Part 10

“That was a beautiful laboratory of the professor’s,” he said. “By the way, Béchoux, do you happen to know the address of the biggest dye concern in the country? I may be paying them a call in the near future!”

Béchoux gave a curious gasp, rather like a slowly expiring balloon.

“Done me again!” he breathed. “Stolen the paper—the formula of the secret process....”

Jim Barnett was moved to injured protest.

“Dear old chap,” he observed, “when it’s a question of rendering a service to one’s fellow-men and to one’s country, what you designate as theft becomes the sheerest heroism. It is the highest manifestation of duty’s sacred fire, blazing within the breast of mere man.” He thumped himself significantly on the chest. “And personally, when duty calls, you will always find me ready, aye ready. Got that, Béchoux?”

But Béchoux was sunk in gloom.

“I wonder,” Barnett mused, “what they will call the new process? I think a suitable name might be—but there, I won’t bore you with my reflections, Béchoux. Only I can’t help feeling it would be rather touching to take out a patent in the name of—Lupin!”

VIII

THE FATAL MIRACLE

Shortly after the suicide of Thérèse Saint-Prix, Inspector Béchoux, primed with official information, was hastily despatched from police headquarters on the mission of solving the Old Dungeon mystery. He left Paris on an evening train and spent the night at Guéret in central France. Next day he took a car on to the village of Mazurech, where his first move was to visit the château—a vast, rambling structure, of great age, built on a promontory in a loop of the river Creuse. He found the owner, Monsieur Georges Cazévon, in residence.

Georges Cazévon was a rich manufacturer of about forty—handsome in a florid style, and not without a certain animal attraction. He had a bluff, hearty manner which commanded the respect of the neighborhood. Thanks to influence, he was chairman of the County Council and a person of considerable importance. Since the Old Dungeon was on his estate, he was eager to take Béchoux there himself immediately.

They walked across the great park with its fine chestnuts, and came to a ruined tower, all that was left of the ancient feudal castle of Mazurech. This tower soared skywards right from the bottom of the canyon where the Creuse crawled like a wounded snake along its rock-strewn bed.

The opposite bank of the river was the property of the d’Alescar family, and on it, about forty yards away from where Béchoux stood with Cazévon, rose a rubble wall, glistening with moisture and forming a kind of dam. Higher up it was surmounted by a shady terrace with a balustrade along it, forming the end of a garden alley. It was a wild, forlorn spot. Here it was that, on a morning ten days before, the young Comte Jean d’Alescar had been found lying dead on a great rock. The body apparently had no injuries other than those due to the ghastly fall. There was a broken branch hanging down the trunk of one of the trees on the terrace. It was easy to reconstruct the tragedy—the young Comte had climbed out along the branch, it had snapped beneath his weight, and he had fallen into the river. A clear case of death by misadventure. There had been no hesitation in bringing in the verdict.

“But what on earth was the young Comte doing climbing that tree?” Béchoux wanted to know.

Georges Cazévon was ready with the answer.

“He wanted to get a really close view from above of this dungeon. The old castle is the cradle of the d’Alescar family, who lorded it here in feudal times.” He added immediately: “I shan’t say anything more, inspector. You know that you have been sent here at my urgent request. The trouble is that ugly rumors have got about and I am being attacked on all sides. That’s got to stop. So please make the fullest investigations and question everyone. It is especially important that you should call on Mademoiselle d’Alescar, the young Comte’s sister, and the last surviving member of the family. Look me up again before you leave Mazurech.”

Béchoux went about his work quickly. He explored round the foot of the tower and then entered the inner court which was now a mass of fallen masonry caused by the collapse of stairs and flooring. He then made his way back into Mazurech, picking up stray bits of information from the inhabitants. He called on the priest and on the mayor, and lunched at the inn.

At two o’clock that afternoon, Béchoux stood in the narrow garden which ran down to the terrace and was bisected by a small building of farmhouse type, called the Manor—a nondescript structure in bad repair. An old servant took his card into Mademoiselle d’Alescar and he was at once shown into a low, plainly furnished room where he found the object of his call in conversation with a man.

Both rose at his entrance, and, as the man turned towards him, Béchoux recognized—Jim Barnett!

“Ah, you’ve come at last!” exclaimed Barnett joyously and held out his hand. “When I read in my morning paper that you were cruising Creuse-ward I leapt into my car and hastened to the scene of action so that I might be ready at your service. In fact, I was here waiting for you! Mademoiselle, may I introduce Inspector Béchoux, who has been put in charge of the case by headquarters. With Béchoux at the helm you need fear nothing. Probably by now he has the whole thing cut and dried. Béchoux puts the sleuth in sleuthing—burglars frighten their young with tales of Bogey Béchoux. Let him speak for himself!”

But Béchoux uttered not a word. He was flabbergasted. Barnett’s presence—the last thing he had either expected or desired—floored him completely. It was a case of Barnett morning, noon, and night. Barnett popping up like a jack-in-the-box on every possible—and impossible—occasion. Every time that fate brought the two together, Béchoux found himself perforce submitting to Barnett’s accursed coöperation. And where Jim Barnett helped others, he was always careful to help himself. His hand went out to his fellow-men, but never drew back empty!

In truth, there was little enough Béchoux could say anyway, for he was still quite at sea and had found no clue in the Old Dungeon mystery—if mystery it should prove.

As he remained silent, Barnett spoke again:

“The position, mademoiselle, is this: Inspector Béchoux, having by this time, doubtless, examined the evidence and made up his own mind, is here to ask if you will be so kind as to confirm the results of the inquiries he has already made. Since we ourselves have only had the briefest of conversation so far, would you be good enough to tell us all you know about the terrible tragedy which resulted in the death of your brother, Comte d’Alescar?”

Elizabeth d’Alescar was a tall girl, classically beautiful, her pallor accentuated by her mourning. She kept her face turned away into the shadow so that the two men saw only her delicate profile. It was with a visible effort that she restrained her grief. She answered without hesitation:

“I would rather have said nothing, have accused no one. But since it is my painful duty to reveal all I know to you, I am ready to speak.”

It was Barnett who authoritatively usurped the law’s prerogative.

“My friend, Inspector Béchoux, would like to know the exact time at which you last saw your brother alive.”

“At ten o’clock at night. We had dined together—our usual light-hearted meal. I was very, very fond of Jean; he was several years younger than myself, and I had practically brought him up from when he was quite a little boy. We were always the best of friends, and happy in each other’s company.”

“He went out during the night?”

“He left the house a little before dawn, towards half-past three in the morning. Our old servant heard him go.”

“Did you know where he was going?”

“He had told me the day before that he was going to fish from the terrace. Fishing was one of his favorite occupations.”

“Then there is nothing you can tell us about the time elapsing between half-past three and the discovery of your brother’s body?”

“Yes, there is.” She paused. “At a quarter past six I heard a shot!”

“Oh, yes. Several people heard it. But it’s quite possible it was only a poacher.”

“That was what I thought at the time. But somehow I felt anxious, so at last I got out of bed and dressed. When I reached the terrace I saw men from the village on the opposite bank of the river. They were carrying my poor brother up to the grounds of the Château, because it was too steep to get the body up the other side.”

“Then you are surely of opinion that the shot could not have been in any way connected with what happened to your brother? Otherwise the inquest would have revealed a bullet wound, which, of course, it did not.”

Seeing Mademoiselle d’Alescar’s hesitation, Barnett pressed home his question.

“Won’t you answer me?”

The girl’s hands clenched at her sides.

“Whatever actually happened, I only know that I am perfectly certain in my own mind that there is some connection.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, to begin with, there is no other possible explanation.”

“An accident....”

She shook her head, smiling sadly.

“Oh, no. Jean was extraordinarily agile, and he had also plenty of good sense and caution. He would never have trusted himself to that branch. Why, it was obviously much too slender to bear his weight.”

“But you admit that it was broken.”

“There is nothing to prove that it was broken by him and on that particular night.”

“Then, mademoiselle, it is your honest belief that a crime has been committed?”

She nodded gravely.

“You have even gone so far as to accuse a certain person by name and in the presence of witnesses?”

Again she nodded.

“What grounds have you for making this assertion? Is there any definite proof pointing to someone’s guilt? That is what Inspector Béchoux is anxious to know.”

For a few moments Elizabeth was lost in reflection. They could see that it distressed her to recall such dreadful memories. But she made a valiant effort and said:

“I will tell you everything. But to do so, I must go back to something that happened twenty-four years ago. It was then that my father lost all his money in a bank failure. He found himself ruined, but he told no one. His creditors were paid. Of course, it was common knowledge that he had lost a large part of his fortune, but no one guessed that the whole of it had been engulfed. What actually happened was that my father threw himself on the mercy of a rich manufacturer in Guéret. This man lent him two hundred thousand francs on one condition only—that the Château, the estate, and all the Mazurech acres should become his property if the loan were not repaid within five years.”

“That manufacturer was Georges Cazévon’s father, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said, a note of hatred in her voice.

“Was he anxious to own the Château?”

“Very anxious indeed. He had tried to buy it several times. Well, exactly four years and eleven months later, my father died of cerebral congestion. It came on rapidly, and towards the close of his life he was obviously troubled and preoccupied with something of which we knew nothing. Immediately after his death, Georges Cazévon told us about the loan he had made my father, and warned my uncle, who was looking after us, that we had just one month in which to discharge our debt. He had absolute proof of his claim, such proof as no lawyer could dispute. My father left nothing. Jean and I were driven out of our home and were taken in by our uncle, who lived in this very house, and was himself far from wealthy. He died very soon after, and so did old Monsieur Cazévon.”

Béchoux and Barnett had listened to her attentively. Now Barnett spoke on behalf of his friend:

“My friend the inspector doesn’t quite see how all this links up with the events of the present day.”

Mademoiselle d’Alescar gave Béchoux a glance of slightly contemptuous surprise and continued, without answering:

“So Jean and I lived alone here on this little manor, right in front of the Dungeon and the Château that had always belonged to our family. This caused Jean a sorrow which grew with the years, and intensified as his intelligence developed and he grew towards manhood. It grieved and hurt him to feel that he had lost his heritage and been driven from what he considered his rightful domain. In all his work and play he made time to devote whole days to delving in the family archives, and reading up our history and genealogy. Then, one day, he found among these books a ledger in which our father had kept his accounts during the latter years of his life, showing the money he had saved by exercising the strictest economy and by several successful real estate deals. There were also bank receipts. I went to the bank that had issued them and learned that our father, a week before his death, had withdrawn his entire deposit—two hundred banknotes of a thousand francs each!”

“The exact amount,” said Barnett, “which he was due to pay in a few weeks’ time. Then why did he put off paying it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Therefore you think he must have put the money in a safe place somewhere?” He paused, and twiddled his monocle thoughtfully. “Somewhere—ah, but where?”

Elizabeth d’Alescar produced the ledger of which she had spoken and showed it to Barnett and Béchoux.

“It is here that we must look for the answer to that question,” she said, turning to the last page, on which was sketched a diagram representing three-quarters of a circle, to which was added, at the right side, a semicircle of shorter radius. This semicircle was barred by four lines, between two of which was a small cross. All the lines in the diagram had been drawn first in pencil and then gone over in ink.

“What’s all this mean?” asked Barnett.

“It took us a long time to understand it,” replied Elizabeth. “At last, poor Jean guessed one day that the diagram represented an accurate plan of the Old Dungeon, reduced to its outside lines. It is on that exact plan, on the unequal parts of two circles connected with each other. The four lines indicate four embrasures.”

“And the cross,” finished Barnett, “indicates the place where the Comte d’Alescar hid his two hundred thousand francs to await the day of repayment.”

“Yes,” said the girl, with conviction.

Barnett thought it over, took another look at the map and finally remarked:

“It’s quite probable. The Comte d’Alescar would, of course, have been sure to take the precaution of leaving some clue to the hiding-place, and his sudden death prevented his passing on the secret. But surely, all you had to do on finding this was to tell Monsieur Cazévon’s son and ask his permission to——”

“To climb to the top of the tower! That is just what we immediately did. Georges Cazévon, although we were not on the best of terms with him, was quite pleasant about it. But how could any human being get to the top of that tower? The stairs had fallen in fifteen years before. All the stones are loose. The top is crumbling. No ladder—no ladders even—could ever have reached high enough. The Dungeon battlements are over ninety feet above the ground. And it was quite out of the question to scale the wall. We discussed the whole problem and drew up plans for several months, but it all ended in——”

She broke off, blushing hotly.

“A quarrel!” Barnett finished for her. “Georges Cazévon fell in love with you and asked you to marry him. You refused him. He tried to force you to his will. You broke off all intercourse with him, and Jean d’Alescar was no longer allowed to set foot on Mazurech land.”

“That is exactly what did happen,” the girl said. “But my brother would not give up. He simply had to have that money. He wanted it to buy back part of our estate or to give me a dot which would set me free to marry as I chose. Very soon the idea obsessed him. He spent his days in front of the tower. He was always staring up at the inaccessible battlements. He imagined a thousand schemes for getting up there. He practiced until he was a skilled archer, and then, from daybreak, he would stand there shooting arrows on long strings, hoping that one of them would fall in such a way that a rope could be tied to the string and pulled up to the top of the tower. He even had sixty yards of rope all ready for the attempt. Everything he tried was hopeless, and his failure plunged him into melancholy and despair. On the very day before he died he said to me: ‘The only reason I go on trying is that I am certain to succeed in the end. Fate will be in my favor. There will be a miracle—I am sure of it—a miracle! That is what I pray for and what I confidently expect.’ Poor Jean, he never had his miracle!”

Barnett put another question.

“Then you believe that his death occurred while he was making yet another attempt?”

Seeing that she assented, he continued:

“Is the rope no longer where he kept it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then what proof have you?”

“That shot! Georges Cazévon must have caught my brother in his attempt and fired.”

“Good God!” cried Barnett. “You believe Georges Cazévon is capable of doing such a thing?”

“I do. He is very impulsive. He controls himself as a rule, but he might easily be led into violence—or even into crime.”

“But why should he have fired? To rob your brother of the money he had recovered?”

“That I cannot say,” said Mademoiselle d’Alescar. “Nor do I know how the murder could have been committed, since poor Jean’s dead body showed no trace of a bullet wound. But I am absolutely firm in my belief.”

“Quite so, but you must admit that your belief is based on intuition rather than on the known facts,” observed Barnett. “And I think I ought to tell you that in a court of law, intuition is not enough. I’m sure Béchoux will agree with me, it’s quite on the cards that Georges Cazévon will be so furious at your accusing him that he will sue you for libel.”

Mademoiselle d’Alescar rose from her chair.

“That would matter very little to me,” she said. “I have not made this accusation to avenge my brother, for to punish the criminal would not restore Jean to life. I am merely stating what I believe to be the truth. If Georges Cazévon likes to sue me, he is perfectly free to do so and my defence will simply be what my conscience moves me to say.”

She was silent for a moment, and then added:

“But you can rely on his keeping quiet, gentlemen. I don’t think there is much chance of his bringing any action against me!”

The interview was at an end. Jim Barnett did not attempt to engage the girl in further conversation. Mademoiselle d’Alescar knew her own mind, and no one would be able to intimidate her or upset her evidence in the least.

“Mademoiselle,” said Barnett, “we apologize for this intrusion, but we were obliged to trouble you in order to get at the truth of this tragic affair. You may be sure Inspector Béchoux will make the right deductions from all that you have said and act accordingly.”

He bowed and took his leave. Béchoux bowed likewise, and followed him into the courtyard.

Once they were out of the house, the inspector, who had not spoken during the interview, continued silent, partly in protest against Barnett’s interference in the case, and partly because he was totally bewildered by the turn events were taking. His taciturnity only encouraged the loquacious Barnett.

“Yes, yes, Béchoux,” he said reflectively, “I can easily understand your being puzzled. It’s a matter for deep thought. The lady’s statement had a good deal in it, but it was compounded of such a mixture of the possible with the impossible, the rational with the fantastic, that it needs careful sifting if we are to make use of it. For instance, on the face of it, young d’Alescar’s actions seem pure fantasy. If the unlucky youth got to the top of the tower—and, contrary to your own private belief, I rather think he did get there—then it was due to that unimaginable miracle he had hoped and prayed for—a miracle whose nature we are as yet unable to conceive.

“The problem we are up against is—how could the boy, within the space of two hours, invent a means of climbing the tower, put his scheme into execution, and climb down again, only to be hurled into the abyss by a bullet ... which did not hit him! That’s the culminating impossibility, that he went to his death through a shot which never touched him—that seems to me to have been a miracle from hell!”

Barnett and Béchoux met again that evening at the inn, but dined apart. During the next two days they only saw each other at mealtimes. Béchoux was busy making investigations and inquiries throughout the neighborhood. Barnett, like one of the lilies of the field, took root on a grassy slope some way beyond the terrace, from which spot he had a good view of the Old Dungeon and the river Creuse. He confined his activities to fishing, smoking, and reflection. The heart of a mystery is to be plucked out by sheer divination rather than by fevered probing. So Barnett sat there, angling with his rod for the fish in the river, and with his mind for the nature of the miracle with which Fate had favored Jean d’Alescar.

On the third day, however, he bestirred himself and went off to Guéret in the manner of a man with a definite object. And the day after that he ran into Béchoux, who told him that he had now finished his investigation.

“So have I,” said Barnett. “If you’re going back to Paris, I’ll give you a lift in my car.”

“Thanks,” said Béchoux. “In about half an hour I am going up to see Monsieur Cazévon.”

“Right, I’ll meet you at the Château,” said Barnett. “I’m fed to the teeth with this place, aren’t you?”

He paid his bill at the inn, and drove to the gates of the Château. Leaving his car in the road, he strolled through the park, and when he got to the house presented his card. Underneath his own name he had written the words: “Working in collaboration with Inspector Béchoux.”

He was shown into a vast hall, which spread over the ground floor of an entire wing. Stags’ heads looked down from the walls, which were hung with weapons and trophies of every description. Here he was joined by Georges Cazévon.

“My colleague, Inspector Béchoux,” said Barnett, “is to meet me here. We have been working together on the case, and we are to-day returning to Paris.”

“And what opinion has Inspector Béchoux formed as a result of his investigation?” asked Georges Cazévon, a shade eagerly.

“Oh, he has definitely made up his mind that there is nothing, absolutely nothing to justify any fresh theory of the case. He is satisfied that the rumors set afloat are quite groundless.”

“And Mademoiselle d’Alescar?”

Barnett shrugged his shoulders.

“According to Inspector Béchoux her mind is almost unhinged by her bereavement, so that no reliance can be placed on anything she says at present.”

“And you agree with Inspector Béchoux?”

“I?” Barnett raised his eyes and lowered them, his whole attitude one of abject humility. “I am nothing but a humble assistant. I have no views of my own at all!”

He began wandering aimlessly about the hall, looking at the glass cases full of rifles and shotguns. These exhibits seemed to interest him considerably.

“A fine collection, aren’t they?” said Georges Cazévon at his elbow.

“Magnificent!”

“Are you an enthusiast?”

“I have a great admiration for good marksmanship. I see by these cups and certificates that you must be a remarkable shot. Let’s see—Disciples de Saint Hubert, Creuse Sporting Club—oh, yes, that’s what they were telling me about you yesterday when I was in Guéret.”

“Is the case much talked about at Guéret?”

“Oh, very little. But the accuracy of your shooting is proverbial among the townsfolk!”

Barnett took up a gun, balancing it casually in his hands.

“Careful!” said Cazévon sharply. “That’s a service rifle. It’s loaded.”

“Really?” observed Barnett with polite interest. “Is that in case of burglars?”