Observations of Dr. Fell
In run great book-lined room above Adelphi Terrace the warm May sun threw flat shadows on the floor and the river glittered under its blaze. Through the open windows they could hear the distant bang of the clock in Westminster Tower beating out twelve. Cigar stumps had accumulated, and Morgan was growing hoarse from his recital.
Sitting back in the chair, his eyes half-closed behind the eyeglasses on the ribbon, his chins upheaving in chuckles under the bandit's moustache, Dr. Fell shifted his gaze from the distant traffic along the Embankment.
"Noon," said Dr. Fell. "Now, break off for a minute and I'll order up some lunch. A long cool draught of beer will do you an uncommon amount of good." Wheezing, he pulled a bell-cord. "First, my boy, allow me to say that I would have given a year of my already wasted life to have been with you on that voyage. Heh! Heh-heh-heh! And at the moment I will ask only one question. Is there more to come? Is it really possible for any given group of people to get in more trouble than your excellent band has already done?"
Morgan croaked slightly.
"Sir," he said, with a deep gesture of earnestness, "what I've already told you is a — a microscopic atom, an invisibility, a microbe concealed in a drop of water in the vast comprehensive ocean of trouble which is to come. You have heard nothing yet, nothing. That my brain is still whole I am prepared to admit, but why it is still whole 1 can't tell you. After the sinister episode of the gold watches… but that's yet to come."
He hesitated.
"Look here, sir. I know your interest in detective plots, and if I came to ask your aid, I'd want to get everything straight first. That is, I like my own plots to be clean-cut. If it's going to be really a murder story, in spite of all entangled nonsense, I want to know that so that I can be prepared, and not have the whole thing sprung on me as a hoax. I like to see the body on the floor. When somebody disappears in a story, you've nothing solid to go on. It might be — and generally is — a dastardly trick to prove that there's been no murder, or that the wrong person's been murdered, or something that only annoys you… That's from the analytic side, you understand, and not the human side. But, as to the murder, if you ask me at this moment whether there's really been a murder, I've got to admit I can't tell you."
Dr. Fell grunted. He had a pencil in one hand, with which he had been tapping some notes.
"Well, then," he said, blinking over his eye-glasses, "in that case, why don't you ask me?"
"You — er — think—?"
"Yes, there's been a murder," replied Dr. Fell. He scowled. "I dislike having to tell you that. I dislike having to think of it, and I hope I may be wrong. There is one thing that, inevitably, you have got to tell me, which will settle any doubts. But one thing I insist on. Don't be afraid of the nonsense. Don't apologise for the vast Christian joy of laughing when an admiral slips on a cake of soap and sits on his own cocked hat. Don't say that it has no place in a murder case, or that a murderer himself can't laugh. Once you set him up as a waxworks horror, leering over his red hands, you will never be able to understand him and you will probably never see who he is. Damn him if you will, but don't say that he isn't human or that real life ever attains the straight level of ghastliness to be found in a detective-story. That's the way to produce dummy murderers, and dummy detectives as well. And yet—"
He stabbed at the notes with his pencil.
"… and yet, my lad, it's both logical and ironical that this particular case should produce what is in a sense a dummy murderer… "
"A dummy murderer?"
"I mean a professional criminal; an expert mimic; a mask. In short, a murderer who kills for the sake of expediency. How can a person who's playing a part as somebody else be anything more or less than a good or bad copy of the original? So he eludes us in his own personality, ltd till we've got to judge by is how well he speaks stolen lines. H'm! It makes for better analysis, I dare say, and the mask is undoubtedly lifelike. But, as for seeing his real self in the mask, you might as well question one of M. Fortinbras's marionettes… " He stopped. The small, lusty eyes narrowed. "You jumped a little there. Why?"
"Well — er," said Morgan, "as a matter of fact, they've — er- they've got old Uncle Jules in the brig."
For a moment Dr. Fell stared, and then his vast chuckle blew a cloud of sparks from his pipe. He blinked thoughtfully.
"Uncle Jules in the brig?" he repeated. "Most refreshing. Why?"
"Oh, not for murder or anything like that. I'll tell you nil about it. Of course they're going to let him out to-day. They—"
"Humf. Harrumph! Now let me see if I understand this. Let him out to-day? Hasn't the boat docked yet?"
"That's what I was getting at, sir. It hasn't. Thank the Lord for what you've said, anyhow, because that's why I'm here… You know Captain Whistler, don't you? And he knows of you?"
"I have had some experience," replied Dr. Fell, shutting up one eye meditatively, "with the old — um — cuttlefish. Heh! Heh-heh-heh! Yes, I know him. Well?"
"We were to dock early this morning. The trouble was that at the last minute there was a mix-up about our dock or berth or whatever they call it; the Queen Anne didn't get under way so that we could move in, and we were left lying in the harbour, with no chance of docking until about two o'clock this afternoon… "
Dr. Fell sat up. "And the Queen Victoria is still—?"
"Yes. Due to something you shall hear of in due course, I was able to persuade Whistler to let me go ashore with the pilot; I had to sneak it, of course, or the others would have been wild. But," he drew a deep breath, "Whistler knowing you, I contrived to convince him that, if I could get to you before the passengers left that ship, there might be kudos in it for him. Actually, sir, you'll say I had the hell of a nerve, but what I did was practically promise him you'd land him an outstanding crook with credit for it if I could get to you before the passengers left the Queen Victoria."
He sat back and shrugged his shoulders; but he watched Dr. Fell closely.
"Nerve? Ha! Heh-heh-heh!" Nonsense!" rumbled the doctor, affably. "What's Gideon Fell, for, I ask you, if not for that? Besides, I owe Hadley one for doing me in the eye over that Blumgarten business last week. Thank'ee, my boy, thank'ee."
"You think—?"
"Why, between ourselves, I rather think we'll land the Blind Barber. I have rather a strong suspicion," said Dr. Fell, scowling, with a long rumbling sniff through his nose, "who this Blind Barber is. If I'm wrong, there'll be no harm done aside from a little outraged dignity… But, look here, why is it necessary? What about this New York man who was supposed to arrive on the Etrusca this morning?"
Morgan shook his head.
"I suppose it's bad to run ahead of my story," he said, "but we've had so many mix-ups, setbacks, and dizzy confusions that one more out of place is comparatively small. The Etrusca arrived right enough, but Inspector Patrick isn't on her. He didn't sail at all. I don't know why; I don't make any sense of it at all; but the fact remains that if something isn't done the Barber will walk off that ship a free man in exactly three hours."
Dr. Fell sat back in his chair and for a moment he sat looking vacantly, and in a cross-eyed fashion, at the notes on the table.
"Um! H'm, yes! Hand me that A.B.C. on the tabouret there, will you? Thanks… What train d'jou take this morning? Seven fifty-three to Waterloo? So. Now, then… H'm yes! This would do it. I don't suppose by any chance you have a passenger-list of that ship with you?"
"Yes. I thought—"
"Hand it over." He flicked the pages rapidly until he found a name. Then he went very slowly through it, his
fingers following the list of cabins. When he found what he seemed to want, he made a comparison; but it was on the other side of the table and Morgan could not see precisely what had been done. "Now, then, excuse the old charlatan I moment. I am going to make some telephone-calls. Not Under torture would I reveal what I intend to do, or where's the fun of mystifying you, hey? Heh! There's no pleasure like mystification, my boy, if you can pull it off… As A matter of fact, I'm just going to wire the name of the murdered woman to Captain Whistler, with a few suggestions. Also it would be a good idea to ring up a branch of Victoria 7000 and make other suggestions. Have another bottle of beer."
lie lumbered across the room, chuckling fiendishly and Stamping his cane. When he returned, he was rubbing his hands in exultation behind a woman laden with the largest, most elaborately stocked lunch-tray Morgan had seen in a long time.
"Mash and sausage," he explained, inhaling sensuously. "Down here, Vida… Now, then. Let's get on with our story. There are several points on which I want to be enlightened, if you feel up to talking over the food. Your case, my boy, is the best surprise-package I've opened yet. With each separate event, I discover, there is no telling whether the thing is a water-pistol or a loaded automatic until you pull the trigger. In a way it's unique, because some of the best clues are only half-serious… "
"Question," said Morgan.
"1 exactly. Have you ever reflected," boomed Dr. Fell, tucking a napkin under his chin and pointing at his guest with a fork in the serene assumption that he had never reflected, "on old proverbs? On the sad state of affairs which makes old proverbs so popular, and so easy to quote, precisely because those old platitudes are the only maxims which to-day nobody believes? How many people really believe, for instance, 'honesty is the best policy'?—particularly if they happen to be honest themselves. How many people believe that 'early to bed and early to rise' have the e fleet designated? Similarly, we have the saw to the effect that many a true word is spoken in jest. A true application of
that principle would be too exciting; it would call for much more ingenuity and intelligence than most people are able to display; and it would make social life unendurable if; anybody for a moment believed that a true word could bespoken in jest — worse, for instance, than going out to] dinner with a crowd of psycho-analysts."
"What's all this?" said Morgan. "You can't hang a man on a joke.";
"Oh, they're not jokes. You have no idea as to the trend of this?"
"No." 1
Dr. Fell scribbled rapidly on a sheet of paper, and passed it over. i
"Here, for your further enlightenment," he said, frowning, "I have tabulated eight clues. Eight suggestions, if you; will. Not one of 'em is direct evidence — it's the direct evidence I'm looking for you to supply in your next instalment of the story. I feel fairly certain you will mention the evidence I want; and my hunch is so strong that I — like several others — will risk Whistler's official head on it. Eh?"
Morgan took the paper, which read
1. The Clue of Suggestion.
2. The Clue of Opportunity.
3. The Clue of Fraternal Trust.
4. The Clue of Invisibility.
5. The Clue of Seven Razors.
6. The Clue of Seven Radiograms.
7. The Clue of Elimination.
8. The Clue of Terse Style.
"It doesn't mean a devil of a lot to me," said Morgan. "The first two you could apply in any way you like… Wait! Don't puff and blow, sir! — I say 'you,' meaning myself. And I don't like to consider the suggestion of the third… But what about seven razors? We didn't find seven razors."
"Exactly," boomed the doctor, pointing his fork as though that explained it. "The point is that there probably were seven razors, you see. That's the point."
"You mean we ought to have looked for them?"
"Oh, no! The Barber would have got rid of the others. All you should have done was remember that they were seven. Eh?"
"And then," said Morgan, "this point about seven radiograms… What seven radiograms? There are only two radiograms I mentioned in my story."
"Ah, I should have explained about that," said Dr. Fell, skewering a sausage. "Seven — mystic number; rounded, complete, suggestive number with a curious history. I use it advisedly in place of the word 'several,' because we assume there were several. The interesting thing is that I Hill not referring to any radiograms you saw. You didn't see 'em. That's very significant, hey?"
"No, I'll be damned if it is," said Morgan, somewhat violently. "If we didn't see 'em—"
"Proceed, then," requested the doctor, waving a large flipper. "I feel positive that before you have finished I shall have noted down eight more clues — sixteen, say — by which we finish and round out our case."
Morgan cleared his throat and began.