TOM BOB ON THE SPOT
The _Lorraine_ had just entered the port of Hâvre after an excellent
passage across the Atlantic. As usual, her passenger list was a full
one, and bore many names well known in the worlds of high finance
and fashion. The decks were crowded with pretty women in brilliant
toilettes and clean-shaven, keen-faced men in check cloth caps,
a typically American company, not to mention a minority of other
nationalities—Frenchmen, Englishmen, heavily built Germans, with a
sprinkling of Spaniards and Italians and even a half-dozen bronzed
Asiatics, a cosmopolitan assemblage.
The great ship lay alongside the huge customs shed, at the further side
of which was drawn up the special boat-train destined to convey the
liner’s first class passengers to Paris, and only waiting the latter’s
release from the formalities of the _douane_. Now all was ready, and
the heavy train got into motion, threaded its way at a snail’s pace
through the vast labyrinth of docks and warehouses, made a brief halt
at the Hâvre railway station to pick up a few travellers having special
permission to avail themselves of this express service, then little
by little gathering speed, began the headlong race that was only to
end 300 kilometres from the start at the Gare Saint-Lazare in the very
heart of the capital.
Very soon _déjeuner_ was served in the dining coach.
“How pretty the country is,” said Mrs. Silas K. Bigelow,
enthusiastically; she was a young and charming American, who sat
with eyes never leaving the window, gazing with admiring curiosity
at the fertile plains of Normandy whirling past. Her _vis-à-vis_ at
her table in the dining car, Mr. Van Buren, one of the most famous of
New York’s multi-millionaires, less enamoured of landscape than his
poetical fellow-countrywoman, insisted on his companion devoting a less
perfunctory attention to the meal.
The wine steward approached: “What wine will the ladies and gentlemen
drink—Saint Emilion, Pommard, extra dry?”
Mrs. Bigelow’s neighbour, a superb creature, with hair as black as
ink and eyes of an opalescent green, shook her head in reply to the
enquiring glance of her companion, a young Englishman, with smooth
cheeks and close-cropped hair.
“No, my dear Ascott,” she declared, “now we are ashore again, I want no
more of those heady beverages. All very well at sea, but not good for
my health now. Order me some mineral water, will you?”
Ascott looked round in search of the wine steward, but the man was
already at the opposite end of the car, booking the orders of the other
tables.
“Sorry, Princess,” the young Englishman excused himself; “directly the
man comes back, I will give him your order. Is there any particular
kind you prefer?”
But the Princess Sonia Danidoff answered the question only with a
careless wave of the hand and a brief:
“Oh! I don’t know; I hate having to choose.”
Then turning with a gracious smile towards another traveller seated at
a neighbouring table, the princess thanked him for the slight service
he had rendered her by passing her the menu card with a very polite bow.
Meantime Mr. Bigelow, seated not far from his wife, uttered a startled
exclamation. He had just unfolded a French journal and rapidly cast
his eye over it; indeed a number of the passengers in the restaurant
car were similarly engaged, eagerly scanning the news columns of the
morning papers.
No doubt during the voyage the news sheet that appeared on board every
morning had contained sundry important items of information supplied by
wireless, but detailed particulars were lacking, and for this reason it
was a boon to the newly-arrived travellers to be put in possession of
numberless piquant details of international events, and especially of
the activities of the fashionable world of Paris, in which they were
more particularly interested.
During the six days’ sea voyage, the world had not stood still; the
usual incidents, the usual joys and sorrows, the usual anecdotes formed
the staple of the record—and the usual crimes. But here was something
of direst import; these tourists who for nearly a week had been more or
less isolated on the high seas were startled to learn that on arrival
they were to find Paris a prey to the most acute alarm, and that since
leaving land a series of tragedies had occurred, the most mysterious
and the most terrifying ever known. The newspapers of every shade of
politics, of every sort and kind, were full of the dramatic incidents
that so excited public opinion, and above all abounded in the latest
particulars of the daring and dastardly assassination of the Minister
of Justice that had happened a few days before.
But there was one item that more than any other roused the keenest
curiosity among the occupants of the restaurant car. This was the
announcement of the expected arrival in France of the American, Tom
Bob, and the statement that the detective in question was on board the
SS. _Lorraine_, due to reach Hâvre on the very morning of issue. This
was naturally a highly exciting piece of news to the passengers who had
travelled with him, many of whom, moreover, knew of the reputation the
man enjoyed at police headquarters in New York.
“Is it possible?” laughed the Princess Sonia Danidoff, to whom her
cavalier had just read the paragraph, “is it possible we have had Tom
Bob with us on board?”
“But why not, Princess,” replied the multi-millionaire. “Surely Tom
Bob might be aboard without the world being turned upside down or the
_Lorraine_ dressing ship in his honour.”
“But is it not strange,” Mrs. Bigelow asked the question, “that he
never made himself known to us?”
“A detective,” observed Ascott, “is hardly likely to have his coming
announced by ambassadors, and as a rule prefers his presence to be
unremarked.”
The same traveller who a minute or two before had courteously passed
the list enumerating all the various sorts of mineral waters to the
Princess Danidoff now joined in with a word of approval of Ascott’s
remark:
“The gentleman,” he declared, “is perfectly right, and I entirely agree
with him in thinking that a detective, were it Tom Bob himself, is
bound under certain circumstances to keep the secret of his identity.
In other cases, however, it is best he should make himself known, and
that explains why Tom Bob, without therefore laying himself open to
a charge of inconsistency, has chosen on the one hand to preserve an
incognito on board ship while on the other informing the French press
by wireless of his speedy arrival in Paris.”
All eyes were turned on the speaker, who was evidently one of the
_Lorraine’s_ passengers. He was a man of about forty, whose brick-red
complexion was the more noticeable as his hair was deeply tinged
with silver. Like many Americans, he carried at his buttonhole a
miniature U.S.A. flag in enamelled porcelain; two heavy gold rings
adorned his finger, and he wore coat and trousers of light grey
cloth. The inspection continued for some seconds after its object
had quietly resumed his meal, for none of the first class passengers
could recollect having ever seen this particular individual during the
passage over.
At this moment a Frenchman who sat facing him, quite a young man, who
had joined the train at Hâvre, addressed the stranger:
“Excuse me, sir, but they say Tom Bob proposes to take measures in this
country to arrest Fantômas, that elusive brigand who always baffles the
best efforts of the police ... it is a bold venture!”
The man of the silvery locks looked up at the youth, then fixing his
eyes on the other’s face, answered calmly after a pause:
“It is very American, sir; what need to say more?”
“Well said, sir,” exclaimed a stout, ruddy-faced man, known to all on
the ship as being Hamilton Gould, an enormously wealthy Californian,
who had been round the world three or four times already, “in America
we are all like that.”
Mr. Van Buren smiled, but said nothing, while Mrs. Bigelow, entering
into the spirit of the conversation, suggested:
“Perhaps Tom Bob was just one of the bar tenders or maybe that old
lady with the white wig who by her own account travels for a Paris
dressmaker.”
The Princess Danidoff added yet another guess with a glance of irony at
the last speaker:
“Or the Captain?... why, not, while you are about it, dear
Mrs. Bigelow?”
Presently cigars were lighted and the majority of the ladies left the
restaurant car to return to their several compartments. Ascott, Van
Buren and Hamilton Gould, however, had followed Mrs. Bigelow and the
Princess Danidoff as they left the carriage, while behind them the man
with the silvery hair had risen from his seat. The conversation was
resumed in the corridor. A window stood open, and Mr. Van Buren begged
permission to smoke a cigarette. Then observing that Sonia Danidoff was
about to do the like:
“May I give you a light?” he asked the princess, who thanked him for
the offer.
“Egad!” exclaimed the millionaire next moment, “what a nuisance! I
thought I had my lighter in my vest pocket, and now I can’t find it; I
must have left it in my portmanteau.”
A bantering voice was heard behind him:
“Or rather, haven’t you perhaps had it stolen, sir?”
Van Buren wheeled round; it was the man with the silvery hair who
had spoken. Without appearing to pay any heed to the astonishment he
provoked, the man went on:
“You must know that these _trains de luxe_, such as the one we are in,
are often worked by pickpockets, and that these gentry find a malicious
satisfaction in robbing passengers even of articles of little value,
simply with the object of keeping their hand in.”
Van Buren did not know what to say, Mrs. Bigelow smiled nervously,
while not without a touch of anxiety, the Princess Sonia Danidoff,
whose lips were trembling a little, murmured with a forced laugh:
“Pooh! we ought not to be afraid, surely, seeing the renowned Tom Bob
is with us ... but is he really with us?”
“Why, yes!” cried Hamilton Gould. “I’m ready to wager he is.”
“Will you show us the man?” demanded Mrs. Bigelow.
“Perhaps I may, who knows?”
Then all burst out laughing; Ascott had just drawn their attention to
the smoking compartment at the far end of the car, where a passenger
lay fast asleep, adding the suggestion:
“Perhaps it’s that gentleman.”
First the men, then the ladies, all equally amused and curious, stole
one by one to peep in at the traveller who was still fast asleep,
little dreaming of the interest he aroused.
But the man of the silvery hair again drew attention to himself by his
criticism of Ascott’s identification.
“It shows a want of perspicacity, sir,” he declared, “to take the
gentleman sleeping there for Tom Bob. In the first place a detective
does not sleep; besides which, one has only to look at your man in
the smoking carriage to be quite sure, first, that he is a Frenchman;
that is plain from the cut of his clothes, and second, that he is an
officer, in fact I should say an officer actually serving with the
colours.”
Much impressed, Sonia Danidoff drew nearer to the speaker: “And what
tells you that, sir?” The man bowed gravely.
“Nothing simpler, madam! To begin with, look at that bundle of sticks
and umbrellas in the net above his head; amongst them don’t you see
something long in a green baize case?—a sword, an officer’s sword,
obviously! Then notice his temples; the hair lies flat to the head
all round a circular line, while it sticks out like other people’s
just below at the level of the top of the ear—that means our gentleman
usually wears a képi. Then, consider, apart from the moustache, the
only hair he wears on his face, the bronze of the skin, stopping short
at the neck—there you have a man used to living in the open air. I
believe I am pretty accurate in my diagnosis ... what do you think of
it?”
Hamilton Gould’s big hand fell familiarly on the silver-haired
individual’s shoulder.
“I think, sir,” he declared emphatically, “that to follow up a train
of reasoning like that, to draw a conclusion with such clearness and
precision, there’s only one man in all the world, above all only one
American—and I think you are that man, Tom Bob in person!”
The man addressed smiled as he looked with sparkling eyes in the face
of the genial globe-trotter.
“You are right,” he said simply, “I am Tom Bob.”
It was the signal for an outburst of enthusiasm and curiosity that
soon spread to every passenger in the carriage. All crowded round the
famous detective, each more eager than the other to speak to the great
man.
“I beg and pray,” Mrs. Bigelow urged her husband, “you will introduce
me; how delightful, how amusing to know a detective!”
But already Tom Bob, like the perfect man of the world he was, was
paying his respects to the Princess Danidoff.
“We possess some good friends in common, Princess,” he was saying, “the
Count and Countess Karenisky; I knew them well when I was staying at
St. Petersburg; in fact, I had an opportunity of doing them a small
service.”
“At the time of the Nihilists, was it not?” interrupted the Princess
Sonia.
“Yes, indeed, during that critical period ...”
But the princess shuddered at the mournful recollections the words
recalled, and stopped any further reference to the past: “Do not, I beg
you, sir, revive these dreadful memories!”
However, Hamilton Gould broke in at this point, very opportunely
changing the conversation.
“Then,” he asked, “as you know us all, you were actually on board the
_Lorraine_?”
“Why, certainly, sir,” replied Tom Bob. “Do you want proofs? You
occupied the state room No. 127, the Princess Sonia Danidoff had a
cabin port side; we enjoyed a first-rate passage, though on the evening
of the second day, a bit of a gale blew up about six o’clock, and we
feared bad weather for next day. Is that correct?”
“Absolutely correct!” asseverated Mr. Van Buren.
After that the conversation turned on a more enticing and more serious
subject. Tom Bob had been announced by the Parisian Press as the
declared antagonist of Fantômas. It was natural to question him as to
the attitude he proposed to adopt towards the notorious brigand. But
the American detective was not to be drawn, entrenching himself behind
what he called “professional secrecy.”
Mrs. Bigelow gave a groan of terror.
“Great heavens!” she cried, “supposing Fantômas were in this train and
knew that you were here, too, Mr. Tom Bob, and chose to blow us all up,
it would be appalling!”
“It would be a very natural thing for Fantômas to do, madam,” the
detective replied, “but for certain reasons I am well assured we have
nothing to fear on that head.”
The young Frenchman, who some while before had accosted Tom Bob, was
just returning from the breakfast car, a fat cigar in his mouth, eyes
shining, and hat cocked rakishly over one ear.
“First place,” he began in a quizzical voice, “Mister detective, you
have an easy job before you, for you must know Fantômas is in gaol.”
“Why, yes, that’s true enough,” admitted Mr. Van Buren.
“Still, as Mr. Tom Bob is so clever, it’s to be hoped he’ll meet him
all the same and finish by arresting his man.”
... “Egad! it’s deuced extraordinary,” suddenly exclaimed Ascott,
“here’s a go, I can’t find my pocketbook.”
Tom Bob gave a start.
“Look carefully, sir, look again; what you say is really serious, you
must make sure.”
With a pale face Ascott searched through all his pockets—everywhere.
“No, there’s no doubt whatever, my pocket-book has disappeared; it’s
not that I had a great deal of money in it, but the thing is very
unpleasant.”
Tom Bob lit a cigarette with a nonchalant air.
“Now that it’s known for sure your pocket-book has disappeared, the
only thing left to do is to get it back; that’s not very difficult
perhaps.”
All eyes turned in astonishment at Tom Bob, who went on:
“A detective, and above all an American detective, owes it to
himself to discover in any assemblage of people, no matter what, any
pickpockets therein, and this at the first glance.”
The young Frenchman started poking merciless fun at the sententious and
dogmatic language used by the American detective:
“And pray, sir, by what do you know them?”
Tom Bob looked the youth up and down from head to foot, and said
nothing for a moment or two. Then he replied: “By their boots.”
His audience held their sides. Decidedly Mr. Tom Bob was an original
and diverting travelling companion, and everybody crowded to the far
end of the corridor where he stood ensconced in a corner. The American
detective proceeded to harangue his listeners.
“The pickpockets on _trains de luxe_,” he declared, “have this much in
common with the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, that
they are usually ill-shod. With one class as with the other, there is
nothing, speaking generally, to find fault with in the get-up. Hat from
the best maker, clothes of an irreproachable cut, tasteful necktie,
well-kept hands, everything proclaims the man of the world; but there
is a small detail, a grain of sand, the proverbial grain of sand that
throws the best adjusted machine out of gear, and that grain of sand is
nothing more nor less than the footwear ...”
Tom Bob broke off, and turning to the young Frenchman who was listening
with a highly quizzical smile:
“Sir,” he asked, “will you allow me to ask you a question—what is your
profession?”
At this direct and almost peremptory demand, the youth blushed in some
embarrassment. The answer came in a dull, heavy voice:
“Why, sir, if I chose not to answer, I should be within my rights and
would tell you nothing ... But there, I have nothing to hide—I am a
student, a medical student, sir.”
The young man was evidently annoyed and turning his back on his
questioner, he left the corridor.
Suddenly, a few moments after this, the train was plunged into utter
darkness. The track, after running for some distance alongside the
Seine near Bonnières, had entered a tunnel. The Princess Danidoff’s
anxious voice was heard complaining: “Why isn’t the carriage lighted?
How very extraordinary!”
Tom Bob gave a sharp order:
“Have a care, ladies; look out, gentlemen; this darkness is altogether
abnormal; it is due to no negligence on the part of the Company, but
undoubtedly to the act of some miscreant; guard your jewelry, watch
your pockets.”
A few moments that seemed like hours, and then, issuing suddenly from
the bowels of the earth, the train regained the light of day and sped
on across the open country.
Mrs. Bigelow gave a cry; her reticule had vanished. “My bag,” she
groaned, “what has become of my little bag? Why, it’s appalling,
verily this land of France is nothing but a den of thieves.”
Mr. Van Buren remarked: “I thought just now Mr. Bob was joking, but I
am beginning to think he was perfectly serious.”
“By Gad!” exclaimed Ascott, who could _not_ believe his pocket-book had
really vanished and had just finished turning his portmanteau upside
down, “by Gad! I think I ought to know something about it.”
The American detective was biting his lips with annoyance; mechanically
he lit a cigarette, then tossed it away, only to light another.
A ticket collector passed along the train, shouting “tickets! tickets,
please!” But two passengers found themselves unable to produce
theirs—Ascott and Mrs. Bigelow.
The group in the corridor, already aware of the strange disappearance
of the Englishman’s pocket-book and the American lady’s reticule,
attacked the Company’s official, complaining of the thefts, claiming
the protection of French law, threatening the most terrible reprisals.
The unhappy collector knew nothing about it and grasped only one fact,
to wit, that two passengers were travelling without tickets. The
discussion was growing acrimonious when Tom Bob intervened.
“My good man,” he said, “will you be so good as not to press this lady
and gentleman for a few minutes; their tickets are not lost, only
mislaid—mislaid in somebody else’s pocket; it will be all right, will
it not, if the tickets are handed to you before reaching Paris? I
guarantee this will be the case.” Bob’s specific undertaking reassured
the man. “Very good!” he said, “we’ll see about it at Asnières.”
Ascott was about to pester the detective with a string of questions,
but the latter stopped him with a shake of the head.
“Wait a bit,” he said, “I think we’re slowing down.”
The train in fact was slackening speed, though no station was in sight;
on the contrary it had just run into the Forest of Saint-Germain; great
trees bordered the line on either side.
Tom Bob dashed hurriedly down the corridor, the train going slower and
slower all the time. Suddenly the detective sprang forward. The door
opening from the corridor on to the permanent way had been unfastened
from the inside by someone proposing to get out, presumably intending
to take advantage of the diminishing speed of the train to jump down on
to the ballast without fear of accident.
Quick as this suspicious movement had been, Tom Bob had forestalled it,
seizing the individual by the collar.
“So ho! my young friend,” he cried, without relaxing his hold, but on
the contrary twisting his wrist hard, so as to paralyse all resistance,
“so you wanted to give your friends the slip, did you? That’s not
pretty behaviour, upon my word!”
Pale as death, with a look of fear on his face, the other growled in a
savage voice:
“Let go, by God, let go, or I’ll kill you.”
But Tom Bob only smiled: “Kill me, eh?” he laughed, “what with? with
your revolver; just feel in your pocket with your free hand, my fine
little man, you’ll find your gun’s not there any more.”
The startled thief gave a choking cry of terror; mechanically he did
as he was bid and searched his pocket. The detective was right, his
revolver had vanished.
“It was I confiscated it, my lad,” the detective informed him, “you
are too young to use such weapons handily; a student, the deuce!... a
student like you can’t expect to have the dexterity of a master like
me; besides, we have _this_ little difference between us, I’m on the
job for honest reasons, while you ...”
The arrested fugitive threw himself on the ground, hoping in this
way to slip out of the detective’s grasp. The latter went on calmly
twisting the fellow’s arm, who swore savagely, glaring like a trapped
wild beast at his captor.
Attracted by the noise of the struggle a number of people had run
to the spot; amongst the first to arrive were Van Buren and Ascott.
In a moment they had realized what had occurred, and with a mighty
cheer acknowledged the wonderful perspicacity of their compatriot,
who had marked down among the throng of passengers the individual who
was undoubtedly the culprit and had arrested him so cleverly. All
recognized the man, it was the young Frenchman, the same who had given
himself out as a medical student.
Mrs. Bigelow had come to take a peep at Tom Bob’s prisoner, and now
rejoined Sonia Danidoff: “It is quite true, my dear,” she confided
to the princess, “Mr. Bob was quite right, one must beware of people
who are ill shod; that man wore horrid bad boots.” The princess was
very pale and still quite unstrung: “It’s frightful, these things,
appalling; it has made me quite ill!”
Meantime the compartment into which, finding it by chance
unoccupied, the American detective had unceremoniously pushed his
prisoner, resounded with a chorus of indignant outcries against the
pseudo-student. As quick as lightning the police-officer had secured
the fellow’s wrists with a miniature pair of handcuffs, so small as to
be hardly visible, but strong enough to bear any strain.
The Superintendent now appeared on the scene much harassed by all these
varied incidents, on which he would have to make a circumstantial
report, a task made the more difficult by the fact that the worthy
official, having no actual knowledge of the details, was asking himself
which of the two parties was actually in the right and which in the
wrong, these foreign fashionables travelling without tickets or the
young Parisian whom an American police-officer had taken upon himself
to handcuff.
“I don’t wish to hear a word,” declared the Superintendent, “I’m not
going to decide between you, you will make your explanations to the
Special Constabulary at the terminus.”
“Nothing could be fairer,” Tom Bob agreed, adding with characteristic
phlegm: “At the same time, sir, if you wish here and now to have
the two missing tickets, all you have to do is to search that young
gentleman’s pockets, I have no doubt they are in his possession.”
“I prefer to do nothing,” insisted the official, shaking his head in
a puzzled way, “I shall do nothing, you will explain yourselves, as I
said before, to the Constabulary Office at Saint-Lazare.”
* * * * *
A quarter of an hour later, still in a state of breathless excitement,
the first class passengers of the Trans-Atlantic express arrived at
their journey’s end. Instead of leaving the station, they all waited
in silence on the platform where the train had pulled up, formed up
in two lines, between which marched Tom Bob and his captive. They
had been the last to leave the train, but not unaccompanied; four
police-officers, to whom the Superintendent had beckoned as the train
ran in, escorted the pair, equally determined that neither one nor the
other, detective or culprit, should escape.
Who was right and who was wrong? This was what nobody knew. However, a
few minutes later, before the Special Commissary, light began to dawn.
The individual whom Tom Bob had accused of theft was searched. On him
was found Ascott’s pocket book, Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule—_and_ a leather
purse, absolutely empty!
“Where have you put the money that was in this purse?” asked the
Commissary sternly.
But Tom Bob burst out laughing: “That purse was empty to begin with,
sir,” he declared, “I can assure you of that much, for it is my own.
It’s what I call my decoy-purse. When I’m bent on looking after matters
in a crowd, I put it well in sight, hanging out of my vest pocket, and
wait events. The expected result never fails to arrive, the pickpockets
take me for a fool, make a dead set at me and rob me with the more ease
inasmuch as I help them all I can. It doesn’t bring them in a lot,
for I can’t afford to be generous with them, but it has this great
advantage, it enables me to make the gentleman’s acquaintance. That,
Mr. Commissary, is how we do things in America, or at any rate how Tom
Bob, the American detective, does ’em!”
The Special Commissary looked at the American in bewilderment, not
unmixed with a touch of jealousy. It could not be denied the man was
very clever and he had just done a pretty stroke of business, in which
unfortunately the French police could find little to boast about. Still
the Commissary thanked the detective, and added:
“We shall perhaps require you to give evidence, sir; where shall I be
able to find you?”
Tom Bob pencilled a few words on his card, saying at the same time: “I
have engaged rooms at the Hôtel Terminus; the police will always find
me there at their disposal.”
A minute or two more and Ascott recovered possession of his
pocket-book, and Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule returned to its lawful owner.
The Americans were one and all delighted, and wished that very evening
to celebrate their fellow-countryman’s splendid triumph; Tom Bob,
however, asked modestly to be excused, declaring he was tired out, and
quickly disappeared in the crowd.
In the Commissary’s office, the requisite papers were in preparation
for the committal of the pickpocket when a superior official entered.
“What is it, sir?” asked the Commissary.
“Why, this, sir; the individual in your charge is known to the police.”
“Well, what about him?”
“That man is an old gaol-bird; we don’t know his proper name, but among
the crooks he goes by the nickname of the ‘Beauty Boy’.”