Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (10 page)

What a beast that Scarletin was! I thought, how could anybody married to this glorious woman pay any attention to another woman?

“I have made some inquiries about Hilda Speck,” Ralph said. “First, she has an excellent alibi, what the English call ironclad. She was visiting friends in Bremen two days before Scarletin disappeared. She did not return to Hamburg until two days afterward. As for her background, she worked as a typist-clerk for an export firm until two years ago when Scarletin began supporting her. She has no criminal record, but her brother has been arrested several times for extortion and assault. He escaped conviction each time. He is a huge obese man, as ugly as his sister is beautiful. He is nicknamed, appropriately enough,
Flusspferd.
(Hippopotamus. Literally, riverhorse.) His whereabouts have been unknown for about four months.”

He sat silent for a moment, then he went to the telephone. This lay on the floor; beside it was a curious instrument. I saw its function the moment Ralph put one paw on its long, thin but blunt end and slipped the other paw snugly into a funnelshaped cup at the opposite end. With the thin end he punched the buttons on the telephone.

A police officer answered over the loudspeaker. Ralph asked for Lt. Strasse. The officer said that he was not in the station. Ralph left a message, but when he turned off the phone, he said, “Strasse won’t answer for a while, but eventually his curiosity will get the better of him.”

It is difficult to tell when a dog is smiling, but I will swear that Ralph was doing more than just exposing his teeth. And his eyes seemed to twinkle.

Suddenly, he raised a paw and said, quietly, “No sound, please.”

We stared at him. None of us heard anything, but it was evident he did. He jumped to the control panel on the floor and pushed the on button. Then he dashed toward the door, which swung inward. A man wearing a stethoscope stood looking stupidly at us. Seeing Ralph bounding at him, he yelled and turned to run. Ralph struck him on the back and sent him crashing against the opposite wall of the hallway. I ran to aid him, but to my surprise Ralph trotted back into the room. It was then that I saw the little device attached to the door. The man rose unsteadily to his feet, glaring. He was just above minimum height for a policeman and looked as if he were thirty-five years old. He had a narrow face with a long nose and small close-set black eyes.

“Doctor Weisstein,” Ralph said. “Lieutenant Strasse.”

Strasse did not acknowledge me. Instead, he tore off the device and put it with the stethoscope in his jacket pocket. Some of his paleness disappeared.

“That eavesdropper device is illegal in America and should be here,” Ralph said.

“So should talking dogs,” Strasse said. He bowed to Mrs. Scarletin and clicked his heels.

Ralph gave several short barks, which I found out later was his equivalent of laughter. He said, “No need to ask you why you were spying on us. You’re stuck in this case, and you hoped to overhear me say something that would give you a clue. Really, my dear Lieutenant!”

Strasse turned red, but he spoke up bravely enough.

“Mrs. Scarletin, you can hire this... this... hairy fourfooted Holmes...”

“I take that as a compliment,” Ralph murmured.

“...if you wish, but you cannot discharge the police. Moreover, there is grave doubt about the legality of his private investigator’s license, and you might get into trouble if you persist in hiring him.”

“Mrs. Scarletin is well aware of the legal ramifications, my dear Strasse,” Ralph said coolly. “She is also confident that I will win my case. Meantime, the authorities have permitted me to practice. If you dispute this, you may phone the mayor himself.”

“You... you!” Strasse sputtered. “Just because you once saved His Honor’s child!”

“Let’s drop all this time-wasting nonsense,” Ralph said. “I would like to examine the painting myself. I believe that it may contain the key to Scarletin’s whereabouts.”

“That is police property,” Strasse said. “As long as I have anything to say about it, you won’t put your long nose into a police building. Not unless you do so as a prisoner.”

I was astonished at the hatred that leaped and crackled between these two like discharges in a Van de Graaff generator. I did not learn until later that Strasse was the man to whom Ralph had been assigned when he started police work. At first they got along well, but as it became evident that Ralph was much the more intelligent, Strasse became jealous. He did not, however, ask for another dog. He was taking most of the credit for the cases cracked by Ralph, and he was rising rapidly in rank because of Ralph. By the time the dog resigned from the force, Strasse had become a lieutenant. Since then he had bungled two cases, and the person responsible for Strasse’s rapid rise was now obvious to all.

“Pardon me,” Ralph said. “The police may be holding the painting as evidence, but it is clearly Mrs. Scarletin’s property. However, I think I’ll cut through the red tape. I’ll just make a complaint to His Honor.”

“Very well,” Strasse said, turning pale again. “But I’ll go with you to make sure that you don’t tamper with the evidence.”

“And to learn all you can,” Ralph said, barking laughter. “Weisstein, would you bring along that little kit there? It contains the tools of my trade.”

On the way to the station in the taxi (Strasse having refused us use of a police vehicle), Ralph told me a little more of Alfred Scarletin.

“He is the son of an American teacher who became a German citizen and of a Hamburg woman. Naturally, he speaks English like a native of California. He became interested in painting at a very early age and since his early adolescence has tramped through Germany painting both urban and rural scenes. He is extremely handsome, hence, attracts women, has a photographic memory, and is an excellent draftsman. His paintings were quite conventional until the past ten years when he founded the Fauve Mauve school. He is learned in both German and English literature and has a fondness for the works of Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll. He often uses characters from them in his paintings. Both writers, by the way, were fond of puns.”

“I am well aware of that,” I said stiffly. After all, one does not like to be considered ignorant by a dog. “And all this means?”

“It may mean all or nothing.”

About ten minutes later, we were in a large room in which many articles, the jetsam and flotsam of crime, were displayed. Mrs. Scarletin led us to the painting (though we needed no leading), and we stood before it. Strasse, off to one side, regarded us suspiciously. I could make no sense out of the painting and said so even though I did not want to offend Mrs. Scarletin. She, however, laughed and said my reaction was that of many people.

Ralph studied it for a long time and then said, “It may be that my suspicions are correct. We shall see.”

“About what?” Strasse said, coming closer and leaning forward to peer at the many figures on the canvas.

“We can presume that Mrs. Scarletin knows all her husband’s works—until the time he disappeared. This appeared afterward and so we can presume that he painted it within the last two months. It’s evident that he was kidnaped not for ransom but for the money to be made from the sale of new paintings by Scarletin. They must have threatened him with death if he did not paint new works for them. He has done at least one for them and probably has done, or is doing, more for them.

“They can’t sell Scarletins on the open market. But there are enough fanatical and unscrupulous collectors to pay very large sums for their private collections. Lausitz was one such. Scarletin is held prisoner and, we suppose, would like to escape. He can’t do so, but he is an intelligent man, and he thinks of a way to get a message out. He knows his paintings are being sold, even if he isn’t told so. Ergo, why not put a message in his painting?”

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Scarletin said and she patted Ralph’s head. Ralph wagged his tail, and I felt a thrust of jealousy.

“Nonsense!” Strasse growled. “He must have known that the painting would go to a private collector who could not reveal that Scarletin was a prisoner. One, he’d be put in jail himself for having taken part in an illegal transaction. Two, why would he suspect that the painting contained a message? Three, I don’t believe there is any message there!”

“Scarletin would be desperate and so willing to take a long chance,” Ralph said. “At least, it’d be better than doing nothing. He could hope that the collector might get an attack of conscience and tell the police. This is not very likely, I’ll admit. He could hope that the collector would be unable to keep from showing the work off to a few close friends. Perhaps one of these might tell the police, and so the painting would come into the hands of the police. Among them might be an intelligent and well-educated person who would perceive the meaning of the painting. I’ll admit, however, that neither of these theories is likely.”

Strasse snorted.

“And then there was the very slight chance—which nevertheless occurred—that the collector would die. And so the legal inventory of his estate would turn up a Scarletin. And some person just might be able to read the meaning in this—if there is any.”

“Just what I was going to say,” Strasse said. “Even if what you say happened did happen,” he continued, “his kidnapers wouldn’t pass on the painting without examining it. The first thing they’d suspect would be a hidden message. It’s so obvious.”

“You didn’t think so a moment ago,” Ralph said. “But you are right... in agreeing with me. Now, let us hypothesize. Scarletin, a work of art, but he wishes to embody in it a message. Probably a map of sorts which will lead the police—or someone else looking for him—directly to the place where he is kept prisoner.

“How is he to do this without detection by the kidpnapers? He has to be subtle enough to escape their inspection.
How
subtle depends, I would imagine, on their education and perceptivity. But too subtle a message will go over everybody’s head. And he is limited in his choice of symbols by the situation, by the names or professions of his kidnapers—if he knows them—and by the particular location of his prison—if he knows that.”

“If, if, if?” Strasse said, throwing his hands up in the air.

“If me no ifs,” Ralph said. “But first let us consider that Scarletin is equally at home in German or English. He loves the pun-loving Carroll and Baum. So, perhaps, due to the contingencies of the situation, he is forced to pun in both languages.”

“It would be like him,” Mrs. Scarletin said. “But is it likely that he would use this method when he would know that very few people would be capable of understanding him?”

“As I said, it was a long shot, Madame. But better than nothing.”

“Now, Weisstein, whatever else I am, I am a dog. Hence, I am color-blind.” (But not throughout his career. See
The Adventure of the Tired Color Man,
to be published.) “Please describe the colors of each object on this canvas.”

Strasse sniggered, but we ignored him. When I had finished, Ralph said, “Thank you, my dear Weisstein. Now, let us separate the significant from the insignificant. Though, as a matter of fact, in this case even the insignificant is significant. Notice the two painted walls which divide the painting into three parts—like Gaul. One starts from the middle of the left-hand side and curves up to the middle of the upper edge. The other starts in the middle of the right-hand side and curves down to the middle of the lower side. All three parts are filled with strange and seemingly unrelated—and often seemingly unintelligible—objects. The Fauve Mauve apologists, however, maintain that their creations come from the collective unconscious, not the individual or personal and so are intelligible to everybody.”

“Damned nonsense!” I said, forgetting Lisa in my indignation.

“Not in this case, I suspect,” Ralph said. “Now, notice that the two walls, which look much like the Great Wall of China, bear many zeros on their tops. And that within the area these walls enclose, other zeros are scattered. Does this mean nothing to you?”

“Zero equals nothing,” I said.

“A rudimentary observation, Doctor, but valid,” Ralph said. “I would say that Scarletin is telling us that the objects within the walls mean nothing. It is the central portion that bears the message. There are no zeros there.”

“Prove it,” Strasse said.

“The first step first—if one can find it. Observe in the upper right-hand corner the strange figure of a man. The upper half is, obviously, Sherlock Holmes, with his deerstalker hat, cloak, pipe—though whether his meditative briar root or disputatious clay can’t be determined—and his magnifying glass in hand. The lower half, with the lederhosen and so on, obviously indicates a Bavarian in particular and a German in general. The demi-figure of Holmes means two things to the earnest seeker after the truth. One, that we are to use detective methods on this painting. Two, that half of the puzzle is in English. The lower half means that half of the puzzle is in German. Which I anticipated.”

“Preposterous!” Strasse said. “And just what does that next figure, the one in sixteenth-century costume, mean?”

“Ah, yes, the torso of a bald and bearded gentleman with an Elizabethan ruff around his neck. He is writing with a pen on a sheet of paper. There is a title on the upper part of the paper. Doctor, please look at it through the magnifying glass which you’ll find in my kit.”

I did so, and I said, “I can barely make it out. Scarletin must have used a glass to do it. It says
New Atlantis.”

“Does that suggest anything to anybody?” Ralph said.

Obviously it did to him, but he was enjoying the sensation of being more intelligent than the humans around him. I resented his attitude somewhat, and yet I could understand it. He had been patronized by too many humans for too long a time.

“The great scholar and statesman Francis Bacon wrote the
New Atlantis
,” I said suddenly. Ralph winked at me, and I cried, “Bacon! Scarletin’s mistress is Hilda Speck!”