Arsène Lupin intervenes
“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