Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 147
“Excuse me, sir,” said an employé, “there’s a lot of green billiard chalk on your sleeve.”
Throgton turned and looked the man full in the eye.
“That is not billiard chalk,” he said, “it is face powder.”
Saying which this big, imperturbable, self-contained man stepped into the elevator and went to the ground floor in one drop
CHAPTER V. HAS ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY?
THE INQUEST UPON the body of Kivas Kelly was held upon the following day. Far from offering any solution of what had now become an unfathomable mystery, it only made it deeper still. The medical testimony, though given by the most distinguished consulting expert of the city, was entirely inconclusive. The body, the expert testified, showed evident marks of violence. There was a distinct lesion of the œsophagus and a decided excoriation of the fibula. The mesodenum was gibbous. There was a certain quantity of flab in the binomium and the proscenium was wide open.
One striking fact, however, was decided from the testimony of the expert, namely, that the stomach of the deceased was found to contain half a pint of arsenic. On this point the questioning of the district attorney was close and technical. Was it unusual, he asked, to find arsenic in the stomach? In the stomach of a club man, no. Was not half a pint a large quantity? He would not say that. Was it a small quantity? He should not care to say that it was. Would half a pint of arsenic cause death? Of a club man, no, not necessarily. That was all.
The other testimony submitted to the inquest jury brought out various facts of a substantive character, but calculated rather to complicate than to unravel the mystery. The butler swore that on the very day of the murder he had served his master a half-pint of arsenic at lunch. But he claimed that this was quite a usual happening with his master. On cross-examination it appeared that he meant apollinaris. He was certain, however, that it was half a pint. The butler, it was shown, had been in Kivas Kelly’s employ for twenty years.
The coachman, an Irishman, was closely questioned. He had been in Mr. Kelly’s employ for three years — ever since his arrival from the old country. Was it true that he had had, on the day of the murder, a violent quarrel with his master? It was. Had he threatened to kill him? No. He had threatened to knock his block off, but not to kill him.
The coroner looked at his notes. “Call Alice Delary,” he commanded. There was a deep sensation in the court as Miss Delary quietly stepped forward to her place in the witness-box.
Tall, graceful and willowy, Alice Delary was in her first burst of womanhood. Those who looked at the beautiful girl realized that if her first burst was like this, what would the second, or the third be like?
The girl was trembling, and evidently distressed, but she gave her evidence in a clear, sweet, low voice. She had been in Mr. Kelly’s employ three years. She was his stenographer. But she came only in the mornings and always left at lunch-time. The question immediately asked by the jury— “Where did she generally have lunch?” — was disallowed by the coroner. Asked by a member of the jury what system of shorthand she used, she answered, “Pitman’s.” Asked by another juryman whether she ever cared to go to moving pictures, she said that she went occasionally. This created a favourable impression. “Miss Delary,” said the district attorney, “I want to ask if it is your hat that was found hanging in the billiard-room after the crime?”
“Don’t you dare ask that girl that,” interrupted the magistrate. “Miss Delary, you may step down.”
But the principal sensation of the day arose out of the evidence offered by Masterman Throgton, general manager of the Planet. Kivas Kelly, he testified, had dined with him at his club on the fateful evening. He had afterwards driven him to his home.
“When you went into the house with the deceased,” asked the district attorney, “how long did you remain there with him?”
“That,” said Throgton quietly, “I must refuse to answer.”
“Would it incriminate you?” asked the coroner, leaning forward.
“It might,” said Throgton.
“Then you’re perfectly right not to answer it,” said the coroner. “Don’t ask him that any more. Ask something else.”
“Then did you,” questioned the attorney, turning to Throgton again, “play a game of billiards with the deceased?”
“Stop, stop,” said the coroner, “that question I can’t allow. It’s too direct, too brutal; there’s something about that question, something mean, dirty. Ask another.”
“Very good,” said the attorney. “Then tell me, Mr. Throgton, if you ever saw this blue envelope before?” He held up in his hand a long blue envelope.
“Never in my life,” said Throgton.
“Of course he didn’t,” said the coroner. “Let’s have a look at it. What is it?”
“This envelope, your Honour, was found sticking out of the waistcoat pocket of the deceased.”
“You don’t say,” said the coroner. “And what’s in it?”
Amid breathless silence, the attorney drew forth a sheet of blue paper, bearing a stamp, and read:
“This is the last will and testament of me, Kivas Kelly of New York. I leave everything of which I die possessed to my nephew, Peter Kelly.”
The entire room gasped. No one spoke. The coroner looked all around. “Has anybody here seen Kelly?” he asked.
There was no answer.
The coroner repeated the question.
No one moved.
“Mr. Coroner,” said the attorney, “it is my opinion that if Peter Kelly is found the mystery is fathomed.”
Ten minutes later the jury returned a verdict of murder against a person or persons unknown, adding that they would bet a dollar that Kelly did it.
The coroner ordered the butler to be released, and directed the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Peter Kelly.
CHAPTER VI. SHOW ME THE MAN WHO WORE THOSE BOOTS
THE REMAINS OF the unhappy club man were buried on the following day as reverently as those of a club man can be. None followed him to the grave except a few morbid curiosity-seekers, who rode on top of the hearse.
The great city turned again to its usual avocations. The unfathomable mystery was dismissed from the public mind.
Meantime Transome Kent was on the trail. Sleepless, almost foodless, and absolutely drinkless, he was everywhere. He was looking for Peter Kelly. Wherever crowds were gathered, the Investigator was there, searching for Kelly. In the great concourse of the Grand Central Station, Kent moved to and fro, peering into everybody’s face. An official touched him on the shoulder. “Stop peering into the people’s faces,” he said. “I am unravelling a mystery,” Kent answered. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the man, “I didn’t know.”
Kent was here, and everywhere, moving ceaselessly, pro and con, watching for Kelly. For hours he stood beside the soda-water fountains examining every drinker as he drank. For three days he sat on the steps of Masterman Throgton’s home, disguised as a plumber waiting for a wrench.
But still no trace of Peter Kelly. Young Kelly, it appeared, had lived with his uncle until a little less than three years ago. Then suddenly he had disappeared. He had vanished, as a brilliant writer for the New York Press framed it, as if the earth had swallowed him up.
Transome Kent, however, was not a man to be baffled by initial defeat.
A week later, the Investigator called in at the office of Inspector Edwards.
“Inspector,” he said, “I must have some more clues. Take me again to the Kelly residence. I must re-analyse my first diæresis.”
Together the two friends went to the house. “It is inevitable,” said Kent, as they entered again the fateful billiard-room, “that we have overlooked something.”
“We always do,” said Edwards gloomily.
“Now tell me,” said Kent, as they stood beside the billiard table, “what is your own theory, the police theory, of this murder? Give me your first theory first, and then go on with the others.”
“Our first theory, Mr. Kent, was that the murder was committed by a sailor with a wooden leg, newly landed from Java.”
“Quite so, quite proper,” nodded Kent.
“We knew that he was a sailor,” the Inspector went on, dropping again into his sing-song monotone, “by the extraordinary agility needed to climb up the thirty feet of bare brick wall to the window — a landsman could not have climbed more than twenty; the fact that he was from the East Indies we knew from the peculiar knot about his victim’s neck. We knew that he had a wooden leg — —”
The Inspector paused and looked troubled.
“We knew it.” He paused again. “I’m afraid I can’t remember that one.”
“Tut, tut,” said Kent gently, “you knew it, Edwards, because when he leaned against the billiard table the impress of his hand on the mahogany was deeper on one side than the other. The man was obviously top heavy. But you abandoned this first theory.”
“Certainly, Mr. Kent, we always do. Our second theory was — —”
But Kent had ceased to listen. He had suddenly stooped down and picked up something off the floor.
“Ha ha!” he exclaimed. “What do you make of this?” He held up a square fragment of black cloth.
“We never saw it,” said Edwards.
“Cloth,” muttered Kent, “the missing piece of Kivas Kelly’s dinner jacket.” He whipped out a magnifying glass. “Look,” he said, “it’s been stamped upon — by a man wearing hob-nailed boots — made in Ireland — a man of five feet nine and a half inches high — —”
“One minute, Mr. Kent,” interrupted the Inspector, greatly excited, “I don’t quite get it.”
“The depth of the dint proves the lift of his foot,” said Kent impatiently, “and the lift of the foot indicates at once the man’s height. Edwards, find me the man who wore these boots and the mystery is solved!”
At that very moment a heavy step, unmistakably to the trained ear that of a man in hob-nailed boots, was heard upon the stair. The door opened and a man stood hesitating in the doorway.
Both Kent and Edwards gave a start, two starts, of surprise.
The man was exactly five feet nine and a half inches high. He was dressed in coachman’s dress. His face was saturnine and evil.
It was Dennis, the coachman of the murdered man.
“If you’re Mr. Kent,” he said, “there’s a lady here asking for you.”
CHAPTER VII. OH, MR. KENT, SAVE ME!
IN ANOTHER MOMENT an absolutely noiseless step was heard upon the stair.
A young girl entered, a girl, tall, willowy and beautiful, in the first burst, or just about the first burst, of womanhood.
It was Alice Delary.
She was dressed with extreme taste, but Kent’s quick eye noted at once that she wore no hat.
“Mr. Kent,” she cried, “you are Mr. Kent, are you not? They told me that you were here. Oh, Mr. Kent, help me, save me!”
She seemed to shudder into herself a moment. Her breath came and went quickly.
She reached out her two hands.
“Calm yourself, my dear young lady,” said Kent, taking them. “Don’t let your breath come and go so much. Trust me. Tell me all.”
“Mr. Kent,” said Delary, regaining her control, but still trembling, “I want my hat.”
Kent let go the beautiful girl’s hands. “Sit down,” he said. Then he went across the room and fetched the hat, the light gossamer hat, with flowers in it, that still hung on a peg.
“Oh, I am so glad to get it back,” cried the girl. “I can never thank you enough. I was afraid to come for it.”
“It is all right,” said the Inspector. “The police theory was that it was the housekeeper’s hat. You are welcome to it.”
Kent had been looking closely at the girl before him.
“You have more to say than that,” he said. “Tell me all.”
“Oh, I will, I will, Mr. Kent. That dreadful night! I was here. I saw, at least I heard it all.”
She shuddered.
“Oh, Mr. Kent, it was dreadful! I had come back that evening to the library to finish some work. I knew that Mr. Kelly was to dine out and that I would be alone. I had been working quietly for some time when I became aware of voices in the billiard-room. I tried not to listen, but they seemed to be quarrelling, and I couldn’t help hearing. Oh, Mr. Kent, was I wrong?”
“No,” said Kent, taking her hand a moment, “you were not.”
“I heard one say, ‘Get your foot off the table, you’ve no right to put your foot on the table.’ Then the other said, ‘Well, you keep your stomach off the cushion then.’” The girl shivered. “Then presently one said, quite fiercely, ‘Get back into balk there, get back fifteen inches,’ and the other voice said, ‘By God! I’ll shoot from here.’ Then there was a dead stillness, and then a voice almost screamed, ‘You’ve potted me. You’ve potted me. That ends it.’ And then I heard the other say in a low tone, ‘Forgive me, I didn’t mean it. I never meant it to end that way.’
“I was so frightened, Mr. Kent, I couldn’t stay any longer. I rushed downstairs and ran all the way home. Then next day I read what had happened, and I knew that I had left my hat there, and was afraid. Oh, Mr. Kent, save me!”
“Miss Delary,” said the Investigator, taking again the girl’s hands and looking into her eyes, “you are safe. Tell me only one thing. The man who played against Kivas Kelly — did you see him?”
“Only for one moment” — the girl paused— “through the keyhole.”
“What was he like?” asked Kent. “Had he an impenetrable face?”
“He had.”
“Was there anything massive about his face?”
“Oh, yes, yes, it was all massive.”
“Miss Delary,” said Kent, “this mystery is now on the brink of solution. When I have joined the last links of the chain, may I come and tell you all?”
She looked full in his face.
“At any hour of the day or night,” she said, “you may come.”
Then she was gone.
CHAPTER VIII. YOU ARE PETER KELLY
WITHIN A FEW moments Kent was at the phone.
“I want four, four, four, four. Is that four, four, four, four? Mr. Throgton’s house? I want Mr. Throgton. Mr. Throgton speaking? Mr. Throgton, Kent speaking. The Riverside mystery is solved.”
Kent waited in silence a moment. Then he heard Throgton’s voice — not a note in it disturbed:
“Has anybody found Kelly?”
“Mr. Throgton,” said Kent, and he spoke with a strange meaning in his tone, “the story is a long one. Suppose I relate it to you” — he paused, and laid a peculiar emphasis on what followed— “over a game of billiards.”
“What the devil do you mean?” answered Throgton.
“Let me come round to your house and tell the story. There are points in it that I can best illustrate over a billiard table. Suppose I challenge you to a fifty point game before I tell my story.”
* * * * *
It required no little hardihood to challenge Masterman Throgton at billiards. His reputation at his club as a cool, determined player was surpassed by few. Throgton had been known to run nine, ten, and even twelve at a break. It was not unusual for him to drive his ball clear off the table. His keen eye told him infallibly where each of the three balls was; instinctively he knew which to shoot with.
In Kent, however, he had no mean adversary. The young reporter, though he had never played before, had studied his book to some purpose. His strategy was admirable. Keeping his ball well under the shelter of the cushion, he eluded every stroke of his adversary, and in his turn caused his ball to leap or dart across the table with such speed as to bury itself in the pocket at the side.
The score advanced rapidly, both players standing precisely equal. At the end of the first half-hour it stood at ten all. Throgton, a grim look upon his face, had settled down to work, playing with one knee on the table. Kent, calm but alive with excitement, leaned well forward to his stroke, his eye held within an inch of the ball.
At fifteen they were still even. Throgton with a sudden effort forced a break of three; but Kent rallied and in another twenty minutes they were even again at nineteen all.
But it was soon clear that Transome Kent had something else in mind than to win the game. Presently his opportunity came. With a masterly stroke, such as few trained players could use, he had potted his adversary’s ball. The red ball was left over the very jaws of the pocket. The white was in the centre.
Kent looked into Throgton’s face.
The balls were standing in the very same position on the table as on the night of the murder.
“I did that on purpose,” said Kent quietly.
“What do you mean?” asked Throgton.
“The position of those balls,” said Kent. “Mr. Throgton, come into the library. I have something to say to you. You know already what it is.”
They went into the library. Throgton, his hand unsteady, lighted a cigar.
“Well,” he said, “what is it?”
“Mr. Throgton,” said Kent, “two weeks ago you gave me a mystery to solve. To-night I can give you the solution. Do you want it?”
Throgton’s face never moved.
“Well,” he said.
“A man’s life,” Kent went on, “may be played out on a billiard table. A man’s soul, Throgton, may be pocketed.”
“What devil’s foolery is this?” said Throgton. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that your crime is known — plotter, schemer that you are, you are found out — hypocrite, traitor; yes, Masterman Throgton, or rather — let me give you your true name-Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you!”
Throgton never flinched. He walked across to where Kent stood, and with his open palm he slapped him over the mouth.
“Transome Kent,” he said, “you’re a liar.”
Then he walked back to his chair and sat down.
“Kent,” he continued, “from the first moment of your mock investigation, I knew who you were. Your every step was shadowed, your every movement dogged. Transome Kent — by your true name, Peter Kelly, murderer, I denounce you.”
