The White Lie

In a moment the grim truth flashed across Adolphe’s mind. Ansell had for some reason bolted the door, and had forgotten to unlock it before escaping.

But why had he not warned him?

The voices outside were now raised, and he could hear the tramp of several other men over the moss-grown stones of the weedy courtyard.

Not a second was to be lost; therefore, taking up one of the rush-bottomed chairs and raising it above his head, he advanced to the door and brought it down with a crash upon the panel just over the lock.

A great crack showed, and by a second heavy blow the panel gave way sufficiently to allow him to insert his hand and draw the bolt from the opposite side.

He dashed across the living-room to where his coat hung, in order to seize his portion of the booty. Quickly he searched the pockets, but in vain!

The notes were gone!

Then, for the first time, he realised that he had been robbed, and from his dry lips there fell a fierce vow of vengeance against the man whose willing tool he had been – the man whose wife had left him because of his callous brutality.

Twice he searched his pockets, then he cast his coat from him in despair and, bending to the floor, tugged at the iron ring.

That, too, was secured. He could not lift it because the scoundrel had bolted it from beneath. Not only had he stolen his money, but he had made him a prisoner, knowing that he must fall into the hands of the police.

With his long, black hair ruffled, his great, dark eyes starting from their sockets, and both fists clenched in desperation, he gazed wildly around for some means of escape. There were none. Heavy footsteps sounded upon the uncarpeted stairs, yet if he attempted to jump from the window he would fall into the arms of the police, who had by this time surrounded the house.

This was Ralph’s revenge – because he had taken his poor little wife’s part, because he had prevented him from striking her down!

A bitter thought arose in the young thief’s heart. He bit his lip, and in an undertone declared:

“If ever I meet the cowardly blackguard I will kill him! That I swear. Not only has he robbed me, but he has also betrayed me to the police, knowing that I must be sent to prison, while he will remain safe!”

At that instant there came a heavy banging upon the door, while a loud, imperative voice cried:

“We are agents of police. Open – in the name of the law!”

The victim shrank back in terror. It was the end of his criminal career! He never dreamed that the police were so hot upon their track, and that they had been traced right over from Neuilly.

“Open – in the name of the law!” was again repeated, loud and commanding, followed by a sharp rapping.

For a few seconds Adolphe stood motionless, his fist still clenched, his terrified eyes fixed upon the door. He seemed rooted to the spot.

“Open this door – or we shall break it down!” shouted the police-officer on the stairs.

Then, finding resistance impossible, Ansell’s victim was compelled to bow to the inevitable.

He crossed the room slowly, turned the key, and drew the bolt.

Next second three men in plain clothes and a couple of police-agents in uniform burst into the room, and Adolphe found himself seized roughly and secured.

“Just caught you, my young friend!” laughed the police-commissary, with satisfaction. He wore an overcoat and hard felt hat, and carried in his hand an ebony cane with silver knob.

Adolphe, in the hands of the two other men in plain clothes, made no reply, but at the moment Mme. Brouet entered at the door, with curiosity, to watch the proceedings.

The commissary, noticing the smashed panel of the bedroom door, ran inside, while the men in uniform quickly searched the place.

“Where is ‘The American’?” asked the commissary, of Adolphe. “We know he is here, somewhere. You need not affect innocence, for your hand tells the truth. You and he did the job at the Baron de Rycker’s, and you left a large blood-stain behind. What have you done with the stolen property – eh? Now, out with it! Give it up, and it will be better for you when in court.”

“I haven’t any,” protested the young man. “Ralph has it all.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He locked me in yonder room and got away.”

“Got away with the swag? Ah! Just like ‘The American’! He did that same trick three years ago. I remember a complaint made by one of your fraternity whom I arrested at Versailles,” replied the commissary. “How did he get away?”

Adolphe pointed to where the commissary was standing, and the official, looking down, saw, to his surprise, for the first time, the rusty ring in the floor.

He bent and tried to raise it, but found it firmly secured.

“He’s gone!” he cried to the two agents in uniform, who were cyclists, wearing the flat-peaked caps with the arms of the City of Paris upon them. “Go out and scour all the streets in the neighbourhood. You may catch him yet!”

Without a second’s delay, both men dashed out to do the bidding of their superior officer.

Adolphe Carlier was left with the two agents of the Sûreté – both dark, shrewd little men, broad-shouldered, and short of stature, – while the commissary, who wore the button of the Légion d’Honneur in his overcoat, made a tour of the apartment.

Another agent of police, in plain clothes, entered and saluted.

“Did you see anything of the fugitive, Leblanc?” asked the commissary eagerly.

“Nothing, m’sieur. I came along from the depôt, but met nobody.”

“Search this place,” he said. “There is some stolen stuff hidden in this rat-hole, I expect.”

“I tell you Ralph Ansell has it all,” declared the man held by the two officers, who were now allowing him to bandage up his hand, prior to putting handcuffs upon his wrists. “Arrest Ansell, and you will find everything upon him.”

“Do you live here?” asked the commissary.

“No. Ansell lives here with his wife.”

“His wife! Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She was here at dinner-time, but now she’s gone. She’s left him.”

“Why?”

“Because of his brutality.” And Adolphe described the scene of the previous night.

“We must find her,” said the commissary, decisively. “Perhaps she knows something. Ansell and you are the last two members of the Bonnemain gang. Am I not correct?”

“Quite, m’sieur.”

“I thought I was,” and the commissary smiled. “Well,” he added, “your friend robbed you and threw you right into our hands. No wonder you are ready to give him away.”

The commissary well knew the ways of criminals, and was also aware with what murderous hatred a man was regarded who robbed his accomplice.

“Do not discuss him, m’sieur,” replied the man under arrest. “He has placed me in your hands, and I am helpless. I suppose I shall only get what I deserve,” he added, in a low, pensive tone.

“You are reasonable, Carlier, and I’m glad to see it,” responded the commissary in a softer tone. “Your friend is an arrant blackguard to have treated his wife as he has, and to have betrayed you because you took her part. But you surely knew how unscrupulous he was, and also that he was a most dangerous character. We know of one or two of his exploits, and I may tell you that if he is caught, there are two charges of murder against him.”

“I know,” replied the thief, briefly. “Though you have arrested me, I can truly say that I have never raised a knife, or fired a revolver, or attempted to take the life of any man.”

“You will not be charged with any crime more serious than burglary, Carlier,” replied the official. “But besides the Baron’s affair to-night, there is also the robbery at the widow’s apartment in the Rue Léonce Reynaud, the theft from the Château des Grandes Vignes, out at Moret in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and the safe-breaking at Thessier’s in the Boulevard des Italiens. You were in all of them, remember.”

“M’sieur knows,” replied Adolphe with a grim smile.

“It is my duty to know, eh?” was the rather sympathetic reply, for the commissary had quickly seen that this member of the broken Bonnemain gang, which had for years given such trouble to the Sûreté, was, though a criminal and outwardly a rough scoundrel of the Apache type, yet nevertheless a man possessed of better feelings than the ordinary thief.

The treatment that Carlier had received at his friend’s hands had crushed him. He did not crave for mercy, as so many criminals did when suddenly cornered and placed under arrest. He merely regarded it as a stroke of ill-luck, and with the true sportsman-like air “faced the music.”

As a matter of fact, he was wondering at that moment what had become of little Mme. Ansell, and whether the efforts of the police to discover her would be successful. No doubt they would, for one cannot travel far in Paris if one is searched for by the Sûreté, unless one is a professional thief, and therefore knows the holes in the underworld of Parisian life in which to hide successfully.

The commissary, pointing with his stick at the movable cupboard, ordered one of the agents to search it, and then, moving from one object to another, he had everything turned upside down in search of any property which might be concealed. The cupboard and sideboard were shifted away from the wall, the chairs were examined, the pictures taken down and pulled from their frames; indeed, no stone was left unturned.

When the French police make a search, they do so with a creditable thoroughness.

Adolphe, the gyves upon his wrists, craved a cigarette, and a police-officer took one from the packet lying upon the sideboard. Then, with both hands, the prisoner lit it, and sat upon a chair watching them turn the place upside down.

In the adjoining room they investigated everything. They even cut open the mattress and searched for stolen jewellery or bank-notes.

“It’s no use, m’sieur; there is nothing here,” Carlier assured the commissary. “We have not done a job for a long time.”

“Are you sure that ‘The American’ has it all?” asked the official earnestly.

“I’ve already told m’sieur,” was “The Eel’s” reply. “And, further, may I crave a favour?”

“What is that?”

“To speak alone with you just for a moment. I want to tell you something – for your ear alone.”

The official was instantly suspicious. But, as the prisoner was securely handcuffed, there was, he saw, no danger.

So he permitted him to pass inside the disordered bedroom, and then he closed the broken door.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FATE OF “THE AMERICAN.”

“Monsieur,” said Carlier, in a low, confidential voice, when they were alone, “though I may be a thief, and under arrest, I am still a son of France, am I not?”

“I suppose so,” replied the commissary, rather puzzled.

“Well,” said the man before him, “if you keep observation upon the Baron de Rycker, you will find that what he has lost he well deserved to lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Baron is a spy – a secret agent of Germany.”

The commissary looked at him sharply, and asked:

“How do you know that?”

“Ansell told me.”

“Are you quite certain?”

“Quite. Ansell has done some jobs for him, and has been well paid for them. He has acted as a spy for our enemies.”

“A spy as well as a thief – eh?”

“Exactly, m’sieur. Ansell has been in the Baron’s pay for nearly two years.”

“But this allegation is quite unsubstantiated. The Baron de Rycker is well known and highly popular in Paris. He moves in the best society, and the Ministers frequently dine at his table.”

“I know that, m’sieur. But search that safe in the little room upstairs – the safe we opened. Go there in pretence of examining our finger-prints, and you will find in the safe quantities of compromising papers. It was that collection of secret correspondence which we were after when the alarm-bell rang. We intended to secure it and sell it back to Germany.”

“If what you say is really true, Carlier, our friends in Berlin would probably give you quite a handsome price for it,” replied the official thoughtfully.

He had watched the thief’s face, and knew that he was telling the truth.

“Will you have inquiries made?” urged the thief.

“Most certainly,” was the reply. “And if I find you have told the truth, I will endeavour to obtain some slight favour for you – a shorter sentence, perhaps.”

“I have told you the truth, m’sieur. It is surely the duty of every Frenchman, even though he be a thief like myself, to unmask a spy.”

“Most certainly,” declared the official. “And I am very glad indeed that you have told me. I shall make a report to the Prefect of Police this morning, and tell him the name of my informant. The matter will be dealt with at once by the political department of the Sûreté.”

“The Baron will not be told who informed against him?” asked Adolphe anxiously.

“Certainly not. But if Ralph Ansell is arrested, he will be charged with assisting foreign spies – a charge quite as serious as breaking into the Baron’s house.”

“He hated the Baron because the latter had discharged him from his secret service.”

“What were his duties?”

“Ah! that I do not quite know, except that he performed delicate missions, and sometimes went abroad, to Holland, England, Norway, and other places.”

“Ansell evidently knew the arrangements of the house – eh?”

“He had been to see the Baron in secret many times.”

“And been well paid for his work, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes; heavily paid.”

“Well,” remarked the police official, “you may rest assured that the Baron will, in future, be well watched. We have no love for foreign spies in Paris, as you know.”

And then the commissary went on to question Carlier closely regarding his antecedents and his connection with the notorious Bonnemain gang, which had now been so fortunately broken up.

To all his questions Adolphe replied quite frankly, concealing nothing, well knowing that his sentence would not be made heavier if he spoke openly.

“I’ve heard stories of you for a long time, Carlier,” the commissary said at last. “And I suppose we should not have met now, except for the blackguardly action of this man who posed as your friend.”

“No. I should have escaped, I expect, just as I have done so often that my friends call me ‘The Eel,’ on account, I suppose, of my slipperiness!” And he grimaced.

The official laughed, and, with a word of thanks for the information concerning the Baron, both captor and prisoner passed back into the living-room, where the police-agents were concluding their searching investigations.

Nothing had been found of an incriminating nature, and the commissary now saw that the man arrested had spoken the truth.

While Ansell’s house was being turned upside down and Adolphe and the commissary were exchanging confidences, “The American” was having a truly hot and exciting time, as indeed he richly deserved.

Having entered the shaft, after securing the trap-door with its stout, iron bolt, he descended the rickety ladder to the cellar; thence, passing by a short tunnel, which Bonnemain had constructed with his own hands, he ascended a few rough wooden steps, and found himself in a lean-to outhouse close to a door in a high wall which led into a side street.

Creeping to the door he drew the bolt, and in a moment was free.

Turning to the left, he took to his heels, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, intending, if possible, to get away to the country.

He was elated at his narrow escape, and how cleverly he had tricked his friend, with whom he knew the police would be busy and so allow him time to get clean away.

He was lithe and active, and a good runner. Therefore in his rubber-soled shoes he ran swiftly in the grey light of early morning, turning corner after corner, doubling and re-doubling until he came to a main thoroughfare. Then, walking slowly, he crossed it, and dived into a maze of small turnings, all of which were familiar to him.

His first idea had been to seek refuge in the house of a friend – a thief, like himself, named Toussaint – but such a course would, he reflected, be highly dangerous. The police knew Toussaint to be a friend of his, and would, perhaps, go there in search of him.

No. The best course was to get away into the country, and then to Belgium or Spain. With that snug little sum in his pocket, he could live quietly for at least a year.

At last, out of breath, he ceased running, and, moreover, he noticed some men, going to their work early, look askance at his hurry.

So he walked quietly, and lit a cigarette so as to assume an air of unconcern.

“‘The Eel’ has been trapped at last,” he laughed to himself. Then, as he put his hand into the outside pocket of his jacket, it came into contact with Jean’s letter of farewell.

He drew it out, glanced at it, and put it into his inner pocket with an imprecation followed by a triumphant laugh.

Then he whistled in a low tone to himself a popular and catchy refrain.

He was walking along briskly, smiling within himself at his alert cleverness at escaping, when, on suddenly turning the corner of a narrow street close to the Seine, he found himself face to face with two agents of police on cycles.

They were about a hundred yards away and coming in his direction. They instantly recognised him. They were the two men sent out by the commissary.

In a moment, by the attitude of the two officers, Ralph Ansell realised his danger. But too late. They threw down their cycles and fell upon him.

For a few seconds there was a fierce struggle, but in desperation Ansell drew his revolver and fired point-blank at one of his captors, who staggered and fell back with a bullet-wound in the face.

Then in a moment the thief had wrenched himself free and was away.

The sound of the shot alarmed two other police-cyclists who were in the vicinity, and, attracted by the shouts of the injured man’s companion, they were soon on the scene, and lost no time in pursuing the fugitive.

The chase was a stern one. Through narrow, crooked streets “The American” ran with all speed possible, his endeavour being to reach a narrow lane protected from wheeled traffic by posts at either end, where he knew the cyclists would be compelled to dismount.

The quarter where he was, chanced to be a not altogether respectable one, therefore the wild shouts of the pursuing cyclists brought no assistance from the onlookers. Indeed, the people shouted to the fugitive, crying:

“Run, young fellow! Run on and they won’t get you! Run!”

And men and women shouted after him encouragingly.

With their cries in his ears, Ansell mended his pace, but his pursuers were fast gaining upon him, and had almost overtaken him when he reached the narrow passage between two high, dark-looking houses, close to the river.

He was now near to the river-bank, and within sight of the Pont des Peupliers, which crosses the Seine to Issy. The two police-agents threw aside their cycles and sped after him, but he was too quick for them, and when they had passed through the passage, they saw him dashing along by the edge of the river.

In his mad haste he stumbled and fell, and his pursuers were instantly upon him. But ere they could reach him he had jumped again to his feet and, levelling his revolver, fired point-blank at them.

The bullet passed them harmlessly, but a group of men on their way to work, attracted by the shot and seeing the thief fleeing from justice, again shouted to him encouragingly, for the police of Paris are not in good odour with the public, as are the police of London.

“Keep on, brave boy!” they shouted. “Go it! Don’t give up!” And so on.

The police-cyclists proved, however, to be good runners. They took no heed of the men’s jeers. One of their colleagues had been shot; therefore they intended to arrest his assailant, alive or dead.

Indeed, the elder of the two men had drawn his heavy revolver and fired at Ansell in return.

“Coward!” cried the men, reproachfully. “You can’t catch the man, so you’d shoot him down. Is that the justice we have in France?”

On went the hunted thief, and after him the two men, heedless of such criticism, for they were used to it.

At last, as they neared the bridge, Ralph Ansell felt himself nearly done. He was out of breath, excited; his face scarlet, his eyes starting out of his head.

He was running along the river-bank, and within an ace of arrest, for the two men had now out-run him.

They were within a dozen feet of his heels, one of them with a heavy, black revolver in his hand.

Should he give up, or should he make still one more dash – liberty or death?

He chose the latter, and ere his pursuers were aware of his intention, he halted on the stone edge of the embankment.

For a second he paused, and laughing back triumphantly at the agents, who had cornered him, he raised his hands above his head and dived into the swiftly flowing stream.

The men who had chased him drew up instantly, and the elder, raising his weapon, fired at the thief’s head as it appeared above the water. Three times he fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the head disappear beneath the surface close to the dark shadow of the bridge.

That he had wounded him was plainly evident. Therefore, in satisfaction, the two men stood and watched to see the fugitive rise again.

But they watched in vain.

If he did rise, it was beneath the great bridge, where the dark shadow obscured him, for it was not yet daylight.

Ralph Ansell, alias “The American,” and alias half-a-dozen other names, known in criminal circles in Paris, London, and New York, sank in the swift, muddy Seine flood – and disappeared.

CHAPTER XIII.

SISTERS IN SILENCE

Just before eleven o’clock on the following morning two sisters of the Order of Saint Agnes, one of the religious Orders which devote themselves to nursing the poor, were passing through the Tuileries Gardens, sombre figures in their ample plain, black habits, black head-dresses, and deep, white collars, their hands beneath their gowns and gaze downturned, when one of them chanced to note the frail, pathetic little figure of a woman resting upon one of the seats.

It was Jean Ansell. Worn and weary after hours of aimless wandering, she had entered those gardens so beloved of Parisian bonnes and children, and sunk down upon that seat just within the high railings skirting the busy Rue de Rivoli, and had then burst into bitter tears. Her young heart was broken.

Within sound of the hum of the never-ceasing motor traffic, up and down that fine, straight street of colonnades to the great Place de la Concorde, where the fountains were playing, the stream of everyday life of the Gay City had passed her by. None cared – none, indeed, heed a woman’s tears.

Men glanced at her and shrugged their shoulders, and the women who went by only grinned. Her troubles were no concern of theirs. Hatless, with only an old black shawl about her, and with her apron still on, she found herself hungry, homeless, and abandoned. Moreover, she was the wedded wife of a dangerous criminal!

Those who passed her by little dreamed of the strange tragedy that was hers, of the incidents of the past night, of the burglary, the betrayal, the arrest, the flight, and the crowning tragedy. Indeed, she herself sat in ignorance of what had happened to the pair after they had left the house.

She was only wondering whether Ralph had found her note, and whether on reading it, he had experienced any pang of regret.

She was only an encumbrance. He had bluntly told her so.

And as she again burst into tears, for the twentieth time in the half-hour she had rested upon that seat, the two grave-faced sisters noticed her. Then, after discussing her at a distance, they ventured to approach.

She was sitting in blank despair, her elbow upon the arm of the seat, her head bent, her hand upon her brow, her whole frame convulsed by sobs.

“Sister, you are in trouble,” exclaimed the elder of the two thin-faced, ascetic-looking women, addressing her as she placed a hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “Can we be of any assistance?”

Poor Jean looked up startled, dazed for the moment. She was amazed at sight of them. Ah, only those who have been adrift in Paris – the bright, laughter-loving, gay city of world-wide fame – know how hard, cruel, and unsympathetic Paris is, how the dazzling shops, the well-dressed crowds, the brilliantly-lit boulevards, the merry cafés, and the clattering restaurants all combine to mock the hungry and weary, the despairing, the penniless.