X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard Read online

  But why would he place such a ring there? Why? Why?

  All I knew on November 17th last, when I deposited my sealed “solution” of the Marceau Case in that Chancery Lane safety box, and sent both of the keys thereof to Inspector-General Wilkins, in Austria, was that Marceau did put that ring there. The autopsy showed that he had a chronic skin disease, which, because I am not a dermatologist and am unfamiliar therefore with the diagnostic nuances of the 171 known skin diseases, I am forced herewith to call merely eczema! Though it might, for all of my knowledge, have been ichthyosis, tetter, pemphigus, or psoriasis. Be it what it may have been, the disease was plentiful on his chest and back, and in one spot had risen up onto one shoulder blade. His face, however, was entirely unmarred and untouched by the squamous—or perhaps in my general ignorance of dermatology, I had better say eruptive—disturbance. The livid circle, however, seems more or less to have geographically segregated the healthy Marceau—from the dermopathic Marceau! Was that ring placed there by him in the fantastic belief that it would set up a skin disease of its own that, traveling downward, would, like the old American prairie fires, combat the skin disease coming up? This, I confess, was the hypothesis I included in that locked-up solution.

  And which would have been the guessed motive forever, had I not gotten from Ambrose Wyrene, African traveler and explorer, and resident of Africa, the affidavit which I just got here at the Hotel DuNord around Noon today. For Wyrene was living at the Hotel Cecil in London from April 20 to May 5, 1935. He resides more or less permanently on Lake Victoria Nyanza, Africa. It may be remembered that he traveled, as guide, with Captain Fletcher-Severn on the latter’s famous London-Lake Victoria Nyanza non-stop hop, which left Heston airdrome, London, on May 5, 1935. And whose plane crashed in a jungle clearing in the Belgian Congo on May 7, though without any injuries to its two occupants. And both men, striving to reach the nearest native village, did reach it—but in the throes of fever. Wyrene was ill with fever in this village till nearly June 1. Not reaching Lake Victoria Nyanza till June 15. And again leaving immediately on safari to mediate between 2 warring chieftains in the south end of the Uganda Protectorate. He never knew, it seems, of the bizarre Marceau Murder Case. And if he ever heard, even indirectly, of a man named Marceau murdered in England, it would still have meant quite nothing to him, for Marceau, calling on him at the Hotel Cecil on May 3, two days before Wyrene hopped off with Captain Fletcher-Severn, gave the fictitious name of Henri Bartholemy, and the fictitious residence of Swindon, Wiltshire, England!

  Ambrose Wyrene is Britain’s star witness in the matter of Belgium’s claim against England because of alleged errors in the original survey—and consequent treaty—between Belgium and England—of the boundary line separating the Uganda Protectorate and the Belgian Congo from Mount Mfambiro to Lake Edward Nyanza; under these presumable claims, Belgium demands that England either cede to her the thriving African towns of Rukwa and Nimgah, east of the present boundary line, or else pay Belgium a large sum in consideration of re-casting of the boundary. This hearing was to open in Paris before the mediators upon February 24, 3 p.m. which is today—and thanks to the difference in time between Paris and the United States, was in most beautiful accord with my scheduled date of release of this report. I have, in fact, just interviewed Mr. Wyrene, after having flown here from London this morning.

  Let me, therefore, present segments of the first half of his affidavit to me, made at noon today:

  Ambrose Wyrene (from affidavit made February 24, 12 p.m. Paris Time, Hotel DuNord, Paris): “Yes, I did meet a man in 1935 who called himself Henri Bartholemy. I remember him well. He was a deaf man, but was no trouble to converse with because he was an expert lip reader. He called on me at the Hotel Cecil, London, 2 days before I hopped off with Captain Fletcher-Severn on that ill-fated London to Lake Victoria Nyanza non-stop flight. This Bartholemy sought me out primarily as one interested in horticulture—particularly lawn culture—and asked if he could arrange, through me, to have shipped to him a number of pounds of the famous Lake Tanganyka zaffer silk grass. I rather amusedly told him that ‘zaffer’ means, of course ‘blue’; and that I myself had investigated that particular monocotyledon, finding it to be absolutely identical with the fine Kentucky Blue Grass, or Poa pratensis, of mid-west American lawns! This was news to him.... Yes, the chap intrigued me... there was deep brooding mystery about him... we talked of many, many things, for I wanted to get my mind off that impending hop about which I felt a fatal premonition... we discussed native African methods of disease treatment... I told him how, when an African native afflicted with any irregularly disseminated skin disease burns a tribal pattern on his flesh with wood ashes, the skin disease can never cross the scar ridges into unaffected skin which may lie within enclosed loops of the pattern: I hypothesized to him that the burning made a huge skin-cell resistance that literally rolled the disease back... he told me of his affliction with some kind of a skin disease... something not altogether diagnosable, I believe he said... he seemed a very proud man... a bit vain, by Jove, if you ask me... yes, afraid of its reaching his face. I told him that a native African witch doctor would, in that case, burn a ring clear about his neck... I suggested however that, in England, the identical thing would be accomplished with a string soaked in powerful anhydrous acid, drawn about the neck and held fairly taut for at least five minutes; then the ultimate sloughing treated like an ordinary burn with poultices...”

  Thus our somewhat wild deduction concerning Marceau’s having put that circle on his neck to combat fire with fire is explained roughly along our very own lines, thanks to a man lying in the 1st Concentric Sphere whose own main deviation—that of leaving England on that ill-fated plane Afric Queen on May 5th—served (as very frequently “deviations” do!) to cancel him as an agency who might have illuminated part of the Marceau Murder Case.

  But Marceau is still dead on our hands—a victim of forcible asphyxiation. And with Lilliputian footprints running up to his body—and away from it. So let us now examine all the remaining recorded deviations that we have elicited one way or another. And attain the true picture of what happened on the outskirts of Little Ivington on May 10, 1935.

  VI.

  The total deviations now remaining to be interpreted are:

  In Concentric Sphere No. 1: All the members of the Marceau ménage—cook—housemaids—butler—house-guest—every member of the Marceau house, in fact, were not as usual, on the Friday night of his death, served fish, it having been sidetracked an hour or so before preparation for dinner would have been begun.

  In Concentric Sphere No. 2: Albert Tomkins, the town chemist of Little Ivington, with whom Grimes was accustomed to trade directly (and whom Marceau had always completely eschewed because of religious intolerance) died of a coronary embolism on May 9th—the day before Marceau’s death.

  In Concentric Sphere No. 3: (radiating out from Tomkins, of Sphere 2, himself a radiant out from Grimes, in Sphere 1): Woborn and Westwill, wholesale chemists of No. 24 Southward Bridge Road, London, from whom Tomkins (also his successor) purchased all of his drugs, never had after May 10th (to be exact and precise, after April 30th, the date of their last shipped order) any orders from the Tomkins shop (which, after May 9th, was the Hawtrey shop) for a particular preparation known as Yttran, consisting of a certain synthetic organic drug combined with a certain rare salt of Yttrium, which preparation Tomkins had been ordering regularly in 105 grain lots, and which Woborn and Westwill had shipped regularly, at weekly intervals. (This was revealed by my study of their shipping-order records, and not from any affirmation of theirs.)16

  Studying the two lattermost of the above deviations, we may reasonably conclude (since, if the Yttran was being used by any of the people in Little Ivington, it would have continued to be ordered by Tomkins’ successor) that

  A. Marceau took it (Grimes himself actually making the regular purchases of it)

  or

  B. Tomkins himself took it

&n
bsp; and that the death of one or the other man about that time caused a cessation of its being re-ordered.

  However, in that rigid four-dimensional continuum which space-time really is, the phenomenon of “cause and effect,” based upon the continuous and quite illusory forward sweep of our consciousness through that extra dimension, and which gives rise to our sensation of “time,” ceases, as I suggested a while back, to exist; and, in those 4 dimensions, if X, in any way, can be said to be the “cause” of Y, Y is just as much the “cause” of X—time-sequence itself being there missing!

  Therefore our causal proposition above will have to be re-stated as

  A. The death of one or the other of the men about that time, caused a stoppage of the Yttran that was being ordered from London

  or

  B. The stoppage of the Yttran being ordered up to about that time, caused the death of one or the other of the men!

  However, Tomkins died solely of coronary embolism.

  While Marceau died—of (at that time) God knows exactly what, or exactly how!

  Was it, by any chance, because of the cessation of the Yttran being up to then ordered?

  And if so, why —

  But let me say that I may answer in the affirmative to the question which stands completely propounded above, and with considerable assurance, exactly as I did in my report of last November, because I know something about Yttran, that organic synthete combined with a rare salt of Yttrium, used with such great success in skin diseases of all sorts. And—but let me present now an affidavit secured by me last night around midnight, in London, from Tedro Grimes, the former Marceau butler. I have purposely kept away from him clear up to now, as I did not wish to risk having even one single phase of this story break before the right moment. Herewith Grimes’ naïve affidavit:

  Tedro Grimes (affidavit): “Yttran? Yes, surely I bought it regularly from Tomkins. For Mr. Marceau. For his eczema. He told me a big dermatologist had prescribed it. And—what’s that? That Tomkins’ last 7-day supply, based on the length of time his previous supplies had lasted, would have run out on about May 7th or 8th, so why—why didn’t Tomkins re-order? Well, because—now listen here—you know I wasn’t involved in any way with Mr. Marceau’s murd—all right—just to show you I’m standing 100 per cent on solid ground, I’ll give you the underlying facts: I did stop buying it. And told Tomkins moreover, not to bother re-ordering it; that Mr. Marceau had discontinued the use of it. It wasn’t doing a damn bit of good to Mr. Marceau’s eczema; in fact, the eczema was getting worse, if you ask me. And I didn’t see any sense of spending at the stiff rate of 2 good shillings per day—4 shillings every other day, to be exact—week in and week out, to cure a thing that just didn’t seem to be susceptible to that particular remedy; so I made Mr. Marceau up some harmless powders from sugar of milk. Yes, about 15 grains each—same as the Yttran powders. No, no—of course he didn’t know it. And—what’s that?—the 2 shillings? That is, you mean the 4 shillings every other day? We-ell, I kept ’em. And if you ask me, I think Mr. Marceau’s skin trouble improved immediately I changed him over. Yes, yes, yes—the last Yttran I bought for him was—yes—May 6th. Yes, yes, 30 grains. So—what? As the Americans say?”

  So—what? As Tedro Grimes says!

  Is there any known fatal disease that could he brought out by a stoppage of Yttran? A disease, that is, which would be quite invisible at an autopsy—and invisible, moreover, in the living patient, to any examining physician—but which could close a man’s windpipe—or contract his lungs—thus suffocating him to death—and leave absolutely no evidences of its real nature upon a carefully rolled lawn?

  There is but one.

  A disease so rare that but one in no medical textbooks mention it. But numerous examples of which are of record in medical history.

  The disease is tetanoid epilepsy!

  VII.

  When I obtained the “Yttran deviation” early last November, 5 factors then indicated to me that Marceau might have been taking Yttran because of some type or variety of epileptiform disturbance or tendency, as against a factors that it was being taken for dermatological reasons. The last named e factors are, of course:

  1. That Marceau had a dermatologic affection and that Yttran is used for such.

  2. That his family tree was entirely free of neurotic taint.17

  The 5 factors in favor of his possessing one of several many forms of epilepsy were as follows:

  1. A phase only of his death, i.e., forcible asphyxia.

  2. His strange pseudo-paranoiacal shut-in personality.

  3. The entry in his address book of the name of a single neurologist, a man not reachable last November, to be sure, but ascertainable on inquiry as being one who is so high up in his profession that he charges 10 guineas for an examination.

  4. The presence in the Marceau Case of the horrific baby.

  5. The fact that Yttran, while it does produce a certain indirect beneficial effect in certain skin diseases, is also used to ward off ordinary epileptic seizures; is, in fact, about the most efficacious drug known for that purpose. (Though it has to be taken regularly, and, once so begun, has to be continued to be taken unremittingly. Because the anti-bodies it sets up in the blood stream act as a neural irritant. And because of which physiological fact, Grimes, for meddling in a delicate pharmaceutical problem, or for diverting funds delegated for the purchase of a medical remedy, is technically arrestable on the charge of either manslaughter or criminal negligence; though that by no means signifies that he will be, or even that he would be convicted if he were!)

  As to “5” above, and the strong clew it held to Marceau’s death, it was killed as a clew by a certain deviation, i.e., Tomkins’ death. For quite obviously Tomkins, learning from Grimes that the Yttran Grimes was regularly buying was being taken by Grimes’ employer for a dermatological disturbance, accepted the story implicitly because he himself was a pharmaceutical chemist and knew that Yttran was used frequently that way; perhaps on the other hand, he accepted Grimes’ explanation with mental reservations—but was careful not to drop even a hint, to Grimes, that would hurt Marceau—the man who had nothing to do with him personally. He might, thus, have cast some light on Marceau’s death had he been alive when Marceau died. But Tomkins died the day before! And likewise, if Tomkins’ successor had known someone in the village was regularly taking Yttran prior to his own taking over the Tomkins shop, and not thereafter, he, too, might have cast a single oblique ray of light upon Marceau’s death; but Tomkins, it seems, kept his books in wretched shape—in fact, carried half his business in his head, and even half of his drugs were in jars marked with cryptic numerations known to him only.

  So Marceau was taking Yttran!

  For some form of epileptiform disturbance—instead of dermatologic disturbance, the odds in favor thereof being, as I have shown above, exactly 5 to 2!

  If Marceau (at least as I reasoned last November) were an epileptic, a victim of the so-called le grand mal, he had probably been, prior to his death in an attack of pure tetanoid epilepsy evolving from whatever form of that disorder he had, a nocturnal epileptic only: a form of that disease where the patient has the convulsion, more or less silently, in his sleep—and emerges from it back into sleep again. A nocturnal epileptic, presumably, so I reasoned—since none of Marceau’s servants evidently had the least idea of the existence within him of such a dread disease.

  Or a victim (up to the time of his death) of no less than petit mal, a form of the disease where only the precursory and so-called “aura” appears—followed, thereafter, not by a regular convulsion, but by perhaps no more than a slight dimming of consciousness, lasting a few seconds or so.

  But regardless of what kind of an epileptic Marceau was in 1935, he would be visited over and again by that aura. The aura being that purely subjective disturbance which precedes both the attack of grand mal—and the momentary dimming of consciousness of petit mal—that disturbance which persists as a memory in the
patient’s mind even when he has no recollection of the convulsion itself. A subjective disturbance which remains with him—in purely nocturnal epilepsy—as a recollection of a standardized dream.

  It may be sensory, that aura—olfactory, i.e., a smell—a crawling of the flesh—a sound in the ears—or an outright visual hallucination, so real to the patient that, though he has been visited by it before, and knows it is a hallucination, he may cry out involuntarily.

  Now as to “1” above: that one phase of Marceau’s death conformed with epilepsy.

  An ordinary epileptic could not die in a convulsion on a carefully rolled lawn, to be sure, without leaving plenty of evidences both in his own person—and on the loam about him—of the terrific flailing of arms and jerking of limbs that constitute the clonic stage of an attack.

  For we must remember that there are two distinct stages to a seizure of the grand mal type. The tonic and the clonic. In the tonic—appearing first—there is a complete suspension of the respiration due to the violent locking up of the respiratory movements because of the vise-like grip on the muscles of the chest—the thorax. This stage does not, ordinarily, ever exceed two minutes in duration. It is then succeeded by the clonic phase—in which the flailing and jerking of the limbs take place. These, being a series of short remissions, permit intakes of air which relieve the asphyxia.