Читать книгу The Three Oak Mystery - Edgar Wallace - Страница 3

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I. — INTRODUCING SOCRATES SMITH

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"MURDER is neither an art nor a science, it is an accident," said Socrates Smith, and Lex Smith, his younger brother, his most devoted admirer and his dearest trial, grinned sardonically.

A greater contrast between the two men it would be difficult to imagine. "Soc" Smith, was nearing fifty and was a lean, tall, stooping man with a lined face—it seemed to be carved by careless hands from a block of seasoned teak. A tiny iron grey moustache lay above a firm mouth, set tight and straight.

Lex was twenty-five years his junior, and two inches shorter. But so straight was his back that most people thought the brothers were of the same height, and if they had had to say off-hand which was the taller, would, with little hesitation, have named the good-looking boy.

"Lordy, Uncle Soc," said Lex Smith solemnly, "how you do aphorise!"

"If you call that an aphorism you're a goop," said Soc. "Pass the marmalade."

They were sitting at breakfast in the big dining-room overlooking Regent's Park. The brothers occupied the first and second floors of one of those big houses in the outer circle of Regent's Park. The house was the property of Socrates Smith and had been acquired by him when he was in his thirties.

In those days he had vague ideas of matrimonial responsibility. But though he had secured the house he had never had time to fall in love, and expended what Lex described as his "maternal instincts" in the care of his baby brother.

Life had been too full for Socrates Smith to allow room for the gentle distractions of courtship, and there were times when he blessed the Tollemarsh murder which had occupied his every thought at a period when his aunt, his one relative in the world save Lex, had planned an alliance and had made the most elaborate preparations for hurrying him into the blessed state. For the lady chosen had since been three times through the Divorce Court and had a London reputation.

Soc had taken up the study of crime as a regular member of the constabulary. Probably there never was before or since a policeman who walked his beat by day and night and spent his leisure hours in one of London's most exclusive clubs.

He had an income of six thousand a year but police work had been his passion, and as there was no other way, in those days, of securing admission to the books of the Criminal Investigation Department but through service in the uniformed branch, he had served his hard apprenticeship as a "cop."

For four years he had been alternately office man and executive officer, with the rank of Sergeant—an amazingly rapid promotion, and then he had resigned from the force and had devoted himself to the examination of foreign police methods and the even more fascinating study of anthropology.

Scotland Yard is a very jealous and a very loyal institution. It looks askance at the outsider and turns a freezing stare upon the enthusiastic amateur, but Soc had left the Yard with the good wishes of the administration and had contributed to the sum of official knowledge.

When the fingerprint system was installed, he was called in and worked with an official status, and it was usual to consult him in cases where especial difficulties confronted the patient investigators. So that Socrates knew something of fame. He was an acknowledged authority upon finger-prints and blood-stains, and was the first man to standardise the spectrum and guaiacum tests for the discovery of blood upon clothing.

"What train are we catching?" asked Lexington.

"Two o'clock from Waterloo," said his brother, rolling his serviette.

"Am I going to be bored?" demanded Lex.

"Yes," replied the other, with a twinkle in his eye, "but it will be good for your soul. Boredom is the only discipline which youth cannot reject."

Lex laughed.

"You're full of wise sayings this morning," he said. "Prophetically were you named Socrates!"

Socrates Smith had long since forgiven his parents for his eccentric name. His father had been a wealthy iron-founder with a taste for the classics, and it had only been the strenuous opposition of their mother which had prevented Lex from being named "Aristophanes."

"If a child's birth name is Smith, my dear," Smith senior said with truth, "he should have something striking and distinguishing before it."

They had compromised on "Lexington," for it was in Lexington Lodge, Regent's Park, that the boy had been born.

"I'm full of wise sayings, am I?" repeated Soc Smith, showing his small white teeth in a smile, "well, here's another. Propinquity is more dangerous than beauty."

Lex stared at him.

"Meaning, how?" he asked.

"Mandle's daughter is reputedly lovely, and you're going to spend three days in the same house—verbum sapienti."

"Bosh!" said the younger man inelegantly, "I don't fall in love with every girl I meet."

"You haven't met many," was the answer.

Later in the morning Lex interrupted his packing to stroll into his brother's room. At that moment Socrates was cursing with great calmness the inadequacy of his one battered suitcase which refused to accommodate all the personal belongings he wished to take with him on his visit.

"Why not shoot out the impedimenta of your noxious craft?" asked Lex, pointing to a small brown box which he knew contained his brother's microscope, "you aren't likely to light upon a murder at Hindhead."

"You never know," replied Socrates hopefully. "If I didn't take it something would happen—packing it ensures a quiet and peaceable week-end."

"What sort of a fellow is Mandle?" demanded the youth, remembering why he had come into the room.

"He was a very good officer and a brilliant detective," said Socrates. "He's not an easy man to get on with by any means, but when he left the police at the height of his career, the force lost a good man. He and Stone left together. Stone lives within—well, within a stone's throw."

He chuckled.

"A feeble jest," said his critical brother. "Stone was an inspector of the C.I.D. also?"

"Sergeant," said Socrates, "they were bosom friends and when Mandle began speculating on the Stock Exchange, Stone followed him and they made pots of money. Mandle was quite frank about it. He saw the Chief Commissioner and told him that he couldn't keep his mind on two things, and do both properly, and so he had decided to chuck the police.

"He was a disappointed man, too; he had set his heart upon capturing Deveroux, the man who robbed the Lyons Bank and got away to South America, and the fellow slipped through his fingers. That and one or two other happenings brought an unofficial reprimand from the chief. Still, the old man was quite upset when Mandle got out.

"Stone was a clever chap, too, so the Yard lost two really good men at a time when they couldn't spare one."

"Three, you old fossil," said Lex, slapping his brother on the back. "You got out about the same time."

"Oh yes," said the indifferent Socrates, "but I didn't count."