Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

Up ahead, beyond where the path diverged, Gruber was sitting on a rustic bench, putting the finishing touches on cleaning his dueling pistol. Rising to go down to the nearby creek to wash the gun oil from his hands, he saw Ganelon and gave a polite bow. The detective bowed back before taking the upward path.

But the focused mind which came to Ganelon walking familiar streets eluded him in the country. Every step was a pleasant distraction. It would please the Nawab to know that wildflowers could hold him where the jeweler’s window could not. He thought of the Doctrine of Signatures, which taught that plants of medicinal value bore a mark specifying their curative powers. He thought of Baron Justin trying to deduce character from bumps on the skull.

Reaching the summit, he stood beneath a blasted oak to admire the view. Beyond the Porpentine’s curl he could make out a gray suggestion of the roofs of San Sebastiano, then the definite blue of the sea. Somewhere beyond lay the coast of Africa.

At the time of the Dresden bomb attempt on the Nawab, Ganelon had been serving in the Tripolitanian wars. One night, wrapped in his cape and staring into the campfire at the Sidi oasis, he wondered if the bomb thrower could have been Ludwig Fong. Killing doers of good deeds and thinkers of good thoughts was Fong’s recreation, after all. Hadn’t he himself set the fire that destroyed the convent where the blessed mystic, Mother Inez, communed with God? Hadn’t he brewed the ink whose fumes killed the peacemakers about to sign the pact ending the Turco-Balkan War? And how many medical missionaries hurrying on some errand of mercy had taken a turning in the jungle trail and met a smiling Fong in the act of stripping off his goat-skin gloves?

But all that was idle speculation now. Fong was done killing with his own hands. During a recent medical missionary hunt he had contracted Zambezi, or Simpering Fever. Now even his felonious children fled his terrible doting smile. He shunned the light of day, living alone amid draped mirrors lest he stumble upon his smirk unawares. In an ironic intersection of crime and punishment his last victim, a world authority on Simpering Fever, had reportedly been on the verge of a cure.

The baron looked interested at luncheon when Ganelon mentioned his walk to the top of Mont St. Hugues. “That blasted oak was Grandfather Justin’s favorite thinking spot,” he said. “By then he’d turned to applied phrenology.”

“Changing character by changing the bumps on the head?”

“Quite so. He designed the Sandor Corrective Cap, an iron skullcap with adjustable screws to apply pressure where needed. He wore it himself for three years with nothing for his trouble but bad headaches. Then one night he was surprised by a violent thunderstorm atop Mont St. Hugues. As he stood hurling science’s cool defiance into the teeth of wild nature, a bolt of lightning struck. Instantly, Grandfather’s headache went away and he realized he must find a solvent to make bone malleable. Many thunderstorms later he hit on pickle brine. For hours he’d soak his head in brine, breathing through a straw, and then work at amending his character with a hefty rubber mallet. He was never successful. Perhaps he needed younger, more mutable bone.

“But by the time I came along he’d abandoned phrenology for pottery. I remember vividly his wild-eyed look when he talked of shaping base clay into splendid little receptacles.”

Unwittingly, Sandor had told Ganelon why they never spoke of the pickled boys at home. The Founder suspected Baron Justin was the real killer. So did the young baron’s father, who confined Baron Justin in the tower. And Gaston, given the choice of being the madman’s keeper for the rest of his life or spending it in a quiet Duranceville cell, confessed to the murders. Ganelon found some satisfaction that the Founder had botched a famous case. But it still left him chasing after a stolen cufflink.

Once again, the table talk was Vieux Gaspard’s Ointment. Barking his grim laugh, Gruber promised his shop owners would give the product prominent display or face him on the dueling piste. Hardacre, afraid his countrymen couldn’t work their tongues around Vieux Gaspard, proposed a name change for the American market. Oil of the Limberlost, perhaps. Or Calaveras Frog Oil. A hop in every drop.

During dessert the Nawab turned to Ganelon. “After all I said last night about jewels, I find, on reflection, there is one I sorely covet, the Ararat Red, the legendary ruby which illuminated Noah’s Ark during the forty dark days and nights of the Flood. It was stolen years ago from the Sultan of Turkey. I understand it may soon be on the market again.”