The Sleuth of St. James's Square Read online

  THE SLEUTH OF ST. JAMES'S SQUARE

  By Melville Davisson Post

  CONTENTS

  I. THE THING ON THE HEARTH

  II. THE REWARD

  III. THE LOST LADY

  IV. THE CAMBERED FOOT

  V. THE MAN IN THE GREEN HAT

  VI. THE WRONG SIGN

  VII. THE FORTUNE TELLER

  VIII. THE HOLE IN THE MAHOGANY PANEL

  IX. THE END OF THE ROAD

  X. THE LAST ADVENTURE

  XI. AMERICAN HORSES

  XII. THE SPREAD RAILS

  XIII. THE PUMPKIN COACH

  XIV. THE YELLOW FLOWER

  XV. A SATIRE OF THE SEA

  XVI. THE HOUSE BY THE LOCH

  The SLEUTH of St. JAMES'S SQUARE

  I. The Thing on the Hearth

  "THE first confirmatory evidence of the thing, Excellency, was the printof a woman's bare foot."

  He was an immense creature. He sat in an upright chair that seemed tohave been provided especially for him. The great bulk of him flowed outand filled the chair. It did not seem to be fat that enveloped him. Itseemed rather to be some soft, tough fiber, like the pudgy mass makingup the body of a deep-sea thing. One got an impression of strength.

  The country was before the open window; the clusters of cultivated shrubon the sweep of velvet lawn extending to the great wall that inclosedthe place, then the bend of the river and beyond the distant mountains,blue and mysterious, blending indiscernibly into the sky. A soft sun,clouded with the haze of autumn, shone over it.

  "You know how the faint moisture in the bare foot will make animpression."

  He paused as though there was some compelling force in the reflection.It was impossible to say, with accuracy, to what race the man belonged.He came from some queer blend of Eastern peoples. His body and thecast of his features were Mongolian. But one got always, before him, afeeling of the hot East lying low down against the stagnant Suez. Onefelt that he had risen slowly into our world of hard air and sun out ofthe vast sweltering ooze of it.

  He spoke English with a certain care in the selection of the words, butwith ease and an absence of effort, as though languages were instinctiveto him--as though he could speak any language. And he impressed one withthis same effortless facility in all the things he did.

  It is necessary to try to understand this, because it explains theconception everybody got of the creature, when they saw him in charge ofRodman. I am using precisely the descriptive words; he was exclusivelyin charge of Rodman, as a jinn in an Arabian tale might have been incharge of a king's son.

  The creature was servile--with almost a groveling servility. But onefelt that this servility resulted from something potent and secret. Onelooked to see Rodman take Solomon's ring out of his waistcoat pocket.

  I suppose there is no longer any doubt about the fact that Rodman wasone of those gigantic human intelligences who sometimes appear in theworld, and by their immense conceptions dwarf all human knowledge--asort of mental monster that we feel nature has no right to produce. LordBayless Truxley said that Rodman was some generations in advance ofthe time; and Lord Bayless Truxley was, beyond question, the greatestauthority on synthetic chemistry in the world.

  Rodman was rich and, everybody supposed, indolent; no one ever thoughtvery much about him until he published his brochure on the scientificmanufacture of precious stones. Then instantly everybody with anypretension to a knowledge of synthetic chemistry turned toward him.

  The brochure startled the world.

  It proposed to adapt the luster and beauty of jewels to commercial uses.We were being content with crude imitation colors in our commercialglass, when we could quite as easily have the actual structure and theactual luster of the jewel in it. We were painfully hunting over theearth, and in its bowels, for a few crystals and prettily colored stoneswhich we hoarded and treasured, when in a manufacturing laboratory wecould easily produce them, more perfect than nature, and in unlimitedquantity.

  Now, if you want to understand what I am printing here about Rodman,you must think about this thing as a scientific possibility and not asa fantastic notion. Take, for example, Rodman's address before theSorbonne, or his report to the International Congress of Science inEdinburgh, and you will begin to see what I mean. The Marchese Giovanni,who was a delegate to that congress, and Pastreaux, said that thesomething in the way of an actual practical realization of what Rodmanoutlined was the formulae. If Rodman could work out the formulae,jewel-stuff could be produced as cheaply as glass, and in anyquantity--by the carload. Imagine it; sheet ruby, sheet emerald, all thebeauty and luster of jewels in the windows of the corner drugstore!

  And there is another thing that I want you to think about. Think aboutthe immense destruction of value--not to us, so greatly, for our stocksof precious stones are not large; but the thing meant, practically,wiping out all the assembled wealth of Asia except the actual earth andits structures.

  The destruction of value was incredible.

  Put the thing some other way and consider it. Suppose we should suddenlydiscover that pure gold could be produced by treating common yellow claywith sulphuric acid, or that some genius should set up a machine on theborder of the Sahara that received sand at one end and turned out sackedwheat at the other! What, then, would our hoarded gold be worth, or thewheat-lands of Australia, Canada or our Northwest?

  The illustrations are fantastic. But the thing Rodman was after was apractical fact. He had it on the way. Giovanni and Lord Bayless Truxleywere convinced that the man would work out the formulae. They tried,over their signatures, to prepare the world for it.

  The whole of Asia was appalled. The rajahs of the native states in Indiaprepared a memorial and sent it to the British Government.

  The thing came out after the mysterious, incredible tragedy. I shouldnot have written that final sentence. I want you to think, just now,about the great hulk of a man that sat in his big chair beyond me at thewindow.

  It was like Rodman to turn up with an outlandish human creatureattending him hand and foot. How the thing came about reads like a lie;it reads like a lie; the wildest lie that anybody ever put forward toexplain a big yellow Oriental following one about.

  But it was no lie. You could not think up a lie to equal the actualthings that happened to Rodman. Take the way he died!....

  The thing began in India. Rodman had gone there to consult with theMarchese Giovanni concerning some molecular theory that was involved inhis formulas. Giovanni was digging up a buried temple on the northernborder of the Punjab. One night, in the explorer's tent, near theexcavations, this inscrutable creature walked in on Rodman. No one knewhow he got into the tent or where he came from.

  Giovanni told about it. The tent-flap simply opened, and the bigOriental appeared. He had something under his arm rolled up in aprayer-carpet. He gave no attention to Giovanni, but he salaamed like acoolie to the little American.

  "Master," he said, "you were hard to find. I have looked over the worldfor you."

  And he squatted down on the dirty floor by Rodman's camp stool.

  Now, that's precisely the truth. I suppose any ordinary person wouldhave started no end of fuss. But not Rodman, and not, I think, Giovanni.There's the attitude that we can't understand in a genius--did you everknow a man with an inventive mind who doubted a miracle? A thing likethat did not seem unreasonable to Rodman.

  The two men spent the remainder of the night looking at the present thatthe creature brought Rodman in his prayer-carpet. They wanted to knowwhere the Oriental got it, and that's how his story came out.

  He was something--searcher, seems our nearest English word to it--inthe great Shan Monastery on the southeastern plateau of the Gob
i. He waslooking for Rodman because he had the light--here was another word thatthe two men could find no term in any modern language to translate; alittle flame, was the literal meaning.

  The present was from the treasure-room of the monastery; the very carpetaround it, Giovanni said, was worth twenty thousand lire. Therewas another thing that came out in the talk that Giovanni afterwardrecalled. Rodman was to accept the present and the man who brought it tohim. The Oriental would protect him, in every way, in every direction,from things visible and invisible. He made quite a speech about it. But,there was one thing from which he could not protect him.

  The Oriental used a lot of his ancient words to explain, and he did notget it very clear. He seemed to mean that the creative Forces of thespirit would not tolerate a division of worship with the creative forcesof the body--the celibate notion in the monastic idea.

  Giovanni thought Rodman did not understand it; he thought he himselfunderstood it better. The monk was pledging Rodman to a high virtue, inthe lapse of which something awful was sure to happen.

  Giovanni wrote a letter to the State Department when he learned what hadhappened to Rodman. The State Department turned it over to the court atthe trial. I think it was one of the things that influenced the judgein his decision. Still, at the time, there seemed no other reasonabledecision to make. The testimony must have appeared incredible; it musthave appeared fantastic. No man reading the record could have come toany other conclusion about it. Yet it seemed impossible--at least, itseemed impossible for me--to consider this great vital bulk of a man asa monk of one of the oldest religious orders in the world. Every common,academic conception of such a monk he distinctly negatived. Heimpressed me, instead, as possessing the ultimate qualities of cleverdiplomacy--the subtle ambassador of some new Oriental power, shrewd,suave, accomplished.

  When one read the yellow-backed court-record, the sense of old, obscure,mysterious agencies moving in sinister menace, invisibly, around Rodmancould not be escaped from. You believed it. Against your reason, againstall modern experience of life, you believed it.

  And yet it could not be true! One had to find that verdict or toppleover all human knowledge--that is, all human knowledge as we understandit. The judge, cutting short the criminal trial, took the only way outof the thing.

  There was one man in the world that everybody wished could have beenpresent at the time. That was Sir Henry Marquis. Marquis was chief ofthe Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. He had been incharge of the English secret service on the frontier of the Shan states,and at the time he was in Asia.

  As soon as Scotland Yard could release Sir Henry, it sent him. Rodman'sgenius was the common property of the world. The American Governmentcould not, even with the verdict of a trial court, let Rodman's death goby under the smoke-screen of such a weird, inscrutable mystery.

  I was to meet Sir Henry and come here with him. But my train into NewEngland was delayed, and when I arrived at the station, I found thatMarquis had gone down to have a look at Rodman's country-house, wherethe thing had happened.

  It was on an isolated forest ridge of the Berkshires, no human soulwithin a dozen miles of it--a comfortable stone house in the Englishfashion. There was a big drawing-room across one end of it, with animmense fireplace framed in black marble under a great white panel tothe ceiling. It had a wide black-marble hearth. There is an excellentphotograph of it in the record, showing the single andiron, thatmysterious andiron upon which the whole tragedy seemed to turn as on ahinge.

  Rodman used this drawing-room for a workshop. He kept it close-shutteredand locked. Not even this big, yellow, servile creature who tookexclusive care of him in the house was allowed to enter, except underRodman's eye. What he saw in the final scenes of the tragedy, he sawlooking in through a crack under the door. The earlier things he noticedwhen he put logs on the fire at dark.

  Time is hardly a measure for the activities of the mind. Thesereflections winged by in a scarcely perceptible interval of it. Theyhave taken me some time to write out here, but they crowded past whilethe big Oriental was speaking--in the pause between his words.

  "The print," he continued, "was the first confirmation of evidence,but it was not the first indicatory sign. I doubt if the Master himselfnoticed the thing at the beginning. The seductions of this disastercould not have come quickly; and besides that, Excellency, the agenciesbehind the material world get a footing in it only with continuouspressure. Do not receive a wrong impression, Excellency; to the eye athing will suddenly appear, but the invisible pressure will have beenfor some time behind that materialization."

  He paused.

  "The Master was sunk in his labor, and while that enveloped him, thefirst advances of the lure would have gone by unnoticed--and the tensionof the pressure. But the day was at hand when the Master was receptive.He had got his work completed; the formula, penciled out, were on histable. I knew by the relaxation. Of all periods this is the one mostdangerous to the human spirit."

  He sat silent for a moment, his big fingers moving on the arms of thechair.

  "I knew," he added. Then he went on: "But it was the one thing againstwhich I could not protect him. The test was to be permitted."

  He made a vague gesture.

  "The Master was indicated--but the peril antecedent to his elevationremained.... It was to be permitted, and at its leisure and in itschoice of time."

  He turned sharply toward me, the folds of his face unsteady.

  "Excellency!" he cried. "I would have saved the Master, I would havesaved him with my soul's damnation, but it was not permitted. On thatfirst night in the Italian's tent I said all I could."

  His voice went into a higher note.

  "Twice, for the Master, I have been checked and reduced in merit. Forthat bias I was myself encircled. I was in an agony of spirit when Iknew that the thing was beginning to advance, but my very will to aidwas at the time environed."

  His voice descended.

  He sat motionless, as though the whole bulk of him were devitalized, andmaintained its outline only by the inclosing frame of the chair.

  "It began, Excellency, on an August night. There is a chill in thesemountains at sunset. I had put wood into the fireplace, and lighted it,and was about the house. The Master, as I have said, had worked outhis formulae. He was at leisure. I could not see him, for the door wasclosed, but the odor of his cigar escaped from the room. It was verysilent. I was placing the Master's bed-candle on the table in thehall, when I heard his voice.... You have read it, Excellency, as thescriveners wrote it down before the judge."

  He paused.

  "It was an exclamation of surprise, of astonishment. Then I heardthe Master get up softly and go over to the fireplace... Presently hereturned. He got a new cigar, Excellency, clipped it and lighted it. Icould hear the blade of the knife on the fiber of the tobacco, and ofcourse, clearly the rasp of the match. A moment later I knew that he wasin the chair again. The odor of ignited tobacco returned. It was sometime before there was another sound in the room; then suddenly Iheard the Master swear. His voice was sharp and astonished. This time,Excellency, he got up swiftly and crossed the room to the fireplace... Icould hear him distinctly. There was the sound of one tapping on metal,thumping it, as with the fingers."

  He stopped again, for a brief moment, as in reflection.

  "It was then that the Master unlocked the door and asked for theliquor." He indicated the court record in my pocket. "I brought it, agoblet of brandy, with some carbonated water. He drank it all withoutputting down the glass.... His face was strange, Excellency.... Then helooked at me.

  "'Put a log on the fire,' he said.

  "I went in and added wood to the fire and came out.

  "The Master remained in the doorway; he reentered when I came out, andclosed the door behind him.... There was a long silence after that; themI heard the voice, permitted to the devocation thin, metallic, offeringthe barter to the Master. It began and ceased because the Master wason his feet and before
the fireplace. I heard him swear again, andpresently return to his place by the table."

  The big Oriental lifted his face and looked out at the sweep of countrybefore the window.

  "The thing went on, Excellency, the voice offering its lure, andpresenting it in brief flashes of materialization, and the Masterendeavoring to seize and detain the visitations, which ceased instantlyat his approach to the hearth."

  The man paused.

  "I knew the Master contended in vain against the thing; if he wouldacquire possession of what it offered, he must destroy what the creativeforces of the spirit had released to him."

  Again he paused.

  "Toward morning he went out of the house. I could hear him walking onthe gravel before the door. He would walk the full length of the houseand return. The night was clear; there was a chill in it, and everysound was audible.

  "That was all, Excellency. The Master returned a little later andascended to his bedroom as usual."

  Then he added:

  "It was when I went in to put wood on the fire that I saw the footprinton the hearth."

  There was a force, compelling and vivid, in these meager details, thesevere suppression of things, big and tragic. No elaboration could haveequaled, in effect, the virtue of this restraint.

  The man was going on, directly, with the story.

  "The following night, Excellency, the thing happened. The Master hadpassed the day in the open. He dined with a good appetite, like a man inhealth. And there was a change in his demeanor. He had the aspect of menwho are determined to have a thing out at any hazard.

  "After his dinner the Master went into the drawing-room and closed thedoor behind him. He had not entered the room on this day. It had stoodlocked and close-shuttered!"

  The big Oriental paused and made a gesture outward with his fingers, asof one dismissing an absurdity.

  "No living human being could have been concealed in that room. Thereis only the bare floor, the Master's table and the fireplace. The greatwood shutters were bolted in, as they had stood since the Master tookthe room for a workshop and removed the furniture. The door was alwayslocked with that special thief-proof lock that the American smiths hadmade for it. No one could have entered."

  It was the report of the experts at the trial. They showed by the casingof rust on the bolts that the shutters had not been moved; the walls,ceiling and floor were undisturbed; the throat of the chimney was coatedevenly with old soot. Only the door was possible as an entry, and thiswas always locked except when Rodman was himself in the room. And atsuch times the big Oriental never left his post in the hall before it.That seemed a condition of his mysterious overcare of Rodman.

  Everybody thought the trial court went to an excessive care. Itscrutinized in minute detail every avenue that could possibly lead toa solution of the mystery. The whole country and every resident wasinquisitioned. The conclusion was inevitable. There was no humancreature on that forest crest of the Berkshires but Rodman and hisservant.

  But one can see why the trial judge kept at the thing; he was seeking anexplanation consistent with the common experience of mankind. And whenhe could not find it, he did the only thing he could do. He was wrong,as we now know. But he had a hold in the dark on the truth--not thewhole truth by any means; he never had a glimmer of that. He never hadthe faintest conception of the big, amazing truth. But as I have said,he had his fingers on one essential fact.

  The man was going on with a slow, precise articulation as though hewould thereby make a difficult matter clear.

  "The night had fallen swiftly. It was incredibly silent. There was nosound in the Master's room, and no light except the flicker of the logssmoldering in the fireplace. The thin line of it appeared faintly alongthe sill of the door."

  He paused.

  "The fireplace, Excellency, is at the end of the great room, directlyopposite this door into the hall, before which I always sat when theMaster was within. The fireplace is of black marble with an immenseblack-marble hearth. And the gift which I had brought the Master standson one side of the fire, on this marble hearth, as though it were asingle andiron."

  The man turned back into the heart of his story.

  "I knew by the vague sense of pressure that the devocations of thething were again on the way. And I began to suffer in the spirit for theMaster's safety. Interference, both by act and by the will, were deniedme. But there is an anxiety of spirit, Excellency, that the uncertaintyof an issue makes intolerable."

  The man paused.

  "The pressure continued--and the silence. It was nearly midnight. Icould not distinguish any act or motion of the Master, and in fearI crept over to the door and looked in through the crevice along thethreshold.

  "The Master sat by his table; he was straining forward, his handsgripping the arms of his chair. His eyes and every tense instinct of theman were concentrated on the fireplace. The red light of the embers wasin the room. I could see him clearly, and the table beyond him with thecalculations; but the fireplace seemed strangely out of perspective--itextended above me.

  "My gift to the Master, not more than four handbreaths in length,including the base, stood now like an immense bronze on an extendedmarble slab beside a gigantic fireplace. This effect of extension putthe top of the fireplace and the enlarged andiron, above its pedestal,out of my line of vision. Everything else in the chamber, holding itsnormal dimensions, was visible to me.

  "The Master's face was a little lifted. He was looking at the elevatedportions of the andiron which were invisible to me. He did not move. Thesteady light threw half of his face into shadow. But in the other halfevery feature stood out sharply as in a delicate etching. It had thatrefined sharpness and distinction which intense moments of stress stampon the human face. He did not move, and there was no sound.

  "I have said, Excellency, that my angle of vision along the crevice ofthe doorsill was sharply cut midway of this now enlarged fireplace. Fromthe direction and lift of the Master's face, he was watching somethingabove this line and directly over the pedestal of the andiron. Iwatched, also, flattening my face against the sill, for the thing toappear.

  "And it did appear.

  "A naked foot became slowly visible, as though some one were descendingwith extreme care from the elevation of the andiron to the great marblehearth, under this strange enlargement, now some distance below."

  The big Oriental paused, and looked down at me.

  "I knew then, Excellency, that the Master was lost! The creativeenergies of the Spirit suffer no division of worship; those of thebody must be wholly denied. I had warned the Master. And in travail,Excellency, I turned over with my face to the floor.

  "But there is always hope, hope over the certainties of experience, overthe certainties of knowledge. Perhaps the Master, even now, sustained inthe spirit, would put away the devocation.... No, Excellency, I was notmisled. I knew the Master was beyond hope! But the will to hope movedme, and I turned back to the crevice at the doorsill."

  He paused.

  "There was now a delicate odor, everywhere, faintly, like the blossomof the little bitter apple here in your country. The red embers in thefireplace gave out a steady light; and in the glow of it, on the marblehearth, stood the one who had descended from the elevation of theandiron."

  Again the man hesitated, as for an accurate method of expression.

  "In the flesh, Excellency, there was color that would not appear inthe image. The hair was yellow, and the eyes were blue; and against theblack marble of the fireplace the body was conspicuously white. But inevery other aspect of her, Excellency, the woman was on the hearthin the flesh as she is in the clutch of the savage male figure in theimage.

  "There is no dress or ornament, as you will recall, Excellency. Not evenan ear-jewel or an anklet, as though the graver of the image feltthat the inherent beauty of his figure could take nothing from theseostentations. The woman's heavy yellow hair was wound around her head,as in the image. She shivered a little, faintly, like a naked child ina
n unaccustomed draught of air, although she stood on the warm marblehearth and within the red glow of the fire.

  "The voice from the male figure of the image, which I had brought theMaster, and which stood as the andiron, now so immensely enlarged, wasbeginning again to speak. The thin metallic sounds seemed to splinteragainst the dense silence, as it went forward in the ritual prescribed.

  "But the Master had already decided; he stood now on the great marblehearth with his papers crushed together. And as I looked on, through thecrevice under the doorsill, he put out his free hand and with hisfinger touched the woman gently. The flesh under his finger yielded, andstooping over, he put the formulas into the fire."

  Like one who has come to the end of his story, the huge Orientalstopped. He remained for some moments silent. Then he continued in aneven, monotonous voice:

  "I got up from the floor then, and purified myself with water. And afterthat I went into an upper chamber, opened the window to the east, andsat down to write my report to the brotherhood. For the thing which Ihad been sent to do was finished."

  He put his hand somewhere into the loose folds of his Oriental garmentand brought out a roll of thin vellum like onion-skin, painted inChinese characters. It was of immense length, but on account of thethinness of the vellum, the roll wound on a tiny cylinder of wood wasnot above two inches in thickness.

  "Excellency," he said, "I have carefully concealed this report throughthe misfortunes that have attended me. It is not certain that I shallbe able to deliver it. Will you give it for me to the jewel merchantVanderdick, in Amsterdam? He will send it to Mahadal in Bombay, and itwill go north with the caravans."

  His voice changed into a note of solicitation.

  "You will not fail me, Excellency--already for my bias to the Master Iam reduced in merit."

  I put the scroll into my pocket and went out, for a motorcar had comeinto the park, and I knew that Marquis had arrived.

  I met Sir Henry and the superintendent in the long corridor; they hadbeen looking in at my interview through the elevated grating.

  "Marquis," I cried, "the judge was right to cut short the criminal trialand issue a lunacy warrant. This creature is the maddest lunatic in thiswhole asylum. The human mind is capable of any absurdity."

  Sir Henry looked at me with a queer ironical smile.

  "The judge was wrong," he said. "The creature, as you call him, is assane as any of us."

  "Then you believe this amazing story?" I said.

  "I believe Rodman was found at daylight dead on the hearth, withpractically every bone in his body crushed," he replied.

  "Certainly," I said. "We all know that is true. But why was he killed?"

  Again Sir Henry regarded me with his ironical smile.

  "Perhaps," he drawled, "there is some explanation in the report in yourpocket, to the Monastic Head. It's only a theory, you know."

  He smiled, showing his white, even teeth.

  We went into the superintendent's room, and sat down by a smolderingfire of coals in the gate. I handed Marquis the roll of vellum. It wasin one of the Shan dialects. He read it aloud. With the addition ofcertain formal expressions, it contained precisely the Oriental'stestimony before the court, and no more.

  "Ah!" he said in his curiously inflected Oxford voice.

  And he held the scroll out to the heat of the fire. The vellum bakedslowly, and as it baked, the black Chinese characters faded out andfaint blue ones began to appear.

  Marquis read the secret message in his emotionless drawl:

  "'The American is destroyed, and his accursed work is destroyed withhim. Send the news to Bangkok and west to Burma. The treasures of Indiaare saved."'

  I cried out in astonishment.

  "An assassin! The creature was an assassin! He killed Rodman simply bycrushing him in his arms!"

  Sir Henry's drawl lengthened.

  "It's Lal Gupta," he said, "the cleverest Oriental in the whole of Asia.The jewel-traders sent him to watch Rodman, and to kill him if he wasever able to get his formulae worked out. They must have paid him anincredible sum."

  "And that is why the creature attached himself to Rodman!" I said.

  "Surely," replied Sir Henry. "He brought that bronze Romulus carryingoff the Sabine woman and staged the supernatural to work out his planand to save his life. I knew the bronze as soon as I got my eye onit--old Franz Josef gave it as a present to Mahadal in Bombay formatching up some rubies."

  I swore bitterly.

  "And we took him for a lunatic!"

  "Ah, yes!" replied Sir Henry. "What was it you said as I came in? 'Thehuman mind is capable of any absurdity!'"