Arsène Lupin intervenes
he hid the other day in the Gaudus’ fireplace. I was shadowing him! And
the anonymous letter he sent you—for that was what got you going.
Leboc, you scoundrel, I’ve had some real amusement out of you. D’you
hear, my bright lad?”
Formerie was pale but restrained. After a prolonged scrutiny of Leboc,
he murmured:
“I’m not surprised ... shifty eyes ... a slippery way with him.... What
a rogue!” His wrath overflowed. “You blackguard, I’ll see you get
yours! Now then, where’s that letter?”
Leboc, stricken helpless, stammered:
“In the bowl of the pipe that’s hanging on the wall in the room on your
left. I haven’t cleaned it. The letter’s there.”
They rushed into the room. Béchoux fell upon the pipe and shook out the
ashes. But the bowl was quite empty. Leboc seemed utterly overcome and
Formerie’s temper broke out again.
“You liar—you confounded faker! But you’re going to tell me where that
letter is—at once!”
At that moment the inspector met Barnett’s gaze. Barnett was smiling a
happy, childlike smile. Béchoux’s fists clenched convulsively. He began
to understand that the Barnett Agency was gratuitous in a peculiar
fashion all its own. Dimly he saw how Jim Barnett, while protesting
truthfully that he never asked his clients for a penny, could afford to
live in comfort as a private detective.
He drew close to him and muttered:
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you? The Arsène Lupin touch!”
“What?” Barnett was all wide-eyed innocence.
“The way you spirited that letter away!”
“So you guessed my weakness? I always had a passion for the autographs
of royalty!”
Three months later there called upon Elizabeth Lovendale, then in
London, a highly distinguished gentleman, who assured her that he could
lay hands on King George’s love-letter to great-grandmother Dorothy.
His price was a mere bagatelle of a hundred thousand francs.
There were lengthy negotiations. Elizabeth took counsel with her
brothers, the renowned provision merchants. They haggled, refused to
pay, and finally gave in.
The highly distinguished gentleman pocketed his hundred thousand francs
and appropriated, into the bargain, an entire vanload of choice
groceries which disappeared into the void!
IV
A GAME OF BACCARAT
Jim Barnett, making his way out of Rouen railway station, was met by
Inspector Béchoux, who clutched his arm and led him quickly away.
“We haven’t a minute to lose. Things may take a turn for the worse at
any moment!”
“I should be much more impressed with the gravity of the situation,”
Barnett remarked with profound logic, “if I knew what it was all about.
I came in answer to your wire and in complete ignorance of the
excitements awaiting me.”
“You arrived according to plan—my plan,” said Inspector Béchoux
complacently.
“Can this mean, Béchoux”—Barnett paused to strike a dramatic
attitude—“can this mean that you’ve got over the little affair of King
George the Fourth’s love-letter and no longer distrust me?”
“I still distrust you, Barnett, just as I distrust the way the Barnett
Agency settles accounts with its clients. But there’s nothing in this
case for you, old man. For once in your career you’ll have to give your
services gratis.”
Barnett’s lips pursed to a soft whistle. The prospect did not seem to
daunt him. Béchoux gave him a swift sidelong glance, already uneasy and
wishing that he could manage to dispense with the private detective’s
assistance.
They turned into the station yard. A private car was drawn up, waiting
and in it sat a handsome woman with a pale, tragic face. Tears stood in
her eyes and her lips were pressed together in a desperate effort at
self-control. She opened the car door and Béchoux introduced his
friend.
“Madame, this is Jim Barnett. I told you of him as the only man who
might be able to save you. Barnett, let me introduce Madame
Fougeraie—the wife of Monsieur Fougeraie, the engineer. Madame
Fougeraie’s husband is on the verge of being arrested on a charge of——”
He paused dramatically.
“Of what?”
“Murder.”
Jim Barnett’s tongue clicked in ghoulish appreciation. The horrified
Béchoux stammered an apology for his friend.
“Forgive him, madame. He always feels so utterly at home on a really
serious case.”
The car was already speeding towards the quays of Rouen. It turned left
and drew up in front of a big building.
They all got out and went up in a lift to the third floor, on which
were the premises of the Norman Club. “Here,” said Béchoux waving a
hand to indicate the palatial precincts, “is the rendezvous where the
biggest merchants and manufacturers of Rouen and the district meet to
talk, read the papers and play cards, especially on Friday, which is
Stock Exchange day. As nobody is about in the morning except the
cleaners, there is plenty of time for me to tell you on the spot about
the drama that has just been enacted here.”
They passed down a passage into a large, comfortably furnished room
with a thick pile carpet. This, with two similar adjoining rooms, lined
the façade of the third floor of the building. These rooms were
intercommunicating, and the third led into a much smaller circular
room, with only one window, opening on to a big balcony, which
overlooked the banks of the Seine. They passed into the third large
room.
There they all sat down, Madame Fougeraie a little withdrawn near a
window, and Béchoux spoke:
“Now listen. A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, four members of this
club sat down after a good dinner to play poker. They were all friends,
mill-owners and manufacturers at Maromme, a big industrial centre near
Rouen. Three of the men were married and the fathers of families:
Alfred Auvard, Raoul Dupin, and Louis Batinet. The fourth, Maxime
Tuillier, was a younger, unmarried man in the same set.
“Towards midnight a fifth member joined them—a rich, young idler, Paul
Erstein by name. The five started playing baccarat now that the rooms
were deserted. Paul Erstein, an enthusiastic and regular player, held
the bank.”
Béchoux pointed to one of the tables in the room, and went on:
“They were playing there, at that table. At first it was a quiet
game—they had begun playing half-heartedly for want of something better
to do—but gradually it warmed up, after Erstein had ordered two bottles
of champagne for the party. From that moment luck was on the banker’s
side—shocking, unfair, maddening luck. Paul Erstein had it all his own
way. The others were exasperated and did their utmost to break the run,
without success. Contrary to all common sense, they would none of them
give in, with the result that at four o’clock in the morning the
Maromme manufacturers had lost all the money they were bringing from
Rouen to pay their hands. In addition, Maxime Tuillier had given Paul
Erstein his I.O.U. for eighty thousand francs.”
Inspector Béchoux drew a long breath and continued:
“Suddenly there was a coup de théâtre, a strange turn given to
Fortune’s wheel by Erstein’s own happy-go-lucky generosity. He divided
his winnings into four shares, corresponding exactly to the other men’s
losses, then subdivided those into thirds, and proposed having three
final deals. This meant that each of his opponents was to play him
individually double or quits on each of the three bundles of notes.
They took him on. Paul Erstein lost all three deals. The luck had
turned. After an all-night battle there were neither winners nor
losers.
“‘All the better,’ said Erstein, standing up. ‘I felt a bit ashamed of
myself, winning like that. Lord! what a head I’ve got! Must be the heat
of the room. Anyone coming to smoke a cigarette with me on the
balcony?’
“He stepped into the Round Room. For a few minutes, the four friends
remained at the table, gaily discussing the phases of the game. Then
they decided to leave the club. After crossing the other two rooms,
they warned the watchman dozing in the anteroom:
“‘Monsieur Erstein is still there, Joseph. But he’s sure to be going
soon.’
“Then they left, at exactly thirty-five minutes past four. They went
back to Maromme in Alfred Auvard’s car, as on most Friday nights. The
club servant, Joseph, waited for another hour. Then, tiring of his
vigil, he went in search of Paul Erstein, and found him lying in the
Round Room, twisted and inert. He was dead.”
Inspector Béchoux paused again. Madame Fougeraie’s head was bowed. Jim
Barnett accompanied his friend into the Round Room, cast a searching
glance over everything, and spoke:
“Now then, Béchoux, let’s get down to it. What has the inquest
revealed?”
“The inquest has revealed,” answered Béchoux, “that Paul Erstein was
struck on the left temple with a blunt instrument which must have
felled him at a blow. There was no sign of a struggle except that his
watch was broken. The hands pointed to five minutes to five, that’s to
say, twenty minutes after the departure of the other players. There was
no indication of theft; a signet ring and a wad of notes had not been
taken; nothing was missing. Finally, there was absolutely no trace of
the murderer, who could not have come or gone by way of the anteroom,
since Joseph had not moved from his post.”
“Then,” said Barnett, “there is no clue?”
“There is just one.” Béchoux hesitated, then went on: “It’s pretty
important. At the inquest, one of my colleagues called the coroner’s
attention to the fact that the balcony on the third floor of the next
building is very close to the balcony of this room. The magistrates
entered the building in question, the third floor of which is the
Fougeraies’ flat. They found that Monsieur Fougeraie had left home that
morning and had not returned. Madame Fougeraie took the magistrates
into her husband’s room. The balcony of that room is the one contiguous
to the balcony of the Round Room. Look!”
Barnett stepped out through the open French window.
“The distance is about four feet,” he observed. “Quite easy to get
across. But there’s nothing to prove that it was done.”
“Wait a moment,” said Béchoux. “D’you see those flower-boxes at the
edge of the Fougeraies’ balcony? They still contain the earth with
which they were filled last summer. They’ve been searched. In one of
them, just below the surface, with the earth freshly turned above it,
we found a knuckle-duster. The coroner has established that the shape
of this weapon corresponds exactly to the wound inflicted on Erstein.
There were no finger-prints distinguishable, as it had been raining
steadily since the morning. But the charge seems pretty well-founded.
Monsieur Fougeraie, seeing Paul Erstein in the brilliantly lighted room
opposite, must have sprung on to the club balcony; then, after
murdering his victim with the knuckle-duster, he hid his weapon in the
flower-box.
“But what motive had he for the crime? Did he know Paul Erstein?”
Béchoux shook his head.
“Then why——?”
During Béchoux’s reconstruction of what had happened, Madam Fougeraie
had got up and come over to where the two men stood. Her grief-stricken
face worked pitifully. She kept back her tears with a visible effort.
In answer to Barnett’s question, she said in a voice that trembled:
“It is for me to answer, monsieur. I will be brief and perfectly frank,
and then you will understand my fears. No, my husband did not know Paul
Erstein. But I knew him. I had met him several times in Paris at a
friend’s house, and from the start he made love to me. I am devoted to
my husband”—poor Madame Fougeraie gave a choking sob—“I have always
been faithful to him. Although I was sensible of Paul Erstein’s
attraction, I resisted it. But, weakly, I gave in to the extent of
meeting him several times in the country some way out of Rouen.”
“And you wrote to him?”
She nodded miserably.