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

by T. S. Stribling

  “Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that.”

  The psychologist paused a moment. Then, “What did your grandfather Blackmar really do?” he queried.

  “He ran a cattle schooner from Tampa to Cuba; that’s all.”

  “No other ports?”

  “No, just Tampa, Key West and Havana....Sometimes he met storms, Julian tells me, and would be gone for a long time, and that’s how such evil gossip got started.” Poggioli nodded slowly, and glanced at the Australian fig, the West African orange and a Fiji palm-nut.

  “No, I’m sure a man of Captain John Blackmar’s scientific attainments couldn’t have been engaged in an illicit calling,” he repeated.

  This completely reassured the girl; she began filling her basket again, making graceful reaches a-tiptoe for some Tahitian passion-apples. As Poggioli got them for her, she asked queerly:

  “Do you believe in bans?”

  “Bans—what do you mean?”

  “Why, they say when Grandfather Blackmar died, he cursed any Mendez who ever comes into this garden.”

  “Why, that’s absurd,” scoffed the psychologist. “There is no such thing as a curse—not in that sense; you know that.”

  “Why, yes, of course, I know that.”

  “So the best thing to do about a curse is to forget all about it.”

  “I know that....Still—now you’ll think this is silly; but awhile ago when we were coming into this jungle, did you have a feeling that—that somebody was here in the dark telling you to stay out?”

  “Why, no, of course I didn’t!”

  “Well—you wouldn’t.”

  “Look here,” protested Poggioli earnestly, “now that is nothing but a complex left over from your childhood. When you caught my arm, you were a little girl again, ten or twelve years old. But you are a grown woman now, married, returned from college, and you can’t be frightened by old granny tales.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Elora gratefully; “that is good sound psychology, isn’t it? It was sweet of you to come here with us; it really was.”

  She finished gathering her fruit and started into the house.

  Poggioli took the basket and went with his hostess into the decaying manor. They found lunch waiting for them. At the table Julian introduced to Poggioli his Aunt Tabitha, his father’s sister, whom he called Aunt Tab. Julian was interested in what Poggioli had thought of his grandfather’s garden, and then went on to ask his guest if he did not think his grandfather could have bought these various foreign plants from some arboricultural dealer in Havana.

  At this a twinge of amusement went through the psychologist. He saw that Julian was trying to devise some explanation for the garden that would have confined his seagoing grandfather to a strict cattle trade between Havana and Tampa. The ironic fact titilated the guest that within three generations, if the Blackmars prospered financially and socially, the family would be immensely proud of a pirate in their lineage, and would resent it bitterly if any genealogist should suggest that the buccaneer in their family was nothing more than a pacific collector of trees.

  Miss Tabitha Blackmar phrased Julian’s thought precisely by saying:

  “The Mendezes always tried to prove Pappy was a rover, by his trees comin’ from so many dif’runt places; but it didn’t require trees or anything else to prove the Mendezes were cattle thieves. Ever’body knew that.”

  “Aunt Tab,” interposed the host, “that has nothing to do with Grandfather Blackmar.”

  “It hasn’t!” cried the old woman. “Sence when, I’d like to know? Old Carlos Mendez not only stole cattle; he shipped ’em by Daddy’s boat, then claimed he driv aboard more than he had, an’ killed Daddy for not payin’ him for ’em!”

  “Aunt Tab!” cried the groom in a shocked voice. “That’s past!”

  “Part of it’s past and part aint!” snapped the old woman, glancing at Elora. “Aunt Tab, Elora has just been through a very trying experience,” reminded the nephew in controlled anger.

  “Jule,” flung back the aunt in exasperation, “what would Pappy think if he knowed his grandson would bring a Mendez into this house for its mistress....A Mendez!”

  “Aunt Tabitha!” cried the master in desperation.

  The young woman arose with a colorless face.

  “I’m not well, Julian....I feel faint. If you and Mr. Poggioli will excuse me, I’ll—go to my room.”

  The bridegroom arose with her.

  “No, stay with our guest,” she begged. “I’m all right.”

  Young Blackmar hesitated, then called Goolow to take a bowl of fruit up for his wife. And the two went up the stairs, the velvety brunette girl followed by the ancient ebony servant bearing a bowl of exotic fruits collected from the garden of a dead corsair.

  When they were gone, young Blackmar turned on his relative:

  “Aunt Tab, it wasn’t necessary for you to mention Elora’s grandfather. She is a Blackmar now.”

  “Well,” snapped the old woman angrily, “they all said I wouldn’t be able to stay on the place after she come, and I see I cain’t. I’ll go with the rest of our folks. I won’t stay where I’m not wanted, even if it’s a Mendez as doesn’t want me.”

  The young nephew sat silent. The old woman got up, clapped on a hat greenish with age, walked out the back door, followed a path through the jungle her father had planted, and was gone.

  A feeling of loneliness and embarrassment penetrated the two men at the table. “Go to your wife,” suggested Poggioli. “I know you are disturbed about her. I think I’ll take a walk out into the garden and look at the trees again.”

  “No, I’ll let her rest; but if you don’t mind, I will lie down too....The train ride and everything—and I’m accustomed to a nap after lunch.”

  The psychologist nodded agreement, and then remembered something:

  “I don’t know whether to mention this or not. I talked to Mendez down yonder in the field.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Well—he told me to tell you if anything happened to his cousin, he would hold you responsible for it.”

  Blackmar stared. “Anything happen to her—what happen to her?” Poggioli hesitated.

  “I don’t know whether I ought to mention it or not....He believes you married his cousin to inherit her property.”

  “Suppose I did, would that cause anything to happen to Elora?” Poggioli cleared his throat.

  “He believes, or pretends to believe, that you—er—plan to put her out of the way.” The bridegroom’s face went bleak with anger.

  “Don’t you see what that means? He has simply credited me with motives like his own. He has tried twice to murder Elora before she has a child; now he suspects that I will murder her.”

  “But look here,” put in Poggioli, “that’s illogical. If Jim R. thinks her death would save the property to the Mendezes, it wouldn’t make any difference who caused it, you or he. He would see that.”

  “No, he wouldn’t see anything! He probably thinks the one who killed her will get the property! You don’t realize the ignorance of these damn’ Mendezes. He threw that rattlesnake in her path. He has been a snake-man all his life. Ever since he was a boy, I have—”

  “Well, I know nothing of what he thinks; but I believe if anything serious should happen to Mrs. Blackmar, Mendez will make an attempt on your life.”

  “If anything serious happens to Elora, Jim R. can do what he pleases with my life: it won’t be worth anything to me.”

  With this he went to his room for his own siesta. Poggioli was not accustomed to a noontide sleep, and walked out once more into the jungle. The place fascinated him. The very kinds of trees old Captain John Blackmar had collected bespoke rather the curiosity of an actual voyager than the choosings of a naturalist. The old seafarer’s taste had turned to extraordinary trees. In the tangle Poggioli remarked an upas tree, the Antiaris Toxicaria, which the rover probably had picked up in Java. Another was a Peul which must have come from
the African coast, and so on and on. In fact, the whole jungle rattled in the wind, a tacit corroboration of the scandals and crimes laid at old John Blackmar’s door.

  A breaking of the twigs behind him caused Poggioli to turn with a start of something like superstitious fear. He recalled Elora’s saying she felt a sinister presence in the green gloom. Then he did make out a figure through the tangle, and ejaculated:

  “Are you still here, Jim R.?”

  The rustic said in his dogged voice:

  “Yes, I’m here....Are you still here, too?”

  Poggioli disregarded the insolence and went around to the fellow. “What are you doing?”

  Jim R. set his heel on something in the moldy earth. “Garter snake,” he said briefly, “hittin’ an’ spittin’.”

  The scientist glanced down at the tiny red-banded thing squirming in the mold. “Why did you come here again?” he inquired antagonistically.

  “Why, I come back to ast you what you come here for?” returned Mendez with a hard look.

  “I’m here as a guest; and now you?”

  The cracker reached in a pocket and drew out a scrap of newspaper. “Aint this you?” he asked suspiciously.

  Poggioli looked at the clipping, and saw his own picture with a brief personal note saying: “CELEBRATED CRIMINOLOGIST VISITS FLORIDA.”

  “Why, yes, it is,” he nodded, wondering at the point of this.

  “I thought it was. I got it from the station-agent, who reads papers.” The scientist was perplexed.

  “I don’t see what my profession has to do with your appearance here. You don’t require the services of a criminologist, do you?”

  “Naw! I don’t want no crime committed!” announced Jim R. hotly. “But by God, I want to know what you’re workin’ fer Jule Blackmar fer? What kind of a crime is he tryin’ to commit, that he has to call in outside he’p!”

  Poggioli was amazed. “Do you imagine I assist at a crime?”

  Jim R. blinked his eyes. “Well, aint a criminologist a man that a criminal goes to when he wants he’p?”

  “Why, of course not. A criminologist is a man who studies to—”

  “But look here: a druggist is a man you go to fer drugs; and a dentist is a man you go to—”

  The psychologist laughed briefly. “Yes. But a criminologist is a man who prevents crimes; he doesn’t abet them. I’m—er—sorry the mistake came up.”

  “Well, it’s all right—it’s all right if you’re what you say you are.”

  With this Mendez moved away through the dense growth with curious ease and disappeared in the green gloom.

  Mr. Henry Poggioli stood for a long time reflecting on the ignorance and vengefulness of the crackers, and hoping that Jim R. Mendez believed his definition of the word criminologist. A hope flitted through Poggioli’s mind that Mendez would look the word up in a dictionary and be certain about it, but then he realized that the fellow possessed no such book.

  Presently it struck Poggioli that now was a good time for him to go back to the railroad and continue his journey to Key West. His own services to the Blackmars had really come to an end. All they had wanted was his opinion to establish their confidence in the honesty and uprightness of old Captain John Blackmar, pirate. Well, he had given that, such as it was, and his mission was ended. He looked at his watch, and wondered if Julian Blackmar were awake. He would like to have Goolow take him back to the station.

  In the midst of these thoughts, he heard some one crashing his way toward him from the big house. He became alert with a feeling that something had happened to Elora Blackmar, and her animal-like cousin was rushing back to take vengeance on him.

  Instead of Jim R., however, he saw the negro Goolow pushing aside the rank growth and looking everywhere for somebody or something.

  Poggioli watched him a moment and then spoke: “Do you want me, Goolow?”

  The black man’s eyes were distended and showed startling whites. “Yas suh—oh, Lawd, he sent me fuh you quick!”

  “Me!” Poggioli moved toward the manor. “What does he want with me?”

  “Set up wid Miss Lory!”

  “Sit up with her—what for?”

  The black man wet grayish lips. “She’s daid....Miss Lory’s daid.” The white man’s heart stopped beating. “You don’t mean—she’s dead!”

  The black man nodded in silent horror, and hurried toward the house. Poggioli hastened his stride to a run, with the wildest conjectures as to the catastrophe.

  In an upper chamber of the manor Julian Blackmar stood over the motionless form of his bride, who lay on an ancient four-poster bed. When Poggioli entered, the bridegroom turned and asked in a gray voice:

  “Have you seen Jim Mendez around here?”

  The psychologist hurried over to the woman, and felt of her hands: “Has she been shot?”

  “Oh, you have seen him?” divined his host.

  “Yes, a few minutes ago—half an hour. . . .What—killed her? . . . Is she dead?” Blackmar made a desperate gesture.

  “You see she’s dead—poisoned....Some kind of a snake.”

  Poggioli was seized with revulsion. He bent down and began examining the motionless figure; he felt for the heart; he put his ear to her chest and listened for her breathing.

  “You don’t mean—he came up into this room—with a serpent!”

  Blackmar made a striking motion, and a spasm went across his face. He straightened and strode across to an old chest in the bridal chamber.

  “But look here,” argued Poggioli, “Mendez couldn’t have got up here unperceived. You were asleep in the room below. Goolow, where were you?”

  “’Sleep on de steps outside dat do’.”

  “There you are—asleep on his mistress’s steps . . . How could Jim R. have got here unobserved?”

  Blackmar drew two pistols out of the chest.

  “Where did you see him?” he asked in a monotone.

  “Wait! Wait!” begged the psychologist. “Let me examine everything. Don’t start a gunfight on bare suspicion!”

  “Where did you see him?” repeated Blackmar with a rising voice. “In the jungle—he came to ask my business.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He was—” Poggioli caught his breath as the significance of this dawned on him. “He was—killing a snake, a garter snake.”

  Blackmar nodded: “Just back from her murder.”

  He started for the door with his pistols. Poggioli thought swiftly.

  “Stop! Don’t go now! I think your wife is still alive....Her heart—have you camphor—ammonia—strychnine—”

  Blackmar looked at him steadily a moment. “You’re trying to stop me—set me to work.”

  “No, I swear, I thought I saw a muscle twitch....For God’s sake, man, won’t you help me with your own wife?”

  The scientist put a knee on the bed, leaned over, placed his palms on the girl’s sides, and began artificial respiration.

  Blackmar came across to his motionless bride.

  “Here, I’ll do that....I’ve studied first aid.” He broke off suddenly and said: “Listen, if you’re doing this just to keep me from shooting Jim Mendez, I—I’ll kill you, Poggioli!” Blackmar made a gesture to Goolow, and the ebony negro shuffled downstairs for the things Poggioli had ordered.

  The psychologist divined that his host did not want any other person to touch the body of his bride, even if she were dead. He stood thinking swiftly over the situation.

  “If we only knew what poison it was!”

  “Why, a snake—a snake!” cried Blackmar, swinging to and fro above the girl. “But that’s impossible! Mendez couldn’t have got in here with a snake....Goolow was on the steps; the windows are too high and narrow, and this is the second story.”

  Blackmar turned a tortured face to his guest.

  “He came up through the chimney....My grandfather, old Captain John, built a tunnel to it from the jungle. Jim R. knew about it....All the Mendezes know.”
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br />   At this extraordinary information, Poggioli looked at the big fireplace in the end of the room. Near it, on a table, lay a paring knife and the dish of fruit Goolow had brought up for Mrs. Blackmar. The plan came at once to the scientist to defend himself from Blackmar’s anger with the ancient fireplace. He went over to it and began to examine its blackened interior. Its ashes were untracked, its soot appeared untouched. He almost turned to point this out to the tortured man at the bed, but decided to save it until his host was calmer. He continued his investigation to fortify his position that Jim R. Mendez had never climbed through the tunnel, up the chimney into the room. The time might come at any moment when he would need such a demonstration out of a bitter necessity.

  Poggioli stooped down and entered the fireplace, then stood up inside the chimney. On the right hand side was set a square of sheet-iron. He worked at this for a moment or two, and succeeded in shoving it to one side. It disclosed a well, a kind of false chimney set with rusting iron rungs. Poggioli stepped into it and began a hazardous descent among a maze of cobwebs. He struck a match in an attempt to determine whether the webs had been recently broken by the passage of a man’s body. As he studied the maze of dusty gossamers, the light showed something like a shelf in the side of the false chimney disclosed by the falling out of one or two crumbling bricks; and back in this hole lay a package quite covered with dust. The match flickered out. Poggioli reached into the darkness, took the package and returned to the light that fell into the great fireplace above. The thing he had found was an old book. In the light he opened it and saw it was a ship’s log.

  As he did so, he heard a sound from the room. He stepped out of the fireplace and saw Julian Blackmar alternately compressing and releasing the girl’s diaphragm at far too swift a tempo.

  Poggioli dashed out.

  “Stop it! Quit that!” he shouted.

  “But she opened her eyes once!” quavered the husband in an agony of excitement.

  “Take it slower—slower! Here—let me do it—get away!”