CHLOROFORM
'Come in,' said Simon grandly, in response to a knock.
He was seated in his master's chair in the dome, which was lit as though
for a fête. The clock showed the hour of nine.
Albert entered.
'Oh, it's you, is it?' exclaimed Albert. 'Where's the governor?'
'I don't know where he is. He was in his office at something to seven,
having an interview with Mrs. Tudor. Since then--'
Simon raised his eyebrows, and Albert expressed a similar sentiment by
means of a whistle.
'Then, you've been telephoning on your own for me to come up?'
'Yes.'
'It's like your cheek!' Albert complained, calmly perching himself on
the top of the grand piano.
'Perhaps it will be. I regret to tear you from your fireside, Alb, but
I wish to consult you on a matter affecting the governor.'
'Go ahead, then,' said Albert. 'There's been enough talk about the
governor to-day downstairs, I should hope.'
'You mean in reference to Mrs. Tudor's reappearance?'
'Yes.' Albert imitated Simon's carefully enunciated periods. 'I do mean
in reference to Mrs. Tudor's reappearance. By the way, what the deuce
are you burning all these lights for?'
'I was examining this photograph,' said Simon, handing to his brother a
rather large unmounted silver-print photograph which had lain on his
knees.
'What of it?' Albert asked, glancing at it. 'Medical and Pharmaceutical
Department, isn't it? Not bad.'
'We're having a new series of full-plate photographs done for the next
edition of the General Catalogue,' said Simon, 'and this is one of them.
It contains forty-five figures. It was taken yesterday morning by that
Curgenven flashlight process that we're running. Look at it. Don't you
see anything?'
'Nothing special,' Albert admitted.
Simon rose and came towards the piano.
'Let me show you,' he said superiorly. 'You see the cash-desk to the
left. There's a lady just leaving the cash-desk. And just behind her
there's an oldish man. You can't see all of his face because of her hat.
He's holding his bill in his hand--you can see the corner of it--and
he's got some sort of a parcel under his arm. See?'
'Yes, Mr. Lecoq.'
'Well, doesn't he remind you of somebody?'
'He's rather like old Ravengar, perhaps,' said Albert dubiously.
'You've hit it!' Simon almost shouted. 'It is Ravengar.'
'This man's got no beard.'
'That comes well from a detective, that does!' said Simon scornfully.
'It needn't have cost him more than threepence to have his beard shaved
off, need it?'
'And seeing that this photograph was taken yesterday morning, and
Ravengar fell off a steamer into the Channel more than a week ago!'
'But did he fall off a steamer more than a week ago?'
'He was noticed on board the steamer before she started, and he wasn't
on board when she arrived.'
'Couldn't he have walked on to the steamer with his luggage, and then
walked off again and let her start without him?'
'But why?'
'Suppose he wanted to pretend to be dead?'
'Why should he want to pretend to be dead?' Albert defended his
position.
Simon, entirely forgetful of that dignity which usually he was at such
pains to preserve, sprang on to the piano alongside Albert.
'I'll tell you another thing,' said he. 'When I came in with the
governor's tea this morning he was just dozing and half-dreaming
like--he'd had a very bad night--and I heard him say, "So they think you
are at the bottom of the Channel, Louis? I wish you were!" What do you
think of that, my son?'
'Then the governor must know Ravengar didn't commit suicide in the
Channel? The governor never said a word to me!'
'You don't imagine the governor tells you everything, do you?' said
Simon cruelly.
'Have you shown him the photo?' Albert asked.
'No,' said Simon, with a certain bluntness.
'Why not?'
'Well, for one thing, I've had no chance, and for another I wanted to
find out something more first. I'd just like the governor to see that
I'm not an absolute idiot.... Though I should have thought he might have
found that out before now.'
'He doesn't think you're an absolute idiot,' said Albert.
'He acts as if he did,' said Simon. The Paris trip still rankled.
A pause followed.
'Another thing,' Albert recommenced. 'Even supposing Ravengar's alive,
it's not very likely he'd venture here, of all places.'
'Why not?' Simon argued. 'Scarcely anybody knows Ravengar by sight. He's
famous for keeping himself to himself. He's one of the least known
celebrities in London. He'd be safe from recognition almost anywhere.
Moreover, supposing he wanted to buy something peculiar?'
'He might,' Albert admitted. 'But don't forget this is all theory. I
suppose you've been making your own inquiries in the Medical
Department?'
'Yes,' said Simon rather apologetically. 'But I couldn't find anyone
among the staff who remembers serving such a man, or even seeing him.
He may have had an accomplice, you know, on the staff. What makes it
more awkward is that there were two photographs taken, one about eleven,
and another about half-past, and the photographer got the plates mixed
up, and doesn't know whether this one is the first or the second. You
see, the clock doesn't show in the picture; otherwise, we might have
pieced things together.'
'Pity!' Albert murmured.
'However,' said Simon, with an obvious intention to be dramatic, 'I
thought of Lecoq, and I hit on something. You see the lady just leaving
the cash-desk with her receipt? Can you read the number of her receipt?'
Albert peered.
'No, I can't,' he said.
'Neither could I,' Simon agreed. 'But I've had that part of the
photograph enlarged to-night.'
'The deuce you have!' Albert opened his eyes.
'Yes, the deuce I have! And here it is.'
Simon took a photographic print from his pocket, showing the lady's hand
and part of the receipt, very blurred and faint, with some hieroglyphic
figures mistily appearing.
'Looks like 6,706,' said Albert.
'It's either 6,706 or 6,766,' Simon concurred. 'Now, Ravengar's receipt
must be numbered next to hers. Consequently, if we go and look at the
counterfoils and duplicates--'
'Yes,' said Albert, thoughtfully sliding down from the piano.
'We may be able to find out something very interesting,' Simon finished,
descending also.
'Now?'
'Now. That's what I wanted you for. You've got your pass-keys and
everything, haven't you?'
'Yes.'
'Then run down and search.'
'Aren't you coming too?'
'I was only thinking, suppose the governor came back and wanted me?'
Albert gazed contemptuously at this exhibition of timidity--the
cowardice of a born valet, he deemed it.
'Oh, of course,' he exclaimed, 'if you--'
'I'll come,' said Simon boldly. 'If he wants me he must wait, that's
all.'
They descended together in Hugo's private lift, direct from the dome;
the Medical and Pharmaceutical Department was on the ground-floor.
Simon acted as lift-man, and slammed the grill when they emerged.
'Just open that again, Si,' Albert requested him.
'Why? What's up?'
'Just open it.'
Albert was sniffing about like a dog that is trying to decide whether
there is not something extremely attractive in the immediate
neighbourhood. He re-entered the lift, and nosed it curiously.
Suddenly he bent down and peered under the cushioned seat of the lift,
and drew forth an object that resembled in shape a canister of
disinfectant powder.
'Conf--!' he exclaimed, dropping it sharply. 'It's hot. What in the name
of--'
He kicked the object out of the lift on to the tessellated floor of a
passage which led to the Fish and Game Department.
'I bet you I can hold it,' said Simon boastfully.
And, at the expense of his fingers, he picked it up, and successfully
carried it into the Fish and Game Department, where a solitary light
(which burnt night and day) threw a dim radiance over vast surfaces of
white marble dominated by silver taps. The fish and game were below in
the refrigerators. Simon let the cylinder fall on to a slab; Albert
turned a tap, and immediately the cylinder was surrounded by clouds of
steam. The phenomenon was like some alchemical and mysterious operation.
And the steam, as it rose and spread abroad in the immense, pale
interior, might have been the fumes of a fatal philtre distilled by a
mediæval sorcerer.
'I hope it won't blow up!' Simon ejaculated.
'Not it!' said Albert. 'Let's have a look at it now.'
Albert had a mechanical bent, and, with the aid of a tool, he soon
discovered that the cylinder was divided into two parts. In the lower
part was burning charcoal. In the upper, carefully closed, was paraffin.
The division between the two compartments consisted of some sort of
soldering lead, which the heat of the charcoal had gradually been
melting.
'So when this stuff had melted,' he explained to Simon, 'the paraffin
would run into the charcoal, and there would be a magnificent flare-up.'
They looked at one another, amazed, astounded, speechless.
And each knew that on the tip of the other's tongue, unuttered, was the
word 'Ravengar.'
'But why was it put in the lift?' asked Simon.
'Because,' said Albert promptly, 'a lift-well is the finest possible
place for a fire. There's a natural draught, and a free chance for every
floor. Poof! And a flame's up nine stories in no time. And a really good
mahogany lift would burn gorgeously, and give everything a good start.'
'There are fifteen lifts in this place,' Simon muttered.
'I know,' said Albert.
He approached a little glass square in the wall, broke it, pulled a
knob, and looked at his watch.
'We'll test the Fire Brigade Department,' he remarked; and then, as he
heard a man running down the adjacent corridor, 'Seven seconds. Not
bad.'
In another seven minutes nine cylinders, which had been found in nine
different lifts, were sizzling beside Albert's original discovery. The
other five lifts appeared to have been omitted from this colossal scheme
for providing London with a pyrotechnic display such as London had
probably never had since the year 1666. The night fire staff, which
consisted of some fifty men, had laid hose on to every hydrant, and were
taking instructions from their chief for the incessant patrol of the
galleries.
'See here,' said Albert, 'we'd better go on with what we started of
now.'
'Had we?' Simon questioned somewhat dubiously.
'Of course,' said Albert. 'If that is Ravengar in the photo, and if we
can find out anything to-night, and if Ravengar's in this business'--he
jerked his elbow towards the cylinders--'we shall be so much to the
good. Besides, it won't take us a minute.'
So they went forward, through twilit chambers and passages filled with
sheeted objects, past miles of counters inhabited by thousands of
chairs, through doors whose openings resounded strangely in the vast
nocturnal silence of Hugo's, till they came to the Medical and
Pharmaceutical Department. And the Medical and Pharmaceutical
Department, in its night-garb, and illuminated by a single jet at either
end of it, seemed to take on a kind of ghostly and scented elegance; it
seemed to be a lunar palace of bizarre perfumes and crystal magics.
The two young men halted, and listened, and they could catch the
distant footfall of the patrols echoing in some far-off corridor. That
reassured them. They ceased to fancy the smell of burning and to be
victimized by the illusion that a little tongue of flame darted out
behind them.
Albert gained access to the accountant's cupboard, and pulled out a
number of books, over which they pored side by side.
'Here you are!' exclaimed Simon presently. 'Receipts. January 9.'
And Albert read: 'No. 6,766, Mrs. Poidevin, 37, Prince's Gate; vinolia.
No. 6,767, Dr. Woolrich, 23, Horseferry Road; chloroform! Can't make out
the quantity, but it must be a lot, I should think; the price is
eighteen and ninepence.'
'Dr. Woolrich, 23, Horseferry Road?' Simon repeated mechanically.
'Chloroform?'
'That's it,' said Albert. 'You may bet your boots. Let's look him up in
the Medical Directory, if they've got one here. Yes, they're sure to
have one.'
But there was no Dr. Woolrich in the Medical Directory.
Once more the brothers stared at each other. Was or was not Ravengar
alive? Were they or were they not on his track?
'Listen, Si,' said Albert. 'I'll drive right down to 23, Horseferry
Road, and have a look round. Eh? What do you say?'
'I think I'll come, too,' Simon replied.
In six minutes Albert pulled up the hansom at the end of the street, and
they walked slowly towards No. 23, but on the opposite side of the road.
'That's it,' said Simon, pointing. 'What are you going to do now?
Inquire there?'
At the same moment a window opened behind them, in the house immediately
facing No. 23; they both heard a hissing sound, evidently designed to
attract their attention, and they both turned their heads.
From a first-story window Hugo was gesticulating at them.