Part 5

“Perhaps it was Digby himself?” I suggested. “I don't think so,” he said. “Because, in the first place, nervousness was the last thing I would associate with his temperament, which was calm and collected in the extreme. And also, he always smoked Brown Eyed Blend, and had done so for years. That was the first thing that struck me as unusual the night we were there--that tin of Cartesian on the table. He was a man of fixed habits; why should he have made a change just that night? I picked up the little wad of tobacco I found lying on the step, and took it carefully home. It's Cartesian, or I'm a Dutchman. So item I in our criminal rhyme-scheme is: Find me a nervous man smoking Cartesian.”

“It's a bit fanciful,” I objected.

“Of course it is,” he cried. “But crime is a fanciful thing. Ever let the fancy roam, as Keats said. What the deuce is the line that follows? Suppose we stroll down Amsterdam Avenue and find a new place to have dinner.”

“Poor old Digby,” he said, as we walked along admiring the lighted caves of the shopwindows. “How he enjoyed all this. You know, there is a certain honest simplicity about Amsterdam Avenue's merchandising that is pleasant to contemplate after the shining sophistications of Broadway. In a Broadway delicatessen window you'll see such horrid luxuries as jars of cocks' combs in jelly; whereas along here the groceries show candid and heartening signs such, as this: 'Coming Back to The Old Times, 17c lb. Sugar.' Amsterdam Avenue shopkeepers speak with engaging directness about their traffic; for instance, there's a barber at the corner of Eighty-first Street who embosses on his window the legend: 'Yes, We Do Buster Brown Hair Cutting.' That sort of thing is very humane and genuine, that's why Digby was so fond of it. There's a laundry along here somewhere that I have often noticed; it calls itself the Fastidious Laundry----”

“Speaking of laundries,” I said, “what do you think of this?” We stopped, and I pointed to a neatly lettered placard in a window which had caught my eye. It said:

_Notice to Artists and Authors_

_We Sew Buttons on Soft Collars Free of Charge_

“By Jove,” I said, “there's a laundry that has the right idea. I think I'll bring my----”

I broke off when I saw my companion's face. He was leaning forward toward the pane, and his eyes were bright but curiously empty, as though in some way the mechanism of sight had been reversed, and he was looking inward rather than out.

“That's very odd,” he said, presently. “I've been up and down this street many times, but I never noticed that sign before.”

He turned and marched into the shop, and I followed. In the soft steamy air several girls were ironing shirts, and a plump, pink-cheeked Hebrew stood behind a counter wrapping up bundles.

“I noticed your sign in the window,” said Dulcet. “What do you charge for laundering soft collars?”

“Five cents each, but we mend them, too, and sew on the buttons.”

“That's a good idea,” said Dulcet, genially. “I wish I'd known that before; I'd have brought my collars round to you. How long have you been doing that? I often go by here, but I never saw the sign before.”

“Only about a week,” the man replied. “Let's see--a week ago last Monday I put that sign up. You wouldn't believe how much new trade it has brought in. I thought it would be a kind of a joke--the man next door suggested it, and I put it in to please him. But 'most everybody wears soft collars nowadays, and it seems good business.”

“The man next door?” said Dulcet, in a casual tone.

“Sure, the cigar store.”

“Is his name Stork?” said Dulcet, reflectively.

“Stork? Why, no, Basswood. What do you mean, Stork?”

“I mean,” said Dulcet, slowly, “does he ever stand on one leg?”

“Quit your kidding,” cried the laundryman, annoyed.

“I assure you, I do not trifle,” said Dulcet, gravely. “I'll bring you in some collars to fix up for me. Much obliged.”

We went out again, and my companion stood for a moment in front of the laundry window, looking thoughtfully at the sign.

“While you ponder, old son,” I said, “I'll run into Mr. Stork-Basswood's and get some tobacco.”

He seized my arm in a firm and painful clutch and whispered, “Look at the corner!”

The laundry was the second shop from the corner. Under the lamp-post at the angle of the street I saw, to my amazement, a man standing balanced on one leg. Directly under the light, he was partly in shadow, and I could only see him in silhouette, but the absurd profile of his onelegged attitude afflicted me with a renewed sense of absurdity and irritation. Dulcet, I thought, had evidently suffered some serious stroke in the region of his wits.

“Now,” he said, softly, “can you see any rhyme between soft collars and standing on one leg?”

As he spoke, we both started, for somewhere near us on the street there sounded a sharp tapping, a ringing hollow wooden sound. Evidently it came from the one-legged man. This was too much for my composure. I broke away from Dulcet and ran to the corner. As I got there the one-legged creature put down a concealed limb and stood solidly on two feet, in a state of normalcy, as an eminent statesman would say. I was confused, and said angrily to the man:

“Here, you mustn't stand like that, on the public street you know, on one leg. It's setting a bad example.”

To my amazement he made no retort whatever, but turned and scuttled hastily down the avenue, disappearing in the crowds that were doing their evening marketing.

“My dear fellow,” said Dulcet, calmly, coming up to me, “you shouldn't have done that. You've very nearly spoilt it all. Come on, let's go in and get your tobacco.”

Basswood's proved to be one of those interesting combination tobacco, stationery, toy, and bookshops which are so common on the upper West Side. I have often noticed that these places are by no means unfruitful as hunting ground for books, because the dealers are wholly ignorant of literature and sometimes one may find on their shelves some forgotten volume that has been there for years, and which they will gladly part with for a song. A good many of these stores have, tucked away at the back, a shabby stock of circulating library volumes that have come down through many changes of proprietorship. Only the other day I saw in just such a place first editions of Kenneth Grahame's “The Golden Age” and Arthur Machen's “The Three Impostors,” which the storekeeper was delighted to sell for fifteen cents each.

A dark young man was behind the tobacco counter, and from him I got a packet of my usual blend.

“Mr. Basswood in?” said Dulcet.

“Just stepped out,” said the young man.

We lit our pipes and looked round the shop, glancing at the magazines and the queer miscellany of books. As it was approaching Christmas time there was a profuse assortment of those dreadful little bibelots that go by the name of “gift books,” among which were the usual copies of “Recessional” and “Vampire,” Thoreau's “Friendship,” and “Ballads of a Cheechako,” bound in what the trade calls “padded ooze”. I was particularly heartened to observe that one of these atrocities, called “As a Man Thinketh,” was described on the box (for all such books come in little cardboard cases) as being bound in antique yap. This pleased me so much that I was about to call it to Dulcet's attention, when I saw that he was looking at me from the rear of the store with a spark in his eye. I approached and found that he was staring at a doorway partly concealed by a pile of Christmas toys and novelties. Over this door was a sign: J. Basswood, Rare Book Department.

“Can we go in and look at the rare books?” said Dulcet.

“Sure thing,” said the young man. “Help yourself. The boss'll be back soon, if you want to buy anything.”

Mr. Basswood was evidently a man of some literary discretion. To our amazement we found, in a dark little room lined with shelves, a judicious assortment of modern books, several hundred volumes, and all first editions or autographed copies. The prices were marked in cipher, so we could not tell whether there were any bargains among them, but I know that I saw several particularly rare and desirable things which I would have been glad to have.

“Good heavens,” I said to Dulcet, “friend Basswood is a real collector. There isn't a thing here that isn't of prime value.”

He was staring at a shelf in the corner, and I went over to see what he had found.

“Upon my soul,” I cried, “look at the Digbies! Not merely one copy of each, but three or four! This man must have specialized in Digbies.”

“Not only that,” said Dulcet, “but he has three of 'The Autogenesis of a Novelist', the first thing that Digby wrote. It was privately printed, and afterward suppressed. It's devilish rare; even I haven't got a copy. I wish I knew what prices he asks for these things.”

“Look at this,” I said. “Perhaps this will tell us.” I picked up one of a pile of pamphlets that were lying in a large sheet of wrapping paper in a corner of the room. It was evidently a new catalogue of Mr. Basswood's rare books, that had just come from the printer.

“Here we are,” I said, turning over the leaves. “Look at this.”

_Special Note_

_Fine Collection of Digbiana: J. Basswood wishes to call particular attention to the Digbiana listed below. Anticipating the growing interest in collectors' items of this great writer's work, J. Basswood has taken pains to gather a stock of first editions and presentation copies which is absolutely unique. The prices of these items, while high, are a fair index of the appreciation in which this author's work is held among connoisseurs. All are copies in good condition and their authenticity is guaranteed._

_November 15, 19--_.

Dulcet seized the catalogue and ran his eye down the pages.

“'Girlhood,' first edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1901, $100,” he read. “'The Nuisance of Being Loved,' first edition, $75. 'The Princess Quarrelsome,' $90. 'The Anatomy of Cheerfulness,' autographed copy, $150. 'Distemper,' acting copy, signed by the author and Richard Mansfield, $200.

“Why,” he cried, shrilly, “this is madness! I am in touch with all the dealers in this sort of thing, and I know the proper prices. This man has multiplied them by ten.” He thrust the catalogue into his pocket and glared round at the musty shelves.

“I suppose it's due to poor Digby's death,” I said. I saw that Dulcet was overwrought, and suggested that we go out and get some supper.

“Supper?” he said. “A good idea. I know a place on Broadway where we can get some guinea pigs.” He strode out of the store and I followed, wondering what next. He seized my arm and hurried me along Seventy-ninth Street to Broadway.

In the clarid blue of the evening that blazing gully of light seemed to foam and bubble with preposterous fire. Chop suey restaurants threw out crawling streamers of red and yellow brilliance; against the peacock green of the western sky the queer church at the corner of Seventy-ninth, with the oriental pinnacle and truncated belfry rising above its solid Baptist wings, seemed like the offspring of some reckless marriage of two infatuated architects, one Jewish and one Calvinist. It was a fitting silhouette, I thought, congruent with an evening of such wild humours. Guinea pigs for supper, how original and enlivening! “Are guinea pigs properly kosher?” I asked, sarcastically.

Dulcet paid no heed, but, holding my arm, urged me along the pavement to an animal shop on the western side of Broadway. The window was full of puppies and long-haired cats. All down the aisle of the establishment were tiers of birdcages, covered with curtains while the birds slept. In lucid bowls persevering goldfish pursued their glittering and improfitable round.

“Those guinea pigs I ordered,” said Dulcet to the man, “are they ready?”

“All ready, sir,” he said, and took out a cage from under the counter. “Very fine pigs, sir, strong and hearty; they will stand a great deal.”

“Yes,” I said, with a wild desire to shout with laughter. “But will they stand being eaten? They will find that rather trying, I fancy.”

Dulcet tapped his forehead, and the dealer smiled indulgently. My companion took the cage, paid some money, and sped outdoors again.

I made no further comment and in a few minutes we were in Dulcet's apartment.

“You have no kitchenette here, have you?” I protested. “Or do we devour them raw? Oh, I see, you have a camp oven. How ingenious!”

He had put on the table a large tin box. With complete seriousness he now produced a small spirit lamp, over which he fitted a little basket of fine wire mesh. When the flame of the lamp was lit, it played upon the basket, which was supported by legs at just the right height. He now put the unsuspecting guinea pigs into the tin box, which was shaped like a rural-free-delivery letter-box, with a hinged door opening at one end. He took the spirit lamp with its attached basket and pushed the contraption carefully into the box with the pigs. Then he opened both windows in the room.

“Admirable!” I exclaimed. “Like those much-advertised cigarettes, they will be toasted. But won't it take a long time?”

“Don't be an ass,” he said.

He went to his desk, and took out the tin of Cartesian Mixture he had snatched away from me earlier in the evening.

“Your mention of those cigarettes is apt,” he said, “for in this case also the fuel is tobacco. Please go over by the window, and stay there.”

I watched, somewhat impressed by the gravity of his manner. From the tin of tobacco he took a small pinch of mixture and carefully placed it in the mesh basket above the lamp. Reaching into the box, he lit the wick of the lamp with a match, and hastily clapped to the hinged lid. The guinea pigs seemed to be awed by these proceedings, for they remained quiet. Dulcet joined me at the window, and remarked that fresh air was a fine thing.

We waited for about five minutes, while the guinea-pig oven stood quietly on the table.

“Well,” said Dulcet, finally, “we ought to be able to see whether it rhymes or not.”

He snatched open the door of the tin box, and skipped away from it in a way that seemed to me perfectly insane. He picked up a pair of tongs from the fireplace, and standing at a distance, lifted out the lamp. The tobacco was smoking strongly in its mesh basket. Holding the lamp away from him with the tongs, he carried it into the bathroom, and I heard him turn on the water. Then, coming back, he inserted the tongs into the tin box, and gingerly withdrew first one guinea pig and then the other. Both were calm as possible, quite dead. Looking over the sill to see that the pavement was clear, he threw the tin box into the street, where it fell with a crash.

“Surely they're not cooked already?” I said.

“I haven't heard from the doctor yet,” he said; “but he promised to ring me up this evening. I'm awfully sorry to have delayed your dinner, old man. Meet me at the Lucerne grill room, Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam Avenue, to-morrow evening at seven o'clock and we'll eat together. You've been a great help to me.”

“I hope the doctor is a mental specialist,” I said; but he pushed me gently out of the room. “We'll finish our rhyme at dinner to-morrow evening.”

I went out into the night, and sorrowfully visited a Hartford Lunch.

The next evening I was at the Lucerne grill promptly. This modest chop house was one of Dulcet's favourite resorts, and I found him already sitting in one of the alcoves studying the menu. He was in fine spirits, and his quizzical blue eyes shone with a healthy lustre.

“Are you armed?” he said, mysteriously.

“What,” I cried, “are we going to do some more guinea pigs to death? It was cruel. I have scruples against taking innocent lives. Besides, your experiment proved nothing. Those pigs would have died anyway, shut up in an air-tight box like that.”

“Stuff!” he said. “The box was not hermetic. I had left small apertures: there was plenty of oxygen. No, it was not the confinement in the tin box that killed them. After you had gone, the chemist whom I had consulted called me up. My suspicions were sound. Have you ever heard of fumacetic acid?”

This is going to be terrible, I thought to myself, and ordered tenderloin steak, well done, with a double order of hashed brown potatoes.

“Have you ever heard of fumacetic acid?” he repeated, relentlessly.

“No,” I said, nervously.

“It is a deadly and little-known drug,” he said, “which (so the chemist tells me) possesses the property that when vaporized the slightest whiff of it causes instant death if inhaled into the lungs. The tobacco in that tin had been doctored with it. I sent the chemist the pipe that poor Digby was smoking when he died, and he analyzed what was left in the bowl. There is no doubt whatever. He was poisoned in that way. I tell you, my professional duty as a literary agent requires that in my clients' interest I should sift this thing to the bottom. It may explain some of those earlier deaths that baffled the Authors' League.”

“But Mrs. Carboy, surely, did not smoke,” I was about to say; but I checked myself in time.

“Dove,” I said, “you are superb. But I wish you would tell me how you worked the thing out. What was it that first aroused your suspicions? If it had not been for you, I should never have guessed anything wrong.”

“Of course,” he said, grimly, “it was that murderous placard in the laundry window, and that is to your credit, for you noticed it. That was the one thing that made plain the whole complicated business. Naturally I suspected the tobacco from the first, for (as I told you) it was a mixture that Digby never smoked ordinarily. But when I heard that that eccentric and damnable placard had been put there at the suggestion of the tobacconist next door, and then found that the tobacconist was also a bookseller, I knew the worst. I have spent to-day in rounding up the threads, and I think I may say without vainglory that the miscreant is in my power.”

“But the man standing on one leg?” I said, puzzled. “What was he up to, and why did he run?” Dulcet's face shone with quiet triumph.

“I told you,” he said, “to look for a nervous man smoking Cartesian Mixture. That tobacconist, Basswood, smokes Cartesian. It is a very moist, sticky blend, as you know. It can only be shaken out of the pipe, after smoking, by vigorously knocking the bowl on something hard. Very well, and if there is no stone step or something of that sort handy, what will a smoker tap his pipe on? Why, he will stand on one leg and knock it out on the lifted heel of the other. And his running away when you addressed him so whimsically, wasn't that a pretty good sign of nervousness--and also of a guilty and doubtful spirit?”

He finished his tumbler of the near-beer that has made Milwaukee infamous, and leaned forward earnestly.

“You know very well,” he said, “that that laundryman would never have thought of his grotesque notice, addressed to 'Artists and Authors', if someone hadn't suggested it to him. Obviously he was only a gull. That card was intended as a decoy, to lure Digby away from his room, so that Basswood could leave the poisoned tobacco for him. Basswood had studied Digby's habits, and must have known that the notice about the collars would be sure to catch his eye. Now we had better be going. The police will be at Basswood's shop at eight o'clock.”

I could have done with a little strong coffee, but he haled me out of the restaurant, and we walked up Amsterdam Avenue. How little, I reflected, did the passersby, hurrying about their kindly and innocent concerns, suspect our dark and perilous errand.

“The motive, of course,” said Dulcet, “was to profit by the increase of value Digby's death would give to his literary work. You will see a proof of that in a moment. Here we are. Come on, this is no time to hang back!”

He strode into the brightly lighted shop, and I followed with a clumsy assumption of carelessness. I must confess that my eye wandered in search of suitable cover in case there should be any gun play.

Mr. Basswood was behind his counter, smoking a battered-looking briar. One side of the bowl was worn down nearly half an inch (from repeated knocking out on stone steps, I suppose). He was a fat, cross-looking person, with a black jut of moustache and a small, vindictive eye.

“A friend told me about your bookshop,” said Dulcet. “He said that you sometimes buy books and manuscripts and that sort of thing.”

“Yes, sometimes,” said Basswood, without enthusiasm.

“I have an unpublished story of Kenelm Digby's,” said Dulcet. “It is about forty pages of manuscript. What would you give for that?”

The dealer's eyes brightened. He took his pipe from his mouth, and knocked it out smartly on his heel, tramping on the glowing cinders. Dulcet looked at me gravely.

“Let me see it,” Basswood said, eagerly.

“I haven't got it with me. But give me an idea what it would be worth to you.”

“If it is genuine, and characteristic of Digby's genius,” said Basswood, slowly, “I would give you two hundred dollars for it.”

“Nonsense!” said Dulcet. “It isn't worth half that. I would not dream of selling it for more than seventy-five.”

Basswood looked startled.

“I guess you are not in touch with the market for such things,” he said. “There is more interest among collectors in Digby's work than in any other recent writer. Perhaps you don't realize what a difference his sad death has made in the prices of his editions. It is very regrettable, but the death of a writer of that kind always puts a premium on collectors' items, because there will never be any more of them.”

“Oh, I see,” said Dulcet, politely. “It is his death that has made the difference, is it?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, then, I suppose this manuscript _is_ worth more than I thought. By the way, I think the title of it will interest you. It is called 'The Mystery of the Soft Collars' and deals with a murder that took place on Eighty-second Street.”

I couldn't help admiring the glorious nonchalance with which Dulcet made this remark, gazing the dealer straight in the eye. Basswood's face was a study, and his cheek was pale and greasy. But he, too, was a man of considerable nerve.

“I don't believe it's genuine,” he said. “That doesn't sound to me like Digby's style.” His voice shook a little, and he added: “However, if it's as interesting as it sounds, I might pay even more than two hundred for it.”

“You rascal!” shouted Dulcet. “Do you think you can buy me off? No! keep your hands above the counter!”

He had whipped out his revolver, and held it at the man's face.

“Look here, Mr. Basswood,” he said. “Even the cleverest of us make mistakes. Let me call your attention to one thing. If it was Digby's death that made the difference in the values of his books, how is it that this bill from your printer, for that new catalogue of yours, is dated ten days before Digby died? I picked it up in your back room the other day. Doesn't that seem to show that you knew, ten days before the event, that there was going to be a sudden boom in Digbiana? Ten days before he died you were multiplying the prices of the items you had gathered. Now, you dog, can you explain that?”

Basswood shook, but still he clung to his hope.

“I'll give you a thousand for that manuscript,” he said.

“Ben,” said Dulcet to me, “just slip around the corner and whistle three times. The police are waiting on Eighty-fifth Street.”

*****

“There's still one thing that puzzles me,” I said to Dulcet late that night as we sat in his room for a final smoke. “I remember that before we discovered that sign in the laundry you said that what we needed to do was to find a rhyme between tobacco and collar buttons. Now what the deuce started you off on collar buttons?”

He smiled patiently.