The Pursuit of the House-Boat by John Kendrick Bangs (great novels txt) 📗

o’clock at night that the news of the robbery first came to my ears.  I had been spending the evening alone in my library making notes for a second volume of my memoirs, and, feeling somewhat depressed, I was on the point of going out for my usual midnight walk on Hampstead Heath, when one of my servants, hastily entering, informed me of the robbery.  I changed my mind in respect to my midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the news, for I knew that before one o’clock some one would call upon me at my lodgings with reference to this robbery.  It could not be otherwise.  Any mystery of such magnitude could no more be taken to another bureau than elephants could fly—”

“They used to,” said Adam.  “I once had a whole aviary full of winged elephants.  They flew from flower to flower, and thrusting their probabilities deep into—”

“Their what?” queried Johnson, with a frown.

“Probabilities—isn’t that the word?  Their trunks,” said Adam.

“Probosces, I imagine you mean,” suggested Johnson.

“Yes—that was it.  Their probosces,” said Adam.  “They were great honey-gatherers, those elephants—far better than the bees, because they could make so much more of it in a given time.”

Munchausen shook his head sadly.  “I’m afraid I’m outclassed by these antediluvians,” he said.

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” cried Sir Walter.  “These interruptions are inexcusable!”

“That’s what I think,” said the stranger, with some asperity.  “I’m having about as hard a time getting this story out as I would if it were a serial.  Of course, if you gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop; but it must be understood that when I do stop I stop finally, once and for all, because the tale has not a sufficiency of dramatic climaxes to warrant its prolongation over the usual magazine period of twelve months.”

“Go on! go on!” cried some.

“Shut up!” cried others—addressing the interrupting members, of course.

“As I was saying,” resumed the stranger, “I felt confident that within an hour, in some way or other, that case would be placed in my hands.  It would be mine either positively or negatively—that is to say, either the person robbed would employ me to ferret out the mystery and recover the diamonds, or the robber himself, actuated by motives of self-preservation, would endeavor to direct my energies into other channels until he should have the time to dispose of his ill-gotten booty.  A mental discussion of the probabilities inclined me to believe that the latter would be the case.  I reasoned in this fashion: The person robbed is of exalted rank.  She cannot move rapidly because she is so.  Great bodies move slowly.  It is probable that it will be a week before, according to the etiquette by which she is hedged about, she can communicate with me.  In the first place, she must inform one of her attendants that she has been robbed.  He must communicate the news to the functionary in charge of her residence, who will communicate with the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the orders to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally address themselves to me.  ‘I’ll give that side two weeks,’ I said.  On the other hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security by counting on this delay, or will he not, noting my habit of occasionally entering upon detective enterprises of this nature of my own volition, come to me at once and set me to work ferreting out some crime that has never been committed?  My feeling was that this would happen, and I pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time for him to arrive.  The robbery had taken place at a state ball at the Buckingham Palace.  ‘H’m!’ I mused.  ‘He has had an hour and forty minutes to get here.  It is now twelve-twenty.  He should be here by twelve-forty-five.  I will wait.’  And hastily swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself up for the meeting, I sat down and began to read my Schopenhauer.  Hardly had I perused a page when there came a tap upon my door.  I rose with a smile, for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the door, and there stood, much to my surprise, the husband of the lady whose tiara was missing.  It was the Duke of Brokedale himself.  It is true he was disguised.  His beard was powdered until it looked like snow, and he wore a wig and a pair of green goggles; but I recognized him at once by his lack of manners, which is an unmistakable sign of nobility.  As I opened the door, he began:

“‘You are Mr. —’

“‘I am,’ I replied.  ‘Come in.  You have come to see me about your stolen watch.  It is a gold hunting-case watch with a Swiss movement; loses five minutes a day; stem-winder; and the back cover, which does not bear any inscription, has upon it the indentations made by the molars of your son Willie when that interesting youth was cutting his teeth upon it.’”

“Wonderful!” cried Johnson.

“May I ask how you knew all that?” asked Solomon, deeply impressed.  “Such penetration strikes me as marvellous.”

“I didn’t know it,” replied the stranger, with a smile.  “What I said was intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease.  The Americans present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff.  It was.  I merely rattled on.  I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise.  Imagine my surprise, however, when his eye brightened as I spoke, and he entered my room with such alacrity that half the powder which he thought disguised his beard was shaken off on to the floor.  Sitting down in the chair I had just vacated, he quietly remarked:

“‘You are a wonderful man, sir.  How did you know that I had lost my watch?’

“For a moment I was nonplussed; more than that, I was completely staggered.  I had expected him to say at once that he had not lost his watch, but had come to see me about the tiara; and to have him take my words seriously was entirely unexpected and overwhelmingly surprising.  However, in view of his rank, I deemed it well to fall in with his humour.  ‘Oh, as for that,’ I replied, ‘that is a part of my business.  It is the detective’s place to know everything; and generally, if he reveals the machinery by means of which he reaches his conclusions, he is a fool, since his method is his secret, and his secret his stock-in-trade.  I do not mind telling you, however, that I knew your watch was stolen by your anxious glance at my clock, which showed that you wished to know the time.  Now most rich Americans have watches for that purpose, and have no hesitation about showing them.  If you’d had a watch, you’d have looked at it, not at my clock.’

“My visitor laughed, and repeated what he had said about my being a wonderful man.

“‘And the dents which my son made cutting his teeth?’ he added.

“‘Invariably go with an American’s watch.  Rubber or ivory rings aren’t good enough for American babies to chew on,’ said I.  ‘They must have gold watches or nothing.’

“‘And finally, how did you know I was a rich American?’ he asked.

“‘Because no other can afford to stop at hotels like the Savoy in the height of the season,’ I replied, thinking that the jest would end there, and that he would now reveal his identity and speak of the tiara.  To my surprise, however, he did nothing of the sort.

“‘You have an almost supernatural gift,’ he said.  ‘My name is Bunker.  I am stopping at the Savoy.  I am an American.  I was rich when I arrived here, but I’m not quite so bloated with wealth as I was, now that I have paid my first week’s bill.  I have lost my watch; such a watch, too, as you describe, even to the dents.  Your only mistake was that the dents were made by my son John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so much alike that it sometimes baffles even their mother to tell them apart.  The watch has no very great value intrinsically, but the associations are such that I want it back, and I will pay £200 for its recovery.  I have no clew as to who took it.  It was numbered—’

“Here a happy thought struck me.  In all my description of the watch I had merely described my own, a very cheap affair which I had won at a raffle.  My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine.  No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his wife’s tiara.  Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a sum that exceeded its value a hundredfold?”

“Good business!” cried Shylock.

The stranger smiled and bowed.

“Excellent,” he said.  “I took the words right out of his mouth.  ‘It was numbered 86507B!’ I cried, giving, of course, the number of my own watch.

“He gazed at me narrowly for a moment, and then he smiled.  ‘You grow more marvellous at every step.  That was indeed the number.  Are you a demon?’

“‘No,’ I replied.  ‘Only something of a mind-reader.’

“Well, to be brief, the bargain was struck.  I was to look for a watch that I knew he hadn’t lost, and was to receive £200 if I found it.  It seemed to him to be a very good bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of view, feeling, as he did, that there never having been any such watch, it could not be recovered, and little suspecting that two could play at his little game of deception, and that under any circumstances I could foist a ten-shilling watch upon him for two hundred pounds.  This business concluded, he started to go.

“‘Won’t you have a little Scotch?’ I asked, as he started, feeling, with all that prospective profit in view, I could well afford the expense.  ‘It is a stormy night.’

“‘Thanks, I will,’ said he, returning and seating himself by my table—still, to my surprise, keeping his hat on.

“‘Let me take your hat,’ I said, little thinking that my courtesy would reveal the true state of affairs.  The mere mention of the word hat brought about a terrible change in my visitor; his knees trembled, his face grew ghastly, and he clutched the brim of his beaver until it cracked.  He then nervously removed it, and I noticed a dull red mark running about his forehead, just as there would be on the forehead of a man whose hat fitted too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the undulating outline of nothing more nor less than a tiara, and on the apex of the uttermost extremity was a deep indentation about the size of a shilling, that could have been made only by some adamantine substance!  The mystery was solved!  The robber of the Duchess of Brokedale stood before me.”

A suppressed murmur of excitement went through the assembled spirits, and even Messrs. Hawkshaw and Le Coq were silent in the presence of such genius.

“My plan of action was immediately formulated.  The man was completely at my mercy.  He had stolen the tiara, and had it concealed in the lining of his hat.  I rose and locked the door.  My visitor sank with a groan into my chair.

“‘Why did you do that?’ he stammered, as I turned the key in the lock.

“‘To keep my Scotch whiskey from evaporating,’ I said, dryly.  ‘Now, my lord,’ I added, ‘it will pay your Grace to let me have your hat.  I know who you are.  You are the Duke of Brokedale.  The Duchess of Brokedale has lost a valuable tiara of diamonds, and you have not lost your watch.  Somebody has stolen the diamonds, and it may be that somewhere there is a Bunker who has lost such a watch as I have described.  The queer part of it all is,’ I continued, handing him the decanter, and taking a couple of loaded six-shooters out of my escritoire—‘the queer part of it all is that I have the watch and you have the tiara.  We’ll swap the swag.  Hand over the bauble, please.’

“‘But—’ he began.

“‘We won’t have any butting, your Grace,’ said I.  ‘I’ll give you the watch, and you needn’t mind the £200; and you must give me the tiara, or I’ll accompany you forthwith to the police, and have a search made of your hat.  It won’t pay you to defy me.  Give it up.’

“He gave up the hat at once, and, as I suspected, there lay the tiara, snugly stowed away behind the head-band.

“‘You are a great fellow,’ said I, as I held the tiara up to the light and watched with pleasure the flashing brilliance of its gems.

“‘I beg you’ll not expose me,’ he moaned.  ‘I was driven to it by necessity.’

“‘Not I,’ I replied.  ‘As long as you play fair it