Drury Lane’s Last Case (20 page)

“Water,” said the physician briefly, after one glance at the crusted blood.

A little pot-bellied man—Falstaff, in person—hurried up with a huge basin of warm water.

The black Cadillac was found abandoned at the edge of a road near Bronxville late that night, as a result of Inspector Thumm's raging efforts and the assistance of the Westchester police. It proved to be a hired car. It had been hired from a transparently innocent dealer in Irvington during the morning before by a tall silent man well muffled in a dark topcoat. No, that was all he could remember about the man.

On Lane's suggestion, the clerks of the Irvington telegraph office were questioned. One of them recalled the brief visit of the tall man in the dark topcoat.

The Cadillac was found. The manner in which the tall man had learned of the accessibility of the envelope was thus cleared up. But of the tall man himself and the stolen envelope there was not the faintest trace.

16

The Horseshoe Ring

A silent company left The Hamlet the next morning—which was, Patience thought, incredibly only Saturday—in Mr. Drury Lane's car. Patience's roadster was left behind. Young Mr. Rowe, his left arm in a sling, sat sulkily between Lane and Patience, frowning and refusing to talk. Lane was deep in thought, and Patience was near tears.

“My dear child,” said the old gentleman after a while, “don't blame yourself so bitterly! It wasn't your fault. I haven't forgiven myself for causing you to run into danger.”

“But I lost the paper,” wailed Patience.

“It isn't really cosmic. I fancy we can manage without it.”

“Then why,” said Rowe suddenly, “did you wire for it?”

Lane sighed. “I had a thought,” he said; and lapsed into silence.

Dromio stopped at Dr. Martini's cottage, and the physician without a word climbed into the tonneau to join them. A quick digital examination of the young man's wounded arm, and he nodded, sat back, closed his eyes, and proceeded to fall asleep.

When they entered the city limits, Mr. Drury Lane roused himself. “I think we had better take you home first, Gordon.”

“Home!” said Mr. Rowe bitterly.

“Dromio, the Saxon house.… Look at Martini. Fast asleep!” The old man chuckled. “That comes of having a pure heart, my boy. If you hadn't played Romeo to Patience's Juliet …”

They found the Saxon mansion as usual forbidding and deserted. The butler with the wonderful whiskers was sorry once more; Mrs. Saxon was “out.” His stony eyes widened a trifle at the sight of Rowe's bandaged arm, and for an instant he looked almost human.

Old Crabbe, however, apparently considered a bullet in a young man's arm a great jest; for after a long stare he broke into his disagreeable chortle and wheezed: “That's for meddling! Who broke your arm, you young devil?” and all the while he glanced sideways at Lane's calm face and the imperturbable countenance of Dr. Martini.

Rowe flushed, and his one good fist tightened.

“We should like to see,” said Mr. Drury Lane hastily, “a sheet of your Saxon Library stationery, Mr. Crabbe.”

“What, again?”

“Please.”

Crabbe shrugged and scurried off, to return shortly with a blank sheet of stationery from the library.

“Yes, that's precisely like the other,” murmured Lane to Dr. Martini, taking the sheet from Crabbe's talons. “What do you think?”

The physician fingered the paper thoughtfully. Then he took it to one of the reception-room windows, jerked aside the heavy drapery, and examined the paper with narrowed eyes. Once he held it at arm's length; once he brought it to within two inches of his eyes.… He dropped the drapery and sauntered back, to place the sheet of grey paper on a table. “Yes,” he said quietly, “what you suspected is very likely true.”

“Ah!” said Lane with a curious inflection.

“As I told you, we know very little about—what you brought up. This must be an extremely rare case. I should really like to see him.”

“So should I,” murmured Lane. “So should I, Martini. Well!” He eyed the young couple with a twinkle. “Shall we go?
Au revoir
, Gordon——'

“No,” said Mr. Rowe. “I stick.” His jaw protruded very handsomely.

“I don't think you should,” said Patience. “A nap——” But she was watching Dr. Martini in a puzzled way.

“Dear, dear,” said Crabbe, rubbing his hands. “The possessive instinct of the female! Beware, Rowe.… Would you mind telling me, Mr. Lane, what all this rigmarole means?”

But the old gentleman was gazing fondly at Patience and Rowe, and since his affliction was well known, he merely murmured: “I fancy a call upon the Inspector is in order. Doctor, I shall send you home in my car. Send Dromio back. We'll taxi downtown, children.… Ah, Mr. Crabbe! So kind of you. Good day.”

“What happened to you?” demanded the Inspector of Rowe, after he had embraced his daughter and had been properly embraced in return.

“Stopped a bullet, sir.”

“Oh, sure! Patty did tell me last night.” Thumm grinned. “Well, that'll teach you to stick your two cents in, younker. Sit down, the lot of you. A stick-up hey? By God, I wish I'd been there!”

“You'd have stopped a bullet, too,” said Mr. Rowe shortly.

“Hmm. Any idea who this bird was, Patty?”

Patience sighed. “He was all bundled up, father. And I'm afraid I wasn't in the observant mood at the moment, with—with Gordon lying bleeding in the road.”

“How about his voice? You told me he asked for the envelope.”

“Disguised. I could tell that much.”

“Fired at you.” The Inspector sat back dreamily. “Now that's more like it. He's coming out in the open. I like that.” Then he sighed. “But I'm afraid I shan't be able to mess around with this thing much longer. I'm in a jewel-robbery case up to my neck——”

“Have you done anything about that list of disappearances?” asked Lane. “That's really why I've come in, Inspector.”

Thumm picked up a bulky sheaf of typewritten papers and tossed it across the desk. “Can't find a single record here of a murdered or missing man connected with books or the book world.”

The old gentleman examined the list himself. “Odd,” he muttered. “One of the oddest features of the whole affair. Yet what else could he have intended?”

“That was my hunch, too, you'll remember. Well, I'm ready to call quits. It's all too deep and dirty for me.”

The telephone rang in the ante-room outside. Miss Brodie's tragic voice could be heard appealing for information. Then the Inspector's instrument rang, and he took up the receiver.

“Hallo! … Oh! …
What
?”

The angry red which flushed Thumm's granite face like a danger-signal when he became excited surged into evidence. His eyes bulged. The others looked at him, puzzled.

“Be right over!” He banged the receiver and sprang from his chair.

“What's happened, father? Who was that?” asked Patience swiftly.

“Choate! At the museum,” shouted Thumm. “Something's happened over there and he wants us to come over at once!”

“Now what?” said Rowe rising, “This is the
craziest
business!”

The old gentleman rose slowly; his eyes snapped. “It would be extremely curious if …”

“If what?” asked Patience as they hurried out to the elevator.

Lane shrugged his shoulder. “Every event, as Schiller said, is a judgment of God. Let's wait and see. I have great faith in the consistency of the divine order, my child.”

She was silent as they stepped into the elevator. Then she said: “Just what did Dr. Martini's examination of that sheet of Saxon stationery mean? I've been trying to think——”

“Don't, Patience. It's interesting and pertinent, but scarcely important at this stage. Some day—who knows?—it may serve a useful purpose.”

They found the Britannic Museum seething with excitement. Dr. Choate, the hairs of his goatee bristling, met them behind the bronze head of Shakespeare. “Glad you came,” he said fretfully. “This has been the most annoying day.… Rowe, what's happened to your arm? Accident, eh? … Come in, come in!”

He hurried them through the reception-room to his office. There they found a strange company. Tall Dr. Sedlar, his lean face flushed, paced the floor with a frown; a burly policeman was planted solidly behind a chair; his hand gripped his truncheon; and in the chair sat a tall dark, Latinish creature with sullen eyes in which lurked a beady demon of fear. His clothes badly rumpled as if by a struggle, were of clamorous design; a natty pearlgrey soft hat lay ignominiously on the floor beside him.

“What's this?” growled Inspector Thumm, stopping in the doorway. Then a hard grin lifted his lips. “Well, well,” he said softly, “Look who's here.”

Simultaneously there were two swift intakes of breath. One came from Gordon Rowe, the other from the Italian in the chair.

“Hello, Coburn,” said the Inspector genially to the policeman behind the chair. “You still poundin' a beat?”

The officer's eyes widened. “Inspector Thumm! Ain't seen you in a dog's age!” He saluted with a grin.

“Haven't been around in a dog's age,” remarked the Inspector in a cheerful voice. He advanced and took his stand three feet before the man in the chair, who cowered and sullenly dropped his eyes. “Well, well, Joe, and what are you doin' in a museum? Graduated from the ranks of dips? Don't tell me you're goin' to college! Last time I ran across you you were liftin' leathers. Stand up when I talk to you!” The words crackled and, startled, the Italian jumped out of the chair to stand fingering his shrieking cravat and studying the Inspector's shoes.

“This man,” said Dr. Choate in an agitated voice, “somehow got into the museum a few minutes ago and Dr. Sedlar caught him in the Saxon Room prowling about and disturbing the books.”

“Indeed?” murmured Mr. Drury Lane, advancing into the room.

“We called in this officer, but the man refuses to tell who he is, how he managed to get into the building or what he was after,” complained the curator. “Lord, I can't understand what's happening to us!”

“Precisely what was he doing, Dr. Sedlar?” asked Lane, “when you surprised him in the Saxon Room?”

The Englishman coughed. “Most amazin' thing, Mr. Lane. You would say—ah—a creature of his intellectual level would scarcely be the sort to go after rare books. And yet I'm positive he meant to steal something. He was, as Dr. Choate has said, prowling among the cases.”

“The Jaggard case?” asked Lane sharply.

“Yes.”

“Won't tell his name, hey?” said the Inspector with a broad grin. “Well, we can help there, hey, Joe? This prime hunk of sneakin' devilment is Mr. Joe Villa, one of the best pickpockets in the game when I knew him, recently turned second-story man—general sneak-thief, dip, stool-pigeon, and everything that stinks. Right, Joe?”

“I ain't done nuttin',” croaked the Italian.

“How'd you get in, Joe?”

Silence.

“What's the pay-off? Who sent you? It's a cinch that dumb piece of cauliflower you call a brain didn't think up
this
stunt!”

The man licked his lips; his small black eyes shifted rapidly from face to face. “Nobody put me up to this job!” he cried passionately. “I—I just come in, 'a's all, just come in for a look aroun'.”

“To read a book, hey?” chuckled Thumm. “You know this heel, don't you, Coburn?”

The policeman blushed. “Why, no, Inspector, can't say I do. I—I guess he's been layin' low since you left the Department.”

“Tsk, tsk, what's the world coming to?” clucked the Inspector sadly. “Well, Joe, you goin' to talk or do we have to take you down to H.Q. and give you a taste of the pipe?”

“Ain't done nuttin',” mumbled Villa surlily, but his face blanched.

Gordon Rowe stepped forward; his wounded arm flapped a little. “I think,” he said calmly, “that I can help, Inspector.” Villa darted a glance at him; he seemed bewildered; then he searched Rowe's face wildly as if seeking some familiar feature.

“He was in that group of school-teachers who visited the museum the day the 1599 Jaggard was stolen!”

“Gordon, you're sure?” cried Patience.

“Positive. I knew him the moment I stepped into this room.”

“Gordon,” said Lane swiftly, “which was he?”

“I don't know, sir. But he was in the group. In the museum that day, I'll swear.”

Dr. Sedlar was studying Villa as if he were a laboratory specimen under the microscope. Then he retreated and effaced himself against the drapery of one of the long windows.

“Speak up, Joe,” said Thumm grimly. “What were you doing here when you horned in on that schoolmarm party? Don't tell me you've got a licence to teach school in Indiana!” Villa's thin lips clamped together. “All right, wise guy. Dr. Choate, may I use your 'phone?”

“What you gonna do?” asked Villa suddenly.

“Put the finger on you.” Thumm dialled a number. “Mr. Theofel? Thumm, of the Thumm Detective Agency. Is George Fisher around? … Swell. And how about Barbey, your starter? Behavin' himself? … Say, can you spare the boys for a half-hour?.… Fine. Send 'em up pronto to the Britannic Museum on Fifth and Sixty-Fifth.”

Stalwart George Fisher and the red-faced bus-starter tramped in with rather pallid faces. They took in the silent company, and then both men riveted their attention upon the cowering man in the chair.

“Fisher,” said the Inspector, “do you recognize this scum?”

“Sure do,” drawled Fisher. “He's one of the two guys got in with the school-teachers.”

Villa snarled: “Nerts! 'Is's a frame!”

“Shut up, Joe. Which one, Fisher?”