Arsène Lupin intervenes
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