The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

be demanded of you,”

he rejoined, “that I am busying myself in your affairs.” The colour

sprang to Gwen’s cheeks, but she only replied by a grateful glance.

I knew what was passing through her mind. She was thinking of her

promise - of her father’s last words, and of the terrible

possibilities thereof from which Maitland was seeking to rescue her.

She felt that she could safely owe him any debt of gratitude, however

great, while he, on his part, took what I fancied, both then and

afterward, were unnecessary pains to assure her that, in the event

of his finding the assassin, she need have no fear of his making

any claim whatsoever upon her. And so the whole affair was dropped

for the time being and the rest of the evening devoted to listening

to Maitland’s account of his experiences while abroad.

 

The next morning I called upon our detective at his laboratory and

asked him what he intended to do next. He replied that he had no

plans as yet, but that he wished to review with me all the evidence

at hand.

 

“You see,” he said, “the thing that renders the solution of this

mystery so difficult is the fact that all our clues, while they

would be of the utmost service in the conviction of the assassin

had we found him, are almost destitute of any value until he has

been located. Add to this that we are now unable to find any

motive for the crime and you can see how slight are our hopes of

success. If ever we chance to find the man, - for I feel that

such a consummation would result more from chance than from

anything else, - I think we can convict him.

 

“Here, for example,” he said, taking up a small slip of glass

which he had cut from the eastern parlour window of the Darrow

house, “is something I have never shown either you or Miss Darrow.

It is utterly worthless, so far as assisting us to track the

assassin is concerned, but, if ever we suspect the right man, the

evidence on that glass would probably convict him, though there

were ten thousand other suspects.”

 

I took the glass from him and, examining it with the utmost care,

I detected a smutch of yellowish paint upon it, nothing more.

“For Heaven’s sake, Maitland!” I said in astonishment, “of what

possible use can that formless daub of paint be, or is there

something else on the glass that has escaped me?” He laughed at

my excitement as he replied:

 

“There is nothing there hut the paint spot. Regarding that, however,

you have come to a very natural though erroneous conclusion. It is

not formless”; and he passed me a jeweller’s eye-glass to assist me

in a closer examination. He was right. The paint lay upon the

glass in little irregular furrows which arranged themselves

concentrically about a central oval groove somewhat imperfect in

shape. “Well,” continued. Maitland, as I returned him the

magnifying glass, “what do you make of it?” “If you hadn’t already

attached so much importance to the thing,” I said, “I should

pronounce it a daub of paint transferred to the glass by somebody’s

thumb, but, as such a thing would be clearly useless, I am at a loss

to know what it is.”

 

“Well,” he rejoined, “you’ve hit the nail on the head, - that’s just

what it is, but you are entirely wrong in your assumption that the

thumbmark can have no value as evidence. Do you not know that

there are no two thumbs in the world which are capable of making

indistinguishable marks?” I was not aware of this. “How do you

know,” I asked, “that this mark was made by the assassin? It seems

to me there can hardly be a doubt that one of the painters, while

priming the sill, accidentally pressed his thumb against the glass.

His hands would naturally have been painty, and this impression

would as naturally have resulted.”

 

“What you say,” replied Maitland, “is very good, so far as it goes.

My reasons for believing this thumbmark was made by the assassin are

easily understood. First: there was another impression of a thumb

in the moist paint of the sill directly under that upon the glass.

Both marks were made by the same thumb and, in the lower one, the

microscope revealed minute traces of gravel dust, not elsewhere

discernible upon the sill. The thumb carried the dust there, and

was the thumb of the hand pressed into the gravel, - the hand of

which I have a cast. You see how this shows how the thumb came to

have paint upon it when pressed upon the glass. Second: the two

men engaged in priming the house, James Cogan and Charles Rice, were

the only persons save the assassin known to have been upon that side

of the house the day of the murder. “Here,” he said, carefully

removing two strips of glass from a box, “are the thumbmarks of

Cogan and Rice made with the same paint. You see that neither of

these men could, by any possibility, have made the mark upon the

glass. So there you are. But we are missing the question before

us. What line of procedure can you suggest, Doc? I’m all at sea.”

 

“We must find someone,” I said, “who could have had a motive. This

someone ought to have a particularly good reason for concealing his

footprints, and is evidently lame besides. I can’t for the life of

me see anything else we have to go by, unless it be the long nail

of the little finger, and I don’t see how that is going to help us

find the assassin - unless we can find out why it was worn long.

If we knew that it might assist us. As I have already suggested, a

Chinaman might have a long nail on the little finger, but he would

also have the other nails long, wouldn’t he? Furthermore, he might

use the boards to conceal the prints of his telltale foot-gear; but

why should he not have put on shoes of the ordinary type? If he had

time to prepare the boards, - the whole affair shows premeditation,

- clearly he had time to change his boots. The Chinese are usually

small, and this might easily account for the smallness of the hand

as shown by your cast. These are the pros and cons of the only clue

that suggests itself to me. By the way, Maitland, it’s a shame we

did not try, before it was too late, to track this fellow down with

a dog.”

 

“Ah,” he replied, “there is another little thing I have not told you.

After you had left the house with Miss Darrow on the night of the

murder, and all the servants had retired, I locked the parlour

securely and quietly slipped out to look about a bit. As you know,

the moon was very bright and any object moderately near was plainly

visible. I went around to the eastern side of the house where the

prints of the hand and boards were found, and examined them with

extreme care. What I particularly wished to learn was the direction

taken by the assassin as he left the house and the point at which

he had removed the boards from his feet. The imprints of the boards

were clearly discernible so far as the loose gravel extended, but

beyond that nothing could be discovered. I sat down and pondered

over the matter. I had about concluded to drive two nails into the

heels of my boots to enable me to distinguish my own footprints from

any other trail I might intersect, and then, starting with the house

as a centre, to describe an involute about it in the hope of being

able to detect some one or more points where my course crossed that

of the assassin, when I remembered that my friend Burwell, whose

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Combination recently stranded at Brockton was at

home. As you are perhaps aware an Uncle Tom Company consists of

a ‘Legree,’ one or two ‘Markses,’ one or two ‘Topsies,’ ‘Uncle Tom,’

a ‘Little Eva,’ who should not be over fifty years old, - or at

least should not appear to be, - two bloodhounds, and anybody else

that happens to be available. It really doesn’t make the least

difference how many or how few people are in the cast. I have

heard that an Uncle Tom manager on a Western circuit, most of whose

company deserted him because the ‘ghost’ never walked, succeeded

in cutting and rewriting the piece so as to double ‘George Harris’

and ‘Legree,’ ‘ Marks’ and ‘Topsy,’ ‘Uncle Tom’ and ‘Little Eva.’

As for the rest he had it so arranged that he could himself ‘get

off the door’ in time to ‘do,’ with the aid of the dogs, all the

other characters. You see the dogs held the stage while he changed,

say, from ‘Eliza’ to Eva’s father. ‘George Harris’ would look off

left second entrance and say that ‘Legree’ was after him. Then he

would discharge a revolver, rush off right first entrance, where he

would pass his weapon to ‘Eva’ and ‘Uncle Tom,’ and this bisexual

individual would discharge it in the wings at the imaginary pursuer,

while ‘Harris ‘ would put on a wire beard, slouch hat, black

melodramatic cape, and,=20rushing behind the flat, enter left as

‘Legree.’

 

“The hardest thing to manage was the death of ‘Little Eva’ with

‘Uncle Tom’ by the bedside, but managerial genius overcame the

difficulty after the style of Mantell’s ‘Corsican Brothers.’ You

see it is all easy enough when you know how. ‘Little Eva’ is

discovered, sitting up in bed with the curtains drawn back. She

says what she has to say to her father and the rest. Then her

father has a line in which he informs ‘Eva’ that she is tired and

had better try to sleep. She says she will try, just to please him,

and he gently lowers her back upon the pillows and draws the

curtains in front of the bed. But instead of utilising this

seclusion for a refreshing sleep ‘Eva’ rolls out at the back side

of the bed. ‘Legree’ snatches off ‘Eva’s’ wig and ‘Topsy’ deftly

removes the white nightdress concealing his - ‘Eva’s’ - ‘Uncle Tom’

make-up, while the erstwhile little girl hastily blackens his face

and hands, puts on a negro wig, and in less than a minute is

changed in colour, race, and sex. He ‘gets round’ left and enters

the sick room as ‘Uncle Tom’ with ‘Topsy.’ They are both told that

‘Little Eva’ is asleep, and ‘Topsy’ peeps cautiously between the

curtains and remarks that the child’s eyes are open and staring.

The father looks in and, overcome by grief, informs the audience

that his child is dead. ‘Topsy,’ tearful and grief-stricken,

‘gets off’ right and washes up to ‘do’ ‘Little Eva’ climbing the

golden stair in the last tableau. Meanwhile ‘Uncle Tom,’ in a

paroxysm of grief, throws himself upon the bed and holds the stage

till he smells the red fire for the vision; then he staggers down

stage, strikes an attitude; the others do likewise; picture of

‘Little Eva,’ curtain. Talk about doubling ‘Marcellus,’ ‘Folonius,’

‘Osric,’ and the ‘First Grave Digger’! Why, that’s nothing to these

‘Uncle Tom’ productions. But hold on, where did I get side-tracked?

Oh, yes, the dogs.

 

“Well, as I was saying, as soon as I thought of Burwell I made up

my mind at once to borrow one of his hounds. It was late when I got

to his house. When I knocked at the door both Pompey and Caesar

began sub-bass solos of growls, and Burwell was awake in a minute.

I