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Title: Arsène Lupin intervenes
Author: Maurice Leblanc
Release date: April 17, 2025 [eBook #75896]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Macaulay Company, 1929
Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES ***
ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES
BY
MAURICE LE BLANC
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I FOREWORD 9
II “DROPS THAT TRICKLE AWAY” 13
III THE ROYAL LOVE LETTER 38
IV A GAME OF BACCARAT 61
V THE MAN WITH THE GOLD TEETH 85
VI TWELVE LITTLE NIGGER BOYS 108
VII THE BRIDGE THAT BROKE 137
VIII THE FATAL MIRACLE 164
IX DOUBLE ENTRY 195
X ARRESTING ARSÈNE LUPIN 226
XI AFTERWORD 255
ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES
I
FOREWORD
Contrary, perhaps, to the opinion of the Bright Young People in our
midst, the World-before-the-War was not by any means barren of
adventure and excitement. Only, they did things differently then. There
was, in those days, a certain sparkling gaiety, a spontaneity, a chic
sadly lacking from the exploits of a younger generation. There was wit
as well as honor among thieves. Just as really good wine differs from
that modern depravity, the cocktail, so does the finished artistry of
Jim Barnett compare with the outrages of bobbed-hair bandits and
cat-burglars.
For Barnett had a brain and used it; a sense of humor, and rejoiced in
it. He was independent of revolvers and racing cars and hypodermic
syringes. He made a confidant of no man—or woman. He was an unassisted
conjurer, as it were, performing his little tricks always in the full
glare of the limelight, relying entirely on his own lightning skill to
vanish his watches and evolve his rabbits.
A curious, memorable figure, Jim Barnett. By profession, a private
detective, principal of the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde, with a
modest ground-floor office for his headquarters. Unlike others of his
trade, he worked entirely alone. He employed no spies, and saved
himself their possible treachery. He had no secretary for the simple
reason that he kept no records. His telephone rang infrequently, and
when it did he answered it himself.
In appearance, Barnett was something of a problem. He gave the
impression of a man who is wilfully badly dressed, intentionally
careless of his attire. His coat’s sole claim to respect was its
indubitable antiquity. His trousers—but we will spare possible
heartbreak to the tailors who read this description. He wore his
incongruous monocle like some exotic bloom—its startling aristocracy in
conjunction with the rest of his get-up was that of an orchid in an
onion patch.
What a contrast to his friend, Inspector Béchoux, that immaculate sprig
of the Paris Police Force. Béchoux was frankly a dandy, devoting all
his off-time to the adornment of his person. Yet he was no fool. Only,
his brain moved in the channels of detective routine, whereas Barnett’s
leaped nimbly from point to point of a mystery until it plucked out the
heart.
Be it said to Inspector Béchoux’s undying honor that he recognized
Barnett’s gifts quite openly. He even resorted to asking his help in
various problems, and it is the inner history of some of these that
this book now reveals for the first time to the world at large.
The peculiar feature of all the Béchoux-Barnett cases was always either
their apparent insolubility (e.g., the Disappearance of the Twelve
Little Nigger Boys) or the fact that they seemed solved at the outset
(as in the case of the Man with the Gold Teeth). And the finale of each
presented certain similar features—a dramatic and quite unexpected
eleventh-hour dénouement; a swift adjustment of account between the
innocent and guilty parties; and—a highly satisfactory windfall for
Barnett. Only, as Inspector Béchoux bitterly observed, it was always
the kind of windfall that meant shaking the tree. Barnett’s gifts would
have stripped an orchard....
What placed Inspector Béchoux in a serious dilemma was that in every
case Barnett’s position was unassailable from start to finish. His
victims were people who could not be brought to speak a word against
him. You could call it intimidation—blackmail—what you liked. Barnett
merely grinned and fed large checks to his banking account.
Large checks—and yet the slogan of the Barnett Agency was:—
“Information Free. No Fees of Any Kind.”
Which was paradoxically true. Barnett’s income was composed not of fees
but of levies. Sometimes he took toll of his clients, sometimes of
their enemies. A certain poetic justice characterized his depredations.
The poor and the innocent had nothing to fear from Jim Barnett.
And he was undeniably on the side of the law so far as results went.
Only, where it suited his purpose, he meted out his own idea of a
suitable punishment to criminals instead of turning them over to the
police.
Inspector Béchoux was probably Barnett’s only close friend. Yet all he
knew of him was gleaned from the hours they spent together when Barnett
intervened in one of his cases. He was quite ignorant of Barnett’s
private life—his antecedents—even his identity. For there was always
one mystery which remained unsolved. Who was the man who called himself
“Jim Barnett”?
There was something about his methods and his amusing buffoonery which
could not fail to recall the King of Crooks—the one man who persisted
in eluding and baffling the Paris police—the man Inspector Béchoux
would have given his life-savings to lay hands on—whom he sometimes, in
his inmost heart, half suspected to be masquerading as “Barnett,” and
then dismissed the suspicion as fantastic.
It is a long way back to pre-war Paris, and the clash of wits between
Barnett and Inspector Béchoux. In these days, when so much of
admiration and adulation is being misapplied, honor to whom honor is
due! The moment has come when we can openly state that the worthy
Inspector’s instinct was right, and the “interventions” of Jim Barnett
may safely be attributed to their perpetrator—Arsène Lupin!
II
“DROPS THAT TRICKLE AWAY....”
The courtyard bell, on the ground floor of the Baronne Assermann’s
imposing residence in the Faubourg St. Germain, rang loudly, and a
moment later the maid brought in an envelope.
“The gentleman says he has an appointment with madame for four
o’clock.”
Madame Assermann slit the envelope. Taking out a card, she held it
gingerly between her finger-tips, and read:
The Barnett Agency
Information Free
“Show the gentleman into my boudoir,” she drawled.
Valérie Assermann—the beautiful Valérie she had been called for some
thirty years—still retained a measure of good looks, although she was
now thick-set, past middle-age and elaborately made-up. Her haughty and
at times harsh expression had yet a certain candor which was not
without charm.
As the wife of Assermann, the banker, she took pride in her vast house
with its luxurious appointments, in her large circle of acquaintances
and in all the pomp and circumstance of her social position. Behind her
back society gossips whispered that Valérie had been guilty of various
rather more than trifling indiscretions. Even hardened Parisian
scandalmongers professed themselves shocked at her behavior. There were
those who suggested that the baron, an ailing old man, had contemplated
getting a divorce.
Baron Assermann had been confined to his bed for several weeks with
heart trouble, and Valérie rearranged the pillows under his thin
shoulders and asked him, rather absent-mindedly, how he was feeling,
before proceeding to her boudoir.
Awaiting her there she found a curious person—a sturdily built,
square-shouldered man, well set up, but shockingly dressed in a
funereal frock-coat, moth-eaten and shiny, which hung in depressed
creases over worn, baggy trousers. His face was young, but the rugged
energy of his features was spoiled by a coarse, blotchy skin, almost
brick-red in tone. Behind the monocle, which he used for either eye
indifferently, his cold and rather mocking glance sparkled with a
boyish gaiety.
“Mr. Barrett?” Valérie asked, on a rising inflection, making no effort
to keep the scorn out of her voice.
He bowed, and, before she could withdraw it, he had kissed her hand
with a flourish, following this gallantry by a not quite inaudible
click of the tongue—suggesting his appreciation of the perfumed flavor.
“Jim Barnett—at your service, madame la baronne. When I got your letter
I stopped just long enough to give my coat a brush ... that was
all....”
The baronne wondered for a moment whether she should show her visitor
the door, but he faced her with all the composure of a man of rank,
and, a little taken aback, she merely said:
“I’ve been told that you are quite clever at disentangling rather
delicate and complicated matters....”
He gave a self-satisfied smirk.
“Yes—I’ve rather a gift for seeing clearly; seeing through and into
things—and people.”
While his voice was soft, his tone was masterful and his whole demeanor
conveyed a suggestion of veiled irony. He seemed so sure of himself and
his powers that it was impossible not to share his confidence, and
Valérie felt herself coming under the influence of this unknown common
detective, this head of a private inquiry bureau. Resenting the
feeling, she interrupted him:
“Perhaps we had better—er—discuss terms....”
“Quite unnecessary,” replied Barnett.
“But surely”—it was she who was smiling now—“you do not work merely for
glory?”
“The services of the Barnett Agency, madame la baronne, are entirely
free.”
She looked disappointed, and insisted: “I should prefer to arrange some
remuneration—your out-of-pocket expenses, at least.”
“A tip?” he sneered.
She flushed angrily. Her satin-shod foot tapped the carpet.
“I cannot possibly ...” she began.
“Be under an obligation to me? Don’t worry, madame la baronne, I shall
see to it that we end up quits for whatever slight service I may be
able to render you.”
Was there a note of menace in the suave voice?
Valérie shuddered a trifle uneasily. What was the meaning of this
obscure remark? How did this man propose to recoup himself? Really,
this Jim Barnett aroused in her almost the same sort of dread, the same
queer kind of nightmare emotion that one might feel if suddenly
confronted with a burglar! He might even be ... yes, he was quite
possibly some undesirable, unknown admirer. She wondered what she had
better do. Ring for her maid? But he had so far dominated her that,
regardless of the consequences, she found herself submitting passively
to his questioning as to what had caused her to apply to his agency.
Her account was brief, as Barnett seemed to be in a hurry, and she
spoke frankly and to the point.
“It all happened the Sunday before last,” she began. “After a game of
bridge with some friends, I went to bed rather early and fell asleep as
usual. About four o’clock—at ten minutes past, to be exact—a noise woke
me and then I heard a bang which sounded to me like a door closing. It
came from my boudoir—this room we are in, which communicates with my
bedroom and also with a corridor leading to the servants’ staircase.
I’m not nervous, so after a moment’s hesitation I got up, came in here
and turned on the light. The room was empty, but this small
show-case”—she indicated it—“had fallen down, and several of the curios
and statuettes in it were broken. I then went to my husband’s room and
found him reading in bed; he said he had heard nothing. He was very
much upset and rang for the butler, who immediately made a thorough
search of the house. In the morning we called in the police.”
“And the result?” asked Barnett.
“They could find no trace of the arrival or departure of any intruder.
How he entered and got away is a mystery. But under a footstool among
the débris of the curios some one found half a candle, and an awl set
in a very dirty wooden handle. Now on the previous afternoon a plumber
had been to repair the taps of the washbasin in my husband’s
dressing-room. The man’s employer, when questioned, identified the tool
and, moreover, the other half of the candle was found in his shop.”
“On that point, then,” interrupted Jim Barnett, “you have definite
evidence.”
“Yes, but against that is the indisputable and disconcerting fact that
the investigation also proved that the workman in question took the six
o’clock express to Brussels, arriving there at midnight—four hours
before the disturbance which awakened me.”
“Really? Has the man returned?”
“No. They lost track of him at Antwerp, where he was spending money
lavishly.”
“Is that all you can tell me?”
“Absolutely all.”
“Who’s been in charge of this investigation?”
“Inspector Béchoux.”
“What! The worthy Béchoux! He’s a very good friend of mine. We’ve often
worked together.”
“It was he who mentioned your Agency.”
“Yes, because he’d come up against a blank wall, I suppose.”
Barnett crossed to the window and leaning his head against the pane
thought hard for a few minutes, frowning ponderously and whistling
under his breath. Then he returned to Madame Assermann and continued:
“You and Béchoux, madame, conclude that this was an attempted burglary.
Am I right?”
“Yes. An unsuccessful attempt, since nothing has been taken.”
“That’s so. But all the same there must have been a definite motive
behind this attempt. What was it?”
Valérie hesitated. “I really don’t know,” she said after a moment. But
again her foot tapped restlessly.
The detective shrugged his shoulders; then, pointing to one of the
silk-draped panels which lined the boudoir above the wainscoting he
asked:
“What’s under that panel?”
“I beg your pardon,” she said in some bewilderment; “what do you mean?”
“I mean that the most superficial observation reveals the fact that the
edges of that silk oblong are slightly frayed, and here and there they
are separated from the woodwork by a slit: there is every reason to
suppose that a safe is concealed there.”
Valérie gave a start. How on earth could the man have guessed from such
imperceptible indications.... Then with a jerk she slid the panel open,
disclosing a small steel door. As she feverishly worked the three knobs
of the safe an unreasoning fear came over her. Impossible as the
hypothesis seemed, she wondered whether this queer stranger might
somehow have robbed her during the few minutes he had been left alone
in the room!
At length, taking a key from her pocket, she opened the safe, and gave
a sigh of relief. There it was—the only object the safe contained—a
magnificent pearl necklace. Seizing it quickly, she twined its triple
strands round her wrist.
Barnett laughed.
“Easier in your mind now, madame la baronne? Yes, it’s quite a pretty
piece of jewelry, and I can understand its having been stolen from
you.”
“But it’s not been stolen,” she protested. “Even if the thief was after
this, he failed to steal it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course. Here is the necklace in my hands. When anything’s stolen it
disappears. Well—here it is....”
“Here’s a necklace,” he corrected her quietly; “but are you sure that
it is your necklace and that it has any value?”
“What do you mean?” she asked in unconcealed annoyance. “Only a
fortnight ago my jeweller valued it at half a million francs.”
“A fortnight ago—that is to say, five days before that night.... And
now? Please remember I know nothing; I have not valued the necklace; it
is merely a supposition. But are you yourself entirely without
suspicion?”
Valérie stood quite still. What suspicion was he hinting at? In what
connection? A vague anxiety crept over her as his suggestion persisted.
As she weighed the mass of heaped-up pearls in her outstretched hand it
seemed to get lighter and lighter. As she looked she discovered
variations in coloring, unaccustomed reflections, a disturbing
unevenness, a changed graduation—each detail more disturbing than the
last, until in the back of her mind the terrible truth began to dawn,
distinct and threatening.
Jim Barnett gave vent to a short chuckle.
“Just so. You’re getting there, are you? On the right track at last—one
more mental effort and all is clear as day! It’s all quite logical.
Your enemy doesn’t just steal—he substitutes. Nothing disappears, and
except for the noise of the falling show-case everything would have
been carried out in perfect secrecy and have gone undiscovered. Until
some fresh development occurred, you would have been absolutely unaware
that the real necklace had vanished and that you were displaying on
your snowy shoulders a string of imitation pearls.”
Valérie was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she hardly noticed the
familiarity of the man’s words and manner.
Barnett leaned towards her.
“Well—that settles the first point. And now we know what he stole,
let’s look for the thief. That’s the procedure in all well-conducted
cases. And once we’ve found the thief we shan’t be far from recovering
the object of the theft.”
He gave Valérie’s hand a friendly pat of reassurance.
“Cheer up, madame. We’re on the right scent now. Let’s begin by a
little guesswork—it’s an excellent method. We’ll suppose that your
husband, in spite of his illness, had sufficient strength to drag
himself from his own room to this one, armed with the candle, and,
anyway, with the tool the plumber left behind; we’ll go on to suppose
that he opened the safe, clumsily overturned the show-case and then
fled in case you had heard the noise. Doesn’t that throw a little light
on it all? How naturally it accounts for the absence of any trace of
arrival or departure, and also for the safe being opened without being
forced, since Baron Assermann must many a time in all these years have
come in here with you in the evening, seen you work the lock, noted the
clicks and intervals and counted the number of notches displaced—and
so, gradually, have discovered the three letters of the cipher.”
This “little guesswork,” as Jim Barnett termed it, seemed to appall the
beautiful Valérie as he went on “supposing” step by step. It was as if
she saw it all happening before her eyes. At last she stammered out
distractedly:
“What you suggest is madness. You don’t suppose my husband.... If
someone came here that night, it couldn’t have been the baron. Don’t be
absurd!”
“Did you have a copy of your necklace?” he interjected.
She paused. When she spoke it was slowly, with forced calm.
“Yes ... my husband ordered one, for safety, when we bought it—four
years ago.”
“And where is the copy?”
“My husband kept it,” she replied, her voice a mere whisper.
“Well,” said Barnett cheerfully, “that’s the copy you’ve got in your
hands; he has substituted it for the real pearls which he has taken. As
for his motive—well, since his fortune places Baron Assermann above any
suspicion of theft, we must look for something more intimate ... more
subtle.... Revenge? A desire to torture—to injure—perhaps to punish?
What do you think yourself? After all, a young and pretty woman’s
rather reckless behavior may be very understandable, but her husband is
bound to judge it fairly severely.... Forgive me, madame. I have no
right to pry into the secrets of your private life. I am merely here to
locate, with your help, the present whereabouts of your necklace.”
“No,” cried Valérie, starting back. “No!”
Suddenly she felt she could no longer endure this ally who, in the
course of a brief, friendly, almost frivolous conversation, had
fathomed with diabolical ease all the secret circumstances of her life
by a method quite unlike the ordinary methods employed by the police.
And this man was now pointing out with an air of good-natured banter
the precipice to whose edge fate seemed to be forcing her.
The sound of his sarcastic voice became all at once intolerable. She
hated the mere thought of his searching for her necklace.
“No,” she repeatedly obstinately.
He bowed, insolently servile.
“As you wish, madame. I have not the slightest desire to seem
importunate. I am simply here to serve you in so far as you want my
help. Besides, as things are now, you can safely dispense with my aid,
since your husband is quite unfit to go out and will scarcely have been
so imprudent as to entrust the pearls to any one else. If you make a
careful search, you will probably discover them hidden somewhere in his
room. I need say no more—except that if you should need me, telephone
me at my office between nine and ten any night. And now I respectfully
withdraw, madame la baronne.”
Again he kissed her hand and she dared not resist him. Then he took his
leave jauntily, swinging along with an irritating air of utter
complacency. The courtyard gate clanged behind him. To Valérie it
brought a curious premonition of doom—as if a prison gate had now
closed upon her.
That evening, Valérie summoned Inspector Béchoux, whose continued
attendance seemed only natural, and the search began.
Béchoux, a conscientious detective and a pupil of the famous Canimard,
adhered to the approved methods of his profession—and proceeded to
examine the baron’s bathroom and private study in sections. After all,
a necklace with three strands of pearls is too large an object for it
to remain hidden from an expert searcher for very long. Nevertheless,
after a week’s persistent search, including several night visits when,
owing to the baron’s habit of taking sleeping draughts, he was able to
examine even the bed and the bedclothes, Béchoux admitted himself
discouraged. The necklace could not possibly be in the house.
In spite of her instinctive aversion, Valérie was tempted to get in
touch once more with the impossible man at the Barnett Agency. Despite
the repugnance with which he inspired her, she felt positive he would
know how to perform the miracle of finding the necklace.
Then matters were brought to a head by a crisis which came suddenly,
though not unexpectedly. One evening the servants summoned their
mistress hastily—the baron lay choking and prostrate on a divan near
the bathroom door. His distorted features and the anguish in his eyes
were indicative of the most acute suffering.
Almost paralyzed with fright, Valérie was about to telephone for the
doctor, but the baron stammered out the words, “Too late ... it’s ...
too ... late....”
Then, trying to rise, he gasped out: “A drink ...” and would have
staggered to the washstand.
Quickly Valérie thrust him back on to the divan.
“There’s water here in the carafe,” she urged.
“No.... I want it ... from the tap....” He fell back, exhausted.
She turned on the tap quickly, fetched a glass and filled it, but when
she took it to him, he would not drink.
There was a long silence except for the sound of the water running in
the basin. The dying man’s face became drawn and sunken. He motioned to
his wife and she leaned forward—but, doubtless to prevent the servants
hearing, he repeated the word “closer,” and again “closer.”
Valérie hesitated, as though afraid of what he might want to say, but
his imperious glance cowed her and she knelt down with her ear almost
touching his lips. Then he whispered, incoherently, and she could
scarcely so much as guess what the words meant.
“The pearls ... the necklace ... you shall know before I’m gone ... you
never loved me ... you married me ... for ... my money....”
She began to protest indignantly at his making such a cruel accusation
at this solemn moment, but he seized her wrist and repeated in a kind
of confused delirium: “... for my money, and your conduct has proved
it. You have never been a good wife to me—that’s why I wanted to punish
you—why I’m punishing you now—it’s an exquisite joy—the only pleasure
possible to me—and I can die happily now because the pearls are
vanishing away.... Can’t you hear them, falling, dropping away into the
swirling water. Ah, Valérie, my wife ... what a punishment! ... the
drops that trickle away!...”
His strength failed him again, and the servants lifted him onto his
bed. The doctor came very soon after, and two elderly spinster cousins
who had been summoned settled themselves in the room and refused to
budge. The final paroxysm was prolonged and painful. At dawn Baron
Assermann died, without uttering another word.
At the formal request of the cousins, a seal was placed on every drawer
and cupboard in the room. Then the long death vigil began....
Two days later, after the funeral, the dead man’s lawyer called and
asked to speak to Valérie in private. He looked grave and troubled and
said at once:
“Madame, I have a most painful duty to perform, and I prefer to get it
over as quickly as possible, while assuring you beforehand that the
injustice done to you was subject to my profound disapproval and
contrary to my advice and entreaty. But it was useless to oppose an
unshakable determination....”
“I beg you, monsieur,” stammered Valérie, “to make your meaning clear.”
“I am coming to it, madame la baronne—it is this. I hold a will drawn
up by Baron Assermann twenty years ago, appointing you his sole heiress
and residuary legatee. But I have to tell you that last month the baron
confided to me that he had made a fresh will ... by which he left his
entire fortune to his two cousins....”
“He made a new will?” cried Valérie.
“Yes.”
“And you have it?”
“After reading it to me he locked it in that desk. He did not wish it
to be read until a week after his death. It may not be unsealed before
that date.”
Now Valérie realized why, a few years before, after a series of violent
quarrels, her husband had advised her to sell all her own jewelry and
purchase a pearl necklace with the money. Disinherited, with no fortune
of her own, and with an imitation pearl necklace in place of the real
one, she was left penniless.
The day before the seals were to be broken, a car drew up in the rue
Laborde in front of rather dingy premises bearing the sign:
The Barnett Agency
OPEN FROM TWO TO THREE
Information Free
A veiled woman in deep mourning got out of the car and knocked on the
glass panel of the inner door.
“Come in,” called a voice from within.
She entered.
“Who’s that,” went on the voice in the back room, which was separated
from the office by a curtain. She recognized the tones.
“Baronne Assermann,” she replied.
“Excuse me, madame. Please take a seat. I won’t keep you a moment.”
While she waited, Valérie looked round the office. It was comparatively
empty; the furniture consisted of a table and two old armchairs. The
walls were quite bare and the place was innocent of files or papers. A
telephone was the only indication of activity. An ash-tray, however,
held the stubs of several expensive cigarettes, and a subtle fragrance
hung in the air.
The curtain swung back and Jim Barnett appeared suddenly, alert and
smiling. He wore the same shabby frock-coat, the same impossible,
made-up tie, the same monocle at the end of a black ribbon.
He seized and kissed his visitor’s gloved hand.
“How do you do, madame. This is indeed a pleasure. But what’s the
matter? I see you are in mourning—nothing serious, I hope—oh, but how
absent-minded I am—of course—Baron Assermann, was it not? So sad! A
charming man, and such a devoted husband. I should so much have liked
to meet him. Well, well. Let’s see—how did matters stand?”
As he spoke, he took from his pocket a slender note-book which he
fingered pensively.
“Baronne Assermann—here we are—I remember. Imitation pearls—husband the
thief—pretty woman.... A very pretty woman.... She is to telephone
me.... Well, dear lady,” he concluded, with increasing familiarity, “I
am still awaiting that telephone call.”
Once more, Valérie felt disconcerted by this man. Without wishing to
pretend overwhelming sorrow at the death of her husband, she yet felt
sad, and mingled with her sadness was a haunting dread of future
poverty. She had had a bad time during the last days—and her wan face
showed the ravages of terror and futile remorse resulting from her
nightmare visions of ruin and distress.... And here was this
impertinent upstart detective, not seeming to grasp the position at
all....
With great dignity she recounted all that had happened, and although
she avoided idle recriminations, she repeated what her husband’s lawyer
had said.
“Ah, yes; quite so,” interposed the detective, smiling approval. “Good
... that all fits in admirably. It’s quite a pleasure to see how
logically this enthralling and well constructed drama is working itself
out.”
“A pleasure?” asked Valérie tonelessly.
“Certainly—a pleasure which my friend Inspector Béchoux must have
enjoyed—for I suppose he’s explained to you....”
“What?”
“What? Why, the key to the mystery, of course. Isn’t it priceless? Old
Béchoux must have rocked with mirth!”
Jim Barnett, at any rate, was laughing heartily.
“That washbasin trick now—there’s a novelty! It’s certainly farcical
rather than dramatic—but so adroitly worked in—of course I spotted the
dodge at once when you told me about the plumber, and saw the
connection between the repairing of the washbasin and the baron’s
little plans. That was the crux of the whole thing. When he planned the
substitution of the false necklace, your husband arranged a good
hiding-place for the real pearls; it was essential for his purpose.
Merely to deprive you of them and throw them or cause them to be thrown
into the Seine like worthless rubbish, would only have been half a
revenge. For it to be complete and on the grand scale he had to keep
them close at hand, hidden in a spot at once near and inaccessible. And
that’s what he did.”
Jim Barnett was thoroughly enjoying himself and went on jocularly:
“Can’t you imagine your husband explaining it all to the plumber? ‘See
here, my man, just examine that waste-pipe under my washbasin. It goes
down to the wainscoting and leaves the bathroom at an almost
imperceptible gradient, doesn’t it? Well, reduce that gradient still
more—take up the pipe in this dark corner, so as to form a sort of
pocket—a blind alley, where something could be lodged if necessary.
When the tap is turned on the water will fill the pocket and carry away
the object lodged there. You understand? Then drill a hole about half
an inch in diameter in the wall side of the pipe, where it won’t be
noticed. Yes—there! Done it? Now plug it up with this rubber stopper.
Does it fit? That’s all right then. Now, you understand, don’t you—not
a word to anyone! Keep your mouth shut. Take this and catch the
Brussels express to-night. These three checks you can cash there—one
every month. In three months’ time you may come back to Paris.
Good-bye. That’s all, thanks.’... And that very night you heard a noise
in your boudoir, the imitation pearls were substituted for the real
ones, and the latter secreted in the hiding-place prepared for them in
the pocket of the pipe. Now do you see? Believing that the end has
come, the baron calls out to you: ‘A glass of water—not from the
carafe—from the tap there.’ You obey. And the terrible punishment is
brought about by your own hand as it turns on the tap—the water runs,
carries away the pearls, and the baron stammers out: ‘Do you hear?
They’re trickling away—away!’”
The baronne listened in distracted silence. What impressed her most in
Burnett’s terrible story was not the full revelation of her husband’s
rancor and hatred, but the one fact which it hammered home.
“Then you knew the truth?” she murmured at last.
“Of course,” he replied, “it’s my job. The Barnett Agency, you see....”
“And you said nothing of this to me?” Her tone was an accusation.
“But, my dear baronne, it was you yourself who stopped me from telling
you what I knew, or was just about to discover. You dismissed
me—somewhat peremptorily, I fear—and not wishing to be thought
officious, I did not press the matter. Besides, I had still to verify
my deductions.”
“And have you done so?” she faltered.
“Yes. Just out of curiosity, that’s all.”
“When?”
“The same night.”
“What! You got into the house that night—into our rooms? I heard
nothing....”
“Oh, I’ve a little way of working on the quiet.... Even Baron Assermann
didn’t hear me. And yet....”
“What?...”
“Well, just to make sure, I enlarged that hole, you see ... the one
through which he had pushed the pearls into the pipe.”
She started.
“Then you saw them?...”
“I did.”
“My pearls were actually there?”
He nodded.
Valérie choked, as she repeated under her breath: “My pearls were there
in the pipe and you could have taken them?...”
“Yes,” he admitted nonchalantly, “and I really believe that but for me,
Jim Barnett, at your service, they would have dropped away as the baron
intended they should on the day of his death, which he knew was not far
off. What were his words: ‘They’re vanishing ... can’t you hear them?
... drops that trickle away...!’ And his plan of revenge would have
come off—too bad—such a beautiful necklace—quite a collector’s piece!”
Valérie was not given to violent explosions of wrath, likely to upset
her complexion. But at this point she was worked up to such a pitch
that she rushed up to Barnett and convulsively seized the collar of his
coat.
“It’s theft! You’re a common adventurer! I suspected it all along—a
crook!”
At the word “crook” the young man hooted with joy.
“I—a crook? How frightfully amusing!”
She took no notice. Shaking with passion, she rushed up and down the
room shrieking: “I won’t have it, I tell you. Give me back my pearls at
once or I’ll call the police!”
“Oh—how ugly that sounds,” he exclaimed, “and how tactless for a pretty
woman like yourself to behave like this to a man who has shown himself
assiduous in serving you and only wants to coöperate peaceably with you
for your good!”
She shrugged her shoulders and demanded again: “Will you give me my
necklace?”
“Of course! it’s absolutely at your disposal. Good heavens, do you
suppose that Jim Barnett robs the people who pay him the compliment of
seeking his help! What do you think would become of the Barnett Agency,
which owes its popularity to its reputation for absolute integrity and
disinterested service? I don’t ask my clients for a single penny. If I
kept your pearls I should be a thief—a crook, as you would say—whereas
I am an honest man. Here, dear lady, is your necklace.”
He produced a small cloth bag containing the rescued pearls and laid it
on the table.
Thunderstruck, Valérie seized the precious necklace with shaking hands.
She could hardly believe her eyes; it seemed incredible that this man
should restore her property in this way, and with a sudden fear lest he
was merely acting on a momentary impulse, she made abruptly for the
door without a word of thanks.
“You’re in rather a hurry all at once,” laughed Jim Barnett. “Aren’t
you going to count them? Three hundred and forty-five. They’re all
there ... and they’re the real ones, this time.”
“Yes,” said Valérie, “I know that....”
“You’re quite sure? Those really are the pearls your jeweller valued at
five hundred thousand francs?”
“Yes; they are the ones.”
“You’d swear to that?”
“Certainly,” she said positively.
“In that case, I’ll buy them from you.”
“You’ll buy them! What do you mean?”
“Well, being penniless, you’ve got to sell them. Why not to me, then,
since I can offer you more than anyone else will—I’ll give you twenty
times their value. Instead of five hundred thousand francs, I’ll give
ten million. Does that startle you? Ten million’s a pretty figure.”
“Ten million!”
“Exactly the reputed gross amount of the baron’s estate.”
Valérie lingered at the door, her fingers twisting the handle.
“My husband’s estate,” she repeated. “I don’t see any connection.
Please explain.”
With gentle emphasis Jim Barnett continued: “It’s very simple. You have
your choice—the pearl necklace or the estate!”
“The pearl necklace ... the estate?” she repeated, puzzled.
“Certainly. As you yourself told me, the inheritance turns on two
wills: the earlier one in your favor and the second in favor of those
two old cousins, who are as rich as Crœsus and apparently
correspondingly mean. But suppose Will Number Two can’t be found, Will
Number One is valid.”
“But to-morrow,” she said in faltering accents, “they intend to break
the seals and open the desk—and the second will is there.”
“The will may be there—or it may not,” suggested Barnett, rather
contemptuously. “I’ll go so far as to say that in my humble opinion it
is not.”
“Is that possible?” she asked, staring at him in amazement.
“Quite possible—even probable—in fact, I seem to remember now that when
I came to investigate the waste-pipe the evening after our talk, I took
the opportunity of looking round your husband’s rooms as he was
sleeping so soundly.”
“And you took that will,” she asked haltingly.
“This rather looks like it, doesn’t it?”
He unfolded a sheet of stamped paper and she recognized her husband’s
writing as she caught sight of the words: “I, the undersigned, Léon
Joseph Assermann, banker, in view of certain facts well known to her,
do hereby declare that my wife Valérie Assermann shall not have the
slightest claim upon my fortune and that....”
She read no further. Her voice caught in her throat and falling limply
into an armchair she gasped:
“You stole that paper—and expect me to be your accomplice.... I won’t.
My poor husband’s wishes must be obeyed....”
Jim Barnett threw up his hands enthusiastically.
“How splendid of you, dear lady. Duty points to self-sacrifice, and I
commend you the more when your lot is so especially hard—when for two
old cousins who are quite undeserving of pity, you are prepared to
sacrifice yourself with your own hands to gratify Baron Assermann’s
petty spite. You bow to this injustice to expiate those youthful
peccadilloes. The beautiful Valérie is to forego the luxury to which
she is entitled and be reduced to abject poverty. But, before you
finally make this choice, madame, I beg you to weigh your decision
carefully and realize all it means. Let me be quite plain: if that
necklace leaves this room, the lawyer receives Will Number Two
to-morrow morning and you are disinherited.”
“And if it stays?”
“Well, there’s no will in that desk and you inherit the whole
estate—ten million francs in your pocket, thanks to Jim Barnett.”
His sarcasm was obvious, and Valérie felt like a helpless animal
trapped in his ruthless grasp. There was no way out. If she refused him
the necklace, the will would be read out next day. He was relentless,
and would turn a deaf ear to any entreaties.
He stepped into the back room for a moment and then returned from
behind the curtain, calmly wiping off his face the grease paint with
which he had covered it, like an actor removing his make-up. His
appearance was now completely changed—his face was fresh and
young-looking, with a smooth, healthy skin. A fashionable tie had
replaced the made-up atrocity. He had changed the old frock-coat and
baggy trousers for a well-cut lounge suit. And his attitude of smiling
confidence made it clear he did not fear denunciation or betrayal. In
return, Valérie knew he would never say a word to anyone, even to
Inspector Béchoux—the secret would be kept inviolate.
He leaned towards her and, laughing, said: “Well—I believe you’re
looking at it more reasonably now. That’s good! Besides, who’ll know
that the wealthy Baronne Assermann is wearing imitation pearls? Not one
of your friends will ever suspect it. You’ll keep your fortune and
possess a necklace which everyone will think is genuine. Isn’t that
lovely? Can’t you just see yourself leading a full and happy life, with
plenty of opportunity for fun and flirtation? Aha!” He waggled a jovial
forefinger in her angry face.
At that moment Valérie had not the slightest desire for fun or
flirtation. She glared at Jim Barnett with suppressed fury, and,
drawing herself up, made her exit like a society queen withdrawing from
a hostile drawing-room.
The little bag of pearls remained on the table.
“And they call that an honest woman!” said Jim Barnett to himself, his
arms folded in virtuous indignation. “Her husband disinherits her to
punish her for her naughty ways, and she disregards his wishes! There’s
a fresh will—and she filches it! She deceives his lawyer and despoils
his old cousins. Tut, tut! And how noble is the part of the lover of
justice who chastises the culprit and sets everything to rights again!”
He slipped the necklace deftly back into its place in the depths of his
pocket, finished dressing, and then, his monocle carefully adjusted,
and a fat cigar between his teeth, he left the office, and went forth
in search of fresh amusement.
III
THE ROYAL LOVE LETTER
There was a knock at the door of the modest office in the rue Laborde.
It roused Jim Barnett of the Barnett Agency from his doze in the
comfortable armchair, where he sat awaiting clients.
“Come in!” he cried, and, as the door opened to admit his visitor,
“why, Inspector Béchoux, how nice of you to look me up! How are you?”
In both manner and appearance, Inspector Béchoux was a striking
contrast to the usual type of detective. He aimed at sartorial
elegance, exaggerated the crease in his trousers, had a pretty taste in
ties and was very particular about the starching of his collars. He had
a curious waxen pallor. In build, he was small, lean, and seemingly
weedy. Oddly enough, he had the muscular arms of a heavyweight
champion—arms which gave the impression of having been tacked haphazard
on to his limp frame. He was intensely proud of those arms. Though
quite a young man, his bearing was most self-assured. His eyes gleamed
alert and intelligent.
“I happened to be passing,” he announced, “and, knowing your clock-like
habits, I thought: ‘This being old Barnett’s consultation hour, he’s
sure to be there. Why not drop in....’”
“And ask his advice,” finished Jim Barnett.
“Perhaps,” admitted the Inspector, to whom Barnett’s perspicacity was a
never-failing source of surprise.
Seeing his hesitation, Barnett spoke again: “What’s up, old son?
Finding it a bit difficult to consult the oracle to-day?”
Béchoux smote the table with his clenched fist; no mean blow, with his
great arm to back it.
“Fact is, I’m a bit stumped. We’ve worked together on three cases now,
Barnett—you as a private detective and I as a police inspector—and each
time I haven’t been able to help feeling that your clients—Baronne
Assermann, for instance—ended by regarding you with a very jaundiced
eye.”
“As if I’d taken advantage of my opportunity to blackmail them,”
Barnett interrupted, fiddling with his eternal monocle, and smiling
sardonically.
“No, I don’t mean....” Béchoux forgot his resolve to find out just what
had happened in the case of Baronne Assermann.
Barnett clapped him on the shoulder.
“Inspector Béchoux, you’re forgetting the slogan of this firm:
‘Information Free.’ I give you my word of honor that I never ask my
clients for a penny and I never accept a penny from them.”
Béchoux breathed more freely.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m glad to have that assurance. My professional
conscience will only allow me to avail myself of your coöperation on
certain conditions. You understand, don’t you? But if you don’t mind my
asking the question, there’s one thing I feel I must know. Just what
financial backing have you in the Barnett Agency?”
“I have a sleeping partner—a philanthropist.” Barnett’s tone was remote
and casual.
“Is he anybody I know?”
“I rather think so. In fact, I’m almost certain. For even a police
inspector must at some time have heard the name of—Arsène Lupin!”
Béchoux jumped.
“That’s no name to jest about, Barnett.”
Inspector Béchoux’s existence was dominated by two emotions—his
admiration for Barnett’s detective ability and his fierce hatred of
Arsène Lupin. Béchoux was one of Caminard’s little band and fully
shared that great man’s bitterness, especially as he had himself
suffered humiliating defeats at the enemy’s hands. He still smarted
with resentment at the memory of these, and never forgot that Arsène
Lupin had added insult to injury by robbing him more than once of the
lady of his choice.
“We won’t discuss the fellow,” he said gruffly, “unless there’s a
chance of my laying hands on him.”
“Or I,” and Barnett blandly extended his own hands—oddly enough, at the
level of his nose! “But let’s get to work. Whereabouts is your new
job?”
“Near Marly. It’s the business of the murder of old Vaucherel. You’ve
heard about it?”
“Only vaguely.”
Barnett’s attitude was one of acute detachment from anything so mundane
as murder.
“I’m not surprised. The newspapers aren’t giving it much space yet,
though it’s infernally baffling....”
“He was done in with a knife, wasn’t he?” After all, Barnett’s
detachment was only assumed.
“Yes. Stabbed between the shoulder-blades.”
“Any finger-marks on the knife?”
“None. We found a piece of paper in ashes; it was probably wrapped
round the handle by the murderer.”
“Any clews?”
Inspector Béchoux shook his head. “Vaucherel’s room was a bit
disordered. Some of the furniture had been knocked over and the drawer
of a table had been broken open, but we don’t know why that was done or
what’s missing.”
“Where have they got to on the inquest?”
“They’re confronting a retired official called Leboc with the Gaudu
cousins—three ne’er-do-weel blackguards of poachers. Without any real
evidence, each side is accusing the other of the murder. Want me to run
you over there in my car? Nothing like a good, stiff cross-examination,
you know!”
“Right you are.” Barnett rose, albeit reluctantly.
“Just one thing, Barnett. Formerie, who’s conducting the inquiry, hopes
to attract attention and get a Paris appointment. He’s a touchy sort of
chap and he won’t stand for your usual bright bedside manner with the
law, so cut out the flippancy.” Béchoux’s tone was eloquent with
painful memories of Barnett’s past exploits.
“I promise to treat him most respectfully,” replied Barnett, “and I
never break my word!”
Half-way between the village of Fontines and Marly Forest, in a copse
separated from the forest by a strip of ground, stands a one-storied
house with a small kitchen garden, surrounded by a low wall. Eight days
before Béchoux’s conversation with Jim Barnett, the cottage was still
inhabited by a retired bookseller, old Vaucherel, who never left his
little domain of flowers and vegetables except to browse in the
bookstalls along the Paris quays. He was very miserly and reputed a
rich man, although frugal in his habits. He had no visitors except his
friend, Leboc, who lived at Fontines.
The reconstruction of the crime and the examination of Leboc were over,
and the inspection of the garden had begun, when Jim Barnett and
Inspector Béchoux alighted from their car. Béchoux made himself known
to the gendarmes guarding the cottage gate and, followed by Barnett, he
joined the examining magistrate and the deputy just as the latter had
halted before an angle of the wall. The three Gaudu cousins were there
to give their evidence. They were all three farm-hands of just about
the same age; they bore no facial resemblance to one another save for a
similar sly stubbornness of expression. The eldest Gaudu was speaking:
“Yes, your worship, that’s where we jumped over when we ran to the
rescue, as you might say.”
“You were coming from Fontines?”
“Yes, your worship, from Fontines. We were on our way back to work,
about two o’clock it must have been. It was like this: we were chatting
with Mère Denise close by at the edge of the copse, when we heard
screams. ‘Somebody’s crying for help,’ I says. ‘It’s from the cottage.’
Old Vaucherel, that we knew as well as anything, your worship. So we
ran like mad. We climbed over this here wall—a nasty bit of work, with
all them broken bottles on top—and we were across the garden in no
time, as you might say.”
“Where exactly were you when the front door flew open?”
“Right here,” said the eldest Gaudu, leading the way to a flower-bed.
“That means about twenty yards from the porch,” said the magistrate,
pointing to the two steps leading up to the hall. “And from where you
stood you saw——” He paused expectantly.
“Monsieur Leboc himself ... I saw him as clear as I see you, your
worship ... he was rushing out, as if the devil was at his heels—or the
police, for that matter, which they soon may be—and when he saw us he
bolted straight back again.”
“You’re quite sure it was he?”
“I swear to God it was!”
The other two men took a similar oath.
“You can’t have been mistaken?”
“Why, he’s been living near our place for five years now, down the end
of the village,” the eldest Gaudu stated. “I’ve even delivered milk at
his house!”
The magistrate gave an order. The door of the hall opened and a man
came out. He was about sixty, and wore a brown drill suit and a straw
hat. His face was pink and smiling.
The three Gaudus spoke simultaneously.
“Monsieur Leboc!”
Their choral affirmation made Leboc’s entrance grotesquely like
something in musical comedy.
The deputy whispered, “It’s obvious there can’t be any mistake at such
close range and the Gaudu cousins can’t have gone wrong on the identity
of the fugitive—which means, of the murderer.”
“Quite so,” said the magistrate. “But are they speaking the truth? Was
it Monsieur Leboc they saw? Now we’ll go on.”
The party went into the house and entered a big room whose walls were
literally lined with books. There were just a few sticks of furniture;
a large table—the one whose drawer had been broken into; and an
unframed full-length portrait of old Vaucherel—a life-size daub by some
unskilled artist who had yet managed to invest his subject with a
certain verisimilitude.
A dummy lay stretched on the floor to represent the victim of the
tragedy.
The magistrate resumed his examination.
“When you came on the scene, Gaudu, you did not see Monsieur Leboc
again?”
“No, your worship. We heard groans from this room and rushed in at
once.”
“That means that Monsieur Vaucherel was still alive?”
“Hardly that, as you might say. He was lying face down with a knife
stuck right in the middle of his back ... we knelt down by him ... the
poor gentleman was trying to speak.”
“Could you catch what he said?”
“No, your worship. We could only make out the name of Leboc—he said it
over several times—‘Monsieur Leboc, Monsieur Leboc ...’ like that. Then
a kind of shudder passed over him and he was gone. After that we
searched everywhere, but Monsieur Leboc had vanished. He must have
jumped out of the kitchen window, which was open, and made off down the
little gravel path. It goes straight to his house and the trees hide it
all the way.... Then we all went together to the gendarmes ... and we
told them all about it....”
The magistrate asked a few more questions, made the three cousins
formulate even more definitely their charge against Monsieur Leboc, and
then turned his attention to the latter.
Monsieur Leboc had listened without attempting to interrupt. His
perfect calm was unruffled by any display of indignation. He gave the
impression of finding the Gaudus’ story so utterly absurd that he did
not for a moment doubt that the magistrate would take a precisely
similar view of it. Why bother to refute such a tale?
“Have you anything to add, Monsieur Leboc?”
“Nothing further.”
“Then you still maintain——”
“I maintain what you, monsieur, know as well as I to be the truth. All
the villagers you have examined have testified that I never go out
during the daytime. At midday I have my lunch sent in from the inn.
From one to four I sit at my window reading and smoking my pipe. The
day in question was fine. My window was open, and five people—no less
than five—saw me, as on any other day, from the garden gate.”
“I have summoned them to appear later on.”
“I’m glad to hear it. They will repeat their evidence. Since I am not
ubiquitous and cannot at one and the same moment be here and in my own
house you must admit that I could not have been seen leaving the
cottage, that my poor friend Vaucherel could not have spoken my name in
his agony, and therefore that these three Gaudus are unmitigated
scoundrels.”
“And you turn the murder charge against them, don’t you?”
“Oh! Merely a matter of surmise....”
“On the other hand, an old woman, Mère Denise, who was out gathering
firewood, states that she was talking with the men when they first
heard the screams.”
“She was talking with two of them. Where was the third?”
“A little way behind.”
“Did she see him?”
“She thinks so ... she isn’t positive....”
“In that case, what proof have you that the third Gaudu wasn’t right
here, committing the murder? What proof have you that the other two,
posted near, didn’t climb the wall, not to rush to the victim’s help
but to smother his cries and finish him off?”
“If that were so, why should they accuse you personally?”
“I have a small shoot and the Gaudus are incorrigible poachers. It was
thanks to me that they were twice caught in the act and sentenced. Now,
as they’ve got to accuse some one to shift suspicion from themselves,
they’re getting their own back.”
“Merely surmise, as you said yourself. Why should they want to kill
Vaucherel?”
“How should I know?” Leboc shrugged his shoulders.
“You have no idea what it was that may have been stolen from the drawer
in the table?”
“None, your lordship. My friend Vaucherel was not rich, whatever people
may have said. I happen to know that he had entrusted his savings to a
broker and kept no money in the house.”
“Nor anything valuable?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“What about his books?”
“They aren’t worth anything, as you can see for yourself. He always
wanted to collect first editions and old bindings, but he could never
afford it.”
“Did he ever mention the Gaudu cousins to you?”
“Never. Much as I long to avenge my poor friend’s death, I have no wish
to speak anything but the strict truth.”
The examination went on. The magistrate questioned the cousins closely,
but at the finish the confrontation showed no results. Having cleared
up a few minor points, the magistrates adjourned to Fontines.
Monsieur Leboc’s property, at the end of the village, was no bigger
than the cottage. The garden was enclosed by a very high, neatly
clipped hedge. The white-painted brick house faced on to a tiny,
perfectly circular lawn. As at the cottage the distance from gate to
porch was between fifteen and twenty yards.
The magistrate asked Monsieur Leboc to take up his position as on the
fatal afternoon. Monsieur Leboc thereupon seated himself at the window,
a book on his knees, and his pipe in his mouth.
Here again no mistake was possible. Anyone passing the gate and
glancing towards the house could not fail to see Monsieur Leboc
distinctly. The five witnesses who had been summoned—laborers and
shopkeepers of Fontines—repeated their evidence in such a way that it
was quite impossible to doubt Monsieur Leboc’s whereabouts between
midday and four o’clock on the day of the crime.
The magistrates did not attempt to hide their bewilderment from the
inspector, and Formerie, to whom Béchoux had introduced Barnett as a
detective of exceptional ability, could not help saying:
“A complicated case, monsieur. What do you make of it?”
“Yes, what do you make of it?” echoed Béchoux, signing pointedly to
remind Barnett of the need for tact.
Jim Barnett had followed the whole investigation at the cottage in
silence. Béchoux had kept asking him questions, to which he had only
replied with nods and muttered monosyllables. Now he answered
pleasantly:
“A most complicated case, monsieur.”
“Ah, you think so too. All things considered, the allegations of the
two parties balance each other. On the one hand, we have Monsieur
Leboc’s alibi. It is incontestable that he could not have left his
house that afternoon. On the other hand, the story of the three cousins
impresses me favorably.”
“That’s so. One side or the other is acting an abject farce. But which
side? Can the three Gaudus, bad characters of brutal aspect, be
innocent? Or may the smiling Monsieur Leboc, all candor and calm, be
guilty? Or are we to take it that the appearance of the actors in this
drama is an indication of their respective rôles, Monsieur Leboc being
innocent and the Gaudus guilty?”
“After all,” Monsieur Formerie concluded with some satisfaction,
“you’re no nearer seeing daylight than we are.”
“Oh, yes, I am!” Jim Barnett declared, a twinkle in his eye.
Monsieur Formerie bit his lip.
“That being so,” he observed icily, “perhaps you will be so good as to
tell us what more you have been able to discover.”
“I will certainly do so at the proper moment. To-day, monsieur, all I
can do is to beg you to call a new witness.”
“A new witness? But—what’s his name?”
“I really don’t know.”
“What’s that? You don’t know?”
Monsieur Formerie was wondering whether this super-detective was
ragging him. Béchoux showed signs of anxiety. Was Barnett going to pull
a hornet’s nest about his ears at the start?
At last Jim Barnett leaned over to Monsieur Formerie and pointing to
Monsieur Leboc, who was still puffing conscientiously at his pipe by
the window, he whispered:
“In the inner compartment of Monsieur Leboc’s pocketbook there is a
visiting card pierced with four small holes in lozenge formation. That
card will give us the name and address of our new witness.”
This ridiculous oracular pronouncement was hardly calculated to restore
Formerie’s equilibrium, but Inspector Béchoux did not hesitate to act.
Without giving any reason, he ordered Monsieur Leboc to hand over his
pocketbook. He opened it and took out a visiting card pierced with four
holes arranged in a lozenge and bearing the name: Miss Elizabeth
Lovendale, with an address in blue pencil: Grand Hotel Vendôme, Paris.
The two magistrates looked at one another in amazement. Béchoux fairly
beamed, while Monsieur Leboc, utterly unembarrassed, exclaimed:
“Good gracious! What a search I had for that card! And so did poor
Vaucherel!”
“Why should he have been looking for it?”
“Really, your lordship, you can’t expect me to know that. I expect he
wanted the address.”
“Then what are the four holes doing?”
“Oh, I made those to mark the four points I scored in a game of écarté.
We often played écarté together, and I must have picked this visiting
card up without thinking and put it in my pocketbook.”
Leboc gave this plausible explanation in a perfectly natural manner and
it seemed to satisfy Formerie. What remained unexplained was how on
earth Jim Barnett could have guessed that such a card was hidden in the
pocketbook of a man he had never seen before in his life.
And Barnett himself furnished no elucidation. He merely smiled and
insisted that they should call Elizabeth Lovendale as a witness. This
they agreed to do.
Miss Lovendale was out of town and did not put in an appearance for a
week. The inquiry was at a standstill for that time, although Formerie
zealously pursued his investigations, the memory of Jim Barnett egging
him on.
“You’ve riled him,” Béchoux told Barnett on the afternoon when they
were all assembled again at the cottage. “So much so that he’s
determined to decline your assistance.”
“Ought I to clear out?” Barnett asked. “I don’t want to cloud any one’s
sky—not even Formerie’s!”
“No, you can stay,” Béchoux told him. “Anyway, I fancy he’s come to a
definite decision.”
“All the better. It’s sure to be the wrong one. There’s a good time
coming!”
“Don’t be so disrespectful, Barnett!”
“Oh, all right, I’ll be respectful and, of course, absolutely
disinterested. Nothing in hand or pocket. But, I must say, a little
more Formerie will about finish me!”
Monsieur Leboc had been waiting half an hour when a car drew up and
Miss Lovendale got out. Monsieur Formerie came up briskly.
“How do you do, Mr. Barnett,” he said. “Any more bright ideas?”
“Perhaps, monsieur,” was Barnett’s cautious reply.
“Well, wait till you’ve heard mine. But first we must get through with
your witness. Absolutely irrelevant and a sheer waste of time, you’ll
be glad to hear. Still, it can’t be helped.”
Elizabeth Lovendale was a dowdily dressed, middle-aged Englishwoman,
her slight eccentricity of manner heightened by her dishevelled hair.
She spoke French fluently, but so volubly that she was hard to
understand.
At once, before any question could be put to her, she launched forth:
“That poor Monsieur Vaucherel! Murdered! Such a nice man, if he was a
bit queer. And you want to know whether I knew him? Oh, not well. I
only came here once—on business. I wanted to buy something from him. We
disagreed about the price. I was going to have another appointment with
him after seeing my brothers. My brothers are well known in
London—Lovendale and Lovendale, Limited, the big provision merchants.”
Monsieur Formerie strove to stem this flow of eloquence.
“What was it you wanted to buy, mademoiselle?”
“A little scrap of paper—nothing but a scrap of paper. Sentimental
value only, as people say. But it was worth a lot to me and I made the
mistake of telling him so. It all goes back to my great-grandmother,
Dorothy Lovendale. She was a beauty and much admired by King George the
Fourth. She kept eighteen love-letters that he wrote her and hid them,
one in each volume of an eighteen-volume calf-bound edition of
Richardson’s works. When she died, the family found every volume except
the fourteenth, which was missing, together with the letter inside of
it—the fourteenth letter and the most interesting, for it was known to
prove that the lovely Dorothy had stepped aside from virtue’s
path,”—Miss Lovendale lowered her eyes discreetly so as not to meet
Barnett’s look of amusement—“just nine months before the birth of her
eldest son. You can understand what it would mean to us to get that
letter back! Why, it would prove our royal descent!”
Formerie was growing more and more impatient.
Elizabeth Lovendale took a deep breath, and went on with her story.
“After searching and advertising for nearly thirty years, I learned one
day that among a number of books sold at auction was the fourteenth
volume of the set of Richardson. I flew to the purchaser, a second-hand
bookseller on the Quai Voltaire, who referred me to Monsieur Vaucherel
who had just bought the book. Monsieur Vaucherel produced the precious
volume, and, like a fool, I told him that the letter I was after must
be in the back of the binding. He examined it closely and changed
color. Then, of course, I realized my stupidity. If I had kept quiet
about the letter he would have sold me the book for fifty francs. I
offered him a thousand. Monsieur Vaucherel, shaking with excitement,
asked ten thousand. I agreed. We both lost our heads. It was like a
nightmare auction. Twenty thousand—thirty—finally he demanded fifty
thousand francs, yelling like a madman, with his eyes blazing. ‘Fifty
thousand,’ he cried, ‘not a sou less—that will buy me all the books I
want—the rarest and finest—fifty thousand francs!’ He wanted a deposit
then and there—a check. I said I would come back. He let me go and I
saw him lock the book into the drawer of this table.”
Elizabeth Lovendale went on embellishing her statement with much
unnecessary detail. Nobody paid any attention to her. All eyes were for
the contorted countenance of the magistrate. He was obviously the prey
of somewhat violent emotion and was quite overwhelmed with excessive
jubilation. At last he managed to get out:
“In short, mademoiselle, you are asking for the return of the
fourteenth volume of Richardson’s collected works?”
“I am.” She looked at him with sudden hope.
“Then here it is,” he cried, and with a theatrical gesture he produced
a small calf-bound book from his pocket.
“Not really!” cried Miss Lovendale.
“Here it is,” he repeated. “But King George’s love-letter isn’t there.
I should have noticed it. But I’ll wager I can find it if I was able to
discover the missing volume that people have been after for the past
century. The man who stole the one indubitably stole the other.”
Monsieur Formerie paced the room, his hands behind his back, enjoying
his triumph. Suddenly he drummed on the table and spoke again.
“Now we know the motive for the murder. Someone overheard the
conversation between Vaucherel and Miss Lovendale and saw where
Vaucherel had put the book. A few days later that person murdered
Vaucherel to rob him of the book so that he could later on dispose of
the fourteenth letter. Who was it? Why, Gaudu, the farm-hand, whose
guilt I never doubted. I searched his house yesterday and noticed a
large crack between the bricks of the fireplace. Hidden in a hole
behind this crack I found a book, which obviously belonged to Monsieur
Vaucherel’s library. Miss Lovendale’s story, coming as it does, proves
the accuracy of my deductions. The Gaudu cousins will be placed under
arrest, the scum, as the murderers of poor old Vaucherel and the
criminal accusers of Monsieur Leboc.”
Monsieur Formerie solemnly shook hands with Monsieur Leboc as a mark of
his esteem and was effusively thanked by the latter. Then he gallantly
escorted Elizabeth Lovendale to her car and returned, rubbing his hands
together.
After this, everybody made for the Gaudus’ house, whither the three
cousins were being brought under escort. It was a brilliant day.
Monsieur Formerie, walking between Barnett and Béchoux, with Leboc
bringing up the rear, was full of satisfaction. The coveted Paris
appointment loomed ever nearer on his horizon.
“Well, well, Barnett,” he remarked, “very neatly done, eh? Not quite
what you expected, though. After all, you were inclined to be hostile
to Monsieur Leboc, weren’t you?”
“I admit, monsieur,” Barnett confessed, “that I allowed my line of
reasoning to be influenced by that confounded visiting card. Would you
believe it? That card was lying on the cottage floor during the
confrontation, and I actually saw Leboc drawing stealthily nearer and
nearer till he got his right foot on it. When we left the place, he had
it stuck to the sole of his boot. Afterwards he detached it and slipped
it into his pocketbook. Well, the imprint of his right sole on the damp
ground showed me that the said sole had four spikes arranged in a
lozenge. That meant that our friend Leboc, knowing that he had
forgotten the card lying on the floor, and anxious to keep Elizabeth
Lovendale’s name and address out of things, hit upon this neat little
dodge. And really, it’s thanks to the visiting card that——”
Monsieur Formerie burst out laughing.
“My dear Barnett, don’t be childish! Why all these pointless
complications? You shouldn’t waste your energy ferreting out mares’
nests. It’s a thing I never do. For goodness sake let’s stick to the
facts as we find them and refrain from distorting them to fit
impossible theories.”
The party was by now near Monsieur Leboc’s house which was on their way
to the Gaudus’. Monsieur Formerie took Barnett’s arm and went affably
on with his curtain lecture.
“Where you went wrong, Barnett, was in refusing to admit the
incontrovertible truth that, after all, one man cannot be in two places
at the same moment. Everything turns on that—Monsieur Leboc, smoking at
his window, couldn’t be at the same time committing a murder at the
cottage. Here we have Monsieur Leboc just behind us. There is the gate
of his house, three yards away. I say it’s impossible to conceive a
miracle by which Monsieur Leboc could be at once behind us and at his
window.”
Suddenly Formerie stood still in his tracks, choking, helpless and
amazed.
“What is it?” Béchoux asked.
Formerie pointed towards the house.
“There!... Look!...”
Through the bars of the gate, twenty yards away, beyond the lawn, they
could see Monsieur Leboc smoking his pipe, framed in the open
window—Monsieur Leboc who nevertheless was standing with the group in
the road.
A nightmare vision—a hallucination! It was incredible. Who could be
impersonating the real Leboc, whom Formerie had by the arm?
Béchoux had opened the gate and was running to the house. Formerie
followed him, shouting threats at Leboc’s extraordinary double. But the
figure in the window never heeded nor stirred. How should it heed or
stir, since, as they could see on drawing closer, it was merely a
picture, a painted canvas fitting the window-frame exactly and
presenting a tolerably life-like profile of Monsieur Leboc smoking his
pipe. It was daubed in the same style as the portrait of Vaucherel
hanging in the cottage. Obviously the same artist had painted both.
Formerie wheeled round. The mask of smiling placidity had dropped from
Monsieur Leboc’s face; the man had collapsed utterly under this
unforeseen blow. He began a maudlin confession.
“I lost my head—I never meant to stab him—I only wanted to share in
with him, fifty-fifty.... He refused—I didn’t know what I was doing. I
never meant to stab him.”
His whining trailed off and Jim Barnett’s voice, now harsh and
scathing, was raised in mocking inquiry.
“What do you say to that, Monsieur Formerie? Nice lad, Leboc, all ready
with a perfect alibi! How were the unobservant passers-by to doubt the
reality of the Monsieur Leboc they only saw at a distance? Personally,
I suspected something like this when I saw the portrait of old
Vaucherel. I wondered if the same artist could have painted Leboc. I
didn’t have to look hard—Leboc was too sure he’d fooled us all. The
canvas was rolled up and hidden in the corner of a shed under a heap of
rusty tools. I only had to nail it in place at the window a little
while ago, after Leboc had gone to answer your summons. That’s how a
man can simultaneously murder abroad and smoke his pipe at home!”
Jim Barnett was ruthless. His grating voice flayed the hapless
Formerie.
“Just look what a clean sheet Leboc had. What a ready answer about the
visiting card—the four holes marking his score at écarté. And the book
he hid the other day in the Gaudus’ fireplace. I was shadowing him! And
the anonymous letter he sent you—for that was what got you going.
Leboc, you scoundrel, I’ve had some real amusement out of you. D’you
hear, my bright lad?”
Formerie was pale but restrained. After a prolonged scrutiny of Leboc,
he murmured:
“I’m not surprised ... shifty eyes ... a slippery way with him.... What
a rogue!” His wrath overflowed. “You blackguard, I’ll see you get
yours! Now then, where’s that letter?”
Leboc, stricken helpless, stammered:
“In the bowl of the pipe that’s hanging on the wall in the room on your
left. I haven’t cleaned it. The letter’s there.”
They rushed into the room. Béchoux fell upon the pipe and shook out the
ashes. But the bowl was quite empty. Leboc seemed utterly overcome and
Formerie’s temper broke out again.
“You liar—you confounded faker! But you’re going to tell me where that
letter is—at once!”
At that moment the inspector met Barnett’s gaze. Barnett was smiling a
happy, childlike smile. Béchoux’s fists clenched convulsively. He began
to understand that the Barnett Agency was gratuitous in a peculiar
fashion all its own. Dimly he saw how Jim Barnett, while protesting
truthfully that he never asked his clients for a penny, could afford to
live in comfort as a private detective.
He drew close to him and muttered:
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you? The Arsène Lupin touch!”
“What?” Barnett was all wide-eyed innocence.
“The way you spirited that letter away!”
“So you guessed my weakness? I always had a passion for the autographs
of royalty!”
Three months later there called upon Elizabeth Lovendale, then in
London, a highly distinguished gentleman, who assured her that he could
lay hands on King George’s love-letter to great-grandmother Dorothy.
His price was a mere bagatelle of a hundred thousand francs.
There were lengthy negotiations. Elizabeth took counsel with her
brothers, the renowned provision merchants. They haggled, refused to
pay, and finally gave in.
The highly distinguished gentleman pocketed his hundred thousand francs
and appropriated, into the bargain, an entire vanload of choice
groceries which disappeared into the void!
IV
A GAME OF BACCARAT
Jim Barnett, making his way out of Rouen railway station, was met by
Inspector Béchoux, who clutched his arm and led him quickly away.
“We haven’t a minute to lose. Things may take a turn for the worse at
any moment!”
“I should be much more impressed with the gravity of the situation,”
Barnett remarked with profound logic, “if I knew what it was all about.
I came in answer to your wire and in complete ignorance of the
excitements awaiting me.”
“You arrived according to plan—my plan,” said Inspector Béchoux
complacently.
“Can this mean, Béchoux”—Barnett paused to strike a dramatic
attitude—“can this mean that you’ve got over the little affair of King
George the Fourth’s love-letter and no longer distrust me?”
“I still distrust you, Barnett, just as I distrust the way the Barnett
Agency settles accounts with its clients. But there’s nothing in this
case for you, old man. For once in your career you’ll have to give your
services gratis.”
Barnett’s lips pursed to a soft whistle. The prospect did not seem to
daunt him. Béchoux gave him a swift sidelong glance, already uneasy and
wishing that he could manage to dispense with the private detective’s
assistance.
They turned into the station yard. A private car was drawn up, waiting
and in it sat a handsome woman with a pale, tragic face. Tears stood in
her eyes and her lips were pressed together in a desperate effort at
self-control. She opened the car door and Béchoux introduced his
friend.
“Madame, this is Jim Barnett. I told you of him as the only man who
might be able to save you. Barnett, let me introduce Madame
Fougeraie—the wife of Monsieur Fougeraie, the engineer. Madame
Fougeraie’s husband is on the verge of being arrested on a charge of——”
He paused dramatically.
“Of what?”
“Murder.”
Jim Barnett’s tongue clicked in ghoulish appreciation. The horrified
Béchoux stammered an apology for his friend.
“Forgive him, madame. He always feels so utterly at home on a really
serious case.”
The car was already speeding towards the quays of Rouen. It turned left
and drew up in front of a big building.
They all got out and went up in a lift to the third floor, on which
were the premises of the Norman Club. “Here,” said Béchoux waving a
hand to indicate the palatial precincts, “is the rendezvous where the
biggest merchants and manufacturers of Rouen and the district meet to
talk, read the papers and play cards, especially on Friday, which is
Stock Exchange day. As nobody is about in the morning except the
cleaners, there is plenty of time for me to tell you on the spot about
the drama that has just been enacted here.”
They passed down a passage into a large, comfortably furnished room
with a thick pile carpet. This, with two similar adjoining rooms, lined
the façade of the third floor of the building. These rooms were
intercommunicating, and the third led into a much smaller circular
room, with only one window, opening on to a big balcony, which
overlooked the banks of the Seine. They passed into the third large
room.
There they all sat down, Madame Fougeraie a little withdrawn near a
window, and Béchoux spoke:
“Now listen. A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, four members of this
club sat down after a good dinner to play poker. They were all friends,
mill-owners and manufacturers at Maromme, a big industrial centre near
Rouen. Three of the men were married and the fathers of families:
Alfred Auvard, Raoul Dupin, and Louis Batinet. The fourth, Maxime
Tuillier, was a younger, unmarried man in the same set.
“Towards midnight a fifth member joined them—a rich, young idler, Paul
Erstein by name. The five started playing baccarat now that the rooms
were deserted. Paul Erstein, an enthusiastic and regular player, held
the bank.”
Béchoux pointed to one of the tables in the room, and went on:
“They were playing there, at that table. At first it was a quiet
game—they had begun playing half-heartedly for want of something better
to do—but gradually it warmed up, after Erstein had ordered two bottles
of champagne for the party. From that moment luck was on the banker’s
side—shocking, unfair, maddening luck. Paul Erstein had it all his own
way. The others were exasperated and did their utmost to break the run,
without success. Contrary to all common sense, they would none of them
give in, with the result that at four o’clock in the morning the
Maromme manufacturers had lost all the money they were bringing from
Rouen to pay their hands. In addition, Maxime Tuillier had given Paul
Erstein his I.O.U. for eighty thousand francs.”
Inspector Béchoux drew a long breath and continued:
“Suddenly there was a coup de théâtre, a strange turn given to
Fortune’s wheel by Erstein’s own happy-go-lucky generosity. He divided
his winnings into four shares, corresponding exactly to the other men’s
losses, then subdivided those into thirds, and proposed having three
final deals. This meant that each of his opponents was to play him
individually double or quits on each of the three bundles of notes.
They took him on. Paul Erstein lost all three deals. The luck had
turned. After an all-night battle there were neither winners nor
losers.
“‘All the better,’ said Erstein, standing up. ‘I felt a bit ashamed of
myself, winning like that. Lord! what a head I’ve got! Must be the heat
of the room. Anyone coming to smoke a cigarette with me on the
balcony?’
“He stepped into the Round Room. For a few minutes, the four friends
remained at the table, gaily discussing the phases of the game. Then
they decided to leave the club. After crossing the other two rooms,
they warned the watchman dozing in the anteroom:
“‘Monsieur Erstein is still there, Joseph. But he’s sure to be going
soon.’
“Then they left, at exactly thirty-five minutes past four. They went
back to Maromme in Alfred Auvard’s car, as on most Friday nights. The
club servant, Joseph, waited for another hour. Then, tiring of his
vigil, he went in search of Paul Erstein, and found him lying in the
Round Room, twisted and inert. He was dead.”
Inspector Béchoux paused again. Madame Fougeraie’s head was bowed. Jim
Barnett accompanied his friend into the Round Room, cast a searching
glance over everything, and spoke:
“Now then, Béchoux, let’s get down to it. What has the inquest
revealed?”
“The inquest has revealed,” answered Béchoux, “that Paul Erstein was
struck on the left temple with a blunt instrument which must have
felled him at a blow. There was no sign of a struggle except that his
watch was broken. The hands pointed to five minutes to five, that’s to
say, twenty minutes after the departure of the other players. There was
no indication of theft; a signet ring and a wad of notes had not been
taken; nothing was missing. Finally, there was absolutely no trace of
the murderer, who could not have come or gone by way of the anteroom,
since Joseph had not moved from his post.”
“Then,” said Barnett, “there is no clue?”
“There is just one.” Béchoux hesitated, then went on: “It’s pretty
important. At the inquest, one of my colleagues called the coroner’s
attention to the fact that the balcony on the third floor of the next
building is very close to the balcony of this room. The magistrates
entered the building in question, the third floor of which is the
Fougeraies’ flat. They found that Monsieur Fougeraie had left home that
morning and had not returned. Madame Fougeraie took the magistrates
into her husband’s room. The balcony of that room is the one contiguous
to the balcony of the Round Room. Look!”
Barnett stepped out through the open French window.
“The distance is about four feet,” he observed. “Quite easy to get
across. But there’s nothing to prove that it was done.”
“Wait a moment,” said Béchoux. “D’you see those flower-boxes at the
edge of the Fougeraies’ balcony? They still contain the earth with
which they were filled last summer. They’ve been searched. In one of
them, just below the surface, with the earth freshly turned above it,
we found a knuckle-duster. The coroner has established that the shape
of this weapon corresponds exactly to the wound inflicted on Erstein.
There were no finger-prints distinguishable, as it had been raining
steadily since the morning. But the charge seems pretty well-founded.
Monsieur Fougeraie, seeing Paul Erstein in the brilliantly lighted room
opposite, must have sprung on to the club balcony; then, after
murdering his victim with the knuckle-duster, he hid his weapon in the
flower-box.
“But what motive had he for the crime? Did he know Paul Erstein?”
Béchoux shook his head.
“Then why——?”
During Béchoux’s reconstruction of what had happened, Madam Fougeraie
had got up and come over to where the two men stood. Her grief-stricken
face worked pitifully. She kept back her tears with a visible effort.
In answer to Barnett’s question, she said in a voice that trembled:
“It is for me to answer, monsieur. I will be brief and perfectly frank,
and then you will understand my fears. No, my husband did not know Paul
Erstein. But I knew him. I had met him several times in Paris at a
friend’s house, and from the start he made love to me. I am devoted to
my husband”—poor Madame Fougeraie gave a choking sob—“I have always
been faithful to him. Although I was sensible of Paul Erstein’s
attraction, I resisted it. But, weakly, I gave in to the extent of
meeting him several times in the country some way out of Rouen.”
“And you wrote to him?”
She nodded miserably.
“And your letters are now in the hands of his family?”
“Of his father.”
“Who, I suppose, is determined the letters shall be read in court so
that his son’s death shall be avenged at all costs.”
“Yes. Those letters prove the harmless character of our relations.
But—they prove that I met Paul Erstein without my husband’s knowledge.
And in one of them I wrote: ‘I beg of you, Paul, do be reasonable. My
husband is extremely jealous and very violent. If he should suspect me
for an instant, he would be capable of doing almost anything.’ So you
see, monsieur, that letter would considerably strengthen the case
against my husband. Jealousy would provide the police with the motive
they want. It would explain the murder and the discovery of the weapon
in the flower-box just outside my husband’s room.”
“Are you yourself sure, madame, that Monsieur Fougeraie suspected
nothing?”
She nodded.
“And you believe him innocent?”
“Oh, there can be no doubt—no doubt at all!” she cried impulsively.
Barnett, meeting her steadfast gaze, realized how this woman’s
conviction of her husband’s innocence could have influenced Béchoux to
the extent of making him her ally despite the public prosecutor and his
minions, and despite professional etiquette.
Barnett asked a few more questions, was lost in thought for some
moments, and at last announced solemnly:
“Madame, I can hold out no hopes. Logically, your husband must be
guilty. It is for me to try to disprove logic.”
“Do see my husband,” Madame Fougeraie besought him. “He will be able to
explain——”
“That’s quite useless, madame. I cannot help you unless I first of all
put your husband right out of the running in my own mind, and work on
the basis of your belief in his innocence.”
The preliminaries were over. Barnett was in the ring at once, and,
accompanied by Inspector Béchoux, called on the victim’s father. With
Erstein senior he came straight to the point:
“Monsieur, I am looking after Madame Fougeraie’s interests for her. You
are turning over your son’s correspondence to the prosecution, aren’t
you?”
“To-day, monsieur.”
“You have no hesitation in ruining the life of the woman your son loved
so dearly?”
“If that woman’s husband was my son’s murderer, I shall be sorry for
her sake, but my son’s death shall be avenged.”
“Wait five days, monsieur. Next Tuesday the murderer shall be
unmasked.”
Against his will, Erstein made the concession.
Barnett’s procedure in those five days of grace often disconcerted
Inspector Béchoux. He took—and made Béchoux take—the most irregular
steps, interviewed and organized a band of helpers, and spent money
like water. However, he seemed dissatisfied, and, contrary to habit,
was taciturn and inclined to sulk.
On Tuesday morning he had a talk with Madame Fougeraie and told her:
“Béchoux has got the prosecution to agree to a reconstruction of the
events of the fatal night, in detail, at the Norman Club, and it’s to
take place this afternoon. They have summoned both you and your husband
to appear. I implore you to control yourself, whatever happens, and to
try to appear almost indifferent.”
She looked at him trustingly, through unshed tears.
“Is there any hope...?” she faltered.
“I don’t know myself. As I told you before, I am simply playing your
hunch that Monsieur Fougeraie is innocent. I shall try to prove his
innocence by demonstrating a possible theory, but it’s a difficult
business. Even admitting that I am on the right track, as I believe I
am, the truth may yet elude us up to the very last moment.”
The public prosecutor and the examining magistrate who had investigated
the case proved to be a conscientious pair. They put their trust in
facts alone and refrained from interpreting these in the light of
preconceived theories.
“With such men,” said Béchoux, “I have no fear of your starting a row
or employing your usual bright badinage. They have very kindly given me
carte blanche to act as I see fit—or rather as you see fit—and don’t
you forget it.”
“My dear Béchoux,” replied Barnett, “I never indulge in badinage except
when victory is within my grasp, which is not the case to-day.”
The third room at the Norman Club was crowded. The magistrates talked
together at the threshold of the Round Room; then they went into it,
but came out again in a little while. The manufacturers waited in a
group. Policemen and inspectors came and went. Both Paul Erstein’s
father and Joseph, the club servant, stood apart from the rest.
Monsieur and Madame Fougeraie were together in a corner. He looked
gloomy and preoccupied; she was even paler than usual. It was common
knowledge now that the police had decided to arrest the engineer.
One of the magistrates addressed the four men who had played baccarat
with Paul Erstein:
“Gentlemen, we are about to reconstruct what took place on the fatal
Friday night. Will each of you please take up the position in which he
sat at this table so that we have the game of baccarat exactly as it
was played? Inspector Béchoux, you will hold the bank. Have you asked
these gentlemen to bring exactly the same sums in notes as they had
with them on the occasion in question?”
Béchoux nodded and sat down in the middle seat, with Alfred Auvard and
Raoul Dupin on his left and Louis Batinet and Maxime Tuillier on his
right. Six packs of cards were put out. The cards were cut to him and
he shuffled.
Then an odd thing happened. Immediately, just as on that tragic night,
luck favored the banker. With the same ease as Paul Erstein, Béchoux
won. He won steadily, automatically, as it were, in an unbroken run,
without any of the fluctuations and turns of fortune which had, after
all, characterized the original game. This mechanical continuity gave
the scene a strange, cinematographic quality. The game might have been
a fantastic “quick motion” picture of what had originally taken place.
The atmosphere of the proceedings began to tell on the players. Maxime
Tuillier seemed ill at ease and twice made mistakes in his play. Jim
Barnett grew irritated by the young man and at last officiously took
his place at Béchoux’s right hand.
Ten minutes later—for the film-like speed of the game accelerated
unchecked—more than half the banknotes produced for the game by the
four friends were stacked on the green cloth in front of Béchoux.
Maxime Tuillier, as represented by Jim Barnett, began handing over
I.O.U’s.
The pace quickened again. The end of the game came soon. Suddenly
Béchoux, as Paul Erstein had done, divided his winnings into four wads
of notes, proportionate to the other men’s losses, and subdivided each
wad into three, thus leading up to Erstein’s dramatic offer of “double
or quits” on three deals.
His opponents’ eyes never left him. The four men were evidently
stricken by the memory of that other game.
Three times Béchoux dealt on the two tableaux.
And three times, instead of losing, like Paul Erstein, Béchoux won!
A murmur of surprise rose from the onlookers. The miraculous
reconstruction of the original game had been unaccountably flawed. The
luck should have turned—but it had remained in the banker’s favor.
Supposing—the thought slipped into being—supposing this was indeed a
miracle, and this new ending to the game was not new at all?
“I am sorry,” said Béchoux, his words oddly remote as he continued to
act his rôle of banker. He stood up, first pocketing all the banknotes.
Then, as Paul Erstein had done, he complained of a headache and
expressed his wish that someone would come out on the balcony with him.
He went out, lighting a cigarette.
The other men remained motionless, with set faces. The cards lay
scattered on the table.
Then, and only then, Jim Barnett rose from his chair. But now, by some
wizardry, his face and his general appearance had taken on the outward
semblance of Maxime Tuillier, whom he had so lately supplanted in the
game of baccarat. Maxime Tuillier, clean-shaven, about thirty, wearing
a tight-fitting, double-breasted coat.... Maxime Tuillier, looking
morose and dissatisfied.... Jim Barnett was the young man to the life!
He went slowly towards the Round Room, moving like an automaton, his
expression an alternating study in callous ruthlessness and frightened
indecision—the expression of a man on the verge of doing something
terrible, but a man who might yet perhaps take to his heels with the
deed unaccomplished.
The players could not see his face, which was turned away from them.
But the magistrates saw it. And they forgot Jim Barnett, the skilled
impersonator, and thought only of Maxime Tuillier, the ruined gambler,
who was going to join his triumphant opponent. His face, which he
apparently strove to compose, gave ample indication of his mental
turmoil. Was he about to make a plea, a demand, or—a threat? When he
opened the door of the Round Room, he was once more master of his
emotions; he had regained his self-control.
The door closed behind him.
The staging of the imaginary “reconstruction” of the drama had been so
vivid that everyone waited in silence. The other players also waited,
staring at that closed door behind which was being repeated what had
taken place on the night of the tragedy—behind which it was not Barnett
and Béchoux who were playing their respective rôles of murderer and
victim, but Maxime Tuillier and Paul Erstein pitted against one
another.
After what seemed an eternity, the murderer—there was nothing else to
call him—came out. He staggered back to his friends, his eyes wild with
horror. In one hand he held the four bundles of notes. One he threw
down on the table. The other three he pressed upon the three players,
saying in queer, strained tones:
“I’ve been having a talk with Erstein. He asked me to give you back
this money. He doesn’t want it. Let’s go home.”
A yard or so away Maxime Tuillier, the real Maxime Tuillier, leaned on
a chair for support. His face was pale and drawn. His jaw had fallen.
Jim Barnett turned and spoke to him in his normal voice.
“Am I right, Monsieur Tuillier? The scene has been reproduced correctly
in all essential details, hasn’t it? My rendering of the part you
played the other night was pretty accurate? Don’t you think I’ve
reconstructed the crime rather cleverly—your crime?”
Maxime Tuillier seemed not to hear the words. His head was bowed; his
arms hung limp. He was a mere husk of a man, all the life gone out of
him. He reeled drunkenly, sagged at the knees, and collapsed on the
chair.
Barnett was at him at once, jerking him roughly to his feet.
“You admit it? But anyway, nothing can save you. I can prove
everything. First, that knuckle-duster—you always carried one. Then,
you were ruined by your losses at baccarat that night. Investigations
have established the fact that you were in financial straits. You had
no money with which to meet your creditors at the end of the month. You
were on the verge of bankruptcy. When you followed Erstein into the
Round Room, you struck out, murderously. Afterwards, not knowing what
to do with your weapon, you climbed over on to the other balcony and
hid it in the flower-box. Then you altered the hands of the dead man’s
watch to establish your alibi, and joined your friends!”
But Barnett’s eloquent denunciation was unnecessary. Maxime Tuillier
made no attempt at denial. Overwhelmed by the terrible burden of crime
under which he had labored for weeks, he stammered out the confession
of his guilt like a man in delirium.
The onlookers were roused almost to frenzy. The examining magistrates
bent over the murderer and took down his involuntary, unprompted
confession. Paul Erstein’s father tried to hurl himself upon his son’s
slayer. Fougeraie’s voice was raised excitedly. But the most rabid were
Maxime Tuillier’s three friends. One in particular, the eldest and most
influential, Alfred Auvard, volleyed abuse:
“You unspeakable blackguard! You made us believe that poor Erstein had
returned the money to us—when really you had stolen it after murdering
him!”
He flung the notes at Maxime Tuillier’s head. The other two, equally
indignant, trampled the loathsome money underfoot.
By degrees order was restored. Maxime Tuillier, half fainting and
uttering groans, was carried out of the room. An inspector gathered up
the banknotes and handed them to the magistrates. The latter requested
the Fougeraies and old Erstein to withdraw. They then complimented Jim
Barnett on his extraordinary powers of deduction.
“Tuillier’s collapse and confession,” he told them, “are quite
commonplace features in the case. Its originality, the real mystery
that lifts it out of the usual run of such crimes, lies in something
quite different. So now, although this is none of my business, please
allow me——”
Barnett, turning to the three manufacturers who were talking together
in low tones, went up to them and tapped Monsieur Auvard gently on the
shoulder.
“A word with you, my friend. Something tells me you can throw a little
light on one aspect of this case that remains obscure.”
“In what connection, pray?” asked Auvard coldly.
“In connection with the part which you and your friends play in it,
monsieur.”
“But we don’t come into it at all!”
“Not actively, of course, I quite see that. But there are some features
which, I am sure you will agree with me, present a disconcerting series
of contradictions. For instance, you declared on the morning after the
murder that the game of baccarat had ended with three deals in your
favor, which cancelled your losses and broke up the card party. Well,
the facts don’t happen to bear out your statement.”
Monsieur Auvard answered him defiantly:
“That’s so. But there’s been a misunderstanding. Actually, those last
three deals only increased our losses. When Erstein left the table,
Maxime, who seemed perfectly self-possessed, followed him into the
Round Room for a smoke, while we three remained here, talking. When
Tuillier came back, nearly ten minutes later, he told us that Erstein
had never been in earnest over the game, that it had merely been a
series of flukes following on the champagne, to be treated as a joke.
He therefore insisted on returning the money to us, but pledged us to
secrecy. If anything ever came out, we were to say that the end of the
game had evened things up unexpectedly.”
“And you accepted such an offer! As a present from Paul Erstein which
he had absolutely no reason to make you!” cried Barnett. “And having
accepted it, you didn’t even bother to thank him! And you found it
perfectly natural that Erstein, who was an inveterate gambler, inured
to gain and loss alike, should suddenly be ashamed to profit by his
luck! How unlikely!”
“It was four in the morning. We were all overwrought. Maxime Tuillier
gave us no time for reflection. Anyhow, what reason had we to doubt his
word? We didn’t know then that he had just murdered Erstein and robbed
him.”
“But next day you learned of the murder.”
“Yes, but we naturally thought it had happened after our departure from
the club—it made no difference to Erstein’s last action on earth—the
restoration of our losses—nor to his wish that we should hold our
tongues about it.”
“And you never for one moment suspected Maxime Tuillier?”
“Why should we have suspected him? He is a member of the club. His
father was a friend of mine and I’ve known him practically all his
life. Of course we had no suspicions.”
“Are you positive?”
Barnett rapped the words out in ironic incredulity. Alfred Auvard
hesitated, glanced at the other two men, and then countered haughtily:
“Your questions, sir, are in the nature of a cross-examination. What do
you think we’re here for anyway?”
“In the eyes of the law you’re here as witnesses. But in mine——”
“In yours——?”
“That’s just what I’m going to explain now.” Quietly Barnett took the
floor, toying with the string of his monocle.
“The whole of this case is really dominated by one factor—the
confidence you people inspired. Practically speaking, the crime could
have been an outside or an inside job. Yet those investigating at once
turned to the outside for the simple reason that one does not normally
suspect such a monument of respectability and righteousness as is
constituted by four wealthy manufacturers of unblemished reputation. If
one of you, say, Maxime Tuillier, had played a game of écarté with Paul
Erstein alone, he would naturally and undoubtedly have been suspected.
But there were four of you, and Tuillier was temporarily saved by the
silence of his friends. It would never occur to anyone that three men
of your standing could be guilty of complicity in a crime! Yet you were
guilty—and that was what I guessed from the start.”
Alfred Auvard started forward.
“You must be mad. Do you seriously suggest that we were Tuillier’s
accomplices?”
“Oh, no. Obviously, you had no idea of what was going on in the Round
Room after Tuillier joined Erstein there. But you did know that he had
followed him in a peculiar frame of mind! And when he came back, you
knew that something had happened.”
“We knew nothing of the sort.”
“Oh, yes, you did, and that Tuillier must have used force of some kind.
There had not necessarily been a crime of violence, but there had
certainly not been merely a friendly conversation. I repeat, it was
quite evident that Maxime Tuillier must have used force to get back
that money for you.”
“Preposterous!”
“Not at all. When a coward like your friend kills a man, his face is
bound to betray him. It is impossible that you should have utterly
failed to notice his expression of horror when he came back after
committing the crime.”
Both Batinet and Dupin were trembling, but Auvard kept up his
blustering attitude.
“I protest that we noticed nothing.”
“None so blind....” Barnett shrugged his shoulders and smiled
unpleasantly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You didn’t want to see. Because you had got your money back. I know
you are all rich men. But that game of baccarat had shaken you
considerably. Like all occasional gamblers, you had the feeling that
your money had been stolen from you, and when it was returned, you
accepted it without troubling to inquire too closely into the methods
by which your friend had recovered it. You clung desperately to
silence. That night, as you drove back to Maromme together, in spite of
the urgent need for you to agree upon a safer version of the evening’s
episode, not one of you dared speak a word. I have that from your
chauffeur. And the next day—and the days after that—when the crime had
been discovered, you avoided meeting each other, for fear of finding
your secret thoughts confirmed.”
“This is mere conjecture.” Auvard was indignant still, but his two
friends were on the verge of collapse.
“Not conjecture, but certainty,” Barnett corrected him gently.
“Certainty based on facts acquired by exhaustive inquiries among the
people who know you. For you to accuse your friend was to expose your
own criminal weakness in the beginning. It meant turning the
searchlight of public opinion on yourselves and your families, and
damaging your reputations for honorable dealing with your fellow-men.
It meant a scandal. So you kept silent and cheated justice while you
shielded your friend Maxime.”
Jim Barnett had been so vehement and telling in his accusation that for
a moment Monsieur Auvard wavered. But, suddenly changing his tactics,
the bewildering Barnett did not follow up his advantage. He merely
laughed and said:
“Cheer up, Monsieur Auvard. I succeeded in undoing your friend Tuillier
because he was a weakling and suffering the agonies of remorse. I did
it by faking the cards in the game of baccarat we had here just now.
The accuracy of the reconstruction unnerved him. But I had no more real
proof against him than I have against you, and you are not the sort to
give in without showing fight. All the more so as your complicity in
the crime is so vague and negative, very much up in the air when it
comes to hard facts. So you have nothing to fear. Only”—he came closer
to his man, and thrust his face into the other’s—“only, I did not want
your peace of mind to be too complete. By your silence and your
astuteness, the three of you managed to cloak your actions from the
light of the law, so that people lost sight of your own more or less
voluntary complicity in the crime. We can’t have that, though. You must
never cease to be conscious that to a certain extent you shared in the
committal of the murder. Had you only prevented your friend from
following Paul Erstein into the Round Room, as you should have done,
Paul Erstein would not be dead to-day. And had you come forward at the
outset and told what you knew, Maxime Tuillier would not have come
within an ace of escaping his deserts.
“Now it is for you to clear yourselves as best you may, messieurs.
Somehow, I don’t think the law will be too hard on you. Good-day.”
Jim Barnett took his hat, and, disregarding the manufacturers’ protest,
spoke to the magistrates:
“Messieurs, I promised Madame Fougeraie that I would help her and I
promised Paul Erstein’s father to unmask the murderer. My work is
done.”
The magistrates were half-hearted in their valedictory handshake.
Probably Barnett’s words had fallen none too pleasantly on their ears
and they did not feel particularly inclined to follow his lead.
To Inspector Béchoux, who had followed him on to the landing, Barnett
was just a wee bit more expansive:
“Those three chaps can’t be touched. They’re safe as houses. Blasted
bourgeois bolstered up by bullion!” he almost blew bubbles in his
wrath. “They’re pillars of society, all right, and all the case against
them is the inferences to be drawn from my deductions. Too fine a
thread for the law to noose them in, I’m afraid. Never mind, I’ve
brought my case off well.”
“And honestly,” approved Béchoux, adding, sotto voce, the words “for
once!”
Barnett’s eyebrows arched interrogatively.
“I must own,” Béchoux admitted, “that there were moments when I feared
for those banknotes. You could have snaffled them so easily.”
“What do you take me for, Inspector Béchoux? A common thief?” Barnett’s
tone was one of outraged innocence.
He left his friend and went out of the building and on to the
Fougeraies’ flat next door. There he was effusively thanked. With great
dignity he refused to take any reward for his services.
Afterwards he called on Paul Erstein’s father and there exhibited the
same spirit of disinterested philanthropy.
“The services of the Barnett Agency are free,” he told his clients.
“That is the secret both of its efficiency and of its integrity. We
work for glory only.”
Jim Barnett settled his hotel bill and ordered them to send his bag to
the station. Then, presuming that Béchoux would accompany him back to
Paris, he walked along the quayside to the club building. On the first
landing he halted abruptly. The inspector was hurtling down the stairs.
The moment he saw Barnett he cried out angrily:
“Got you, curse you!”
He jumped the remaining stairs at a bound and thrust his fingers inside
Barnett’s coat collar.
“What have you done with those notes?”
“Doh, ray, me, fah——” began Barnett.
“Banknotes!” the inspector screamed. “The notes you had when you were
acting Tuillier’s part upstairs.”
“What’s all this? Do let go my collar. That’s better. Why, I gave those
notes back. Surely you remember? A little while ago you were even
congratulating me on my honesty!”
“I wouldn’t have if I’d known what I know now!” said Béchoux grimly.
“And what is this new knowledge that makes you change your tune?”
chanted Barnett.
“The notes you gave back are forgeries—counterfeit—snide!” Béchoux was
frothing at the mouth. “You’re a rotten swindler!” he shouted. “You
needn’t think you’re going to get away with it, either. You’re going to
return the genuine notes to me at once! You can’t bluff me!”
He choked, and Barnett’s raucous laugh rent the air.
“The thieving skunks!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, well. So they threw
forged notes at their young friend. The sweeps! We get them to bring
their wads along and they turn out to be stage money!”
“But don’t you understand?” Béchoux shrieked dancing with rage. “That
money belongs to Paul Erstein’s heirs. He had won it before he was
killed. The others must make restitution.”
Barnett’s merriment overflowed.
“Isn’t that too bad! So they’re to be fleeced twice over. Poetic
justice being visited on the scoundrels!”
Béchoux’s teeth chattered with fury.
“You liar! You changed those notes yourself. And now you’ve collared
the cash. Thief! Crook!”
As the magistrates were leaving the club they caught sight of Inspector
Béchoux gesticulating speechlessly, frantically. And before him, arms
folded, convulsed with laughter, there leant against the wall—“Jim
Barnett!”
V
THE MAN WITH THE GOLD TEETH
Jim Barnett held back a corner of his office window-curtain and peered
into the street, his face on a level with those of the passers-by.
Suddenly he was seized with a paroxysm of uncontrollable mirth and sank
weakly back into his armchair.
“Almost too beautiful,” he murmured ecstatically.
“To think the day should come when Béchoux——” He subsided into fresh
guffaws.
“What’s the joke?” was Inspector Béchoux’s immediate demand on entering
the office.
As Barnett did not at once reply, he fixed him with a stony glare.
“What—are—you—laughing at?”
“Why, at your coming here, of course! After our dust-up at the club in
Rouen you actually feel you can seek me out again! What is our police
force coming to?”
Béchoux looked so crestfallen that Barnett made a valiant effort to
restrain his own unseemly laughter. But he could not control himself
completely and his utterance continued to be punctuated by explosive
chuckles.
“Awfully sorry, old chap, but it really is funny! You, the instrument
of the law, presenting me with yet another pigeon for my plucking. Who
is it this time? Dare I hope for a millionaire? Or am I in for the
Minister of Finance? Don’t mind me. I’m not particular. Really, though,
it’s frightfully decent of you, old chap! Pardon my familiarity. Cheer
up, now, and try not to look like a decayed zebra. Spit it out!”
(Barnett’s idiom was deplorably vulgar.) “What’s up? Someone in trouble
again?”
Béchoux, struggling to regain his composure, nodded his head.
“Yes. It’s the very worthy curé of a parish in the suburbs.”
Regardless of grammar, “Who’s he killed?” asked Barnett with interest.
“One of his flock?”
“Oh, no, not that!”
“You mean he’s been polished off by a parishioner? Then, really, I fail
to see how I can assist him!”
“No, no. You’re getting it all wrong. I—he——”
“I really think,” said Barnett kindly, “you’d do better not to attempt
to talk at all. You can’t apparently achieve coherence, and I hate
people who splutter in my face.” He made great play with a virulent
bandana. “Without further ado, lead me to your worthy suburban curé. I
am ever ready to hit the trail with Béchoux for my guide.”
The little village—it is no more—of Vaneuil straggles down a hollow and
then up the three green hillsides which frame its old Romance church.
Behind the church lies a tranquil country graveyard, which is bordered
on the right by the hedge of a large estate surrounding a big
farmhouse, and on the left by the wall of the rectory.
Béchoux, accompanied by Barnett, entered the latter building, walked
straight into the dining-room and there presented his friend to the
Abbé Dessole. He introduced Barnett as the one detective whose bright
lexicon knew not the word “impossible.”
The abbé certainly appeared to be a worthy—and probably a simple—man.
He was middle-aged, plump, pink, and unctuous. His anxiety was written
large on a face that must usually have worn an expression of unruffled
placidity. Barnett observed his rather puffy hands, the rolls of fat at
wrist and neck, the fat paunch distending the cheap, shiny cassock.
“Père Dessole,” said Barnett, “I know nothing about whatever it is that
troubles you. My friend, Inspector Béchoux, has so far merely told me
that he first made your acquaintance a long while ago. Could you now
give me a brief résumé of the facts of the case, avoiding all
irrelevant detail?”
The Abbé Dessole must have prepared his story, for immediately, without
a moment’s hesitation, his deep bass voice boomed from the depths of
his double-chin and he began:
“First, monsieur, I must tell you that the humble priests officiating
in this parish act at the same time as custodians of a church
treasure—the bequest in the eighteenth century of the lords of the
Château Vaneuil.
“This treasure included two gold monstrances, two crucifixes, some
candelabra, and a tabernacle, making in all—or, rather, as I must
unfortunately say, which made in all nine valuable pieces which people
even came here from a distance to see. Personally”—the Abbé Dessole
mopped his brow and resumed: “Personally I must say that I always felt
the custody of this treasure to be a perilous trust, and in fear and
trembling I exercised every possible care in the discharge of my duty.
From this window you can see the apse of the church, and the vestry
where the treasure was kept. The walls of the vestry are exceptionally
thick, and it has just the one great oak door opening into the chancel.
I am the only person with a key to it, and that key is enormous. In
addition to that, I am the possessor of the only existing key to the
chest in which the treasure was locked. No one but myself ever acted as
cicerone to the visitors who came to see the treasure.”
He waggled a fat forefinger at Barnett and his tone took on added
weight.
“My bedroom window, monsieur, is less than fifteen yards away from the
barred dormer window which lights the vestry from above. Unknown to a
soul, I used, every night, to stretch a rope from my room to the vestry
so that any attempt at burglary would ring a bell at my bedside. As an
additional precaution, I always took the most precious piece in the
collection—a gem-studded reliquary—to my own room. Well, last night——”
The Abbé Dessole again mopped his brow. The sweat poured off him as he
continued the unfolding of the tragedy.
“Last night, towards one o’clock, I sprang out of bed, staggering in
the dark and only half-awake. I had been roused, not by the ringing of
my bell, but by a noise which might have been caused by something being
dropped on the floor. I called out:
“‘Who’s there?’
“There was no reply, but I could feel the presence of someone standing
quite close to me, and I was sure the intruder had climbed in at the
window, for I felt the night air blowing in. I groped for my
flashlight, found it, and switched it on. Then, just for a second, I
had a glimpse of a distorted face showing white between a grey slouch
hat and a brown, turned-up collar. And in the man’s mouth, which was
moving silently, I could distinctly see two gold teeth, on the left
side of the jaw.”
A flicker of interest crossed Barnett’s face.
“The man at once struck my arm a sharp blow so that I dropped the
flashlight.... I rushed forward, but—he wasn’t there! It was just as if
I myself had spun round before moving, for I bumped into the
mantelpiece over my fireplace, which is exactly opposite the window. By
the time I had managed to find matches and strike a light there was no
one in the room. A ladder had been left propped against the ledge of
the balcony—one of my own ladders taken out of the shed. I got into
some clothes and ran to the vestry. The treasure was gone!”
For the third time the abbé wiped his streaming countenance. He was
pitifully moved.
“Of course,” said Barnett, “you found the dormer window broken and your
bell-rope cut through? Which proves, doesn’t it, that the thief was
someone familiar with this place and with your habits? And after your
discovery you were on his track at once?”
“I even yelled ‘Thief!’ which was a mistake on my part, as it was the
sort of thing to rouse the neighborhood and create a sensation. And
heaven knows,” he said gloomily, “this affair is bound to make a stir
for which I shall be blamed by my superiors. Luckily, the only person
who heard my shouting was my neighbor, Baron de Gravières. He has lived
next door to me for twenty years now, engaged in the personal
management of his estate. He absolutely agreed with me that, before
notifying the police and lodging a formal complaint, it was advisable
to try to recover the stolen property. As he has a car, I asked him to
motor to Paris and bring back Inspector Béchoux.”
“And I was on the spot by eight in the morning,” said Béchoux, swelling
with pride. “By eleven I had my case.”
“What’s that?” ejaculated Barnett in surprise. “You’ve caught the
thief?”
Béchoux pointed pompously to the ceiling, rather in the manner of one
indicating the path to paradise.
“He’s up there, locked in the attic, and Baron de Gravières is mounting
guard.”
“Fine! A masterpiece of detection! Tell me all, Béchoux, but in tabloid
form, since life is brief.”
“A bare statement of facts will suffice,” said the inspector, whose
speech could achieve almost telegraphic condensation in the moment of
victory: “(a) I found numerous footprints on the damp ground between
the church and the vicarage; (b) An examination of said footprints
proved that there was only one burglar, who first carried his haul from
the vestry some distance away, since he returned to the attack by the
vicarage steps; (c) The burglar, having waked Père Dessole, hurriedly
retraced his steps, collected his loot and fled along the highroad. His
tracks vanished near the Hippolyte Inn.”
“Immediately,” interrupted Barnett, “you cross-examined the
innkeeper....”
“And the innkeeper,” continued Béchoux, “on my inquiring for a man with
a grey hat, a brown overcoat, and two gold teeth, told me at once that
the description exactly fitted a certain Monsieur Vernisson. This man,
he said, was a traveller in pins, known in Vaneuil as Monsieur
Quatre-Mars, because he was in the habit of coming each year on the
Fourth of March. The innkeeper told me that he had got in the day
before at midday, had stabled his gig, eaten his lunch, and then gone
off to call on his customers. I asked when he had got back, and the
innkeeper told me about two in the morning, as usual. After that, I
ascertained that the man in question had only been gone forty minutes
and was driving in the direction of Chantilly.”
“Whereupon,” said Barnett, “you followed in his train?”
“The baron drove me in his car. We soon caught up with friend Vernisson
and, though he protested, we forced him to put his gig about and come
along with us.”
“Ah, then he maintains his innocence?”
“Scarcely that. But all we can get out of him is ‘Don’t tell my
wife!... My wife must never learn of this!’”
“What about the treasure?”
The abbé sighed dolorously and Béchoux’s triumph grew less pronounced.
“It wasn’t in the gig.”
“But you nevertheless find the evidence quite conclusive?”
“Oh, absolutely. Vernisson’s shoes correspond exactly to the footprints
in the graveyard. Besides, the curé can swear to having encountered the
man there late that afternoon. There can be no doubt at all.”
“Well then,” said Barnett a trifle impatiently, “what’s bothering you?
Why call me in?”
“Oh, that’s an idea of the curé’s,” said Béchoux, looking a bit
disgruntled. “There’s a minor point in the case on which we disagree.”
“Minor! That’s only in your opinion,” said the Abbé Dessole, whose
handkerchief was by now wringing wet.
“What’s the trouble, father?” asked Barnett.
“Well,” the priest hesitated. “It’s about——”
“Yes?” encouraged Barnett.
“About those gold teeth. Monsieur Vernisson certainly has two gold
teeth, only”—he faltered—“only, they’re on the right side of his mouth
... whereas those I saw were on the left!”
Jim Barnett could not restrain his hilarity. He burst into loud
laughter. As the Abbé Dessole stared at him in blank amaze, he pulled
himself together and exclaimed:
“On the right side! Too bad! But are you sure you weren’t mistaken?”
“Positive!”
“But you had met the man——”
“In the graveyard. Yes, that was Vernisson. But it couldn’t have been
the same man who came in the night, since Vernisson’s gold teeth are on
the right side, and the burglar’s were on the left.”
“Perhaps he had changed them over to make it more difficult,” Barnett
suggested joyously. “Béchoux, do bring in the prisoner.”
Two minutes later Monsieur Vernisson was ushered in. He was forlorn and
crushed looking, his melancholy aspect intensified by the depressed
droop of his moustache. His escort, Baron de Gravières, was a well
set-up specimen of the gentleman-farmer class, and carried a revolver.
The prisoner, who looked dazed began moaning:
“I don’t understand ... a broken lock ... what does it all mean?”
“You’d better confess,” advised Béchoux, “instead of whining like
that.”
“I’ll confess anything you like, if only you’ll promise not to tell my
wife. That I can’t allow. I have to meet her next week at Arras. I must
be there, and I can’t have her know anything of this.”
He was so frightened and upset that in his distress his mouth fell open
and the gleam of the two gold teeth was apparent. Jim Barnett came up
to him, inserted thumb and forefinger, and pronounced gravely:
“They’re not a bit loose. There’s no getting away from it, this chap’s
teeth are on the right side. And here’s Père Dessole saying he saw them
on the left.”
Inspector Béchoux was livid.
“That makes no difference! We’ve caught the thief. He’s been coming to
the village for years preparing the ground for this robbery. The
thing’s as clear as day. The curé must be wrong!”
The Abbé Dessole solemnly extended his arm.
“I call upon God to witness that I saw the teeth on the left!”
“On the right!”
“On the left!”
“Time!” cried Barnett. “Now then, you two, you won’t get anywhere with
this ‘Katy Did’ business. What is it you’re after, father?”
“A satisfactory explanation.”
“And if you don’t get it?”
“Then I shall turn the case over to the police as I ought to have done
in the beginning. If this man is not guilty, we have no right to detain
him. I maintain that the burglar’s gold teeth were on the left side of
his mouth.”
“Right!” bawled Béchoux.
“Left!” the abbé insisted.
“Neither right nor left,” was Barnett’s dictum. He was in his element.
“Father, I promise you to produce the thief here, to-morrow morning at
nine, and he will tell you himself where to find the treasure. You,
Béchoux, shall spend the night in this armchair, the baron in that one
and we will tie Monsieur Vernisson to this one. Béchoux, will you wake
me at a quarter to nine? I drink chocolate with my breakfast. See that
there’s toast—and I like my eggs lightly boiled.”
By the end of that day, Barnett had been seen all over the place. He
was seen making a minute examination of each tombstone in the graveyard
in turn. He was seen searching the curé’s bedroom. He was seen
telephoning from the post-office. He was seen at the Hippolyte Inn,
where he dined with the proprietor. He was seen striding along the
highroad and strolling in the fields. But those who observed his
actions could only guess at their purport.
He did not return until two o’clock next morning. The baron and the
inspector were sitting very close to the man with the gold teeth, their
snores reverberating in competitive crescendo. When he heard Barnett
come in, Monsieur Vernisson groaned.
“Mustn’t let my wife get to know of this....”
Jim Barnett flung himself down on the floor and was fast asleep at
once.
At a quarter to nine precisely Béchoux woke Barnett. Breakfast was
ready. Barnett wolfed four bits of toast, three cups of chocolate, and
a couple of eggs. Then he invited his audience to gather round and
said:
“Father, behold me punctual to the appointed hour. Now, Béchoux, I’m
going to demonstrate the extreme unimportance of all your professional
sleuth stuff—footprints, and cigarette ends, and so forth—when
confronted with the actual facts of the case as reconstructed by an
alert intelligence, spurred by intuition and ballasted with
experience.” He bowed modestly, seemingly unconscious that he was a
trifle mixed in his metaphors. “We’ll begin with Monsieur Vernisson.”
“Anything—you can do anything—so long as you don’t tell my wife,”
stammered the wretched commercial traveller, a wreck from anxiety and
insomnia.
So Jim Barnett launched forth.
“Eighteen years ago Alexandre Vernisson, who was then already a
traveller in pins, met here, in Vaneuil, a girl called Angélique, the
little dressmaker of the village. It was a case of love at first sight
on both sides. Monsieur Vernisson got several weeks’ leave from his
employers. He courted Mademoiselle Angélique, and they eloped. She
loved him dearly and was his devoted companion until her death, two
years later. He was quite inconsolable, and although later on a forward
young woman called Honorine got him to marry her, his memories of
Mademoiselle glowed the brighter, since Honorine, a jealous shrew,
never ceased nagging at him and reproaching him with his two years’
idyll, which had somehow come to her knowledge. Hence the pathetic
pilgrimage in secret to Vaneuil which Alexandre Vernisson has made
without fail each year. That’s so, isn’t it, Monsieur Vernisson?”
“Have it your own way,” muttered the latter, “only don’t tell....”
Jim Barnett went on:
“So, each year, Monsieur Vernisson plans his rounds so as to call at
Vaneuil in his gig, unknown to Madame Honorine. He kneels beside the
tomb of Angélique on each anniversary of her death, for it was here in
this graveyard she was buried according to her dying wish. He revisits
the places where they walked together on the day they first met, and
returns to the inn at two in the morning, just as on that occasion. Not
far from where we are sitting at this moment you can see the humble
headstone with the inscription that gave me the explanation of Monsieur
Vernisson’s movements: ‘Here lies Angélique who died on March the
fourth.’ Alexandre loved her and mourns for her!”
The worthy abbé’s eyes filled with tears.
“You can see now why Monsieur Vernisson is so afraid lest Madame
Honorine should learn of his present plight. What would her attitude be
on hearing that her faithless husband is suspected of theft on account
of his late beloved?”
Poor Monsieur Vernisson was mourning openly—partly no doubt for
Angélique, and even more at the thought of his wife’s wrath. His
concern was all with this aspect of the affair, and he seemed oblivious
of the main issue. Béchoux, the baron and the Abbé Dessole all listened
intently.
“This,” Barnett went on, “solves one of the problems confronting us—I
mean Monsieur Vernisson’s exactly timed visits to Vaneuil. This
solution leads us logically up to that of the second riddle—who stole
the treasure? The two are interdependent. You will readily admit that
the existence of such a valuable collection is likely to rouse the
imagination and excite the cupidity of many people. The idea of
stealing it must have occurred occasionally to both visitors and
villagers. Though, thanks to your precautions, father, the theft was
made pretty difficult, yet the obstacles are quite easily surmounted by
anyone who happens to know the exact nature of those precautions, and
who has for years enjoyed the advantage of being able to spy out the
land, plan the burglary and avoid all danger of discovery. For the crux
of this kind of case is—that the thief should go unsuspected. And to
avoid suspicion, there is no better stratagem than to fix suspicion on
someone else ... on this man, for instance, who pays furtive annual
visits to the graveyard on a fixed date, who covers up his movements
and invites suspicion by his very secrecy. Thus, slowly, laboriously,
the plot takes shape. A grey hat, a brown overcoat, shoeprints, gold
teeth—all these characteristics are the subject of minute observation
by someone. This comparatively unknown commercial traveller is to be
the culprit, while the real thief goes free. By the real thief I mean
that mysterious someone who, secretly, perhaps in the friendly guise of
a frequent visitor at the rectory, plots his ingenious manœuvre year
after year.”
Barnett was silent for a moment. Bit by bit he was bringing the truth
to light. Monsieur Vernisson began to assume an expression of
martyrdom. Barnett’s hand went out to him.
“Madame Vernisson shall not know a thing about your pilgrimage,
Monsieur Vernisson. Forgive the misunderstanding through which you have
been made to suffer so grievously. And forgive me for having ransacked
your gig last night and unearthed the rather amateurish hiding-place
under the seat where you keep Mademoiselle Angélique’s letters along
with your private papers. You are a free man, Monsieur Vernisson.” He
loosed the other’s bonds.
The commercial traveller stood up.
“One moment, please!” protested Béchoux, roused to indignation by
Barnett’s dénouement.
“Say on, Béchoux.”
“What about the gold teeth?” cried the inspector, “There’s no getting
away from them. Père Dessole undoubtedly saw two gold teeth in the
burglar’s mouth. And Monsieur Vernisson has two gold teeth—here, on the
right side. What do you make of that?”
“Those I saw were on the left,” the abbé corrected him.
“On the right, father.”
“On the left, I swear.”
Jim Barnett laughed yet again.
“Shut up, both of you. You’re squabbling over a trifle. Good lord,
Béchoux, here are you, a police inspector, stumped by a potty little
problem. Why, it’s positively elementary, my poor friend. It’s the sort
of thing they ask the Lower Third.... Father, this room is an exact
replica of your bedchamber, isn’t it?”
“It is. My bedroom is directly overhead.”
“Well, father, would you be so kind as to close the shutters and draw
the curtains. Monsieur Vernisson, lend me your hat and coat.”
Jim Barnett clapped the gray slouch hat on his head and donned the
brown overcoat, turning up the collar. Then, when the room was quite
dark, he produced a flashlight from his pocket and stood in front of
the curé, projecting the beam of the torch into his own open mouth.
“The man! The man with the gold teeth!” faltered the Abbé Dessole,
staring hard.
“On which side are my gold teeth, father?”
“On the right side. But—those I saw were on the left!”
Jim Barnett’s flashlight clicked out. He seized the abbé by the
shoulders and spun him round quickly several times. Then he switched on
the torch again suddenly and said in a tone of command:
“Look ahead of you,... straight ahead. You can see the gold teeth,
can’t you? On which side are they?”
“On the left,” said the abbé, utterly dumbfounded.
Jim Barnett drew back the curtains and opened the shutters.
“On the right ... on the left ... you’re not quite sure, after all!
Well, father, that explains what happened the other night. When you
jumped out of bed, with a sleep-dazed brain, you never realized that
you were facing away from the window and standing directly before the
fireplace, so that the intruder, instead of being in front of you, was
actually behind you. Therefore, when you switched on your flashlight,
its beam fell not on him but on his reflection in the mirror! I’ve just
brought about a repetition of the phenomenon by spinning you round and
making you giddy. Do you see now? Or shall I dot the i’s of elucidation
by reminding you that a mirror when it reflects an object shows you the
right and left sides reversed? That is how you happened to see the gold
teeth on the left side when they were really on the right.”
“Yes!” cried Inspector Béchoux, in triumph. “But that only proves that
I was right, and yet Père Dessole was not wrong in maintaining his
assertion. Therefore it’s up to you to produce a new man with gold
teeth to take the place of Monsieur Vernisson.”
“Quite unnecessary, I assure you.”
“But you must admit that the burglar is a man with gold teeth?”
“Have I got gold teeth?” demanded Barnett, and took from his mouth a
small piece of gold paper, which still bore the imprint of two of his
teeth.
“Here’s your proof. I hope you find it properly convincing. With
shoe-prints, a grey hat, a brown overcoat and two gold teeth, someone
has fabricated an indisputable Monsieur Vernisson for your benefit. And
how simple it is! One only has to get hold of a little bit of gilt
paper—like this, which I got from the same shop in Vaneuil, where a
whole sheet of it was purchased about three months ago, by the—Baron de
Gravières.”
Barnett’s words, which he let fall quite casually, seemed to reëcho in
the amazed silence which followed them. As a matter of fact, Béchoux,
who had followed Barnett’s line of argument pretty closely, was not
altogether surprised at the climax. But the Abbé Dessole looked as
though he would choke at any moment. His eyes were fixed on his
estimable parishioner, the Baron de Gravières, who sat with heightened
color, but said not a word. Barnett gave Monsieur Vernisson back his
hat and coat. The latter mumbled as he took his leave:
“You promise faithfully, don’t you, that Madame Vernisson shall never
hear of this? It would be terrible if she got to know ... you can
imagine....”
Barnett escorted him to the door and returned beaming. He rubbed his
hands together gleefully.
“A good run and a quick kill. I feel thoroughly braced. You see how
it’s done, Béchoux? Just the same method I applied to the other cases
where we’ve worked together. Never begin by accusing the man you
suspect. Don’t ask him to furnish an alibi. Don’t even take any notice
of him. But, while he thinks himself perfectly safe, reconstruct the
case step by step in his presence. This drives him to a mental
reënaction of the part he played in it. He sees what he had thought
buried in dark oblivion dragged to light. He feels himself cornered,
hopelessly involved, quite unable to fight against the proofs of his
guilt. The ordeal is such a strain on his nerves that it scarcely
occurs to him to utter a word in self-defense or protest. Isn’t that
so, baron? I take it we are all agreed. There’s no point in going over
it all again, is there? You are satisfied that my deductions are
correct?”
Baron de Gravières was evidently undergoing the exact ordeal described
by Barnett, for he made no attempt to confront his adversary or to
conceal his own distress. His attitude was that of a criminal caught
red-handed.
Jim Barnett came over and tendered affable reassurance.
“You need have no fears, monsieur. Abbé Dessole, who is anxious at all
costs to avoid a scandal, only asks you to return the treasure. Once
that’s back in its place, the incident can be regarded as closed.”
The baron raised his head, stared a moment at the man who had compassed
his downfall, and, under Barnett’s relentless gaze, murmured:
“There will be no prosecution? Nothing more will be said? I have your
promise, father?”
“I shall say nothing, I promise,” said the Abbé Dessole. “I shall blot
everything from my memory the minute the treasure is restored. But I
can hardly believe, even now, that you stole it, monsieur le baron—that
you, whom I trusted as I would myself, should turn criminal—it’s
incredible!”
With the awed humility of a child confessing his sins and gaining
relief by the recital, the baron whispered:
“It was too much for me, father. My thoughts kept coming back to that
treasure lying there, so close ... so close ... I resisted the
temptation ... I didn’t want to be a thief.... Then, the whole thing
seemed to take shape in my brain of its own accord....”
“I can hardly believe it!” the abbé repeated sorrowfully.
“Surely—surely——”
“It’s true enough. I had lost money in rash speculation. I had nothing
left to live on. Two months ago, father, I stored all my valuable
antique furniture, with several grandfather clocks and some fine
tapestries in my garage. I meant to sell them ... that would have been
my salvation. But I couldn’t bear to part with them ... and the fourth
of March was so near. Temptation assailed me ... the idea of carrying
out the plan that had come to me. I fell ... forgive me....”
“I forgive you,” said the Abbé Dessole, “and I shall pray the Lord to
be merciful in His punishment to you.”
The baron stood up and said in a firm voice:
“Now, will you please come with me?”
They all walked along the highroad, like men out for a stroll. The Abbé
Dessole mopped his brow. The baron’s tread was heavy and his bearing
bowed. Béchoux felt acute anxiety. He had little doubt that Barnett,
after deftly unravelling the threads of the case, had cheerfully helped
himself to the treasure.
In high feather, Barnett held forth at his side:
“How on earth you came to miss the real thief, Béchoux, beats me. You
must be blind. I saw at once that Monsieur Vernisson couldn’t have
plotted the crime at the rate of one trip a year; that it was much more
likely to be the work of a resident, and preferably of a neighbor. When
I saw the neighbor!... Why, the baron’s house commands an unimpeded
view of church and rectory. He was familiar with the curé’s various
precautions. He knew all about Monsieur Vernisson’s annual pilgrimage
on the fourth of March. Then....”
But Béchoux was not listening. He was too much taken up with his fears,
which solemn meditation did nothing to mitigate.
Barnett went jestingly on:
“Then, when I was sure of my case, I denounced the criminal to his
face. I had no actual proof at all—nothing that would stand in a court
of law. But I observed my man’s face as I built up the story of what
had happened and saw that he was almost beside himself. Ah, Béchoux,
that’s a grand and glorious feeling! And you see where it has landed
us?”
“Yes, I see ... or rather, I soon shall see ... you in clover and me in
the soup, I expect,” said Béchoux, morbidly resigned to the ultimate
doom.
Baron de Gravières had led them the length of several ditches on his
estate, and they were now taking a narrow grass path across a field. He
stopped short a few minutes later, near a clump of oaks.
“There,” he said in a staccato voice, “in that field on the right ...
in the haystack.”
Béchoux’s mouth wore a twisted smile. Feeling he might as well get it
over, he darted to the haystack, followed by the others.
The haystack was quite a small one. In a minute, Béchoux had tumbled
the top layer to the ground. Then he rummaged in the hay, working like
a ferret. Suddenly he gave a shout of triumph.
“Here they are! A monstrance!” his arm brandished it clear of the hay.
“A candlestick! A sconce!” he burrowed fiercely. “Six things ... no,
seven.”
“There should be nine!” cried the abbé.
“Nine there are! Why, they’re all here! Bully for you, Barnett. Bless
you, old son.”
Overcome with joy, and gathering the beloved objects to his ample
bosom, the abbé murmured:
“Mr. Barnett, you have my profound thanks. Heaven will reward you.”
Barnett’s inscrutable smile at this remark was perhaps indicative of
his belief in the old saying: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
Inspector Béchoux had been right in expecting an unpleasant surprise,
only it came a little later.
On their return, as the baron and his companions again skirted the
farm, they heard cries coming from the orchard. The baron rushed to the
garage, in front of which three of his employees stood gesticulating.
He guessed at once what had happened. The door of the small stable
adjoining the garage had been forced open and all the valuable antique
furniture, the grandfather clocks and the tapestries stored there—the
baron’s last resources—had disappeared. He reeled back, stammering:
“This is ghastly! When did it happen?”
“Last night,” said a servant. “We heard the dogs barking about eleven
o’clock.”
“But how could all the things have been spirited away?”
“In your car, sir.”
“In my car! They’ve stolen that too....”
The wretched baron sank into the arms of the priest, who comforted him
as best he could.
“God’s punishment has not tarried, my poor friend. Accept it with a
contrite heart....”
Béchoux advanced on Barnett with clenched fists, ready to spring and
strike.
“You must notify the police, monsieur le baron,” he rasped, in a tone
of fury. “I can assure you that your furniture is not lost.”
“Of course not,” agreed Barnett amicably. “But to prefer a charge would
be most dangerous for the baron.”
Béchoux continued his measured advance. His eyes were steely, and his
attitude one of threat. But Barnett drew him gently aside.
“Don’t you realize what would have happened without me? The curé would
not have got his treasure back. The innocent Vernisson would be in jail
and Madame Vernisson would know all about her unfortunate husband’s
backsliding. The only thing left for you in the circumstances would
have been to jump into the Seine.”
Béchoux sank limply down upon a tree stump. He was inarticulate with
rage.
“Quick, quick!” cried Barnett. “Something to pull Béchoux round....
He’s not feeling well!”
Baron de Gravières gave an order. A bottle of old wine was opened.
Béchoux drank down one glass, the curé another. The baron finished the
bottle....
VI
TWELVE LITTLE NIGGER BOYS
Monsieur Gassire’s first waking thought that morning was for the safety
of the bundle of securities which he had brought home the previous
evening. He stretched out an exploring hand, and encountered the bundle
still safely on the little table by his bed.
His mind set at rest, he proceeded to get out of bed and begin the
business of dressing for the day.
Nicolas Gassire was a short, corpulent man with a shriveled hawk-face.
He was an outside broker doing business in the Invalides quarter of
Paris, with a sound clientele of worthy bourgeois. These latter
entrusted their savings to him and were rewarded by the singularly
attractive profits he netted for them, in part from lucky speculations
and in part from his own little private business of money-lending.
He had a flat on the first floor of a narrow old house of which he was
the owner. This flat comprised a hall, his bedroom, a dining-room which
he used as his office, and another room in which his three clerks
worked. Right at the back there was the kitchen.
Gassire’s economy led him to do without a servant. Every morning at
eight the concierge, a stout, cheerful, active woman, came up with his
post and petit déjeuner—a cup of coffee and a croissant, which she laid
on his desk—and then cleaned up the flat.
On the morning in question the concierge departed at half-past eight,
and Monsieur Gassire, as was his custom, breakfasted in leisurely
fashion, opened his letters and glanced through the morning paper while
he awaited the arrival of his clerks.
Suddenly, just five minutes before nine, he thought he heard a noise in
his bedroom. Remembering the bundle of securities which he had left in
there, he jumped up, overturning his coffee-cup in his agitation. In a
twinkling he was in the other room, but—the bundle of securities had
vanished! At the very same moment he heard the hall-door on the landing
slam violently.
Monsieur Gassire tried to open it, but it was a spring lock and he had
left the key on his desk. He was afraid that if he went to get it the
thief would escape without being seen.
He therefore opened the hall window, which gave on the street. It was
physically impossible for any one to have had time to leave the
building. In any case, the street was empty.
Mastering his excitement, Monsieur Nicolas Gassire refrained from
crying “Thief!” But, a minute later, when he caught sight of his head
clerk coming towards the house from the direction of the neighboring
boulevard, he beckoned furiously to him.
“Hurry up, Sarlonat!” he cried, leaning out of the window. “Come in,
lock the street door and don’t let any one out. I’ve been robbed!”
As soon as his commands had been obeyed, he hastened downstairs,
panting and distraught.
“Tell me, Sarlonat, have you seen anybody?”
“Not a soul, monsieur.”
He hurried to the concierge’s little room, which was wedged between the
foot of the stairs and a small, dark courtyard. She was sweeping the
floor.
“Madame Alain, I’ve been robbed!” he cried. “Is any one hiding here?”
“Why, no, monsieur,” faltered the poor woman in utter bewilderment.
“Where do you keep the key to my flat?”
“I put it here, monsieur, behind the clock. Anyhow, no one could have
taken it, for I’ve not stirred out of my room this last half-hour.”
“That means that instead of coming down the thief must have run
upstairs. Oh, this is terrible, terrible!”
Nicolas Gassire went back to the street door. His other two clerks had
just come on the scene. Hurriedly, in a few breathless words, he gave
them their orders. They were to let no one enter or leave the house
until he came back.
“You understand, Sarlonat? No one.”
He dashed upstairs and into his flat. In an instant he had grabbed hold
of the telephone.
“Hello!” he bawled into the mouthpiece, “hello! Put me through to the
Préfecture!... No, I don’t mean police headquarters, you fool, I mean
the café de la Préfecture ... what number is it?... How should I
know?... Hurry!... Give me information.... Oh, be quick, be quick,
can’t you!”
Dancing with rage the little man at last succeeded in getting on to the
proprietor of the café, and thundered:
“Is Inspector Béchoux there? Then call him to the telephone—at once.
Hurry ... hurry! I want him on business. There’s no time to lose....
Hello!... Inspector Béchoux? This is Gassire speaking, Béchoux.... Yes,
I’m all right ... at least, I’m not ... I’ve just been robbed of some
securities—a whole bundle.... I’m waiting for you.... What’s that? Say
it again!... You can’t come? You’re off on your holiday? Holiday be
hanged, man! Béchoux, you must come, as quickly as possible! Your
twelve African mining shares were in the bundle!”
Monsieur Gassire heard a volcanic monosyllable at the other end, which
fully reassured him on the score of Inspector Béchoux’s purpose and
promptitude. Indeed, it was barely a quarter of an hour before
Inspector Béchoux arrived, running, his face a study in abject anxiety.
He rushed up to the stockbroker.
“My Nigger Boys! My Twelve Little Nigger Boys! All my savings! What’s
become of them?”
“Stolen, along with the bonds and shares of other clients ... and all
my own securities.”
“Stolen?”
“Yes, from my bedroom, half an hour ago!”
“Damnation! But what were my Nigger Boys doing in your room?”
“I took the bundle out of the safe at the Crédit Lyonnais yesterday to
deposit it at another bank, nearer here. And I made the mistake of——”
Béchoux’s hand descended heavily on the other’s shoulder.
“I shall hold you responsible, Gassire. You will have to make good my
loss.”
“How can I? I’m ruined.”
“What do you mean? You have this house.”
“Mortgaged to the hilt!”
The two men faced each other, convulsed with rage and shouting
unintelligibly.
The concierge and the three clerks had also lost their heads, and were
barring the way to two girls from the top floor, who had just come down
and were quite determined to be allowed out.
“Nobody shall leave this house!” roared Béchoux, beside himself with
fury. “Nobody shall leave this house until my Twelve Little Nigger Boys
are restored to me!”
“Perhaps we’d better call in help,” suggested Gassire. “There’s the
butcher’s boy ... and the grocer ... they’re both dependable.”
“Not for me,” the inspector pronounced with decision. “If we need some
one else we’ll telephone the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde. Then
we’ll notify the police. But for the moment that would be sheer waste
of time. Action is what we want!”
He tried to control himself and to regain the pontifical calm that best
befits a police inspector. But he was trembling from head to foot, and
his quivering mouth betrayed his distress.
“Keep your head,” he told Gassire. “After all, we have the whip hand.
Nobody has left the house. The thing is to retrieve my little Nigger
Boys before any one can find a way of sneaking them out of the
building. That’s all that really matters.”
He turned to the two girls and began to question them. He ascertained
that one was a typist who copied reports and circulars at home. The
other gave lessons in flute-playing, also at home. They were both
anxious to get out and do their marketing before lunch, but Béchoux was
adamant.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but this door stays closed for the morning.
Monsieur Gassire, two of your clerks shall mount guard here. The third
can run errands for the tenants. In the afternoon the latter will be
allowed out, but with my permission only in each case, and all parcels,
boxes, baskets or packages of any kind will be submitted to a rigorous
search. You have your orders. Now, Monsieur Gassire, it is for us to
get to work. The concierge will lead the way.”
The building was so planned as to make investigation easy. There were
three upper stories, with a single flat on each floor. This made four
flats in the house, counting that on the ground floor, which was
temporarily unoccupied. Monsieur Gassire lived on the first floor. On
the second dwelt Monsieur Touffémont, an ex-Cabinet Minister. The top
floor was partitioned off into two flatlets, occupied by Mademoiselle
Legoffier, the typist, and Mademoiselle Haveline, who taught the flute.
That morning Monsieur Touffémont had left at half-past eight for the
Chambre des Députés, where he was president of a commission. Since his
flat was cleaned by a woman who came in daily at lunch-time and had not
yet arrived, they decided to await his return.
First, then, they explored the girls’ rooms thoroughly, and satisfied
themselves that the missing securities were not there.
Next they searched every corner of the attic at the top of the house,
getting up there by means of a ladder.
After this, choking with dust, they came downstairs again and searched
the courtyard and Monsieur Gassire’s own flat.
Their efforts went unrewarded. In bitterness of spirit, Béchoux brooded
over the unkind fate that had overtaken his Twelve Little Nigger Boys.
Towards noon Monsieur Touffémont came in. He proved to be an earnest
parliamentarian, burdened with the type of portfolio proper to the use
of an ex-Cabinet Minister. His industry commanded the respect of all
parties in the house, and his rare but masterly interventions could
make a Cabinet tremble apprehensively.
With measured tread he approached the concierge’s room and asked for
his letters. Gassire came up to him and told him of the theft.
Touffémont gave him that grave attention he seemed to bestow even on
the most flippant utterances. Then he promised his coöperation if
Gassire decided to call in the police, and urged at the same time that
they should search his flat.
“You never know,” he said. “Someone might have got in with a skeleton
key.”
Accordingly they searched the flat, but here again they drew a blank.
Béchoux and Gassire tried to keep one another’s courage up by voicing
each in turn his meed of hope and comfort, but their words rang hollow
and their faces grew drawn and pale.
At last they thought they would go in search of refreshment to a small
café just opposite, so placed that they could keep an eye on the home
all the time. But when they got there, Béchoux found he had no
appetite. The Twelve Little Nigger Boys lay heavy on his stomach.
Gassire said that he felt dizzy. No, he wouldn’t take anything, thank
you. They both went over and over what had happened, trying to find
some ray of reassurance in the prevailing gloom.
“It’s quite obvious,” said Béchoux. “Someone got into your flat and
stole the securities. Well, as the thief can’t have escaped from the
building, that means that he or she is still in the house.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Gassire.
“And if he or she is in the house, my Twelve Little Nigger Boys are
there too. Hang it all, they can’t have flown out through the roof!”
“Not unless they were nigger angels,” suggested Gassire.
“So,” Béchoux went on, ignoring him, “we are forced to the conclusion
that——”
He never finished the sentence. Suddenly a look of terror came into his
eyes, and he stared speechless at someone who was jauntily approaching
the house opposite.
“Barnett!” he whispered. “Barnett! How did he get to know of this?”
“You mentioned him, and the Barnett Agency in the rue Laborde,” Gassire
confessed, not without hesitation, “and I thought that, in the
appalling circumstances, it was just worth giving him a ring.”
“You fool!” spluttered Béchoux. “Who’s in charge of the case, anyhow?
You or me? Barnett has nothing to do with this. We must be on our guard
against him or there will be the devil to pay. Let Barnett in on this?
Not much!”
Béchoux was quite sure in his own mind that Barnett’s assistance would
prove the last straw. Jim Barnett in the house and on the case would
only mean that, if the mystery were solved, a bundle of securities,
including Twelve Little Nigger Boys of vital import to their owner,
would surely vanish into thin air.
He tore across the street, and, as Barnett raised his hand to the bell,
he seized his arm and said in trembling tones:
“Get out! Hop it! We don’t want your help. You were called in by
mistake. Cut along now, and be quick about it.”
Barnett gave him an astonished stare full of reproach and childlike
innocence.
“My dear Béchoux, what’s the matter? Tell your Uncle Barnett! You seem
a trifle rattled, old lad. Still sore about the grandfather clocks of
Baron de Gravières? And those gold teeth? Left, right!”
“Get out, I tell you!”
“Then they told me the truth just now on the telephone? Have you really
been robbed of your savings? And don’t you want your Uncle Barnett to
lend a helping hand?”
“My Uncle Barnett can go to hell!” declared Béchoux, furious. “I know
all about your helping hand! It goes into other people’s pockets and
helps itself.”
“Are you in a stew because of your Twelve Little Nigger Boys?”
“I shall be if you come poking your nose in!”
“Oh, all right. I leave you to it!”
“You’re off, then?” Béchoux’s frown cleared.
“Rather not! I’ve come here on business.”
He turned to Gassire, who had joined them and was holding the door
ajar.
“Can you tell me if Mademoiselle Haveline lives here—Mademoiselle
Haveline who teaches the flute? She took second prize at the
Conservatoire.”
Béchoux grew wrathful.
“Huh, you’re asking for her because you’ve just seen her brass plate up
there....”
“Well,” replied Barnett, “haven’t I a perfect right to learn the flute
if I like? It’s a free country!”
“You can’t come here.”
“Sorry, but I am consumed with a passion for the flute.”
“I absolutely forbid it.”
For sole answer Barnett snapped his fingers in the other’s face and
pushed past him into the house. No one dared bar his way. Béchoux, his
heart full of misgivings, watched him ascend the first flight of stairs
and vanish out of sight.
It must have taken Barnett only a little while to get started with his
teacher, for in ten minutes’ time wobbly scales on the flute began
floating down from the top floor. Mademoiselle Haveline’s pupil was on
the job!
“The scoundrel!” cried Béchoux, his anxiety increasing every minute.
“With him in the house, heaven help us!”
He set to work again madly. They ransacked the empty ground floor flat,
also the concierge’s room, in case the bundle of securities had been
thrown down somewhere. It was all fruitless. And the whole afternoon
the sound of flute practice went on, like a mocking goblin under the
eaves. Béchoux nearly collapsed beneath the strain.
At last, on the stroke of six, Barnett appeared, skipping down the
stairs and humming a ribald tune. And, as he went, he swung to and fro
a large cardboard box.
A cardboard box! Béchoux, with a strangled exclamation, seized it and
snatched off the lid. Out tumbled some old hat-shapes and bits of
moth-eaten fur.
“Since she is not allowed to leave the house,” Barnett explained
solemnly, “Mademoiselle Haveline has asked me to throw this stuff away
for her. I say, isn’t she a peach? And what a flautist! She thinks I am
full of talent and says that if I keep on at it I shall soon be able to
qualify for the post of blind man on the church steps. Ta, ta!” And he
was gone.
All night long, Béchoux and Gassire mounted guard, one inside and the
other outside the street door, in case the thief should try to throw a
parcel out of a window to an accomplice waiting below. And next day
they set to work again, but all in vain.
At three o’clock that afternoon Barnett was on the scene again,
carrying the empty cardboard box. He went straight upstairs, nodding
affably to poor Béchoux in the manner of one whose time is well and
fully occupied.
The flute lesson began. Scales, followed by exercises. The critical
listener would have detected plenty of wrong notes.
Suddenly all was quiet. The silence continued unbroken, until Béchoux
was thoroughly puzzled.
“What on earth can he be up to now?” he wondered, as he pictured
Barnett busy with those private researches which would assuredly
culminate in some extraordinary discovery.
He ran upstairs and stood listening on the landing. No sound came from
Mademoiselle Haveline’s room. But a man’s voice was distinctly audible
in the next door flatlet of Mademoiselle Legoffier, the typist.
“Barnett’s voice,” thought Béchoux, his curiosity now at white-heat.
Then, incapable of holding back any longer, he rang the bell.
“Come in!” called Barnett from within. “The key is in the lock
outside.”
Béchoux entered the room. Mademoiselle Legoffier, an attractive
brunette, was sitting at a table by her typewriter, taking shorthand at
Barnett’s dictation.
“The hunt is up, is it?” said the latter. “Carry on, old man. Nothing
up my sleeves”—he mimicked a conjurer—“and as for Mademoiselle
Legoffier——” That damsel blushed discreetly; her arms were bare to the
shoulder.
“Well,” Barnett continued, “I’m dictating my memoirs. You won’t mind if
I go on?”
And, while Béchoux peered under the furniture, he proceeded:
“That afternoon Inspector Béchoux dropped in while I was dictating my
memoirs to a charming young lady called Legoffier. She had been
recommended to me by her friend, the flautist. Béchoux searched high
and low for his Twelve Little Nigger Boys, who heartlessly persisted in
eluding him. Under the couch he collected three grains of dust; under
the wardrobe a shoe-heel and a hairpin. Inspector Béchoux never
overlooks the slightest detail. What a life!”
Béchoux stood up and shook his fist in Barnett’s face, volleying abuse.
The other went on dictating, and the detective departed in a fury.
A little later Barnett came down with his cardboard box. Béchoux, who
was keeping watch, had a moment’s hesitation. But his fears conquered
him and he opened the box, to find that it contained nothing but old
papers and rags.
Life became unbearable for the unhappy Béchoux. Barnett’s continued
presence, his quizzical attitude and freakish pranks threw the
detective into fresh fits of rage. Every day Barnett came to the house,
and after each flute lesson or shorthand séance, he would display his
cardboard box.
Béchoux did not know what to do. He had no doubt that the whole thing
was a farce and that Barnett was ragging him. All the same, there was
always the chance that this time Barnett really was spiriting away the
securities. Suppose he was kidnapping the Twelve Little Nigger Boys?
Suppose he was smuggling his haul out of the house?
Béchoux was forced to rummage in the box, empty it and run his hands
over its oddly assorted contents of torn clothing, rags, old feather
dusters, broom handles, ashes and potato peelings. And this made
Barnett roar with laughter.
“He’s found his shares! No, false alarm! He’s getting warm ... try that
lettuce leaf! Ah, Béchoux, what a lot of quiet fun you manage to give
me, bless you!”
This went on for a week. Béchoux lost the whole of his holiday over the
wretched business, and made himself the laughing-stock of the
neighborhood. For neither he nor Nicolas Gassire had been able to stop
the tenants from attending to their own affairs, even while allowing
their persons to be searched on exit and entrance. Gossip travelled
apace. Gassire’s misfortune became known. His terrified clients flocked
to the office and demanded the immediate return of their money.
As for Monsieur Touffémont, the ex-Cabinet Minister, who came under the
amateur surveillance four times a day, to his great annoyance and the
interruption of his customary routine, he was all for calling in the
police officially, and urged Gassire to take this course without
further delay. The situation could not be prolonged indefinitely.
At last things came to a head. Late one afternoon Gassire and Béchoux
heard sounds of violent quarreling coming from the top of the house.
Two high-pitched voices were raised in rival but continuous clamor, the
uproar punctuated by stamps and screams. It sounded most alarming.
The two men hurried upstairs. On the top landing Mademoiselle Haveline
and Mademoiselle Legoffier were doing battle. Standing over them like
an umpire was Jim Barnett!
Although quite unable to restrain the combatants, Barnett wore an
expression of genuine enjoyment. The girls continued to fly at each
other, their hair like that of Furies, and their frocks getting torn to
shreds. The air was thick with Parisienne invective!
After heroic efforts the pair was separated. The typist promptly went
into hysterics, and Barnett carried her into her flat, while the flute
teacher proceeded to expound her wrongs to Béchoux and Gassire on the
landing.
“Caught them together, I did,” shrilled Mademoiselle Haveline. “Barnett
was mine first, and then I caught him kissing her! I can tell you, he’s
up to no good, that Barnett. He’s a queer sort and no mistake. Why
don’t you ask him, Monsieur Béchoux, what his game’s been up here all
this week, questioning the two of us and poking his nose everywhere?
I’m going to give him away, though. He knows who the thief is. It’s the
concierge, Madame Alain. But he made us swear we wouldn’t let on to
you. Another thing, he knows where those securities are. Didn’t he tell
us: ‘The securities are in the house, and yet not in it, and they’re
out of it, and yet in it’? Those were his very words. You want to be
careful of him, Monsieur Béchoux!”
Jim Barnett had finished with the typist and now came forth. Taking
Mademoiselle Haveline by the shoulders, he pushed her firmly through
her own front door.
“Come along, professor mine, and no idle gossip, if you please! You’re
going right off the handle. Stop talking nonsense and stick to the
flute. I don’t want you playing in my band!”
Béchoux did not stay any longer. Mademoiselle Haveline’s sudden
revelation had shed a ray of light on the case. He now saw that the
thief must be Madame Alain. He only marveled that he could ever have
overlooked her guilt.
Spurred by his conviction, he rushed downstairs, followed by Nicolas
Gassire, and burst in upon the concierge.
“My Africans! Where are they? It was you who stole them!”
Nicolas Gassire panted at his heels.
“My securities! Where have you put them, you thief?”
They each took hold of the poor woman, shaking her violently and
overwhelming her with abuse and questions. She seemed quite dazed by it
all, but stuck bravely to her protestations of innocence and ignorance.
When at last they let her be, she retired to bed and passed a sleepless
night. Next morning the inquisition recommenced, and that day and its
successor were long hours of unrelieved ordeal for the poor woman.
Béchoux would not for a minute admit that Jim Barnett could have made a
mistake. Besides, in the light of this definite accusation, it was easy
to put the right construction on the facts of the case. The concierge,
while cleaning the flat, had doubtless noticed the unaccustomed bundle
on the table by the bed. She was the only person who had the key to the
flat. Knowing Monsieur Gassire’s regular habits, she might well have
returned to the flat, seized the securities, run off with them, and
taken refuge in the little room where Nicolas Gassire found her when he
rushed downstairs.
Béchoux began to get discouraged.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s obvious that this woman is the guilty party. But
still we’re no nearer a solution of the mystery. I don’t care if the
criminal is the concierge or the man in the moon. It makes no odds as
long as we are still without news of my Twelve Little Nigger Boys. I
can see that she had them in her room, but by what miracle did they
leave it between nine o’clock and the time we searched her belongings?”
All their threats, and the “third degree” cross-examination to which
she was subjected failed to make the fat Madame Alain disclose any
helpful information. She denied everything. She had seen nothing. She
knew nothing. Even though there was now no doubt of her guilt she stood
firm.
“We’ve simply got to settle this,” Gassire told Béchoux one morning.
“You know that Touffémont overthrew the Cabinet last night. The
reporters will be here any minute to interview him, and we can’t
possibly go searching them, too.”
Béchoux agreed that they had come to an impasse.
“But keep smiling,” he urged, “for within three hours I shall know the
truth.”
That afternoon he called at the Barnett Detective Agency.
“I was waiting for you to drop in, Béchoux,” said Barnett amicably.
“What do you want?”
“I want your coöperation, Barnett. I’m at a loss what to do.”
This was unvarnished admission of defeat. The inspector’s surrender was
unconditional. Béchoux was making the amende honorable.
Jim Barnett clapped him friendliwise on the back, then took him by the
shoulders and rocked him gently to and fro, by sheer geniality sparing
the other humiliation. This was no meeting of vanquished and victor.
Rather was it a scene of reconciliation between two comrades.
“To tell you the truth, Béchoux, I was awfully cut up about that
misunderstanding between us. I couldn’t bear to think of our being
enemies. It worried me till I could hardly sleep at nights!”
A frown clouded Béchoux’s brow. His professional conscience pricked him
sore for being on friendly terms with Barnett. He cursed the unkind
fate that forced him to collaborate with a man he felt sure was a
crook, and to incur obligations to the fellow into the bargain. But
there are moments and circumstances when even the just man stretches a
point. The loss of a dozen valuable African mining shares explained
Béchoux’s course of action.
Swallowing his scruples, he whispered:
“It’s the concierge, of course?”
“It is she for the reason, inter alia, that it could not be any one
else.”
“But how do you account for a woman who has always been honest and
respectable suddenly turning crook?”
“If you had troubled to make a few inquiries about her you would know
that the poor creature is afflicted with a son who is a thorough bad
hat. He is always sponging on her. It was on his account that she
suddenly gave way to temptation.”
Béchoux jumped up.
“Did she manage to give him my shares?” he asked anxiously.
“Of course not! Do you think I should have allowed a thing like that? I
regard your Twelve Little Nigger Boys as sacred.”
“Where are they, then?”
“In your own coat-pocket.”
“Please don’t joke about it.”
“But, Béchoux, I’m not joking. I never joke in times of stress. Look
for yourself!”
Béchoux’s hand went gingerly to his coat-pocket, felt in it and took
out a large envelope which bore the following superscription: “To my
friend Béchoux.” With trembling fingers he tore it open. Oh, joy, his
Nigger Boys were restored to him, all twelve! Clutching the precious
shares to his breast, he turned very pale and closed his eyes. Barnett
hastened to revive him with smelling salts held under the nose.
“Sniff hard, Béchoux. This is no time to faint.”
Béchoux did not faint, though he surreptitiously wiped away a few tears
of relief. He was inarticulate with emotion. Of course he had no doubt
but that Barnett had stuffed the envelope into his pocket the moment he
came into the Agency, while they were making up their differences. But
anyhow there were the Twelve Little Nigger Boys in his still trembling
hands, and Barnett’s virtue was for him untarnished.
Reviving suddenly, he began capering about, dancing a kind of Spanish
jig shaking imaginary castanets.
“I’ve got them back! My own little pickaninnies! Bless you, Barnett,
for a friend in need. From now on there is only one Barnett—Béchoux’s
preserver! You deserve a statue and a drinking fountain. You are one of
our truly great men. But how on earth did you bring it off? Tell me
all.”
Once again Barnett’s little way was a source of amazement to Inspector
Béchoux. His professional curiosity thoroughly aroused, he asked:
“Won’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Barnett’s tone was one of amused indolence.
“How you unravelled everything! Where was the bundle? ‘In the house yet
out of it,’ was what you said, I believe?”
“‘And out of the house but in it,’” added Barnett with a laugh.
“What does it mean?”
“D’you give it up?”
“Yes, yes; I give it up. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Will you promise never again to take up that chilly and reproachful
attitude towards my harmless exploits, which almost convinces me at
times that I must have wandered from the straight and narrow path?”
“Go on, tell me, Barnett!”
“Ah,” exclaimed the other, “what a story! I’ve never come across
anything more neatly done, more unexpected, more spontaneous or more
baffling. It was at once human and fantastic. And withal so simple that
you, Béchoux, gifted as you are in your profession, were absolutely in
the dark.”
“Well, hang it all, come to the point,” said Béchoux in some annoyance.
“How did the bundle of securities leave the house?”
“Under your own eyes, my bright lad! And not only did it leave the
house, but it came in again. It left the house twice daily, and twice
daily it returned! And under your own eyes, Béchoux, under your bright,
benignant eyes! And for ten days you bowed to it respectfully. You
almost grovelled on your knees before it!”
“I don’t believe you!” cried Béchoux. “It’s absurd. We searched
everything.”
“Everything was searched, Béchoux, except that. Parcels, boxes,
handbags, pockets, hats, tins, dustbins ... all those, but not that. At
the frontier they search all luggage, except the diplomat’s valise.
Naturally, you searched everything but that.”
“What is that?” yelled Béchoux frenziedly. “For goodness sake, answer
me.”
“The portfolio of the ex-Cabinet Minister!”
Béchoux sprang up in astonishment.
“What do you mean, Barnett? Are you accusing Monsieur Touffémont?”
“Idiot, should I dare accuse a member of parliament? In the first
place, that man, an ex-Cabinet Minister, is above suspicion. And among
all members of parliament and ex-Cabinet Ministers—and Lord knows their
name is legion—I regard Touffémont as the least open to suspicion. All
the same, Madame Alain made him a receiver of stolen goods!”
“Then he was her accomplice?”
“Not a bit of it!”
“Then who was?”
“His portfolio!” And, with a broad smile, Barnett proceeded to
elucidate. “A minister’s portfolio, Béchoux, has a personality of its
own. In this world we have Monsieur Touffémont and we have his
portfolio. The two are inseparable, and each is the other’s raison
d’être. You can’t imagine Monsieur Touffémont minus his portfolio—nor
the portfolio minus Monsieur Touffémont. But it happens that Monsieur
Touffémont lays down his portfolio when he eats and sleeps, and on
various other occasions through the day. At such times the portfolio
assumes a separate identity and may lend itself to actions for which
Monsieur Touffémont cannot be held responsible.
“That was what happened on the morning of the theft.”
Béchoux stared at Barnett, wondering what on earth he was getting at.
“That was what happened,” Barnett repeated, “on the morning that your
twelve African mining shares vanished away. The concierge, terrified by
what she had done, and dreading the consequences of her action, could
not think how to get rid of the securities, which were bound to betray
her guilt. Suddenly she noticed the providential presence of Monsieur
Touffémont’s portfolio on her mantelpiece—the portfolio all by itself!
Monsieur Touffémont had come in there to collect his post. He put his
portfolio down on the mantelpiece and proceeded to open his letters,
while Gassire and you, Béchoux, were telling him about the
disappearance of the securities.
“Then Madame Alain had an inspiration of sheer genius. Her room had not
yet been searched, but it was bound to be ransacked in a little while,
and the securities would be discovered. She had no time to lose. She
turned her back on the three of you standing there discussing the
theft. With quick, deft fingers she opened the portfolio, emptied one
of the flap pockets of all its papers, and slipped the securities into
their place. The deed was done, the great bell rung. No one suspected
anything. And when Monsieur Touffémont withdrew, he took away in the
portfolio under his arm your Twelve Little Nigger Boys and all
Gassire’s securities.”
Béchoux never questioned Barnett’s asseverations when they were made on
that particular note of absolute conviction. Instead, he bowed his head
humbly in the Temple of Truth and believed what he was told.
“Certainly,” he said, “I noticed a sheaf of papers and reports lying
about down there that morning, but I paid no attention to it. And
surely she must have given those documents back to Monsieur
Touffémont?”
“I hardly think so,” answered Barnett. “Rather than incur any suspicion
she probably burned them.”
“But he must have asked after them?”
Barnett shook his head and smiled quietly.
“You mean to say he hasn’t noticed the disappearance of a whole sheaf
of his papers?”
“Has he noticed the appearance of the bundle of securities?”
“But—but what happened when he opened the portfolio?”
“He didn’t open it. He never opens it. Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio,
like that of many a politician, is only a sham—a dummy—a useful prop on
the parliamentary stage. If he had opened it he would have demanded the
return of his own papers, and restored the securities. He has done
neither.”
“But when he works....”
“He doesn’t work. The mere fact of a man’s carrying a portfolio does
not necessarily imply that he works. As a matter of fact, the
possession of an ex-minister’s portfolio is in itself a dispensation
from work. A portfolio stands for power, authority, omnipotence, and
omniscience. Last night, at the Chambre des Députés—I was there myself,
by the way—Monsieur Touffémont laid down his portfolio on the rostrum.
You can see that his doing this at such a crisis was tantamount to
announcing publicly that he was once again a candidate for office. The
Cabinet realized that it was lost. The great man’s portfolio must be
full of crushing documents crammed with statistics! Monsieur Touffémont
even undid it, though he took nothing from its bulging compartments. It
was so obvious that he had everything there.... But really, there was
nothing there except your twelve African mining shares, Gassire’s
securities and some old newspapers. They carried the day, however, and
Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio overthrew the Cabinet.”
“But how do you know all this?”
“Because, when Monsieur Touffémont was strolling home from the House at
one o’clock in the morning, a person unknown came into clumsy collision
with him and sent him sprawling on the pavement. Another man—an
accomplice—snatched up the portfolio and replaced the securities with a
bundle of old papers, carrying off the former. Need I tell you the name
of the second man?”
Béchoux laughed heartily. Every time his hand felt the twelve shares in
his pocket he was struck afresh with the humor of the story and of
Monsieur Touffémont’s little adventure.
Barnett, beaming on his friend, concluded:
“That’s all there is to know, and it was in my endeavor to ferret out
the truth and collect evidence in the case that I’ve dictated my
memoirs and taken lessons on the flute. What a pleasant week it’s been!
Flirtations up above and a variety entertainment on the ground floor.
Gassire, Béchoux, Madame Alain, Touffémont ... my own little
marionettes, dancing when I pulled the strings! The hardest nut I had
to crack was that Touffémont could actually be oblivious of his
portfolio’s guilty secret, and be taking your Twelve Little Nigger Boys
to and fro in blissful ignorance. At first it had me absolutely beat.
And how surprised the poor concierge must have been! She must think
Touffémont a common crook, since she certainly believes that he has
stuck to your Little Nigger Boys and the rest of the bundle. Fancy
Touffémont——”
“Hadn’t I better tell him?” broke in Béchoux.
“What’s the good? Let him go on carting his old newspapers about and
sleeping with the portfolio under his pillow. Don’t let on about this
to anyone, Béchoux.”
“Except Gassire, of course,” said Béchoux. “I shall have to explain to
him when I give him back his securities.”
“What securities?” asked Barnett blankly.
“The ones you found in Monsieur Touffémont’s portfolio—they’re his!”
“You must be crazy, Béchoux. You don’t suppose Gassire will ever see
his securities again?”
“Naturally I do.”
Barnett brought his fist down on the table and gave vent to a sudden
burst of righteous indignation.
“Look here, Béchoux, do you know what sort of man Nicolas Gassire is?
He’s a scoundrel like the concierge’s son! He robbed his clients—I can
prove it! He gambled with their money. He was even preparing to steal
the lot. Look, here is his first-class railway ticket to Brussels. He
bought it on the same day that he withdrew the securities from his safe
deposit, not to hand them over to another bank as he told you, but to
bolt with them! How do you feel about Nicolas Gassire now?”
Béchoux could say nothing. Ever since the theft of his shares his
confidence in Nicolas Gassire had been considerably shaken. Still, he
raised the obvious objection.
“His clients are all decent people. It’s not fair to ruin them as
well.”
“Who ever talked of ruining them? That would be disgraceful. It would
upset me terribly!”
Béchoux looked his interrogation.
“Gassire is rich,” observed Barnett.
“He’s broke,” contradicted Béchoux.
“Not at all. I have information that he has enough money to pay back
all his clients and then leave something over. You can be quite sure
that the reason he didn’t call in the police the very first day was
that he didn’t want them meddling in his private affairs. Threaten him
with imprisonment, and watch him skip! Why, Nicolas Gassire is a
millionaire. It’s up to him to right his client’s wrongs, no business
of mine!”
“Which means that you intend keeping the securities?”
“Certainly not! They’re already sold!”
“Yes, but you’ve got the cash.”
Barnett was virtuously indignant and protested that he had kept
nothing.
“I’m merely distributing it,” he declared.
“To whom?”
“To friends in distress and to various deserving charities which I
supply with funds. You needn’t worry, Béchoux. I’m making good use of
Gassire’s money.”
Béchoux did not doubt it. Yet another treasure-hunt in which the prize
was forfeit at the finish! Barnett, as usual, walked off with the
spoils. He punished the guilty and saved the innocent—and never forgot
to line his pockets in the process. Well-ordered charity invariably
begins at home.
Inspector Béchoux found himself blushing. If he made no protest, he
became Barnett’s accomplice. But, as he felt the precious bundle of
shares in his pocket, and realized that without Barnett’s intervention
he would have lost them for ever, he cooled down. It was hardly an
opportune moment to enter the lists!
“What’s up?” asked Barnett. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“Oh, rather,” said the luckless Béchoux hastily. “Delighted!”
“Then smile, smile, smile!”
Béchoux managed a grimace like a watery sunset.
“That’s better,” cried Barnett. “It’s been a pleasure to do you this
small service, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity. And now
it’s time for us to part. You must be very busy, and I’m expecting a
lady.”
“So long,” said Béchoux, and made for the door.
“To our next merry meeting,” answered Barnett.
Béchoux took his leave, delighted, indeed, but at loggerheads with his
conscience and firmly resolved to shun Barnett’s society henceforward.
As he turned the corner of the rue Laborde he noticed the pretty typist
from the Invalides hurrying along. Doubtless she was the lady Barnett
was expecting!
And, a couple of days later, Béchoux saw Barnett at the cinema,
accompanied by the equally charming Mademoiselle Haveline, who played
upon the flute....
VII
THE BRIDGE THAT BROKE
It was a Tuesday afternoon in midsummer. Paris was deserted—a city of
the dead. Jim Barnett sat in his office with his feet on his desk. He
was in his shirt-sleeves. A glass of lager beer stood at his elbow. A
green blind shut out the blazing sun. To the prejudiced eye, Barnett’s
appearance would have suggested slumber, and this impression would have
been strengthened by his rather loud and rhythmical breathing.
A sharp tap on his door made him bring his feet down with a jerk and
sit bolt upright.
“No! It can’t be! The heat must be affecting my eyesight.” Barnett
affected elaborate astonishment.
Inspector Béchoux, for it was he, closed the door behind him and
observed with some distaste his friend’s state of déshabillé. It was a
fad with Béchoux to present at all times a perfectly groomed
appearance. On this sweltering day he was cool and immaculate, not a
hair out of place.
“How do you do it?” Barnett demanded, sinking back wearily into his
chair.
“Do what?”
“Look like a fashion-plate off the ice. Damned superior, I call it!”
Béchoux smiled with conscious pride.
“It’s quite simple,” he remarked modestly.
“But I take it the case you are working on is not quite so simple, or
you wouldn’t be coming to the enemy camp for assistance, eh Béchoux?”
Béchoux reddened. It was a very sore point with him that in his
difficulties he had several times been forced to accept Jim Barnett’s
help. For Barnett was helpful—almost uncannily so. The trouble was that
he always managed to help himself as well as others. But Béchoux felt
profoundly grateful to Barnett for having retrieved these African
shares—his precious Twelve Little Nigger Boys.
“What is it this time? I’ve all day to spare—and to-morrow—and the day
after. The Barnett Agency doesn’t get many clients at this time of
year, though it does guarantee ‘Information Free.’ I hear that they
can’t even get deadheads to go to the theatres—pouf!”
“How would you like a trip into the country?”
“Béchoux, you are a blessing, albeit heavily disguised. What is the
case, though?”
Inspector Béchoux grimaced involuntarily.
“It’s a real mystery—the sudden death of the famous scientist,
Professor Saint-Prix.”
“I know the name, but I haven’t read about his death in the papers. Has
he been murdered?”
Inspector Béchoux’s countenance took on a sphinx-like expression.
“That’s what I want you to help me to determine. I have my car at a
garage near here. Pack a bag and come right along. I’ll tell you the
facts of the case as we go.”
Reluctantly Barnett got up, drained the last of his beer, and made his
simple preparations for the trip.
A quarter of an hour later they were spinning out of Paris in Inspector
Béchoux’s little two-seater.
“I was called in on the case,” said Béchoux, “by Doctor Desportes of
Beauvray—an old friend. He rang up on Monday morning to say there was
going to be an inquest at Beauvray—Professor Saint-Prix, the scientist,
had been killed by falling into the stream at the bottom of his
garden.”
“Nothing very mysterious in that.”
“Ah, but wait. The professor was crossing the stream by a plank bridge,
and that bridge gave way under him and precipitated the old man into
the water. His head hit a sharp rock and he was killed
instantaneously.”
“Was the bridge rotten, then?”
Inspector Béchoux shook his head.
“My doctor friend informed me that though the police had not been
called in, they would have to be. The bridge was perfectly sound,
but—it had been sawed through!”
Barnett whistled.
“And so you went to Beauvray at once?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you find?”
“A queer situation. The professor had a little house where he lived
with his daughter, Thérèse Saint-Prix. Joined on to the house was a
very fine laboratory. The garden sloped down, first a lawn and then a
dense shrubbery, to a stream, sunk deep between rocky banks. A stout
plank bridge was the means of crossing from the Saint-Prix garden to
the adjoining property of the Villa Eméraude, the home of a married
couple, the Lenormands.
“Louis Lenormand is a young stockbroker. His wife, Cécile, is a
delicate, beautiful girl. Last Sunday afternoon, Madame Lenormand was
going to have tea with Thérèse Saint-Prix. Louis Lenormand was spending
the week-end in Paris with his invalid mother, but was expected back
that night.
“Madame Lenormand went through the garden of the Villa Eméraude down to
the stream. When she got there, she pulled up short and gave a cry of
horror! The plank bridge was broken, and in the water lay the body of
Professor Saint-Prix. She rushed back to the house for help, and then
fainted.”
“Well, where do I come in?”
“Almost as soon as they had got Madame Lenormand to bed, and were
breaking the news of her father’s death to Thérèse Saint-Prix, Louis
Lenormand arrived in his car, driving like a fury. He was pale and
trembling. The first words he spoke were: ‘Am I in time? Tell me—tell
me. My God, I’ve been a fool!’ He was like a madman and rushed upstairs
to his wife’s room without waiting for an answer from the astonished
servants. His wife’s maid told him what had happened. At first he did
not seem to understand. Then he stole to his wife’s bedside and kissed
her hands passionately, weeping and murmuring, ‘Cécile, I am a
murderer.’”
“Still I confess I don’t understand. You have your murder—you have your
murderer, self-confessed. What more do you want?”
“Well, the thing is this. We checked up on Louis Lenormand’s movements
while he was away from Beauvray. We know that the bridge was perfectly
safe on the Saturday morning, for a gardener crossed by it. Now all
Saturday afternoon Lenormand spent at his mother’s bedside. He sat with
her again after dinner until eleven o’clock, and then turned into bed
himself. Old Madame Lenormand’s maid and cook heard him kicking off his
shoes in the room next to theirs. And the maid swears that in the small
hours she heard him switch off his light, so she supposes he must have
been lying awake reading. All Sunday morning he did not stir out, so it
is out of the question that he could possibly have sawed through the
bridge between the gardens at Beauvray.”
“What made you establish such a thorough alibi for your suspect?”
“Madame Lenormand, though still weak from the shock, has recovered
consciousness. Her belief in her husband’s innocence is absolute. Her
one aim is to clear him. She insisted on these investigations being
made. He will not say a word in his own defence. It’s all very
mystifying.”
“You say that Louis Lenormand was not expected back until Sunday
evening. Do you know why he left Paris so much earlier?”
“That,” said Béchoux, “is a curious point. Apparently he was alone in
one of the rooms in his mother’s flat, reading a book while the old
lady had a nap after her lunch. The servants were both in the kitchen,
and testify that suddenly, at about three o’clock, he rushed into them
and said he was going home at once but would not disturb his mother to
say good-bye.”
“And the motive? What reason could Louis Lenormand have to murder his
neighbor?”
Inspector Béchoux shrugged his shoulders.
“I have an idea, and Doctor Desportes is making some investigations on
my behalf.”
“Is there no one else who comes under suspicion? What about Madame
Lenormand?”
Inspector Béchoux was silent. The car swung off the main road up a
shady avenue. They turned into the drive of the Villa Eméraude. They
were met outside the house by Doctor Desportes, who announced:
“The Beauvray police have arrested Monsieur Lenormand, but I have been
busy on the telephone to headquarters, and you are now officially in
charge of the case.”
“But his alibi—he was in Paris all the time—he could not have sawed
through the bridge!”
The doctor looked grave.
“Monsieur Lenormand had a latch-key to his mother’s flat. The Paris
police have inquired at the garage where he kept his car and they find
that he took it out shortly after midnight and told a mechanic that he
was unable to sleep because of the heat, and was going to try and get a
breath of air in the Bois. He returned after two in the morning.”
“Which,” observed Barnett, “gave him plenty of time to drive out here,
saw through the bridge and get back to Paris. And what the maid heard
was Monsieur Lenormand switching off his light when he really went to
bed at last. Both servants must have been asleep when he slipped out of
the flat.”
The doctor looked at Barnett in some curiosity, for he spoke in such an
assured tone and was so obviously no subordinate of Inspector Béchoux.
Barnett smiled and bowed easily.
“Allow me to remedy my friend Béchoux’s deplorable lack of manners. Jim
Barnett, at your service, doctor.”
“A friend of mine, who has helped me on more than one occasion,” said
Béchoux, not so easily. “Come, doctor, what news have you for me after
your confidential interview with the bank manager at Beauvray?”
“Poor Monsieur Lenormand.” The doctor shook his head sadly. “I wish it
had been a policeman who had found it out. But justice cannot be
cheated. I have established that for the past two years Monsieur
Lenormand has from time to time paid quite large checks into the
banking account of Professor Saint-Prix.”
“Blackmail?” Barnett and Béchoux came out with the word simultaneously.
“There we have at last the motive!” cried Béchoux, in purely
professional triumph. “Monsieur Lenormand must have had a very good
reason for sawing through that bridge——”
“But he did not do it!”
A young woman, deathly pale, wearing a brilliant Chinese wrap, was
coming slowly down the stairs into the hall, clutching at the banister
for support. A maid followed anxiously behind her.
“I repeat,” she said in a voice trembling with suppressed emotion,
“Louis is innocent!”
“Madame,” said Béchoux, “allow me to present my friend, Jim Barnett.”
Barnett bowed low. “If anyone can achieve the impossible and establish
your husband’s innocence, it is he! I admit, however, that I originally
brought him here because your husband’s alibi upset all my deductions:
Now that alibi no longer holds, and I have no objection if Barnett
transfers his assistance to you. Provided”——he grew thoughtful and did
not finish his sentence.
“Oh,” cried Madame Lenormand, taking Barnett’s hands impulsively in
hers, “save my husband, and I will give you any reward you care to
name.”
Barnett shook his head.
“I ask no reward, madame, beyond the privilege of serving you. Never
shall it be said that the Barnett Agency descended to base
commercialism in accepting a fee for its labors.”
At this point a gendarme came running in from the garden with a pair of
rubber boots.
“Where did you find those?” asked Béchoux.
“In a garden shed at the back of the grounds of the Villa.”
The boots were covered with fresh mud. In this sweltering weather the
only moisture on the ground would be along the channel of the stream.
Cécile Lenormand gave a sharp exclamation.
“Your husband’s?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Well,” said Barnett, “let’s go and have a look at the stream—and we
ought to take those with us. À bientôt, madame.”
Béchoux and Barnett, accompanied by the doctor and the gendarme, walked
through the garden and down to the stream. The water was running
swiftly over the rocks below.
Béchoux looked unwillingly at the muddy foothold below the broken
bridge, and then at his shining new patent leather shoes topped by
snowy spats.
“I’ll do it!” cried Barnett gallantly, and, seizing a boot from
Béchoux, he leapt down, so that he sank ankle-deep in the mud beside
the torrent.
“Are there any marks?” asked the doctor eagerly.
“Yes,” said Barnett. “And they were made by these boots!”
“A clear case!” said Béchoux. “I need never have brought you along,
Barnett, and I’m afraid it’s no use your transferring your services to
Madame Lenormand. Really, I think you’d better hop back to Paris.”
“My dear Béchoux!” said Barnett in tones of shocked surprise. “Go off
and leave a client in the lurch? Do you imagine the Barnett Agency
shirks what appears to be a losing case?”
“Then you definitely regard Madame Lenormand as your client?”
“Why not?”
He handed up the boot and grovelled a few minutes longer in the mud.
Then he clambered up again, somewhat apoplectic of countenance.
“Now,” he said briskly, “suppose we visit Mademoiselle Saint-Prix and
inspect both the properties prior to consuming beef and wine at the
village inn.”
“What good can that do? I have my case.”
“And I have my own way of working. If you prefer it, I will pursue my
course quite independently on behalf of Madame Lenormand, and you
needn’t see me again until I, too, have my case.”
But this course Béchoux viewed with some apprehension, so he and
Barnett made their way round by the road to the Saint-Prix house.
On the way there Barnett solemnly handed Béchoux a very grubby sealed
envelope.
“Will you please keep that carefully for me?” he said, “and don’t let
it out of your inner pocket until I ask for it.”
“What is it?”
Barnett smiled mysteriously and laid a finger to his nose.
“A valuable diamond, old horse!”
“Idiot!”
At this point, they had arrived at the late professor’s house. Here all
the blinds were drawn. Barnett observed that the paint was peeling off
the walls, and the matting in the passage was worn and old. A
down-at-heel servant girl showed them into a small boudoir where they
were received by Thérèse Saint-Prix.
She was quite a young woman—a girl in years, but strikingly poised and
mature in bearing and appearance, tall and supple. She wore black, with
no ornament of any kind. Her smooth black hair, parted in the middle,
was drawn off her ears into a knot low on her neck. Her grave, dark
eyes searched the faces of the two men—she had already met Béchoux and
presumed Barnett to be an assistant.
She sat, very pale, though calm, in a high-backed, carved chair. Only
her strong white hands strained at her handkerchief as if there alone
her grief found outlet.
Barnett bowed low.
“Accept my profound sympathy, mademoiselle,” he murmured. “Your
father’s death will be felt by all France!”
“Yes,” the girl said, in a low voice. “Five years ago he discovered the
antiseptic which is now used in every hospital. That brought him
renown, though it did not mend our fortunes when we lost our money in
Russia.” She gave a pathetic little smile.
“How was that?”
“My father was half Russian. He invested everything in his brother’s
oil-wells near St. Petersburg. Revolutionaries burned the factory and
murdered my uncle. After that loss, we lived very modestly. But even in
poverty my father was generous. And he would take no money for his
discovery. He said his reward was to have been able to help in the
great war against disease. When my father died, however, he was on the
verge of completing another discovery of a different kind—one that
would have brought him wealth as well as fame.”
“What was this discovery?”
“A secret process which would have revolutionized the dye industry. But
I know scarcely anything about it—my father was secretive in some
matters and would not let me help him in his experiments.” Again she
smiled sadly. “I could only be his housekeeper, never his assistant.
And my chief occupation was to interest myself in the garden. Cécile
and I used to spend hours planning our flower-beds. She was always so
kind, helping me with gifts of plants. She was coming to tea on that
afternoon, you know, to advise me about some fruit-trees. Poor Cécile!
What will she do?”
“You are aware, mademoiselle,” said Béchoux, rather stiffly, as if to
recall his presence to her consciousness, “that Louis Lenormand is
under arrest? The case is practically complete against him.”
She nodded.
“What made Louis Lenormand do such a thing? Can you imagine?” Barnett
asked abruptly.
“If he did it,” said Thérèse gently. “We must remember that nothing is
proved yet.”
“But what reason can he have had? Well off, prosperous, married to a
charming wife——”
“Against the wishes of her family,” interposed the girl. “Louis
Lenormand was a penniless clerk, and it was by speculating with his
wife’s money that he became rich. The family all thought that was why
he wanted to marry her, though, of course, it was untrue. And Cécile
was passionately fond of her husband—she grudged every minute he spent
elsewhere. Indeed, I used to wonder if she was not a little jealous of
the time he spent with my father in the laboratory. I wondered, too, if
she minded his helping my father occasionally with loans of money. But
I do wrong if I suggest that Cécile is not all that is generous. Only,
where her husband is concerned, if you understand, I have often
wondered if she can be quite normal.”
Barnett looked distinctly interested, though Béchoux was obviously
bored.
“Mademoiselle,” said Barnett, “I have a favor to ask of you. May I see
the laboratory in which your father worked?”
Without another word she led the way down a passage and through a baize
door, which opened into the airy, white building.
The laboratory was in contrast to the house itself. Here all was new
and spotless. Phials were ranged in orderly rows along the shelves;
clean vessels sparkled on the benches. In all this dazzling whiteness
there was but one dark patch—a muddy coat trailing from a stool.
“What’s that?” asked Barnett.
“My poor father’s coat,” said Thérèse. “They carried him in here and
removed his coat when they were trying to restore life. But he must
have been killed instantaneously.”
“And these are all his chemicals?” Barnett indicated the gleaming
phials.
“Yes—to think he will never use them again!” She averted her head
slightly. “Ah, how my father loved this place; and so, I always
thought, did Louis Lenormand. Cécile did not, but that was because she
did not understand. She loved flowers, everything beautiful; but
science she thought ugly and repellent. Why, I have seen her shake her
fist at the laboratory windows when my father and her husband were
talking there together.”
“Well, mademoiselle, I thank you very much for being so helpful to us
in what must be painful and terrible circumstances so far as you are
concerned. And I won’t hide from you that I have already made one
little discovery.”
“What’s that?” demanded Béchoux.
“Aha, I thought you would want to know. Well, it is that I am on the
track of the motive for the murder. You have the murderer; I shall soon
have the motive. And there we are!”
Then, hastily dissembling his cheerfulness, he took a dignified
farewell of Thérèse Saint-Prix, and departed with Béchoux.
At the garden gate they were met by the doctor and the gendarme.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” the former observed. “We have found the
instrument of the crime.”
The gendarme held up a medium-sized saw.
“Where did you find it?” asked Béchoux eagerly.
“Among some laurel bushes, near the tool-shed where the boots were
discovered.”
“See,” cried Béchoux, turning eagerly to Barnett, “it is plainly
marked, ‘Villa Eméraude.’”
“Very interesting,” observed Barnett. “Béchoux, I feel your case is
becoming ever clearer. I almost wish I had never left Paris; it’s just
as hot here. In fact, I am getting distinctly warm. What about a drink
at the local hostelry? I hope you will join us, doctor?” He beamed a
comprehensive invitation.
“I shall be delighted to join you and your colleague,” answered the
doctor.
At the word “colleague,” Béchoux smiled wryly. He was wishing pretty
heartily that he had never brought Barnett into the case.
The sultry, airless evening was followed by a night of storm, but
Barnett slept through the thunderclaps. The next day dawned clear and
much cooler.
Béchoux informed his friend that Louis Lenormand was to be examined by
the magistrate up at the Saint-Prix house that afternoon.
“I am going to complete the necessary formalities this morning,” he
announced, sipping his coffee. After a moment he continued, “Won’t you
change your mind and pop back to Paris?”
“I’m sorry my society bores you so badly,” said Barnett sorrowfully,
and sought solace in a third cup of chocolate.
“Oh, very well!” Béchoux was inclined to be huffy. He left the inn, and
Barnett attacked another soft boiled egg.
When he had finished his breakfast, Jim Barnett spruced himself up and
made his way to the Villa Eméraude. Madame Lenormand received him in
her sitting-room, and for over an hour he remained talking with her.
Towards the end of the interview they moved into Louis Lenormand’s
study, and Béchoux, coming up the drive, could see through the open
window Barnett and Cécile Lenormand bending over an open desk together.
Barnett came out into the hall and greeted his friend as if the Villa
Eméraude was his own ancestral hall.
“Welcome, welcome, Béchoux. But I’m afraid you can’t see Madame
Lenormand. She’s feeling overtired already—a little hysterical—and she
must rest in view of her ordeal this afternoon. A charming woman; in
many ways a delightful woman——” He did not finish, but paused
thoughtfully.
Béchoux grunted. “I came up to find you,” he said, “to tell you a bit
of news.”
“What’s that?”
“We searched Louis Lenormand, and found on him a note-book in which he
made entries of payments made by him during the past six months or so.
One of these, dated three weeks ago, was for five thousand francs, paid
to ‘S,’ and against it was written ‘The last payment.’ Investigation
has shown that this amount was paid to Professor Saint-Prix. The case
is pretty black against Lenormand, Barnett, and I really should advise
you to quit now.”
But all Barnett answered was:
“I’m ready for a spot of lunch. Are you?”
The inquiry began at three o’clock. It was held in the narrow
dining-room of the Saint-Prix house. Louis Lenormand sat at one end,
between two gendarmes, never raising his eyes from the ground. The
magistrates and Béchoux conferred together in low tones. Doctor
Desportes gazed thoughtfully out of the window.
Barnett ushered in Madame Lenormand. She was very pale and leaned on
his arm for support. She took her seat in a low chair, looking all
around her with quick, nervous glances. Her husband seemed not to
observe her, so sunken was he in dejection.
Then Thérèse Saint-Prix entered the room. Her presence was like a
calming influence. She went over to Cécile Lenormand and laid a
compassionate hand on her shoulder, but the other started away
violently.
Almost immediately the examining magistrate began. He took the medical
evidence, which Doctor Desportes gave in even, colorless tones, clearly
establishing that the professor had been killed through his fall into
the stream.
After this came the questioning of Louis Lenormand.
“Did you take your car out late on Sunday night from the Paris garage?”
“I did.”
“Where did you drive?”
The prisoner was silent.
“Answer me!”
“I really forget.”
Béchoux gave Barnett a significant look.
“Did you pay Professor Saint-Prix large sums of money from time to
time?”
“I did.”
“For what reason?”
Louis Lenormand hesitated, and then replied haltingly:
“To assist him in his researches.”
Béchoux’s pitying contempt was unmistakable.
A small note-book was produced.
“This is yours?”
The prisoner assented.
“Here you have entered various payments made by you. There is one of
five thousand francs dated a month ago which says: ‘S. The last
payment.’ Was that a check paid to Professor Saint-Prix?”
“It was.”
“Won’t you tell us why you were being—blackmailed? Perhaps the
circumstances——” The magistrate seemed anxious to give Lenormand a
chance to defend himself.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Is it a fact that Professor Saint-Prix was in the habit of coming to
your house for a game of chess on Sunday afternoons?”
“Yes,” said the young man sullenly.
“Did you saw through the bridge?”
The prisoner was silent.
“You do not deny that these are your boots?” Béchoux produced them. The
prisoner looked slightly startled but made no protest.
“I submit,” said Béchoux, “that the case is clear.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Barnett, “there never was a clearer. As clear as
crystal—as a diamond—Béchoux, won’t you produce that little envelope I
entrusted to your care?”
With a premonition of disaster, Béchoux extracted the rather grubby
envelope from his inner pocket.
“Open it!” commanded Barnett.
He did so, and held up—a diamond earring!
Cécile Lenormand gave a little gasp. Her husband started up and then
sank back into his chair.
“Can anyone identify this little exhibit of jewelry?” Barnett asked the
assembly.
Doctor Desportes looked intensely worried. Poor man, his quiet life was
being rudely disturbed!
“Those earrings——” He paused. “They were given to Madame Lenormand by
her husband not very long ago!”
“Is that so?” Béchoux asked of Louis Lenormand.
The latter nodded.
Cécile had bowed her head in her hands. Thérèse reached out a pitying
hand to her, but she shook it off wildly.
“You have seen these earrings,” pursued Barnett, “but you can’t guess
where I found one of them. Inspector Béchoux will tell you, though. In
the mud by the stream, at the point where the body of Professor
Saint-Prix was found lying dead!”
“Can you tell us, madame,” inquired the magistrate of Cécile Lenormand,
“whether you were wearing those earrings on Sunday afternoon?”
Looking up, the young woman shook her head.
“I can’t—remember—when I last wore them!” she said in a confused
manner.
“You must forgive my asking you, madame, but you must tell us now
whether you left the Villa at any time during Saturday night.”
There was the merest hint of menace in the smooth tones. Louis
Lenormand’s mouth twitched painfully.
“I—I——” She looked from one face to another of those gathered in the
room. “Why, I believe I did. It was so hot.... I went out into the
garden for a little....”
“Was this before you retired for the night?”
“Yes—no—not exactly. I had gone to my room, but I had not undressed. I
had told my maid to go to bed. Then I felt oppressed by the heat and
went out into the garden through the French window of my boudoir.”
“So that no one heard you come or go?”
“No one, monsieur.”
“And, on Sunday afternoon, you were going to tea with Mademoiselle
Saint-Prix?”
“Yes.”
“At four o’clock?”
“That’s so——”
Thérèse Saint-Prix’s voice here interrupted gently, like a low-toned
bell.
“Don’t you remember, Cécile, the arrangement was that you should come
over soon after three to me, but that if you did not arrive by four, I
was to come up to the Villa? Why, I was just getting ready to come
when—when it happened. You see,” she turned to address the magistrate,
“we were going to make gardening plans together, but just lately Cécile
hasn’t been feeling too well, and she thought it possible that she
might not feel up to walking about the garden in the hot sun. So I was
quite prepared for her to stay resting in her boudoir that afternoon,
and then we would have had tea together there.”
“Is that true, madame?” asked the magistrate of Cécile Lenormand.
“I—I can’t remember. Perhaps that was the arrangement.”
“But—but——” Béchoux was stammering under the force of his discovery—“if
you, mademoiselle, had been just a few minutes quicker in getting ready
to go up to the Villa, you might yourself have been killed!”
“The question that presents itself,” said Barnett, in a level voice,
“is—for whom was the trap laid? Did Louis Lenormand lay it to kill
Professor Saint-Prix? We must remember that the old professor was
absent-minded, and was in the custom of going to play chess with his
neighbor on Sunday afternoon. Or, was the attack directed by Louis
Lenormand against his own wife? Or against Mademoiselle Saint-Prix?”
“Or,” said Béchoux, annoyed to find Barnett calmly taking the floor,
“did Madame Lenormand saw through the bridge because she guessed
Professor Saint-Prix would be coming that way? Remember what
Mademoiselle Saint-Prix has told us——”
Thérèse Saint-Prix was covered with confusion.
“I never meant you to take it that way,” she cried.
“Why, I only said Cécile sometimes appeared a little jealous of her
husband’s intimacy with my poor father. But that was nothing! Poor
darling, she was always jealous where Louis—Monsieur Lenormand—was
concerned. Why, she even at one time——” She broke off and was silent.
“She even what, mademoiselle?” asked the magistrate.
“Oh, it’s too silly. But at one time I used to wonder if she were not a
little jealous of me! I was giving Monsieur Lenormand lessons in
Russian—a language he was eager to learn—and so we were naturally
together a good deal. I even wondered if Cécile could be—could be
spying on us—she seemed so queer. But please don’t misunderstand me,
I’m not suggesting a thing against her.”
“But mademoiselle is right,” said Barnett gravely. “Madame Lenormand
had the most odd ideas concerning her husband and mademoiselle—almost
unbelievable. She imagined—I ask you!—that Mademoiselle Saint-Prix had
almost forced Monsieur Lenormand into having Russian lessons, in the
hope that she might thereby succeed in teaching him something besides
Russian! She had the absurd hallucination that she once saw her husband
kissing you, mademoiselle, in the little summer-house at the bottom of
the garden. And yet, and this is the most unbelievable part of all, she
never really doubted her husband—she believed that, like so many men,
he was capable of being superficially attracted without being guilty of
any serious infidelity. A trusting woman, one would say. But her
clemency hardly extended to her supposed rival.
“Now, on Sunday afternoon a woman telephoned from Beauvray to Louis
Lenormand at his mother’s flat and told him something terrible—so
terrible, in fact, as to bring him racing home in his car to try and
avert disaster. But he was too late. The tragedy had occurred. Only, it
was something quite different from what he had feared! To-day you have
before you a woman telling a vague, unsubstantiated story of having
wandered about on Saturday night in her garden—of having, perhaps,
asked her friend to come to tea instead of going to tea with her. And,
on the other hand, you must picture to yourselves a woman mad with
jealousy and fury—a woman telephoning in words of ice-cold rage—‘She
shall no longer come between us—she and she alone is the obstacle to
our love—it is because of her that you have turned a deaf ear to my
entreaties, but soon, soon the obstacle will be removed!’
“Gentlemen, which story are you going to believe?”
“There can be but one answer to that,” observed the magistrate, “if you
have proof of what you say. And much is explained if Cécile Lenormand
did indeed telephone to her husband in Paris that afternoon!”
“Did I say that Cécile Lenormand telephoned?” asked Barnett, looking
most surprised. “But that would be quite contrary to my own belief—and
to the truth!”
“Then what on earth do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. The telephone call from Beauvray to Paris was made
by a woman maddened by jealousy and frustration, by a desire to
annihilate her rival in Louis Lenormand’s affections——”
“But that woman is Cécile Lenormand.”
“Not a bit of it! I can assure you she had nothing whatever to do with
the telephone call.”
“Then whom are you accusing?”
“The other woman!”
“But there were only two—Cécile Lenormand and Thérèse Saint-Prix.”
“Precisely, and since I am not accusing Cécile Lenormand, that means
that I do accuse....”
Barnett left the sentence unfinished. There was a horrified silence.
Here was a direct and totally unforeseen accusation! Thérèse
Saint-Prix, who was at this moment standing near the window, hesitated
for a long moment, pale and trembling. Suddenly she sprang over the low
balcony and down into the garden.
The doctor and a gendarme made to pursue her, but found themselves in
collision with Barnett, who was barring the way. The gendarme protested
hotly:
“But we shall have her escaping!”
“I think not,” said Barnett.
“You’re right,” said the doctor, appalled, “but I fear something
else—something ghastly!... Yes, look, look! She’s running towards the
stream ... towards the bridge where her father was killed.”
“What next?” came from Barnett with terrible calm.
He stood aside. The doctor and the gendarme were out of the window like
lightning, and he closed it behind them. Then, turning to the
magistrate, he said:
“Do you understand the whole business now, monsieur? Is it quite clear
to you? It was Thérèse Saint-Prix who, after trying vainly to rouse the
passion of Louis Lenormand beyond the passing fancy of a
flirtation—Thérèse Saint-Prix who, starved for years of all enjoyment
and luxury, was suddenly blinded by hatred of Cécile Lenormand. She was
too proud to believe that Louis Lenormand genuinely did not want her
love and was devoted to his wife. She thought that if once Cécile
Lenormand were out of the way, she would come into her own. So she
planned the appalling, cold-blooded murder of her rival, and—compassed
the death of her own father! In the night she sawed through the
bridge—there was no one to see her. So blinded was she by her passions
that next day, just before the tragedy would occur, she telephoned to
Louis Lenormand to tell him what she had done.
“Confronted by the utterly unexpected result of her strategy, she
immediately planned to throw the guilt on to Cécile Lenormand and so at
one stroke save herself and get her rival out of the way. It was with
this in view that she stole one of Cécile’s earrings and dropped it on
Sunday night into the ditch, and then told her tale of Cécile having
been jealous of the old professor. Then, here in this room, she was
struck with a more plausible idea altogether—she tried to get us all to
believe that the bridge had been sawed through with the object of
killing her and not her father at all!”
“How do you account for the boots and the saw?” asked the magistrate.
“The Lenormands and the Saint-Prix shared a tool-shed, their garden
implements were used in common.”
“How do you know all about Thérèse Saint-Prix?” asked Lenormand,
speaking for the first time.
“I helped him to find out,” said Cécile swiftly. “My dear, I realized
all along how you were placed in the matter, but my pride kept me from
speaking to you. I was afraid you would think I was being jealous, and
trying to find something to throw in your face because my parents tried
to prevent our marriage.”
“Then you forgive me?”
For answer she ran across the room to her husband, and her arms went
round his neck.
“But,” objected the magistrate, “that entry in the note-book of ‘the
last payment’—what did that mean?”
“Merely,” said Barnett, “that Professor Saint-Prix had told Louis
Lenormand that this was the last loan he would need, as his discovery
was on the verge of completion.”
“And that discovery——”
“Was something which would have revolutionized the dye industry.
Doubtless he was going eagerly up to the Villa Eméraude to show it to
his friend, and the stream washed it out of his dying grasp. What a
loss!”
“And where did Monsieur Lenormand drive that night?”
“He shall tell us himself.”
“I drove,” said the erstwhile prisoner, “into the country a little way.
I honestly could not say exactly where. I did so because it was very
hot and I couldn’t sleep. But no one could prove the truth of what I
say.”
At this point the gendarme came back, rather pale.
Barnett signed to him to speak.
“She is dead!” he faltered. “She threw herself down—there, where the
professor was killed! The doctor sent me to tell you.”
The magistrate looked grave.
“Perhaps, after all, it is for the best,” he said. “But for you,
monsieur,” he turned to Barnett, “there might have been a grave
miscarriage of justice.”
Béchoux stood awkwardly silent.
“Come, Béchoux,” said Barnett, clapping him on the shoulder, “let’s be
off and pack our things. I want to be back in the rue Laborde
to-night.”
“Well,” said Béchoux when they were alone together again, “I admit that
I do not see how you reconstructed the case so quickly.”
“Quite simple, my dear Béchoux—like all my little coups. What faith
that woman had in her husband!”
For a moment he was silent in admiration of his client.
“Still,” said Béchoux, “brilliant as you were, I fail to see where you
get anything out of this for yourself!”
Barnett’s gaze grew dreamy.
“That was a beautiful laboratory of the professor’s,” he said. “By the
way, Béchoux, do you happen to know the address of the biggest dye
concern in the country? I may be paying them a call in the near
future!”
Béchoux gave a curious gasp, rather like a slowly expiring balloon.
“Done me again!” he breathed. “Stolen the paper—the formula of the
secret process....”
Jim Barnett was moved to injured protest.
“Dear old chap,” he observed, “when it’s a question of rendering a
service to one’s fellow-men and to one’s country, what you designate as
theft becomes the sheerest heroism. It is the highest manifestation of
duty’s sacred fire, blazing within the breast of mere man.” He thumped
himself significantly on the chest. “And personally, when duty calls,
you will always find me ready, aye ready. Got that, Béchoux?”
But Béchoux was sunk in gloom.
“I wonder,” Barnett mused, “what they will call the new process? I
think a suitable name might be—but there, I won’t bore you with my
reflections, Béchoux. Only I can’t help feeling it would be rather
touching to take out a patent in the name of—Lupin!”
VIII
THE FATAL MIRACLE
Shortly after the suicide of Thérèse Saint-Prix, Inspector Béchoux,
primed with official information, was hastily despatched from police
headquarters on the mission of solving the Old Dungeon mystery. He left
Paris on an evening train and spent the night at Guéret in central
France. Next day he took a car on to the village of Mazurech, where his
first move was to visit the château—a vast, rambling structure, of
great age, built on a promontory in a loop of the river Creuse. He
found the owner, Monsieur Georges Cazévon, in residence.
Georges Cazévon was a rich manufacturer of about forty—handsome in a
florid style, and not without a certain animal attraction. He had a
bluff, hearty manner which commanded the respect of the neighborhood.
Thanks to influence, he was chairman of the County Council and a person
of considerable importance. Since the Old Dungeon was on his estate, he
was eager to take Béchoux there himself immediately.
They walked across the great park with its fine chestnuts, and came to
a ruined tower, all that was left of the ancient feudal castle of
Mazurech. This tower soared skywards right from the bottom of the
canyon where the Creuse crawled like a wounded snake along its
rock-strewn bed.
The opposite bank of the river was the property of the d’Alescar
family, and on it, about forty yards away from where Béchoux stood with
Cazévon, rose a rubble wall, glistening with moisture and forming a
kind of dam. Higher up it was surmounted by a shady terrace with a
balustrade along it, forming the end of a garden alley. It was a wild,
forlorn spot. Here it was that, on a morning ten days before, the young
Comte Jean d’Alescar had been found lying dead on a great rock. The
body apparently had no injuries other than those due to the ghastly
fall. There was a broken branch hanging down the trunk of one of the
trees on the terrace. It was easy to reconstruct the tragedy—the young
Comte had climbed out along the branch, it had snapped beneath his
weight, and he had fallen into the river. A clear case of death by
misadventure. There had been no hesitation in bringing in the verdict.
“But what on earth was the young Comte doing climbing that tree?”
Béchoux wanted to know.
Georges Cazévon was ready with the answer.
“He wanted to get a really close view from above of this dungeon. The
old castle is the cradle of the d’Alescar family, who lorded it here in
feudal times.” He added immediately: “I shan’t say anything more,
inspector. You know that you have been sent here at my urgent request.
The trouble is that ugly rumors have got about and I am being attacked
on all sides. That’s got to stop. So please make the fullest
investigations and question everyone. It is especially important that
you should call on Mademoiselle d’Alescar, the young Comte’s sister,
and the last surviving member of the family. Look me up again before
you leave Mazurech.”
Béchoux went about his work quickly. He explored round the foot of the
tower and then entered the inner court which was now a mass of fallen
masonry caused by the collapse of stairs and flooring. He then made his
way back into Mazurech, picking up stray bits of information from the
inhabitants. He called on the priest and on the mayor, and lunched at
the inn.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Béchoux stood in the narrow garden which
ran down to the terrace and was bisected by a small building of
farmhouse type, called the Manor—a nondescript structure in bad repair.
An old servant took his card into Mademoiselle d’Alescar and he was at
once shown into a low, plainly furnished room where he found the object
of his call in conversation with a man.
Both rose at his entrance, and, as the man turned towards him, Béchoux
recognized—Jim Barnett!
“Ah, you’ve come at last!” exclaimed Barnett joyously and held out his
hand. “When I read in my morning paper that you were cruising
Creuse-ward I leapt into my car and hastened to the scene of action so
that I might be ready at your service. In fact, I was here waiting for
you! Mademoiselle, may I introduce Inspector Béchoux, who has been put
in charge of the case by headquarters. With Béchoux at the helm you
need fear nothing. Probably by now he has the whole thing cut and
dried. Béchoux puts the sleuth in sleuthing—burglars frighten their
young with tales of Bogey Béchoux. Let him speak for himself!”
But Béchoux uttered not a word. He was flabbergasted. Barnett’s
presence—the last thing he had either expected or desired—floored him
completely. It was a case of Barnett morning, noon, and night. Barnett
popping up like a jack-in-the-box on every possible—and
impossible—occasion. Every time that fate brought the two together,
Béchoux found himself perforce submitting to Barnett’s accursed
coöperation. And where Jim Barnett helped others, he was always careful
to help himself. His hand went out to his fellow-men, but never drew
back empty!
In truth, there was little enough Béchoux could say anyway, for he was
still quite at sea and had found no clue in the Old Dungeon mystery—if
mystery it should prove.
As he remained silent, Barnett spoke again:
“The position, mademoiselle, is this: Inspector Béchoux, having by this
time, doubtless, examined the evidence and made up his own mind, is
here to ask if you will be so kind as to confirm the results of the
inquiries he has already made. Since we ourselves have only had the
briefest of conversation so far, would you be good enough to tell us
all you know about the terrible tragedy which resulted in the death of
your brother, Comte d’Alescar?”
Elizabeth d’Alescar was a tall girl, classically beautiful, her pallor
accentuated by her mourning. She kept her face turned away into the
shadow so that the two men saw only her delicate profile. It was with a
visible effort that she restrained her grief. She answered without
hesitation:
“I would rather have said nothing, have accused no one. But since it is
my painful duty to reveal all I know to you, I am ready to speak.”
It was Barnett who authoritatively usurped the law’s prerogative.
“My friend, Inspector Béchoux, would like to know the exact time at
which you last saw your brother alive.”
“At ten o’clock at night. We had dined together—our usual light-hearted
meal. I was very, very fond of Jean; he was several years younger than
myself, and I had practically brought him up from when he was quite a
little boy. We were always the best of friends, and happy in each
other’s company.”
“He went out during the night?”
“He left the house a little before dawn, towards half-past three in the
morning. Our old servant heard him go.”
“Did you know where he was going?”
“He had told me the day before that he was going to fish from the
terrace. Fishing was one of his favorite occupations.”
“Then there is nothing you can tell us about the time elapsing between
half-past three and the discovery of your brother’s body?”
“Yes, there is.” She paused. “At a quarter past six I heard a shot!”
“Oh, yes. Several people heard it. But it’s quite possible it was only
a poacher.”
“That was what I thought at the time. But somehow I felt anxious, so at
last I got out of bed and dressed. When I reached the terrace I saw men
from the village on the opposite bank of the river. They were carrying
my poor brother up to the grounds of the Château, because it was too
steep to get the body up the other side.”
“Then you are surely of opinion that the shot could not have been in
any way connected with what happened to your brother? Otherwise the
inquest would have revealed a bullet wound, which, of course, it did
not.”
Seeing Mademoiselle d’Alescar’s hesitation, Barnett pressed home his
question.
“Won’t you answer me?”
The girl’s hands clenched at her sides.
“Whatever actually happened, I only know that I am perfectly certain in
my own mind that there is some connection.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, to begin with, there is no other possible explanation.”
“An accident....”
She shook her head, smiling sadly.
“Oh, no. Jean was extraordinarily agile, and he had also plenty of good
sense and caution. He would never have trusted himself to that branch.
Why, it was obviously much too slender to bear his weight.”
“But you admit that it was broken.”
“There is nothing to prove that it was broken by him and on that
particular night.”
“Then, mademoiselle, it is your honest belief that a crime has been
committed?”
She nodded gravely.
“You have even gone so far as to accuse a certain person by name and in
the presence of witnesses?”
Again she nodded.
“What grounds have you for making this assertion? Is there any definite
proof pointing to someone’s guilt? That is what Inspector Béchoux is
anxious to know.”
For a few moments Elizabeth was lost in reflection. They could see that
it distressed her to recall such dreadful memories. But she made a
valiant effort and said:
“I will tell you everything. But to do so, I must go back to something
that happened twenty-four years ago. It was then that my father lost
all his money in a bank failure. He found himself ruined, but he told
no one. His creditors were paid. Of course, it was common knowledge
that he had lost a large part of his fortune, but no one guessed that
the whole of it had been engulfed. What actually happened was that my
father threw himself on the mercy of a rich manufacturer in Guéret.
This man lent him two hundred thousand francs on one condition
only—that the Château, the estate, and all the Mazurech acres should
become his property if the loan were not repaid within five years.”
“That manufacturer was Georges Cazévon’s father, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, a note of hatred in her voice.
“Was he anxious to own the Château?”
“Very anxious indeed. He had tried to buy it several times. Well,
exactly four years and eleven months later, my father died of cerebral
congestion. It came on rapidly, and towards the close of his life he
was obviously troubled and preoccupied with something of which we knew
nothing. Immediately after his death, Georges Cazévon told us about the
loan he had made my father, and warned my uncle, who was looking after
us, that we had just one month in which to discharge our debt. He had
absolute proof of his claim, such proof as no lawyer could dispute. My
father left nothing. Jean and I were driven out of our home and were
taken in by our uncle, who lived in this very house, and was himself
far from wealthy. He died very soon after, and so did old Monsieur
Cazévon.”
Béchoux and Barnett had listened to her attentively. Now Barnett spoke
on behalf of his friend:
“My friend the inspector doesn’t quite see how all this links up with
the events of the present day.”
Mademoiselle d’Alescar gave Béchoux a glance of slightly contemptuous
surprise and continued, without answering:
“So Jean and I lived alone here on this little manor, right in front of
the Dungeon and the Château that had always belonged to our family.
This caused Jean a sorrow which grew with the years, and intensified as
his intelligence developed and he grew towards manhood. It grieved and
hurt him to feel that he had lost his heritage and been driven from
what he considered his rightful domain. In all his work and play he
made time to devote whole days to delving in the family archives, and
reading up our history and genealogy. Then, one day, he found among
these books a ledger in which our father had kept his accounts during
the latter years of his life, showing the money he had saved by
exercising the strictest economy and by several successful real estate
deals. There were also bank receipts. I went to the bank that had
issued them and learned that our father, a week before his death, had
withdrawn his entire deposit—two hundred banknotes of a thousand francs
each!”
“The exact amount,” said Barnett, “which he was due to pay in a few
weeks’ time. Then why did he put off paying it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Therefore you think he must have put the money in a safe place
somewhere?” He paused, and twiddled his monocle thoughtfully.
“Somewhere—ah, but where?”
Elizabeth d’Alescar produced the ledger of which she had spoken and
showed it to Barnett and Béchoux.
“It is here that we must look for the answer to that question,” she
said, turning to the last page, on which was sketched a diagram
representing three-quarters of a circle, to which was added, at the
right side, a semicircle of shorter radius. This semicircle was barred
by four lines, between two of which was a small cross. All the lines in
the diagram had been drawn first in pencil and then gone over in ink.
“What’s all this mean?” asked Barnett.
“It took us a long time to understand it,” replied Elizabeth. “At last,
poor Jean guessed one day that the diagram represented an accurate plan
of the Old Dungeon, reduced to its outside lines. It is on that exact
plan, on the unequal parts of two circles connected with each other.
The four lines indicate four embrasures.”
“And the cross,” finished Barnett, “indicates the place where the Comte
d’Alescar hid his two hundred thousand francs to await the day of
repayment.”
“Yes,” said the girl, with conviction.
Barnett thought it over, took another look at the map and finally
remarked:
“It’s quite probable. The Comte d’Alescar would, of course, have been
sure to take the precaution of leaving some clue to the hiding-place,
and his sudden death prevented his passing on the secret. But surely,
all you had to do on finding this was to tell Monsieur Cazévon’s son
and ask his permission to——”
“To climb to the top of the tower! That is just what we immediately
did. Georges Cazévon, although we were not on the best of terms with
him, was quite pleasant about it. But how could any human being get to
the top of that tower? The stairs had fallen in fifteen years before.
All the stones are loose. The top is crumbling. No ladder—no ladders
even—could ever have reached high enough. The Dungeon battlements are
over ninety feet above the ground. And it was quite out of the question
to scale the wall. We discussed the whole problem and drew up plans for
several months, but it all ended in——”
She broke off, blushing hotly.
“A quarrel!” Barnett finished for her. “Georges Cazévon fell in love
with you and asked you to marry him. You refused him. He tried to force
you to his will. You broke off all intercourse with him, and Jean
d’Alescar was no longer allowed to set foot on Mazurech land.”
“That is exactly what did happen,” the girl said. “But my brother would
not give up. He simply had to have that money. He wanted it to buy back
part of our estate or to give me a dot which would set me free to marry
as I chose. Very soon the idea obsessed him. He spent his days in front
of the tower. He was always staring up at the inaccessible battlements.
He imagined a thousand schemes for getting up there. He practiced until
he was a skilled archer, and then, from daybreak, he would stand there
shooting arrows on long strings, hoping that one of them would fall in
such a way that a rope could be tied to the string and pulled up to the
top of the tower. He even had sixty yards of rope all ready for the
attempt. Everything he tried was hopeless, and his failure plunged him
into melancholy and despair. On the very day before he died he said to
me: ‘The only reason I go on trying is that I am certain to succeed in
the end. Fate will be in my favor. There will be a miracle—I am sure of
it—a miracle! That is what I pray for and what I confidently expect.’
Poor Jean, he never had his miracle!”
Barnett put another question.
“Then you believe that his death occurred while he was making yet
another attempt?”
Seeing that she assented, he continued:
“Is the rope no longer where he kept it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then what proof have you?”
“That shot! Georges Cazévon must have caught my brother in his attempt
and fired.”
“Good God!” cried Barnett. “You believe Georges Cazévon is capable of
doing such a thing?”
“I do. He is very impulsive. He controls himself as a rule, but he
might easily be led into violence—or even into crime.”
“But why should he have fired? To rob your brother of the money he had
recovered?”
“That I cannot say,” said Mademoiselle d’Alescar. “Nor do I know how
the murder could have been committed, since poor Jean’s dead body
showed no trace of a bullet wound. But I am absolutely firm in my
belief.”
“Quite so, but you must admit that your belief is based on intuition
rather than on the known facts,” observed Barnett. “And I think I ought
to tell you that in a court of law, intuition is not enough. I’m sure
Béchoux will agree with me, it’s quite on the cards that Georges
Cazévon will be so furious at your accusing him that he will sue you
for libel.”
Mademoiselle d’Alescar rose from her chair.
“That would matter very little to me,” she said. “I have not made this
accusation to avenge my brother, for to punish the criminal would not
restore Jean to life. I am merely stating what I believe to be the
truth. If Georges Cazévon likes to sue me, he is perfectly free to do
so and my defence will simply be what my conscience moves me to say.”
She was silent for a moment, and then added:
“But you can rely on his keeping quiet, gentlemen. I don’t think there
is much chance of his bringing any action against me!”
The interview was at an end. Jim Barnett did not attempt to engage the
girl in further conversation. Mademoiselle d’Alescar knew her own mind,
and no one would be able to intimidate her or upset her evidence in the
least.
“Mademoiselle,” said Barnett, “we apologize for this intrusion, but we
were obliged to trouble you in order to get at the truth of this tragic
affair. You may be sure Inspector Béchoux will make the right
deductions from all that you have said and act accordingly.”
He bowed and took his leave. Béchoux bowed likewise, and followed him
into the courtyard.
Once they were out of the house, the inspector, who had not spoken
during the interview, continued silent, partly in protest against
Barnett’s interference in the case, and partly because he was totally
bewildered by the turn events were taking. His taciturnity only
encouraged the loquacious Barnett.
“Yes, yes, Béchoux,” he said reflectively, “I can easily understand
your being puzzled. It’s a matter for deep thought. The lady’s
statement had a good deal in it, but it was compounded of such a
mixture of the possible with the impossible, the rational with the
fantastic, that it needs careful sifting if we are to make use of it.
For instance, on the face of it, young d’Alescar’s actions seem pure
fantasy. If the unlucky youth got to the top of the tower—and, contrary
to your own private belief, I rather think he did get there—then it was
due to that unimaginable miracle he had hoped and prayed for—a miracle
whose nature we are as yet unable to conceive.
“The problem we are up against is—how could the boy, within the space
of two hours, invent a means of climbing the tower, put his scheme into
execution, and climb down again, only to be hurled into the abyss by a
bullet ... which did not hit him! That’s the culminating impossibility,
that he went to his death through a shot which never touched him—that
seems to me to have been a miracle from hell!”
Barnett and Béchoux met again that evening at the inn, but dined apart.
During the next two days they only saw each other at mealtimes. Béchoux
was busy making investigations and inquiries throughout the
neighborhood. Barnett, like one of the lilies of the field, took root
on a grassy slope some way beyond the terrace, from which spot he had a
good view of the Old Dungeon and the river Creuse. He confined his
activities to fishing, smoking, and reflection. The heart of a mystery
is to be plucked out by sheer divination rather than by fevered
probing. So Barnett sat there, angling with his rod for the fish in the
river, and with his mind for the nature of the miracle with which Fate
had favored Jean d’Alescar.
On the third day, however, he bestirred himself and went off to Guéret
in the manner of a man with a definite object. And the day after that
he ran into Béchoux, who told him that he had now finished his
investigation.
“So have I,” said Barnett. “If you’re going back to Paris, I’ll give
you a lift in my car.”
“Thanks,” said Béchoux. “In about half an hour I am going up to see
Monsieur Cazévon.”
“Right, I’ll meet you at the Château,” said Barnett. “I’m fed to the
teeth with this place, aren’t you?”
He paid his bill at the inn, and drove to the gates of the Château.
Leaving his car in the road, he strolled through the park, and when he
got to the house presented his card. Underneath his own name he had
written the words: “Working in collaboration with Inspector Béchoux.”
He was shown into a vast hall, which spread over the ground floor of an
entire wing. Stags’ heads looked down from the walls, which were hung
with weapons and trophies of every description. Here he was joined by
Georges Cazévon.
“My colleague, Inspector Béchoux,” said Barnett, “is to meet me here.
We have been working together on the case, and we are to-day returning
to Paris.”
“And what opinion has Inspector Béchoux formed as a result of his
investigation?” asked Georges Cazévon, a shade eagerly.
“Oh, he has definitely made up his mind that there is nothing,
absolutely nothing to justify any fresh theory of the case. He is
satisfied that the rumors set afloat are quite groundless.”
“And Mademoiselle d’Alescar?”
Barnett shrugged his shoulders.
“According to Inspector Béchoux her mind is almost unhinged by her
bereavement, so that no reliance can be placed on anything she says at
present.”
“And you agree with Inspector Béchoux?”
“I?” Barnett raised his eyes and lowered them, his whole attitude one
of abject humility. “I am nothing but a humble assistant. I have no
views of my own at all!”
He began wandering aimlessly about the hall, looking at the glass cases
full of rifles and shotguns. These exhibits seemed to interest him
considerably.
“A fine collection, aren’t they?” said Georges Cazévon at his elbow.
“Magnificent!”
“Are you an enthusiast?”
“I have a great admiration for good marksmanship. I see by these cups
and certificates that you must be a remarkable shot. Let’s
see—Disciples de Saint Hubert, Creuse Sporting Club—oh, yes, that’s
what they were telling me about you yesterday when I was in Guéret.”
“Is the case much talked about at Guéret?”
“Oh, very little. But the accuracy of your shooting is proverbial among
the townsfolk!”
Barnett took up a gun, balancing it casually in his hands.
“Careful!” said Cazévon sharply. “That’s a service rifle. It’s loaded.”
“Really?” observed Barnett with polite interest. “Is that in case of
burglars?”
Cazévon smiled. “I really keep it handy for poachers. I should never
shoot to kill, though. A broken leg would be all I should aim for!”
“And would you shoot from one of these windows?”
“Oh, poachers don’t come so close to the Château!”
“That almost seems a pity,” said Barnett thoughtfully, and opened a
very narrow window—almost a loophole—which shed a ray of light into one
corner of the hall.
“Fancy that now!” he exclaimed. “Looking through the trees, one can see
a section of the Old Dungeon—right across the park. Isn’t that the
portion of the ruin which overlooks the river, Monsieur Cazévon?”
“Just about, I should say.”
“Why, yes, it is!” cried Barnett excitedly. “I recognize that tuft of
flowers growing between two stones. Isn’t the air wonderfully clear?
Can you see that yellow flower, looking along the bore?”
He had raised the gun to his shoulder as he spoke, and without
hesitating a moment, he fired. The yellow flower disappeared, while a
puff of smoke hung in the still air.
Georges Cazévon made a gesture of annoyance. His displeasure was
manifest. This “humble assistant” was an incredibly skilled marksman,
and, anyway, it was cool cheek his letting off a gun like that in the
house!
“I believe your servants are at the other end of the Château?” said
Barnett. “Then they won’t have heard the noise I made. But I’m sorry I
did that—it must have startled Mademoiselle d’Alescar, the sound being
so painfully associated for her with the memory——” He broke off.
Georges Cazévon smiled sardonically.
“Then does Mademoiselle d’Alescar still believe there is some
connection between the shot that was heard that morning and her
brother’s death?”
Barnett nodded.
“I wonder where she got the idea?”
“Where I got it myself a minute ago. It’s a curiously vivid picture—the
unknown watcher in ambush at this window, while Jean d’Alescar was
hanging on half-way down the Dungeon wall!”
“But d’Alescar died of a fall!” protested Cazévon.
“Quite so,” said Barnett, with deadly calm, “of a fall. And the reason
for his fall was, of course, the sudden crumbling of some projection or
shelf to which he was clinging with both hands at the time!”
Cazévon scowled at the urbane Barnett.
“I didn’t know,” he said, “that Mademoiselle d’Alescar had been so—so
definite in her statements to people. Why, this constitutes a direct
accusation!”
“Yes, a—direct—accusation,” repeated Barnett slowly, so that the words
seemed to hang in the air as the smoke from the gun had done a few
moments before.
Cazévon stared at him. The calm self-assurance and decisive manner of
this “humble assistant” rather astonished him. He even began to wonder
if this detective might not have come to the Château in the rôle of
aggressor. For the conversation, begun so casually and conventionally,
was now rapidly turning into an attack on Cazévon himself!
He sat down rather heavily, and asked:
“Why, according to Mademoiselle d’Alescar, was her brother climbing
that wall?”
“To recover the two hundred thousand francs which the old Comte
d’Alescar hid in the place which is marked with a cross on the map you
have been shown.”
“But I never for a moment believed in that yarn,” exclaimed Cazévon.
“Even presuming that the Comte d’Alescar had managed to raise such a
sum, why should he have concealed it instead of immediately handing it
over to my father?”
“Quite a valid objection,” admitted Barnett. “Unless the hidden
treasure happened not to be a sum of money at all!”
“But what else could it be?”
“That I don’t know. We shall have to use our imaginations a bit.”
Georges Cazévon made a movement of impatience.
“You can be quite sure that Elizabeth d’Alescar and her brother long
ago exhausted the possible alternatives!”
“How do you know? They are not professionals like myself.”
“Even a hypersensitized intelligence,” sneered Cazévon, “cannot evolve
something from nothing!”
“Yes, it can—sometimes! For example, do you know a man called Gréaume,
who is the Guéret newsagent, and was at one time an accountant in your
factory?”
“Certainly I know him. A very worthy fellow.”
“Well, Gréaume is prepared to swear that Jean d’Alescar’s father called
on your own father the very next day after he had drawn his two hundred
thousand francs from the bank.”
“Well?” snapped Cazévon.
“Isn’t it only logical to suppose that the money was handed over to
your father on that occasion, and that it was the receipt which was
temporarily concealed in some cranny of the Dungeon?”
Georges Cazévon gave a sudden start, then controlled himself.
“Mr.—uh—Barnett, do you realize what you are insinuating? It’s an
insult to my father’s memory!”
“An insult! I don’t follow you!” said Barnett innocently.
“If my father had received that money he would most certainly have
acknowledged the fact.”
“Why should he? He was under no obligation to tell his neighbors that
some one had paid him back a private loan!”
Georges Cazévon’s fist came down with a bang on his desk.
“But if that money had been paid him, how do you explain that a
fortnight later, just a few days after his former debtor’s death, he
was taking possession of the Mazurech estate?”
“Yet that is exactly what he did!”
“You must be crazy! There’s absolutely no ground for suggesting such a
thing. Even granting that my father was capable of demanding to be paid
what he had already received, he would never have done it, because he
would have known that the receipt could be produced!”
“Perhaps he knew,” suggested Barnett diffidently, “that its existence
was a secret and that the heirs were in ignorance of both loan and
repayment. And since he had set his heart on owning this place and had,
so they tell me, sworn he would get it, he was tempted and fell.”
“But no one would hide a receipt away where it could never be found.”
“Remember that the old Comte died of cerebral congestion. During his
last days he was very queer. His mind reasoned imperfectly. He was
ashamed of having borrowed that money. He was ashamed of the receipt,
yet dared not destroy it. So he evolved a tortuous manner of
concealment, with an equally tortuous clew.”
Gradually Barnett was putting a completely different complexion on the
whole case. Georges Cazévon’s father was now appearing in the light of
a rogue and blackguard. Cazévon himself, pale and shaking, stood with
clenched fists, impotent with fear and rage, glaring at the immovable
Barnett. The audacity of this “underling” completely unnerved him.
“I protest!” he stammered. “You have no right to jump to these—these
abominable conclusions!”
“Believe me,” said Barnett, “I never leap before I look. All my
allegations are founded on fact.”
Georges Cazévon darted a hunted look over his shoulder. He felt as if
some unseen enemy were closing in on him. In a high, unnatural voice he
cried:
“Lies! all lies! You have no proof. To prove that my father ever did
such a thing you would—why, you would have to go and look for evidence
at the top of the Old Dungeon!”
“Well,” contested Barnett, “Jean d’Alescar managed to get there, didn’t
he?”
“He didn’t! I tell you he didn’t! I tell you it’s impossible to scale a
ninety-foot tower all in two hours. It’s beyond human power!”
“All the same, Jean d’Alescar accomplished this—impossibility,” pursued
Barnett doggedly.
“But how?” asked Georges Cazévon, on a note of sheer exasperation. “Do
you expect me to believe he went up on a witch’s broomstick?”
“Not that,” said Barnett gently. “He used a rope!”
Cazévon laughed long and loud, but quite unmirthfully.
“A rope? You’re crazy. Of course, I often saw the boy shooting his
arrows in the vain hope that one day his rope would catch hold. Poor
devil! Miracles like that never happen nowadays. And anyway, two hours!
Oh, it’s out of the question. Besides, the rope would have been found
hanging from the tower, or lying on the rocks of the Creuse after the
tragedy. Whereas I am told it is at the Manor.”
With unshakable calm Barnett rejoined:
“Quite. But it wasn’t that rope he used, you see.”
“Then what rope did he use?” asked Cazévon, turning a gulp into a
laugh. “You can’t expect me to take all this seriously, you know. The
Comte Jean d’Alescar, carrying the magic rope, came out on to the
terrace of his garden at daybreak. He muttered the one word
‘Abracadabra,’ and lo! his rope uncoiled and rose to the top of the
tower, so that he might promptly ascend. The good old Indian
rope-trick—retired colonels write to the papers every day and solemnly
aver it’s a miracle!”
“And yet you, too, monsieur,” said Barnett, “are driven to conjure up a
miracle;—just like Jean d’Alescar—and like myself. There is no other
explanation, of course. But the miracle was the opposite of what you
imagine—it did not work from bottom to top, as would seem more usual
and probable, but from top to bottom!”
Cazévon made a feeble attempt to joke.
“A kind Providence, eh, throwing a life-line to help a struggling
mortal?”
“Why call Providence into it?” asked Barnett. “No need for that. This
miracle was merely one of those which Chance may perform at any time
nowadays.”
“Chance?”
“Remember that Chance knows no impossibilities. Chance is the unknown
factor—Chance the disturber, the malicious, capricious visitant,
swooping to make fantastic moves on the chessboard of human existence,
forever proving the old platitude that truth is stranger than fiction!
Chance is to-day the great worker of miracles. And the miracle I have
in mind is not so wonderful, really, in an age when meteors are not the
only bolts from the blue, so to speak.”
“Do the skies rain ropes?” asked Cazévon sardonically.
“Certainly, ropes among other things. The ocean-bed is strewn with
things dropped overboard by the ships that sail the seas!”
“There are no ships in the sky,” observed Cazévon.
“Oh, yes, there are,” Barnett contradicted him, “only we don’t think of
them as that. We call them balloons, and aeroplanes, and—after all,
airships! They ride the air as ships ride the ocean, and any number of
things may fall or be thrown overboard from them! Suppose one of these
things is a coil of rope, which slips over the battlements of the Old
Dungeon, and there you have the solution of the mystery.”
“A nice, convenient explanation!”
“Pardon me, an extremely well-founded explanation. If you glance
through the local papers for the past week, as I did yesterday, you
will see that a balloon flew over this part of the country on the night
preceding Jean d’Alescar’s death. It was travelling from north to
south, and ballast was heaved overboard ten miles north of Guéret. The
obvious inference is that a coil of rope was also thrown out, that one
end got caught in a tree on the terrace, and to free it Jean d’Alescar
had to break off a branch. He then went down to the terrace, tied the
two ends of the rope together, and climbed up to the tower. Not an easy
thing to do, but possible for a lad of his years.”
“And then?” came in a whisper from Cazévon, whose face had grown
suddenly gray.
“Then,” Barnett continued, “someone who was standing here, at this
window, and who was a remarkable shot, observed the boy hanging
suspended in midair, took aim at the rope, and—severed it!”
Cazévon made a choking noise.
“That is your explanation of the—accident?”
Barnett took no notice of the interruption, but went on:
“Afterwards, this person hurried to the bank of the Creuse and searched
the dead body to get the receipt. He took hold of the dangling rope,
and hauled it down—then threw the highly compromising piece of evidence
into a neighboring well—not a very safe hiding-place!”
The accusation had shifted to Georges Cazévon himself—a kind of guilty
legacy from the man’s dead father. The past was being linked up with
the present—the net was closing in.
With a convulsive effort, Cazévon shook himself, as if to rid himself
of Barnett’s odious presence.
“I’ve had enough of your lies!” he shouted. “The whole thing’s
ridiculous invention on your part—you’re simply making this up to
terrorize me. I shall tell Monsieur Béchoux that I have had you thrown
out as a common blackmailer. That’s what you are, a blackmailer! But
you won’t get any change out of me!”
“If I had come here to blackmail you,” said Barnett blithely, “I should
have started off by producing my proofs.”
Blind with rage, Cazévon screamed:
“Your proofs! What proofs have you got? Nothing but a cock-and-bull
story. You haven’t a single proof of any kind—how could you have? Why,
there’s only one proof that would be worth anything—only one. And if
you can’t produce that, then your whole story collapses at once, and
you’re a fool as well as a knave!”
“And what is that proof?” asked Barnett, still smiling.
“The receipt, of course! The receipt signed by my father!”
“Here it is,” said Barnett, holding out a sheet of stamped paper,
frayed and yellow at the edges. “This is your father’s handwriting,
isn’t it? Pretty explicit, this document: ‘I, the undersigned, Auguste
Cazévon, hereby acknowledge the receipt from the Comte d’Alescar of the
sum of two hundred thousand francs previously loaned to him by me, and
I hereby declare that this repayment renders null and void any and
every claim of mine to the Château and lands of Mazurech.’
“The date,” continued Barnett, “corresponds to that mentioned by
Gréaume. The receipt is signed. Therefore it is indisputably genuine,
and you, Cazévon, must have known about it from your father’s own lips
or from the private papers he left when he died. The discovery of this
document meant disgrace for your father and yourself, and the loss of
the Château, for which you felt all your father’s attachment. That’s
why you killed d’Alescar!”
“If I had killed him,” faltered Cazévon, “I should have removed the
receipt from his body.”
“You had a good look for it,” said Barnett grimly, “but it wasn’t on
him. Jean d’Alescar had prudently wrapped it round a stone and thrown
it down from the top of the tower, meaning to pick it up when he got to
the ground again. I found it near the river, some twenty yards away.”
Barnett only just stepped back in time to prevent Cazévon snatching the
receipt from his hand. There was a moment’s pause, and then Barnett,
breathing a trifle quicker, spoke again:
“That is tantamount to admitting your guilt! Looking at you now, I can
well believe Mademoiselle d’Alescar’s statement that you are capable of
almost anything. You are the slave of your own unreasoning impulse!
Carried away by the passions of greed and hatred, you raised your gun
and fired that morning. Steady, man!” as Cazévon seemed about to
collapse, “control yourself. Someone’s ringing! It must be Béchoux.
Perhaps you won’t want him to know all this!”
A full minute passed in silence. At last, Cazévon, his eyes still those
of a maniac, whispered:
“How much? What must I pay you for the receipt?”
“It is not for sale.”
“What do you mean to do with it?”
“It will be handed over to you, on certain conditions, which I will
outline in Inspector Béchoux’s presence.”
“And if I refuse to accept your terms?”
“Then it will be my painful duty to expose you!”
“No one will believe you!”
“Oh, won’t they?”
Cazévon’s head slumped in utter dejection. Barnett’s driving,
implacable will-power had beaten him. At that moment Béchoux was shown
in.
The inspector had not expected to find Barnett on the scene. He was
unpleasantly surprised, and wondered what the two men could have been
talking about; whether the incalculable Barnett had been busy digging
pits for the luckless representative of the law to fall into.
Fearing something of the sort, he was quite aggressively positive in
his assertions from the word “go.”
Shaking Cazévon warmly by the hand he declared:
“Monsieur, I promised to let you know the result of my investigations
before I left, and to tell you what kind of report I should make. So
far, my own views are in complete accord with the construction that has
been put upon the case. There is absolutely nothing in what
Mademoiselle d’Alescar has been saying against you.”
“Hear, hear,” said Barnett. “That’s just what I’ve been telling
Monsieur Cazévon. Béchoux, my guide, philosopher and friend, is
displaying his usual acumen. Nevertheless, the fact is that Monsieur
Cazévon is bent on returning good for evil, and meeting calumny with
generosity. He insists on restoring the domain of her ancestors to
Mademoiselle d’Alescar!”
Béchoux looked thunderstruck.
“Wh—what? You mean to say——”
“Just that,” said Barnett. “The affair has not unnaturally filled
Monsieur Cazévon with distaste for the district, and he has his eye on
a château nearer his factories in Guéret. When I got here this
afternoon Monsieur Cazévon was actually drafting the deed of gift. He
also expressed his wish to add a bearer check for one hundred thousand
francs to be handed to Mademoiselle d’Alescar as compensation. That’s
so, isn’t it, Monsieur Cazévon?”
Without a second’s hesitation, Cazévon acted on Barnett’s promptings as
if they had been the dictates of his heart’s desires. He seated himself
at his desk, wrote out the deed of gift and signed the check.
“There you are,” he said. “For the rest, I will instruct my solicitor.”
Barnett took both check and document, slipped them into an envelope,
and said to Béchoux:
“Here, take this to Mademoiselle d’Alescar. I feel sure she will
appreciate Monsieur Cazévon’s generosity. Monsieur, I am at your
service. I cannot tell you how happy you have made us both by
furnishing such a satisfactory solution to the business.”
He swaggered off, followed by Béchoux. The latter, utterly astounded,
waited till they were out of the park, and then demanded:
“What’s it all mean? Did he fire that shot? Has he made a statement to
you?”
“None of your business, Béchoux,” said Barnett. “Let bygones be
bygones. The case has been settled to everyone’s best advantage. All
you have to do is to speed on your mission to Mademoiselle d’Alescar.
Ask her to forgive and forget, and not to breathe a word to anyone.
Then come and pick me up at the inn.”
In a short while Béchoux was back again. He brought the news that
Mademoiselle d’Alescar had accepted the gift of the Mazurech estate and
her solicitor would take the matter up at once, but the money she
refused to take. In her indignation at being offered it she had torn up
the check.
Barnett and Béchoux took their leave. The return journey was made in
silence. The inspector was lost in unprofitable speculation. His mind
was in a whirl of interrogation, but Barnett looked disinclined for
confidential converse.
They got to Paris at close on to three o’clock. Barnett invited Béchoux
to lunch with him near the Bourse, and Béchoux, incapable of
resistance, went with him meekly.
“You do the ordering,” said Barnett, rising from the table a moment
after they had entered the restaurant. “I’ve some business I must
attend to. Won’t be a moment!”
Béchoux did not have long to wait. Barnett was back again almost
immediately, and the two men ate a hearty meal. When they were drinking
their coffee, Béchoux ventured a remark:
“I must send the torn bits of that check back to Monsieur Cazévon.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t bother to do that, Béchoux.”
“Why not?”
“The check was quite worthless.”
“But how?”
“Oh,” said Barnett airily, “I foresaw that Mademoiselle d’Alescar was
certain to refuse to take it, so when I put the deed of gift into the
envelope I slipped in with it an old cancelled check. Waste not, want
not.”
“But what happened to the genuine check?” groaned Béchoux, “the one
Monsieur Cazévon signed?”
“Oh, that! I’ve just been and cashed it at the bank!”
He opened his coat, displaying a wad of notes. Béchoux’s coffee cup
slipped from his nerveless grasp. With an effort he controlled himself.
For a long while they sat smoking in silence, facing one another across
the table. At last Barnett spoke:
“There’s no denying it, Béchoux, so far our collaboration has proved
decidedly fruitful. We seem to ring the bell every time, and it’s all
helped to enlarge my little nest-egg. But, honestly, I’m beginning to
feel very troubled about you, old horse. Here we are, working side by
side, and I always pocket the dibs. Look here, Béchoux, won’t you come
into partnership with me? The Barnett and Béchoux Agency? It really
sounds rather well!”
Béchoux gave him a look of hatred. The man goaded him beyond endurance.
He rose, flung down a note to pay for the lunch, and mumbled as he took
his leave:
“There are times when I think it must be Arsène Lupin after all!”
“I sometimes wonder, too,” said Barnett—and laughed.
IX
DOUBLE ENTRY
A serious breach in the Béchoux-Barnett friendship seemed to have been
caused by the affair of the Old Dungeon at Mazurech, and the fleecing
of Georges Cazévon, so that when a taxi came to a halt in the rue
Laborde and Inspector Béchoux leapt from it and hurled himself into the
office of his friend, Jim Barnett, no one was more surprised than the
latter.
“This is indeed a pleasure,” he said, advancing with alacrity. “Our
last parting was rather in silence and tears, and I was afraid you were
feeling sore. And is there anything I can do for you in a small way
this merry morning?”
“There is.”
Barnett shook the inspector warmly by the hand.
“Splendid! But what’s up? You look positively apoplectic. Please don’t
burst in my office.”
“Kindly be serious, Barnett,” said poor Béchoux stiffly. “I’m working
on a most complicated case from which I particularly want to emerge
triumphant.”
“What’s it all about?”
“My wife,” said Béchoux, and there was anguish in his tone.
Barnett’s eyebrows shot up.
“Your wife?” he echoed. “Then you’re married?”
“Been divorced six years,” was the laconic answer.
“Incompatibility?”
“No. My wife found she had a vocation for the stage! The stage—I ask
you! Married to an inspector of police and she wanted to go on——”
Béchoux sneezed abruptly and violently, giving Barnett time to ask:
“Then she became an actress?”
“A singer.”
“At the Opéra?”
“No. The Folies Bergère. She’s Olga Vaubant.”
“What, not the lady who does the Acrobatic Arias? But she’s wonderful,
Béchoux. Olga Vaubant is a superb artiste. She has created a new art
form. Her latest number brings down the house. It’s sheer
genius—absolutely. You know, she stands on her head and sings:
“‘I’m in luck, I gotta boy
Fills his momma’s heart with joy—
Yes, you otta see my Jim!’
And she’s your wife!”
“Was,” said Béchoux shortly. “Well, I’m glad you like the lady’s
performance. I’ve just been honored with a note from her.”
He produced a sheet of rose-colored notepaper, with an embossed crimson
O in one corner. Scrawled in pencil and dated that very morning was the
following message:
“My bedroom suite has been stolen. Mother in a state of collapse. Come
at once.—Olga.”
“The moment I got this,” said Béchoux, “I telephoned the préfecture.
They had already been called in on the case, and I obtained permission
to collaborate with the men who are handling it.”
“Then why are you all of a dither?” asked Barnett.
“It’s—it’s because this will mean meeting her again,” said Béchoux,
ashamed and furious.
“Are you still in love with her?”
“Whenever I see her—it’s idiotic, but something comes over me—I can’t
help myself. I feel myself blushing like a schoolboy. My mouth goes dry
and I begin stammering. You must see, Barnett, that I can’t take charge
of the case like that. I should make a perfect fool of myself.”
“Whereas, what you want to do is to impress madame with the cool
dignity, the daring and resource that go to make Inspector Béchoux the
Pride of Paris Police?”
“Er—yes.”
“And you look to me to help you. Béchoux, you can count on me. Now tell
me, what sort of life does your ex-wife lead off the stage?”
Béchoux looked almost pained at the question.
“She is above suspicion and lives for her art alone. If it weren’t for
her profession, Olga would still be Madame Béchoux.”
“Which would be a nation’s loss,” pronounced Barnett solemnly,
gathering up hat and coat.
A few minutes later the two men came to one of the quietest, most
deserted streets near the Luxembourg. Olga Vaubant lived on the top
floor of an old-fashioned house whose bricks breathed respectability.
The ground-floor windows were heavily barred.
“Before we go any further,” said Béchoux, “I am going to suggest that
in this instance you refrain from playing your own hand and making a
dishonorable private profit out of the case, as you have unhappily been
known to do in the past.”
“My conscience ...” began Barnett, but Béchoux waved away the
objection.
“Never mind your conscience,” he said. “Think of the way mine has
pricked me whenever we’ve worked together!”
“You don’t think I’d rob your own ex-wife? Oh, Béchoux, how you wrong
me!”
“I don’t want you to rob anyone,” said Béchoux.
“Not even those who deserve it?”
“Leave Justice to take its course. Heaven has not appointed you as an
avenging angel.”
Barnett sighed.
“You are spoiling all my fun, Béchoux, but what you say goes.”
One policeman was on guard at the door, and another was with the
concierges—husband and wife—who were badly upset by what had happened.
Béchoux learned that the district superintendent and two headquarters’
men had just left after making a preliminary investigation.
“Now’s our chance,” said Béchoux to Barnett. “Let’s get a move on while
the coast is clear.”
As they went up the staircase he explained to his friend that the house
was run on old-fashioned lines, and the street door was kept shut.
“No one has a key, and everyone has to ring for admittance. A priest
lives on the first floor and a magistrate on the second. The concierge
acts as housekeeper to both of them. Olga has the top floor flat and
leads a most conventional existence, complete with her mother and two
old maidservants who have always been in the family.”
They knocked at the door of Olga Vaubant’s flat, and one of the maids
let them into the hall. Béchoux rapidly explained the position of the
rooms to Barnett—the passage on the right led to Olga’s bedroom and
boudoir, that on the left to her mother’s room and the servants’
quarters. Straight ahead was a studio fitted up as a gymnasium, with a
horizontal bar, a trapeze, rings, ropes and ribstalls. Strewn about the
place were Indian clubs, dumb-bells, foils, and so forth.
As the two men entered this vast room, something seemed to drop in a
heap at their feet from the sky-light. The heap resolved itself into a
slender, laughing boy, with a mop of untidy red hair framing the
delicate features of a charming face. Wide green eyes, tip-tilted nose,
slightly crooked mouth—all were unmistakable, and Barnett immediately
recognized in the pajama-clad “boy” the one and only Olga Vaubant. She
exclaimed at once in the Parisian drawl that has its parallel in the
Londoner’s cockney:
“Maman’s all right, Béchoux. Sleeping like a top, bless her. Lucky,
isn’t it?”
She made a sudden dive floorwards, stood on her hands and, with her
feet waving in the air, began singing in a husky, thrilling contralto:
“I’m in luck, I gotta boy,
Fills his momma’s heart with joy—
And believe me, Béchoux, you fill my heart with joy, too, old dear,”
she added, standing up. “You’re a real sport to have got here so soon.
Who’s the boy-friend?”
“Jim Barnett. He’s an old—acquaintance,” said Béchoux, vainly
attempting to control his twitching countenance.
“Fine,” said Olga. “Well let’s hope between the pair of you you’ll
solve the mystery and get back my bedroom suite. I leave it to you. Now
it’s my turn to do a bit of introducing,” as a bulky form hove up from
the far end of the studio. “May I present Del Prego, my gym instructor?
He’s masseur, make-up expert, and beauty doctor, and he’s the darling
of the chorus. Regular osteopath, he is, for dislocation and
rejuvenation! Say pretty to the gentlemen, Del Prego!”
Del Prego bowed low. He was a broad-shouldered, copper-skinned fellow,
genial of countenance and vaguely suggesting the clown in his
appearance. He wore a grey suit, with white spats and gloves, and held
a light-colored felt hat in his hands.
Immediately, gesticulating violently and speaking with a marked foreign
accent, he began to discourse on his method of “progressive
dislocation,” larding his outlandish French with phrases in Spanish,
English, and Russian. Olga cut him short.
“We’ve no time to waste. What do you want me to tell you, Béchoux?”
“First,” said Béchoux, “will you show us your bedroom?”
“Right! Half a mo’.” She sprang up in the air, caught on to the
trapeze, swung from that to the rings, and landed at a door in the wall
on the right.
“Here you are,” she told them, kicking it open.
The room was absolutely empty. Bed, chairs, curtains, mirrors, rugs,
dressing-table, ornaments, pictures—all gone. Furniture removers could
not have made a better job of it. The place was stripped.
Olga began to giggle helplessly.
“See that? Thorough, weren’t they? They even pinched my ivory toilet
set. Almost walked off with the floor-boards. Don’t you think it’s a
shame, Mr. Barnett?” she went on, addressing Jim, her eyes wider than
ever. “I’m a girl that’s real fond of good furniture. All pure Louis
Quinze it was, that I’d collected bit by bit—and they all had a
history, including a genuine Pompadour bed! Why, furnishing this room
cost me nearly everything I made on my American tour.”
Abruptly she broke off to turn a somersault, then tossed the hair off
her face and went on cheerfully:
“Oh, well, there’s plenty of good fish in the sea and I can replace all
that lot. I needn’t worry so long as I have my india rubber muscles and
my bee-yewtiful cracked voice.... What are you looking at me like that
for, Béchoux? Going to faint at my feet? Give us a kiss, and let’s get
on with any questions you want to ask before we have the rest of the
police force back on the scene.”
“Tell me exactly what happened,” said Béchoux.
“Oh, there isn’t much to tell,” answered Olga. “Let’s see, last night,
it had just gone half-past ten.... Oh, I should have told you, I left
here at eight with Del Prego, who escorted me to the Folies Bergère in
maman’s place.... Well, as I was saying, it had just gone the
half-hour, and maman was in her room knitting, when suddenly she heard
a faint sound like someone moving about in my room. She rushed along
the passage, and found two men taking my bed apart by the light of a
flash-lamp! The light was switched off at once, and one chap sprang at
her and knocked her down while the other flung a tablecloth over her
head. How’s that for assault and battery? Poor old maman! Then, if you
please, these two blighters calmly proceeded to remove the furniture
bit by bit, one of them carrying it downstairs, while the other stayed
in the room. Maman kept quiet and managed not to scream. After a while
she heard a big car starting up in the street outside, and then she was
so overcome with the strain that she fainted right off.”
“So that when you got back from the show——?” prompted Béchoux.
“I found the street door open, the flat door open, and maman lying
unconscious on the floor of my room. You could have knocked me down
with a feather!”
“What had the concierges to say?”
“You know them, Béchoux. Two old dears who’ve been here for thirty
years now. An earthquake wouldn’t rouse ’em. The only sound they ever
hear is the door-bell. Well, they swear by all their gods that no one
rang between ten o’clock, when they went to bed, and next morning.”
“Which means,” said Béchoux, “that they had no cause at any time during
the night to pull the string that opens the door.”
“You’ve said it.”
“Did the other tenants hear nothing?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Then the conclusion is——”
“How do you mean, conclusion?”
“Well, what do you make of it?”
Olga’s expression was one of wrath.
“Don’t be an idiot! It’s not my business to make anything of it. That’s
your job, Béchoux. In a moment you’ll have me thinking you as big a
fool as those policemen we’ve had all over the flat.”
“But,” faltered Béchoux, “we’re only beginning.”
“Can’t you get action with what I’ve told you, you boob? If that pal of
yours there isn’t any brighter than you, I can bid my Pompadour bed a
fond farewell!”
The “pal” at this point stepped forward and asked:
“On what particular day would you like your bed back, madame?”
“What’s that?” said Olga, staring at this stranger to whom, up to now,
she had paid but slight attention.
Barnett became glibly detailed.
“I should like to know the day and hour on which you desire to regain
possession of your Pompadour bed and of your furniture, etcetera.”
“Is this your idea of a joke?”
“Let’s fix the day,” said the imperturbable Barnett.
“To-day is Tuesday. Will next Tuesday be satisfactory?”
Olga’s eyes widened, and widened yet again. She could not make Barnett
out a bit. Suddenly she began to rock with mirth.
“You are a one, I must say! Where did you pick it up, Béchoux? Out of
the asylum? I must say your friend’s got a nerve. In a week, he says,
cool as you please. You might think the bed was in his pocket! You’ve
got another thing coming if you fancy I’m going to waste my time with
two mutts like you.” With a hand on the chest of each, she pushed them
vigorously into the hall. “Out you go, my lads, and you can stay out!
And don’t think I’m going to let myself be fooled by a couple of rotten
jokers!”
The studio door slammed violently on the two “rotten jokers,” and
Béchoux groaned aloud.
“And we’ve only been in the flat ten minutes!”
Barnett was calmly examining the hall. He then talked to one of the old
servants. After that, he went downstairs to the concierges’ quarters
and questioned the pair of them. He then hailed a passing taxi, giving
the driver his address in the rue Laborde. Inspector Béchoux, deserted
and aghast, stood forlornly on the pavement and watched the
disappearing chariot of his friend.
However much Jim Barnett held Inspector Béchoux spellbound, the latter
stood in even greater awe of the imperious Olga. He never dreamed of
doubting her assertion that Barnett had turned the whole thing off by
making a promise no one could take seriously.
This gloomy view of affairs was confirmed next day when he called at
the office in the rue Laborde and found Barnett lolling back in an
armchair, his feet upon his desk, smoking peacefully.
“Really, Barnett,” said Béchoux in exasperation, “if this is your idea
of getting down to things, we may as well give up the case. Back at the
house we’re all hopelessly at sea. We none of us know what to make of
it. We are agreed on certain points, of course. The main thing is, that
it’s a physical impossibility to enter the place, even using a skeleton
key, unless the door is opened from the inside. Since none of the
residents can be suspected of being concerned in the burglary, we are
driven to two unavoidable conclusions: first, that one of the thieves
had been in the house, concealed, since early in the evening, and this
man let in a confederate; second, that he could not have got inside
without being seen by one of the concierges, as the street door is
never left open. But who can have been in the house ready to admit the
other thief? That’s what floors us, and I don’t see how on earth we’re
going to find it out. Have you any theory, Barnett?”
But Barnett was silent, absorbed in blowing smoke-rings. Béchoux’s
words might have fallen on deaf ears, but he continued:
“We’ve made a list of people who called during that day—there weren’t
many—and the concierges are positive that every single one of them left
the house again. So you see we’re without a clue. We can easily
reconstruct the modus operandi of the crime, but its authors elude us.
What do you make of it all?”
Barnett gave a prodigious yawn, stretched his arms and legs till they
cracked, and then drawled:
“A perfect peach!”
“Wh-what’s that? Who’re you calling a peach?”
“Your ex-wife,” Barnett told the astonished Béchoux. “She’s as much of
a knock-out off the stage as she is on. So full of joie de vivre, so—so
electric! A regular gamine. Wonderful taste, too. I just can’t get over
the idea of her investing her earnings in that Pompadour bed! Béchoux,
you’re a lucky dog!”
“I lost my luck pretty quickly—only kept it a month!”
“A whole month? Then what are you grumbling at?”
Next Saturday saw Béchoux back at the Barnett Agency, trying to rouse
his torpid ally, but Barnett was wreathed in smoke and silence, and
Béchoux got no satisfaction.
On Monday he came in again, thoroughly depressed.
“It’s a mug’s game,” he averred, “the men on the job are utter idiots,
and all this time Olga’s bedroom suite is probably on its way to some
port or other for shipment abroad. It’s maddening! And what do you
suppose all this makes me look like to Olga—me, a police inspector, I
ask you? Why, she thinks I’m the most colossal ass that ever stepped.”
He glared at the imperturbable Barnett, absorbed in his eternal
smoke-rings, and let loose the full force of his fury.
“Here are we, up against an entirely new type of criminal—fighting men
who must be adepts in their own line—and there you sit, you—you
lotus-eater, and don’t lift a finger to help!”
“One quality in her,” said Barnett, musing aloud, “pleases me more than
all.”
“What?” shouted Béchoux.
“Her naturalness—her superb spontaneity. She is absolutely devoid of
anything theatrical, any pose. Olga says exactly what she means,
follows her instincts and lives according to impulse. Béchoux, she’s a
marvel!”
Béchoux brought his fist down on the desk with a bang.
“Would you like to know what she thinks of you? She thinks you’re a
D-U-D, dud! She and Del Prego can’t mention your name without hooting.
They speak of you as ‘That boob Barnett—that crazy bluffer’....”
Barnett heaved a sigh.
“Harsh words! How can I prove the cap doesn’t fit?”
“By ceasing to wear it,” suggested Béchoux grimly. “To-morrow is
Tuesday, and you’ve promised to produce that Pompadour bed!”
“Good lord, so I have!” said Barnett, as if realizing it for the first
time. “The trouble is, I haven’t the faintest idea where to look for
it! Be a sportsman, Béchoux, and ladle out a word of advice.”
“If you can lay hold of the thieves, they’ll know where to find the
bed.”
“It might be done,” said Barnett. “Got a warrant?”
Béchoux nodded.
“Right. Then telephone the préfecture to send two of their beefiest men
to-day to the Odéon Arcades, near the Luxembourg.”
Béchoux looked both surprised and irresolute.
“No fooling?”
“Absolutely not. Do you think I relish being thought a boob by Olga
Vaubant? And, anyway, don’t I always keep my promises?”
Béchoux thought hard for a moment. Something told him that Barnett
meant what he said, and that during the last week, while he had lolled
in his armchair, his brain had been alert and busy with the problem. He
remembered Barnett’s dictum that there were times when meditation
proved more profitable than investigation. Without further hesitation,
Béchoux took up the telephone and called up one, Albert, who was the
right-hand man of the chief. He arranged for two inspectors to be sent
to the Odéon.
Barnett heaved himself out of his chair, and the clock struck three as
the two men left the Agency.
“Are we going to Olga’s flat?” Béchoux asked.
“To that of the concierges,” Barnett told him.
When they arrived Barnett conversed in low tones with the concierges
and asked them to say nothing of his and Béchoux’s presence in the
house. They then stationed themselves in the rear of the concierges’
quarters, concealed behind a voluminous bed-curtain. By peering out at
each side, they could see anyone leave the house, or enter it when the
door was opened.
They saw the priest from the first floor pass. Then came one of Olga’s
old servants, carrying a market-basket.
“Who on earth are we waiting for?” whispered Béchoux. “What’s your
game?”
“To teach you your job! Now then, not another word!”
At half-past three Del Prego was admitted, resplendent in white gloves,
white spats, grey suit and grey Stetson. He waved a greeting to the
concierges and went up the stairs two at time. It was the hour for
Olga’s gym lesson.
Three-quarters of an hour later he left the house, returning shortly
with a packet of cigarettes he had gone out to buy. His white gloves
and spats flickered up the stairs.
Three other people came and went. Suddenly Béchoux hissed in Barnett’s
ear:
“Look, he’s coming in again for the third time. How on earth did he get
out?”
“By the door, I suppose.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Béchoux, albeit less authoritatively. “That is,
unless he caught us napping. Eh, Barnett?”
Barnett pushed back the curtain and answered:
“The time has come for action. Béchoux, go and pick up your beefy
friends.”
“And bring them here?”
“That’s the stuff.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going up aloft. When you get back, I want all three of you to
station yourselves on the landing of the second floor. You’ll get word
when to move.”
“Then it’s zero at last?”
“It is, and pretty stiff odds. Now, off you go, and make it snappy.”
Béchoux was off like the wind, while Barnett mounted to the third floor
and rang the flat bell. He was shown into the studio-gymnasium where
Olga was finishing her exercises under Del Prego’s supervision.
“Fancy that now, here’s that bright boy Barnett!” called Olga from the
top of a rope-ladder. “Our Mr. Barnett, the Man of Mystery!” She peered
at him from between her shapely legs. “Well, Mr. Barnett, I hope you’ve
got my Pompadour bed with you!”
“Almost, but not quite, madame. I hope I’m not in the way?”
“Not a bit.”
The incredible Olga continued her evolutions at Del Prego’s curt
commands. Her instructor alternately praised and criticised, and
occasionally gave a brief personal demonstration. He was himself a
trained acrobat, but vigorous rather than supple. He seemed out to
demonstrate his prodigious muscular strength.
The lesson came to an end, and, Del Prego put on his coat, fastened his
snowy spats, and gathered up his white gloves and ash-colored hat.
“See you to-night at the theatre, Madame Olga,” he said.
“Oh, aren’t you going to wait for me to-day, Del Prego? You might have
escorted me. You know maman is away.”
“Impossible, madame, I fear. Much as I regret, I fear I have another
appointment before dinner.”
He made for the door, but before he got there he was brought up short
by Jim Barnett, who stood in his way.
“A word with you, my friend,” said Barnett, “since chance has
obligingly brought us together.”
“I’m sorry, but really....”
“Must I, then, introduce myself afresh? Jim Barnett, private detective,
of the Barnett Agency—Inspector Béchoux’s friend.”
Del Prego took another step towards the door.
“A thousand apologies, Mr. Barnett, but I’m in rather a hurry.”
“Oh, I won’t keep you a moment. I only want to call to your
remembrance——” He paused dramatically.
“What?” snapped Del Prego.
“A certain Turk.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“A Turk called Ben-Vali.”
The professor’s face wore an expression of stony blankness.
“The name means nothing to me.”
“Then perhaps you may remember a certain Avernoff?”
“Never heard of him either. Who were they both, anyway?”
“Two—murderers.”
There was a brief, pregnant pause. Then Del Prego laughed noisily and
said:
“Scarcely a class among which I care to cultivate my friendships.”
“And yet,” pursued Barnett, “rumor persists in urging that you knew
both men well.”
Del Prego’s glance travelled like lightning up and down Barnett’s form.
Then he snarled, with scarcely a trace of foreign accent:
“What are you getting at? Cut out the mystery stuff. I don’t go in for
riddles.”
“Sit down, Signor Del Prego,” suggested Barnett. “We can chat more
comfortably sitting down!”
Del Prego was fuming with impatience. Olga had come up to them, full of
curiosity, looking like a bewitching boy in her gym kit.
“Do sit down, Del Prego,” she said, laying a hand on the professor’s
arm. “After all, it’s about my Pompadour bed.”
“Just so,” said Barnett. “And I can assure Signor Del Prego that I am
not asking a riddle. Only, on my very first visit here after the
robbery, I was forcibly reminded of two cases that made rather a
sensation some time ago. I should like his opinion on them. It’ll only
take a few minutes.”
Barnett’s attitude had subtly changed from one of deference to one of
authority. His tone was unmistakable in its note of command. Olga
Vaubant found herself feeling impressed by this strange man. Del Prego,
overborne, merely growled:
“Hurry up, then!”
Barnett began his story:
“Once upon a time—three years ago, to be precise—there lived in Paris a
jeweller called Saurois. He and his father shared a big top-floor flat.
This jeweller formed a business connection with a man named Ben-Vali.
The latter went about in a turban and full Turkish costumes, baggy
trousers and all, and traded in second-grade precious stones, such as
oriental topazes, irregular pearls, amethysts, and so forth. Well, one
evening, on a day when Ben-Vali had called several times at his flat,
Saurois came back from the theatre and found his father stabbed to
death, and all his jewels gone. The inquiry revealed that the crime had
been committed not by Ben-Vali himself—he produced an unshakable
alibi—but by someone he must have brought round in the afternoon. But
they never managed to lay hands on the assassin, nor on the Turk. The
case was shelved. Do you remember, now?”
“I’ve only been in Paris two years,” Del Prego parried swiftly. “And,
anyway, I don’t see the point....”
Jim Barnett went on:
“Nearly a year before that a similar crime took place. The victim in
this case was a collector of medals called Davoul. It was established
that the man who killed him was brought to his place and hidden by a
Count Avernoff, a Russian, who wore an astrakhan cap and a long
overcoat.”
“Why, I remember that,” exclaimed Olga Vaubant, who had turned suddenly
pale.
“I saw at once,” continued Barnett, “that between these two cases and
the burglary of your bedroom there existed not, perhaps, a very close
analogy, but a certain family resemblance. The robberies of Saurois the
jeweller and of Davoul the medal collector were both the work of a pair
of foreigners, and here again the method is identical. I mean, in each
case there was the introduction of an accomplice who was responsible
for the actual crime. The problem is—how were those accomplices
introduced? I own that at first this completely baffled me. For the
last few days I have been thrashing the solution out in silence and
solitude. Working with the two given quantities, so to speak, of the
Ben-Vali crime and the Avernoff crime, I set myself to reconstruct the
general scheme—the ‘constant’—of a crime-system that had probably been
applied in many other cases unknown to me.”
“And did you succeed?” asked Olga breathlessly.
“I did,” Barnett told her. “Frankly, the idea is superb. It’s the
highest form of art—a manifestation of creative genius, wholly original
in conception and execution. While the ordinary run of thieves and
gun-men work with great secrecy, disguising themselves sometimes as
plumbers or commercial travellers to gain entrance to a house, these
people keep full in the limelight, and do the job without any attempt
at concealment. The more observation they meet with, the better pleased
they are. The method is for one of them quite openly to enter a house
where he is already a frequent visitor, and his comings and goings are
familiar to the residents. Then, on a chosen day, he goes out ... and
comes in again ... and goes out once more ... and comes in yet again
... and then, while this man is in the house, another man comes in who
is so like the first man in appearance that no one spots the
difference! And there you have your accomplice introduced. The first
man leaves the house again, quite openly, and his accomplice remains
there concealed. Then, in the watches of the night, the first man
returns to the house, and is admitted by the accomplice. Ingenious,
isn’t it?”
Then, with a peculiar intensity in his tone, Barnett went on, now
directly to Del Prego:
“It’s genius, Del Prego, absolute genius. Ordinary crooks, as I said,
try to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible in their criminal
pursuits. They wear nondescript, neutral clothing, and do their best to
merge with their surroundings like creatures of the jungle. But the men
I’m telling you about realized that the great thing in their scheme was
to make a vivid and outstanding impression—to attract plenty of
attention. A Russian wearing a fur cap, or a Turk in baggy trousers is
a conspicuous and unusual figure. If such a man is habitually seen four
times a day going up and downstairs in a house, no one will notice
whether he comes in once oftener than he goes out. The point is,
though, that the fifth time he comes in, it’s the accomplice! And no
one suspects it. That’s how it’s done, and I take my hat off to the
inventor. It stands to reason that a man must be a master criminal to
evolve and apply such a method—the kind of arch-crook who only occurs
once in a generation. To me it is obvious that Ben-Vali and Count
Avernoff are the same person. From this, isn’t it only logical to
conclude that this man has materialized a third time, in yet another
guise, in the particular case which concerns us? He began by being a
Russian, later on he appeared as a Turk, and this time—well, who comes
here who, besides being a foreigner, dresses rather unusually?”
There was a dead silence. Olga put out a hand towards Barnett as if to
stop him from she hardly knew what. She had only just tumbled to what
he had been leading up to all this time, and the realization frightened
her.
“No, no!” she cried. “I won’t have you accusing people!”
Del Prego smiled blandly.
“Come, come, Madame Olga, don’t get upset. Mr. Barnett will have his
little joke.”
“That’s it, Del Prego,” said Barnett, “I will have my little joke.
You’re perfectly right not to take my yarn of mystery and adventure
seriously—that is, not until you know the finish. Of course, there’s
the obvious fact that you’re a foreigner, and that your get-up is
calculated to attract attention. White gloves ... white spats.... And,
of course, too, you’ve got one of those mobile, india rubber faces,
which could pretty easily turn you from a Russian into a Turk, and from
a Turk into a shady adventurer, nationality unspecified! And, of
course, you’re well known in this house, and business brings you here
several times a day. But, after all, your reputation for honesty is
unblemished, and you enjoy the patronage of no less a person than Olga
Vaubant. So no one would dream of accusing you.
“But what was I to think? You see my difficulty, don’t you? You were
the only possible suspect, and yet you were above suspicion. Isn’t that
so, madame?” He turned to Olga for confirmation.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed, eyes feverishly bright. “Then who are we to
suspect? How can we find out who did it?”
“Aha,” said Barnett, “that’s simple enough. I’ve set a trap for the
mystery mouse!”
“A trap? How could you do that?”
“Tell me, madame,” said Barnett, “Baron de Laureins telephoned you on
Saturday? I thought so. And yesterday he came to see you here?”
Olga nodded, full of wonder.
“And he brought you a chest full of silver, engraved with the Pompadour
crest?”
“That’s it,” said Olga, “on the table. But——”
Barnett cut her short. In the manner of a fortune-teller he continued:
“Baron de Laureins, who is very hard up, is trying to sell the silver
which is a family heirloom that has come down to him from the
d’Etoiles, and he has left it in your care until to-morrow.”
“How ... how do you know all this?” Olga was quite scared.
“I,” said Barnett, “and the Baron—very new noblesse! Have you displayed
the handsome silverware to your admiring friends?”
“Certainly.”
“And, on the other hand, I take it your mother has had a telegram from
the country, summoning her to the bedside of your ailing aunt?”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I sent the telegram. Oh, believe me, I’m the whole works! So your
mother went off this morning, and the chest stays in this room till
to-morrow. What a temptation for the unknown friend who so cleverly
burgled your bedroom to get up to his tricks again and snaffle the
chest of silver. Much easier than a suite of furniture!”
Olga, now thoroughly alarmed, demanded:
“Will the attempt be made to-night?”
“Of course it will,” Barnett assured her.
“Oh, how awful!” she wailed.
Del Prego, who had listened to all this in silence, now got up.
“What’s so awful, madame?” he asked, with a faint sneer. “Forewarned is
forearmed. You have only to ring up the police. With your permission, I
will do so at once.”
“Oh, dear me, no,” protested Barnett. “I shall need you, Del Prego.”
“I fail to see in what way you can require my services.”
“Why, in helping to arrest the accomplice, of course!”
“Plenty of time for that, if the attempt is to be made to-night.”
“Yes, but do bear in mind,” urged Barnett gently but firmly, “that the
accomplice was, in each case, introduced beforehand!”
“You mean he’s already in the flat?” asked Del Prego.
“He’s been here for the last half-hour,” declared Barnett.
“Since I arrived, you mean?”
“Since you arrived the second time,” said Barnett quietly. “I saw him
as plainly as I see you now.”
“Then he’s hiding in the flat?”
Barnett pointed to the door.
“In the hall there’s a clothes cupboard which hasn’t been opened all
the afternoon. He’s in there.”
“But he couldn’t have got into the flat on his own!”
“Of course not.”
“Then who opened the door to him?”
“You, Del Prego.”
The brief statement was almost shockingly abrupt.
Even though from the beginning of the conversation Barnett’s remarks
had been obviously aimed at the gym instructor, becoming increasingly
plain in their import, yet this downright attack took Del Prego by
surprise. Rage, fear, and the determination to act swiftly were easily
discernible in his changed expression. Divining his adversary’s
perplexity, Barnett took advantage of it to run out into the hall. He
jerked a man out of the cupboard, and pushed him, struggling, before
him into the studio.
“Oh,” cried Olga, utterly taken aback, “then it’s true!”
The man was the same height as Del Prego. Like Del Prego he wore a grey
suit and white spats. He had much the same type of greasy, mobile
countenance.
“Milord has forgotten his hat and gloves,” said Barnett, and clapped an
ash-colored hat on the man’s head, at the same time handing him a pair
of white gloves.
Struck dumb with amazement, Olga drew slowly from the scene of action,
and, never shifting her gaze from the two men, proceeded to climb a
rope-ladder backwards. It had now fully dawned on her what kind of man
Del Prego was, and what frightful risks she had run during the time
spent in his company.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Barnett said, laughing. “Not as like as twins, of
course, but they’re the same height and have much the same sort of
physiog., and what with that and their dressing in duplicate, they
might be brothers!”
The two crooks were recovering from their confusion, and simultaneously
began to realize that, after all, they were only up against one man,
and that a poor-looking specimen, with apparently a wretched physique
under his shabby frock-coat.
Del Prego spluttered some words in a foreign language which Barnett
translated immediately.
“No use speaking Russian,” he observed, “to ask your friend if he’s got
a gun handy!”
Del Prego shook with rage and spoke again in a different language.
“Unluckily for you,” Barnett told him, “I know Turkish inside out.
Berlitz has nothing on me. Also, I think it only fair to tell you that
Béchoux—you know, Olga’s policeman husband that was—is waiting on the
stairs with two friends. If that gun goes off, they will break down the
door!”
Del Prego and the other man exchanged glances. They saw they were
cornered, but they were the sort that doesn’t give in without putting
up a stiff fight.
Without seeming to move, they drew imperceptibly closer to Barnett.
“Fine!” the latter told them genially. “You propose to set upon me and
finish me off at close quarters, do you? And when I’m done for, you’ll
try to elude Béchoux. Now then, madame, keep your eyes open and you’ll
see something! Tom Thumb and the two Giants! David and the twin
Goliaths! Get a move on, Del Prego. Brace up, now! Try springing at my
throat for a start!”
The distance between them had lessened again. The two men stood tense,
ready to hurl themselves on Barnett.
But Barnett most unexpectedly forestalled them. In a flash he had dived
to the floor, seized a leg of each and brought them crashing! Before
they had time to counter, the head of each was being ground into the
floor by an implacable, murderous hand. They gasped convulsively,
choking in Barnett’s vise-like grip. Their countenances took on a
purple tinge.
“Olga!” called Barnett with perfect calm, “be a good girl and open the
door and call Béchoux, will you?”
Olga dropped, monkey-like, from her ladder, and tottered rather than
ran out of the room, calling “Béchoux! Béchoux!”
A moment later she returned with the inspector, babbling excitedly to
him:
“He did it! Bowled them both over single-handed! I’d never have
believed it of him!”
“Behold,” said Barnett to Béchoux, “your two bright lads. Just slip the
bracelets on them so that I can let ’em come up for breath! You needn’t
worry about fixing them too tightly. They’ll come quietly, won’t you,
Del Prego? All lamb-like and pretty!”
He rose from the floor, gallantly kissed Olga’s hand, while she
regarded him in ever-growing wonder, and chortled gaily:
“How’s that for a haul, Béchoux? Two of the most cunning criminals in
Paris snared at last. Really, Del Prego, you must allow me to
congratulate you on your methods!”
He dug the professor playfully in the ribs, while the latter was
powerless, handcuffed to Béchoux, and continued jubilantly:
“My good man, you’re a genius. Why, when Béchoux and I were on the
watch downstairs, I, having tumbled to your trick, naturally saw that
it was not you the third time, but Béchoux, who didn’t know, soon
swallowed the bait and really thought the gentleman in white gloves,
white spats, grey hat and grey suit was the same Del Prego that he had
already seen pass several times. So Del Prego the Second was able to go
quietly upstairs, sneak through the door—which you had left ajar for
him—and hide in the hall cupboard. Exactly the same tactics as you
employed on the night when the bedroom suite disappeared into space.
You can’t deny it, Del Prego, you’re a genius!”
Barnett was by now bubbling over with sheer exuberance. With a flying
leap, he was astride the trapeze; in a moment he was twirling like a
top round and round an upright pole; he swung on to a rope, then to the
rings, then up the ladder he went, swaying like a sailor in the
rigging. The tails of his ancient frock-coat flapped stiffly,
disapprovingly behind him, the venerable garment seeming to protest
against these unseemly gambols.
Olga gave a little gasp as he unexpectedly landed at her feet, bowing
low.
“Feel my heart, madame; beating quite normally. And I’m not the least
bit out of breath. Don’t you wonder, Béchoux, how I keep in training?”
He snatched up the telephone and called a number.
“That the préfecture?... Extension two, please.... That you, Albert?
Béchoux speaking.... It doesn’t sound like my voice?... Well, I can’t
help that. Now then, listen. You can report that I have just arrested
two murderers who are wanted for the Olga Vaubant robbery.”
He hung up, and held out a hand to Béchoux.
“The laurels are all yours, old chap. Madame, it’s time I took my
leave. What’s up, Del Prego? You are not regarding me with that warm
affection I could desire!”
Del Prego was muttering furiously:
“There’s only one man alive who could get the better of me ... only
one....”
“Who’s that?”
“Arsène Lupin!”
Barnett laughed as though he would split.
“Bully for you, my boy. You ought to have been a Professor of
Psychology. And then you would never have got yourself into this
mix-up!”
He had another joyous spasm, bowed to Olga, and went off in a gale of
merriment, humming that catchy little tune:
“Yes, you otta see my Jim!”
Next day Del Prego, overwhelmed by the case against him, revealed the
whereabouts of the garage in the suburbs in which he had hidden Olga
Vaubant’s bedroom suite. This was on the Tuesday. Barnett had fulfilled
his promise.
Béchoux was sent out of Paris on a fresh case, and was away some days.
When he got back he found a note from Barnett.
“You must own that I have played strictly fair. There hasn’t been a sou
of profit for me in the whole business—none of the ‘pickings’ that have
distressed your gentle soul in the past. It is satisfaction for me to
know that I retain your friendship and respect!”
That afternoon Béchoux, who had made up his mind to part brass-rags
once and for all with Barnett, went along to the office in the rue
Laborde. The office was closed, and there was a notice on the door
which read:
“Closed on account of a sudden attachment.
Reopening after the honeymoon trip.”
“And what the hell may that mean?” muttered Béchoux, smitten with
sudden vague anxiety. He rushed off to Olga’s flat. It was shut up. He
rushed on to the Folies Bergère. There he was told that the star had
paid a large forfeit to break her contract and had gone off on holiday.
“Nom d’un Nom d’un Nom!” spluttered Béchoux when he got out in the
street. “Is it possible?... Instead of collaring some cash, can he have
used his triumph to ... can he have dared to....”
The cloud of suspicion grew bigger and blacker. Béchoux became frantic.
How was he to learn the truth? Or rather, what course could he take
that would keep the truth from him, and save him from appalling
certainty in place of his suspicion?
But Barnett was not the man to leave his victim in peace. At intervals
the unlucky Béchoux was the recipient of highly colored post-cards,
scrawled with even more lurid legends:
“Oh, Béchoux! One moonlight night in Rome!”
“Béchoux, next time you’re in love, bring her to Sicily!”
And from Venice: “If you were here, Béchoux, I should have to stop you
jumping in a canal!”
“I will never forgive him this, never! He has outraged me past hope of
pardon! Next time I will have my revenge!”
And, like a mocking echo, he seemed to hear Olga’s husky tones:
“I’m in luck, I gotta boy
Fills his momma’s heart with joy.
Yes, you otta see my Jim!”
X
ARRESTING ARSÈNE LUPIN!
Suddenly, unexpectedly, the fight between Barnett and Béchoux, which
had dragged on so long under cover, had reached the last round—in the
open!
Inspector Béchoux sped through the arched gateway of the préfecture and
across a couple of courtyards, took the stairs two at a time, and
dashed, without pausing to knock, into the sanctum of his chief. Pale
and breathless, he stammered:
“Arsène Lupin is mixed up in the Desroques case!”
The chief gave a startled exclamation.
“Surely not!”
“I saw him myself only a little while ago, outside Desroques’ flat, and
recognized him at once.”
“Don’t try and be funny, Béchoux. Nobody ever recognizes Arsène Lupin.”
“I do!” declared Béchoux. “This time he’s disguised as a private
detective and calls himself Jim Barnett—you remember, the chap I told
you about before, who left Paris a little while ago.”
The chief gave a slight chuckle.
“Left with Olga Vaubant of the Folies Bergère, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” assented Béchoux wrathfully. “Olga Vaubant, the singing acrobat,
and my ex-wife!”
“Well,” said the chief, “what did you do when you—recognized Lupin?”
“I shadowed him.”
“Without his knowing it?” The other was frankly incredulous.
Béchoux drew himself up stiffly. “When I shadow a man, chief, he never
knows it,” he declared. “All the same,” he added thoughtfully,
“although the beggar was pretending to be out for a stroll, he didn’t
take any chances. First he walked round the Place de l’Etoile. Then he
went along the Avenue Kléber and stopped on the east side of the Rond
Point du Trocadéro. Sitting on a bench there was a gipsy girl. She was
a pretty piece of goods, with her black head bare in the sunshine, and
her colored shawl wrapped about her. Well I watched Lupin, alias
Barnett, sit down beside her, and a minute later they were talking away
together, but hardly moving their lips—an old prison trick that, chief.
More than once I noticed them looking up at a house on the corner of
the Place du Trocadéro and the Avenue Kléber. After a while, Lupin got
up and took the Metro.”
“Did you keep on shadowing him?”
“Yes—or, rather, I tried to,” said Béchoux. “But he jumped aboard a
train that was just moving while I was held up in the crowd. When I got
back to the bench, the gipsy girl was gone.”
“And what about the house they were looking up at?”
“That’s where I’ve just come from,” said Béchoux. He took a deep
breath, and launched forth: “On the fourth floor of that house is a
furnished flat where for the last month old General Desroques, Jean
Desroques’ father, has been living. You remember that he came up from
Limoges to defend his son when the latter was arrested and
charged”—Béchoux swelled with the majesty of the law—“with abduction,
illegal detention, and wilful murder!”
This repetition of the roll of crimes seemingly impressed the chief,
who nodded solemnly and asked his subordinate:
“Did you call on the general?”
“I did, and he opened the door to me himself. Then I described to him
the little comedy that had just been played under his windows, leaving
out all mention of Arsène Lupin, of course. He was not surprised, and
told me that the day before a gipsy girl had come to see him. She
offered to tell his fortune and reveal the outcome of the trial. She
demanded three thousand francs and said she would await his answer next
afternoon in the Place du Trocadéro between two and half-past two.”
“But why should the general pay her all that money?”
“She assured him that she could get hold of the mystery photograph and
let him have it.”
“What?” the chief was genuinely surprised. “You mean that photograph
we’ve all been searching for and can’t find anywhere?”
“That’s it,” said Béchoux. “The photograph that would save the
general’s son—or finally establish his guilt!”
Both were silent for a while. At last the chief said:
“I expect you know, Béchoux, how anxious we are to get hold of that
photograph ourselves?”
Béchoux nodded.
“It means even more than you realize, though. Listen, Béchoux, if you
can lay hands on that photograph it must be turned over to me before
the Parquet gets wind of it.” He added in a whisper: “The Department
comes first, see?...”
And, with equal seriousness and set purpose, Béchoux replied, “Chief,
you shall have it. I will get it for you, and, at the same time, I will
get Jim Barnett, or rather Arsène Lupin!”
Just a month before this conversation at the préfecture, Jacques
Veraldy had been kept waiting for his dinner. Jacques Veraldy, one of
the foremost figures in Parisian society, a man of vast wealth, one of
the unscrupulous spiders that spin political webs, had waited till long
past the dinner hour for the return of his wife, Christiane. But she
did not come home that night, and next morning the police were called
in. They soon elicited the following facts:
On the afternoon of her disappearance, Christiane Veraldy had gone for
a walk in the Bois de Boulogne, near her house. On this walk she had
been stopped by a well-dressed man who, after a brief conversation, had
led her to a closed car, with the blinds pulled down, which was waiting
in a deserted alley. They both got into the car and drove off quickly
in the direction of Saint-Cloud.
None of the witnesses who came forward to describe this meeting in the
Bois had been able to see the man’s face. He seemed young, they said,
and they were all agreed that he wore a very smart dark-blue overcoat
and a black beret.
Two days passed, and still there was no news of the missing Christiane
Veraldy. Then, suddenly, the tragedy happened.
About sunset, some peasants working in the fields on the main road from
Paris to Chartres noticed a car being driven at a reckless speed. Even
as they watched its onrush, the car door was pushed open, and a woman
fell out on the road. They rushed to her assistance. At the same time
the car raced up the steep bank at the side of the road, crashed into a
tree and overturned. A man sprang from it, miraculously uninjured, and
dashed to where the woman lay. She was dead. Her head had struck a heap
of stones in her fall. They carried her body to the nearest village and
told the gendarmes what had happened.
The man made no secret of his identity. He was Député Jean Desroques, a
well-known political figure, and at that time leader of the Opposition.
The dead woman was Christiane Veraldy.
Immediately trouble began brewing. The bereaved husband, thirsting for
revenge rather than overcome with grief, was determined to make his
supplanter, as he considered Jean Desroques, pay the penalty of the
law. The accused man, on the other hand, had powerful political
supporters, who strenuously denied that the leader of their party could
be guilty of such a crime. These in turn brought pressure to bear on
the police.
Meanwhile, the peasants, one and all, swore that they had seen a man’s
arm push the woman out of the car. Nor did there seem any possible
doubt that the man who had been observed talking with Madame Veraldy in
the Bois was indeed Desroques. At the time of the accident Jean
Desroques was wearing a dark-blue greatcoat and a black beret.
In any case, Desroques did not attempt to advance an alibi. He admitted
having abducted Madame Veraldy, and acknowledged that he had detained
her illegally. On the other hand, he swore that he had done all in his
power to prevent her committing—suicide! For that was his explanation
of the tragic occurrence.
Desroques’ account of what had happened was that he had been struggling
to hold Madame Veraldy down in her seat, that the door of the car had
been forced open when she flung her weight against it, and she had
fallen out.
But concerning what had led up to the struggle, where they had spent
the days since their meeting in the Bois, what had happened during that
time, or even when and how he had first made the acquaintance of Madame
Veraldy, Jean Desroques was obstinately silent.
This last point—the question of the first meeting of Desroques and the
banker’s wife—remained one of the minor yet most baffling mysteries of
the case, since Veraldy declared he had never, since his marriage, had
anything to do with Desroques, whom he regarded as a dangerous Radical.
He testified to having frequently spoken disparagingly about him to
Christiane, who had invariably refrained from comment.
The examining magistrate tried in vain to get past the accused’s
enigmatic barrier of reserve. The only reply his efforts elicited was:
“I have nothing to say. You can do what you like with me. Whatever
happens I shall not speak another word.”
And when the police officials, one of whom was Béchoux, called at
Desroques’ flat, he opened the door to them in person, saying:
“I am quite ready to come with you, gentlemen.”
Before leaving, a thorough search was made of the flat. There was a
pile of ashes in the study fireplace, showing that Desroques had been
burning papers. The police found nothing of any importance in the
drawers of the desk or anywhere else. They took down every volume from
the well-stocked bookshelves and shook them vigorously, but no telltale
document fluttered out to reward their efforts. They took up the carpet
and discovered nothing but dust!
While this routine search was going on, Béchoux, pursuing his own
rather more intuitive methods, stood perfectly still near the door and
darted a lightning glance over the room. Suddenly he swooped down on
the waste-paper basket. To one side of it lay a screw of paper which
might have been an advertisement leaflet.
Béchoux had it in his hands and was just smoothing it out, when Jean
Desroques, who had been standing quietly by during the search of his
study, sprang forward and snatched it from the detective’s hands.
“You don’t want that,” he cried, “its only an old photograph. It came
off its mount and I threw it away.”
Béchoux, struck by Desroques’ eagerness to retain possession of an
apparently worthless bit of rubbish that he had self-avowedly thrown
away, was on the point of using force to make him give it up.
But Desroques was too quick for him. Before the detective could bar the
way, he had darted into the adjoining room and slammed the door behind
him.
There was a policeman on guard in the anteroom into which he had fled.
When Béchoux and the others got the door open, this man had Desroques
pinned on the floor. Immediately Béchoux searched his prisoner. He
turned out the man’s pockets, made him take off his shoes and socks.
But the unmounted photograph had disappeared!
The window was tightly shut and there was no fire in the room. The
policeman stated that he had stopped Desroques when he rushed in in
case he should be trying to escape, but had seen no sign of any
photograph or paper.
Béchoux had a warrant for Desroques’ arrest, and, without vouchsafing a
word, he went quietly off to prison.
The foregoing are the bare facts of the case which, a little while
before the Great War, caused such a stir in the press and among the
public of Paris. There is no need to give in detail the inquiry
conducted by the examining magistrate, as it shed no light on the
mystery. But there should be considerable interest in the relation for
the first time of an episode which led up to certain startling
disclosures and put an entirely different complexion on the case,
besides marking the last encounter in the long duel between Inspector
Béchoux and his “friendly enemy,” Jim Barnett, of the Barnett Agency.
The stage was set, and for once Béchoux felt happy in the possession of
a little advance information as to the program. He knew what Barnett
was up to—had watched his little confabulation with the gipsy girl
under the windows of General Desroques’ flat. This time he intended to
be first on the scene and to spoil Barnett’s entrance!
On the day after the conversation with his chief at the préfecture,
Béchoux again called at General Desroques’ flat. The latter had been
advised by headquarters of the inspector’s visit.
A rather corpulent, clean-shaven man-servant opened the door to
Béchoux. In silence, and exuding a kind of aura of intense
respectability, he ushered the inspector into the drawing-room, then
softly withdrew.
Béchoux took up his stand at a window from which he could survey the
entire extent of the Place du Trocadéro without himself being seen from
the street. For a long while he scrutinized the people passing to and
fro in the busy square below.
There was no sign of the gipsy girl, nor of the wily “Barnett” in whom
Béchoux declared he had recognized Arsène Lupin.
Neither of the suspects showed up all that day, nor the day after.
During his self-imposed vigil, Béchoux sometimes had the company of
General Desroques. The latter was tall, lean, grey-haired—the typical
retired cavalry officer who has spent much of his life outdoors, and is
in the habit of giving orders and having them promptly obeyed.
Ordinarily taciturn, the general was one of those men who, when deeply
moved, will lay aside some of their customary reserve. The charge
against his son had wounded him terribly. Not only was he firmly
convinced of Jean’s innocence, but he was certain that the young man
was the victim of one of those mysterious political plots which
occasionally blot the fair fame of every state.
Although undetermined as to whence the blow had come, the old man stood
at bay—like a lion defending its cub.
“Jean would not, could not, do such a thing,” he declared. “The boy’s
only fault is that he is over-scrupulous, absurdly quixotic. He is
perfectly capable of sacrificing his own interests to some exaggerated
idea of honor. He is the sort of person who would unhesitatingly
shoulder a friend’s guilt and let the culprit go free. I am so sure of
what I say, that I’m not going to see Jean in his cell. I won’t pay the
slightest attention to what his lawyer says, or to what they print in
the newspapers. Pack of lies, probably! The boy’s innocent, whether he
says so or not. And I’m going to prove it, whether he likes it or not!
We all have our own idea of what’s our duty. He thinks he ought to keep
his mouth shut. Well and good. But I know I ought to clear his name, no
matter who gets hurt in the process!”
One day, when the reporters were harrying him with questions, the
general burst out:
“Do you really want to know what I think? Jean never kidnaped any one.
The woman followed him of her own free will. He won’t admit it, because
he is trying to shield her reputation. But if the facts come to
light—and, believe me, they will—we shall find that my son and she knew
each other and were probably on terms of intimacy. And I’m going to get
to the bottom of things, whatever the result!”
Now, while Béchoux crouched, like Sister Anne, at his window, and kept
watch on the square, the general would come in and sit near him. Then
the old man would go over the case and review the deadlock reached by
himself and the police.
“You and I, my friend, are after the same thing,” he would say, “but
someone else is after it, too! I have friends who are in the know, and
they tell me Veraldy has offered a fabulous reward to anyone who will
solve the mystery of his wife’s death. He and my son’s political
opponents are convinced that Jean is guilty. What we all want to find,
though for very different reasons, is that photograph! Veraldy and his
friends believe that if they can lay hands on it they will have proof
of Jean’s guilt. I know that it will prove him innocent!”
From Béchoux’s point of view, what the photograph might or might not
prove was the least of his worries. His task was limited to getting
hold of it for his chief. Any possible sequel had almost ceased to
interest him.
Meanwhile, day after day, he sat at his window watching for the gipsy
girl who never came, filled with anguished speculation as to Barnett’s
activities, and listening inattentively to the general’s eternal
monologue about his hopes and plans and disappointments.
One day old Desroques seemed unusually thoughtful. He obviously
imagined he had hit on a fresh clue, or, at any rate, a new factor in
the tragic problem. After a prolonged silence he addressed Béchoux at
his post:
“Inspector, my friends and I have come to the conclusion that the only
human being who can possibly throw any light on how the photograph
disappeared is the policeman who stopped my son in his flight the day
he was arrested. It’s rather curious that he has never been called to
give evidence. His name has never appeared in the press. In fact, but
for the energetic inquiries of my friends, I should not now be in
possession of”—he paused significantly—“certain information!”
Inspector Béchoux looked distinctly uncomfortable, but did not speak.
The general resumed:
“We now know that this policeman was added to the group of men sent
here from headquarters quite accidentally, just as they were leaving
the police-station of this district on their way here. They rather
doubted whether their numbers were strong enough in case my son offered
violent resistance, and this policeman apparently offered to join them
with some alacrity. They gladly accepted his assistance.
“My friends have not been able to ascertain the identity of that
policeman. For some reason or other none of your colleagues has been
willing or able to tell us. Yet we are certain that the higher
officials at the préfecture know who he is, and have been questioning
him daily. We have reason to believe that he has been under strict
surveillance ever since the arrest of my son. That he was taken to the
police-station immediately after the disappearance of the photograph
and searched; that he has not been allowed home; that he is, in fact, a
prisoner. And we have more than an inkling of the reason for the strict
reticence of the police on his account!” The general bent nearer to
Béchoux, a certain triumph overspreading his hawklike features.
Outwardly calm and indifferent, Béchoux was quaking inwardly. But he
said nothing, feeling it wisest to let the general put all his cards on
the table.
“What do you say,” said the general, “to the suggestion that the
mysterious policeman was, to say the least of it, rather a peculiar
character to have got into the police force at all? A nice story it
would make for the newspapers—and not particularly creditable. Ho, ho!”
He waggled a gouty finger under the inspector’s nose.
Still Béchoux was silent.
“Well,” said the general, “it isn’t going to further my son’s interests
to make a laughing-stock of the police force. But what I do demand as a
right is that I may be allowed to question this policeman myself. Your
people haven’t been able to get anything out of him. I think I may be
more successful.”
“And if I say that you cannot have this interview?” Béchoux’s voice was
cold and level as chilled steel.
“In that case, inspector, I shall—regretfully, of course—communicate
with the editor of a well-known daily in regard to this somewhat
curious ornament of the police force!”
“No need for that, general.” Béchoux forced a smile. “There is no
objection at all to your interviewing Constable Rimbourg—er, the
policeman in question. I shall have pleasure in arranging for him to
come along!”
In truth, Béchoux was not particularly unwilling in the matter. His own
plans had proved fruitless. He was absolutely without information about
Barnett’s movements, and quite in the dark as to his adversary’s
connection with the case. In the past, Barnett had always met him
openly, albeit under the guise of lending his aid. Barnett had even
been noticeably to the fore throughout the cases on which he had
“coöperated” with the inspector. Béchoux had an uneasy feeling that
this time, for some reason of his own, Barnett was working under cover,
ready to burst out at any moment with a startling and probably
unwelcome dénouement of the whole affair. And then it would be too late
to circumvent him!
His superiors gave Béchoux carte blanche to go ahead. Two days later,
Sylvestre, the general’s rotund man-servant, gravely ushered Béchoux
and Constable Rimbourg into the drawing-room.
The constable was a very ordinary looking man—not at all the sort of
figure to suggest a mystery. His eyes and mouth betrayed his weariness.
He had been put through something of a “third degree” over the missing
photograph. He was in uniform, with the customary revolver in a black
leather case, and the policeman’s baton—that world-wide symbol of law
and order.
The general came in, and the three men sat a long while in conference.
But no fresh light was shed on the problem of the photograph. Rimbourg
was respectful, stolidly sympathetic, ready with his answers. But he
denied having seen anything of any photograph.
Then the general changed the trend of his interrogations. Abruptly he
asked:
“When did you first meet my son?”
“We did our military service together, sir,” was the surprising answer.
“You said nothing of this,” cried Béchoux.
“I was not asked about it, inspector,” replied the man.
“I must tell you, general,” said Béchoux, “that one of the reasons for
our very strict surveillance of Constable Rimbourg was that he obtained
his appointment through your son’s influence!”
“What?” cried the general “But it has been freely hinted that this man,
Rimbourg——” He broke off, suddenly thoughtful. Then he asked the
constable: “What was your profession before you joined the police
force?”
“I did various odd jobs, sir. I was carpenter and scene-shifter for a
touring company. I travelled round with a circus. I was lift-man in a
hotel.”
“Why did you leave the hotel?”
“I tired of the job, sir.” Rimbourg’s voice was infinitely respectful,
but there was a slight flicker in his eyes that belied his stolid calm.
“And you found the police force suited you?”
“Oh, perfectly, sir.”
The general gave a disheartened shrug of dismissal.
“Thank you, thank you; that will do for the present, I think,” he said.
“I wish I could believe what you tell me, but frankly, I cannot help
feeling you are keeping something back. Your previous acquaintance with
my son is certainly an extraordinary coincidence, and I think,
Inspector Béchoux, if I were you, I would investigate Constable
Rimbourg’s past a bit more closely. Find out why he left that job as
lift-man. And remember what I said before about the suggestion that he
is, perhaps, a curious kind of constable altogether. Look up some of
the cases in which he has been concerned—it might prove illuminating!”
He rang the bell. “Sylvestre, give Monsieur Rimbourg a drink before he
goes.” The door closed. “He’ll be quite safe with my man,” the general
told Béchoux, as he poured out a glass of wine for the inspector. Then,
raising his own glass:
“Here’s to my son’s speedy liberation,” he said.
For a second Béchoux could have sworn he saw a gleam of triumphant
merriment in the general’s eye. A most uncalled-for emotion, surely,
and yet....
He wheeled sharply round, for the general was grinning broadly now. The
drawing-room door had swung silently open. On the threshold he beheld a
strange manifestation. There was slowly approaching a creature that
walked on its hands! The empurpled face almost touched the floor. Above
it protruded a comfortable paunch, surmounted by a pair of oddly slim
and wildly kicking legs that pointed ceiling-wards. For a moment
Béchoux was forcibly reminded of the antics of his acrobat wife, Olga.
All at once the creature somersaulted, bringing its feet neatly
together, and, right side up, began spinning round and round at
terrific speed like a human top. And now Béchoux recognized—Sylvestre,
the man-servant. Obviously the fellow was out of his mind. As he spun
around, his stomach quivered like a jelly, and from his wide mouth
issued a series of rousing guffaws.
But—was it really Sylvestre? As he watched the extraordinary
performance, Béchoux felt his brow bathed in a clammy dew. Could this
wild figure be the imperturbable, perfectly trained, intensely
respectable man-servant?
The top ceased spinning. Sylvestre, if he it was, fixed the detective
with a steady stare, relaxed his set expression of grotesque mirth,
undid jacket and waistcoat, divested himself of a rubber paunch, and
slipped gracefully into the coat which General Desroques handed him.
Once more looking fixedly at the inspector he murmured solemnly:
“Sold again, Béchoux!”
And Béchoux, incapable of protest, sank weakly into a chair, breathing
the one word—“Barnett....”
“Yes, Barnett,” said the erstwhile man-servant, smiling.
And Barnett it was, but a resplendent Barnett. Gone was the air of
shabby gentility, the seedy get-up. This new Barnett approximated more
nearly to Inspector Béchoux’s mental portrait of the redoubtable Arsène
Lupin!
And the general was chuckling unrestrainedly!
Turning to him, Barnett bowed courteously.
“Forgive my antics, sir, but whenever something happens that especially
delights me I am apt to cut a few capers out of sheer exuberance. I am
sure you will understand.”
“In this instance, my friend, you are surely entitled to behave like a
whole circus of clowns. Your little plan has succeeded to perfection.”
“What’s all this?” asked Béchoux, recovering slightly from his first
sense of shock and dismay. “Have you any special cause for joy,
Barnett?”
“Why, yes, Béchoux; and the best of it is that it is all thanks to you,
dear old chap. (He’s the best of good fellows, general, I may tell
you.) But I can see you are bursting to hear all about it. I will
reserve my praises for another time, and start in on my little story.”
He lit a cigarette, handing his case to the general, who also elected
to smoke. Then, puffing appreciatively, he began:
“Well, Béchoux, a short while ago I was travelling in Spain with a
lady, if you remember? Ah, I see you do. A friend of mine telegraphed,
asking me to help in unravelling the Desroques case. As it happened,
my little idyll was by then distinctly on the wane—a total eclipse of
the honeymoon, if I may use the expression. I seized the chance of
regaining my freedom. And fortune smiled on me. New lamps for old,
Béchoux!
“For, at Granada, I fell in with a gipsy girl—a wild, southern beauty,
Béchoux—and we travelled up together.
“I was attracted to the Desroques case chiefly, I own, because you were
working on it. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became
that if there existed any proof of the guilt or innocence of Jean
Desroques, it must be in the hands of the policeman who stopped him in
his flight when they were making the arrest. But when I came to make
investigations, I found myself up against a blank wall. I was unable to
ascertain the identity of this man. I only guessed that he was being
kept virtually a prisoner. What was I to do? Time was passing. The
general and his son were both suffering severely under the strain.
There was only one person in Paris who could help me—yourself!”
Béchoux did not move. He longed for the ground to open and swallow him
up with his shame. He had been tricked once again, more thoroughly than
ever before. Barnett had shown him up as being the typical, slow-witted
detective, the butt of every mystery novelist!
“You were the only person who could help me,” Barnett repeated, “for
the reason that you, and only you, were in possession of the truth. You
had been given the job of putting Rimbourg through the ‘third degree.’
But how was I to get in touch with you without your suspecting
anything? How was I to work it so that you trotted off to retrieve the
bird my chance shot had brought down?
“In the end I found an easy way. I deliberately let you shadow me. I
led you along, like Follow-my-Leader, to the Place du Trocadéro. There
my bright-eyed gipsy lass was waiting for me. A whispered colloquy ...
a furtive glance or two up at this flat ... and you took the bait!
Fired with the idea of catching me or my accomplice, you took up your
vigil here, in this very flat, under the same roof as General Desroques
and his faithful servant—Sylvestre Barnett! So that I was able to keep
you under close observation, hear just what you were doing, and,
through General Desroques, suggest to your receptive mind exactly such
thoughts as I wanted to implant there.”
Turning to the general, Jim Barnett gave the latter a glance of genuine
admiration.
“I must tell you, general, that I cannot sufficiently commend your
acting. You led Béchoux blindfold, step by step, towards our
goal—namely, to find out the unknown constable’s name, and then get him
into this flat for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, Béchoux—not more.
For the thing I was after was the same thing that you, the police, the
State, and everyone else were after—that photograph!
“Knowing your industry, your ingenuity, your excessive energy in the
pursuit of your duty, I realized that it would be useless to waste time
going over ground you had already covered. What I had to do was to
imagine the unimaginable—think of some utterly extraordinary and
unheard-of hiding-place. I had to visualize it in advance, so that I
could, if possible, possess myself of this secret receptacle on the day
the constable came to the flat with you. And I had to obtain possession
of it without his knowledge, for there wouldn’t be time to search him,
explore the linings of his clothes and the soles of his shoes, and so
forth. And yet I knew that somewhere about his person he would have
that photograph. The question was, where?
“I don’t want to digress, but as soon as I knew the name of this
constable of yours, Béchoux, I was considerably enlightened. The
general’s questions only confirmed what I already suspected—that this
man, Rimbourg, was a clever fellow who, before he joined the police
force, had had a distinctly varied experience and rather a checkered
career! In short, I knew him to be just the man to hit upon some
hiding-place so bold as to be unbelievable, so obvious as to seem
fantastic! Something he could make use of, but which would never occur
to anyone else as a possible place of concealment.
“Now, Béchoux, suppose we test the intelligence of the class. What is
it that distinguishes a policeman on duty from a postman, a dustman, a
railway porter, a fireman—in short, from every other kind of uniformed
employee? Give it a moment’s thought, while I count three. Your eagle
intelligence will surely see it! One—two—three. Now, where was the
hiding-place?”
Béchoux made no reply. Despite the disadvantage at which he found
himself, he was trying desperately to snatch at this straw and guess
the solution of the riddle, so apparent to the triumphant Barnett. But
he could not for the life of him think what was the distinguishing
characteristic of a policeman on duty.
“My poor friend,” sympathized Barnett. “Out with the boys last night?
Your brain seems a trifle dulled to-day. I don’t usually have to
enlighten you in words of one syllable only before you get your nose to
the trail!”
But there was no rôle for Béchoux’s nose to play in the incident which
followed. Like a flash, Barnett darted out of the room, and returned a
moment later gravely balancing on the tip of his own olfactory organ
the shining baton—truncheon—nightstick—the same the wide world over,
wielded by every police force, that bane of malefactors, that safeguard
of life and property, that wooden club which has attained to the
dignity of a symbol, and is able to break up the fiercest street-fight
or halt the haughtiest limousine.
Barnett toyed with this particular baton like a music-hall juggler with
a bottle. He let it slither down his nose, caught it, twirled it behind
his leg, round his neck, and down his back. Before it could fall to the
ground, he had grasped it again, and, holding it out between thumb and
finger, he addressed it in accents of mock solemnity:
“O most honorable, most respectable, most admirable baton! Symbol of
civic and municipal authority! A short while ago, you were hanging at
Constable Rimbourg’s belt. A little sleight of hand and, hey presto!
another baton, your double hung in your place. You were left behind
when the constable departed!” Béchoux started violently, but Barnett
motioned him back to his seat. “He is unlikely to return to retrieve
you. In fact, I doubt whether we shall ever hear from him again. His
rôle in the drama is over; he filled it not unworthily. But you, O
baton, will fulfil to the last your rôle of defender of those in
distress, and from you we shall learn the secret of Jean Desroques and
the beautiful Christiane Veraldy. Speak, little baton, I conjure you to
speak!”
With his left hand Barnett seized firm hold of the handle, circled with
narrow grooves. In his right, he held tightly the heavy body of the
club, made of ash-wood, painted white, and attempted to twist it.
“I was right!” he exclaimed joyously. “But it’s a miracle of
workmanship. Not for nothing was Constable Rimbourg at one time a
carpenter—the man must have been a master of his craft! See, he has
hollowed out the heart of this club without ever breaking the outside,
fixed this almost invisible channel for the screw, so that the two
pieces of wood fit together so perfectly that there is no danger of the
head of the club working loose.”
Barnett gave the baton another twist. The handle came unscrewed,
revealing a metal ring. The stick of the baton was now in two bits. In
the longer section they could see a copper tube running the length of
the club.
The faces of all three men wore expressions of rapt attention. They
held their breath, so that the silence of the room was intensified.
Despite himself, even Barnett was obviously impressed with the
solemnity of the moment. He turned over the copper tubing, tapping it
several times hard on the table. Out fell a roll of paper!
“That’s it—the photograph!” murmured Béchoux.
“You recognize it, do you? It fits the official description all right.
About six inches long, detached from its mount and rather crumpled.
Will you kindly unroll it yourself, General Desroques?”
With trembling eagerness the general picked up the paper. His usually
steady hand shook as he began unrolling the fateful scroll. There were
four sheets of notepaper and a telegram pinned to the photograph. For a
moment, the general stared in silence at the latter, then he showed it
to the other two. In a voice vibrant with emotion he began speaking on
a note of joy, which quickly gave place to one of grief.
“You see, it is the portrait of a woman. A young woman with a child on
her lap. The face is that of Madame Veraldy—it tallies with the
pictures in the press, except that here she is younger. This photograph
must have been taken nine or ten years ago by the look of it. Yes;
here’s the date, in the bottom, left-hand corner. I was right. This
picture is eleven years old. And it is signed ‘Christiane’—Madame
Veraldy’s name!”
The general paused, then added thoughtfully:
“This establishes the fact that Jean must have known this woman in the
past, possibly before her marriage to Veraldy.”
“Read the letters, monsieur,” suggested Barnett, handing over the first
sheet, closely covered with fine, feminine handwriting.
General Desroques began reading. He had hardly read the first few
lines, when he gave a kind of groan, as of a man who stumbles suddenly
on a terrible and painful secret. Hurriedly he scanned the first
letter, then, with increasing anxiety, turned to the others which, with
the telegram, Barnett passed to him one by one.
“Can you tell us what you have found out, general?”
The general did not answer at once. His eyes were filled with tears
when at last he muttered huskily:
“It is I who am to blame! I alone who am guilty.... About twelve years
ago Jean fell in love with a little shop-girl. They had a baby, a boy.
Jean wanted to marry his amie, but my heart was hardened by pride and
snobbishness. I forbade the marriage and refused to see the girl. Jean
was meaning to disobey me—for the first time—and marry her out of hand.
But she would not let him. She sacrificed her own happiness so that my
son should not quarrel with me. Here is her letter—the first one. She
says: ‘It’s good-bye Jean. Your father won’t let us get married. You
must give in to him. If you don’t it might mean bad luck for our
darling baby. I send you a picture of us both. Keep it always, and
don’t forget about us too soon....’”
The general paused, overcome with emotion. He continued, more calmly:
“But it was she who forgot. Some time later she got engaged to Veraldy,
then at the beginning of his career. Jean learned of their marriage,
and had his little son brought up by a retired schoolmaster near
Chartres. There the mother would sometimes visit him secretly.”
Béchoux and Barnett were listening intently so as not to lose a word.
It was not easy to follow the general’s speech, as he dropped his voice
until it was little more than a whisper. The hand that had held the
letters trembled uncontrollably.
“The last letter,” he continued, “is dated five months ago. It is very
short. Christiane tells of her remorse and unhappiness. She is
passionately fond of her child, and it is agony to her not to have him
with her. Then comes the telegram, sent to Jean by the old
schoolmaster: ‘Child dangerously ill, come at once.’ At the bottom of
the telegraph form are just these few words, scrawled by my son after
the tragedy: ‘Our child is dead. Christiane has killed herself.’”
Again the general paused. No further explanations were needed. It was
easy to guess what had happened. On receipt of the telegram, Jean had
immediately sought out Christiane and taken her to the bedside of the
dying child. On the way back to Paris, Christiane overcome with grief,
had committed suicide.
“What shall we do about it?” Barnett wanted to know.
“We must reveal the truth,” was the general’s reply. “Jean’s reasons
for keeping silence are obvious. He was shielding the dead woman, but
he also wanted to shield me, since I was really responsible for the
terrible tragedy. Also, though he felt certain neither the schoolmaster
at Chartres, nor Constable Rimbourg, who owed him a debt of gratitude,
would betray him, he definitely did not want this conclusive piece of
evidence to be destroyed. He wanted Fate to bring the truth to light.
Now that you, Monsieur Barnett, have succeeded in effecting this
revelation....”
“If I succeeded, general,” said Barnett quickly, “it was solely due to
the help of my friend, Béchoux. We mustn’t lose sight of that. If
Béchoux had not led us to Constable Rimbourg and his baton, I should
have failed. It is Béchoux who deserves your thanks, general.”
“My thanks are due to both of you,” said the old soldier. “You have
saved my son, and I shall not hesitate to do my duty.”
Béchoux approved the general’s decision. He was so deeply moved by what
had just happened that he was even prepared to waive making any attempt
to take possession of the documents the police were so urgently
wanting. He was ready to take this course, although it meant
sacrificing his personal prestige. His humanity triumphed over his
professional conscience—not for the first time.
But as the general made to withdraw to his own room Béchoux stepped up
to Barnett and tapped him on the shoulder with the curt words: “I
arrest you, Jim Barnett!”
He spoke in the accents of sincerity. He was quite obviously going
through what was a futile formality which he felt himself obliged to
perform. He had instructions to arrest Barnett, and would do so, no
matter what the circumstances.
Barnett held out his hand to the inspector.
“You win, Béchoux,” he said, “you’ve arrested me, and carried out
orders. Old Kaspar’s work is done. And now, if you’ve no objection, I
will make my escape. In that way our friendship will be saved and honor
satisfied! You know I should do it anyway.”
Béchoux shook the outstretched hand of his strange friend with
heartfelt warmth. Between these two alternately allies and enemies, a
truce was called—perhaps even a permanent amnesty. Both men recalled
with genuine emotion their former encounters, the adventures they had
experienced in company.
Béchoux expressed his feelings with that characteristic blunt
simplicity that made him so popular with his colleagues and the world
at large.
“You’re the greatest of all of them, Barnett. You stand absolutely
alone. Your feat to-day is nothing short of miraculous. No one but you
could have solved the puzzle!”
“I don’t know,” said Barnett reflectively. “After all, I had that
inkling of Rimbourg’s past to help me. Do you know the man had actually
worked for an illusionist and conjurer at one time. And his little idea
in joining the police force was probably mainly the advantage of being
in close proximity to the pickings on every possible occasion. Although
he demonstrated unwavering loyalty to his benefactor, Jean Desroques,
we must not lose sight of Rimbourg’s real character. He was a
policeman, much as you suspect me of being a detective——”
Béchoux cut him short.
“None of that now,” he cried. “Oh, but you’re a wonder. Who on earth
but you would ever have discovered such an improbable hiding-place as
the inside of a police baton?”
Barnett cocked his head on one side and simpered unbecomingly in
imitation of a blushing schoolgirl.
“Any one’s wits are sharper when there is a prize at stake.”
“A prize? How do you mean? Surely you’re not thinking of any reward
General Desroques may offer you? You must know he’s not at all well
off.”
“And if he did offer me anything, I should have to refuse it. You
mustn’t forget the proud motto of the Barnett Agency. No fees of any
kind—services gratis—we work for glory!”
“Well, then....” Inspector Béchoux looked distinctly puzzled; worried,
too. Barnett smiled guilelessly.
“The fact is, as I was glancing quickly through the fourth letter
before passing it to the general, I saw that it stated Christiane
Veraldy had from the outset told her husband of her past! Consequently,
the banker was fully cognizant of his wife’s former love affair, and
knew that she had a child! Yet he deliberately neglected to inform the
police of these facts. This he did out of jealousy and in the hope that
his silence might bring Jean Desroques to the scaffold. He knew that
Desroques would never reveal the dead woman’s secret.
“You will agree that this was a pretty blackguardly thing to do. Now
don’t you think that, with all his money, Veraldy would be prepared to
come down handsomely in order to prevent that letter becoming public
property? Don’t you think that if some trustworthy, respectable
man—Sylvestre, for instance, General Desroques’ servant—were to go to
Veraldy and offer quite spontaneously to hand over that piece of paper,
the banker would be prepared to talk business? I am taking a chance on
being right in my supposition, as I was about the police baton, for
instance. In fact, just so as to be able to play my hunch I slipped the
letter into my pocket!”
Béchoux groaned. It was all wrong, of course. And yet, it seemed only
fair that Barnett should reap some reward for the exercise of his
special deductive skill. The laborer is worthy of his hire. And if the
innocent were saved and wrongs were righted, what objection could there
really be to those “commissions” Barnett habitually extracted from the
pockets of the guilty parties in a case?
“Au revoir, Barnett,” said the inspector, shaking hands again. And at
the back of his mind lurked the certainty that next time he had a
knotty problem to tackle he would be quite ready to compromise with his
scruples and call in Barnett’s invaluable aid.
“Au revoir, Béchoux,” said Barnett. “I shall be ringing you up in a day
or so, I expect.”
“What about?”
“You’ll know all in good time,” and Jim Barnett was off and away.
XI
AFTERWORD
“Hallo! I want to speak to Chief Inspector Béchoux!”
It was Barnett’s voice on the line.
“Inspector Béchoux speaking,” replied Béchoux coldly. “Is that some one
trying to be funny?”
“Oh, Béchoux, don’t tell me you haven’t recognized my voice. After all
this while! And I thought you loved me!”
“Oh, it’s you, Barnett? Well, if you’re just fooling, you may as well
ring off. I’m busy.”
“But I’ve good news for you, old chap!” Barnett’s tone grew distinctly
plaintive.
Inspector Béchoux thawed a trifle.
“What is it, then?” he asked.
“Although you failed to get Arsène Lupin as you swore you would, or to
get that photograph as per instructions, yet Fate smiles on you. Isn’t
it lovely? I’ve put in such a good word for you with the people higher
up, and shown them so clearly what remarkable services you rendered to
the cause of justice in that Desroques case, that they are going to
appoint you a Chief Inspector. Oh, don’t thank me! Merely a trifling
mark of my esteem. From Barnett to Béchoux, as it were, in memory of
many happy days. And now at last my conscience is at rest, for you,
too, have reaped the fruit of our alliance in those adventures where I
was privileged to intervene!”
And Béchoux felt oddly pleased that his promotion, albeit well
deserved, should have come through Barnett. He reflected that it took a
man like Barnett to make a vast organization like the police force
recognize the merits of one of the minor cogs in the machine.
Nevertheless he had no doubts at all of the altogether special merits
of one Inspector Béchoux and his eminent suitability for promotion!
Therefore it was in a spirit of unfeigned and unclouded gratitude, but
not altogether of surprise, that he answered now:
“Thank you, thank you, Barnett. The appointment will mean twice as much
to me, coming as it does through you!”
Inspector Béchoux had set out to arrest Arsène Lupin—and had ended by
becoming himself a prisoner of Jim Barnett’s brains!
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSÈNE LUPIN INTERVENES ***
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