Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14)

by T. S. Stribling

  “Why any such rigmarole as this, señor?” he asked curiously.

  “Señor,” said Sanchez, “how can you ask me? You know how long I have sweated in prison on trumped up charges. You would be wary too if you saw ahead of you one tiny glimpse of freedom.”

  Poggioli stood pondering this new development when Slidenberry nodded him aside. When they were outside the cabin door the inspector whispered intently—

  “Well, what do you make of that, Dr. Poggioli?”

  “I think—I think that throws a new light on the subject,” answered the psychologist carefully.

  “How?”

  “This is a positive move. Don’t you see—up to this point his maneuvering has been negative and defensive; now it is for me to do something for him.”

  “But, listen,” pressed the inspector, “don’t you see it works out just right for us? If he takes absolutely nothing ashore, he takes nothing ashore—does he? Now I believe he’s cracked—as you would say, got a complex, not to say a mania—on the subject of prisons. I suppose he has been driven to it by his experiences which you describe. So, if you don’t mind, I wish you would go get him an outfit and let him walk off the ship in his birthday clothes as far as anything he brought into this country is concerned.”

  Poggioli could see why Slidenberry jumped at such an opportunity. He agreed to the plan, full of vague suspicion created by this new quirk of the ex-dictator.

  Dr. Sanchez handed him the bag of Venezuelan coins, gave him a money changer’s address in the Latin quarter of Miami and also a list of the shirt, suit and shoe sizes that he wore. The psychologist went ashore in an odd mood.

  The money changer was in Miramar Street near the harbor. He ran a mere booth, arranged in the room of a private house, evidently one of those men who attend to the wants of his fellow Venezuelans before they learn the ways of American banks.

  The fellow weighed the gold and silver coins in a pair of scales instead of counting them and gave Poggioli the exchange in American money.

  An hour later the scientist took the clothes on board the Stanhope . Slidenberry had occupied his time by researching everything in the cabin, but without results. The whole affair would apparently remain an unsolved mystery, that is if it really were a mystery and not the maunderings of an unbalanced brain.

  Dr. Sanchez had Slidenberry stand completely outside the cabin while he changed his apparel from hat to shoes. Then he pointed to his baggage.

  “That I am going to leave in bond, señores, until I get ready to sail from this country. Then I’ll search it myself and see what you planted in it at the last hour.”

  The inspector shook his head.

  “Crazy as bedlam,” he said, as he and Poggioli watched Sanchez go ashore.

  After the ex-dictator had gone the different phases of the incident simmered in Poggioli’s mind. No two pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together. Slidenberry, too, was curious, but he was relieved.

  “That was a devil of a layout,” he said. “Egret feathers, glass diamonds. I suppose they really must have been planted by that J. Dugmore Lampton, after all—he was an English customs officer, and he was no doubt following precedent in the consular reports when he arranged for Sanchez to be seized at this end of the line.”

  “Why did Sanchez wish that complete change of clothes?” pressed Poggioli, unsatisfied. “You know he could have worn ashore his shirt, undershirt, socks—”

  “Oh, that was just his obsession, his craziness.”

  “All right. Admit that. Then why did J. Dugmore Lampton quote the consular reports? As I said long ago, if he is a consul he knows those reports go in the discard the moment they are published. For Lampton’s memory to go back to 1915, and quote reports of that year, that isn’t human, Mr. Slidenberry.”

  “Well, I’m not worrying about that end of the line,” the inspector laughed. “Sanchez is ashore and he took nothing with him.”

  At this moment a Western Union boy came bicycling down the wharf and rounded into the inspector with a message.

  Slidenberry looked at the enclosure, then puckered his brow and read aloud:

  “NO SUCH PERSON AS J. DUGMORE LAMPTON REGISTERED WITH AMERICAN CONSULATE AT BELIZE. ERROR POSSIBLE. MAY BE J. HAMILTON SMITH.”

  The two men stood holding this second cablegram between them, looking at it. “Well,” said Slidenberry slowly, “so there was no J. Dugmore Lampton, or if there is one he is not expecting any reward after all—” Poggioli burst out:

  “My heavens! Of course, of course, that’s the solution of it!”

  “What? What’s the solution of what?”

  “The whole thing! There isn’t any Lampton. Dr. Sanchez himself sent that cablegram. Why didn’t I think of that at once? Of course he is the only man in the world who could quote year and page of consular reports as far back as 1915 because you see his name is mentioned in them. In fact, he was deported then. He would have no trouble at all remembering the date.”

  “But there’s no sense to that!” cried Slidenberry. “What in the world would he want to make all this trouble for himself for?”

  “He is like a sleight-of-hand performer; he wanted to center our attention on diamonds and feathers while he slipped something else past us. He wanted to make absolutely sure of it. I suppose he needs money for some new revolutionary undertaking.”

  Slidenberry dropped his hands hopelessly.

  “But, look, man, he didn’t go ashore with anything—nothing at all. Even his clothes are new!”

  Poggioli laughed wryly.

  “No-o, he didn’t, but I did.” Slidenberry looked surprised. “You—you went ashore—what with?”

  “Why, his money, of course; I took that ashore, didn’t I?”

  “But money can’t conceal diamonds and egret feathers!”

  “Of course not, but you could take a five-bolivar piece, couldn’t you, and—come on, come on, let’s get to that money changer’s address and look into this thing.”

  The two men hailed a taxi and whirled a few blocks to Miramar Street. When they reached the house, a very simple old householder met them.

  “Where is that money changer, the one I traded with an hour or so ago?”

  hurriedly asked the psychologist.

  The householder, who was an Ecuadorian, spread his hands.

  “Señores, he gave up his room. He is gone. Did he cheat you? No, I hope not.”

  “No, he didn’t cheat me! He smuggled dope—cocaine, I imagine—out of a

  ship down at the docks.”

  “Are you Señor Poggioli?” asked the householder. “Yes, I am. Why?”

  “A very fine gentleman left with me a note and a little token. He said you would call and get it.”

  “Well, give it to me!”

  The Ecuadorian hustled away for a moment and returned with a note and a five-bolivar piece. The note said:

  Muchas gracias, señor, for your highly esteemed services. I am leaving you a little souvenir which will assure you that your deductions, although somewhat tardy, are correct.

  Always your friend and admirer,

  —XENOPHON QUINTERO SANCHEZ

  The souvenir was a very light five-bolivar piece. Poggioli twisted it experimentally. It unscrewed and disclosed the fact that it was a small silver container. It was empty and had been cleaned thoroughly. Legally it proved nothing.

  THE PINK COLONNADE

  When Mr. Henry Poggioli, specialist in criminal psychology, stepped out of the elevator into the lobby of the Hotel Las Palmas, a man by the name of Lambert made the all-too-familiar plea for help. He began by paying what he evidently considered to be a compliment—that he had read about Mr. Poggioli’s great skill as a detective in the morning papers; then he added that he had come to ask Mr. Poggioli if he would go with him to see a young lady.

  The psychologist glanced patiently at the hotel clerk who had introduced Lambert. “What’s happened to her? Has she lost something, been threatened, accused,

  at
tacked, arrested?”

  Mr. Lambert moistened his lips with his tongue. “Well, no-o, she had a dream.”

  “A dream!”

  “Yes, a very horrifying dream about her father. She dreamed—”

  “Just a moment,” interrupted the scientist. “Are you afraid this young lady has an Œdipus complex and you come to me as a psychologist, or are you uneasy lest something actually has happened to her father and you come to me as a criminologist?”

  “Oh, as a criminologist, of course. Nobody worries about complexes as far south as Florida.”

  The psychologist nodded dubiously.

  “All right, go ahead; tell me about the dream,” he conceded.

  “Well, she was awakened by it at three this morning. She is still terribly upset;

  she thinks something awful has happened to her father.”

  “Then he isn’t at home?”

  “No, if he were at home she’d feel all right, I suppose.”

  The scientist stood nodding at this; finally he said—

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Lambert, I believe I will prescribe for this young lady as a psychologist, not as a criminologist.”

  “Dr. Poggioli, we would be more than grateful.”

  “Then suppose you have your family physician give her a dose of bromide.” The clerk who had introduced Lambert laughed at this anticlimax. Mr. Lambert was greatly perturbed. He walked with Poggioli toward the elevator and said in a lowered voice:

  “Her father’s not at home now, but he was last night. He went to bed yesterday evening. At three this morning he was gone!”

  Poggioli instinctively lowered his own tone.

  “Then what did his daughter dream?”

  “That her father was calling for help. She jumped up, ran into his room—and he was gone.”

  “You have no clue as to what became of—”

  “Yes, Laura heard his speedboat leaving the pier.”

  “Well, is there anything unusual in a speedboat trip?”

  “If he was going off in his boat, why did he call for help?”

  “I thought you said she dreamed that part of it?”

  “That’s what we don’t know; maybe it was a dream, then maybe it wasn’t—

  with kidnapping going on everywhere—”

  “Look here,” interposed Poggioli, “if you are really uneasy, why don’t you take the matter to the police?”

  Mr. Lambert hesitated, then stammered—

  “We—we couldn’t possibly take it to the police, Mr. Poggioli.” The scientist laid a finger on the elevator bell.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lambert, but if you find it inadvisable for the police to look into this matter, I’m afraid I can’t go into it either.”

  The caller was greatly disturbed.

  “Wait—don’t ring that bell! It isn’t what you think at all.” He leaned toward Poggioli and whispered tensely, “The missing man is Brompton Maddelow.”

  “Well, is Brompton Maddelow a gangster, or outlaw, or—”

  “Good Lord, no, man! He’s the biggest real estate dealer in Miami. He has more power in that game than—”

  The psychologist stared.

  “Then why shouldn’t a real estate dealer have police protection?”

  “Because if a single rumor should leak out that he has vanished, the mortgages on his properties would be foreclosed at once. They are hanging now simply on Mr. Maddelow’s reputation as a business man.”

  The psychologist began nodding at this odd twist.

  “Mm—I see—I see. But really, from what you say, I don’t believe anything has happened to the man. At a guess, I’d say he is out for a cruise and will be back in a day or two.”

  “Why should he have left home at three o’clock in the morning?”

  “I really don’t know his personal habits.”

  “Well, it wasn’t his habit to cruise at three or four or any other hour in the morning. He never took his speedboat out, because it was too expensive. He— he couldn’t afford the gas and oil.”

  “Tut! That’s nothing; it’s a commonplace in psychology for men to break over from long continued economies.”

  “All right, suppose it is. But why should he suddenly stop working on his colonnade to go cruising in his speedboat?”

  “Working on his colonnade at three in the morning?”

  “Yes, he worked on his columns at night when he got restless and couldn’t sleep. You see, he was a plasterer in Pocatello, Idaho, before he came to Miami during the boom and made such a splash as a realtor.”

  During this conversation Poggioli had walked with Mr. Lambert to the door of the big beach hotel. At the curb he stepped into an old high powered car and started northward. At the third turn of the beach Lambert directed the scientist’s attention to one of the villas that lined Biscayne Bay.

  “It’s the pink one with the royal poincianas in front of it.”

  “Is that the pier where the speedboat was moored?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s Mr. Maddelow’s private pier, six hundred feet long, water seventy feet deep at the outer end. He built it when he was worth ten million in cold cash.”

  “Can we reach the villa from the beach?”

  “By a ramp built into the side of the pier.”

  Poggioli looked at the structure looming above him.

  “You don’t mean he built this just to hitch a speedboat to it?”

  “Oh, no. Mr. Maddelow had ordered a yacht from Germany to fit his pier, when the boom broke and everything fell through. It was a hard blow for him, Mr. Poggioli. I don’t blame him for working on his colonnade at night to keep from thinking about it.”

  The ancient car rattled up the ramp, passed under the poincianas and stopped in front of the pergola which the owner of the place had been building. The final column of the decoration still stood in its wooden mold where the ex-plasterer had poured it just before setting out on his alarming boat cruise.

  The sound of the automobile brought several persons out of the villa. A tall, sun-tinted girl, who evidently had been weeping, hurried to the car.

  “Is this Mr. Poggioli? Mr. Poggioli, what happened to papa?”

  “I have no theory as yet, Miss Maddelow.”

  “Do you think somebody made a mistake and—and kidnapped him?”

  “Made a mistake—how?”

  “Why his having all this—” the daughter indicated the villa with a turn of her head, “a person who didn’t know him might think he was wealthy and try to hold him for ransom.”

  Two other men on the pergola besides the Maddelow son, daughter and mother,

  broke into ironic laughter at the idea of Brompton Maddelow being held for ransom. The girl turned on them angrily.

  “That could easily be! Anybody who didn’t know what bad luck papa has had with his property would certainly think he was rich.”

  The psychologist got out of the car, and Lambert introduced him to the Maddelows and to a Mr. Sandley and a Mr. Lynch who bore an air of also being permanent residents of Villa Maddelow. The scientist naturally turned to the daughter and began questioning her about the call for help that had disturbed her during the night, but she could add little to what he already had learned from Lambert. He then turned to the group at large and suggested in a comforting tone that Mr. Maddelow was simply on a pleasure trip and that they need not disturb themselves about the matter.

  The man named Lynch answered dryly—

  “It takes gas and oil to run a speedboat, Mr. Poggioli.”

  “You mean Maddelow couldn’t afford it?”

  “Of course not,” seconded Sandley in a disgusted tone.

  The psychologist walked to the end of the pergola and saw a small layout for mixing concrete. With this outfit the missing man had erected the final column of the pergola which now stood wrapped in its wooden mold. As he looked at this he asked in a more careful tone—

  “Am I to understand that Mr. Maddelow built all these columns by himself?”


  “James helped him,” said Laura Maddelow.

  “When he stayed up at night working at it,” amplified Lambert. “He often said he made more money at night than he did during the daytime.”

  “How was that?” inquired the scientist.

  “Why he figured the additional value this pergola would give the building would net him eighty-seven dollars and thirty-four cents a night—if times were normal.”

  Poggioli looked at the layout with a puzzled air. “And he put up all these columns?”

  “He and the man of all work. Why?” asked Lambert. The criminologist shook his head.

  “What you tell me makes this vat a rather extraordinary riddle,” he said slowly. The whole group looked curiously at the concrete mixer and asked why. “Because of the concrete that is left in the vat unused,” explained the investigator simply. “If Maddelow had poured all these columns he must have known to the half sack how much each one would take; now for him to leave this much in the vat unused—you see, it contradicts the careful, exact character of the man you describe, Mr. Lambert.”

  Lambert scratched his head. “That is odd—”

  Lynch spoke up dourly—

  “It shows the Emperor knew he was working on his last column and didn’t care if he did use all his cement.”

  Poggioli shook his head.

  “I don’t quite think so. A man who would figure the value of his night’s work to the odd cent wouldn’t dump out the last of his cement. He would try to come out with a sack or two left over.”

  “Look here,” interrupted Sandley, “how is that going to help us find out where the Emperor is now?”

  Laura Maddelow interrupted her co-tenant’s criticism by ejaculating— “Why look, there’s something a lot stranger than a little cement left over in the box!”

  “What is it?” asked her brother as every one followed the direction of the girl’s finger.

  “That new column is yellow! You can see smudges of it on the molds. Papa forgot to put in the pink dye. Why, that column won’t do.”

  Lynch put forth a sarcastic idea—