“The make-up is astonishing,” he said calmly. “I did not know myself that it was one, until told. This, sir, is Juan Murphey of New York, with Mr. Harvey Lettner, the well-known criminologist, whose brochures I think you will remember we have in the library.
“Mr. Murphey is under this name and appearance for purposes which he will relate to you. Mr. Lettner goes as his valet, Michael Strogoff.”
The chief inspector rose, came forward, and offered his hand again to both his visitors.
“You astonish me, as well,” he said. “We have several men here who specialize in make-up, but I confess that, like Inspector Hand, I should never have known that you were not appearing as yourself. As for Mr. Lettner — allow me to express, my dear sir, my admiration for your patience, scholarship, and knowledge of your special subjects.”
He was a man who — you could see as he was studied — could not easily be amazed, but the diminutive, withered, and altogether odd-looking person who was now posing as a valet evidently struck him with so much surprise that he could hardly keep that sentiment out of his manner, and he was the more disconcerted in that the little gentleman who was, in his way, an international celebrity, smiled merrily at him with a full understanding of the effect produced.
“I wish that I had a few more inches in height, inspector; I’d swap them for some of the fame that you are kind enough to attribute to me. At least, I can play the valet to my distinguished young friend here, with better grace, perhaps, than if I were a bigger man — and that’s a compensation. Juan’s society is worth a good deal — to a man who hates to be bored.”
“From what I hear about the happenings on the Aquitania, you need not have experienced that sensation, crossing! Suppose now, you give me a straight-away account of everything, including the matter which causes you to be here as Don Jaime. By the way, is there such a family?”
“Oh, yes!” said Juan smiling. “My mother’s.”
The inspectors both looked surprised.
“My mother was the last of the family — a very old one. My father was an artist — and an Irishman. I don’t know which to put first: both were equally important to him.
“He claimed to come from kings of the Emerald Isle and my mother really did come from the old line which sat on the Spanish throne in the person of Ferdinand, who had a wife named Isabella, destined to be of moment to a country where I, the last of the line, was to be born.
“There was still a fair amount of money when my mother was married to the Irish-American Murphey — and an old castle far in the hills in Spain, with a hundred or so acres of the most useless land you can imagine.
“It costs me several thousand dollars a year to keep it from falling to pieces, and to support the five families who have always lived on the mountain slopes.”
For a moment after Juan Murphey ceased to speak there was a curious silence in the room. There had been something formal, something stately, antiquated, a breath of other times, and of kingly pride and power in the deep tones, the wonderful eyes.
“Well, that’s that!” said Juan, and flashed on them his New York smile. “It helps, when I choose to take up this role, that there is a good deal of truth in it. Harvey, here, is a nut for Spanish history and I’ve always spoken the language, along with English, so that both are really mother tongues. That’s enough about me.
“I tell you this, though, to show that I am so anxious not to have Don Jaime seem to have anything to do with Juan Murphey. He is always there, ready for we to slip into him at need.
“In this present case I want to stay in the character until I pass on to Spain, visit my people there and then, on the way back to the coast, slip into Murphey, cross into France, and arrive in Canada, from which place I will run down to New York with very few to know that I have been away.”
“Yes, I see,” said Chief Inspector Cross. “You may be sure that we will do everything to support your impersonation.”
“And now I think that I ought to place this case before you, first briefly and then in detail.
“It begins when a client comes to see Miss Mary Smith, the graphologist, of New York. I think you know of her?”
“Author of ‘Criminals and their Handwriting,’ with myself as editor and partial collaborator,” added Michael.
“Yes… yes. That is also in our library.”
“Well, this client brings a letter to Miss Smith. Feels that there is something queer about it. Old friend, knows her intimately. Alma — Mrs. George Batten of 26 Hyacinthe Road, St. John’s Wood, London.”
“Ah, yes!” Inspectors Cross and Hand nodded.
“You know anything of her?”
“No, only what the papers say. She is young, rich, and popular; a widow. Very quiet — fine reputation.”
“Yes. Well, Miss Smith states, from a letter received some time ago by her client, that this Mrs. Batten’s character is just as you have stated, but on being shown another specimen received this month, the graphologist declares that the latter letter is written by another person altogether.
“My offices and Miss Smith’s are in the same wing of an office building, and we sometimes consult with each other. She called me in. The client recalled various things which seemed to confirm the statement of the graphologist, although at first she had refused to admit the idea.
“The upshot of the matter was that I came over, with Michael — I beg your pardon, I get so used to calling him that — with Mr. Lettner, and that two more of my operatives, now on the yacht Aloha will be here shortly.
“I am sure that there was no way for the news to leak to whatever criminals are concerned in what we are convinced is some big plot, that de Ventura is myself.
“On the other hand’ it is quite possible that the fact that this friend of Mrs. Batten’s friend going to the graphologist might make the people back of all this nervous over the handwriting, which Miss Smith pronounced to be one of the most wonderful forgeries that she ever saw, and that this may have put them on their guard.
“At any rate, coming over, this poor, fraudulently consumptive Annette Taylor attracted my attention by her sly efforts to spy on us, and then Michael here — confound it — well, I might as well say Michael and you’ll understand, why, Michael had an interview with her in which she said that she was a poor seamstress.
“Then, later, she flies into my suite and begs him to be silent and to protect her. He locks her into a closet and then a steward whom he has never seen before knocks and pretends that he thinks there was a ring for him and, under an excuse, gets into the suite.
“He does not find the girl. She goes out afterward, frightened, but refusing to tell the captain, that the man had annoyed her.
“The next day she does not appear, we are worried about her, Michael goes to the cabin, finds that there was a note left on her door — you have that — finds her dead; and then, that night, an unknown man breaks into our suite and evidently means to do for either me or Michael or both of us.
“We shoot, just to disable him, but he falls on the knife he has out for us and kills himself.
“Inspector Hand will have told you that we did not find a thing in the cabin, but Michael and I did notice something which we did not mention to the inspector at the time, for the reason that we wanted to think it over, but which I am now prepared to tell you.”
Inspector Hand bore this well. He just looked interested, and not at all as though he had been beaten at his own game.
“We saw,” said Juan, “that there was a small drop of blood at the door of the room, and that several more had been dropped close to the berth.”