The Complete Simon Iff (10 page)

“All done to keep you happy during the week-end!

“Number Six. The first telephone call.”

“That was his voice. He spoke as if in pain, as on the Saturday.”

“Still doubtful, then. Number Seven. The second telephone call.”

“It’s most improbable that anyone else could have got the information. He could have no idea that I would ask.”

“But he might have got it from Fraser in the intervals between the calls.”

“And why should Fraser give it, if he’s not in the game?”

“Ah!”

“But I’m dead sure of his voice. On the Saturday I might have doubted; I was not paying attention. But this time I was concentrating my whole mind on the question of identity. And, ye ken, identity’s a question of constant and primary importance to a banker.”

“I agree with you. Number Eight. Fraser at Tooting. Here we have only Fisher’s identification, which we suspected once before, though there’s no reason to do so in either case. Yet we note that Fraser makes an appointment which he does not keep; nor does he refer to it in his telephone call. Number Nine. Fraser’s corpse again, this time the real thing. No doubt possible?”

“None. The face was quite uninjured. I knew every freckle by heart.”

“And no disguise possible, of course. It would have been easy to blow away the head; so Mr. Some One Clever wanted you to find him. Yet the doctors say the man had been dead twelve hours?”

“Nearly that; an hour more or less.”

“I wonder if Mr. Clever thought that might have been overlooked. You see, I’m sure it wasn’t suicide, though it was made to look like it. I’m sure this last scene — for I shall dismiss Number Ten, this morning’s telegram, as an obvious fake; the wire was written out long beforehand — this last scene was most carefully stage-managed. And what is the significant article, the one thing to attract our attention? The picture of Miss Clavering!”

“I can’t see the bearing of that, on any theory.”

“Luckily, I’ve got no theory, so far. Let’s boil down these facts. The only visions you are sure of are not visions at all. You heard Fraser on Sunday morning; but so far as you can be absolutely certain, he has not been seen alive since Friday night.”

“That’s so, by heaven!”

“Did he ever meet Miss Clavering that night?”

“No; she had made the appointment with him, as it chanced, in the bank itself, where she called on Friday morning to draw a hundred pounds. She looked ill, and I remarked on it. She replied that she had drawn the money for the very purpose of resting over Easter at Ostend. But she did not go. That afternoon, shopping in Bond street, she slipped on a banana skin, and twisted her ankle. A doctor took her to her house in John street. Her servants had been given a holiday from Saturday to correspond with her own, and she allowed them to go as if nothing had happened; a nurse is with her, and prepares her food. The doctor calls twice daily. Of course she was the first person whom we questioned. It is extraordinary that Fraser should not have called there that evening.”

“Perhaps he was prevented. No; no one has seen him, to be positive, since the dramatic features began, later than Friday evening, or perhaps possibly after he left the bank.”

“That’s so; and there’s nae doot o’ it.

“But he was seen after leaving the bank on Friday; a man answering to his description hired the big touring car in which his body was found this morning, at an hour very shortly after he left me. Otherwise he has not been seen, as you say.”

“Yet infinite pains have been taken to show you the man, dead or alive, here, there, and everywhere.”

“But some of those are unreasonable. This morning, for instance, and the corpse at Ilfracombe.”

“Yes, my poor pragmatic friend, that is the point. You would have analyzed purely rational appearances; these were beyond you. The strange atmosphere of the case bewildered your brain. It’s probably the same at Scotland Yard.

“Observe how you were played on throughout. Why alarm you so early and so elaborately? Criminals always prefer the maximum time to make their get away. This thing was planned from long before — and probably, if you had refused to be frightened about the money, the whole scheme would have miscarried. Note that Mr. Clever does not begin to alarm you until after Vision Number Two, when doubtless he changed the package for the dummy. Stop! what was the size of the package?”

“Pretty bulky; about a cubic foot.”

“Then I’m an ass. Oh dear! now I must begin to think all over again.”

“If he changed it before Fisher’s eyes, Fisher must be in the plot. Yet that would compromise him hopelessly. Besides, that must have been Fraser, now that I come to think of it. He had the combination.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter, as I see it. I’ve been rash and foolish, but I see the whole thing now, I think. Others besides Fisher would have noticed if Fraser had carried a parcel, or a bag, in or out?”

“Yes: I asked that. He had nothing in his hands; and his light overcoat was buttoned tight to his very slim figure, so he couldn’t have concealed it.”

“Thank you. Everything is perfectly clear now. But I don’t want to tell you; I want to prove it to your eyes. Let me call at your apartment at 9:30 to-morrow morning, and we will settle this business together. Can you keep the morning free?”

“Oh yes! Fisher can do all that is necessary at the bank.”

V

The next morning Simon Iff was punctual to his appointment. “Our first business,” he told Macpherson, “is one of simple good feeling and good manners. Miss Clavering must be in a terrible state of mind. We will call and tell her that Fraser has been cleared, and condole with her upon his loss. Would you telephone and ask for an appointment?”

Macpherson did so. The answer came that Miss Clavering was still asleep; on her waking, the message would be given. Where should she, the nurse, telephone?

Macpherson gave his number. About twenty minutes later the nurse called him. “Could you be here at ten minutes before eleven?” she said. Macpherson agreed. “Splendid!” cried Iff, when he hung up the receiver; “of course, I wish she could have made it twelve minutes instead of ten. We may be a little late at the bank.” The Scot looked at him to see if his mind were not sick; but his whole face was so radiant, his eyes so alight with mischievous intelligence, that the banker could not fail to divine some signal triumph. But he was none the less amazed. What information could the man have gleaned from the mere time of a quite commonplace appointment?

Simon Iff was exceedingly punctilious in pushing the bell at Miss Clavering’s to the minute. They were admitted at once. The girl, a tall, slim, languid beauty, Spanish in type, with a skin of extreme pallor, was lying on a couch. She was dressed very simply in black; her mind seemed exhausted by the grief and pain through which she was passing. The nurse and doctor, kneeling at the foot of the couch, were in the act of dressing the injured ankle. It was probably adorable in normal times, but now it was swollen and discolored. The first consideration of Macpherson and his friend was to express sympathy. “Is it a bad sprain?” they asked the doctor. “I have a feeling that one of the small bones is displaced; I have asked Sir Bray Clinton to step in; he should be here in a few minutes.” “Perfect, perfect!” murmured Iff; “if the case goes ill, it will be from no lack of care.”

“Everybody is charming to me,” lisped Miss Clavering faintly.

Macpherson then proceeded, as arranged, to exonerate Fraser from guilt; though he said that he had no idea of the real culprit, and it was the most bewildering case he had ever heard of.

“We know the principal party concerned, though,” chirped Iff. “He is a Chinaman, we are sure of that, though we don’t know his name; and there’s not the least chance of arresting him. In fact, one can hardly say that he is guilty.”

Macpherson turned open-mouthed upon the mystic. “A Chinaman!” he gasped.

“Well, now you mention it, I don’t really know whether he was a Chinaman after all!”

Macpherson thought it best to hint that his companion was a little fanciful. At that moment the bell rang. “That will be Clinton!” said the doctor. “I’m so charmed with your calling,” sighed the girl, in evident dismissal, “and I’m so relieved that at least Mr. Fraser died an innocent man.” She covered her face with her hands for a moment; then, mastering herself, extended them to her visitors, who leaned over them, and departed with the nurse. On the door-step stood Sir Bray Clinton, to whom both Iff and Macpherson extended hearty greeting.

“Now,” said Iff, as they turned down the street, “that pleasant duty off our minds, to the bank, and prepare for sterner work!”

VI

“It is a cold morning,” said Simon Iff, taking a chair in the managerial room, “at least, to so old a man as I. May I have a fire, while we are waiting? And would you please be so good as to ignore me for a while; I will tell you when all is ready.”

Macpherson grew more bewildered every moment, for the day was very warm; but the authority of the Hemlock Club still weighed upon his soul. He was a snob of snobs, like all Scotsmen who barter their birthright of poverty and independence for England’s sloth and luxury; and he would almost have jumped out of the window at a request from any member of the aristocracy. And the Hemlock Club thought no more of snubbing an Emperor than a child of plucking a daisy.

Half an hour elapsed; Macpherson busied himself in the bank. At the end of that time Iff came out, and brought him back. “I should like,” he said, “to have a few words with Mr. Fisher.”

Macpherson complied. “Shut the door, Mr. Fisher, if you please,” said the magician, “we old men fear the cold terribly. Take a seat; take a seat. Now I only want to ask you one small point connected with this case; it is one that puzzles me considerably.” “I’m entirely baffled myself,” returned Fisher; “but of course I’ll tell you anything I know.”

“There are really two points: one you may know; the other you must know. We will take them in that order. First, how did the doctor come to miss his appointment on the Ewing Road? Second, how long ——”

Fisher had gripped the arms of his chair. His face was deathly.

“How long,” pursued the mystic, inexorably, “is it since you fell in love with Clara Clavering?” Macpherson had bounded to his feet. He compressed his Scottish mouth with all his Scottish will. Simon Iff went on imperturbably. “I think perhaps you do not realize how critical was that failure of the doctor to materialize. Knowing the moment of Fraser’s murder, everything becomes clear.”

“I suppose this is what you call the third degree!” sneered Fisher. “I’m not to be bluffed.”

“So you won’t talk, my friend? I think you will when we apply this white-hot poker here to your bare abdomen.”

Fisher faltered. “That was terrible!” It was the cry of a damned soul. “Was terrible, you’ll note, Mr. Macpherson,” cried Simon Iff, “not will be. Come, Mr. Fisher, you see I know the whole story.”

“Then you had better tell it.”

“I will. You’ll remember, Macpherson, I told you that I saw in this whole plot the workings of a creative mind of high color and phantasy; possibly on the border of madness. So I began to look for such a mind. I did not need to look for clues; once I found the right kind of mind, the rest would fit. I began to suspect Mr. Fisher here on account of his rose-growing activities; but I soon saw that he had too many alibis. Fraser, with a mind like a Babbage calculating machine, was out of the question from the start, although he had just fallen in love — which sometimes works some pretty fine miracles in a man!

“The only other person in the circle was Miss Clavering herself, and I made an opportunity to see her. I saw, too, that she was not very much in the circle; she appeared accidentally and quite naturally. I thought that such an apparent comet might be the Sun of the system of deception.

“I was delighted when I was given an exact time, not a round hour or half hour, for the interview; it suggested an intricacy.

“I arrive at the house; I see a perfect stage picture; an undeniable swollen ankle, which is also an undeniable alibi; and, in case any one did doubt the ankle, there was a witness above all suspicion, Sir Bray Clinton, on his way to see it. Could I doubt that Miss Clavering was awake when Macpherson first telephoned, and used the interval to make a date with Clinton and the doctor? Only we must not be there for the interview; Clinton would ask when the accident happened. It would not do to tell him “Friday,” when the other doctor had deliberately dislocated the foot, as I was sure, on Monday, after Vision Number Ten of poor Fraser.

“But how does it happen that Fraser writes and telephones just as Miss Clavering dictates? Here we touch the darkest moment of the drama. He was evidently a puppet throughout. It is clear to me that Miss Clavering, disguised as Fraser, hired the big racing car; that she met him on Friday night, chloroformed him, took him to the house of Fisher here, and kept him in durance.

“On the Saturday she and Fisher play their appointed roles. Vision Number Two is devised to make it appear that Saturday noon is the moment of the robbery, when in reality the parcels had been exchanged long before.”

“I never packed the notes,” said Fisher. “I put them away in my bag and took them home with me on Friday night.”

“Good boy! now we’re being sensible. Well, to continue with Saturday. Miss Clavering has a corpse in her car — and this made me suspect a medical accomplice — goes through her tricks, and returns to Fraser’s house. They then proceed to put pressure on Fraser. He resists. Miss Clavering resorts to the white-hot poker. How do I know? Because care was taken to destroy the abdomen. Under this torture Fraser wrote the telegram which was later handed in by Clara; then he was set to telephone to you, Macpherson, with the implement of torture ready in case he should make a mistake. Yet he kicked; they had to ring off, and have a second orgie of devilment before he would give the answer you required. It was useless for him to give a false answer; his best chance of help (as they probably showed him) was to convince you that it was he.

“Directly this is over, Fraser is murdered. It would really have been safer to wait till the last moment ——”