Secrets (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 4)

by Frank Howell Evans

  “Did you look among the shadow secretary’s papers and in the books in the library?”

  “Certainly! We not only opened every book, but we turned over every page in each volume. We were not satisfied with a mere shake, like some of our less qualified police departments might be. We also measured the thickness of every book cover and looked at them under the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, we would’ve noticed it.”

  “Did you search the floors beneath the carpets?”

  “Of course! We removed every carpet and looked at the boards with the microscope.”

  “And the wallpaper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you look into the cellars and attics?”

  “We did.”

  Captain Haven threw his arms in the air. “Then you’re wrong,” he said. “The letter isn’t in the mansion, as you thought it would be.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” said the inspector, smiling wistfully. “So now you’ve heard my story, Poiret. What would you advise me to do?”

  The curtain opened. Poiret looked through his brass theatre binoculars. “Search the mansion again,” he said simply.

  “Are you insane?” replied Watkins, standing up. “I’m more sure of the fact that the letter is not in the mansion than the fact that I’m alive.”

  “Helas!” said Poiret still looking at the stage. “Poiret, he has no better advice to give you.” He turned around to face Watkins. “You have the precise description of the letter?”

  “Oh yes!” The Inspector sat down again and began reading from his notebook. He described in minute detail the appearance of the letter and the envelope. After finishing reading the descriptions, Poiret turned back to watch the activities on the stage. Watkins waited for better advice from Poiret. Poiret gave him none. The orchestra began playing music. Inspector Watkins left soon after, more depressed than Haven had ever seen him.

  Captain Haven was having dinner with Poiret at a restaurant called “The Galleries” in Gerrard Street a month later. He was explaining the game of whist to Poiret. He told him how he was about to get out of his money troubles by organizing whist tournaments in London. He had learned from an old school friend that it was all the rage in Berlin.

  Later in the evening their friend, Inspector Watkins came by. He took a cigar, offered to him by a waiter and looked around. Amongst the tables and patrons were several artists, standing in front of their easels, painting. A small jazz band was playing on a stage. He listened politely as Captain Haven explained the rules of the game. Curiosity, though, got the better of Haven after a couple of minutes.

  “I say, Watkins, what of the stolen letter? Did you find it?”

  “Confounded letter! We searched the whole mansion again as Poiret here suggested. It was a waste of time. I told you before, we did a good job the first time.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Poiret.

  “Don’t start with me again, Poiret,” Inspector Watkins said tersely. “I’d give a month’s wages to find that letter. The chief inspector’s hounding me about it every day. He’s thinking about bringing in people from other departments. Do you know what that means?”

  There was a pregnant silence.

  “What does it mean?” asked Haven innocently.

  Watkins looked at him and opened his mouth.

  “Je comprends,” said Poiret slowly, “Still, my dear Watkins, Poiret, he thinks you have not exerted yourself to the utmost in this matter. He thinks you must do a little more, eh?”

  “Do what more?” Inspector Watkins stood up angrily.

  “Why,” said Poiret taking a deep drag from his cigar and looking around, “don’t you hire an expert in the matter?”

  “Hire an expert?”

  “Do you remember the story they tell about the good doctor Edward Bach?”

  “Doctor Edward Bach? I have my own problems.” Watkins sat down again.

  “Once upon the time, Watkins, a certain young and ambitious doctor, he conceives of the plan to obtain a medical opinion from Doctor Bach without sharing the credit for it. He starts a friendly conversation during a private visit. He puts the case of one of his rich and important clients to the doctor as that of an imaginary individual.

  “We will assume,” said the ambitious young doctor, “that his symptoms are such and such. Now, Doctor Bach, what would you have advised the patient to do?”

  “Do?” said Doctor Bach, “why, to go to a doctor of course.”

  Inspector Watkins moved uncomfortably in his chair.

  “But,” said the inspector, “I’m perfectly willing to take advice and to pay for it. I’m at my wits’ end.” He sighed and sat back in his chair. “I’d give a month’s wages to anyone who can help me find that confounded letter.”

  “In that case, mon cher Watkins, regardez!” replied Poiret cheerfully. He raised his hand and asked the waiter for a blank cheque. The waiter hurried to the maître d’ and soon returned with the requested item and a pen. “You can give to Poiret the money now, mon ami. When you have signed the cheque, Poiret, he will give you the letter.”

  The inspector was stunned. He remained speechless and motionless for some time, looking incredulously at Poiret. He thought Poiret was joking and not in the mood for jokes, he decided to call the master detective’s bluff. He took the pen, filled in the amount and signed the cheque.

  Poiret looked at it carefully and put it in his pocket. He took a letter from another pocket and gave it to the inspector. The inspector jumped up, grabbed it and examined it carefully. Then he kissed it and ran to the door and left without saying goodbye.

  Captain Haven looked astonished at the scene he had just witnessed. “I say! What’s gotten into him?” Poiret smiled broadly. “Was that the letter? How did you get the letter?”

  Poiret’s face suddenly grew angry. “Mon ami, Poiret, he does not get the letter. Poiret, he takes the letter,” he said indignantly. He signed to the waiter to bring more wine.

  “Sorry, old chap. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. But how did you take it? The police couldn’t find it.”

  The frown on Poiret’s face disappeared. “The police are good at what they do,” he said. “They are persevering, cunning and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties demand. Therefore, when Inspector Watkins, he told to us of his method of searching the mansion of the shadow secretary, Poiret, he was entirely confident that the inspector had made a satisfactory investigation of the house so far as his abilities as a policeman extend.”

  “So far as his abilities extend?” asked Haven.

  “Yes, Haven,” said Poiret. “The methods used, they were not only the best of their kind, but they were carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been hidden within the confines of their search, the policemen would beyond any question have found it.”

  Haven laughed, but Poiret, who took his work seriously, did not.

  “The searches by the policemen,” he continued, “they were good and well done. Their defect was in being inapplicable to the case and to the criminal. But the police and the inspector cannot be expected to do more than the limits of their abilities. So faced with a puzzle the inspector used his abilities to solve that puzzle, et voila!”

  Poiret asked the waiter for a plate of bonbons. He took some time choosing one and holding a napkin close to his mouth he proceeded to slowly eat it. Captain Haven, offered the plate, took a couple and popped them in his mouth and washed them down with brandy. Poiret looked at him with some annoyance.

  “Go on,” said Haven.

  “Many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than the average policeman.”

  “Don’t be too hard on Inspector Watkins.”

  “Poiret, he knows one schoolboy of about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of “even and odd” was magnifique. This game is simple. It is played with marbles. One boy, he holds in his hand a number of these marbles and demands of another boy whether that number is even or
not even. If the guess is correct, the guesser, he wins one marble, if wrong, he loses one. The boy whom Poiret knows, he wins all the marbles of the school.”

  “So, how did he win all the time?” asked Haven.

  “Of course he can make the guess, but then he would only win fifty percent of the times. But non, this boy, he uses the intellect.” Poiret tapped his right temple with his right index finger. “He, just a small boy, he knows the nature of men. For him nothing is hidden. He measures the intellect of his opponents.

  A simpleton asks, “Are they even or odd?” Our schoolboy, he replies, “odd,” and he loses, but then the second time he wins, for he then thinks, “The simpleton had even the first time and his amount of intelligence, it is just enough to make him have them odd the second time.” He will therefore guess odd and he wins. With a smarter boy, our schoolboy, he will reason, “This boy sees that the first time Poiret guessed odd and in the second time he will say to himself on the first impulse, “Go from even to odd,” as did the first schoolboy, but then a second thought will suggest to him this is too simple and finally he will decide to leave it even as before. Our friend, he will therefore guess even and he wins.”

  “I say, Poiret,” Haven said laughing, “winning all the time, you probably didn’t have a lot of friends in school.”

  Poiret looked up at Haven with a frown on his face.

  “Poiret,” he said annoyed, “he does not concern himself with the emotions of others.”

  He sat back in his chair and looked at a painter putting the finishing touches to his painting.

  “And knowing,” Haven said to break the silence, “how an opponent thinks is important?”

  Poiret looked back at Haven.

  “To resolve a complicated case, it depends upon this,” replied Poiret, “The inspector and his men, they fail so frequently, because they do not know to take the intellect of the opponent into account. They only consider their own ideas of ingenuity and in searching for anything hidden, they only think of ways in which they would have hidden it. Most times, they are correct, because the policeman, he is like the people he polices. But when the cunning of the criminal is different in character from their own, the criminal, he wins. The police, they only have one method. What, for example, in this case of the shadow secretary for transport has been done to change the modus operandi? What is all this boring and probing and sounding and scrutinizing with the electric microscope and dividing the floors of the building into square inches? What is it all but the use of the same method? The inspector, he does not see that the places he searches, they will only be used by ordinary intellects. He thinks the harder he searches, the more policemen, they search, the better his chance of finding the letter. Ce n’est pas frais du tout! At all!”

  “So where did he go wrong?”

  “The inspector, he says the shadow secretary is a poet. But Poiret, he knows to become a shadow secretary, he has to have the calculating mind. The mind of a mathematician. At first there is the misdiagnosis.”

  “So Watkins was up against the brain of a mathematician?” Haven asked. “So that’s why he lost.”

  “You hear, but you do not listen, Haven,” continued Poiret, “If the shadow secretary had been no more than a mathematician, the inspector, he would have been able to best him. But the shadow secretary, he is both a mathematician and a poet. Such a man, he knows how the police works. He would not hide the letter, where the police will search. His frequent absences from home at night, which are hailed by the inspector as good luck, they are part of a cunning strategy to allow the opportunity for a thorough search of the house to the police and thus the sooner they can arrive to the conclusion, where Inspector Watkins, he finally arrives. The letter is not in the mansion.”

  “But how did you find the letter?”

  “The police, they will look in the most hidden, the smallest places, therefore Poiret, he knows the shadow secretary he will choose not to hide the letter there. The inspector, he laughs at Poiret when Poiret, he suggests, during his visit at the theatre, that the answer, it is very simple.”

  “Yes,” said Haven, “I remember that.”

  “Poiret,” continued Poiret, taking a sip from his glass of wine, “he sees the signs above every shop that the English, they are so fond of. He knows the bigger the sign, the less people, they are interested. The smaller the sign, the more people, they become curious and want to know what is inside the shop.”

  “Shop signs? I’ve never given the matter a thought,” Haven said.

  “A normal criminal, he will hide his, how do you say, ill-gotten loot in the darkest of places,” Poiret resumed, “and there the police will immediately look. But the shadow secretary, he will do the opposite. He will hide the letter in plain sight. That is what Inspector Watkins, he does not understand. Actually the shadow secretary, he will not hide the letter at all.”

  “Not hide it at all?” said Haven incredulously.

  “Attention! The final act. Poiret, he knows the shadow secretary, he collects the signed first edition books of great poets. Poiret, he buys the first edition of Lord Tennyson’s book of poems.”

  “Must’ve been quite difficult to buy a signed first edition,” said Haven.

  “Non.”

  “Non?”

  “Poiret, he signs the book himself.”

  “What?

  “Poiret, he goes to the mansion of the shadow secretary and offers to sell the book.”

  “You went to see the shadow secretary?” asked Haven incredulously.

  “Poiret, he finds the shadow secretary at home in his office, yawning and pretending to be lazy. He is the most energetic human alive, but he hides this from everybody. We talk for a long time about poetry and in the meantime, Poiret, he cautiously and thoroughly surveys the whole room.

  “He gives special attention to a large writing table near which the shadow secretary, he sits and upon which lie some letters and other papers with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Everything, it says discarded, nothing of importance. But Poiret, he examines everything. His eyes see a crumpled letter. It’s torn nearly in two across the middle as if a plan to tear it up entirely as worthless had been stopped. It has a large black seal, bearing the shadow secretary’s monogram very conspicuously. It is thrust carelessly and even, as it seems, contemptuously, on the table.

  “Poiret, he sees the letter and immediately he concludes it is that which he searches. To be sure, it was to all appearance, radically different from the stolen letter of which the inspector has read us so minute a description. Here the seal is large and black with the shadow secretary’s monogram. In the description of the inspector, it is small and red with the crest of the lover of the wife of the Prime Minister.”

  “The lover of the wife of the Prime Minister?” asked Haven, “I say!”

  Poiret continued his explanation. “Here the address to an unknown woman in Somerset. There the name of a lady at Number 10 Downing Street.”

  “How did you know it wasn’t a letter the shadow secretary had written to some lady he knew in Somerset?”

  “Because the letter, it is smudged and torn almost into pieces. Time after time showing how worthless the letter is. Why would the shadow secretary keep this letter and not throw it away in the garbage? Poiret, he understands. Why not disguise the letter as a letter? How ingenious! What world-class intellect!”

  “But wouldn’t the police look for an envelope first as they were looking for a letter?”

  “They would look at the envelope, see that the sender is the shadow secretary, the receiver an unknown woman in Somerset. They would look inside and see a love letter from a man to a woman. They would assume the letter was written by the secretary to the lady in Somerset and put it aside. The police, they look, but they do not see the significance like Poiret.”

  “How did you get the letter? I mean take the letter?”

  “Poiret, he knows he needs to be just as clever, just as cunning as the shadow secr
etary. He must outsmart the shadow secretary. He agrees that he will come back another time, so the shadow secretary can have the book of poetry and the signature appraised by an independent expert and Poiret, he leaves. Then a week later, he goes back with the book two hours before the time of the appointment. The shadow secretary, he leaves his office to ask his secretary to call the appraiser to ask him to come earlier. Poiret, he takes the letter and substitutes it with an imitation.”

  “You left him an imitation? Well done, old boy!”

  Haven raised his glass of brandy in the air, toasting Poiret’s ingenuity. Poiret nodded his head enthusiastically, smiling and accepting the admiration happily.

  “Bien sur,” said Poiret pleased with himself.

  “So now you have the letter, but what happened to the envelope? The one you describe on the shadow secretary’s table is different from the one Inspector Watkins described.”

  “The envelope is the envelope. The shadow secretary, he has turned the envelope inside out and has written the fake address on the other side.”

  “How ingenious,” said Haven.

  They were silent for a moment as one overthought what he had just heard and the other basked in the admiration of the other for besting a world-class mind.

  “Say, Poiret,” continued Haven after a while, “what happened to the book? Did the appraiser find out the signature was a fake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? How did you get out of that mess?”

  “Poiret, he screams the antiquarian, who sold the book to him, he has robbed Poiret and Poiret, he will go to the police immediately.”

  “I say! Bloody well played, Poiret!” said Haven clapping his hands.

  Poiret sat back in his chair, drinking his wine and smoking his cigar. Captain Haven could see the excitement and the pride on his big face with which he accepted the compliments.

  ”One thing bothers me though,” said Haven after five minutes of silence, “Why did you take the inspector’s money? After all he is a friend.”