Arsène Lupin intervenes
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.