After leaving Notre-Dame, Paul Coquenil directed his steps toward the prefecture of police, but halfway across the square he glanced back at the church clock that shows its white face above the grinning gargoyles, and, pausing, he stood a moment in deep thought.
"A quarter to seven," he reflected; then, turning to the right, he walked quickly to a little wine shop with flowers in the windows, the Tavern of the Three Wise Men, an interesting fragment of old-time Paris that offers its cheery but battered hospitality under the very shadow of the great cathedral.
"Ah, I thought so!" he muttered, as he recognized Papa Tignol at one of the tables on the terrace. And approaching the old man, he said in a low tone: "I want you."
Tignol looked up quickly from his glass, and his face lighted. "Eh, M. Paul again!"
"I must see M. Pougeot," continued the detective. "It's important. Go to his office. If he isn't there, go to his house. Anyhow, find him and tell him to come to me at once. Hurry on; I'll pay for this."
"Shall I take an auto?"
"Take anything, only hurry."
"And you want me at nine o'clock?"
Coquenil shook his head. "Not until to-morrow."
"But the news you were going to tell me?"
"There'll be bigger news soon. Oh, run across to the church and tell Bonneton that he needn't come either."
"I knew it, I knew it," chuckled Papa Tignol, as he trotted off. "There's something doing!"
With this much arranged, Coquenil, after paying for his friend's absinthe, strolled over to a cab stand near the statue of Henri IV and selected a horse that could not possibly make more than four miles an hour. Behind this deliberate animal he seated himself, and giving the driver his address, he charged him gravely not to go too fast, and settled back against the cushions to comfortable meditations. "There is no better way to think out a tough problem," he used to insist, "than to take a very long drive in a very slow cab."
It may have been that this horse was not slow enough, for forty minutes later Coquenil's frown was still unrelaxed when they drew up at the Villa Montmorency, really a collection of villas, some dozens of them, in a private park near the Bois de Boulogne, each villa a garden within a garden, and the whole surrounded by a great stone wall that shuts out noises and intrusions. They entered by a massive iron gateway on the Rue Poussin and moved slowly up the ascending Avenue des Tilleuls, past lawns and trees and vine-covered walls, leaving behind the rush and glare of the city and entering a peaceful region of flowers and verdure where Coquenil lived.
The detective occupied a wing of the original Montmorency chateau, a habitation of ten spacious rooms, more than enough for himself and his mother and the faithful old servant, Melanie, who took care of them, especially during these summer months, when Madame Coquenil was away at a country place in the Vosges Mountains that her son had bought for her. Paul Coquenil had never married, and his friends declared that, besides his work, he loved only two things in the world—his mother and his dog.
It was a quarter to eight when M. Paul sat down in his spacious dining room to a meal that was waiting when he arrived and that Melanie served with solicitous care, remarking sadly that her master scarcely touched anything, his eyes roving here and there among painted mountain scenes that covered the four walls above the brown-and-gold wainscoting, or out into the garden through the long, open windows; he was searching, searching for something, she knew the signs, and with a sigh she took away her most tempting dishes untasted.
At eight o'clock the detective rose from the table and withdrew into his study, a large room opening off the dining room and furnished like no other study in the world. Around the walls were low bookcases with wide tops on which were spread, under glass, what Coquenil called his criminal museum. This included souvenirs of cases on which he had been engaged, wonderful sets of burglars' tools, weapons used by murderers—saws, picks, jointed jimmies of tempered steel, that could be taken apart and folded up in the space of a thick cigar and hidden about the person. Also a remarkable collection of handcuffs from many countries and periods in history. Also a collection of letters of criminals, some in cipher, with confessions of prisoners and last words of suicides. Also plaster casts of hands of famous criminals. And photographs of criminals, men and women, with faces often distorted to avoid recognition. And various grewsome objects, a card case of human skin, and the twisted scarf used by a strangler.
As for the shelves underneath, they contained an unequaled special library of subjects interesting to a detective, both science and fiction being freely drawn upon in French, English, and German, for, while Coquenil was a man of action in a big way, he was also a student and a reader of books, and he delighted in long, lonely evenings, when, as now, he sat in his comfortable study thinking, thinking.
Melanie entered presently with coffee and cigarettes, which she placed on a table near the green-shaded lamp, within easy reach of the great red-leather chair where M. Paul was seated. Then she stole out noiselessly. It was five minutes past eight, and for an hour Coquenil thought and smoked and drank coffee. Occasionally he frowned and moved impatiently, and several times he took off his glasses and stroked his brows over the eyes.
Finally he gave a long sigh of relief, and shutting his hands and throwing out his arms with a satisfied gesture, he rose and walked to the fireplace, over which hung a large portrait of his mother and several photographs, one of these taken in the exact attitude and costume of the painting of Whistler's mother in the Luxembourg gallery. M. Paul was proud of the striking resemblance between the two women. For some moments he stood before the fine, kindly face, and then he said aloud, as if speaking to her: "It looks like a hard fight, little mother, but I'm not afraid." And almost as he spoke, which seemed like a good omen, there came a clang at the iron gate in the garden and the sound of quick, crunching steps on the gravel walk. M. Pougeot had arrived.
M. Lucien Pougeot was one of the eighty police commissaries who, each in his own quarter, oversee the moral washing of Paris's dirty linen. A commissary of police is first of all a magistrate, but, unless he is a fool, he soon becomes a profound student of human nature, for he sees all sides of life in the great gay capital, especially the darker sides. He knows the sins of his fellow men and women, their follies and hypocrisies, he receives incredible confessions, he is constantly summoned to the scenes of revolting crime. Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises him, and he has no illusions, yet he usually manages to keep a store of grim pity for erring humanity. M. Pougeot was one of the most distinguished and intelligent members of this interesting body. He was a devoted friend of Paul Coquenil.
The newcomer was a middle-aged man of strong build and florid face, with a brush of thick black hair. His quick-glancing eyes were at once cold and kind, but the kindness had something terrifying in it, like the politeness of an executioner. As the two men stood together they presented absolutely opposite types: Coquenil, taller, younger, deep-eyed, spare of build, with a certain serious reserve very different from the commissary's outspoken directness. M. Pougeot prided himself on reading men's thoughts, but he used to say that he could not even imagine what Coquenil was thinking or fathom the depths of a nature that blended the eagerness of a child with the austerity of a prophet.
"Well," remarked the commissary when they were settled in their chairs, "I suppose it's the Rio Janeiro thing? Some parting instructions, eh?" And he turned to light a cigar.
Coquenil shook his head.
"When do you sail?"
"I'm not sailing."
"Wha-at?"
For once in his life M. Pougeot was surprised. He knew all about this foreign offer, with its extraordinary money advantages; he had rejoiced in his friend's good fortune after two unhappy years, and now—now Coquenil informed him calmly that he was not sailing.
"I have just made a decision, the most important decision of my life," continued the detective, "and I want you to know about it. You are the only person in the world who will know—everything. So listen! This afternoon I went into Notre-Dame church and I saw a young girl there who sells candles. I didn't know her, but she looked up in a queer way, as if she wanted to speak to me, so I went to her and—well, she told me of a dream she had last night."
"A dream?" snorted the commissary.
"So she said. She may have been lying or she may have been put up to it; I know nothing about her, not even her name, but that's of no consequence; the point is that in this dream, as she called it, she brought together the two most important events in my life."
"Hm! What was the dream?"
"She says she saw me twice, once in a forest near a wooden bridge where a man with a beard was talking to a woman and a little girl. Then she saw me on a boat going to a place where there were black people."
"That was Brazil?"
"I suppose so. And there was a burning sun with a wicked face inside that kept looking down at me. She says she often dreams of this wicked face, she sees it first in a distant star that comes nearer and nearer, until it gets to be large and red and angry. As the face comes closer her fear grows, until she wakes with a start of terror; she says she would die of fright if the face ever reached her before she awoke. That's about all."
For some moments the commissary did not speak. "Did she try to interpret this dream?"
"No."
"Why did she tell you about it?"
"She acted on a sudden impulse, so she says. I'm inclined to believe her; but never mind that. Pougeot," he rose in agitation and stood leaning over his friend, "in that forest scene she brought up something that isn't known, something I've never even told you, my best friend."
"Tiens! What is that?"
"You think I resigned from the police force two years ago, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Everyone thinks so. Well, it isn't true. I didn't resign; I was discharged."
M. Pougeot stared in bewilderment, as if words failed him, and finally he repeated weakly: "Discharged! Paul Coquenil discharged!"
"Yes, sir, discharged from the Paris detective force for refusing to arrest a murderer—that's how the accusation read."
"But it wasn't true?"
"Judge for yourself. It was the case of a poacher who killed a guard. I don't suppose you remember it?"
M. Pougeot thought a moment—he prided himself on remembering everything. "Down near Saumur, wasn't it?"
"Exactly. And it was near Saumur I found him after searching all over France. We were clean off the track, and I made up my mind the only way to get him was through his wife and child. They lived in a little house in the woods not far from the place of the shooting. I went there as a peddler in hard luck, and I played my part so well that the woman consented to take me in as a boarder."
"Wonderful man!" exclaimed the commissary.
"For weeks it was a waiting game. I would go away on a peddling tour and then come back as boarder. Nothing developed, but I could not get rid of the feeling that my man was somewhere near in the woods."
"One of your intuitions. Well?"
"Well, at last the woman became convinced that they had nothing to fear from me, and she did things more openly. One day I saw her put some food in a basket and give it to the little girl. And the little girl went off with the basket into the forest. Then I knew I was right, and the next day I followed the little girl, and, sure enough, she led me to a rough cave where her father was hiding. I hung about there for an hour or two, and finally the man came out from the cave and I saw him talk to his wife and child near a bridge over a mountain torrent."
"The picture that girl saw in the dream!"
"Yes; I'll never forget it. I had my pistol ready and he was defenseless; and once I was just springing forward to take the fellow when he bent over and kissed his little girl. I don't know how you look at these things, Pougeot, but I couldn't break in there and take that man away from his wife and child. The woman had been kind to me and trusted me, and—well, it was a breach of duty and they punished me for it; but I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it, and I didn't do it."
"And you let the fellow go?"
"I let him go then, but I got him a week later in a fair fight, man to man. They gave him ten years."
"And discharged you from the force?"
"Yes. That is, in view of my past services, they allowed me to resign." Coquenil spoke bitterly.
"Outrageous! Unbelievable!" muttered Pougeot. "No doubt you were technically in the wrong, but it was a slight offense, and, after all, you got your man. A reprimand at the most, at the most, was called for, and not with you, not with Paul Coquenil."
The commissary spoke with deeper feeling than he had shown in years, and then, as if not satisfied with this, he clasped the detective's hand and added heartily: "I'm proud of you, old friend, I honor you."
Coquenil looked at Pougeot with an odd little smile. "You take it just as I thought you would, just as I took it myself—until to-day. It seems like a stupid blunder, doesn't it? Well, it wasn't a blunder; it was a necessary move in the game." His face lighted with intense eagerness as he waited for the effect of these words.
"The game? What game?" The commissary stared.
"A game involving a great crime."
"You are sure of that?"
"Perfectly sure."
"You have the facts of this crime?"
"No. It hasn't been committed yet."
"Not committed yet?" repeated the other, with a startled glance. "But you know the plan? You have evidence?"
"I have what is perfectly clear evidence to me, so clear that I wonder I never saw it before. Lucien, suppose you were a great criminal, I don't mean the ordinary clever scoundrel who succeeds for a time and is finally caught, but a really great criminal, the kind that appears once or twice, in a century, a man with immense power and intelligence."
"Like Vautrin in Napoleon's day?"
"Vautrin was a brilliant adventurer; he made millions with his swindling schemes, but he had no stability, no big purpose, and he finally came to grief. There have been greater criminals than Vautrin, men whose crimes have brought them everything—fortune, social position, political supremacy—and who have never been found out."
"Do you really think so?"
Coquenil nodded. "There have been a few like that with master minds, a very few; I have documents to prove it"—he pointed to his bookcases; "but we haven't time for that. Come back to my question: Suppose you were such a criminal, and suppose there was one person in this city who was thwarting your purposes, perhaps jeopardizing your safety. What would you naturally do?"
"I'd try to get rid of him."
"Exactly." Coquenil paused, and then, leaning closer to his friend, he said with extraordinary earnestness: "Lucien, for over two years some one has been trying to get rid of me!"
"The devil!" started Pougeot. "How long have you known this?"
"Only to-day," frowned the detective. "I ought to have known it long ago."
"Hm! Aren't you building a good deal on that dream?"
"The dream? Heavens, man," snapped Coquenil, "I'm building nothing on the dream and nothing on the girl. She simply brought together two facts that belong together. Why she did it doesn't matter; she did it, and my reason did the rest. There is a connection between this Rio Janeiro offer and my discharge from the force. I know it. I'll show you other links in the chain. Three times in the past two years I have received offers of business positions away from Paris, tempting offers. Notice that—business positions away from Paris! Some one has extraordinary reasons for wanting me out of this city and out of detective work."
"And you think this 'some one' was responsible for your discharge from the force?"
"I tell you I know it. M. Giroux, the chief at that time, was distressed at the order, he told me so himself; he said it came from higher up."
The commissary raised incredulous eyebrows. "You mean that Paris has a criminal able to overrule the wishes of a chief of police?"
"Is that harder than to influence the Brazilian Government? Do you think Rio Janeiro offered me a hundred thousand francs a year just for my beautiful eyes?"
"You're a great detective."
"A great detective repudiated by his own city. That's another point: why should the police department discharge me two years ago and recommend me now to a foreign city? Don't you see the same hand behind it all?"
M. Pougeot stroked his gray mustache in puzzled meditation. "It's queer," he muttered; "but——"
In spite of himself the commissary was impressed.
After all, he had seen strange things in his life, and, better than anyone, he had reason to respect the insight of this marvelous mind.
"Then the gist of it is," he resumed uneasily, "you think some great crime is preparing?"
"Don't you?" asked Coquenil abruptly.
"Why—er—" hesitated the Other.
"Look at the facts again. Some one wants me off the detective force, out of France. Why? There can be only one reason—because I have been successful in unraveling intricate crimes, more successful than other men on the force. Is that saying too much?"
The commissary replied impatiently: "It's conceded that you are the most skillful detective in France; but you're off the force already. So why should this person send you to Brazil?"
M. Paul thought a moment. "I've considered that. It is because this crime will be of so startling and unusual a character that it must attract my attention if I am here. And if it attracts my attention as a great criminal problem, it is certain that I will try to solve it, whether on the force or off it."
"Well answered!" approved the other; he was coming gradually under the spell of Coquenil's conviction. "And when—when do you think this crime may be committed?"
"Who can say? There must be great urgency to account for their insisting that I sail to-morrow. Ah, you didn't know that? Yes, even now, at this very moment, I am supposed to be on the steamer train, for the boat goes out early in the morning before the Paris papers can reach Cherbourg."
M. Pougeot started up, his eyes widening. "What!" he cried. "You mean that—that possibly—to-night?"
As he spoke a sudden flash of light came in through the garden window, followed by a resounding peal of thunder. The brilliant sunset had been followed by a violent storm.
Coquenil paid no heed to this, but answered quietly: "I mean that a great fight is ahead, and I shall be in it. Somebody is playing for enormous stakes, somebody who disposes of fortune and power and will stop at nothing, somebody who will certainly crush me unless I crush him. It will be a great case, Lucien, my greatest case, perhaps my last case." He stopped and looked intently at his mother's picture, while his lips moved inaudibly.
"Ugh!" exclaimed the commissary. "You've cast a spell over me. Come, come, Paul, it may be only a fancy!"
But Coquenil sat still, his eyes fixed on his mother's face. And then came one of the strange coincidences of this extraordinary case. On the silence of this room, with its tension of overwrought emotion, broke the sharp summons of the telephone.
"My God!" shivered the commissary. "What is that?" Both men sat motionless, their eyes fixed on the ominous instrument.
Again came the call, this time more strident and commanding. M. Pougeot aroused himself with an effort. "We're acting like children," he muttered. "It's nothing. I told them at the office to ring me up about nine." And he put the receiver to his ear. "Yes, this is M. Pougeot.... What?... The Ansonia?... You say he's shot?... In a private dining room?... Dead?... Quel malheur!"... Then he gave quick orders: "Send Papa Tignol over with a doctor and three or four agents. Close the restaurant. Don't let anyone go in or out. Don't let anyone leave the banquet room. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Good-by."
He put the receiver down, and turning, white-faced, said to his friend: "It has happened."
Coquenil glanced at his watch. "A quarter past nine. We must hurry." Then, flinging open a drawer in his desk: "I want this and—this. Come, the automobile is waiting."
When Kittredge, with cloak and bag, stepped into his waiting cab and, for the second time on this villainous night, started down the Champs Elysées he was under no illusion as to his personal safety. He knew that he would be followed and presently arrested, he knew this without even glancing behind him, he had understood the whispers and searching looks in the hotel; it was certain that his moments of liberty were numbered, so he must make a clean job of this thing that had to be done while still there was time. He had told the driver to cross the bridge and go down the Boulevard St. Germain, but now he changed the order and, half opening the door, he bade the man turn to the right and drive on to the Rue de Vaugirard. He knew that this was a long, ill-lighted street, one of the longest streets in Paris.
"There's no number," he called out. "Just keep going."
The driver grumbled and cracked his whip, and a moment later, peering back through the front window, he saw his eccentric fare absorbed in examining a white leather bag. He could see him distinctly by the yellow light of his two side lanterns. The young man had opened one of the inner pockets of the bag, drawing out a flap of leather under which a name was stamped quite visibly in gilt letters. Presently he took out a pocket knife and tried to scrape off the name, but the letters were deeply marked and could not be removed so easily. After a moment's hesitation the young man carefully drew his blade across the base of the flap, severing it from the bag, which he then threw back on the seat, holding the flap in apparent perplexity.
All this the driver observed with increasing interest until presently Kittredge looked up and caught his eye.
"You've got a nerve," the young man muttered. "I'll fix you." And, drawing the two black curtains, he shut off the driver's view.
As they neared the end of the Rue de Vaugirard, the American opened the door again and told the man to turn and drive back, he wanted to have a look at Notre-Dame, three full miles away. The driver swore softly, but obeyed, and back they went, passing another cab just behind them which also turned immediately and followed, as Kittredge noticed with a gloomy smile.
On the way to Notre-Dame, Kittredge changed their direction half a dozen times, acting on accountable impulses, going by zigzags through narrow, dark streets, instead of by the straight and natural way, so that it was after midnight when they entered the Rue du Cloitre Notre-Dame, which runs just beside the cathedral, and drew up at a house indicated by the American. The other cab drew up behind them.
"Tell your friend back there," remarked Kittredge to his driver as he got out, "that I have important business here. There'll be plenty of time for him to get a drink." Then, with a nervous tug at the bell, he disappeared in the house, leaving the cloak and bag in the cab.
And now two important things happened, one of them unexpected. The expected thing was that M. Gibelin came forward immediately from the second cab followed by Papa Tignol and a policeman. The shadowing detective was in a vile humor which was not improved when he got the message left by the flippant American.
"Time for a drink! Infernal impudence! We'll teach him manners at the depot! This farce is over," he flung out. "See where he went, ask the concierge," he said to Tignol. And to the policeman: "Watch the courtyard. If he isn't down in ten minutes we'll go up."
Then, as his men obeyed, Gibelin turned to Kittredge's driver. "Here's your fare. You can go. I'm from headquarters. I have a warrant for this man's arrest." And he showed his credentials. "I'll take the things he has left."
"Don't I get a pourboire?" grumbled the driver.
"No, sir. You're lucky to get anything."
"Am I?" retorted the Jehu, gathering up his reins (and now came the unexpected happening): "Well, I'll tell you one thing, my friend, this is the night they made a fool of M. Gibelin!"
The detective started. "You know my name? What do you mean?"
The cab was already moving, but the driver turned on his seat and, waving his hand in derision, he called back: "Ask Beau Cocono!" And then to his horse: "Hue, cocotte!"
Meantime Kittredge had climbed the four flights of stairs leading to the sacristan's modest apartment. And, in order to explain how he happened to be making so untimely a visit it is necessary to go back several hours to a previous visit here that the young American had already made on this momentous evening.
After leaving the Ansonia banquet at about nine o'clock in the singular manner noted by the big doorkeeper, Kittredge, in accordance with his promise to Alice, had driven directly to the Rue du Cloitre Notre-Dame, and at twenty minutes past nine by the clock in the Tavern of the Three Wise Men he had drawn up at the house where the Bonnetons lived. Five minutes later the young man was seated in the sacristan's little salon assuring Alice that he didn't mind the rain, that the banquet was a bore, anyhow, and that he hoped she was now going to prove herself a sensible and reasonable little girl.
Alice welcomed her lover eagerly. She had been anxious about him, she did not know why, and when the storm came she had been more anxious. But now she was reassured and—and happy. Her mantling color, her heaving bosom, and the fond, wistful lights in her dark eyes told how very happy she was. And how proud! After all he trusted her, it must be so! he had left his friends, left this fine banquet and, in spite of the pain she had given him, in spite of the bad night, he had come to her here in her humble home.
And it would have straightway been the love scene all over again, for Alice had never seemed so adorable, but for the sudden and ominous entrance of Mother Bonneton. She eyed the visitor with frank unfriendliness and, without mincing her words, proceeded to tell him certain things, notably that his attentions to Alice must cease and that his visits here would henceforth be unwelcome.
In vain the poor girl protested against this breach of hospitality. Mother Bonneton held her ground grimly, declaring that she had a duty to perform and would perform it.
"What duty?" asked the American.
"A duty to M. Groener."
At this name Alice started apprehensively. Kittredge knew that she had a cousin named Groener, a wood carver who lived in Belgium, and who came to Paris occasionally to see her and to get orders for his work. On one occasion he had met this cousin and had judged him a well-meaning but rather stupid fellow who need not be seriously considered in his efforts to win Alice.
"Do you mean that M. Groener does not approve of me?" pursued Kittredge.
"M. Groener knows nothing about you," answered Mother Bonneton, "except that you have been hanging around this foolish girl. But he understands his responsibility as the only relation she has in the world and he knows she will respect his wishes as the one who has paid her board, more or less, for five years."
"Well?"
"Well, the last time M. Groener was here, that's about a month ago, he asked me and my husband to make inquiries about you, and see what we could find out."
"It's abominable!" exclaimed Alice.
"Abominable? Why is it abominable? Your cousin wants to know if this young man is a proper person for you to have as a friend."
"I can decide that for myself," flashed the girl.
"Oh, can you? Ha, ha! How wise we are!"
"And—er—you have made inquiries about me?" resumed Kittredge with a strangely anxious look.
Mother Bonneton half closed her eyes and threw out her thick lips in an ugly leer. "I should say we have! And found out things—well, just a few!"
"What things?"
"We have found out, my pretty sir, that you lived for months last year by gambling. I suppose you will deny it?"
"No," answered Kittredge in a low tone, "it's true."
"Ah! We found out also that the money you made by gambling you spent with a brazen creature who——"
"Stop!" interrupted the American, and turning to the girl he said: "Alice, I didn't mean to go into these details, I didn't see the need of it, but——"
"I don't want to know the details," she interrupted. "I know you, Lloyd, that is enough."
She looked him in the eyes trustingly and he blinked a little.
"Plucky!" he murmured. "They're trying to queer me and maybe they will, but I'm not going to lie about it. Listen. I came to Paris a year ago on account of a certain person. I thought I loved her and—I made a fool of myself. I gave up a good position in New York and—after I had been here a while I went broke. So I gambled. It's pretty bad—I don't defend myself, only there's one thing I want you to know. This person was not a low woman, she was a lady."
"Huh!" grunted Mother Bonneton. "A lady! The kind of a lady who dines alone with gay young gentlemen in private rooms! Aha, we have the facts!"
The young man's eyes kindled. "No matter where she dined, I say she was a lady, and the proof of it is I—I wanted her to get a divorce and—and marry me."
"Oh!" winced Alice.
"You see what he is," triumphed the sacristan's wife, "running after a married woman."
But Kittredge went on doggedly: "You've got to hear the rest now. One day something happened that—that made me realize what an idiot I had been. When I say this person was a lady I'm not denying that she raised the devil with me. She did that good and plenty, so at last I decided to break away and I did. It wasn't exactly a path of roses for me those weeks, but I stuck to it, because—because I had some one to help me," he paused and looked tenderly at Alice, "and—well, I cut the whole thing out, gambling and all. That was six months ago."
"And the lady?" sneered Mother Bonneton. "Do you mean to tell us you haven't had anything to do with her for six months?"
"I haven't even seen her," he declared, "for more than six months."
"A likely story! Besides, what we know is enough. I shall write M. Groener to-night and tell him the facts. Meantime—" She rose and pointed to the door.
Alice and Kittredge rose also, the one indignant and aggrieved at this wanton affront to her lover, the other gloomily resigned to what seemed to be his fate.
"Well," said he, facing Alice with a discouraged gesture, "things are against us. I'm grateful to you for believing in me and I—I'd like to know why you turned me down this afternoon. But I probably never shall. I—I'll be going now."
He was actually moving toward the door, and she, almost fainting with emotion, was rallying her strength for a last appeal when the bell in the hall tinkled sharply. Mother Bonneton answered the call and returned a moment later followed by the doorkeeper from below, a cheery little woman who bustled in carrying a note.
"It's for the gentleman," she explained, "from a lady waiting in a carriage. It's very important." With this she delivered a note to Kittredge and added in an exultant whisper to the sacristan's wife that the lady had given her a franc for her trouble.
"A lady waiting in a carriage!" chuckled Mother Bonneton. "What kind of a lady?"
"Oh, very swell," replied the doorkeeper mysteriously "Grande toilette, bare shoulders, and no hat. I should think she'd take cold."
"Poor thing!" jeered the other. And then to Kittredge: "I suppose this is another one you haven't seen for six months."
Kittredge stood as if in a daze staring at the note. He read it, then read it again, then he crumpled it in his hand, muttering: "O God!" And his face was white.
"Good-by!" he said to Alice in extreme agitation. "I don't know what you think of this, I can't stop to explain, I—I must go at once!" And taking up his hat and cane he started away.
"But you'll come back?" cried the girl.
"No, no! This is the end!"
She went to him swiftly and laid a hand on his arm. "Lloyd, you must come back. You must come back to-night. It's the last thing I'll ever ask you. You need never see me again but—you must come back to-night."
She stood transformed as she spoke, not pleading but commanding and beautiful beyond words.
"It may be very late," he stammered.
"I'll wait until you come," she said simply, "no matter what time. I'll wait. But you'll surely come, Lloyd?"
He hesitated a moment and then, before the power of her eyes: "I'll surely come," he promised, and a moment later he was gone.
Then the hours passed, anxious, ominous hours! Ten, eleven, twelve! And still Alice waited for her lover, silencing Mother Bonneton's grumblings with a look that this hard old woman had once or twice seen in the girl's face and had learned to respect. At half past twelve a carriage sounded in the quiet street, then a quick step on the stairs. Kittredge had kept his word.
The door was opened by Mother Bonneton, very sleepy and arrayed in a wrapper of purple and gold pieced together from discarded altar coverings. She eyed the young man sternly but said nothing, for Alice was at her back holding the lamp and there was something in the American's face, something half reckless, half appealing, that startled her. She felt the cold breath of a sinister happening and regretted Bonneton's absence at the church.
"Well, I'm here," said Kittredge with a queer little smile. "I couldn't come any sooner and—I can't stay."
The girl questioned him with frightened eyes. "Isn't it over yet?"
He looked at her sharply. "I don't know what you mean by 'it,' but, as a matter of fact, it hasn't begun yet. If you have any questions you'd better ask 'em."
Alice turned and said quietly: "Was the woman who came in the carriage the one you told us about?"
"Yes."
"Have you been with her ever since?"
"No. I was with her only about ten minutes."
"Is she in trouble?"
"Yes."
"And you?"
Kittredge nodded slowly. "Oh, I'm in trouble, all right."
"Can I help you?"
He shook his head. "The only way you can help is by believing in me. I haven't lied to you. I hadn't seen that woman for over six months. I didn't know she was coming here. I don't love her, I love you, but I did love her, and what I have done to-night I—I had to do." He spoke with growing agitation which he tried vainly to control.
Alice looked at him steadily for a moment and then in a low voice she spoke the words that were pressing on her heart: "What have you done?"
"There's no use going into that," he answered unsteadily. "I can only ask you to trust me."
"I trust you, Lloyd," she said.
While they were talking Mother Bonneton had gone to the window attracted by sounds from below, and as she peered down her face showed surprise and then intense excitement.
"Kind saints!" she muttered. "The courtyard is full of policemen." Then with sudden understanding she exclaimed: "Perhaps we will know now what he has been doing." As she spoke a heavy tread was heard on the stairs and the murmur of voices.
"It's nothing," said Alice weakly.
"Nothing?" mocked the old woman. "Hear that!"
An impatient hand sounded at the door while a harsh voice called out those terrifying words: "Open in the name of the law."
With a mingling of alarm and satisfaction Mother Bonneton obeyed the summons, and a moment later, as she unlatched the door, a fat man with a bristling red mustache and keen eyes pushed forward into the room where the lovers were waiting. Two burly policemen followed him.
"Ah!" exclaimed Gibelin with a gesture of relief as his eye fell on Kittredge. Then producing a paper he said: "I am from headquarters. I am looking for"—he studied the writing in perplexity—"for M. Lo-eed Keetredge. What is your name?"
"That's it," replied the American, "you made a good stab at it."
"You are M. Lo-eed Keetredge?"
"Yes, sir."
"You must come with me. I have a warrant for your arrest." And he showed the paper.
But Alice staggered forward. "Why do you arrest him? What has he done?"
The man from headquarters answered, shrugging his shoulders: "I don't know what he's done, he's charged with murder."
"Murder!" echoed the sacristan's wife. "Holy angels! A murderer in my house!"
"Take him," ordered the detective, and the two policemen laid hold of Kittredge on either side.
"Alice!" cried the young man, and his eyes yearned toward her. "Alice, I am innocent."
"Come," said the men gruffly, and Kittredge felt a sickening sense of shame as he realized that he was a prisoner.
"Wait! One moment!" protested the girl, and the men paused. Then, going close to her lover, Alice spoke to him in low, thrilling words that came straight from her soul:
"Lloyd, I believe you, I trust you, I love you. No matter what you have done, I love you. It was because my love is so great that I refused you this afternoon. But you need me now, you're in trouble now, and, Lloyd, if—if you want me still, I'm yours, all yours."
"O God!" murmured Kittredge, and even the hardened policeman choked a little. "I'm the happiest man in Paris, but—" He could say no more except with a last longing look: "Good-by."
Wildly, fiercely she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately on the mouth—their first kiss. And she murmured: "I love you, I love you."
Then they led Kittredge away.
One of the great lessons Coquenil had learned in his long experience with mysterious crimes was to be careful of hastily rejecting any evidence because it conflicted with some preconceived theory. It would have been easy now, for instance, to assume that this prim spinster was mistaken in declaring that she had seen the pistol thrown from the window of Number Seven. That, of course, seemed most unlikely, since the shooting was done in Number Six, yet how account for the woman's positiveness? She seemed a truthful, well-meaning person, and the murderer might have gone into Number Seven after committing the crime. It was evidently important to get as much light as possible on this point. Hence the need of M. Gritz.
M. Herman Gritz was a short, massive man with hard, puffy eyes and thin black hair, rather curly and oily, and a rapacious nose. He appeared (having been induced to come down by the commissary) in a richly embroidered blue-silk house garment, and his efforts at affability were obviously based on apprehension.
Coquenil began at once with questions about private room Number Seven. We had reserved this room and what had prevented the person from occupying it? M. Gritz replied that Number Seven had been engaged some days before by an old client, who, at the last moment, had sent a petit bleu to say that he had changed his plans and would not require the room. The petit bleu did not arrive until after the crime was discovered, so the room remained empty. More than that, the door was locked.
"Locked on the outside?"
"Yes."
"With the key in the lock?"
"Yes."
"Then anyone coming along the corridor might have turned the key and entered Number Seven?"
"It is possible," admitted M. Gritz, "but very improbable. The room was dark, and an ordinary person seeing a door locked and a room dark——"
"We are not talking about an ordinary person," retorted the detective, "we are talking about a murderer. Come, we must look into this," and he led the way down the corridor, nodding to the policeman outside Number Six and stopping at the next door, the last in the line, the door to Number Seven.
"You know I haven't been in there yet." He glanced toward the adjoining room of the tragedy, then, turning the key in Number Seven, he tried to open the door.
"Hello! It's locked on the inside, too!"
"Tiens! You're right," said Gritz, and he rumpled his scanty locks in perplexity.
"Some one has been inside, some one may be inside now."
The proprietor shook his head and, rather reluctantly, went on to explain that Number Seven was different from the other private rooms in this, that it had a separate exit with separate stairs leading to an alleyway between the hotel and a wall surrounding it. A few habitues knew of this exit and used it occasionally for greater privacy. The alleyway led to a gate in the wall opening on the Rue Marboeuf, so a particularly discreet couple, let us say, could drive up to this gate, pass through the alleyway, and then, by the private stairs, enter Number Seven without being seen by anyone, assuming, of course, that they had a key to the alleyway door. And they could leave the restaurant in the same unobserved manner.
As Coquenil listened, his mouth drew into an ominous thin line and his deep eyes burned angrily.
"M. Gritz," he said in a cold, cutting voice, "you are a man of intelligence, you must be. This crime was committed last night about nine o'clock; it's now half past three in the morning. Will you please tell me how it happens that this fact of vital importance has been concealed from the police for over six hours?"
"Why," stammered the other, "I—I don't know."
"Are you trying to shield some one? Who is this man that engaged Number Seven?"
Gritz shook his head unhappily. "I don't know his name."
"You don't know his name?" thundered Coquenil.
"We have to be discreet in these matters," reasoned the other. "We have many clients who do not give us their names, they have their own reasons for that; some of them are married, and, as a man of the world, I respect their reserve." M. Gritz prided himself on being a man of the world. He had started as a penniless Swiss waiter and had reached the magnificent point where broken-down aristocrats were willing to owe him money and sometimes borrow it—and he appreciated the honor.
"But what do you call him?" persisted Coquenil. "You must call him something."
"In speaking to him we call him 'monsieur'; in speaking of him we call him 'the tall blonde.'"
"The tall blonde!" repeated M. Paul.
"Exactly. He has been here several times with a woman he calls Anita. That's all I know about it. Anyway, what difference does it make since he didn't come to-night?"
"How do you know he didn't come? He had a key to the alleyway door, didn't he?"
"Yes, but I tell you he sent a petit bleu."
The detective shrugged his shoulders. "Some one has been here and locked this door on the inside. I want it opened."
"Just a moment," trembled Gritz. "I have a pass key to the alleyway door. We'll go around."
"Make haste, then," and they started briskly through the halls, the proprietor assuring M. Paul that only a single key was ever given out for the alleyway door and this to none but trusted clients, who returned it the same night.
"Only a single key to the alleyway door," reflected, Coquenil.
"Yes."
"And your 'tall blonde' has it now?"
"I suppose so."
They left the hotel by the main entrance, and were just going around into Rue Marboeuf when the concierge from across the way met them with word that Cæsar had arrived.
"Cæsar?" questioned Gritz.
"He's my dog. Ph-h-eet! Ph-h-eet! Ah, here he is!" and out of the shadows the splendid animal came bounding. At his master's call he had made a mighty plunge and broken away from Papa Tignol's hold.
"Good old fellow!" murmured M. Paul, holding the dog's eager head with his two hands. "I have work for you, sir, to-night. Ah, he knows! See his eyes! Look at that tail! We'll show 'em, eh, Cæsar?"
And the dog answered with delighted leaps.
"What are you going to do with him?" asked the proprietor.
"Make a little experiment. Do you mind waiting a couple of minutes? It may give us a line on this visitor to Number Seven."
"I'll wait," said Gritz.
"Come over here," continued the other. "I'll show you a pistol connected with this case. And I'll show it to the dog."
"For the scent? You don't think a dog can follow the scent from a pistol, do you?" asked the proprietor incredulously.
"I don't know. This dog has done wonderful things. He tracked a murderer once three miles across rough country near Liége and found him hidden in a barn. But he had better conditions there. We'll see."
They had entered the courtyard now and Coquenil led Cæsar to the spot where the weapon lay still undisturbed.
"Cherche!" he ordered, and the dog nosed the pistol with concentrated effort. Then silently, anxiously, one would say, he darted away, circling the courtyard back and forth, sniffing the ground as he went, pausing occasionally or retracing his steps and presently stopping before M. Paul with a little bark of disappointment.
"Nothing, eh? Quite right. Give me the pistol, Papa Tignol. We'll try outside. There!" He pointed to the open door where the concierge was waiting. "Now then, cherche!"
In an instant Cæsar was out in the Rue Marboeuf, circling again and again in larger and larger arcs, as he had been taught, back and forth, until he had covered a certain length of street and sidewalk, every foot of the space between opposite walls, then moving on for another length and then for another, looking up at his master now and then for a word of encouragement.
"It's a hard test," muttered Coquenil. "Footprints and weapons have lain for hours in a drenching rain, but—Ah!" Cæsar had stopped with a little whine and was half crouching at the edge of the sidewalk, head low, eyes fiercely forward, body quivering with excitement. "He's found something!"
The dog turned with quick, joyous barks.
"He's got the scent. Now watch him," and sharply he gave the word: "Va!"
Straight across the pavement darted Cæsar, then along the opposite sidewalk away from the Champs Elysées, running easily, nose down, past the Rue François Premier, past the Rue Clement-Marot, then out into the street again and stopping suddenly.
"He's lost it," mourned Papa Tignol.
"Lost it? Of course he's lost it," triumphed the detective. And turning to M. Gritz: "There's where your murderer picked up a cab. It's perfectly clear. No one has touched that pistol since the man who used it threw it from the window of Number Seven."
"You mean Number Six," corrected Gritz.
"I mean Number Seven. We know where the murderer took a cab, now we'll see where he left the hotel." And hurrying toward his dog, he called: "Back, Cæsar!"
Obediently the dog trotted back along the trail, recrossing the street where he had crossed it before, and presently reaching the point where he had first caught the scent. Here he stopped, waiting for orders, eying M. Paul with almost speaking intelligence.
"A wonderful dog," admired Gritz. "What kind is he?"
"Belgian shepherd dog," answered Coquenil. "He cost me five hundred francs, and I wouldn't sell him for—well, I wouldn't sell him." He bent over and fondled the panting animal. "We wouldn't sell our best friend, would we, Cæsar?"
Evidently Cæsar did not think this the moment for sentiment; he growled impatiently, straining toward the scent.
"He knows there's work to be done and he's right." Then quickly he gave the word again and once more Cæsar was away, darting back along the sidewalk toward the Champs Elysées, moving nearer and nearer to the houses and presently stopping at a gateway, against which he pressed and whined. It was a gateway in the wall surrounding the Ansonia Hotel.
"The man came out here," declared Coquenil, and, unlatching the gate, he looked inside, the dog pushing after him.
"Down Cæsar!" ordered M. Paul, and unwillingly the ardent creature crouched at his feet.
The wall surrounding the Ansonia was of polished granite about six feet high, and between this wall and the hotel itself was a space of equal width planted with slim fir trees that stood out in decorative dignity against the gray stone.
"This is what you call the alleyway?" questioned Coquenil.
"Exactly."
From the pocket of his coat the detective drew a small electric lantern, the one that had served him so well earlier in the evening, and, touching a switch, he threw upon the ground a strong white ray; whereupon a confusion of footprints became visible, as if a number of persons had trod back and forth here.
"What does this mean?" he cried.
Papa Tignol explained shamefacedly: "We did it looking for the pistol; it was Gibelin's orders."
"Bon Dieu! What a pity! We can never get a clean print in this mess. But wait! How far along the alleyway did you look?"
"As far as that back wall. Poor Gibelin! He never thought of looking on the other side of it. Eh, eh!"
a single linegoing out