by Otto Penzler
“Oh, don’t be alarmed. It is safely under screw and stopper now and is only being kept as Exhibit A—or, if you like it better, a stage-property in a forthcoming dramatic performance which will be Act Three of the mystery play in which you starred in Act Two, Scene Two.”
“But I don’t quite see…” was met by Mr. Mycroft more graciously than usual with, “There’s really no reason why you should. I couldn’t quite see myself, at the beginning. Yes, I do indeed admire such richness of double-dyed thoroughness when I come across it. It is rare for murderers to give one such entertainment, so elaborate and meticulous. They usually shoot off their arrows almost as soon as it enters their heads that they can bring down their bird and without a thought of how it may strike a more meditative mind afterwards. But this man provided himself with a second string of rather better weave than his first.”
Well, when Mr. Mycroft gets into that kind of strain it is no use saying anything. So I swallowed the I.D.S. formula that was again rising in my throat and waited.
“You remember, when you helped me to my feet and the pen had been salvaged, that with your aid we completed the round of the little lake. But when we had gone no farther than the beginning of the high-backed bridge, I felt I must rest. Do you recall what I did then?”
Could I recall! Naturally, for that was the very incident that had confirmed my suspicion that Mr. Mycroft was really shaken. I answered brightly:
“You sat, I can see it now, and for a moment you appeared to be dazed. And while you rested, as the beautiful old song, The Lost Chord, expresses it, your ‘fingers idly wandered.’ But I noticed that they must be getting dirty, because, whether you knew it or not, they were feeling along under the jutting edge of the slab that made the step against which your back was resting.”
“Admirable. And the quotation is happy, for my fingers were idly wandering (to go on with the old song) over the ‘keys’!”
Mr. Mycroft cocked his old head at me and went on gaily, “And may I add that I am not less pleased that you thought the old man was so shaken that he really didn’t know what he was doing! For that is precisely the impression that I had to give to another pair of eyes watching us from nearby cover. Well, after that little rest and glance about at those sentimental birdy-homes, the breeding boxes, I told you we could go home. And now may I ask you three questions?” I drew myself up and tried to sharpen my wits. “First,” said my examiner, “did you observe anything about the garden generally?”
“Well,” I replied, “I remember you called my attention to the little Nereid who held a spear from which the jet of the small fountain sprang?”
“Yes, that’s true and indeed in every sense of the word, to the point. But did you notice something about—I will give you a clue—the flowers?”
“There were a lot of them!”
“Well, I won’t hold you to that longer. I couldn’t make out myself whether it had any significance. Then in the end I saw the light—yes, the light of the danger signal! Does that help you?”
“No,” I said, “I remain as blind as a bat to your clue.”
“Then, secondly, if the flowers failed to awake your curiosity, what about the birds?”
“Again, a lot of them and I did like that minah bird with its charmingly anaemic hostess voice.”
“No, that was off the trail. I’ll give you another clue—what about the breeding boxes?”
“Well, they’re common enough little things, aren’t they?”
“All right,” he replied with cheerful patience, “now for my last question. When we were coming back do you remember any special incident?”
Then I did perk up. “Yes, of course—the contrast stuck in my mind. After being bathed in all that beauty we passed a dump corner and you got out and hunted for curios in the garbage.”
“And brought back quite a trophy,” said the old hunter as he pulled something out of his pocket, remarking “Exhibit B.”
And then, do you know, my mind suddenly gave a dart—I do things like that every now and then. The thing he had pulled out and placed on the table was only a piece of cellophane or celluloid. It was also of a very crude and common red. It was the color that made my mind take its hop, a hop backwards. “I don’t know what that dirty piece of road-side flotsam means but I now recall something about the garden—there wasn’t a single red flower in it!”
Mr. Mycroft positively beamed. His uttered compliment was of course the “left-handed” sort he generally dealt me. “Mr. Silchester, I have always known it. It is laziness, just simple laziness, that keeps you from being a first-rate observer. You can’t deny that puzzles interest you, but you can’t be bothered to put out your hand and pluck the fruit of insight crossed with foresight.”
I waved the tribute aside by asking what the red transparency might signify.
“Well,” he said, “it put an idea into your head by what we may call a negative proof. Now, go one better and tell me something about it, itself, from its shape.”
“Well, it’s sickle-shaped, rather like a crescent moon. No,” I paused, “no, you know I never can do anything if I strain. I have to wait for these flashes.”
“All right,” he said, “we will humor your delicate genius. But I will just say that it is a beautiful link. The color and the shape—yes, the moment I saw it lying there like a petal cast aside, my mind suddenly took wings like yours.” He stopped and then remarked, “Well, the time has come for straight narrative. We have all the pieces of the board, yourself being actually the queen. It only remains to show you how the game was played. First, a tribute to Mr. Hess not as a man but as a murderer—an artist, without any doubt. Here are the steps by which he moved to his first check and how after the first queen had been taken—I refer to his aunt and her death—he was himself checkmated.
“You have noted that the garden has no red flowers and I have also suggested that the breeding box by the bridge interested me. About the water from the pond I have been frank and will shortly be franker. So we come to our second visit. It was then that our antagonist played boldly. How often have I had occasion to remind you that murderers love living over again the deaths they dealt, repeating a kill. That was Mr. Hess’s wish. Of course, it wasn’t pure love of art—he certainly knew something about me.” Mr. Mycroft sighed, “I know you don’t believe it, but I don’t think you can imagine how often and how strongly a detective wishes to be unknown. To recognize you must remain unrecognized.” He smiled again.
“Now note: You go up to him and ask him not to take photos. He shows first a startled resentment at your impudence, then a generous courtesy as proprietor for your interference on his behalf. Next, a sudden happy thought—how well you would look as part of the picture he was planning. He dresses you up, taking care to place you in a position in which you’ll trip and fall. Now he has the middle link in his chain. But you were merely a link. You see, his real plan is to get me down too. He could, you will admit, hardly have hoped to lure me to act as model for a sun worshipper. But put you in that role and then he might persuade me to get into the picture also. Then, when you went over backwards, you would pull me into the pond as well.”
“But,” I said, “we should have had no more than a bad wetting.”
“I see you are going to call for all my proofs before you will yield to the fact that we were really in the hands of a man as sane as all careful murderers are. You remember that charming little statuette which so took my fancy when we first visited the garden? It was of bronze. Not one of those cheap cement objects that people buy at the road-side and put in their gardens. It is a work of art, a museum-piece.”
“It had patinated very nicely,” I remarked, just to show I could talk objet d’art gossip as well as the master.
“I’m glad you observed that,” he replied. “Yes, bronze is a remarkable material and worthy of having a whole Age named after it. More remarkable, indeed, than iron, for though iron has a better edge, it won’t keep if constantly watered.”
/> “What are you driving at?” For now I was getting completely lost in the old spider’s spinning.
“That pretty little sham spear from which the water sprayed wasn’t sham at all. It was a real spear, or shall we say, a giant hollow-needle. Because it was bronze it would keep its point unrusted. The only effect the water would have—and that would add to its lethal efficacy—would be to give it a patina. Further, I feel sure from the long close look I was able to give when we were being posed for our plunge, the blade of the spear had been touched up with a little acetic acid. That would no doubt corrode the fine edge a little but would make it highly poisonous—though not to the life in the pool.”
“Why are you so interested in the pond-life?” I asked.
Mr. Mycroft picked up the small tube which he had removed from the fountain pen and which was now standing on a small side-table. “You’ll remember, I said this pippet contains an interesting form of life—a very powerful form, if not itself poisoned. So powerful that, like most power-types, it tends to destroy others, yes, far higher types. This is really a remarkably fecund culture of a particularly virulent strain of typhoid bacillus.”
I drew back. I don’t like things like that near where I eat.
“Oh, it is safe enough so long as you don’t drink it.” I gasped. “So, you see, that was his plan. But, thoughtful man that he was, it was only his second string. He was a very thorough worker and had two concealed tools. If you fall over a bridge headlong and just underneath you is a Nereid holding a charming little wand, there is a good chance that you will fall, like the heroic Roman suicides, on your spear and so end yourself; and if the spear has round its socket some poison, the wound is very likely to give you blood-poisoning. But of course you may miss the point. People falling through the air are apt to writhe which may alter quite considerably the point at which they make their landing, or in this case, their watering. Well, thoughtful Mr. Hess realized how much human nature will struggle against gravitational fate—so he provided himself with a wider net. For when people fall headlong over a bridge, the natural reaction of panic is to open the mouth. So when they strike the water, they inevitably swallow a mouthful. And a little of this brew goes a long way.”
“Now, now,” I broke in, “I don’t think any jury will send the nephew to join the aunt on that evidence.”
“Why not?” was Mr. Mycroft’s unexpectedly quiet rejoinder.
“First,” I said, picking off the points on my fingers just as Mr. Mycroft sometimes does when closing a case, “granted this tube does contain typhoid germs, they may have been in this water from natural pollution. Proof that Hess poisoned the water cannot be sustained. Secondly, let me call the attention of judge and jury to the fact that when Miss Hess died a fortnight after her slight ducking, she did not die of typhoid. The cause of death was ‘intestinal stasis.’ Typhoid kills by a form of dysentery. Emphatically, that condition is polar to stasis.”
“You are quite right,” rejoined Mr. Mycroft, “the old-fashioned typhoid used to kill as you have described. But, would you believe it, the typhus germ has had the cunning to reverse his tactics completely. I remember a friend of mine telling me some years ago of this, and he had it from the late Sir Walter Fletcher, an eminent student of Medical Research in Britain. It stuck in my mind: the typhoid victim can now die with such entirely different symptoms that the ordinary doctor, unless he has quite other reasons to detect the presence of the disease, does not even suspect that his patient has died of typhoid, and with the best faith in the world fills in the death certificate never suggesting the true cause. Yes,” he went on meditatively, “I have more than once noticed that when a piece of information of that sort sticks in my mind, it may be prophetic. Certainly in this case it was.”
I felt I might have to own defeat on that odd point when Mr. Mycroft remarked, “Well, let’s leave Miss Hess and the medical side alone for a moment. Let’s go back to the garden. I referred to you as the middle link. I have to be personal and even perhaps put myself forward. Mr. Hess was not averse to murdering you—if that was the only way of murdering me. We see how he maneuvered you to pose and then having got you in place, he set out to get me. You would stagger back, knock me off my perch, and both of us would plunge into the poisonous water, and one might be caught on the poisonous point. It was beautifully simple, really.”
“You have got to explain how he would know that I would suddenly get dizzy, that a dragonfly or something would buzz right into my eyes and make me stagger.”
“Quite easy—I was just coming to that. That was the first link in the chain. Now we can bring everything together and be finished with that really grim garden. Please recall the thing you noticed.”
“No red flowers,” I said dutifully and he bowed his acknowledgment.
“Next, the two things which you couldn’t be expected to puzzle over. The breeding box which you did see but did not understand, and the undercurb of the step which even I didn’t see but felt with my hand. That breeding box had the usual little doorway or round opening for the nesting bird to enter by, but to my surprise the doorway had a door and the door was closed. Now, that’s going too far in pet-love sentimentality and although very cruel people are often very kind to animals, that kind of soapy gesture to birdmother comfort seemed to me strange—until I noticed, on the under-side of the next box, a small wheel. When I felt under the jamb of the step, I found two more such wheels—flanged wheels, and running along from one to the other, a black thread. Then when I knew what to look for, I could see the same black thread running up to the wheel fixed in the bird-box. I couldn’t doubt my deduction any longer. That little door could be opened if someone raised his foot slightly and trod on the black thread that ran under the step curb.
“Now, one doesn’t have to be a bird fancier to know that birds don’t want to breed in boxes where you shut them up with a trap-door. What then could this box be for? You do, however, have to be something of a bird specialist to know about hawking and hummingbirds. The main technique of the former is the hood. When the bird is hooded it will stay quietly for long times on its perch. Cut off light and it seems to have its nervous reactions all arrested. Could that box be a hood not merely for the head of a bird but for an entire bird? Now we must switch back, as swoopingly as a hummingbird, to Miss Hess. You remember the description?”
It was my turn to be ready. I reached round to the paper rack and picked out the sheet that had started the whole adventure. I read out, “The late Miss Hess, whose huge fortune has gone to a very quiet recluse nephew whose one interest is birds, was herself a most colorful person and wonderfully young for her years.” I added, “There’s a colored photo of the colorful lady. She’s wearing a vivid green dress. Perhaps that’s to show she thought herself still in her salad days?”
“A good suggestion,” replied Mr. Mycroft generously; “but I think we can drive our deductions even nearer home. Of course, I needed first-hand information for that. But I had my suspicions before I called.”
“Called where?”
“On the doctor of the late lady. He was willing to see me when I could persuade him that his suspicions were right and that his patroness had really been removed by foul means. Then he told me quite a lot about the very odd person she was. She was shrewd in her way. She kept her own doctor and she paid him handsomely and took the complementary precaution of not remembering him in her will. Yes, he had every reason for keeping her going and being angry at her being gone. She was keen on staying here and not only that but on keeping young. But her colorfulness in dress was something more, he told me, than simply ‘mutton dressing itself up to look like lamb.’ She was color-blind and like that sort—the red-green colorblindness—she was very loath to admit it. That bright green dress of the photo pretty certainly seemed to her bright red.”
I was still at a loss and let the old man see it.
“Now comes Hess’s third neat piece of work. Note these facts: the aunt is persuaded to come to the garden
—just to show that the nephew has turned over a new page and is being the busy little bird lover—sure way to keep in the maiden lady’s good graces. He takes her round.” Suddenly Mr. Mycroft stopped and picked up the celluloid red crescent. “Many color-blind persons have eyes that do not like a glare. The thoughtful nephew, having led auntie round the garden, takes her up the bridge to view the dear little birdie’s home. She has to gaze up at it and he has thoughtfully provided her with an eye-shade—green to her, red to him; and red to something else. “Certain species of hummingbirds are particularly sensitive to red—all animals, of course, prefer red to any other color. When young these particular hummingbirds have been known to dash straight at any object that is red and thrust their long bill toward it, thinking no doubt it is a flower. They will dart at a tomato held in your hand. Well, the aunt is gazing up to see the birdie’s home; she’s at the top of the bridge, just where you stood. Nephew has gone on, sure that aunt is going to follow. He is, in fact, now down by that lower step. He just treads on the concealed black thread. The door flies open, the little feathered bullet which had been brooding in the dark sees a flash of light and in it a blob of red. The reflex acts also like a flash. It dashes out right at Miss Hess’s face. Again a reflex. This time it is the human one. She staggers back, hands to face—not knowing what has swooped at her—the flight of some of these small birds is too quick for the human eye. Of course she falls, takes her sup of the water, goes home shaken, no doubt not feeling pleased with nephew but not suspicious. After a fortnight we have a condition of stasis. The sound, but naturally not very progressive doctor, sees no connection. The police and public are also content. Nevertheless, she dies.”
“And then?” I said, for I was on tiptoe of interest now.
“Well, Hess couldn’t put a red eye-hood over your eyes, hoping you’d think it green and so make you a mark for his bird-bullet. So he put an hibiscus behind your ear. Each fish must be caught with its own bait, though the hook is the same. His effort with us was even more elaborate than with his aunt. What a pity that artists can’t be content with a good performance but must always be trying to better it! Well, the bird sanctuary is closed and with it the sanctuary of a most resourceful murderer.”
