Chapter VI

“Everyone will say,” Moris Klaw declared, “‘he was a failure, that old fool from Wapping’--for how can a dead man confess, and what use for the newspapers to tell the public why this poor Russian leaps from his window?” He shrugged his shoulders, looking around my study. “You say to me,” he continued, addressing Grimsby: ‘What is the sound you hear when you sleep in the studio?’ and I do not tell you because you would not understand. But now I shall tell you. I hear, my friend, a chord in G Minor!

“Ah! you wag your head. I knew you would wag your head! But beware that your brains do not rattle. This is what I hear, and this is the thing in the mind of the murderer at the moment that he does the murder--a chord in G Minor, Mr. Grimsby! I, the old fool, have the music sense, and this chord it intrigues me. Why? because it is not playable--yet it is a chord upon a piano.”

“Not playable!” Grimsby exclaimed.

“Not playable, my friend, except by a man having enormous hands! And also, my good Grimsby, the poor Webley could not have been strangled as he was except by one having enormous hands.

“This is what I first perceive when I see his body, and what for one absurd moment I dream that you have perceived also. I, myself, have large hands, but although I try I cannot span within inches of the marks made upon his throat by the monster who kills him. And so, when I hear this chord, and I question and I try and I find that it cannot be played by any normal hand, I say, ‘Yes! it is a musician with abnormal hands!’ And I look for him and I listen for him. And to him I have one other clue--a _hashish_ cigarette.”

“_What_ kind of cigarette?” Grimsby muttered.

“I said _hashish_, my friend--a cigarette containing the drug Indian hemp; a kind of cigarette very rarely met in England. In that ashtray, among a dozen others, I detect it immediately. Is it not strange”--he turned to me--“how the murderer is drawn to the place of the murder? It is why, when I hear of the house-warming, I plan to go. Perhaps it is accident--perhaps something else.

“He was a mad genius, that Skobolov. He tries to know supreme emotion that he may write supreme music. Perhaps he succeeds. Who can say? But his compositions cannot live--for no other man can play them, on the piano at any rate. Where did he meet the poor Webley? Who can say? Perhaps they were acquainted, perhaps they met in the street. Webley was Bohemian. He invites Skobolov into the lonely studio. Good! There could be no evidence. It was his opportunity--to know the emotion of _murder_ and to get safe away!

“To-night I hear it again--the dream chord: I see his great hands. But he smokes no cigarette in the studio, not until he has returned to his own rooms. For this I waited, this last piece of evidence. Behold!”

From his pocket-case he took out _two_ cigarette stumps.

“To-night, in the studio, at last I hear again my dream chord--the chord in G, in G Minor; yet when I telephone to you, my good Grimsby, you think I am the old fool. I say, ‘Hurry to Chelsea. I await.’ You obey, but you reluct. I say, ‘When at the place we go I send a message, “the cloak is in the car.” Enter.’ You enter and you permit the strangler to escape the law.”

He shrugged, stooped to where his brown bowler rested upon the floor beside him, took out the scent spray and squirted verbena upon his forehead.

“I have the hot brain,” he explained; “it is the activity. But yours, my friend”--turning to Grimsby--“is as cool as a lemon.”

EIGHTH EPISODE. CASE OF THE HEADLESS MUMMIES