Drury Lane’s Last Case (31 page)

“Oh, come now, Doctor,” said Rowe. “We're all in this thing together. And as far as Donoghue is concerned——”

“I'm deef, dumb, an' blind,” grinned the Irishman.

The story came out reluctantly. Some years before, when William Sedlar had been actively engaged in England as a representative of book collectors, he had been friendly with Sir John Humphrey-Bond, the famous British bibliophile. William had been instrumental in effecting the deal whereby Samuel Saxon had purchased from Sir John's library one of the three existing copies of the 1599 Jaggard edition of
The Passionate Pilgrim
. Some months later William, who had access to Sir John's enormous library, ran across an old manuscript—not in itself valuable and utterly unknown to the bibliophilic world—which stated that a personal letter written and signed in the hand of William Shakespeare and containing a strange secret had been in existence as late as 1758, the date of the manuscript William found. This Shakespearian letter went on the manuscript, because of its hideous secret, had been hidden in the back-cover binding of a 1599 edition of the Jaggard
The Passionate Pilgrim
. Excited by his discovery, William ascertained that Sir John had never read the manuscript and, his collector's cupidity aroused, had purchased it from his patron without revealing its contents. He had taken Hamnet, then curator of the Kensington Museum, into his confidence and had shown him the manuscript. Hamnet had scoffed at it as an old wives' tale. But William, drunk with the extraordinary historic, literary, and monetary value of this long-lost document the manuscript spoke of, had gone on the prowl—despite the fact that he realized that most of the first-edition Jaggards of
The Passionate Pilgrim
had disappeared in the course of three centuries and that only three were left. He satisfied himself after a three-year search that two of the copies—the second of which was in possession of Pierre Gréville, the French collector—did not contain the rumoured holograph. Having to flee France with the
gendarmerie
at his heels, he embarked for the United States almost in despair, but savagely intent on examining the third and last copy, which ironically enough he himself had been instrumental in putting into the hands of Samuel Saxon. He had written his brother Hamnet secretly before leaving Bordeaux.

“He wrote me about his attack on Gréville,” said Dr. Sedlar faintly, “and I realized that his pursuit of the document had become an obsession with him. As luck would have it I had agreed to Mr. James Wyeth's proposal to come to America only a short time before. I saw my opportunity to look William up and try to avert another crime, if I could. Consequently I caught an earlier boat and on my arrival in New York placed an advertisement in the personal columns of the newspapers. William got in touch with me readily enough, meeting me at the cheap hotel where I had taken temporary quarters under an assumed name. He told me he had rented a house in Westchester under his old alias of Dr. Ales; that he was on the track of the Saxon copy, but had had ill luck since the book among others had been left in Saxon's will to the Britannic Museum and he had not been able to get hold of it. He told me also about having hired a common thief named Villa to break into the Saxon mansion and steal the volume; but Villa had bungled, stealing a worthless and palpable forgery, and William had returned it anonymously. He was in a fever of impatience; the museum, he told me, was closed for repairs; the Jaggard had been delivered among the others in the benefaction; he must get into the museum! I saw he was mad with cupidity and I tried to dissuade him; the situation was desperate; I myself was becoming curator of the museum. But William was adamant and our first conversation got nowhere; he went away.”

“It was you, I suppose,” said Lane slowly, “who visited your brother's house in secret one night—the muffled visitor your brother's man told us about?”

“Yes. But it did no good. I was beside myself with consternation and fear. Not a pleasant position for me, y'know.” The Englishman drew a deep breath. “When the Jaggard was stolen, I knew at once that William must have been the man in the blue hat. But I could not talk, obviously. William got in touch with me secretly that same night, telling me gleefully that beyond all hope he had actually discovered the document in the binding of the Saxon Jaggard and was sending the book itself back to the museum, having no further use for it. Because he was after all no petty thief, he had left his own copy of the 1606 Jaggard—I had not even dreamed of its existence and where he got it I do not know—in place of the stolen Jaggard as a salve to his own conscience and because, I suppose, he thought it would delay discovery of the theft. It superficially resembled the 1599.”

“But how about this business of being made prisoner?” growled Thumm. “Where does that come in?”

Dr. Sedlar bit his lip. “I'd never dreamed he would go to such rascally lengths, you know. He caught me quite off guard. My own brother! … On Friday last I received a note in the post at the Hotel Seneca, making a secret appointment near Tarrytown, not at his own house. He was very mysterious about it, and I was not suspicious because …” He stopped and his eyes clouded. “At any rate Saturday morning I went to the rendezvous from the museum, where I'd left Dr. Choate. It's—it's a little painful, gentlemen.”

“He attacked you?” said Bolling sharply.

“Yes.” The man's lips trembled. “Virtually kidnapped me—his own brother! And he stuffed me, bound and gagged, into a filthy hole.… You know the rest.”

“But why?” demanded Thumm. “I can't see the sense in it.”

Sedlar shrugged his thin shoulders. “I suppose he was afraid I'd give him away. I
had
in desperation threatened to give him up to the police, y'know. I imagine he wanted me out of the way until he could slip out of the country with the document.”

“Your monocle was found in the Ales house after what we know now to have been a murder,” said Thumm sternly. “Explain that.”

“My monocle? Oh, yes.” He waved a weary hand. “The press did have something to say about that. I can't explain it. William must have taken it from me when … He did say he was returning to the house to get the document, which he had hidden there; and then he meant to skip out. But I suppose he ran afoul of his murderer and in some way the monocle slipped out of his pocket and was crushed during the struggle. Unquestionably he was slain for possession of the document.”

“And it's now in the hands of your brother's murderer?”

“What else?”

There was a little silence. Donoghue had frankly gone to sleep, and his snores punctuated the silence like a rattle of musketry. Then Patience and Rowe looked at each other, and both rose and leaned over the bed on opposite sides.

“But the secret, Dr. Sedlar,” pleaded Rowe, his eyes feverish.

“You
can't
just let it go at that!” cried Patience.

The man on the bed regarded them with a smile. “So you want to know, too?” he said softly. “Suppose I told you that the secret revolved about …
the death of Shakespeare
?”

“The death of Shakespeare!”

“Well, well?” said Rowe hoarsely.

“But how can a man write about his own death?” asked Patience.

“A very pertinent question,” chuckled the Englishman. He shifted suddenly in bed, his eyes flaming. “What did Shakespeare die of?”

“No one knows,” muttered Rowe. “But there's been speculation and some attempt at scientific diagnosis. I remember reading an article in an old copy of the
Lancet
which ascribed Shakespeare's death to a fantastic complication of causes—typhus, epilepsy, arterio-sclerosis, chronic alcoholism, Bright's disease, locomotor ataxia, and the Lord knows what else. I think there were thirteen altogether.”

“Indeed?” murmured Dr. Sedlar. “How interesting. The point is that according to this old manuscript”—he paused—“
Shakespeare was murdered
.”

There was an appalled silence. The Englishman went on with a faint odd smile. “It seems that the letter was written by Shakespeare to a certain William Humphrey——”

“Humphrey?” whispered Rowe. “William Humphrey? The only Humphrey I've ever heard of in connection with Shakespeare was Ozias Humphrey, who was commissioned by Malone in 1783 to prepare a crayon drawing of the Chandos portrait. Ever hear of this Humphrey, Mr. Lane?”

“No.”

“It's a name new to Shakespeariana,” said Dr. Sedlar. “The——”

“By George!” exclaimed Rowe, staring. “W.H.!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“W.H. The W.H. of the Sonnets!”

“There's an inspiring thought. It's possible; there never was a clear conclusion on that point. At any rate we know this: William Humphrey was a direct ancestor of Sir John Humphrey-Bond!”

“Explaining,” said Patience in an awed voice, “how the book with the letter in it came to be in possession of the Humphrey-Bond family.”

“Precisely. Evidently Humphrey was a close friend of the poet's.”

Young Rowe sprang to the foot of the bed. “You've
got
to be clear about this thing,” he rasped. “What was the date of the letter? When was it sent?”

“April twenty-second, 1616.”

“God! The day before Shakespeare's death! Did you—did you see this letter?”

“I'm sorry to say I did not. But my brother told me about it, unable to keep it to himself.” Sedlar sighed. “Strange, eh? In this letter Shakespeare wrote to his friend William Humphrey that he was ‘fast sinking,' that he was in ‘sore bodily distress,' and that he was convinced some one was slowly poisoning him. The next day—he died.”

“Oh, good Lord!” said Rowe again and again, and he fingered his necktie as if it choked him.

“Poisoned, hey?” said the Inspector, shaking his head. “Who the hell would want to poison the old boy?”

Patience said stiffly: “It looks horribly as if we'll have to solve a three-hundred-year-old murder before …”

“Before what, Patience?” asked Lane in a curious voice.

She shivered a little, avoiding his eyes, and turned away.

28

The Clue of the Bells

A remarkable change had come over Miss Patience Thumm. The Inspector was openly worried. She ate like a bird, slept little, and went from the Thumm apartment to the office day after day like a slender little ghost, pale and thoughtful. Occasionally she complained of headache and retired to her room for hours at a time. When she emerged she invariably looked tired and depressed.

“What's the matter?” asked the Inspector shrewdly one day. “Had a run-in with the boy-friend?”

“With Gordon? Nonsense, father. We—we're just very good friends. Besides, he's busy at the Britannic these days and I don't see him much.”

The Inspector grunted, but he watched her with anxiety. That afternoon he telephoned the museum and spoke to Gordon Rowe. But the young man sounded characteristically preoccupied. No, he had no idea——The Inspector hung up, a sorely tried father; and for the rest of the day he made Miss Brodie's life miserable.

About a week after the events at the Tarrytown hospital, Patience appeared at her father's office dressed in fresh linen and looking more like herself than she had for days. “I'm off for a little jaunt,” she announced pulling on white mesh gloves. “Into the country. Mind, darling?”

“Gawd, no!” said the Inspector hastily. “Have a nice time. Going alone?”

Patience examined her face in her mirror. “Of course. Why shouldn't I go alone?”

“Well, I thought—this Rowe boy—Patty, he's been neglectin' you, isn't that it?”

“Father! No doubt he—he's very busy. Besides, why should
I
mind?” And she kissed him lightly on the smashed tip of his nose and sailed out of the office. The Inspector muttered a ferocious curse on the head of the recalcitrant Mr. Rowe and rang for Miss Brodie viciously.

Patience's airy manner vanished as she climbed into her roadster downstairs and rolled off. The frown that had been perched between her brows for days deepened. She passed the Britannic Museum on Fifth Avenue without a glance; but when she had to stop at the corner of Sixty-Sixth Street for a red light, she could not keep from stealing a peep into her windshield mirror. There was, of course, nothing to be seen; and she sighed and drove on.

It was a long, lonely drive to Tarrytown. She gripped the wheel in her gloved hands, driving with absent skill; her eyes were on the road, but her thoughts were far away.

She stopped before a drug store in the heart of the town, went in, consulted a telephone directory, asked the clerk a question, and went out again. She drove off, turned into a narrow side-street, and coasted slowly along watching the street-numbers. In five minutes she found what she was seeking—a ramshackle one-story frame house with a scratchy garden in front and a staggering fence whose pickets were twined with ivy.

She mounted the porch and rang a bell which sounded hoarsely and faintly through the house. A middle-aged woman with tired eyes opened the screen-door; she wore a wrinkled house-dress and her hands were red and sopping with sudsy water. “Yes?” she said sharply, eyeing Patience with a sort of defeated hostility.

“Is Mr. Maxwell at home?”

“Which one?”

“Are there more than one? I mean the gentleman who until recently took care of Dr. Ales's house.”

“Oh. My brother-in-law.” The woman sniffed. “Just wait on the porch. I'll see if he's around.”

The woman vanished and Patience sat down with a sigh in a dusty rocker. A moment later the tall white-topped figure of old Maxwell appeared; he was pulling a coat on over his sweaty undershirt, and his scraggly throat was bare.

“Miss Thumm!” he said in a cracked voice. His bleary little eyes searched the street as if seeking others. “You want to see
me
?”