Comes a Stranger

by E. R. Punshon

  “Very interesting,” said the Major, slightly puzzled, “but I don’t quite see…”

  “Very interesting,” agreed Bobby, and his mind went back to that series of the various issues of the first edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, each of them containing the autograph of a famous man, even though that of Dryden had been missing from the copy he had picked up.

  It seemed the Kayne library had indeed many treasures; and Bobby felt his mind, as it were, searching, probing, wondering, as if vaguely knowing that in these series of ancient autographed volumes was somehow concealed a clue to the murder of the night before in the sunken lane through the Wynton wood.

  “Spent his money like that,” Virtue went on; “he had a pile came to him from an aunt, so he was independent. He hadn’t a big share in the business then. It was understood he had the aunt’s money, so his elder brother was to have the business. Well, James A. started off on one of his European trips, and while he was away his father—my uncle Art—and his brother, Art, Junior, were both killed in an auto smash. That meant their business interests passed to James A. under an old will. Since then, we’ve never heard a thing of James A., whether he’s alive or whether he’s dead. We traced him here, to this village. He had had a talk or two with Mr. Broast, showed him a rare book he was very proud of, printed by Caxton, swell copy, the Dictes it was.”

  “Dictes?” repeated Bobby, remembering that was the title of a rare and fine specimen of Caxton’s work Mr. Broast had seemed proud the library possessed.

  “Yes, Apple of James A.’s eye, it was. Well, from here we traced him to Dublin. He had a girl with him. He often had. Seems they created a disturbance and were asked to leave. That wasn’t a bit like James A. We didn’t believe it was him at first, but the hotel people still had his photo; the girl with him had amused herself by sticking up in the dining-room and throwing knives at— Had too much to drink, probably. It was him all right, the photo, I mean. He had a trick of giving his photo to girls he picked up, his technique, so to say, to persuade them he really loved them alone, that sort of thing.”

  “This was ten years ago?” Bobby interrupted quickly.

  “More,” Virtue answered. “I get you. Sounds like it was him gave this Perkins girl the photo she showed you? But that was only two years back, she says, and ten years back, she must have been only a kiddy. Don’t seem to fit, does it? Because, if it was James A. Miss Perkins means, well, where has he been all this time, and how’s he been living? Doesn’t seem possible to me it was him.”

  “It certainly seems difficult,” Bobby agreed.

  “After the Dublin affair there was no trace of him,” Virtue continued, “till his baggage turned up in a Paris hotel. It had been registered through from London and never claimed. And that’s all we ever knew. Awkward for business, because he and his mother between them hold a majority of the units, and no one knows whether he is alive or dead—not that there’s much chance of his being alive after all this time.”

  “Can’t you get his death presumed?” asked the Major. “That could be done here. The courts would do that on application. After less than ten years. That would be the normal procedure.”

  “Yes,” agreed Virtue, “but aunt—his mother, I mean—won’t stand for it. She won’t have it he’s dead—expects him to walk in any day. It’s about all that keeps her alive, poor soul. And she’s got it into her head that presuming his death is just taking away his last chance. If we could get actual proof, she would be more satisfied. But she’s not going to have it presumed, and the trustees back her up good and hard. You see, if death was presumed, the trust could be wound up and that means they would lose their fees—five thousand dollars a year. Well, they don’t see why that should happen any sooner than it’s got to. It’s a lump of overhead for us to carry, only it’s not so easy to dig folks out of a nice fat job like that. They tend to hang on. Also they’re an obstructive element. They don’t want to develop. Why should they? If we went big, if we sent our sales up ten times over, if we covered ten times the territory we do, their fees would stay the same. Not a cent more. So they want to stand pat, play for safety, refuse consent to any development scheme, and the result is we are getting more and more tied up all the time. It’s getting to mean a lot to the family to find out for sure what happened to James A.”

  “That is your errand over here?”

  “That’s so.”

  “Have you had any success yet?”

  “Well, you know, I haven’t been on the job so long,” Virtue answered.

  The Major was looking worried and perplexed. He did not see clearly where all this tended. Very specially, he did not see what connection there could be between the disappearance of a young American ten years ago and the mysterious murder of poor young Nat Kayne it was his pressing duty to investigate.

  “It’s because of your cousin’s connection with the Kayne library as a buyer of books from it that you are here?” Bobby said suddenly

  “That’s so,” Virtue agreed.

  The Major go to his feet.

  “Mr. Virtue,” he said, “I don’t profess to understand your story. I don’t think you have been entirely frank with us. We shall make further inquiries, and we shall have to ask you for a formal written statement. For the moment things can be left as they are. There is a good deal to attend to. In the meantime, I will ask you to think over your position very carefully and consider whether there is not something more you can tell us to make the position plainer. Also I must ask you to undertake not to leave here for the present.”

  “That’s all right,” Virtue answered. “I realize I’m in a jam. But I’ve nothing to do with any shooting. Why should I?”

  The Major made no answer. He opened the door and went out. Bobby, in the act of following him, said to Virtue:

  “Much better tell us all about it, you know.”

  “Well,” Virtue answered slowly, “there is such a thing as jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I’ve got to consider my position pretty carefully. I’m a foreigner here and I’ve got to think twice before saying anything.”

  Bobby nodded, wondered what Virtue meant by talking about out of the frying pan into the fire, since surely suspicion of murder was itself rather a very hot fire than a comparatively cool frying pan, and caught up with the Major who was standing by his car outside, looking at some papers a messenger had just brought him. He glanced up, as Bobby came near and said:

  “Well, what do you make of all that?”

  “Sounded to me, sir,” Bobby answered, “as if Virtue believes some clue to what happened to his missing cousin is somewhere in the library—some book perhaps he bought or wanted, or something like that. Mr. Broast refused to let Virtue see over it, so he invented this story as a way of getting a search made. You remember how he kept insisting on what he called his right to be present?”

  “Preposterous,” growled the Major. “Absurd. Does he think there’s a dead body hidden behind the books on the shelves somewhere?”

  Bobby said nothing. The Major flung down the papers he was holding. Very red and angry looking, he said:

  “I suppose you haven’t got it into your head this has anything to do with Miss Kayne’s telling you she had committed the perfect murder?”

  Bobby continued to say nothing. The Major got more and more red, more and more angry-looking. He picked up again the papers he had just thrown into the car.

  “I can’t spend any more time running round,” he said. “Everyone’s waiting for orders. Half of them can’t blow their own noses till they’ve had official instructions. It’s incredible, anyhow, Miss Kayne! You might as well suspect a bishop. Preposterous. Incredible.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby, “only things so often are, aren’t they? Incredible world altogether, sir, if I may say so.”

  “Hang it all, man alive,” protested the Major. “Why should she? how could she? When could she? This fellow is said to have been missing ten years—ten years—and he had nothing to
do with anyone here, except that he bought books. Good customer, too, apparently, paid a high price. Well, you don’t murder a man because he’s buying the books you want to sell, do you?”

  “Well, sir, of course it does seem a poor way to encourage trade,” agreed Bobby. “When I was in the library yesterday Mr. Broast showed us a set of Milton, each copy with a famous autograph in it except one I looked at. Mr. Broast was very annoyed. It was Dryden’s autograph I wanted to see. Mr. Broast said it was in another copy. He seemed very upset. I don’t know why. I noticed he sold the missing Mr. Virtue a set of someone’s books that all had autographs of famous people in them, too.”

  “Well, why not?” asked the Major. “I believe Broast is famous for that kind of bibliographical discovery. What about it?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Bobby answered. “I just noticed it. Point N. sir, so to say.”

  The Major grunted.

  “We’ve got to remember it’s a murder last night we’ve on our hands,” he said, “not an American missing ten years ago. I would like to know what’s behind that girl’s story, though. Have to talk to her again as soon as there’s time.”

  He got into the car. Bobby followed, and they were just about to start when Mr. Adams came out of the inn. He had been watching them through a window and now he came hurrying out. But the Major greeted him with a scowl.

  “No time now,” he said. “Everything’s hung up—even if there’s been a murder there’s all the usual work to attend to. Owen, you hear what Mr. Adams has to say and then report to me.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Bobby.

  The Major made another grab at his letters as Bobby prepared to alight, and he looked very worried.

  “I’ve got to see about these,” he said. “Can’t have everything else at a standstill. There’s Broast, too, got to see what he has to say. Sir William, as well. We’ve got to know what that quarrel was about you spoke of.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby. “I believe Sir William motored across to see Mr. Broast last night. I was there when the ’phone message came. He would have to pass where the sunk lane enters the wood. He may have seen something.”

  “Well, look into it,” said the Major. “Get rid of Adams first and then see Sir William and hear what he has to say and report back to me. I shall be busy till lunch or later. If Sir William has anything to say bring him over with you. We can lunch here.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Bobby again.

  He alighted. The Major started the car and drove off. Bobby said to Mr. Adams, who was looking half inclined to retreat again:

  “There is something you wish to say?”

  Mr. Adams hesitated, looked very uncomfortable, coughed, and said nothing.

  “I suppose,” Bobby went on, “you have your passport with you? Could I see it?”

  “That’s just it,” sighed Mr. Adams. “I haven’t got one—at least, I mean, not an American one. I suppose you will be making inquiries about everyone here in view of this most unfortunate occurrence so I feel it advisable to explain. I have no connection with the University of Nebraska or with any University. I am a British subject and I live in this country.”

  Bobby looked at him doubtfully.

  “Your correct name and address, please?” he said.

  “I deeply regret,” said Mr. Adams primly, “that in the circumstances I feel unable to answer your question. I trust you will believe me when I say how really unfortunate I feel it that I am obliged to decline to give you any information whatsoever.”

  CHAPTER XII

  LIBRARY SCENE

  “Oh,” said Bobby, somewhat taken aback. “Dear me,” he said, “someone else, I suppose, who prefers the frying pan to the fire?”

  “I fear,” said Mr. Adams, “I do not altogether succeed in grasping your meaning.”

  He stood there, mild and respectable, his hands folded together, peering short-sightedly from behind his glasses, looking exactly like a meditative sheep. And Bobby reflected that while a pig may be the symbol of obstinacy, as a matter of fact a sheep is often ten times harder to move. The pig may want to go its own way, the sheep merely remains immobile. Bobby turned to Robins, the inn factotum, who was hovering near, and asked him to bring his motor-cycle from the shed where it was stored. Then he said to Mr. Adams:

  “Well, of course, if you won’t answer my questions I shall have to ask you to come along to the police station.”

  “I regret,” explained Mr. Adams mildly, “to seem disobliging, but I fear I must decline. It would be an entirely useless waste of time.”

  “Mr. Adams,” said Bobby, “do you know a murder was committed last night near here?”

  “So I am informed by current report,” replied Mr. Adams. “I trust you do not need my assurance that I am entirely ignorant of the circumstances surrounding such a lamentable occurrence.”

  “Your assurance seems pretty badly needed,” retorted Bobby. “You admit you are here under a false name and description. Also we have information that you were seen near the library building, in private grounds so you were trespassing anyhow. That was last night.”

  “I imagined I had been seen,” agreed Mr. Adams. “I heard someone shouting. It is why I departed. Mr. Broast, I presume?”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I regret that as I have already informed you certain circumstances make it impossible for me to offer the explanations I would otherwise gladly impart to you.”

  “Now you just understand this, Mr. Adams,” said Bobby crossly. “No circumstances excuse withholding information from the police—above all in a murder case. Do you know what is meant by being an accessory after the fact?”

  “I am not,” confessed Mr. Adams, “well acquainted with legal phraseology. I should be inclined to presume that it indicates—er—some degree of complicity. That I beg you to believe would be an entirely erroneous impression. I think I may go so far as to inform erroneous impression. I think I may go so far as to inform you that I was in my room, engaged with my correspondence, from about nine o’clock, or very soon after, till the hour appropriate for retirement. That, if I am correctly informed,” he concluded, “is what is known as an alibi.”

  “You didn’t go out at all?” Bobby asked.

  “I remained the whole evening from nine onwards within the privacy of my apartment. The correspondence with which I was engaged was of primary importance.”

  “What was it about?”

  “I have already explained,” replied Mr. Adams gently, “that until the matter has received further and careful consideration I am unwilling, indeed unable, to submit to interrogation.”

  “That exposes you to grave suspicion,” Bobby pointed out, not quite sure yet whether to be angry, bewildered, or merely amused by the other’s calm and gentle obstinacy, a little like that of a feather pillow you can pommel as much as you like with remarkably little effect.

  “It is an attitude on your part I must confess appears to me distinctly unreasonable,” declared Mr. Adams in mild protest. “I was within my room at the moment when this unfortunate young man met his death. I was in no way concerned with him, I had no dealings with him whatever. To the best of my knowledge I have never even seen him. I was aware, naturally, that he was a trustee of the Kayne library, but I gathered he was concerned solely with the financial aspects. I doubt, I seriously doubt,” said Mr. Adams with a touch of heat coming into his calm and level tones, “if he would have known the difference between a signature and a colophon—incredible as that may seem to most of us.”

  Bobby, who had no idea himself of the technical meaning of the word ‘signature’ in bibliography, passed this over.

  “I believe,” he said, “you had applied for permission to visit the library and had been refused?”

  “I perceive you have taken steps to obtain certain information,” observed Mr. Adams. “I presume in the course of your official inquiries. It is, however, not entirely accurate. It was permission to examine clos
ely the Mandeville leaves that was so remarkably refused me. Mr. Broast chose to behave in a manner I can only describe as—unprecedented. Yes, unprecedented,” repeated Mr. Adams firmly. “He literally—I choose the word with deliberation—he literally snatched the camera from my hands. It is one of considerable value, nor is it my personal property. For a moment he appeared to contemplate inflicting serious and deliberate injury on it. He contented himself with removing the roll of film and destroying it by exposure.”

  “Had you taken any snaps?” Bobby asked.

  “I had secured two of the Jason, to my mind the most remarkable exhibit in the library.”

  “I thought the Mandeville pages were that?” observed Bobby, who had not before heard of the Jason.

  “In my considered opinion,” said Mr. Adams with such a slow solemnity of utterance as the head of a state might use when speaking of issues of peace and war, “the Fust and Schoeffer Romance of Jason is the most important production known to bibliographists. Although I am aware the statement may be disputed, I consider it proved that this, the only copy known, is the first book ever printed, anterior to the Psalter issued in Mayennce in 1457, anterior to the 32-line Bible, anterior to the great 42-line Bible, commonly known as the Gutenberg Bible. No one,” said Mr. Adams, warming to his theme, “can deny that the Gutenberg Bible necessitated the usage of an enormous fount of letters—about 2,700 to the page. It follows, therefore, of necessity, that that fount of letters must have been in existence, and it may be concluded had been previously made use of. So great an undertaking as the 42-line Bible could not possibly have been launched without previous trials. Of these undoubtedly the Jason was the first actually completed. For certain technical reasons which I could not fully explain to you without the use of diagrams, I consider that the letters used in the Jason of which it is merely perverse to doubt the genuineness, were some of those subsequently made use of in the printing of the Gutenberg, or 42-line Bible.”