The Complete Simon Iff (21 page)

Teake was taken entirely aback. His eyes blazed. "What do you know?" he cried! "Is this a sample of this black magic of yours?"

"So the cap fits?"

"Why, Captain Nikko, naval attaché to the Cerisien Embassy, was there."

"In a dive on Tenth Avenue. Strike you as strange?"

"Not very. He was showing the sights of this little old burg to a compatriot, a Dr. Nagasaki, who has just come over from Cerisia. But how did you know?"

"I didn't know. I was only trying to find a reason for the presence of a member of one of the great imperial families of Europe. It might have been just curiosity or just vice, but the disguise was so very thorough."

"Say!"

"Didn't you notice his hands? Of course you did. But you didn't go on one step, as I did. Under that ten days' beard was a lip that only grows on one family face on the planet."

"And he's lost his memory?"

"If he remembers nothing else, he remembers me! I can't place him; but he knew me in a second."

"This is the most extraordinary dope!"

"So much so that I want you to tell the sergeant not to let him go; charge him straitly 'by his affection for the Archangel Michael', I think it is. Don't let him wash, or monkey with his clothes, or destroy anything. And come over with me to the Secret Service, and we'll talk."

"Well, there is a little thunder in the air, now you mention it, about the attitude of Cerisia."

"Especially in connexion with that country - not Hungary - where that - tough guy, I think you said - has his nails manicured every morning by a Duchess!"

"Aren't we taking a chance if we put any indignity on him? I've my job to think of. I don't want to catch a Tartar."

"My friend, you've caught a Tartar. And your one best bet is not to let go."

Teake gave some rather elaborate orders, and drove with Iff directly to the Headquarters of the Secret Service.

Colonel Blagden listened in silence to Iff's story. "It wouldn't do for England any more than it would for you," the magician concluded. "So I came round."

"Nikko - Nagasaki - man with a Brzoloff lip - Tenth Avenue. Hum. Washington. Excuse me." Blagden took the telephone. Ten minutes later his face was as white as his collar. "I'm coming round," he said, and called for his coat and hat.

Teake took the sergeant into a private room, but Blagden did the questioning.

"Pockets?" he snapped.

"Two hundred and three dollars, sir, four fifties and three ones; two quarters, a dime, six nickles and three pennies. An old envelope, addressed to Stefan Boluski, Hotel Tart, Cincinnati. Postmark, Boston, December twelve, noon. Hotel has no record of any such name. Pencilled accounts, in Hungarian, scribbled on back of envelope. Nothing else but a cheap pocket-knife."

"Linings?"

"Not a thing, sir."

"Wait outside." Blagden turned to Simon Iff. "I feel we owe you a great deal; I should like to increase the debt. What do you make of it?"

"Are those accounts written in indelible pencil?"

Blagden called the sergeant, and sent him for the envelope.

"No," said he, "faint pencillings, almost rubbed out."

"May I see?" Blagden passed it over. "Done with a devilish hard pencil, about 8H, at a guess. I could rub the marks clean, and still read by the impression. He valued those accounts. An 8H pencil on a prince or a tramp strikes me as an Incongruity. Let's see. Room 25 = car 7. Where does one pay 7 cents for a carfare?"

"Nowhere - yet."

"Aha! Cigar 11. There's another funny figure. Those aren't accounts; it's the key to a cipher."

Blagden grunted angrily. "Mr. Iff," he said, "I must take you into the confidence of the Government of the United States. We have been expecting something serious in this direction for a month or more. I can't say exactly what, or how serious. But I think our man's Prince Theodor Brzoloff, who is supposed to be big game hunting in Central Asia, well out of touch with telegraphs."

"Yes, that's the man. I remember him perfectly now. I met him in the rest-house at Burzil, on the Gilgit road, ten years ago. A great traveller and a fine shot."

"A damned mischief-maker," growled Blagden. "Now there's only one reason why he should be here - to bring some kind of a paper to Nikko, a secret treaty of sorts. I see now why he's shamming amnesia. If by some impossible chance - just what's happened - he were recognized, he might be traced to his rooms, and the paper discovered."

"He's not going to take a second chance of being seen with Nikko if he can help it. He had that paper on him at the dive."

"What sort of a paper?"

"It would be a fairly long document, I imagine. Five thousand words or so, perhaps."

"It's on him. It must be on him. Suppose we have a look at those clothes ourselves?"

Blagden recalled the sergeant.

"Bring that Hungarian's clothes here. Tell him it's the regulation to have them disinfected."

The clothes arrived. Blagden began to turn them over.

"Please!" interjected Simon Iff. "The police have done all that can be done by touching them. Let us content ourselves with looking at them."

Blagden put his hands in his pockets with a smile. "Well, what do we see?"

"I see an Incongruity."

"Good. Reminds one of the personal disguise. Same trick."

"These clothes are very old, very worn, very ragged in places. They were orginally cheap but respectable. Nice dark blue. Where's the princely touch?"

'Simple Simon' tapped the lining of the coat. "The lining's new. Very high quality linen. Dark blue. Suggest litmus to me. Writing on litmus would be quite invisible. Suppose we brush it over with acid?"

"And read it in red?"

"In red - very likely." Simon Iff did not care to conceal his view of the menace implied by such extraordinary precautions.

Teake summoned an expert, who began to brush the blue lining with a pencil of soft camel's hair dipped in vinegar.

A faint rust red appeared upon the indigo of the linen. Blagden bent over.

"Good God! It's the Imperial holograph. His majesty's rescript! They've photo-lithographed the original and printed it in litmus. What perfectly beautiful work!"

Iff seemed lost in thought. "It's not in cipher, then?"

"Perfectly plain French, to begin, at least. It wouldn't be a cipher. They needed the holograph. This is an Authority; it has to be legible as his Majesty's own handwriting."

Iff lapsed.

"This needs careful restoration," said the expert. "May I take it for half an hour?"

"Right," agreed Blagden. "Teake, could we have something to eat here? It may be my last chance for some time."

The Commissioner ordered a meal.

"I don't know how to thank you," said Blagden to Simon Iff, raising his cocktail, "for your miraculous solution of this mystery. My God! to think of getting on to a thing this size from - from - from literally nothing."

"You irritate me," replied Simon, in a burst of furious ill-temper, "you humiliate me. You rub it in. Oh go on! It will do me good. It will cure me of the sin of pride. Also," he added in a more reflective tone, "perhaps it may buck me up."

"I don't get you," returned Blagden, rather annoyed.

"Why, don't you see, it's all come out WRONG."

The last word was a shout. "It's too easy. There's an Incongruity - the worst kind of all the kinds - an apparent simplicity in what one knows to be most highly complex. Here, do you play chess?"

Blagden admitted it: Teake was silent.

"Well, take a chess problem by a good composer. I see - at a glance - what looks like a solution. Carefully concealed key - elegant line of play - neat mating position. But what's that Rook doing in the corner? It is not essential to our solution. Then why did the composer put it on the board? It's bad economy, and a good composer doesn't do that. Our supposed solution must be a mere 'try' - a false alarm."

"Yes," said Blagden, curiously disturbed. "Meaning what?"

"What's Nagasaki doing? He doesn't come into it at all. A man of his importance doesn't come over here to be a makeweight. Then, here's a key to a cipher which turns out not to be a cipher at all."

"I don't follow. There are plenty of explanations. An imperial rescript sent in this extraordinary form outweighs all the facts. The sun blots out the stars."

"Yes, but some of those stars are bigger than the sun."

The door opened, and the expert came back.

In his hands was the lining of the tough guy's jacket, pinned neatly to a board. The red writing showed out brilliantly. But the amazement was his face. It was one web of twinkling wrinkles; decorum was hard put to it to keep him from relapsing into the fits of laughter into which the perusal of the document had thrown him. "I'm afraid it's a hoax, sir," was all he could trust himself to say.

"What do you mean?" snapped Blagden, furious.

"It's a joke, sir. This is the production of a lunatic. I should say, sir, it's some stunt for advertising a sensational story."

His amusement overcame him for a moment; then he repressed himself with infinite embarrassment. Blagden took the board. He read with dropped jaw and eyes that seemed as if they would burst from their sockets.

The rescript began by expressing the Imperial sympathy for "the catastrophe which has recently overwhelmed the Government of the United States." It went on to say that in view of the state of anarchy prevailing in consequence of this catastrophe, of the collapse of the financial system of the country, of the revolt of the negroes in the South, and of certain lawless and disorderly elements of the population describing themselves as socialists, anarchists, working men's reform associations, and what not, his Majesty and his Government "would view without alarm any steps which might be advisably taken by the Dewan of Cerisia to restore the blessings of peace and order to the people of the United States of America."

"This," said Blagden, "is an authorization to Cerisia to invade this country - which is absurd - on the grounds of various events which haven't happened, and are not in the least likely."

"True," said Simple Simon, "to-day's the twentieth of May. We have some sixty days to stop it."

"What do you mean?"

"Nagasaki had slipped that envelope to the Prince. The figures give the date which he was to fill in when he signed it as witness to his Imperial nephew's signature. Room 25 Car 7 Cigar 11. That's July twenty-fifth. On that date those events would have occurred; but the Dewan had to have the rescript in his possession before he touched the button."

"That sounds reasonable - if you can use the word in the presence of such an atrocious plan. But, as to stopping it, it's stopped already. Wait till I pass this little document around the embassies!"

Simon Iff shook his head. "I'm afraid that would only mean war."

"It would be pretty bad," agreed Blagden. "One can't say how Cerisia would act, but the regular allies of - not Hungary - would stick to her. It would be hell."

"Hell's coming," replied Simon, "but we're not quite ready. And you are less so. Better hush this up, don't you think?"

"I must take it to the Secretary of State, in any case. He's in town; I have an appointment at three o'clock, as it happens."

"Well, sir, I must say that we are very grateful indeed to you. You have certainly done wonders."

"I never saw a puzzle solved so neatly and completely," put in Teake.

"Solved!" cried Simon Iff. "Why, the problem aroused by this incident hasn't even been stated!"

The two men stared. Blagden's tacturnity thawed into quick-firing speech.

"I don't understand! Surely, the whole thing is cleared up - the mystery explained, the villians baffled. What more do you want? Of course we shall indicate that Nikko is no more persona grata, and find a convenient reason for Nagasaki's return to his followers. Prince Theodor will get a quiet warning. Why, the whole bubble is burst."

"Ah, gentlemen," said Simple Simon, rather sadly, "I think I had better put in a little work on this matter. It is not quiet in shape to put before you; I will let you know when it is." He took a cordial farewell; but when the others left the building, they found him standing on the steps, gazing blankly into the Realm of Nowhere.

Teake thought that, as a stranger to New York, he did not know his way. "Can I help you?" he said. "What are you looking for?"

"Two men from the South in the North, and two men from the East in the West. I'm afraid you can't help me! What I really need is just brains. Do you think a fish diet would be any good?"

"What about Wale?"

Teake made a laughing retort, and passed on.

II

If our mystical friend Simple Simon, luckier than the great Sam Weller, had possessed a "pair of double million magnifying gas microscopes" instead of normal eyes, he might have been distracted - even he - from his concentration upon the problem by what was taking place at that moment directly in front of them, but shielded from their observation by the wall of a famous skyscraper. For in room 3715 of that building a perfectly senseless procedure was in course.

It was a very ordinary office, rented by the Society for the Relief of Indigent Immigrants. A portly and benevolent gentleman was leaning back in his chair, smoking an expensive cigar. His secretary, a Miss Wakefield, a tall woman of 40, plain and severe, was seated at her typwriter, taking the dictation of a little dried-up monkey of a man, obviously of Mongol type. He was bending toward the woman, intently. After a few minutes he rose, took his hat and coat, and left the room with a few casual words of farewell.

The fat man pulled out his watch and noted the time. He then told the woman to take some letters. Twenty minutes later her hands dropped suddenly to her lap; she turned a curious questioning gaze upon her employer. She gave a cough, then, with a sudden spasm, torrents of blood gushed from her lungs. She rose, then collalpsed upon the floor. The fat man telephoned excitedly for a doctor. As he did so he consulted his watch once more, and put it back in his pocket with a satisfied snap.

Nobody heard anything of this matter as it transpired, and Simon Iff would not have learnt even the published facts if he had not been exceedingly bored during his journey to Atlanta, Georgia. As it was, the paragraph caught his eye. It was entitled "A new disease?"