Drury Lane’s Last Case (12 page)

“That's the Saxon Jaggard,” said Crabbe in clipped tones.

“Cripes, what a fool I've been!” shouted Inspector Thumm suddenly, startling them all; and with no further explanation he dashed out of the Saxon Room. They heard his big feet pounding away down the corridor.

“Your father, Miss Thumm,” remarked Dr. Sedlar with a slight smile, “seems a very precipitate gentleman.”

“My father, Dr. Sedlar,” retorted Patience, “is at times a very acute gentleman. He thinks of practical things, you see. I've no doubt he's gone after the messenger, something none of the rest of us thought of doing.”

Mrs. Saxon stared at Patience as if she were seeing that angry young woman for the first time. Young Rowe chuckled.

“Yes, yes, Patience,” said Drury Lane mildly, “we don't question the Inspector's perspicacity, although I dare say this time it's futile. The point is, gentlemen, that your 1599 Jaggard hasn't been returned in the
status quo ante
. Please examine the back.”

His sharp eyes had observed something wrong. Dr. Choate lifted the volume from the wrapping paper and turned it over. They saw immediately what was the matter. A knife had been inserted into the lower edge of the back cover, slitting the leather and the thin leaves of the paper board which made up the body of the cover. The whole lower edge of the binding had been slit in this fashion. Protruding from the slit was the tiny edge of a stiff crisp piece of paper.

Dr. Choate pulled it out cautiously. It was a one-hundred dollar bill. Pinned to it with a common pin was a small scrap of the same kind of brown paper which had been used in wrapping the book. In the same blue ink, identically block-lettered, were five words:

TO COVER COST OF REPAIRS

There was no signature.

“The cheek of the fellow!” snarled Mrs. Saxon. “Vandalizing my book and——”

Inspector Thumm stamped back, muttering and wiping his brow. “Too late,” he growled. “Messenger's beat it.… What's this?” He examined the rent in the back cover and read the note with astonishment. Then he shook his head as if to say: “It's too much for
me
!” and turned his attention to the wrapping paper and the string. “Cheap manila,” he said. “Ordinary red string. No clue there. Ah, hell! I'm sick of the whole blasted business.”

Crabbe fondled the hundred-dollar bill and chuckled: “There's a nice thief for you, Choate. Steals a book, returns it with expenses, and throws in a priceless gift to boot!” Then he stopped chortling and looked thoughtful.

“Telephone the papers,” said the Inspector wearily. “Tell 'em about this thing. You'll give the thief an excuse to come back.”

“How do you figure that, Father?”

“Patty, a crook's a crook even if he's dotty. He left this damned 1606 or whatever you call it, didn't he? He'll come back and claim it.”

“I'm afraid not, Inspector,” smiled Lane. “He's scarcely as ingenuous as that. No, he has found——”

Mrs. Saxon, who was openly mollified by the unexpected return of the 1599 Jaggard, uttered a startled exclamation which sounded like the siren warning of a ferry-boat. “Why, Crabbe! This is
really
peculiar. It's just struck me. Do you know, Mr. Lane, we had just such an experience as this not long ago?”

“What's this, Mrs. Saxon?” asked the old gentleman abruptly. “What sort of experience?”

Her triple chin quivered with excitement. “Somebody stole a book from my library, Mr. Lane, and then sent it back, too!”

Crabbe shot her a queer look. “I remember, too,” he said harshly. And he glanced sidelong at Dr. Sedlar for no apparent reason. “It
is
odd.”

“Crabbe!” exclaimed Rowe. “God, what idiots we all are! Of course. It must be the same one!”

Mr. Drury Lane grasped the arm of the Saxon librarian, and the Saxon librarian winced. “Come, come, man, tell us what happened—at once! It may be of the gravest importance.”

Crabbe looked slyly about. “In the excitement I forgot.… About six weeks ago one night I had occasion to work late in the library. The Saxon library, of course, at Mrs. Saxon's. It was when I was recataloguing the collection after the benefaction to the Britannic had been sorted out. I heard a peculiar noise from one of the wings and investigated. I surprised a man in the art of rifling one of the shelves.”

“Now we're getting somewhere,” said the Inspector. “What did he look like?”

Crabbe spread his dry bony hands, as if to warm them. “
Quién sabe
? It was dark, and he was masked and bundled up in a coat. I got no more than a glimpse of him. He heard me and dashed through one of the French windows and escaped.”

“It was dreadful,” said Mrs. Saxon grimly. “I shall never forget how upset we all were.” Then she chuckled. “Mr. Crabbe ran about like a headless old rooster——”

“Hmm,” said Crabbe sourly. “And Mrs. Saxon, I recall, came down in a brilliant red peignoir.…” They glared at each other. Patience envisioning that mountain of feminine flesh uncorseted, in a loose and floppy wrapper, bit her lip bravely. “Anyway, I raised the alarm and young Rowe here came down in his—he, he!—B.V.D.'s.”

“Not quite,” said Rowe hurriedly. “Crabbe!”

“Usual thing. Mr. Rowe played the shining knight and chased the thief, and the thief escaped very prettily.”

“They were pyjamas,” said Mr. Rowe with dignity, “and besides I never even saw the fellow when I chased him.”

“And you say he stole a book?” asked Drury Lane slowly.

Crabbe blinked in a crafty way. “You won't believe it.”

“Well?”

“
He stole a copy of the 1599 Jaggard
.”

Dr. Sedlar's eyes were fixed upon Crabbe; Dr. Choate looked bewildered; and the Inspector uttered a despairing cry.

“For the love of Mike,” he cried, “how many copies of that damned book are there?”

“You mean”—Lane frowned—” that the thief stole this copy of the 1599 Jaggard—before it was turned over to the Britannic—and then returned it to you? That makes no sense at all, Mr. Crabbe.”

“No.” Crabbe grinned toothlessly. “He stole a
forgery
of the 1599 Jaggard.”

“A forgery?” muttered Dr. Sedlar. “I didn't know——”

“A little something Mr. Saxon picked up about twenty years ago,” explained the librarian with the same malicious smile. “It was a patent forgery. We kept it as a curiosity. And that's the one the thief took from the open shelf.”

“Queer,” murmured Lane. “That's the queerest thing that's happened so far. I can't understand it at all.… You still had this genuine copy in the library, Mr. Crabbe? I think you said it hadn't been turned over to the museum at that time?”

“Yes, we still had the genuine Jaggard, Mr. Lane. But it was in our private vault at home,” chuckled Crabbe. “Very much so! With most of the other rare items. The forgery, being worthless except as a collector's curiosity, we didn't care about. And then, as I said, two days later the forgery was returned to us in the mail, with no explanation.”

“Ah,” cried Lane. “And was the forgery slit open, as this genuine copy has been slit?”

“No. It was quite intact.”

“What kind of paper and string?” growled the Inspector.

“Very much the same as these.”

Lane squinted thoughtfully at the Jaggard cabinet. Then he picked up the 1599 Jaggard which had just been returned by messenger and very minutely examined its mutilated binding. At least half the inside back cover—end-paper and top leaf of the inner board—curled away slightly from the remainder of the cover.

“Now here's a curious thing,” said the old gentleman contemplatively, and turned to exhibit the flap which had resulted from the thief's slitting. He pulled the flap gently away. Beneath it was disclosed a rectangular depression. It was evident that some one had dug beneath the flap to the thickness of an additional layer of cardboard. The infinitesimal depression thus produced was not more than three inches wide by five inches long.

“Did he cut that, too?” asked Dr. Choate in a scandalized voice.

“I think not. Patience, my dear, you've very keen perceptions. When would you say this strange rectangle had been scooped out of the cardboard?”

Patience dutifully came forward. After a moment she said: “A very long time ago. The edges left by the cutting have a time-glazed appearance. I get the distinct feeling of great age.”

“I think that answers your question, Dr. Choate,” smiled Lane. “And why, my child, would you say this rectangle had been scooped out of the binding at all?”

Patience flashed a smile at him. “Obviously as a hiding-place for something.”

“Hiding-place!” cried the curator. “Preposterous.”

“Doctor, doctor,” murmured the old actor sadly, “why must you bookworms sniff at the very exact science of logic? Miss Thumm is quite correct. Something very thin and light—thin because of the shallowness of the depression, light because appreciable weight would have been observed by experts during all these centuries—has been until recently hidden in the back of Mr. William Jaggard's enterprising little venture into piratical publishing.
What but a piece of paper
?”

10

Enter William Shakespeare

There was nothing more to be done at the Britannic Museum. The Inspector, especially, was in a fever of impatience to be off. They made their adieux and left.

Gordon Rowe went with them to the door. He rapped his knuckles on the bronze beard of Shakespeare. “The old boy's actually smiling. And no wonder! For the first time for centuries something human has happened in a museum, Pat.”

“Something tantalizing,” said Patience fiercely. “Sir, my hand! I have a very jealous father, and he has eyes in the back of his head.… Good-bye, Gordon.”

“Ah,” said the young man, “that was very nice. When may I see you again?”

“I'll think about it,” said Patience primly, and turned to follow the Inspector and Lane.

He seized her hand. “Pat! Let me see you now.”

“Now?”

“Let me see you to your father's office. That's where you're going, isn't it?”

“Y—yes.”

“Mayn't I come, too?”

“Heavens, you're a persistent young man!” said Patience, and for the dozenth time hated herself for blushing. “Very well, if Father will have you.”

“Oh, he'll have me,” said Rowe gaily, and closed the door behind them with a loud bang. He took Patience's arm and walked her briskly across to the others. Dromio, Lane's red-haired chauffeur, stood grinning beside a sleek black Lincoln limousine at the kerb.

“Inspector,” said the young man anxiously, “do you mind if I come along? Come, now, you don't mind. I can see it in your eyes!”

Thumm stared icily at him. “Say——”

Mr. Drury Lane clicked a soothing syllable. “Now, now, Inspector, I think it's a splendid idea. I suggest you let me take you all downtown. I've my car here, and I do want a few moments' relaxation. Can't think at all with so many disturbing influences around me. The situation obviously calls for a council of war, and Gordon is a keen lad. Shall we, or are you too busy to be annoyed with us, Inspector?”

“There,” said young Rowe, “is a friend.”

“The way business is these days,” said the Inspector glumly, “I could take a month's vacation and that dumb typist of mine wouldn't even know I'd gone.” He glanced sharply at the young man, and then at Patience, who was humming a nervous little tune and trying to appear nonchalant. “All right, younker. Patty, jump in. This is a free ride.”

In Thumm's sanctum the old actor sank into a battered leather chair with a sigh. Patience sat down sedately and Rowe leaned against the jamb with glittering eyes. “You've apparently taken the admonition of the hundred and twenty-second Psalm to heart, Inspector. ‘Peace be within thy walls.' This is good.”

“Yes, but not ‘prosperity within thy palaces,'” laughed Patience, flinging her pert little toque across the room to the top of the safe. “If business continues as bad as it's been, I'm afraid I'll have to get me a job.”

“Women,” said Mr. Rowe fervently, “should never work.”

“Patty, you shut up,” said the Inspector irritably.

“If I could be of any assistance——” began the old gentleman.

“Nice of you, you old scallywag, but we really don't need any. Patty, I'll spank you! Well, Lane, what do you think?”

Lane crossed his fine old legs after a moment's long scrutiny of his companions. “My thoughts are sometimes irrational, Inspector. I will say that this is the most remarkable case in my experience, and that covers a fairly comprehensive reading of criminology. Now you're the practical policeman. What do
you
think?”

“All balled up,” said the Inspector with a bitter grin. “Beats hell. First time I ever heard of a crook sendin' back the swag with a bonus to boot! Seems to me, though, that the logical thing to do is try and find out who those two birds are—this guy in the blue hat and that other one, the one with the queer horseshoe ring that the bus-starter told us about. I'll check up again on those seventeen school-teachers, but I've got the feeling they're all innocent.”

“And you, my dear?” murmured the old gentleman, turning to Patience, whose thoughts were far away. “You always have something to contribute.”

“It seems to me,” said Patience, “we're making a storm in a teacup. There's been a theft, and the loot has been returned with interest. So far as we know, then, there hasn't ever been a real crime!”

“Merely an interesting problem, eh—nothing more vital?”

She shrugged. “I'm sorry if I'm not very brilliant to-day, but that's all I can get out of it.”