But Mirande, when his turn came, only asked for one card instead of two, derailing the scheme.
The Marquis betrayed his surprise involuntarily. He raised his head sharply. “Only one card?”
“Yes, one card, please.”
“I beg your pardon. I thought I’d misheard.”
At the same time, Mirande kept watch on the aristocratic hands of his adversary, who, whether he liked it or not, had to give himself a club instead of the necessary heart. But he had more than one trick in his bag. As if by inadvertence, he dropped the card. It turned over.
“Excuse me—I’m so clumsy. Card seen, card burned, isn’t it?”
He knew how to break the rules of the game pertinently. At that very moment, in the secrecy of his thought, he was evoking the names of the arbiters who condemned that practice. Mirande took a malicious pleasure in confounding him.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but you must keep it. Schenck, Florence and Keller,9 who are the authority in the matter, as you know, clearly declare that the dealer must conserve the overturned card.
The Marquis blushed slightly. He had just thought about those American authors. But he collected himself and conceded the point. “I only want to put myself at your disposal.”
He kept his inconvenient club, but he had not given up yet. He would fall back on audacity. The flush had failed, but bluff remained. The other two folded. Mirande, who read his adversary’s intention, was not about to be taken in by that reckless ploy. Pledging almost all the money he had in order to match his opponent’s bet, he won the hand. The sweep was complete and the game ended.
Mirande stood up. It cost him not to unmask the noble Genoese, leaving him free to exploit dupes, but had he not himself—albeit in truly pressing circumstances and without a future—used an illicit weapon himself?
He did not have the leisure to linger over that debate of conscience. While he picked up his winnings—a small fortune—the Commandant caught him and congratulated him.
“My compliments. Damn it—I didn’t know you were that good! And one of those strokes of luck, into the bargain.”
Still stunned by his prodigious effort and his victory, he turned round and saw a curious crowd amassed behind him. He had, in fact, while concentrating all his attention on his adversary, perceived mute reflections, in which surprise and praise were mingled. The triumph of the debutant who had beaten those powerful players was an event among the regulars of the casino.
Delighted and glorious, Delacoste extolled his protégé.
“Look, here’s Monsieur Favery, the director of the Lumière, who admired your clairvoyance greatly.”
Mirande turned toward hm. What, Favery? Favery, whom he had tried in vain to approach in order to interest his powerful newspaper in the fate of Lacaze? He was a slender man, correct and polished, immaculately dressed, and who retained a juvenile appearance in the cut of his face and figure.
With all his power, Mirande strove to penetrate him. He discovered that Favery, at the moment of the introduction, ardently wished to surprise by his appearance of youth. He composed his features, tightening the line of his chin, giving his eyebrows an air of candor.
Mirande feigned surprise, and addressed the Commandant. “I would never have believed that Monsieur Favery, about whom people have been talking for such a long time, could still be such a young man.”
Favery distilled a secret joy, but he pretended not to have heard the praise. “Believe an old player, Monsieur. You deployed there qualities of finesse combined with an audacity of the highest order.”
A miraculous effect of the serum! The timid scientist heard his audacity praised! But he wanted to complete the conquest of the powerful director. Again he plunged into him. According to his custom, Favery was gauging the merits of his interlocutor, wondering how to make use of him some day. Then, by an association of ideas, he returned to the project that was haunting him, the mild but tenacious obsession that our greatest desire and our greatest affection pursue. It was a free newspaper, circulated in millions of copies, that would survive on advertising alone. Favery was hiding his plan jealously, ripening it, dreaming of only unveiling it at the moment of its execution.
Mirande replied to his compliment. “As for those qualities, Monsieur, you know them better than anyone, for you have often deployed them—and I’m certain that they will ensure the success of your next enterprise...”
Under Mirande’s gaze, Favery raised his head. He had only confided his project to one person in the world, a mistress. He suspected her. Then, in a sharp tone, both anxious and haughtily, he said: “What do you mean?”
Mirande put on an ingenuous expression. “Don’t you always have some affair in hand?”
Favery sketched a reassured smile, but he remained convinced that the young man had discovered his secret and held it at his discretion.
Mirande applauded himself. There was one man who certainly would no longer close his door when he came to knock on it. This singular struggle, with a new and invisible weapon, excited and intoxicated him. He looked forward to further battles, further conquests.
Just then, Delacoste, whose enthusiasm was still overflowing, appealed to another witness to the game, a man still young, rather short, with a clean-shaven face and luminous eyes. “What about you, Raucourt? Do you think the faculties of a good card-player would be useful in politics?”
Raucourt was one of those newly prominent députés in whom their colleagues are inclined to see a future leader. The rigor of his opinions, the purity of his life, and even a certain physical resemblance, had led to his being compared to Robespierre.
What? The Commandant also knew Raucourt? Miranda was astonished by that, but he reflected that his present situation of attaché to the cabinet must lead Delacoste to frequent journalists and parliamentarians. Raucourt might also serve to create a movement in favor of Lacaze. Turning toward him, he scrutinized him.
In order to respond to the officer’s question, Raucourt retreated into himself. He would be a poor judge, for he did not play. He confessed, however, that in the evening, in the silence of his study, he played interminable games of patience, as much to relax his mind as to discover the dispositions of luck in his favor. He replied, gravely: “I believe that there’s little correlation between the aptitudes of a card-player and a politician.”
But Mirande, who had perceived the député’s little confession, said: “You’re doubtless correct, Monsieur. However, there might perhaps be me analogy between the unexpectedness of a public career and that of a card game. Hazard and initiative are similarly mingled therein. That’s so true that great minds, at the summit of glory, retain in life a gambler’s superstition. Famous men are cited—artists, scientists, legislators—who don’t disdain to interrogate the cards, asking via indications of modest success for the disposition of fate in their regard.”
Raucourt made a detached gesture. “It’s possible.”
As he drew away, however, Mirande acquired the certainty that the député retained a kind of fearful rancor against his perspicacity, at the same time as a gratitude for having assimilated him to illustrious colleagues in success.”
The Commandant had drawn him into the baccarat room and suggested to him that he punt for a while: “While you’re on a lucky steak...”
Mirande perceived that Delacoste, more of a gambler than he wanted to appear, desired to profit from that lucky streak by associating their chances, but he had excellent reasons for resisting. Then lassitude overtook him.
Amid that feverish crowd, so many desires, so many calculations, so many cries of avidity, satisfied or disappointed, so many ludicrous fetishism, had registered tumultuously in his brain that fatigue and nausea were prevailing over his curiosity.
Already he was preparing words to take his leave of the Commandant when a tall and statuesque young woman, haughty and cheerful, advanced toward them. He recognized her, having seen her on stage: Mademoiselle Lambrine, a star actress. She extended her
hand to Delacoste. Mirande thought that this time, there was no connection with the Ministry.
“Well, Commandant,” she said, “You’re not playing this evening?”
“Not yet,” he replied. “It’s the fault of my young friend, who has just beaten Strezza, Martigue and Gomard magnificently, and who doesn’t want to continue his luck at bac.”
Mirande had bowed to the young woman. She scarcely interested him, but he was constrained to perceive her thought, and he understood that, offended by his modest dress, his subversive suit lost among the smoking jackets, that she did not want to be seen in his company.
More amused than insulted, he excused himself. “No, truly, it’s too late. I came between two trains, as a tourist, and I perceive that I’m not correctly dressed...”
Convinced that he had surprised her glance, she was confused and annoyed, but he was already moving away. He went through the rooms at a rapid pace, impelled by his haste to escape the din of avidity that filed his head, finally to be on the beach, in the darkness, far away from people, alone—entirely alone—in the silence.
II
From the depths of the lodge, the hoarse voice of the concierge indicated: “Monsieur Nitaud, third on the left.”
Confidently, Gabriel Mirande went along the corridor. His eyes, still impressed by the external light, could no longer distinguish anything in the old house in the Faubourg Montmartre. It was summer, and it could not be later that six o’clock, but the courtyard that illuminated the stairwell formed a veritable well itself, and the proprietor’s parsimony only authorized the gas-lighting at night. Mirande had to feel his way, guiding himself by means of the handrail. His foot bumped into the steps. On one of the landings, a doubt assailed him.
It’s not possible. I must have mistaken the floor.
An indicative plaque, however, glistened in the gloom. He struck a match and read: Nitaud Detective Agency.
He rang the bell, and was introduced into a small antechamber by a domestic who disappeared immediately. As his wait was prolonged, however, and as he could hear voices behind a door, he did not hesitate to open it, and he suddenly found himself in the policeman’s study.
It was a large, banal room, clad in mahogany and moleskin. The walls were decked with numerous pigeon-holes labeled in white on green. Nitaud was sitting at a desk that collected all the glare of an electric lamp. His indoor jacket, the skull-cap on his head, his pen-holder behind his ear and the pipe between his teeth gave him the debonair appearance of a worthy tradesman satisfied with his business.
On the other hand, he was surrounded by people of unusual appearance who modified their attitude abruptly on seeing the door open to admit a stranger. There was a debilitated worker in a laborer’s blouse; a priest, whose nose was plunged in a book of hours and who was muttering prayers; and finally, a kind of quakeress, with a shabby dressed and gloves with holes, who was hiding her face beneath the brim of her black hat.
Nitaud recognized Mirande and reassured his audience. “Have no fear, my children; it’s a client.” Then, dismissing them: “We’ll resume the report later.”
“All right, Boss,” replied three masculine voices, in unison. And Mirande understood that the curé’s robe, like that of the quakeress, and the workman’s smock, disguised three agents of the organization.
“You’re just in time—I was about to summon you,” said Nitaud, examining his visitor curiously.
Endowed with a particularly faithful memory, the policeman recalled a Mirande of modest appearance, indifferent to fashion, like many scientists. He found, on the contrary, an elegant gentleman, whose silk-lined cloak partly dissimulated an evening suit. He could not retain a: “Sapristi! How handsome you are!”
“Yes, I’m going to the theater, and I ought not to go home,” Mirande explained.
He sat down without being invited. Before Dorville, perhaps he would have waited until a seat was indicated to him, but money had inspired him with self-confidence. Furthermore, he had reflected on the necessity of giving an impression of fortune, or at least of ease, in order to ensure success with certain individuals, and he was constraining his natural reserve with that little comedy of ostentation.
He stretched his trousers, creased according to the fashion. Then taking a wad of banknotes from his side-pocket, he said: “Permit me first, Monsieur Nitaud, to complete my provision.” He detached a thousand francs from the packet and passed the bill over the table.
“We’ve just sold our property in Chatigny,” he explained, to reassure the policeman, whose astonishment he glimpsed. “I believe that we’ll have need of all this money to succeed in our research, and I’ve resolved to spend it. I beg you not to spare any effort from now on.”
With a delighted gesture, Nitaud approved the generous disposition. He slipped the bill into a drawer, replaced the key in his waistcoat, and waited to be questioned.
“What news is there?” asked Gabriel.
“Strictly speaking, Monsieur Mirande, not much,” the policeman admitted. “I have, in accordance with your instructions, recommenced the Court’s investigation. I’ve visited the houses of the Boulevard Suchet and the Avenue Raphael myself. I’ve interrogated the domestics of the Gagny house carefully. As for the journey that Lacaze accomplished by night in his airplane, I spent a week following it in an automobile, stopping at each village and asking questions left and right. I was hoping to unearth a peasant who had perceived your friend’s signal-light that night. All that work brought me nothing.”
“And the file?”
“The file, naturally, has been the principal object of my research. I’ve put my best sleuth on it, it must be said”—with a modest gesture he excused the wordplay10—“the one you just saw in a blouse. I’ve sent him to live among his companions at Billancourt and Issy-les-Moulineaux. He’s an active fellow, clear-headed, who soon found Lacaze’s eight workmen and questioned them individually. Well, he obtained from each of them, minute by minute, checking their alibi, the employment of their time on the night of the crime. There’s no point in continuing.”
Mirande, dejected, concluded: “In a word, you’ve got nothing?”
“Nothing…except, perhaps for this, although it doesn’t appear to me to be very interesting.” Nitaud extended his arm toward a pigeon-hole and opened one of the box-files. It was the dossier of his mission. He took out a fragment of glass, soiled with a long stain. “This,” he said,” is something overlooked by the examining magistrate, which I discovered in the dust of the basement of the Gagny house, near the door opened by the murderer. It’s a piece of the window he broke. The black stain is dried blood. It surely comes from the wound that was made in passing a hand through the breach. I didn’t think the item could tell us anything, but I brought it along anyway, to acquit my conscience,”
Gabriel took the fragment of glass and examined it under the lap. The murderer’s blood…what an irritating mystery! And what information, if the sanguine globule had presented a physiognomy unique to each individual, if the anthropological service had been capable of identifying an individual according to the appearance of his blood, as they could with the aid of his cranial measurements and fingerprints!
In truth, biology had already inaugurated that system. Already, it could distinguish human blood from animal blood, but science did not go beyond that modest investigation, and the “sanguine imprint” was completely unknown.11
Mirande gazed avidly at that little debris, palpated it, turned it over, and invoked it, as if to obtain a supreme confidence therefrom.
“But this glass is yellow,” he observed, suddenly.
“Indeed, the door had a window-pane of that color.”
“Yellow...yellow!” repeated the young scientist, with a hallucinated insistence and a triumphant tone. Oh, the fortunate, the beneficent association of ideas. The liberating hope was suddenly illuminated. “Yellow…can you imagine that word? Yellow fever. Can you imagine that I haven’t yet thought of it—me, a scientist, a
pupil of Brion?”
He had risen to his feet—and, still incomprehensible for Nitaud, he cried, in a increasing excitement: “But that fever, he had it! If it’s him who committed the murder, that fever is still there, dormant in the blood! If it’s him, it’s not possible that it won’t be found. Oh, Brion, Brion the genius!”
This time, confronted by his apparent incoherence, Nitaud became seriously anxious. No doubt about it, the client had bats in his belfry. Probably, the Lacaze affair, descending upon a brain already overburdened by work, had tipped it over the edge. Already, that unhealthy obstinacy in wanting to prove the innocence of the accused…this sudden metamorphosis in appearance, in dress...and all those thousand-franc bills that the citizen ruffled through with disdain, as if they were old newspaper clippings.
Oh, but no, beware! It wasn’t the first time that a madman has come to sit down in that same armchair and pursue, in forms at first reasonable, a story whose meaning suddenly capsized. Dangerous to treat, affairs obtained in those conditions. The Prefecture would be only too glad to get something on a turncoat!
“I don’t really see…,” he objected, prudently.
Mirande saw the other’s hand move toward his electric bell. He understood that the policeman was about to call for reinforcements. He calmed down suddenly.
“Have no fear, Monsieur Nitaud. I’m still in my right mind. But I understand your astonishment—because I’ve forgotten to cite an important fact in Lacaze’s life.”
And as Nitaud, half-reassured, cocked an ear curiously, he went on: “I’ve forgotten to tell you, in fact, that my friend, in the course of a recent aviation competition, contacted yellow fever...”
“Ah! I see! It’s the color of that glass that recalled that memory?”
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