MR. PETER GANNS
Mark Brendon received with mingled emotions the long letter from
Jenny Doria. It awaited him at New Scotland Yard and, as he took it
from the rack, his heart leaped before the well-remembered
handwriting. The past very seldom arose to shadow Mark's strenuous
present; but now, once more, it seemed that Robert Redmayne was
coming between him and his annual holiday. He told himself that he
had lived down his greatest disappointment and believed that he
could now permit his thoughts to dwell on Jenny without feeling much
more than the ache of an old wound. Her letter came a week before
the recipient proposed to start upon his vacation. He had intended
going to Scotland, having no mind for Dartmoor again at present; but
it was not his failure, so complete and bewildering, that had barred
a return to familiar haunts. Memory made the thought too painful and
poignant, so he designed to break new ground and receive fresh
impressions.
Then came this unexpected challenge and he hesitated before
accepting it. Yet a second reading of the woman's appeal determined
him, for Jenny wrote for herself as well as her uncle. She reminded
Brendon of his goodwill and declared how personally she should
welcome him and feel safer and more sanguine for his companionship.
She also contrived to let him know that she was not particularly
happy. The fact seemed implicitly woven into her long letter, though
another, less vitally interested in the writer, might have failed to
observe it.
Regretting only that Albert Redmayne's friend must be approached and
hoping that Mr. Peter Ganns would at least allow him a few days'
start, Brendon sought the famous American and found his direction
without difficulty. He had already visited New Scotland Yard, where
he numbered several acquaintances, and Mark learned that he was
stopping at the Grand Hotel in Trafalgar Square. On sending in his
name a messenger boy bade Brendon follow to the smoking-room.
His first glance, however, failed to indicate the great man. The
smoking-room was nearly empty on this June morning and Mark observed
nobody but a young soldier, writing letters, and a white-haired,
somewhat corpulent gentleman sitting with his back to the light
reading the _Times_. He was clean shaved, with a heavy face modelled
to suggest a rhinoceros. The features were large; the nose swollen
and a little veined with purple, the eyes hidden behind owl-like
spectacles with tortoise-shell rims, and the brow very broad, but
not high. From it abundant white hair was brushed straight back.
Brendon extended his glance elsewhere, but the messenger stopped,
turned, and departed, while the stout man rose, revealing a massive
frame, wide shoulders, and sturdy legs.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Brendon," he said in a genial voice; then he
shook hands, took off his spectacles, and sat down again.
"This is a pleasure I had meant to give myself before I quitted the
city," declared the big man. "I've heard about you and I've taken
off my hat to you more than once during the war. You might know me,
too."
"Everybody in our business knows you, Mr. Ganns. But I've not come
hero-worshipping to waste your time. I'm proud you're pleased to see
me and it's a great privilege to meet you; but I've looked in this
morning about something that won't wait; and your name is the big
noise in a letter I received from Italy to-day."
"Is that so? I'm bound for Italy in the fall."
"The question is whether this letter may change your plans and send
you there sooner."
The elder stared, took a golden box out of his waistcoat pocket,
opened it, tapped it, and helped himself to a pinch of snuff. The
habit explained his somewhat misshapen nose. It was tobacco, not
alcohol, that lent its exaggerated lustre and hypertrophied outline
to that organ.
"I hate changing my itinerary, once made," replied Mr. Ganns. "I'm
the most orderly cuss on earth. So far as I know, there's but one
man in all Italy is likely to knock my arrangements on the head; and
I'll see him, if all's well, in September next."
Brendon produced Jenny's letter.
"The writer is niece of that man," he said and handed the
communication to Mr. Ganns.
Peter put on his spectacles again and read slowly. Indeed Mark had
never seen a letter read so slowly before. It might have been in
some cryptic tongue which Mr. Ganns could only with difficulty
translate. Having finished he handed the communication back to
Brendon and indicated a desire for silence. Mark lit a cigarette and
sat surveying the other from the corner of his eye.
At last the American spoke.
"What about you? Can you go?"
"Yes; I've appealed to my chief and got permission to pick this up
again. My holiday's due and I'll go to Italy instead of Scotland. I
was in it from the first, you know."
"I do know--I know all about it, from my old pal, Albert Redmayne.
He wrote me the most lucid dispatch that ever I read."
"You can go, Mr. Ganns?"
"I must go, boy. Albert wants me."
"Could you get off in a week?"
"A week! To-night."
"To-night, sir! Do you reckon that Mr. Redmayne is in any danger?"
"Don't you?'"
"He's forewarned and you see he's taking great precautions."
"Brendon," said Mr. Ganns, "run round and find when the night boat
sails from Dover, or Folkestone. We'll reach Paris to-morrow
morning, I guess, catch the _Rapide_ for Milan, and be at the Lakes
next day. You'll find we can do so. Then telegraph to this dame that
we start _a week hence_. You take me?"
"You want to get there before we're expected?"
"Exactly."
"Then you do think Mr. Albert Redmayne is in danger?"
"I don't think about it. I know he is. But as this mystery has only
just let loose on him and he's got his weather eye lifting, it will
be all right, I hope, for a few hours. Meantime we arrive."
He took another pinch of snuff and picked up the _Times_. "Will you
lunch with me here in the grillroom at two o'clock?"
"With pleasure, Mr. Ganns."
"Right. And telegraph, right now, that we hope to get off in a
week."
Some hours later they met again and over a steak and green peas
Brendon reported that the boat train left Victoria at eleven and
that the _Rapide_ would start from Paris on the following morning at
half past six.
"We reach Bevano some time after noon next day," he said, "and can
either go on to Milan and then come back to Como and travel by boat
to Menaggio, where Mr. Redmayne lives, or else leave the train at
Bevano, take steamer on Maggiore, cross to Lugano, and cross again
to Como. That way we land right at Menaggio. There's not much in it
for time."
"We'll go that way, then, and I'll see the Lakes."
Peter Ganns spoke little while he partook of a light meal. He
picked a fried sole and drank two glasses of white wine. Then he ate
a dish of green peas and compared their virtues with green corn. He
enjoyed the spectacle of Brendon's hearty appetite and bewailed his
inability to join him in red meat and a pint of Burton.
"Lucky dog," he said. "When I was young I did the like. I love food.
You need never fear any rough stuff in business as long as you can
eat beef and drink beer. But nowadays, I don't go into the rough
stuff--too old and fat."
"Of course not, sir. You've done your bit. Nobody on your side has
been at closer quarters with the big crooks, or heard their guns
oftener."
"That's true."
Mr. Ganns held up his left hand, which was deformed and had lost the
third and little finger.
"The last shot that Billy Benyon ever fired. A great man--Billy.
I'll never see his like again."
"The Boston murderer? A genius!"
"He was. A marvellous brain. When I sent him to the chair it was
like a Bushman killing an elephant."
"You're sorry for the under dog sometimes, I expect?"
"Not always; but now and again I like the bull to get the toreador,
and the savage to eat the missionary."
They entered the smoking-room presently and then Brendon, very much
to his surprise, heard an astonishing lecture which left him under
the emotions of a fourth-form schoolboy after an interview with his
head master.
Mr. Ganns ordered coffee, took snuff, and bade Mark listen and not
interrupt.
"We're going into this thing together and I want you to get a clear
hunch on it," he began, "because at present you have not. I don't
say we shall see it through; but if we do, the credit's going to be
yours, not mine. We'll come to the Redmayne business in a minute.
But first let us have a look at Mr. Mark Brendon, if it won't bore
you stiff."
The other laughed.
"He's not a very impressive object, so far as this case is
concerned, Mr. Ganns."
"He is not," admitted Peter genially. "Quite the reverse, in fact.
And his poor showing has puzzled Mr. Brendon a good bit, and some of
his superior officers also. So let us examine the situation from
that angle before we get up against the problem itself."
He stirred his coffee, poured a thimbleful of cognac into it, sipped
it, and then slid into a comfortable position in his armchair, put
his big hands into his trousers pockets, and regarded Mark with a
steady and unblinking stare. His eyes were pale blue, deeply set and
small, but still of a keen brilliancy.
"You're a detective inspector of Scotland Yard," continued Ganns,
"and Scotland Yard is still the high-water mark of police
organization in the world. The Central Bureau in New York is pretty
close up, and I've nothing but admiration for the French and
Italian Secret Services; but the fact remains: The Yard is first;
and you've won, and fairly won your place there. That's a big thing
and you didn't get it without some work and some luck, Brendon. But
now--this Redmayne racket. You were right on the spot, hit the trail
before it was cold, had everything to help you that heart of man
could wish for; yet a guy who had joined the force only a week
before could have done no worse. In a word, your conduct of the
affair don't square with your reputation. Your dope never cut any
ice from the start. And why? Because, without a doubt, you had a
theory and got lost in it."
"Don't think that. I never had a theory."
"Is that so? Then failure lies somewhere else. The hopeless way you
bitched up this thing interests me quite a lot. Remember that I know
the case inside out and I'm not talking through my hat. So now let's
see how and why you barked your shins so bad.
"Now, Mark, take a cinema show and consider it. Perhaps it's going
to throw some light for you. A cinema film presents two entirely
different achievements. It presents ten for that matter; but we'll
take just two. It shows you a white sheet with a light thrown on it;
it passes the light through a series of stains and shadows and the
stains are magnified by lenses before they reach the screen. A most
elaborate mechanism, you see, but the spectator never thinks about
all that, because the machine produces an appeal to another part of
his mind altogether. He forgets sheet, lantern, film, and all they
are doing, in the illusion which they create.
"We accept the convention of the moving picture, the light and
darkness, the tones and half tones, because these moving stains and
shadows take the shape of familiar objects and tell a coherent
story, showing life in action. But we know, subconsciously, all the
time that it is merely an imitation of reality, as in the case of a
picture, a novel, or a stage play. Certain ingenious applications of
science and art combined have created the appearance of truth and
told a story. Well, in the Redmayne case, certain ingenious
operations have combined to tell you a story; and you have found
yourself so interested in the yarn that you have quite overlooked
the mechanism. But the mechanism should have been the first
consideration, and the conjurers, by distracting your attention from
it, did just what they were out to do. Let us take a look at the
mechanism, my son, and see where the archcrooks behind this thing
bluffed you."
Brendon did not hide his emotion, but kept silence while Mr. Ganns
helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
"Now the little I've done in the world," he continued, "is thanks
not so much to the deductive mind we hear such a lot about, but to
the synthetic mind. The linking up of facts has been my strong suit.
That's the backbone of success; and where facts can't be linked up,
then failure is usually the result. I never waste one moment on a
theory until I've got a tough skeleton of facts back of it. It was
up to you to hunt facts, Mark; and you didn't hunt facts."
"I had an encyclopedia of facts."
"Granted. But your encyclopedia began at the letter 'B,' instead of
the letter 'A.' We'll turn to that in a minute."
"My facts, such as they were, cannot be denied," argued Brendon, a
little aggrieved. "They are cast-iron. My eyes and observation are
trained to be exact and jealous of facts. No amount of synthesis can
prevent two and one from being three, Ganns."
"On the contrary, two and one may be twenty-one, or twelve, or a
half. Why jump to any conclusion? You had facts; but you did not
have all the available facts--or anything like all. You tried to put
on the roof before the walls were up; and, what's more, a great many
of your 'cast-iron facts' were no facts at all."
"What were they then?"
"Elaborate and deliberate fictions, Mark."
At this challenge Brendon felt a hot wave of colour mount his cheek;
but the other was far too generous and genial a spirit ever to seek
any triumph over a younger man. Neither did Brendon feel angry with
Mr. Ganns even though his remarks were provocative enough. He was
angry with himself. Peter, however, knew his power. He read the
detective's mind like a book and well understood that, both by his
position and rank, Mark must be far too good a man to chafe at the
criticism of a better than himself. He explained.
"Where I've got the pull on you, for the minute, is merely because
I've been in the world a few years longer. A time's coming when
you'll talk to your juniors as I can talk to you; and they'll
listen, with all proper respect and attention, as you are listening.
When you are my age, you'll command that perfect confidence which I
command. Folks can't trust youth all the way; but you'll win to it;
and believe me, in our business, there's no greater asset than the
power to command absolute trust. You can't pretend to that power if
you haven't got it. Human nature damn soon sees through you, if
you're pretending what you don't command. But I'm playing straight
across the board, Mark, as my custom is, and I know you are too sane
and ambitious a lad to let false pride or self-assurance resent my
calling you an ass over this thing."
"Prove it, Ganns, and I'll be the first to climb down. I know I've
been an ass for that matter--knew it long ago," confessed Brendon.
"Yes, I'll prove it--that's easy. But what's going to be harder is
to find out why you've been an ass. You've no right to be an ass.
It's unlike your record and unlike your looks and your general
make-up of mind. I mostly read a strange man's brain through his
eyes; and your eyes do you justice. So perhaps you'll tell me
presently where you went off your rocker. Or perhaps you don't know
and I shall have to tell you--when I find the nigger in the
woodpile. Now take a look round, and its dollars to doughnuts you'll
begin to see the light."
He paused again, applied himself to his gold box, and then
proceeded.
"To put it bluntly and drop everybody else but you out of it, for
the minute, you went on false assumption from the kick-off, Brendon.
To start wrong was not strange. I should have done exactly the same
and nobody outside a detective story would have done differently;
but to go on wrong--to pile false assumption on false assumption in
face of your own reasoning powers and native wits--that strikes me
as a very curious catastrophe."
"But you can't get away from facts."
"Nothing easier, surely. You said good-bye to facts when you left
Princetown. You don't know the facts any more than I do--or anybody
but those responsible for the appearances. You have assumed that the
phenomena observed by yourself and reported by other professionals
and various members of the public were facts, whereas a little solid
thinking must have convinced you that they couldn't be. You didn't
give your reason a chance, Mark.
"Now follow me and be honest. You say certain things have happened.
I say they didn't, for the very sound reason that they couldn't. I
am not going to tell you the truth, because I am a long way from
that myself, and I dare say you'll strike it yet before I do; but I
am going to prove that a good few things you think are true can't
be--that events you take for granted never happened at all. We've
got but few senses and they are easily deluded. In fact a man's a
darned clumsy box of tricks at his best and I wouldn't swap a hill
of beans for what my senses can assure me; but, as a wise man says,
'Art is with us to save us from too much truth,' so I say 'Reason is
with us to save us from too much evidence of our senses--often
false.'
"Now see how reason bears on the evidence of Robert Redmayne and his
trick acts since first he disappeared. A thing occurs and there are
only certain ways--very limited in number--to explain it. Either
Robert Redmayne killed Michael Pendean, or else he did not. And if
he did, he was sane or insane at the time. That much can't be denied
and is granted. If he was sane, he committed the murder with a
motive; and pretty careful inquiry proves that no motive existed. I
attach no importance to words, no matter who may utter them, and the
fact that Mrs. Pendean herself said that her husband and her uncle
were the best of friends don't weigh; but the fact that Robert
Redmayne stopped at Princetown with the Pendeans for over a week in
friendship and asked them to Paignton, is of some weight. I'm
inclined to believe that Redmayne was perfectly friendly with
Michael Pendean up to the time of the latter's disappearance, and
that there was no shadow of motive to explain why Redmayne did in
his brother-in-law. Then, assuming him to be sane, he would not have
committed such a murder. The alternative is that he was mad at the
time and did homicide on Pendean while out of his mind.
"But what happens to a madman after a crime of this sort? Does he
get off with it and wander over Europe as a free man for a year?
Granted the resources of maniacal cunning and all the rest of it,
was it ever heard that a lunatic went at large as this man did, and
laughed at Scotland Yard's attempt to run him down and capture him?
Is it reasonable that he runs away with a corpse, disposes of it
safely, returns to his lodgings, makes a meal, and then, in broad
daylight, vanishes off the face of the earth for six months,
presently to reappear, hoodwink fresh people, and commit another
crime? Once more he scorns law and order, vanishes for another six
months, and now flaunts his red waistcoat and red mustache in Italy
at his remaining brother's door. No, Mark, the man responsible for
these impossible things isn't mad. And that brings me back to my
preliminary alternative.
"I said just now, 'Either Robert Redmayne killed Michael Pendean, or
else he did not.' And we may add that either Robert Redmayne killed
Bendigo Redmayne or else he did not. But we'll stick to the first
proposition for the moment. And the next question you must ask
yourself is this. 'Did Robert Redmayne kill Michael Pendean?' That's
where your 'facts,' as you call them, begin to sag a bit, my son.
There's only one sure and certain way of knowing that a man is dead;
and that is by seeing his body and convincing the law, by the
testimony of those who knew the man in life, that the corpse belongs
to him and nobody else."
"Good God! You think--"
"I think nothing. I want you to think. This is your funeral--so
far; but I want you to come out like the sun from behind a cloud and
surprise us yet. Just grasp that matters couldn't have happened as
you supposed, and go on from there. Remember, incidentally, that you
are quite unable to swear that either Pendean or Bendigo Redmayne is
dead at all. They may both be just as much alive as we are. Chew it
over. This is a very pretty thing and I believe we're up against
some great rascals; but I don't even know that yet for sure. I can
see many points that are vital which you are more likely to clear
than I. You've been badly handicapped, for reasons I have yet to
find out; but if you think over what I told you and look into your
brain-pan without prejudice, maybe you'll begin to see them
yourself."
"It's sporting of you to suggest that, but I can't offer any such
excuse," answered Brendon thoughtfully. "Never did a man go into a
case with less handicap. I even had peculiar incentives to make
good. I came into it on the top of the tide with everything under my
hands. No--what you've said throws rather too bright a light on the
truth. Everything looked so straight-forward that I never thought
the appearances hid an utterly different reality. Now I know they
probably did."
"That's what I guess. Somebody palmed a marked card on you, Brendon;
and you took it like a lamb. We all have in our time--even the
smartest of us. Gaboriau says somewhere, 'Above all, regard with
supreme suspicion that which seems probable and begin always by
believing what seems incredible.' French exaggeration, of course;
but there's truth in it. The obvious always makes me uncomfortable.
If a thing is jumping just the way that suits you, distrust it at
once. That holds of life as well as business."
They chatted for half an hour and Mr. Ganns attained his object,
which was to fling his companion back to the beginning of the whole
problem that had brought them together. He desired that Mark should
travel the ground again with an open mind and all preconceptions put
behind him.
"To-night, in the train," said Peter, "I shall ask you to give me
your version of the case from the moment that Mrs. Pendean invited
you to take it up--or from earlier still, if you had to do with any
of the people before the catastrophe. I want the whole yarn again
from your angle; and after what I've told you, it may be that, as
you retrace every incident, light may flash that wasn't there
before."
"It is very probable indeed," admitted Mark. Then his generous
nature prompted him to praise the elder.
"You're a big man, Peter Ganns, and you've said things to-day that
no doubt were elementary to you, but mean a lot to me. You've made
me feel mighty small--which I wouldn't own to anybody else; but you
know that much without my telling you. I only differ from you on one
point and that is the sequel. If this thing is ever cleared, you'll
be responsible for clearing it, and I shall see you get the credit."
The other laughed and flung snuff into his purple nostrils.
"Nonsense, nonsense! I'm a back number--almost out of the game
now--virtually retired to take my ease and follow my hobbies. This
is nothing to do with me. I'm only going to watch you."
"A detective's hobby is generally his old business," said Mark, and
Mr. Ganns admitted it. "Literature and crime, nice things to eat and
drink, snuff and acrostics--these serve to fill my leisure and
represent my vices and virtues," he confessed.
"Each has its appointed place in my life; and now I'm adding travel.
I've wanted to see Europe once again before I went into my shell for
good; and to enjoy the society of my dear friend, Albert Redmayne,
visit his home, and hear his bland and childlike wisdom once more.
"The only shadow thrown by a devoted friendship, Brendon, is the
knowledge that it must some day come to an end. And when I say
'good-bye' to the old bookworm I shall know that we are little
likely to meet again. Yet who would deny himself the glory of
friendship, before the menace that it must sooner or later finish? A
close amity and understanding, a discovery of kindred spirits, is
among the most precious experiences within the reach of mankind.
Love, no doubt, proves a more glorious adventure still; but
lightning lurks near the rosy chariot of love, my lad, and we who
win the ineffable gift must not whine if the full price has to be
paid. For me, cool friendship!"
He chattered amiably and Mark guessed that on the simple and human
side Mr. Ganns found himself much at one with his friend, Albert
Redmayne. Peter's philosophy seemed to Brendon of a very mild
quality, and he wondered how a man who looked at human nature in a
spirit so hopeful, if not credulous, should yet own those
extraordinary gifts the American possessed. Upon these, surely, and
not his genial and elemental faith, was his fame founded.