The Complete Simon Iff (28 page)

"Thank you. May I use your telephone? I'll tell Teake it was just a practical joke."

"English humour?"

"That's it," said Simon, and called the number. "By the way, why did you do it?"

"For fun."

"American humour?"

"I see no joke there. Look once again at my God!"

"Hullo! That you, Teake? Simon Iff speaking. Let that chap Noon go now; the joke's gone far enough. Yea, J.O.K.E., joke. English humour. Yes, too bad; but I'll explain when I see you. All right; twelve thirty. Don't be too cross; I really wanted to show you something. You were a bit hasty; to-morrow I'll tell you what really happened. Good-night!" He hung up.

"And now I must leave you, most fascinating of assassins!"

"Yes; I fear you have a long night before you, thinking out an alternative theory for poor old Teake! But drop in whenever you feel lonesome - I suppose you wouldn't come to pose? You have a miraculous head. A little sad - three months now, isn't it? Pan in Beotia, perhaps?"

"It appears that the esprit de corps of Olympus prevents even hostile deities from quarrelling when they meet on their travels in the remoter and less hospitable planets."

"Gods that pass in the night, and bump each other in passing, should say Please excuse it! So?"

"The phraseology is perfect." He took his hat.

"I want you to come and see me. Really, really, really, there's nothing, nothing, nothing to enjoy here. So what could the poor girl do?"

"I think I understand. But I should continue my travels, if I were you."

Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately. Then she sat down and began to cry.

Simon Iff stroked her hair gently; then he let himself out.

"What a lot of stars!" he murmured to himself. "Probably all different, and certainly all necessary. Ne sutor ultra crepidam - who am I to judge a genius? Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do; I'd better think out that story for Teake, or I shall find myself planning something atrocious. 'A deed of blood, and fire, and flames, was meat and drink to Simple James.' Be wary, Simple Simon!"

And, least he should fall into temptation, he decided to wind the evening at Jack's.

***

*
It was indeed "shershay lafamm" in the original typscripts, and since A.C.'s French was impeccable, one can only assume that Mr. Night's command of the language was something less than perfect. The phrase, cherchez la femme, means, generally, "look for the woman".

Sir Humphrey Davy, after his first experiment with the inhalation of ether, exclaimed, "The Universe is composed solely of ideas." Simon Iff had obtained that, and many another, experience, without the aid of drugs. But although he was perfectly convinced that 'everything is illusion', like the most advanced transcendental philosophers, he was equally sure that all illusion was interwoven in a causal nexus. There was no place in his universe for accident; there was no force so small that the cosmos failed to vibrate in due degree with it; and there was (further) no means of erasure applicable to any action. Nothing could be destroyed; so it was there if you could only find it; and the task of finding it was nothing but the removal of the masks and veils. He was only interested in crime because its detection sharpened the wits which he needed in the solution of philosophical problems. He used to say that the fundamental laws of thought were the true obstacles to thinking. "My conviction that two and two make four is the limitation that hinders me from realizing that they make five, as they must, or how could the universe itself have come from nothing? It is the difference between the human mind and the Divine!"

That was the conclusion of a little interview that he gave to a particularly enterprising lady reporter. He had succeeded for three months in keeping everybody away; but Miss Mollie Madison had been one too many for him. She had found a way to induce his Japanese servant to let her wait in his apartment, and, once installed, had caught his interest by asking him point blank for his solution of the Pasquaney Puzzle. "In me," she exclaimed dramatically, "you behold the unhappy Dolores Cass!"

"Excuse me, I do not," he answered; "I never heard of the Pasquaney Puzzle, and I know nothing of Dolores Cass. But you are certainly not an unhappy anybody."

"Indeed, indeed, do not mock my misery!" she cried, tears standing in her big blue eyes.

"Delightful infant! Old birds are not to be caught with chaff. You're functioning - functioning in absolute harmony - which is the medical equivalent - in bad English - of being happy. At this particular moment, I perceive, you are unusually happy, even for you; and as you are an American, I assume that you are, somehow or other, putting one over on me. You're getting what you came for - be frank, now! It won't hurt you with me!"

She dropped her masquerade and laughed at him like the beautiful doll she was.

"Surely, Mr. Iff! I'm getting the most adorable interview."

"All right: what can I do for you?"

"Do tell me your views on everything!"

This was walking into the enemy's country, had she known it. Simple Simon took his revenge by doing as she asked. When he got to the "two and two make five" peroration, she was sitting with note book and pencil fallen despairingly in her lap.

"It's a shame, truly it is, Mr. Iff! You know I can't write up all that highbrow stuff. It's absorbing to me, but the public won't stand for it."

"Oh Democracy! Why is it that everybody I meet in this country is so eager to explain that everybody else is a fool? If you really respected and trusted the people, you wouldn't treat them as mental and moral imbeciles. I refer to your literature and your laws."

Miss Mollie Madison was not quite sure of the answer.

"Observe me, now!" said the mystic. "I go on the opposite track. The unknown fascinates me. So I implore you humbly to put me wise to the dope on the Pasquaney Puzzle."

His sudden slang put her tremendously at her ease. She took a packet of yellow paper from her vanity bag. "I've got it all pat. I've read nothing else for a week. It was my one hope of getting you interested. You can rely on the facts; most of this was written up by one of the best men in the office."

"We'll hope your bait of falsehood may catch a carp of truth. Put in your clutch!"

"Lake Pasquaney lies among the mountains of New Hampshire. It is about 17 miles in circumference. Bristol, the nearest railway station, a town of 1200 inhabitants, is some three miles from the lower end. The lake contains several islands, and its shores are dotted with summer villas, mostly of the long hut type, though here and there is a more pretentious structure, or a cluster of boarding-houses. Bristol is about three hours from Boston, so the lake is a favourite summer resort, even for week-enders. Automobile parties pass frequently, but keep mostly to the road on the east shore, that on the west being very rough. The scenery is said by Europeans who know both to compare with Scotland or Switzerland without too serious disadvantage."

She looked merrily at him, and he smiled in grim appreciation of her subtle attack.

"Mrs. Cass is a woman of fifty-three years old, the widow of a wealthy Bostonian of good family, known all over the world for his attainments in pure mathematics."

"Oh, the Cass! Indeed, this becomes very enthralling! I was exceedingly intrigued by his monograph on hyperbolic geometry, and his criticism of Sir William Thomson's theory of a labile ether."

"Mrs. Cass has four children; Newton Gauss, thirty, a prominent engineer; Hope Ada, twenty-five; Dolores, twenty-two; and Emily, nineteen. Last summer she rented a cottage which occupies one of the islands from July first to September thirtieth. Hope Ada is married to a surgeon named Smith. He and Newton used to come up from Boston whenever they could leave their work, and with them Geoffrey Travis, a shipowner, twenty-six years old, who was engaged to marry Dolores. Emily was also engaged; but her fiancé, Arthur Green, was away in Los Angeles on some business connected with moving pictures.

"Mrs. Cass did a good deal of entertaining; every evening the cottage would be filled with a merry party of friends from other cottages on the lake. The day was filled with boating, fishing, bathing, walking, motoring, every conceivable form of amusement. There was not a disagreement or a dull moment, week after week. The servants were all old and tried friends of the family."

The girl paused. "Do you know, Mr. Iff, there is really no object in my telling you all these details? The problem which arose on August the eighth is utterly insoluble. It is entirely remote from the situation. It means absolutely nothing."

"All the better. But describe Dolores a little."

"She is a college girl, taking after her father in looks, and in mathematics. She was a pupil, also, of Professor Hugo Munsterberg, and had made a profound study of the evidence for spirit return. The year before, she had gone to Europe especially to sit with Eusapia Palladino and other famous mediums. Her mind is always at work on these lines. After a swim she would dry off on the beach with a note book. But she is not a blue-stocking. She is pretty, blonde, plump, lovely ....."

"You called her unhappy."

"I'm describing her as she was up to August the seventh."

"I see."

"She had not a care in the world. She was the life of the whole family. The others were more serious, but without her distinction. She lived in extremes; one minute she would be romping like a mad creature, the next immersed in conic sections."

"Nobody envious?"

"Not a scrap. Not enough imagination, I should say. Besides, she was the most unselfish, sweet-tempered woman that God ever made."

"Enter August the eighth."

"With all the calm and brilliance of heaven itself! On that morning, the three girls got up early for a swim. They paddled up to a neighbouring islet in a canoe. This islet contains a particularly secluded cove. There is no cottage on it; only a few trees; there is no place to hide a rabbit. It stands well out in the lake. Dolores, though a brilliant athlete otherwise, was a poor swimmer; if she had been left alone on the islet she would have had to stay there till rescued.

"The three girls proceeded to bathe. (Of course they had gone out in their bathing suits.) Suddenly Hope missed Dolores, took alarm, and called her. No answer. She and Emily searched the islet; no sign of Dolores. They became hysterical. Just then they saw the other canoe; the men, Newton, Smith, and Travis, were paddling out to find them. Hearing the girls scream, they redoubled their speed. A further search was made; it was as futile as the former. The whole party, except Smith, seem to have gone crazy with horror. Smith had hard work to get them back to the cottage. But, as they approached the island, what was their amazement to see Dolores walking up to the front door? With shouts of relief and joy they paddled gaily onwards, not considering at that moment that an impossibility had occurred; that she literally couldn't have got there, and had therefore no sort of right to be there!

"They entered the cottage. Mrs. Cass was at the breakfast table, Dolores was just sitting down, and saying 'What's the big idea, moms?'

"And then they all realized, as Mrs. Cass had just done, that it was not Dolores at all!

"Her lover and her sisters had run forward to embrace her; they recoiled in sudden terror. Mrs. Cass was shocked almost senseless; yet it was she who first cried, 'Then where is Dolores?'

"Smith told his story; then Hope told hers. Every one was aghast.

"Then Smith, whose scientific training seems to have served him well, grasped how bizarre the problem was. He turned to the girl in the chair: 'Who are you, and how did you get here?'

"She stood up, pale as death. 'Is it a charade?' she cried. 'I'm Dolores; don't you know me?'

"'How did you get here?' insisted Smith.

"She could not or would not say.

"'That settles it,' said he, and went to the telephone to call up the police, and Maddingley, a detective inspector from Boston in whose powers he had great confidence. Meanwhile a storm raged in the dining-room.

"'Don't I know my own daughter?' cried Mrs. Cass.

"'Where is the ring I gave you, if you are Dolores?' said her lover.

"The argument raged all morning. Smith rang up a general alarm; the whole lakeside population turned out to scour the woods, to dredge the lake about the fatal islet. Nothing was found. Maddingley had caught the early train from Boston and arrived a little before noon. He entered what he thought was an insane asylum! He and Smith obtained silence, and a rational examination began. There was absolute agreement between all the witnesses. The stranger looked like Dolores, talked like her, acted like her; there wasn't a thing missing of the tangible kind, except the ring; but it was not Dolores. She, on her side, underwent the most critical tests. She knew the family history, every detail correct; she described the position of the furniture in her bedroom, the contents of every drawer, even the secrets of a cashbox with a Yale lock, which she asked them to open, after telling them where she had hidden the key. The servants were examined also; they agreed with the family. It was the story of the Tichborne Claimant reversed. The only flaws in her case were her failure to explain her arrival from the islet, and the absence of her engagement ring; the only flaw in theirs was the appalling question 'Then where is Dolores?'

"Maddingley was of course at a complete standstill. He could only form one conclusion, that the whole family, including the girl, had entered into a conspiracy to lie. He washed his hands of the matter, and returned to Boston, where he angrily and rather foolishly opened his mind to the Press.

"Unfortunately, most of the friends of Dolores in Boston were entirely on the side of the family. Everyone admitted the astonishing physical resemblance; every one admitted the force of the fact that she knew every conceivable thing that Dolores had known; every one agreed that the disappearance of one girl to nowhere, concident with the arrival of an exactly similar girl from nowhere, was an unparalleled and incredible improbability. But they clung to their 'interior certainty' based on unavowable, impalpable, unconscious impression - for all the world like so many mystics! Mrs. Cass turned the imposter out of the cottage, after fitting her with an old dress; for the stranger was unquestionably wearing Dolores' bathing suit. And then she put up the shutters of the cottage, and went back to Boston. The family went into mourning, and refused to see any but the most intimate friends for the rest of the summer.