Part 5

By degrees order was restored. Maxime Tuillier, half fainting and uttering groans, was carried out of the room. An inspector gathered up the banknotes and handed them to the magistrates. The latter requested the Fougeraies and old Erstein to withdraw. They then complimented Jim Barnett on his extraordinary powers of deduction.

“Tuillier’s collapse and confession,” he told them, “are quite commonplace features in the case. Its originality, the real mystery that lifts it out of the usual run of such crimes, lies in something quite different. So now, although this is none of my business, please allow me——”

Barnett, turning to the three manufacturers who were talking together in low tones, went up to them and tapped Monsieur Auvard gently on the shoulder.

“A word with you, my friend. Something tells me you can throw a little light on one aspect of this case that remains obscure.”

“In what connection, pray?” asked Auvard coldly.

“In connection with the part which you and your friends play in it, monsieur.”

“But we don’t come into it at all!”

“Not actively, of course, I quite see that. But there are some features which, I am sure you will agree with me, present a disconcerting series of contradictions. For instance, you declared on the morning after the murder that the game of baccarat had ended with three deals in your favor, which cancelled your losses and broke up the card party. Well, the facts don’t happen to bear out your statement.”

Monsieur Auvard answered him defiantly:

“That’s so. But there’s been a misunderstanding. Actually, those last three deals only increased our losses. When Erstein left the table, Maxime, who seemed perfectly self-possessed, followed him into the Round Room for a smoke, while we three remained here, talking. When Tuillier came back, nearly ten minutes later, he told us that Erstein had never been in earnest over the game, that it had merely been a series of flukes following on the champagne, to be treated as a joke. He therefore insisted on returning the money to us, but pledged us to secrecy. If anything ever came out, we were to say that the end of the game had evened things up unexpectedly.”

“And you accepted such an offer! As a present from Paul Erstein which he had absolutely no reason to make you!” cried Barnett. “And having accepted it, you didn’t even bother to thank him! And you found it perfectly natural that Erstein, who was an inveterate gambler, inured to gain and loss alike, should suddenly be ashamed to profit by his luck! How unlikely!”

“It was four in the morning. We were all overwrought. Maxime Tuillier gave us no time for reflection. Anyhow, what reason had we to doubt his word? We didn’t know then that he had just murdered Erstein and robbed him.”

“But next day you learned of the murder.”

“Yes, but we naturally thought it had happened after our departure from the club—it made no difference to Erstein’s last action on earth—the restoration of our losses—nor to his wish that we should hold our tongues about it.”

“And you never for one moment suspected Maxime Tuillier?”

“Why should we have suspected him? He is a member of the club. His father was a friend of mine and I’ve known him practically all his life. Of course we had no suspicions.”

“Are you positive?”

Barnett rapped the words out in ironic incredulity. Alfred Auvard hesitated, glanced at the other two men, and then countered haughtily:

“Your questions, sir, are in the nature of a cross-examination. What do you think we’re here for anyway?”

“In the eyes of the law you’re here as witnesses. But in mine——”

“In yours——?”

“That’s just what I’m going to explain now.” Quietly Barnett took the floor, toying with the string of his monocle.

“The whole of this case is really dominated by one factor—the confidence you people inspired. Practically speaking, the crime could have been an outside or an inside job. Yet those investigating at once turned to the outside for the simple reason that one does not normally suspect such a monument of respectability and righteousness as is constituted by four wealthy manufacturers of unblemished reputation. If one of you, say, Maxime Tuillier, had played a game of écarté with Paul Erstein alone, he would naturally and undoubtedly have been suspected. But there were four of you, and Tuillier was temporarily saved by the silence of his friends. It would never occur to anyone that three men of your standing could be guilty of complicity in a crime! Yet you were guilty—and that was what I guessed from the start.”

Alfred Auvard started forward.

“You must be mad. Do you seriously suggest that we were Tuillier’s accomplices?”

“Oh, no. Obviously, you had no idea of what was going on in the Round Room after Tuillier joined Erstein there. But you did know that he had followed him in a peculiar frame of mind! And when he came back, you knew that something had happened.”

“We knew nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, yes, you did, and that Tuillier must have used force of some kind. There had not necessarily been a crime of violence, but there had certainly not been merely a friendly conversation. I repeat, it was quite evident that Maxime Tuillier must have used force to get back that money for you.”

“Preposterous!”

“Not at all. When a coward like your friend kills a man, his face is bound to betray him. It is impossible that you should have utterly failed to notice his expression of horror when he came back after committing the crime.”

Both Batinet and Dupin were trembling, but Auvard kept up his blustering attitude.

“I protest that we noticed nothing.”

“None so blind....” Barnett shrugged his shoulders and smiled unpleasantly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You didn’t want to see. Because you had got your money back. I know you are all rich men. But that game of baccarat had shaken you considerably. Like all occasional gamblers, you had the feeling that your money had been stolen from you, and when it was returned, you accepted it without troubling to inquire too closely into the methods by which your friend had recovered it. You clung desperately to silence. That night, as you drove back to Maromme together, in spite of the urgent need for you to agree upon a safer version of the evening’s episode, not one of you dared speak a word. I have that from your chauffeur. And the next day—and the days after that—when the crime had been discovered, you avoided meeting each other, for fear of finding your secret thoughts confirmed.”

“This is mere conjecture.” Auvard was indignant still, but his two friends were on the verge of collapse.

“Not conjecture, but certainty,” Barnett corrected him gently. “Certainty based on facts acquired by exhaustive inquiries among the people who know you. For you to accuse your friend was to expose your own criminal weakness in the beginning. It meant turning the searchlight of public opinion on yourselves and your families, and damaging your reputations for honorable dealing with your fellow-men. It meant a scandal. So you kept silent and cheated justice while you shielded your friend Maxime.”

Jim Barnett had been so vehement and telling in his accusation that for a moment Monsieur Auvard wavered. But, suddenly changing his tactics, the bewildering Barnett did not follow up his advantage. He merely laughed and said:

“Cheer up, Monsieur Auvard. I succeeded in undoing your friend Tuillier because he was a weakling and suffering the agonies of remorse. I did it by faking the cards in the game of baccarat we had here just now. The accuracy of the reconstruction unnerved him. But I had no more real proof against him than I have against you, and you are not the sort to give in without showing fight. All the more so as your complicity in the crime is so vague and negative, very much up in the air when it comes to hard facts. So you have nothing to fear. Only”—he came closer to his man, and thrust his face into the other’s—“only, I did not want your peace of mind to be too complete. By your silence and your astuteness, the three of you managed to cloak your actions from the light of the law, so that people lost sight of your own more or less voluntary complicity in the crime. We can’t have that, though. You must never cease to be conscious that to a certain extent you shared in the committal of the murder. Had you only prevented your friend from following Paul Erstein into the Round Room, as you should have done, Paul Erstein would not be dead to-day. And had you come forward at the outset and told what you knew, Maxime Tuillier would not have come within an ace of escaping his deserts.

“Now it is for you to clear yourselves as best you may, messieurs. Somehow, I don’t think the law will be too hard on you. Good-day.”

Jim Barnett took his hat, and, disregarding the manufacturers’ protest, spoke to the magistrates:

“Messieurs, I promised Madame Fougeraie that I would help her and I promised Paul Erstein’s father to unmask the murderer. My work is done.”

The magistrates were half-hearted in their valedictory handshake. Probably Barnett’s words had fallen none too pleasantly on their ears and they did not feel particularly inclined to follow his lead.

To Inspector Béchoux, who had followed him on to the landing, Barnett was just a wee bit more expansive:

“Those three chaps can’t be touched. They’re safe as houses. Blasted bourgeois bolstered up by bullion!” he almost blew bubbles in his wrath. “They’re pillars of society, all right, and all the case against them is the inferences to be drawn from my deductions. Too fine a thread for the law to noose them in, I’m afraid. Never mind, I’ve brought my case off well.”

“And honestly,” approved Béchoux, adding, sotto voce, the words “for once!”

Barnett’s eyebrows arched interrogatively.

“I must own,” Béchoux admitted, “that there were moments when I feared for those banknotes. You could have snaffled them so easily.”

“What do you take me for, Inspector Béchoux? A common thief?” Barnett’s tone was one of outraged innocence.

He left his friend and went out of the building and on to the Fougeraies’ flat next door. There he was effusively thanked. With great dignity he refused to take any reward for his services.

Afterwards he called on Paul Erstein’s father and there exhibited the same spirit of disinterested philanthropy.

“The services of the Barnett Agency are free,” he told his clients. “That is the secret both of its efficiency and of its integrity. We work for glory only.”

Jim Barnett settled his hotel bill and ordered them to send his bag to the station. Then, presuming that Béchoux would accompany him back to Paris, he walked along the quayside to the club building. On the first landing he halted abruptly. The inspector was hurtling down the stairs. The moment he saw Barnett he cried out angrily:

“Got you, curse you!”

He jumped the remaining stairs at a bound and thrust his fingers inside Barnett’s coat collar.

“What have you done with those notes?”

“Doh, ray, me, fah——” began Barnett.

“Banknotes!” the inspector screamed. “The notes you had when you were acting Tuillier’s part upstairs.”

“What’s all this? Do let go my collar. That’s better. Why, I gave those notes back. Surely you remember? A little while ago you were even congratulating me on my honesty!”

“I wouldn’t have if I’d known what I know now!” said Béchoux grimly.

“And what is this new knowledge that makes you change your tune?” chanted Barnett.

“The notes you gave back are forgeries—counterfeit—snide!” Béchoux was frothing at the mouth. “You’re a rotten swindler!” he shouted. “You needn’t think you’re going to get away with it, either. You’re going to return the genuine notes to me at once! You can’t bluff me!”

He choked, and Barnett’s raucous laugh rent the air.

“The thieving skunks!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, well. So they threw forged notes at their young friend. The sweeps! We get them to bring their wads along and they turn out to be stage money!”

“But don’t you understand?” Béchoux shrieked dancing with rage. “That money belongs to Paul Erstein’s heirs. He had won it before he was killed. The others must make restitution.”

Barnett’s merriment overflowed.

“Isn’t that too bad! So they’re to be fleeced twice over. Poetic justice being visited on the scoundrels!”

Béchoux’s teeth chattered with fury.

“You liar! You changed those notes yourself. And now you’ve collared the cash. Thief! Crook!”

As the magistrates were leaving the club they caught sight of Inspector Béchoux gesticulating speechlessly, frantically. And before him, arms folded, convulsed with laughter, there leant against the wall—“Jim Barnett!”

V

THE MAN WITH THE GOLD TEETH

Jim Barnett held back a corner of his office window-curtain and peered into the street, his face on a level with those of the passers-by. Suddenly he was seized with a paroxysm of uncontrollable mirth and sank weakly back into his armchair.

“Almost too beautiful,” he murmured ecstatically.

“To think the day should come when Béchoux——” He subsided into fresh guffaws.

“What’s the joke?” was Inspector Béchoux’s immediate demand on entering the office.

As Barnett did not at once reply, he fixed him with a stony glare.

“What—are—you—laughing at?”

“Why, at your coming here, of course! After our dust-up at the club in Rouen you actually feel you can seek me out again! What is our police force coming to?”

Béchoux looked so crestfallen that Barnett made a valiant effort to restrain his own unseemly laughter. But he could not control himself completely and his utterance continued to be punctuated by explosive chuckles.

“Awfully sorry, old chap, but it really is funny! You, the instrument of the law, presenting me with yet another pigeon for my plucking. Who is it this time? Dare I hope for a millionaire? Or am I in for the Minister of Finance? Don’t mind me. I’m not particular. Really, though, it’s frightfully decent of you, old chap! Pardon my familiarity. Cheer up, now, and try not to look like a decayed zebra. Spit it out!” (Barnett’s idiom was deplorably vulgar.) “What’s up? Someone in trouble again?”

Béchoux, struggling to regain his composure, nodded his head.

“Yes. It’s the very worthy curé of a parish in the suburbs.”

Regardless of grammar, “Who’s he killed?” asked Barnett with interest. “One of his flock?”

“Oh, no, not that!”

“You mean he’s been polished off by a parishioner? Then, really, I fail to see how I can assist him!”

“No, no. You’re getting it all wrong. I—he——”

“I really think,” said Barnett kindly, “you’d do better not to attempt to talk at all. You can’t apparently achieve coherence, and I hate people who splutter in my face.” He made great play with a virulent bandana. “Without further ado, lead me to your worthy suburban curé. I am ever ready to hit the trail with Béchoux for my guide.”

The little village—it is no more—of Vaneuil straggles down a hollow and then up the three green hillsides which frame its old Romance church. Behind the church lies a tranquil country graveyard, which is bordered on the right by the hedge of a large estate surrounding a big farmhouse, and on the left by the wall of the rectory.

Béchoux, accompanied by Barnett, entered the latter building, walked straight into the dining-room and there presented his friend to the Abbé Dessole. He introduced Barnett as the one detective whose bright lexicon knew not the word “impossible.”

The abbé certainly appeared to be a worthy—and probably a simple—man. He was middle-aged, plump, pink, and unctuous. His anxiety was written large on a face that must usually have worn an expression of unruffled placidity. Barnett observed his rather puffy hands, the rolls of fat at wrist and neck, the fat paunch distending the cheap, shiny cassock.

“Père Dessole,” said Barnett, “I know nothing about whatever it is that troubles you. My friend, Inspector Béchoux, has so far merely told me that he first made your acquaintance a long while ago. Could you now give me a brief résumé of the facts of the case, avoiding all irrelevant detail?”

The Abbé Dessole must have prepared his story, for immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, his deep bass voice boomed from the depths of his double-chin and he began:

“First, monsieur, I must tell you that the humble priests officiating in this parish act at the same time as custodians of a church treasure—the bequest in the eighteenth century of the lords of the Château Vaneuil.

“This treasure included two gold monstrances, two crucifixes, some candelabra, and a tabernacle, making in all—or, rather, as I must unfortunately say, which made in all nine valuable pieces which people even came here from a distance to see. Personally”—the Abbé Dessole mopped his brow and resumed: “Personally I must say that I always felt the custody of this treasure to be a perilous trust, and in fear and trembling I exercised every possible care in the discharge of my duty. From this window you can see the apse of the church, and the vestry where the treasure was kept. The walls of the vestry are exceptionally thick, and it has just the one great oak door opening into the chancel. I am the only person with a key to it, and that key is enormous. In addition to that, I am the possessor of the only existing key to the chest in which the treasure was locked. No one but myself ever acted as cicerone to the visitors who came to see the treasure.”

He waggled a fat forefinger at Barnett and his tone took on added weight.

“My bedroom window, monsieur, is less than fifteen yards away from the barred dormer window which lights the vestry from above. Unknown to a soul, I used, every night, to stretch a rope from my room to the vestry so that any attempt at burglary would ring a bell at my bedside. As an additional precaution, I always took the most precious piece in the collection—a gem-studded reliquary—to my own room. Well, last night——”

The Abbé Dessole again mopped his brow. The sweat poured off him as he continued the unfolding of the tragedy.

“Last night, towards one o’clock, I sprang out of bed, staggering in the dark and only half-awake. I had been roused, not by the ringing of my bell, but by a noise which might have been caused by something being dropped on the floor. I called out:

“‘Who’s there?’

“There was no reply, but I could feel the presence of someone standing quite close to me, and I was sure the intruder had climbed in at the window, for I felt the night air blowing in. I groped for my flashlight, found it, and switched it on. Then, just for a second, I had a glimpse of a distorted face showing white between a grey slouch hat and a brown, turned-up collar. And in the man’s mouth, which was moving silently, I could distinctly see two gold teeth, on the left side of the jaw.”

A flicker of interest crossed Barnett’s face.

“The man at once struck my arm a sharp blow so that I dropped the flashlight.... I rushed forward, but—he wasn’t there! It was just as if I myself had spun round before moving, for I bumped into the mantelpiece over my fireplace, which is exactly opposite the window. By the time I had managed to find matches and strike a light there was no one in the room. A ladder had been left propped against the ledge of the balcony—one of my own ladders taken out of the shed. I got into some clothes and ran to the vestry. The treasure was gone!”

For the third time the abbé wiped his streaming countenance. He was pitifully moved.

“Of course,” said Barnett, “you found the dormer window broken and your bell-rope cut through? Which proves, doesn’t it, that the thief was someone familiar with this place and with your habits? And after your discovery you were on his track at once?”

“I even yelled ‘Thief!’ which was a mistake on my part, as it was the sort of thing to rouse the neighborhood and create a sensation. And heaven knows,” he said gloomily, “this affair is bound to make a stir for which I shall be blamed by my superiors. Luckily, the only person who heard my shouting was my neighbor, Baron de Gravières. He has lived next door to me for twenty years now, engaged in the personal management of his estate. He absolutely agreed with me that, before notifying the police and lodging a formal complaint, it was advisable to try to recover the stolen property. As he has a car, I asked him to motor to Paris and bring back Inspector Béchoux.”

“And I was on the spot by eight in the morning,” said Béchoux, swelling with pride. “By eleven I had my case.”

“What’s that?” ejaculated Barnett in surprise. “You’ve caught the thief?”

Béchoux pointed pompously to the ceiling, rather in the manner of one indicating the path to paradise.

“He’s up there, locked in the attic, and Baron de Gravières is mounting guard.”

“Fine! A masterpiece of detection! Tell me all, Béchoux, but in tabloid form, since life is brief.”

“A bare statement of facts will suffice,” said the inspector, whose speech could achieve almost telegraphic condensation in the moment of victory: “(a) I found numerous footprints on the damp ground between the church and the vicarage; (b) An examination of said footprints proved that there was only one burglar, who first carried his haul from the vestry some distance away, since he returned to the attack by the vicarage steps; (c) The burglar, having waked Père Dessole, hurriedly retraced his steps, collected his loot and fled along the highroad. His tracks vanished near the Hippolyte Inn.”

“Immediately,” interrupted Barnett, “you cross-examined the innkeeper....”

“And the innkeeper,” continued Béchoux, “on my inquiring for a man with a grey hat, a brown overcoat, and two gold teeth, told me at once that the description exactly fitted a certain Monsieur Vernisson. This man, he said, was a traveller in pins, known in Vaneuil as Monsieur Quatre-Mars, because he was in the habit of coming each year on the Fourth of March. The innkeeper told me that he had got in the day before at midday, had stabled his gig, eaten his lunch, and then gone off to call on his customers. I asked when he had got back, and the innkeeper told me about two in the morning, as usual. After that, I ascertained that the man in question had only been gone forty minutes and was driving in the direction of Chantilly.”

“Whereupon,” said Barnett, “you followed in his train?”

“The baron drove me in his car. We soon caught up with friend Vernisson and, though he protested, we forced him to put his gig about and come along with us.”

“Ah, then he maintains his innocence?”

“Scarcely that. But all we can get out of him is ‘Don’t tell my wife!... My wife must never learn of this!’”

“What about the treasure?”

The abbé sighed dolorously and Béchoux’s triumph grew less pronounced.

“It wasn’t in the gig.”

“But you nevertheless find the evidence quite conclusive?”

“Oh, absolutely. Vernisson’s shoes correspond exactly to the footprints in the graveyard. Besides, the curé can swear to having encountered the man there late that afternoon. There can be no doubt at all.”

“Well then,” said Barnett a trifle impatiently, “what’s bothering you? Why call me in?”