The remarks of Hugette had found a lodging with M. Duclos. He was ready for this step into a fashionable quarter of Paris. He would take with him, beyond a doubt, that rare thing which Hugette had named. But it was not entirely upon this virtue that he would depend out there in the Rue de la Paix. He had, locked up in the great safe in his shop, thirteen diamonds that could not be equaled in the whole of France. He had put in half a lifetime at matching those diamonds. It was with great acumen that M. Duclos had gone about assembling this treasure. He had observed that jewels, like the blood, were always moving; and, like that blood, they followed the impulses of the heart. At least, it was so with diamonds. If there was a good stone in France it would finally come into the possession of the light-o’-loves that foraged on Paris; and when this flying squadron came to sell its loot, M. Duclos could obtain that stone for a fraction of its value.
It was on account of these diamonds that M. Duclos came so early—or, since the place is Paris, shall we say so late?—into the Café des Oiseaux. He was a prudent bourgeois. Since there lay the earnings of a lifetime in that shop, M. Duclos wished it always under someone’s eye. And he had managed in this fashion: Until midnight there was no danger; then until half-past four his friend the gendarme Jacques Fuillon watched over the Rue des Petits Champs. One found him always, like a gigantic Cerberus, before this shop. And at half-past four M. Duclos came, always exactly on the hour; for the gendarme, a cog in the machinery of Paris, controlled his movements by the hand of the clock.
It was the custom of M. Duclos to enter the Café des Oiseaux for his cup of black coffee before he went on guard; and as he waited for the day to open it was his custom also to read romances. He carried one always under his arm; he opened it in the Café des Oiseaux before his cup. M. Duclos preferred tales in which tragedies were accustomed to happen—wherein a mystery seized on in the opening lines and one trailed it through with one’s nose against the page. M. Duclos had about exhausted the literature of Parisian mystery. He had come to the last of the intricate adventures of M. Lecoq when, by accident, a new door had been thrown open to him.
In the Café des Oiseaux—as sooner or later it must have happened—he had chanced upon the author of Hugette's advancing fortunes. This elegant young man had bowed to M. Duclos as he sat over his coffee, and from the bow he had advanced to a word of comment upon the literature that M. Duclos affected.
“Ah, if one admired tales of mystery, then one should by all means read those of Monsieur Poe, the American. He was the master of such tales; the others, all the others—Gaboriau, Monsieur le Docteur Doyle—these were mere imitators of him.”
M. Duclos had inquired where the tales of this Monsieur Poe could be had; and, having been directed, he had found them. He came now, on this morning, with a volume of them tucked under his arm.
As M. Duclos entered from the Rue des Petits Champs he observed that his elegant preceptor in the literature of mystery was already there. He stood at the back of the café before the clock, as though he came at this moment from a bandbox. His fair hair was curled and perfumed under the silken brim of his English opera hat; there were double pearl studs in his shirt front; his immaculate hands were loaded with rings; he wore a jeweled bangle on his wrist beneath the cuff. Before him on the table were his gloves, his cane, and a glass of liqueur. But for the moment he stood with an evening journal extended in his hands, idly glancing down its columns like one who performed a certain habit with but little attaching interest. M. Duclos thought that the elegant young man had been facing the other way and had turned swiftly as he entered, but if so, he did not advance toward M. Duclos—he bowed slightly, as to a chance acquaintance, and returned to the columns of his journal.
M. Duclos crossed to his regular table; the rotund veuve, Consenat, who maintained this Café of the Birds, brought his coffee.
“Monsieur is early tonight,” she said.
M. Duclos, who was never in his life either late or early, bowed, congratulated Madame Consenat on her excellent coffee—as he had been accustomed to do every morning for two years—tasted his cup, and opened his book. He sipped both the coffee and the tale. At length, when he had come to the bottom of the cup, he closed the volume and looked up over the rim of his noseglass. At this moment the elegant stranger, with an air of ennui, folded his journal, tossed it on to a near-by table, and, moving forward, took up his cane and gloves as though about to depart. It was then that the café clock came into view and M. Duclos observed that by this clock Madame Consenat’s words were verified—it was but three o'clock and thirty minutes; he was early by half an hour.
The elegant stranger, sauntering out of the Café des Oiseaux, paused by M. Duclos’ table as he had been accustomed to do. He bowed with a trifle condescension. Had monsieur found the great Poe to his liking?
M. Duclos replied profusely, like one who has received a benefit that he cannot measure. He was wonderful—this Poe! Gaboriau—the great Gaboriau—could not approach him; and that docteur anglais—what did one call him—Doyle? Pouf! He was an echo. What was Lecoq! What was Sherlock Holmes beside this Master Dupin! These were the successors of Alexander! . . . And when he wrote weird tales one’s blood chilled. That German, Hoffman, whose head was full of horrors! He could not make one hear the piercing cry, or feel the awful suffocation, or see the ghastly dead face, like this Poe! The German told like one who had heard of such hideous tragedies, but this American like one who had survived them.
The elegant stranger was charmed. One takes a certain merit from merely discovering a pleasure to another. He became more friendly. M. Duclos read with a discriminating taste—it was so rare a thing! His opinion, then, would be most interesting to hear. Monsieur had observed the great Poe’s tales to lie in two separate zones. In which of these did M. Duclos believe him to excel?
M. Duclos was certain upon this point.
“Monsieur,” he said, “the tales in which M. Poe unravels his mystery from some tiny incident are his greatest. They seem to me to move along the lines of a profound truth—that is to say, there are always evidences which, if one did but observe and correctly interpret, would presently disclose the whole mystery. It is not upon some elaborate theory that one must depend; it is upon the tiny evidences—the crook of a letter in a written word, a scratch on a table, a bit of paper. It is the value of these trivialities that M. Poe brings so forcibly before us. This, monsieur, is a great truth, a valuable truth, a useful truth—one to remember and apply, monsieur.”
Did M. Duclos think so? The elegant stranger was of a different opinion. Now, he would select the great Poe’s weird tales as the most excellent of his writings. These were cups of opiate, which one tasted and forgot the place in which he sat; tasted and forgot his anxieties; tasted and forgot the flight of time. The interests of men in their affairs were so consuming, their anxieties so keen! To make them forget! Ah, this was the test!
M. Duclos protested. But such tales were false; the incidents of them were things that did not happen. But those of M. Dupin—they rested upon a truth to be verified in one’s experience. They were didactic; the reader learned a thing which he might convert to his use.
The stranger slipped into a chair beside M. Duclos at his table. In the interest which this discussion had inspired he forgot that he was going out.
But were those tales false? Did they not happen? For himself, he was not so certain. Of course, it was the genius of M. Poe so to stage them that one could not say: Ah! That was a trick that only a master could turn. To present the weird, the ghastly, the tragic, with such cunning that one could not say whether they happened in the narrator’s mind or in the world outside. But—and M. Duclos should mark it—men, in fact, sometimes had experiences like this. Strange, incredible adventures came to them now and then in such a manner that afterward they never could be certain whether or not they had happened. . . . M. Poe was not off the ground here. He was dealing with a certain order of human experiences in these tales. True, they were experie
nces that men rarely spoke of, since they were things one could not verify. M. Poe had not exceeded these experiences. One had adventures on this borderland as strange as M. Poe had dreamed of. Did M. Duclos doubt it? The stranger knew a certain case in point. He put his cane and gloves upon the table.
Had M. Duclos ever, by chance, heard of Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde? He was young. Perhaps his fame was local yet. M. Duclos had not? Well, a weird, a strange, an incredible thing had befallen this young man. In Paris? No. In the very land of this M. Poe—in the city of Washington, in les Etats-Unis, when M. McKinley was le Président, shortly before the Spanish-American War.
“Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde had been attached to the French legation there. He was a gay dog, this Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde. Ah, one may find companions who dine late in other cities than Paris. And the good wines! They are not all poured out in France. . . . Well, it was about this very hour of the morning, after a dinner of the best, that Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde was returning to his lodging. The good wine was in his head and he had dismissed his carriage and gone afoot to get the air. It was a bit cold and monsieur walked briskly.”
Did M. Duclos know the city of Washington? He did not? The elegant stranger traced an imaginary map on the table with his finger. It was traversed by a great boulevard, l’Avenue de Pennsylvanie, running from la Maison Blanche to le Capitole, and then, turning sharply, it passed la Bibliothèque Congressionale.
“As Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde traversed this boulevard a hansom cab such as one sees in London, going at a slow jog, turned in. As the cab passed it seemed to Monsieur le Docteur that a woman thrust her arm out of the window and waved a handkerchief, as though to attract his attention. Now, Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde is very gallant. He began at once to run after the cab, shouting for the driver to pull up and waving his walking stick. The cab horse proceeded leisurely down l’Avenue de Pennsylvanie and turned out toward la Bibliothèque Congressionale. During all this time a woman’s hand remained thrust out of the cab window and a tiny white handkerchief fluttered in her fingers. Monsieur le Docteur followed.
“In American cities there exists an inconceivable custom, when repairing a street, of digging a trench half across it, setting up a red lantern at each end and leaving Providence to care further for the traveler. In front of the Bibliothèque Congressionale there was such a trench to lay a water main cut half across the street, a red lantern marking its limit. As the cab passed, one of the wheels struck the lantern and went suddenly into the ditch; the cab lurched heavily to one side and, to the horror of Monsieur le Docteur—who was close behind—the woman plunged out, striking her head on the asphalt pavement. The cab righted itself and went on, the heavy wheel rolling over the woman’s coat.
“Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde ran to the woman and bent over her to lift her up. To his utter amazement, he found that the woman was not only dead but that she was cold and her limbs set in rigor mortis, showing that she had been dead for hours.
“She was a very beautiful woman, perhaps thirty, of a decided Continental type, black hair, heavy brows, long black lashes, and a low oval brow. She wore a magnificent sealskin coat, trimmed in ermine and reaching to her feet. M. le Docteur noticed that her hands were small with delicate, tapering fingers; in one of them a handkerchief was tied; there was also a broken leather strap around the waist. Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde shuddered with horror. The dead woman had been tied into the cab!
“He had been flirting with a corpse!
“Monsieur le Docteur sprang up to call for aid. He had hardly got to his feet when a hand seized him by the shoulder; he whirled around to find himself in the grasp of a powerful man, wearing the uniform of a naval officer. The man’s breast was covered with decorations; his teeth gleamed through a tangle of black beard and he growled in a hoarse guttural tongue, which Monsieur le Docteur recognized as Russian.
“The man held Monsieur le Docteur with one hand and thrust the other in to the bosom of his own coat. Monsieur le Docteur instantly divined that his adversary hunted a weapon and he seized the arm with both of his hands to wrench it away before the weapon could be got. The two men began to struggle desperately. The Russian cursed in that unintelligible Slavic jargon which is like the chatter of an engine. He shifted his hand from the shoulder to Monsieur le Docteur's throat and began to choke him. The two men were now in the middle of the street, and monsieur was facing le Capitole, in the direction which he had come. He could not breathe; his eyes protruded; he felt that he was dying.
“At this moment, across the Russian’s shoulder, he saw a huge motor car coming swiftly down the street toward them. It seemed to pull up a bit as it approached; then, when it was nearly on them, it came forward as though all the power was suddenly applied.
“The car held only the chauffeur and carried no lights. It struck the Russian a frightful, crashing blow in the back and both he and Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde were flung far down the street.
“The first impression of returning consciousness that came to Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde was that of a heavy cloth lying over his face and body. He raised his hands, pushed it back, and sat up. He saw that he had been lying on the floor of a dimly lighted room, under the corner of a great silk Oriental rug, which remained spread out as though covering other persons asleep on the floor.
“The room, which seemed to be a library, was lighted by a lamp somewhere behind him. He turned his head to see. A large table stood in the center of the room, littered with books, papers, and various articles. Over it leaned a man holding a small copper coffee-pot in the flame of an alcohol lamp. At the sound of Monsieur le Docteur’s turning around on the floor the man looked up. He was tall, thin, dark, and apparently Spanish.
“‘Ah!’ he said, with a curious lisping accent, ‘One of them returns!’
“Then he came swiftly over to Monsieur le Docteur, took him by the arm, and helped him into a big leather chair directly before the table, poured out a cup of coffee and held it to his lips.
“The coffee was thick, strong and black, and Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde at once began to feel the effect of it. He could sit up by holding on to the arms of the chair, but his head ached frightfully and his senses were dazed.
“‘Perhaps,’ said the Spaniard, as though speaking to himself, ‘I would better see if the others are intending also to return.’
“He seized a corner of the great rug and threw it back, revealing the body of the woman which Monsieur le Docteur had found tied in the cab and beside her, lying at full length, the body of the man in the uniform of a naval officer—his black beard clotted with blood where it had dripped from his mouth.
“‘Ah,’ he said, ‘these are more courteous; they prefer to await our arrival.’
“Then he poured out a cup of coffee and drank it.
“‘It is in all countries the same,’ he continued; ‘the coffee for the last course—no, the cigarette; and then—the end. A word of explanation, señor, before the cigarette, that you may feel less among strangers when we presently join madame and the admiral.
“‘Madame and I are rather famous specialists of a certain order, usually employed by a government when its diplomatic corps proves a bit inefficient. Our mission here was to determine whether, in fact, it is the intention of les Etats-Unis to attack the Kingdom of Spain.
“‘One does not fail when one’s country is in peril—and when one is paid enough. Today we have learned the truth—there will be war!’
“The Spaniard smiled; then he went on:
“‘Ah, señor, madame is a charming woman. You yourself will say it when you come to know her better—exquisitely charming! The admiral here could not fail to mark it. And madame! She has a heart so tender! So susceptible! Alas, I alone remained to mar this happiness! And what am I, señor, to stand in the way of Paradise? A drop or two of a drug in a cup of coffee and my interest in events would cease. Unfortunately I h
ave made it a custom never to drink anything over which the hand of another is unnecessarily placed; it is not hygienic. And so tonight at dinner I tip my coffee out on to the floor. A little later I pretend to sleep. Madame leans over me, doubtless to secure some articles which I should no longer need. I seize the hands. I tie them behind the back with a silk stocking—an excellent thing a silk stocking, señor! And more excellent, since there are always two. The other I tie around the throat. Then, with a riding crop thrust through it, I have a beautiful garrote. ‘He moved his hand among the books, took up a twisted silk stocking, and tossed it over into the chair beside Monsieur le Docteur, who, still dazed and hardly knowing what he did, put it into his pocket.
“The Spaniard paused and drew a cigarette-case from his pocket.
“Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde noticed a little black line of something resembling ashes, running from the leg of the table around the chair in which he was seated. He put down his hand and brushed a little of it into his palm. It was gunpowder!
“The Spaniard sat down on the corner of the table and began to roll his cigarette in his hands.
“‘In madame’s bosom I find a delicious little note from the admiral asking her to come on this night to the rendezvous. Ah, the rendezvous! I faithfully kept it for her. I excellently kept it for her. She was to wave her handkerchief from the cab somewhere between this house and la Bibliothèque Congressionale. I do not know where—but I do not disappoint the admiral. I get a hansom from the stable beyond the library, I dismiss the driver. I tie her in. I put the hand out the window. I tie the handkerchief in the fingers. I send the horses home. So the rendezvous was beautifully kept after all.’ He nodded to Monsieur le Docteur le Duc de Borde.
“The Spaniard leaned over the table to get a match for his cigarette.
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 12/01/10 Page 14