TO
MY WIFE
AND OUR DELIGHTFUL PARIS HOME IN THE
VILLA MONTMORENCY, WHERE THIS
BOOK WAS WRITTEN
C. M.
It is worthy of note that the most remarkable criminal case in which the famous French detective, Paul Coquenil, was ever engaged, a case of more baffling mystery than the Palais Royal diamond robbery and of far greater peril to him than the Marseilles trunk drama—in short, a case that ranks with the most important ones of modern police history—would never have been undertaken by Coquenil (and in that event might never have been solved) but for the extraordinary faith this man had in certain strange intuitions or forms of half knowledge that came to him at critical moments of his life, bringing marvelous guidance. Who but one possessed of such faith would have given up fortune, high position, the reward of a whole career, simply because a girl whom he did not know spoke some chance words that neither he nor she understood. Yet that is exactly what Coquenil did.
It was late in the afternoon of a hot July day, the hottest day Paris had known that year (1907) and M. Coquenil, followed by a splendid white-and-brown shepherd dog, was walking down the Rue de la Cité, past the somber mass of the city hospital. Before reaching the Place Notre-Dame he stopped twice, once at a flower market that offered the grateful shade of its gnarled polenia trees just beyond the Conciergerie prison, and once under the heavy archway of the Prefecture de Police. At the flower market he bought a white carnation from a woman in green apron and wooden shoes, who looked in awe at his pale, grave face, and thrilled when he gave her a smile and friendly word. She wondered if it was true, as people said, that M. Coquenil always wore glasses with a slightly bluish tint so that no one could see his eyes.
The detective walked on, busy with pleasant thoughts. This was the hour of his triumph and justification, this made up for the cruel blow that had fallen two years before and resulted, no one understood why, in his leaving the Paris detective force at the very moment of his glory, when the whole city was praising him for the St. Germain investigation. Beau Cocono! That was the name they had given him; he could hear the night crowds shouting it in a silly couplet:
Il nous faut-o
Beau Cocono-o!
And then what a change within a week! What bitterness and humiliation! M. Paul Coquenil, after scores of brilliant successes, had withdrawn from the police force for personal reasons, said the newspapers. His health was affected, some declared; he had laid by a tidy fortune and wished to enjoy it, thought others; but many shook their heads mysteriously and whispered that there was something queer in all this. Coquenil himself said nothing.
But now facts would speak for him more eloquently than any words; now, within twenty-four hours, it would be announced that he had been chosen, on the recommendation of the Paris police department, to organize the detective service of a foreign capital, with a life position at the head of this service and a much larger salary than he had ever received, a larger salary, in fact, than Paris paid to its own chief of police.
M. Coquenil had reached this point in his musings when he caught sight of a red-faced man, with a large purplish nose and a suspiciously black mustache (for his hair was gray), coming forward from the prefecture to meet him.
"Ah, Papa Tignol!" he said briskly. "How goes it?"
The old man saluted deferentially, and then, half shutting his small gray eyes, replied with an ominous chuckle, as one who enjoys bad news: "Eh, well enough, M. Paul; but I don't like that." And, lifting an unshaven chin, he pointed over his shoulder with a long, grimy thumb to the western sky.
"Always croaking!" laughed the other. "Why, it's a fine sunset, man!"
Tignol answered slowly, with objecting nod: "It's too red. And it's barred with purple!"
"Like your nose. Ha, ha!" And Coquenil's face lighted gaily. "Forgive me, Papa Tignol."
"Have your joke, if you will, but," he turned with sudden directness, "don't you remember when we had a blood-red sky like that? Ah, you don't laugh now!"
It was true, Coquenil's look had deepened into one of somber reminiscence.
"You mean the murders in the Rue Montaigne?"
"Pre-cisely."
"Pooh! A foolish fancy! How many red sunsets have there been since we found those two poor women stretched out in their white-and-gold salon? Well, I must get on. Come to-night at nine. There will be news for you."
"News for me," echoed the old man. "Au revoir, M. Paul," and he watched the slender, well-knit figure as the detective moved across the Place Notre-Dame, snapping his fingers playfully at the splendid animal that bounded beside him and speaking to the dog in confidential friendliness.
"We'll show 'em, eh, Cæsar?" And the dog answered with eager barking and quick-wagging tail.
So these two companions advanced toward the great cathedral, directing their steps to the left-hand portal under the Northern tower. Here they paused before statues of various saints and angels that overhang the blackened doorway while Coquenil said something to a professional beggar, who straightway disappeared inside the church. Cæsar, meantime, with panting tongue, was eying the decapitated St. Denis, asking himself, one would say, how even a saint could carry his head in his hands.
And presently there appeared a white-bearded sacristan in a three-cornered hat of blue and gold and a gold-embroidered coat. For all his brave apparel he was a small, mild-mannered person, with kindly brown eyes and a way of smiling sadly as if he had forgotten how to laugh.
"Ah, Bonneton, my friend!" said Coquenil, and then, with a quizzical glance: "My decorative friend!"
"Good evening, M. Paul," answered the other, while he patted the dog affectionately. "Shall I take Cæsar?"
"One moment; I have news for you." Then, while the other listened anxiously, he told of his brilliant appointment in Rio Janeiro and of his imminent departure. He was sailing for Brazil in three days.
"Mon Dieu!" murmured Bonneton in dismay. "Sailing for Brazil! So our friends leave us. Of course I'm glad for you; it's a great chance, but—will you take Cæsar?"
"I couldn't leave my dog, could I?" smiled Coquenil.
"Of course not! Of course not! And such a dog! You've been kind to let him guard the church since old Max died. Come, Cæsar! Just a moment, M. Paul." And with real emotion the sacristan led the dog away, leaving the detective all unconscious that he had reached a critical moment in his destiny.
How the course of events would have been changed had Paul Coquenil remained outside Notre-Dame on this occasion it is impossible to know; the fact is he did not remain outside, but, growing impatient at Bonneton's delay, he pushed open the double swinging doors, with their coverings of leather and red velvet, and entered the sanctuary. And immediately he saw the girl.
She was in the shadows near a statue of the Virgin before which candles were burning. On the table were rosaries and talismans and candles of different lengths that it was evidently the girl's business to sell. In front of the Virgin's shrine was a prie dieu at which a woman was kneeling, but she presently rose and went out, and the girl sat there alone. She was looking down at a piece of embroidery, and Coquenil noticed her shapely white hands and the mass of red golden hair coiled above her neck. When she lifted her eyes he saw that they were dark and beautiful, though tinged with sadness. He was surprised to find this lovely young woman selling candles here in Notre-Dame Church.
And suddenly he was more surprised, for as the girl glanced up she met his gaze fixed on her, and immediately there came into her face a look so strange, so glad, and yet so frightened that Coquenil went to her quickly with reassuring smile. He was sure he had never seen her before, yet he realized that somehow she was equally sure that she knew him.
What followed was seen by only one person, that is, the sacristan's wife, a big, hard-faced woman with a faint mustache and a wart on her chin, who sat by the great column near the door dispensing holy water out of a cracked saucer and whining for pennies. Nothing escaped the hawklike eyes of Mother Bonneton, and now, with growing curiosity, she watched the scene between Coquenil and the candle seller. What interest could a great detective have in this girl, Alice, whom she and her husband had taken in as a half-charity boarder? Such airs as she gave herself! What was she saying now? Why should he look at her like that? The baggage!
"Holy saints, how she talks!" grumbled the sacristan's wife. "And see the eyes she makes! And how he listens! The man must be crazy to waste his time on her! Now he asks a question and she talks again with that queer, far-away look. He frowns and clinches his hands, and—upon my soul he seems afraid of her! He says something and starts to come away. Ah, now he turns and stares at her as if he had seen a ghost! Mon Dieu, quelle folie!"
This whole incident occupied scarcely five minutes, yet it wrought an extraordinary change in Coquenil. All his buoyancy was gone, and he looked worn, almost haggard, as he walked to the church door with hard-shut teeth and face set in an ominous frown.
"There's some devil's work in this," he muttered, and as his eyes caught the fires of the lurid sky he thought of Papa Tignol's words.
"What is it?" asked the sacristan, approaching timidly.
The detective faced him sharply. "Who is the girl in there? Where did she come from? How did she get here? Why does she—" He stopped abruptly, and, pressing the fingers of his two hands against his forehead, he stroked the brows over his closed eyes as if he were combing away error. "No, no!" he changed, "don't tell me yet. I must be alone; I must think. Come to me at nine to-night."
"I—I'll try to come," said Bonneton, with visions of an objecting wife.
"You must come," insisted the detective. "Remember, nine o'clock," and he started to go.
"Yes, yes, quite so," murmured the sacristan, following him. "But, M. Paul—er—which day do you sail?"
Coquenil turned and snapped out angrily: "I may not sail at all."
"But the—the position in Rio Janeiro?"
"A thousand thunders! Don't talk to me!" cried the other, and there was such black rage in his look that Bonneton cowered away, clasping and unclasping his hands and murmuring meekly: "Ah, yes, exactly."
So much for the humble influence that turned Paul Coquenil toward an unbelievable decision and led him ultimately into the most desperate struggle of his long and exciting career. A day of sinister portent this must have been, for scarcely had Coquenil left Notre-Dame when another scene was enacted there that should have been happy, but that, alas! showed only a rough and devious way stretching before two lovers. And again it was the girl who made trouble, this seller of candles, with her fine hands and her hair and her wistful dark eyes. A strange and pathetic figure she was, sitting there alone in the somber church. Quite alone now, for it was closing time, Mother Bonneton had shuffled off rheumatically after a cutting word—she knew better than to ask what had happened—and the old sacristan, lantern in hand and Cæsar before him, was making his round of the galleries, securing doors and windows.
With a shiver of apprehension Alice turned away from the whispering shadows and went to the Virgin's shrine, where she knelt and tried to pray. The candles sputtered before her, and she shut her eyes tight, which made colored patterns come and go behind the lids, fascinating geometrical figures that changed and faded and grew stronger. And suddenly, inside a widening green circle, she saw a face, the face of a young man with laughing gray eyes, and her heart beat with joy. She loved him, she loved him!--that was her secret and the cause of her unhappiness, for she must hide her love, especially from him; she must give him some cold word, some evasive reason, not the real one, when he should come presently for his answer. Ah, that was the great fact, he was coming for his answer—he, her hero man, her impetuous American with the name she liked so much, Lloyd Kittredge—how often she had murmured that name in her lonely hours!--he would be here shortly for his answer.
And alas! she must say "No" to him, she must give him pain; she could not hope to make him understand—how could anyone understand?—and then, perhaps, he would misjudge her, perhaps he would leave her in anger and not come back any more. Not come back any more! The thought cut with a sharp pang, and in her distress she moved her lips silently in the familiar prayer printed before her:
O Marie, souvenez vous du moment supreme où Jesus votre divin Fils, expirant sur la croix, nous confia à votre maternelle solicitude.
Her thoughts wandered from the page and flew back to her lover; Why was he so impatient? Why was he not willing to let their friendship go on as it had been all these months? Why must he ask this inconceivable question and insist on having an answer? His wife! Her cheeks flamed at the word and her heart throbbed wildly. His wife! How wonderful that he should have chosen her, so poor and obscure, for such an honor, the highest he could pay a woman! Whatever happened she would at least have this beautiful memory to comfort her loneliness and sorrow.
A descending step on the tower stairs broke in upon her meditations, and she rose quickly from her knees. The sacristan had finished his rounds and was coming to close the outer doors. It was time for her to go. And, with a glance at her hair in a little glass and a touch to her hat, she went out into the garden back of Notre-Dame, where she knew her lover would be waiting. There he was, strolling along the graveled walk near the fountain, switching his cane impatiently. He had not seen her yet, and she stood still, looking at him fondly, dreading what was to come, yet longing to hear the sound of his voice. How handsome he was! What a nice gray suit, and—then Kittredge turned.
"Ah, at last!" he exclaimed, springing toward her with a mirthful, boyish smile. His face was ruddy and clean shaven, the twinkling eyes and humorous lines about the mouth suggesting some joke or drollery always ready on his lips. Yet his was a frank, manly face, easily likable. He was a man of twenty-seven, slender of build, but carrying himself well. In dress he had the quiet good taste that some men are born with, besides a willingness to take pains about shirts, boots, and cravats—in short, he looked like a well-groomed Englishman. Unlike the average Englishman, however, he spoke almost perfect French, owing to the fact that his American father had married into one of the old Creole families of New Orleans.
"How is your royal American constitution?" She smiled, repeating in excellent English one of the nonsensical phrases he was fond of using. She tried to say it gayly, but he was not deceived, and answered seriously in French:
"Hold on. There's something wrong. We've been sad, eh?"
"Why—er—" she began, "I—er——"
"Been worrying, I know. Too much church. Too much of that old she dragon. Come over here and tell me about it." He led her to a bench shaded by a friendly sycamore tree. "Now, then."
She faced him with troubled eyes, searching vainly for words and finding nothing. The crisis had come, and she did not know how to meet it. Her red lips trembled, her eyes grew melting, and she sat there silent and delicious in her perplexity. Kittredge thrilled under the spell of her beauty; he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her.
"Suppose we go back a little," he said reassuringly. "About six months ago, I think it was in January, a young chap in a fur overcoat drifted into this old stone barn and took a turn around it. He saw the treasure and the fake relics and the white marble French gentleman trying to get out of his coffin. And he didn't care a hang about any of 'em until he saw you. Then he began to take notice. The next day he came back and you sold him a little red guidebook that told all about the twenty-five chapels and the seven hundred and ninety-two saints. No, seven hundred and ninety-three, for there was one saint with wonderful eyes and glorious hair and——"
"Please don't," she murmured.
"Why not? You don't know which saint I was talking about. It was My Lady of the Candles. She had the most beautiful hands in the world, and all day long she sat at a table making stitches on cloth of gold. Which was bad for her eyes, by the way."
"Ah, yes!" sighed Alice.
"There are all kinds of miracles in Notre-Dame," he went on playfully, "but the greatest miracle is how this saint with the eyes and the hands and the hair ever dropped down at that little table. Nobody could explain it, so the young fellow with the fur overcoat kept coming back and coming back to see if he could figure it out. Only soon he came without his overcoat."
"In bitter cold weather," she said reproachfully.
"He was pretty blue that day, wasn't he? Dead sore on the game. Money all blown in, overcoat up the spout, nothing ahead, and a whole year of—of damned foolishness behind. Excuse me, but that's what it was. Well, he blew in that day and—he walked over to where you were sitting, you darling little saint!"
"No, no," murmured Alice, "not a saint, only a poor girl who saw you were unhappy and—and was sorry."
Their eyes met tenderly, and for a moment neither spoke. Then Kittredge went on unsteadily: "Anyhow you were kind to me, and I opened up a little. I told you a few things, and—when I went away I felt more like a man. I said to myself: 'Lloyd Kittredge, if you're any good you'll cut out this thing that's been raising hell with you'—excuse me, but that's what it was—'and you'll make a new start, right now.' And I did it. There's a lot you don't know, but you can bet all your rosaries and relics that I've made a fair fight since then. I've worked and—been decent and—I did it all for you." His voice was vibrant now with passion; he caught her hand in his and repeated the words, leaning closer, so that she felt his warm breath on her cheek. "All for you. You know that, don't you, Alice?"
What a moment for a girl whose whole soul was quivering with fondness! What a proud, beautiful moment! He loved her, he loved her! Yet she drew her hand away and forced herself to say, as if reprovingly: "You mustn't do that!"
He looked at her in surprise, and then, with challenging directness: "Why not?"
"Because I cannot be what you—what you want me to be," she answered, looking down.
"I want you to be my wife."
"I know."
"And—and you refuse me?"
For a moment she did not speak. Then slowly she nodded, as if pronouncing her own doom.
"Alice," he cried, "look up here! You don't mean it. Say it isn't true."
She lifted her eyes bravely and faced him. "It is true, Lloyd; I can never be your wife."
"But why? Why?"
"I—I cannot tell you," she faltered.
He was about to speak impatiently, but before her evident distress he checked the words and asked gently: "Is it something against me?"
"Oh, no!" she answered quickly.
"Sure? Isn't it something you've heard that I've done or—or not done? Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings. I'll make a clean breast of it all, if you say so. God knows I was a fool, but I've kept straight since I knew you, I'll swear to that."
"I believe you, dear."
"You believe me, you call me 'dear,' you look at me out of those wonderful eyes as if you cared for me."
"I do, I do," she murmured.
"You care for me, and yet you turn me down," he said bitterly. "It reminds me of a verse I read," and drawing a small volume from his pocket he turned the pages quickly. "Ah, here it is," and he marked some lines with a pencil. "There!"
Alice took the volume and began to read in a low voice:
"Je n'aimais qu'elle au monde, et vivre un jour sans elle
Me semblait un destin plus affreux que la mort.
Je me souviens pourtant qu'en cette nuit cruelle
Pour briser mon lien je fis un long effort.
Je la nommai cent fois perfide et déloyale,
Je comptai tous les maux qu'elle m'avait causés."
She stopped suddenly, her eyes full of pain.
"You don't think that, you can't think that of me?" she pleaded.
"I'd rather think you a coquette than—" Again he checked himself at the sight of her trouble. He could not speak harshly to her.
"You dear child," he went on tenderly. "I'll never believe any ill of you, never. I won't even ask your reasons; but I want some encouragement, something to work for. I've got to have it. Just let me go on hoping; say that in six months or—or even a year you will be my own sweetheart—promise me that and I'll wait patiently. Can't you promise me that?"
But again she shook her head, while her eyes filled slowly with tears.
And now his face darkened. "Then you will never be my wife? Never? No matter what I do or how long I wait? Is that it?"
"That's it," she repeated with a little sob.
Kittredge rose, eying her sternly. "I understand," he said, "or rather I don't understand; but there's no use talking any more. I'll take my medicine and—good-by."
She looked at him in frightened supplication. "You won't leave me? Lloyd, you won't leave me?"
He laughed harshly. "What do you think I am? A jumping jack for you to pull a string and make me dance? Well, I guess not. Leave you? Of course I'll leave you. I wish I had never seen you; I'm sorry I ever came inside this blooming church!"
"Oh!" she gasped, in sudden pain.
"You don't play fair," he went on recklessly. "You haven't played fair at all. You knew I loved you, and—you led me on, and—this is the end of it."
"No," she cried, stung by his words, "it's not the end of it. I won't be judged like that. I have played fair with you. If I hadn't I would have accepted you, for I love you, Lloyd, I love you with all my heart!"
"I like the way you show it," he answered, unrelenting.
"Haven't I helped you all these months? Isn't my friendship something?"
He shook his head. "It isn't enough for me."
"Then how about me, if I want your friendship, if I'm hungry for it, if it's all I have in life? How about that, Lloyd?" Under their dark lashes her violet eyes were burning on him, but he hardened his heart to their pleading.
"It sounds well, but there's no sense in it. I can't stand for this let-me-be-a-sister-to-you game, and I won't."
He turned away impatiently and glanced at his watch.
"Lloyd," she said gently, "come to the house to-night."
He shook his head. "Got an appointment."
"An appointment?"
"Yes, a banquet."
She looked at him in surprise. "You didn't tell me!"
"No."
She was silent a moment. "Where is the banquet?"
"At the Ansonia. It's a new restaurant on the Champs Elysées, very swell. I didn't tell you because—well, because I didn't."
"Lloyd," she whispered, "don't go to the banquet."
"Don't go? Why, this is our national holiday. I'm down to tell some stories. I've got to go. Besides, I wouldn't come to you, anyway. What's the use? I've said all I can, and you've said 'No.' So it's all off—that's right, Alice, it's all off." His eyes were kinder now, but he spoke firmly.
"Lloyd," she begged, "come after the banquet."
"No!"
"I ask it for you. I—I feel that something is going to happen. Don't laugh. Look at the sky, there beyond the black towers. It's red, red like blood, and—Lloyd, I'm afraid."
Her eyes were fixed in the west with an enthralled expression, as if she saw something there besides the masses of red and purple that crowned the setting sun, something strange and terrifying. And in her agitation she took the book and pencil from the bench, and nervously, almost unconsciously wrote something on one of the fly leaves.
"Good-by, Alice," he said, holding out his hand.
"Good-by, Lloyd," she answered in a dull, tired voice, putting down the book and giving him her own little hand.
As he turned to go he picked up the volume and his eye fell on the fly leaf.
"Why," he started, "what is this?" He looked more closely at the words, then sharply at her.
"I—I'm so sorry," she stammered. "Have I spoiled your book?"
"Never mind the book, but—how did you come to write this?"
"I—I didn't notice what I wrote," she said, in confusion.
"Do you mean to say that you don't know what you wrote?"
"I don't know at all," she replied with evident sincerity.
"It's the damnedest thing I ever heard of," he muttered. And then, with a puzzled look: "See here, I guess I've been too previous. I'll cut out that banquet to-night—that is, I'll show up for soup and fish, and then I'll come to you. Do I get a smile now?"
"O Lloyd!" she murmured happily.
"I'll be there about nine."
"About nine," she repeated, and again her eyes turned anxiously to the blood-red western sky.
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."
The night was black and rain was falling in torrents as Paul Coquenil and the commissary rolled away in response to this startling summons of crime. Up the Rue Mozart they sped with sounding horn, feeling their way carefully on account of troublesome car tracks, then faster up the Avenue Victor Hugo, their advance being accompanied by vivid lightning flashes.
"He was in luck to have this storm," muttered Coquenil. Then, in reply to Pougeot's look: "I mean the thunder, it deadened the shot and gained time for him."
"Him? How do you know a man did it? A woman was in the room, and she's gone. They telephoned that."
The detective shook his head. "No, no, you'll find it's a man. Women are not original in crime. And this is—this is different. How many murders can you remember in Paris restaurants, I mean smart restaurants?"
M. Pougeot thought a moment. "There was one at the Silver Pheasant and one at the Pavillion and—and——"
"And one at the Café Rouge. But those were stupid shooting cases, not murders, not planned in advance."
"Why do you think this was planned in advance?"
"Because the man escaped."
"They didn't say so."
Coquenil smiled. "That's how I know he escaped. If they had caught him they would have told you, wouldn't they?"
"Why—er——"
"Of course they would. Well, think what it means to commit murder in a crowded restaurant and get away. It means brains, Lucien. Ah, we're nearly there!"
They had reached Napoleon's arch, and the automobile, swinging sharply to the right, started at full speed down the Champs Elysées.
"It's bad for Gritz," reflected the commissary; then both men fell silent in the thought of the emergency before them.
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