The rooms had been shut up for several days, since the tenant had gone away indeed, and there was a stuffy smell about them, mingled with a strong smell of chemicals.
“I must air the place,” the concierge muttered, “or else M. Gurn won’t be pleased when he comes back. He always says he is too hot and can’t breathe in Paris.”
“So he does not live here regularly?” said the stranger, scanning the place curiously as he spoke.
“Oh, no, sir,” the concierge answered. “M. Guru is a kind of commercial traveller and is often away, sometimes for a month or six weeks together,” and the gossiping woman was beginning a long and incoherent story when the stranger interrupted her, pointing to a silver-framed photograph of a young woman he had noticed on the mantelpiece.
“Is that Mme. Gurn?”
“M. Curn is a bachelor,” Mme. Doulenques replied. “I can’t fancy him married, with his roaming kind of life.”
“Just a little friend of his, eh?” said the man in the soft hat, with a wink and a meaning smile.
“Oh, no,” said the concierge, shaking her head. “That photograph is not a bit like her.”
“So you know her, then?”
“I do and I don’t. That’s to say, when M. Gurn is in Paris, he often has visits from a lady in the afternoon: a very fashionable lady, I can tell you, not the sort that one often sees in this quarter. Why, the woman who comes is a society lady, I am sure: she always has her veil down and passes by my lodge ever so fast, and never has any conversation with me; free with her money, too: it’s very seldom she does not give me something when she comes.”
The stranger seemed to find the concierge’s communications very interesting, but they did not interrupt his mental inventory of the room.
“In other words, your tenant does not keep too sharp an eye on his money?” he suggested.
“No, indeed: the rent is always paid in advance, and sometimes M. Gurn even pays two terms in advance because he says he never can tell if his business won’t be keeping him away when the rent falls due.”
Just then a deep voice called up the staircase:
“Concierge: M. Gurn: have you any one of that name in the house?”
“Come up to the fifth floor,” the concierge called back to the man. “I am in his rooms now,” and she went back into the flat. “Here’s somebody else for M. Gurn,” she exclaimed.
“Does he have many visitors?” the stranger enquired.
“Hardly any, sir: that’s why I’m so surprised.”
Two men appeared; their blue blouses and metal-peaked caps proclaimed them to be porters. The concierge turned to the man in the soft hat.
“I suppose these are your men, come to fetch the trunks?”
The stranger made a slight grimace, seemed to hesitate and finally made up his mind to remain silent.
Rather surprised to see that the three men did not seem to be acquainted with each other, the concierge was about to ask what it meant, when one of the porters addressed her curtly:
“We’ve come from the South Steamship Company for four boxes from M. Gurn’s place. Are those the ones?” and taking no notice of the visitor in the room, the man pointed to two large trunks and two small boxes which were placed in a corner of the room.
“But aren’t you three all together?” enquired Mme. Doulenques, visibly uneasy.
The stranger still remained silent, but the first porter replied at once.
“No; we have nothing to do with the gentleman. Get on to it, mate! We’ve no time to waste!”
Anticipating their action, the concierge got instinctively between the porters and the luggage: so too did the man in the soft hat.
“Pardon,” said he politely but peremptorily. “Please take nothing away.”
One of the porters drew a crumpled and dirty memorandum book from his pocket and turned over the pages, wetting his thumb every time. He looked at it attentively and then spoke.
“There’s no mistake: this is where we were told to come,” and again he signed to his mate. “Let’s get on with it!”
The concierge was puzzled. She looked first at the mysterious stranger, who was as quiet and silent as ever, and then at the porters, who were beginning to be irritated by these incomprehensible complications.
Mme. Doulenques’ mistrust waxed greater, and she sincerely regretted being alone on the fifth floor with these strangers, for the other occupants of this floor had gone off to their daily work long ago. Suddenly she escaped from the room, and called shrilly down the stairs:
“Madame Aurore! Madame Aurore!”
The man in the soft hat rushed after her, seized her gently but firmly by the arm, and led her back into the room.
“I beg you, madame, make no noise: do not call out!” he said in a low tone. “Everything will be all right. I only ask you not to create a disturbance.”
But the concierge was thoroughly alarmed by the really odd behaviour of all these men, and again screamed at the top of her voice:
“Help! Police!”
The first porter was exasperated.
“It’s unfortunate to be taken for thieves,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Look here, Auguste, just run down to the corner of the street and bring back a gendarme. The gentleman can explain to the concierge in his presence, and then we shall be at liberty to get on with our job.”
Auguste hastened to obey, and several tense moments passed, during which not a single word was exchanged between the three people who were left together.
Then heavy steps were heard, and Auguste reappeared with a gendarme. The latter came swaggering into the room with a would-be majestic air, and solemnly and pompously enquired:
“Now then, what’s all this about?”
At sight of the officer every countenance cleared. The concierge ceased to tremble; the porter lost his air of suspicion. Both were beginning to explain to the representative of authority, when the man in the soft hat waved them aside, stepped up to the guardian of the peace and looking him straight in the eyes, said:
“Criminal Investigation Department! Inspector Juve!”
The gendarme, who was quite unprepared for this announcement, stepped back a pace and raised his eyes towards the man who addressed him: then suddenly raised his hand to his képi and came to attention.
“Beg pardon, Inspector, I didn’t recognise you! M. Juve! And you have been in this division a long time too!” He turned angrily to the foremost porter. “Step forward, please, and let’s have no nonsense!”
Juve, who had thus disclosed his identity as a detective, smiled, seeing that the gendarme assumed that the South Steamship Company’s porter was a thief.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Leave the man alone. He’s done no harm.”
“Then who am I to arrest?” the puzzled gendarme asked.
The concierge broke in to explain: she had been much impressed by the style and title of the stranger.
“If the gentleman had told me where he came from I would certainly never have allowed anyone to go for a gendarme.”
Inspector Juve smiled.
“If I had told you who I was just now, madame, when you were, quite naturally, so upset, you would not have believed me. You would have continued to call out. Now, I am particularly anxious to avoid any scandal or noise at the present moment. I rely on your discretion.” He turned to the two porters, who were dumb with amazement and could make nothing of the affair. “As for you, my good fellows, I must ask you to leave your other work and go back at once to your office in the rue d’Hauteville and tell your manager—what is his name?”
“M. Wooland,” one of the men replied.
“Good: tell M. Wooland that I want to see him here at the earliest possible moment; and tell him to bring with him all the papers he has that refer to M. Gurn. And not a word to anyone about all this, please, especially in this neighbourhood. Take my message to your manager, and that’s all.”
The porters had left hurriedly for the r
ue d’Hauteville and a quarter of an hour went by. The detective had requested the concierge to ask the Madame Aurore to whom she had previously appealed so loudly for help, to take her place temporarily in the lodge. Juve kept Mme. Doulenques upstairs with him partly to get information from her, and partly to prevent her from gossiping downstairs.
While he was opening drawers and ransacking furniture, and plunging his hand into presses and cupboards, Juve asked the concierge to describe this tenant of hers, M. Gurn, in whom he appeared to be so deeply interested.
“He is a rather fair man,” the concierge told him, “medium height, stout build, and clean shaven like an Englishman; there is nothing particular about him: he is like lots of other people.”
This very vague description was hardly satisfactory. The detective told the policeman to unscrew the lock on a locked trunk, and gave him a small screw-driver which he had found in the kitchen. Then he turned again to Mme. Doulenques who was standing stiffly against the wall, severely silent.
“You told me that M. Gurn had a lady friend. When used he to see her?”
“Pretty often, when he was in Paris; and always in the afternoon. Sometimes they were together till six or seven o’clock, and once or twice the lady did not come down before half-past seven.”
“Used they to leave the house together?”
“No, sir.”
“Did the lady ever stay the night here?”
“Never, sir.”
“Yes: evidently a married woman,” murmured the detective as if speaking to himself.
Mme. Doulenques made a vague gesture to show her ignorance on the point.
“I can’t tell you anything about that, sir.”
“Very well,” said the detective; “kindly pass me that coat behind you.”
The concierge obediently took down a coat from a hook and handed it to Juve who searched it quickly, looked it all over and then found a label sewn on the inside of the collar: it bore the one word Pretoria.
“Good!” said he, in an undertone; “I thought as much.”
Then he looked at the buttons; these were stamped on the under side with the name Smith.
The gendarme understood what the detective was about, and he too examined the clothes in the first trunk which he had just opened.
“There is nothing to show where these things came from, sir,” he remarked. “The name of the maker is not on them.”
“That’s all right,” said Juve. “Open the other trunk.”
While the gendarme was busy forcing this second lock Juve went for a moment into the kitchen and came back holding a rather heavy copper mallet with an iron handle, which he had found there. He was looking at this mallet with some curiosity, balancing and weighing it in his hands, when a sudden exclamation of fright from the gendarme drew his eyes to the trunk, the lid of which had just been thrown back. Juve did not lose all his professional impassivity, but even he leaped forward like a flash, swept the gendarme to one side, and dropped on his knees beside the open box. A horrid spectacle met his eyes. For the trunk contained a corpse!
The moment Mme. Doulenques caught sight of the ghastly thing, she fell back into a chair half fainting, and there she remained, unable to move, with her body hunched forward, and haggard eyes fixed upon the corpse, of which she caught occasional glimpses as the movements of Juve and the gendarme every now and then left the shocking thing within the trunk exposed to her view.
Yet there was nothing especially gruesome or repellent about the corpse. It was the body of a man of about fifty years of age, with a pronounced brick-red complexion, and a lofty brow, the height of which was increased by premature baldness. Long, fair moustaches drooped from the upper lip almost to the top of the chest. The unfortunate creature was doubled up in the trunk, with knees bent and head forced down by the weight of the lid. The body was dressed with a certain fastidiousness, and it was obviously that of a man of fashion and distinction; there was no wound to be seen. The calm, quiet face suggested that the victim had been taken by surprise while in the full vigour of life and killed suddenly, and had not been subjected to the anguish of a fight for life or to any slow agony.
Juve half turned to the concierge.
“When did you see M. Guru last? Exactly, please: it is important.”
Mme. Doulenques babbled something unintelligible and then, as the detective pressed her, made an effort to collect her scattered wits.
“Three weeks ago at least, sir: yes, three weeks exactly; no one has been here since, I will swear.”
Juve made a sign to the gendarme, who understood, and felt the body carefully.
“Quite stiff, and hard, sir,” he said; “yet there is no smell from it. Perhaps the cold——”
Juve shook his head.
“Even severe cold could not preserve a body in that condition for three weeks, and it’s not cold now, but there is this:” and he showed his subordinate a small yellowish stain just at the opening of the collar, close to the Adam’s apple, which, in spite of the comparative thinness of the body, was very much developed.
Juve took the corpse under the arm-pits and raised it gently, wishing to examine it closely, but anxious, also, not to alter its position. On the nape of the neck was a large stain of blood, like a black wen and as big as a five-shilling piece, just above the last vertebra of the spinal column.
“That’s the explanation,” the detective murmured, and carefully replacing the body he continued his investigation. With quick, clever hands he searched the coat pockets and found the watch in its proper place. Another pocket was full of money, chiefly small change, with a few louis. But Juve looked in vain for the pocket-book which the man had doubtless been in the habit of carrying about with him: the pocket-book probably containing some means of identification.
The inspector merely grunted, got up, began pacing the room, and questioned the concierge.
“Did M. Gurn have a motor-car?”
“No, sir,” she replied, looking surprised. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, for no particular reason,” said the inspector with affected indifference, but at the same time he was contemplating a large nickel pump that lay on a what-not, a syringe holding perhaps half a pint, like those that chauffeurs use. He looked at it steadfastly for several minutes. His next question was addressed to the gendarme who was still on his knees by the trunk.
“We have found one yellow stain on the neck; you will very likely find some more. Have a look at the wrists and the calves of the legs and the stomach. But do it carefully, so as not to disturb the body.” While the gendarme began to obey his chief’s order, carefully undoing the clothing on the corpse, Juve looked at the concierge again.
“Who did the work of this flat?”
“I did, sir.”
Juve pointed to the velvet curtain that screened the door between the little ante-room and the room in which they were.
“How did you come to leave that curtain unhooked at the top, without putting it to rights?”
Mme. Doulenques looked at it.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it like that,” she said apologetically; “the curtain could not have been unhooked when I did the room last without my noticing it. Anyhow, it hasn’t been like that long. I ought to say that as M. Gurn was seldom here I didn’t do the place out thoroughly very often.”
“When did you do it out last?”
“Quite a month ago.”
“That is to say M. Gurn went away a week after you last cleaned the place up?”
“Yes, sir.”
Juve changed the subject, and pointed to the corpse.
“Tell me, madame, did you know that person?”
The concierge fought down her nervousness and for the first time looked at the unfortunate victim with a steady gaze.
“I have never seen him before,” she said, with a little shudder.
“And so, when that gentleman came up here, you did not notice him?” said the inspector gently.
“No, I did
not notice him,” she declared, and then went on as if answering some question which occurred to her own mind. “And I wonder I didn’t, for people very seldom enquired for M. Gurn; of course when the lady was with him M. Gurn was not at home to anybody. This—this dead man must have come straight up himself.”
Juve nodded, and was about to continue his questioning when the bell rang.
“Open the door,” said Juve to the concierge, and he followed her to the entrance of the flat, partly fearing to find some intruder there, partly hoping to see some unexpected person whose arrival might throw a little light upon the situation.
At the opened door Juve saw a young man of about twenty-five, an obvious Englishman with clear eyes and close-cropped hair. With an accent that further made his British origin unmistakable, the visitor introduced himself:
“I am Mr. Wooland, manager of the Paris branch of the South Steamship Company. It seems that I am wanted at M. Gurn’s flat on the fifth floor of this house, by desire of the police.”
Juve came forward.
“I am much obliged to you for putting yourself to this inconvenience, sir: allow me to introduce myself: M. Juve, an Inspector from the Criminal Investigation Department. Please come in.”
Solemn and impassive, Mr. Wooland entered the room; a side glance suddenly showed him the open trunk and the dead body, but not a muscle of his face moved. Mr. Wooland came of a good stock, and had all that admirable self-possession which is the strength of the powerful Anglo-Saxon race. He looked at the inspector in somewhat haughty silence, waiting for him to begin.
“Will you kindly let me know, sir, the instructions your firm had with regard to the forwarding of the baggage which you sent for to this flat of M. Gurn’s this morning?”
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