The de Bercy Affair

"Mr. Furneaux, he is innocent," she wailed in a frenzy. "Oh, he is! You noticed me hesitate just now to bring you in here: well, this was the reason – this, this, this – " she tapped with her forefinger on the empty hole – "for I knew that you would see this, and I knew that you would be jumping to some terrible conclusion as to Mr. Osborne."

"Conclusion, no," murmured Furneaux comfortingly – "I avoid conclusions as traps for the unwary. Interesting, of course, that's all. Tell me what you know, and fear nothing. Conclusion, you say! I don't jump to conclusions. Tell me what was the shape of the dagger that has disappeared."

She was silent again for many seconds. She was wrung with doubt, whether to speak or not to speak.

At last she voiced her agony.

"Either I must refuse to say, or I must tell the truth – and if I tell the truth, you will think – "

She stopped again, all her repose of manner fled.

"You don't know what I will think," put in Furneaux. "Sometimes I think the most unexpected things. The best way is to give me the plain facts. The question is, whether the blade that has gone from there was shaped like the one supposed to have committed the crime in the flat?"

"It was labeled 'Saracen Stiletto: about 1150,'" muttered the girl brokenly, looking Furneaux straight in the face, though the fire was now dead in her eyes. "It had a square bone handle, with a crescent carved on one of the four faces – a longish, thin blade, like a skewer, only not round – with blunt-edged corners to it."

Furneaux took up a little tube containing radium from a table at his hand, looked at it, and put it down again.

Hylda Prout was too distraught to see that his hand shook a little. It was half a minute before he spoke.

"Well, all that proves nothing, though it is of interest, of course," he said nonchalantly. "How long has that stiletto been lying there?"

"Since – since I entered Mr. Osborne's employment, twelve months ago."

"And you first noticed that it was gone – when?"

"On the second afternoon after the murder, when I noticed that the celt, too, was gone."

"The second – I see."

"I wondered what had become of them! I could imagine that Mr. Osborne might have given the celt to some friend. But the stiletto was so rare a thing – I couldn't think that he would give that. I assumed – I assume – that they were stolen. But, then, by whom?"

"That's the question," said Furneaux.

"Was it this same stiletto that I have described to you that the murder was done with?" asked Hylda.

"Now, how can I tell that?" said Furneaux. "I wasn't there, you know."

"Was not the weapon, then, found in the unfortunate woman's flat?"

"No – no weapon."

"Well, but that is excessively odd," she said in a low voice.

"Why so excessively odd?" demanded Furneaux.

"Why? Because – don't you see? – the weapon would be blood-stained – of course; and I should expect that after committing his horrid deed, the murderer would be only too glad to get rid of it, and would leave it – "

"Oh, come, that is hardly a good guess, Miss Prout. I shall never make a lady detective of you. Murderers don't leave their weapons about behind them, for weapons are clews, you see."

He was well aware that if the fact of the discovery of the celt had been published in the papers, Hylda might justly have answered: "But this murderer did leave one of his weapons behind, namely the celt; and it is excessively odd that, since he left one, the smaller one, he did not leave the other, the larger one."

As it was, the girl took thought, and her comment was shrewd enough:

"All murderers do not act in the same way, for some are a world more cunning and alert than others. I say that it is odd that the murderer did not leave behind the weapon that pierced the woman's eye, and I will prove it to you. If the stiletto was stolen from Mr. Osborne – and it really must have been stolen – and if that was the same stiletto that the deed was done with, then, the motive of the thief in stealing it was to kill Mademoiselle de Bercy with it. But why should one steal a weapon to commit a murder? And why should the murderer have chosen Mr. Osborne to steal his weapon from? Obviously, because he wanted to throw the suspicion upon him – in which case he would naturally leave the weapon behind as proof of Mr. Osborne's guilt. Now, then, have I proved my point?"

Though she spoke almost in italics, and was pale and flurried, she looked jauntily at Furneaux, with her head tossed back; and he, with half a smile, answered:

"I withdraw my remark as to your detective qualifications, Miss Prout. Yes, I think you reason well. If there was a thief, and the thief was the murderer, he would very likely have acted as you say."

"Then, why was the stiletto not found in the flat?" she asked.

"The fact that it was not found would seem to show that there was not a thief," he said; and he added quickly: "Perhaps Mr. Osborne gave it, as well as the celt, to someone. I suppose you asked him?"

"He was gone away an hour before I missed them," Hylda answered. She hesitated again. When next she spoke it was with a smile that would have won a stone.

"Tell me where he is," she pleaded, "and I will write to him about it. You may safely tell me, you know, for Mr. Osborne has no secrets from me."

"I wish I could tell you… Oh, but he will soon be back again, and then you will see him and speak to him once more."

Some tone of badinage in these jerky sentences brought a flush to her face, but she tried to ward off his scrutiny with a commonplace remark.

"Well, that's some consolation. I must wait in patience till the mob finds a new sensation."

Furneaux took a turn through the room, silently meditating.

"Thanks so much for your courtesy, Miss Prout," he said at last. "Our conversation has been – fruitful."

"Yes, fruitful in throwing still more suspicion upon an innocent man, if that is what you mean. Are not the police quite convinced yet of Mr. Osborne's innocence, Inspector Furneaux?"

"Oh, quite, quite," said he hastily, somewhat taken aback by her candor.

"Two 'quites' make a 'not quite,' as two negatives make an affirmative," said she coldly, fingering and looking down at some wistaria in her bosom.

She added with sudden warmth: "Oh, but you should, Inspector Furneaux! You should. He has suffered; his honest and true heart has been wounded. And he has his alibi, which, though in reality it may not be so good as you think, is yet quite good enough. But I know what it is that poisons your mind against him."

"You are full of statements, Miss Prout," said Furneaux with an inclination of the head; "what is it, now, that poisons my mind against that gentleman?"

"It is that taxicabman's delusion that he took him from the Ritz Hotel to Feldisham Mansions and back, added to the housekeeper's delusion that she saw him here – "

Furneaux nearly gasped. Up to that moment he had heard no word about a housekeeper's delusion, or of a housekeeper's existence even. A long second passed before he could answer.

"Well, she was no doubt mistaken. I have not yet examined her personally, but I have every reason to believe that she is in error. At what hour, by the way, does she say that she thought she saw him here?"

"She says she thinks it was about five minutes to eight. But at that time, I take it from the evidence, he must have been writing those two letters at the Ritz. If she were right, that would make out that after doing the deed at about 7.40 or so, he would just have time to come back here by five to eight, and change his clothes. But he was at the Ritz – he was at the Ritz! And Mrs. Bates only saw his back an instant going up the stairs – his ghost's back, she means, his double's back, not his own. He was at the Ritz, Inspector Furneaux."

"Precisely," said Furneaux, with a voice that at last had a quiver in it. "If any fact is clear in a maze of doubt, that, at least, is established beyond cavil. And Mrs. Bates's other name – I – forget it?"

"Hester."

"That's it. Is she here now?"

"She is taking a holiday to-day. She was dreadfully upset."

"Thanks. Good-by."

He held out his hand a second time, quite affably. Hylda Prout followed him out to the library and, when the street door had closed behind him, peeped through the curtains at his alert, natty figure as he hastened away.

Furneaux took a motor-bus to Whitehall, and, what was very odd, the 'bus carried him beyond his destination, over Westminster Bridge, indeed, he was so lost in meditation.

His object now was to see Winter and fling at his chief's head some of the amazing things he had just learned.

But when he arrived at Scotland Yard, Winter was not there. At that moment, in fact, Winter was at Osborne's house in Mayfair, whither he had rushed to meet Furneaux in order to whisper to Furneaux without a moment's delay some news just gleaned by the merest chance – the news that Pauline Dessaulx, Rose de Bercy's maid, had quarreled with her mistress on the morning of the murder, and had been given notice to quit Miss de Bercy's service.

When Winter arrived at Osborne's house Furneaux, of course, was gone. To his question at the door, "Is Mr. Furneaux here?" the parlor-maid answered: "I am not sure, sir – I'll see."

"Perhaps you don't know Mr. Furneaux," said Winter, "a small-built gentleman – "

"Oh, yes, sir, I know him," the girl answered. "I let him in this morning, as well as when he called some days ago."

No words in the English tongue could have more astonished Winter, for Furneaux had not mentioned to him that he had even been to Osborne's. What Furneaux could have been doing there "some days ago" was beyond his guessing. Before his wonderment could get out another question, the girl was leading the way towards the library.

In the library were Miss Prout, writing, and Jenkins handing her a letter.

"I came to see if Inspector Furneaux was here," Winter said; "but evidently he has gone."

"Only about three minutes," said Hylda Prout, throwing a quick look round at him.

"Thanks – I am sorry to have troubled you," he said. Then he added, to Jenkins: "Much obliged for the cigars!"

"Do not mention it, sir," said Jenkins.

Winter had reached the library door, when he stopped short.

"By the way, Jenkins, is this Mr. Furneaux's first visit here? – or don't you remember?"

"Mr. Furneaux came here once before, sir," said Jenkins in his staid official way.

"Ah, I thought perhaps – when was that?"

"Let me see, sir. It was – yes – on the third, the afternoon of the murder, I remember."

The third – the afternoon of the murder. Those words ate their way into Winter's very brain. They might have been fired from a pistol rather than uttered by the placid Jenkins.

"The afternoon, you say," repeated Winter. "Yes – quite so; he wished to see Mr. Osborne. At what exact hour about would that be?"

Jenkins again meditated. Then he said: "Mr. Furneaux called, sir, about 5.45, as far as I can recollect. He wished to see my master, who was out, but was expected to return. So Mr. Furneaux was shown in here to await him, and he waited a quarter of an hour, if I am right in saying that he came at 5.45, because Mr. Osborne telephoned me from Feldisham Mansions that he would not be returning, and as I entered the museum there, where Mr. Furneaux then was, to tell him, I heard the clock strike six, I remember."

At this Hylda Prout whirled round in her chair.

"The museum!" she cried. "How odd, how exceedingly odd! Just now Mr. Furneaux seemed to be rather surprised when I told him that there was a museum!"

"He doubtless forgot, miss," said Jenkins, "for he had certainly gone in there when I entered the library."

"Thanks, thanks," said Winter lightly, "that's how it was – good-day"; and he went out with the vacant air of a man who has lost something, but knows not what.

He drove straight to Scotland Yard. There in the office sat Furneaux.

For a long time they conferred – Winter with hardly a word, one hand on his thigh, the other at his mustache, looking at Furneaux with a frown, with curious musing eyes, meditating, silent. And Furneaux told how the celt and the stiletto were missing from Osborne's museum.

"And the inference?" said Winter, speaking at last, his round eyes staring widely at Furneaux.

"The inference, on the face of it, is that Osborne is guilty," said Furneaux quietly.

"An innocent man, Furneaux?" said Winter almost with a groan of reproach – "an innocent man?"

Furneaux's eyes flashed angrily an instant, and some word leapt to his lips, but it was not uttered. He stood up.

"Well, that's how it stands for the moment. Time will show – I must be away," he said.

And when he had gone out, Winter rose wearily, and paced with slow steps a long time through the room, his head bent quite down, staring. Presently he came upon a broken cigar, such as Furneaux delighted in smelling. Then a fierce cry broke from him.

"Furneaux, my friend! Why, this is madness! Oh, d – n everything!"

CHAPTER VI

TO TORMOUTH

"An absinthe!"

"A packet of Caporal!"

"Un bock pour vous, m'sieur?"

"A vodka!"

A frowsy waiter was hurrying through some such jangle of loud voices from the "comrades" scattered among the tables set in a back room in a very back street of Soho. The hour was two in the morning, and the light in that Anarchist Club was murky and blurred. Only one gas-jet on the wall lit the room, and that struggled but feebly through the cigarette smoke that choked the air like a fog – air that was foul and close as well as dim, for some thirty persons, mostly men but some few women, were crowded in there as if there was no place else on earth for them.

One heard the rattle of dice, the whirr of cards being shuffled against the thumbs, the grating of glass tumblers against imitation granite. Two poor girls, cramped in a corner, were attempting to dance to the rhythm of an Italian song. They were laughing with wide mouths, their heads thrown back, weary unto death, yet alive with make-believe mirth.

At one of the tables sat Gaston Janoc, the man who had been seen by Inspector Clarke talking in St. Martin's Lane to Bertha Seward, one-time cook in the Feldisham Mansions flat. Playing vingt-et-un with him was a burly Russian-looking man, all red beard and eyebrows; also a small Frenchman with an imperial and a crooked nose; while a colored man of Martinique made the fourth of a queer quartette. But somehow Janoc and the rough, red Russian seemed not to be able to agree in the game. They were antagonistic as cat and dog, and three times one or other threw down his cards and looked at his adversary, as who should say:

"A little more of you, and my knife talks!"

"Who are you, then, Ruski?" cried Janoc at last, speaking French, since the Russian only glared at him when he swore in his quaint English.

Yet the Russian grumbled in English in his beard: "No French."

"And no Italian, and no Spanish, and no German, and very, very small English," growled Janoc in English, frowning at him; "Well, then, shall we converse, sare?"

"What is that – 'converse'?" asked the Russian.

Janoc shrugged disgustedly, while the little Frenchman, whose eyes twinkled at every tiff between the pair, said politely in French:

"We await your play, m'sieurs."

Twice, on the very edge of the precipice of open hostilities, Janoc and the Russian stopped short; but a little after two o'clock, when much absinthe and vodka had been drunk, an outbreak took place: for the Russian then cried out loudly above the hubbub of tongues:

"Oh, you – how you call it? —tcheeeet!"

"Who? I – me?" cried Janoc sharply, pale, half-standing – "cheat?"

"Yes —tcheeet, you tcheeet!" insisted the bearded Slav. And now the little Frenchman with the crooked nose, who foreknew that the table was about to be upset, stood up quickly, picked up his thimbleful of anisette, and holding it in hand, awaited with merry eyes the outcome.

Instantly Janoc, who was dealing, sent the pack of cards like an assault of birds into the Russian's face, the Russian closed with Janoc, and forthwith the room reeled into chaos. The struggle need not be described. Suffice it to say, that it lasted longer than the Russian had probably expected, for Janoc proved to have sinews of steel, though thin steel. His lank arms embraced the Russian, squeezing like a cable that is being tighter and tighter wound. However, he was overcome by mere weight, thumping to the floor among a tumbled dance of tables, chairs, and foreign drinks, while the women shrieked, the men bellowed, and the scared manager of the den added to the uproar by yelling:

"M'sieurs! M'sieurs! Je vous prie! The police will come!"

Only one soul in the room remained calm, and that was the diminutive Frenchman, who kept dodging through the legs and arms of the flood of humanity that surged around the two on the floor.

He alone of them all saw that the Russian, in the thick of the struggle, was slipping his hand into pocket after pocket of Janoc under him, and was very deftly drawing out any papers that he might find there.

In two minutes the row was ended, and the gaming and drinking recommenced as if nothing had happened. The Russian had been half led, half hustled to the front door, and was gone. Immediately after him had slipped out the bright-eyed Frenchman.

The Russian, after pacing down an alley, turned into Old Compton Street, twice peering about and behind him, as if disturbed by some instinct that he was being shadowed. And this was so – but with a skill so nimble, so expert, so inbred, did the Frenchman follow, that in this pursuit the true meaning of the word "shadowing" was realized. The Russian did not see his follower for the excellent reason that the Frenchman made himself an invisibility. He might have put on those magic shoes that shadows shoot and dash and slink in, so airily did he glide on the trail. Nor could mere genius have accomplished such a feat, and with such ease – were it not for the expertness that was wedded to genius.

When the Russian emerged into the wide thoroughfare close to the Palace Theater, he stood under a lamp to look at one of the papers picked from Janoc's pockets; and only then did he become aware of the Frenchman, who rose up out of the ground under his elbow with that pert ease with which a cork bobs to the surface of water.

"Got anything of importance?" asked the Frenchman, his twinkling eyes radiant with the humor of the chase.

The Russian stared at him half a minute with the hung jaw of astonishment. Then, all at once remembering his rôle, he cried hoarsely:

"No English!"

"Oh, chuck it!" remarked the other.

Again the Russian gazed at the unexpected little phenomenon, and his voice rumbled:

"What is that – 'chuck it'?"

Suddenly the Frenchman snatched Janoc's paper neatly with thumb and finger out of the Russian's hand, and ran chuckling across Charing Cross Road eastward. The Russian, with a grunt of rage, made after him with his long legs. But, from the first, he saw that he was being left behind by the nimble pace set up by a good runner. He seemed to understand that a miracle was needed, and lo, it occurred, for, as the two crossed the road in front of the Palace Theater, the Russian lifted his voice into:

"Stop him! Stop thief! Police! Police!"

Not only did he yell in most lucid English, but he also plucked a police whistle from his coat and blew it loudly.

No policeman happened to be near, however, and the deep sleep of London echoed their pelting steps eastward, until the Russian saw the paper-snatcher vanish from sight in the congeries of streets that converge on the top of St. Martin's Lane.

He lost hope then, and slackened a little, panting but swearing in a language that would be appreciated by any London cabman. Nevertheless, when he, too, ran into St. Martin's Lane, there was the small Frenchman, standing, wiping his forehead, awaiting him.

The Russian sprang at him.

"You little whelp!" he roared. "I arrest you – "

"Oh, what's the good, Clarke? You are slow this evening. I just thought I'd wake you up."

"Furneaux!"

"Fancy not knowing me!"

"It was you!"

"Who else? Here's your Janocy document. You might let me have a look at it. Share and share alike."

Clarke tried to retrieve lost prestige, though his hand shook as he took the paper.

"Well – I – could have sworn it was you!" he said.

"Of course you could – and did, no doubt. Let's have a glimpse at those documents."

"But what were you doing in the Fraternal Club, anyhow? Something on in that line?"

"No. An idle hour. Chance of picking up a stray clew. I sometimes do dive into those depths without special object. You managed that to a T with Janoc. Where are the other papers? Hand them over."

"With pleasure," said Clarke, but there was no pleasure in his surly Russian face, in which rage shone notwithstanding a marvelous make-up. Still, he opened the paper under the lamp – a sheet of notepaper with some lines of writing on the first page; and on the top of it, printed, the name of a hotel, "The Swan, Tormouth."

The two detectives peered over it. To the illimitable surprise of both, this letter, stolen by Clarke from Janoc's pocket, was addressed to Clarke himself – a letter from Rupert Osborne, the millionaire.

And Osborne said in it:

Dear Inspector Clarke: – Yours of the 7th duly to hand. In reply to your inquiry, I am not aware that the late Mlle. Rose de Bercy had any relations with Anarchists, either in London or in Paris, other than those which have been mentioned in the papers —i. e., a purely professional interest for stage purposes. I think it unlikely that her connection with them extended further.

I am,

Sincerely yours,

Rupert Osborne.

Furneaux and Clarke looked at each other in a blank bewilderment that was not assumed by either man.

"Did you write to Mr. Osborne, asking that question?" asked Furneaux.

"No," said Clarke – "never. I didn't even know where Osborne was."

"So Janoc must have written to him in your name?" said Furneaux. "Janoc, then, wishes to know how much information Osborne can give you as to Mademoiselle de Bercy's association with Anarchists. That seems clear. But why should Janoc think that you particularly are interested in knowing?

Clarke flushed hotly under the paint, being conscious that he was investigating the case on his own private account and in a secret way. As a matter of fact, he was by this time fully convinced that Rose de Bercy's murder was the work of Anarchist hands, but he was so vexed with Furneaux's tricking him, and so fearful of official reprimand from Winter that he only answered:

"Why Janoc should think that I am interested, I can't imagine. It beats me."

"And how can Janoc know where Osborne is, or his assumed name, to write to him?" muttered Furneaux. "I thought that that was a secret between Osborne, Winter, and myself."

Clarke, equally puzzled, scratched his head under his wig, which had been insufferably hot in that stifling room.

"Janoc and his crew must be keeping an eye on Osborne, it seems – for some reason," he exclaimed. "Heaven knows why – I don't. I am out of the de Bercy case, of course. My interest in the Janoc crowd is – political."

"Let me see the letter again," said Furneaux; and he read it carefully once more. Then he opened the sheet, as if seeking additional information from the blank pages, turned it over, looked at the back – and there at the back he saw something else that was astounding, for, written backwards, near the bottom of the page, in Osborne's handwriting, was the word "Rosalind."

"Who is 'Rosalind'?" asked Furneaux – "see here, an impression from some other letter written at the same time."

"Don't know, I'm sure," said Clarke. "A sister, perhaps."

"A sister. Why, though, should his sister's name appear at the back of a note written to Janoc, or to Inspector Clarke, as he thought?" said Furneaux to himself, deep in meditation. He suddenly added brightly: "Now, Clarke, there's a puzzle for you!"