Drury Lane’s Last Case

14 A Battle of Bibliophiles

Over the luncheon-table in a private dining-room at one of the midtown hotels they tried to collect their scattered thoughts. Crabbe’s ironical and triumphant revelation had left them, for the moment, witless. Hamnet Sedlar the mysterious Dr. Ales! Crabbe had seen them to the door in a perfect ecstasy of lip-licking exultation, and the last glimpse they had of him was his spare angular figure framed in the Ionic doorway of the Saxon house, his hands scratching ceaselessly against each other like the hind-legs of a cricket. Yes, his cocked little head had seemed to say as he watched them speed off, your worthy Dr. Sedlar is also your Dr. Ales; and what do you think of that? Old Crabbe’s no fool, eh? For there was a personal triumph in his entire bearing which baffled them, a cruel and smug satisfaction like the powerful mass pleasure of a mob bent on lynching.

Gordon Rowe, who had despite his preoccupation managed to insinuate himself into the little party, sat very quietly watching the sun on Patience’s hair as it pulsed in through the window of the limousine. But for once he did not seem to see it.

“There’s something remarkably peculiar here,” said Mr. Drury Lane when they had seated themselves at their table. “I confess it’s beyond me. That terrible old creature impressed me — with all his dramatic grimaces — as essentially truthful. He’s the sort who delights in rubbing the truth in, especially if he knows that it will hurt. And yet — Hamnet Sedlar! Of course, it’s impossible.”

“If Crabbe said that his visitor was Sedlar,” remarked young Rowe with a grim muttering, “then you can bet your crusading boots it was Sedlar.”

“No, Gordon,” sighed Patience. “Sedlar couldn’t possibly have been the man who called on Crabbe May sixth. We’ve learned that the directors of the Kensington Museum in London had given a farewell banquet in Dr. Sedlar’s honor on May seventh. Dr. Ales called on Crabbe in New York on May sixth. The man isn’t a spirit. He couldn’t have crossed the Atlantic overnight.”

“Oh! That’s damnably queer. I know Crabbe, and I tell you he wasn’t lying. He always gets that devilishly satisfied air when he’s rubbing the truth in, as Mr. Lane says.”

“Crabbe was so certain,” said Patience, jabbing at her chop in pure exasperation. “He said he’d swear it was Sedlar on a stack of Bibles.”

“What’s all the fuss about?” growled the Inspector, eyeing young Mr. Rowe with disfavor. “The old bird’s lying, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” said Lane. “It’s possible, of course, that he invented the tale out of sheer malice. These old bookworms have a capacity for professional jealousy— Come, come, we’ll never get anywhere this way. The whole thing’s uncommonly mysterious... There’s something I must tell you. About. Dr. Ales.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Patience. “You were going to say when Crabbe interrupted... Then the name isn’t fictitious?”

“Lord, no! That’s what’s so extraordinary about it, my dear. Gordon, you seemed to be hovering on the verge of recollection back at the house. Do you remember now who Dr. Ales is — or was?”

“Sorry, sir. I thought I did. I may have run across his name in connection with my work somewhere.”

“Quite possible. The fact is that I never met Dr. Ales in the flesh, and I know nothing whatever about him personally; but one thing I do know. Unless it’s an astounding coincidence, such a man actually exists, and moreover is a very clever and well-informed student of research literature.” The old gentleman chewed thoughtfully on a sprig of parsley. “Some years ago — oh, eight or ten years — an article appeared in The Stratford Quarterly, a publication devoted to the advancement of book knowledge...”

“Oh, of course!” cried Rowe. “I got it regularly in my undergraduate days.”

“That accounts for the faint recollection. The point is that this article was signed ‘Dr. Ales.’”

“An English magazine?” demanded Thumm.

“Yes. I don’t recall the precise details, but this Dr. Ales was writing on a new development in the fatuous and eternal Baconian controversy, and there were some things he said to which I took violent issue. I wrote a lengthy rebuttal to the Quarterly, which appeared under my name; and Dr. Ales, quite nettled, replied in the correspondence columns of the publication. We wrangled back and forth through the Quarterly for several issues.” He chuckled at the memory. “A sharp pen, my adversary! He called me everything but a doddering old idiot.”

“I remember now,” said Rowe eagerly, thrusting his firm jaw forward. “The fur flew. That’s the chap, all right!”

“Know where he lives?” inquired the Inspector abruptly.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Well, we can find out through this magazine—”

“I’m afraid not, Inspector. Mr. Rowe can undoubtedly tell you that The Stratford Quarterly collapsed five years ago.”

“Damn! Well, I’ll cable Trench again and make another pest of myself. Do you think—?”

“By the way, Gordon,” said the old gentleman, “have you had time to look into those little matters we talked about? About the binding of the 1599 Jaggard, and traces of a possible secret connected with the binding?”

Rowe shrugged. “I haven’t been too successful. I succeeded in tracing the binding back about a hundred and fifty years — it’s been a hellish job. The present binding is at least that old. As for the document hidden in it — blank. Haven’t run across a clue.”

“Hmm.” Lane’s eyes flashed for an instant, and then he lowered them and devoted himself to his salad.

Patience pushed her plate aside. “Oh, I can’t eat,” she said fretfully. “This pernickety case is getting on my nerves. It’s preposterous, of course, this business of Dr. Sedlar being Dr. Ales, but it keeps going round and round in my head in the most frightful fashion. And yet other things are so clear...”

“As for instance?” said the Inspector with a scowl.

“The trail left by Dr. Ales. It was Dr. Ales, you know,” she said suddenly, “who was the bearded man in our office May sixth, father.”

“And how do you arrive at that?” murmured young Rowe.

“He visited the Saxon place early that morning. There he got hold of the Saxon Library stationery. He must have cached his ridiculous disguise somewhere in midtown. Perhaps a hotel washroom. He wrote down the symbol — damn that symbol! — got into his doohickeys, and hurried up to father’s office. That much is clear.” Her blue-water eyes appealed to Lane.

“It seems probable,” said the old gentleman.

“He didn’t expect to be — to be bumped off,” said Patience, biting her lip. “He thought no one knew his secret, the secret worth millions. Doesn’t it sound silly?... But he’s a canny devil and he wasn’t taking any chances. If he called on the twentieth, if he was all right, there was no harm done; the envelope would remain unopened. If he didn’t call we’d open the envelope, see the Saxon stationery, hunt up Crabbe, find out about this queer Dr. Ales — he must have told Crabbe that impossible story purposely, so that Crabbe would remember it — and be in a very advanced position to pursue the hunt for him. Because by the time we did we would know the name of the man we were looking for, something of his profession...”

“What an appallingly logical analysis!” said young Rowe with a feeble grin.

“That was why he asked you not to open the envelope except in my presence,” said Drury Lane quietly. “He knew I would remember our Quarterly controversy. So I was asked in to supply the confirmation that Dr. Ales is a bibliophile.”

“He must have planned it from the start. If something went wrong, as it apparently has. We’ve got to search now for a Dr. Ales, a bookworm or something, and how we’re to begin—”

“Easy,” said the Inspector with an absent look. “That’s my job, Patty. He said if he didn’t call something would have happened to him, didn’t he? That means that besides having a description of him, his name, his business or profession, we also know he’s either disappeared from his regular haunts — he must hang out somewhere! — or been pipped.”

“Bravo, Inspector,” murmured Lane. “You’ve hit it exactly. You must procure an official report of all murders, kidnappings, and other disappearances from May twentieth, the day he ’phoned you, until a few days ago.”

The Inspector scowled. “I know, I know. Realize what a job it is?”

“Not quite so formidable as it seems, Inspector. You’ve very specific information to go on, as Patience has pointed out.”

“All right,” said Thumm gloomily. “I’ll do it, by God, but what I’m getting out of it is beyond me. I’ve got to live, too, don’t I? — I’ll get Grayson and Geoghan on the job right away... I s’pose you kids are goin’ to run off somewhere?”

When Mr. Drury Lane deposited Inspector Thumm at his office and Miss Patience Thumm and Mr. Gordon Rowe in the leafy haven of Central Park, he signaled Dromio silently and sat back with a wonderfully thoughtful look on his face. Now that he was unobserved a multitude of faint quick expressions chased one another across his mobile features and he sat dead in the tonneau, clutching the knob of his stick and staring sightlessly at Dromio’s neck. Unlike most old men he had never acquired the habit of speaking aloud to himself, perhaps because his pale stony ears forbade even the birth of the habit. Instead he thought in pure pictures, and some of them were so extraordinary that he shut his eyes to see them better.

The Lincoln catfooted its way uptown, bound for Westchester.

The old man opened his eyes after a long while and started at the sight of crisp green trees and a curving, park-bound driveway. He leaned forward and tapped Dromio’s shoulder.

“Didn’t I tell you, Dromio? I want you to stop at Dr. Martini’s first.”

Dromio, that faithful dragoman, stiffened and half-turned his red head so that his employer might see his lips. “Anything the matter, Mr. Drury? Don’t you feel well again?”

The old gentleman smiled. “Perfectly well, my boy. This is a visit in the interests of pure science.”

“Oh,” said Dromio. He scratched his left ear, shrugged, and pressed the accelerator.

He brought the car to a stop near Irvington, before a small cottage half-hidden by trees and smothered with vines and late June roses. A portly man with white hair smoked a pipe at the gate.

“Ah, Martini,” said Lane, alighting and stretching his legs. “Lucky to have found you in this time of day.”

The portly man stared. “Mr. Lane! What are you doing down here? Come in, come in.”

Lane chuckled and swung the gate to behind him. “Don’t look so startled, you old bone-setter. I’m in perfect health.” They shook hands. Dr. Martini’s tired eyes swept over him with professional penetration. “Look all right, do I?”

“Splendid. How’s the heart?”

“Pumping magnificently. I can’t say as much for the stomach.” They entered the physician’s cottage; a woolly dog sniffed at Lane’s ankles and then walked away indifferently. “I can’t understand why, in my senescence, it should give out—”

“A lifetime of theatrical menus, my dear Malvolio,” said Dr. Martini dryly, “isn’t conducive to clockwork digestion in the latter years. Sit down. I managed to sneak off from the hospital for a few hours. Maddening routine. I haven’t had a really interesting case—”

Lane chuckled. “I have one for you.”

The physician took the pipe out of his mouth. “Ah, I might have known. Not yourself?”

“No, no.”

“For something really knotty,” remarked Dr. Martini with a dreamy smile, “I’d forgo even this afternoon’s bucolic pleasures—”

“Needn’t.” The old man leaned forward. “This is a case which — I trust — can be diagnosed from the armchair.” He looked about suddenly. “I think you had better close the door, Martini.”

The physician stared. Then he rose and shut out the sunlight.

“You’re acting horribly mysterious,” he said, returning to his chair. The pipe dangled unheeded from his jaws. “Confidential, eh? A criminal case, I suppose. But there’s no one about to hear—”

Lane fixed him with a stern and glittering eye in his best Ancient Mariner style. “When a man is deaf, Martini, even walls have ears... Old friend, I’ve become involved in one of the most incredible adventures that ever fell across the path of man. A great deal hinges upon a certain point...”

Dromio, who had been nodding at the wheel, flicked a bee off his lapel and started. The heavy scent of the roses had drugged him. The door of Martini’s cottage, which had remained shut for half an hour, had opened, and the tall spare figure of his employer had appeared. Dromio heard Dr. Martini say in an absent tone: “I’m afraid that’s the only solution, Mr. Lane. I must see the paper before I can give you an opinion. And even then, as I’ve told you—”

“You scientists!” Dromio heard Lane say in a lightly impatient voice. “I had hoped that the issue would be clearer. However—” He shrugged and extended his hand. “Kind of you to show this interest. I fancied there might be something in my inspiration. I shall have the paper for you this evening.”

“Hmm. Very well. I’ll be at The Hamlet tonight.”

“Oh, rubbish! That’s really putting you to too much trouble. I’ll come back here—”

“Nonsense. The drive will do me good, and then I want to have a look at Quacey. Last time I saw him I didn’t like the antics of his arteries.”

Dromio, puzzled, held the door open. His employer walking quickly down the path, stopped short. He eyed Dromio with a sudden bunching of white brows and said sharply: “Have you seen any one prowling about here?”

Dromio gaped. “Prowlin’, Mr. Drury?”

“Yes, yes. Did you see any one?”

Dromio scratched his ear. “I guess I did snooze for a couple of minutes, sir. But I didn’t think—”

“Ah, Dromio,” sighed the old gentleman, climbing into the car, “when will you learn that vigilance... I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand at Dr. Martini cheerfully. “Stop in Irvington, Dromio. The telegraph office.”

They drove off. In Irvington Dromio found a Western Union office and Drury Lane went in. He stared thoughtfully at the wall clock, and then sat down at one of the tiny tables and reached for a yellow pad and the chained pencil. For an instant he regarded the lead tip; it was well sharpened; but he did not see it, for his level eyes were fixed on something far beyond the range of physical sight.

He penciled a message on the blank slowly, pressing hard under the vitality of his thought.

The message was addressed to Inspector Thumm at his office:

He paid for the telegram and returned to the car. Dromio was waiting, faint excitement in his Irish eyes.

“We may go home now, Dromio,” sighed the old gentleman, and relaxed with gratefulness against the welcoming cushions.

As the long Lincoln disappeared in the direction of Tarrytown, toward the north, a tall man in a dark topcoat with the collar turned up to his ears — despite the hot sun — detached himself from the shadow of a long black Cadillac sedan parked at the curb across the street, looked about quietly, and then with quick strides headed for the telegraph office.

He looked about once, his hand on the door-knob, and then went in.

He made directly for the table at which Lane had written his wire, and sat down. Out of the corner of his eye he looked beyond the counter. Two clerks were busy at desks. He returned his attention to the yellow pad. There were faint impressions on the top sheet, impressions made by Lane’s unconsciously heavy strokes on the sheet on which he had written the message to Inspector Thumm. The tall man hesitated; then, picking up the chained pencil, he held it between his fingers almost horizontally to the paper and began to draw light even lines from side to side. Under the grey mass Lane’s message began to appear in clear yellow strokes...

After a moment the tall man rose, ripped the yellow blank off the pad, crumpled it, put it into his pocket, and quietly walked out of the office. One of the clerks gazed after him, puzzled.

He made directly for the big Cadillac, across the street, got in, released his emergency brake, and with a powerful purr of gears made off toward the south... toward New York City.