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

look through my microscope upon the

page beneath it. You see, I had been seized by an unaccountable

conviction that I had at last found a real clue to the murderer,

and I dreaded lest the first glance should show this to have been

an idle delusion. At length I looked. The thumb that had pressed

the paper was the thumb that had pressed the glass! There was not

a doubt of it. My suspicions were confirmed. Everything now

regarding this book was of immense importance. The page upon which

the mark was found - well, I think you would open your eyes if I

were to read it to you. I will defer this pleasure, however, till

I see if my suspicions are correct. The thumbmark is upon page

469 of ‘Poisons, Their Effects and Detection,’ by Alexander Wynter

Blyth.

 

“No sooner had I made sure of my discovery than I set out for No. 5

Oak Street, the address given by Rizzi. There was no such person

there, nor had there been anyone of that name in the house during

the three years of the present tenant’s occupancy. I went to 15

Staniford Place with the same result. A young woman about

twenty-five years of age came to the door. She informed me that

she had been born in the house and had always lived there. She had

never known anyone by the name of Weltz. This was just what I had

expected. The man for whom we are searching is shrewd almost beyond

belief, and if we succeed in finding him it will not, we may be

assured, be the result of any bungling on his part.

 

“I have now told you all I have learned, or rather all that is

sufficiently definite to communicate - it is not much, yet it is a

clue and may serve to give our hope a new lease of life. What do

you think of it, Miss Darrow?”

 

“I think what you have learned,” Gwen replied, “will be of the

utmost importance. You have now something definite to guide you.

I am most fortunate in having the services of such a detective,

- indeed, I am at a loss to know how to thank you for all you have

done, - for all you are doing, I - “

 

“My dear Miss Darrow,” Maitland interrupted, “I need no thanks. Be

assured I am selfish in all I do. It is a pleasure to me, therefore

I do it. You see I deserve no credit. If I am able to free you

from the danger of sacrificing yourself, I shall be more than

repaid.”

 

Gwen made no reply, but I, sitting as I did close beside her, saw

the moisture gather between her drooping lids. Maitland took his

leave almost immediately, having, he said, a long evening’s work

before him; while Gwen, Alice, and I discussed the news he had

brought us, until far into the night. I did not see him the next

day, which was Tuesday, and I believe not on Wednesday. It was

Thursday afternoon, if I do not mistake, that he sent me a note

asking me to call on him at his office. I went at once, thinking

it might be something very important. I found him alone and

waiting for me.

 

“I wanted,” he began as soon as I was seated, “to talk this matter

over with you. You see the great difficulty which besets me in this

case is that nearly all our evidence, while it is of a nature to

enable us to convict our man once we have him, is yet of almost no

assistance to us in finding him. What do we know of him up to date;

or at least of what do we feel reasonably assured? Let us see.

John Darrow was poisoned in some mysterious way by a man who was

stationed just outside the partly opened window. The weapon, or

whatever was used as such, was taken away by the murderer. Nothing

in the nature of a projectile could have been employed, since the

wound was upon a part of the victim’s throat known to have been

turned away from the window and to have been completely shielded

upon that side by the high and massive back of the chair in which

the victim sat.

 

“He was fully eight feet from the casement, so that the assassin

could not have reached in and struck him. There were no footprints

by the window, as the assassin had strapped small boards upon his

feet. It is most likely, therefore, that he has some peculiarity

about his feet which he thought best to conceal. He is about five

feet five inches tall, weighs about one hundred and thirty-five

pounds, and steps three or four inches longer when the right foot

is thrown forward than he does when the left foot leads. We have a

cast of the assassin’s hand showing unmistakable evidence of the

habit of biting the nails, with the exception of that of the little

finger, which nail, by the way, is abnormally long, and could only

have been spared for some special reason. The murderer is most

likely a foreigner. His handwriting would indicate this even if we

did not know, from the books he read, how conversant he is with at

least one foreign tongue. Again, he has some decided interest in

the subject of cancers and, perhaps, some interest in legerdemain,

if we may judge from his perusal of Robert Houdin’s book.

 

“There are one or two other things I have learned, but this, so far

as any present effect is concerned, is about all we know, and it

doesn’t seem to make the conduct of our search a very easy matter.

We have clearly to deal with a man who is possessed not merely of

low criminal cunning, but, I have reason to believe, with one who

has education and culture, and, if anything can be judged from

handwriting, rare strength of character as well. If we could only

find some motive! No one but a maniac would do such a deed without

a motive, yet we can’t find one. A maniac! By Jove! I hadn’t

thought of that. What do you think of the idea? ‘Though this be

madness, yet there is method in’t,’ eh?”

 

I told him that the maniac theory did not appeal to me very strongly.

“Madness, to be sure, is often exceedingly cunning,” I said, “but

it is hardly capable of such sustained masterfulness as our criminal

has evinced.”

 

“Look here, Doc,” Maitland said, breaking out suddenly, “I’ve an

idea. Might not this fellow’s interest in cancers be due to his

having one himself? Suppose you make a canvass of the specialists

on cancer in Boston and vicinity, and see if any of them remember

being consulted by a patient answering the description with which I

will provide you. In addition to this I will insert an ad in the

papers calling attention to a new method for the cure of cancer,

and asking all interested to call at your office for further

particulars. The plan does not promise much, still it may bring

him. What do you say?”

 

I expressed my willingness to do all in my power to aid him, and he

left me. The next morning’s papers contained the advertisement and

I had several calls in answer to it. These would have caused me

much inconvenience had I not explained the whole ruse in confidence

to a medical friend who made a specialty of the treatment of cancers,

and persuaded him to come to my office during the hours specified

in the advertisement. When a patient would call I would satisfy

myself that it was neither the person we were searching for, nor

anyone sent by him to make inquiries, and then turn him over to my

colleague, Dr. Rhodes. It would never have occurred to me to

interest myself in any patient who did not answer the description

given me by Maitland, had he not especially cautioned me in this

regard.

 

“We have,” he said, “to deal with a man possessed of ability of no

common order. We have already seen that he never runs a risk,

however slight, which he can avoid. It is more than likely,

therefore, if our advertisement meets his eye and interests him, he

will inquire into it through some second party. Again, we are by

no means certain that his interest in cancers is a purely personal

one. Perhaps it is a wife, a sister, or some other relative who is

afflicted. In this case we could hardly expect him to come himself.

Let me caution you, therefore, to closely scrutinise all applicants

and question them until you are satisfied they are in nowise

connected with the man for whom we are searching.”

 

I followed this advice most carefully and had no difficulty in

convincing myself that none of my callers had any relation whatsoever

with the murderer of John Darrow. This order of things was

continued for several days with the same result. In the meantime

Maitland was working upon a new clue he had discovered. He would

tell me all about it, he said, when he had followed it to the end.

This was on Tuesday. On Friday he came to the house and informed us

that he had met a man who had known a M. Henri Cazot, a Frenchman

whose description seemed to tally perfectly with nearly all we knew

of Mr. Darrow’s murderer.

 

“It came about in this way,” Maitland began in response to Gwen’s

request that he should tell us all about it: “I determined to

thoroughly search every book on the ‘Weltz-Rizzi’ list, to see if I

might not get some additional clue. In the work by Robert Houdin

entitled ‘The Sharper Detected and Exposed’ I found the statement

that gamblers often neutralised a cut in a pack of cards by a rapid

and dexterous sleight. This, the book went on to say, was

accomplished in the following manner: When the cards are cut and

left in two packets upon the table, the sharper picks up with his

right hand the parcel of cards which was originally at the bottom

of the pack. This is brought above the other packet, as in an=20

onest cut, but, just before releasing the cards, the lower parcel

is deftly tilted up by inserting the right little finger under it,

and the upper packet quickly slid beneath it, leaving the cards in

precisely the position they occupied before cutting; For this

purpose, the book continued, the nail of the right little finger is

worn very long, so as to facilitate its being thrust beneath a

packet of cards. Here, I said to myself, is a possible explanation

of one of the peculiarities of my plaster cast. The long nail on

the left little finger may have served its function at the gaming

table. If so, however, it would seem to indicate that our man is

left-handed, while, as we have already seen, the writing upon the

library slips would indicate that he is ambidextrous. We need not,

therefore, I reasoned, be surprised if we find that both little

fingers have long nails. I at once acted upon these thoughts and

began a search of the gambling resorts of this city. In order not

to excite suspicion I played a little in each place, watching my

opportunity to engage the proprietor in conversation. In every case

I followed the same formula. Did he remember the gentleman who used

to come there? Foreigner, - spoke French, a little under medium

height; had a sort of halt in his walk; bit his finger nails, etc.,

etc. I met with no encouragement in the down-town places, though

the proprietor of one of the Hayward Place