Читать книгу Monsieur Judas: A Paradox - Fergus Hume - Страница 7

Roger Axton stood looking at the pill-box on the table, and Octavius Fanks stood looking at Roger Axton, the former lost in a fit of painful musing (evident from his pale face, his twitching lips, his startled expression), the latter keenly observant, according to his usual habits. At last Roger with a deep sigh drew his hand across his brow and resumed his seat, while Mr. Fanks, picking up the pill-box, gave it a cheerful rattle as he followed his example.

"What a strange coincidence," he said, thoughtfully; "but I'm not astonished. This sort of thing occurs in real life as well as in novels. 'Truth is stranger than fiction.' I don't know who first made that remark, but he was a wise man, you may depend, and wonderfully observant of events before he crystallised his experience in those five words."

"It certainly is curious," replied Roger, absently, as though he were thinking of something else. "Fancy finding the name of the town where She—"

"With a large S, of course."

"Where she lives, printed on a pill-box," finished Roger, and then, after a pause: "What do you think of it, Fanks?"

"Think!" repeated Octavius, thoughtfully. "Oh, I think it is the clue to the whole mystery."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Roger, in a startled tone.

"What I say," retorted Fanks, twirling the pill-box round and round. "It's not difficult of comprehension. Man, name unknown, comes down here, and dies shortly after his arrival. Inquest; verdict, suicide! Fiddle-de-dee! Murder! And this pill-box is the first link in the chain that will bind the criminal. By the way," said Octavius, suddenly struck with a new idea, "how long have you been at Jarlchester?"

"A week."

"Oh! Then you were here when the man died?"

"I was."

"Humph! Excuse my witness-box manner!"

"Don't apologise," said Roger, quietly. "Cross-examine me as much as you like. It seems second nature with detectives to suspect every one."

"Suspect!" repeated Octavius, in an injured tone. "Good heavens, Axton, what are you talking about? I'd as soon think of suspecting myself, you peppery young ass. But I'm anxious to find out all about this affair, and naturally ask the people who lived under the same roof as the dead man. You are one of the people, so I ask you."

"Ask me what?"

"Oh, several things."

"Well, go on; but I warn you I know nothing," said Roger, gloomily.

"I tell you what, young man," observed Mr. Fanks, sententiously, "you need shaking up a bit. This love affair has made you view all things in a most bilious fashion. An overdose of love, and poetry, and solitude incapacitates a human being for enjoying life, so if you are wise—which I beg leave to doubt—you will brace up your nerves by helping me to find out this mystery."

"I'm afraid I'd make a sorry detective, Octavius."

"That remains to be proved. See here, old boy. I was called down here about this case, and as the wiseacres of Jarlchester have settled it to their own satisfaction that there is—to their minds—no more need for my services, I am discharged—dismissed—turned out by Jarlchester & Co.; but as I don't often get such a clever case to look after, I'm going to find out the whole affair for my own pleasure."

"It seems a disease with you, this insatiable curiosity to find out things."

"Ay, that it is. We call it detective fever. Join me in this case, and you'll find yourself suffering from the disease in a wonderfully short space of time."

"No, thank you; I prefer my freedom."

"And your idleness! Well, go your own way, Roger. If you won't take the medicine I prescribe, you certainly won't be cured. Unrequited love will lie heavy on your heart, and your health and work will suffer in consequence. Both will be dull, and between doctors and critics you will have a high old time of it, dear boy."

"What nonsense you do talk!" said Roger, fretfully.

"Eh! do you think so? Perhaps I'm like Touchstone, and use my folly as a stalking-horse behind which to shoot my wit. I'm not sure if I'm quoting rightly, but the moral is apparent. However, all this is not to the point—to my point, I mean—and if you have not got detective fever I have, so I will use you as a medicine to allay the disease."

"Fire away, old fellow," said Axton, turning his chair half round so as to place his tell-tale face in the shadow, thereby rendering it undecipherable to Fanks; "I'm all attention."

Octavius at once produced his secretive little note-book and vicious little pencil, which latter assumed dramatic significance in the nervous fingers that held it.

"I'm ready," said Fanks, letting his pencil-point jest on a clean white page. "Question first: Did you know this dead man?"

"Good heavens, no. I don't even know his name nor his appearance."

"You have never seen him?"

"How could I have seen him? I am exploring the neighbourhood, and generally start on my travels in the morning early and return late. This man arrived at five, went to bed at nine, and as I didn't come back till ten o'clock I didn't see him on that night; next morning he was dead."

"Did you not see the corpse?"

"No," said Roger, with a shudder, "I don't care for such 'wormy circumstance.'"

"Wormy circumstance is good," remarked Fanks, approvingly. "Keats, I think. Yes, I thought so. I see you don't care for horrors. You are not of the Poe-Baudelaire school of grave-digging, corpse-craving poesy."

"Hardly! I don't believe in going to the gutter for inspiration."

"Ah! now you are thinking of MM. Zola and Gondrecourt, my friend; but, dear me, how one thing does lead to another. We are discussing literature instead of murder. Let us return to our first loves. Why didn't you attend the inquest?"

"Because I didn't want to."

"An all-sufficient reason, indeed," remarked Mr. Fanks, drily, making digs at his book with the pencil. "I wonder you weren't called as a witness."

"No necessity. I know nothing of the affair."

"Absolutely nothing?" (interrogative).

"Absolutely nothing." (decisive).

Mr. Fanks twirled his vicious little pencil in his fingers, closed his secretive little book with a snap, and replaced them both in his pocket with a sigh.

"You are a most unsatisfactory medicine, my dear Roger. You have done nothing to cure my detective fever."

"Am I so bad as that? Come now, I'll tell you one thing: I slept in the room next to that of the dead man."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"And you heard nothing on that night!"

"If you walked twenty miles during the day, Fanks, you would have been too tired to listen for the sounds of a possible murder."

"Yes, yes, of course. What a pity we can't look twenty-four hours ahead of things; it would save such a lot of trouble."

"And prevent such a lot of murders. If such prophetic power were given to humanity, I'm afraid your occupation would be gone."

"Othello's remark! yes, of course; but I'm sorry you slept so soundly on that night, as some one might have been in the dead man's room."

"Why do you think so?" asked Roger, quickly.

"Because the door was slightly ajar," replied Fanks, sagaciously; "a nervous man would not have slept with his door like that. You're sure you heard nothing?"

"Quite sure."

"It's a pity—a great pity. By the way, have you ever been to Ironfields?"

Roger hesitated, turned uneasily in his chair, and at last blurted out:

"No; I have never been to Ironfields."

"Humph!" said Fanks, looking doubtfully at him. "I thought you might have met Miss Varlins there for the first time."

"So I might," replied Roger, equably; "at the same time I might have met her in London."

"So you don't know anything about Ironfields."

"Only that it is a manufacturing town given over to the domination of foundries and millionaires in the iron interest; to me it is simply a geographical expression."

"I plead guilty to the same state of ignorance, but I will shortly be wiser, because I am going down to Ironfields."

"What for?" demanded Roger, with a start.

"I shouldn't let you into the secrets of the prison house," said Mr. Fanks, severely; "but as you are 'mine own familiar friend'—Shakespeare again, ubiquitous poet well, as you are mine own familiar friend, I don't mind telling you in confidence, I'm going down to see Wosk & Co., of Ironfields, Chemists."

"And your object?"

"Is to find out the name of the gentleman who bought those pills."

"I don't see what good that will do."

"Blind, quite blind," said Octavius, nodding his head mournfully. "I will unfold myself—the immortal bard for the third time. When I find out the name of the deceased, which I can do through that pill-box, I will be able to find out all about his antecedents. Satisfied on that point, it is possible, nay probable, that I may find some one who has ill-feelings towards him."

"And therefore poisons him in Jarlchester while they remain at Ironfields," said Roger, ironically. "I congratulate you on your clear-sightedness."

"It's puzzling, certainly, very puzzling," replied Fanks, rubbing his head with an air of vexation. "I've got absolutely nothing to work on."