Dr. Poggioli: Criminologist (The Lost Classics Book 14) Page 8

  The docent took the key and went up to the eighteenth floor. At Mordag’s door he announced himself through the panel and let himself in.

  THERE were three men in the room; Mordag lying on the bed; a large man with puffy eyes and a pasty complexion sitting beside the bed, and Tapper very busy at a telephone.

  The reporter lifted a hand genially at Poggioli and went on arguing into the instrument.

  “But look here, Millman, one of your little Sanson-Brevuet monoplanes can light and take off inside a hundred feet . . .”

  “Professor Poggioli!” cried Mordag, reaching his arms toward the docent. “I thought you had deserted me.”

  The man was so haggard and worn the psychologist was ashamed of ever having given up his case.

  “I was delayed on account of my rats,” he explained. “When I got your telegram I came right on.”

  “I had telephoned and telephoned—”

  “Professor Poggioli,” began the large pasty man, “I also am glad you have come. I needed a man of science to help me press my solution of this situation upon Mr. Mordag.”

  “I can’t see what earthly good it will do,” complained Mordag, at his nerve’s end. “Introduce us,” suggested the docent.

  “This is Professor Wordenbaum, Mr. Poggioli,” said the sick man.

  “I read of Mr. Mordag’s plight in the papers,” proceeded Professor Wordenbaum in an assured and greasy voice, “and I knew I could disperse his troubles, eradicate his difficulties, remove the financial, mental, moral and spiritual obstacles in his path toward success and happiness.”

  “What are you?” asked Poggioli, looking at the man. “I’m a numerologist.”

  “What’s a numerologist?”

  The man presented a card. In the center in Old English script was a catch line—

  WHAT’S IN A NAME?

  And below it in one corner in small Roman capitals:

  HAVAH WORDENBAUM NUMEROLOGIST,

  DEVISER OF FORTUNATE NAMES,

  TRADE MARKS, PATRONYMS, MATRONYMS, PSEUDONYMS, SLOGANS, MOTTOES, APHORISMS, APOTHEGMS AND CORRELATED PHRASES.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Poggioli in mystification. “Fix this man up a slogan?”

  “Devise him a more harmonious patronym, so that every time he speaks it or it is spoken to him he will vibrate to the rhythm of success. I will tune his subconscious to opulence, power, harmony and realization.”

  “Realization sounds as if it ought to be good,” said the docent. Professor Wordenbaum looked a little carefully at the newcomer. “What’s wrong with opulence, power and harmony?” he asked.

  At this point Tapper turned from the telephone.

  “I told Wordenbaum that Mordag couldn’t change his name bang-off like that without an act of the Ohio Legislature; and he can’t, either.”

  “What name do you suggest?” asked the docent of the heavy man. Professor Wordenbaum considered. “Well, now, his original name, Clayman Mordag, is very unlucky. Look at what the words mean; Clayman, a man of clay. Mordag, the day of death. Could anything be more unpropitious?”

  “Can you better it?” inquired the docent.

  “Now let me see; I would suggest ‘Gaylord Morning.’ That has buoyancy, optimism—”

  “All right, he takes it,” decided the docent at once. “Good day, Professor, and call around sometime next week and see how the new name is working.”

  Professor Wordenbaum was a little disconcerted at this swift decision. “Well, all right,” he agreed. “My fee is ten dollars a name.”

  “Mr. Mordag will be only too glad to pay you next week—if the name keeps him alive that long.”

  “Don’t call him Mordag, call him Morning,” coached the numerologist. “Certainly; Morning—”

  “And don’t say if he is alive; make a positive assertion that he will be alive.”

  “Certainly; he’ll pay you next week,” asserted Poggioli positively, floating the pasty man toward the door.

  “Go into this seriously, Mr. Morning,” called back the professor as he went away. “Say to yourself, ‘I am Gaylord Morning.’ Write it on a piece of paper a hundred times. Inhale slowly and think, ‘Gaylord Morning!’ ”

  “I will,” said the sick man. “It can’t hurt me.”

  “Can’t hurt you! It will cure you; dispel terror, danger, apprehension—”

  “I’ll do it,” repeated Mordag.

  “But look here,” interposed Tapper. “It requires an act of the Legislature to change a man’s name.”

  “Does it?” snapped the numerologist. “If I should call you a meddling, sharp nosed busybody, would the Legislature have to indorse that to make it true?”

  “Do you call me that?” demanded the reporter sharply.

  “No, I am simply trying to show you the power of suggestion requires no legal action. Language was used before laws were thought of. Well, good day, gentlemen. I’ll be back for my fee next week, Mr. Gaylord Morning.”

  “I hope to God I’m here to pay it,” said Mordag fervently. When the man was gone, Poggioli turned to his client. “What’s this I hear about La Plesse being in this hotel?”

  “He’s just here,” said the sandy man gloomily. “Of course he would come here.”

  “You saw him on the floor beneath this one?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But you rather expected to find him the next story up, didn’t you?”

  “That’s where he threw the knife from, sir.”

  As Mordag said this he got himself out of bed and walked across to the desk containing the hotel stationery.

  “I got his note this morning as usual,” he continued shakily. “Mr. Tapper here can read French. He read it to me.” The ex-helper sat down at the desk and reached into a pigeonhole for the note.

  “Let it alone, Mordag,” said the psychologist. “I don’t want to see it—That knife that dropped from the transom yesterday, did you ever see it before?”

  The sandy man sat down and began writing weakly. “Yes; it used to be one of his throwing knives.”

  “Used to be! Whose is it now?”

  “Why, it’s mine, sir.”

  “How came it yours?”

  “He had fifteen of ’em, sir. He gave me one and Rose one when we broke up our act.”

  Poggioli looked at his client in amazement.

  “Then at the time when the gravamen of—of your offense was fresh on his mind, he wasn’t so terribly angry either at you or at Rose!”

  “No, sir, not so terribly. At the hotel where we are all packing our things to leave, I happened to need a knife. He handed me this one and said I could keep it. Then he handed Rose one, too. He said he thought it would make an appropriate gift for parting.”

  “And you haven’t offended him in the meantime?”

  “I haven’t even seen him in the meantime, except, you know, just glimpses as he followed me around.”

  “Why, that’s the most extraordinary thing—after a wait of two or three years, then grow angry enough to take revenge.”

  “I suppose so,” murmured Mordag.

  “Listen; in the meantime had you been brooding over the injury you had done him, Mordag?”

  The sandy man winced.

  “Mr. Poggioli, would you mind not calling me that name?”

  “What name?”

  “Mordag, sir.”

  “What do you want to be called?” inquired the docent in surprise. “If you don’t mind, Morning—Gaylord Morning.”

  Poggioli was amused and slightly contemptuous. “Oh, all right—if I can remember to call you that.”

  “It can’t do me any harm, sir, and it might do good.”

  He got up and walked slowly over to the telephone and called down and asked the clerk to change his name on the register. After a pause he straightened up and said— “Professor Wordenbaum had it changed on the register as he went out.” Then he went over and laid down on the bed again, repeating—

  “I am Gaylord Morning; I am
Gaylord Morning—” in the queer voice of a man who speaks while he is drawing in his breath.

  At this Tapper turned and hurried to another telephone which stood in the room and which Poggioli had not observed before. Tapper picked up the transmitter and said:

  “Take this, Bill....At the suggestion of Numerologist Havah Wordenbaum, Clayman Mordag has changed his name to Gaylord Morning. Professor Wordenbaum has in a way guaranteed Mr. Morning’s new moniker to save his life as he supplied the name on a contingent fee of ten dollars, payable in event Mr. Morning lives to pay it. Psychologist Poggioli of Ohio State approved the change of names—Put that in a box on the front page.”

  “What’s that?” cried the docent. “You say I approve such an idiotic—”

  “Certainly you did,” cried Tapper, turning from the telephone defensively. “I told Mr.—er—Morning it was all damned stuff and nonsense; but you advised him right off to do it.”

  “That was simply to get the fellow out of the room.”

  “You approved,” persisted the reporter doggedly. “There’s a human interest story in that, but if I say you did it just to get him out of the room, no story there. Anybody would have done that.”

  “But damn it, you will absolutely ruin my reputation—” The docent caught up the receiver from the second telephone. This proved to be a private wire to the Dispatch office. “Hello, who is this? . . . I want to speak to Bill—Tapper’s assistant....Yes, listen, this is Henry Poggioli, the psychologist in the Mordag— I mean Morning—case. I absolutely forbid you to quote me as approving the change of Mr. Morning’s name....Yes, I did sanction it, but that was simply to rid the apartment of—You will take it out or I’ll sue you for libel. I’ll—” Poggioli snapped down the receiver in its fork. “Damn you, Tapper, I’m half a mind to pitch you out that window!”

  “Well, by Jiminy,” cried Tapper spunkily, “other men have tried pitching me out of windows—”

  And the two men apparently were about to fight when Mordag called:

  “Men, for God’s sake, don’t. You two are the only friends I’ve got now. If you get to fighting—”

  “Well this damned little snake printed a paper full of libel about me yesterday and he’s starting another edition today!”

  “I never printed a line you didn’t dictate yourself, either in word or substance!” snapped the reporter.

  “Listen,” cried Poggioli, “either Tapper goes or I go, Mordag.”

  “Please, please, Mr. Poggioli, say Morning.”

  “All right, Morning—you can decide which you want, me or Tapper.” The sandy man looked at his incompatible aides.

  “Uh, M-Mr. Tapper,” he stammered, “h-has thought of a p-plan that may s-save me if he can get—”

  “I can get it,” snapped Tapper belligerently. “I’ve just received assurance from the air field they have a helicopter coming over from Akron.”

  “A what?” ejaculated Poggioli.

  “Helicopter,” repeated Tapper impatiently. “It can light on the Vendig’s roof. We plan to take Mr. Morning up tomorrow afternoon on an endurance flight. We mustn’t let out a word so this La Plesse will have no idea of what is about to happen. Then we’ll take Morning up and see if the magician can break into an airplane somewhere over Ohio and murder one of the passengers. I’m going to stay with Morning straight on from now till the flight ends.”

  The reporter’s voice had become friendly again with enthusiasm over his plans.

  “Did you think of this?” asked Poggioli, taken off his feet.

  “No, it was Morning’s idea. It hit me hard, however, and the city editor O.K’d it. We’ll have a wireless in the plane. I’ll keep in touch with the office and write the story as we go.” The little man paused. “Won’t you go along, Professor?”

  “No, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Listen, we’ll say you suggested the whole idea. Think of the scareheads— Western Science Versus Eastern Occultism. Psychologist Takes Threatened Victim in the Air. Leaves Magician Stranded on Earth.”

  “I wouldn’t go unless I was prepared to hand in my resignation at the university.”

  “I wish you would. Be a great advantage to have you if anything should happen up there. You know, if another airplane came and chased us; or La Plesse should—you know, just form in the air and shoot Mordag—we’d like a scientific explanation of it.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t call me Mordag!” squealed the sandy man. “Beg pardon, Mr. Morning.”

  “I believe if both you men will remember to call me Morning, and I ever get up in that plane, I think I can live through tomorrow night.”

  “We’ll both remember it, Mr. Morning. And you won’t go with us, Professor?”

  “No, I wouldn’t think of it. I’d like to, but I can’t. You say you are going to remain here with Mr. Morning in his apartment tonight, Mr. Tapper?”

  “Yes; the city editor wants a line on whoever it is writes these notes.”

  “Will you have a policeman or some one to sit up with you?”

  “No, we are afraid if you put two or three men in the room nobody would appear.”

  “He’ll come and write the note,” said Mordag with certainty. “And Mr. Tapper won’t see him—you know, he’ll just come in and write it in my pocket without being seen.”

  “You mean La Plesse will get into your pocket?” queried the docent.

  “Oh, no; I mean he will cause the writing to appear in my pocket. Many a time I’ve seen him put a blank sheet of paper in a glass and pass his hand over it, and when he pulled it out it was full of writing.”

  “Don’t you know how he did that?”

  “No, I don’t know how he did it.”

  “He had already written the message on the paper in invisible ink.”

  “Invisible ink wouldn’t cause the notes to appear in my pocket every morning.”

  “Oh, no, I’m simply explaining the trick you saw him do; about how your notes get in your pockets—that’s something else.”

  “It certainly is something else,” assented Mordag in the greatest depression;

  and he began repeating to himself in the odd tone of an indrawn breath— “I am Gaylord Morning; I am Gaylord Morning—”

  Since he was tacitly let out of his uncomfortable situation by the entrance of Tapper’s flying machine, Poggioli made his adieus, expressed his sincerest well wishes and washed his hands of the whole matter. He went away from the Vendig in better spirits than when he had entered.

  IV

  It was highly characteristic of Mr. Poggioli, that after he had severed his connection with the Mordag mystery, it bedeviled him all night long. Not only did the enigma itself seduce him, but he wondered whether or not he had acted wisely in withdrawing from the problem. If Tapper attempted a world’s record airplane endurance flight and at the same time preserved a victim from attempted murder, it would bring every one connected with it into nationwide publicity. And such publicity was so much money in hand. If he had gone up in the airplane he could have written a book, appeared in a motion picture, spoken over the radio, sold his name for a cigar brand . . . The docent could not help reflecting that he had thrown away a fortune.

  As he passed through the office on his way to the laboratory, the girl, Janet, jumped up excitedly and followed the docent in among the rat cages. Evidently she had something on her tongue’s end, but she bit it back. Finally she asked tentatively—

  “Have you found out anything more about the Morning case?”

  “You mean the Mordag case.”

  “The newspapers are calling it the Morning case now. He’s changed his name for luck. I think that’s silly.”

  “It’s tommyrot.”

  “But those notes he gets aren’t silly. I think they are the eeriest things I ever heard of; just imagine, getting a note every—”

  “They aren’t mysterious at all compared to that knife,” growled the psychologist.

  “Why aren’t they mysterious?” demanded Ja
net, vaguely offended. “Because La Plesse either puts them in Mordag’s pockets—or he does not.”

  “Why certainly,” agreed Janet, a little confused.

  “Well, there you are; any proposition that can be reduced to one of two alternatives is not mysterious; it’s simple.”

  “But how does he get them in there?” demanded Janet, ruffled. “That’s a detail—a trick of some sort.”

  The office girl gave a short laugh.

  “I’ll say it’s a detail.” She looked at Poggioli with a touch of satire. “Maybe you don’t consider there is anything mysterious about this case.”

  “Oh, yes, there is—the knife.”

  “You mean the one thrown through the concrete ceiling—I don’t believe that.”

  “Neither do I. I happen to know the knife was laid on top of the transom over Mordag’s door. It was pulled off by a silk thread. I found the thread.”

  “Then that isn’t mysterious either,” said Janet. “That’s just another detail.”

  “Certainly how the knife got on the door is a detail, but the knife itself casts the most mysterious complexion over this whole affair that has ever fallen under my observation.”

  Janet looked at him blankly.

  “I don’t see how a knife—just a knife—”

  “Why the knife was given to Mordag by La Plesse.”

  “Yes; I read that in the papers yesterday evening.”

  “It was given to Mordag immediately after Mordag and La Plesse had had trouble over La Plesse’s wife.”

  “So I understand; what’s strange about that?”

  “Why, it involves a paradox, a contradiction,” ejaculated the psychologist. “For La Plesse to assume the ironic attitude of giving his wife and her lover a knife apiece when he has just been wronged, and send the couple about their own devices, is, I think, one of the most cynical things I ever heard of a man doing.”

  “I—I suppose it is,” hesitated Janet, “but it isn’t mysterious.”