The XYZ Murders, page 63
Scene 3
THE MORGUE. SATURDAY, JUNE 11. 11 A.M.
Something drove him on. Accustomed as he was to intense introspection and a sharp analysis of the world about him, he was nevertheless helpless in the grip of the vicious mood that enveloped him. Helpless either to analyze it completely or explain it away. Rationalization fled before it. It pressed on the nape of his neck like a lead weight.
And yet he could not stop. This thing must be searched out to the end—how bitter an end only he knew. What would happen then … Inwardly he shrank together, feeling his stomach contract in a spasm of pain and fear.
It was Saturday, and the sun shone hotly on the river, and here he was descending from the Lincoln, crossing the sidewalk, toiling up the battered stone steps of the Morgue. Why? Why not confess that he had entered upon an enterprise too conscienceless for a man of sensitive nature? At the height of his career on the stage he had met as much vituperation as praise. He had been called everything from “the world’s foremost actor” to “an old has-been mumming a moth-eaten Shakespeare in the age of miracles.” These he had accepted equably, meeting the sneers and the applause with dignity, as befitted an artist who knew the right way and the high place. Nothing the critics were able to say, out of the venom of the new young art, could shake his invincible purpose or the quiet conviction that he was fulfilling a worthy destiny. Why had he not stopped there, at the peak of a full career? Why meddle? It was for the Thumms and the Brunos to ferret out and punish evil. Evil? There was no evil in the pure state; even Satan had been an angel. There were just ignorant or twisted people, or victims of a malicious fate.
Yet his lean legs carried him up the steps of the Morgue, bound on a new mission of exploration and confirmation, stubbornly refusing to heed the turmoil in his brain.
He found Dr. Ingalls, the City toxicologist, on the second floor of the building in a laboratory, lecturing to a class of young medical students. He waited dumbly, looking at the neat duplicate apparatus of glass and metal without really seeing it, lip-reading Ingalls’s incisive words and watching the practiced movements of his hands without a quiver of sensory reaction.
When the class had been dismissed, Ingalls stripped off his rubber gloves and shook hands cordially. “Glad to see you, Mr. Lane. Another little problem in olfactory evidence?”
Mr. Drury Lane, shrunken within himself, looked about the deserted laboratory. This world of science, with its retorts and electrodes and glass jars full of chemicals! What was he doing here, after all, an outsider, an interloper, a bungler? He could not hope to cleanse the earth … He sighed and said: “Can you give me any information about a poison called physostigmin, Doctor?”
“Physostigmin? Certainly!” beamed the toxicologist. “Right up our alley. It’s a white, tasteless, toxic alkaloid—deadly poison, one of the papas of the alkaloid family. Chemically it’s C15H21N302—derived from the Calabar bean.”
“Calabar bean?” echoed Lane dully.
“Physostigma venenosum. Calabar bean’s the highly poisonous seed of an African climbing vine of the bean family,” explained Dr. Ingalls. “It’s used medically in the treatment of certain nervous disorders, tetanus, epilepsy, and so on. The physostigmin is derived from this bean, and it’s death on rats and just about everything else. Would you like to see a sample?”
“Scarcely necessary, Doctor.” Lane took from his pocket a carefully wrapped and padded object. He stripped off the wrapping and padding. It was the stoppered vial of white fluid he had discovered in the chimney cache. “Is this physostigmin?”
“Hmm,” said Ingalls, holding the vial up to the light. “Looks like it, all right. Just a moment, Mr. Lane. I’ll make a couple of tests.”
He worked intently, in silence; and Lane watched him without interrupting. “Certainly is,” said the toxicologist at last. “Undoubtedly physostigmin, Mr. Lane, full strength. Where’d you get it?”
“In the Hatter house,” replied Lane vaguely. He produced his wallet and fumbled inside until he found a small folded sheet of paper. “This,” he said, “is the duplicate of a prescription, Dr. Ingalls. Will you look it over, please?”
The toxicologist took the prescription. “Hmm … Balsam of Peru … I see!. What do you want to know about this prescription, Mr. Lane?”
“Is it legitimate?”
“Oh! Certainly. Compounded salve used in the treatment of a skin ai——”
“Thank you,” said Lane wearily. He did not bother to take back the prescription. “And now—will you do something for me, Doctor?”
“Just say the word.”
“See that this vial is sent to Police Headquarters in my name, to be filed with the other exhibits of the Hatter case.”
“It’s done.”
“It should,” explained Lane heavily, “be preserved as a matter of official record. It is fatally important in the case.… Thank you for your courtesy, Doctor.”
He shook Ingalls’s hand and turned to the door. The toxicologist watched his slow departure with bewilderment.
Scene 4
INSPECTOR THUMM’S OFFICE. THURSDAY, JUNE 16. 10 A.M.
And there, it seemed, matters were fated to rest. From a case which had been born in attempted violence, sweeping the Mad Hatters in its path as it developed, darting from one manifestation of criminal activity to another without reason and yet with purpose, it suddenly came to a dead stop, as if gathering momentum over a long stretch it had unexpectedly crashed into an immovable barrier and fallen, shattered, to earth, never to move again.
It was a trying period. For six days after Lane’s visit to the laboratory of Dr. Ingalls nothing whatever occurred. Inspector Thumm had blundered into a blind alley, and was going round and round on his heels in a frenzied activity that got nowhere. The Hatter house had returned to a semblance of routine, which is to say that its tenants resumed their eccentric mode of living, scarcely restrained further by the helpless police. The newspapers all week had been full of negative reports; the Mad Hatters, as one paper expressed it, seemed to be coming out of “this latest escapade” unscathed. “Just another sickening example,” darkly asserted an editorial, “of the growing tendency in American crime. Getting away with murder, among private citizens as among the racketeers, seems to be becoming fashionable—and safe.”
Matters, then, were at an impasse until Thursday morning, a little less than two weeks after the murder of Mrs. Hatter, when Mr. Drury Lane chose to pay a visit to Police Headquarters.
Inspector Thumm showed the strain of the past week. He greeted Lane almost with doggy hope. “Greetings, brother!” he bellowed. “Where in God’s name have you been? I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life! What’s the good word?”
Lane shrugged. There were lines of resolution about his mouth, but he was still gloomy. “I’m singularly lacking in good words these days, Inspector.”
“Huh! The old story,” said Thumm, lapsing into saturnine contemplation of an old scar on the back of his hand. “Nobody knows anything.”
“You’ve accomplished little, I understand.”
“You’re telling me?” snarled Thumm. “I’ve been playing that detective story angle to a fare-thee-well. Seemed to be just about the most important lead in the case. And where did it get me?” It was a rhetorical question that required no answer, but the Inspector supplied it nevertheless. “Nowhere, that’s where!”
“Where did you expect it to get you, Inspector?” asked Lane quietly.
“Certainly I had a right to think it might lead to the murderer!” cried Thumm, rage boiling behind his eyes. “But I’ll be damned if I can make head or tail of it. I’m sick and tired of the whole rotten mess. Well!” He calmed. “No use getting all hopped up about it.… Look here. Let me tell you how I figure it …”
“Do.”
“York Hatter writes a detective story, or as you say the outline of one. Bases it on characters in his own family, the same house, and so on. Not much originality, eh? But I’ll admit he had damned good material to work with; it was a natural.”
“I’m afraid I must charge Mr. Hatter with undervaluing his material,” murmured Lane. “He didn’t half begin to suspect the possibilities, Inspector. If he had known …”
“Yeah, but he didn’t,” growled Thumm. “So he sits there playing around with this fiction idea of his, and thinks: ‘Swell! I’ll be smart. I’ll write this thing myself—author telling the story, and all that sort of hooey—and I’ll make myself the criminal.’ In the story, mind you …”
“Clever, Inspector.”
“Well, if you go in for that sort of thing,” grunted Thumm. “Now, look. After he’s kicked the bucket himself—something he didn’t figure when he set out to write a mystery story, I’ll bet!—somebody comes along, finds his plot, and uses the plot of the story to guide him in the commission of a real murder.…”
“Precisely.”
“Precisely your hat!” cried Thumm. “Damn it all, although that looks as if it means something, it doesn’t mean anything at all! All you can squeeze out of it is that someone’s been using York Hatter’s idea as a steer. Might be anybody!”
“I believe you’re understating the potentialities,” said Lane.
“What d’ye mean?”
“Never mind.”
“Well, maybe you’re smarter than I am,” grumbled the Inspector. “I claim that’s why this is such a cockeyed crime. Following a detective story outline!” He whipped out a big handkerchief and honked his nose three times, violently. “It’s a lousy detective story, I’ll tell you that. But it helps in one way. There are lots of things in the real crime that just won’t bear explanation. So I suppose whatever we can’t explain we can blame on Hatter’s punk plotting.”
Lane said nothing.
Thumm added grumpily. “There’s something else.” He examined a fingernail minutely. “Y’know, last week when you told me about this outline business, I sort of respected your request not to ask questions. I don’t mind telling you Bruno and I think a lot of your ability, Mr. Lane, get me straight—you’ve got something, I don’t know what in hell it is, that neither Bruno nor I’ve got, and we know it. Otherwise we wouldn’t let an outsider have his own way so much.”
“I’m grateful, Inspector,” murmured Lane.
“Yeah. But I’m not entirely dumb,” went on the Inspector slowly. “And you can’t expect my patience to last forever, either. Only one of three ways you could have found out about that outline. One is that you dug it up somewhere, and that doesn’t seem likely, because we searched the house from top to bottom before you did. Two is—you got the information from the murderer himself. That’s out, of course, for obvious reasons. Three—you’re just guessing, following a hunch. But if that’s the case, how do you know so exactly that the plot called for York Hatter to be the criminal? So that’s out, too. I’ll admit I’m stumped and, by God, I don’t like the feeling!”
Mr. Drury Lane stirred, and sighed, and the torture in his eyes belied the impatience with which he spoke. “Poor logic, Inspector, I’m sorry to say. But I simply cannot discuss it with you.” He was silent for a moment, and then he said: “At the same time, I do owe you an explanation.”
He rose as Thumm’s eyes narrowed, and began to patrol the floor with hungry strides. “Inspector, this is the most unique crime in the history of your calling. When I became interested in criminology early last year, I read voluminously records of old cases, kept up with current ones, saturated myself in the subject. Believe me when I tell you that the whole history of criminal investigation has never recorded a more—what shall I say?—difficult, complex, and extraordinary crime.”
“Maybe,” growled Thumm. “All I know is—it’s tough.”
“You can’t begin to comprehend its complexity,” muttered Lane. “It concerns itself not only with matters of crime and punishment, Inspector. In the vortex of its elements are pathology, abnormal psychology, problems of sociology and ethics.…” He stopped, and bit his lip. “But let’s stop this aimless talk. Have there been any developments at the Hatter house?”
“Everything’s the same. Looks as if it’s just petered out.”
“Don’t be deceived,” cried Lane harshly. “It has not petered out. This is a hiatus, a lull in the hostilities.… Have there been further attempts at poisoning?”
“No. Dr. Dubin, the expert stationed in the house, is watching every drop of food and drink. Not a chance of that again.”
“Louisa Campion.… Has Barbara Hatter decided?”
“Not yet. Conrad’s showing his colors. He’s been egging the poor girl on to pass up her chance—transparent as hell, he is, and of course Barbara sees through him. Know what that son-of-a-gun had the nerve to suggest?”
“Well?”
“He’s propositioning Barbara! Says that if she’ll refuse to take care of Louisa, he will, too, and then they’ll both contest the will when old Cap Trivett takes over the job! Just a big-hearted brother. If she consented, he’d double-cross her and take the woman in himself. After all, control of three hundred grand isn’t to be sneezed at.”
“The others?”
“Jill Hatter’s gone back to her old round of parties. Keeps on talking nasty about her old lady. Taken Gormly back on the string again and ditched Bigelow; which,” said Thumm grimly, “is one sweet break for Bigelow. He doesn’t think so, though—he’s sore as a pup—hasn’t been near the house all week. And that’s all. Hopeful, isn’t it?”
Lane’s eyes flickered. “Is Louisa Campion still sleeping in Miss Smith’s room?”
“No, she’s been sensible about it. Went back to her own bedroom. Place has been cleaned up. Miss Smith is sleeping there with her, occupying the old lady’s bed. Didn’t think she had the guts.”
Lane ceased his pacing, confronting the Inspector squarely. “I have been endeavoring to muster sufficient courage, Inspector, to make still another demand on your patience and good nature.”
Thumm rose, and they stood face to face—the large broad ugly man, and the tall slender muscular one. “I don’t get you,” said Thumm.
“I must ask you once more to do something for me without learning why.”
“Depends,” said Thumm.
“Very well. Your men are still stationed about and in the Hatter house?”
“Yes. What of it?”
Lane did not reply at once. He searched the Inspector’s eyes, and in his own there was something child-like and pleading. “I want you,” he said slowly, “to withdraw every policeman and detective on duty at the Hatter house.”
Inspector Thumm, accustomed as he was to Mr. Drury Lane’s vagaries, was scarcely prepared for such an astounding request as this. “What!” he roared. “Leave the place absolutely unguarded?”
“Yes,” said Lane in a low voice. “Absolutely unguarded, as you say. It’s urgent, necessary.”
“Dr. Dubin, too? Why, man, you don’t know what you’re asking. That will leave the poisoner a clear field!”
“Precisely what I aim to achieve.”
“But my God,” cried Thumm, “we can’t do that! We’re practically inviting another attack!”
Lane nodded quietly. “You’ve grasped the essence of the idea, Inspector.”
“But,” spluttered Thumm, “somebody’s got to be on the premises to protect the family and nab the bastard!”
“Somebody will be there.”
Thumm looked startled, as if he had suddenly begun to suspect the old actor’s sanity. “But I thought you just said you didn’t want us there.”
“Correct.”
“Eh?”
“I shall be there myself.”
“Oh!” said Thumm in an altered tone. He became thoughtful instantly, and looked at Lane hard and long. “I get it. The old stunt, hey? They know you’re one of us, though, unless——”
“Exactly what I intend to do,” said Lane in a lifeless tone. “I shall not go as myself, but as someone else.”
“Somebody they know, eh, and take for granted,” muttered Thumm. “Not bad, not half bad, Mr. Lane. If you can fool ’em. After all, this isn’t the stage. Or a detective story. Do you think you can make up—I mean, so well that …?”
“A chance I shall have to take,” said Lane. “Quacey is a genius. His art is brilliant because it is restrained. As for myself.… It won’t be the first time I’ve played a part,” he said bitterly. He checked himself. “Come, Inspector, we’re losing valuable time. Will you grant my request or not?”
“Well, all right,” said Thumm doubtfully. “Can’t hurt, I guess, if you’re extra careful. We’d have to be taking the boys away soon anyway.… Okay. What’s the lay?”
Lane spoke crisply: “Where is Edgar Perry?”
“Back at the Hatter house. Released him and told him to stay there until we cleaned up.”
“Call Mr. Perry at once and, on the pretext of questioning him again, have him come down here as soon as he can.”
A half hour later Edgar Perry was sitting in Thumm’s best chair, nervously glancing from Lane to the Inspector. The actor’s mantle of distress had been cast off: he was quiet, but alert. He appraised the tutor with photographic eyes, measuring him, taking in every detail of gesture and appearance. Thumm sat by, fidgeting and scowling. “Mr. Perry,” said Lane at last, “you can be of inestimable service to the police.”
“Ah—yes,” said Perry vaguely, his student’s dreamy eyes filled with apprehension.
“It is necessary to withdraw the police from the Hatter house.”
Perry looked startled and eager. “Really?” he cried.
“Yes. At the same time we must have someone on the premises prepared for trouble.” The tutor’s eagerness fled, and the apprehension returned. “Someone, of course, who will have the freedom of the house and yet, while watching the occupants of the house, will move unsuspected among them. Do you understand?”
