GASTON MAX’S STORY
1
“Thanks for your hospitality, my friends!” said M. Paul.
He threw his head back and confronted us with a scornful smile.
I exchanged glances with Lonergan. That remarkable man, although he
had discarded his footwear, had retained his cigar, and:
“You’ve got a gun packed,” he growled. “I can see the bulge from here.
Entertain M. Paul while I go get my shoes. I parked ’em under a
rosebush.”
He turned, walked out on to the balcony, and silently disappeared. I
met the prisoner’s unflinching stare, and:
“Won’t you sit down, M. Paul?” I said, speaking in French--for no
reason that I can assign other than that the defiant figure, with
folded arms, was so gallant and so Gallic.
“I must refuse. I accept no favours from such enemies.”
“I have never been your enemy,” I replied, without any echo of his
high challenge. “I was your guest to-night. If you can explain why you
were eavesdropping outside my apartment, we shall continue to be
friends.”
There are nuances in French beyond the compass of our grand but
downright language. I have indicated what I said; but in the tongue of
M. Paul I said it with infinite delicacy.
He was puzzled. So much was evident.
“You have a perfect Paris accent,” he replied--by which equivocal
compliment I knew he was playing for time.
“The tone of the interview,” said I, “rather rests upon yourself.”
“I cannot agree. I am but one. You are many.”
My stare of bewilderment was so honest that its naïveté broke
through the armour of M. Paul’s distrust. A familiar expression fled
across his pale, handsome face. So he had looked at the Kurhaus when I
had assured him that my acquaintance with Mme. Yburg was only a week
old.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. Mr. Lonergan and myself make
two to one, certainly. But I cannot admit two to be many.”
“What is this?”
M. Paul dropped his hands and bent forward, watching me.
“We stand alone. _You_ represent the many.”
Whereupon, throwing up his palms and his eyes in a simultaneous
gesture:
“_Mon Dieu!_” M. Paul exclaimed; adding, in English: “How damn silly I
am!”
At which moment Lonergan reëntered, wearing his shoes; and:
“I guess I’m damn silly, too,” he said. “Listen, Woodville--I’ve been
checking up on you, out there. Don’t get upstage. You weren’t dead
sure of _me_! My French is practicable but not in the same class as
yours. I followed what you said. Have you got a line on the facts?”
“No,” I replied angrily.
“Suffering Moses! Isn’t it plain that what you thought of me, and I
thought of you, M. Paul here was thinking about both of us!”
“I have been a damn fool!” the Frenchman exclaimed.
“So have I,” said Lonergan sadly. “But Woodville is the damnedest fool
of the bunch. _He_ hasn’t got it _now_!”
“Oh, but yes--certainly!” cried M. Paul, and turned to me eagerly. “It
is plain, my dear Mr. Woodville, is it not? You two gentlemen are
engaged upon the same matter as myself! You are watching Mme. Yburg
and Felsenweir? So am I!… And like a fool I think you two are her
lovers or her accomplices! Perhaps both.”
“Got it, now?” Lonergan growled. “When I figure out the time I’ve
wasted covering you, Woodville, and you, M. Paul, I guess I haven’t
the pluck to log.”
“But----” I broke in.
“One fool at a time,” he said surlily. “_I_ was saying something.” He
turned again to Paul, and: “My name’s known to you?” he went on. “Mr.
Woodville, here, was good enough to mention it. I’m Lonergan. United
States special commissioner.”
“But, name of a little dog!” cried Paul. “I know! I _know_! You are
John Lonergan? When I heard the name spoken, I knew! It was hearing
‘Mr. Lonergan’ that told me what a fool I am. We have corresponded!
And about this very matter!”
“What!” said Lonergan.
“You exchanged letters with me, in Paris, respecting Mme. Yburg--two
weeks ago! We had been advised, at the Service, and it was I who
replied to you! We should have met, but you left suddenly----”
Lonergan removed his stumpy cigar. It was an unusual gesture. His
drooping lids were fully raised. He stared at the speaker, and:
“Name of Gaston Max?” he asked.
Our uninvited guest bowed, showing a row of perfect teeth. Lonergan
turned to me.
“Woodville,” said he, “meet Gaston Max of the Paris Service de
Sûreté! Then, if you’d step outside and kick me, I should take it
kindly.”
2
Conversation between Lonergan and Gaston Max became technical. I
gathered that the Frenchman enjoyed an international reputation; but
since criminology, hitherto, had been out of my line, the name of
Gaston Max had not reached me. His pre-eminence in his own trade was
evident, however.
Lonergan treated him with definite respect.
So much did I feel out of the running, that presently:
“Gentlemen,” I interrupted, “as a mere amateur I should like to
intrude a remark. So far, we have none of us been very wise. I have
two suggestions to make.”
“Cough ’em up,” said Lonergan.
“Beer.”
“That motion’s carried,” he declared.
I rang for a waiter, and:
“As an interested party,” I went on, “my second suggestion is this:
Will M. Max be good enough to inform us in what way happenings in the
Black Forest concern the Service de Sûreté?”
“But my _dear_ Mr. Woodville,” Max cried, “I am most remiss! My
apologies! I am your guest--although the invitation nearly strangled
me!” He turned again to Lonergan. “I will speak to you later about
that trick.”
Lonergan discarded half an inch of cigar, and from his waistcoat
pocket took a new one--the first I had ever seen him use.
“Matter of timing,” he growled.
Came a rap on the door and a waiter appeared--the same who had advised
me to drop my inquiries respecting a giant bat seen in the
neighbourhood.
I gave the necessary order; and, as the waiter withdrew and we heard
the outer door close:
“No!” Max exclaimed. “I don’t like that man! I think, from the way he
looked at us, he knows something!”
“I’m sure he does,” I replied. “Presently, I will tell you why I am
sure.”
It struck me forcibly what an odd trio we were as we awaited that
suspected man’s return: Lonergan, gaunt, gray-haired and
imperturbable; Gaston Max, darkly handsome, and radiating a passionate
energy and high spirits; and I, very brown-faced, I suppose, in
contrast to my sallow companions, and no doubt very ordinary looking
by comparison with either.
Both the American and the Frenchman would have claimed second glances;
whereas one can meet a dozen Brian Woodvilles any fine morning in a
walk from the Mall through St. James’s to Bond Street.
When, presently, the ordered refreshments arrived, it was another
waiter who brought them! Exchanging nods with Lonergan I made an
inquiry, and:
“Your waiter has just gone off duty, sir,” I was told. “Thank you.
Good-night, sir.”
As the door closed, Lonergan lighted his new cigar, and:
“That first kite with the squint in his eye has gone to make a
report,” he declared. “At noon to-day, where I lunched, he was three
tables away, covering me!”
3
In an atmosphere of growing tension almost physically to be felt,
Gaston Max told his story. It served, amongst other things, to
illustrate how big a part chance--or call it Fate if you prefer--plays
in all our lives.
It was, then, the presence of the American agent in Paris, and the
nature of his correspondence with the French police authorities, which
had given the Service de Sûreté their first clue to a mystery six
months old! Expressing himself unwilling to call at headquarters or to
receive a representative, Lonergan had asked for any information held
by the Service relative to Mme. Yburg.
“Name of a good little man,” Max exclaimed, “how puzzled we were by
your invisibility!”
“Had my reasons,” Lonergan growled.
But when, in a telephone conversation, the facts about the radio
disturbance in New England came into Max’s possession, the link was
established.
They held no _dossier Yburg_ in Paris; they had never heard of Madame.
But, following the conversation with Lonergan, Gaston Max immediately
communicated with the police at Argelès in the Pyrenees and asked a
certain question.
“While I am awaiting the result,” said Max, “you disappear! So also
does Mme. Yburg!”
“I was covering her.”
“So were we!” cried Max--“acting on your information. We knew she had
gone to Germany. But none of my fools knew what had become of _you_!
And the one in whom I had most faith described you as a dark man,
fresh-colored, with a pointed beard!”
“That’s right,” Lonergan agreed, rolling his cigar reflectively. “I
introduced myself to Mme. Yburg! That’s why I thought I was safe.”
But, at this, silently as I had listened hitherto, I burst in.
“You _introduced_ yourself!” I exclaimed. “Please make this clear.
Because, frankly, I’m quite out of my depth.”
“So, also, am I,” Max declared.
“Suffering Moses!” said Lonergan. “I made the acquaintance of Mme.
Yburg on the journey from Cherbourg to Paris as a dark man with a
pointed beard and a moustache; member of an old Southern family. Got
_that_ clear? Seeing she wasn’t staying in Paris for long, I got to
know where she was heading for. Then I told her that my maternal
uncle, name of Aldous P. Kluster, was going the same way. Said I was
leaving but that he’d call up and pay his compliments. He did. He
travelled along with her to Baden-Baden. Here he is!”
The eloquent face of Gaston Max was a study. But, when he spoke, his
question surprised me.
“How many passports do you use?” he asked.
“Five. Open that other bottle.”
But, whilst I did as he suggested, I was watching Gaston Max. And that
master sleuth was watching John Lonergan. Finally:
“You got me beat!” he declared.
And the accent with which he pronounced the words, spoken by a
Frenchman, astounded me. Even Lonergan’s calm was disturbed.
“No wonder,” Max went on in his usual manner, “that you slip through
our fingers in Paris! No wonder I make a damn fool of myself in Baden!
My congratulations, monsieur! America employs clever men!”
“Sir,” Lonergan replied, “I have to hand back the compliment to
France. That Lower East Side stuff would pass on Mott Street!”
4
Gaston Max, who was, as now began to dawn upon me, France’s star
detective, told his singular story whilst I taxed my ingenuity in
vain. I tried to discover a discrepancy in the appearance of Lonergan
which might help me to decide if the man I knew were the real man or
if the pictures of John Lonergan _in propria persona_ (attached,
presumably, to one of his five passports) would prove to be totally
unfamiliar.
Rather more than six months earlier, I learned, the little mountain
township of Bagnères-dès-Barèges in the Hautes Pyrénées had
suffered a visitation unparalleled in French history. Of the total
population only thirty-five remained.
“These owe their lives,” Max explained, “to the fact that on this
fatal night they were not at home. Some were in the higher mountains
above Bagnères, some were tending cattle, some calling upon friends
who lived in remote places. But of living creatures actually within
the town, from the High Bridge to the Valley Gate, only seven
survived!”
“Stop a minute,” Lonergan interrupted. “You said ‘living creatures’?”
“I did.”
“Meaning cats, rats, canaries, and such?”
“But certainly! Even some of the insects!”
“Suffering Moses! We had the story back home. I remember the
headlines: ‘Whole town struck dead by lightning!’ Go right ahead.”
“One moment!” said I, interrupting Max in the act of raising a
clenched fist in characteristic forensic gesture. “We also had the
story in London, I believe, although I was abroad at the time. But
surely it was determined by meteorological experts that, owing to the
peculiar setting of Bagnères-dès-Barèges, a tremendous electrical
discharge had brought about the tragedy?”
“But certainly!” Max agreed again. “What else could one say? Of those
witnesses who remained, no two were in accord as to the circumstances.
True, there was thunder in the air. It seemed, at sunset, that a storm
brewed. Black clouds hung over the mountains. Radio and telegraphic
communication were disturbed. This we learned later. Then, at nine
o’clock, when most of those simple folk were in bed, it came----”
“_What_ came?” Lonergan asked.
“Death came!”
“That’s agreed,” the ill-humoured voice went on. “But you spoke of
witnesses. What did they see? What did they hear?”
Gaston Max turned to me smilingly. He shrugged his shoulders.
“He is difficult, this one,” he said--“my American _confrère_! I
should prefer, Mr. Lonergan, to tell the story in my own way. But I
will step aside and answer your questions. My portfolio--I have nine
hundred pages of notes on the Bagnères mystery--is in my room. From
memory, there was a vague booming sound--according to two witnesses.
According to others, there was no sound at all. According to five or
six, there was a flickering light, resembling a distant storm, and it
played over the little valley in which the town lies. Three or four,
equally well placed, failed to see such a light. But when those
wanderers returned to their homes, gentlemen, they found tombs!…
Nothing lived in Bagnères-dès-Barèges!”
“You said there were seven survivors,” Lonergan complained.
The artist in Gaston Max--and I began to realize that the man was
essentially an artist--rose in revolt. Leaping from his chair, he
strode to the far end of the apartment. For a while he stood there,
whilst Lonergan rolled his cigar reflectively between thin lips. But
when Max turned he was smiling again.
“I said so, yes!” he admitted. “Notes are unnecessary. I will describe
these seven.”
He faced us, nine paces away.
“First--because she was so curious, I mention her first--there was a
very old cow in an ancient stone byre! Second, third, and fourth:
three deaf-mutes. Fifth, an aged man who lived in a cellar the walls
of which dated back to Roman times. Sixth, a woman about to give birth
to a child. Seventh, the child!”
“Quick!” Lonergan was on his feet. “Were there other cattle in that
byre?”
“No.”
“Were the deaf-mutes together, separated, or in the company of other
people?”
“One was alone. Two were together with a woman. The woman died.”
“The old man in the cellar?”
“He was alone.”
“The mother?”
“A midwife was with her in the room. Her husband and her sister were
in the house. Midwife, husband, and sister died.”…
There was a moment of silence.
“It seems like nothing could cover those facts,” Lonergan declared.
“So all the science of France proclaimed,” Max answered. “The Service
had not been called in. It did not appear to be their province. Until,
one day, _you_ wrote to us! It was my department, and I dealt with
you. When I heard of the silencing of radio in America, I said to
myself: ‘Of what does this remind me?’ When you asked for the history
of Mme. Yburg, I said, ‘This name is new to me.’ But, Mr. Lonergan,
you had sown the seed! Presently, so slowly, a possible link suggested
itself. I wired to the prefect of the arrondissement of Argelès in
the Hautes Pyrénées!”
“Well!” said I--since Lonergan remained silent.
“He presently replied to my question.… My question was: ‘Did one, Mme.
Yburg, visit Bagnères-dès-Barèges at or about the time of the
catastrophe?’ He replied: ‘A Mme. Yburg was staying at the sign of the
Coq d’Or during that week. She disappeared on the night of the
catastrophe’!”