by
R.T.M. Scott
from The World’s Best One Hundred Detective Stories (in ten volumes). Edited by Eugene Thwing. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1929. Volume Five
Messrs. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in their A Catalogue of Crime, (2nd imp. corr., New York: Harper & Row, 1971), credit the Aurelius Smith stories with managing “a trick or two worthy of Holmes” and offering “amusing sidelights on the New York of 1925,” This opinion was seconded by Will Murray in Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, (NY: St. Martin’s; 1980), who said that “Bombay Duck,” perhaps Scott’s best story, “is a superb exercise in psychological manipulation.”
Aurelius Smith, as he sat at tea with his secretary and versatile assistant, did not look very much like a detective, yet there was something calculatingly cool and deliberate about each trivial motion that he made. His old blue dressing gown, which he persistently refused to throw away, wrapped his long and lanky body in many angles as he sprawled ridiculously in his chair. His slender fingers dropped a slice of lemon into his cup with the deliberate motion of science. Bernice Asterley watched her employer with considerable interest — much more interest than a young woman usually gives to a man who takes tea in a perfectly impossible old blue dressing gown.
Langa Doonh, native servant from India, brought fresh muffins just as the doorbell sounded. Smith glanced at the muffins, but the urge for tobacco brought a black briar from his pocket, and he wandered lazily to the front window and stuffed dark shreds into the bowl as he stared moodily into Fenton Street, tiny one-block off shoot of Fifth Avenue. Few New Yorkers know Fenton Street, with its little colony of artists and students of strange things.
Bernice watched the back of the old dressing gown at the window and noted that a frayed blue cord permitted what was once a tassel to trail upon the floor. She turned back to the table when Langa Doonh came from the front door with letters that the letter carrier had left. Smith too turned his attention again to the table, but he merely glanced at the addresses on the envelopes and took up his cup without seeming to see the muffins. Bernice thought that he lived on tobacco except when Langa Doonh cooked a curry.
There was a continued silence, and Langa Doonh, quite satisfied that he had toasted sufficient muffins, took his departure to do some marketing for dinner. The little household was so well acquainted that words were almost unnecessary.
A few minutes later the bell sounded again, and this time Bernice went to the door while Smith stood with his back to the table and watched her leave the room. She returned a moment later with a man who followed her too closely to permit the formality of being announced. Nor did he wait for that formality after entering the room, but jerked a gun from his side pocket and pointed it threateningly toward Smith.
At sight of the gun Smith staggered backward against the table and threw an arm behind him for support. His hand, outstretched, plunged into his tea, and the cup crashed to the floor while he shook the hot liquid from his fingers and wiped them frantically upon his dressing gown. An expression of genuine fear and consternation overspread the face of Bernice as she saw her employer so visibly affected. Never before had she known his iron nerve to collapse in the face of danger. It was his collapse, rather than the threatening gun, which set her trembling a little to one side of the two men.
Up to this moment not a word had been spoken, but the stranger ended the silence. His was a cool and cutting voice, insolent in its indifference. Indeed, it seemed to Bernice that it was somewhat the voice of Smith himself when in a fighting mood — utterly devoid of emotion, cold, unconcerned.
“Very pretty acting,” remarked the stranger, with the assurance of the slightest of sneers, “but your servant has just left the house and the broken cup will call no help.”
But Bernice knew that Smith was aware of Langa Doonh’s having left the house. She knew that he had not upset the cup to call assistance. She gained control of herself and watched, with apprehension, the powerful man behind the pistol while his dark eyes ran swiftly about the room.
“Uh-huh,” said Smith by way of conversation after a considerable pause, and there was some relief for Bernice in the calmness of his blue-grey eyes.
Suddenly the stranger stepped up to Smith and pulled the long cord from the loops of his dressing gown. He pushed a chair against a radiator and indicated it to Smith, who sat down lazily but obediently. Rapidly the intruder ran the cord around Smith’s arms and chest and tied him to the coils in the rear. He seemed ambidextrous as he shifted the gun from hand to hand and watched Bernice during the operation.
And during what followed there was no opportunity for her to be other than a spectator and it was only a matter of a few minutes before the man had gone. During those minutes he swiftly searched the room, pulling out many drawers and paying, perhaps, more attention to the typewriter desk of Bernice than to anything else. His keen eyes never remained away from Bernice for many seconds, and frequently he glanced at Smith while he searched. For a moment he stopped and scrutinized a small Hindu god before which Langa Doonh frequently burned incense.
“Ganesh!” he exclaimed and turned to Smith with a smile that cloaked part of a sneer. “The elephant-headed god must account for your success.”
But Smith appeared too bored to reply, and the man strolled over to the tea table and glanced at the letters, picking up one in a blue envelope only to drop it again into the spilled tea. Once more he approached Smith and ran his hands into the dressing-gown pockets before backing to the door and stepping swiftly out. A moment later there was the sound of a departing motor.
Bernice was at the window in a flash, but failed to read the number of the departing car. She turned back into the room and stamped her foot in vexation.
“Put it over us completely!” she exclaimed.
Smith grinned, and his long legs straightened while his binding snapped as he rose to his feet.
“Thought I knew the tensile strength of that old cord,” he remarked as he took the rope rather tenderly in his hands and proceeded to tie it together again.
“But — but what did he want?” asked Bernice, looking in amazement at the broken cord. “He took nothing.”
“He was clever, but he failed to find what he wanted,” returned Smith. “From the window I saw him waiting in a car and watching the avenue corner — where the letter carrier turns. Of course I did not know he was waiting for the letter carrier, and I did not expect him to come in here.”
“Well?” queried Bernice as Smith refilled his pipe and kicked the broken cup under the table.
“He’s a killer,” remarked Smith between puffs. “Thin, cruel lips and the eyes of a fanatic! Cool and cunning as he is merciless! Good thing he didn’t come to kill. Might not have been so easy to handle.”
“Easy to handle!” exclaimed Bernice. “It seems to me that he did all the handling.”
“Thought he did,” returned Smith, looking quizzically at his assistant. “You won the trick when the expression of your face convinced him that I had lost my nerve. It was the best acting you ever did.”
For a moment the girl stared at the lanky man with the pipe. Her face crimsoned, and she looked uncomfortable.
“Ah, well,” remarked Smith, as though talking to the pipe that he held in his long fingers, “I suppose a man must appear rather a helpless creature in the eyes of his secretary.”
“You are in one of your tantalizing moods!” exclaimed Bernice, stamping her foot for the second time. “I don’t believe you have any idea what the man came for.”
“Maybe so and maybe not so,” retorted Smith. “He waited for the letter carrier and therefore came for a letter — a blue letter like the one he tossed back into the spilled tea. There were seven letters, and I could guess the contents of six by a glance at the envelopes.”
Bernice snatched up the letters and counted them. There were six.
“The seventh,” said Smith, “I managed to secrete under my dressing gown during the process of sticking my hand into the tea and wiping it dry again.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Bernice as Smith drew a blue envelope from under his arm.
The letter was both brief and unusual. It was addressed to Aurelius Smith and read:
Dear Sir:
Please come at once and discover the murderer of Richard. I shall await you, if necessary, until quite late this evening.
The letter was signed by Sybla Fanhaven.
“Wealthy woman,” muttered Smith. “Fashionable address. Dictated to secretary, in all probability, since the body of it is typewritten.” He scrutinized the signature closely. “Old woman, but full of energy. Eccentric. Strong will. Humph!”
“What do you make of it?” asked Bernice.
“Doubly interesting because of our recent visitor with the gun,” returned Smith. “I think the case will be short and swift and will probably end — in death.”
“Can I go with you?” asked Bernice.
Smith’s eyes showed, at their corners, a faint smile of appreciation, but he walked over to the mantlepiece without answering and took up the little Hindu god.
“Old Ganesh,” he soliloquized. “He knew you for the Hindu god of wisdom — god of luck to most natives. He must know India. Devilish mean man to handle. Hope you will give me some of your luck.”
Gently he replaced the image and walked slowly from the room with his head bowed in thought.
And Bernice knew that she was to be left behind.
It was a large library into that Smith was shown shortly after the sun had set. A single lamp upon a table dimly revealed the fact that the four walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling, except where two large pictures, two windows, and a pair of sliding doors broke the array of literature. Beside the table were a man and a woman in evening dress. The woman, though quite “old,” had the skin and eyes of youth beneath her white hair. The man was the man who had called upon Smith that afternoon with a gun.
“Ah, Mr. Smith,” exclaimed the woman vivaciously, extending her hand without rising, “you came quickly. I should have invited you to dinner, but you will join us, anyway.”
“Thank you,” said Smith, taking the outstretched hand without appearing to notice the man with the black eyes.
“There will be only the three of us. Do you know that you almost kissed my hand?”
“You held your hand,” replied Smith, “as only a woman who has lived much abroad can hold it.”
He was looking, with polite indifference, at the man as he spoke.
“Gregory,” she said, “I hope he likes curry.” She turned back to Smith. “This is Mr. Gregory Avondale.”
The dark-eyed man rose from his chair and there was just the fleeting hint of a sneer as he smiled pleasantly and extended his hand. Another instant and he bit his lip slightly as he met Smith’s grasp. In shaking hands the man who exerts the first pressure gains a terrible advantage, and the long fingers of the blue-eyed man put forth the unexpected and surprising strength that lay in them. It was a declaration of war on the part of Smith.
“Mrs. Fanhaven,” said Smith, dropping the rather limp hand, “you wrote me regarding the death of Richard.”
She left her chair immediately and crossed the room almost with the grace of a young girl. Concealed lights flooded the room and revealed details that had been in shadow. Beneath a bird cage, suspended near a window, she pointed upward.
“Poor boy!” she said very simply.
Smith’s face was quite blank of expression as he crossed the room and looked down upon a dead canary lying upon the bottom of the cage. He turned his eyes a little and looked into those of the woman who had summoned him. Self-control was what he saw and joy of life and perfect honesty capable of defying consequences. If sorrow were there, it was hidden by the courage of the grande dame — that courage that meets the great and the little equally.
“Last night,” she said, “somebody strangled Richard. Poor boy! I must know who did it.”
Gently Smith raised a hand and attempted to open the little sliding door of the cage. The catch stuck, and the cage swayed upon the suspending chain.
“Good!” said Smith. “The murderer steadied the cage with his left hand while he opened the door with his right. The projecting bottom of the cage would have been seized by the left hand with the fingers on top and the thumb underneath. The top surface is rough and will not take an impression, but the bottom surface is smooth.
Tomorrow I shall photograph the bottom of the cage and show you the thumbprint of the murderer.”
“Exceedingly clever,” said Avondale, strolling over to join them.
“I opened the cage in just that way myself when I examined the bird this morning.”
“Uh-huh,” said Smith and questioned Mrs. Fanhaven. “This bird was a good singer and always sang at night if the lights were turned on suddenly?”
“Always,” agreed Mrs. Fanhaven quickly.
“This library is on the second floor,” commented Smith, staring slowly about the room. “Your bedroom, madam? It is also on this floor, is it not? You could hear the bird sing from your bedroom? You are a light sleeper?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” answered Mrs. Fanhaven, watching Smith’s face with keen interest. “I like the way you work.”
The tall investigator shrugged his shoulders slightly and went back to the table, where he took up a telephone and called his Fenton Street number. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Avondale, who seemed considerably interested in what was to be said over the wire.
“Oh, Bernice,” he spoke shortly. “I forgot my gun. Bring it over to Mrs. Fanhaven’s house at eleven. You will finish those notes by half past ten. Yes — at eleven.” He turned directly to Avondale, looking at him over the top of the telephone. “I want my heavy automatic.”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Mrs. Fanhaven, coming back to the table as quickly as she had left it. “I love to be on the right side in a drama.”
“If you send for a heavy automatic in the case of a dead canary,” remarked Avondale, lighting a cigarette and puffing it from a holder at least two feet in length, “it would be interesting to know what you require in the case of a dead human being.”
“Oh, in that case I usually require an undertaker,” retorted Smith dryly. “He might even be useful tonight.”
“I am afraid you are not taking this case seriously, Mr. Smith,” interrupted Mrs. Fanhaven. “You are pretending splendidly for our entertainment. You are an exceptional man or I should not permit it. Please go on.”
“We all wear masks,” retorted Smith quickly. “Few of us ever take them off. Your own mask is beautiful and almost impenetrable. Years ago, if one believed in reincarnation, you stepped to the guillotine smelling a rose. Exposure of emotion is not done in your world in little things or in great things. Few know the difference between great and small. There is not much difference, amid infinity, between the sinking of a continent and the death of a canary.”
“Ah, Gregory,” said Mrs. Fanhaven, “we are fortunate in having this guest at our last dinner. If he could only prove some of his words.” She turned to Smith. “Tear a mask from one of us, please.”
“Your own face, madam,” answered Smith, “has shown no grief over the death of your pet, and yet —”
Suddenly he reached for her hand, which was clenched, and uncurled the fingers to expose deep, biting marks of the nails upon the pink palm.
“Poor boy!” she said, glancing back toward the cage.
“I say, capital!” remarked Avondale with a supercilious smile unseen to the lady.
Mrs. Fanhaven seemed to sense some tension between the two men and glanced from one to the other.
“You know,” she said, “I should like to see a contest between the two of you. What a drama it would make! I wonder which would win.”
“Suppose we try?” suggested Avondale.
“By all means,” returned Smith.
“And the one to tear the mask from the other,” concluded Mrs. Fanhaven, “shall have any book from my late husband’s library. There are some rare first editions.”
“I see a Problemata Aristotelis” remarked Smith, strolling over to the books.
Slowly, he circled the room, apparently examining the titles, but stopping to speak occasionally, a comment upon a book or its binding. Once he brought up another topic, but without a stress that would indicate importance.
“The letter you wrote me, Mrs. Fanhaven,” he said, “just reached me by the last mail this afternoon. Surely there must have been some delay in posting it.”
“Gregory was going to post it,” replied Mrs. Fanhaven, “but he couldn’t tear himself away from a French novel, and I sent a servant to post it at the last minute.”
“I am sure Mr. Avondale was quite upset when he discovered his neglect,” suggested Smith.
“As a matter of fact, he was,” said Mrs. Fanhaven, looking at Smith in some surprise.
“Lost his mask for a moment?” queried Smith.
“Gregory!” exclaimed Mrs. Fanhaven, “Mr. Smith is under your guard. You don’t seem to be fighting.”
“Plenty of time after dinner,” remarked Avondale indifferently. “Some hot curry will put me in a better mood for the combat.”
At that moment a servant entered, and the three went down broad stairs to a dining room on the first floor. A round table, set for three, glittered with silver and cut glass.
While going down the stairs, Mrs. Fanhaven asked Avondale if he had finished packing and received a reply in the affirmative.
“Gregory is sailing tonight,” she explained to Smith as they sat down. “Going abroad to study hospital methods for me.”
“Yes?” said Smith, with polite inquiry in his voice.
“Hospitals are my hobby,” she informed him. “I am going to build one in New York. Dreadfully expensive hobby. Almost worse than golf.”
“Why do you want a hospital?” asked Smith point-blank.
“Poor people!” returned Mrs. Fanhaven with the first real emphasis that her voice had carried. “The world would be better if wealthy people stopped their sentimental singing to jailbirds and turned their attention to city hospitals.”
“You know,” remarked Smith coolly, “you are equally attractive with or without your mask.”
“I say, capital!” interposed Avondale. “By Jove! The floor is becoming strewn with masks.”
“Cousin Gregory never shows his heart,” said Mrs. Fanhaven quickly. “Poor boy!”
At the word cousin Smith had glanced at Avondale a little calculatingly as though examining a specimen in a new light. He turned again to Mrs. Fanhaven with polite attention.
“Yes?” he said with conventional inquiry.
“Somebody used a mashie on his heart,” she explained, “while he was playing around with a fast set in England. Would you believe it?”
“Rather not!” answered Smith with that peculiar intonation that is heard east of the Atlantic.
“Gregory, I never knew you to be so tame,” said Mrs. Fanhaven, looking curiously at her cousin. “He is mimicking you. Did you hear that English ’rather not’? You couldn’t have done it better yourself.”
“I’ll talk good American to him as soon as I have had my curry.”
“Live long in India?” queried Smith.
“Went to the dogs there before he smashed up in England,” said Mrs. Fanhaven in that light way that carries no weight of truth or lack of truth. “Poor boy! He reformed, and I made him heir to console him for the loss of all his wicked ways.”
At the word heir Smith looked across at Avondale and smiled, but there was no answering smile from the black eyes, although they looked steadily enough into the blue-gray ones.
“It seems to me that Mr. Smith has forgotten the canary,” remarked Avondale.
“Merely wearing his mask, dear boy,” said Mrs. Fanhaven. “Is it not so, Mr. Smith?”
“The truth is the best mask,” returned Smith, “so few wear it that it is seldom recognized when worn.”
The pièce de résistance of the dinner was to be an Indian curry, a dish in honour of Mr. Avondale before his departure.
“The cook prepared it under Gregory’s instructions,” explained Mrs. Fanhaven, “but he insists upon frying the Bombay duck himself.”
A chafing dish, with the blue flame of alcohol beneath it, was brought in and placed before Avondale. Beside him was set an unopened box of imported Bombay duck, that small fish that has been dried in the sand below the blazing sun of India. Crumbled by the fingers over an Indian curry, it is the last epicurean touch to that Oriental dish.
With the curry there came a lull in the conversation. Mrs. Fanhaven seemed a little tired, but watched Smith rather shrewdly while his attention appeared to be entirely focussed upon the frying of the Bombay duck.
“Just a dash of cayenne pepper,” said Avondale, lifting one of the fish upon a fork.
He took a silver pepperbox from beside his plate and shook it several times over the fish. It was then that Smith knew a climax had arrived.
No servant had brought that pepperbox to the table and two minutes earlier it had not been there.
Gently Avondale extended the fish to Mrs. Fanhaven, who took it in her fingers and broke it over the curry upon her plate as does the experienced curry eater.
“A little cayenne pepper?” asked Avondale, taking a second fish from the chafing dish with his fork.
“I think not,” replied Smith, taking the fish from the fork. “It doesn’t mix evenly, and a curry that is not thoroughly mixed is ruined.”
“Too bad!” said Avondale, with the imitation melancholy of a card player who still retains the winning cards in his hand. “It is really too bad, old chap.”
Smith broke the fish over his curry, outwardly calm, but inwardly trembling upon the point of taking drastic action at a time that might be premature. Mrs. Fanhaven was about to commence her curry, but changed her mind to raise a glass of water to her lips. It was then that the unexpected happened. The single lamp, which stood upon the table a cast a circle of soft radiance, went out!
“By Jove!” exclaimed Avondale in the darkness, “got my foot caught in the bally cord and pulled out the floor plug.”
It was only a few seconds before the light came on again, and Avondale raised his head from below the table, the pepperbox still in his hand. But was it the same pepperbox? Smith scrutinized it as best he could, but it was impossible to be sure. He picked it up carelessly after Avondale had used it. The little silver box was quite warm, as it might have been if it had rested in a vest pocket during the first part of dinner.
“Sorry I didn’t try the pepper, after all,” said Smith, musingly.
“It’s not too late,” returned Avondale indifferently.
“Yes,” retorted Smith. “The ’duck’ is broken and mixed with the curry.”
“Come, Gregory,” suggested Mrs. Fanhaven, “show your antagonist a little courtesy and trade plates with him.”
One properly mixed curry looks very much like another properly mixed curry, and a dash of cayenne pepper is quite invisible. Avondale shrugged his shoulders with indifference and changed plates with Smith.
The dinner progressed, and the curry, being exceedingly good, was entirely eaten by all three.
After dinner, the Smith’s inward surprise, Mrs. Fanhaven announced her intention of retiring almost immediately.
“You don’t suppose an old woman can remain beautiful and sit up late!” she remarked laughingly. “Gregory is driving to the boat at eleven.”
She extended her hand, and this time Smith kissed it.
“Better go to the library and attend to Richard,” she said, turning away. “Poor boy!”
Smith looked after Mrs. Fanhaven with so much admiration that Avondale, who was standing close beside him, was completely thrown off his guard. Both men were watching Mrs. Fanhaven while Smith’s hand stole under Avondale’s dinner coat and extracted from a vest pocket, a silver pepperbox.
But the astute Avondale was not easily defeated.
“A mask!” he called and, as Mrs. Fanhaven turned around: “I claim a mask, dear lady! Our guest has been stealing your silver.”
Mrs. Fanhaven, very much puzzled, but with no expression of annoyance, looked at Smith, who was holding the pepperbox in plain view. For the first time he lost the air of lazy assurance that was so characteristic of him. He placed the little pepperbox in his pocket, hesitated, and walked slowly toward her.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply and placed the little utensil in her hand.
“Do I win the contest?” asked Avondale, affected boredom in his voice.
For a minute Mrs. Fanhaven looked at Smith’s face and into his eyes.
“Keep it as a souvenir,” she said and laughed as she handed back the box. “I’ll sweep up the masks in the morning and count them. Bon soir.”
Smith smiled at Avondale and dropped the silver pepperbox into his side pocket.
“What it is to be the devil with women!” remarked Avondale as the two men walked up the broad stairs together in the direction of the library. “Must see to the strapping of my bags. Join you later in the library before the arrival of that very big pistol — if you have the courage to wait.”
“Uh-huh,” said Smith, and they parted on the landing.
Inside the library Smith immediately placed a hand in his side pocket and found that the pepperbox had vanished!
“Couldn’t have picked a pocket better myself,” he soliloquized and gingerly took a second pepperbox from his vest pocket. “Poor old Avondale never spotted the substitution almost under his nose.”
In the top of the second pepperbox was ingeniously constructed a slide opening that would operate upon the adroit touch of a finger and that was large enough to allow something other than pepper to escape. Carefully Smith returned the utensil to his vest pocket.
Around the entire room he proceeded, examining the books and more particularly the shelves. Books and bookshelves rapidly accumulate dust and, even in a well-ordered household, a very faint trace of dust may sometimes be seen.
Close to the hanging bird cage Smith paused and stared intently at the shelf where the faintest of dust coating had been disturbed and indicated that the books had been removed. In all the library they were the only books that had been moved during the last few days. Swiftly he removed two of them and as quickly put them back. From that moment he appeared to have no more curiosity.
Aurelius Smith was noted for his laziness of manner and, after replacing the two books, he proceeded to live up to his reputation although there was no audience. The most comfortable chair in the room was dragged to the centre table and placed so that one could sit in it and look over the table to where the doors opened into the hall. Cigarettes, matches, and ash tray were arranged conveniently. Several magazines were considered, but rejected in favour of a newspaper that was opened and placed with some care upon the table in front of the chair. All the lights were switched off with the exception of the lamp on the table. After a slow survey of the room Smith stretched himself in the chair. Not satisfied, he rose and shoved the lamp to the farther side of the table so that its rays fell just short of the chair. Satisfied, he sank again into the great chair and, long legs stretched, reached for a cigarette.
An hour passed, and a servant entered.
“Will you have some refreshment, sir?”
“Who sent you?” asked Smith abruptly.
“Mr. Avondale, sir,” answered the man, somewhat surprised at the question. “Mr. Avondale would like to join you in a few minutes for a whisky and soda.”
“Thanks, no,” said Smith, and the servant departed.
Half an hour passed, and Avondale came swiftly into the room. The white shirt of his evening clothes showed through an unbuttoned travelling coat of black, and upon his head was a cloth travelling cap. One hand was in his overcoat pocket, and he came straight to the point with vindictive abruptness.
“It seems necessary for me to kill you,” he said, coming straight to the table and looking across it at Smith.
“Uh-huh,” said Smith without excitement, but with the slow emphasis of coming combat. “The report of your gun and my dead body would send you to the chair. Is it worth it?”
As he spoke Smith leaned slowly forward until his right hand with the newspaper rested upon the edge of the table. His left hand poised a cigarette a little below his lips. His intent, grey-blue eyes fixed themselves upon the black eyes of his scowling adversary upon whose face no mask at all remained.
“The gun in my pocket is muffled,” retorted Avondale. “There will be no report, and your body will not be found until long after I am at sea.”
“You forget the little pepperbox,” countered Smith. “No doubt you have examined the one you picked out of my pocket on the stairs. Do you appreciate the trick I played upon you by substituting the pepperbox that I stole from the table for the one that I took from your pocket? You dare not leave that pepperbox behind you.”
“It will be easy enough to take it from your pocket after I fire,” replied Avondale, leaning forward so that his right hand, buried in his coat pocket, came above the surface of the table.
“It is hidden in this room so cleverly,” returned Smith very quietly, “that even you couldn’t find it before your boat sailed. I telephoned the hiding place to Miss Asterley. She knows the whole case up to your last entry to this room.”
Suddenly Avondale backed away from the table and took the gun from his pocket, revealing the clumsy muffler upon its barrel.
“Smith,” he said, “you have me in a nasty hole, but I’ll get you some day if you don’t force me to do it tonight in order to make my getaway. In the meantime there is some valuable jewellery in a wall safe behind the books near the bird cage. I intend to take that jewellery with me, and if you try to stop me I’ll kill you just as quickly as I stopped the noise of the bird last night.”
“Poor boy!” In the doorway stood Mrs. Fanhaven. At the sound of her voice Avondale turned sharply toward the door, and instantly Smith’s left hand dropped the cigarette and jerked the newspaper from before his right hand, revealing the blue-black barrel of a pistol projecting over the edge of the table.
“Drop it!” barked Smith from his chair and rose as Avondale, glancing back to him, allowed his clumsy, noiseless weapon to slip from his fingers to the floor. “I had you covered behind the newspaper from the moment you entered the room.”
“Poor Gregory,” said Mrs. Fanhaven. “My lawyers warned me against you the day I changed my will in your favour. They advised me to engage Aurelius Smith to investigate you, and I did — after I saw you kill my bird from the hall after being awakened by his last few notes.” She paused. “Mr. Smith will see you to the boat. Goodbye, Gregory. No, I won’t shake hands; my mask is not quite thick enough for that.”
Late on the afternoon of the following day Smith once more sprawled in the most comfortable chair of his diggings on Fenton Street.
The doorbell sounded, and Langa Doonh brought his master an envelope that had arrived by special messenger.
“But what was in the mysterious pepperbox?” asked Bernice, continuing the conversation about the recent case.
“Ah!” said Smith, opening the envelope that he had just received. “Here’s the answer to your question — just arrived from a chemical laboratory. The little box contained [reading] a dried powdered culture of Botulinus bacillus mixed with sufficient powdered cochineal to give the whole a reddish colour. Injected into food, this mixture would have no taste and no effect for several hours, but the toxin resulting from the growth of the Botulinus bacillus would produce death by paralysis of the organs of respiration in about fifteen hours.”’
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Bernice. “Have you heard from Mrs. Fanhaven? Is she well?”
“I haven’t heard from her today,” answered Smith, “but the whole case hinges on the fact that, when Avondale kicked out the table light so that I could not see him change the pepper boxes, I used the darkness to change Mrs. Fanhaven’s plate for mine.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Bernice a little startled.
“And of course you remember,” went on Smith, “that Avondale and I changed plates after the light went on again.”
“I wonder —” began Bernice.
“Here it is by wireless in the paper,” interrupted Smith, “Strange and sudden death of Gregory Avondale on board the outward-bound —”