Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  “How you do detest him!”

  “No: but I wish to destroy him. He’s a dangerous man, Saint-Quentin. I have an intuition of it; and you know that I hardly ever deceive myself. He has all the vices. He is betraying his cousins, the Count and Countess. He is capable of anything. I wish to rid them of him by any means.” Saint-Quentin strove to reassure himself:

  “You’re amazing. You make combinations and calculations; you act; you foresee. One feels that you direct your course in accordance with a plan.”

  “In accordance with nothing at all, my lad. I go forward at a venture, and decide as Fortune bids.”

  “However...”

  “I have a definite aim, that’s all. Four people confront me, who, there’s no doubt about it, are linked together by a common secret. Now the word ‘Roborey,’ uttered by my father when he was dying, gives me the right to try to find out whether he himself did not form part of this group, and if, in consequence, his daughter is not qualified to take his place. Up to now the four people hold together and keep me at a distance. I have vainly attempted the impossible to obtain their confidence in the first place and after it their confessions, so far without any result. But I shall succeed.”

  She stamped her foot, with an abruptness in which was suddenly manifest all the energy and decision which animated this smiling and delicate creature, and she said again:

  “I shall succeed, Saint-Quentin. I swear it. I am not at the end of my revelations. There is another which will persuade them perhaps to be more open with me.”

  “What is it, Dorothy?”

  “I know what I’m doing, my lad.”

  She was silent. She gazed through the open window near which Castor and Pollux were fighting. The noise of hurrying footsteps reechoed about the château. People were calling out to one another. A servant ran across the court at full speed and shut the gates, leaving a small part of the crowd and three or four caravans, of which one was Dorothy’s Circus, in the court-yard.

  “The p - p - policemen! The p - p - policemen!” stammered Saint - Quinten. “There they are! They’re examining the Rifle-Range!”

  “And d’Estreicher is with them,” observed the young girl.

  “Oh, Dorothy, what have you done?”

  “It’s all the same to me,” she said, wholly unmoved. “These people have a secret which perhaps belongs to me as much as to them. I wish to know it. Excitement, sensations, all that works in my favor.”

  “Nevertheless...”

  “Pipe, Saint-Quentin. To-day decides my future. Instead of trembling, rejoice... a fox-trot, old chap!”

  She threw an arm round his waist, and propping him up like a tailor’s dummy with wobbly legs, she forced him to turn; climbing in at the window, Castor and Pollux, followed by Captain Montfaucon, started to dance round the couple, chanting the air of the Capucine, first in the drawingroom, then across the large hall. But a fresh failure of Saint-Quentin’s legs dashed the spirits of the dancers.

  Dorothy lost her temper.

  “What’s the matter with you now?” she cried, trying to raise him and keep him upright.

  He stuttered:

  “I’m afraid... I’m afraid.”

  “But why on earth are you afraid? I’ve never seen you in such a funk. What are you afraid of?”

  “The jewels.”...

  “Idiot! But you’ve thrown them into the clump!”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No.”

  “But where are they then?”

  “I don’t know. I looked for them in the basket as you told me to. They weren’t there any longer. The little card-board box had disappeared.”

  During his explanation Dorothy grew graver and graver. The danger suddenly grew dear to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it? I should not have acted as I did.”

  “I didn’t dare to. I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Ah, Saint-Quentin, you were wrong, my lad.” She uttered no other reproach, but added: “What’s your explanation?”

  “I suppose I made a mistake and didn’t put the earrings in the basket... but somewhere else... in some other part of the caravan.... I’ve looked everywhere without finding them.... But those policemen — they’ll find them.”

  The young girl was overwhelmed. The earrings discovered in her possession, the theft duly verified meant arrest and jail.

  “Leave me to my fate,” groaned Saint-Quentin. “I’m nothing but an imbecile.... A criminal.... Don’t try to save me... Throw all the blame on me, since it is the truth.”

  At that moment a police-inspector in uniform appeared on the threshold of the hall, under the guidance of one of the servants.

  “Not a word,” murmured Dorothy. “I forbid you to utter a single word.”

  The inspector came forward:

  “Mademoiselle Dorothy?”

  “I’m Mademoiselle Dorothy, inspector. What is it you want?”

  “Follow me. It will be necessary..

  He was interrupted by the entrance of the Countess who harried in, accompanied by her husband and Raoul Davernoie.

  “No, no, inspector!” she exclaimed. “I absolutely oppose anything which might appear to show a lack of trust in mademoiselle. There is some misunderstanding.”

  Raoul Davernoie also protested. But Count Octave observed:

  “Bear in mind, dear, that this is merely a formality, a general measure which the inspector is bound to take. A robbery has been committed, it is only right that the inquiry should include everybody —

  “But it was mademoiselle who informed of the robbery,” interrupted the Countess. “It is she who for the last hour has been warning us of all that is being plotted against us!”

  “But why not let her be questioned like everybody else? As d’Estreicher said just now, it’s possible that your earrings were not stolen from your safe. You may have put them in your ears without thinking to-day, and then lost them out-of-doors... where some one has picked them up.”

  The inspector, an honest fellow who seemed very much annoyed by this difference of opinion between the Count and Countess, did not know what to do. Dorothy helped him out of the awkward situation.

  “I quite agree with you, Count My part in the business may very well appear suspicious to you; and you have the right to ask how I know the word that opens the safe, and if my talents as a diviner are enough to explain my clairvoyance. There isn’t any reason then for making an exception in my favor.”

  She bent low before the Countess and gently kissed her hand.

  “You mustn’t be present at the inquiry, madame. It’s not a pleasant business. For me, it’s one of the risks we strolling entertainers run; but you would find it painful. Only, I beg you, for reasons which you will presently understand, to come back to us after they have questioned me.”

  “I promise you I will.”

  “I’m at your service, inspector.”

  She went off with her four companions and the inspector of police. Saint-Quentin had the air of a condemned criminal being led to the gallows. Captain Montfaucon, his hands in his pockets, the string round his wrist, dragged along his baggage-wagon and whistled an American tune, like a gallant fellow who knows that all these little affairs always end well.

  At the end of the court-yard, the last of the country folk were departing through the open gates, beside which the gamekeeper was posted. The showmen were grouped about their tents and in the orangery where the second policeman was examining their licenses.

  On reaching her caravan, Dorothy perceived d’Estreicher talking to two servants.

  “You then are the director of the inquiry, monsieur?” she said gayly.

  “I am indeed, mademoiselle — in your interest,” he said in the same tone.

  “Then I have no doubt about the result of it,” she said; and turning to the inspector, she added: “I have no keys to give you. Dorothy’s Circus has no locks. Every thing is open to the world. Empty hands an
d empty pockets.”

  The inspector seemed to have no great relish for the job. The two servants did their best and d’Estreicher made no bones about advising them.

  “Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he said to the young girl, taking her on one side. “I’m of the opinion that no effort should be spared to make your complicity quite out of the question.”

  “It’s a serious business,” she said ironically.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, recall our conversation. There’s a criminal: if it isn’t me, it’s you.”

  D’Estreicher must have considered the young girl a formidable adversary, and he must have been frightened by her threats, for while he remained quite agreeable, gallant even, jesting with her, he was indefatigable in his investigation. At his bidding the servants lifted down the baskets and boxes, and displayed her wretched wardrobe, in the strongest contrast to the brilliantly colored handkerchiefs and shawls with which the young girl loved to adorn herself.

  They found nothing.

  They searched the walls and platform of the caravan, the mattresses, the harness of One-eyed Magpie, the sack of oats, and the food. Nothing.

  They searched the four boys. A maid felt Dorothy’s clothes. The search was fruitless. The earrings were not to be found.

  “And that?” said d’Estreicher, pointing to the huge basket loaded with pots and pans which hung under the vehicle.

  With a furtive kick on the ankle Dorothy straightened Saint-Quentin who was tottering.

  “Let’s bolt!” he stuttered.

  “Don’t be a fool. The earrings are no longer there.”

  “I may have made a mistake.”

  “You’re an idiot. One doesn’t make a mistake in a case like that.”

  “Then where is the card-board box?”

  “Have you got your eyes stuffed up?”

  “You can see it, can you?”

  “Of course I can see it — as plainly as the nose in the middle of your face.”

  “In the caravan?”

  “No.”

  “Where?”

  “On the ground ten yards away from you, between the legs of the bearded one.”

  She glanced at the wagon of Captain Montfaucon which the child had abandoned to play with a doll, and the little packages from which, miniature bags and trunks and parcels, lay on the ground beside d’Estreicher’s heels.

  One of these packages was nothing else than the card-board box which contained the earrings. Captain Montfaucon had that afternoon added it to what he called his haulage material.

  In confiding her unexpected discovery to Saint-Quentin, Dorothy, who did not suspect the keenness of the subtlety and power of observation of the man she was fighting, committed an irreparable imprudence. It was not on the young girl that d’Estreicher was keeping watch from behind the screen of his spectacles, but on her comrade Saint-Quentin whose distress and feebleness he had been quick to notice. Dorothy herself remained impassive. But would not Saint-Quentin end by giving some indication?

  That was what happened. When he recognized the little box with the red gutta-percha ring round it, Saint-Quentin heaved a great sigh in his sudden relief. He told himself that it would never occur to any one to untie these child’s toys which lay on the ground for any one to pick up. Several times, without the slightest suspicion, d’Estreicher had brushed them aside with his feet and stumbled over the wagon, winning from the Captain this sharp reprimand:

  “Now then, sir! What would you say, if you had a car and I knocked it over?”

  Saint-Quentin raised his head with a cheerful air. D’Estreicher followed the direction of his gaze and instinctively understood. The earrings were there, under the protection of Fortune and with the unwitting complicity of the captain. But in which of the packages? The cardboard box seemed to him to be the most likely. Without a word he bent quickly down and seized it. He drew himself up, opened it with a furtive movement, and perceived, among some small white pebbles and shells, the two sapphires.

  He looked at Dorothy. She was very pale.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE CROSS-EXAMINATION

  “LET’S BOLT!” AGAIN said Saint-Quentin, who had sunk down on to a trunk and would have been incapable of making a single step.

  “A splendid idea!” said Dorothy in a low voices “Harness One-eyed Magpie; let’s all five of us hide ourselves in the caravan and hell for leather for the Belgian frontier!”

  She gazed steadfastly at her enemy. She felt that she was beaten. With one word: he could hand her over to justice, throw her into prison, and render vain all her threats. Of what value are the accusations of a thief?

  Box in hand, he balanced himself on one foot then on the other with ironical satisfaction. He: had the appearance of waiting for her to weaken and become a suppliant. How he misjudged, he! On the; contrary she maintained an attitude of defiance and challenge as if she had had the audacity to say to him:

  “If you speak, you’re lost!’

  He shrugged his shoulders and turning to the inspector who had seen nothing of this by-play, he said:

  “We may congratulate ourselves on having got it over, and entirely to mademoiselle advantage. Goodness, what a disagreeable job!”

  “You had no business to set about it at all,” said the Countess, coming up -with the Count and Raoul Davernoie.

  “Oh yes, I had, dear cousin. Your husband and I had our doubts. It was just as well to clear them up.”

  “And you’ve found nothing?” said the Count. “Nothing... less than nothing — at the most an odd trifle with which Mr. Montfaucon was playing, and which Mademoiselle Dorothy had been kind enough to give me. You do, don’t you, Mademoiselle?”

  “Yes,” said Dorothy simply.

  He displayed the cardboard box, round which he had again drawn the rubber ring, and handing it to the Countess:

  “Take care of that till to-morrow morning, will you, dear lady?”

  “Why should I take rare of it and not you?”

  “It wouldn’t be the same thing,” said he. “To place it in your bands is as it were to affix a seal to it. To-morrow, at lunch, we’ll open it together.”

  “Do you make a point of it?”

  “Yes. It’s an idea... of sorts.”

  “Very good,” said the Countess. “I accept the; charge if mademoiselle authorizes me to do so.”

  “I ask it, madame,” replied Dorothy, grasping the fact that the danger was postponed till the morrow. “The box contains nothing of importance, only white pebbles and shells. But since it amuses monsieur, and he wants a check on it, give him this small satisfaction.”

  There remained, however, a formality which the inspector considered essential in inquiries of this kind. The examination of identification papers, delivery of documents, compliance with the regulations, were matters which he took very seriously indeed. On the other hand, if Dorothy surmised the existence of a secret between the Count and Countess and their cousins, it is certain that her hosts were not less puzzled by the strange personality which for an hour or two had dominated and disturbed them. Who was she? Where did she come from? What was her real name? What was the explanation of the fact that this distinguished and intelligent creature, with her supple cleverness and distinguished manners, was wandering about the country with four street-boys?

  She took from a locker in the caravan a passport-case which she carried under her arm; and when they all went into the orangery which was now empty, she took from this case a sheet of paper black with signatures and stamps and handed it to the inspector.

  “Is this all you’ve got?” he said almost immediately.

  “Isn’t it sufficient? The secretary at the mayor’s office this morning was satisfied with it.”

  “They’re satisfied with anything in mayors’ offices,” he said scornfully. “And what about these names?... Nobody’s named Castor and Pollux?... And this one... Baron de Saint-Quentin, acrobat!”

  Dorothy smiled:

  “N
evertheless it is his name and his profession.”

  “Baron de Saint-Quentin?”

  “Certainly he was the son of a plumber who lived at Saint-Quentin and was called Baron.”

  “But then he must have the paternal authorization.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his father died during the occupation.”

  “And his mother?”

  “She’s dead too. No relations. The English adopted the boy. Towards the end of the war he was assistant-cook in a hospital at Bar-le-Duc, where I was a nurse. I adopted him.”

  The inspector uttered a grunt of approval and continued his examination.

  “And Castor and Pollux.”

  “I don’t know where they come from. In 1918, during the German push towards Chalons, they were caught in the storm and picked up on a road by some French soldiers who gave them their nicknames. The shock was so great that they’ve lost all memory of the years before those days. Are they brothers? Were they acquaintances? Where are their families? Nobody knows. I adopted them.”

  “Oh!” said the inspector, somewhat taken aback. Then he went on:— “There remains now Sire Montfaucon, captain in the American army, decorated with the Croix de guerre.”

  “Present,” said a voice.

  Montfaucon drew himself stiffly upright in a soldierly attitude, his heels touching, and his little finger on the seam of his enormous trousers-

  Dorothy caught him on to, her knee and gave him a smacking kiss.

  “A. brat, about whom also nobody knows anything. When he was four he was living with a dozen American soldiers who had made for him, by way of cradle, a fur bag. The day of the great American attack, one of the twelve earned him on his back; and it happened that of all those who advanced, it was this soldier who went, furthest; and that they found his body next day near Montfaucon hill. Beside him, in the fur bag, the child was asleep, slightly wounded. On the battle-field, the colonel decorated him with the Croix de guerre, and gave him the name and rank of Captain Montfaucon of the American army. Later it fell to me to nurse him at the hospital to which he was brought in. Three months after that the colonel wished to carry hint off to America. Montfaucon refused. He did not wish to leave me. I adopted him.”