Chapter 1

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_Title:_ The Puzzle Lock
_Date of first publication:_ 1929
_Author:_ Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943)
_Date first posted:_ Sep. 23, 2018
_Date last updated:_ Sep. 23, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180937

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[Cover Illustration]

22 THE PUZZLE LOCK

I do not remember what was the occasion of my dining with Thorndyke at
Giamborini’s on the particular evening that is now in my mind.
Doubtless, some piece of work completed had seemed to justify the modest
festival. At any rate, there we were, seated at a somewhat retired
table, selected by Thorndyke, with our backs to the large window through
which the late June sunlight streamed. We had made our preliminary
arrangements, including a bottle of Barsac, and were inspecting
dubiously a collection of semi-edible _hors d’œuvres_, when a man
entered and took possession of a table just in front of ours, which had
apparently been reserved for him, since he walked directly to it and
drew away the single chair that had been set aslant against it.

I watched with amused interest his methodical procedure, for he was
clearly a man who took his dinner seriously. A regular customer, too, I
judged by the waiter’s manner and the reserved table with its single
chair. But the man himself interested me. He was out of the common and
there was a suggestion of character, with perhaps a spice of oddity, in
his appearance. He appeared to be about sixty years of age, small and
spare, with a much-wrinkled, mobile and rather whimsical face,
surmounted by a crop of white, upstanding hair. From his waistcoat
pocket protruded the ends of a fountain-pen, a pencil and a miniature
electric torch such as surgeons use; a silver-mounted Coddington lens
hung from his watch-guard and the middle finger of his left hand bore
the largest seal ring that I have ever seen.

“Well,” said Thorndyke, who had been following my glance, “what do you
make of him?”

“I don’t quite know,” I replied. “The Coddington suggests a naturalist
or a scientist of some kind, but that blatant ring doesn’t. Perhaps he
is an antiquary or a numismatist or even a philatelist. He deals with
small objects of some kind.”

At this moment a man who had just entered strode up to our friend’s
table and held out his hand, which the other shook, with no great
enthusiasm, as I thought. Then the newcomer fetched a chair, and setting
it by the table, seated himself and picked up the menu card, while the
other observed him with a shade of disapproval. I judged that he would
rather have dined alone, and that the personality of the new arrival—a
flashy, bustling, obtrusive type of man—did not commend him.

From this couple my eye was attracted to a tall man who had halted near
the door and stood looking about the room as if seeking someone.
Suddenly he spied an empty, single table, and, bearing down on it,
seated himself and began anxiously to study the menu under the
supervision of a waiter. I glanced at him with slight disfavour. One
makes allowances for the exuberance of youth, but when a middle-aged man
presents the combination of heavily-greased hair parted in the middle, a
waxed moustache of a suspiciously intense black, a pointed imperial and
a single eye-glass, evidently ornamental in function, one views him with
less tolerance. However, his get-up was not my concern, whereas my
dinner was, and I had given this my undivided attention for some minutes
when I heard Thorndyke emit a soft chuckle.

“Not bad,” he remarked, setting down his glass.

“Not at all,” I agreed, “for a restaurant wine.”

“I was not alluding to the wine,” said he, “but to our friend Badger.”

“The inspector!” I exclaimed. “He isn’t here, is he? I don’t see him.”

“I am glad to hear you say that, Jervis,” said he. “It is a better
effort than I thought. Still, he might manage his properties a little
better. That is the second time his eye-glass has been in the soup.”

Following the direction of his glance, I observed the man with the waxed
moustache furtively wiping his eye-glass; and the temporary absence of
the monocular grimace enabled me to note a resemblance to the familiar
features of the detective officer.

“If you say that is Badger, I suppose it is,” said I. “He is certainly a
little like our friend. But I shouldn’t have recognised him.”

“I don’t know that I should,” said Thorndyke, “but for the little
unconscious tricks of movement. You know the habit he has of stroking
the back of his head and of opening his mouth and scratching the side of
his chin. I saw him do it just now. He had forgotten his imperial until
he touched it, and then the sudden arrest of movement was very striking.
It doesn’t do to forget a false beard.”

“I wonder what his game is,” said I. “The disguise suggests that he is
on the look-out for somebody who might know him; but apparently that
somebody has not turned up yet. At any rate, he doesn’t seem to be
watching anybody in particular.”

“No,” said Thorndyke. “But there is somebody whom he seems rather to
avoid watching. Those two men at the table in front of ours are in his
direct line of vision, but he hasn’t looked at them once since he sat
down, though I noticed that he gave them one quick glance before he
selected his table. I wonder if he has observed us. Probably not, as we
have the strong light of the window behind us and his attention is
otherwise occupied.”

I looked at the two men and from them to the detective, and I judged
that my friend was right. On the inspector’s table was a good-sized fern
in an ornamental pot, and this he had moved so that it was directly
between him and the two strangers, to whom he must have been practically
invisible; and now I could see that he did, in fact, steal an occasional
glance at them over the edge of the menu card. Moreover, as their meal
drew to an end, he hastily finished his own and beckoned to the waiter
to bring the bill.

“We may as well wait and see them off,” said Thorndyke, who had already
settled our account. “Badger always interests me. He is so ingenious and
he has such shockingly bad luck.”