The Blind Barber

the moment I will ask only one question. Is there more to come? Is it really possible for any given group of people to get in more trouble than your excellent band has already done?'

Morgan croaked slightly.

'Sir,' he said, with a deep gesture of earnestness, 'what I've already told you is a — a microscopic atom, an invisibility, a microbe concealed in a drop of water in the vast comprehensive ocean of trouble which is to come. You have heard nothing yet, nothing. That my brain is still whole I am prepared to admit, but why it is still whole 1 can't tell you. After the sinister episode of the gold watches… but that's yet to come.'

He hesitated.

'Look here, sir. I know your interest in detective plots, and if I came to ask your aid, I'd want to get everything straight first. That is, I like my own plots to be clean-cut. If it's going to be really a murder story, in spite of all entangled nonsense, I want to know that so that I can be prepared, and not have the whole thing sprung on me as a hoax. I like to see the body on the floor. When somebody disappears in a story, you've nothing solid to go on. It might be — and generally is — a dastardly trick to prove that there's been no murder, or that the wrong person's been murdered, or something that only annoys you… That's from the analytic side, you understand, and not the human side. But, as to the murder, if you ask me at this moment whether there's really been a murder, I've got to admit I can't tell you.'

Dr. Fell grunted. He had a pencil in one hand, with which he had been tapping some notes.

'Well, then,' he said, blinking over his eye-glasses, 'in that case, why don't you ask me?'

'You — er — think—?'

'Yes, there's been a murder,' replied Dr. Fell. He scowled. 'I dislike having to tell you that. I dislike having to think of it, and I hope I may be wrong. There is one thing that, inevitably, you have got to tell me, which will settle any doubts. But one thing I insist on. Don't be afraid of the nonsense. Don't apologise for the vast Christian joy of laughing when an admiral slips on a cake of soap and sits on his own cocked hat. Don't say that it has no place in a murder case, or that a murderer himself can't laugh. Once you set him up as a waxworks horror, leering over his red hands, you will never be able to understand him and you will probably never see who he is. Damn him if you will, but don't say that he isn't human or that real life ever attains the straight level of ghastliness to be found in a detective-story. That's the way to produce dummy murderers, and dummy detectives as well. And yet—'

He stabbed at the notes with his pencil.

'… and yet, my lad, it's both logical and ironical that this particular case should produce what is in a sense a dummy murderer… '

'A dummy murderer?'

'I mean a professional criminal; an expert mimic; a mask. In short, a murderer who kills for the sake of expediency. How can a person who's playing a part as somebody else be anything more or less than a good or bad copy of the original? So he eludes us in his own personality, ltd till we've got to judge by is how well he speaks stolen lines. H'm! It makes for better analysis, I dare say, and the mask is undoubtedly lifelike. But, as for seeing his real self in the mask, you might as well question one of M. Fortinbras's marionettes… ' He stopped. The small, lusty eyes narrowed. 'You jumped a little there. Why?'

'Well — er,' said Morgan, 'as a matter of fact, they've — er- they've got old Uncle Jules in the brig.'

For a moment Dr. Fell stared, and then his vast chuckle blew a cloud of sparks from his pipe. He blinked thoughtfully.

'Uncle Jules in the brig?' he repeated. 'Most refreshing. Why?'

'Oh, not for murder or anything like that. I'll tell you nil about it. Of course they're going to let him out to- day. They—'

'Humf. Harrumph! Now let me see if I understand this. Let him out to-day? Hasn't the boat docked yet?'

'That's what I was getting at, sir. It hasn't. Thank the Lord for what you've said, anyhow, because that's why I'm here… You know Captain Whistler, don't you? And he knows of you?'

'I have had some experience,' replied Dr. Fell, shutting up one eye meditatively, 'with the old — um — cuttlefish. Heh! Heh-heh-heh! Yes, I know him. Well?'

'We were to dock early this morning. The trouble was that at the last minute there was a mix-up about our dock or berth or whatever they call it; the Queen Anne didn't get under way so that we could move in, and we were left lying in the harbour, with no chance of docking until about two o'clock this afternoon… '

Dr. Fell sat up. 'And the Queen Victoria is still—?'

'Yes. Due to something you shall hear of in due course, I was able to persuade Whistler to let me go ashore with the pilot; I had to sneak it, of course, or the others would have been wild. But,' he drew a deep breath, 'Whistler knowing you, I contrived to convince him that, if I could get to you before the passengers left that ship, there might be kudos in it for him. Actually, sir, you'll say I had the hell of a nerve, but what I did was practically promise him you'd land him an outstanding crook with credit for it if I could get to you before the passengers left the Queen Victoria.'

He sat back and shrugged his shoulders; but he watched Dr. Fell closely.

'Nerve? Ha! Heh-heh-heh!' Nonsense!' rumbled the doctor, affably. 'What's Gideon Fell, for, I ask you, if not for that? Besides, I owe Hadley one for doing me in the eye over that Blumgarten business last week. Thank'ee, my boy, thank'ee.'

'You think—?'

'Why, between ourselves, I rather think we'll land the Blind Barber. I have rather a strong suspicion,' said Dr. Fell, scowling, with a long rumbling sniff through his nose, 'who this Blind Barber is. If I'm wrong, there'll be no harm done aside from a little outraged dignity… But, look here, why is it necessary? What about this New York man who was supposed to arrive on the Etrusca this morning?'

Morgan shook his head.

'I suppose it's bad to run ahead of my story,' he said, 'but we've had so many mix-ups, setbacks, and dizzy confusions that one more out of place is comparatively small. The Etrusca arrived right enough, but Inspector Patrick isn't on her. He didn't sail at all. I don't know why; I don't make any sense of it at all; but the fact remains that if something isn't done the Barber will walk off that ship a free man in exactly three hours.'

Dr. Fell sat back in his chair and for a moment he sat looking vacantly, and in a cross-eyed fashion, at the notes on the table.

'Um! H'm, yes! Hand me that A.B.C. on the tabouret there, will you? Thanks… What train d'jou take this morning? Seven fifty-three to Waterloo? So. Now, then… H'm yes! This would do it. I don't suppose by any chance you have a passenger-list of that ship with you?'

'Yes. I thought—'

'Hand it over.' He flicked the pages rapidly until he found a name. Then he went very slowly through it, his

fingers following the list of cabins. When he found what he seemed to want, he made a comparison; but it was on the other side of the table and Morgan could not see precisely what had been done. 'Now, then, excuse the old charlatan I moment. I am going to make some telephone-calls. Not Under torture would I reveal what I intend to do, or where's the fun of mystifying you, hey? Heh! There's no pleasure like mystification, my boy, if you can pull it off… As A matter of fact, I'm just going to wire the name of the murdered woman to Captain Whistler, with a few suggestions. Also it would be a good idea to ring up a branch of Victoria 7000 and make other suggestions. Have another bottle of beer.'

lie lumbered across the room, chuckling fiendishly and Stamping his cane. When he returned, he was rubbing his hands in exultation behind a woman laden with the largest, most elaborately stocked lunch-tray Morgan had seen in a long time.

'Mash and sausage,' he explained, inhaling sensuously. 'Down here, Vida… Now, then. Let's get on with our story. There are several points on which I want to be enlightened, if you feel up to talking over the food. Your case, my boy, is the best surprise-package I've opened yet. With each separate event, I discover, there is no telling whether the thing is a water-pistol or a loaded automatic until you pull the trigger. In a way it's unique, because some of the best clues are only half-serious… '

'Question,' said Morgan.