X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard Read online

  “Verily, and by the great Jade Buddha of Foo-Gan, do I think we persuaded him,” said the one dealer hopefully.

  “Yet am I much in doubt,” replied the other. “He seemed most suspicious.”

  “Suspicious? What makes thee think that?”

  “Didst thou not notice how he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands with him?”

  Peiping Herald.

  * * * *

  It was upon the Shanghai-Nanking railroad, between Fen Yan and Psi Pshu, and there was a cow which loped along the track, unfrightened by the frantic signals of the whistle, and ever disdainful of the green verdure which lay without the twin rails.

  A traveler from the Kiang-si province, impatiently rang for the conductor.

  “Conductor, is that cow still upon the track ahead of us?”

  “Yea, gracious one who deigns to grace our unimportant railroad with his honorable presence. The devil-imbued cow is still there.”

  “How fast doth the train progress at present?”

  “It’s usual rate of progression, most gracious one. About four miles in the hour.”

  “And how fast, slave of a terrible railroad, moves the devil-imbued cow?”

  “Most benign one, about five miles the hour.”

  “Here is a yuen. Take thou a few yards of rope up to the engineer and tell him to affix the train to the cow.”

  An Whei Advertiser.

  * * * *

  An associate judge on the American court which the Americans call their Court Supreme was sitting by their Missippsitzy River.

  “I wish to cross,” said a traveler. “Would it be lawful to use this boat?”

  “It would,” said the judge of the American Court Supreme. “It is my boat.”

  The traveler thanked the judge of the American Court Supreme and rowed away, but the boat sank and he was drowned.

  “Heartless man,” said an indignant spectator. “Why did you not tell him your boat had a hole in it?”

  “The matter of the boat’s condition,” said the great jurist of the American Court Supreme, “was not brought before me.”

  Shanghai Chat.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Fong Yo Heang, whose husband was a notorious tippler in the native cafes of Hong Kong, was preparing the evening repast of noodles and tea for the children, when a young woman came to the door of her habitation.

  “Most beautiful lady, child of the gods of beauty,” she said, “I am one who performs the labor of collecting donations for the Drunkard’s home, which the Americans have established for our race here in Hong Kong. Wouldst thou not aid also by a contribution?”

  “Come thou around tonight,” said Mrs. Fong, “and I will give thee Fong Yo Heang himself.”

  Mei Yu of Hong Kong.

  * * * *

  Even we of the Chinese race occasionally become hairless on the pate, as hairless even as the shaven Buddhist priests. And this kind of individual it was who was inquiring in the British Chemist Shop, purveyor of drugs and chemicals, on Kiangsu Street, Peiping. He of the shining pate was saying to the proprietor: “Thou sayest, then, that this restorer of the hair is very good, sayest thou?”

  The British Proprietor (in Chinese): “Yes, unlucky one, for I did know a visitor here in Peiping of the American race who abstracted with his teeth the cork of one of these bottles, and who next day possessed a mustache.”

  Peiping Herald.

  * * * *

  This happened on the Chunan Road, near the residence section of Hankow. Said one, Hong Kew, a householder, pleasantly, over the bamboo fence that separated his tiny garden from that of his neighbor, Li Fen:

  “Am I most sorry, illustrious neighbor, who deigns to reside to my north, and by the bones of my ancestors do I asseverate that I regret that my hen got loosened and scratched up thy heaven-designed garden.”

  Li Fen: “Sayest thou no more words, neighbor of a thousand neighbors. My chow dog hath eaten up thy hen.”

  Hong Kew: “Excellent. Coming back in my riksha just now I ran over and killed thy chow dog.”

  Hankow Topics.

  * * * *

  A military leader in the Kuominchun (national people’s army) Military College at Nankow, in addressing the cadets who studied under his stern tutelage, gave the following interesting greeting which was received with enthusiasm not to mention smiles on the part of the young cadets. Said he austerely: “Now, you cadets, if you please, allow me, Colonel Wo Ling Chung, to advise you that if you try to enter the Chinese army you have to learn much and know much. The time in which it was said by our honored progenitors: ‘He is stupid, make him a soldier,’ has long passed by. It was all right in my day, but not now.”

  Nankow Military College Topics

  * * * *

  Ching Fat Ho went to the great animal store that, across the street therefrom, faces the British Importers and Exporters Bank of Hong Kong. He went thither to buy a dog. Scratching his chin as he reconnoitered the great scarlet and yellow front, all dappled with animals drawn upon it in black silhouette, and counting carefully his money, he finally entered the place.

  “What price is this?” he asked, pointing to an animal.

  “Fifty yengs,” said the dealer.

  “And this smaller one, slave of the canine mart?”

  “One hundred yengs.”

  “This smaller one still, king of rapacity?”

  “One hundred and fifty yengs.”

  “And this tiny one?”

  “Two hundred yengs.”

  “I say, thou emperor of all rascally animal dealers, tell me—what will it cost me if I buy no dog at all?”

  Hong Kong Shug Wai.

  * * * *

  Little Ling Kew, a small Chinese boy residing in a busy street in Shanghai, came home with two blackened eyes and a battered physiognomy.

  “So, thou rascal, thou hast been fighting again,” said Ling Appa, his mother, but not without solicitousness. “Did I not tell thee, little misbehaver, that our great philosopher Kong-Fu-Tse (Confucius) said that when one was angry, one should pause before making retort or reply; and did I not therefore counsel thee that when in this mood, thou wert to count up to one hundred before thou didst anything?”

  “Yea, honored mother, but the other boy’s mother had told him to count up only to fifty!”

  Hong Kong Chug.

  * * * *

  In the United-together States at America, in a province called by its natives Allah Bahma, a mule met, on the highway, one of the small automotive cars produced by the famous American plutocrat Hen-Ri Ford.

  “And what, most strange assemblage of metal, wood, rubber and paint,” asked the mule, “are you?”

  “An automobile,” answered the four-wheeled device produced by the American plutocrat Hen-Ri Ford.

  “I am a horse,” replied the mule.

  Whereat both laughed boisterously.

  Foo Gan Chat (Foo Gan Foolishness).

  * * * *

  Mr. Kuo Hei, a skillful jade worker living not many furlongs from the Yang-tse-Kiang River, held in Nanking a reputation for a mind that moved with the celerity and swiftness of a hare. To which example might be explained that he returned one day from the river whence he had journeyed by rickshaw and by foot to indulge in piscatorial efforts, exhibiting before the eyes of Mrs. Kuo Hei a string of most estimable fish.

  “What thinkest thou of these splendid fish?” he asked proudly.

  “Attempt not to deceive me,” replied Mrs. Kuo Hei with merriment in her intonations. “Mrs. Jung Kew saw thee but two hours ago in the fish market near the Man Shei temple.”

  “That she did, do I know,” replied imperturbably the non-agitated Kuo Hei. “I caught so many in the waters of the Yang-tse-Kiang that I had perforce to sell some.”

  Fat Tze of Nanking.

  * * * *

  Yuan Kew and his beauteous pearl of a young wife Tsura Kew were arriving at the Chinese theater on Wei Hei Street, and already the melodious wailing of the fiddles an
d the resonances of the stringed gourds sounded out into the air without.

  “I wish,” pronounced Yuan Kew, “that we had brought with us the piano on which thou learnest to play so estimably from day to day.”

  “Be not preposterous,” replied Tsura Kew, “for we attend tonight where our native music upholds. What, in the name of Kong-Fu-Tse (Confucius) could we use the foreign piano for?”

  “Because,” said Yuan Kew with plaintiveness, “I did leave upon it the admission tickets. That’s all.”

  Feng Yan Chat.

  * * * *

  The mansion of the wealthy mandarin in Changsa had arisen to several stories in the sky, a corps of workers from Hankow busily working like ants. The master craftsman summoned to him one tall coolie who idled in the sun:

  “What meanest thou, lazy one? Carry thou bricks to the workers above.”

  “Aho, master,” said the lazy one, “but I have within me the fever today. I tremble from head to foot.”

  “Then get thee busy, idle one, at the sieve.”

  Anwhei Advertiser.

  * * * *

  A conversation overheard by Pi, the venerable one-eyed doorkeeper who tends the great silver-studded teakwood door of the British Importers and Exporters Bank on Swatow Street, Hong Kong, emanating from two briskly hurrying members of the Young China passing each other on the sidewalk.

  “Stay thee; hast a second to spare?”

  “Yea.”

  “Then tell me all thou knowest.”

  Hong Kong Sho (Topics).

  * * * *

  Mandarin (to Servant): “What a long, long time thou hast been, indifferent one. Heardst thou me not strike upon the summoning gong?”

  Servant: “Nay, lord of this household. No strike I heard till the third one.”

  The Whei.

  * * * *

  She: “What hast thou been doing, Ruk?”

  He: “A clever wife, Nimgya, never asks what her estimable husband has been doing.”

  She: “But a clever man, Ruk, may ask if his wife—”

  He: “Oh, my unobservant one, a clever man never has a wife.”

  Tze and Tza (Hainan).

  DOCUMENT LIV

  Clipping, from Walter Winchell’s Column in the “Chicago Evening American,” of date November 12, 1936.

  DOCUMENT LV

  Continuation, on Page 2, of Section II, of feature story in the Cincinnati, Ohio, “Star-Graphic” printed November 13, 1936.

  Famous English Marceau

  Murder Case to Be

  Re-Opened

  (Continued from front page, Section II, this issue

  of the “Star-Graphic.”)

  —bay, India.

  Jones came to Scotland Yard, in fact, from the Bombay India police force. He is descended, so he says, from Traherne Jones, a criminological investigator of the middle 19th century, though one but little known, so far as official connections went. Jones’ ancestor was, he says, the author of a thesis setting forth the principles of the portrait parlé system for identifying criminals, and which thesis antedated Bertillon’s portrait parlé system by several years; also, Jones says, Traherne Jones was the compiler of a complete “ink reaction” table to be used for analyzing questioned documents, a table complete enough, Jones affirms, to have formed the nucleus of that well-known one of DuMar and Roberly’s covering the gallotinic, chromic and anilin inks, made at Leipzig in the early 20th century. Prior to coming to England, Jones himself has never lived elsewhere than India. It is there, in Bombay, that he gained considerable note from having solved a couple of very puzzling homicide cases by his new criminological method.

  When queried as to what, exactly, sent him into criminological work, he stated that he did not enter it because of having been descended from Traherne Jones, but merely because he had had unusual luck in solving puzzles; never—so he avers—did he confront a puzzle which he did not ultimately solve; and as a result of this long tournament—as he terms it—he has become a collector of puzzle oddities, and possesses a vast conglomeration of such today. And having had such good luck—as he modestly terms it—in solving such relatively trivial and unimportant things, he decided, he said, to apply such talents and luck as he might possess to puzzles which were of more social significance.

  Jones does not, however, lean upon either luck or a flair for solving puzzles, in attacking crime problems. For, for such, he has worked out a system. Which he calls, somewhat ponderously: “Reconstruction of the Complete Invisible Stress-Pattern in a Medium Lying in a 4-Dimensional Continuum, by Analysis of the Surrounding Rimples.”

  When asked for a more simple statement of the above concept, Jones declared that it could also be put—and more practically: “Analysis of the Reverberative Deviations Due to Concussion in Space-Time.”

  But, regardless of what the system would logically be called, a simple and clear-cut example of its application to a hypothetical problem will be given a few paragraphs later on, it being desirable that some of Jones’ concepts to crime—and some of his terminology—be rendered first.

  “Murder” a Stress-Pattern in Four Dimensions, Says Jones.

  Jones maintains that a murder—or any major crime, for that matter—represents a stress, with resultant radiating stresses, in the sum-total of human relationship and human activity. This stress is so great, moreover, that, as is said in engineering, it has become a “fixed-stress”—or “strain”—inasmuch as, obviously, a crime can never be “uncommitted”—at least if it is a murder!

  But, in referring to the sum-total of human relationship and human activity, Jones emphasizes that the word “sum-total” means exactly what it purports to say: it means all such activity as has occurred from the beginning of such phenomena, up to any given moment, plus all that is yet to occur from what has already taken place—plus the action of human will, if human will really exists! This sum-total, taking place as it has (and will) in a variety of sequential “spaces” is, of necessity, 4-dimensional in extent.

  In fact, Jones says, let it be imagined that all human relationship and activity be represented by streaks and tongues and laminae of anilin dye—of any and all possible colors!—held within a colorless and completely transparent jelly. And let the volume of this transparent jelly—containing the vari-colored streaks and tongues—be considered to lie within a box holding the sum-total of it. This box, then, will be a 4-dimensional box.

  Now a crime, Jones points out, is a human-relationship disturbance that may be said to have occurred at some specific point in that dye-shot jelly. It is a stress, in other words, that was considerable enough in extent, when it was applied, to have resulted in a “fixed-stress” or “strain”—and whose nature may be a twist, or a bend, or a compression, or a limited decompression; one of many possible forms, in short, to be described however we wish.

  This stress, however, has produced minor and resultant stresses in the tongues and reaches of dyed jelly extending out from it—and they, exactly like this central stress, are “fixed stresses”—or “strains,” too. In short, being “fixed,” they become in a sense—observable!

  The peculiar part about a “crime-stress,” however, says Jones, is that—using again an analogy—the criminal almost always “withdraws” the coloring matter from the point where he has applied the stress, so as to effectively hide its true shape and nature. Or he withdraws part of the coloring matter—so that a “clockwise spiral” looks like a mere bend—or vice versa. And though such stress is, for an observer looking down in the box, quite localized as to position—it is quite unreadable as to its shape.

  But, says Jones, if we study the tiny wrinkles—plicatures—folds—tucks—rimples—that surround the invisible stress pattern, we may form a very accurate picture of the stress pattern itself, and, therefore, the whole circumstances as to its application. That is, we may determine whether it was a “bend”—whether this way, or that—a compression—or a decompression—a twist, going this way or that way—or what. For th
ese outer resultant minor twists and bends all contain, centering within themselves, the actual crime-stress—and the nature of these “outer” minor disturbances gives the key to—if not the actual picture of—the invisible or camouflaged crime-stress itself.

  However, admits Jones, we human beings are not able to view the sum-total of all human activity and relationship—as a sum-total. For being 3-dimensional in perception, as some curious result of our protoplasiriic organization, we of necessity cognize that “sum-total” in strata—thin slices—whose thinnesses may be said to be no more linearly, than “instantaneity” has “duration.” With the result that the apparent “motion” we see, as a concomitant of human activity, is but the motion of our own consciousness across an observable section of the entire continuum: i.e., in the box-of-jelly analogy, the human “activity” is an illusion resulting from the greater or lesser divergences, and greater or lesser cross-sections, of the tongues and streaks of dyed jelly. All pseudo-motion, in short!

  For Practical Purposes, “Wrinkles” in 4-Dimensional Space Become “Deviations” in Space-Time

  So, Jones says, for all practical purposes, in a world of space and “time,” the “wrinkles” resulting from the “crime-stress” appear, in reality, as “deviations.” Deviations in human conduct: deviations from normal habit, custom, and procedure. In short, he says, in “3-Space-plus-Time,” the crime may be likened to an explosion, or concussion, the force of which radiates out in all directions—not just into the future, he cautions—but also into the past!—definitely deviating the paths and conduct not only of the chief actors—but of all those who have intimate contact with them—and who, by that very relationship, are thus displaced in 4 dimensions from the chief actors.

  The maximum possible “deviation” in a murder is, Jones points out, that of the murdered man—whose course is deviated, for the first time, from living to being dead! The next most violent deviation is, at least in many instances, that of the murderer who, just before the murder is preparing to commit it, and just after the murder is guarding himself, at every angle, against being caught. Again, in the case of a robbery, the robbed man’s status passes from where he owns something valuable, to being entirely without it; and that of the robber passes from non-possession of the stolen object, to possession of it; likewise, as in the foregoing example, the former of the robber’s stati is characterized by his plans for stealing the object, and the latter of his stati is characterized by his increased and elaborate precautions against the object being found upon him.