The Complete Simon Iff (4 page)

In the lounge of the club was only one little old man, who was known as a mathematician of great eminence, with a touch of the crank. He had recently finished a pamphlet to prove that the ancients had some knowledge of fourth-dimensional mathematics, that their statement of such problems as the duplication of the cube implied an apprehension of some medium in which incommensurables became tractable. He saw especially strong on Euclid’s parallel postulate, which has not only been unproved, but proved unprovable. He saw also a deep student of Freemasonry, whose arcana furnished him with further arguments on the same thesis.

This old man, whose name was Simon Iff, challenged Ffoulkes to a game of chess. To the surprise of the lawyer, who was a very strong amateur, he was beaten thrice in very short games. Iff then took off a knight, and won a fourth game as easily as before. “It’s no good, sir,” said Ffoulkes; “I see you are in the master class.”5 “Not a bit of it,” replied the old man, “Lasker can beat me as easily as I beat you. He really knows chess; I only know you. I can gauge your intellect; it is limited in certain directions. I had a lost game against you most of the time; but you did not make the winning continuations, and I knew that you wouldn’t and couldn’t.

“Let me tell you something, if you’ll forgive a senior for prosing. There are two ways to play chess. One is a man against a man; the other is a man against a chess-board. It’s the difference between match and medal play at golf. Observe; if I know that you are going to play the Philidor defense to the King’s Knoght’s Opening, I do not risk being forced into the Petroff, which I dislike. But in playing an unknown quantity, I must analyze every position like a problem, and guard against all possibilities. It takes a great genius and a lifetime’s devotion to play the latter game. But so long as I can read your motive in a move, so long as I can content myself with guarding that one line. Should you make a move whose object I cannot see, I am compelled to take a fresh view of the board, and analyze the position as if I were called upon to adjudicate an unfinished game.”

“That’s exceedingly interesting. It bears rather on my game, law.”

“I was about to venture a remark upon that point. I was fortunate enough to be present at the trial of Ezra Robinson, and I cannot compliment you too highly on the excellence of your defense. But, as you will be the first to admit, his acquittal was no solution of the question. ‘Who killed Marsden?’ Still less does it tell us who killed Mrs. Robinson exactly one year later.”

“Do you know the solution?”

“No; but I can show you on what lines to attack the mystery.”

“I wish you would.”

“I may be tedious.”

“Impossible. You have beaten me so abominably at chess that I am all on fire to learn more from watching the working of your intellect.”

“Intellect is our weakest weapon. This world is run upon ‘inflexible intellectual guiders,’ as Zoroaster put it, but it was ‘the will of the Father,’ as he also explained, which laid down those laws which we call laws of nature, but, as Kant has shown, are really no more than the laws of our own minds. The universe is a phenomenon of love under will, a mystic and poetic creation, and the intellect only stands to it as mere scansion does to poetry.”

“It is at least a charming theory.”

“It works, Sir Richard. Let us apply our frail powers to this Marsden mystery. Let us take the second murder first, because it is apparently the more abstruse. We have no clues and no motives to mislead us. True, Robinson had a strong interest in his wife’s death—yet not only does he prove an alibi, but he vanishes forever! If, as we might imagine, he had hired a knave to do the job, he would have kept in sight, pretended decent grief, and so on. Of course, as has been suggested, he may himself have come to some sudden end; but if that be so, it is a marvelous coincidence indeed. No! We are forced to believe him guiltless, of this second murder at least. Consequently, having eliminated the only person with a motive, we are thrown back upon the master’s way of playing chess, pure analysis. (Notice how Tchigorin handicapped himself by his fancy for that second move, queen to king’s second, and Steinitz by his pawn to queen’s third in the Ruy Lopez. Their opponents got a line on them at once, and saved themselves infinite trouble.) Pardon the digression. Now then, let us look at this second murder again. What is the most striking fact about it? This, that it was committed by a person with a complete contradiction in his mind. He is so astute that he leaves no clue of any sort; there has not even been any arrest. If he did the first murder also, it shows that he is capable of turning the same trick twice. In short, we see a man of the first-class mind, or rather intellect, for we must assume a lack of moral sense. A man, in fact, with a mind like your own; for since this afternoon’s exploit, I imagine you will not claim to be scrupulous.”

“You saw through the trick?”

“Naturally; you knew you had no case, so you preferred to lose on a foul, and claim a moral victory.”

“Good for you!”

“Well, this same first-rate intellect is in another respect so feeble that the man takes pleasure, or finds satisfaction, in arranging his crime on a significant date. He must be the sort of man that takes precautions against witches on Walpurgis Night!”

“Jove, that’s a good point. Never struck me!”

“Well, frankly, it doesn’t strike me now. There are men with such blind spots, no doubt; but it is easier for me to think that the murderer, with plenty of nights to choose from, chose that one in particular with the idea of leading people astray—of playing on their sense of romance and mystery—of exploiting their love of imaginative detectives stories!”

“If so, the point is once more in favor of his intellect.”

“Exactly. But now we are going to narrow the circle. Who is there in whose mind the date of the first murder was so vivid that such a stratagem would occur to him?”

“Well, there are many. Myself, for example!”

Iff began to set up the pieces for another game.

“We must eliminate you,” he said, after a few moments of silence, “you lawyers forget your cases as soon as they are over.”

“Besides, I had no possible motive.”

“Oh, that is nothing in the case. You are a rich man, and would never do a murder for greed; you are a cold-blooded man, and would never kill for revenge or jelousy; and these things place you apart from the common run of men. Still, I believe such as you perfectly capable of murder; there are seven deadly sins, not two; why should you not kill, for example, from some motive like pride?”

“I take pride in aiding the administration of justice. My ambition is a Parliamentary career.”

“Come,” said Iff, “all this is a digression; we had better play chess. Let me try at Blackburne’s odds!” Iff won the game. “You know,” he said, as Ffoulkes overturned his king in sign of surrender, “however killed Mrs. Robinson, if I read his type of mind aright, has left his queen en prise, after all. There is a very nasty gap in the defenses. He killed the woman from no common motive; he has therefore always to be on his guard against equally uncommon men. Suppose Casablanca dropped into the club, and challenged me to a game, how should I feel if I had any pride in beating you? There may be some one hunting him who is as superior intellectually to him as he is to the police. And there’s a worse threat: he probably took the precaution of killing the old woman in her sleep. He could have no conscience, no remorse. But he would have experience in his own person that such monsters as himself were at large; therefore, I ask you, how does he know, every night, that some one will not kill him in his sleep?”

Ffoulkes called the waiter, and asked Iff to join him in a drink. “No thank you,” returned the old man, “playing chess is the only type of pleasure I dare permit myself.”

At this moment Flynn came into the club, and greeted both men warmly. Iff had written many a glowing essay for the Irishman’s review. He wanted both to dine with him, but once again Iff declined, pleading another engagement. After a few moments’ chat he walked off, leaving the two old friends together.

They dined at the club, and pointedly confined the conversation to the libel case, and politics in general. With their second cigars, Flynn rose. “Come round to Mount Street,” he said. “I’ve a lot to tell you.” So they strolled off in the bright autumn weather to the maisonette where Flynn lived.

They made themselves at ease on the big Chesterfield. It was a strange room, a symphony of green. The walls were covered with panels of green silk; the floor was covered with great green carpet from Algeria; the upholstery was of green morocco; the ceiling was washed in delicate eau-de-Nil with designs by Gauguin, and the lamps were shaded by soft tissues of emerald. Even the drinks were of the same color: Chartreuse, the original shipping, and créme de menthe and absinthe. Flynn’s man brought cigarettes and cigars in a box of malachite, and set them down with the spirits. Flynn dismissed him for the night.

“Well,” said Jack, when the man had gone, “I see you got away with it all right.”

“I had a scare this afternoon. Old Iff made rings round me at chess, and then proceeded to develop a theory of the —exploit—that was so near the truth that I thought for half a moment that he had guessed something. Luckily, he’s just an old crank in everybody’s eyes; but, by Jove, he can play chess!”

“Iff’s one of the biggest minds in England; but the second-raters always win in London.”

“Well, what about your end of the bet?”

“Oh, there’s no news yet. But they’ll find the bodies next week when my tenancy of the place expires.”

“Bodies!”

“Two. You see, I went after your friend Ezra Robinson and the fair Duval. I knew from you of the appointment on the anniversary of the murder, but not the place; so I had him shadowed from the day of the bet. I took a room in the old quarter of Marseilles, when I found that he had stopped there. I got myself up as Francis Ridley, whom you may remember in certain amateur theatricals.

“I got them along to make a night of it, and filled them up with cocaine, while I tok—mostly borax. Then when we got to the stage of exhaustion and collapse, I unslung a convenient hammock that hung in the room and told them what I meant to do. And then I hanged them by the neck until they were dead, and may the Lord have mercy on their souls! Next day I crossed to Algiers, went down to El Kantara and shot moufflon—I’m having a fine head mounted especially for you—then I came back through Italy and Germany. That’s all!”

“I say,” cried Ffoulkes, shocked, “that’s hardly in the spirit of the bet, old man. I don’t see any moral turpitude involved!”

“You wretched hypocrite,” retorted Flynn, “it was deliberate murder by both French and English law. I don’t see what you can want more than that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, with your legal mind!”

But the lawyer was not satisfied. He began to argue, and ultimately turned the discussion into what was as near a quarrel as such old friends could ever contemplate. In fact, Ffoulkes saw the danger, and went home at an unusually early hour.

Flynn dismissed the matter from his mind, and passed the night in composing sonnets, in French, to the honor of the green goddess—absinthe.

A month later. Flynn had been unusually busy, and saw little of his friends. Twice he dined with Ffoulkes, but the latter was more moody and irritable than ever. He had lost three important cases, and seemed altogether out of luck. His looks reflected his worry as much as his manners. Flynn asked him to come to Paris for a week’s rest; he refused; Flynn went alone.

Returning to London, he called at the chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. They were shut up. He went on to the club, hoping for news. Almost the first man he saw was an old college friend, a judge, the very man to have the latest tidings. Probably Ffoulkes had been in court that day.

“Hush! it’s terrible,” said the judge, and drew Flynn into a corner of the lounge. “They had to take him away yesterday. He had persecution mania, a hopeless form, I’m afraid. Hadn’t slept for a month. Said he was afraid of being murdered in his sleep! These things are too bad to talk about; I’m going home. Brace up!” The judge rose and went; but when Flynn came out of the stupor into which the intelligence had thrown him, he found Iff seated at his side.

“You’ve heard? Isn’t it awful?”

“No,” replied Iff, “not more so than the fact that two and two make four. Which in a sense is awful indeed, and according as you are for or against the tendency of the universe, is encouraging or terrifying. But it is fatal and inexorable. Perhaps to say that is to say enough!”

“Explain what you mean.”

“A little while ago,” replied the old mystic, “he came here to play chess with me—you remember; you were there, the day of your return. Well, I mastered his mind; I saw its limitations; I mapped its roads; I measured its heights and depths; I calculated its reactions. I beat him easily, at odds. We then began to talk of the Marsden mystery, and I analyzed the mind of the man who killed Mrs. Robinson—a mind like his own. I showed that the coincidence of dates was probably a deliberate false trail. I then asked who would be likely to think of such a point, who would have vivid reason to think of that date. I was speaking in perfectly general terms; no suspicion of him had crossed my mind. He instantly suggested himself. I knew how he played chess: so I knew that he must have had himself in view subconsciously; that he must be trying to put me off the scent by bouldness. It was just the same type of tactics as choosing the anniversary of the first murder. From that instant I knew that he was guilty.

“A moment later he confirmed me. I suggested that a man like himself might kill for such a motive as pride; and he replied that he took pride in the administration of justice. Now after that libel action, and coming from such a man, the English hypocrisy, which might have been natural in a lesser man, was a complete confession. Therefore I determined to punish him. I knew there was only one way; to work upon his mind along its own lines. So I said to him: “Suppose the murderer realizes that there are intellects superior to his own? And —how will he sleep, knowing that there are people who will murder others in their sleep without reasonable cause? You know the answer. I suppose that I am in a sense the murderer of his reason.”