Drury Lane’s Last Case (2 page)

The Inspector's cold grey eyes stared at his remarkable visitor for some seconds. The blue spectacles remained impenetrable. “I see,” said the Inspector, although it was quite evident that he did not. “Just what d'ye mean—keep it for you?”

“Hold it for me safely. Until I call for it. In trust, as it were.”

Thumm yawned. “Hell, I'm not runnin' a safe-deposit vault. Why not got to a bank? It'll be a damn' sight cheaper, too.”

“I'm afraid you don't understand, Inspector,” said Rainbow-Beard cautiously. “That wouldn't do at all, you see. I must have it in safe-keeping with a
person
, you see, a person of integrity,” and he examined the hard chunky face of the Inspector very closely, as if to reweigh that doughty gentleman's trustworthiness.

“Heard you,” said Thumm. “Heard you and got you. Well, let's see the evidence, Mister Anonymous. Let's see it, let's see it!”

For some time the visitor did not respond; but when he did it was with swiftness, as if he had made up his mind after due deliberation. His gloved right hand groped within the folds of his swathings and emerged after a moment clutching a large long brown manila envelope. Thumm's eyes gleamed, and he extended his hand. The envelope dropped into it, reluctantly.

It was an ordinary manila envelope such as may be purchased in any stationer's shop. Both front and back were innocent of markings. It had been sealed not only by its original adhesive flap; evidently the visitor had taken certain precautions against the frailties of human nature, for six small bits of ordinary cheap white paper cut into odd shapes had been pasted over the flap for additional protection against tampering.

“Neat,” remarked the Inspector, “neat and not gaudy. Hmm.” He fingered the envelope without seeming to do so. His eyes narrowed. The visitor sat quite still. “What's inside? You can't expect——”

There was presumptive evidence that Rainbow-Beard smiled, for the hairs on the corners of his mouth suddenly twitched in a northerly direction. “I like your persistence, Inspector, like it enormously. It confirms what I've heard of you. You've a very fine reputation, you know. Your cautious attitude——”

“Yes, but what's in it?” growled Thumm.

The man—if it was a man, for a preposterous suspicion crossed Thumm's mind suddenly—leaned forward. “Suppose I told you,” he whispered hoarsely, “suppose I told you that inside that very envelope in your hand, Inspector, there's a clue to a secret, a secret so important, so significant, so
tremendous
, that I daren't trust anyone in the world with the whole truth!”

Inspector Thumm blinked. He might have known. The beard, the spectacles, the heavy disguising clothing, the antics of his strange visitor—why, the man was obviously an escaped lunatic! Clue. Secret. Anyone in the world.… The poor nut was cracked.

“Uh—take is easy,” he said. “No need to get excited, mister.” He felt hastily for the tiny automatic he carried in his armpit holster. The crazy fool might be armed!

He was startled to hear Rainbow-Beard utter a cavernous chuckle. “You think I'm mad. Can't say I blame you, Inspector. I suppose it does sound a bit—er—thick. But let me assure you,” and the queer rusty voice became very sanely dry, “that I've told you the exact truth without any dramatic colouration. And you needn't finger your automatic, Inspector; I shan't bite you.” Thumm snatched his hand out from beneath his coat and glared, red-faced, at his visitor. “That's better, really. Now please listen carefully, because I've very little time, and it is important that you understand clearly. I repeat that the envelope contains the clue to a colossal secret, Inspector. And let me add,” he said in calm tones, “a secret worth
millions
!”

“Well, if you're not balmy,” growled Thumm, “then I am. You'll have to tell me more than that if you expect me to swallow that yarn. What d'ye mean—secret worth millions? In this skinny envelope?”

“Precisely.”

“Political secret?”

“No.”

“Oil strike? Blackmail—love letter? Treasure? Jewels? Come on, mister, come clean. I'm not going to handle anything I'm in the dark about”

“But I can't tell you that,” replied Rainbow-Beard with a trace of impatience in his voice. “Don't be stupid, Inspector. I give you my word of honour there's nothing nefarious about the contents of that envelope. The secret is quite legitimate. It has nothing to do with the very ordinary things you've just mentioned. It concerns something infinitely more interesting and of infinitely greater value. Remember, too, the envelope contains not the secret itself, if I make myself clear; it contains merely a clue to the secret.”

“You'll have me going nuts in a minute, too,” groaned Thumm. “Why all the mystery? Why do you want me to keep the damned thing?”

“For a very good reason.” Rainbow-Beard pursed his red lips. “I am on the trail of—well, let us say the ‘original' of the clue in the envelope, the secret I've mentioned. You understand, then, that I haven't found it yet. But the trail is extremely warm, extremely warm indeed! I fully expect to succeed. Now, if anything should—ah—happen to me, Inspector, I want you to open this envelope.”

“Ha,” said the Inspector.

“In the event that something happens to me—and when you open the envelope—you'll find my little clue. It will lead you by a rather devious route to—me. Or rather to my fate. I'm not providing against this contingency in any spirit of revenge, I'll have you understand. If anything happens to me I'm not interested so much in being avenged as in having the original of the secret
preserved
. Do I make myself clear?”

“Hell, no!”

Rainbow-Beard sighed. “The clue in this envelope is just that and nothing more; it tells little
of itself
. But that's precisely as I want it! Its very incompleteness will protect me against—no offence meant, my dear Inspector!—against even your curiosity, or the curiosity of anyone else in whose hands the envelope might fall. If you should open it before I intend you to, I assure you that what the envelope contains will be quite meaningless to you.”

“Oh, cut it out!” cried Thumm, rising. His face was darkly red. “You're trying to make a fool out of me. Who the hell put you up to this crazy kid's trick, anyway, damn it all? I can't waste——”

Something buzzed insistently on the Inspector's desk. The visitor did not stir. Inspector Thumm cut short his explosion of annoyance and snatched up the receiver of his inter-office communicator. A feminine voice snapped in his ear. He listened bitterly for a moment, replaced the receiver, and sat down.

“Go ahead,” he said in a choked voice. “Go on. Give it to me. I'll bite. I'll swallow it hook, line, and sinker. What's next?”

“Dear, dear,” said Rainbow-Beard with a little cluck of concern. “Really, Inspector, I'd no intention … That's really all.”

“Not on your life, it isn't,” said the Inspector grimly. “If I'm going to fall for this, I'll do it proper. Must be somethin' else. Crazy as it is, it can't be as crazy as you've
left
it.”

The man stroked his extraordinary beard. “I like you better and better,” he murmured. “Yes, there is something more. You must promise that you won't open this envelope unless——” He paused.

“Unless what?” growled Thumm.

The visitor licked his lips. “To-day is the sixth of May. Two weeks from to-day, on the twentieth, I shall telephone you here. I'm confident that I shall telephone you here on that date. And also on the twentieth of June, and the twentieth of July—on the twentieth of each month until I've found—it. My telephoning on a schedule this way will tell you that I am still alive, that I've run into no unexpected danger.” A brisk note sprang into his rusty voice. “While that condition continues, you are merely to keep the envelope in your safe until I call for it. On the other hand, if by midnight of any twentieth I have failed to telephone you, you will know that I'm probably beyond calling altogether. Then—and only then—are you to open the envelope, read what it contains, and proceed as your very good judgment, I'm sure, will dictate.”

Thumm sat, hard-bitten and sour, deep in his chair; there was a cynical twist to his smashed pugilist's nose, a stubborn air about him mingled with a rather bitter curiosity. “You're going to a hell of a lot of trouble, mister, to make sure of this secret of yours. Somebody else is after it, hey? Somebody you think may bump you for it before or after you get it?”

“No, no,” cried Rainbow-Beard. “You misunderstand. As far as I know, no one else is after the—the secret. But there's always the possibility that some one is after it, some one whose intentions or identity I'm unaware of. I'm merely taking precautions against that remote contingency, that's all. It's so remote that I won't tell you my name or—or anything! Because if nothing happens—and I don't expect anything to happen—I don't want you or anyone else to come into possession of a clear clue to my secret. I'm sure that's frank enough, Inspector.…”

“By God,” groaned the Inspector, “hasn't this gone far enough? Listen, mister.” He pounded on his desk. “First I thought you were a nut. Then I thought somebody put you up to playin' a joke on me. Now I don't know what to think except this: I'd be a whole lot happier if you'd get the hell out of here pronto. Scat! Shoo!”

The beard sagged in honest bewilderment just as the communicator buzzed again. Thumm started, flushed like a small boy caught stealing apples, and jammed his fist into his pocket. “All right, all right,” he muttered to the buzzer, and said aloud: “Excuse me. I—I got up this morning with a grouch. Guess I'm not used to your kind of”—he groaned aloud—“case. I'm just a plain 'tec., and I s'pose I can't get used to the idea of becoming wet-nurse to an envelope.… All right, I'll be crazy, too, just to be sociable! When you ring me up on the twentieth, how will I know it's you?”

The visitor sighed heavily with relief. “I'm so glad—Hmm. Very clever, Inspector, very clever indeed. I hadn't thought of that.” He chuckled and rubbed his gloved hands together. “Really, this is quite exciting! Like that mad chap Lupin's adventure!”

“Whose?” demanded Thumm suspiciously.

“The immortal Arsène. Hmm. Password. Password, of course! That's the logical answer, Inspector. Very well, when I call you I shall say—let me see—ha! ‘This is the man from Nowhere. Millions!' and by that, as Matthew didn't say, ye shall know me. Ha, ha!”

“Ha, ha,” said the Inspector. “‘This is the man from——'” He shook his head warily. Then a gleam of hope scurried to the surface of his eyes. “But maybe my fee wouldn't——”

“Ah, your fee,” said Rainbow-Beard. “Yes, yes, I'd almost forgotten that. What would your retainer be, Inspector, to take this odd little case of mine?”

“Just for holdin' this damned envelope in my safe?”

“Quite so.”

“That will cost you,” said the Inspector desperately, “just five hundred smackers.”

“Smackers?” repeated Rainbow-Beard, apparently puzzled.

“Iron men. Simoleons. Bucks. Five hundred of 'em!” cried Thumm. He searched his client's face eagerly for signs of consternation; that jaw with its horrible foliage should drop, and there would be relieved triumph when the visitor beat a precipitate retreat in the face of so preposterous a demand.

“Oh, dollars,” said the visitor with a vague smile. He did not appear unduly alarmed. He fished among his swaddling clothes, took out a fat wallet, extracted a stiff bill, and tossed it on the desk.

It was a crisp new thousand-dollar bank-note.

“I think,” said Rainbow-Beard briskly, “that a thousand dollars is more nearly the proper remuneration, Inspector. This is an unusual and—ah—unorthodox assignment, to be sure, and besides it's worth all of that to me. Peace of mind, a sense of security——”

“Uh-huh,” gulped Thumm, touching the bill with dazed fingers.

“That's settled, then,” continued the visitor, rising. “There are just two conditions more. I must insist upon your observance of them, Inspector. First, you are not to have me—what is the colloquial term?—shadowed when I leave this office, and unless I fail to telephone on a twentieth you must make no effort to trace me.”

“Sure, sure,” said Thumm in a trembling voice. A thousand dollars! Tears of joy gathered in his stony eyes. These were lean days. A thousand dollars for keeping a skinny envelope in his safe!

“Second,” and the man went swiftly to the door, “if I should fail to call on a twentieth, you must not open the envelope
except in the presence of Mr. Drury Lane
.”

The inspectorial mouth gaped like the Cavern of Doubt. It was the finishing blow. The rout was complete. Rainbow-Beard smiled deprecatingly, trotted through the doorway, and vanished.

Miss Patience Thumm, free, white, over twenty-one, female, honey-haired and, horticulturally speaking, the apple of her father's eye, snatched the ear-phones from her head and swiftly replaced them in the bottom drawer of her desk in the ante-room, the drawer serving as the receiving end of the detectograph apparatus in the Inspector's very modern office. An instant later the Inspector's door opened and the tall bundled man with the blue glasses and impossible beard appeared. He did not seem to see Patience, which was a pity, and indeed seemed intent only on one course: to remove his glasses, his beard, and his incredible self from the premises of the Thumm Detective Agency with the greatest expedition. The outer door snicked shut behind him and on the instant Patience, who was possessed of fewer moral scruples than most females—after all,
she
had given no promise!—sped to the door and peeped out just in time to see one prong of the wonderful beard whip around a corner of the corridor as its wearer, disdaining the elevator, fled down the emergency stairs. Patience wasted three precious seconds sucking at her lower lip; and then she shook her head, virtue having triumphed, and hurried back into the ante-room. She burst into her father's sanctum, her blue eyes warm with excitement.