Drury Lane’s Last Case (13 page)

“No crime, hey?” said the Inspector sarcastically.

“Ah,” murmured Lane with a faint smile, “you think there
has
been a crime, Inspector?”

“Sure! What's happened to poor old Donoghue?”

The old gentleman closed his eyes for an instant. “The missing man at the door. To be sure. It looks suspiciously like violence, I agree. But that, after all, is a matter for the police. No, there's something else.”

The tall young man at the door looked from one to another of them with his tired eyes. Patience knit her brows, and there was silence for a moment. Then shrugging, Thumm reached for his telephone. “Police matter or not, that's the only thing I'm really interested in. Gave my promise to find the poor Mick, and I'll do my best.” He spoke to Captain Grayson of the Missing Persons Bureau; then he was switched to his friend Inspector Geoghan and conversed briefly. “Nothing new on Donoghue. Man's disappeared as if he was shanghaied. I've given Geoghan the serial number of that century-note we found in the returned book. Maybe he can trace it.”

“Possible,” agreed Lane. “Well, Patience, I see you wrinkling your pretty nose. Have you discovered my ‘something else'?”

“I'm trying hard,” she said with exasperation.

“Binding,” said young Mr. Rowe laconically.

“Oh, Gor—Mr. Rowe, of course!” cried Patience, flushing. “The object that the chap in the blue hat removed from the back cover of the 1599 Jaggard!”

The old gentleman chuckled. “You young people seem to think together. Wonderful, isn't it, Inspector?—and stop scowling; I told you Gordon was an invaluable imp. That's precisely what I do mean, Patience. You see, the superficially erratic conduct of the thief becomes comprehensible when you work from the thin light object which must have been hidden in the secret pocket of the book's binding. Six weeks or so ago some one broke into the Saxon library and stole a copy, presumably, of the 1599 Jaggard. Not a far stretch to say that this antecedent theft was motivated by the same man—our whimsical creature of the blue
chapeau
. But the book was a forgery; it was returned intact. Then the man in the blue hat was searching for a
genuine
copy! Now how many genuine copies of the first edition of
The Passionate Pilgrim
are in existence? Three, of which the Saxon copy is the third, the last to be found. Probably then he has managed to investigate the other two copies. Having stolen the Saxon copy and found it to be a forgery, he must have known that there was still the genuine Saxon copy in existence. Then Saxon made his bequest to the Britannic Museum; in the bequest was the genuine Jaggard. The thief contrived to get into the museum, contrived to steal this third genuine Jaggard. He left an even rarer volume in its place. Two days later he returned the Jaggard. Tell me, Patience, what further conclusions you can draw from these facts.”

“I see,” said Patience, sucking her lower lip. “It's much clearer stated that way. The fact that he returned the genuine Jaggard to the museum, but sliced its back cover open and removed something from its secret pocket, shows that he's never been interested in the 1599 Jaggard
as such
, but only in the thin light object it concealed. Having removed this object, he had no further use for the book itself, and returned it like a gentleman.”

“Bravo!” cried Lane. “A masterly deduction, my dear.”

“Brilliant,” murmured Mr. Rowe warmly.

“And what else?” asked the old gentleman.

“Well,” said Patience, flushing a little, “that brings up another queer point. The 1599 Jaggard is valuable. If he were an ordinary thief he would have kept it, despite the fact that he was really after what the book contained. Then he left a hundred-dollar bill to repair the damage to the leather binding. And besides he originally left an immensely valuable volume in place of the one he stole—apparently because it so much resembled the 1599, or because it was a gesture of honesty on his part. All these things point to an essentially honest person, Mr. Lane, who feels forced to commit a dishonest act but tries to make what amends he can in advance.”

The old gentleman was leaning forward with sparkling eyes. He sank back when Patience finished and waved a long forefinger at the Inspector. “Well, old blusterer, what do you think of that?”

The Inspector coughed. “Pretty good, I'd say, pretty good.”

“Come, come, Inspector, that's niggardly praise. Perfect, my dear! You're a tonic to these old bones. Yes, that's true. We're dealing with an honest, even conscientious, thief—an anomaly unprecedented, I'm sure, in the history of thieves. A veritable Villon! Anything else?”

“I think it's plain enough,” said the young man suddenly. “The fact that he returned the forged Jaggard without even slicing the leather binding shows him to be on remarkably familiar terms with rare books. I'm able to tell you, having seen it, that the forgery isn't so clumsy that even a layman would recognize it as such. He examined the volume, saw instantly that it wasn't genuine, and since he was seeking only a genuine 1599 Jaggard, returned the book untampered with.”

“That would make him something very like a bibliophile, wouldn't it?” murmured Patience.

“It would, my dear. Gordon, that's excellent reasoning.” The old man rose and began to stride about the room on his long legs. “We've painted, then, a very revealing picture. A scholar, an antiquarian, a bibliophile, essentially forthright, who will go to the length of committing robbery to gain possession of—I think there can be no doubt about it—a piece of paper hidden in the back of an extremely old collector's item. Interesting, eh?”

“Wonder what the deuce it could be?” muttered Thumm.

“The opening, or rather the depression,” said Rowe thoughtfully, “is about five inches by three. If it's a piece of paper, then, it's probably folded. And it's probably very old, too.”

“It would seem so,” murmured Lane, “although that last isn't necessarily true. Yes, the situation is considerably clarified. I wonder now …” His magnificent voice trailed off, and he paced in silence for some time, white brows knit over his eyes. “I believe I shall engage in a little investigation of my own,” he said finally.

“About Donoghue?” asked Thumm hopefully.

Lane smiled. “No, I shall leave that to you; you're infinitely better at that sort of thing than I. I had in mind,” he continued with a frown, “a little research. You know I've a rather remarkable library of my own——”

“It's a scholar's paradise,” said Rowe dreamily.

“What sort of research?” demanded Patience.

“Well, my dear, it should prove informative, if not actually helpful, to discover whether the present leather binding of the ravaged Jaggard is the original binding—the age of the
reliure
may prove a clue to the age of the hidden object, which from the nature of the repository, as Gordon has said, is most likely a folded document of some sort.”

“I may be able to be of some assistance to you there, Mr. Lane,” said the young man eagerly.

“Ah,” said the old gentleman. “There's an idea, Gordon. You might work independently, and then we can compare notes.”

“I should think, too,” said Patience, for some unaccountable reason pleased, “that if a document of some sort had been hidden in such an old book, there might possibly be a record of it somewhere. After all, how did the thief know about it, know where to look?”

“A penetrating thought! I had something of the sort in mind. I shall dig through all the known data about the 1599 first edition of
The Passionate Pilgrim
. There may even be dated records. Jaggard had his finger in a good many publishing pies in Elizabethan London, and his name crops out in hundreds of literary connections. Yes, yes, that's undoubtedly the logical step. What do you think, Gordon?”

“I'll help there, too,” said Rowe quietly.

“Good! And you intend to follow up on Donoghue, Inspector?”

“Much as I can. I'll let Grayson of the Missing Persons do most of the work.”

“Yes, it's really his job. I can't say, Inspector, that I think there's anything in this for you in a monetary way.”

“You're damned right,” growled Thumm. “But it's got my dander up. I'll play around with it for a while.”

“As quaintly stubborn as ever,” chuckled the old man. “Then I've a suggestion for you. If you're interested in the case purely as a provocative problem, why not investigate Dr. Hamnet Sedlar?”

The Inspector was startled, and Patience paused in the act of accepting Rowe's match to her cigarette. “The duke? Why?”

“Call it a hunch,” murmured Lane. “But surely you must have noticed the curious look our friend Crabbe threw at Dr. Sedlar?”

“Goodness, yes!” cried Patience. “Gordon, you noticed it, too!”

“Gordon?” rumbled the Inspector.

“Purely a slip,” said Mr. Rowe hurriedly. “Miss Thumm's excited. Miss Thumm, please call me Mr. Rowe.… Yes, Pat, I did notice it, and I've been wondering about it ever since.”

“What
is
this?” scowled the Inspector. “This Gordon-Pat business?”

“Now, now, Inspector,” said Drury Lane, “don't bring personalities into this discussion. Do you realize what a fossilized old tyrant you are? Young people to-day aren't what they used to be.”

“Father,” said Patience, scarlet.

“In your day, Inspector,” said Mr. Rowe helpfully.

“An introduction, a measuring with the eyes, a kiss in a dark corner,” continued Lane smiling; “come, come, Inspector, you'll have to become reconciled to it. As I was saying, Crabbe's the secretive kind, and he covered himself with admirable swiftness, but there's something odd there which I think will bear investigation.”

“Still and all,” muttered the Inspector, “I don't like it.… Hey? It passed right over my head. But if that's so, I think maybe we'd better throw a few questions Mr. Crabbe's way.”

Patience studied the tip of her cigarette. “Do you know, father,” she said in a low voice, “that gives me a notion. Let's not bother Mr. Crabbe at the moment. But why not check up on Dr. Sedlar at the source?”

“You mean England, Patty?”

“Let's start modestly. How about the steamship company?”

“Steamship company? What the devil for?”

“You never know,” murmured Patience.

Forty-five minutes later Inspector Thumm put down his telephone and scrubbed his brow with a violently trembling handkerchief. “Well,” he sighed at last, “it just goes to show. It's—it's cock-eyed.… Know what the purser of the
Lancastria
just told me?”

“Oh, Father,” said Patience, “you're
provoking
. What did he say, for heaven's sake?”

“There's no record of a Hamnet Sedlar on the passenger list!”

They stared at one another. Then Gordon Rowe whistled and stubbed his cigarette out in the Inspector's ashtray. “So that's the ticket,” he murmured. “The famous Dr. Sedlar.…”

“I like that,” murmured Patience. “I like that exceedingly.”

“By God, he's a phony!” bellowed Thumm. “Listen, youngster, you keep this under your hat. Not a word! I'll show that——”

“Here, here, Inspector,” said Lane mildly; he was slumped in the leather chair and his smooth brow was wrinkled into a hundred tiny lines. “Not so fast. One good scene doesn't make a play, nor does one suspicious circumstance make a guilty man. I saw you describe Sedlar to the purser. What was that for?”

“Well,” snorted Thumm, “when he looked over the list and couldn't find a trace of this bird's name, I described Sedlar and asked the purser to check with his stewards. Boat only docked this morning and they're all within call. He got on the job right away. And, by God, not only wasn't Sedlar's name listed, but nobody of Sedlar's description was even on the boat!” He glared. “What d'ye think of that?”

“It begins,” said Rowe thoughtfully, “to smell.”

“I admit the odour of guilt grows stronger,” muttered the old gentleman. “Queer, queer.…”

“But don't you see,” cried Patience, “what this means? It means that Dr. Sedlar has been in this country a very minimum of four days!”

“How do you figure that out, Patty?” demanded her father.

“He didn't fly across the Atlantic, did he? You remember I rang up the steamship line last Thursday to find out when the next boat from England was due—Sally Bostwick had written me she was crossing, but hadn't told me when. Well, they told me that there was a Saturday boat, and no other boat until to-day. So, since to-day's Wednesday, I say this British chap must be in New York a minimum of four days—at the very least since last Saturday.”

“Perhaps even longer,” suggested Rowe, frowning. “Sedlar! It's incredible.”

“You might check up on the Saturday boat,” said Lane absently.

The Inspector reached for his telephone. Then he sat back again. “I'll do better than that. Get it all at one crack.” He pressed a button and the moon-eyed Miss Brodie popped into the office as if by magic. “Got your book? Good. Take a cable to Scotland Yard!”

“To—to where, Inspector?” stammered Miss Brodie, overcome by the presence of the athletic young man near the door.

“Scotland Yard. I'll show this smooth limey how we do things over here!” The Inspector's face was very red. “You know where Scotland Yard is, don't you? London, England!”

“Y—yes, sir,” said Miss Brodie hurriedly.

“Address it to Chief Inspector Trench. T-r-e-n-c-h. ‘Want complete history Hamnet Sedlar, ex-director Kensington Museum, London, now in New York City. Give date of departure from England, physical description, affiliations, reputation, record if any. Confidential. Regards.' Send that off right away.”