The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery

‘Let’s examine the walls,’ said Dart. He and the doctor brought their flashlights into play. Like two off-shoots of the parent beam, the smaller shafts of light travelled inquisitively over the long vertical folds of black velvet, which swayed this way and that as the two men pulled and palpated, seeking openings. The projected spots of illumination moved like two strange, twisting, luminous moths, constantly changing in size and shape, fluttering here and there from point to point, pausing, inquiring, abandoning. The detective and the physician began at the entrance from the reception room and circuited the black chamber in opposite directions. Presently they met at the far back wall, in whose midline the doctor located an opening. Pulling the hangings aside at this point, they discovered another door but found it locked.

‘Leads into the back room, I guess. We’ll get in from the hallway. What’s this?’

‘This’ proved to be a switch-box on the wall beside the closed door. The physician read the lettering on its front. ‘Sixty amperes—two hundred and twenty volts. That’s enough for an X-ray machine. What does he need special current for?’

‘Search me. Come on. Brady, run downstairs and get that extension-light out of the back of my car. Then come back here and search the floor for whatever you can find. Specially around the table and chairs. We’ll be right back.’

They left the death chamber by its side door and approached the rearmost room from the hallway. Its hall door was unlocked, but blackness greeted them as they flung it open, a strangely sinister blackness in which eyes seemed to gleam. When they cast their flashlights into that blackness they saw whence the gleaming emanated, and Dart, stepping in, found a switch and produced a light.

‘Damn!’ said he as his eyes took in a wholly unexpected scene. Along the rear wall under the windows stretched a long flat chemical work-bench, topped with black slate. On its dull dark surface gleamed bright laboratory devices of glass or metal, flasks, beakers, retorts, graduates, pipettes, a copper water-bath, a shining instrument-sterilizer, and at one end, a gleaming black electric motor. The space beneath this bench was occupied by a long floor cabinet with a number of small oaken doors. On the wall at the nearer end was a glass-doored steel cabinet containing a few small surgical instruments, while the far wall, at the other end of the bench, supported a series of shelves, the lower ones bearing specimen-jars of various sizes, and the upper, bottles of different colours and shapes. Dart stooped and opened one of the cabinet doors and discovered more glassware, while Dr Archer went over and investigated the shelves, removed one of the specimen-jars, and with a puzzled expression, peered at its contents, floating in some preserving fluid.

‘What’s that?’ the detective asked, approaching.

‘Can’t be,’ muttered the physician.

‘Can’t be what?’

‘What they look like.’

‘Namely?’

Ordinarily Dr Archer would probably have indulged in a leisurely circumlocution and reached his decision by a flank attack. In the present instance he was too suddenly and wholly absorbed in what he saw to entertain even the slightest or most innocent pretence.

‘Sex glands,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Male sex glands, apparently.’

‘Are you serious?’

The physician inspected the rows of jars, none of which was labelled. There were other preserved biological specimens, but none of the same appearance as those in the jar which he still held in his hand.

‘I’m serious enough,’ he said. ‘Does it stimulate your imagination?’

‘Plenty,’ said Dart, his thin lips tightening. ‘Come on—let’s ask some questions.’

CHAPTER VI (#ulink_801f6399-3cb6-57ad-a1be-eb29b90516b0)

THEY returned to the middle chamber. Officer Brady had plugged the extension into a hall socket and twisted its cord about the chain which suspended Frimbo’s light. The strong white lamp’s sharp radiance did not dispel the far shadows, but at least it brightened the room centrally.

Brady said, ‘There’s three things I found—all on the floor by the chair.’

‘This chair?’ Dart indicated the one in which the victim had been first seen by Dr Archer.

‘Yes.’

The three objects were on the table, as dissimilar as three objects could be.

‘What do you think of this, doc?’ Dart picked up a small irregular shining metallic article and turned to show it to the physician. But the physician was already reaching for one of the other two discoveries.

‘Hey—wait a minute!’ protested the detective. ‘That’s big enough to have finger prints on it.’

‘My error. What’s that you have?’

‘Teeth. Somebody’s removable bridge.’

He handed over the small shining object. The physician examined it. ‘First and second left upper bicuspids,’ he announced.

‘You don’t say?’ grinned Dart.

‘What do you mean, somebody’s?’

‘Well, if you know whose just by looking at it, speak up. Don’t hold out on me.’

‘Frimbo’s.’

‘Or the guy’s that put him out.’

‘Hm—no. My money says Frimbo’s. These things slip on and off easily enough.’

‘I see what you mean. In manipulating that handkerchief the murderer dislodged this thing.’

‘Yes. Too bad. If it was the murderer’s it might help identify him.’

‘Why? There must be plenty of folks with those same teeth missing.’

‘True. But this bridge wouldn’t fit—really fit—anybody but the person it was made for. The models have to be cast in plaster. Not two in ten thousand would be identical in every respect. This thing’s practically as individual as a finger print.’

‘Yea? Well, we may be able to use it anyhow. I’ll hang on to it. But wait. You looked down Frimbo’s throat. Didn’t you notice his teeth?’

‘Not especially. I didn’t care anything about his teeth then. I was looking for the cause of death. But we can easily check this when the medical examiner comes.’

‘O.K. Now—what’s this?’ He picked up what seemed to be a wad of black silk ribbon.

‘That was his head cloth, I suppose. Very impressive with that flowing robe and all.’

‘Who could see it in the dark?’

‘Oh, he might have occasion to come out into the light sometime.’

The detective’s attention was already on the third object.

‘Say—!’

‘I’m way ahead of you.’

‘That’s the mate to the club on the mantel in the front room!’