Chaleck smiled. "Tell me the latest news, Charles. Do they suspect anyone?"
"All I know is that fifty of them came here with dirty shoes, made a hubbub round the patients, put the service out of gear, and in the end caught n.o.body at all. But if the culprit is still here, he won"t get out without the bracelets on his wrists!"
An equivocal smile touched the pale lips of Chaleck. It might be the weird inhabitant of the little house in Cite Frochot was not so sure as the porter was of the astuteness of the police. Perhaps he was thinking that a few hours before a certain Doctor Chaleck, hemmed in a pa.s.sage with no exits and about to be compelled to show, like everyone else, the tips of his fingers, had, under the nose of the officers, and even of the artful and astute Juve, suddenly vanished, gone out of the world of the living and thought it necessary, for reasons he alone knew, to a.s.sume the rigidity of a corpse, the stillness of death. But the smile in a moment became frozen.
The doctor who had kept both hands in his pockets while talking to the porter, suddenly felt a sharp twinge in the fingers of his right hand, and it became moist and lukewarm. This happened as the porter held out the register for him to sign.
"Charles," he cried, "I"m in a great hurry; while I"m signing, please go out and stop the first taxi that pa.s.ses."
"Certainly, sir," replied the man.
Scarcely had the doorkeeper turned his back when the doctor, with infinite precautions drew out his right hand and with evident difficulty began to write, holding the pen between the third and fourth fingers, as though unable to use the fore and middle ones.
As he was finishing his entry, he made what was doubtless an unintended movement, something unexpected happened, for he suddenly turned pale and repressed a heavy oath. Charles was just coming back to the lodge.
"Your taxi is here, Doctor."
"Right. Thank you."
Chaleck closed the register abruptly, jumped into the motor, threw an address to the driver, who got under way. On seeing the doctor shut the register, Charles cried: "The devil--there"s no blotting paper in it, it will be sure to blot!"
And, though it was too late, the careful man rushed to the book and opened it. His eyes became fixed on the page where the signatures were.
He stared, wide-eyed.
"Oh!--Oh!--" he murmured.
X
THE b.l.o.o.d.y SIGNATURE
M. de Maufil was exceedingly nervous.
"As soon as you went back to headquarters," he declared to Juve, some moments after that officer had been shown into his private room, "I continued the search with redoubled efforts. Neither the ward-nurses, in whom I place complete confidence, nor the heads of my staff, whom I have known for ever so long, pa.s.sed the doors of the hospital. In fact, I took every precaution and obeyed your instructions to the letter--yet all in vain."
"You found nothing?"
"Nothing. Not only did we not discover the criminal, but we did not come upon any trace of him."
"That"s strange.".
"It is maddening. It would seem that from the instant the man fired those two shots in the woman"s ward in Patel"s department he vanished, unaccountably. Your notion of examining the hands of all those in the hospital was an excellent one, but nothing came of it.
"He must have known the snare we were preparing for him and did not turn up at the hospital exit, so we must naturally conclude he is still inside the gates, hidden in some remote corner, or underground. However, the first thing to do is to protect the girl, Josephine. By the by, she saw nothing, I suppose?"
"She declares she did not see Loupart come in, but she a.s.serts with a sort of perverse pride that it was certainly Loupart who fired at her because he had threatened to do so."
A knock at the door was followed by the timid entrance of the doorkeeper.
"Is that you, Charles? Come in," cried the director. "What do you want?"
"It"s about the signature, sir. There is blood on my book."
In a moment Juve leaped from his chair and tore the register out of the porter"s hands.
"Blood!"
Feverishly he turned the pages until he came to the writing. Without waiting for de Maufil"s permission, he dismissed the porter.
"Very good, I"ll see you presently."
Scarcely had the door shut, when Juve pointed to the page. "Look! Doctor Chaleck"s signature! And just below it this mark of blood! What do you say to that, sir?"
"But it"s sheer madness. Chaleck cannot be guilty!"
"Why not?"
"Because he is known to me. He was recommended to me seven months ago by an old comrade of mine. Chaleck is a man of brains, a foreign physician, a Belgian. He comes here specially to study intermittent fevers. M.
Juve, I tell you he has nothing whatever to do with this affair." Juve picked up his hat and stick. He was restless and uneasy; the directors"
outburst had not greatly impressed him.
"Doctor Chaleck could not explain how his finger came to be hurt and he did not inform us of the fact."
"A mere coincidence."
"Possibly, but it is a terrible coincidence for that man," replied Juve.
On leaving the director"s room, the distinguished detective could not refrain from rubbing his hands. "This time I have him!" he muttered. He went rapidly down the stairs, crossed the great courtyard of the hospital, and proceeded to knock at the porter"s lodge.
"Tell me, my friend, precisely how Doctor Chaleck"s leaving the hospital came about?"
The worthy man with much detail, for he now felt very proud of having played a part in the affair, related how Doctor Chaleck came to the gate, sent him after a cab while signing his name, then made off, after having, no doubt by an oversight, closed the register.
"Very good! Thank you," was Juve"s comment, bestowing a liberal tip on the man.
This time he was leaving Lariboisiere for good.
"Very characteristic, that piece of impudence," he reflected; "very like Doctor Chaleck that device of shutting the register he had just stained with blood in order to give himself time to make off!" On reaching the Boulevard Magenta he hailed a cab.
"Rue Montmartre. Stop at the _Capital_ office. You know it?"
A few minutes later Juve was shown into Fandor"s office. But the detective no longer wore a smiling face, and his air of abstraction did not escape his friend.
"Anything fresh?" inquired Fandor.