The Stowmarket Mystery by Louis Tracy (best classic books of all time TXT) 📕

The contrast between him and his helpmate was ludicrous. He could not possibly kiss her unless she stooped, nor would his arms encircle her shoulders.

“And how is my pretty karasu?” he asked, regarding his wife fondly.

“Don’t call me that, Nummie!” she cried.

Turning to Brett she explained: “He calls me a crow, and says it is a compliment, but I don’t like it.”

“In Japan the clow speaks with the voice of love,” grinned Jiro.

“Well, it sounds funny in London, so just attend to this gentleman. He has come to see you on business.”

Mrs. Jiro forthwith seated herself to listen to the conclave. Brett, though warned by the maid’s remark, could not help himself, so he went straight to the point.

“Over a year ago,” he said, “you were in Ipswich.”

Instantly a severe chill fell upon his hearers. The man shrank, the woman expanded, but before either could utter a word, the barrister continued:

“Personally, I know no one in Ipswich. I have only visited the town twice, during an Assize week. It has come to my knowledge that you gave the police some information with reference to a Japanese weapon which figured in a noted crime, and I have ventured to come here to ask you for additional details.”

Mrs. Jiro heaved a great sigh of relief.

“My gracious!” she cried, “you did startle me. I can’t bear to hear the name of Ipswich nowadays. I was married from there.”

“Indeed!” said Brett, with polite interest.

“Yes; and my people are always hunting me up and making a row because I married Mr. Jiro. Sometimes they make me that ill that I feel half inclined to go with him to Japan. He is always worrying me to leave London, but the more I hear about Japan the less I fancy it.”

“Ah, my own little gan—” broke in her husband.

“There you go again,” she snapped. “Calling me a gan—a goose, indeed! Now, Mr. Brett, how would you like to be called a wild goose?”

“I have often deserved it,” he said.

“You do not understand,” chirped Jiro. “In Japan the goose is beautiful, elegant. It flies fast like a white spilit.”

His English was almost perfect, but in words containing a rolled “r” he often substituted an “l.”

“I understand enough to keep away from Japan, a place where they have an earthquake every five minutes, and people live in paper houses. Besides, look at the size of your women-folk. Just imagine me, Mr. Brett, walking about among those little dolls, like a turkey among tom-tits.”

“We give fat people much admilation,” said Jiro.

“Nummie, I do hate that word fat. I can’t help being tall and well developed; but it is only short women who become ‘fat’.”

She hissed the word venomously, as if she possessed the scorpion’s fabled power to sting herself. Evidently Mrs. Jiro dreaded corpulence more than earthquakes.

Brett had never previously met such a strangely assorted couple. He would willingly have prolonged his visit for mere amusement, but he was compelled to return to the cause of his presence. Unless he asked direct questions he would make no progress. He took from his pocket-book the drawing made in the Black Museum, and handed it to the Japanese, saying:

“Would you mind telling me the meaning of that?”

Jiro screwed his queer little eyes upon the scrawling characters. The methods of writing in the Far East, being pictorial and inexact, require scrutiny of the context before a given sentence can be correctly interpreted.

The little man made no trouble about it, however.

“They are old chalacters,” he said. “In Japan we joke a lot. Evely sign has sevelal meanings. This can be lead two ways. It is a plovelb, and says, ‘A new field gives a small clop,’ or ‘Human life is but fifty years.’ Where did you see it?”

“On the blade of the Ko-Katana that killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer,” answered Brett.

And now he experienced a fresh difficulty. The Japanese face is exceedingly expressive. When a native of the Island Empire smiles or scowls, exhibits surprise or fear, he apparently does these things with his whole soul. Such facial plasticity provides far more effective concealment of real emotions than the phlegmatic indifference of the Briton, who, in the words of Emerson, requires “pitchforks or the cry of ‘fire!’” to arouse him.

It is possible to throw an Englishman off his guard by a shrewd thrust; but Mr. Numagawa Jiro was one of those persons whose lineaments would reveal the same amount of pain over a cut finger as a broken leg.

Nevertheless, Brett’s reply did unquestionably make him jump, and even Mrs. Jiro’s bulging features became anxious.

“Is that possible?” said the Japanese. “It is velly stlange the police gentleman did not tell me about it.”

“He did not know of it until to-day,” explained Brett, “and that is why I am here now. It is the motto of some important Japanese family, is it not?”

“It is a plovelb,” repeated Jiro, who evidently intended to take thought.

“So I understand, but used in this way it represents a family, a clan?”

“I do not know.”

“What! A man so interested in his country’s art as to go to an out-of-the-way English provincial town merely to see a small knife, must surely be able to decide such a trivial matter as the use of mottoes on sword blades!”

Mr. Jiro’s excellent knowledge of English seemed to fail him, but his wife took up the defence.

“My husband had more to think about in Ipswich than a small knife, Mr. Brett.”

“Very much more, but it was the knife which brought him to the place. He carried the major attraction away with him.”

Mrs. Jiro thought this sounded nice. She turned to her husband:

“Why don’t you tell the gentleman all you know about it, Nummie?”

The little man looked at her curiously before he spoke to the barrister.

“I have nothing to tell,” he said. “I told the police all that they asked me. That was a velly old Ko-Katana, a hundred yeals old. It was made by a famous altist. I have told you the meaning of the liting. That is all I know.”

“Why did you give your name at Ipswich as Okasaki?” demanded Brett.

“Oh, that is vely easy. Okosaki is my family name. You English people say it quicker than Numaguwa Jiro, so I give it. But when I got mallied I used my light name. Japanese law does not pelmit the change of names now. My ploper name is Numagawa Jiro”—which he pronounced “Jilo.”

“You told the detective at Ipswich that the device on the handle represented the setting sun. How did you know the sun was setting, and not rising?”

It was a haphazard shot. The description was Hume’s, not Winter’s.

Again the Japanese paused before answering.

“It was shown by the way in which the gold was used. Japanese altists have symbols for ideas. That is one.”

“Thank you. I imagined you recognised the device, and could speak off-hand in the matter. By the way, do you use a type-writer?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Jiro. “My husband is clever at all that sort of thing, and when he found the people could not read his writing he bought a machine.”

“I have sold it again,” interfered Jiro, after a hasty glance round the room, “and I am going to buy another.”

Mrs. Jiro rose to stir the fire unnecessarily.

“They are most useful,” said Brett. “Which make do you prefer?”

“They are all vely much alike,” answered the Japanese, “but I am going to buy a Yost or a Hammond.”

“I am very much obliged to you for receiving me at this late hour,” said the barrister, rising, “but before I go allow me to compliment you on your remarkable knowledge of English. I am sure you are indebted to your good lady for your idiomatic command of the language.”

“I studied it for yeals in Japan—” began Jiro, but in vain, for his very much better half resented the word “idiomatic.”

“I don’t know about that,” she snorted. “He talked a lot of nonsense when we were married, but I’ve made him drop it, and he is teaching me Japanese.”

“His task is a pleasant one. It is the tongue of poetry and love.”

Again there was a pause. A minute later Brett was standing in the street trying to determine how best to act.

He was fully persuaded that Jiro had, in the first place, identified the crest as belonging to one of the many Samurai clans. But the motto was new to him, and its discovery had revealed the particular family which claimed its use.

Why did he refuse to impart his knowledge? There must be plenty of Japanese in London who would give this information readily.

Again, why did he lie about the type-writer, and endeavour to mislead him as to the make of the machine he used?

To-morrow, for a certainty, Jiro would dispose of the Remington which he now possessed. Well, he should meet with a ready purchaser, if a letter from Brett to every agency in London would expedite matters.

He did not credit Jiro with the death of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, nor even with complicity in the crime. The Japanese had acted as the unwitting tool of a stronger personality, and the little man’s brain was even at this moment considering fresh aspects of the affair not previously within his ken.

Moreover, how maddening the whole thing was! Beginning with Hume’s fantastic dream, he reviewed the hitherto unknown elements in the case—Capella’s fierce passion and queer behaviour, culminating in a sudden journey to Italy, Margaret’s silent agony, the existence of an Argentine cousin, the evidence of “Rabbit Jack,” the punning motto on the Ko-Katana, Jiro’s perturbation and desire to prevent his wife’s unconscious disclosures.

With the final item came the ludicrous remembrance of that ill-assorted couple. Laughing, Brett hailed a hansom.

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The number of type-writer exchanges in London is not large. Impressing the services of Smith and his wife as amanuenses, Brett despatched the requisite letters before he retired for the night.

He was up betimes and out before breakfast, surprising the domestics of his club by an early visit to the library. The Etona contained a great many service members, and made a feature of its complete editions of Army and Navy lists.

In one of the latter, eight years old, Brett found, among the officers of the Northumberland, at that time in commission, “Robert Hume-Fraser, sub-lieutenant.” A later volume recorded his retirement from the service.

Hume and Winter reached Brett’s flat together.

“Any luck with the Jap, sir?” asked the detective cheerily.

Brett told them what had happened, and Winter sighed. Here, indeed, was a promising subject for an arrest. Why not lock him up, and seize the type-writer? But he knew the barrister by this time, and uttered no word.

“And now,” said Brett, after a malicious pause to enable Winter to declare himself, “I am going back to Stowmarket. No, Hume, you are not coming with me. When does Fergusson arrive here?”

The question drove from David’s face the disappointed look with which he received his friend’s announcement.

“To-morrow evening,” he replied. “My father thinks the old man should not risk an all-night journey. He has also sent me every detail he can get together, either from documents or recollection, bearing upon our family history.”

He produced a formidable roll of manuscript. The old gentleman had evidently devoted many hours and some literary skill to the compilation.

“I will read that in the train,” said Brett. “You must start at once for Portsmouth. I have here a list of all the officers serving with your cousin Robert on the Northumberland immediately prior to his quitting the Navy. Portsmouth, Devonport, Southsea, and the neighbourhood will almost certainly contain some of them. If not, people there will know where they are to be found. You must make yourself known to them, and endeavour to gain any sort of news concerning the ex-lieutenant. Naval men roam all over the world. Some of them may have met him in the