The Man Who Died Twice
The interval between Acts II and III was an unusually long one, and the three men who sat in the stage box were in such harmony of mind that none of them felt the necessity for making conversation. The piece was a conventional crook play and each of the three had solved the “mystery” of the murder before the drop fell on the first act. They had reached the same solution (and the right one) without any great mental effort.
Fare, the Police Commissioner, had dined with George Manfred and Leon Gonsalez (he addressed them respectively as “Señor Fuentes” and “Señor Mandrelino” and did not doubt that they were natives of Spain, despite their faultless English) and the party had come on to the theatre.
Mr. Fare frowned as at some unpleasant memory and heard a soft laugh. Looking up, he met the dancing eyes of Leon.
“Why do you laugh?” he asked, half smiling in sympathy.
“At your thoughts,” replied the calm Gonsalez.
“At my thoughts!” repeated the other, startled,
“Yes,” Leon nodded, “you were thinking of the Four Just Men.”
“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Fare.
“It is perfectly true. What is it, telepathy?”
Gonsalez shook his head. As to Manfred, he was gazing abstractedly into the stalls.
“No, it was not telepathy,” said Leon, “it was your facial expression.”
“But I haven’t mentioned those rascals, how—”
“Facial expression,” said Leon, revelling in his pet topic, “especially an expression of the emotions, comes into the category of primitive instincts—they are not ‘willed.’ For example, when a billiard player strikes a ball he throws and twists his body after the ball—you must have seen the contortions of a player who has missed his shot by a narrow margin? A man using scissors works his jaw, a rower moves his lips with every stroke of the oar. These are what we call ‘automatisms.’ Animals have these characteristics. A hungry dog approaching meat pricks his ears in the direction of his meal—”
“Is there a particular act of automatism produced by the thought of the Four Just Men?” asked the Commissioner, smiling.
Leon nodded.
“It would take long to describe, but I will not deceive you. I less read than guessed your thoughts by following them. The last line in the last act we saw was uttered by a ridiculous stage parson who says: ‘Justice! There is a justice beyond the law!’ And I saw you frown. And then you looked across the stalls and nodded to the editor of the Megaphone. And I remembered that you had written an article on the Four Just Men for that journal—”
“A little biography on poor Falmouth who died the other day,” corrected Fare. “Yes, yes, I see. You were right, of course. I was thinking of them and their pretensions to act as judges and executioners when the law fails to punish the guilty, or rather the guilty succeed in avoiding conviction.”
Manfred turned suddenly.
“Leon,” he spoke in Spanish, in which language the three had been conversing off and on during the evening. “View the cavalier with the diamond in his shirt—what do you make of him?” The question was in English.
Leon raised his powerful opera glasses and surveyed the man whom his friend had indicated.
“I should like to hear him speak,” he said after a while. “See how delicate his face is and how powerful are his jaws—almost prognathic, for the upper maxilla is distinctly arrested. Regard him, señor, and tell me if you do not agree that his eyes are unusually bright?”
Manfred took the glasses and looked at the unconscious man.
“They are swollen—yes, I see they are bright.”
“What else do you see?”
“The lips are large and a little swollen too, I think,” said Manfred.
Leon took the glasses and turned to the Commissioner.
“I do not bet, but if I did I would wager a thousand pesetas that this man speaks with a harsh cracked voice.”
Fare looked from his companion to the object of their scrutiny and then back to Leon.
“You are perfectly right,” he said quietly. “His name is Ballam and his voice is extraordinarily rough and harsh. What is he?”
“Vicious,” replied Gonsalez. “My dear friend, that man is vicious, a bad man. Beware of the bright eyes and the cracked voice, señor! They stand for evil!”
Fare rubbed his nose irritably, a trick of his.
“If you were anybody else I should be very rude and say that you knew him or had met him,” he said, “but after your extraordinary demonstration the other day I realise there must be something in physiognomy.”
He referred to a visit which Leon Gonsalez and Manfred had paid to the record department of Scotland Yard. There, with forty photographs of criminals spread upon the table before him Gonsalez, taking them in order, had enumerated the crimes with which their names were associated. He only made four errors and even they were very excusable.
“Yes, Gregory Ballam is a pretty bad lot,” said the Commissioner thoughtfully. “He has never been through our hands, but that is the luck of the game. He’s as shrewd as the devil and it hurts me to see him with a nice girl like Genee Maggiore.”
“The girl who is sitting with him?” asked Manfred, interested.
“An actress,” murmured Gonsalez. “You observe, my dear George, how she turns her head first to the left and then to the right at intervals, though there is no attraction in either direction. She has the habit of being seen—it is not vanity, it is merely a peculiar symptom of her profession.”
“What is his favourite vanity?” asked Manfred and the Commissioner smiled. “You know our Dickens, eh?” he asked, for he thought of Manfred as a Spaniard. “Well, it would be difficult to tell you what Gregory Ballam does to earn his respectable income,” he said more seriously. “I think he is connected with a moneylender’s business and runs a few profitable sidelines.”
“Such as—”
