She paused, and seemed to address Monsieur Jonquelle directly.
“You will be concerned, Monsieur, about the mystery of this fortune. It was no dream, and depended upon no uncertain hazard of chance. Monsieur Dillard is an artist—an artist with a genius for turning art to a practical use. There have been greater artists than Monsieur Dillard in production, but not in methods by which art can be made to serve a practical purpose; that is to say, can be made to produce a fortune. It is the life-work of Monsieur Dillard not to produce art, but to bring the artistic skill of the masters of art to his practical purposes. And, in this department, he has no superior in any country. The house in the Faubourg St. Germain was in fact a storeroom. It was, at the time of its destruction by fire, literally packed with masterpieces—beautiful works of art of an incredible value.”
She did not move the position of her body in the chair. But she again vaguely touched her lips with the handkerchief in her fingers, a bit of filmy lace.
“Monsieur,” she said, “there have been in the world three men who are supreme in what is perhaps the highest of all artistic production. I shall name them to you: Monsieur Whistler, the American; Monsieur Helleu of Paris, and Wagenheim of Munich.”
She moved a trifle in her chair. Then she went on.
“The misfortune of producing a masterpiece in oil or in water-color is that one copy only of this masterpiece exists, and if by any misfortune it is destroyed, every adequate evidence of its beauty has disappeared forever. This is the unfortunate feature attached to the work of all the great masters. But it is a misfortune that does not attend the etchings of Monsieur Whistler, Monsieur Helleu, and Herr Wagenheim. The beautiful faces of the lovely Americans preserved by the etchings of Monsieur Helleu can be reproduced in any number. That beauty does not depend upon the jeopardy of a single picture.”
Her voice seemed to advance, but not with the stimulus of any emotion.
“It is not commonly known,” she said, “that an extreme skill is required to obtain in the prints all the beauties of these etchings. The prints are commonly made by persons having only the usual workman’s skill. But it was always realized by the masters of this art that the extreme and delicate beauties of their etchings could only be produced by an adequate skill, by a skill almost equal to their own, in the printing of the picture. This skill constitutes the peculiar genius of Monsieur Dillard—a skill which he has striven to perfect, and which he has finally brought to the highest excellence.
“He labored in the house in the Faubourg St. Germain for a long time and with an incredible patience, until he became the superior of any man living, and the house, as I have said, was literally packed with the most beautiful and the most valuable reproductions of this character in the world. This accumulated treasure represented the incredible fortune which was before Monsieur Dillard and myself.
“It was on the night that he had gone to Bordeaux in order to make some arrangement for the removal of the treasure that the unfortunate fire occurred that wiped out our fortune in an hour, leaving Monsieur penniless and myself with but the ruin of another illusion. And it happened, Monsieur, in the simplest fashion.”
There was absolute silence on the terrace before the villa. The vaguely blue sea seemed to underlie a world of amethyst. Heavy odors were in the air. A little beyond the terrace the leaves of a flowering vine moved where the footmen of the Princess Kitzenzof searched as noiselessly as ghosts for the lost parrot. The shadowy figures of the two footmen were outlined to the woman in the chair, and, perhaps, to Monsieur Jonquelle, but they were not visible to the American.
He sat like a tense figure in some organic medium, grim, rigid; always in that immobility which seemed to await the next word before it flashed into violent life; as though Madame’s words were the delicate implement of a vivisectionist moving about a nerve which it never touched, but which it constantly menaced.
“It was the simplest accident,” the woman repeated in her placid voice. “The original etchings of an immortal like one of the three which I have named are priceless—they cannot be replaced.
“Out of the fear that the house might be entered, after the reproductions had been made, these originals were placed under some rubbish in the basement of the house. This basement had not been entered for a long time, and when these originals were concealed there, care was taken not to disturb the appearance which this room presented of not having been opened for an incredible age.
“It was low, with an earth floor. The ceiling was of wooden beams dried out and beginning to decay and as inflammable as tinder. The whole of this ceiling was hung with cobwebs, laced over them, hanging like veils in shreds.
“On the night of the disaster, before leaving the house, I went into this basement to make sure that the originals stored there remained as we had placed them. It was late, and I took a candle. This was a fatal indiscretion. When I arose from an examination of the place where the etchings were concealed, the flame of the candle came in contact with the hanging spider-webs, and immediately the whole ceiling flashed into flame. In an instant it seemed to me the entire ceiling of the room was on fire. I had barely time to escape before the room was a furnace.
“In terror, I let myself out of the house. As the basement of this house was without windows, the fire was not discovered until I had gotten entirely out of the neighborhood of the Faubourg St. Germain.
“I was so overcome, so numbed by this incredible disaster that I did not stop to consider any result. I wished to escape from Paris—to conceal myself somewhere. I thought of this villa, but I did not dare to take the train from the Gare de Lyon. I traveled in a motor, winding southward from France, not directly, in order to confuse any one who might endeavor to follow.”
Again she touched her mouth with the lace handkerchief. There was a faint red stain on it. She looked at the stain, but without emotion, and presently added:
“But I did not succeed. Monsieur Dillard and Monsieur Jonquelle have been able to trail me here with an equal facility, it seems, and within almost the same period of time. I cannot have managed my travel with discretion.”
She stopped abruptly. For a moment there was silence. The two men beside her did not move, but their aspect changed. The American seemed to relax; his tense energy to ebb. The menace in him changed to an aspect of disaster; on the contrary, there came into the posture of Monsieur Jonquelle a certain tenseness. He spoke, addressing the American.
“Monsieur,” he said, “is it true that the basement room of this house was thus hung with cobwebs?”
The man replied as though his jaws were stiff.
“Yes,” he said, “the whole rotten ceiling was hung with them. I always went in with an electric flash—a candle—good God! What an accident!”
Monsieur Jonquelle arose.
“Monsieur,” he said, “this was no accident. I will show you.”
The villa had long been closed. Insects had had their will with it. He went over to a shutter, unhooked it, swung it a little open, removed an immense cobweb, and came back to the border of the terrace.
The American, amazed and in a profound interest, moved to where he stood on the border of the terrace before the woman in the chair. The woman alone seemed beyond any concern. She neither moved nor spoke. She smiled vaguely, maintaining her posture of repose. The American could not conceal his profound interest.
“Not an accident!” he said. “What do you mean?”
Monsieur Jonquelle held the web up in his fingers, struck a match, and touched the web with the flame. There was no flash. The filaments of the web shriveled a little under the heat.
“I mean,” said Monsieur Jonquelle, “that a spider-web is not inflammable, and therefore the basement of this house could not have taken fire from the flame of a candle.”
After that, two events seemed to happen as though they were timed. The woman laughed, and the infuriated American lunged toward her; but Monsieur Jonquelle’s foot caught his ankle with a swift outward turn, and the man plun
ged headlong on the terrace. He got a heavy fall, for all the vigor of the infuriated creature was in action.
What followed seemed to attend with an equal swiftness. The two footmen of the Princess Kitzenzof were over the prostrate figure. Instantly his hands and feet were secured; a gag was in his mouth, and they had removed him.
It was all like a flawless scene in a drama, rehearsed to a perfection of detail. In thirty seconds it was ended.
“Monsieur,” said the woman in the chair, “you are very clever, and your agents are perfect.”
She did not move during the whole violence of the scene, and her voice was now in no whit changed. It was the same detached, unemotional voice. She removed her hands from the arms of the chair and extended them, the slender wrists together.
“Do you wish me, also, to accept the gage d’amour of the Service de la Sûreté?”
Monsieur Jonquelle did not at once reply.
He went back to his chair. He lighted a cigarette, and he remained for some moments like a man at ease. Then he spoke.
“Tell me, Madame,” he said, “why did you destroy this house in the Faubourg St. Germain?”
The woman replaced her hands on the arms of the chair.
“Monsieur,” she said, “at the end of life, in the face of a death that is inevitable, I have suddenly come to realize a thing that has been an inscrutable mystery to me.”
She extended her hand, on which was a plain, narrow, worn, gold band.
“This bracelet,” she said, “worth, perhaps, a dozen francs, was given me by Paul Verlain, a boy who loved me. He was killed at the Marne.”
She moved her hand, taking up an immense necklace of pearls, matched and priceless, that hung almost to her knees.
“This necklace,” she said, “was given me by Count de Lamare. He was killed in the great allied advance on the Somme.”
She extended her hand to include the place about her.
“This villa,” she said, “was given me by the Marquis de Nord. He died at Verdun.”
She paused.
“Monsieur,” she said, “I, a child of Montmartre, an apache, called ‘Casque d’Or’ from the effect of my yellow hair, which I had been taught to put up as though it were the headdress of Minerva; I, who had faith in nothing, realized that these men—Paul Verlain, who loved me, and who also loved life; Count de Lamare, who loved me, and who also loved pleasure; the Marquis de Nord, who loved me, and who also loved power—these men loved something other than me, or life, or pleasure, or power; loved it infinitely more; loved it beyond any measure of comparison, for they left these things and went eagerly to death for it.
“I thought about it, Monsieur. It obsessed me.”
She suddenly rose as with a single gesture, as though she had been lifted to her feet by invisible hands.
“Then suddenly, Monsieur, with a flash of vision, on that night when I was alone in the house in the Faubourg St. Germain, I understood this thing—I saw that the work in which Monsieur Dillard was engaged—that the prints with which the house was literally packed—would help to destroy the very thing which these men, Paul Verlain, Count de Lamare, and the Marquis de Nord, had given their lives to save.”
She spoke with a sudden, eager vigor.
“It would help to destroy France—and, therefore, I took a candle in my hand and burned it. Do you know what the valuable prints were with which this house in the Faubourg St. Germain was crowded on that night?”
“I do,” replied Monsieur Jonquelle. “Or I should not have taken these elaborate precautions to secure the American, Dillard.
“The house in the Faubourg St. Germain was packed with conterfeit notes of all the high-denomination paper currency of the French Republic, printed, by this man, from plates etched by the German engraver, Wagenheim of Munich.”
VIII.—The Triangular Hypothesis
The man’s loose body seemed to have been packed into his clothing as though under a pressure. There was the vague note of victory in his voice.
“Monsieur,” he said, “no dead Frenchman has ever been valued to us at less than fifty thousand francs. He may have been a worthless vendor of roast chestnuts before the Madeleine, but if he died in Stamboul, he was straightway worth fifty thousand francs. You will observe, Monsieur, that your government has already fixed the price for murder.”
The Prefect of Police looked across the long, empty room at the closed door.
“But was this dead man a citizen of the Turkish Empire? We seem to have a memory of him.”
The Oriental smiled.
“Citizens,” he said, “are of two classes—your Foreign Office laid it down—the citizen which is born, and the citizen which is acquired. Each are valued to us at fifty thousand francs, as your schedule in the indemnities to the Sublime Porte so clearly set it out. Dernburg Pasha was acquired, Monsieur. But he is dead! And the indemnity for him, as you have so admirably established it, is not subject to a discount.… You came from the Foreign Office, Monsieur?”
The Prefect of Police bowed. He put his hand into the pocket of his coat as with a casual gesture, his fingers closing over an article that lay concealed there.
The Envoy went on:
“I found the Minister Dellaux of an unfailing courtesy; if a subject of our empire has been murdered in Paris, an adequate indemnity would be paid.”
The scene at the Foreign Office, when he had been called in before the Minister, came up for an instant to Monsieur Jonquelle. The tall, elegant old man had been profoundly annoyed. This murder came at a vexatious moment, at precisely the moment when the Foreign Office was pressing for the indemnity on the French subjects slain in Stamboul. The very argument had been unfortunate. Stamboul must be made safe, and here was Paris unsafe! Here was Dernburg Pasha dead in the Faubourg St. Germain.
Monsieur Jonquelle had made no reply to the Minister. He had come down to the house in the Faubourg St. Germain of Paris; he had gone over it; he had examined everything; but he had made no comment. Either he had arrived at no conclusion, or else he had a large knowledge of the affair, coupled with some definite plan.
It was an old house, maintaining in its essentials a departed elegance. The floor of the drawing-room was of alternate blocks of white and black marble, laid down like a chess-board. There was a door at one end leading into a small walled garden. On the other side of the drawing-room, directly opposite, there was another door of precisely the same character leading into a sort of library—the room in which Dernburg had been found in the morning, dead on the floor.
To the Envoy of the Turkish Government in Paris, this assassination had the aspect of a diplomatic affair. He had gone at once to the Foreign Office with his demand for an indemnity, and then he had come here into this drawing-room and sat down before the door until the matter should be settled.
“Monsieur is satisfied?” he said. “He has seen everything?”
“I have not quite seen everything,” replied Monsieur Jonquelle, his glance traveling to the slight bulge in the man’s tight-fitting waistcoat pocket, “but I am entirely satisfied.”
“The evidences are complete, Monsieur,” said the Envoy, smiling. “Dernburg Pasha lived alone in this house. Late last night a Frenchman called on him. They were in the room yonder together. The windows were open, although the shutters were closed. Persons passing on the street heard the victims distinctly—the voice of a Frenchman, Monsieur, and the voice of Dernburg Pasha. Is it not true?”
“Unfortunately, Monsieur, we cannot deny it. It is precisely the truth.”
“And it is true, also, Monsieur,” the man went on, “that these voices were raised as in anger or as in contention upon some point. The words did not carry accurately to the persons in the street, but the inflections of the words and the menace in them were not to be mistaken. It is established!”
“Quite established, Monsieur,” replied the Prefect of Police. Again the Oriental smiled.
“And it cannot be denied that Dernburg Pasha is dead. H
e was found this morning on the floor of the library yonder, with his throat cut—Monsieur has himself observed the indicatory evidences of this assassination.… The late visitor”—he looked up sharply—“Monsieur admits that he was a Frenchman?”
“Ah, yes,” replied the Prefect of Police, “the man was a Frenchman.”
The Envoy went on with his summary of the evidence.
“The late visitor, a Frenchman; the quarrel; the dead man remaining in the library; the spots of blood on this floor that dripped from the weapon in the assassin’s hand as he went out—he escaped from the door yonder into the garden and thence into the street: it is all certain, Monsieur?”
“It is all quite certain,” replied the Prefect. He paused then:
“But while the events are certain, I am not precisely certain that we have the same conception of them. For example, Monsieur, will you tell me how, in your opinion, the assassin escaped from the garden into the street? This garden was not used; the gate leading into the street is nailed up. I should be glad of your opinion on this point.”
“With pleasure,” replied the Oriental.
“The man escaped from the garden in the simplest fashion. He climbed over the wall, Monsieur. The wall is of no great height. It is entirely possible.”
Monsieur Jonquelle lifted his eyebrows like one relieved from a perplexity.
“Quite possible,” he said. “An assassin could have climbed over the wall without the slightest difficulty. I am obliged for your opinion on this manner of escape, Monsieur.”
For a moment he seemed to reflect; then he addressed another question to the Envoy.
“Monsieur,” he said, “there are blood drops on this floor.” He looked down at the marble extending to the closed door of the library beyond them. “I should be glad to know how you think they came here.”
“The explanation is entirely clear,” replied the Turkish Envoy. “The assassin went out in haste with the knife in his hand, and these blood drops dripped from the point of it.”
“That would be possible, Monsieur,” replied Jonquelle. “That might happen!”
Monsieur Jonquelle Page 12
