Читать книгу The Crime in the Crypt - Carolyn Wells - Страница 6

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AT THE SAME moment the doctor arrived, and entered the room without knocking, after the privileged ways of his race.

“Sit down a minute, Oakley,” said John Clevedon. “I’d like you to know Doctor Pinckney. He’s the good fellow who came flying to my rescue when I cut up that silly trick at five o’clock this morning.”

“Now, now,” and the pompous-looking little man rubbed his hands in deprecation. “That’s my business, that’s my life work, to answer promptly the call of illness or physical distress.”

He was short and stout and red-faced, and had the general Dickens effect seen in pictures of that era.

I liked him at once, for his eyes had a perceptive twinkle, and he nodded an appraising greeting at me, as he sat down by his patient and began to unwrap the bandages.

I took up a book, for I am not a keen student of pathology, and waited for the surgical treatment to be concluded.

When it was, the rotund physician sat back in his chair with a satisfied smirk.

“Jolly good piece of work,” he commented; “I may say that of myself, I think.”

“Yes, do, doctor,” laughed Clevedon, “as there is no one else here to appreciate or applaud your labors. I’m ready to agree the work’s all right, but it does hurt amazingly. An anodyne, now—or whatever you call a sort of—er—pacifier?”

“No, no, sir. Nothing of the sort. Pooh, pooh, man, can’t you stand a bit of pain?”

“Oh, of course, I can stand it if it’s necessary. But if not—”

“Well, it is. No local anesthetics in this case. You bear it for another twenty-four hours, and if all goes well, you’ll find it no more than an uncomfortable ache.”

“And if all doesn’t go well?”

“Oh, then, we’ll begin all over again. Your friend’s mighty lucky,” he added turning to me. “Instead of a real calamity, he has merely a trifling injury.”

“Just what happened?” I asked, conquering my distaste of such details in my effort to be politely interested.

“Oh, he just cut off the end of his right forefinger, about half an inch down. Fine, clean cut, going to heal properly, I’m sure. Not unsightly, probably, and only slightly inconvenient. Yes, a bit of luck, say I.”

“I agree, Clevedon,” I put in. “It’s a pity you did it, but it might have been so much worse that I congratulate you.”

“Thanks,” he returned drily. “But I am duly thankful it’s no worse. By the way, Oakley, it turns out that Doctor Pinckney knew my father, years ago.”

“Yes,” Pinckney said, “and a fine man, too. You look like him, Mr. Clevedon, and you have his manner of speaking.”

“Good,” was the reply. “A man always likes to be told he is like his father. I say, doctor, what do you know about the crime in the crypt?”

“Only what others know. I’ve no time for wonderment or investigation. The man was murdered, I take it. It’s up to Scotland Yard to apprehend and punish the criminal. But I congratulate him on his choice of a setting for the affair. To select a cathedral for his fell deed savors of a chiaroscuro of crime that would have delighted Poe or De Quincey.”

“If he did select it,” said Clevedon, thoughtfully. “It seems to me more likely that it just happened. That he had it in for his victim, and meeting him there alone, he just grabbed his chance.”

“No,” I said, “unless he always carried his pistol.”

“That’s so. And, anyway, it’s too much of a coincidence, to find your man, alone, in a dark crypt—”

“You don’t know it was dark. They say the crime was committed between six and midnight—”

“They can’t be sure,” Doctor Pinckney said, a little irritably. “The way doctors in detective stories tell just the hour of the sinister deed is too ridiculous. Many factors must be considered before determining that hour, and usually there’s no data for them.”

“For instance?” asked Clevedon.

“Well, atmosphere, temperature, conditions of dampness, or foul air, as well as the victim’s own physical peculiarities and state of health.”

“Even so, six hours gives a long leeway.”

“Yes, and doubtless the man did die during those hours. But it can’t be stated as a fact. That’s why I’d never do for a detective, I’m too leery of wrong interpretation of casual effects.”

“Well, we’re detectives born, both of us,” I said, winking at Clevedon. “We want to look into this matter, if we’re allowed, and see if we can dig up anything overlooked by the omniscient Yard.”

“Which is Holmes and which is Watson?” asked the doctor, as he rose to go.

For reply we bowed ceremoniously to each other, and the doctor laughed outright.

“You two boys know about as much as a pin’s worth, compared to the least of the Yard detectives,” he said. “And anyway, they won’t let you run around sleuthing. Now, Clevedon, just keep yourself quiet tomorrow, and after that, I’ll give you free foot. Going my way, Mr. Oakley?”

“Yes,” I said, half thinking he divined my intent of staying behind a few moments to talk over things with Clevedon.

“My patient must get his rest,” he went on. “He called me over here at the unearthly hour of five o’clock this morning, and I doubt if he has had any sleep since. I know I haven’t!”

I rather liked the easy-going old chap, and I said goodnight, and went off with him.

“Been a friend of Clevedon’s long?” he asked, as we walked away.

“An hour or two,” I answered, and he laughed.

“We met a few moments on the steamer, coming over, and I made him a call this evening.”

“To get him all messed up with this murder business, I’ll wager! Now, look here, young sir, you go ahead on that wild-goose chase as far as you like, but don’t drag Clevedon into it.”

“Why not?” I asked in astonishment.

“Only because with his excitable temperament and idle time on his hands, he’d be liable to go into it so whole-heartedly that he’d work himself up to boiling point, get excited and perhaps bring about a physical reaction that might induce fever and raise the devil with that finger of his.”

“Oh, I see. Is it a bad wound?”

“Not if he keeps fairly quiet and free from overexcitement. But if he gets all stirred up, and goes about hunting for clues and gumshoeing here and there, it can easily spell trouble.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“It isn’t as if you two had the matter in your hands. Or were in any way responsible for the tracking down of the murderer. In fact, I’m pretty sure your well-meant efforts would be not only frustrated, but censured, by the authorities. I suppose you think you can see farther into a maze than we can over here, but not so, my boy, not so. Of course, I’ve no right to comment on your actions, but, as a patient under my care, I have a right to dictate John Clevedon’s movements, and I propose to do so.”

“Will he obey you?”

“I’ve known the Clevedon family all my life. I’ve no reason to think this latest scion will prove intractable, if let alone by tempters.” He grinned at me. “John’s father was a loyal, obedient citizen. His mother, a fine, upstanding woman. The boy’s all right, unless overpersuaded.”

“Why call him a boy? He must be thirty.”

“No, he’s twenty-eight. I saw him as a child. I lived in America then. I’m American myself, but my mother is English, and she wanted to settle over here, so I did. It’s a long story, and an uninteresting one—mine I mean. But, as to John, don’t drag him into this, will you?”

I laughed at the man’s earnestness.

“Doctor Pinckney,” I said, “I give you my word, I will not abduct, entice, persuade, urge, or ballyrag your patient into any sort of connection with this, to me, entrancing mystery. I admit I’d like to, for we’re both interested, but as there’s the danger you describe, I am most glad to promise that he shall never be lured into its devious tangles by me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Oakley. Your voice has the ring of sincerity, and I accept your word. This is my corner, I’ll turn off here.”

“You don’t mean, doctor, do you,” I detained him, “that you forbid me to see Clevedon at all?”

“Oh, no,” he said, a little pettishly, I thought, “only steer clear of the murder case. Talk about other things—any subjects in common?”

“Lots.”

“Well, stick to those. If he asks about the murder, turn the subject. If you can’t do that, tell him you’ve lost interest in it, or been ordered out of it by the authorities, or anything you like. If you can’t do this, then, yes, then I will ask you not to see him at all. I know you think I’m a fussy old granny, but I’ve seen too many wounds get troublesome by fevered conditions, when they might have healed sweetly had the patient been kept quiet.”

“I’m not criticizing your attitude at all, Doctor Pinckney,” I said, a little coldly, “in fact, I’m obliged for your advices. I’ll see Clevedon tomorrow, and if we can’t get on without the cathedral tragedy cropping up, then I’ll go off and play by myself.”

“Aren’t you going home soon?”

“Haven’t decided,” I returned, “good-night.”

“Good-night,” he responded, pleasantly enough, but I had a queer feeling that he didn’t like me.

As I walked along toward the Terrace Garden Hotel, a somewhat pretentious but very attractive house, I remembered the allusion to Holmes and Watson.

I bristled a little. After Doctor Pinckney’s restrictions there could be no alliance of this sort. But, I mused, had there been, I most certainly should have been the Sherlock Holmes end of the firm, or I shouldn’t have been in it at all. Mine is not the amiable, Watson nature, nor the adoring, Boswell nature. I have to be the leader myself.

This is not because of a conceited or vain mind. Indeed I should be willing my assistant should take all the glory, if any, but I must give directions and lay the plans.

Conference, discussion, exchange of opinions, all that, of course. Nor would I insist on the final decision. But I could never be at the beck and call of anybody, however wise or gifted.

So, smiling at the thought that there would be no such combination, I decided to be the chief of our imaginary imitation of the Baker Street ménage.

My way led past The Lanthorn, the inn where the unfortunate murder victim had been staying. The place was well lighted, and as I found it was earlier than I thought, I went in.

“Inspector Snelgrove here?” I asked at the desk.

“Your name, please?”

“Oakley,” I replied, “If Snelgrove is up in the Glynn room, I’ll go right up.”

The assuredness of my manner seemed to impress him, and he jerked a finger in the direction I should take, and murmured a few words of direction.

Reaching the door number I sought, I gave a light rap of two short and one long and two short sounds.

This had a cabalistic import, whether understood or not.

A guard came to the door unlocked it and peeked out.

“Who from?” he whispered.

“Snelgrove,” I brazeny returned. “He said you’d know that knock.” I, too, whispered in most approved mystery-play fashion.

I had no particular reason for the whole business, save an inordinate curiosity to learn how things were going, and to get my forbidden finger into that forbidden pie.

I gathered that the sentry was merely a guard there for the night, and knew little of the case itself. Quite willingly he stood aside and let me enter, and then locked the door again.

I walked about with a grave air of importance, and drawing a notebook from my pocket, made a few jottings therein. The man watched me intently, but with a rapt attention that showed me, at least, he was not of the police at all, but one of the hotel employees.

“Lessee how you do it,” he begged, his face aglow with interest.

“Easy enough,” I said, airily. “At this stage of the game, all you do, is to observe, and observe, and observe.”

“Don’t believe I understand,” and his vacant stare corroborated his statement.

“This way,” I said, more abstractedly now, for I had become absorbed myself.

I went round and round the one room—there was but one—looking for clues with more intentness than Sister Anne looked for somebody coming.

I had never before had a chance to look for real clues, in a real murder case, and I meant to make the most of it.

But not a clue could I find. I scrutinized the furniture and ornaments, the few belongings of the dead man and the indigenous appointments of the room; nothing elicited so much as a “Ha!” from my assumed rôle of the great detective.

My potential Watson, by my side, was clearly disappointed.

“Don’t get much, do you, sir?”

“No, not much. You see, I’m making a—er—mental photograph of the place.”

“I see. To keep it in your memory like.”

“Just that. But there’s little to get, as you so astutely remark. Is there a bath?”

“No, sir. Just this washstand, sir, behind this curting.”

I looked, half interested, behind the portière.

Only a wooden wash-hand-stand, with a small array of trifles on it that the police might consider important, but I couldn’t.

The usual brushes and combs; a tube of tooth paste; shaving soap; a small bottle of hair wash; rubber sponge bag; bottle of bath salts—rather odd, I thought, for a man tourist—bottle of scent, not quite in keeping, either, with the man, who had not seemed to me effeminate.

Well, that’s all I noticed. There may have been shoe polish, bay rum, any such things, but I didn’t notice any. I grew tired of the game, and beside, my Watson was not up to form. He gave me no admiring glances, no flatteringly imbecile questions, no humble doglike devotion.

I gave up the laving alcove and turned to the clothes closet.

No better luck here. Two or three suits of clothing hung limply from their supports. They were a little more pronounced in tone than those the man had worn to his death couch, but were in no way loud or conspicuous. His dresser drawers showed a supply of underclothing and haberdashery, sufficient for a tourist, but not of course, lavish. All was just what might have been expected. The gay-colored neckties were bright and cheerful but not startling.

I turned to the writing table.

“Too late, sir,” said the helpful one at my side. “The police took all his papers.”

“All?”

“Every bloomin’. But I heard there was only hotel receipts and a few business letters and mash notes. He travelled light, that one.”

I looked into his round mush-and-milk face.

But I gained from it none of the stimulating stupidity that always emanated from Watson.

“What do you know?” I asked him in a matter-of-fact tone that I hoped would draw him. It did.

“Not much. Only what I heard the orficers say. They seem to know his name and address, and about there their knowledge gives out.”

“He had a passport?”

“Oh, yes, they have that kind of knowledge, but I mean they can’t seem to find any killer or any motive or—”

“That’s enough. If they had a killer and a motive, their work would be done. The method we know. Have they found the weapon?”

“I don’t know. I’m only a caretaker here. A guard for the night. Who are you, sir, anyway? Did the police send you here?”

“No matter what sent me here,” I said, quietly. “This is what takes me away.” And I gave him a Bank of England exit ticket that was large enough to make him drop his Watson pose instanter.

I went on home. I had done nothing wrong. I had gratified an inordinate, an undignified, perhaps an illegal curiosity, but I had disturbed nothing; I had taken away not even the tiny shred of fabric, usually picked up, or the ash of a cigar, or a tiny crumpled wisp of lace handkerchief.

I had no qualms of conscience, I had done nothing.

But I was by no means sure my time had been entirely wasted. I had noticed a thing or two that struck my attention, and when I could do so I meant to set down in an orderly list everything I saw in that room. It might mean nothing or everything. I couldn’t say, and I didn’t care.

I was in the game as a game. I didn’t know the dead man and I was willing to leave to others the avenging of his death. But there were a few cards in the deal that looked good to me, and I meant to try them out.

But I would remember my promise to Doctor Pinckney and keep from John Clevedon the knowledge of these things or my interest in them.

I hadn’t asked the moonface to whom I had made my not inconsiderable gift to say nothing of my call to the police. I rather fancied he wouldn’t anyway, his gratitude being, I felt sure, of the sort described as a lively sense of favors to come. And, too, if he did tell them, I could give them a few hints that had flashed into my mind while in that room, and so square myself.

My hints were too vague and unsatisfactory to put into words as yet, but a few moments with pencil and paper would straighten and clarify them a heap.

Yet, when I reached the Terrace Garden Inn and gained my room, I was too wearied to do aught but tumble in amongst the pillows and sleep till morning.

The next day was dull and cloudy. Not an unusual occurrence in England, but it somewhat damped my ardor in the idea of waiting over a steamer and I thought it over at breakfast time.

I did want to “work on the case” as I had already begun to express it.

And could I have had the co-operation and companionship of John Clevedon in the matter, I should have had no doubts as to my procedure.

Still, the dead man was nothing to me. I yet had some unaccomplished plans and errands and I was half inclined to put the whole affair aside and go on about my business.

It seemed a pity to desert Scotland Yard like that and leave it on its own unaided resources, but then, it hadn’t really urged me to stand by and I was under no obligation to it.

After breakfast, I concluded first to run around and see how Clevedon was this morning and make my decision thereafter.

I found him up and dressed and in good spirits.

That is, he was dressed, in so far as was permitted by the rather cumbersome splint and sling which he still wore.

“That old mollycoddle doctor!” he aspersed him. “I don’t need all this harness one bit! Imagine a doc in America swaddling me in these contraptions! The finger is terribly hurt, of course, but it isn’t a case of major operation! Well, I’m in his hands for a day or two, I suppose, and then I’m out of here.”

“Where bound?”

“Not sure yet. I’m going to wrastle that matter today. You see, my plans are knocked galley-west by west, on account of this insignia of office I’m wearing. I had planned a leisurely trip through the northern high spots of France. Say, Le Touquet, Deauville, or Trouville, and—but, oh, Lord, what’s the use? How can a feller go skylarking in such places with only one wing?”

“So, what’s your alternative?” I asked. “Stay here?”

“Can’t stick it. It’s too dull. Particularly as that old Miss Nancy has forbidden me to go into the sleuthing business.”

“Yes,” I returned, gloomily, “he forbid me, too.”

“Forbid you!”

“I mean, forbid me to let you—”

Clevedon stared.

“I don’t wonder you look like that,” and I laughed outright. “I mean he said if I wanted to dig into the matter, to do so, but to hold you inviolate from any word of news or discussion of the whole subject.”

“And do you want to dig into it?”

“Why, yes, of course I do.”

“Then, go ahead, Oakley,” he said, and I thought he sighed a little.

“It’s no fun without you,” I began, when I paused, wondering at the way his face lighted up.

“Look here, old chap, I’m going to chance it!”

“Chance what?”

“The possibility of your liking to be with me. Now, wait, don’t faint or fall off your chair. But it’s this way. I thought about it nearly all night. You’re a whale on libraries, aren’t you?”

“Well, I shouldn’t say that myself, but let’s agree that I’m a little fish.”

“Just as good. And we’re both keen on old books. And I’ve had to give up my round of French watering places. And owing to this confounded finger, I shall have to have a secretary. And—oh, hang it all, I don’t know how to put it!”

“You’re offering me the post of secretary?” I asked, in a non-committal tone, but only half certain whether I was deeply insulted or highly complimented.

“Well, I had some such thing in mind—but, if you look like that, I’ll call it off—in fact, I have called it off!” he added, quickly, as he sensed my resentful pride rising.

But he looked so pleading, so wholly hopeful, and his besplinted and beslung arm looked so pathetic that I gave way.

“Clevedon, old man,” I cried, “I’m a fool. I did cringe at the idea of being at anybody’s beck and call, but—”

“Great Scott! You won’t be at anybody’s beck and call! I don’t mean that sort of secretary. I mean a good-fellow sort of chap, who will keep my rare books in order and catalogue my library, and—well, yes,—for a few weeks help me very occasionally when I really need a helping hand. Then perhaps the writing of an occasional letter, and the rest of the time is your own. Oh, yes, of course, a compensating salary. Well?”

“Yes,” I said, “Clevedon, yes.”