The Case of the Murdered Mathematician, page 7
“Oh just that, as I did start out to say, when the old man asked him that day what he was going to do with his life, he foolishly up and told his father that he was going to attempt to apply mathematics, for perhaps the first time in its history, to problems of crime and complications in property rights—that general sort of thing, George, that latter, that you and I’ve always called infra-crime—remember? And the old man, as appears, got almost apoplectic. For it seems he regarded his whole science of mathematics, bag and baggage, as something not just dignified, but holy and—and sacrosanct—something, you see, traceable back to the Greeks and the Arabians, the–”
“Oh—yeah? Well you can trace crime and property-snaking back plenty further than that. And—but go ahead?”
“Well, the old man got so increasingly angry, as I understand things, that he called in a lawyer and dictated a will in which he left his entire estate—mostly that fine farm, and worth $75,000—to Quiribus only providing that Quiribus, within no more than 10 days after the old man’s death, ferret out precisely such a case—a case, as he put it, so involving mathematics that only mathematics could be applied to it!—and successfully apply the said noble science thereto!—and solve it, to the extent of bringing justice or adjusting property rights. All this as per completely sworn to—attested—notarized—and what-have-you—affirmations, affidavits, etc. etc. of all interested parties thereto filed in County Probate Court!”
The other man obviously did not think much of this as a complication in a giant’s life. For he chuckled.
“Well, an insane man will do anything cuckoo. Even to practically disinheriting the only son he’s got—and whom he probably loves.”
“Exactly, George. He was insane, poor fellow. And only an insane man, as you say, would create a paper that went counter to his own inherent instincts.”
“Well, that paper,” declared George Clarvoe, and confidently, “will be no trouble, at least. Since the giant had alienists examine the old man before the latter died. Testimony from each of them—and your Q. Brown can bust the will sky-high. And, since he’s the only heir—inherit by straight inheritance instead of by the will. So there you are, and—”
“And there, my fine Homicide Department Chief,” put in Spelvin chidingly, “is where you don’t know men—rather giants. For this one says that a man who would publicly stigmatize his own father as insane, when nobody knows the fact—and the town doesn’t, he says—anybody that will do that, he says, is the lowest thing on earth. And—sez he!—he’ll not do it till hell freezes over! And so-o-o up here he’s come—and with only 4 days in his mitts, since the will, due to a matter of a certain lawyer being away on a trip and not getting back till yesterday morning, didn’t get opened up and into probate until then—well, up here Quiribus has come, with only those 4 days’ grace, to qualify he says, under the will. By simply making good—under it.”
“Boy howdy, but he was an optimist! To think he could just stroll on up here to Chi—and pluck a case like that out of the criminological grab-bag. And, atop all that, have any assurance whatsoever he could solve it. Why, a case like that—with mathematical angles, I mean,—wouldn’t ordinarily show up in a thousand years. Nor—oh sure, I’ve such a case here now—at least, involving mathematics—only it’s my case, you see—a-a-all mine!—and no outsider or outsiders, believe you me, are going to barge in and make any claims that they—but what was in this lunk’s head to do or try—if he didn’t find one?”
“Oh, if he didn’t find a live one within 3 days, he was going to jerk out a single one from ancient history—he has a book at home called Unsolved Crime Cases—present a hypothetical solution of it—one that can’t be confuted in court, because all the persons and elements of the case are part of the gone and forgotten past—and try to bull his case through the courts on that.”
“But the will—this crazy man’s will—sort of implies, eh, that the case’s got to be a current one, eh?”
“Yes. Implies it, yes. From the copy of the paragraph on it I’ve seen.”
“Well, your giant was an optimist all right. Now I do know him to be a 24-carat fool. Not that he may not be all to the rosy on his mathematics—100 per cent on the square—and able to keep his mouth shut—sure—but a double-damned fool, just the same. And—but where is he now?”
“In my office here. Fingering his ten dollars. And refusing to take a bonus. Because money, he says, isn’t his problem. And then you rang up—and that’s his story.”
“But why are you plugging so for him, Frank? Towards my calling him in here—since, as I say, he wouldn’t figure in my official credit?”
“Well, George,” said Captain Spelvin, “I’m not without the idea, in the far back of my head, that if he helped you out in some specialized way, you might relent just once, and let some glory pour publicly over someone else than—but all right. Let me just say that I believe that if he could meet up with one real crime case, and see with his own eyes and observation how extremely individualized those things are—how little they fall into categories of any sort, even in the very field itself of crime cases—it would dawn on him how almost impossible it would be for another case like, say, the one you’re on now, and with, as you say, a definite mathematical aspect to it—to come up again in a—a millenium. And therefore break his father’s will—as he most certainly can do. That’s why!”
“And in the face of his needing this case—you believe that he still would bury his light under a bushel—and give nothing out—if I called him in?”
“If he agreed—yes—absolutely. I—I guarantee it.”
“H’m. Let me think. H’m. Well ask him then, will you, Frank—ask him out-and-out if he cares to give a single expert mathematical opinion on a police case—a problem in criminology—for a single day’s pay of 10 bucks. To be paid him there—and in advance—by you—yes, Frank, I’ll remit it back to you personally. And ask him also whether, if his expert opinion crystallizes what we’ve got—or clarifies it—or even alters it—and leads to our successful eventual closing up of this case—it’s to remain solely an exclusive police department piece of work—and he’s not to bust forth in the newspapers as a budding detective?”
“Hold the wire.”
Spelvin turned toward Quiribus Brown, and put his hand over the transmitter.
“Well, Quiribus, you just heard everything. Though let me explain that Clarvoe isn’t such a hard man as his words suggest—when it comes to having to deny people proper credit. But I happen to know he’s had a run of hard luck lately in his work—a number of Chicago murders have come up that have had to go unsolved—and two were solved wrongly! He’s badly on the pan—almost about to be transferred to some other and minor job in the department—and with him will necessarily pass his two assistants, O’Cardigan and Keith, who probably are at this particular job with him right now. He really is a right guy, Quiribus—and if I make this bargain with him and you—you’ve got to live up to it to the last iota.”
“The answer is ‘yes,’ of course,” Quiribus returned hastily. “Though let it be understood I—I know nothing about crime—only mathematics.”
“That’s all he wants, I’m rather sure.”
Spelvin turned back to the phone. And uncovered the transmitter.
“All right, George. It’s a deal! And thoroughly understood, I assure you. And I guarantee its carrying out to the last dot over the last ‘i.’ So—who’s murdered?—where?—and where should my man come?”
“Well, Frank, the guy who caught the bump-off is a Professor Lucius Munstergale—in his home on North Wabash Avenue—Number 617. I’m there now myself—with O’Cardigan and Keith. And nobody else—not even a servant—to hear or see anything. And have your giant make it snappy, will you? For Keith just told me, during the time you were off this wire, that the coroner’s doc is coming up the walk right now—drunk as hell, incidentally, but fortunately we’ve got his report practically all written out for him, the sot!—and O’Cardigan has just come back to the house with a report, gotten on an outside phone because I’ve been tying this one up, that Dr. Jerome Baldsain is stopping off here any minute, on his way to the airfield—he’s been suddenly called, it seems, to Bermuda for a brain-tumour operation—anyway he should be here any second—to render that single neurological opinion, Frank, that will take 5 seconds—and not a second more. And which, in conjunction with perhaps your giant’s opin—but anyway the coast is clear now—for the gra-a-a-nd mathematician.”
“Okay, George. He’ll be right over.” Spelvin hung up.
Quiribus Brown had hurriedly arisen. “I—I got the number all right,” he said to Spelvin, as the latter spun round in his swivel chair. “Number 617—North Wabash Avenue. I’ll get a cab somewhere downstairs. And start out at–”
“But here, man!” interrupted Spelvin, but smilingly. “Wait! I’m instructed, don’t forget, to pay you an advance fee of ten dollars, and—”
But Quiribus had raised a giant hand. “You forget, Captain Spelvin,” he said, almost chidingly, “that you’ve already paid me a full day’s wages! And I’ve not even worked a full half a day for it, yet. So if Mr.—or perhaps I should call him Inspector?—Clarvoe thinks anything I do for him, or can tell him, in this case of his, is worth anything at all, he’ll have to remit to you—not to me. For I’m still in your service—till midnight tonight, anyway!”
And with a half-rueful smile, Quiribus made his way forth to charter a cab and get himself, as quickly as possible, to Number 617 North Wabash Avenue, where there had been a murder—“involving mathematics!”
CHAPTER VI
Sceptics Two
Quiribus, having purposefully dismounted from his cab a full block from where he wanted to go, was able to survey North Wabash Avenue from afoot, on his way to Number 617.
The street, threading through a district just north of Chicago’s river and the downtown section, had once been—as he had found by casually inquiring from a genial passerby, now a half block or so behind him—aristocratic Cass Street, home of the elite of Chicago in the ’80’s. Today, everything on the still narrow thoroughfare was either very, very old—typically brown stone of front, that is, and elegantly eightyish in the matter of many tall ornamental iron fences—or else very, very new!
What was very, very old had been made new by painting shutters a vivid green or red—or putting out small potted trees—or installing a basement shop for either an interior decorator, an antiques store, or a French restaurant! What was very, very new consisted, in each case, of something towering many stories into the sky—and therefore betokening high land values; something, in every instance, sliverlike in width—and proclaiming hopelessly stubborn property owners each side of it; something constructed, in all cases bar none, of modern standard orange brick. Practically the only difference at most, between these modernistic structures dotting the region was that some had neon roof signs pointing towards the downtown district—others, canopies stretched out to the curbing.
The block which held Number 617 was dignifiedly nondescript on the side containing the even numbers. While, on the side containing the odd numbers, and on which Quiribus was proceeding, there was but one residence: that, a smallish brown stone mansion with curved window-panes, brown stone steps and brown stone balustrades, and aristocratically blue shades—and which stood, isolated and lonely, in the very center of a huge square lot, practically a full city block in area, raised several feet above sidewalk level backing a row of prosaic looking skyscraper office buildings stationed on the boulevard just to the east, and with a low stone wall all about the lot that was still in very fine condition. The area was obviously part of an estate, and being held for sale as a building site at too high a price, for a huge sign, on 4 by 4 stilts, in the yard read:
FOR SALE EX ONLY BY ORIGINAL OWNERS
The Balmer Estate
and to which had been added beneath:
HOUSE UNDER LEASE
but cancellable
Up a quartette of white soapstone steps, badly pitted from decades of exposure to Chicago’s smoke-impregnated rain, and which took him off the sidewalk level and on to the lot level, Quiribus proceeded by merely taking one giant step! There a flagstone walk, with grass growing between the square flags, led to the house, and along this he proceeded, traversing at least 3 of the flags every time he took a step. In less than no time he was in the vestibule at the top of the stone-balustraded brown stone steps, a simple square entrance hemmed in each side by stiffish wood-panelled walls, now generously lighted up by the lowering Western afternoon sun flooding in, its floor paved with alternate dark-green and dark-brown enamelled square tiles, and overhung, at least for night illumination, by an elaborate hand-wrought iron lantern fixture of decided antiqueness, if only because of the visible gas-pipe supplying it; two strides—and two only!—across the tile-paved floor, and Quiribus was now studiedly facing a pair of ornately-carved and heavily panelled massive mahogany doors, surmounted by a magnificent transom composed of thousands of pieces of bevelled coloured glass set intricately together; was, in fact, but a second later, ringing the bell in one door—rather, to be exact, rattling a huge polished brass knocker set in the leftmost of the two.
Which majestic old portal—or at least the one adjoining it—was opened a minute later, not by any butler or manservant by any means, but by a stocky but husky man in a black coat decidedly too short for him, a large nose, and a black bowler hat. Cooped under the arm that was not handling the door-knob—an arm whose sleeve could be seen to be on the short side!—were two short card-file boxes containing 5 by 7 cards, which he was evidently obtaining for someone, examining, or returning to some place.
His lower jaw fell open when he saw Quiribus.
“You—you—you don’t mean to say you’re—the mathemat—”
“Are you—Inspector George Clarvoe?”
“Hell—no! I’m Bill O’Cardigan, his right-hand—well, left-hand, anyway!—bower. But you’re—”
“I’m the man—sent over by his cousin—Captain Spelvin.”
“The Chief would—hold back just one card—to give a guy a jolt. But come on in.”
Quiribus entered. The other closed the door. Tossed his bowler-hatted head significantly downward of a high-ceilinged, generously-sized, parquet-floored reception hall, overhung by a giant crystal-suspended chandelier, and lighted up to practically its entire extent by the cheerful mixture of white and multi-coloured sunlight now flooding in through that huge ornamental glass transom above the front doors. Indeed, the bowler-hatted man was even following up that significant toss of his bowler-hatted head by striding down the hall in the direction of his head-tossing. Though whether he was leading the way to a gigantic grand piano that stood in the hall’s rear, or to a wide curving beautiful stairway that could be seen rising majestically from behind the piano, or to the door of some room opening thereabouts, Quiribus had not the faintest idea. But merely followed the other, with hat respectfully off. They passed the open door of a parlour or drawing room of at least the early ’80’s, for its upholstered furniture was spindly of leg, as well as gilt thereof, and decidedly French of cut; marble statues stood about the thick-piled but anciently flowered carpet, on ebony black pedestals; the room even held, opposite its open sliding door, a giant fireplace with a marble mantel.
As they approached the gargantuan grand piano, in the back of the spacious hall, a man came forth from behind it. He had a wide-brimmed, blackishly grey felt slouch hat on the back of a deeply red-thatched head, and was dressed in a dignified dark-coloured business suit. His face was highly intelligent, to say the least. He too, as was now evident closer up by the piano, had been going through some card-file boxes exactly like those held by the bowler-hatted man, for two more such were there, and out of one, near its end, trailed the fob of a watch, marking last place of examination.
He stopped dead as Quiribus and his bowler-hatted conductor came up. The red-haired, grey-felt-hatted man’s jaw, too, fell ludicrously open.
“What the—” he started to exclaim. Turned his gaze frowningly on the bowler-hatted man. “For Lord’s sake, Bill, what’d you let this fellow—” His eyes came back to Quiribus. “Say—you aren’t, by any chance, the mathemati—”
“Are you—Inspector Clarvoe?” was all Quiribus would say.
“By no means. I’m Keith—Ian Keith—his assistant. But you—” The other stopped.
“Well, I’m the mathematician,” Quiribus now admitted. “Or at least a mathematician anyway—sent over by his cousin.”
“The Chief would!” the new man said, also reproachfully. And turned to a door, off the piano, that was about a foot ajar. “Hi, Chief—he’s here. Shall I send him in?”
“Yes,” came a voice from inside. “I’m in here, Keith.” Keith nodded to the door.
Quiribus went to it. Knocked once for courtesy’s sake, then opened it fully. The room that presented itself was a large library, carpeted with thick rich monotone plum-coloured carpeting, and lighted by two spacious arched-top windows looking out on the side lawn. It also contained a few busts, on pedestals, but in bronze, all of them. Books, dusty for the most part, covered all the walls from ceiling to floor. A long polished mahogany table carried an old-fashioned and massive ornate glass lamp. A man sat at the table—at the table’s very head, in fact, and thus in convenient and exact line with the doorway—making out a paper or a report. Rather should it be said that he had evidently been intermittently interrupting his own making out of such paper, to look through card-file boxes exactly like those the other men had had. For a long paper itself lay in front of him, to his right, with uncorked fountain-pen lying across it. And to the left, in front of him, were two card-file boxes lying crisscross of each other, and on which, at the second Quiribus opened the door, he was slapping a third with a single grunt of “out!”
