books dealing with the more rarified forms — people like Wirth, and Ely Star, and Barlet, and Papus. But nobody seemed to know anything about his interest in such matters, if — h'mf — if he had any.'
'He was a sucker for it,' Spinelli answered simply. 'Or for anything in the line of glorified fortune telling. He didn't like to admit it, that's all. Actually, he was as superstitious as they make 'em. And the taroc was his favorite.'
Inspector Murch lumbered over and seized his notebook.
'Taroc?' he repeated. 'What's this taroc?'
To answer that question, my friend, fully and thoroughly' said Dr. Fell, squinting at the card, 'you would need to be initiated into the mysteries of theosophy; and even then the explanation would baffle any ordinary brain, including my own. You'll get some idea of the modest functions it is supposed to have if I tell you some of the claims they make for it. The taroc reveals the world of ideas and principles, and enables us to grasp the laws of the evolution of phenomena; it is a mirror of the universe, wherein we find symbolically the threefold theogonic, androgonic, and cosmogonic theory of the ancient magi; a double current of the progressive materialization or involution of the God-mind, and the progressive redivinisation of matter which is the basis of theosophy. It is also —'
'Excuse me, sir,' said Inspector Murch, breathing hard, 'but I can't write all that down, you know. If you'd make yourself a bit clearer…'
'Unfortunately' said the doctor, 'I can't. Damned if I know what it means myself. I only inflicted that explanation, as I have read it, because I am fascinated by the roll and stateliness of the words. H'm. Say that according to some people the taroc is,
Murch looked relieved and interested. 'Oh, ah. Like reading the cards? Ah, ay; done it meself. Me sister's cousin often reads the cards for us. And tea leaves as well. And, lu' me, sir,' he said in a low earnest voice, 'if she don't 'ave it right, every time…!' He caught himself up, guiltily.
'Don't apologize,' said Dr. Fell, with a similarly guilty expression. 'I myself am what Mr. Spinelli would describe as a sucker for such things. I am never able to pass a palmist's without going in to get my hand read, or my future revealed in a crystal. Hurrumph. I can't help it,' he declared, rather querulously. 'The less I believe in it, I'm still the first to howl for my fortune to be told. That's how I happen to know about the taroc.'
Spinelli's lip lifted in a sardonic quirk. He sniggered. 'Say, are you a dick?' he asked. 'You're a funny one. Well, we live and learn. Fortune telling—' He sniggered again.
'The taroc pack, inspector,' Dr. Fell continued equably, 'is supposed to be of Egyptian invention. But this card has the design of the French taroc, Which dates back to Charles VI and the origin of the playing card. Out of the seventy-eight cards, twenty-two are called major arcana and fifty-six minor arcana. I needn't tell you such a pack, or even the knowledge of it, is very rare. The minor arcana are divided into four series, like the clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades; but in this case called…?'
'Rods, cups, pence, and swords,' said Spinelli, examining his finger nails. 'But what I want to know is this: Where did you get that card? Was it Depping's?'
Dr. Fell picked it up. He went on: 'Each card having a definite meaning. I needn't go into the method of fortune telling, but you'll be interested in the significance… Question for question, Mr. Spinelli. Did Depping ever possess a taroc pack?'
'He did. Designed it himself, from somebody's manual. And paid about a grand to have it turned out by a playing-card company. But that card didn't come from it… unless he made a deck for himself. I'm asking you, where did you get it?'
'We have reason to believe that the murderer left it behind, as a sort of symbol. Who knows about high magic in the wilds of Gloucestershire?' mused Dr. Fell.
Spinelli looked straight in front of him. For an instant Hugh Donovan could have sworn the man saw something. But he only sniggered again.
'And that card means something?' Murch demanded.
'You tell him,' Dr. Fell said, and held it up. The American relished his position. He assumed a theatrical air; glanced first to one side and then the other. 'Sure I can tell you, gentlemen. It means he got what was coming to him. The eight of swords—
CHAPTER XIII
Bullet-Proof
Again they were all locked up with their own thoughts, because each new development seemed to lead the case in a different direction; and each box opened up like a magician's casket, to show only another box inside the last. It was growing hot and stuffy in the library. Somewhere in the house a clock began to strike. It had finished banging out the hour of nine before Dr. Fell spoke again.
'So that's established. Very well. Now tell us what you know about Depping himself, and what happened last night.'
'As your legal adviser, Mr. Travers—' began Langdon, suddenly thrusting himself into the conversation as he might have made up his mind to jump out of bed on a cold day; a more incongruous fancy because the man was sweating—'as your legal adviser, I must insist that you confer in private with me before taking any unwise steps…'
Spinelli looked at him. 'Burn, damn you,' he said cryptically, leaning forward in fierce vindictiveness. 'Burn. Sweat. Go.on; I like it…
'I can give the whole thing to you,' he went on, relaxing again, 'in a couple of words. Nick Depping— he didn't call himself Septimus then — was the slickest article that ever came out of England. By God, he had brains! I'll give him that. He came over to the States about eight or nine years ago with the idea of making his fortune, like a lot of Britishers; only he'd thought it all over, and he'd decided that the best way was to teach them new rackets in the home of rackets. I don't know how he got hold of Jet Mayfree. Mayfree didn't amount to a row of beans then; he was one of those two-for-a-nickel ward heelers that hang around speakeasies and maybe can get a few muscle- men to do somebody else's dirty work — but that's all. Well, I'm telling you, Depping made Mayfree a big shot as sure as God made little apples. Depping blew into New York and lived in speaks until he found the man he wanted for his front, and in a year…' Spinelli gestured.
'I don't mean booze, you understand. That's small change. I mean protection, politics, swindles, blackmail — holy Jesus, he could put a new angle on each one of 'em that nobody else would have thought of in a million years! And he wasn't crude: no guns, unless it couldn't be helped, and even then no stuff that looked like a gang killing. 'Why advertise?' he said. 'Let somebody else take the rap.' At one time he was running a real badger-game syndicate: twenty-two women working the hotels for him. An assistant district attorney got nosey. Nick Depping worked it out, planted evidence, and had the man poisoned so that there was clear proof his wife had done it; and the D.A.'s wife went to the chair for it.'
Spinelli leaned back and smoked with a sort of malignant admiration.
'Do you get it? He organized all the little rackets, that the big shots had never bothered with. He never tried to muscle in on them, and they let him alone. Extortion, for one thing. That was how he ran into me. I wouldn't join his union. And what happened? Why, he got me sent up the river for five years.'
The man coughed on some smoke. He brushed a hand over his eyes, which had become watery. Sideburns, hair-line moustache, broad face with nostrils working, all the offensiveness of the man seemed to gather into one lump; to grow poisonous, and writhe on the brown sofa.
'All right!' he said hoarsely, and then controlled himself. He remembered his suavity. I’ve forgotten that, now. All I was thinking — it was queer to see that dry old bird… He looked and talked like a college professor, except when he was drunk. I had one interview with him, the first time I ever saw him; and I was curious. He had an apartment in the East Sixties, lined up with books, and when I saw him he was sitting at a table with a bottle of rye and a pack of taroc cards…' Spinelli coughed.
