________________________________________________
_ "The thing is a fake," declared Bertram. He slumped heavily into a
chair, and scowled a Average Jones' well-littered desk, whereon he
had just tossed a sheet of paper. His usually impeccable hair was
tousled. His trousers evinced a distinct tendency to bag at the
knees, and his coat was undeniably wrinkled. That the elegant and
flawless dilettante of the Cosmic Club should have come forth, at
eleven o'clock of a morning, in such a state of comparative
disreputability, argued an upheaval of mind little short of
phenomenal.
"A fake," he reiterated. "I've spent a night of
pseudo-intellectual riot and ruin over it. You've almost destroyed
a young and innocent mind with your infernal palimpsest, Average."
"You would have it," returned Average Jones with a smile. "And I
seem to recall a lofty intimation on your part that there never was
a cipher so tough but what you could rope, throw, bind, and tie a
pink ribbon on its tail in record time."
"Cipher, yes," returned the other bitterly. "That thing isn't a
cipher. It's an alphabetical riot. Maybe," he added hopefully,
"there was some mistake in my copy?"
"Look for yourself," said Average Jones, handing him the original.
It was a singular document, this problem in letters which had come
to light up the gloom of a November day for Average Jones; a
stiffish sheet of paper, ornamented on one side with color prints
of alluring "spinners," and on the other inscribed with an appeal,
in print. Its original vehicle was an envelope, bearing a one-cent
stamp, and addressed in typewriting:
Mr. William H. Robinson,
The Caronia,
Broadway and Evenside Ave.,
New York City.
The advertisement on the reverse of the sheet ran as follows:
ANGLERS--When you are looking for
"Baits That Catch Fish," do you see
these spinners in the store where you
buy tackle? You will find here twelve
baits, every one of which has a record
and has literally caught tons of fish.
We call them "The 12 Surety Baits."
We want you to try them for casting and
trolling these next two months, because
all varieties of bass are particularly
savage in striking these baits late in
the season.
DEALERS--You want your customers to have
these 12 Shoemaker "Surety Baits" that
catch fish. This case will sell itself
empty over and over again, for every bait
is a record-breaker and they catch fish.
We want you to put in one of these cases so
that the anglers will not be disappointed and
have to wait for baits to be ordered. It
will be furnished FREE, charges prepaid, with
your order for the dozen bait it contains.
The peculiar feature of the communication that it was profusely
be-pimpled with tiny projections, evidently made by thrusting a pin
in from the side which bore the illustrations. The perforations
were liberally scattered. Most, though not all of them, transfixed
certain letters. Accepting this as indicative, Bertram had copied
out all the letters thus distinguished, with the following cryptic
result:
b-n-o-k-n-o-a-h-i (doubtful) i (doubtful) d-o-o-u-t-s-e-h-w
h-e-w-a-l-e-w-f-i-h-i-e-l-y-a-n-u-t-t-m-a-m (doubtful) g-e-x-c-s
(doubtful) s-e M-e-p-c (two punctures) t-y-w-u-s-o-m-e-r-s
h-a-s 1 S-k-t-s-a-s-e-l-e-v-a-h (twice) W-y-o-u (doubtful)
h-c-s-e-v-t-l-t-f-r (perforated twice) c-a-o-u-c-e-o-c (doubtful)
m-t (perforated twice) n-o-h-a-e-f-o-u-w-o-r-i-t-h-i-r-e-d-
w-l-l-b (Perforated three times) f-u-h-g-e-p-d-h-o-d- (doubtful)
e-f-h-g-b-t-n-t.
"Yes, the copy's all right," growled Bertram. "Tell me again how
you came by it."
"Robinson came here twice and missed me. Yesterday I got the note
from him which you've seen, with the enclosure which has so
threatened your reason. You know the rest. Perhaps you'd have done
well to study the note for clues to the other document."
Something in his friend's tone made Bertram glance up suspiciously.
"Let me see the note," he demanded.
Average Jones handed it to him. There was no stamp on it; it had
been left by the writer. It was addressed, in rather scrawly
chirography, to "A. Jones, Ad-Visor," and read:
THE CARONIA, Nov. 18.
MR. A. JONES, Astor Court Temple:
I have tried unsuccessfully to see you twice. Enclosed
you will find the reason. Please read through it carefully.
Then I am sure you will see and help me. Money is no
object. I will call to-morrow at noon.
Respectfully,
WILLIAM H. ROBINSON.
"Well, I see nothing out of the ordinary in that," observed Bertram.
"Nothing?" inquired Average Jones.
Bertram read the message again. "Of course the man is rattled.
That's obvious in his handwriting. Also, he has inverted one
sentence in his haste and said 'read through it,' instead, of 'read
it through.' Otherwise, it's ordinary enough."
"It must be vanity that keeps you from eyeglasses, Bert," Average
Jones observed with a sigh. "Well, I'm afraid I set you on the
wrong track, myself!"
Bertram lifted an eyebrow with an effort. "Meaning, I suppose, that
you're on the tight and have solved the cipher."
"Cipher be jiggered. You were right in opening remark. There isn't
any cipher. If you read Mr. Robinson's note correctly, and if you'd
had the advantage of working on the original of the advertisement as
I have, you'd undoubtedly have noticed at once--"
"Thank you," murmured Bertram.
"--that fully one-third of the pin-pricks don't touch any letters at
all."
"Then we should have taken the letters which lie between the holes?"
"No. The letters don't count. It's the punctures. Force your eyes
to consider those alone, and you will see that the holes themselves
form letters and words. Read through it carefully, as Robins
directed."
He held the paper up to the light. Bertram made out in straggling
characters, formed in skeleton the perforations, this legend:
ALL POINTS TO YOU
TAKE THE SHORT CUT
DEATH IS EASIER THAN
SOME THINGS.
"Whew! That's a cheery little greeting," remarked Bertram. "But why
didn't friend Robinson point it out definitely in his letter?"
"Wanted to test my capacity perhaps. Or, it may have been simply
that he was too frightened and rattled to know just what he was
writing."
"Know anything of him?"
"Only what the directory tells, and directories don't deal in really
intimate details of biography, you know. There's quite an
assortment of William H. Robinsons, but the one who lives at the
Caronia appears to be a commission merchant on Pearl Street. As the
Caronia is one of the most elegant and quite the most enormous of
those small cities within themselves which we call apartment houses,
I take it that Mr. Robinson is well-to-do, and probably married.
You can ask him, yourself, if you like. He's due any moment, now."
Promptly, as befitted a business man, Mr. William H. Robinson
arrived on the stroke of twelve. He was a well-made, well-dressed
citizen of forty-five, who would have been wholly ordinary save for
one peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool he was
sweating profusely, and that, despite the fact that his light
overcoat was on his arm. Not polite perspiration, be it noted, such
as would have been excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek
plumpness, but soul-wrung sweat, the globules whereof gathered in
the grayish hollows under his eyes and assailed, not without effect,
the glistening expanse of his tall white collar. He darted glance
at Bertram, then turned to Average Jones.
"I had hoped for a private interview," he said in a high piping
voice.
"Mr. Bertram is my friend and business confidant."
"Very good. You--you have read it?"
"Yes."
"Then--then--then--" The visitor fumble with nerveless fingers, at
his tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts.
Suddenly, with a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the
lapel, tearing the button outright from the cloth. "Look what I
have done," he said, staring stupidly for a moment at the button
which had shot across the room. Then, to the amazed consternation
of the others, he burst into tears.
Average Jones pushed a chair behind him, while Bertram brought him a
glass of water. He gulped out his thanks, and, mastering himself
after a moment's effort, drew a paper from his inner pocket which he
placed on the desk. It was a certified check for one hundred
dollars, made payable to Jones.
"There's the rest of a thousand ready, if can help me," he said.
"We'll talk of that later," said the prospective beneficiary. "Sit
tight until you're able to answer questions."
"Able now," piped the other in his shrill voice. "I'm ashamed of
myself, gentlemen, but the strain I've been under-- When you've
heard my story--"
"Just a moment, please," interrupted Average Jones, "let me get at
this my own way."
"Any way you like," returned the visitor.
"Good! Now what is it that points to you?"
"I don't know any more than you."
"What are the 'some things' that are worse than death?"
Mr. Robinson shook his head. "I haven't the slightest notion in the
world."
"Nor of the 'short cut' which you are advised to take?"
"I suppose it means suicide." He paused for a moment. "They can't
drive me to that--unless they drive me crazy first." He wiped the
sweat from under his eyes, breathing hard.
"Who are they?"'
Mr. Robinson shook his head. In the next question the
interrogator's tone altered and became more insistent.
"Have you ever called in a doctor, Mr. Robinson?"
"Only once in five years. That was when my nerves broke down--under
this."
"When you do call in a doctor, is it your habit to conceal your
symptoms from him?"
"Of course not. I see what you mean. Mr. Jones, I give, you my
word of honor, as I hope to be saved from this persecution, I don't
know any more than yourself what it means."
"Then--er--I am--er--to believe," replied Jones, drawling, as he
always did when interest, in his mind, was verging on excitement,
"that a simple blind threat like this--er--without any backing from
your own conscience--er--could shake you--er--as this has done?
Why, Mr. Robinson, the thing--er--may be--er--only a raw practical
joke."
"But the others!" cried the visitor. His face changed and fell. "I
believe I am going crazy," he groaned. "I didn't tell you about the
others."
Diving into his overcoat pocket he drew out a packet of letters
which he placed on the desk with a sort of dismal flourish.
"Read those!" he cried.
"Presently." Average Jones ran rapidly over the eight envelopes.
With one exception, each bore the imprint of some firm name made
familiar by extensive advertising. All the envelopes were of
softish Manila paper varying in grade and hue, under one-cent
stamps.
"Which is the first of the series?" he asked.
"It isn't among those. Unfortunately it was lost, by a stupid
servant's mistake, pin and all."
"Pin?"
"Yes. Where I cut open the envelope--"
"Wait a moment. You say you cut it open. All these, being one-cent
postage, must have come unsealed. Was the first different?"
"Yes. It had a two-cent stamp. It was a circular announcement of
the Swift-Reading Encyclopedia, in a sealed envelope. There was a
pin bent over the fold of the letter so you couldn't help but notice
it. Its head was stuck through the blank part of the circular.
Leading from it were three very small pins arranged as a pointer to
the message."
"Do you remember the message?"
"Could I forget it! It was pricked out quite small on the blank
fold of the paper. It said: 'Make the most of your freedom. Your
time is short. Call at General Delivery, Main P. O., for your
warning.' I--"
"You went there?"
"The next day."
"And found--?"
"An ordinary sealed envelope, addressed in pinpricks connected by
pencil lines. The address was scrawly, but quite plain."
"Well, what did it contain?"
"A commitment blank to an insane asylum."
Average Jones absently drew out his handkerchief, elaborately
whisked from his coat sleeve an imaginary speck of dust, and smiled
benignantly where the dust was supposed to have been.
"Insane asylum," he murmured. "Was--er--the blank--er--filled in?"
"Only partly. My name was pricked in, and there was a specification
of dementia from drug habit, with suicidal tendencies."
With a quick signal, unseen by the visitor, Average Jones opened the
way to Bertram, who, in wide range of experience and study had once
specialized upon abnormal mental phenomena.
"Pardon me," that gentleman put in gently, "has there ever been any
dementia in your family?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Or suicidal mania?"
"All my people have died respectably in their beds," declared the
visitor with some vehemence.
"Once more, if I may venture. Have you ever been addicted to any
drug?"
"Never, sir."
"Now," Average Jones took up the examination, "will you tell me of
any enemy who would have reason to persecute you?"
"I haven't an enemy in the world."
"You're fortunate," returned the other smiling, "but surely, some
time in your career--business rivalry--family alienation--any one of
a thousand causes?"
"No," answered the harassed man. "Not for me. My business runs
smoothly. My relations are mostly dead. I have no friends and no
enemies. My wife and I live alone, and all we ask," he added in a
sudden outburst of almost childish resentment, "is to be left
alone."
The inquisitor's gaze returned to the packet of letters. "You
haven't complained to the post-office authorities?"
"And risk the publicity?" returned Robinson with a shudder.
"Well, give me over night with these. Oh, and I may want to 'phone
you presently. You'll be at home? Thank you. Good day."
"Now," said Average Jones to Bertram, as their caller's plump back
disappeared, "this looks pretty, queer to me. What did you think of
our friend?"
"Scared but straight," was Bertram's verdict.
"Glad to hear it. That's my idea, too. Let's have a look at the
material. We've already got the opening threat, and the General
Delivery follow-up."
"Which shows, at least, that it isn't a case of somebody in the
apartment house tampering with the mail."
"Not only that. It's a dodge to find out whether he got the first
message. People don't always read advertisements, even when sealed,
as the first message-bearing one was. Therefore, our mysterious
persecutor says: 'I'll just have Robinson prove it to', me if he did
get the first message, by calling for the second.' Then, after a
lapse of time, he himself goes to the General Delivery, asks for a
letter for Mr. William H. Robinson, finds it's gone, and is
satisfied."
"Yes, and he'd be sure then that Robinson would go through all the
mailed ads with a fine-tooth comb, after that. But why the
pin-pricks? Just to disguise his hand?"
"Possibly. It's a fairly effectual disguise."
"Why didn't he address the envelope that way, then?"
"The address wouldn't be legible against the white background of the
paper inside. On the other hand, if he'd addressed all his
envelopes by pinpricks filled in with pencil lines, the post-office
people might get curious and look into one. Sending threats through
the mail is a serious matter."
Average Jones ran over the letter again. "Good man, Robinson!" he
observed. "He's penciled the date of receipt on each one, like a
fine young methodical business gent. Here we are: 'Rec'd July 14.
Card from Goshorn & Co., Oriental Goods.' Message pricked in
through the cardboard: 'You are suspected by your neighbors. Watch
them.' Not bad for a follow-up, is it?"
"It would look like insanity, if it weren't that--that through the
letters 'one increasing purpose runs,'" parodied Bertram.
"Here's one of July thirty-first; an advertisement of the Croiset
Line tours to the Orient. Listen here, Bert: 'Whither can guilt
flee that vengeance, may not follow?'"
"I can't quite see Robinson in the part of guilt," mused Bertram.
"What's next?"
"More veiled accusation. The medium is a church society
announcement of a lecture on Japanese Feudalism. Date, August
seventeenth. Inscription: 'If there is no blood on your soul, why
do you not face your judges?"'
"Little anti-climactic, don't you think?"
"What about this one of September seventh, then? Direct reference
back to the drug habit implied in the commitment blank. It's a
testimonial booklet of one of the poisonous headache dopes, Lemona
Powders. The message is pricked through the cover. 'Better these
than the hell of suspense.'"
"Trying the power of suggestion, eh?"
"Quite so. The second attempt at it is even more open. An
advertisement of Shackleton's Safeguard Revolvers. Date, September
twenty-second. Advice, by pin: 'As well this as any other way.'"
"Drug or suicide," remarked Bertram. "The man at the other end
doesn't seem particular which."
"There's the insane asylum always to fall back on. Under date of
October first, comes the Latherton Soap Company's impassioned appeal
to self-shaving manhood. Great Caesar! No wonder poor Robinson was
upset. Listen to this: 'God himself hates you.' After that there's
a three-weeks respite, for there's October twenty-second on this
one, Kirkby and Dunn's offering of five percent water bonds. 'The
commission has its spies watching you constantly.' Calculated to
inspire confidence in the most timid soul! Now we come to the soup
course: Smith and Perkins' Potted Chowder. Date of November third.
Er--Bert--here's something--er--really worth while, now. Hark to
the song of the pin."
He read sonorously:
"Animula, vagula, Bandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis;
Quaenunc abibis in loca?"
"Hadrian, isn't it?" cried Bertram, in utter amazement. "Of course
it is! Hadrian's terrified invocation to his own parting spirit.
'Guest and companion of my body; into what places will you now go?'
Average, it's uncanny! Into what place of darkness and dread is the
Demon of the Pin trying to drive poor Robinson's spirit?"
Average Jones shook his head. "'Pailidula, nudula, rigida,"' he
completed the quatrain. "'Ghostpale, stark, and rigid.' He's got a
grisly imagination, that pin-operator. I shouldn't care to have him
on my trail."
"But Robinson!" protested Bertram feebly. "What has a plump,
commonplace, twentieth-century, cutaway-wearing, flat-inhabiting
Robinson to do with a Roman emperor's soul-questionings?"
"Perhaps the last entry of the lot will tell us. Palmerto's
Magazine's feature announcement, received November ninth. No; it
doesn't give any clue to the Latinity. It isn't bad, though. 'The
darkness falls.' That's all there is to it. And enough."
"I should say the darkness did fall," confirmed Bertram. "It
falls--and remains."
Average Jones pushed the collection of advertisements aside and
returned to the opening phase of the problem, the fish-bait circular
which Robinson had mailed him. So long after, that Bertram hardly
recognized it as a response to his last remark, the investigator
drawled out:
"Not such--er--impenetrable darkness. In fact,--er--Eureka, or words
to that effect. Bert, when does the bass season end?"
"November first, hereabouts, I believe."
"The postmark on the envelope that carried this advertisement to our
friend advises the use of the, baits for 'these next two months.'
Queer time to be using bass-lures, after the season is closed.
Bert, it's a pity I can't waggle my ears."
"Waggle your ears! For heaven's sake, why?"
"Because then I'd be such a perfect jackass that I could win medals
at a show. I ought to have guessed it at first glance, from the
fact that the advertisement couldn't well have been mailed to
Robinson originally, anyhow."
"Why not?"
"Because he's not in the sporting-goods business, and the
advertisement is obviously addressed to the retail trade. Don't you
remember: it offers a showcase, free. What does a man living in an
apartment want of a show-case to keep artificial bait in? What we--
er--need here is--er--steam."
A moment's manipulation of the radiator produced a small jet. In
this Average Jones held the envelope. The stamp curled tip and
dropped off. Beneath it were the remains of a small portion of a
former postmark.
"I thought so," murmured Average Jones.
"Remailed!" exclaimed Bertram.
"Remailed," corroborated his friend. "I expect we'll find the
others the same."
One by one he submitted the envelopes to the steam bath. Each of
them, as the stamp was peeled off, exhibited more or less
fragmentary signs of a previous cancellation.
"Careless work," criticized Average Jones. "Every bit of the mark
should have been removed, instead of trusting to the second stamp to
cover what little was left, by shifting it a bit toward the center
of the envelope. Look; you can see on this one where the original
stamp was peeled off. On this the traces of erasure are plain
enough. That's why Manila paper was selected: it's easier to erase
from."
"Is Robinson faking?" asked Bertram. "Or has some one been rifling
his waste-basket?"
"That would mean an accomplice in the house, which would be
dangerous. I think it was done at longer range. As for the
question of our friend's faking in his claim of complete ignorance
of all this, I propose to find that out right now."
Drawing the telephone to him, he called the Caronia apartments.
Thus it was that Mr. William H. Robinson, for two unhappy minutes,
profoundly feared that at last he had really lost his mind. This is
the conversation in which he found himself implicated.
"Hello! Mr. Robinson? This is Mr. A. Jones. You hear me?"
"Yes, Mr. Jones. What is it?"
"Integer vitae, scelerisque-purus."
"I--I--beg your pardon!"
"Non egit Mauris jaculis nec arcu."
"This is Mr. Robinson: Mr. William H. Rob--"
"Nec venenatis grasida sag--Hello! Central, don't cut off! Mr.
Robinson, do you understand me?"
"God knows, I don't!"
"If he doesn't recognize the Integer Vitae," said Average Jones in a
swift aside to Bertram, "he certainly wouldn't know the more obscure
Latin of the late Mr. Hadrian."
"One more question, Mr. Robinson. Is there, in all your
acquaintance, any person who never goes out without an attendant?
Take time to think, now."
"Why--why--why," stuttered the appalled subject of this examination,
and fell into silence. From the depths of the silence he presently
exhumed the following: "I did have a paralytic cousin who always
went out in a wheeled chair. But she's dead."
"And there's no one else?"
"No. I'm quite sure."
"That's all. Good-by."
"Thank Heaven! Good-by."
"What was that about an attendant?" inquired Bertram, as his friend
replaced the receiver.
"Oh, I've just a hunch that the sender of those messages doesn't go
out unaccompanied."
"Insane? Or semi-insane? It does rather look like delusional
paranoia."
As nearly as imperfect humanity may, Average Jones appeared to be
smiling indulgently at the end of his own nose.
"Dare say you're right--er--in part, Bert. But I've also a hunch
that our man Robinson is himself the delusion as well as the
object."
"I wish you wouldn't be cryptic, Average," said his friend
pathetically. "There's been enough of that without your
gratuitously adding to the sum of human bewilderment.",
Average Jones scribbled a few words on a pad, considered, amended,
and handed the result over to Bertram, who read:
WANTED--Professional envelope eraser to
remove marks from used envelopes.
Experience essential. Apply at once--A.
Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple."
"Would it enlighten your gloom to see that in every New York and
Brooklyn paper to-morrow?" inquired its inventor.
"Not a glimmer."
"We'll give this ad a week's repetition if necessary, before trying
more roundabout measures. As soon as I have heard from it I'll drop
in at the club and we'll write--that is to say, compose a letter."
"To whom?"
"Oh, that I don't know yet. When I do, you'll see me."
Three days later Average Jones entered the Cosmic Club, with that
twinkling up-turn of the mouth corners which, with him, indicated
satisfactory accomplishment.
"Really, Bert," he remarked, seeking out his languid friend, in the
laziest comer of the large divan.
"You'd be surprised to know how few experienced envelope erasers
there are in four millions of population. Only seven people
answered that advertisement, and they were mostly tyros."
"Then you didn't get your man?"
"It was a woman. The fifth applicant. Got a pin about you?"
Bertram took a pearl from his scarf.
"That's good. It will make nice, bold, inevitable sort of letters.
Come over here to this desk."
For a few moments he worked at a sheet of, paper with the pin, then
threw it down in disgust.
"This sort of thing requires practice," he muttered. "Here, Bert,
you're cleverer with your fingers than I. You take it, and I'll
dictate."
Between them, after several failures, they produced a fair copy of
the following:
"Mr. Alden Honeywell will choose between making explanation to the
post-office authorities or calling at 3:30 P. m. to-morrow on A.
Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple."
This Average Jones enclosed in an envelope which he addressed in
writing to Alden Honeywell, Esq., 550 West Seventy-fourth Street,
City, afterward pin-pricking the letters in outline. "Just for
moral effect," he explained. "In part this ought to give
him a taste of the trouble he made for poor Robinson. You'll be
there to-morrow, Bert?"
"Watch me!" replied that gentleman with unwonted emphasis. "But
will Alden Honeywell, Esquire?"
"Surely. Also Mr. William H. Robinson, of the Caronia. Note that
'of the Caronia.' It's significant."
At three-thirty the following afternoon three men were waiting in
Average Jones' inner office. Average Jones sat at his desk
sedulously polishing his left-hand fore-knuckle with the tennis
callous of his right palm. Bertram lounged gracefully in the big
chair. Mr. Robinson fidgeted. There was an atmosphere of tension
in the room. At three-forty there came a tap-tapping across the
floor of the outer room, and a knock at the door brought them all to
their feet. Average Jones threw the door open, took the man who
stood outside by the arm, and pushing a chair toward him, seated him
in it.
The new-comer was an elderly man dressed with sober elegance. In
his scarf was a scarab of great value; on his left hand a superb
signet ring. He carried a heavy, gold-mounted stick. His face was
curiously divided against itself. The fine calm forehead and the
deep setting of the widely separate eyes gave an impression of
intellectual power and balance. But the lower part of the face was
mere wreckage; the chin quivering and fallen, from self-indulgence,
the fine lines of the nose coarsened by the spreading nostrils; the
mouth showing both the soft contours of sensuality and the hard,
fine line of craft and cruelty. The man's eyes were unholy.
They stared straight before him, and were dead. With his entrance
there was infused in the atmosphere a sense of something venomous.
"Mr. Alden Honeywell?" said Average Jones.
"Yes." The voice had refinement and calm.
"I want to introduce you to Mr. William H. Robinson."
The new-comer's head turned slowly to his right shoulder then back.
His eyes remained rigid.
"Why, the man's blind!" burst out Mr. Robins in his piping voice.
"Blind!" echoed Bertram. "Did you know this Average?"
"Of course. The pin-pricks showed it. And letter mailed to Mr.
Robinson at the General Delivery, which, if you remember, had the
address penciled in from pin-holes."
"When you have quite done discussing my personal misfortune," said
Honeywell patiently, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
which is William Robinson."
"I am," returned the owner of that name. "And do you be good enough
to tell me why you hound me with your hellish threats."
"That is not William Robinson's voice!" said the blind man. "Who
are you?"
"William H. Robinson."
"Not William Honeywell Robinson!"
"No; William Hunter Robinson."
"Then why am I brought here?"
"To make a statement for publication in to-morrow morning's
newspaper," returned Average Jones crisply.
"Statement? Is this a yellow journal trap?"
"As a courtesy to Mr. Robinson, I'll explain. How long have you
lived in the Caronia, Mr. Robinson?"
"About eight months."
"Then, some three or four months before you moved in, another
William H. Robinson lived there for a short time. His middle name
was Honeywell. He is a cousin, and an object of great solicitude to
this gentleman here. In fact, he is, or will be, the chief witness
against Mr. Honeywell in his effort to break the famous Holden
Honeywell will, disposing of some ten million dollars. Am I right,
Mr. Honeywell?"
"Thus far," replied the blind man composedly.
"Five years ago William Honeywell Robinson became addicted to a
patent headache 'dope.' It ended, as such habits do, in insanity.
He was confined two years, suffering from psychasthenia, with
suicidal melancholia and delusion of persecution. Then he was
released, cured, but with a supersensitive mental balance."
"Then the messages were intended to drive him out of his mind
again," said Bertram in sudden enlightenment. "What a devil!"
"Either that, or to impel him, by suggestion, to suicide or to
revert to the headache powders, which would have meant the asylum
again. Anything to put him out of the way, or to make his testimony
incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-lunatic returned
from Europe a year ago, our friend Honeywell here, in some way
located him at the Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through
a letter broker who deals with the rag and refuse collectors, he got
all the second-hand mail from the Caronia. Meantime, William
Honeywell Robinson had moved away, and as chance would have it,
William Hunter Robinson moved in, receiving the pinprick letters
which, had they reached their goal, would probably have produced the
desired effect."
"If they drove a sane man nearly crazy, what wouldn't they have done
to one whose mind wasn't quite right!" cried the wronged Robinson.
"But since Mr. Honeywell is blind," said Bertram, "how could he see
to erase the cancellations?"
"Ah! That's what I asked myself. Obviously, he couldn't. He'd
have to get that done for him. Presumably he'd get some stranger to
do it. That's why I advertised for a professional eraser who was
experienced, judging that it would fetch the person who had done
Honeywell's work."
"Is there any such thing as a professional envelope eraser?" asked
Bertram.
"No. So a person of experience in this line would be almost unique.
I was sure to find the right one, if he or she saw my advertisement.
As a matter of fact, it turned out to be an unimaginative young
woman who has told me all about her former employment with Mr.
Honeywell, apparently with no thought that there was anything
strange in erasing cancellations from hundreds of envelopes--for
Honeywell was cautious enough not to confine her to the Robinson
mail alone--and then pasting on stamps to remail them."
"You appear to have followed out my moves with some degree of
acumen, Mr.--er--Jones," said the blind schemer suavely.
"Yet I might not have solved your processes easily if you had not
made one rather--if you will pardon me, stupid mistake."
For the first time, the man's bloated lips shook. His evil pride of
intellectuality was stung.
"You lie!" he said hastily. "I do not make mistakes."
"No? Well, have it as you will. The point that you are to sign
here a statement, which I shall read to you before these witnesses,
announcing for publication the withdrawal of your contest for the
Honeywell millions."
"And if I decline?"
"The painful necessity will be mine of turning over these
instructive documents to the United States postal authorities. But
not before giving them to the newspapers. How would you look in
court, in view of this attempt to murder a fellow man's reason?"
Mr. Honeywell had now gained his composure. "You are right," he
assented. "You seem to have a singular faculty for being right. Be
careful it does not fail you--sometime."
"Thank you," returned Average Jones. "Now you will listen, please,
all of you."
He read the brief document, placed it before the blind man, and set
a pin between his finger and thumb. "Sign there," he said.
Honeywell smiled as he pricked in his name.
"For identification, I suppose," he said. "Am I to assign no cause
to the newspapers for my sudden action?"
A twinkle of malice appeared in Average Jones' eye.
"I would suggest waning mental acumen," he said.
The blind man winced palpably as he rose to his feet. "That is the
second time you have taunted me on that. Kindly tell me my
mistake."
Average Jones led him to the door and opened it.
"Your mistake," he drawled as he sped his parting guest into the
grasp of a waiting attendant, "was--er--in not remembering
that--er--you mustn't fish for bass in November." _
Read next: CHAPTER VIII - BIG PRINT
Read previous: CHAPTER VI - BLUE FIRES
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