813 - Maurice LeBlanc (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

promised me a fortune, a real fortune, on the day when he should succeed, first, in finding Pierre Leduc and, next, in turning the secret to account.” He smiled bitterly. “The large sum of money is already lost. I came to see how my fortune was getting on.”

“Mr. Kesselbach is dead,” said the chief detective.

Steinweg gave a bound:

“Dead! Is it possible? No, it’s a trap. Mrs. Kesselbach, is it true?”

She bowed her head.

He seemed crushed by this unexpected revelation; and, at the same time, it must have been infinitely painful to him, for he began to cry:

“My poor Rudolf, I knew him when he was a little boy… He used to come and play at my house at Augsburg… I was very fond of him.” And, calling Mrs. Kesselbach to witness, “And he of me, was he not, Mrs. Kesselbach? He must have told you… His old Daddy Steinweg, he used to call me.”

M. Lenormand went up to him and, in his clearest voice:

“Listen to me,” he said. “Mr. Kesselbach died murdered… Come, be calm… exclamations are of no use… He died murdered, I say, and all the circumstances of the crime prove that the culprit knew about the scheme in question. Was there anything in the nature of that scheme that would enable you to guess… ?”

Steinweg stood dumfounded. He stammered:

“It was my fault… If I had not suggested the thing to him…”

Mrs. Kesselbach went up to him, entreating him:

“Do you think… have you any idea?… Oh, Steinweg, I implore you!…”

“I have no idea… I have not reflected,” he muttered. “I must have time to reflect…”

“Cast about in Mr. Kesselbach’s surroundings,” said M. Lenormand. “Did nobody take part in your interviews at that time? Was there nobody in whom he himself could have confided?”

“No.”

“Think well.”

Both the others, Dolores and M. Lenormand, leant toward him, anxiously awaiting his answer.

“No,” he said, “I don’t see…”

“Think well,” repeated the chief detective. “The murderer’s Christian name and surname begin with an L and an M.”

“AnL,” he echoed. “I don’t see… an L… an M…”

“Yes, the initials are in gold on the corner of a cigarette-case belonging to the murderer.”

“A cigarette-case?” asked Steinweg, making an effort of memory.

“A gun-metal case… and one of the compartments is divided into two spaces, the smaller for cigarette-papers, the other for tobacco…”

“Two spaces, two spaces,” repeated Steinweg, whose thoughts seemed stimulated by that detail. “Couldn’t you show it to me?”

“Here it is, or rather this is an exact reproduction,” said M. Lenormand, giving him a cigarette-case.

“Eh! What!” said Steinweg, taking the case in his hands.

He looked at it with stupid eyes, examined it, turned it over in every direction and, suddenly, gave a cry, the cry of a man struck with a horrible idea. And he stood like that, livid, with trembling hands and wild, staring eyes. ;

“Speak, come, speak!” said M. Lenormand.

“Oh,” he said, as though blinded with light, “now—all is explained!…”

“Speak, speak!”

He walked-across to the windows with a tottering step, then returned and, rushing up to the chief detective:

‘“Sir, sir.. Rudolf’s murderer… I’ll tell you… Well…”

He stopped short.

“Well?”

There was a moment’s pause… Was the name of the odious criminal about to echo through the great silence of the office, between those walls which had heard so many accusations, so many confessions? M. Lenormand felt as if he were on the brink of the unfathomable abyss and as if a voice were mounting, mounting up to him… A few seconds more and he would know…

“No,” muttered Steinweg, “no, I can’t…”

“What’s that you say?” cried the chief detective, furiously.

“I say that I can’t.”

“But you have no right to be silent. The law requires you to speak.”

“Tomorrow… I will speak tomorrow… I must have time to reflect… Tomorrow, I will tell you all that I know about Pierre Leduc… all that I suppose about that cigarette-case… Tomorrow, I promise you…”

It was obvious that he possessed that sort of obstinacy against which the most energetic efforts are of no avail. M. Lenormand yielded:

“Very well. I give you until tomorrow, but I warn you that, if you do not speak tomorrow, I shall be obliged to go to the examining-magistrate.”

He rang and, taking Inspector Dieuzy aside, said:

“Go with him to his hotel… and stay there… I’ll send you two men… And mind you keep your eyes about you. Somebody may try to get hold of him.”

The inspector went off with Steinweg; and M. Lenormand, returning to Mrs. Kesselbach, who had been violently affected by this scene, made his excuses.

“Pray accept all my regrets, madame… I can understand how upset you must feel…” i

He questioned her as to the period at which Mr. Kesselbach renewed his relations with old Steinweg and as to the length of time for which those relations lasted. But she was so much worn-out that he did not insist.

“Am I to come back tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, it’s not necessary. I will let you know all that Steinweg says. May I see you down, to your carriage? These three flights are rather steep…”

He opened the door and stood back to let her pass. At that moment shouts were heard in the passage and people came running up, inspectors on duty, office-messengers, clerks:

“Chief! Chief!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Dieuzy!…”

“But he’s just left here…”

“He’s been found on the staircase…”

“Not dead?”…”

“No, stunned, fainting…”

“But the man… the man who was with him… old Steinweg?”

“He’s disappeared…”

“Damn it!”

He rushed along the passage and down the stairs, where he found Dieuzy lying on the first-floor landing, surrounded by people who were attending to him.

He saw Gourel coming up again:

“Oh, Gourel, have you been downstairs? Did you come across anybody?”

“No, chief…”

But Dieuzy was recovering consciousness and, almost before he had opened his eyes, mumbled:

“Here, on the landing, the little door…”

“Oh, hang it, the door of Court 7!”* shouted the chief detective. “Didn’t I say that it was to be kept locked?… It was certain that, sooner or later…” He seized the door-handle. “Oh, of course! The door is bolted on the other side now!”

[* Since M. Lenormand left the detective service, two other criminals have escaped by the same door, after shaking off the officers in charge of them; the police kept both cases dark. Nevertheless, it would be very easy, if this communication is absolutely required, to remove the useless bolt on the other side of the door, which enables the fugitive to cut off all pursuit and to walk away quietly through the passage leading to Civil Court 7 and through the corridor of the Chief President’s Court.]

The door was partly glazed. He smashed a pane with the butt-end of his revolver, drew the bolt and said to Gourel:

“Run through this way to the exit on the Place Dauphine…”

He went back to Dieuzy:

“Come, Dieuzy, tell me about it. How did you come to let yourself be put into this state?”

“A blow in the pit of the stomach, chief…”

“A blow? From that old chap?… Why, he can hardly stand on his legs!…”

“Not the old man, chief, but another, who was walking up and down the passage while Steinweg was with you and who followed us as though he were going out, too… When we got as far as this, he asked me for a light… I looked for my matches… Then he caught me a punch in the stomach… I fell down, and, as I fell, I thought I saw him open that door and drag the old man with him…”

“Would you know him again?”

“Oh yes, chief… a powerful fellow, very dark-skinned… a southerner of sorts, that’s certain…”

“Ribeira,” snarled M. Lenormand. “Always Ribeira!… Ribeira, alias Parbury… Oh, the impudence of the scoundrel! He was afraid of what old Steinweg might say… and came to fetch him away under my very nose!” And, stamping his foot with anger, “But, dash it, how did he know that Steinweg was here, the blackguard! It’s only four hours since I was chasing him in the Saint-Cucufa woods.. and now he’s here!… How did he know?… One would think he lived inside my skin!…”

He was seized with one of those fits of dreaming in which he seemed to hear nothing and see nothing. Mrs. Kesselbach, who passed at that moment, bowed without his replying.

But a sound of footsteps in the corridor roused him from his lethargy.

“At last, is that you, Gourel?”

“I’ve found out how it was, chief,” said Gourel, panting for breath. ” There were two of them They went this way and out of the Place Dauphine. There was a motorcar waiting for them. There were two people inside: one was a man dressed in black, with a soft hat pulled over his eyes…”

“That’s he,” muttered M. Lenormand, “that’s the murderer, the accomplice of Ribeira,—Parbury. And who was the other?”

“A woman, a woman without a hat, a servant-girl, it might be… And good-looking, I’m told, with red hair.”

“Eh, what! You say she had red hair?”

“Yes.”

M. Lenormand turned round with a bound, ran down the stairs four steps at a time, hurried across the courtyard and came out on the Quai des Orfevres:

“Stop! “he shouted.

A victoria and pair was driving off. It was Mrs. Kesselbach’s carriage. The coachman heard and pulled up his horses. M. Lenormand sprang on the step:

“I beg a thousand pardons, madame, but I cannot do without your assistance. I will ask you to let me go with you… But we must act swiftly… Gourel, where’s my taxi?”.i/

“I’ve sent it away, chief.”

“Well then, get another, quick!”…

The men all ran in different directions. But ten minutes elapsed before one of them returned with a motor-cab. M. Lenormand was boiling with impatience. Mrs. Kesselbach, standing on the pavement, swayed from side to side, with her smelling-salts in her hand.

At last they were seated.

“Gourel, get up beside the driver and go straight to Garches.”

“To my house?” asked Dolores, astounded.

He did not reply. He leant out of the window, waved his pass, explained who he was to the policeman regulating the traffic in the streets. At last, when they reached the Cours-la-Reine, he sat down again and said:

“I beseech you, madame, to give me plain answers to my questions. Did you see Mile. GeneviŽve Ernemont just now, at about four o’clock?”

“GeneviŽve?… Yes… I was dressing to go out.”

“Did she tell you of the advertisement about Steinweg in the Journal?”

“She did.”

“And it was that which made you come to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Were you alone during Mile. Ernemont’s visit?”

“Upon my word, I can’t say… Why?”

“Recollect. Was one of your servants present?”

“Probably… as I was dressing…”

“What are their names?”

“Suzanne and Gertrude.”

“One of them has red hair, has she not?”

“Yes, Gertrude.”

“Have you known her long?”

“Her sister has always been with me… and so has Gertrude, for years… She is devotion and honesty personified…”

“In short, you will answer for her?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

“Very well… very well.”

It was half-past seven and the daylight was beginning to wane when the taxicab reached the House of Retreat. Without troubling about his companion, the chief detective rushed into the porter’s lodge:

“Mrs. Kesselbach’s maid has just come in, has she not?”

“Whom do you mean, the maid?”

“Why, Gertrude, one of the two sisters.”

“But Gertrude can’t have been out, sir. We haven’t seen her go out.”

“Still some one has just come in.”

“No, sir, we haven’t opened the door to anybody since—let me see—six o’clock this evening.”

“Is there no other way out than this gate?”