Jim Barnett, making his way out of Rouen railway station, was met by
Inspector Béchoux, who clutched his arm and led him quickly away.
“We haven’t a minute to lose. Things may take a turn for the worse at
any moment!”
“I should be much more impressed with the gravity of the situation,”
Barnett remarked with profound logic, “if I knew what it was all about.
I came in answer to your wire and in complete ignorance of the
excitements awaiting me.”
“You arrived according to plan—my plan,” said Inspector Béchoux
complacently.
“Can this mean, Béchoux”—Barnett paused to strike a dramatic
attitude—“can this mean that you’ve got over the little affair of King
George the Fourth’s love-letter and no longer distrust me?”
“I still distrust you, Barnett, just as I distrust the way the Barnett
Agency settles accounts with its clients. But there’s nothing in this
case for you, old man. For once in your career you’ll have to give your
services gratis.”
Barnett’s lips pursed to a soft whistle. The prospect did not seem to
daunt him. Béchoux gave him a swift sidelong glance, already uneasy and
wishing that he could manage to dispense with the private detective’s
assistance.
They turned into the station yard. A private car was drawn up, waiting
and in it sat a handsome woman with a pale, tragic face. Tears stood in
her eyes and her lips were pressed together in a desperate effort at
self-control. She opened the car door and Béchoux introduced his
friend.
“Madame, this is Jim Barnett. I told you of him as the only man who
might be able to save you. Barnett, let me introduce Madame
Fougeraie—the wife of Monsieur Fougeraie, the engineer. Madame
Fougeraie’s husband is on the verge of being arrested on a charge of——”
He paused dramatically.
“Of what?”
“Murder.”
Jim Barnett’s tongue clicked in ghoulish appreciation. The horrified
Béchoux stammered an apology for his friend.
“Forgive him, madame. He always feels so utterly at home on a really
serious case.”
The car was already speeding towards the quays of Rouen. It turned left
and drew up in front of a big building.
They all got out and went up in a lift to the third floor, on which
were the premises of the Norman Club. “Here,” said Béchoux waving a
hand to indicate the palatial precincts, “is the rendezvous where the
biggest merchants and manufacturers of Rouen and the district meet to
talk, read the papers and play cards, especially on Friday, which is
Stock Exchange day. As nobody is about in the morning except the
cleaners, there is plenty of time for me to tell you on the spot about
the drama that has just been enacted here.”
They passed down a passage into a large, comfortably furnished room
with a thick pile carpet. This, with two similar adjoining rooms, lined
the façade of the third floor of the building. These rooms were
intercommunicating, and the third led into a much smaller circular
room, with only one window, opening on to a big balcony, which
overlooked the banks of the Seine. They passed into the third large
room.
There they all sat down, Madame Fougeraie a little withdrawn near a
window, and Béchoux spoke:
“Now listen. A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, four members of this
club sat down after a good dinner to play poker. They were all friends,
mill-owners and manufacturers at Maromme, a big industrial centre near
Rouen. Three of the men were married and the fathers of families:
Alfred Auvard, Raoul Dupin, and Louis Batinet. The fourth, Maxime
Tuillier, was a younger, unmarried man in the same set.
“Towards midnight a fifth member joined them—a rich, young idler, Paul
Erstein by name. The five started playing baccarat now that the rooms
were deserted. Paul Erstein, an enthusiastic and regular player, held
the bank.”
Béchoux pointed to one of the tables in the room, and went on:
“They were playing there, at that table. At first it was a quiet
game—they had begun playing half-heartedly for want of something better
to do—but gradually it warmed up, after Erstein had ordered two bottles
of champagne for the party. From that moment luck was on the banker’s
side—shocking, unfair, maddening luck. Paul Erstein had it all his own
way. The others were exasperated and did their utmost to break the run,
without success. Contrary to all common sense, they would none of them
give in, with the result that at four o’clock in the morning the
Maromme manufacturers had lost all the money they were bringing from
Rouen to pay their hands. In addition, Maxime Tuillier had given Paul
Erstein his I.O.U. for eighty thousand francs.”
Inspector Béchoux drew a long breath and continued:
“Suddenly there was a coup de théâtre, a strange turn given to
Fortune’s wheel by Erstein’s own happy-go-lucky generosity. He divided
his winnings into four shares, corresponding exactly to the other men’s
losses, then subdivided those into thirds, and proposed having three
final deals. This meant that each of his opponents was to play him
individually double or quits on each of the three bundles of notes.
They took him on. Paul Erstein lost all three deals. The luck had
turned. After an all-night battle there were neither winners nor
losers.
“‘All the better,’ said Erstein, standing up. ‘I felt a bit ashamed of
myself, winning like that. Lord! what a head I’ve got! Must be the heat
of the room. Anyone coming to smoke a cigarette with me on the
balcony?’
“He stepped into the Round Room. For a few minutes, the four friends
remained at the table, gaily discussing the phases of the game. Then
they decided to leave the club. After crossing the other two rooms,
they warned the watchman dozing in the anteroom:
“‘Monsieur Erstein is still there, Joseph. But he’s sure to be going
soon.’
“Then they left, at exactly thirty-five minutes past four. They went
back to Maromme in Alfred Auvard’s car, as on most Friday nights. The
club servant, Joseph, waited for another hour. Then, tiring of his
vigil, he went in search of Paul Erstein, and found him lying in the
Round Room, twisted and inert. He was dead.”
Inspector Béchoux paused again. Madame Fougeraie’s head was bowed. Jim
Barnett accompanied his friend into the Round Room, cast a searching
glance over everything, and spoke:
“Now then, Béchoux, let’s get down to it. What has the inquest
revealed?”
“The inquest has revealed,” answered Béchoux, “that Paul Erstein was
struck on the left temple with a blunt instrument which must have
felled him at a blow. There was no sign of a struggle except that his
watch was broken. The hands pointed to five minutes to five, that’s to
say, twenty minutes after the departure of the other players. There was
no indication of theft; a signet ring and a wad of notes had not been
taken; nothing was missing. Finally, there was absolutely no trace of
the murderer, who could not have come or gone by way of the anteroom,
since Joseph had not moved from his post.”
“Then,” said Barnett, “there is no clue?”
“There is just one.” Béchoux hesitated, then went on: “It’s pretty
important. At the inquest, one of my colleagues called the coroner’s
attention to the fact that the balcony on the third floor of the next
building is very close to the balcony of this room. The magistrates
entered the building in question, the third floor of which is the
Fougeraies’ flat. They found that Monsieur Fougeraie had left home that
morning and had not returned. Madame Fougeraie took the magistrates
into her husband’s room. The balcony of that room is the one contiguous
to the balcony of the Round Room. Look!”
Barnett stepped out through the open French window.
“The distance is about four feet,” he observed. “Quite easy to get
across. But there’s nothing to prove that it was done.”
“Wait a moment,” said Béchoux. “D’you see those flower-boxes at the
edge of the Fougeraies’ balcony? They still contain the earth with
which they were filled last summer. They’ve been searched. In one of
them, just below the surface, with the earth freshly turned above it,
we found a knuckle-duster. The coroner has established that the shape
of this weapon corresponds exactly to the wound inflicted on Erstein.
There were no finger-prints distinguishable, as it had been raining
steadily since the morning. But the charge seems pretty well-founded.
Monsieur Fougeraie, seeing Paul Erstein in the brilliantly lighted room
opposite, must have sprung on to the club balcony; then, after
murdering his victim with the knuckle-duster, he hid his weapon in the
flower-box.
“But what motive had he for the crime? Did he know Paul Erstein?”
Béchoux shook his head.
“Then why——?”
During Béchoux’s reconstruction of what had happened, Madam Fougeraie
had got up and come over to where the two men stood. Her grief-stricken
face worked pitifully. She kept back her tears with a visible effort.
In answer to Barnett’s question, she said in a voice that trembled:
“It is for me to answer, monsieur. I will be brief and perfectly frank,
and then you will understand my fears. No, my husband did not know Paul
Erstein. But I knew him. I had met him several times in Paris at a
friend’s house, and from the start he made love to me. I am devoted to
my husband”—poor Madame Fougeraie gave a choking sob—“I have always
been faithful to him. Although I was sensible of Paul Erstein’s
attraction, I resisted it. But, weakly, I gave in to the extent of
meeting him several times in the country some way out of Rouen.”
“And you wrote to him?”
She nodded miserably.
“And your letters are now in the hands of his family?”
“Of his father.”
“Who, I suppose, is determined the letters shall be read in court so
that his son’s death shall be avenged at all costs.”
“Yes. Those letters prove the harmless character of our relations.
But—they prove that I met Paul Erstein without my husband’s knowledge.
And in one of them I wrote: ‘I beg of you, Paul, do be reasonable. My
husband is extremely jealous and very violent. If he should suspect me
for an instant, he would be capable of doing almost anything.’ So you
see, monsieur, that letter would considerably strengthen the case
against my husband. Jealousy would provide the police with the motive
they want. It would explain the murder and the discovery of the weapon
in the flower-box just outside my husband’s room.”
“Are you yourself sure, madame, that Monsieur Fougeraie suspected
nothing?”
She nodded.
“And you believe him innocent?”
“Oh, there can be no doubt—no doubt at all!” she cried impulsively.
Barnett, meeting her steadfast gaze, realized how this woman’s
conviction of her husband’s innocence could have influenced Béchoux to
the extent of making him her ally despite the public prosecutor and his
minions, and despite professional etiquette.
Barnett asked a few more questions, was lost in thought for some
moments, and at last announced solemnly:
“Madame, I can hold out no hopes. Logically, your husband must be
guilty. It is for me to try to disprove logic.”
“Do see my husband,” Madame Fougeraie besought him. “He will be able to
explain——”
“That’s quite useless, madame. I cannot help you unless I first of all
put your husband right out of the running in my own mind, and work on
the basis of your belief in his innocence.”
The preliminaries were over. Barnett was in the ring at once, and,
accompanied by Inspector Béchoux, called on the victim’s father. With
Erstein senior he came straight to the point:
“Monsieur, I am looking after Madame Fougeraie’s interests for her. You
are turning over your son’s correspondence to the prosecution, aren’t
you?”
“To-day, monsieur.”
“You have no hesitation in ruining the life of the woman your son loved
so dearly?”
“If that woman’s husband was my son’s murderer, I shall be sorry for
her sake, but my son’s death shall be avenged.”
“Wait five days, monsieur. Next Tuesday the murderer shall be
unmasked.”
Against his will, Erstein made the concession.
Barnett’s procedure in those five days of grace often disconcerted
Inspector Béchoux. He took—and made Béchoux take—the most irregular
steps, interviewed and organized a band of helpers, and spent money
like water. However, he seemed dissatisfied, and, contrary to habit,
was taciturn and inclined to sulk.
On Tuesday morning he had a talk with Madame Fougeraie and told her:
“Béchoux has got the prosecution to agree to a reconstruction of the
events of the fatal night, in detail, at the Norman Club, and it’s to
take place this afternoon. They have summoned both you and your husband
to appear. I implore you to control yourself, whatever happens, and to
try to appear almost indifferent.”
She looked at him trustingly, through unshed tears.
“Is there any hope...?” she faltered.
“I don’t know myself. As I told you before, I am simply playing your
hunch that Monsieur Fougeraie is innocent. I shall try to prove his
innocence by demonstrating a possible theory, but it’s a difficult
business. Even admitting that I am on the right track, as I believe I
am, the truth may yet elude us up to the very last moment.”
The public prosecutor and the examining magistrate who had investigated
the case proved to be a conscientious pair. They put their trust in
facts alone and refrained from interpreting these in the light of
preconceived theories.
“With such men,” said Béchoux, “I have no fear of your starting a row
or employing your usual bright badinage. They have very kindly given me
carte blanche to act as I see fit—or rather as you see fit—and don’t
you forget it.”
“My dear Béchoux,” replied Barnett, “I never indulge in badinage except
when victory is within my grasp, which is not the case to-day.”
The third room at the Norman Club was crowded. The magistrates talked
together at the threshold of the Round Room; then they went into it,
but came out again in a little while. The manufacturers waited in a
group. Policemen and inspectors came and went. Both Paul Erstein’s
father and Joseph, the club servant, stood apart from the rest.
Monsieur and Madame Fougeraie were together in a corner. He looked
gloomy and preoccupied; she was even paler than usual. It was common
knowledge now that the police had decided to arrest the engineer.
One of the magistrates addressed the four men who had played baccarat
with Paul Erstein:
“Gentlemen, we are about to reconstruct what took place on the fatal
Friday night. Will each of you please take up the position in which he
sat at this table so that we have the game of baccarat exactly as it
was played? Inspector Béchoux, you will hold the bank. Have you asked
these gentlemen to bring exactly the same sums in notes as they had
with them on the occasion in question?”
Béchoux nodded and sat down in the middle seat, with Alfred Auvard and
Raoul Dupin on his left and Louis Batinet and Maxime Tuillier on his
right. Six packs of cards were put out. The cards were cut to him and
he shuffled.
Then an odd thing happened. Immediately, just as on that tragic night,
luck favored the banker. With the same ease as Paul Erstein, Béchoux
won. He won steadily, automatically, as it were, in an unbroken run,
without any of the fluctuations and turns of fortune which had, after
all, characterized the original game. This mechanical continuity gave
the scene a strange, cinematographic quality. The game might have been
a fantastic “quick motion” picture of what had originally taken place.
The atmosphere of the proceedings began to tell on the players. Maxime
Tuillier seemed ill at ease and twice made mistakes in his play. Jim
Barnett grew irritated by the young man and at last officiously took
his place at Béchoux’s right hand.
Ten minutes later—for the film-like speed of the game accelerated
unchecked—more than half the banknotes produced for the game by the
four friends were stacked on the green cloth in front of Béchoux.
Maxime Tuillier, as represented by Jim Barnett, began handing over
I.O.U’s.
The pace quickened again. The end of the game came soon. Suddenly
Béchoux, as Paul Erstein had done, divided his winnings into four wads
of notes, proportionate to the other men’s losses, and subdivided each
wad into three, thus leading up to Erstein’s dramatic offer of “double
or quits” on three deals.
His opponents’ eyes never left him. The four men were evidently
stricken by the memory of that other game.
Three times Béchoux dealt on the two tableaux.
And three times, instead of losing, like Paul Erstein, Béchoux won!
A murmur of surprise rose from the onlookers. The miraculous
reconstruction of the original game had been unaccountably flawed. The
luck should have turned—but it had remained in the banker’s favor.
Supposing—the thought slipped into being—supposing this was indeed a
miracle, and this new ending to the game was not new at all?
“I am sorry,” said Béchoux, his words oddly remote as he continued to
act his rôle of banker. He stood up, first pocketing all the banknotes.
Then, as Paul Erstein had done, he complained of a headache and
expressed his wish that someone would come out on the balcony with him.
He went out, lighting a cigarette.
The other men remained motionless, with set faces. The cards lay
scattered on the table.
Then, and only then, Jim Barnett rose from his chair. But now, by some
wizardry, his face and his general appearance had taken on the outward
semblance of Maxime Tuillier, whom he had so lately supplanted in the
game of baccarat. Maxime Tuillier, clean-shaven, about thirty, wearing
a tight-fitting, double-breasted coat.... Maxime Tuillier, looking
morose and dissatisfied.... Jim Barnett was the young man to the life!
He went slowly towards the Round Room, moving like an automaton, his
expression an alternating study in callous ruthlessness and frightened
indecision—the expression of a man on the verge of doing something
terrible, but a man who might yet perhaps take to his heels with the
deed unaccomplished.
The players could not see his face, which was turned away from them.
But the magistrates saw it. And they forgot Jim Barnett, the skilled
impersonator, and thought only of Maxime Tuillier, the ruined gambler,
who was going to join his triumphant opponent. His face, which he
apparently strove to compose, gave ample indication of his mental
turmoil. Was he about to make a plea, a demand, or—a threat? When he
opened the door of the Round Room, he was once more master of his
emotions; he had regained his self-control.
The door closed behind him.
The staging of the imaginary “reconstruction” of the drama had been so
vivid that everyone waited in silence. The other players also waited,
staring at that closed door behind which was being repeated what had
taken place on the night of the tragedy—behind which it was not Barnett
and Béchoux who were playing their respective rôles of murderer and
victim, but Maxime Tuillier and Paul Erstein pitted against one
another.
After what seemed an eternity, the murderer—there was nothing else to
call him—came out. He staggered back to his friends, his eyes wild with
horror. In one hand he held the four bundles of notes. One he threw
down on the table. The other three he pressed upon the three players,
saying in queer, strained tones:
“I’ve been having a talk with Erstein. He asked me to give you back
this money. He doesn’t want it. Let’s go home.”
A yard or so away Maxime Tuillier, the real Maxime Tuillier, leaned on
a chair for support. His face was pale and drawn. His jaw had fallen.
Jim Barnett turned and spoke to him in his normal voice.
“Am I right, Monsieur Tuillier? The scene has been reproduced correctly
in all essential details, hasn’t it? My rendering of the part you
played the other night was pretty accurate? Don’t you think I’ve
reconstructed the crime rather cleverly—your crime?”
Maxime Tuillier seemed not to hear the words. His head was bowed; his
arms hung limp. He was a mere husk of a man, all the life gone out of
him. He reeled drunkenly, sagged at the knees, and collapsed on the
chair.
Barnett was at him at once, jerking him roughly to his feet.
“You admit it? But anyway, nothing can save you. I can prove
everything. First, that knuckle-duster—you always carried one. Then,
you were ruined by your losses at baccarat that night. Investigations
have established the fact that you were in financial straits. You had
no money with which to meet your creditors at the end of the month. You
were on the verge of bankruptcy. When you followed Erstein into the
Round Room, you struck out, murderously. Afterwards, not knowing what
to do with your weapon, you climbed over on to the other balcony and
hid it in the flower-box. Then you altered the hands of the dead man’s
watch to establish your alibi, and joined your friends!”
But Barnett’s eloquent denunciation was unnecessary. Maxime Tuillier
made no attempt at denial. Overwhelmed by the terrible burden of crime
under which he had labored for weeks, he stammered out the confession
of his guilt like a man in delirium.
The onlookers were roused almost to frenzy. The examining magistrates
bent over the murderer and took down his involuntary, unprompted
confession. Paul Erstein’s father tried to hurl himself upon his son’s
slayer. Fougeraie’s voice was raised excitedly. But the most rabid were
Maxime Tuillier’s three friends. One in particular, the eldest and most
influential, Alfred Auvard, volleyed abuse:
“You unspeakable blackguard! You made us believe that poor Erstein had
returned the money to us—when really you had stolen it after murdering
him!”
He flung the notes at Maxime Tuillier’s head. The other two, equally
indignant, trampled the loathsome money underfoot.
By degrees order was restored. Maxime Tuillier, half fainting and
uttering groans, was carried out of the room. An inspector gathered up
the banknotes and handed them to the magistrates. The latter requested
the Fougeraies and old Erstein to withdraw. They then complimented Jim
Barnett on his extraordinary powers of deduction.
“Tuillier’s collapse and confession,” he told them, “are quite
commonplace features in the case. Its originality, the real mystery
that lifts it out of the usual run of such crimes, lies in something
quite different. So now, although this is none of my business, please
allow me——”
Barnett, turning to the three manufacturers who were talking together
in low tones, went up to them and tapped Monsieur Auvard gently on the
shoulder.
“A word with you, my friend. Something tells me you can throw a little
light on one aspect of this case that remains obscure.”
“In what connection, pray?” asked Auvard coldly.
“In connection with the part which you and your friends play in it,
monsieur.”
“But we don’t come into it at all!”
“Not actively, of course, I quite see that. But there are some features
which, I am sure you will agree with me, present a disconcerting series
of contradictions. For instance, you declared on the morning after the
murder that the game of baccarat had ended with three deals in your
favor, which cancelled your losses and broke up the card party. Well,
the facts don’t happen to bear out your statement.”
Monsieur Auvard answered him defiantly:
“That’s so. But there’s been a misunderstanding. Actually, those last
three deals only increased our losses. When Erstein left the table,
Maxime, who seemed perfectly self-possessed, followed him into the
Round Room for a smoke, while we three remained here, talking. When
Tuillier came back, nearly ten minutes later, he told us that Erstein
had never been in earnest over the game, that it had merely been a
series of flukes following on the champagne, to be treated as a joke.
He therefore insisted on returning the money to us, but pledged us to
secrecy. If anything ever came out, we were to say that the end of the
game had evened things up unexpectedly.”
“And you accepted such an offer! As a present from Paul Erstein which
he had absolutely no reason to make you!” cried Barnett. “And having
accepted it, you didn’t even bother to thank him! And you found it
perfectly natural that Erstein, who was an inveterate gambler, inured
to gain and loss alike, should suddenly be ashamed to profit by his
luck! How unlikely!”
“It was four in the morning. We were all overwrought. Maxime Tuillier
gave us no time for reflection. Anyhow, what reason had we to doubt his
word? We didn’t know then that he had just murdered Erstein and robbed
him.”
“But next day you learned of the murder.”
“Yes, but we naturally thought it had happened after our departure from
the club—it made no difference to Erstein’s last action on earth—the
restoration of our losses—nor to his wish that we should hold our
tongues about it.”
“And you never for one moment suspected Maxime Tuillier?”
“Why should we have suspected him? He is a member of the club. His
father was a friend of mine and I’ve known him practically all his
life. Of course we had no suspicions.”
“Are you positive?”
Barnett rapped the words out in ironic incredulity. Alfred Auvard
hesitated, glanced at the other two men, and then countered haughtily:
“Your questions, sir, are in the nature of a cross-examination. What do
you think we’re here for anyway?”
“In the eyes of the law you’re here as witnesses. But in mine——”
“In yours——?”
“That’s just what I’m going to explain now.” Quietly Barnett took the
floor, toying with the string of his monocle.
“The whole of this case is really dominated by one factor—the
confidence you people inspired. Practically speaking, the crime could
have been an outside or an inside job. Yet those investigating at once
turned to the outside for the simple reason that one does not normally
suspect such a monument of respectability and righteousness as is
constituted by four wealthy manufacturers of unblemished reputation. If
one of you, say, Maxime Tuillier, had played a game of écarté with Paul
Erstein alone, he would naturally and undoubtedly have been suspected.
But there were four of you, and Tuillier was temporarily saved by the
silence of his friends. It would never occur to anyone that three men
of your standing could be guilty of complicity in a crime! Yet you were
guilty—and that was what I guessed from the start.”
Alfred Auvard started forward.
“You must be mad. Do you seriously suggest that we were Tuillier’s
accomplices?”
“Oh, no. Obviously, you had no idea of what was going on in the Round
Room after Tuillier joined Erstein there. But you did know that he had
followed him in a peculiar frame of mind! And when he came back, you
knew that something had happened.”
“We knew nothing of the sort.”
“Oh, yes, you did, and that Tuillier must have used force of some kind.
There had not necessarily been a crime of violence, but there had
certainly not been merely a friendly conversation. I repeat, it was
quite evident that Maxime Tuillier must have used force to get back
that money for you.”
“Preposterous!”
“Not at all. When a coward like your friend kills a man, his face is
bound to betray him. It is impossible that you should have utterly
failed to notice his expression of horror when he came back after
committing the crime.”
Both Batinet and Dupin were trembling, but Auvard kept up his
blustering attitude.
“I protest that we noticed nothing.”
“None so blind....” Barnett shrugged his shoulders and smiled
unpleasantly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You didn’t want to see. Because you had got your money back. I know
you are all rich men. But that game of baccarat had shaken you
considerably. Like all occasional gamblers, you had the feeling that
your money had been stolen from you, and when it was returned, you
accepted it without troubling to inquire too closely into the methods
by which your friend had recovered it. You clung desperately to
silence. That night, as you drove back to Maromme together, in spite of
the urgent need for you to agree upon a safer version of the evening’s
episode, not one of you dared speak a word. I have that from your
chauffeur. And the next day—and the days after that—when the crime had
been discovered, you avoided meeting each other, for fear of finding
your secret thoughts confirmed.”
“This is mere conjecture.” Auvard was indignant still, but his two
friends were on the verge of collapse.
“Not conjecture, but certainty,” Barnett corrected him gently.
“Certainty based on facts acquired by exhaustive inquiries among the
people who know you. For you to accuse your friend was to expose your
own criminal weakness in the beginning. It meant turning the
searchlight of public opinion on yourselves and your families, and
damaging your reputations for honorable dealing with your fellow-men.
It meant a scandal. So you kept silent and cheated justice while you
shielded your friend Maxime.”
Jim Barnett had been so vehement and telling in his accusation that for
a moment Monsieur Auvard wavered. But, suddenly changing his tactics,
the bewildering Barnett did not follow up his advantage. He merely
laughed and said:
“Cheer up, Monsieur Auvard. I succeeded in undoing your friend Tuillier
because he was a weakling and suffering the agonies of remorse. I did
it by faking the cards in the game of baccarat we had here just now.
The accuracy of the reconstruction unnerved him. But I had no more real
proof against him than I have against you, and you are not the sort to
give in without showing fight. All the more so as your complicity in
the crime is so vague and negative, very much up in the air when it
comes to hard facts. So you have nothing to fear. Only”—he came closer
to his man, and thrust his face into the other’s—“only, I did not want
your peace of mind to be too complete. By your silence and your
astuteness, the three of you managed to cloak your actions from the
light of the law, so that people lost sight of your own more or less
voluntary complicity in the crime. We can’t have that, though. You must
never cease to be conscious that to a certain extent you shared in the
committal of the murder. Had you only prevented your friend from
following Paul Erstein into the Round Room, as you should have done,
Paul Erstein would not be dead to-day. And had you come forward at the
outset and told what you knew, Maxime Tuillier would not have come
within an ace of escaping his deserts.
“Now it is for you to clear yourselves as best you may, messieurs.
Somehow, I don’t think the law will be too hard on you. Good-day.”
Jim Barnett took his hat, and, disregarding the manufacturers’ protest,
spoke to the magistrates:
“Messieurs, I promised Madame Fougeraie that I would help her and I
promised Paul Erstein’s father to unmask the murderer. My work is
done.”
The magistrates were half-hearted in their valedictory handshake.
Probably Barnett’s words had fallen none too pleasantly on their ears
and they did not feel particularly inclined to follow his lead.
To Inspector Béchoux, who had followed him on to the landing, Barnett
was just a wee bit more expansive:
“Those three chaps can’t be touched. They’re safe as houses. Blasted
bourgeois bolstered up by bullion!” he almost blew bubbles in his
wrath. “They’re pillars of society, all right, and all the case against
them is the inferences to be drawn from my deductions. Too fine a
thread for the law to noose them in, I’m afraid. Never mind, I’ve
brought my case off well.”
“And honestly,” approved Béchoux, adding, sotto voce, the words “for
once!”
Barnett’s eyebrows arched interrogatively.
“I must own,” Béchoux admitted, “that there were moments when I feared
for those banknotes. You could have snaffled them so easily.”
“What do you take me for, Inspector Béchoux? A common thief?” Barnett’s
tone was one of outraged innocence.
He left his friend and went out of the building and on to the
Fougeraies’ flat next door. There he was effusively thanked. With great
dignity he refused to take any reward for his services.
Afterwards he called on Paul Erstein’s father and there exhibited the
same spirit of disinterested philanthropy.
“The services of the Barnett Agency are free,” he told his clients.
“That is the secret both of its efficiency and of its integrity. We
work for glory only.”
Jim Barnett settled his hotel bill and ordered them to send his bag to
the station. Then, presuming that Béchoux would accompany him back to
Paris, he walked along the quayside to the club building. On the first
landing he halted abruptly. The inspector was hurtling down the stairs.
The moment he saw Barnett he cried out angrily:
“Got you, curse you!”
He jumped the remaining stairs at a bound and thrust his fingers inside
Barnett’s coat collar.
“What have you done with those notes?”
“Doh, ray, me, fah——” began Barnett.
“Banknotes!” the inspector screamed. “The notes you had when you were
acting Tuillier’s part upstairs.”
“What’s all this? Do let go my collar. That’s better. Why, I gave those
notes back. Surely you remember? A little while ago you were even
congratulating me on my honesty!”
“I wouldn’t have if I’d known what I know now!” said Béchoux grimly.
“And what is this new knowledge that makes you change your tune?”
chanted Barnett.
“The notes you gave back are forgeries—counterfeit—snide!” Béchoux was
frothing at the mouth. “You’re a rotten swindler!” he shouted. “You
needn’t think you’re going to get away with it, either. You’re going to
return the genuine notes to me at once! You can’t bluff me!”
He choked, and Barnett’s raucous laugh rent the air.
“The thieving skunks!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, well. So they threw
forged notes at their young friend. The sweeps! We get them to bring
their wads along and they turn out to be stage money!”
“But don’t you understand?” Béchoux shrieked dancing with rage. “That
money belongs to Paul Erstein’s heirs. He had won it before he was
killed. The others must make restitution.”
Barnett’s merriment overflowed.
“Isn’t that too bad! So they’re to be fleeced twice over. Poetic
justice being visited on the scoundrels!”
Béchoux’s teeth chattered with fury.
“You liar! You changed those notes yourself. And now you’ve collared
the cash. Thief! Crook!”
As the magistrates were leaving the club they caught sight of Inspector
Béchoux gesticulating speechlessly, frantically. And before him, arms
folded, convulsed with laughter, there leant against the wall—“Jim
Barnett!”
V