Achmed Abdullah

“ Our car whirred softly on its way. Durand gave a gasp of relief. Then he continued. “To me life is a plain, business-like compact with existence. Death is the breaking of the compact. It holds unknown, bleak agonies. It is pregnant with sinister possibilities. I will not be crushed into a coffin, Johnny. ”

“ Slave trading is all right in its place, I fancy. But it was rather a dirty, low-down trick to make a raid into the villages of the very Galla tribe who had considered and treated and worshiped him as their own, special, no-end-wise-and-benevolent White Chief. Even then he could have got away with it, if he had had sense enough to divide profits with the medicine man. But Durand was a whole-hogger. ”

“ If murder had happened, the assassin had come into the room by a way other than the main landing; and by the same way he had departed, carrying the corpse. And Durand was a huge, heavy, shapeless mass of fat, weighing easily two hundred and fifty pounds. By street? By courtyard? Impossible. That would presuppose the strength and the agility of a gorilla. ”

“ Two folding-doors opened from the front room: the left to my suite of bedroom, bathroom, and dressing-room; the right to Durand’s. Beyond the latter’s was a charming little private dining-room with a small lift which connected directly with the kitchen. There were windows in all these rooms, giving either on street or courtyard. But the main point was this: that anybody wishing to enter Durand’s or my suite, or the private dining-room, had to pass from the main landing, up the branch corridor, and through our front room.
It was really a very safe place. ”

“ This is what he asked them:
“If anything happens to me in Berlin, I want you to publish the facts in every newspaper. My friend, Fresne, here, will give you the details. If I should be murdered, if there should be every indication of my being murdered, don’t trouble about investigating too much. And if my poor, fat, murdered old body should be missing, don’t bother about that either. Just pass the good word along to your Police Department.”
We left the Wilhelm-Strasse, and drove back to our hotel. We had put up at the Eden, on the Kurfürstendamm, across from the Zoo. ”

“ He had found the trail of the Black Lily perfume.
Two minutes later, I was facing Durand, over a glass of Pol Roger.
His old negro butler whom I remembered from Freetown was hovering in the background. I asked him half a dozen questions. He laughed.
“But it is simplicity itself. I told you that I fear death. I knew that the Galla would kill me sooner or later. I know the telepathic sense of hearing these medicine men possess. So I could not speak to you about them. Nor could I write. A letter is never very safe. ”

“ For the old man used to sjambok them for the slightest offence or mistake. Well, that may have been the very reason, now I come to think of it. Yes, I hated to leave his house, the finest house in Freetown, the finest on the whole blessed West Coast, from Morocco clear down to Walfish Bay. And drinks? My word—that chap could take rum and dry champagne and English orange bitters and a few other ingredients, and make a drowned man thirsty with the smell of it.
All right then. We took an old Woermann tramp out of Freetown. Durand had an idea Berlin would be the right place for him. ”

“ I tell you that I do not dare to open my mouth. Why? I shall tell you: because the medicine men of the Galla tribes have a sixth sense, closely akin to a sharp sense of hearing, but with a telepathic kink attached to it which enables them to hear even the faintest whisper as long as they are within reasonable distance of the speaker.
“That Galla down there in the courtyard is not watching. He is listening. ”

“ But the case is plain, beyond arguing, when a well dressed and not too bad-looking specimen of that race strolls on a mild spring evening through the tree-bordered avenues of their most select suburb, holding on a leash a dog of ferocious aspect which takes alternative sniffs at th gravel paths and at a delicate lady’s cambric handkerchief which said Anglo-Saxon holds in his hand. ”

“ And the street was full of people; the café in the courtyard had been crowded since before lunch time.
When, a few moments later, the police inspector came, he went rapidly and thoroughly over the apartment. The man knew his business. I asked him the same questions I had asked myself.
“Yes, yes,” he replied. “All very mysterious. Murders often are. But murder there has been. There is every indication. Now the clerk says that he has not seen Durand return here after he left for the second time, over half an hour ago. Nor has he seen anybody enter the suite. Very well. ”

“ Suppose they trail you by it? You know what wonderful power of scent they possess.”
Durand laughed. He patted the police dog with more affection than I would have thought possible in him.
“Oh, yes. I thought of that, too. If you will go down the corridor and turn to the left, you will come to my bedroom.”
“What of it?”
“Oh, nothing much. Only my old butler should be very busy just now throwing out every bit of my old Black Lily perfume.” He filled my glass, and offered his cigarette case. “You see, Johnny, I have decided to give Coty’s Red Jessamine a try for a change.” ”

“ The apartment extended over the entire left wing of the second floor. It was very secure from intrusion, since it could only be reached by a long corridor which connected it with the main landing. At the crossing of the main landing and the corridor were the floor clerk’s desk and chair. These were set against the wall, at such an angle that they commanded both staircases, the elevator, the landing, and the length of the corridor which branched off to our suite. The floor clerks worked in shifts, day and night. Nobody could come or go, by elevator or stair, without coming under their notice. ”