The Tragedy of Z Read Free Page A

Obviously the only manual operation which would mar all fingernails except those on the thumbs would be typewriting— learning to type, because the nails are unaccustomed to the impacts of the finger-ends on the keys and have not yet healed.… Brava, Patience!”
    â€œWell—” began father grumpily.
    â€œOh, come now, Inspector,” said the old gentleman, grinning, “you’re always a skeptic. Yes, yes, Patience, excellent! Now, this business of the touch system. A shrewd inference. For in the so-called hunt system beginners use only two fingers, therefore only two nails would be cracked. The touch system, on the other hand, employs all the fingers except the thumbs.” He closed his eyes. “And that I’m contemplating writing my memoirs! A broad jump, my dear, from the observed phenomena, but it illustrates that you possess the gift of intuition as well as of observation and deduction. Bruno, have you any idea how this charming young detective arrived at that conclusion?”
    â€œNot the faintest,” confessed the Governor.
    â€œIt’s a dad-blamed trick,” growled father; but I noticed that his cigar had gone out and that his fingers were trembling.
    Mr. Lane chuckled again. “So simple! Why, says Patience, should an old codger seventy years of age suddenly apply himself to the problem of learning how to typewrite? Surely an unreasonable action since he neglected, apparently, to learn during the preceding fifty years! Is that right, Patience?”
    â€œExactly, Mr. Lane. You seem to understand so quickly—”
    â€œSo, you said, when a man reaches his age and engages in such a frivolous pursuit, it can only be because he realizes that his best days are behind him, intends to write something personal and, of course, lengthy—at the end of life—memoirs, of course! Extraordinary.” His eyes clouded. “But what I fail to see, Patience, is how you deduce that I’m teaching myself. It’s true, but for the life of me …”
    â€œThat,” I said weakly, “was a little technical. The deduction was based, I think, on the fair premise that if you were being taught by someone else, you would be taught in the way that all beginning typists are taught—by touch. But to prevent students from stealing glances at the keys instead of memorizing the location of each letter, the instructor places little rubber pads over the keys to conceal the characters. But if rubber pads had been placed over your keys, Mr. Lane, your nails would not be broken! Consequently, you are probably teaching yourself.”
    Father said: “I’ll be damned,” and regarded me much as if he had helped bring into the world a Bird Woman, the Zuzu Girl, or some similar freak of nature. But my little silly display of mental pyrotechnics so pleased Mr. Lane that from that moment on he accepted me as a very special sort of colleague; a little, I fear, to the chagrin of father, who had always been at daggers’ point with the old gentleman on the subject of comparative detective methods.
    We spent the afternoon together strolling in the quiet gardens, visiting the cobbled little village Mr. Lane had erected for his co-workers, drinking brown ale in his own Mermaid Tavern, seeing his private theater, his enormous library, his unique and thrilling collection of Shakespeariana. It was the most exciting afternoon I had ever spent, and it passed all too quickly.
    In the evening a baronial feast was served in the medieval banquet hall, a noisy and luxurious repast partaken of by the entire population of The Hamlet in honor of Mr. Lane’s birthday. Later, we four retired to the old gentleman’s private apartments and settled down to Turkish coffee and liqueurs. An astonishing little man with a hump on his gnomish back popped in and out of the room; he seemed unbelievably ancient, and Mr. Lane assured me that he was well over a hundred years