by Sapper
“‘Correct, Mr Matthews,’ he remarked. ‘Is there any objection?’
“‘None, sir,’ I said. ‘But in view of your magnificent collection we wondered at Headquarters if you would like any police protection for the night in question?’
“He drew himself up and stared at me coldly.
“‘May I ask why I should require protection against my own guests?’
“‘You will pardon me, sir,’ I said doggedly, ‘but I intend no reflection on those of your guests whom you know personally. It is, however, a well-known fact that many of the people who accept your hospitality are quite unknown to you.’
“‘Proceed, sir,’ he said quietly.
“‘And such an opportunity as this is the very one to attract the attention of le Bossu Masqué.’
“He began to laugh silently: then he rose and pressed a bell.
“‘Come with me, Mr Matthews.’ He gave an order in Russian to a servant who entered. ‘I have heard rumours of this mysterious Bossu Masqué, and I can assure you that nothing would please me more than if he should honour my party with his presence.’
“He was leading the way into the garden as he spoke.
“‘He might succeed in giving me what I find so difficult to experience today – a genuine thrill. On the other hand – he might not. In my spare time, Mr Matthews, I have sought to improve a natural aptitude in the use of firearms, and you shall judge for yourself whether my efforts have proved successful.’
“He had halted by a small garden table on which a waiting servant had already placed a case containing two revolvers. Once again he gave an order in Russian, and the man took up a position twenty yards away, holding my visiting card in his outstretched hand. There came a crack, and the visiting card was no more. Then the man threw an apple in the air. The Prince shot twice. He got the apple with the first, and the largest bit of it with the second.”
“Good shooting,” said Hugh. “I used to be able to do that myself, but I have my doubts if I could do it now. Sorry to interrupt. Go on, Mr Matthews.”
“As you say, Captain Drummond – good shooting, mar-vellous shooting. He laid down his revolver, and turned to me with a smile.
“‘That, sir,’ he said, ‘is why I say that on the other hand – he might not. For I should have not the smallest hesitation in killing him on the spot.’
“I bowed: there seemed nothing more to say.
“‘I understand perfectly,’ he continued, ‘the object of your visit. And I am greatly obliged to your Headquarters for their courtesy. But I can assure you that I am quite capable of dealing with any uninvited guest myself; and, as for the others, I have implicit confidence in my cousin.’
“So I returned to the station and to Paris. I reported the result of my visit to Grodin, who shrugged his shoulders.
“‘Well, anyway, he can’t blame us if anything does happen,’ he remarked, and at that we left it. We had done all we could: we had warned him. And, as Grodin pointed out, le Bossu Masqué, up to date, had confined his activities to Paris and its suburbs.”
Victor Matthews paused and lit a cigarette.
“Eight days later,” he said quietly, “we received a frenzied call on the telephone from the Chateaudun police. In the early hours of the morning Prince Boris Marcovitch, while at supper with his friends, had been shot dead through the heart, by le Bossu Masqué‚ and practically the whole collection had been stolen.”
“Good Lord!” cried Hugh, “this beats the band. Take a breather, my dear fellow, and have a drink.”
CHAPTER 8
In which Victor Matthews ends his story
“I was afraid you might find the story a little long,” said Matthews, as the butler brought out the tray.
“Long be blowed,” cried Hugh. “It is the most extraordinary yarn I ever listened to. Sounds like a book.”
“Truth is stranger, Captain Drummond. The old tag. I think that beer looks very promising.”
He took the glass, and raised his hand in a toast.
“I’m just trying to think,” he went on after a while, “of the best way of telling you the remainder. I think perhaps I shall make it most interesting if I first of all give you the story as it was told us on our arrival at the Chateau du Lac Noir by the guests who had been detained there by the local police pending our coming.
“There were fourteen of them in all – eight women, and six men. And their condition, as you can imagine, was pretty bad. In addition to this appalling affair, which in itself was sufficient to upset anyone, the whole lot of them had been extremely drunk the night before. And they looked like it.
“However, by dint of questioning and piecing together their various stories, we managed to arrive at a fairly accurate account of what had happened. They had arrived by the train which reached Chateaudun at four o’clock the previous day. As usual they had been met at the station by the Prince’s private carriages, and taken straight to the chateau, where the Prince received them. Champagne and caviare had at once been served, which sent them all upstairs to change for dinner in an expansive mood.
“Dinner itself started at eight-thirty and was preceded by more rounds of a special apéritif known only to the Prince, so that even at the beginning of the meal several of them were talking out of their turn. And by eleven o’clock most of them were riotously tight. Two girls from the Folies Bergères were dancing on the table: in fact, an extra special debauch was in full swing. The hours went on: more drink arrived, and yet more drink, until many of the guests were frankly and unashamedly asleep. Only the Prince remained his normal self, though he was drinking level with them all.
“Now it was his custom to hold these carousals in the huge old banqueting-hall. It was a lofty room with a broad staircase at one end leading up to the musicians’ gallery. They had long since faded away, completely worn out, and in the general din probably no one even noticed that they had ceased playing. And so you can visualise the scene. The candles guttering on the table around which sprawled the drunken guests; and sitting at one end, with a look of scornful weariness already beginning to show on his face, their host. The staircase was behind his left shoulder, the top half of it in semi-darkness, as were the portraits of the Prince’s ancestors which stared down on the revellers from the walls.
“Suddenly one of the men who was singing some maudlin song broke off abruptly and leaned forward rubbing his eyes. What on earth was that strange object on the staircase? Was it really there – or was the great black shadow his imagination? Then it moved and he lurched to his feet. Grim reality struggled through the fumes of alcohol, and he hiccoughed out a warning.
“The others looked up: a woman screamed. And cold as ice the Prince turned round to find himself facing a masked hunchback. There was a moment of dead silence – then he rose to his feet. And even as he did so a solitary shot rang out from the stairs, and the Prince pitched forward on his face – stone dead.
“The guests, sobered by this utterly unexpected tragedy, huddled together like sheep. ‘Le Bossu Masqué’ passed from lip to lip in fearful whispers. And still this monstrous figure stood there motionless, his revolver still in his hand. Suddenly the door from the servants’ quarters opened and five men came in. Save for the fact that they were masked they might have been five of the guests, because they too were dressed as Apaches. Two of them advanced to the terrified guests, and each of them carried a revolver. No word was spoken; evidently the whole thing had been planned beforehand. While the two of them guarded the guests, and the sinister masked hunchback stood in silence on the stairs the other three systematically looted the place. They smashed in cabinets and wrenched open drawers, while the man whose collection they were taking lay dead by his own table.
“It lasted nearly an hour so we are told. The stuff was carried out through the front door, the looters returning each time for more. And th
en at length they finished, and the three men who had been removing the stuff disappeared. There was the sound, and of this they were one and all quite positive, of a motorcar driving away – then silence. Slowly the two men who had been covering them the whole time backed to the door and disappeared also. And with that pandemonium broke loose.
“As mysteriously as he had come le Bossu Masqué had vanished. The thing was over and finished; only broken cabinets and a dead man, who stared at the ceiling, remained to prove that it was ghastly reality and not a drunken dream. Completely sobered by now the men of the party dashed round the house, only to find that every servant had been bound and gagged. So they did the only thing there was to be done and sent for the local police.
“Well, that was the situation that confronted us on our arrival. Two things were established at once. Le Bossu Masqué had added yet another murder to the long list already to his credit; and the fact that a motorcar had been used, and that there were five Apaches in the raid, made it practically certain that the gang involved was le Rossignol’s. So the first thing obviously to do was to try and lay that gang by the heels, which should have proved an easy matter. They have their invariable haunts to which they always return sooner or later, and we anticipated no difficulty whatever in catching them. But two days went past; three; a week; and still there was no sign of them. And it became increasingly obvious to me that the reason was simply and solely that they were acting under orders from le Bossu Masqué himself: it was his brain we were contending against – not theirs.
“Then came a new development. In a wood not far from Chârtres a shepherd found a deserted motorcar. It had been forced in through some undergrowth, and was completely hidden from the road. Indeed, but for the fact that he thought he had seen a snake, and had gone into the bushes after it, the car might have remained there for months without being discovered. Of the gang, however, there was still no trace, nor of the loot they had taken – loot which, on the Prince’s cousin’s valuation, was worth, at a conservative estimate, half a million pounds.
“And then at last came the final development of all. The telephone bell rang in our office, and a voice came over the wire. It was disguised, but not quite sufficiently. Before he had said a sentence I knew it was the Toad speaking, though I didn’t let on that I knew. And his information was to the effect that le Rossignol’s gang were lying up in a wood halfway between Mamers and Alençon. He was speaking from a public telephone call office so it was hopeless to try and track him through that. But I passed on the word that the Toad was back in Paris, and sat down to think it out.
“If you look at the map you will see that the wood mentioned by the Toad is some sixty miles west of Chateaudun, while the wood where the car was found is about twenty miles due north. That seemed peculiar in the first place. In the second, what had caused the Toad to split? That it was quite in keeping with his nature I knew, but the Toad never did anything without a reason. And what was the reason in this case? Why had he turned traitor? Was he doing it on his own account, or was he doing it under orders from le Bossu Masqué? Had that gentleman decided that now the cat had pulled the chestnut out of the fire for him, its services could very well be dispensed with?
“However, the first thing to be done was to verify the Toad’s information. The wood he mentioned was surrounded by a cordon of armed police, who gradually closed in on the centre. And what he had told us proved correct. The gang was there; at least, three of them were. Who fired the first shot I don’t know, but men’s fingers are quick on the trigger in cases like that. Sufficient to say that two of the police were killed, and two were wounded, before the three bandits fell riddled with bullets. Finding themselves cornered, half starving, dirty, and unkempt, the Snipe, the Butcher, and the man called Robert fought like rats in a trap and died. But of the Nightingale there was no trace. Nor, again, was there any sign of the stolen property, though we searched the wood with a fine-tooth comb. And so there we were up against a brick wall once again. It was true that three of the gang were dead, but they were the three least important ones. Le Bossu Masqué had completely vanished: so had both the Nightingale and the Toad. Had they split up the loot between them, or what had they done with it? Were they hanging together or had they fallen out? Those were the questions we constantly asked one another, and as constantly failed to answer.
“And then, one day about a fortnight after the fight in the wood, we caught the Nightingale. With his voice and terrible appearance he was altogether too conspicuous a character to escape notice. And the police found him hiding in a back slum in Rouen, and promptly despatched him to us in Paris, where he first of all told us that part of his story that I have already told you.
“If you remember, we left him and his gang at Chateaudun putting up in the two hotels of the town, and having arrived there on the day of the Prince’s party. They were completely in the dark as to what their further orders were to be: all they had to do was to sit and wait. Their instructions came to them at eight o’clock that night, and were simple in the extreme. They were to wait until eleven, and were then to proceed by car to the Chateau du Lac Noir. The motor was to be left in the shadow of some trees a hundred metres from the front door, and they were to remain hidden in the trees, also, until they saw a light flash twice from the bedroom window over the front door. They were then to proceed to the back door, where they would again receive instructions.
“They waited until, at two-thirty, they saw the light. When they got to the back door they found it open, and confronting them in the darkness of the passage the dim black figure of the Bossu Masqué‚ who ordered them to pick up some coils of rope and follow him.
“They obeyed: as le Rossignol said – ‘Messieurs, we dared not do otherwise. We were more frightened of le Bossu Masqué than of all the fiends in hell.’
“Suddenly he flung open the door into a lighted room, and there confronting them they saw the four men-servants, who, following the example of those upstairs, were a bit fuddled themselves. Incidentally, of course, we knew all this part of the story already. But confirmation is always valuable, and we thought it a good thing to let him tell the yarn in his own way. They trussed the servants up, and then they received their final instructions. When they heard a shot they were to go straight into the banqueting hall: the Snipe and he were to cover the guests, the other three were to loot the place. And he told us then exactly the same story as we had already heard from the guests.
“So far, so good – but what we wanted to know was still to come.
“‘Be very careful now, Rossignol,’ said Grodin sternly. ‘You have spoken the truth up to date: see that you continue doing so.’
“‘By the Holy Virgin, M’sieur,’ he exclaimed passionately, ‘no word but the truth shall pass my lips. And if it does then may I be stricken dead, and have to forego my revenge on that festering sore le Crapeau.’
“Grodin glanced at me – that was a bit of news. But he merely told le Rossignol curtly to continue.
“It appeared, then, that the Snipe, the Butcher, and Robert were to find their way by cross-country trains to Mamers, from which place they were to go to a wood between there and Alençon.
“‘And of those three, Messieurs, I can tell you no more. I saw in the paper that they were dead. How, if I may ask, did you find them?’
“‘The Toad gave them away,’ I said quietly, and for a moment we thought he was going to have an apoplectic fit. The veins stood out on his forehead, and a flood of the most filthy blasphemy poured out of his lips. We let him finish: as far as his feelings about the Toad were concerned, we had a certain sympathy with him.
“At last he pulled himself together and continued. His orders and the Toad’s were to take the car, with the loot inside it, on the road towards Chartres. After they had gone twenty kilometres, they would find a track leading off to the right. They would know it, because there were three tall trees at the junct
ion. They were to proceed along this track for two kilometres, where they would find a disused quarry. In the quarry was a shed, and in that shed they were to put the car. Under no circumstances were they to move out of the quarry, or light a fire, or attract attention to themselves in any way. But if, by any chance, they were discovered by some wandering pedestrian, the pedestrian was to wander no more. And they would receive further instructions in due course.
“Now I may say at once that we subsequently verified this statement. We found the track, and the quarry, and the actual wheelmarks of the car in the shed.
“Well, it appeared that they sat there the whole of the next day. They had the bread and cheese and wine which le Bossu Masqué had ordered them to put in the car, so they were not hungry. And, incidentally, it struck me, even at the time, what astounding attention to detail that little fact showed. For if there is one thing that will overcome fear it is hunger, and but for having given them food one or other of them would most certainly have gone to the nearest village to get it.
“I will now try and continue in the Nightingale’s own words.
“‘It was about six o’clock, M’sieurs, that it happened. The sun was just setting, so I know the time. I had risen and was standing in the door of the shed, wondering what we should next be told to do. Suddenly I received the most terrible blow in the back of the neck, and I knew no more.’
“We looked at his neck, and there was an ugly looking scar about two inches long. In fact, anyone except an abnormality like the Nightingale would never have known any more.
“‘When I recovered consciousness,’ he went on, ‘it was dark. At first I didn’t know where I was, everything was a blank. And then, little by little, memory came back to me. The quarry – the affair at the chateau – the car. Mon Dieu! M’sieurs – sick and faint, I raised myself on my elbow. The car had gone: so had le Crapeau. I was alone in the shed. How long I had lain there I knew not: some hours, because the sky was studded with stars. And then there came a voice out of the darkness, and I nearly fainted with horror.