X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard Read online

  A true and perfect case—not less!—than “Murder via the 4th Dimension.”

  And its entire secret locked, in a sense, in those shoes!

  And before illuminating the dissolution of those two very material objects, it might be enlightening to investigate the full circumstances of why Marceau ever happened to get hold of them in the first place. And so, since they belonged to Betty, we have to question Bob McNulty again:

  Bob McNulty (a continuation of his previous statement): “Oh, Betty’s shoes? Did she ever lose a pair? Well, not ’zackly. You see one day when Nurse Ellen was away, we kids decided to play American shoe-shine parlor; they don’t have them things in Ingel-land. I blacked myself and Tad up, with burnt cork, like shoe-blacks, and put up a Pears Soap box in the back yard for the customers. Which was Betty! We didn’t have no shoeblacking, so I took a bottle of fish oil out of the medicine cabinet. Yes, I guess it ’twas cod-lovers’ oil. Anways, the fishoil did sort of shine ’em—her shoes, I mean—but gee!—they stinked so terr’ble we didn’t dare bring Betty in the house with ’em. We left ’em right there—where?—oh, clost to the hedge where we was playing shoe-shine parlor—yes—and brung Betty in, and got her another pair—oh yes, she had more’n a dozen pairs, I guess.”

  And thus we come to an interesting feature: Marceau had, that day, in one of the voluminous side pockets of the coat he was wearing, a pair of fishoil impregnated baby-shoes; the same pocket, in fact, to which he later transferred his Ascot tie, and the odor attached to which was attributed solely to his having handled those whitefish, originally scheduled for dinner that night, and to his having wiped off his hands only with a dry towel. Indeed, the general definite air of fishsmell around the site of his death—and on his hands—always seemed perfectly accounted for.

  But what, again, became of the baby-shoes?

  It is right here that it will doubtlessly be argued—and correctly so, too!—that our theory of co-ordination of stress-rimples in 4 dimensions—or “deviations” in “space-time”—will, if ever, have to “do its stuff,” as the American slang expression goes—if it is to clear up what we now concede to be a murder via the 4th dimension. But “do its stuff” I am sure the theory will! For a certain deviation suffered upon May 10, 1935, by two individuals closely connected with Marceau—connected as intimately with him as Grimes the butler, or Ada Banbury the cook, or the two maids, or Sheringham the guest, or anyone in his whole “1st Concentric Sphere,” lies at the bottom of this world mystery. These two individuals are named respectiv—but let me pause here to call attention to the fact that in that widely disseminated All-America News Service story published in America last November, attempting to set forth my theories, I insisted how, in the particular example given there of the theory, that the astronomical body—Halley’s Comet—an intimate of a certain old Professor “A,” be considered as much a part of his Concentric Sphere of contacts as his own crony, Mr. “B”; and that its “deviations,” too, were necessary to complete the hidden crime picture. So again, here in the Marceau Case, likewise, though not in this case—a comet!

  No, the deviation in question—and which deviation, incidentally, was set forth and tabulated in this report a considerable while back—is, as has been suggested already by the foregoing paragraphs, connected with the fact that all preparations had been made that day of Friday, May 10, 1935, in the Marceau home, to have fish for dinner, as usual; but that the fish became—and more or less without pre-warning—sidetracked. All persons in that house whose mouth watered for fish (decidedly not Sheringham, the house guest!) suffered a definite deviation that night, and one more or less contemporaneous with Marceau’s death.

  I have to take the liberty now of presenting an affidavit gotten in a language other than English, but which fortunately, through considerable past association with those who use that tongue, I am able to translate and interpret, and which translation—though more or less free, to be sure, in certain places—I am emboldened to present completely here because I anticipated it as early as last November 3rd or 4th, on the very basis of the existence of the deviation described above; and because I corroborated this affidavit, moreover, in advance of getting it, and in all of its main details, with my valued co-helper Radranath Sepoona on November 16th last, with chisels and hammers, whilst the present incumbents of the former Marceau home, their three servants included, were all residing on the Riviera. And the data and exhibits of which corroboration are all with that tentative report of mine which became locked up next day at Chancery Lane. And if the subscribers of the International Criminological Data Service—and any other readers of this report—will but bear with me, may I present the affidavit of Marceau’s two huge black cats, Goliath and Amazonia?

  Goliath and Amazonia (Joint affidavit): “Yes, we did always receive a fishhead apiece—once a week—on a day called Friday. Month in, and month out. True, we don’t read calendars, but we could always tell when it was Friday by the smell of fresh fish coming from the kitchen while the cook unwrapped and prepared them. You, of course, being a mere human, would not understand the keenness of our smelleries. And we do, moreover, recall well the day you speak of. We smelled fish toward late afternoon, and knew it was our fishhead day. We even saw the two fish, in fact, through the open kitchen door. But for some odd reason the fishheads weren’t, as usual, tossed out. And we—what’s that? Are we retriever cats? We believe we have heard ourselves referred to as such—I suppose because Mr. Marceau, our master, when we were kits, taught us to retrieve yarn balls with lead weights in them, ever heavier and heavier. But, sir, you were talking about fishheads—and not about our kithood. Well, we came up again and again from the cellar, to get our—well—‘perquisites of office’! And still cook didn’t throw them out. Dusk dropped. We searched the driveway well—but no fishheads! We mewed and even meowed, pitifully. Darkness came. And still cook held on to those fishheads. Several times more we ventured up. No fishheads! The last time we came up, we even went out onto the driveway edge of the dark lawn, where sometimes cook used to toss the fishheads to keep from soiling the cement. Amazonia, in fact, insisted she smelled them more strongly there than near the kitchen door. So, more to humor her than anything else—for it was, I’ll confess, against my best judgment—I ventured out a ways with her. And strange—the condition the lawn was in that night! Smelling of fresh earth like it always did, yes—but smooth, hard, something in a way like the very cement of the driveway. Had we both been humans, I daresay we would have sunk into it. But it was sort of—well—packed; and big as we pride ourselves to be, our relatively smaller weight—and that, moreover, distributed over a number of paws, if you know your physics!—well, our padding across it seemed to be almost like gliding over its surface. A fact! But about our quest. Amazonia, by George, was right after all—for we each found our fishhead at last! Out near the center of the lawn—oh, about 30 feet to the east of the center, if you insist on our being accurate—lying close by each other. Sort of standing, the two fishheads, with mouths up to the skies. Yes, I said mouths—for each mouth, I tell you, had a tongue in it! And by the way, our master was out there too, sleeping on his back, about 30 feet more or less from our fishheads. And get a load of this! A great hawk, with an electric light in his breast, was circling around and around up there, also attracted by the smell of our fishheads. Amazonia and I just bared our teeth at him—and spat in unison—and, believe you us, he flew away as fast as he could, for he realized we’d have torn him to pieces if he’d so much as swooped. But you were asking about the fishheads. By the shade of the father of all cats—but they did smell good—reaching them as we did, at last. Amazonia was actually drooling at the chops, and I’m not exaggerating, I tell you. Of course we didn’t risk trying to eat them around there—that bally hawk, you know, might decide to come back at any minute, and we’d only have a fight on our hands, so—yes, that’s right—I took mine in my teeth—it really was no heavier than the old heaviest ball of yarn I used to retrieve when I w
as a young cat—and padded back with it across the lawn, you bet, and down into my hole at the base of the cellar stairs—Waterloo Hole, the servants always called it; while Amazonia took her fishhead into the hole off the winecellar—Victoria Hole, they called that one—for she had kittens and—what’s that?—of course they were my children—what sort of cats do you think we are? But we just never could eat those fishheads, strange to say. Toughest heads we ever tackled! Now and then we chewed a bit on them when we had nothing else to do—but as to nutriment—they had none, I assure you. In fact, we left ’em there when the new people walled up our holes with mortar. Though those holes were opened up again for a while one afternoon—oh, late last Fall, as I recall it—by a young man with a monocle—in fact, sir, without that monocle and the fur cap that he wore at the time, he would very much resemble you—were there, do you happen to remember, any others exactly like yourself in the same litter with you when you were born?—oh, I see?—I see?—well anyway, the holes were opened up by him, and he was helped by a dark-skinned man with a turban about his head. Yes, they took the fishheads out and measured them every which way with little steel rulers, and commented on the chaw-marks our teeth had made. And took them away, in fact, after plastering up the holes again. Now is that all you wanted to know? All right then, we’ll be off—for the new people here are vegetarians, and outside of a measly beefheart apiece each week—a thrippence each!—we have to hump it jolly hard for rats and mice. Don’t mention it!”

  And thus ends the Mystery of the Flying Strangler-Baby—and the “murder” of André Marceau—of Little Ivington, England. Except for, perhaps, naming the man who caused that bizarre “murder” to come about: the man who gave to André Marceau the latter’s 1/8 th Italian blood—and very fatal blood at that! Of course, for all readers of this report who, on visits to Paris, have viewed a certain historic house at 23 rue Chaussée d’Antin—and for those other readers who are familiar with certain dates presented upon that biological tree given in a foregoing footnote, it will not even be necessary to name him.

  But—since a report is a report—we do name him officially herewith.

  He was, of course, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France!

  Signed... X. Jones

  THE END

  A FEW ACKNOWLEDGMENTS!

  The pen-and-ink portraits of “Xenius Jones” and “Aleck Snide” in this novel were done for me by Harold DeLay, of Chicago. And the various diagrams in it were made for me, under my directions, by John Janecek, of Cicero, Illinois. Last but not least, I again apologize to Walter Winchell for “quoting” from a particular column of his that he has not yet written, i.e., that of November 12, 1936!

  —The Author

  * * *

  1Publisher’s Note: The entire portion of the story referred to above, of which Document XXI is an accurate abstract, appears complete in Mr. Keeler’s earlier novel entitled “The Marceau Case”—at least in the practically identical form in which it was printed in the Oklahoma City “Star-Graphic.”

  2PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The brief letter, sent by Mr. Jones to Mr. Thorne, in February, 1937, and containing the diagram which comprises the solution of the pipe puzzle, will be printed in a forthcoming Ramble House novel by Harry Stephen Keeler entitled: THE WONDERFUL SCHEME OF MR. CHRISTOPHER THORNE.

  3That the founding of this service is of record at Cleveland, Ohio, as of February 25, 1887, and not February 24, and that myself and my brother should be so separated geographically as we are, have explanations which are simple indeed, and which may or may not be part of this report as he shall see fit to determine on the receiving end. For the official recording of the founding of the International Criminological Data Service was entered, it seems, one day after the actual founding, which was February 24 according to old records now in its vaults. Traherne Jones, the founder, died a year after the founding—a few months after the incorporation of the company—and his stock went partly to certain creditors and partly to his son, Animaxter Jones, who subsequently bequeathed his stock to his son, Scutters Jones. I am Animaxter Jones’ younger son, brought up by a sister of his living in India. While Scutters Jones is his older son, reared in America. Mr. Scutters Jones, after the lapse of many years, secured enough of the outstanding I.C.D.S. stock that, when added to those shares already bequeathed to him, he was enabled to regain complete control of the old company, if not practically complete ownership thereof as well. And that is quite all there is—to all of that!

  4It was, to be exact, on October 24 last year that, in writing to Mr. Scutters Jones to have him check up a certain vital point for me in the State of Nebraska, U. S. A., I apprised him that the results of that check-up might conclusively determine that I held the basis, at least, for the solution of the Marceau Case—as well as a fair hope of ultimately holding the complete and full solution itself. And it was on October 30 that he requested me, via a long code wire, to allow him to release that solution—if subsequently obtained!—exclusively to the clients of the International Criminological Data Service on the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the service.

  5The reason for declaring the continuum to be 4-dimensional is because not less than 4 co-ordinates—3 of so-called “space” and one of so-called “time”—are required to posit even human beings, let alone their individual acts and transient relationships, in the total scheme of things. Merely because we may not know the unit of measure that is common to these 4 co-ordinates x, y, z and t—because, in short, to transform “time” into “space” we are compelled, just at present, to multiply it by Einstein’s unique constant, the square root of -1, does not alter the fact that human activity requires at least 4 co-ordinates for its “physical” expression alone. (Indeed, if we wish to postulate a Universe which provides for Free Will—in short, if we wish to have a plan of the Universe that will permit all the activity that can arise from all the choices of possible action at any point, we will require, mathematically, not less than a 6-dimensional continuum to contain this Universe.)

  6As an exact example of viewing the same thing with both the 4-dimensional and the 3-dimensional mind, the strain “rimples” above alluded to, if viewed with the 4-dimensional mind, would appear as definite alterations in the shapes and directions of the 4-dimensional tongues and laminae of human conduct, i.e., twists, sharp bends, shearings, etc., etc. Viewed, however, with the 3-dimensional mind—and therefore in sequence along “time”—they become not merely “motion” only, but obliquations from the norm of human conduct, i.e., the shearings are expressed in failures to perform expected and logical acts; sharp bends by performance of non-expected and illogical acts; twists by changes in motivating and personality. Etc. Etc.

  7As to how far radially outward from the pivotal stress we should record and collate the rimples, it is true—as in disturbance in any medium—that those rimples which lie too far away belong, as likely as not, either, to some other stress disturbance or to some harmonious pattern elsewhere in the medium, Experience in past cases has shown me that, due to the relative contraction of the Universe along the axes x, y and z by streamlined trains, aircraft, long-distance telephones and telegraphs, cables, television, etc., rimples lying so far away as z = -4,224,000 feet may be part of the stress disturbance under study. (In short, deviations occurring on the other side of the earth can be of significance!) While, on the t axis, rimples, to be worthy of careful recording and collation, should lie approximately within the range t = - 86,400 v-1 c to t = + 86,400 v-1 c, v-1 being Einstein’s constant for the transformation of Space into Time, c our old friend the velocity of light in feet per second, and zero on the t axis being the entire “day” of the crime. (In simpler language, deviations occurring more than 1 day before or 1 day after a crime are to be taken tentatively, at best!)

  8An American verb “contact”—but highly valuable in the concept being discussed!

  9All so-called “cause and effect” is, of course, at best merely a deduction (coupled with, in most cases, a laborious explan
ation!) from observation on the part of individuals, of phenomena limitedly repeated in time. There should be no doubt that true “cause and effect” lie in some principle of symmetry which characterizes the architecture of the Universe—the Universe, that is, only as taken in higher dimensions. this principle of symmetry of necessity permeates even those “stress disturbance patterns” of which we have spoken—and our “cause and effect” are found there as geometrical relationships only. But because geometrical relationships, in any continuum, may lie in all directions in that continuum, it is thus that a “cause” may truly be said to have an “effect” prior, in time, to “the moment” of its own happening.

  10It might be apropos to state here, since this book is now under discussion, that it lies today—quite unchanged and unaltered, of course—in Lockbox No. 42,718 of the Greater London Day and Night Safe Deposit Vaults Co., Ltd, of 67 Chancery Lane W.C.2. London. In company with two reports, of more or less tentativity, completed by me last November for ultimate delivery some day to my then superior at the Yard, Inspector-General Halbord Wilkins, then at Spa Grunau, Austria. And deposited, on that very date, in the box. The two reports, to be exact, are but versions of the same report—and neither the shorter version nor the amplified one presents by any means a full and entire solution of the Marceau Case. The amplified version incorporates, among other things, some facts concerning a certain servant, by name Jane Trotter, who worked in the Marceau household on the night Marceau met his death—facts which I gave her my word at the time I got them not to reveal ever in their entirety: to the extent, that is, of revealing a certain name and identity under which she conceals herself today, or any clews to that identity. The circumstances of my agreement with her do at least, however, permit me to state briefly that Jane was under a cloud with respect to one of her former berths, because of the disappearance there of a gold autogiro paperweight—and that she is working in England under the name, let us just call it, “Miss X.” At any rate, the particular version of that early tentative report of mine which contains the above facts, is sealed, with Jane’s pseudonym upon it—for filing under “Confidential” at the Yard so that, should she ever have gotten involved in serious trouble, or become killed, a record would be there of exactly how and why she was under that particular name. The other report—or version—minus these facts, is unsealed. And as for the lockbox itself, Inspector General Wilkins has the keys of it today—has had them, in fact, ever since I placed the two reports in it: and he has also my permission to incorporate all the contents of the box and, at least, the unsealed report, with the Marceau Case dossier—any time after February 25!