THE door opened and Boris ushered in a trim, precise little man who carried a dossier of papers under his arm. He glanced around, bowed, and came forward.
“Good morning, messieurs et ma-dame,” he said. “Good morning, M. Solomon.”
Zontroff stepped out to meet him.
“What does this foolery mean?” he roared wrathfully. “You are not Magnieux! He fell overboard from the boat! He is dead! It was in the newspapers!”
Magnieux bowed again. “The report, I am glad to say, was false,” he said in his precise manner. “Allow me. My carte d’identité, bearing my photograph.” And he extended a card, then turned to Solomon. “You have the picture, my dear m’sieu’?”
“Here,” said Solomon, and extended a photograph.
A glance showed me that it was a copy of the prints which I had made. Magnieux glanced at it and then looked at Zontroff.
“M’sieu’,” he said formally, “three years ago you were implicated in the murder of Mme. Fallon, in Tours. You were charged with the crime, and were acquitted for lack of direct evidence. You claimed that you did not even know the woman; that you had never met her. And your claim was apparently sustained. I have here a photograph showing you standing beside her. You are wearing a suit of clothes which corresponds exactly with the texture of a fragment of cloth found in the dead woman’s grasp. This suit was never discovered, and it could not be proved that it belonged—”
“Silence!”
Zontroff drew himself up in an access of fury, of bewilderment, of astounded rage. He turned toward Solomon.
“You species of rat!” he roared out, shaking his fist. “She said you had tricked us! She warned me that you might have made another copy of that photograph.”
“Yes, sir,” said Solomon calmly. Zontroff took a step forward. He was shivering with an intense burst of wild anger.
But the woman caught him by the arm. “Careful!” she cried. “Let me deal with this, Nick!—Careful!”
The big gorilla drew back.
She faced us. “You fools!” she exclaimed. “Do you expect to gain anything by this nonsense?”
“Yes, madame,” and Magnieux bowed slightly. “You were Mme. Fallon’s personal maid. I find that six months after the murder you married M. Zontroff. You also are under arrest, for complicity in the crime of which he now stands accused. The case having been reopened by the public prosecutor of Tours.”
Her thin lips curved cruelly.
“Very well,” she said. “Boris! Call in the two men who are waiting and tell them to shoot these three imbeciles on the spot.—Quickly!”
Boris went to the door, opened it, called sharply. There was no response. Solomon calmly turned to the door which was close at his left, closed it and turned the key in the lock.
A cry of fury burst from Zontroff. The woman darted forward, then halted, and her hand went to her bosom as she faced Solomon.
“Open that door, you immortal ass!” she panted. “Open it!”
A pistol leaped into her hand, and she thrust it at Solomon. I caught one swift glance from him, one glance which struck me sharply awake.
“Yes, miss,” he said mildly. “But shootin’ me won’t do you no good. Your friend M. du Croissant is under arrest, and Mont joy and your ‘ole gang ’as been raided. Inspector Santerre was appointed Prefect of Police only ’alf an ’our ago. This ’ere ‘ouse is surrounded by troops and every approach cut off—”
Zontroff turned back to the desk, snatched open a drawer, and reached into it.
The woman turned toward him, in her eyes a half questioning glance of alarmed amazement.
At that instant Solomon acted.
A FRIGHTFUL scream burst from the woman. Solomon, still holding the bulb of perfume, had shot the fluid squarely into her face and eyes.
I was already hurling myself at Zontroff, and I fell on him just as he caught out and jerked up a pistol from the drawer. This spoiled my attack. I knocked up the weapon as it exploded, then the big brute had grappled me and we pitched over to the floor together.
Luckily the pistol was knocked out of his hand in our fall.
A sharp report reached us, and another. Evidently the woman was firing blindly. I could pay no attention. Roaring like a bull, Zontroff had both arms about me in a wild, insensate grip, as though he would squeeze the very life out of me.—And he came close to doing just that. Unable to hit, unable to move, I felt as if he was bursting me asunder. Something cracked under that awful constriction, and the sharp pain told me that a rib had gone. He was actually hugging me to death.
The pain spurred me to an agonized convulsion. My fingers locked in his hair, jerked his head back, jerked the hair out by the roots. His grip loosened as we heaved and rolled over and over. We struck against the desk, full force, and the shock of it literally broke us apart. I rolled away like a cat and got to one knee.
There was a pounding, a lifting of voices, from the door. Outside sounded a shot, then several shots together. All my eyes were for Zontroff, however. He was on his feet; huge, awful to see; with the blood running down over his face. As he hurled himself on me I came to my feet and met the rush with a savage smash that knocked back his head and stopped him. Then I was into him, hammer and tongs, giving him no further chance to get a grip on me.
He put up a terrific fight. We were all over the room. But like most huge men, he had little skill with his fists. I got in a good clean crack to the solar plexus that doubled him up. Then a small whirlwind shot past me and fell on him. When Zontroff came erect, Magnieux had snapped handcuffs on his wrists. He bellowed like a bull and leaped at me, and I let him have it from the hip—a sweet one to the angle of the jaw. When he recovered from that, Magnieux had his ankles tied together, and that finished him.
Santerre burst into the room at that moment, while I panted to get back my breath. I saw him shaking hands in wild delight with Solomon; then he came to me, but I was unable to speak. Half a dozen scarlet-clad Spahis were going all over the place, dragging out Zontroff and the woman.
“Werry lucky as you was sharp on time,” said Solomon to Santerre. “No ’arm done, Mr. Herries?”
I gasped and shook my head. A broken rib did not count, just then.
Santerre laughed.
“Your program, my dear Solomon, was superbly timed—everything on the minute!” he exclaimed. “Of course I had no authorization to use that company of Spahis, but your note to General d’Aumale took care of that, and the end has justified the means.”
Inspector Magnieux stepped forward.
“Gentlemen,” he said precisely, “kindly recollect that Zontroff and this woman are my prisoners. In obeying your instructions and having that message sent regarding my supposed death, M. Solomon, I did so on your statement that the prisoners would be secured to me—”
“You can ‘ave ’em,” said Solomon, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t want ’em, inspector. But, Santerre! We’d better ’ave a look in the cellar. There’ll be some ’iding place down there, and we’ll most likely find what we want.—’Old on, Mr, Herries! Where are you going, sir?”
“To town,” I said, pausing at the door. “There’s someone I want to see.”
“Oh!” said Solomon, knowingly, and got out his clay pipe. “Oh! Werrv good, sir! But there ain’t nothing like making a good impression, as the old gent said when ’e took ’is third. So if I was you, sir, I’d wash the blood off me face afore I looked ’er up—”
So I did, but the rest of the story belongs to Alice Parker.
THE END
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The Terror of Algiers Page 12