Chapter 11

"Oh, I can answer that definitely. The Princess's suite of rooms ends in the bathroom, you know, and the chief things there are the famous bath, some cupboards, and a shower bath: the shower bath is one of those large model Norchers with lateral as well as vertical sprays, and a waterproof curtain hanging from rings at the top right down to the tub at the bottom. There were footmarks on the enamel of the tub, so it is clear that the thief hid there, behind the curtain, until the Princess got into her bath."

"And I suppose the shower bath is in the corner of the room near the window?" Juve went on. "And the window was partly open, or had been until the maid went in to prepare her mistress's bath? It's quite interesting! The man had just succeeded in stealing the necklace from Mme. Van den Rosen, whose rooms are next to Princess Sonia's: for some reason or other he had not been able to escape through the corridor, and so he naturally made up his mind to get into the Princess's suite, which he did by the simple process of stepping over the railing on the balcony and walking in through the open window of the dressing-room."

"And then Nadine came in, and he had to hide?"

"No, no!" said Juve, "you are getting on too fast. If that had been so, there would have been no need for all the bath business; besides, the Princess was robbed, too, you know. That was not just chance, it was planned; and so if the thief hid in the shower bath he did so on purpose to wait for the Princess."

"But he did not want her!" Fuselier retorted: "very much the reverse. If he was in the room before anybody else, all he had to do was, take the pocket-book and go!"

"Not a bit of it!" said Juve. "This robbery took place at the end of the month, when the Princess would have big monthly bills to meet, as the thief must have known. He must have found out that she had withdrawn her portfolio and money from the custody of the hotel. But he must have been ignorant of where she had placed the portfolio; and he waited for her to ask her--and she told him!"

"That's a pretty tall yarn!" M. Fuselier protested. "What on earth do you base it all upon? The Princess would never have shown the man the drawer where the money was taken from!"

"Yes, she did!" said Juve. "Look here: this is what happened: the fellow wanted to steal this pocket-book, and did not know where it was. He hid in the shower bath and waited, either for the Princess to go to bed or take a bath, either of which would place her at his mercy. When the lady was in the bath he appeared, threatened her, until she was terrified, and then bucked her up a bit again and hit on the dodge of putting out the electric light--not out of respect for her wounded feelings, but simply in order to get a chance to search through her clothes and make sure that the pocket-book was not there. I am convinced that if he had found it then he would have bolted at once. But he didn't find it. So he went to the end of the next room and waited for the Princess to come to him there, which is precisely what she did. He did not know where the money was, so he watched every movement of her eyes and saw them go automatically towards the drawer and stay there; then he slipped his card into the drawer, abstracted the pocket-book, and took his leave, driving his impudence and skill to the length of making her see him to the door!"

"Upon my word, Juve, you are a wonder," M. Fuselier said admiringly. "I've spent the entire day cross-examining everybody in the hotel, and came to no definite conclusion; and you, who have not seen anything or anybody connected with it, sit in that chair and in five minutes clear up the entire mystery. What a pity you won't believe that Fantômas had a finger in this pie! What a pity you won't take up the search!"

Juve paid no heed to the compliments to his skill. He took out his watch and looked at the time.

"I must go," he said; "it's quite time I was at my own work. Well, we may not have been wasting our time, M. Fuselier. I admit I had not paid much attention to the Royal Palace Hotel robbery. You have really interested me in it. I won't make any promises, but I think I shall very likely come again in a day or two for another talk with you about the case. It really interests me now. And when once I'm quit of one or two pressing jobs, I don't say I shan't ask leave to go thoroughly into it with you."

XII. A KNOCK-OUT BLOW

The staff of the Royal Palace Hotel were just finishing dinner, and the greatest animation prevailed in the vast white-tiled servants' hall. The tone of the conversation varied at different tables, for the servants jealously observed a strict order of precedence among themselves, but the present topic was the same at all, the recent sensational robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and the Princess Sonia Danidoff. At one table, smaller than the rest, a party of upper servants sat, under-managers or heads of departments: M. Louis was here, the general manager, M. Muller the superintendent of the second floor, M. Ludovic chief valet, M. Maurice head footman, M. Naud chief cashier, and last but not least Mlle. Jeanne the young lady cashier whose special duty it was to take charge of all the moneys and valuables deposited in the custody of the hotel by guests who wished to relieve themselves of the responsibility of keeping these in their own rooms. This small and select company was increased to-night by the addition of M. Henri Verbier, a man of about forty years of age, who had left the branch hotel at Cairo belonging to the same Company to join the staff at the Royal Palace Hotel in Paris.

"I am afraid, M. Verbier, you will form a very bad opinion of our establishment," said M. Muller to him. "It is really a pity that you should have left the Cairo branch and come here just when these robberies have put the Royal Palace under a cloud."

Henri Verbier smiled.

"You need not be afraid of my attaching too much importance to that," he said. "I've been in hotel life for fifteen years now, in one capacity or another, and, as you may suppose, I've known similar cases before, so they don't surprise me much. But one thing does surprise me, M. Muller, and that is that no clue has yet been found. I suppose the Board have done everything that can be done to trace the culprit? The reputation of the hotel is at stake."

"I should think they have looked for him!" said M. Louis, with a pathetic shrug of his shoulders. "Why, they even upbraided me for having had the door opened for the thief! Luckily I had a good friend in Muller, who admitted that he had been completely imposed upon and that he had given the order for the fellow, whom he supposed to be the second-floor waiter, to be allowed to go out. I knew nothing about it."

"And how was I to guess that the man was an impostor?" Muller protested.

"All the same," Henri Verbier retorted, "it is uncommonly annoying for everybody when things like that happen."

"So long as one has not committed any breach of orders, and so can't be made a scapegoat of, one mustn't grumble," M. Muller said. "Louis and I did exactly what our duty required and no one can say anything to us. The magistrate acknowledged that a week ago."

"He does not suspect anybody?" Henri Verbier asked.

"No: nobody," Muller answered.

M. Louis smiled.

"Yes, he did suspect somebody, Verbier," he said, "and that was your charming neighbour Mlle. Jeanne there."

Verbier turned towards the young cashier.

"What? The magistrate tried to make out that you were implicated in it?"

The girl had only spoken a few words during the whole of dinner, although Henri Verbier had made several gallant attempts to draw her into the general conversation. Now she laughingly protested.

"M. Louis only says that to tease me."

But M. Louis stuck to his guns.

"Not a bit of it, Mademoiselle Jeanne: I said it because it is the truth. The magistrate was on to you: I tell you he was! Why, M. Verbier, he cross-examined her for more than half an hour after the general confrontation, while he finished with Muller and me in less than ten minutes."

"Gad, M. Louis, a magistrate is a man, isn't he?" said Henri Verbier gallantly. "The magistrate may have enjoyed talking to Mlle. Jeanne more than he did to you, if I may suggest it without seeming rude."

There was a general laugh at this sally on the part of the new superintendent, and then M. Louis continued:

"Well, if he wanted to make up to her he went a funny way to work, for he made her angry."

"Did he really?" said Henri Verbier, turning again to the girl. "Why did the magistrate cross-examine you so much?"

The young cashier shrugged her shoulders.

"We have thrashed it out so often, M. Verbier! But I will tell you the whole story: during the morning of the day when the robbery was committed I had returned to Princess Sonia Danidoff the pocket-book containing a hundred and twenty thousand francs which she had given into my custody a few days before; I could not refuse to give it to her when she asked for it, could I? How was I to know that it would be stolen from her the same evening? Customers deposit their valuables with me and I hand them a receipt: they give me back the receipt when they demand their valuables, and all I have to do is comply with their request, without asking questions. Isn't that so?"

"But that was not what puzzled the magistrate I suppose," said Henri Verbier. "You are the custodian of all valuables, and you only complied strictly with your orders."

"Yes," M. Muller broke in, "but Mlle. Jeanne has only told you part of the story. Just fancy: only a few minutes before the robbery Mme. Van den Rosen had asked Mlle. Jeanne to take charge of her diamond necklace, and Mlle. Jeanne had refused!"

"That really was bad luck for you," said Henri Verbier to the girl with a laugh, "and I quite understand that the magistrate thought it rather odd."

"They are unkind!" she protested. "From the way they put it, M. Verbier, you really might think that I refused to take charge of Mme. Van den Rosen's jewellery in order to make things easy for the thief, which is as much as to say that I was his accomplice."

"That is precisely what the magistrate did think," M. Louis interpolated.

The girl took no notice of the interruption, but went on with her explanation to Henri Verbier.

"What happened was this: the rule is that I am at the disposal of customers, to take charge of deposits or to return them to the owners, until nine P.M., and until nine P.M. only. After that, my time is up, and all I have to do is lock my safe and go: I am free until nine o'clock next morning. You know that it does not do to take liberties in a position like mine. So when, on the day of the robbery, Mme. Van den Rosen came with her diamond necklace at half-past nine, I was perfectly within my rights in refusing to accept the deposit."

"That's right enough," said M. Muller, who, having finished his dessert, was now sipping coffee into which he had tipped sugar until it was as thick as syrup: "but you were disobliging, my dear young lady, and that was what struck the magistrate; for really it would not have been much trouble to register the new deposit and take charge of Mme. Van den Rosen's necklace for her."

"No, it wouldn't," the girl replied; "but when there is a rule it seems to me that it ought to be obeyed. My time is up at nine o'clock, and I am forbidden to accept any deposits after nine o'clock: and that's why I refused that lady's. I was perfectly right; and I should do the same again, if the same thing happened."

Henri Verbier was manifestly anxious to conciliate the young cashier. He expressed his approval of her conduct now.

"I quite agree with you, it never does to put interpretations upon orders. It was your duty to close your safe at nine o'clock, and you did close it then, and no one can say anything to you. But, joking apart, what did the magistrate want?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of indifference.

"You see I was right just now: M. Louis is only trying to tease me by saying that the magistrate cross-examined me severely. As a matter of fact I was simply asked what I have just told you, and when I gave all this explanation, no fault at all was found with me." As she spoke, Mlle. Jeanne folded her napkin carefully, pushed back her chair and shook hands with her two neighbours at table. "Good night," she said. "I am going up to bed."

Mlle. Jeanne had hardly left the room before Henri Verbier also rose from the table and prepared to follow her example.

M. Louis gave M. Muller a friendly dig in his comfortable paunch.

"A pound to a penny," he said, "that friend Verbier means to make up to Mlle. Jeanne. Well, I wish him luck! But that young lady is not very easy to tame!"

"You didn't succeed," M. Muller replied unkindly, "but it doesn't follow that nobody else will!"

* * * * *

M. Louis was not deceived: Henri Verbier evidently did think his neighbour at table a very charming young woman.

Mlle. Jeanne had hardly reached her room on the fifth floor of the hotel, and flung open her window to gaze over the magnificent panorama spread out below her and inhale the still night air, when a gentle tap fell upon the door and, complying with her summons to come in, Henri Verbier entered the room.

"My room is next to yours," he said, "and as I saw you were standing dreaming at your window I thought perhaps you would condescend to smoke an Egyptian cigarette. I have brought some back from Cairo: it is very mild tobacco--real ladies' tobacco."

The girl laughed and took a dainty cigarette from the case that Henri Verbier offered her.

"It's very kind of you to think of me," she said. "I don't make a habit of smoking, but I let myself be tempted sometimes."

"If I have been kind, you can show your gratitude very easily," Henri Verbier replied: "by allowing me to stay here a few minutes and smoke a cigarette with you."

"By all means," said Mlle. Jeanne. "I love to spend a little time at my window at night, to get the air before going to bed. You will prevent me from getting tired of my own company, and can tell me all about Cairo."

"I'm afraid I know very little about Cairo," Henri Verbier replied; "you see I spent almost the whole of my time in the hotel. But as you seem so kind and so friendly disposed I wish you would tell me things."

"But I am a very ignorant young woman."

"You are a woman, and that's enough. Listen: I am a new-comer here, and I am quite aware that my arrival, and my position, will make me some enemies. Now, whom ought I to be on my guard against? Who is there, among the staff, of whom I ought to be careful as doubtful associates? I ask with all the more concern because I will tell you frankly that I had no personal introduction to the Board: I have not got the same chance that you have."

"How do you know I had any introduction?" the girl enquired.

"Gad, I'm sure of it," Henri Verbier answered: he was leaning his elbows on the window-sill and gradually drawing closer to the young cashier. "I don't suppose that an important position like the one you hold, requiring absolute integrity and competence, is given without fullest investigation. Your work is not tiring, but that does not mean it would be entrusted to anybody."

"You are quite right, M. Verbier: I did have an introduction to the Board: and I had first-rate testimonials too."

"Have you been in business long? Two years--three years?"

"Yes," Mlle. Jeanne replied, purposely refraining from being explicit.

"I only asked because I fancy I have seen you before somewhere. I recognise your eyes!" Henri Verbier smiled, and looked meaningly at the girl. "Mlle. Jeanne, on summer nights like this, when you are looking at a lovely view like this, don't you have a funny sort of feeling?"

"No. What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. But you see, I'm a sentimental chap unfortunately, and I really suffer a lot from always living in lonely isolation, without any affection: there are times when I feel as if love were an absolute necessity."

The cashier looked at him ironically.

"That's all foolishness. Love is only stupid, and ought to be guarded against as the worst possible mistake. Love always means misery for working people like us."

"It is you who are foolish," Henri Verbier protested gently, "or else you are mischievous. No: love is not stupid for working people like us; on the contrary, it is the only means we have of attaining perfect happiness. Lovers are rich!"

"In wealth that lets them die of hunger," she scoffed.

"No, no," he answered: "no. Look here: all to-day you and I have been working hard, earning our living; well, suppose you were not laughing at me but we were really lovers, would not this be the time to enjoy the living we have earned?" and as the girl did not reply, Henri Verbier, who like an experienced wooer had been drawing closer to her all the time, until now his shoulder was touching hers, took her hand. "Would not this be sweet?" he said. "I should take your little fingers into mine--like this; I should look at them so tenderly, and raise them to my lips----"

But the girl wrested herself away.

"Let me go! I won't have it! Do you understand?" And then, to mitigate the sharpness of her rebuke, and also to change the conversation, she said: "It is beginning to turn cold. I will put a cloak over my shoulders," and she moved away from the window to unhook a cloak from a peg on the wall.

Henri Verbier watched her without moving.

"How unkind you are!" he said reproachfully, disregarding the angry gleam in her eyes. "Can it really be wrong to enjoy a kiss, on a lovely night like this? If you are cold, Mademoiselle Jeanne, there is a better way of getting warm than by putting a wrap over one's shoulders: and that is by resting in someone else's arms."

He put out his arms as he spoke, ready to catch the girl as she came across the room, and was on the very point of taking her into his arms as he had suggested, when she broke from his grasp with a sudden turn and, furious with rage, dealt him a tremendous blow right on the temple. With a stifled groan, Henri Verbier dropped unconscious to the floor.

Mlle. Jeanne stared at him for a moment, as if dumbfounded. Then with quite amazing rapidity the young cashier sprang to the window and hurriedly closed it. She took down her hat from a hook on the wall, and put it on with a single gesture, opened a drawer and took out a little bag, and then, after listening for a minute to make sure that there was nobody in the passage outside her room, she opened her door, went out, rapidly turned the key behind her and ran down the stairs.

Two minutes later Mlle. Jeanne smilingly passed the porter on duty and wished him good night.

"Bye-bye," she said. "I'm going out to get a little fresh air!"

* * * * *

Slowly, as if emerging from some extraordinary dream, Henri Verbier began to recover from his brief unconsciousness: he could not understand at first what had happened to him, why he was lying on the floor, why his head ached so much, or why his blood-shot eyes saw everything through a mist. He gradually struggled into a sitting posture and looked around the room.

"Nobody here!" he muttered. Then as if the sound of his own voice had brought him back to life, he got up and hurried to the door and shook it furiously. "Locked!" he growled angrily. "And I can call till I'm black in the face! No one has come upstairs yet. I'm trapped!" He turned towards the window, with some idea of calling for help, but as he passed the mirror over the mantelpiece he caught sight of his own reflection and saw the bruise on his forehead, with a tiny stream of blood beginning to trickle from a cut in the skin. He went close to the glass and looked at himself in dismay. "Juve though I am," he murmured, "I've let myself be knocked out by a woman!" And then Juve, for Juve it was, cleverly disguised, uttered a sudden oath, clenching his fists and grinding his teeth in rage. "Confound it all, I'll take my oath that blow was never dealt by any woman!"

XIII. THÉRÈSE'S FUTURE

M. Etienne Rambert was in the smoking-room of the house which he had purchased a few months previously in the Place Pereire, rue Eugène-Flachat, smoking and chatting with his old friend Barbey, who also was his banker. The two had been discussing investments, and the wealthy merchant had displayed considerable indifference to the banker's recommendation of various gilt-edged securities.

"To tell you the truth, my dear fellow," he said at length, "these things interest me very little; I've got used to big enterprises--am almost what you would call a plunger. Of course you know that nothing is so risky as the development of rubber plantations. No doubt the industry has prospered amazingly since the boom in motor-cars began, but you must remember that I went into it when no one could possibly foresee the immense market that the new means of locomotion would open for our produce. That's enough to prove to you that I'm no coward when it's a question of risking money." The banker nodded: his friend certainly did display a quite extraordinary energy and will-power for a man of his age. "As a matter of fact," M. Rambert went on, "any business of which I am not actually a director, interests me only slightly. You know I am not boasting when I say that my fortune is large enough to justify me in incurring a certain amount of financial risk without having to fear any serious modification of my social position if the ventures should happen to turn out ill. I've got the sporting instinct."

"It's a fine one," M. Barbey said with some enthusiasm. "And I don't mind telling you that if I were not your banker, and so had a certain responsibility in your case, I should not hesitate to put a scheme before you that has been running in my head for a year or two now."

"A scheme of your own, Barbey?" said M. Rambert. "How is it you have never told me about it? I should have thought we were close enough friends for that."

The hint of reproach in the words pricked the banker, and also encouraged him to proceed.

"It's rather a delicate matter, and you will understand my hesitation when I tell you--for I'll burn my boats now--that it isn't any ordinary speculation, such as I am in the habit of recommending to my customers. It is a speculation in which I am interested personally: in short, I want to increase the capital of my Bank, and convert my House into a really large concern."

"Oh-ho!" said M. Etienne Rambert, half to himself. "Well, you are quite right, Barbey. But if you want to suggest that I shall help to finance it, you had better put all the cards on the table and let me know exactly what the position is; I need not say that if nothing comes of it, I shall regard any information you give me as absolutely confidential."

The two men plunged into the subject, and for a good half-hour discussed it in all its bearings, making endless calculations and contemplating all contingencies. At last M. Rambert threw down his pen and looked up.