The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
of it for ugliness. And what's the slimy-looking varmint that looks as
though it would like to have my life? Is it living, or is it dead?"
"Come, we don't want to sit here all day, my man!"
"Well, sir, the look of this here pipe has quite upset my stomach. I'd
like another drop of liquor, if it's the same to you."
"Another drop! Why, you've had a tumblerful already! Here's another
tumblerful to put on top of that. You won't want the pipe to kill
you--you'll be killed before you get to it."
"And isn't it better to die a natural death?"
Bob emptied the second tumbler of brandy as though it were water. I
believe he would empty a hogshead without turning a hair! Then he gave
another look at the pipe. Then, taking a match from his waistcoat pocket,
he drew a long breath, as though he were resigning himself to fate.
Striking the match on the seat of his trousers, while, shaded by his hand,
the flame was gathering strength, he looked at each of us in turn. When he
looked at Tress I distinctly saw him wink his eye. What my feelings would
have been if a servant of mine had winked his eye at me I am unable to
imagine! The match was applied to the tobacco, a puff of smoke came
through his lips--the pipe was alight!
During this process of lighting the pipe we had sat--I do not wish to use
exaggerated language, but we had sat and watched that alcoholic scamp's
proceedings as though we were witnessing an action which would leave its
mark upon the age. When we saw the pipe was lighted we gave a simultaneous
start. Brasher put his hands under his coat tails and gave a kind of hop.
I raised myself a good six inches from my chair, and Tress rubbed his
palms together with a chuckle. Bob alone was calm.
"Now," cried Tress, "you'll see the devil moving."
Bob took the pipe from between his lips.
"See what?" he said.
"Bob, you rascal, put that pipe back into your mouth, and smoke it for
your life!"
Bob was eying the pipe askance.
"I dare say, but what I want to know is whether this here varmint's dead
or whether he isn't. I don't want to have him flying at my nose--and he
looks vicious enough for anything."
"Give me back that pound, you thief, and get out of my house, and bundle."
"I ain't going to give you back no pound."
"Then smoke that pipe!"
"I am smoking it, ain't I?"
With the utmost deliberation Bob returned the pipe to his mouth. He
emitted another whiff or two of smoke.
"Now--now!" cried Tress, all excitement, and wagging his hand in the air.
We gathered round. As we did so Bob again withdrew the pipe.
"What is the meaning of all this here? I ain't going to have you playing
none of your larks on me. I know there's something up, but I ain't going
to throw my life away for twenty shillings--not quite I ain't."
Tress, whose temper is not at any time one of the best, was seized with
quite a spasm of rage.
"As I live, my lad, if you try to cheat me by taking that pipe from
between your lips until I tell you, you leave this room that instant,
never again to be a servant of mine."
I presume the fellow knew from long experience when his master meant what
he said, and when he didn't. Without an attempt at remonstrance he
replaced the pipe. He continued stolidly to puff away. Tress caught me by
the arm.
"What did I tell you? There--there! That tentacle is moving."
The uplifted tentacle _was_ moving. It was doing what I had seen it do, as
I supposed, in my distorted imagination--it was reaching forward.
Undoubtedly Bob saw what it was doing; but, whether in obedience to his
master's commands, or whether because the drug was already beginning to
take effect, he made no movement to withdraw the pipe. He watched the
slowly advancing tentacle, coming closer and closer toward his nose, with
an expression of such intense horror on his countenance that it became
quite shocking. Farther and farther the creature reached forward, until on
a sudden, with a sort of jerk, the movement assumed a downward direction,
and the tentacle was slowly lowered until the tip rested on the stem of
the pipe. For a moment the creature remained motionless. I was quieting my
nerves with the reflection that this thing was but some trick of the
carver's art, and that what we had seen we had seen in a sort of
nightmare, when the whole hideous reptile was seized with what seemed to
be a fit of convulsive shuddering. It seemed to be in agony. It trembled
so violently that I expected to see it loosen its hold of the stem and
fall to the ground. I was sufficiently master of myself to steal a glance
at Bob. We had had an inkling of what might happen. He was wholly
unprepared. As he saw that dreadful, human-looking creature, coming to
life, as it seemed, within an inch or two of his nose, his eyes dilated to
twice their usual size. I hoped, for his sake, that unconsciousness would
supervene, through the action of the drug, before through sheer fright
his senses left him. Perhaps mechanically he puffed steadily on.
The creature's shuddering became more violent. It appeared to swell before
our eyes. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the shuddering ceased. There
was another instant of quiescence. Then the creature began to crawl along
the stem of the pipe! It moved with marvelous caution, the merest fraction
of an inch at a time. But still it moved! Our eyes were riveted on it with
a fascination which was absolutely nauseous. I am unpleasantly affected
even as I think of it now. My dreams of the night before had been nothing
to this.
Slowly, slowly, it went, nearer and nearer to the smoker's nose. Its mode
of progression was in the highest degree unsightly. It glided, never, so
far as I could see, removing its tentacles from the stem of the pipe. It
slipped its hindmost feelers onward until they came up to those which were
in advance. Then, in their turn, it advanced those which were in front. It
seemed, too, to move with the utmost labor, shuddering as though it were
in pain.
We were all, for our parts, speechless. I was momentarily hoping that the
drug would take effect on Bob. Either his constitution enabled him to
offer a strong resistance to narcotics, or else the large quantity of neat
spirit which he had drunk acted--as Tress had malevolently intended that
it should--as an antidote. It seemed to me that he would _never_ succumb.
On went the creature--on, and on, in its infinitesimal progression. I was
spellbound. I would have given the world to scream, to have been able to
utter a sound. I could do nothing else but watch.
The creature had reached the end of the stem. It had gained the amber
mouthpiece. It was within an inch of the smoker's nose. Still on it went.
It seemed to move with greater freedom on the amber. It increased its rate
of progress. It was actually touching the foremost feature on the smoker's
countenance. I expected to see it grip the wretched Bob, when it began to
oscillate from side to side. Its oscillations increased in violence. It
fell to the floor. That same instant the narcotic prevailed. Bob slipped
sideways from the chair, the pipe still held tightly between his rigid
jaws.
We were silent. There lay Bob. Close beside him lay the creature. A few
more inches to the left, and he would have fallen on and squashed it flat.
It had fallen on its back. Its feelers were extended upward. They were
writhing and twisting and turning in the air.
Tress was the first to speak.
"I think a little brandy won't be amiss." Emptying the remainder of the
brandy into a glass, he swallowed it at a draught. "Now for a closer
examination of our friend." Taking a pair of tongs from the grate he
nipped the creature between them. He deposited it upon the table. "I
rather fancy that this is a case for dissection."
He took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket. Opening the large blade, he
thrust its point into the object on the table. Little or no resistance
seemed to be offered to the passage of the blade, but as it was inserted
the tentacula simultaneously began to writhe and twist. Tress withdrew the
knife.
"I thought so!" He held the blade out for our inspection. The point was
covered with some viscid-looking matter. "That's blood! The thing's
alive!"
"Alive!"
"Alive! That's the secret of the whole performance!"
"But--"
"But me no buts, my Pugh! The mystery's exploded! One more ghost is lost
to the world! The person from whom I _obtained_ that pipe was an Indian
juggler--up to many tricks of the trade. He, or some one for him, got hold
of this sweet thing in reptiles--and a sweeter thing would, I imagine, be
hard to find--and covered it with some preparation of, possibly, gum
arabic. He allowed this to harden. Then he stuck the thing--still living,
for those sort of gentry are hard to kill--to the pipe. The consequence
was that when anyone lit up, the warmth was communicated to the adhesive
agent--again some preparation of gum, no doubt--it moistened it, and the
creature, with infinite difficulty, was able to move. But I am open to lay
odds with any gentleman of sporting tastes that _this_ time the creature's
traveling days _are_ done. It has given me rather a larger taste of the
horrors than is good for my digestion."
With the aid of the tongs he removed the creature from the table. He
placed it on the hearth. Before Brasher or I had a notion of what it was
he intended to do he covered it with a heavy marble paper weight. Then he
stood upon the weight, and between the marble and the hearth he ground the
creature flat.
While the execution was still proceeding, Bob sat up upon the floor.
"Hollo!" he asked, "what's happened?"
"We've emptied the bottle, Bob," said Tress. "But there's another where
that came from. Perhaps you could drink another tumblerful, my boy?"
Bob drank it!
FOOTNOTE
"Those gentry are hard to kill." Here is fact, not fantasy.
Lizard yarns no less sensational than this Mystery Story can be
found between the covers of solemn, zoological textbooks.
Reptiles, indeed, are far from finicky in the matters of air,
space, and especially warmth. Frogs and other such
sluggish-blooded creatures have lived after being frozen fast in
ice. Their blood is little warmer than air or water, enjoying no
extra casing of fur or feathers.
Air and food seem held in light esteem by lizards. Their blood
need not be highly oxygenated; it nourishes just as well when
impure. In temperate climes lizards lie torpid and buried all
winter; some species of the tropic deserts sleep peacefully all
summer. Their anatomy includes no means for the continuous
introduction and expulsion of air; reptilian lungs are little
more than closed sacs, without cell structure.
If any further zoological fact were needed to verify the
dénouement of "The Pipe," it might be the general statement that
lizards are abnormal brutes anyhow. Consider the chameleons of
unsettled hue. And what is one to think of an animal which, when
captured by the tail, is able to make its escape by willfully
shuffling off that appendage?--EDITOR.
The Puzzle
I
Pugh came into my room holding something wrapped in a piece of brown
paper.
"Tress, I have brought you something on which you may exercise your
ingenuity." He began, with exasperating deliberation, to untie the string
which bound his parcel; he is one of those persons who would not cut a
knot to save their lives. The process occupied him the better part of a
quarter of an hour. Then he held out the contents of the paper.
"What do you think of that?" he asked. I thought nothing of it, and I told
him so. "I was prepared for that confession. I have noticed, Tress, that
you generally do think nothing of an article which really deserves the