“Information Free. No Fees of Any Kind.”
Which was paradoxically true. Barnett’s income was composed not of fees
but of levies. Sometimes he took toll of his clients, sometimes of
their enemies. A certain poetic justice characterized his depredations.
The poor and the innocent had nothing to fear from Jim Barnett.
And he was undeniably on the side of the law so far as results went.
Only, where it suited his purpose, he meted out his own idea of a
suitable punishment to criminals instead of turning them over to the
police.
Inspector Béchoux was probably Barnett’s only close friend. Yet all he
knew of him was gleaned from the hours they spent together when Barnett
intervened in one of his cases. He was quite ignorant of Barnett’s
private life—his antecedents—even his identity. For there was always
one mystery which remained unsolved. Who was the man who called himself
“Jim Barnett”?
There was something about his methods and his amusing buffoonery which
could not fail to recall the King of Crooks—the one man who persisted
in eluding and baffling the Paris police—the man Inspector Béchoux
would have given his life-savings to lay hands on—whom he sometimes, in
his inmost heart, half suspected to be masquerading as “Barnett,” and
then dismissed the suspicion as fantastic.
It is a long way back to pre-war Paris, and the clash of wits between
Barnett and Inspector Béchoux. In these days, when so much of
admiration and adulation is being misapplied, honor to whom honor is
due! The moment has come when we can openly state that the worthy
Inspector’s instinct was right, and the “interventions” of Jim Barnett
may safely be attributed to their perpetrator—Arsène Lupin!