‘Avec plaisir, m’amselle,’ returned the suave Frenchman with both hands interlocking. ‘In what is Mr Winterhouse most interested? In furniture? In pictures? In –’
‘Nearly everything,’ she confided, looking the dealer frankly in the eye. ‘And he is not particular about the price, if he wants a thing. As for me I am particular about one thing. A rebate on the bill, a commission, you understand? The price is immaterial, but not my – er – commission. Comprenez-vous?’
‘Parfaitement,’ smiled the little Frenchman. ‘I can arrange all that. Trust me.’
An hour perhaps Clare spent wandering up and down the long aisles of the store, admiring, pricing, absorbing facts that might serve to captivate the fictitious Mr Winterhouse.
Suddenly she glanced at her little wrist watch, giving a suppressed exclamation. ‘Oh – is it after four? At four I was to meet Mr Winterhouse up town. He is waiting now. What shall I do?’
‘Can mademoiselle not telephone?’ suggested Jacot, in genuine solicitude to please a prospective customer.
‘Oh – may I?’
‘Assuredly, voilà – the booth in the office.’
‘Billy,’ she almost whispered in the transmitter, ‘you’d better call a taxi. Have a messenger carry that grip. I’ve told some whoppers here. You’re at least a billionaire. Only you must say “No” to every suggestion I make. Then agree to reconsider tomorrow when you have time. Get me?’
‘I’m on.’
A few minutes later Lawson arrived and with marked respect was greeted by Jacot and conducted to the office where Clare waited.
‘I was so fascinated in looking over this wonderful collection,’ she apologized, ‘that I forgot the time, and then I thought perhaps you might be interested in some exquisite seventeenth-century silverware. You may leave the grip here, boy,’ she concluded to the messenger.
Lawson dropped into a chair with feigned exhaustion. ‘Tired to death,’ he sighed. ‘Still, I’ll look at it.’
With a hasty glance about, Clare noted that the office was in a corner and that no one could see it except Jacot.
‘Could you not bring the silver service in here for inspection?’ she asked.
‘Delighted,’ bowed Jacot. ‘If mademoiselle and monsieur will make themselves at home here I am sure it will not take long.’
Jacot retired backward. Instantly Clare was on her knees opening the grip.
‘Move that cabinet beside the telephone booth out just a bit, Billy,’ she whispered, quickly removing the covering from a mahogany box and placing it on a table. It was a peculiar box with a sort of dial in the front face, and as Clare opened and shut it for an instant she closed what looked like two discs or spools of wire.
Quietly Lawson edged the cabinet out. Clare closed the box and a moment later she placed it carefully on the floor, leaving two wires exposed. Footsteps down the aisle warned them that Jacot and an assistant were returning with the silver service.
‘Push the cabinet back, Billy,’ whispered Clare, shoving the wires out of sight. ‘I’ll finish when you have turned down the silver service.’
Lawson had moved the cabinet and restored the status quo by lounging into the easy chair with a half yawn. Clare consumed several minutes urging the merits of the silver service as compared with one they had seen in London. Lawson parried.
‘Perhaps you would be interested in the new importation of Chinese cloisonné which Mr Jacot showed me?’
‘Bring it out, so long as we are here.’
Again Jacot disappeared. Clare found the loose wires and deftly cut in and attached them to the wires of the telephone in the shadow of the cabinet where they would not be observed.The cloisonné satisfied Lawson even less than the silver service. Still, taking the cue from Clare that her plan, whatever it was, had worked well so far, he assumed an air of cordiality toward Jacot and asked to call the next day.
As they arose to go, Lawson observed that Clare had left her parasol in a corner. Before he could hand it to her he caught a fleeting frown and a shake of her head. She evidently intended to forget it.
‘What do you make of the little Frenchman?’ he asked when they had reached the waiting taxicab. ‘Is he playing a “fence” or is he on the square with Osgood?’
‘I’m not guessing,’ she answered, ‘at least not until I have had a chance to return for my parasol before he closes. I think I’ll go alone. Meanwhile, I’ll let you know if anything develops.’
That night Clare and Lawson sat comfortably chatting in an obscure corner of the parlor at the Ritz.
‘How did you get the clue?’ asked Lawson with surprise and admiration.
‘Never mind, Billy, there’s Jacot, now. See, he is evidently looking for someone.’
Just then Jacot caught sight of a tastefully gowned woman, obviously a foreigner, who had been seated alone in an alcove at the other end of the room. As he advanced toward her, she hesitantly recognized him, arose, and then received him with cordiality, extending a jewelled hand.
As Clare studied the face of the woman, it flashed on her that something beneath the olive beauty of her complexion resembled that enigmatical look in the photograph of La Ginevra. Jacot himself was evidently much taken with her. They chatted with animation, and when he made his adieux, he bent so low over her hand that his lips almost touched the rings on her fingers.
‘Follow Jacot, Billy,’ whispered Clare. ‘I don’t think it will lead to much, but there’s no use taking chances.’
A moment later she wished she had not sent him away. A stranger, in evening clothes of pronounced continental tone, sauntered through the lobby as if seeking someone, caught sight of the woman, alone, turned to the desk to recall a card he had just given the clerk, and made his way quickly to her side.
The greeting between the two left no doubt but that the man was infatuated; and she, as they talked, seemed utterly oblivious of the gay throng of diners passing through the lobby.
Clare sauntered to the desk.
‘What, please, is that lady’s name?’ she asked casually.
‘Signora Giulia Ascoli,’ replied the clerk.
‘And by the way, do you know who is with her?’
‘Dr Vaccaro was on the card – Giorgio Vaccaro, I think.’
The woman had turned. Her wonderful eyes had divined that the clerk was talking about her. Yet without showing the least perturbation the Signora and Dr Vaccaro quietly moved toward the carriage entrance. It was useless to try to follow them. In fact it would have been fatal. Instead Clare decided to see her millionaire principal and discover what had happened during the afternoon.
‘Has Dr Grimm called up Jacot?’ she asked, as Osgood conducted her into his spacious library.
‘Yes, several times, I believe. First he told Jacot that I was willing to pay for the return of La Ginevra, but not fifty thousand, as you advised. Jacot agreed, I understand, to carry to them my offer of twenty-five thousand and Grimm is to hear from them tonight.’
‘I have just seen Jacot at the Ritz,’ remarked Clare casually, ‘talking with a woman whose name I believe is Giulia Ascoli. Later a Dr Vaccaro –’
‘Vaccaro?’ cried Osgood wheeling in his chair. ‘Why, he is an acquaintance of Dr Grimm. That complicates things exceedingly. Vaccaro – yes, he might have heard of La Ginevra. Where in heaven will this thing end? Vaccaro is a dreamer, a critic, one of the foremost art connoisseurs of Italy. I should never have thought he could be mixed up in such a thing.’
The door opened and the butler announced Dr Grimm. The curator appeared to be very much excited.
‘They have agreed at last to compromise on twenty-five thousand,’ he announced, coming directly to the point. ‘I have just had a message from Jacot.’
‘How and where is it to be paid?’
‘I am sworn not to tell, except that I am to be on a certain corne
r with the money at a certain time tonight and I am to hand it over to a person in a motor car who drives up and – no, no, I cannot tell more. I dare not. Miss Kendall might follow.’ He was trembling apprehensively. ‘They would take my life if you followed – no – no!’
‘What shall I do?’ asked Osgood in genuine solicitude.
‘I should advise paying,’ counselled Clare.
Osgood looked at her quickly. It was not for the purpose of surrender that he had retained her, and this was surrender. Clare said nothing. With a man Osgood would probably have disputed the policy. But even he, accustomed to dealing directly with affairs, saw that this was a case which called for finesse. Without further ado he opened a little spherical safe in the corner, took out and counted twenty-five crisp one thousand dollar bills and handed them to the curator.
‘You may depend on me, Mr Osgood,’ remarked Grimm, ‘to execute this as carefully as if it were my own mission.’
‘I do, doctor, and good luck to you,’ rejoined Osgood heartily, as if no suspicion had entered his mind.
‘I wonder,’ mused the millionaire, when the door closed, ‘whether Grimm and these people can be in league with each other? To tell you the truth, I think there is no Black Hand about this thing at all. I think it is blackmail. Or perhaps it is just a scheme to return the picture to Italy and double-cross me at the same time?’
Absorbed in studying an antique paper-weight which had once been an Indian crystal ball, Clare absently remarked, ‘I wish you would let me know at once the outcome of Dr Grimm’s expedition,’ rising to go. ‘I shall give them until tomorrow before we act in the open. If the picture is returned, then we shall get them without jeopardizing it. If not, we shall get them anyhow.’
‘Where did Jacot go?’ she telephoned Lawson from the nearest pay station.
‘To his office. I waited outside. Then he went home.’
‘I thought so. We may expect something soon, but had better not act until morning. Then I’ll call you. And thank you ever so much, Billy, for your trouble. Goodbye.’
Her telephone was tinkling insistently the next morning.
‘Hello – is this Miss Kendall?’ called Osgood in great agitation. ‘What do you think has happened? Dr Grimm has just been discovered dead in a doorway on the lower West Side and the money is gone.’
Clare nearly dropped the receiver at this tragic turn of events. ‘I hardly thought they would dare go as far as murder,’ she managed to reply. Her mind was working in flashes.
To her hasty inquiry Osgood answered that the body had been removed by the coroner to a nearby undertaking establishment. There was no word of reproach in his tone; but it was evident he felt bitterly that he himself had misjudged Grimm. Clare said nothing.
‘Within an hour, Mr Osgood,’ she concluded, ‘please be in your library.’
Hurriedly telephoning Dr Lawson, she asked him to meet her as soon as possible at the West Side undertaker’s. Then followed a short parley with the detective bureau at Headquarters, and she was speeding to investigate the tragic death of the unfortunate Dr Grimm.
Lawson was waiting when she arrived. Already he had seen the body. Long and intently he looked on the strangely contorted face of the curator. It had an indescribable look – half of passion, half of horror.
‘Not a mark,’ he commented, ‘except on the back of the neck, just a little scratch.’
‘What did it? Poison?’
‘Ricinus, I think, one of the most recent of poisons and one of the most powerful,’ was the reply. ‘A gram of it would kill a million guinea pigs, and it surpasses prussic acid and other commonly known drugs of the sort. They probably thought in this way to get away with the picture, the money and the witness.’
‘Then we must act quickly before another blow falls,’ decided Clare, leading the way to the cab in which she had come. ‘Jacot’s on Fifth Avenue.’
It was still early and Jacot was not there, but the clerks had just opened the place, and remembered them.
Without waiting Clare led the way to the office and before Lawson could help her had moved out the heavy cabinet and lifted up the curious mahogany box. It took scarcely a moment to detach the wires, slip the box in the grip which she had brought and direct the chauffeur to the Osgood house.
Jacot arrived a few minutes afterward, protesting, in the custody of a Central Office man who had forced an entrance into his apartment.
‘Says he doesn’t know a thing about it,’ whispered the detective to Clare, ‘and acts as though he didn’t either. I went to the Ritz and the clerk tells me that the Ascoli woman left suddenly late last night. I can’t make this one out, though – he’s too smooth for me.’
Jacot was standing with open-eyed surprise at seeing his prospective customers under such circumstances.
‘Mr Osgood, we are ready now,’ began Clare after she had introduced Lawson and his discovery of the ricinus had been told.
She had opened the grip and taken out the mahogany box. There now rested on the table a machine of wheels and spools of steel wire like piano wire, batteries and clockwork, and a sort of horn. She took out the spool of wire already in it, laid it carefully aside and dropped in another which she had brought packed in a case.
She turned a switch. From the horn came a distinct voice.
‘Hello. This is Mrs Burridge. Yesterday I ordered a vase –’
‘We’ll skip that,’ interrupted Clare, moving the wire forward on the spool.
‘What is it?’ asked Osgood, mystified.
‘A telegraphone,’ explained Clare. ‘An instrument invented by Poulsen, the Danish Edison, by which the human voice can be recorded on a wire or a steel disc by means of a new principle involving the use of minute localized electric charges. I can’t stop to tell you the principle of the thing, but I can get a local or long distance conversation, thirty minutes of it in all, on one of these spools.’
Several times she interrupted the routine conversations recorded. Then came a soft musical voice.
‘Italian,’ commented Clare, as all listened intently, ‘and a woman’s voice, too.’
‘Hello,’ purred the voice in the machine. ‘Is this Mr Pierre Jacot, the art dealer?’
‘Yes, this is Mr Jacot. What can I do for you?’
A pause.
‘Have you had any offer from Mr Osgood for La Ginevra?’
‘Ah!’ prolonged Jacot, in either well-simulated or genuine surprise. ‘So this is what his curator, Dr Grimm, meant.’
‘How is that?’ asked the voice.
‘He is willing to pay twenty-five thousand for the return of the painting and no questions asked or –’
‘Diavolo! It cannot be. Fifty thousand – it is the lowest price. It is worth it. It –’
‘I should like to see you, madame. Where can I? I will see what I can do and report to you then. It is so much more satisfactory than over the telephone. You can trust me. I will betray nothing.’
‘Absolutely? …’
‘Absolutely! On my honor.’
‘Then call at the Ritz tonight, about eight. I have not the picture, but I can tell all about how to secure it. I shall be in the alcove of the parlor, alone. You can recognize me by my cream-colored evening gown, and one large American Beauty rose. Wear a rose yourself. Now, remember, no word to the polizia or, by the saints. it will go hard with you, with all, monsieur.’
‘Bien. Never fear.’
The telegraphone trailed off into other conversations of no significance.
‘That is where I got my first clue which took me up to the Ritz, Billy,’ remarked Clare, removing the spool which she had been using and substituting the one she had just laid aside which contained the records of what was said afterward.
The second spool bore several hasty business calls, then one from Jacot to Dr Grimm:
‘Dr Gri
mm? This is Jacot.’
‘Yes?’
‘They agree.’
‘For twenty-five? Good?’
‘You are to have the cash at midnight. Stand at the corner below Luigi’s restaurant – you know where it is? – just off Washington Square? A car will drive up. If a lady leans out and asks, “Are you waiting for Ginevra?” you are to answer, “Si, Signora.” Then she will embrace you. The money is to be in a flat package which you are to slip into her hand. La Ginevra will be given to you rolled up in a long brass tube. You understand?’
‘Perfectly. I shall be there, to the dot.’
‘Alone – and no police.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Evidently, late as it was,’ commented Clare, ‘Jacot returned to his office, shadowed by Dr Lawson otherwise Mr Winterhouse. I suppose he did not trust to the public telephones. His own was the worst he could have trusted, however.’
She had set the machine in motion again. There was only a slight pause this time:
‘Is this 2330? The apartment of Signor Vaccaro, please. Hello – who is this – Oh, Signora – how do you do? I did not expect to find you here. Is Signor Vaccaro out?’
‘Yes, I will take the message.’
‘I wish I might deliver it in person.’
‘It is impossible – tonight. Tell me – quickly.’
‘I have told Dr Grimm that your friends will take twenty-five thousand and he says he will have the money tonight.’
‘Good! You told him what to do?’
‘Yes. He will be there at midnight. For one part of the transaction, Signora, I would willingly change places with him.’
A silvery laugh was recorded.
‘Ah, monsieur, for what you have done I could wish to have you change places. Over the telephone I kiss you.’
‘Without the telephone – ma chérie – tomorrow?’ hinted Jacot in his most gallantly insinuating tone.
‘Perhaps. We shall see. Ah – quick – monsieur. Goodbye. I hear Georgio coming to my room.’
The receiver at the other end had evidently been hung up at the most interesting point of the little flirtation.
American Sherlocks Page 22
