The Complete Simon Iff (40 page)

"The compensation is for you."

"There you go again! Humanum est errare... then thank the Lord I err. Now tell the mikado to serve dinner." She ran off merrily.

"Don't mind me!" was her laugh, "I've always been 'loco', you know."

"Well," flashed back Simon, "dulce est desipere in loco." Latin not being her long suit, she did not answer, and he became serious once more.

"It's the Wonder of Wonders! Not a self-respecting convolution in her whole cerebral cortex, and here she is telling me, the high and mighty Simon Iff, all sorts of things I don't know. I shall have a busy week with that meditation; I think I had better make it a fortnight."

He did not even know that Miss Mollie Madison had made up her mind to make it a month.

If Miss Mollie Madison supposed for one moment that Simon Iff meant to take his two week's Penance lightly, she was very much enlightened on arrival at Ormond, where, and not to Palm Beach, Mrs. Mills had taken the malingering Agnes.

He had bought a tremendous black stallion, 17 hands high, and every other morning went for a fifty-mile gallop along the broad smooth sands. Alternate mornings he would swim from dawn to noon. His lunch invariably consisted of grape-fruit and a big rare beef-steak, washed down with a bottle of plain spring water. He did not smoke any more. From one o'clock till sunset he might have been found in a palm-grove, deep hidden, sitting absolutely motionless with his legs tucked away under him.

At seven he joined the party for dinner, when he ate fish and drank a quart of milk. Immediately after the meal he walked swiftly to the beach and back, usually with Mollie or Agnes or both, and then retired to sleep. At midnight he awoke, and continued his meditation until dawn.

The good lady was exceedingly perturbed, after about a week, by the character of his conversation, which consisted in contradicting every statement made in his presence. If she said it was a fine day, he would reply, "Pardon me, madam, if I cannot admit that it is fine. At the same time, it is not wet, cold, windy, or anything else unpleasant." His explanation was that nothing that could be thought was true, in the highest philosophical sense; similarly, nothing that could be throught was not true, so that his only chance of telling the truth was to deny everything, and its contradiction also, whenever opportunity arose.

Mrs. Mills was very grateful to him for saving her fortune, and she thought that the least she could do to repay him was to have a doctor to look at him. She knew that he would never consent to a consultation, so she quietly asked a famous nerve specialist from New York, who spent his winters in Florida, making a fortune out of patching up the idle rich, to come to dinner, and have an unoffical look at him.

Dr. Buzzard was a very clever man, and knew enough never to tell a patient that there was nothing the matter with him; so he reported to Mrs. Mills that he couldn't quite say that it was paranoia, that to call it neuraesthenia might be premature, that dementia praecox, while worthy of our earnest consideration, was not actually to be considered as definitively established at present, and that while there were or might be or seem to be decided symptoms of a medenologicolalic type, it could hardly be maintained diagnostically that psychopathological caehexia, in any of its commoner forms, at least, was inhibiting the nous, almost as non-committally as Iff himself could have wished.

However, a second dinner party might enable him to endeavour to draw out Mr. Iff. If he could be got to take interest once more in the common things of life, the mind might take on a healthier tone.

The wind was somewhat taken out of his sails by the appearance of Simon Iff at dinner in full evening dress. He had ordered the meal, moreover: oysters, clear green turtle, pompano en papillote, mallard duck au sang with coeur de palmier salad, bavaroise au chocolat, and a savoury invented by himself consisting of Toast Melba spread with mushrooms, anchovies, olives and pimento made into a paste. This was covered with bay-leaves, on which was spread a mixture of caviar, raw onions, ginseng, and Bombay Duck, sprinkled lightly with powdered hashish.

The wine list was equally elaborate. Cocktails consisting of two teasepoonfuls of liqueur brandy, one of Curacoa, and one of laudanum preceded the repast. With the oysters he caused Chablis to be served, with the soup Tokay, with the fish Chateau Yquem. The duck was accompanied by Mumm Cordon Rouge 1904. The sweet was enriched by a marvelous sauce with a basis of Creme de Cacao, and the savoury fortified with an astonishingly fine Burgundy of incomparable body and bouquet. The coffee was Turkish, prepared by Simon himself at the table, and perfected by the addition of an aromatic consisting of essential oil of cedar-wood and ambergris.

The liqueurs were Green Chartreuse of the original shipping, a particular Absinthe from a private still belonging to a friend of Simon Iff living in Switzerland among the crags of Jura, and an introuvable Metternich brandy. With the nuts came Château Margaux, Port, and a Madeira dating from William the Fourth.

An unopened bottle of rye whisky was also placed prominently on the table. There must be a skeleton, said Simon Iff, at every banquet.

For he had begun to do the honours by announcing that this was His Night Off. "Am I," he asked indignantly, "of no more value than many housemaids?"

"A lucid interval," thought Dr. Buzzard, acutely. "Let me improve the occasion!" Towards the finale of the duck rondo, therefore, he expressed a wish that Mr. Iff could be induced to apply his truly marvellous powers to the discovery of the Crime of Titusville.

"Useless," rejoined Simon, "I have already discovered it."

"Why, what is the Crime of Titusville?" mooed Mrs. Mills.

"Titusville," replied Iff, with finality.

"He's off again," thought the doctor to himself, having no sense of humour.

"I rode over there the other day," explained the mystic, "it is the worst of crimes - a crime against Nature." And he began to sing softly.

What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft o're Titusville,

Though every prospect pleases,

The people make me ill."

"Do they 'Bow down to wood and stone'?" laughed Miss Mollie Madison, who had up to that moment attended strictly to the business of dinner. She had been copying The Master's asceticism with feminine fidelity, and now meant to make up for it.

"They do," said Iff.

"But surely they are Christians?" tittered Mrs. Mills, with surprise.

"They are," crashed the magician. "They worship Wood in the Head, and Stone in the Heart."

"Oh dear!" faded away the good matron, wondering whether she had not perhaps drunk a little too much.

Dr. Buzzard determined to put forth a great effort to prevent his prospective patient from slipping back.

"Yesterday morning," he said thickly but firmly, "the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe, who live some fifteen miles out of Titusville, on the St. John River, disappeared. And she has not been found."

"Tell me the facts," said the magician, suddenly serious.

"Thorpe's grove is ten miles from the next inhabited dwelling. He employs several men to work for him, but they were all with him in the grove during the period of which we are to speak. Thorpe is a bluff bearded fellow of fifty or so; his wife Birdie is not yet thirty. They are intensely religious, devoted to I don't know quite which of the warring sects of Baptist. The grove is a large and flourishing concern; Thorpe has plenty of money in the bank, and owns real estate in Titusville to a considerable value. A rich man for these parts, you may say.

"Mamie, the only child, is not yet five years old.

"The house stands on the east bank of the river; access from the west is almost impossible; the stream is shallow, a mere trickle over thick banks of soft mud; it flows through many and changing channels; the swamp extends for many miles.

"A rough track leads through thick jungle to the grove; thence it becomes a little wider and smoother as it winds towards Titusville. The point to notice is that it would be difficult for any person to reach the house without being seen by the men at work in the grove. It would be easy for him, however, to hide in the jungle all night, and get away the following day after sundown when the men returned from labour.

"I must tell you that Mrs. Thorpe was previously married to a man named Spring. There was a daughter; but the Thorpes are reticent on the subject. After Spring's death Birdie was courted by several men, notably by one James Harper, a man of twenty-five, of good prospects and religious character."

"But Thorpe had better prospects and was more religious."

"I think that was the case. Anyhow, she married Thorpe. Harper vowed vengeance; in particular he threatened that if she ever had a child he would kidnap it. He then went away and started a ranch in Texas. Here his character degenerated; he openly denied religion, and took to drinking."

"Dreadful," said Simon, motioning the wine steward to refill the doctor's glass.

"However, he seems to have made himself universally liked as a good fellow. But he never would look at a woman. His heartiness appears to have been assumed for the benefit of his friends; when alone, he was morose. He was often found in his cottage with his head sunk upon the table, and the caller, greeted with a shout and a laugh, would yet perceive that he had been crying bitterly.

"Yesterday morning Mrs. Thorpe was hanging out the washing. Mamie was playing in front of the house. She was last seen by her mother trying to climb a cumquat tree of unusual size to reach the fruit upon the upper branches.

"A few minutes later - naturally the poor woman cannot be sure of the exact period - the child had disappeared. She called out, and then went on with her work. Then again she noticed that Mamie had not answered the call. She became anxious and went after her.

"The child's footsteps were plain to follow. They led along the track for a little way, and then turned off into the jungle. A strip of torn cotton was found at this point.

"The footsteps vanished. Mrs. Thorpe, now thoroughly alarmed, ran back to the house and fired the shotgun which was the signal for the men to come in to dinner. She searched around the house, the swamp, the river banks, while waiting, and found no trace. Thorpe ran in from the grove, surprised at the untimely summons. She told her story. Thorpe fired again to call in the men. Together, they verified the evidence of the trail. There was nothing for it but to beat the jungle. Thorpe sent a man on horseback to Titusville to get assistance. The whole town turned out, and arrived on the spot by noon. The disappearance had taken place, roughly, at seven in the morning.

"The sheriff of Titusville is a fine fellow, and a very hot man on a trail. He verified the evidence once more, and entirely agreed with the previous indications. As luck would have it, I was passing through Titusville in my car, noticed the commotion, and offered him a lift. We arrived well ahead of the rest of the town. So, you see, I have my knowledge at first hand."

"Excellent. Well, what did you discover?"

"A man's footprints, wide apart and softly impressed, leading from another part of the jungle, a quite different part, to the clearing about the house. They led to a knoll which overlooks the whole of the open space from the river to the jungle. He had stopped there, and shifted his feet about. Then he must have turned, and run like the wind. It was a series of wild leaps back to the jungle. He seems to have plunged head foremost into the thickest part of it. He did not choose an opening, but charged like a bull. Torn cloth and blood bore evident witness to the event.

"Sheriff Higgs and I followed with about a dozen men. The others were busy on the other side, hunting systematically from the place where the child's tracks ended. Ours was a terrible trail. Broken twigs and trampled grass made it easy to follow, save where the man in his fury had leapt across the ever-recurring pools, long snaky shiny stinking stagnations, which the sheriff, although a great athlete, did not dare to attempt.

"But the longest trail ends at last. About three o'clock we came upon Harper. He was lying half-in, half-out of a pool. He was stone dead. I examined him; the cause of death was evident, the rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain.

"There was nothing suggestive in his pockets, except an old worn photograph of Mrs. Thorpe with 'Ever thine Birdie' scrawled across it in a slow uneducated hand. There was not a shred of evidence to prove that he had ever had possession of the child, though of course he must have done so. And she has not been found anywhere else, either. Not a trace!"

"Not a button, or feather, or mark!" quoted Simon, and they stared at his levity.

"I don't think I will explain just now. By the way, doctor, just one question. Do Mrs. Thorpe's tracks anywhere cross Harper's?"

"Not within fifty yards."

"I will take a look round. My holiday ends at midnight, but I might as well ride that way as another, and I hereby, in the superior interests of humanity, absolve myself from my Vow of negation during my little pilgrimage."

Punctually at twelve o'clock he broke up the party, and went to his room. Five minutes later he was in his riding breeches, with a blue poncho, striped with white and purplish brown. The moon, rising at one o'clock, fell on his pale face as he cantered on the great black stallion towards Titusville.

Following the directions given him, he turned off the main road a little before dawn into a narrow track that wound between the groves. Presently he came to a bifurcation; a few minutes later, to another, more doubtful as to direction. In half an hour it petered out completely. He had lost his way.

He looked about him for signs of habitation. There were none. He decided to take the safest course, and return to a house some miles back, where he could refresh his orientation.

Just then, in the solemnity of dawn's silence, he heard a voice. Some one - some one within a few hundred yards of him - was singing.

The voice was untutored, but its range and its richness astounded him. There did not seem to be any words, and yet it was articulate. Higher it soared and higher, in trills and arpeggios, then fell as a cascade falls in luxurious cadences, then shrilled again. It was the wildest maddest music.