Arsène Lupin intervenes

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?”