The Blind Barber

'1 exactly. Have you ever reflected,' boomed Dr. Fell, tucking a napkin under his chin and pointing at his guest with a fork in the serene assumption that he had never reflected, 'on old proverbs? On the sad state of affairs which makes old proverbs so popular, and so easy to quote, precisely because those old platitudes are the only maxims which to-day nobody believes? How many people really believe, for instance, 'honesty is the best policy'?— particularly if they happen to be honest themselves. How many people believe that 'early to bed and early to rise' have the e fleet designated? Similarly, we have the saw to the effect that many a true word is spoken in jest. A true application of

that principle would be too exciting; it would call for much more ingenuity and intelligence than most people are able to display; and it would make social life unendurable if; anybody for a moment believed that a true word could bespoken in jest — worse, for instance, than going out to] dinner with a crowd of psycho-analysts.'

'What's all this?' said Morgan. 'You can't hang a man on a joke.';

'Oh, they're not jokes. You have no idea as to the trend of this?'

'No.' 1

Dr. Fell scribbled rapidly on a sheet of paper, and passed it over. i

'Here, for your further enlightenment,' he said, frowning, 'I have tabulated eight clues. Eight suggestions, if you; will. Not one of 'em is direct evidence — it's the direct evidence I'm looking for you to supply in your next instalment of the story. I feel fairly certain you will mention the evidence I want; and my hunch is so strong that I — like several others — will risk Whistler's official head on it. Eh?'

Morgan took the paper, which read

1. The Clue of Suggestion.

2. The Clue of Opportunity.

3. The Clue of Fraternal Trust.

4. The Clue of Invisibility.

5. The Clue of Seven Razors.

6. The Clue of Seven Radiograms.

7. The Clue of Elimination.

8. The Clue of Terse Style.

'It doesn't mean a devil of a lot to me,' said Morgan. 'The first two you could apply in any way you like… Wait! Don't puff and blow, sir! — I say 'you,' meaning myself. And I don't like to consider the suggestion of the third… But what about seven razors? We didn't find seven razors.'

'Exactly,' boomed the doctor, pointing his fork as though that explained it. 'The point is that there probably were seven razors, you see. That's the point.'

'You mean we ought to have looked for them?'

'Oh, no! The Barber would have got rid of the others. All you should have done was remember that they were seven. Eh?'

'And then,' said Morgan, 'this point about seven radiograms… What seven radiograms? There are only two radiograms I mentioned in my story.'

'Ah, I should have explained about that,' said Dr. Fell, skewering a sausage. 'Seven — mystic number; rounded, complete, suggestive number with a curious history. I use it advisedly in place of the word 'several,' because we assume there were several. The interesting thing is that I Hill not referring to any radiograms you saw. You didn't see 'em. That's very significant, hey?'

'No, I'll be damned if it is,' said Morgan, somewhat violently. 'If we didn't see 'em—'

'Proceed, then,' requested the doctor, waving a large flipper. 'I feel positive that before you have finished I shall have noted down eight more clues — sixteen, say — by which we finish and round out our case.'

Morgan cleared his throat and began.

PART TWO

13 — Two Mandarins

Among unthinking chroniclers it is much the fashion, at certain movements of mysticism, to embark on a reflection as to how, if it were not for such-and-such a small thing happening, then such-and-such a larger thing would not have happened, and so on until they have ultimately proved King Priam's bootblack responsible for the fall of Troy. Which is, demonstrably, nonsense.

Doubtless such a historian would say that all would yet have been well, when Curtis Warren was installed in a padded cell on D deck, if it were not for two tiny circumstances harmless in themselves. In proof of this he would point out that — if they had only known it — the conspirators were within an ace of catching the Blind Barber himself at least once that day; and there would have been no more lurid happenings aboard the Queen Victoria. The present chronicler does not believe it. Men go straight as a stream of liquid exterminator from the nozzle of the Mermaid Automatic Electric Bug-Powder Gun along the line (hat is determined by their characters, nor can any horseshoe nail affect their destinies. Curtis Warren, as may have been observed from time to time, was a fairly impetuous young man much influenced by the power of suggestion. If he had not got into more trouble one way, it would have been in another; and only a thoughtless quibbler could lay the blame on such excellent articles as a detective novel and a bottle of Scotch whisky.

Sic volvere parcae! To solace him in captivity they could not share, Peggy Glenn presented him with a bottle of whisky (full size) and Henry Morgan with one of his old detective-novels.

Thereby, incidentally, they showed their own characters. If anybody says Morgan should have known better, it will shortly be indicated how much he had on his mind. Morgan was fighting mad at the perverse orneriness of the Parcae, and his own none-too-good sense reduced to a minimum Besides — as he agreed with Peggy — if that stormy petrel Curtis Warren, were not safe from causing trouble when locked and bolted in a padded cell, where the devil would he be safe?

Now let's quit this philosophising and get down to business.

There had been an almost touching scene of farewell after Warren had been shot into the padded cell by three sturdy seamen, of whom two had to undergo considerable repairs in the doctor's office immediately afterwards. It would also take too much time to dwell on their progress down from the captain's cabin to D deck, which resembled | an erratic Catharine wheel of arms and legs whirling down companionways and causing pale- faced passengers to bolt like rabbits. With a last heave he was fired into the cell and the door slammed; yet, damaged but undaunted, he still continued to shake the bars and hurl raspberries at the exhausted sailors.

Peggy, in a tearful frenzy, refused to leave him. If they would not let her stay with him, she made a loyal attempt to kick Captain Whistler in a vital spot and get locked up herself. Morgan and Valvick also loyally insisted that, if the old sea-cow thought Warren off his onion, they were loony, too, and demanded their rights of being imprisoned. But this Warren — either with a glimmer of sense or a desire to make a gallant gesture — would not hear of.

'Carry on, old man!' he said, grimly and heroically, shaking hands with Morgan through the bars of the cell. 'The Barber's still loose, and you've got to find him. Besides, Peggy's got to help her uncle with those marionettes. Carry on, and we'll nail Kyle yet.'

That Whistler did not accede to their demands for a uniform imprisonment, both demand and consent being made in the heat of rage, Morgan afterwards attributed solely to his desire to produce them as witness to Lord Sturton that he had been treacherously attacked. This did not occur to him at the time, or he would have made use of it as a threat; and Captain Whistler would have been saved trouble, as shall be seen, with the choleric peer. All the three conspirators knew was that their ally had been locked away in the bowels of the ship: down a dark companionway. through a steel-plated corridor pungent with oil and lit by one sickly electric bulb which quivered to the pounding of the ship's engines, and behind a door with a steel grill through which he stared out like King Richard