Four months had passed since Etienne Rambert had been acquitted at the
Cahors Assizes, and the world was beginning to forget the Beaulieu
tragedy as it had already almost forgotten the mysterious murder of Lord
Beltham. Juve alone did not allow his daily occupation to put the two
cases out of his mind. True, he had ceased to make any direct enquiries,
and gave no sign that he still had any interest in those crimes; but the
detective knew very well that in both of them he had to contend with no
ordinary murderer and he was content to remain in the shadow, waiting
and watching, in seeming inactivity, for some slip which should betray
the person or persons who had perpetrated two of the most puzzling
murders that he had ever had to deal with.
It was the end of June, and Paris was beginning to empty. But the spring
had been late and cold that year, and although it was within a couple of
days of July society had lingered on in the capital; luxuriously
appointed carriages still swept along the Champs Elysées when the
audiences poured out of theatres and concert rooms, and fashionably
attired people still thronged the broad pavements and gathered before
the brilliantly lighted cafés on the Rond-Point; even at that late hour
the Champs Elysées were as animated as in the busiest hours of the day.
At the Royal Palace Hotel the greatest animation prevailed. The entire
staff was hurrying about the vast entrance halls and the palatial rooms
on the ground floor; for it was the hour when the guests of the Royal
Palace Hotel were returning from their evening's amusements, and the
spacious vestibules of the immense hotel were crowded with men in
evening dress, young fellows in dinner jackets, and women in low-cut
gowns.
A young and fashionable woman got out of a perfectly appointed victoria,
and M. Louis, the manager of the staff, came forward and bowed low, as
he only did to clients of the very highest distinction. The lady
responded with a gracious smile, and the manager called a servant.
"The lift for Mme. la Princesse Sonia Danidoff," and the next moment the
beautiful vision, who had created quite a sensation merely in passing
through the hall, had disappeared within the lift and was borne up to
her apartments.
Princess Sonia was one of the most important clients that the Royal
Palace Hotel possessed. She belonged to one of the greatest families in
the world, being, by her marriage with Prince Danidoff, cousin to the
Emperor of Russia and, so, connected with many royal personages. Still
barely thirty years of age, she was not pretty but remarkably lovely,
with wonderful blue eyes which formed a strange and most bewitching
contrast to the heavy masses of black hair that framed her face. A woman
of immense wealth, and typically a woman of the world, the Princess
spent six months of the year in Paris, where she was a well-known and
much-liked figure in the most exclusive circles; she was clever and
cultivated, a first-rate musician, and her reputation was spotless,
although it was very seldom that she was accompanied by her husband,
whose duties as Grand Chamberlain to the Tsar kept him almost
continuously in Russia. When in Paris she occupied a suite of four rooms
on the third floor of the Royal Palace Hotel, a suite identical in plan
and in luxury with that reserved for sovereigns who came there
incognito.
The Princess passed through her drawing-room, a vast, round room, with a
superb view over the Arc de Triomphe, and went into her bedroom where
she switched on the electric light.
"Nadine," she called, in her grave, melodious voice, and a young girl,
almost a child, sprang from a low divan hidden in a corner. "Nadine,
take off my cloak and unfasten my hair. Then you can leave me: it is
late, and I am tired."
The little maid obeyed, helped her mistress to put on a silken dressing
gown, and loosened the masses of her hair. The Princess passed a hand
across her brow, as if to brush away a headache.
"Before you go, get a bath ready for me; I think that would rest me."
Ten minutes later Nadine crept back like a shadow, and found the
Princess standing dreamily on the balcony, inhaling deep breaths of the
pure night air. The child kissed the tips of her mistress's fingers.
"Your bath is quite ready," she said, and then withdrew.
A few more minutes passed, and Princess Sonia, half undressed, was just
going into her dressing-room when suddenly she turned and went back to
the middle of the bedroom which she had been on the point of leaving.
"Nadine," she called, "are you still there?" No answer came. "I must
have been dreaming," the Princess murmured, "but I thought I heard
someone moving about."
Sonia Danidoff was not unduly nervous, but like most people who live
much alone and in large hotels, she was wont to be careful, and wished
to make sure that no suspicious person had made his way into her rooms.
She made a rapid survey of her bedroom, glanced into the brilliantly
lighted drawing-room, and then moved to her bed and saw that the
electric bell board, which enabled her to summon any of her own or of
the hotel's servants, was in perfect order. Then, satisfied, she went
into her dressing-room, quickly slipped off the rest of her clothes, and
plunged into the perfumed water in her bath.
She thrilled with pleasure as her limbs, so tired after a long evening,
relaxed in the warm water. On a table close to the bath she had placed a
volume of old Muscovite folk tales, and she was glancing through these
by the shaded light from a lamp above her, when a fresh sound made her
start. She sat up quickly in the water and looked around her. There was
nothing there. Then a little shiver shook her and she sank down again in
the warm bath with a laugh at her own nervousness. And she was just
beginning to read once more, when suddenly a strange voice, with a ring
of malice in it, sounded in her ear. Someone was looking over her
shoulder, and reading aloud the words she had just begun!
Before Sonia Danidoff had time to utter a cry or make a movement, a
strong hand was over her lips, and another gripped her wrist, preventing
her from reaching the button of the electric bell that was fixed among
the taps. The Princess was almost fainting. She was expecting some
horrible shock, expecting to feel some horrible weapon that would take
her life, when the pressure on her lips and the grip upon her wrist
gradually relaxed; and at the same moment, the mysterious individual who
had thus taken her by surprise, moved round the bath and stood in front
of her.
He was a man of about forty years of age, and extremely well dressed. A
perfectly cut dinner jacket proved that the strange visitor was no
unclean dweller in the Paris slums: no apache such as the Princess had
read terrifying descriptions of in luridly illustrated newspapers. The
hands which had held her motionless, and which now restored her liberty
of movement to her, were white and well manicured and adorned with a few
plain rings. The man's face was a distinguished one, and he wore a very
fine black beard; slight baldness added to the height of a forehead
naturally large. But what struck the Princess most, although she had
little heart to observe the man very closely, was the abnormal size of
his head and the number of wrinkles that ran right across his temples,
following the line of the eyebrows.
In silence and with trembling lips Sonia Danidoff made an instinctive
effort again to reach the electric bell, but with a quick movement the
man caught her shoulder and prevented her from doing so. There was a
cryptic smile upon the stranger's lips, and with a furious blush Sonia
Danidoff dived back again into the milky water in the bath.
The man still stood in perfect silence, and at length the Princess
mastered her emotion and spoke to him.
"Who are you? What do you want? Go at once or I will call for help."
"Above all things, do not call out, or you are a dead woman!" said the
stranger harshly. Then he gave a little ironical shrug of his
shoulders. "As for ringing--that would not be easy: you would have to
leave the water to do so! And, besides, I object."
"If it is money, or rings you want," said the Princess between clenched
teeth, "take them! But go!"
The Princess had laid several rings and bracelets on the table by her
side, and the man glanced at them now, but without paying much attention
to what the Princess said.
"Those trinkets are not bad," he said, "but your signet ring is much
finer," and he calmly took the Princess's hand in his and examined the
ring that she had kept on her third finger. "Don't be frightened," he
added as he felt her hand trembling. "Let us have a chat, if you don't
mind! There is nothing especially tempting about jewels apart from their
personality," he said after a little pause, "apart, I mean, from the
person who habitually wears them. But the bracelet on a wrist, or the
necklace round a neck, or the ring upon a finger is another matter!"
Princess Sonia was as pale as death and utterly at a loss to understand
what this extraordinary visitor was driving at. She held up her ring
finger, and made a frightened little apology.
"I cannot take this ring off: it fits too tight."
The man laughed grimly.
"That does not matter in the least, Princess. Anyone who wanted to get a
ring like that could do it quite simply." He felt negligently in his
waistcoat pocket and produced a miniature razor, which he opened. He
flashed the blade before the terrified eyes of the Princess. "With a
sharp blade like this a skilful man could cut off the finger that had
such a splendid jewel on it, in a couple of seconds," and then, seeing
that the Princess, in fresh panic, was on the very point of screaming,
quick as a flash he laid the palm of his hand over her lips, while still
speaking in gentle tones to her. "Please do not be so terrified; I
suppose you take me for some common hotel thief, or highway robber, but,
Princess, can you really believe that I am anything of the kind?"
The man's tone was so earnest, and there was so deferent a look in his
eyes, that the Princess recovered some of her courage.
"But I do not know who you are," she said half questioningly.
"So much the better," the man replied; "there is still time to make one
another's acquaintance. I know who you are, and that is the main thing.
You do not know me, Princess? Well, I assure you that on very many an
occasion I have mingled with the blessed company of your adorers!"
The Princess's anger rose steadily with her courage.
"Sir," she said, "I do not know if you are joking, or if you are talking
seriously, but your behaviour is extraordinary, hateful, abominable----"
"It is merely original, Princess, and it pleases me to reflect that if I
had been content to be presented to you in the ordinary way, in one or
other of the many drawing-rooms we both frequent, you would certainly
have taken much less notice of me than you have taken to-night; from the
persistence of your gaze I can see that from this day onwards, not a
single feature of my face will be unfamiliar to you, and I am convinced
that, whatever happens, you will remember it for a very long time."
Princess Sonia tried to force a smile. She had recovered her
self-possession, and was wondering what kind of man she had to deal
with. If she was still not quite persuaded that this was not a vulgar
thief, and if she had but little faith in his professions of admiration
of herself, she was considerably exercised by the idea that she was
alone with a lunatic. The man seemed to read her thoughts for he, too,
smiled a little.
"I am glad to see, Princess, that you have a little more confidence now:
we shall be able to arrange things ever so much better. You are
certainly much more calm, much less uneasy now. Oh, yes, you are!" he
added, checking her protest. "Why, it is quite five minutes since you
last tried to ring for help. We are getting on. Besides, I somehow can't
picture the Princess Sonia Danidoff, wife of the Grand Chamberlain and
cousin of His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias, allowing herself
to be surprised alone with a man whom she did not know. If she were to
ring, and someone came, how would the Princess account for the gentleman
to whom she had accorded an audience in the most delightful, but
certainly the most private of all her apartments?"
"But tell me," pleaded the unhappy woman, "how did you get in here?"
"That is not the question," the stranger replied. "The problem actually
before us is, how am I to get out? For, of course, Princess, I shall not
be so indelicate as to prolong my visit unduly, too happy only if you
will permit me to repeat it on some other evening soon." He turned his
head, and plunging his hand into the bath in the most natural manner
possible, took out the thermometer which was floating on the perfumed
water. "Thirty degrees, centigrade, Princess! Your bath is getting cold:
you must get out!"
In her blank astonishment Princess Sonia did not know whether to laugh
or cry. Was she alone with a monster who, after having played with her
as a cat plays with a mouse, would suddenly turn and kill her? Or was
this merely some irresponsible lunatic, whom chance alone had enabled to
get into her rooms? Whatever the fact might be, the man's last words had
made her aware that her bath really was getting cold. A shiver shook her
whole frame, and yet----
"Oh, go, please go!" she implored him.
He shook his head, an ironical smile in his eyes.
"For pity's sake," she entreated him again, "have mercy on a woman--a
good woman!"
The man appeared to be considering.
"It is very embarrassing," he murmured, "and yet we must decide upon
something soon, for I am most anxious you should not take a chill. Oh,
it is very simple, Princess: of course you know the arrangement of
everything here so well that you could find your dressing-gown at once,
by merely feeling your way? We will put out the light, and then you will
be able to get out of the bath in the dark without the least fear." He
was on the very point of turning off the switch of the lamp, when he
stopped abruptly and came back to the bath. "I was forgetting that
exasperating bell," he said. "A movement is so very easily made: suppose
you were to ring, by mere inadvertence, and regret it afterwards?"
Putting his idea into action, the man made a quick cut with his razor
and severed the two electric wires several feet above the ground. "That
is excellent," he said. "By the way, I don't know where these other two
wires go that run along the wall, but it is best to be on the safe side.
Suppose there were another bell?" He lifted his razor once more and was
trying to sever the electric wires when the steel blade cut the
insulator and an alarming flash of light resulted. The man leaped into
the air, and dropped his razor. "Good Lord!" he growled, "I suppose that
will make you happy, madame: I have burnt my hand most horribly! These
must be wires for the light! But no matter: I have still got one sound
hand, and that will be enough for me to secure the darkness that you
want. And anyhow, you can press the button of your bell as much as you
like: it won't ring. So I am sure of a few more minutes in your
company."
Sudden darkness fell upon the room. Sonia Danidoff hesitated for a
moment and then half rose in the bath. All her pride as a great lady was
in revolt. If she must defend her honour and her life, she was ready to
do so, and despair would give her strength; but in any event she would
be better out of the water, and on her feet, prepared. The darkness was
complete, both in the bathroom and in the adjacent bedroom, and the
silence was absolute. Standing up in the bath, Sonia Danidoff swept her
arms round in a circle to feel for any obstacle. Her touch met nothing.
She drew out one foot, and then the other, sprang towards the chair on
which she had left her dressing-gown, slipped into it with feverish
haste, slid her feet into her slippers, stood motionless for just a
second and then, with sudden decision, moved to the switch by the door
and turned on the light.
The man had gone from the bathroom, but taking two steps towards her
bedroom Sonia Danidoff saw him smiling at her from the far end of that
room.
"Sir," she said, "this--pleasantry--has lasted long enough. You must go.
You shall, you shall!"
"Shall?" the stranger echoed. "That is a word that is not often used to
me. But you are forgiven for not knowing that, Princess. I forgot for
the moment that I have not been presented to you. But what is in your
mind now?"
Between them was a little escritoire, on the top of which was lying the
tiny inlaid revolver that Sonia Danidoff always carried when she went
out at night. Could she but get that into her hands it would be a potent
argument to induce this stranger to obey her. The Princess also knew
that in the drawer of that escritoire which she could actually see half
open, she had placed, only a few minutes before going in to her bath, a
pocket-book filled with bank-notes for a hundred and twenty thousand
francs, money she had withdrawn from the strong-room of the hotel that
very morning in order to meet some bills next day. She looked at the
drawer and wondered if the pocket-book was still there, or if this
mysterious admirer of hers was only a vulgar hotel thief after all. The
man had followed her eyes to the revolver.
"That is an unusual knick-knack to find in a lady's room, Princess," and
he sprang in front of her as she was taking a step towards the
escritoire, and took possession of the revolver. "Do not be alarmed," he
added, noticing her little gesture of terror. "I would not do you an
injury for anything in the world. I shall be delighted to give this back
to you in a minute, but first let me render it harmless." He deftly
slipped the six cartridges out of the barrel and then handed the now
useless weapon to the Princess with a gallant little bow. "Do not laugh
at my excess of caution: but accidents happen so easily!"
It was in vain that the Princess tried to get near her escritoire to
ascertain if the drawer had been tampered with: the man kept between her
and it all the time, still smiling, still polite, but watching every
movement that she made. Suddenly he took his watch from his pocket.
"Two o'clock! Already! Princess, you will be vexed with me for having
abused your hospitality to such an extent. I must go!" He appeared not
to notice the sigh of relief that broke from her, but went on in a
melodramatic tone. "I shall take my departure, not through the window
like a lover, nor up the chimney like a thief, nor yet through a secret
door behind the arras like a brigand of romance, but like a gentleman
who has come to pay his tribute of homage and respect to the most
enchanting woman in the world--through the door!" He made a movement as
if to go, and came back. "And what do you think of doing now, Princess?
Perhaps you will be angry with me? Possibly some unpleasant discovery,
made after my departure, will raise some animosity in your breast
against me? You might even ring, directly my back is turned, and alarm
the staff, merely to embarrass me in my exit, and without paying any
attention to the subsequent possible scandal. That is a complicated
arrangement of bells and telephones beside your bed! It would be a pity
to spoil such a pretty thing, and besides, I hate doing unnecessary
damage!" The Princess's eyes turned once more to the drawer: it was
practically certain that her money was not there now! But the man broke
in again upon her thoughts. "What can I be thinking of? Just fancy my
not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of fact I
do not want to tell you my name out loud: it is a romantic one, utterly
out of keeping with the typically modern environment in which we are
now. Ah, if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the
moon like a great lamp above us, or by the shore of some wild ocean,
there would be some fascination in the proclamation of my identity in
the silence of the night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as
the hurricane swept the seas! But here--in a third-floor suite of the
Royal Palace Hotel, surrounded by telephones and electric light, and
standing by a window overlooking the Champs Elysées--it would be a
positive anachronism!" He took a card out of his pocket and drew near
the little escritoire. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this
drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the Princess
uttered an exclamation she could not repress, he suited the action to
the word. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to retreat
before him right to the door of the anteroom opening on to the corridor,
"you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your visitor
to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep
imperious voice that made the Princess quake he ordered her: "And now,
not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill
you!"
Clenching her fists, and summoning all her strength to prevent herself
from swooning, Sonia Danidoff led the man to the anteroom door. Slowly
she unlocked the door and held it open, and the man stepped quietly
through. The next second he was gone!
Leaping back into her bedroom Sonia Danidoff set every bell a-ringing;
with great presence of mind she telephoned down to the hall porter:
"Don't let anybody go out! I have been robbed!" and she pressed hard
upon the special button that set the great alarm bell clanging.
Footsteps and voices resounded in the corridor: the Princess knew that
help was coming and ran to open her door. The night watchman, and the
manager of the third floor came running up and waiters appeared in
numbers at the end of the corridor.
"Stop him! Stop him!" the Princess shouted. "He has only just gone out:
a man in a dinner jacket, with a great black beard!"
* * * * *
A lad came hurrying out of the lift.
"Where are you going? What is the matter?" enquired the hall porter,
whose lodge was at the far end of the hall, next to the courtyard of the
hotel, the door into which he had just closed.
"I don't know," he answered. "There is a thief in the hotel! They are
calling from the other side."
"It's not in your set, then? By the way, what floor are you on?"
"The second."
"All right," said the hall porter, "it's the third floor that they are
calling from. Go up and see what is wrong."
The lad turned on his heel, and disregarding the notice forbidding
servants to use the passenger lift, hurried back into it and upstairs
again. He was a stoutly built fellow, with a smooth face and red hair.
On the third floor he stopped, immediately opposite Sonia Danidoff's
suite. The Princess was standing at her door, taking no notice of the
watchman Muller's efforts to soothe her excitement, and mechanically
twisting between her fingers the blank visiting card which her strange
visitor had left in place of her pocket-book and the hundred and twenty
thousand francs. There was no name whatever on the card.
"Well," said Muller, to the red-headed lad, "where do you come from?"
"I'm the new man on the second floor," the fellow answered. "The hall
porter sent me up to find out what was the matter."
"Matter!" said Muller. "Somebody has robbed the Princess. Here, send
someone for the police at once."
"I'll run, sir," and as the lift, instead of being sent down, had
carelessly been sent up to the top floor, the young fellow ran down the
staircase at full speed.
Through the telephone, Muller was just ordering the hall porter to send
for the police, when the second-floor servant rushed up and caught him
by the arm, dragging him away from the instrument.
"Open the door for the Lord's sake! I'm off to the police station," and
the hall porter made haste to facilitate his departure.
* * * * *
On the top floor cries of astonishment re-echoed. The servants had been
alarmed by the uproar and, surprised to see the lift stop and nobody get
out of it, they opened the door and found a heap of clothing, a false
beard, and a wig. Two housemaids and a valet gazed in amazement at these
extraordinary properties, and never thought of informing the manager, M.
Louis. Meantime, however, that gentleman had hurried through the mazes
of the hotel, and had just reached the third floor when he was stopped
by the Baronne Van den Rosen, one of the hotel's oldest patronesses.
"M. Louis!" she exclaimed, bursting into sobs. "I have just been robbed
of my diamond necklace. I left it in a jewel-case on my table before
going down to dinner. When I heard the noise just now, I got up and
looked through my jewel-case, and the necklace is not there."