Books: The Enchanted Typewriter
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John Kendrick Bangs >> The Enchanted Typewriter
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"The same," said I, bowing with my accustomed courtesy.
"The ferret?" she sang, in staccato tones which were ravishing
to my musical soul.
I laughed. "That term has been applied to me, madame," said
I, chanting my answer as best I could. "For myself, however,
I prefer to assume the more modest title of detective. I can
work with or without clues, and have never yet been baffled.
I know who wrote the Junius letters, and upon occasions have
been known to see through a stone wall with my naked eye. What
can I do for you?"
"Tell me who I am!" she cried, tragically, taking the centre
of the room and gesticulating wildly.
"Well--really, madame," I replied. "You didn't send up any
card--"
"Ah!" she sneered. "This is what your vaunted prowess amounts
to, eh? Ha! Do you suppose if I had a card with my name on it
I'd have come to you to inquire who I am? I can read a card
as well as you can, Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
"Then, as I understand it, madame," I put in, "you have suddenly
forgotten your identity and wish me to--"
"Nothing of the sort. I have forgotten nothing. I never knew
for certain who I am. I have an impression, but it is based
only on hearsay evidence," she interrupted.
For a moment I was fairly puzzled. Still I did not wish to
let her know this, and so going behind my screen and taking a
capsule full of cocaine to steady my nerves, I gained a moment
to think. Returning, I said:
"This really is child's play for me, madame. It won't take
more than a week to find out who you are, and possibly, if
you have any clews at all to your identity, I may be able to
solve this mystery in a day."
"I have only three," she answered, and taking a piece of
swan's-down, a lock of golden hair, and a pair of silver-tinsel
tights from her portmanteau she handed them over to me.
My first impulse was to ask the lady if she remembered the name
of the asylum from which she had escaped, but I fortunately
refrained from doing so, and she shortly left me, promising
to return at the end of the week.
For three days I puzzled over the clews. Swan's-down, yellow
hair, and a pair of silver-tinsel tights, while very interesting
no doubt at times, do not form a very solid basis for a theory
establishing the identity of so regal a person as my visitor.
My first impression was that she was a vaudeville artist, and
that the exhibits she had left me were a part of her make-up.
This I was forced to abandon shortly, because no woman with the
voice of my visitor would sing in vaudeville. The more ambitious
stage was her legitimate field, if not grand opera itself.
At this point she returned to my office, and I of course
reported progress. That is one of the most valuable things
I learned while on earth--when you have done nothing, report
progress.
"I haven't quite succeeded as yet," said I, "but I am getting at
it slowly. I do not, however, think it wise to acquaint you with
my present notions until they are verified beyond peradventure.
It might help me somewhat if you were to tell me who it is you
think you are. I could work either forward or backward on that
hypothesis, as seemed best, and so arrive at a hypothetical
truth anyhow."
"That's just what I don't want to do," said she. "That
information might bias your final judgment. If, however, acting
on the clews which you have, you confirm my impression that I
am such and such a person, as well as the views which other
people have, then will my status be well defined and I can
institute my suit against my husband for a judicial separation,
with back alimony, with some assurance of a successful issue."
I was more puzzled than ever.
"Well," said I, slowly, "I of course can see how a bit of
swan's-down and a lock of yellow hair backed up by a pair of
silver-tinsel tights might constitute reasonable evidence in
a suit for separation, but wouldn't it--ah--be more to your
purpose if I should use these data as establishing the identity
of--er--somebody else?"
"How very dense you are," she replied, impatiently. "That's
precisely what I want you to do."
"But you told me it was your identity you wished proven,"
I put in, irritably.
"Precisely," said she.
"Then these bits of evidence are--yours?" I asked,
hesitatingly. One does not like to accuse a lady of an undue
liking for tinsel.
"They are all I have left of my husband," she answered with
a sob.
"Hum!" said I, my perplexity increasing. "Was the--ah--the
gentleman blown up by dynamite?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Holmes," she retorted, rising and running
the scales. "I think, after all, I have come to the wrong
shop. Have you Hawkshaw's address handy? You are too obtuse
for a detective."
My reputation was at stake, so I said, significantly:
"Good! Good! I was merely trying one of my disguises on you,
madame, and you were completely taken in. Of course no one would
ever know me for Sherlock Holmes if I manifested such dullness."
"Ah!" she said, her face lighting up. "You were merely deceiving
me by appearing to be obtuse?"
"Of course," said I. "I see the whole thing in a nutshell. You
married an adventurer; he told you who he was, but you've never
been able to prove it; and suddenly you are deserted by him,
and on going over his wardrobe you find he has left nothing but
these articles: and now you wish to sue him for a separation
on the ground of desertion, and secure alimony if possible."
It was a magnificent guess.
"That is it precisely," said the lady. "Except as to the extent
of his 'leavings.' In addition to the things you have he gave
my small brother a brass bugle and a tin sword."
"We may need to see them later," said I. "At present I will
do all I can for you on the evidence in hand. I have got my
eye on a gentleman who wears silver-tinsel tights now, but I
am afraid he is not the man we are after, because his hair is
black, and, as far as I have been able to learn from his valet,
he is utterly unacquainted with swan's-down."
We separated again and I went to the club to think. Never in
my life before had I had so baffling a case. As I sat in the
cafe sipping a cocaine cobbler, who should walk in but Hamlet,
strangely enough picking particles of swan's-down from his
black doublet, which was literally covered with it.
"Hello, Sherlock!" he said, drawing up a chair and sitting
down beside me. "What you up to?"
"Trying to make out where you have been," I replied. "I
judge from the swan's-down on your doublet that you have been
escorting Ophelia to the opera in the regulation cloak."
"You're mistaken for once," he laughed. "I've been driving
with Lohengrin. He's got a pair of swans that can do a mile
in 2.10--but it makes them moult like the devil."
"Pair of what?" I cried.
"Swans," said Hamlet. "He's an eccentric sort of a duffer,
that Lohengrin. Afraid of horses, I fancy."
"And so drives swans instead?" said I, incredulously.
"The same," replied Hamlet. "Do I look as if he drove squab?"
"He must be queer," said I. "I'd like to meet him. He'd make
quite an addition to my collection of freaks."
"Very well," observed Hamlet. "He'll be here to-morrow to take
luncheon with me, and if you'll come, too, you'll be most
welcome. He's collecting freaks, too, and I haven't a doubt
would be pleased to know you."
We parted and I sauntered homeward, cogitating over my strange
client, and now and then laughing over the idiosyncrasies of
Hamlet's friend the swan-driver. It never occurred to me at
the moment however to connect the two, in spite of the link
of swan's-down. I regarded it merely as a coincidence. The
next day, however, on going to the club and meeting Hamlet's
strange guest, I was struck by the further coincidence that
his hair was of precisely the same shade of yellow as that in
my possession. It was of a hue that I had never seen before
except at performances of grand opera, or on the heads of fool
detectives in musical burlesques. Here, however, was the real
thing growing luxuriantly from the man's head.
"Ho-ho!" thought I to myself. "Here is a fortunate encounter;
there may be something in it," and then I tried to lead him on.
"I understand, Mr. Lohengrin," I said, "that you have a fine
span of swans."
"Yes," he said, and I was astonished to note that he, like my
client, spoke in musical numbers. "Very. They're much finer
than horses, in my opinion. More peaceful, quite as rapid,
and amphibious. If I go out for a drive and come to a lake
they trot quite as well across its surface as on the highways."
"How interesting!" said I. "And so gentle, the swan. Your wife,
I presume--"
Hamlet kicked my shins under the table.
"I think it will rain to-morrow," he said, giving me a glance
which if it said anything said shut up.
"I think so, too," said Lohengrin, a lowering look on his
face. "If it doesn't, it will either snow, or hail, or be
clear." And he gazed abstractedly out of the window.
The kick and the man's confusion were sufficient proof. I was
on the right track at last. Yet the evidence was unsatisfactory
because merely circumstantial. My piece of down might have
come from an opera cloak and not from a well-broken swan,
the hair might equally clearly have come from some other head
than Lohengrin's, and other men have had trouble with their
wives. The circumstantial evidence lying in the coincidences
was strong but not conclusive, so I resolved to pursue the
matter and invite the strange individual to a luncheon with me,
at which I proposed to wear the tinsel tights. Seeing them,
he might be forced into betraying himself.
This I did, and while my impressions were confirmed by his
demeanor, no positive evidence grew out of it.
"I'm hungry as a bear!" he said, as I entered the club, clad in
a long, heavy ulster, reaching from my shoulders to the ground,
so that the tights were not visible.
"Good," said I. "I like a hearty eater," and I ordered a
luncheon of ten courses before removing my overcoat; but
not one morsel could the man eat, for on the removal of my
coat his eye fell upon my silver garments, and with a gasp
he wellnigh fainted. It was clear. He recognized them and was
afraid, and in consequence lost his appetite. But he was game,
and tried to laugh it off.
"Silver man, I see," he said, nervously, smiling.
"No," said I, taking the lock of golden hair from my pocket
and dangling it before him. "Bimetallist."
His jaw dropped in dismay, but recovering himself instantly
he put up a fairly good fight.
"It is strange, Mr. Lohengrin," said I, "that in the three
years I have been here I've never seen you before."
"I've been very quiet," he said. "Fact is, I have had my
reasons, Mr. Holmes, for preferring the life of a hermit.
A youthful indiscretion, sir, has made me fear to face the
world. There was nothing wrong about it, save that it was a
folly, and I have been anxious in these days of newspapers
to avoid any possible revival of what might in some eyes
seem scandalous."
I felt sorry for him, but my duty was clear. Here was my man--
but how to gain direct proof was still beyond me. No further
admissions could be got out of him, and we soon parted.
Two days later the lady called and again I reported progress.
"It needs but one thing, madame, to convince me that I have
found your husband," said I. "I have found a man who might be
connected with swan's-down, from whose luxuriant curls might
have come this tow-colored lock, and who might have worn the
silver-tinsel tights--yet it is all MIGHT and no certainty."
"I will bring my small brother's bugle and the tin sword,"
said she. "The sword has certain properties which may induce
him to confess. My brother tells me that if he simply shakes
it at a cat the cat falls dead."
"Do so," said I, "and I will try it on him. If he recognizes
the sword and remembers its properties when I attempt to
brandish it at him, he'll be forced to confess, though it
would be awkward if he is the wrong man and the sword should
work on him as it does on the cat."
The next day I was in possession of the famous toy. It was
not very long, and rather more suggestive of a pancake-turner
than a sword, but it was a terror. I tested its qualities on
a swarm of gnats in my room, and the moment I shook it at
them they fluttered to the ground as dead as door-nails.
"I'll have to be careful of this weapon," I thought. "It
would be terrible if I should brandish it at a motor-man
trying to get one of the Gehenna Traction Company's cable-cars
to stop and he should drop dead at his post."
All was now ready for the demonstration. Fortunately the
following Saturday night was club night at the House-Boat,
and we were all expected to come in costume. For dramatic
effect I wore a yellow wig, a helmet, the silver-tinsel
tights, and a doublet to match, with the brass bugle and the
tin sword properly slung about my person. I looked stunning,
even if I do say it, and much to my surprise several people
mistook me for the man I was after. Another link in the chain!
EVEN THE PUBLIC UNCONSCIOUSLY RECOGNIZED THE VALUE OF MY
DEDUCTIONS. THEY CALLED ME LOHENGRIN!
And of course it all happened as I expected. It always does.
Lohengrin came into the assembly-room five minutes after I
did and was visibly annoyed at my make-up.
"This is a great liberty," said he, grasping the hilt of his
sword; but I answered by blowing the bugle at him, at which
he turned livid and fell back. He had recognized its soft
cadence. I then hauled the sword from my belt, shook it at
a fly on the wall, which immediately died, and made as if to
do the same at Lohengrin, whereupon he cried for mercy and
fell upon his knees.
"Turn that infernal thing the other way!" he shrieked.
"Ah!" said I, lowering my arm. "Then you know its properties?"
"I do--I do!" he cried. "It used to be mine--I confess it!"
"Then," said I, calmly putting the horrid bit of zinc back
into my belt, "that's all I wanted to know. If you'll come
up to my office some morning next week I'll introduce you to
your wife," and I turned from him.
My mission accomplished, I left the festivities and returned
to my quarters where my fair client was awaiting me.
"Well?" she said.
"It's all right, Mrs. Lohengrin," I said, and the lady cried
aloud with joy at the name, for it was the very one she had
hoped it would be. "My man turns out to be your man, and I
turn him over therefore to you, only deal gently with him.
He's a pretty decent chap and sings like a bird."
Whereon I presented her with my bill for 5000 oboli, which
she paid without a murmur, as was entirely proper that she
should, for upon the evidence which I had secured the fair
plaintiff, in the suit for separation of Elsa vs. Lohengrin
on the ground of desertion and non-support, obtained her
decree, with back alimony of twenty-five per cent. of
Lohengrin's income for a trifle over fifteen hundred years.
How much that amounted to I really do not know, but that it
was a large sum I am sure, for Lohengrin must have been very
wealthy. He couldn't have afforded to dress in solid silver-tinsel
tights if he had been otherwise. I had the tights assayed
before returning them to their owner, and even in a country
where free coinage of tights is looked upon askance they
could not be duplicated for less than $850 at a ratio of
32 to 1.
CHAPTER X
GOLF IN HADES
"Jim," said I to Boswell one morning as the type-writer began
to work, "perhaps you can enlighten me on a point concerning
which a great many people have questioned me recently. Has
golf taken hold of Hades yet? You referred to it some time
ago, and I've been wondering ever since if it had become a
fad with you."
"Has it?" laughed my visitor; "well, I should rather say it
had. The fact is, it has been a great boon to the country.
You remember my telling you of the projected revolution led
by Cromwell, and Caesar, and the others?"
"I do, very well," said I, "and I have been intending to ask
you how it came out."
"Oh, everything's as fine and sweet as can be now," rejoined
Boswell, somewhat gleefully, "and all because of golf. We are
all quiet along the Styx now. All animosities are buried in
the general love of golf, and every one of us, high or low,
autocrat and revolutionist, is hobnobbing away in peace and
happiness on the links. Why, only six weeks ago, Apollyon was
for cooking Bonaparte on a waffle iron, and yesterday the two
went out to the Cimmerian links together and played a mixed
foursome, Bonaparte and Medusa playing against Apollyon and
Delilah."
"Dear me! Really?" I cried. "That must have been an interesting
match."
"It was, and up to the very last it was nip-and-tuck between
'em," said Boswell. "Apollyon and Delilah won it with one
hole up, and they got that on the put. They'd have halved the
hole if Medusa's back hair hadn't wiggled loose and bitten her
caddie just as she was holeing out."
"It is a remarkable game," said I. "There is no sensation in
the world quite equal to that which comes to a man's soul when
he has hit the ball a solid clip and sees it sail off through
the air towards the green, whizzing musically along like a very
bird."
"True," said Boswell; "but I'm rather of the opinion that it's
a safer game for shades than for you purely material persons."
"I don't see why," I answered.
"It is easy to understand," returned Boswell. "For instance,
with us there is no resistance when by a mischance we come
into unexpected contact with the ball. Take the experience of
Diogenes and Solomon at the St. Jonah's Links week before
last. The Wiseman's Handicap was on. Diogenes and Simple
Simon were playing just ahead of Solomon and Montaigne.
Solomon was driving in great form. For the first time in
his life he seemed able to keep his eye on the ball, and the
way he sent it flying through the air was a caution. Diogenes
and Simple Simon had both had their second stroke and Solomon
drove off. His ball sailed straight ahead like a missile from
a catapult, flew in a bee-line for Diogenes, struck him at the
base of his brain, continued on through, and landed on the edge
of the green."
"Mercy!" I cried. "Didn't it kill him?"
"Of course not," retorted Boswell. "You can't kill a shade.
Diogenes didn't know he'd been hit, but if that had happened
to one of you material golfers there'd have been a sickening
end to that tournament."
"There would, indeed," said I. "There isn't much fun in being
hit by a golf-ball. I can testify to that because I have had
the experience," and I called to mind the day at St. Peterkin's
when I unconsciously stymied with my material self the
celebrated Willie McGuffin, the Demon Driver from the Hootmon
Links, Scotland. McGuffin made his mark that day if he never
did before, and I bear the evidence thereof even now, although
the incident took place two years ago, when I did not know
enough to keep out of the way of the player who plays so well
that he thinks he has a perpetual right of way everywhere.
"What kind of clubs do you Stygians use?" I asked.
"Oh, very much the same kind that you chaps do," returned
Boswell. "Everybody experiments with new fads, too, just as
you do. Old Peter Stuyvesant, for instance, always drives with
his wooden leg, and never uses anything else unless he gets a
lie where he's got to."
"His wooden leg?" I roared, with a laugh. "How on earth does
he do that?"
"He screws the small end of it into a square block shod like a
brassey," explained Boswell, "tees up his ball, goes back ten
yards, makes a run at it and kicks the ball pretty nearly out
of sight. He can put with it too, like a dream, swinging it
sideways."
"But he doesn't call that golf, does he?" I cried.
"What is it?" demanded Boswell.
"I should call it football," I said.
"Not at all," said Boswell. "Not a bit of it. He hasn't any foot
on that leg, and he has a golf-club head with a shaft to it. There
isn't any rule which says that the shaft shall not look like an
inverted nine-pin, nor do any of the accepted authorities require
that the club shall be manipulated by the arms. I admit it's bad
form the way he plays, but, as Stuyvesant himself says, he never
did travel on his shape."
"Suppose he gets a cuppy lie?" I asked, very much interested at
the first news from Hades of the famous old Dutchman.
"Oh, he does one of two things," said Boswell. "He stubs it out
with his toe, or goes back and plays two more. Munchausen plays
a good game too. He beat the colonel forty-seven straight holes
last Wednesday, and all Hades has been talking about it ever since."
"Who is the colonel?" I asked, innocently.
"Bogey," returned Boswell. "Didn't you ever hear of Colonel Bogey?"
"Of course," I replied, "but I always supposed Bogey was an
imaginary opponent, not a real one."
"So he is," said Boswell.
"Then you mean--"
"I mean that Munchausen beat him forty-seven up," said Boswell.
"Were there any witnesses?" I demanded, for I had little faith in
Munchausen's regard for the eternal verities, among which a
golf-card must be numbered if the game is to survive.
"Yes, a hundred," said Boswell. "There was only one trouble with
'em." Here the great biographer laughed. "They were all imaginary,
like the colonel."
"And Munchausen's score?" I queried.
"The same, naturally. But it makes him king-pin in golf circles
just the same, because nobody can go back on his logic," said
Boswell. "Munchausen reasoned it out very logically indeed, and
largely, he said, to protect his own reputation. Here is an
imaginary warrior, said he, who makes a bully, but wholly
imaginary, score at golf. He sends me an imaginary challenge to
play him forty-seven holes. I accept, not so much because I
consider myself a golfer as because I am an imaginer--if there
is such a word."
"Ask Dr. Johnson," said I, a little sarcastically. I always grow
sarcastic when golf is mentioned.
"Dr. Johnson be--" began Boswell.
"Boswell!" I remonstrated.
"Dr. Johnson be it, I was about to say," clicked the type-writer,
suavely; but the ink was thick and inclined to spread. "Munchausen
felt that Bogey was encroaching on his preserve as a man with an
imagination."
"I have always considered Colonel Bogey a liar," said I. "He joins
all the clubs and puts up an ideal score before he has played over
the links."
"That isn't the point at all," said Boswell. "Golfers don't lie.
Realists don't lie. Nobody in polite--or say, rather, accepted--
society lies. They all imagine. Munchausen realizes that he has
only one claim to recognition, and that is based entirely upon
his imagination. So when the imaginary Colonel Bogey sent him an
imaginary challenge to play him forty-seven holes at golf--"
"Why forty-seven?" I asked.
"An imaginary number," explained Boswell. "Don't interrupt. As I
say, when the imaginary colonel--"
"I must interrupt," said I. "What was he colonel of?"
"A regiment of perfect caddies," said Boswell.
"Ah, I see," I replied. "Imaginary in his command. There isn't
one perfect caddy, much less a regiment of the little reprobates."
"You are wrong there," said Boswell. "You don't know how to
produce a good caddy--but good caddies can be made."
"How?" I cried, for I have suffered. "I'll have the plan patented."
"Take a flexible brassey, and at the ninth hole, if they deserve
it, give them eighteen strokes across the legs with all your
strength," said Boswell. "But, as I said before, don't interrupt.
I haven't much time left to talk with you."
"But I must ask one more question," I put in, for I was growing
excited over a new idea. "You say give them eighteen strokes
across the legs. Across whose legs?"
"Yours," replied Boswell. "Just take your caddy up, place him
across your knees, and spank him with your brassey. Spank isn't
a good golf term, but it is good enough for the average caddy;
in fact, it will do him good."
"Go on," said I, with a mental resolve to adopt his prescription.
"Well," said Boswell, "Munchausen, having received an imaginary
challenge from an imaginary opponent, accepted. He went out to
the links with an imaginary ball, an imaginary bagful of fanciful
clubs, and licked the imaginary life out of the colonel."
"Still, I don't see," said I, somewhat jealously, perhaps, "how
that makes him king-pin in golf circles. Where did he play?"
"On imaginary links," said Boswell.
"Poh!" I ejaculated.
"Don't sneer," said Boswell. "You know yourself that the links
you imagine are far better than any others."
"What is Munchausen's strongest point?" I asked, seeing that
there was no arguing with the man--"driving, approaching, or
putting?"
"None of the three. He cannot put, he foozles every drive, and at
approaching he's a consummate ass," said Boswell.
"Then what can he do?" I cried.
"Count," said Boswell. "Haven't you learned that yet? You can
spend hours learning how to drive, weeks to approach, and months
to put. But if you want to win you must know how to count."
I was silent, and for the first time in my life I realized that
Munchausen was not so very different from certain golfers I have
met in my short day as a golfiac, and then Boswell put in:
"You see, it isn't lofting or driving that wins," he continued.
"Cups aren't won on putting or approaching. It's the man who puts
in the best card who becomes the champion."
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