'What is the joke, Percy?' his sister asked.
'Those fellows' names, Winnie. Do you suppose there really was a chap called Hashed Banana?'
'Hashbadana, Percy,' she corrected.
'Very well. Hashed Badada then. But that only makes it worse. Sounds as if you'd got a cold.'
'What an absurd boy you are, Percy,' exclaimed Miss Blake, regarding her brother with a fond smile. Then, reverting to her notes, she said: 'The next reference appears to be a mistake, at least I don't understand it. It says "3 Kings 7. 41." Isn't that so?'
'Yes. "3 Lib. Regum 7. 41." But what is wrong with it?'
'Why, there are only two Books of Kings.'
'Oh, I see. But it isn't a mistake. In the Authorised Version the two books of Samuel have the alternative title of the First and Second Books of Kings, and the First Book of Kings has the subtitle "Commonly called the Third Book of the Kings." But at the present day the books are invariably referred to as the First and Second Books of Samuel and the First and Second Books of Kings. Shall we look it up?'
She opened the Bible and turned over the leaves to the First Book of Kings.
'Yes,' she said, 'it is as you say. How odd that I should never have noticed it, or at any rate, not have remembered it. Then this reference is really 1 Kings 7. 41. And yet it can't be. What sense can you possibly make of this: "The two pillars, and the two bowls of the chapiters that were on the top of the two pillars; and the two networks, to cover the two bowls of the chapiters which were upon the top of the pillars." It seems quite meaningless, separated from its context.'
'It certainly is rather enigmatical,' I agreed. 'This is an excerpt from what was virtually an inventory of Solomon's Temple. If the purpose of this collection of Scripture texts was to inculcate some religious or moral truths, I don't see the bearing of this quotation at all. But we may take it that these passages had some meaning to the original owner of the locket.'
'They must have had,' she replied earnestly. 'Perhaps we may be able to find the key to the riddle if we consider the whole series together.'
'Possibly,' I agreed, not very enthusiastically. 'The next reference is Psalms 31. 7.'
'The verse is: "I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities. "'
'That doesn't throw much light on the subject,' said I. 'The last reference is 2 Timothy 4. 13.'
'It reads: "The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments."' She laid down her notes, and looking at me with the most intense gravity, exclaimed: 'Isn't that extraordinary? It is the most astonishing of them all. You see, it is perfectly trivial, just a message from St Paul to Timothy on a purely personal matter of no importance to anybody but himself. But the whole collection of texts is very odd. They seem utterly unconnected with one another, and, as you say, without any significance in respect of either faith or morals. What is your opinion of them?'
'I don't know what to think,' I replied. 'They may have had some significance to the original owner of the locket only, something personal and reminiscent. Or they may have been addressed to some other person in terms previously agreed on. That is to say, they may have formed something in the nature of a code.'
'Exactly,' she agreed eagerly. 'That is what I think. And I am just devoured by curiosity as to what the message was that they were meant to convey. I shan't rest until I have solved the mystery.'
I smiled, and again my glance wandered to the planchette on the wall and the crystal ball on the table. Evidently my new and charming friend was an inveterate mystic, an enthusiastic explorer of the dubious regions of the occult and the supernormal. And though my own matter-of-fact temperament engendered little sympathy with such matters, I found in this very mysticism an additional charm. It seemed entirely congruous with her eminently picturesque personality.
But at this moment I became suddenly aware that I had made a most outrageously long visit and rose with profuse apologies for my disregard of time.
'There is no need to apologise,' she assured me cordially. 'It is most kind of you to have given so much time to a mere counterfeit invalid. But won't you stay and have tea with us? Can't you really? Well, I hope you will come and see us again when you can spare an hour. Oh, and hadn't I better give you this locket to hand to Sir Lawrence Drayton?'
'Certainly not,' I replied. 'You had better keep it until you see him, and perhaps in the interval you may be able to extract its secret. But I will tell him that it is in safe hands.' I shook her hand warmly, and when I had made a brief inspection of Master Percy's building, that promising architect piloted me across the yard and finally launched me, with a hearty farewell and a cordial invitation to 'come again soon,' into the desert expanse of Jacob Street.
5. MR HALLIBURTON'S MASCOT
Emerging into the grey and cheerless street I sauntered towards the Hampstead Road, and having reached that thoroughfare, halted at the corner and looked at my watch. It was barely four o'clock, and as I had arranged to meet Thorndyke at the Euston Road corner at half-past four, I had half an hour in which to cover something less than half a mile. I began to be regretful that I had refused the proffered tea, and when my leisurely progress brought me to the door of an establishment in which that beverage was dispensed, I entered and called for refreshment.
And as I sat by the shabby little marble-topped table, my thoughts strayed back to the great bare studio in Jacob Street and the strange, enigmatical but decidedly alluring personality of its tenant. To say that I had been favourably impressed by her would be to understate the case. I found myself considering her with a degree of interest and admiration that no other woman had ever aroused in me. She was—or, at least, she appeared to me—a strikingly beautiful girl, but that was not the whole, or even the main, attraction. Her courage and strength of character, as shown in the tragic circumstances of the previous night; her refinement of manner and easy, well-bred courtesy, her intelligence and evident amiability, and her frank friendliness, without any sacrifice of dignity, had all combined to make her personality gracious and pleasant. Then there were the paintings. If they were her work, she was an artist of some talent. I had meant cautiously to inquire into that, but the investigation of the locket had excluded everything else. And the thought of the locket and the almost childish eagerness that she had shown to extract its (assumed) secret, led naturally to the planchette and the crystal globe. In general I was disposed to scoff at such things, but on her the mysticism and occultism—I would not call it superstition—seemed to settle naturally and to add a certain piquancy to her mediaeval grace. And so reflecting, I suddenly bethought me of the cat's eye pendant. What was the nature of her interest in that? At first I had assumed that she was a connoisseur in jewels, and possibly I was right. But her curious interest in the locket suggested other possibilities, and into these I determined to inquire on my next visit—for I had already decided that the friendly invitations should not find me unresponsive. In short, the Lady of Shalott had awakened in me a very lively curiosity.
My speculations and reflections very effectively filled out the spare half-hour and brought me on the stroke of half-past four to the corner of the Euston Road; and I had barely arrived when I perceived the tall, upright figure of my colleague swinging easily up Tottenham Court Road. In a few moments he joined me, and we both turned our faces westward.
'We needn't hurry,' said he. 'I said I would be there at five.'
'I don't quite understand what you are going for,' said I. 'This man, Halliburton, seems to have been no more than a chance stranger. What do you expect to get out of him?'
'I have nothing definite in my mind,' he replied. 'The whole case is in the air at present. The position is this: a murder has been committed and the murderers have got away almost without leaving a trace. If the fingerprint people cannot identify the one man, we may say that we have no clue to the identity of either. But that murder had
certain antecedents. Halliburton's visit was one of them, though there was probably no causal relation.'
'You don't suspect Halliburton?'
'My dear fellow, I suspect nobody. We haven't got as far as that. But we have to investigate every thing, person, or circumstance that makes the smallest contact with the crime. But here is our destination, and I need not remark, Anstey, that our purpose is to acquire information, not to give it.'
The 'Baltic' Hotel was a large private house not far from the Great Central Station, distinguished from other private houses only by an open street door and by the name inconspicuously inscribed on the fanlight. As we ascended the steps and entered the hall, a short, pleasant-faced man emerged from an office and looked inquiringly from one of us to the other. 'Dr Thorndyke?' he asked.
'Yes,' replied my colleague, 'and I assume that you are the manager, Mr. Simpson. I must thank you for making the appointment and hope I am not inconveniencing you.'
'Not at all,' rejoined the other. 'I know your name very well, sir, and shall be delighted to give you any assistance that I can. I understand that you want Mr. Halliburton's address.'
'If you have no objection, I should like to have it. I want to write to him.'
'I can give it to you off-hand,' said the manager. 'It is "Oscar Halliburton, Esquire, Wimbledon."'
'That doesn't seem a very sufficient address,' remarked Thorndyke.
'It is not,' said the manager. 'I had occasion to write to him myself and my letter was returned, marked "insufficiently addressed."'
'Then, in effect, you have not got his address?'
'That is what it amounts to. Would you like to see the visitors' book? If you will step into my private office I will bring it to you.'
He showed us into his office, and in a few moments entered with the book, which he laid on the table and opened at the page on which the signature appeared.
'This does not appear to have been written with the hotel pen,' Thorndyke remarked when he had glanced at the adjoining signatures.
'No,' the manager agreed. 'Apparently he used his own fountain pen.'
'I see that this entry is dated the 13th of September. How long did he stay?'
'He left on the 16th of September—five days ago.'
'And he received at least one letter while he was here?'
'Yes, one only, I believe. It came on the morning of the 16th, I remember, and he left in the evening.'
'Do you know if he went out much while he was here?'
'No, he stayed indoors nearly all day, and he spent most of his time in the billiard-room practising fancy strokes.'
'What sort of man was he—in appearance, for instance?'
'Well,' said Simpson rather hesitatingly, 'I didn't see much of him, and I see a good many people. I should say he was a biggish man, medium colour and rather sunburnt.'
'Any beard or moustache?'
'No, clean shaved and a good deal of hair—rather long, wanted a crop.'
'Any distinctive accent or peculiarity of voice?'
'I didn't have much talk with him—nor did anybody else, I think. He was a gruffish, taciturn man. Nothing peculiar about his voice, and as to his accent, well, it was just ordinary, very ordinary, with perhaps just a trace of the cockney, but only a trace. It wasn't exactly the accent of an English gentleman.'
'And that is all that you remember about him?'
'That is all.'
'Would you have any objection to my taking a photograph of this signature?'
The manager looked rather dubious. 'It would hardly do for it to be known—' he began, when Thorndyke interrupted:
'I suggest, Mr. Simpson, that whatever passes between us shall be regarded as strictly confidential on both sides. The least said, the soonest mended, you know.'
'There's a good deal of truth in that; said the manager with a smile, 'especially in the hotel business. Well, if that is understood, I don't know that I have any objection to your taking a photograph. But how are you going to manage it?'
'I have a camera; replied Thorndyke, 'and I see that your table lamp is a sixty Watt. It won't take an unreasonably long exposure.'
He propped the book up in a suitable position, and having arranged the lamp so as to illuminate the page obliquely, produced from his pocket a small folding camera and a leather case of dark slides, at which Mr. Simpson gazed in astonishment. 'You'll never get a useful photograph with a toy like that,' said he.
'Not such a toy as you think,' replied Thorndyke as he opened the little instrument. 'This lens is specially constructed for close range work, and will give me the signature the full size of the original.' He laid a measuring tape on the table, and having adjusted the camera by its engraved scale, inserted the dark slide, looked at his watch, and opened the shutter.
'You were saying just now, Mr. Simpson,' he resumed as we sat round the table watching the camera, 'that you had occasion to write to Mr. Halliburton. Should I be indiscreet if I were to ask what the occasion was?'
'Not at all,' replied the manager. 'It was a ridiculous affair. It seems that Mr. Halliburton had a sort of charm or mascot which he wore suspended by a gold ring from a cord under his waistcoat; a silly little bone thing, of no value whatever, though he appears to have set great store by it. Well, after he had left the hotel he missed it. The ring had broken and the thing had dropped off the cord—presumably, he supposed, when he was undressing. So a couple of days later—on the eighteenth—back he came in a rare twitter to know if it had been picked up. I asked the chambermaids if any of them had found the mascot in his room or elsewhere, but none of them had. Then he was frightfully upset and begged me to ask them again and to say that he would give ten pounds to any one who should have found it and would hand it to him. Ten pounds!' Mr. Simpson repeated with contemptuous emphasis. 'Just think of it! The price of a gold watch for a thing that looked like a common rabbit bone! Why, a man like that oughtn't to be at large.'
I could see that my colleague was deeply interested, though his impassive face suggested nothing but close attention. He put away his watch, closed the lens-shutter and the dark slide, and finally bestowed the little apparatus in his pocket. Then he asked the manager: 'Can you give us anything like a detailed description of this mascot?'
'I can show you the thing itself,' replied Simpson. 'That is the irony of the affair. Mr. Halliburton hadn't been out of the house half an hour when the boy who looks after the billiard-room came bursting into my office in the devil's own excitement. He had heard of the ten pounds reward and had proceeded at once to take up all the rugs and mats in the billiard-room, and there, under the edge of a strip of cocoa-nut matting, he had found the precious thing. No doubt the ring had broken when Halliburton was leaning over the table to make a long shot. So I took it from the boy and put it in the safe, and I wrote forthwith to the address given in the book to say that the mascot had come to light, but, as I told you just now, the letter was returned marked "insufficiently addressed." So there it is, and unless he calls again, or writes, he won't get his mascot, and the boy won't get his ten pounds. Would you like to see the treasure?'
'I should, very much,' replied Thorndyke; whereupon the manager stepped over to a safe in the corner of the room, and having unlocked it, came back to the table holding a small object in the palm of his hand.
'There it is,' said he, dropping it on the table before Thorndyke, 'and I think you will agree with me that it is a mighty dear ten pounds' worth.'
I looked curiously at the little object as my colleague turned it about in his hand. It was evidently a bone of some kind, roughly triangular in shape and perforated by three holes, one large and two smaller. In addition to these, a fourth hole had been drilled through near the apex to take a gold suspension ring, and this was still in position, though it was broken, having chafed quite thin with wear in one part and apparently given way under some sudden strain. The surface of the bone was covered with minute incised carving of a simple and rather barbaric type, and the whol
e bone had been stained a deep, yellowish brown, which had worn lighter in the parts most exposed to friction; and the entire surface had that unmistakable polish and patina that comes with years of handling and wear.
'What do you make of it, sir?' asked Mr. Simpson.
'It is the neck bone of some small animal,' Thorndyke replied 'But not a rabbit. And, of course, the markings on it give it an individual character.'
'Would you give ten pounds for it?' the manager asked with a grin.
'I am not sure that I wouldn't,' Thorndyke replied 'though not for its intrinsic value. But yours is not a "firm offer." You are not a vendor. But I should like very much to borrow it for a few hours.'
'I don't quite see how I could agree to that,' said Simpson. 'You see, the thing isn't mine. I'm just a trustee. And Mr. Halliburton might call and ask for it at any moment.'
'I would give you a receipt for it and undertake to let you have it back by ten o'clock tomorrow morning,' said Thorndyke.
'M'yes,' said Simpson reflectively and with evident signs of weakening. 'Of course, I could say I had deposited it at my bank. But is it of any importance? Would you mind telling me why you want to borrow the thing?'
'I want to compare it carefully with some similar objects, the existence of which is known to me. I could do that tonight, and, if necessary, send the specimen back forthwith. As to the importance of the comparison, who can say? If Halliburton should turn up and give a practicable address there would be nothing in it. But if he should never reappear and it should become necessary to trace him, the information gathered from an exhaustive examination of this object might be of great value.'
'I see,' said Simpson. 'In a sense it is a matter of public policy. Of course that puts a different complexion on the affair. And having regard to your position and character, I don't see why I shouldn't agree to your having a short loan of the thing. But I should like to have it back by nine o'clock tomorrow morning, if you could manage it.'
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