GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE
The walk uptown did me good. The rain had ceased, and the air felt
clean and fresh as though it had been washed. I took deep breaths of
it, and the feeling of fatigue and depression which had weighed upon
me gradually vanished. I was in no hurry--went out of my way a
little, indeed, to walk out into Madison Square and look back at the
towering mass of the Flatiron building, creamy and delicate as carved
ivory under the rays of the moon--and it was long past midnight when
I finally turned in at the Marathon. Higgins, the janitor, was just
closing the outer doors, and he joined me in the elevator a moment
later.
"There's a gentleman waiting to see you, sir," he said, as the car
started upward. "Mr. Godfrey, sir. He came in about ten minutes ago.
He said you were expecting him, so I let him into your rooms."
"That was right," I said, and reflected again upon Godfrey's
exhaustless energy.
I found him lolling in an easy chair, and he looked up with a smile
at my entrance. "Higgins said you hadn't come in yet," he explained,
"so I thought I'd wait a few minutes on the off chance that you
mightn't be too tired to talk. If you are, say so, and I'll be moving
along."
"I'm not too tired," I said, hanging up my coat. "I feel a good deal
better than I did an hour ago."
"I saw that you were about all in."
"How do you keep it up, Godfrey?" I asked, sitting down opposite him.
"You don't seem tired at all."
"I _am_ tired, though," he said, "a little. But I've got a fool brain
that won't let my body go to sleep so long as there is work to be
done. Then, as soon as everything is finished, the brain lets go and
the body sleeps like a log. Now I knew I couldn't go to sleep
properly to-night until I had heard the very interesting theory you
are going to confide to me. Besides, I have a thing or two to tell
you."
"Go ahead," I said.
"We had a cable from our Paris office just before I left. It seems
that M. Théophile d'Aurelle plays the fiddle in the orchestra of the
Café de Paris. He played as usual to-night, so that it is manifestly
impossible that he should also be lying in the New York morgue.
Moreover, none of his friends, so far as he knows, is in America. No
doubt he may be able to identify the photograph of the dead man, and
we've already started one on the way, but we can't hear from it for
six or eight days. But my guess was right--the fellow's name isn't
d'Aurelle."
"You say you have a photograph?"
"Yes, I had some taken of the body this afternoon. Here's one of
them. Keep it; you may have a use for it."
I took the card, and, as I gazed at the face depicted upon it, I
realised that the distorted countenance I had seen in the afternoon
had given me no idea of the man's appearance. Now the eyes were
closed and the features composed and peaceful, but even death failed
to give them any dignity. It was a weak and dissipated face, the face
of a hanger-on of cafés, as Parks had said--of a loiterer along the
boulevards, of a man without ambition, and capable of any depth of
meanness and deceit. At least, that is how I read it.
"He's evidently low-class," said Godfrey, watching me. "One of those
parasites, without work and without income, so common in Paris.
Shop-girls and ladies' maids have a weakness for them."
"I think you are right," I agreed; "but, at the same time, if he was
of that type, I don't see what business he could have had with Philip
Vantine."
"Neither do I; but there are a lot of other things I don't see,
either. We're all in the dark, Lester; have you thought of that?
Absolutely in the dark."
"Yes, I have thought of it," I said, slowly.
"No doubt we can establish this fellow's identity in time--sooner
than we think, perhaps, for most of the morning papers will run his
picture, and if he is known here in New York at all, it will be
recognised by some one. When we find out who he is, we can probably
guess at the nature of his business with Vantine. We can find out who
the woman was who called to see Vantine to-night--that is just a case
of grilling Rogers; then we can run her down and get her secret out
of her. We can find why Rogers is trying to shield her. All that is
comparatively simple. But when we have done it all, when we have all
these facts in hand, I am afraid we shall find that they are utterly
unimportant."
"Unimportant?" I echoed. "But surely--"
"Unimportant because we don't want to know these things. What we want
to know is how Philip Vantine and this unknown Frenchman were killed.
And that is just the one thing which, I am convinced, neither the man
nor the woman nor Rogers nor anybody else we have come across in this
case can tell us. There's a personality behind all this that we
haven't even suspected yet, and which, I am free to confess, I don't
know how to get at. It puzzles me; it rather frightens me; it's like
a threatening shadow which one can't get hold of."
There was a moment's silence; then, I decided, the time had come for
me to speak.
"Godfrey," I said, "what I am about to tell you is told in
confidence, and must be held in confidence until I give you
permission to use it. Do you agree?"
"Go on," he said, his eyes on my face.
"Well, I believe I know how these two men were killed. Listen."
And I told him in detail the story of the Boule cabinet; I repeated
Vantine's theory of its first ownership; I named the price which he
was ready to pay for it; I described the difference between an
original and a counterpart, and dwelt upon Vantine's assertion that
this was an original of unique and unquestionable artistry. Long
before I had finished, Godfrey was out of his chair and pacing up and
down the room, his face flushed, his eyes glowing.
"Beautiful!" he murmured from time to time. "Immense! What a case it
will make, Lester!" he cried, stopping before my chair and beaming
down upon me, as I finished the story. "Unique, too; that's the
beauty of it! As unique as this adorable Boule cabinet!"
"Then you see it, too?" I questioned, a little disappointed that my
theory should seem so evident.
"See it?" and he dropped into his chair again. "A man would be blind
not to see it. But all the same, Lester, I give you credit for
putting the facts together. So many of us--Grady, for instance!
--aren't able to do that, or to see which facts are essential and
which are negligible. Now the fact that Vantine had accidentally come
into possession of a Boule cabinet would probably seem negligible to
Grady, whereas it is the one big essential fact in this whole case.
And it was you who saw it."
"You saw it, too," I pointed out, "as soon as I mentioned it."
"Yes; but you mentioned it in a way which made its importance
manifest. I couldn't help seeing it. And I believe that we have both
arrived at practically the same conclusions. Here they are," and he
checked them off on his fingers. "The cabinet contains a secret
drawer. This is inevitable, if it really belonged to Madame de
Montespan. Any cabinet made for her would be certain to have a secret
drawer--she would require it, just as she would require lace on her
underwear or jewelled buttons on her gloves. That drawer, since it
was, perhaps, to contain such priceless documents as the love letters
of a king--even more so, if the love letters were from another man!
--must be adequately guarded, and therefore a mechanism was devised to
stab the person attempting to open it and to inject into the wound a
poison so powerful as to cause instant death. Am I right so far?"
"Wonderfully right," I nodded. "I had not put it so clearly, even to
myself. Go ahead."
"We come to the conclusion, then," continued Godfrey, "that the
business of this unknown Frenchman with Vantine in some way concerned
this cabinet."
"Vantine himself thought so," I broke in. "He told me afterwards that
it was because he thought so he consented to see him."
"Good! That would seem to indicate that we are on the right track.
The Frenchman's business, then, had something to do with this
cabinet, and with this secret drawer. Left to himself, he discovered
the cabinet in the room adjoining the ante-room, attempted to open
the drawer, and was killed."
"Yes," I agreed; "and now how about Vantine?"
"Vantine's death isn't so simply explained. Presumably the unknown
woman also called on business relating to the cabinet. She, also,
wanted to open the secret drawer, in order to secure its contents
--that seems fairly certain from her connection with the first
caller."
"You still think it was her photograph he carried in his watch?"
"I am sure of it. But how did it happen that it was Vantine who was
killed? Did the woman, warned by the fate of the man, deliberately
set Vantine to open the drawer in order that she might run no risk?
Or was she also ignorant of the mechanism? Above all, did she succeed
in getting away with the contents of the drawer?"
"What _was_ the contents of the drawer?" I demanded.
"Ah, if we only knew!"
"Perhaps the woman had nothing to do with it. Vantine himself told me
that he was going to make a careful examination of the cabinet. No
doubt that is exactly what he was doing when the woman's arrival
interrupted him. He might have let her out of the house himself, and
then, returning to the cabinet, stumbled upon the secret drawer after
she had gone."
"Yes; that is quite possible, too. At any rate, you agree with me
that both men were killed in some such way as I have described?"
"Absolutely. I think there can be no doubt of it."
"There are objections--and rather weighty ones. The theory explains
the two deaths, it explains the similarity of the wounds, it explains
how both should be on the right hand just above the knuckles, it
explains why both bodies were found in the same place since both men
started to summon help. But, in the first place, if the Frenchman got
the drawer open, who closed it?"
"Perhaps it closed itself when he let go of it."
"And closed again after Vantine opened it?"
"Yes."
"It would take a very clever mechanism to do that."
"But at least it's possible."
"Oh, yes; it's possible. And we must remember that the poisoners of
those days were very ingenious. That was the heydey of La Voisin and
the Marquise de Brinvilliers, of Elixi, and heaven knows how many
other experts who had followed Catherine de Medici to France. So
that's all quite possible. But there is one thing that isn't
possible, and that is that a poison which, if it is administered as
we think it is, must be a liquid, could remain in that cabinet fresh
and ready for use for more than three hundred years. It would have
dried up centuries ago. Nor would the mechanism stay in order so
long. It must be both complicated and delicate. Therefore it would
have to be oiled and overhauled from time to time. If it is worked by
a spring--and I don't see how else it can be worked--the spring would
have to be renewed and wound up."
"Well?" I asked, as he paused.
"Well, it is evident that the drawer contains something more recent
than the love letters of Louis Fourteenth. It must have been put in
working order quite recently. But by whom and for what purpose? That
is the mystery we have to solve--and it is a mighty pretty one. And
here's another objection," he added. "That Frenchman knew about the
secret drawer, because, according to our theory, he opened it and got
killed. Why didn't he also know about the poison?"
That was an objection, truly, and the more I thought of it, the more
serious it seemed.
"It may be," said Godfrey, at last, "that d'Aurelle was going it
alone--that he had broken with the gang--"
"The gang?"
"Of course there is a gang. This thing has taken careful planning and
concerted effort. And the leader of the gang is a genius! I wonder if
you understand how great a genius? Think: he knows the secret of the
drawer of Madame de Montespan's cabinet; but above all he knows the
secret of the poison--the poison of the Medici! Do you know what that
means, Lester?"
"What _does_ it mean?" I asked, for Godfrey was getting ahead of me.
"It means he is a great criminal--a really great criminal--one of the
elect from whom crime has no secrets. Observe. He alone knows the
secret of the poison; one of his men breaks away from him, and pays
for his mutiny with his life. He is the brain; the others are merely
the instruments!"
"Then you don't believe it was by accident that cabinet was sent to
Vantine?"
"By accident? Not for an instant! It was part of a plot--and a
splendid plot!"
"Can you explain that to me, too?" I queried, a little ironically,
for I confess it seemed to me that Godfrey was permitting his
imagination to run away with him.
He smiled good-naturedly at my tone.
"Of course, this is all mere romancing," he admitted. "I am the first
to acknowledge that. I was merely following out our theory to what
seemed its logical conclusion. But perhaps we are on the wrong track
altogether. Perhaps d'Aurelle, or whatever his name is, just
blundered in, like a moth into a candle-flame. As for the plot--well,
I can only guess at it. But suppose you and I had pulled off some big
robbery--"
He stopped suddenly, and his face went white and then red.
"What is it, Godfrey?" I cried, for his look frightened me.
He lay back in his chair, his hands pressed over his eyes. I could
see how they were trembling--how his whole body was trembling.
"Wait!" he said, hoarsely. "Wait!" Then he sat upright, his face
tense with anxiety. "Lester!" he cried, his voice shrill with fear.
"The cabinet--it isn't guarded!"
"Yes, it is," I said. "At least I thought of that!"
And I told him of the precautions I had taken to keep it safe. He
heard me out with a sigh of relief.
"That's better," he said. "Parks wouldn't stand much show, I'm
afraid, if worst came to worst; but I think the cabinet is safe--for
to-night. And before another night, Lester, we will have a look for
ourselves."
"A look?"
"Yes; for the secret drawer!"
I stared at him fascinated, shrinking.
"And we shall find it!" he added.
"D'Aurelle and Vantine found it," I muttered thickly.
"Well?"
"And they're both dead!"
"It won't kill us. We will go about it armoured, Lester. That
poisoned fang may strike--"
"Don't!" I cried, and cowered back into my chair. "I--I can't do it,
Godfrey. God knows, I'm no coward--but not that!"
"You shall watch me do it!" he said.
"That would be even worse!"
"But I'll be ready, Lester. There will be no danger. Come, man! Why,
it's the chance of a lifetime--to rifle the secret drawer of Madame
de Montespan! Yes!" he added, his eyes glowing, "and to match
ourselves against the greatest criminal of modern times!"
His shrill laugh told how excited he was.
"And do you know what we shall find in that drawer, Lester? But no
--it is only a guess--the wildest sort of a guess--but if it is
right--if it is right!"
He sprang from his chair, biting his lips, his whole frame quivering.
But he was calmer in a moment.
"Anyway, you will help me, Lester? You will come?"
There was a wizardry in his manner not to be resisted. Besides--to
rifle the secret drawer of Madame de Montespan! To match oneself
against the greatest criminal of modern times! What an adventure!
"Yes," I answered, with a quick intaking of the breath; "I'll come!"
He clapped me on the shoulder, his face beaming.
"I knew you would! To-morrow night, then--I'll call for you here at
seven o'clock. We'll have dinner together--and then, hey for the
great secret! Agreed?"
"Agreed!" I said.
He caught up coat and hat and started for the door.
"There are things to do," he said; "that armour to prepare--the plan
of campaign to consider, you know. Good-night, then, till--this
evening!"
The door closed behind him, and his footsteps died away down the
hall. I looked at my watch--it was nearly two o'clock.
Dizzily I went to bed. But my sleep was broken by a fearful dream--a
dream of a serpent, with blazing eyes and dripping fangs, poised to
strike!