Reply Paid (15 page)

Those words, after the snatch and grab, brought back so vividly my nurse relieving me of candy and sending me off to clean my fingers, that I broke into laughter.

“Here we are again. It's like a pantomime farce. The old dominie drops from the ceiling and the bad boy is hurried off to be birched. But, joking apart, Mr. Mycroft, to what do I owe the honor of this visit, where in the name of heyday have you dropped from, and what the mischief do you mean by dashing in and snatching my stationery practically out of my mouth?” My tone showed I was roused. His answer showed, though, that my irony had been misspent on him.

“It's not your stationery,” was his queer reply. Then, taking a small box out of his pocket, he gingerly dropped the envelope into it.

I could only think to say, “Kind of you to mail my letters in your private box.” I added to rouse him, “It's no joking matter.”

“You wholly mistake me if you think I imagined it was.”

“Then why the devil—”

“Yes, it's quite diabolic.”

“Mr. Mycroft,” I cried almost in despair, “where have you come from? What are you up to? Are you mad or am I?”

His answer was certainly methodical: “I have been hereabouts a considerable time. I am up to my old game. There is a madman—not you nor I, but the cause of our meeting—and the cause of your death, had I been a moment later, a second more ceremonious over my entry.”

Yes, he was sane enough. So, when with increased emphasis he said, “Well, if you won't wash your hands, I must,” we both did so. And when I saw the thoroughness he used, I followed suit, for I have a real fear of infection. When a man whom you have known to be brave and careful takes from his pocket a small bottle of that horrid creosote disinfectant, makes a wash and scours his hands with it—well, when one has been handling the object he just touched so carefully, one is inclined to imitate. That small purification rite somehow eased the ridiculous tension between us and I listened, I must own, eagerly to what he was telling me.

“You have just escaped a curiously clever death.”

It was an unpleasantly professional way of talking of my possible demise. But by whatever epithet anyone names one's own death hardly matters—that noun is so dominant that any adjective scarcely counts. I was convinced that here was a case I should have to listen to. However much the old man grated, if there was any shadow of truth in what he said I should have to ask him for any aid he could give. We returned to my sanctum; Miss Delamere, realizing that the citadel had capitulated, made no attempt at a relief expedition.

As soon as we were seated, the old man remarked, “I'm not going to give you theories. I know they rouse your suspicions. I will, therefore, bring you proofs, facts. To provide you with these I must leave you for an hour or so. I would ask you to accompany me so that you might follow every step. But not only would you, I am sure, prefer to be left quietly in your office to complete a morning's work which my intrusion may well have deranged, but it may, as probably, be safer for you to stay here till I return. I promise to keep you waiting no longer than is absolutely necessary.” He rose. “I may leave, may I not, by the back way? I don't see any danger, now, that we have not”—he paused—“under our hands. But you are right, I may overlook some things just because I see and attend carefully to others.” He spoke quietly, considerately; made a gentle, old-fashioned bow and was gone.

Miss Delamere sailed in and posed and poised in amanuensal readiness—watching me, I knew, to study another angle of English reaction-behavior. My tired mind would only reflect, not on the mail, but on how very wrong she was to think of going into the films—she should be a novelist. “Women Prefer Weaklings,” I thought would be the sure-fire title of her first, or “Ladies Prefer Loons” or “Ladies Like Loonies.” No, I must stop this wandering. I picked up the letters of the day's mail which she and I had shared, trying with them to make a screen against the one which she had not seen. Somehow I dictated a few further corrections and replies, though I noted that this time I never gave the cigarette hand a moment's uneasiness. Indeed, it carried on, keeping far more than half of Miss Delamere's attention. It de-ashed, stubbed, selected, lit, yes, and even offered the cigarette so often to her lips that Miss Delamere's head swung on an easy rhythm—almost each line of dictation by the right hand being balanced by a slow inhalation from the cigarette offered by the left. I was becoming hypnotized by her easy rhythm, as birds, I believe untruthfully, are said to be hypnotized by cobras swaying in front of them. I had to break the spell.

“You can type what is done,” I said.

“And if your visitor returns?” she questioned as an over-the-shoulder exit.

“Why, show him in.”

She nodded, not so much an assent as a confirmation to herself of her foregone conclusion. She had won this round and I might as well admit it and be counted out. Nor did it matter much. I really wasn't very much interested in keeping up “face” any longer. My uneasiness was sufficient to make me indifferent as to what appearance I gave and whether I could or could not upset the picture Miss Delamere liked to have of me as foil and background to her patient, lifelong presentation of herself.

I waited until it could not be any longer merely my impatience which made the time seem long. Then I allowed myself to look at my watch—I won't have a clock in the office; a clock often makes clients think they are not getting a long enough interview. I was right; it was late; Mr. Mycroft had well outstayed his own leave of absence. I waited again, trying to work on a code which I had been constructing, off and on, for some time. At least it served as a screen while Miss Delamere swung in, deposited the final letters I had given her, all typed, and remarked that if I wasn't inclined to go on with further work, she would go out and get some lunch. I agreed, telling her gratuitously that I had had some new ideas about the code, and thought, while they were fresh in my mind, I had better try them out. When she was gone I didn't go on with the code, gave up all pretense. I started a little, with a sort of half hope, half fear, when I heard, after a considerable time, at last a step in the passage outside the office. But it was only my all-too-efficient secretary back from an all-too-slimmed lunch with an all-too-interested wish that we should get on with our work. Yes, I was thoroughly upset. I didn't, I wouldn't put my feelings into thoughts but I own I couldn't help feeling something hanging over me.

At last another step was outside; I heard the outer door open. I heard two voices overlaid, talking at once, and once again Miss Delamere and Mr. Mycroft appeared together at my door. And again his conduct was as disconcerting (and of course deliciously bizarre to my secretary) as before. Again he swooped, but this time not to snatch my letter out of my hand—I wasn't holding one anyhow; I was just waiting. But his action was just as extreme, and this time I noted, with a queer added discomfort to my anxiety, that Miss Delamere, though she was actually not looking on and treating us openly as a show, at least had allowed herself the liberty of leaving the door open. Mr. Mycroft, though, didn't say anything. He simply dived under the knee-hole of my desk and took the wastepaper basket from its kennel.

“First out of my hands and now from under my feet,” I thought with that anaemic fun that seemed all that was left when one fell into such a searching grasp.

Emerging, like some sea-god playing with a monster shell, Mr. Mycroft, over the brim of it, questioned, “No one has touched this since I left?”

“Not even a discarded stamp has been added,” I answered.

“I'm late because Intil made a mistake,” was the way he disregarded my reply.

“Am I supposed to ask what you mean?” If he simply wanted to snub me, let's get it over, and then, maybe, he'd do whatever he thought of doing in silence.

“I said I'd bring you proof that my behavior, though odd, was rational and your position, though it seemed safe, was one of the greatest danger.” I waited while he scanned the contents of the basket which he'd carried to the window, for all the world like a giant jackdaw looking into a little bird's nest before deciding which of the eggs to purloin. “That's it,” he said to himself. He set the basket on a small coffee-table and, taking a pair of long surgical forceps from his pocket, fished up an opened envelope. I had risen, and could see it was the once-bulky one marked “Personal.” “Would you,” he said, “ask your secretary to be so kind as to bring in the small box I left in your outer office?”

He had not finished before Miss Delamere came in carrying a polished wood box with a paper parcel tied on the top of it. He watched her till she withdrew and closed the door, then laid both forceps and the envelope it still held, down in the fire-grate—I like an open fire in the cooler months. Unpacking the parcel, he drew out surgical rubber gloves and put them on. The parcel also contained long-handled surgical scissors. Next he opened the brown wood box and lifted out of it a microscope, selected a slide, set it in place, and asked me to look.

“Nothing of particular note, as far as I can see,” was my report.

“So I believe, and that was the reason for my delay.”

I had given up any hope of making him explain by questions. The old fellow must be allowed to exude his knowledge at his standard, one-drop-per-minute flow. I suspected there was some real danger about, and so stood clear and silent in the offing, only doing a “super” part when called on. He turned then to the fireplace with the surgical scissors now in his left hand, picked up the forceps—which still retained the envelope in its jaws—and proceeded to snip into the top of it, finally cutting out a small disk from the center of the back flap. Disengaging the envelope and leaving it in the grate, the forceps then picked up this fragment—about the size of a piece of confetti. Placing it between two fine slips of glass, he clipped it into the field-platform of the microscope. Then he was still, for a little while, save for his long fingers twiddling the focus screws at the side. Finally he sighed, raised himself, and said, “May I trouble you again?” pointing to the lens. I stepped forward obediently. “You should be able to see some small objects, almost in the center of the field of vision,” he said. I did. “Those,” he said, “are perhaps the neatest packets of poison a murderer ever dispensed.”

Instinctively I took my hands away from the table, putting them behind my back and began to breathe through my nose. I knew that such defenses would be of little use really, but one reacts like that to remarks of that unsettling sort. It was, therefore, naturally irritating to hear Mr. Mycroft saying, “More careful precautions than those would be needed if the enemy were really loose.”

“Loose?” I queried.

“Yes, though of course we are taking no risks with such a monster, still I think we can say he's held at present. Now if you will be seated, may I explain?”

Such questions are, of course, rhetorical. I waved him to a chair and sat, rather heavily, down in mine.

His opening was good: “I need not now, I believe, take much of your time in striving to convince you that you have very nearly been murdered in a very ingenious way.” Well, I suppose a decoder ought to feel a little comfort in that—that the bump which bumped him off was given with a curious grace, a pretty skill. I smiled wanly. “Until I had proof I was not going to take your time and, as you see, even this morning, when I thought I had everything unraveled, there was a last twist. But that really, as you will see, put me at my ease. I knew we had time then, and then I realized a little later, not only that we had time but that time, in this matter, no longer counted. May I then begin from where we are and work back?”

I touched the office bell and Miss Delamere sailed in. I hoped she thought Mr. Mycroft was anything but what he was, my savior. I knew I should fall forever in her estimation if she suspected I had been such a dumbbell that though I lived by decoding and detection I'd all but been murdered in my own office by one of my clients.

“Miss Delamere,” I said, “please don't wait. I may be kept for some time.” She nodded and in a minute or two I heard the outer office door click.

Chapter VIII

“You received a letter this morning, marked ‘personal'?”

“Yes,” I said. “There it is,” pointing to it lying in a tray on the left of my desk.

“It is safe to handle,” he said, “and as I am sure of the drift of the contents, perhaps you'll not mind reading it to me or letting me read it?”

I handed the tray to him and he picked it up, carelessly enough. He read it twice and then smiled. Certainly his reactions were a little inhuman: his sense of humor had, I could only suppose, become highly specialized.

“It's well done,” he remarked. “I'm sure you noticed the skillful appearance of clumsiness? He has to get you to answer. It is quite likely you won't. He must provoke you, so that, perhaps against your better judgment, you'll dash off a reply, an impatient retort—a few lines and then fling them into the envelope put ready to your hand—and so send the bearish fellow off with a flea in his ear. You react as he planned. Now for my intrusion. Intil ‘by-passed' you to Miss Brown. So, I confess, did I. You and I had fallen out. I fear I grate on you, do what I will. You had awakened my curiosity about Miss Brown and her gift. Besides, I was still trying to work out the mystery on which you began by helping me, and especially the code. Miss Brown, a charming woman, kindly gave me a sitting—odd, how specialized we are, Mr. Silchester. Here's an old detective and yet till then, believe me, I'd never had a sitting with a good medium, or, indeed, with any of that sort. It was, as far as I was concerned, a brilliantly successful attempt.” He sighed, “A great loss.”

I thought I ought to say something, I suppose to show that after all here was territory in which he was the tyro, I the proficient. “Didn't you find the so-called ‘control' pretty exasperating?”