The Eight of Swords

CHAPTER I Extraordinary Behavior of a Bishop

Chief Inspector Hadley had been almost cheerful when he reached his office that morning. For one thing, the diabolical August heat wave had broken last night. After two weeks of brass skies and streets that shimmered crookedly before the eye, rain had come down in a deluge. He had been in the middle of composing his memoirs, a painful labor, at his home in East Croydon; fuming, and guiltily afraid that some of it must sound like braggadocio. The rain restored him somewhat, and also his sense of values. He could reflect that the new police reform bothered him not at all. In a month he would retire for good. Figuratively, he could take off his collar — only figuratively, for he was not the sort of person who takes off collars; besides, Mrs. Hadley had social ambitions — and in a month more the manuscript should be in the hands of Standish & Burke.

So the rain cooled him, while he noted in his methodical way that it began at eleven o'clock, and went more comfortably to bed. Though the following morning was warm, it was not too warm; and he reached Scotland Yard in at least the open frame of mind of the Briton willing to give things a sporting chance, if they don't make too much of it.

When he saw what was on his desk, he swore in astonishment. Then, after he had got the assistant commissioner on the phone, he was still more heated.

"I know it isn't a job for the Yard, Hadley," said that dignitary. "But I hoped you could suggest something; I don't quite know what to make of it myself. Standish has been appealing to me—^‘

"But what I want to know, sir," said the chief inspector, "is what is the business, anyway? There are some notes on my desk about a bishop and a 'poltergeist,' whatever that is—"

There was a grunt from the other end of the telephone.

"I don't know myself exactly what it's about," admitted the assistant commissioner. "Except that it concerns the Bishop of Mappleham. Quite a big pot, I understand. He's been taking a vacation at Colonel Standish's place in Gloucestershire; overworked himself, they tell me, in a strenuous anti-crime campaign or something of the sort…"

"Well, sir?"

"Well, Standish has grave doubts about him. He says he caught the bishop sliding down the banisters."

"Sliding down the banisters?"

There was a faint chuckle. The other said musingly: "I should like to have seen that performance. Standish is firmly convinced he's — um — off his rocker, so to speak. This was only the day after the poltergeist had got busy—"

"Would you mind telling me the facts from the beginning, sir?" suggested Hadley, wiping his forehead and giving the telephone a vindictive glare. "It hardly seems to concern us if a clergyman goes mad and slides down the banisters in Gloucestershire."

I’ll let the bishop speak for himself, later on. He's coming to see you this morning, you know… Briefly, what I understand is this. At The Grange — that's Standish's country place — they have a room which is supposed to be haunted off and on by a poltergeist. Poltergeist: German for 'racketting spirit'; I got that out of the encyclopedia. It's the sort of ghost that throws china about, and makes the chairs dance, and what not. D'you follow me?"

"O Lord!" said Hadley. "Yes, sir."

The poltergeist hadn't been active for a number of years. Well, it happened the night before last that the Reverend Primley, the vicar of a parish somewhere nearby, had been dining at the Grange—"

"Another clergyman? Yes, sir. Go on."

"— and he missed the last bus home. It was Standish's chauffeur's night off, so they put up the vicar at The Grange. They'd forgotten all about the poltergeist, and he was accidentally accommodated in the haunted room. Then, about one o'clock in the morning, the ghost got busy. It knocked a couple of pictures off the wall, and made the poker walk about, and I don't know what all. Finally, while the vicar was praying away for dear life, a bottle of ink came sailing off the table and biffed him in the eye.

"At this the vicar set up a howl that alarmed the whole household. Standish came charging in with a gun, and the rest of them after him. It was red ink, so at first they thought murder had been done. Then, at the height of the hullabaloo, they looked out of the window, and there they saw him standing on the flat leads of the roof in his nightshirt—"

"Saw who?"

The bishop. In his nightshirt," explained the assistant commissioner. They could see him in the moonlight."

"Yes, sir," said Hadley obediently. "What was he doing there?"

"Why, he said that he had seen a crook in the geranium beds."

Hadley sat back and studied the telephone. The Hon. George Bellchester had never been precisely the person he would have chosen as assistant commissioner of the metropolitan police; though an able official, he took his duties with some lightness, and above all he had an exceedingly muddy way of recounting facts. Hadley cleared his throat and waited.

"Are you by any chance pulling my leg, sir?" he inquired.

"Eh? Good God, no! — Listen. I may have mentioned that the Bishop of Mappleham claimed to have made an exhaustive study of crime and criminals, though I can't say I ever encountered him in his investigations. I believe he wrote a book about it. Anyhow he swore he had seen this man walking past the geranium beds. He said the man was heading down the hill in the direction of the Guest House, which is occupied by a studious old coot named Depping… " "What man?"

This crook. I haven't heard his name mentioned, but the bishop says he is a well-known criminal. Heme bishop — had been awakened by a noise, which was probably the racket in the poltergeist's room, he says. He went to the window, and there was the man on the lawn. He turned his head, and the bishop says he could see him clearly in the moonlight. The bishop climbed out of the window on to the roof—"

"Why?"

"I don't know," said Bellchester, rather testily. "He did it, anyway. The crook ran away. But the bishop is convinced that a dangerous criminal is lurking about The Grange for the purpose of mischief. He seems to be rather a formidable person, Hadley. He insisted on Standish's telephoning me and our doing something about it. Standish, on the other hand, is pretty well convinced that the bishop has gone potty. Especially, you see, when the bishop assaulted one of the housemaids—"

"What!’ shouted Hadley.

"Fact. Standish saw it himself, and so did the butler, and Standish's son." Bellchester seemed to be relishing the story. He was one of those people who can talk comfortably and at any length over the telephone, sitting back at his ease. Hadley was not. He liked talking face to face, and protracted phone sessions made him fidget. But the assistant commissioner showed no disposition to let him off. "It happened in this way," he pursued. "It seems that this scholarly old fellow Depping — the one who occupies the Guest House — has a daughter or a niece or something, living in France. And Standish has a son. Result: matrimony contemplated. Young Standish had just come back from a flying visit to Paris, whence he and the girl decided to make a match of it. So he was breaking the news to his father in the library, asking blessings and the rest of it. He was painting an eloquent picture of the Bishop of Mappleham uniting them in holy matrimony at the altar, and orange blossoms and so on, when they heard wild screams coming from the hall.

They rushed out. And there was the Bishop, top-hat and gaiters, holding one of the housemaids across a table-"

Hadley made expostulating noises. He was a good family man, and, besides, he thought somebody might be listening in on the wire.

"Oh, it's not quite so bad as that," Bellchester reassured him. Though it's puzzling enough. He seemed to have got hold of the girl by the back hair and was trying to pull it out, making most unepiscopal threats. That's all Standish told me; and he was excited, anyhow. I gather the Bishop thought the poor girl was wearing a wig. In any event, he made Standish promises to 'phone me and arrange an interview for him with one of our people."

"He's coming here, sir?"

"Yes. Do me a favor, will you, Hadley, and see him? That will probably pacify His Reverence. I want to oblige Standish, and it never does any harm to keep on the good side of the clergy. By the way, Standish is the silent partner in that publishing firm you're writing your memoirs for; did you know it?"

Hadley tapped the mouthpiece thoughtfully. "Urn" he said. "No. No, I didn't know that. Burke is the only one I've met. Well—"

"Good man," said Bellchester approvingly. "You see him, then. Good luck."

He rang off. Hadley folded his hands with a patient and gloomy air. He muttered "Poltergeist!".several times, and indulged in some reflections on the evil days which had befallen the Metropolitan Police when the Chief Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department was required to listen to the maunderings of every loony bishop who went about sliding down bannisters, attacking housemaids, and firing ink-bottles at vicars.

Presendy his sense of humor struggled into being again. A grin appeared under his clipped gray moustache, and he fell to whistling as he sorted out his morning's mail. He also reflected, in as sentimental a fashion as his nature would permit, on his thirty-five years in the Force; on all the villainy and nonsense he had seen in this little bare room, with its brown distempered walls and windows that overlooked the sedate Embankment. Each morning he placidly shaved himself in East Croydon, kissed his wife, cast a troubled eye over the newspaper (which always hinted at sinister things, either from Germany or the climate) as the train bore him to Victoria; and took up afresh his duties in murders or lost dogs. Around him was the ordered hum of this clearing-house for both. Around him—.

"Come in," he said, in reply to a knock at the door.

A constable, obviously perturbed, coughed.

There's a gentleman here, sir," he observed, rather in the manner of one making a deduction. There's a gentleman here." He laid a card on Hadley's desk.

"Urn" said the Chief Inspector, who was reading a report. "What's he want?"

"I think you had better see him, sir."

Hadley glanced at the card, which said:

Dr. Sigismund Von Hornswoggle Vienna

"I think you'd better see him" the other insisted. "He's making a row, sir, and psychoanalyzing everybody he can lay hold of. Sergeant Betts has hidden himself in the record room, and swears he won't come out until somebody takes the gentleman away."

"Look here," said the exasperated Hadley, and creaked round in his swivel-chair. "Is everybody trying to play a game on me this morning? What the hell do you mean, making a row? Why don't you chuck him out?"

"Well, sir, the fact is," said the other, "that — well, I think we know him. You see…"

The constable was not a small man, but he was shoved aside by a much larger one; certainly one of five times his girth. The doorway was filled by an enormously stout figure in a black cape and glistening top hat. But the chief inspector's first impression of him was concerned with whiskers. He wore, almost to his cheekbones, the most luxuriant set of black whiskers Hadley had ever seen. His eyebrows were also of the same variety, and seemed to take up half his forehead. Small eyes twinkled behind eyeglasses on a broad black ribbon. His red face beamed, and he swept off his hat in a great bow.

"Goot morning!" he thundered in a rumbling voice, and beamed again. "Haf I der honor of speaking to das chief inspector, yah? Du bist der hauptmann, meinherr, nicht wahr? Yah, yah, yah. So."

He came over at his rolling gait and set out a chair with great nicety, propping his cane against its side.

"I vill myself sit down," he announced. "So."

He sat down, beamed, folded his hands, and inquired: "Vot do you dream about?"

Then Hadley got his breath. "Fell—" he said. "Gideon Fell… What in the name of God," continued Hadley, slapping the desk at each word, "do you mean by putting on that crazy get-up and coming into my office in it? I thought you were in America. Did anybody see you come in?"

"Eh? My goot friend—!" protested the other in an injured tone, "surely you haf yourself mistaken, yah? I am Herr Doktor Sigismund von Hornswoggle… "

Take it off? said Hadley firmly.

"Oh, well," said the other, dropping his accent in a voice of resignation. "So you penetrated my disguise, did you? The chap in New York told me I was perfect in the art. I had a sovereign bet that I could deceive you. Well, aren't you going to shake hands, Hadley? Here I am back, after three months in America—"

There's a lavatory at the end of the hall," said the chief inspector inexorably. "Go out and take off those whiskers or I’ll have you locked up. What do you want to do: make a guy of me in my last month of office?"

"Oh, well," grunted Dr. Fell.

He reappeared in a few minutes, his old self again, with his double chins, his bandit's moustache, and his great mop of gray-streaked hair. His face had grown even redder with the friction of washing off spirit gum. Chuckling, he propped his hands on his stick and beamed at Hadley over his eyeglasses. His headgear had changed to the usual shovel hat.

"Still," he observed, "I flatter myself that I deceived your subordinates. It takes time, of course, to become perfect. And I have my diploma from the William J. Pinkerton School of Disguise. It's what they call a mail-order course. Heh-heh-heh. You pay five dollars down, and they send you your first lesson; and so on. Heh-heh-heh."

"You're a hopeless old sinner," said Hadley, relenting, "but, all the same, I'm devilish glad to see you back. Did you enjoy yourself in America?"

Dr. Fell sighed with reminiscent pleasure, blinking at a corner of the ceiling. Then he rumbled and hammered the ferrule of his cane on the floor.

"He pasted the old apple!" murmured Dr. Fell ecstatically. "II a fiappi l’ oignon! Ha, woof! — kill the umpire! I say, Hadley, how would you construe into Latin the following text: 'He poled the tomato into the left-field bleachers for a circuit clout?' I've been debating it all the way across the ocean. 'Poled' and 'tomato' I can manage, but how Virgil would have said left-field bleachers' rather stumps me."

"What's all that?"

"It would appear," said Dr. Fell, "to be the dialect of a province called Brooklyn. My friends from the publishing house took me there, thank God, when we were supposed to be attending literary teas. You can't imagine," said the doctor, with unholy glee, "how many literary teas we contrived to miss, or, better still, how many literary people I avoided meeting. Heh-heh. Let me show you my scrap-book."

From beside his chair he took up a brief-case, and produced a volume of cuttings which he spread out proudly on the chief inspector's desk.

"I may mention, to explain some of these headlines," he pursued, "that I was known to the newspapers as ‘Gid'"

"Gid?" said Hadley, blankly.

"It is short, snappy, and fits into a headline," explained Dr. Fell, with the air of one who quotes. "Look at these examples, now."

He opened the book at random. Hadley's eye was caught by the announcement: "Gid Judges Beauty Contest at Long Beach." The accompanying photograph showed Dr. Fell, with cloak, shovel hat, and a beam like a burnished apple on his face, towering among a group of amorous young ladies in almost nonexistent bathing costumes. "Gid Opens New Fire-Station in Bronx; Created Honorary Fire Chief" proclaimed another. This cutting was decorated with two snapshots. One showed Dr. Fell wearing a complicated headgear on which was printed the word Chief, and holding up an axe as though he were going to brain somebody. The other pictured him in the act of sliding down a silver-plated pole from the second floor of the fire station; a very impressive sight. It bore the caption: "Did He Fell Or Was He Pushed?" Hadley was aghast.

"Do you mean to say you actually did all these things?" he demanded.

"Certainly. I told you I had a good time" the other reminded him complacently. "Here is an account of my speech to the convention of the Loyal and Benevolent Order of Mountain Goats. I seem to have spoken very well, though my recollection is hazy. I was also made an Honorary Something of the Order; but I am not sure what my tide is, because it was late in the evening and the President couldn't pronounce it with any degree of certainty. Why? Don't you approve?"

"I wouldn't have done all that," said Hadley fervendy, "for" — he searched his mind for a suitable inducement—"for a thousand pounds! Close the book; I don't want to read any more… What are your plans now?"

Dr. Fell frowned.

"I don't know. My wife hasn't returned from visiting her in-laws yet; I had a wire when the boat docked this morning. I'm rather at a loose end. Still, I happened to run into an old friend of mine at Southampton — a Colonel Standish. He's a member of Standish & Burke, my publishers; though it's only a financial interest, and Burke handles the business for him. Eh? What did you say?"

"Nothing," answered Hadley. There was a gleam in his eye nevertheless.

A long sniff rumbled in the doctor's nose. "I don't know what's the matter with him, Hadley. It seems he'd come down to the boat to meet the son of a friend of his — a fine young fellow, by the way, and the son of the Bishop of Mappleham. I got to know him pretty well before they locked him up in the brig—"

"Locked him up in the brig?" said Hadley, sitting back in his chair. "Well, well! What was the trouble? Did he go mad too?"

A reminiscent chuckle ran over the bulges of Dr. Fell's waistcoat. With his cane he poked at the edge of Hadley’s desk.

Tut, tut, Hadley. What do you mean, mad? It was only a matter of a pair of lady's — hum — well, undergarments of some description… "

"He assaulted the lady, I suppose?"

"I say, Hadley, I wish you wouldn't interrupt. No; good Lord, no! He pinched 'em out of her cabin. Then he and a few other stout-hearted fellows ran 'em up the mast in place of the house flag. They didn't discover it until next morning when a passing ship wirelessed congratulations to the captain. Then, d'ye see, there was a row. This young fellow is a wonder with his fists, by the way. He laid out the first officer and two stewards before they subdued him, and—"

"That's enough," said the chief inspector. "What were you saying about Standish?"

"Why, he seems to have something on his mind. He invited me down to his place in Gloucester for the week-end, and said he had a story to tell me. But the odd part of it was the way he treated young Donovan— that's the bishop's son. He shook his hand sadly, and looked at him in a sympathetic, pitying manner; and told him not to lose heart… Incidentally, they're both downstairs in Standish's car now, waiting for me. Eh?

What's the matter with you now?" Hadley leaned forward. "Listen!" he said…