"There"ll be no train for Paris till then?"
"No, sir."
Fandor moved off along the track.
"That"s all right, I can make it. I"ll have time to send a wire to _The Capital_."
The journalist sat down on the gra.s.s, took out his writing-pad and began his article. But he had overrated his strength. He was worn out, body and soul. He had not been writing ten minutes when he dropped into a doze, the pencil slipped from his fingers and he was fast asleep.
When Fandor opened his eyes, the twilight was beginning to come down. It was between five and six o"clock.
"What a fool I"ve been! I"ve made a mess of the whole business now," he cried as he ran frantically to the nearest station.
"How soon the first train to Paris?"
"In two minutes, sir: it is signalled."
"When does it arrive?"
"At ten o"clock."
Fandor threw up his hands.
"I shall be too late. I haven"t time to wire Juve and warn him. Oh! what an idiot I was to sleep like that!"
XVI
A DRAMA AT THE BERCY WAREHOUSE
Juve pa.s.sed the whole day at the Cite Frochot. Despite the precautions taken to keep the failure two days back a secret, the papers had got wind of the drama: _The Capital_ itself had spoken of it, though without naming his fellow-worker. The staff of that paper was unaware that Fandor was the other man who had so marvellously escaped from the sewer.
Blood-curdling tales were told about Doctor Chaleck, Juve, Loupart, the house of the crime, the affair at the hospital; but to anyone familiar with the actual happenings, the newspaper accounts were very far from giving the truth.
And Juve, far from contradicting these misstatements, took a delight in spreading them broadcast.
It is sometimes useful to set astray the powerful voice of the Press so as to give a false security to the real culprits.
However, when masons, electricians and zinc-workers were seen to take possession of Doctor Chaleck"s house and begin to turn it upside down, a crowd quickly a.s.sembled to witness the performance.
It was with great difficulty that Juve, who did not want too many witnesses round the place, organised arrangements of a vigorous character.
Installed in the drawing-room on the ground floor, he first had a long interview with the owner of the house, M. Nathan, the well-known diamond broker of the Rue de Provence. The poor man was in despair to think his property had been the scene of the extraordinary events which were on everybody"s tongue. All he knew of Doctor Chaleck was that that gentleman had been his tenant just four years, and had always paid his rent regularly.
"You didn"t suspect," asked Juve in conclusion, "the ingenious contrivance of that electric lift in which the doctor placed a study identically similar to the real one?"
"Certainly not, sir," replied the worthy man. "Eighteen months ago my tenant asked permission to repair the house at his own expense; as you may suppose, I granted his request at once. It must have been at that time that the queer contrivance was built. Have I your permission to go down to the cellars and ascertain their condition?"
"Not before to-morrow, sir, when I shall have finished my inspection,"
replied Juve, as he saw M. Nathan out.
The inspector was a.s.sisted in his investigation by detectives Michel and Dupation. They interviewed the old couple in charge of the Cite and various neighbours of Doctor Chaleck, but without lighting upon a clue.
n.o.body had seen or heard anything whatever.
Toward noon he and Michel, who did not wish to leave the house, decided to have a modest repast brought to them. M. Dupation, a fidgety official, took this chance of getting away.
"Well, gentlemen," he declared, "you are much more up to this business than I, and besides my wife expects me to luncheon. You don"t need any further help from me?"
Juve rea.s.sured the worthy superintendent and gave him permission to go.
He was only too glad to find himself alone with his lieutenant. The workmen who were repairing the caved-in bas.e.m.e.nt of the little house were already gone, and there was no chance of their being back before two o"clock. Thus Juve found himself alone with Michel.
"What I can"t understand, sir," said Michel, "is the telephone call we got toward morning from here asking for help at the office in the Rue Rochefoucauld. Either the victim herself "phoned, and in that case she did not die, as we think, in the early part of the night, or it was not she, and then----"
Juve smiled.
"You are right in putting the problem that way, but to my mind it is easy to solve. The call was not given by the murdered woman for, remember, when we raised the body at half-past six it was already cold.
Now the call was not given till six, when the woman had been dead some little time. That I am sure of, and you will see the report of the medical expert will uphold me."
"Then it was a third person who gave it?"
"Yes, and one who sought to have the crime discovered as soon as possible, and who reckoned on the officers coming from the Central Station, but did not expect Fandor or me to come back."
"Then according to you, sir, the murderer knew of your presence behind the curtain in the study while the crime was being committed."
"I can"t tell about the murderer, but Doctor Chaleck certainly knew we were there. That man must have watched us all night, known the exact instant we left the house, and immediately afterwards got some one to telephone or must have done so himself."
Michel, becoming more and more convinced by Juve"s reasoning, went on:
"At any rate, the existence of two studies, in all respects similar, goes to show a carefully premeditated plan, but there is something I can"t account for. When you came back to the study where we found the dead woman, you found traces of mud by the window brought in by your shoes. You must therefore have been watching through the night the room where the crime was committed."
Juve was about to put in a word, but Michel, launched on his train of argument, continued:
"Allow me, sir; you are going, no doubt, to tell me that they might during your short absence have carried the body of the victim into the study in question, but I would point out to you, that on the loosened hair of the poor creature blood had caked, that some was on the carpet and had even gone through it to the flooring beneath. Now if they carried in the body just a little while before we discovered it, that would not have been the case."
Michel was delighted with his own argument. Juve smiled indulgently.
"My poor Michel," he cried, "you would be quite right if I put forward such an explanation. It is certain that the room in which we found the body was that in which the crime took place. It is therefore that in which we were not! As for the marks of mud near the window, they are ours, but transferred from the room in which we were into the room in which we were not! Which again proves that our presence was known to the culprits.
"Furthermore, the candle with which Doctor Chaleck melted the wax to seal his letters was scarcely used, it only burned in fact a few minutes. Now we found another candle in the same state. So you see that the precautions were well taken and everything possible done to lead us astray.
"We see the puppets moving--Loupart, Chaleck, Josephine, others maybe, but we do not see the strings."
"The strings which move them perhaps may be no other than--Fantomas,"
ventured Michel.