The Blind Barber (30 page)

There was a ring downstairs at the bell.

For a moment Dr. Fell sat motionless, only his great stomach heaving, and he seemed flushed and rather uneasy.

“If I’m wrong—” he said. Then he struggled to his feet. “I’ll answer that ring myself. Just glance over this notation, will you? Here’s a list of my second eight clues. See if they convey anything?”

While he was gone Morgan drew out a full bottle of beer from the troop of dead guardsmen that stood at attention on the table. He grinned. Whatever had happened, it was something to write in the note-book. “?” he said, and read on the slip of paper:

9. The Clue of Wrong Rooms.

10. The Clue of Lights.

11. The Clue of Personal Taste.

12. The Clue of Avoided Explanations.

13. The Clue Direct.

14. The Clue of Known Doubles.

15. The Clue of Misunderstanding.

& 16. The Clue Conclusive.

He was still frowning over it when Dr. Fell stumped back, leaning on his two canes. Under one arm Dr. Fell held a package wrapped in brown paper, and in the other an envelope ripped open. Many things he could conceal: the insight and strategy of his nimble, rocket-brilliant, childlike brain, and these he could conceal because, out of a desire to spring his surprise, he liked to fog them round with genial talk. But a certain relief he could not conceal. Morgan saw it and half rose from his chair.

“Rubbish, rubbish!” boomed the doctor, nodding jovially. “Sit down, sit down! Heh! As I was about to say—”

“Have you—?”

“Now, now! Let me get comfortab … aah! So. Well, my boy, whatever’s done is already done. Either the Blind Barber has got away or he hasn’t. If he has got away, I think it’s highly likely we shall catch him sooner or later. I don’t think he intended to keep his present disguise after he had landed in either France or England; then, safely out of it, he could perform another of his quick changes and disappear. He’s by way of being a genius. I wonder who he really is?”

“But you said—”

“Oh, I know the name he’s using at the moment. But I warned you long ago that the garb was only a mask and a dummy; and I should like to see how his real mind works … In any event, the boat has docked. Didn’t you tell me that young Warren was coming to see me? What arrangements have you made about that?”

“I gave him your address and said to look up the phone number if he needed to communicate. He and Peggy and the old man are coming on to London as soon as they can get the boat train. But listen!
Who is it?
Is he going to get away, after all? What, in God’s name, is the real explanation of the whole thing?”

“Heh!” said Dr. Fell. “Heh-heh! You read my last eight clues and still don’t know? You had the evidence of that steel box staring you in the face and still couldn’t make your wits work? Tut, now, I don’t blame you. You were doing too much action to think. If a man’s required to turn round every second and pick up a new person who has been knocked out by somebody, he isn’t apt to have much time for cool reflection … You see this parcel?” He put it on the table. “No, don’t look at it just yet. We’ve still some time before a final consultation, and there are a few points on which I should like enlightenment … What was the upshot of the matter after Uncle Jules was haled away to clink? Does Whistler still think Uncle Jules was the thief? And what about the marionette show? The thing seems to me to be incomplete. From the very first, as a matter of fact, I had a strong feeling that your band would somehow be enticed into that marionette show and would be forced by the Parcæ into putting on a performance … ”

Morgan scratched his ear.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “we did. It was Peggy’s fault for insisting on our saving Uncle Jules’s bacon. She said if we didn’t she’d go straight to the captain and tell him everything. We pointed out that, whatever the explanations might have been, Uncle Jules really had left a brilliant trail of shoes in our wake; that Captain Whistler was not in the mood to smile indulgently when his fifty-guinea watch sailed overboard; and after all Uncle Jules was better off in the brig. We also pointed out that, just prior to his capture, he had been seen marching through the bar and placing a shoe in the hand of any person who took his fancy. Consequently, we said, it would not appear probable to the passengers that he could work his marionette show that night.”

“And then?”

Morgan shook his head gloomily.

“Well, she wouldn’t hear of it. She said it was our fault that he’d done all of it. She pointed out that most of the passengers were in the concert-hall, applauding for the show to go on, and the person she was really afraid of was Perrigord. Perrigord had prepared an elaborate and powerful speech commemorating Uncle Jules’s genius, and had just begun it at the moment Uncle Jules was firing shoes overboard. Peggy said if a good performance didn’t go on, Perrigord would be made out such an ass that he’d never let up on Uncle Jules in the papers, and their success depended on him. The girl was loony and wouldn’t see reason. At last we promised her we’d do it if she’d consent to allow Uncle Jules to stay in the brig. It was the best way out for everybody, for they’ll forgive a drunk’s insanities when they’ll prosecute an honest mistake. Curt insisted on paying for the damage, which amounted, all in all, to close on two hundred pounds. And we felt it was time for peace to descend on the
Queen Victoria
… ”

“Well?”

“It didn’t,” said Morgan gloomily. “I begged and pleaded with Peggy. I told her some damned thing was bound to happen if we tried to work that show, and Perrigord would be more infuriated than though there’d been no performance. She couldn’t see it. She wouldn’t even see it when we had one brief rehearsal of the first scene. My portrayal of Charlemagne, I flatter myself, would have been eloquent and kingly, but Curt, in the role of Roland, got stage-struck at the rehearsal and insisted on dictating a long consular report in French about the facts and figures in the export of sardines from Lisbon. Captain Valvick at the piano would have been an error. It was not merely that he wanted to greet the entrance of the Frankish army with the strains of ‘La Madelon,’ but since somebody had informed him in general terms that Moors were ‘black men,’ then the crafty Sultan of the Moors would have made his entrance with ‘Old Man River.’ Next—”

“Hold on!” said Dr. Fell, whose eyes were growing bright with tears again, and who had clapped a hand over his mouth as he trembled. “I don’t quite understand this. It should have been one of your high lights.
Why are you so reluctant to talk about it?
Out with it now! Was there, or wasn’t there a performance?”

“Well—yes and again no,” replied Morgan, shifting uneasily. “It started, anyway. Oh, I’ll admit it saved our lives in a way, because the old dabble Parcæ were working for us now; but I’d rather not have had it saved in that way … Have you noticed that I’ve not seemed too cheerful today! Have you also noticed that I’m not accompanied by my wife? She was supposed to meet me at Southampton, but at the last minute I sent her a radiogram not to come, because I was afraid some of the passengers might—”

Dr. Fell sat up.

“If I’ve got to tell it,” said Morgan wryly, “I suppose I must. Fortunately, we got no farther than the first scene, wherein Charlemagne speaks the prologue. I was Charlemagne. Charlemagne wore long white whiskers; his venerable head was adorned with a gold crown studded with diamonds and rubies; a mantle of scarlet and ermine swathed his mighty shoulders; a jewelled broadsword was buckled about his waist, and under his chain mail his stomach was stuffed with four sofa-pillows to give him
embonpoint
. I was Charlemagne.

“Charlemagne spoke the prologue behind an illuminated gauze screen, like a tall picture-frame, at the rear of the stage. Yes. And how. Mr. Leslie Perrigord had just concluded an impassioned speech lasting fifty-five minutes to the tick. Mr. Perrigord said that this performance was the goods. He said he hoped his hearers, with minds made torpid by the miasmatic sluggishness of Hollywood, would receive a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul. He said to watch closely, even though they would not fully appreciate its lights and shadings, its subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of line, its bold chords on the metaphysical yearning of man, not surpassed in the mightiest pages of Ibsen. He also said a number of complimentary things about the prowess of Charlemagne. I was Charlemagne.

“When at length he ran out of breath, he stopped. There were three hollow knocks. Captain Valvick, despite all that could be done to stop him, played an overture consisting of ‘La Marseillaise.’ The curtain flew up a bit prematurely, I fear. Among eighty-odd others, Mr. Perrigord saw the gauze screen glowing luminous against darkness, and full of rich colour. He saw the venerable Charlemagne. He also saw his wife. The position was—er—full of subtle groupings and baffling harmonies of line. Yes. That was the moment at which the chain mail split and the sofa-pillows flew out as though they had been fired from a gun. I was Charlemagne … Now, maybe you understand why I do not care to incorporate it into the body of the story. I have no doubt that the audience received a refreshing shock as they watched enthralled this drama in which every gesture recorded an aspiration of the human soul.”

Morgan took a deep drink of beer.

Dr. Fell turned his face towards the window. Morgan observed that his shoulders were quivering as though with shock and outrage.

“In any event, it saved us, and it saved Uncle Jules for ever. The roar of applause which went up pleased everybody except possibly Mr. Perrigord. Such an instantaneous success was never achieved in any theatre by a performance which lasted only long enough for somebody to drop the curtain. Uncle Jules’s marionette theatre in Soho will be crowded to the end of his days whether he’s drunk or sober. And rest solemnly assured that, whatever he happens to feel about it, Mr. Leslie Perrigord will never write in the newspapers a word to condemn him.”

The declining sun drew lower across the carpet, resting on the brown-wrapped parcel in the middle of the table. After a time, Dr. Fell turned back.

“So—” he observed, his face gradually becoming less red as quiet settled down—“so it all ends happily, eh? Except perhaps for Mr. Perrigord and—the Blind Barber.”

He opened a penknife and weighed it in his hand.

“Yes,” said Morgan. “Yes, except in one sense. After all, the fact remains that—whatever little game
you’re
playing—we still don’t know a blasted thing that’s important. We don’t know what happened on that ship, although, in spite of all the foolery, we know there was a murder. And a murder isn’t especially funny. Nor is, actually, the fact that Curt hasn’t recovered his film, and, however ridiculous that looks, to him and to others it’s as desperately serious a matter as any.”

“Oh?” grunted Dr. Fell. “Well, well!” he said, deprecatingly, and winked one eye, “if that’s all you want … ”

Suddenly he reached across the table and cut the strings of the parcel with his knife.

“I thought—” he added, beaming, as his hand dived among the wrappings and lifted up a tangled coil of film like a genial Laocoon, “I thought it might be better to have it sent up here before the police rake over the Blind Barber’s effects and cause scandal by finding this. I’ll hand it over to young Warren when he arrives, so that he can destroy it immediately; although, in return for the favour, do you think he would consent to running it privately, just once, for my benefit? Heh-heh-heh! Hang it all, I think I can insist on
that
much reward, hey? Of course, it’s holding back evidence, in a way. But there’ll be enough to hang the Barber without it. It was my price for pointing out the culprit to Captain Whistler and handing him the credit of capturing a dangerous criminal. I felt the old sea-horse would comply … ”

Tossing the rustling coil across on Morgan’s arm, Dr. Fell sat back and blinked. Morgan was on his feet, staring.

“You mean, then, the man is under arrest already?”

“Oh, yes. Caught neatly by the brilliant Captain Whistler—who will get a medal for this, and completing everybody’s happiness—an hour before the ship docked. Inspector Jennings, at my suggestion, went down from the Yard in a fast car and was ready to take the Barber in charge when he landed … ”

“Ready to take
who
in charge?” he demanded.

“Why, the impostor who calls himself Lord Sturton, of course!” said Dr. Fell.

“I
PERCEIVE ON YOUR
face,” continued the doctor affably, as he lit his pipe, “a certain frog-like expression which would seem to indicate astonishment. H’m! puff, puff, haaaa! You should not be in the least astonished. Under the data given, as I have tabulated in my sixteen clues, there was only one person who could conceivably have been guilty. If I were wrong on my first eight—which, as I pointed out to you, were mere suggestions—then no harm could be done by testing my theory. The second eight confirmed it, and so I had no fear of the result. But, not to leap in too sylph-like a fashion at conclusions, I did this. Here is a copy of the telegram I dispatched to Captain Whistler.”

He drew a scribbled envelope from his pocket, on which Morgan read:

Man calling himself Viscount Sturton is impostor. Hold him under port authority and ask to speak to Hilda Keller, secretary travelling with him. He will not be able to produce her; she is dead. Make thorough search of Man’s cabin and person. You will find evidence to support you. Among possessions you will probably find film …

(Here followed a description.)

If you will send this to me special messenger travelling train arriving Waterloo 3:50, kindly say capture was your own idea. Release Fortinbras from brig. All regards.

Gideon Fell.

“What’s the use of special authority,” inquired Dr. Fell, “if you don’t use it. Besides, if I had been wrong, and the girl was not really missing, there wouldn’t have been an enormous row. But she was. You see, this bogus Sturton was able to conceal her presence or absence admirably so long as you never had any suspicions of
him
. Lad, at several places he was in devilish tight positions; but his very position, and the fact that he was the one who seemed to suffer most from the theft, kept him entirely immune from being suspected … Don’t choke, now; have some more beer. Shall I explain?”