Lord Peter Views the Body · The Abominable History of the Man with Copper Fingers (3/3)

“The rods hung over it with their hooks all empty, but there was a packing-case half-opened at one side of the room, and, pulling the covering aside, I could see rows of copper anodes⁠—enough of them to put a plating over a quarter of an inch thick on a life-size figure. There was a smaller case, still nailed up, which from its weight and appearance I guessed to contain the silver for the rest of the process. There was something else I was looking for, and I soon found it⁠—a considerable quantity of prepared graphite and a big jar of varnish.

“Of course, there was no evidence, really, of anything being on the cross. There was no reason why Loder shouldn’t make a plaster cast and Sheffield-plate it if he had a fancy for that kind of thing. But then I found something that couldn’t have come there legitimately.

“On the bench was an oval slab of copper about an inch and a half long⁠—Loder’s night work, I guessed. It was an electrotype of the American Consular seal, the thing they stamp on your passport photograph to keep you from hiking it off and substituting the picture of your friend Mr. Jiggs, who would like to get out of the country because he is so popular with Scotland Yard.

“I sat down on Loder’s stool, and worked out that pretty little plot in all its details. I could see it all turned on three things. First of all, I must find out if Varden was proposing to make tracks shortly for Australia, because, if he wasn’t, it threw all my beautiful theories out. And, secondly, it would help matters greatly if he happened to have dark hair like Loder’s, as he has, you see⁠—near enough, anyway, to fit the description on a passport. I’d only seen him in that Apollo Belvedere thing, with a fair wig on. But I knew if I hung about I should see him presently when he came to stay with Loder. And, thirdly, of course, I had to discover if Loder was likely to have any grounds for a grudge against Varden.

“Well, I figured out I’d stayed down in that room about as long as was healthy. Loder might come back at any moment and I didn’t forget that a vatful of copper sulphate and cyanide of potassium would be a highly handy means of getting rid of a too-inquisitive guest. And I can’t say I had any great fancy for figuring as part of Loder’s domestic furniture. I’ve always hated things made in the shape of things⁠—volumes of Dickens that turn out to be a biscuit-tin, and dodges like that; and, though I take no overwhelming interest in my own funeral, I should like it to be in good taste. I went so far as to wipe away any fingermarks I might have left behind me, and then I went back to the studio and rearranged that divan. I didn’t feel Loder would care to think I’d been down there.

“There was just one other thing I felt inquisitive about. I tiptoed back through the hall and into the smoking-room. The silver couch glimmered in the light of the torch. I felt I disliked it fifty times more than ever before. However, I pulled myself together and took a careful look at the feet of the figure. I’d heard all about that second toe of Maria Morano’s.

“I passed the rest of the night in the armchair after all.

“What with Mrs. Bilt’s job and one thing and another, and the enquiries I had to make, I had to put off my interference in Loder’s little game till rather late. I found out that Varden had been staying with Loder a few months before the beautiful Maria Morano had vanished. I’m afraid I was rather stupid about that, Mr. Varden. I thought perhaps there had been something.”

“Don’t apologise,” said Varden, with a little laugh. “Cinema actors are notoriously immoral.”

“Why rub it in?” said Wimsey, a trifle hurt. “I apologise. Anyway, it came to the same thing as far as Loder was concerned. Then there was one bit of evidence I had to get to be absolutely certain. Electroplating⁠—especially such a ticklish job as the one I had in mind⁠—wasn’t a job that could be finished in a night; on the other hand, it seemed necessary that Mr. Varden should be seen alive in New York up to the day he was scheduled to depart. It was also clear that Loder meant to be able to prove that a Mr. Varden had left New York all right, according to plan, and had actually arrived in Sydney. Accordingly, a false Mr. Varden was to depart with Varden’s papers and Varden’s passport, furnished with a new photograph duly stamped with the Consular stamp, and to disappear quietly at Sydney and be retransformed into Mr. Eric Loder, travelling with a perfectly regular passport of his own. Well, then, in that case, obviously a cablegram would have to be sent off to Mystofilms Ltd., warning them to expect Varden by a later boat than he had arranged. I handed over this part of the job to my man, Bunter, who is uncommonly capable. The devoted fellow shadowed Loder faithfully for getting on for three weeks, and at length, the very day before Mr. Varden was due to depart, the cablegram was sent from an office in Broadway, where, by a happy providence (once more) they supply extremely hard pencils.”

“By Jove!” cried Varden, “I remember now being told something about a cablegram when I got out, but I never connected it with Loder. I thought it was just some stupidity of the Western Electric people.”

“Quite so. Well, as soon as I’d got that, I popped along to Loder’s with a picklock in one pocket and an automatic in the other. The good Bunter went with me, and, if I didn’t return by a certain time, had orders to telephone for the police. So you see everything was pretty well covered. Bunter was the chauffeur who was waiting for you, Mr. Varden, but you turned suspicious⁠—I don’t blame you altogether⁠—so all we could do was to forward your luggage along to the train.

“On the way out we met the Loder servants en route for New York in a car, which showed us that we were on the right track, and also that I was going to have a fairly simple job of it.

“You’ve heard all about my interview with Mr. Varden. I really don’t think I could improve upon his account. When I’d seen him and his traps safely off the premises, I made for the studio. It was empty, so I opened the secret door, and, as I expected, saw a line of light under the workshop door at the far end of the passage.”

“So Loder was there all the time?”

“Of course he was. I took my little popgun tight in my fist and opened the door very gently. Loder was standing between the tank and the switchboard, very busy indeed⁠—so busy he didn’t hear me come in. His hands were black with graphite, a big heap of which was spread on a sheet on the floor, and he was engaged with a long, springy coil of copper wire, running to the output of the transformer. The big packing-case had been opened, and all the hooks were occupied.

“ ‘Loder!’ I said.

“He turned on me with a face like nothing human. ‘Wimsey?’ he shouted, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

“ ‘I have come,’ I said, ‘to tell you that I know how the apple gets into the dumpling.’ And I showed him the automatic.

“He gave a great yell and dashed at the switchboard, turning out the light, so that I could not see to aim. I heard him leap at me⁠—and then there came in the darkness a crash and a splash⁠—and a shriek such as I never heard⁠—not in five years of war⁠—and never want to hear again.

“I groped forward for the switchboard. Of course, I turned on everything before I could lay my hand on the light, but I got it at last⁠—a great white glare from the floodlight over the vat.

“He lay there, still twitching faintly. Cyanide, you see, is about the swiftest and painfullest thing out. Before I could move to do anything, I knew he was dead⁠—poisoned and drowned and dead. The coil of wire that had tripped him had gone into the vat with him. Without thinking, I touched it, and got a shock that pretty well staggered me. Then I realised that I must have turned on the current when I was hunting for the light. I looked into the vat again. As he fell, his dying hands had clutched at the wire. The coils were tight around his fingers, and the current was methodically depositing a film of copper all over his hands, which were blackened with the graphite.

“I had just sense enough to realise that Loder was dead, and that it might be a nasty sort of lookout for me if the thing came out, for I’d certainly gone along to threaten him with a pistol.

“I searched about till I found some solder and an iron. Then I went upstairs and called in Bunter, who had done his ten miles in record time. We went into the smoking-room and soldered the arm of that cursed figure into place again, as well as we could, and then we took everything back into the workshop. We cleaned off every fingerprint and removed every trace of our presence. We left the light and the switchboard as they were, and returned to New York by an extremely roundabout route. The only thing we brought away with us was the facsimile of the Consular seal, and that we threw into the river.

“Loder was found by the butler next morning. We read in the papers how he had fallen into the vat when engaged on some experiments in electroplating. The ghastly fact was commented upon that the dead man’s hands were thickly coppered over. They couldn’t get it off without irreverent violence, so he was buried like that.

“That’s all. Please, Armstrong, may I have my whisky-and-soda now?”

“What happened to the couch?” enquired Smith-Hartington presently.

“I bought it in at the sale of Loder’s things,” said Wimsey, “and got hold of a dear old Catholic priest I knew, to whom I told the whole story under strict vow of secrecy. He was a very sensible and feeling old bird; so one moonlight night Bunter and I carried the thing out in the car to his own little church, some miles out of the city, and gave it Christian burial in a corner of the graveyard. It seemed the best thing to do.”