Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14) Page 3

  “No, they’re going to meet that steamer and dive for pennies. Every time a steamer enters this port, it’s a holiday for my divers, always has been.”

  “M-mm, then I wonder if it would be possible—”

  “It certainly would!” declared the little man with renewed hope. “We can row out to the steamer and have the boys come aboard one at a time.” He clutched Poggioli’s arm in excitement. “It’ll be handy. Why, it’s the very thing. Come on; let’s get back to town!”

  And the two set off back down the beach as hard as they could leg it.

  When they reached the quay they obtained a dory from the end of an old wooden pier where the waves were not yet pulverized into a white roaring surf. The doryman they chose was old and made microscopic progress against the curling sea horses. Over the bay Poggioli could see the jack boats of the pearl fishers careering toward the steamer like a swarm of little brown winged butterflies. By the time the dory was in hailing distance of the Reina Isabella, the divers were already in the water and groups of passengers on deck were flinging them coins. The dory weaved its way up and down among these black mermen and finally Poggioli and Gelleman hooked on to the ship’s ladder and skedaddled up it as hard as they could climb so as not to be caught by a wave.

  Mr. Gelleman’s face wore the light of hope until he clattered over the rail, then it lengthened again.

  “There he is,” he grumbled sotto voce to the psychologist, “throwing pennies to the niggers to pretend he’s charitable. But there’s no charity in him. He’s hard as the andirons of Hades.”

  “Which one is the auditor?” inquired Poggioli.

  “That one with the black eyes, keen nose and spats. Lord! I wish I hadn’t come. I wish I’d stayed in my office and waited till he was ready to come to me.”

  “Let me make the approach,” offered the American. “You just stand here and I’ll speak to him. And remember, theft is a habitual thing. It’s to be expected, and a company simply has to underwrite it, like insurance.”

  “Sure they do,” nodded Mr. Gelleman with an apprehensive look on his face. “Try to get Señor Gonzalez to see it that way. I don’t see what he wants to make such a howl for.”

  At that moment Señor Gonzalez glanced around from his coin throwing; his face lighted up and he came toward Mr. Gelleman.

  “Bueno, bueno!” he exclaimed. “Señor Gelleman, surely you didn’t come out to meet me through a sea like this?”

  “Oh, no, not at all, I just came out—”

  “You are not sailing on this boat?”

  “No, I’m not sailing. I came out because all our divers were—”

  Señor Gonzales glanced at the black boys in the water and raised his brows in Latin interrogation.

  Here Mr. Poggioli interposed—“As a matter of fact, Mr. Gelleman brought me out here to—to—to psychoanalyze his divers.”

  The auditor stared at his visitors.

  “To psycho-analyze what? You don’t mean to tell me these negroes are afflicted with neuroses!”

  “Oh, no—”

  “Who are you, señor?”

  Mr. Gelleman jumped at his lapse.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Poggioli is an American psychologist traveling through the West Indies studying criminal behavior.”

  “Criminal behave—what’s criminal about our boys?” Mr. Gelleman moistened his lips.

  “To tell you the truth one of our boys has taken a—a—a small pearl.” The Spanish gentleman’s face assumed quite a new look.

  “How large a pearl?”

  “Oh, a small pearl—small—three—four—five—or six grains.”

  “You don’t mean to say we’ve lost a six-grain pearl?”

  “Five grains!” hastened Mr. Gelleman with precision. The auditor straightened and his black eyes hardened.

  “Gelleman, the company will hold you strictly responsible for this.”

  “I told you so,” said Gelleman, looking at Poggioli.

  “Why did you come aboard this ship?” asked the auditor of Gelleman.

  “I told you once!” cried the pearl factor. “I am trying to find the thief among these negroes. If you hadn’t jumped down on me like this two days ahead of schedule—”

  “Ca, you would have sailed?” suggested the inspector ironically.

  “Mr. Gonzalez,” interpolated the American stiffly, “I know it is your duty to check these things up, but thefts occur everywhere. For you to be severe with Mr. Gelleman—”

  “Listen, Señor Poggioli, you are not in this matter—or are you?” The Spaniard’s heavy brows went up suspiciously.

  “I’ll probably be in it if you get your pearl returned?” suggested Poggioli dryly.

  This brought the inspector around; he stood studying the two men. “If you are bona fide, Señor Poggioli—and you appear to be—”

  “I am,” nodded the American, “and also I am something of a judge of men and their motives. I can assure you Mr. Gelleman here is absolutely innocent. His distress at the loss was quite unfeigned. I am telling you this out of a simple human desire for justice.”

  “Sí, sí! Let’s go to my suite and talk this over in private,” suggested the auditor.

  The three men walked, wide legged, across the heaving deck, entered a companionway and presently were in Señor Gonzalez’s cabin. The Spaniard turned to the psychologist.

  “Señor Poggioli, you appear to be a dependable man, and I am going to put the situation before you frankly since Señor Gelleman has seen fit to bring you aboard.”

  “Yes, I wish you would.”

  “The facts are, Mr. Gelleman is deeply in debt to our company for pearls. The man seems to have an obsession for pearls. The company should not have extended him so much credit. Now for a large pearl that was in his hands to be stolen, knowing as we do his passion, it puts the loss in a very bad light.”

  The psychologist was quite taken aback.

  “I—I would like to say one thing,” he suggested in a less assured voice. “The temperament that runs into debt seldom steals outright. Their moral infringements are usually legal, I mean, by contracting debts they know they can not pay.”

  “That may be true, but as an inspector of accounts, you can’t expect me to go into so refined a theory.”

  The psychologist was casting about for another tack when suddenly Mr. Gelleman cried out:

  “Look, there’s one of our boys coming aboard now. We can begin on him!”

  “ONE of the divers?” inquired Poggioli, turning to stare at the porthole with Mr. Gelleman. “Which one was it?”

  “Taprobane.”

  “I thought I left him at the hotel.”

  “When a steamer comes in they all know it, and you can’t keep them away.”

  “Very well, let’s start with him,” agreed Poggioli. “I’ll give him a word reaction test.”

  “It could hardly be Taprobane,” said the factor on second thoughts. “He is my bus boy, and besides he is the one who reported the loss.”

  “All right, call another one; that is if it’s agreeable to you, Señor Gonzalez?”

  “It’s all right with me. I hope from the bottom of my heart we find the gem.

  Use every method you know, Señor Poggioli.”

  When the three men stood on the wind swept deck again, Señor Gonzalez glanced around and said:

  “Could you have been wrong, Señor Gelleman? I don’t see any black aboard.”

  “No; Taprobane passed the porthole. I saw his face distinctly.”

  “Pues, he would hardly have hid; if he came aboard, why should he have hid?” The auditor glanced around among the lifeboats and coils of rope as if he expected to see Taprobane under one of them.

  At that moment Poggioli heard the sloppy voice of a West Indian negro coming out of a cabin door. He moved around and saw Taprobane and a ship’s officer inside. The white man was saying—

  “You want to ship as a stoker, you’ll have to sign these papers.” And Taprobane replied—
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  “I can’t sign my name.”

  “Then make a cross mark here.” The officer touched the paper with his forefinger.

  Mr. Gelleman caught Poggioli’s arm.

  “Thunder and lightning!” he burst out in a whisper, stretching his dried eyes. “It’s Taprobane!”

  “Of course it’s Taprobane; you saw him come aboard yourself.”

  “I mean he took the pearl,” hurried the agent in a shocked tone. “To think, after I trusted him—”

  “What makes you think he’s the one?”

  “The devil, signing on as a stoker! Stoking’s work; it’s hard work! No Margaritan negro is going to stoke unless he is in a desperate plight and wants to get away from the island quick!”

  Poggioli looked at Taprobane again. “You think this is flight?”

  “Couldn’t be anything else—shipping as a stoker.”

  By this time Taprobane had finished the papers and was saying to the ship’s officer that he would go ashore for his dunnage.

  As the big black man came out on the Reina Isabella’s deck Mr. Gelleman snapped—

  “Taprobane!”

  The negro whirled, then bobbed with widened eyes. “Sí, señor!”

  “Hold there a minute, Taprobane,” and the pearl factor started for him.

  At the command the ebony diver made a movement toward the taffrail. Instantly the small man lunged after him. Taprobane leaped backward, but the little tackler caught him around the knee. The diver began backing away, dragging Mr. Gelleman after him with the swiftness of a stag dragging a fice.

  The pearl buyer shrieked for help in a high desperate key. Both Poggioli and Gonzalez dashed forward. The Spaniard grabbed an arm while the psychologist caught the other leg. Instantly Poggioli felt himself lifted, swung about, churned. The ship’s deck seemed to leap against him. The ocean weaved about him. The psychologist tried holding on with one arm and pounding Taprobane in the belly with the other. It was like hitting rubber. He nearly lost his hold altogether.

  In his struggles the negro fell on deck full length. Poggioli’s head knocked against the planks. The diver thrust out a long arm and just clutched one of the stanchions of the taffrail. Instantly the whole struggling mass was drawn sharply across the tarry planking. The next moment the black man was kicking and wriggling over the top of the rail trying to fall into the sea.

  Poggioli wriggled upward, wrapped his arms around the black waist and clung on for life. In the struggle he got twisted around so his head and chest were under the negro and jammed against the rail. He nearly choked. He could not breathe. It seemed to the psychologist that the other two men were doing nothing. He could feel the powerful muscles of the diver writhing and slipping through his arms. Taprobane was wet with sweat and slippery as an eel. As the taffrail choked Poggioli the black body slid through his arms with slow, greasy certainty. Tingling sensations went through the American as the man wormed out of his grasp. He wished he had sand, a brake belt, something with traction . . .

  At that moment the three captors sent up a unanimous shout for help. Half a dozen Spanish sailors came running out of the forecastle.

  “Ladrone! Ladrone!” shouted Gonzalez in extreme necessity.

  The sailors charged across the deck in a squad, but Taprobane was actually wriggling over the top of the rail. Poggioli felt a tearing in his arms. Taprobane slid with increasing greasiness through his upturned clutch. Then, for one moment the black man was hanging by his ankles in the white man’s arms; the next moment the ebony form of the pearl diver fell end over end into the sea. It looked like a deliberate fall, a long deliberate fall into the depth of a wave trough as if he were in no hurry. As a last glimpse the men saw a dark shape slice downward through the clear blue water. Taprobane was gone as irrevocably as a mishandled tarpon.

  Poggioli had the mad impulse of a fisherman to fling himself into the water and try to catch his game again. It always seems as if one can do it. The fish seems right there, just at hand—but it is gone.

  In the midst of this cruel torture of the ‘almost,’ Poggioli became aware that he was holding some tattered clothing in his arms. He looked at it and then recalled that Taprobane had fallen into the sea as naked as he was the day he was born. Mr. Gelleman suddenly observed the same thing.

  “Mr. Poggioli!” he cried. “The pearl must be in those rags!” He reached for them.

  The psychologist handed over part of them and both men began searching the negro’s clothes. The auditor watched with his hands spread as if he meant to catch the pearl when it made another attempt to escape.

  The search through the pockets produced nothing. Poggioli was about to throw the clothes down when he felt a lump in the seam of the cotton trousers. He picked at the place, then holding a hand toward the crowd in general, cried—

  “Gimme a knife!”

  A knife was thrust into his hands and in another moment he was carefully cutting at a new delicately sewn bulge in the seam. After a moment his unsteady fingers spread open the little pocket to disclose the serene rondure of a pearl.

  The American blew out a long breath of relieved nerves at the outcome. What Gelleman felt Poggioli could not guess. The little man trembled so he had to cup his two palms together to catch the pearl as Poggioli squeezed it out of the seam. The agent then handed it to the auditor, saying—

  “There—take it, take it.”

  Mr. Poggioli tossed Taprobane’s clothing over the taffrail.

  Even the sailors were relieved. They broke into a rattle of Spanish conversation. In the meantime Mr. Gonzalez was examining the jewel. He looked at it this way and that and finally burst out—

  “Diablo, Señor Gelleman, this pearl—this jewel—”

  “Yes, what?” The factor’s eyes became apprehensive again. “A thousand devils! It’s paste!”

  “It’s what?”

  “Paste! Glass! Look at it! You know an imitation pearl when you see one, Gelleman!”

  “But how under heaven could it?”

  “That’s enough! That’s quite enough, Señor Gelleman! To have a black accomplice; to go through all these maneuvers in order to—”

  “But how in heaven’s name did a glass pearl come out of an oyster!” wailed Gelleman.

  “It didn’t!” snapped Gonzalez. “Gelleman, I’ll give you credit for one of the most elaborate and insane conspiracies to rob my company—”

  “Wait! Wait! Wait!” cried the psychologist.

  “Wait what for?” demanded the auditor. “Why shouldn’t I have this scoundrel arrested?”

  “Because he didn’t take the final step,” cried Poggioli. “If he had dropped the pearl overboard and lost it, that would have been the most perfect crime ever invented by a criminal brain. It would have been amazingly clever.”

  “He didn’t have the nerve to do it,” cried Gonzalez.

  “It required no nerve, the whole thing was done for him, ready for the finale—

  no, this was not planned, Señor Gonzalez, or it would have worked beautifully.”

  “Then what do you make of it?” inquired the Spaniard skeptically.

  “Well, I don’t know . . .”

  The facts of the incident floated through Mr. Poggioli’s mind. Then he recalled the delicate sewing of the pearl in the seam and a queer possible solution of the enigma filtered into his head.

  “I have a tentative solution,” he ventured at last.

  “What is it?”

  “If you don’t mind, I won’t say just at this moment, but may I ask you gentlemen to come with me to my hotel.”

  “On the way up,” snapped out Gonzalez, “I’ll stop by the magistrate’s office and swear out a warrant for Señor Gelleman.”

  “Don’t do that until you come to my hotel.”

  “Very well, then I’ll do it on my way back.”

  The three men went ashore and, when they approached El Grand Hotel Rey Phillipe Segunda de Espagñe, the trio caught another glimpse of Taprobane. He was clad in a
fresh white cotton suit and was signaling excitedly toward the second story window of the hotel. He vanished like a jackrabbit when he saw the men.

  “Let’s hurry,” advised Poggioli.

  A little later the three men climbed the stairs to the Gelleman apartment on the second floor.

  “I want to speak to your wife,” explained the psychologist to the pearl factor. “Now look here,” cried the little man, rebelling at last, “you can’t bring Mrs. Gelleman into this affair!”

  “Not at all, not at all,” Poggioli assured him. “Announce us please.” The factor tapped on his own door.

  “Seraphina darling, may I bring in some friends?”

  Mrs. Gelleman’s voice inside invited them in. She seemed surprised at her guests. “Mrs. Gelleman,” began Poggioli, “your husband and I were telling Señor Gonzalez about your exquisite collection of pearls. Would you mind showing them to us?”

  “I will be charmed,” cooed the matron, changing her psychology entirely. “I like showing my pearls. Chrysomallina! Oh Chrysomallina, will you bring my jewels, please?”

  “I don’t believe Chrysomallina will come this time, Mrs. Gelleman,” said Poggioli in a low tone.

  “Why won’t Chrysomallina come?” asked the matron, lifting her brows at this odd turn.

  “To tell you the truth, Chrys—”

  He was interrupted by the black girl’s entrance. Her eyes were very wide and white. She bore the chest with upturned hands in her habitual processional attitude.

  The mistress took it.

  “I don’t see why you imagined Chrysomallina would not come?”

  “I will explain,” said Poggioli nervously. “The black boy Taprobane is Chrysomallina’s sweetheart, isn’t he?”

  “I suppose so. Taprobane is always hanging around.”

  “They want to marry and haven’t the money?”

  “Most young people of both sexes are in that condition, either white or black,”

  said Mrs. Gelleman, smiling.

  “They needed the money,” went on Mr. Poggioli. “This morning Taprobane stole a pearl. He brought it here and gave it to Chrysomallina to hide for him. She decided to conceal it where pearls were safest from search and suspicion, that is in your own chest there, Mrs. Gelleman.”