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167 pages

English

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Top-notch detective Sir Henry Marquis, head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard, and several of his clever proteges band together to crack a number of fascinating cases in this collection of interwoven tales. Can you outwit the famed Sleuth of St. James's Square?

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 octobre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776591855
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE SLEUTH OF ST. JAMES'S SQUARE
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MELVILLE DAVISSON POST

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The Sleuth of St. James's Square First published in 1920 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-185-5 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-186-2 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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I - The Thing on the Hearth II - The Reward III - The Lost Lady IV - The Cambered Foot V - The Man in the Green Hat VI - The Wrong Sign VII - The Fortune Teller VIII - The Hole in the Mahogany Panel IX - The End of the Road X - The Last Adventure XI - American Horses XII - The Spread Rails XIII - The Pumpkin Coach XIV - The Yellow Flower XV - Satire of the Sea XVI - The House by the Loch
I - The Thing on the Hearth
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"THE first confirmatory evidence of the thing, Excellency, was the printof a woman's bare foot."
He was an immense creature. He sat in an upright chair that seemed tohave been provided especially for him. The great bulk of him flowed outand filled the chair. It did not seem to be fat that enveloped him. Itseemed rather to be some soft, tough fiber, like the pudgy mass makingup the body of a deep-sea thing. One got an impression of strength.
The country was before the open window; the clusters of cultivated shrubon the sweep of velvet lawn extending to the great wall that inclosedthe place, then the bend of the river and beyond the distant mountains,blue and mysterious, blending indiscernibly into the sky. A soft sun,clouded with the haze of autumn, shone over it.
"You know how the faint moisture in the bare foot will make animpression."
He paused as though there was some compelling force in the reflection.It was impossible to say, with accuracy, to what race the man belonged.He came from some queer blend of Eastern peoples. His body and thecast of his features were Mongolian. But one got always, before him, afeeling of the hot East lying low down against the stagnant Suez. Onefelt that he had risen slowly into our world of hard air and sun out ofthe vast sweltering ooze of it.
He spoke English with a certain care in the selection of the words, butwith ease and an absence of effort, as though languages were instinctiveto him—as though he could speak any language. And he impressed one withthis same effortless facility in all the things he did.
It is necessary to try to understand this, because it explains theconception everybody got of the creature, when they saw him in charge ofRodman. I am using precisely the descriptive words; he was exclusivelyin charge of Rodman, as a jinn in an Arabian tale might have been incharge of a king's son.
The creature was servile—with almost a groveling servility. But onefelt that this servility resulted from something potent and secret. Onelooked to see Rodman take Solomon's ring out of his waistcoat pocket.
I suppose there is no longer any doubt about the fact that Rodman wasone of those gigantic human intelligences who sometimes appear in theworld, and by their immense conceptions dwarf all human knowledge—asort of mental monster that we feel nature has no right to produce. LordBayless Truxley said that Rodman was some generations in advance ofthe time; and Lord Bayless Truxley was, beyond question, the greatestauthority on synthetic chemistry in the world.
Rodman was rich and, everybody supposed, indolent; no one ever thoughtvery much about him until he published his brochure on the scientificmanufacture of precious stones. Then instantly everybody with anypretension to a knowledge of synthetic chemistry turned toward him.
The brochure startled the world.
It proposed to adapt the luster and beauty of jewels to commercial uses.We were being content with crude imitation colors in our commercialglass, when we could quite as easily have the actual structure and theactual luster of the jewel in it. We were painfully hunting over theearth, and in its bowels, for a few crystals and prettily colored stoneswhich we hoarded and treasured, when in a manufacturing laboratory wecould easily produce them, more perfect than nature, and in unlimitedquantity.
Now, if you want to understand what I am printing here about Rodman,you must think about this thing as a scientific possibility and not asa fantastic notion. Take, for example, Rodman's address before theSorbonne, or his report to the International Congress of Science inEdinburgh, and you will begin to see what I mean. The Marchese Giovanni,who was a delegate to that congress, and Pastreaux, said that thesomething in the way of an actual practical realization of what Rodmanoutlined was the formulae. If Rodman could work out the formulae,jewel-stuff could be produced as cheaply as glass, and in anyquantity—by the carload. Imagine it; sheet ruby, sheet emerald, all thebeauty and luster of jewels in the windows of the corner drugstore!
And there is another thing that I want you to think about. Think aboutthe immense destruction of value—not to us, so greatly, for our stocksof precious stones are not large; but the thing meant, practically,wiping out all the assembled wealth of Asia except the actual earth andits structures.
The destruction of value was incredible.
Put the thing some other way and consider it. Suppose we should suddenlydiscover that pure gold could be produced by treating common yellow claywith sulphuric acid, or that some genius should set up a machine on theborder of the Sahara that received sand at one end and turned out sackedwheat at the other! What, then, would our hoarded gold be worth, or thewheat-lands of Australia, Canada or our Northwest?
The illustrations are fantastic. But the thing Rodman was after was apractical fact. He had it on the way. Giovanni and Lord Bayless Truxleywere convinced that the man would work out the formulae. They tried,over their signatures, to prepare the world for it.
The whole of Asia was appalled. The rajahs of the native states in Indiaprepared a memorial and sent it to the British Government.
The thing came out after the mysterious, incredible tragedy. I shouldnot have written that final sentence. I want you to think, just now,about the great hulk of a man that sat in his big chair beyond me at thewindow.
It was like Rodman to turn up with an outlandish human creatureattending him hand and foot. How the thing came about reads like a lie;it reads like a lie; the wildest lie that anybody ever put forward toexplain a big yellow Oriental following one about.
But it was no lie. You could not think up a lie to equal the actualthings that happened to Rodman. Take the way he died!....
The thing began in India. Rodman had gone there to consult with theMarchese Giovanni concerning some molecular theory that was involved inhis formulas. Giovanni was digging up a buried temple on the northernborder of the Punjab. One night, in the explorer's tent, near theexcavations, this inscrutable creature walked in on Rodman. No one knewhow he got into the tent or where he came from.
Giovanni told about it. The tent-flap simply opened, and the bigOriental appeared. He had something under his arm rolled up in aprayer-carpet. He gave no attention to Giovanni, but he salaamed like acoolie to the little American.
"Master," he said, "you were hard to find. I have looked over the worldfor you."
And he squatted down on the dirty floor by Rodman's camp stool.
Now, that's precisely the truth. I suppose any ordinary person wouldhave started no end of fuss. But not Rodman, and not, I think, Giovanni.There's the attitude that we can't understand in a genius—did you everknow a man with an inventive mind who doubted a miracle? A thing likethat did not seem unreasonable to Rodman.
The two men spent the remainder of the night looking at the present thatthe creature brought Rodman in his prayer-carpet. They wanted to knowwhere the Oriental got it, and that's how his story came out.
He was something—searcher, seems our nearest English word to it—inthe great Shan Monastery on the southeastern plateau of the Gobi. He waslooking for Rodman because he had the light—here was another word thatthe two men could find no term in any modern language to translate; alittle flame, was the literal meaning.
The present was from the treasure-room of the monastery; the very carpetaround it, Giovanni said, was worth twenty thousand lire. Therewas another thing that came out in the talk that Giovanni afterwardrecalled. Rodman was to accept the present and the man who brought it tohim. The Oriental would protect him, in every way, in every direction,from things visible and invisible. He made quite a speech about it. But,there was one thing from which he could not protect him.
The Oriental used a lot of his ancient words to explain, and he did notget it very clear. He seemed to mean that the creative Forces of thespirit would not tolerate a division of worship with the creative forcesof the body—the celibate notion in the monastic idea.
Giovanni thought Rodman did not understand it; he thought he himselfunderstood it better. The monk was pledging Rodman to a high virtue, inthe lapse of which something awful was sure to happen.
Giovanni wrote a letter to the State Department when he learned what hadhappened to Rodman. The State Department turned it over to the court atthe trial. I think it was one of the things that influenced the judgein his decision. Still, at the time, there seemed no other reasonabledecision to make. The testimony must have appeared incredible; it musthave appeared fantastic. No man re