swiftly, returned, carrying a cake of soap. Three clear, sharp
impressions, he secured of the Yale, the soap leaving no trace of the
operation upon the metal. He dropped the precious soap tablet into his
open bag.
In a state of semi-torpor, M. Max sprawled upon the bed for ten minutes
or more, during which time, as he noted, the door remained ajar.
Then there entered a figure which seemed wildly out of place in the
establishment of Ho-Pin. It was that of a butler, most accurately
dressed and most deferential in all his highly-trained movements.
His dark hair was neatly brushed, and his face, which had a
pinched appearance, was composed in that
“if-it-is-entirely-agreeable-to-you-Sir” expression, typical of his
class.
The unhealthy, yellow skin of the new arrival, which harmonized so ill
with the clear whites of his little furtive eyes, interested M. Max
extraordinarily. M. Max was blinking like a week-old kitten, and one
could have sworn that he was but hazily conscious of his surroundings;
whereas in reality he was memorizing the cranial peculiarities of the
new arrival, the shape of his nose, the disposition of his ears; the
exact hue of his eyes; the presence of a discolored tooth in his lower
jaw, which a fish-like, nervous trick of opening and closing the mouth
periodically revealed.
“Good morning, sir!” said the valet, gently rubbing his palms together
and bending over the bed.
M. Max inhaled deeply, stared in glassy fashion, but in no way indicated
that he had heard the words.
The valet shook him gently by the shoulder.
“Good morning, sir. Shall I prepare your bath?”
“She is a serpent!” muttered M. Max, tossing one arm weakly above his
head... “all yellow.... But roses are growing in the mud ... of the
river!”
“If you will take your bath, sir,” insisted the man in black, “I shall
be ready to shave you when you return.”
“Bath... shave me!”
M. Max began to rub his eyes and to stare uncomprehendingly at the
speaker.
“Yes, sir; good morning, sir,”--there was another bow and more rubbing
of palms.
“Ah!--of course! Morbleu! This is Paris....”
“No, sir, excuse me, sir, London. Bath hot or cold, sir?”
“Cold,” replied M. Max, struggling upright with apparent difficulty;
“yes,--cold.”
“Very good, sir. Have you brought your own razor, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” muttered Max--“in the bag--in that bag.”
“I will fill the bath, sir.”
The bath being duly filled, M. Max, throwing about his shoulders a
magnificent silk kimono which he found upon the armchair, steered a
zigzag course to the bathroom. His tooth-brush had been put in place by
the attentive valet; there was an abundance of clean towels, soaps,
bath salts, with other necessities and luxuries of the toilet. M. Max,
following his bath, saw fit to evidence a return to mental clarity; and
whilst he was being shaved he sought to enter into conversation with the
valet. But the latter was singularly reticent, and again M. Max changed
his tactics. He perceived here a golden opportunity which he must not
allow to slip through his fingers.
“Would you like to earn a hundred pounds?” he demanded abruptly, gazing
into the beady eyes of the man bending over him.
Soames almost dropped the razor. His state of alarm was truly pitiable;
he glanced to the right, he glanced to the left, he glanced over his
shoulder, up at the ceiling and down at the floor.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, nervously; “I don't think I quite understand
you, sir?”
“It is quite simple,” replied M. Max. “I asked you if you had some use
for a hundred pounds. Because if you have, I will meet you at any place
you like to mention and bring with me cash to that amount!”
“Hush, sir!--for God's sake, hush, sir!” whispered Soames.
A dew of perspiration was glistening upon his forehead, and it was
fortunate that he had finished shaving M. Max, for his hand was
trembling furiously. He made a pretense of hurrying with towels, bay
rum, and powder spray, but the beady eyes were ever glancing to right
and left and all about.
M. Max, who throughout this time had been reflecting, made a second
move.
“Another fifty, or possibly another hundred, could be earned as easily,”
he said, with assumed carelessness. “I may add that this will not be
offered again, and... that you will shortly be out of employment, with
worse to follow.”
Soames began to exhibit signs of collapse.
“Oh, my God!” he muttered, “what shall I do? I can't promise--I can't
promise; but I might--I MIGHT look in at the 'Three Nuns' on Friday
evening about nine o'clock.”...
He hastily scooped up M. Max's belongings, thrust them into the handbag
and closed it. M. Max was now fully dressed and ready to depart. He
placed a sovereign in the valet's ready palm.
“That's an appointment,” he said softly.
Said entered and stood bowing in the doorway.
“Good morning, sir, good morning,” muttered Soames, and covertly he
wiped the perspiration from his brow with the corner of a towel--“good
morning, and thank you very much.”
M. Max, buttoning his light overcoat in order to conceal the fact that
he wore evening dress, entered the corridor, and followed the Egyptian
into the cave of the golden dragon. Ho-Pin, sleek and smiling, received
him there. Ho-Pin was smoking the inevitable cigarette in the long tube,
and, opening the door, he silently led the way up the steps into the
covered courtyard, Said following with the hand bag. The limousine stood
there, dimly visible in the darkness. Said placed the handbag upon the
seat inside, and Ho-Pin assisted M. Max to enter, closing the door
upon him, but leaning through the open window to shake his hand. The
Chinaman's hand was icily cold and limp.
“Au wrevoir, my dear fwriend,” he said in his metallic voice. “I hope to
have the pleasure of gwreeting you again vewry shortly.”
With that he pulled up the window from the outside, and the occupant
of the limousine found himself in impenetrable darkness; for dark blue
blinds covered all the windows. He lay back, endeavoring to determine
what should be his next move. The car started with a perfect action, and
without the slightest jolt or jar. By reason of the light which suddenly
shone in through the chinks of the blinds, he knew that he was outside
the covered courtyard; then he became aware that a sharp turning had
been taken to the left, followed almost immediately, by one to the
right.
He directed his attention to the blinds.
“Ah! nom d'un nom! they are clever--these!”
The blinds worked in little vertical grooves and had each a tiny lock.
The blinds covering the glass doors on either side were attached to the
adjustable windows; so that when Ho-Pin had raised the window, he had
also closed the blind! And these windows operated automatically, and
defied all M. Max's efforts to open them!
He was effectively boxed in and unable to form the slightest impression
of his surroundings. He threw himself back upon the soft cushions with
a muttered curse of vexation; but the mobile mouth was twisted into that
wryly humorous smile. Always, M. Max was a philosopher.
At the end of a drive of some twenty-five minutes or less, the car
stopped--the door was opened, and the radiant Gianapolis extended both
hands to the occupant.
“My dear M. Gaston!” he cried, “how glad I am to see you looking so
well! Hand me your bag, I beg of you!”
M. Max placed the bag in the extended hand of Gianapolis, and leapt out
upon the pavement.
“This way, my dear friend!” cried the Greek, grasping him warmly by the
arm.
The Frenchman found himself being led along toward the head of the car;
and, at the same moment, Said reversed the gear and backed away. M. Max
was foiled in his hopes of learning the number of the limousine.
He glanced about him wonderingly.
“You are in Temple Gardens, M. Gaston,” explained the Greek, “and here,
unless I am greatly mistaken, comes a disengaged taxi-cab. You will
drive to your hotel?”
“Yes, to my hotel,” replied M. Max.
“And whenever you wish to avail yourself of your privilege, and pay
a second visit to the establishment presided over by Mr. Ho-Pin, you
remember the number?”
“I remember the number,” replied M. Max.
The cab hailed by Gianapolis drew up beside the two, and M. Max entered
it.
“Good morning, M. Gaston.”
“Good morning, Mr. Gianapolis.”
XXXIII
LOGIC VS. INTUITION
And now, Henry Leroux, Denise Ryland and Helen Cumberly were speeding
along the Richmond Road beneath a sky which smiled upon Leroux's
convalescence; for this was a perfect autumn morning which ordinarily
had gladdened him, but which saddened him to-day.
The sun shone and the sky was blue; a pleasant breeze played upon his
cheeks; whilst Mira, his wife, was...
He knew that he had come perilously near to the borderland beyond which
are gibbering, moving things: that he had stood upon the frontier of
insanity; and realizing the futility of such reflections, he struggled
to banish them from his mind, for his mind was not yet healed--and he
must be whole, be sane, if he would take part in the work, which, now,
strangers were doing, whilst he--whilst he was a useless hulk.
Denise Ryland had been very voluble at the commencement of the drive,
but, as it progressed, had grown gradually silent, and now sat with
her brows working up and down and with a little network of wrinkles
alternately appearing and disappearing above the bridge of her nose. A
self-reliant woman, it was irksome to her to know herself outside the
circle of activity revolving around the mysterious Mr. King. She had had
one interview with Inspector Dunbar, merely in order that she might give
personal testimony to the fact that Mira Leroux had not visited her
that year in Paris. Of the shrewd Scotsman she had formed the poorest
opinion; and indeed she never had been known to express admiration for,
or even the slightest confidence in, any man breathing. The amiable M.
Gaston possessed virtues which appealed to her, but whilst she admitted
that his conversation was entertaining and his general behavior good,
she always spoke with the utmost contempt of his sartorial splendor.
Now, with the days and the weeks slipping by, and with the spectacle
before her of poor Leroux, a mere shadow of his former self, with the
case, so far as she could perceive, at a standstill, and with the police
(she firmly believed) doing “absolutely... nothing... whatever”--Denise
Ryland recognized that what was lacking in the investigation was that
intuition and wit which only a clever woman could bring to bear upon it,
and of which she, in particular, possessed an unlimited reserve.
The car sped on toward the purer atmosphere of the riverside, and even
the clouds of dust, which periodically enveloped them, with the passing
of each motor-'bus, and which at the commencement of the drive had
inspired her to several notable and syncopated outbursts, now left her
unmoved.
She thought that at last she perceived the secret working of that
Providence which ever dances attendance at the elbow of accomplished
womankind. Following the lead set by “H. C.” in the Planet (“H. C.” was
Helen Cumberly's nom de plume) and by Crocket in the Daily Monitor, the
London Press had taken Olaf van Noord to its bosom; and his exhibition
in the Little Gallery was an established financial success, whilst “Our
Lady of the Poppies” (which had, of course, been rejected by the Royal
Academy) promised to be the picture of the year.
Mentally, Denise Ryland was again surveying that remarkable composition;
mentally she was surveying Olaf van Noord's model, also. Into the scheme
slowly forming in her brain, the yellow-wrapped cigarette containing
“a small percentage of opium” fitted likewise. Finally, but not last in
importance, the Greek gentleman, Mr. Gianapolis, formed a unit of the
whole.
Denise Ryland had always despised those detective creations which
abound in French literature; perceiving in their marvelous deductions a
tortured logic incompatible with the classic models. She prided herself
upon her logic, possibly because it was a quality which she lacked, and
probably because she confused it with intuition, of which, to do her
justice, she possessed an unusual share. Now, this intuition was
at work, at work well and truly; and the result which this mental
contortionist ascribed to pure reason was nearer to the truth than a
real logician could well have hoped to attain by confining himself to
legitimate data. In short, she had determined to her own satisfaction
that Mr. Gianapolis was the clue to the mystery; that Mr. Gianapolis was
not (as she had once supposed) enacting the part of an amiable liar
when he declared that there were, in London, such apartments as that
represented by Olaf van Noord; that Mr. Gianapolis was acquainted with
the present whereabouts of Mrs. Leroux; that Mr. Gianapolis knew
who murdered Iris Vernon; and that Scotland Yard was a benevolent
institution for the support of those of enfeebled intellect.
These results achieved, she broke her long silence at the moment that
the car was turning into Richmond High Street.
“My dear!” she exclaimed, clutching Helen's arm, “I see it all!”
“Oh!” cried the girl, “how you startled me! I thought you were ill or
that you had seen something frightful.”...
“I HAVE... seen something... frightful,” declared Denise Ryland. She
glared across at the haggard Leroux. “Harry... Leroux,” she continued,
“it is very fortunate... that I came to London... very fortunate.”
“I am sincerely glad that you did,” answered the novelist, with one of
his kindly, weary smiles.
“My dear,” said Denise Ryland, turning again to Helen Cumberly, “you say
you met that... cross-eyed... being... Gianapolis, again?”
“Good Heavens!” cried Helen; “I thought I should never get rid of him; a
most loathsome man!”
“My dear... child”--Denise squeezed her tightly by the arm, and peered
into her face, intently--“cul-tivate... DELIBERATELY cul-tivate that
man's acquaintance!”
Helen stared at her friend as though she suspected the latter's sanity.
“I am afraid I do not understand at all,” she said, breathlessly.
“I am positive that I do not,” declared Leroux, who was as much
surprised as Helen. “In the first place I am not acquainted with this
cross-eyed being.”
“You are... out of this!” cried Denise Ryland with a sweeping
movement of the left hand; “entirely... out of it! This is no MAN'S...
business.”...
“But my dear Denise!” exclaimed Helen....
“I beseech you; I entreat you;... I ORDER... you to cultivate...
that... execrable... being.”
“Perhaps,” said Helen, with eyes widely opened, “you will condescend to
give me some slight reason why I should do anything so extraordinary and
undesirable?”
“Undesirable!” cried Denise. “On the contrary;... it is MOST ...
desirable! It is essential. The wretched... cross-eyed ... creature has
presumed to fall in love... with you.”...
“Oh!” cried Helen, flushing, and glancing rapidly at Leroux, who now was
thoroughly interested, “please do not talk nonsense!”
“It is no... nonsense. It is the finger... of Providence. Do you know
where you can find... him?”
“Not exactly; but I have a shrewd suspicion,” again she glanced in an
embarrassed way at Leroux, “that he will know where to find ME.”
“Who is this presumptuous person?” inquired the novelist, leaning
forward, his dark blue eyes aglow with interest.
“Never mind,” replied Denise Ryland, “you will know... soon enough.
In the meantime... as I am simply... starving, suppose we see about...
lunch?”
Moved by some unaccountable impulse, Helen extended her hand to Leroux,
who took it quietly in his own and held it, looking down at the slim
fingers as though he derived strength and healing from their touch.
“Poor boy,” she said softly.
XXXIV
M. MAX REPORTS PROGRESS
Detective-Sergeant Sowerby was seated in Dunbar's room at New Scotland
Yard. Some days had elapsed since that critical moment when, all unaware
of the fact, they had stood within three yards of the much-wanted
Soames, in the fauteuils of the east-end music-hall. Every clue thus
far investigated had proved a cul-de-sac. Dunbar, who had literally been
working night and day, now began to show evidence of his giant toils.
The tawny eyes were as keen as ever, and the whole man as forceful as of
old, but in the intervals of conversation, his lids would droop wearily;
he would only arouse himself by a perceptible effort.
Sowerby, whose bowler hat lay upon Dunbar's table, was clad in the
familiar raincoat, and his ruddy cheerfulness had abated not one whit.
“Have you ever read 'The Adventures of Martin Zeda'?” he asked suddenly,
breaking a silence of some minutes' duration.
Dunbar looked up with a start, as...
“Never!” he replied; “I'm not wasting my time with magazine trash.”
“It's not trash,” said Sowerby, assuming that unnatural air of
reflection which sat upon him so ill. “I've looked up the volumes of the
Ludgate Magazine in our local library, and I've read all the series with
much interest.”
Dunbar leaned forward, watching him frowningly.
“I should have thought,” he replied, “that you had enough to do without
wasting your time in that way!”
“IS it a waste of time?” inquired Sowerby, raising his eyebrows in a
manner which lent him a marked resemblance to a famous comedian. “I tell
you that the man who can work out plots like those might be a second
Jack-the-Ripper and not a soul the wiser!”...
“Ah!”
“I've never met a more innocent LOOKING man, I'll allow; but if you'll
read the 'Adventures of Martin Zeda,' you'll know that”...
“Tosh!” snapped Dunbar, irritably; “your ideas of psychology would
make a Manx cat laugh! I suppose, on the same analogy, you think the
leader-writers of the dailies could run the Government better than the
Cabinet does it?”
“I think it very likely”...
“Tosh! Is there anybody in London knows more about the inside workings
of crime than the Commissioner? You will admit there isn't; very
good. Accordingly to your ideas, the Commissioner must be the biggest
blackguard in the Metropolis! I have said it twice before, and I'll be
saying it again, Sowerby: TOSH!”
“Well,” said Sowerby with an offended air, “has anybody ever seen Mr.
King?”
“What are you driving at?”
“I am driving at this: somebody known in certain circles as Mr. King
is at the bottom of this mystery. It is highly probable that Mr. King
himself murdered Mrs. Vernon. On the evidence of your own notes, nobody
left Palace Mansions between the time of the crime and the arrival of
witnesses. Therefore, ONE of your witnesses must be a liar; and the liar
is Mr. King!”
Inspector Dunbar glared at his subordinate. But the latter continued
undaunted:--
“You won't believe it's Leroux; therefore it must be either Mr. Exel,
Dr. Cumberly, or Miss Cumberly.”...
Inspector Dunbar stood up very suddenly, thrusting his chair from him
with much violence.
“Do you recollect the matter of Soames leaving Palace Mansions?” he
snapped.
Sowerby's air of serio-comic defiance began to leave him. He scratched
his head reflectively.
“Soames got away like that because no one was expecting him to do it. In
the same way, neither Leroux, Exel, nor Dr. Cumberly knew that there was
any one else IN the flat at the very time when the murderer was making
his escape. The cases are identical. They were not looking for a
fugitive. He had gone before the search commenced. A clever man could
have slipped out in a hundred different ways unobserved. Sowerby, you
are...”
What Sowerby was, did not come to light at the moment; for, the door
quietly opened and in walked M. Gaston Max arrayed in his inimitable
traveling coat, and holding his hat of velour in his gloved hand. He
bowed politely.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.
“Good morning,” said Dunbar and Sowerby together.
Sowerby hastened to place a chair for the distinguished visitor. M.
Max, thanking him with a bow, took his seat, and from an inside pocket
extracted a notebook.
“There are some little points,” he said with a deprecating wave of the
hand, “which I should like to confirm.” He opened the book, sought the
wanted page, and continued: “Do either of you know a person answering
to the following description: Height, about four feet eight-and-a-half
inches, medium build and carries himself with a nervous stoop. Has a
habit of rubbing his palms together when addressing anyone. Has plump
hands with rather tapering fingers, and a growth of reddish down upon
the backs thereof, indicating that he has red or reddish hair. His chin
recedes slightly and is pointed, with a slight cleft parallel with the
mouth and situated equidistant from the base of the chin and the lower
lip. A nervous mannerism of the latter periodically reveals the lower
teeth, one of which, that immediately below the left canine, is much
discolored. He is clean-shaven, but may at some time have worn whiskers.
His eyes are small and ferret-like, set very closely together and of
a ruddy brown color. His nose is wide at the bridge, but narrows to an
unusual point at the end. In profile it is irregular, or may have been
broken at some time. He has scanty eyebrows set very high, and a low
forehead with two faint, vertical wrinkles starting from the inner
points of the eyebrows. His natural complexion is probably sallow, and
his hair (as hitherto mentioned) either red or of sandy color. His
ears are set far back, and the lobes are thin and pointed. His hair is
perfectly straight and sparse, and there is a depression of the cheeks
where one would expect to find a prominence: that is--at the cheekbone.
The cranial development is unusual. The skull slopes back from the crown
at a remarkable angle, there being no protuberance at the back, but
instead a straight slope to the spine, sometimes seen in the Teutonic
races, and in this case much exaggerated. Viewed from the front the
skull is narrow, the temples depressed, and the crown bulging over the
ears, and receding to a ridge on top. In profile the forehead is almost
apelike in size and contour....”
“SOAMES!” exclaimed Inspector Dunbar, leaping to his feet, and
bringing both his palms with a simultaneous bang upon the table before
him--“Soames, by God!”
M. Max, shrugging and smiling slightly, returned his notebook to his
pocket, and, taking out a cigar-case, placed it, open, upon the table,
inviting both his confreres, with a gesture, to avail themselves of its
contents.
“I thought so,” he said simply. “I am glad.”
Sowerby selected a cigar in a dazed manner, but Dunbar, ignoring the
presence of the cigar-case, leant forward across the table, his eyes
blazing, and his small, even, lower teeth revealed in a sort of grim
smile.
“M. Max,” he said tensely--“you are a clever man! Where have you got
him?”
“I have not got him,” replied the Frenchman, selecting and lighting one
of his own cigars. “He is much too useful to be locked up”...
“But”...
“But yes, my dear Inspector--he is safe; oh! he is quite safe. And on
Tuesday night he is going to introduce us to Mr. King!”
“MR. KING!” roared Dunbar; and in three strides of the long legs he was
around the table and standing before the Frenchman.
In passing he swept Sowerby's hat on to the floor, and Sowerby, picking
it up, began mechanically to brush it with his left sleeve, smoking
furiously the while.
“Soames,” continued M. Max, quietly--“he is now known as Lucas, by the
way--is a man of very remarkable character; a fact indicated by his
quite unusual skull. He has no more will than this cigar”--he held
the cigar up between his fingers, illustratively--“but of stupid pig
obstinacy, that canaille--saligaud!--has enough for all the cattle in
Europe! He is like a man who knows that he stands upon a sinking ship,
yet, who whilst promising to take the plunge every moment, hesitates and
will continue to hesitate until someone pushes him in. Pardieu! I
push! Because of his pig obstinacy I am compelled to take risks most
unnecessary. He will not consent, that Soames, to open the door for
us...”
“What door?” snapped Dunbar.
“The door of the establishment of Mr. King,” explained Max, blandly.
“But where is it?”
“It is somewhere between Limehouse Causeway--is it not called so?--and
the riverside. But although I have been there, myself, I can tell you no
more....”
“What! you have been there yourself?”