces to be the clue to a remarkable fraud—well, really, Louis, one scarcely needs to be blind to see through that.”

  “And Lord Seastoke? I suppose you happened to discover that Nina Brun had gone there?”

  “No, I cannot claim to have discovered that, or I should certainly have warned him at once when I found out—only recently—about the gang. As a matter of fact, the last information I had of Lord Seastoke was a line in yesterday’s Morning Post to the effect that he was still at Cairo. But many of these pieces—” He brushed his finger almost lovingly across the vivid chariot race that embellished the reverse of the coin, and broke off to remark: “You really ought to take up the subject, Louis. You have no idea how useful it might prove to you some day.”

  “I really think I must,” replied Carlyle grimly. “Two hundred and fifty pounds the original of this cost, I believe.”

  “Cheap, too; it would make five hundred pounds in New York today. As I was saying, many are literally unique. This gem by Kimon is—here is his signature, you see; Peter is particularly good at lettering—and as I handled the genuine tetradrachm about two years ago, when Lord Seastoke exhibited it at a meeting of our society in Albemarle Street, there is nothing at all wonderful in my being able to fix the locale of your mystery. Indeed, I feel that I ought to apologize for it all being so simple.”

  “I think,” remarked Mr. Carlyle, critically examining the loose threads on his left boot, “that the apology on that head would be more appropriate from me.”

  The Anthropologist

  at Large

  R. Austin Freeman

  Thorndyke was not a newspaper reader. He viewed wi
th extreme disfavour all scrappy and miscellaneous forms of literature, which, by presenting a disorderly series of unrelated items of information, tended, as he considered, to destroy the habit of consecutive mental effort.

  “It is most important,” he once remarked to me, “habitually to pursue a definite train of thought, and to pursue it to a finish, instead of flitting indolently from one uncompleted topic to another, as the newspaper reader is so apt to do. Still, there is no harm in a daily paper—so long as you don’t read it.”

  Accordingly, he patronized a morning paper, and his method of dealing with it was characteristic. The paper was laid on the table after breakfast, together with a blue pencil and a pair of office shears. A preliminary glance through the sheets enabled him to mark with the pencil those paragraphs that were to be read, and these were presently cut out and looked through, after which they were either thrown away or set aside to be pasted in an indexed book.

  The whole proceeding occupied, on an average, a quarter of an hour.

  On the morning of which I am now speaking he was thus engaged. The pencil had done its work, and the snick of the shears announced the final stage. Presently he paused with a newly-excised cutting between his fingers, and, after glancing at it for a moment, he handed it to me.

  “Another art robbery,” he remarked. “Mysterious affairs, these—as to motive, I mean. You can’t melt down a picture or an ivory carving, and you can’t put them on the market as they stand. The very qualities that give them their value make them totally unnegotiable.”

  “Yet I suppose,” said I, “the really inveterate collector—the pottery or stamp maniac, for instance—will buy these contraband goods even though he dare not show them.”

  “Probably. No doubt the cupiditas habendi, the mere desire to possess, is the motive force rather than any intelligent purpose—”

  The discussion was at this point interrupted by a knock at the door, and a moment later my colleague admitted two gentlemen. One of these I recognized as a Mr. Marchmont, a solicitor, for whom we had occasionally acted; the other was a stranger—a typical Hebrew of the blonde type—good-looking, faultlessly dressed, carrying a bandbox, and obviously in a state of the most extreme agitation.

  “Good-morning to you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Marchmont, shaking hands cordially. “I have brought a client of mine to see you, and when I tell you that his name is Solomon Löwe, it will be unnecessary for me to say what our business is.”

  “Oddly enough,” replied Thorndyke, “we were, at the very moment when you knocked, discussing the bearings of his case.”

  “It is a horrible affair!” burst in Mr. Löwe. “I am distracted! I am ruined! I am in despair!”

  He banged the bandbox down on the table, and flinging himself into a chair, buried his face in his hands.

  “Come, come,” remonstrated Marchmont, “we must be brave, we must be composed. Tell Dr. Thorndyke your story, and let us hear what he thinks of it.”

  He leaned back in his chair, and looked at his client with that air of patient fortitude that comes to us all so easily when we contemplate the misfortunes of other people.

  “You must help us, sir,” exclaimed Löwe, starting up again—“you must, indeed, or I shall go mad. But I shall tell you what has happened, and then you must act at once. Spare no effort and no expense. Money is no object—at least, not in reason,” he added, with native caution. He sat down once more, and in perfect English, though with a slight German accent, proceeded volubly: “My brother Isaac is probably known to you by name.”

  Thorndyke nodded.

  “He is a great collector, and to some extent a dealer—that is to say, he makes his hobby a profitable hobby.”

  “What does he collect?” asked Thorndyke.

  “Everything,” replied our visitor, flinging his hands apart with a comprehensive gesture—“everything that is precious and beautiful—pictures, ivories, jewels, watches, objects of art and vertu—everything. He is a Jew, and he has that passion for things that are rich and costly that has distinguished our race from the time of my namesake Solomon onwards. His house in Howard Street, Piccadilly, is at once a museum and an art gallery. The rooms are filled with cases of gems, of antique jewellery, of coins and historic relics—some of priceless value—and the walls are covered with paintings, every one of which is a masterpiece. There is a fine collection of ancient weapons and armour, both European and Oriental; rare books, manuscripts, papyri, and valuable antiquities from Egypt, Assyria, Cyprus, and elsewhere. You see, his taste is quite catholic, and his knowledge of rare and curious things is probably greater than that of any other living man. He is never mistaken. No forgery deceives him, and hence the great prices that he obtains; for a work of art purchased from Isaac Löwe is a work certified as genuine beyond all cavil.”

  He paused to mop his face with a silk handkerchief, and then, with the same plaintive volubility, continued:

  “My brother is unmarried. He lives for his collection, and he lives with it. The house is not a very large one, and the collection takes up most of it; but he keeps a suite of rooms for his own occupation, and has two servants—a man and wife—to look after him. The man, who is a retired police sergeant, acts as caretaker and watchman; the woman as housekeeper and cook, if required, but my brother lives largely at his club. And now I come to this present catastrophe.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and continued:

  “Yesterday morning Isaac started for Florence by way of Paris, but his route was not certain, and he intended to break his journey at various points as circumstances determined. Before leaving, he put his collection in my charge, and it was arranged that I should occupy his rooms in his absence. Accordingly, I sent my things round and took possession.

  “Now, Dr. Thorndyke, I am closely connected with the drama, and it is my custom to spend my evenings at my club, of which most of the members are actors. Consequently, I am rather late in my habits; but last night I was earlier than usual in leaving my club, for I started for my brother’s house before half-past twelve. I felt, as you may suppose, the responsibility of the great charge I had undertaken; and you may, therefore, imagine my horror, my consternation, my despair, when, on letting myself in with my latchkey, I found a police-inspector, a sergeant, and a constable in the hall. There had been a robbery, sir, in my brief absence, and the account that the inspector gave of the affair was briefly this:

  “While taking the round of his district, he had noticed an empty hansom proceeding in leisurely fashion along Howard Street. There was nothing remarkable in this, but when, about ten minutes later, he was returning, and met a hansom, which he believed to be the same, proceeding along the same street in the same direction, and at the same easy pace, the circumstance struck him as odd, and he made a note of the number of the cab in his pocket-book. It was 72,863, and the time was 11:35.

  “At 11:45 a constable coming up Howard Street noticed a hansom standing opposite the door of my brother’s house, and, while he was looking at it, a man came out of the house carrying something, which he put in the cab. On this the constable quickened his pace, and when the man returned to the house and reappeared carrying what looked like a portmanteau, and closing the door softly behind him, the policeman’s suspicions were aroused, and he hurried forward, hailing the cabman to stop.

  “The man put his burden into the cab, and sprang in himself. The cabman lashed his horse, which started off at a gallop, and the policeman broke into a run, blowing his whistle and flashing his lantern on to the cab. He followed it round the two turnings into Albemarle Street, and was just in time to see it turn into Piccadilly, where, of course, it was lost. However, he managed to note the number of the cab, which was 72,863, and he describes the man as short and thick-set, and thinks he was not wearing any hat.

  “As he was returning, he met the inspector and the sergeant, who had heard the whistle, and on his report the three officers hurried to the house, where they knocked and rang f
or some minutes without any result. Being now more than suspicious, they went to the back of the house, through the mews, where, with great difficulty, they managed to force a window and effect an entrance into the house.

  “Here their suspicions were soon changed to certainty, for, on reaching the first-floor, they heard strange muffled groans proceeding from one of the rooms, the door of which was locked, though the key had not been removed. They opened the door, and found the caretaker and his wife sitting on the floor, with their backs against the wall. Both were bound hand and foot, and the head of each was enveloped in a green-baize bag; and when the bags were taken off, each was found to be lightly but effectively gagged.

  “Each told the same story. The caretaker, fancying he heard a noise, armed himself with a truncheon, and came downstairs to the first-floor, where he found the door of one of the rooms open, and a light burning inside. He stepped on tiptoe to the open door, and was peering in, when he was seized from behind, half suffocated by a pad held over his mouth, pinioned, gagged, and blindfolded with the bag.

  “His assailant—whom he never saw—was amazingly strong and skilful, and handled him with perfect ease, although he—the caretaker—is a powerful man, and a good boxer and wrestler. The same thing happened to the wife, who had come down to look for her husband. She walked into the same trap, and was gagged, pinioned, and blindfolded without ever having seen the robber. So the only description that we have of this villain is that furnished by the constable.”

  “And the caretaker had no chance of using his truncheon?” said Thorndyke.

  “Well, he got in one backhanded blow over his right shoulder, which he thinks caught the burglar in the face; but the fellow caught him by the elbow, and gave his arm such a twist that he dropped the truncheon on the floor.”

  “Is the robbery a very extensive one?”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Löwe, “that is just what we cannot say. But I fear it is. It seems that my brother had quite recently drawn out of his bank four thousand pounds in notes and gold. These little transactions are often carried out in cash rather than by cheque”—here I caught a twinkle in Thorndyke’s eye—“and the caretaker says that a few days ago Isaac brought home several parcels, which were put away temporarily in a strong cupboard. He seemed to be very pleased with his new acquisitions, and gave the caretaker to understand that they were of extraordinary rarity and value.