Part 10

The doctor and a gendarme made to pursue her, but found themselves in collision with Barnett, who was barring the way. The gendarme protested hotly:

“But we shall have her escaping!”

“I think not,” said Barnett.

“You’re right,” said the doctor, appalled, “but I fear something else—something ghastly!... Yes, look, look! She’s running towards the stream ... towards the bridge where her father was killed.”

“What next?” came from Barnett with terrible calm.

He stood aside. The doctor and the gendarme were out of the window like lightning, and he closed it behind them. Then, turning to the magistrate, he said:

“Do you understand the whole business now, monsieur? Is it quite clear to you? It was Thérèse Saint-Prix who, after trying vainly to rouse the passion of Louis Lenormand beyond the passing fancy of a flirtation—Thérèse Saint-Prix who, starved for years of all enjoyment and luxury, was suddenly blinded by hatred of Cécile Lenormand. She was too proud to believe that Louis Lenormand genuinely did not want her love and was devoted to his wife. She thought that if once Cécile Lenormand were out of the way, she would come into her own. So she planned the appalling, cold-blooded murder of her rival, and—compassed the death of her own father! In the night she sawed through the bridge—there was no one to see her. So blinded was she by her passions that next day, just before the tragedy would occur, she telephoned to Louis Lenormand to tell him what she had done.

“Confronted by the utterly unexpected result of her strategy, she immediately planned to throw the guilt on to Cécile Lenormand and so at one stroke save herself and get her rival out of the way. It was with this in view that she stole one of Cécile’s earrings and dropped it on Sunday night into the ditch, and then told her tale of Cécile having been jealous of the old professor. Then, here in this room, she was struck with a more plausible idea altogether—she tried to get us all to believe that the bridge had been sawed through with the object of killing her and not her father at all!”

“How do you account for the boots and the saw?” asked the magistrate.

“The Lenormands and the Saint-Prix shared a tool-shed, their garden implements were used in common.”

“How do you know all about Thérèse Saint-Prix?” asked Lenormand, speaking for the first time.

“I helped him to find out,” said Cécile swiftly. “My dear, I realized all along how you were placed in the matter, but my pride kept me from speaking to you. I was afraid you would think I was being jealous, and trying to find something to throw in your face because my parents tried to prevent our marriage.”

“Then you forgive me?”

For answer she ran across the room to her husband, and her arms went round his neck.

“But,” objected the magistrate, “that entry in the note-book of ‘the last payment’—what did that mean?”

“Merely,” said Barnett, “that Professor Saint-Prix had told Louis Lenormand that this was the last loan he would need, as his discovery was on the verge of completion.”

“And that discovery——”

“Was something which would have revolutionized the dye industry. Doubtless he was going eagerly up to the Villa Eméraude to show it to his friend, and the stream washed it out of his dying grasp. What a loss!”

“And where did Monsieur Lenormand drive that night?”

“He shall tell us himself.”

“I drove,” said the erstwhile prisoner, “into the country a little way. I honestly could not say exactly where. I did so because it was very hot and I couldn’t sleep. But no one could prove the truth of what I say.”

At this point the gendarme came back, rather pale.

Barnett signed to him to speak.

“She is dead!” he faltered. “She threw herself down—there, where the professor was killed! The doctor sent me to tell you.”

The magistrate looked grave.

“Perhaps, after all, it is for the best,” he said. “But for you, monsieur,” he turned to Barnett, “there might have been a grave miscarriage of justice.”

Béchoux stood awkwardly silent.

“Come, Béchoux,” said Barnett, clapping him on the shoulder, “let’s be off and pack our things. I want to be back in the rue Laborde to-night.”

“Well,” said Béchoux when they were alone together again, “I admit that I do not see how you reconstructed the case so quickly.”

“Quite simple, my dear Béchoux—like all my little coups. What faith that woman had in her husband!”

For a moment he was silent in admiration of his client.

“Still,” said Béchoux, “brilliant as you were, I fail to see where you get anything out of this for yourself!”

Barnett’s gaze grew dreamy.

“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.