evidence definitely proved Felix innocent. His next business would be
to examine Boirac’s hand, and, if the mark was there, the matter was
at an end.
But as he thought over it he saw that this was indeed far from being
the fact. There was still the alibi. As long as that stood, a clever
counsel would insist on Boirac’s innocence. To a jury the thing would
be conclusive. And this ex-policeman’s evidence could be discredited.
In fact, the very thing that had enabled them to get hold of it--the
man’s dislike of the official force--would minimise its value. It
would be argued that Hill had invented the scar to upset the police
case. By itself, a jury might not accept this suggestion, but the
alibi would give it weight, in fact, would make it the only
acceptable theory.
However, the next step was clear. La Touche must see Boirac’s hand,
and, if there was a scar, Hill must see it, too.
About eleven o’clock therefore, the detective hailed a taxi with an
intelligent looking driver. Having reached the end of the rue
Championnet he dismounted, explaining to the man what he wanted him
to do. A few moments later found him once more seated in the window
of the café, his eyes fixed on the Pump Construction office across
the street. The taxi in accordance with orders, drove slowly about,
ready to pick him up if required.
About quarter to twelve, Boirac came out and began walking slowly
citywards. La Touche quietly followed, keeping at the other side of
the street, the taxi hovering close behind. Then the detective
congratulated himself on his foresight, for, on Boirac’s reaching the
end of the street, he hailed another taxi, and, getting in, was
driven rapidly off.
It was the work of a couple of seconds for La Touche to leap into his
car and to instruct his driver to follow the other vehicle.
The chase led down to the Grands Boulevards to Bellini’s in the
Avenue de l’Opera. Here Boirac entered, followed by his shadower.
The great restaurant was about three parts full, and La Touche from
the door was able to see Boirac taking his seat in one of the
windows. The detective dropped into a place close to the cash desk,
and, ordering table-d’hôte lunch, insisted on getting the bill at
once, on the grounds that his time was limited and that he might have
to leave before finishing. Then he ate a leisurely lunch, keeping an
eye on the manufacturer.
That gentleman was in no hurry, and La Touche had spent a long time
over his coffee before the other made a move. A number of people were
leaving the restaurant and there was a very short queue at the cash
desk. La Touche so arranged his departure that he was immediately
behind Boirac in this queue. As the manufacturer put down his money
La Touche saw his finger. The scar was there!
‘Here at last is certainty,’ thought the detective, as he drew back
out of the other’s sight. ‘So Boirac is the man after all! My work is
done!’
And then the annoying afterthought arose. Was his work done? Was the
proof he had got of Boirac’s guilt sufficient? There was still the
alibi. Always that alibi loomed in the background, menacing his
success.
Though La Touche had now no doubt Boirac was the man the carter saw,
he felt it would be more satisfactory if the two could be brought
together in the hope of getting direct evidence of identity. As time
was of value he called up Clifford and rapidly discussed the point.
It was agreed that, if possible, Hill should be sent to Paris by that
evening’s train. A couple of hours later there was a telegram from
the solicitor that this had been arranged.
Accordingly, next morning La Touche met the English boat train at the
Gare du Nord and welcomed a tall, dark man with a small, close-cut
moustache. As they breakfasted, the detective explained what he
wished done.
‘The difficulty is that you must see Boirac without his seeing you,’
he ended up, ‘we do not want him to know we are on his trail.’
‘I understand that, sir,’ returned Hill. ‘Have you any plan arranged
for me?’
‘Not exactly, but I thought if you were to make up with a false beard
and wear glasses he wouldn’t spot you. You could dress differently
also. Then I think you might lunch in the same restaurant and come
out behind him and see his hand when he’s paying same as I did.’
‘That would do, sir, but the worst of it is I don’t know my way about
either in Paris or in a restaurant of that class.’
‘You can’t speak any French?’
‘Not a word, sir.’
‘Then I think I had better ask my man, Mallet, to go with you. He
could keep you straight, and you needn’t talk at all.’
Hill nodded his head.
‘A good idea, sir.’
‘Come, then, and let me get you a rig-out.’
They drove to shop after shop till the ex-policeman was supplied with
new clothes from head to foot. Then they went to a theatrical
property maker, where a flowing black beard and long moustache were
fitted on. A pair of clear glass pince-nez completed the purchases.
When, an hour later, Hill stood in La Touche’s room dressed up in his
new disguise, no one who had known him before would have recognised
the ex-policeman, still less the London carter.
‘Capital, Hill,’ said La Touche. ‘Your own mother wouldn’t know you.’
The detective had sent a wire for his assistant, and Mallet was
waiting for them. La Touche introduced the two men and explained his
plans.
‘We haven’t much more than time,’ said Mallet, ‘so if you’re ready,
we’ll go on.’
In something under three hours they returned. The expedition had been
a complete success. They had gone direct to Bellini’s, preferring to
take the risk that the manufacturer did not lunch at the same place
each day, rather than that of following him again. And they were not
disappointed. Towards twelve, Boirac had entered and taken his seat
at what was probably the same table in the window. On his rising to
leave, they had repeated La Touche’s manœuvre and Hill, just behind
him when he was paying, had seen his finger. Instantly he had
identified the scar. Indeed, before seeing it he had been sure from
Boirac’s build and way of moving he was the man they sought.
In the evening, La Touche gave Hill a good dinner, paid him well, and
saw him off by the night train to London. Then he returned to his
hotel, lit a cigar, and lay down on his bed to wrestle again with the
problem of the alibi.
He now knew that the alibi was faked. Boirac, beyond question, had
been in London at 7.30 on the Tuesday evening. Therefore he could not
have been at Charenton at 2.00. That was the ever-recurring
difficulty, and he could see no way out.
He took a piece of paper and wrote down the hours at which they
definitely knew the manufacturer’s whereabouts. At 7.30 on Tuesday
evening he was in London at Johnson’s carting establishment in
Waterloo Road. From 10.00 till 11.00 next morning, Wednesday, he was
with Hill, getting the cask from Waterloo to the shed. He could not
have left London in the interval, so this meant that he must have
been in the English capital from 7.30 o’clock on Tuesday evening till
11.00 on Wednesday morning. Then he was at the Hôtel Maximilian in
Brussels at 11.00 on that same Wednesday evening. So much was certain
beyond doubt or question.
Did these hours work in? On Tuesday, frankly, they did not. What
about Wednesday? Could a man who was in London at 11.00 in the
morning be in Brussels at 11.00 the same evening? La Touche got his
Continental Bradshaw. Here it was. London depart 2.20 p.m.; Brussels
arrive 10.25 p.m. That seemed all right. A traveller arriving by that
train would reach the Hôtel Maximilian ‘about 11.00.’ Then La Touche
remembered that Boirac’s account of how he spent this day had not
been substantiated. He had told Lefarge he had gone to his brother’s
house at Malines, having forgotten that the latter was in Sweden. No
confirmation of that statement was forthcoming. Neither the caretaker
nor any one else had seen the manufacturer. La Touche was not long in
coming to the conclusion he had never been there at all. No, he had
crossed from London by the 2.20.
Then the detective recalled the telephone. A message had been sent by
Boirac from one of the cafés in the old town, asking the hotel clerk
to reserve a room. That call had been received about eight o’clock.
But at eight o’clock Boirac was not in the old town. He was on his
journey from London.
La Touche took up his Bradshaw again. Where would a traveller by the
2.20 p.m. from Charing Cross be at eight o’clock? And then like a
flash he understood. The boat arrived at Ostend at 7.30 p.m. and the
Brussels train did not leave until 8.40. He had telephoned from
Ostend!
So that was it! A simple plan, but how ingenious! And then La Touche
remembered that Lefarge had been quite unable to confirm the
statement that Boirac had dined at the café in the Boulevard Anspach,
or had been present at _Les Troyens_ in the Théâtre de la Monnaie.
No. He was on the right track at last.
The Wednesday was now accounted for, but there still remained the
terrible difficulty of the Tuesday. What about the café at Charenton?
And then La Touche got another of his inspirations. He had solved the
Wednesday telephone trick. Could that on Tuesday be explained in the
same way?
He had already noted that a traveller by the train leaving Paris at
12.00 noon and arriving at Victoria at 7.10 could just reach Waterloo
Road by 7.30. Thinking again over the point, he suddenly saw the
significance of the hour of the call at the carting establishment. It
was late. A man wishing to do business there would have gone earlier,
had he been able. But this man was not able. He had only reached the
city at 7.10.
He turned back to the telephone calls. Where, he asked himself with
growing excitement, would a passenger by the 12.00 noon from Paris be
at 2.30? And then he was dashed with disappointment. That train did
not reach Calais till 3.31 p.m., and at 2.30 it must have been
running at full speed somewhere between Abbeville and Boulogne.
Boirac could not have telephoned from the train. Therefore he could
not have travelled by it.
La Touche had hoped to find that, adopting the same manœuvre on each
day, the manufacturer had telephoned from some station _en route_,
presumably Calais. But that apparently was not so. At the same time,
the detective could not but feel he was getting near the truth.
He looked at the time table again. The train in question reached
Calais at 3.31 and the boat left at 3.45. That was a delay of 14
minutes. Would there be time, he wondered, to make two long-distance
calls in 14 minutes? Hardly, he thought. He considered what he
himself would do if confronted with Boirac’s problem.
And then suddenly he saw it. What could be more obvious than to go by
an earlier train and to break the journey at Calais? How would this
time table work?
Paris dep. 9.50 a.m.
Calais arr. 1.11 p.m.
Calais dep. 3.45 p.m.
Victoria arr. 7.10 p.m.
If Boirac had done that he would have had over two and a half hours
in Calais, which would have given him the opportunity he required. La
Touche believed he had reached the solution at last.
But Boirac had been actually seen telephoning from Charenton. For a
moment the detective’s spirits fell. But he felt he must be right so
far. Some explanation of the difficulty would occur to him.
And it did. The waiter had believed Boirac was there on _Monday_. And
he must have been! In some way he must have faked the telephoning.
There could be nothing else for it.
Another point occurred to him. Surely, he thought, the telephone
operator always mentions the name of the calling town in inter-urban
calls? If Boirac had called up his office from Calais, would not the
operator have said, ‘Calais wants you’? If so, how had the
manufacturer been able to deceive his butler and chief clerk?
This was undoubtedly a difficulty. But he put it on one side as he
began to think how this new theory could be tested.
First he would go again to the Charenton waiter and explain the
importance of settling the day on which Boirac lunched. Perhaps the
man would now be able to recall some circumstance which would make
this clear. Next he would find out from François and Dufresne whether
any phrase such as ‘Calais wants you’ had been used by the telephone
operator. This inquiry, he noted, must be made with great skill, so
as to avoid rousing Boirac’s suspicions should either man repeat the
conversation. From the telephone central at Calais, if not at Paris,
he could doubtless find if calls were made from the former town to
the latter at the hour in question, and he might also find that some
one answering to the description of Boirac had made those calls.
Finally, it might be possible at Ostend to get information about the
Brussels call.
Inquiries on these points should reveal enough to either confirm or
disprove his theory.
The next morning therefore saw La Touche again in the café at
Charenton in conversation with the waiter.
‘The point as to which day the gentleman was here has become
important,’ he explained, ‘and I shall hand you another twenty francs
if you can settle it.’
The man was evidently anxious to earn the money. He thought earnestly
for some time, but at last had to confess he could recall nothing
fixing the date.
‘Do you remember what he had to eat? Would that help you?’ asked the
detective.
The waiter shook his head after consideration.
‘Or any little matter of a clean cloth or napkin or anything of that
kind? No? Or any other person who was in at the same time, or to whom
you may have spoken on the subject?’
Again the man shook his head. Then suddenly a look of satisfaction
passed over his face.
‘But yes, monsieur,’ he said eagerly, ‘I remember now. What you have
just asked me brings it to my mind. M. Pascot lunched also when the
gentleman was here, and he noticed him and asked me if I knew who he
was. M. Pascot may be able to tell us.’
‘Who is M. Pascot?’
‘The apothecary, monsieur. From a dozen doors up the street. He comes
here sometimes when Madame goes shopping to Paris. If you like,
monsieur, I will go with you to him and we can inquire.’
‘I should be greatly obliged.’
A walk of a few yards brought them to the chemist’s shop. M. Pascot
was a large, bald-headed man, with a high colour and a consequential
manner.
‘Good-day, M. Pascot,’ the waiter greeted him deferentially. ‘This
gentleman is a friend of mine, a detective, and he is engaged on an
inquiry of much importance. You remember the man with the black beard
who was lunching in the café the last day you were in? He was sitting
at the little table in the alcove and then he began telephoning. You
remember? You asked me who he was.’
‘I remember,’ rumbled the apothecary in a deep bass voice, ‘and what
of him?’
‘My friend here wants to find out what day he was at the café, and I
thought perhaps you would be able to tell him?’
‘And how should I be able to tell him?’
‘Well, M. Pascot, you see it was on the same day that you were with
us, and I thought maybe you would be able to fix that date, the day
Madame was in Paris--you told me that.’
The pompous man seemed slightly annoyed, as if the waiter was taking
a liberty in mentioning his personal concerns before a stranger. La
Touche broke in with his smooth suavity.
‘If, M. Pascot, you could do anything to help me, I should be more
than grateful. I should explain to you that I am acting on behalf of
an innocent man,’ and he drew a pathetic picture of the evil case in
which Felix found himself, ending up by delicately insinuating that a
reward for suitable information was not out of the reckoning.
M. Pascot thawed.
‘Permit me to consult Madame, monsieur,’ he said, and with a bow he
withdrew. In a few moments he reappeared.
‘I can recollect the date now, monsieur. Madame had occasion to go to
Paris to see her solicitor on business, and a note of the date was
kept. It was Monday, the 29th of March last.’
‘I cannot say, monsieur, how obliged I am to you,’ said La Touche in
heartfelt tones, and by a sort of legerdemain, of which both
participants remained profoundly unconscious, a twenty-franc bill
passed from hand to hand. La Touche was extraordinarily pleased. He
had broken the alibi.
Leaving the apothecary and waiter bowing and smiling as a result of
their _douceurs_, La Touche turned his steps to the pier and took a
river steamer to the Pont de l’Alma. Walking up the Avenue, he rang
at Boirac’s and was soon closeted with François in his little room.
‘About that telephone message we were talking of the other day, M.
François,’ he remarked casually, when they had conversed on general
subjects for some minutes, ‘I wasn’t quite certain where you said M.
Boirac was speaking from. My first recollection was that you said
Calais; then I wondered if it was not Charenton. I have to make a
report on my proceedings and I would like to get it as correct as
possible.’
The butler looked surprised and interested.
‘It is curious, monsieur, that you should ask me that, for I don’t
remember mentioning anything about it. I also thought at first it was
Calais. I thought the operator said ‘Calais wants you,’ and I was
surprised, for I did not know M. Boirac intended to leave Paris. But
I was wrong, for when M. Boirac began to speak I asked him the direct
question. ‘You are speaking from Calais?’ I said. ‘No,’ he answered,
‘from Charenton.’ I am sure now it was my mistake and that what I
thought was Calais was really Charenton. I am not very quick and on
the telephone these names sound very much alike. Strange your making
the same mistake.’
‘It is curious,’ admitted La Touche, ‘almost like one of those
extraordinary cases of thought transference you read of. However, I
am obliged for your confirmation that it was Charenton,’ and he
diverted the conversation into other channels.
His next visit was to the Telephone Central. Here at first they were
not keen to give him any information, but on producing his card and
confidentially explaining his business to the head of the department,
he obtained what he wanted. Inquiries were made from Calais by wire,
and after a considerable delay he was informed that at 2.32 and 2.44
on the Tuesday in question calls were made on Paris. The demand came
from the public call office and were for the following numbers: Passy
386 and Nord 745. When La Touche found from the directory that these
numbers were those of M. Boirac’s house and office respectively, he
could hardly refrain from laughing aloud.
‘How, I wonder,’ he thought, ‘did Lefarge neglect so obvious a check
on the Charenton messages?’ Then it occurred to him that probably
only inter-urban calls were so noted.
The proof of his theory seemed so complete he did not think it
necessary to make inquiries at Ostend. Indeed, he believed his task
was at last accomplished, and he began to consider an immediate
return to London.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE UNRAVELLING OF THE WEB
When La Touche solved the problem of how Boirac had faked his alibi,
his first impression was that his work was done. But, as had happened
so often before, second thoughts showed him that this was hardly the
case. Though he had established Boirac’s guilt to his own
satisfaction, he doubted if he could prove it in court, and, indeed,
the whole matter was still far from clear.
He felt that if he could only find the carter who had brought the
cask to the rue Cardinet he would reach certainty on at least some of
the points which were puzzling him. He therefore decided to
concentrate once more on this problem.
Since the sending out of his circular to the managers of the various
carting establishments in the city, he had interviewed no less than
twenty-seven more or less clean-shaven, white-haired, and
sharp-featured carters. But all to no purpose. The man he wanted was
not among them. And as answers to practically all his circulars had
been received, he had reluctantly come to the conclusion his plan had
failed.
That evening, when Mallet called to make his customary report on
Boirac’s doings, the two men discussed the matter, and it was a
remark dropped by his assistant that turned La Touche’s thoughts to a
point he had previously overlooked.
‘Why do you think he was employed by a cartage contractor?’ Mallet
had asked, and La Touche had been going to reply with some asperity
that cartage contractors were not uncommonly found to employ carters,
when the pertinence of the other’s question struck him. Why, indeed?
Of the thousands of carters in Paris, only a small proportion were
employed by cartage firms. By far the greater number worked for
specific businesses. Might not the man who brought the cask to the
goods station belong to this class, and if so, might not this account
for the failure of the original advertisements? If a carter were
bribed to use his employer’s vehicle for his own gain he would not
afterwards give the fact away. And to La Touche it seemed that such a
move would be just what might be expected from a man of Boirac’s
mentality.
But if this theory were correct; if the carter had thus been bound
over to silence, how was the man to be discovered and the truth wrung
from him?
La Touche smoked two cigars over this problem, and then it occurred
to him that the method he had already adopted was sound as far as it
went. It merely did not go far enough.
The only way in which he could ensure finding his hypothetical carter
would be to send a circular to every employer in Paris. But that was
too large an order.
That night, he discussed the matter with the two porters, whom he
found intelligent men and keenly interested in the inquiry. He made
them describe the kind of cart the cask was brought in, then with a
directory he marked off the trades in which the employment of such a
vehicle was likely. When he had finished, though some thousands of
names were included, he did not think the number overwhelming.
For a considerable time he pondered the question of advertising his
circular in the press. At last he decided he could not do so, as if
Boirac saw it he would doubtless take precautions to prevent the
truth becoming known. La Touche therefore returned to the office of
the Business Supplies Company and instructed them to send his
circular to each of the thousands of employers in the selected
trades, they tabulating the replies and giving him the summary.
Though he was by no means sanguine of the success of this move, he
felt it offered a chance.
For the next three evenings La Touche and the porters had a busy
time. White-haired carters turned up at the Hôtel d’Arles literally
in dozens, till the management threatened an ejectment and talked of
a claim for fresh carpets. But all was fruitless. The man they wanted
did not appear.
On the third day, amongst other letters sent on from the Business
Supplies Company, was one which immediately interested La Touche.
‘In reply to your circular letter of the 18th inst.,’ wrote Messrs.
Corot, Fils, of the rue de Rivoli, ‘we have a man in our employment
who, at the end of March, answered your description. His name is Jean
Dubois, of 18b rue de Falaise, near Les Halles. About that time,
however, he ceased shaving and has now grown a beard and moustache.
We have asked him to call with you.’
Was it, thought La Touche, merely a coincidence that this
clean-shaven carter should begin to grow a beard immediately after
the delivery of the cask? When two more days passed and the man did
not turn up, La Touche determined to call on him.
Accordingly the next evening he arranged for Mallet and one of the
porters to deal with the men at the Hôtel d’Arles, while he himself
in company with the other set out to find Dubois. The rue de Falaise
turned out to be a narrow, dirty street of high, sombre buildings,
with the word slum writ large across their grimy frontages. At 18b,
La Touche ascended and knocked at a ramshackle door on a dark stone
landing. It was opened by a slatternly woman, who stood, silently
waiting for him to speak, in the gloom of the threshold. La Touche
addressed her with his usual suavity.
‘Good-evening, madame. Is this where M. Jean Dubois of Messrs. Corot,
Fils lives?’
The woman signified assent, but without inviting her visitor in.
‘I have a little job for him. Could I see him, please?’
‘He’s not in, monsieur.’
‘That’s unfortunate for me and for him too, I fancy. Can you tell me
where I should find him?’
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
‘I cannot tell, monsieur.’ She spoke in a dull, toneless way, as if
the struggle for existence had sapped away all her interest in life.
La Touche took out a five-franc piece and pushed it into her hand.
‘You get hold of him for me,’ he said, ‘I want this little job done
and he could do it. It’ll get him into no trouble, and I’ll pay him
well.’
The woman hesitated. Then, after a few seconds, she said:--
‘If I tell you where he is, will you give me away?’
‘No, on my honour. We shall have found him by accident.’
‘Come this way, then, monsieur.’
She led them down the stairs and out again into the dingy street.
Passing along it like a furtive shadow she turned twice, then halted
at the corner of a third street.
‘Down there, monsieur,’ she pointed. ‘You see that café with the
coloured glass windows? He’ll be in there,’ and without waiting for
an acknowledgment she slipped away, vanishing silently into the gloom.
The two men pushed open the café door and entered a fairly large room
dotted with small marble tables, with a bar in one corner and a
dancing stage at the back. Seating themselves unostentatiously at a
table near the door they called for drinks.
There were some fifteen or twenty men and a few women in the place,
some reading the papers, some playing dominoes, but most lounging in
groups and talking. As La Touche’s keen eye ran over the faces, he
soon spotted his man.
‘Is that he, Charcot?’ he asked, pointing to a small, unhealthy
looking fellow, with a short, untidy, white beard and moustache.
The porter looked cautiously. Then he assented eagerly.
‘It’s the man, monsieur, I believe. The beard changes him a bit, but
I’m nearly sure it’s he.’
The suspect was one of those on the outskirts of a group, to whom a
stout, fussy man with a large nose was holding forth on some
socialistic subject. La Touche crossed over and touched the
white-haired man on the arm.
‘M. Jean Dubois?’
The man started and an expression of fear came into his eyes. But he
answered civilly enough.
‘Yes, monsieur. But I don’t know you.’
‘My name is La Touche. I want a word or two with you. Will you have a
drink with me and my friend here?’
He indicated the porter, Charcot, and they moved over. The fear had
left Dubois’s eyes, but he still looked uneasy. In silence they sat
down.
‘Now Dubois, what will you take?’
When the carter’s wants were supplied, La Touche bent towards him and
began speaking in a low tone:--
‘I dare say, Dubois, you already guess what I want, and I wish to say
before anything else that you have nothing to fear if you are
straight with me. On the contrary, I will give you one hundred francs
if you answer my questions truly. If not--well, I am connected with
the police, and we’ll become better acquainted.’
Dubois moved uneasily as he stammered:--
‘I don’t know what you mean, monsieur.’
‘So that there shall be no mistake, I shall tell you. I want to know
who it was engaged you to take the cask to the rue Cardinet goods
station.’
La Touche, who was watching the other intently, saw him start, while
his face paled and the look of fear returned to his eyes. It was
evident he understood the question. That involuntary motion had given
him away.
‘I assure you, monsieur, I don’t know what you mean. What cask are
you referring to?’
La Touche bent closer.
‘Tell me, do you know what was in that cask? No? Well, I’ll tell you.
There was a body in it--the body of a woman--a murdered woman. Did
you not guess that from the papers? Did you not realise that the cask
you carried to the station was the one that all the papers have been
full of? Now, do you want to be arrested as an accessory after the
fact in a murder case?’
The man was ghastly, and beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
In a trembling voice he began again to protest his ignorance. La
Touche cut him short.
‘Chut, man! You needn’t keep it up. Your part in the thing is known,
and if it wasn’t you would soon give it away. Dubois, you haven’t red
enough blood for this kind of thing! Be guided by me. Make a clean
breast of it, and I’ll give you the hundred francs, and, what’s more,
I’ll do my best to help you out of your trouble with your employers.
If you don’t, you’ll have to come along now to the Sûreté. Make up
your mind quickly what you’re going to do.’
The man, evidently panic stricken, remained silent. La Touche took
out his watch.
‘I’ll give you five minutes,’ he said, and, leaning back in his
chair, he lit a cigar.
Before the time was up the man spoke.
‘If I tell you everything will you not arrest me?’ His fright was
pitiable.
‘Certainly not. I don’t want to do you any harm. If you give me the
information you go free with a hundred francs in your pocket. But if
you try to deceive me, you can explain your position to-morrow to the
examining magistrate.’
The bluff had its effect.
‘I’ll tell you, monsieur. I’ll tell you the whole truth.’
‘Good,’ said La Touche, ‘then we had better move to a more private
place. We’ll go to my hotel, and you, Charcot’--he turned to the
porter--‘get away back to the rue de Lyon and tell M. Mallet and your
friend the man’s found. Here’s what I owe you and a trifle more.’
Charcot bowed and vanished, while La Touche and the carter, getting
out into one of the larger streets, drove to the rue de la Fayette.
‘Now, Dubois,’ said the detective, when they were seated in his room.
‘I’m going to tell you the gospel truth, monsieur,’ began the carter,
and from his earnest, anxious manner La Touche believed him. ‘And I’m
not going to deny that I was in the wrong, even if I do get the sack
over it. But I was fair tempted, and I thought it was an easy way to
earn a bit of money without doing any one any harm. For that’s the
fact, monsieur. What I did, did no harm to any one.
‘It was on Monday, monsieur, Monday the 29th March, that I was out at
Charenton delivering goods for Messrs. Corot. I stopped at a café
there for a glass of beer. While I was drinking it a man came up to
me and asked was that my cart? I said I was in charge of it, but it
belonged to Messrs. Corot. “I want a little job done with a cart,” he
says, “and it’s not convenient for me to go into Paris to an agent’s,
and if you would save me the trouble by doing it for me I’ll pay you
well.” “I couldn’t do that, monsieur,” I says, “for if my employers
got to know they’d give me the sack.” “But how would they know?” he
asks, “I wouldn’t tell them, and I guess you wouldn’t either.” Well,
monsieur, we talked on, and first I refused, but afterwards I agreed
to do it. I admit I was using the cart like that, but he tempted me.
He said it would only take about an hour, and he would give me ten
francs. So I agreed.’
‘What was this man like?’
‘He was a middle-sized man, monsieur, with a black pointed beard, and
very well dressed.’
‘And what did he want you to do?’
‘On the next Thursday afternoon at half-past four I was to go to an
address he gave me and load up a cask, and bring it to the corner of
the rue de la Fayette, close to the Gare du Nord. He said he would
meet me there and tell me where to take it.’
‘And did he?’
‘Yes. I got there first and waited about ten minutes, and then he
came up. He took the old label off the cask and nailed on another he
had with him. Then he told me to take the cask to the State Railway
Goods Station in the rue Cardinet and book it to London. He gave me
the freight as well as the ten francs for myself. He said he should
know if the cask did not get to London, and threatened that if I
played any tricks he would inform Messrs. Corot what I had done.’
This statement was not at all what La Touche had expected, and he was
considerably puzzled.
‘What was the address he gave you at which you were to get the cask?’
‘I forget the exact address. It was from a large corner house in the
Avenue de l’Alma.’
‘What?’ roared La Touche, springing excitedly to his feet. ‘The
Avenue de l’Alma, do you say?’ He laughed aloud.
So this was it! The cask that went to St. Katherine’s Docks--the cask
containing the body--had gone, not from the Gare du Nord, but direct
from Boirac’s house! Fool that he was not to have thought of this!
Light was at last dawning. Boirac had killed his wife--killed her in
her own house--and had there packed her body in the cask, sending it
direct to Felix. At long last La Touche had got the evidence he
wanted, evidence that would clear Felix--evidence that would bring
Boirac to the scaffold!
He was thrilled with his discovery. For a moment the whole affair
seemed clear, but once again second thoughts showed him there was a
good deal still to be explained. However, once he had got rid of this
Dubois, he would see just where he stood.
He questioned the carter exhaustively, but without gaining much
further information. That the man had no idea of the identity of his
seducer was clear. The only name he had got hold of was that of
Dupierre, for Boirac had instructed him to say at his house that he
had called for Messrs. Dupierre’s cask. Asked if he had not seen the
advertisements of rewards for the information he had now given, the
man said he had, but that he was afraid to come forward. First he
feared he would lose his job if the matter came to his employer’s
ears, and then the very fact that so large a reward was offered had
frightened him, as he assumed he had unwittingly helped with some
crime. He had suspected the matter was one of robbery until he saw of
the discovery of the cask in the papers. Then he had at once guessed
that he had assisted a murderer to dispose of his victim’s body, and
he had lived in a veritable nightmare lest his share in the business
should be discovered. Failing to get anything further out of him, La
Touche finally dismissed him somewhat contemptuously with his hundred
francs. Then he settled himself to try and puzzle out his problem.
And first as to the movements of the cask. It had started from
Boirac’s house; how did it get there? Clearly from Dupierre’s. It
must have been the cask in which Boirac’s statue had been sent home.
That cask, then, left Dupierre’s on the Saturday of the dinner party,
reaching Boirac’s house the same day. It lay there until the
following Thursday. During that time the statue was taken out and the
body substituted. The cask then travelled to London, was taken by
Felix to St. Malo, and finally got into the hands of the police at
Scotland Yard.
But then, what about the cask which was met at Waterloo and sent back
from London to the Gare du Nord?
This, La Touche saw, must have been a different cask, and there must
therefore have been two moving about, and not one as they had
believed. He tried to follow the movements of this second cask. It
left Dupierre’s on the Tuesday evening, reached Waterloo on the
following morning and on next day, Thursday, was sent back to Paris,
reaching the Gare du Nord at 4.45 p.m. It had always been assumed
this cask went from there to the rue Cardinet Goods Station. This was
now proved to have been an error. Where, then, did it go?
Like a flash La Touche saw. It had gone from the Gare du Nord to
Dupierre’s. He looked up his chronology of the case. Yes a cask had
been received by Dupierre on that Thursday evening, but they had
believed it had come from Boirac’s house. And then the whole
diabolical plot began dimly to appear, as La Touche endeavoured to
picture the scene which had probably taken place.
Boirac, he conjectured, must have discovered his wife has eloped with
Felix. Mad with jealousy and hatred he kills her. Then, cooling down
somewhat, he finds himself with the body on his hands. What is he to
do with it? He thinks of the cask standing in the study. He sees that
a better receptacle for getting the body out of the house could
hardly be devised. He therefore unpacks the statue and puts in the
body. The question then arises, where is he to send it? A horrible
idea occurs to him. He will wreak his vengeance on Felix by sending
it to him. And then a second idea strikes him. If he could arrange
that the police would find the body in Felix’s possession, would the
artist not then be suspected and perhaps executed? Truly a ghastly
vengeance! Boirac then types the Le Gautier letter, and sends it to
Felix with the idea of making the artist act in so suspicious a way
that the police will interfere and find him with the body.
So far La Touche felt his surmises had a ring of probability, but he
was still puzzled about the second cask. But, as he turned the matter
over in his mind, he gradually began to see light here too.
Boirac had received a cask from Dupierre with his statue. But as it
had gone to Felix he had no empty cask to send back in its place to
the sculptors. He must return them an empty cask, or else suspicion
falls on him at once. Where is he to get it?
And then La Touche saw that the whole business of the second cask
must have been arranged simply to meet this difficulty. Boirac must
have ordered it, forging Felix’s handwriting. La Touche recollected
that order was written on the same paper as the Le Gautier letter,
suggesting a common origin for both. Boirac met it in London, took it
to the shed, there removed and destroyed the statue, and had the cask
returned to Paris. At the Gare du Nord he doubtless changed the
labels, so that when it reached Dupierre’s it bore that with the
address of his own house. The other label he must have altered from
the Waterloo route to that of long sea. This would account for
Dubois’s statement that Boirac had changed the labels when he met him
in the rue de La Fayette, as well as for the curious faking of that
described by the clerk Broughton.
The more La Touche pondered over this theory, the more satisfied he
became that he had at last reached the truth. But he had to admit
that even yet there were several points he could not understand. When
did the murder take place, and where? Did Madame really elope with
Felix, and, if so, did her husband bring her back alive or dead? How
did the impression of the letter ordering the second statue come to
be on Felix’s blotting paper? If Madame was murdered in Paris, how
did the jewelled pin reach St. Malo?
But in spite of these and other difficulties, La Touche was more than
pleased with his progress, and, as very late he went to his bedroom,
he felt a short investigation should be sufficient to test his
theory, as well as to clear up all that still remained doubtful.
CHAPTER XXIX
A DRAMATIC DÉNOUEMENT
Three days after the finding of the carter, Dubois, and La Touche’s
discovery of what he believed was the true solution of the mystery,
he received a letter which interested him considerably. It came by
post to his hotel, and was as follows--
‘Rue St. Jean 1,
‘AVENUE DE L’ALMA
‘_26th May, 1912_.
‘DEAR MONSIEUR,--In connection with your calls here and inquiries
into the death of my late mistress, I have just by accident hit on a
piece of information which I am sure would be of value to you. It
explains the closing of the front door which, you will recollect, I
heard about 1.0 a.m. on the night of the dinner party. I think it
will have the effect of entirely clearing your client, though I am
afraid it does not point to any one else as the murderer. M. Boirac
is dining out to-night and most of the servants are attending the
marriage festivities of one of the housemaids; the house is therefore
unprotected, and I cannot leave it to call on you, but if you could
see your way to call here any time during the evening, I shall tell
you what I have learnt.
‘Yours respectfully,
‘HENRI FRANÇOIS.’
‘Extraordinary,’ thought La Touche, ‘how, when you get some
information about a case, more nearly always comes in. Here I worked
for ages on this case without getting any forrader, and François made
no discoveries to encourage me. Now, when I have almost solved it and
it no longer matters, he comes forward with his help. I suppose it’s
the inverse of misfortunes never coming singly.’
He looked at his watch. It was just five o’clock. M. Boirac might not
leave home till nearly eight. If he went a few minutes past that hour
he could see François and hear his news.
He wondered what the butler could have discovered. If it really did
what he claimed--explained the closing of the front door, that would
necessarily clear up much that was still doubtful about the events of
that tragic night.
Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind. Was the letter genuine? He
had never seen the butler’s hand-writing, and therefore could form no
opinion from its appearance. But was the whole thing _likely_? Could
it possibly be the work of Boirac? Might not the manufacturer have
discovered that he, La Touche, was on his trail, and might not this
be a trap? Could it be an attempt to lure him into a house in which
he and his information would be at the manufacturer’s mercy?
This was a sinister idea, and he sat pondering its possibility for
some minutes. On the whole, he was disposed to reject it. Any attempt
on his life or liberty would be exceedingly risky for Boirac. If he
really knew what had come out, his game would surely be to collect
what money he could and disappear while there was yet time. All the
same La Touche felt he should neglect no precaution for his own
safety.
He went to the telephone and called up the house in the Avenue de
l’Alma.
‘Is M. François there?’ he asked, when he had got through.
‘No, monsieur,’ was the reply. ‘He has gone out for the afternoon. He
will be in about 7.30.’
‘Thank you. Who is speaking, please?’
‘Jules, monsieur, the footman. I am in charge till M. François
returns.’
This was unsatisfactory, but quite natural and unsuspicious. La
Touche felt fairly satisfied, and yet, almost against his will, a
doubt remained. He thought he might be better with company, and made
another call.
‘That you, Mallet? Which of you is off duty? You? Well, I want your
company to-night on a short excursion. Will you call round for dinner
here at seven and we can go on afterwards?’
When Mallet arrived, La Touche showed him the letter. The subordinate
took precisely the same view as his chief.
‘I don’t think it’s a plant,’ he said, ‘but with Boirac you can’t be
too careful. I should bring your John Cockerill, or whatever you use,
if I were you.’
‘I’ll do so,’ said the other, slipping an automatic pistol into his
pocket.
They reached the house in the Avenue de l’Alma about 8.15, and La
Touche rang. To their surprise and disappointment the door was opened
by no less a person than Boirac himself. He seemed to be on the point
of going out, as he wore his hat and a dark, caped overcoat which,
open at the front, showed his evening dress. Round his right hand was
tied a blood-stained handkerchief. He appeared annoyed and as if his
temper might give way at any minute. He looked inquiringly at the
detectives.
‘Could we see M. François, monsieur,’ asked La Touche politely.
‘If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, certainly,’ answered
Boirac. ‘I was just going out when I cut my hand and I had to send
him for a doctor to stop the bleeding. He will be back in a moment.
If you like to wait, you can do so in his room--the fourth door on
the right.’
La Touche hesitated a moment. What if it was a plant after all?
Finding Boirac here alone was certainly suspicious. But the cut at
least was genuine. La Touche could see the red stain slowly spreading
across the handkerchief.
‘Well, messieurs, I’m sorry I can’t hold the door open. Kindly either
come in and wait, or, if you prefer it, call back later on.’
La Touche made up his mind. They were armed and on their guard. As he
entered the hall his left hand in his overcoat pocket crept to the
handle of his magazine pistol, and he quietly covered the
manufacturer.
The latter closed the front door behind them and led the way to
François’s room. It was in darkness, but Boirac, entering before the
others, turned on the light.
‘Come in and be seated, gentlemen, if you please,’ he said. ‘I should
like a word with you before François returns.’
La Touche did not at all like the turn affairs were taking. Boirac’s
conduct seemed to him to grow more and more suspicious. Then he
reflected again that they were two to one, were armed, and keenly on
their guard, and that there could be no cause for uneasiness.
Besides, there could be no trap. Boirac had preceded them into the
room.
The manufacturer pulled together three chairs.
‘If you would kindly be seated, gentlemen, I would tell you what I
want you to know.’
The detectives obeyed, La Touche still keeping his pistol turned on
his host.
‘Gentlemen,’ went on the latter, ‘I owe you both a very full apology
for having played a trick on you, but I am sure, when I have
explained the extraordinary circumstances in which I am placed, you
will hold me, if not justified, at least excused. And first, I must
tell you that I know who you are, and on what business you came to
Paris.’
He paused for a moment. Then, the others not replying, he continued:--
‘I happened to notice your advertisement, M. La Touche, for Mlle.
Lambert, and it set me thinking. And when I found, M. Mallet, that
you and your friend were shadowing me, I thought still more. As a
result of my cogitations I employed a private detective, and learnt
from him the identity of both of you and what you were engaged on.
When I learnt that you had found Mlle. Lambert, I guessed you would
soon discover the typewriter, and sure enough, my detective soon
after reported that you had purchased a second-hand No. 7 Remington.
Then I had the carter, Dubois, shadowed, and I thus learnt that you
had discovered him also. I have to compliment you, M. La Touche, on
the cleverness with which you found out these matters.’
Again he paused, looking inquiringly and somewhat hesitatingly at the
others.
‘Pray proceed, M. Boirac,’ said La Touche at last.
‘First, then, I offer you my apologies for the trick played you. I
wrote the note which brought you here. I feared if I wrote in my own
name you would suspect some trick on my part and refuse to come.’
‘Not unnaturally a suspicion of the kind did enter our minds,’
answered La Touche. ‘It is but fair to tell you, M. Boirac, that we
are armed’--La Touche withdrew his automatic pistol from his pocket
and laid it on a table at his hand--‘and if you give either of us the
slightest cause for anxiety, we shall fire without waiting to make
inquiries.’
The manufacturer smiled bitterly.
‘I am not surprised at your suspicions. They are reasonable, though
absolutely unfounded, and your precautions cannot therefore be
offensive to me. As I try to do everything thoroughly, I may admit
this cut on my hand was also faked. I simply squeezed a tube of
liquid red paint on to the handkerchief. I did it to account for my
being alone in the hall when you arrived, which I thought necessary,
lest you might refuse to enter.’
La Touche nodded.
‘Pray proceed with your statement,’ he said again.
For a man of his years, Boirac looked strangely old and worn. His
black hair was flecked with white, his face drawn and unhappy and his
eyes weary and sombre. Though he had been speaking quietly enough, he
seemed deeply moved and at a loss how to proceed. At last, with a
gesture of despair, he went on:--
‘What I have to say is not easy, but, alas, I deserve that. I may
tell you at once without any beating about the bush--I brought you
here to-night to make my confession. Yes, gentlemen, you see before
you the miserable, guilty man. I killed her, gentlemen. I did it that
awful night of the dinner party. And since then I have never known
one moment’s ease. What I have suffered no living being could
describe. I have been in hell ever since. I have aged more in these
last few weeks than in ten years of ordinary life. And now, when to
the gnawings of remorse the certainty of the result of your
researches is looming before me--I can bear it no longer. The
suspense must end. Therefore, after much thought I have decided to
make my confession.’
That the man was in earnest and his emotion genuine La Touche could
no longer doubt. But his suspicions still remained. He asked a
question.
‘Why have you brought us here to tell us, M. Boirac? Surely the
obvious thing would have been for you to go to the Sûreté and see M.
Chauvet.’
‘I know. I should have done that. But this was easier. I tell you,
gentlemen, it is bad enough to have to say this to you here, sitting
quietly in my own house. There--with several and perhaps stupid
officials, with typists--I just couldn’t face it. What I want you to
do is this: I will tell you everything. Any questions you ask I will
answer. Then I don’t want to be bothered with it again. All I now
hope for is that the end will come quickly. You do what is necessary
and at the trial I will plead guilty. You will agree?’
‘We will hear what you have to say.’
‘For that, at least, I am grateful.’ He pulled himself together with
an obvious effort and continued in a low tone, without showing very
evident traces of emotion.
‘My statement, I fear, will be a long one, as I must tell you all
that occurred from the beginning, so that you may understand what led
up to this awful consummation. A great part of it you already
know--how my wife and Felix fell in love at the art school, and how
her father refused his consent to their marriage, then how I, too,
fell a victim and asked her hand; how my suit was looked upon with
favour and I was misled both by herself and her father about what had
taken place at the art school, and how, in short, we were married.
And you know, too, I imagine, that our marriage from the first was a
failure. I loved Annette intensely, but she never cared for me. We
needn’t go into it, but I soon saw that she had only married me in a
fit of despair at her engagement being broken off. She did me the
gravest wrong, though I admit I don’t think she meant or realised it.
We drifted farther and farther apart, till life together became
insupportable. And then I met Felix and asked him to the house, not
knowing till weeks later that he was the man who had been in love
with my wife at the art school. But you must not think I have
anything to say against the honour of either of them. My wife spoiled
my life it is true, but she did not elope with Felix, nor did he, so
far as I know, ask her to. They were good friends, but, to the best
of my belief, nothing more. That is the smallest and the only
reparation I can make them, and I make it unreservedly.
‘But with me, alas, it was different. Balked of any chance of
happiness in my home through my wife’s wicked action--I say it
advisedly--her wicked action in marrying me while she loved another,
I succumbed to the temptation to look elsewhere for happiness. I met,
quite by accident, some one with whom I could have been happy. You
will never learn who she was or how I managed to meet her without
being suspected--it is enough to say that things reached such a pass
that this woman and I found we could no longer go on in the way we
were, meeting by stealth, seeing each other only with carefully
thought-out precautions. The situation was intolerable and I
determined to end it. And it was on the evening of the dinner party
that I first saw the way.
‘But here, before I go on to tell you the events of that terrible
night, lest you might try to find this woman and saddle her with a
part of the responsibility for what followed, let me tell you that
here again I lost. The week after I destroyed my soul with the
ghastly crime of which I will tell you, she got a chill. It turned to
pneumonia, and in four days she was dead. I saw the judgment of
Heaven beginning. But that is for me alone. Her name, at any rate, is
safe. You will never find it out.’
Boirac’s voice had fallen still lower. He spoke in a sort of
toneless, numb way, as if mechanically, and yet his hearers could see
that only his iron control prevented a breakdown.
‘On that night of the dinner party,’ he resumed, ‘I met Felix
accidentally in the hall on his arrival, and brought him into my
study to see an etching. It is true we there spoke of the cask which
had just arrived with my group, but I gave him no information such as
would have enabled him to obtain a similar one.
‘All that has been found out of the events of that evening up to the
time that I left the works is true. It is true I thought at first I
would be kept till late, and afterwards got away comparatively early.
I actually left the works about eleven, took the Metro and changed at
Châtelet, as I said, but from there my statement to the police was
false. No American friend clapped me on the back as I alighted there,
nor did such a man exist at all. My walk with him to the Quai
d’Orsay, our further stroll round the Place de la Concorde, his going
by train to Orléans, and my walk home--all these were pure inventions
on my part, made to account for my time between eleven-fifteen and
one. What really happened during this time was as follows:
‘I changed at Châtelet, taking the Maillot train for Alma, and walked
home down the Avenue. I must have reached my house about twenty
minutes or a quarter to twelve.
‘I took out my latchkey as I mounted the steps, and then I noticed
that one of the slats of the venetian blind of the drawing-room
window looking out towards the porch had caught up at one end, and a
long, thin, triangular block of light shone out into the night. It
was just on the level of my eyes and involuntarily I glanced through.
What I saw inside stiffened me suddenly and I stood looking. In an
arm-chair in the farther part of the room sat my wife, and bending
closely over her, with his back towards me, was Felix. They were
alone, and, as I watched, a plan entered my mind, and I stood
transfixed with my pulses throbbing. Was there something between my
wife and Felix? And if not, would it not suit my purpose to assume
there was? I continued looking in and presently Felix rose to his
feet and they began talking earnestly, Felix gesticulating freely, as
was his habit. Then my wife left the room, returning in a few moments
and handing him a small object. I was too far off to see what it was,
but it seemed like a roll of banknotes. Felix put it carefully in his
pocket and then they turned and walked towards the hall. In a few
seconds the door opened and I shrank down into the shadows below the
window sill.
‘“Oh, Léon,” I heard my wife’s voice, and it seemed charged with
emotion. “Oh, Léon, how good you are! How glad I am you have been
able to do this!”
‘Felix’s voice showed that he also was moved.
‘“Dear lady, is not such happiness to me? You know I am always at
your service.”
‘He moved down the steps.
‘“You’ll write?”
‘“Immediately,” he answered, and was gone.
‘As the door closed, a furious passion of hate burned up in me for
this woman who had ruined my life--who had not only ruined it, but
who was still blocking out any chance of happiness I might have had.
And also I furiously and jealously hated Felix for being the cause,
however innocent, of my loss. And then suddenly I felt as if--perhaps
I should say I felt that--a devil had entered and taken possession of
me. I became deadly cold and I had the strange feeling that I myself
was not really there, but that I was watching some one else. I
slipped out my key, noiselessly opened the door, and followed my wife
into the drawing-room. Her calm, nonchalant walk across the room
roused me to still wilder fury. How well I knew her every motion.
This was the way she would have turned to greet me when I arrived
from the works, with cold politeness--when it might have been so
different. . . .
‘She reached her chair in the corner of the room and turned to sit
down. As she did so she saw me. She gave a little scream.
‘“Raoul, how you startled me,” she cried. “Have you just arrived?”
‘I threw off my hat and she saw my face.
‘“Raoul,” she cried again, “what’s the matter? Why do you look like
that?”
‘I stood and looked at her. Outwardly I was calm, inwardly my blood
whirled like molten metal through my veins and my mind was a seething
fire.
‘“Nothing really,” I said, and some one else seemed to be speaking in
a voice I had never heard before, a hoarse, horrible voice. “Only a
mere trifle. Only Madame entertaining her lover after her husband has
come home.”
‘She staggered back as if from a blow and collapsed into her chair,
and turned her now pallid face to me.
‘“Oh!” she cried in a trembling, choking voice. “Raoul, it’s not
true! It’s not true, Raoul, I swear it! Don’t you believe me, Raoul?”
‘I stepped close to her. My hate swelled up in a blinding, numbing,
overwhelming passion. It must have shown in my eyes, for a sudden
fear leapt into hers.
‘She tried to scream, but her dry throat produced only a piteous
little cry. Her face had grown ghastly. Drops of sweat grew on her
brow.
‘I was close by her now. Instinctively my hands went out. I seemed to
feel her slender neck between them, with my thumbs pressing. . . .
She read my purpose, for a hideous terror shone in her eyes. Dimly I
was conscious of her hands tearing at my face. . . .
‘I stopped. My brain was numb. I seemed to see myself from a great
distance standing looking at her. She was dead. I hated her more than
ever. I was glad to see her dead, to watch that horror still
lingering in her eyes. And he? How I hated him, he who had lost me my
love and spoilt my life. I would go now. I would follow him and I
would kill him. Kill him as I had killed her. I stumbled blindly to
find the door.
‘And then the devil that possessed me suggested another plan. He had
wanted her. Well, he would get her. If he couldn’t have her alive, he
could have the next best thing. He could have her dead.’
M. Boirac paused. He had been speaking in a high-pitched voice and
gesticulating as if overwhelmed with excitement. He seemed
unconscious of his hearers, as if, carried away by his recollections,
he was mentally living over again the awful scene, passing once more
through the frenzy of that terrible time. Then after a few moments’
silence he pulled himself together and went on in a more normal tone.
‘I determined to send the body to Felix, not only to satisfy my hate,
but in the hope that his efforts to get rid of it would bring
suspicion of the murder on him. Where, I wondered, could I get a
receptacle in which to send it? And then it occurred to me that in
the study adjoining was the cask that had just arrived with my
statue. It was large, strongly made and bound with iron. It would
suit my purpose admirably.
‘I crossed to the study and unpacked the group. Then quite coolly I
carried the body in and placed it in the cask. The idea that I must
divert suspicion from myself grew in my mind, and I therefore took
off my wife’s evening shoes as their presence would tend to show she
had not left the house. I filled up the cask with sawdust, ramming it
tight. The body being so much larger than the group, there was a lot
of sawdust over. This I swept up with the clothes brush from the hall
and put in a handbag, which I locked. Finally I replaced the wooden
top of the cask loosely as before, though still strongly enough not
to come out if the cask was moved. When I had finished no one would
have suspected that anything had been tampered with.
‘It was my intention to create the impression that my wife had gone
away with Felix. To this end two things appeared immediately
necessary. Firstly, such of her outdoor clothes as she probably would
have worn must disappear. I accordingly picked up the group and her
shoes and went to her room. There I threw the shoes down carelessly
before a chair, as if she had changed them. I took her fur coat, a
hat, and a pair of walking shoes, and, with the group, carried them
to my dressing-room. The only place I could think of for hiding them
was in a couple of empty portmanteaux, so I packed the group in one
and the clothes in another, carefully locking both.
‘The second point was to produce a letter purporting to be from my
wife to myself, in which she would say she loved Felix and had gone
away with him. I had not time to write one then, but for temporary
purposes I put an old letter of my own into a new envelope,
addressing it to myself as best I could in my wife’s hand. This I
left on my desk.
‘I had already spent over three-quarters of an hour and it was nearly
one. I took a final look round to see that nothing had been
forgotten, and was just leaving the drawing-room when my eye caught a
glint of light from the carpet immediately behind the chair in which
my wife had died. I stepped over and saw it was a brooch which had
evidently been torn from her dress during the struggle. I broke out
into a cold sweat as I thought how nearly I had missed it, and
realised that its discovery by some one else might have disproved my
story and brought me to the scaffold. With no clear idea except to
hide it, I put it in my waistcoat pocket, took my hat, and, letting
myself out, drew the door sharply behind me. After strolling as far
as the Champs Élysées and back, I re-entered with my key. As I had
hoped and intended, the shutting of the front door had been heard,
and I found the butler obviously uneasy at my wife’s disappearance. I
endeavoured to confirm his suspicions that she had gone away with
Felix, and, as you know, completely succeeded.
‘Most of that night I spent in my study working out my plans. There
was first of all the cask. A cask had been sent me by Dupierre, and
it was obvious I must return them an empty one against it or I would
give myself away. Where was this empty one to come from?
‘It was clear to me that I must get a precisely similar cask to
return, and the only way I could do so would be to order another
group, in the hope that it would be sent packed in the same way. But
obviously I could not have this group sent to me. The idea then
occurred to me that I must write in some imaginary name ordering the
statue to be delivered at some place such as a station cloak-room, to
be kept till called for. There I could get it without letting my
identity become known.
‘But this plan did not please me. I was afraid the police would be
able to trace me. I thought over it again, and then I saw that if I
ordered it in Felix’s name it would meet the case. It would account
for his getting the cask I was sending him, and he would not be
believed when he denied ordering it. But I couldn’t give Felix’s name
and address, for then he might get both casks, and I would be as
badly fixed as ever. Finally I worked out the plan you know. I forged
an order in Felix’s hand for the companion group to my own to be sent
to Felix at an imaginary address, made a tracing of it, left the
letter in Dupierre’s letter-box on Monday night, telephoned them on
Tuesday morning ascertaining by what route and train they were
sending the group, went to London, met it and had it left in a shed
there, all as you must have learnt.’
‘A moment, please,’ interrupted La Touche. ‘You are going a little
too quickly for me. You say you made a tracing of your forged order
for the companion group and left the letter in Dupierre’s letter-box.
I don’t quite understand that.’
‘Oh, you hadn’t found that out, had you not? I will explain. I was in
Paris, you see, when I forged the letter. But Dupierre must believe
it came to him from London, or his suspicions would be aroused. I met
the difficulty by sticking on the envelope a cancelled stamp from a
letter I had received from London, copying the remainder of the
postmark with a little lampblack. Then I went down to Grenelle in the
middle of Monday night and dropped the letter into Dupierre’s box. He
would find it next morning all correct with its English stamp,
cancelled in a London office.’
In spite of their loathing for this callous and cynical criminal, La
Touche and Mallet could not but be impressed by the cleverness of the
trick. All the detectives concerned had argued that as the order for
the statue had been received apparently from London on Tuesday, it
must have been posted there on Monday, and that as Felix was there
and Boirac in Paris, the former must have posted it. But how simply
they had been duped! Truly, thought the detectives with unwilling
admiration, Boirac had deserved to succeed.
‘But the tracing?’ persisted La Touche.
‘I thought that not only must Dupierre believe the letter came from
London, but some definite proof that Felix had written it must be
provided. I did it in this way. After I had written the letter I made
a careful tracing of it on a bit of tracing paper. As you probably
know, I visited St. Malo when in London, and there, with Felix’s pen
and ink, I retraced over the writing and blotted it. This gave the
impression.’
Again his hearers had to admit a rueful admiration for the ingenious
ruse. The finding of the impression had seemed so conclusive, and--it
was only a trick. And what a simple trick--when you knew it!
‘That is quite clear, thank you,’ said La Touche.
‘I met the cask in London and brought it to the shed,’ went on the
manufacturer. ‘There, after dismissing the carter, I opened the cask,
took out the statue, packed it in a portmanteau I had with me, took
the label off the cask and put it carefully in my pocket, replacing
it with one addressed to Jacques de Belleville at the Gare du Nord.
As you know, this Jacques de Belleville was myself.
‘As you found Dubois, the carter, you will have learnt the method by
which I exchanged the casks, sending that containing the body from my
house to Felix, while the other, which I had emptied in London, went
back to Dupierre. You understand that part of it?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘So much then for the getting of the body to Felix. But it was my
desire not only to give him the shock of opening the cask and
discovering it; I wished also to make the police suspicious so that
he would be watched and his attempts to get rid of the corpse
discovered. In this case I intended he should be charged with the
murder, incidentally clearing me. To ensure this result I set myself
to construct such evidence as would weave a net round him from which
he would be unable to escape. Gradually the details of my plan
arranged themselves in my mind.
‘Firstly, it was necessary that I should really have the letter of
farewell, the envelope of which I had prepared, and which I had
pretended to find on going to my study. Collecting a number of
specimens of my wife’s handwriting from her davenport, I forged the
letter I showed to the French police. Putting it away for future use,
I burnt the specimens to prevent them from being compared with the
forgery.
‘The problem of getting Felix to meet the cask which I intended to
send him, and while doing so to attract the attention of the police,
then occupied my thoughts. After much consideration I decided on the
plan you know. It happened that some three weeks previously I had
been seated in the Café Toisson d’Or, when a bad neuralgic headache
had come on, and I had moved into an alcove to be as private as
possible. While there I had seen Felix come in and begin talking to a
group of men. I had not made myself known, as I was in considerable
pain, but I had overheard their conversation and learnt the
arrangement Felix and his friend Le Gautier had made about the
lottery. This I now decided to use, and I drafted a letter to Felix
purporting to come from Le Gautier, mentioning this matter of the
lottery to make it seem genuine. I also drafted a slip about money I
intended to send in the cask. The contents of this letter and slip
you know. These I put away in my pocket-book, to be used later.
‘The next evening, Monday, I pretended to unpack the cask. I brought
the group I had taken out of it on the previous Saturday from the
portmanteau in which I had hidden it, and placed it on the table in
my study. On the floor, about the cask, I sprinkled some of the
sawdust from the handbag. By this manœuvre I hoped if suspicion arose
it would be argued that as the cask was not unpacked till Monday
night, the body could not have been put into it on the night of the
dinner. As you know, this ruse also succeeded. I also took the label
off the cask and put it in my pocket.
‘Opening the cask again, I put in £52 10s. in English gold, to
correspond with my slip. I hoped that, if the police got hold of the
cask, they would assume that Felix had put in this money in order to
strengthen his story that the cask had been sent to him. I put in
sovereigns instead of French gold with the intention of making this
theory more likely, as I hoped it would be argued that Felix in his
agitation had overreached himself, and forgotten from what country
the cask was supposed to be coming.
‘Calling François, I told him I had unpacked the statue, and when
Messrs. Dupierre sent for the cask he was to give it to them. Then,
informing him that I would be from home for a couple of nights, I
left next morning by the early train for London.
‘On the Monday I had purchased a false beard and arranged to get
myself up to resemble Felix, and I wore this disguise all the time
till my return. I brought with me on the journey the portmanteau
containing my wife’s clothes, and, on board the boat, from a quiet
place on the lower deck, slipped these articles overboard without
being observed. On arrival in London I arranged with a carting firm
to carry about the cask on the next two days, as you already know. I
then went out to St. Malo, Felix’s house, which I found after some
judicious inquiries. A careful reconnoitre showed me it was
unoccupied. I tried round the windows and had the luck to find one
unhasped. Opening it, I crept into the house and went to the study.
There by the light of an electric torch I carefully inked over the
tracing I had made of the forged letter ordering the cask, and
blotted it on Felix’s pad. This, I felt sure, would be found, and
would seem to prove that he had written the order.
‘I had foreseen that it would be argued that Felix must be innocent
because not only would he have no motive to murder my wife, but also
he would naturally be the last man in the world to do such a thing.
It was necessary for me, therefore, to provide a motive. For this
purpose I had written a letter purporting to be from a girl whom
Felix had wronged. Having crumpled this letter I put it into the side
pocket of one of Felix’s coats. I hoped this would be found, and that
it would be argued that my wife had got hold of it and that there had
been a quarrel which led to her death. Crumpling it was to suggest
Felix had snatched it from her, thrust it into his pocket and
forgotten it.
‘As I stood in the study a further idea occurred to me. I had thought
of a use for a brooch that had dropped from my wife’s clothes. It had
fallen just behind the chair she had been sitting in, and I thought
if I placed it on the floor behind a chair in his room, it would
suggest she had been murdered here. My eye fell on a chair with a low
back, standing in front of a curtain, and I saw at once it would suit
my purpose. I dropped the brooch behind it and it caught on the braid
at the bottom of the curtain. There it was hidden from casual
inspection by the chair, but I knew the police would not overlook it.
I withdrew without disturbing anything or leaving traces, closed the
window, and returned to the city.
‘Such was my plot, and, but for your cleverness, it would have
succeeded. Is there any other point on which you are not clear?’
‘Only one, I think,’ answered La Touche. ‘You were heard to telephone
on the Monday from the Café at Charenton to your butler and chief
clerk. They received their messages on the Tuesday from Calais. How
did you manage that?’
‘Easily. I never telephoned on Monday at all. I slipped a tiny wooden
wedge into the instrument to prevent the hook rising when I lifted
off the receiver. No call was therefore made on the exchange, though
I went through the form of speaking. Any other point?’
‘I do not think so,’ returned La Touche, who again could not but feel
a kind of rueful admiration for this ingenious ruffian. ‘Your
statement has been very complete.’
‘It is not quite complete,’ M. Boirac resumed. ‘There are two more
points of which I wish to speak. Read that.’
He took a letter from his pocket and handed it to La Touche. Both men
leaned a little forward to look. As they did so there was a slight
click and the light went out. What sounded like Boirac’s chair was
heard falling.
‘Hold the door!’ yelled La Touche, springing to his feet and fumbling
for his electric torch. Mallet leaped for the door, but, tripping
over the chair, missed it. As La Touche flashed on his light they
could see it closing. There was a low, mocking laugh. Then the door
slammed and they heard the key turn in the lock. La Touche fired
rapidly through the panels, but there was no sound from without. Then
Mallet flung himself on the handle. But at his first touch it came
off. The holes for the screws had been enlarged so that they had no
hold.
The door opened inwards, and presented to the imprisoned men a
smooth, unbroken surface, with nothing on which to pull. To push it
towards the hall was impossible, as it shut solidly against the
frame. Their only hope seemed to split it, but as they gazed at its
solid oak timbers this hope died.
‘The window,’ cried La Touche, and they swung round. The sashes
opened readily, but outside were shutters of steel plate, closely
fastened. Both men shoved and prised with all their might. But Boirac
had done his work well. They were immovable.
As they stood panting and baffled, Mallet’s eye caught the switch of
the electric light. It was off. He clicked it on. Though no answering
flood of light poured down, he noticed something that interested him.
‘Your torch, La Touche!’ he cried, and then he saw what it was. Tied
to the switch was a length of fisherman’s gut. Practically invisible,
it passed down the wall and through a tiny hole in the floor. Any one
pulling it from below would switch off the light.
‘I don’t understand,’ said La Touche. ‘That means he had a
confederate?’
‘No!’ cried Mallet, who had been looking about with the torch. ‘See
here!’
He pointed to the chair Boirac had occupied and which now lay on its
side on the floor. Fastened to the left arm was another end of gut
which also entered a hole in the floor.
‘I bet those are connected!’
Their curiosity temporarily overcame their fears. La Touche turned on
the switch and Mallet, pulling the gut at the arm of the chair, heard
it click off again.
‘Ingenious devil,’ he muttered. ‘It must go round pulleys under the
floor. And now he has cut off the current at the meter.’
‘Come on, Mallet,’ La Touche called. ‘Don’t waste time. We must get
out of this.’
Together they threw themselves on the door with all the weight of
their shoulders. Again they tried, and again, but to no purpose. It
was too strong.
‘What does it mean, do you think?’ panted Mallet.
‘Gas, I expect. Perhaps charcoal.’
‘Any use shouting at the window?’
‘None. It’s too closely shuttered, and it only opens into a
courtyard.’
And then suddenly they perceived a faint odour which, in spite of
their hardened nerves, turned their blood cold and set them working
with ten times more furious energy at the door. It was a very slight
smell of burning wood.
‘My God!’ cried Mallet, ‘he’s set the house on fire!’
It seemed impossible that any door could withstand so furious an
onslaught. Had it opened outwards, hinges and lock must long since
have given away, but the men could not make their strength tell. They
worked till the sweat rolled in great drops down their foreheads.
Meanwhile the smell increased. Smoke must be percolating into the
room.
‘The torch here,’ cried La Touche suddenly.
Taking his pistol, he fired a number of shots on the bolt of the lock.
‘Don’t use them all. How many have you?’
‘Two more.’
‘Keep them.’
The lock seemed shattered, but still the door held. The men’s efforts
were becoming frenzied when Mallet had an idea. Along the farther
wall of the room stood a heavy, old-fashioned sofa.
‘Let’s use the couch as a battering-ram.’
The room was now thick with smoke, biting and gripping the men’s
throats. Hampered by coughing and bad light, they could not work
fast. But at last they got the couch across the room and planted end
on to the door. Standing one at each side, they swung it back and
then with all their strength drove it against the timber. A second
time they drove, and a third, till at the fourth blow there was a
sound of splitting wood, and the job was done.
Or so they thought. A moment later they found their mistake. The
right bottom panel only was gone.
‘The left panel! Then the bar between!’
Though the men worked feverishly, their operations took time. The
smoke was now increasing rapidly. And then suddenly La Touche heard a
terrible, ominous sound. Crackling was beginning somewhere not far
off.
‘We haven’t much time, Mallet,’ he gasped, as the sweat poured down
his face.
Desperately they drove the couch against the bar. Still it held. The
terrible fear that the couch would come to pieces was in both their
hearts.
‘The torch!’ cried Mallet hoarsely. ‘Quick, or we’re done!’
Drawing his magazine pistol and holding it close to the door, he
fired its full charge of seven shots at the vertical bar. La Touche
instantly grasped his idea, and emptied his two remaining shots at
the same place. The bar was thus perforated by a transverse line of
nine holes.
There was a singing in the men’s ears and a weight on their chests
as, with the energy of despair, they literally hurled the heavy couch
against the weakened bar. With a tearing sound it gave way. They
could get through.
‘You for it, Mallet! Quick!’ yelled La Touche, as he staggered
drunkenly back. But there was no answer. Through the swirling clouds
the detective could see his assistant lying motionless. That last
tremendous effort had finished him.
La Touche’s own head was swimming. He could no longer think
connectedly. Half unconsciously he pulled the other’s arms to the
hole. Then, passing through, he turned to draw his confrère out. But
the terrible roaring was swelling in his ears, the weight on his
chest was growing insupportable, and a black darkness was coming down
over him like a pall. Insensible, he collapsed, half in and half out
of the doorway.
As he fell there was a lurid flicker and a little dancing flame
leaped lightly from the floor.
CHAPTER XXX
CONCLUSION
When La Touche’s senses returned he found himself lying in the open
air, with Farol, his other assistant, bending over him. His first
thought was for his companion in misfortune.
‘Mallet?’ he whispered feebly.
‘Safe,’ answered Farol. ‘We got him out just in time.’
‘And Boirac?’
‘The police are after him.’
La Touche lay still. He was badly shaken. But the fresh air rapidly
revived him, and he was soon able to sit up.
‘Where am I?’ he asked presently.
‘Just round the corner from Boirac’s. The firemen are at work.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Farol’s story was short. It seemed that Boirac had returned home that
afternoon about three. Shortly after, the detective had been
surprised to observe a regular exodus of servants from the house.
Cabs and taxis took away two men and four women, all with luggage.
Lastly, about four o’clock, came François, also with luggage, and
with him Boirac. François closed and locked the door, handing the key
to his master. The two then shook hands and, stepping into separate
vehicles, were driven away. It was evident the house was being closed
for a considerable period.
Farol, entering the taxi he kept in waiting, followed. They drove to
the Gare St. Lazare, where the manufacturer dismissed his vehicle and
entered the station. But instead of taking a ticket, he simply walked
about the concourse and in a few minutes left by another door.
Travelling by the Metro, he reached Alma Station, walked down the
Avenue, and, with a hurried look round, re-entered the house. To
Farol it was obvious that something was in the wind. He withdrew to
some distance and watched.
His surprise at these strange proceedings was not lessened when he
saw La Touche and Mallet drive up to the door and ring. He hurried
forward to warn them, but before he could do so the door opened and
they disappeared within. Growing more and more anxious, Farol waited
till, after a considerable time, he saw Boirac leave the house alone.
Now certain that something was wrong, he decided he must let the
manufacturer go, while he telephoned his suspicions to the Sûreté. A
car with some men was sent immediately, and they drove up to the door
just as Farol returned to it on foot. Smoke was beginning to issue
from the upper windows, and one man was sent for the fire brigade,
while others attempted to break into the house. In this they
succeeded only after considerable trouble. Through the smoke they saw
La Touche’s body lying half in the hall and half in François’s room.
Only just in time they got the men out, the back of the hall being a
sheet of flame before they reached the open air.
‘We better go to the Sûreté,’ said La Touche, who, by this time, had
practically recovered.
Twenty minutes later M. Chauvet was in possession of the facts, and
operations for the tracing of Boirac had begun.
La Touche then confidentially told the Chief all that he had learnt
about the mystery. M. Chauvet was utterly astounded, and chagrined
beyond measure at the blunder he and his men had fallen into.
‘Clever devil!’ he exclaimed. ‘He knew that nothing but the absolute
truth would put you off your guard. But we’ll get him, M. La Touche.
He can’t get out of the city. By now, every route will be barred.’
The Chief’s prophecy was fulfilled earlier than even he expected.
Only an hour later they had news. Evidently believing himself secure
in the destruction of the only two men who, so far as he was aware,
knew enough to convict him, Boirac, after setting the house on fire,
had gone openly to his club. A detective who went there to make
inquiries, found him calmly sitting smoking in the lounge. He had, it
appeared, made a desperate effort to escape arrest, and attempted to
shoot the officer. Then, seeing it was all up with him, he turned the
revolver upon himself, and, before he could be stopped, shot himself
through the head.
So perished one of the most callous and cold-blooded criminals of the
century.
In a curious manner Felix received his reparation. Heppenstall, who
had learnt to respect and appreciate his client, engaged him to paint
a portrait of his wife. While thus occupied the artist made the
acquaintance of the K. C.’s daughter. The two young people promptly
fell in love. Six months later they were quietly married, and, his
bride bringing a not inconsiderable dot, Felix threw up his
appointment and moved to a new St. Malo on the sunny shores of the
Mediterranean. Here he divided his attention between his young wife
and the painting of that masterpiece which had so long remained an
unattainable dream.