20 — Disclosure
In a certain big room above Adelphi Terrace, a misted nun was beginning to lengthen the shadows. It was beginning to make a dazzle against a huddle of purpling towers westward at the curve of the river; and from one of these towers Big Ben had just finished clanging out the hour of four. A very hoarse story-teller listened to the strokes reverberating away. Then Morgan sat back.
Dr. Fell removed his glasses. With a large red bandana he mopped a moisture of joy from his eyes, said, 'Whoosh!' with a wheezing and expiring chuckle, and rumbled:
'No, I'll never forgive myself for not being there. My boy, it's an epic. Oh, Bacchus, what I'd give for one glimpse of Uncle Jules in his last
'It's all,' said Morgan wearily, 'I have the voice to tell you now. Also, I imagine, it's all that's relevant to the issue. If you think the fireworks ended there, of course, you still haven't plumbed the spiritual possibilities of our crowd. I could fill a fair number of pages with the saga of pyrotechnics between nine-fifteen night before last, when Uncle Jules threw his last gallant shoe, until 7 a.m. this morning, when I slipped away from a ship accursed. But I can give you only a general outline… Besides, I hesitated to include all the things I have. It was hair-raising action, if you like, but it seemed to me not to have any bearing on the vital issues… '
Dr. Fell finished mopping his eyes and subsided in dying chuckles. Then he blinked across the table.
'Curiously enough, that's where you're wrong,' he said. 'Now I can say positively that it's a pleasure to me to find a case in which the most important clues are jokes. If you had omitted any point of that recital I should have been cheated of valuable evidence. The cuckoo's call is the lion's roar, and a jack-in-the-box has a disconcerting habit of showing a thief's face. But the clues are sealed now; you've provided me with my second eight. H'm! Four o'clock. It's too late to do anything more, or hear anything that can help me further. If I'm right, I should know it shortly. If not, the Blind Barber has got away. Still—'
There was a ring downstairs at the bell.
For a moment Dr. Fell sat motionless, only his great stomach heaving, and he seemed flushed and rather uneasy.
'If I'm wrong—' he said. Then he struggled to his feet. 'I'll answer that ring myself. Just glance over this notation, will you? Here's a list of my second eight clues. See if they convey anything?'
While he was gone Morgan drew out a full bottle of beer from the troop of dead guardsmen that stood at attention on the table. He grinned. Whatever had happened, it was something to write in the note-book.'?' he said, and read on the slip of paper:
9. The Clue of Wrong Rooms.
10. The Clue of Lights.
11. The Clue of Personal Taste.
12. The Clue of Avoided Explanations.
13. The Clue Direct.
14. The Clue of Known Doubles.
15. The Clue of Misunderstanding.
& 16. The Clue Conclusive.
He was still frowning over it when Dr. Fell stumped back, leaning on his two canes. Under one arm Dr. Fell held a package wrapped in brown paper, and in the other an envelope ripped open. Many things he could conceal: the insight and strategy of his nimble, rocket-brilliant, childlike brain, and these he could conceal because, out of a desire to spring his surprise, he liked to fog them round with genial talk. But a certain relief he could not conceal. Morgan saw it and half rose from his chair.
'Rubbish, rubbish!' boomed the doctor, nodding jovi-ially. 'Sit down, sit down! Heh! As I was about to say —'
'Have you—?'
'Now, now! Let me get comfortab… aah! So. Well, my boy, whatever's done is already done. Either the Blind Barber has got away or he hasn't. If he has got away, I think it's highly likely we shall catch him sooner or later. I don't think he intended to keep his present disguise after he had landed in either France or England; then, safely out of it, he could perform another of his quick changes and disappear. He's by way of being a genius. I wonder who he really is?'
'But you said—'
'Oh, I know the name he's using at the moment. But I warned you long ago that the garb was only a mask and a dummy; and I should like to see how his real mind works… In any event, the boat has docked. Didn't you tell me that young Warren was coming to see me? What arrangements have you made about that?'
'I gave him your address and said to look up the phone number if he needed to communicate. He and Peggy and the old man are coming on to London as soon as they can get the boat train. But listen!
'Heh!' said Dr. Fell. 'Heh-heh! You read my last eight clues and still don't know? You had the evidence of that steel box staring you in the face and still couldn't make your wits work? Tut, now, I don't blame you. You were doing too much action to think. If a man's required to turn round every second and pick up a new person who has been knocked out by somebody, he isn't apt to have much time for cool reflection… You see this parcel?' He put it on the table. 'No, don't look at it just yet. We've still some time before a final consultation, and there are a few points on which I should like enlightenment… What was the upshot of the matter after Uncle Jules was haled away to clink? Does Whistler still think Uncle Jules was the thief? And what about the marionette show? The thing seems to me to be incomplete. From the very first, as a matter of fact, I had a strong feeling that your band would
I somehow be enticed into that marionette show and would be forced by the Parcae into putting on a performance…'
Morgan scratched his ear. 'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'we did. It was Peggy's fault for insisting on our saving Uncle Jules's bacon. She ? said if we didn't she'd go straight to the captain and tell him everything. We pointed out that, whatever the explanations might have been, Uncle Jules really had left a brilliant trail of shoes in our wake; that Captain Whistler was not li in the mood to smile indulgently when his fifty-guinea watch sailed overboard; and after all Uncle Jules was better off in the brig. We also pointed out that, just prior to his capture, he had been seen marching through the bar and placing a shoe in the hand of any person who took his fancy. Consequently, we said, it would not appear probable to the passengers that he could work his marionette show that night.'
'And then?'
Morgan shook his head gloomily.
'Well, she wouldn't hear of it. She said it was our fault that he'd done all of it. She pointed out that most of the passengers were in the concert-hall, applauding for the show to go on, and the person she was really afraid of was Perrigord. Perrigord had prepared an elaborate and lit * powerful speech commemorating Uncle Jules's genius, and pi, had just begun it at the moment Uncle Jules was firing shoes overboard. Peggy said if a good performance didn't go on, Perrigord would be made out such an ass that he'd never let up on Uncle Jules in the papers, and their success depended on him. The girl was loony and wouldn't see reason. At last we promised her we'd do it if she'd consent to allow Uncle Jules to stay in the brig. It was the best way out for everybody, for they'll forgive a drunk's insanities when they'll prosecute an honest mistake. Curt insisted on paying for the damage, which amounted, all in all, to close on two hundred pounds. And we felt it was time for peace to descend on the
'It didn't,' said Morgan gloomily. 'I begged and pleaded with Peggy. I told her some damned thing was bound to happen if we tried to work that show, and Perrigord would be more infuriated than though there'd been no performance. She wouldn't see it. She wouldn't even see It when we had one brief rehearsal of the first scene. My portrayal of Charlemagne, I flatter myself, would have been eloquent and kingly, but Curt, in the role of Roland got stage-struck at the rehearsal and insisted on dictating a long consular report in French about the facts and figures In the export of sardines from Lisbon. Captain Valvick at the piano would have been an error. It was not merely that he wanted to greet the entrance of the Frankish army with the strains of 'La Madelon,' but since somebody had
