Finger finger, p.18
Finger, Finger!, page 18
Egyptian hieroglyphics, for a certainty. And put on by micro-engraving. The most accurate form of engraving possible. I was familiar with the process. A small revolving stylus bearing a microscopic diamond, directed by a reducing pantograph to whose expanded end the jeweler attaches a pencil or pointer with which he traces a larger drawing or inscription. The ring to be engraved held within a revolving vise which slowly turns it counterclockwise, as its message is eaten deep within it by the revolving pinpoint diamond.
Hieroglyphics—or poultry pictures—the matter was easily solvable, for I had a burning glass in my chiffonier which I had used on various camping trips, always hoping to be isolated without any matches, and steal fire from the Heavens with it. Which concatenation of events never seemed to happen to me. But I had the burning glass still. And found it in short order. Taking my ring and glass over to the window, I brought the powerful convex lens to bear on the inscription. Now the message jumped out at me, plain and strong and big, as though eaten around the inside of a gold dog collar with an ordinary machine shop drill press. And as I revolved that dog collar slowly in my fingers from left to right, the entire hieroglyphic inscription which ran beneath my glass showed itself to be:
As I reached the end, I stared helplessly at the meaningless string of characters which, with the exception of the very obvious mathematical symbols x and y, and the Arabic numerals, and the algebraic signs, might well have been taken from a wall of Pharaoh’s tomb. For I had been about the Egyptian halls of our Field Museum too much not to partially know my Egyptology. To the right of that first duck was the Shutter, and to the right of that shutter the Lasso. And what Mr. Duck might mean by himself was probably nothing compared to what Mr. Duck meant when he stood alongside Shutter, or, in turn, Shutter next to Lasso. For interpretation of Egyptological writings, I had heard somewhere, was exactly like telling your own fortune with cards. If the nine of spades came up, it meant one thing for you if it followed the nine of hearts, but quite another thing if it followed the ten of diamonds; and if it itself were followed by the deuce of spades, it might mean death for somebody, whereas if followed by the king of clubs, it might mean that a gift of great value was coming to you via American Express! Yes, here were combinations galore, for Mr. Duck appeared elsewhere, I noted, this time with the quite common hieroglyphic, Mr. Eagle; and in two places I saw the so-called Mundated Garden with its three lilies and its two lotus flower stems rising vertically out of it, and, at the very end of the whole inscription, the Meander—or sacred hieroglyph representing the tortuous bank of the river Nile. And that first character: What was that? The Sieve, of course. And the Mouth to the right of the Sieve. Did Mouth to the right of Sieve indicate that somebody was going to eat porridge—or that there would be no porridge to eat? It was assuredly not for me, a mere casual wanderer at times in the Field Museum, to know the answer.
That sort of thing was something to be read off—if read off at all—by someone like the chap Hinchcliffe, who lived but three blocks away. For Professor Wellington Hinchcliffe—
But as I stood there, pondering over this queer looking ring and the queerer looking inscription it contained, I suddenly recollected that there was still another compartment in that purse, and that it had felt as though it might, at that, have contained a small roll of bills. And so, abandoning ring and burning glass for the moment, I took up the purse from the windowsill where I had deposited it, and snapping open that other compartment looked within.
There was something there. Wrapped in a bit of newspaper, with rubber bands doubled about it, each end. I took the tiny bundle out, snapped the bands off, and unwound the newspaper. And what I now held in my hands, wrapped neatly in the transparent cellophane covering of a cigarette package, sent a sickening feeling of revulsion sweeping over my entire being—and a shiver that ran up and down my spine like a mouse whose tiny feet have first been properly chilled in a Kelvinator.
For that remaining object was a human finger, cold and clammy even through the cellophane, and now quite stiffened, its cleanly severed base black, with the bare gleam of splintered white bone showing through the black. And on its opposite end, a beautifully manicured, pink-tinged nail. Which, considered in conjunction with the length and slimness of the whole, showed plainly that the finger had been taken from a woman’s hand!
CHAPTER XIV
The Services of a Scholar
After I had recovered from my initial shock at finding such a toothsome morsel in the second compartment of the purse, I dumped it gingerly out of its cellophane shroud onto the windowsill, and with the tip of my own finger rolled the cold clammy thing around and about. A human finger all right. No magician’s wax model, for apparently poking through a hat! Long and slender. And, with that beautifully polished, manicured, and pink-tinted fingernail, never the finger of a man. Unless the man were some kind of a—
I shook my head. It was assuredly a woman’s finger, and must be either the index, middle, or third finger, too.
Then another detail registered itself on me. I noticed that around the base, where it had been so cleanly severed, no bloodstains appeared. Plainly, then, the severance of it must have been a bloodless operation. Which indicated plainly that—And as I stared at it, I could almost reconstruct the method of its removal. A sharp knife had been used all around. The knife blade might or might not have nicked the bone. But a sharp wrench had then been given the finger—and the bone snapped right off. Of a certainty, the owner of the finger had been dead when the thing was done. Probably lying in her coffin.
It wasn’t a pleasant operation to me, but curiosity, I found, can be more painful than one’s sensibilities. I fitted the base of finger roughly to ring. And it appeared plainly that if ring had once reposed thereon, it had been a snug, tight fit. And that whoever had cut the finger off, had done so to get this ring that I had just been examining. Except—if he had done that, why on earth had he bothered to retain the finger? To wrap it in cellophane? Again in newspaper? Put rubber bands on it?
It was too much for me. I laid the tid-bit to one side, and focussed my attention again on that Egyptian inscription. It baffled me more and more, that inscription, with its x’s and y’s, and that peculiar semi-circular symbol at the end, as though indicating the going backward of a clock. Did that—aha!—it dawned on me. That semi-circular arrow, revolving counter-clockwise, indicated the passage of time backwards, and the “x” in it indicated the amount of time—perhaps in hundreds of years—or perhaps in thousands of years—and therefore the particular epoch of Egypt according to whose mode of combination of pictographs this particular string or permutation of hieroglyphs would be translated. There indeed would lie a problem for none other than a true scholar. A savant like the chap Hinchcliffe, in short, who not only knew the history of all the ages of Egypt, but the entire course of evolution of its writing.
My mind went back to the fellow who sat across from me on the Seminole. What had that bearded fox done in New York City, that he should have these two articles on his person?
And why did he bring them both clear to Chicago?
Ah—that astigmatism he had complained of! He knew there was an inscription in the ring—but couldn’t read it—without those glasses. Then home, where the glasses were supposed to be, was Chicago. But why—why did he bring the finger?
And now I found myself wondering if there were any more such toothsome finds lurking in that raincoat. Any eyes! Or ears! Or noses! I recovered it from where I had dropped it, near the bed, and brought it over to the window. Again I examined it, and well, particularly along all the hems, and everywhere where the material had been doubled in. I found no more tidbits, however. Only another pocket. And empty. A small orifice, about an inch and a quarter square, on the inner side of the lower right hand corner of the coat. Lord knows what it was for. Perhaps intended for carfare home, for a sheik going out auto-riding with too husky a sweetheart. That’s as near as I would ever be able to guess. Only a psycho-analysis of the designer, as I remarked before, would ever bring to light what he was aiming at. Even if he knew himself. But my examination of the little pocket did, at least, reveal the fact that this raincoat was older than mine. For it had been pressed, once at least, with a hot iron. Evidently quickly, so as not to permeate to the rubber beneath. That is to say, on the outer side of the coat, just opposite the small slit, when the grey-striped goods was regarded very carefully, were the exact outlines of an iron that had touched there, after having stood on the flame for just a few seconds too long, as though the tailor had pondered to think over his troubles. Or to wrinkle his brow. The faintest suggestion of scorch.
But all this was of no importance. While dead fingers were! And thus, reflecting once more on the latter subject, it was quite natural that my thoughts went straight to Terry O’Rourke, and it was at that moment that my fate was determined to be sitting here sweating today, writing this thing all out. Not that I regret it. Lord, no! Far, far from it.
Downstairs in the hall we had a phone in a rickety but quite soundproof booth. And downstairs in that booth, I thumbed over the directory, and then called up the State’s Attorney’s offices. And asked for the Racket Bureau. And then for Terrence O’Rourke.
“He’s not assigned to this department any more,” the girl told me. “He’s back at the Detective Bureau again. A. C. Division.”
A. C. Division? Whatever that was!
So I rang the Detective Bureau, and by dint of various transferrings soon found myself connected with the mysterious “A. C. Division” and in less than no time was talking to O’Rourke himself.
“O’Rourke,” I said, “I’m up against two mysteries. One is: what is the A. C. Division. And—”
“That’s easy enough to answer,” he said cryptically. “And I’ll do so the first time I see you again. What’s the other mystery?”
And I told him all about the other mystery, and exactly how and why it had come about.
“So it’s an inscription in ancient Aigyptian, eh?” he said. “The one that’s in that ring? And mixed up with x’s and y’s and numbers an’ what not? And a dame’s finger? Well—I’ll be!”
He thought for a moment.
“Rand, that baby with the grey beard has been up to monkey-work of some kind. The dame, whoever she was, he snitched that finger off of, is no doubt planted by this time, an’ nobody the wiser. If he pulled the snatch while she was in her coffin, he could have just crossed her good hand over her mutilated one, and nobody, neither a mourner nor the master of ceremonies with the silk hat, would even have knowed it was gone. But damned if I can see why he held on to it. It’s too much for me. But you say your house number is written across the back of that sales curve sheet?”
“Yes. I do that always with valuable papers and sheets of data. Have, in fact, ever since a kid fetched me back a lost paper thus blessed. Also Belladonna here—you’ve seen her—is one wild, wild ’ooman, when it comes to throwing valuable papers out, and she has instructions not to put one of her black fingers on anything in my room that has the number of this house written on its back. The neighborhood janitor who disposes of the wastepaper along this block is likewise forewarned, in case Belladonna slips.”
“I see. Well, is there anything on that sheet of business curves that identifies it with any office, or business, or person?”
“Nothing whatever, O’Rourke. It’s something that Kenwood got up about his business, but is just labeled only Sales Possibilities. It has to be explained personally. So far as this fellow who has my raincoat could ascertain, it might deal with canned tomatoes, or shoes, or American Steel stock, or might even be the temperature charts of a number of sick people.”
“I see. Then 72 West Oak Street is the only tang’ble clue to its owner. Well, Greybeard’ll examine it well, all sides, and he’ll bring it back to you too all right, all right, because from all you tell me that bird wants that ring, whether or not he wants the finger any more, for the reason that he’s arrived home where his glasses is at. Yes—sir! He’s going to be one honest man, this day of our Lord, October 31st. As for me, I’ve got nothing to do. For I’ve a new job, me b’y, thanks to some of Chief Michael Sheehan’s new systems in the police department, that consists of heel-warmin’ on a desk nine-tenths o’ the time—until somethin’ in my particular line busts, in the other tenth, and then—oh, baby!—how this Irishman has to hump hisself! So I’m com—”
“Just what are you?” I asked helplessly. “They said you–”
“’Tis First A. C. man I am,” he replied pridefully, “on the 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift—to Sinjohn Mackenzie, head Night Inspector—same hours—of th’ Homicide Division; and thanks to it’s bein’ the last day of the month when all good Irishmen at th’ Bureau help each other to get a day’s vacation, ’tis now covering I am the tail end of Paddy Reardon’s noon to 8 p.m. trick, he being likewise afternoon, or Second A. C. man. Which is how you happened to catch me. All clear, me b’y!”
“As mud,” I said. “What is an A. C. job? Is it a—”
“’Tis a job,” he said mysteriously, “that you can always leave—except that it’s also the kind of job that the minute you try to get out th’ door, you never can get out! Never have I seen it to fail. But annyway, I’m going to close up shop here, leave your phone number on tap in case anything breaks for the A. C. man!—and come over there. For the reason that—But first—do you know annybody at all in your neck of the woods who’s educated enough to read Aigyptian? I suppose not.”
“Yes, I do,” I told him. And added: “I was humbly going to suggest that if this matter interests you in a criminological sense, I can get you the translation. And quick. For I’ve got the exact man to give it to me. He’s a Professor Wellington Hinchcliffe, a specialist in Egyptology. Formerly with Dartmouth University, if I remember correctly. At leisure at present, and living in a de luxe roominghouse, just 3 blocks from here, where resides that young lady in our office who—”
“That swell kid with eyes like blue stars? The one you call Winsome One?”
“Yes. Her. Or she. Well, Professor Hinchcliffe’s lost his university connection for the moment on account of some shakeup—some economy move, I think it was—but he’s been given a commission by some New York publisher to translate a long and difficult papyrus that was found in a tomb near Aby—Aby—yes, Abydos. Some sort of 2500 B.C. travelogue that gives a remarkable picture of life and conditions as they were then in Egypt. He explained it all to the girl. I’ve met him also. A kindly sort of academic owl, but a regular fellow at that, outside of the fact that he plays on a trap drum for recreation. You know how it is, O’Rourke: the more learned you are, the more likely you are to have one screw loose.”
“Yes. Every time. I never knew it to fail. Well, all right then. Now I’ll tell you what you do. I’m coming up to your place in a little while. I’m going to bring Camera-Eye with me if he’s not busy—do you remember Camera-Eye?”
“Camera-Eye? Let’s see. Do you mean that quiet chap, with the terribly sad expression, who’s also at the Detective Bureau? The one you brought up here with you for just a minute one night? The fellow that you said knew every crook’s face who ever was in a show-up, or in the police journals?”
“Yes. That’s the bird. Dan Kennedy. Camera-Eye. Well, I’m going to have Camera-Eye stay outside your place, across the street, where he can not only lamp this bearded fellow for me and see if he’s anybody the department knows, but can follow him as well after he leaves and find out just what he’s up to—and where he hangs out. Me, I’m going to be inside with you, and feel him out conversationally. I wouldn’t try to pinch him on suspicion, for that might end everything—that is, if he’s up to some monkey work.
“Now as f’r you, Rand, soon’s you get upstairs in your room, rap me out a little copy of that there fool inscription. On a scrap of paper. Just anyway’s rough’ll do. That oughtn’t to be no trouble for a guy like you, who can draw a face—like mine! The inscription’s just a string o’ little pictures, ain’t it? Yes, that’s what I thought. So you do that. For we’ll let the ring go out of there, in Greybeard’s possession, and perhaps watch him a couple o’ days. If we do, I’d like to have somethin’ in the meanwhile to wrinkle my own brows over, although maybe once we’ve got the translation, there’ll be nothing to puzzle us no more.”
He paused a moment reflectively. And then went on.
“Well, anyway, soon’s you strike off a rough copy, tuck it away somewhere, and lope over to the Prof’s with the ring itself. And, if you’re lucky enough to find him in, get the translation of that inscription. Don’t use your copy for him; you might make a slip somehow. See! You might point the toe of an eagle or somethin’ the wrong way, and that might send the meaning all screwy. Give the Prof the original inscription. The ring, see? But tell him any yarn but the truth—see?—tell him it come from a pawnshop—anything—for there might be a good story in this for a certain kid journalist proteegee of mine around here—and no use of the Prof handing it all to some reporter friend on one of the Universities here.
“In the meantime, leave instructions with that blot of ink downstairs for her to have your man sit down in that rear office of your landlady’s off the back hall, and wait, in case he does get there before you get back. He’ll prob-ly ask her, when he first rings the bell, whether anybody what lives there just come in from New York. When you come in, go on straight upstairs, put the ring back in the purse—the finger too—wrapped exactly the way you found it—purse back in proper pocket of raincoat, and raincoat in that big wardrobe o’ yours. Then find out from the ink blot if there’s anyone waiting, an’ if there is to send him up. I hope I’ve arrived myself by this time, if not long before, but if annything should delay me, this is your lay-out, and you’ll just have to hold Greybeard there. You’ll—here—I’ll tell you what. Here you are: You had a friend on that floor who was on his way to his tailor’s, with a couple o’ suits to be pressed, just as you was going out on a brief errand, and you asked him to drop into your room and take your raincoat over there too, to have a missing button or two sewed on it. You tell Greybeard that the coat will be right back. All this, of course, in case I ain’t got there yet. Tell him that you ordered the coat to be sent right back. He’ll sit there, an’ wait. When I arrive, I’ll come upstairs, and march into your room. And I’ll say, ‘Excuse me, Rand, but I’m going on over now to that tailor’s, and I’ll just take that raincoat o’ yours along.’ You’ll be very surprised. You thought the coat was already gone. See? Then you open the wardrobe doors, give Greybeard his coat, we’ll chat a couple o’ minutes, all three of us—while I size him up—and then we’ll let him go. And Camera-Eye, downstairs in the Nash, after him. Now is all clear, or shall I repeat? If you don’t get out o’ there soon, he’ll be descendin’ on you. Then you will have some difficult stalling to do.”
