“The thing is a fake,” declared Bertram. He slumped heavily into a
chair, and scowled at Average Jones’ well-littered desk, whereon he had
just tossed a sheet of paper. His usually impeccable hair was tousled.
His trousers evinced a distinct tendency to bag at the knees, and his
coat was undeniably wrinkled. That the elegant and flawless dilettante
of the Cosmic Club should have come forth, at eleven o’clock of a
morning, in such a state of comparative disreputability, argued an
upheaval of mind little short of phenomenal.
“A fake,” he reiterated. “I’ve spent a night of pseudo-intellectual
riot and ruin over it. You’ve almost destroyed a young and innocent
mind with your infernal palimpsest, Average.”
“You would have it,” returned Average Jones with a smile. “And I seem
to recall a lofty intimation on your part that there never was a cipher
so tough but what you could rope, throw, bind, and tie a pink ribbon on
its tail in record time.”
“Cipher, yes,” returned the other bitterly. “That thing isn’t a cipher.
It’s an alphabetical riot. Maybe,” he added hopefully, “there was some
mistake in my copy?”
“Look for yourself,” said Average Jones, handing him the original.
It was a singular document, this problem in letters which had come to
light up the gloom of a November day for Average Jones; a stiffish
sheet of paper, ornamented on one side with color prints of alluring
“spinners,” and on the other inscribed with an appeal, in print. Its
original vehicle was an envelope, bearing a one-cent stamp, and
addressed in typewriting:
_Mr. William H. Robinson,
The Caronia,
Broadway and Evenside Ave.,
New York City._
The advertisement on the reverse of the sheet ran as follows:
ANGLERS—When you are looking for “Baits That Catch Fish,” do you see
these spinners in the store where you buy tackle? You will find here
twelve baits, every one of which has a record and has literally caught
tons of fish. We call them “The 12 Surety Baits.” We want you to try
them for casting and trolling these next two months, because all
varieties of bass are particularly savage in striking these baits late
in the season.
DEALERS—You want your customers to have these 12 Shoemaker “Surety
Baits” that catch fish. This case will sell itself empty over and over
again, for every bait is a record-breaker and they catch fish. We want
you to put in one of these cases so that the anglers will not be
disappointed and have to wait for baits to be ordered. It will be
furnished FREE, charges prepaid, with your order for the dozen bait it
contains.
The peculiar feature of the communication was that it was profusely
be-pimpled with tiny projections, evidently made by thrusting a pin in
from the side which bore the illustrations. The perforations were
liberally scattered. Most, though not all of them, transfixed certain
letters. Accepting this as indicative, Bertram had copied out all the
letters thus distinguished, with the following cryptic result:
b-n-o-k-n-o-a-h-i (doubtful) i (doubtful) d-o-o-u-t-s-e-h-w
h-e-w-a-l-e-w-f-i-h-i-e-l-y-a-n-u-t-t-m-a-m (doubtful) g-e-x-c-s
(doubtful) s-e M-e-p-c (two punctures) t-y-w-u-s-o-m-e-r-s h-a-s 1
S-k-t-s-a-s-e-l-e-v-a-h (twice) W-y-o-u (doubtful) h-c-s-e-v-t-l-t-f-r
(perforated twice) c-a-o-u-c-e-o-c (doubtful) m-t (perforated twice)
n-o-h-a-e-f-o-u-w-o-r-i-t-h-i-r-e-d-w-l-l-b (Perforated three times)
f-u-h-g-e-p-d-h-o-d (doubtful) e-f-h-g-b-t-n-t.
“Yes, the copy’s all right,” growled Bertram. “Tell me again how you
came by it.”
“Robinson came here twice and missed me. Yesterday I got the note from
him which you’ve seen, with the enclosure which has so threatened your
reason. You know the rest. Perhaps you’d have done well to study the
note for clues to the other document.”
Something in his friend’s tone made Bertram glance up suspiciously.
“Let me see the note,” he demanded.
Average Jones handed it to him. There was no stamp on it; it had been
left by the writer. It was addressed, in rather scrawly chirography, to
“A. Jones, Ad-Visor,” and read:
THE CARONIA, Nov. 18.
MR. A. JONES, Astor Court Temple:
I have tried unsuccessfully to see you twice. Enclosed you will
find the reason. Please _read through it carefully_. Then I am sure
you will see and help me. Money is no object. I will call to-morrow
at noon.
Respectfully,
WILLIAM H. ROBINSON.
“Well, I see nothing out of the ordinary in that,” observed Bertram.
“Nothing?” inquired Average Jones.
Bertram read the message again. “Of course the man is rattled. That’s
obvious in his handwriting. Also, he has inverted one sentence in his
haste and said ‘read through it,’ instead, of ‘read it through.’
Otherwise, it’s ordinary enough.”
“It must be vanity that keeps you from eyeglasses, Bert,” Average Jones
observed with a sigh. “Well, I’m afraid I set you on the wrong track,
myself!”
Bertram lifted an eyebrow with an effort. “Meaning, I suppose, that
you’re on the tight and have solved the cipher.”
“Cipher be jiggered. You were right in your opening remark. There isn’t
any cipher. If you read Mr. Robinson’s note correctly, and if you’d had
the advantage of working on the original of the advertisement as I
have, you’d undoubtedly have noticed at once—”
“Thank you,” murmured Bertram.
“—that fully one-third of the pin-pricks don’t touch any letters at
all.”
“Then we should have taken the letters which lie between the holes?”
“No. The letters don’t count. It’s the punctures. Force your eyes to
consider those alone, and you will see that the holes themselves form
letters and words. Read _through_ it carefully, as Robins directed.”
He held the paper up to the light. Bertram made out in straggling
characters, formed in skeleton the perforations, this legend:
ALL POINTS TO
YOU TAKE THE
SHORT CUT DEATH
IS EASIER THAN
SOME THINGS.
“Whew! That’s a cheery little greeting,” remarked Bertram. “But why
didn’t friend Robinson point it out definitely in his letter?”
“Wanted to test my capacity perhaps. Or, it may have been simply that
he was too frightened and rattled to know just what he was writing.”
“Know anything of him?”
“Only what the directory tells, and directories don’t deal in really
intimate details of biography, you know. There’s quite an assortment of
William H. Robinsons, but the one who lives at the Caronia appears to
be a commission merchant on Pearl Street. As the Caronia is one of the
most elegant and quite the most enormous of those small cities within
themselves which we call apartment houses, I take it that Mr. Robinson
is well-to-do, and probably married. You can ask him, yourself, if you
like. He’s due any moment, now.”
Promptly, as befitted a business man, Mr. William H. Robinson arrived
on the stroke of twelve. He was a well-made, well-dressed citizen of
forty-five, who would have been wholly ordinary save for one
peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool he was sweating
profusely, and that, despite the fact that his light overcoat was on
his arm. Not polite perspiration, be it noted, such as would have been
excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek plumpness, but
soul-wrung sweat, the globules whereof gathered in the grayish hollows
under his eyes and assailed, not without effect, the glistening expanse
of his tall white collar. He darted a glance at Bertram, then turned to
Average Jones.
“I had hoped for a private interview,” he said in a high piping voice.
“Mr. Bertram is my friend and business confidant.”
“Very good. You—you have read it?”
“Yes.”
“Then—then—then—” The visitor fumbled, with nerveless fingers, at his
tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with
a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the lapel, tearing the
button outright from the cloth. “Look what I have done,” he said,
staring stupidly for a moment at the button which had shot across the
room. Then, to the amazed consternation of the others, he burst into
tears.
Average Jones pushed a chair behind him, while Bertram brought him a
glass of water. He gulped out his thanks, and, mastering himself after
a moment’s effort, drew a paper from his inner pocket which he placed
on the desk. It was a certified check for one hundred dollars, made
payable to Jones.
“There’s the rest of a thousand ready, if you can help me,” he said.
“We’ll talk of that later,” said the prospective beneficiary. “Sit
tight until you’re able to answer questions.”
“Able now,” piped the other in his shrill voice. “I’m ashamed of
myself, gentlemen, but the strain I’ve been under— When you’ve heard my
story—”
“Just a moment, please,” interrupted Average Jones, “let me get at this
my own way.”
“Any way you like,” returned the visitor.
“Good! Now what is it that points to you?”
“I don’t know any more than you.”
“What are the ‘some things’ that are worse than death?”
Mr. Robinson shook his head. “I haven’t the slightest notion in the
world.”
“Nor of the ‘short cut’ which you are advised to take?”
“I suppose it means suicide.” He paused for a moment. “They can’t drive
me to that—unless they drive me crazy first.” He wiped the sweat from
under his eyes, breathing hard.
“Who are they?”
Mr. Robinson shook his head. In the next question the interrogator’s
tone altered and became more insistent.
“Have you ever called in a doctor, Mr. Robinson?”
“Only once in five years. That was when my nerves broke down—under
this.”
“When you do call in a doctor, is it your habit to conceal your
symptoms from him?”
“Of course not. I see what you mean. Mr. Jones, I give, you my word of
honor, as I hope to be saved from this persecution, I don’t know any
more than yourself what it means.”
“Then—er—I am—er—to believe,” replied Jones, drawling, as he always did
when interest, in his mind, was verging on excitement, “that a simple
blind threat like this—er—without any backing from your own
conscience—er—could shake you—er—as this has done? Why, Mr. Robinson,
the thing—er—may be—er—only a raw practical joke.”
“But the others!” cried the visitor. His face changed and fell. “I
believe I _am_ going crazy,” he groaned. “I didn’t tell you about the
others.”
Diving into his overcoat pocket he drew out a packet of letters which
he placed on the desk with a sort of dismal flourish.
“Read those!” he cried.
“Presently.” Average Jones ran rapidly over the eight envelopes. With
one exception, each bore the imprint of some firm name made familiar by
extensive advertising. All the envelopes were of softish Manila paper
varying in grade and hue, under one-cent stamps.
“Which is the first of the series?” he asked.
“It isn’t among those. Unfortunately it was lost, by a stupid servant’s
mistake, pin and all.”
“Pin?”
“Yes. Where I cut open the envelope—”
“Wait a moment. You say you cut it open. All these, being one-cent
postage, must have come unsealed. Was the first different?”
“Yes. It had a two-cent stamp. It was a circular announcement of the
Swift-Reading Encyclopedia, in a sealed envelope. There was a pin bent
over the fold of the letter so you couldn’t help but notice it. Its
head was stuck through the blank part of the circular. Leading from it
were three very small pins arranged as a pointer to the message.”
“Do you remember the message?”
“Could I forget it! It was pricked out quite small on the blank fold of
the paper. It said: ‘Make the most of your freedom. Your time is short.
Call at General Delivery, Main P. O., for your warning.’ I—”
“You went there?”
“The next day.”
“And found—?”
“An ordinary sealed envelope, addressed in pinpricks connected by
pencil lines. The address was scrawly, but quite plain.”
“Well, what did it contain?”
“A commitment blank to an insane asylum.”
Average Jones absently drew out his handkerchief, elaborately whisked
from his coat sleeve an imaginary speck of dust, and smiled benignantly
where the dust was supposed to have been.
“Insane asylum,” he murmured. “Was—er—the blank—er—filled in?”
“Only partly. My name was pricked in, and there was a specification of
dementia from drug habit, with suicidal tendencies.”
With a quick signal, unseen by the visitor, Average Jones opened the
way to Bertram, who, in wide range of experience and study had once
specialized upon abnormal mental phenomena.
“Pardon me,” that gentleman put in gently, “has there ever been any
dementia in your family?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Or suicidal mania?”
“All my people have died respectably in their beds,” declared the
visitor with some vehemence.
“Once more, if I may venture. Have you ever been addicted to any drug?”
“Never, sir.”
“Now,” Average Jones took up the examination, “will you tell me of any
enemy who would have reason to persecute you?”
“I haven’t an enemy in the world.”
“You’re fortunate,” returned the other smiling, “but surely, some time
in your career—business rivalry—family alienation—any one of a thousand
causes?”
“No,” answered the harassed man. “Not for me. My business runs
smoothly. My relations are mostly dead. I have no friends and no
enemies. My wife and I live alone, and all we ask,” he added in a
sudden outburst of almost childish resentment, “is to be left alone.”
The inquisitor’s gaze returned to the packet of letters. “You haven’t
complained to the post-office authorities?”
“And risk the publicity?” returned Robinson with a shudder.
“Well, give me over night with these. Oh, and I may want to ’phone you
presently. You’ll be at home? Thank you. Good day.”
“Now,” said Average Jones to Bertram, as their caller’s plump back
disappeared, “this looks pretty, queer to me. What did you think of our
friend?”
“Scared but straight,” was Bertram’s verdict.
“Glad to hear it. That’s my idea, too. Let’s have a look at the
material. We’ve already got the opening threat, and the General
Delivery follow-up.”
“Which shows, at least, that it isn’t a case of somebody in the
apartment house tampering with the mail.”
“Not only that. It’s a dodge to find out whether he got the first
message. People don’t always read advertisements, even when sealed, as
the first message-bearing one was. Therefore, our mysterious persecutor
says: ‘I’ll just have Robinson prove it to me, if he _did_ get the
first message, by calling for the second.’ Then, after a lapse of time,
he himself goes to the General Delivery, asks for a letter for Mr.
William H. Robinson, finds it’s gone, and is satisfied.”
“Yes, and he’d be sure then that Robinson would go through all the
mailed ads with a fine-tooth comb, after that. But why the pin-pricks?
Just to disguise his hand?”
“Possibly. It’s a fairly effectual disguise.”
“Why didn’t he address the envelope that way, then?”
“The address wouldn’t be legible against the white background of the
paper inside. On the other hand, if he’d addressed all his envelopes by
pinpricks filled in with pencil lines, the post-office people might get
curious and look into one. Sending threats through the mail is a
serious matter.”
Average Jones ran over the letter again. “Good man, Robinson!” he
observed. “He’s penciled the date of receipt on each one, like a fine
young methodical business gent. Here we are: ‘Rec’d July 14. Card from
Goshorn & Co., Oriental Goods.’ Message pricked in through the
cardboard: ‘You are suspected by your neighbors. Watch them.’ Not bad
for a follow-up, is it?”
“It would look like insanity, if it weren’t that—that through the
letters ‘one increasing purpose runs,’” parodied Bertram.
“Here’s one of July thirty-first; an advertisement of the Croiset Line
tours to the Orient. Listen here, Bert: ‘Whither can guilt flee that
vengeance, may not follow?’”
“I can’t quite see Robinson in the part of guilt,” mused Bertram.
“What’s next?”
“More veiled accusation. The medium is a church society announcement of
a lecture on Japanese Feudalism. Date, August seventeenth. Inscription:
‘If there is no blood on your soul, why do you not face your judges?’”
“Little anti-climactic, don’t you think?”
“What about this one of September seventh, then? Direct reference back
to the drug habit implied in the commitment blank. It’s a testimonial
booklet of one of the poisonous headache dopes, Lemona Powders. The
message is pricked through the cover. ‘Better these than the hell of
suspense.’”
“Trying the power of suggestion, eh?”
“Quite so. The second attempt at it is even more open. An advertisement
of Shackleton’s Safeguard Revolvers. Date, September twenty-second.
Advice, by pin: ‘As well this as any other way.’”
“Drug or suicide,” remarked Bertram. “The man at the other end doesn’t
seem particular which.”
“There’s the insane asylum always to fall back on. Under date of
October first, comes the Latherton Soap Company’s impassioned appeal to
self-shaving manhood. Great Cæsar! No wonder poor Robinson was upset.
Listen to this: ‘God himself hates you.’ After that there’s a
three-weeks respite, for there’s October twenty-second on this one,
Kirkby and Dunn’s offering of five percent water bonds. ‘The commission
has its spies watching you constantly.’ Calculated to inspire
confidence in the most timid soul! Now we come to the soup course:
Smith and Perkins’ Potted Chowder. Date of November third.
Er—Bert—here’s something—er—really worth while, now. Hark to the song
of the pin.”
He read sonorously:
“Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis;
Quae nunc abibis in loca?”
“Hadrian, isn’t it?” cried Bertram, in utter amazement. “Of course it
is! Hadrian’s terrified invocation to his own parting spirit. ‘Guest
and companion of my body; into what places will you now go?’ Average,
it’s uncanny! Into what place of darkness and dread is the Demon of the
Pin trying to drive poor Robinson’s spirit?”
Average Jones shook his head. “‘_Pallidula, nudula, rigida_,’” he
completed the quatrain. “‘Ghostpale, stark, and rigid.’ He’s got a
grisly imagination, that pin-operator. I shouldn’t care to have him on
my trail.”
“But Robinson!” protested Bertram feebly. “What has a plump,
commonplace, twentieth-century, cutaway-wearing, flat-inhabiting
Robinson to do with a Roman emperor’s soul-questionings?”
“Perhaps the last entry of the lot will tell us. _Palmerton’s
Magazine’s_ feature announcement, received November ninth. No; it
doesn’t give any clue to the Latinity. It isn’t bad, though. ‘The
darkness falls.’ That’s all there is to it. And enough.”
“I should say the darkness did fall,” confirmed Bertram. “It falls—and
remains.”
Average Jones pushed the collection of advertisements aside and
returned to the opening phase of the problem, the fish-bait circular
which Robinson had mailed him. So long after, that Bertram hardly
recognized it as a response to his last remark, the investigator
drawled out:
“Not such—er—impenetrable darkness. In fact,—er—Eureka, or words to
that effect. Bert, when does the bass season end?”
“November first, hereabouts, I believe.”
“The postmark on the envelope that carried this advertisement to our
friend advises the use of the baits for ‘these next two months.’ Queer
time to be using bass-lures, after the season is closed. Bert, it’s a
pity I can’t waggle my ears.”
“Waggle your ears! For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Because then I’d be such a perfect jackass that I could win medals at
a show. I ought to have guessed it at first glance, from the fact that
the advertisement couldn’t well have been mailed to Robinson
originally, anyhow.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not in the sporting-goods business, and the advertisement
is obviously addressed to the retail trade. Don’t you remember: it
offers a showcase, free. What does a man living in an apartment want of
a show-case to keep artificial bait in? What we—er—need here
is—er—steam.”
A moment’s manipulation of the radiator produced a small jet. In this
Average Jones held the envelope. The stamp curled tip and dropped off.
Beneath it were the remains of a small portion of a former postmark.
“I thought so,” murmured Average Jones.
“Remailed!” exclaimed Bertram.
“Remailed,” corroborated his friend. “I expect we’ll find the others
the same.”
One by one he submitted the envelopes to the steam bath. Each of them,
as the stamp was peeled off, exhibited more or less fragmentary signs
of a previous cancellation.
“Careless work,” criticized Average Jones. “Every bit of the mark
should have been removed, instead of trusting to the second stamp to
cover what little was left, by shifting it a bit toward the center of
the envelope. Look; you can see on this one where the original stamp
was peeled off. On this the traces of erasure are plain enough. That’s
why Manila paper was selected: it’s easier to erase from.”
“Is Robinson faking?” asked Bertram. “Or has some one been rifling his
waste-basket?”
“That would mean an accomplice in the house, which would be dangerous.
I think it was done at longer range. As for the question of our
friend’s faking in his claim of complete ignorance of all this, I
propose to find that out right now.”
Drawing the telephone to him, he called the Caronia apartments. Thus it
was that Mr. William H. Robinson, for two unhappy minutes, profoundly
feared that at last he had really lost his mind. This is the
conversation in which he found himself implicated.
“Hello! Mr. Robinson? This is Mr. A. Jones. You hear me?”
“Yes, Mr. Jones. What is it?”
“_Integer vitae, scelerisque purus_.”
“I—I—beg your pardon!”
“_Non egit Mauris jaculis nec arcu._”
“This is Mr. Robinson: Mr. William H. Rob—”
“_Nec venenatis gravida sag_—Hello! Central, don’t cut off! Mr.
Robinson, do you understand me?”
“God knows, I don’t!”
“If he doesn’t recognize the _Integer Vitae_,” said Average Jones in a
swift aside to Bertram, “he certainly wouldn’t know the more obscure
Latin of the late Mr. Hadrian.”
“One more question, Mr. Robinson. Is there, in all your acquaintance,
any person who never goes out without an attendant? Take time to think,
now.”
“Why—why—why,” stuttered the appalled subject of this examination, and
fell into silence. From the depths of the silence he presently exhumed
the following: “I _did_ have a paralytic cousin who always went out in
a wheeled chair. But she’s dead.”
“And there’s no one else?”
“No. I’m quite sure.”
“That’s all. Good-by.”
“Thank Heaven! Good-by.”
“What was that about an attendant?” inquired Bertram, as his friend
replaced the receiver.
“Oh, I’ve just a hunch that the sender of those messages doesn’t go out
unaccompanied.”
“Insane? Or semi-insane? It does rather look like delusional paranoia.”
As nearly as imperfect humanity may, Average Jones appeared to be
smiling indulgently at the end of his own nose.
“Dare say you’re right—er—in part, Bert. But I’ve also a hunch that our
man Robinson is himself the delusion as well as the object.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be cryptic, Average,” said his friend
pathetically. “There’s been enough of that without your gratuitously
adding to the sum of human bewilderment.”,
Average Jones scribbled a few words on a pad, considered, amended, and
handed the result over to Bertram, who read:
WANTED—Professional envelope eraser to remove marks from used
envelopes. Experience essential. Apply at once—A. Jones, Ad-Visor,
Astor Court Temple.”
“Would it enlighten your gloom to see that in every New York and
Brooklyn paper to-morrow?” inquired its inventor.
“Not a glimmer.”
“We’ll give this ad a week’s repetition if necessary, before trying
more roundabout measures. As soon as I have heard from it I’ll drop in
at the club and we’ll write—that is to say, compose a letter.”
“To whom?”
“Oh, that I don’t know yet. When I do, you’ll see me.”
Three days later Average Jones entered the Cosmic Club, with that
twinkling up-turn of the mouth corners which, with him, indicated
satisfactory accomplishment.
“Really, Bert,” he remarked, seeking out his languid friend, in the
laziest corner of the large divan.
“You’d be surprised to know how few experienced envelope erasers there
are in four millions of population. Only seven people answered that
advertisement, and they were mostly tyros.”
“Then you didn’t get your man?”
“It was a woman. The fifth applicant. Got a pin about you?”
Bertram took a pearl from his scarf.
“That’s good. It will make nice, bold, inevitable sort of letters. Come
over here to this desk.”
For a few moments he worked at a sheet of, paper with the pin, then
threw it down in disgust.
“This sort of thing requires practice,” he muttered. “Here, Bert,
you’re cleverer with your fingers than I. You take it, and I’ll
dictate.”
Between them, after several failures, they produced a fair copy of the
following:
“Mr. Alden Honeywell will choose between making explanation to the
post-office authorities or calling at 3:30 P. m. to-morrow on A. Jones,
Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple.”
This Average Jones enclosed in an envelope which he addressed in
writing to Alden Honeywell, Esq., 550 West Seventy-fourth Street, City,
afterward pin-pricking the letters in outline. “Just for moral effect,”
he explained. “In part this ought to give him a taste of the trouble he
made for poor Robinson. You’ll be there to-morrow, Bert?”
“Watch me!” replied that gentleman with unwonted emphasis. “But will
Alden Honeywell, Esquire?”
“Surely. Also Mr. William H. Robinson, of the Caronia. Note that ‘of
the Caronia.’ It’s significant.”
At three-thirty the following afternoon three men were waiting in
Average Jones’ inner office. Average Jones sat at his desk sedulously
polishing his left-hand fore-knuckle with the tennis callous of his
right palm. Bertram lounged gracefully in the big chair. Mr. Robinson
fidgeted. There was an atmosphere of tension in the room. At
three-forty there came a tap-tapping across the floor of the outer
room, and a knock at the door brought them all to their feet. Average
Jones threw the door open, took the man who stood outside by the arm,
and pushing a chair toward him, seated him in it.
The new-comer was an elderly man dressed with sober elegance. In his
scarf was a scarab of great value; on his left hand a superb signet
ring. He carried a heavy, gold-mounted stick. His face was curiously
divided against itself. The fine calm forehead and the deep setting of
the widely separate eyes gave an impression of intellectual power and
balance. But the lower part of the face was mere wreckage; the chin
quivering and fallen, from self-indulgence, the fine lines of the nose
coarsened by the spreading nostrils; the mouth showing both the soft
contours of sensuality and the hard, fine line of craft and cruelty.
The man’s eyes were unholy. They stared straight before him, and were
dead. With his entrance there was infused in the atmosphere a sense of
something venomous. “Mr. Alden Honeywell?” said Average Jones.
“Yes.” The voice had refinement and calm.
“I want to introduce you to Mr. William H. Robinson.”
The new-comer’s head turned slowly to his right shoulder then back. His
eyes remained rigid.
“Why, the man’s blind!” burst out Mr. Robins in his piping voice.
“Blind!” echoed Bertram. “Did you know this Average?”
“Of course. The pin-pricks showed it. And the letter mailed to Mr.
Robinson at the General Delivery, which, if you remember, had the
address penciled in from pin-holes.”
“When you have quite done discussing my personal misfortune,” said
Honeywell patiently, “perhaps you will be good enough to tell me which
is William Robinson.”
“I am,” returned the owner of that name. “And do you be good enough to
tell me why you hound me with your hellish threats.”
“That is not William Robinson’s voice!” said the blind man. “Who are
you?”
“William H. Robinson.”
“Not William Honeywell Robinson!”
“No; William Hunter Robinson.”
“Then why am I brought here?”
“To make a statement for publication in to-morrow morning’s newspaper,”
returned Average Jones crisply.
“Statement? Is this a yellow journal trap?”
“As a courtesy to Mr. Robinson, I’ll explain. How long have you lived
in the Caronia, Mr. Robinson?”
“About eight months.”
“Then, some three or four months before you moved in, another William
H. Robinson lived there for a short time. His middle name was
Honeywell. He is a cousin, and an object of great solicitude to this
gentleman here. In fact, he is, or will be, the chief witness against
Mr. Honeywell in his effort to break the famous Holden Honeywell will,
disposing of some ten million dollars. Am I right, Mr. Honeywell?”
“Thus far,” replied the blind man composedly.
“Five years ago William Honeywell Robinson became addicted to a patent
headache ‘dope.’ It ended, as such habits do, in insanity. He was
confined two years, suffering from psychasthenia, with suicidal
melancholia and delusion of persecution. Then he was released, cured,
but with a supersensitive mental balance.”
“Then the messages were intended to drive him out of his mind again,”
said Bertram in sudden enlightenment. “What a devil!”
“Either that, or to impel him, by suggestion, to suicide or to revert
to the headache powders, which would have meant the asylum again.
Anything to put him out of the way, or to make his testimony
incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-lunatic returned from
Europe a year ago, our friend Honeywell here, in some way located him
at the Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through a letter broker
who deals with the rag and refuse collectors, he got all the
second-hand mail from the Caronia. Meantime, William Honeywell Robinson
had moved away, and as chance would have it, William Hunter Robinson
moved in, receiving the pinprick letters which, had they reached their
goal, would probably have produced the desired effect.”
“If they drove a sane man nearly crazy, what wouldn’t they have done to
one whose mind wasn’t quite right!” cried the wronged Robinson.
“But since Mr. Honeywell is blind,” said Bertram, “how could he see to
erase the cancellations?”
“Ah! That’s what I asked myself. Obviously, he couldn’t. He’d have to
get that done for him. Presumably he’d get some stranger to do it.
That’s why I advertised for a professional eraser who was
_experienced_, judging that it would fetch the person who had done
Honeywell’s work.”
“Is there any such thing as a professional envelope eraser?” asked
Bertram.
“No. So a person of experience in this line would be almost unique. I
was sure to find the right one, if he or she saw my advertisement. As a
matter of fact, it turned out to be an unimaginative young woman who
has told me all about her former employment with Mr. Honeywell,
apparently with no thought that there was anything strange in erasing
cancellations from hundreds of envelopes—for Honeywell was cautious
enough not to confine her to the Robinson mail alone—and then pasting
on stamps to remail them.”
“You appear to have followed out my moves with some degree of acumen,
Mr.—er—Jones,” said the blind schemer suavely.
“Yet I might not have solved your processes easily if you had not made
one rather—if you will pardon me, stupid mistake.”
For the first time, the man’s bloated lips shook. His evil pride of
intellectuality was stung.
“You lie!” he said hastily. “I do not make mistakes.”
“No? Well, have it as you will. The point that you are to sign here a
statement, which I shall read to you before these witnesses, announcing
for publication the withdrawal of your contest for the Honeywell
millions.”
“And if I decline?”
“The painful necessity will be mine of turning over these instructive
documents to the United States postal authorities. But not before
giving them to the newspapers. How would you look in court, in view of
this attempt to murder a fellow man’s reason?”
Mr. Honeywell had now gained his composure. “You are right,” he
assented. “You seem to have a singular faculty for being right. Be
careful it does not fail you—sometime.”
“Thank you,” returned Average Jones. “Now you will listen, please, all
of you.”
He read the brief document, placed it before the blind man, and set a
pin between his finger and thumb. “Sign there,” he said.
Honeywell smiled as he pricked in his name.
“For identification, I suppose,” he said. “Am I to assign no cause to
the newspapers for my sudden action?”
A twinkle of malice appeared in Average Jones’ eye.
“I would suggest waning mental acumen,” he said.
The blind man winced palpably as he rose to his feet. “That is the
second time you have taunted me on that. Kindly tell me my mistake.”
Average Jones led him to the door and opened it.
“Your mistake,” he drawled as he sped his parting guest into the grasp
of a waiting attendant, “was—er—in not remembering that—er—you mustn’t
fish for bass in November.”