Sir Geoffrey, it will do you good to take your mind off these horrors! If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a very frivolous question.”
“Fire away!”
“That pretty gray camel’s-hair wrapper of the abbé’s that I saw the housekeeper sewing on this morning—I’d so like to get one like it, to send home for a present to my uncle! Did you ever see it, Sir Geoffrey?”
“The abbé’s wrapper? The—no; I never saw it in my life! Haven’t an idea what the poor old scout gets into when he slips out of his blacks, I’m sure!”
“Too bad! I hoped you could tell me where he bought it.”
“Hush! Speak of angels.”
At the upper end of the little chapel, from behind the altar, suddenly appeared a tall figure in a black cassock. At sight of the baronet and his companion, the newcomer paused. Then, with bent head, he advanced slowly down the aisle.
“Bon jour, mademoiselle. Bon jour, cousin. Any news?”
Fanny’s pretty rosy face drooped into lines of unwonted discouragement as she answered:
“None at all, Monsieur l’Abbé. I know the police are all at sea. And as for a girl—what can she hope to do, against such a criminal as this?”
Her visible shudder thrilled like electricity through her two listeners. The priest’s pale aquiline face was, however, immovable as he answered sternly:
“Against an enemy such as this a young girl, provided her heart be pure, can do more than the entire police of this republic of Anti-Christ.”
“Then you think, Monsieur l’Abbé,” asked Fanny, in a hushed voice, “that the murder had a supernatural origin?”
“What you call supernatural, mademoiselle,” answered the Abbé Fornarini, in his cold voice, “may perhaps be, for God, the most natural thing in the world.”
“Who knows?” murmured Fanny. “Those mysterious knocks of warning—tell me, abbé, when were the last knocks heard?”
“Four nights ago, in the picture gallery—the night before the Duke died.”
“And not since then?”
“No, mademoiselle. Their warning has been fulfilled.”
Was this to be the abbé’s defense of himself before the court? Fanny gazed at him with eyes of fascinated speculation. His sardonic eyes pierced her thought.
“And in your search through this ancient house you have, then, found evidence which leads you to doubt it, this theory of mine?”
“Alas, no. Though I have come on strange things—traces of a far-away past that you, doubtless, can interpret better than I. For instance, look at that window there behind you—there to the right.”
Simultaneously the two men turned, the young Englishman more quickly than the other. The abbé, jostled by his cousin’s shoulder, half fell against the window. There was a smart crash, a vision of the priest recoiling with a bleeding forehead, a tinkle of broken glass on the stone courtyard below.
“I say—was that my fault?” cried the bewildered baronet. “By George, I’m frightfully sorry, old scout! See here, shall I—”
“It is nothing!” interrupted the abbé coldly—“a scratch that will be healed to-morrow!”
And, with his handkerchief pressed to his temple, he turned back to the young girl.
“Mademoiselle, you had something you wished to show to us!”
His penetrating eyes were met by the young American’s, as clear and steady as his own.
“Monsieur l’Abbé, I regret that I have no longer anything to show you. The pane of glass where the ancient writing was is gone; it lies in fragments on the stone flags below us.”
“Writin’?” cried Sir Geoffrey Ffyles, with interest. “I say, weren’t they jolly proud of their diamonds, in those old days? Queen Bess, and Raleigh, and all of ’em goin’ around spoilin’ all the windows—”
“Not so badly as it is spoiled now, that window,” returned Fanny dryly. “I am sorry, because perhaps you could have told me the meaning of those doggerel lines in old French that were scratched there. However, now they are gone forever. And, if you will excuse me, I must go, too. The Chief of the Secret Service is waiting for me. Au revoir!”
Sure enough, in the library she found the Chief waiting for her, with Raoul de Chatellerault.
“Well, mademoiselle, any results?”
Breathlessly she related the incident that had just passed. The official, who invariably scoffed at Fanny’s methods as “dreams”, nevertheless gave to this unsuccessful attempt a sudden and exaggerated importance.
“My God, mademoiselle! So this is American intelligence! To show your discovery to the Italian priest, of all men in Paris! You do not show it to me, or to Monsieur le Vicomte here; you do not even take a copy—”
“Pardon, monsieur!” Fanny opened her hand-bag. “Here is a tracing of the writing on the window. Here are two photographs that I made myself yesterday. Here is a translation into modern French, made by Professor Bôchet at the Sorbonne. Here—”
The Chief snatched the papers. With eager eyes the Vicomte leaned over him. They read:
Curieux qui frappez
Là sur la place
Ou vous m’entendrez
Cherchez avec audace
Hòtel de Vaucaire
Et son trésor si cher.
De Chatellerault sprang to his feet. “The family hoard!”
For once, the Chief did not scout this idea as fantastic.
“One sees now why the Abbé Fornarini did not wish you to read these lines!” he commented briefly, then returned to the doggerel rhymes: “‘You, inquisitive one, who knock there on the place where you shall hear me, seek with boldness the Duke’s palace and its treasure so dear!’”
He paused.
“‘Me! when you shall hear me!’ Evidently the writer of these lines directs us to go about, pounding on the walls of the palace, and when we hear him answer from underneath, to hunt boldly and we’ll find the treasure.
“Bah! The Vaucaire who first hid his money doubtless had his own bones buried with it, and planned to watch over it and answer when the right person came to hunt. Quite a reasonable scheme, for those days! And probably it seems very reasonable to the priest, who is the inheritor of all their superstitions. In fact, it would not surprise me to know that these recent mysterious tappings were the work of the abbé knocking on the wall to get an answer from the ghostly sentinel within. Bah! I have two minds to arrest him before he goes to eat his luncheon.”
Fanny shook her head. “No, no! we have nothing to gain by haste. But look, Chief! Look again at these lines. Do you not see it is written there who it is that the knocker shall hear answer from within, when he has found the spot?”
“Written here? A name written here?”
The Chief returned to his reading, first with bewilderment and then with anger. “‘There where you hear me answer, hunt boldly—’ Mademoiselle, if you say that it is written here who this ‘me’ is that we should hear beneath the wall when we knock, then I tell you that you are simply mocking me! And I command you, in the name of the law, if you have found a clue to the whereabouts of this hiding-place, to lead me to it at once.”
“I regret, monsieur, that is what I am unable to do. If you, however, will kindly give me your aid, I hope to do better.”
“What?”
“I hope to make the murderer himself lead us to it!”
De Chatellerault, to whom experience had given a considerable respect for Fanny Gordon’s powers, leaped to his feet. The older man, however, preserved his skeptical calm.
“Pardon me, mademoiselle. You will excuse me if I wait to be startled till you shall have made your words good. As for my aid, I will not refuse it to you—”
“You will even begin now, by answering one or two questions for me, monsieur?”
“Certainly!”
“Tell me, that pretty gray camel’s-hair dressing-gown of the Abbé Fornarini’s, that the housekeeper was sewing on yesterday—have you seen it?”
With a puzzled expressio
n, the Chief shook his head. Fanny leaned forward.
“You haven’t? I asked the same question of Sir Geoffrey Ffyles, and he never saw it, either! In fact, no one has seen it, that gray wrapper of the abbé’s, except just the housekeeper and me.”
“Bloodstains?”
“Not a stain, I assure you! And the pockets were empty. I draw your attention to this incident of the wrapper merely to emphasize the fact that even his own cousin denies having ever seen it! And now—the woman Armande Lainois: has she been found yet?”
With the annoyed expression of one who confesses a failure, the Chief shook his head.
“The description of her—will you please let me see it? Thanks! Hum—large dark eyes; nose, small Roman; stature, medium; tinted red hair, which continues to grow in a narrow downy ridge along the nape of her neck and disappears under her collar. That’s not very common! Moles, left arm above elbow. That’s enough. Chief, have you ever thought in what a very singular place it was, that death-wound of the Duke?”
“I have, indeed!” returned that official stiffly. “Though the Duke, in the act of lifting his left arm toward the bell, left his heart completely exposed, still the murderer drove home his knife in a part which, had aid arrived promptly, would not even have proved vital. Singular clumsiness! Inexplicable circumstance—that this atrocious criminal, whose fiendish skill enabled him to slip in and out of a closed room like a spirit, yet bungled his work so awkwardly at the crucial moment that it was only by accident that it was successful!”
“Evidently, he lost his head when his intended victim managed to ring the bell and give the alarm!”
“Probably. And yet, the startlingly haphazard nature of the death-blow—I commend it to your attention, monsieur. And now, will you kindly accompany me upstairs to the bedroom of the late Duke?”
Five minutes later the three stood together in the grim chamber of sudden death, unchanged except that the red stains of the bedclothes had become nearly black. Fanny Gordon’s eyes were full of a dancing fire. Her color was high.
“Chief,” she said in an excited voice, “I just had an idea. I have come here to prove it. On it hangs my theory. Listen. Your sentinel there at the door will give you his word, corroborated by that of the night watchman, that I have not entered this room, except in your presence, since the day I was introduced into this house.”
The Chief bowed in silence. The Vicomte fixed keen eyes on his protégée. Fanny walked over to the bed; then recoiled.
“Messieurs, I will own my weakness—I cannot touch that bed. Will you be so kind, Chief, as to look under the mattresses—here, on the left side of the bed—and see if there is anything bulky between the mattress and the springs?”
At the unoccupied side of the bed indicated by Fanny, the stout official stooped. He puffed as he tugged at the sheet and heaved up the edge of the mattress. Then: “Name of a toad! Look, Monsieur le Vicomte!”
There, beneath the deep woolen mattress, carefully arranged on the covered springs, were rows and rows of cushions—white pillows, satin cushions, little embroidered head-rests, all neatly flattened together to form a smooth, symmetrical slope. The Vicomte drew his breath sharply.
“Mademoiselle! What does this mean?”
“You have as much reason to know, Vicomte, as I! And now—I beg you, Chief, do me the kindness of looking beneath the mattress on this other side—here beneath the spot where the poor Duke was lying.”
Nervously Fanny’s slim hands clasped and unclasped, while the Chief, strangely obedient now, carried out her directions. Then he announced: “On this side, mademoiselle, there are no cushions.”
“Ah!” Fanny’s breath exhaled itself in a long gasp. She stood for a long time in thought, staring at the bed; then spoke beneath her breath: “No. There can be no more doubt now, any more.”
“But, mademoiselle, explain—”
“No, Chief. Later! Now the time is short; we must act quickly. Listen—will you carry out my directions?”
“That depends—”
“It must not depend! You have asked me for results. I have done all that I can, and the rest depends on you. I want you to make immediate public announcement, through the telephone to the evening papers, that today the municipal guards are removed from the Duke’s palace. This afternoon I want you to remove all your men, conspicuously, openly—all your men, without one exception. You will then give charge of the house over to the late Duke’s solicitors, to be handed over tomorrow to the legatee, the King of Spain. And tonight—”
“Tonight, mademoiselle?”
She lowered her voice. “To-night, messieurs, I will ask you to meet me at eleven o’clock at the Quai d’Orsay. You, Chief, must bring two of your best men. All must be armed. We will drive to the corner of the Rue Langlois. There we will descend, and proceed on foot to the servants’ gate of this house. The housekeeper, with whom I have made friends, and who was passionately devoted to the late Duke, will be waiting for us there at half past eleven o’clock. We will enter the house by the servants’ stair, in complete darkness. And then, if those conditions have been faithfully observed, I think I can hope to show you some results.”
In the young girl’s voice ran a vivid intensity like the crackling of an electric current. The official tried to shrug his shoulders, but failed, and contented himself with saving: “Melodramatic to the last! Ah, well, be it as you will, mademoiselle.”
“In melodrama we should have suitable weapons!” returned Fanny suavely, as she unfolded the satin jacket that she carried on her arm. “Should you care to carry this instead of your revolver, Chief?”
She handed him a hammer whose head was carefully sewed up in black cloth. The two men pounced upon it.
“Where did you find that?”
“I found it where I looked for it—in the picture gallery!” said Fanny Gordon.
V
To wait in the dark for the coming of a murderous criminal is a far from pleasant business, even when one’s fear is merely that he may come. The unpleasantness, however, becomes far more pronounced when one’s fear is that he may stay away! Such was the terror of Fanny Gordon in the long watches of that stifling summer night, as she lay crouched in the picture gallery behind a carved oak chest, and waited.
Half past one had already struck. In hardly more than an hour it would come now, the early June dawn. Suppose it broke, and this wearisome watch, planned by her, had been all in vain! In spite of the heat, Fanny shivered and the cold sweat broke out over her body.
“Two and two make four!” she argued fiercely to herself for the thousandth time.
“And, just as surely, he must come here tonight. He can’t fail—he can’t!”
Suddenly her muscles stiffened, her breath stopped. Surely, at the end of the long gallery, a door had opened cautiously.
Silence. Then, through the dark, came the unmistakable padding sound of soft-shod feet. Silence again. Then the spurt of a match flame. A faint blue flare. A moment’s pause. Then, suddenly, on the wall near her hiding-place a hand knocked.
For the first time, Fanny realized how terrifying it was in its stark and naked simplicity, that traditional death sign of the house of Vaucaire. Fear, instinctive unreasoning fear, numbed her muscles and made her stomach quiver. A second knock. Her qualm had passed; the intellect and the will resumed their sway. For from within the depths of the wall, rendered dim by intervening bricks and plaster, echoed the thin answering tinkle of a bell.
Boldly now, with no shelter but that of the darkness, Fanny lifted her head. Not twenty feet from her, she beheld a tall figure in a dark dressing-gown, holding a candle in one hand and running the other down the faded gilt frame of a large antique portrait. The next moment the whole portrait swung out like a door. A pause. A gasp.
“Rose! Where are you?”
The tender whisper thrilled with the secret quality of the voice that speaks for one ear alone. Then suddenly the veil of mystery and silence was stabbed by a dreadful cry:
“Dead! Dead! Rose, you are dead!”
The sudden glare of electric torches, the leaping out of men’s faces, the cocking of revolvers, the rush of feet. Fanny, heedless of possible danger, was the first to arrive at the dark aperture in the wall. The next instant she had recoiled. There at her feet, staring up in the faint light with fixed, wide-open eyes, was the beautiful white face of a woman.
“Nom d’un nom d’un nom!”
It was the Chief’s voice. The dark figure, huddled over the motionless body of the woman, lifted its head and showed the face, blanched and distorted, of Sir Geoffrey Ffyles.
“Get a doctor!” he screamed. “Don’t you see she’s dead? But perhaps she’s not dead, after all. If you’re quick, perhaps she can be saved. Run for a doctor—quick!”
So intense was his emotion, he seemed not even conscious of the interruption of armed intruders. His face, distorted like a mask by the intensity of his passion, was bent over the woman, who lay motionless in her black and white servant’s uniform, with the candle-light shining on her red-brown hair and on the piled-up heaps of golden louis that surrounded her on every side.
Stooping, the Chief picked up one waxen hand and laid it over his electric torch. Between the fingers shone faint lines of yellowish gray. He turned back the lids from the staring dark eyes, lifted the beautiful heavy head. There on the back of the limp white neck, following the line of the spine, the hair continued in a thin dark line of down.
“Rose d’Artigny!” exclaimed one of the detectives below his breath. The Chief nodded solemnly, while the crouching creature in the brocade dressing-gown, stripped of all his lordly nonchalance, watched him as a wolfhound glares at the intruder who handles her pups.
The Chief said: “This time, however, she has paid for her devilish trick with her life. She has been dead two days, at the least.”
Again Sir Geoffrey, in an abandonment explained not only by his grief but by the fumes of whisky that rose from him, flung himself upon the body.
“Rose! Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Why did you steal a march on me? Didn’t you know it was for you I did it? And now it’s no use any more. You are dead, my little Rose! Dead!”
Toward the Golden Age Page 29