CHAPTER XX
"I must confess," remarked Monsieur Lefevre, as he sat with Mr.Stapleton and Duvall over their after dinner cigars the followingevening, "that while the case as a whole appears simple enough to me,there are one or two points that I fail to understand."
"There are a great many that _I_ fail to understand," exclaimed thebanker, chewing reflectively on his cigar. "However, now that the boy issafe at home, it really makes very little difference."
"On the contrary, Mr. Stapleton," remarked Duvall, "it makes a greatdeal of difference. For instance, I understand that you have dischargedthe nurse, Mary Lanahan."
"Yes. You say that she is quite innocent of any part in the kidnappingof my boy; but the fact remains that I don't trust her. I am informedthat she was married to that fellow, Valentin, this afternoon."
Duvall smiled. "That was quite to be expected."
"At one time," said Mr. Stapleton, "you believed this fellow Valentin tohave been concerned in the plot."
"Yes. That is true. My early investigations of the matter showed me atonce that there was some understanding between these two, somethingwhich they were endeavoring to conceal. I did not at first understandthe motive which actuated them. I thought it was guilt. In reality, itwas love. Therefore I am not surprised to learn of their marriage." Hegazed critically at his cigar for a time, in silence.
"As matters have turned out, gentlemen," he resumed, after a fewmoments, "there is no cause for anything but congratulation on allhands. The child is recovered, the criminals are under arrest, themoney--the hundred thousand dollars you paid out, Mr. Stapleton--wasfound on the kidnapper's person and returned to you."
"Exactly. Nothing could be more satisfactory all around."
"And yet," went on the detective, "I have never before taken part in acase in which I have done so little, in which I have been so uniformlyunsuccessful."
Mr. Stapleton raised his hand. "My dear Duvall," he began, "but for you,we should have been nowhere."
"You are wrong, my friend. Had I kept out of the case altogether, yourson would have been returned to you just the same. It is true that themen who kidnapped him would not have been caught, and your money wouldnot have been returned to you; but the prime object which you sought,the recovery of your child, would have been realized in any event."
"That is true," remarked the Prefect; "but, from the standpoint of thepolice, it is the detection and capture of the criminal that is desired,not the buying of him off. By insisting on that, Mr. Stapleton, yourendered our work extremely difficult."
"So difficult, indeed," said Duvall, earnestly, "that but for theenergy, the courage, the wit of a woman, all our plans would havefailed. I refer to my wife. It is to her that all the credit in thisaffair is due."
"By all means!" said Mr. Stapleton. "I could not fail to realize, whenshe told her story at dinner tonight, how much Mrs. Stapleton andmyself owe her. I shall have something to say on the subject of ourdebt, as soon as the ladies rejoin us. But tell us, Mr. Duvall, a littlemore about the case, as you now understand it. I confess that I ambecoming more and more interested. What, for instance, was the mystery,if indeed there was any, connected with the box of gold-tippedcigarettes?"
Duvall smiled. "That, my dear sir, is in fact the crux, the startingpoint, of the whole affair." He settled back in his chair comfortably."Otherwise the case was simple enough. Certain scoundrels steal a child,hold it for ransom, and frighten the parents into paying over a largesum. Nothing unusual in that. A clever scheme or two for turning themoney over, and returning the child--simple, yet perfect enough to defyall attempts to foil them.
"The real mystery lay in the utter absence of any clues which wouldthrow light on the actual stealing of the child. In this respect thecase was unique. A trusted nurse swears that the child has disappearedin broad daylight, without the slightest knowledge of how it wasaccomplished. Here we have a case so simple, so devoid of incident ofany sort, that we are baffled at the very start by the impossibility ofthe thing. Yet the nurse is a woman of good reputation, honest, clearlytelling what she believes to be the truth.
"But a single clue existed upon which I could build the least semblanceof a case. I refer to the half-smoked cigarette with the gold tip, whichI discovered in the grass at the scene of the crime. Without thatapparently trivial clue, the criminals would in all probability neverhave been captured at all."
"But," exclaimed Mr. Stapleton, "I don't see how you make that out."
"Nor I," observed the Prefect.
"No. I suppose not. And yet, it is simple enough. That half-smokedcigarette and nothing else is the basic reason for the arrest of thethree men now in your hands."
Monsieur Lefevre smiled. "Be good enough," he said, "to explain."
"Very well, I will. But first, let me indicate to you my course ofreasoning. When I originally found the cigarette, I regarded it as ofvery small value, from the standpoint of evidence. It happened to belying in the grass at the point where the crime occurred; but duringthe week or more which had elapsed between the stealing of the boy andmy examination of the ground, a hundred people might have walked overthe spot. I took it, because I realized that it _might_ have a bearingon the case, and I have learned to discard no clue, however trifling itmay appear, until it has been proven valueless.
"Now to go back to the cigarette, I observed at once that it was ofAmerican make, yet of such small size as to have been either used by awoman, or by a man of rather effeminate taste.
"Now if the cigarette had been used by a woman, it meant one of twothings. Either it was used by Mary Lanahan herself, in which case itapparently proved nothing, or by some other woman who was there withher, and who might have had a hand in the kidnapping.
"On the other hand, if used by a man, it pointed clearly to thechauffeur, Valentin, for several reasons. He was a friend, a formerlover, of the nurse. He had been discharged by Mr. Stapleton fordishonesty. He was, I had reason to know, of rather a weak andeffeminate type. The cigarette was of American make, and he had butrecently come from America. These things pointed to Valentin. The factthat the nurse was in love with him would cause her to shield him. Idetermined to try the matter out at once.
"As soon as I returned to the house, therefore, I confronted her, andasked her if Valentin smoked gold-tipped cigarettes. I did this, notbecause I expected to get any reply of value, but because I wished toobserve her manner, her face, when I flung the question at her.
"She was greatly startled. She denied that Valentin smoked. Fifteenminutes later, she sent him a message to destroy the cigarettes.
"I at once concluded that they were working together, and were bothguilty, a conclusion in which, however much I was justified by theevidence, I was quite wrong.
"Then came the attempt on the part of someone--the man with the blackbeard, I am told--to steal the cigarettes from Valentin. I learned thatthe man was followed to Mr. Stapleton's house.
"This at once threw a new light upon the matter, although I will admit aconfusing one. Someone else, besides the nurse, desired the box ofcigarettes removed as evidence; someone, in fact, who belonged to, orhad friends in, the house. Who could this be? I could think of no one,outside of Mary Lanahan herself, but the chauffeur, Francois."
"Why did you first suspect him?" asked Mr. Stapleton.
"Because he was the only person, besides the nurse, who was present atthe time of the kidnapping. I did not abandon my suspicions of eitherthe nurse or Valentin. I fully believed that they knew a great deal moreabout the affair than they admitted. But I became convinced thatFrancois, too, was in the thing. He had testified that he was asleepwhen the affair occurred. I concluded at once that he was lying.
"At the first opportunity, therefore, I made a thorough search of hisroom, and found the box of cigarettes hidden in a clock on his mantel."
"Ha! I did not know that," exclaimed the Prefect. "What were they doingthere?"
"I concluded that the fellow with the black beard who stole them fro
mValentin, in order to prevent their use as evidence against him, turnedthem over to Francois for a definite purpose."
"And that purpose was?"
"Their use in subsequent crimes of a similar nature."
Mr. Stapleton and the Prefect gazed at Duvall in bewilderment. "Explainyourself, my friend," exclaimed the latter. "I confess I do notunderstand what you are talking about. Who, may I ask, really smoked thecigarette, the remains of which you found in the grass?"
"Mary Lanahan," said the detective, with a smile.
"The nurse! Name of a dog! Then I fail to see that the matter is of theslightest importance one way or the other."
"On the contrary, Monsieur, it is of the greatest importance. May I askwhether you are, by any chance, familiar with the properties of anEastern drug, made from hemp, and generally known as hashish?"
The Prefect sat up suddenly, and clapped his hands to his knees. "MonDieu!" he exclaimed. "Now I begin to understand."
"More than I do," said Mr. Stapleton.
"The cigarettes were drugged, that is all," went on Duvall. "The men whoplanned this thing went to work very carefully. They ascertained,through Francois, that Mary Lanahan was in the habit, no doubt on thesly, of using cigarettes. I discovered the fact, myself, before I leftNew York. They also learned that she smoked the same brand as Mrs.Stapleton herself used. No doubt she helped herself from Mrs.Stapleton's supply. They therefore secured, also through Francois, a boxof these cigarettes, and had them heavily drugged with hashish. The boxof drugged cigarettes was substituted, later on, for her own."
"But," exclaimed Mr. Stapleton, "how could Mary Lanahan swear that sheturned away but a moment--that no one came near her?"
"When Mary Lanahan testified that, she believed that she was telling thetruth. The hashish had simply destroyed her conception of the passage oftime."
"Is that its effect?"
"Yes. It produces a delightful languor, a stupor in which allrealization of the passage of time ceases. Sometimes, to those who usethe drug, it may apparently require hours to walk a few yards. To make amomentary movement of the hand may seem to take many minutes. On theother hand, in the stupor which the drug induces, hours may be spent inthe contemplation of a flower, a bit of scenery, the page of a book,without any realization on the part of the user that more than a fewseconds have elapsed. That is what happened to Mary Lanahan. She inhaleda few puffs of the cigarette, heavily charged with the drug; withoutknowing, of course, of its presence. She probably passed at once into astate of stupor which may have extended over fifteen minutes or more.She was not unconscious. She sat upon the grass, looking off toward thedistant sky, in a waking dream, not unlike a trance, in which all theworld about her--the world of sound, of movement--had simply ceased toexist. She was to all intents and purposes unconscious of what was goingon about her. The kidnapper, whom I strongly suspect to be Francois,merely strolled up behind her, picked up the boy, and walked off withhim."
The detective's listeners looked at him in astonishment. Presently Mr.Stapleton spoke. "Why do you think it was Francois?" he asked.
"Oh, for many reasons. Had he, on approaching, found the nurse notsufficiently under the influence of the drug, he could have pretended towish to speak to her, on some trivial matter. Again, the child would goaway with him of course without making an outcry, which he wouldprobably not have done, with a stranger. There are other reasons. He nodoubt took the boy to the road, and handed him to his confederates,passing in another car. The affair occurred, you will remember, in alittle frequented part of the Bois.
"The subsequent actions of Mary Lanahan are a trifle difficult toaccount for; but I suppose them to have been as follows: On slowlycoming out of her stupor, and realizing that the boy was gone, she wasterribly frightened. It had seemed to her but a moment since she turnedaway. She fears that the cigarette has made her drowsy--she has heardthat they sometimes contain opium. She thinks she may have dozed off;but is not willing to admit it. Especially does she not want heremployers to know that she uses cigarettes. She fears that suchknowledge would cost her her place. It is not until later that shebegins to suspect the cigarettes."
"When is that?" inquired Lefevre.
"Several days later, when she is supposed to have been poisoned. She waswith Valentin at the time; although, on account of Mr. Stapleton'sdislike for him, she feared to admit it. She smokes another of thecigarettes, while sitting on a bench with him, in the Champs Elysees.Suddenly she is taken ill--a frequent result of hashish, when taken inexcessive doses, or by one otherwise nervously upset. Valentin takes thebox, puts her into a cab, and goes to his room, where he leaves thecigarettes. No doubt, as she begins to feel ill, she discusses with himthe possibility of the cigarettes having been poisoned. It is for thatreason that she gives them to him.
"Her sudden message to Valentin to destroy them arose from a fear that Iwould discover the part which they had played in the boy's loss. Thiswould, she knew, not only cost her her place, but would make her, in away, responsible for the entire affair. She feared Mr. Stapleton'swrath, and therefore both she and Valentin remained dumb, so far as thecigarettes were concerned.
"They both, however, were all this time doing their best to find thechild. Her message to Valentin, that she was suspicious of Francois,telling Valentin to watch him, arose no doubt from a realization thatthe box of drugged cigarettes had been substituted for her own by thechauffeur.
"Valentin, acting on her advice, does watch Francois, as his presenceclinging to the rear of the latter's car the other night has proved. Hetells me, today, that Francois did not take his car to the garage thatnight at all. The men there who so testified lied, at his request,supposing it merely an excuse to cover a joy ride.
"Francois, not wishing that the drugged cigarettes should remain in thenurse's hands as evidence against him, evidently made an attempt torecover them, discovered that she had turned them over to Valentin, and,being watched himself, sent word of the matter to his confederate, thefellow who went about in the black beard. He must have been admitted toMr. Stapleton's house that night by Francois himself.
"I came to the conclusion, early in the course of my investigations,that the cigarette, the end of which I had found in the Bois, had beensmoked by Mary Lanahan, and I so told Mr. Stapleton."
The banker nodded. "Yes," he said; "but you did not then say anythingabout the hashish."
"I was not certain of it. I intended to have the fragment I had foundanalyzed. When I discovered the cigarettes in Francois' room, you willremember that I took one of them. I smoked that cigarette, before goingto bed that night. It produced exactly the sensations that Mary Lanahanmust have felt. I floated away in the land of dreams for over half anhour, and came to with no recollection whatever of the passage of time.It is a remarkable drug, but an extremely dangerous one.
"After that, the case became simple enough. I knew at once, beyond anyquestion, that Francois was one of the kidnappers. My plans last nightwould have worked perfectly, but for the chauffeur's accidentaldiscovery of me, hiding in the closet. Had that not happened, the boywould have been returned, according to program, and Francois I hadsafely in my hands."
"But we wouldn't have got the others," laughed the Prefect. "You mustthank your wife for that. Vernet has told me how the kidnappersoutwitted you at the Avenue Malakoff. The car from which the signalapparently was made contained a well known stockbroker, who knew nothingof the matter at all. He merely happened to be passing the AvenueMalakoff at the precise moment when the signal was given to Francois."
"You are mistaken, Monsieur," observed the detective, quietly. "Thesignal was undoubtedly made from that car; not by Monsieur Lemaitre, Iwill admit, but by his chauffeur. He has admitted to Vernet that astranger paid him fifty francs to do so, on the plea that it was somesignal to a woman. The man knows nothing of the affair, beyond that."
As he finished speaking, there was a ripple of laughter from the hall,and Mrs. Stapleton, Madame Lefevre, and Grace came in.
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p; "We have been debating a most important question," said Mrs. Stapleton,with an assumption of extreme gravity, "and we beg that you, MonsieurLefevre, will be so good as to decide it."
"What is this question so grave, Madame," inquired the Prefect, rising,with a smile. "I am all impatience to hear it."
"The question is this, Monsieur Lefevre: Which deserves the greatercredit for the recovery of my boy--Mr. Duvall, or his charming wife?"
The Prefect stepped forward, placed one hand affectionately uponDuvall's shoulder, and with the other grasped Grace by the arm.
"The question you propound, Madame," he said, looking from the detectiveto his wife with a smile, "is easily answered. The credit belongsequally to both. And that, my children, is as it should be. This affair,so happily terminated, has taught me one important lesson. It is this:The husband and the wife should never be in opposition to each other.They must work together always, not only in matters of this sort, but inall the affairs of life. I attempted a risky experiment in allowingthese two dear friends of mine to attack this case from opposite sides.But for some very excellent strokes of luck, it might have resulted mostunhappily for all concerned. Hereafter, should Monsieur Duvall and hiswife serve me, it must be together, or not at all." He turned to Grace."I feel that I owe you both a great debt, my child, for having onceagain so rudely interrupted the course of your honeymoon. Whatreparation can I make? Ask of me what you will."
"Anything?" inquired Grace, laughing.
"Anything." The Prefect bowed gallantly.
"Then I demand your promise, Monsieur, to visit us at our place inMaryland, before the end of the year."
"That," exclaimed the Prefect, as he bent and kissed her hand, "would bethe most delightful way of paying a debt that I could possiblyimagine."
The Blue Lights: A Detective Story Page 20
