Part 20

"Don't talk rubbish, Emilet!... If I have stood aside, I had my reasons for doing so.... We haven't done with Jules yet!... Not by a long chalk!... Now that he's been killed, he's got to be got rid of--isn't that true?... Look at yourselves, my lambs! You are covered with red!... It will take you all of an hour to make yourselves presentable!... Now, look at me! I'm neat and clean ... and I have a plan ... a famous plan to rid us of that corpse there! Now, just you stir your stumps, Emilet!... I am going off to make preparations!... I'll give you ten minutes to make yourself fit to be seen ... it's we two are to be the undertakers; and I swear to you, that we will give them no end of trouble to the curiosity mongers at Police Headquarters!"

XXIII

FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE

On the boulevard du Palais, Jerome Fandor looked at his watch: it was half an hour after noon.

"The hour for copy! Courage! I will go to _La Capitale_."

Scarcely had he put foot in the large hall when the editorial secretary called:

"There you are, Fandor!... At last!... That's a good thing!... Whatever have you been up to since yesterday evening? I got them to telephone to you twice, but they could not get on to you, try as they might. My dear fellow, you really mustn't absent yourself without giving us warning."

Fandor looked jovial: certainly not repentant.

"Oh, say at once that I've been in the country!... But seriously, what did you want me for? Is there anything new?..."

"A most mysterious scandal!..."

"Another?"

"Yes. You know Thomery, the sugar refiner?"

"Yes, I know him!"

"Well--he has disappeared!... No one knows where he is!"

Fandor took the news stolidly.

"You don't astonish me: you must be prepared for anything from those sort of people!..."

It was the turn of the secretary to be surprised at Fandor's calmness.

"But, old man, I am telling you of a disappearance which is causing any amount of talk in Paris!... You don't seem to grasp the situation! Surely you know that Thomery represents one of the biggest fortunes known?"

"I know he is worth a lot."

"His flight will bring ruin to many."

"Others will probably be enriched by it!"

"Probably. That is not our concern. What we are after are details about his disappearance. You are free to-day, are you not? Will you take the affair in hand then? I would put off the appearance of the paper for half an hour rather than not have details to report which would throw some light on this extraordinary affair."

Then, as Fandor did not show the slightest intention of going in search of material for a Thomery article, the secretary laughed.

"Why don't you start on the trail, Fandor?... My word, I don't recognise a Fandor who is not off like a zigzag of lightning on such a reporting job as this!... We want illuminating details, my dear man!"

"You think I haven't got any, then?... Be easy: this evening's issue of _La Capitale_ will have all the details you could desire on the vanishing of Thomery."

Thereupon, Fandor turned on his heel without further explanation, and went towards one of his colleagues, who went by the title of "Financier of the paper." The Financier had an official manner, and had an office of his own, the walls of which were carefully padded, for Marville--that was his name--frequently received visits from important personages.

Fandor began questioning him on the subject of Thomery's disappearance.

"Tell me, my dear fellow, what is happening in the financial world, now that Thomery has disappeared."

"What do you mean?"

"Where is the money going--all the coppers?"

"The coppers?"

"Why, yes! I fancy that when an old fellow like that does the vanishing trick, there are terrible results on the Bourse? Will you be kind enough to explain what does happen in such a case?"

Very much flattered by Fandor's request, Marville cried:

"But, my boy, you are asking for nothing less than a course of political economy--but I cannot do that--on the spur of the moment!... State precisely what you want to know."

"What I want to know is just this: Who loses money through Thomery's disappearance?"

The Financier raised his hands to Heaven.

"But everybody! Everybody!... Thomery was a daring fellow: without him his business is nothing!... There was a big failure on the market to-day."

"Good, but who gains by it?"

"How, who gains by it?"

"Yes. I presume Thomery's disappearance must be profitable to someone? Can you think of any people to whose interest it would be that this old fellow should disappear?"

The Financier reflected.

"Those who gain money by the disappearance of Thomery--only the speculators, I should say. Suppose now that a Monsieur Tartempion had bought Thomery shares at ninety francs. To-day these shares would not be worth more than seventy francs: Tartempion loses money. But let us suppose some financier speculates on the probable fall of Thomery shares, and has sold to clients speculating on the rise of these shares; these shares to be delivered in a fortnight, at a price of ninety francs. If Thomery was still there, his shares would be worth, possibly, the ninety francs, possibly more. In the first case, the financier's deal would amount to nothing: in the second case, his deal would be a deplorable one, because he would be obliged to deliver at an inferior price, and would be responsible for the difference...."

"Whilst Thomery dead ..."

"Dead--no! But simply in flight, his shares fall to nothing, and this same financier may buy at sixty francs which he must deliver at ninety francs in fifteen days. In that case he has done excellent business."

"Excellent, certainly ... and ... tell me, my dear Marville, do you know if there has been any such deal in Thomery shares on a large scale?"

"Ah! You ask me more than I can tell you now ... but that would be known at the Bourse."

No doubt Jerome Fandor was going to continue his interrogation, but there was a great disturbance in the editorial room near by. They were shouting:

"Fandor! Fandor!"

The editorial secretary entered the Financier's room, and, catching sight of Fandor, he cried:

"What's the meaning of this? What are you up to here? I told you this Thomery affair was important.... Be off for the news as quick as you can.... Here is the _Havas_. It seems they have just found Thomery's body in a little apartment in the rue Lecourbe."

Fandor forced himself to appear very interested.

"Already! The police have been quick!... I also had an idea that that Thomery had more than simply disappeared!"

"You had that idea?" asked the startled secretary.

"Yes, my dear fellow, I had--absolutely!"

After a silence, Fandor added:

"All the same, I am going out to get news. In half an hour's time, I will telephone details of the death. Does the _Havas_ say whether it is a crime or a suicide?"

"No. Evidently the police know nothing."

* * * * *

"Monsieur Havard, I am delighted to meet you!... Surely now, you will not refuse me a little interview?"

"Not I, my dear Fandor! I know only too well that you would not take 'no' for an answer."

"And you are right. I beg of you to give me some details, not as regards Thomery's death, for I have already made my little investigation touching that; but as to how the police managed to find the poor man's body."

"In the easiest way in the world. Monsieur Thomery's servants were very much astonished yesterday morning, when they could not find their master in the house.

"After eleven, Thomery's absence from the Bourse gave rise to disquieting rumors. He had some big deals to put through, therefore his absence could only be accounted for in one way--he had had an accident of some sort.

"Naturally enough, they warned Headquarters, and at once I suspected there might be a little scandal of some sort.... You guess that I immediately went myself to Thomery's house?... I examined his papers; and I found by chance three receipts for the rent of a flat, in the name of Monsieur Durand, rue Lecourbe. One of them was of recent date. I, of course, sent one of my men to ascertain who lived there! This man learned from the portress that there was a new tenant there, who had not yet moved in with his furniture; but who, the evening before, had brought in a heavy trunk.... My man went up to this flat, and had the door opened. You know under what conditions he found Thomery's dead body."

"And you did not find indications which went to show why Monsieur Thomery committed suicide?"

"Committed suicide?... When a financier disappears, my Fandor, one is always tempted to cry 'suicide'; but, this time, I confess to you that I do not think it was anything of the kind!..."

"Because?"

"Because"--and Monsieur Havard bent his head. "Well, when I reached the scene of the crime I immediately thought that we were not face to face with a suicide. A man who wishes to kill himself, and to kill himself because of money affairs, a man like Thomery, does not feel the necessity of committing suicide in a little flat rented under a false name, and in front of a trunk, which you know, do you not, belonged to Mademoiselle Dollon! One might swear that everything was arranged expressly to make anyone believe that Thomery had strangled himself, after having stolen the trunk, for some unknown reason!"

"You did not find any kind of clue?"

"Yes, indeed! And you know it as well as I do, for I have no doubt the extraordinary event has been the gossip of the neighbourhood. On the cover of the trunk we have once again found an imprint, a very clear impression--the famous imprint of Jacques Dollon!..."

"And you found nothing else?"

"Yes, in the dust on the floor, we found the marks of steps, numerous foot marks: we have made tracings of them."

"My steps, evidently," thought Fandor. But what he said was:

"What, in short, is your view of the general position, Monsieur Havard?"

"I am very much bothered about it. For my part, I think we are once again faced by another of Jacques Dollon's crimes. This wretch, after having attempted to assassinate his sister, has learned that we were going to search mademoiselle's room. He then made arrangements to steal this trunk, by pretending to be a police inspector, as you know; then he brought the trunk to this flat, examined its contents thoroughly, and having some special interest in the sugar refiner's death, he managed to get him to come to the flat, and there assassinated him, leaving his dead body in front of this trunk, where it was bound to be seen; all this he did in order to tangle the traces and perplex those on his track...."

"But how do you explain the fact of Jacques Dollon being so simple as to leave the imprints of his hand everywhere?... Deuce take it, this individual is at liberty: he reads the papers.... He knows that Monsieur Bertillon is tracing him!... So great a criminal would certainly be on his guard!"

"Of course! Such a successful criminal as Dollon has shown himself to be, must have resources at his disposal, which allow him to laugh at the police. He does not trouble to cover his tracks; it is enough for him that he should escape us."

As Fandor could not suppress a smile, the chief of the detective force added:

"Oh, we shall finish by arresting Dollon, have no fear! So far he has quite extraordinary luck in his favour, but the luck will turn, and we shall put our hand on his collar!"

"I certainly hope you may. But what are you going to do now?"

The two had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and were talking without paying any attention to the passers-by who rubbed shoulders with them. The well-known journalist and the important police official were unrecognised.

Monsieur Havard took Fandor's arm.

"Look here, come along with me, Fandor? Just the time to telephone to a police station, and then I will take you with me to make a fresh investigation."

"Where!"

"At Jacques Dollon's studio. I have kept the key of the house, and I wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want to get to the bottom of it.... Will you come to rue Norvins?"

"I jolly well will!" cried Fandor.

The chief of the detective force telephoned to Headquarters, whilst Fandor got into communication with _La Capitale_. He sent on a report of the Thomery case up to that moment.

Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven to the rue Norvins.

* * * * *

As far as they could tell, the artist's house had not been entered since Elizabeth Dollon's departure.

The neglected garden, with its rank growth of grass and weeds, gave an added air of melancholy to the deserted house.

Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door.

"Don't you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house where an unaccountable crime has been committed?" The key grated in the lock, and Monsieur Havard added:

"In spite of oneself, there is the feeling that some terrifying spectre is lurking within!"

"Or a ghost!" said Fandor.

And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:

"Where shall we start this domiciliary visit?"

"Let us begin with the studio," replied Monsieur Havard, mounting to the first story.

No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the two men.

"Oh!..."

"Great Heaven!..."

In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man hanging.

They rushed forward....

"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.

"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.

"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared, horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to examine the miserable remnant of a human being.

The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....

"The hands have been dipped in vitriol--they did not want finger prints taken--it is--it is Jacques Dollon!"

Fandor shook his head.

"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"

Monsieur Havard remarked:

"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see, Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."

"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."

"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.

"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."

Fandor shook his head.

"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"

"Look at the vitriolised hands--that was a precaution."

"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece--a bit of slag assassins' stage craft."

"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"

Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the Depot.

"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her brother's body!"

But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from his stooping posture, exclaiming:

"I know who it is!"

"Who?"

"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served their turn, and was now an encumbrance."

"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"

"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where an abscess had been.

"I am certain I noticed a similar mark on the neck of Jules. He sat in front of me the other day, and I particularly noticed this mark. The dead man is Jules. I am certain it is Jules!"

Monsieur Havard was silent. Presently he said:

"If it is Jules ... it must be admitted that we are no further forward!"

Fandor was about to utter a protest, when there was a knock on the studio door. Startled, the two men looked at each other anxiously.

"It can only be one of the force," murmured Monsieur Havard. "I told them I was coming here with you, and that they were to send for me if necessary."

The two men walked to the door. Monsieur Havard opened it. There stood a cyclist member of the police force. He saluted respectfully, and told his chief that he had come with a message from Michel.

"The message?"

"That the arrest is successful, chief."

"Which?"

"That of the band of Numbers, chief."

"Good! Whom have you bagged?"

"Almost the whole lot, chief!"

"That is to say?"

"Mother Toulouche, Beard, Mimile, otherwise Emilet, and the Cooper--and a few more whose names are not known."

Fandor said, laughing:

"Not Cranajour, I am certain."

"No. Cranajour has escaped," answered the policeman.

Turning to Monsieur Havard, he asked:

"You have no instructions, chief?"

"No. Tell me, how did the capture go?"

"Perfectly, chief. They were assembled in Mother Toulouche's store. They went like lambs."

"Good!... Good!"

Monsieur Havard gave the policeman some orders. The cyclist leaped into the saddle and disappeared.

"How did you guess that Cranajour was still at liberty?" asked Monsieur Havard.

Fandor smiled.

"Good business! You take me to be more stupid than I am. It is Cranajour's information which has enabled you to arrest the band of Numbers. Consequently!..."

"Cranajour's information? You are mad, Fandor!... Whatever makes you imagine that Cranajour belongs to our force?"

Fandor looked Monsieur Havard straight in the eye and said coolly:

"Juve has never told me that he had sent in his resignation!"

Monsieur Havard looked searchingly at our journalist, before remarking:

"Come now! What is this you are telling me? Poor Juve?..."

Fandor wished to save the chief of the detective department from telling useless falsehoods.

"Monsieur Havard! Monsieur Havard! Interrogate the members of the band of Numbers, and don't trouble about how I got my information ... but, be sure of one thing, there are dead men of whom I could tell tales, of whose existence I am as well aware of as you yourself!"

As the chief stared at the journalist, looking more and more astonished, Fandor added:

"And I do not refer to Dollon! I am referring to Juve, to my dear friend Juve, the king of detectives!"

XXIV

AT SAINT LAZARE

"Hop along there! See if you can't hurry up a bit!"

The warder opened the door of Elizabeth's Dollon's cell and pushed in an old woman--a horrid looking creature.

"In with you!" commanded the warder in a harsh tone. "You are to stay here till to-morrow. We will find another place for you when we get instructions...."

Poor Elizabeth Dollon stared miserably at this strange companion which Fate, in the person of a warder, had thrust on her.

The old woman stared with no little curiosity at the pale, sad girl.... Silence fell for a few minutes, then the new prisoner asked, in a tone of rough familiarity:

"What's your name?"

"I call myself Elizabeth!"

"Don't know it!... Elizabeth, who?..."

"Elizabeth Dollon...."

The old woman rose from the corner of the mattress she had seated herself on.

"True? You're Elizabeth Dollon?... Well, that's funny! Have you been nabbed long?..."

"You ask if it is long since I was...?"

"Nabbed!... Taken!... Arrested!... Eh?"

Elizabeth nodded in the affirmative. It seemed to her that an infinity of time had passed since her imprisonment at Saint Lazare.

"I was nabbed last night. If you want to know my name, I'm called Mother Toulouche. They say I'm one of the band of Numbers, and that I receive stolen goods! Lies! That's well understood!"

Elizabeth had no desire to go into such an unsavoury question. This horrid old woman rather frightened her; but, such had been her distress and fears since she had been a prisoner, that it was a relief not to be quite alone; to have even this old creature to speak to was better than solitary confinement.

In her character of old jail-bird, Mother Toulouche made herself quickly at home.

"Moved to-morrow, they say I'm to be! Pity! At bottom you're not one of the scurvy sort, but you must be here to play spy on me, for all that!... When do you go out? Are you long for Saint Lago?" Alas, how could Elizabeth tell?

* * * * *

"I like being a barrister," thought Fandor, as he entered Saint Lazare. "For the last hour I have felt a different person, much more serious, more sure of myself, not to say, more eloquent!... I must be eloquent, since I have succeeded in persuading my friend, Maitre Dubard, to get himself appointed officially as Mademoiselle Dollon's counsel; then to obtain a permit of communication, and to hand this same permit over to me, so that his identification papers, safely tucked away in my portfolio, make of me the most indisputable of Maitres Dubard!"

* * * * *

Fandor might well congratulate himself! By means of this ruse--his own idea--he was enabled to see Elizabeth, not in the prison parlour, but in a special cell, and without a witness. As Fandor crossed the threshold of the sordid building, he said to himself:

"I am Maitre Dubard, visiting his client, in order to prepare her defence!"

He easily accomplished the necessary formalities, and, at last, he saw himself being conducted by a morose warder to a little parlour, scantily furnished with a table and a few stools.

"Please be seated, maitre," said the surly fellow. "I'll fetch your client along!"

Fandor put down his portfolio, but remained standing, anxious, all aquiver at the thought that he was about to see his dear Elizabeth appear between two warders, just like a common prisoner!

"In a moment she will be here," thought he.... But she must on no account recognise him on entering! By an exclamation she might betray his identity and complicate things! Therefore, Fandor feigned to be absorbed in a newspaper he unfolded and raised, so as to hide his face from the approaching pair. The door opened.

"Come now! Go in!..." growled the warder. "Maitre, when you wish to leave, you have only to ring."

The door fell to, heavily, behind the warder.

Fandor made a sharp movement. He stood revealed. He hurried up to Elizabeth.

"Oh, tell me how you are, Mademoiselle Elizabeth!" he cried.

But the girl was struck dumb: she grew suddenly pale, and made no reply.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Will you not give me your hand even? You do not understand why I am here? I had to see you, speak to you without a witness ... that's why I have passed myself off as an advocate!"

The startled girl was regaining her self-control. Fandor was gazing at her with frankly admiring eyes.

"Poor Elizabeth! How I have made you suffer!"

The poor girl's eyes filled with tears.

"Why have you betrayed me?" she demanded in a voice trembling with restrained emotion. "Oh, how could you get me arrested? You, who well know I am not guilty?"

"You really believe I have betrayed you? You actually credited me with that?"

These two young people, meeting in a prison parlour under such tragic circumstances, were hurt and even angry with each other.

Elizabeth Dollon went on:

"Why did you not tell me that you had found on that piece of soap traces of my brother's finger-marks? Why did you accuse me of having received a visit from him, when you yourself had proved that he was dead?"

Fandor took Elizabeth's two little hands in his and pressed them long and tenderly.