The Complete Simon Iff (31 page)

"I say, you can't do that, you know! That's my paper!"

"Your loyalty is honourable, but its source is in your ignorance. Your Mr. Philipps is making you accessory to a felony. Ask him to show you the first cipher: don't monkey with the buzz-saw. Here, don't be an ass, come across with me, and tell Teake all you know!"

Bloom surrendered. But his information was meagre enough; Philipps, with an imbecile's false cunning, had told him nothing, not even prompted a plausible explanation.

"I don't know whether I ought not to hold you," said Teake, "if only as a material witness."

"Let him go!" urged Iff; "he's the most immaterial witness I ever saw in my life."

So they stood him a drink, to show there was no ill feeling; and off he went with his tail between his legs.

"I can make nothing of this, Mr. Iff," said Teake.

"Oh, surely you can. The only difficulty is that it doesn't look like a cipher. Once suspect it, and it blossoms into flower."

"Well, the Bloom's off the peach," grinned the Commissioner, to the horror and agony of the magician.

"It might of course be a dictionary cipher," explained he; "you've only got to number the squares from 1 to 64, and your pieces from 1 to 12 - 6 white and 6 black pieces diverse - and mark up words in a dictionary accordingly. But the number of words is very limited, and you would need an extra code to account for the order; the whole scheme would be inefficient and clumsy, though it might serve some special object.

"However, that's barred, because it would need an incredible coincidence to have the code message appear as even you, who don't play chess at all, see it appear - or will, in a minute or so. Come now, doesn't the arrangement of the pieces strike you as peculiar?"

"So would any arrangement. The pieces mean nothing whatever to me."

"Oh yes, they do. Forget about their being chessmen; think of them simply as a child would."

"Oh!" cried Teake. "What an ass I am!"

"Every article marked in plain figures!"

"4315. But what's that?"

"Safe bind, safe find! Otherwise, memorandum about a safe where something is put away."

"I see. And it has something to do with this Philipps-Spratt business - um! But where's the safe?"

"Possibly 'by R. W. Waterton?' Either a third party - which I doubt, these people not needing assistance, so far as I can see - or an address. R might stand for 18 and W for 23. Is there a Waterton Street in these parts? Or a West Waterton Street?"

"Probably, I'll find out." He took a table telephone and called up headquarters. Yes, there was a Waterton Street in Hoboken. "Get the officer, and have him call me here - Chiliad Club."

Two minutes later the officer on the Waterton Street beat rang through. Among the tenants of No. 1823 was a watchmaker, Aminadab Spratt, a bachelor, steady, decent, sober, reputed to have saved much money.

"A hot trail," said the Commissioner to Iff, as he replaced the receiver. "What do we do now? Raid 'em?"

"I think that 'seven moves' may mean 'call at seven o'clock'. Otherwise, it's part of the combination. I expect Aminadab as a brother of Jonathan - pious kind of a family, eh? - and lets him keep a safe in the place to store things while he's away at sea."

"I think I see the idea now. Jonathan daren't meet Philipps, so he tells him to call at this house. Very likely, as you say, at seven o'clock, to make sure Aminadab is at home. He would describe old Philipps, and the latter's knowledge of the combination would make all secure."

"Exactly my idea."

"But why risk sending the figures? Why not leave word with his brother?"

"As man to man, Teake, would you trust a plugged nickel to any one named Aminadab Spratt?"

Teake laughed. "I guess you're right. So we'll time the raid for seven. I'll call up."

Two detective inspectors were waiting for the Commissioner and his friend as they came out of the club after a hasty dinner, saluted, and got into the car with them. The sleuths of Mr. Philipps looked at each other. They were not exactly out to follow the Commissioner of Police; they might thank their stars he wasn't following them. So they went over to Philipps' house and reported their discomfiture.

"That cipher was right the first time," he said comically. "E. Z.'s all wrong, but he certainly got the right dope about the buzz-saw!"

Precisely at seven o'clock the police car drew up before No. 1823 Waterton Street. They had enlisted the aid of the Chief of the Hoboken Police. The little party entered, and a number of constables quietly moved into position.

But no such precautions were necessary. Aminadab Spratt rose and received the Chief and the Commissioner with perfect calm and respect.

"You are Aminadab Spratt?"

"Yep, your honour."

"I am the Chief of Police. I have a warrant to search this house."

"Yep, your honour."

"You have a brother named Jonathan?"

There was a moment's pause.

"Cousin, your honour."

"Does he rent a safe with you?"

"Yep, your honour. It's behind that rubbish in the corner."

The two detective inspectors went forward, and cleared the spot indicated. Let into the wall was a safe of recent pattern, excellently made.

Teake himself operated the combination. In the meantime Simon Iff had fraternized with the watchmaker. The mystic carried a 'perpetual motion' watch, wound by a steel weight which rises and falls as the wearer moves in walking.

"I have to walk five miles a day," he explained to Aminadab; "so I keep my watch wound and my waist slender by the same healthful procedure. Have you ever seen Ozanam's mercurial water-clock, or a copy?"

Aminadab admitted cheerfully that he had.

"If you had had one here," said Simon, "you would have been able to tell me exactly at what time your brother - I mean cousin - looked in to-day. The second time, I mean."

"So that's what you're getting at, Mister."

"Yes; I noticed your quiet amusement at the futile proceedings of our friends in the corner."

Teake was just in the act of stooping to open the safe, with an electric torch held to the dial by one of the inspectors.

He looked up over his shoulder with a quick startled face.

"What's that?" he snapped.

"Go on, go on. Try all things; hold fast that which is good!" This was in Simon Iff's most ironical tones.

Aminadab laughed outright. Teake went at the safe like a whirlwind.

The door swung open. The safe was furnished as a correct and chaste imitation of Old Mother Hubbard's celebrated cupboard.

"Damn it!" said Teake in a rage, "you led me into this, Iff. This is as bad as that damned foolishness with Mr. Noon."

"Oh no!" said Simon. "Iff's only for short. The whole of it is 'Iff at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!'"

He seized Amindab Spratt by the waist, and executed a blithe polka. It went very much against the grain of so sober and respectable a watchmaker; but he supposed Iff to be drunk.

The Commissioner was not to be pacified. His colleague from Hoboken was smirking too broadly.

"We'll hold this Spratt, I guess, on suspicion."

"Suspicion of smiling to himself? We come here on the evidence of an alleged chess problem sent by some unknown person to a man named Philipps who has nothing to do with the place; and we've got to take under our wing tra-la, a most unattractive old thing, tra-la, with a caricature of a - case! We find nothing where no sane person would have expected to find anything; and yet we must arrest the unhapy Aminadab. For shame!"

"Damn it, which side are you on? The whole thing has hung together miraculously till now."

"My dear friend, it hangs still better. Aminadab's smile - a very sweet smile, mark you, and passing subtle - told me that the Bhopur Emerald had been here to-day. Then why isn't it here now? Jonathan learnt somehow that old Philipps was dead. There was his cipher out in the cold world. It might fall into the wrong hands - as in fact it did. The only course open to him was to hurry back and remove the stone."

Aminadab's expression had altered. It had not struck him until then how strange it was that the hour of the assignation should be known, and the combination of the safe.

"Your brother - cousin, I mean - boasted of the safety of his ciphers, I imagine? Be a sensible man, now; can't you see what you're up against? Don't monkey with the buzz-saw! I've tried to save you from arrest; now, what time did your brother - er - cousin take the emerald away?"

"About an hour ago," grumbled Aminadab.

"Which way did he go?"

"I don't know."

"But he was an emerald thief - and an impertinet one, surely?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was joking. Of course you couldn't know. But you must know what you did with the body."

Aminadab Spratt collapsed into the arms of the detective who stood by him.

"Brandy," said Iff. "Put him in a chair."

"Sure we will," observed Teake playfully, "unless this is another of your 'purely theoretical' arrests 'for the instruction of rising Police Commissioners', I think you said." He was still a little sore, and Iff's lightning developments were on his nerves.

"Better now?" asked Simon. Aminadab's face had some colour in it, from the stiff dose of brandy which the Chief had poured between his teeth. He held hysterically to the arms of the chair in which they had seated him. Then he saw Iff's sardonic grin, as the mystic's eyes fell on those tightened muscles, and he sprang up with a shriek of horror.

"Sit down!" said Iff, sternly.

"No, no!" he yelled, "you shan't kill me; you've no right to kill me."

"Is that remark original with you?"

Spratt clenched his teeth, and said no word.

"I should arrest him, sir, and warn him in the usual way."

"This is absolutely serious?" said the Chief of Police. "You understand what this means? I can't even see a ground of suspicion. Incidentally, we haven't found a dead body yet."

"Oh technicality! What a blessed word is Mesopotamia! Keep him till I find the emerald! Fie, Amindab, your eyes are wandering again just where they shouldn't. Near the kitchenette. Ah! the galled jade winces; this is perhaps our young friend's first serious crime. Now, Teake, use your brains! Where would a watchmaker hide an emerald in a kitchenette?"

Simon threw open the doors. "Bread? No; you can't join up bread neatly. A watchmaker, remember! What be these? Eggs. And have we not invisible cements, we watchmakers? I'll take a chance on an egg."

He banged the box upon the table. The eggs broke, flowed every way. And in the midst behold! the Bhopur Emerald.

"Now can't you arrest him under the Sullivan Law for carrying concealed eggs - which are notoriously weapons - in politics? Or for being in possession of narcotic eggs? I often go to sleep after a debauch on Omlette Espagnole..."

But they had already arrested him.

"Good!" continued Simon, turning to observe, at the click of the handcuffs, "let me now continue my prolix yet informative discourse. Seventeenthly, I noticed that Amindab - lovely name! - while very much amused at our preoccupation with the safe, became quite serious when I spoke of his brother's - I mean his cousin's - movements. Forty-fifthly, he changed his position in the room rather furtively, immediately afterwards. He strongly resented my whirling him away to the strains of the Blue Danube; possibly because he doesn't like Austrians; possibly not. Why this fuss about his position? Did it remind me of that chess problem? (Position is everything in chess, don't you know?) No, gentlemen, it did not. Still, I wondered. It had occurred to me that Jonathan's refusal to trust his brother - er, cousin - with the combination of the safe was unflattering - and I knew Jonathan for a most prudent man. And then I thought that Jonathan was not so scared because old Philipps' death sent his ciphers astray - he probably believed in his ciphers - but because old Phillips was the man behind the gun. Not a fool like his fat son, oh no! He had built up that business from nothing; it's one of America's standard examples; and he was carrying on all this funny business on the sly under his son's nose, though he was in his dotage. A big man in his way, old Philipps! The Spratts didn't dare to go against him. But, Philipps dead, nobody knew of this emerald but Jonathan and Aminadab. I have told you now prudent Jonathan was: he must have realized instantly that if his cousin - or was it brother, Mr. Spratt?"

The man in the chair drew his breath heavily.

"My first suspicion was your tone when you said cousin. You could not bear to think of him as brother - why? Does 'cousin' lighten your burden, does 'cousin' efface the brand of Cain, oh you whose father brought you up upon the Bible?"

Simon Iff was tense and inflamed, a modern Issiah. He dropped, as suddenly as he had risen, to a bantering tone.

"Well, as I was saying, dearly beloved brethren, umeyumthly*, if Aminadab knew that Philipps was no longer there to avenge bad faith, he would force the safe and be off with the emerald. There is no time to lose; the non-arrival of Philipps at seven o'clock might put some such thought in Cain's mind. So Abel hurries back. But his action arouses Cain's suspicions. Perhaps Abel tells him that the plan is changed, or that there is danger. Yet surely the danger was for Abel to be near the stone. Cain smells a rat; he will strike a blow for the great prize."

He stopped, out of breath.

"This is all the merest surmise, Mr. Iff," said the Chief of Police, a little annoyed again.

"Be patient. I produced the emerald. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This surmise ambling aimiably about my vacant cranium, my thought wandering still further, right back to the question of Cain's position on the floor...."

Aminadab Spratt uttered an inarticulate cry.

"You are a tidy man, Son of Adam!" said Simon Iff. "Your hands are washed, your hair is trimmed, your chin is smooth, your collar is white, your dress is neat, your tools betray every evidence of loving care. But the room itself, apart from your person and your trade, is singularly unkempt. I have often remarked this trait in persons devoted to some skilled profession. Yet, sometimes, such persons notice quite suddenly how badly their surroundings need cleanliness and order. They transform themselves into veritable demons of spring cleaning. Of course it is as bad as ever in a week. Amusing to observe, eh? Well, gentlemen, kindly direct your eyes to the position so carefully taken up by Cain. Do you see that small patch of floor, recently scrubbed, an hour or so ago, still damp, dust from other parts of the room brushed over it? You scrubbed well, Cain, I doubt not; you scrubbed for dear life; but will cleansing a floor cleanse your hands?"