The Complete Simon Iff (24 page)

"He was drunk, I guess."

"Go on!"

"Nothing doing!" said Black, after a long pause. "This is the last stop."

"Elaborate your thought!" said Iff. "This - er - guy - was new to the job, as you said. Also, he was not drunk. He was very particularly sober. He was trying in a very painstaking way to make a good showing, and he was extremely conscious of his entire incompetence. Reminds one of a newly married man trying to carve a chicken for the first time."

Black burst into a barrage of laughter. Simon Iff did not know what 'chicken' means. The inspector explained.

"Very apt," agreed Simon. "This chance serves the patient seeker after the 'mot juste'."

'Mot juste' was his little revenge.

"But look!" said Simon. "One more thing about this Bungler. He had not the slightest fear that she would wake during the process. What does that suggest?"

Black was silent.

"Again, do you see something else - something very astonishing - something very peculiar indeed - something quite in contradiction to every fact in the case?"

"Not a thing." He shook his head strongly.

"Look at the eyes!"

"Rather nice eyes. A bit wild!"

"The whole of the upper part of the face contradicts the lower."

Iff covered the eyes with his sleeve.

"There's Mrs. Craddock as everybody knew her. Now there!"

He lowered his sleeve, six inches.

"There's another woman. Did you ever see such intensity of sadness?"

"Jehosaphat! That's so!"

"It's accentuated, in my mind, to the point almost of insanity."

"Suicide, by the Great Horn Spoon!"

Then he checked himself. "Steady, Jonas Black, my lad; this ain't no jumping competition. Where's the razor?"

"Somebody might have come in, seen the body, lost his nerve, and run away, taking the razor with him. But - as we're asking questions about razors, how did Mrs. Craddock come to have a razor about the house? Women often shave the armpits, but they use safety razors."

"As it happens, Mrs. Craddock had a horror of razors. Her husband killed himself with one, six years ago."

"Come, that's really interesting. Any record of the case?"

"Right here." Black pulled out a portfolio, and extracted a memorandum, which he unfolded.

"Quite a straightforward case. Business losses - something about a missing debenture - heavy insurance with no suicide clause - every legitimate inducement!"

"Pathetic note to the coroner?"

"No; did it right in front of his wife's eyes. She was in her bath, early morning..."

"Oh, was she?" said Simon Iff, in a very nimble tone.

The inspector laughed heavily.

"I'm afraid that it is you who fail to interpret me, this time, Mr. Inspector!" said the mystic with a certain asperity. "I may add that you make a very serious mistake - I've given you a clue to the mystery."

"Oh come!" said Black. "You can't kid me, you know. I'm from Missouri."

"Go on then."

"He walked into the bathroom, took his razor out, and cut his throat with a single sweep."

"Exact time? And date?"

"November twelve. Between seven and half-past."

"He was a commuter?"

"Nope. Money of his own."

"That settles it."

"Settles what?"

"The case."

"Chase me!"

"I am prepared to lecture to the entire population of Missouri. Come, let us go downstairs, and clear up this matter. It is both better and worse than you can imagine."

They returned to the main floor. In a little room dedicated to his pleasure, Jack Craddock was sitting on the floor with Hooper, engrossed in the construction of a mechanical monument from a number of metal parts. Maddie, the nurse, in cap and spectacles, placidly knitted.

"Hooper," said Simon, "do me a good turn. I'm out of cigars. Something strong and black from the village, if you don't mind."

Hooper sprang to his feet, and obeyed with alacrity. No sooner had he left the house than Simon Iff took a large crocodile skin case from his pocket, and offered a big Upmann to the inspector.

"I must have overlooked these," he said whimsically. Maddie pursed her thin lips. "We'll leave you to play for a bit," smiled Simon, patting the boy's shoulder, "we have to persuade Maddie to make us a cup of tea in the kitchen." The old nurse seemed to hesitate before complying. "You'll take pity on a chilly old man, won't you?" went on the mystic. The tone of his voice decided her. "Sure you haven't a thermos flask in your pocket?" she snapped, with a thin smile.

"A fair hit!" laughed Iff. They followed her to the kitchen.

"No harm shall come," said Simon very gravely, "if you are sensible. You are a clever woman; you ought to understand that I am a friend."

"What do you want of me?"

"Just silence and a cup of tea, for the moment."

She was amazed; she had expected a very different request.

Simon motioned Black out of the kitchen.

"Take your boots off," he whispered, "and follow me."

Tiptoe in their socks, Iff led the inspector back to the playroom.

Jack Craddock had ceased to build up his machine. He was sitting preternaturally still, his head drooping, his eyes fixed on vacancy. The men went softly back to the kitchen.

"Come!" cried Simon gaily, "let me carry in the tea-tray! I must do my share, mustn't I?"

Maddie refused indignantly. She stalked majestically back to the playroom, and set down the tray with what came very near to being a bang.

"Two lumps, Mr. Iff?" she inquired with some acidity.

"Hardly," he replied. "But I will take both milk and lemon."

Her eyes were gimlets.

"I want to tell Inspector Black my secret method of disclosing mysteries. It is quite a new idea. I go to the people who happen to know, and I ask them." The Inspector seemed to be enjoying the cigar. "I would like my tea strong," he said to Maddie. "I want to wake up!"

"Indeed you do!" cried Simon.

"One to you."

"Now Maddie, tell us the whole story, and you'll feel better. Come, Jack, let's build a Great Wheel!"

The old man squatted on the floor like a Buddha, and began with incredible swiftness to construct his model. Jack was entranced. Black smoked intently. Maddie sipped her tea.

"I know nothing," she said at last.

"Ah! the formula of recognition of a Secret Society, wasn't it?" said Iff. "I'm in good standing. I know nothing too, and I know I know it. However, we're all attention!"

"You don't seem to have any doubt," said Maddie, "and I own you appeal to me somehow. But you must be crazy to think I'd say a word before Master Jack."

"On the contrary; send me and Black out of the room if you like. But you've got to tell him, if you never tell anybody else."

"Crazy," she murmured.

"You're a good woman, and I'm a bit of a doctor of souls, in a small way."

"I've committed a crime."

Black pulled out a note-book, and warned her formally in the usual terms. Maddie laughed rather bitterly.

"You're rocking the boat," said Iff to Jonas. "Put away the note-book. Your memory is going to receive some very indelible impressions, or I'm wrong again!"

"Duty," grunted Black.

"Well, go on, Maddie. He doesn't count, does he?"

"Nothing counts, now."

"Oh yes, Jack's a boy, isn't he?" and he began to sing: "Jack's the boy for work, Jack's the boy for play, Jack's the lad when girls are sad to kiss the tears away!"

Maddie took up her knitting. "Least said, soonest mended," and she shut her mouth like a spring.

"Then I must tell my story ... first."

"I'll leave you with Mr. Inspector."

"No, no. He desires your charming company, I feel sure."

Maddie understood that the detective was itching to arrest her. She did three plain and three purl. Then Simon Iff began to speak.

"You remember the points I called to your attention upstairs, Black?"

He nodded his assent.

"Take the first in point of time.

"Here is a debauched woman - excuse me, I must speak out - who takes a bath at seven o'clock on a November morning. Why? It suggests a 'white night'. Her husband, with no reason in the world for rising early, does so also."

"Well, he had to cut his throat, didn't he? Early morning's the favourite time o' day."

"Yes, yes, the bath's the point. Water isn't hot at that hour as a rule, is it?"

"Nope. Get busy."

"If you ever want to cut a man's throat, Black, do it when you're naked, and plenty of water handy."

Iff never stopped building his Great Wheel; but Jack had ceased to co-operate. He sat with ears cocked.

"But she had no reason in the world to do it!"

"Oh yes! ask any woman who knows what husbands are!"

"Say, am I riding the goat in this lodge?"

"I know; I'm deducing everything from nothing. But that's just what creation is, eh?"

"You can't create that sort of dope in New Jersey!"

"Well, I'm just sort of knitting. Three plain and three purl, isn't it? Two and two don't make four until you have two and two! Listen to point number two!

"Here is a woman who is all jollity and drunkenness and free love, till the lower part of her face might be a model for a female Silenus. And all the time her forehead is tightening with agony, and her eyes growing wider and wilder. Just suppose for one instant that my crazy suggestion about the bath is correct. Then it's natural. She tries to forget with cards and lovers and drink. When she's alone she's half crazy - probably that means dope. Cocaine, for guess No. 2. I didn't mention it upstairs, because I hadn't made up my mind what to do, but there was a speck of shining white caught on a hair in one nostril."

Maddie put down her knitting. Simon Iff waited for her to speak. But in a few moments she picked up her needles and went on.

"Go on? Good idea. Point number three. Imagine one and one make two. Then we have a woman - a half or three parts crazy woman - who probably has something very like melancholia whenever she is alone for a little, whenever the friends leave her, or the drink wears off, or the dope fails. With this melancholia she probably has hallucinations. Very likely she acts as did Lady Macbeth."

"This is a whole lot of 'very likely', marked down from 'perhaps' for the spring stock-taking sales," laughed the Inspector.

"Wait for point four. Who murders her? Somebody absolutely incompetent, but very much in earnest. Somebody who knows for certain that she will not wake while he is at work. Somebody who quite fails to adjust thought and deed; for throat-cutting is a swift passionate business. One gets the idea of a sleep-walker, perhaps?"

Maddie smiled grimly.

"I own up," she said swiftly.

"My dear good woman," protested Iff, "you're the most efficient person I've seen in ten years. You never bungled or fumbled in your life."

"But sleep-walking alters that."

"True. How do you know you did it?"

"Blood on my nightgown."

"Show us!"

"I got scared, and burnt it."

"Good for you! Consider me as having risen and bowed. We can then continue with common sense."

Maddie took up her knitting. "With all due deference," she said, "damn you, Mr. Iff!"

"Well," laughed Simon, "I was rather damned when I saw what I saw. To proceed. Here is a crime exactly like her own in every point but what might appear the essentials. Hers was deliberate and skilful malice, the other a mere childish imitation."

"Damn you, Mr. Iff."

"Only one person could have done it - a person with a mind exactly like her own. We must rule out all men; a man would have made one sweep. We must rule out all women; a woman would have fled when the first half-hearted cut drew blood. That leaves us with children - and there's only one child in the picture."

Iff ended with a sort of amiably triumphant snap of the fingers. "I'm sorry to bother you about a trifle," said Maddie; "but there isn't a razor in the house."

"Oh yes, there is - or was. It's the razor that she killed her husband with; and it is - or was - in the hiding-place where the cocaine is. I can trust Mr. Black to find that place."

"You can," said Black, "if there is one. But this yarn's still a bit of a pipe dream."

"You saw for yourself how Jack behaves when he's alone. With us, the jolly laughing boy; this talk has only made him half serious. Alone, he becomes a brooding solitary soul, the vulture of misery, misery without cause in environment but wholly in heredity, gnawing his vitals. Can't you see his mother's eyes and forehead again? And her mouth as it was before it was corrupted? We must work upon that mouth and jaw; we must teach them to transfigure the eyes!"

"Excuse me," said Maddie, quietly. "I have been wrong. I have very little to say, but I will say it. I nursed Grace Chalmers - as she then was - at my breast. Her mother died when she was born; she was just such a child as Jack is now; her very melancholy fits made her more loveable because more pitiable; only, she was always as deceitful as the devil. At seventeen she married Craddock. From him she suffered the most intolerable wrong, and I guess it went to her brain. She couldn't sleep any more. A friend of hers - some friend! - taught her to use drugs. Then she killed Craddock, killed him with utmost cunning. She told me; I helped to avert any suspicion. There's my crime, Inspector, write it down! I stuck to her as, God helping me, I'll always stick to any one I love. I lost my husband in a railroad wreck, and my boy died a month later. Well, that's neither here nor there. After Craddock's death her melancholy increased. She took to drink and men; when she was alone it was morphine, or ether, or cocaine. She got to seeing things. She couldn't bear to be alone; Jack slept in the next room. Her thoughts turned always to the one scene - the scene in the bathroom. She would take out the razor and act it again and again. One night her screams woke me; I went to quiet her. I found her rehearsing the murder with Jack. But she was too lazy to stand up. The cocaine hit her heart, I think. So she made Jack stand by the bed and play at cutting her throat. I was horrified: I stormed; I threatened; I cajoled. Of course she promised never to do anything of the sort again. Of course she broke the promise. But what was I to do? I could prove nothing; and if I did, I made it worse. I could only pray. God! how I have prayed..."