Chapter II: Part 2

‘But at the sixth house I had no trouble about dinner. The owner turned out to be a friend of a friend of mine. He fetched up a bottle of the ’87 in my honour and insisted on my stopping the night.

‘They were all _pukka_ meals, and all the conditions were observed. Am I a winner, Mr Chairman?’

‘Certainly. Does anybody else claim to be a winner?’

‘I do,’ said Dr Alden. ‘The day before yesterday a doctor rang me up and asked me to see a patient of his—a woman with a wealthy, devoted, and very nervous husband. That was at eight in the morning. My car happened to be at the door, and it suited me to go right away. I saw the patient, was able to reassure the husband, and had breakfast with him. Later in the morning a man was introduced to me who was interested in old glass and had heard of me as a collector. He was very keen that I should lunch with him and see what he had got. He was a pleasant chap and I accepted. When I got back, a doctor, quite an old pal of mine, said that he was going to take me to dine that night with a man I had never seen before. It seemed that the stranger had staying with him for one night a French specialist in my own line. The Frenchman was anxious to meet me, and his host was anxious to please him. So he had tried to arrange it through a mutual friend. I was myself keen to meet that Frenchman, and so he succeeded.

‘Of course, I didn’t arrange all this—couldn’t have arranged it. As a matter of fact, I had never intended to compete this time. But destiny decided to take a hand in this competition. I claim to be a winner.’

‘An interesting point,’ said the chairman. ‘Can a man be said to win who has never competed? I shall decide in Dr Alden’s favour. Leonard says nothing of intention. He only demands certain facts. And these facts the doctor by an amazing stroke of luck has been able to provide. The prize of one hundred and ten pounds will be divided equally between him and Major Byles, unless there is any further claim.’

No further claim was forthcoming. The chairman then announced that Mr Matthews would preside at the next meeting, and read out the problem set for the following month, called ‘The Win-and-Lose Problem,’ and there was a general feeling that it would take some doing.

No. IV.

The Win-and-Lose Problem

At the forty-sixth meeting of the Problem Club, the waiters having left the room, Mr Matthews, smiling and rubicund, took his place as chairman. He finished his glass of an old and veritable cognac, lit with care and a cedar-wood spill a cigar that can only be obtained by the favour of the planter, and read out the terms of the Win-and-Lose Problem.

‘It is required to win an even bet of one pound, resulting in a net loss of one pound to the winner; and to lose an even bet of one pound resulting in a net gain of one pound to the loser. No competitor is to make more than two bets.’

‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr Matthews, ‘I’m supposed to make one or two preliminary observations. Now here’s a thing that strikes me. You may remember that when we tackled the Kiss Problem, our reverend friend Mr Cunliffe said that it revealed the artful Leonard as an apostle of morality. Of course, the padre took the jack-pot on that occasion, and so he may have been prejudiced, but it looks to me now as if he may have been right. See for yourselves. You’ve got to win a bet and lose money by it, and then you’ve got to lose a bet and make money by it, and at the end of it you’re left just where you were when you started. There’s not much deadly fascination and excitement about that—why, it’s enough to make you lose your taste for gambling.

‘Yes, and there’s one more point. I noticed a good deal of preoccupation at dinner to-night. Very few of you seemed to be putting your heart into the work, and I believe I was the only man who had the _vol-au-vent_ brought back to him for further reference. Great mistake that of yours. Some of you tried to work out sums on the back of your menus. I detected Major Byles, with corrugated brows, in the act of making pencil calculations on the tablecloth. Yes, there’s not a doubt that Leonard has given you a worrying time, and some of you were wrestling with it right up to the last moment. It won’t surprise me if there’s not a winner among the whole lot of you. However, we’ll begin with a likely chance. You, Sir Charles, have got a reputation as a learned man; can I ask the secretary to draw a cheque in your favour?’

‘I’d be sorry to stop you,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t claim it. Archæology don’t help with arithmetic. As an eminent classical scholar once observed, I’ve not got the low cunning that makes a mathematician. The only thing I could think of was to insure the chances of each bet appropriately, but it seemed to me that you would regard such insurance as being in itself a bet.’

‘I certainly should. You don’t change a thing by changing its name. You are limited to the two bets, and I shall not allow four even if you call two of them insurance. Come now, Jimmy, have you profited sufficiently by your racing experiences to have won the prize to-night?’

‘Profited by my racing experiences?’ said the Hon. James Feldane wearily. ‘If you’d go and talk to the bank that has charge of my overdraft you wouldn’t use words like those. But backing horses, though it’s a mug’s game, is, at any rate, easy. There are too many complications in Leonard’s fancy work for a simple child of Nature like myself. I can’t engineer a two-cylinder gamble with a double back-jump actuated by the cam-shaft. The only man I know who could face it without mental overstrain is my bookmaker. He’s a wonder. He’d give you fifteen different ways of perforating this problem inside a minute. No juggle with figures can beat him. I don’t know if you’d call it a talent or a disease, but I’ve not got it. As a competitor, I’ve failed, but I don’t mind admitting that I’ve made a little actual money out of the competition.’ Jimmy smiled reminiscently.

‘May we have the details?’ asked the chairman.

‘I’d sooner you got them from Hesseltine.’

The chairman called upon Mr Hesseltine.

‘I don’t wonder,’ said that young man, ‘that Jimmy don’t like to tell you. If I’d stolen money from a crossing-sweeper in St James’s Street I shouldn’t be proud of it myself. The silly ass thinks he’s scored off me, but as I was out to lose a quid anyhow——’

‘May we have the actual facts?’ suggested the chairman.

‘Certainly. I was thinking about this problem and I got a sudden brain-wave. I saw how to do the first half—to win a bet of a pound that would leave me one pound down when I’d won it. Well, I happened to be going up St James’s Street with Jimmy later that morning, and by way of leading up to it I asked him what he generally gave to a street-beggar. “Nix,” he said. “What do you?” So I told him that I generally gave a sovereign. He told me in his coarse sort of way that he didn’t believe it. That was what I had expected. “All right,” I said, “I’ll bet you a pound that I give two golden sovereigns to the next beggar or crossing-sweeper I come across.” He thought about it and then said: “I’ll take that, and to guard against accidents I’ll be the next beggar. Give me a little assistance, kind sir?”

‘Of course, in that way he put himself on velvet. Whether I decided to win my bet or to lose it, Jimmy had to make one sovereign out of me. Didn’t affect me at all, for according to Leonard I’d got to win my bet and lose a pound by it, which I did. The only person hit was the crossing-sweeper up the street, who would otherwise have made two quid. Of course, what I ought to have done was to have handed Jimmy over to the police for begging—wish I’d thought of it.

‘Well, I negotiated the first half of the problem, but the second half beat me. I’m inclined to think the sting of the beast is in its tail. It takes two people to make a bet. I’m not a poet or any sort of imaginative chap, but I could think of a bet which for a dead certainty it would pay me to lose. I couldn’t think of anybody, even including that rotter Jimmy, who would be fool enough to take it. You must try somebody else, Mr Chairman.’

‘Major Byles?’ the chairman suggested.

‘As a head-waiter,’ said the Major, ‘I’ve got nothing against Leonard. As a setter of problems he’s given general satisfaction, but this time I should like to back my bill to the effect that he has mixed up too much arithmetic with the sport. I’ve spent a month on this win-and-lose business, all the time with the feeling that a boy fresh from school would work out the whole thing on the back of an envelope in ten minutes, and I’ve done nothing. I spent the first fortnight at home, and at the end of it I had contracted insomnia, headache, and what you might call pardonable irritability. At the end of that time my wife said that of course she had noticed the change, and that I seemed to be doing sums all day, and that if we were ruined I had better say so and she would face it bravely. I reassured her and came to town on important business. I used tons of the club notepaper for my calculations, put an undue strain on the club wastepaper-baskets, quarrelled with two of my best friends, was sarcastic in addressing club servants, and am expecting a letter from the committee to ask for my resignation. The amazing thing is that all the time I have been on the very point of getting the solution. In my opinion it’s the most horribly worrying thing that Leonard has ever given us.’

‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘artists are not generally supposed to be particularly strong at arithmetic, but I’ll ask Mr Wildersley what he’s done about it.’

‘Can’t say I agree with the Major,’ said Wildersley. ‘I call it a jolly easy problem, and I claim to be a winner. It didn’t take me any time to think of it, either. I got a man into my studio, to see alleged works of art, and I said to him that I would bet him a pound I would give him two pounds. He took me. “You’ve lost,” I said. “Pay up, and then I’ll pay up.” He handed me a sovereign and I handed him two pounds of potatoes in a paper bag. So I’d won a pound in money and lost two pounds in potatoes. If you win one pound and lose two, that makes a net loss of one pound on the transaction, and so I’d done the first half of the problem.

‘The chap seemed to be grumbling rather. “What’s the matter with you?” I said. “The green-grocer told me that they were the kind he eats himself, and that he could guarantee them.”

‘“I don’t want the beastly potatoes,” he said. “The whole thing’s a dirty swindle.” I thought he’d say that. So I told him that it was no swindle and I would be quite willing to take the same bet myself. He jumped at it, but to make sure he said he would bet me a sovereign he would give me two pounds. I took him, lost, paid the sovereign, and got back my two pounds of potatoes. That finished the second half of the problem. I’d lost a bet of one pound, and had made two pounds, giving a net gain of one pound. Naturally he wanted to know what I had done it for, and I said it was to stop him from trying to talk about art—the chap’s a critic.’

Mr Matthews took two minutes and a brandy-and-soda before giving his decision as follows:—

‘Ingenious, but it won’t do. Mr Wildersley professes to have subtracted money to the value of a sovereign from two pounds by weight of potatoes, and to have got a result of one pound. Of what did that pound consist? Even after dinner we can’t have mental confusion of this kind. The claim is disallowed.’

Mr Harding Pope, M.P., made an uninteresting confession of failure, and the chairman then called upon Mr Quillian, K.C., who was acting as secretary for the evening.

Mr Quillian removed his pince-nez and glanced round the room with that look of amiable superiority that some people found irritating.

‘I claim to have won this fairly simple competition,’ he said. ‘Of course, it has a psychological as well as an arithmetical side; the bets have to be actually made and not merely worked out on paper. I made my plan one afternoon, and then went over to my club to see if I could find my friend Blenkinsop. He is generally at the club at that hour, and I felt sure that he would accept the two bets that I had to propose.

‘Well, as it happened, Blenkinsop was not at the club, but I found Mr Pusely-Smythe alone in the smaller reading-room. I’ve had to submit to a good deal of chaff—not particularly amusing—from Pusely-Smythe, and by way of return it seemed appropriate that he should help me to win our one hundred and ten pound prize. Also, if he will forgive me for saying so, he has just the commonplace shrewdness that I required in my victim.

‘After a little preliminary conversation, I produced my sovereign-case. I told him that there was a certain sum of money in gold in that case, and that I was willing to bet him a sovereign I would make him a present of it. He said, as I knew he would, that this meant that the sum of money in the case was half a sovereign, and that in consequence he would lose ten shillings on the transaction if he took the bet.

‘“Yes,” I said, “there is that possibility, but I am willing to protect you against it by a second bet. We will agree that the loser by the first transaction shall have the option to give the other man double what he has lost for double the sum now in my sovereign-case. And I will bet you a sovereign that he will not exercise that option. You see how it works out. If the sum in my sovereign-case is half a sovereign, as you suppose, you will lose ten shillings on the first transaction, but you will win a sovereign on the second transaction by exercising an option to exchange twenty shillings for twenty shillings.”

‘Without taking the time to think, he accepted both bets. I then opened my sovereign-case and showed him that it contained two pounds. I gave them to him, and as by so doing I had won my bet he gave me one of them back again. Kindly observe that I had now solved the first part of Leonard’s problem. I had won an even bet of one pound the net result of which was that I had lost a pound. Having made myself the loser on the first transaction, I now had the option to exchange twice my loss against twice the sum that had been in the sovereign-case—that is, to exchange two pounds for four pounds. I had bet that the loser would not exercise this option. I lost the bet and exercised the option. Thus, I lost an even bet of one pound with the net result that I made one pound. This settles the second half of the problem. I await, sir, with confidence, your decision in my favour.’

Mr Matthews referred once more to the terms of the problem. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it seems to me that you have met all Leonard’s requirements. Very smart bit of work, in my opinion. You take the club cheque for one hundred and ten pounds, unless, of course, some claim to share it with you is substantiated. Is there any such claim?’

‘Naturally, there’s mine,’ said Pusely-Smythe, with his deceptive air of melancholy.

‘Yours? How did you do it?’

‘My learned friend has just been telling you. I was going away for a brief and well-earned holiday, and I had decided to give the competition a miss this time. As I was sitting in the club, studying a guide-book, in came Quillian looking like a thimble-rigger who has just set up his little plush-covered table. He offered me his first bet. I put it aside. He offered the second, and he says I didn’t take time to think. Thought with me does not take the prolonged period of gestation that it does in the case of the nobler animals, such as K.C.’s. I thought two thoughts. The first was that Quillian was out after this competition. The second was that when two men gamble together what one wins the other loses and vice versa. That was enough. I took him. He won the first bet but lost a pound by it. It follows that I lost the first bet but won a pound by it. Similarly, when he lost the bet but won a pound I won the bet and lost a pound. It’s all very simple and elementary. I hope he’s going to make a victim of me again soon. This time without any effort on my part he has shoved fifty-five pounds at me. I’ve only had to take it. And I don’t care whether it was benevolence or mental short-sightedness—I’m going to thank him just the same.’

‘The claim’s allowed, of course,’ said the chairman. ‘The thing that makes me mad is that I didn’t see it myself until you pointed it out. It’s obvious. It simply shrieks at you. My mind must be going.’

‘The menu that you devised for our dinner to-night, sir,’ said Pusely-Smythe, ‘was sufficient proof of the contrary. Those that study the recondite must sometimes find the obvious out of their focus.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Matthews. ‘I’ll learn the last sentence by heart—it’ll make a ripping excuse next time I do a dam’ silly thing.’

Cheques were drawn for Quillian and Pusely-Smythe, and the chairman then opened the envelope containing the problem that Leonard had set for the following month. It was entitled ‘The Handkerchief Problem,’ and on the face of it scarcely supported the theory that the ingenious Leonard was a Great Moral Teacher. The Hon. James Feldane was reminded that it would be his duty to preside on the next occasion and to adjudicate on this problem, which was as follows: ‘It is required to steal as many handkerchiefs as possible from a member or members of the Problem Club. Violence may not be used and thefts detected in the act will not score. Restitution will be made of the stolen handkerchiefs within twenty-four hours of the adjudication, but felonious intent is to be presumed in every case.’

‘Rotten luck,’ said Feldane, to his friend, Hesseltine. ‘I should have enjoyed working on this problem. It appeals to my natural instincts. I should probably have won it, and in that case might have given one or two of them something on account. And so this has to be the occasion when I’m shut out of the competition and have to act as chairman.’

‘Yes,’ said Hesseltine. ‘Nobody’s so sure of himself as the non-starter.’

No. V.

The Handkerchief Problem

At the forty-seventh meeting of the Problem Club, the chair was taken by the youngest member, the Hon. James Feldane. That weary young gentleman having provided himself with a double portion of green Chartreuse, for the purpose, as he said, of supporting the dignity of the position, opened his adjudication a little informally.

‘Let’s get started,’ he said. ‘The first job is to read out the particular teaser with which the wily Leonard has been worrying you poor old things during the past month. Here goes.’

The terms of the Handkerchief Problem were then read out. They were as follows: ‘It is required to steal as many handkerchiefs as possible from a member or members of the Problem Club. Violence may not be used and thefts detected in the act will not score. Restitution will be made of the stolen handkerchiefs within twenty-four hours of the adjudication, but felonious intent is to be presumed in every case.’

‘I wish I could have been a competitor this time,’ the chairman continued, ‘instead of being stuck up here to give the momentous decision. I should have had some sport, and handkerchief-sneaking falls nicely within my line of intellect; I might have scooped the prize. But as I’m debarred from scoring off you, I’ve taken jolly good care that none of you should score off me. For the past month every handkerchief I’ve used has been attached to the interior of the pocket by a steel chain and swivel, and those not in use have been locked away in a safe. My valet thinks I’ve gone off my head, of course, but then he’d have been bound to have thought that sooner or later, anyhow. The great point is that not one of you low pickpockets has been able to get a handkerchief out of me. We’ll now pursue the inquiry. Hesseltine, are you guilty or not guilty?’

‘Guilty, m’lord,’ said young Hesseltine cheerfully. ‘I may not be winner, but I think it would be safe to back me for a place. I struck early. At our last meeting, as soon as this problem was announced, I slipped stealthily and unobserved from the room. I had rightly concluded that there would be no attendant in the cloak-room at that hour. If there had been I should have sent him away to get me a box of matches. From the overcoats of members I secured a nice little haul of nine handkerchiefs. One of them, a silk bandanna, the property of Major Byles, was big enough for two, and ought to count as two.’

‘Might count two on a division, as they say at the elections,’ said the chairman. ‘But in the undivided state it counts one. Anything further to say?’

‘That was my only _coup_. The only thing to add is that one of the nine belonged to a gentleman who did not start keeping them in the safe quite soon enough.’

‘All right,’ said Jimmy. ‘Speaking entirely _sotto voce_ and _ex officio_, I’ll be even with you for that one of these days. Meanwhile, Mr Matthews, it will be your painful duty as secretary to give that thief a score of nine.’

The chairman then called upon Mr Quillian, K.C., whose story was connected with the story of Mr Pusely-Smythe. In both cases it was a story of failure. Both men had hit on precisely the same idea.

Quillian called on Pusely-Smythe at a time when he knew he would be out, but would be expected back shortly. He, as he anticipated, was recognised by the servant and asked if he would wait. During the period of waiting Quillian made a swift and silent excursion to Pusely-Smythe’s bedroom with a view to abstracting his available store of handkerchiefs. But the chairman was not the only member who had taken the precaution of keeping his handkerchiefs in an unlikely place. Not one solitary handkerchief could Quillian find. And while he was thus engaged Pusely-Smythe had been calling on Quillian with similar intentions, similar practice, and a similar result.

‘You’re both too clever to live,’ observed the chairman, ‘but you’ve cancelled one another for once. Mr Harding Pope, as a politician, you should be familiar with the paths of dishonesty. How did you get on?’

The Member of Parliament gave a somewhat sickly smile.

‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that I have not competed. I represent a Dissenting constituency, which is careful—almost to the point of being inquisitorial—as to my character and private life. Had I competed, it is easily possible that I might have been arrested. I could have explained, but all explanations come too late. It would have done me great injury. In the circumstances I have decided to resign my membership of this club, and my resignation will be in the chairman’s hands at the next meeting. I have enjoyed these meetings immensely, but I have been—and am likely to be—too often debarred from taking an active part in the competition as a member should. The delightful but unscrupulous Leonard asks too much of me. Should I ever find myself in a position of greater freedom and less responsibility, I shall certainly crave the honour of re-election.’

‘Sorry,’ said the chairman. ‘I’m sure we all are. But the rules of the club do require that members shall be workers and not merely onlookers. If ever the political cat jumps the other way, and you’re thrown out of Westminster into the cold, cold night, I make no doubt that at the first vacancy we shall welcome the lost sheep back to the nest. I will now call upon Major Byles.’

The Major lived in the country. There were unusually good golf links in the neighbourhood, and he was both a good player and a good host. He had used his opportunities as he explained.

‘I worked on a system. I waited till my man was absolutely wrapped up in the game, meanwhile locating his handkerchief carefully. Then, at the moment when he was following the ball with the eye, I put in some swift finger-work. It was not always successful. The Doctor, for instance, bowled me out twice—he’s got eyes in the back of his head. But I got six handkerchiefs that way, and a seventh from a rain-coat that had been left in my hall. I’ve good reason to know that I’m not a winner, but it’s not bad—eh?’

‘A good sporting game,’ said the chairman. ‘These thefts from the person ought really to count more than easy overcoat-shots. They want more dexterity. The others only require brain-work. Still, I have to administer the law as Leonard lays it down. So far Hesseltine wins.’

‘But he won’t win,’ said the Major mysteriously. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve got good reason to know it.’ And he proceeded to compound for himself a due measure of whisky and seltzer-water.

Dr Alden, who was next called upon, could claim a score of only two. But so far as it went, it was brilliant and audacious work. One of the handkerchiefs had been taken from Sir Charles Bunford and one from Mr Matthews, and in both cases the theft had been committed in Piccadilly in broad daylight and under the eyes of the police.

‘It’s clear where your real talent lies,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re wasted in Harley Street. However, time’s getting on, and a few bad men would like a rubber of bridge before we part. Will any member who claims to have beaten Hesseltine’s score kindly hold up a hand?’

The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe and Mr Wildersley, A.R.A., both held up hands.

‘What?’ said the chairman. ‘Our padre in the sneak-thief business? Has he no respect for his cloth? Leonard has a lot to answer for. However, we will hear you, Mr Cunliffe.’

‘Leonard,’ said that broad-minded cleric in his sonorous voice, ‘has once more revealed himself as a great moralist. He has shown us that the thief, a bad man, must none the less have good qualities, and has taught us to differentiate the good from the bad. The spirit of adventure, the clever planning, the manual dexterity displayed by the thief, are all worthy of praise. It is solely to his felonious intentions that we should take exception. Leonard has expressly provided that for the purposes of this competition the felonious intentions are to be purely imaginary; they are to be supposed. Consequently, I could approach the problem with a clear conscience. And I admit that in compiling a score of fourteen my cloth has been of assistance. Suspicion does not attach readily to a man in clerical attire.

‘To proceed to my story, one Saturday, early in the month, I had been down to play golf with our friend, the Major. (By the way, you’ll send me back my handkerchief, Major. Already in the post? Thanks.) On leaving his house I noticed at the back entrance a laundry van, in charge of a sleepy-looking rustic. The name and address of the laundry were proclaimed on the van in large letters. My knowledge of the country showed me that in approaching the Major’s house that van would pass an inn called the Royal George, at a distance of two miles from the house, and a turning to the railway-station at a distance of one mile. That made everything easy. On the following Saturday I was on that road three miles from the house. My boots were dusty and I looked as tired as I could. I waited till the van came along, hailed it, and asked the driver to give me a lift as far as the station turning. He was not averse to making an extra shilling, and I climbed up. For the first mile I was talking to the man and making friends with him. When we reached The Royal George I suggested that a pint at my expense would not come amiss to him, and that I would look after the horse while he was inside. He was good enough to say that I was a parson after his own heart, and handed me the reins. The horse did not need any looking after; it was not that kind of horse. In the interior of the van I explored a laundry basket, and annexed fourteen of the Major’s handkerchiefs. (I have left them in the cloak-room for you, Major.) When the driver came out I was holding the reins and looking pensive. I stepped off at the station turning. What is your decision, Mr Chairman?’

‘Brainy piece of work, and a fair score of fourteen. My idea was that nobody would get beyond fifteen. Did you beat that, Wildersley?’

That large but child-like artist smiled. ‘I claim a score of one hundred and forty-four.’

‘Gee-whizz! I didn’t know there were so many handkerchiefs in the world. Which members did you get them from?’

‘I got the whole lot from you, in spite of the steel chain and the locked safe.’

‘But I’ve not got as many. It’s an impossibility. However, let’s have the yarn.’

‘You’ll find it’s all right, Mr Chairman. You young men are so careless that you don’t know what you’ve got. Some time ago I had to execute a Deed of Gift—making over a rotten-cotton picture of mine to a provincial gallery. Up to that time I didn’t know the difference between a Deed of Gift and a hole in a wall, but you learn things as you go on living. When this problem was set, I saw that by a Deed of Gift and a small investment I could do myself good. My first step was to buy twelve dozen handkerchiefs—top quality and deucedly expensive. I had a monogram of the chairman’s initials excellently designed by myself and embroidered by the shop on all those handkerchiefs. This having been done, I collected my parcel of lingerie and went off to my solicitor, who is of the old-established, eighteen-carat type. I told him what I wanted, and the shock nearly killed him. When he got better I explained that it was a joke, but that it was essential in order to get the laugh that the Deed of Gift making over the handkerchiefs should be all correct, water-tight, and copper-bottomed. He does not understand jokes and will believe anything about them. So he engineered me a lovely Deed. I then addressed the parcel to the Hon. James Feldane, and went off with it in a taxi to Jimmy’s place. I deposited the parcel, with the address downwards, on a chair in the hall, and put my overcoat and hat on the top of it. I then went in and had a few words with Jimmy about a bridge-problem. I had now made the handkerchiefs Jimmy’s property by Deed of Gift. I had delivered them at his residence. It only remained to steal them, and that was easy. It’s always easier to steal a thing if the owner doesn’t know he’s got it. Besides, as it was half-past eleven in the morning, Jimmy’s costume consisted of a bath-gown, a Turkish cigarette, and a bad headache, which excused him from coming out into the hall with me when I left. I picked up my hat and coat, and a parcel containing one hundred and forty-four handkerchiefs, the property of the chairman, and went off. He will find the parcel returned to him when he gets home to-night. And I should like his decision.’

‘Much obliged to you, Wildersley. It’s ironical that I can make a bit, as long as I’m not competing. All the same, the decision must be held up a moment. The fact that you’ve provided me with more handkerchiefs than I shall ever use this side of the silent tomb might influence my judicial mind. I must have a second opinion—counsel’s. Will Mr Quillian kindly give us his views on this claim.’

‘I don’t usually give opinions in this off-hand way,’ said Mr Quillian, ‘but on this occasion I have really no doubt. The Deed, sir, was duly executed, so we are informed. The goods in question were bona-fide intended to become your property, and have in fact become so. They were delivered at your residence. In the absence of felonious intent I should say that they had not been stolen, but the terms of the problem state that felonious intent is to be presumed. Your ignorance of the whole transaction does not seem to me to affect it. In your place, sir, I should have no hesitation in finding the claim good—and I only wish I had thought of the idea myself—I ought to have done.’

‘Thank you, Mr Quillian. Then I decide that Wildersley is the winner. Mr Matthews, will you please draw the usual cheque to Mr Wildersley’s order?’

This having been done, and the chairman for the next meeting appointed, Jimmy opened the sealed envelope containing the problem that Leonard, the astute head-waiter, had set for the ensuing month.

Jimmy read it to himself first. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a new line of country. This is somewhat of a sensation. It’s called the Identity Problem, and runs as follows: “It is required to discover the identity of Leonard. The use of professional detectives, and any communication with Leonard himself on the subject of this problem, are forbidden.”’

‘I always knew,’ said Hesseltine, with conviction, ‘that chap was no ordinary head-waiter.’

And it appeared that several other members, who also had forgotten to mention it before, had always been of the same opinion.

No. VI.

The Identity Problem

The Rev. Septimus Cunliffe took the chair at the forty-eighth meeting of the Problem Club. The problem which Leonard, the astute head-waiter, had set the members to solve during the preceding month was simply the discovery of his own identity; and competitors were debarred from communicating with Leonard himself or from employing detectives in its solution.

Mr Cunliffe, with a pardonable enjoyment of his own excellent elocution, read out the terms of the problem in tones that almost made it a drama. And the few introductory remarks that usually fell from the chairman became in his case almost an address. True, the occasion furnished him with some excuse.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘with this meeting the Problem Club brings to a close the fourth year of its existence. The idea of the club, as I dare say most of you are aware, originated in the imaginative brain of Lord Herngill, and of the original members there are still three left us—Sir Charles Bunford, Major Byles, and Mr Matthews. The eccentric nobleman who was our founder did not himself long remain a member. Broken in health and, as I understand, suffering from private disappointments, he relinquished his clubs and retired altogether from society. He spent the remainder of his days on his Yorkshire estate, shut out from the world and even denying himself the companionship of old friends. It was only a few months ago that his death was announced in the newspapers. A somewhat gloomy subject, gentlemen, but it seemed to me fitting that on this occasion we should recall with gratitude the name of our founder.

‘Now for the first two years of the club’s existence the monthly problem was always provided by the member whose duty it would be to adjudicate on it. But during the second year it was found that this did not work well. Some of the members had not sufficient readiness of invention. Others did not show sufficient discretion. Our minutes of that period show some problems, I grieve to say, that can only be described as scandalous. Under these circumstances a member, Mr Barstairs, since dead, was deputed to find for us some able and trustworthy person who, for a small honorarium, would act as our setter of problems. At the next meeting he announced that he had selected Leonard, who had then just become head-waiter here.

‘The selection of a head-waiter for the purpose seemed to some of us—certainly to myself—fantastic, more especially as Barstairs offered no explanation at all. But, we must admit, fantasy plays some part in the spirit of the club, and no formal objection was raised. Time has shown that Barstairs had reason in his fantasy. Leonard has given us every satisfaction. Whoever he may be, I think that we are agreed on one point—that he possesses qualities unusual in a head-waiter.

‘In fact, gentlemen, the news that I am about to give you will, I am sure, be received with regret. I have a letter from Leonard in which he tells me that after eleven to-night he will cease to be in the service of the hotel, and will no longer be available as our problem-setter. He offers, if it would be any convenience to us, to name a successor whose ability and discretion he can guarantee absolutely. I may add that it is a very properly-expressed and respectful letter.

‘The appointment of a successor may, I think, be considered later. Let us now proceed to the adjudication of the current competition. I confess that if I personally had to find out who Leonard is, I should not, under the conditions imposed, know how to begin. However, I have great confidence in the ingenuity of the ten members before me—there would have been eleven but for Harding Pope’s resignation.’

The chairman’s confidence was misplaced. Every member had made an attempt to solve the problem, but every one had failed. Several of them had hit on the expedient of following Leonard when he left the hotel. The Hon. James Feldane, for example, had hit on it, and recounted his failure.

‘I lay up in a taxi a few yards from the door of this place, where I could get a good view. Presently out came Leonard, and I might very easily have missed him, for I was expecting him to bob up from the basement, and he came out of the main entrance. He was well turned out, and looked rather less like a head-waiter than I do myself. He called up a taxi and got in. Off he went, and off I went after him, my driver having been instructed. We drove, as near as I can guess, for about umpty-ump hours. I know I began to wonder if my cigarettes would last out the trip. Then my cab slowed down to a crawl, and I looked cautiously from the window. Leonard’s cab had stopped in front of a mouldy-looking place with big gilt letters on it. He overpaid his cabman—I heard the words, “Thank you,” distinctly—ran up the steps, rang a bell, and entered. I got out.

‘“Cabby,” I said, “where are we? Is this the hereafter?”

‘“No, sir,” he said. “Looks like it, but it’s really Brixton.”

‘The big gilt letters informed me that Leonard had entered the Beaulieu Temperance Hotel. I pushed the push, and the door was half opened to me by an Italian waiter with the darkest eyes and hands I ever saw. I could catch a glimpse of a small hall furnished with a good deal of dust and a stand for hats and coats. I spotted Leonard’s excellent hat and overcoat thereon. The waiter looked at me suspiciously. I got right on to the point at once.

‘“I want,” I said, “the name and address of the gentleman who came in here just now, and I’ll pay a sovereign for it.”

‘He seemed to understand the argument. In a minute he was back with the name and address and the information that the gentleman was stopping there for only one night. He got his sovereign. The name he gave was Leonard, and the address was the address of this hotel. I may have been more annoyed in the course of my life, but I doubt it. So I made the weary journey back again, had a light supper of one whisky and soda, and went to bed.’

Mr Matthews had followed Leonard on foot to the Ritz. Mr Quillian had tracked him to a desperate hostelry in the far north of London. Major Byles had pursued him to an hotel in Wimbledon. They ascertained that he spent a night at each one of these three places, but they added nothing else to their knowledge of him.

Sir Charles Bunford had been no more successful, but he had a curious story to tell. He had met Leonard by chance in St James’s Street one night at half-past eleven. There was nothing in Leonard’s dress or bearing that suggested anything less than complete independence. Sir Charles felt certain that he himself had not been recognised, turned, and followed him.

‘He led me,’ Sir Charles recounted, ‘up through the squares to Oxford Street, where he turned west. Just then there came shuffling along in the gutter towards us a street-vendor with a tray of little toys slung from his shoulders. He gave me the impression of an old man. Leonard and he both stopped. I also stopped, making a pretence of lighting a cigarette. They were both in the full light of a street lamp, and I had a close view of them. Leonard picked up from the tray a little monkey of blue plush mounted on a pin. Deliberately and without a smile he stuck the monkey in the gutter-merchant’s battered bowler. Then he took out his notecase, produced a fiver, and spread it on the tray, and walked on. During this curious incident neither of the men spoke. As you may imagine, I tackled the street-vendor at once.

‘“You’re in luck,” I said. “Did you know that customer?”

‘He folded his fiver and slipped it into an inner pocket. He looked at me shrewdly, and I noticed that his eyes were young. His voice when he spoke was quite young. And it was the voice of an educated man too.

‘“Which of us,” he said, “can say that he knows the other—or even that he knows himself?”

‘“Come,” I said. “I think you can tell me what I want to know. And two fivers are better than one.”

‘“That is so—to some people at some times—but not to Mr William Bunting, the editor of _The Pig-Keepers’ Friend_, at this time. I will wish you good-night, Sir Charles.”

‘And he walked off briskly without a trace of the old slouch. How he knew my name I can’t tell you, for certainly Leonard, even if he knew I was following, never said a word to him. The man left me staggered. I rushed off again after Leonard, but I had lost him. That is all I have to tell, and I have given you the facts accurately as they happened. I was both sane and sober at the time—but if you doubt that, upon my word I can’t be surprised.’

The failure was general. Dr Alden had interviewed the proprietor of the hotel, who was most courteous, but, in the doctor’s opinion, lied in his profession of ignorance. Mr Pusely-Smythe got hold of one of the other waiters who appeared perfectly willing to betray anybody on the most moderate terms, but, unfortunately, had no information to impart.

‘Well,’ said the chairman, ‘I must decide that the problem has not been solved. The prize for it not being awarded, the prize for the next competition is doubled. We have now to obtain the solution of the problem from the wily Leonard himself, and at the same time he is required to show us that the problem was possible of solution by us. It is now twenty to eleven and presumably Leonard leaves this hotel at eleven; so we have not much time to spare. If you, Mr Quillian, will unlock the doors and ring the bell, I will tell the waiter that we should be glad to see Leonard for a few minutes.’

But it was Leonard himself who answered the bell. He was a tall young man of good figure. He had not the stereotyped version of good looks, but his face was pleasing and full of humour and intelligence. He carried himself well. His dress was unsuited to the occasion, for he wore a well-cut lounge-suit of dark-blue cloth, and his brown, laced boots suggested a product of Bond Street intended for use in the country. There was no trace of a waiter about him. His manner was easy, confident without being assuming, and marked just by that touch of restraint that a man might show on first introduction to a number of his equals.

‘Well, Leonard,’ said the chairman, ‘we were on the point of sending for you. Your problem has beaten us. Can you show us how we might have solved it, and provide us with the solution?’

‘Certainly,’ said Leonard. ‘I’d rather expected that I should be wanted.’

‘Good. Now sit down, won’t you? We’re all quite informal here.’

‘Thanks,’ said Leonard. It seemed to be tacitly and generally accepted that he had become a guest of the club. Dr Alden proffered his cigar-case; Jimmy brought him a whisky-and-soda.

‘I think I ought to begin,’ said Leonard, ‘by apologising to you for having given you all such a lot of trouble—more especially as it was quite intentional on my part.’

‘Part of the game,’ said Major Byles. ‘That’s all right. No apologies needed.’

‘Thanks very much. At any rate I can apologise for these clothes. The fact is that I’m going North by the midnight train from Euston, and so I changed. And now let me show one or two ways in which the problem could have been solved. Some of you followed me when I took a taxi to an outlying hotel, and subsequently made applications at the hotel. If, instead of doing this, you had hailed the taxi that I had just left, you would in each case have found inside it an addressed envelope giving you the information you required. When Mr Feldane went for that very long drive to Brixton, I intentionally left my hat and coat in the hall of the alleged hotel for a few minutes. He examined the waiter; if he had examined the inside of my hat he would have found a certain clue. Sir Charles very nearly caught me. That night I left the hotel much earlier than usual, and had satisfied myself that nobody was waiting for me outside. I was on my way to a house in Audley Street where I was not known as the head-waiter at this hotel, and my identity would probably have been discovered; and it was necessary I should go to that house. At the top of St James’s Street I found that Sir Charles was after me. But I had taken a precaution. A friend of mine was stationed in Oxford Street, masquerading as a vender of penny plush monkeys; I found him and we went through a little eccentric pantomime together that had been prearranged. As had been expected, Sir Charles stopped to make inquiries from him. And while that was happening I made my escape.’

‘One moment,’ said Sir Charles. ‘How on earth did he know who I was? You never spoke to him?’

‘No, I never spoke. And he did not know who you were. He did not know that you were Sir Charles Bunford, and does not know it now. He knew that he could address you as Sir Charles, and he knew that from the fact that I stuck the monkey in his hat. It was a prearranged code. If Major Byles had been following me, I should have stuck the monkey in my friend’s right sleeve. He would then have addressed him as Major, though he would not have known his name. If Mr Wildersley had been after me, the monkey would have gone into the left sleeve; my friend would have known by that sign that he was an artist, but would have known no more than that. Similarly, in other cases, he would always have appeared to have known, but would not have known really.’

‘Leonard,’ said the chairman, ‘in my opinion you have shown both skill and discretion, and a good sporting spirit besides. I decide that your problem was fair. And now will you solve it for us?’

‘Very good. I must give you some abbreviated family history. My grandfather had two sons, both of whom disappointed him, though in different ways. My uncle was a man of extreme avarice; my father, the younger of the two, was a gambler. Both my parents died before I was five years old, and I—the only child—passed into the charge of my grandfather.

‘My grandfather placed me with the family of an intimate friend of his, who was also the senior partner in the firm of solicitors who acted for him, a Mr Barstairs. Barstairs had married a Frenchwoman. French was the language generally spoken in their house, and most of my early years were spent abroad. I went through a public-school and Cambridge without any particular disgrace or distinction. So far, my grandfather had kept me well supplied with money; in fact, at Cambridge I had not spent my allowance. But I had never seen my grandfather. I wrote to him four times a year, and his replies were always witty and entertaining. I took everything for granted in the way that boys do.

‘On my twenty-first birthday I had a letter from my grandfather to the effect that as an experiment he wished me to make my own living in any way I liked for a period of some years. When that period was over, or sooner if he died before then, I was to be no longer under that necessity. Mr Barstairs, who had not been consulted, was indignant about that letter, but I did not resent it myself.

‘What assets had I to offer an employer? My classical degree would have entitled me to teach in a school—a truly awful profession to my mind. I spoke two Continental languages well and a third passably. I had an unusual knowledge of wines and cuisine for a man of my age. (Mr Matthews will remember that Barstairs was an epicure.) I had seen a good deal of hotel life at home and abroad. I took counsel with Mr Hance, the proprietor of this hotel, who was known to me. After some training at an hotel in Paris I became the night head-waiter here, using my first name, Leonard, as my surname. My grandfather and Mr Barstairs alone were taken into my secret. It is to the latter that I owe the pleasure of having served a club of which I should be proud one day to become a member, if that were possible. I saw life from a novel and interesting angle. I had my mornings free for poetry, to which I am devoted. I was quite satisfied.

‘There is little more to add. In the year that I came here my uncle died unmarried. Three months ago my grandfather also died, and I——’

‘Pardon me,’ said Sir Charles, ‘but I have been watching your face carefully, and I think I see a family likeness or the trace of one. All that you have said would confirm it. I think you are the grandson of the founder of this club, and in that case you are the sixth Baron Herngill.’