Christopher Quarles Part 39

"Perhaps his solicitor wanted him to be out of reach of questions," I suggested.

"Our friend Giles is quite capable of it," Quarles returned. "He has not impressed me; but to return to my frog. There were quite a number of places near that gravel-pit which would have suited him equally well; but no, he would get back to the pit. I cannot say he gave me an idea, but he helped to confirm one. The mind, be it frog's or man's, is certain to be biased by circ.u.mstances and environment. If you watched a frog through a period of time, apart from his actions necessary to life and well-being, you would find him doing certain other things, doing them to-day because he did them yesterday. He acquires a habit. Men do the same. The more curious these actions are, the more eccentric the individual becomes. You remember Zena warned us that we had to do with an eccentric in this affair, and therefore was inclined to believe in the existence of a will."

Zena nodded.

"She based her belief on one point. When Mr. Frisby gave his nephew such a large sum of money, disliking him as he did, he would take special care that he should never touch another penny. A strong argument. Besides, there was the testimony of the two servants who had witnessed their master's signature to some doc.u.ment. On the other side was the outstanding fact that no will was forthcoming. Men do not put off making their wills until too late. A man like Mr. Frisby, it might reasonably be argued, when making his will, would go to a solicitor.

He had a very large fortune to dispose of; he wished to benefit a person who had no legal claim on him; he was particularly anxious that his nephew should not get anything more. His early years in a lawyer's office would have shown him something of the pitfalls which await the amateur in legal matters. Further, there was the obvious distress of the dying man which might mean that he had neglected to make a will.

On the whole, perhaps, the weight of evidence was against the existence of a will."

"He was eccentric," murmured Zena.

"And more than that--he had made a fortune," said Quarles. "Now, to make money a man usually requires to be business-like; and since he was smart enough to make money, he would probably be smart enough to see that it was disposed of as he wished. Rich and eccentric. In his case these two facts meant much. I came to the conclusion, Wigan, that there was a will. If I was right three possibilities existed. It might have been destroyed, it might have been stolen, or it was concealed in some unexpected place. That Mr. Frisby could destroy it by mistake was hardly worth consideration, but he might destroy it purposely either, as Giles hinted, because he felt he had treated his nephew badly, or because he was dissatisfied with his adopted son. There is nothing to suggest that his feelings toward either of these persons had changed in the least. I think Oglethorpe's conversation to-day bears that out, Wigan."

"Certainly," I answered.

"It might have been stolen. Such a theft could only profit one person--Frisby Morton, and incidentally, of course, Mr. Giles, since he would be able to run up a handsome bill of costs and secure a wealthy client. We may not like Mr. Giles, but I do not think he would do anything illegal. What we hear of Frisby Morton does not tend to prepossess us in his favor. Having worried his uncle a great deal, he was quickly upon the scene when he heard that no will had been found.

He knew of the signing of a doc.u.ment from one of the witnesses. There is a possibility that his conversation with the servant might have given him an idea where the doc.u.ment was placed afterward. Further, Mr. Morton was almost suspiciously ready to resent all gossip concerning himself, and at once attributed it to Edward Oglethorpe. At the same time, it must be remembered that he was Mr. Frisby's only living relative, that, in a sense, young Oglethorpe was an interloper, that at least he might expect something substantial from his uncle. He got it, and appears not to have troubled his uncle any more. When Mr. Frisby died, apparently intestate, it was only natural he should come forward; in his peculiar position it was natural he should resent the gossip. Any man would. Oglethorpe was nothing to him. From his point of view he had got more right to the fortune than Oglethorpe, and if chance was to give him his rights so much the better."

"But he would probably have acted in the same way if he had stolen the will," I said.

"True, but I have not ended my argument," said Quarles. "What opportunity had he for stealing it? He was an unwelcome visitor at the Towers, and does not appear to have stayed there during his uncle's lifetime. An accomplice is possible, but not probable. However, we cannot altogether dismiss Frisby Morton from our calculations, that is why I asked you to find out whether he was in Boston, Wigan."

"And he left when you came, perhaps because you came."

"At the instigation of friend Giles?" asked Quarles.

"Possibly."

"Let us examine the third proposition before we apply for a warrant,"

said Quarles. "The will may have been hidden. If so, it must be in an unexpected place, all the likely places having been looked into. We must try and look into the mind of an eccentric. For a moment let us take any ordinary man, and you will find that he exhibits certain peculiarities. He is a creature of sequences, and he goes on repeating himself. He will continue to wear the same kind of clothes, even though the fas.h.i.+on changes. He will always put certain things into a certain pocket. He will arrange his papers, not in the best way, but in the way he has always arranged them. He can only write on a certain kind of paper with a particular make of pen. Such habits as these are acquired by quite an ordinary man, and no one thinks much about them.

Now take a man not quite so ordinary. He gets a mania for storing up useless odds and ends, dislikes destroying anything, touches every second post he pa.s.ses in his walks, lives on one meal a day, perhaps, or becomes a vegetarian. We say of this man that he is rather eccentric. In short, we notice him because he exaggerates our own peculiarities. Man repeats himself, that is the point. He does a thing his way, not yours. Now take a really eccentric man--Mr. Frisby. We may speak of specific peculiarities in his case, Wigan. He acc.u.mulated useless papers and locked them up. He left valuable papers in an open drawer. Broken fragments he carefully concealed in a chest; letters which he treasured he left where anyone might find them. Even if he did destroy a paper he did not tear it up, he twisted it up. Some men invariably tear paper across and across, others crumple it into a ball. Mr. Frisby twisted it. You remember my looking into the paper basket. There were no torn pieces in it, nor crumpled; they were all twisted. A small thing, but significant. I looked into several drawers, you remember. In one was a duster, not just thrown in as you would do, but twisted up. In his bedroom an old alpaca coat had been thrown into a drawer, twisted up. Twisting was a habit of his. How it was acquired I cannot say, but I should guess that in Australia the act of twisting or turning something was a necessary part of his day's work. I have known many sailors acquire the habit. This habit, I argued, might help us in our search. The will was not under lock and key, Mr. Frisby did not keep his valuables like that; unless the search was incomplete it was not lying in an unlocked drawer. Was it twisted up somewhere?"

"His hands," I said excitedly, moving my own as I had seen Oglethorpe move his.

"Exactly, Wigan, twisting, and more. You are making the motion correctly, I was careful to ascertain that. It is the action of uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g. The will was screwed into something, and the dying man was trying to make them understand that something had to be unscrewed."

"What is that something, dear?" asked Zena.

"They thought it was the light that troubled him," Quarles went on.

"We'll go to the Towers to-morrow, Wigan, and I think we shall find some candelabrum, or, more likely, some old silver candlestick which unscrews. If we do not, I think we shall have to get an interview with Frisby Morton somehow. That is why I wanted to know if he were in Boston. You see, there was a riddle to read, and a bare possibility exists that Morton has read it already."

I thought this most unlikely, but the fact that Quarles had conceived the possibility showed how exceedingly careful he was of details. The will, a very short one, leaving everything to Edward Oglethorpe, was found in an old silver candlestick, which stood, as a rule, on a table in Mr. Frisby's dressing-room.

It was a heavy candlestick which unscrewed just below the cup which held the candle, and the will was in the hollow stem.

Christopher Quarles insisted on dividing the reward into three parts.

Zena certainly had had a definite conviction about the affair from the first, so perhaps earned her share; but I am very sure I did nothing to deserve mine.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CASE OF THE MURDERED FINANCIER

The division of the thousand-pound reward made the three of us inclined for frivolity and pleasure. I happened to have little to do, so we made several excursions and visited many theaters. Relaxation is good, but one may have too much of it; certainly it was not the best training for the next case I was called upon to investigate.

I remember a man of many convictions once telling me that he rather enjoyed picking oak.u.m, a proof that one may become used to anything.

In the course of my career I have become accustomed to ghastly sights, yet when I entered that room in Hampstead a feeling of nausea seized me which had something of fear in it. Without attempting any close observation, I went out and sent a line to Christopher Quarles, asking him to come to me at once.

It was chiefly my desire for companions.h.i.+p in my investigations which made me do so, I think; still, it may be that subconsciously I realized that this was a case for the professor. The force of contrast, too, may have had something to do with my att.i.tude. Two nights ago, the professor, Zena, and I had been to the opera, mainly to see a Hungarian dancer who had recently caused a sensation. She was a very beautiful woman, and her dancing, which was ill.u.s.trative of abstract ideas, was impressive, if bizarre. Quarles had pointed out a man in a box who seemed literally absorbed in the performance, and said he was a wealthy German named Seligmann, who was financially interested in the opera season.

This morning Seligmann was dead, lying limply in a deep arm-chair in the study of his home in Hampstead. Owing to some misunderstanding I had arrived before the doctor who had been sent for, and, as I have said, the sight nauseated me. Downward, through his neck, a stiletto had been driven, a death-dealing blow delivered from behind, apparently, but besides this his face and throat were torn as though some great bird had attacked him with powerful talons. The description is inadequate, perhaps, but it was too terrible a sight to enlarge upon.

Quarles and the doctor arrived at the same time, and the three of us entered the room together. After looking at the dead man for a few moments, Quarles stood apart while the doctor made his examination, but I noticed that his eyes were particularly alive behind his round goggles.

The doctor was puzzled.

"The stiletto killed him," he said, slowly, looking at me, "but these other wounds--the sudden explosion of some vessel might have caused them, but there are no fragments. It almost looks as if the flesh had been torn by a rake. He has been dead some hours."

"Yesterday was Sunday," I replied, "and this room was not opened."

"That accounts for the time," he said. "The work of a madman, perhaps.

Murder, undoubtedly."

When the doctor had gone, after he had superintended the removal of the dead man to a small room off the hall, Quarles moved to the writing-table.

"Glad you sent for me, Wigan. What has the wife to say? He was married, I suppose? There is a feminine note about the house."

"Mrs. Seligmann is away," I answered, "and as yet I have only interviewed the man who found his master. He was inclined to be hysterical. Two women-servants had a day off yesterday, and are not expected back until this morning."

"Dead many hours," said Quarles; "was probably lying here yesterday, and we saw him on Sat.u.r.day. I don't think he left the house before the fall of the curtain."

"No, I think not."

"He couldn't have got here before midnight, then," said Quarles. "That helps us to the time of the murder. It would be a late hour for a visitor, and I see no card lying about."

"My dear professor, visitors of this sort do not leave their cards."

"Look at this pen on the blotting-pad, Wigan; it might have been just put down--put down, not dropped from paralyzed fingers, nor from a hand raised in self-defense. It was used, probably, to make these meaningless lines and curves upon the pad. A man engaged in a serious conversation might draw them as he talked. That chair there was pushed back by the doctor, but it was close to the table, just where a visitor would sit to talk to a man seated at the table. Now mark, the dead man is found in an arm-chair removed from the table, yet his cigar was put carefully into the ash tray, half smoked, you see, and the ash not knocked off. Oh, yes, Mr. Seligmann had a visitor of whom he had no fear, and who might reasonably have left a card."

"He would be careful not to leave it lying about after the murder," I said.

"It wasn't a man, I fancy, but a woman. Had it been a man, the gla.s.ses on the tray yonder would probably have been used. Besides, if criminals were always as careful as you suggest, there are few detectives who would be able to hunt them down. The very essence of your profession is looking for mistakes."

Quarles turned to examine the French window.