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

a run, with an agility of which no one would have thought him capable. He rattled down the six storeys, followed at a distance by the manager and the examining-magistrate. At the bottom, he found Gourel in front of the main door.

“Has no one gone out?”

“No, chief.”

“What about the other door, in the Rue Orvieto?”

“I have posted DieuTy there.”

“With firm orders?”

“Yes, chief.”

The huge hall of the hotel was crowded with anxious visitors, all commenting on the more or less accurate versions that had reached them of the crime. All the servants had been summoned by telephone and were arriving, one by one. M. Lenormand questioned them without delay. None of them was able to supply the least information. But a fifth-floor chambermaid appeared. Ten minutes earlier, or thereabouts, she had passed two gentlemen who were coming down the servants’ staircase between the fifth and the fourth floors.

“They came down very fast. The one in front was holding the other by the hand. I was surprised to see those two gentlemen on the servants’ staircase.”

“Would you know them again?”

“Not the first one. He had his head turned the other way. He was a thin, fair man. He wore a soft black hat… and black clothes.”

“And the other?”

“Oh, the other was an Englishman, with a big, dean-shaven face and a check suit. He had no hat on.”

The description obviously referred to Chapman.

The woman added:

“He looked… he looked quite funny… as if he was mad.”

Gourd’s word was not enough for M. Lenormand. One after the other, he questioned the under-porters standing at the two doors:

“Did you know Mr. Chapman?” ( “Yes, sir, he always spoke to us.”

“And you have not seen him go out?”

“No, sir. He has not been out this morning.”

M. Lenormand turned to the commissary of police: “How many men have you with you, Monsieur le Commissaire?”

“Four.”

“That’s not sufficient. Telephone to your secretary to send you all the men available. And please be so good as yourself to organize the closest watch at every outlet. The state of siege, Monsieur le Commissaire…”

“But I say,” protested the manager, “my customers?”

“I don’t care a hang, sir, for your customers! My duty comes before everything; and my duty is at all costs to arrest…”

“So you believe…” the examining-magistrate ventured to interpolate.

“I don’t believe, monsieur… I am sure that the perpetrator of both the murders is still in the hotel.”

“But then Chapman…”

“At this moment, I cannot guarantee that Chapman is still alive. In any case, it is only a question of minutes, of seconds… Gourel, take two men and search all the rooms on the fourth floor… Mr. Manager, send one of your clerks with them… As for the other floors, I shall proceed as soon as we are reenforced. Come, Gourel, off with you, and keep your eyes open… It’s big game you’re hunting!” “

Gourel and his men hurried away. M. Lenormand himself remained in the hall, near the office. This time, he did not think of sitting down, as his custom was. He walked from the main entrance to the door in the Rue Orvieto and returned to the point from which he had started. At intervals he gave instructions:

“Mr. Manager, see that the kitchens are watched. They may try to escape that way… Mr. Manager instruct your young lady at the telephone not to put any of the people in the hotel into communication with outside subscribers. If a call comes from the outside, she can connect the caller with the person asked for, but she must take a note of that person’s name… Mr. Manager, have a list made out of all your visitors whose name begins with an L or an M.”

The tension caught the spectators by the throat,as they stood clustered in the middle of the hall, silent and gasping for breath, shaking with fear at the least sound, obsessed by the infernal image of the murderer. Where was he hiding? Would he show himself? Was he not one of themselves: this one, perhaps… or that one?…

And all eyes were turned on the gray-haired gentleman in spectacles, an olive-green frock-coat and a maroon-colored neckerchief, who was walking about, with his bent back, on a pair of shaky legs.

At times, one of the waiters accompanying Sergeant Gourel on his search would come running up.

“Any news?” asked M. Lenormand.

“No, sir, we’ve found nothing.”

The manager made two attempts to induce him to relax his orders regarding the doors. The situation was becoming intolerable. The office was filled with loudly-protesting visitors, who had business outside, or who had arranged to leave Paris.

“I don’t care a hang!” said M. Lenormand again.

“But I know them all.”

“I congratulate you.”

“You are exceeding your powers.”

“I know.”

“The law will decide against you.”

“I’m convinced of that.” i “Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction himself…”

“M. Formerie had better not interfere. He can mind his own business, which is to examine the servants, as he is doing now. Besides, it has nothing to do with the examining-magistrate, it has to do with the police. It’s my affair.”

Just then a squad of police burst into the hotel. The chief detective divided them into several sections which he sent up to the third floor. Then, addressing the commissary of police:

“My dear commissary, I leave the task of watching the doors to you. No weakness, I entreat you. I will take the responsibility for anything that happens.”

And, turning to the lift, he had himself conveyed to the second floor.

It was a difficult business and a long one, for they had to open the doors of the r:‘“ty bedrooms, to inspect all the bathrooms, all the recesses, all the cupboards, every nook and corner.

And it was also fruitless. An hour later, on the stroke of twelve, M. Lenormand had just done the second floor; the other parties had not yet finished the upper floors; and no discovery had been made.

M. Lenormand hesitated: had the murderer retreated to the attics?

He was deciding, however, to go downstairs, when he was told that Mrs. Kesselbach had just arrived with her lady-companion. Edwards, the old confidential manservant, had accepted the task of informing her of Mr. Kesselbach’s death.

M. Lenormand found her in one of the drawing rooms, overcome by the unexpected shock, dry-eyed, but with her features wrung with grief and her body trembling all over, as though convulsed with fever. She was a rather tall, dark woman; and her black and exceedingly beautiful eyes were filled with gold, with little gold spots, like spangles gleaming in the dark. Her husband had met her in Holland, where Dolores was born of an old family of Spanish origin, the Amontis. He fell in love with her at first sight; and for four years the harmony between them, built up of mutual affection and devotion, had never been interrupted.

M. Lenormand introduced himself. She looked at him without replying; and he was silent, for she did not appear, in her stupor, to understand what he said. Then, suddenly, she began to shed copious tears and asked to be taken to her husband.

In the hall, M. Lenormand found Gourel, who was looking for him and who rushed at him with a hat which he held in his hand:

“I picked this up, chief… There’s no doubt whom it belongs to, is there?”

It was a soft, black felt hat and resembled the description given. There was no lining or label inside it.

“Where did you pick it up?”

“On the second-floor landing of the servants’ staircase.”

“Nothing on the other floors?”

“Nothing. We’ve searched everywhere. There is only the first floor left. And this hat shows that the man went down so far. We’re burning, chief!”

“I think so.”

At the foot of the stairs M. Lenormand stopped:

“Go back to the commissary and give him my orders: he must post two men at the foot of each of the four staircases, revolver in hand. And they are to fire, if necessary. Understand this, Gourel: if Chapman is not saved and if the fellow escapes, it means my resignation. I’ve been wool-gathering for over two hours.”

“,He went up the stairs. On the first floor he met two policemen leaving a bedroom, accompanied by a servant of the hotel.

The passage was deserted. The hotel staff dared not venture into it. Some of the permanent visitors had locked themselves in their rooms; and the police had to knock for a long time and proclaim who they were before they could get the doors opened.

Farther on, M. Lenormand saw another group of policemen searching the maid’s pantry and, at the end of a long passage, he saw some more men who were approaching the turning, that is to say, that part of the passage which contained the rooms overlooking the Rue de JudŽe.

And, suddenly, he heard these men shouting; and they disappeared at a run.

He hurried after them.

The policemen had stopped in the middle of the passage. At their feet, blocking their way, with its face on the carpet, lay a corpse.

M. Lenormand bent down and took the lifeless head in his hands:

“Chapman,” he muttered. “He is dead.”

He examined the body. A white knitted silk muffler was tied round the neck. He undid it. Red stains appeared; and he saw that the muffler held a thick wad of cotton-wool in position against the nape of the neck. The wad was soaked with blood.

Once again there was the same little wound, clean, frank and pitiless.

M. Formerie and the commissary were at once told and came hastening up.

“No one gone out?” asked the chief detective. “No surprise?”

“No,” said the commissary. “There are two men on guard at the foot of each staircase.”

“Perhaps he has gone up again?” said M. Formerie.

“No! No!

“But some one must have met him…”

“No… This all happened quite a long time ago. The hands are cold… The murder must have been committed almost immediately after the other… as soon as the two men came here by the servants’ staircase.”

“But the body would have been seen! Think, fifty people must have passed this spot during the last two hours…”

“The body was not here.”

“Then where was it?”

“Why, how can I tell?” snapped the chief detective. “Do as I’m doing, look for yourself! You can’t find things by talking.”

He furiously patted the knob of his stick with a twitching hand; and he stood there, with his eyes fixed on the body, silent and thoughtful. At last he spoke:

“Monsieur le Commissaire, be so good as to have the victim taken to an empty room. Let them fetch the doctor. Mr. Manager, would you mind opening the doors of all the rooms on this passage for me?”

On the left were three bedrooms and two sitting-rooms, forming an empty suite, which M. Lenormand inspected. On the right were four bedrooms. Two were occupied respectively by a M. Reverdat and an Italian, Baron Giacomini, who were both then out. In the third room they found an elderly English maiden lady still in bed; and, in the fourth, an Englishman who was placidly reading and smoking and who had not been in the least disturbed by the noises in the passage. His name was Major Parbury.

No amount of searching or questioning led to any result. The old maid had heard nothing before the exclamations of the policeman: no noise of a struggle,no cry of pain, no sound of quarreling; and Major Parbury neither.

Moreover, there was no suspicious clue found, no trace of blood, nothing to lead them to suppose that the unfortunate Chapman had been in one of those rooms.

“It’s queer,” muttered the