Arsène Lupin intervenes
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!