The Disentanglers

‘It’s a queer story,’ said the policeman.

‘It is a queer story, but, speaking without knowledge, I think your best plan is to summon the chief of your detective department, I need his assistance. And I can prove my identity to him – to you, if you like, but you know best what is official etiquette.’

‘I’ll telephone for him, sir.’

‘You are very obliging. All this is confidential, you know. Expense is no object to Mr. Logan, and he will not be ungrateful if strict secrecy is preserved. But, of all things, I want a wash.’

‘All right, sir,’ said the policeman, and in a few minutes Merton’s head, hands, and neck, were restored to their pristine propriety.

‘No more kailyard talk for me,’ he thought, with satisfaction.

The head of the detective department arrived in no long time. He was in evening dress. Merton rose and bowed.

‘What’s your story, sir?’ the chief asked; ‘it has brought me from a dinner party at my own house.’

‘I deeply regret it,’ said Merton, ‘though, for my purpose, it is the merest providence.’

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘Your subordinate has doubtless told you all that I told him?’

The chief nodded.

‘Do you – I mean as an official – believe me?’

‘I would be glad of proof of your personal identity.’

‘That is easily given. You may know Mr. Lumley, the Professor of Toxicology in the University here?’

‘I have met him often on matters of our business.’

‘He is an old college friend of mine, and can remove any doubts you may entertain. His wife is a tall woman luckily,’ added Merton to himself, much to the chief’s bewilderment.

‘Mr. Lumley’s word would quite satisfy me,’ said the chief.

‘Very well, pray lend me your attention. This affair – ’

‘The body snatching at Kirkburn?’ asked the chief.

‘Exactly,’ said Merton. ‘This affair is very well organised. Your house is probably being observed. Now what I propose is this. I can go nowhere dressed as I am. You will, if you please, first send a constable, in uniform, to your house with orders to wait till you return. Next, I shall dress, by your permission, in any spare uniform you may have here and in that costume I shall leave this office and accompany you to your house in a closed cab. You will enter it, bring out a hat and cloak, come into the cab, and I shall put them on, leaving my policeman’s helmet in the cab, which will wait. Then, minutes later, the constable will come out, take the cab, and drive to any police office you please. Once within your house, I shall exchange my uniform for any old evening suit you may be able to lend me, and, when your guests have departed, you and I will drive together to Professor Lumley’s, where he will identify me. After that, my course is perfectly clear, and I need give you no further trouble.’

‘It is too complicated, sir,’ said the chief, smiling. ‘I don’t know your name?’

‘Merton,’ said our hero, ‘and yours?’

‘Macnab. I can lend you a plain suit of morning clothes from here, and we don’t want the stratagem of the constable. You don’t even need the extra trouble of putting on evening dress in my house.’

‘How very fortunate,’ said Merton, and in a quarter of an hour he was attired as a simple citizen, and was driving to the house of Mr. Macnab. Here he was merely introduced to the guests – it was a men’s party – as a gentleman from England on business. The guests had too much tact to tarry long, and by eleven o’clock the chief and Merton were ringing at the door bell of Professor Lumley. The servant knew both of them, and ushered them into the professor’s study. He was reading examination papers. Mrs. Lumley had not returned from a party. Lumley greeted Merton warmly.

‘I am passing through Edinburgh, and thought I might find you at home,’ Merton said.

‘Mr. Macnab,’ said Lumley, shaking hands with the chief, ‘you have not taken my friend into custody?’

‘No, professor; Mr. Merton will tell you that he is released, and I’ll be going home.’

‘You won’t stop and smoke?’

‘No, I should be de trop,’ answered the chief; ‘good night, professor; good night, Mr. Merton.’

‘But the broken window?’

‘Oh, we’ll settle that, and let you have the bill.’

Merton gave his club address, and the chief shook hands and departed.

‘Now, what have you been doing, Merton?’ asked Lumley.

Merton briefly explained the whole set of circumstances, and added, ‘Now, Lumley, you are my sole hope. You can give me a bed to-night?’

‘With all the pleasure in the world.’

‘And lend me a set of Mrs. Lumley’s raiment and a lady’s portmanteau?’

‘Are you quite mad?’

‘No, but I must get to London undiscovered, and, for certain reasons, with which I need not trouble you, that is absolutely the only possible way. You remember, at Oxford, I made up fairly well for female parts.’

‘Is there absolutely no other way?’

‘None, I have tried every conceivable plan, mentally. Mourning is best, and a veil.’

At this moment Mrs. Lumley’s cab was heard, returning from her party.

‘Run down and break it to Mrs. Lumley,’ said Merton. ‘Luckily we have often acted together.’

‘Luckily you are a favourite of hers,’ said Lumley.

In ten minutes the pair entered the study. Mrs. Lumley, a tall lady, as Merton had said, came in, laughing and blushing.

‘I shall drive with you myself to the train. My maid must be in the secret,’ she said.

‘She is an old acquaintance of mine,’ said Merton. ‘But I think you had better not come with me to the station. Nobody is likely to see me, leaving your house about nine, with my veil down. But, if any one does see me, he must take me for you.’

‘Oh, it is I who am running up to town incognita?’

‘For a day or two – you will lend me a portmanteau to give local colour?’

‘With pleasure,’ said Mrs. Lumley.

‘And Lumley will telegraph to Trevor to meet you at King’s Cross, with his brougham, at 6.15 P. M.?’

This also was agreed to, and so ended this romance of Bradshaw.

IV. Greek meets Greek

At about twenty-five minutes to seven, on March 7, the express entered King’s Cross. A lady of fashionable appearance, with her veil down, gazed anxiously out of the window of a reserved carriage. She presently detected the person for whom she was looking, and waved her parasol. Trevor, lifting his hat, approached; the lady had withdrawn into the carriage, and he entered.

‘Mum’s the word!’ said the lady.

‘Why, it’s – hang it all, it’s Merton!’

‘Your sister is staying with you?’ asked Merton eagerly.

‘Yes; but what on earth – ’

‘I’ll tell you in the brougham. But you take a weight off my bosom! I am going to stay with you for a day or two; and now my reputation (or Mrs. Lumley’s) is safe. Your servants never saw Mrs. Lumley?’

‘Never,’ said Trevor.

‘All right! My portmanteau has her initials, S. M. L., and a crimson ticket; send a porter for it. Now take me to the brougham.’

Trevor offered his arm and carried the dressing-bag; the lady was led to his carriage. The portmanteau was recovered, and they drove away.

‘Give me a cigarette,’ said Merton, ‘and I’ll tell you all about it.’

He told Trevor all about it – except about the emu’s feathers.

‘But a male disguise would have done as well,’ said Trevor

‘Not a bit. It would not have suited what I have to do in town. I cannot tell you why. The affair is complex. I have to settle it, if I can, so that neither Logan nor any one else – except the body-snatcher and polite letter-writer – shall ever know how I managed it.’

Trevor had to be content with this reply. He took Merton, when they arrived, into the smoking-room, rang for tea, and ‘squared his sister,’ as he said, in the drawing-room. The pair were dining out, and after a solitary dinner, Merton (in a tea-gown) occupied himself with literary composition. He put his work in a large envelope, sealed it, marked it with a St. Andrew’s cross, and, when Trevor returned, asked him to put it in his safe. ‘Two days after to-morrow, if I do not appear, you must open the envelope and read the contents,’ he said.

After luncheon on the following day – a wet day – Miss Trevor and Merton (who was still arrayed as Mrs. Lumley) went out shopping. Miss Trevor then drove off to pay a visit (Merton could not let her know his next move), and he himself, his veil down, took a four-wheeled cab, and drove to Madame Claudine’s. He made one or two purchases, and then asked for the head of the establishment, an Irish lady. To her he confided that he had to break a piece of distressing family news to Miss Markham, of the cloak department; that young lady was summoned; Madame Claudine, with a face of sympathy, ushered them into her private room, and went off to see a customer. Miss Markham was pale and trembling; Merton himself felt agitated.

‘Is it about my father, or – ’ the girl asked.

‘Pray be calm,’ said Merton. ‘Sit down. Both are well.’

The girl started. ‘Your voice – ’ she said.

‘Exactly,’ said Merton; ‘you know me.’ And taking off his glove, he showed a curious mediæval ring, familiar to his friends. ‘I could get at you in no other way than this,’ he said, ‘and it was absolutely necessary to see you.’

‘What is it? I know it is about my father,’ said the girl.

‘He has done us a great service,’ said Merton soothingly. He had guessed what the ‘distressing circumstances’ were in which the marquis had been restored to life. Perhaps the reader guesses? A discreet person, who has secretly to take charge of a corpse of pecuniary value, adopts certain measures (discovered by the genius of ancient Egypt), for its preservation. These measures, doubtless, had revived the marquis, who thus owed his life to his kidnapper.

‘He has, I think, done us a great service,’ Merton repeated; and the girl’s colour returned to her beautiful face, that had been of marble.

‘Yet there are untoward circumstances,’ Merton admitted. ‘I wish to ask you two or three questions. I must give you my word of honour that I have no intention of injuring your father. The reverse; I am really acting in his interests. Now, first, he has practised in Australia. May I ask if he was interested in the Aborigines?’

‘Yes, very much,’ said the girl, entirely puzzled. ‘But,’ she added, ‘he was never in the Labour trade.’

‘Blackbird catching?’ said Merton. ‘No. But he had, perhaps, a collection of native arms and implements?’

‘Yes; a very fine one.’

‘Among them were, perhaps, some curious native shoes, made of emu’s feathers – they are called Interlinia or, by white men, Kurdaitcha shoes?’

‘I don’t remember the name,’ said Miss Markham, ‘but he had quite a number of them. The natives wear them to conceal their tracks when they go on a revenge party.’

Merton’s guess was now a certainty. The marquis had spoken of Miss Markham’s father as a ‘landlouping’ Australian doctor. The footmarks of the feathered shoes in the snow at Kirkburn proved that an article which only an Australian (or an anthropologist) was likely to know of had been used by the body-snatchers.

Merton reflected. Should he ask the girl whether she had told her father what, on the night of the marquis’s appearance at the office, Logan had told her? He decided that this was superfluous; of course she had told her father, and the doctor had taken his measures (and the body of the marquis) accordingly. To ask a question would only be to enlighten the girl.

‘That is very interesting,’ said Merton. ‘Now, I won’t pretend that I disguised myself in this way merely to ask you about Australian curiosities. The truth is that, in your father’s interests, I must have an interview with him.’

‘You don’t mean to do him any harm?’ asked the girl anxiously.

‘I have given you my word of honour. As things stand, I do not conceal from you that I am the only person who can save him from a situation which might be disagreeable, and that is what I want to do.’

‘He will be quite safe if he sees you?’ asked the girl, wringing her hands.

‘That is the only way in which he can be safe, I am afraid.’

‘You would not use a girl against her own father?’

‘I would sooner die where I sit,’ said Merton earnestly. ‘Surely you can trust a friend of Mr. Logan’s – who, by the bye, is very well.’

‘Oh, oh,’ cried the girl, ‘I read that story of the stolen corpse in the papers. I understand!’

‘It was almost inevitable that you should understand,’ said Merton.

‘But then,’ said the girl, ‘what did you mean by saying that my father has done you a great service. You are deceiving me. I have said too much. This is base!’ Miss Markham rose, her eyes and cheeks burning.

‘What I told you is the absolute and entire truth,’ said Merton, nearly as red as she was.

‘Then,’ exclaimed Miss Markham, ‘this is baser yet! You must mean that by doing what you think he has done my father has somehow enabled Robert – Mr. Logan – to come into the marquis’s property. Perhaps the marquis left no will, or the will – is gone! And do you believe that Mr. Logan will thank you for acting in this way?’ She stood erect, her hand resting on the back of a chair, indignant and defiant.

‘In the first place, I have a written power from Mr. Logan to act as I think best. Next, I have not even informed myself as to how the law of Scotland stands in regard to the estate of a man who dies leaving no will. Lastly, Miss Markham, I am extremely hampered by the fact that Mr. Logan has not the remotest suspicion of what I suspected – and now know – to be the truth as to the disappearance of his cousin’s body. I successfully concealed my idea from Mr. Logan, so as to avoid giving pain to him and you. I did my best to conceal it from you, though I never expected to succeed. And now, if you wish to know how your father has conferred a benefit on Mr. Logan, I must tell you, though I would rather be silent. Mr. Logan is aware of the benefit, but will never, if you can trust yourself, suspect his benefactor.’

‘I can never, never see him again,’ the girl sobbed.

‘Time is flying,’ said Merton, who was familiar, in works of fiction, with the situation indicated by the girl. ‘Can you trust me, or not?’ he asked, ‘My single object is secrecy and your father’s safety. I owe that to my friend, to you, and even, as it happens, to your father. Can you enable me, dressed as I am, to have an interview with him?’

‘You will not hurt him? You will not give him up? You will not bring the police on him?’

‘I am acting as I do precisely for the purpose of keeping the police off him. They have discovered nothing.’

The girl gave a sigh of relief.

‘Your father’s only danger would lie in my – failure to return from my interview with him. Against that I cannot safeguard him; it is fair to tell you so. But my success in persuading him to adopt a certain course would be equally satisfactory to Mr. Logan and to himself.’

‘Mr. Logan knows nothing?’

‘Absolutely nothing. I alone, and now you, know anything.’

The girl walked up and down in agony.

‘Nobody will ever know if I do not tell you how to find him,’ she said.

‘Unhappily that is not the case. I only ask you, so that it may not be necessary to take other steps, tardy, but certain, and highly undesirable.’

‘You will not go to him armed?’

‘I give you my word of honour,’ said Merton. ‘I have risked myself unarmed already.’

The girl paused with fixed eyes that saw nothing. Merton watched her. Then she took her resolve.

‘I do not know where he is living. I know that on Wednesdays, that is, the day after to-morrow, he is to be found at Dr. Fogarty’s, a private asylum, a house with a garden, in Water Lane, Hammersmith.’

It was the lane in which stood the Home for Destitute and Decayed Cats, whither Logan had once abducted Rangoon, the Siamese puss.

‘Thank you,’ said Merton simply. ‘And I am to ask for?’

‘Ask first for Dr. Fogarty. You will tell him that you wish to see the Ertwa Oknurcha.’

‘Ah, Australian for “The Big Man,”’ said Merton.

‘I don’t know what it means,’ said Miss Markham. ‘Dr. Fogarty will then ask, “Have you the churinga?”’

The girl drew out a slim gold chain which hung round her neck and under her dress. At the end of it was a dark piece of wood, shaped much like a large cigar, and decorated with incised concentric circles, stained red.

‘Take that and show it to Dr. Fogarty,’ said Miss Markham, detaching the object from the chain.

Merton returned it to her. ‘I know where to get a similar churinga,’ he said. ‘Keep your own. Its absence, if asked for, might lead to awkward questions.’

‘Thank you, I can trust you,’ said Miss Markham, adding, ‘You will address my father as Dr. Melville.’

‘Again thanks, and good-bye,’ said Merton. He bowed and withdrew.

‘She is a good deal upset, poor girl,’ Merton remarked to Madame Claudine, who, on going to comfort Miss Markham with tea, found her weeping. Merton took another cab, and drove to Trevor’s house.

After dinner (at which there were no guests), and in the smoking-room, Trevor asked whether he had made any progress.

‘Everything succeeded to a wish,’ said Merton. ‘You remember Water Lane?’

‘Where Logan carried the Siamese cat in my cab,’ said Trevor, grinning at the reminiscence. ‘Rather! I reconnoitred the place with Logan.’

‘Well, on the day after to-morrow I have business there.’

‘Not at the Cats’ Home?’

‘No, but perhaps you might reconnoitre again. Do you remember a house with high walls and spikes on them?’

‘I do,’ said Trevor; ‘but how do you know? You never were there. You disapproved of Logan’s method in the case of the cat.’

‘I never was there; I only made a guess, because the house I am interested in is a private asylum.’

‘Well, you guessed right. What then?’

‘You might reconnoitre the ground to-morrow – the exits, there are sure to be some towards waste land or market gardens.’

‘Jolly!’ said Trevor. ‘I’ll make up as a wanderer from Suffolk, looking for a friend in the slums; semi-bargee kind of costume.’

‘That would do,’ said Merton. ‘But you had better go in the early morning.’

‘A nuisance. Why?’

‘Because, later, you will have to get a gang of fellows to be about the house the day after, when I pay my visit.’

‘Fellows of our own sort, or the police?’

‘Neither. I thought of fellows of our own sort. They would talk and guess.’

‘Better get some of Ned Mahony’s gang?’ asked Trevor.

Mr. Mahony was an ex-pugilist, and a distinguished instructor in the art of self-defence. He also was captain of a gang of ‘chuckers out.’

‘Yes,’ said Merton, ‘that is my idea. They will guess, too; but when they know the place is a private lunatic asylum their hypothesis is obvious.’

‘They’ll think that a patient is to be rescued?’

‘That will be their idea. And the old trick is a good trick. Cart of coals blocked in the gateway, or with another cart – the bigger the better – in the lane. The men will dress accordingly. Others will have stolen to the back and sides of the house; you will, in short, stop the earths after I enter. Your brougham, after setting me down, will wait in Hammersmith Road, or whatever the road outside is.’

‘I may come?’ asked Trevor.

‘In command, as a coal carter.’

‘Hooray!’ said Trevor, ‘and I’ll tell you what, I won’t reconnoitre as a bargee, but as a servant out of livery sent to look for a cat at the Home. And I’ll mistake the asylum for the Home for Cats, and try to scout a little inside the gates.’

‘Capital,’ said Merton. ‘Then, later, I want you to go to a curiosity shop near the Museum’ (he mentioned the street), ‘and look into the window. You’ll see a little brown piece of wood like this.’ Merton sketched rapidly the piece of wood which Miss Markham wore under her dress. ‘The man has several. Buy one about the size of a big cigar for me, and buy one or two other trifles first.’

‘The man knows me,’ said Trevor, ‘I have bought things from him.’

‘Very good, but don’t buy it when any other customer is in the shop. And, by the way, take Mrs. Lumley’s portmanteau – the lock needs mending – to Jones’s in Sloane Street to be repaired. One thing more, I should like to add a few lines to that manuscript I gave you to keep in your safe.’

Trevor brought the sealed envelope. Merton added a paragraph and resealed it. Trevor locked it up again.

On the following day Trevor started early, did his scouting in Water Lane, and settled with Mr. Mahony about his gang of muscular young prize-fighters. He also brought the native Australian curiosity, and sent Mrs. Lumley’s portmanteau to have the lock repaired.

Merton determined to call at Dr. Fogarty’s asylum at four in the afternoon. The gang, under Trevor, was to arrive half an hour later, and to surround and enter the premises if Merton did not emerge within half an hour.

At four o’clock exactly Trevor’s brougham was at the gates of the asylum. The footman rang the bell, a porter opened a wicket, and admitted a lady of fashionable aspect, who asked for Dr. Fogarty. She was ushered into his study, her card (‘Louise, 13 – Street’) was taken by the servant, and Dr. Fogarty appeared. He was a fair, undecided looking man, with blue wandering eyes, and long untidy, reddish whiskers. He bowed and looked uncomfortable, as well he might.

‘I have called to see the Ertwa Oknurcha, Dr. Fogarty,’ said Merton.

‘Oh Lord,’ said Dr. Fogarty, and murmured, ‘Another of his lady friends!’ adding, ‘I must ask, Miss, have you the churinga?’

Merton produced, out of his muff, the Australian specimen which Trevor had bought.

The doctor inspected it. ‘I shall take it to the Ertwa Oknurcha,’ he said, and shambled out. Presently he returned. ‘He will see you, Miss.’

Merton found the redoubtable Dr. Markham, an elderly man, clean shaven, prompt-looking, with very keen dark eyes, sitting at a writing table, with a few instruments of his profession lying about. The table stood on an oblong space of uncarpeted and polished flooring of some extent. Dr. Fogarty withdrew, the other doctor motioned Merton to a chair on the opposite side of the table. This chair was also on the uncarpeted space, and Merton observed four small brass plates in the parquet. Arranging his draperies, and laying aside his muff, Merton sat down, slightly shifting the position of the chair.

‘Perhaps, Dr. Melville,’ he said, ‘it will be more reassuring to you if I at once hold my hands up,’ and he sat there and smiled, holding up his neatly gloved hands.

The doctor stared, and his hand stole towards an instrument like an unusually long stethoscope, which lay on his table.

Merton sat there ‘hands up,’ still smiling. ‘Ah, the blow-tube?’ he said. ‘Very good and quiet! Do you use urali? Infinitely better, at close quarters, than the noisy old revolver.’

‘I see I have to do with a cool hand, sir,’ said the doctor.

‘Ah,’ said Merton. ‘Then let us talk as between man and man.’ He tilted his chair backwards, and crossed his legs. ‘By the way, as I have no Aaron and Hur to help me to hold up my hands, may I drop them? The attitude, though reassuring, is fatiguing.’

‘If you won’t mind first allowing me to remove your muff,’ said the doctor. It lay on the table in front of Merton.

‘By all means, no gun in my muff,’ said Merton. ‘In fact I think the whole pistol business is overdone, and second rate.’

‘I presume that I have the honour to speak to Mr. Merton?’ asked the doctor. ‘You slipped through the cordon?’

‘Yes, I was the intoxicated miner,’ said Merton. ‘No doubt you have received a report from your agents?’

‘Stupid fellows,’ said the doctor.

‘You are not flattering to me, but let us come to business. How much?’

‘I need hardly ask,’ said the doctor, ‘it would be an insult to your intelligence, whether you have taken the usual precautions?’

Merton, whose chair was tilted, threw himself violently backwards, upsetting his chair, and then scrambled nimbly to his feet. Between him and the table yawned a square black hole of unknown depth.

‘Hardly fair, Dr. Melville,’ said he, picking up the chair, and placing it on the carpet, ‘besides, I have taken the ordinary precautions. The house is surrounded – Ned Mahony’s lambs – the usual statement is in the safe of a friend. We must really come to the point. Time is flying,’ and he looked at his watch. ‘I can give you twenty minutes.’