Part 14

This last point—the question of the first meeting of Desroques and the banker’s wife—remained one of the minor yet most baffling mysteries of the case, since Veraldy declared he had never, since his marriage, had anything to do with Desroques, whom he regarded as a dangerous Radical. He testified to having frequently spoken disparagingly about him to Christiane, who had invariably refrained from comment.

The examining magistrate tried in vain to get past the accused’s enigmatic barrier of reserve. The only reply his efforts elicited was:

“I have nothing to say. You can do what you like with me. Whatever happens I shall not speak another word.”

And when the police officials, one of whom was Béchoux, called at Desroques’ flat, he opened the door to them in person, saying:

“I am quite ready to come with you, gentlemen.”

Before leaving, a thorough search was made of the flat. There was a pile of ashes in the study fireplace, showing that Desroques had been burning papers. The police found nothing of any importance in the drawers of the desk or anywhere else. They took down every volume from the well-stocked bookshelves and shook them vigorously, but no telltale document fluttered out to reward their efforts. They took up the carpet and discovered nothing but dust!

While this routine search was going on, Béchoux, pursuing his own rather more intuitive methods, stood perfectly still near the door and darted a lightning glance over the room. Suddenly he swooped down on the waste-paper basket. To one side of it lay a screw of paper which might have been an advertisement leaflet.

Béchoux had it in his hands and was just smoothing it out, when Jean Desroques, who had been standing quietly by during the search of his study, sprang forward and snatched it from the detective’s hands.

“You don’t want that,” he cried, “its only an old photograph. It came off its mount and I threw it away.”

Béchoux, struck by Desroques’ eagerness to retain possession of an apparently worthless bit of rubbish that he had self-avowedly thrown away, was on the point of using force to make him give it up.

But Desroques was too quick for him. Before the detective could bar the way, he had darted into the adjoining room and slammed the door behind him.

There was a policeman on guard in the anteroom into which he had fled. When Béchoux and the others got the door open, this man had Desroques pinned on the floor. Immediately Béchoux searched his prisoner. He turned out the man’s pockets, made him take off his shoes and socks. But the unmounted photograph had disappeared!

The window was tightly shut and there was no fire in the room. The policeman stated that he had stopped Desroques when he rushed in in case he should be trying to escape, but had seen no sign of any photograph or paper.

Béchoux had a warrant for Desroques’ arrest, and, without vouchsafing a word, he went quietly off to prison.

The foregoing are the bare facts of the case which, a little while before the Great War, caused such a stir in the press and among the public of Paris. There is no need to give in detail the inquiry conducted by the examining magistrate, as it shed no light on the mystery. But there should be considerable interest in the relation for the first time of an episode which led up to certain startling disclosures and put an entirely different complexion on the case, besides marking the last encounter in the long duel between Inspector Béchoux and his “friendly enemy,” Jim Barnett, of the Barnett Agency.

The stage was set, and for once Béchoux felt happy in the possession of a little advance information as to the program. He knew what Barnett was up to—had watched his little confabulation with the gipsy girl under the windows of General Desroques’ flat. This time he intended to be first on the scene and to spoil Barnett’s entrance!

On the day after the conversation with his chief at the préfecture, Béchoux again called at General Desroques’ flat. The latter had been advised by headquarters of the inspector’s visit.

A rather corpulent, clean-shaven man-servant opened the door to Béchoux. In silence, and exuding a kind of aura of intense respectability, he ushered the inspector into the drawing-room, then softly withdrew.

Béchoux took up his stand at a window from which he could survey the entire extent of the Place du Trocadéro without himself being seen from the street. For a long while he scrutinized the people passing to and fro in the busy square below.

There was no sign of the gipsy girl, nor of the wily “Barnett” in whom Béchoux declared he had recognized Arsène Lupin.

Neither of the suspects showed up all that day, nor the day after.

During his self-imposed vigil, Béchoux sometimes had the company of General Desroques. The latter was tall, lean, grey-haired—the typical retired cavalry officer who has spent much of his life outdoors, and is in the habit of giving orders and having them promptly obeyed. Ordinarily taciturn, the general was one of those men who, when deeply moved, will lay aside some of their customary reserve. The charge against his son had wounded him terribly. Not only was he firmly convinced of Jean’s innocence, but he was certain that the young man was the victim of one of those mysterious political plots which occasionally blot the fair fame of every state.

Although undetermined as to whence the blow had come, the old man stood at bay—like a lion defending its cub.

“Jean would not, could not, do such a thing,” he declared. “The boy’s only fault is that he is over-scrupulous, absurdly quixotic. He is perfectly capable of sacrificing his own interests to some exaggerated idea of honor. He is the sort of person who would unhesitatingly shoulder a friend’s guilt and let the culprit go free. I am so sure of what I say, that I’m not going to see Jean in his cell. I won’t pay the slightest attention to what his lawyer says, or to what they print in the newspapers. Pack of lies, probably! The boy’s innocent, whether he says so or not. And I’m going to prove it, whether he likes it or not! We all have our own idea of what’s our duty. He thinks he ought to keep his mouth shut. Well and good. But I know I ought to clear his name, no matter who gets hurt in the process!”

One day, when the reporters were harrying him with questions, the general burst out:

“Do you really want to know what I think? Jean never kidnaped any one. The woman followed him of her own free will. He won’t admit it, because he is trying to shield her reputation. But if the facts come to light—and, believe me, they will—we shall find that my son and she knew each other and were probably on terms of intimacy. And I’m going to get to the bottom of things, whatever the result!”

Now, while Béchoux crouched, like Sister Anne, at his window, and kept watch on the square, the general would come in and sit near him. Then the old man would go over the case and review the deadlock reached by himself and the police.

“You and I, my friend, are after the same thing,” he would say, “but someone else is after it, too! I have friends who are in the know, and they tell me Veraldy has offered a fabulous reward to anyone who will solve the mystery of his wife’s death. He and my son’s political opponents are convinced that Jean is guilty. What we all want to find, though for very different reasons, is that photograph! Veraldy and his friends believe that if they can lay hands on it they will have proof of Jean’s guilt. I know that it will prove him innocent!”

From Béchoux’s point of view, what the photograph might or might not prove was the least of his worries. His task was limited to getting hold of it for his chief. Any possible sequel had almost ceased to interest him.

Meanwhile, day after day, he sat at his window watching for the gipsy girl who never came, filled with anguished speculation as to Barnett’s activities, and listening inattentively to the general’s eternal monologue about his hopes and plans and disappointments.

One day old Desroques seemed unusually thoughtful. He obviously imagined he had hit on a fresh clue, or, at any rate, a new factor in the tragic problem. After a prolonged silence he addressed Béchoux at his post:

“Inspector, my friends and I have come to the conclusion that the only human being who can possibly throw any light on how the photograph disappeared is the policeman who stopped my son in his flight the day he was arrested. It’s rather curious that he has never been called to give evidence. His name has never appeared in the press. In fact, but for the energetic inquiries of my friends, I should not now be in possession of”—he paused significantly—“certain information!”

Inspector Béchoux looked distinctly uncomfortable, but did not speak. The general resumed:

“We now know that this policeman was added to the group of men sent here from headquarters quite accidentally, just as they were leaving the police-station of this district on their way here. They rather doubted whether their numbers were strong enough in case my son offered violent resistance, and this policeman apparently offered to join them with some alacrity. They gladly accepted his assistance.

“My friends have not been able to ascertain the identity of that policeman. For some reason or other none of your colleagues has been willing or able to tell us. Yet we are certain that the higher officials at the préfecture know who he is, and have been questioning him daily. We have reason to believe that he has been under strict surveillance ever since the arrest of my son. That he was taken to the police-station immediately after the disappearance of the photograph and searched; that he has not been allowed home; that he is, in fact, a prisoner. And we have more than an inkling of the reason for the strict reticence of the police on his account!” The general bent nearer to Béchoux, a certain triumph overspreading his hawklike features.

Outwardly calm and indifferent, Béchoux was quaking inwardly. But he said nothing, feeling it wisest to let the general put all his cards on the table.

“What do you say,” said the general, “to the suggestion that the mysterious policeman was, to say the least of it, rather a peculiar character to have got into the police force at all? A nice story it would make for the newspapers—and not particularly creditable. Ho, ho!” He waggled a gouty finger under the inspector’s nose.

Still Béchoux was silent.

“Well,” said the general, “it isn’t going to further my son’s interests to make a laughing-stock of the police force. But what I do demand as a right is that I may be allowed to question this policeman myself. Your people haven’t been able to get anything out of him. I think I may be more successful.”

“And if I say that you cannot have this interview?” Béchoux’s voice was cold and level as chilled steel.

“In that case, inspector, I shall—regretfully, of course—communicate with the editor of a well-known daily in regard to this somewhat curious ornament of the police force!”

“No need for that, general.” Béchoux forced a smile. “There is no objection at all to your interviewing Constable Rimbourg—er, the policeman in question. I shall have pleasure in arranging for him to come along!”

In truth, Béchoux was not particularly unwilling in the matter. His own plans had proved fruitless. He was absolutely without information about Barnett’s movements, and quite in the dark as to his adversary’s connection with the case. In the past, Barnett had always met him openly, albeit under the guise of lending his aid. Barnett had even been noticeably to the fore throughout the cases on which he had “coöperated” with the inspector. Béchoux had an uneasy feeling that this time, for some reason of his own, Barnett was working under cover, ready to burst out at any moment with a startling and probably unwelcome dénouement of the whole affair. And then it would be too late to circumvent him!

His superiors gave Béchoux carte blanche to go ahead. Two days later, Sylvestre, the general’s rotund man-servant, gravely ushered Béchoux and Constable Rimbourg into the drawing-room.

The constable was a very ordinary looking man—not at all the sort of figure to suggest a mystery. His eyes and mouth betrayed his weariness. He had been put through something of a “third degree” over the missing photograph. He was in uniform, with the customary revolver in a black leather case, and the policeman’s baton—that world-wide symbol of law and order.

The general came in, and the three men sat a long while in conference. But no fresh light was shed on the problem of the photograph. Rimbourg was respectful, stolidly sympathetic, ready with his answers. But he denied having seen anything of any photograph.

Then the general changed the trend of his interrogations. Abruptly he asked:

“When did you first meet my son?”

“We did our military service together, sir,” was the surprising answer.

“You said nothing of this,” cried Béchoux.

“I was not asked about it, inspector,” replied the man.

“I must tell you, general,” said Béchoux, “that one of the reasons for our very strict surveillance of Constable Rimbourg was that he obtained his appointment through your son’s influence!”

“What?” cried the general “But it has been freely hinted that this man, Rimbourg——” He broke off, suddenly thoughtful. Then he asked the constable: “What was your profession before you joined the police force?”

“I did various odd jobs, sir. I was carpenter and scene-shifter for a touring company. I travelled round with a circus. I was lift-man in a hotel.”

“Why did you leave the hotel?”

“I tired of the job, sir.” Rimbourg’s voice was infinitely respectful, but there was a slight flicker in his eyes that belied his stolid calm.

“And you found the police force suited you?”

“Oh, perfectly, sir.”

The general gave a disheartened shrug of dismissal.

“Thank you, thank you; that will do for the present, I think,” he said. “I wish I could believe what you tell me, but frankly, I cannot help feeling you are keeping something back. Your previous acquaintance with my son is certainly an extraordinary coincidence, and I think, Inspector Béchoux, if I were you, I would investigate Constable Rimbourg’s past a bit more closely. Find out why he left that job as lift-man. And remember what I said before about the suggestion that he is, perhaps, a curious kind of constable altogether. Look up some of the cases in which he has been concerned—it might prove illuminating!” He rang the bell. “Sylvestre, give Monsieur Rimbourg a drink before he goes.” The door closed. “He’ll be quite safe with my man,” the general told Béchoux, as he poured out a glass of wine for the inspector. Then, raising his own glass:

“Here’s to my son’s speedy liberation,” he said.

For a second Béchoux could have sworn he saw a gleam of triumphant merriment in the general’s eye. A most uncalled-for emotion, surely, and yet....

He wheeled sharply round, for the general was grinning broadly now. The drawing-room door had swung silently open. On the threshold he beheld a strange manifestation. There was slowly approaching a creature that walked on its hands! The empurpled face almost touched the floor. Above it protruded a comfortable paunch, surmounted by a pair of oddly slim and wildly kicking legs that pointed ceiling-wards. For a moment Béchoux was forcibly reminded of the antics of his acrobat wife, Olga.

All at once the creature somersaulted, bringing its feet neatly together, and, right side up, began spinning round and round at terrific speed like a human top. And now Béchoux recognized—Sylvestre, the man-servant. Obviously the fellow was out of his mind. As he spun around, his stomach quivered like a jelly, and from his wide mouth issued a series of rousing guffaws.

But—was it really Sylvestre? As he watched the extraordinary performance, Béchoux felt his brow bathed in a clammy dew. Could this wild figure be the imperturbable, perfectly trained, intensely respectable man-servant?

The top ceased spinning. Sylvestre, if he it was, fixed the detective with a steady stare, relaxed his set expression of grotesque mirth, undid jacket and waistcoat, divested himself of a rubber paunch, and slipped gracefully into the coat which General Desroques handed him. Once more looking fixedly at the inspector he murmured solemnly:

“Sold again, Béchoux!”

And Béchoux, incapable of protest, sank weakly into a chair, breathing the one word—“Barnett....”

“Yes, Barnett,” said the erstwhile man-servant, smiling.

And Barnett it was, but a resplendent Barnett. Gone was the air of shabby gentility, the seedy get-up. This new Barnett approximated more nearly to Inspector Béchoux’s mental portrait of the redoubtable Arsène Lupin!

And the general was chuckling unrestrainedly!

Turning to him, Barnett bowed courteously.

“Forgive my antics, sir, but whenever something happens that especially delights me I am apt to cut a few capers out of sheer exuberance. I am sure you will understand.”

“In this instance, my friend, you are surely entitled to behave like a whole circus of clowns. Your little plan has succeeded to perfection.”

“What’s all this?” asked Béchoux, recovering slightly from his first sense of shock and dismay. “Have you any special cause for joy, Barnett?”

“Why, yes, Béchoux; and the best of it is that it is all thanks to you, dear old chap. (He’s the best of good fellows, general, I may tell you.) But I can see you are bursting to hear all about it. I will reserve my praises for another time, and start in on my little story.”

He lit a cigarette, handing his case to the general, who also elected to smoke. Then, puffing appreciatively, he began:

“Well, Béchoux, a short while ago I was travelling in Spain with a lady, if you remember? Ah, I see you do. A friend of mine telegraphed, asking me to help in unravelling the Desroques case. As it happened, my little idyll was by then distinctly on the wane—a total eclipse of the honeymoon, if I may use the expression. I seized the chance of regaining my freedom. And fortune smiled on me. New lamps for old, Béchoux!

“For, at Granada, I fell in with a gipsy girl—a wild, southern beauty, Béchoux—and we travelled up together.

“I was attracted to the Desroques case chiefly, I own, because you were working on it. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that if there existed any proof of the guilt or innocence of Jean Desroques, it must be in the hands of the policeman who stopped him in his flight when they were making the arrest. But when I came to make investigations, I found myself up against a blank wall. I was unable to ascertain the identity of this man. I only guessed that he was being kept virtually a prisoner. What was I to do? Time was passing. The general and his son were both suffering severely under the strain. There was only one person in Paris who could help me—yourself!”

Béchoux did not move. He longed for the ground to open and swallow him up with his shame. He had been tricked once again, more thoroughly than ever before. Barnett had shown him up as being the typical, slow-witted detective, the butt of every mystery novelist!

“You were the only person who could help me,” Barnett repeated, “for the reason that you, and only you, were in possession of the truth. You had been given the job of putting Rimbourg through the ‘third degree.’ But how was I to get in touch with you without your suspecting anything? How was I to work it so that you trotted off to retrieve the bird my chance shot had brought down?

“In the end I found an easy way. I deliberately let you shadow me. I led you along, like Follow-my-Leader, to the Place du Trocadéro. There my bright-eyed gipsy lass was waiting for me. A whispered colloquy ... a furtive glance or two up at this flat ... and you took the bait! Fired with the idea of catching me or my accomplice, you took up your vigil here, in this very flat, under the same roof as General Desroques and his faithful servant—Sylvestre Barnett! So that I was able to keep you under close observation, hear just what you were doing, and, through General Desroques, suggest to your receptive mind exactly such thoughts as I wanted to implant there.”

Turning to the general, Jim Barnett gave the latter a glance of genuine admiration.

“I must tell you, general, that I cannot sufficiently commend your acting. You led Béchoux blindfold, step by step, towards our goal—namely, to find out the unknown constable’s name, and then get him into this flat for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, Béchoux—not more. For the thing I was after was the same thing that you, the police, the State, and everyone else were after—that photograph!

“Knowing your industry, your ingenuity, your excessive energy in the pursuit of your duty, I realized that it would be useless to waste time going over ground you had already covered. What I had to do was to imagine the unimaginable—think of some utterly extraordinary and unheard-of hiding-place. I had to visualize it in advance, so that I could, if possible, possess myself of this secret receptacle on the day the constable came to the flat with you. And I had to obtain possession of it without his knowledge, for there wouldn’t be time to search him, explore the linings of his clothes and the soles of his shoes, and so forth. And yet I knew that somewhere about his person he would have that photograph. The question was, where?

“I don’t want to digress, but as soon as I knew the name of this constable of yours, Béchoux, I was considerably enlightened. The general’s questions only confirmed what I already suspected—that this man, Rimbourg, was a clever fellow who, before he joined the police force, had had a distinctly varied experience and rather a checkered career! In short, I knew him to be just the man to hit upon some hiding-place so bold as to be unbelievable, so obvious as to seem fantastic! Something he could make use of, but which would never occur to anyone else as a possible place of concealment.

“Now, Béchoux, suppose we test the intelligence of the class. What is it that distinguishes a policeman on duty from a postman, a dustman, a railway porter, a fireman—in short, from every other kind of uniformed employee? Give it a moment’s thought, while I count three. Your eagle intelligence will surely see it! One—two—three. Now, where was the hiding-place?”

Béchoux made no reply. Despite the disadvantage at which he found himself, he was trying desperately to snatch at this straw and guess the solution of the riddle, so apparent to the triumphant Barnett. But he could not for the life of him think what was the distinguishing characteristic of a policeman on duty.

“My poor friend,” sympathized Barnett. “Out with the boys last night? Your brain seems a trifle dulled to-day. I don’t usually have to enlighten you in words of one syllable only before you get your nose to the trail!”

But there was no rôle for Béchoux’s nose to play in the incident which followed. Like a flash, Barnett darted out of the room, and returned a moment later gravely balancing on the tip of his own olfactory organ the shining baton—truncheon—nightstick—the same the wide world over, wielded by every police force, that bane of malefactors, that safeguard of life and property, that wooden club which has attained to the dignity of a symbol, and is able to break up the fiercest street-fight or halt the haughtiest limousine.

Barnett toyed with this particular baton like a music-hall juggler with a bottle. He let it slither down his nose, caught it, twirled it behind his leg, round his neck, and down his back. Before it could fall to the ground, he had grasped it again, and, holding it out between thumb and finger, he addressed it in accents of mock solemnity: