Charlie Chan Mysteries - The Agony Column

by Earl Derr Biggers

  Despite the fact that Bray was Von der Herts; despite the fact that he killed himself at the discovery - despite this and that, and everything - Bray did not kill Captain Fraser-Freer!

  On last Thursday evening, at a little after seven o’clock, I myself climbed the stairs, entered the captain’s rooms, picked up that knife from his desk, and stabbed him just above the heart!

  What provocation I was under, what stern necessity moved me - all this you must wait until tomorrow to know. I shall spend another anxious day preparing my defense, hoping that through some miracle of mercy you may forgive me - understand that there was nothing else I could do.

  Do not judge, dear lady, until you know everything - until all my evidence is in your lovely hands. YOURS, IN ALL HUMILITY.

  The first few paragraphs of this the sixth and next to the last letter from the Agony Column man had brought a smile of relief to the face of the girl who read. She was decidedly glad to learn that her friend no longer languished back of those gray walls on Victoria Embankment. With excitement that increased as she went along, she followed Colonel Hughes as - in the letter - he moved nearer and nearer his denouement, until finally his finger pointed to Inspector Bray sitting guilty in his chair. This was an eminently satisfactory solution, and it served the inspector right for locking up her friend. Then, with the suddenness of a bomb from a Zeppelin, came, at the end, her strawberry man’s confession of guilt. He was the murderer, after all! He admitted it! She could scarcely believe her eyes.

  Yet there it was, in ink as violet as those eyes, on the note paper that had become so familiar to her during the thrilling week just past. She read it a second time, and yet a third. Her amazement gave way to anger; her cheeks flamed. Still - he had asked her not to judge until all his evidence was in. This was a reasonable request surely, and she could not in fairness refuse to grant it.

  CHAPTER VIII

  So began an anxious day, not only for the girl from Texas but for all London as well. Her father was bursting with new diplomatic secrets recently extracted from his bootblack adviser. Later, in Washington, he was destined to be a marked man because of his grasp of the situation abroad. No one suspected the bootblack, the power behind the throne; but the gentleman from Texas was destined to think of that able diplomat many times, and to wish that he still had him at his feet to advise him.

  “War by midnight, sure!” he proclaimed on the morning of this fateful Tuesday. “I tell you, Marian, we’re lucky to have our tickets on the Saronia. Five thousand dollars wouldn’t buy them from me to-day! I’ll be a happy man when we go aboard that liner day after tomorrow.”

  Day after tomorrow! The girl wondered. At any rate, she would have that last letter then - the letter that was to contain whatever defense her young friend could offer to explain his dastardly act. She waited eagerly for that final epistle.

  The day dragged on, bringing at its close England’s entrance into the war; and the Carlton bootblack was a prophet not without honor in a certain Texas heart. And on the following morning there arrived a letter which was torn open by eager trembling fingers. The letter spoke:

  DEAR LADY JUDGE: This is by far the hardest to write of all the letters you have had from me. For twenty-four hours I have been planning it. Last night I walked on the Embankment while the hansoms jogged by and the lights of the tramcars danced on Westminster Bridge just as the fireflies used to in the garden back of our house in Kansas. While I walked I planned. To-day, shut up in my rooms, I was also planning. And yet now, when I sit down to write, I am still confused; still at a loss where to begin and what to say, once I have begun.

  At the close of my last letter I confessed to you that it was I who murdered Captain Fraser-Freer. That is the truth. Soften the blow as I may, it all comes down to that. The bitter truth!

  Not a week ago - last Thursday night at seven - I climbed our dark stairs and plunged a knife into the heart of that defenseless gentleman. If only I could point out to you that he had offended me in some way; if I could prove to you that his death was necessary to me, as it really was to Inspector Bray - then there might be some hope of your ultimate pardon. But, alas! he had been most kind to me - kinder than I have allowed you to guess from my letters. There was no actual need to do away with him. Where shall I look for a defense?

  At the moment the only defense I can think of is simply this - the captain knows I killed him!

  Even as I write this, I hear his footsteps above me, as I heard them when I sat here composing my first letter to you. He is dressing for dinner. We are to dine together at Romano’s.

  And there, my lady, you have finally the answer to the mystery that has - I hope - puzzled you. I killed my friend the captain in my second letter to you, and all the odd developments that followed lived only in my imagination as I sat here beside the green-shaded lamp in my study, plotting how I should write seven letters to you that would, as the novel advertisements say, grip your attention to the very end. Oh, I am guilty - there is no denying that. And, though I do not wish to ape old Adam and imply that I was tempted by a lovely woman, a strict regard for the truth forces me to add that there is also guilt upon your head. How so? Go back to that message you inserted in the Daily Mail: “The grapefruit lady’s great fondness for mystery and romance - “

  You did not know it, of course; but in those words you passed me a challenge I could not resist; for making plots is the business of life - more, the breath of life - to me. I have made many; and perhaps you have followed some of them, on Broadway. Perhaps you have seen a play of mine announced for early production in London. There was mention of it in the program at the Palace. That was the business which kept me in England. The project has been abandoned now and I am free to go back home.

  Thus you see that when you granted me the privilege of those seven letters you played into my hands. So, said I, she longs for mystery and romance. Then, by the Lord Harry, she shall have them!

  And it was the tramp of Captain Fraser-Freer’s boots above my head that showed me the way. A fine, stalwart, cordial fellow - the captain - who has been very kind to me since I presented my letter of introduction from his cousin, Archibald Enwright. Poor Archie! A meek, correct little soul, who would be horrified beyond expression if he knew that of him I had made a spy and a frequenter of Limehouse!

  The dim beginnings of the plot were in my mind when I wrote that first letter, suggesting that all was not regular in the matter of Archie’s note of introduction. Before I wrote my second, I knew that nothing but the death of Fraser-Freer would do me. I recalled that Indian knife I had seen upon his desk, and from that moment he was doomed. At that time I had no idea how I should solve the mystery. But I had read and wondered at those four strange messages in the Mail, and I resolved that they must figure in the scheme of things.

  The fourth letter presented difficulties until I returned from dinner that night and saw a taxi waiting before our quiet house. Hence the visit of the woman with the lilac perfume. I am afraid the Wilhelmstrasse would have little use for a lady spy who advertised herself in so foolish a manner. Time for writing the fifth letter arrived. I felt that I should now be placed under arrest. I had a faint little hope that you would be sorry about that. Oh, I’m a brute, I know!

  Early in the game I had told the captain of the cruel way in which I had disposed of him. He was much amused; but he insisted, absolutely, that he must be vindicated before the close of the series, and I was with him there. He had been so bully about it all. A chance remark of his gave me my solution. He said he had it on good authority that the chief of the Czar’s bureau for capturing spies in Russia was himself a spy. And so - why not a spy in Scotland Yard?

  I assure you, I am most contrite as I set all this down here. You must remember that when I began my story there was no idea of war. Now all Europe is aflame; and in the face of the great conflict, the awful suffering to come, I and my little plot begin to look - well, I fancy you know just how we look.

  Forgive me. I am a
fraid I can never find the words to tell you how important it seemed to interest you in my letters - to make you feel that I am an entertaining person worthy of your notice. That morning when you entered the Canton breakfast room was really the biggest in my life. I felt as though you had brought with you through that doorway - But I have no right to say it. I have the right to say nothing save that now - it is all left to you. If I have offended, then I shall never hear from you again.

  The captain will be here in a moment. It is near the hour set and he is never late. He is not to return to India, but expects to be drafted for the Expeditionary Force that will be sent to the Continent. I hope the German Army will be kinder to him than I was!

  My name is Geoffrey West. I live at nineteen Adelphi Terrace - in rooms that look down on the most wonderful garden in London. That, at least, is real. It is very quiet there to-night, with the city and its continuous hum of war and terror seemingly a million miles away.

  Shall we meet at last? The answer rests entirely with you. But, believe me, I shall be anxiously waiting to know; and if you decide to give me a chance to explain - to denounce myself to you in person - then a happy man will say good-by to this garden and these dim dusty rooms and follow you to the ends of the earth - aye, to Texas itself!

  Captain Fraser-Freer is coming down the stairs. Is this good-by forever, my lady? With all my soul, I hope not.

  YOUR CONTRITE STRAWBERRY MAN.

  CHAPTER IX

  Words are futile things with which to attempt a description of the feelings of the girl at the Canton as she read this, the last letter of seven written to her through the medium of her maid, Sadie Haight. Turning the pages of the dictionary casually, one might enlist a few - for example, amazement, anger, unbelief, wonder. Perhaps, to go back to the letter a, even amusement. We may leave her with the solution to the puzzle in her hand, the Saronia a little more than a day away, and a weirdly mixed company of emotions struggling in her soul.

  And leaving her thus, let us go back to Adelphi Terrace and a young man exceedingly worried.

  Once he knew that his letter was delivered, Mr. Geoffrey West took his place most humbly on the anxious seat. There he writhed through the long hours of Wednesday morning. Not to prolong this painful picture, let us hasten to add that at three o’clock that same afternoon came a telegram that was to end suspense. He tore it open and read:

  STRAWBERRY MAN: I shall never, never forgive, you. But we are sailing tomorrow on the Saronia. Were you thinking of going home soon? MARIAN A. LARNED.

  Thus it happened that, a few minutes later, to the crowd of troubled Americans in a certain steamship booking office there was added a wild-eyed young man who further upset all who saw him. To weary clerks he proclaimed in fiery tones that he must sail on the Saronia. There seemed to be no way of appeasing him. The offer of a private liner would not have interested him.

  He raved and tore his hair. He ranted. All to no avail. There was, in plain American, “nothing doing!”

  Damp but determined, he sought among the crowd for one who had bookings on the Saronia. He could find, at first, no one so lucky; but finally he ran across Tommy Gray. Gray, an old friend, admitted when pressed that he had a passage on that most desirable boat. But the offer of all the king’s horses and all the king’s gold left him unmoved. Much, he said, as he would have liked to oblige, he and his wife were determined. They would sail.

  It was then that Geoffrey West made a compact with his friend. He secured from him the necessary steamer labels and it was arranged that his baggage was to go aboard the Saronia as the property of Gray.

  “But,” protested Gray, “even suppose you do put this through; suppose you do manage to sail without a ticket - where will you sleep? In chains somewhere below, I fancy.”

  “No matter!” bubbled West. “I’ll sleep in the dining saloon, in a lifeboat, on the lee scuppers - whatever they are. I’ll sleep in the air, without any visible support! I’ll sleep anywhere - nowhere - but I’ll sail! And as for irons - they don’t make ‘em strong enough to hold me.”

  At five o’clock on Thursday afternoon the Saronia slipped smoothly away from a Liverpool dock. Twenty-five hundred Americans - about twice the number the boat could comfortably carry - stood on her decks and cheered. Some of those in that crowd who had millions of money were booked for the steerage. All of them were destined to experience during that crossing hunger, annoyance, discomfort. They were to be stepped on, sat on, crowded and jostled. They suspected as much when the boat left the dock. Yet they cheered!

  Gayest among them was Geoffrey West, triumphant amid the confusion. He was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an overwhelming determination to be on the good ship Saronia.

  That night as the Saronia stole along with all deck lights out and every porthole curtained, West saw on the dim deck the slight figure of a girl who meant much to him. She was standing staring out over the black waters; and, with wildly beating heart, he approached her, not knowing what to say, but feeling that a start must be made somehow.

  “Please pardon me for addressing he began. “But I want to tell you - “

  She turned, startled; and then smiled an odd little smile, which he could not see in the dark.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I haven’t met you, that I recall - “

  “I know,” he answered. “That’s going to be arranged tomorrow. Mrs. Tommy Gray says you crossed with them - “

  “Mere steamer acquaintances,” the girl replied coldly.

  “Of course! But Mrs. Gray is a darling - she’ll fix that all right. I just want to say, before tomorrow comes - “

  “Wouldn’t it be better to wait?”

  “I can’t! I’m on this ship without a ticket. I’ve got to go down in a minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he’ll throw me overboard; maybe he’ll lock me up. I don’t know what they do with people like me. Maybe they’ll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no chance of seeing you again. So that’s why I want to say now - I’m sorry I have such a keen imagination. It carried me away - really it did! I didn’t mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got started - You know, don’t you, that I love you with all my heart? From the moment you came into the Canton that morning I - “

  “Really - Mr. - Mr. - “

  “West - Geoffrey West. I adore you! What can I do to prove it? I’m going to prove it - before this ship docks in the North River. Perhaps I’d better talk to your father, and tell him about the Agony Column and those seven letters - “

  “You’d better not! He’s in a terribly bad humor. The dinner was awful, and the steward said we’d be looking back to it and calling it a banquet before the voyage ends. Then, too, poor dad says he simply can not sleep in the stateroom they’ve given him - “

  “All the better! I’ll see him at once. If he stands for me now he’ll stand for me any time! And, before I go down and beard a harsh-looking purser in his den, won’t you believe me when I say I’m deeply in love - “

  “In love with mystery and romance! In love with your own remarkable powers of invention! Really, I can’t take you seriously - “

  “Before this voyage is ended you’ll have to. I’ll prove to you that I care. If the purser lets me go free - “

  “You have much to prove,” the girl smiled. “Tomorrow - when Mrs. Tommy Gray introduces us - I may accept you - as a builder of plots. I happen to know you are good. But - as - It’s too silly! Better go and have it out with that purser.”

  Reluctantly he went. In five minutes he was back. The girl was still standing by the rail.

  “It’s all right!” West said. “I thought I was doing something original, but there were eleven other people in the same fix. One of them is a billionaire from Wall Street. The purser collected some money from us and told us to sleep on the deck - if we could find room.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I ra
ther fancied you in the role of stoker.” She glanced about her at the dim deck. “Isn’t this exciting? I’m sure this voyage is going to be filled with mystery and romance.”

  “I know it will be full of romance,” West answered. “And the mystery will be - can I convince you - “

  “Hush!” broke in the girl. “Here comes father! I shall be very happy to meet you - tomorrow. Poor dad! he’s looking for a place to sleep.”

  Five days later poor dad, having slept each night on deck in his clothes while the ship plowed through a cold drizzle, and having starved in a sadly depleted dining saloon, was a sight to move the heart of a political opponent. Immediately after a dinner that had scarcely satisfied a healthy Texas appetite he lounged gloomily in the deck chair which was now his stateroom. Jauntily Geoffrey West came and sat at his side.

  “Mr. Larned,” he said, “I’ve got something for you.”

  And, with a kindly smile, he took from his pocket and handed over a large, warm baked potato. The Texan eagerly accepted the gift.

  “Where’d you get it?” he demanded, breaking open his treasure.

  “That’s a secret,” West answered. “But I can get as many as I want. Mr. Larned, I can say this - you will not go hungry any longer. And there’s something else I ought to speak of. I am sort of aiming to marry your daughter.”

  Deep in his potato the Congressman spoke:

  “What does she say about it?”

  “Oh, she says there isn’t a chance. But - “

  “Then look out, my boy! She’s made up her mind to have you.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. I really ought to tell you who I am. Also, I want you to know that, before your daughter and I met, I wrote her seven letters - “

  “One minute,” broke in the Texan. “Before you go into all that, won’t you be a good fellow and tell me where you got this potato?”