The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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the other writing, and read:
“THE PICKERDILLEY STUF IS UP THE CHIMBLY 416 WARDOUR ST 2ND FLOUR BACK IT WAS HID BECOS OF OLD MOAKEYS JOOD MOAKEY IS A BLITER.”
The Professor regarded the inscription with profound disfavour.
“How do you suppose this was done?” he asked gloomily.
“I will show you,” said Thorndyke. “I have prepared a piece of paper to demonstrate the process to Dr. Jervis. It is exceedingly simple.”
He fetched from the office a small plate of glass, and a photographic dish in which a piece of thin notepaper was soaking in water.
“This paper,” said Thorndyke, lifting it out and laying it on the glass, “has been soaking all night, and is now quite pulpy.”
He spread a dry sheet of paper over the wet one, and on the former wrote heavily with a hard pencil, “Moakey is a bliter.” On lifting the upper sheet, the writing was seen to be transferred in a deep grey to the wet paper, and when the latter was held up to the light the inscription stood out clear and transparent as if written with oil.
“When this dries,” said Thorndyke, “the writing will completely disappear, but it will reappear whenever the paper is again wetted.”
The Professor nodded.
“Very ingenious,” said he—“a sort of artificial palimpsest, in fact. But I do not understand how that illiterate man could have written in the difficult Moabite script.”
“He did not,” said Thorndyke. “The ‘cryptogram’ was probably written by one of the leaders of the gang, who, no doubt, supplied copies to the other members to use instead of blank paper for secret communications. The object of the Moabite writing was evidently to divert attention from the paper itself, in case the communication fell into the wrong hands, and I must say it seems to have answered its purpose very well.”
The Professor started, stung by the sudden recollection of his labours.
“Yes,” he snorted; “but I am a scholar, sir, not a policeman. Every man to his trade.”
He snatched up his hat, and with a curt “Good-morning,” flung out of the room in dudgeon.
Thorndyke laughed softly.
“Poor Professor!” he murmured. “Our playful friend Barton has much to answer for.”
THE MANDARIN’S PEARL (1909)
Mr. Brodribb stretched out his toes on the kerb before the blazing fire with the air of a man who is by no means insensible to physical comfort.
“You are really an extraordinarily polite fellow, Thorndyke,” said he.
He was an elderly man, rosy-gilled, portly, and convivial, to whom a mass of bushy, white hair, an expansive double chin, and a certain prim sumptuousness of dress imparted an air of old-world distinction. Indeed, as he dipped an amethystine nose into his wine-glass, and gazed thoughtfully at the glowing end of his cigar, he looked the very type of the well-to-do lawyer of an older generation.
“You are really an extraordinarily polite fellow, Thorndyke,” said Mr. Brodribb.
“I know,” replied Thorndyke. “But why this reference to an admitted fact?”
“The truth has just dawned on me,” said the solicitor. “Here am I, dropping in on you, uninvited and unannounced, sitting in your own armchair before your fire, smoking your cigars, drinking your Burgundy—and deuced good Burgundy, too, let me add—and you have not dropped a single hint of curiosity as to what has brought me here.”
“I take the gifts of the gods, you see, and ask no questions,” said Thorndyke.
“Devilish handsome of you, Thorndyke—unsociable beggar like you, too,” rejoined Mr. Brodribb, a fan of wrinkles spreading out genially from the corners of his eyes; “but the fact is I have come, in a sense, on business—always glad of a pretext to look you up, as you know—but I want to take your opinion on a rather queer case. It is about young Calverley. You remember Horace Calverley? Well, this is his son. Horace and I were schoolmates, you know, and after his death the boy, Fred, hung on to me rather. We’re near neighbours down at Weybridge, and very good friends. I like Fred. He’s a good fellow, though cranky, like all his people.”
“What has happened to Fred Calverley?” Thorndyke asked, as the solicitor paused.
“Why, the fact is,” said Mr. Brodribb, “just lately he seems to be going a bit queer—not mad, mind you—at least, I think not—but undoubtedly queer. Now, there is a good deal of property, and a good many highly interested relatives, and, as a natural consequence, there is some talk of getting him certified. They’re afraid he may do something involving the estate or develop homicidal tendencies, and they talk of possible suicide—you remember his father’s death—but I say that’s all bunkum. The fellow is just a bit cranky, and nothing more.”
“What are his symptoms?” asked Thorndyke.
“Oh, he thinks he is being followed about and watched, and he has delusions; sees himself in the glass with the wrong face, and that sort of thing, you know.”
“You are not highly circumstantial,” Thorndyke remarked.
Mr. Brodribb looked at me with a genial smile.
“What a glutton for facts this fellow is, Jervis. But you’re right, Thorndyke; I’m vague. However, Fred will be here presently. We travel down together, and I took the liberty of asking him to call for me. We’ll get him to tell you about his delusions, if you don’t mind. He’s not shy about them. And meanwhile I’ll give you a few preliminary facts. The trouble began about a year ago. He was in a railway accident, and that knocked him all to pieces. Then he went for a voyage to recruit, and the ship broke her propeller-shaft in a storm and became helpless. That didn’t improve the state of his nerves. Then he went down the Mediterranean, and after a month or two, back he came, no better than when he started. But here he is, I expect.”
He went over to the door and admitted a tall, frail young man whom Thorndyke welcomed with quiet geniality, and settled in a chair by the fire. I looked curiously at our visitor. He was a typical neurotic—slender, fragile, eager. Wide-open blue eyes with broad pupils, in which I could plainly see the characteristic “hippus”—that incessant change of size that marks the unstable nervous equilibrium—parted lips, and wandering taper fingers, were as the stigmata of his disorder. He was of the stuff out of which prophets and devotees, martyrs, reformers, and third-rate poets are made.
“I have been telling Dr. Thorndyke about these nervous troubles of yours,” said Mr. Brodribb presently. “I hope you don’t mind. He is an old friend, you know, and he is very much interested.”
“It is very good of him,” said Calverley. Then he flushed deeply, and added: “But they are not really nervous, you know. They can’t be merely subjective.”
“You think they can’t be?” said Thorndyke.
“No, I am sure they are not.” He flushed again like a girl, and looked earnestly at Thorndyke with his big, dreamy eyes. “But you doctors,” he said, “are so dreadfully sceptical of all spiritual phenomena. You are such materialists.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Brodribb; “the doctors are not hot on the supernatural, and that’s the fact.”
“Supposing you tell us about your experiences,” said Thorndyke persuasively. “Give us a chance to believe, if we can’t explain away.”
Calverley reflected for a few moments; then, looking earnestly at Thorndyke, he said:
“Very well; if it won’t bore you, I will. It is a curious story.”
“I have told Dr. Thorndyke about your voyage and your trip down the Mediterranean,” said Mr. Brodribb.
“Then,” said Calverley, “I will begin with the events that are actually connected with these