SHOWS EXPERT METHODS.
It being the luncheon hour, Frémy and myself ate our meal at the highly
popular restaurant, the Taverne Joseph, close to the Bourse, where the
cooking is, perhaps, the best in Brussels and where the cosmopolitan, who
knows where to eat, usually makes for when in the Belgian capital.
After our coffee, cigarettes, and a "triple-sec" each, we strolled round
to the General Post Office. As we approached that long flight of granite
steps I knew so well, a poor-looking, ill-dressed man with the pinch of
poverty upon his face, and his coat buttoned tightly against the cold,
edged up to my companion on the pavement and whispered a word, afterwards
hurrying on.
"Our interesting friend has not been here yet," the detective remarked to
me. "We will have a talk with the clerk at the Poste Restante."
Entering the great hall, busy as it is all day, we approached the window
where letters were distributed from A to L, and where sat the same
pleasant, fair-haired man sorting letters.
"Bon jour, m'sieur!" he exclaimed, when he caught sight of Frémy. "What
weather, eh?"
The great detective returned his greetings, and then putting his head
further into the window so that others should not overhear, said in
French:
"I am looking for an individual, an Englishman, name of Bryant, and am
keeping watch outside. He is wanted in England for a serious offence. Has
he been here?"
"Bryant?" repeated the clerk thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Frémy, and then I spelt the name slowly.
The clerk reached his hand to the pigeon-hole wherein were letters for
callers whose names began with B, and placing them against a little block
of black wood on the counter before him, looked eagerly through while we
watched intently.
Once or twice he stopped to scrutinise an address, but his fingers went
on again through the letters to the end.
"Nothing," he remarked laconically, replacing the packet in the
pigeon-hole. "But there has been correspondence for him. I recollect--a
thin-faced man, with grey hair and clean shaven. Yes. I remember him
distinctly. He always called just before the office was closed."
"When did he call last?" asked Frémy quickly.
"The night before last, I think," was the man's answer. "A lady was with
him--a rather stout English lady."
We both started.
"Did the lady ask for any letters?"
"Yes. But I forget the name."
"Petre is her right name," I interrupted. Then I suggested to Frémy:
"Ask the other clerk to look through the letter 'P.'"
"Non, m'sieur!" exclaimed the fair-haired employée. "The name she asked
for was in my division. It was not P."
"Then she must have asked for a name that was not her own," I said.
"And it seems very much as though we have lost the gang by a few hours,"
Frémy said disappointedly. "My own opinion is that they left Brussels by
the Orient Express last night. They did not call at the usual time
yesterday."
"They may come this evening," I suggested.
"Certainly they may. We shall, of course, watch," he replied.
"When the man and woman called the day before yesterday," continued the
employée, "there was a second man--a dark-faced Indian with them, I
believe. He stood some distance away, and followed them out. It was his
presence which attracted my attention and caused me to remember the
incident."
Frémy exchanged looks with me. I knew he was cursing his fate which had
allowed the precious trio to slip through his fingers.
Yet the thought was gratifying that when the express ran into the Great
Westbahnhof at Vienna, the detectives would at once search it for the
fugitives.
My companion had told me that by eight o'clock we would know the result
of the enquiry, and I was anxious for that hour to arrive.
Already Frémy had ordered search to be made of arrivals at all hotels and
pensions in the city for the name of Bryant, therefore, we could do
nothing more than possess ourselves in patience. So we left the post
office, his poverty-stricken assistant remaining on the watch, just as I
had watched in the cold on the previous night.
With my companion I walked round to the big Café Metropole on the
Boulevard, and over our "bocks," at a table where we could not be
overheard, we discussed the situation.
That big café, one of the principal in Brussels, is usually deserted
between the hours of three and four. At other times it is filled with
business men discussing their affairs, or playing dominoes with that
rattle which is characteristic of the foreign café.
"Why is it," I asked him, "that your chief absolutely refuses to betray
the identity of the girl Marie Bracq?"
The round-faced man before me smiled thoughtfully as he idly puffed his
cigarette. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he replied:
"Well, m'sieur, to tell the truth, there is a very curious complication.
In connection with the affair there is a scandal which must never be
allowed to get out to the public."
"Then you know the truth--eh?" I asked.
"A portion of it. Not all," he replied. "But I tell you that the news of
the young lady's death has caused us the greatest amazement and surprise.
We knew that she was missing, but never dreamed that she had been the
victim of an assassin."
"But who are her friends?" I demanded.
"Unfortunately, I am not permitted to say," was his response. "When they
know the terrible truth they may give us permission to reveal the truth
to you. Till then, my duty is to preserve their secret."
"But I am all anxiety to know."
"I quite recognise that, M'sieur Royle," he said. "I know how I should
feel were I in your position. But duty is duty, is it not?"
"I have assisted you, and I have given you a clue to the mystery," I
protested.
"And we, on our part, will assist you to clear the stigma resting upon
the lady who is your promised wife," he said. "Whatever I can do in that
direction, m'sieur may rely upon me."
I was silent, for I saw that to attempt to probe further then the mystery
of the actual identity of Marie Bracq was impossible. There seemed a
conspiracy of silence against me.
But I would work myself. I would exert all the cunning and ingenuity I
possessed--nay, I would spend every penny I had in the world--in order to
clear my well-beloved of that terrible suspicion that by her hand this
daughter of a princely house had fallen.
"Well," I asked at last. "What more can we do?"
"Ah!" sighed the stout man, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his
lips and drawing his glass. "What can we do? The Poste Restante is being
watched, the records of all hotels and pensions for the past month are
being inspected, and we have put a guard upon the Orient Express. No! We
can do nothing," he said, "until we get a telegram from Vienna. Will you
call at the Préfecture of Police at eight o'clock to-night? I will be
there to see you."
I promised, then having paid the waiter, we strolled out of the café, and
parted on the Boulevard, he going towards the Nord Station, while I went
along in the opposite direction to the Grand.
For the appointed hour I waited in greatest anxiety. What if the trio had
been arrested in Vienna?
That afternoon I wrote a long and encouraging letter to Phrida, telling
her that I was exerting every effort on her behalf and urging her to keep
a stout heart against her enemies, who now seemed to be in full flight.
At last, eight o'clock came, and I entered the small courtyard of the
Préfecture of Police, where a uniformed official conducted me up to the
room of Inspector Frémy.
The big, merry-faced man rose as I entered and placed his cigar in an ash
tray.
"Bad luck, m'sieur!" he exclaimed in French. "They left Brussels in the
Orient, as I suspected--all three of them. Here is the reply," and he
handed me an official telegram in German, which translated into English
read:
"To Préfet of Police, Brussels, from Préfet of Police, Vienna:
"In response to telegram of to-day's date, the three persons
described left Brussels by Orient Express, travelled to Wels,
and there left the train at 2.17 this afternoon. Telephonic
inquiry of police at Wels results that they left at 4.10 by the
express for Paris."
"I have already telegraphed to Paris," Frémy said. "But there is time, of
course, to get across to Paris, and meet the express from Constantinople
on its arrival there. Our friends evidently know their way about the
Continent!"
"Shall we go to Paris," I suggested eagerly, anticipating in triumph
their arrest as they alighted at the Gare de l'Est. I had travelled by
the express from Vienna on one occasion about a year before, and
remembered that it arrived in Paris about nine o'clock in the morning.
"With the permission of my chief I will willingly accompany you,
m'sieur," replied the detective, and, leaving me, he was absent for five
minutes or so, while I sat gazing around his bare, official-looking
bureau, where upon the walls were many police notices and photographs of
wanted persons, "rats d'hotel," and other malefactors. Brussels is one of
the most important police centres in Europe, as well as being the centre
of the political secret service of the Powers.
On his return he said:
"Bien, m'sieur. We leave the Midi Station at midnight and arrive in Paris
at half-past five. I will engage sleeping berths, and I will telephone to
my friend, Inspector Dricot, at the Préfecture, to send an agent of the
brigade mobile to meet us. Non d'un chien! What a surprise it will be for
the fugitives. But," he added, "they are clever and elusive. Fancy, in
order to go from Brussels to Paris they travel right away into Austria,
and with through tickets to Belgrade, too! Yes, they know the routes on
the Continent--the routes used by the international thieves, I mean. The
Wels route by which they travelled, is one of them."
Then I left him, promising to meet him at the station ten minutes before
midnight. I had told Edwards I would notify him by wire any change of
address, therefore, on leaving the Préfecture of Police, I went to the
Grand and from there sent a telegram to him at Scotland Yard, telling him
that I should call at the office of the inspector of police at the East
railway station in Paris at ten on the following morning--if he had
anything to communicate.
All through that night we travelled on in the close, stuffy _wagon-lit_
by way of Mons to Paris arriving with some three hours and a half to
spare, which we idled in one of the all-night cafés near the station,
having been met by a little ferret-eyed Frenchman, named Jappé, who had
been one of Frémy's subordinates when he was in the French service.
Just before nine o'clock, after our _café-au-lait_ in the buffet, we
walked out upon the long arrival platform where the Orient Express from
its long journey from Constantinople was due.
It was a quarter of an hour late, but at length the luggage porters began
to assemble, and with bated breath I watched the train of dusty
sleeping-cars slowly draw into the terminus.
In a moment Frémy and his colleague were all eyes, while I stood near the
engine waiting the result of their quest.
But in five minutes the truth was plain. Frémy was in conversation with
one of the brown-uniformed conductors, who told him that the three
passengers we sought did join at Wels, but had left again at Munich on
the previous evening!
My heart sank. Our quest was in vain. They had again eluded us!
"I will go to Munich," Frémy said at once. "I may find trace of them
yet."
"And I will accompany you!" I exclaimed eagerly. "They must not escape
us."
But my plans were at once altered, and Frémy was compelled to leave for
Germany alone, for at the police office at the station half an hour
later I received a brief message from Edwards urging me to return to
London immediately, and stating that an important discovery had been
made.
So I drove across to the Gare du Nord, and left for London by the next
train.
What, I wondered, had been discovered?