Drury Lane’s Last Case (6 page)

Brown looked startled. “Sure. Seventeen, Mr. Theofel.”

The manager gave him a sharp glance, and then turned to his companion. “You, Shalleck?”

“Seventeen, Chief.”

“You're positive, now, both of you?”

They nodded confidently.

“All right, men.”

They turned to go. “Just a minute,” said the Inspector pleasantly. “I think you'd better send that starter Barbey up here when you get downstairs, boys.”

The manager nodded at the men's inquiring looks. “You think——?” he began fretfully when the door had closed upon the two men.

“I know,” grinned the Inspector. “You let me handle him, Mr. Theofel. This is my meat.” He rubbed his hands and looked sideways at Patience, who was frowning. Thumm had never quite conquered the colossal wonder of paternity; for fatherhood had struck home to him late in life when his daughter returned from abroad after an absence which had extended from pigtails to shaven eyebrows. But on this occasion his mute appeal for approval went unheeded; Patience was cogitating upon a multitude of things, and feeding her massive father's vanity was not among them. The Inspector sighed.

The door opened and the white-haired man of the downstairs booth appeared. His lips were rather tighter than they should have been, and he ignored the presence of the Thumms pointedly.

“Want me, Mr. Theofel?” he said gruffly.

The Inspector said in the calm magisterial tone of the professional policeman: “Spill it, Barbey.”

The man's head turned unwillingly, and he blinked once at Thumm and then shifted his gaze. “What——I don't get you, mister.”

“Inspector to you,” said Thumm, hooking his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “Come on, Barbey. I've got you with the goods, so there's no sense in stalling.”

Barbey looked about quickly, licked his lips, and stammered: “I guess I'm dumb. What goods? What d'ye mean?”

“Bribery,” said the Inspector with a vast unsympathy.

The starter went white in a slow ebbing of facial blood. His big flabby hands twitched feebly. “How—how'd you find out?”

Patience expelled her breath in a slow noiseless stream. A rising anger animated Theofel's lined face.

The Inspector smiled. “My business to find out. I'll tell you right now, mister, I'd as soon throw you in the can as not; but Mr. Theofel, now—well, he's inclined not to press the charge if you'll come clean.”

“Yes,” said the manager hoarsely. “Well, Barbey, you heard the Inspector! Don't stand there like a dumb ox! What's it all about?”

Barbey fumbled with his cap. “I—I got a family. I know it's against the company rules. But the dough looked sort of—tempting. When this first guy come over I was going to tell him nothing doing——”

“Guy with a soup-strainer and a blue hat, eh?” snapped Thumm.

“Yes, sir! I'm going to tell him nothing doing, see, but he shows me the corner of a ten-spot,” faltered Barbey, “and so I says okay. I let him climb in with the rest. Then about a minute later up comes another guy, and he gives me the same proposition as the first one. Wants me to let him go with Fisher's bus. So, well, I'd let the first one on, so I thought while I was doin' it I might's well get the benefit of another five-spot. He gives me a fin, see. So this second guy, he climbs in, and that's all I know.”

“Was Fisher in on this?” asked Theofel harshly.

“No, Mr. Theofel. He didn't know anything about it.”

“What did the second bird look like?” asked the Inspector.

“Greaseball, Chief. Face like a rat. Black. Eyetalian, I'd say. Dressed sporty, like the bunch that hangs around the Palace. Flashed a funny kind of ring on his left hand—he was a southpaw, Chief, or at least he handed me the fin with his left——”

“What d'ye mean funny?”

“It had a little horseshoe where you'd expect a rock to be,” mumbled Barbey. “Looked like platinum or white gold. And it was set with diamond chips.”

“Hmm.” The Inspector rubbed his chin. “Never saw this man before, I suppose?”

“No, sir!”

“Know him again if you saw him?”

“Yes, sir!”

“He came back with the crowd of schoolmarms, didn't he, but the bird in the blue hat didn't?”

Barbey's eyes widened at this omniscience. “Why, that's right.”

“Swell.” The Inspector heaved to his feet, and stuck his hand out across the desk. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Theofel. And don't be too hard on this lad.” He winked at the manager, pounded the astonished starter's shoulder in friendly fashion, tucked Patience's gloved hand under his arm, and made for the door.

“The moral of which is,” he chuckled as they descended the groaning steps, “always smell trouble when a guy keeps looking at you and then when you look at him looks away. I knew that bird had a finger in this the minute I spotted him in that barber-pole dinky!”

“Oh, father,” laughed Patience, “you're the most incorrigible exhibitionist. What
shall
I do with you? And now——”

The Inspector's face fell. “It's true,” he said gloomily, “we haven't made any progress towards finding old Donoghue.… All right, Patty,” he sighed, “let's pay a visit to that blasted museum.”

4

Young Mr. Rowe

The Britannic Museum was housed in a tall narrow four-story edifice squeezed between two severe apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue near Sixty-Fifth Street. Its high bronze door faced the greenery of Central Park and on north and south lay the prim canopies of the apartments.

The Thumms mounted the single stone step and stared at the bronze door. It was austerely decorated in bas-relief; the dominating decoration on each panel of the double-leafed portal was a heroic head of Shakespeare. It looked severely solid—a most unfriendly door. There was no mistaking its attitude, for an equally unfriendly sign hung from the bronze knob, and it stated without equivocation that the Britannic Museum was “closed for repairs.”

But the Inspector was made of stern stuff. He closed his right hand and with the resulting fist pounded formidably on the bronze.

“Father!” giggled Patience. “You're walloping Shakespeare!”

The Inspector grinned and redoubled his pounding upon the Bard of Avon's nose. There was a frantic scraping and squealing of bolts; and an instant later out popped the gargoylish head of a bulb-nosed old man.

“Hey!” snapped this apparition. “Can't you read English?”

“One side, brother,” said the Inspector cheerfully. “We're in a hurry.”

The doorman did not budge; his nose continued to protrude from the crack like a shy lily bulb. “What d'ye want?” he asked surlily.

“Want to get in, of course!”

“Well, you can't. Closed to the public. Repairs.” And the crack began to vanish.

“Hey!” bellowed the Inspector, making a futile effort to prevent its vanishment. “This is——Hey, this is the police!”

There was a ghostly chuckle from behind the head of Shakespeare, and after that silence.

“Well, I'll be damned!” exclaimed the Inspector wrathfully. “Why, the old fool, I'll break his damn' door down!”

Patience leaned against the door, doubled up with laughter. “Oh, father!” she gasped. “You're so funny. That's retribution for having laid irreverent hands on the proboscis of the Immortal Will.… I've an idea.”

The Inspector grunted.

“And you needn't look so sceptical, you old sorehead. We've a friend in the enemy's camp, haven't we?”

“What d'ye mean?”

“The imperishable Drury! Mr. Lane's one of the patrons of the Britannic, isn't he? I'm sure a call from him will be open sesame.”

“By God, that's right! Patty, you've got your old man's brain. Let's hunt up a 'phone.”

They found a public telephone booth in a drug store on Madison Avenue, a block east. The Inspector put in a long-distance call to The Hamlet.

“Hallo! This is Thumm speaking. Who's this?”

An incredibly ancient voice squeaked: “Quacey. Hallo!” Quacey was an old, old man who had been with Drury Lane for more than forty years; originally his wig-maker, now a pensioned friend.

“Lane around?”

“Mr. Drury's right here, Inspector. He says you are a criminal.”

“Guilty. We sure feel ashamed of ourselves. How is the old duck? Listen, you little monkey. Tell Mr. Lane we want a favour of him.”

There was a mutter of talk from the other end of the wire. The old actor's deafness, while it did not handicap him in
tête-à-tête
conversation—his lip-reading ability was uncanny—effectually prevented him from conducting telephonic conversations; and Quacey for years had acted as his master's ear.

“He wants to know if it's a case,” piped Quacey at last.

“Well, yes. Tell him we're on the trail of something mighty mysterious and we've got to get into the Britannic Museum. But that nut of a caretaker won't let us in. Closed for repairs. Can Lane do anything for us?”

There was a silence, and then Thumm was startled to hear the voice of Lane himself pour into the receiver. Despite his age, the old gentleman's voice still retained the miraculous quality of mellowness and rich flexibility that had made it, at one time, the most famous speaking organ in the world. “Hallo, Inspector,” said Drury Lane. “You'll have to content yourself with listening for a change,” and he chuckled. “As usual, I'm in the throes of a monologue. I hope Patience is well? No, don't answer, you old Masai; it would fall literally on deaf ears.… Something up at the Britannic, eh? I can't imagine what it might be, really I can't. It's the most peaceful place in the world. Of course I'll telephone the curator at once. Dr. Choate, you know—Alonzo Choate, a dear friend of mine. I'm sure he's there, but if he's not I'll locate him and by the time you get back to the museum—I take it you're near by—you'll be granted permission to enter.” The old gentleman sighed. “Well, good-bye, Inspector. I do hope you'll find time—you and Patience, I miss her very much!—to run up to The Hamlet for a visit soon.”

There was a little pause, and then a reluctant click.

“Good-bye,” said Inspector Thumm soberly to the dead wire; and scowled in sheer self-defence as he avoided his daughter's inquiring eye outside the telephone booth.

Shakespeare's beard looked less grim on the return visit to the portals of the Britannic Museum; and indeed the door actually stood ajar. In the doorway, awaiting them, stood a tall elderly man with an elegant goatee
à la mode du sud
, his dark face smiling, teeth shining above the resplendent beard; while behind him, like an apologetic shadow, hovered the bulb-nosed old man who had defended the door.

“Inspector Thumm?” said the bearded man, extending limp fingers. “I'm Alonzo Choate. And this is Miss Thumm! I remember quite well your last visit to our museum with Mr. Lane. Come in, come in! Frightfully sorry about Burch's stupid little mistake. I dare say he won't be so precipitate next time; eh, Burch?” The caretaker muttered something impolite beneath his breath and retreated into a shadow.

“Wasn't any fault of his,” said the Inspector handsomely. “Orders are orders. You've heard from old Drury, I guess.”

“Yes. His man Quacey just had me on the wire. Don't mind the condition of the Britannic, Miss Thumm,” smiled Dr. Choate. “I feel like a conscientious housewife apologizing for the mess in her kitchen to an unexpected visitor. We're going through a long-deferred process of redecoration, you know. General house-cleaning. Including your humble servant the curator.”

They stepped through a marble vestibule into a small reception-room. The reception-room smelled pun-gently of fresh paint; its furniture was collected in the centre of the chamber and covered with the strange colour-washed shroud that house-painters supply in the performance of their duty. Members of the guild crawled about scaffolds swishing damp brushes over walls and ceiling. Looking on sightlessly from niches were the draped busts of the great English literary dead. On the far side of the room stood the grilled door to an elevator.

“I'm not sure I'm charmed, Dr. Choate,” remarked Patience, wrinkling her small nose, “at the idea of—er—gilding the lily in this fashion. Wouldn't it have been more reverent to permit the bones of Shakespeare and Jonson and Marlowe to moulder undisturbed?”

“And a very good point, too,” said the curator. “I was against the idea myself. But we've a progressive Board. We had all we could do to keep them from getting somebody to do a series of modern murals in the Shakespeare Room!” He chuckled and looked at the Inspector sideways. “Suppose we go to my office? It's right off here, and, thank heaven, no brush has touched it yet!”

He led the way across the smeary canvas to a door in an alcove. The wood panel was chastely lettered with his name. He ushered them into a bright large room with a high ceiling and oak-boarded walls comfortably lined with books.

A young man reading with absorption in an armchair looked up at their entrance.

“Ah, Rowe,” boomed Dr. Choate. “Sorry to disturb you. I want you to meet some friends of Drury Lane's.” The young man rose quickly and stood by his chair with a friendly smile. With a slow gesture he removed a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses. He was a tall fellow with a pleasant face, now that he had taken off his spectacles; there was something athletic in the cut of his shoulders that belied the tired scholar's look in his hazel eyes. “Miss Thumm, this is Mr. Gordon Rowe, one of the Britannic's most devoted neophytes. Inspector Thumm.”

The young man, who had not taken his eyes from Patience, shook hands with the Inspector. “Hallo! Doctor, you know what's good for sore eyes, I'll say that for you. Thumm.… Hmm. No, I'm afraid I don't approve the name. Completely inappropriate. Let's see, now.… Ah, Inspector! Seems to me I've heard of you.”