“Thank goodness you're here, Ben,” he said. “Something has happened.”
It was a large, comfortable room, crowded with books on three walls,
furnished with easy chairs and a couch in one corner. A brilliant blaze
of light from several bulbs under a frosted hood poured upon a reading
table in the middle of the room. Sitting at this table, in a Windsor
chair, slumped down into the seat, was a short stout man whose head
lolled sideways over his chest. He was wearing a tweed suit and a soft
shirt, and looked as though he had fallen asleep at his work. In front
of him were some books and a can of tobacco. I recognized him, of
course, from the photographs I had often seen. It was Digby.
I looked at Dulcet, aghast. But, as always at such moments, what was
uppermost in my mind was something trivial and irrelevant. I had an
intense desire to open a window. The air in that room was thick and
foggy, a sort of close, strangling frowst of venomously strong tobacco
and furnace gas. After the clear elixir of the wintry night it was
loathsome. It was the typical smell that hangs about the rooms of
literary bachelors, who work all day long in a room without ever
thinking of airing it.
“Yes,” he said. “He's dead. Pretty awful, isn't it? I found him like
this when I got here. No sign of injury as far as I can see.”
There was something profoundly dreadful in this first sight, as mere
sagging clay, of the brilliant and powerful writer whose books I had
so long admired, and whom I had thought of as one of the strong and
fortunate few who shape human perplexities to their own ends. I looked
down at him with a miserable blackness in my spirit, and laid a hand on
Dulcet's shoulder in sympathy.
“I've sent for a doctor,” he said. “Before he comes I want to get all
the information I can from the landlady. I wanted to have you here as a
witness. I haven't touched anything.”
The woman had followed me upstairs, and stood crying quietly in the
doorway.
“Come in, Mrs. Barlow,” said Dulcet. “Now please tell us everything
you can about where Mr. Digby went this evening, and anything that has
happened.”
Mrs. Barlow, who seemed to be a good-hearted, simple-minded creature,
snuffled wretchedly. “Oh, dear, oh dear,” she said. “He was such a nice
gentleman, too. Let me see, he went out about seven, I suppose for his
supper, but he was always irregular about his meals, you never could
tell, sometimes he would eat in the middle of the afternoon, and
sometimes not till late at night. I always would urge him that he would
die of indigestion, but he was so kind-hearted.”
“You don't know where he went?” said Dulcet. “Perhaps he went round to
the laundry,” she said, “for he had a parcel with him, which I took to
be his laundry because he usually took it out on Monday evenings because
by that time the clean shirt he put on on Sunday was ready to go to the
wash. I hate to think that in all the years he lived in this house his
laundry was the only thing we ever had a difference about, because I
used to have it done in the house for him but he said my washwoman tore
the buttons off his shirts or collars or something, so a little while
ago he started taking his things out to be done, but I don't know where
because he used to call for them himself.”
“You haven't any idea where he used to eat?” insisted Dulcet.
“Oh, no, sir, he liked to go different places, you know yourself how
he was always a bit queer and concentric and he never talked much about
where he went, but always so nice and considerate. Oh, he _was_ a fine
gentleman.”
Mrs. Barlow, plainly much grieved, wept anew. “Please try to tell us
everything you can think of,” said Dulcet, gently. “What time did he
come in, and did you notice anything unusual?”
“Nothing out of the way that I can think of, but then I was down in the
basement most of the evening, for I let my maid go to the movies and
I had a deal to do. I suppose he went along Amsterdam Avenue, he was
always strolling up and down Amsterdam or Columbus, poor man, getting
ideas for his literature I guess. He came back about nine o'clock I
should say, because I heard the door about then. Just a few minutes
before he came in there was a man came to the door with a tin of tobacco
for him, which he said Mr. Digby had ordered sent around, and I took
it up and put it on his table, there it is now, poor man, Carter's
Mixture.”
Mrs. Barlow pointed to the tin of Cartesian Mixture that stood on the
table. Evidently it had only just been opened, for it was practically
full.
“Yes,” said Dulcet. “Here's his pipe lying on the floor under his
chair.” He picked up the briar and glanced at it. “Only just begun to
smoke it, for the tobacco is hardly burned. He must have been smoking
when he.... There wasn't anything else you can think of?”
The woman dried her eyes with her apron. “There was just one other thing
I noticed, but I suppose it's silly. But I took note of it special,
because I thought I had heard it before, lately. While he was out, and
a little before the man brought the tin of tobacco, I heard a sharp
tapping out on the street in front of the house. I noticed it special,
because I thought at first it was someone rapping on the door, and I
wondered if the bell was out of order again, but when I went I couldn't
see any one. But I wondered about it because I heard it two or three
times, a sharp kind of tapping, it sounded some way like hitting on
stone with a stick of some sort.”
Dulcet and I looked at each other rather blankly.
“And after that,” she went on, “I didn't think about anything one way or
another till you came in and I told you to go right up.”
There was a clear peal from the front door bell. “That's the doctor,”
said Dulcet, and Mrs. Barlow hurried downstairs.
I have never seen any one so brisk and matter of fact as that physician,
and after his arrival the affair seemed to pass out of Dulcet's hands
into the painful official machinery that takes charge in such events.
Dulcet, acting as the dead writer's literary representative, went into
the adjoining room, which was Digby's study, to look over the papers in
the desk for any manuscripts that he ought to take care of. He wrote out
a list of friends and relatives for me to send telegrams to and I went
out to attend to this. I don't know how they get wind of these affairs,
but the reporters were already beginning to arrive when I left.
The next day, and for several days afterward, the papers all carried
long stories about poor Digby's brilliant career. Then the literary
weeklies took it up. At the libraries and bookshops everyone was asking
for his books, and I have never seen a more depressing illustration of
the familiar fact that a writer's real fame never comes until it is too
late to do him any good. Editors and people who had hardly been aware of
Digby's genius while he was alive now praised him fluently, speaking
of him as “America's most honest realist,” and all that sort of thing.
Moving-picture people began inquiring about the film rights of his
novels. Some of the sensational newspapers tried to play up his death as
a mystery story, but the physicians asserted heart failure as the cause,
and this aspect of the matter soon subsided.
Except at the funeral, which was attended by a great many literary
people, I did not see Dulcet for some days. I gathered from what I read
in the news that Digby's will had appointed him executor of his literary
property, and I knew that he must have much to attend to. But one
afternoon the telephone rang, and Dulcet asked me if I could knock off
work and come round to see him. As I was living up town at that time,
it only took me a few minutes to go round to his apartment. I found him
smoking a pipe as usual, and looking pale and fagged. He welcomed me
with his affectionate cordiality, and I sat down to hear what was on his
mind.
“You must excuse me if I'm a little upset,” he said. “I've just had an
interview with a ghoul. A fellow came in to see me who had heard that
I have a number of poor Digby's books and manuscripts. He wanted to buy
them from me, offered big prices for them. He said that since Digby's
death all his first editions and so on have gone up enormously in value.
Apparently he expected me to do trading over the dead body of a friend.”
He smoked awhile in silence, and then said: “Sorry not to have seen you
sooner, but to tell the truth I've had my hands full. His brother,
who was the nearest kin, couldn't come from Ohio on account of serious
illness, and everything fell on me. I had to pack up all his things and
ship them, all that sort of business. But I've been wanting to talk to
you about it, because I'm convinced there was something queer about the
whole affair. I'm not satisfied with that heart-failure verdict. That's
absurd. There was nothing wrong with his heart that I ever heard of.
It's very unfortunate that for the first few days I was too occupied
with urgent matters to be able to follow up the various angles of the
affair. But I've been turning it over in my mind, and I've got some
ideas I'd like to share with you. You remember what I told you, with
unfortunate levity, about the secret of detective work being ability
to notice the unsuspected rhymes in events? Well, there are one or two
features of this affair that seem to me to rhyme together in a very
sinister fashion. Wait a minute until I put on my other coat, and we'll
go out.”
He went into his bedroom. I had not liked to interrupt him, but I was
yearning for a smoke, for leaving my rooms in a hurry I had forgotten to
bring my pouch with me. On his mantelpiece I saw a tin of tobacco, and
began to fill my pipe. To my surprise, just as I was taking out a match
he darted out of the bedroom, uttered an exclamation, and snatched the
briar from my hand.
“Sorry,” he said, bluntly, “but you mustn't smoke that. It's something
very special.” He opened his penknife, scraped out the weed I had put
in the bowl, and carefully put it back in the tin. He took the tin and
locked it in his desk.
“Try some of this,” he said, handing his pouch. I concluded that the
tension of the past days had troubled his nerves. This rudeness was so
unlike him that I knew there must be some explanation, but he offered
none. As we went down in the elevator he said: “The question is, can you
make a rhyme out of tobacco and collar buttons?”
“No,” I said, a little peevishly. “And I don't believe any one could,
except Edward Lear.”
“Well,” he continued, “that's what we've got to do. And don't imagine
that it's merely a nonsense rhyme, any more than Lear's were.
Edward Lear was as great as King Lear, in his own way.” He led me to
Eighty-second Street. The December afternoon was already dark as we
approached Mrs. Barlow's house. At the foot of her front steps he halted
and turned to me.
“Is your pipe going?” he said.
“No,” I said, irritably. “It's out. And I haven't any tobacco.”
“Don't be surly, old chap; I'll give you some if you'll tell me what you
do when your pipe goes out.”
“Why, you idiot,” I cried, “I do this.” And I knocked out the ashes by
striking the bowl smartly against the palm of my hand.
“Ah,” he said. “But some people do this.”
He bent down and rapped his pipe against the stone ramp of the steps,
with a clear, sharp, hollow sound.
“Yes, a good way to break a nice pipe,” I was remarking, when the
basement door of the house flew open, and Mrs. Barlow darted out
into the sunken area just below the pavement level. In the pale
lemon-coloured glare of a near-by street lamp we could see that she was
strongly excited.
“Good gracious,” she panted. “Is it Mr. Dulcet? Oh, sir, you did give me
a turn. Oh, dear, that was just the tapping sound I heard the night poor
Mr. Digby died. What was it? Did you hear it?”
“Like this?” said Dulcet, knocking his pipe again on the stone step.
“That was it, exactly,” she said. “What a fright, to be sure! Was it
only someone knocking his pipe like that? Oh, dear, it did bring back
that horrid evening, just as plain.”
“So much for the mysterious death rap,” said Dulcet as we walked
back toward Amsterdam Avenue. “I can't claim much ingenuity for that,
however. You see, the morning after Digby's death I went round to Mrs.
Barlow's early, before she had been out to sweep her pavement. The first
thing I noticed, by the lowest step, was a little dottle of tobacco such
as falls from a halfsmoked pipe when it is knocked out. That seemed to
me to make a perfect couplet with Mrs. Barlow's tale of the tapping she
had heard. She heard it several times, you remember, in a short space of
time. That suggests to me someone standing on the street, or walking up
and down, in a state of nervousness, because he didn't smoke any of his
pipes through. When they were only half smoked he knocked them out, in
sheer impatience. Was he waiting for someone?”
“Perhaps it was Digby himself?” I suggested. “I don't think so,” he
said. “Because, in the first place, nervousness was the last thing I
would associate with his temperament, which was calm and collected in
the extreme. And also, he always smoked Brown Eyed Blend, and had done
so for years. That was the first thing that struck me as unusual the
night we were there--that tin of Cartesian on the table. He was a man of
fixed habits; why should he have made a change just that night? I picked
up the little wad of tobacco I found lying on the step, and took it
carefully home. It's Cartesian, or I'm a Dutchman. So item I in our
criminal rhyme-scheme is: Find me a nervous man smoking Cartesian.”
“It's a bit fanciful,” I objected.
“Of course it is,” he cried. “But crime is a fanciful thing. Ever let
the fancy roam, as Keats said. What the deuce is the line that follows?
Suppose we stroll down Amsterdam Avenue and find a new place to have
dinner.”
“Poor old Digby,” he said, as we walked along admiring the lighted
caves of the shopwindows. “How he enjoyed all this. You know, there is a
certain honest simplicity about Amsterdam Avenue's merchandising that is
pleasant to contemplate after the shining sophistications of Broadway.
In a Broadway delicatessen window you'll see such horrid luxuries as
jars of cocks' combs in jelly; whereas along here the groceries show
candid and heartening signs such, as this: 'Coming Back to The Old
Times, 17c lb. Sugar.' Amsterdam Avenue shopkeepers speak with engaging
directness about their traffic; for instance, there's a barber at the
corner of Eighty-first Street who embosses on his window the legend:
'Yes, We Do Buster Brown Hair Cutting.' That sort of thing is very
humane and genuine, that's why Digby was so fond of it. There's a
laundry along here somewhere that I have often noticed; it calls itself
the Fastidious Laundry----”
“Speaking of laundries,” I said, “what do you think of this?” We
stopped, and I pointed to a neatly lettered placard in a window which
had caught my eye. It said:
_Notice to Artists and Authors_
_We Sew Buttons on Soft Collars Free of Charge_
“By Jove,” I said, “there's a laundry that has the right idea. I think
I'll bring my----”
I broke off when I saw my companion's face. He was leaning forward
toward the pane, and his eyes were bright but curiously empty, as though
in some way the mechanism of sight had been reversed, and he was looking
inward rather than out.
“That's very odd,” he said, presently. “I've been up and down this
street many times, but I never noticed that sign before.”
He turned and marched into the shop, and I followed. In the soft steamy
air several girls were ironing shirts, and a plump, pink-cheeked Hebrew
stood behind a counter wrapping up bundles.
“I noticed your sign in the window,” said Dulcet. “What do you charge
for laundering soft collars?”
“Five cents each, but we mend them, too, and sew on the buttons.”
“That's a good idea,” said Dulcet, genially. “I wish I'd known that
before; I'd have brought my collars round to you. How long have you been
doing that? I often go by here, but I never saw the sign before.”
“Only about a week,” the man replied. “Let's see--a week ago last Monday
I put that sign up. You wouldn't believe how much new trade it has
brought in. I thought it would be a kind of a joke--the man next door
suggested it, and I put it in to please him. But 'most everybody wears
soft collars nowadays, and it seems good business.”
“The man next door?” said Dulcet, in a casual tone.
“Sure, the cigar store.”
“Is his name Stork?” said Dulcet, reflectively.
“Stork? Why, no, Basswood. What do you mean, Stork?”
“I mean,” said Dulcet, slowly, “does he ever stand on one leg?”
“Quit your kidding,” cried the laundryman, annoyed.
“I assure you, I do not trifle,” said Dulcet, gravely. “I'll bring you
in some collars to fix up for me. Much obliged.”
We went out again, and my companion stood for a moment in front of the
laundry window, looking thoughtfully at the sign.
“While you ponder, old son,” I said, “I'll run into Mr. Stork-Basswood's
and get some tobacco.”
He seized my arm in a firm and painful clutch and whispered, “Look at
the corner!”
The laundry was the second shop from the corner. Under the lamp-post at
the angle of the street I saw, to my amazement, a man standing balanced
on one leg. Directly under the light, he was partly in shadow, and
I could only see him in silhouette, but the absurd profile of his
onelegged attitude afflicted me with a renewed sense of absurdity and
irritation. Dulcet, I thought, had evidently suffered some serious
stroke in the region of his wits.
“Now,” he said, softly, “can you see any rhyme between soft collars and
standing on one leg?”
As he spoke, we both started, for somewhere near us on the street there
sounded a sharp tapping, a ringing hollow wooden sound. Evidently it
came from the one-legged man. This was too much for my composure.
I broke away from Dulcet and ran to the corner. As I got there the
one-legged creature put down a concealed limb and stood solidly on two
feet, in a state of normalcy, as an eminent statesman would say. I was
confused, and said angrily to the man:
“Here, you mustn't stand like that, on the public street you know, on
one leg. It's setting a bad example.”
To my amazement he made no retort whatever, but turned and scuttled
hastily down the avenue, disappearing in the crowds that were doing
their evening marketing.
“My dear fellow,” said Dulcet, calmly, coming up to me, “you shouldn't
have done that. You've very nearly spoilt it all. Come on, let's go in
and get your tobacco.”
Basswood's proved to be one of those interesting combination tobacco,
stationery, toy, and bookshops which are so common on the upper West
Side. I have often noticed that these places are by no means unfruitful
as hunting ground for books, because the dealers are wholly ignorant of
literature and sometimes one may find on their shelves some forgotten
volume that has been there for years, and which they will gladly part
with for a song. A good many of these stores have, tucked away at the
back, a shabby stock of circulating library volumes that have come down
through many changes of proprietorship. Only the other day I saw in just
such a place first editions of Kenneth Grahame's “The Golden Age”
and Arthur Machen's “The Three Impostors,” which the storekeeper was
delighted to sell for fifteen cents each.
A dark young man was behind the tobacco counter, and from him I got a
packet of my usual blend.
“Mr. Basswood in?” said Dulcet.
“Just stepped out,” said the young man.
We lit our pipes and looked round the shop, glancing at the magazines
and the queer miscellany of books. As it was approaching Christmas time
there was a profuse assortment of those dreadful little bibelots that
go by the name of “gift books,” among which were the usual copies of
“Recessional” and “Vampire,” Thoreau's “Friendship,” and “Ballads of
a Cheechako,” bound in what the trade calls “padded ooze”. I was
particularly heartened to observe that one of these atrocities, called
“As a Man Thinketh,” was described on the box (for all such books come
in little cardboard cases) as being bound in antique yap. This pleased
me so much that I was about to call it to Dulcet's attention, when I saw
that he was looking at me from the rear of the store with a spark in
his eye. I approached and found that he was staring at a doorway partly
concealed by a pile of Christmas toys and novelties. Over this door was
a sign: J. Basswood, Rare Book Department.
“Can we go in and look at the rare books?” said Dulcet.
“Sure thing,” said the young man. “Help yourself. The boss'll be back
soon, if you want to buy anything.”
Mr. Basswood was evidently a man of some literary discretion. To
our amazement we found, in a dark little room lined with shelves, a
judicious assortment of modern books, several hundred volumes, and all
first editions or autographed copies. The prices were marked in cipher,
so we could not tell whether there were any bargains among them, but I
know that I saw several particularly rare and desirable things which I
would have been glad to have.
“Good heavens,” I said to Dulcet, “friend Basswood is a real collector.
There isn't a thing here that isn't of prime value.”
He was staring at a shelf in the corner, and I went over to see what he
had found.
“Upon my soul,” I cried, “look at the Digbies! Not merely one copy of
each, but three or four! This man must have specialized in Digbies.”
“Not only that,” said Dulcet, “but he has three of 'The Autogenesis of
a Novelist', the first thing that Digby wrote. It was privately printed,
and afterward suppressed. It's devilish rare; even I haven't got a copy.
I wish I knew what prices he asks for these things.”
“Look at this,” I said. “Perhaps this will tell us.” I picked up one of
a pile of pamphlets that were lying in a large sheet of wrapping
paper in a corner of the room. It was evidently a new catalogue of Mr.
Basswood's rare books, that had just come from the printer.
“Here we are,” I said, turning over the leaves. “Look at this.”
_Special Note_
_Fine Collection of Digbiana: J. Basswood wishes to call particular
attention to the Digbiana listed below. Anticipating the growing
interest in collectors' items of this great writer's work, J. Basswood
has taken pains to gather a stock of first editions and presentation
copies which is absolutely unique. The prices of these items, while
high, are a fair index of the appreciation in which this author's work
is held among connoisseurs. All are copies in good condition and their
authenticity is guaranteed._
_November 15, 19--_.
Dulcet seized the catalogue and ran his eye down the pages.
“'Girlhood,' first edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1901, $100,” he
read. “'The Nuisance of Being Loved,' first edition, $75. 'The Princess
Quarrelsome,' $90. 'The Anatomy of Cheerfulness,' autographed copy,
$150. 'Distemper,' acting copy, signed by the author and Richard
Mansfield, $200.
“Why,” he cried, shrilly, “this is madness! I am in touch with all the
dealers in this sort of thing, and I know the proper prices. This man
has multiplied them by ten.” He thrust the catalogue into his pocket and
glared round at the musty shelves.
“I suppose it's due to poor Digby's death,” I said. I saw that Dulcet
was overwrought, and suggested that we go out and get some supper.
“Supper?” he said. “A good idea. I know a place on Broadway where we
can get some guinea pigs.” He strode out of the store and I followed,
wondering what next. He seized my arm and hurried me along Seventy-ninth
Street to Broadway.
In the clarid blue of the evening that blazing gully of light seemed to
foam and bubble with preposterous fire. Chop suey restaurants threw out
crawling streamers of red and yellow brilliance; against the
peacock green of the western sky the queer church at the corner of
Seventy-ninth, with the oriental pinnacle and truncated belfry rising
above its solid Baptist wings, seemed like the offspring of some
reckless marriage of two infatuated architects, one Jewish and one
Calvinist. It was a fitting silhouette, I thought, congruent with an
evening of such wild humours. Guinea pigs for supper, how original and
enlivening! “Are guinea pigs properly kosher?” I asked, sarcastically.
Dulcet paid no heed, but, holding my arm, urged me along the pavement to
an animal shop on the western side of Broadway. The window was full of
puppies and long-haired cats. All down the aisle of the establishment
were tiers of birdcages, covered with curtains while the birds slept.
In lucid bowls persevering goldfish pursued their glittering and
improfitable round.
“Those guinea pigs I ordered,” said Dulcet to the man, “are they ready?”
“All ready, sir,” he said, and took out a cage from under the counter.
“Very fine pigs, sir, strong and hearty; they will stand a great deal.”
“Yes,” I said, with a wild desire to shout with laughter. “But will they
stand being eaten? They will find that rather trying, I fancy.”
Dulcet tapped his forehead, and the dealer smiled indulgently. My
companion took the cage, paid some money, and sped outdoors again.
I made no further comment and in a few minutes we were in Dulcet's
apartment.
“You have no kitchenette here, have you?” I protested. “Or do we devour
them raw? Oh, I see, you have a camp oven. How ingenious!”
He had put on the table a large tin box. With complete seriousness he
now produced a small spirit lamp, over which he fitted a little basket
of fine wire mesh. When the flame of the lamp was lit, it played upon
the basket, which was supported by legs at just the right height. He now
put the unsuspecting guinea pigs into the tin box, which was shaped like
a rural-free-delivery letter-box, with a hinged door opening at one
end. He took the spirit lamp with its attached basket and pushed the
contraption carefully into the box with the pigs. Then he opened both
windows in the room.
“Admirable!” I exclaimed. “Like those much-advertised cigarettes, they
will be toasted. But won't it take a long time?”
“Don't be an ass,” he said.
He went to his desk, and took out the tin of Cartesian Mixture he had
snatched away from me earlier in the evening.
“Your mention of those cigarettes is apt,” he said, “for in this case
also the fuel is tobacco. Please go over by the window, and stay there.”
I watched, somewhat impressed by the gravity of his manner. From the tin
of tobacco he took a small pinch of mixture and carefully placed it in
the mesh basket above the lamp. Reaching into the box, he lit the wick
of the lamp with a match, and hastily clapped to the hinged lid. The
guinea pigs seemed to be awed by these proceedings, for they remained
quiet. Dulcet joined me at the window, and remarked that fresh air was a
fine thing.
We waited for about five minutes, while the guinea-pig oven stood
quietly on the table.
“Well,” said Dulcet, finally, “we ought to be able to see whether it
rhymes or not.”
He snatched open the door of the tin box, and skipped away from it in
a way that seemed to me perfectly insane. He picked up a pair of tongs
from the fireplace, and standing at a distance, lifted out the lamp. The
tobacco was smoking strongly in its mesh basket. Holding the lamp away
from him with the tongs, he carried it into the bathroom, and I heard
him turn on the water. Then, coming back, he inserted the tongs into the
tin box, and gingerly withdrew first one guinea pig and then the other.
Both were calm as possible, quite dead. Looking over the sill to see
that the pavement was clear, he threw the tin box into the street, where
it fell with a crash.
“Surely they're not cooked already?” I said.
“I haven't heard from the doctor yet,” he said; “but he promised to ring
me up this evening. I'm awfully sorry to have delayed your dinner, old
man. Meet me at the Lucerne grill room, Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam
Avenue, to-morrow evening at seven o'clock and we'll eat together.
You've been a great help to me.”
“I hope the doctor is a mental specialist,” I said; but he pushed me
gently out of the room. “We'll finish our rhyme at dinner to-morrow
evening.”