Drury Lane’s Last Case (16 page)

TRENCH

“What d'ye think of that?” said the Inspector triumphantly.

“Extraordinary,” murmured Lane, returning the cablegram. His forehead was furrowed and his eyes blank.

“It's clear now that Sedlar landed in New York,” said Patience, “a full week before he claimed. Seven days! What did he do in New York—if he stayed here—during that week? Why did he lie about it in the first place? I don't like that ‘upright' gentleman!”

“I've passed the word along to Geoghan at H.Q.,” said Thumm, “on the quiet, to try and trace his movements between the twenty-second and the twenty-ninth. It's the same guy, all right—description fits perfectly. But he's got a screw loose somewhere, and I don't like him any more than Patty does.”

“Of what, exactly, do you suspect him?” asked Lane.

The Inspector shrugged. “Well, he's clear on one count. He couldn't have been the queer duck with the phony beard and the English accent that left the note with me. According to Trench's information Sedlar didn't leave England until the seventeenth, and my man visited me in New York on the sixth. But”—and he grinned wolfishly—“he could have been somebody else, by God, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he was!”

“Indeed?” said the old gentleman. “And who might that be?”

“This crazy guy in the blue hat throwin' rare books and hundred dollar bills around!” exclaimed Thumm. “That specimen of insanity came out in the open on May twenty-seventh, and that was five days after Sedlar landed on the q.t. in New York!”

“That's scarcely airtight reasoning, Inspector,” smiled Lane. “By the same token the man in the blue hat might have been one of several million persons whose movements on May twenty-seventh cannot be accounted for.”

The Inspector digested this and apparently, from the expression on his hard-bitten face, did not like its savour. “Yeah, I know, but——”

“Oh, good Lord!” cried Patience suddenly, jumping up and striking her head against the roof of the tonneau. “Ouch! I'm a fool. Why didn't I think of that before?”

“Think of what before?” asked Lane softly.

“The symbol, the symbol! It—oh, how blind I've been!”

Lane regarded her steadily. “What about the symbol, my child?”

Patience fumbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose vigorously. “It's very clear.” She put the kerchief away and sat up, her eyes sparkling. “3HS wM. Don't you see?”

“
I
don't see any more now than I did before,” growled Thumm.

“Oh, father, the
HS
must stand for
Hamnet Sedlar
!”

Both men stared, and both men broke into chuckles. Patience tapped indignantly with a slippered toe. “I think that's extremely poor manners,” she said in an injured tone. “What's wrong with that theory?”

“But what do the other elements of the symbol stand for, my dear?” asked the old gentleman mildly. “I'm sorry I was rude, but your father's chuckle is infectious. How do you explain the
3
and the small
w
and the capital
M
?”

She stared at Dromio's solid red neck, offended—and doubtful.

“Oh, Patty, Patty!” choked the Inspector, doubled up. “You'll be the death of me yet. I'll tell you what it stands for. Ho, ho, ho! It stands for ‘three portions of Hamnet Sedlar with Mustard!'”

“That's
so
funny,” said Patience frigidly. “I believe we've arrived.”

13

The Saga of Dr. Ales

A very English butler with wonderful whiskers admitted them superbly to a Louis-Quinze reception-room. No, Mrs. Saxon was not at home. No, he had no idea when Mrs. Saxon would return. No, she had left no message. No, she——

“Listen, you!” snarled Inspector Thumm, that violent foe of flunkeyism, “is Crabbe in?”

“Mr. Crabbe? I'll see, sir,” replied whiskers stiffly. “Whom shall I say, sir?”

“Say anybody you blasted please, but get him out here!”

An eyebrow rose, whiskers bowed slightly, and sailed away.

Patience sighed. “Father, did anyone ever tell you you've atrocious manners? Bellowing at a servant!”

“I don't like these limeys,” grumbled the Inspector, slightly abashed. “All except Trench. Only human Englishman I ever met. You'd think he'd been born in the Fifth Ward.… Well, well, here's Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

Gordon Rowe, passing through the foyer, book under his arm and hat in hand, started, grinned, and hurried into the reception-room. “Avaunt! What ho, visitors! Charming of you to call. Mr. Lane, Inspector—Pat! You didn't tell me over the 'phone——”

“I didn't know,” said Patience with dignity.

“Divine ignorance.” The young man's hazel eyes narrowed. “On a trail?” he said in a low voice.

“Gordon,” said Patience abruptly, “what does 3HS wM mean to you?”

“Patty, for God's sake!” snarled the Inspector. “We don't want——”

“Please, Inspector,” said Drury Lane quietly. “There's no reason why Gordon shouldn't know.”

The young man looked from Patience to the two men. “Abracadabra to me,” he said. “What's it all about?”

Patience told him.

“The Saxon Library,” he muttered. “That's the funniest thing——This
is
a problem! I think.… Hold it. Here comes Crabbe.”

The ancient librarian shuffled quickly into the reception-room, holding a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles aloft in one hand and peering inquisitively at his callers. He brightened at once and came forward. Patience would have sworn his bones groaned and creaked in the process.

“Ah, Mr. Lane,” said Crabbe with a leathery smile. “And Miss Thumm.
And
the Inspector. Quite a deputation! Rowe, I thought you were going out? Or perhaps the young lady's presence——? Mrs. Saxon is indisposed, you know. Colic. With her girth, of course, that's a major tragedy.” He grinned, an
enfant terrible
. “And to what——?”

“For one thing,” smiled Lane, before the Inspector could get out what was already growling in the depths of his thick throat, “we should like to see the famous Saxon Library.”

“I see.” Crabbe stood still, one thin shoulder lower than the other, head cocked on a side, squinting with remarkable keenness at his visitors. “Just a friendly visit of exploration, eh?” He cackled, showing decrepit gums, and swung about. “No reason why you shouldn't,” he said with astonishing amiability. “Although really you're the first strangers … Eh, Rowe? Break the rule for once?”

“That's human of you,” grinned young Rowe.

“Oh, I'm not so bad as I'm painted. Follow me, please.”

He led them down several corridors embellished in the grand French style to what was apparently an east wing of the mansion. He unlocked a heavy door and stood aside with what might have been a welcoming smile, but succeeded only in being the villainous grimace of an
opéra bouffe
Fagin. They entered a vast room with a lofty ceiling ribbed with square oak beams, the walls bristling with full bookshelves. A huge vault frowned from one corner. At the farther side there was an open door through which they could see another chamber apparently quite as large and similarly lined with books. A large desk and one chair stood in the centre of the room; there was a billowing Persian rug on the floor; and nothing else.

“Sorry I can't offer you chairs,” said Crabbe in his rustling voice, closing the door and going to the desk. “But no one ever uses the library except old Crabbe these days. Rowe's quite deserted me. Ah, youth, always flitting after the will-o'-the-wisp!” He cackled again. “I had Mr. Saxon's desk and chair removed when he died. Now what would you like to——”

He broke off, actually startled. The Inspector, who had been hurling surly glances about, had suddenly pounced forward toward the desk as if he meant to demolish it. “Ha!” he cried. “That's it! That's it!” and he snatched from the desk a sheet of neutral-grey stationery.

“What on earth——?” began Crabbe in astonishment; and then his pointed face screwed up with rage and he darted toward Thumm with something very like a snarl. “You take your hands off things!” he shrieked. “So that's it. It was a trick. Spying——”

“Lay off, runt,” growled the Inspector, flinging away the librarian's curving talons. “Keep your shirt on. No one's stealing anything. We just wanted to take a look at your stationery. And by God, it's good-looking, too! Have a squint at this, Lane.”

But there was no need for close scrutiny. One glance was sufficient to establish that this was the same stationery as had been employed for the writing of the cryptic symbol by the man with the pied beard.

“No doubt about it, of course,” murmured Lane. “You'll excuse the Inspector's rather violent methods, Mr. Crabbe; he's a trifle high-handed in these matters.”

“Indeed,” sniffed Crabbe, glaring at the Inspector's back.

“Have you an envelope, please?” continued Lane with a smile.

Crabbe hesitated, scratched his wrinkled cheeks, shrugged, and went to the desk. He produced a small square grey envelope.

“The very same,” breathed Patience. “What
can
it——?” and then she stopped and glanced very suspiciously at the old librarian.

Young Gordon Rowe seemed much agitated, for him; and he showed it by remaining perfectly still and glaring at the envelope.

“Sit down, my dear,” said Lane softly; obediently she took the lone chair. “Inspector, control yourself. We mustn't alarm Mr. Crabbe. Now, sir, I'm sure you have no objection to answering a few simple questions?”

A shrewd and faintly baffled glint came into Crabbe's beady eyes. “Of course not. Old Crabbe's got nothing to conceal. I haven't a notion what this is about, but if I can be of any service …”

“Splendid of you,” said the old gentleman heartily. “Now, who exactly uses this stationery with the imprint of
The Saxon Library
?”

“I do.”

“Naturally. For the usual library correspondence. But who else?”

“No one, Mr. Lane.”

“Ha,” said Thumm; and Lane shook his head at him impatiently.

“This is very important, Mr. Crabbe. You're positive?”

“No one but myself, I assure you,” replied the librarian with a licking of his thin chops.

“Not even Mrs. Saxon?”

“Oh, Lord, no. Mrs. Saxon has her own stationery—half a dozen kinds. And since she never bothers with the library, you see——”

“Quite so. But how about you, Gordon? You've been living here for some time. Can you throw a little light on the subject?”

Patience watched the young man anxiously, and the Inspector eyed him with what he fancied was detached coolness.

“I?” Young Rowe seemed startled. “Ask friend Crabbe. He's cock of this walk.”

“Oh, Mr. Rowe rarely if ever comes here, Mr. Lane,” squeaked Crabbe, his torso curved like a melting candle. “Our young friend has been doing some research in Shakespeare, as I suppose you know, but it's been a rule of the household—Mr. Saxon's own rule, you understand—and … when he's wanted anything, he's asked me and I've given him the requested volumes.”

“I hope,” said Mr. Rowe huffily, “that that answers your question, Mr. Lane.”

The old gentleman smiled. “Down off your horse, Gordon. You know that's a very infantile attitude. You would say, then, Mr. Crabbe, that apart from yourself no one in this house has access to the Saxon Library stationery?”

“I would say so, yes. It's kept only here, you know. Of course, if some one really wanted to——”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Crabbe, we thoroughly understand that. Gordon, please smile. I take it these rooms have been forbidden territory for years. Now——”

“How about the servants?” asked Patience suddenly, avoiding the misery in Rowe's eyes.

“No, Miss Thumm. That's been a strict rule. I clean these rooms myself. Mr. Saxon insisted on it.”

“When the books left to the Britannic were packed off,” asked Lane, “were you present, Mr. Crabbe?”

“Certainly.”

“I was, too,” muttered Mr. Rowe morbidly.

“Every moment?”

“Oh, yes,” said Crabbe. “Mr. Rowe fussed about the truckmen, but I had my eyes open, I assure you.” Crabbe snapped his toothless gums together viciously. That he had kept his eyes open, that he would always keep his eyes open, seemed unquestionable.

“Well!” smiled Lane. “All this, Inspector, seems to establish that it's difficult to get one's clutches on a sheet of this stationery. Doesn't seem to wash, does it?”

“You're tellin' me?” grinned Thumm.

Lane gazed squarely into the old librarian's eyes. “There is no mystery about this, Mr. Crabbe,” he said quietly. “We have come into possession of a sheet of Saxon Library stationery—and an envelope—the source of which it is necessary for us to trace. You're innocently making it difficult.…” Suddenly a thought struck him, for he smacked his forehead and exclaimed: “How stupid I've been! Of course!”

“Piece of my stationery?” said Crabbe, puzzled.

The old gentleman tapped Crabbe's shoulder. “Do you often have visitors?”

“Visitors? To the Saxon Library? He, he! Tell him, Rowe.”

“This prime sample of fossilized wormwood,” said Mr. Rowe with a shrug, “is the world's most faithful watchdog.”

“Come, come, you must have some. Please think! Has there been any visitor to this room in recent months whom you have reason to recall?”

Crabbe's eyes blinked. His scraggly jaw opened a little, and he stared at his inquisitor without seeing him. Then astonishingly he doubled in laughter and slapped his scrawny shanks. “Ho, ho! That's—that's one on me!” and he straightened and wiped his rheumy eyes.