The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
gloom partially vanished. Of what phantasies had I been guilty! It must
have been an entire delusion on my part to have supposed that those
tentacula had ever been twined about the bowl. The creature was in
exactly the same position in which I had left it the day before--as, of
course, I knew it would be--poised, as if about to spring. I was telling
myself how foolish I had been to allow myself to dwell for a moment on
Tress's words, when Martin Brasher was shown in.
Brasher is an old friend of mine. We have a common ground--ghosts. Only we
approach them from different points of view. He takes the
scientific--psychological--inquiry side. He is always anxious to hear of a
ghost, so that he may have an opportunity of "showing it up."
"I've something in your line here," I observed, as he came in.
"In my line? How so? _I'm_ not pipe mad."
"No; but you're ghost mad. And this is a haunted pipe."
"A haunted pipe! I think you're rather more mad about ghosts, my dear
Pugh, than I am."
Then I told him all about it. He was deeply interested, especially when I
told him that the pipe was drugged. But when I repeated Tress's words
about its being haunted, and mentioned my own delusion about the creature
moving, he took a more serious view of the case than I had expected he
would do.
"I propose that we act on Tress's suggestion, and go and make inquiries of
him."
"But you don't really think that there is anything in it?"
"On these subjects I never allow myself to think at all. There are Tress's
words, and there is your story. It is agreed on all hands that the pipe
has peculiar properties. It seems to me that there is a sufficient case
here to merit inquiry."
He persuaded me. I went with him. The pipe, in the sandalwood box, went
too. Tress received us with a grin--a grin which was accentuated when I
placed the sandalwood box on the table.
"You understand," he said, "that a gift is a gift. On no terms will I
consent to receive that pipe back in my possession."
I was rather nettled by his tone.
"You need be under no alarm. I have no intention of suggesting anything of
the kind."
"Our business here," began Brasher--I must own that his manner is a little
ponderous--"is of a scientific, I may say also, and at the same time, of a
judicial nature. Our object is the Pursuit of Truth and the Advancement of
Inquiry."
"Have you been trying another smoke?" inquired Tress, nodding his head
toward me.
Before I had time to answer, Brasher went droning on:
"Our friend here tells me that you say this pipe is haunted."
"I say it is haunted because it _is_ haunted."
I looked at Tress. I half suspected that he was poking fun at us. But he
appeared to be serious enough.
"In these matters," remarked Brasher, as though he were giving utterance
to a new and important truth, "there is a scientific and nonscientific
method of inquiry. The scientific method is to begin at the beginning. May
I ask how this pipe came into your possession?"
Tress paused before he answered.
"You may ask." He paused again. "Oh, you certainly may ask. But it doesn't
follow that I shall tell you."
"Surely your object, like ours, can be but the Spreading About of the
Truth?"
"I don't see it at all. It is possible to imagine a case in which the
spreading about of the truth might make me look a little awkward."
"Indeed!" Brasher pursed up his lips. "Your words would almost lead one to
suppose that there was something about your method of acquiring the pipe
which you have good and weighty reasons for concealing."
"I don't know why I should conceal the thing from you. I don't suppose
either of you is any better than I am. I don't mind telling you how I got
the pipe. I stole it."
"Stole it!"
Brasher seemed both amazed and shocked. But I, who had previous experience
of Tress's methods of adding to his collection, was not at all surprised.
Some of the pipes which he calls his, if only the whole truth about them
were publicly known, would send him to jail.
"That's nothing!" he continued. "All collectors steal! The eighth
commandment was not intended to apply to them. Why, Pugh there has
'conveyed' three fourths of the pipes which he flatters himself are his."
I was so dumfoundered by the charge that it took my breath away. I sat in
astounded silence. Tress went raving on:
"I was so shy of this particular pipe when I had obtained it, that I put
it away for quite three months. When I took it out to have a look at it
something about the thing so tickled me that I resolved to smoke it. Owing
to peculiar circumstances attending the manner in which the thing came
into my possession, and on which I need not dwell--you don't like to dwell
on those sort of things, do you, Pugh?--I knew really nothing about the
pipe. As was the case with Pugh, one peculiarity I learned from actual
experience. It was also from actual experience that I learned that the
thing was--well, I said haunted, but you may use any other word you like."
"Tell us, as briefly as possible, what it was you really did discover."
"Take the pipe out of the box!" Brasher took the pipe out of the box and
held it in his hand. "You see that creature on it. Well, when I first had
it it was underneath the pipe."
"How do you mean that it was underneath the pipe?"
"It was bunched together underneath the stem, just at the end of the
mouthpiece, in the same way in which a fly might be suspended from the
ceiling. When I began to smoke the pipe I saw the creature move."
"But I thought that unconsciousness immediately followed."
"It did follow, but not before I saw that the thing was moving. It was
because I thought that I had been, in a way, a victim of delirium that I
tried the second smoke. Suspecting that the thing was drugged I swallowed
what I believed would prove a powerful antidote. It enabled me to resist
the influence of the narcotic much longer than before, and while I still
retained my senses I saw the creature crawl along under the stem and over
the bowl. It was that sight, I believe, as much as anything else, which
sent me silly. When I came to I then and there decided to present the pipe
to Pugh. There is one more thing I would remark. When the pipe left me the
creature's legs were twined about the bowl. Now they are withdrawn.
Possibly you, Pugh, are able to cap my story with a little one which is
all your own."
"I certainly did imagine that I saw the creature move. But I supposed that
while I was under the influence of the drug imagination had played me a
trick."
"Not a bit of it! Depend upon it, the beast is bewitched. Even to my eye
it looks as though it were, and to a trained eye like yours, Pugh! You've
been looking for the devil a long time, and you've got him at last."
"I--I wish you wouldn't make those remarks, Tress. They jar on me."
"I confess," interpolated Brasher--I noticed that he had put the pipe down
on the table as though he were tired of holding it--"that, to _my_
thinking, such remarks are not appropriate. At the same time what you have
told us is, I am bound to allow, a little curious. But of course what I
require is ocular demonstration. I haven't seen the movement myself."
"No, but you very soon will do if you care to have a pull at the pipe on
your own account. Do, Brasher, to oblige me! There's a dear!"
"It appears, then, that the movement is only observable when the pipe is
smoked. We have at least arrived at step No. 1."
"Here's a match, Brasher! Light up, and we shall have arrived at step No.
2."
Tress lit a match and held it out to Brasher. Brasher retreated from its
neighborhood.
"Thank you, Mr. Tress, I am no smoker, as you are aware. And I have no
desire to acquire the art of smoking by means of a poisoned pipe."
Tress laughed. He blew out the match and threw it into the grate.
"Then I tell you what I'll do--I'll have up Bob."
"Bob--why Bob?"
"Bob"--whose real name was Robert Haines, though I should think he must
have forgotten the fact, so seldom was he addressed by it--was Tress's
servant. He had been an old soldier, and had accompanied his master when
he left the service. He was as depraved a character as Tress himself. I am
not sure even that he was not worse than his master. I shall never forget
how he once behaved toward myself. He actually had the assurance to accuse
me of attempting to steal the Wardour Street relic which Tress fondly
deludes himself was once the property of Sir Walter Raleigh. The truth is
that I had slipped it with my handkerchief into my pocket in a fit of
absence of mind. A man who could accuse _me_ of such a thing would be
guilty of anything. I was therefore quite at one with Brasher when he
asked what Bob could possibly be wanted for. Tress explained.
"I'll get him to smoke the pipe," he said.
Brasher and I exchanged glances, but we refrained from speech.
"It won't do him any harm," said Tress.
"What--not a poisoned pipe?" asked Brasher.
"It's not poisoned--it's only drugged."
"_Only_ drugged!"
"Nothing hurts Bob. He is like an ostrich. He has digestive organs which
are peculiarly his own. It will only serve him as it served me--and
Pugh--it will knock him over. It is all done in the Pursuit of Truth and
for the Advancement of Inquiry."
I could see that Brasher did not altogether like the tone in which Tress
repeated his words. As for me, it was not to be supposed that I should put
myself out in a matter which in no way concerned me. If Tress chose to
poison the man, it was his affair, not mine. He went to the door and
shouted:
"Bob! Come here, you scoundrel!"
That is the way in which he speaks to him. No really decent servant would
stand it. I shouldn't care to address Nalder, my servant, in such a way.
He would give me notice on the spot. Bob came in. He is a great hulking
fellow who is always on the grin. Tress had a decanter of brandy in his
hand. He filled a tumbler with the neat spirit.
"Bob, what would you say to a glassful of brandy--the real thing--my boy?"
"Thank you, sir."
"And what would you say to a pull at a pipe when the brandy is drunk!"
"A pipe?" The fellow is sharp enough when he likes. I saw him look at the
pipe upon the table, and then at us, and then a gleam of intelligence came
into his eyes. "I'd do it for a dollar, sir."
"A dollar, you thief?"
"I meant ten shillings, sir."
"Ten shillings, you brazen vagabond?"
"I should have said a pound."
"A pound! Was ever the like of that! Do I understand you to ask a pound
for taking a pull at your master's pipe?"
"I'm thinking that I'll have to make it two."
"The deuce you are! Here, Pugh, lend me a pound."
"I'm afraid I've left my purse behind."
"Then lend me ten shillings--Ananias!"
"I doubt if I have more than five."
"Then give me the five. And, Brasher, lend me the other fifteen."
Brasher lent him the fifteen. I doubt if we shall either of us ever see
our money again. He handed the pound to Bob.
"Here's the brandy--drink it up!" Bob drank it without a word, draining
the glass of every drop. "And here's the pipe."
"Is it poisoned, sir?"
"Poisoned, you villain! What do you mean?"
"It isn't the first time I've seen your tricks, sir--is it now? And you're
not the one to give a pound for nothing at all. If it kills me you'll send
my body to my mother--she'd like to know that I was dead."
"Send your body to your grandmother! You idiot, sit down and smoke!"
Bob sat down. Tress had filled the pipe, and handed it, with a lighted
match, to Bob. The fellow declined the match. He handled the pipe very
gingerly, turning it over and over, eying it with all his eyes.
"Thank you, sir--I'll light up myself if it's the same to you. I carry
matches of my own. It's a beautiful pipe, entirely. I never see the like