‘It can’t be blood,’ he muttered, with the same querulous noise rising in his voice. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it can’t be blood, I tell you!’

  ‘We shall have to see about that. Take off the coat, please. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave it with us. Is there anything in the pockets you want to take out?’

  ‘But—?’

  ‘Where did you get that stain?’

  ‘I don’t know. I swear to God I don’t know, and I can’t imagine. It isn’t blood. What makes you think it is?’

  ‘Give me the coat, please. Good!’ He watched sharply while Drayman with unsteady fingers removed from the pockets a few coppers, a concert ticket, a handkerchief, a paper of Woodbine cigarettes, and a box of matches. Then Hadley took the coat and spread it across his knees. ‘Do you have any objection to your room being searched? – It’s only fair to tell you I have no authority to do it, if you refuse.’

  ‘No objection at all,’ said the other, dully. He was rubbing his forehead. ‘If you’d only tell me how it happened, Inspector! I don’t know. I’ve tried to do the right thing . . . yes. The right thing . . . I didn’t have anything to do with this business.’ He stopped, and smiled with such sardonic bitterness that Rampole felt more puzzled than suspicious. ‘Am I under arrest? I have no objection to that, either, you know.’

  Now, there was something wrong here: and yet not wrong in the proper way. Rampole saw that Hadley shared his own irrational doubts. Here was a man who had made several erratic misstatements. He had told a lurid tale which might or might not be true, but which had a vaguely theatrical, pasteboard flimsiness about it. Finally, there was blood on his coat. And yet, for a reason he could not determine, Rampole was inclined to believe his story – or, at least, the man’s own belief in his story. It might have been his complete (apparent) lack of shrewdness; his utter simplicity. There he stood, looking taller, more shrunken and bony in his shirt sleeves, the blue shirt itself faded to a dingy white, the sleeves tucked up on corded arms, his tie askew and the overcoat trailing from one hand. And he was smiling.

  Hadley swore under his breath. ‘Betts!’ he called, ‘Betts! Preston!’ and tapped his heel impatiently on the floor until they answered. ‘Betts, get this coat to the pathologist for analysis of this stain. See it? Report in the morning. That’s all for tonight. Preston, go down with Mr Drayman and have a look round his room. You have a good idea what to look for; also keep an eye out for something in the mask line. I’ll join you in a moment . . . Think it over, Mr Drayman. I’m going to ask you to come down to the Yard in the morning. That’s all.’

  Drayman paid no attention. He blundered out in his batlike way, shaking his head and trailing the overcoat behind him. He even plucked Preston by the sleeve. ‘Where could I have got that blood?’ he asked, eagerly. ‘It’s a queer thing, you know, but where could I have got that blood?’

  ‘Dunno, sir,’ said Preston. ‘Mind that doorpost!’

  Presently the bleak room was quiet. Hadley shook his head slowly.

  ‘It’s got me, Fell,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. What do you make of the fellow? He seems gentle and pliable and easy enough; but you can keep pounding him like a punching-bag, and at the end of it he’s still swinging gently in the same old place. He doesn’t seem to care a rap what you think of him. Or what you do to him, for that matter. Maybe that’s why the young people don’t like him.’

  ‘H’m, yes. When I gather up those papers from the fireplace,’ grunted Dr Fell, ‘I’m going home to think. Because what I think now . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is plain horrible.’

  With a gust of energy Dr Fell surged up out of the chair, jammed his shovel-hat down over his eyes, and flourished his stick.

  ‘I don’t want to go jumping at theories. You’ll have to cable for the real truth. Ha! Yes. But it’s the story about the three coffins I don’t believe – although Drayman may believe it, God knows! Unless our whole theory is blown to blazes, we’ve got to assume that the two Horváth brothers aren’t dead. Hey?’

  ‘The question being . . .’

  ‘What happened to them. Harrumph, yes. What I think might have happened is based on the assumption that Drayman believes he’s telling the truth. First point! I don’t believe for a second that those brothers were sent to prison for a political offence. Grimaud, with his “little money saved,” escapes from prison. He lies low for five years or more, and then suddenly “inherits” a substantial fortune, under an entirely different name, from somebody we haven’t heard of. But he slides out of France to enjoy it without comment. Second point, supporting! Where’s the dangerous secret in Grimaud’s life, if all this is true? Most people would consider that Monte Cristo escape as merely exciting and romantic; and, as for his offence, it would sound to English ears about as hideous and blasting an infamy as pinching a Belisha beacon or pasting a policeman in the eye on boat-race night. Dammit, Hadley, it won’t do!’

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Dr Fell in a very quiet voice, ‘Grimaud was alive when he was nailed up in his coffin. Suppose the other two were alive, too? Suppose all three “deaths” were faked exactly as Grimaud’s was faked? Suppose there were two living people in those other coffins when Grimaud climbed out of his? But they couldn’t come out . . . because he had the nail-cutters and didn’t choose to use ’em. It wasn’t likely that there would be more than one pair of cutters. Grimaud had ’em, because he was the strongest. Once he got out, it would have been easy for him to let the others out, as they had arranged. But he prudently decided to let them lie buried, because then there would be nobody to share the money that all three had stolen. A brilliant crime, you see. A brilliant crime.’

  Nobody spoke. Hadley muttered something under his breath; his face was incredulous and rather wild as he got up.

  ‘Oh, I know it’s a black business!’ rumbled Dr Fell; ‘a black, unholy business that would turn a man’s dreams sick if he’d done it. But it’s the only thing that will explain this unholy case, and why a man would be hounded if those brothers ever climbed up out of their graves . . . Why was Grimaud so desperately anxious to rush Drayman away from that spot without getting rid of his convict garb as soon as he could? Why would he run the risk of being seen from the road, when a hideaway near a plague grave would be the last place any native would venture? Well, those graves were very shallow. If, as time went on, the brothers found themselves choking to death . . . and still nobody had come to let them out . . . they might begin to shriek and batter and pound in their coffins. It was just possible Drayman might have seen the loose earth trembling or heard the last scream from inside.’

  Hadley got out a handkerchief and mopped his face.

  ‘Would any swine—’ he said in an incredulous voice, which trailed away. ‘No. We’re running off the rails, Fell. It’s all imagination. It can’t be! Besides, in that case they wouldn’t have climbed up out of their graves. They’d be dead.’

  ‘Would they?’ said Dr Fell, vacantly. ‘You’re forgetting the spade.’

  ‘What spade?’

  ‘The spade that some poor devil in his fear or hurry left behind when he’d dug the grave. Prisons, even the worst prisons, don’t permit that sort of negligence. They would send back after it. Man, I can see that business in every detail, even if I haven’t one shred of proof to support it! Think of every word that crazy Pierre Fley said to Grimaud at the Warwick Tavern, and see if it doesn’t fit . . . Back come a couple of armed, hard-headed warders looking for that discarded spade. They see or hear what Grimaud was afraid Drayman would see or hear. They either tumble to the trick or else they act in common humanity. The coffins are smashed open; the two brothers are rolled out, fainting and bloody, but alive.’

  ‘And no hue and cry after Grimaud? Why, they’d have torn Hungary apart looking for the man who had escaped and—’

  ‘H’mf, yes. I thought of that too, and asked about it. The prison authorities would have done just that . . . if they weren’t being so bitterly attacked that their heads were in danger at the time. What do you think the attackers would have said if it became known that, through carelessness, they allowed a thing like that to happen? Much better to keep quiet about it, hey? Much better to shove those two brothers into close confinement and keep quiet about the third.’

  ‘It’s all theory,’ said Hadley, after a pause. ‘But, if it’s true, I could come close to believing in evil spirits. God knows Grimaud got exactly what he deserved. And we’ve got to go on trying to find his murderer just the same. If that’s the whole story—’

  ‘Of course it’s not the whole story!’ said Dr Fell. ‘It’s not the whole story even if it’s true, and that’s the worst part. You talk of evil spirits. I tell you that in some way I can’t fathom there’s a worse evil spirit than Grimaud; and that’s X, that’s the hollow man, that’s brother Henri.’ He pointed out with his stick. ‘Why? Why does Pierre Fley admit he fears him? It would be reasonable for Grimaud to fear his enemy; but why does Fley even fear his brother and his ally against the common antagonist? Why is a skilled illusionist afraid of illusion, unless this gentle brother Henri is as rattle-brained as a criminal lunatic and as clever as Satan?’

  Hadley put his notebook in his pocket and buttoned up his coat.

  ‘You go home if you like,’ he said. ‘We’ve finished here. But I’m going after Fley. Whoever the other brother is, Fley knows. And he’s going to tell, I can promise you that. I’ll have a look round Drayman’s room, but I don’t anticipate much. Fley is the key to this cipher, and he’s going to lead us to the murderer. Ready?’

  They did not learn it until the next morning; but Fley, as a matter of fact, was already dead. He had been shot down with the same pistol that killed Grimaud. And the murderer was invisible before the eyes of witnesses, and still he had left no footprint in the snow.

  XI The Murder by Magic

  When Dr Fell hammered on the door at nine o’clock next morning, both his guests were in a drowsy state. Rampole had got very little sleep the night before. When he and the doctor returned at half-past one, Dorothy had been hopping with eagerness to hear all the details, and her husband was not at all unwilling to tell them. They equipped themselves with cigarettes and beer, and retired to their room, where Dorothy piled a heap of sofa pillows on the floor like Sherlock Holmes, and sat there with a glass of beer and a sinister expression of wisdom while her husband stalked about the room, declaiming. Her views were vigorous but hazy. She rather liked the descriptions of Mme Dumont and Drayman, but took a violent dislike to Rosette Grimaud. Even when Rampole quoted Rosette’s remarks to the debating society, a motto of which they both approved, she was not mollified.

  ‘All the same, you mark my words,’ said Dorothy, pointing her cigarette at him wisely, ‘that funny-faced blonde is mixed up in it somehow. She’s a wrong un, old boy. I mean she wants berlud. Bah! I’ll bet she wouldn’t even make a good – um – courtesan, to use her own terms. And if I had ever treated you the way she treats Boyd Mangan, and you hadn’t landed me a sock under the jaw, I’d never have spoken to either of us again . . . if you see my meaning?’

  ‘Let’s omit the personal,’ said Rampole. ‘Besides, what’s she done to Mangan? Nothing that I can see. And you don’t seriously think she would kill her father, even if she hadn’t been locked in the front room?’

  ‘N-no, because I don’t see how she could have put on that fancy costume and fooled Mrs Dumont,’ said Dorothy, with an expression of great profundity in her bright dark eyes. ‘But I’ll tell you how it is. Mrs Dumont and Drayman are both innocent. As for Mills – well, Mills does sound rather a prig, but then your view is highly coloured because you don’t like science or the Vision of the Future. And you’ll admit he does sound as though he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smoked reflectively. ‘ ’M. I’m getting tremendous ideas. The people I’m most suspicious of, and the ones against whom it’d be easiest to make out a case, are the two you haven’t seen – Pettis and Burnaby.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like this. The objection to Pettis is that he’s too small, isn’t it? I should have thought Dr Fell’s erudition would have got it like a shot. I was thinking of a story . . . I can’t remember where I’ve read it, but it comes in one shape or another into several mediæval tales. J’you remember? There’s always an enormous figure in armour, with its vizor down, who rides in a tournament and smacks everybody flat. Then along comes ye mightiest knight to joust against it. Down he rides with a bang, hits the tall champion’s helmet squarely in the middle of the vizor, and to everybody’s horror knocks the head clean off. Then up pipes a voice from inside the shell, and they discover it belongs to a handsome young lad who’s not tall enough to fill up the suit of armour . . .’

  Rampole looked at her. ‘Beloved,’ said he, with dignity, ‘this is pure drivelling. This is beyond all question the looniest idea which . . . Look here, are you seriously trying to tell me Pettis might walk about with a dummy head and shoulders rigged up on him?’

  ‘You’re too conservative,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I think it’s a jolly-good idea. And do you want confirmation? Right! Didn’t Mills himself comment on the shiny look about the back of the head, and say it looked as though the whole head were made of papier-mâché? What have you got to say to that?’

  ‘I say it’s a nightmare. Haven’t you any more practical idea?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Dorothy, wriggling. She had obviously just been struck with the inspiration, but she passed it off as an old one. ‘It’s about the impossible situation. Why didn’t the murderer want to leave any footprints? You’re all going after the most horribly complicated reasons. And, anyway, they generally end in your thinking that the murderer just wants to have some fun with the police. Rats, darling! What’s the only real reason, the first reason anybody would think of outside a murder case, why a man mightn’t want to leave any footprints? Why, because the footprints would be so distinctive that they’d lead straight to him! Because he had a deformity or something which would hang him if he left a footprint . . .’

  ‘And—?’

  ‘And, you tell me,’ she said, ‘this chap Burnaby has a club foot.’

  When, towards daylight, Rampole at last fell asleep, he was haunted by images in which Burnaby’s club foot seemed even more sinister than the man who wore a dummy head. It was all nonsense; but it was a disturbing kind of nonsense to mingle in a dream with the puzzle of the three graves.

  He struggled out of bed when Dr Fell knocked at the door towards nine o’clock on Sunday morning; he shaved and dressed hastily, and stumbled down through a silent house. It was an unearthly hour for Dr Fell (or anybody else) to be stirring, and Rampole knew some fresh deviltry had broken overnight. The hallways were chilly; even the great library, where a roaring fire had been lighted, had that unreal look which all things assume when you get up at daybreak to catch a train. Breakfast – for three – was set out in the embrasure of the bay window overlooking the terrace. It was a leaden day, the sky already moving with snow. Dr Fell, fully dressed, sat at the table with his head in his hands and stared at a newspaper.

  ‘Brother Henri—’ he rumbled, and struck the paper. ‘Oh yes. He’s at it again. Hadley just phoned with more details, and he’ll be here any minute. Look at this for a starter. If we thought we’d got a hard problem on our hands last night – oh, Bacchus, look at this one! I’m like Drayman – I can’t believe it. It’s crowded Grimaud’s murder clean off the front page. Fortunately, they haven’t spotted the connection between ’em, or else Hadley’s given ’em the word to keep off. Here!’

  Rampole, as coffee was poured out for him, saw the headlines. ‘MAGICIAN MURDERED BY MAGIC!’ said one, which must have given great pleasure to the writer. ‘RIDDLE OF CAGLIOSTRO STREET.’ ‘“THE SECOND BULLET IS FOR YOU!”’

  ‘Cagliostro Street?’ the American repeated. ‘Where in the name of sanity is Cagliostro Street? I thought I’d heard of some funny street names, but this one—’

  ‘You’d never hear of it ordinarily,’ grunted Dr Fell. ‘It’s one of those streets hidden behind streets, that you only stumble on by accident when you’re looking for a short-cut, and you’re startled to find a whole community lost in the middle of London . . . Anyway, Cagliostro Street is not more than three minutes’ walk from Grimaud’s house. It’s a little cul-de-sac behind Guilford Street, on the other side of Russell Square. So far as I remember, it has a lot of tradesmen’s shops overflowing from Lamb’s Conduit Street, and the rest lodging-houses . . . Brother Henri left Grimaud’s place after the shooting, walked over there, hung about for a little time, and then completed his work.’

  Rampole ran his eye down the story:

  The body of the man found murdered last night in Cagliostro Street, WC1, has been identified as that of Pierre Fley, a French conjuror and illusionist. Although he had been performing for some months at a music-hall in Commercial Road, EC, he took lodgings two weeks ago in Cagliostro Street. About half-past ten last night, he was found shot to death under circumstances which seem to indicate that a magician was murdered by magic. Nothing was seen and no trace left – three witnesses testify – although they all distinctly heard a voice say, ‘The second bullet is for you.’

  Cagliostro Street is two hundred yards long, and ends in a blank brick wall. There are a few shops at the beginning of the street, closed at that time, although a few night lights were burning, and the pavements were swept in front of them. But, beginning some twenty yards on, there was unbroken snow on the pavement and the street.

  Mr Jesse Short and Mr R. G. Blackwin, Birmingham visitors to London, were on their way to visit a friend with lodgings near the end of the street. They were walking on the right-hand pavement, and had their backs to the mouth of the street. Mr Blackwin, who was turning round to make sure of the numbers on the doors, noticed a man walking some distance behind them. This man was walking slowly and rather nervously, looking round him as though he expected to see some one near. He was walking in the middle of the street. But the light was dim, and, aside from seeing that he was tall and wore a slouch-hat, neither Mr Short nor Mr Blackwin noticed anything else. At the same time, PC Henry Withers – whose beat was along Lamb’s Conduit Street – reached the entrance to Cagliostro Street. He saw the man walking in the snow, but glanced back again without noticing him. And in the space of three or four seconds the thing happened.