Part 15

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

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

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

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

“Sold again, Béchoux!”

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

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

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

And the general was chuckling unrestrainedly!

Turning to him, Barnett bowed courteously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“O most honorable, most respectable, most admirable baton! Symbol of civic and municipal authority! A short while ago, you were hanging at Constable Rimbourg’s belt. A little sleight of hand and, hey presto! another baton, your double hung in your place. You were left behind when the constable departed!” Béchoux started violently, but Barnett motioned him back to his seat. “He is unlikely to return to retrieve you. In fact, I doubt whether we shall ever hear from him again. His rôle in the drama is over; he filled it not unworthily. But you, O baton, will fulfil to the last your rôle of defender of those in distress, and from you we shall learn the secret of Jean Desroques and the beautiful Christiane Veraldy. Speak, little baton, I conjure you to speak!”

With his left hand Barnett seized firm hold of the handle, circled with narrow grooves. In his right, he held tightly the heavy body of the club, made of ash-wood, painted white, and attempted to twist it.

“I was right!” he exclaimed joyously. “But it’s a miracle of workmanship. Not for nothing was Constable Rimbourg at one time a carpenter—the man must have been a master of his craft! See, he has hollowed out the heart of this club without ever breaking the outside, fixed this almost invisible channel for the screw, so that the two pieces of wood fit together so perfectly that there is no danger of the head of the club working loose.”

Barnett gave the baton another twist. The handle came unscrewed, revealing a metal ring. The stick of the baton was now in two bits. In the longer section they could see a copper tube running the length of the club.

The faces of all three men wore expressions of rapt attention. They held their breath, so that the silence of the room was intensified. Despite himself, even Barnett was obviously impressed with the solemnity of the moment. He turned over the copper tubing, tapping it several times hard on the table. Out fell a roll of paper!

“That’s it—the photograph!” murmured Béchoux.

“You recognize it, do you? It fits the official description all right. About six inches long, detached from its mount and rather crumpled. Will you kindly unroll it yourself, General Desroques?”

With trembling eagerness the general picked up the paper. His usually steady hand shook as he began unrolling the fateful scroll. There were four sheets of notepaper and a telegram pinned to the photograph. For a moment, the general stared in silence at the latter, then he showed it to the other two. In a voice vibrant with emotion he began speaking on a note of joy, which quickly gave place to one of grief.

“You see, it is the portrait of a woman. A young woman with a child on her lap. The face is that of Madame Veraldy—it tallies with the pictures in the press, except that here she is younger. This photograph must have been taken nine or ten years ago by the look of it. Yes; here’s the date, in the bottom, left-hand corner. I was right. This picture is eleven years old. And it is signed ‘Christiane’—Madame Veraldy’s name!”

The general paused, then added thoughtfully:

“This establishes the fact that Jean must have known this woman in the past, possibly before her marriage to Veraldy.”

“Read the letters, monsieur,” suggested Barnett, handing over the first sheet, closely covered with fine, feminine handwriting.

General Desroques began reading. He had hardly read the first few lines, when he gave a kind of groan, as of a man who stumbles suddenly on a terrible and painful secret. Hurriedly he scanned the first letter, then, with increasing anxiety, turned to the others which, with the telegram, Barnett passed to him one by one.

“Can you tell us what you have found out, general?”

The general did not answer at once. His eyes were filled with tears when at last he muttered huskily:

“It is I who am to blame! I alone who am guilty.... About twelve years ago Jean fell in love with a little shop-girl. They had a baby, a boy. Jean wanted to marry his amie, but my heart was hardened by pride and snobbishness. I forbade the marriage and refused to see the girl. Jean was meaning to disobey me—for the first time—and marry her out of hand. But she would not let him. She sacrificed her own happiness so that my son should not quarrel with me. Here is her letter—the first one. She says: ‘It’s good-bye Jean. Your father won’t let us get married. You must give in to him. If you don’t it might mean bad luck for our darling baby. I send you a picture of us both. Keep it always, and don’t forget about us too soon....’”

The general paused, overcome with emotion. He continued, more calmly:

“But it was she who forgot. Some time later she got engaged to Veraldy, then at the beginning of his career. Jean learned of their marriage, and had his little son brought up by a retired schoolmaster near Chartres. There the mother would sometimes visit him secretly.”

Béchoux and Barnett were listening intently so as not to lose a word. It was not easy to follow the general’s speech, as he dropped his voice until it was little more than a whisper. The hand that had held the letters trembled uncontrollably.

“The last letter,” he continued, “is dated five months ago. It is very short. Christiane tells of her remorse and unhappiness. She is passionately fond of her child, and it is agony to her not to have him with her. Then comes the telegram, sent to Jean by the old schoolmaster: ‘Child dangerously ill, come at once.’ At the bottom of the telegraph form are just these few words, scrawled by my son after the tragedy: ‘Our child is dead. Christiane has killed herself.’”

Again the general paused. No further explanations were needed. It was easy to guess what had happened. On receipt of the telegram, Jean had immediately sought out Christiane and taken her to the bedside of the dying child. On the way back to Paris, Christiane overcome with grief, had committed suicide.

“What shall we do about it?” Barnett wanted to know.

“We must reveal the truth,” was the general’s reply. “Jean’s reasons for keeping silence are obvious. He was shielding the dead woman, but he also wanted to shield me, since I was really responsible for the terrible tragedy. Also, though he felt certain neither the schoolmaster at Chartres, nor Constable Rimbourg, who owed him a debt of gratitude, would betray him, he definitely did not want this conclusive piece of evidence to be destroyed. He wanted Fate to bring the truth to light. Now that you, Monsieur Barnett, have succeeded in effecting this revelation....”

“If I succeeded, general,” said Barnett quickly, “it was solely due to the help of my friend, Béchoux. We mustn’t lose sight of that. If Béchoux had not led us to Constable Rimbourg and his baton, I should have failed. It is Béchoux who deserves your thanks, general.”

“My thanks are due to both of you,” said the old soldier. “You have saved my son, and I shall not hesitate to do my duty.”

Béchoux approved the general’s decision. He was so deeply moved by what had just happened that he was even prepared to waive making any attempt to take possession of the documents the police were so urgently wanting. He was ready to take this course, although it meant sacrificing his personal prestige. His humanity triumphed over his professional conscience—not for the first time.

But as the general made to withdraw to his own room Béchoux stepped up to Barnett and tapped him on the shoulder with the curt words: “I arrest you, Jim Barnett!”

He spoke in the accents of sincerity. He was quite obviously going through what was a futile formality which he felt himself obliged to perform. He had instructions to arrest Barnett, and would do so, no matter what the circumstances.

Barnett held out his hand to the inspector.

“You win, Béchoux,” he said, “you’ve arrested me, and carried out orders. Old Kaspar’s work is done. And now, if you’ve no objection, I will make my escape. In that way our friendship will be saved and honor satisfied! You know I should do it anyway.”

Béchoux shook the outstretched hand of his strange friend with heartfelt warmth. Between these two alternately allies and enemies, a truce was called—perhaps even a permanent amnesty. Both men recalled with genuine emotion their former encounters, the adventures they had experienced in company.

Béchoux expressed his feelings with that characteristic blunt simplicity that made him so popular with his colleagues and the world at large.

“You’re the greatest of all of them, Barnett. You stand absolutely alone. Your feat to-day is nothing short of miraculous. No one but you could have solved the puzzle!”

“I don’t know,” said Barnett reflectively. “After all, I had that inkling of Rimbourg’s past to help me. Do you know the man had actually worked for an illusionist and conjurer at one time. And his little idea in joining the police force was probably mainly the advantage of being in close proximity to the pickings on every possible occasion. Although he demonstrated unwavering loyalty to his benefactor, Jean Desroques, we must not lose sight of Rimbourg’s real character. He was a policeman, much as you suspect me of being a detective——”

Béchoux cut him short.

“None of that now,” he cried. “Oh, but you’re a wonder. Who on earth but you would ever have discovered such an improbable hiding-place as the inside of a police baton?”

Barnett cocked his head on one side and simpered unbecomingly in imitation of a blushing schoolgirl.

“Any one’s wits are sharper when there is a prize at stake.”

“A prize? How do you mean? Surely you’re not thinking of any reward General Desroques may offer you? You must know he’s not at all well off.”

“And if he did offer me anything, I should have to refuse it. You mustn’t forget the proud motto of the Barnett Agency. No fees of any kind—services gratis—we work for glory!”

“Well, then....” Inspector Béchoux looked distinctly puzzled; worried, too. Barnett smiled guilelessly.

“The fact is, as I was glancing quickly through the fourth letter before passing it to the general, I saw that it stated Christiane Veraldy had from the outset told her husband of her past! Consequently, the banker was fully cognizant of his wife’s former love affair, and knew that she had a child! Yet he deliberately neglected to inform the police of these facts. This he did out of jealousy and in the hope that his silence might bring Jean Desroques to the scaffold. He knew that Desroques would never reveal the dead woman’s secret.

“You will agree that this was a pretty blackguardly thing to do. Now don’t you think that, with all his money, Veraldy would be prepared to come down handsomely in order to prevent that letter becoming public property? Don’t you think that if some trustworthy, respectable man—Sylvestre, for instance, General Desroques’ servant—were to go to Veraldy and offer quite spontaneously to hand over that piece of paper, the banker would be prepared to talk business? I am taking a chance on being right in my supposition, as I was about the police baton, for instance. In fact, just so as to be able to play my hunch I slipped the letter into my pocket!”

Béchoux groaned. It was all wrong, of course. And yet, it seemed only fair that Barnett should reap some reward for the exercise of his special deductive skill. The laborer is worthy of his hire. And if the innocent were saved and wrongs were righted, what objection could there really be to those “commissions” Barnett habitually extracted from the pockets of the guilty parties in a case?

“Au revoir, Barnett,” said the inspector, shaking hands again. And at the back of his mind lurked the certainty that next time he had a knotty problem to tackle he would be quite ready to compromise with his scruples and call in Barnett’s invaluable aid.

“Au revoir, Béchoux,” said Barnett. “I shall be ringing you up in a day or so, I expect.”

“What about?”

“You’ll know all in good time,” and Jim Barnett was off and away.

XI

AFTERWORD

“Hallo! I want to speak to Chief Inspector Béchoux!”

It was Barnett’s voice on the line.

“Inspector Béchoux speaking,” replied Béchoux coldly. “Is that some one trying to be funny?”

“Oh, Béchoux, don’t tell me you haven’t recognized my voice. After all this while! And I thought you loved me!”

“Oh, it’s you, Barnett? Well, if you’re just fooling, you may as well ring off. I’m busy.”

“But I’ve good news for you, old chap!” Barnett’s tone grew distinctly plaintive.

Inspector Béchoux thawed a trifle.

“What is it, then?” he asked.

“Although you failed to get Arsène Lupin as you swore you would, or to get that photograph as per instructions, yet Fate smiles on you. Isn’t it lovely? I’ve put in such a good word for you with the people higher up, and shown them so clearly what remarkable services you rendered to the cause of justice in that Desroques case, that they are going to appoint you a Chief Inspector. Oh, don’t thank me! Merely a trifling mark of my esteem. From Barnett to Béchoux, as it were, in memory of many happy days. And now at last my conscience is at rest, for you, too, have reaped the fruit of our alliance in those adventures where I was privileged to intervene!”

And Béchoux felt oddly pleased that his promotion, albeit well deserved, should have come through Barnett. He reflected that it took a man like Barnett to make a vast organization like the police force recognize the merits of one of the minor cogs in the machine. Nevertheless he had no doubts at all of the altogether special merits of one Inspector Béchoux and his eminent suitability for promotion!

Therefore it was in a spirit of unfeigned and unclouded gratitude, but not altogether of surprise, that he answered now:

“Thank you, thank you, Barnett. The appointment will mean twice as much to me, coming as it does through you!”

Inspector Béchoux had set out to arrest Arsène Lupin—and had ended by becoming himself a prisoner of Jim Barnett’s brains!