Artie Conan Doyle and the Scarlet Phantom Page 4

  “And what skills would those be exactly?” McCorkle was clearly amused.

  Pennycook’s eyed kindled with enthusiasm. “I am studying the methods of C. Auguste Dupin.”

  “And who might he be?” the inspector inquired. “A French gentleman I assume.”

  “He is a character in the stories of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, sir, featuring most notably in his mystery tale ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’.”

  Artie recognised the name at once. He had read some of Mr Poe’s chilling and atmospheric stories.

  McCorkle eyed the constable indulgently. “I don’t see what stories have to do with police work.”

  “Ah, well, sir, Monsieur Dupin has developed a most interesting technique for reading people’s thoughts simply by studying them.”

  “Sounds like a parlour trick to me,” scoffed the inspector.

  “I assure you, sir, it is extremely scientific.”

  Artie almost groaned at hearing Peril’s favourite word coming from the lips of the young policeman.

  “Dupin demonstrates the technique upon a friend of his by observing the movements of his eyes and his facial expressions,” Pennycook continued.

  “And I suppose you can demonstrate this little trick on me, can you?” challenged the inspector.

  “That’s exactly what I have been doing, sir. No disrespect intended, of course.”

  McCorkle was sceptical but intrigued. “Go on then – what have I been thinking about?”

  Pennycook tapped the pencil against his chin. “I should say you are thinking of buying a new carpet.”

  “Really?” McCorkle’s eyebrows almost disappeared under the brim of his hat. “And what leads you to that conclusion?”

  “It’s very simple, sir,” the constable explained. “I saw you stare at the carpet, then at the advertisements for household goods in the paper, then you frowned in thought. Clearly you noticed this fine carpet, spotted an advert for new carpets in the paper and pondered whether or not to buy one for yourself.”

  Artie was impressed. “Why, that’s very clever, Constable.”

  McCorkle, however, gave a hearty laugh. “You and your friend Monsieur Dupin are barking up the wrong tree there, Pennycook. I spotted a wine stain on the carpet and wondered why it hadn’t been cleaned up. My wife has been demanding a night out, so I looked in the paper to see what acts are performing at the Regency Theatre in the coming week. Then I was thinking to myself that I would like more coffee if we could rustle some up.”

  Sheepishly, Pennycook closed his notepad and put his pencil back in his pocket. “Well, the method’s not perfect, but it could prove useful to the policemen of the future.”

  “Until that day comes,” said McCorkle, “we shall have to stick to the tried-and-true methods of investigation without any help from Monsieur Dupin.”

  Artie was glad he wasn’t the only one who thought there were things to learn from stories. However, the ideas outlined by Mr Poe were clearly more complex than Pennycook imagined.

  The inspector yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “Not much longer now and we can all go home,” he said with one eye on the clock.

  Artie was also watching the time go by, and the nearer they drew to the ten o’clock deadline mentioned in the note, the more certain he felt that something would happen. His ears were alert for every sound: the fateful ticking of the clock, the faint rustling of the wind in the trees outside, the grunts and sighs of his companions. He found it impossible to focus his attention on Sir Walter Scott’s tale, his imagination completely absorbed in thoughts of the Scarlet Phantom.

  When the hands on the clock worked their way around to ten o’clock, Artie was just beginning to wonder if perhaps Constable Pennycook was right after all when there came a sudden loud crash from the study.

  “No! No! Leave me alone!” they heard Seaton cry out.

  Leaping from their chairs, McCorkle and Pennycook bounded for the door, with Artie right behind them. The inspector yanked at the doorknob and growled in frustration. “He’s locked it, just as he said he would – the fool!”

  “Help! Help!” came Seaton’s voice. It was cut off in a strangled screech of pain.

  McCorkle threw his shoulder against the door but to no avail.

  “Perhaps the two of us, sir,” Pennycook suggested.

  Artie dodged aside as the two policemen took a few steps back, then charged at the same time. This time there was a definite splintering of wood. At their second charge, the lock broke off and the door flew wide open.

  Carried on by their own momentum, the two policemen staggered into the room. Following hard on their heels, Artie saw Seaton slumped on the floor against the far wall, groaning and clutching his head. Papers from his desk were strewn across the floor and at his feet lay a small bronze bust of the Duke of Wellington.

  To the merchant’s left, his wall safe gaped open.

  McCorkle bent over the victim. “Who was it?” he demanded loudly. “What happened to you, sir?”

  “Attacked,” Seaton answered feebly. “Couldn’t see him.”

  “There must be some way in,” Constable Pennycook muttered, running his hand over the wall. “A secret door or suchlike.”

  Artie decided to check on a more obvious entrance. He rushed to the window and pulled the curtains aside. It was closed and snibbed on the inside, with no sign of a forced entry. Suddenly a flicker of movement beyond the glass pane caught his eye.

  “Inspector!” he yelled. “There’s somebody outside the window!”

  7.

  The Lurking Shadow

  Before Inspector McCorkle could respond to Artie, Seaton grabbed him by the lapel and pulled him close.

  “Help me! Help me!” he croaked.

  Constable Pennycook, with one hand still feeling for cracks in the wall, glanced in the direction of the window. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I tell you there’s someone out there!” exclaimed Artie. He made a dash for the open doorway. “We mustn’t let him get away!”

  Racing into the parlour, he collided with Simpkin and both of them tumbled to the floor.

  “Oh, dear, dear, whatever is happening?” the timid secretary squeaked. Artie disentangled himself and scrambled to his feet. Leaving Simpkin still gasping on the floor, he bolted for the front door. Once outside, he raced round the corner of the house to the lawn and flower beds overlooked by the study window.

  In the gloom of night, he saw a dark figure flitting through the trees towards the high garden wall. Charging after it, Artie yelled, “Halt there! Halt in the name of the law!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth they sounded utterly foolish to his own ears. He was not the law, and even if he were, it seemed unlikely that the fleeing stranger would stop on the command of a boy.

  Skirting a flower bed, the shadow took a run at the wall and swarmed over it, as nimble as a cat. Pelting after it, Artie made a jump of his own, but his grip fell short and he slid down onto the grass with a grunt of frustration. He looked around to see if there was a handy tree he could climb to get himself over. Before he could pick one out, he was hailed by the voice of Constable Pennycook.

  “Hey there, don’t you move!”

  Artie caught the glare of the policeman’s lantern directly in his eyes. Pennycook advanced quickly and exclaimed, “Why, young Mr Doyle! That was rather a rash thing to do, dashing off like that.”

  “Whoever it was got away,” Artie grumbled. “If Simpkin hadn’t got in my way, I might have caught up with him.”

  Pennycook stared at him quizzically. “Are you quite sure you saw someone at the window? It was very dark.”

  “I’m perfectly sure,” Artie insisted. “I saw him escape over the wall.”

  “Tell you what,” the constable suggested, “let’s go have a look over there by the window. Perhaps your shadow left some traces behind.”

  Retracing their steps to the side of the house, they saw that the study curtains were once again closed. The constable shone his lantern over the ground beneath the window and peered closely.

  “No sign of any footprints,” he noted. “Mind you, the turf is quite springy.”

  Bending down, Artie felt around in the grass, hoping to discover some clue, a dropped button or a cigarette end. Disappointingly all he found were a few thin flakes of wood.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” the constable wondered, shining his lantern on the tiny slivers in Artie’s palm. “That won’t be much help.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it will,” Artie sighed. Nevertheless, he wrapped the wood flakes in a page torn from his notebook and slipped them into his pocket.

  “We’d best get back inside,” Pennycook advised. “The inspector will be wondering what’s become of us.”

  When they returned to the study, Artie saw that Seaton was now seated in a leather chair, mopping his brow with a silk kerchief. In his other hand he held a glass of brandy from which he took the occasional noisy sip. Simpkin stood by with the decanter, ready to refill his master’s glass as soon as it was empty. The secretary had turned so pale, Artie thought he could be mistaken for a ghost in a stage play.

  While Constable Pennycook resumed his search for secret panels in the walls, the inspector finished writing down the victim’s account of his ordeal.

  Flicking through his notes, he said, “Now, Mr Seaton, let’s make sure I’ve got this right. You were seated at your desk when you felt yourself seized from behind. You were hurled over the desk, so scattering these papers we see lying about. When you got up from the floor, you observed this bronze bust of the late Duke of Wellington flying through the air towards you.”

  The inspector nodded towards the statuette standing on the desktop. “It struck you on
the side of the head, so that you fell back against the wall and lay stunned on the floor for perhaps half a minute.”

  “That is correct,” said Seaton, gingerly fingering the left side of his head.

  Artie noticed a streak of blood in the man’s white hair. Picking up the bust, he turned it over and spotted a crimson smear on the base. This seemed to confirm the merchant’s story.

  McCorkle also noticed the blood. “Would you like us to send for a doctor, sir?”

  “No,” snapped Seaton, “I want you to get my rubies back. How the fiend managed to open the safe is beyond me.”

  Pennycook lifted up the edge of the Persian rug to look for a trapdoor.

  Artie thought for a moment, trying to calculate any way the theft might have been carried out. What if the blow on the head had confused Seaton and he was mistaken about the rubies? “Are you sure the jewels were there in the first place?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Why, you impertinent whelp!” Seaton snapped. “The inspector here saw me put them inside the safe. He even examined them.”

  “Correct, sir, quite correct,” McCorkle confirmed, hoping to pacify the merchant. “And I saw you lock it securely.”

  Constable Pennycook scanned the ceiling, but there was no means of entry or exit up there. “The villain appears to be even more resourceful than his first robbery demonstrated,” he observed. “Not only can he render himself unseen, but he now seems able to walk through locked doors and to disappear at will.”

  Artie realised that the two policemen were staring at him, as though they expected him to come up with some brilliant idea.

  “Well, McCorkle, what do you intend to do about this outrage?” Seaton demanded.

  The inspector gave his moustache an irritated tug. “We shall apply all the resources at our command to find a solution to this most vexing mystery.”

  “Your performance tonight does not fill me with confidence,” the merchant retorted sourly. “Perhaps you can come up with a more intelligent plan than recruiting children to do your work for you.”

  McCorkle winced as though he had been jabbed with a needle. “Yes, well, we had best get back to the office and make out a report.” He added in a low murmur, “Not that anyone’s going to believe it.”

  They left Seaton to the care of his timorous secretary. It was a relief to get out into the fresh night air and away from the irritable textile merchant. Artie wondered if it was the Phantom he had spotted fleeing across the garden. But if the thief was able to pass through the walls of the house in order to steal the rubies, why would he need to climb over the garden wall?

  “Constable Pennycook, go and fetch us a cab,” the inspector instructed. “We’ll drop our young friend off at home on the way.”

  When the young policeman hurried out into the street, McCorkle addressed Artie gravely. “Mr Doyle, I must confess myself disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?” Artie echoed.

  McCorkle gave a grim nod. “I had hoped you would provide some insights into this affair, but you seem just as baffled as I am. Until we make a breakthrough, I must ask you to keep tonight’s events strictly confidential, and in particular do not share them with your parents.”

  Artie nodded. “Inspector, I promise you, I shall get to the bottom of this business.”

  But even as he spoke he felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. In his imagination, he saw the shadowy figure of the Phantom sneering at him and could almost hear the fiend’s mocking laughter.

  8.

  Facts Not Fancies

  When he got home, Artie found his mother waiting anxiously for him while his father was occupied in the back room finishing his latest painting, a ruined castle bathed in moonlight with some wild geese flying past the stars in the background. Following the inspector’s instructions, he assured them both that absolutely nothing had happened at Seaton’s house.

  “There, I knew it was all nonsense,” Mrs Doyle declared. “Probably a piece of tomfoolery created for the sake of gossip.”

  Artie was relieved that she accepted his story of a boring, uneventful vigil so easily. If he told her the truth, she’d very likely lead a whole regiment of priests down to Mr Seaton’s house to do battle with the powers of darkness.

  Before going to sleep, he tried to clarify his thoughts by writing down some notes:

  The Phantom

  Invisible

  Walks through walls

  Throws things

  Opens safe

  Steals jewels

  Artie tried to make sense of the Phantom’s bizarre abilities, but his words began to swim about before his eyes and he drifted into sleep.

  ***

  In the morning Artie hurried through his breakfast, then dashed off to find Ham. He arrived at his friend’s house to find him struggling out the door with his huge black dog, Berrybus.

  “Artie, thank goodness you’re here. Can you give me a hand with him? He’s being very lively this morning.”

  Berrybus reared up on his hind legs and, with his huge front paws, pinned Artie’s shoulders against the wall. He then proceeded to lick his whole face with his long, wet tongue. When the dog finally dropped to the ground, Artie wiped his nose and cheeks with his sleeve.

  “Ham, we need to go to Peril’s house,” he said.

  “What for?” Ham asked as they manoeuvred the great hound out into the street. “To look at rocks?”

  “There have been some developments in the case and I’m stumped. Peril’s ideas so far haven’t panned out, but she is good at coming up with theories.”

  “We’re not going to have her trailing around after us like that other girl, are we?” Ham made a face like he had just been forced to swallow cod liver oil.

  “If you’re talking about Rowena,” said Artie, “we’d have been in a real fix without her help.”

  The talents of the young actress Rowena McCleary had played an important role in their capture of the villain behind the mysterious case of the Vanishing Dragon last year.

  “I say, you don’t suppose she’s back in town for the summer, do you?” Ham wondered.

  “If she is,” said Artie, “she’s probably busy with her theatrical career.”

  “Fine!” said Ham with relief. “We can do without her. So what are these developments you were talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when we get to Peril’s house. And I’m not sure we should bring Berrybus with us.”

  “We don’t have any choice,” said Ham. “The only way I could get out of practising piano all morning was to offer to take him for his walk.” Ham’s mother was a piano teacher and had musical ambitions for her son that went far beyond any signs of talent on his part.

  Once they were out on the street, Ham had such a struggle controlling the immense hound, he hadn’t enough breath left to ask questions. Artie took the card Peril had given him from his pocket and read it again:

  Once the dog had been treated to an energetic romp in the Meadows, the boys made their way to Newington Place, their progress hampered by Berrybus’s insistence on stopping to investigate every new smell. Peril’s home was an impressive two-storey townhouse with large bay windows. She herself answered the jangle of the door pull and ushered them inside.

  “So you’re here at last,” she greeted them. “I wondered when you’d turn up. And where did you find that enormous beast? Why, he’s positively prehistoric.”

  Berrybus wagged his heavy tail enthusiastically.

  “This is my dog, Berrybus,” said Ham. “He sometimes helps out on our cases.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” added Artie. Their attempts to use Berrybus as a bloodhound last year to sniff out the trail of a criminal had met with mixed results.

  “You’re certainly a handsome fellow,” Peril told the dog. “Show me how clever you are. Sit!”

  To Artie’s astonishment, the big dog obediently sank down on his haunches.

  “Good boy!” said Peril approvingly. “Now give me a paw.”

  She held out her hand. Berrybus obligingly raised his left forefoot and placed it in her palm.

  “I don’t understand this at all.” Ham was aghast. “I’ve been trying to train him all year and I can’t get him to do anything.”