by Mike Ashley
“Then M. Duroc noticed that the will, which she had clutched as a doomed religious might clutch a crucifix, was not in her hand or on the bed.
“‘Where is the will?’ he shouted at her, as though she were deaf too. ‘Where is the will?’
“Mme Thevenet’s eyes fixed on him. Then they moved down, and looked steadily at a trumpery toy – a rabbit, perhaps four inches high, made of pink velours or the like – which lay on the bed. Again she looked at M. Duroc, as though to emphasize this. Then her eyes rolled, this time with dreadful effort, toward a large barometer, shaped like a warming pan, which hung on the wall beside the door. Three times she did this before the bluish candle flame flickered and went out.”
And I, Armand de Lafayette, paused here in my recital to M. Perley.
Again I became aware that I was seated in a garish saloon, swilling brandy, amid loud talk that beat the air. There was a thumping noise from the theater above our heads, and faint strains of music.
“The will,” I said, “was not stolen. Not even the Jezebel could have melted through locked shutters or a guarded door. The will was not hidden, because no inch of the room remains unsearched. Yet the will is gone!”
I threw a glance across the table at M. Perley.
To me, I am sure, the brandy had given strength and steadied my nerves. With M. Perley I was not so sure. He was a little flushed. That slightly wild look, which I had observed before, had crept up especially into one eye, giving his whole face a somewhat lopsided appearance. Yet all his self-confidence had returned. He gave me a little crooked smile.
I struck the table.
“Do you honor me with your attention, M. Perley?”
“What song the Syrens sang,” he said to me, “or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.”
“They are beyond my conjecture!” I cried. “And so is this!”
M. Perley extended his hand, spread the fingers, and examined them as one who owns the universe.
“It is some little time,” he remarked, “since I have concerned myself with these trifles.” His eyes retreated into a dream. “Yet I have given some trifling aid, in the past, to the Prefect of the Parisian police.”
“You are a Frenchman! I knew it! And the police!” Seeing his lofty look, I added: “As an amateur, understood?”
“Understood!” Then his delicate hand – it would be unjust to call it clawlike – shot across the table and fastened on my arm. The strange eyes burned toward my face. “A little more detail!” he pleaded humbly. “A little more, I beg of you! This woman, for instance, you call the Jezebel?”
“It was she who met me at the house.”
“And then?”
I described for him my meeting with the Jezebel, with M. Duroc, and our entrance to the sickroom, where the shaggy police officer sat in the armchair and the saturnine doctor faced us from beside the bed.
“This woman,” I exclaimed, with the room vividly before my eyes as I described it, “seems to have conceived for me (forgive me) a kind of passion. No doubt it was due to some idle compliments I once paid her at Paris.
“As I have explained, the Jezebel is not unattractive, even if she would only (again forgive me) wash her hair. Nevertheless, when once more she brushed my side and whispered, ‘You don’t really hate me, do you?’ I felt little less than horror. It seemed to me that in some fashion I was responsible for the whole tragedy.
“While we stood beside the bed, M. Duroc the lawyer poured out the story I have recounted. There lay the poor paralytic, and confirmed it with her eyes. The toy rabbit, a detestable pink color, lay in its same position on the bed. Behind me, hung against the wall by the door, was the large barometer.
“Apparently for my benefit, Mme Thevenet again went through her dumb show with imploring eyes. She would look at the rabbit; next (as M. Duroc had not mentioned), she would roll her eyes all round her, for some desperate yet impenetrable reason, before fixing her gaze on the barometer.
“It meant . . . what?
“The lawyer spoke then. ‘More light!’ gulped out M. Duroc. ‘If you must have closed shutters and windows, then let us at least have more light!’
“The Jezebel glided out to fetch candles. During M. Duroc’s explanation he had several times mentioned my name. At first mention of it the shaggy police officer jumped and put away his clasp knife. He beckoned to the physician, Dr. Harding, who went over for a whispered conference.
“Whereupon the police officer sprang up.
“‘Mr. Lafayette!’ And he swung my hand pompously. ‘If I’d known it was you, Mr. Lafayette, I wouldn’t ’a’ sat there like a bump on a log.’
“‘You are an officer of police, sir,’ said I. ‘Can you think of no explanation?’
“He shook his head.
“‘These people are Frenchies, Mr. Lafayette, and you’re an American,’ he said, with somewhat conspicuous lack of logic. ‘If they’re telling the truth – ’
“‘Let us assume that!’
“‘I can’t tell you where the old lady’s will is,’ he stated positively. ‘But I can tell you where it ain’t. It ain’t hidden in this room!’
“‘But surely . . .!’ I began in despair.
“At this moment the Jezebel, her brown taffeta dress rustling, glided back into the room with a handful of candles and a tin box of the new-style lucifer matches. She lighted several candles, sticking them on any surface in their own grease.
“There were one or two fine pieces of furniture; but the mottled-marble tops were chipped and stained, the gilt sides cracked. There were a few mirrors, creating mimic spectral life. I saw a little more clearly the faded green paper of the walls, and what I perceived to be the partly open door of a cupboard. The floor was of bare boards.
“All this while I was conscious of two pairs of eyes: the imploring gaze of Mme Thevenet, and the amorous gaze of the Jezebel. One or the other I could have endured, but both together seemed to suffocate me.
“‘Mr. Duroc here,’ said the shaggy police officer, clapping the distressed advocate on the shoulder, ‘sent a messenger in a cab at half-past five this morning. And what time did we get here? I ask you and I tell you! Six o’clock!’
“Then he shook his finger at me, in a kind of pride and fury of efficiency.
“‘Why, Mr. Lafayette, there’s been fourteen men at this room from six this morning until just before you got here!’
“‘To search for Mme Thevenet’s will, you mean?’
“The shaggy man nodded portentously, and folded his arms.
“‘Floor’s solid.’ He stamped on the bare boards. ‘Walls and ceiling? Nary a inch missed. We reckon we’re remarkable smart; and we are.’
“‘But Mme Thevenet,’ I persisted, ‘was not a complete invalid until this morning. She could move about. If she became afraid of – the name of the Jezebel choked me – ‘if she became afraid, and did hide the will . . .’
“‘Where’d she hide it? Tell me!’
“‘In the furniture, then?’
“‘Cabinetmakers in, Mr. Lafayette. No secret compartments.’
“‘In one of the mirrors?’
“‘Took the backs of ’em off. No will hid there.’
“‘Up the chimney!’ I cried.
“‘Sent a chimney-sweep up there,’ replied my companion in a ruminating way. Each time I guessed, he would leer at me in friendly and complacent challenge. ‘Ye-es, I reckon we’re pretty smart. But we didn’t find no will.’
“The pink rabbit also seemed to leer from the bed. I saw madame’s eyes. Once again, as a desperate mind will fasten on trifles, I observed the strings of the nightcap beneath her scrawny chin. But I looked again at the toy rabbit.
“‘Has it occurred to you,’ I said triumphantly, ‘to examine the bed and bedstead of Mme Thevenet herself?’
“My shaggy friend went to her bedside.
‘“Poor old woman,’ he said. He spo
ke as though she were already a corpse. Then he turned round. ‘We lifted her out, just as gentle as a newborn babe (didn’t we, ma’am?). No hollow bedposts! Nothing in the canopy! Nothing in the frame or the feather beds or the curtains or the bedclothes!’
“Suddenly the shaggy police officer became angry, as though he wished to be rid of the whole matter.
“‘And it ain’t in the toy rabbit,’ he said, ‘because you can see we slit it up, if you look close. And it ain’t in that barometer there. It just – ain’t here.’
“There was a silence as heavy as the dusty, hot air of this room.
“‘It is here,’ murmured M. Duroc in his gruff voice. ‘It must be here!’
“The Jezebel stood there meekly, with downcast eyes.
“And I, in my turn, confess that I lost my head. I stalked over to the barometer, and tapped it. Its needle, which already indicated, ‘Rain; cold,’ moved still further toward that point.
“I was not insane enough to hit it with my fist. But I crawled on the floor, in search of a secret hiding place. I felt along the wall. The police officer – who kept repeating that nobody must touch anything and he would take no responsibility until he went off duty at something o’clock – the police officer I ignored.
“What at length gave me pause was the cupboard, already thoroughly searched. In the cupboard hung a few withered dresses and gowns, as though they had shriveled with Mme Thevenet’s body. But on the shelf of the cupboard . . .
“On the shelf stood a great number of perfume bottles: even today, I fear, many of our countrymen think perfume a substitute for water and soap; and the state of madame’s hands would have confirmed this. But, on the shelf, were a few dusty novels. There was a crumpled and begrimed copy of yesterday’s New York Sun. This newspaper did not contain a will; but it did contain a black beetle, which ran out across my hand.
“In a disgust past describing, I flung down the beetle and stamped on it. I closed the cupboard door, acknowledging defeat. Mme Thevenet’s will was gone. And at the same second, in that dim green room – still badly lighted, with only a few more candles – two voices cried out.
“One was my own voice:
“‘In God’s name, where is it?’
“The other was the deep voice of M. Duroc:
“‘Look at that woman! She knows!’
“And he meant the Jezebel.
“M. Duroc, with his beard fans atremble, was pointing to a mirror; a little blurred, as these mirrors were. Our Jezebel had been looking into the mirror, her back turned to us. Now she dodged, as at a stone thrown.
“With good poise our Jezebel writhed this movement into a curtsy, turning to face us. But not before I also had seen that smile – like a razor cut before the blood comes – as well as full knowledge, mocking knowledge, shining out of wide-open eyes in the mirror.
‘“You spoke to me, M. Duroc?’ She murmured the reply, also in French.
“‘Listen to me!’ the lawyer said formally. ‘This will is not missing. It is in this room. You were not here last night. Something has made you guess. You know where it is.’
“‘Are you unable to find it?’ asked the Jezebel in surprise.
“‘Stand back, young man!’ M. Duroc said to me. ‘I ask you something, mademoiselle, in the name of justice.’
“‘Ask!’ said the Jezebel.
“‘If Claudine Thevenet inherits the money to which she is entitled, you will be well paid; yes, overpaid! You know Claudine. You know that!’
“‘I know it.’
“‘But if the new will be not found,’ said M. Duroc, again waving me back, ‘then you inherit everything. And Claudine will die. For it will be assumed – ’
“‘Yes!’ said the Jezebel, with one hand pressed against her breast. ‘You yourself, M. Duroc, testify that all night a candle was burning at madame’s bedside. Well! The poor woman, whom I loved and cherished, repented of her ingratitude toward me. She burned this new will at the candle flame; she crushed its ashes to powder and blew them away!’
“‘Is that true?’ cried M. Duroc.
“‘They will assume it,’ smiled the Jezebel, ‘as you say.’ She looked at me. ‘And for you, M. Armand!’
“She glided closer. I can only say that I saw her eyes uncovered; or, if you wish to put it so, her soul and flesh together.
“‘I would give you everything on earth,’ she said. ‘I will not give you the doll face in Paris.’
“‘Listen to me!’ I said to her, so agitated that I seized her shoulders. ‘You are out of your senses! You cannot give Claudine to me! She will marry another man!’
“‘And do you think that matters to me,’ asked the Jezebel, with her green eyes full on mine, ‘as long as you still love her?’
“There was a small crash as someone dropped a knife on the floor.
“We three, I think, had completely forgotten that we were not alone. There were two spectators, although they did not comprehend our speech.
“The saturnine Dr. Harding now occupied the green armchair. His long thin legs, in tight black trousers with strap under the boot instep, were crossed and looked spidery; his high beaver hat glimmered on his head. The police officer, who was picking his teeth with a knife when I first saw him, had now dropped the knife when he tried to trim his nails.
“But both men sensed the atmosphere. Both were alert, feeling out with the tentacles of their nerves. The police officer shouted at me.
“‘What’s this gabble?’ he said. ‘What’s a-gitting into your head?’
“Grotesquely, it was that word ‘head’ which gave me my inspiration.
“‘The nightcap!’ I exclaimed in English.
“‘What nightcap?’
“For the nightcap of Mme Thevenet had a peak; it was large; it was tightly tied under the chin; it might well conceal a flat-pressed document which – but you understand. The police officer, dull-witted as he appeared, grasped the meaning in a flash. And how I wished I had never spoken! For the fellow meant well, but he was not gentle.
“As I raced round the curtained sides of the bed, the police officer was holding a candle in one hand and tearing off madame’s nightcap with the other. He found no will there, no document at all; only straggly wisps of hair on a skull grown old before its time.
“Mme Thevenet had been a great lady, once. It must have been the last humiliation. Two tears overflowed her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She lay propped up there in a nearly sitting position; but something seemed to wrench inside her.
“And she closed her eyes forever. And the Jezebel laughed.
“That is the end of my story. That is why I rushed out of the house like a madman. The will has vanished as though by magic; or is it still there by magic? In any case, you find me at this table: grubby and disheveled and much ashamed.”
For a little time after I had finished my narrative to M. Perley in the saloon it seemed to me that the bar-counter was a trifle quieter. But a faint stamping continued from the theater above our heads. Then all was hushed, until a chorus rose to a tinkle of many banjos.
Oh, I come from Alabama
With my banjo on my knee;
I depart for Louisiana . . .
Enough! The song soon died away, and M. Thaddeus Perley did not even hear it.
M. Perley sat looking downward into an empty glass, so that I could not see his face.
“Sir,” he remarked almost bitterly, “you are a man of good heart. I am glad to be of service in a problem so trifling as this.”
“Trifling!”
His voice was a little husky, but not slurred. His hand slowly turned the glass round and round.
“Will you permit two questions?” asked M. Perley.
“Two questions? Ten thousand!”
“More than two will be unnecessary.” Still M. Perley did not look up. “This toy rabbit, of which so much was made: I would know its exact position on the bed?”
“It was almost at the foot of the bed, and about the mid
dle in a crossways direction.”
“Ah, so I had imagined. Were the three sheets of parchment, forming the will, written upon two sides or upon only one?”
“I had not told you, M. Perley. But M. Duroc said: upon one side only.”
M. Perley raised his head.
His face was now flushed and distorted with drink, his eye grown wild. In his cups he was as proud as Satan, and as disdainful of others’ intelligence; yet he spoke with dignity, and with careful clearness.
“It is ironic, M. de Lafayette, that I should tell you how to lay your hand on the missing will and the elusive money; since, upon my word, I have never been able to perform a like service for myself.” And he smiled, as at some secret joke. “Perhaps,” he added, “it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault.”
I could only look at him in bewilderment.
“Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain! A little too self-evident!”
“You mock me, sir! I will not . . .”
“Take me as I am,” said M. Perley, whacking the foot of the glass on the table, “or leave me. Besides,” here his wandering eye encountered a list of steam sailings pasted against the wall, “I – I leave tomorrow by the Parnassus for England, and then for France.”
“I meant no offence, M. Perley! If you have knowledge, speak!”
“Mme Thevenet,” he said, carefully pouring himself some more brandy, “hid the will in the middle of the night. Does it puzzle you that she took such precautions to hide the will? But the element of the outré must always betray itself. The Jezebel must not find that will! Yet Mme Thevenet trusted nobody – not even the worthy physician who attended her. If madame were to die of a stroke, the police would be there and must soon, she was sure, discover her simple device. Even if she were paralyzed, it would ensure the presence of other persons in the room to act as unwitting guards.
“Your cardinal error,” M. Perley continued dispassionately, “was one of ratiocination. You tell me that Mme Thevenet, to give you a hint, looked fixedly at some point near the foot of the bed. Why do you assume that she was looking at the toy rabbit?”