The Complete Simon Iff (56 page)

"There is certainly very little to take hold of in the case. There are of course millions of other facts quite as unimportant as those you have told me, and any of these might supply the missing key. But, on the facts as you state them, the main line of our solution is quite obvious. Tell me some more though."

"We went through the old man's affairs very carefully. There was no change in the routine of his business, had not been for years. He had very few visitors, and these were casual gossips. Mary was a plain flat-chested colourless woman, and had never had an affair of any kind or an offer of marriage, though she was a good match, for the district. There had been no quarrel in the family, barring the usual petty jarrings and scoldings from which I suppose no family is free. After the event they settled down into a new routine, undistrubed at least up to last week when I put through an inquiry. You see, there's no incident to take hold of, no motive..."

"Ah, but that is just where you fall down, my fairy skater! Cities afford us few of these inexplicable crimes, so called. In cities, people are always in touch with the external world, with 'reality'. They need money, or they desire something connected with others, and by finding out their circumstances we find out them. But in the country where 'nothing ever happens' the individual is thrown back upon himself. He learns to live in the 'imaginary' world created by his own 'psyche'. He discovers (in and through symbolic form) the realm of the 'unconscious', as Professor Jung calls it, and his actions are determined by fantastic motives based on hereditary peculiarities, or in the accidents--so-called--of his physical and psychical constitution. Thus--I am perfectly serious--a man might murder a perfectly inoffensive stranger because of something that happened, quite unknown to him, two thousand years ago. This world of the unconscious is so vast, so unexplored, that its laws are hardly guessed. The little that we have discovered is in great part not yet accepted. In fact, we who accept it at all are still quarrelling about many fundamental principles, and attract the scorn of the pedant. However, we are proving our case--such as it is--in the good old way of science, by our ability to predict the future. Our present purpose, though, seems to be to explain the past, which is nearly as useful, and I am sure that a dark tailor-made suit will be less conspicuous than that adorable cream frock--in Massachusetts."

Miss Mollie Madison was used by this time to unexpected terminations to the psychoanalyst's little sermons; so she rose quietly, and, remarking that she would be back in an hour with her travelling bag, waved an airy farewell.

"Good," nodded the mystic, "and tell Dobson to be round with the Napier."

II

Dobson was an English peasant from Simon Iff's place in Yorkshire. He possessed all the impenetrable stupidity of the type, with its equally empenetrable subtlety. He was one of those people who after a course of being swindled for several months by a particularly smart and unscrupulous Jew, would leave his oppressor wondering at exactly what stage of the transaction he had lost all his money! Before the age of the motor, he had been a groom dealing a little in horses as a side line; and what he had once done to some inhabitants of Aberdeen is not a safe topic in the city. In particular, he had the art of drawing people out by the simple process of pretending to fail to understand them. They felt they had to prove it to him. In about an hour's conversation, he would extract the story of his life from the most taciturn of mortals, and leave his victim with the impression that he had told nothing, and been neither comprehended nor believed. Simon Iff often used him to pump people with whom he himself could not be seen talking without arousing comment. He was also useful to his master when it was necessary to do something that looked like an accident. On this particular adventure, it was his clumsiness with the car that was to blame for the breakdown at Potter's Place, and the determination of Iff, as a surly old grouch, calling himself Dr. Hodgson, to spend the night at the Inn. Miss Mollie Madison was well remembered by the local yokels, but that couldn't be helped; for Simon needed her as a link between topographical and historical knowledge. She asked with just the desired degree of disinterested interest if any more had been heard of A. B. Smith.

Nothing could have been more unsatisfactory. The disappearance had left no more effect of any kind than a natural death could have done. Mary and her mother had indeed left the house on the hill, and gone to live with William on his farm; also, there was a rumour that the new minister was 'getting acquainted' with Mary, and he being an impetuous youth from Chicago, it was thought that a marriage might result in six or seven years. William himself was to marry the innkeeper's daughter in the fall.

Mary's age being mentioned, Simon Iff ventured to remark that it was strange that she had not been married earlier. It appeared that she had "never been of any account." She was quite a regular girl in every way, only without personality. She had the "old maid's" temperament, even as a child. She had never given any trouble, or taken active part in any other person's affairs. She was considered a comfort to her parents, obedient, careful, and agreeable. She had been a capital scholar, and was clever at reciting Longfellow and Whittier. Her prudence was the most notable thing about her; and though without love affairs of her own, the young men and maidens sometimes came for advice in their own perplexities. But the disappearance of her father might be called the first thing that had ever really happened to her.

William was her equivalent in terms of masculinity; but he was more popular than his sister. He had been a good deal in Boston; he was a 'mixer', in a mild way. He had the name of swallowing more whiskey and showing less of its effects than any man in Potter's Place. He had been soused properly, once, long ago, a debauch which ended in a fight; and his shame had taught him to manage his liquor.

So much that the innkeeper was able to contribute to the problem before Miss Mollie Madison retired to her room. Simon Iff went to smoke his pipe along the street, and was joined at the corner by Dobson. The latter had picked out a youth with a wicked eye, and struck what he considered a rich oilfield. His few boastful words about the naughtiness of New York had led the native to disclose that Potter's Place was the true Modern Babylon. Dobson didn't believe him. The youth went into details about sundry periodical excursions to Boston; and--oh, indeed, he could prove it--he had no less a partner in infamy than the respected William Smith. He wouldn't have told any inhabitant of Potter's Place, but this New Yorker had to be shewn. Oh no! William Smith wasn't wasting his money; any fool could be wicked in Boston with a fat wad; but he and William were the Original Mephisto Troupe; the girls fell for them, sure thing, mister.

Simon Iff appeared more than gratified by this discourse, and he gave Dobson his heartiest good-night. But it was a sad and sleepless night for himself. He knew it would be useless to go to bed; so he determined to walk to the house on the hill, now untenanted and fallen into disrepair. He explored the ruin with the aid of an electric torch. Everything confirmed the tale as he had heard it. He walked slowly back, smoking pipe after pipe; and even when he threw himself without undressing upon the bed, he continued that sedative occupation.

At breakfast he was silent, save to propose a walk to Miss Mollie Madison. She knew his mood better than to do more than nod. When they got clear of the village, he threw off his gloom with a wide gesture, as if it had been an actual cloak, and said: "Mollie, my dear, I am going to have a very dull day. I almost envy you your exciting task of kidnapping the parson."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Yours, my poor child, is a long and sad story. Bereft of both parents at an early age, you became the ward of a wicked uncle, my detested self, and all your millions come to me if you remain unmarried at the age of 25. For your parents, unhappy orphan, were conscientious Eugenists, and deplored Race Suicide. Your uncle has therefore cruelly kept you from the sight of men, and, in despair, you are about to marry Dobson if you can find a minister. Will this impetuous young parson from Chicago do the trick? It occurs to me, dear child, that he may be reluctant. He is a climber, or he would hardly be after plain Mary Smith. It may occur to him that millions instead of thousands, and beauty instead of plainness, and social elegance instead of bumpkin crudeness, may lie within a bold man's grasp. At this point you sigh, and say, aside, you only wish it were not Dobson.

"Child, he will fall for it; for he too is a simple soul, or he would never have got to such a Place as Potter's.

"Pillowed upon his manly breast, you proceed to point out the difficulties. You will prompt him to explain to Dobson that there is some hitch about the law in this particular state, so that the only way to do it is to steal the car, and make a regular elopement of it. Suggest Scots Law in Canada, possibly. Off you go, then, anywhere, anywhere out of Potter's Place. Dobson will find a way to put the Lord's humble servant out of the way of telegraph offices and such for one week, which is the extent of my little bet with myself, and you rejoin me this evening at the Copley Plaza. Register as Miss Carmichael. Selah."

"The programme pleases. But what do I get?"

"The right to open the letter which I have mailed this morning to your New York address, seven days from now, at high noon, by the pale light of the full moon, aha!"

"I suppose you have found out about A. B. Smith, then?"

"Well, not altogether. The case is old; I have only one hope of explaining the past; this is a little prediction about the future."

"What is it?"

"Innocent, innocent child!"

She could have bitten her tongue off for the indiscretion.

"I shall fall asleep shortly," he went on; "that will be your chance to escape."

She nodded, all on fire with the idea of her inexplicable adventure. Half-an-hour later, in the parlour of the hotel, Simon Iff's pipe fell from his lips to the floor. She picked it up. He did not stir. "Hush!" said she to the innkeeper, who could see into the room from his place at the bar, "don't disturb him. If he wants me, I've gone for a little walk."

With much obvious stealth, calculated to the diplomatic atmosphere of Potter's Place, she found Dobson in the garage. Prey to a thousand fears, registered with all the exaggeration of a moving picture, they got out the car, and drove out to the parson's house.

Miss Mollie Madison had a very easy job of it. Her dazzling beauty with its frank yet delicate voluptuousness, her jewels, her distinction, would have turned the head of any man. She was not a girl to play any game half-heartedly; she swept him clear off his feet, told him that she loved him at first sight, proved it with a kiss and a hug that could hardly have been matched in Buda-Pesth, and had him safely in the car within half-an-hour. Dobson made fifty-eight miles an hour through the main street of Potter's Place, the awakened 'uncle' standing in front of the hotel, and swearing like a Mississippi pilot. He got no sympathy from the romantic villagers. He rushed to the telegraph office, and dispatched frantic messages to the police of all the towns in the neighbourhood, except those on Dobson's route. Ultimately, after a very fine imitation of an apoplectic fit, he boarded the train for Boston, and screamed his wrongs aloud to everybody in the car.

At the Copley Plaza he was Simon Iff again, and slept till he was informed on the telephone that a Miss Carmichael wished to see him.

It was dinner-time; the evening papers devoted comic columns to the escapade. But Simon Iff was in his most serious mood. He talked of Life and Death, of Responsibility and of Justice. His theme was mainly that all actions bear in themselves their retribution for good or ill, but only in seed, so to speak. It was circumstance that made that seed increase, and bring forth fruit. Consequently, it was no crime to bring about the flowering of such seed. He recalled to her the case of the Marsden Murders, how he had put into the mind of the guilty lawyer the thought that would drive him mad with fear, the case of Phineas Burns, and that of Aminadab Spratt.

"Should I reproach myself?" he ended. "Where the law cannot reach a criminal, I have no right to take that law into my own hands. But have I not the right to let loose the latent Justice in that criminal's own soul?"

Mollie agreed easily, not comprehending any importance in his speech.

He suddenly flared out at her with two sharp words, and a flung-forth finger.

"Remember that!"

But she did not remember it. He came down the next morning to find her at the breakfast-table, a newspaper open before her, her face white and drawn, her big eyes dreadful with black rims, and the tears dried at their source with the excess of her affliction.

"Blame me!" he said, and shook her by the shoulder roughly, so that she winced. A dry sob answered him.

He did not need to look at the newspaper. "That," said he, "was the purport of the letter I mailed yesterday." Her wonder momentarily overcame her anguish.

"How did you know?" she cried, and covered her face. "No! no! I don't want to know; but why, why, why did you make me do it?"

He sat down at her side. "There are people about. Command yourself. Oh, but I am a fool. I should have known you would never understand the connexion."

"The connexion?"

"Pull yourself together! Can't you see that this is merely the sequel to the A. B. Smith mystery?"

"I can only see that I have played a mad jest, and brought a woman to her death."

"There's hope yet. I've been thinking it out, and I'm morally sure she hasn't burnt it."

"Burnt it? Burnt what?"

"The story of the Mysterious Disappearance of A. B. Smith. Come now; I'll get the coroner on long-distance, and tell him to look for it. What does her note to him say, by the way?"

He picked up the paper.

"Ah, here it is. 'Sir, I beg you to pardon a most unhappy woman for the trouble to which she is about to put you. Respectfully, Mamie Smith.' Oh, this is more to the point. To her brother. 'Dearest William, in my will I have left to you all my share in the property. But I ask you to get the best publisher you can find in Boston to bring out my poems, in the manuscript volume in the cupboard over my bed. The keys are round my neck. Forgive me for this act, but I could not bear life any more. Kiss mother for me. Your loving but broken-hearted sister, Mame.' Hum! nothing about any diary--oho! methinks I smell powder. We must read those poems, you and I, Mollie. I have an idea. I will ask friend Mullins, who is most certainly all that is desirable in a publisher of belles lettres, to let me run up to Potter's Place on his behalf. Come, let us telephone; no matter for breakfast; we will catch the morning train."