THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY AND REVEALS HIMSELF
“I have made a hobby of the
study of cigar ends,” said the stranger, as
the Associated Shades settled back to hear his account
of himself. “From my earliest youth, when
I used surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends
of my father’s cigars and break them up, and,
in hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I
had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my
acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in
all forms, even including these self-same despised
unsmoked ends; for they convey to my mind messages,
sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which to
your minds would never become manifest through their
agency.”
The company drew closer together and
formed themselves in a more compact mass about the
speaker. It was evident that they were beginning
to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary
person, who had come among them unheralded and unknown.
Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for an
instant to listen.
“Do you mean to tell us,”
demanded Shakespeare, “that the unsmoked stub
of a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked
it to your mind?”
“I do,” replied the stranger,
with a confident smile. “Take this one,
for instance, that I have picked up here upon the
wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions
of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard
of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat,
and, in his usual piratical fashion, made off with
it into unknown seas.”
“But how do you know he smoked
it?” asked Solomon, who deemed it the part of
wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger.
“There are two curious indentations
in it which prove that. The marks of two teeth,
with a hiatus between, which you will see if you look
closely,” said the stranger, handing the small
bit of tobacco to Sir Walter, “make that point
evident beyond peradventure. The Captain lost
an eye-tooth in one of his later raids; it was knocked
out by a marline-spike which had been hurled at him
by one of the crew of the treasure-ship he and his
followers had attacked. The adjacent teeth were
broken, but not removed. The cigar end bears
the marks of those two jagged molars, with the hiatus,
which, as I have indicated, is due to the destruction
of the eye-tooth between them. It is not likely
that there was another man in the pirate’s crew
with teeth exactly like the commander’s, therefore
I say there can be no doubt that the cigar end was
that of the Captain himself.”
“Very interesting indeed,”
observed Blackstone, removing his wig and fanning
himself with it; “but I must confess, Mr. Chairman,
that in any properly constituted law court this evidence
would long since have been ruled out as irrelevant
and absurd. The idea of two or three hundred
dignified spirits like ourselves, gathered together
to devise a means for the recovery of our property
and the rescue of our wives, yielding the floor to
the delivering of a lecture by an entire stranger on
’Cigar Ends He Has Met,’ strikes me as
ridiculous in the extreme. Of what earthly interest
is it to us to know that this or that cigar was smoked
by Captain Kidd?”
“Merely that it will help us
on, your honor, to discover the whereabouts of the
said Kidd,” interposed the stranger. “It
is by trifles, seeming trifles, that the greatest
detective work is done. My friends Le Coq,
Hawkshaw, and Old Sleuth will bear me out in this,
I think, however much in other respects our methods
may have differed. They left no stone unturned
in the pursuit of a criminal; no detail, however trifling,
uncared for. No more should we in the present
instance overlook the minutest bit of evidence, however
irrelevant and absurd at first blush it may appear
to be. The truth of what I say was very effectually
proven in the strange case of the Brokedale tiara,
in which I figured somewhat conspicuously, but which
I have never made public, because it involves a secret
affecting the integrity of one of the noblest families
in the British Empire. I really believe that
mystery was solved easily and at once because I happened
to remember that the number of my watch was 86507B.
How trivial a thing, and yet how important it was,
as the event transpired, you will realize when I tell
you the incident.”
The stranger’s manner was so
impressive that there was a unanimous and simultaneous
movement upon the part of all present to get up closer,
so as the more readily to hear what he said, as a
result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard,
and fell with a loud splash into the Styx. Fortunately,
however, one of Charon’s pleasure-boats was close
at hand, and in a short while the dripping, sputtering
spirit was drawn into it, wrung out, and sent home
to dry. The excitement attending this diversion
having subsided, Solomon asked:
“What was the incident of the lost tiara?”
“I am about to tell you,”
returned the stranger; “and it must be understood
that you are told in the strictest confidence, for,
as I say, the incident involves a state secret of
great magnitude. In life in the mortal
life gentlemen, I was a detective by profession,
and, if I do say it, who perhaps should not, I was
one of the most interesting for purely literary purposes
that has ever been known. I did not find it necessary
to go about saying ‘Ha! ha!’ as M. Le
Coq was accustomed to do to advertise his cleverness;
neither did I disguise myself as a drum-major and hide
under a kitchen-table for the purpose of solving a
mystery involving the abduction of a parlor stove,
after the manner of the talented Hawkshaw. By
mental concentration alone, without fireworks or orchestral
accompaniment of any sort whatsoever, did I go about
my business, and for that very reason many of my fellow-sleuths
were forced to go out of real detective work into
that line of the business with which the stage has
familiarized the most of us a line in which
nothing but stupidity, luck, and a yellow wig is required
of him who pursues it.”
“This man is an impostor,” whispered Le
Coq to Hawkshaw.
“I’ve known that all along
by the mole on his left wrist,” returned Hawkshaw,
contemptuously.
“I suspected it the minute I
saw he was not disguised,” returned Le Coq,
knowingly. “I have observed that the greatest
villains latterly have discarded disguises, as being
too easily penetrated, and therefore of no avail,
and merely a useless expense.”
“Silence!” cried Confucius,
impatiently. “How can the gentleman proceed,
with all this conversation going on in the rear?”
Hawkshaw and Le Coq immediately
subsided, and the stranger went on.
“It was in this way that I treated
the strange case of the lost tiara,” resumed
the stranger. “Mental concentration upon
seemingly insignificant details alone enabled me to
bring about the desired results in that instance.
A brief outline of the case is as follows: It
was late one evening in the early spring of 1894.
The London season was at its height. Dances,
fêtes of all kinds, opera, and the theatres were in
full blast, when all of a sudden society was paralyzed
by a most audacious robbery. A diamond tiara
valued at L50,000 sterling had been stolen from the
Duchess of Brokedale, and under circumstances which
threw society itself and every individual in it under
suspicion even his Royal Highness the Prince
himself, for he had danced frequently with the Duchess,
and was known to be a great admirer of her tiara.
It was at half-past eleven o’clock at night
that the news of the robbery first came to my ears.
I had been spending the evening alone in my library
making notes for a second volume of my memoirs, and,
feeling somewhat depressed, I was on the point of
going out for my usual midnight walk on Hampstead Heath,
when one of my servants, hastily entering, informed
me of the robbery. I changed my mind in respect
to my midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the
news, for I knew that before one o’clock some
one would call upon me at my lodgings with reference
to this robbery. It could not be otherwise.
Any mystery of such magnitude could no more be taken
to another bureau than elephants could fly ”
“They used to,” said Adam.
“I once had a whole aviary full of winged elephants.
They flew from flower to flower, and thrusting their
probabilities deep into ”
“Their what?” queried Johnson, with a
frown.
“Probabilities isn’t that the
word? Their trunks,” said Adam.
“Probosces, I imagine you mean,” suggested
Johnson.
“Yes that was it.
Their probosces,” said Adam. “They
were great honey-gatherers, those elephants far
better than the bees, because they could make so much
more of it in a given time.”
Munchausen shook his head sadly.
“I’m afraid I’m outclassed by these
antediluvians,” he said.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!”
cried Sir Walter. “These interruptions are
inexcusable!”
“That’s what I think,”
said the stranger, with some asperity. “I’m
having about as hard a time getting this story out
as I would if it were a serial. Of course, if
you gentlemen do not wish to hear it, I can stop;
but it must be understood that when I do stop I stop
finally, once and for all, because the tale has not
a sufficiency of dramatic climaxes to warrant its
prolongation over the usual magazine period of twelve
months.”
“Go on! go on!” cried some.
“Shut up!” cried others addressing
the interrupting members, of course.
“As I was saying,” resumed
the stranger, “I felt confident that within an
hour, in some way or other, that case would be placed
in my hands. It would be mine either positively
or negatively that is to say, either the
person robbed would employ me to ferret out the mystery
and recover the diamonds, or the robber himself, actuated
by motives of self-preservation, would endeavor to
direct my energies into other channels until he should
have the time to dispose of his ill-gotten booty.
A mental discussion of the probabilities inclined
me to believe that the latter would be the case.
I reasoned in this fashion: The person robbed
is of exalted rank. She cannot move rapidly because
she is so. Great bodies move slowly. It is
probable that it will be a week before, according to
the etiquette by which she is hedged about, she can
communicate with me. In the first place, she
must inform one of her attendants that she has been
robbed. He must communicate the news to the functionary
in charge of her residence, who will communicate with
the Home Secretary, and from him will issue the orders
to the police, who, baffled at every step, will finally
address themselves to me. ‘I’ll give
that side two weeks,’ I said. On the other
hand, the robber: will he allow himself to be
lulled into a false sense of security by counting
on this delay, or will he not, noting my habit of
occasionally entering upon detective enterprises of
this nature of my own volition, come to me at once
and set me to work ferreting out some crime that has
never been committed? My feeling was that this
would happen, and I pulled out my watch to see if
it were not nearly time for him to arrive. The
robbery had taken place at a state ball at the Buckingham
Palace. ‘H’m!’ I mused.
’He has had an hour and forty minutes to get
here. It is now twelve twenty. He should
be here by twelve forty-five. I will wait.’
And hastily swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself
up for the meeting, I sat down and began to read my
Schopenhauer. Hardly had I perused a page when
there came a tap upon my door. I rose with a smile,
for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the
door, and there stood, much to my surprise, the husband
of the lady whose tiara was missing. It was the
Duke of Brokedale himself. It is true he was disguised.
His beard was powdered until it looked like snow,
and he wore a wig and a pair of green goggles; but
I recognized him at once by his lack of manners, which
is an unmistakable sign of nobility. As I opened
the door, he began:
“‘You are Mr. ’
“‘I am,’ I replied.
’Come in. You have come to see me about
your stolen watch. It is a gold hunting-case
watch with a Swiss movement; loses five minutes a
day; stem-winder; and the back cover, which does not
bear any inscription, has upon it the indentations
made by the molars of your son Willie when that interesting
youth was cutting his teeth upon it.’”
“Wonderful!” cried Johnson.
“May I ask how you knew all
that?” asked Solomon, deeply impressed.
“Such penetration strikes me as marvellous.”
“I didn’t know it,”
replied the stranger, with a smile. “What
I said was intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale
at his ease. The Americans present, with their
usual astuteness, would term it bluff. It was.
I merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to
offend the gentleman by letting him know that I had
penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise,
however, when his eye brightened as I spoke, and he
entered my room with such alacrity that half the powder
which he thought disguised his beard was shaken off
on to the floor. Sitting down in the chair I had
just vacated, he quietly remarked:
“’You are a wonderful
man, sir. How did you know that I had lost my
watch?’
“For a moment I was nonplussed;
more than that, I was completely staggered. I
had expected him to say at once that he had not lost
his watch, but had come to see me about the tiara;
and to have him take my words seriously was entirely
unexpected and overwhelmingly surprising. However,
in view of his rank, I deemed it well to fall in with
his humor. ‘Oh, as for that,’ I replied,
’that is a part of my business. It is the
detective’s place to know everything; and generally,
if he reveals the machinery by means of which he reaches
his conclusions, he is a fool, since his method is
his secret, and his secret his stock in trade.
I do not mind telling you, however, that I knew your
watch was stolen by your anxious glance at my clock,
which showed that you wished to know the time.
Now most rich Americans have watches for that purpose,
and have no hesitation about showing them. If
you’d had a watch, you’d have looked at
it, not at my clock.’
“My visitor laughed, and repeated
what he had said about my being a wonderful man.
“‘And the dents which
my son made cutting his teeth?’ he added.
“’Invariably go with an
American’s watch. Rubber or ivory rings
aren’t good enough for American babies to chew
on,’ said I. ’They must have gold
watches or nothing.’
“‘And finally, how did
you know I was a rich American?’ he asked.
“’Because no other can
afford to stop at hotels like the Savoy in the height
of the season,’ I replied, thinking that the
jest would end there, and that he would now reveal
his identity and speak of the tiara. To my surprise,
however, he did nothing of the sort.
“‘You have an almost supernatural
gift,’ he said. ’My name is Bunker.
I am stopping at the Savoy. I am
an American. I was rich when I arrived
here, but I’m not quite so bloated with wealth
as I was, now that I have paid my first week’s
bill. I have lost my watch; such a watch,
too, as you describe, even to the dents. Your
only mistake was that the dents were made by my son
John, and not Willie; but even there I cannot but
wonder at you, for John and Willie are twins, and so
much alike that it sometimes baffles even their mother
to tell them apart. The watch has no very great
value intrinsically, but the associations are such
that I want it back, and I will pay L200 for its recovery.
I have no clew as to who took it. It was numbered ’
“Here a happy thought struck
me. In all my description of the watch I had
merely described my own, a very cheap affair which
I had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving
me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant
divine. No one would like to suspect him of having
purloined his wife’s tiara. Why should
I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of
my poor chronometer for a sum that exceeded its value
a hundredfold?”
“Good business!” cried Shylock.
The stranger smiled and bowed.
“Excellent,” he said.
“I took the words right out of his mouth.
’It was numbered 86507B!’ I cried, giving,
of course, the number of my own watch.
“He gazed at me narrowly for
a moment, and then he smiled. ’You grow
more marvellous at every step. That was indeed
the number. Are you a demon?’
“‘No,’ I replied. ‘Only
something of a mind-reader.’
“Well, to be brief, the bargain
was struck. I was to look for a watch that I
knew he hadn’t lost, and was to receive L200
if I found it. It seemed to him to be a very
good bargain, as, indeed, it was, from his point of
view, feeling, as he did, that there never having
been any such watch, it could not be recovered, and
little suspecting that two could play at his little
game of deception, and that under any circumstances
I could foist a ten-shilling watch upon him for two
hundred pounds. This business concluded, he started
to go.
“‘Won’t you have
a little Scotch?’ I asked, as he started, feeling,
with all that prospective profit in view, I could
well afford the expense. ’It is a stormy
night.’
“‘Thanks, I will,’
said he, returning and seating himself by my table still,
to my surprise, keeping his hat on.
“‘Let me take your hat,’
I said, little thinking that my courtesy would reveal
the true state of affairs. The mere mention of
the word hat brought about a terrible change in my
visitor; his knees trembled, his face grew ghastly,
and he clutched the brim of his beaver until it cracked.
He then nervously removed it, and I noticed a dull
red mark running about his forehead, just as there
would be on the forehead of a man whose hat fitted
too tightly; and that mark, gentlemen, had the undulating
outline of nothing more nor less than a tiara, and
on the apex of the uppermost extremity was a deep
indentation about the size of a shilling, that could
have been made only by some adamantine substance!
The mystery was solved! The robber of the Duchess
of Brokedale stood before me.”
A suppressed murmur of excitement
went through the assembled spirits, and even Messrs.
Hawkshaw and Le Coq were silent in the presence
of such genius.
“My plan of action was immediately
formulated. The man was completely at my mercy.
He had stolen the tiara, and had it concealed in the
lining of his hat. I rose and locked the door.
My visitor sank with a groan into my chair.
“‘Why did you do that?’
he stammered, as I turned the key in the lock.
“‘To keep my Scotch whiskey
from evaporating,’ I said, dryly. ’Now,
my lord,’ I added, ’it will pay your Grace
to let me have your hat. I know who you are.
You are the Duke of Brokedale. The Duchess of
Brokedale has lost a valuable tiara of diamonds, and
you have not lost your watch. Somebody has stolen
the diamonds, and it may be that somewhere there is
a Bunker who has lost such a watch as I have described.
The queer part of it all is,’ I continued, handing
him the decanter, and taking a couple of loaded six-shooters
out of my escritoire ’the queer part
of it all is that I have the watch and you have the
tiara. We’ll swap the swag. Hand over
the bauble, please.’
“‘But ’ he began.
“‘We won’t have
any butting, your Grace,’ said I. ’I’ll
give you the watch, and you needn’t mind the
L200; and you must give me the tiara, or I’ll
accompany you forthwith to the police, and have a search
made of your hat. It won’t pay you to defy
me. Give it up.’
“He gave up the hat at once,
and, as I suspected, there lay the tiara, snugly stowed
away behind the head-band.
“‘You are a great fellow.’
said I, as I held the tiara up to the light and watched
with pleasure the flashing brilliance of its gems.
“‘I beg you’ll not
expose me,’ he moaned. ’I was driven
to it by necessity.’
“‘Not I,’ I replied.
’As long as you play fair it will be all right.
I’m not going to keep this thing. I’m
not married, and so have no use for such a trifle;
but what I do intend is simply to wait until your wife
retains me to find it, and then I’ll find it
and get the reward. If you keep perfectly still,
I’ll have it found in such a fashion that you’ll
never be suspected. If, on the other hand, you
say a word about to-night’s events, I’ll
hand you over to the police.’
“‘Humph!’ he said. ‘You
couldn’t prove a case against me.’
“‘I can prove any case
against anybody,’ I retorted. ’If
you don’t believe it, read my book,’ I
added, and I handed him a copy of my memoirs.
“‘I’ve read it,’
he answered, ’and I ought to have known better
than to come here. I thought you were only a
literary success.’ And with a deep-drawn
sigh he took the watch and went out. Ten days
later I was retained by the Duchess, and after a pretended
search of ten days more I found the tiara, restored
it to the noble lady, and received the L5000 reward.
The Duke kept perfectly quiet about our little encounter,
and afterwards we became stanch friends; for he was
a good fellow, and was driven to his desperate deed
only by the demands of his creditors, and the following
Christmas he sent me the watch I had given him, with
the best wishes of the season.
“So, you see, gentlemen, in
a moment, by quick wit and a mental concentration
of no mean order, combined with strict observance of
the pettiest details, I ferreted out what bade fair
to become a great diamond mystery; and when I say
that this cigar end proves certain things to my mind,
it does not become you to doubt the value of my conclusions.”
“Hear! hear!” cried Raleigh,
growing tumultuous with enthusiasm.
“Your name? your name?” came from all
parts of the wharf.
The stranger, putting his hand into
the folds of his coat, drew forth a bundle of business
cards, which he tossed, as the prestidigitator tosses
playing-cards, out among the audience, and on each
of them was found printed the words:
“I think he made a mistake in
not taking the L200 for the watch. Such carelessness
destroys my confidence in him,” said Shylock,
who was the first to recover from the surprise of
the revelation.