The Copper House A detective story
"We are all glad that you have come," said he, in a voice as low and
gentle as a softly tinkling bell. "But why have you come alone?"
After a pause, during which Sonia raised her head and looked at Leo,
the blind man repeated his question, still more slowly and mechanically.
"Why have you come alone?"
Lona Ivanovna also cast an inquiring glance at the young man. The
blind man had clutched the arms of his chair, and was bending forward;
little wrinkles undulated over his worn face, and the blue spectacles
gleamed like two steel mirrors. Leo, whose thoughts were centered on
the journalist hidden in his bedroom, felt like a prisoner at the bar.
"I am certainly alone," he said slowly, "though I didn't come alone."
"Ah, indeed," said the blind man, in a tone which suddenly resembled
his sister's. "Not alone? And who was your companion?"
"He was a stranger to me," explained Leo. "Bernard Jenin was my
traveling companion in the train yesterday."
The expression of the faces around him changed suddenly, and became
cold, strange, and secretive. It seemed almost as though the sunny
atmosphere of the room was charged with electricity, which sent a shock
through him, and a new light dawned upon him. He perceived that these
three persons were unhappy, weighed down by an unknown catastrophe,
or by the apprehension of an imminent one. He had been cruel: he had
reopened a wound. They were looking at him as though they saw in him
an executioner, and Sonia's eyes were misty with tears. The old man's
voice broke the silence:
"We mustn't judge by appearances. Important conclusions are often based
on very slight grounds. And although I cannot see you, I can feel what
you are thinking. The question is, whether Bernard Jenin is still in
the Copper House, or whether Lona Ivanovna killed him last night, at
sunset."
Leo raised his hand involuntarily, and took a step back. The blind man,
who sat with his white head turned towards him, continued softly:
"What, are you afraid of your own suspicions? At sunset, that's a good
time to die! Why do you let the matter trouble you so deeply? There are
so many brave fellows, a hundred times better than Bernard Jenin, who
are lying dead in a hell of carnage, that it seems almost a luxury to
die of nothing worse than one little revolver-shot."
"Mr. Bernin!" burst out Leo violently, "I have not expressed any such
suspicion!"
"No, _I_ have expressed it. To banish a groundless suspicion it is
often enough just to put it into words. Some thoughts won't stand
that proof. You said you saw Bernard Jenin in the train, and you have
guessed that a mystery attaches to his arrival here. But why need the
mystery be a criminal one? Why must you feel obliged to extort an
explanation which would be willingly given to you, if it were possible?"
Leo did not hesitate a moment. The frank words acted upon him like a
fresh breeze, blowing away the cobwebs, and he exclaimed: "I will not
insist upon any explanation. You do not know me; I cannot claim to be
your friend, but at any rate, do not regard me as your enemy."
Lona Ivanovna had crossed her lean arms upon her breast and she laughed
grimly. It struck Leo how much alike Andrei Bernin and his sister were,
in spite of their outward dissimilarity. The same quiet and resigned
manner, the same intellectual strength, characterized them both. He
could not understand how he had seen in the blind author nothing more
than a weak and senile invalid.
"Well, well!" said the old lady, "I see that we are agreed. So let us
have breakfast."
The tension was eased, though a certain amount of constraint still
remained. Only Leo and Sonia Bernin exchanged a few commonplace remarks
every now and then.
As soon as they got up from the table, the elder lady took out her
interminable crochet, as if it was the only thing that mattered; then
she leaned over the table, looked the young man straight in the face,
and inquired:
"When is Maurice Wallion coming?"
"I--I can't say," answered Leo, taken by surprise. "Why do you ask me?"
"Because, if he has a mind to rescue Bernard Jenin a second time, he
has my permission to be quick about it!"
Leo was tempted to tell the truth about the journalist's hiding-place,
but he contented himself with answering: "I am convinced that he will
come--but he will choose his own time."
CHAPTER IX
_Unrest in both camps: an outpost skirmish and a warning_
It was raining in Stockholm: heavy clouds were drifting over the sky,
and an occasional peal of thunder rolled over the wet, glistening
roofs. At the office of the Finno-Russian Import and Export Company,
Marcus Tassler stood looking gloomily out at the rain. He was alone in
the two showily-furnished rooms, for he had sent out the typist who was
his only assistant, if one excepts those who came and went on business
that had nothing to do with the purchase and sale of tea and coffee. He
was alone with his thoughts, hence his gloom.
He was thinking principally of the baron--who had inspired him with
a certain amount of dread that morning--and of the future, which he
dreaded even more. He was aware that he was standing on dangerous
ground, and he knew that his one hope of escape was--in plain
English--to cut and run! That is an unpleasant conviction for anyone,
and especially for a man whose most prominent characteristics are an
oriental love of pleasure and a barbaric thirst for gold.
Marcus Tassler gulped down half a glass of old cognac, and lighted a
dark cigar, with a band round it. He looked at that minute like some
fat, pagan high-priest, engaged in mystic rites, and in forecasting
gruesome omens from the sacrificial offerings.
Baron Fayerling came in without knocking. He greeted his partner with
a diabolical smile, provoked partly by Tassler's harassed expression,
partly by his empty glass. He appeared to be in a hurry, for he kept
his hat on, and remained standing, leaning on his cane.
"Well!" said Tassler sharply. "You are late. Have you caught him?"
"No," replied the baron. "That duffer I sent up to his flat last night,
came back in a panic, reporting that the journalist was at home,
and had a visitor into the bargain--since then, Maurice Wallion has
vanished as completely as Pharaoh in the Red Sea."
"Does nobody know who his visitor was?"
"No."
"And when our men searched his room at the office, did they find
nothing?"
"No. Nothing! Nichts! Rien!"
The baron uttered each successive negative with an explosive emphasis
which made his companion wince. He added:
"His being away wouldn't matter so much if I had not the written proof
that the fellow is set on exterminating us. Can you imagine anything
cooler than his treatment of Rastakov and myself! Informing us frankly
that he will fight us for the Tarraschin document--for, of course,
that's what he is after."
"At any rate, he can't get anything now out of B.22," remarked Tassler.
"Out of whom?" said the baron sharply. "What may B.22 be? I'm not
acquainted with the witness."
"Oh, come, baron, between ourselves! From the way in which he died, I
can pretty well guess whom you sent...."
The baron collared the fat man, and shook him till he quivered like a
jelly.
"Idiot!" he cried. "You will chatter your head off some day! We don't
speak about dead men."
When the baron loosed his hold, Tassler filled and drained his glass
once more; his hands were trembling, and his eyes wandered uneasily
round the room.
"I don't like that business with B.22," he muttered. "What's the sense
of employing persons whom one has to kill as soon as they get to know
anything? The Chief said nothing about murder, when we first discussed
our plans."
"Nonsense. In such an undertaking as ours, there must always come a
time, sooner or later, when we can stick at nothing. But that's no
business of yours. Have you been to see Burchardt?"
"Yes, I have been to him."
Tassler thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and confronted the
baron.
"Yes, _I have_ seen the damned lawyer! Fayerling, they _mean_ to fight
us: there is something up. Maurice Wallion is at the back of it, devil
take him!"
His bloodshot eyes turned towards the glass, but he abstained, and went
on with dry lips:
"That Burchardt is a fox. He looked at me quite differently when I
came in, and was twice as obliging as he had been before. I mistrust
people who grow politer the better one knows them! He was ready to lick
my boots! I thought everything was going smoothly, and I was saying
that as I had heard that the owner of the Copper House was in town,
and the matter was urgent--when suddenly, the old rascal, who had been
listening to me without turning a hair, said, quite softly:
"'Mr. Grath has changed his mind. He is not thinking of selling the
Copper House, before he has gone into the matter thoroughly.' I can
tell you, I nearly fell off my chair: 'Not sell!' 'No, very sorry--old
traditions--family inheritance,' and all the rest of it. To hell with
the old traditions! They are on our track, Fayerling, they mean to 'go
into the matter thoroughly!'"
Tassler almost groaned as he said these words, but after a minute, he
glanced at the baron with the humiliated surprise of a story-teller who
sees his best point fall flat; the baron looked perfectly unconcerned.
"So they decline to sell," said he, slowly. "I guessed as much. Leonard
Grath is at the Copper House, and no doubt he has been warned by
Wallion. You are right, we are in for a fight."
"Fayerling, Tarraschin's memorandum will be the ruin of us!"
"It would, if we were all as blind and as cowardly as you. Can't you
understand that no human beings ever had greater luck than we had, when
Bernard Jenin, contrary to all expectation, fled for refuge to the
Copper House."
"But Rastakov couldn't get hold of him!"
"We have to thank the old she-grenadier for that. Andrei Bernin and
his sister evidently mean to play for their own hand, but I intend to
smoke out that wasp's nest--the Bernins won't be of any more use to us.
Of course, Bernard Jenin counted on their help, although Lona Ivanovna
seems to have played the wrong card. Oh well, the document is there, at
any rate, as safe as though it were in a strong-box...."
"Who is Bernard Jenin really?"
"How should I know? A knave or a fool. You have heard that in Moscow
he went by the name of Doctor Zero, and he managed to get the document
from our agent, who was on the point of bringing it here. At first I
thought it was all up, but thank goodness, Jenin was idiot enough to
travel direct to Stockholm, and had B.22 at his elbow during the whole
journey: he simply had him on a string! And, not content with coming to
Stockholm, no sooner had that journalist rescued him from room 23, than
the silly fool runs straight off to the Copper House. And then you
come and say that we have no luck!"
Tassler sucked away at his cigar with his thick lips: his eyes looked
like two china marbles.
"Can I see his photograph?" he asked in a hesitating voice. Fayerling
threw it down in front of him, without a word.
One might have thought that Tassler was afraid of the picture: he held
it at arm's length, between his thumb and finger, whilst a curiously
fixed expression came over his face; he felt as though an electric
shock had gone through him, and he tottered slightly.
"You must be drunk!" said the baron, with cold disapproval; but this
diagnosis, though founded on past experience, and supported by the
witness of the empty glass, was incorrect. Marcus Tassler was perfectly
sober, though his legs were giving away under him, and his brain was
spinning like a Catherine wheel. He sat down.
"Fayerling," he whispered almost inaudibly, "do you know who Bernard
Jenin is?"