Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  “A few days later I learned that Durin had been arrested for stealing a scarf pin of my brother’s. This little incident should have opened his eyes, but apparently it had no effect. I then decided to return to Italy to gather final and public proof of the identity of Durin and Mr. Flow. I was on the point of obtaining this, but at the last moment it slipped through my fingers. And I left hurriedly in order to be present at this trial....”

  “But you spoke of a proof,” the judge reminded him.

  “Yes. I have found enough proof for my own satisfaction. But I wished formal proof that this or any court would recognize, and that would convince my brother.”

  “A laudable ambition, Sir Philip,” said the judge. “But even admitting that Arthur J. Hooker is really Mr. Flow, it does not seem clear to the court how that fact establishes the confusion between Hooker and the valet, Durin.”

  Then, turning towards Sir Archibald:

  “Have you anything to say in this matter, Sir Archibald? You have heard what your brother maintains.”

  “Your Honor,” said the tall Scotsman, “I cannot help wondering if this obsession of my brother’s has not unbalanced his reason. While Durin was in prison, Mr. Flow was carrying on his criminal exploits. That should be sufficient proof, it seems to me, of the innocence of my valet; but there is still better. My brother will be interested to learn that while Durin was in prison, Mr. Arthur J. Hooker was at Deauville, where he stopped at the Royal Hotel, that Lady Skarlett saw him daily and that he dined at the table of the Duke of Wester!”

  These last words seemed to overwhelm Sir Philip. The newspapers, in fact, although full of Mr. Flow, had had no reason as yet for concerning themselves with the existence of Arthur Hooker. Sir Philip murmured as if in a daze:

  “It can’t be true...”

  I felt that the moment had come for me to rise:

  “I think, your Honor,” I said, “that we have reached the end of this strange digression. Like Durin himself, I can make neither head nor tail of this fantastic charge. And I am inclined to share Sir Archibald’s indignation.”

  The judge glanced about the room before speaking, and it seemed for a moment as if the case was about to be closed. But then he turned to the prosecutor’s substitute.

  “Has the state anything to say?”

  The substitute rose:

  “In my mind, your Honor,” he began, “there can be no thought of Durin being Mr. Flow. The suggestion seems merely amusing. But since the question of Mr. Flow and Mr. Hooker, who recommended Durin to his present employer, has been raised, it might be desirable to send for the inspector at Petit-Jean, who has been active on the Flow case recently. We might also summon Mr. Hooker, since he is in France and presumably would have no reason for hiding. When the witness sees Durin and Mr. Hooker side by side, he will be obliged to recognize his error. Moreover, Durin would be relieved of the terrible reputation that has been attached to his name by the testimony we have heard and that he certainly has not earned, if I can judge by appearances.”

  The allusion to Durin’s stupidity provoked another wave of smiles in the court.

  “Has the prisoner anything to say?” asked the Judge.

  “Do whatever you think best, your Honor,” said Durin, beginning to sob again. “I don’t know what to make of all this.”

  The case was adjourned for one week to allow time for a fuller investigation. Leaving the room, I felt as if an iron bar had been clamped upon my throat and was slowly cutting off my breath. Sir Archibald stopped me in the corridor.

  “Poor Durin!” he said. “This is a most distressing affair for him. But tell him that I do not attach the slightest importance to these absurd charges, and that I shall continue to protect his interests.”

  I spent the following week in torture. When I visited Durin, he laughed at my discomfiture.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked cheerfully. “You look as if there was something on your mind.”

  “How is this going to end?” I broke out. “A fuller investigation, my God! With all that that interfering brother of Sir Archibald’s has dug up...”

  “Don’t let yourself worry about that. In the first place he will have to fight Sir Archibald, who has never been so furious. For this whole maneuver of Sir Philip’s might compromise Lady Skarlett. Imagine what would happen if it came out that Sir Archibald had married a pupil and accomplice of Mr. Flow! And Sir Philip has no desire to dishonor the family. You saw how discreet he was in court. All he wants is to rid his brother of Mr. Flow. Then he would settle with Lady Skarlett as quietly as possible, and without scandal. So far as I am concerned, he is sure that I would not expose Helena, who is my best hold on Sir Archibald. But I would like to know how he discovered me. He must have realized that there was a secret understanding between Lady Skarlett and myself, which helped him to see Arthur Hooker under the mask of Durin. But since he doesn’t dare tell all he suspects, we can laugh over it.... Take my word for it, everything is going well.”

  “For you, perhaps, but how about me! The man they are looking for now is Hooker, who has mysteriously disappeared. Suppose that starting from Hooker they should end up with Albert Rose? There would be nothing left for me but suicide!”

  “Now you are romanticizing yourself! Life will go on just the same, and we shall find some way of working it out. Trust to me.”

  But such promises were not likely to reassure me. I was paying now for my spree at Deauville. Why hadn’t I spent my vacation in the modest hospitality of the energetic Clotilde and the gentle Nathalie? I grew so haggard that I no longer dared enter their presence, for fear of Clotilde’s questions and Nathalie’s disarming glance.

  Meanwhile, I heard that as Mr. Hooker had not been found, the state had summoned Lady Skarlett, who might be able to give some information concerning this elusive personage.

  I appeared in court, on the day of the trial, exhausted. The case had assumed gigantic proportions. The newspapers talked of it daily, and reporters hunted me out in hopes of getting some clue to the mystery. My fellow lawyers envied me, and told me I was lucky. Lucky!... My depressed manner and my lack of enthusiasm astonished them. I was forced to pretend that I had eaten bad oysters and was suffering from ptomaine poisoning.

  The court-room was packed and overflowing into the hall. I had to elbow my way to my place. Durin arrived between two guards, looking stunned by this publicity, and sheepish. The audience sparkled with fashionable women, and the sight of Durin evoked a fresh burst of laughter. One lady protested that it was an insult to offer them this oaf as their brilliant hero, Mr. Flow.

  The inspector from Petit-Jean was placed on the witness stand at once. He was, of course, familiar with Sir Philip’s testimony, which the judge summarized in a few words.

  “There is a great deal in Sir Philip’s testimony,” began the inspector, “with which I am in complete agreement. Since I have been on the trail of Mr. Flow, whose renewed activities I was the first to announce this summer, I have covered the same ground as Sir Archibald’s brother. But I started from the other end. Sir Philip began in the past and was led to Mr. Hooker. I began with the recent events and worked back as far as Milan, where I found myself confronted with the same Mr. Hooker. For myself, as for Sir Philip, there is no doubt that Arthur Hooker and Mr. Flow are one and the same person. But where I am forced to disagree with Sir Philip is in the matter of Durin. To claim that Mr. Flow is Durin is to maintain the impossible. Durin’s presence here is sufficient proof of that, and I hope, in the near future, to bring before you this man Hooker, who is the author of the burglaries I have been studying during these past weeks. At Milan Mr. Flow betrayed the confidence of Sir Archibald and Lady Skarlett outrageously, but that is not to be wondered at. He is a past master of that sort of bluff. We have been victimized too often by him to be surprised that he outwitted his hosts. He did it so successfully that two years later — that is to say, this summer — when he appeared at Deauville in the absence of Sir Archibald, Lady Skarlet
t welcomes him cordially. You will hear Lady Skarlett’s testimony shortly. It is only fitting that she should realize the dangers she has run in the company of this unscrupulous thief. Mr. Flow’s presence at Deauville was revealed to me, as the papers reported, by the unique way in which the safes at The Elms and the Royal Hotel were forced. Flow’s style is inimitable and we have tracked him through many burglaries; the ones at Deauville bore his signature. I also found his mark in the Rougemont Place job, and it is not unlikely that he had a hand in the burglary of Jacob’s house in Rouen. In all of these robberies the thief was accompanied by a woman, as was often the case with Flow. And now, your Honor, there is nothing left except to tell you how I was able to identify Arthur Hooker in Mr. Flow. Our search in Abraham Moritz’ apartment revealed an object which Mr. Flow dropped in his sudden flight, when he was hunting for the service stairway. Here is the object: it is a wrist watch bought in Rouen by a gentleman in the company of Lady Skarlett!”

  At these words I could not repress a sigh, which was almost a groan, and I dared not look at the little masterpiece of the watchmaker’s art that the inspector handed to the judge.

  “After getting this information, your Honor, I was not long in following the scent of Mr. Arthur J. Hooker, who was stopping at the Royal Hotel in Deauville and was constantly with Lady Skarlett. His purpose was apparently to get possession of her jewels, which were estimated at more than twenty million. The prospect was too tempting to abandon, after the first effort at Milan. He reappeared at Deauville to make a fresh attempt while Sir Archibald was away, and would undoubtedly have succeeded if Lady Skarlett’s Hindu servant had not kept the jewels in his belt. This Mr. Hooker, moreover, arrived at the Royal Hotel without baggage of any kind and apparently without means. He did not pay his bill, and during the short appearance he made at Dieppe, in the company of Lady Skarlett, he distinguished himself by the casual way in which he left the Palace Hotel without paying for his apartment, ordering the bill to be sent to Lady Skarlett, who thought it had already been paid and had gone downstairs to join him. Lady Skarlett can certainly no longer be ignorant of his strange behavior, and it may be that she had already taken his measure during their excursion together, for she returned to Deauville alone. Left to his own resources, Mr. Flow returned to Paris the same evening, met the accomplice I have already referred to, and at once made his unsuccessful attempt in Rougemont Place. The next day his trail was picked up in Le Havre. He escaped by diving into the harbor, and took advantage of the situation to enjoy a yachting trip. Next he appeared at Angoulême with the red car.... I have run across a trace of him in Brittany, and have reason to believe that he is now in Paris.

  “And now, your Honor, I wish to add one more word: at the time of the attempted burglary in Rougemont Place, we discovered that the thieves escaped through an open gate and entered the Théâtre des Nouveautés by the stage door. As they bought tickets when the performance was already half over, we were able to learn the numbers of the seats they occupied. Under one of these seats I found a man’s handkerchief, with a monogram on it which means nothing to us at present but may be useful before this investigation is finished. Of course, the handkerchief may have belonged to someone who had nothing to do with the matter in question.... In any case, here it is.”

  The inspector drew a handkerchief from his pocket and held it before the court.

  “What are the initials?” asked the judge.

  “A.R., your Honor.”

  “A.R.?... That certainly doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere, does it?”

  It was then that Durin rose, and amidst an explosion of laughter, while I made a supreme effort not to sink to the floor, announced:

  “A.R.!... Those are my lawyer’s initials, your Honor! This gentleman isn’t going to claim that my lawyer is a burglar, is he?”

  The court-room became almost hysterical with delight at this; Durin’s trial was having a greater success than the Follies. And I must have presented a ludicrous picture at that moment, for the women laughed joyously as the attention of the court was turned to me. Durin’s cynicism turned my blood cold. This was overdoing the audacity with which he played with courts, laws, inspectors, and even... his own defender. Luck was against me. I had gone to Deauville with only one handkerchief. At Rouen I had bought linen marked with the initials of Arthur J. Hooker; but of course the one handkerchief that belonged to Albert Rose had to be in my pocket that night in Rougemont Place, and I had to drop it under my seat! My throat was still dry when Lady Skarlett was called.

  I had not seen Helena since the afternoon at Lion-by-the-Sea, when she had passed along the beach without a sign of recognition. Nor had I had a word from her. I felt convinced that she had put me out of her life. Yet I caught the fragrance of her perfume before she stepped down the aisle to take her place on the witness stand, and my heart quickened at the memory of the scenes we had shared, and which that perfume evoked so vividly before my imagination.

  Her entry created a sensation. As always, her beauty was at once sinister and smiling, and a murmur of admiration followed her down the aisle. And, as always, she was divinely dressed, with a touch of originality that set her off from all mere beauties, enslaved by fashion. She carried her head high, without ostentation, and was apparently not embarrassed by the necessity of appearing and explaining herself in such novel surroundings — novel, at least, for Lady Skarlett.

  I could not tell whether she saw me, but I do know that during her testimony she did not glance once at the defense. She granted Durin a slight smile, which seemed both to encourage him and console him. The judge’s questions merely reviewed the previous testimony, with which Lady Skarlett agreed in all details.

  “Mr. Hooker abused our friendship,” she added, with that slight accent that was often taken for coquettishness. “He is an unscrupulous man. And yet he was charming at Milan. We knew nothing about him except that he was introduced to us at a reception at General Cazzati’s. He was very obliging and did many little services for us. My husband and I entertained him frequently, and we were all three on the best of terms. When I saw him again at Deauville, I was delighted and wrote at once to Sir Archibald. But this time he became a nuisance, and I could not get rid of him. I have no way of saying whether he was Mr. Flow or not, but he was certainly not an honest man. When he arrived, he had no baggage and no money. He told me a long story of his trunks that had gone astray, and I lent him some clothes of Sir Archibald’s. Then I went to Rouen with him to order others. He lived at Sir Archibald’s expense, and owed money right and left in the bars of Deauville. I endured him because of my husband’s friendship for him. But at Dieppe he began to overstep all bounds of friendship. And on our return in the car, he made proposals to me which I could not tolerate. I stopped the car and ordered him to get out. He refused, and I was forced to drive on. But in the next town I pretended that we needed gas and stopped before a service station. Mr. Hooker stepped out to call the man and I drove away, leaving him there. I have never seen him since....”

  “What have you to say about Durin, Lady Skarlett?”

  “Oh, like my husband, I have never had any complaint to make of him. He was always efficient in his work and devoted to Sir Archibald. I cannot understand his stupid theft of that scarf pin, except on the ground of an infatuation for the maid of one of my friends. His intelligence is not of a high grade, but he is loyal and I believe his repentance is sincere.”

  At this point Durin sobbed audibly, and she turned towards him:

  “It’s all right, Achille. We shall be glad to have you back with us.”

  “You do not think, Lady Skarlett, that Durin might be the notorious Mr. Flow?”

  Helena laughed as if she had been told that Durin was Santa Claus, and the court-room laughed with her.

  “Did you ever see this wrist watch before?” asked the judge.

  Lady Helena examined it carefully.

  “Yes, it is the one Mr. Hooker bought while I was with him in a jeweler’s shop
at Rouen.”

  “It was discovered in the apartment that was broken into in Rougemont Place.”

  Helena gazed at the judge with large, innocent eyes. “In that case, Your Honor,” she said, “Mr. Hooker has proved that Durin could not be Mr. Flow!” These words, spoken while glancing at Durin with a smile in which I was the only one to detect a secret joy, were like a flash of light in my mind. Now I understood all that had happened to me. And Durin, who watched me from the corner of his eye, saw that I had nothing more to learn. The whole meaning of my adventure was summed up in these few words that Lady Helena had let drop in a tone of amusement. Durin had needed an alibi, for he knew that Sir Philip was on his trail. And like a stupid fool, I had supplied him with his alibi at great risk to myself. He and Helena had pulled the strings: I had acted the rôle of the Mr. Flow they needed to enable Durin to withstand Sir Philip’s onslaught. And now that they had no more need of me, Durin did not hesitate to let me understand, by the barest wink of an eye, that the comedy was over.

  Oh, it had been a great show! Once more Mr. Flow had outdone himself. He had needed a burglar, and had taken his lawyer! It was the last thing that anyone would think of. I pictured to myself the good time they would have laughing at me when they were alone together once more. They were already rubbing it in on me.

  At that thought, my dismay was changed into a silent but fierce rage. Alas, I could only choke down my impotence....

  “You are not ill, are you, Mr. Rose?”

  These words of the judge brought me back to my senses and revealed the dangerous gulf into which any display of my true state of mind might plunge me. I attempted to say a few words that would bring me back to my legal personality, but did not succeed. The judge imagined that the heat of the crowded room had affected me, and closed the case without more delay.