he accordingly replied, with crisp deliberation, as he re-crossed the room; ‘yes, I will, Max. Here is the clue to what seems to be a rather remarkable fraud.’ He put the tetradrachm into his host’s hand. ‘What do you make of it?’
For a few seconds Carrados handled the piece with the delicate manipulation of his finger-tips while Carlyle looked on with a self-appreciative grin. Then with equal gravity the blind man weighed the coin in the balance of his hand. Finally he touched it with his tongue.
‘Well?’ demanded the other.
‘Of course I have not much to go on, and if I was more fully in your confidence I might come to another conclusion—’
‘Yes, yes,’ interposed Carlyle, with amused encouragement.
‘Then I should advise you to arrest the parlourmaid, Nina Brun, communicate with the police authorities of Padua[76] for particulars of the career of Helene Brunesi, and suggest to Lord Seastoke that he should return to London to see what further depredations have been made in his cabinet.’
Mr. Carlyle’s groping hand sought and found a chair, on to which he dropped blankly. His eyes were unable to detach themselves for a single moment from the very ordinary spectacle of Mr. Carrados’s mildly benevolent face, while the sterilized ghost of his now forgotten amusement still lingered about his features.
‘Good heavens!’ he managed to articulate, ‘how do you know?’
‘Isn’t that what you wanted of me?’ asked Carrados suavely.
‘Don’t humbug, Max,’ said Carlyle severely. ‘This is no joke.’ An undefined mistrust of his own powers suddenly possessed him in the presence of this mystery. ‘How do you come to know of Nina Brun and Lord Seastoke?’
‘You are a detective, Louis,’ replied Carrados. ‘How does one know these things? By using one’s eyes and putting two and two together.’
Carlyle groaned and flung out an arm petulantly.
‘Is it all bunkum, Max? Do you really see all the time – though that doesn’t go very far towards explaining it.’
‘Like Vidal, I see very well – at close quarters,’ replied Carrados, lightly running a forefinger along the inscription on the tetradrachm. ‘For longer range I keep another pair of eyes. Would you like to test them?’
Mr. Carlyle’s assent was not very gracious; it was, in fact, faintly sulky. He was suffering the annoyance of feeling distinctly unimpressive in his own department; but he was also curious.
‘The bell is just behind you, if you don’t mind,’ said his host. ‘Parkinson will appear. You might take note of him while he is in.’
The man who had admitted Mr. Carlyle proved to be Parkinson.
‘This gentleman is Mr. Carlyle, Parkinson,’ explained Carrados the moment the man entered. ‘You will remember him for the future?’
Parkinson’s apologetic eye swept the visitor from head to foot, but so lightly and swiftly that it conveyed to that gentleman the comparison of being very deftly dusted.
‘I will endeavour to do so, sir,’ replied Parkinson, turning again to his master.
‘I shall be at home to Mr. Carlyle whenever he calls. That is all.’
‘Very well, sir.’
‘Now, Louis,’ remarked Mr. Carrados briskly, when the door had closed again, ‘you have had a good opportunity of studying Parkinson. What is he like?’
‘In what way?’
‘I mean as a matter of description. I am a blind man – I haven’t seen my servant for twelve years – what idea can you give me of him? I asked you to notice.’
‘I know you did, but your Parkinson is the sort of man who has very little about him to describe. He is the embodiment of the ordinary. His height is about average—’
‘Five feet nine,’ murmured Carrados. ‘Slightly above the mean.’
‘Scarcely noticeably so. Clean-shaven. Medium brown hair. No particularly marked features. Dark eyes. Good teeth.’
‘False,’ interposed Carrados. ‘The teeth – not the statement.’
‘Possibly,’ admitted Mr. Carlyle. ‘I am not a dental expert and I had no opportunity of examining Mr. Parkinson’s mouth in detail. But what is the drift of all this?’
‘His clothes?’
‘Oh, just the ordinary evening dress of a valet. There is not much room for variety in that.’
‘You noticed, in fact, nothing special by which Parkinson could be identified?’
‘Well, he wore an unusually broad gold ring on the little finger of the left hand.’
‘But that is removable. And yet Parkinson has an ineradicable mole – a small one, I admit – on his chin. And you a human sleuth-hound. Oh, Louis!’
‘At all events,’ retorted Carlyle, writhing a little under this good-humoured satire, although it was easy enough to see in it Carrados’s affectionate intention – ‘at all events, I dare say I can give as good a description of Parkinson as he can give of me.’
‘That is what we are going to test. Ring the bell again.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Quite. I am trying my eyes against yours. If I can’t give you fifty out of a hundred I’ll renounce my private detectorial ambition forever.’
‘It isn’t quite the same,’ objected Carlyle, but he rang the bell.
‘Come in and close the door, Parkinson,’ said Carrados when the man appeared. ‘Don’t look at Mr. Carlyle again – in fact, you had better stand with your back towards him, he won’t mind. Now describe to me his appearance as you observed it.’
Parkinson tendered his respectful apologies to Mr. Carlyle for the liberty he was compelled to take, by the deferential quality of his voice.
‘Mr. Carlyle, sir, wears patent leather boots of about size seven and very little used. There are five buttons, but on the left boot one button – the third up – is missing, leaving loose threads and not the more usual metal fastener. Mr. Carlyle’s trousers, sir, are of a dark material, a dark grey line of about a quarter of an inch width on a darker ground. The bottoms are turned permanently up and are, just now, a little muddy, if I may say so.’
‘Very muddy,’ interposed Mr. Carlyle generously. ‘It is a wet night, Parkinson.’
‘Yes, sir; very unpleasant weather. If you will allow me, sir, I will brush you in the hall. The mud is dry now, I notice. Then, sir,’ continued Parkinson, reverting to the business in hand, ‘there are dark green cashmere hose. A curb-pattern key-chain passes into the left-hand trouser pocket.’
From the visitor’s nether garments the photographic-eyed Parkinson proceeded to higher ground,
Padua – a city in northern Italy, west of Venice, first mentioned in 302 BC
