“Once in my room I put her into bed, piled all the covers I could about her, heated water and soaked some flannel cloths in it and put the hot rolls to her feet, then mixed some cognac and water and forced several spoonfuls of it down her throat.
“I must have worked an hour, but finally my clumsy treatment began to show results. The faintest flush appeared in her cheeks, and a tinge of color came to the pale, wounded lips which I’d wiped clean of blood and bathed in water and cologne when I first put her into bed.
“As soon as I dared leave her for a moment I hustled out and roused the concierge and sent her scrambling for a doctor. It seemed a week before he came, and when he did he merely wrote me a prescription, looked importantly through his pince-nez and suggested that I have him call next morning.
“I pleaded illness at the bureau and went home from the surgeon’s office with advice to stay indoors as much as possible for the next week. I was a sort of privileged character, you see, and got away with shameless malingering which would have gotten any other fellow a good, sound roasting from the sawbones. Every moment after that which I could steal from my light duties at the bureau I spent with Sonia. Old Madame Couchin, the concierge, I drafted into service as a nurse, and she accepted the situation with the typical Frenchwoman’s aplomb.
“It was September before Sonia finally came back to full consciousness, and then she was so weak that the month was nearly gone before she could totter out with me to get a little sunshine and fresh air in the bois. We had a wonderful time shopping at the Galleries Lafayette, replacing the horrifying garments Madame Couchin had bought for us with a suitable wardrobe. Sonia took rooms at a little pension, and in October we were—
“Ha, parbleu, married at last!” Jules de Grandin exclaimed with a delighted chuckle. “Mille crapauds, my friend, I thought we never should have got you to the parson’s door!”
“Yes, and so we were married,” Tanis agreed with a smile.
The girl lifted her husband’s hand and cuddled it against her cheek. “Please, Donald dear,” she pleaded, “please don’t let Konstantin take me from you again.”
“But, darling,” the young man protested, “I tell you, you must be mistaken.
“Mustn’t she, Doctor de Grandin?” he appealed. “If I saw Konstantin fall before a firing-party and saw the corporal blow his brains out, and saw them nail him in his coffin, he must be dead, mustn’t he? Tell her she can’t be right, sir!”
“But, Donald, you saw me in my coffin, too—” the girl began.
“My friends,” de Grandin interrupted gravely, “it may be that you both are right, though the good God forbid that it is so.”
4. Menace Out of Bedlam
DONALD AND SONIA TANIS regarded him with open-mouthed astonishment. “You mean it’s possible Konstantin might have escaped in some mysterious way, and actually come here?” the young man asked at last.
The little Frenchman made no answer, but the grave regard he bent on them seemed more ominous than any vocally expressed opinion.
“But I say,” Tanis burst out, as though stung to words by de Grandin’s silence, “he can’t take her from me. I can’t say I know much about such things, but surely the law won’t let—”
“Ah bah!” Inspector Renouard’s sardonic laugh cut him short. “The law,” he gibed, “what is it? Parfum d’un chameau. I think in this country it is a code devised to give the criminal license to make the long nose at honest men. Yes.
“A month and more ago I came to this so splendid country in search of one who has most richly deserved the kiss of Madame Guillotine, and here I catch him red-handed in most flagrant crime. ‘You are arrest,’ I tell him. ‘For wilful murder, for sedition and subornation of sedition and for stirring up rebellion against the Republic of France I make you arrested.’ Voilà.
“I take him to the Ministry of Justice. ‘Messieurs,’ I say, ‘I have here a very noted criminal whom I desire to return to French jurisdiction that he may suffer according to his misdoings.’ Certainly.
“Alors, what happens? The gentlemen at the Palais de Justice tell me: ‘It shall be even as you say.’
“Do they assist me? Hélas, entirely otherwise. In furtherance of his diabolical designs this one has here abducted a young American lady and on her has committed the most abominable assault. For this, say the American authorities, he must suffer.
“‘How much?’ I ask. ‘Will his punishment be death?’
“‘Oh, no,’ they answer me. ‘We shall incarcerate him in the bastille for ten years; perhaps fifteen.’
“‘Bien alors,’ I tell them, ‘let us compose our differences amicably. Me, I have traced this despicable one clear across the world, I have made him arrested for his crimes; I am prepared to take him where a most efficient executioner will decapitate his head with all celerity. Voilà tout; a man dies but once, let this one die for the crime which is a capital offense by the laws of France, and which is not, but should be capital by American law. That way we shall both be vindicated.’ Is not my logic absolute? Would not a three-year-old child of most deficient intellect be convinced by it? Of course; but these ones? Non.
“‘We sympathize with you,’ they tell me, ‘but tout la même he stays with us to expiate his crime in prison.’ Then they begin his prosecution.
“Grand Dieu, the farce that trial is! First come the lawyers with their endless tongues and heavy words to make fools of the jury. Next comes a corps of doctors who will testify to anything, so long as they are paid. ‘Not guilty by reason of insanity,’ the verdict is, and so they take him to a madhouse.
“Not only that,” he added, his grievance suddenly becoming vocal again, “they tell me that should this despicable one recover from his madness, he will be discharged from custody and may successfully resist extradition by the Government of France. Renouard is made the fool of! If he could but once get his hands on this criminal, Sun Ah Poy, or if that half-brother of Satan would but manage to escape from the madhouse that I might find him unprotected by the attendants—”
Crash! I ducked my head involuntarily as a missile whistled through the sleet-drenched night, struck the study window a shattering blow and hurtled across the room, smashing against the farther wall with a resounding crack.
Renouard, the Tanises and I leaped to our feet as the egg-like object burst and a sickly-sweet smell permeated the atmosphere, but Jules de Grandin seemed suddenly to go wild. As though propelled by a powerful spring he bounded from the couch, cleared the six feet or so separating him from Sonia in a single flying leap and snatched at the trailing drapery of her dinner frock, ripping a length of silk off with a furious tug and flinging it veilwise about her head. “Out—for your lives, go out!” he cried, covering his mouth and nose with a wadded handkerchief and pushing the girl before him toward the door.
We obeyed instinctively, and though a scant ten seconds intervened between the entry of the missile and our exit, I was already feeling a stinging sensation in my eyes and a constriction in my throat as though a ligature had been drawn around it. Tears were streaming from Renouard’s and Tanis’ eyes, too, as we rushed pell-mell into the hall and de Grandin slammed the door behind us. “What—” I began, but he waved me back.
“Papers—newspapers—all you have!” he ordered hysterically, snatching a rug from the hall floor and stuffing it against the crack between the door and sill.
I took a copy of the Evening News from the hall table and handed it to him, and he fell to tearing it in strips and stuffing the cracks about the door with fierce energy. “To the rear door,” he ordered. “Open it and breath as deeply as you may. I do not think we were exposed enough to do us permanent injury, but fresh air will help, in any event.
“I humbly beg your pardon, Madame Tanis,” he added as he joined us in the kitchen a moment later. “It was most unconventional to set on you and tear your gown to shreds the way I did, but”—he turned to Tanis with a questioning smile—“perhaps Monsieur your husband can tell you wha
t it was we smelled in the study a moment hence.”
“I’ll tell the world I can,” young Donald answered. “I smelt that stuff at Mons, and it darn near put me in my grave. You saved us; no doubt about it, Doctor de Grandin. It’s tricky, that stuff.”
“What is?” I asked. This understanding talk of theirs got on my nerves.
“Name of a thousand pestiferous mosquitoes, yes, what was it?” Renouard put in.
“Phosgene gas—COC12” de Grandin answered. “It was among the earliest of gases used in the late war, and therefore not so deadly as the others; but it is not a healthy thing to be inhaled, my friend. However, I think that in a little while the study will be safe, for that broken window makes a most efficient ventilator, and the phosgene is quickly dissipated in the air. Had he used mustard gas—tiens, one does not like to speculate on such unpleasant things. No.”
“He?” I echoed. “Who the dickens are you talking—”
There was something grim in the smile which hovered beneath the upturned ends of his tightly waxed wheat-blond mustache. “I damn think Friend Renouard has his wish,” he answered, and a light which heralded the joy of combat shone in his small blue eyes. “If Sun Ah Poy has not burst from his madhouse and come to tell us that the game of hide-and-go-seek is on once more I am much more mistaken than I think. Yes. Certainly.”
The whining, warning whe-e-eng! of a police car’s siren sounded in the street outside and heavy feet tramped my front veranda while heavy fists beat furiously on the door.
“Ouch, God be praised, ye’re all right, Doctor de Grandin, sor!” Detective Sergeant Jeremiah Costello burst into the house, his greatcoat collar turned up round his ears, a shining film of sleet encasing the black derby hat he wore habitually. “We came here hell-bent for election to warn ye, sor,” he added breathlessly. “We just heard it ourselves, an’—”
“Tiens, so did we!” de Grandin interrupted with a chuckle.
“Huh? What’re ye talkin’ of, sor? I’ve come to warn ye—”
“That the efficiently resourceful Doctor Sun Ah Poy, of Cambodia and elsewhere, has burst the bonds of bedlam and taken to the warpath, n’est-ce-pas?” de Grandin laughed outright at the Irishman’s amazed expression.
“Come, my friend,” he added, “there is no magic here. I did not gaze into a crystal and go into a trance, then say, ‘I see it all—Sun Ah Poy has escaped from the asylum for the criminal insane and comes to this place to work his mischief.’ Indeed no. Entirely otherwise. Some fifteen minutes gone the good Renouard expressed a wish that Doctor Sun might manage his escape so that the two might come to grips once more, and hardly had the words flown from his lips when a phosgene bomb was merrily tossed through the window, and it was only by a hasty exit we escaped the inconvenience of asphyxiation. I am not popular with many people, and there are those who would shed few tears at my funeral, but I do not know of one who would take pleasure in throwing a stink-bomb through the window to stifle me. No, such clever tricks as that belong to Doctor Sun, who loves me not at all, but who dislikes my friend Renouard even more cordially. Alors, I deduce that Sun Ah Poy is out again and we shall have amusement for some time to come. Am I correct?”
“Check an’ double check, as th’ felly says,” Costello nodded. “’Twas just past dark this evenin’ whilst th’ warders wuz goin’ through th’ State Asylum, seein’ everything wuz shipshape for th’ night, sor, that Doctor Sun did his disappearin’ act. He’d been meek as anny lamb ever since they took him to th’ bughouse, an’ th’ orderlies down there had decided he warn’t such a bad actor, afther all. Well, sor, th’ turnkey passed his door, an’ this Doctor Sun invites him in to see a drawin’ he’s made. He’s a clever felly wid his hands, for all his bein’ crippled, an’ th’ boys at th’ asylum is always glad to see what he’s been up to makin’.
“Th’ pore chap didn’t have no more chance than a sparry in th’ cat’s mouth, sor. Somewhere th’ Chinese divil had got hold of a table-knife an’ ground it to a razor edge. One swipe o’ that across th’ turnkey’s throat an’ he’s floppin’ round th’ floor like a chicken wid its head cut off, not able to make no outcry for th’ blood that’s stranglin’ him. A pore nut ’cross th’ corridor lets out a squawk, an’ Doctor Sun ups an’ cuts his throat as cool as ye’d pare a apple for yer luncheon, sor. They finds this out from another inmate that’s seen it all but had sense enough in his pore crazy head to keep his mouth shut till afther it’s all over.
“Ye know th’ cell doors ain’t locked, but th’ different wards is barred off from each other wid corridors between. This Doctor Sun takes th’ warder’s uniform cap as calm as ye please and claps it on his ugly head, then walks to th’ ward door an’ unlocks it wid th’ keys he’s taken from th’ turnkey. Th’ guard on duty in th’ corridor don’t notice nothin’ till Sun’s clear through th’ door; then it’s too late, for Sun stabs ’im to th’ heart before he can so much as raise his club, an’ beats it down th’ corridor. There’s a fire escape at th’ other end o’ th’ passage—one o’ them spiral things that works like a slide inside a sheet-iron cylinder, ye know. It’s locked, but Sun has th’ key, an’ in a moment he’s slipped inside, locked th’ door behind him an’ slid down faster than a snake on roller skates. He’s into th’ grounds an’ over th’ wall before they even know he’s loose, an’ he must o’ had confederates waitin’ for him outside, for they heard th’ roar of the car runnin’ like th’ hammers o’ hell whilst they’re still soundin’ th’ alarm.
“O’ course th’ State Troopers an’ th’ local police wuz notified, but he seems to ’a’ got clean away, except—”
“Yes, except?” de Grandin prompted breathlessly, his little, round blue eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Well, sor, we don’t rightly know it wuz him, but we’re suspectin’ it. They found a trooper run down an’ kilt on th’ highway over by Morristown, wid his motorcycle bent up like a pretzel an’ not a whole bone left in his body. Looks like Sun’s worrk, don’t it, sor?”
“Assuredly,” the Frenchman nodded. “Is there more to tell?”
“Nothin’ except he’s gone, evaporated, vanished into thin air, as th’ sayin’ is, sor; but we figured he’s still nursin’ a grudge agin Inspector Renouard an’ you, an’ maybe come to settle it, so we come fast as we could to warn ye.”
“Your figuring is accurate, my friend,” de Grandin answered with another smile. “May we trespass on your good nature to ask that you escort Monsieur and Madame Tanis home? I should not like them to encounter Doctor Sun Ah Poy, for he plays roughly. As for us—Renouard, Friend Trowbridge and me—we shall do very well unguarded for tonight. Good Doctor Sun has shot his bolt; he will not he up to other tricks for a little time, I think, for he undoubtlessly has a hideaway prepared, and to it he has gone. He would not linger here, knowing the entire gendarmerie is on his heels. No. To hit and run, and run as quickly as he hits, will be his policy, for a time, at least.”
5. Desecration
“DOCTOR DE GRANDIN—GENTLEMEN!” DONALD Tanis burst into the breakfast room as de Grandin, Renouard and I were completing our morning meal next day. “Sonia—my wife—she’s gone!”
“Eh? What is it you tell me?” de Grandin asked. “Gone?”
“Yes, sir. She rides every morning, you see, and today she left for a canter in the park at six o’clock, as usual. I didn’t feel up to going out this morning, and lay abed rather late. I was just going down to breakfast when they told me her horse had come back to the stable—alone.”
“Oh, perhaps she had a tumble in the park,” I suggested soothingly. “Have you looked—”
“I’ve looked everywhere,” he broke in. “Soldiers’ Park’s not very large, and if she’d been in it I’d have found her long ago. After what happened last night, I’m afraid—”
“Morbleu, mon pauvre, you fear with reason,” de Grandin cut him short. “Come, let us go. We must seek her—we must find her, right away, at once; without delay, for—”
“If ye plaze, sor, Sergeant Costello’s askin’ for Doctor de Grandin,” announced Nora McGinnis, appearing at the breakfast room door. “He’s got a furrin gentleman wid him,” she amplified as de Grandin gave an exclamation of impatience at the interruption, “an’ says as how he’s most partic’lar to talk wid ye a minit.”
Father Pophosepholos, shepherd of the little flock of Greeks, Lithuanians and Russians composing the congregation of St. Basil’s Church, paused at the doorway beside the big Irish policeman with uplifted hand as he invoked divine blessing on the inmates of the room, then advanced with smiling countenance to take the slim white fingers de Grandin extended. The aged papa and the little Frenchman were firmest friends, though one lived in a thought-world of the Middle-Ages, while the other’s thoughts were modern as the latest model airplane.
“My son,” the old man greeted, “the powers of evil were abroad last night. The greatest treasure in the world was ravished from my keeping, and I come to you for help.”
“A treasure, mon père?” de Grandin asked.
Father Pophosepholos rose from his chair, and we forgot the cheap, worn stuff of his purple cassock, his broken shoes, even the pinchbeck gold and imitation amethyst of his pectoral cross as he stood in patriarchal majesty with upraised hands and back-thrown head. “The most precious body and blood of our blessed Lord,” he answered sonorously. “Last night, between the sunset and the dawn, they broke into the church and bore away the holy Eucharist.” For a moment he paused, then in all reverence echoed the Magdalen’s despairing cry: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him!”
“Ha, do you say it?” The momentary annoyance de Grandin had evinced at the old priest’s intrusion vanished as he gazed at the cleric with a level stare of fierce intensity. “Tell me of the sacrilege. All—tell me all. Right away; at once, immediately. I am all attention!”
The Dark Angel Page 14