"Her solitary appearance in public was in the wireless-room, where she was described by the wireless-operator as 'having her hands full of papers'; and this I call, symbolically, my Clue of Seven Radiograms.What does that appearance sound like? Not a joyous tourist dashing off an inconsequential message home. There is a businesslike look to it. A number of messages — a businesslike look — and we begin to think of a secretary. The edifice rears. Our Blind Barber becomes not only an impostor masquerading as a highly placed recluse who kept to his cabin, and travelled with a female companion; but the girl becomes a secretary and the recluse an enormously wealthy man with a taste for grotesque trinkets… "
Dr. Fell lifted his stick and pointed suddenly.
"Why did you kill her?" he demanded. "Was she an accomplice?"
"You're telling the story," shrugged Mr. Nemo. "And while I'm bored, I'm bored as hell with it, because just at the moment / feel like talking, still — your brandy's not at all bad. Ha-ha-ha. Ought to get hospitality. Go on. You talk. Then I'll talk, and I'll surprise you. Give you a little hint, though. Yes. Sporting run for your money, like old Sturton would… Didn't I come down on old Whistler, though! Ho-ho! Yes… Hint is, she was what you'd call virtuous in the way of being honest. She wouldn't step into my game with me when she found out who I was. And when she tried to warn that young fellow— Tcha! Bloody little fool! Ha-ha! Eh?" inquired Mr. Nemo, putting back his cigar with a portentous wink.
"Did you know," said Dr. Fell, "that a man named Woodcock saw you when you stole the first part of that film?"
"Did he?" asked Mr. Nemo, lifting one shoulder. "What did I care? Remove sideburns — they're detachable — little wax in mouth; strawberry mark on cheek; who'll identify me afterwards, eh?"
Dr. Fell slowly drew a line through one line on a sheet of paper.
"And there we had the first direct evidence: of Elimination. Woodcock said definitely that you were a person he'd never seen before. Now, Woodcock hadn't been seasick. He'd been in the dining-room at all times, and after the sea-sick passengers came out of their lairs he would have spotted the thief — if the thief hadn't been still among the very, very few who kept to their cabins. Humf! Ha! I was wondering whether anybody had fantastic suspicions of — well, say Perrigord or somebody of the sort. But it ruled out Perrigord, it ruled out Kyle, it ruled out nearly everybody. The thing is plain enough, but where everybody went off on the wrong scent was over that radiogram from New York." Dr. Fell wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper and pushed it across to Morgan.
Federal agent thinks crook responsible for Stelly and MacGee jobs. Federal agent thinks also physician is impostor on your ship…
"Well?" said Morgan. The doctor made a few marks, and held it out again.
"The Clue of Terse Style," said Dr. Fell, "indicates that the word "also" is a supernumerary, is out of place, is a word merely wasted in an expensive radiogram if what it means is, "Federal agent also thinks… " But read it thus."
Federal agent thinks — also physician — is impostor on your ship…
"Meaning," said Dr. Fell, crumpling up the paper, "an entirely different thing. The remark about 'medical profession influential' simply means that the doctor in attendance is making a row; he is insisting that, despite the patient at the hospital being apparently out of his head in insisting he is Sturton, the doctor believes it and they mustn't disregard it. But, good God! Do you seriously think that, if he had meant Dr. Kyle was a murderer, the whole medical profession would have wanted to shield him? The idea was so absurd that I wonder anybody considered it. It refers to Sturton! Sweep away the whole flimsy tangle, now. Let's have one point piled on top of the other until you'll realise it couldn't have been anybody; let's come at last to the gigantic and damning proof."
He flung the paper on the table with an angry gesture. "You visit Sturton to pacify him over the loss of the emerald. Do you see his secretary? No! You hear him apparently talking to somebody behind a door in the bedroom. But. though you don't make any noise or speak, out he darts to see you and closes the door. He knew you were there already, and he put on that show for your benefit. The mistake, the Clue of Wrong Rooms, was — why in the bedroom? It wasn't in the drawing-room where he'd been apparently lying, with his medicine-bottles around; that was his haunt. But he had to be out of sight… "
Morgan heard Mr. Nemo's shrill laughter and the steady scratching of a pencil; but Dr. Fell went on:
"Then there was the business of Lights: curtains always drawn, shawl round his shoulders, hat on, always back to the light. There was the straight suggestion of his Personal Taste: the toy trinket with real rubies for eyes, winking and leering at you as he deliberately tapped it while he bamboozled you; and still you didn't see the connection between the wagging Mandarin-head and the costly trinket of the razor.18 And what happened," said Dr. Fell, rapping his stick sharply on the table, "when you and Captain Valvick and Mrs. Perrigord went round with the grim intention of finding the missing girl? You combed the boat through — but yet in sublime innocence of heart you did not demand to see Sturton's secretary; you went there, you asked a question, and you let him rush you out of the cabin without ever going any further!"… After a pause Dr. Fell wheeled round and looked at Inspector Jennings. "I'm going off my base, Jennings. I suppose you don't understand any of this?"
The inspector smiled grimly. "I understand every word of it, sir. That's why I haven't interrupted you. Nemo here regaled us with a whole account of it on the train. It's fine. Eh, Nemo?"
"Rubbish rubbish rubbish!" squeaked Nemo, in repulsive glee at his successful imitation. "Mad Captain Whistler. Prosecute the line! And all the while I was wondering…. Eh, Inspector?"
The inspector studied him curiously. He seemed to wish he were farther away than handcuffed to Nemo's wrist.
"Oh, it's a great joke," he said coolly. "But you'll hang for all of it, you filthy swine. Go on, Dr. Fell."
Nemo straightened up.
"I'll kill you for that, one day," he remarked, just as coolly. "Maybe to-morrow, maybe next day, maybe a year from now." His eye wandered round the room; his face was slightly paler, and he breathed hard. Morgan felt he was keeping his spirits up with desperate jocularity. "Shall I talk now?" he asked suddenly.
22 — Exit Nemo
It was growing shadowy in the room. Nemo took of! his hat and brushed its brim across his forehead. He gestured with it.
"I'll tell you," he said, "why you can't beat What's cut out for you at birth. I'll fill up your story. I'll show you how a trick nobody could help cheated me out of the cushiest soft spot on earth. And those kids — they thought it was funny…
"I won't tell you who I am," he said, looking round at them with a curious expression which reminded Morgan of Woodcock squinting at the ceiling in the writing-room. "I might be anybody. You'll never know. I could say I was Harry Jones of Surbiton, or Bill Smith of Yonkers — or maybe somebody not very much different from the man I was impersonating. I'll tell you what I am, though — I'm a ghost. Reason that out how you like; I'm not telling. I'll never have any occasion to tell."