The Blind Barber

little wax in mouth; strawberry mark on cheek; who'll identify me afterwards, eh?'

Dr. Fell slowly drew a line through one line on a sheet of paper.

'And there we had the first direct evidence: of Elimination. Woodcock said definitely that you were a person he'd never seen before. Now, Woodcock hadn't been seasick. He'd been in the dining-room at all times, and after the sea-sick passengers came out of their lairs he would have spotted the thief — if the thief hadn't been still among the very, very few who kept to their cabins. Humf! Ha! I was wondering whether anybody had fantastic suspicions of — well, say Perrigord or somebody of the sort. But it ruled out Perrigord, it ruled out Kyle, it ruled out nearly everybody. The thing is plain enough, but where everybody went off on the wrong scent was over that radiogram from New York.' Dr. Fell wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper and pushed it across to Morgan.

Federal agent thinks crook responsible for Stelly and MacGee jobs. Federal agent thinks also physician is impostor on your ship…

'Well?' said Morgan. The doctor made a few marks, and held it out again.

'The Clue of Terse Style,' said Dr. Fell, 'indicates that the word 'also' is a supernumerary, is out of place, is a word merely wasted in an expensive radiogram if what it means is, 'Federal agent also thinks… ' But read it thus.'

Federal agent thinks — also physician — is impostor on your ship…

'Meaning,' said Dr. Fell, crumpling up the paper, 'an entirely different thing. The remark about 'medical profession influential' simply means that the doctor in attendance is making a row; he is insisting that, despite the patient at the hospital being apparently out of his head in insisting he is Sturton, the doctor believes it and they mustn't disregard it. But, good God! Do you seriously think that, if he had meant Dr. Kyle was a murderer, the whole medical profession would have wanted to shield him? The idea was so absurd that I wonder anybody considered it. It refers to Sturton! Sweep away the whole flimsy tangle, now. Let's have one point piled on top of the other until you'll realise it couldn't have been anybody; let's come at last to the gigantic and damning proof.'

He flung the paper on the table with an angry gesture. 'You visit Sturton to pacify him over the loss of the emerald. Do you see his secretary? No! You hear him apparently talking to somebody behind a door in the bedroom. But. though you don't make any noise or speak, out he darts to see you and closes the door. He knew you were there already, and he put on that show for your benefit. The mistake, the Clue of Wrong Rooms, was — why in the bedroom? It wasn't in the drawing-room where he'd been apparently lying, with his medicine-bottles around; that was his haunt. But he had to be out of sight… '

Morgan heard Mr. Nemo's shrill laughter and the steady scratching of a pencil; but Dr. Fell went on:

'Then there was the business of Lights: curtains always drawn, shawl round his shoulders, hat on, always back to the light. There was the straight suggestion of his Personal Taste: the toy trinket with real rubies for eyes, winking and leering at you as he deliberately tapped it while he bamboozled you; and still you didn't see the connection between the wagging Mandarin-head and the costly trinket of the razor.¹⁸ And what happened,' said Dr. Fell, rapping his stick sharply on the table, 'when you and Captain Valvick and Mrs. Perrigord went round with the grim intention of finding the missing girl? You combed the boat through — but yet in sublime innocence of heart you did not demand to see Sturton's secretary; you went there, you asked a question, and you let him rush you out of the cabin without ever going any further!'… After a pause Dr. Fell wheeled round and looked at Inspector Jennings. 'I'm going off my base, Jennings. I suppose you don't understand any of this?'

The inspector smiled grimly. 'I understand every word of it, sir. That's why I haven't interrupted you. Nemo here regaled us with a whole account of it on the train. It's fine. Eh, Nemo?'

'Rubbish rubbish rubbish!' squeaked Nemo, in repulsive glee at his successful imitation. 'Mad Captain Whistler. Prosecute the line! And all the while I was wondering…. Eh, Inspector?'

The inspector studied him curiously. He seemed to wish he were farther away than handcuffed to Nemo's wrist.

'Oh, it's a great joke,' he said coolly. 'But you'll hang for all of it, you filthy swine. Go on, Dr. Fell.'

Nemo straightened up.

'I'll kill you for that, one day,' he remarked, just as coolly. 'Maybe to-morrow, maybe next day, maybe a year from now.' His eye wandered round the room; his face was slightly paler, and he breathed hard. Morgan felt he was keeping his spirits up with desperate jocularity. 'Shall I talk now?' he asked suddenly.

22 — Exit Nemo

It was growing shadowy in the room. Nemo took of! his hat and brushed its brim across his forehead. He gestured with it.

'I'll tell you,' he said, 'why you can't beat What's cut out for you at birth. I'll fill up your story. I'll show you how a trick nobody could help cheated me out of the cushiest soft spot on earth. And those kids — they thought it was funny…

'I won't tell you who I am,' he said, looking round at them with a curious expression which reminded Morgan of Woodcock squinting at the ceiling in the writing-room. 'I might be anybody. You'll never know. I could say I was Harry Jones of Surbiton, or Bill Smith of Yonkers — or maybe somebody not very much different from the man I was impersonating. I'll tell you what I am, though — I'm a ghost. Reason that out how you like; I'm not telling. I'll never have any occasion to tell.'

He grinned. Nobody spoke. The yellow twilight outside showed in queer colour his face peering at Dr. Fell, at Jennings, at Morgan.

'Or maybe I'm only Mad Tommy, of.. who's going to tell? But what I will tell you is that I put through that trick neatly. I passed as Sturton without anybody being suspicious, but I won't tell you how I managed it, because it might get others in trouble. I deceived his secretary. I admit she'd only been with him for a month or two — but I deceived her. If I was an eccentric who couldn't remember my business affairs, she took care of it. She was nice.' He stroked the air and chortled. 'I did it so well that I thought, 'Nemo, you only intended to impersonate Sturton long enough to make a haul; but why not keep on?'

'I kept her with me. I shouldn't have killed MacGee in New York; but he was a diamond man, and I couldn't resist diamonds. When I sailed aboard that ship I had unlimited cash of Sturton's — ever see me imitate a signature? — and nearly five hundred thousand pounds in jewels. The only thing people knew I had was the emerald elephant. And what did I intend to do? Pay duty on it, like an honest man; no fuss at all. For the rest, I was the well-known Sturton; / wouldn't smuggle in other things, and they'd be very careless about my luggage. I knew that, being close to me aboardship, Hilda — Miss Keller, my Hilda — might find out who I was. But I wanted her to. I was going to say: 'You're in deep; too deep; I'm the one you'll have to stick with; so' ' — he made a gesture and spoke in a rather, thick ghastly voice—' 'so move your belongings into my berth, Hilda,' I'd say to her. Ha!…'

'If you had all that money,' said Dr. Fell, sharply, 'why did you want to steal the film?'

'Trouble,' said Nemo, tapping his free hand on the side of his nose. 'To make trouble for — oh, everybody I could, do you see? No, you don't. I meant to give away that film, free, to whoever could do the most damage with it. You don't see? But I do. I'm like Sturton. I might be Sturton's ghost; I hate — people.' He laughed, and massaged his head. 'I'd heard of it in Washington. Hilda, still not knowing who I was, came to my cabin that afternoon. She told me all about a very, very curious radiogram she'd overheard. Then my wits—my wits — remembered. And I thought, 'Here's my chance to break it to her gently.' I'd get the film, I'd show it her, and we'd appreciate — both of us — how much trouble we could make.

'I did,' said Nemo, in a sudden loud, harsh voice like a crow. 'But she didn't understand. That was why I had to kill her.

'And what happened just before that? Eh? Eh? I had another inspiration, to make her love me still more. When I first planned to rob old Sturton, I hadn't intended to impersonate him; never mind all that; I was after the elephant, and I had a nearly perfect duplicate made to switch on him. That was the way I meant to work it…

'But I thought, why not make a clean sweep? Why pay duty on the real emerald at all? And it would be easy. I would take the imitation emerald across with me, and the real one hidden, and it would be the imitation I'd offer to the customs men. They'd say, 'This isn't real,' when I was offering to pay the enormous duty. I would say,