X. Jones—Of Scotland Yard

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  Referring to the above, Marceau, armed with a pair of Lilliputian shoes—we will go later into the matter of where and how he obtained them—rolled himself in as far as the “circle” aaaa (shown by total cross-hatched area above), except that, of course, because of the distortion of his sense of circularity due to spiralling around, it was ellipse aaaa! And there, in the newly rolled loam along one edge—and at a section which for the moment we may presume was taken quite at random, though, as will later be shown, its taking had very definite motivations—he impressed carefully the short stretch of footprints E, F, I, not only reducing the size of the apparent “footsteps” at I to suggest, evidently, some uncertainty on the part of a small walker—but also creating a definite turning of the footsteps there. Marceau was, let it be remembered, free to walk and kneel all he wished, since the area on which he walked and kneeled was in a minute or so to become rolled smooth.

  Little, of course, did Marceau know that there is such a thing in scientific criminology as a “walking picture,” represented by the complicated equation

  and that certain rough deductions can be made from the “walking picture” as to the general build, size and nature of the walker, and that the general “walking picture” he was laying out satisfied more nearly a certain theoretical Lilliputian being than the being whose presence there on the lawn he thought he was building up! We do know, though, that the first initial impress of his pair of shoelets at E was purely experimental—and far too intense—and that thereafter he immediately reduced the degree of its pressure—and the result was that the pair of prints subsequently found at E, differing extremely in depth from all the others, were attributed to a small being plumping right down out of the air! Anyway, leaving his shoelets standing in the dirt at I, he then corrected his ellipse aaaa down to a less elliptical area, aaab, by “ironing off” its southeast end with his roller. This new area being shown above in double cross-hatching only. Stopping now in his work again, he manipulated his shoelets along one side of this new area, from where he had left them, to a new point—from I to J, in fact, leaving them standing in the dirt, as before—but this time at J. And then resumed his inward rolling.

  How was it his intention to complete this “crossed loop” he so obviously desired?

  The diagram on page 229{!}, in which the path of the roller is indicated by a sinuous ribbon-like area encompassed between dotted lines, will show exactly how, after rolling himself into the very center of his lawn and picking up his flag marker he would have—had he, let us say, desired to proceed out to his flagstone walk—rolled himself out in a simple S-shaped path, merely by ever dragging the roller behind him as he walked so as to obliterate his own footprints as he made them, but ever permitted to sow Lilliputian footprints alongside the roller’s path. As will be seen, he would merely have rounded the point J where he’d left the shoelets standing—thus recovering them!—and, continuing thereafter by degrees, would have extended the tiny footprints down to E—clear on to K, in fact, at which point of turning of his roller he would have extended J, K around to L—and—in reversed footprints—extended his old original line I, F, E to M. I rather think, due to the topography of the region, and due, also, to a most cogent reason given in the next sentence, that shortly beyond the last points shown below he would have crossed slightly to one side or the other of those two now parallel trains, fusing them together as he did so, and continuing them thereafter clear to the flagstone walk as a single confused medley of prints running in both directions and showing merely a re-traced track. The interesting and significant thing is, of course, that a loop made as above—and no more of the trails connecting it to the flagstone walk than are indicated above—shows in entirety from the window of a 2nd floor room of the McNulty house then occupied, it appears, as a bedroom by George McNulty, agent for American sporting goods—including fine binoculars! All further than that being cut off thereto by Marceau’s own house! Which very odd fact, strangely, is practically set forth by a certain statement appearing in that American news story several times now alluded to. But which fact—in the absence of a study of the case from the viewpoint of deviations—meant quite nothing to anybody—including X. Jones!

  But the object of this trail? This loop? Well, we now find a perfect example of the fallacy—and not merely in the deviational theory, either, but in plain downright ordinary detective work!—of neglecting any close contact of the dead man in what I term the 1st Concentric Sphere, simply because that contact comprises a young child or children, or because such individual was not on the spot of the “murder” before nor after, nor because it had neither motive nor opportunity to commit murder. For here, in the motherless McNulty children—Bob, aged 5; Tad, aged 4; and Betty, aged 3—members all of Marceau’s 1st Concentric Sphere because they, like their father and nurse, were his “across-the-hedge neighbors,” we find at last complete illumination. The McNulty children were never questioned; for they were at Drury Lane Theatre, of course, when the “murder” was committed; they were going aboard the American Merchant with their nurse while it was being investigated; and when morning broke and it was a world-wide story, even on shipboard, they were playing all three of them, in the playroom of the American Merchant, oblivious even to the uninteresting fact that the gentleman who lived next door them in England was dead.

  So I can do nothing better now than to present the affidavit—rather statement—of Little Bob McNulty, aged 7, taken late yesterday afternoon at Philadelphia, and cabled to me this morning. Bob was interviewed on his way home from school, in a little parklet through which he passes every day, and is the happy recipient of an American $5 bill, and a further promise of $10 more providing he and his little brother and sister remain silent until Thursday morning upon the subject of the discourse between them and the two friendly gentlemen they met in the parklet. It is to be feared, however, that Bob and his brother and sister will have much to do to earn that final $10, in view of the inevitable visits of various American reporters to the McNulty home, probably by Wednesday night, tonight, to obtain pictures of the children, and further interviews.

  Bob was, of course, at the time of the “Marceau Murder” aged but 5. But herewith let him speak for himself:

  Little Bob McNulty (statement, taken February 23, 3 p.m. Eastern time, by Horace Devitt, assistant compiler of crime statistics, of the I. C. D. S. Company, in Philadelphia): “Oh, you mean that mean man who lived next door to us in Ingle-land? Mr. Marcus wasn’t it? Sure I ’member him. I ’member him well. He talked terr’ble to us three kids. He said that Betty here, who was just a baby then—she’s nearly five now, ain’t you, Betty?—crawled through the hedge all the time and jumped and walked about his old lawn. I talked right up—’course I hadda talk to him through that old horn he hadda hear ever’thing through—well, I talked right up and said Betty did no such thing. Though maybe Betty did, at that! One day—what day?—oh I don’t know—’bout a week, maybe, before we sailed from Ingle-land to visit grandmaw here—Mr. Marcus called me over. Gee—was he mad! He said: ‘You little Amer’can devils, one of you—that she-brat there—was on my lawn again early this morning And this time even came through the hedge, and through my sinkened garden, and onto my stone-flag walk, to tromple my lawn.’ And I said injididently—inta his horn, o’ course: ‘How do you know all that, Mr. Marcus?’ And he said: ‘Ho! How do I know it, eh? I suppose you brats think that because you all get up and play every morning before anybody else around here gets up, that you can get away with anything? Well, if you want to know it, I found her dam’ heelprints’—yes, he swored—‘leading off my stoneflag walk.’ And he added: ‘I’ll spank her bottom if I ever catch her this side of this hedge.’ And I spoke up an’ said: ‘You’d better not—or daddy will spank yours!’ He looked like he was gonna dive over the hedge for me right then, an’ I was scared. I pulled off so’s I could run for it. And I said: ‘Where’s Betty’s feetprints?’ And he said: ‘I’ve tamped them all out now. But get right into that hou
se and tell that started-up’—no, I guess it was ‘that upstarted American father of yours that I won’t tolerake it. I won’t tolerake it. No! Now get in there.’ So I went into the house. Daddy wasn’t there. But I pertended he was. I was mad. And I came out. And I said: ‘Daddy says you’re a Frenchman liar. Daddy says he told Betty not to make no noise early in the mornings, and not to never go over the hedge neither, nor through it, nor onto your stoneflag walk, nor your meadow, nor your drivingway, nor nothing, and that she wouldn’t never do one of them things if he told her not to.’ And Mr. Marcus says: ‘Oh, I’m a Frenchman liar, am I? A Frenchman liar?’ And he kept repiteeting that over and over. ‘I see, I see,’ he said. ‘A Frenchman liar?’ And he went off, mumbling terr’ble.”

  And so there in the half—for it is but a half—of the affidavit of a little boy who never even heard of the Marceau Murder—didn’t know even today that the “Frenchman” back in England was dead, lies the correct motive of why Marceau sowed baby footprints on that lawn. To show, through—of course—the full completion of a trail of such, an impudent upstart American who—presumably—had branded him a liar—that the American’s “she-brat” had disobeyed her father—had walked all over his, Marceau’s, lawn—and after it had been newly rolled at that. And that, moreover, she had again come clear over onto his own property—onto his very flagstone walk—to commit this act of infant vandalism! I have said that Marceau was not a straight thinker. He was, very much so, when it came to Machiavellian thinking! No fool error here such as having a child walk straight to the exact mathematical center of a lawn and out—no fool error here such as having a child retrace every identical foot of its own trail—no!—“Take a look yourself, McNulty”—this over the telephone, the receiver of the instrument stuck in his ear trumpet as, I understand, was his unique method of using the telephone—“through your own bedroom window—yes—with one of those American-made field-glasses you’re trying to flood England with!—for we’ll certainly not damage my lawn further by going out on it to inspect the damage—no, I know you can’t see her trail where it goes out onto the lawn and off—but you can see, all right, where she’s wandered around willy-nilly—airy-fairily—in the center part—the whole of that. Shows, by God, that she wasn’t even recovering a ball—just plain—plain joy-walking—on my precious lawn!” It didn’t worry Marceau at all that an innocent little girl would get her underside a bit—well—pinkened! He wanted to discomfit the “damned American upstart.” Even more, he intended to get apologies—and most humiliating ones, we may rest assured.

  Of course, it’s plain, with even what we know now, that Marceau got hold of a pair of the baby’s shoes. For shoes must fit footprints!—if he were to “let out” on the American. Since the American might take a notion to check the size of footprints—on general principles. And it’s rather obvious that Marceau must have picked up the shoes one day, shortly after the argument with little Bob, just the other side of the low hedge that separated the properties. We may go into this curious angle—and it is curious, indeed!—a little later. But it was with those shoes he went out the evening he did, knowing that he could sow the footprints unobtrusively that night as he worked, and quite unnoticed by any observer—for he had doubtlessly heard, perhaps from his own bedroom window, the children talking excitedly about seeing “The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe” at Drury Lane that night with their father. (Only, alas, Marceau didn’t know they were going to sail for America at midnight after the show!) And as for old Piet Van ’T Veer, who lived in the smokeshack at the back of that adjoining house—well, Piet was stone blind!

  But how are we, at this late date, to confirm our logical supposition as to a plot by Marceau against someone—and therefore, in a sense, against a mere baby herself? And the rationale of that plot, as we have worked it out from its fragmentary and surviving geometry? Fortunately we have—but I will now revert to the second half of the valuable affidavit of Mr. Ambrose Wyrene, given me here at the Hotel Du Nord an hour and a half ago.

  Ambrose Wyrene (continuation of affidavit of February 24th): “Yes, the chap Bartholemy told me in our long discussion of things horticultural, that some American baby-girl living next him in Swindon, Wiltshire, had jumped all over some lawn of his about three days before; that he’d foolishly gone and tamped all her heel marks out—and then, when he’d complained to her father through a messenger, the American ‘lout’ had coolly sent him out a most insulting message to the effect that he was a French liar. He was extremely hot under the collar about it. He said he’d picked up, that day, across the hedge, a pair of the girl-baby’s shoes, and on the first night that would give him ample light to see exactly what he was doing, he intended to roll that lawn, and to sow in it a trail of her footprints leading apparently from some flagstone walk of his onto the central portion, looping realistically about exactly as a child might walk, and then back to the flagstone walk again, more or less haphazardly upon themselves—thus proving to her father not only that she had come through and had done just that a few days before—but had done it all over again, and had, in fact, disobeyed her father on a whole set of injunctions... I was a bit puzzled at first, don’t you know, as to how all this could be accomplished, and asked him curiously just how he could leave the baby’s footprints and not his own. Oh, by any number of expedients, he coolly said, from making them alongside the path of the roller to leaning out over it and making them; in fact he said that he had already worked out the shortest and simplest way to make a trail with an actual crossed loop which could be viewed by his neighbor from the latter’s bedroom window, and which would be absolute proof that the prints could have come there no other way than by a human subject walking... Well it didn’t seem quite sporting, don’t you know, to get a baby a spanking—and, moreover, it seemed like a devilish lot of trouble to go to—but the chap was literally boiling at the insulting message the American had sent him out—and when people boil, you just can’t do anything with them. Emotions!”

  But what did happen on that lawn that night?

  Referring to the footprint trail map appearing just prior to the diagram last presented in this analysis, we know—or at least may assume!—that Marceau left the shoes implanted at the point J of the Lilliputian trail. We know that he continued rolling himself on in to as far as a circle of 4-foot radius. We know that he got to worrying about a rock whose tip he had previously rolled over, and not far, as will be seen, from I. That he walked out to that rock. Which was just at the “bend” in the part of his Lilliputian trail already made. That he kneeled to survey the rock tip. And at such an angle to the straight section of the Lilliputian trail that subsequently it seemed certain that the maker thereof had actually crept up on him.

  And there—right there—was where the first phase of Marceau’s strange epileptiform seizure took place. No—not the seizure itself. Not even the aura. But the pre-aura! The smell of woodsmoke! Alarmed, he looked up. Could—could it be—that terrible sign which always invariably preceded that fearful disturbance of consciousness and body which, at least before he had commenced taking Yttran, had many times occurred in him before? At first nocturnally, the woodsmoke always being then part of a distressing nightmare involving a forest burning, or a log fire, or of a man smoking a twig, or of tramps about a fire of railroad ties; then, later, occurring in the full daytime—such as on that fateful day in the Doctor’s office when he had had to lie, afterward, for hours, on the latter’s couch, too weak and sick to go home? Or was it real woodsmoke? He rose to his feet. Circled about backwards in a small semi-circle—the famous Trail III, running from G to H!—sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. Hoping, hoping, to find that the woodsmoke smell came from a definite direction. Which would prove it to be real—and not subjective. Approximately 180 degrees of such small circle he covered, ever sniffing—And then—

  He saw the terrible baby! That premonitory skeleton baby—advancing upon him—pistol in hand—maggots in its eyesockets. He could not help but scream forth what he did
—so real was that vision. And that vision was the last such thing he ever had—since no epileptic remembers his actual convulsion. His third cry for help was choked off by the convulsive clamping of his chest muscles—fixation of the thorax, as it is termed. And, virtually for the moment a human being whose body was of steel or iron—in the throes of a rare tetanus of pure neurological origin—he fell straight backwards. Unable to do anything. Except to die on his back of complete asphyxia, his head close not to a pair of Lilliputian feet—but to the bend in a trail of Lilliputian footprints he himself had already made!

  But what became of those baby shoes? A light little creature Betty is today, I am informed; and obviously light then. But not so light, her little shoes, that they could be blown away. Hardly! Was their literal dissolution into nothingness some curious aspect of the passing of that autogiro over that region at just around that time? Or was it—an aspect of Black Magic?

  To me, who knows the answer—who has known the answer, in fact, for more than a quarter of a year—I will say that it lies more definitely in the field of Black Magic than of aeronautics—and with the accent, moreover, on the black!

  IX.

  Yes, this bit of Black Magic under which those two shoes dissolved completely is not only, to my mind, one of the most curious phenomena that has ever taken place in a murder mystery, but is the true pivot of this murder mystery.23 For without this dissolution, mystery there would have been practically none!

  And that the Marceau Case is a murder mystery, there should be no dispute—at least under the premises adduced in a previous footnote. For, under them, André Marceau was murdered by his own great-grandfather; stricken down, moreover, within a completely “closed” 2-dimensional space, the blow definitely negated as having come via the 3rd dimension—and reason enough, since it came through the 4th dimension only! And with a swing of 11,059,200 square root of -1 c feet. Or, if stated a bit more naïvely: 128 years—along the axis of Time. The precise distance, in fact, between the moment of the rape of Rebecca Rotskoff—and the instant when the taint disseminated in that specific act of procreation culminated in André Marceau’s death.