Part 13

At half-past three Del Prego was admitted, resplendent in white gloves, white spats, grey suit and grey Stetson. He waved a greeting to the concierges and went up the stairs two at time. It was the hour for Olga’s gym lesson.

Three-quarters of an hour later he left the house, returning shortly with a packet of cigarettes he had gone out to buy. His white gloves and spats flickered up the stairs.

Three other people came and went. Suddenly Béchoux hissed in Barnett’s ear:

“Look, he’s coming in again for the third time. How on earth did he get out?”

“By the door, I suppose.”

“Oh, surely not,” said Béchoux, albeit less authoritatively. “That is, unless he caught us napping. Eh, Barnett?”

Barnett pushed back the curtain and answered:

“The time has come for action. Béchoux, go and pick up your beefy friends.”

“And bring them here?”

“That’s the stuff.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going up aloft. When you get back, I want all three of you to station yourselves on the landing of the second floor. You’ll get word when to move.”

“Then it’s zero at last?”

“It is, and pretty stiff odds. Now, off you go, and make it snappy.”

Béchoux was off like the wind, while Barnett mounted to the third floor and rang the flat bell. He was shown into the studio-gymnasium where Olga was finishing her exercises under Del Prego’s supervision.

“Fancy that now, here’s that bright boy Barnett!” called Olga from the top of a rope-ladder. “Our Mr. Barnett, the Man of Mystery!” She peered at him from between her shapely legs. “Well, Mr. Barnett, I hope you’ve got my Pompadour bed with you!”

“Almost, but not quite, madame. I hope I’m not in the way?”

“Not a bit.”

The incredible Olga continued her evolutions at Del Prego’s curt commands. Her instructor alternately praised and criticised, and occasionally gave a brief personal demonstration. He was himself a trained acrobat, but vigorous rather than supple. He seemed out to demonstrate his prodigious muscular strength.

The lesson came to an end, and, Del Prego put on his coat, fastened his snowy spats, and gathered up his white gloves and ash-colored hat.

“See you to-night at the theatre, Madame Olga,” he said.

“Oh, aren’t you going to wait for me to-day, Del Prego? You might have escorted me. You know maman is away.”

“Impossible, madame, I fear. Much as I regret, I fear I have another appointment before dinner.”

He made for the door, but before he got there he was brought up short by Jim Barnett, who stood in his way.

“A word with you, my friend,” said Barnett, “since chance has obligingly brought us together.”

“I’m sorry, but really....”

“Must I, then, introduce myself afresh? Jim Barnett, private detective, of the Barnett Agency—Inspector Béchoux’s friend.”

Del Prego took another step towards the door.

“A thousand apologies, Mr. Barnett, but I’m in rather a hurry.”

“Oh, I won’t keep you a moment. I only want to call to your remembrance——” He paused dramatically.

“What?” snapped Del Prego.

“A certain Turk.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“A Turk called Ben-Vali.”

The professor’s face wore an expression of stony blankness.

“The name means nothing to me.”

“Then perhaps you may remember a certain Avernoff?”

“Never heard of him either. Who were they both, anyway?”

“Two—murderers.”

There was a brief, pregnant pause. Then Del Prego laughed noisily and said:

“Scarcely a class among which I care to cultivate my friendships.”

“And yet,” pursued Barnett, “rumor persists in urging that you knew both men well.”

Del Prego’s glance travelled like lightning up and down Barnett’s form. Then he snarled, with scarcely a trace of foreign accent:

“What are you getting at? Cut out the mystery stuff. I don’t go in for riddles.”

“Sit down, Signor Del Prego,” suggested Barnett. “We can chat more comfortably sitting down!”

Del Prego was fuming with impatience. Olga had come up to them, full of curiosity, looking like a bewitching boy in her gym kit.

“Do sit down, Del Prego,” she said, laying a hand on the professor’s arm. “After all, it’s about my Pompadour bed.”

“Just so,” said Barnett. “And I can assure Signor Del Prego that I am not asking a riddle. Only, on my very first visit here after the robbery, I was forcibly reminded of two cases that made rather a sensation some time ago. I should like his opinion on them. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Barnett’s attitude had subtly changed from one of deference to one of authority. His tone was unmistakable in its note of command. Olga Vaubant found herself feeling impressed by this strange man. Del Prego, overborne, merely growled:

“Hurry up, then!”

Barnett began his story:

“Once upon a time—three years ago, to be precise—there lived in Paris a jeweller called Saurois. He and his father shared a big top-floor flat. This jeweller formed a business connection with a man named Ben-Vali. The latter went about in a turban and full Turkish costumes, baggy trousers and all, and traded in second-grade precious stones, such as oriental topazes, irregular pearls, amethysts, and so forth. Well, one evening, on a day when Ben-Vali had called several times at his flat, Saurois came back from the theatre and found his father stabbed to death, and all his jewels gone. The inquiry revealed that the crime had been committed not by Ben-Vali himself—he produced an unshakable alibi—but by someone he must have brought round in the afternoon. But they never managed to lay hands on the assassin, nor on the Turk. The case was shelved. Do you remember, now?”

“I’ve only been in Paris two years,” Del Prego parried swiftly. “And, anyway, I don’t see the point....”

Jim Barnett went on:

“Nearly a year before that a similar crime took place. The victim in this case was a collector of medals called Davoul. It was established that the man who killed him was brought to his place and hidden by a Count Avernoff, a Russian, who wore an astrakhan cap and a long overcoat.”

“Why, I remember that,” exclaimed Olga Vaubant, who had turned suddenly pale.

“I saw at once,” continued Barnett, “that between these two cases and the burglary of your bedroom there existed not, perhaps, a very close analogy, but a certain family resemblance. The robberies of Saurois the jeweller and of Davoul the medal collector were both the work of a pair of foreigners, and here again the method is identical. I mean, in each case there was the introduction of an accomplice who was responsible for the actual crime. The problem is—how were those accomplices introduced? I own that at first this completely baffled me. For the last few days I have been thrashing the solution out in silence and solitude. Working with the two given quantities, so to speak, of the Ben-Vali crime and the Avernoff crime, I set myself to reconstruct the general scheme—the ‘constant’—of a crime-system that had probably been applied in many other cases unknown to me.”

“And did you succeed?” asked Olga breathlessly.

“I did,” Barnett told her. “Frankly, the idea is superb. It’s the highest form of art—a manifestation of creative genius, wholly original in conception and execution. While the ordinary run of thieves and gun-men work with great secrecy, disguising themselves sometimes as plumbers or commercial travellers to gain entrance to a house, these people keep full in the limelight, and do the job without any attempt at concealment. The more observation they meet with, the better pleased they are. The method is for one of them quite openly to enter a house where he is already a frequent visitor, and his comings and goings are familiar to the residents. Then, on a chosen day, he goes out ... and comes in again ... and goes out once more ... and comes in yet again ... and then, while this man is in the house, another man comes in who is so like the first man in appearance that no one spots the difference! And there you have your accomplice introduced. The first man leaves the house again, quite openly, and his accomplice remains there concealed. Then, in the watches of the night, the first man returns to the house, and is admitted by the accomplice. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

Then, with a peculiar intensity in his tone, Barnett went on, now directly to Del Prego:

“It’s genius, Del Prego, absolute genius. Ordinary crooks, as I said, try to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible in their criminal pursuits. They wear nondescript, neutral clothing, and do their best to merge with their surroundings like creatures of the jungle. But the men I’m telling you about realized that the great thing in their scheme was to make a vivid and outstanding impression—to attract plenty of attention. A Russian wearing a fur cap, or a Turk in baggy trousers is a conspicuous and unusual figure. If such a man is habitually seen four times a day going up and downstairs in a house, no one will notice whether he comes in once oftener than he goes out. The point is, though, that the fifth time he comes in, it’s the accomplice! And no one suspects it. That’s how it’s done, and I take my hat off to the inventor. It stands to reason that a man must be a master criminal to evolve and apply such a method—the kind of arch-crook who only occurs once in a generation. To me it is obvious that Ben-Vali and Count Avernoff are the same person. From this, isn’t it only logical to conclude that this man has materialized a third time, in yet another guise, in the particular case which concerns us? He began by being a Russian, later on he appeared as a Turk, and this time—well, who comes here who, besides being a foreigner, dresses rather unusually?”

There was a dead silence. Olga put out a hand towards Barnett as if to stop him from she hardly knew what. She had only just tumbled to what he had been leading up to all this time, and the realization frightened her.

“No, no!” she cried. “I won’t have you accusing people!”

Del Prego smiled blandly.

“Come, come, Madame Olga, don’t get upset. Mr. Barnett will have his little joke.”

“That’s it, Del Prego,” said Barnett, “I will have my little joke. You’re perfectly right not to take my yarn of mystery and adventure seriously—that is, not until you know the finish. Of course, there’s the obvious fact that you’re a foreigner, and that your get-up is calculated to attract attention. White gloves ... white spats.... And, of course, too, you’ve got one of those mobile, india rubber faces, which could pretty easily turn you from a Russian into a Turk, and from a Turk into a shady adventurer, nationality unspecified! And, of course, you’re well known in this house, and business brings you here several times a day. But, after all, your reputation for honesty is unblemished, and you enjoy the patronage of no less a person than Olga Vaubant. So no one would dream of accusing you.

“But what was I to think? You see my difficulty, don’t you? You were the only possible suspect, and yet you were above suspicion. Isn’t that so, madame?” He turned to Olga for confirmation.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed, eyes feverishly bright. “Then who are we to suspect? How can we find out who did it?”

“Aha,” said Barnett, “that’s simple enough. I’ve set a trap for the mystery mouse!”

“A trap? How could you do that?”

“Tell me, madame,” said Barnett, “Baron de Laureins telephoned you on Saturday? I thought so. And yesterday he came to see you here?”

Olga nodded, full of wonder.

“And he brought you a chest full of silver, engraved with the Pompadour crest?”

“That’s it,” said Olga, “on the table. But——”

Barnett cut her short. In the manner of a fortune-teller he continued:

“Baron de Laureins, who is very hard up, is trying to sell the silver which is a family heirloom that has come down to him from the d’Etoiles, and he has left it in your care until to-morrow.”

“How ... how do you know all this?” Olga was quite scared.

“I,” said Barnett, “and the Baron—very new noblesse! Have you displayed the handsome silverware to your admiring friends?”

“Certainly.”

“And, on the other hand, I take it your mother has had a telegram from the country, summoning her to the bedside of your ailing aunt?”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“I sent the telegram. Oh, believe me, I’m the whole works! So your mother went off this morning, and the chest stays in this room till to-morrow. What a temptation for the unknown friend who so cleverly burgled your bedroom to get up to his tricks again and snaffle the chest of silver. Much easier than a suite of furniture!”

Olga, now thoroughly alarmed, demanded:

“Will the attempt be made to-night?”

“Of course it will,” Barnett assured her.

“Oh, how awful!” she wailed.

Del Prego, who had listened to all this in silence, now got up.

“What’s so awful, madame?” he asked, with a faint sneer. “Forewarned is forearmed. You have only to ring up the police. With your permission, I will do so at once.”

“Oh, dear me, no,” protested Barnett. “I shall need you, Del Prego.”

“I fail to see in what way you can require my services.”

“Why, in helping to arrest the accomplice, of course!”

“Plenty of time for that, if the attempt is to be made to-night.”

“Yes, but do bear in mind,” urged Barnett gently but firmly, “that the accomplice was, in each case, introduced beforehand!”

“You mean he’s already in the flat?” asked Del Prego.

“He’s been here for the last half-hour,” declared Barnett.

“Since I arrived, you mean?”

“Since you arrived the second time,” said Barnett quietly. “I saw him as plainly as I see you now.”

“Then he’s hiding in the flat?”

Barnett pointed to the door.

“In the hall there’s a clothes cupboard which hasn’t been opened all the afternoon. He’s in there.”

“But he couldn’t have got into the flat on his own!”

“Of course not.”

“Then who opened the door to him?”

“You, Del Prego.”

The brief statement was almost shockingly abrupt.

Even though from the beginning of the conversation Barnett’s remarks had been obviously aimed at the gym instructor, becoming increasingly plain in their import, yet this downright attack took Del Prego by surprise. Rage, fear, and the determination to act swiftly were easily discernible in his changed expression. Divining his adversary’s perplexity, Barnett took advantage of it to run out into the hall. He jerked a man out of the cupboard, and pushed him, struggling, before him into the studio.

“Oh,” cried Olga, utterly taken aback, “then it’s true!”

The man was the same height as Del Prego. Like Del Prego he wore a grey suit and white spats. He had much the same type of greasy, mobile countenance.

“Milord has forgotten his hat and gloves,” said Barnett, and clapped an ash-colored hat on the man’s head, at the same time handing him a pair of white gloves.

Struck dumb with amazement, Olga drew slowly from the scene of action, and, never shifting her gaze from the two men, proceeded to climb a rope-ladder backwards. It had now fully dawned on her what kind of man Del Prego was, and what frightful risks she had run during the time spent in his company.

“Funny, isn’t it?” Barnett said, laughing. “Not as like as twins, of course, but they’re the same height and have much the same sort of physiog., and what with that and their dressing in duplicate, they might be brothers!”

The two crooks were recovering from their confusion, and simultaneously began to realize that, after all, they were only up against one man, and that a poor-looking specimen, with apparently a wretched physique under his shabby frock-coat.

Del Prego spluttered some words in a foreign language which Barnett translated immediately.

“No use speaking Russian,” he observed, “to ask your friend if he’s got a gun handy!”

Del Prego shook with rage and spoke again in a different language.

“Unluckily for you,” Barnett told him, “I know Turkish inside out. Berlitz has nothing on me. Also, I think it only fair to tell you that Béchoux—you know, Olga’s policeman husband that was—is waiting on the stairs with two friends. If that gun goes off, they will break down the door!”

Del Prego and the other man exchanged glances. They saw they were cornered, but they were the sort that doesn’t give in without putting up a stiff fight.

Without seeming to move, they drew imperceptibly closer to Barnett.

“Fine!” the latter told them genially. “You propose to set upon me and finish me off at close quarters, do you? And when I’m done for, you’ll try to elude Béchoux. Now then, madame, keep your eyes open and you’ll see something! Tom Thumb and the two Giants! David and the twin Goliaths! Get a move on, Del Prego. Brace up, now! Try springing at my throat for a start!”

The distance between them had lessened again. The two men stood tense, ready to hurl themselves on Barnett.

But Barnett most unexpectedly forestalled them. In a flash he had dived to the floor, seized a leg of each and brought them crashing! Before they had time to counter, the head of each was being ground into the floor by an implacable, murderous hand. They gasped convulsively, choking in Barnett’s vise-like grip. Their countenances took on a purple tinge.

“Olga!” called Barnett with perfect calm, “be a good girl and open the door and call Béchoux, will you?”

Olga dropped, monkey-like, from her ladder, and tottered rather than ran out of the room, calling “Béchoux! Béchoux!”

A moment later she returned with the inspector, babbling excitedly to him:

“He did it! Bowled them both over single-handed! I’d never have believed it of him!”

“Behold,” said Barnett to Béchoux, “your two bright lads. Just slip the bracelets on them so that I can let ’em come up for breath! You needn’t worry about fixing them too tightly. They’ll come quietly, won’t you, Del Prego? All lamb-like and pretty!”

He rose from the floor, gallantly kissed Olga’s hand, while she regarded him in ever-growing wonder, and chortled gaily:

“How’s that for a haul, Béchoux? Two of the most cunning criminals in Paris snared at last. Really, Del Prego, you must allow me to congratulate you on your methods!”

He dug the professor playfully in the ribs, while the latter was powerless, handcuffed to Béchoux, and continued jubilantly:

“My good man, you’re a genius. Why, when Béchoux and I were on the watch downstairs, I, having tumbled to your trick, naturally saw that it was not you the third time, but Béchoux, who didn’t know, soon swallowed the bait and really thought the gentleman in white gloves, white spats, grey hat and grey suit was the same Del Prego that he had already seen pass several times. So Del Prego the Second was able to go quietly upstairs, sneak through the door—which you had left ajar for him—and hide in the hall cupboard. Exactly the same tactics as you employed on the night when the bedroom suite disappeared into space. You can’t deny it, Del Prego, you’re a genius!”

Barnett was by now bubbling over with sheer exuberance. With a flying leap, he was astride the trapeze; in a moment he was twirling like a top round and round an upright pole; he swung on to a rope, then to the rings, then up the ladder he went, swaying like a sailor in the rigging. The tails of his ancient frock-coat flapped stiffly, disapprovingly behind him, the venerable garment seeming to protest against these unseemly gambols.

Olga gave a little gasp as he unexpectedly landed at her feet, bowing low.

“Feel my heart, madame; beating quite normally. And I’m not the least bit out of breath. Don’t you wonder, Béchoux, how I keep in training?”

He snatched up the telephone and called a number.

“That the préfecture?... Extension two, please.... That you, Albert? Béchoux speaking.... It doesn’t sound like my voice?... Well, I can’t help that. Now then, listen. You can report that I have just arrested two murderers who are wanted for the Olga Vaubant robbery.”

He hung up, and held out a hand to Béchoux.

“The laurels are all yours, old chap. Madame, it’s time I took my leave. What’s up, Del Prego? You are not regarding me with that warm affection I could desire!”

Del Prego was muttering furiously:

“There’s only one man alive who could get the better of me ... only one....”

“Who’s that?”

“Arsène Lupin!”

Barnett laughed as though he would split.

“Bully for you, my boy. You ought to have been a Professor of Psychology. And then you would never have got yourself into this mix-up!”

He had another joyous spasm, bowed to Olga, and went off in a gale of merriment, humming that catchy little tune:

“Yes, you otta see my Jim!”

Next day Del Prego, overwhelmed by the case against him, revealed the whereabouts of the garage in the suburbs in which he had hidden Olga Vaubant’s bedroom suite. This was on the Tuesday. Barnett had fulfilled his promise.

Béchoux was sent out of Paris on a fresh case, and was away some days. When he got back he found a note from Barnett.

“You must own that I have played strictly fair. There hasn’t been a sou of profit for me in the whole business—none of the ‘pickings’ that have distressed your gentle soul in the past. It is satisfaction for me to know that I retain your friendship and respect!”

That afternoon Béchoux, who had made up his mind to part brass-rags once and for all with Barnett, went along to the office in the rue Laborde. The office was closed, and there was a notice on the door which read:

“Closed on account of a sudden attachment. Reopening after the honeymoon trip.”

“And what the hell may that mean?” muttered Béchoux, smitten with sudden vague anxiety. He rushed off to Olga’s flat. It was shut up. He rushed on to the Folies Bergère. There he was told that the star had paid a large forfeit to break her contract and had gone off on holiday.

“Nom d’un Nom d’un Nom!” spluttered Béchoux when he got out in the street. “Is it possible?... Instead of collaring some cash, can he have used his triumph to ... can he have dared to....”

The cloud of suspicion grew bigger and blacker. Béchoux became frantic. How was he to learn the truth? Or rather, what course could he take that would keep the truth from him, and save him from appalling certainty in place of his suspicion?

But Barnett was not the man to leave his victim in peace. At intervals the unlucky Béchoux was the recipient of highly colored post-cards, scrawled with even more lurid legends:

“Oh, Béchoux! One moonlight night in Rome!”

“Béchoux, next time you’re in love, bring her to Sicily!”

And from Venice: “If you were here, Béchoux, I should have to stop you jumping in a canal!”

“I will never forgive him this, never! He has outraged me past hope of pardon! Next time I will have my revenge!”

And, like a mocking echo, he seemed to hear Olga’s husky tones:

“I’m in luck, I gotta boy Fills his momma’s heart with joy. Yes, you otta see my Jim!”

X

ARRESTING ARSÈNE LUPIN!

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the fight between Barnett and Béchoux, which had dragged on so long under cover, had reached the last round—in the open!