very narrow passage, damp and quite dark. The passage, a short one,
opened on a vast apartment, much like a cellar, lighted by air-holes in
the ceiling and intensely cold. A noise of running water from open taps
broke with its monotonous splash the silence of this place, solely
furnished with a huge slab of wood running from one end to the other.
Upon the slab dim and lengthy white shapes were outstretched, and when
his eyes grew accustomed to the twilight, Juve recognised the vague
outline of these weird bundles. They were corpses swathed in shrouds.
The heads and shoulders alone were visible, and on the brows of the dead
trickled icy water, dispensed sparingly but regularly by duck-billed
taps that overhung the inclined plane.
The director explained: "This is the amphitheatre where we keep the
bodies for post-mortems. Do you want to stay any longer?"
"There is no access to the room except by the door we came in at?"
"None."
"In that case," rejoined Juve, "and as there is no furniture here for a
person to hide in, let us look elsewhere. It's a rather gruesome
place."
"You're not used to the sight, that's all," replied the director, as he
led the way back to his office.
Juve looked at his watch. "Well, I must leave you now and make a report
to M. Havard. I'm afraid the murderer has slipped through our fingers."
"But you'll come back?"
"Of course."
"What am I to do meanwhile?"
"Nothing, unless you care to go over the hospital again."
"And the passes? Are they to be in force still? We have no one in the
place but the staff."
"That is essential," replied Juve. "I must know with certainty who comes
in and goes out. However, anyone known to your doorkeeper who wishes to
leave need only sign in a register."
IX
IN THE REFRIGERATORY
It was light in the evening. One by one the rooms in Lâriboisière were
being lit up.
The one exception was the grim amphitheatre, whose occupants would never
need to see again.
Suddenly--and if anyone had been present, he would have experienced the
most frightful impression it is possible to conceive--a corpse stirred.
Having assured himself that the door between the amphitheatre and the
gallery was shut, the corpse, shivering with cold, threw off the shroud
which enveloped him, and set to work to move his legs and arms about to
start up his circulation. Then at the far end of the apartment this
living corpse discovered, under a zinc basin attached to the wall, a
bundle of linen and garments, which he seized upon.
His body shaking with cold, the man dressed himself in haste, and then
waited until he considered his clothes sufficiently dry not to attract
attention.
Carefully ascertaining that the gallery was deserted, he then entered it
and walked rapidly to the courtyard. To the right of the main gateway,
the smaller gate leading into the Rue Ambroise Paré was open.
The man passed under the archway, and in a moment would have been clear
of Lâriboisière, when the doorkeeper barred his way.
"Excuse me, who goes there?"
Then, having looked more closely:
"Why it's Doctor Chaleck! You're late in leaving us this evening,
doctor. I suppose you've been kept pretty busy in ward 22?"
"That's so," replied Chaleck, for it was he. "That's why I'm in a hurry,
Charles."
And Chaleck, with an impatient gesture, was about to slip out, but the
porter stopped him again.
"One moment, doctor; you must register first."
"Is this a new hospital regulation?"
"No, doctor, it's the police who have ordered everyone entering or
leaving the hospital to sign his name in this book."
The porter, having taken Doctor Chaleck into his lodge, opened a new
register, and pointing to half a dozen names already written on the
first page, he added:
"You'll not be in bad company; you're to sign just below Professor
Hugard."
Chaleck smiled. "Tell me the latest news, Charles. Do they suspect
anyone?"
"All I know is that fifty of them came here with dirty shoes, made a
hubbub round the patients, put the service out of gear, and in the end
caught nobody at all. But if the culprit is still here, he won't get out
without the bracelets on his wrists!"
An equivocal smile touched the pale lips of Chaleck. It might be the
weird inhabitant of the little house in Cité Frochot was not so sure as
the porter was of the astuteness of the police. Perhaps he was thinking
that a few hours before a certain Doctor Chaleck, hemmed in a passage
with no exits and about to be compelled to show, like everyone else, the
tips of his fingers, had, under the nose of the officers, and even of
the artful and astute Juve, suddenly vanished, gone out of the world of
the living and thought it necessary, for reasons he alone knew, to
assume the rigidity of a corpse, the stillness of death. But the smile
in a moment became frozen.
The doctor who had kept both hands in his pockets while talking to the
porter, suddenly felt a sharp twinge in the fingers of his right hand,
and it became moist and lukewarm. This happened as the porter held out
the register for him to sign.
"Charles," he cried, "I'm in a great hurry; while I'm signing, please go
out and stop the first taxi that passes."
"Certainly, sir," replied the man.
Scarcely had the doorkeeper turned his back when the doctor, with
infinite precautions drew out his right hand and with evident difficulty
began to write, holding the pen between the third and fourth fingers, as
though unable to use the fore and middle ones.
As he was finishing his entry, he made what was doubtless an unintended
movement, something unexpected happened, for he suddenly turned pale and
repressed a heavy oath. Charles was just coming back to the lodge.
"Your taxi is here, Doctor."
"Right. Thank you."
Chaleck closed the register abruptly, jumped into the motor, threw an
address to the driver, who got under way. On seeing the doctor shut the
register, Charles cried: "The devil--there's no blotting paper in it, it
will be sure to blot!"
And, though it was too late, the careful man rushed to the book and
opened it. His eyes became fixed on the page where the signatures were.
He stared, wide-eyed.
"Oh!--Oh!--" he murmured.
X
THE BLOODY SIGNATURE
M. de Maufil was exceedingly nervous.
"As soon as you went back to headquarters," he declared to Juve, some
moments after that officer had been shown into his private room, "I
continued the search with redoubled efforts. Neither the ward-nurses, in
whom I place complete confidence, nor the heads of my staff, whom I have
known for ever so long, passed the doors of the hospital. In fact, I
took every precaution and obeyed your instructions to the letter--yet
all in vain."
"You found nothing?"
"Nothing. Not only did we not discover the criminal, but we did not come
upon any trace of him."
"That's strange.".
"It is maddening. It would seem that from the instant the man fired
those two shots in the woman's ward in Patel's department he vanished,
unaccountably. Your notion of examining the hands of all those in the
hospital was an excellent one, but nothing came of it.
"He must have known the snare we were preparing for him and did not turn
up at the hospital exit, so we must naturally conclude he is still
inside the gates, hidden in some remote corner, or underground. However,
the first thing to do is to protect the girl, Josephine. By the by, she
saw nothing, I suppose?"
"She declares she did not see Loupart come in, but she asserts with a
sort of perverse pride that it was certainly Loupart who fired at her
because he had threatened to do so."
A knock at the door was followed by the timid entrance of the
doorkeeper.
"Is that you, Charles? Come in," cried the director. "What do you want?"
"It's about the signature, sir. There is blood on my book."
In a moment Juve leaped from his chair and tore the register out of the
porter's hands.
"Blood!"
Feverishly he turned the pages until he came to the writing. Without
waiting for de Maufil's permission, he dismissed the porter.
"Very good, I'll see you presently."
Scarcely had the door shut, when Juve pointed to the page. "Look! Doctor
Chaleck's signature! And just below it this mark of blood! What do you
say to that, sir?"
"But it's sheer madness. Chaleck cannot be guilty!"
"Why not?"
"Because he is known to me. He was recommended to me seven months ago by
an old comrade of mine. Chaleck is a man of brains, a foreign physician,
a Belgian. He comes here specially to study intermittent fevers. M.
Juve, I tell you he has nothing whatever to do with this affair." Juve
picked up his hat and stick. He was restless and uneasy; the directors'
outburst had not greatly impressed him.
"Doctor Chaleck could not explain how his finger came to be hurt and he
did not inform us of the fact."
"A mere coincidence."
"Possibly, but it is a terrible coincidence for that man," replied Juve.
On leaving the director's room, the distinguished detective could not
refrain from rubbing his hands. "This time I have him!" he muttered. He
went rapidly down the stairs, crossed the great courtyard of the
hospital, and proceeded to knock at the porter's lodge.
"Tell me, my friend, precisely how Doctor Chaleck's leaving the hospital
came about?"
The worthy man with much detail, for he now felt very proud of having
played a part in the affair, related how Doctor Chaleck came to the
gate, sent him after a cab while signing his name, then made off, after
having, no doubt by an oversight, closed the register.
"Very good! Thank you," was Juve's comment, bestowing a liberal tip on
the man.
This time he was leaving Lâriboisière for good.
"Very characteristic, that piece of impudence," he reflected; "very like
Doctor Chaleck that device of shutting the register he had just stained
with blood in order to give himself time to make off!" On reaching the
Boulevard Magenta he hailed a cab.
"Rue Montmartre. Stop at the _Capital_ office. You know it?"
A few minutes later Juve was shown into Fandor's office. But the
detective no longer wore a smiling face, and his air of abstraction did
not escape his friend.
"Anything fresh?" inquired Fandor.
"Much that is fresh! That's why I came here to see you."
The journalist smiled. "Thanks, Juve. It is, indeed, owing to you that
the _Capital_ is the best posted sheet in town."
Then the detective proceeded to tell the reporter the startling
discovery he had just made at Lâriboisière. He concluded:
"There, I suppose you can turn that into a thrilling story, eh?"
"I certainly can."
"The arrest is now scarcely more than a matter of time."
"And how are you going to set about it?"
"I don't quite know. Well, good-bye."
Fandor let the officer reach the door of the office, then called him
back.
"Juve!"
"Fandor!"
"You are hiding something from me."
"I? Nonsense."
"Yes," persisted Fandor. "You are concealing something. Don't deny it. I
know you too well, my friend, to be content with your reticences."
"My reticences?"
"You didn't come here merely to give me copy."
"Why----"
"No. You had some idea in coming to look me up and then you changed your
mind. Why?"
"I assure you you are mistaken."
Fandor rose.
"All right, if you won't tell me, I shall follow you." At the
journalist's announcement Juve shrugged his shoulders.
"That's what I feared. But it's absurd to be always dragging you into
risky affairs."
"Where are we going?" asked Fandor briefly, as he lit a cigarette.
"We are going to-night to Doctor Chaleck's. If he's there we will force
a confession from him; if he's not there, we will ransack his house for
clues," and Juve added, smiling, "like good burglars. I have a whole
bunch of false keys. We shall be able to get into Doctor Chaleck's
without ringing his bell. Here's a snapshot I took of Josephine at the
hospital." And throwing the proof on Fandor's desk, he said smilingly:
"The young woman's not bad looking, is she?"
XI
THE SHOWER OF SAND
"I'm afraid it's not quite the thing to enter people's houses in this
fashion," whispered Juve, as the two men found themselves in the hall of
Doctor Chaleck's little house in the Frochot district.
It was about midnight, and through the fan-light of the outer door a dim
twilight enabled the detective and the journalist to get an idea of the
place in which they stood.
It was a fairly large hall with double doors on either hand, leading
into the drawing-and dining-rooms. At the far end rose a winding
staircase, and under it a door to the cellar. A hanging lamp, unlit, was
suspended from the ceiling and the walls were covered with dark
tapestries.
Juve and Fandor remained silent and motionless for some moments. They
might well be perturbed, for they had just entered the house in the
most unwarrantable manner, and they knew the doctor to be at home. The
lodge-keeper of the Cité had seen him return about two hours ago. For
one moment Juve had asked himself whether he should not ring in the most
natural manner in the world, and afterwards contrive some explanation;
but the silence, the peace which prevailed and the conviction that
Doctor Chaleck, quite off his guard, must be enjoying deep slumber,
prompted him to try and get into the house unannounced. If the door was
only bolted, if it was not secured from within by a latch, the officer
might reckon on finding among his pass keys one that would allow him to
open it. Juve was, indeed, equipped like the prince of burglars.
Well, the attempt had succeeded. Without trouble or noise, journalist
and officer had made their way into the place.
Before imparting to Fandor his plan of operations, Juve handed him a
pair of rubbers, and then at a signal they both ascended to the first
floor.
The detective's plan was to make a sudden incursion into Chaleck's
bedroom, and in the surprise of a sudden awakening, question him and
inspect the fingers of his right hand, which, presumably, had left on
the register a tell-tale trace of blood.
Juve had scarcely entered the room when Fandor switched on the lights;
the two men started back in disgust; the room was empty!
Without pause, Juve cried: "To the study!"
A moment later they found themselves in the room they knew so well from
having spent a whole night there, behind the window curtains.
Chaleck was not there either. Fandor searched the bathroom near by,
careless of the noise he made, then hurried after Juve to the floor
below in the fear that the doctor might already have made his escape.
Juve quickly reassured him the windows and shutters of the rooms were
hermetically closed; the hall door had not been touched.
Suddenly slight sounds became audible from the floor above. A crackling
of the boards, the muffled sounds of hasty footsteps, faint rustlings.
"Chaleck knows we are here," whispered Juve. "We must play with our
cards on the table."
The two men cocked their pistols and made a rush upstairs. They had left
the electric light burning on the floor above, and at first their eyes
were dazzled by the sudden brightness, multiplied by the reflection from
the glass which lined the octagonal-shaped landing.
Again the noises were heard. Chaleck or some one else was in the study.
Juve disappeared. In half a minute he returned and bumped into Fandor.
"Where are you coming from?" he cried. "I thought you were behind me."
"So I was," replied Fandor, "but I left you to take a look in the
study."
"But it was I who was in the study!"
Fandor stared in amazement. "Are you losing your senses?"
"I've just come from there myself!"
"Well, we weren't there together, that's certain. Let's try again."
The two proceeded in the dark to the head of the staircase. With their
heels they verified the last step; then Juve said in a low voice:
"I will go forward four paces. I am now in the middle of the landing; I
lift the curtain, turn and go in."
The steady tick of the little Empire clock on the mantelpiece assured
Juve that he was indeed in the study.
"Well, here I am," and mechanically he flung his hat on the sofa. But
scarcely had he uttered these words when Fandor's voice, very clear, but
some way off answered
"I am in the study, too."
Juve now switched on the light. Fandor was not there. Rushing back to
the landing he ran full tilt into his friend and the two gripped each
other in amazement.
"Look here," exclaimed Fandor, "if I'm not mistaken, you turned to the
right past the curtain while I went to the left; there may be two
separate entrances to the study."
"Let us keep together this time," replied Juve; "I propose to get to the
bottom of this mystery."
As they came out of the darkness of the passage and plunged into the
full light of the room, Juve stopped short. His hat was no longer on the
sofa.
Fandor went to the mantelpiece, turned and confronted the detective.
"I stopped the clock some moments ago, and here it is going and keeping
exact time! How do you account for it?"
Juve was about to reply, when suddenly with a dry click the light went
out.
Fandor, at the same moment, gave a startled cry: "Juve! the door is
fastened; we are shut in!"
With one bound Juve leaped for the window; but after opening the
casement he perceived that thick iron shutters, padlocked, banished all
hope of escape in that quarter. Fandor was ashy pale; Juve staggered as
he moved toward him.
"Walled in!" he cried. "We are walled in!"
But a new terror suddenly confronted the two men. The floor appeared to
be giving way, and as the descent proceeded regularly, they realised
that they were in a strange form of elevator.
The study, however, did not drop very far. With a slight shock it
reached the end of the run and stopped short.
Juve cried with an air of relief, "Well, here we are, and it now remains
to find out where we are."
The existence of two studies identical in every particular, one of which
was housed in an elevator, explained not only the events of the evening,
but also the tragedy of two days before.
"Juve! did you feel anything?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
Both had just experienced a weird sensation, impossible to define. Upon
their hands and faces slight prickings irritated the skin. The air at
the same time seemed heavier and more difficult to breathe. There was,
besides, a soft, vague crackling. With some difficulty Juve lighted his
pocket-lamp. By its faint glimmer the two men made a discovery. A fine
rain of sand was falling from the ceiling.
"It's collapsed!" cried Fandor.
"We're done for!" replied Juve.
They passed through some awful moments. All around the sand gathered and
rose.
Juve tried to comfort his friend:
"It would need an enormous amount of sand to fill this room and bury us
alive. It will cease to fall presently."
But horrible to relate, as the level of the sand rose on the floor, they
observed by the flickering gleam of the lamp, that the ceiling was now
being lowered little by little.
Fandor raised his arm and touched it. They were about to be crushed.
"Juve, do not let me die this way. Kill me!"
His comrade made no reply. At first paralysed by the shock he now felt
an unspeakable fury rise up in him. He began beating the walls with his
fists, shaking the furniture. He seized a chair and drove it against the
door. The chair struck with a ring upon metal and broke.
Uttering a loud sigh, the detective drew out his revolver; he would, at
least, save his friend the torments of an awful death. Suddenly a
fearful crash resounded. The moving mass of sand was falling away from
them into some gaping hole below, while at the same time fresh, moist
air reached them and refreshed their lungs. Evidently some
communication with the outside world had been established.
Juve relit his lamp and was bending over to examine what had taken place
when the floor all at once gave way under his feet and he fell, dragging
Fandor with him.
They found themselves up to mid-leg in water, but unhurt.
Juve's voice rang out: "We are saved! I see now what happened! Our trap
had a thin flooring, and, when down, it rested on a fragile arch. That
arch gave way, and with the sand we have tumbled into the sewer of the
Place Pigalle, which, if I am not mistaken, connects with the main of
the Chaussée d'Autin. Come along, friend Fandor, we'll find means to get
out of this before long."
Floundering in the mud, they made their way along the drain until Juve
halted and uttered a cry of triumph. On the left wall of the vault his
hand encountered iron rings one above the other. It was a ladder leading
to one of the manholes in the pavement. He quickly climbed up and, with
a vigorous push, raised the heavy slab. In a few moments both men
emerged and fell exhausted in the roadway.
When Fandor recovered his senses he was lying in a large, ill-lighted
hall. The first sound he heard was Juve's voice arguing hotly and
volubly.
"Why, you're nothing but a pack of idiots! We burglars! It's utter rot.
I tell you I'm Juve, Inspector of Public Safety!"
XII
FOLLOWING JOSEPHINE
The captives had been recognised, and had been set at liberty. They had
scarcely got a few yards from the police station, when Juve took the
journalist's arm.
"Let's make haste!" he cried. "This foolish arrest has made us lose
precious hours."
"You have a plan, Juve? What is it?"
"We must now turn our attention to Josephine; we must use her as a bait
to catch the others. The girl won't be much longer at Lâriboisière. She
will be extremely anxious to leave that place and----"
"And go back to clear herself of treachery in Loupart's eyes? Is that
it?" added Fandor.
"Exactly. Accordingly here is our plan of action. I must go at once to
the Prefecture and advise M. Havard of our adventure. Meanwhile you go
to the hospital. Contrive to see Josephine, make sure she has not left,
watch her and then--wait for me; in two hours, at the latest, I shall be
with you."
"All right, Juve, you can reckon on me. Josephine shall not escape me."
Fandor was already moving off when Juve called him back.
"Wait! If ever for one reason or another you want an appointment with
me, telegraph to the Safety, room 44, in my name. I will see that the
messages always reach me."
A quarter of an hour later Fandor was turning into the Rue Ambroise
Paré, when all at once as he passed a woman he gave a start.
"Hullo!" he cried; "that's something we didn't bargain for!..."
The woman walked along the Boulevard Chapelle toward the Boulevard
Barbès. Fandor followed her.
When the great clock which adorns the main front of the Lâriboisière
buildings struck six, the nurses in the hospital were busy finishing
their preparations for the night.
The surgeon in Dr. Patel's division was just concluding his evening
visit to the patients. With a word of encouragement and cheer he passed
from bed to bed until he reached the one at the end of the ward. The
young woman occupying it was sitting up.
"So you want to be off," exclaimed the surgeon.
"Yes, doctor."
"Then you're not comfortable here?"
"Yes, doctor, but----"
"But, what? Are you still afraid?"
"No, no."
The patient spoke these last words so confidently that the surgeon could
not help smiling.
"Do you know," he observed, "that in your place I should be much less
confident. What are you going to do? Where do you think of going when
you leave here? Come, now, you are still very weak; you had much better
spend the night here. You could go to-morrow morning after the round at
eleven. It would be much more rational."
The young woman shook her head and replied curtly:
"I want to go now, sir, at once."
"Very good. They will give you your ticket."
The doctor gone, the young woman quickly jumped out of bed and began to
dress herself.
"You don't suppose I'm going to stay here a minute longer than I have
to," she grumbled with a laugh to her neighbour, who was watching her
preparations with an envious eye.
"Some one waiting for you?"
"Sure there is. Loupart won't be pleased that I'm not back yet."
"Are you going from here to his place?"
"You bet I am."
This she said in a tone that showed plainly she found the thing quite
natural. The other was not of her mind.
"Oh, well, I should be scared only at the thought of seeing that man.
You were jolly lucky not to have been killed by him. And when he has got
hold of you----"
But Josephine laughed merrily.
"My dear," she said, "you don't know what you're saying. Depend on it,
if Loupart didn't kill me it's because he didn't want to. He's a
splendid shot. I suppose he had his reasons for not wanting me to stay
here; I don't know his affairs, and besides, I came here without
consulting him."
A vigorous "hush" from the nurse on duty stopped the conversation.
Josephine meanwhile completed her toilet. A nurse had brought her back
the clothes she wore when she entered the hospital. She slipped on a
poor muslin skirt, laced her bodice, buttoned her boots and set her
curls straight; she was ready.
"I'm off," she cried gaily to the porter as she held out her pass to
him. "Thank the Lord, I'm going, and I have no fancy to come back to
your hotel!"
Once in the street, Josephine walked quickly. She cast a glance at the
clock at a cabstand, and found she was behind time.
She went along the Rue Ambroise Paré, then turned on to the outer
boulevards.