The Complete Simon Iff (25 page)

"This Great Wheel is an awful mess," remarked Simon Iff to Jack; "we must not think of ourselves as all-wise, all-powerful, all-benevolent, perhaps. The best way to judge a workman is by his work, eh?"

Jack nodded merrily. "We'll build a new one, better."

"Good boy!" and they pulled their experiment to pieces, and began again. Maddie took up her story once more.

"Two nights ago Jack came to me. His nightdress was covered with blood. He was very frightened, in a very calm way. Weren't you, Jacky, boy?"

"Course I wasn't. Mummy said to hold my tongue about it. Come on, Mr. Iff."

"I hid the traces as well as I could," said Maddie.

"Where's the razor?"

"I don't know. I never knew her hiding-place. She was as cunning as the devil."

"Hum." Iff meditated a moment. "Will you two go and make some waffles for us?"

"I trust you," was all Maddie answered, as she rose to comply.

When Simon Iff was left alone with Jack, he very soon began to exhibit signs of weariness. Building wheels became a bore. The boy reflected his new friend's emotion; lassitude seized him. The conversation lagged. Iff lay at full length on the carpet. Jack fell into his mood of wretchedness. Simple Simon, watching him keenly, said at last, in a soft voice: "let's play killing poppa."

"Mummy said to hold my tongue about it."

"But Mummy isn't here, and I want to play."

"I haven't got the razor."

"Let's go and get it!"

They went upstairs, the boy giggling as if he were being tickled, and came to the room where the dead woman lay.

"Will he play poppa?" asked Jack, pointing to the policeman.

"No, I'll play poppa." Iff turned to the constable. "Say, Buddy, Mr. Inspector wants to see you right away," he said in his broken American, "I'll see all's fair."

The constable yawned, stretched himself, and departed. Simon knew that Black would understand, and keep him out of the way.

The boy spontaneously began to play.

"Oh darling, I haven't slept one wink," he lisped, in an affected feminine voice. "I do think I'll take a bath. I've such a headache."

"I'll turn on the water," replied Simple Simon.

"No, you say 'Hell, it's half past six. Do you think I'm a damned stenographer?'"

Iff, kicking himself mentally, repeated the phrase.

"Oh well, I guess I can do it myself."

Warned, Simon growled out: "Oh, lemme sleep!"

Jack clapped his hands merrily.

"That's fine; but you say: 'Hell, lemme sleep. All women are the same.'"

The mystic obeyed, though his nerves were chattering with horror.

The boy began to imitate the noises of running water. It was an extraordinary piece of mimicry; Simon Iff could hardly believe that some one had not in fact turned on the tap.

"You lie down," said the boy. Iff obeyed. Jack took a chair, put it by the wall, and climbed upon it. A narrow wooden rail, intended for hanging pictures, ran round the room about a foot below the ceiling. He pulled off a loose portion of this rail. There was a recess, small indeed, but excellently calculated to hold a year's supply of dope and - a razor.

"Mummy said always to hide the razor before anything else." Jack took it out. It was heavily crusted, ivory handle and all, with blood.

"Now you say 'Damn that noise!'"

"Damn that noise!" said Simon Iff, with the appropriate gruff intonation.

"I'm supposed to be behind the door. Now I say: 'Oh darling, here's the debenture!' and you say 'what?' very loud.

Iff complied with the ritual of this ghastly game.

"Now I say, laughing: 'Annette has used it to fix the mirror'; and you say: 'Christ, I hope you're not joking. Lemme see!'"

Simple Simon repeated the words.

"I can't get it, it's jammed. And you say: 'For Christ's sake, don't tear it! Here, wait!' Only, you're tired to-night; so I come to you instead."

Was the spirit of the dead woman in the room to haunt and to obsess? The great magician felt himself a mere automaton.

"Then, as you come through the door, I jump, and do it!"

But Simon pulled himself together. He caught the boy's arm.

"The game's over, sonny. We'll find a nicer game for you. You know how frightened you are when you find blood all over you."

"All right, Mr. Iff!"

"Let's go down stairs! They'll wonder what we're doing, and that will never do."

"But Mummy said always to put the razor away first of all."

"Right you are."

This done, they went down laughing, hand in hand.

"Take him!" said Simon Iff to Maddie, and beckoned Jonas Black.

Again the bedroom; Iff climbed the chair, and produced the razor. Black smiled grimly.

"Partial to cocaine?" queried the magician, throwing a packet to the detective. "I am, rather," and he pocketed one for himself. "In strict moderation; only when already feeling jolly, and desirous of working all night without fatigue."

"Hum!" said Black, "isn't it taking a chance?"

"So is getting born. The man who takes no chances takes nothing."

"A dangerous doctrine, Mr. Iff."

"So are mountaineering and big-game shooting dangerous sports. But they fit you for the big risks of life. Never be afraid of anything, least of all of yourself. Dope-fiends are born, not made."

The mystic had replaced the section of railing, and climbed down from the chair. He handed the razor to Black, and stood looking at him, attentively.

"In her death-struggle," said the Inspector, without a quaver in his voice, "the unhappy woman must have thrust the weapon beneath her body, perhaps with some unconscious idea of concealment. I blame myself severely for having failed to discover it on my first inspection. On the other hand, I deduced its position by pure logic. May promotion follow upon this example of the remarkable penetration of Inspector Black! Unless you want a write-up," he added, rather nervously.

"No," laughed the other. "Thine be the kingdom and the power and the glory!"

"Very good of you," Black stammered.

"Come along!"

As they descended the stairs the house bell rang.

"Briscoe!" said Black.

Maddie was opening the door, and Black ran forward.

"I'm a fool! I've troubled you for nothing. It's a clear case of suicide; I've found the razor right under the body."

"I'll beat it," replied Briscoe. "Let's go get a drink."

"I'm on." Black waved a farewell.

Simon turned to Maddie.

"I need a housekeeper," he said. "Not much of that insurance money left, perhaps. Between us we may be able to put Jack and Jack together, don't you think?"

The old woman could not contain herself. Her apron went to her eyes; then she ran pell-mell into the kitchen. "And so," remarked Simon Iff to himself as he left the house, "in my old age I find myself obliged to shut the door. Yet - should not Dobson be back from Manhattan? Intuition crieth yea. I will test it. Anon."

 Mr. Simon Iff.

"My dear Sir,

It would give much pleasure to Mrs. Barker and myself if you would dine with us to-morrow night, May sixth, at The Pleasance. Seven o'clock precisely.

Yours truly,

Andrew P. Barker."

This letter was written on the stationery of the Bank of Barker and Barker. Its president, who wrote it, was in fact the bank itself. He was one of the most formidable figures in American Finance. He was not spectacular; the public never heard his name; he had never lent it to any movement of dubious or speculative character. In Wall Street his name was a synonym for extreme conservatism. He was a 'gold-bug' of the deepest dye. He made no attacks upon any market. But in defence he was impregnable; the few who had dared to test his resources came out of the brief struggle with their own knocked about severely. His principle was a simple one indeed; it was to consider only real, as opposed to market, values. Once, in his early days, his copper holdings had dropped to derisory prices. At the conference of his scared collegues he had sat silent, turning over the pages of a medical journal. Asked point blank for his opinion, he had said: "I see here that copper is an ingredient of Fehling's solution, which is used for testing for sugar in diabetes. I think we should buy some copper. It will always be useful." He was three millions to the good when the bear raid collapsed.

In his private life he was the same vigorous, sensible, dominant personality. He never had trouble in his household, because he never allowed it. People called him truculent, but it was their mistake. He merely watched for possible germs of trouble, and sterilized them before they multiplied and grew. His wife and his children and his servants were devoted to him. They understood that he never needed a harsh word or action because he had gone out to meet the first causes which lead to such events.

His physical appearance was in complete harmony with these characteristics. He was tall, robust and athletic, six feet and seven inches in his socks, with the chest development of the Farnese Hercules. A heavy shock of hair, jet black, was all untouched by time. He wore a full beard, square-cut. But, mostly striking feature of all, his complexion was of a strange pallor. This was due, no doubt, to a habit of life most singular in so physically gifted a man. He never took exercise. He ate most sparingly. He slept hardly at all. He hated the open air. He employed three confidential private secretaries, in shifts. They were his shadows. At any moment he might begin dictation.

His clothes were as remarkable as himself. Winter and summer, snow or shine, he wore always the same plain suit of grey. He had gone to his tailor, twenty years before Simon Iff's journey to America, chosen a cloth, and ordered the entire supply. Send me three suits every year, said he. He had arranged similarly for a supply of tall silk hats. For overcoat he wore always a vast Italian mantle. In this he would sleep, as often as not, lying in his long lounge basket chair. He had a small Turkish Bath in his house, and it was his rule to spend an hour daily in 'elimination', as his phrase was. He had never known an hour's ill health. His life was absorbed in his plans and his domestic affairs. All who were really familiar with him loved him as much as they respected him.

The result, curious enough even in this world of paradox, was that he had the name of a tyrant, a brute, a satyr, and a brigand. He was one of those men about whom strange stories gather, without a vestige of foundation. Perhaps the principal reason for this was envy; but he certainly contributed to it by his detestation of words. No man, he held, had any right to intrude on the sacred solitude of another man's self-communing. Permission to speak once given, as by companionship at a meal, he was genial and even loquacious; but his wife would hardly have dared to telephone to the bank if the house had been on fire.

It was this man who was not in his house when Simon Iff came, invited to dinner! Mrs. Barker apologized in the most charming style. "A sudden and inexorable call to Washington, Mr. Iff, at the last moment. Nobody less than the President, I am sure, could have made him break an appointment with you."

Simon expressed his regrets. "But the Signorina will be here, of course," continued Mrs. Barker, prattling. "I don't know how much my husband has told you - and he doesn't know her well, you see. She's really the most wonderful woman alive. Do you know, three years ago every doctor in Europe and America had given me up. I had had eight operations. And then I met Signorina Visconti. In a month I was well, and though it has taken me a long time to regain my full strength, I have never had the slightest return of the trouble. Isn't that wonderful?"

Simon Iff had a prejudice against all spiritual healers and their kin. He thought that bodily ills should be treated by bodily means, mental ills by mental means, moral ills by moral means, and so on. "Suum cuique!" he would exclaim. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's!"

Moreover, his experience had taught him that most of such people were quacks - some ignorant, some devilish - and he could never make up his mind which of those two classes was the more dangerous.

But when the little Italian lady arrived, he was instantly disarmed. She had not a milligramme of charlatanism in her whole being. She was rather short and divinely plump, the most exquisite Botticelli type he had ever seen in the flesh; and she might have served Boccacio in his merriest mood. She brimmed with beauty and brilliance. She was a lady to every tingling finger-tip, yet she had initiative without a shadow of suppression. As Simon shook hands with her, he realized that one would have to be very ill indeed not to feel the radiance of her vitality. Her laughing eyes and her full lips seemed to promise the temperament of Venus, but the high, pure, cloudless brow made one think rather of Diana. She implored Simon not to think of her as the celebrated healer, but as the unknown sculptor. She had never exhibited, but it was known that she worked night and day. Iff marvelled at her thumbs, modelled by years of masterful contest with clay and wax. It was clear that she had sublimated her natural force into the creative energy of art. All through dinner she kindled the whole world in the lightnings of her imagination; she flashed from wit to wisdom, and from rougishness to pathos. Was it wonderful that the magician, responsive, stimulated infinitely by the mere contagion of her person, felt that he himself had never appeared to better advantage?

No sooner was dinner at an end than she excused herself; she had to work on the foundation of 'a Bacchus and the Tiger', for which the model was to arrive at seven o'clock the next morning.

"The Bacchus or the Tiger?" asked Iff.

"Bacchus," she said - "Evoe ho! Evoe! The most wonderful boy in the world - one of those wine-stained languid types, like a spoiled girl! Evoe ho!"

She went out. It was as if a flame had swept through the room. It left the others feeling as saints feel when they sink back to the realization that they have enjoyed the Beatific Vision.

"Isn't she perfectly delightful?" cried Mrs. Barker. "Oh, do smoke!" and she took a cigarette to keep Simon's Larranaga in countenance. He waited till the butler had withdrawn before replying. Then he said slowly in a very serious voice: "A friend in need is a friend indeed."