EBook of Death At The Excelsior, by P. G. Wodehouse

by Wodehouse, P. G.

  Mrs. Pickett was regarding him with an unfaltering stare. To all outward appearances, she was the opposite of unbalanced.

  “But you can’t swear out a warrant without evidence,” he told her.

  “I have evidence,” she replied firmly.

  “Precisely what kind of evidence?” he demanded.

  “If I told you now you would think that I was out of my mind.”

  “But, Mrs. Pickett, do you realize what you are asking me to do? I cannot make this agency responsible for the arbitrary arrest of a man on the strength of a single individual’s suspicions. It might ruin me. At the least it would make me a laughing stock.”

  “Mr. Snyder, you may use your own judgment whether or not to make the arrest on that warrant. You will listen to what I have to say, and you will see for yourself how the crime was committed. If after that you feel that you cannot make the arrest I will accept your decision. I know who killed Captain Gunner,” she said. “I knew it from the beginning. It was like a vision. But I had no proof. Now things have come to light and everything is clear.”

  Against his judgment, Mr. Snyder was impressed. This woman had the magnetism which makes for persuasiveness.

  “It—it sounds incredible.” Even as he spoke, he remembered that it had long been a professional maxim of his that nothing was incredible, and he weakened still further.

  “Mr. Snyder, I ask you to swear out that warrant.”

  The detective gave in. “Very well,” he said.

  Mrs. Pickett rose. “If you will come and dine at my house to-night I think I can prove to you that it will be needed. Will you come?”

  “I’ll come,” promised Mr. Snyder.

  VII

  When Mr. Snyder arrived at the Excelsior and shortly after he was shown into the little private sitting room where he found Oakes, the third guest of the evening unexpectedly arrived.

  Mr. Snyder looked curiously at the newcomer. Captain Muller had a peculiar fascination for him. It was not Mr. Snyder’s habit to trust overmuch to appearances. But he could not help admitting that there was something about this man’s aspect which brought Mrs. Pickett’s charges out of the realm of the fantastic into that of the possible. There was something odd—an unnatural aspect of gloom—about the man. He bore himself like one carrying a heavy burden. His eyes were dull, his face haggard. The next moment the detective was reproaching himself with allowing his imagination to run away with his calmer judgment.

  The door opened, and Mrs. Pickett came in. She made no apology for her lateness.

  To Mr. Snyder one of the most remarkable points about the dinner was the peculiar metamorphosis of Mrs. Pickett from the brooding silent woman he had known to the gracious and considerate hostess.

  Oakes appeared also to be overcome with surprise, so much so that he was unable to keep his astonishment to himself. He had come prepared to endure a dull evening absorbed in grim silence, and he found himself instead opposite a bottle of champagne of a brand and year which commanded his utmost respect. What was even more incredible, his hostess had transformed herself into a pleasant old lady whose only aim seemed to be to make him feel at home.

  Beside each of the guests’ plates was a neat paper parcel. Oakes picked his up, and stared at it in wonderment. “Why, this is more than a party souvenir, Mrs. Pickett,” he said. “It’s the kind of mechanical marvel I’ve always wanted to have on my desk.”

  “I’m glad you like it, Mr. Oakes,” Mrs. Pickett said, smiling. “You must not think of me simply as a tired old woman whom age has completely defeated. I am an ambitious hostess. When I give these little parties, I like to make them a success. I want each of you to remember this dinner.”

  “I’m sure I will.”

  Mrs. Pickett smiled again. “I think you all will. You, Mr. Snyder.” She paused. “And you, Captain Muller.”

  To Mr. Snyder there was so much meaning in her voice as she said this that he was amazed that it conveyed no warning to Muller. Captain Muller, however, was already drinking heavily. He looked up when addressed and uttered a sound which might have been taken for an expression of polite acquiescence. Then he filled his glass again.

  Mr. Snyder’s parcel revealed a watch-charm fashioned in the shape of a tiny, candid-eye camera. “That,” said Mrs. Pickett, “is a compliment to your profession.” She leaned toward the captain. “Mr. Snyder is a detective, Captain Muller.”

  He looked up. It seemed to Mr. Snyder that a look of fear lit up his heavy eyes for an instant. It came and went, if indeed it came at all, so swiftly that he could not be certain.

  “So?” said Captain Muller. He spoke quite evenly, with just the amount of interest which such an announcement would naturally produce.

  “Now for yours, Captain,” said Oakes. “I guess it’s something special. It’s twice the size of mine, anyway.”

  It may have been something in the old woman’s expression as she watched Captain Muller slowly tearing the paper that sent a thrill of excitement through Mr. Snyder. Something seemed to warn him of the approach of a psychological moment. He bent forward eagerly.

  There was a strangled gasp, a thump, and onto the table from the captain’s hands there fell a little harmonica. There was no mistaking the look on Muller’s face now. His cheeks were like wax, and his eyes, so dull till then, blazed with a panic and horror which he could not repress. The glasses on the table rocked as he clutched at the cloth.

  Mrs. Pickett spoke. “Why, Captain Muller, has it upset you? I thought that, as his best friend, the man who shared his room, you would value a memento of Captain Gunner. How fond you must have been of him for the sight of his harmonica to be such a shock.”

  The captain did not speak. He was staring fascinated at the thing on the table. Mrs. Pickett turned to Mr. Snyder. Her eyes, as they met his, held him entranced.

  “Mr. Snyder, as a detective, you will be interested in a curious and very tragic affair which happened in this house a few days ago. One of my boarders, Captain Gunner, was found dead in his room. It was the room which he shared with Captain Muller. I am very proud of the reputation of my house, Mr. Snyder, and it was a blow to me that this should have happened. I applied to an agency for a detective, and they sent me a stupid boy, with nothing to recommend him except his belief in himself. He said that Captain Gunner had died by accident, killed by a snake which had come out of a crate of bananas. I knew better. I knew that Captain Gunner had been murdered. Are you listening, Captain Muller? This will interest you, as you were such a friend of his.”

  The captain did not answer. He was staring straight before him, as if he saw something invisible in eyes forever closed in death.

  “Yesterday we found the body of a dog. It had been killed, as Captain Gunner had been, by the poison of a snake. The boy from the agency said that this was conclusive. He said that the snake had escaped from the room after killing Captain Gunner and had in turn killed the dog. I knew that to be impossible, for, if there had been a snake in that room it could not have made its escape.”

  Her eyes flashed, and became remorselessly accusing. “It was not a snake that killed Captain Gunner. It was a cat. Captain Gunner had a friend who hated him. One day, in opening a crate of bananas, this friend found a snake. He killed it, and extracted the poison. He knew Captain Gunner’s habits. He knew that he played a harmonica. This man also had a cat. He knew that cats hated the sound of a harmonica. He had often seen this particular cat fly at Captain Gunner and scratch him when he played. He took the cat and covered its claws with the poison. And then he left it in the room with Captain Gunner. He knew what would happen.”

  Oakes and Mr. Snyder were on their feet. Captain Muller had not moved. He sat there, his fingers gripping the cloth. Mrs. Pickett rose and went to a closet. She unlocked the door. “Kitty!” she called. “Kitty! Kitty!”

  A black cat ran swiftly out into the room. With a clatter and a crash of crockery and a ringing of glass the table heaved, rocked and overturned as Muller staggered to
his feet. He threw up his hands as if to ward something off. A choking cry came from his lips. “Gott! Gott!”

  Mrs. Pickett’s voice rang through the room, cold and biting: “Captain Muller, you murdered Captain Gunner!”

  The captain shuddered. Then mechanically he replied: “Gott! Yes, I killed him.”

  “You heard, Mr. Snyder,” said Mrs. Pickett. “He has confessed before witnesses. Take him away.”

  Muller allowed himself to be moved toward the door. His arm in Mr. Snyder’s grip felt limp. Mrs. Pickett stopped and took something from the debris on the floor. She rose, holding the harmonica.

  “You are forgetting your souvenir, Captain Muller,” she said.

  MISUNDERSTOOD

  The profession of Mr. James ("Spider”) Buffin was pocket-picking. His hobby was revenge. James had no objection to letting the sun go down on his wrath. Indeed, it was after dark that he corrected his numerous enemies most satisfactorily. It was on a dark night, while he was settling a small score against one Kelly, a mere acquaintance, that he first fell foul of Constable Keating, whose beat took him through the regions which James most frequented.

  James, having “laid for” Mr. Kelly, met him in a murky side-street down Clerkenwell way, and attended to his needs with a sand-bag.

  It was here that Constable Keating first came prominently into his life. Just as James, with the satisfying feeling that his duty had been done, was preparing to depart, Officer Keating, who had been a distant spectator of the affair, charged up and seized him.

  It was intolerable that he should interfere in a purely private falling-out between one gentleman and another, but there was nothing to be done. The policeman weighed close upon fourteen stone, and could have eaten Mr. Buffin. The latter, inwardly seething, went quietly, and in due season was stowed away at the Government’s expense for the space of sixty days.

  Physically, there is no doubt that his detention did him good. The regular hours and the substitution of bread and water for his wonted diet improved his health thirty per cent. It was mentally that he suffered. His was one of those just-as-good cheap-substitute minds, incapable of harbouring more than one idea at a time, and during those sixty days of quiet seclusion it was filled with an ever-growing resentment against Officer Keating. Every day, as he moved about his appointed tasks, he brooded on his wrongs. Every night was to him but the end of another day that kept him from settling down to the serious business of Revenge. To be haled to prison for correcting a private enemy with a sand-bag—that was what stung. In the privacy of his cell he dwelt unceasingly on the necessity for revenge. The thing began to take on to him the aspect almost of a Holy Mission, a sort of Crusade.

  * * * * *

  The days slipped by, bringing winter to Clerkenwell, and with it Mr. Buffin. He returned to his old haunts one Friday night, thin but in excellent condition. One of the first acquaintances he met was Officer Keating. The policeman, who had a good memory for faces, recognised him, and stopped.

  “So you’re out, young feller?” he said genially. When not in the active discharge of his professional duties the policeman was a kindly man. He bore Mr. Buffin no grudge.

  “Um,” said Mr. Buffin.

  “Feeling fine, eh?”

  “Um.”

  “Goin’ round to see some of the chaps and pass them the time of day, I shouldn’t wonder?”

  “Um.”

  “Well, you keep clear of that lot down in Frith Street, young feller. They’re no good. And if you get mixed up with them, first thing you know, you’ll be in trouble again. And you want to keep out of that now.”

  “Um.”

  “If you never get into trouble,” said the policeman sententiously, “you’ll never have to get out of it.”

  “Um,” said Mr. Buffin. If he had a fault as a conversationalist, it was a certain tendency to monotony, a certain lack of sparkle and variety in his small-talk.

  Constable Keating, with a dignified but friendly wave of the hand, as one should say, “You have our leave to depart,” went on his way; while Mr. Buffin, raging, shuffled off in the opposite direction, thinking as hard as his limited mental equipment would allow him.

  His thoughts, which were many and confused, finally composed themselves into some order. He arrived at a definite conclusion, which was that if the great settlement was to be carried through successfully it must be done when the policeman was off duty. Till then he had pictured himself catching Officer Keating in an unguarded moment on his beat. This, he now saw, was out of the question. On his beat the policeman had no unguarded moments. There was a quiet alertness in his poise, a danger-signal in itself.

  There was only one thing for Mr. Buffin to do. Greatly as it would go against the grain, he must foregather with the man, win his confidence, put himself in a position where he would be able to find out what he did with himself when off duty.

  The policeman offered no obstacle to the move. A supreme self-confidence was his leading characteristic. Few London policemen are diffident, and Mr. Keating was no exception. It never occurred to him that there could be an ulterior motive behind Mr. Buffin’s advances. He regarded Mr. Buffin much as one regards a dog which one has had to chastise. One does not expect the dog to lie in wait and bite. Officer Keating did not expect Mr. Buffin to lie in wait and bite.

  So every day, as he strolled on his beat, there sidled up to him the meagre form of Spider Buffin. Every day there greeted him the Spider’s “Good-morning, Mr. Keating,” till the sight of Officer Keating walking solidly along the pavement with Spider Buffin shuffling along at his side, listening with rapt interest to his views on Life and his hints on Deportment, became a familiar spectacle in Clerkenwell.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Buffin played his part well. In fact, too well. It was on the seventh day that, sidling along in the direction of his favourite place of refreshment, he found himself tapped on the shoulder. At the same moment an arm, linking itself in his, brought him gently to a halt. Beside him were standing two of the most eminent of the great Frith Street Gang, Otto the Sausage and Rabbit Butler. It was the finger of the Rabbit that had tapped his shoulder. The arm tucked in his was the arm of Otto the Sausage.

  “Hi, Spider,” said Mr. Butler, “Sid wants to see you a minute.”

  The Spider’s legs felt boneless. There was nothing in the words to alarm a man, but his practised ear had seemed to detect a certain unpleasant dryness in the speaker’s tone. Sid Marks, the all-powerful leader of the Frith Street Gang, was a youth whose company the Spider had always avoided with some care.

  The great Sid, seated in state at a neighbouring hostelry, fixed his visitor with a cold and questioning eye. Mr. Buffin looked nervous and interrogative. Mr. Marks spoke.

  “Your pal Keating pinched Porky Binns this mornin’,” said Sid.

  The Spider’s heart turned to water.

  “You and that slop,” observed Sid dreamily, “have been bloomin’ thick these days.”

  Mr. Buffin did not affect to misunderstand. Sid Marks was looking at him in that nasty way. Otto the Sausage was looking at him in that nasty way. Rabbit Butler was looking at him in that nasty way. This was an occasion where manly frankness was the quality most to be aimed at. To be misunderstood in the circles in which Mr. Buffin moved meant something more than the mere risk of being treated with cold displeasure.

  He began to explain with feverish eagerness.

  “Strike me, Sid,” he stammered, “it ain’t like that. It’s all right. Blimey, you don’t fink I’m a nark?”

  Mr. Marks chewed a straw in silence.

  “I’m layin’ for him, Sid,” babbled Mr. Buffin. “That’s true. Strike me if it ain’t. I’m just tryin’ to find out where he goes when he’s off duty. He pinched me, so I’m layin’ for him.”

  Mr. Marks perpended. Rabbit Butler respectfully gave it as his opinion that it would be well to put Mr. Buffin through it. There was nothing like being on the safe side. By putting Mr. Buffin through it, argued Ra
bbit Butler, they would stand to win either way. If he had “smitched” to Officer Keating about Porky Binns he would deserve it. If he had not—well, it would prevent him doing so on some future occasion. Play for safety, was Mr. Butler’s advice, seconded by Otto the Sausage. Mr. Buffin, pale to the lips, thought he had never met two more unpleasant persons.

  The Great Sid, having chewed his straw for a while in silence, delivered judgment. The prisoner should have the benefit of the doubt this time. His story, however unplausible, might possibly be true. Officer Keating undoubtedly had pinched him. That was in his favour.

  “You can hop it this time,” he said, “but if you ever do start smitchin’, Spider, yer knows what’ll happen.”

  Mr. Buffin withdrew, quaking.

  Matters had now come to a head. Unless he very speedily gave proof of his pure and noble intentions, life would become extremely unsafe for him. He must act at once. The thought of what would happen should another of the Frith Streeters be pinched before he, Mr. Buffin, could prove himself innocent of the crime of friendliness with Officer Keating, turned him cold.

  Fate played into his hands. On the very next morning Mr. Keating, all unsuspecting, asked him to go to his home with a message for his wife.

  “Tell her,” said Mr. Keating, “a newspaper gent has given me seats for the play to-night, and I’ll be home at a quarter to seven.”

  Mr. Buffin felt as Cromwell must have felt at Dunbar when the Scots left their stronghold on the hills and came down to the open plain.

  The winter had set in with some severity that year, and Mr. Buffin’s toes, as he stood in the shadows close to the entrance of the villa where Officer Keating lived when off duty, were soon thoroughly frozen. He did not dare to stamp his feet, for at any moment now the victim might arrive. And when the victim weighs fourteen stone, against the high priest’s eight and a half, it behooves the latter to be circumspect, if the sacrifice is to be anything like a success. So Mr. Buffin waited and froze in silence. It was a painful process, and he added it to the black score which already stood against Officer Keating. Never had his thirst for revenge been more tormenting. It is doubtful if a strictly logical and impartial judge would have held Mr. Keating to blame for the fact that Sid Marks’ suspicions (and all that those suspicions entailed) had fallen upon Mr. Buffin; but the Spider did so. He felt fiercely resentful against the policeman for placing him in such an unpleasant and dangerous position. As his thoughts ran on the matter, he twisted his fingers tighter round his stick.