Christopher Quarles: College Professor and Master Detective

"No, but all cheap American ones."

"One man trying to give the impression that he is several. You still think that? Nothing has happened to make you change that opinion?"

"No, I hold to the one man theory."

"And you are right," he snapped. "I admit I might not have got upon the right track had you not made that discovery. It was clever, Wigan."

"It did not seem to help you to a theory," I answered.

"True. But it made me ask myself a question. Had the thief found what he was looking for? Much depended upon the answer. If he had, I saw small chance of elucidating the mystery. I might have propounded a theory, but I should have had no facts to support it.

"Indeed, had I theorized, then my theory would have been wrong. If the thief had not found what he wanted, he would continue his search, I argued. For some reason he connected Sir Joseph Maynard with the object of his search, and, when he tried again, we stood a chance of finding the link in the chain we wanted. It might implicate Sir Joseph, it might not. That is why I said we must wait. The thief has tried again – twice. Now, what is he looking for?"

"Presumably something a doctor is likely to have," I said.

"And not silver, nor money, nor papers, nor – "

"Nor counters, I suppose," I interrupted.

"Not precisely," said Quarles. "But those counters have inspired me. They crept into my brain, Wigan, and remained there. Whatever it is the thief is seeking for, he is desperately anxious to obtain it – witness his two attempts on consecutive nights."

"You forget that days have elapsed since Sir Joseph's was broken into."

"Forget? Nonsense!" said the professor sharply. "Should I be likely to forget so important a point? It means that opportunity has been lacking. More, it means that any doctor would not do, only certain medical practitioners. And that is where the counters help me – or I think they do."

"How?"

"Call for me to-morrow morning; we are going to pay a visit together. We may be too late, but I hope not. That revolver left in Dr. Wood's house rather frightens me."

"Why, particularly?"

"It proves that the thief will use violence if he is disturbed, and that he is a desperate man. I should say he will grow more dangerous with every failure."

It was like Christopher Quarles to raise my curiosity, and then to leave it unsatisfied. It was his way of showing that he was my superior – at least, it always impressed me like this. No man has ever made me more angry than he has done. Yet I owe him much, and there is no gainsaying his marvelous deductions.

He made me angry now, first by his refusal to tell me more, and then by his patronizing air when I left the house.

"You are clever, Wigan, very clever. You have shown it in this case. But you lack imagination to step out as far as you ought to do. Cultivate imagination, and don't be too bound up by common sense. Common sense is merely the knowledge with which fools on the dead level are content. Imagination carries one to the hills, and shows something of that truth which lies behind what we call truth."

I found him ready and waiting for me next morning, as eager to be on the trail as a dog in leash.

"We are going to call on Dr. Tresman, in Montagu Street," he said, stopping a taxi. "You will tell him that you have reason to believe that his house is being watched, and will be burgled on the first opportunity. If the opportunity is given, it may happen to-night, which will suit us admirably, because we have got to keep watch every night in his room until it is burgled. Of course, you will tell him who you are, and get his permission. We don't want to have to commit burglary ourselves in order to catch the thief."

"Why do you expect this particular doctor will be visited?" I asked.

"It is part of my theory," was all the explanation I could get out of him.

Dr. Tresman was a man in the prime of life, and evidently believed himself capable of dealing with any thieves who visited him. I told him that the man we expected was no ordinary thief.

"A gang at work, eh? I have been out of town for a little while holiday-making, and part of my holiday consists in not reading the papers. Of course you may keep watch, and I shall be within call should you want help."

"You had better leave it to us, doctor," said Quarles, who, for the purpose of this interview, posed as my assistant.

"Come, now, if it means a rough-and-tumble, I should back myself against you," laughed Tresman, drawing himself up to his full inches.

"No lack of muscle, I can see, doctor, but then there is my experience."

"For all that, you may be glad of my muscle when it comes to the point," was the answer.

At nine o'clock that night Quarles and I were concealed in the doctor's room, Quarles behind a chesterfield sofa in a corner, while I crouched close to the wall behind one of the window curtains.

We had decided that the most likely means of entry was by a window at the end of the hall, and we expected our prey to enter the room by the door. We had got the doctor to put a spirit tantalus on the sideboard, also some biscuits and a box of cigarettes. We were anxious to reproduce the circumstances of the burglary at Sir Joseph Maynard's as nearly as possible, for Quarles declared it was impossible to say what significance there might be in the man's every action.

So we waited – waited all night, in fact. Nothing happened.

"Something alarmed him," was all Quarles said when we left the house in the morning.

He showed no disappointment, nor any sign that his theory had received a shock.

The next night we were on the watch again, concealed as before.

By arrangement, the house retired to rest early. So slowly did time go that half the night seemed to have passed when I heard a neighboring church clock strike one, and almost directly afterward the door of the room was opened stealthily and was shut again.

Until that moment I had not heard a sound in the house, and I was not certain that anyone had entered the room even now, until I saw a tiny disk, the end of a ray of light, on the wall. The disk moved, so the man holding the lantern was moving. The next moment he almost trod upon me. His first care was to see that the curtains covered the windows securely, and it evidently never occurred to him that there might be watchers in the room. It was discovery from without that he was afraid of. The ray from his lantern swung about the room for a moment, then he switched on the electric light.

As he had drawn the curtain closer across the window, I had arranged the folds so that no scrap of my clothing should show beneath them. Now I made a slit in the fabric with my penknife so that I could watch him through it. He was middle-aged, well groomed, decently dressed. Having glanced round the room, he placed a bag and the lantern on the floor and went to the sideboard. He put a little spirit into one of the tumblers and added a little water – a very modest dose, indeed – and, having just sipped it, he poured some of the contents into two other glasses, and placed the three glasses on a small table near the door, so that no one could fail to see them on entering. Then he broke off a piece of biscuit, crumbled it in his hands, and scattered the crumbs beside the glasses. The cigarette box he did not touch, but he took some cigarette-ends from his pocket and threw them on the floor. These preliminaries seemed stereotyped ones, and he appeared glad to be done with them.

There was a curious eagerness in his face as he bent down and opened his bag, taking a thin chisel from it, and from his hip pocket he took a revolver. His method was systematic. He began at one corner of the room, and opened every drawer and box he could find. If a drawer were locked, he pried it open. He laid the revolver ready to his hand upon the piece of furniture he was examining. Every drawer he emptied on to the floor. Some of the contents he hardly looked at. Indeed, most of the contents did not interest him. But now and then his attention was closer, and at intervals he seemed puzzled, standing quite still, his hands raised, a finger touching his head, almost as a low comedian does when he wishes the audience to realize that he is in deep thought.

For some time I could not make out what kind of article it was to which he gave special attention, but presently noticed that anything in ivory or bone interested him, especially if it were circular. I remembered the counters in Sir Joseph's room, and wished we had thought to place some in here to see what he would have done with them.

Watching him closely, I was aware that he became more irritable as he proceeded. One small cabinet, which might possess a secret hiding-place, he broke with the chisel, and I noticed that whenever a drawer was locked his scrutiny of the contents was more careful. He evidently expected that the man he was robbing would value the thing he was looking for, and would be likely to hide it securely.

He had worked round half the room when he suddenly stopped, and, with a quick movement, took up the revolver. I had not heard a sound in the house, but he had. There was no sign of doubt in his attitude, which was of a most uncompromising character. He did not make any movement to switch off the light, he did not attempt to conceal himself. He just raised his arm and pointed the revolver toward the door, on a level at which the bullet would strike the head of a man of average height.

The handle was turned, and the door began to open. The next five seconds were full of happenings. For just a fraction of time I realized that the burglar meant to shoot the intruder without a word of warning, and for a moment I seemed unable to utter a sound. Then I shouted:

"Back for your life!"

Immediately there was a sharp report. Quarles had fired from behind the Chesterfield, and the burglar's arm dropped like a dead thing to his side, his revolver falling to the floor.

"Quickly, Wigan!" Quarles cried.

I had dashed aside the curtain, and I threw myself upon the burglar just in time to prevent his picking up his weapon with his left hand. He struggled fiercely, and I was glad of Tresman's help in securing him, although the doctor had come perilously near to losing his life by his unexpected intrusion. But for Christopher Quarles he would have been a dead man.

We called in the police, and, when our prisoner had been conveyed to the station, the professor and I went back to Chelsea.

"Do you know what he was looking for, Wigan?" Quarles asked.