"So that's established. Very well. Now tell us what you know about Depping himself, and what happened last night."
"As your legal adviser, Mr. Travers—" began Langdon, suddenly thrusting himself into the conversation as he might have made up his mind to jump out of bed on a cold day; a more incongruous fancy because the man was sweating—"as your legal adviser, I must insist that you confer in private with me before taking any unwise steps…"
Spinelli looked at him. "Burn, damn you," he said cryptically, leaning forward in fierce vindictiveness. "Burn. Sweat. Go.on; I like it…
"I can give the whole thing to you," he went on, relaxing again, "in a couple of words. Nick Depping— he didn't call himself Septimus then — was the slickest article that ever came out of England. By God, he had brains! I'll give him that. He came over to the States about eight or nine years ago with the idea of making his fortune, like a lot of Britishers; only he'd thought it all over, and he'd decided that the best way was to teach them new rackets in the home of rackets. I don't know how he got hold of Jet Mayfree. Mayfree didn't amount to a row of beans then; he was one of those two-for-a-nickel ward heelers that hang around speakeasies and maybe can get a few muscle-men to do somebody else's dirty work — but that's all. Well, I'm telling you, Depping made Mayfree a big shot as sure as God made little apples. Depping blew into New York and lived in speaks until he found the man he wanted for his front, and in a year…" Spinelli gestured.
"I don't mean booze, you understand. That's small change. I mean protection, politics, swindles, blackmail — holy Jesus, he could put a new angle on each one of 'em that nobody else would have thought of in a million years! And he wasn't crude: no guns, unless it couldn't be helped, and even then no stuff that looked like a gang killing. 'Why advertise?' he said. 'Let somebody else take the rap.' At one time he was running a real badger-game syndicate: twenty-two women working the hotels for him. An assistant district attorney got nosey. Nick Depping worked it out, planted evidence, and had the man poisoned so that there was clear proof his wife had done it; and the D.A.'s wife went to the chair for it."
Spinelli leaned back and smoked with a sort of malignant admiration.
"Do you get it? He organized all the little rackets, that the big shots had never bothered with. He never tried to muscle in on them, and they let him alone. Extortion, for one thing. That was how he ran into me. I wouldn't join his union. And what happened? Why, he got me sent up the river for five years."
The man coughed on some smoke. He brushed a hand over his eyes, which had become watery. Sideburns, hair-line moustache, broad face with nostrils working, all the offensiveness of the man seemed to gather into one lump; to grow poisonous, and writhe on the brown sofa.
"All right!" he said hoarsely, and then controlled himself. He remembered his suavity. I’ve forgotten that, now. All I was thinking — it was queer to see that dry old bird… He looked and talked like a college professor, except when he was drunk. I had one interview with him, the first time I ever saw him; and I was curious. He had an apartment in the East Sixties, lined up with books, and when I saw him he was sitting at a table with a bottle of rye and a pack of taroc cards…" Spinelli coughed.
"Steady on," said Dr. Fell quietly. His dull eyes opened wide for a moment. "There's a lavatory just off here. Would you care to, humph, retire for a minute or two. Eh?"
The other rose. At Dr. Fell's gesture, a mystified Inspector Murch followed to stand at the door. During the heavy silence of the room, when he had gone, Dr.
Fell glanced round the group. He picked up a pencil, placed it against his arm, and made a motion of one pressing a plunger.
"Let him alone," he said gruffly. "Hell be with us shortly."
All during this recital, the bishop had been sitting with his head in his hands. He straightened up, and said, "This is sickening. I–I never realized…"
"No," said Dr. Fell. "It isn't pleasant when you really see it at close range, is it? Far different from looking at criminals all preserved and ticketed behind glass cases; and reading the Latin tides on the reptile exhibits with your handkerchief to your nose? I've found that out. I found it out long ago, for my sins. But I ought to have warned you that you will never see clearly to the heart of any crime until you can honestly repeat, 'There but for the grace of God—' "
Mr. Theseus Langdon again took his jump, but this time with more ease.
"Come!" he said persuasively. "I am afraid I must insist, in justice to my client, that we must not place too much credence in what he says at this time. If you will allow me to join him and speak to him in private, as my prerogative is…?"
"Sit still," rumbled Dr. Fell. He made only a slight gesture with his pencil, but Langdon subsided.
Spinelli was soothed and urbane when he returned, though a muscle seemed to jump in his shoulder. He stared round with a toothy smile; apologized, and lowered himself with a sort of stage grace into another chair. After a time he went on:
"I was — ha, ha — speaking of poor Nick Depping the first time I saw him. He said, They tell me you're a man of some education. You don't look it. But sit down.' That was how I came to know him, and, take my word for it, I knew him pretty well. So I entered his organization…"
"Stop a bit!" said Dr. Fell. "I thought you told us a while ago that you refused—?"
The other smirked. "Oh, I had outside interests. Listen! I still think I'm as smart as he was; yes, and as well educated too, by God, though you mugs wouldn't believe it…" His wrist jerked viciously as he lit another cigarette. "Never mind. He found it out, and I went to the Big House. But in the meantime I was his sparring partner for what he thought of books, and I read his fortune in that taroc pack until I knew it better than he did. Mind, I expected him to go far. He used to call me the court astrologer, and once he nearly shot me when he was drunk. If it hadn't been for the drinking, and for one outstanding weakness—"
"What was that?"
"Women. He blew in plenty of money on them. If it hadn't been for that… yet," said Spinelli, who seemed to be jabbed by an ugly memory, "he honest-to-God had a real fascination for them. They fell for him. I told him once, when I'd had a few drinks myself, 'I'm a better man than you, Nick; by God, I am. But they don't seem to fall for me. It's your money.' But, somehow…" Spinelli fingered his sideburns. "I used to hate that conceited old rat because the women did go after him, and they wouldn't admit it. They'd pretend to laugh at him in public. But he — he hypnotized them, or something. Why can't I have his luck?" he demanded, almost at a whine. "Why won't they go for me? He even had one high class dame with a Park
Avenue manner, even if she did come from Ninth Avenue — and stuck to her — and she stuck to him; until he threw her over…"
Spinelli checked himself, as though he had just remembered something. He glanced at Langdon.
"You were saying—?" prompted Dr. Fell.
"I was telling you." He drew a deep breath. "I got sent to the Big House. But he was blowing in his money. And if he'd kept his head, and not thrown it around everywhere, he'd have been worth about six million, instead of only fifty thousand pounds in your money."
Dr. Fell opened one eye. He wheezed thoughtfully, and then said in a gentle voice:
"That's very interesting, my friend. How do you happen to know he left an estate of fifty thousand pounds?"
Nobody moved. Spinelli's eyes remained fixed and glazed. At length he said:
"Trying to trip me up, are you? Suppose I won't answer?"
They could hear his harsh breathing. Dr. Fell lifted his cane and pointed with it across the table.
"I wish you would endeavor to get it through your head, my friend, that there is at present quite enough evidence to hang you for the murder of Depping… Didn't I mention that?"